In the research lab, the specimen lay with its chest pressed to the inspection table. The creature was a male from a blue planet of similarly squishy inhabitants. The softness of its body was due to a large concentration of fat covered by an outer layer of pinkish-orange flesh. The man’s round bottom was pointing to the ceiling of the lab while a medical hose pierced its rear orifice. However, the creature’s bottom outlet wasn’t wide enough for the device, so Boozaza had to stretch it out.

As the STD, Special Technology Director, Boozaza was responsible if the equipment malfunctioned, but had no part in the actual research. The medical hose he was inserting served several purposes, which was why it needed to be inserted properly and promptly. The hose overrode the specimen’s internal functions by injecting nutritious liquids into its stomach. The fluids were evacuated once they had been processed. The end of the hose had special sensors that monitored organ activity; it did make the device wider, though. The sensors weren’t even the most important tools Boozaza oversaw. That title went to the SBR, or Subject Brain Reader.

The first rule of sedating a semi-intelligent creature for long-term experiments is to fool the creature’s mind into believing its daily routine hasn’t been interrupted. This is done using a virtual reality simulation that reads the subject’s memories and renders the simulation accordingly. The SBR performed the task quite nicely, although not as efficiently as the newer SSD, Subject Simulation Device. If all went well with this experiment, Boozaza was promised an SSD as a reward.

The second rule of keeping a specimen sedated is to give it what it wants more than anything else. When the creature is happy, it is less likely to realize that it’s being studied, and can usually be returned to its environment unharmed. In the old days of anesthetics and primitive simulations, specimens often woke up, and their bodies would shut down due to the shock of the medical hoses inserted into their rears.

Boozaza had already attached the SBR to the subject’s mouth where it gained access to the brain. It was set to run on autopilot and had already made the decision of changing the season for the creature’s simulation. “The creature desired a work holiday,” the device had said. The creature’s idea of a holiday included an excess of sleep, so the simulation only needed to render a bed and darkness while Boozaza fiddled with the medical hose.

Boozaza was alone with the squishy creature on the inspection table, aside from Kermiot, the Research Director—and the AI in the SBR. He spoke to the face-down, naked man while readjusting the hose protruding from its rear.

“I’m so sorry about this. You’ll have a rough time sitting down for a while, buddy. But I guess your species should just learn to evolve bigger openings.” He leaned forward and whispered to the man, “I'm doing you a favor if your think about it. Now you'll have more desirable traits for your mate.”

Kermiot looked up from a page he was taking notes on to see his partner whispering to the specimen’s rear. He didn’t say anything.

“Attention. The simulation is changing.” The SBR in the subject's mouth alerted the two scientists using a built-in speaker. It began outputting an image of the creature's simulation on a display screen for Boozaza to monitor.

“You can go ahead and start. The hose is running," Boozaza said as he walked around the table and began watching the Simulation Display. He flipped a switch near the screen, and the SBR’s voice started coming from the monitor.

The man got out of its bed and began walking around the simulated dwelling. There was an aura of contentment in its movement as it went from the bed to a cushioned bench in another room. It fell backward and sat there rubbing its eyes before reaching for a computing device. Boozaza walked away to wash his hands, and when he came back, the creature seemed to be angry at the device on its lap.

“Is the Internet down? What’s going on?” the man was saying as it pounded on the computing device.

“What’s he doing,” Boozaza asked the SBR.

“I think the creature is trying to beat its computing device into submission. It wants the Internet to work, but I can't render it.”

“What in Space is an Inner-net?”

The SBR searched through the creature’s brain for an explanation. “The Internet is a form of communication that the creature’s overlords require it to use daily. I can't replicate their formula of mind control because I can't simulate the communications.”

Following rule number two for sedating the creature, Boozaza asked if there was a secondary desire that would appease the man. The SBR suggested something called a Television.

“Use that while I try to solve the Inner-net issue.”

“Internet.”

“Yeah.”

The SBR manipulated the simulation to activate a display screen across from the creature’s soft bench. The creature looked around the room suspiciously, then looked between the cushions of its seat and pulled out a plastic rectangle. It sat back down and stared at the screen again.

“The subject has accepted the offering of Television,” the SBR said.

“But for how long? That’s not what he really wanted. We need to keep him happy.”

The SBR explained that the Internet would only work on the creature's planet. Unfortunately, the scientists had taken their research away from the surface and parked on the world's only moon. Kermiot had insisted that it was safer since the inhabitants had photographing technology.

“That’s a shame,” Boozaza said. “He'll have to live without it. What would be a reasonable explanation for why he doesn’t have to use the communication grid today?”

The SBR read the creature’s mind again and found that it expected a call from its rulers. “Service providers, they call themselves.” When he heard this, Boozaza told the SBR to open an audio channel into the simulation; he would speak to the creature directly.

