Sunday, February 20, 2011
Sitting on the edge of her bed, Amy yawned, then scratched her head, before standing up. Walking across the room she headed for the window, peering out into the early morning to see what the weather was like. As it turned out, it was raining lightly through a low mist, the good weather of the last few days having reverted to typical New England winter conditions. At least, she thought, the temperature was starting to rise, although there was still a possibility of a late-season cold snap.
She pondered how slippery the roads would get if that happened under the current conditions, deciding she needed to practice with the four-wheel-drive aspects of her new vehicle, which was parked in the driveway under her window. Looking down at it she smiled for a moment, still feeling very pleased she actually owned the thing.
Turning away from the window the girl went to her closet, poking through the clothes Taylor had made for her the day before. Setting aside a selection for the day, she quickly pulled out a number of her favorite unmodified lower body covering clothes such as dresses and slacks. These were folded up and put into a bag to take to the yard so her friend could use them as patterns for replacements suitable for a tail.
Looking over her shoulder for a moment, she twitched the end of the appendage in question, grinning briefly at it. As promised, no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary when she'd got back, her mother getting up to mildly complain that she should probably let her know if she was going to be that late in future, then sleepily kissing her and going back to bed. Vicky had still been up, so she'd popped into her sister's bedroom to ask about her date with Dean. Apparently that had gone well, and she was pleased to see that the other girl had spent twenty minutes talking to her and looking right at her tail without noticing it at all.
'Magic is amazing,' she giggled, zipping the bag up. Her normal riding suit was in her truck, along with the new one that Taylor had made. She was going to leave the original one at the workshop but had forgotten to do so the day before. After a moment's thought she also pulled out the bag containing her armored Panacea costume, wanting to get it changed as well.
Transferring all three bags to the bed, she headed off to shower and get dressed, smiling to herself. Today was going to be interesting.
"How did it go yesterday?" Danny asked as he sorted paperwork on his desk. His daughter was leaning on the door frame of his office watching him.
"Very well. Really very well indeed. Amy's new toy works fantastically well, we got her down to over seven and a half thousand feet," Taylor smiled, making him look over and raise impressed eyebrows. "Plus she can swim at a steady seventy-five miles an hour or so for ages. She's incredibly happy about it."
"I can imagine," he smiled. "I'm still stunned that she's gone from nothing to that in such a short time, it makes me wonder what she'll be doing in a year or two."
"Sort of makes you think, doesn't it?" Taylor nodded her agreement. "But she's having a lot of fun, so am I, and Lisa too. Amy gave her a symbiote, by the way."
Danny thought about that for a moment, then smiled again. "Good. Is she planning on distributing them more widely yet?"
"Not right now, she's still got a few more tests to run, and there's the problem of the PRT finding out and getting worked up about it. We have a few ideas about that, though." He studied her, seeing a certain amount of sly planning in her grin.
"Oh, hell, why does that fill me with trepidation?" he said slowly.
"I don't know, Dad," she chuckled. "We're only going to extend the metaphor a little."
"Don't get carried away, Taylor," he sighed.
"We'd never do that," she replied. "Would we, Varga?"
"No, Brain," the demon replied with her mouth, sounding like he was enjoying a joke.
Danny shook his head and returned to his paperwork. "Weep for humanity, like I said," he muttered under his breath, but inwardly he was amused. "Anyway," he went on more loudly, "I saw that your new cousin met quite a few people last night. The reception seemed surprisingly good all things considered."
"We were pleased about it," she agreed. "Looks like the public are getting used to big lizards wandering around the city."
"After seeing Kaiju, I doubt that one a little smaller than Raptaur is too scary by comparison." He shook his head, glancing at her for a moment. "Unless they start thinking of the implications."
"Which a lot of people don't do," Taylor noted wisely. He nodded.
"Even so, I expect there are some interesting conspiracy theories on PHO about now."
"Yep. At least three new ones since last night when I checked." Pushing off the frame she stood up. "I'm heading in now. Are you going to be around today?"
"Later, yes. I have some things to do at home, then I need to do some shopping, we're running low on various things, but I'll be in sometime this afternoon. You've got Armsmaster and the other capes coming over this morning, right?"
"Yes, in about two hours." His daughter seemed to be in a good mood about it. "I'm looking forward to seeing what they have. See you later."
"Bye, Taylor. Say hi to Amy for me."
