AN: I have to apologise for the confusion with the character's ages, having reread what I've written even I would be confused. So to clarify: Sharon is fourteen and Eber is twelve. Originally Adam estimated Eber's age as older than that but he was proved wrong.
The Science: For anybody who's interested, this is a little bit of science, everyone else ignore me. If this helps revision it was worth it! Rhodopsin is a chemical that allows us to see in the dark. Also known as Visual Purple Rhodopsin would cause the feral's eyes and vision to appear yellow (or yellow-green) tinted because the feral's retina has a much higher percentage of Rod cells (which contain Rhodopsin) that a human. (so well researched by the show!) Rhodopsin is made up of opsin and cis-retinal. A photon of light hitting a molecule of Rhodopsin will cause the cis-retinal to become trans-retinal which means opsin can no longer bond to it and Rhodopsin breaks down. This causes a generator potential in the rod cell that synapses with a sensory neurone. Rod cells are better adapted for dim light vision as they carry out retinal convergence with the sensory neurone, several receptors meeting one neurone. This means that even the smallest of generator potentials can join with several other potentials to form a full impulse in the sensory neurone.
The feline tapetum lucidum is a layer of reflective cells on the retina that makes any light that enters the eye to reflect back and forth several times to allow maximum absorption by the light-sensitive retina. Any escaping light is the cause of eye-shine and I can only assume this is why the show made feral eyes 'glow' as they do. It increases their quality of vision in dim conditions but DOES NOT ALLOW THEM TO SEE IN THE DARK! Cats can't see in the dark, only in very dim conditions where light is at a minimum.
Thanks for allowing me to talk a load of **** and I promise it won't happen too often.
Part VI
"You know she once asked me what it was like, having a family. I don't know if she was ever with her family. I only know what little about her was written in the records that they gave me to help me work. They made sure there was never enough to make it look like I had restored her memory, but it meant I had nothing to tell her about her past. All I know is that she was very young when the records started. I didn't know what to tell her, none of my experiences of families were pleasant. So I lied to her. I told her tales of family dinners and warm fires, presents at Christmas and balloons on Birthdays. She didn't believe me. 'Nothing could be that perfect' she said. This is the first place I've seen it for real.
"In your memories, and even now there is such love. You were a family, a family like the ones we dreamt of." She stopped for a moment, looking out again to Eber on the dojo, Jesse nearby watching. "We will never be them, you know that. We will never fill the space they have left in your family."
"You are too wise for your years."
"It was forced upon us." Adam sighed, thinking carefully about what she had said, acknowledging the wisdom in it.
"You may not be able to replace Shalimar and Emma, but the team needs a psionic and a feral and you need training. If it's not what you want then at least stay long enough for me to treat Eber, if that's what she wants. Then we can set you up in the underground where you'll be safe." Sharon nodded.
"We'll see shall we?"
"I'm going to warn you now, before we start, that this is not going to be comfortable. As the beam scans over you you'll feel like you're very hot, almost like it's burning you. It won't hurt you, but you'll not feel too good. OK?" Eber nodded. "There's not going to be any immediate results because all that this is doing is fixing the changes that have been made, your body will need time to start producing the right chemicals again, but in about two weeks we should start seeing some changes." At Eber's nod he moved over to the console. Hitting the activation key he watched as the beam began scanning from her ankles. At first it felt to Eber that she had stepped into a hot puddle, the heat seeping into her feet and legs quickly and warming her from the inside out. At her knees it felt strangely safe, like pulling a favourite blanket over herself after the chill outdoors. But as the beam continued to rise up her body the heat began to overwhelm her, flushing her cheeks, bringing tears to her eyes. It felt like fire on her stomach, or like scalding water. It seemed to stream down her sides in rivulets, only touching her back as it pooled beneath her. She knew she cried out as she saw the pain in Sharon's eyes as she surged forward, Adam holding her back so that the beam didn't hurt her. She fought to calm herself, knowing that the beam wouldn't hurt her, telling herself of the good it would do her. The use of her feral eyes - previously a mystery, completely useless and reducing her eyesight in the best of circumstances - and the enhancement of a useful sense, this could mean everything to her. If only she could endure the heat. Her breathing became more laboured as she tried to fight the restriction that seemed to press down on her chest; her eyesight fuzzed at the edges as oxygen became scarce. She didn't see Adam change something on the computer having seen her distress, but she felt a little of the pressure relax. The chill of the room, though not excessive, seemed arctic to the treated skin and she began to shiver even as the beam continued to scorch her shoulders and neck. Though the feeling of the treatment had been uncomfortable on her body, the effect on her face was twice as bad. Every breath she took through the beam was agony and seemed to burn her nostrils up into her head, making it pound heavily until she thought the vessels carrying blood through her temples might explode with the sheer force of the beating.
But then it was over and she was shivering with the chill, a blanket wrapped round her shoulders went unnoticed as she fell into a quiet unconsciousness.
When she woke again, Eber found herself in a strange room. This was not the same room she had shared with Sharon the night before, she knew, but with the lights off she could know little else. She felt her feral eyes take over and went to close her eyes and shake off the annoying side affect of her mutation. The yellow eyes did nothing to aid her in times of high adrenaline or dark environments when they seemed most often to appear, only reducing the very little she could see in dim light or shadowing her sight when the light was good. She had long learned to suppress their appearance quickly for her own safety, but what she saw in that moment before her lids closed stopped her short. At the appearance of her feral eyes the room around her, though she had seen that it had been dark, was no longer the all-encompassing black she had come to expect. Quite the opposite, it seemed to glow with an eerie luminescence in a way she had never seen before - at least not that she remembered.
Quickly locating the room's door - an almost bright portal in the darkness - she exited the room. Outside it was brighter and the feral eyes faded, leaving Eber missing the yellow world that she was only beginning to explore. But what she saw next surprised her further still. She was used to a clear-cut line between the light and the dark, where the light was something of the day or the light-bulb that showed her the world around her and dark was everything else. A black time where everything was invisible to her and only Sharon's words in her mind could reach her. But here nothing was so plain. There was nothing light about what she saw around her, but a scale of darkness that she could have never believed, ranging from the black she expected through countless other shades.
Intrigued she walked the corridors quickly, heading for Adam's lab.