Kermiot heard his partner say this and stopped what he was doing. He went over to the Simulation Display and expressed his concern.

“Boozaza, please don’t play around with this one.”

“Relax. This is what he wants.”

“Let the AI handle this. It won’t know the difference,” the Research Director said. “This specimen is important. I don’t have to remind you that—”

“I know. Just let me do my job.”

Kermiot went back to the inspection table and continued trying to decipher the importance of a small bit at the end of the creature’s intestinal tract, and the SBR turned on a microphone next to the Simulation Display.

The creature had just lain across the soft bench and covered itself with a blanket when a loud ringing noise appeared. It groaned and walked across the room, mumbling something about a “boss” being a “prick.” A small box was creating the ringing noise from a table next to the man's bed. It picked up the device and said, "Hello?"

“Greetings citizen,” Boozaza announced with confidence. “I have called to inform you that the Internet is broken.”

The creature pulled the box device away from its ear, and its eyebrow rose slightly. “Who is this?”

“This is Service Provider. Your desire to access Internet communications is acknowledged, but it cannot be processed today.”

“Stupid out of country—Fine. Fine. Thank you,” the man said. “I’ll go to the café. They’ll have Internet.”

“What? No,” Boozaza said. “Uh. Their Internets are broken too.”

The creature slammed the box device back on the table. “Damn town. Some idiot must have swerved into a telephone poll to avoid a cow again.” It then picked the device back up and examined to see if it was damaged. Boozaza didn’t know what cows were, but he was grateful for them.

The SBR ended Boozaza’s audio input when the creature put the device into its pocket. The man grabbed a set of keys and announced its intention to leave the dwelling and purchase food.

The man entered a metal vehicle on wheels. “The creature calls it a car.” And it began piloting the car machine around the planet at an obnoxiously slow speed. It would have taken the man days to circumnavigate the planet at that rate, so the SBR had no trouble rendering the environment. While it was piloting the car, the creature spoke to itself.

“There’d better not be anyone else out today. If the lines are long, I'm just going home.”

Boozaza had seen enough of the planet to know that the absence of others wasn’t likely. But he could hear Kermiot scolding him in the near future. “You ruined everything. I’ll never make up the lost time.” He glanced back at the Research Director, who hadn't noticed how poorly the Internet situation had ended. Kermiot wouldn’t agree, but keeping the subject happy was Boozaza’s goal, even if it required breaking the first rule of keeping the world believable.

“Get rid of everyone. Make him all alone.”

No other car pilots drove past the creature while it made its journey for food. When it got out of the car machine and went into a building to hunt, there were no other inhabitants around. Boozaza thought he'd made the right call to eliminate the other inhabitants until the creature started to panic and look around for others of his kind. It looked all around the building, behind a counter, in a closet, and under a table.

“I thought he didn’t want to see anyone else?”

“Correct,” the SBR said, “The creature wishes to be alone.”

“Then why is he looking for others?”

“It expects there to be others, and therefore desires it.”

“Make up your mind, stupid!” Boozaza yelled at the naked man behind him. Kermiot was standing next to the specimen, weighing two canisters of gas to decide which he would use. He looked up, and his eyes turned green, as they did when he was angry.

Boozaza clarified, “Not you.”

Kermiot returned to studying the creature. He was inserting different carbon gasses into the subject’s air sacks to see what happened. He’d never seen organs that filled with air before and was sure they would make a remarkable research presentation for his superiors.

The SBR altered the simulation to include other creatures, and the man calmed down. Boozaza took a deep breath and moved his chair closer to the Simulation Display. “I can’t mess up again,” he said to the SBR. “We need to give the creature what he wants more than anything else. What’s his deepest desire?”

"To mate with a female of its kind," the SBR said. “Multiple of them.”

“At the same time?”

“Yes.”

“Then give him that. I'll go set up a Pulse Suppressor.”

The creature was piloting the car back toward its dwelling when a traffic regulator required it to stop the vehicle. As the creature waited for a signal to continue its journey, it noticed several women standing to the side of the pathway. They aroused the man’s interest.

There were seven women near the creature’s car. All of them wore similar attire: small bits of fabric around their waists, tall footwear with pointed toes, decorative jewels on their wrists and necks. The only way to distinguish them was with the fabrics they wore on their torsos and the way their hairs had been styled.

A drop of sweat rolled down the man's neck as the females struck suggestive poses. The creature averted its eyes and focused on the traffic regulator. It began to bounce its leg and repeat the words, “Hurry up.”

Boozaza returned to his position in front of the Simulation Display. The specimen's heart rate had already risen significantly, nearly making the Pulse Suppressor malfunction.

