Staring At Morning Glories

Part 2

The man was outside vaping in the designated area. His nerves were tense as this was his first very important meeting. People sneered as they passed by with their own addictions taken intravenously with the touch of a screen. Some of us like the old ways and hang on ever since fire was outlawed. All but one person sneered at him, a beautiful young woman with a bright smile, wide eyes, and she was the only woman that passed by without a rose pinned to her lapel. Before she went in, she took note of the morning glories, bending down to smell them. She showed her pass to the guard and went inside of the building.

The man tossed his cartridge in a recycling receptacle since his last hit finished it, and he replaced the cartridge. He then went over, and picked up a morning glory thinking to himself, “Thank you plant, for helping me find love.”

With that he deposited a coin in the receptacle and proceeded to show his pass to the guard. The guard stopped him, “You really should pay before you take. I had the right to arrest you. You're just lucky I may pay for one too if she gets out before noon.”

After his admonishment, he boarded the elevator to the top floor. He could smell a beautiful perfume he assumed was the flower now tucked into his lapel. When he walked in, she was standing with her back to him, and before her was an incredible sight. Two teams of the greatest infectious disease doctors, gastropod biologists, gene editing biologists, geologists, and he could only assume she was a paleontologist like him. He didn't understand why any of them were there, which was contrary to what their host said as he noticed the man walking in the room.

“Welcome everyone, I know you all know why you are here and are wondering why you were awakened so early for a slug, but I tell you this is the strangest thing we've ever seen. Please take a seat and we can begin this power point.”

Everyone settled into their seats, and their host shut off the lights. The woman he followed up in the elevator sat next to him as they settled in pairs of their fields of study. It was now that he realized it wasn't the flower that smelled but this woman's perfume as he knew it wasn't the smell of a rose. Then he smelled the morning glory, and it had no smell, so he figured it had to be her which was distracting him from the meeting.

“Do you like morning glories? I love them but they have no smell. I only thank the plant for its beauty, I'd never think of ending its life for pleasure.”

“I saw the roses and figured it was the attire.”

“Don't you remember flower-corders? They're back in vogue. It takes live video and audio; I just use my mind and take notes from the source. But the flower is beautiful, in this dull environment.” “Shh”, someone said as the power point began.

This my friends, is a taxonomic, geologic, and paleontological first, a slug found living in an asteroid. You've all been brought together because you are the top in your fields of expertise. And we need to know all we can about it as fast as we can. Right now, it is being kept in low temperatures due to its fast metabolism.

“When exposed to warm conditions inside the field site in Antarctica, the slug reproduced asexually.”, with that they showed video of one becoming two, then they became 4, and at 16 they terminated the experiment to dissect them all, besides running out of eggs to feed them, the only protein on hand that they would consume during reproduction. During dissection we found that this gastropod has more brain tissue than any bird, almost being mammalian.”

“What does that matter? A bird brain knows nothing.”, one scientist scoffed.

“Excuse me, but they can navigate thousands of miles, make biodegradable homes, rear their young, have sex and fly to wherever they want or need to go. Can you do that on your phones?”, the female paleontologist asked. He found her beauty and open mindedness attractive.

The host went on with their power point, “This amount of brain tissue has never been seen in any mollusk. It has more compact neurons than the density of even octopuses which are dense. The crater and impactor are strange too. “The video changed to show the impactor and then the crater where it was found.

“Looks like a normal impactor to me?”, a geologist noted.

“The oddity is in the shape, makeup, and hollowness of the impactor. Early figures think its trajectory shows that it originated from the Earth and may not have made it more that 32 miles into the atmosphere, but we're waiting on more data to be certain. We were hoping that you could help with that. It also seems to be some form of geode that was blasted into space and somehow preserved life.”

The man was having a hard time paying attention since all he could focus on was her hypnotic smell. He wanted to talk to her about paleontology, not some stupid slug.

