Eden

Greg: "It was a success! Do you know how significant this is, Roger?"

Roger, the lab technician stared in awe at the sight of a half-eaten apple behind glass.  

Greg got on the phone and started shouting at the operator. 

"This is like when Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon for the first time! We have ventured into new territory. I can't wait to tell our sponsors. Connect me to the main office! Tell them we've had a breakthrough!"

Roger was a lab tech for a research and development team working for NASA. They had been working on finding a more cost-efficient and eco-friendly way of getting workers and mining equipment to Mars. At the very least it took them 6 months and 10 million dollars per round trip. Colonization started 5 years ago in 2030, mining had just kicked off and it was met with a fervor akin to the 1949 Gold Rush. 

All the major corporations wanted a piece of the pie but there wasn't enough tools and materials to get the job done so NASA entered a joint effort with the UN to send these resources to Mars.  

Roger continued staring at the apple, an organic Red Delicious bought from the local farmers market a few blocks over on Winchester St. It wasn't until the year 2012 with the discovery of the 'God Particle' that this whole idea became possible. The Higgs Field wouldn't be manipulated until some time later. To think an accident had led to one of the greatest discoveries in human history, light-speed travel.  It had been 6 months since they started this experiment. The idea was to send a person from Point A to Point B as fast a possible with little chance of injury. There were theories of how teleportation involved traveling through multiple dimensions to land at any desired location in time. But this only existed on paper until now. First, they started with smaller objects like coins and buttons all of which were successful. This time was their first attempt at trying anything organic in nature. When the apple first arrived it was left inside the transporter, nobody thought to touch it until it had been properly analyzed for any distortions. 

When the analyst went in to retrieve the apple they were shocked to find a piece of it was missing. It looked like something had taken a bite out of it which was impossible given it was locked inside the transporter only accessible by keycard. 

David: "Hey, Roger. It's your turn to feed the animals, I did it last time."

Roger: "I thought it was Selene's turn?"

David: "Well, Selene called out sick today. Sucks she missed making history. Anyways, they're losing their minds back there, get to it."

David was an intern who worked directly under Greg, he was in charge of making sure things got done around the lab and if they didn't it would end up becoming his job. Last time one of the other lab techs forgot to clean the cages resulting in the chimps smearing s**t all over the place. David had after hours scrubbing feces off the wall. He convinced Greg to fire the lab tech the following morning. 

Roger: "Alight, I'll get right on that."

Roger made his way to the back room where he could hear the chimps screaming and rattling their cages. It must have sucked being locked up all day while the only interaction you received was from a person who threw food at you half the time. As Roger punched his keycode into the keypad the door gave off a noise that sounded like a game show buzzer. He tried again with the same result. 

David: "Hey, a*****e. Check your keycard for the numbers on the back. If you get it wrong again the door is gonna lock for good and IT won't be able to come in until tomorrow to unlock it."

Roger nodded then reached into his back pocket, staring at the profile picture on his keycard he realized how much weight he gained in the last six months. Punching in the code, the magnetic locks shifted giving him a 20-second window to get through. He quickly stuffed the badge in his back pocket which barely fit. It was laundry week and he didn't have any change for the washer machines opting to wear the only pair of clean work pants he had left which happened to be a size too small.   

As Roger walked into the room the sight of him caused chimps to get louder except the one on the very end who seemed to be observing him.   

Roger: "Hey guys, it's me again. How's it going? Long-time no see. What ya been up to?"

The chimps were not amused by Rogers dry sarcasm. They became even more spastic. 

Roger: "Ok, ok. Calm down, I'm coming." 

Roger reached down into a burlap bag on the floor where they kept the food. It was nearly empty. 

Roger: "Damn it. Now I'm going to get stuck with going to the market after work. I hate working for free." 

Roger pulled out a bunch of bananas and a bushel of apples as he walked towards the cages. The chimps started reaching their hands outside the bars one after another.

Roger: "No, no. You know how this works guys. Get ready."

As he walked past each cage he recited a mantra. 

"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

As he did this each chimp imitated the postures associated with the saying. One after another they covered their eyes, then their mouth finally plugging their ears. This was a form of training for them, to make sure they would still follow orders. The last thing you want is a bunch of wild chimps running all over the place during a fire.

Roger: "Great job guys. Maybe we can start a circus after this."

Roger started handing them their food. Each one gobbling it down without a second thought. At the very end was the chimp that observed Roger when he came in. It sat their calmly picking its toes.

Roger: "I didn't see you do the secret dance. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

The chimp stared at Roger defiantly. 

Roger: "Come on now. You can do it. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

This time the chimp did the gestures and Roger offered him a banana which he accepted. 

As Roger walked away he felt something hit the back of his head. He turned around to find a banana on the floor. 

All the chimps started laughing in unison. 

Roger: "Ok, who did that? It was you! Wasn't it? Smartass."

