Specimen

“I suggest you keep any of those involved in testing my ‘limits’ away from me from now on.”

Cross stops smiling and narrows his eyes at me.

“If it makes you feel better, you put that poor young man in the hospital earlier today.”

“That ‘poor young man’ drove nails into my legs.”

Riley tightens her grip on my hand.

“This isn’t productive,” Merle says as he reaches over and places his hand on the table in front of Cross, gives him a stern look, and then comes back to me. “What was done to you shouldn’t have happened, and it won’t happen again.”

I take a deep breath and lace my fingers through Riley’s. Being next to her is already affecting me, and I relax into the chair just as Errol Spat walks in.

“Did I miss the party?” he asks with a big grin. He takes a seat between Merle and Anna.

“Just getting started,” Merle says. “I’ve been reassuring Galen that there won’t be any repeats of the past.”

“Well, I have a shit-ton of data at this point,” Errol says. His words are accompanied by a lot of animated gestures, and he nearly pokes Merle in the head a few times. “I can say for sure that all the programming that went into the anti-torture subroutines functioned as expected. Cooling the implants had a definite effect, but the result was a shutdown of all processes, so you still can’t get information out of them that way.”

I stiffen and glare in Errol’s direction, and he gives me a half smile.

“Just sayin’.” He looks down at his notes and continues. “I don’t think any of that led to the breakdown of the implant, either. The symbiotic relationship between the mechanical implants and the hormones and other drug treatments was the definite cause.”

“That was expected,” Riley says. “We know they can’t go long without FOG; it’s the basis for the bridge between the organic brain and the cybernetic system.”

“Exactly.” He points a finger at Riley. “Which is where you come in. Tell me something about the compound you’re taking.”

“Hormones and pheromones,” Riley says. “The injection is designed to further the bond between doctor and specimen.”

“But yours are different, aren’t they?”

Riley shuffles in her seat a bit.

“Slightly.”

“I thought the differences in your methods had to do with the component chemicals introduced into the specimens.” Anna tilts her head and looks at Riley.

“There was a change to my compound as well.”

“What kind of change?”

Riley looks back and forth between Anna and me before answering.

“I introduced bombykol into my system,” she says, “and programmed his implants to detect it and react.”

“Isn’t that a moth pheromone?”

“Yes.” Riley lets out a frustrated sigh. “I used that one because it’s one of the strongest and most easily synthesized. The type didn’t matter, as long as the speci…as long as Galen reacted to it.”

“You tried to turn me into a moth?” I can’t help it; I laugh out loud.

“Technically, I turned myself into a moth.”

“She made you have a thing for moths.” Errol laughs as well.

“You do realize it has upset your own balances as well, don’t you?” Anna asks.

“Of course,” Riley says. “I understood the risk, and it’s not unprecedented. Shark DNA is a component of FOG as well, to boost the immune systems of the specimens.”