Amy watched with a grin as 'Ianthe' fell over again.
"Ow," the large reptilian creature muttered, rubbing its head.
"You know as well as I do that you barely even noticed," she smiled.
"I'm used to hitting my head hurting, all right?" Lisa grumbled as she stood up again. "Are you sure this thing is working right?"
"It's fine, I promise. You're just having trouble integrating the new neural boosters I added to link into the secondary brain. Everything will come together within a few minutes."
Lisa fell over. Again.
"Probably."
Taylor was lying back in a chair laughing like an idiot, which kept getting her annoyed looks from the latest Family member. Sighing heavily, Lisa stood up yet again, moving very slowly and carefully.
It took her about fifteen minutes, but in the end Amy was pleased to see she suddenly started moving far more naturally. Both she and Taylor watched with pleasure as their friend jumped up and down, ran around a little, and did a few flips and somersaults in the middle of the room, before standing and grinning at them. "Wow. Just fucking wow. I don't know what else to say, Amy, you do unbelievable work. It's like this really is my body now."
"Right now, it is. Don't think of yourself as Lisa in an Ianthe suit, because you're not. You're Ianthe, completely. Lisa is somewhere inside you, nice and safe, and her mind is your mind, but other than that you have almost nothing in common." Walking over, Amy put her hand on the scaly skin, letting her power check things over. "It's working perfectly. Do you want any modifications done while you're in there?"
"You already gave me a symbiote, thanks for that. But the increased strength mods might be useful."
"OK. I'll make them happen, but leave them disabled for the moment. You'll need to learn how to use them which will take more time since you don't have my power to monitor everything. I'll have to make a few changes to you once you're out again and we can see how everything's working." She was doing the work as she spoke. Stepping back when she was done, she looked up a couple of feet into the glowing green eyes of her currently reptilian latest friend. "Great. We'll leave you in to cook for a couple of hours."
"I am not a chocolate cake," 'Ianthe' sighed. Taylor was laughing again behind them.
Snickering, Amy looked over at her. "Set up the target again, will you?" she requested. The other brunette nodded, jumping up and going over to make several of the previously used target stands in a line along the back wall. Lisa turned to watch. "OK. I'll guide you on how to use the dart guns and select the ammunition. Again, at the moment you'll have to live with a number of preset versions until I can figure out how to add an ability to make new ones without my power."
Appearing surprised, Lisa looked down. "Do you really think you can?" she asked incredulously.
Amy nodded slowly. "Pretty sure, yes. It's complicated but not impossible. I have some other ideas that could help convince people you're Ianthe properly, but let's get this one working first. Right then, lift your arm and aim it at the target..."
She monitored the relevant actions from both the inside and the outside as she talked Lisa through how to use her built-in weaponry. It took some time, but eventually the familiar sharp pop came. A dart pinged off the back wall and whistled overhead with a very convincing ricochet noise straight out of a movie. "Oops," Lisa said, sounding embarrassed. "Missed."
"I think I'm going to cover the computers," Taylor announced. "And you should put this on, Amy." She handed her friend a copy of her riding costume as she walked past, suitably modified for her tail.
"Probably a good idea," she replied, quickly donning it. By the time she had, all the fragile new equipment was behind impenetrable shields in case of further misfires.
"OK. Let's try that again."
Lisa raised an arm and aimed carefully, smiling but concentrating. She seemed to be having fun, Amy decided, then reflexively ducked at another nasty whirring sound.
"Oops."
Amy sighed. This might take a while.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dean looked at the image on his computer screen with his mouth hanging slightly open, not entirely sure he was reading the associated text correctly. "Two of them?" he mumbled to himself, shocked. "How the hell can there be two of them?"
Leaning back in his chair with a thump, he stared at the screen. "What in god's name is going on around here now?" he moaned, scrubbing his hands over his face.
Just when he thought he'd come to terms with Taylor and her terrifying alter-egos, she somehow pulled something like this out of her apparently bottomless bag of tricks. After some time, he reached out and clicked the mouse, closing the PHO page he'd been gaping at since Dennis texted him a message recommending it.
To be honest, right now he didn't want to know, didn't want to even think about it, and was going to stay well the fuck away from the docks, Taylor, and Amy. Just in case the insanity was infectious.
After a moment's thought, he added the words, 'more infectious' to that statement, as it clearly needed them. Getting up he headed for the bathroom. Getting ready for bed, with the hope that his nightmares wouldn't have teeth and scales in them this time, seemed like a good idea.
