Xeno Sapiens

by Rena Marks

  The individuals varied in colors, and all humanoid in shape due to their human genes. But the alien portion of their anatomy was readily apparent. In addition to the skin color, some had scales. Others had striations of skin color—still others had actual ridges and bumpy plates beneath their skin.

  “We call the project GAH, Genetically Altered Humans. Specifically, they are Xeno Sapiens, using both human and alien DNA. If we can successfully waken these beings, our next project will be to merge more than just human DNA. We can make some aquatic, adding gills, flippers, fins from fish. Hence the collection in the lobby. Others may be winged by using avian DNA. The possibilities are endless, and we are quite excited to do more exploration. Unfortunately, we’ve been unsuccessful thus far. Which is why we need you, ladies. This time, in addition to brain matter, we’ve inserted a tiny computer into the hindbrain, near the medulla. The computer will act as a jump start for the organic brain, and naturally will make computing faster, yet they will retain normal human feelings and emotions. While not exactly cyborg technology, they will benefit from the best of both worlds.”

  Robyn held her tongue. If a computer was able to jumpstart the brain, it could also be used to control and shut down the brain, which is why cyborg genetics were so controversial and not yet in use. They were purposely not sharing that information. And the thought of experimenting with mixing animal DNA into humans turned her stomach even more than the scientist in her was titillated by the discovery of otherworldly beings.

  “Without brain waves, they’re simply bodies. Organ farms,” Amanda whispered to her.

  Robyn blanked her facial features. Apparently she had an expression of disgust written across her face, since that was exactly what she was feeling.

  “I was wondering…if they were in pain,” she said.

  “They shouldn’t be feeling any pain,” Amanda said.

  Director Meade continued on. “Of course not. Without active brain waves, they don’t feel a thing. Don’t worry, you can get up close and personal as soon as you’re ready. I can only imagine how much you’re both itching to jump right in. I will show you how to use the decontamination unit so no bacteria is introduced into the exploratory lab. I’ll also show you where you’ll be staying.”

  Amanda appeared fascinated by the concept of the methods used to modify the Xeno Sapiens. Robyn figured she’d probably find it fascinating, also, if she could get past the thought that they actually wanted to bring these beings to life. What in the world would cause them to not have life in the first place? They had a brain. Why would a computer be necessary, like a battery hook up? Had they created a first round already? If so, where were they, and were they successful or not?

  Director Meade finished up explaining the decontamination techniques, which she barely paid attention to because she was more than aware of decontamination chambers. Hell, she’d been involved in the construction of more than one or two.

  “Allow me to show you to your chambers,” Meade said gallantly. “Your bags have already been brought there. And as soon as you want, you can jump into work here. Your six month contract will fly by.”

  “I’d love to delve in.” Amanda’s eyes were shining with anticipation.

  “I knew this would be an exciting partnership,” he said, smiling smoothly. He led them back out to the giant, round room with sliding doors on either side. “This is actually a sub-elevator,” he said, as if proud of himself. “This first level consists of the experimental laboratory, but it is below our surface. The main level is the lobby you entered. Our living quarters are on the third level, and our own human wellness area consists of the entire second floor. Exercise quarters, light exposure therapy, etc.”

  Robyn wondered how much time away from the above ground before they all went crazy from lack of fresh air and sunlight. That could be why they worked in six month stints.

  He pushed the button for the third level. Robyn glanced quickly at the control panel. There was a button for an additional floor that was locked. She made a mental note to find out why.

  Down the hallway of the third level were various small apartments. “We currently have two wings of a dozen rooms. At this moment, you are the only females, so it will just be the two of you on this wing.”

  He stopped at one of the doors. “This is your room, Dr. Becker.”

  “Please, call me Amanda,” she murmured.

  “Amanda,” he said gallantly, releasing a control panel on the wall to show a palm imprint screen for locks. He used his key card to swipe the lock and then took an image of her palm and locked the image in. “Robyn will be across the hall from you,” he said. “Feel free to take the elevator anywhere you wish to explore, or head back down to the Xeno Sapien unit.”

  “Thank you. I’ll just unpack and freshen up a bit,” she said. “Robyn, I’ll see you downstairs later?”

  Robyn nodded, smiling brightly to simulate the same excitement the other two showed.

  Amanda closed her door and Director Meade turned to the door across the hall. He released the control panel on her door lock also.

  “I chose to get you settled last to point out a somewhat delicate issue,” he said.

  Alarm prickled down Robyn’s spine like the dripping of an icy liquid down her naked skin. She fought the urge to shiver it away and instead remained perfectly still.

  “Of course we appreciate your computer programming skills. You have proven yourself to be the best in the world. But we also value your other persona in the fact that Eve has—shall we say special access—to sensitive materials? It would make this project much smoother and faster to have access to research already done around the world so we’re not repeating trials and errors that have already been done. For that aspect, we’ve brought in the top of the line equipment for your use, and while you may know more of the matter than we do, we believe it’s completely untraceable to this location—or to the Global Government.”

