Students file into Ms. Anesidora Anthro-genetics class. Huddled in small groups they whisper amongst themselves. “She’s in this class.” “I heard she’s stuck here, something about her home being quarantined!” “No way!”
Sitting, sullenly, in the amphitheater Orion hands his data-pad to Adria. “Here Adria, your going to need the Course Material for this class.”
“Well that wasn’t so hard, Orion. You can be a nice guy. After this I’m starving, your going to take me to a place to eat.” Said with a sly grin.
Professor Anesidora standing in front of her class loudly gathers there attention. “Class! I see we have a new student and I’m sure you’ve all had the chance to meet her but we have a great deal of material to cover.”
“Currently we are looking at genetic history as a determinate of planetary origin. Mardian DNA for instance is full of artificial manipulation but a picture can be drawn of the original planet type they hailed from before coming to this galaxy.”
Class continues on in this fashion until the requisite hour passes and the class files out on to their next course.
“Orion, are you, Vandia, and Ayden free this evening? I have acquired some very old DNA and plan to break it down this evening.” Orion maneuvers around his fellow class mates towards Professor Anesidora.
“I’m sure they can make time, what’s up?”
Adria follows Orion, a annoyed look on her face. Thinking to herself, “Make time? He’s going to take me around town! At least he is when I tell him to do it.”
Anesidora looking at Adria, speaks to Orion. “Who is your friend? She’s the Gravball star, right?”
Orion glances at Adria. “Oh, ya. I got stuck showing her around.” With an annoyed look, straight at her. “I had no idea she had my exact schedule.”
Adria ignores Orion and with renewed interest in the conversation. “Professor, can I join you in this experiment. I don’t have much to do, and would love to learn more about Anthro-genetics.”
“I guess it would be ok, but my work is highly confidential while I formulate the theory for intellectual property protection. You are ok with that?” Anesidora looks at Adria with a deadly serious look, who responds with a nod.
Hours pass and Professor Anesidora is working in her lab. Her thoughts race as she prepares a Black cube about 7” across all sides. “Boltar is an idiot. I dislike bypassing a traditional research approach but cloning this DNA isn’t going to get the results I need. His only interest is profit, and he won’t see the bigger picture.
She hears the electronic look activate and her students enter the lab. Vandia, Ayden, Orion, and Adria gather around her work bench. Vandia eagerly asks “Prof. what do you have going on! Sounds important.”
Anesidora reveals the black cube to her students. “This is, what's so important.”
“Adria, since you are new to the planet you probably don't know much about the discovery. This planet was chosen for colonization for two reasons. One, it's location on a new hyper-space route and two it's viability for AIRGEN's revolutionary terraforming technology. Nearly all geological surveys showed this planet to be uninhabited. Much later we discovered that this planet was inhabited once, a very long time ago. Starting around 500,000 years ago, up to 75,000 years ago when the inhabitants disappeared. The structures we found were preserved in ice glaciers, leaving a monument to a lost civilization.”
Anesidora continued. “We of course tried to identify the inhabitants, they left quite an extensive visual library of themselves. But, this latest discovery places humanoid life forms in the city we found. It might explain why the city was just abandoned spontaneously by it inhabitants.”
Orion inquisitively asks. “What does that have to do with the Black Cube.”
“We are going to resurrect one of these ancient humanoids!”
Ayden looks at the box with horrific realization. This box is an NPC Box from Game Sphere. How it works no one really knows but the dangerous part is not it's function. They are incredibly illegal outside of Game Sphere. The corporation actually hunts down any lost cubes, and is very efficient. Not mention the dangerous people on has to deal with just to get it. Ayden thinks to himself “This is bad.”
Orion, Vandia, and Adria look at each other, the cryptic nature of this conversation leaves him no choice but to ask. “Prof. what are you talking about? Are you cloning this thing? Don’t we already have the equipment to do that?”
“This isn’t a cloning process, per say. The DNA found at the dig site is old, very old. The first analysis I perform showed it was Exo-Galactic, meaning they were not natives to this galaxy.
Adria... “Wait, Exo what?”
The Professor continues. “Other planets in this galaxy show the same signs of sudden disappearance. I believe something from another galaxy caused these events and these beings at the dig site very well could have followed it here. Unlikely, but possible.”
Anesidora takes the cube to a cadaver table and places the preserved DNA into it. The Cub seems to absorb the entire vial as if the sides were liquid themselves. Long seconds pass as nothing happens, but suddenly the cub begins to unfold, and get larger until a coffin like box sits upon the table. With a woosh of steam it opens and a figure begins to climb out.
As she emerges she grows in size! Tables are knock over, equipment crashes, containers shatter. The chaos causes the observers to scatter to the walls. The giant crouches in this confined space, her naked form proves she is humanoid in the Akkadian and Thracian standard.
An angry voice erupts from this giant. “Were am I? More importantly were is the Blood-Drinker! It’s death cannot come swiftly enough.”