The Genesis Project (2 page)

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23 Rotations (Years) Later

“Why do we do this?” Vaggo asked.

“To ensure the survival of our species father.”

“That's correct Genesis.” Vaggo kissed the top of his daughter's head. There was no one like her. All of his experiments had been successful, but none of them had produced the same results or likeness that she had. Genesis was the only one with her particular coloring and skill set. Her body healed rapidly at an amazing rate
and
her learning skills were without bounds. She had stopped showing signs of aging on her twenty third rotation and Vaggo had done numerous cell counts and found that her cells were reproducing at a rapid rate, while destroying the old cells she no longer needed. Resulting in the ability to keep her body in top form. Her stem cells reproduced at a staggering rate, almost unimaginable if he had not seen the results himself. Vaggo had stopped using her as a donor within the last three rotations, especially when he couldn't replicate her rapid cell regeneration patterns. It was something that had pleased Genesis to no end. She hated being prodded with needles.

Vaggo educated her in all things and she had far exceeded anyone of her caliber, or his. He'd kept her home so that she wouldn't be singled out and made fun of. The council had no idea
that
she was the product of one of his creations. Genesis hadn't been exposed to many of the social customs that were considered normal, but what scientist was? She was most happy in the lab, coming up with new and inventive ideas to further the species. A.I. was her friend and confidant. Vaggo had held off for as long as he could, but now that there was positive proof the species would survive and thrive in this new environment the earth had created, it was time.

Vaggo handed Genesis her supplement injections and her clothing pack. The council saw her as a mutation, but Vaggo quickly squashed their concerns by telling them her blood was not sustainable by nutrient intake and that was her reason for taking the supplement injections. To the council she was seen as a weak link. They never paid too close
attention
to Genesis as long as Vaggo kept them happy with his latest and greatest developments in Project Harvest. Genesis injected her first set of supplements into her thigh and tossed the vial into the trash receptacle.

“Do not drink from any source of supplements, other than what I've provided you with. I will send you more on a weekly basis.”

Genesis nodded her head in agreement and checked her clothing pack.

“Don't forget about your food allergen. Remember, only hydroponically grown sustenance for you.”

“Yes father, I won't forget.”

Vaggo laughed as his daughter now
kissed
the top of his head and bounded down the hall to the stairs where she would meet with the Chancellor's son Adam. She was an adult now, Genesis had bloomed into a beautiful and brilliant woman. She was perfect in every sense.
Well except for her social skills.
Those were still lacking but Vaggo knew she would quickly pick the social customs and adapt. It was part of her molecular make up and because of the Nuero-technology she could absorb new customs quickly. He pulled out the hallo-pic he'd taken of her just the other day. Long, silky, lustrous hair was bright against her honey-almond skin tone. She was a sculptor's most prized subject with her ageless beauty and classic lines. She was his daughter, and his best creation all rolled into one. He couldn't have asked the Moon Goddess herself for something more precious.

Vaggo
sat in his chair and placed both hands on the table as he waited for his rapidly beating heart to slow down. No one would suspect she was anything less or more than what she really was. An anomaly, with southern hemisphere-like qualities. He'd told the council he'd had a joining with a southerner, and for his transgressions, he'd been told she must attend Academy. He was reluctant to let her go, but his choices had been limited. Either she go and join the ranks of the other citizens or be put to death. Genesis was his daughter in every way that mattered, and even though the decision had already been made to enroll her into the Academy, he knew it was the best thing for her and for him. He was working later now and he couldn't allow her to join in on this leg of the journey. She wouldn't understand and he didn't know how to explain it. The test subjects were
getting
harder and harder to resist. Taking what was needed from Gen seemed wrong, she too was perfect, too different. There was no one else like her.

Every other test subject had failed where she had excelled, but their outcomes had all produced the desired effect, survival of the species. Each subject could rejuvenate at a rapid capacity, and by doing so it was the perfect answer to keep the species way of life, their
only
way of life alive. Soon, he'd be able to introduce his work into the general population.

