Chapter Text
The following is confidential information presented by the entity known as Lord God Almighty, The Most High God, The Lord That Heals, The Alpha and the Omega, The First and the Last, The Beginning and the End, and The One Who Calls Herself I Am
The Human Corporation: Operations Manual
Compiled from the didactic series on Human Physiology and Function
Originally presented 4004 B.C.E
Revised and updated 2017 C.E.
To be distributed to: Angels of the First Sphere
–Transcribed by the Archangel Uriel–
Note: If you are not the intended recipient of this information, you are prohibited from sharing, copying, or otherwise using or disclosing it. If you have received this information in error, please notify God immediately via the Metatron. Then permanently delete this information without reading, forwarding, or saving it. Thank you.
Introduction:
Hello, everyone. Can you hear me alright? The seraphim in the back? Yahoel, I’m sure you’re having a very interesting conversation with Batariel but perhaps it can wait until our lunch break. Eyes on me. All your eyes. Thank you.
I’ve brought you all here to talk about how the human body functions on a biological level. We have a lot of material to cover, and please pay attention because many of you will be helping the third sphere angels incorporate to forward our liaison efforts. Some of you may even be doing your own outreach, depending on the need for supervisory entities on site.
I’ve created the human organism to be dependent on its environment but independent of Heaven, which was no easy task. The Earth and its atmosphere are a closed system in three dimensions, relying on the sun for energy. (The sun is a surrogate for my Heavenly light, of course, and the Earth orbits around it. I’m confident they’ll appreciate the symbolism of that once they work out the physics.) In order to capture energy, plants will be enabled to perform a sunlight to glucose conversion, and humans will consume plants. Glucose is a sugar, and it allows energy to be stored in a chemical form for later use. Is everyone with me so far?
Humans need a constant supply of glucose. I’ve installed a number of internal systems that will synthesise, utilise and store it, as well as dispose of waste products. Yes, you heard me correctly. Waste products are integral to the design– they’re a feature, not a bug! (Transcriber note: there’s soft laughter from the assembled host at this.) The breakdown of waste will allow for cycling of organic material and facilitate new growth… but I digress. I’m here to talk to you about humans, not the nitrogen cycle. (Although it is one of my more brilliant ideas.)
The building block of a human body is called a cell. Cells are tiny– you can’t see them with the naked eye– and there are many different kinds, with all sorts of jobs. The important thing to remember is that cells need oxygen, sugar, water and salt to survive… which means every human needs access to those things.
That brings me to my first confession. Haha, that’s another idea I’ve had, by the way… owning up to mistakes when you make them. That way everything is out in the open and you can figure out how to move forward. Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, even me! Do you think I planned for Lucifer and his little crew to storm off in a huff? Of course I didn’t. Words were said, and then things sort of escalated from there… but I’m getting off track again. Where was I? Ah, yes.
I made humans completely dependent on having a regular supply of cell food. They have various ways to store glucose, as I mentioned, but they need to eat and drink every day. They don’t know that, though. (This experiment is about seeing what the humans will do when left to their own devices; I’ve been very hands-on with all of you, and to be honest I’m not sure it was the right approach.) Since I’m not going to be telling them what they have to do to stay alive, I built mechanisms into their bodies that would tell them for me. I call them “drives”. Things like “hunger”, “thirst”, “avoidance of pain” and the desire to reproduce. (Just write those down for now, we’ll go over them later.)
My mistake, I think, was in not giving humans the ability to modulate these drives. I made them powerful because they had to be, but data from early trial runs indicate they’re powerful enough to completely override the organism’s better judgement. That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but the system is complicated enough that I can’t exactly go back in and fix it without overhauling the entire design.
Humans are very good at planning, thinking rationally, and making smart decisions– as long as these essential drives aren’t in play. Think of them as biological hot buttons. When they get pressed… well, there’s been some very unexpected behaviour observed, I can tell you that much.
Oh dear. I hope they’ll be alright.
