A press release from Genetisus, as provided by Lyn Godfrey
Art by Ariel Alian Wilson
Tired of age-old boring normal pets? Are you frustrated with all the “fake” cyborg animals on the market these days? Have you been burned by crossed wires and so-called “intelligent” AI?
Well, we at the NoRobo Pets division of Genetisus understand. You won’t find any electronic parts in our pets. And you’ll certainly never find them boring.
Our scientists at the NoRobo Pets laboratory have been working tirelessly to produce new live Mini-Pets for our customers to enjoy alongside current customer favorites and top sellers like those from our Fossil collection: Mini-Mammoth, Mini-Tyrannosaurus, and Mini-Sabertooth.
With our Mini-Pets, you can get all the fun of mega-sized animals miniaturized down to the size of a small dog.
Our lead scientist on these projects, Dr Thea Washington, is herself a devoted and loving owner of a Mini-Tyrannosaurus. When she was originally given the task of creating smaller versions of these large creatures, the job seemed insurmountable. However, she accomplished her goal and decided once again to take on the impossible.
With our Mini-Pets, you can get all the fun of mega-sized animals miniaturized down to the size of a small dog.
Up until now, we have specialized in miniaturizing only the animals which have a fully-mapped DNA entry in our Genetisus database. Dr Thea Washington recently led our team in an all new mission: create a miniature version of an as-of-yet purely fictional animal. This means that, in order to be able to minimize it, we had to start by genetically engineering a full-sized version of the animal. Once again, she succeeded.
Consequently, we are proud to announce the newest pet on our roster: the Unicorn. It has long been speculated that we may eventually make the leap into full-sized pets, and with this newest animal, we decided to do just that.
To read the rest of this story, check out the Mad Scientist Journal: Winter 2017 collection.
Dr Thea Washington, lead scientist of the NoRobo division of Genetisus Labs, is the proud parent of two non-cybernetic pets, Crocodile the Mini-Tyranno and Jackal the Alaskan husky. They were named after two of her favorite endangered species to draw attention to the plights of animals in the wild and are the official mascots of the non-profit organization DN-R, Don’t Neglect – Restore. Although she supports the efforts of Genetisus to catalogue genetic material in order to avoid total loss of a species, she believes that we should do our best to protect all the existing creatures of this planet. She spends much of her free time away from the lab editing and sharing her signature unlikely animal friendship videos starring the odd pet couple in a web series called, “The Crox and the Hound.”
Lyn Godfrey is a small-town, American southwestern, book-hoarding, animal-loving kind of girl. She writes in most “genre” genres and is a self-described Geek of All Trades. If it’s nerdy, she loves it. Lyn began writing her first book (a Star Wars sequel) at age eleven. She has been making plans to write ever since but is often distracted by reading or looking for shiny things, like spaceships and robots. Her recent short stories can be found in the following anthologies: Ain’t Superstitious, In Memory: A Tribute to Terry Pratchett, Misunderstood, Sproutlings, UNICORNADO!, and Third Flatiron: Best of 2015.
Ariel Alian Wilson is a few things: artist, writer, gamer, and role-player. Having dabbled in a few different art mediums, Ariel has been drawing since she was small, having always held a passion for it. She’s always juggling numerous projects. She currently lives in Seattle with her cat, Persephone. You can find doodles, sketches, and more at her blog www.winndycakesart.tumblr.com.
“The Hazards of Owning a Unicorn” is © 2016 Lyn Godfrey
Art accompanying story is © 2017 Ariel Alian Wilson.
This story originally appeared in Fossil Lake III: UNICORNADO!
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