The ballroom had been heated far beyond regulation, although she's grateful as her black dress is showing off more flesh than usual. She glances around at the various corporate representatives, foreign dignitaries and scientists that had filled the room. She's sat through various speeches and presentations, the well-catered dinner and now cocktails. Half the attendees are trying to convince the other half to invest in their research or purchase their services. Alcohol consumption seems to speed this process up considerably.
She takes a long drink of her own wine, there's not much to say - she'd participated in several conversations of her latest project but Leekie was heading it up. Aldous, of course, was at the centre of everything. He waved her over - the doctor he was speaking to was familiar to her, but she could not remember the man's name.
"Ah, Dr. Cormier, Alan and I were just discussing your work on the telepath project. Well and my scheduled cryogenics tomorrow."
"Delphine," The man, Alan, greets her politely. Shaking her hand, "I was informed that you were suspended, it seems I was mistaken." She cannot remember where the man is from, she's met so many scientists and doctors over the years. She's fairly certain he hails from another branch of DYAD, in the core colonies.
"No no... Well no longer, the hearing was yesterday and her medical license was restored." Leekie waves it off, "But you need to see our early results from the telepath project."
Alan is eyeing her curiously, the hearing had done little to stop the rumours, "Oh?"
"It's quite promising, all six embryos have been implanted or sent to be implanted - now we wait to see." Delphine glosses over the project, the various modifications done in an attempt to create telepaths. She leaves out, of course, that each would carry a piece of her own DNA. Effectively blurring the lines between scientist and subject, being compensated financially for her 'donation' did little to correct that. A few only carried the mitochondrial DNA from the use of her ova, but the others...
"Will they be fertile? Your telepaths?" Alan looks from Leekie to Delphine.
"I assume so, We weren't going to modify them with the autoimmune issues of other projects. The clients were very specific on what they required. If the subjects show the ideal signs in early childhood we will be making more in about three years." Leekie nods, pleased with the project, "It could revolutionize law, business negotiations, everything."
"Not a long wait." Alan comments, "Though perfect timing for you, as Aldous tells me you'll be taking parental leave sometime next year."
"She's been scheduled in for tomorrow with Dr. Li." Aldous comments, nonchalantly. It's not a request. Dr. Li is somewhere around this party as well, likely recruiting new clients for herself. Advertising their more commercial enterprise of genetic engineering with her own modified features and her thorough presentation.
Delphine smiles and nods, the frozen embryo transfer had not yet been done. They'd scheduled her and she'd cancelled once already. The five day blastocysts remained frozen. Although she's not happy with the artificial hormones she's been taking, she plays along. She's unsure how to answer for a moment, "Assuming it takes."
She wasn't sure how much longer she could resist the pressure to have the transfer done. The way Aldous is looking at her clearly communicates his annoyance, she half-expects him to insist on observing the transfer before allowing himself to be put into cryo tomorrow morning.
"Ah yes, I remember when my wife had hers done - we had a three month wait. But you have to have it done, you know? Otherwise who knows what you'll end up with. We wanted our son's modifications adjusted several times before we were satisfied. It was worth it, he's exactly the child we planned. I can't imagine how the lower classes handle random reproduction." Alan shudders for emphasis, "Have you done the work yourself then? Or one of the genetic engineers here?" He looks from Aldous to Delphine, making assumptions from whatever he's heard about them.
Leekie brushes off the subject, "Oh they're Delphine's, not mine. Anyways, have I introduced you to Dr. Aznov? He's heading up our latest transgenic project." Leekie guides the man off elsewhere, keen to make the introductions before he's put back in cryo tomorrow. She takes no joy in it, not this time. There's too much to be done.
She leaves the party early, taking a thick thermal shawl to keep herself warm. She heads to the full-body cryo unit. She hates it. She hates the sounds the patients make when they're taken out of cryo. She hates the way the frost blocks their faces from view when she enters the room where they are stored. And she hates that Cosima is among them, has been for over two months. No one had bothered to remove her clearance for accessing cryo storage- it was relevant to her new duties and Aldous knew full well that she hated it. It's quiet now, no thawing during formal events.
She enters the code to access the freezer room. It's not truly a freezer, the tubes themselves are sufficient for keeping patients frozen. Though without her thermals it is substantially colder, she finds Cosima easily - she'd managed to match dates and times with ID numbers and extrapolate from there. She wasn't stored under 324b21, but under Z-243. He'd hidden her in plain sight, and not very well at that. Almost as if he was taunting her with Cosima. That she could know exactly where she is, and be unable to do anything about it.
Morning will bring her transfer and the beginning of six months in cryo for Aldous. It's perfect, she reasons, to begin now. She accesses the information terminal, scanning through the inventory of viable individuals held in cryo. There are varied amounts of information on each patient, some have been in cryo for a very long time.
She finds the electronic forms easily. Some for transfer off the station, others for change in status. She begins filling out the form- Z-243, status: deceased, transfer to: incinerator. She enters Leekie's passcode, not her own. Aldous really should have made an effort to conceal his codes more effectively. When she finishes, she looks over the forms once more before submitting it. Cryo tube Z-243 is scheduled for the incinerator, due to the small viability failure rate in cryogenic preservation.
"Soon, mon amour." She whispers to an empty room, "Je te promets." Delphine quickly finished the forms and heads back to her quarters. She's aware she should sleep but her mind continues to race through scenarios, various results of the actions she's taken. There's no way to tell at this point, whether or not she sleeps.
Delphine tosses and turns half the night but in the morning she reports to Dr. Li for her frozen embryo transfer. She's well aware that Dr. Leekie is informed as soon as the procedure is completed, before she's even released. It was nothing like the extraction, uncomfortable but not awful. She was conscious the entire time and even able to certify that the embryos being implanted were exactly what they were supposed to be, to Dr. Li's annoyance and frustration.
