The Experiment of Tony Blair
Breaking the News

-D- Deck was rapidly getting crowded as the seconds ticked away into minutes. Thousands upon thousands of Tenatian students stood waiting for their leader to arrive and give them instruction. They all gathered by the massive conference stage at the front of the long auditorium. Small camera orbs were now hovering over the boisterous and raucous crowd like tiny little UFOs caught in a tractor beam. They danced left, right, and center as they focused their high-powered lenses on the smooth, silicon podium on the stage. Arousing political music was playing over the massive speaker system. The harmonious sound showered the audience with patriotism and Tenatian pride.

Everyone was talking and whispering. The mood was growing more and more impatient as the hour passed. The air was getting stuffy and hot, as if someone had turned on the switch to a massive sauna. It seemed like the Dean was taking his sweet time to appear and make his so-called “urgent” announcement to the school. Students where now playing in the giant sun fountain in the middle of the room. To pass the time, they were splashing cold liquid plasma on their peers.

Today was going to be very eventful. Every little thing would be recorded and written down for future generations to see. Everything done would be filed away into the ship’s mainframe for the T.E. to look at and dissect with the greatest of care. The Tenatians where very particular when it came to massive meetings of this sort; nothing would be missed.

Human activist groups were now yelling their blatant protests in the halls of the main Deck. Their picketing was like one voice crying out for human redemption and salvation. No one really paid attention to them or anything else for that matter. Each person was lost in a world of his own social-making. Each person was talking to the man or woman next to him, but not really listening to what was going on. Not really paying attention to the conflict that encumbered them.

They talked, and laughed, and objected loudly for what seemed like an eternity. Then the time finally came, and the notorious Dean appeared as if by magic from an unseen room to left of the stage. Everyone got deathly quiet and everyone was suddenly still as the Tenatians watched their red-headed leader approach the wide stage. He had a slight limp about his step. His stone-hard visage looked solemn and determined. He was holding a digital notepad in his left hand and his hair was combed to one side. He got to the steps and held onto the railing as he walked briskly up them. He staggered across the platform and stood behind the shiny hard podium. He looked out across the jam packed room and smiled slightly to the cameras and students. His stare was like a mixture of fire and ice. He was cold, yet mockingly warm.

Dean Redder diverted his gaze from them and looked down at the podium again. He carefully set his digital notepad on top of it and turned it on so that he could see what he had written. When he was sure everything was in order he pressed a shiny red button sticking out of the silicon paneling to the right. A small hatch opened up on top of the podium and a little metal ball hovered out slowly. It floated over to his mouth.

The Dean cleared his throat and then spoke into the small microphone orb. “Hello, students, professors and faculty alike. I thank you for waiting so patiently for me.” His rough voice echoed off the massive walls like thunder, “I have called you here today to talk about a subject that is very grim and disturbing. It is vitally important that you listen carefully to me and what I have to say; it’s about the future of our race and society. There is something that plagues us, there is something that threatens our way of life, and yes, there is something that is going to smother us if we don’t stop it now! That something I speak so vehemently about is human expansion and evolution!”

“Free the humans! Make peace!” came a low voice from the crowd. “Stop the innocent slaughter of lower life forms, stop the murders!” Several others chimed in with their “yeahs” and “grunts”. The rest of the crowd stood still.

Dean Redder ignored the protests. “The evidence I have encountered of human expansion is shocking and disturbing, to say the least. Should we allow the humans to live any longer it would prove our downfall. The hairless monkeys are changing at an amazing rate and pace. I stand before you as one of the witnesses who has seen evidence of this shocking development.” Dean Redder stepped out from behind the podium and lifted up his shirt carefully. The audience gasped loudly as they saw the nasty scars and stitches. The Dean looked like he had been run through a shredder.

