"Bye hon!!" my mom calls as the car door slides shut. Her car whirrs away, floating a few inches off the newly paved
road.
"Bye mom!" I answer back as I pull my chocolate curls into a ponytail. I walk up to the entrance of the Academy of Sciences where I have been volunteering to help in their labs. I smile, feeling excitement bubble inside me. Today is the day they are allowing me to go in their more complex labs. Who knows? I may learn a scientific fact I actually don't know. Snapping out of my thoughts I walk through the doors. The T-Rex statue looms in front of me. I tun left and head through a door labeled "Employees Only". I look around, shocked. I am standing in a corridor filled with doors, each labeled. The Academy is big but I never imagined them having this many labs.
I wander over to one of them. The sign says "Restricted: Project Genome Genesis". Genome is the the entire set of genes or genetic material in a cell. It's the layout that makes everyone and everything what and who they are. Genesis means the formation of something. The beginning. What could that possibly mean, that they're creating a new animal? Even in 2076 that's impossible. Curiosity takes the better of me and I open the door a crack, peering in. As I take everything in my eyes widen with disbelief. Shelves wrap around the room. And sitting on the shelfs are incubators each holding an egg. But not any normal eggs. They are at least as big as a football and are the weirdest color. Every one of them is a dark, dark black. Almost like you could get lost in them. I look closer, pushing down my sense of vertigo. The smallest glint reveals that the eggs are scaled, each scale lined with a sliver of gold. These are no ordinary bird eggs. Something's up and I'm going to find out what.
Forgetting I was still at the door I step in and quietly close it. I turned around still overwhelmed by everything. I think about what this means. Who knows what creatures reside behind each shell. New species? An entire new branch in the tree of taxonomy? I wonder what the Academy of Sciences could possibly want with these things. I also want to know how they made them. That's when I decide to take one home. I could study whatever hatches out of it. People would be shocked!! I grab the first box I can reach, forgetting entirely about the security. The blaring of alarms echo throughout the room as soon as the incubator leaves the shelf.
Swinging my blue backpack off my shoulder I unzip it and carefully set the case inside, trying to do so as fast as I can. I pull my black hood over my head, hopefully hiding my face, if that haven't already seen. The insistent sound of the alarm rings in my ears, causing a small headache to bloom. I fast walk to the door, careful not to crush the egg inside, expecting security guards to pop out any minute. I'll have to call my mom to take me home. I can't risk getting caught with the egg. I run down the hall, careful not to jostle the egg. Quickly closing the door I hear the sound of voices and the patter of footsteps sound through the halls. The visitors left start to whisper and as the footsteps get closer many of them cry out and run to the doors, probably expecting some psycho to come blazing in any minute. But definitely not a thirteen year old girl. All the chaos will provide a perfect cover for me though.
I pull off my pack and hug it to my chest, trying to shield it as much as possible as I push through the crowd streaming to the doors. As soon as I'm outside I head across the field in front of the Academy to the De Young Museum. The guards are now swarming everywhere holding their Chrysalis guns. You'd think it's a weird name but it definitely fits what the guns do: shoot a giant glob of some sort of greenish-blue substance that hardens as soon as it touches something, encasing it in, well, a sort of chrysalis . An effective way of catching someone without hurting them. Keeping my head down I stop in front of the art museum. Pulling my phone out of the cozy black sweater I'm wearing I dial my mom.
"Hello?", my mom's kind voice sounds over the phone.
"Hi mom." I say, trying to keep my voice quiet, in case it was recorded."The alarms at the museum went off so they said I should go home. Could you come pick me up?"
"Of course. Be there in five minutes. Stay safe until I come. Love you!!"
After hanging up I look around, making sure no guards followed me here. Five minutes of waiting later the silver of my mom's hover car turned the corner and slowed to a stop in front of me. The door slides open and I climb in, sitting down on the comfy car seat with a sigh of relief.
"You okay honey?", my mom asks worriedly. She has long , straight, chocolate brown hair. Like mine. Her bright blue eyes always calm me down. I wish I could have that color. My eyes are a vibrant green, even brighter than my dad's.
"Yeah I'm fine. Pretty crazy what happened." I lie, trying to keep my voice from shaking. I just hope they don't find out if it's me. Because if they do, I'm dead. At least I'll be able to see what hatches out of the egg. I pull my backpack closer to me. I can almost imagine the thump of a heart beat pulsing behind the scaled shell. Don't worry little one.
"I bet." my mom answers as we head home. She has no idea.
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Sorry for such a short chapter. Hopefully it made sense. Thank you to all my readers!! I am planning to continue this story for a while. Can't wait to publish the next chapter(being a little longer than this one)!!😁
