Many years later, whenever Rocket Raccoon faced that weathered golden mask, he would remember the distant afternoon when sir first showed him the gene accelerator.
It was an ordinary afternoon. As usual, the raccoon was curled into the crook of the High Evolutionary's legs, watching him sketch the lines of a magic circle on the blackboard.
But when the diagram neared completion, the chalk suddenly stopped, as if a great river racing ten thousand miles had halted at the sea. Rocket felt so awful he could barely stand it, so he rose on tiptoe, reached out, snatched the chalk from the High Evolutionary's hand with his little black paw, and finished the final lines himself. The intricate high-level magic looked like exquisite embroidery.
The raccoon tipped his face up toward the High Evolutionary like a child asking for praise, his two index fingers poking timidly together, nervous and hopeful.
A calm voice came from beneath the golden mask. "Rocket, well done."
Rocket shuddered with excitement, every hair on his tail fluffing up, grinning like a fool.
"It's time. At last, the day has come," the High Evolutionary said softly.
Rocket asked in confusion, "Sir, are you tired?"
"Little one, can you read minds too?" The High Evolutionary rubbed his head. "You're much smarter than those blockheads I employ. Come on. I'll show you the results of our work."
The High Evolutionary showed Rocket the latest progress on the gene accelerator.
An OrgoCorp employee placed a sea turtle into a glass cultivation chamber. Rocket pressed himself against the tank and stared at the stupid turtle from Earth, its tiny seed-like eyes gleaming with the raw wildness of nature. Then a beam of white light flashed over it, and the turtle's body swelled, rose up onto two legs, and became a humanoid turtle. The beastlike instinct in its eyes ebbed away, replaced by pure curiosity about the world.
The endless path of natural evolution, the millions of years it should have taken, the struggle for survival across generation after generation, that tragic and magnificent epic of life, had all been compressed into a single instant.
Rocket was deeply moved by the transformation.
So were all the OrgoCorp employees, their eyes damp with emotion.
They laid their hands on the gene accelerator and declared with solemn reverence, "This is the greatest invention of our age."
The High Evolutionary let out a quiet sigh and said, "The High Evolutionary truly is remarkable. It took me a very long time to reach this point."
The remark was strange. No one there understood it. Most of them assumed it was self-praise, but Rocket felt that the High Evolutionary sir spoke of was someone else.
Sir often said that everything he did was in accordance with history, all for the sake of protecting the universe.
Sometimes Rocket was afraid of the High Evolutionary. He felt that the wizard's robe was soaked through with an ocean called loneliness. Behind that mottled mask, what kind of person was he really?
The creator told everyone in the lab, "Tomorrow, we leave for the new world. Bring all the animals. They will become the residents of Counter-Earth."
"Sir, you've decided?" The employees flushed red with excitement.
Rocket blurted out, tripping over his own words, "The new world? Really? We're going to the new world?"
"That's right." The High Evolutionary paused for a moment. "Let us begin the utopia."
That single promise made everyone feel as though they were walking on clouds, completely lost in boundless visions of the future.
"Rocket… Rocket." The High Evolutionary's voice pulled the raccoon back to reality.
"Yes! I'm here." Rocket jumped. "Sorry, sir. I zoned out for a second."
"I have something to tell you."
Rocket had no idea how he floated all the way back to his room.
When he opened the door, he saw the otter Lylla and the rabbit Floor sitting side by side on the floor. Those two sweet, well-behaved audience members were admiring the walrus Teefs's acrobatic show.
Teefs was juggling, six baseballs rising and falling in a continuous pattern while a brightly colored rubber ball balanced on the tip of his nose.
That was a difficult act. For a clumsy acrobat like Teefs, mishaps happened constantly, but somehow that only made the performance more entertaining instead of ruining it.
Lylla leaned back with her elegant metal arms braced behind her on the floor, her body tilted slightly, her head cocked to one side, completely at ease, like a young woman enjoying the breeze on a beach at night. Her honey-sweet eyes streamed constant warmth and encouragement, and the smile at the corner of her mouth never faded. Every now and then, when the act turned particularly risky, she let out a little cheer.
