October 19, 2361 AIA

P67

Jane cracked her head against the lab table as she lunged to catch the fleeing cat. She heard the unnerving rattle of her equipment being jostled and felt the beast’s tail slide through her closing fingers.

“Joseph! The door!” she yelled, ignoring the white sparks dancing around her vision.

Joseph Tate threw himself across the floor to block the cat’s path, rolled to his back, and grabbed the feline as she made a heroic leap to get over him. He pulled the cat close to his chest, despite the fact the animal was now nothing more than claws, fangs, and furious struggling.

“Got her!” He closed his eyes, praying his face would escape this time.

Jane stormed over to her assistant, put her hand down into the flailing, blood-coated sharpness, and grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck. The animal went limp after another two more useless swipes.

“That is it!” Jane yelled at her. “You are so my next experiment.”

The cat announced her displeasure by means of a loud, ominous moan.

“Don’t even start with me, you furry little bitch!”

Tate pushed himself off the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Whoa, Doc. Are you okay?”

Dr. Jane took a deep breath. Her vision cleared a little. “Yeah.” The cat hissed at her. “It’s been a rough day.” She took another deep breath.

Tate got to his feet. “Do you want me to take her?”

Jane glanced over at her assistant. She could see the red marks already welling up on his arms. “No, thank you. I’ve got her.”

“I’ll get the cage ready.” Tate walked toward the wall of metal cages where the other lab animals were already eating.

The cat began moaning again.

“Oh, lord,” Jane grumbled.

Even though he was partway across the room, the doctor still heard Tate’s quiet laugh. “She really hates that cage,” he said, shaking his head.

“And she’s really good at escaping. She’s really good at being nothing but a big, fluffy butthead!” Dr. Jane realized she was yelling at the cat again. It didn’t improve her mood.

“Why don’t we try not putting her in the cage?” Joseph suggested.

“Because that would make her a pet, when she clearly deserves to be nothing more than science leftovers.” Jane held the cat closer to her face so they could glare at each other. “You hear me? Dissection!”

There was a petite feline sneeze.

Joseph left the open cage and walked over to them. “You know, Doc, you’ve been threatening her for weeks now. I think you’re getting attached.”

Jane curled her arm under the cat’s legs while keeping a hold on her scruff. “Don’t be stupid. All I do is yell at her and call her names.”

Tate held up his hands. “All of which she’s earned.” As he lowered his arms, he added, “But I don’t hear you yelling at the other animals.”

Jane didn’t know what to say. Her blaze of indignation at the ludicrous accusation was somewhat dampened by the suspicion that her assistant might be right. Her favorite animal was an ornery feline that fought tooth and nail to get her way, despite constant failure. What did that say about Dr. Jane?

Nothing she didn’t already know. The damn cat was practically her hero.

Jane looked down into yellow-green eyes that were barely more that slits.

“Your name is Cuss,” she announced. “You’re my pet now, so get used to the idea. No more scratching my assistant, and I won’t put you back in the cage. Do we have a deal?”

Cuss hissed at her.

“Deal.” Dr. Jane opened her arms. Cuss hit the floor with all four paws tensed. “Go on!” Jane motioned to the partly open door that led to the rest of the house. “The whole place is yours now. I’ll bring your dinner out to the kitchen.”

Cuss slunk out of the room, keeping a wary eye on them as she went.

Jane sighed again. It came out louder and more heartfelt than she intended. She put a hand to her forehead and looked around the room. “Did we get—”

“Yes, Doc. I always feed her last,” Tate said.

“And—”

“And the specimens are put away, properly labeled. I’ve taken care of everything.”

Jane tried to smile despite her exhaustion. One edge of her lips twitched. “Well done.” She went over to the table to pick up the can of cat food and her notebook. “Let’s go clean up those scratches.”

“They’re not bad, Dr. Jane.”

“You’re not getting an infection. I can’t spare you.” The doctor disappeared from the door without bothering to see if he would follow her. Joseph Tate was good at following instructions. That’s why he was still her assistant.

