Текст книги "Accidental Creatures"

Автор книги: Anne Harris

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Hector stood up, toppling the empty water glass at his feet. “You have to stop him,” he blurted. Anna eyed him coolly. “Stop him from what?”

Hector’s jaw worked. “From interfering in my project,” he managed to say.

“Oh I will. I will.”

Moments later Graham arrived, escorted by two GeneSys security feet in yellow and green uniforms. He eyed Hector with cold hostility, his face pale.

“Have a seat, Mr. Graham,” said Anna, indicating a space on the couch next to Hector. The security feet stayed by the door, watching as Graham seated himself stiffly on the couch, as far from Hector as he could manage. Anna glanced at the guards. “Are you going to behave yourself?” she asked Graham.

He nodded, and she turned to the guards. “Wait outside.”

“Anna. Whatever this is about-” Graham stole a glance at Hector. “I’m sure we don’t need to get security involved.”

“Well, I’m afraid I do. Dr. Martin here says you struck him. Is that true?”

Graham spread his hands and looked at Hector again, taking in the rug burn on the side of his face. “We had an argument, and I’m afraid it became heated. I asked Dr. Martin to leave and he refused. I put a hand on his shoulder to escort him to the door and he fell.”

“That’s a lie, Graham. You pushed me. You pushed me and I’m going to file charges,” said Hector.

“What were you two arguing about?” asked Anna.

Hector and Graham stared at each other. “We were-”

“I was objecting to Graham’s interference,” Hector interrupted.

“Thank you, Dr. Martin. I’d like to hear what Mr. Graham has to say.” Anna stared at Graham expectantly, her hands folded in her lap.

“Apparently Dr. Martin objects to me doing my job.”

“If you consider pushing people to the floor as part of your job, then I don’t blame him.”

Graham shook his head. “That was an accident.”

“Why have you chosen to concentrate on Dr. Martin’s project?”

“It’s overdue and over budget,” he said slowly.

“And have you taken into account the difficulty of what Dr. Martin is attempting to do?”

“Maybe not at first, but now I do.”

“I hope you realize the seriousness of the situation. You’re likely to face assault charges.”

“I think a full investigation would reveal facets of the incident that Dr. Martin would prefer remained unnoticed.”

Anna glanced between them. At last she turned her attention to Hector once more. “Are you absolutely sure he pushed you?” she asked gently.

Graham raised one eyebrow, waiting for his response. “No, not really. I – I might have tripped.”

“Then you aren’t pressing charges.”

“No, but I want him away from my project.”

“It’s his job to monitor research.”

“Not like this it isn’t. I can’t get anything done with him breathing down my neck all the time.”

Anna looked at Graham. “Hear that? Back off.”

Graham looked suitably chastened. “Yes. I will,” he barely suppressed a smirk. “I’ll give Dr. Martin all the space he needs.”

“All right, gentlemen,” Anna stood, clapping her hands together. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have real work to do. I hope you both can stay out of the principal’s office in the future. She’s not accustomed to dealing with brawling schoolboys.”

They were shown out of the office together. When the door shut behind them Graham glanced sidelong at Hector. “Well, that could have been worse,” he said.

Hector stared at him and began laughing hysterically.

oOo

Colin Slatermeyer licked sweat off of his upper lip and shifted his position in the hard metal chair. He was in a small office on the second floor of the vat room. Outside the door was a balcony that ringed the inside of the room, on a level with the rims of the two vats which took up most of the floor space. They’d kept this room closed, and cut off from the rest of the vat room's environmental systems. It was crammed with telecommunications equipment; transceivers and voice printers and faxes. Apparently they’d taken every moisture sensitive piece of equipment and stuck it in here, and the really amazing part of it was that most of it was hooked up.

Actually, he was glad to be put in here at first. The temperature was in the high nineties. With the divesuit on he’d collapse from heat prostration before long. It was hot as an oven in here, but at least he could breathe without a respirator on his face.

A transceiver module on a bench near the window suddenly bleated a repeating sequence of tones. Somebody was calling. He looked at the tetra, who was bored and irksome at having to be here, in this dry air. “Should I get that?” he asked.

She shook her head, and held two hands out in warning as she got up and opened the door a crack, and called something out onto the balcony. The bleating continued, evidently whoever was calling knew enough to let it ring a long time. Colin glanced from the tetra, still halfway out the door, to the transceiver, just behind him and to the right. What the hell, what would ever be worth the risk again, if not this? In a sudden, single movement he stood up and swung around to the transceiver. It wasn’t a very big room, he didn’t have far to go. The live receive button was helpfully colored red, and he pushed it while the tetra was turning around.

