by Eli Constant
“Doctors?”
“Yes, Elise?” O’Toole responded.
“Perhaps we can study Sheila-1’s pheromone excretions.” Something had changed, before it had been just the doctors so affected by Sheila-1; now it seemed women were no longer exempt from her siren call. Sheila-1 had the natural essence to attract compounded with her new found sense of hygiene.
I’d never questioned my sexuality with human females; I couldn’t say the same about the humanoid female now lounging on her cot. Gross. My psyche really needed a major overhaul.
With beastie implantation on the backburner, studying for the sake of studying became the task of the time. Dr. O’Toole and Peters watched Sheila-2 in several hour increments. She’d yet to wake up.
We were all worried that something was wrong with her. Perhaps her physical development was not indicative of her mental development. The brain scans had shown regular neural activity, but how could I measure ‘normal’ for a completely unique child? There was no one like her for comparison.
Sheila-2 almost appeared to be in a coma or some version of hibernation stasis. It would be safe only so long for her to remain asleep without nutrition and hydration.
The human body was a remarkable thing, having some capacity for long-term survival without sustenance, but in Sheila-2’s case, who knew? We couldn’t risk a prolonged deprivation- especially since her BMI was already so lean.
In a vegetative state without life support, humans could last maybe 12, 13 days at best. Sheila-2 was only half-human. If she didn’t wake up by tomorrow evening, we’d be raiding the medical wing and hooking her up to a feeding tube and IV.
I slept fitfully that night, hurried through breakfast, and raced to the lab after settling Megan into school and Kara into the nursery.
Lab-3 seemed empty, but walking through the door into Sheila-2’s section, I could hear three separate voices chattering in the distance. The third voice boggled my mind, but it shouldn’t have.
Turns out, a raid on the medical wing wasn’t necessary.
Combining the undergrounder’s ability to access and use more of the brain and the human capacity for speech, our human, humanoid cross- born at approximately 18 months of development- could already understand language and form coherent sentences.
I was frozen at the entrance to the closet.
Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have entered. Peters and O’Toole were huddled inside- facing the pile of blankets and the sitting figure perched on all the fluffiness.
Her little eyes rose up to mine. They weren’t any shade I could have imagined. They were outside the range of Crayola’s coloring box. No pencil could be that shade, no marker that vibrant. They were eerily violet and unguarded. Eyes open, the harsh upturn was softened and pleasing- not beastie at all, less almond.
Amazingly, her hair had grown longer in a day’s time. It had taken only a month for Sheila-2 to grow to her current size; it shouldn’t be a surprise that she’d continue to develop quickly.
I waited quietly, watching closely. It was so strange; so unreal to watch a child so tiny, smaller than my Kara, speak so fluidly and move so deftly. Eventually Peters and O’Toole came out of the closet. We walked several feet from Sheila-2 and began talking.
O’Toole, normally a reserved, unexcitable man, spoke with fervor. “Isn’t it amazing? Walking and talking and barely a day out of utero… just mind boggling.”
“Well, one thing is for sure, Sheila-2 is still growing too fast to pass for a human child. I wonder if it will slow down or if she’ll have a shortened life span like the undergrounders?”
“Actually, her growth has slowed down from conception to now. In the past day she’s only gained 2.56 oz. approximately,” O’Toole paused to do the math in his head, “a 50% reduction. If her growth continues to reduce that drastically, Sheila-2 should stabilize soon.”
I contemplated this for a moment, wondering how old she’d appear by the time her growth slowed down enough to be passable as human.
We were still in view of the closet and the child within.
The only obvious evidence that Sheila-2 wasn’t a hundred percent human was displayed in the movement of her joints. She was double jointed- like Megan- but it was extreme. She could completely invert her elbows and knees. I didn’t notice it until she rose from the bed and straightened her legs.
Instead of the knees moving backwards from a forward bend, they moved forward from a contorted rear position. It was odd to see, but once she stood erect, the oddness of it vanished. Bar non- even my own offspring- Sheila-2 was the most beautiful child I’d ever seen.
