Altered Ch. 08 Pt. 02

"I'm afraid they have too many fail safes in place and not enough time. I know you don't believe this but I do consider you my son... even if you have disowned me."

"That's hard to believe."

"And for good reason, but I just want you to know that... I'm sorry."

"Sorry? You're a psychopath, I doubt you can feel anything."

"I WAS a psychopath," Nigel corrected. "The truth is, I was taking an experimental drug to increase my intelligence. Technically it wasn't just a drug because nanites and microwaves were involved. Without going into details, the procedure worked, however, it robbed me of all my empathy and emotions. I became the violent dictator you grew up with..."

"OK... So how did you cure yourself?" I asked, curious.

"The process was never permanent, and required renewal at least once a year. Over time, while imprisoned down here and without access to the treatments, I eventually reverted back to my former self."

"Let's say I believe you. What do you want from me? I mean, you've been waiting for me, why?"

"I need you to take over my work. You're probably the only person able to stop the imposter and he's hell bent on ruining everything I worked for."

"I want to stop you too!" I yelled.

"Yes, but not for the right reasons. Look, son, I'm going to die... probably right after our conversation. All I ask is that you listen to what I have to say. Think of it as a last request, because that's exactly what it is."

I hated him, didn't I? Why should I believe him? Why would it hurt me to hear what he has to say? He killed Grandpa... no that wasn't him. He did beat my mom and rape my girlfriends, not to mention all the Mengele-esk experiments he performed! All of these thoughts and more ran through my head.

"Fine! But this isn't just a one-sided conversation, I want answers!" I demanded.

"Of course. Let's start with you then, shall we? What's your first question?" he asked, patiently.

"I have a good idea of what's going on but there are many possibilities, so I need you to narrow it down for me. What's your endgame?"

"My endgame is the survival and preservation of the Ataru-human hybrid species. I love who we are and I don't want us to become extinct just because we are a 'dangerous minority'. Knowing human history, we have no chance of survival here... not without wiping out the human race and replacing this planet's apex predator."

"You're are talking genocide?"

"No! I know you don't believe this especially after all that I have done under the influence of danexaflora... sorry let's just call it the intelligence drug. However, before I was under the influence, I was a very kind and compassionate leader. None of my plans included going to war with the humans."

"OK, what then?"

"Colonization," he said, simply. "We know that other alien races out there traveled to Earth so we know it's possible. But there are many obstacles, namely technology resources and evolution," he said.

"From what I understand about our current rocket technology, the nearest solar system to us is four light years away and it would take us 40 thousand years to travel that far," I pointed out.

"Let me give you a little background first... Ataru, live in a system approximately twelve light years from the sun. Their planet is similar to our own, in that it is rocky with about the same mass - about ninety percent of Earth. Their planet also resides in the habitable zone and is covered in water, much like Earth. Ataru are humanoid, but unlike humans, Ataru are amphibious beings and can breathe in water and air."

"OK so what's three times 40 thousand..." I commented sarcastically.

He ignored me and continued, "The Ataru had a history much like our own, full of wars, and as technology progressed so too did their ability to destroy. Fortunately for them, they evolved and started developing psychic abilities. These abilities were more 'empathetic' than mind reading but with the ability to feel each other's feelings, they soon started to work together as one cohesive mind..."

"Sorry to interrupt," I said, "But let me get this straight, empathy got them to work together, not mind control? And yet you chose to drug yourself with something that made you feel no empathy and you didn't see a problem with that?" I asked, sarcastically.

He looked at me with exasperation and ignored me once again. "Ataru tried mind control before, they had technology that allowed them to control other minds. But as you know, people are smart and they always find ways to resist... However, with empathy, they had to put themselves in others' shoes so to speak. Not only did it encourage cooperation but they found themselves in a technological boom similar to the boom we hand in the 20th century. Diseases became a thing of the past, the population was controlled and maintained at a sustainable level, and crime became almost non-existent."

"OK, that's all nice and good but I don't have a lot of time. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything I'm telling you has a point. You going to let me tell this?..." he asked, I nodded, "The Ataru eventually got to the point where they wanted to preserve their society by expanding beyond their planet. The problem was finding planets to expand to. As you probably know, stars systems are separated by great distances which we measure in terms of light years (which is about 6 trillion miles). Travelling at light speed is impossible because it takes an increasing amount of energy to accelerate the same mass the faster you go, even going half-light speed would take a tremendous amount of energy.

