Let There Be Life

by Simon Archer

  Crazier still, there was a flashing exclamation point over the creature’s head, and when I accessed it, I got a message I hadn’t expected.

  Special Creature, Gobta, Elite Hobgoblin King has created a pet. He can now summon this pet at will. The Elite Hobgoblin King is limited to five pets, all of which can be accessed within his Status Window.

  “It lives!” the necromancer cried as I finished reading the text. “Admit it.” He grinned widely. “Who is your new favorite minion?”

  “Queenie,” I said without hesitation. “But you’re a close third.”

  “A close third?” he asked, somewhat deflated. “I understand Queenie since she performs other tasks, but who else could possibly compete with this?” He gestured emphatically at the undead boar. “Who is this second?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” I said as I summoned my own boar. “He is.”

  10

  “What’s new, pussycat?” I asked Jodie as we reappeared in the Halls of Research with all the samples she’d asked for in tow.

  “Just calibrating the Thermonuclear Pipette systems so that they won’t mess with the growth medium too much.” She shrugged, and at my confused look, gave me a head shake and then added, “I’ve set up the conditions in the grow room to match Ares so that we can begin cultivating bacteria to turn the carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere into oxygen.” She winked at me. “That’s the stuff you breathe, by the way.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m just curious as to why a pipette system, which is basically a tube used to drip solution slowly into things, needs to be,” I made air quotes, “Thermonuclear.”

  “Because,” Melanie, the blonde catgirl biologist broke in excitedly as she bounced toward me, “everything is better with more power.” Then she threw her head back and laughed. “MWA HA HA HA!”

  “Um…” Queenie said, giving the scientist a sidelong look. “Is she okay?”

  “She does that,” Jodie said with a shrug as Melanie took my samples and raced out of the room. “And, to answer your question, well…” She sighed. “It would be easier to explain if you’d read Mikeenstein.”

  “Mikeenstein?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “It’s this old horror book about this crazy doctor who harnessed lightning to reanimate dead flesh--”

  “You don’t need lightning for that,” Gobta interjected. “You merely harness the power of the dark gods, then--”

  “Well, in this book, the doctor, Mikeenstein, does.” Jodie pointedly turned so that her back was to the Hobgoblin King. “Anyway, that power brings the creature to life, after which he grows horrified by his creature. There were pitchforks.” She waved her hand. “It’s a whole thing.”

  “And it’s called Mikeenstein?” I asked because I’d heard of a very similar book, albeit with a different name.

  “Yes. It was written by Shel Mary like a while ago.” Jodie smirked. “But I’m assuming your world doesn’t have books like that.” She looked me up and down. “Let me guess, your world mostly has books on nutrition.”

  “Why would you think that?” I asked, right before Gobta leaped in front of me.

  “And after you harness the energy of the dark gods, you bring your creature to life. It’s easy peasy, skull squeezie.” Gobta seemed satisfied because he grabbed Queenie by the arm then. “Come on, let’s go to the Danger room and practice our new moves. I want you to Final Sting me, so I can see if I can tank it.” He grinned at the Ant Queen. “Practice makes perfect, right?”

  “I suppose that would be a good use of time,” Queenie replied, and after giving me a look to make sure I was okay with it, she vanished with the Hobgoblin King.

  “Anyway, that’s why we’re using a Thermonuclear Pipette. We’re doing a similar thing but with more science.” Jodie came forward, and when she touched my arm, I swear she felt my bicep. “Also, we spent all the money you left us.”

  “You spent fifteen tons of gold?” I asked because that seemed unfathomable. “That was the budget for, like… I dunno, more than a few hours.”

  “What can I say, I’m an expensive girl,” she said with a wink as she spun to walk away, her cat tail swishing beneath her white lab coat with each step. “You coming?”

  “Yeah,” I said as I tried to fathom what the fuck she could have bought. Only as I entered the room and saw a ridiculous amount of equipment that ranged across all time and space because some seemed to have circuit boards and what not while one was, I shit you not, powered by a tiny pink fairy on an equally tiny treadmill type contraption that seemed to be siphoning off her dust.

