A New Race

Eve ran down the corridor towards her father's office gripping the sheet of paper in her hands.

She couldn't believe it. After years of research and millions of pounds she had finally managed to do it!

Eve had always wanted children, she loved children and craved to be a mother more than anything in the world but her body just wouldn't make it happen. After trying with her husband for five years she gave up hope.

What was the point in a well paid job. A comfy home. A loving marriage when she couldn't fill the hole in her heart. A hole in the shape of a child. Her child.

They tried IVF for a while. Went through treatments, medications, scientific trials but it just wasn't meant to be.

Then one day, when it seemed all hope was lost, a miracle happened, her father offered her the chance of a lifetime, a dream come true. He would fund her research to create life itself. She'd heard theories, scientists, crazy ones, that had been trying for years, creating man-made DNA but they were all starting small. They were thinking of nature. Which she understood, humans were killing the planet more and more as they evolved.

But noone she knew of had attempted to create human life. But with a chance of a lifetime, Eve decided to join those crazy scientists with her husband at her side and try to use the research already out there to make human life. She got close a few times, but could never get it quite right, her synthetic DNA just wasn't a perfect human match. And that's what she wanted, a perfect little human.

But here, now, in her hands was proof that she had done it. Made the perfect human, not only once, but three times. In her lab, right now, were three perfect yet completely different human beings, her children.

She wasnt quite sure how she did it, but at some point she altered the DNA strain and the results showed something she wasn't quite sure about. It matched, it was correct, she'd checked hundreds of times, but it was also different. When she managed to locate the anomoly, she tried to alter it, but she only found three successful ways of altering it and having it be compatible with human DNA. She wasn't sure where she initially went wrong but she couldn't seem to remove the anomoly. But at this point she didn't care. It matched and that's all that mattered to her. So she used her woman-made DNA, and made life. She used the three different strains. And all three had worked. She had three children now. They may not be from her own eggs, her own DNA, but they were her children and noone could change her mind about it.

She stopped outside her father's door and knocked loudly.

"Come in" a gruff voice answered. She took a deep breath and entered.

"Father, I apologise for disturbing you but I have some fantastic news" the words rushed out of her in one breath.

Her father turned around to look at her. Her cheeks flushed with excitement. The grip on the paper tightening as if, should she let go. The dream would shatter.

"I've been tinkering for a while and I've finally done it. Everything I've ever dreamed of is in my lab, your lab, our lab"

Her father held out his hand for the paperwork. Gingerly she stepped forward and handed the paper over to him. Giving him a piece of her heart at the same time.

She stood there silently, he palms getting sweaty while she waited for him to read it.

The minutes ticked by.

When he finished reading he placed the paper on his desk and buried his face in his hands and sighed.

She stood there amazed. She was expected him to jump up and down, to wrap her in his arms and congratulate her. But instead, he sat in front of her in a heap on his desk looking more exhausted than she'd ever seen him.

"Thank goodness" he whispered.

"To be honest, your dream was bleeding me dry"

Her eyes widened in shock. Had she bankrupted her father? The man who let her perdue her dream. Who'd always let her perdue her dreams. She walked around the desk and hugged him from behind. Tears beginning to fall down her cheeks.

"I'm so sorry father" she sobbed "but I promise you, it was all worth it".

"I've made them" she smiled into his back. "My children, they're in the lab. Would you like to see your grandchildren"?

Her father stiffened and she let go. He looked at her, tears running down his cheeks as well. She knew, all he wanted was for her to be happy. But she also knew, as his only child. She couldn't give him the one thing she knew he wanted more than anything in the world. Grandchildren. And to be honest, that broke her heard daily more than she thought possible.

Her father wiped his eyes and nodded.

"Let's go see my grandchildren".

As they walked to the lab she could feel her father shaking. She want sure if it was nerves or excitement but both were positive responses in her eyes.

She opened the door and walked in.

The lab was a mess, her and her husband had basically lived in this lab for the last 10 years. Her husband sat in the corner of the room in a tattered armchair fast asleep. Their marriage had been tried through these last few years, he'd begun to give up hope. Believed she couldn't do it. But he stuck by her. He loved her and would see her dream through. He wanted children too. But he didn't have a problem. They'd checked. It was all her.

He could have left her, found someone else and had a normal life, a normal family. But he hadn't. And that made her smile. He stuck by her in this crazy world.

She sighed in relief that in six months she'd be able to leave the white walls around her and take three beautiful children home with her.

She took her father's elbow and led him towards the cooler room she was using to store the incubators.

When they reached the door he stopped dead tugging on her arm. She looked up at him. He was crying again, hope filling his eyes and she knew, filling his heart too. She smiled at him and patted his arm.

"It's ok father, they're ok, trust me"

He nodded and followed her in.

The cooler room was clean and tidy, the white walls pristine. She had kept this room clean. There was no way her children would be subject to dirt.

Inside the room on a large table, were three incubators with vital signs connected.

Inside the incubators, were three small, fragile, feutus'.

Flash forward 6.5 months. Eve and her father had published the work they had created. They had been careful with the information they gave though, they didn't want someone to steal it. They patented the DNA, and they recorded the incubation of the children. There was no denying what they had created. The lab was constantly being targeted by the news and paparazzi. She thought she'd be able to leave the lab now that she had achieved the impossible. But it seems in doing so she had made the lab her permanent home. Eve had received a nobel prize for her work. She'd recieved thousands of messages and gifts from scientists all around the world jealous of her achievement. But she didn't care about that, any of that, she just cared about her children.

Flash forward 12.5 months and Eve is celebrating her children's first birthday, so far everything had been a breeze. Well as much of a breeze as it can be with triplets. She had a beautiful girl called Jade and two beautiful boys, Xander and Ryker. She wanted unusual names for her unusual children. And unusual they were indeed. From an early age they had begun showing signs of being different. She knew to expect something, it wasnt perfect DNA as such, but she didn't know what to expect. They responded to their vaccinations, they got ill, they grew at the normal rate, there wasn't anything physically wrong with them, well nothing that she could tell.

But Jade was quieter than her brothers, she seemed more quizzical, it was as though she was watching everyone, absorbing information. And Xander, he seemed to skip the baby fat stage, he was healthy, strong, crawling and walking faster than an average child. She would say that Ryker was the most normal of the three but even he seemed different but she couldn't work out why. He was crawling and walking like the other two. But one minute he was in front of her, and the next, he wasn't. No child should move that fast. No child at that age anyway.

Eve sat down in the armchair and looked at her children roaming the lab. They had turned it into their home. It seemed safer for the children to grow here than outside with the world wanting to observe them. She reached down and pulled out a blue tattered notebook and pen and began to write.