FRINGE DIVISION CASE FILE #116-41409
FRINGE EVENT: Transgenic species
CLASSIFIED CASE CONNECTION(S): Dr. Bishop and Dr. Bell's failed Kelvin Genetics testing from 20 years prior
AGENTS ASSIGNED: Dunham, Francis
SUPERVISING AGENT: Broyles
FILE ARCHIVED BY: Jenn Kehl
WITNESSES/CONTACTS: Carl Bussler, Dr. Robert Swift (in custody)
LOCATION: Swift Research, Cambridge, MA
VICTIM(S): Cameron Deglmann, Jonathan Swift, Chris Hawkins, Jane Doe, John Doe, 2 Newton animal control officers, Special Agent Francis
CASE REPORT SUMMARY:
Four rogue animal-rights activists from "Animals First" breached the Swift Research facility and released its testing animals. Three activists escaped but were attacked off-site by a creature with enormous claws and fangs similar to some type of viper. Dr. Bishop determined in autopsy that it was an animal creation made up of the genes of multiple species, a process he termed accelerated Darwinism. Larvae from the creature are transferred from the stinger to a suitable incubator.
- Project 709 - Exploration 16 -
I read my old notes, and I see myself through a glass darkly. Another self, myopic and full of hubris, standing at the gates of knowledge and prying them open with a crowbar --
PLEADING IGNORANCE? YOU KNEW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WERE DOING.
Nietzsche had a point. "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." But I've already gazed so deeply into that abyss, I wonder if I'll ever climb out. How my explorations could have been so misused --
POINTLESS SELF-PITY. IT WASN'T YOU WHO RELEASED A MONSTER ON THE WORLD.
Didn't I? I released the means for doing so. I knew what I wanted. To turn Greek myth into modern reality. To create life like no one had seen before. To play at God.
AS THOUGH THAT WERE A CRIME. GOD CREATED MORE THAN A FEW MONSTERS HIMSELF. WITHOUT MEN PLAYING AT GOD, WE WOULD STILL BE HUDDLED IN CAVES WITH ONLY SKINS TO COVER US. WE HAVE ALWAYS BRED BEASTS TO MAKE THEM USEFUL TO US -- WILD DOGS INTO LOYAL PETS, NOMADIC UNGULATES INTO DAIRY COWS. MODERN TRANSGENICS DIFFERS ONLY IN DEGREE, NOT IN KIND, AND
And in purpose? I didn't seek medical cures or better food or safer energy. I sought only to prove that I could, to find the limits of the possible --
TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE. THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH, AS NOBLE A GOAL AS ANY. AND NOW THAT SOMEONE HAS PUSHED YOUR RESEARCH TO ITS LIMITS,
I must stop it. If I can tempt the beast to ingest the poison --
DON'T BE RIDICU
ASTRID: "So this thing had the claws of a lion and the fangs of a snake?"
WALTER: "Reminds me of a woman I once knew in Cleveland."