Constructing A Person

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     Emma again emerged from the portal, into a small laboratory with one scientist, tinkering away at a small contraption

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     Emma again emerged from the portal, into a small laboratory with one scientist, tinkering away at a small contraption.  The scientist looked up at Emma.  "Welcome, Emma.  You came from the future, I presume?"  Emma's mother asked.  Emma's mouth opened and closed, no words coming out.  How did she know?  Emma's mother seemed to read her mind.  "Well, as you know because you are my daughter, I was once a great physicist.  Then, I met your father.  He started taking advantage of my creations for his crime, but what did I care?  It gave me money to fund further innovations.  Well, mostly to fund my biggest dream, to create a time machine." Emma's mother explained, gesturing to the device in Emma's hands.  "Well, being the great scientist I am, I managed to create the world's first time machine.  But also being the great scientist I am, I had... curiousity.  So I traveled to the future, and I saw... well the life you've been living."  Emma's mother sighed.  "One thing about time is that it keeps itself orderly.  Time travel can't change the future, not really.  You can't travel back in time and stop the dinosaurs from being extinct, because history already says that dinosaurs will become extinct.  Time travel can't change history.  The dinosaurs will become extinct no matter what time travellers try to do to stop it.  And even if they tried to stop it, they would know that their attempt to stop such an event failed, because they are living in a timeline where the dinosaurs became extinct."  Emma's mother continued. "As for this situation, I can't go and kill Seth right now and stop him from doing terrible things, because I know that he is alive in the future, implying that my attempt would fail.  No matter what I do, he will be there for that event.  Time already decided, we can't change time.  But what we can do, is help your friend Ethan gain his powers like he has.  And knowing that he has those powers in the future, I know we will succeed.  Time already decided we would."

     Emma looked at her mother in frustration.  They had been working on Ethan's genes for a while, and it was tough work.  Using the small contraption that Emma's mother used, they could remotely change Ethan's genetic makeup, controlling nanobots they injected into Ethan when Emma's mother disguised herself as a nurse and injected the nanobots into Ethan's mother's womb.  That, Emma's mother said, was the easy part.  Actually changing the genes would be much harder.

     "Remember, you are looking for a strain of Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy," Emma's mother said.  "But there's so many genes!  I hate this game!"  Emma exclaimed.  "It's not a game," Emma's mother said patiently.  "I know, but I still don't like it," Emma whined.  "There!"  Emma's mother pointed towards the small digital display.  "Ok... so we destroy the strain and implant it with a better one, right?  Oh, by the way, what else can we do with his genome?  Give him a big dick?  Please? Ooh, we could give him boobs!" Emma said, clearly distracted. "Focus, Emma," Emma's mother said, and Emma snapped out of it and continued, tapping a couple buttons.  After an affirmative from her mother, Emma pressed the "PROCEED" button on the touch screen, and the nanobots went to work, slowly removing most of the strain, and perfecting some other mutations, giving Ethan a perfect genetic makeup.

     Suddenly, a red light flashed and a buzzer sounded overhead, informing Emma and her mother of someone at the door.  "Seth!" Emma's mother exclaimed.  "Buy me some time.  I'll get the gene modifications finished."

     Emma, glancing around, realized she had little to no tech with her.  All she had was a gun, some force fields, and... her time machine.  In a stroke of genius, she dialed herself forward in time, jumping into a portal.  A second later, Emma dragged out a very confused Ethan.  Quickly explaining the situation to Ethan, he nodded before disappearing.

     Seth was waiting at the door of his wife's laboratory when all of a sudden a paper airplane hit him back of the head.  Whipping around, he searched for the thrower, finding no one.  Unfolding the paper airplane, he read in big, block letters:

LOOK BEHIND YOU.

     Whipping around, Seth turned and saw a man, his features concealed behind a hood. He chuckled, before being swooped up by a purplish black light and disappearing.  Furious, Seth looked for the man, seeing he had reappeared, running off in the street.  In a fury, Seth jumped into his car, preparing to run over the mysterious man.  Just as the man was about to get slammed into, the purplish black light appeared again, whipping the man away.

     Emma and her mother were almost done with the gene modification. On the display, it read:

PERSON CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS

Genetic Mutations Purified: 100%

Selection Of Specific Traits, (e.g. height, eye color): 100%

Addition of "Fourth Dimension" Gene: 100%

Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy Removal: 98%

     "Come on, hurry up!  If we don't finish this now, we never will be able to!  The only other way is... That's it!  The only other way the nanobots activate is through strong emotion, when your adrenaline is pumping the hardest!   When Ethan saves Alice in the future, those nanobots will reactivate!  We don't need to do any more work!  Just get out of here before Seth returns!" Emma's mother frantically said.  Emma hugged her mother for the last time, before turning the dials on the time machine.  At that moment, Ethan reappeared, and together, Emma and Ethan jumped into another portal, Ethan to his own time, and Emma to hers.  Actually, not really.   More like 20 years later, a year before Ethan and Alice would stumble into the island that Emma was going to inhabit.

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