He couldn't handle today any more and wanted it to be tomorrow, which would hopefully make more sense.
At least his date had gone well, which was something.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Kevin rubbed the side of his nose, clicking through the PHO thread with his other hand, intermittently stopping to read a posting more carefully. He was accumulating a number of images and some video in other tabs of the web browser as he went. Eventually he reached the current last page, just staring at it for a few seconds, before he opened the image tabs on his other monitor.
Zooming in on each image in turn he carefully studied each one. Saving them to disk he then loaded them into an image editor and looked even more carefully at them. Finally he pulled down the video and ran it through his edit suite frame by frame, before shaking his head in wonder.
"Fucking unbelievable."
"What is?" Randall asked from the sofa, where he was playing the ancient but still amusing game Carmageddon with the sound down, snickering as he mowed down pedestrians.
"I am in awe at the abilities one of our neighbors has," Kevin replied, looking over at his friend. "Pure awe. And more than a little terrified at what it implies."
Puzzled, Randall paused the game, then got up and came over. Kevin pointed at his monitor where the video taken a few hours earlier was playing, showing Saurial and a larger, slightly purple-tinged blue lizard-creature standing outside Fugly's, both of them eating enormous burgers while surrounded by a crowd of people with phones held up. Both of them looked in a good mood, talking to the others around them and Saurial signing a couple of autographs.
His friend stared at the monitor for a couple of repeats, then sat down heavily. "What the fuck?" he said in a wondering tone.
"You see what I mean?"
"How in god's name are there two of them?" Randall asked slowly.
Kevin turned to him, having watched the video clip once more. "It's only a guess at the moment, but I'm pretty certain that the big violet one is actually a synthetic life form," he said in the end. Randall gaped at him, then the screen again.
"What?"
"Synthetic. As in, manufactured."
"I know what synthetic means, you dick. Who made it?"
"Probably Panacea."
Randall stared at him. His face betrayed the shock that Kevin had felt when he'd worked it out for himself. "We found out the other day that she's far more than a simple healer. Not that healing is simple, you understand, but you get my point."
"There's 'more than a healer' and then there's 'can make alien lizards from household supplies', man. Big fucking difference."
"True, very true," Kevin agreed, smiling a little. "But whatever, it's pretty damn amazing."
"Is it, or is she, an entirely new life-form, sentient and everything?" Randall asked, watching the video play again. The movements of the second Family member were totally natural, as was the entire creature, as far as either of them could see.
"I'm not at all sure," Kevin admitted. "I can think of a few possibilities, though. She could be built from scratch, an entirely new individual. But that's the most terrifying thing I can think of for a Biotinker, which is what this definitely is, to be able to do. Slightly less terrifying is the idea that she's a construct being driven by someone else's mind somehow."
"Taylor?"
"I doubt it, because I'm near enough a hundred percent convinced that's Taylor next to her. It's probably Amy. Either locally or remotely, although local control would be a lot simpler. Nothing like easy, of course, it's an insanely difficult thing to even consider doing, but it makes more sense. Unless she's hiding some fucking impressive Master abilities as well."
"You mean… You think her brain is in there?" Randall looked somewhat ill.
Kevin studied the creature that apparently called itself Ianthe. "No. I don't think she went that far. No need to. It's only an educated guess, but I bet Amy's inside that thing. Somewhere. It's probably linked into her brain somehow, but I think she's entirely intact and healthy. And most likely enjoying the hell out of the entire thing. She sure looks happy."
This was true, Ianthe seemed to be having a wonderful time if his reading of her reptilian countenance was anything to go by.
"Fuck me. I had no idea that girl could do anything like this," Randall finally said in an awed voice.
"I doubt anyone outside Taylor and a few very trusted people do," Kevin replied. "And I'm absolutely certain that we have to make sure we don't even hint at the fact we suspect she can, either." Randall looked at him, then the monitor again.
He nodded soberly. "Nilbog."
"Damn right. She's not the same at all, that girl is way more stable and a fuck sight smarter than that murdering pain in the ass, but if the PRT get wind of this, she's in trouble." Kevin was entirely serious. He could do the math as easily as his friend, and thought it certain that Amy had long ago reached the same conclusions. Which was why no one had ever known.
"If they find out, and come after her, Taylor will stomp them flat," Randall said in even tones.
