The Flame of Prometheus (The Prometheus Project Book 1), page 39
It wiggled.
Curious, I plucked it from the bust and placed it in the palm of my hand. I heard a faint click and before I could look up from the golden pea plant, the back wall of the fireplace had vanished. It was replaced by a dark hallway gently lit with blue LED lights that hung from the ceiling.
I glanced down at the pea plant that I held in my hand, then back up at the peculiar hallway. My pulse thumped against my eardrums, making it difficult to hear if anyone was in the hallway.
I could put the plant back, I thought, taking a deep breath. I could put the plant back and hope that it will close the door. Then I could come back on a different day to explore. A different time that isn’t during my engagement party.
I fingered the small plant and lifted the tiny golden branch.
You don’t know if you will get another chance, Red.
The Osoufs were occupied with almost two hundred people in their home.
Surely, no one would sneak off to their study during such an event.
Then again, that was how I ended up in the study.
But what could the Osoufs possibly have to hide?
Freyja and Erebus were two of the most influential people in the Coalition. Each of them was probably the most influential person in their field, and they had a secret corridor in one of their studies.
If there wasn’t a secret to the Coalition I could access through this corridor, there was no way I would be able to access any secrets whatsoever.
And if this was Freyja’s study…
The Prometheus Project.
I took one glance behind me, tucked the pea plant into the tight waistline of my dress, and took a deep breath.
A light thud startled me into a jump as the door shut behind me. My stomach dropped. I thought about turning back, trying the door by pushing, or rummaging around in the dim light for a handle or switch—Skies, it was tempting—but the secrets at the end of this tunnel seemed to call to me, propelling me forward one soft clap of a heel at a time.
The corridor smelled of mildew and wet rocks, and humidity hung heavy in the air. The dampness made my hair and dress stick uncomfortably to my skin. The tunnel was constructed of cold, hard concrete that was rough yet slick to the touch. Along the corridor was an iron railing on each side and I clung tightly to the right, afraid that if I let go of the cold metal rod, I would be consumed by the dark abyss surrounding me. The blue lights were few and far between, casting ominous shadows along the walls and floor. The corridor continued down in a gentle slope, twisting around and around until finally it bottomed out. A ray door stood at the Base, glowing white.
A white door? I’ve never seen a white ray-door!
I glanced down at my forearm where my chip was implanted. I knew I had access to all colors, but white wasn’t a color. It was white. The absence of color. Just as black was the culmination of all colors. I glanced back to the white ray-door.
I slammed a fist against the railing and the reverberation echoed around me and all the way up through the metal rod. I got myself stuck down here for nothing?
I could try to go through, and if I set off an alarm, I could just lie. I could say I was looking for a place to rejuvenate, I stumbled into the study, fiddled with the busts, and the door opened. Who wouldn’t have ventured down a strange tunnel that was hidden behind a fireplace? I was curious. No harm no foul. And who knows—getting caught might be the only way I can get out of this damned cavern.
I closed my eyes. I breathed deeply, filling my chest, willing the oxygen to fuel my brain—to give me another option. I thought about the chip wand. I activated my chip for all the doors. For the rainbow. And when all the colors of light come together…
I opened my eyes to stare directly into the blinding white light. Releasing a deep breath and relaxing my shoulders, I stepped through the ray-door.
Nothing.
No debilitating shock, no alarm or spikes shooting from each side of the corridor. No ring of fire engulfing my body in flames.
I glanced behind me.
No pack of mutant wolves stampeding down the hallway to devour me. I breathed deeply again, and I felt my racing heart slow. When I turned back around, I faced the room the white ray-door was protecting. It was dark, only the faint glow of small emergency lights peeking through the void, but as I took a few more steps into the room, one by one the lights flickered on. It took only a moment for my eyes to readjust to the ancient fluorescent lighting, the same lights the Resistance Base had, though I had never seen fluorescents in Excelsis. When I looked around, I found just what I was hoping for.
