Short, Light, Free

June 2333

Some are standing at the rail station, searching amid the wasted,

Some are walking on the sidewalk toward their destinies,

Some are cooking numbly in the kitchen,

Some are quarreling on both ends of the bed.

When you look at these people, do you really notice any difference between them and yourself?

Do you feel their pain at times?

Perhaps these people are working differently toward the same goal,

Perhaps, we’re all together in this…

—–

Mo Wenyu’s ‘Big World’ echoed in my head as I listened to it through my earphones. I took a deep breath before disposing of my cigarette butt.

Reluctantly, I yanked out my earphones. I could not be late for work.

I aimed my eye at the iris clocking machine.

“Di~ Staff 250, Liu Wei, clocked in at 8:57 AM.”

Three more minutes. Almost late.

I’m a scientist.

No, a scientist’s assistant.

I’m Liu Wei.

A lab assistant in charge of preparing and delivering tea.

I did human fertility studies in university because humans are no longer able to give birth naturally.

Right from the start, birth by cesarean was a mistake.

Women started to rely more on it and eventually gave up natural birth.

This had led to human’s first degeneration where babies could no longer be delivered naturally.

Fast forward a hundred years.

Women started to loathe the ten months of pregnancy and pain.

A company sprang up with the concept of breeding test tube babies.

The cost was cheap and technology was good.

It liberated women from ten months of agony.

Couples merely had to place their ovum and sperms into the breeding cabin and they could visit their child every day.

Ten months later, they would receive a healthy baby.

In a short period of three years, the founder of the company had become the world’s richest man.

And also history’s biggest sinner.

Because he had induced the second degeneration of women where they became unable to give birth at all.

Due to a complete degeneration of women’s DNA, the ratio of male to female babies became as unbalanced as 9:1.

Their body proportions started to get distorted.

In the recent thirty years, even the ova had started to degenerate.

Twenty years ago, the government announced that the last woman on the planet had died.

Populations in the eight continents started dwindling.

The number of newborns declined as well.

Most dangerously, the frozen ova were running out too.

These all became the government’s secret.

Eight continents shrunk into three and were coined the New United Nations.

They shared a president and had three governors, one for each continent.

And there were only 14,000 humans left.

Human fertility studies came into the picture five years ago.

This science was regarded as the hope of mankind.

I was the first batch to graduate from this course.

Ever since then, I started working a secret job within the government.

This secret wasn’t quite the same as I had envisioned, though.

I did not analyze ovum. Not even births.

My professor once told me that there were no more ova left.

We were very likely going to be the last batch of humans alive.

I had foolishly refuted his statement, quoting cloning technology from the textbooks.

I didn’t take into account that the first step to cloning was a mother’s body.

And the last woman had died twenty years ago.

We’ve failed even before conducting any studies.

“Mankind’s done for” was my professor’s catchphrase.

Of course, many started discussing Judgment Day.

Or that Science had suggested for us to hybridize ourselves with the common chimpanzees.

Bottomline – there were all sorts of nonsense spreading.

After being brainwashed by the professor, I decided to live each day as it passed and just wait for Judgment Day.

Of course, I hoped that I could live long enough to be the last human to die off.

This was my goal.

Why so negative, you asked? It was because the whole human fertility studies were bullshit.

The foundation of everything was the mother’s body, which was something we can no longer find.

Ding ling ling~

Ding ling ling~

I picked up the phone. “Hi, this is the research base of human fertility studies. Please tell us your problem and we will give you an answer within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Stop playing, Xiaowei. Come over to prefecture A, region C. I’ll send you the coordinates right now.”

“What is it, Professor? More sugar for your coffee?” I was stunned. This professor, who was paid over a hundred thousand a month, had never called me for anything other than coffee.

“Cut that bullshit. I need you here in half an hour.”

“Got it, Prof.” I hung up the phone and dashed out of the research institute with my windbreaker.

Nuclear energy-powered motorbike.

One of the reasons why I loved doing things for the country.

Air propeller, 25,000m/s.

Not per hour but per second.

Autopilot system.

It takes this motorbike only 13 minutes to cross over the Pacific Ocean.

Draping my reflective windbreaker, I hopped onto the bike.

Straight up into the sky.

The bike traveled at a speed not visible to the naked eye.

All computed and calculated.

Once I set the coordinates, nothing will go wrong.

Because there were simply too few pedestrians, and the so-called region A used to be the United States, also the world’s power nation.

The bike landed hard on the ground, causing dust to rise.

The coordinates were those of a grand building.

I took off my long windbreaker and hung it on the bike before walking into the building.

“Professor?”

“Professor?”

There was no light at all.

Damn it. I switched on my mobile torch.

“Are you there, Professor?” I checked my GPS which showed that Professor was just nearby.

I dialed his number.

The line connected after a few rings.

“Where are you, Professor?” I asked.

“Below. Basement 10. This place’s been abandoned a long time ago. It was a cryonics laboratory before.”

“Cryonics,” I repeated.

“Come down, quick. Also, wear more clothes as it’s about -10 degrees here. Come down from the corridor, there’s no electricity. I’ve already opened the door.”

He hung up.

Cryonics?

Freezing the human body and reviving it at some time in the future?

It could be seen as a variation of a burial. In America, the rich could choose between being buried or frozen until a time where scientists could invent a revival technology.

A hundred years later, this technology was labeled as pseudoscience.

Its purpose was just to cheat the wealthy. Frozen cells would lose their elasticity.

It was possible to recover a small portion, but because each organ in the body was different, it was impossible to revive everything.

Of course, no matter what, the body could never restore its original appearance and condition, or else humans would be able to live forever.

What’s the point of racking your brains over this?

Wait. Could it be the ova within their bodies?

I ran out to grab my reflective windbreaker in hopes that it would be of use.

I went back into the building and down the stairs with the help of my mobile torch.

It did get colder as I went down, and I was practically shaking when it reached -10 degrees Celsius.

Electricity had long stopped running in this building but the ground below maintained its subzero temperature.

I pushed opened the last door.

There were ten people inside and the lights were all lit brightly.

The ten of them were circled around a sealed compartment

Professor walked out slowly and waved. “Who’s exchanging clothes with him?

Immediately, a man removed his jacket and handed it over to me.

We exchanged our clothes and the man ran upstairs, shivering.

I slipped the jacket on quickly.

“Xiaowei, you did human fertility studies in university, right?” Professor asked.

I nodded.

“Have you learned how to extract the ova?”

I nodded once again.

“Here are two female corpses, come. They should be frozen for over two years now. See if you can extract their ova,” he instructed.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because among everyone present, you were the only one who scored an A in a simulation test,” he reasoned.

“But I haven’t seen a woman’s body and all operations I’ve practiced were done online,” I trembled.

“Have you ever thought of becoming a hero who had the ability to extend life? Do you remember the reason why you chose human fertility studies?” Professor questioned.

“Because you’ll definitely be given a government post upon graduation,” I said, stunned.

“You… I don’t care what were your real intentions, but you, for a fact, scored the highest. Either complete this surgery or prepare to be kept in jail your whole life,” he urged before handing over a surgical knife.

“Can I take a puff before answering?” I asked helplessly.

Professor waved his hand. “One stick’s time.”