The supplements only went so far for his kind. Their strength had been dwindling for more years than he cared to count and as a result, his people had begun to suffer tremendous side effects. Making his kind more susceptible to germs and in the early
time
of colonization they hadn't been able to overcome the simplest of human disease, especially after the second Uni-war. But now there was hope, after so many loses, after so many trials and errors, things were starting to improve.

There were others of his kind that didn't agree with what Vaggo was trying to do for his kind. They called him cruel and insensitive. They'd argued that humans were more than able to live amicably with them. But had that been the case, there would have been no reason for any of the Universal Wars. Studying their human ancestors from afar had only showed him they would never be able to evolve and embrace their way of life. But still, he'd tried to make the humans see reason. Help them understand that they came in peace. They'd come, not to take over, but to save them from
themselves.
Their planet had been in poor condition, uninhabitable even. The travel to Earth alone had taken a toll on the first wave of settlers. Vaggo had even taken a human mate. Lora had been everything to him but in the end, because of their differences, he'd lost her. Right on the cusp of discovering a way for them to be together long term, he'd lost her to disease. Then the first Uni-war had broken out and there were major devastations on both sides. Earth had become ground zero. Sustaining so much damage, even humans couldn't live in its environment. Some had escaped off planet while other's remained behind, in an attempt to fix Earth's problem. Vaggo stayed behind as well, desperately wanting to fix his ancestral home. All life started from Gaia, Mother Earth. She sent her seeds far and wide across the known and unknown universes, and for her blessings they'd destroyed her and her
sister,
The Moon Goddess. What was left of the moon now caused serious eye irritation and blindness if proper precautions weren't taken. Cosmic dust from the moon's surface was deadly.

It had been complete chaos during the United Federations of the Universe's second Uni-war. Agreements were broken and treaties were put into place to stop the resulting fallouts. The U.F.U had banned the return to Earth, and those few humans that had escaped were sent to Sanctuary to live out the rest of their days. They were not allowed to reproduce, nor was their DNA code stored on the U.F.U's Regeneration planet. Humans were now extinct. U.F.U hadn't cared that the ending result would be death to their kind, as the one nutrient needed had been rendered obsolete. There were rogue humans who still lived within the solar
system
on neighboring planets, but they would never make the journey home to what was now called New Earth. Dr. Blackmore long assumed that they too were now extinct as their DNA code was only matched for cross-breeding with his kind. Humans despised their ancestors and made their contempt universally known. Vampires as they were called, but Pars to everyone else. Pars had been a term given to them by the Celestrial's. They were a neutral faction that only became involved with U.F.U business when no solutions were in sight. They were ethereal creatures with ghost like qualities, and voices that could lull you to your death, if necessary. There were other Pars out there, parasitic in nature. Beings that lived off another breathing host in order to survive.
To every myth lies the truth.
They'd been given the term, not because they needed their host to survive, but because they had
become
gluttonous in their nature. Over-feeding and over-indulging in the pleasures of the skin. There had been trials that had lasted multiple rotations in the earlier times of their species discovery.

But when their planet had gone through a rotational transition, they'd suffered greatly. All planets went through a transitional phase. This was when the planet revived itself and restocked its nutrients. On Vaggo's home planet, blood was abundant. But when the planet transitioned, the blood had dried up, causing their kind to go in search of an alternate substitute. What they found was on Earth. So alike their two species, they found that they were closely related and crossbreeding compatible, but with a much shorter life capacity. The humans were the perfect solution to their fast growing problem. When they first
settled,
they'd been welcomed with open arms. Given land and worshiped. But at the turn of one of their most brutal centuries, things rapidly changed. War had broken out across several territories in a struggle for power. Vlad Tepes of House Drãculești committed horrible crimes against the humans. His great-great, grandfather had been the catalyst to start the first Uni-War. Then came the second, and now, Earth thousands of years later, was still recovering.

