A Wish the Heart Makes: Fornever in Blue Genes

by Tigger

Chapter 21: Rebirth Again

Cat and Mandy entered Bob's lab, and were immediately assailed
by the tableau, which still included Robert West's inert form
hunched over his terminal.  Cat, more used to death than Matt
or Mandy, stood stoically as Mandy fought to control her grief
and fury.  She awkwardly put her arm around the smaller
woman's shoulder, and felt Mandy momentarily lean into the
contact.  Then she pulled away, and began to scan the disarray
that had been, up until a mere hour previous, a highly
organized and sanitary facility.

"I can do this, Mandy," Cat said softly.  "You don't have to
deal with this.  It is, after all, what you pay me for."

"Wish I could do that, lady, but I can't - for a couple of
reasons.  First, my main argument hasn't changed - there's no
one else left who understands the big picture and a lot of the
pieces as well as I do.  I might see something no one else
would recognize."

Cat nodded grimly and sighed.  "And the other reason?"

"He was my best friend for more than twenty five years.  I owe
my life to him, such as it is, and those . . . those animals
*killed* him.  Until they pay . . . until I understand *why*
they did it, I won't be able to rest."

"Understood," Cat affirmed.  "But you understand that we may
never know the reason?  This isn't an adventure tele-novel,
little girl.  This is the real world, and the sad truth is
that the real world isn't very big on 'happily ever after'."

Mandy went very silent, her face darkening, then she shook her
head violently.  "I can't accept that, Big Cat.  They have to
have made a mistake, and I won't rest until I find it and make
them pay."

"Okay, boss.  What do we look at first?"

"Let's look at his body first, Cat.  I . . . I don't want him
just . . . sitting there.  I know it's stupid and emotional,
but I want him . . . I want him put to rest."

As one, the pair moved to where Bob still sat.  Carefully, Cat
checked over the physical evidence.  She shook her head.  "One
shot, perfectly aimed or very damned lucky, Mandy, and I don't
believe in luck."

Gently, they pulled him away and laid him down on the floor,
out of the way.  "Wonder what he was doing, Cat," Mandy mused. 
"He had to know he was under attack, and yet, he stood his
ground."

Cat nodded, then sighed.  "Well, the same shot that got him
blew a hole in his work station.  Any chance we can recover
what was stored in it?"

Mandy looked inside the box, and then turned away, frustration
evident in her face. "Everything inside this box is dead . . .
fried."

"Crap.  Can't even see what was on the screen.  It's dead,
too."

"Wait a minute!" Mandy said.  She spun around, obviously
looking for something.  "There!" she yelled and ran over to a
light fixture and came back with it.  "Black light," she
explained as she came back to stand in front of the terminal. 
"Security!" she yelled.  "Darken the room!"

The lights went out almost instantly and an eerie black-purple
glow radiated from the light fixture.  "The screen works by
biologics, too, Cat.  Emitting light for the screen characters
stress the bio-phosphor.  Black light will be absorbed by the
phosphor differently depending on how recently stressed it is
in different areas."

Slowly, the screen began to luminesce, and characters began to
form.  It meant less than nothing to Cat, but one corner of
the screen caught Mandy's attention, and she very carefully
concentrated the black light there.

"Damn," she said quietly.

"What?" Cat demanded.

"He was in the process of trying to dump the main computer
cores of every system in the compound.  See that command
sequence up there?"  Mandy pointed to a series of characters. 
"Well, add a 666-9999.exe to that string, and every bio-
computing component in the company connected to the bio-
network commits suicide.  The Number of the Beast, and the old
20th century trap code."

"Okay, so now we know how, and the immediate why of his death,
although not the strategic why."  Cat wandered around the lab
thinking.  "We will have to let the cops in here soon, Mandy. 
They are at least as well equipped as we are to look for
physical evidence.  Do we tell them what we are really doing
here?"

"Would it really help them, Cat?"

She wandered over to a lab table and picked up one of two
amber bottles.  "Probably not," she said as she read the label
on the bottle.  "Omigod," she whispered and then read the
other bottle.  "Mandy?" she called.

"Yes?"

"Didn't Bob say he wanted to do tissue samples on you, me and
Morag last night?  To test his new process?"

Mandy came over to stand beside her security chief.  "Yes,
why?"

Cat handed Mandy the two bottles.  "Then why are there only
two bottles marked transition formulae?  One for you, one for
me."

"None for Morag?" 

"Not immediately obvious, Mandy, and more importantly, no
Morag."

"You don't think . . . "

"I don't know, girl.  But I think we'd better find her,
quickly."

"Okay.  Get the cops in here.  Keep an eye on what's going on,
and if you think knowing the whole truth will materially help
them, no matter how little, brief them in."

~-------------~

The holo of the Leader shimmered into being in Freuda's
private office.  Teri was there with the other woman as the
primary medical support person for Morag's transition.

"It has been two days since you administered the transition
treatment to that woman, Freuda.  What is the status of the
experiment?"

Freuda looked at her datapad.  "The subject is about 90% male. 
She, or rather he, has the gonads of a pre-pubescent male, and
her female organs have just about been . . . well . . .
absorbed into the surrounding tissue is as close as I can come
to describing what has happened.  The labia majora are almost
completely grown together forming a scrotum containing what
seems to be vestigial testicles.  And at the rate he is
maturing, I would expect him to be fully potent in another 12
to 36 hours."

"What about physical size - height, weight, etc.?"

"He's grown five inches in height.  Not much weight change,
but even with the nutrient baths and IV's, he can't possibly
assimilate sufficient proteins and other nutrients to build up
any comparable muscle mass.  I would say that will . . . or
rather would take, several carefully supervised months of
post-transition treatment before he would begin to reach his
full potential."

"But the subject *will* survive?"

Freuda turned to Teri who nodded.  "Dr. West said that if a
subject was going to . . . suffer DNA breakdown, it occurred
within the first ten hours after administration of the
treatment.  Based on this, I expect the subject to survive the
transition."

"Excellent, Florence," the Leader said jovially.  "And I am
glad to see you as I have a question.  What are the security
arrangements for getting into that central enclave you worked
in?  Where they kept Sorenson?"

Teri shrugged.  "A few checkpoints, but most of the security
is DNA-based.  There are about five locked doors that only
open if your DNA matches the precise genome of someone on the
access list."

The Leader nodded.  "Well, our watchers report that a security
team from BioCybernetics have been at your apartment looking
for you, so I think it is safe to assume that your DNA is no
longer on the approved access list."  The holographic face
smiled.  "Very well, Florence, that will be all.  I need to
speak with Frueda.  Alone."

"Yes, Leader," Teri murmured, and then let herself out of
Freuda's office.