The host droned on, “As you can see from this photo of the sliced meteor, we were very cautious getting to the core of it. We measured high oxygen, low carbon dioxide, and even hydrogen sulfide. But water which has been collected was also found along with the slug. The strata in which it was found is thought to be about 30o million years old, but it was quickly covered by permafrost shortly afterwards.” They showed a few more slides that were standard geology. Only the biologists were lost. They continued, “It seems to be made from concrete made of stromatolites, a lead crystal center with an interior made of mother of pearl, and very hollow for its diameter.” They showed a few more slides as they cut into it as not to get the inside damaged.

“We need to find out as much as we can as this animal can possibly be well over 6000 years old and could upend all of our knowledge of fauna to date.”

A few of the scientists chuckled. Luckily, they were free to still think that the universe is older unlike the ruling parties. The man and the woman glanced at each other while laughing. It was hard to tell who blushed more. He tucked his wedding ring in his pocket, to ease communication.

“Any thoughts or questions?” their host asked.

The scientists spoke first, "We'd like to get a sample to dissect it ourselves, perhaps each generation evolves new adaptations?”

“We're sending you in a team to Antarctica to retrieve samples, and you can use the laboratory there. The other team will coordinate here and be sent a sample to test to see how it works and can work on the meteor here while the other team can see the meteor impact and determine if our preliminary results were correct.”

The geologists, eager to look at the rocks said, “We need to look at those through an electron microscope and you may have lost valuable data with your destructiveness.”

“Well, the impactor is all here, so you can use anything you need to study it. Cost is not a concern. The governments of the world are funding this endeavor to explore the possibility of letting loose an invasive prehistoric species.”

The geneticist wanted DNA, “If we can unlock their genome, maybe we could live forever too.”

“We can see about that?”, the host said, “We'd like you to examine the geode too, to see what made the mother of pearl, lead crystals, and stromatolite materials or find out if they are just some forms of sediment. But all data will be available to everyone.”

Then the woman spoke up for them, “Well they don't leave much of a trace besides shells, beaks, and some trace fossils, but I don't recall one with eye stalks or a jawed mouth from so far back. That's found in more modern gastropods.”

“Oh, she's the best slug paleontologist in the world, and I'm just here as the most famous paleontologist. That makes sense now. But we both seemed to be on the same side of the pro science political lines. Which team would we be part of?”, he thought to himself.

“Do you concur?” the group turned toward him.

“Oh yes, gastropods leave very little fossils if they don't have a shell, similar to sharks it may leave teeth even though they may be tiny to us. We'll know more if they have a live species.”, he said as he was startled into the conversation and stuck in thought. “Did it really escape?” he asked, as the crowd turned towards their host.

“Seeing as my field of study is ethics, I have to tell you that we haven't heard from base camp for a week now. We think one of the members is in Argentina because he got the meteor to us, but he was in rough shape and institutionalized saying he heard voices in his head. But me and our friend from Stanford will oversee all studies and determine if the community is prepared for your findings. This could end the disagreement of how old our planet is finally.”

As some of the scientists cheered, the others were worried about what they may have unleashed. The host dismissed everyone, and she offered to buy drinks for everyone. They left the meeting in separate teams, one pro science and he was stuck on the pro religious team for some reason, but this turned into one last meeting among themselves over drinks to discuss what they would all study. Unfortunately, the man was headed to Antarctica, while the woman was staying behind. They really had no work that the paleontologists could handle so their conversation strayed to her fascination of gastropod fossils which is why she knew more than he did as his was a broader field of view. They were the last ones to leave as everyone dumped the bulk work on them, registering machines for analysis of the meteor, and due to his military training, he was made security for some reason. Hopefully that wasn't needed. But as they left the bar, he said, “I kept this morning glory for you. I saw you bend down and thank them for their beauty.”

“Yes, that's correct?”, she answered sadly.

“Well doesn't the night deserve to see such beauty too?” he asked her.

As he placed the flower in her lapel, she kissed him on the cheek then the mouth. Later they mated in biological fashion for the first time.