Nodding, she waved briefly, smiled at him, then left, the back door closing seconds later. Wondering what bizarre thing would happen today, he went on sorting out papers with a fond smile on his face.
Emily stared at the container on the desk in front of her, trying to decide what to do about it. Picking it up she rattled the contents around for a moment, peering at the tiny thing that implied so many very unsettling ideas. In the end, she sighed, put it down, and picked up her phone. "Is Chief Director Costa-Brown still in the building?" she asked when it was answered. The woman had been planning on leaving the night before but had ended up staying for longer due to some problem in the New Orleans office, having been involved in a video-conference with the director there. Listening for a moment, she instructed, "Good, please ask her to see me in my office before she leaves. Thank you."
Putting the phone down again she started reading the highly technical report from the R&D lab once more, looking up terms she was unfamiliar with.
Twenty minutes later, the woman who ultimately ran the PRT entered after knocking on her door. "Hello, Emily, I just got your message. You wanted to see me?"
"I do, yes," the blonde replied. She motioned to the chair in front of her desk. "Are you currently satisfied with the state of affairs here?"
Costa-Brown sat, then studied her. "Your job is safe for the moment, if that's what you're really asking," she finally said with a small smile. "I'm satisfied that you are handling it as well as anyone could ask for, under the circumstances, and much better than many would. Although that doesn't mean that I'm entirely happy about things as they are, because I'm not. I just don't see that at the moment there is anything else that can be done to change them. We'll monitor the situation, but leave it in your capable hands unless something changes which requires intervention."
"Thank you, although I wasn't fishing for that sort of information," Emily replied. She thought for a moment, then continued, "Did you hear about the new Family member that debuted last night? Ianthe?"
"Yes, it was hard to miss bearing in mind how many images on the internet there were," the other woman told her, looking mildly amused as well as slightly resigned. "Almost like Saurial was showing her off to the public."
"She may well have been doing exactly that, I suspect. Or possibly showing the public off to Ianthe. From what I've been told, the new one doesn't seem quite as accustomed to people as Saurial and the other two are." Emily shook her head slightly. "Not the main point, though. Miss Militia retrieved some evidence from an interaction that Saurial and Ianthe had with a set of E88 gang members that she was in pursuit of. Ianthe took them down before she could. Using some of these." She pushed the sealed container across the desk, her superior half-standing to retrieve it, then sitting back down.
Costa-Brown held it up to the light, shaking it gently. "A dart? Presumably tipped with some sort of incapacitating agent?"
"Exactly. A whole series of them, in fact, a paralytic, a sedative, a local anesthetic, and some strange antibiotic slash healing agent. None of which are known to our scientists."
The other woman looked sharply at her. "None?"
"No. Apparently they're completely new compounds. The lead researcher was very interested indeed in finding out more about them."
"And the dart? It looks odd, in some way. What's it made of, I don't recognize the material. A polymer?"
"An organic compound, loaded with metals, which was grown, not manufactured."
This time the Chief Director looked very startled. "Grown?"
"Quite. And fired from some form of gas powered blowgun built directly into the arms of Ianthe, as far as we can determine from the video recordings Miss Militia produced. She was certainly not carrying any visible weapon."
"That sounds… somewhat ominous."
"I'd have to agree. But that's not the most unusual thing about this whole affair."
"What is?"
Rather than replying, Emily opened the now well-thumbed report to the relevant page and handed it over. Costa-Brown put the sample container down, took the paperwork from her, and started reading.
A few seconds later she froze, staring in what looked like complete shock. "You have to be kidding me," the woman mumbled. Reading the paragraph again very slowly, she then flipped frantically through the report to the more detailed section the summary referenced and read it carefully. When she finished, she leaned back in her chair and stared at Emily with wide eyes.
"Shit."
"More or less my thoughts. What do you want to do about it?"
Both women sat and looked at each other in silence.
Getting out of the van, Randall waited for Kevin to lock it, then walked with his friend over to the BBFO front door, reaching out to knock. He and the other man were wearing balaclavas as was their normal practice, over street clothes. Motioning to a bright blue heavy-duty truck parked next to Kevin's van, he said, "Panacea is here, it looks like."
"Yes," Kevin replied, studying the vehicle. They'd seen it when the girl had turned up during their meeting with Taylor. "Nice truck. Needs some upgrades."
Randall smiled, then turned back when the door opened, the owner of the vehicle looking at them. "Hi, guys, come on in. Armsmaster and the others aren't here yet, you're early."
