"IN PULLUS VERITAS"

(IN CHICKEN, TRUTH)

Author: Gillian Slater

E-mail: LeoricGS@aol.com

Rating: PG -13

Disclaimer: As always, these characters do not belong to me, they are the property of the show's creators, and I'm borrowing them for my own sinister purposes...

PART NINE

"Tell me what she said." Morris ordered.

"Nope." Michael grinned.

"Tell me."

"Nope."

Hanging upside-down from a bar Michael continued with his crunches, whilst the doctor sat in a chair beside him with his arms tightly folded. Between every repetition the exchange of Morris' frustrated demand and Michael's cheerfully prompt refusal interjected like an rhythmic accompaniment to the exercise.

When Michael finally dropped to the ground, exhausted, Morris asked him one final time what had passed between him and his wife that night on the bridge.

"I'd love to tell ya, doc', I really would, but that would take all the fun out of my knowing something you don't. You gotta admit you earned this. After all the torture you put me through... and besides, it's kinda private - a husband/wife thing - you wouldn't understand."

The doctor shrugged and his face took on a suddenly apathetic expression. "Suit yourself. Now... give me thirty-five miles on the treadmill."

"But I just did fifty an hour ago!" Michael protested.

"Did you? I don't remember." Morris' face was a picture of feigned innocence followed by sly smugness as he pointed firmly to the treadmill. Michael huffed loudly.

"Can't I at least get some dinner first? I'm starved."

"Oh, that reminds me," Morris took out his cell-phone and dialled. "Hello, kitchens? Dr. Morris here. I want to inform you of a change in the subject's diet. Mr. Wiseman seems to have developed a fondness for..." He paused to think and slid a sideways glance at his confused protégé, "...Carrots. Yes, that's it - raw carrots. He's to have nothing else to eat till further notice, understand? Uh-huh... no other item of food is to be allowed into the building, okay? Thank you." He snapped the phone shut and deposited it back into his inside pocket, turning to catch the expression of sheer disgust and hatred on Michael's face.

"I hate carrots." He said flatly, his previous humour quite forgotten.

"I know." Morris grinned evilly. "So you see you've really got two choices here, Mr. Wiseman. You can sit down to your raw carrots with good grace... every day, for breakfast, lunch and dinner... or, you can just tell me what I want to know. It's up to you. What's it going to be?"

Michael folded his arms in silent reply. Morris shrugged unconcernedly, unmoved by his subject's stubbornness and secure in the knowledge that Michael wouldn't keep his secret for too long.

* * * * *

ONE MONTH LATER

Carrots. Again. Michael stared distastefully down at the plate the doctor had placed in front of him and pushed it away, trying to hide the sound of his desperately groaning stomach. He wouldn't even attempt to force down any of the detested vegetables, wouldn't give Morris the satisfaction of knowing how hungry he was. A flash of yellow caught in his peripheral vision. He looked up suddenly to see the doctor pull a large, ripe banana from his jacket pocket. Michael's mouth watered at the sight of it. Morris held up the fruit and studied it, waving it meaningfully in front of Michael's face.

"Mmm... gee, I'll bet this is just right to eat..." The doctor taunted his bitterly glaring subject, smelling the sweet banana. Michael's look was positively hate-filled as he suffered the torment. Finally he shoved his chair violently back from the table and rose to face his antagonist.

"All right, all right!" He cried in anguished submission. The doctor grinned wickedly.

"Ready to talk?"

"I need a leave of absence, couple of months from now."

Morris looked at him incredulously. "You what?"

"I gotta be somewhere."

"Specifics, Mr. Wiseman. Specifics... or carrots."

"I have to go to the hospital."

The doctor's stern expression was quickly replaced by concern as he looked his creation up and down. "If something's wrong with you, I..."

"No, no, it's not me," He reassured Morris quickly, "It's Lisa."

"Something's wrong with her?"

