Melissa stared at the computer screen, unable to look away from the words in front of her. Theoretically able to combine human and animal DNA through new engineering techniques. Possible applications unknown. The sentences kept running through her head. Which animals? How did they do it? Was it possible to do it to a grown human, or would it have to be an embryo?
"That’s some strange idea, huh?" Emilio Martinez asked, breaking into her thoughts. The other detectives were nodding, so she did, too.
"How would you test that?" Josiah Douglass wondered. "You can’t just test something like that on people."
"Not legally, anyway," Jorge Fernandez added.
Melissa memorized the address of the research facility and scribbled it down when she returned to her desk. Luckily, it wasn’t that far away. When she got off of work that day, she got in her car and drove toward the research facility.
It was dark when she parked her car and got out. She walked to the facility’s door and tried it, but it was locked. She knocked, and after a moment, a light came on above her and the door opened. "Can I help you?" a man said.
"My name is Melissa Carter, I’m a detective with the Baltimore PD. We were investigating a case and ran across an interesting little clip about this facility."
"Oh?" the man said. "I wasn’t aware we were in the news."
"It was some kind of message, actually..."
"Do you need to question someone here, detective?"
"Are...are you still researching the combination of human and animal DNA?"
A little of his face was visible and she saw his eyebrows jerk upward in surprise. "How did you find out about that?" he asked, voice dropping to a whisper.
"It was in the message. It said ‘Theoretically able to combine human and animal DNA through new engineering techniques.’ Can you really do it?"
He was silent for a long moment, and then said, "I think we can."
"Have you tried?"
"No. We have no way of testing it without kidnapping someone or using our own staff members."
Melissa drew herself up as straight as she could. "I’m twenty-four, in excellent health, and I think I have the right mentality for an experiment like this." She took a breath, then said, "I want to be your test subject."
There was another long silence, and then he pushed open the door. "Come inside."
* * * * *
Dr. Adam Lowe couldn’t help but run down the hall toward Dr. Lancaster’s office. "John!" he cried, bursting inside. "You’re not going to believe this!"
"What? What’s going on?" Lancaster’s piercing blue eyes fixed on Lowe from under his bushy white eyebrows.
"We...we have a test subject!"
Lancaster stood up. "You’re joking."
"No. Tammy and Ben are running a medical check on her right now."
"Wait, wait. We can’t just charge into this. Where’d you find this test subject?"
"She showed up at the door and volunteered. She said she saw something about our facility and she wants to be a part of it--did you hear that?--wants to be!" He paced around the room, long sandy blond hair swaying, green eyes sparkling. He stopped and looked at Lancaster. "Come on, John, you know you can’t pass up this opportunity to see if it will actually work!"
Lancaster sighed. "All right, all right, I’ll go meet her, at least."
Tammy Barrett and Ben Virio were still examining Melissa when the two scientists entered the room. They stood in the background and watched until the two had finished with the immediate examination and headed off to their lab with blood samples. "Detective Carter, this is Dr. Lancaster, the head of the project," Lowe said as they walked over to her.
"Detective?" Lancaster questioned as they shook hands.
"Baltimore PD," Melissa replied. "I learned about this place while I was at work today."
"I see," Lancaster said. "So you came right over to volunteer."
"Yes."
"You have to understand, that even if we try this, it may not work out the way you want."
She nodded. "I understand. How does it work?"
"Are you familiar with the term ‘gene therapy’?"
"Yeah, it’s an experimental procedure they’re developing to try to cure genetic diseases."
"Right. The latest procedure has been to use modified viruses to carry the repaired DNA to the affected cells. The viruses have been specifically engineered not to reproduce and they die after injecting the cells with the repaired DNA."
She smiled. "I hear a ‘but’ coming."
Lancaster smiled, too. "But we have taken it one step further. We have created a virus that can reproduce and spread rapidly, but it will only to do this until all the cells in the body have been modified by the new DNA. Once it cannot find an unmodified cell, the virus dies."
"I assume you’ve tested this on animals?"
