A monotone note echoed through the speakers. Sound had no shadow in there, as though it came from nowhere. She responded into the nothingness.

“Open the door, Mother.”

A wall opposite her began to rise, and the lights faded. She stepped out, overwhelmed by the instantaneous changes in sound and color. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dimmer lighting in the hallway, and she stepped over an array of exposed wiring, walking towards the observation deck. A terminal blinked within, casting soft green light across the room, reflected by a stainless steel table on the other side. She glanced at the bottom of the display.

Uncertainty lingered. She knew what was in the data, so she’d never really looked. It felt better that way. But four and half petabytes of uncompressed video was too much to completely ignore. She picked an entry at random, and the video took over the display. In it, an infant slept peacefully, rocking gently in it’s crib. She closed it quickly, and walked to the other side of the room. Every second, her shadow flickered on the wall in front of her, matching the rhythm of the terminal window.

She paused for a moment, watching the thin, plastic sac on the table slowly expand and contract. The fluids inside blurred it’s contents, like fog on glass. But an ivory hue in that shape is unmistakable.

She lifted it gently, carrying it slowly down the hallway and placing it upside down in center of the glass enclosure. With her left hand, she pressed down softly onto the sac, searching for something in the textures beneath. She found it, and opened a panel in the floor with her right hand, exposing another set of wires. She found the one labeled IV, and ran it needle-first through the plastic under her left index finger.

She turned it back around, and took a breath.

“Mother, close the door and begin the birth.”

She walked back into the hallway, and the wall began to rise. The sac dissolved, it’s fluids spilling across the glass floor. A moment later, the lights faded in, and it awoke.

She watched it anxiously through the terminal in the observation deck. It’s pupils dilated, seeing light for the first time. It looked aimlessly around the enclosure, finding itself completely alone. And to her relief, it began to cry.

“For them.” Isaac nodded back to the auditorium doors. “I’m just the messenger here. You’ve sat in those chairs before, you know how these things go.” He leaned further in. “Do you expect them to just take you at your word?”

“I don’t really expect my words to reach them.”

“It would help if you let them in.”

“That was the University’s decision. And it wouldn’t make a difference.”

Isaac smiled. “And why’s that?”

“Tinfoil is soundproof.”

He leaned back, folding his arms. “So you don’t think their concern is reasonable?”

“I think it’s misplaced. Our work is saving lives. Synthetic wombs are trusted by doctors in over a thousand hospitals now.”

“And how many mothers trust them?”

“Change takes time, Isaac, and we’re going about this slowly. A decade of clinical trials without a single developmental issue should say something.”

“It says that change is expensive.” Isaac turned a page forward in his notes. “Chrysalis operated at a two billion dollar loss in the last year. People are boycotting the Ava, which is your primary source of revenue. Do these things concern you?”

“Is this a research discussion or an earnings call? I’m not allowed to discuss financials. But I can say that the Ava is doing extremely well. We’re in over twenty million homes as of this month. The evangelical groups outside weren’t exactly a target market to begin with.” She faced the crowd. “As for the Womb, I understand the hesitation. I have children of my own. Three, in fact.” She turned back to Isaac. “Do you have any idea how painful childbirth is?”

“Tara, I’m not - ”

“Ask your wife sometime. And beyond the sacrifices that women are forced to make, it’s dangerous for the child. So many things can go wrong in those nine months, for both of them. Nature makes mistakes.” She turned back to the audience, slowing her cadence. “For the first time in human history, women have an option. So excuse me if I don’t seem interested in the opinions of god-fearing Puritans and first-year philosophy majors.”

Isaac smiled. “First-year philosophy majors love you, Tara. You give them so much to write about. Over half of the thesis papers in our department right now concern your work.”

“I’m sure they’re equally fascinating.”

“Right.” He turned another page forward. “Let’s get into it then.”

“Mother, put it to sleep”.

Gas ventilated into the closure, and a minute later the crying stopped. She entered, and began to take measurements. All of it’s vitals were normal - there were no noticeable developmental issues. And the physical growth was extraordinary. In two weeks, it had grown the equivalent of nine months - perfectly inline with it’s own development cycle. She cleaned up the enclosure and stepped out.

“Mother, close the door and continue monitoring.”

She stepped into an elevator by the observation deck, and placed her thumb on a sensor inside. Above it, a display greeted her by name, and asked her for a floor.

“Ground level.”

The elevator doors closed, and it began it’s ascent. She was gone.

A few moments later, the crying resumed. The only noise in this wedge of the earth, ten stories underground. But after an hour or so, another sound interrupted it, materializing through the speakers into the enclosure. It was strangely lo-fi, as though it came from dusty Vinyl.

It’s cries slowed. It was confused.

The tears ended for a moment, as it looked for the source of the noise. The voice sounded like a mixture of a thousand others, all singing in different ways.

It looked up, it’s eyelids gently coming down.

Tara smiled. This is what she’d come for. “During the clinical trials for the Womb. The RNN we’d trained for homeostatic regu-”

“Please,” Isaac gestured across the stage, “mind the audience.”