"Not exactly, in fact..." Michael couldn't stop the expression of eager delight from crossing his face, "In fact it's right. So right..."

"Mr. Wiseman..." The doctor prompted menacingly, snapping Michael from his private thoughts.

He let out a frustrated groan. "Lisa's pregnant, okay? There, I got my wife pregnant which I think is still legal in this state... Can I have my banana now?"

"P-pregnant? You... she..." He was at a loss for words.

"Doc'!" Michael yelled, motioning to his yellow reward, still firmly gripped in the doctor's hand.

"Hmm?"

"The banana...?"

"Oh, right." Dr. Morris, still momentarily dazed, held out the banana mutely, his eyes never leaving Michael's face as he grabbed the fruit, tore it open and started to devour it with relish.

"Mmm, mmm!" He mumbled gratefully. The doctor raised one eyebrow thoughtfully.

"I've never seen you so eager to eat a banana before, Mr. Wiseman. Perhaps the raw carrot approach to dietary training should be documented for future implementation." He frowned a little then and began to pace the room, thinking out loud.

"Sooo... hospital appointment in two months time, it's a month since you met her on the bridge, and one month before that you and she... ahh, so it's her sixteen-week ultrasound scan. Hmmm..."

Michael finished the banana with a gulp, his mind suddenly focused, and turned to the doctor. "I have to go, doc', this is... my child...." Morris noted that his voice was more imploring than demanding, as was his usual tone where his family members were concerned. He nodded in concession.

"We'll both go, Mr. Wiseman. Don't think I'm letting you out of this building on your own again, especially to go to your wife. Who knows how many children you'll end up with."

Michael grinned. "You're not mad. I knew you wouldn't be. I mean, what's not to like, huh?"

The doctor scowled at Michael. "Mr. Wiseman. Let me remind you of a few things. I was mad when your family found out about your true identity, but I knew you weren't completely to blame. I was mad when you broke out to meet her on your anniversary, which was entirely your fault. Now Mrs. Wiseman is going to have a baby, fathered by a genetically engineered superhuman who to all intents and purposes does not exist..." His voice built up in a terrifying crescendo as Michael cringed and waited for the outburst. Then Morris' face suddenly lit up in a wide grin. "... Just think of the possibilities!!!" He enthused. "A mix of your perfect genetic structure and an average human being..."

"Hey!" Michael interrupted, "Lisa is not average!"

"Oh, of course not," Morris dismissed Michael's offended claim with a wave and continued with his wildly excited diatribe. "But there's real unpredictability in this case, which isn't something one normally wants in an experiment, except that now there's the opportunity to see how Mother Nature deals with our intervention in the next stage..."

Michael moved in front of the doctor, then, cutting off his tirade with a firmly held up hand and a sharp hiss.

"Doc'! Let's get something very, very clear here," His voice was hushed, now, and deadly serious as he delivered the ultimatums which Morris had come to expect from his demanding subject. "We're talking about my wife and my baby. Key word in both of those: mine. There's no 'experiment' here, no 'intervention' and no 'opportunity' for you and your little white-coat gene-prodders. Now, I understand that you'll want to oversee the proceedings because I'm your pet science project and, let's face it, you've just gotta get your daily fix of dominance. Now you may think you're the expert on all things biological, but Lisa and I have done this before which make us a whole helluva lot more qualified. But just so you're absolutely clear on this one thing," Michael was almost nose to nose with the glaring scientist, "There's no way you're going to take our baby."

"Mr. Wiseman," The doctor's voice was as low as his own as equally as fierce. His expression remained in rigid determination for several silent seconds before easing into surprisingly gentle reassurance, "I wouldn't try."

* * * * *

Lisa sat uncomfortably in the waiting room, continuously shifting around trying to find a position in which her nagging lower back pain would ease off. Heather looked up anxiously at her mother with a concerned, questioning expression every time she shuffled on her chair.

