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Humanity 2.0, Year 001, Day 001A

By: adrammalech



HUMANITY 2.0

YEAR 001, DAY 001 - PART ONE

I thought I should go ahead and start writing a record of my life, as self-important as that sounds. It's not like I've got much better to do; Zee won't let me do any real work, so when I'm not travelling to the countless abandoned cities and ruins of our ancestors, I pretty much sit around and/or have sex. I've been trying to put together as much of our ancestors' history and knowledge as I can -- the stuff 15226 missed -- because so few of you ever lived in the old world, and it has so much to teach us.

Nina suggested to me the other day that I myself am just as much a source of history as any relic I could find, which prompted me to start writing this autobiography of sorts. Egotistical, I know, but I think I've earned at least a little bit of this. It's not really just my own story; it's the story of the earliest days of our people.

So this is a record, from the beginning, of how I -- Benedict Stanton -- ended up as the progenitor of Humanity 2.0. Actually, scratch that, the girls always hated that name -- and they can certainly outvote me. So they've all been calling our people the name Hannah picked -- hominus.

It all started with me getting sick. I didn't actually remember getting sick, and certainly not as sick as I felt when I woke up. I just went to bed one night after untold hours of study for my organic chem final, and woke up in such a bad state that my roommate John apparently called the paramedics. I don't even remember that part, that's just what I was told afterwards. I had crashed at about one in the morning Saturday after who knew how many calls to meet in some bar or another from some of my geek friends, who actually had social lives -- unlike me. That was the last thing I remembered.

I'd never been so sick before; I'd had the flu bad once, and chicken pox, and a case of appendicitis when I was seventeen that was apparently almost ruptured when they took it out. Those were all nasty and painful, but this was worse. Given, at twenty-two years old in that era, I should have expected that, sooner or later in life, I would inevitably have a brush with my mortality.

Still, to me that was always something that would come later, maybe when I had grandkids. No sense kidding myself, I thought -- I wouldn't see any kids in my life, let alone grandkids. It took monumental effort to even get girls to hang around with me, let alone touch me, which had led to my life being the romantic equivalent of the Saharan desert.

My eyes opened in the hospital, and for a time I couldn't even think about anything, the pain was so bad. It was everywhere, every breath, every heartbeat, every tiny noise I heard from outside the room just sent more pain reverberating through me. It took interminable ages -- but probably half an hour or so -- for me to even get myself together enough to realize I wasn't at home, or ask myself what was going on. Someone came into my room and adjusted something, and said something I don't remember. Not long after, the haze started to clear, though I felt decidedly stoned -- probably they upped the dosage on my painkillers. It was welcome, in any case.

It was a hospital room like any other. I was alone -- there was another bed, but it was unoccupied. The room was painted a drab blue-gray, and there was some poster on the wall detailing various tracheal disorders. There was an IV in my arm, with who knew what mixed in with its saline solution. I didn't get stupid and remove it, but I definitely needed to know what was going on.

I rang the little buzzer next to my bed... hopefully it would summon somebody. A few minutes later, an orderly or nurse or somebody who wasn't a doctor arrived, a barrel-chested middle-aged guy with partly covered old tattoos -- he looked like he'd just stepped off a Harley and changed into his scrubs.

"Hey, pal, how you feeling?" His rough voice only added to his biker dude image.

"Ach... gah...." My voice croaked. I didn't realize how dry my throat was. I tried again. "Like... shit."

"Hah. Sounds about right. I've got a few little tests to run on you here and the doctor will be right in."

"Okay... what... yucchhhhh..." I coughed again, for a moment. "What happened to me?"

"I'll let the doctor tell you that, buddy. Last I heard, they were still trying to figure it out.

I tried to keep my worries under control as he asked me some questions about my condition -- if the pain was focused in any particular part of my body, what did I do the night before, am I allergic to anything, who's your insurance provider, some other things. Routine and boring. Completely sensible questions.

Aside from the insurance, which was still on the old man's policy -- who knew, it still worked even when he was in prison -- I couldn't help him much. The pain was everywhere in my body, and I didn't do anything unusual yesterday. I had spent the last three days basically cooped up in my apartment.

There was some good news -- he was also here to deliver on something the doctor had cleared me on, codeine. He put it in my IV bag and wrote for a little while after we finished, gave me a big and possibly fake smile, and off he went. He left me with some water to drink on the nearby table, at least, but I could barely use my arm well enough to pick up the cup.

That challenge occupied me for about fifteen minutes, most of which I spent intently staring at the cup and devising a strategy by which I'd grasp it and drink down the contents. It was during this time that I started to feel the effects of the drug. Good stuff. It was another interminable while before a doctor suddenly barged in.

"Hi... Mr. Stanton?" She had a nice voice -- I turned my head away from the window to greet her. That was a mistake. Whatever pleasantry I'd meant to return was lost in another agonizing symphony of pain. When it cleared, I saw her sitting down next to me. She was good-looking, though she was definitely not a college kid like me.

She looked like she was about forty, albeit a sexy forty; she was clearly a woman who kept herself in shape. She had neat brunette hair cut in a short-bob, and dark brown eyes, and looked like she had a little Hispanic in her ancestry -- though she didn't have any accent. Her expression was detached, at best. She was wearing one of those ubiquitous white doctor's jackets, and her lapel read 'B. LAZAR -- MD, Intensive Care'. She gave me a perfunctory smile. "How are you feeling, Mr. Stanton?"

"What's wrong with me?" There was no way the previous guy hadn't told her that I'd asked the exact same question just a bit ago.

She paused for a moment, giving me an unreadable look. "Don't be too worried when I say this - but right now, we're not sure. We're trying to narrow down the list, actually. I want you to try some things for me now that you're awake. Can you help me?" 

Well, anything to keep the sexy woman in the room with me. It gave me something to focus on other than the state of my body. "Yeah..."

She did that thing where they press on different parts of you while you breathe deeply, and checked my lymph nodes, all that. Judging by her expression, nothing jumped out at her. She sat back in her little chair for a moment, staring at her chart, then looked at me for a moment. "I'd like to see if I can get you walking."

I was instantly dubious of the proposal. "That... sounds like it's going to hurt."

"At first, yes. I'll be here the whole time. I'm hoping this is just a rare kind of nerve pinching in the spine that can happen to sedentary people. If I'm right, moving should make the pain erratically come and go, or move it around your body quickly. Give me a few steps and tell me how you feel."

I took a deep breath; it hurt almost as much for an obviously good-looking woman to so casually declare me 'sedentary'. Was it that obvious? I wasn't really overweight, though that was mainly due to my tastes in food luckily aligning generally with things that were healthy -- certainly not due to any exercise habits. I looked like most any other male of the internet generation, save for my skin tone -- short but not well-kept hair, definition lacking... my sister Emily had told me I could be a handsome man if I tried, but I had always just assumed she was being nice.

About the only distinguishing feature we shared had was our odd background -- it was sort of a running joke, actually, how we somehow managed to have roughly equal portions of just about every ethnic group on the planet. Dad had been a Hawaiian-born half-Japanese and half-Finnish 'entrepreneur', and Mom had been a quarter African-American, a quarter light Brazilian, and half Cherokee Indian.

