The zookeeper was showing the visitor through the zoo and animal laboratory.

      ''Our budget is so small, that we can't afford to re-create the most known exstinct species, so, therefore, we re-create only the highly intelligent of the lot, the ones that were purposely exterminated.''

As the zookeeper ran through his daily banter, the visitor glanced from left to right, gazing in awe at the mutant creatures before her; a gorilla with the head of a chimpanzee, a dog with the face of a cat, a cobra with the body of a komodo dragon.  Definitely failed experiments, indeed.

           ''Tell me,'' the visitor asked, ''Where do you aquire all of the data used to ''re-create?'' It doesn't seem as though the ''experiments'' have been very successful.''

''Mostly from skeletons and skins from the ancient museum,'' he said.

''Very interesting,'' she said, lighting a cigarette.

''Yes, very,'' said the zookeeper proudly. ''We've also succeeded in aquiring excavated books and films we were able to restore.''

   ''Very, very interesting,'' she said with a note of skepticism in her voice, stopping at the last cage. It was filthy, reeking of excrement and urine, body odor. It's occupant, skeletal and sickly, sat naked in a corner of the cage, shivering and scratching. It's vacant eyes seemed to look right through her, and beyond, as if it were seeing something invisible to everybody else.

     Something it longed for.

  ''Just one?'' she asked, quizzically. ''What is it? It's so......strange looking.''

 ''Poor, pitiful thing,'' the zookeeper said, sad now. ''It's all alone. But, I do try to keep it pacified at least.''

''Is it dangerous?'' she asked, shuddering. ''Worse than the other .....uh...''

  ''I was told it could be,'' he said. ''I had to get special permission from the DNA council just to grow it.''

                    The visitor stepped closer to the cage, suddenly stepping backward, eyes wide, mouth agape. ''NO....it..it can't be! Don't tell me that you've re-created a -''

      ''Yes,'' the zookeeper said glumly. ''It's a human.''