Chapter 5

Quatre was wearing a worried face at the meeting. He was extremely stressed when he had been told that an emergency meeting was going to be held. His empathetic abilities told him that something had happened and it was something that he definitely wasn't going to like.

He looked around the room. There was Wufei with a pile of notes, Dorothy with an even bigger stack of papers and graphs. He noted that both Heero and Duo were missing.

"Where are they?"

"Heero and Duo? They are both currently under strict supervision." Provided Wufei.

"Why? I don't see either of them to be a threat...or are they?"

"No. They aren't a threat. We just need to monitor their behaviour. I've sent one of the medical experts, also Heero's acquaintance, Zechs to look after Heero and Duo is at your house being looked after by one of the medical doctors on the team so there is nothing to worry about."

"Oh." Said Quatre who was quite surprised that Duo was not still in the building. "And uh how did the testing go?" Asked Quatre.

"I think I can answer that question for you." Piped up Dorothy. She picked out one from the many graphs that were sitting next to her and spread it out on the table.

"Now, see this line here." She said and pointed to the green wavy line. "When a person goes through an EEG this line is the first one we look at. In humans, this line is always a consistent wave that occurs constantly."

Dorothy then pulled out another graph and spread it on the table. She pointed to a green wavy line. "This here is the graph for Duo's thinking patterns. See this line here? It's the corresponding line to the first graph I showed you but have a look at its shape. There are high waves and low dips. Some are widespread and others are very close together."

Wufei scratched his head. "What does all this mean?"

"It means that either Duo has the capability to think at least 6 times faster than the average human or" she paused and swallowed. "He isn't human at all."

It was after a few minutes before Wufei broke the silence.

"I guess that makes sense. The probability of Duo not being human is rather high."

"How so?" asked the mind specialist.

"Well, the aim of Operation Dreamer was to create the user's perfect partner. We never programmed the machine to produce a real live human being and also don't forget, we are a company that deals with virtual reality products." Explained the Chinese man.

Dorothy chewed on her nail. "Che! Virtual Reality my butt."

"Pardon?"

"Duo can't be any more real than you and I. He has a pulse. I checked it before the test began."

Wufei shook his head in confusion. "Impossible! We only make virtual...didn't program the machine to make...he has a pulse...oh kami sama..."

"What?"

Wufei shook his head again, this time in disbelief. "We've found a new way to create life."

"We can't prove that until we have more tests done." Said Quatre.

"Yes." Agreed Dorothy. "We'll need blood samples, nail samples, hair samples, and DNA tests to prove that." She said. "You can't just go round saying that you've created a new person without the proof."

"Yes." Sighed Wufei. "We do need the proof before we can announce that-"

RING RING RING RING

Wufei immediately answered the cell phone that had interrupted his sentence. Quatre watched Wufei's facial expressions closely, trying to pick if the phone call was good news or bad news. However the phone call ended quite abruptly.

"We have to go." Said Wufei in a stern voice. "Zechs says that Heero is acting up."

Quatre's head snapped up in attention. "HEERO? Acting up?"

"Yes. That's what Zechs said and having been a friend of Heero's since high school, I would say that he would know best." Said Wufei as he got up and put on his jacket.

Dorothy also got up from her seat. "So what should we do? Do you want me to come with you to check up on him?"

"No. Right now it would be best if you checked up on Duo. Quatre, you should stay here and start up the Dreamer. We may need it later."

"Sure." Said Quatre and he also stood up. "I suggest that you take both of them back to the labs for overnight observation. It would be safer here because we have security facilities and if anything goes wrong we always have the right technology to keep them both under control."

"Good idea." Acknowledged the Chinese man. "Right. Dorothy we take them back here. I'll see you in an hour or so."

The two of them left the building leaving Quatre in charge of the testing labs. The blonde made his way to the Dreamer and turned it on. The machine came to life with a hum.

Quatre stared at the machine with interest. He wondered how modern technology could produce life without the normal human mating process - that is if Duo was really human. The tests hadn't been done yet but Dorothy's declaration about him having a pulse almost clarified that he was.

Quatre thought about the implications that Heero would have to face if news got out about their discovery. He thought about how Heero would be feeling now. What would he be feeling now that he had met a person or even the person of his dreams? Quatre now wanted to experience this feeling himself. His curious mind brought him an idea. He would test the machine himself.