Floor was thrilled beyond measure. She always thought everyone else was full of wonderful qualities, that every person was amazing, practically an angel dropped into her life, and she answered that feeling with all the enthusiasm she had. She spun in place so fast she looked like a jittery puff of cotton candy, a noisy cream puff, a bouncing dandelion gone wild. Her thin, clear childlike voice filled the room with bright silver laughter. Wherever she was, the air itself seemed soaked in simple, innocent joy.
Teefs spotted his friend slipping in through the doorway and let out a big goofy laugh. "Rocket! Rocket! Look at me, look at me!"
As he said it, he tried to add yet another ball to the pattern. Instantly everything flew off track. The balls scattered like marbles, and Teefs, flustered and scrambling, tripped over the juggling balls and the rubber ball and crashed into a full-on side roll. He was so tough and thick-skinned that he was not hurt at all, and his friends burst into giggles.
Lylla turned her head and called, "Rocket! You're back!" Her voice was always that affectionate, as if everyone in the world were her sweetheart.
The raccoon stood there blankly and did not answer.
Floor rushed up to him, waving her soft little white-pink hands. "Rocket, Rocket! Did you see how many balls Teefs was juggling just now? Six whole balls! He's unbelievable!"
Lylla nodded in agreement. "Once we get to the new world, Teefs is definitely going to become the best acrobat there is."
"Tomorrow," Rocket suddenly said.
"What?"
"Sir said tomorrow we're leaving for the new world."
His friends froze.
"T, tomorrow?!" they asked in disbelief.
"Yeah."
That single word from Rocket hit harder than a thousand bullets, enough to blow up their hearts.
Even the most composed and elegant among them, Lylla, jumped straight into the air. Floor started shrieking, "Ah! Ah! Ha ha!" without stopping. Teefs smacked his belly with delight like a little victory drum. Even Rocket's dazed expression melted away, replaced by pure joy.
The four little animals clasped hands and spun in circles in the middle of the room, round and round and round, like a happy whirlpool that might spin all the way to the end of the universe.
That night, they lay in their beds pointing at the dark ceiling and talking about everything they imagined for tomorrow. By the second half of the night, the rabbit and the walrus had finally exhausted themselves and fallen asleep. Rocket turned his head to look at his friends and saw, in the darkness, a pair of eyes as warm and sweet as honey.
It was Lylla.
"Rocket, you can't sleep either?"
"No."
The otter let out a sly, mature little laugh, the kind of charm he had only ever heard about in books or from sir, the sort that belonged to a young woman. In a soft murmur, almost like sleep talk, she said, "The new world. Huh. How long have we been waiting for this day? Feels like we've been talking about it ever since the four of us first got together. Our life right now isn't bad, exactly, but I'm tired of seeing the same bedsheets and the same curtains every day. We're different every day, but everything around us feels like it never changes. Life is short. We ought to do something with it. Otherwise wouldn't that be a waste of the intelligence sir gave us?"
"Yeah."
Lylla rolled onto her side, resting both hands beneath her cheek. Moist light shimmered in her eyes. "We can think. We feel joy and anger and sorrow and happiness. Isn't that what all the things in the universe are there for? The wind in the sky, the flowing water on the ground, the flowers. If no one is there to see them, to feel them, wouldn't that be too… too lonely?"
She had to think for quite a while before settling on the word lonely.
Rocket told her that after seeing the gene accelerator that afternoon, sir had told him tomorrow would also be the day of parting.
"What?"
"Sir said I have to go. Because that's what fate says. I have to leave. I can't stay on Counter-Earth and begin the new life there with all of you."
Lylla got out of bed, crept over to the crying raccoon, gently wrapped him in a hug, and whispered in his ear, "Then I'll go with you."
"But what about Floor and Teefs?"
"They're better suited to staying here." Lylla gently pressed a finger to Rocket's lips. "No matter which star, no matter what corner of the universe, I'll stay with you through the long years, my dearest friend."
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