  “You like the Pixie Extractor?” Jodie asked when she saw me staring.

  “How the hell did you even get that? And what do you need the dust for?” I asked with a shake of my head. “Like, isn’t that a food topping?”

  “That’s only with Aridescro Fairies.” Jodie gave me a disappointed look. “That is a Mularian Pixie. You can tell by the cleft in her chin.” Then she gestured at Melanie, who was busily sorting out my samples on a large marble counter. “Tell ‘em, Mel.’”

  “Mularian Pixie dust can be used to stimulate rapid acclimation to harsh climates in certain types of cyanobacteria. It’s expensive, but will shave off a few million years of evolution.” Melanie wasn’t even looking at us. Instead, she was busily turning the goop we’d collected into cultures that would go in the glass plates she’d set out to grow the bacteria. “It’s like a ton of gold an ounce. Normally, I don’t get to use it, but I was told to be quick, so...” She looked up and gave me a sheepish grin. “It’s okay, right?”

  “What have I told you, Mel?” Jodie said as she sidled toward me. “You do the brain stuff, and I’ll ask for forgiveness.” She pressed herself against me then. Not a lot, but enough to let me imagine what her curves would feel like in a completely different setting.

  “I know, I know,” Melanie said in a way that made it clear she was barely listening to us.

  “You know, you don’t have to do that,” I said, turning toward Jodie. “I hired you to do a job, and I trust you to do it.” I smiled at her. “The rubbing, while nice, isn’t necessary.”

  “Oh, that’s just a perk, honey.” Jodie smiled, showing a hint of fang.

  “But, that said, I’d like to set up some guidelines before the whole ‘spending money on equipment without my knowledge’ goes off the rails.” I gestured at the fairy. “Because that is definitely the off the rails kind of spending that I’d have approved.”

  Jodie put her hands on her hips. “Just so you know, I don’t do well with rails, walls, or really anything to do with people telling me I can’t do what I want.”

  “I mean more like guidelines.” I smirked. “I definitely want you to do your best work, but I can’t spend the wealth of my system without knowing what I’m spending it on.”

  “I’m not sure I like the idea of guidelines,” Jodie mused.

  “Maybe some suggestions, then?” Melanie added while giving me a look that let me know she’d do as I asked, even if Jodie was being difficult.

  “I’m thinking something a lot less concrete than suggestions.” Jodie grinned evilly. “And if I do something wrong, you could just punish me.” She moved closer, so I could feel the heat wafting off her. “In fact, maybe I need to be punished now.” She bit her lip. “It was very bad of me to spend all your money without asking.”

  “Down, girl,” Melanie said right before she squirted Jodie with a spray bottle, causing the redheaded catgirl to hiss and run out of the room. Then Melanie gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, she’s in heat. It started just a bit after we came here.”

  “Wait, she’s in heat? Like… like a cat goes into heat?” I asked, confused. “I thought the ears were hats?”

  “Nope.” Melanie tugged at her ear. “Real stuff. And yes, just like cats. Only, not really because if we don’t take our pills, we go into heat once a day or so. She’ll get over it in a few hours, but if she starts trying to hump your leg, t
hat’s why.”

  “Okay…” I said, trying to process the fact that I’d just recruited three catgirls who all went into heat every day. On the one hand, I have to admit, it seemed awesome, but on the other hand, something-something-good-reason for not sleeping with them I couldn’t think of? “So, why didn’t she take her pills?”

  “She doesn’t like to do it.” Melanie shrugged. “Says it makes her feel weird, but personally, if I had the option, I’d rather not try to fuck my boss day one, just saying.” She nodded once. “Leaves a bad impression.” She paused a beat. “Anyway, I want to show you what I’ve done.”

  She took me by the arm and moved me toward where she had several specimens plated, completely oblivious to the effect her information bomb had on little Garrett. “I’m going to plate all of these samples, introduce the dust, and then put them into the grow chambers where we will slowly change the conditions to force a response. Sound good?”