A laboratory.
Honestly, I was hoping Freyja wouldn’t be so cliché, but there are some things that people are just drawn to, and I guess scientists are drawn to secret labs like mice are drawn to cheese. But this wasn’t an ordinary biology lab. There were no beakers or centrifuges; I did not see a bio-hood, nanoscale, or any steel incubators. But there was a lone stainless-steal desk polished to a shine, and perched above the desk was one big, long holo-screen.
With two taps to my right temple, I glided over to the desk to get a closer look, the bottom of my dress feeling damp and heavy. The holo-screen was curved and divided into six different sections with six different feeds. I watched strangers moving about, carrying on with their lives like they were in fact not being monitored.
“Who are you watching, Freyja?” I whispered into the darkness.
Before I could get a good look at the faces on the screen, something flat and utterly plain caught my eye. On the desk, next to a COM-tab, were paper files. Dozens of almond-colored file folders were scattered throughout the desktop. My fingers edged toward the smooth paper products, but I stopped short, not wanting to disturb the unkemptness, nor leave my fingerprints.
This could be your only chance, Red, a small voice in my head whispered.
Carefully, I picked through the papers. I glanced at the file tabs, searching for anything familiar, and there it was, all the way to the far right of the desk, and tucked under a paper notebook was a file labeled: “Prometheus Project.” I shimmied it out from under the notebook, careful not to disturb anything, and opened the file.
Empty.
“Of fucking course.” I slammed the file shut before sliding it back into its original spot. I glanced around the room. I can’t possibly rummage through all of this crap! Not only did I not have the time, but there was no possible way I could return everything back to its exact placement in the room. Though, it’s not like everything is meticulously organized. Would Freyja really be able to tell if things were slightly moved?
Then I thought of Metis. He would have called this lab ‘organized chaos.’ It may look like three tornados ran through here, I heard his grumbling voice in my head. But I know exactly where everything is.
And he did. He always did. However, I didn’t pin Dr. Freyja Osouf as the ‘organized chaos’ type. It seemed oddly uncharacteristic of her personal profile.
I turned back to the COM-tab on the desk. Maybe all the paper files have already been transferred… With a tap of my finger, the device opened up to its home screen right away. Dr. Freyja Osouf must be pretty freaking confident in her secret passage and white ray-door. Most COM-tabs I had come in contact with only opened up to the owners’ fingerprints or facial recognition.
I flicked three fingers up on the screen to project a holo image in the air. I searched the COM-tab for any files containing the words ‘Prometheus Project.’ Only one file popped up, but it was a folder holding nearly five hundred terabytes of information. I double-tapped the file.
Folder locked. Please enter passcode.
“And I thought this was going to be easy,” I sighed.
I worked my fingers across the holo feed. Freyja is the best
The feed shook. ‘Password incorrect’ flashed in red letters.
Freyja is a genius
Nope.
Laurunda is a whore
No.
I slammed my fist on the desk. I could be here forever trying to figure this out!
Another message scrolled across the screen. ‘Hint is available. Would you like to use the Hint?’
“Yes!” I practically screamed as I pressed the hint button.
The hint appeared in blue letters on the holo feed. ‘Tucked deeply in the woods…’
WHAT. THE. FUCK. I wanted to grab the COM-tab and chuck it against the wall. Freyja’s house looks like a whole Skies-damned magical forest! This hint could literally mean anything! I leaned my hands on the table, dropping my gaze to stare at the outdated COM-tab.
Outdated COM-tab. It was bulkier than the most recent ones, and the screen was opaque, not the clear fiberglass like all the others I had seen. It was clearly decades old.
What if this isn’t Freyja’s COM-tab?
I racked my brain. “Okay, Dad…” I sat in the desk chair. “What is tucked deeply in the woods?”
The Shed? No. He wouldn’t have had the Shed when he started this project. But he could have changed the password when he started preparing for us to leave.
