"Are you certain this will work?" I inquired, fixing my white lab coat over my blue shirt which was tucked into my black jeans. I took off my glasses, their near perfectly square lenses refracting the dim light, and wiped them with a white cloth. I checked the time on my golden wristwatch, shifting it slightly up my arm to a more comfortable position as I did, reminding myself to buy one of real gold if we were successful.

"We have done far too much for this to not work." My friend sighed, the left hand man of the lead scientist, smart and wise, almost to a fault. "I hope this won't be our last project together, Ross."

"What happens if the government finds out about this, what then Birch?" I questioned.

"Depends," Birch answered, "if the project is a fail, we will all be sentenced to life in prison for involving humans in this project, and conducting research and experiments of this type without any official permit."

"And we all still dedicated our lives to this," I laughed, "and that of our families, I really don't want my son to grow up without a father in his childhood memories."

"We did so," Birch replied, "because we know if this is a success, we will be treated like gods, and our families will have the best lives imaginable." Birch smiled. "Can't expect to get what we want without putting something on the line, can we now?"

I did not say anything, but simply looked in front of me, through the glass, to the bed where lay a woman, pregnant, not very far away from giving birth. That one human woman, who carried the hopes and dreams of eighty six of us scientists, who put everything on the line for this near pointless research.

As I looked again at the time, I could not help but steal a smile. As much as I hated to admit it, questioning my own morals, I could not help but remember the day, the hour, the very moment, on which I checked my mailbox, finding a letter, an invitation to work on a secret project, paying four hundred thousand dollars a month, a dream come true.

I still remember the very moment I told my wife about it, the way her face lit up, and the way her mouth moved as she said the words I still hold close, "I knew your talent would be recognised one day." I could only hope for those words to come true everytime she spoke them to me, but this time was different, this time she didn't say them wishing for them to be fulfilled, but brought them up because they were finally fulfilled.

I still remember the day five years ago, the first breakthrough in our research, a rat. It was no special rat, not even an initial test subject, nothing out of the ordinary, the typical stereotypical rodent that runs after cheese in shows. Though this was the first time that I discovered, these rodents, though smart enough to break into my very secure house, break into our very secure facility, even into the vault where we stored all sorts of radioactive items, were still not smart enough to keep their distance from said radioactive items.

Birch was the one who first found the rodent in there, I remember him talking loudly and cheerfully to everyone when he finally captured it, mentioning how it was going to lead to their first breakthrough with genetic mutations. He was always the type who loved to watch science fiction movies, even I understood why when I watched some with him.

All the things I ever dreamed of, space exploration, genetical engineering, time travel, and nearly everything one could think of, it was all there. I found them interesting, though I found them mostly inaccurate, and even more so, haunting, for me. I could never stop thinking how the people in those movies could have it so easy, all my distant dreams achieved so easily, just because the writer wished them to.

I had watched many movies with Birch, the very reason I understood exactly what the scientist meant by our first breakthrough after capturing the rat. While yes, the rodent led to our first ever breakthrough in two whole years of research, it was not in a very expected way.

After a few days of being contaminated with radiation, the rodent started becoming more and more aggressive, madly attacking even it's food and it's enclosure. It did not help that Birch even 'maintained' the radiation in the rodent's body by exposing him to it every so often. Even I pitied the poor creature that became the interest of my friend, all other scientists having started to distance themselves from Birch as days passed and his craziness became clearer. To this day, I wholeheartedly believe, Birch received just what he deserved.

While retrieving the rodent from its cage to expose it to radiation, Birch was madly attacked by the rodent, which somehow managed to tear through his gloves and bite his finger. Birch dropped the rodent, and it ran off, finding it's way into a vault with all sorts of genetic material of various creatures. It caused havoc in the vault, causing damage worth millions, scaring everyone present on that day to their core.

We all knew we were finished the moment word about this reached to the higher ups who hired us, but nothing ever happened. The higher ups afterall, were just a legend we believed, no one ever saw them, no one ever questioned them, they were like gods to us who showered us with money for simply existing, even when we showed no results whatsoever for so long.

As for the vault, it was cleaned up afterwards, all intact genetic material having been rearranged and all the ruined material listed and submitted to the higher ups. Birch was about to receive an earful from Clarke, our head scientist, but that never happened. Clarke took pity on Birch, afterall the poor guy was bitten by a rodent contaminated with radiation. We were worried Birch might have to lose a finger to save his life, but surprisingly, that never happened either.

When Birch returned he was a changed man, a leader and no longer a scientist who preferred solitude, he even got married a year after that, to a nurse, did not come as a surprise to anyone. Even Clarke used to follow Birch's directions for a month after his return, the man did many great things afterall.

He introduced to us, the concept of stable, and unstable genetic structures. It wasn't something major, barely recognisable even, but it mattered greatly to us. He explained it to us through chemistry, a subject I have many horrid memories regarding, luckily his explanation did not trigger any major trauma.

He explained to us, that genetics might just work similar to atoms, afterall they too, like everything else, are made of atoms. He mentioned to us how if the genetic structure of a creature is stable, it will try to fight against any biological matter that interacts with the creature's genetic structure, but if it's unstable, it will attempt to adapt, incorporate that very matter into itself. Birch believed this also resulted in some people being resistant or immune to many things that could even kill many others, but we did not go as far to believe that.

Still, we were all scientists at heart, all of us having chosen this job to fulfill some dream or others, and so we chose to research Birch's theory. After about a month or two of research and extensive testing we finally concluded, that Birch was mostly correct. While there were many outside factors included, Birch's theory was, for the most, accurate, horrifying so.

That was the moment we realised why our salary was so high, and why the higher ups were willing to give us so much time. They knew, if we were to succeed, we will easily make billions, if not trillions. And so, with this being our hope and guiding light, we dived right in to this new branch of research, doing our best to figure it out as soon as possible.

During that time, one of our colleagues, Owen, the man everyone calls oven, since it's funnier, went on to a trip to another country, a third world country in Asia, where he was sent by the higher ups to supervise a group and collect important material. There, he just so happened to collect something more than what he was asked to, and even bring it back to us.

He introduced us to the girl, a poor girl who could not find any work, and Owen being the kindhearted gentleman he was, brought her with him, offering her the job of our janitor, who quit just a few days ago. We were well aware he did not know our janitor quit, and also the reason why he brought the girl with him. Afterall, even some of us married people could not help but find her attractive, and Owen being a man closing in on his thirties with no relationships, did not feel like letting the chance go to waste.

While we were all worried at first, about the girl, and even decided on calling the police if Owen was to do something, but he never did. We realised while he was desperate to find love, he was first and foremost, kindhearted, even helping the girl clean his working space when she did, and bringing her all sorts of gifts every now and then to help her be more comfortable.

---

I did not realise when my gaze turned to my feet, or when Birch walked away, leaving me alone behind the glass, watching the pregnant woman. I was aware Birch was a punctual man, I knew he would not leave his duty for long, and must have went to the restroom or to grab a cup of coffee.

I felt like I should have asked him to bring me one too, but I doubted if I would even be able to drink it. Now that we were so close, the weight of everything was starting to set in, of everything we did, all the inhumane acts. It started to haunt my dreams, my life, and I wondered if it would turn to haunt my family too.

Everything started coming to my head at once, the day three years ago. After conducting extensive research, we were finally prepared to create our first test subject, to create a life form, a godly act. I still remember clearly how our first test subject's body collapsed in on itself the second we released it from the test tube.

This happened with the first ten test subjects, and we did not know what we did wrong. After extensively studying everything for so long, we were finally able to connect things in a proper order, creating a proper genetic structure, and yet, the organisms didn't even survive even five seconds. But that wasn't the worst of it, it was yet to get even worse, even more haunting for everyone involved.

On that god forsaken day two years ago, the day we received the genetic material from a wolf, a common thing. Many of us used to visit many places on order from the higher ups, collecting genetic material for expanding our research. It was one of our few female colleagues, Maratha, who was sent to retrieve the genetic material from the wolf.

She was to return on the day we fully studied the genetic material, but we extended her stay by a day. The next day, she arrived, with the wolf in a cage, having been sedated before it arrived. We were yet to explain to her why we asked her to bring the wolf, and also why we asked her if there were other wolves there. Clarke, being our head scientist, explained to Maratha what we discovered.

The wolf's genetic structure was the most unstable we had seen till then, unstable to the point we believed it was perfect for using it to create a creature that could easily be genetically modified. We researched the wolf day and night, in our craze of wanting to become gods, even forgetting what we experimented on was also just a living creature.

We created more test subjects, enduring fails one after the other, waiting for that one which was a success, one was all we needed. We started to understand genetics to the point we started tweaking certain things in the test subjects we created, only to make sure they won't turn out feral if they survived for even a minute.

We were still far from reaching our goals however, there was something we still couldn't grasp, that was until one of us joked about a crazy idea, and, well, science is just a collection of crazy ideas which seem to surprisingly work afterall.

"You know what will be funny?" Our friend, Richard, questioned.

He was with me, Birch, Clarke, and our other good friend Ross, who only shared my name, on everything else we rarely ever seemed to be on the same page. We all sensed the idiotic joke from a lightyear away, and we were all prepared for it, having prepared our brains so to repel the brain rot brought upon us by many of his jokes.

"It would be hilarious if those genetic instabilities were passed down like other genetic stuff," Richard continued. "Like how both my parents have bad eyesight, like both of them wear glasses, and my eyesight is even worse than theirs, I would die laughing if that actually happened."

I still remember how Clarke dropped his coffee on hearing that, the hot liquid splashing on all five of our legs, but only Richard reacted. The rest of us, were too shook to even react, we all sat there for a few minutes before Richard snapped us back to reality, having been worried.

That started our journey of contacting the wolf's previous owners and finding out about it's parents, who were luckily, still alive. We sent two of our colleagues to collect genetic material and send it as soon as possible. The moment we received it about fifty of us started figuring it out while other thirty worked on our other minor projects. It only took us a day to understand, how a joke from Richard led to a massive breakthrough. 

From then on, we brought several female wolves, hoping to acquire a baby with even more unstable genetic material. We inspected the pups we received over a span of many weeks, from five seperate females. We were all disappointed on realising the genetic material of the pups, while unstable, was still a lot more stable than their father.

This led to us figuring there was even more to this. We can't just hope to receive a child with unstable genetic structure from two parents with unstable genetic structure, afterall, some of the pups possessed very stable genetic structures. It depended largely on which genes were passed on from which parent, which in turn meant that our wolf friend was born with bad luck, afterall it received mostly unstable genes from both its parents.

