Baseline Bob Show Episode 1: Visit to the Fnordian Central Adjunct Ectogensis Hatchery

Baseline Bob Show Episode 1: Visit to the Fnordian Central Adjunct Ectogensis Hatchery

By Hannah Dvoryanin

 

The Baseline Bob Show

…

Starring

….

Wait for it.

….

Wait for it.

….

You guessed right.

….

BASELINE BOB

 

<Cue the Baseline Bob Theme Song>

 

It’s Not Your Show,

It’s The Baseline Bob Show,

And Not Your Show,

Which is why it’s called

The Baseline Bob Show,

And NOT called Your Show.

Because it’s

….The….

….Baseline….

….Bob….

….Showwwwwww……..

 

<Cue pre-recorded studio audience applause with children cheering>

 

BARITONE VOICEOVER MAN: "This week, we get to share an adventure with Baseline Bob as he visits a Fnordian Adjunct Hatchery. Won’t that be fun, kids? Ectogensis is a fun word to say. Say it with me, kids. Ec-to-gen-e-sis. It will be fun to learn about Artificial Reproduction. Not as messy and unreliable like how Baseline Bob was created. Ewwwwww. Right kids? Let’s listen in on Baseline Bob now and see what he has to say."

 

Off screen stagehand whispers, "Just stand there and say the line, kid, later you can have pie."

 

Small Unsuspecting Child stumbles onto the scene as if pushed and hesitantly says, "Hi, Mister Baseline Bob, where do babies come from?"

 

Baseline Bob looks up and down, left and right, then turns around and see the small child, "Hello, strange child who I only just now met this minutes. What a strange and wonderful question to ask of me."

 

Baseline Bob looks down and gives his best paternalistic look, "When a man doesn’t love a woman very very much, the man signs away his paternity rights, and then donates his sperm via autoerotica. Can you say Sperm?"

 

Small Unsuspecting Child hesitantly, "Sperm."

 

Baseline Bob smiles warmly, "Good. Can you say Autoerotica?"

 

Small Unsuspecting Child frowns and crosses is arms, "No, I think this is a trick."

 

Off screen stagehand whispers, "Say it, kid. Think of the pie."

 

Small Unsuspecting Child still frowning reluctantly and quietly says, "Autoerotica."

 

Baseline Bob smiles again, "Good job, Billy."

 

Small Unsuspecting Child looks back at the off screen stagehand then back at Baseline Bob, "My name is not Billy."

 

Off screen stagehand whispers, "It is now. Remember, pie. Mmmmm, pie, everyone loves pie."

 

Voice of the director from the foreground, "We will cut that in editing. We’re on the clock, just keep going."

 

Baseline Bob continues undistracted, "There’s lots of money, a lot of smart doctoring, hormone injections, a bit of pain and of course the Intervening Godlike entity of your cultural baggage and personal preference."

 

"Transvaginal ultrasound using a wand this big," holding his hands up, "It makes a pop sound when it comes out of the body." Bob makes a popping sound, then giggles.

 

"There are months of daily intradermal injections of acute blood thinners and estrogen concurrency. Cryopresevation through hormonal activation. Then the egg is removed from Mamma and combined with the man-batter. The defective ones are disposed of in the haz-waste bin."

 

"The good ones are frozen until they can find a surrogate. Billy, can you say surrogate?"

 

Small Unsuspecting Child with tears in his eyes, "I don’t want to say it. My name is not Billy. I don’t want pie anymore. I just want to go home."

 

Off screen stagehand whispers, "Come on, kid, you’re nearly done. We’ll get you a ride home in a nice car, you won’t have to take the bus."

 

Small Unsuspecting Child sneers, "Surrogate," then crossing his arms and making an ugly cry face, "Can I go home now?"

 

Voice of the director from the foreground, "We’ll use camera two, without the ugly cry-face of the kid. We’ll keep the blocking, and just voice over the kid, keep going. Quick pick up another kid for the voiceover, there’s a city park 3 blocks from here with minimal adult supervision"

 

Baseline Bob continues to smile, seemingly not noticing the distress of the child, "Good job, Billy. A surrogate carries the baby inside of her, so the mommy doesn’t have to. See how it is all so easy and natural? That is how babies are made. Outsourcing the discomfort and inconvenience of pregnancy to the lower income earning segment of the population. It’s the circle of life."

 

Baseline Bob stops smiling, "There are countless orphans, massive overpopulation, widespread degradation of the environment. So we ignore that and in a sick form of narcissism that we think we are reversing reverse Darwinism or something. Procreation is not a meritocracy, Mommy gets the best genes she can buy, or from the bargain basement like 'Sperm Donor GHWD-22-D minus'. Mom could have saved her money, paid for designer sperm, or screened out for random traits, but noooo, let’s do it God’s way."

 

Baseline Bob seems clearly agitated and out of breath.

 

Voice of the director from the foreground, "Cut. We’ll edit out the rant. Bob’s meds are wearing off. Medic! Someone drop off the kid, and get him some pie. Makeup, do something to keep that vein that keep popping up on his forehead from showing up. Work with lighting or something."

 

<When the camera pulls back and 'Billy' is no longer there."

 

Hatchery Director steps in and in a friendly and straightforward manner, speaks while chuckling, "Not so fast there, Baseline Bob, here at the Adjunct Hatchery, we’re much more sophisticated than your old fashioned homespun yarn of sexual reproduction."