“Hello?” It was Dr. Martin, his face ghostly, floating in the air in front of the panelled wall, the wood grain visible behind him.

Colin stared at him a moment, expecting a reaction, but Dr. Martin’s eyes where unfocused, his gaze wandering. Glancing down he just had time to notice that the transceiver was set to blackout before hands came around him and clamped over his mouth and around his chest, pinning his arms. He was dragged back to the chair and held there. “Hello?” came Dr. Martin’s voice again, “is anybody there?”

Colin screamed against the muffling hands, but then there was another tetra there, and small, delicate fingers around his neck, smart little fingers that knew just where to press to cut off his air. He choked, and subsided, but the hands stayed there, along with the ones over his mouth, and he was tied up with ropes woven from agules. The draft of mist wafting in from the balcony abruptly stopped as Lilith came in and shut the door behind her. She gave him an annoyed glance and went over to Hector’s hologram.

“What do you want?” she said, “this is not convenient.”

“Listen, I know Graham’s been there. He told me you’d taken Slatermeyer hostage. Let him go. He’s of no use to you anyway, and things are starting to... happen. Graham’s already trying to kill Helix. He thinks I should have terminated the project a long time ago. Now he’s going to do it himself. If we don’t do something he’s going to kill you all off.”

“He won’t find that so easy to do.”

“Bullshit. He could send fifty guys in there with machine guns. Hell, if it came down to it he’d probably just flood the place with poisonous gas. Believe me, there’s nothing he isn’t capable of.”

She glanced over her shoulder at Colin, who stared at her with wide, wide eyes. “But there’s a human being in here now.”

“So? You think that’s going to stop him? I know this guy, he used to work in production. He wouldn’t bat an eye over a lab assistant.”

Fresh sweat sprang out all over Colin’s body, and he mumbled again against the hands pressed against his lips, and the thumbs came down again on his windpipe.

“What’s that?” said Dr. Martin, “Is that him? Is he there now?”

Colin would have answered him, but he was choking, and there were tears in his eyes. “Let me talk to him,” he heard Hector say over the roaring in his ears.

There was a pause, during which Colin’s vision began to fade, and then Lilith must have agreed, because the pressure on his throat was released, and he leaned forward, coughing and breathing. They held him, four hands to an arm, in front of the hologram. He was still breathing in convulsive gulps. He heard the door click shut. Lilith had left. “Dr. Martin,” he gasped.

“Slatermeyer, what’s happened to you?”

Colin shook his head, “I was right here. They were trying to keep me quiet, that’s all.” He took a long deep breath, “I’m alright.”

“Then you heard what I said about Graham,” Martin said quietly.

“Yeah.”

“Look, I was trying to put a scare into her, that’s all, I don’t really think he’d-”

“Yes you do.”

“Well, alright, I do, but-there must be some way we can get you out, there must be some way we can stop him. Colin, I’m sorry this happened to you, but maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. With you on the inside, it might help us prepare for whatever Graham is going to do.”

Colin grinned badly, “In the first place, I can’t do shit in here, Dr. Martin. They’ve got me locked up under guard in this room along with everything else that can be damaged by the vapor, all their electronics and communications equipment, and in the second place, I want to go home!” Hot tears sprang from his eyes, “They make me sit in that fucking chair, day and night. I can’t get any sleep.”

One of the tetras who was holding him leaned forward towards the pickup camera. “We keep him here because of the vapor,” she said, her voice was husky from disuse.

“But the man needs to sleep, Immelene, at least let him lay on the floor.”

“Hey, thanks,” said Colin sarcastically.

Immelene and her sister looked at each other. “We could do that,” they said.

“Why don’t you try asking them to let me go, Dr. Martin,” said Colin, “I think you gave up a little early on that one.”

“Alright. Will you let him go?”

“No.”

“We’ll keep him.”

“Why? What possible use could you have for him?”

“Hey,” said Colin, indignant.

“I’m sorry, but really, what do they, or I should say, does she, intend to do with you? They haven’t been taking any... samples of anything, have they?”

Colin stared at him wide eyed, “What do you mean?” he asked, horrified.

“Anything, skin, hair, whatever.”

“No.”

