Machinist of Mana

Dr. Anton Parkov

“Extra, extra, read all about it, circus monsters escape, panic as wild beasts allowed to roam the street!” a boy shouted above me, his voice filtering down through the sewer grate.

Well, that seemed a bit much. Certainly I'd freed myself and some of my fellows, and perhaps I'd allowed one or two of the other creatures from the circus to go as well as a distraction, but panic on the streets? No, most people seemed to be doing just fine thank you.

Of course there were exceptions I thought to myself as I looked back at the man I was dragging behind me. His eyes were panicked, even as his body refused to move. I longed to speak to him, to tell him that things would be perfectly fine, perfectly fine indeed, but sadly my vocal chords were not really properly made for human speech. That was one of the things I was hoping to fix, but I needed some examples to work on the designs, without them it was slow going.

This year had been the most interesting since I'd come to this world. I'd finally found humans again, something I'd not seen in nearly a century, stuck as I was on that island. They were even starting to discover science if some of what I'd heard was right, though I did have to admit that my understanding of their language was still a work in progress.

I mused on my time here as I pulled my captive along behind me. This place which had killed and saved me, had given me another opportunity to continue my work, had shown me wonders I couldn't have dreamed of. Oh I loved it here, so very much, even if my current accommodations were a bit less than ideal.

As I got into the deepest parts of the sewer system I turned down an unused path, dried up and blocked off years ago. Down here we'd begun constructing the new nest, the place where my people would begin to rebuild our numbers. If I had my way, and I would, it would be so much nicer than those back on the island, so much more clean and advanced.

When I'd first arrived, some hundred years ago, I had been born into a cave. It was packed, a horde of goblins, my new people, shoved in and seeking shelter from the constant rain that made the surface dangerous much of the time. There was an organization of course, with the younglings kept away from most others, but it was still chaos.

That nest had been one of a dozen or so at the time. The females of our species would keep mostly there, as close to the center of it as their social status and the others of their sex allowed, while the males were interspersed similarly. The strongest of the males lived at the center of the nest, mating often as they went in and out to hunt and gather food, while their mates often hid, keeping the young and bearing more.

Goblins were an obscenely fecund species, with a gestation period of around two months and an ability to reach sexual maturity in only six. Full maturity took about a year, though that hardly stopped most of us, and females, unlike those of many species, often did get pregnant while nursing. This was good, because we were also short lived and violent, with a maximum age of around twenty years and an average of around ten.

Most goblins fell in conflict either with another nest, or with one of the many monsters that had made their way to our island. Those creatures were the primary source of food for the nest, mixed with whatever plants could be gathered, and they were killed by simple human wave tactics. Sure, a seabird the size of a hatchback was capable of eating a goblin in one swallow, but it could hardly fight fifty of them at once, and once it was on the ground everything was all but over.

When I got to the nest proper I saw one of the smaller, younger males on the fringes, digging trying to form a little sleeping area for himself. Well I could hardly disapprove of that, but his placement was less than ideal, so I pointed, letting out a series of grunts and screeches that sent him to another section of wall. It wasn't a formal language of any sort, but translated roughly to 'wrong, there' the simplest of messages.

The simplest of concepts could be transmitted though the many noises we could make, but it never amounted to anything more than a dog might manage, there weren't even any names. Social dynamics also played a huge role, with expressions and body language key.

As I came to the central area of our nest the females and young perked up. There were only three of the former, with the latter soon to increase. They were already doing their part, either pregnant or nursing, growing our little group. These three approached as I entered, screeching hungrily at the human I was pulling along the ground, only backing off as I bared my teeth. They couldn't have my subject until I was well and done with him.

This place had once been a tank of some sort in the sewer, blocked off, but it was flat and I'd gotten it mostly clean. For now it would serve as my laboratory while I tried to improve myself further. Some of those improvements were easily visible. I was older than any other goblin I'd ever heard of, I was also unusually tall and muscled, though I'd hidden that from the humans. There were a number of internal changes as well, things nobody would see unless they cut open my body.

When I'd first come to this world I'd been female, a rather large change from my previous life, but one that had probably kept me alive. Rather than being thrown out into the wilds to gather food I'd had time to acclimate myself, to grow a bit and learn about these new powers I had. A small minority of our species was born with an affinity to magic, one which I'd gained. I could mold flesh and shape living things to my will, a huge advantage, and one my fellows had celebrated when they'd learned of it.