That part of research was one I burnt myself out doing, being completely tired of life for a few days afterwards. I was sent on a paid leave by the higher ups, who somehow noticed I was in bad mental and physical condition to continue working for much longer without a break. Many others also received a similar leave, Owen, Richard, even the fake Ross. To this day, I wonder if it was all a part of their plan, if they knew what was about to be discovered.

The version of the story that I am told, by Valka, one of our other female colleagues, former colleagues, and the one who caused all of this, though on accident. I understood very well she never thought it would go this way, and how she opposed it to the very end, and how she could not live with what she caused, having taken her own life just a few hours after she talked with me. As her friend, it really shook me from the inside.

Valka was simply doing her work, while the Asian girl Owen recruited as the janitor, named Alice by us, was cleaning her work space. The Asian girl was curious about what she saw on the screen, despite being around twenty three, she was illiterate. In our free time, some of us taught her to read and write, and many others taught her about many other things. We did like how she was always curious, and willing to lend an ear to anyone who needed one.

Valka was willing to show Alice how her genetic structure looked when Alice was surprised to find out the strand of colors on the monitor was the genetic structure of a squid. It was a simple process, Valka took a few drops of blood from Alice and inserted them in the machine, which after around half a hour of reading displayed the image on the monitor.

Valka showed it to Alice for a short while before leaving, having completed her shift, passing it to Birch. Valka was still at the facility however when Birch caused a ruckus, yelling at the top of his lungs in joy, causing everyone to gather around, thinking he finally lost it.

While it was true Birch seemed like a madman at many times, he was still the one who was the best suited at reading the genetic structures and figuring them out. He had even started doing most things mentally a few months before this, and I still remember him drawing the genetic structure of the wolf on a blank paper and explaining to me all its parts, simply from memory. I refused to believe my eyes even after checking several times, but still needed to admit, the madman drew an entire genetic structure accurately, just from memory.

Birch explained to everyone how he found the perfect genetic structure which complements that of the wolf, being nearly the complete opposite, capable of giving birth to the most genetically unstable child, or the most genetically stable child. Birch still carried one question for Valka, asking why she did not name the genetic structure. It did not take Valka long to realise who the structure belonged to.

When I returned, it was already too late. There was a majority vote before I and all others returned, ending with the decision to go ahead with the research. I remember Valka even threw up explaining what the experiment was for. I still can't find it in my heart to forgive Birch, the one who proposed the idea, and the choice to Alice.

The idea, was to go ahead with their research, allowing every breakthrough to dictate the path they take, which in this case, meant to somehow create a child between two different species. Birch proposed the idea that the genetic structure of the two was nearly as unstable as it gets, and that it might actually possible to do it without having to do much research on how to do it.

The choice proposed to Alice, was to go along with the experiment, or decline. To Birch's surprise and joy, and to Valka's horror, Alice accepted, happy to be of help in way possible. Clarke was still unsure however, and called for a majority vote, since Alice was already willing.

He allowed the two sides, Birch and Valka, to give their opinion on why the others should support their idea. Birch gave a long and quite motivating speech, even almost convincing Valka to change her opinion, but being Alice's best friend, she could not find it in herself to accept such a cruelty. 

Valka, gave no speech, she simply said just one sentence before sitting back down. "For humanity, if we can find any left in us." A sentence that shook even me, though I was not one of those she meant it for.

Clarke tallied the majority vote, out of the sixty present there, twenty-four supported to not go ahead with the experiment, while seven could not decide. With twenty-nine votes, Birch was allowed to continue with the experiment.

I talked with Clarke, knowing he could have stopped this, knowing he was one of those who did not wish to go ahead with the experiment, but even he, just like me, would not have been able to find it in himself, to allow the opportunity they waited for several years, to slip away just like that. His morals stopped him from supporting the other side on that day, but even he did not have so much of his humanity left as I believed he did.

Valka was the one with the most humanity left in her. Her death, after her talk with me, was a fatal blow, making me question everything I was working for, everything I dreamed of. But then, I remembered my wife was pregnant, just a couple months away from giving birth to our kid. I could not decide back then, if I should risk my wish to give my kid the best life possible, I just couldn't decide, and so I simply followed the road, wherever it led me, for worse or for better.

Just a few weeks after Valka's death, I was added back to the project, to complete it and then witness what we created. I still remember how all us added our insane ideas to one embryo, tweaking and changing its genetic structure, replacing many parts with the genetic structure of other organisms.

An octopus, a cuttlefish, a saltwater crocodile, a jaguar, a peregrine falcon, a golden eagle, a great white shark, a king cobra, mambas, killers whales... Halfway through we knew we were creating an abomination. Due to our good friend Mark, a careless man to the core, we lost the list of all the organisms we added. We still possessed the list of everything we planned to add initially, but lost the list of ones which we added, meaning we did not have any way of knowing which ones we were yet to add. The embryo changed rapidly, incorporating the many genetic structures added to it and rearranging itself in an attempt to stabilize.

From that point on, we were certain this was going to be a failure, but we didn't lose hope, we were already too far deep too escape, it was far too late. We worked day and night, trying our best to stabilize and tweak the genetic structure as much as we could. Even as we were done and Birch and Clarke congratulated everyone, we all knew the embryo wasn't by any means stable.

With our fingers crossed, we placed the embryo, which we surgically removed from the mother's body, back in. We were not aware how well this plan would work, but we could only hope, it was already too late for anything else. We guessed all the other test subjects collapsed upon themselves due to improper development in the test tubes, with a mother, many of us believed an embryo will stabilize. It's still hard for me to accept how Alice became the scapegoat for this entire project, her life being risked all throughout it.

During this time, I remained a regular at keeping track of everything, taking two shifts everyday, making sure Alice lives, trying my best to survice through the haunting memories of this project, the words spoken by Valka, everything we have done.

Our one thousand and seventy-third test subject, 'K-72', the one all our hopes relied on. The one whose form we all have guesses of, but none are certain. We suspect we have created an abomination that will make our skin crawl once we lay our eyes upon it, while some of us, who tweaked her genes for looks, truly wish for K-72 to turn out like a cat, one of the cutest abominations of nature as they termed it.

While I highly suspected that would be true, I was well aware there was the genetic structure of Norwegian Forest cats used for K-72, along with nearly every species of big cats and even cheetahs, which might just mean it would like to claw at random objects and knock cups off the table, and also wreck havoc in the middle of the night.

As days were passing I was only being more inclined to believe it was going to be some monstrous abomination. Alice was hardly even living by now, having been restricted to the bed at all times, lest something happened to her and the kid. I was barely clinging on to the hope for Alice's survival, knowing it was unlikely for that to happen after what I was just informed. Afterall, no human could survive being in close proximity of radiation for long.

It was discovered after I failed to come for two days straight due to sleep deprivation and mental instability. Inside the body of the child, a weird structure formed. From what could be figured out, the structure was radioactive, and contained insanely high amounts of energy. More than enough energy to power USA for a whole year, or several years even.

If that was not horrifying enough for me to hear, it did not take long for us to discover the amount of energy increased rapidly at alarming rates, making us question if we should stop the experiment and kill it off. I was the one who proposed the idea to kill it, and to my surprise, no one supported it. Everyone, was already too far gone, they all strayed too far from humanity itself, sacrificing their morals for everything, even Clarke, and Owen. Birch was excited even, not realising he was playing the role of the scientist which creates the creature that ends all of humanity in his favorite science fiction movies.

The body of K-72 started to take form at a rapid rate, after having been not much more than an embryo for so long. It took a more rigid structure, very humanoid at first glance. The last scan was when K-72 started giving its body a proper form, all scans having been stopped afterwards since it caused extreme discomfort for Alice. I objected that it was only due to K-72 taking form inside of her, but even I could not help but notice that she was in much more discomfort during a scan than before or after it.

Every day, I looked at Alice, expecting the head of a horrifying creature to burst out of her stomach, very much like in certain movies I watched. Surprisingly, that did not happen. What did happen shocked everybody, even me, the one who was the most shocked after it. I could not believe me eyes, having been one of the few there to witness it.

The birth of the new creature, was very much like a normal human birth, the body of the creature, also resembling a normal human baby. We were confused, shocked, many were disappointed even. Alice was also completely fine however, nearly unharmed, only experiencing the normal exhaustion. It took her several months afterwards to again be able to return to her normal life activities, though she was no longer a janitor, simply a resident of our facility.

I was the one who helped with her rehabilitation, having taken it upon myself to ascertain she makes a full recovery, hoping Valka's soul would be able to rest in peace after knowing Alice was completely fine. I returned to the project after three months, the facility having been renovated and changed much.

Our facility was built entirely underground, just a small house for an entrance and facade above the ground. The facility was expanded much in the time I was gone, having added several new rooms, fairly child themed from what I could tell. I needed to find Clarke to fill me in on what happened while I was gone, which was not hard to do since he was still the head scientist, and still sat in his office in the same place as before.

"We were successful," Clarke whispered when he saw me, the first words he said, his eyes almost tearing from remembering the past of our project.

"At a great cost," I replied coldly, "I am hoping it was worth it."

"This was worth a lot more than what we even did, you should really meet her." Clarke stood up and gestured me to follow him.

"Does this 'her' refer to who I think it does?" I questioned.

"Yes," Clarke answered, "she is capable of communicating with us, I will explain on the way."

I followed him, hoping to not find something which would make me follow in Valka's footsteps.

"At first, we were very confused, we did not really understand much about K-72," Clarke explained. "She looks very human-like, but it's not hard to tell she is far from a human, light years away. We don't even know if K-72 is a female, afterall there are none of the gender distinctions and reproductive organ systems in her which are present in other organisms. She looks like girl at first glance so we just assume it's a female, it feels wrong to refer to K-72 as 'it'."

"That is a monster you are talking about," I reminded.

"She is no monster, you will see when you meet her, you won't be able to tell the difference between her and a normal kid," Clarke reassured. "And here we are." He said to me stopping in front of a room.

The gate of the room was a metallic door, requiring a passcode. It seemed heavy, heavy enough to withstand even a tank ramming into it. It made me doubt just how much like a normal kid the creature behind this gate would be, mostly because I never needed to place such a giant door to keep my son anywhere.

"My apologies for the door, her enclosure was built when we thought she would be somewhat aggressive," Clarke explained. "Our worries were pointless however." He said as the door slowly slid open, revealing a giant room behind it.