Basically, that meant the two of us fit in virtually nowhere.

The painkillers had well and kicked in by now; I was dancing on the clouds. Just about any suggestion at all would have flown with me by that point. She helped me out of bed, and got me onto my feet. With her help, I took a few halting steps. I wouldn't say it was agony, but it didn't improve my condition.

She helped me back towards the bed, but just as I reached it, my right leg decided the hell with me, it was taking a break. I fell forward, and with a shout I tried to grab the edge of the bed, missed, and groaned in pain as I fell -- almost knocking her to the floor on the way down.

A few seconds later, I was back to my senses. I'd somehow managed to flip sideways and land on the floor, though my head landed on her foot -- I wasn't really injured, just in even more pain. The IV stand clattered to the floor next to me. I gathered myself, and tried to sit up on my forearms. Looking up, I saw Dr. Lazar staring down at me... she looked completely zoned out. I reached out with an arm to try to get her help standing up, but she only stood there, staring at me... I followed her eyes, and realized she wasn't staring at me exactly -- at least, not at my face.

My damn hospital smock had fallen off to the side, exposing my lower half. My goods were on display for all. Instantly, I felt ashamed. My own lack of endowment was yet another source of insecurity with regard to girls. Girls expect a man of minority racial background to have a big and imposing package due to some urban legend or another - but my own equipment gave only lie to that whole nonsense. She had to be giggling to herself at this non-man she was treating now, and his small -- 

Wait a second... I don't remember ever being that big when I was soft. By now, I was also staring at my cock, for somewhat different reasons. Like all men can certainly do, I could clearly recall the dimensions of my equipment. I'd seen it God knows how many times when I was in the shower, getting changed, and yes, I admit I used to stroke off day and night.

This was still my tool, but it was somehow much, much larger -- I used to be two inches soft, and now I had to be maybe six. A pair of much bigger, heavier balls rested against my thighs. A flash of panic shot through my head. Had it swollen up with some kind of infection or disease? Oh God, they're not going to have to amputate it, are they?

I replaced the smock and managed to get the doctor's attention a few seconds later. She shook herself, and looked just as confused as me about something she was thinking of, then helped me up and onto the bed. I tried to act like nothing happened, but worry got the better of me.

"Actually, doctor..." I choked on my voice for a few moments. This was going to be incredibly awkward, but I had to know. "Uh, about what... you just saw. Um, please don't think I'm making this up or using this as some dumb pick-up line or something-"

"Shoot it. Shoot it all." She blinked. "The question, I mean, just ask me. I'm a doctor, Ben, don't worry, yours wasn't the first I've seen, and it won't be the last." Suddenly, a little smile appeared. "You should be a little proud of yourself, Mr. Stanton."

I paused, taking in her meaning. I hoped I'd read it right that she was just telling me I was apparently bigger than average. "Um -- that's it, though. I mean -- every guy has seen his... equipment, before. Mine, uhh, isn't... supposed to be that big."

The doctor still seemed distracted. I'd expected her to laugh off what she thought was some inept sexual advance. When she finally turned her eyes back on me, she looked perplexed. "Can you clarify that?"

"I mean, I've seen it a few times this week, when I, uh, saw it. I'm not half that big. I was shocked, seeing, uh, that, just now. I'm worried. What do they call it? Elephant something. Elephantitis?"

"It's elephantiasis, and it has a lot of other symptoms - your penis would look visibly unhealthy, and the disease affects the ba- I mean testes far more than the penis. Your whole package, though, looks pretty good... looks pretty healthy, I mean." She corrected herself quickly, though she'd said the first comment with a far more personal sense than the detached and clinical tone she'd started in.

She switched back to her professional tone presently. "It more commonly affects just the scrotum and testes in men, and the most common cause is a parasitic infection; we would have seen that right away on your blood work. I didn't see anything all that out of the ordinary with your equipment, really." Her hand reached out, suddenly pressing against my crotch... and the tip of my penis, under the hospital smock. The decidedly less clinical tone crept back into her voice. "I'll take another look, though."

I raised an eyebrow. I'd had my penis examined by doctors before, by female doctors even, during routine physicals -- just like they checked everything else. I never saw one have a look on their face beforehand like hers was then. She laid me back on the bed, and glanced over at the door. Why did she check the door?

With a quick motion, she pulled the smock off my lower body again, revealing my cock a second time. I couldn't resist, and sat up on my elbows again. She still had that same look, staring at my cock like it was worth a million bucks. To someone other than me, I mean. Oh -- a million bucks was a whole lot of money at the time. Her hands slid along my waist, no gloves, and started to touch me.

No.... I swallowed. This isn't touching. This is definitely... caressing. She cupped my balls, looking at each in turn, while her small hand closed around my girth. I felt the first pulse of my flaccidity's termination as blood flowed into the stiffening pole. She gave an experimental pump to my length, which made me flop around a bit, though I was sure I would soon be rigid. Should I try to think of something else? Will she be offended if I get a hardon?

My mind raced, but my body had already decided to head off in its own direction -- reacting directly to the unmistakable stimulation she was giving me. She even gave her lips a short lick. Suddenly she took off her jacket, tossing it onto the countertop a few feet away, revealing a much more feminine appearance -- a simple black turtleneck that hugged her boobs, which I guessed were C-cups, over a gray pencil skirt and sheer pantyhose.

With a little hop her ass was planted on the side of my bed, and both of her hands were back on my prick, toying with it further as my length ascended into truly impressive stiffness -- and utterly dwarfing any erection I would have had prior to that day.

"Umm... doctor..."

"Hmm.... Just bear with me, Mr. Stanton. I'm testing the plumbing." She smiled at me, but her hand continued its light pumping of my shaft. I felt the first bit of pre-come escape and dribble onto her bare skin. Definitely not clinical. "You were worried about swelling. You see, the male penis is designed to swell. That's how it becomes erect, it's vaguely like an inflammation. If your cock -- um, penis has normal flaccid and erect states, that's a sign of good health."

Another short jack. Her good medical explanation was being betrayed by her almost predatory stare at my dick. A part of me was incredibly aroused, and the other part incredibly anxious. First I find out the thing somehow doubled in size overnight -- while I was really sick, too -- and now the first good-looking woman I meet is just grabbing it and giving me a handjob.\

Much as every man likes to fantasize about what life would be like if they had a bigger tool, I couldn't quite convince myself that every big-dicked guy out there was getting this kind of treatment from any girl who happened to accidentally see his package live and in the flesh. Something really weird was going on, but I was still weak, and she was hot; I wanted to do more with her so badly...

"Dr. Lazar... um..."

"Call me Bethany."

"Okay... Bethany. Call me Ben, I guess. I've never had an exam like this one, uhh, can you walk me through what comes next?"

"Oh... sorry, missed that step." She took both my balls, kneading them back and forth, and she shuffled herself a little further onto my bed... and turned her torso a little to face me more. Her back bent down. Oh, God -- she isn't really going to do it, is she? "We've established the basic functionality of your cock. It's a good sign that you can develop a nice erection for me so quickly.