"Of course, the Ataru tried to come up with alternate forms of travel like bending space, wormholes and other methods but all of them caused problems. Bending space created problems in time. They experimented over a short distance (about 1 million miles) and inadvertently created time vortexes. Time was slowed and sped up randomly in pockets of space between the two points, anything passing through them were instantly torn up. The Ataru had to close down huge swaths of space in their solar system in order to travel safely. They had enough foresight to attempt their experiments at the edge of the solar system so their planet was never in any danger.

"Worm holes were even worse, imagine trying to drive through a class 100 hurricane... Needless to say, after a century of experimentation, they finally determined that the only safe way to travel through space was through conventional means.

"The problem with conventional means of course is that you have to come up with an energy source that will get your space vessel moving fast enough that you would survive the trip and not die of old age. Add to that fact that you also need an equal amount of energy to slow down once your trip ended, since there are no brakes in space."

"The Ataru did find an energy source that was efficient enough to get them close to half light. They successfully navigated the stars but they were physically weak and easily susceptible to foreign viruses and bacteria. Many of them died by predators and illnesses when they first encountered the Earth. Their science eventually found cures for most maladies and they eventually were able to adapt to the predators here but not before they lost many of their settlers.

"Humans, on the other hand, are a strong and hardy race, and when Ataru and Humans combined, the hybrids got the best traits of both species. The problem for the Ataruians are that humans are a fearful group and the Ataruians have had to remain in hiding in order to survive. But with genetic testing more and more rampant that is becoming impossible. The hybrids number in the thousands, whereas humans number in the billions. I believe that in order to survive as a new species, the Ataruians need to separate themselves from Earth and settle elsewhere."

"Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but can I ask you a question?"

He said, "Sure."

"So, you're trying to tell me, all of this - the experiments - the virus - everything was about you trying to seed a new world?"

"Yes."

"But..."

"Let me stop you right there. Let me continue and I think your question will be answered - OK?"

I grudgingly shook my shoulders and waved my hand to go on.

"As I was saying, we want to move, but how? Logistically, the Earth neither has the technology nor the resources currently to get a spacecraft to move anywhere near half-light speed. If we are lucky, we may be able to move a single craft at a quarter light speed but even then, it would take a year to get the craft to that speed and would take another year to slow down. The nearest habitable planet is about twelve light years from here, so if we had a spacecraft ready, TODAY, it would still take fifty plus years to get there.

"That means that most of the people on the flight would either be dead of old age or at least too old to bear children once they got there. The idea of stasis chambers is all fantasy at this point so the best one could hope for is to have a whole generation bred and raised in space and ready to settle the target planet right before they arrived.

"Space travel is all about efficiency and redundancies, and traveling to one system for fifty years just to find a planet that is not terraformable would be folly, so our best chance at success would be to have many settlers travel to many systems in the hopes that one found a habitable planet to settle on. Logistically, we just don't have enough Ataruian support.

"In order to GET more support, we created a virus to make humans INTO Ataruians... but the virus was a failure, and like most of my experiments it was supposed to have been destroyed.

"In order to survive a fifty-year journey in space with limited resources, there would have to be a way to minimize the crew at the beginning of the voyage and maximize them at the end. Meaning you would need a minimal amount of crew using a minimal amount of resources and be able to support a large crew to survive settlement. Therefore, an ideal would be to start out with a crew that are children and have them age and produce many generations of more children by the time they arrive.

"Ataru survive space travel by modifying their bodies. They had four wombs that were able to hold multiple babies per womb. But the most remarkable thing is that they could stop the growth of their babies indefinitely. In essence, they could hold their babies in stasis before they grew past their first trimester. In other words, the babies would be the size of peanuts indefinitely. At any time, they could activate one of their wombs and restart the growth process of those babies in that womb. Once those babies were born, they could then activate the next womb and so forth. And since their gestation time is only three months, they could, in essence, wait fifty years to give birth and then boom, population explosion right before planetfall.

"The problem is that none of the human/Ataru hybrids shared this physiology. My first experiments were to find a way to bring back this ability by tweaking recessive gene combinations. I succeeded, to a point. I created a batch of beings that had this physiology, the problem was, I couldn't get them pregnant..."

I interrupted him and said, "You assumed that they were like Humans, in that all they needed was sperm to be injected into their vaginas. What you didn't know was that the original Ataru essentially had two penises, one much like ours, but the second was more of a prehensile tail that was used to open up glands in the womb that allowed them impregnate each womb.