"We wanted to get here before them," he replied as he and his friend entered the building. She closed and locked the door then came past him. Both men had stopped and were staring at one of the other occupants of the building. They exchanged a glance.
"This is my cousin Ianthe," Taylor, in her Raptaur guise, said with a wide toothy smile. The nearly as big violet-blue bipedal lizard next to her waved.
"They smell interesting," Ianthe said, inspecting them. "You're sure we don't eat humans?"
"Completely. Saurial told you that several times last night. Nor do we hunt them," Taylor replied, shaking her head. Ianthe looked slightly disappointed. "Be good or we won't let you visit. The Family has a reputation to uphold after all."
Randall shivered a little. Beside him, Kevin made a small worried sound. The large reptile sounded entirely too convincingly non-human to both of them.
Walking closer, Ianthe looked them up and down, then sniffed, leaning over a little. He stared at the huge head only feet away, well above his. "Now they smell worried, they didn't when they came in. What's wrong?"
Taylor sighed faintly. "You're doing it again."
"What? I'm not doing anything."
"Yes you are."
Ianthe licked scaly lips with a long forked tongue, making him flinch, grinned at them, then stuck out a hand. "Sorry, guys, but I couldn't resist." She was suddenly much less frightening, somehow. "You should see the expressions on your faces."
Randall stared at the offered hand, then looked at his best friend, before turning his head to look at Amy who was grinning widely from the other side of Ianthe. Sighing, he shook hands. "OK, now I'm really very confused indeed. Anyone want to fill us in?"
"I'm just visiting my cousins from our alien lizard city far beneath the waves, deep in the abyss," Ianthe snickered. "Where we sleep the eons away, waking every now and then to guide human evolution where necessary."
"Sure you are," he groaned. "I'm getting a headache."
Kevin started laughing. "Oh, Jesus, this is insane. How the hell did you pull this off?"
"Thought it was me, didn't you?" Amy asked with a giggle in her voice. Both of them nodded.
"Surprise. It's not."
"And last night?" Kevin asked as he moved to sit in a chair. She followed, as did Randall.
"That was me."
"So who's in there right now?" He pointed at 'Ianthe' who was smirking at him. Taylor changed back into her human form and sat as well, looking like she was enjoying the joke.
"You met her the other night. Tattletale, a friend of ours." The violet lizard took a bow, making both men exchange glances again.
"Pleased to meet you both," she said. "After a fashion."
"And the point of all this is…?" Randall asked slowly.
"We need to disassociate Cousin Ianthe, the Family Biomanipulator, from Amy Dallon, AKA Panacea, the well-respected healer and friend of the Family, just in case some nasty paranoid person draws unwarranted conclusions from the potentially convenient overlap in their abilities. Which could cause problems all around." Taylor smiled at them.
"And if, just as an example, some high-ranking and well trusted Protectorate heroes happened to encounter both Ianthe and Amy at the same time in the same place, why, who would ever then believe that they were actually in any way the same person?" Amy suggested, looking highly satisfied. Randall gazed at her, then looked at Tattletale, who appeared very pleased with herself.
He looked at Kevin again, before both of them collapsed in laughter.
"Fuck, that's brilliant," he guffawed. "Armsmaster and Dragon will be your witnesses. The very people who might 'draw unwarranted conclusions' will be your alibi. Wonderful."
"And Legend, he's coming too," Tattletale put in, making him laugh harder.
"Even better. Respect, ladies. Best one I've heard in months." He shook his head, wiping tears of hilarity from his eyes.
Standing, Kevin circled the towering reptilian form of Tattletale/Ianthe, inspecting her closely. "May I?" he said, lifting a hand. She nodded. Reaching out he felt the scaled skin on her arms, then whistled. "Astounding, it feels totally genuine and alive."
"It is, it's just not naturally occurring," Amy smiled. "That body is as alive as you are." He looked at her, his eyes wide, then turned back to the lizard.
"So fucking impressive," he whispered. "How is the control done? I assume some form of neural interlink? Is it tech or biotech?"
"Entirely biological, there's no electronics or anything involved at all," Amy told him. "I have to make some modifications to the user, which are fairly significant but don't add any externally visible differences. New neural tissue surrounding the spine near the top, with bone protecting it, inside modified vertebrae. An X-ray would show what looks like a slight birth defect, a non-malignant tumor, in a place that couldn't be safely operated on."
Kevin nodded, looking fascinated.