"Don't be ashamed, you're a man and that's what the male organ does in reaction to a woman's body. I know in college you hear from these crazy feminists who guilt-trip you about being a man, but you shouldn't apologize for wanting girls, Ben. I'm glad you have an erection for me."

She brushed her hair back behind her ears. "Now, I just want you to let go. The male penis is first meant for sex, and the easiest way to make sure it's all right is to just perform a simple test. I'm a woman, you're a man... it's very easy to administer." She licked her lips again. "I suppose a little extra stimulation wouldn't hurt." With a quick motion, she pulled her turtleneck up, revealing ample breasts under a simple white bra, and then she unsnapped it too. Her tits bounced free, giving a pleasing jiggle. My eyes focused on her brownish nipples.

"I can tell you're nervous, Ben. Stop thinking for a few minutes and just live in your body. It's a sign of a healthy body that a man wants sex. Now, this test only requires you to ejaculate. If seeing my tits and using my mouth can help promote your health, then I'm glad to help you." She had this grin the whole time like she was just making up bullshit as she went along.

She had to be, but before I could mention it, her lips descended to my shaft. My eyes went wide as her tongue extended, and I shuddered as it first made contact. This was miles beyond any medical exam, that much was very clear no matter what she said. Had something else happened while I was sick? Had I been unconscious for ten years, and missed some massive sexual revolution?

Her head passed my crown, and my cock was finally, once again, after two years, back in a warm, wet female mouth. I gasped, and let out a long breath. She took my length halfway down, then brought herself back up, very slowly, then ran her tongue around my head a few times before licking up and down the shaft again. Every motion was so slow and deliberate... and so delicious. My anxiety finally decided to stop fighting for the driver's seat; whatever questions I had, could wait until the action was done. This chick was obviously ready to finish this right here and right now, and in my state it wasn't like I could fight back even if I tried.

As I let go, I realized my cock was only just now reaching full erection. There was no measuring stick around, but it was much bigger than any overnight phenomenon could account for -- my old four-and-a-half inch length - at best - had been easily doubled. Even in porno I'd not seen a shaft like I saw on my own body right then.

As she drew her mouth and tongue up my pole, it seemed to go on and on, and it felt amazing. When Cathleen had sucked me off a few times two years ago, it had been a short and uncomfortable experience -- but I had been so horny that I came anyway, without even having time to warn her. She thought I came in her mouth intentionally, and she hated the taste of come -- after the third time it happened, she seemed furious with me.


Humanity 2.0, Year 001, Day 001A



It ended two days later, ostensibly about her needing space, but I always suspected it was because I was awful in bed and that thought dragged me down for years. Now, though, it was as if premature ejaculation simply wasn't a concern. The amazing sensation only built slowly over time, and never threatened to just fire off without warning.

I leaned my head back and basked in the pleasure for a few moments, then returned to meet her eyes directly. I definitely liked it like this more -- just the sensation was good, but looking her in the eyes while she worked to please my rod, seeing that smoky desire in her expression... that was what brought it together and made it real. Sex had never been like this before for me.

By now she had changed her position, and curled herself up into a kneeling position in between my legs -- focusing herself totally on sucking my manhood. I wasn't some kind of sex aficionado who knew a good blowjob from a great one -- at least, not back then -- all I knew was how amazing it was.

Every lick, every nibble, every manipulation of my penis and balls was deliberate, gradual, exquisite. This was a woman who knew men and what they wanted. My excitement boiled; I had no idea where this gift had come from, but I certainly didn't want to give it back. Why my cock had decided to grow itself to nine inches long hard, overnight, was for later.

Her head bobbed up for a moment, and she smiled at me. The doctor's hand ran up and down my shaft, making a wet and messy sound as her copious spit lubricated her jacking motion. "Tell me how that feels, Ben..."

"Oh, God..." I flexed my cock in her hand, which had more effect than I thought it would. It visibly expanded my meat for an instant. "It's so fucking good."

"Hmmm... I'm glad to hear it. I want you to finish this test, Ben. It's fine if it happens in my mouth. I want you to, actually. Just lie down, don't fight or hold back anything you feel, and let your penis do what it's meant to do." I groaned again as the tip of my shaft disappeared past her lips again, and she descended once more. There was an increased urgency now, and her hand went to the base of my dick and started pumping.

Her grip was tighter now, no longer the light teasing motion she'd started off with just to make me hard. The pace of her bobbing up and down increased, and she was focused less on the languid tongue-bath action of before... now she was applying massive suction, and her spit was oozing down all over my waist.

I had heard about girls who could somehow suppress their gag reflex -- and given my current size, she'd just about have to if she wanted to get more than half of me into her mouth, so she had to be one of them, I thought. I felt my crown touch the back of her throat, and slowly she pressed her head down further. I felt my length barely fitting inside a tight, hot, slimy place, and sensitive as I was, I could feel even her heartbeat through her neck as my cock slid ever so slowly down her throat. She had changed up her angle now, and my cock was pointing downwards, straight down her throat. It was the hottest thing I'd ever experienced up until then.

She couldn't do it for more than a few seconds at a time; soon I popped back out of her throat and was again enjoying the attention of her tongue on my cockhead. I couldn't believe the whole thing, still; my head was swimming in a combination of painkillers, eroticism, and suppressed anxiety. I remember wondering if I was much worse off than I thought and they had me on something that was making me hallucinate. If they did, some voice in my head popped up with, then this fantasy had to be leaps and bounds better than whatever horrors my real body was going through.

My speculation was wiped out as I felt a pulse of something in the base of my cock. It was so powerful that I didn't at first recognize it for what it was -- I had always had such short and weak orgasms before, I didn't even know what hit me when my super-sized endowment started to perform its task. She must have sensed it coming before I did, and sucked her mouth closed, clamping herself over my cockhead. Her hand pumped up and down my length, making little drops of her wet spittle fly around as she pumped me to orgasm.

My pain was temporarily forgotten as my cock took over everything. I felt a singular blast of pleasure shoot down my pole as the first rope of semen was released into her willing mouth. Almost instantly she swallowed, and in that time my shaft spurted a second load into her mouth. I groaned again and again; had I been in better shape I might have yelled, but that was all I could manage.

She swallowed again, gulping down everything as my orgasm kept going well beyond what I was used to -- my cock was just pumping away. I'd never known such pleasure, and for it to go on and on like this was simply heaven. It was tapering off, and in reality the whole experience probably didn't even last fifteen or twenty seconds. Even so, with my head full of painkillers and confused as hell, I very clearly recall that first orgasm of my new life. It was the first of many -- very, very many -- but I'll never forget it, as long as I live.

A sheen of sweat had developed, making my smock stick to my chest a little. Bethany's tits were still dangling free from her upturned shirt. She rose up a little, making a big show of finally releasing her lips from my cock with a pop. A thin line of gooey come connected my slimy pole to her mouth, which she eagerly caught in one finger and sucked in. Christ, she's amazing. I hope this isn't the only time I'll ever get to feel this.