  He was informing her, in no uncertain terms, that her computer hacking would be more than welcome here. She kept her expression perfectly neutral. All her years of schooling, all the awards she’d won, all the advances she’d made for mankind—and he was interested in her hacking skills from high school.

  She pressed her palm down on the scanner. She smiled as brightly as Amanda had. “Thank you, Director Meade. I’m more than excited to explore my brand new computer. I’ll certainly make sure it’s secure. I would never allow anything to get traced here.”

  His smile faltered briefly. Then his small eyes dropped briefly on her form. “I knew we’d see things eye to eye.”

  The same prickle of alarm reignited down her back. Her door unlocked with a ping. She took a step inside. “Thanks again!”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “I’m so excited! I’ll take a quick peek at the computer and head down to the lab.”

  She closed the door on him, like an overly bubbly teenage hacker that he’d requested. But as soon as the door shut, her persona changed. Her eyes narrowed, and her walk was stealthy.

  Instead of a small motel room, the place was an interior suite. There was a food replicator in the kitchenette and a few plates in the cupboard. A sofa sat in the living area. Next to the sofa sat a desk topped with a shiny, top-of-the-line new computer. Each room in the suite had a simulated window, which she assumed would emit a certain percentage of UV rays for additional light therapy. A bedroom and separate cleansing unit were set up in the back of the suite.

  The first thing she did was ignore the bags already placed in the bedroom. She headed for the computer, switching it on. While she waited for it to fire up, she adjusted the position of the desk to aim away from the lights in the ceiling and from the simulated window. Cameras could be hidden in both electrical places to view her keystroke placement, though she was more than sure the computer itself had a mechanism in place to spy.

  The machine active, she looked into the strategic places to see if keystrokes were recorded. Bingo, enclosed w
as an intricate inlaid application. She deleted it. She searched other places and found one other, probably a back up. Hacking 101. After deleting the second, she got to work with a simple method of scrambling the keyboard so none of her keystrokes would be traced. No one ever thought to check an external device like a keyboard. Taking her fingernail, she inlaid the keyboard with the smallest scratch in the shiny plastic. The scratch would be easily felt with the pad of her pinky—and would allow her to quickly identify the keyboard as the original one she’d scrambled. It would take her typed commands a bit longer to maneuver through items, but thankfully they’d gotten her the fastest model available, and speed shouldn’t be much of an issue.

  Once online, she quickly searched the documents of the laboratory, splaying out the plans for each room. Just as she’d thought, there was a camera placed in the light fixture of the living quarters and one placed in both windows. She scrambled the instructions for the window codes for both her and Amanda’s apartments. The programmers would be led to believe they had unwittingly enabled the cameras to become active only when the windows were in use. They could only record Amanda should she have the windows turned on. If Robyn ever visited her, she would squint to pretend she had a headache, which would make Amanda turn off the simulator. The overhead light’s camera, she couldn’t do anything about without raising suspicion. She’d just have to be aware her movements were watched and avoid direct contact. At least now that she’d rearranged the computer desk, they couldn’t see the front of the 3D image of the computer’s hologram, nor the keypad. Next, she quickly opened the computer unit and searched inside for physical devices. The tiniest transmitter lay inside. Not caring that they saw her remove it, she had to assume they placed it there for her to find and ease her mind that she’d uncovered the device, perhaps ignoring any other venues she’d uncovered.

  Idiots.

  It took her about an hour to clean the computer and then delve into searching their files. What she found boggled her mind.

  Director Meade threw out the term Global Government often enough that she was sure Crested Labs was privately funded and he was trying to scare her with his power. But what she found terrified her. The government was funding the GAH project. Genetically Altered Humans. Phase one contained fifty beings, all enhanced with alien DNA. Phase two would contain an additional fifty beings—this time enhanced with animal DNA.

  This was mindboggling. Blocked from the view of the camera in the light fixture, she wiggled her long pinky nail on her left hand. She winced slightly at the tenderness in her nail bed. The glue was fresh, as she’d just applied it this morning. She probably hadn’t needed to be so paranoid. It normally held quite well for two weeks at a time without reapplying. She just figured better safe than sorry, and right now she was regretting it.

  Finally the nail popped off, showing her natural nail underneath. She picked it up and plugged it into one of the computer ports. It was too thin for manual detection, but her zip drive had all of the capabilities to be used and copied to.

  In the past, they used to be called thumb drives. That had given her the idea for the device to be glued on as a fingernail. No one ever suspected that a thin piece of false fingernail was a zip drive.

  After copying copious amounts of files and organizing them, she attached the nail to her still-sticky finger and pressed well. It adhered easily enough. The glue would weaken more each time she removed the nail, but experience taught her she had at least a dozen maneuvers until she had to re-glue.

  In her luggage was a kit of other false nails and the special glue. The nail tips all contained one color, since changing her nail color would mean having to bring a nail polish color to get the pinky zip drive to match, and that would raise suspicions. Not that a man would notice a matching nail polish bottle…but a woman might. A woman would wonder why there was a need for both nail polish and false nails in matching colors.