“For the love of All Matter! He hasn't accepted the mates yet?”

Boozaza examined the females and commented on how strange it was that the man found them attractive. They only had two breasts. How would they feed more than two children at a time? Then again, these creatures all had odd bodies. Short. No exoskeleton. Only two arms, two eyes, two ears. They liked the number two, it seemed.

After a minute of trying to make the creature accept the mates, the SBR explained that the man expected the women wouldn't find its features desirable. “It now wishes to leave.”

“No. He wants to mate. Give him a little push. He’s just shy.”

The females approached the man’s car and leaned against the windows. “We want you so bad. We won’t charge a cent,” one of them said with big red lips.

“So this is a matriarchal society where the females require currency for temporary mating,” Boozaza concluded. “You don’t see that very often.”

Finally, the man accepted the offering, and the temporary mates climbed into the creature's car machine; they sat on each other’s laps to save space. The man began driving away from the traffic regulator. They all stopped outside of a small building, and exited the car. “Motels, the creature calls them. They are typical locations for mating rituals such as this.” The motel had a single bed that all the creatures got into.

Curious to see what the man would do with so many mates at once, Boozaza fixed his attention to the display. But, before the ritual could start, Kermiot said, “This Pulse Suppressor is broken, Boozaza. Please come fix it. I can’t tell if its heart rate is high from your simulation or if the carbon monoxide I’m testing is killing it.”

The day passed quickly. Boozaza left the simulation on autopilot and monitored the creature’s pulse for Kermiot. As night fell in the simulation, the man retired from its excessive mating and departed from the mates to sleep alone. By this time, the scientists were growing tired as well and decided to break from their busy schedule of study.

Kermiot stopped his partner at the laboratory's door. “Stay in here in case something happens. The deadline is coming up, and I don't want the subject to die because your simulation failed.”

Boozaza agreed to stay. “Just you and me tonight. I'll watch after you, my little ball of fat,” Boozaza said lovingly as he pet the creature on the rear. He’d grown somewhat fond of the squishy man, as he did with most of the specimens they worked on. If only the creature hadn’t been such a pain to keep happy, Boozaza might have considred keeping it as a pet.

A few hours passed, and Boozaza was about to sleep. But just as his fourth eye was beginning to close, he heard a voice coming from the Simulation Display. The STD sat up, and his arms moved back out of his spine to turn on the lights.

“Why? Oh, God! My heart aches with remorse.”

The creature was awake and kneeling at the edge of its bed. It hung its head low between its arms, which were both folded and raised up high.

“Forgive me,” the creature said.

It was in tears, and the vital monitors suggested it was in a state of immense despair. Boozaza yawned and looked back at the man on the table. The creature appeared to be fine. The sadness was illogical.

“I shouldn’t have been so weak,” the man said. “But the temptation was so strong, and those women were so eager. They didn’t even charge me. How could I have said no?”

“Who’s he talking to?” Boozaza asked, staring at the subject’s closed eyes.

The SBR responded from the speaker in the man’s mouth. “It believes it is talking to God. The creature believes this to be the creator of its species.”

“Why does he look up when he talks?”

“It believes that this creator lives up in the clouds.”

Boozaza watched the man wail. He continued saying, “Forgive me” and “I wish you would answer me.”

Boozaza could see that the man wanted to hear a response from the creator in the clouds. He leaned back in his chair and watched for a while longer before asking what the creature expected to hear God say.

The SBR responded quickly, “It doesn't know. It has never spoken to God before. Correction: It has never conversed with God. It has spoken, but never heard a reply despite wishing to.”

“What can go wrong then? Give me a microphone. He wants to talk to God.”

The SBR complied, and the microphone next to the Simulation Display turned on. Boozaza leaned into it started with, "Uh, hello?” His voice boomed from above the creature’s bed. And he thought he might have messed up by being so informal, but the creature seemed to appreciate it.

“God? Is that you?”

Boozaza picked up the microphone and stood up.

“Yes. I am your creator who lives in the clouds,” Boozaza looked around the room at the man’s naked body on the inspection table behind him. He went closer to the man and said, "Look, Buddy. I forgive you, and you can stop being sad. We all make mistakes.”

The specimen on the table began to exhale deeply, emptying its air sacks. The man’s vitals began returning to normal afterward, and Boozaza was confident that his impersonation of God was working.

“Uh. Yeah. I forgive you. So just don’t worry about it. Everything is cool.”

“Thank you, Lord!” the man yelled.

It was at this point that Boozaza realized he had never asked what the creature felt guilty for.

“I promise I will never do it again. I’ll never have sex with so many women. No. I’ll never have sex ever. Not even with my wife when I get married.”