“Okay, so she’s just keeping you there. Oh, I could never get her to tell me why. She never tells me anything. Now you know, Colin. Now you know what I’ve had to put up with all this time. The stress is unbearable, isn’t it? She’s... impenetrable. Here she is, this thing I’ve created, but now that she’s here, I’m irrelevant to her.”

“Graham knows about the egg,” said Colin.

“I know.” Hector’s face, animated a moment ago with angst, became suddenly still.

“I didn’t know what to tell him,” Colin said carefully, “we never did find out what happened to it.”

Dr. Martin’s face seemed to shift to a different facet of his personality. He looked very hard at Colin, even as a hologram, it was a little tough to take. “I can tell you what happened to it. It hatched. Her name’s Helix, and Graham tried to get her killed this morning.”

“Look, I didn’t want to help him but he had goods on me. I’m sorry, Dr. Martin, but even this is better than going back to Alive!”

Martin’s jaw was stiff. He nodded ever so slightly. “Then you understand, now, that your survival lies with the tetras. Try to get through to Lilith, convince her that Graham is a real threat, if you can.”

“Oh sure, you bet. Anything else?”

“I’ll call again later.”

“I’ll hold my breath.”

oOo

Chango parked her car on the street across from the U of D Mercy College campus and took a backpack out of the trunk. They walked to the now defunct biopoly research building. An old maple tree grew next to the wall on one side. Chango, Helix and Benny stole across the grass to the shelter of its shadows. Benny pointed up, and Helix saw that one of the tree’s branches brushed against a window on the second floor. Without a word Chango scaled the trunk and climbed out onto the arching branch. It swayed slightly under her weight. Helix wondered if it would support her. Chango was a few minutes with a small, silver instrument, its whir a counterpoint to the chirring of crickets. “Sst. Come on.”

Helix gripped the trunk of the tree with her upper arms. Her lower arms were useless as far as pulling herself up was concerned, but at least she could use them for clinging. Her feet scraped against the bark and she hauled herself up into the leaves. Below her she heard Benny grunting as he climbed the tree. Chango had the window open, and she pushed her backpack in before climbing through. Helix followed her and found herself standing on a second floor balcony overlooking two large, empty vats. “They’re empty,” said Helix.

“Yeah,” whispered Benny, climbing through the window. “This place has been closed up for years. But look.” He pointed to a stack of barrels in the far corner, “maybe some of it is still good.”

“Do you have any idea how many of those barrels it would take to fill one of these? Besides, how do we get them down?” They were stacked ten high.

“There must be a ladder around here somewhere,” said Chango.

“And you call me crazy,” said Helix. “What if some of that spills on you?”

“That’s why I brought this.” Chango opened the flap of her backpack and showed her the sleeve of a divesuit. “It was Ada’s.”

Helix glanced about the building again. “What kind of security do you think they’ve got in here?”

Chango shrugged, “Judging from the window, not much, ‘course you never can tell.”

“I’ll stay up here and keep lookout,” said Benny.

There was a ladder at the far end of the building, down a long aisle past the dingy flanks of the vats. They carried it back to the tanks and stood at its base, looking up.

“Christ, I don’t know about this,” said Chango.

“They look heavy.”

“I don’t know if the ladder will hold, they’ve got to weigh fifty pounds apiece.”

“I might be able to do it. At least I can try to see if they’re any good. Put your suit on.”

Helix climbed the ladder, alternately grasping the rungs with her upper and lower hands. As she went she glanced at the wall of stacked barrels beside her. Some of them were corroded, possibly leaking. She reached the top of the ladder. The last row of barrels was just above her head. With her upper fingers she grasped one of them by its bottom rim.

She wedged her fingers underneath the barrel and inched it out until she was able to lift it free. She grasped the barrel with her lower arms. The ladder wobbled precariously as she reached for the rungs with her upper hands. She clung there a few moments, until the swaying stopped. She was just about to start down when the first floor doors burst inward and ten or more GeneSys security guards ran in, brandishing tranq guns. “Run!” she yelled at Chango, and heaved the barrel towards the approaching guards.

oOo

Chango scrambled for the stairs as the barrel crashed to the floor behind her. She heard yelling as the guards scattered to avoid the splashing growth medium. Where in the hell was Benny? she wondered as she pounded up the steps to the balcony. He was gone from his post by the window and he certainly hadn’t done much of a job of warning them. Chango paused at the window, looked back and saw Helix, still on the ladder but surrounded by guards. There was nothing she could do now but get away and get help.