"Two embryos successfully transferred. Now we wait and see." Dr Li said with false cheer. She'd never gotten over the refusal of genetic alterations to the embryos. She seemed to take it as a personal slight.
"Two? I agreed to have one transferred. Not two." Delphine begins to sit up, an unwise initial reaction. She gets stuck for a moment but pulls her legs from the stirrups and hops down off the table. She's cramping slightly but nothing that will stop her from continuing on with her day.
"The chances of them both taking are small, Dr. Cormier. And I was instructed to transfer two to increase chances of success. The third is still in storage for you - if we need it."
She doesn't have to ask who decided this would be the course of action. After dressing, she runs to the cryo lab and barges into the freezing room to find Aldous getting undressed to be put in, the metallic tube already laid out for him. The sight of the transparent purplish freezing gel makes her nauseous, for a moment she'd forgotten why she avoided this.
Dr. Simms, the elderly anesthesiologist, looks at her in vague surprise as he preps the sedative solution. He's not used to seeing her much, although occasionally he has sedated subjects for her in the past.
"Yes Delphine? I'm a little busy right now. Aren't you supposed to be off today?" Leekie climbs in to the cryo tub, gel moulding to his body - a port for the sedative had already been inserted into his arm which he holds out to Dr. Simms.
"Is there a problem Dr. Cormier?" Dr Simms jumps in, "I am going to sedate Aldous shortly, whatever you have to say I suggest you spit it out."
"Why two? I agreed to one transfer. I went along with it - I took the fertility drugs Dr. Li wanted me to..." She doesn't bother explaining, he'll know what she's saying. She cannot go into this, she wanted them frozen; in storage.
Leekie responds tiredly inserting his own nasal tubes, "Increased chances of success. Besides, it's not like you're keeping them frozen forever.. Motherhood should keep you busy and give you a more appropriate target for all that love of yours." He waves his free hand dismissively before sinking further into the cryo gel.
Delphine says nothing, Dr Sims connects the port to the sedative tube, "Anything else Dr. Cormier."
"No." Delphine shakes her head.
"When I wake up in about six months, I hope to find you pregnant and productively working in research. Until then." Leekie closes his eyes. She'll never understand how anyone can be so calm being put into cryo. She leaves before the process becomes painful - she can hear something from one of the thawing rooms - from the sounds of it a very angry man being taken out of cryo. Delphine cannot stand it any longer, she leaves the full body cryo unit as quickly as she can.
With Leekie out of the way, it is time to act before his replacement - whoever it ends up being - begins keeping tabs on her. The smaller lab is busy today, various scientists and techs working on samples.
Delphine skims the database to locate her remaining embryo - with the goal of transferring it to a portable tank. She cannot say that that she is truly surprised when she's in the process of gloving up to move her embryo to the compatible tank that she discovers records of other ova removed from her body. There's no notes as to what they were used for, only that there were ten more taken from her than they'd told her. She covers her face with her hands for a moment, letting it sink in. Did they extract them to sell? Human ova were a valuable enough commodity, or was this something more sinister? Either way - there's no telling what happened to them and she does not have time to investigate. She cannot allow herself to be distracted by this. She finishes her task and returns to her quarters, samples in tow.
She has some more leave coming up, she books passage on a large passenger vessel, a waking vessel, headed for the core planets. Multiple stops and a multitude of people. She's in the middle of packing her belongings before she's disturbed again. The door buzzes, no one comes here. Aldous is in cryo... she runs through other possibilities on route to her door.
"Dr. Simms?" She's surprised to find him at her quarters, she was fairly certain he usually did not notice that she existed. She's careful to stand to block the view into her quarters, hiding the small cryo transport tank and her half-packed luggage.
"I heard your... friend died. I'm sorry. I thought you should know." Dr. Simms presses something into her hands.
He had always been a strange man, Delphine blinks at him in shock, "What?"
"I was the one who put her under, you know." He shuffles his feet outside her door, "Even then she was cracking jokes."
"That's Cosima." Delphine shakes her head. She can picture it so clearly.
"She was, in my belief, completely sentient." Dr. Simms doesn't follow this up with any conversation, simply shrugs and walks away. What else is there to say?
She glances down to find herself holding a pair of glasses, Cosima's glasses from her personal effects. She bites her lip, clutching the glasses in her fingers.
She approaches the communications panel in her quarters, she enters the contact information for the vessel, "Oneid Waking Vessels, How may I help you?"
"Hello, I will be traveling on your vessel departing this evening - but I have some unusual cargo." Delphine begins uncertain of how this exchange will go.
"Nothing is unusual with DYAD." The young woman answers back, Delphine cannot help noticing that her eyes are an inhuman gold.
"Medical transfer, patient in cryo - going to the DYAD facility on Ai for experimental surgery. I will be accompanying the patient. I want to be sure that it's scheduled to be brought on board."
"Can you send me the forms?" The young woman pauses checking through, "Seems Dr. Aldous Leekie has already cleared the tube for transport. I have a record of that tube already in our cargo bay. Is there anything else?"
"Excellent. I do have other medical samples- I will be bringing them on board myself," Delphine answers, "Thank you very much." She should have time to swing by the other lab after packing. See what she can discover what was done from the files before heading out.
"You're very welcome Dr. Cormier. And thank you for choosing to travel with Oneid Waking Vessels." The com cuts out, her quarters are as dreary as ever. She won't miss this place.
She rolls Cosima's glasses up in a spare pair of thermals and tucks them into her luggage. She takes her time packing, she doesn't want to miss anything she will need. Either way, there will be no coming back from this.