Chapter 3
Late that night, Renee was sitting in her apartment; relaxing for once, listening to soft ballets and reading a book, all nestled on her favorite couch. A soft knock on her door made her frown.
Her opened door revealed a weary Liam, carrying a disk in his left hand.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
She stepped aside, and the protector dragged himself into her softly lit apartment. Renee saw something in his eyes, concentration, something? He was obviously not with it, and she led him over to the couch.
He grunted as his body fell to the cushion. Liam watched Renee pull a chair up to face him. She eyed him with concern.
"What happened up there? You look awful!" He shook his head.
"I have a question… about the resistance." She nodded her head regardless, for that was not what she had been expecting. "I was thinking… do you think Jace is a candidate for the resistance? I mean, she is smart, strong, and we could use her and her skills…" Renee looked aside for a moment, then she nodded.
"Alright. But I don't see why that would bother you so much." Then Liam's head rose, and she gasped at the look of anguish on his face. He proceeded to tell her what he's learned on the mothership, and the horrors of Jace's existence. By the time he had finished, the clock read 2:15am, an hour later, and Renee looked as shaken up as he.
"How… what exactly did that injection do to her?" He lowered and shook his head. "I know that it is slowly eating away at her trigger helix…" She gave him a blank look.
"A normal human has two helixes in their DNA, which store genetic data. RNA transports the DNA and the two work together in every cell of your body," he paused. She motioned for him to continue.
"I have three helixes, that which makes me Kimera. Jace… has… five." Renee's eyes widened.
"Five?" He nodded. "How? It's not possible!"
"Apparently, the doctors working on the Genova project were able to manipulate the human cell, and all of its components. Somehow, the changed the structure of her DNA." He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to recall what he had learned from the mothership.
"They formed a helix that was composed of five strands; two were her own, two where that of the felis panthero, the panther. They are attached by a final fifth strand, which unlike the others does not carry any genetic info. It's a straight strand that the other four gravitate around. Apparently, by sending a specific impulse from her brain, she can activate this fifth strand, and the other four kind of… join, to form a double helix. At this time, the two combined helixes are still connected by the fifth strand, the 'trigger helix'. She is then in her… feline form. By stopping to impulse, the four strands return to gravitate around the trigger helix." He let his head fall back against the couch, exhausted.
Renee only looked away, deep in thought. "Then why is that… hangman's serum so dangerous?"
Head still back, Liam replied, "Because it disables the fifth strand so she can't shift. It also caused the fifth strand to reject the original impulse, and sends its own out. Basically, it can shut down her immune system. The injection she received that day at the Genova complex was 1/100000 of the original dose. I don't know what it is doing to her… but I learned that over time, it will destroy that fifth strand completely, and who knows what will happen… It also said that the hangman's serum caused extreme physical pain."
Renee immediately rose from her chair and grabbed her global. She left a message for Jace, asking to speak with her. She was surprised reached the wide-awake girl, and Jace informed her that she would talk with Renee in a few minutes, after she finished something. Renee thanked her, and set the Global on her kitchen counter. When she returned to the living room, Liam hadn't moved, his chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm. Renee padded across the wood floor and pulled a blanket from an opposite chair. She returned and draped it over Liam's silent form. Then she turned off the lights and returned to the kitchen to find her global beeping at her.
"Sup?" Jace, unlike her companion protector friend, seemed wide-awake, guitar, drums and vocal music humming in the background.
"My, you're really active at three in the morning." Jace shrugged.
"I'm nocturnal." Renee laughed, and then realized she was probably serious.
"I called you because we have decided to offer you a job." The music was abruptly shut off.
"Really? Like what?"
"We would like you to help us here, with the resistance." Jace snorted.
"Right, you want me to bow down to that Hubble dumass?" Renee felt a smile tease the corners of her mouth. Jace seemed to be in a very good mood, with no visible sign of illness.
"It pays money, you get free coffee, and all you have to do is help us out a little." Jace seemed to ponder that idea for a few moments.
"How bout' I stop over at Doors tomorrow after I figure some stuff out, ok?" Renee nodded, pleased.
Jace put the global down on her desk and placed another ancient Dave Matthews Band Diskette into her music system. Laying on the bottom futon couch beneath her bunk, she turned on her old VCR and placed a tap into it's metallic mouth. She sighed sadly as the TV showed a band playing during a football game, some years ago. Christ, memories are a bitch, was the last thing she thought before she shut it off and went to bed.
The next morning, Jace dragged herself off the couch and groaned, unhappy to be awake. Dragging her unwilling self into the shower, she made a mental list of things to do that day.
