Pandora's box
14 Dec 2020Teafox
There was a great deal more clarity in his eyes as Zachariah returned to our company. Washed and dressed in what looked like clean clothes, he managed an admirable air of dignity, even if just for a few moments. It seems that the alcohol break-down pills don't do an awful lot for a hangover. It seemed to please him that the kid was now rather enjoying the company of his pets, which brought him directly to the matter at hand."What makes you say he's a Xihe?" he opened, instinctively reaching for a beer and then thinking better of it. "I mean, could just be a kid. You know."
I started with the gene trace report, the comment about how he was apparently lacking genetic information, and what was there was wrong in some way that, admittedly, I didn't understand. For now, I felt it was better to not mention anything about the apparent federal research project that this could be linked to. He listened, as I went on to explain the odd combination of skills the kid had, excellent piloting and apparent gunnery skills, knew his way around a space suit, but had difficulty with things that we would take for granted, like naming flavors or smells. The engineer eyed the article that accompanied the medical report. It was one he was familiar with, he mulled it over and tilted his head.
"Hey kid," his tone was measured, he was testing something. "Is this your first time planet side?"
The boy nodded, finding it difficult to tear his attention away from the cheetah rubbing affectionately against his legs. "So, spent your time zero-G or coriolis up until now?" Again the boy nodded. Certainly, this was the first time I could recall taking him down onto the surface of a planet. It wasn't until his next line that I saw what he was getting at.
He asked if the boy wanted to see Lucifer, apparently the cheetah, do a trick for a snack. The large hunting cat looked a little disappointed at being ordered to his basket, lazily watching the proceedings. Zach handed the kid a tin, labelled 'fisshybics'. "Try tossing one to him, see if he can catch it?" The kid's nose wrinkled as he opened the tin, to be fair, I could smell the snacks too, and they weren't pleasant. The snack flew across the room in a shallow arc directly to the large cat's face. The feline barely had to move to move to catch it.
The kid objected as Zach reached out and ruffled his hair. "You sure this is the first time you've been on a planet? I was sure you'd throw like we were on a space station and miss." He chuckled, "It'd have made him jump for it."
Zach suggested a few targets in the room to throw at, making the kid laugh as Lucifer effortlessly launched himself around the room to intercept them. Zach quietly inspected the hair that had caught beneath his fingernail. "First pre-teen I've seen to go to land from zero gravity and not trip over his own feet, or try to hop along like a spacer." he waved at a control panel to one of the doors. "I've got a resonance scanner that should be big enough in the work shop, at very least we can check for serial numbers and the like."
The workshop he was referring to, clearly was not the one I had seen on any of my previous visits. It was deeper in the complex, and was clearly an area where someone might examine things on a microscopic level. Zach pulled up a vastly inflated projection of the hair he pulled out of the kid's head. To my eyes it looked just like a normal, human hair. Zach, apparently saw more than I did. He seemed bothered that neither the hair, or the follicle itself had identifying features. To illustrate, he plucked one of the cat hairs from the kid's clothes and put it under the microscope. At regular intervals, there was tiny, but clear text with a serial number. Xihe 4773G-FEL. A hair belonging to the kitten, or so he told us. The follicle had a patent number and an entire copyright statement.
"So what do you think?" I asked. "Natural, just with some weird genetics?" it felt good to consider that I may have been wrong, but my hopes were short lived as Zach shook his head.
"Blood report said it was all artificial, right? Even the pilot's fed have to put labels on cells to protect their IP. I'm thinking we're looking at a group going off brand." He grinned as he added. "And if it is a biomorph, that'd be the smart thing to do if they were making human models."
"He." I corrected, instinctually.
Zach blinked and looked at me. We had an entire, silent argument in that moment. It didn't matter to me if the kid was some kind of illegal, artificially engineered human biomorph. Just like Zack thought of his companions as cats, as far as I was concerned, the kid was absolutely as much of a person as anyone else.
He apologized. Thought for a minute and then stopped poring over the microscope and apologized again, more sincerely.
"I get excited at stuff like this." he admitted. "The thought that we have the technology to make something... someone that could actually be human."
He stiffened again, a thought occurring to him. Within a moment he had set up a resonance scanner, explaining that he usually used it to detect microscopic flaws in solid weapon parts, but had later found it was perfectly safe to use on himself, his pets and with an air of annoyance in his voice. "Everything else I've tried putting in there."
To demonstrate it's safety, he scanned himself first, and then took a full body scan from me, and then another from the boy. His and my own were nothing to write home about, although it was interesting to learn the truth behind the rumor that he had a brain implant. He almost ignored mine, claiming that it'd be useful for comparison. The boy's was rather startling for a number of reasons. The scan showed a detailed cross section of whatever was scanned at multiple levels of depth as well as some simple chemical analysis. It was clear from the cross section that there were some significant missing internal organs. "Just like my pets." Zach nodded and tried to give a comforting smile.
The expression vanished as he cycled through some of the other layers, and then back again. There were markings on his bones. Clearly readable.
"Hey kid," Zach said weakly. "Scan's gonna take a while to process. How about we go feed the cats, and I'll show you some of my other pets?" It wasn't an offer the kid even considered passing up.
I panned the view around the scan slowly. This read like some kind of morbid instruction manual. Somewhere mid way up what I believe to be his spine I spotted a mark, a simple dotted line and one word that made me feel physically sick.
"Sever."