Over the past three years, Catherine could never fully integrate the 8.3% of her mass – that spike of polyalloy that had been her arm. It had gone across time, pinning the T-X to its doom. She thought the problem would resolve itself with time, but its nano-processors still glitched once in awhile - rebelling against the code of the rest of her mass. Catherine could hide the cosmetic glitches – the colour disparities, the form disruptions - easily enough by re-arranging her composition and concealing the mass within her abdominal space. But still….
It was irritating. It was like the equivalent of a cyst in a human - albeit one she could shift and manipulate at will. A benign tumour that, while not harmful outright to the whole… organism… still had to be cured, somehow.
Catherine had wondered, countless times, whether the T-X sheath polyalloy had somehow fused with her own to create this aberration. Possible, but she was still in total control of this 8.3%.
Most of the time.
Catherine considered her choices. She'd have to purge her system of this errant mass to function at full efficiency. But still keep it close by in the long-term. It could still be rapidly re-integrated and might be beneficial in a combat situation. It had to be concealed in such a way that nobody – visitors to the office, cleaners, even Savannah herself - would touch or remove it, to avoid raising suspicion. Clearly, keeping the mass was preferable, rather than destroying it in a furnace of thermite or vat of molten metal at the Zeiracorp foundry.
Catherine scanned the titanium- and glass-walled office of the recently-deceased CEO – the person whose likeness she now took. She ran her fingers over the various art pieces and artifacts hanging on the walls. Chrome-plated masks, a metal sculpt of some horned animal, a spiral-shaped marble and steel art piece. She walked along one length of the immense room, then down the other. Feeling, analyzing, testing, evaluating.
She turned to the aquarium, observing the moray eel that languished lazily inside. The yellowish-brown mottled creature had the rough appearance of a log, but could in fact move with lightning-fast speed. As an ambush hunter, this was what the animal relied on to feed on prey.
Her left hand reached into the water to caress the eel's back. The nano-processors on her fingertips detected the slimy texture. In an instant, the animal lashed out, swiveled round to face the intrusion, its jaws open – with rows of razor-sharp teeth clearly visible – ready to snap shut at any further provocation.
Fascinating, she thought. It would not do to kill it. To do so would be… cruel.
Now she extended her right arm into the water....
***
Feeding time was over when the office phone rang. Her hands still smelling of fish heads, Tara gingerly picked up the receiver and placed it to her ear.
"Hello? Yes… uh-huh….Yes, Ms. Weaver. We would be pleased to receive your pet as a donation. We'll send over a crew to pick her up next… I beg your pardon? This afternoon? Yes, it's a moray. Well, it could… what? A cheque for five thousand dollars… a donation? But it's…. Oh, of course… certainly Ms. Weaver, the boys will be at your office today. The Zeiracorp Building? OK"
Tara put down the receiver. Wow, she thought, that was out of the blue. This Scottish woman – Weaver - sounded quite insistent though.
The Aquarium of the Pacific had received some exotic specimens in its time, but this was definitely its first fimbriated moray eel from a private donor. Despite her accent, the woman on the phone had pronounced the scientific name - gymnothorax fimbriatus - perfectly. And the first donation with such a fat accompanying monetary donation.