I searched Sheila-2’s features.
“Have you been over her entire anatomy? Are there any other visual factors, other than the jointing, that distinguish her from a human child?”
“There is a very slight variation of the Labia minora.”
“How slight?”
“Well… there isn’t one.” Peters looked embarrassed. I guessed that he’d performed the gynecological searching himself. O’Toole wouldn’t be the type to violate his daughter.
“Ah, well, that can definitely be written off as a birth defect.”
Looking at her, I didn’t think anyone would be able to distinguish her from pure human- which gave me an idea.
“O’Toole, Peters… let’s say, hypothetically speaking, you’re both objective parties having never seen Sheila-2 before. You don’t know her background or where she comes from. What do you see?”
The doctors gave me funny looks.
“Seriously,” I said. “Stand up and come over here.” They did. Sheila-2 sat very still watching us, watching her. “Well, what do you see?”
“A child; perhaps 18 to 24 months, small for her age maybe, and very pretty. Overly smart perhaps.” O’Toole said, scratching his chin.
“Peters? What about you.” His answer was a bit more clinical.
“Exceptionally developed speech and motor skills- pointing to the child being older than she appears- possible premature birth. Perhaps, some deficiency in melanin production or lack of sun exposure causing unusual hair and skin pigmentation. Maybe hypomelanism. Overall, an unusual child.”
“Right. There are differences, but we all see a child.” I emphasized the word child. What I was suggesting dawned on both the doctors at the same time.
“Assimilate her?” O’Toole’s mouth gaped open, but only slightly. I could tell he hadn’t thought so far into the future.
“We assimilate her.” I said it as fact.
The logistics of it wouldn’t be easy. My mind worked furiously, hammering out details. I had a feeling I was over-working my brain lately.
We’d have to wait for survivors to show up in the park and that could take forever. Then we’d have to be lucky enough for those survivors to survive long enough to be picked up and brought back to the facility. The plan was forming in my head, slowly, but surely. We weren’t going to drop Sheila-2 off in the middle of the woods and hope for the best. So…
“So we wait until they send out another rescue team; we stow her away in the helicopter, and when the soldiers get back, she’s on board and we hope that no one realizes she wasn’t part of the pickup. She goes through processing. I’ll be there, she’ll take an instant liking to me and naturally, she stays in our room and befriends Megan and Kara.” Jason would be able to help, I thought, since he worked in the hangar.
I had my misgivings about exposing my daughters to Sheila-2, but something about her made me ready to take the risk.
“That easy?” Peters looked skeptical.
“No. Definitely not easy, Peters. If we make it work, it will be because of timing, good luck and a little faith. A lot of faith, actually.”
“Do you think she’ll understand what she needs to do?” O’Toole looked worried.
A little voice cut into our conversation.
“Elise, I understand perfectly what I need to do. I wish to be out of this room. I wish to meet your Megan and yo
ur Kara. Who are they?” I’d heard Sheila-2’s voice, quiet in the back of the closet, but hearing it up close and personal was a different ballgame.
It had a distinctive Disney princess quality, but the air of intelligence implied anything but a frivolous, singing twat in a silky gown. It was as mesmerizing as the child herself and I had a sneaking suspicion that Sheila-2 had inherited just a bit of her mother’s innate charisma.
“Sheila-2…”
“Elise, I do not wish to be called Sheila-2.” She was emphatic, dismissing the name easily.
“What would you like to be called?”
“I choose to be called Margaret Brown.”
“Margaret. That’s a beautiful name. May I call you Meg?”
“Meg will be fine, Elise.” In a normal child, I might be a bit miffed by her use of familiarity, but Meg was much more than a child in my mind.
“You understand that you have to stay in this room for a while longer, Meg? I, or one of the doctors, will be with you at all times. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before we can get you out of here, okay?” I glanced at the doctors, waiting for them to add to my speech, but they stood silent, removed from the conversation. “Okay?” I repeated.