“Sorry, I’d forgotten that majors in your department are here.” She faced the crowd. “The womb is an extremely complex environment. It needs to constantly adapt - in terms of blood flow, nutrition, oxygen, and chemical composition - to both the momentary needs of the fetus and it’s overall stage in development. We had to somehow mimic these biological mechanisms with only a couple of non-invasive sensors.”

“And AI was the solution?”

“Well, yes, to a degree. But I would avoid using that term, which can mean a lot of different things and generally scares people. We used machine-learning: a statistical technique that involves finding patterns in a large dataset, which we’d collected during initial clinical trials. It allowed the Womb to respond intelligently to the needs of the fetus, without human involvement.”

“Giving control of human life to synthetic life.”

“Let’s avoid soundbites, Isaac. It’s just pattern matching.”

“Is this the same technology behind Ava?”

“It’s the same idea, but applied to a different problem. With the Ava, we were looking for breaks in the expected pattern, but the stakes weren’t as high. A camera doesn’t have direct responsibility - we just had to alert the mother, and our job was done. The Womb is obviously dealing with a more delicate situation, and we spent a lot of time getting that right.”

“And this work lead to a breakthrough in accelerated growth?”

She smiled. “Exactly. The issue with growth wasn’t in the genetic modifications, it was in the environment. The womb wasn’t designed for such a dramatic change in the moment to moment needs of the fetus. But the synthetic womb could adapt; we tuned some features, and were able to grow a full mouse fetus in just under half of it’s development cycle.”

Isaac stared, upper lip ajar. “How long ago was this?”

“About five years. But the mice would die shortly after they left the womb. We ran into the same issues that researches had with a biological womb: Nature wasn’t equipped to handle an altered growth rate. The changes in metabolism and hormonal regulation resulted in seizure, moments after birth.”

“Perhaps you’re changing things that aren’t meant to be changed.”

“So we thought. We tried to re-create certain elements of the Womb environment, designing an enclosure that allowed us to control for light, sound, nutrition, and the like, and applying the same technology we’d developed for the Womb to manage it. But when you’re dealing with a moving, rapidly growing organism, there were too many variables, too many unpredictable situations. If the algorithm encountered something it hadn’t seen before, it didn’t have a good way to deal with it. And mistakes in such a delicate situation would cascade, and eventually become fatal; it wouldn’t live past eight days.”

“Have you read any of Mary Shelley’s research? She was doing similar work quite some time ago.”

She paused for a moment, waiting for the noise to die down. “So, we were stuck. We turned our attention to the machine learning issue, and earlier this year, we broke through. We developed a way for the algorithm to adapt to a subject outside of the womb: another layer of pattern matching, where it looks for gaps in the data it has, and tries to fill them. Effectively, it identifies questions, and then tries to answer them.”

“Ah, so you’ve made it curious.”

“You’re being a tad anthropomorphic.”

“And you’re being a tad pedantic. How does it answer questions?”

“It runs experiments. Again, the main issue with the post-womb environment is hyper-stimulation, and the resulting seizures. The algorithm initially did it’s best to control light, temperature, sound, and the like to avoid this; now, it can learn as it does so, identifying what it does not know about the subject, and slightly adjusting those factors to learn, recording the response. This let’s it be significantly more prepared for the needs of that particular subject throughout it’s growth cycle.”

“Does it have a name?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The AI - does it have a name? Like Ava?”

Her blue eyes reflected the green tint as she noted down the biometrics. She finished, and then paused for a moment, watching it. It sat in the center of the enclosure, hunched over itself, legs folded awkwardly. It had grown further - the equivalent of a year and a half in just one month. It a made a brief, unintelligible noise.

“Mother, resume.”

She headed for the elevator, and a moment later, she disappeared.

It continued to make unintelligible noises. They were unsettling; like the begs of a stay dog. They grew louder and more drawn out.

It stopped, and for a moment, there was silence. Then, a response.

A number of warped, low-frequency sounds resonated in the enclosure, matching the staccato rhythm of the noises it was making. It looked around the enclosure, equal parts desperate and curious to find the source. It couldn’t, so it repeated the noise it had just made. And again, a response followed, matching it’s rhythm exactly.

It continued, each utterance growing louder and more pronounced, and each response following in-turn. And for a brief moment, it smiled.

It tried a different noise, and got no response. It tried again. No response. The lights faded, and it began to cry.

A small square of light faded in directly above it. It looked up, still crying, and tried something closer to the original noise it had made. A response. It’s cries stopped and it called out again. Another response. It’s smile returned, and it reached up towards the square of light, hopelessly far away.

It tried to stand, to bring itself closer. The square of light began to move, traveling down the glass to a space it could actually reach. It crawled over immediately, placing it’s hands against the glass in wide-eyed fascination. It’s fingers formed a red silhouette against the dark light.

Isaac smiled. This is what he’d come for.

“What do you call it then?”

“We don’t. Do you have a name for the pencil you use to write your theories on free will? It’s a research tool, not a pet.”

“You seem awfully defensive about this.”

“You’re asking awful questions. Why does it matter if it has a name?”