"Oh, many times. We’ve never had a problem."
"But you have no idea what the modified DNA will do when injected into a human being."
"We’ve tried simulations on the computer, but it’s limited in the results it can produce," Lowe said. "Basically, the modified DNA could do nothing, it could do something good, or it could do something...unfortunate."
"In which case, I’m screwed." She shrugged. "Oh well. I’m gonna go sometime, it’s just a matter of when and how. If it’s here, then it’s here."
Barrett and Virio returned, and the four scientists excused themselves to another room to discuss the matter. "She’s in perfect health," Virio said. "The blood tests didn’t show anything that would cause us the slightest bit of concern."
"Then the only thing left to decide is what kind of animal to use," Lowe said enthusiastically.
"I’m still not sure about this," Lancaster said. "Why would anyone volunteer for a potentially dangerous experiment and be so...laid-back about the possibility of something going drastically wrong and ending in death?"
"It seems like she doesn’t think anything will go wrong," Lowe replied. "She’s awfully confident."
Lancaster sighed heavily. He debated the consequences, but in the end, the temptation was too much. This was the break they’d all been praying for. He was quiet for a moment, and then said, "All right. Let’s figure out what we’re going to use."
"If I may make a suggestion," Barrett said. "Why not ask her? I’m sure she has some idea of what she’d like to...become."
The others looked at one another, then shrugged and nodded.
When they returned to the examining room, Lancaster looked at Melissa and crossed his arms. "We’ve decided to go ahead with this. Do you have any suggestions as to which animal we use for the experiment?"
Melissa grinned. "The biggest cat in the world."
* * * * *
Despite the scientists’ doubts about the success rate of trying to draw blood from a full-grown tiger, they agreed to let Melissa try to get the sample they’d need for the experiment. So, armed with a couple of syringes and hypodermic needles, Melissa got in her car and drove to the Washington, D.C. zoo. She’d wanted to use blood from Tiberius, a male Siberian tiger she was close to, but they agreed that the sample should probably be from a tiger of the same sex, so she’d have to try the female Bengal she’d become acquainted with on her visits to the zoo.
At the zoo, she stroked and talked to the female, soothing her with hands and voice. Eventually, the female lay down and rested her head on the ground, keeping one eye on Melissa but to all outward appearances relaxed. It took Melissa a few moments to find a vein on one of her legs, but when she did, she slid the needle in. The female jerked her head up. Melissa froze, forcing down the panic that wanted to rise from her gut and take over her brain. Just keep calm, she told herself. She’s fine, she’s just curious. The female stared at Melissa for a few moments, then laid her head back down on the ground. "Used to being poked, huh?" Melissa said softly as she drew the blood sample and pulled the needle from the female’s leg. She stroked the female one more time before getting up. "Thanks, I need this." Whistling quietly, she left the tiger’s cage, locked the door behind her, and walked back to her car.
She returned to the research facility and handed the sample over to the scientists. In a few hours, they created the virus serum and were ready to begin. Lancaster turned on a tape recorder. "Experiment number zero-zero-one, biomodification of a human being with animal DNA. Subject is a Caucasian female, twenty-four years old, five foot six inches and 125 pounds. Animal DNA is from a female tiger." He looked at Melissa. "I’d like you to state your name and occupation for the record."
"My name is Melissa Carter, I’m a detective with the Baltimore police department, and I’m voluntarily taking part in this experiment."
Lancaster wiped the inside of Melissa’s left elbow with alcohol, and Lowe handed him the syringe. He injected the serum and looked at the clock. "The time is 3:22, and the experiment has officially begun." He turned off the tape recorder and looked at the other people in the room. "Well, that’s it. Now we just have to see how this turns out."
The next morning, Melissa had a runny nose and a sore throat. "Of course I would get sick at the worst time possible," she muttered sourly.
"It’s probably your body reacting to the virus," Barrett said. "It is a foreign organism, even if it isn’t carrying a disease."
Melissa sighed. "True. It’ll go away?"