Outside, the building was bathed in flashing green and yellow lights. Chango dropped to the ground and crouched in the shadow of the tree. She heard the squawking of a transceiver from a levvan parked in the street. She scanned the broad spread of mowed grass before her. She didn’t see anyone there, didn’t see anyone around the levvan either, though that didn’t mean no one was there. She ran, bent at the waist, over the grass, the night air cool against her skin, her breath and the pounding of her heart roaring in her ears, drowning out the transceiver and the chirring of crickets. She thought she heard shouts, but she kept running.

She’d gone four blocks before she noticed the levcar following her, gliding silently along the magnetic roadway. She never would have known it was there, except she caught a glimpse of it as she turned one corner, and then saw it again, a block further on. She cut through an alley, narrow and paved only with cloncrete, but when she got to the street on the other side, there it was again, closing in on her. Her heart pounded in her chest like it would burst. To her left was the university medical center, a cluster of buildings with a large driveway in front, leading to an underground parking structure. She’d been here before. Between the close set buildings was a labyrinth of walkways. If you were in a levcar, you had to park it, and walk to the building you wanted. She headed for the main entrance and veered off onto a cloncrete sidewalk bordered by hedges. Behind her, in the night, she heard the distinct sound of car doors slamming, and footsteps running. Chango zigzagged between buildings, the footsteps behind her growing closer. She thought she could make out two sets. There were shouts, and something whizzed past her head, very fast. She ducked around another corner and she was in a cul de sac between two tall sandstone buildings, a high brick wall running between them.

“Give it up,” she heard someone call behind her, but she ran to the wall nevertheless, ran and jumped and scrabbled at it with her hands but she couldn’t climb it. Her breath coming in explosive gasps she clawed and pounded at the wall until her fingers bled. There were tears on her face when she turned around. There were two of them, guys, both dressed in green coveralls and carrying tranq guns and night sticks. One was nearly a head taller than the other, and broader through the shoulders. They stood about ten feet from her, their tranq guns trained on her. She looked at her torn, bleeding fingers. Slowly she lifted one finger to her forehead, and daubed it with blood, and then she walked slowly towards them, her hands at her sides and carefully visible. When she got between them they grabbed her, cuffed her hands behind her back, and each taking an arm, walked her back to the street and the waiting car. Chapter 17 – Corporate Animal

Hyper twirled the data card between his fingers as his eyes flickered across a directory of GeneSys’

information systems. Dr. Martin had a very high security clearance. Even better than would be expected for a top researcher. Why would he need access to the security records, for instance, or personnel?

Hyper got up from his maglev seat and lit a reefer, and smoking it, paced the floor. He hadn’t seen Chango or Helix since the riot this morning, and neither had anyone else he’d talked to. From his vantage point on the Humbolt water tower, he’d seen Vonda and Helix running through the mob, but as he focused his machines on the divers ahead of them he lost track of where they were. He watched while the police made arrests, waiting until the street was clear to gather the torn remains of his robots. By the time he got back here Chango was gone.

It was her disappearance that alarmed him the most. For Vonda and Helix it would be prudent to lay low for a while, preferably some place outside of Vattown. But Chango didn’t even go to the picket line. She had called the police, though. That much he knew from the call log of his transceiver headset, which she’d left very neatly in the middle of his worktable. Perhaps she’d gone in search of Helix, in which case she might be incommunicado as well, but there was something wrong. For one thing, he hadn’t been able to get hold of Benny all day, and it wasn’t because he was in jail. Hyper had called the police station and learned that neither Helix, Vonda, Chango or Benny had been arrested. The whole thing bothered him. He was worried and he wanted someone to talk to. Sinking back into his maglev seat, he opened the employee directory and scanned the M’s. Maybe Dr. Martin would be home.

His listed number turned out to be a message dump, but because he had Martin’s security code, he was able to access his file, and get his live number.

It rang twice and a worried voice answered. “Hello?” It was just voice, blackout on visuals. At least he had that much sense, but Martin had to have sender id on a system like this, and he was answering unknown callers on the second ring.

“Hi,” said Hyper, and smiled for the transceiver picking up his image and beaming it to Dr. Martin.

“Who is this?”

“I’m Hyper. You don’t know me.”

“You must have the wrong number.”