Tate looked down at his mutilated arms and shook his head with a wry smile.

After he checked to make sure all the locks and alarms were active, he followed the biologist into the kitchen. Jane had already pulled out the first-aid kit. She gave curt directions for him to wash his hands and arms, then dressed his scratches with all the care and consideration she would have used on a dead lab specimen. Tate didn’t take it personally. He knew that was the way Dr. Bonumomnes worked. If you didn’t like it, you were welcome to quit.

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Well, most people were welcome to quit. Things were a little more complicated for him.

He watched her face as she worked on his arms. Despite her claim that it was only a rough day, he was sure something more was bothering her—something bad enough to blunt her already limited patience.

As she ripped the backing off a bandage, Joseph said, “You’ve been getting more emails.”

“I always get emails. They never stop.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been reading them.”

“And?” Jane slapped the bandage down on his arm.

Tate shrugged. “Why do you do it?”

“Because I can’t kill off the speck of hope that someday a real biologist will take me seriously and I might actually have a colleague again. In the meantime, I have to wade through billions of emails from people who are completely insane.”

“You’ve heard from other scientists.”

“I meant Supremacy scientists.”

“Why? Are they smarter?”

Jane raised her eyes to glare at Tate. In all, he wasn’t bad. He was older than most of the assistants she’d worked with, which meant he was more mature, but if he had a failing, it was his tendency to be condescending toward anything that had to do with the Supremacy. She reminded herself that he’d grown up on a free-plane, and she glared at him to remind him she hadn’t.

“Sorry,” he said.

“We have to get them to listen.” She stood up and closed her first-aid kit.

Tate turned in his chair to watch as she put it away. “Have you heard back from any of your old friends?”

Jane shut the cabinet. “They don’t want to have anything to do with me.” Without turning around, she added, “One of them called me a traitor.” Her teeth ground together. “A traitor.”

Joseph had a sneaky suspicion he knew why her day had been so rough.

Of course, it might have something to do with her other concern.

Jane, in the meantime, had pulled down a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. She lifted an empty glass for Tate to see.

“No, thanks,” he said.

Jane turned around and leaned back on the counter, her wine in hand. She opened her mouth to say something, but was distracted when Cuss came into the room and hopped up on the table. The cat and the doctor stared at each other. Jane pushed away from the counter and came over to scratch the cat’s head. Cuss tactfully allowed it.

“It’s getting late.” Jane looked up at her assistant. “Did you transfer the recordings and pictures?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Joseph. I really appreciate what you do.” She motioned with her glass to his bandaged arms. “Including all the things that weren’t in the job description.”

Tate reached his hand toward the cat. “Well, now that there’s no cage, hopefully—” When Cuss hissed at him, he jerked his arm back. “Or not.”

Jane pushed the animal’s head down. “Hey! I said to be nice to him.”

When the biologist lifted her hand, Cuss shook herself and let out a meow.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Joseph.” Jane picked up her notebook and went toward her study. “Please—”

“I’ll make sure the door shuts behind me.”

“And that Cuss doesn’t get out.”

“Oh.” Tate eyed the feline. “Right.”

But Cuss didn’t seem interested in the larger world. The cat had followed Jane without glancing toward the exterior door as Joseph left.

Once Tate was outside, he took a deep breath of the cool night air and stared up at the planetary rings. They glowed with reflected light from the hidden sun. Their constant presence meant it was never truly dark on Gaoyun, which suited the planet perfectly. The cities were always awake, filled with red and orange lanterns to supplement the milky glow of the rings. Even this modest town would have a few distractions to offer. Joseph stuck his hands in his pockets and whistled as he walked toward the nearest bar.

[https://i.imgur.com/6iM8gcI.png]

Jane finished typing up her notes and published them to her site. As they were uploading, her bleary eyes scanned her general files, trying to spot the telltale signs that her favorite hacker had left her another Easter egg to hunt down. There was nothing.