My pole was sensitive now, though not uncomfortably so like I remembered it being when I came before. She came up onto her hands and knees, and tilted her head back -- exposing her neck to me. Closing her mouth, she took a big gulp and swallowed the last of my man-stuff that was still lingering in her mouth.

I remember, it was that moment in which I knew that no porno would really ever be good enough for me again. Real women existed that wanted hot, wet, and messy sex. I tried not to think too much about how much of my life had been wasted on thinking otherwise -- besides, this whole incident was prompted by the wholly impossible situation with my cock going from below average to legendary overnight, right?

We were staring into one another's eyes for a few precious seconds, volumes somehow being spoken. She was more than ten years my senior, far more worldly and educated than me, and probably had a hell of a lot more money. Yet somehow, in her eyes, I saw this deep, passionate need. She wanted me, the way people wanted food and water. At the time, I couldn't understand; after all, I was the only one who came, right?

I remember feeling a bit ashamed of that; I'd always had this fantasy that someday I would find the Right Woman, and she and I would just hit it off and on our first night together, I would make her come twice for every time I did. Reality had other plans, but I couldn't complain -- and somehow, in that few seconds when we only looked into one another's eyes, I sensed that she was quite satisfied regardless of me having the only orgasm between the two of us - for now. It would be a while yet before I understood what really happened, both to me and to her.

Our special moment was interrupted by the door opening. I gave a start, but Bethany gave much more of one. We both looked over wide-eyed, to see that same guy from earlier walking in. He wasn't even looking at first, just pushing his cart with what was apparently my breakfast, and checking something on his phone. He looked up.

Even now I cringe at how awkward that moment was.

Really, it was just as much an empathetic reaction to Bethany. I realized instantly that however much trouble I was in, it had to be nothing compared to her. Here she was, topless on the job, a supposedly educated and dignified woman of probably forty years -- and she'd just sucked off a patient, on his hospital bed, completely out of nowhere. This wasn't to mention they had never diagnosed what was wrong with me. For all they knew, I was contagious.

No matter what happened now, even if she somehow got away with it, people would talk about her, and she might lose her license. She was frozen in place while the guy and her stared at one another. The guy looked stunned more than anything, but then he gave a little chuckle. There was nothing new under the sun to him -- he wasn't offended, he just didn't expect it. I wondered if maybe we could talk him out of reporting it.

That hope was dashed instantly when a nurse, a portly red-headed woman in her fifties, rounded the corner and walked in. Her jaw dropped, and she gave a yelp. Her hand slapped up to cover her mouth while she blanched, turned and ran out of the room. Bethany had her hand held out toward her and was about to say something, but the nurse was already gone. The guy looked back at me and her... then he shrugged and backed his cart out.

Maybe he thought he was doing us a favor, thinking we'd get another quickie in since we had nothing more to lose now. The mood was gone, though; she slid off the bed and straightened herself up, putting her bra back on then pulling her top back down. With an air of dignity, she pulled her doctor's jacket back on. She smoothed it over as she turned back to me, pulling her clipboard back up. She's not going to keep up that stupid pretense of a real medical exam even now, is she?

I relaxed when she gave me a knowing smile. She pulled a card out of her pocket, and wrote something on the back of it. She pulled open the drawer of the little table next to me, and I saw my clothes were in there. She deposited her card on top of them, and winked at me.

"Well, you seem healthy enough to me." I paused; come to think of it, I was feeling better. Not great, but far better than when I woke up. The surprise blowjob must have had some effect on whatever was causing the pain. "I'll write you a quick prescription for some painkillers, stay on them as long as you need to. In the meantime, get some rest, plenty of fluids, all that. If you feel worse again, call me, even if it's the middle of the night. My cell number is on the back." She gave me a little smile. "Or just call me whenever."

"So... I'm okay to go?" I sat up. My back didn't protest so much that I couldn't do it. I wasn't going to run any marathons today, but I could probably hobble back to my place.

"I have to run the paperwork through, so give it an hour or two until that clears. Oh... also, when you first came in, you were completely unresponsive. They called the campus registrar and got your emergency contact... your, uhh..."

She glanced again at the paperwork she'd so casually tossed aside earlier. "Sister. Emily? I didn't speak with her myself, but they said she was on her way here from New York. They wanted me to tell you she's expecting a call back as soon as you're able. Now I have something of my own to take care of... so, remember to call me." She smiled again and walked out, and I would have sworn her ass didn't sway like that on the way in. I resolved to see more of her than her tits, but that would have to be for later.

The guy -- I never did get his name, wish I had -- had been thoughtful enough to leave the breakfast cart nearby. I wolfed it down, surprising myself with how hungry I was. Once the food had settled, I felt even better. I stood up, and did a few stretches. Another nurse came in, a younger heavyset girl who seemed affixed with a perpetual frown. I felt far too good to let her get me down, and to her I must have been insufferably chipper. She took a few last tests and removed my IV, and gave me something to get filled at the pharmacy downstairs.

I was given my papers, and a tentative clean bill of health, and was outside an hour later -- wearing my jeans and shirt, with a full bottle of something-exor in a little bag. I'd ridden to the hospital in the ambulance, apparently, when my roommate had come home (for once) and seen me passed out on my couch, and been unable to wake me up. I didn't feel like calling him to come pick me up, and it was midday so the buses were running. I hopped on the city tram and showed my student pass, and off we went.

I got home a half-hour later. My roommate was gone again -- you know, I never did find out what happened to John in the later years -- and I sat down. I was hungry again, and made myself some sandwiches... and wolfed them down again, with the same strange hunger. I tried to dial Emily's cell phone, but it said she was out of service range. Probably on a flight here... or not. Em was kind of a mystery to me back then. I tried to pretend looking again at my new anatomy wasn't the first thing I wanted to do -- but finally I gave in, and went into the bathroom with a measuring tape.

I was now five and a half inches soft, and just over nine hard. My God, what happened to me? My high spirits from the blowjob this morning were almost wiped out at the renewed worry that something completely unknown was having its way with my physiology, and who knew what it planned to do next. Maybe it would do the same thing with my head. Or my feet. Or maybe it had taken all of that mass for those new cells out of my brain matter, making me a drooling idiot now and didn't even realize it. I wondered; should I sit down and start slogging through some math, just to test myself?

Or maybe, some usually-ignored voice that sounded in some distant corner of my mind said, you're the luckiest guy ever and you had the time of your life today, and you should just roll with it.

As always back then, I could never make up my mind. That's what anxiety is all about. Whenever I try to tell the girls who mention they're conflicted and worrying themselves too much these days that I understand what they're going through, they just roll their eyes at me. The younger ones tell me they simply can't imagine me being anxious about anything. I try not to let that get to my ego... much. 

The girls closest to me, particularly Bethany, Emily, and my oldest daughters, they know that I'm not lying. I used to be a real mess, and all I knew how to do was study. I was swimming in college loans, had no parental safety net, was barely able to make rent, had virtually no social life, and had no idea if the mechanical engineering degree I was squeaking by along the path to achieving would actually amount to anything given my pathetic job history.