“Don’t hang up,” Hyper anticipated the invisible movement. “I’m a friend of Helix’s.”

There was silence in suite 1567 of the GeneSys building, and then, “How is she?”

Hyper shrugged, “I don’t know. I don’t know where she is.”

“How did you get this number?”

“From your data card. Helix gave it to me for safekeeping,” he lied. It wouldn’t help matters any for Martin to know he and Chango had stolen the card.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“This morning, before the riot,” said Hyper.

“The riot. But I heard she got away.”

“Apparently she did, but I haven’t seen her since this morning. There’s someone else, a woman named Chango. She’s a friend of Helix’s too. I think they might be together, and I’m afraid something’s happened to them. Do you know where they might be?”

“No. I wish I did.” There was a pause. “You got this number using my data card. Presumably you’ve had a look around in there, then.”

“Yes. Yes I have.”

“Then you know about her. What she is.”

“Yes. You’ve outdone yourself, Dr. Martin. The brains were impressive, but this-”

“Does she know?”

Hyper shrugged. “She knows she’s not human. But she wouldn’t look at your notes. She said she didn’t need to. Once she started diving, it didn’t take long for her true nature to surface. What did you hope to accomplish, keeping her there? You should have cut your losses and brought her back home after the divesuit incident.”

“You misunderstand. I never intended for her to get that job in the first place. I intended for her to get far away from here, much farther than Vattown.”

“Well if you didn’t diddle with her files, who did? I can’t believe management made this decision. They’re evil, not stupid.”

Hector Martin laughed. “I suppose it was her mother,” he said.

“Her mother?”

“Helix is not the first of her kind.”

“Oh. I just assumed, with the kind of security clearance you’re sporting-”

“That was a gift from her mother as well. A sort of back handed gift, since she arranged it for her own use. But she used someone else’s code to manipulate the personnel files. She wouldn’t want that traced to me...” Hector’s voice trailed off momentarily. “Are you a vatdiver?” he asked suddenly.

“No. I’m a sport. Look, I know you don’t know me, but I’ve let you have a good look at me. And you know that with the kind of information I have at my disposal, I could have screwed you over ages ago. But I didn’t. Now, could you bring that screen down please, so we can both talk face to face?”

There was a pause, and then the pale, drawn face of a man in his middle forties glowed into view in the air before him. “Better?”

“Thanks.”

Martin’s brows knitted. “You say you’re not a diver but-Do you know of a man named Nathan Graham?”

“Nathan Graham... Wait, yeah. He used to be the production controller several years back. A real heavy. Everyone around here hated him.”

“Yeah, well, he’s in research now. He’s the reason I wanted Helix to get far away from here. He wants the project terminated, and in this case that’s a pretty strong term to be using. He told me himself he arranged the riot in order to get her killed. If something has happened to her, it’ll be because of him.”

Hyper stared at him. Martin had grayish blond hair, thinning a bit at the temples and crown. “What are we going to do?”

“Graham has somebody working for him, in Vattown I’m guessing. I don’t know who it is,” said Martin. Hyper thought of Chango – how she’d always insisted that there’d been foul play in Ada’s death. Maybe she was right, maybe Graham was still working with someone on the inside. It wouldn’t have taken much, to turn the strike into a riot, discrediting the vatdivers and taking care of Helix at the same time.

“Do you have any idea who it might be?”

“No, not really,” said Hyper, “and following up all the possible leads would take time we don’t have. It’s been hours since the riot. Graham and whoever he’s working with probably have them by now.”

“Yeah. We can hope that Helix and your friend skipped town, but I wouldn’t bet on it. You have access to GeneSys security systems through my clearance. Use it. See if they’ve brought anyone in the last few hours. I’m going to try to put Graham under wraps. Call me back as soon as you check the files.”

“You’re pretty comfortable with other people using your code, aren’t you?”

“Not really.” Hector shrugged. “But there can be advantages to being in two places at once.”

oOo

When Helix came to she was tied to a chair in a laboratory. A large polyglass tub stood about ten feet in front of her. It was filled with growth medium. She could smell it, and the pores of her skin cried out for its touch.

A door on the other side of the room, past the tub and a number of benches, opened with a soft click and a man came in. He was of medium height, with heavy rather than muscular shoulders and a flat belly that must have cost him plenty. He wore a dark grey sylk suit, immaculately tailored, and his reddish brown hair was neatly combed back from his forehead. He had quick, cool grey eyes. He smiled, and his face crinkled in small lines around his eyes and nose which she felt were quite deliberate, probably surgically devised.