"It's okay, sweetheart," Lisa answered her daughter's unspoken question, "I'm just being fidgety again. You shouldn't worry, you know, I've done this before, and let me tell you, you were a lot more awkward to carry around!" Heather smiled and her expression relaxed minutely, before returning to her worried look.

"Is Dad going to be here? He's coming isn't he? He said he'd come, right?"

"He'll be here," Lisa assured her firmly, trying to assuage her own doubts as well as Heather's, "If I know your father he'd move heaven and earth to get here for this... and he'll probably have to."

She cast a glance out of the open door and down the corridor and felt a welling up of relief as she saw Michael's stunning young face among the bustle of the hospital visitors. Her relief was followed almost immediately by anxiety as she noted the large, dark face of Dr. Morris just behind her husband. Secret's out, then. She thought.

As Michael's supremely accurate vision picked her out he broke into an eager jog, agilely dodging the human traffic with his inhuman reflexes. Morris cursed briefly and tried to keep up, getting continually buffeted by the moving populace.

"Dad!" Heather cried out as she jumped up from her place and ran to meet him half way. He barely slid to a halt and picked her up, swinging her into his arms and hugging her tightly as he covered the remaining distance between himself and his wife and lowered Heather to the floor again. Lisa rose with some effort, but was quickly rewarded by Michael's strong arms placed gently around her somewhat larger waist. His bright eyes met hers and what passed between them in an instant needed no words, just the look of mutual adoration on their elated faces.

As Morris approached the family group, he felt an unfamiliar and unexpected welling of emotion at being able to witness so powerful a bond between the three, and intruded somewhat reluctantly on their reunion with a soft cough.

"Mrs. Wiseman, Heather," he greeted Michael's current family members, "May I be the first to congratulate you on your, ah, imminent arrival." Lisa smiled at the doctor's halting sentiments. He obviously didn't do this too often. She nodded her thanks.

"What are you doing here? It's nothing to do with you!" Heather's glaring lack of tact was true to form. Morris did not take offence at her rudeness, but lowered himself to talk directly to her.

"I'm here to make sure you father doesn't use this opportunity to make his escape, and to make sure that your mother's baby is all right, of course."

"You're here to stick your nose in, just like always! Why can't you leave us alone?" She pleaded.

"Heather, I don't expect you to understand -- I made your father the way he is now, and I have to answer to my superiors in the government about his activities."

"And now your going to take over the new baby too, right? Keep it in a special 'facility'?" The doctor put his hand on Heather's shoulder and looked earnestly into her bitter eyes.

"Listen here, I've promised not to interfere with your little brother or sister. I want to make sure it's well and help in any way I can, but..." he looked up to Michael and Lisa who were listening intently, "... I'm also doing my best to conceal this from the Pentagon. It's safe to say that if they knew about this, your baby would be swiftly requisitioned by the government for reasons of federal security."

"You mean you're keeping our secret?" Lisa was astonished.

"I've told you many times, Mrs. Wiseman, that your husband is my most precious possession," He said straightforwardly, as though Michael were not right beside her listening, "He's my life's work, and even though I don't pull all the strings, I think of him as my project. However, if such a transgression from the rules as your pregnancy were to be discovered, my bosses would almost certainly withdraw funding of the project, leaving us both out on the scrapheap, as it were."

"So... that's why you're doing this? To keep your experiment funded?" Michael asked in grateful scepticism, knowing absolutely as Morris nodded nonchalantly that the doctor's affirmative answer was a falsehood, an attempt to hide such an uncharacteristically caring act. Even Heather fell silent as she computed the truth that the frightening scientist who ruled her father's life was not quite the ogre she had thought him to be.

"Mrs. Lisa Wiseman?" A nurse read Lisa's name from the appointment list and searched the faces before her. Lisa took both Michael and Heather's hands and said, "You guys coming?" As the three turned to go, she raised her eyebrows at Morris, who stood in mute suspense as though waiting for permission to follow. The invitation Lisa quickly extended was accepted with a wide anticipatory grin.

* * * * *