  “Yep. That’s what I’d do.” It was true. We were going to adapt life from one planet to another more hostile one, and the only way to do that would be in stages since we had a finite number of samples.

  “Cool,” Melanie said before turning back to her work, “and thanks again for not being mad about the Pixie. Jodie didn’t want me to buy it because it was too expensive, but I insisted.” She blew a lock of golden hair out of her face. “It will help us for a long, long time, but we will have to pay union wages.”

  “To the Pixie guild?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

  “Yes, exactly.” She frowned. “And I’m guessing from the way you said it, you know how expensive that will be.”

  “Yeah.” I rubbed the back of my head. I’d dealt with the Pixie Guild back in Terra Forma a bunch of times, and if there was one thing I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was that their services did not come cheap. Hell, they didn’t even come in expensive. No, they started at astronomical. “I’d best go start hunting for platinum-coated diamonds.”

  “Oh, you should check with Veronica then.” Melanie was almost ninety percent focused on her work now. “She did some planetary dirt stuff that you might find interesting.”

  “I’ll do that, thanks,” I said as I made my way out. “And let me know the second we can introduce the bacteria.”

  “Will do.” Then she turned her full attention back onto her work, and I considered myself dismissed, so I did the obvious. I pulled up the minimap, located Veronica at the other end of the Hall, and made my way there.

  11

  “Let me just say that I thoroughly approve of the monocle,” I said as I entered the room to find Veronica leaning over a marble slab covered in various, neatly organized piles of rock.

  At the sound of my voice, Veronica screeched and leaped into the air like a startled cat. Her tail went seven kinds of poofy, and her ears flattened right before she whirled around to face me with her claws extended. Only, as she saw me, a mixture of indignation, fear, and relief was all plain on her face.

  “You scared the daylights out of me, sugar,” she said as she clasped her hand to her heart. “Next time, don’t sneak up on someone concentrating on something.” She took a deep breath to try to calm herself.

  “Actually, I knocked on the door for five minutes before letting myself in,” I said as I came toward her and patted her lightly on the shoulder. “But I’ll try to be louder next time. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Sorry about that, sugar,” she said sheepishly as she reached up and pressed the side of the device attached to her head, causing the monocle to change from blue to clear. When I’d initially seen it, I’d thought it was a monocle, but now, upon looking at it, I realized the device was more like a scouter from Dragon Ball Z, only with the ability to scope outward like a telephoto lens. “I have a single-minded focus when it comes to rocks.” Her cheeks colored.

  “Hey, I can be pretty focused too. I remember back when I was on Earth, people would try to talk to me when I was practicing, and I wouldn’t even hear them because I was so focused on what I was doing. Why, I could practically block out a marching band entirely.” I smiled. “I like to think of it as a superpower.”

  “A marching band? Why, I could block out a whole planet, sugar. Complete with an amplifier and wicked bass.” As she spoke, she reached up and adjusted her monocle, causing the extended lens to retract back into the faceplate. It was a bit strange because I’d expected the one eye to look magnified in the way that people’s eyes often were when they wore eyeglasses, but that wasn’t the case here. Instead, her blue-green cat eyes looked absolutely normal… or as normal as they could be, anyway.

  “Well, I’ll concede the floor to you then, Veronica.” I made a sweeping gesture. “Anyway, the reason I came was because Melanie spent all our money--”

  “On the fairy,” she huffed. “I know.”

  “Yeah, so I said I was gonna go mine for diamonds to pay for her Pixie habit as a joke, and she told me to talk to you first?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Well, bless her heart!” Veronica grumbled. “Just straight threw me under the bus, now didn’t she?”

  “More like a train.” I tapped my foot over-exaggeratedly and then checked my non-existent watch. “Times a ticking, and fairies won’t pay for themselves.”

  “Actually, they would if you bred them, but you’re not dealing with fairies. You’re dealing with pixies, and they hate when you mix them up.” She gave me a long look. “It’s a pretty big deal, actually. That’s how the Fairy Wars on planet 13-49-B Alpha started.”

