The Strange Story of...

The Strange Story of Dr. Mansley

           "The poor thing..." She started, but was cut off by the withering glare from Dr. Mansley. There was no need to sympathize with something as ugly as that... thing.

           "You know the lab's procedures as well as I, Ms. Adams," he replied nonchalantly. Graduate students, he thought. So full of ideas about world peace and animal rights and humane treatment. He'd seen what happened when such ideas were applied to labs such as the one he worked for. They always ended with wasted time, budget cuts, and more than one person being let go.

         The project he was currently working on, with his newest assistant, a big-eyed graduate student from UCLA named Eva Adams, was the latest attempt at genetically altered animals. While not in favor of public opinion, yet, he had been given the task of creating the first genetically modified animal. He was given the choice of what animal to work on.

        Having been in the military for a few years to pay for his doctorate degree, he had known what a genetically modified creature, a creature with qualities designed by man, could do for the military. So he chose to modify a bat embryo, since a bat could locate objects using echolocation.

          Using a giant fruit bat's embryo, he'd worked for months, adding some bits and taking out others. He had included extra brain cells to, theoretically, increase intelligence, along with growth hormones to make it a little bigger, the cells from an eagle's wing bones to increase flight speed, and dog DNA to, supposedly, make it easily accept and obey commands.

     The result, when the female bat gave birth to Dr. Mansley's creation, was a monster. At first glance, the baby looked like a bat, but it only took a second to see the abnormalities: it was twice the size of a regular baby giant fruit bat, it had a long tail that looked something like a lion's, and it learned to fly in three days, a fraction of the time usually required. But its eyes...

     The creature's eyes were unexpected. They were the same color a giant fruit bat's eyes should be, but there was a startling difference. The pupils and irises were small enough that a great deal of white showed, with the brown iris and nearly black pupil constantly gazing out at everything it saw, as if thinking.

   The creature scared so many people that many, scientists and graduate students alike, quit the project. A few leaked to the media, with a group of environmentalists spending an entire week protesting in front of the entrance, with some teenager going as far as spray painting "Mansley is Playing God" across the front doors. Mansley wasn't hesitant to press charges.

   Over a period of one year, the creature, which became known as Experiment G-2-15, showed more and more disturbing traits. Its wingspan grew to ten feet, with a body of six feet long and four feet tall at the shoulders to match. It proved to be more intelligent than anyone could've predicted. At three weeks old, it learned how to pick the locks on its cage, it remembered when it was fed, and learned to communicate by flapping its wings.

    Its physical traits, however, were the least of their worries. It remembered what certain scientists had done to it, such as taking blood and X-rays, and it clearly wasn't very forgiving. The first time it attacked someone, it was the first scientist to take blood from it. The poor scientist, Dr. Gennaro, lost his left fore finger, was covered in cuts, and retired soon after the incident.

    The one person it wouldn't attack, and who was the only human it would interact with, was Ms. Adams. After she was taken on as an apprentice to Dr. Mansley, the first thing she was shown was Experiment G-2-15, which she nicknamed "Jeannie" after she discovered the creature was female. For a reason not even Ms. Adams could explain, the creature always acted as if the two were old friends, rather than an experiment and scientist. Dr. Mansley couldn't help but notice her disregard for the importance of their creation, and as weeks turned into months, he decided there was only one thing that could be done to bring the project back on track. He couldn't help but smirk when his request to vivisect the monster was approved.