"I'm glad you figured that out... I treated them horribly and I doubt they'd ever be able to forgive me. Anyway, it doesn't matter, I'll be a distant memory soon enough," he said, sullenly.

"Well the two survivors just gave birth. I guess that makes you a grandfather," I smirked.

"You know, they're probably still pregnant," he said, offhandedly. "They probably went into heat and had you impregnate all four wombs..." and he saw the look of consternation on my face and smirked.

"Anyway, let me finish my speech... I believed that the experiment was a failure. So, I moved on to trying to create traits that would allow Ataruians to live longer and survive harsher environments. I also need the perfect delivery method that would take choice out of the equation for the females involved. The perfect stud would attract his mates without trying and I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations, yet it wasn't what he wanted."

"I know, you're a racist, and wanted me to be the perfect Ataruian stud. Ataruians evolved (by design) into a species that had the ability to mate with other species. When you created me, I had that same ability; however, I didn't create hybrids of Ataru and the species I mated with, rather I created a hybrid of my own unique species and that other species. You couldn't have that. Even though my species was superior..." I interjected.

"True, but I didn't do it because of racism, rather you weren't saving the Ataru-human species, on the contrary you potentially could make us extinct, and that was the whole point," he said. "To me, everything was about fulfilling my goals. I didn't consider right or wrong; morals had no consideration, just getting the job done."

"I think you have some valid points but that doesn't excuse what you did!"

"I agree, but I can't change the past, besides I'll be paying for my crimes soon enough. The question is, can you let what I did go so that my people can survive?"

"What the hell do you think I can do for them?"

"You can lead them. They'll need someone strong, fearless, smart and crafty. You've proven yourself and they are ready to follow you."

"That's it?"

"It would be nice if you could launch the Ark," he said, as if it were an afterthought.

"The Ark? Like Noah's Ark? You mean to tell me you have a vessel already!?"

"If you decide to lead, then Samantha will tell you all about it..." he said, smiling. "Do you have any more questions?" I shook my head. "Goodbye Nathan," he said twitching his head violently until, "Pop!" blood trickled out of his temple and his lifeless head hung forward.

"That was the first time he called me Nathan," was my only reaction. I didn't know what to feel about all of this. I hated my father for what he did and came to kill him. Now I find out that he wasn't all bad and that bothered me. I guess it was easier knowing he was Hitler than an overzealous man, in over his head. At the same time, I felt more grief for people I knew far less than him and so I moved on without any tears.

The congregation stopped their vigil, stood up, turned and faced me. I noticed right away that all of them were women, I didn't know what to make of that. One of them stepped toward me.

Before she could speak, I got a message from one of my minions, "Boss! We've got trouble in paradise!"

"On my way!" I was about to turn tail and run to the next emergency but then I decided that if my fathers followers wanted to follow me, I might as well 'lead' them.

I turned and looked at the approaching woman, I saw by her signature that she was a very powerful psychic.

"Got to go, we got problems up top. If you're coming, hurry up. I might need your help."

I ran towards the elevator with Samantha and five others right on my heel. As I waited for the elevator, I turned to look over the five and to my surprise - there was Isabella. Only I wasn't sure whether it was "the Isabella" I fell in love with, or just another clone of Rita. I looked at her questioningly but she gave no reaction, then I realized that I still looked like the guard I morphed into.

My face slowly morphed back to my own to the surprise and shock of the women staring at me.

"Oh my god! Nate!" Isabella screamed, and she rushed into my arms. "I thought I'd never see you again!" she sobbed, nestling her head in the crook of my neck as I slowly stroked her back.

The elevator dinged right when the rest of the group caught up to us. Fifteen of us crammed into the little space leaving a couple more trips worth behind to catch up to us. Isabella didn't say anything to me but she did gaze up at me from time to time, looking like she had a million questions and never let go of my hand.

It then dawned on me, "Iz? I know this is a stupid question but are you a clone?" I asked kicking myself.

"No! Unless the genetic test I took to see who I was related to was a lie..."

"So, you're not a clone of Nigel's daughter?"

"What?! Nigel's never had any kids, much less a daughter and no I am definitely my father and mother's daughter..."

Shit! I assumed that she was a clone, based on identical twins' symmetry... when really the birthmark mistake was probably made from him transposing his image based on a photo. That meant Rita was probably a shapeshifter and most likely my brother/sister, he knew all about me and he potentially had Anya as a hostage!