"The internal systems link into the user's brain through those added nodes, and also take over the entire life support of the original body. Most of the neural processing needed is run through the 'Ianthe' brain, while a fair amount of the user's own brain is completely shut down as it just gets in the way. The end result is that it's for all intents and purposes completely your body. It even heals anything wrong with the user when they connect, and restores them to normal on exit so there's no trace of the connections. I'm pretty pleased, to be honest, it worked better than I expected."
"It's the coolest fucking thing I've ever come across," Tattletale added, grinning.
Nodding again, still looking flabbergasted, Kevin finally asked in a weak voice, "How long will it support someone in there?"
"Indefinitely," Amy smiled. "There's no upper limit."
"Fucking hell." He shook his head in wonder. "That's even more incredible than I expected. You do amazing work, Amy."
"Thanks." She indicated Taylor with a finger. "Taylor helped make the skeleton, and a lot of structural parts, the entire thing is laced with EDM and the bones and scales are largely made of it. The body isn't quite as indestructible as she is, but it's tougher than most armor I can think of. Way tougher than any power armor that someone like Armsmaster, for instance, has. Probably stronger as well."
Pulling his tricorder from a pocket, Kevin showed it to them. "Mind if I see what this thing shows?"
"Go ahead, I'm curious myself," Amy told him. "I tried to make it so it would shield the user from any sort of scan, it'll be interesting to see if that part works."
Turning the device on he adjusted it slightly, then ran it over Tattletale, who obligingly turned on the spot. Studying the results he frowned, made some more adjustments, then repeated his scans. "Remarkable. According to this she's alive, sure enough, but nothing even close to human. I guess this must be the life support system and Tattletale's real body by context but it scans as a number of other organs, something like a liver, several things I can't work out the function of, and nothing that indicates there's someone in there at all. It's also screwed up a lot by the presence of the EDM in the structure which makes everything very low resolution even to this."
He looked suspiciously at Amy who had come over and was looking at the device with interest. "You're not pulling a fast one, are you? She really is in there, not running that remotely somehow?"
"Nope. Really inside, right about there." Amy pointed to Tattletale, then to the small screen of his machine. "But the camouflage seems to work perfect. With her brain shut down and the construct body running life support, her organs are seen just as parts of the body. Great. Thanks, that's really useful data."
"The DNA is fucking peculiar as well," he noted with a frown. "Eight amino acids? A quad helix? Where the hell did you get that from?"
"Inspired by Taylor, who is, trust me, much weirder. I can't make heads or tails of her biology, I'm not even certain that it is biology, but studying it gave me all sorts of interesting ideas. This is my much simpler version." Amy looked pleased with herself, which Randall could well understand. Her achievement was far past anything he'd ever even heard of before. Kevin was just staring at her in amazement. "I sort of ran with the idea and ended up with something that should be a pretty convincingly alien DNA equivalent, complete with left over stubs from a totally non-terrestrial evolutionary tree, suitable non-coding sections, you name it. I bet anyone who tries to analyze it is going to get very confused. And pretty solidly confident it has nothing at all to do with human life."
Randall stared as well, then chuckled. "So all you need to do is get a sample into the PRT's hands and let them draw their own conclusions..."
"Did that last night," Amy grinned. She explained the carefully engineered meeting with Miss Militia, making both of them roar with laughter again.
"Christ, you girls are insane," Kevin finally said when he recovered. "You've thought of everything. Fucking excellent job. One Tinker to another, I'm more than impressed."
"Too kind," Amy replied with a neat curtsy, which made him grin. "And much appreciated."
"I have a question," Randall said after a moment, making everyone look at him. "Why are you being so open with us about all this? I mean, we're not going to say anything and we'd already worked quite a lot of this out, we know damn well that Biotinkers are sort of hated by the PRT for obvious reasons. So you going to all this trouble to confuse the issue is perfectly sensible. But you're still talking to us about it in detail. Just seems a little odd to me."
"Not that we don't appreciate the confidence," Kevin added after a second or two.
Taylor looked at Amy, then Tattletale, who was standing next to the healer. Eventually she said, "For various reasons, we trust you guys. You helped a lot on Tuesday when you didn't have to, you've been open with us more than most would be, and I have a feeling that we can work together on some interesting things. Hopefully not illegal ones either. Leet came up with the entire idea of an anti-Endbringer weapon and started the ball rolling, he didn't have to do that either. Not to mention he was the one who told me what my good stuff really was. I sort of owe you guys something, and letting you in on that is one way to pay back the favors you've done for me."