“I guess he’s still busy,” she murmured.

A sense of mild disappointment settled in her stomach. When she noticed it, she furiously rubbed her face with her hands.

“I must be out of my mind.”

She took in a long, slow breath and leaned back in her chair. The doctor usually enjoyed the lull at the end of the day, but tonight it only meant the troubled thoughts she’d been ignoring finally had a chance to catch up with her.

How could there have been so many of them?

The xenos were undoubtedly dangerous. If you didn’t know what they were or what to look out for, all they needed was contact with your body and it was almost inevitable that they would find a way inside. She’d had nightmares about frantically trying to push one off her. The slick of silver-white goo smeared over her arm but wouldn’t be dislodged. She always woke up in a sweat, and the next day she would make her assistant promise to shoot her if anything went wrong. She’d lose an arm. It’d be a small price to pay.

But she’d been working with them for months, and with reasonable precautions, there’d been no accidents. The transformed xenos had to be watched and caged properly, but the untransformed xenos were almost docile. At their fastest, it was like watching white-silver molasses crawl around. If one did manage to escape, all you had to do was back away and shoot it with an e-weapon.

She could imagine one person accidentally falling victim to them—maybe two, if someone reacted in a panic. But after that any reasonable person would’ve known they had to use caution, and that should’ve been enough to prevent anything else from happening.

It was hard to tell when Project 32 had started, but the incident at the mental hospital seemed to show at least six human-xenos had existed before the military had intervened.

At least.

Those two words haunted her.

The information she’d been able to hack her way into during her furtive investigation was fragmented and woefully incomplete. She knew about the accident that had destroyed an entire laboratory and resulted in the first human-xenos, but there were no details. When she tried to work out how many there were, her best reconstruction came up with a mercifully low number.

But still, six?

Even that number seemed implausible. What kind of a lab accident could explain it? But what else possibly could? The more she worked with the xenos, the more uneasy she felt about the information she had regarding their origins.

Perhaps it didn’t matter. After all, the original numbers were only the start of the problem. There’d been far more than six human-xenos before Project 32 had been shut down.

Jane only noticed Cuss had wormed her way onto her lap when the doctor’s absentminded petting elicited a purr that shook her legs.

Jane smiled. “Brat.”

Cuss continued purring.

She glanced back at her monitor. “A lab accident, huh? That must have been some accident.” Shoving aside her concerns, she said to the cat, “Bedtime. Come or not, as you like.”

Dr. Jane put her machines to sleep, put Cuss down on the floor, and turned off the lights as she left the room.

[https://i.imgur.com/6iM8gcI.png]

A half hour later, the front door opened.

It was shut with care, to make as little noise as possible. There was a quiet metallic click as the security system was uncovered. A card slid through the scanner, then a series of numbers was punched into the pad. The lights on the security panel dimmed. In the darkness, a man made his way to the study. He woke up Dr. Jane’s main computer and slid into the desk chair with an uneasy glance around the room. Once he was in place, he shuffled from program to program, entering passcodes and pulling up back-door systems.

There was a soft noise behind him.

The next instant, his e-pistol was drawn and pointed at the source of the sound.

A long second passed before the man sighed and lowered his weapon.

“Dammit, Cuss,” Tate whispered, “you scared the shit out of me.”

The cat glared at him in a way eerily reminiscent of her owner.

“Don’t look at me like that. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be in a cage.” He turned back to the console and monitors. “Besides, what she doesn’t know about, she can’t get mad about.”

Cuss launched herself onto the desk and watched as Tate pulled up the doctor’s emails and messages. He flicked through them until he found the ones he was looking for. For a while he was as motionless as the cat beside him. Then he pulled a nan-card out of his pocket and inserted it into the console.

Seven minutes later, a voice came out from the speakers. “This is Vas.”

“Ciro, it’s Tate. Her stalker is back.” Joseph’s eyes were drawn to the other monitor where the email was still open. “And, dude, this guy is starting to scare me.”