A job, a constant job might be a good thing. It wasn't official, which meant no one would be asking questions. She decided to go ahead to Doors International.
Sandoval entered the office of Cameron Vosloo, a director in the CIA.
"Welcome, agent Sandoval, I have been expecting you." Sandoval found himself in the presence of a tall, dark skinned man wearing a dark gray suit with an accent and a nasty scar that lined his lower left jaw.
Sandoval sat in a chair infront of the Director Vosloo sign upon the desk. "I came here to inquire the whereabouts of the drug you wish to sell me." Vosloo smiled coldly.
"You believe you have located Drw-2002?"
"Perhaps, but I would like to have an edge over her should I find her," Sandoval replied, just as icy.
"Let me explain something, Mr. Sandoval. We do not like intrusions into our projects, regardless how powerful your employer may be. If she is to be found, we will find her first. However, since you have agreed to supply us with the Taelon gene tech we bargained for, I suppose…" He reached a strong hand into his coat pocket and removed a small vial containing an almost neon blue liquid. Sandoval took the vial, handed over a data diskette containing the proper access codes to what Mr. Vosloo wanted, and walked out of the building with a sense of accomplishment.
Later that week
"I really don't like this at all."
Jace sat upright on a medtable at resistance headquarters. Screens monitoring her heart and other things beeped around the room, connected by wires into Jace's veins and body.
Her eyes were narrow and she was very tense. Dr. James hmmmed about this and that as Jace glared at Auger, Street, Renee and Liam.
"I repeat: Jace does not like this. Hurry up." Auger stifled a smile. Jace uttered something so low that not even Dr. James, standing beside her, could understand. She shooed the others out of the room, leaving Jace and the doctor.
"I have a few questions for you, Laura." Jace looked up. "I'm sorry, Jace. I was reading from the bio I'm writing for you," Jace's eyes narrowed.
"No bio."
"It's required."
"Not for me," She replied. "I can't have that information in the wrong hands, simple as that." Dr. James agreed… for now.
After about an hour, Jace returned rubbing her arm where the needle had taken her blood.
"I'm going to leave you all to ooo and ahh over my blood sample, now. I'm going home and to bed."
"But it's three in the afternoon…" Auger said.
"And how late was I up?" Auger only shrugged. Liam and Renee sat on the couch as Dr. James entered the room.
"It's just incredible!"
"We know, we know. What did you find on that fifth strand?" Renee asked. The doctor's face turned blank, devoid of excitement.
"I can't describe it... come here." They followed into the medlab.
On the screen was the image of Liam's description; the four squiggle lines rotating around a center line. However, the center line appeared bright red, and almost throbbed.
"It's like it's infected, almost. In every cell of her body, that strand is infected. And what's worse… it's falling apart. It appears that she is taking some kind of medication to slow the process… but when that strand dissipates, the other four will do something… perhaps something fatal."
Liam knocked on Jace's apartment door, feeling kind of awkward. He wasn't supposed to know where she lived… but he did now. And he really wanted to talk to her.
There was the sound of a bolt unlocking when door creaked open, and a murmured 'come in' emerged from the room. Liam stepped into a hacker's paradise, computer junk hanging everywhere, a small table and kitchen area that was covered with books and dust.
Jace was lying in the top of a bunk bed, her arm hanging over the side and her hair draped over the side. Her eyes were all squinted shut.
"Ugghh. To early, come back later," She groaned.
"I really want to talk to you," Liam said, still horrified by the condition of the apartment.
A small while later, Jace was grasping her coffee like a lifeline as she and Liam sipped in the ever-reliable Starbucks.
"Guuhh. I hate you now, you know that?" She whimpered to Liam as a loud crash of thunder shook the building. "It's not even eight at night. I don't get up until ten…" Liam took his hand and covered her mouth to shut her up.
After her dose of caffeine, they sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Liam asked his questions.
"I… we know about the infection in your DNA." He wanted to go on, the Jace's look of horror stopped him momentarily. He swallowed, looked away, and then forced himself to continue.
"The doctor said something was combating the injection, like an anti-virus. Otherwise you would have died-"
Jace looked away. For the first time, Liam saw something… innocent and childlike in her eyes. Fear? Pain? Something. Something that made his reach out to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry… I didn't mean to upset you-"
"There is nothing more upsetting that the truth, Liam." She stood, feeling cornered in the confining space of the booth. She looked outside and the darkening sky. The ground was dry, but a shadowed rain was threatening to fall.