"She's a good judge of character and I trust her like my own sister," Amy put in. After a moment's thought, she sighed a little, then said, "More than my own sister, to be honest, she doesn't know any of this. The only people who do are in this room, plus her father. That's it."
"I see," he replied slowly. "I'm honored." Kevin nodded to his words. They exchanged a glance, long and deep friendship allowing him to have a wordless conversation with his companion. Eventually the other man shrugged. "Why not?" Randall said, pulling his balaclava off. "Trust goes both ways. Randall Martins, a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
All three girls stared. Kevin whipped his own head covering off, and bowed. "Kevin Sherrill. Likewise, ladies."
"Smooth, man, very smooth."
"I know," the Tinker grinned.
There was a few seconds silence. "I think we're all both surprised and pleased," Amy finally said. "Thank you for the trust. None of us will say anything either."
Tattletale walked over and looked down at them, her green glowing gaze switching from one to the other. Eventually she sighed a little, glancing at Taylor. "Lisa Wilbourn. Or Tattletale of what was the Undersiders. It's a bit complicated and not entirely my story to tell." She looked over her shoulder, then snickered. "Tattletail perhaps at the moment," she added, moving the limb behind her.
Kevin nodded, commenting, "Word on the street right now is that Lung got you guys after something went bad with one of your cunning plans."
Lisa smiled at him. "That's pretty close to the truth," she admitted. "If it wasn't for Taylor, I'd be dead, and I'm not sure what would have happened to my friends. It probably wouldn't have been good, though. Luckily, things worked out a fuck sight better than they had any right to, and now look! I'm a seven and a half foot tall lizard! Cool, right?"
Randall and Kevin looked at each other then started laughing again.
"Only in Brockton Bay."
When the snickering died down, Taylor looked at a cell-phone she had on the table in front of her. "Ten minutes to ten. Knowing Armsmaster, he'll be here on the dot. This is what I want them to see when they come in..."
The girl leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with amusement, and began talking. Randall listened, unable to help the grin that spread across his face.
Oh, this girl was good…
"I can't find anything wrong with him," Doctor Mother said without looking up from the five huge computer monitors almost surrounding her when Rebecca walked into her lab. "Every test I could think of, and any of the researchers could come up with either, they all show normal readings. There were traces of stress hormones that show he was very worked up about something and in a serious fight or flight mood that would express as serious aggression, but what triggered it I have no idea."
"Fuck. Nothing at all?"
"No. There is a possibility it was a reaction by his Agent that was somehow involved in the whole thing, but we have no proof of that, I only mention it because we can't find any other more plausible reason. Admittedly it would explain quite a lot but the real question would then simply become 'what set the Agent off?' which doesn't actually bring us any closer to a useful answer. I am attempting to design some tests to see if we can at least prove or disprove that idea, but it may take some time."
Rebecca nodded slowly, thinking. "Possibly a reaction to Kaiju?"
"I would assume so, that is the only thing from the interaction that was particularly unusual. But what reaction, and why? Presumably there would be a reason for the Agent to drive David into such a state, they always have a reason, even if we can't see it immediately. Normally the conflict drive, of course. But going straight for a fight without any intervening steps seems excessive." The woman typed quickly for about thirty seconds, then turned away from the screen, looking up at Rebecca. "It is both puzzling and perplexing. Possibly a second interaction would produce more useful data."
Shaking her head firmly, Rebecca replied, "I really don't think that's a good idea, not until we learn a hell of a lot more about the Family. She took him down without even trying the last time. God alone knows what she could do if she put some effort into it. Director Piggot is very much of the opinion that poking the Family too hard is likely to result in unfortunate repercussions, and I tend to agree. Not to mention it would interfere with the situation in Brockton, which we don't really want to do."
Doctor Mother shrugged. "As you wish. But I can probably give you no more insight into this issue without more data."
She looked at the sample container that Rebecca handed her as she spoke. "What is this?"
"More data. The sample you wanted, in a fashion."
"Ah." The other woman inspected the contents of the container with eager eyes. "Excellent." Jumping to her feet she moved to a huge collection of Tinker-made equipment in the corner, Rebecca following but staying out of the way. Cutting the top off the bag with a scalpel, she tipped the container onto the bench, then pulled on a pair of sterile gloves, before carefully peeling the tape that held the petri dish lid in place and removing it.