“I am sorry you have to see this, but you must know for yourselves. This was not done by a Tenatian; oh no, nor was it done by an ordinary human! This was done by a future monster that was evolved in our labs on the upper Decks. We did this experiment to see what the hairless mammals would be like in the future. To see if they would be of any help to us, or not.” The Dean paused and slowly pulled down his shirt. He walked back over to the podium and rested his hands on top of it. His voice sounded more sympathetic as he continued, “We did this experiment several times, not just once, and it always came out the same way. In the long run the humans will be faster than us. In the long run the humans will be stronger than us. And in the long run the humans will be smarter than us. I only give them a few thousand years before they begin building ships just like ours, and heading to our home world to destroy everything we hold dear. We have monitored their barbaric behavior millions of times. We have seen their shocking history through the eyes of their own records and through their Earths’ geocarbon. The humans are violent creatures. The humans are mean and uncivilized freaks. They kill one another for the fun of it. Do you think they will refrain from killing us once they have evolved? Do you think they will become docile?”

“Stop the madness, free the humans!” cried another determined voice from the crowd. “Humans are our friends!” Not so many people chimed in to confirm the activist’s statement. They were all listening very intently to the Dean.

“I want you all to see something!” said the Dean softly. “I want you all to take this into account. I want you to see the truth behind the future threat to our species.” He turned slowly and looked at the back wall. His back was facing the student body as he raised his hands high above his head and signaled for the widescreen to come down. The faculty watched quietly as a panel in the roof slid away. A big white projection screen came down slowly. It fluttered gracefully back and forth like a feather as it stopped a foot from the ground.

The Dean turned back to the crowd. “Let me show you all the end results of humanity, and the destiny of our people, that is, should we let the hairless mammals live any longer!”

The lights in the auditorium suddenly went pitch black and the speakers began to crackle loudly with static. The massive screen activated and lit up brightly. It turned light brown and then dark blue and then green. After a few seconds of watching, a familiar image appeared on its smooth surface. It was of a small primate; a simple chimpanzee. Below its hairy long feet flashed a date in time: ‘10 MILLION YEARS AGO’.

“This is primitive man,” said the Dean with disgust. He almost spit the words from his mouth, “This is what they were before recognition empowered their small brains. They were pathetic and weak, like a small rodent, but watch what happens over time. Watch the evolution begin!”

The students watched almost hypnotically as the date below the figure began to speed up to their present day and time. The simple monkey figure slowly began to change into something new. It began to lose heaps of hair and become more erect and straight. Its beady little eyes took on a more comprehensive look, as they got wider and more open to the world. The heavy beetle brow of the forehead disappeared slowly as the structure of the skull changed. Its bones and organs began to evolve into pre man, then post man, then modern man. The time quickly brushed over ‘10 THOUSAND B.C.’ and then stopped as it hit ‘2 THOUSAND A.D.’.

“What an interesting change, wouldn’t you all agree?” asked the Dean rhetorically. “The interesting thing about this change is that it took our Tenati species way longer to reach this point than it did for the humans. They have changed faster than we have. To put it more simply, they were only monkeys when my grandpa was a boy, and now look at them years later. In a few more generations, do you know where they will be then? Do you? Do you know what they will become when your kids’ kids are in this school learning about the basics?”

-A terrible silence filled the room; no one moved-

“Let me help you see. Let me tell you where they will be in the future. They will be living on OUR planet, eating OUR food, and laughing at how easy it was to take US down and out of the universe. They will be the super species by then. They will be the new power. They will be OUR enemies. If you don’t believe me watch and behold for yourself,” said the Dean as he turned back to the screen.

The date under the modern human figure began to speed up again. The faculty watched in complete horror as the human changed into something strange, as it changed into something foreign and creepy. The human’s limbs and body began to get sharper and more pointed at the ends of the elbows and fingers. The soft muscle and bone structures began to expand and grow rock hard. The human’s skull cavity expanded as the brain got bigger and thicker. The eyes and skin became more ruthless and dark as if the devil him-self where coming out. The figure looked like a distorted monster. The figure looked like a nightmare. The date finally stopped around ‘5 MILLION A.D.’

“This is our future if we don’t destroy them now. This is the terrible future your kids will inherit if we don’t act now and kill the humans. They are a weed in the peaceful garden of the universe… they are a pest…they are daisies waiting to spring forth and choke us out of existence. I can’t stress this any further.” The Dean’s voice was getting louder. “They need to be stopped, and they need to be killed. All of our scientific evidence points to this! I was attacked by one of them!”