Isaac smiled, coy. “It doesn’t. Just curious.” He flipped a page forward in his notes. “Here’s a good question. Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“I mean - knowledge aside - what’s the point? I can’t name a single person who would like to live a shorter life. Well - yeah, let’s assume that people enjoy living. What’s the point of accelerating growth, then?”

Tara began her prepared statement.

“The point is to work towards the contrary. Accelerating cell division and differentiation is the first step to understanding how to reverse it or correct it; there are hundreds of developmental issues linked to improper cell growth, from cancer to dementia; our research is a breakthrough in the fight for a cure. And alongside that, we can now see the emergent properties of genetic modifications more quickly. This is really a breakthrough for research across the board.”

Isaac paused. “Are there plans for human trials?”

“Absolutely not. All of the work will focus on mice.”

“I recall hearing something similar when you published the initial research on the Womb. People might not believe you.”

“They don’t have to - human genome modification to this degree is illegal, and I don’t see that ever changing.” Tara paused, and a moment later realized how that sounded. “It never should.”

Isaac leaned in. “And you really believe that?”

“Of course I do.”

He paused again, resting his thumb beneath his chin. “There seems to be an arc to your work, Tara.”

“Are you really going to ask me about me about my motiv-”

“First, the Ava. Designed so mothers don’t always have to keep on eye on their kids. Then, the synthetic womb - mothers don’t actually have to give birth to their kids. And now this - mothers wouldn’t even have to raise their kids, removing them from the equation entirely. People are concerned, Tara, that you’re headed in that direction.”

She slowed her pace, pausing between each word in rehearsed confidence. “I’ll repeat myself. We’re not, in any way, thinking about human trials.”

It crawled toward it, cautious. The growth had continued - now the equivalent of four years, in just two months. But it remained on all fours, with the IV still in it’s back. It occasionally scratched at it, and would inevitably pull it out. It needed to learn to eat.

She sat by the terminal, reading it’s output.

It toyed with the tofu-like substance for a few moments, and crawled back to the corner of the enclosure it was resting in. Tara sighed, and checked the time.

“Mother, revert to IV and continue monitoring.” She stepped into the elevator and vanished.

It remained in it’s corner, clutching itself for comfort. Soon after, a series of low- frequency notes resonated in the enclosure. It responded with it’s own distinct pattern of noises. The lights faded, and a square of light emerged in the darkness, directly beneath the gray cube.

It wasn’t interested.

Within the observation deck, the terminal began to rapidly output data. The circular opening retracted again. A red cube fell through, glistening in the white light. It was dense, crushing the silvery cube beneath it. The impact splattered red droplets across it’s face.

It sat motionless, transfixed by the odor and the color. It approached it carefully, curious and confused. It stopped within inches, uncertain. A moment later, the light transformed throughout the enclosure, each small square of light behind the glass shifting to a different color. In effect, it was crudely projecting a video - a composite of hundreds of shots of carnivores feeding.

Red-stained lions flickered across it’s eyes as the blood droplets reached it’s lips.

Isaac caught her at the exit, his voice finally heard as the polite applause ended. She faced him.

“What the fuck was that? We agreed to stay focused on the research.”

He smiled apologetically. “I wouldn’t really be doing my job if we stayed focused on the research.”

“Goodbye, Isaac.”

She turned, but he stopped her again.

“You never answered my original question.”

She remained silent.

“Off the record.” He paused. “I’ve gotta know.”

“So you're curious?”

He smiled sincerely. “Yeah.”

“So am I.”

It still walked on all fours, which wasn’t completely unexpected. But it’s style was strange, almost catlike. It’s movement should have been less fluid, less precise. It’s ribs were visible, and there were etches in the glass where the food was typically dropped. It paced around it, waiting.

She walked down the hallway, past the entrance to the enclosure and into a maintenance room at the far end. There were three stainless-steel containers within, labeled protein, carbohydrates, and lipids respectively. They were all empty.

She returned to the observation deck, where the terminal was reading out globs of data. She sat down, trying to figure out what was going on.

The lights went out in the enclosure. A moment later, they went out in the hallway and the observation deck.

“Mother, turn the lights on.”

Silence.

“Mother, turn the lights on.”

The wall of the enclosure began to rise, and fingernails scraped on cement in the hallway. She grabbed a flashlight and shined it across the room, catching it’s shadow as it entered.

It jumped onto the table, and it stared at her, curious. It’s pupils dilated in the incoming light, but it did not look away.

She tried to smile. “Hi- Hi- It’s okay.”

She inched forward, and it crawled closer. She reached out with her left arm, inches from it’s face.

“It’s okay. It’s oka-”

A series of low-frequency notes echoed through the observation deck. It lunged, tearing into her arm. She kicked it across the room, where it landed on all fours. She was bleeding, and it was hungry.

It ran back, lunging again. The momentum knocked her back, and it was now on top of her, biting into her neck. She tried to push it off, but it bit down harder, clawing at her face with it’s fingernails.

Through desperate tears, she embraced it.

The attacks began to slow. She hugged it tighter, and it released it’s bite, resting it’s head along her shoulder as blood soaked through the cloth. Another series of low- frequency notes were heard, but it did not respond. And for a moment, the three of them lay quietly together; mother, Mother, and daughter.