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skonen_bladesWe had successfully made a new species. Just in time, too, because there were only six thousand humans left.
I call us human but that’s a pretty loose definition. We were mostly failing antibiotics, artificial limbs, enhanced organs, filters and cancer. The bits of flesh that still clung to our losing battle were gangrenous and reeking.
None of us were over thirteen years old. Puberty was becoming more and more of a death sentence. The hormones and body-wide changes gave most of the sicknesses what they needed to bloom faster than we could treat them.
By downloading to the implants in our heads, we could extrapolate and build on the theories of the ones who had come before us. We were rotting dwarves on respirators piecing together a survival strategy using information from the last five generations of scientists.
It was clear to us that we didn’t have enough to time to colonize a new planet or reverse the damage on this one in time to save ourselves.
The plan we came up was to create a species that could thrive here. It would be a self-replicating race of caretakers that would keep us safe for thousands of years and then revive us when it was safe.
This new race would soak up radiation to keep warm like plants use sunlight. They would live off of plastic, and exhale oxygen. They would drink the contaminated water of this planet and piss out pure H2O. They’d break down the unbreakable with their stomachs. What they left behind would be fresh.
They’d press rewind on what we’d done. Even we would be eaten. We’d sent out genetic blueprints in cryogenic storage into space in a stable orbit that would last for six thousand years.
The idea was that this race that we had created would achieve space-faring capability and find this lonely satellite. They’d see who we were and wake us up.
Their own planet would be polluted by air too fresh for them to breathe and water too pure for them to drink.
We’d work something out and tag-team this planet between us over millennia.
I turned on the first creature. The other scientists and I sighed as it whirred to life. Soon we would be dead but humanity would live.
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I call us human but that’s a pretty loose definition. We were mostly failing antibiotics, artificial limbs, enhanced organs, filters and cancer. The bits of flesh that still clung to our losing battle were gangrenous and reeking.
None of us were over thirteen years old. Puberty was becoming more and more of a death sentence. The hormones and body-wide changes gave most of the sicknesses what they needed to bloom faster than we could treat them.
By downloading to the implants in our heads, we could extrapolate and build on the theories of the ones who had come before us. We were rotting dwarves on respirators piecing together a survival strategy using information from the last five generations of scientists.
It was clear to us that we didn’t have enough to time to colonize a new planet or reverse the damage on this one in time to save ourselves.
The plan we came up was to create a species that could thrive here. It would be a self-replicating race of caretakers that would keep us safe for thousands of years and then revive us when it was safe.
This new race would soak up radiation to keep warm like plants use sunlight. They would live off of plastic, and exhale oxygen. They would drink the contaminated water of this planet and piss out pure H2O. They’d break down the unbreakable with their stomachs. What they left behind would be fresh.
They’d press rewind on what we’d done. Even we would be eaten. We’d sent out genetic blueprints in cryogenic storage into space in a stable orbit that would last for six thousand years.
The idea was that this race that we had created would achieve space-faring capability and find this lonely satellite. They’d see who we were and wake us up.
Their own planet would be polluted by air too fresh for them to breathe and water too pure for them to drink.
We’d work something out and tag-team this planet between us over millennia.
I turned on the first creature. The other scientists and I sighed as it whirred to life. Soon we would be dead but humanity would live.
tags