On top of that I was becoming genuinely worried I would spend my whole life alone; I had hardly any friends and had only had a handful of girlfriends. I was out of shape, scrawny and gawky, and had only recently picked up contacts to replace my quintessentially nerdy heavy glasses.

Even my internet friends had begun to lose touch with me when I lost interest in all those online video games that were brand new back then. It's also poorly understood in this era, but being of... varied ethnic background, in that day and age, caused some difficulty with social acceptance in many circles. That's one thing I definitely don't miss about the old world.

So anyway, it was right about then, standing there with my pants down and a measuring tape against my dong, that I met the Experimenter - better known as 15226.



Humanity 2.0, Year 001, Day 001B



There's a generation coming up now, many of whom have been saying that the Experimenter -- also called 15226 -- is a figurative thing, not to be understood as a real being, and was more likely just an institution from the old-world governments using smoke and mirrors to pawn itself off to me as some kind of cosmic entity. They say that would make me less likely to go asking questions and really look into the why and how of my DNA being completely rewritten.

They've got this whole thing explained down to a tee; I'm actually impressed at the level of detail that Sana and them have put into it. We had a saying in the old world, though... truth is always stranger than fiction. I will insist to the day I die that the Cosmic Experimenter was real, and it was she who not only made me into the first of us, but literally wrote our species' DNA herself after centuries of painstaking and outlandish research.

Whether anyone believes me now, isn't really of that much - if any - consequence. You're all, of course, free to make up your own minds. She left a long time ago, and isn't coming back. Creating me, and getting the Vault ready, were the last things she did before she took off to save the next species from itself.

Mind that when I say 'she', that's because she picked a female form for that body... but given what she said, I think she also thought of herself as female -- but a female of whatever species she was before she got turned into a thinking spaceship... thing. I probably didn't impress her very much when we first met; I emerged from the bathroom holding a measuring tape to my oversized hard-on, grinning like an idiot, waddling out with my pants around my knees.

Already I was thinking back to my experience with Bethany. My erection was practically ready to explode again. I looked up, and over to my computer -- I guess I was thinking of looking up some porn, hell if I remember -- and there she was.

She wore a skin-tight black jumpsuit, it looked like it was made of plastic or some special polymer. It was essentially painted on, in any case... it hugged those perfect curves tightly. There was a silvery patterning on it, though I never found out if it had any significance. The outfit seemed to be more for protection or functionality than for decency or decoration... it didn't conceal her nipples at all, and even her cameltoe was plainly visible.

It didn't even have shoes as such, more of a thicker layer of the fabric just under her feet; the outfit even fit perfectly around her toes, as if she was barefoot. It stopped at her neck, where her gorgeous face with shiny black hair and thin red lips were on display. Her features were delicate, and despite actually being a goddamn spaceship, she actually came off as quite human. I remember that about her most, I think.

"Merry Christmas." She said it without any preamble, or much emotion at all -- she said it as if it was the answer to an unasked question.

I should have pulled my pants up, indecent exposure and all that, but instead they fell right down to the floor as I also dropped the tape. I was like a deer in the headlights for a moment -- ah shit, none of you will know that metaphor. I was just completely stunned. A few seconds later, I was stammering apologies and picking my jeans up.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! John didn't tell me you would be here! Um, sorry we met like that -- I'm Ben, John's roommate, and you must be Tammy..." John had mentioned a new girlfriend. I'd assumed this was she. Not a bad assumption under the circumstances, really, though the crazy outfit didn't really fit in with the hypothesis.

"I am not Tammy. Sit down, Benedict."

Only my mother called me Benedict, and I think she did it to piss me off. I had barely visited the mental ward she lived in. I hoped around then that she got help from someone, but it wouldn't be me. I tried too many times.

"Um -- you're not Tammy? Who are you?"

"I'm the reason for your need of a measuring tape." She tilted her head at me, with a crooked smile. It was like I was a kid who'd been caught looking at a dirty magazine. I belatedly thought to pull my pants up.

"I'm sorry?" I choked it out after a few moments of fumbling to make myself decent again.

"Your penile endowment being increased -- congratulations, I guess, not sure what you would say around here -- ah, is one of an enormous number of changes I made to your DNA over the last 24 hours with a retrovirus tailored specifically to you."

I raised an eyebrow. "Did, uh, someone from the hospital tell you something?"

"Hospital?" She looked away for a moment, and seemed to be thinking. "You were checked in last night, 09:08pm local. Good... okay, their tests didn't find anything immediately dangerous." She looked directly into my eyes. "Avoid medical facilities from now on, unless it's a life-threatening emergency. Use an independent doctor you trust. Understand?"

I shook my head. "Uh, I understand I don't know who the hell you are and what you're doing here if you're not John's new girl." I was feeling a little macho that day and didn't want to be ordered around.

"Suit yourself. I engineered the retrovirus that is turning you into a whole new kind of human being as we speak. I've been preparing my experimentation facility to function as a repository for the collected knowledge of the human race, as well as you and all the other new humans that you will be helping create. I did all this to make sure the human race lives on, in a form that won't need babysitting to ensure it doesn't obliterate itself."

I looked up at her. Okay, the suit fabric I had to give her; I'd never seen anything like it. But they came up with new stuff all the time. It was just a skin-tight bodysuit, with a good-looking but apparently insane girl inside it. Even with the suit, and her knowing about my, uh, condition, it was too much to believe. I was hoping to shed some light on this, not to get a National Enquirer update. "Listen, if you need to get somewhere, I can't give you a ride. I'm on these painkillers and they told me not to drive. If you know something useful, say it and get out of here."

She frowned. "You're being difficult, Benedict. I don't have much time left on this planet. I need you to listen."

I didn't want to hear any more at this point. "I think I've listened to about as much as I need to."

She sighed. "Fine. You were going to make yourself ejaculate, correct?" She slid a finger down the front of her suit. It split open on an invisible seam, and she was completely naked underneath. My jaw dropped. Her figure was flawless; she looked no older than me, perfect apple breasts, a bubble ass, and an hourglass waistline. She was toned, fit, and had the smoothest pale skin you could imagine.

God damn, she was gorgeous, and she just stripped in front of me like she was taking off a jacket. She snapped her fingers near her head, drawing my stare up to those all-knowing eyes. Our gazes met for a second until she spoke. "Will you listen to me if I let you use my body freely?"

What the fuck kind of day is today? I wondered. My cock was already threatening to rip open my pants. Anxiety warred with desire all over again -- now this time, this girl was a total stranger who had apparently broken into my place, and on top of that she may be delusional and in need of some anti-psychotics. On the other hand, virtually none of today's facts added up if I assumed any conventional explanation that I could think up... which only left the unconventional. I can't believe I'm even thinking this. Is she right?

"Gladly." I stood up and pulled her to me. 

She turned her head to the door, then back to me. "Are you expecting this roommate you mentioned to return soon?"

"John? Guy is like a ninja. I never know when to expect him, or even when he's already here sometimes."

