“Does that specimen interest you, Saiko?”
“Uh-huh.”
Saiko Hikita, ten years old, was stepping into her parents’ lab for the first time. The space was overwhelmingly white and sterile, and the smell of chemicals hung in the air.
A wide range of experiments in genetic modification were carried out at this lab—even experiments on humans.
“And what makes you so interested in her?” Saiko’s father asked.
“I dunno, I just am,” Saiko replied.
There was a row of glass-partitioned rooms, each with a child inside. These were not ordinary children; they had been genetically altered and now displayed unusual physical traits. For instance, there were young boys with massive, hulking muscles despite their age, and young girls who could walk on walls like reptiles.
But among them was one girl who seemed to have no special features at all—except for several scars on her body where she had evidently been cut open and stitched back together.
For some reason, Saiko found herself strangely drawn to the girl. The girl stared back at Saiko from the other side of the glass.
“Oh-ho, it’s just instinct, then… I see. Instinct is very important in science. You’re going to make an excellent researcher,” Saiko’s father said, his voice a cryptic blend of kindness and gloom. He stroked his daughter’s head. “Would you like to be her friend?”
“Can I?”
Saiko pressed her hand against the glass. The little girl smiled and pressed her own hand back.
“I don’t see why not. It will give you a chance to observe her up close and try to figure out what kind of specimen she might be.”
And that was how Saiko came to meet Specimen No. 13.
Saiko began visiting the lab every day and spent all her time in No. 13’s room.
Saiko and No. 13 were the same age, and while their ideas about the world and the things they took for granted were almost entirely different, for some reason, it just felt right when they were together. Saiko told No. 13 about the things she saw and did at school, and No. 13 told Saiko about the goings-on at the laboratory.
“School is boring, the lessons are all too easy.”
“That’s because you’re so smart.”
“I wish I could start working at the lab already.”
The school that Saiko attended was no ordinary school. It was a special academy for children who would be required to work at the laboratory once they got older.
This was because of their parents, of course. The parents were engaged in the kind of secret research that could never be allowed to come to light, thus they were not allowed to set foot outside this sprawling underground research facility. That went for their children as well. These facilities weren’t just in Japan. They were a fact of life in every major, developed country.
The lessons taught at the facility’s school were far more advanced than the kind taught at the schools for normal Japanese people, but Saiko still found the lessons boring.
“What did you do today, No. 13?”
“Today we looked at my brain… Something called an fMRI, I think?”
“Did they find anything interesting?”
Saiko’s eyes sparkled.
“They said something about some spot way down in my brain—something called the pineal gland—being super active.”
No. 13 suddenly glanced through the glass down the hallway. She had a habit of doing that every now and again. Whenever she did, someone was always sure to show up. It was almost as if she was checking because she knew someone was about to enter the room.
“The pineal gland, huh…? You know they used to call that ‘the seat of the soul’?”
“They did?”
“Some philosopher from way back named Descartes did, anyway. Although most academics now say that was silly.”
“Oh.”
No. 13 wasn’t really sure what Saiko was talking about. She nodded vaguely while Saiko showed off her smarts.
“Maybe that means you’ve got a strong soul! Not that I know what that would mean.”
“That makes two of us!”
At the moment, neither of the girls had any idea what they were talking about. But their conversations were always exciting. It was like listening to fairy tales for them, each hearing about the other’s unfamiliar world.
The days passed, and Saiko eventually asked Specimen No. 13 a question.
“No. 13, what do you want to be in the future?”
Saiko meant it as an offhand question.
“The future…? I’m just a research subject. I guess I don’t really want to be anything.”
“Oh, yeah. That makes sense…”
It was not until that moment that it occurred to Saiko the lab specimens didn’t choose their lives. Saiko was required to become a scientist in the lab when she got older, but she would still be able to choose what kind of research she pursued. The research subjects, however, were just specimens in the end. It was the scientists who chose how they were handled.
The choosing and the chosen—a faint inkling began to awaken in Saiko’s mind of the kind of responsibility involved in such an arrangement.
“Although, if I had to pick, I guess I want to be useful if I can. I don’t really understand the research everyone is doing, but it’s supposed to be for a purpose, right? What about you, Saiko?”
No. 13’s dream for the future was passive and easily attainable. It wasn’t even a dream; it was already a done deal. Saiko made up her mind then. She would make that reality feel like a dream for No. 13.
“I want to be an amazing scientist, just like my mommy and daddy. That way I can make sure you get to be really useful.”
In that moment, Saiko’s dream began to take shape. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do yet, or how she would do it, but she had a faint, distant goal in mind.
“Really? Thank you!” said No. 13. “I’d be so happy if you were in charge of my research! Oh, but are you sure you don’t want to become a normal scientist? None of the research here is normal. They all call each other mad scientists.”
“I don’t have a choice. I’m stuck here.”
“Oh, right.”
“But being a mad scientist sounds pretty cool. That’s what my mommy always calls herself.”
Saiko thought of her mother and her amazing, boisterous laugh. Saiko’s mother really seemed to enjoy her work here.
“That does sound pretty cool…! Oh, come to think of it, there is something I wanted to become.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to be—”