"Ohhhh, yes. She protects her friends, and Amy is the closest of them, I think. Anyone who goes after the girl is dead meat. But I'd prefer not to see the entire city wiped out, so let's not be a cause of that, OK?" He thought for a moment, then grinned. "How much do you want to bet that she's faked up some weird fucking origin story of the Family, complete with DNA proof?" he snickered. "If she can do this, she could have them chasing their tails for years trying to work it out."
Randall started laughing. "Oh, I knew I liked that girl for a reason," he chortled. "You're probably right. Two peas in a pod, those two, and Taylor is already doing pretty much exactly that. Shit, I bet the PRT is already running around in a panic trying to figure out what the hell is going on."
"Probably. According to PHO they met Miss Militia and Velocity earlier. Some cop posted a few things about it a couple of dozen pages back. He seemed to think it was funny."
Chuckling, Randall shook his head in respect. "Impressive. I can hardly wait until tomorrow morning."
"Should be fun, I think," Kevin grinned. Turning off his monitor he went over to the sofa. "Where's the other controller?" he asked, looking around. Shortly both of them were wiping out people by the dozen with all sorts of improbable car stunts, laughing like idiots.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"This is the coolest thing I've ever done," Lisa giggled, swimming along the bottom leaving a trail of disturbed sediment behind her. She was a mile or more outside the bay entrance, five hundred and twenty feet down according to her power, which seemed to be being more cooperative than she'd ever experienced before. So far there wasn't even a trace of a headache, although she wasn't certain why. It could have been Amy's symbiote, the Ianthe construct her real body was currently inside, or just the weird nature of powers yet again doing something peculiar.
Looking around as she swam, she marveled at the way she could see quite well for a considerable distance. Light-producing organs down her sides spread green illumination for dozens of yards in the very clear but also very cold water, which she was entirely unaffected by. On the surface it was completely dark to human eyes, a light cloud layer having come in and blocked the stars, yet down here she still had enough light available even without the bioluminescence to see her surroundings.
Amy had managed to show her how everything worked, at least as far as it could go without the Dallon girl's biomanipulative abilities. Her own powers filled in most of the blanks surprisingly effectively, allowing her to pick up operating the body like it was her own after the initial calibration period. The auxiliary brain was doing fine work running all the low level stuff as well, leaving her to simply enjoy the results.
'Amy is unbelievable,' she thought, doing a couple of flips for the hell of it. 'How she could resist using her abilities so much for so long is beyond me if she can do something like this. She must have incredible self-control.' Shaking her head, she looked to her left, feeling a pressure wave approaching, along with a blue light. "Hi," she said as Taylor slowed to match her speed, pacing her from twenty feet away.
"Having fun?" her friend asked with amusement in her eyes and voice.
"So much fun it should be illegal," Lisa replied happily.
"It almost certainly is," Taylor chuckled. "We'll have to go back soon, Amy needs to get home and it's two in the morning or so."
"OK." Looking around, Lisa slowed, then turned through a hundred and eighty degrees. Accelerating with a flick of her tail she headed back towards Brockton Bay, following her nose and the scent of industry in the water. Her sense of smell was incredible, as were her other senses, and she began to finally understand what Taylor could do in other than an intellectual manner. It was breathtaking.
"I want to come down here during the day," she said.
"I don't see that as a problem," Taylor smiled, following her easily. "One day, I want to do some real exploring."
"Where?" she asked curiously.
"Well, I was reading about the Titanic a while ago. They know roughly where it went down, but no one ever found it. That Ballard guy tried, but they didn't find anything. I bet I could."
Lisa glanced sideways at her companion, a little surprised, but interested. "That could be fun."
"I thought so. Anyway, that's something for later." Rolling onto her back, Taylor swam along upside down for a while, making Lisa grin.
Soon they were slowing, as the pair entered the shipping channel cut through the reef at the entrance to the bay. Not long after that, she climbed out of the water behind the other girl, both of them shaking themselves mostly dry, the water running off their scales very fast. Apparently Amy had managed to duplicate the effect that Taylor's Varga forms had of being slightly hydrophobic, which also seemed to reduce drag underwater. Tapping on the door, Taylor went inside when Amy opened it, Lisa following.
"How did it go?" the brunette asked, looking her up and down with an evaluating eye.
"Fantastically well, thanks," Lisa replied. "Your work is amazing. I so want one of my own."
"We'll start making it during the week, but we'll need more onions," Amy laughed. "Work out what color you want. OK, that's almost everything. I have one last mod to make, but it's complicated. We'll need it, though. Come over here and sit down, this will take a while."