"It should. In the meantime, you need to get as much rest as possible."
In a few days, the symptoms disappeared, and Melissa and the research team were left to wait anxiously for evidence of any kind of change.
* * * * *
Experimental Log
Dr. John Lancaster
Day 7
After a week of waiting, we have had the first indication of success. This morning at approximately 8:30 am, the team members and the subject were breakfasting together. The subject suddenly raised her head and claimed to hear sirens. The rest of us had heard nothing, and if there were any emergency vehicles on the road that passed the facility, the only place they could be going would be here, as it is the only inhabited building for miles. When questioned, she said the sound had come from the west. The only feasible theory was that she had heard a police car on the highway, which is more than a mile and a half away. Further testing will have to be done before any solid conclusions can be drawn.
As it turned out, Melissa could hear a conversation up to a quarter mile away and repeat it word-for-word, and when it was quiet, she could clearly hear the cars passing on the highway when she stood outside. Too much background noise reduced the distance at which she was able to identify specific sounds, though, and she somewhat ruefully admitted that her distance hearing wouldn’t be too much use in the city.
The second change was discovered a few days later when she abruptly realized she could smell Virio’s scent, even though he was across the room. At first he was embarrassed, but she assured him it wasn’t a bad smell. "In fact," she said at the meeting Lancaster called to discuss the new development, "none of you smell bad, just unique. It’s not like we think of body odor, you know, nasty. It’s just...your scent."
"So, you mean you can smell us like...like the way my dog can?" Lowe asked.
"Yeah, something like that."
Eventually she could identify each team member by their scent alone when they entered a room. But her heightened sense of smell proved to be a double-edged sword, for when a particularly pungent odor crossed her nose, she often had to leave the area to keep from getting too nauseated.
Two weeks passed with no further changes. "Morning, Ben," she said one morning, yawning and stretching as she entered the kitchen. She stopped short when she saw him staring at her with wide eyes. "What?"
"Holy..." He trailed off, then shouted, "Hey, you guys gotta come see this!"
"What’s going on?" Melissa asked. She looked down at herself, but didn’t see anything unusual. She certainly felt the same. "I haven’t grown fur or anything, so what’s your problem?"
She looked up when the other team members entered the kitchen, and they also stopped suddenly. "Whoa," Lowe said.
"What the hell is going on?" she demanded. "All these cryptic remarks are getting on my nerves!"
"Have you looked at yourself in a mirror this morning?" Lowe asked.
"No, why?" What happened? Was her hair growing stripes or something? Barrett found a mirror and handed it to her, and she looked in it with some trepidation. She was astonished and delighted at what she saw. Her eyes had changed color and the irises were now a radiant gold. "Wow," she said softly. "That...that’s just fantastic. I love it!"
"The only problem is no one has eyes that color," Lancaster said. "We’ll have to get you contacts to change the color back to something normal."
Melissa sighed, but she knew he was right. When she went back home, she didn’t need people freaking out because of her eyes. "Yeah, I guess so," she said.
That night, one additional surprise awaited her. She could see in the dark. "This is so incredible!" she shouted, thrilled, as she stood in the middle of the dark clearing outside of the facility. "It’s like daylight out here!"
"Yeah, to you," Lowe said, a little grumpily. "It’s dark to us."
She laughed as she ran back to them. So far this was working out exactly the way she’d hoped. I knew I was perfect for this, she thought.
* * * * *
Experimental Log
Dr. John Lancaster
Day 30
The sensory changes in the subject have evidently stopped. Hearing, sight, and smell are beyond normal human capacity, although it is unclear whether they are on a par with a tiger’s abilities. Nevertheless, the subject seems pleased with things as they are.
Successive blood tests have shown a reduction in both the unmodified cells and the virus, and the most recent test revealed no unmodified cells at all. We are expecting that the next test will also be free of the virus.
