Project Shadow

Chapter 2

It had been a few weeks since Gerald accepted to research Immortality but the fruits of his labor bared little results. He started with studying earth's life and as we all know everything has an expiration, the professor had looked into the lifespans of thousands of creatures and of course the longest were humans and mobians but everything had a weakness. A fragility that meant any creature he based his research on could end in failure due to a design in all life.

He left his office to walk the corridors of the ARK in order to clear his head. There had to be something he was missing, any small thing to help him at least make a start. "Grandpa!" He turned around to see his granddaughter running toward him along with a smaller boy. "Are you taking a break? Could you play with us?" Her smile lifted his spirits and he noticed the small tank in the boys hands.

"I'm sorry my dear, I only came to stretch my legs." He recognized the boy to be Abraham Tower he, like Maria, had been born on the ARK but he was a special case in his own right, heterochromia was a rarity and in his case he was the first of his family to have it. Gerald took a look at the tank and saw a small lizard inside, "Hello Abraham, who is that little one with you?"

"I named him Yugi." The boy held out the cage for Gerald to get a better look, it was a cute critter he had most likely gotten it from the ARK's small animal exhibit. There weren't many animals aboard because they were meant for observation, to study how different species reacted to the foreign environment and different level of gravity. The professor was suddenly hit with realization and inspiration lifted him to a full standing position.

"Thank you children," he said as he cupped Maria's cheek in his hand then he looked to Abraham's pet, "and thank you, Yugi. I have to hurry back to my office, I feel I've made a break through." With that Gerald left the two kids and sped walked back to his desk, where he started typing at his computer in a hurry.

It was well known that small reptiles had regenerative capabilities so it was a possible focal point that could lead to the ultimate lifeform, after all regeneration could also counter the aging process if applied correctly. 'But how could a single creature be made to evolve in such a fashion?' Gerald scratched his chin and cursed under his breath, another thing to consider would be the energy required to even create a life. With the right means it could be done artificially but to make a living breathing creature, he didn't know if he had that kind of power on the ARK.

He paused typing and looked over all of the open tabs of word documents filled with his notes, videos of life on earth, and images of DNA successfully crossing between different species. The last was the most difficult, he'd found that two different species could fairly handle crossing DNA but a perfect being would somehow need not only all the benefits from all species but absolutely none of the negatives. The professor shook his head trying to focus on one problem at a time, an energy source was needed and soon. He opened the internet and typed high sources of energy and to his surprise he'd found something rather interesting, temples and shrines scattered across the globe that were said to give off massive amounts of energy, unfortunately an exact location wouldn't be easy to find.

Long forgotten areas most likely untouched by humans. He closed all his open tabs and went to his email and starting writing to the president, he'd made it simple he asked for as many archeologists as possible to look into all ruins and ancient structures that could hold secrets, of course that came at a risk but the prize would be far worth it, the United Federation had billions to give away and not many would turn down the chance at fame or fortune.

Gerald waited for a response and after a few minutes he'd received a message confirming that there was now a 10 million dollar reward for any persons that could bring the rarest of rare items from any known or unknown temples, shrines, or ruins. The professor took off his glasses and set them aside, he'd have to play the waiting game now and he hoped that all stars aligned for this to be the second greatest success of his life of course the greatest, in his eyes, would be curing his beloved granddaughter.