Lisa glanced at Taylor, who shrugged, then shrank back into her base form, sitting at the table and putting her feet up to watch. Sitting on the floor, the currently reptilian normally blonde girl waited as the third member of their little group put her hands on her shoulders and appeared to go into a trance.
She could feel some weird sensations running through her borrowed body but resisted the urge to scratch, which would have been pretty futile anyway since the itch was inside her head mostly. Eventually Amy stepped back, nodding in satisfaction. "That should do it," she smiled.
"What did you do?" Taylor asked curiously.
"With a little luck, gave that body a healing ability."
Taylor and Lisa both looked at Amy in shock, the girl grinning back smugly.
"What the fuck? How did you do that?" Taylor looked stunned.
"It's a variant of the symbiote, it's based on that, actually," Amy smiled. "I figured out a way to make it work on people without needing them to actually have one. It basically connects temporarily, fixes the problems, then withdraws. Should look suitably alien as well. Little tendrils out the hands."
Lisa held her scaled hands in front of her, inspecting them. She couldn't see any difference, and said as much.
"No, it's invisible, but I'm pretty sure it'll work," the other girl replied. "But we need a test subject."
"Grab one of the DWU guys? They're still wandering around out there," Lisa suggested after a moment.
Taylor looked uncertain. "I'd prefer it if we didn't let anyone know about this until we know it works, it'll make the whole Family thing look more plausible," she replied. "How about one of Rachel's dogs?"
"She'll get really, really mad if you hurt one of those dogs," Lisa warned. "Assuming she's not there right now anyway."
"Don't worry, it'll be fine," Amy reassured her. "I can fix anything that goes wrong and I'll monitor it. I bet there's at least one of them that needs something repaired anyway."
"Only way to find out is to look," Taylor pointed out, changing to Raptaur and heading for the door. "Back in a minute."
She disappeared out the main entrance. A few minutes later she came back with Rachel following her, looking tired and slightly worried, holding a small terrier in her arms. "Rachel, this is my cousin Ianthe," Taylor said as she closed the door behind her. The solidly-built girl stopped dead and inspected Lisa closely.
"You trust her?" she finally asked, not looking away.
"Implicitly," Taylor replied.
There was another pause, then Rachel nodded firmly, walking over and kneeling down. "This is Ben. His left hind leg was broken and didn't set right. Fix him."
She stroked the dog which was sitting on the floor next to her looking up at Lisa with a quizzical expression. Lisa smiled a little. Her friend's blunt attitude was refreshingly honest compared to a lot of people, although she could see why it grated on some. "I'll see what I can do," she said, glancing at Amy, who nodded.
Kneeling down as well, she put a hand on the dog. Amy did the same. Looking at the brunette she attempted to get the question 'Now what?' across with her eyes. A couple of seconds later she felt her hand tingle, looking quickly at it to see dozens of thin worm-like threads coming out the palm and sides and burrowing into the dog through the fur without any obvious issues. The animal didn't appear to notice.
More than a little shocked and somewhat revolted, Lisa kept her expression fixed in a calm smile while Rachel stared. The dog twitched, looking puzzled, then lay down and closed its eyes, apparently suddenly very tired. "It's working fine," Amy assured both of them. Taylor was standing watching with interest, meeting Lisa's eyes with a look of confidence.
Lisa could feel weird sensations through the tendrils, which her power told her were all sorts of data about the animals health, basically the information the symbiote was using to work out what was wrong with it. A handful of seconds passed, then the data changed. After another, surprisingly short, period of time, the little extrusions retracted. The dog sighed as she lifted her hand at Amy's quick motion, the healer nodding in satisfaction. "Worked perfectly. His leg is fine now, Rachel."
The other girl looked at her, then carefully felt the dog's leg with her fingers. She smiled. "Thanks," she said, as the animal woke up and looked around, apparently none the wiser as to what had happened. Picking him up, she stood, then headed for the door without another word. Taylor let her out then closed and locked it once more.
"Not a girl of many words, is she?" she snickered.
"No, but she tends to mean the ones she uses," Lisa replied. "And she's really pleased, I can tell." Looking at Amy again, she shook her head. "Shit, that was incredible. You're as bad as Taylor is, every time I think we've found your limit you immediately exceed it. The number of things you two are sitting on that are literally world-changing are unbelievable."
Appearing both pleased and somewhat sad, Amy shrugged. "And most of them we can probably never let anyone know about. Or at least admit to the truth of."