She gave a tiny frown, then suddenly grabbed my hand and led me into my bedroom and closed the door. "If he returns, pretend I'm a new girlfriend. I'll play along." She pulled me over to my bed, once again taking the lead, and pushed me onto it. She straddled me, and I noted with interest that her pussy was completely bald. Not even stubble on it, either she'd had it electrically removed, or she was one of those rare people who never had any to begin with. It looked so smooth... I wanted to touch it.

My cock finally sprung out of the waistband of my underwear and peeked out from under the hem of my shirt. The woman opened my fly unceremoniously, pulled my pants down to below my ass, and leaned over me with one arm. Before I could say anything, or even think, the tip of my cock was pressing against her pink lower lips, and I found myself gasping as I slid inside her.

Kathleen had never wanted to really have sex with me; we did some petting and those few experimental blowjobs, but she'd once confessed to me after our second attempt that she couldn't even fit the smallest dildos inside herself. Her gyno had explained it to her, and said it was fixable with an outpatient procedure... but she'd been too scared to go through with it, and got virtually nothing out of sex anyway, she said. She basically did it because she thought guys just wanted it.

The only pussy I'd been inside was the seven or eight times I'd made it with Raelynn back in high school... and she was sort of the community bicycle between all of the nerds. The only thing she liked more than having sex with nerds was playing Dungeons & Dragons with nerds. Neither prepared me for the tight heat and soft wetness of this woman's inner walls. My newly expanded pole fit inside her with perfect tightness. She let out a long breath too, and let my dick slide further and further inside, until I felt her wet outer lips kissing the base of my dick.

I wanted to just lie there all day. Even my huge pole had bottomed out inside this woman, and I didn't know her name -- except as 'Cosmic Experimenter', but what the hell kind of name was that? She said she was an avatar of this Experimenter thing, but maybe she had a separate name of her own. My mind was torn away from the sidetrack as my torso shifted slightly, letting me feel her all over again.

"There... you won't go far now, will you?" She was looking down at me, focused, but I could tell she was affected by my dick being inside her. She might have done this just to keep me from throwing her out, but she was enjoying it too.

"Um... not for a while... you're so tight."

"I thought I might have to go this far to get your attention, so I adjusted my dimensions just for you." It went right through my head at the time. She sighed. "I guess I'm at least somewhat at fault. I fine-tuned your sexual desires myself thinking it would help you surpass your inhibitions, but I might have erred on the side of too much. It's not at all surprising you'd be thinking with your dick when I arrived."

"Wha... I'm sorry?" With the sensations assaulting my mind like that, trying to assemble complex meanings in my head right then just resulted in a jumble of nonsense. "Wait, go back. You can... adjust yourself?"

She shrugged, still laying out on her back as I fucked her. "This body is mostly biogel. It'll return to my hull once I don't need an avatar on your planet again. For now, just fuck me, and try to absorb what I say. You don't have to think about it right now, go ahead and just fuck away. Just try to let what I say stick in some corner of your head so you can think it over later."

"Uhh, will do." I placed my hands on her bare hips and ass, feeling their taut roundness. Her skin was perfectly smooth. Her boobs gave this tiny little bounce whenever I let my hips move. Her hair reflected the light through the blinds so nicely... she was goddamn gorgeous. Unable to resist, I pumped my hips up and down a little, enjoying the sensation of my cock sliding in and out, and the outer folds of her pussy kissing the base of my penis over and over.

"Benedict, your DNA alterations are the result of two hundred and seventy-one years of experiments that test the long-term stability of the human race and its bio-psychology."

"I'm doing some bio-psychology right now." I grinned and took a heavy breast in one hand. Come to think of it, I probably didn't do a stand-up job of representing the male segment of the human race to her at that time. I hope history will forgive me.

"You're doing exactly that. Human psychology ties into human sexuality in so many ways that the problem seemed intractable at first." She bounced in return a little, letting her boobs jiggle. I reached up and took a nipple between my fingers. Her tits were so springy and large... she seemed to sense my intent, and suddenly bent herself down -- offering her red nipples right up to my mouth. I greedily sucked them.

"The human species in its current form is not stable in the long term. Evolution is very good at producing creatures that will survive in the wild, and one survival trait is intelligence -- but once those same intelligent species progress into a technological society, many of the evolutionary tools that got them there become a liability. This dichotomy has resulted in the end of countless sentient species.

"The Cosmic Experimenters -- of which I'm number 15226 -- wander this galactic supercluster, finding civilizations entering their technological ramp-up period, and try to observe their societies enough to grasp the fundamental problems that each species may face that could cause them to wipe themselves out. There's always something, usually a lot of things.

I let her nipple pop out of my mouth and she came back up over me. The words washed through my head, stored, but not really comprehended. I couldn't get enough of feeling up her ass, and she seemed to welcome my roaming hands and forgive my inexperienced touch; she might have even been trying to teach me.

God, I couldn't get enough of her body -- even though I knew she was telling me something all-important. I told myself at the time that I was just having sex with a crazy girl, like who knew how many men before me. Wish I'd thought it through more. Wish I'd thought a lot of things through more.

She took a deep breath, and traced a finger along my chest. "All told, since I got here, I've tried six hundred and fourteen experiments, but basically none of them worked. Compared to most species, I arrived on Earth very early; usually getting there that far ahead of time gives me plenty of time to save a species. With you, I think I only managed to crack it in the nick of time... and even then, I'm too late for all of the current humans."

I shrugged. She could keep droning on as much as she wanted; as long as she let me at that incredible body of hers, I was keen to let her keep talking forever. "Are we done now? Because I really just want to let this load loose in you."

"I told you to use my body. Use it."

I took her at her word. I grabbed her by the waist again and suddenly rolled us over, positioning her spread legs off the side of the bed and letting myself stand at its edge. Tightening my grip on her ass, I abruptly started fucking her as hard as I could. I had to slide my arms under her back and grab her by the shoulders to hold her still while my hips fucked away, almost beyond my control now as I reveled in the tight wetness inside her. I bent down and suckled at her breasts more, then leaned up to kiss her.

As I did, I looked into her eyes... it was still one of the most surreal experiences of my life. No other woman has had eyes like that while I made love to them. She was looking at me... it was something in between the way a mother sees her prodigal child, and the way a scientist sees their life's work. She looked... proud of me, as I grunted and rutted hard, pistoning my cock in and out of her like an engine. Looking back, I should have tried harder to make her come. All I could think about then was that amazing pussy...

With two shouts, I felt the boiling in my balls start all over again. Belatedly, I slid a hand down to her clit, but it was too late for us to come together. My own cock was past the point of no return, and I lost the train of thought as it blasted out the first load of my orgasm. I let my head fall down next to hers, and felt her legs curl around my back, and one hand slid up and down my shoulder blade as I finished pumping, and let my cock spurt the remainder of its product deep inside her.

We remained like that for probably ten minutes, maybe even longer. My mind was racing the whole time, but I probably just looked like I was catching my breath. She continued to slide her hand up and down my back, an oddly loving gesture from her. I never really figured my relationship with her out; there was no word for it, then or now. I suppose it's too much to expect -- she was, after all, not human. She was only comprehensible to me at all because she went out of her way to make a part of herself think and act, well, mostly human.

