She paused when the latch snapped shut though, a frown on her face as she realized something he had just said sounded off.
“What do you mean ‘routine’? I thought you were only in the program for a few months.”
“I was.” He shrugged; “During which I was given the regular monthly shots.”
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.
Seeing her response he grew a mite concerned.
“What’s wrong?”
“You were given monthly injections?”
“Yeah, just like everyone right?”
Now she was truly flummoxed, her eyes closed as she shook her head, trying to grasp what he was telling her.
“How long has this been going on?”
Again he shrugged as if it were perfectly normal.
“Since I met Professor Calvin, I think I was about ten. Why?”
“Do you have a pre-existing condition that you forgot to tell me about?” She demanded.
“What?! No!”
“I thought this Calvin guy was a botanist?”
“No, he’s a geneticist. He was the head of the entire program. He was a mentor to me because of how long I knew him.”
Awash with cold dread given that it was far too late to quarantine him, she activated her console with agitated movements, bringing up the blood tests she had run on him when he was still recovering.
All normal.
“What’s wrong?” He repeated, more concerned now than before.
She looked at him, aghast at the level of ignorance he was displaying.
“What’s wrong? Bryan, you should have been given booster shots once when you arrived on site. Then every five years after. And that is ignoring all of the shit that was happening before you got involved with Outerlight.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. Which means I need to run a lot more tests, so it’s a good thing you aren’t afraid of needles.”
Chapter 29:
WTF is a Chinchilla?
A few hours and a number of tests later, Billy solved the mystery, calling the captain into the infirmary almost immediately afterwards.
“I gave him a full workup, just like you asked. And boy howdy did I find something.”
“Alright.” Donnie said, expecting the doctor to continue.
She didn’t, instead she gave Bryan a look loaded with meaning.
“Wh-what?”
Crossing her arms over her breasts, Billy lifted an eyebrow at him.
“I only called the captain in here so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. Doctor patient confidentiality is still a thing Bryan. Even in space.”
It was a tough pill for Donnie to swallow, so she spat it out immediately.
“You’re fucking with me, right?”
The doctor shrugged.
“Can’t do it Donnie, not without his permission.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” She rolled her eyes before bringing her best scowl to bear; “You know that if he doesn’t give you his permission I’m going to stick him in an airlock with Eva until he does?”
She spoke as much to their guest as she did the resolute doctor.
Not seeing much point in the argument, and remembering well what Billy had so recently told them regarding the crew’s involvement with black-ops teams, Bryan interceded.
“It’s alright, you can tell her.”
“Tell her what?” Bunny called from the door.
The three people in the room looked to see most of the rest of the crew very obviously trying to eavesdrop from the corridor.
Billy and Donnie sighed in unison at the ridiculousness of it all.
“Don’t you all have jobs to do? Or does everyone onboard need the results of the kid’s prostate exam?” The skipper demanded.
“I’m not busy.” Eniella said with a smirk; “Beside’s there’s nothing else going on around here. We’re still in the clear, nobody around for a million klicks.”
With once final look to Bryan to ensure she was still alright to continue, Billy got them back on track.
“Just as you’d expect I started by looking for some form of data storage, since information is the most valuable thing in the universe these days. Subcutaneous data-chits are getting smaller every year. But if you know to look for them they aren’t hard to find, just time consuming.”
“He got a pair of them in his kneecaps or something?”
“No. Don’t interrupt me. The dermal scan was clean, but then my patient told me some things about his medical history and this Professor Calvin that made me twitchy. So I opted to start from the ground up and ran a full gene analysis. That’s when I found something.”
She turned the monitor of her console so that everyone could see.
“That’s a whole lot of ones and zeroes. Binary porn?” Eniella joked.
“It’s data, encrypted data. Hardcoded into the structure of his DNA. They’ve done it in the past with synthetic DNA but found it cost-prohibitive and therefore a dead end, technologically speaking. I’ve read a handful of papers on using mammalian subjects, but they were all theoretical on account of ethics being a thing.”
“So he isn’t just some fall-guy, he’s how the professor was planning on stealing from Outerlight?”
Billy shook her head.
“He is what was stolen from Outerlight. Like I said, this tech has existed for years, but the key here is that his DNA is rewritable. That’s what makes him so special. With the right equipment and some of his genetic material to act as a baseline, we could upload roughly one hundred and fifty zetabytes into him.”
“Is that a lot of bites?” Bunny whispered to Maria.
But it was Eniella that answered her.
“Assuming Billy isn’t full of shit, the entirety of the Pixie’s databank could fit inside of him several times over.”
Bunny blinked.
“So is that a lot of bites?” She repeated.
Eniella put her arm around the cat-girl and squeezed her close.
“Do you know what a byte is, mi chiquita?”
The K’or-Macka opened her mouth, seemingly to respond, but instead she turned into the hug and set her teeth on the swell of Eniella’s right breast and gave her a gentle nip through her shirt.
