SIGNS OF LIFE

The laboratory was empty. And it was painfully small. Neither of these attributes surprised Drake though. After all, with Robotic Systems and Artificial Intelligence having come a long way over such a short span of time, who needed human intervention anymore - even when it came to research? They needed only one human in this laboratory now - someone who could program robots to do tasks. That's what Drake was good at; and that's why he was at the Triangulum Research Laboratory.

He donned the customary lab coat and pulled on his super-sanitised nitrile gloves. He put on his safety goggles. And then he picked up his research device, perhaps the most advanced knowledge engine known to mankind thus far - the OmniScience2050.

The OmniScience2050, or Sir Know-A-Lot as he liked to call it, had gained great repute worldwide for helping researchers understand the characteristics and properties of any living organism under the sun. Its developers had come up with a technology that was a step higher than simulation. They had made it possible to stimulate and accelerate seven life signs of living organisms. With the OmniScience2050 it was now possible for researchers to evoke six signs of life - movement, respiration, growth, excretion, reproduction and nutrition - from living organisms, and that too in a matter of minutes. In a nutshell, it had now become possible for researchers to witness and document the entire life cycle of organisms in a short span of time. He often wondered why its makers had chosen to model it like a gun. "To add to the drama, or to create a sense of power perhaps", he imagined.

Drake then calmly walked towards the quarantine room in which he was told he would find the specimen. He looked at the device on the door and rolled his eyes in disappointment. "Stingy Dumbfucks! Are they ever gonna move to voice recognition?" He grudgingly keyed in a series of numbers on the punch card. The door slid open, almost as if halfheartedly. Funnily though, it didn't even wait for him to step inside completely before it began to slide shut.

He turned on the lights and found the specimen exactly where he was told he would find it - on the floor. It was placed in a huge flower pot, in which there was soil, albeit of a strange unworldly lavender-ish colour. The specimen wasn't alike anything that he had ever seen before. He couldn't even make out whether it was a flower, or a fruit, or a plant...or maybe even a creature. It didn't seem to have a trunk, had no stems and branches, and no conventional leaves. All Drake could see were six indigo radially-aligned protrusions that resembled tentacles. At the centre was an ugly looking hollow bulbous mass in the most brilliant shade of crimson that he had ever seen. In his head, Drake had already decided that this was a flower.

He probed the surroundings for a log book or for anything that would give him some information. There was a note on the floor. It was extremely short and therefore not very helpful. All it said was:-

Kingdom      :      Plantae
Name            :     Unknown
Genus           :      Unknown
Origin           :      Planet Sustoth T45

He hoped Sir Know-A-Lot's voice recognition system was working fine. He decided to try it out with the first basic test.

"Movement...Level 5", he whispered, seeking to test the device's prowess.

The specimen's tentacles twisted around menacingly. It would have been a grisly sight for a layman to behold, but for a researcher this was probably a sign from heaven.

"Respiration...Level 6x", he said in his normal tone.

Drake didn't see much movement this time around, but he could have sworn he'd heard some weird noise emanating from the ugly pitcher-like mass in the centre. He decided to check it out again.

"Respiration...Level 10x."

He heard the sound again, this time faster and more audible.

The dramatic speed of discovery that he was experiencing was now beginning to get to him.

"Growth...Level 20x."

The organism grew at least two feet taller and a foot wider. The bulb was now as big as a live-size dog.

Drake decided to skip Excretion and move to something more interesting.

"Reproduction...Level 15x."

A dozen projectiles sprung out from the bulb and fused with some of the tentacles. From these sprung out brand new finger-sized tentacles.

"Nutrition....Level 30x!" he barked, unable to suppress the deadly combination of curiosity and impatience that had now possessed him like a demon.

At once the tentacles sprung forward, grabbed him by the throat and shoved him head first into the bulb.

Moral of the story: Patience is a virtue.