Still, I've always felt we connected in some way... even if I would always only be a tiny speck of an existence compared to her age, wisdom, and most of all, power. Creating me was her achievement of this millennia, but she'd had many, many more before that, and there would be more in the coming ages, peoples you and I will never live to see.

The beginnings and endings she must have seen... if there's any wish I have before I finally check out, it would be to just sit down with her for one night, and just talk with her, face to face, knowing everything I do now and without my adolescent libido to distract us. Hers was a life I only wish I could understand.

"Are you for real?" I finally spoke up, and let myself fall to her side. I'd been resting, supporting myself on all fours on top of her. My cock was still inside her; I guess some dumb part of me thought that once I pulled out, I would never experience anything so good ever again. There wasn't anything quite like that ever again, sure, but there were other things to come that were better in other ways.

"I thought you would ask. I'll show you. Hold still." Her legs suddenly pulled together over my ass, pulling me closer to her. "Hold onto me tighter. We need to be as physically close together as possible."

"Um, okay." I thought maybe she just had some kind of snuggling fetish. I had no objection to closeness to her nude body, so I did it. She rested her head on my shoulder, so I never saw her expression -- only the odd shift in perspective of the room. It was like I was suddenly viewing the world through a glass marble. Everything bent, shifted upside-down, and then there was a sudden sense of weightlessness.

I instinctively gripped her even more tightly, hard enough that had she been a normal woman I might have hurt her. She didn't respond, and suddenly it all happened in reverse -- though we were in a different room now. Apparently she was just a tiny bit off, and we missed the bed by a few feet. We fell onto the floor with an unceremonious thud, and I felt several sharp pains as I fell upon several choice sections of my body. I ended up bruising my ass, upper back, and elbow.

It took a moment for me to extricate myself from her, and get up to look around. "What the hell just happened!"

"Help me up." She held out an arm to me as I rose up. With a start, I realized I was completely naked now, just as she was. Wherever she'd taken us, my clothes didn't come along for the ride. The room was unadorned, and actually quite boring; it was bare rock on the walls, and a plain white single bed in its center. On one side was a massive door, like a bulkhead. She took a moment to get her bearings; she seemed very dizzy. I held her for a few moments until she was good enough to walk on her own.

There was a black knob on one wall, just sticking out attached to only the stone... I thought it was maybe a switch. She walked over and put a hand on it, and this black fluid shot out in countless zipping tendrils, enveloping her. In an instant it had covered her, and congealed then solidified into another outfit like she'd had in my apartment. Watching her use it felt for an instant like watching a giant spider or centipede attack her. My heart skipped for a half-second. Hell of a way to get dressed. She gestured to the knob, clearly expecting me to do the same thing.




Humanity 2.0, Year 001, Day 001B



"I'll stay like this, thanks."

She rolled her eyes. One of her hands clapped to my shoulder. I thought she was going to say something condescending, then suddenly my body felt a flash of coolness and in another instant, the black stuff was all over me instead. She was nude again, but one touch to the knob and she had another of the same outfit on.

I moved around, shifting and flexing in the outfit. It was great; comfortable, fitted to absolute perfection, flexible, warm yet easy to forget you were even wearing it. I wanted to patent it already. Not something I could wear in public in that era, unfortunately, with the way it wrapped around my dick like it was trying to take a mold of my tool. I found out later that yes, it kept its perfect molded shape even when I had an erection.

"Where are we?" I noticed the pattern on my outfit was different than the one she'd been wearing that she gave to me. Like I said, I never figured those patterns out, though.

"Translocating more than one organism at once separately is harder than hell, but if you just do two very physically close creatures as though they're a single big one, it's actually safer than with just one." She walked me over to the door. "This is the Vault. It's an unnamed island in the northern Pacific tropical regions, though most of the Vault itself is below sea level. I knew you'd need proof before you really cooperated, which I suppose is a mark in your favor if I expect my chosen subjects to be reasonable. So I thought I'd take you here."

"Okay..." The door opened, and I followed her through. It was a corridor as bland and unremarkable as the last. It led to another bulkhead, though several other smaller doors lined the sides of the hall -- we didn't look in those. She opened the far bulkhead, revealing what looked like some kind of control room, complete with massive windows lining the far side, overlooking some gigantic chamber.

"This is the control room. It's where this avatar - me, I guess - lived during the experimentation periods. Here, let me show you something." She walked over to one console, and pressed a button. The chamber the room overlooked lit up suddenly, revealing it to be cylindrical, with a massive metallic hatch covering half of the ceiling.

In the center of the room, which was more like a giant launch tube, stood a gargantuan... thing. It looked mechanical, though this side was mostly exposed structure, almost looking unfinished, and I could see some kind of dimly glowing blue hexagonally-shaped rod inside it. Lower down, it looked to be more heavily built up and covered. The whole thing was the color of bare steel, and there were no visible entry points. She gestured down to it. "Here I am."

It was all I could do to keep my jaw from gaping open. "Um -- you came from inside that?"

"I am that. I'm not a ship meant to carry passengers. The entire hull is my body, or just myself. I'm hibernating right now, which is what I mostly did between observational phases in the experiments over the years. This biogel body serves as my low-power mode, and when my real body was asleep to conserve energy, this smaller me was mostly just living here and observing, taking notes, working out what should be done in the next round of each experiment.

"Every few years, I'd merge with myself down there, and crunch through all the data I'd gathered. Then my primary self would re-form this avatar, and go back into hibernation." She leaned against the glass. "So it's gone for the last two hundred and seventy-one years."

I couldn't deny anything I was seeing, or hearing, despite the insanity of my situation. The story added up, it was just so outlandish that I couldn't get my head around it. "This is all real, though, isn't it..." I stared down at the massive thing below. It even somehow looked like it was hibernating... like some unimaginable force was waiting to come back to life within, something beyond human comprehension. "You never finished earlier."

"About the experiments?"

"About me. The end result. You were looking for the most stable way people can exist. You finished all your tests and picked one way, which is why you said you did all this to me. Making civilization stable indefinitely can't just be a matter of giving men bigger dicks."

She snorted. "You know, I never tried doing an experiment for just that alone... maybe it would have actually worked." She chuckled, but then lost her expression and seemed to sober. "Benedict-"

I held up a hand. "Ben. I hate being called Benedict."

"Ben, then. Walk with me." She held out a hand again, and I took it. She led me through other corridors, talking as we went.

She was quiet for a time, then continued as we passed through a long, metallic corridor with no decorations. "First, let me give you the bad news. I think it's probably too late to save the overwhelming majority of humankind."

I was hesitant to just take her word for that, alien or not. "People have been saying it's the end of the world for thousands of years. There's that famous Cicero quote... was it Cicero?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. I spent years gathering up every smidgeon of Earthly information, knowledge, and culture and storing them on multiple redundant backups here and offworld, just in case. I never really bothered to absorb that much of it, though. This avatar doesn't have much beyond normal human capabilities, minus a few tricks... like how we got here. Anyway... the end won't be soon. Not today, or tomorrow, and it probably won't end with a big threatric war or explosion. 