For a time I'd been a sort of shamaness, revered by my little tribe as one who could heal the injured and ease the birth of new members. I'd even had a few children of my own out of curiosity. Slowly though I realized that I had problems, and I went about solving them.

The first issue was lifespan. It didn't take me long to realize that goblins didn't live long, and I didn't want to die. Using what I'd learned about in medical school I began to undertake a series of treatments both on myself and on a few experimental subjects to increase lifespan. Those had been a resounding success, and by elongating telomeres, regenerating organs, and putting in a few extra fail-safes I was able to keep myself young and healthy.

That took a few decades though, and around the time I finished that work another problem began to rear its ugly head. The males of my tribe had never liked how few young I was willing to spawn, making their complaints known, but keeping them restrained after a few had died complaining. Sadly that particular controlled group ran into issues. Another of the tribes arrived, slaughtering the males of ours and taking all of us hostage.

Now I could have held them off, as by that time I was quite skilled at magic, but without a tribe it seemed pointless. The many members was what had allowed me to continue in my work unbothered, and sadly I'd not realized how many were dying until they were already dead. By the time I was made aware of the intruders, fully seventy percent of the male goblins in the nest were dead.

Male goblins are odd about females. One might assume that they would be sexually violent based on some of the media in my previous world but that simply wasn't the case. Much like the difference in chimps and bonobos the females of our species grouped too much for that. A male might complain, might even make some attempt at restraint, but should he attempt something like rape he would be set upon by all of the females, something almost none of them could survive. For that reason the females of our tribe weren't harmed, but rather taken, kept in the new nest, and shown that there was only one way to increase their social standing, something most took to well.

I didn't like the new tribe, and I didn't like that I'd been brought there against my will. So I shortly escaped and returned to my old home. It was empty, but that was solvable. I undertook a mission to gather some of the males who were sent out, not for any base usage, but rather to experiment once more.

It took some time, as sex determination in goblins was slightly different than in humans, but with some effort I managed to give myself a new set of organs. I didn't throw away the old ones of course, who knew when being a hermaphrodite might come in handy, but I did put them in a kind of cold storage, inactive inside my gut.

As I began to carve into my subject, seeing tissue samples to work with I wondered briefly if goblins and humans were sexually compatible. I doubted it, but I'd have to find out later. Perhaps some attempt at in vitro? That might be for the best, less trauma, I was a doctor after all.

The man screamed, just as many of my own kind had screamed when I'd finally reclaimed the plumbing I considered my normal state. I'd marched into a nearby nest killing every male goblin with little more than a wave of my hand until I reached the center. The chief of that tribe had stood against me briefly, his own magic protecting him to an extent, but he was so young, so inexperienced with using it that soon he too fell.

After reestablishing myself as a goblin chief I'd only had to defend my title a few times. Goblins weren't the smartest of creatures, but even they eventually learned that if you attacked my tribe I ended yours. That allowed me to continue working in peace, trying to improve myself and our species slowly.

Over the years I'd increased the lifespan of my progeny from the normal two decades to what I estimated to be five. Their size had also grown slightly, making them a bit bigger. This had led to an increase in intelligence as they were able to learn more over their longer lives, but conversely their rate of reproduction fell, maturity slowing slightly as well as birth rate.

This was what I had wanted to do as a human, strengthen my species through hard experimentation, that many had to die for it to succeed was just a small sacrifice. Even the man I was working on in the present, he wouldn't die in vain, I would learn something. Why had so many failed to understand that? Was the first vaccine not tested on an unknowing child? Was the first attempt at using insulin not an innocent? Not to mention how very much we'd learned from those monsters in Germany, I couldn't justify what they'd done in masse, but without that one we'd not know nearly as much about hypothermia. At least goblins didn't have massive hangups about that kind of thing.

When the humans had arrived I'd decided that I simply had to go with them. It was a risk to be sure, going into one of their traps with a few of my favored mates, but I had to get off that rainy, dismal island, see what was in the world, keep growing. That had been the only chance I'd gotten to that point, and I wasn't losing it, and it had worked out so well!

I now had a city, an actual city, full of people with new genetic material I might manage to build off of to improve myself and my race. It should be quite possible now to give myself speech, and more power, and other goblins as well, I could turn us into something respectable. Oh how I cheered internally as I began to dream of it, of what I might do.

One day my work would be out there for the whole world to see, the whole world to praise. I might have to break a few eggs making that omelet, but that was a small thing, soon, so very soon a new world would see my brilliance. Knowing this made all I had to do so much easier, and I smiled down at my subject, he too would help.