  “Right, right. When the one fairy prince met the pixie princess, and they fell in love, but their respective parents were all Hatfield and McCoy about it, so they did the whole suicide thing.” I had the decency to look properly chagrined as I recalled the story. It wasn’t hard because I’d played that scenario from both sides, dozens of times. Personally, I preferred doing it as Tybalt because I only had to play until the cutscene where he was tragically killed. If you played as either of the mains, you would ultimately die anyway when they stupidly took each other’s lives at the thought of the other one being dead, even though neither one was dead.

  “I’m surprised you knew about it,” Veronica said with a raised eyebrow. “That’s… pretty obscure.”

  “I’m not from around here.” I laughed. “Where I come from, it’s a tale as old as time.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “That’s the one where the werewolf king captures the bookworm of a town girl and makes her his bride.” As she spoke, she looked off dreamily into oblivion. “Her yellow dress was so wonderful.”

  “I always liked the bad guy in that one.” I flexed. “He’s roughly the size of a barge.”

  Then, instead of responding appropriately, she stuck her tongue at me.

  “Very mature.” I laughed. “So, anyway, what do you have for me?”

  “Always business with you, isn't it, sugar?” Veronica said with a laugh as she turned back toward the marble slab with all her rock samples. Only instead of showing any of them to me, she put her palm on a green crystal at the edge of the slab. There was a crackle of electricity, and the maple syrup smell of the fake fog they used in horror mazes at amusement parks filled the air.

  Then the area behind me lit up so violently, I started. Then I whirled around to find an entirely 3D holographic mock-up of my system displayed in what seemed like real time. Or, at least it seemed like real time because that's what the speed counter in the corner said.

  “So, I made a few scans using a bit of the equipment we bought. It will be better once we upgrade the system,” Veronica said as she came closer. “Like, we should be able to see the plasma of the star moving about on its surface, but we can’t because if I zoom in…” She did so, and the star blurred as we got a closer look at the surface. “Well, that’s why.”

  “Right, okay, so we can look at the system, but we need to upgrade it if we want to actually look at the planet’s surface in real-time, and I’m assuming we di
dn’t do that because of cost?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “I checked your rank with the Bazaar, and even with Jane pulling a few strings, we just don’t have the affinity to get any of the good merchants to sell us that level of equipment unless we want to pay through the nose.” She gave me a look. “No use wasting money if we don’t have to. This will be fine for now. Once you have industry and life on multiple planets, it will be more of an issue.” She waved off her train of thought. “Anyway, what I want to show you is on this planet.”

  She reached out and physically manipulated the whole system with her hands, grabbing a planet around where I’d have thought Jupiter would be. As she did it, I watched the time gauge in the corner begin to slow, until it was parsing time in terms of months instead of seconds like we had been. The trade-off was that the image snapped into clarity. Like I wouldn’t have been able to make out a person’s face on the surface or anything, but I’d have definitely been able to tell what color his shirt was.

  “Wow, that’s pretty amazing,” I said, somewhat shocked. “I actually feel like I’m on the surface of Zeus. And yes, I just named it that.” It was true. While I had done the upgrades in the Halls of Research for this section before, Terra Forma couldn’t hold a candle to what this looked and felt like. As she continued to manipulate it, the room around us seemed to fade away until it was almost like we were on the surface of the gas giant, and crazily enough, I could almost feel what it must have felt like. Cold, of course, but it wasn’t really a temperature thing. It was more… tactile?... because I could feel the ground change beneath my feet, even.

  “Zeus seems like a fine name. And yeah, I’m always amazed how well the super cheap base model works.” She laughed. “Imagine what it will do when we have the expensive one.” She grinned. “Anyway, what I wanted to show you is this.” She did something with her hands. A sort of twisting, jerking motion, and then, the next thing I knew, the whole surface of the planet was whipping by us at breakneck speed until we came to a sudden stop on the top of a huge mountain in the middle of a range that would have made the Himalayas look quaint.