Vaggo sighed as he watched Genesis on the vid-screen as she waited for Adam Reynard, the Chancellor's son. Genesis Blackmore was now the first and last surviving human on what was now New Earth. She was the upgraded version of course, but still human. He'd given the council everything and now they wanted his daughter. She'd go to
Academy
and then return after his official test trials to resume her place by his side, in the lab. If they knew what she really was, they'd kill him and she would either be ushered off to Sanctuary like the other humans had been, or worse, experimented on. His work was secret, and the only way that the council had agreed to test trials was due to his solemn promise that the subjects were cloned mutations with no souls. Gen, definitely had a soul.

They had their harvested humans, sure, but they were not living breathing humans. They were kept in meat lockers and harvested for the one thing they all needed to survive- blood. Letting Genesis go to the Academy was the only way for him to continue his work, and keep her safe. She'd tested well enough and she only needed one rotation at the Academy. Where other's her age would be starting their first
rotation
and continuing until they were graduates, she only needed one full rotational cycle. He'd told the council she was his daughter from an unwedded union between himself and another faction from the south tier of the planet. Vyrkolakas' skin was darker and their eyes varied in color, and Vaggo knew they wouldn't investigate his claims as they considered southerners vile and barbaric. Back on their home planet, Vyrkolakas had been shunned for their darker skin tone, and when they'd settled on Earth, they'd moved to Macedonia which was now part of what use to be called Greece. They were divided by the hemisphere. Northern and Southern. The council accepted his excuse and part of their stipulation for Vaggo having an unsanctioned child was for her to go to the Academy like the rest of the maturing adults. Genesis would be
home
every lunar cycle and then again at harvest. The Chancellor's son Adam was escorting her and would set her up to be acceptable in all the social circles. No one would suspect anything other than the obvious. She was different, and naturally they'd assume she was from the Southern Hemisphere.

Chapter
2

Gen stepped out into the night air and smiled. This was the first time she was going to meet Adam Reynard, son to Chancellor Reynard. She'd only seen him on the vid-screens, but what she saw, she wasn't overly impressed with. He was careless and well known for his nefarious behavior toward the female species. He was also known for his tardiness. He'd be late to his own mating ceremony if given the chance.

She was going to the Academy and wasn't going to let her father down. The solar panels were closing as the lunar panels were being engaged when Adam pulled up on his lunar bike. Her father had explained that prior to the Uni-wars, automobiles and
motor-
bikes all ran on crude oils or natural fuel, but now everything was powered by the sun and what was left of the moon. New Earth was slowing trying to heal herself.

The little electricity and hard materials that were accessible was for the elite, and the elite consisted of the Chancellor and the Genetics Council and their families. Lowly scientist who gave back to their community like her father had their electricity and water rationed. Gen made the best of what was given to her and as long as her lab time wasn't interrupted she wasn't going to complain. She loved working in the lab with her father.

The sound of the lunar bike was loud and hurt her sensitive ears. She winced a bit and coughed on the cosmic plume of dust that choked out of his bike. Adam Reynard could care
less
about Earth's atmosphere it seemed, and neither did the Chancellor. Her father choosing Adam as her escort was a bad decision on his part, but she would go along with her father's wishes. Vaggo Blackmore did not make decisions unless there was a valid reason or an acceptable outcome.

“We are going to be late.” Gen said, taking the steps two at a time. Her pack was full of supplements and her clothing gear was safely stored in her backpack. Having to carry them both would prove to be a bit of a challenge, but she couldn't take nutrients from the source like everyone else did. Her nutrients were packed with vitamins and other types of herbs that her father concocted, because she was unable to drink from the source. The source were Pars that were able to drink from one another, after injecting themselves with genetically made albumin that acted as
the
bloods main source of nutrients, giving Pars a way to sustain life. In the recent years her father had perfected different flavors, to make it more appealing to others when they took the blood. Her father explained that although the albumin was genetically manufactured, it kept all Pars alive. It didn't have the same euphoric feeling as taking from a human that was thrumming with life, but it solved a problem. To be able to take from a pure source while the heart still beat was more alluring and appealing than any Par could imagine. She wouldn't tell her father, but the thought of taking straight from the vein scared her. Because she was lab born, she'd developed allergies to human blood as a result of not being in the womb to receive her host's antibodies that would have made her immune and able to drink from the source. She knew she wasn't truly a Par, but something else.