“So you’re Helix,” he said, pulling a chair up to sit across from her, between her and the growth medium.

“So who are you?” she said.

“I’m Nathan Graham, chief administrator of research and development.” He said it like it was supposed to mean something.

“Untie me,” she said.

“Not just yet, Helix. Soon, but not yet. You see I’ve been wondering just how much you know about what you are. How much Hector told you.”

Helix’s hands tightened around the arms of the chair. “He-he said I was adopted.”

“Ah, but by now you know that can’t be true.”

Helix didn’t say anything. She was thinking about the playground at the orphanage, the children taunting her, laughing. But how much did she really remember? A few incidents, the smell of chalk in Ms. Walker’s classroom, but not her room – she would have had a room, and roommates, but she couldn’t recall them, and when she thought of herself, she visualized herself exactly the same size as she was now. With a start, she realized she always had.

“Well let me be the one to tell you, then.” Graham stood and paced behind his chair. “You are a GeneSys research project. Its chief scientist, your Hector Martin, created you. Or at least he created the thing that gave birth to you.”

“What?”

“Your mother. She hatched out of an egg, right in this tank behind me. But you hatched in a full sized vat in the basement of this building. Just think, little Helix, all those months you fancied yourself an orphan girl, rescued by the kindness of Hector Martin, and all along, your real mother was right beneath your feet.”

Helix stared at him wide eyed. “You’re lying.”

“Oh no.” Graham shook his head. “It is not I who have lied to you. Don’t you remember? When you were born your mother and your siblings attacked you and drove you out of their hive. And then, for reasons perhaps not completely comprehensible even to him, Hector secluded you in his apartment, hiding you from the rest of the world.

“I suppose he wanted you to believe you were human, but the memory of your expulsion from the hive was too powerful, so he made up a story to account for your feelings, a story about a poor little orphan girl and the kindly man who made her his daughter.”

Helix felt ill, a sick twisted knotting in her stomach. She held on to it, feeling that if it unraveled, it would unravel everything else with it, and she, and everything she’d ever known, would disappear in a puff of lies. She closed her eyes, and in her mind’s eye she saw those jeering faces, the faces of children contorted with malicious glee, melt away to reveal other faces, faces not gleeful, not malicious, but more terrible still, faces like her own, and purely determined to get rid of her at any cost. A savage rage as hot and sweet as anything she had ever felt rose inside her, a lust to attack someone who was herself. “My mother-” she said. “You said my mother.”

“Yes, your mother. He calls her Lilith, for some reason. You and your kind were designed to clean vats and harvest biopolymers. All the things the vatdivers do. That riot today wasn’t the first time they’ve caused problems for us. We need a more efficient way of producing biopolymer. Unfortunately, you’re not it, either.”

“But I dove without a suit, and I was fine.”

“Yes, yes,” Graham said, waving a hand dismissively. “Your physiology is perfect for the vat environment, but there are other problems, things you don’t understand. I’m afraid it just won’t work out. I never should have allowed Hector Martin such a free hand. Out of deference for his professional stature, I let him do it his way. It’s been a disaster – a costly one. But I wouldn’t have this job if I weren’t able to turn even a catastrophe like this to my advantage.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m reassigning your project. There’s no hope of utilizing you or your kind for industrial purposes, but at least we can learn something from Martin’s mistakes. There are any number of features to you physiology and brain chemistry that may yield fruitful benefits to other lines of inquiry. Of course Martin would never consent to it. He’s too attached to you. He erroneously thinks of you as a person. But there are other researchers on staff here at GeneSys who have no such handicap.”

“You’re going to make me a test subject.”

“That’s about it, yes.”

She tensed with fear. “You can’t do that. I have to – I need -” Words failed her. She strained forward towards the growth medium, her nostrils flared to drink in the smell of it.. “Let me go,” she gritted.

“I’m afraid you have very little say in the matter. You keep forgetting. You’re not human. You have no right to control your own destiny. You are property of the GeneSys corporation, and as such, you will serve its purposes.”

Graham turned to look at the tank behind him. “You want to get in there, don’t you? Worse than you’ve ever wanted to do anything in your brief little life. Well, to show you I’m not such a bad guy, I’m going to let you. And you’ll never have to leave it. Well, almost never. Some tests probably can’t be conducted in there, but most will be.”