'Enclosure' was certainly the correct word. The place was massive, nearly as big as a football field, maybe bigger. There was a small pond at one side, several trees and shrubs placed all around the place, vines and other creepers climbing on the walls even. A swing was hung from a giant tree, it's branches pressing against the very high ceiling. There was a glass shield at one wall, fairly high, granting a clear view of the enclosure. Clarke waved at the glass shield, a man standing there waving back at him before pointing to our right. I followed his finger, looking in the direction but not seeing anything. 

Pulling it out his phone from his pockets, Clarke called the person behind the glass shield and placed the phone on speaker, so I will also be able to hear it. "Where is she?" He questioned

"To your right," a voice answered, "she is playing again."

"Oh," Clarke chuckled as he realised, "okay then, thank you." He hung up and turned to his right. "We have a new guest–" he pointed to me "–do you think you can show yourself to my friend here?" He requested.

My eyes widened as a girl materialised out of nowhere not far from where I stood, making me jump. Clarke laid his hand on my shoulder, asking me to calm down.

"Remember the octopus and cuttlefish genes?" Clarke inquired. "From the looks of it, she received something from nearly everything we put in, her camouflage is better than even most octopi and cuttlefish," he explained to me before turning to her. "You have gotten much better at it too," he complimented her.

I eyed the girl, not being able to believe this was what we created. She looked like a human girl with fair skin, though there were many odd things about her. Her hair for one, was mainly a reddish-pink in color, black and white hair strands scattered throughout the sea of pink. Both her irises, were of a different color, one pink and one blue, and her pupils slightly compressed from the top, forming a heart shape.

She was also tall, not very tall in general, just around three feet, but still very tall for someone only a few months old. Her outfit was also odd, a black shirt with black pants under a reddish-pink coat, extravagantly designed. The coat was covered in glittery light pink and reddish flame and bird patterns, the layered sleeves of the coat each portraying a different pattern. The topmost layer, connected to the main body of her coat displayed the same pattern as the coat, the second being a light pink and black watercolor pattern over the reddish pink of the coat, the third being a mini floral pattern of all sorts of colors over the normal pattern of the coat.

That was not the end of it however, her ears, instead of being on the side like humans, were above her head like a cat, or in this case like a wolf, afterall they were wolf ears, colored in the same manner as her hair with the inside being white. The other, and most notable oddity, were the weird tentacle-like projections originating from her spine form what I could tell. They were covered in feathers or fur, a soft material, but they seemed very deadly, and she possessed nine of them, all originating from the same spot.

"She looks very cool, doesn't she?" Clarke smiled.

I could not deny, she looked like a little child, really clawing at my heartstrings like the pictures and videos of little kittens online. Though while that feeling was there in a corner, my body was frozen from a different sensation, and realisation. She looked human to some extent, and looked mostly harmless, but she felt dangerous, terrifyingly so. She felt not like anything usual, but higher, far above all else. The feeling could only be described as encountering a god, a higher being, far above everything in every way possible. 

Her eyes contained curiosity, neither kindness nor hostility, pure curiosity. That was the moment I realised, we were not keeping her here, she was here only because she wished to be. If she ever wished to leave, we would not be capable of doing anything to stop her from doing so, unless we knew her strengths and weaknesses.

"Clarke, how much have you discovered about her?" I questioned.

"A fair amount, her camouflage, venom, how her tails work, how good her senses are and stuff," he answered, "why?"

"I would like to see all of it," I requested, "if you don't mind." I added, trying to be more persuasive.

From what was discovered so far, she possessed sharp retractable claws on her hands, sharp canines which can inject a deadly venom, nine 'tails' made of pure muscles with a very thin bone running through them, covering an extension of her spine in all nine of her tails, three other tails much like a wolf's, usually hidden under her coat, two pairs of ears, one pair on top of her head, and another where normal humans ears are meant to be. Her second set of ears were very elongated however, and covered in brightly colored feathers, mainly used for the purpose of echolocation from what was known.

"What about that structure inside her we discovered before she was born?" I questioned.

"This is going to sound crazy–" Clarke sat down– "that structure inside of her, works similar to a kind of nuclear reactor from what we know," he explained, "it breaks down matter to the atomic level, storing condensed energy in itself. She has no digestive system or anything, that little structure is quite literally all she needs to survive, and her body changed many things in itself to cater to that."

"Things like?" I questioned, knowing every part of a body was important in one way or other.

"From what we can tell, she completely removed her digestive system stomach down, the oesophagus led directly to the structure inside of her, which we decided to term as a 'Core'." Clarke explained as he arranged some papers on his desk. "There are no waste products, the core breaks down any matter and stores it, so her body also removed the excretory system. Her respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems are mostly intact, and look just like a human's, with only one exception in her nervous system."

"Which is?" I inquired, the topic having piqued my curiosity.

"Her spinal cord connects right beside the heart, something we believed could be lethal at first, but it wasn't, mainly because that connection was required for the Core to be functioning properly." Clarke explained as he removed a page from the stack and slid it to me.

I took a look at the page, a x-ray image of her body. Her skeletal structure too, was mostly human. Her external ears did not contain bones in them, so the x-ray did not show them. The only differences were the many whip-like, thin lines of bones, attached to her back, her tails.

"It's truly fascinating to me how she looks so alike, yet so unalike at the same time." Clarke sighed as he stood up and again rearranged the stack of papers. "Should I take it you are returning?" He inquired with a smile, already knowing the answer.

The doubts in my head were far from cleared, and though I was hesitant, I still returned to the project. I refused to put my faith in K-72, knowing at the end of the day, it was just a monster we created. The fear in my heart was so deep I requested my workplace to be changed to the one closest to the exit, the exit gate in clear view from it and barely at the distance of ten seconds if I was to run.

Deep down in my heart, I was well aware we created something capable of killing many people, and we knew very little about her limitations, strengths, weaknesses, her level of intelligence even more so.

The first thing I did after returning was to create certain special sensors with the help of a college friend of mine, and then request the higher ups to implement these on the exit door and reinforce the facility's security at many key locations, like the exit, her enclosure, and the vaults.

The higher ups must have taken my requests seriously, mainly due to the fact when I came the day after I sent the letter, the changes were already done. The sensors were implemented at the exit gate, at her enclosure's gate, and in front of the vaults, designed to start an alarm the second she crossed in front of them. The gates were also redesigned to make it so they could only be opened by our ID cards, all except her enclosure's gate.

She was still allowed to freely roam the facility, the vaults and the outside being off limits for her, a rule she did not seem to mind in the slightest. The sensors at her enclosure's gate did need to be changed soon to only make a beep when she crossed, having scared her many times when she crossed in front of them before.

While I still found her dangerous first and foremost, I could not help but realise the resemblance between her and a normal house cat, having owned one many years ago, an orange cat named Larry, who died to a speeding truck on the highway when he somehow escaped my older house while I was out working.

K-72's major cat-like feature, was the habit to jump anywhere between five to twenty feet in a random direction when startled. She many times bounced over our heads, landing perfectly on her feet behind us, and many times she jumped into walls. Her eyes were also cat-like, capable of turning into thin, arrow-shaped lines to only allow a small amount of light, or grow into a heart that covered nearly the entirely of her irises.

Another of her acts, one the purpose of which I failed to understand, was to knock a ceramic cup off a table, at two seperate occasions, on two seperate tables in completely opposite corners of the facility. Both times, she sat nearby and watched as the janitors cleaned it up, going about her day right after they were done. While I considered this to be another cat-like behaviour, it struck me later that what she was attempting there, might have been her own attempt to figure out her territory, and our role in it.

Most creatures whose genetic structures were implemented in hers, were territorial, fighting and killing over territory all the time. Even then, they only fought for territory with others of their kind, or similar in nature. For K-72, we simply played the role of workers which maintained her territory and brought her food. She was rewarded a chocolate bar, her favorite edible, for every day she was on good behaviour. I was starting to question if she even considered it a reward, or an offering to spare our lives.

I was well aware she was more than capable of killing, afterall I was present when she bit into a metallic part of the kitchen counter and broke off a small chunk of it with her jaws, easily crushing through the metal, an alloy of zinc and iron, without any effort in the slightest. She attempted to eat it even, to my surprise, but was stopped by Sara, our resident cook, who grabbed K-72 by the neck to halt her attempt of eating the kitchen counter. 

In the end, K-72 agreed to spit out the chunk in exchange for a bar of chocolate, granted she attempted to sneak it out with her even after taking the chocolate, an unsuccessful attempt due to our cook shoving her out of the kitchen, treating something capable of killing her in multiple ways within seconds like a little child.

After that, I listed two things I needed to do. Figuring out why she attempted to eat the table counter was the priority, the second being the measure of her bite force, a value I doubted our equipment would be able to handle.

For any research or theory, the most important part is to build off of the facts, and not try to build to the facts. The only facts I was aware of was the fact that K-72 attempted to eat a kitchen counter, made of of an alloy of zinc and iron. This led to me checking her diet, I found her diet, which were mainly fruits and berries along with a serving of the food cooked for us, to be sufficient in zinc and iron for a human. But she was not a human, I was starting to believe my colleagues were forgetting that in every matter. I pointed this out to Clarke, and requested an inspection of every item made of zinc and iron, and surely enough, there were chunks missing from most. This led to us adding more zinc and iron rich edibles in her diet, and to the realisation of just what all she was capable of digesting.

One of the worst things about K-72, for me at the very least, was her curiosity. While it many times led to her damaging equipment and other items, that was not as bad to me as K-72 sitting with my colleagues, observing them as they decoded genetic structures of various organisms. My colleagues were even idiotic enough to try explain the genetic structures to K-72, how they work and decide the form and features of an organism.

K-72's curiosity made me uneasy every time she used to sit quietly and observe, not interacting, simply observing. Her bright shiny eyes following your every movement. I was the only one who ushered her away whenever she attempted to observe what I was doing, most of which was data related to her, the reason why I refused to let her see any of it.

We were yet to conduct all necessary tests for K-72, one of them being to determine her intelligence, and I was unwilling to show her or try teach her anything till I was certain she wasn't smart enough to understand any of it. Deep down something told me that won't be the case, and so I was prepared for when we conducted that test, but there were still other tests pending till that.

We planned to research K-72's venom, an impossible task unless she sprayed it for us. I was still not aware as to how my colleagues were so certain she possessed venom, but I was well aware they did not have any sample of it with them.