“What about our extinction problems!” yelled a woman from the far side of the crowd, “What about them? Can’t the humans help us with that? Can’t they be changed into something better, into something new? Can’t we stop this from happening that way?”

Dean Redder walked slowly up to the pulpit and spoke into the microphone orb. His voice boomed for all the room to hear. “I am afraid that time has passed, my dear. I have gathered all of my best scientists from -Y- and -C- labs to look into this matter thoroughly. Humans are not the key to our extinction redemption. We have discovered that they are not even our ticket to survival. Even the late professor Jue Kaki said that they were not. She said they could not be trusted!”

“Free the humans!” yelled a single voice from the crowd. No one responded to it; as a matter-of-fact they ignored it altogether. The room had grown completely serious and quiet. One could hear a pin drop.

“What should we do?” asked a concerned voice from the crowd. “What can we do to stop it from happening?”

Dean Redder smiled devilishly at this well-placed question. He had them practically eating out of the palm of his hand. They were all his; they were like puppets. He had pulled the strings perfectly. “I have already taken action to stop it, do not fear. I will save us all. I will be your savior!!”

-The crowd cheered loudly and started to applaud-

The Dean laughed under his breath and turned to the projection screen behind him; he raised his hands high above his head and yelled, “Behold, my young students, the home planet of the hairless monkeys. Behold your threat; behold your demise. Behold Earth; the mother of our distruction!”

The planet Earth appeared on the screen. In the bottom right hand corner flashed the words ‘live feed’. They had traveled all the way to the hairless mammals’ planet and were now at the threshold of its atmosphere. The crowd stared at the blue-green sphere on the screen. Anger and malice swept through the audience like a wildfire through dry grass. They started chanting loudly and forcefully; their voices vibrated the ceiling.

“GIVA! GIVA! GIVA! GIVA! GIVA! GIVA! GIVA! GIVA! GIVA! GIVA!”

The word meant ‘death’ or ‘kill’ and it was like sweet, wonderful music to the Dean’s pointed ears.

He reached for his space communicator and dialed in an extension. He spoke into the receiver so all could hear. “Captain Toner, this is Dean Redder, I want you to jam all communications on Earth. I want you to E.M.P. the whole surface and subsurface of the planet. I want all electrical appliances fried. I don’t want any retaliation from the hairless monkeys reaching my academy. Do you hear me!”

The speaker cracked loudly. “I hear you, sir, I have already jammed satellite and radio communications, and the E.M.P. is taking place right now. They will be helpless in a few seconds. What are your further orders, sir?”

“Put up the quarantine shields around the earth and extend the primary exhaust vents to their worthless surface. We will begin the gassing as soon as possible. I am still waiting on Professor Denvil.”

“Yes, sir. It will be done!”

Dean Redder looked up at the projection screen and smiled really big. He watched with pleasure as the quarantine shields activated. They were sealed with the Earth now, inside a giant green quarantine bubble. The main exhaust events were seen suddenly on the wide screen. They were extending through Earth’s atmosphere and positioning themselves over the main lands of the planet. There were hundreds of thousands of them. It was truly a sight to behold.

It’s time to see my holy vision come true, thought the Dean as he turned to the crowd. They where still chanting their eerie message of destruction, the ‘GIVA’ message. He held up the space communicator and punched in a different extension. He held the receiver up to his light green lips. “Professor Denvil, are you almost ready with the animal mutating formula?”

There was a long pause over the speaker, then it crackled, “I am just about done here Dean. We should be ready in about a few minutes. Hold tight. I’ll tell you when to push the button!”

“Good, I can’t wait any longer!”

“How was the speech, did it go well?”

The Dean smiled at this. He looked out across the turbulent room. “It went very well, Professor… it went very well indeed!”

“That’s good to hear. We just might escape prosecution for this one.”

Dean Redder laughed and put his communicator back on his belt. He walked over to the pulpit and set up the gassing button by hooking it into the ship’s mainframe. He was going to press it personally when the go ahead was given. He wanted the whole academy to witness his triumph and glory.