  Of course, a man may not even notice the neutral mauve shade she picked for her nails. Hopefully they’d be inconspicuous enough to not raise suspicion.

  After an hour of research, she sighed and stretched, then turned off the computer. She walked to the simulated window and turned it on. She’d probably need all the light therapy she could get, and not using it could raise suspicions that she suspected being watched. She quickly unpacked her suitcase and made herself a cup of tea and a snack. It was important to keep a cool head and try to act normal as she was sure this first day every single detail of what she did would be scrutinized.

  Finally, she headed down to the first level. Her footsteps thudded carefully along the concrete floors, dragging, as if even they were aware she was about to have her innocence shattered.

  Chapter Three

  Amanda had four of the bodies extended prone on the backboards that pulled from the wall. Carefully, she examined each body, comparing it to the data on the computer tablet she carried. She looked up at Robyn’s approach.

  “They kept copious notes,” she told her. “Of course, while they report what percentage of alien DNA was used on each person, we don’t really know what that original alien was like when alive. The bodies were not intact from so many centuries of being submerged in salt water. Upon the discovery, small tissue samples were put aside and locked in storage. Centuries later, those are the samples from which they extracted DNA. I do notice that some of the bodies have dual organs—the blue skinned? They have two hearts, one on each side of the body. It’s fascinating that they are able to get the bodies active, even if the brains are not.”

  “I don’t care if their brains are inactive. I know they can’t feel, think, or hear. But these are people…and I could almost swear they know they exist,” Robyn said. “It’s just an uneasy feeling of being watched.” There. That was the first seed she planted in Amanda’s mind of the fact that the government and Crested Ute watched them.

  “I know the feeling,” Amanda said, distracted in her readings. “Think of them as dead bodies on life support. Just here for organ supply.”

  “How do we know shocking the brain to interact with the computer inside won’t be painful to the organic body? No one has ever been through this.”

  Amanda chewed her bottom lip. “All we can do is pray that it isn’t, I guess. I mean, no one really knows if birth was painful, do we? Or death. We assume both aren’t or that the infant quickly forgets the pain if so.”

  “I’m glad the computers are already present—and have been there since the bodies were created. If they are feeling anything, at least it will be just the pain of being connected and not having half their brains removed to make room in the skull for the computer.”

  Amanda looked amused. “That’s not really how it works. The micro computer was placed in the growing skull before cell development, and brain tissue developed around the processor. Right now the processor is dead weight, but then again, I guess the brain is, too.”

  Robyn shook her hair slightly. It was easy to see Amanda as a doctor. She viewed the beings as bodies—almost as objects—instead of the people they would be if their revival was successful.

  “What?” Amanda asked.

  Robyn smiled, aware she had been staring. “Nothing.”

  The doors of the operating room slid open. The main doctors entered in full scrubs, followed by Director Meade. Every inch of skin except a spot on their foreheads were covered up.

  “We’re a little underdressed.” Amanda’s voice was wry.

  “You can’t be too careful,” Director Meade said. “I know the decontamination chambers are intact. But this is just a bit of extra insurance. When do you think we’ll be able to attempt a revival?”

  Amanda raised her eyebrows, startled. “Not anytime soon. We have a lot of studying to do.”

  “Of course, of course. We’ll stay completely out of your way while you do so. We just wondered at an approximate timeframe.”

  “It’s impossible to tell at this point,” Amanda said. “After all, you are familiar with the DNA sa
mples and techniques used. We have to learn all of the methods of extraction and reemergence.”

  “Don’t take too long. You’re only under contract for six months,” Director Meade said lightly.

  “I don’t dare move too fast and harm such magnificent creatures,” Amanda said.

  “We appreciate you taking your time. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact. In the meantime, dinner is at six on the second level. We’d appreciate if you can both take time out of your first day to attend. To just relax and get to know us, the rest of the team.”

  Amanda didn’t answer, so Robyn was forced to smile. “I’ll set an alarm,” she promised. She moved to the laboratory computer, firing it up. She had no doubt that the computer was bugged…but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t use it. It simply meant that when she had to really use it, she would insert the undetectable zip drive and work from that. The presence acted as a virus to whichever machine she worked on, and enabled a machine to become a blank processor instead. No one would know what she really did when the zip was plugged in.

  For now, however, there was no reason to hide her pathways. She set the dinner alarm.

  “Now, shall we delve in and show you what we’ve discovered about each species?” Director Meade pulled one of the backboards from the wall, laying the body in a horizontal position. The wall indentation where they normally pressed up against now contained an X-ray. “This is a Gerendi species. Their bodies have a smaller amount of nerve endings. He would make a great guard with his massive height. Notice these bones inside the wrists? We’ve determined they protrude from the skin during adrenaline spikes. Now, what’s interesting about that is what controls it? Can the creature himself descend the bones to be used as a weapon? Or do the bones descend on their own with a hormonal release? These are the issues we’d like to study. Imagine the possibilities of having your own weapons imbedded in your skin.”

  “Perhaps that was why he has fewer nerve endings? I imagine it would be painful to have your bones protrude every time you were scared.”