“Mierda! Not that kind of bite!”
Despite the sudden levity in the hall, the trio in the infirmary were dour-faced.
“Can I be... cured?” Bryan asked with wide eyes.
Billy sucked air between her teeth sharply as she thought long and hard about the question.
“Maybe.” She admitted finally; “But I have no idea where to even start, this really isn’t my area, and there’s only so much I can do just with reading other people’s theories on the datanet.”
“Is he in any danger?” Maria asked from the hall, ignoring the impromptu make out session that was taking place beside her as Bunny and Eniella lost interest in Bryan’s condition.
Though Bryan flinched at hearing Maria’s voice again, the doctor’s response was as immediate as it was emphatic.
“Absolutely not. He is completely healthy. Gene editing has been used for centuries to prevent certain defects from developing in the womb, though this is definitely breaking new grounds for the technology.”
“This happened before I was born?”
She nodded as she put the monitor back where it was.
“Ideally it would have been while you were still an embryo, but this kind of mod is so far beyond anything I’ve ever seen that I can’t guarantee that. My guess is the project really kicked into gear once you were old enough to have genetic material to spare, I would surmise that’s why the injections started when you were ten. Also because experimenting on infants is kind of a no-no in the medical community.”
Her dry attempt at humour fell on deaf ears though and she furrowed her brow at the sudden tear rolling down Bryan’s cheek.
“Am I even human?” He whispered.
She reached out
and flicked his ear hard to forestall some kind of existential spiral, causing him to flinch and yelp.
“As human as any of us. This Calvin prick just modded your DNA, he didn’t cross you with a chinchilla.”
“How much is this tech worth?” Eva asked suddenly.
She earned some hard glares for the question, but Donnie nodded as Eva had hit the nail on the head as far as she was concerned.
Billy let out a deep breath while she considered the question, staring at the ceiling as she ran the numbers.
“Given the timeframe and investment from Outerlight? Billions, maybe tens of billions. Hard to say, you’d need a very specific buyer first.”
“And someone who was okay with owning people.” Maria said with a rather pointed glare at Eva.
“I’m not saying we sell him.” The redhead snapped; “But if we know what he’s worth then we’ll know how badly people are going to come after him and would you two take that shit to your bunks already?!”
The make-out session between Eniella and Bunny had gotten well-past heated; the K’or-Macka’s purring sounding like a jacked up pepper grinder as the pink-haired woman groped at both of her breasts and feasted on the nape of her neck.
“Knock it off. All of you.” Donnie ordered; “I’ve heard enough. Billy, you still want to talk to the kid?”
“Yes, there are some more tests that-”
“Fine. When you are finished with that I’d like you to upload some of those ones and zeroes to tac-ops so Eniella can see about decrypting them. Maybe that will give us some answers. The rest of you, go do whatever it is you should be doing and leave the doc and her patient in peace.”
Billy muttered something about Donnie being the only one in the room who shouldn’t be, but the skipper missed it.
After taking a moment to straighten out her clothes, Eniella delicately rolled one of Bunny’s ears between her fingers.
“Raincheck for you and me Bunny-boo.”
“There’s no rain in space.” The K’or-Macka said breathlessly; “And how would you check?”
“Okay, now you’re doing it on purpose.”
Donnie ignored them as she pushed past them into the hall, then turned to see Maria looking longingly at Bryan.
Her eyes narrowed: now was as good a time as any.
“Sledge. If you’re done moping I want to see you in my office.”
Maria started, suddenly looking guilty as her captain opened the hatch to her quarters.
“Yes ma’am.”
They both went inside, the blonde’s stomach flopping as she tensed up while Donnie sealed the door behind her.
She knew she’d fucked up, and she knew she was going to be hearing all about it very shortly.
Donnie sat beside her desk and look to the woman still standing before her.
She opted to not bother with the preamble, Maria knew what was up.
“First you take your helmet off in the middle of an op, then you fuck off on Mung without your coms unit?” She shook her head helplessly; “Maria, you’re supposed to be one of the sensible ones!”
Though she was still raw about the situation with Bryan, the towering woman had too much respect for her captain to show it.
“No excuse Major.”
“I wasn’t asking for one! I’m not your commanding officer anymore, least not like that. So stop standing at attention.” Donnie finished with a grumble as she slumped further into her chair.
Maria relaxed her posture, having not even noticed that she was maintaining it.
“Still, I’m sorry I let you down... Captain.”
“You haven’t let down shit Maria! We’re worried about you! Ship full of vagina like ours how couldn’t we be? Eva thinks you’ve gone soft, though she thinks that about the whole damn crew, so pay that no mind. But there is no denying that you’ve been distracted lately and we both know why.”
The berated blonde’s lips were pressed into a thin line by the time Donnie finished.
“Gets lonely out here in the cold, you know that.” She said thinly.
As much as Maria tried to hide it, the skipper noticed the bitterness in her tone and nipped it in the bud immediately.