“Elise?” The small, beautiful child waited for me to respond. I knelt by her, instinctively wanting to be at her vision level.
“Yes, Meg?”
“Who are Megan and Kara?”
“They’re my daughters.”
“Like I am John’s daughter?” I looked at O’Toole. I hadn’t known his first name.
“Yes.”
“But you are female? Do daughters have females for fathers too?”
“No sweetheart. I am their mother.”
“Do I have a mother?” I looked at O’Toole unsure what to say. He shook his head ‘no.’ I could understand why he wouldn’t want Meg to know her biological mother.
“You have a mother Meg, but she’s not around.”
“Why was I called Sheila-2 then? Where is Sheila-1?” Jesus, this kid was smart and could really throw the punches.
“It was just a temporary name. There is no reason to worry about that. Now, you are Margaret. I like Margaret.”
Thankfully, like many children, Meg was distracted by a compliment. “I have to go now Meg. I will see you again soon.”
“Are you going to see Megan and Kara?”
“Yes, I am. We always eat together.”
“Elise?”
“Yes, Meg?”
“Will you be my mother?”
I didn’t look at the quiet doctors this time. I knew what I needed to say, what I wanted to say.
“Yes, Meg. I’ll be your mother.”
I left my newly adopted daughter in the gentle care of her father.
Peters followed me to lunch. I felt bipolar and pulled in so many directions, but I would live up to my promise. Sheila-2… Meg… would be as much a daughter to me as my very own Megan and Kara. I would fight for her and love her.
But one thing was certain.
Compared to releasing Meg into the world, other challenges would seem as easy as peach pie in summer time.
Long Nights in Sub-Lab 8
It was late and the lab that the NORAD committee had assigned me was a level beneath the main facility. The walk was a long one. It had been a week since my meeting with Benson and company.
The gone-by week had been normal-eventful, with no surprises. I worked with the doctors, watched Meg develop, and enjoyed the somewhat comfortable life in the facility. The relaxation stopped today though and I had more on my plate than I thought I could handle.
The lab was lonely, dark, and, schematically, directly below Lab-3. This made my deception to the doctors that much more poignant. It was late, but I knew that above me one of the doctors was watching over a sleeping Meg.
I walked into Sub-Lab 8 with little expectations.
I was surprised to see a young woman, no more than 26, standing by a large glass tank. It was cylinder shaped and at least five feet tall with several tubes attached.
Two of the tubes ran from the left side and were attached to smaller tanks on the floor. The tanks below the main glass one seemed to be made of metal. A third tube ran from the opposite side of the glass cylinder and connected to a fourth, and final, sealed tank- much smaller than any of the others.
The young woman looked up, startled to see me standing there.
“Don’t mind me, just admiring the setup.”
“Well, it’s not the quality of materials I’d have if I was still doing medical research at NIH, but it’ll do. It’ll be a miracle if we can manufacture anything out of this. This is what we have though. We make it work. I’m just playing around with the construction. Are you Mrs. Swanson?”
“Elise.”
“Nice to meet you; I’m Jamie. I normally work in the hospital wing, but,” she gestured around the big lab, “I couldn’t pass up such a luxurious transfer.” Her voice was kind, notes of playfulness teasing several of her words. Jamie’s hair was an innocuous dirty blonde, eyes a light brown, body a tad over-plushy. All in all, she was very cute.
“So, are you a medical doctor?”
“No. I had a year left of medical school and I realized I didn’t want to deal with patients. I switched to a research focus with a concentration in hematology and blood borne pathogens. Here though, three years of med school is enough to qualify me as a full-fledged expert.”
“I’m guessing you’ve already been brought up to speed on what we’re doing.”
