A bulk of fur and flesh heaved slowly with labored breathing on table. Above slowly swung a light fixture, bumped rudely during the depositing of the body. Miriam and Roy stood back, each gasping a little for breath themselves, admiring the latter’s handiwork amidst the assorted lawn care tools, beakers, monitors, and hay that occupied much of the barn/laboratory.

Roy muttered, mostly to himself, “…stable gene code, wounds stable, growth progression…”

“Oy, schmuck,” Miriam interrupted, resisting the urge to smack him in the back of the head between breaths, “Why can’t you…make them smaller?”

Adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, Roy only offered a weak smile in response.

“Don’t look smug,” she shot, “What makes you think you did it this time?”

Grin from ear to ear, Roy announced, “It’s sentient!”

“Sentient? Then why were you in a tree?”

“Oh, an understandable disagreement about the name I gave it, a lovely name, my grandfather’s…you know, Siomon. Problem is, the brute thinks he’s Catholic.”