"Things will just... get worse and worse, life will get harder and harder, until there's only a few tiny communities left, fighting over fleeting slivers of arable land, fresh water, or livestock. I wish I could have found a way to fix the planet, but I couldn't. The issue with implementing this isn't just coming up with a stable solution. It's having enough time to let it propagate.

"I used up virtually all of my helium-three reserves just running what experiments I did, until I came up with the idea I used to create you. My hull barely has enough power left to leave Earth and coast out to Jupiter, where I can refuel... but by the point I'd be ready to intervene again, I think probably it'll be too late for the current species."

"Why? There's seriously nothing you can do? I mean, there's the environment and all, and energy and peak oil and whatever, but... can't you just, I don't know, give us what you know and then take off?"

She shook her head. "Against mission parameters. Sorry."

I was confused. "You said your mission was to fly around and save species from extinction."

"It is -- for a reason. Listen, explaining why it is that I and the other Experimenters try to genetically reform every intelligent species into something that's stable over at least a million years is because there need to be several massive, highly advanced interstellar civilizations established throughout this supercluster when the Fire returns in roughly 412,000 years."

I took a moment to process the near-incomprehensible statement. My jaw probably hung open like that of an idiot. I finally shrugged and asked. "Buh... what's the Fire?"

She smiled weakly, and looked away. "I don't have all week to sit down and try to give you the short version of what the Fire is. You won't live to see it, in any case... Giving your people all the technology the Primus had would not only be incredibly dangerous, but it would also force the development of your technology into the same direction as ours went -- mostly focusing on quarkware and its potential."

She frowned briefly, as if remembering some personal failure or mistake. "The Primus way of doing things ultimately failed. Quarkware -- I guess you could characterize it as something like nanotechnology, but better and less dangerous -- is useless against the Fire. It's worse than useless, actually. I don't know if there even is a way to really defeat the Fire, but if there is, it'll have to be someone else who comes up with it.

"Among those of the Primus who were left toward the end, most left the physical world entirely, except for those few of us who volunteered to turn ourselves into the Experimenters. Our mission is to plant the seeds of as many advanced interstellar civilizations as we can, in the hope that somebody, someday, will be able to think up the thing that we never could."

I paused for a time, digesting it all, then wondered if the little sticking point that I'd found in it all was really anything. "So, I think I found a problem. It never occurred to you that genetically engineering every species you encounter is no small amount of intervening in our development?"

"We only do that insofar as it lets you continue to develop at all. If I don't do this, and you don't propagate the changes I've made to you -- the last human will die inside of four hundred years. Earth will just be yet another archeological curiosity for one of the civilizations we did manage to save from itself."

I had no good response. I looked outside again. The lights in the chamber had dimmed down; I guess she hit the switch again at some point. "I still think this is just arrogant bullshit. Humans have always survived. End-of-the-world stuff never pans out."

"Not this time, Ben." She sat down in her chair. "You forget, I've been human now, for almost three hundred years. This avatar has the equivalent of a human brain, human emotions... I didn't spend all my time living sealed up in here. I lived two whole human lifetimes outside, letting myself grow up as a child, having lovers, growing old. My true self, down in that chamber you saw, has absorbed all of that, and understands what it is to be human, and what it is to be just about every other species she's encountered.

"But she also understands much, much more. She -- I -- have seen one thousand and six civilizations saved by my efforts... and four thousand, two hundred and ninety-three wipe themselves out while I worked desperately to find a way to help them."

She looked downcast for a moment, like she hated to talk about this. "I'm actually the third highest among all of my kind for success ratio, as of the last Conclave anyway. It's easy, Ben, to let yourself get caught up in that kind of thinking -- that in the end, it'll all pan out, that just because you've always seen things to go one way, means they always will in the future. I've seen that mindset in who knows how many civilizations, peoples.

"It can't last forever, though. Nothing lasts forever, not even my kind. Your planet is a system, a complicated one, but still only a system, and it can only take so much before things fall apart. The universe doesn't care, it has no obligation to save your people or provide a solution that lets you keep living the way you do. Once resources run out, they're gone, nobody will show up to hand you more. I've seen this happen thousands of times."

The story she'd given me then was just words and ideas to me. It would be lifetimes before I really had the tiniest grasp of the scale on which she thought. Both of us were quiet for a while.

I finally shrugged. "How will it happen again?"

"There's six scenarios I've worked out..."

"But you already know which one it'll be, I'm sure." I probably came off as more testy than I meant to.

She was quietly tolerant of my minor outburst. "I think it'll be a combination of the three most likely. The antibiotic immunity problem, the desertification of most of the Earth for a century or more, and organic chemistry balance - mostly with regard to the oceans."

She sighed. "Those three combined will result in nearly all necessary resources for survival being depleted an order of magnitude faster than civilization can hope to come up with alternate solutions for. Ecosystems will collapse when the oceanic algae mats start to die off. The antibiotic problem is the biggest variable; it's basically a roll of the dice every year, until one super-immune plague evolves that no medicine can stop.

"That could be tomorrow, it could be in two hundred years. In the worst case, you could end up with a planet-wide algae blackout. Earth's atmospheric oxygen level could drop below 10% for at least two years. Some Earth creatures, and most plants, could survive that.. but humankind wouldn't. It's a real doomsday scenario, and frighteningly likely."

"But -- I mean, if you can rewrite all of my DNA, you have to be able to just give us a fix. You've seen things work out a thousand times, right? You have to have seen how these other aliens or whatever did it. I mean, you have to be able to give us a way to fight fucking bacteria."

"Ben, it took me fourteen months of disassembling and analyzing your genome to find a way to rewrite it in such a way that you would become what I needed you to be -- without killing you. Every human is different. I'd need another eight months for each and every human male I tried to make like you. I'm not a god. Even I can't predict how bacteria on your planet will evolve. Frankly, the number of iterations they can go through in a single day surprises even me, and I've seen more kinds of life than you can imagine.

"It's insanely unlikely I could formulate any broad-spectrum cure, or even a vaccine or new antibiotic, before Earth's current scientific establishment could. I have a lot of tricks, but I have only a few dozen liters of helium-three left to work with, and my quarkware abilities are limited to a very small scale and range. Even if I sacrificed myself and stayed here instead of leaving, there wouldn't be much more I could do than what I've already done since I arrived."

"... okay, fine. So what happens? How am I different from other people now? Why do the people like me survive when everyone else doesn't?"

"I'll get to that in a minute. Here, let me show you something." We had come to a door, more of a metal hatch -- it almost looked like one of those sliding bulkheads from Star Trek. It didn't make the characteristic sound, but it did have an unmistakable sense of heaviness to it as it slid open when she pressed the small blue button to the side. The room was huge -- and circular again. On its floor were many big, luxurious couches and lounge chairs, small tables, and carpets.

There was space enough to fit twenty or thirty people in there easily, and if you went to standing room only, over a hundred. The floor was stepped in large segments, leading down toward -- I stopped and then remembered to close my jaw. The far wall wasn't so much a wall as a gigantic window. Outside was what looked like solid blue -- until my eyes focused, and I realized the window was looking out into the ocean depths.