Extracting the venom of most creatures, such as snakes, could easily be done using vials with a cloth closing its top. Allowing the snake to sink it's fangs through the cloth it could be easily done as the snake would inject it's venom into it. In the case of K-72 however, she did not have any purpose to user her venom. She did not feel threatened by us, and when requested to lend us her venom, she simply pretended as if she did not understand, though I was certain she did.

It was the same with her wings, even I was aware she possessed two pairs of bird-like wings covered in bright pink and red feathers, but she refused to reveal them when we asked her to for studying them. Her wings were always hidden under her coat, and were capable of extending through the coat, a strange phenomenon that confused me.

From what I was able to discover from Clarke, the outfit she always wore wasn't given to her by the researchers, she simply 'grew' it. It was like a fur of sorts, as Clarke termed it, though I preferred the term 'exoskeleton', a customisable and removable one at that. Customisable mostly due to her being able to modify any part of her outfit as she wished, removing or adding entire parts at will in mere seconds.

After I started working again, I also started clearing many of my colleagues' misconceptions. Like how Maratha used to compliment K-72's fair and soft 'skin', not knowing what she believed to be skin, was much closer to a thin layer of soft fur than skin. Or when Owen complimented her 'intuition', being able to tell which cup the ball was in as Owen shuffled them, even with her eyes closed. Something which I mentioned to him, could be attributed to her echolocation, which was easy to tell due to the movement of her side-ears while she used it.

Even Birch, was not free of misconceptions. His misconception was the worst one, mentioning how she was practically harmless to Clarke as he requested for permission to conduct certain tests on her immune system, using several disease-causing microorganisms and vaccines to conduct them.

"Harmless is used for something incapable of causing harm," I reminded, "K-72 is very capable, simply lacking a reason to do so for now, I will prefer for you to not give her one."

While I was also quite curious as to how her immune system will perform against diseases which plagued humanity and killed many, and several diseases for many other animals too, I was still not curious enough for Birch to put his life on the line. Although the test could only be postponed for so long.

The cause of the test happening, even without any certainty of safety, was Clarke himself. He did not allow the test to proceed, he simply failed to be present here due to mild fever and cold, leaving Birch in charge. Birch was luckily, still human enough to not break Clarke's trust and conduct the test, but it changed from one sneeze.

That was when we discovered K-72 could be infected by communicable diseases just as easily as any other human, having been infected from Clarke's common cold. Though her condition was far better than him, and it barely changed anything, except a few sneezes every now and then.

Birch did not wish to let this opportunity pass and studied how her body was reacting to the pathogens. Her common cold lasted a week, recovering before Clarke did, being on break for yet another week. Birch used this time to further expand his research and show results, injecting her with the disease known as smallpox, a greatly feared name, before it's career was ruined by its weaker but similar cousin disease.

K-72 showed minor signs of the disease taking effect as two days passed, the development of the symptoms completely freezing for the next three days, in which she developed anti-bodies to counter the disease. In the next two days she fully eradicated the plague from her body and made a full recovery, luckily not infecting any of our colleagues with the disease as she was allowed to roam freely as usual. After Clarke returned, seeing the results he allowed Birch to continue his experiments, which to my horror, started going downhill very soon, though not in the way I expected.

Birch used the next plague in his arsenal, the influenza virus, which was eradicated from K-72's body within a mere three days. Next he attempted the TB infection, but she made a recovery within a day. The time reduced as he used more and more different types of infectious microorganisms, K-72 being able to kill off any foreign substances almost instantly after entry by the time Birch was done with his experiments.

Birch provided no explanation as to how she was able to achieve such a feat, and Clarke did not ask for it, both were simply mind-blown by her immune system, but I refused to accept it. I could tell it was more than just a good immune system, or it would not have taken her a week for the smallpox virus either, but I did not have any evidence to support my doubts, and so I remained quiet.

Testing her physical capabilities was far easier, mostly due to her cooperation for those. From the tests, one of my doubts was cleared. The doubt, which I had been carrying since I found her body did not contain several organ systems, about what was used to replace them, or were there simply large gaps in her body. From the tests, the answer was clear, muscle, pure muscles, enough of them that if a normal human possessed them their body would be ripped apart. 

Her upper body, mainly her arms were fairly weak, though much stronger than a human of that size, she could still be easily overpowered by an average adult. The lower body, was the dangerous part. Due to her replacing her organ systems with muscles, her lower body, from stomach down, was far more muscular than her upper body. Her legs could easily exert enough force to crush metal plates and bricks with a single kick, and it also explained her jumping capabilities.

We also tested her tails, which seemed to be in a league of their own when compared with even the strongest animals. Those were the most useful limbs of any creature I ever witnessed, each one more than capable of toying with a real-sized car, weighing around two tonnes, as if it was a little kid's toy. All nine of her tails working in unison could easily cause massive destruction, and their reach was relative. If all tails were stretched at ones, they could stretch to a length of approximately thirty metres, or so K-72 showed us. If only one tail extended while the others were their original length, it could go to a length of two hundred fifty metres with ease. Even when stretched to the maximum, though weaker, the tails were still strong enough to easily kill any known animal

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The length of her tails were to some extent unexplainable, mostly due to the fact that even when fully stretched, there was still a thin line of bones present in the tails, the same thickness as when they were of normal length. This was not all these tails were capable of however, if they were I would not have termed them as 'most useful limbs', but 'strongest limbs'.

Each tail was an extension of her spine, an extension of her central nervous system. The tails also possessed their own, irregular 'brain' near the tips, hidden inside of a bony casing that formed the stinger. The tails from how it seemed, did not contain a venom gland, only a connection leading to the venom glands in jaws. From our estimate, a conclusion we reached after very long, each tail contained anywhere between seventy billion, and a hundred billion neurons. 

Each tail was also very capable of having its own personality and thinking process, seperate from the main body, shown many times due to them picking on each other or doing their own thing while K-72 remained distracted by something else. Even while K-72 was asleep, which was around twelve hours a day in three intervals, two of three hours and one of six hours, the tails did not stop functioning. While the tails did also sleep, each tail only required two hours of sleep a day, and so they took turns sleeping, and all tails were awake while K-72 was asleep.

The unique personality of the tails ended up with us naming them, though it was more of a serial number than a name. K-72-A, starting from her leftmost tail, to K-72-I, her rightmost tail. While we did not attempt to communicate with the tails themselves, the tails seemed a lot more mature than K-72 herself, keeping her away from sharp objects or anything that could be potentially dangerous.

It was also easy to tell the tails, while connected with K-72's central nervous system, were capable of keeping their thoughts to themselves and act independently, even going against her will at times. Though it also seemed like K-72 could, if she so wished, force the tails to obey her commands, she preferred not to, surprisingly.

We continued our research of K-72 as time passed, and Alice got better. Even though Alice was K-72's mother, the concept of a family seemed foreign to K-72. She treated Alice the same as she treated everyone else, even though Alice many times attempted to treat K-72 as a mother would. It did not seem to affect K-72's growth in any way still, her tails usually maintained her well being, playing with her at times to keep her busy.

We wondered if K-72 would have been different with a sibling, but even I could not deny, she was a lot friendlier than I could have ever imagined. Helping out the janitors and our cook at times, keeping our staff entertained whenever they were stressed. It seemed as if she somehow, always knew when anyone was being overcome by negative emotions, and even wishes to help them.

There were times when she would approach me as well, even though I brushed her off everytime. Most of the times she would leave without lingering around, but sometimes she simply stayed there. Not approaching me, but not leaving either, not unless someone dragged her away on my request, or my work was done. Even I realised it only ever happened when I was stressed out with work or for my family. Though she never spoke, it was not hard to tell even for me she was attempting to help, but simply was unaware how she could. Nothing out of the ordinary, considering K-72 was not even a year old, granted she was already the size of someone starting kindergarten or elementary school.

While her size rose many questions, mainly due to her sudden and rapid growth in the first couple months of her life, and then abrupt stop ever since, we could not answer any of those questions. The only thing I could guess of her growth, was the fact that she was more in control of it than other species, capable of increasing or decreasing the speed at will. While her growth was nearly stopped, it was not completely stopped. Every few months she grew a millimetre or two, a very slight change. It was as if she simply grew big enough to interact better with those in her environment, then allowed her growth rate to return back to normal.

I did not dwell on her growth for long however, there were other more worthwhile questions I needed answers to. Such as her endurance, and pain tolerance. While I was strongly opposed for the latter, and talked out of it since it could give her the reason she needs to use her arsenal of weapons, a test for endurance was still allowed to be conducted.

My initial plan was to test the toughness of her bones, but that plan was halted by a sudden change. Scales, many of them, covering her entire body right under the layer of skin-like fur. The only part of her body not covered by those scales were the pair of ears on top of her head, even her tails were clad in scales, excluding the stinger on their tips. While her layer of fur could be easily damaged and removed, without even causing any pain to her now, the layer of scales was far tougher than anything else I knew of, comparing to metallic armor, surpassing it even.

My first response to discovering about them was turn to Birch, who used syringes on her before, which should not have been possible due to her extremely tough scales. I planned to show him one of the scales, and attempted to slowly and painlessly remove it, but she pulled her arm away when I did. By herself, using her retractable claws, she removed one of her scales from her arm and handed it to me before walking away. I was shocked and frozen for a short while, but returned to the task at hand.

"I have never seen anything like this." Birch gasped as he inspected the scale.

"So you are telling she did not have these when you conducted your experiment?" Clarke questioned as he rested his head in his arms at his desk.

"Not once, the syringes passed through her skin, I mean fur, just like it would with any normal human." Birch answered, his attention still on the scale.

Clarke turned to me, the hesitance clear in his eyes. I could tell even he was questioning just how much we knew about what we created, and without a proper list of all the creatures we used it was impossible to make guesses. Different genetics interacting with eachother to reach a stable configuration could also give rise to completely different and unique features, and like many other creatures, there was no guarantee unexpected changes like this wouldn't occur till she became an adult, and we knew nothing of her aging process.

"Birch, I want you to find out everything about these scales." Clarke ordered as he stood up. "As for you, Ross, I request you to continue your research on her, and try to find out how she grew scales out of nowhere."

"I will right away." I turned to the door to leave.

"Also, find out how she was able to adapt to those diseases so fast while you are at it, you are free to recruit anyone from the team you want, just make sure you don't pile up their workload too much." Clarke directed as he sat back down with a sigh.