There have been only slight enhancements in strength, speed, and agility. Her strength is now roughly equal to that of a strong man’s, and she can outrun all of us easily. Debates on the reason for the apparently incomplete change have lasted far into the nights in the past week. Doctors Lowe and Virio have decided that her previous physical condition had left little room for improvement, but Doctor Barrett and I believe that perhaps the human body’s nervous and muscular structure is unable to perform at the levels required by a full enhancement of physical abilities. It is doubtful that we will get a clear answer to this question.
With a full month behind them, the scientific team began discussing breaking their findings to the public. "I think we should just say that we did it and it worked," Lowe said. "She’s obviously fine."
"That’s not the point," Virio replied. "They could still crucify us for experimenting on a human in the first place, even a volunteer."
"The first thing we should do is reveal that it’s possible," Lancaster said. "There’ll be enough uproar over the mere idea. We don’t need to completely ruin our reputations by confessing to actually changing someone’s genetic code."
Barrett nodded. "The human rights people and who knows who else would have our heads. They’d probably want them just for stating that it’s possible to combine human and animal DNA."
"Yeah, I guess you’re right," Lowe said. "We can’t just go on one experiment, either. It may have worked this time, but who knows? Maybe it’d kill someone else."
"Exactly," Lancaster said. "This situation calls for patience, prudence, and tact."
For Melissa’s part, she was both excited and worried about returning to her life. "People are going to make such a fuss when I reappear," she told Lancaster one day. They’d followed the news reports on the investigation into her disappearance until it became old news and the stations stopped mentioning it. "And they’re going to ask questions that I doubt I’m going to be able to answer."
"Tell them the truth," Lancaster replied. "No one will believe you."
She laughed. "That’s very true."
Later that day, she contemplated their conversation. A month ago, the first thought on her mind when he suggested telling the truth would have been they’ll think I’m crazy. But her bravado and hidden (or maybe not-so-hidden) insecurities had been replaced by a serene confidence, almost a fearlessness. Whatever happened to her, she knew she would survive it and come out fine. She had mentioned it to the scientists and they had shrugged it off as an improbability, but she personally had no doubt that her new-found self-assurance had come from the tiger. She had also noticed a subtle change in the way she moved. Although she had not been a klutz before, her walk and other movements had a more refined grace to them. With a purely human giggle, she fell into a daydream of all the male heads turning as she walked down the street in either Baltimore or Washington, D.C. Without a single doubt, she knew she’d turn at least a few heads. She also knew that the woman who returned to the outside world would be a vastly different one than had showed up at the door of this research facility a month ago.
* * * * *
Experimental Log
Dr. John Lancaster
Day 90
Three months have passed since the experiment was initiated. There have been no changes for the past two months, and blood tests have repeatedly tested negative for unmodified cells or the virus. I believe we can categorize this experiment as a success and call an official end to it.
Lancaster’s work on his report was interrupted by sirens outside the building. He hastily saved the report and shut down the computer before running to the main room of the living quarters at the front of the building. "What’s going on?"
"Cops," Virio said. "How’d they find us? What are we going to do?"
Simultaneously, the four of them turned to Melissa. "Go," Lancaster said, "out the back door, hide in the forest. If they find you here, we’re all in trouble."
She nodded and ran toward the back of the building. "I’m sure glad we had her park her car in the garage," Virio said. "If they saw it, we’d be goners before they even got to the door."
When the officers knocked on the door, Lancaster answered it. "Can I help you, gentlemen?"
"Doctor Lancaster?" one asked.
"Yes."
"We’d like to ask you some questions. May we come in?"
"Of course," he replied, moving to one side of the hallway to let the officers into the building. "May I ask what this is in regard to?"
"A kidnapping."
* * * * *
Melissa crouched in the woods with a clear view of the back door but out of sight of anyone who might come out that way. How’d they know to come here? she wondered. She listened to the birds and scented the earthy smells of the forest, and it seemed like a small inner voice said go. But I have to stay here and wait for the cops to leave, she argued with herself. Go, the voice insisted, and unable to resist the call, she got up and jogged into the forest, indulging the part of her that thrilled to the sights, sounds, and smells of the wilderness.
