“Why did he have to work in the animal wing?” The elevator dinged and the doors opened to the serene and sterile walls of the Animal Testing Wing. The floors and walls were coated in a silver-steel alloy. Fifth floor, room one-eight-five—far down the hall. Each room that he passed had one door, a small porthole for seeing inside. Most rooms contained a messy assortment of autopsies, surgeries, and some less horrid things. He wondered what his friend could have possibly been so ecstatic about as to call him to his room.

  Twelve minutes of walking in silence, other than his own footsteps. Every room was soundproofed to protect anyone who didn’t want to hear the sounds of ‘testing.’ But he finally reached the office of Dr. Stimple.

  His knocks were met with silence, the soundproofing seemed to work both ways. “Dr. Stimple?” He spoke into his wrist unit, “This is Dr. Pike, I’m here, but you seem to have locked the door on me.” There were incoherent mutterings from the other end of the speaker, which were followed by the hiss of the pneumatic doors opening in front of Dr. Pike. In the doorway stood a short man with only the suggestion of hair remaining on his head. “Afternoon doc, what brings you down here?” His chuckles filled every inch of the room and hallway behind Dr. Pike.

  “You tell me, bud. You made me schlep all the way down here. You made mice go through a maze? Better make-up for monkeys?” The shorter man scoffed and beckoned Dr. Pike in. “Far better than that ‘computer god’ you electron pushers are making up there.” He was answered with an eyeroll.

  He stepped through the doorway, and it slid closed behind him. The stagnant air inside enveloped him, heavy and sour, and his stomach tightened. His short friend had several corpses piled in the corner. The smell was sweet, metallic, and wrong—like warm pennies left in milk. Some of the skulls were cleanly opened, others splintered, as if practice had improved the hand but not the conscience. One of the bodies twitched when the ventilation kicked on, not alive—just settling.

  “What—what in the name of God is that thing?” Dr. Pike pointed at the animal. It looked like a sheep that had been mangled by a pack of rabid surgeons. The top of its head was missing like the others, but also was missing all of its legs, with crude bionics in place of them, and was heavily bandaged all over. “That—that is my life’s work, Dr. Pike. Her name is Dolly.”

  He approached the experiment, and was almost nuzzling it with how close he got. “Are you ready for my demonstration?” Dr. Stimple had finished adjusting something on the sheep’s helmet—though it looked more like a torture device from a pulpy movie. The sheep tried to stand. Its bloodshot eyes trying to focus on Dr. Pike. Its mouth spasmed and jutted in uneven, unnatural angles. Spittle dripping from toothless gaps. “What is it that you’re trying to demonstrate to me, Bill—How quickly you can make me lose my lunch? What is that thing? Why is that thing!?” A perverse smile crept across Dr. Stimple’s face. “Progress in the relationship between man, and the subservient beasts of the Earth, Rich.” Dr. Stimple left the side of the quivering monster, and stood behind a set of control panels. “Now, are you ready?”

  “I do not know, because I am not sure what I am about to see. But—I guess you may go ahead with your presentation. I did come all the way here to see it.” Dr. Pike was told to stand behind the control panel for his own safety. He watched from over Dr. Stimple’s shoulder as he entered into the computer terminal a set of commands in a highly primitive coding language by his own assessment. But when the program was set to run, he found it to be nothing short of barbaric.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The sheep’s eyes glazed over, and it no longer struggled to rise. The crude bionics carried it forward across the room. First in a hesitant, jilting movement. Then in a strict march-like pattern, and then it turned and plotted back to where it had been. The thing itself made no noise, but the dry whine of the bionic servos filled the air. Small drips of brown liquid leaking from around their seams. It sat on its rear like a dog and stayed there, fixing an unnerving stare towards both of the men. “So, what do you think?” Dr. Stimple looked up at the other man, who could not look back. His eyes were locked into a staring match against the sheep. Dr. Pike’s mouth opened, then closed. His hands flexed uselessly at his sides, as if trying to remember how to grab something that wasn’t there. The thought arrived fully formed, uninvited—and stayed. “Horrible.”

  “Eh? I know it looks crude now, but try to imagine it in a few years time. Smaller, more concealable. You’ll hardly notice it by then, and it will be able to perform far more complex tasks by then as well!” The vision was shared between the men, but not the sentiment about it. “That is what I see, and that is what frightens me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dr. Pike was able to pull his gaze away from the sheep, but fixed the same look onto Dr. Stimple. “People—what if you put that device on a person? Make them do what you want? You’re building chains, Bill!” He was now more frantic, grabbing Dr. Stimple by the shoulders and shaking him. “It could never work on a person, our minds are far too complex for such a device!” He had ripped free of Dr. Pike’s grasp, “Besides, I wouldn’t let them do that. It’s my project, I steer it.” He shut the terminal off, and the sheep went back to its previous state.

  “I thought the same of our ‘computer god,’ as you put it. It was my project. It is now the State Department’s project. I got no say.” He approached the now pulsating monster. He poked at it, shined a light into its eyes, tried to do anything to it; but there was no response to any stimuli. “Where are your papers on this? I assume you kept this as well documented as usual?” Dr. Stimple unlocked a small safe and pulled out a medical journal that contained all his notes and observations from his testing.

  As he was doing this, Dr. Pike lit a bunsen burner. “What are you doing? Trying to light a smoke? I have a ligh—” Dr. Stimple fell to the floor, a heavy blow from Dr. Pike sent him reeling, the journal falling from his hand. He threw the burner into the bin. The journal followed. Dr. Stimple barely had the time to mourn the loss of his work before it had entirely gone up in flames. He did not weep, he was not angry. He could not comprehend what he felt at that moment. He just watched the last scraps of paper turn to ash and fall deeper into the blaze.

  He didn’t move, but could hear the sounds of Dr. Pike bludgeoning the sheep, and smashing the only prototype of his invention. Through the gushes of wet meat and the steel-on-steel, he swore he could hear a faint noise coming from the sheep. It made even him want to puke.

  It sounded almost like it was calling “Help—Dolly.”