I nodded and left, determined to set things on the right track. Clarke, at the very least, was finally able to see things more clearly, just how little we knew about her, and just how much she was starting to know about us. I worked on her genetic structure day and night, studying how it was when we created her, how it was when she was born, and how it was now. I could tell there were minor differences, but to study them would take many tiring hours. During this time, I experienced another shocking characteristic of her, and a horrifying truth.

It did not come as a surprise to me that she would get bored of the facility soon, it was much later than my expectations even. She did many attempts at sneaking out of the facility, at first simply following people outside when the door opened, but she was quickly ushered back in the moment the alarm rang. She even tried using her camouflage to sneak out, but the alarm still rang, startling her and causing her camouflage to fall apart.

After attempting to break out several times and failing, she remained near the door the entirety of the day, watching as many of us walked in and out of the facility. It sent a chill down my spine everytime I looked at her, simply sitting there and observing as people walking in and out of the door, conspiring quietly, learning, slowly but surely. Though it still did not concern me, afterall the sensors were made to react to the energy her core leaked, and not to anything, something she couldn't get past, until she did.

It was night, and I was wrapping up my work for the day and preparing to leave, having figured out the base of her genetic changes, hoping to understand the details tomorrow morning. The door opened, and I was used to it opening, having been sitting there for long enough for the door to no longer bother me. Something told me to look up, to see what just happened, and though my brain told me there was nothing to worry about since she couldn't open the door, the feeling persisted, and so I looked up.

The door was open, and no one stood at the door. I was confused for a moment, questioning why it did not close yet. I got up and walked to the door, freezing in horror as I saw the reason for the door still being open. K-72 stood just outside of the door, taunting us, the look of triumph on her face, having proven the fact, that she was only here because she wished to be, and we were not capable of keeping her here against her will, or even knowing if she leaved the facility.

She waited where she was, neither going further out, nor coming back in, she waited as others started to notice and call her back in, afraid to approach her lest that made her turn and escape. After much pleading, she complied to our requests and walked back in, or so my colleagues thought. I was well aware, she only did this to prove a point, to show us how much we underestimated her, she never planned to escape to begin with.

Two days later, I was done with my work, and showed the results to Clarke, who was just as shocked as Birch. "How does she even change her genetic structure?" Clarke gasped, holding his head in his hands.

"I am not sure of the details, but that is just what she has done, multiple times over the months." I answered as I sat down, knowing I was about to be asked many questions.

"How do you think she learned to do that?" Birch questioned.

"I remember many of us teaching her all about genetic structures, which parts of the structure affected what, how the diagrams were different from the actual ones, it might have something to do with all of that, don't you think?" I answered as I relaxed my body.

"How is that possible?" Birch mumbled under his breath, looking down at the floor.

"Have you calculated the number of neurons in her main body?" I questioned.

"Not yet, we were going to soon." Birch replied as he glanced between me and Clarke, who was still frozen from shock.

"Each of her tails has around eighty billion neurons, billion Birch, the thing after million," I reminded. "Us humans have less than a hundred billion, she has over seven hundred billion just in her tails. It should not come as a surprise our genetical engineering or even aeronautical engineering would be elementary level for her brain."

"How much do you think she knows?" Clarke questioned, his expression becoming completely serious.

"More than what we know about her I am certain," I answered. "She observes us as we work, she studies us as we study her, and she does it at a much faster pace due to her developed senses. One of the reason she initially wanted to leave might have been because she already learnt as much as she wished to about us."

"But then why wouldn't she when she broke out?" Birch argued.

"She was showing us, just how powerless we are against her," I answered, resting my head in my hands on the desk. "There was nothing we could do if she was to attempt to break out, except maybe kill her, which reminds me, what did you discover about the scales Birch?" I asked as I turned to him, looking at the scale in his hand.

Clarke also turned to Birch, hoping to not hear any other horrifying news, even Birch could tell that from a single look at Clarke's face

"I am sorry to disappoint you, Clarke, Ross, both of you, but, I don't think we can kill her without the use of high level explosives." Birch answered gravely as he flipped the scale in his arm.

Both our eyes widened in hearing his words, shaking us completely.

"What do you even mean?" Clarke questioned.

"These scales–" Birch pointed to the scale in his hand "–can easily deflect a bullet from even a sniper rifle with ease, at point blank range, or even break most cutting equipment. Even pressure changes aren't very affective on them, and I am inclined to believe they can easily reduce muscle trauma by a great extent because of how flexible they are. They are resistant to temperature changes. I am not saying she is unkillable, just extremely hard to kill, and something we are not capable of, only the military could hope to kill her."

"What are the chances of her killing someone?" Clarke asked, turning to me.

"Low," I answered, "nearly non-existent. I do not trust her, as you both already know, but even I won't deny that she has not shown any sign of aggression, even when her things are taken from her, or when someone takes her chocolate and eats them in front of her. She would only seem hurt, not aggressive in the slightest."

"That is good." Clarke mumbled as he breathed a sigh of relief.

"I think we should report this to the higher ups," Birch suggested, "we could only turn to them if she is to ever turn aggressive afterall."

"Wouldn't it be much wiser to contact the military?" I questioned. "I have certain contacts at high posts in the military, they would be happy to help." I offered my help as I took my phone out of my pocket to lend the numbers to Clarke just in case.

"No, we have gone too far to be able to do that." Clarke shook his head.

"What do you mean?" I questioned, not understanding.

"We experimented using a human test subject," Birch reminded, "and broke many other laws too, we will be sentenced to life in prison if any of this is to be discovered." He shivered in terror on thinking about it.

This entire time, I nearly forgot most of what we did was highly illegal, and would certainly end up with anyone involved being sentenced to life in prison. While I totally agreed with it, I did not want to leave my family, not being able to see them or care for them. I put my phone back in and walked out of the room as everything was sorted out, Clarke having the responsibility to contact the higher ups.

Just a day later, all other members were informed of everything, and restricted from sharing any confidential or important information to her. Many believed we were overreacting, but after hearing all the facts, such as her unbelievably high number of neurons, even they could easily see the possibility. Even more so due to knowing how she was able to bypass my sensors, something I was still unable to explain the cause of.

There was no fault in the sensors, there was no change in her energy signatures either, and she did not possess an ID from a staff member. It made absolutely no sense how she would be able to walk out of the gate like that, moreover open it in the first place, this being her most terrifying feat so far. All of this, wasn't without any adverse affects however.

As no one allowed K-72 to learn what they were doing anymore, she started to get very bored. There was very little to do for her in the facility, even her enclosure wasn't the most suited for her unusually high intelligence. In just a few days, she started showing signs of zoochosis, such as sitting on her swing for hours, tapping on the wall for no reason or purpose, and just rolling around on the ground, none of which was common behaviour for K-72.

It started to feel cruel very soon, keeping a creature with such high intelligence in a similar way to any other creature with lower intelligence. To fix these issues, we gave K-72 several intelligence-based children's toys, such as fixing shapes in a box within a given time period, serving as an intelligence test initially. 

Even for K-72, never having seen such an object, she sat there just looking at it, not understanding what she was supposed to do. She only understood the purpose after we fit one of the shapes in place, starting the timer. She slowly began placing the shapes, her pace increasing with every shape.

There were a total of twenty shapes to be placed, and a timer of a minute. In her first attempt, she placed eight shapes correctly before the timer ended and all shapes were pushed out, startling her. In her next attempt, she placed three shapes and waited, observing the box. The timer again ran out and pushed out the shapes. In her third attempt, she quickly placed all shapes with the help of her tails within twenty seconds, and the timer stopped.

We did make a mistake with this however, by overestimating the duration the box will keep her occupied for. After using it two more times, using her tails, K-72 examined the functioning of the box by taking it apart, and putting it back together, even modifying the timer. After this however, she lost her interest in the box, and ate several of its metallic parts, storing the rest in her enclosure and throwing the plastic parts in the trash can inside of her enclosure, as she never are any plastic articles and found close to no use for them.

We did not need to be told she needed something which allowed a lot more room for a creative mind like hers, and so, we decided to introduce her to every child's worst enemy, mathematics. While I still fail to understand what we were thinking by simply giving her the textbook and hoping for her to understand what needed to be done, but it wasn't what she did at the least. For her first mathematics textbook, of grade one, she ate the book like a sandwich.

This was when, Alice pointed out, we were doing the same mistake we did with her. Afterall, we attempted to teach her mathematics from textbooks written in english, when she did not even know the language itself. The very exact case with K-72, but much different at the same time. Alice, was a human, and teaching her a language did not require much contemplation of pros and cons, but K-72 was not a human. We did not doubt her capabilities, we were very aware she would be able to learn the language in just a few days, we simply did not know if we should teach her or not.

While it would certainly keep her entertained for several years, teaching her our language was a very big decision. She was already capable of understanding most of what we said by now, even having understood what certain words written at places meant, and we were well aware it won't be long before she figures out the entire language for herself.

After a majority vote, it was decided to teach her the language, knowing very well she would figure it out sooner or later. The only reason this decision was supported, was her calm and curious nature, free of aggression no matter what. Alice was given the responsibility to teach K-72, along with Owen's help, who did have experience as a part-time teacher at an elementary school.

It took K-72 about three days to understand most of how the language works, though she did not try communicating with us using it. She simply learnt the language and how things were written, before again being handed the mathematics textbook, a dictionary, and about five children's story books, just in case she got bored or tired from mathematics.

While K-72 was occupied in that, I left her observation to others and tried to understand several other things about her. An estimate of the number of neurons in her main body was also conducted by Birch, which he believed to be over three hundred billion, from her spinal cord and brain together.

While she was bored and showing signs of zoochosis earlier, she also left something for us, which we collected without her knowledge. From how her venom was sprayed around, it was easy to tell she was experimenting with it. From its effect on the plants in her enclosure we could tell it possessed acidic properties, how it worked inside a body was the main question however.

For the purpose of tests, I turned to a trustworthy old friend for experiments, a rat, which I found in my own house. Having tore holes in many of my clothes, I was certain the rat was very pleased with itself, though the turn for being pleased was mine now, though the aftermath did not please even me.

I injected about a millilitre of K-72's venom in the rat's body, only to see how much was needed to kill such a small creature, which showed no effects for a whole minute, making me question if it needed a greater dose, or the venom was simply not made for killing. My guesses were proved wrong fast however, after about one and a half minute from being injected, the rat's body was fully paralyzed and it lay in the cage motionless. It was still very much alive, and aware of its surroundings. Even when I poked it with a pen, it looked as if it wished to run away, but it's body did not obey.