"Unfortunately true," Lisa sighed, standing up. "But I think I can pull off a damn convincing Ianthe impression now." She used one of the built-in systems to make a blade in one hand then reabsorbed it. "Such total bullshit I can hardly believe it. You're cheating harder than anyone I've ever met except for her," she added with a grin, pointing at Taylor who nodded placid acknowledgment of the comment.
"It's what I do," Amy laughed. "Apparently. OK, let's get you out of there, and make sure everything is working correctly."
Nodding, Lisa lay down on her side, then did the mental exercises that Amy had drilled into her to make the construct disconnect from her. The sudden sensory deprivation that resulted was disorientating at first, but she quickly felt hands holding hers as she thrust them out. Seconds later she was sitting on the floor breathing heavily with her head in her hands, the first breaths her own lungs had taken for nearly three hours. And wasn't that a weird thought?
"You need to work on that disconnection part, it's pretty unpleasant," she said when she'd recovered, opening her eyes and looking at Amy, who had a hand on her shoulder checking her well-being.
"I know, it's not ideal, but like I said this is the prototype. It'll get better. You're fine, by the way. All the mods are done. I'll leave the super-strength and the other things off for now, it'll take some careful testing to make sure everything works properly and teach you to use them and I'm too tired right now to do it. Tomorrow, maybe."
"No rush," Lisa said as she stood up, finding it easier than it had ever been. The symbiote on its own had left her in the best health of her life, which she could easily feel. "But thanks. Both for the upgrades and that experience, it was amazing." She began pulling on her clothes which were folded on the table.
Amy nodded, smiling, then went over to the Ianthe construct and put a hand on its head. The access slit closed and vanished, then the eyes opened. Lisa took a step back as it rolled over and stood up. "That's a little freaky without anyone controlling it," she breathed.
"Don't worry, it won't hurt you," Amy said over her shoulder. "You're an authorized user and it knows you better than you know yourself." She gave a hand signal, the artificial creature watching her closely, then smiled when it lay down again and went dormant with the access slit opening once more. "OK, you need to learn this. This motion to make it allow entry." The girl made the hand motion again, Lisa and Taylor both watching carefully. Lisa's power made memorizing it simple. "Put your hand here to turn it back on from the outside. It'll know your touch, but it won't respond to anyone it doesn't know." Once more she put her hand on its head between the eyes.
Opening them the thing stood up again, apparently content to repeat this all night. Lisa tried the deactivation hand signal, then the activation touch, both working to design. "What happens if someone does that signal when you're in it?" Taylor asked.
"Nothing, when a user is in there all the automatic controls are overridden, and like I said, it knows its users. It's smart enough to make it almost impossible to fool the security." Amy looked pleased about this.
"And if someone keeps trying?"
"Well..." The healer chewed her lip. "Let's say that would be a bad idea and leave it at that." She spread her hands, grinning. "They'll get enough warning to start running. Might even make it if they're quick."
Taylor looked impressed and Lisa shivered a little. She had no doubt that Amy wasn't joking.
"OK, these are some more control signals," the girl added. She showed them how to make the construct move around like it was radio controlled. Lisa memorized then tried all of them.
"You've got more as well, haven't you?" she asked when Amy stopped teaching her.
"Yep. Still working on the patterns, though. But I can put it into defense mode, which is going to be bad for anyone who shouldn't be around, trust me," Amy replied thoughtfully, inspecting the synthetic life-form, which was watching her as she moved around like a dog waiting for a biscuit. Lisa could tell even without her power that there were more than just a few preprogrammed routines in its brain, although it certainly wasn't even close to sentient or self-aware. Like Amy had told them, a fairly bright dog.
A fairly bright dog with six inch teeth that was very close to indestructible, and moved faster than almost anything she could think of, that was.
"You built a velociraptor," she suddenly realized.
"A utahraptor would be a closer match," Taylor said, as Amy grinned. "The feet are wrong, though. No proper disemboweling claws. It's more like a very evolved one based on that pattern, like a human is an evolved plains ape." Both of them looked at her, making her shrug. "I know quite a bit about reptiles, both living and extinct. I wonder why?"
Smirking, Lisa turned back to the construct. Amy was standing with her hand on it and her eyes closed. "She's fine," the other girl reported after a moment. "No problems at all. I'm really pleased how things went with all this, everything worked amazingly well."
