The God Experiment

Chapter No.67. Baby Bump.

Chapter No.67. Baby Bump.

If the Steris family didn't have enough craziness to deal with, what Sylvia revealed at the evening supper really turned things upside down.

"I'm pregnant," she said with an appropriate serious expression.

James' expression exploded into disbelief. "What? I thought you couldn't get pregnant because you weren't having periods."

"Evidently, it slipped past me."

"That's going to be a problem," Janet said. "Most school systems won't allow pregnant students to attend classes. She would have to go remote."

"We could abort it," Sylvia said.

"No!" Robert frowned. "That is not an option. We can't kill anything on purpose."

Sylvia sighed. "Yes, you're right."

"I'm not sure how a pregnant superhero could operate," James said after a period of silence.

"This won't be a problem," Robert said. "Keep in mind that we can be in multiple places at the same time and morph into whatever we want."

James smiled. "Oh, yeah! I forgot about that. She can go to school unpregnant and stay here at home in her true form."

Sylvia smiled. "I can do that!"

"I wonder if her baby will be a superhero," Janet mused.

"If it is, we really will be the Incredibles," James said.

They laughed.

"I wonder if this was in the experiment's plan," Janet said.

"Maybe we're being tested to see if we can accept a true family situation," Robert said. "Despite the fact that the baby will be born out of wedlock, it deserves to live and thrive. It would be a serious sin to do otherwise."

They all agreed.

Just then the landline phone rang, and Janet answered it. After a brief conversation, Janet hung it up. "NASA wants to discuss a new mission."

They teleported to the JPL Mission room where Jason and a woman were waiting on them. The older women had grey hair but a nice smile.

"This is Sally Jordan," Jason told them, gesturing to the woman. "She's in charge of long-range probes. I'll let her explain the mission."

"We've developed a small probe with full wavelength cameras to investigate the true structure of our galaxy. Unfortunately, the only good way to do that would be to send the probe above the galactic plane, but that would require sending it several thousand light years away. We originally were only going to send it out of our solar system, but if you could take it to a better viewing site, it would be able to gather much better data."

"Actually, we could take it to what you consider to be the very best location. It is able to record the photos?"

"Yes. The original plan was to send it on a long orbital swing outside the solar system and then return to be retrieved. We estimate that it would take at least ten years to accomplish this plan,"

Robert waved his hand dismissively. "Nah, we can do much better than that. We'll take it out to the top of the galaxy and then to the bottom."

Sally turned to Jason momentarily before turning back to Robert. "That would be awesome. I'll show you how to activate the camera once you get it into position."

After a technical explanation of how the cameras work, the superheroes were taken to a room where the probe was being readied for service. The technicians gawked at the superheroes but said nothing.

The superheroes gathered around the probe and then placed their hands on it before they teleported it to a position ten thousand light years above the galaxy but not near the center.

"What the hell is that bulge of glowing stuff over the center?" James asked.

"It's where the supermassive black hole is," Robert said. "I would think it's from its accretion disc."

"It's blasting gas out of the galaxy," Sylvia said. "It's the way that black holes control galactic star formation."

"I started the camera run," Janet said. "Hopefully, it will give them what they want."

"Oh, I'm sure it will," Robert said. "No one can go where we can."

"We're advancing astronomical science," James said.

"I wonder if that was in God's plan," Janet said.

"I would have to assume that it was," Robert said.

After the camera run was complete, the superheroes teleported the probe to a location below the galaxy, and that was where they discovered something no one knew existed.

"What the hell is that?" James said, pointing to a large thin black rectangle.

"That's at least a kilometer in length and a half kilometer wide," Sylvia said. "But it's only twenty meters wide."

"It's definitely not natural," Robert said. "Begin the camera run. We'll go check it out while its running."

They traveled the hundred kilometers to the object and slowly flew around

"I don't see any marking or opening on it," Robert said.

"I wonder who put it here," James said.

"Maybe it was sent here," Sylvia said.

"What, to spy on us?" James retorted.

"Maybe it's the monolith from 2001 a Space Odyssey," Sylvia said.

They laughed,

"Let's take some photo of it and get back to the camera probe," Robert said. "We'll let NASA figure it out."

After completing the second camera run below the galaxy, the Steris family returned the probe to the JPL Mission room.

"All done," Robert said. "We also discovered something odd below the galaxy. It's a thin rectangle. We think it's alien in nature, but you can decide what it is."

James downloaded the photos from his phone to their computer. Jason, Sally and some technicians gathered around to view them. After several minutes, Jason turned to Robert. "Thanks for helping us. What you've accomplished is beyond anything we could accomplish."

"We're happy to be able to help you," Robert said before he and his family teleported back home.

"Well, that was fun," Janet said.

"Indeed," Robert said.

"Should Sylvia be going to a doctor?" Janet said.

"That's not necessary," Robert said. "We can handle any possible pregnancy issues."

"Yes, I keep forgetting what we are."

"We're the Incredibles!" James said, raising his fist.

They laughed, but they had no idea where this new twist was going.