Stepping Stones (Founding of the Federation Short Stories Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  “They will need cleaning up afterward, Sensei,” Sakura replied as Kakashi opened the window and pulled his mask back down. His body began to shimmer and fade until they could only see a ghostly outline.

  “Leave that to me,” he said softly, like a dangerous whisper in the wind. She could hear a soft sound as he went over the sill and into the night. She let out a deep breath, inhaled, and then did it again.

  “Well. I guess we have our work cut out for us,” she said, turning to Kibba.

  (0)^(0)

  Toshi's exploration of the lab earlier with Thoth, then the medical treatment of the baboon led him to question things about the lab. He did a bit of looking around after that, quietly. It seemed frustrating at first until he saw a map to get out of the building in case of a fire. The map didn't just detail the paths out but also the surrounding area. By comparing the maps in different areas, he built up a mental picture of what areas he hadn't accessed. Then his promotion came through and with it his new security badge.

  During a lunch break, he finished his roll quickly then went walkabout. A few others were doing the same. They did regular stretching exercises with the staff each morning, but that didn't excuse them from more vigorous exercise to stay fit and in shape. But finding the time to do it was hard; a few took to walks or jogging around the inside or outside of the building. He realized with a snort that he was blending in even more than he'd thought he would. More than he had thought he'd need to, he thought; he started to think about the dangers of getting too involved, in getting to nosy.

  Megacorporations were a law unto themselves in many ways. They didn't take kindly to spies or snoops; they had secrets to protect from the public as well as their competition. He could very well walk into something unexpected with nasty final results for one Toshi.

  But curiosity was in his nature. He just needed to temper it he thought, exploring a little each day until Sakura had him run a package of lab samples to the aquatics lab.

  His new security pass allowed him access to the lab; he was amused that he was on an “official” errand. What he found there disturbed him though. He had at first been fascinated by the giant tanks filled with kelp and sea creatures. One didn't see that on a space colony. The aquariums promised great things; he wondered briefly if he could go diving in one? Was it safe? Were there sharks he wondered?

  He was startled by sudden motion and bubbles in the tank. He stopped, staring as something swirled by then stopped to hover in front of him behind the glass. He thought at first it was a mermaid, then realized it was a seal. He snorted at himself, watching the black eyes looking back at him. Then the nose wiggled. He saw a hose attached to it to something on the creature’s back. Then a hand flipper touched the glass in front of him, and he felt wonder and shock all over again.

  It was a hand, a real hand! Or as close as one could be engineered from what obviously was a flipper he realized. He blinked, then looked down at the … selkie? He frowned thoughtfully, dredging the name from memory. Yes, that was what the name was he thought. He looked down at the animal's feet flippers—again, seal and yet not seal. The head too, though it was hard to tell with it moving, trying to lock eyes with him.

  “Hello,” a synthetic voice said from the speaker at waist high. He looked at it, looked at the animal and stared again, jaw dropping. The selkie flipped about and hid in the swirling kelp.

  He left the package in the refrigerator and a note, then took off before anyone noticed he had lingered too long.

  (0)^(0)

  The animal had talked; he couldn't dismiss that. He shook his head as he thought about it and the implications that evening before bed. He was nervous but did his best to hide it from his dorm mates.

  Selkies and the other genetically engineered animals had human or near human intelligence. That was against many laws and codifies of medical ethics. Apparently that didn't bother Ishigama or Chiang or any of the other scientists involved. And now him he realized, and that disturbed him even more. Was he guilty, even if only by association to their crimes? Could he be brought up on charges? That kept him up a good part of the night.

  (0)^(0)

  “Well?” Kakashi asked. “He hasn't moved as expected.”

  “Patience. I'm feeding him a bit at a time. Too much and he'll choke,” Sakura replied.

  “You're playing with fire; you know that, right?” Kibba asked, looking over her shoulder to the image of a sleeping Toshi on her tablet.

  “This from the guy who … you know, never mind,” Sakura replied with a sigh. She looked up to her Sensei and their team leader. “He will move when he is ready. But we have to time it right.”

  “Ikketsu,” the phantom said from the open window then departed. Sakura turned the tablet off.

  “What are you going to do next? What will make him go public?” Kibba asked.

  “The cloning tanks,” Sakura replied. “But I don't have access to them yet. So, we'll keep feeding him a little at a time. The bitter pill.”

  “Until he chokes on it,” Kibba agreed. “You are one cold chikushoume,” he said in admiration. Her cold eyes locked with his, long enough to make even him still.

  “They say the female is always deadlier than the male,” she said ever so quietly. “Remember that.”

  “Hai,” he replied softly before he looked away.

  (0)^(0)

  Over the next two weeks, Toshi came to grips with what he had seen in that lab. For the most part, he had put it aside, out of his mind to concentrate on the job at hand. He needed to focus on the primates; his survival depended on reading them as well as possible, which meant he couldn't afford to be distracted.

  But then he found out from an overheard conversation about how Genetek was selling the selkies to other corporations like Pavilion and Radick Industries. “They aren't working out, not as well as projected and definitely not as well as the dolphins.”

