Demicore

Chapter 10

"I hear you have a background check being performed on the entire staff at the lab to see if anyone has come into even the most remote contact with a black panther."

"Months of work to build the synthesizer. To calibrate it. We tested it a dozen times on lesser things - and when we get to the pinnacle point someone has contaminated it!" he let loose all of this frustration.

"Normally you would just run another test. It isn't like the machine was broken, Erik. And we definitely have enough money to finance another test. We are not relying on outside grant money for funding. What is it about this that has you so spooked?" she hit a nerve. Sometimes it was frustrating living so close to people who knew you so very well. There was just no getting things past them that you weren't ready to admit to yourself, let alone discuss out loud.

"Who the hell said I was spooked about anything? Maybe I just want things done right the first time for once rather than having to do it again and again because someone was careless. Maybe when I am called away from something I think is more important than life, I want it to be for good reason!" he stormed off when he ran out of words, making for the kitchen and hoping he wouldn't be followed because he really wasn't done thinking about it.

There was something about that paw, covered in the most beautiful fur he had ever seen. It was warm, made it easy to stalk his prey in the shadows when he needed to... NO! I am not a cat, I am a man. I could not know how fur would make me feel. I don't have any. Never have. It isn't mine. Can't be. I have no feline DNA... How then, he wondered, could it feel like that woke something up inside of him?

"What was so important at the lab yesterday that you had to run off?" Elizabeth asked, joining him in the food he wasn't making.

"We were trying to synthesize human tissue and the first tests were ready to run. Unfortunately, it is not something that can wait at all when it's ready or you will lose the sample you're working with."

"Um... ok... and the reason for that instead of just cloning?" she asked very confused.

"With cloning, you risk the tissue having the same issue you're having to replace it for or worse - the body rejecting someone else's cloned part because it is not compatible. If we can synthesize it, we can make it a perfect match to each person, minus the problem with DNA manipulation. No more having to wait for organs or worry about your body rejecting them because you're getting another one of your own. Also, we hope to be able to make completely new organic parts for amputees. Imagine not having to worry about having a limb taken because we can build another!" he was very passionate about his work, it came through in trying to describe it even though it was work not to use medical terms she might not understand.

"But you are here and looking very perplexed," she studied his face as she was speaking, trying to understand what happened and why, "Something went different than you planned for it to. And if I had to guess it was a serious deviation from what you were expecting to happen. It's really bothering you."

"Instead of getting the human skin we were expecting, we got the forearm of a large feline," he said, avoiding the fact that he had used himself as the guinea pig yet again in his experiments. It felt good to say it out loud to her. To admit that it wasn't what he wanted to happen. And yet, he didn't want to give her all the details. He knew she wouldn't approve of him using himself as a test subject. She would call it poor scientific ethics. Perhaps she was right to do so, it wasn't like he would have allowed anyone else in the lab to do it.

He sighed heavily. She smiled softly. "So do what you always do: Try again."

He thought about it. Let her words run through him like waves. It was always like that with her. When it was something he really needed to hear, her voice would penetrate any mood he was in. Whether he listened or not was an entirely other matter, he would always hear what she had to say and her words would stick in his mind. Try again. Yes, that was perfect, he would try again! And this time he would supervise the whole affair himself.

"You're a genius!" he told her excitedly and told his phone to alert Sonya, Katlin and half the lab staff to be there in drive time and dashed out the door, leaving her standing there wondering what just happened.

Katlin ran up the stairs in a panic looking for Erik, only to find Elizabeth leaning on the sink with a half smile. "What just happened? Where is he? I just got a panic message saying go to the lab. I thought something was seriously wrong!"

"Whatever happened at the lab yesterday had him really worked up... one minute we were talking about it, the next he was running out the door. I believe he is going to try it again," she replied calmly.

"I don't need to be there right away, then, he will be at the lab for days. Would you like to come with me and have a look around?" she grabbed an apple and looked relaxed while she spoke. As if she had a week to do a couple hours' task. They made a lunch for everyone who was going to be at the lab, then climbed into the hover craft.

"The kitchen at the lab is fully stocked," Katlin explained, "but if Erik has gone as overboard as I think he has with this, it will be sealed off for the next day or two while we completely rework all the calculations and complete another experiment."

Elizabeth marveled again at the smoothness of riding in the hover craft. It seemed so... easy a method of transportation. They arrived at a very large building that looked more like a castle than a medical lab in about fifteen minutes. For several minutes after their arrival, Elizabeth just stared at it. Who in their right mind would build something like this for a lab? But then, Erik never really had been in his right mind...

"I was sixteen when he built this," Katlin told her, "we used it as a play house of sorts - great for parties and dances - for several years before we grew out of it and he needed a lab. He could have just built something else, but I think it made him feel closer to us to put it here. That, and he always did like the architecture."

"He built you a castle for your sixteenth birthday?"

"Do you know of a girl at that age who doesn't want to be a princess? He did make sure that it had some essentials in it - large kitchen, dojo, a small medical facility, a music hall, a library, a fitness center, a pool and Jacuzzi. We hosted several high school and college functions. Then, after he got his doctorate and we needed a place to start experimenting, we just converted some of the main halls into a lab. It was mostly sitting empty and was more hassle to rent out and manage than it was really worth (we did manage to talk him into building another and putting a manager over it as one of my pet projects)." Katlin climbed out of the hovercraft and reached in for the portable cooler.

"How many times has he stayed here for days on end because he was too wrapped up in whatever he was doing to come home?"

Katlin chuckled. "More often than I can count." As they walked up to the door and Katlin turned and pushed a button on what looked to be a key fob telling the craft to go park itself. She then went through a series of alarms and identifiers to get into the building, explaining that they work with a lot of top secret experimental stuff in there and Erik was always paranoid anyway.