Pass me the rhinocerous, please
“Pass me the rhinoceros, please” – Said Elisa, without hesitating. The laboratory was cold, and the night was dark.
“Are you sure?” – Asked Júlio, even though he knew there was no turning back as soon as he saw her hair in a bun.
“I have never been surer.” – answered the freakishly slim girl. She held the immobile prototype in the palm of her hand, adjusting coordinates in the design software. When Elisa moves her bangs away and wraps her long hair in a bun, the only way out of whatever mess they had gotten themselves into was if the girl was as concentrated as she appeared: standing over the 3D printer, glasses sunk to her face and an expression so serious it made his arm hairs go up.
Elisa configured the control board without making a sound. Júlio always felt bad when she did it. Her lack of justification was a reminder that, in their team, she was the scientist and he was… the moral support?
With every time he saw her sweating, painfully aware that she was redefining humanity’s path at every nocturnal venture, it became harder to remember that it all started as a joke. Two teenagers and the desire to experiment with the lab after everyone left. Never, never, ask the interns to close up, turn the lights off and leave. Don’t leave them alone with heavy machinery worth millions of dollars. The consequences can be terrible. Worse than spilling peanut butter all over the manager’s doctoral thesis, worse than potentially getting caught performing their experiments.
They had discovered, by accident, five all-nighters ago, that putting ramen, with the flavor dust, in the filaments of a 3D printer gave life to the forms.
Elisa gives Júlio their characteristic hang loose sign. They were ready to go. He nods his head. They both put on their protection glasses. The machine was about to burst a live creature like you and I. Elise pressed play. The two of them took steps away from the machine, standing in the corners of the room. After a few locomotive sounds, two shakes and a big boom, a small beep let them know time was up.
Júlio feels like he needs to do something and throws himself in front of Elisa wanting to prove he also played a part on this. He approaches the machine, opens the lid. Smoke spreads through the laboratory. Immerse in white clouds, Elisa saw her secret crush’s eyes tear with emotion. Elisa might be the brain behind their adventures, but she wouldn’t have done anything if he wasn’t there to hold the tools and press the buttons. He turns around and says, after a loud gasp:
“Elisa! Come and see. He is so…-”
A rhinoceros paw hits Júlio’s head, crushing it against the wall.
“No!” yelled Elisa, terrified. Filled with pain, she lies down on the floor, looking for her partner, surrounded by fog. She gropes the floor around the machine, hearing animal noises on both sides.
The girl dragged herself on the floor for a few meters, forcing herself not to scream as soon as she felt the soft tissue of Júlio’s head instead of the cold concrete. Elisa held him in her arms, squeezing him as if she could still wake him up. Júlio was dead and the noises became more and more distant. She could hear the animal coming down the stairs and the night doorman, Mr. Wales, screaming in terror.
She had created a monster. Actually, two monsters. A few days later, in Júlio’s funeral, Elisa did not cry. She looked blankly at the crowd who could not piece together what had happened. The Tijux company laboratory had their security camera footage completely wiped out. The department chief was fired when he was unable to explain the fire and Elisa was consistent on her statements: she couldn’t remember anything. Júlio and her were never close. She called the police as soon as she saw the laboratory burst into flames from across the street.
Elisa never looked for the rhinoceros. The rhinoceros never looked for her. She never took out the bun. After the tragedy, her parents could not understand why she decided to continue working in the lab, but she knew she had to try again. Maybe she could control the beast if she mixed the plastic filaments with chicken ramen flavor instead of beef…