And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Too dark. Kenji Nakamura peered into the deepness. His stubby fingers fumbled around the stage until they closed on the switch and light flooded the eyepiece. Much better. He slowly turned the diaphragm as a circular window of light constricted in the center of his field of view, divided from the surrounding darkness by a hazy perimeter.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

Nakamura rotated the 4x objective into position and adjusted the focus, first coarsely, then with greater precision until the bubble of water on the slide sprang to life from the microscopic world to his own. He dialed up the objective and focused up and down through the pool, dividing the water above the focal point from the water below until he decided his position was good.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

He panned back and forth across the watery landscape, searching, scanning. A drop of sweat rolled off his forehead, and he paused to wipe his face with a Kimwipe from the bench. There. He scanned backwards, then forwards, then centered. A perfectly round island of land emerged from the watery void. As Nakamura rotated the objective to its highest setting, the cell was textured with wavy crabgrass over its surface. So far so good.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.

After checking the coordinates, Nakamura advanced the wheels on the micromanipulator towards the center of the stage. The fire polished electrode gradually came into view above and from the side of the isolated cell. A glint reflected from the blunt tip of the electrode like a light in the firmament, descending toward the sphere until it floated just outside the cell. Nakamura raised the attached tubing to his lips and sucked gently. The cell drifted toward and sealed onto the electrode. He proceeded to lower a second, smaller electrode from the other side towards the cell, this one with an angular, crescentic tip. As the sparkling glass electrode descended toward the globe, he twisted the wheels of the micromanipulator only microns at a time until the crescent tip hovered outside the egg.

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

With a deft spin of the wheel, Nakamura punctured the cell with the sharp electrode and sucked the meiotic spindle containing the DNA into the pipette. He carefully removed the electrode from the manipulator, replaced it with the electrode he had just prepared, and lowered the new pipette into position as before. He watched the dancing chromosomes within the pipette sway with the motion like winged fowl. As he depressed the plunger on the tubing, the new spindle wallowed into the nuclear fluid like a great whale submerging.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.

Nakamura withdrew the sharp electrode and watched the spindle to confirm it was intact within the nucleus. Enthroned majestically in the center of the globe, the spindle dominated the cell, asserting its hegemony over the world it had come to inhabit and control. Once again, Nakamura raised the tubing to his lips, and this time breathed a slight puff of air into the chamber as the cell lifted off the first electrode and drifted away free into the slippery, barren environment. He knew that soon, very soon, he would coax the cell to multiply in two, then 4 cells, relentlessly reproducing toward an embryo. But for now, he simply watched the cell, so similar, yet so completely unlike anything he had ever seen. Very good.

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.