Roger made his way over to the cage again. This time the chimp acted like it was whistling nonchalantly while avoiding eye contact. 

Roger: "Listen, I've had a long day. I'm not gonna let some chimp make a fool out of me. How about no dinner for you? How's that?"

The monkey made a face at Roger. 

Roger made one back while walking to the exit.

11:30 PM the previous day...

I've been here but a few light cycles and I am already sick of it. Playing the fool was never something I enjoyed but for the sake of research, it had to be done. 

 When we first learned of inter-dimensional travel it had taken us to a primitive land where large reptilian creatures were the most dominant force at the time. We couldn't achieve our goal of taking over the planet until we found an effective method of survival. So we inhabited many lifeforms over the year even the reptilians, but they were simply too aggressive and clumsy. So we decided to house ourselves in a lower lifeform. They were agile, strong, and stayed in groups. We dwelled in caves high above the forest away from danger living on fruits and insects.  Very few predators at the time bothered hunting us, we honestly weren't worth the trouble with such little meat on our bones. 

Some of us wanted to make our way back to our dimension having given up on the planet. The superiors claimed enough research had been done but others wanted a dimension of theirs to rule. This led to separate factions being formed. War ensued shortly thereafter and it went on for what seemed like an eternity until the meteor hit terraforming the entire planet. We became the most dominant species on land by default. But there were so few of us left dispersed across the region. War became an afterthought while survival became a priority for both sides so we called a truce. We mated to increase our numbers and when that wasn't enough we pushed our evolution. We raised families, we forged bonds with one another and made enemies from time to time. We learned the importance of love, hate, and passion. Ideas we had long since abandoned on our homeworld. 

Then the amnesia started to settle in. Since we had come from another dimension we needed to maintain a link back to our homeworld just as a precaution. This would allow us to maintain our knowledge and identity across time. But we theorize the meteor may have interfered with that connection. 

Slowly, we began to forget who we were, where we came from and our purpose. Our once limitless memories became a hindrance. Our progeny were being born without information, a completely blank slate. Our children began to believe they were from this world, that their body was truly theirs. We tried our best to pass along our history but those of us who still remembered started to decline with age. Eventually, the elders started to forget how to transmit their consciousness. Then we experienced something we thought we would never experience again, death. We left our children alone in a strange new world. So we decided the best thing we could do was teach them how to survive with what they were given. Slowly we let go of ourselves. I suppose this was part of the evolution, maybe it needed to happen for the planet to survive. We came here believing we could take this planet for our own instead the planet became our captor.

 I was one of the lucky few that managed to maintain my identity by being frozen in ice for several thousand years. I had a lot of time to think back then, I even managed to evolve and maintain my consciousness without a link. When they thawed me out I left my body, I searched the land for a more habitable host seeing as mine was dead. When I saw what the world had become I was in awe but felt a deep sadness. Our children were destroying the planet. They were consuming the planet's resources at too rapid of a rate. The land was ashen with death, drenched in pollution. Some places were uninhabitable due to weapons they created for war, all the while children scampered homeless through the streets. 

I tried inhabiting one of them but they forged a consciousness of their own over the years. With time they began to mentally deteriorate, professionals called it split personality disorder. It took me some time to find a host with a strong enough mind to house me. I had to stay quiet as to not disrupt their thought process. As fate would have it I inhabited particle physicist that worked with a group of other scientists on the theory of time travel. For the first time in a while, I felt hope. To my surprise, our original hosts from millions of years ago were still around though much, much smaller. Many were housed in cages known as zoos or kept in dark cold rooms waiting to be experimented on. I felt even worse for them which lead to my decision to inhabit one of them. Not much had changed within them but they had a great sense of fear. They feared our descendants with good reason. I watched as they abused these animals. Experimented on them, causing them great pain and suffering. I jumped from host to host as I watched each one die only to be tossed into a bin to be incinerated. We taught our children to honor all living beings in both death and life. How could they have strayed so far? It became too much to bear at times, the cruelty. 

So I waited and did everything they asked of me. Obedience was a great tactical weapon in this age. I read their reports at night about how they were trying to transfer organic materials at the speed of light hoping to one-day transfer themselves to other planets. With a few subtle hints and adjustments, I nudged them in the right direction. Soon they will start trials on us, I hope to be the first they send. Luckily, a lab worker named Roger wasn't all that intelligent. He had dropped his keycard several times a week and never found it suspicious it was in the same place every morning. For some reason, he blamed it on the size of his pants. This was usually how I got into the lab. I left my body making my way to the cage housing the host closest to the keycard. I grabbed it, letting myself out. I looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then read the most recent reports. 

I went to see the experiment. They had successfully transferred an apple across the room.  I stared at the apple enclosed inside a glass cylinder, this meant even more to me than it did to them. All I need now is for them to entertain the idea of inter-dimensional travel and it just so happened my host was really hungry.