  “Think we'll switch to cetaceans next then? Play a little catch-up?” One of the lab techs said.

  “If we can, but I doubt it. Most likely, the intel arm will try to grab some samples to reverse engineer like they did the chimps,” the female lab tech said.

  “Which was easy since they are coming out publicly. The same for the other fins,” the first tech said with a sniff.

  “Don't you two have other things to do?” A familiar voice cut through their discussion.

  “Waiting on the sequencer,” the first tech said.

  “I'm waiting on a simulation to finish, plus his results,” the female said.

  “Fine then. Find something else to do,” Doctor Ishigani stated before she left. Toshi pretended to read his tablet as she walked past him. He snorted softly when the two techs immediately went back to gossiping.

  “So, I heard they are talking about using more extreme measures.”

  “How?”

  “Well, Chaing Sensei was asked about cutting the bodies up or just growing the body parts needed to support the brain. But he pointed out that won't work; they need the limbs to stimulate brain development and function.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, they are talking about cutting up a subject, and if they survive, stick their brain in a box.”

  “Don't they know it's simpler and safer to stimulate a brain with its own body? That's why we got into this in the first place. If you want just the brain, they can simulate that now in the computer, right? So why bother?”

  “True. A body has all the life support it needs; you just need to give it the right environment and fuel of course. But that's the thing about their reasoning, with just the brain they can reduce the support load, even have multiple brains in a ship. So they can stack them and have some redundancy in case one of them fails.”

  “You mean goes catatonic and dies. That's right back to the problem we've been having. The seals are having trouble maintaining function for as long as they want. They don't have the attention span. And we can't condition them or engineer them to the specifications Pavilion
wants. It's not possible.”

  “Which is why they want to go to sterner measures. Sort of like the furries.” Toshi leaned forward from the stool he was sitting on to listen in. He could see the girl but not the guy.

  The girl shivered. “You would bring that up. I wanted one so bad until I found out what they were really doing. I mean, how sick is that?!? To grow a fox or other animal in human form, then when they get to the right size, skin them?” She shivered again then looked at Toshi. “Something up?”

  “Just wondering what you are talking about. Trying to concentrate here,” he ad libbed, holding his tablet up.

  “Sorry. We'll try to keep it down,” she said then turned away. “We really should get some work done.”

  “Yeah,” her partner replied.

  Toshi frowned, staring at his own tablet. He wasn't sure if he wanted to anymore or not.

  (0)^(0)

  The next day Toshi found out about the human clones by chance. Doctor Chaing sent him to the lab to pick up some medical equipment and to check on some genetic samples they were running. It was something to do with a comparison project, though Toshi wasn't sure what they were using as the comparison control. Then he realized it was human.

  He stared in shock as he realized the implications. How Genetek was growing clones of rich customers to farm their bodies for replacement parts. He'd heard whispers of it; there were even stories in the news archives but …

  He slowed his walk enough to let his horrified mind kick his scientific training in to process what he was seeing in the lab around him. From what he saw, he realized the cloned fetuses were grown in artificial wombs then allowed to grow for a few weeks after birth; then depending on the need, they were either allowed to grow normally as children in a special daycare center nearby or immediately inserted in vac tubes to be force-fed and force-grown to adult status before they were harvested.

  He was horrified by it all. His soul searching was done he thought as he finished the errand. Resolution filled him. He now saw the baboons for what they were, from the eyes of the corporation. They were things, things to be exploited. To be used, abused, taken apart with little or no humanity, and if necessary discarded. So was he on some level he thought remotely. When he clocked out, he realized he had only one decision left to make, what to do about it.

  That was easily solved when he went on his date with Sakura. When she left her tablet to go change for their date, he pulled the memory card and copied it. From what she had and from what he had as “homework,” he had more than enough to do something.

  On his way home, he stopped at a coffee shop. He used the free Wi-Fi to dump it all to media. He left the shop afraid but with his head high once more.

  (0)^(0)

  The media firestorm and public denials were ugly. Toshi was fired and put into protective custody by the O'Neill colony administration. He found out later Lagroose Industries had been his benefactor and was the real reason he'd remained alive.

  Genetek's shares had plummeted overnight. Sako San committed seppuku in shame or so the media reported. Doctors Chaing and Ishigama disappeared. Doctor Shima “conveniently” died in his sleep a few days before he could be questioned. It was a great loss of wisdom for the company but a relief for the board.

  The company spiraled into bankruptcy with vultures spiraling around them. The creditors picked over what was left. Lagroose Industries picked up the baboons, other primates, selkies, and other Neos from Genetek as the fallout ran its course. The cybernetics were cleaned up and disposed of by Genetek's security and the clans.

  (0)^(0)

  Toshi was at ends on what to do, where to go. He had gotten a moment of fame and infamy from his role in the exposure of Gentek. But now that the media spotlight was off of him, he could return to his life and try to make some sort of career.

