Project Gemelos: Birth of a Dragon.

[Lang Kai yi]

Shadow of the Dragon:

It had been a question posed throughout the ages. But no one had been able to conduct comprehensive experiments…until now. He looked at the fruits of his labors. Project Gemelos…Twins: six infants, three twin pairs, a boy and a girl each. Clone essences of himself, and a mother who did not know she now had offspring. Parentage was of large importance for this study; therefore only the best genetic material would do, but he knew that she would be most displeased to find he had taken her essence from the orb. Not that he actually cared for her opinion, but it might pose problems in the future, should she ever discover the truth. But that was a problem for another day, perhaps.

He snapped his fingers, and 6 attendants entered the room, each lifting a child out of its cradle, and then walking out swiftly to distribute these little bundles to the 6 pre-selected locations. Each child had been genetically imprinted with one of two natures: “good” and “evil”…though he had little use for such archaic and close-minded terms, it fit here just as well as any other…and each child would be set in one of three life circumstances: One girl and one boy each, one “good” and one “evil”, would be set into one of three different life circumstances. Two would be raised in wealth and power, without care or want, two would be raised in abject poverty, having to scrape by a meager existence as best they could, and two would be given the middle road…of neither wealth nor poverty, but somewhere in between. The final touch for the last two, the penultimate “experiment within an experiment”, had been the addition of faith vs none. One child would be raised in the total absence of a faith in a so-called “Higher Being” or Force, or anything at all beyond the current lifespan he would enjoy while in the human world. The other, his sister…would be raised in a strict religious environment. He smiled at the irony, for he had of course dictated that the “good” child be reared without any such ‘religious’ or transcendent faith whatsoever, but his twin, the “evil” child be raised to have a deep and unshakable faith perhaps.

And that was the crux of the entire project. To see which factor determined a persons outcome. Would Nature, or Genetics win out…or would Nurture? Or would some combination of both prove to be the key. It was a long shot study, and the results would be years in coming, and this most certainly was not his most important experiment by far, but…the results would be fascinating. And perhaps, depending on what he learned from this, other servants could be made and raised within the right environments, to gain optimum performance. Of course, he would have to think of something to speed the time factor, but…he would of course think of something when the time came.

And, there was one other purpose for this particular experiment. As with anything else he did, these “children” served a secondary purpose. Created as true Shinigami, they would automatically gain access to Soul Society upon the termination of their “human” lives. At this point, he would have ready-made spies within the sanctuary of his most despised enemies.

And, of course…each Gemelos was also infused with the task of searching out the Royal Key. What better servants to locate the one thing standing between him and ultimate power than a Shinigami created by him, infused from creation with the potential to wield near as much power as himself, but who would not be suspected of being anything at all related to him in any way? The plan of course, was as brilliant as it was simple. It just took time to reach fruition. And somewhere in the years between implementing it, and the culmination of years of waiting, he let the matter slip into the shadows of his memory…all but forgotten. He had moved on to other things, better things. Projects that produced faster results. And so, he who had always prided himself with attending to every last detail, paid little attention to that moment when the first of these twins, his Gemelos, passed from the human world to begin the true task. They had become obsolete, outdated. He no longer really needed them, but perhaps they would provide some measure of entertainment in the future…

[Lang Kai yi]

Jyr juh

I sat cross-legged on the stone bench, contemplating the pebbles in the raked rock garden- the whole thing measured about 10 feet wide by about 4 feet tall, and filled with fairly uniform pebbles, each about the size of the first digit of an adult thumb- again. It was only Shing chee san…Wednesday…but three times already this week, I had sat here, staring at rocks. It was peaceful, though, and it gave me the chance to compare yesterdays count with whatever count I came up with today. I had found that, on the whole, the pebbles seemed to vary by a count of anywhere from 3 to 22 pebbles’ difference at any given time. I found the odd fluctuation…fascinating. It was a puzzle: where did they go…and who brought them back? I had been sitting in silent reflection, about halfway through todays rock roll call, when I caught the faintest hint of color and movement across the upper corner of the rock garden.

The movement continued, gliding across the smooth stones with a grace and ease of movement only 8 legs could provide, and I was entranced by the colors…a black and golden body with red markings. A Golden Orb Web spider. I slipped down off the stone bench, and got on my hands and knees, trying to balance over the rock garden without actually disturbing the rocks. In that way that only children under the age of 12 can achieve, I managed to bend myself over the rocks and hold out my hand for the spider, and then stand, all without disturbing a single pebble. I held my prize firmly but gently in my hands, cupped together tightly as I hurried to find a jar. Soon, my spider, whom I named simply Jyr juh…or Spider…was safely housed in its new home, which was then placed on the floor at the head of my bedmat. I then raced out to collect a small twig and some leaves for Jyr juh, and planned ways that I would be able to catch bugs to feed her. I decided Jyr juh was a ‘her’ though in all honesty, I had no real idea whether this was true or not…it just seemed more appropriate is all.

Things went well for Jyr juh and I for several weeks. Until the day little Mei li and Jen yu decided to help feed Jyr juh. The younger girls were captivated by the golden spider, and I had even managed to get a larger jar to house her in. We had changed the dead leaves, and had added several of her favorite bugs, and I got up to attend to a matter elsewhere, forgetting to tell the girls that the lid on the new jar did not fit tightly, so that the rock I had brought in for this purpose needed to be placed on the top of the lid, making sure not to block the airholes.

Returning to the Acolytes Quarters, I was surprised to hear a commotion, and then one of the nuns racing out, her gray robes hiked to her knees as she raced down the hallway. I stepped into the room and noticed 2 things simultaneously. The first was…all of the girls present were trying their hardest to suppress laughter, one girl even had tears streaming down her face in her efforts not to laugh. The other was Ling shi holding up her hand in a gesture meant to stop me from proceeding into the room. I waited, and she told me what had happened.

Sister Ji had come around to see that the younger girls were preparing for bed, when suddenly she looked down on the floor near her feet, and began hopping backwards until she reached the door. At which point, she gathered the hem of her robes, and fled. Apparently Mei and Jen had not closed the jar to Jyr Juh’s habitat, and the spider was now at large in the dorm like room. Now, while an errant spider would not send most nuns scuttling down the halls in panic, Sister Ji happened to have a fear of them that she had never been able to overcome. I thought little of the odd joss that had brought the Sister to our room, out of all of the nuns, on the very day Jyr Juh was loosed, but I would have time in the future, as seemingly random events like this took place, to ponder the higher order of things. With a sigh, I bend down, and began peering at the floor for my missing spider, eventually finding her…back in her jar, of all places. I gently placed the rock on the lid, and prepared for bed.

However, the following morning, I was asked to allow Jyr juh the freedom to return to whatever family she might have. Now, I knew well enough that spiders didn’t have families, but I wondered if maybe she was better off back in her rock garden. So, sadly, I brought the jar outside, and turned her loose where I found her. As the years, and my numerous pebble contemplations, passed, I found that I was often kept company by a Golden Orb Web spider….some years, the reds were closer to brilliant orange, and some years the blacks were mere dots and lines, while other years, the jeweled red and gold tones were but mere splashes of color on black…but each year, Jyr juh’s daughters and granddaughters came to contemplate with me. I never thought much of this, for I never had a reason to, and I enjoyed the silent beauty and grace each spider brought as the years passed. And, when it came time to leave the Temple and the convent, among those I listed in my heart as friends I would miss, the image of Jur juh and her descendants always came to mind.