BZRK (BZRK 1)

She had stabbed it into the pale part of his arm, and now there was a tiny gobbet of his own meat stuck to the end of the needle and a small but enthusiastic bleeder.

“That’s the only part that isn’t automated,” she said with a distant smile. “Also the only part that hurts.” She handed Keats a Band-Aid.

Dr. Violet set the syringe on a small stainless-steel holder. She then took a windowed plastic bag from a drawer, tore it open, and withdrew something rectangular, the size of a phone, or a little smaller. It was white, smooth, sleek with rounded edges. It looked like something from an Apple store.

She pressed the only button, and the rectangle opened like a blooming flower. A light came from within.

“It’s called a crèche,” Vincent said. “Each crèche holds two biots. Or will, once they’ve grown.”

Dr. Violet deposited the piece of human flesh within the petals, pressed the button again, and it closed.

Plath did not cry out in pain when it was her turn. But she’d had warning, unlike Keats.

He wondered what her real name was. He wondered if he’d ever know. Susan? Jennifer? Alison? He had the feeling everyone but him knew it.

She was looking around the room with some expression other than fear or nervousness. More like regret or loss, maybe.

Keats was good at reading expressions. Girls always told him he understood them. It had worked for him, that ability to actually pay attention to girls’ emotions. It seemed that looking at their faces occasionally, and not just at their breasts or bums or legs, worked wonders. Occasional glances at eyes and mouth and forehead, that was the ticket.

Which was not to say that he wasn’t aware of the curve of Plath’s breasts as she leaned over to take the Band-Aid.

The crèches slid into what looked very much like ancient CD drives.

“There are many unique aspects to the biot process,” Anya said. “Gene splicing, of course. The basics of that are well established. But intra-species splicing at these speeds is new and unique to McLure. And very closely guarded.”

“Why not get it out there?” Keats asked. “I mean, look, secrecy is the problem, isn’t it? If everyone just knew that this was possible …”

Similar looks from Dr. Violet and Vincent silenced him.

“It’s illegal,” Plath said. Not like she was guessing, or like she was just realizing it. But like this fact had long been known to her. “If the government ever learned that we … that they … were recombining DNA to make whole new life-forms? This place would be swarming with FBI, everyone involved would be in prison, and the company would be bankrupted.”

Keats started to ask something else, but a flicker, just a slight, unspoken no from Vincent stopped him.

What he’d been about to ask was this: Why doesn’t the other side, the bad guys, why don’t they tell the FBI?

But the answer was clear enough, when he thought about it. It was a pact of silence. Both sides had incriminating evidence on the other. If one side went public, so would the other. If that happened, both sides would be hauled off to prison. And the technology would die.

Except: no.

No, that was wrong, wasn’t it? It wouldn’t die. It would be taken over by the government, weaponized even more than it already was.

And what government could resist the opportunity to engage in a bit of nanowar with whatever enemies arose? Even if those enemies were their own people?

Keats noticed Plath watching him. She knew all this. She was watching the thoughts revealed on his face. Timing him. Wondering how long it would take for him to put it all together.

She seemed moderately impressed by what she saw.

And I just realized who you must be, too, Keats thought. Oh, my God: you’re the daughter. The surviving McLure.

He sat back in his chair. He’d been leering at a billionaire. That couldn’t possibly work out well.

Still. They were just a wall apart back at the … what was it supposed to be called? BZRK headquarters? That sounded a bit melodramatic for a dump above a greasy deli.

And she didn’t seem the snobbish—

Keats put his hand to his forehead. Suddenly the room was spinning. He put his other hand on his chair, afraid he was going to be tilted out of it.

“Do you have a bedpan or something?” Vincent asked Dr. Violet.