I typed in the word ‘Shed’
‘Incorrect Password’
I worked my fingers against the holo image, when my ring caught my eye, the gems glittering in the light. I cocked my head, remembering something.
Ring. I typed.
‘Incorrect Password’
The Ring, I tried again.
‘Incorrect Password’
I roared, my agony echoing around the room as the rumble bounced off the solid stone walls. I studied the ring again, something deep in my gut, screaming that I was so close. I took it off. The engraving on the inside caught my eye.
A spark to light the flame
With a deep breath, I typed the words onto the holo feed.
And the folder opened.
CHAPTER 38
The folder held hundreds of documents, videos, holos, graphs, charts, and other files. Just by scrolling over the image, I could see how large the document was, who created it, and when it was created.
“Dad?” I whispered after opening one of the many files created by Dr. Janus Darrow, and in the first time since I was a child, I saw his face again. He was a lot younger in the video, eyes bright with curiosity and blonde hair neatly combed.
“Prometheus Project. The date is September twelfth, twenty-two ninety-four.” His voice was softer than I remembered. It was almost pure. Innocent.
Twenty-two ninety-four. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-five years old.
“Dr. Osouf and I ran the sims last night, and when we arrived this morning, they looked very promising. Data file is attached.”
A file popped up in the right corner of the holo feed. I almost tapped it, curious about what it contained, but I couldn’t say goodbye to my father just yet.
“We are running the gene printer right now. It’s our eleventh time using the machine, and it is still so fascinating to watch. The gene printer works similarly to the technological age’s three-dimensional printer but at a much more precise level. It literally takes the building blocks of life—nucleotides—and builds an entire genome from them. Of course, we can’t see the DNA being built with the naked eye, so we use the nano-cams attached to the device to track the progress. The process is long. It will take the next two days, but after that, we will insert the genome into a human egg that was donated. My companion here—” My father gestured to Freyja in the background. She, too, was much younger and full of hope, though I could still see something in her eyes that didn’t settle right in my stomach, almost like a shadow. “—assured me the egg was harvested from a superior specimen. Of course, we will be extracting the DNA within the ovum. Then, we will insert two new strands of DNA or a full chromosomal set of a human genome. And that is the tricky part.
“For an unknown reason, sometimes the genome and eggs are not compatible. Currently, Dr. Osouf is researching the key to egg and genome compatibility. We think it has something to do with nuclear protein alignment and attachment, but we are not sure. Hopefully, we will find something within the next week or two if this experiment fails again.”
They are creating humans. From scratch. My father was building human genomes and creating human beings from those genomes.
The holos of the Prometheans ran through my mind. Their speed. Their strength. Their red hair.
A chill crept down my spine.
The video feed ended, and I felt empty again. My heart throbbed, desiring more of my father.
I clicked on another video file. Then another. And another. Most of them were the same—a small brief of the research my father and Freyja were working on and problems that needed to be addressed.
I was beginning to think my father’s project was a failure when I clicked on a video the year I was born.
“Prometheus Project. February eighth, twenty-three thousand and three.” My father looked fifteen years older, though only nine years had passed. His eyes were dim, with dark circles ringing them, and his hair was a mess, like he was continually scratching at a problem in his Cerebral Cortex in an attempt to coax the solutions from the lobe. “This is the one thousand and twenty-fifth time we have run our gene printer. We are noticing that the more we use it, the more mutations occur in the genome we create, essentially ruining our designed DNA.
“Some appear to be small superficial attributes, but other instances included coding for extra limbs, infertility, diabetes, and other physical deformities or genetic impurities. We have not had a human embryo breach the first trimester as of yet, despite promising simulations.”