The Guardian of the Eastern Gate sat cross legged by the stream, watching the male human. Puffs of dry, hot air pushed at the folds of his robe, and the lines in his face were dark with dust. It had been days of travelling hard during the cool of evening, of digging in the sand for moisture; but now there were reeds that bobbed their heads with the movement of the water, there were patches of green peeking through hard-packed earth. Twisted, stunted trees along the bank provided a little shade. An oasis.
Crawly moved faster in his snake form, so he’d caught them up despite having to avoid the full sun of the desert days and the frigid cold of the nights. The angel had been steadfastly ignoring him. He was probably suspicious, wondering why the demon was tracking them, guessing he was up to no good. In truth, Crawly was curious. Okay, yes, Downstairs had been pleased with the success of his initial assignment and had told him to stir up more trouble, but it wasn’t like he had a deadline. There was time to watch the humans and see how they’d behave, now that they were out of the cradle. He had a soft spot for creatures who could turn bad luck to their advantage; who could take a tumble and land on their feet, and it seemed that they had… at least for the moment. Eve was stretched out on her left side, resting her belly on a patch of soft-looking grass, trailing her fingers in the water. Adam was…
Crawly resumed his human shape, looming up suddenly behind the ramrod-straight angel, who jumped. “Crawly!” He placed a soft-looking hand on his chest, over his heart, and looked at the demon with wide eyes.
‘Soft-looking hand’? Crawly mentally shook his head. “Why’re you watchin’ him do that?”
Adam, about a hundred feet down the bank, was crouched down next to one of the spindly trees. There was an occasional soft grunt as he attended to his business, back turned to them, knees splayed.
“What is he doing?”
Crawly looked sharply at the angel. To his surprise, it seemed like an honest question. He was watching the human with frank curiosity and not a hint of shame, a tiny furrow between his eyebrows. The dappled light accentuated the curving shell of an ear, the bridge of his nose, a cheekbone; he was glowing in patches. His eyes were shade and sun too; a perfect balance between the grey of the sluggish water and the aching blue of the sky.
You’re staring. Crawly jerked his eyes away and rested them back on Adam. The human had finished up and was covering his leavings with sand. “You… uh. You weren’t briefed?”
“I’m given to understand that they make more humans by nesting a smaller model inside the female until it’s of sufficient size. Then it emerges from between the legs.” The angel nodded towards Eve. “But Adam is male. And that… wasn’t a human.”
Crawly threw back his head and laughed. The noise startled the humans, and their heads whipped around. Eve narrowed her eyes at him. Crawly gave her a little wave. “I bet your corporation’s mostly for show, isn’t it? What’ve you got inside there, linin’ the walls? Nectar? Ambrosia?”
The angel stiffened further, if that were even possible. “My corporation happens to be a perfect replica of what they’re using,” he said, nose in the air. “All the requisite parts are present and accounted for.”
Stuck up git, Crawly thought, but the words sounded affectionate inside his head.
What in the world? He didn’t even know his name, for Satan’s sake. “Standard issue, sure,” he replied. “Okay. But d’you have metabolism switched on? Digestion? Bet you don’t.”
“They gave us permission to try out the heart and lungs,” the angel said with a touch of pride, “if we liked. They said not to touch the rest of the settings for now. That they’d do another training later on, if it seemed like we might need them.”
“Yeah, that tracks.”
“Now what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Head Office’s only goin’ to tell you what they think you need to know. I’m guessing they lined some big white room with perfect bodies, let you pick one, and sent you off without letting you look under the hood. Gave you one or two big shiny buttons to play with so you’d think you had some control, and locked the rest away.”
The angel’s cheeks were pink. Belatedly, Crawly realised he’d said “perfect body”, and winced internally.
“I suppose you know all there is to know about them, then,” the angel muttered, picking at a cuticle. “You’re a demon, after all.”
“Me bein’ a demon’s not the point, but yeah, now that you mention it,” Crawly said. “We didn’t have access to the warehouse or the factory. Nothing got handed to us. We had to cook these corporations up from scratch, and make sure everything was working.”
The angel looked intrigued. “How did you get the specifications in the first place?”