“Yeah, the guys upstairs gave me the general synopsis. I already have twenty blood samples in the fridge- human variety. We need undergrounder samples though and unfortunately…”
“Unfortunately all the undergrounders are in Lab-3. That complicates things a bit.” I sighed. “I’ll get the samples. Now, explain what the hell this thing is and what it does.” I pointed at the set up. “I’m afraid to ask. It really doesn’t look like what I was expecting and it really doesn’t look like something that’ll produce viable nanotech.”
“Like I said, if it works, it will be a bloody miracle, but this isn’t for the nanotech, this is just for bonding the nanotech with an organic molecule.” She paused and shrugged. “I’m not finished putting it together though.”
It struck me that all of my recent endeavors could only succeed on the wings of a hope and a prayer. We were asking the big man upstairs for a shit-load of miracles; I hoped He was listening.
“It’s a start.” I looked at the get-up with doubt.
“Well, I was told you were postulating O2 as the medium for getting the nanotech into the undergrounder system. So, we’ll use a water bathe here,” Jamie pointed to the large glass tank, “to infuse in Nitrogen, Carbon and the Oxygen bonded nanotech. The artificial O atom containing the nanotech has to be engineered perfectly so it will actually assemble into the respiratory cycle.”
Jamie stopped talking for a moment, bending over to tighten a tube connection. “The biggest issue is going to be synthesizing an electron charge effect so that our artificial Oxygen atom mimics a singular natural atom with two unbound electrons. If we can achieve that, then our nanotech will covalently bond with our free Oxygen atoms. And it all has to be done on an atomic scale. It won’t be easy and that’s not even beginning to touch on all the program coding we’ll need and I suck at programming.”
I heaved a sigh. Never hurt to be positive in the face of poor odds.
“Well, who knows? Many amazing discoveries were made by lesser brains than ours.”
I’d have to repeat that later to Jason. I’m sure he’d have a snappy, demeaning comeback that would give me a good laugh. I ran through a few in my head, but the best by far was the most obvious. “A lesser brains than yours--is that possible?” I laughed out loud. Guess I could humor my own little self.
“What’s funny?”
“This whole back-ass-ward endeavor. It’s like splitting the atom with an axe.”
“Well,
we’ll just have to manufacture a Nano-axe.” She smiled again. Yep, I liked her. I could tell a lot by a person’s smile.
I was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out how to start, what to start, and if we even should start. The whole plan was beginning to seem so ludicrous that it might be smarter to scrap it now.
I breathed in one of my signature, deep and steadying breaths. “Can we get started on simulating an O atom? We’ll work out any kinks in dispersement later.”
Jamie thought for a second, considering. “We can definitely lay out the theory for it, but I’d like to have the undergrounder blood samples first so we can isolate the dissimilar chromosomes. That way we can see if it’ll really be a matter of manufacturing vectors to target. If we can do that, then we can be ready to write a computer code to mimic the individual vector behavior and assign the individuals vectors to the target chromosomes.”
I looked at the hodgepodge apparatus in front of me.
“Other than the blood samples, do we have what we need to manufacture and write the coding?”
“Not yet. We need a lot more equipment and of course we need a software wizard to write the programing for the nanotech- after we’ve studied and outlined the real chromosomes and vectors and Oxygen and…” Jamie had to stop talking and put a hand to her chest. She was getting overwhelmed.
Jamie pulled an inhaler out of her left butt pocket. She inserted the end in her mouth and pushed down the top, simultaneously taking a deep drag. “In the meantime…”
“In the meantime, I get the samples.” I heaved a sigh.
Life was so lovely. More sneaking around and now I had to worry about a genius, cross breed catching me red-handed. I could have waited, bided my time until I was babysitting Meg.
Instead, I decided to wholly embody the adage “fools rush in.”
A little before 0200, I walked through the double doors of Lab-3. Jamie had set me up with a black apron with a wide pocket sectioned into 10 slots. Each slot held a capped syringe, ready for samples.
I wore a really baggy zip hoodie. If needed, I could pull it across my body quickly to cover the evidence. I’d temped as a vet tech out of undergrad, but other than bleeding a couple of cats and dogs, my blood draw experience was limited.