“Is that what this is about? Don’t get crazy—”

Boozaza covered his microphone, and the SBR told him the creature called himself “Jim.”

“Don’t get crazy, Jim. You wanted to have sex with all those mates at once. Next time try—”

“You’re right!” The man interrupted Boozaza. It held its head in shame once again and said, “I did want it. I can’t fool you.”

They were both quiet for a while. Boozaza tried to understand the man’s grief.

The creature looked straight up and said, "I still want to fu—f—fornicate. With all those women. But I don’t want to want it. I wish I didn’t want it. Then I wouldn’t ever do it! Can you forgive me, God? Forgive me for wanting it?”

Sexual intercourse was the man’s most intense desire. The SBR had said so, and the creature was confirming it. Boozaza’s eyes turned a slight green as he stared at the specimen in front of him. He couldn’t understand the creature's guilt for having so many mates. He’d tried to alleviate that guilt as the creator in the clouds. But even when it was forgiven, the creature still felt guilty. It was too preoccupied with the thought of still wanting what it felt guilty for having.

“Look—Uh—Jim," Boozaza said putting his face next to the creature's. “I don’t care if you want to do something. If it’s something you’re going to feel guilty for, then don’t do it. I suppose. Next time, just make up your mind! For now, I forgive you.”

An alarm started to sound from the device shoved into the creature’s mouth. The SBR was shouting for Boozaza’s attention. “The creature is beginning to doubt the authenticity of the simulation!”

“Why?”

“It doesn't believe God would forgive its actions from today.”

“He wanted to be forgiven! I’m giving him what he wants. He doesn’t know what God would say!”

The creature fell to the ground, grasping its head with both hands. It cried out, "I wish I could just wake up from this nightmare! God, I wish I had never done it.”

Kermiot ran into the laboratory, shouting for the SBR to “turn off that blasted noisemaker.” He turned to the Simulation Display and asked Boozaza what happened. When Boozaza explained the situation, Kermiot was furious.

“I told you not to play around with this creature, Boozaza! Fix this. If it wakes up and dies, then I'll never make the deadline.”

“It's not going to wake up. I’ll use the dream protocol. That's what it wants. It'll think that everything in the simulation was just a dream, and everything will return to normal.”

That’s what he did. Boozaza took control of the simulation away from the SBR’s AI. He input some complicated commands while the creature wandered around the dark room wondering why the voice of God was shouting about “protocol” and a “deadline.”

With the press of a button, Boozaza caused the simulation to temporarily turn black. It rebooted, and the man was placed in the bed. By the time it awoke, Boozaza had used the SBR to alter its memory. The creature believed the events of the previous day had never actually happened.

The man meandered around the house and checked his computing device to see if the Internet was still broken. It was. It turned on the Television and then turned it off again. And for the first hour of the day, the creature sat around with a dumbfounded look on its face, wondering what happened to the day worth of memories and saying to itself, “It was just a dream. Thank God. It was just a dream.”

Boozaza kept control of the simulation while Kermiot went and began testing the subject’s air sacks with chlorine gasses. The creature sat around, happy to stay on his soft bench and eat from a bowl. “Chicken soup, the creature calls it.” He simply stared at the powered-down Television and never again questioned the simulation.

After a while, Boozaza felt comfortable letting the AI create the specimen’s reality again. He handed control to the SBR and watched Kermiot remove the chlorine from the specimen’s air sacks.

The creature set aside the soup and decided to move. It got into the car machine and left its dwelling. The SBR alerted Boozaza, and by the time the STD had returned, once again, to the Simulation Display, he saw the creature lingering near the traffic regulators where it had first met the multitude of temporary mates.

“What in Space is it doing?” Boozaza asked the SBR.

“It's looking around for the mates it was with. It wants to know if they were part of the dream. And to mate with them again.”

Kermiot looked over and asked if everything was alright when his partner started laughing.

“Yes. It’s fine. The stupid creature can’t make up its mind. It wants what it doesn’t want, but it doesn’t want to want it.”

“I suppose it isn’t the smartest specimen we’ve studied, is it? You won’t be begging to keep this one, I assume?”

“No. But I think we should look into something it called a cow. They might be the dominate life form on the planet. One managed to disable the Inner-net grid earlier.”

Boozaza’s prediction turned out to be correct. Kermiot won three awards for his study done on the cow, which had a much sturdier build and larger air sacks to experiment on. It had two more legs than the first creature, and could feed four younglings at a time. The medical hose was easier to fit in the cow, too, and the SBR had no trouble keeping it happy. Plenty of other scientists went to the blue planet, which was called Earth, to study the cow. While some still tried it, they all warned each other to stay away from the Earth men, but take as many of Earth’s cows as you can carry.