“I’m not going to begrudge you the chance at some sort of relationship, if that is what you’re after. But I think we can both agree it is time to press pause on it, least until we figure out how fucked we are with having him onboard.”
“I’m not in a relationship ma’am, not anymore.”
“Fuck off you aren’t! Do you know the terms of the NDA he signed?”
Maria had no answer ready for that, though she was surprised that Donnie was defending Bryan after he kept her in the dark.
“That poor kid might be destined to become a eunuch for breaking his contract for all we know. Not to mention he just found out that he is a... whatever the fuck Billy called him. I’m just saying, you’re allowed to cut him some slack.”
The corner of Maria’s mouth twitched as she remembered the conversation she had with Bunny not too long ago along the same lines.
Truth be told a large part of her wanted to be in medical right now, holding Bryan’s hand and comforting him while Billy did her thing.
But she was still conflicted.
Donnie sighed, seeing no response forthcoming from her marine.
“Look, I’m not going to stick my nose into your personal life. Just… stop giving me reasons to worry. We’re in some shit right now, and I need to know that when the bullets are flying, you’ll be able to get the job done.”
Once again Maria was standing at attention as she nodded earnestly at her commander.
“I will ma’am.”
“Good. Dismissed. And if you salute me right now I’m going to have Eva kick your ass.”
Maria’s arm had twitched upwards, years of habit not easy to subdue.
She smiled finally.
“Says the woman who just ‘dismissed’ me.”
“Whatever. Piss off. Go and hug Bryan. Or smack him. Whatever you need to do to get your head right.”
The blonde chuckled as she opened the hatch.
“Probably a bit of both.”
But before she left Donnie had one last point to make.
“Just whatever you do with him, don’t forget that you will be saying goodbye to him in the near future. We can’t keep him forever, you know that.”
Maria opened her mouth to argue, but closed it with a glum nod.
“Roger that Captain.”
Chapter 30:
Taste of Forgiveness
Bryan felt guilty for leaving everyone in the dark, especially Maria, but that paled in comparison to the other stuff that had been dropped in his lap.
He simply couldn’t wrap his head around the turns that his personal drama had taken.
If what Doctor Wu had told him was true, and he had no reason to doubt her, then his entire life was a lie.
After she ran several more tests and did her best to offer him answers to questions he never thought he would need to ask, he left the infirmary for the common room.
The most horrendous thought for him was that his parents simply had to have been involved in Outerlight’s experiment.
His mother was the one that introduced him to Professor Calvin.
After his father died he suspected their might be something going on between them, but he had assumed it was romantic, not… diabolical.
In a haze Bryan plopped down on the couch in the common room, his shoulders slumped with the weight of everything and his face in his hands as he tried, and failed, to process.
Maria found him there a few minutes later, giving him one more thing to worry about.
“Hey.” She said awkwardly.
Again he flinched at hearing her voice.
“Um, hi.”
He managed little more than a whisper, mouth suddenly dry from anxiety.
The powerhouse cleared her throat as she sat next to the beleaguered botany student.
T
here was thirty seconds or so of silence between them, until they both broke it at once.
“I wish that I had-”
“So Bunny thinks-”
They stopped, turning to face each other, both looking flustered.
He let her go first.
“Bunny thinks I should forgive you. Or, more like, not be mad at you in the first place. Then again she also thinks I should sit on her face so what does she know?”
The young man blinked rapidly as he tried to follow her train of thought, after a few moments a faint hope filled his chest and caused his heart to pound.
“I, wh-what do you think?”
“About sitting on Bunny’s face?”
There was a hint of a smirk at the corner of her mouth, so he dared to be a smartass.
“Yes. That was definitely what I was referring to. You go set that up while I sell tickets.”
She elbowed him in the ribs, though given her strength he winced from the hit.
“Don’t be cheeky.”
He smiled back at her, glad of the distraction.
“You started it.”
“Yeah, I guess I did. Come on, let’s go talk. I could do without the audience.”
“Audience? What audi-”
He turned from her to see Eniella, Bunny and Billy all seated on the same side of the dining table, watching them from the other side of the room.
They weren’t even trying to hide it.
Fucking Eniella was eating popcorn.
“Y-yeah. We should talk, if that’s alright with you.”
“At least sit on his face!” Bunny called after them as they retreated to the lower deck and the privacy of Maria’s bunk.
The K’or-Macka sighed as the entertainment ended, but she was quick to find another source of it.
“Hey Biiiiilly...”
“Never gunna happen.” The medic cut off her predatory sing-song voice before she could proposition her, again.
“Awww.”
The cat wasn’t pouting for long though when she turned to Eniella.
“What about you? Can we go check for rain now?” She asked hopefully.
The answer came without reservation.
“Sure thing. I’m waiting on tac-ops to decrypt Bryan’s data, so I have some time to kill. Come on, let’s go and jump Davie in the cockpit, she’ll love that. I owe her some more spoilage, we can make an afternoon of it.”
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