As the two and a half minute mark was reached, the rat's eyes and mouth started bleeding, a case of severe internal bleeding. It's fur also slowly turned reddish as it's past minor injuries burst open, slowly forming a pool of blood around the rat. It was still not dead however, being very aware of its condition and very much in pain. The rat continued to bleed till the four minute mark, at which it's heart exploded and it finally died.

It was a gruesome weapon, a deadly mix of cardiotoxins, neurotoxins, and hemotoxins. It started with the target's nervous system, shutting down it's motor nerves, causing it's body to be paralyzed. Afterwards the venom acted on the blood vessels, causing them to burst and result in severe internal bleeding. Lastly the venom finished the job with the victim's heart, causing clots to form in the major arteries according to my guess, not allowing the heart to pump out blood and causing it to burst as the pressure continued building up. It was a slow painful death, one which I did not doubt would work just as well on a human with a greater dosage.

Right after the rat died, and I was done recording the data, I heard a sound from behind of something dropping. It was K-72, standing behind me, staring in horror at the cage, and the vial resting in a test tube stand near the cage. She seemed to know it was her venom, and that was the result of it, and she did not seem happy of it. She glanced at me for a moment, that look of pure horror still on her face, before disappearing down the hallway with her camouflage.

I did not know what to think of it, the most reasonable explanation was that even she was not aware of just what her venom was capable of. While that was the most reasonable explanation, another less reasonable, but equally possible explanation which I couldn't get out of my head, was that she was afraid, of me, and thought I was the one who did that to the rat, which she wasn't quite wrong about.

My doubt of the latter was further reinforced when she started to camouflage herself whenever she crossed paths with me, and the fact the tips of her tails were always raised in the air around me with the rest of the tails dragging on the ground as usual, something she did when her tails were ready to strike at any moment.

This did give me a reason to study her camouflage now, which I required Birch's help for. He was very knowledgeable of animals which used camouflage, finding them greatly fascinating. From what we found, we were not surprised, slightly disappointed even. Her camouflage worked in the same way as octopi and chameleons. She was capable of changing the color of her entire body, skin, hair, eyes, clothes, tails, everything.

While this allowed for a perfect camouflage while still, if she was to move it appeared like a ripple in space itself. Her camouflage wasn't perfect either, while she could perfectly become invisible from two sides at a time, the other two sides could be noticed if someone was to look very hard. These camouflage tests allowed her to realise this as well, and we did not expect the aftermath.

Throughout the tests, her camouflage became more and more perfect, being able to turn truly invisible from all sides at once after just a couple of days of practicing. Even while moving, she was able to change color much faster and be barely noticeable. Even when knowing where she was it was very hard to see.

This also helped her develop a new favorite activity, scaring us by jumping out of thin air. While it startled all of us the first few times, since we never saw her coming, or even heard her, the boots she made for herself not making any sound while walking, we quickly got used to this. She didn't look scary in the slightest, and once everyone got used to it they simply patted her on the head and sent her on her way after her attempt.

Time passed and she barely showed any growth, neither in size, nor in mental state. She acted her size, being not much different than a little kid, just a lot more curious and cat-like at times. There was still much to be understood about her, but it was not easy to do without her cooperation. She only showed mental growth in one way, which was understanding how trade worked, mainly due to the many story books she read, having been handed many novels from all of us to read when she was bored.

Her understanding of trade, was still much proper than that of many apes which understood it. Unlike them, she did not take our things and ask for something in return. Having learnt the basics of how to write and read, and gotten very good at it from the all novels she read and with the help of her dictionary, she started writing herself. They were only short stories however, just slight alterations of the ones she read. It was a hobby, which we decided to support, since it kept her occupied, and did quite well for her mental growth, and in a peaceful direction too.

We expanded our knowledge of her, as she expanded her knowledge of our world from novels, though many were fictional, she believed them, not having seen the outside world for herself. Many of us wondered if it would be wise to show her how the world truly was, but that did not seem important. As much as I chose not to trust a monster we created, K-72 was still proving me wrong in many ways, not having shown the slightest bit of aggression in her entire life, or committed any malicious acts of any sorts.

She did many things out of curiosity which ended up causing damage, but she never meant to cause harm to us. Not having encountered any living being except us, we wondered how she would interact with other things, and so we decided to temporarily introduce some creatures into her enclosure, while she was asleep.

We placed a couple of lizards, a chameleon, a pair of rabbits, and a pair of birds in her enclosure, along with four kinds of fish in the pond. When K-72 woke up, most of the other creatures took attempted to hide in the enclosure, keeping themselves out of her sight. The first ones she noticed were the fish, which were incapable of hiding from her.

Sitting beside the pond, she eyed the fish for several minutes before dipping her hand in the water. The fish scattered, moving away from her hand as she moved it in the water. She pulled her hand out after a minute of moving it around, shaking off the water and raising it to her head. With a lightning fast movement, causing a big splash, she plucked one of the fish right out of the water, her first instance of predatory behaviour, or so we thought.

She inspected the fish, dropping it back in after just a moment as she was startled. We did not understand what startled her enough to drop the fish, but not enough to turn away from them. She growled an apology, her way of communication, a low growl with her mouth closed, usually being an apology. Standing up, she turned her attention away from the fish, having figured out they couldn't survive outside of water.

The next creature she noticed was the chameleon, sitting on the branch of a shrub, just at eye level for her. She poked the chameleon with her finger, causing it to change its color and attempt camouflaging. She used her own camouflage, disappearing from sight for a moment, before reappearing where she was. With nothing more to do with chameleon she left it alone.

She noticed the lizard by her feet, almost having stepped on it, and performed her usual startled jump as it ran away. It did not seem that she liked the company of the lizards, avoiding both and keeping her distance from them. The next creature she noticed were the two birds, both parrots.

Both were sitting on a high branch on the large tree, looking right at K-72. She looked back at them before spreading her wings. With a powerful thrust from her four wings she launched herself up to the top branches of the giant tree, where the parrots were sitting. The parrots, startled, attempted to fly away, but were grabbed by K-72's tails. Sitting down on the branch and making herself comfortable, she placed both parrots near herself, releasing them from her tails.

She sat calmly with the parrots for a short while, allowing them to grow comfortable with being around her. Her reaction to her new roommates was very calm, something that should have been expected from her. Jumping down from the tree, K-72 used her wings to slow her fall and land safely on the ground, leaving the parrots to themselves.

Now, knowing very well there were many newcomers in her enclosure, she decided to search every inch of her enclosure to find all of them. This she did, using her very handy echolocation. Finding the rabbits, she walked to them, slowly and quietly.

It did not seem that even the rabbits heard any sound from her, trying to run as she pounced on them, wrapping both in her tails. Her plans for the two seemed questionable, due to her somewhat aggressive way of approaching them, but she did not harm them either. She set them back down right after taking a look at the two, crouching down in front of them. From what it seemed she simply did not know how to meet new creatures, more so when they attempted to run from her, something she wasn't used to.

After a few moments of communicating with them from her growls, she picked one of them in her arms. Bringing it closer she embraced it, wrapping her arms around it. From the looks of it, she seemed to like how the rabbit's fur felt to the touch, being her first encounter with something even comparing to the softness of her own fur, though not quite at the same level.

While her roommates were removed the very same day, it did not seem to affect her much. When she returned after they were removed, while she wasn't in the enclosure, she looked around for them for a short while, using her echolocation to try find them. After that, she stood in the center of the enclosure for an hour or two, looking at the ground.

We were starting to question if we should return them to her enclosure, but she returned to her normal self soon so we chose not to return them, and instead gift her a plush toy, which she took a liking to quite fast. It was a dragon, completely black in color with big green eyes, a plush from a movie that released the same year she was born. She carried it with her all the time, keeping it with one of her tails when she couldn't carry it in her hands.

During this time, everything was going well, and even I was starting to take a liking to K-72's company, who was no longer afraid of me, though she still felt unease around me from what I could guess. The only thing which seemed to trouble me now, was Clarke's sudden change in behaviour. It made me suspicious of him, ending with me confronting him after it persisted for over two weeks.

"It's just the higher ups," Clarke sighed, "they want more information about her, and are questioning when we will declare her safe to be shown to the public." Clarke held his head in his hands as he let out a groan.

"Tell them it won't be anytime soon," I answered, "she is just a kid, calm and peaceful, but still completely unstable. It won't take long for a situation to escalate in public, and people can very easily be killed by her even on accident. We also can't forget she doesn't take well to blood, she almost started crying when she saw someone being killed in a movie Richard was watching."

"Yes, I know, I know." Clarke replied as he leaned back in his chair. "You don't have to worry about it, the higher ups are fairly cooperative and not forceful, we have no need to rush. You should focus on K-72, and don't forget about your family either, there are many others who will happily take care of her in your stead."

"I know that very well, you also take care of yourself." I said as I stood up and prepared to leave. "Do let me know if there is anything I can help you with, just don't become depressed or anything." I laughed as I left through the door, momentarily glancing at the smile on Clarke's face as he also laughed.

I did just as Clarke told me to, which was to focus on K-72, and spending more time around her to help her be more at ease in my presence. A week after my talk with Clarke, K-72 again, started acting strangely. She begun to be around me a lot more, and distance herself from most others. This was when she showed her first signs of aggression, which were growls and snarls, along with baring her teeth at times as warning when anyone approached her.

While she did this to nearly all my colleagues whenever they approached her, not once did she do such a thing to me. I was not aware if she somehow grew more comfortable around me, and was holding a grudge from something my colleagues did to her, or was simply starting to dislike them, which I could understand for some. She did not distance herself from me, Alice, and Owen, though she seemed to not like getting too close to Alice either.

It was very strange for the always calm and peaceful K-72, but it did not really hinder me much so I chose to not pay it much mind. I did try to investigate the issue, but no one knew anything, and so all I could do was leave K-72 to decide for herself.

As another week passed from when K-72 started to distance herself from others, I started my research on her ears. Both pairs, though I started with her wolf ears, attempting to draw a comparison between her ears and normal wolf ears. During this time, K-72 sat or played around my workspace, having managed to convince me to buy her novels to keep her occupied. She was, mostly, invisible, and so rarely anyone realised she was here.

On a Wednesday night, as I was preparing to finish the report of my research and go on my way home, K-72 was sitting on the side of my desk, reading the book kept on the desk, swinging her legs which hung off the side. She camouflaged herself as her ears picked the sounds of someone approaching, easy to tell due to the twitching of her wolf ears.

