Artificially Grown

The Laboratory

Note: Hi everyone! I hope you enjoy reading the very first introductory chapter of Artificially Grown. Please feel free to point out any typing errors - I'm not prefect and I appreciate your criticism! Leave a review and I'll be sure to return the favour.

It's 5am and a team of neuroscientists are gathered around a single computer. Each has their own quirks: there is an old man, with washed out grey hair and a few balding spots, who shouts in excitement each time the display on the computer screen changes. And there is another, with spectacles placed on the end of his nose and a greasy shine to his brown hair, who stands nervously at the edge of his group as if, if something were to go wrong, it would all be his fault. His white lab coat lies over his khaki brown trousers, stained with a red-brown chemical and covered in pencil marks. Though his hair lies strictly parted down the centre, as if stuck to his oily scalp, his blue shirt and emerald tie give the impression of a middle-class boy just out of his undergraduate studies. He keeps a pencil and a notebook in hands at all times and scribbles nervously each time the old man at the front roars. Alongside the two of them - the young boy and the old, stereotypical scientist - stand around twenty other men, each in lab coats and with eyes fixated upon the computer screen. There is only one woman, a blonde haired, raven-eyed woman in her forties, looking tired and less interested than everybody else around her and seemingly wishing that this whole event was over. Yet besides the occasional screaming of the old man, the whole room is nothing but silent.

'We've done it,' one of the men exclaims, shaking his head in disbelief. 'We've done it. It's been an hour and already a million copies have sold. Just look at those statistics. Man -' his hands are shaking and he is biting his lip hard enough to draw blood - 'I knew we'd get here eventually. It was only a matter of time before all of those authors stopped stealing our business.' He laughed and continued to talk to himself, knowing, in fact, that the whole room was too fixated upon the computer screen to pay any attention to what he was saying. 'All those people with their arts degrees will be shaking in their boots by morning. All those people who consider themselves professional writers. Guess what? Your career is over and science reigns supreme again.' He carried a smug smile on his fact but quickly grew quiet as the old man began to make his speech.

'Congratulations, team,' he started. 'It seems we have cracked the code to creativity that has eluded us all of these years. Now we must wait patiently for The Novel of Our Generation to make its way into the hands of all that it can. In the meantime, let the rave reviews and continuous five star ratings be your payment. I am sure that monetary gain will come our way shortly. We did, after all, just doom the careers of thousands of writers up and down the country.' There was a smug roar of laughter in the room, as if the loss of thousands of jobs was amusing. And in the mind of twenty-odd scientists about to make an international breakthrough, it probably was.

The old man dispersed the group, grabbing the young boy by the arms as he did so. His grasp was forceful and he was very much in control, the young boy's skinny arm straining under its power.

'James,' he sighed, 'how does it feel to be part of something so very wonderful?'

'I'm ecstatic,' James replied. The emotion on his face, however, said otherwise.

You see, James was the son of a very well-off writer. He had grown up with books in his house all around him, read veraciously as a young boy and even told his father he would study English Literature at university one day, much to his dismay. His mother's work had sold thousands of copies, and she was a well respected woman up and down the country. She spent every day tirelessly typing on her laptop, spouting out every word to meet her daily word count goals and always eager to meet her publishing dates. Many said she was a joy to work with, and her joyous attitude and flair for the creative arts shone towards everybody lucky enough to meet her. Indeed, Mrs Sheers made quite a name for herself. Everybody was proud of Mrs Sheer's accomplishments. She was the talk of the family. That was, for everybody except her husband, Mr Sheers.