 

Baseline Bob turns around and smiles vacantly at the Hatchery Director as if he never met him before, "Hello Mister Hatchery Director. Please, tell me how you do it better than my alleged mother and 'Sperm Donor GHWD-22-D minus'."

 

"Well, Bob….," began the Hatchery Director.

 

Voice of the director from the foreground interrupting the Hatchery Director, "Call him Baseline Bob, not Bob, start over."

 

Nodding, "Well, Baseline Bob, here at the Adjunct Hatchery, a week’s supply of female ova is kept at blood temperatures, while the supply of male donated testicles are preserved at 35 degrees Celsius to keep them fertile. Female eggs are derived from excised ovaries – an operation which is undergone voluntarily and compensated with half a year's salary. The excised ovaries are kept alive and active in a saline solution so that thousands of female egg cells can be derived from a single ovary."

 

Baseline Bob nods and opens his mouth wide mouthing the Ohhh then looking away from the Hatchery Director and instead to the camera, "Kids, say ‘testicles’. Tes-ti-cles. Good. Now, Ovaries. O-va-ries." Baseline Bob then looks back to the Hatchery Director.

 

The Hatchery Director continues unabated, showing Baseline Bob the fertility lab, "Here, the eggs are then inspected for abnormalities, then immersed in only the best free-swimming spermatozoa. The fertilized ova are transferred to incubators and later to artificial wombs, which we call "bottles". In the "bottles" the morula, four day old embryos, containing ten to thirty cells, are placed on sow's peritoneum, immersed in a saline solution and fed with a blood surrogate. To thwart the embryo's tendency to develop anemia, it must be supplied with doses of hog's stomach extract and foetal foal's liver."

 

Baseline Bob nods, "That sounds advanced, Mister Hatchery Director. Peritoneum. Per-i-to-ne-um. Peritoneum."

 

The Hatchery Director smiles knowingly and nods, "It is advanced, Baseline Bob, but we do it every week. We have a lot of practice. In the past two years, we averaged over eleven thousand brothers and sisters from a hundred and fifty batches of identical twins."

 

Baseline Bob nods, "That sounds like a lot, Mister Hatchery Director."

 

The Hatchery Director smiles and his eyes brighten up, "It is. Up to 96 virtually identical embryo’s are split from a single invitro fertilized egg from the same fertilized egg."

 

Baseline Bob looks amazed, "How does that happen, Mister Hatchery Director?"

 

The Hatchery Director points to a complex device with many wires and needles, "A special series of hormone injections and shocking the egg at precise times so that it divides to form up to ninety-six identical embryos, which then develop into ninety-six identical people. Ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before, 72 is about average. Progress is lovely."

 

Baseline Bob continues to look amazed, "That’s just amazing, Mister Hatchery Director. You’re right, progress is lovely."

 

Baseline Bob turns to the camera, "Say it with me, kids. Progress *IS* lovely."

 

The Hatchery Director, "By manipulating the in vitro chemicals, various subclasses are created from each Hatchery batch. More than half of all female embryos receive doses of male sex-hormones, so that they become sterile workers. Very efficient working class. Progress is lovely."

 

The Hatchery Director brings Baseline Bob to a special lab, "Here the Hatchery scientists work to perfect technique for compressing the period of maturation. The guiding thought is that the long years of superfluous immaturity should be shortened and the physical development sped up, at least for menial laborers. However, an experiment with individuals sexually mature at four and fully grown at six and a half failed, because the young adults were socially useless and not able to perform the simplest tasks. The ideal would have to be a compromise somewhere between adults at twenty and adults at six."

 

Baseline Bob, "I don’t understand what you mean Mister Hatchery Director, but I am sure you are correct. How do you teach people fast?"

 

Voice of the director from the foreground, "Because of ….time restraints, sure let’s say that, we’re not going to show the lab where the infants being programmed to dislike books and flowers. Just show the Hypnopaedia Center."

 

Walking to the nursery area, the Hatchery Director shows Baseline Bob the Hypnopaedia Center where napping children are taught the morals of the state while they sleep. A gentle whispering voice repeats the lessons, "Community, Identity, Stability. Progress is lovely. Consuming makes me happy."

 

The Hatchery Director explains, "This is just Elementary Consciousness Class. Hypnopaedia is not very good at teaching actual skills, but it does a wonderful job of inception of the moral guidelines of the state, so that the future citizen grow up to be docile workers and eager consumers. Progress."

 

Baseline Bob nods, "Progress is lovely."

 

"That’s right, you’re got it, Baseline Bob," the Hatchery Director said happily, "Society is happiest when people are not depressed because of soul-crushingly mind-numbingly dull repetitive labour. We build in the happiness here, Baseline Bob."

 

Baseline Bob nods, "Happiness is good, and progress is lovely. Thank you, Mister Hatchery Director. Let’s go eat pie."

 

The Hatchery Director laughs heartily, "Good idea, Baseline Bob. All this talk of happiness and progress made me hungry for pie."

 

Baseline Bob smiles, "I like pie."

 

Voice of the director from the foreground, "Okay, cut, get this to post production and editing. It’s wrap. Someone get Baseline Bob some pie and someone check his meds before his nap. I will be in my trailer."