“Do
you really expect me to believe you've become pregnant while still
being a virgin?” asked Jane's father incredulously.
Jane
was a shy studious young woman, a freshman in college. She had no
recollection of ever having had sexual relations with a male. She was
therefore shocked when she started to develop some of the symptoms of
pregnancy. A home pregnancy test had indicated that she was indeed
pregnant. Refusing to believe that she was pregnant, Jane went for a
test at a doctor's office. The lab confirmed that she was pregnant.
“I
swear, Dad, I've never had sex with anyone,” said Jane. She racked
her mind trying to think of an explanation. She could think of
nothing.
Jane
then went to a gynecologist, simply asking him to confirm that she
was a virgin. After an examination, the gynecologist told her that
she was still a virgin.
All
over the world, the same thing was happening.
In
countries all over the globe, women reported that they were pregnant,
even though they had not recently had sex. Many were virgins, and
many were women who had had sex before but not in the past month.
Scientists
began to investigate this astonishing phenomenon. A group of
scientists at the prestigious Center for Integrated Biosciences held
a meeting to discuss their findings.
“We've
discovered what is causing the pregnancies,” said team leader David
Dalton. “It's a bacteria.”
“A
bacteria?” said William Stafford, Dalton's boss. “You've
got to be kidding me. You can't get pregnant from a bacteria!”
“You
can get pregnant from this bacteria,” said Dalton. “The
bacteria consists of tiny organisms, each called a bacterium. And
each bacterium contains a single sperm cell, a spermatozoon.”
Dalton
showed a schematic diagram of the new bacteria. The diagram showed a
single bacterium with a sperm cell inside it.
“The
bacteria is being spread by people coughing and sneezing, and by
other people breathing in the bacteria,” explained Dalton. “Once
a fertile woman breathes it in, the bacteria somehow moves from her
respiratory system to her reproductive system. Then, boom, she finds
herself pregnant. The sperm cell in the bacterium is delivered to an ovum in the woman, and pregnancy develops.”
“I
want you to start analyzing the DNA of the sperm cell inside the
bacterium,” ordered Stafford. “That may help us figure out where
this bacteria came from.”
Once
it became public that a bacteria was causing pregnancies, some women
chose to have abortions to terminate the unwanted pregnancy. Each of
the women who had the abortions mysteriously died soon after having
the abortion.
The
scientists at the Center for Integrated Biosciences met again to
discuss their research.
“Why
are these people dying from the abortions?” asked Stafford.
“We've
found that there is some bizarre mechanism so that if you terminate
one of these bacteria-created pregnancies, some odd type of toxin is
released,” said Dalton. “It's almost as if there was a
self-protection mechanism designed to protect the new pregnancies.
It's like nothing I've ever seen before.”
“What
about the DNA of the sperm cell inside each bacterium?” asked
Stafford.
“That's
what really freaked us out,” said Dalton. “The DNA is some
type of strange hybrid or mixture. Many of the genes are human. But
many other genes are like no genes that have ever been identified in
the human genome.”
“Do
you think this bacteria could have originated from
extraterrestrials?” asked Stafford?
“That's
a distinct possibility,” said Dalton. "Maybe visitors from the stars got a sample of our genetic material, and somehow spliced up our genes with their genes."
After
four months of pregnancy, Jane got an ultrasound to check on the
health of her developing baby. The result was shocking. The baby
looked like a human baby, but the head was unusually large.
A
few months later another ultrasound confirmed that the head was
unusually large.
“That
head is so large, it's going to be a problem on the delivery date,”
said Jane's doctor. “I don't see how we can do a regular delivery.
The baby will get stuck on the way out. We'll have to make a big
incision, and do a cesarean section.”
Around
the world millions of other women faced the same problem. Many who
could not afford cesarean section operations ended up dying in childbirth. But
most of the babies had healthy births through cesarean sections.
After
giving birth, Jane watched some television in her hospital room.
“The
first of the mysterious babies have been born around the world,”
said the television reporter. “For good or for bad, the regular
human race now has to share this planet with a new race of beings. A
race that is apparently part human and part extraterrestrial. Is this
race man's successor? Only time will tell.”
Jane
held her newborn baby in her arms, and sang gently to the child. The
baby looked very strange. He had greyish skin, a huge head, yellow
eyes, and pointy little ears. But Jane didn't care. It was her baby,
and she was going to love the baby no matter how strange he looked.
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