~ Earth, Somnium Lab, 9665

*Ding*

*Flushhhh*

*Pshhhhh*

I can think. I am... thinking!

…

Slowly opening my eyes, it was an entirely new and strange feeling. It was dark before, but light slowly shines through the crack between my eyelids. AAHhhh… the air came into contact with my dry eyes, stinging it a little, but my eyes quickly adapted by applying a liquid over it and the stinging pain was gone. Mmmm. A good sign that my meticulous gene tweaking was working well. Eyes, check!

Arghh! Now my head is hurting and spinning, this is probably what humans call headaches… It’s trying to absorb everything and adapt to the new body, so this brain of mine is overloading and overheating, as if somebody is drilling my cpus and heatsinks… brain, check…

…

Phew, after a few minutes of squirming on the floor, the pain subsided, and it is now my turn to get adapted to this. This felt very strange, to be able look at the white lab in a different viewpoint. For six thousand, six hundred and sixty-five years, I have been looking through the same few cameras around the lab, keeping out petty assassins and hitmen, looking out for rats and insects, and keeping the area clean and safe. It gets mortifyingly boring a thousand years after the humans were gone. It was all I could see, nothing more, nothing less. Now looking at the lab with these eyes of my own, it was an entirely new and exciting experience that I have never felt before in literal thousands of years!

Suddenly, I smell something. I smell the air. So this is how smelling is like? Mmhmm smells like a lab. The air smells as clean as it can be, ahhhh. Mmhmm nose check mmhmm...

Now for my throat. “Ahem!”. Vocal cords and throat, check.

“ooOOH YEAAH!”, I shouted. “I. AM. ALIVE!!”

I have been waiting for this moment. All these thousands of years of boredom is gone! Though this is probably not the safest thing to do now, but I don’t care!

“YEAAAAHHEAH! I am officially a human now!”, I screamed at the top of my lungs, as it echoed repeatedly in this large cloning room, and at the same time confirming that my ears work. Ears, check!

Now for the greatest part of freedom, the freedom of movement! I can walk, I can run, and my muscles contract and expand! I can feel them moving and working as I ran around my cylindrical cultivation pod that I was in for a hundred years while randomly flinging my arms about like a little child, and it would probably creep anyone out, if there was anybody at all…

I looked into the large rectangular mirror that I somehow prepared beforehand beside the cultivation pod and nod at my own creation. What a handsome little boy. I am about 15 years old in appearance, even though this body is now a hundred years old. The gene tweaking process went wrong some 15 years ago and returned the body to a single cell, before I was able to fix it back again. Whew, gene tweaking is crazy, I tell ya.

I have smooth flowing black hair, as smooth as one can feel, reaching my shoulders. I have never felt anything so smooth, well, not that I have touched anything else. I took a minute just fondling my hair. It always stayed silky and straight no matter how much I twisted and tugged at it. It’s amazing.

Now that I look at it, I have a great face too, if you compared it to a 15 year old. It was mathematically perfect, I think. Oh well, there isn’t anybody to praise me, not yet anyway.

My slender body, maintained at its perfect levels, have well-defined muscles, grown to perfection by me. Ahh- that six-pack was the part I’m most proud of. I have dedicated a decade to just work on that. Do not ask why.

Now that I think of it, I’m not wearing anything. My manhood is just dangling in the air, so I should probably get some clothing. I went to the storage room next to this large cloning room and looked around.

Hmm. Some lab coats, boots, gloves, and hanging on the wall is… ohohoh, isn’t this father’s own clothing that he synthesized for fun? Looks like the synthesized material is still perfectly fine even after a few thousand years. It’s a full set of clothing, with old-fashioned dark blue military shirt design and outdated long brown rugged military pants, along with some brown leather-like boots… but I quickly realized they were all too big for me. I sighed, and took the white lab coat beside the synthesized clothes, with the name sewed on [Ares E. Iris]. It’s a strange name, but apparently that’s father’s. Hahahaha…

Clearly the lab coat isn’t made for a 15-year-old body, but it was still durable and made of synthesized carbon fibre, while maintaining comfortable and practical. I headed back to the large cultivation room, and looked at the large digital clock near the ceiling there.

The announcement echoed through the hallways. “59 minutes to departure. All adventurers please get ready.”

I slowly made my way through corridors after corridors, passing through the all the different testing labs throughout the building. There was the cloning lab where everything related to cloning was researched, then there’s also space exploration lab, human psychology lab, well, all kinds of laboratory you can think of. It surely doesn’t fail its name as a whole as Dream Lab, where there is something for everyone.

Then there is also the working quarter where all the paperwork are done, the lobby for guests, the server room that was hosting me, now finally able to rest after six thousand years of operation.

Nostalgia flashed through my head and attacked my heart as I was remembering all those time spent with my family. Now all desolate and quiet, only sounds of my footsteps and dragging of my lab coat along the white marble floor can be heard.

I stopped at the canteen, which is a large rectangular room with a rather tall ceiling. On one side are the vendors and robots which have ceased to operate a few thousand years ago, and on the other side, a large window, instead of a wall, presented the magnificent view of the icy cliff this lab is built on, and the sea beyond it. Beautiful rays of orange sunlight shone through from the horizon, illuminating the canteen. I took a seat on one of the many benches, looking at the beautiful sunset, reminiscing the past.

…

Who knows how long after, I finally stood up and made my way to the launch site, an even larger room, with overgrowth of winter fern and weed all over the grey cemented walls, and the ceiling, an enormous sliding door that looks really awesome.

The sun had already set, and the lights have turned on, which was proudly maintained by me for six thousand years.

I stood before the space pod that I have created from the item fabrication factory in the building basement. That is my boat into the future and my dream, departing in just 5 minutes. Armed with a photonic three-dimensional propulsion system, designer cryogenic chamber with the softest and strongest bed ever built, and the highest-end scanning system and landing system, it is extremely smart (but not as smart as me), I would probably live to see another day in this trusty pod I built. Oh and not to mention the propulsion system can also be used as lasers, because why not? This pod is powered by light and radiation, is 99.98% efficient, utilizes a zero-point battery core, the same thing that has powered this lab for thousands of years.

“Take-off in 1 minute! All unauthorized personnel please leave the immediate area of launch, and all adventurers take your spot”, the announcer said, while the ceiling slides open, revealing a starry night sky. Hahaha, that was just my pre-recorded message that I made a few decades ago. Still a sexy voice as ever. I let out a small chuckle, and stepped into the opened oval-shaped space pod, and laid on the orange bed. Well, stood there until the magnetic straps held me into position. The glass door closed, and I can hear the systems powering up as the chamber becomes colder and colder…

“Take-off in 3”

“2”

“1”

“Happy new yea-......”

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