The Reincarnation

Amanda Kensing’s work with the MCA Biotechnology Lab had come a long way. Just decades ago, they had only been able to grow human organs in pigs, and produce genetically engineered animals that were slightly different from the original. But now, what seemed like just a few years later, they could create all kinds of things.

Amanda remembered when she was little and had gone to the Church’s Living Bible Amusement Park. There she had seen, and been amazed by, a lion lying down with a lamb. Sure, they had probably just fed the lion, and they had probably raised it with the lamb so they knew each other. And they had probably taken the claws and teeth out of the lion, she had realized later. And of course the whole idea was a misquotation of the Bible. But when she was a little girl, she had stood amazed by the Bible prophecy come to life.

Now, looking at her own creation for the Church’s New Living Bible Amusement Park, she held that same feeling of wonder. She hadn’t come from Genesis to Revelation, but at least she had made it from Isaiah to Revelation. With the body of a leopard, the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion, the many-headed Beast in front of her looked far from amusing. Still, she was happy with her accomplishment.

The New Living Bible Amusement Park isn’t meant only to amuse children, she thought. Staring at her creation, she knew that if this Beast didn’t scare them into the loving arms of Jesus, nothing would.

Calvin Trinkle caught himself hesitating. He always paused when he had to perform this particular duty. Some of his men were working on the security fence around the Cryonics Lab’s perimeter, the rest on the cameras. Why that crazy doctor wanted a circular fence around his building, Calvin didn’t know, but it wasn’t his place to ask. He’d had his men follow the doctor’s orders, doubting that any of them knew about what their boss’ orders were – orders that had become Calvin’s new responsibility. Calvin had brought the canisters out of the van himself, as he had been instructed.

He thought about what he always thought about right before he completed this particular aspect of his job: the old Pathology Lab. Looking at the black box, and sliding it into place, he remembered the film the Church had shown him about the accident. It really was a horrible disease, Calvin thought, one that never would have gotten away from them if the Security Lab had installed a device like this one.

Even the people who belonged to the Church had caught that disease, and replaying that horrible film in his mind, looking at their images, Calvin decided that it was the right thing to do, now as it would have been then. He hooked the canisters up to the box.

After all, he thought, this little black box and those canisters there, if they had been in place at the old Pathology Lab, might have sacrificed a few hundred lives, but they would have saved thousands. He stepped back, admiring his work on the ventilation system.

And besides all that, Calvin reasoned. It was Sunday. He was getting time and a quarter.