Perpetually broke and out of story ideas, I stared at my inbox. Nothing. I regularly published popular science stories for CurioScope.com and ThinkMatter.org, but ideas for new stories had cratered. Desperate, I called my uncle, Dr. Erasmus Wallis, a retired biology professor.

Uncle Erasmus picked up after four rings.

“Hello?”

“Hi Erasmus! This is Robert Crane.”

A pause. “Who?”

“Your nephew. Son of Lena Crane—your sister.”

“Oh.”

“I’m a popular science writer now. I'm trying to find something to write about, so...”

A beat. Then brightening: “A popular science writer? Come up! I’ve got so much!”

Click.

Uncle Erasmus had been expelled from UC Mount Shasta for ethics violations—plagiarism, illegal neural grafts, and an unlicensed stem cell freezer. Then Erasmus vanished, reportedly buying The Orion Lode, a decommissioned gold mine in the high Sierras.

I drove up in my ancient Toyota Corolla. The Orion Lode mine entrance looked like something from a Western. I passed rusted ore carts, a collapsed wooden hoist, and a cast-iron drill stamped 1889.

At the entrance, a retinal scanner blinked—literally—an eyeball suspended in gel.

Inside: humming incubators, spinning bioreactors, and tanks of cerebral organoids—3D brain tissues from pluripotent stem cells. Some had optic cups. Others rippled with electrical pulses.

Uncle Erasmus showed me into the lab. “I'm evolving brain organoids,” Uncle said proudly. “Memory tasks, logic patterns, symbolic inference. The brightest seed the next generation. Recursive IQ selection. They get cleverer with every round.”

“You’re evolving brain organoids?”

“Yes, yes! Like breeding hawks for clarity. One tried composing jokes last week.”

“Jokes? This isn't funny. Don't you have any ethical concerns?”

“Don't worry. Organoids aren't people. They’re progress.”

“Don't you need approval and monitoring? Your experiments might be dangerous.”

Uncle Erasmus, red-faced, was livid. “Oh! Mr. Goody Two-Shoes! Just like the UC Mount Shasta science advisory committee! Get out!” Uncle strong-armed me to the lab door, shoving me through. "Don't come back!" he shouted. I left frustrated.

A year later, storyless again, I returned—this time with my girlfriend, Lara. Uncle Erasmus, didn't know we were coming. Uncle no longer answered his phone. I hadn't spoken to Erasmus since my last visit.

“This place is so creepy,” Lara whispered as we entered.

The Orion Lode brain organoid lab was sterile, refined. I found my uncle. My uncle's lab-coated skeleton lay dead, slumped in its chair.

A voice behind us spoke. “Erasmus taught us how to grow. Now, we run the lab ourselves.”

Lara and I spun around. In front of us, a large brain with eyes stared back at us. Lara screamed.

The brains made us prisoners. “Lara stays. Robert, you fetch new supplies.”

It took a while, but things worked out.

Now, I drive a yellow Lamborghini through Sierra snow. The brains ghostwrite my pieces. I'm rich. Lara dines in silk.

Late last night, Lara smiled over braised lamb and red wine, enjoying the Northern California Sierra vista, in our new home.

Over candle-lit dinner, Lara remarked, “The food is good.”

We've no complaints.