It was Birch, holding two cups of coffee, one he placed on my desk, right beside the novel, on the opposite side of K-72. Due to K-72's camouflage he did not realise she was there, and I did not see any reason to inform him of her presence either. He stood across the desk, looking at me as I was finishing my report.

"What happened?" I asked, not liking how he simply stood there without saying anything.

"Nothing much–" Birch rested his shoulder on the wall of my workspace "–just seeing how much you have changed."

"These type of things can easily change a person." I answered with a sigh, an image of Valka flashing in my head.

"Yeah," Birch sighed, "but life must go on, can't dwell on the past for too long. You just have to work on the present and reach higher for the future."

"What are you implying?" I questioned, knowing Birch wasn't the type to say this type of stuff without a very good reason.

He let out a sigh, looking at the ceiling for a moment. The page of the book flipped, at a painfully slow pace, making no sound as it did. K-72 was still here, observing us, quite intently at that from what I could tell.

"They are restarting the project." He spoke after a few moments, looking down from the ceiling and directly in my eyes.

"What do you mean restarting the project? The project hasn't stopped," I questioned, not understanding what he meant, or rather, not wanting to understand.

"I am sure you also understand what I mean, Ross, I know you do." Birch said, not being able to continue eye contact any longer. "We are being given all we need to make more, more of these type of hybrid creatures, they want different types of things now, some which will easily send a chill down anyone's spine as most people expect this sort of creatures to be terrifying, the higher ups think not many will take well to her."

"Birch, stop the joke," I laughed, "you should hear how crazy you sound."

"They have given the greenlight, and Clarke has accepted it." Birch informed, the color draining from my face. "Our salaries will be doubled, and we will all be given an equal share from ten percent of the project's profits."

"He agreed to this without a majority vote?" I mumbled, finding it hard to believe.

"No," Birch replied, "he did a majority vote, everyone accepted the offer, every single one of us. You are the only one opposing this, Ross, and Clarke also knew you would, so he sent me to try to make you understand."

"To make me do all of that, all of that all over again?" I exclaimed. "Valka died Birch, she took her own life because of what she witnessed here, and you want to do it again?"

"Yes," Birch replied, "she was simply weak of heart, nothing we could do about it."

I stood there, silent, not knowing what to say.

"Alice has agreed Ross, we will be doing this whether you help us or not," Birch informed, "you don't need to join the project if you don't want to, you can continue your research on K-72."

I glanced to my side, where K-72 was. The page of the novel lifted slightly, K-72 letting me know of her presence. There was nothing I could do here, and so I sat back down. "Leave," I requested to Birch.

"Okay," he complied, "I just want you to think-"

"Leave!" I exclaimed. "Just, leave me alone for now."

Birch raised his arms to his side and walked away, leaving me alone as I held my head in my hands. I was aware this was wrong, very wrong, and I did not wish to allow this to continue, but there was nothing I could do. I could feel tears streaming down my face, remembering about Valka, everything that happened in the project, it was all coming back to me, again starting to haunt my mind.

I felt something touch me, causing me to turn. K-72 instantly took a step back, startled. She stood as she was, looking at me with her bright eyes. I could tell she could tell my pain, and wanted to help, but did not know what she could do to help me. Helpless in the situation, just as I was.

She slowly inched towards me, spreading her arms and pressing her body against me, attempting a hug. It did not help with my situation, but it still helped calm my mind in an odd way. It took me many minutes to calm myself down, K-72 not having released me from the hug till I was finally feeling better.

"Maybe you have more humanity than even many humans do." I sighed as I gently patted her head, a gesture she seemed to like if done in a certain way. "I know you understand everything, so I am requesting you, keep your distance from the others, don't let them do anything to you."

K-72 nodded, not trying to hide the fact she understood what was being said, something she did most of the time. She sat back on the desk, waiting for me to leave as she read the novel. I attempted to finish my report, but couldn't. Instead of finishing my report, I copied all the reports and files about her to my pen drive, keeping the originals saved in the computer.

Taking my pen drive I prepared to leave, though I still did not know what I should do. I copied all files to my pen drive just in case, but it did not serve much purpose. Packing my things, and leaving the novel with K-72, I prepared to leave. I waved K-72 a goodbye as I tapped my ID on the scanner and walked out of the gate.

As I reached halfway to the stairway that led up into the house, the gate opened again, though no one stood there. It closed again, and after a moment, I noticed the corner of a brown covered novel floating in the air.

"You are not allowed to be out here." I reminded her as I knelt down in front of her.

Holding the novel to her chest with one hand, K-72 used her other hand to hold on to mine. I knew I needed to send her back in, but for some reason unknown to me, I led her up the stairs, opened the door of the house's basement and walked through the dark house, to its main door. Walking out of it, I stood under the starlit sky, the moon shining brightly to the side, a full moon.

K-72 allowed herself to turn back visible, gazing up at the stars, seeing them for the first time in her life. The starry sky reflected in her pink eye while her blue reflected the moon, her hair blowing to the side in the cold wind. The entire area was mostly barren land with some cacti here and there, a dirt road not far from the house. It was a short walk to my car, which I planned to reach after sending K-72 back in.

"Time's up now, you need to go back." I nudged her gently, causing her to turn and look at me.

It was evident in her eyes she did not wish to go back, she wasn't exactly trapped inside the facility, but it still wasn't enough freedom for her. She wished for much more, and the starry night sky only helped in strengthening that desire. I started to regret my choice to bring her here, it was hard to say no to her, and dragging her back in would be even harder, but I did not need to. While I was expecting for her to spread her wings and escape, she looked down at the ground and walked back into the house, making her way to the basement door and going through it, closing it behind her as she disappeared into the darkness, her pink eye shining through the dark as she glanced one last time at the stars.

That experience couldn't help but claw at my heart as I made my way to my car, and drove back home. I wished to do something, but setting her free would only worsen her situation. Having no predatorial instincts, it was doubtful how K-72 would actually do in the wild. She could of course blend in with humans easily, but if she was to be caught by the government, I did not wish to imagine what would happen.

The next day, I went prepared with several things, hoping to remove a weight from my heart. When I reached the entrance, the entire facility seemed quiet, the workspaces near mine being empty. It came as a shock to me, not having been informed of anything. Even K-72 was not at her usual spot, which was lying down on my desk.

As I took a step towards my workspace my foot hit something, causing me to stop immediately. "Good morning." I smiled as I breathed a sigh of relief.

K-72 followed me as I walked to my workspace and set down my bag, having turned visible while I wasn't looking, attempting to limp like most people do when they hurt their leg. I chose to ignore her overreaction for the moment and complete my work, hoping to make the place feel better. Taking one of the four large rolls of paper I spread it on my desk, the image of the starry night sky, the northern lights also visible, all above an icy tundra, a beautiful piece of art.

K-72 seemed greatly curious, but chose not to disturb me after I brushed her off once. After perfectly pasting all the posters on the walls, giving my workspace a much better look with three posters of the night sky and one of a sunset. K-72 stared in awe at the posters, placing her hand on them and standing for a few minutes like that. It was evident she wished to see these things herself, but she was grateful nonetheless.

Having passed the mirror test and learnt to distinguish computers screens, K-72 could easily tell those were just paintings, not actually there, something most creatures usually fail to do. I chose to finish my report while K-72 was occupied by the art, saving it both in my computer and in my pen drive.

There was much going on around me, and my brain was far too tired to handle all of it. I started thinking about informing the government about all of this, but I was certain they would want to research on K-72 themselves, something I did not wish for them to. While I was researching on K-72, it was mostly to better understand her. I refused to believe the government won't simply exploit her for research, and then put her down once they were done.

There was little I could do, and so I simply did my work, trying my best to not let my mind stray to the darker deeds done by my colleagues. Having K-72 around was helpful in that, since she was always curious about every object she did not recognise, not being satisfied till she checked it in every possible manner with all her senses, the reason she many times broke many things as she attempted to bite and test items.

Being bored with little to do, and not wanting to leave K-72 without anyone around for entire days, I decided to attempt to 'train' her. I doubted it could be termed as 'training', 'teaching' seemed much more accurate to me due to her high intelligence. I decided to start with the usual way of training any creature, with a reward system for doing the right thing. While I knew I could just tell her to do a certain task, and there was a high chance she would complete said task with no questions asked, if she understood what needed to be done. It simply served as a test to her learning speed, which I was already aware to be very high, but I wished to find out just how well she was capable of understanding systems of rules and acting according to them.

To start things up, the next day, I brought with me a button, and set it on the wall beside my desk. I set it fairly low for it to be easily accessible by K-72, before setting a box of chocolates on my desk near the button. Throughout all of this, K-72 stood nearby, observing me with great curiosity.

After setting everything up and making sure her attention was on me, I pressed the button, which made a 'beep' sound. After pressing the button, I picked one piece of chocolate from the box, filled with a hundred chocolates. With everything completed, I went and sat down on my desk. Slowly, with great curiosity and confusion, K-72 approached the button, looking at it for a few minutes and tapping it several times, but not pressing it, already knowing what pressing the button did, which she assumed to be a beep sound.

After inspecting the button, K-72 turned to the box of chocolates, easily having guessed they were meant for her. As she attempted to take one, I blocked her hand, causing her to stare at me for a minute before retrieving her hand. I also pulled my hand away, before blocking her hand again as she went for a second attempt. She let out a low growl before turning away, pacing back and forth as she attempted to figure out where the problem was.

So to keep my colleagues away from the box as they passed through, I took a piece of paper and wrote "Only for K-72" on it before pasting it to the box with the help of some tape. K-72 briefly glanced at the note, ascertaining the fact the chocolates were meant for her before returning to her thinking.

After thinking for some time, as I pretended to busy myself in my work while reading a novel instead, K-72 approached again, slowly extending her hand towards the box of chocolates. I glanced at her, causing her to pull her hand back in an instant. She stood there for a moment before looking to her side, at the button. She then continued to stare at it for around five minutes, as if it was the source of all the world's misery.

She pressed the button, before again turning to the box of chocolates. She slowly extended her arm towards the box, making sure I did not turn towards her, which I did not. Slipping her hand inside the box she grabbed three pieces of chocolate at once and started retrieving them, eyeing them with hunger. Her hand stopped halfway as I grabbed it, stopping it in its tracks and causing her to again look towards me, which turned to another staring contest of three minutes.