It was dark when Melissa returned to the facility. She stopped in the brush and stared intently at the building, trying to determine whether the police were still at the facility. Finally judging it as safe, she walked across the clearing.
Just before she reached the door, it opened and Barrett peered out at her. "Where have you been?" she asked in a loud whisper. She stepped outside and closed the door. "Everyone’s been worried about you."
"Sorry, I was just...I got hit with wanderlust. Are the cops gone?"
"The uniform officers left, but there was a detective with them, and he refuses to leave."
"What does he look like?"
"Black and really big."
"Josiah," Melissa muttered. "Dammit, I don’t have my contacts yet, I can’t let him see me."
"I don’t know what we’re going to do. Dr. Lancaster is furious at this whole situation. I mean, this guy has overstayed his welcome, but we can’t just tell him to leave."
"How did they even know to come here?"
"The detective remembered seeing that thing about our facility and thought you might have come here to investigate us or something and we kidnapped you or killed you and buried the body, whatever he’s accusing us of." She sighed. "The really ironic thing is that Dr. Lancaster was about to call an end to the experiment. You probably would have been home by tomorrow."
"I think the only thing I can do is talk to him," Melissa said finally.
"After we spent the last five hours trying to convince him that you’re not here? Isn’t lying to the cops illegal or something like that?"
"Lying in court is, I’m not sure about lying to the police. People do that all the time. Besides, he won’t do anything. I’ll explain everything to him. If he knows I participated voluntarily, what can he do?"
"Not believe you."
"That’s beside the point. There are no outside witnesses. If I say it happened a certain way, he can’t argue with me."
She walked inside, trailed by Barrett. She heard voices in the front rooms and headed that direction.
"I assure you, Detective Douglass, that we did not harm the detective you’re looking for," Lancaster said as she entered the room.
"Melissa!" Josiah said. He walked over to her. "You are here. Are you all right? Did they hurt you? They said they didn’t have you here!"
"Josiah--"
"Let’s get out of here and go home. I’ll call the uniforms and they’ll come deal with these people."
"Josiah, damn it, shut up and listen to me!"
He looked at her, and when their eyes met, she saw his eyes widen in surprise. "Nothing happened here without my consent. I volunteered to be a test subject in an experiment."
"What did they do to your eyes?" he asked.
She turned away, frustrated. "You’re not listening to a word I’m saying."
"You don’t blame them?"
"Blame them for what? Giving me what I wanted?"
"What you wanted? What did they do to you?"
She looked at him. "They were experimenting with biomodification."
"Bio-what?"
"Biomodification. Changing a life form, in this case, a human being. They combined a tiger’s DNA with mine through an advanced gene therapy process. As a result, I have acute hearing, a heightened sense of smell, and in addition to my eyes changing color, I can see in the dark. All the changes were entirely favorable, and Dr. Barrett told me that they were probably going to release me tomorrow. If you’d waited one more day, I would have been back home all on my own."
"You wanted this?"
"Yes. I wouldn’t have volunteered if I didn’t. They wouldn’t have even known that I exist if I didn’t. They didn’t come looking for me, you know. I showed up here asking about it."
"I guess I just...I need some time to adapt to this. For the past three months we thought you were kidnapped or dead, and now you suddenly reveal that you were here voluntarily. Why didn’t you call us?"
"You would have tried to talk me out of it."
"Would I have succeeded?"
"No," she said, then sighed. "Go home, Josiah. Get some sleep. Everything’s fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I’m sure. Go home. I’ll be back in a couple of days at the most."
She walked him to the door and watched him walk to his car with a bewildered look on his face. "He’s not usually like that," she said when she returned to the room. "He’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met."
"Probably too many surprises in one night," Virio said.
She laughed. "Yeah, probably."
The next day she bid goodbye to the scientists and walked to her car. Dr. Lancaster promised to forward her contacts to her when they arrived at the research facility and she promised to keep in touch, especially if anything else changed. She got in and drove back in the direction of Washington, D.C., heading for home.
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