elevator, pushed the up button and waited for it to arrive. As he stood waiting, another man walked up and stood next to him. “’Mornin’ Jack,” he said.
“Justice! Mornin’ man,” Jack replied extending his hand. Jack Strayer was Justice’s right hand man, but he was a bit of an oddity in the science world. The scientist archetype had remained fairly standard over the years but there was that stray oddball who did not fit the mold. Jack had an athletic build, well-developed social skills, and two full tattoo sleeves. He also sported a short mane of tightly rolled dreadlocks, which was a mainstream style at the time. “You ready for today?”
Justice shook Jack’s hand, “I’ve been ready for this day for ten years now,” he said. Despite his projected confidence, he sure did not feel ready. He was definitely nervous, as anyone who was about to make this kind of scientific breakthrough would be. After all, it’s not every day the dead are resurrected.
The two men rode the elevator to the lab located on the top of the complex. It was the largest one in the building and was designed specifically for ground breaking work. Sounds arrogant but that’s what was envisioned when this facility was planned. Unfortunately that aspect of the largest laboratory was vastly underused, until today. Justice and his team had made a tremendous discovery in the field of genetic engineering that went beyond controlling a being before its creation.
These are genetics that applied to post-creation and ultimately post-mortem. It was not an easy task engineering a dead organism to be alive again and many specimens were spent in the process. Today was the first day of human trials. A few bodies had been procured from donors and were prepped the night before. Word around the water cooler was that there would be some special guests in the building that day to witness the event.
What an event it would be, too, but only for a small few within the company. The public at large was wholly unaware of this particular event taking place within the walls of GoD Labs. It was best they did not know because if they had, something like this would never have been possible. Even without laws in place, moral objectors would’ve found a way to disrupt the practices, whether it be through espionage or overwhelming numbers. As it were, the tests were to proceed as planned, with no interruptions or delays.
Justice and Jack stepped off the elevator and entered their offices that were located just outside the topmost lab. Justice hung his jacket on the coat rack just inside his door and then walked over and sat down at his desk. His corner office was quite large and had grand floor to ceiling windows that wrapped around the outside walls. Everything from the high priced art on the walls to the functioning waterfall in the corner screamed, “This is an executive’s office!”
Justice powered on his workstation and started pulling some crucial files off the internal server. These were all his notes and procedures that they used for the previous trials. He figured it could not hurt to have them just in case something went wrong. Not that he was expecting anything to go wrong, the fundamentals were sound, but in this setting, one never takes anything for granted. Once he had the files, Justice stood up and walked around to look out of his windows. As he stared out of them contemplatively, a knock came at his door.
“Justice,” it was Jack, “let’s hit it bro!”
Justice took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, “Let’s do this,” he responded and he went to the door to meet Jack.
As they walked towards the lab, Jack put a hand on Justice’s shoulder in a reassuring way, “Don’t sweat it man, this is your day!”
“This is our day, Jack,” Justice corrected him, “you’ve been a tremendous asset to this project from its inception. Don’t short change yourself.” Jack smiled appreciatively and the two men entered the laboratory.