Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Destination Unknown

Dr. Krill sat in his office on board the ship. It was dark, and silent. He was sure, on the outside of the ship, where they were stationed on the Andromeda hub, that that was not the case, but here, inside the ship under his UV light, all was silent.

His office was immaculate as usual, perfectly organized for optimal efficiency as all of his tools and possessions were. Everything was in its place, and ever place was perfect. All except for one item.

The file folder.

It sat on his desk under the florescent lighting. There was nothing special about this particular file folder. Other than the fact that it was, in hard copy, like many things weren't these days.

It was a light cream in color, and much thicker than your average file folder. On the desk next to it sat a small stack of little back microdisks that held what amounted to thousands and thousands of hours of recordings.

Krill had never opened this file.

He had made a promise to himself never to give in to the temptation that was reading and researching what the crazy Gibb scientist had left behind.

He paused in his thought process for a moment.

Crazy.... Was he really crazy? Usually that was a word associated with people who are wrong, but it seems that..... Dr, Kedd had been onto soemthing.

Dr Krill glanced down at the file folder, and the small white label neatly pinned to the front.

Dr Kedd

It had been years since they had been involved with the little scientist, and from what little research Krill had managed to do, he had learned that Dr. Kedd had been on the original medical team that examined humans when they were first introduced into the galaxy. It was his work that adorned the pages of those first preliminary textbooks and scientific papers that Krill had read on humans when he first stepped foot aboard the harbinger. Ironically, in a strange twist of fate, that information was based primarily on the first ever human to allow himself to be fully examined.

Which just so happened to be the same human that Dr. Krill would base much of his own work off of later in his career.

Adam Vir.

It seemed as if their lives had been more intertwined than originally thought. Dr, Krill had admired Dr. Kedd's work at one point, and even corresponded with him on several occasions for advice regarding his research on humans. It was only later did they learn that the good doctor was actually preforming sadistic and unethical studies on humans after a psychotic break, wherein he had become obsessed with the idea of a human soul.

Finding it

Proving its reality

And who knew what else.

Dr. krill sighed as he reached a hand out for the folder.

How strange was it to think that..... now they knew the truth. That Dr. Kedd, in small part, had NOT been wrong.

There was indeed a soul.

Or the anima as it had come to be known. As right as Dr. kedd had been about humans, he didn't know the half of it. As it would seem every species In their known galaxy was some sort of constructed blueprint designed by beings that called themselves only the "makers" in order to house a soul at different power levels.

Ironically it was this fact that probably caused Dr. Kedd's psychological break, which was referred to within these alien documents and Locus degradation resulting from power erosion, or, from what doctor Krill could tell meant, the Anima was too powerful for the construct resulting in a failure of the locus (or cortical) structure.