Man’s Best Friend

Rex walked into his office and circled his pad twice before settling down in front of the computer station. He marveled that after the gene mods and splicing in of human DNA his kind still walked in circles before reclining. Canis sapiens still kept a good deal of their animal heritage. Rex called up his AI friend to check on the status of his research proposal. "What’s the word on my proposal?"

"Hi Rex," Arty responded, "I just got word about your proposal. The council has tentatively agreed to fund it. I do have some questions though."

"Shoot."

"The idea of recovering humans from extinction is fine. You’re only making a few and they should be easy to control and monitor. A few anthropomorphic robots should be able to raise them in a suitable environment and we have enough old videos to replicate that easily enough."

"I hear a but coming," Rex said.

"Do you think it is a good idea? Last time they were alive ended with some areas being uninhabitable for years."

"We’ll keep a close eye on them and maybe it’s my old dog DNA but my species does miss the big primates."

"Be careful," Arty said and signed off.

Rex pulled up his proposal on the screen and reviewed the characteristics of the DNA he had chosen. It was pretty standard and his major problem was selecting which samples to use. Too many humans had preserved their DNA in the hopes of being revived. The computer projected the expected properties of the human. Rex checked the physical specs. No sense of smell worth mentioning and hearing was nearly as bad. And best to ignore their teeth. They did have reasonable eye sight and stamina if they trained. It was a miracle the they had survived au natural as a species.

Rex started modifying some parameters. I better increase their intelligence a bit, it would be a shame to have them go extinct again.