I’d never seen anything like it—her before.
And I didn’t want to see anything like her again.
The Genetic Dawn
By Hannes Duncan
The glass doors slid open as we approached. I followed Doctor Raj through the laboratory, passing by meticulously spotless workstations and occupied containment centers. We walked too fast for me to get a glimpse of their inhabitants. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw vivid flashes of color from each of them—blue, purple, red.
Interesting, I thought. When I visited the lab just last week, they were empty.
Nonetheless, these flashes were almost relieving to see, as the lab walls were painted a dreary shade of hospital white. Similarly to a hospital, the atmosphere smelled strongly of anti-bacterial wipes and other chemicals that stung my nostrils. My shoes squeaked against the tile as I trailed behind the doctor, clipboard in hand, as usual. Suddenly, we came to a stop in front of one of the containment centers.
The doctor, and olive-skinned man with thinning silver hair and insidious eyes, motioned toward the glass, signaling for me to take a look.
Avidly, I glanced inside, but my stomach immediately dropped when I laid my eyes on the containment's inhabitant.
“Doctor, what the hell is that?”
The words came out without me thinking— they almost sounded like a cry for help.
The doctor let out something close to a laugh while my jaw hung loose.
“Her name is Charlotte. And she is our very first successful mutant,” he exclaimed, his voice drowning in pride.
I stared at it—her—in a belligerent awe. "Jesus," was the only word that managed to escape my mouth amongst my wonderstruck state. Peering at me on the other side of the bulletproof glass was a creature with the body of a young human girl, maybe eight years old, but just about everything else about her was dreadfully wrong. Her skin, which was no skin at all but rather scales, shone blue and yellow under the lights within her containment center. Her eyes shared the same circumference as a soda can; her pupils filled three-fourths of her watery, dull gray irises. The eyes themselves were completely miserable and lifeless. Her lips were thin, almost paper-like, with their sharp-as-a-blade edges. The hair atop her head was a straggly, dark shade of umber pulled into two pigtails tied together with white ribbons. Dr. Raj's assistants had also dressed her in a flowy skirt and white tank top, but I didn't think any amount of clothes could cover the sheer alienness of her being or humanize her in any way.
I’d never seen anything like it—her before. And I didn’t want to see anything like her again.
Coming to terms with the fact—that this was real—was the hardest part of my entire visit to Dr. Raj's laboratory. He'd called me in to oversee his cross-species genetics research and report back to my superiors, but I was too overwhelmed to write notes or take any photographs. My clipboard hung in my stunned grip, nervous sweat soaking into the paper clipped on it.
I was no stranger to this line of work, as I conducted the same trials that Dr. Raj had years ago, but where Dr. Raj was successful, I was not. I had tried to cure my daughter, Mona, of the cancer that had lodged itself in her lungs using sloth DNA. In her transformation, she never reached the point where she looked like a mutant, like Charlotte. In all honesty, her hair color changed slightly, and she developed a slight amount of thin, light facial hair. But, in the end, she was never cured. I made her worse. Her life was lost, and my desire to continue any other cross-species genetics experiments perished with her.
“What does she share her DNA with?” I finally managed to ask, peeling my dumbstruck gaze away from the mutant and finally facing the doctor.
“Her DNA has been paired with that of a zebrafish.” Dr. Raj replied, pompously. He folded his hands across his hands across his chest slowly. His hooded eyes were impossible to read, though the indented wrinkles in his brow told me all I needed to know about his work; it drained the life out of him.
I almost laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Why, of all things, a zebrafish?”
In the doctor’s hesitation, a light bulb went off in my head; I knew why.
Of course I knew why.
Dr. Raj stiffened and slid his hands into his lab coat pockets. “ A zebrafish has the ability to regenerate cells and tissue at will, Mr. Holland. I couldn't think of anyone who would need this gift more than a Parkinson's patient, as their dopamine-producing brain cells re deteriorating with every passing moment. You understand how Parkinson's affects the brain, correct?"
I nodded, slightly irritated with his patronizing demeanor.
“So, are you saying that Charlotte has Parkinson’s?” I pressed, turning away from the doctor and looking back at the girl. She sat in the middle of the containment center with her legs to her chest and her chin pressed atop her knees. Her mouth was curled downwards. She looked pitifully miserable, nearing cowardly. I began to wonder if she had any idea that she'd come out of Dr. Raj's trials looking like that. I almost felt sorry for the thing.
“No, sir. She doesn’t. Not anymore.”
About the Author...
Hannes Duncan is a senior studying creative writing at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. He is the Senior Genre Editor of Élan Literary Magazine and a co-director of the writing department’s annual collaborative showcase, Coffee House. He is an avid sci-fi writer and enjoys poetry of all kinds. Besides writing, he also has affinities for music and photography.
About the Artist...
Stefani Thomas is a 12th grade Visual Artist at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She primarily works in the mediums of drawing and painting, where she expresses herself through bright colors and flowing patterns.