“Eh, one of the blokes in the design department nicked a set of blueprints on his way down. Although we couldn’t make sense of some parts. You know there’s a little wobbly bit hanging off the large intestine that looks like a thumb? Does fuck all, as far as I can tell.”
The angel laughed. He had an extremely nice smile, all crinkled eyes and white teeth. “All right. Tell me, then. What was Adam doing?”
“Defecatin’.”
“What?”
Crawly twisted around. There wasn’t much that was edible even on the bank of the stream, but he managed to locate a patch of broad-leafed plants which he knew had tender, tuberous roots. He dug his fingers into the sandy soil and worried one free. “This was our first lesson Downstairs. Food, right? The humans have to consume it or they die.”
“They also seem to enjoy it. Even a certain forbidden apple.” The angel pursed his lips.
“Especially that apple, if I’m any judge.” Crawly grinned, and got a frown in return, but he didn’t think the angel’s heart was in it. “Now. What do you think happens to the things they eat, angel?”
“Aziraphale.” The corner of the angel’s… Aziraphale’s… mouth twitched. He nodded his head once.
It’s been three days, and he’s just now introducin’ himself, but I bet he’d never admit he was bein’ rude. Not in a thousand years, Crawly thought to himself. He smiled. “Okay… Aziraphale. They can’t just keep on eating and eating, right? They’d explode. The food has to go somewhere.”
“I thought it…” Aziraphale flapped his hands vaguely. “...turned into energy. Or something.”
“Broadly, yes, but not all of it.” Crawly had rinsed his root in the stream. He looked at Aziraphale as he took a bite of the tip, allowing the sharp flavour to spread over his palate, crunching the stringy bits between his back teeth. The angel stared at him, fascinated. Crawly stuck out his tongue, showing him the ball of masticated root mixed with saliva. Then he swallowed. “My corporation can use some of that for… fuel, like fuel for a fire, you know? But just like a fire, when the energy part is used up, there’s something left over.”
“Like ash, and those blackened bits of wood?”
“Same idea, yeah. The intestine takes what nutrients it can. The rest of it… the bits the body can’t use… well, it goes out the other end.”
“The other end? Why? Why not through the mouth, the way it came in?”
“You’d have to ask the design team. Above my pay grade; I mostly did scutwork for the nebula crew.” Crawly shrugged. “‘S a basic tube structure, all coiled up in there, and things go from top to bottom. Most of the animals seem to have a similar version.”
“And… will you do that? ‘Defecate’? After you consume that root?” Aziraphale was all wide eyes and parted lips. It was… cute. It made Crawly want to show him things, fascinating things, things that would cause him to make that face again. Or smile his wide, sunshine smile… that was even better.
What was he thinking? He couldn’t fraternise with an angel! The Prince would have his guts for garters, and that would certainly put a damper on his demonstration of the digestive system. Crawly swallowed again, this time from nerves. “Probably not. I don’t need to fuel my corporation that way, so I have it set to return the things I consume to the environment after they hit my stomach.” He blinked, and the root was whole again in his palm.
Aziraphale wrinkled his nose. “Then why eat at all?”
“‘S fun. Like you said.” Crawly took another bite. “Tasting things is brilliant.”
“For you, perhaps.” The angel was wearing his sanctimonious expression. “I’m sure I’ll need to be concentrating on more important things. The humans may need to eat, but it’s not something an angel would indulge in.”
“Perish the thought,” Crawly murmured. The shadows were getting long, and he needed to find a warm rock to shelter him for the night. “But if you change your mind… those roots aren’t bad. ‘Specially if you roast them over a fire. And I saw a date tree a ways downstream… their fruit is sweet; tastes the way flowers smell, but better.”
“Hmm.”
Crawly raised a hand and turned away. “‘Night, angel.”
A pause. He almost thought Aziraphale wasn’t going to respond. Then, faintly, on the edge of hearing at fifty paces…. “Goodnight, Crawly.”
He turned. The angel had dug up his own root, and was examining it curiously.
Crawly grinned. Adam had named that one “Devil’s thorn”. He’d never tell.