Picking up a pair of fine-tipped tweezers she removed Ianthe's dart and held it up, studying it. "Organic structure, unknown material," she muttered to herself. Shortly the thing was inside one of the sample ports of a piece of equipment, a vastly enlarged image of the tip of the dart on a screen next to it. "This was produced by a life-form in some manner," she stated confidently. Rebecca said nothing, curious to see what her conclusions ended up being. "The substrate is a boron-rich graphene variant, with a very unusual molecular layout. Interesting…"
Transferring the dart to another machine, she poked controls for a couple of minutes, then waited impatiently for the device to finish doing whatever it was doing. The results on her monitor made her frown. "That is… not right," she grumbled, turning back to the analyzer. "No DNA. Or non-standard DNA, perhaps?" Mumbling under her breath she ran a dozen more tests.
Half an hour into this process, Rebecca left to find some coffee, returning to find her colleague staring at the dart which was now sealed into a different container. She sat down and waited, sipping her cappuccino quietly.
"I have a conclusion that you probably will not enjoy, Rebecca," the woman finally said, looking up from her thoughts.
"The Family are aliens," Rebecca replied, as Doctor Mother was about to add to her statement. The woman closed her mouth and gave her a dirty look.
"Yes," she finally said. "If you already knew, why didn't you say so?"
"I wanted to make sure you arrived at that conclusion, if you did, without any preconceptions," Rebecca sighed. "The PRT ENE research scientists have already decided the same thing." She tossed the folder she had in her other hand onto the desk, Doctor Mother putting the sample down and picking up the report quickly. She leafed through it, muttering under her breath, an eyebrow going up every now and then, before nodding.
"Efficiently stated, good methodology. I can't find any fault with it. A second opinion would appear to make my own conclusions more likely."
"So it would seem. The big question is, are they in any way associated with or related to the Entities?"
"No."
The answer was immediate and firm.
"You're sure?"
"Definitely. The Eden samples are utterly different. No commonality at all, between this DNA-analog and what the Entities use, or we use, aside from the basic elements such as carbon and nitrogen. This quad-helix DNA equivalent is clearly the result of an evolutionary history of a world similar to, but not, our own, or any of the alternates we know of. All the tests and simulations I can run, bearing in mind that none of this equipment is designed for anything even close to what we have in this sample, would suggest no common ancestor between… Ianthe?" Rebecca nodded. "And any living creature on our world. It is absolutely fascinating."
"And more than a little worrying."
"True, I agree. However, they are non-hostile, apparently non-expansionist, very cooperative from what I've learned, and very intelligent. I wish to learn more but I see no immediate cause for panic." Doctor Mother handed her the report then sat down at her desk. "Further samples would be useful."
"I'll bear that in mind," Rebecca replied. After a thought struck her, she asked, "Do you have any idea how long they've been here?"
"I have no way to tell. You could ask."
"I could. But would they tell me?"
"Unknown." Thinking for a moment or two, she went on, "I would suspect that the answer is a considerable time, though. There are fictional stories based in that area of the country which bear a distinct similarity to what we have seen so far. It may be a conscious effort to disguise their origins, of course, by taking advantage of such fiction, but on the other hand, it could be a double bluff, making us think they're just using it in such a manner, when it was actually as a result of their presence in the first place." She shrugged a little. "It depends on where you want to stop the paranoid speculation."
"You seriously think they're the inspiration for H.P. Lovecraft?" Rebecca stared at her old friend.
"Again, I don't have enough data to be sure one way or the other. I will point out, though, that his works drew on much older legends. There are sufficient points of congruence between widely separated culture's myths to suggest a common cause. It's not entirely outside the realms of possibility that the common cause is currently salvaging sunken ships on the New England coast." Doctor Mother smiled in a weird way. "I'm not saying I genuinely believe it, but I'm not going to rule it out, just in case."
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Rebecca sighed. "If that lunatic on PHO turns out to be right, I'll find him and kill him myself just to cheer myself up."
"See if you can acquire another sample, please," Doctor Mother requested, turning back to her computer. "I will continue to work on the issue with David." She looked over her shoulder for a moment. "Perhaps he saw the truth of the matter somehow? According to the literature, there are certain things one should never see. Bad things happen..."
Staring, Rebecca finally shook her head in despair. She knew it was getting weird when Doctor Mother of all people made jokes.
As she was leaving to find David and shout at him, she stopped dead, a horrible thought coming to her.
What if she wasn't joking?
Shuddering a little at the chill that went through her, she resumed walking, trying not to think about it.