The Lifeform

7.3.5 SW
14:00/21 SW-CP-Local Time
Crowning Point > Sci-Med Hex > Reception Area

Nila sat awkwardly in a reception room, she had the Sawtooth specimen in a large plastic container. A bald miserable-looking man was fighting with a broken vending machine. "Fucking work," the man complained under his breath.

"Bad day?" Nila asked.

The man seemed to ignore her, so she repeated the question. Finally, with some obvious reluctance, he looked at her with a half-smile. "It could be better," the man replied in a weird half-Russian half Scottish accent.

"Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of New Year's Day."

"I'll try my best."

"Nila Palmer," the receptionist behind a desk called out. Nila swiftly raised her left hand. "Room six please, Doctor Farnham to see you." Palmer nodded to the receptionist. She quickly waved goodbye to the man fixing the vending machine and walked down the hallway, at the end was a door with a large red vinyl six stuck on it. Nila opened the door and entered the laboratory, adjacent to the wall was a large old Weyland Corporation 3D imaging machine and a menagerie of samples in tubes beside it.

"Nila Palmer?" Doctor Farnham asked, he pulled some medical gloves over his hands and smiled.

"Yes, Doctor Farnham is it?"

"That's me, please call me Geoffrey. Also happy new year!" Nila nodded with a smile and passed the plastic container to the xenobiologist, he excitedly opened it up revealing the unconscious and likely dead Sawtooth. "What a beauty!"

"A pretty hungry beauty. Some colleagues and I were looking for new aquatic lifeforms when this thing snapped at one of their fingers."

"That'll explain the dried blood on the teeth. Where did you find it?" Doctor Farnham placed the Sawtooth in a transparent plastic tray and started loading it into the imaging machine.

"We found it on the coastline a couple of miles away. We mostly caught Neogudgeons, of a variety of colors. But this Sawtooth thing caught my colleague's eye."

"Ah, so you have already given it a name."

"The friend with the bitten finger did. Seemed only fair to let him name it!" Palmer laughed, she watched Farnham closely as he fiddled with the body of the fish.

"Why were you out there fishing anyway?"

"It was my fault, we all work in the fish hatchery and I convinced the boss to let us study some of the native marine life. I actually came here to study xeno-marine biology but somehow ended up in the hatchery, though I can't complain, it's fun."

"Sounds like you should be in my department."

"You'd think. The company works in mysterious ways..."

"That it does." Doctor Farnham pulled the imaging machine closed, it began to produce a strong low-frequency hum followed by the sound of camera shutters. A three-dimensional image of the Sawtooth manifested on the imaging machine's computer. Additional data like DNA information and blood data followed.

"It's not poisonous is it?"

"From what I have here it doesn't seem like it."

"That's good my friend was a little worried. You can't tell anything with these extraterrestrial lifeforms," Nila rambled.

"That's true. This process will take a while but I can get your details and send you what we learn soon through the network. However, we won't be able to return this specific lifeform as it's the first identified but I am sure with a little work you could find another. Just maybe don't bring your co-worker this time," Geoffrey chuckled softly. "Here's my details to contact me." Nila was handed a card with Doctor Farnham's Sutter-Lynk information.

"Thank you very much doctor, I will be in touch soon." Nila bid farewell and left the laboratory. She was anxious to know of Erikson's state but was positive that he would be fine.

To Be Continued...