In an airlock lab, stationed 2,000 meters underground, Doctor O prepares the petri dish as part of Phase Three. You may picture a man in his late fifties with a white goatee and a full head of fine silver hair styled away from his forehead, if it will aid your visualization, though his true description is classified. While the embryonic DNA extraction technique is classified, I can disclose that patient zero for Phase Three was a Caucasian male with brown hair and eyes, and Type-O blood, as were all his genetic replicates.

Within the quiet, underground lab, you will see specimens in various stages of development – all cut off from any potential human interaction, separated from one another by meters of reinforced steel that block all sound, natural light, and electromagnetic waves. The fetus develops within an artificial womb, intravenously fed synthetic nutrients that have been engineered within a sterile laboratory setting.

At forty weeks, the infant is extracted from the artificial womb and placed in a sealed incubator that prevents any visual or auditory stimulus from entering the enclosure. Everything within its enclosure is sterilized, including oxygen, so that the specimen never encounters external biological agents. The enclosure is equipped with a sanitation system designed to clean the specimen with water purified through reverse osmosis.

The laboratory is silent. The specimens never once make a sound – not a mewl nor whimper, much less the boisterous cries of a newborn infant. Specimens within the first wave developed an umbilical cord that sought attachment to a placenta wall. Lacking one, it withered and detached and the specimen died of starvation. The biological imperative to feed through an umbilical cord was redirected by the fourth wave – the first to accept nutrients fed intravenously. Current specimens lack navels.

The fourth wave was the first to survive the incubation phase. Specimens were removed from incubators during sleep – EEG monitors revealed no change in brain activity during sleep, suggesting the absence of dreams – and placed on a rubber floor, free to move at will within the confines of their isolated cell. Here they would lie supine on the floor, silent and motionless. Cataracts formed over their brown eyes from each specimen’s inability, or refusal, to blink.

The fifth wave received a radio tuned to classical music, opera, and NPR. Then, later, to the chanting of various spiritual traditions, religious hymnals, and a cappella youth choirs. These additional stimuli elicited no change.

The sixth wave received a television monitor showing maternity films, nature shows, cartoon musicals, and live video feeds whereby Professor O attempted to establish direct interaction. This additional stimulus elicited no change.