Chapter Twenty-One: T.E.S.S.A.

Lexi sat quietly with Tessa sleeping in her lap. She looked around. Alexander had taken them to the upper West Wing. Despite the fact sens Alex told her who he was she had been given permission to go any ware in the castle including Alex's West Wing, Lexi had never ventured into the upper West Wing.

It was some kinda laboratory. The hole wing was a laboratory. They currently sat in what looked to Lexi as the medical proportion of it. There wear a couple of med-beds, medicines, scanners, and a few things Lexi couldn't identify. Other parts of the wing held half built robots and inventions and there was also weaponry.

Alexander typed a few tings on a computer before grabbing a hand held scanner and walking over to the two girls. "Lay her on the bed."

Lexi gently, as not to wake the child, laid Tessa on the med bed Alex had jesterd at. Alex separated the scanner into a hand held cylinder and a tablet. He held the cylinder over Tessa, it starting to flash red lightly to indicate it was on, and scanned her body.

"Well," He said scanning, "She seems to be in perfect health. No broken bones, no signs of a cold or disses, but there is slight interference with the scan." He set the hand held scanner down and pressed a few buttons at the head of the bed, "I'm going to do a full body scan."

From the bed came up two black scanners the cased around the bed. A light scanned the sleeping child. A holographic image displayed from a computer terminal. The hologram quickly appeared in layers. Showing the Skeletal system, general organs, muscular tissue, skin and fur, then the clothing the child now wore. Lexi blinked the layers had appeared to quickly to see in full detail, but there was something off about it.

She looked at Alex with a quizzical gaze.

"You saw it too?" Alex asked her.

"Ya. I mean I don't know what I saw, but it wasn't normal."

Alex circled the hologram. "Computer remove the brown Jacket from the holographic feed." the jacket pixelised then disappeared. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Tessa was dressed in a blue jumper suit with a companies logo printed on the chest: Tama Co. Her black hair poofed off her head, her ears where black on the out side and brown inside with white tufts of fur sticking out the top, black spots covering her closed eyes, brown being her primary fur color, black hands feet and shoulders(seen because the shirt was sleeveless and the child possessed no foot covering), her muzzle was a light gray the most likely continued down her chest and belly, her long tale striped colors of brown, gray, and black. Nothing out of ordinary, "Computer remove clothing, outer skin tissue and hair particles." Lexi and Alex gaped at the image before them. Tessa's arms where non organic. Same with her legs and right eye. It was robotic. The bones, muscle tissue, veins, they were all artificial.

"She's a-" Lexi gasped, "a cyborg?"

Alex sat down in a chair and typed a few things down on one of his computers. A large screen came on line and flashed different computer files. Till one came up labeled Tama Co. Alex typed in a pass word. Lexi stood behind Alex and looked up at the screen.

A reel started to play.

"We here at Tama Co. are always searching for the next step foreword in mechanical, medical, and jest home appliance advancements." It was an information video as it showed workers and scientist creating new gadgets and items, "One of are newest programs has been designed specificity for solders who have lost limbs, appendages, or given brain damage on the battle field, but can also be used for everyday citizens who have been in accidents."

"We call this program TamaCo Experimental Synthetic Soldier Appendages or T.E.S.S.A. The T.E.S.S.A. program uses nano technology. The synthetic limbs are attached to the nerves system and circulatory system. Allowing the user to feel everything at if it was the real thing. And allows them to still feel human and bleed. After synthetic limbs have been used to replace the lost one, we inject nanites into the bloodstream. The nanites use natural material to maintain the synthetic limbs. Allows them to grow with the user over time. Such as if it is a child. This will make it so that they will never need to get a replacement became its gotten to small. The nanites can also replace damaged brain cells wile retaining what would have been lost. Our nanites are very special as in, they do have there specific purposes, but work jest like normal body cells."

"The program, however, is still, obviously, in the experimental stage. Volunteers have so far been unsuccessful. There bodies have rejected the nanites creating reacquiring problems. In hopes to correct this we have decided to create designer children. Bred specifically to accept the nano technology. They first few did not work," Lexi turned her head away as the screen flashed misshaped children and then looked back. Lexi gasped. In a synthetic whom, not even born yet, Lexi could tell that the almost fully developed baby was the same one that was sleeping on the med-bed, "Eventually we had a success." it then showed an operation on the new born. Removing body parts and replacing them with synthetic, "The child survived the operation. After that the child started to grow quit well. Her development was slightly more advanced then a normal child. We believe this to caused by the nanites. The only thing that hasn't developed correctly are verbal and social skills. She dose not talk and hardly interacts with people. Test show she is very capable but chooses not to."

Alex turned it off. He took a deep breath before slamming his fist down on the controls, "They were suppose to be shut down!"

Lexi placed a hand on his shoulder, "Alex? What do you have o do with this?"

Alexander looked up at Lexi and sighed. She knew him to well, "When I said I wasn't your teams enemy, but I wasn't your ally either I meant it. I funded Tama Co. There ideas where vast. Revolutionary. But not exactly government approved. They were considered to dangerous. So I funded them. The ideas were to great to est pass up and be lost. But then I learned what they were really doing. They were mutating people. Scaring, and doing honorable things. Then there was there designer children they used. Innocent children. I don't care if they were 'created' for specifics, they were still jest children. So I shut them down, stopped funding them then called authority on them. They were never suppose to have the power to do this ever again!"

Alex jolted up and gave Lexi a jester not to touch him. He walked over to were Tessa was still sleeping. He pushed her hair out of her eyes only for it to fall right back, "It may have not been directly, but I did this to her. I made her a cyborg. And gave her who knows what kind of life. And all thous other children."

"Alex," Lexi wrapped her arm round his waist and rested her head on his back as he still didn't face her, "you didn't know. You didn't do this. You tried to stop it."

He gently pushed her away and pressed an intercom, "Mrs. Annebeth, please ready the room next to Lexis, and order things for a child's room."

"Child?" Mrs. Annebeths voice asked back.

"Yes, a little girl. Ruffly 2½ years old. Racoon Anthro. I want clothes, a bed, toys, anything she would need. We another guest." Alex picked up the babe and handed her gently over to Lexi, "Can you see her to her new room. I have a few things I need to do."

"Sure thing Alex." Lexi replayed sullenly.