My father ran a hand through his untidy hair, reminding me of Callum. “This project has really been testing my patience, and it has been worrying my colleagues.” His voice was a low rasp. “Dr. Metis Barnes is worried that I am creating Frankenstein’s monster, but I don’t think he was referring to the project.” My father sighed. “Maybe he is right.” He ran another hand through his graying hair, though it did nothing to tidy the matted mess. “After this trial, it might be best to retire the project. Either all together or attack it from a different angle, I don’t know. I did try a few new algorithms to perfect binding the DNA to the egg and to limit the rejection of the DNA from the zygote to a developing blastocyst, but we are struggling to get the blastocyst to implant within the artificial womb. Somehow, the hormonal signals are not matching up, but we do not yet know if it is a problem with the artificial womb or with the blastocyst.” My father rubbed his face with a hand and laughed to himself. “Who knew creating a human could be this complicated? Maybe we should just stick to the old-fashioned way.” The video clicked off.
I opened another holo video from a few months later.
My father looked drastically different. He was nearly glowing, and the dark, purple circles that had previously shadowed his face were faded—there was a sparkle in his blue eyes. “Prometheus Project. May eleventh, twenty-three thousand and three. One-zero-two-five has made it past the first trimester and is thriving. She is growing at an above-average rate compared to ‘normal’ human babies.” My father hooked his fingers in the air to show quotation marks. “But nothing that is alarming. And boy,”—he ran a hand through his hair and smiled—“she is beautiful. I have never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life.” Dad moved the holo-cam over to zoom in on an odd aquarium-looking thing. It must have been their womb simulator because floating in the spherical glass was a small fetus. It was attached to the simulator wall with a placenta. Like normal babies, its toes and fingers were flexing like it was actually alive.
Because it was, I reminded myself.
“There are sensors all around the artificial womb,” my father continued, “and they give us hourly readings on one-zero-two-five to check her HCG levels, cellular division, nutritional absorption rates, heart rate, and movement capabilities. Basically, the only thing the womb simulator can’t do is read electrical impulses from the brain. However, we can gather rudimentary brain information from the movement capabilities and her responses to certain stimuli.” My father moved the camera back to his face. In the last video I saw, he had grown a grungy-looking beard. Now, he still had the beard, but it was neatly groomed, resembling more of the father I grew up with.
“Data gathered so far is attached.” A file popped up in the bottom right corner of the holo feed for a brief moment before the video stopped, and the holo image returned to the Prometheus Project File screen.
I opened up a video titled: ‘Birth of One-Zero-Two-Five’
“Today’s the day!” My father’s face popped up in the three-dimensional holo video in front of me, a wide grin peeking out from under his beard.
“Janus!” Freyja scolded him in the background.
“Oh, right. Sorry.” He ran a hand over his beard. “Prometheus Project. November second, twenty-three thousand and three. One-Zero-Two-Five is at thirty-nine weeks, but all of our sensors and data indicate she is ready for delivery.” My father panned the camera over to the artificial womb. “We have Dr. Osouf, Dr. Barnes, and Dr. Oliver, an actual physician, here today to assist in delivery.” Dad took a few steps closer to all the doctors.
“Dr. Osouf will be taking written notes on her COM-tab, Dr. Barnes will be recording, and I will be assisting Dr. Oliver in the delivery. Of course, this will be very different from a normal human delivery…”
“But hopefully just as easy,” Dr. Oliver, a bald young man, chimed in.
My father handed the holo-cam over to Metis. “Theoretically, but this is uncharted territory, Dr. Oliver.” Dad started to pull on medic scrubs over his clothes. “We do have to take sanitary precautions because the baby’s immune system is still elementary. However, unlike natural births, we do not have to worry about the health of a mother in this situation.”
As soon as my father and Dr. Oliver were gloved and masked, they approached the synthetic womb. They turned the sphere so the opening was toward the tiled floor, and with a quick jab, Dr. Oliver popped the synthetic amniotic sac, fluids flowing onto the laboratory floor, and the baby slid down with it, landing in the arms of my father. He wrapped the screaming baby girl in a soft towel and gently started to pat her dry. My father’s eyes grew wide and wet with tears as he dried the baby’s hair, and when he pulled the towel away from her head, I finally noticed the color of the child’s hair.