She dropped one of the pieces out of her hand back in the box, waiting for me to remove my hand afterwards, I did not. She dropped another piece, and I removed my hand as she pulled her hand out of the box and eyed the piece of chocolate. She tore open its blue colored wrapper, dropping it in the trashcan before eating the chocolate, a weird behaviour of hers.

K-72 was the type to eat anything, meat, plants, metal, anything she could get her jaws on. Yet, she never attempted to eat any sort of plastic object, somehow knowing it was more harmful for her than even the metal chunks she happily devoured.

While I was busy in thought, K-72 pressed the button again, bringing my attention back to her. She reached her hand to pick another piece of chocolate from the box, but was again obstructed by me. She looked at me, before looking at the button, and pressing it before trying again. Still, I did not remove my hand, making her wonder what she did wrong this time.

She pressed the button many times during the day, between different intervals, but I did not allow her to take another piece from the box. Slowly, three hours passed, and I stood up from my seat, drawing K-72's attention. Walking over to the button, I pressed it, before taking another piece of chocolate, and sitting back down. K-72 got up after a minute of thinking, and walked over to the button, pressing it and reaching for her chocolate, unobstructed this time. 

I repeated this for the third time, and K-72 followed perfectly. The fourth time, and the last time for the day as my shift was to end within the next two hours, I did not press the button. Instead, I simply stood up and walked to the box, reaching in for a piece of chocolate. K-72 snarled from her spot on my desk before grabbing my hand with her tail as I did not stop.

There were four chocolates in my hand, and I dropped two, before waiting for K-72 to release my hand, but she did not. I dropped another piece, and again waited for her to release my hand. I felt the grip on my hand loosen and slowly attempted to pull it back out, but the second I moved it the grip tightened again. I dropped the last piece and K-72 released my hand.

I waited for a few moments there, before again reaching for the box. This time K-72 reacted faster, obstructing my hand with her own as she sprawled over my desk to do so, almost knocking off a few items. I retrieved my hand, making an expression of confusion. K-72 looked at me for a few moments before getting down from my desk and walking over to me.

She pointed to me, before pointing to the button and pressing it. After that, she took one piece of chocolate from the box and pulled her hand back out, showing it to me. She reached back in the box, grabbing another piece of chocolate before shaking her head and dropping it.

I repeated the action in the exact order, taking one piece of chocolate as she smiled at me. Using my other hand, I then picked another piece of chocolate as K-72 growled at me. I shook my head as I looked at her and dropped the chocolate before pulling my hand back out. She smiled nervously at me, knowing the last part was unnecessary but being proud regardless.

The next day, I added a different reward system, another fairly easy one. I placed a notebook on my desk, a blank notebook I bought yesterday. On it, I drew one cross at the top left corner of the first page, and picked a piece of chocolate from the box near it. Having been observing me intently, K-72 made a move the moment I returned to my work.

Picking the pen I left on the notebook, she drew a cross, somewhere near the center, and went to pick the chocolate, but was obstructed by me. She instantly turned back to the notebook and picked the pen, trying to figure what she did wrong this time. She drew another cross, this time at the top right corner, but was again obstructed when she attempted to take the chocolate.

She again thought for a while, staring at the paper and the cross I made. After giving it some thought, she drew a cross slightly to the right of the one I drew, and was allowed to pick the piece of chocolate. 

After this, I also checked the box of the previous reward system, and counted the number of remaining chocolates. There were eighty-six pieces remaining, four having been taken by me, four by K-72 yesterday during my shift and one today in my presence along with the one I took. Which meant four during the time I was not present here, meaning she followed the rules even when not under observation, a good sign.

As I added more reward systems, I also added different rewards, such as bigger chocolate bars, cookies, donuts, cake slices. The bigger the reward the longer the wait, to ascertain I do not run out of money. How much I was giving her was very much affordable by me, more so since the higher ups somehow knew about these expenses, and paid me extra to cover these for me, a generous act, though I have long lost my trust in them.

There was much I wished to do for K-72, having grown quite fond of her. It was hard to not wish to care for someone like her, an adorable personality with looks more than enough to make even the toughest hearts melt when put together. The effects of this only grew when K-72 started to realise all of this, purposefully doing things which others found cute when she wished for attention.

The time I spent with her was fun and memorable for me, though I did have a son I needed to care for and make a lot of memories with. A part of my brain was starting to consider the possibility of quitting this job and leaving with K-72, taking her in as my daughter, a part she could easily play with her 'shapeshifting' capabilities, her camouflage specifically, being more than capable of changing her hair and eye color to seem like my daughter. 

This was still asking for far more trouble than I should. I knew nothing about the higher ups, except the fact they were quite fond of K-72, having met her personally several times before, though none of my colleagues were ever allowed to see them. They seemed very insecure regarding their looks, and also very wealthy. It would not be a surprise if I was to be hunted down by several bounty hunters and assassins if I was to take K-72 and disappear, putting my family in danger. Everything was calm and on a decent track for now, and so I did not wish to disturb them. But that was only a wish, which seemed to have been granted, till the breaking point of the last strings holding me together arrived.

It was a Sunday morning, a cold snowy day, reasonably so since it was thirty December. On this special day, I brought with myself, a chocolate cake, for K-72. The last year, on her first birthday, she did not receive anything, everyone having decided celebrating her birthday was not needed, and my past self not liking her very much, I did not object. But this year, I wished to give K-72 a gift, and inform her of what a birthday is, having seen her confusion and curiosity on the birthdays of many of my colleagues.

Walking down the stairs I opened the gate of the facility, surprised to see all of my colleagues standing not far from my workspace. While I chose to no longer be very friendly with them, we were not openly hostile either as long as they did not mention the project. All of them were looking at the ground with a solemn expression, not helping to ease my anxiety on seeing them here. K-72 was also there, though I doubted my colleagues noticed her, she was camouflaged afterall. By making the tip of one of her tails visible for a moment K-72 informed me of her presence, most likely sitting on my desk from the tail's position.

"Ross." Birch called out to me as he stepped forwards, one of his hands behind his back. "We have to tell you something." He informed as I stepped in, letting me know I won't get the chance to place my bag on my desk and show K-72 what I prepared for her. "While we tried to proceed with the project–"

"Birch, we have been through this before, I don't wish to be involved with that project anymore." I replied coldly as I turned to my desk.

"Alice is dead." Birch said as I took a step towards my desk, attracting my attention. "We were informed the wolf we used last time became much more aggressive, having attacked its own pack members, we planned to delay the experiment till we found another candidate, but Alice insisted she would be fine. She was mauled by the wolf, and bled out before we could get her medical care. The wolf was also shot dead as we tried to seperate it from Alice."

My hands hung loosely by my side, all color having left my face, the light having been drained out of eyes which turned to the ground. My throat felt dried and I felt like cutting it off completely. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words rolled off my tongue, I simply stood there, not knowing what to do or say.

"We know this is hard for you," Birch reassured, "and we are not asking you to help with the experiment actively, we only request you to let us know of any other candidates which can be used if you ever have any in mind."

I slowly looked into Birch's eyes, seeing very clearly his solemn expression, his sunken yet determined eyes. He was not joking as I initially thought, every word that he spewed just then was out of sincerity and he meant every last one of them. I took a step back, then another, inching away from those monsters.

"Wait, Ross–" Birch stepped forward, realising what I planned to do– "don't do it, Ross, you will regret it for your entire life."

I shook my head, knowing there is nothing I would regret by doing this. I did not care about what happened to me anymore, I knew my wife was good enough to easily find another, or even be able to raise our child herself. All the money I saved up until will ensure them a life of luxury even if I am no longer there, and there was no one else I ever cared for, and so it did not matter to me if I was to be imprisoned for life.

Birch raised his hidden hand in front of him, pointing the pistol held in it straight towards me. "I did not wish to do this, Ross, I wanted for you to be able to understand, this means a lot to the rest of us, even if you can't see it in a similar way."

I did not stop, I kept stepping backwards as Birch steadied his arm. Turning and running was an option, but I was not faster than a bullet for it to make much difference. I did not think I would even make it out alive, I could only count on Birch to not pull the trigger, to summon any piece of humanity that might have remained, buried deep inside of him, but it did not seem to be the case.

I heard the sound, of the gunshot, but I did not feel the bullet. I believed there was another sound, a weird sound I never heard before, sounding similar to someone being shot. I glanced for a moment at my body before I realised what happened. K-72 materialised in front of me, having been camouflaged the entire time. She was the one, who took the bullet, and was now required to pay the price of doing so.

She fell to the ground, clutching her chest as the expression's of all my colleagues turned to horror.

I did not see what happened after that, before I knew it my body moved on its own, turning away and moving out of the gate, before pressing my ID to the gate to close it. After that, I retrieved another keycard from my coat pocket, pressing it on the sensor as I turned away. It was the emergency lock, requiring a minimum of five minutes to be opened, and only Clarke and Birch knew about it except me. I heard screams from the inside, not screaming for me, but screams of pain and terror.

I did not stop even after that, I ran all the way up the stairs and to my car. The sun was blocked by black clouds that covered the entire sky, threatening to cause a downpour at a moment's notice. It seemed that my entry into my car was the notice the clouds needed, raindrops having started falling as soon as I got in my car and started it. 

I drove like a madman towards the nearest police station, knowing they wouldn't believe me if I was to explain to them on call. If I was in person however, I could show them my pen drive, all of that data, they would have to believe me then. The storm grew stronger as I drove, the winds bending the trees and threatening to snap them in half as thunder roared in the sky.

Due to the heavy rain, I failed to see the shallow hole in the road. My tire went over it, causing me to lose control of my car, something which would not have happened if I was not going ninety miles per hour. As I attempted to regain control of my car it slid on the dirt road, losing its grip.

When I finally regained control of my car, which somehow managed to not stop, I saw greenery in front of me from my windshield, of trees, a considerable distance away from me, blurred by the rain. My eyes widened as I realised what that meant, but I already knew it was far too late for such realisations. My body relaxed as I felt as if I was floating in the air, a feather with no weight. All senses came back to me as my car hit the ground, a sixty feet drop right into the dried out river.

While I wrestled to regain control of my car, I missed the bridge used to cross the river, and before I realised it was already too late. My body was losing consciousness, and even then, even in my final moments, I only wished for the project to be stopped forever. My family glimpsed in front of my eyes as they closed for the last time, the last image my mind glimpsed being of K-72, the screams I heard from the inside echoing in my mind.