Scientific Crescendo - Book 2: The Genetics Project 🪼✔

27 - Caterpillars On the Moon

When I opened my eyes, I was in a chair with my hands strapped to the arms of it. I could hear muffled noises behind me and another noise as well. I looked around slowly, taking the lab and all the different things into account though I was groggy from the blow. Speaking of which. my head was in the most excruciating pain it had ever been in.
"I haven't gotten far on it yet but that's because he is losing a lot of blood."
"Are you recycling it?"
"Yes, I'm using the blood cleaner and letting it recirculate back into him."
"Was there a reason to stab him? I know you wanted revenge..."
"Sometimes my anger gets the best of me... He's the one who had me rotting in jail all that time while I perfected the abilities you gave me so long ago. I thank you for that, since it helped me escape."
"You're welcome but that does not pay for what we have given you. You owe us something and you told us that you would give us the ability to use humans as guinea pigs for male pregnancy for our interspecies domination. You also promised us a serum made from the blood of that regenerating man for us so we would be able to invade."
"I know and I will, don't worry. I just ran into a few potholes... I am getting them to you. In fact, when my subject wakes up, I'm going to be starting my experiments on him. My children are working on Mr. Koine so that we can harvest something."
"You'd better have something for us by the end of the oldest child's pregnancy or we will invade earth and conduct our own experiments: your family will be the first ones we use."
"I understand."
Gerald sighed and seemed to be worried over the conversation with whatever it was he was talking to. He came over to me and noticed I was awake.
"Ah, you've woken up."
I pulled my head up to look at him, it lolling back.
"I'm sure you overheard my conversation... You want to know what's going on, don't you?"
I nodded and he grabbed a chair, pulling it to me and turning it around, putting his arms on the back of it.
"Let me begin with my ability." He demonstrated his sick twisted ability for me again, having the audacity to change into my father. "Amazing, isn't it? If I move my vocal cords around, I can sound like him too. But let's not get into those types of dynamics... Long before I was studying your father and before I was sent to jail, I played around in astronomy. I sent out a probe into space asking if there were any alien races that would help me perfect my research. It took a long time but they finally responded. I asked for a sign of their technology and they sent me a syringe full of a mysterious liquid.
After making sure that it was safe, I injected myself with it. I realized I had the ability to shapeshift. It was a marvelous revelation and I tried it out in different places. I asked what other things they had and what they could offer. We exchanged ideas when I noticed one day that a male of their species was heavily pregnant. I asked what was going on and he told me, then he asked if I would help them conduct an experiment on the men of Earth. They had heard rumor that there were some men capable of carrying offspring and they wanted to study them. And you know the rest."
"Aliens?" was all I said with a lift of my eyebrow.
Gerald smiled. "Dear Sim, you believe you were born from a man yet the possibilities of other lifeforms make you doubt?"
"You got your abilities from an alien?"
"Precisely. Then I got my idea from them as well and began to search for the perfect specimen. Then I found Julie... Ah, she was a good woman. A shame to kill her."
"Kill her?"
Gerald smirked. "Yup. I killed Julie. Scared the shit out of her so bad that she had a heart attack. See, what I did was I went in there as Dr. Peters and then I morphed into myself. She was so shocked that she just died."
"And that's funny?"
"Ironic, actually..."
"How did you get out?"
"Of jail? Well, that was easy... See, they were looking for my face, not someone else's. So, I snuck out by changing my face to match the guards all the way up to the warden. Then, I got out and headed back to town so that I could study up on what you have been doing. There I found you and your father sniveling with your brains when a brilliant idea came to me. I could find out all the information that I need if you trust me enough. So, I made my own face and became Dr. Peters.
"As the children got older, I thought it best that I watch over them and to my own research on them and so I became Mr. Ridder and some other teachers throughout the years. You were always in higher grades so I never messed with you there, just as Dr. Peters."
"I never suspected you as Dr. Peters."
"I know! I was so happy because I knew you'd be hypersensitive to me. I was surprised you caught on to me being Mr. Ridder."
"You have a scar on your hand..."
"Yes, you can't morph scars unfortunately. The tissue is too taut..." he said, looking at the strange scar on his hand.
"But Dr. Peters..."
"Makeup, boy, makeup... Goodness, your head really did get knocked about didn't it?"
"Where did Sansr and Billy come from?"
"Oh, yeah, I had a fling with a woman before your mother. She wasn't the best of mothers and dumped them on me after two years. I couldn't take care of them so I had them living with my mother until things took off."
The throbbing in my head was starting to increase and Gerald turned his head at me with a smirk.
"And now the experiments can commence..."

DEXTER
I banged on the door as Gerald took Sim away and then slid down it. He took my son away again... My child...
"Dexter?" someone said behind me.
I looked over my shoulder at Jai who was holding a younger Ichor in his arms. Ichor looked around nine and looked in a lot of pain.
"He got smaller..."
I leaned my back against the door and ran my fingers through my hair. Then I finally got up and held out my hands for Ichor. Jai passed him to me and the heat from his body instantly soaked my shirt with sweat and I felt his head.
"You are too hot for your body..."
"I feel dizzy..." he said softly as he laid limp on my shoulder.
"It'll be alright. We'll get out of here soon... We have to..."
I looked over at where Tarot was as he struggled to live. I knew that things had to be done here, but what? What could I do with a handful of teens, one of them pregnant, one of them reverted to a small child, and my best friend at death's door? How could I do much of anything?