  But it wasn't as easy as he'd thought. He'd exposed a great wrong yes, but in doing so he'd violated the security of a major corporation. Other organizations and corporations weren't happy about that and each politely showed him the door when he applied for a position with them. Even the university told him he would not be welcome back the following semester for his graduate studies.

  The public sector was out. It was so filled with cronyism, and the positions were so full there was no way he could get his foot in the door, even as a janitor. The best he might be able to do was manage some rich person's private collection or some small petting zoo somewhere.

  Despairing of his future, he allowed his mother to direct him to a potential job opening with a “friend of a friend.” He went to a nondescript office in Axial 2 and met an old man with a flowing robe and strange eyes.

  The old man introduced himself as Hagoromo Otsutsuki. He walked with a curious black staff; it had rings on one end and a crescent shape on the other.

  “Come with me. I see you are nervous. There is no need to be young man,” the old man said.

  “I'm sorry, are you …?”

  “I am a sage.”

  “I see. Sensei, I am not religious.”

  “We each follow our own path. Come. Let an old man take you to lunch,” Hagoromo stated, walking to the door. Toshi hastily got up and rushed to the door to open it for him.

  In the hall they encountered Sakura. He blinked in astonishment. “I believe you have met this young lady. She was one of the people who recommended you.”

  “Sensei, I …”

  “Relax, Toshi. You are among friends here,” Sakura murmured. “I wish I could have had the bravery you had, to stand up to a wrong like that. It was in many ways stupid and pathetic,” he winced at that, “but admirable too. You didn't shirk from the hard fight. From the path you chose for yourself.”

  “Hai,” Hagoromo said softly. The client had been furious about the exposure, and the clan’s leadership had been embarrassed—all by this one lad. Some wanted revenge, but he saw potential. He agreed with Sakura and others. The young man should be recruited to their cause.

  “So …”

  Sakura took him by the arm and smiled endearingly at him. “We've got plans. Big plans. And we need your help.”

  “My help?”

  “Indeed,” Hagoromo told him about their plan to create a world of their own. The Shinobi no Sekai.

  “Actually several worlds if we can help it,” Sakura said with a small smile. “Each clan wants a world of their own. Mine is Konohagakure.”

  “I see,” Toshi said, maintaining a polite mask.

  “We had considered moving the clans to Venus, Mars, or one of the other worlds, but we wished to go further now that we are aware that it is possible. To have a real world, with a sky and room to grow,” Sakura stated with a whimsical smile.

  “You're talking about the starships? The ones Star Reach and Lagroose are building?” Toshi asked carefully.

  Sakura nodded eagerly. “And the other companies, yes.”

  “I see. Why me?” Toshi asked carefully. He looked at Sakura then to the elder. The elder's eyes arrested him immediately. They were strangely hypnotic.

  “Young Sakura has taken a shine to you. She believes you are worthy to join us,” the elder said simply, clutching his staff.

  Toshi realized it was a request he couldn't refuse. Not if he wished to live. “It is definitely an interesting offer. One I must think about carefully,” he said stubbornly.

  The elder nodded. Part of the test had been passed, the young man didn't eagerly jump in, nor had he shied away. He was thinking it through or at least biding his time. “Ah, leaving one's home and family is difficult. But you will find young one that your parents are in agreement already,” the old man said, touching his staff near the top where it had a crescent. “They have been a part of the clans for years.”

  “I didn't know,” Toshi stated, wide eyed. He bowed before Hagoromo. “I wish to learn more, Sensei,” he said simply with another small bow.

  “And so you shall.”

  “What about the baboons?”

  “We wi
ll try to find a place for them if we can. The same for the others man has tampered with. We know that mankind cannot stop on this path once started. But we can also give them a place to live and grow at their own speed.” The elder nodded to Toshi. “With those like you around to help and guide them of course.”

  “Thank you for the opportunity, Sensei,” Toshi breathed. He bowed again.

  Gizmo

  2177

  Richard “Bill” the IV Cosmos wasn't thrilled about his father's tours, but he went along anyway. Some of the businesses his father owned were downright boring. But this one, this one had his interest. He'd always had a thing for genetics, and he was taking psychology in college, something his mother insisted on. He had dreamed of being an architect or structural artist in his youth but he knew his father and grandfather were grooming him to take over the family empire.

  Pelker-Cosmos LLC owned enough shares in Biogen to make the staff scramble to obey the two men and their security detail when they came for their unexpected visit.

  Bill looked around the clean, neat, and very sterile lab. White walls, industrial look, it was all so … drab. It was hard to believe that magic came out of the lab. Well, technically the computers and gene printers they had in the back of the facility he reminded himself.

  Since his parents had invested so heavily in the lab, he had been promised one of the first designer pets. Each cost a small fortune, and many didn't live long or had problems, which was how he'd learned to look beyond the surface. His father insisted he couldn't make up his mind, but it went deeper than that. While his father took the tour and listened to the lecture and sales pitch, Bill liked to come and play with all of the creatures. But one intrigued him the most, a small, almost forgotten little guy in the back corner of the animal containment facility.