"Armsmaster and the others are due here at ten tomorrow morning," Taylor pointed out, reverting to normal and sitting down. "I'll get her for about half past eight. Amy, come here before ten, so you're here when they arrive. Lisa and I will get 'Ianthe' sorted out before that, to give her some more practice. Everyone can get a good look at both of you talking to each other, there shouldn't be any doubt that you're separate people. We even have Legend of all people coming!" She grinned widely. "I doubt we could get a better witness. No one is going to claim he's lying about it, and the best part is, he won't be."
"Sounds like a good plan," Amy chuckled. "I'll put her away."
"Before you do that, Amy, I have designed a variant on the cloaking spell that I believe will achieve a useful result," the Varga put in. Lisa and Amy turned to regard Taylor as the demon connected to her smiled with her face. It was something Lisa still found one of the creepiest things she'd ever seen, her power flatly refusing to dig into it at all. Probably for the best since she tended to miss large sections of time when she pushed.
"What does it do?" Amy asked curiously.
Taylor's body stood, although Lisa could tell it wasn't her doing the driving at the moment. There was some subtle change to the body language that for the life of her she couldn't put into words, when the Varga was moving her friend around. "It uses the perceptual filter part of the spell but essentially turns down the effect to restrict the efficiency. The full spell is effectively invisibility, we don't need that, we want the confusion of perception and the inability to associate cause and effect. I think I've managed to modify the spell to do this. It's an interesting intellectual exercise, a variant of magic unlike my normal repertoire. The spell isn't demon magic, although it was designed by a very talented mage."
"So, if you apply it to 'Ianthe' here..." Lisa thought out loud.
"It should prevent anyone being able to associate her with the thought that either you or Amy are actually in charge. Correct." He smiled. "Obviously I can tune it to allow specific people to ignore it. But if it works properly, it will be another layer of disconnection between your Family identities and your true identities."
"Will you be able to tell if it's working, or do we need to test it?" Amy asked.
"I will be able to tell, I have enough experience with the full spell to determine that accurately," he replied.
"I can't see any reason not to use it, and a hell of a lot of reasons to use it," Lisa said, looking at the others.
"Me neither. Please go ahead, Varga." Amy smiled, moving to the side. Taylor's body looked at the construct, which looked back, cocking its head in a very familiar manner which made all three of them grin.
"This won't hurt, 'Ianthe'," the Varga laughed. He was silent for a few seconds. "There. That seems to have done the trick. I will have to reinforce it on occasion, the same as with the spell on your tail, Amy, but we should be safe now. It will most likely also cause some confusion for what the PRT terms Thinker abilities, I expect. The full cloak would appear to interfere in a very serious manner."
"Who is excluded from it?" Lisa asked.
"Currently, you, Amy, and Danny. Do you want anyone else added to the exclusion?"
Lisa glanced at Amy, who was thinking. After a moment, Taylor said in her own voice, "Über and Leet."
"Sure?" Amy looked mildly dubious.
"I think so," Taylor nodded. "I trust them both, more than I'd have expected, for some reason. I think they're safe. And I wouldn't be surprised if they've worked it out, assuming they've seen the PHO reports. Both of them know there's only one of me, after all, and they know something of what you can do. Dean doesn't have that last bit of information so he probably won't figure it out himself, although we're going to need to think of a story to tell him. Sooner or later he's probably going to ask."
Lisa thought, but couldn't see a hole in her argument. Neither could Amy, apparently.
"OK, I can go along with that. I can't think of anyone else, not at the moment. Later, maybe."
"All right. I have made the changes," the Varga stated. "I look forward to tomorrow with a degree of amusement." He grinned a wide demonic grin, which made Lisa laugh.
"I think we all do, Varga," she said, watching as Amy guided the bioconstruct into her workroom and shut it down. "How long can it stay dormant like that?" she asked curiously.
"Months at least, probably years," Amy said as she locked the room door. "I'm not sure yet, that's one of the things that needs more testing. But a hell of a long time. It's basically in suspended animation like this, shut down to the minimum possible level, but still alive."
"Let's get your truck outside, then we need to go," Taylor said as she headed towards the crated vehicle and made the crate go away. She yawned. "I'm getting to the point I could do with some sleep myself."
Ten minutes later, Lisa watched the tail-lights of the truck disappear around the corner towards the gate. Smiling a smile that was full of genuine pleasure rather than know-it-all-ness, which she would be the first to admit she had more than her share of, she headed towards her own bed, thinking about how much her life had changed in one day.