Philip raised his head from his hands and looked at the computer again. The extrapolation data was correct - there was no question at all. Philip stood and walked to the window. Karen 1 was reading. Books of every description had been brought in to her and she had not stopped reading. Teaching her had been easy, Philip thought, he had simply taken her from the observation room and let her play on Dr. Starke's computer with preschool software the Doctor had brought in for her. In literally minutes, she had figured the whole thing out and had run through all the exercises. That's when Philip had started giving her the books. She looked up from the book she was currently halfway through and smiled. The aging process had stopped, but Karen 1 was now the equivalent of a very bright six year old.
"I'm back." Dr. Starke came in, loaded down with bags of books. "Did she speak?"
'Not a word." Philip said. "She's understanding us, but she's not choosing to say anything. But I've hit a brick wall as far as the Sullivan connection goes. Sarah Lane Sullivan's medical records have been shut down tight."
"By whom?" Dr. Starke asked, and Philip saluted, wincing. William Starke was not a man to use profanity but he definitely thought some choice words as he imagined the U.S. Army swooping down on the lab.
"Why would the government take action like that?" Dr. Starke muttered more to himself than Philip, but the assistant answered anyway.
Philip sighed. "No idea, but that spare gene is human. The growth process was compromised because of it. Let's not bring this innocent family into it, Dr. Starke."
Dr. Starke looked at the little girl in the observation room again. As usual, whenever he arrived, she looked up and waved at him trustingly. The lights were low, to encourage her to sleep, but she smiled brightly and pointed to a picture of chocolate milk they had given her.
Philip sighed. "I'll get the milk." He moved off toward the kitchen and turned around again and spoke to the doctor's back. "Think about it, Doctor. No one would have to know anything. You leave with her, I call Mr. Luthor and tell her she didn't survive. Catastrophic organ failure. I'll destroy the other nine samples. If he fires me, I'll still get the experience toward my degree." Philip glanced toward the window, and smiled at Karen 1. "If you are gone when I get back, I'll know what to do."
Dr. Starke nodded slowly, rubbing his forehead. He'd have twenty minutes if Philip wen to the closer kitchen, and a little longer if he went to the break room. With a sense of purpose that seemed to come from someplace else, William Starke did the most unscientific thing he'd ever done professionally. He went to the glass - fronted refrigerator and pulled out the samples of the cloned DNA. They weren't embryos in the strictest sense. They were simply the treated cells, no life at all existed in each tube. Slowly, methodically, Dr. Starke crushed each tube using the mortar and pestle. He finally rinsed the whole mess down the drain, running the water thoroughly. Setting the tools down, Dr. Starke went to the observation room and lifted the little girl into his arms. She smiled at him, her eyes blue and soft as forget me nots. The most perfect child Dr. Starke had ever seen, and she was his daughter. Karen Starke. He wasn't about to let Lex Luthor turn this beautiful child into some sort of toy. While he couldn't save his girl, he WOULD save this one.
"Daddy." She whispered, putting her head on the scientist's shoulder, her soft hair tickling his cheek. William Starke nodded, smelling the sweet shampoo and soap the nurse had used to clean Karen up with earlier. She felt like home, and that's where Dr. Starke was going first.
"Yes, baby. Come on. Mommy is waiting for us." He turned, leaving the bags of books and walked out of the lab. When Philip came back, he'd make the call to Mr. Luthor.
Osanti watched the Graysons practice from a safe distance away. He'd taken this job to pay the bills, since his retirement from performing money had been pretty thin, and Osanti was a man who at least liked to eat. And although he hated working for two masters, there had been a second request, one that Osanti could not ignore. With the request of the old man fresh in his mind, the former acrobat watched the Grayson girl swing through the air on the trapeze, graceful as a dove, to be caught by her brother, who flipped her back onto the platform easily. Their father was nowhere to be seen, and their mother ran them through their routine as efficiently and mercilessly as any Olympic coach. She called out instructions in Italian, rapidly correcting and repeating as her children ran through their paces again. This part of the job was easy, tampering here and there with the practice equipment, setting them all on edge. The job itself was planned for when the Graysons arrived in Gotham, where the old man would be waiting to see it all happen. Then Osanti's debt would be cancelled, and the vendetta between the old man and Isabelle Grayson's family would be settled too. Osanti turned and walked down the road, ignoring the dust on his expensive shoes. Leaving now would give the Graysons a chance to regroup, which would make the next 'contact' between them that much more effective.
It was finally night in Metropolis. Silently, he moved from shadow to shadow, blending in perfectly with the dark, unlit streets of the warehouse district. The lab was in an odd place for such an advanced research facility. That really wasn't very surprising, he thought, given who owned the place. He slipped in through a side door, bypassing all security and made his way down the isolated halls. Raised voices at the end of the corridor alerted him to where he needed to be and he moved toward the sound, making none of his own.
"This is completely unacceptable." Lex Luthor's voice was cutting. "If she's dead, where's the body?"
"Disposed of, sir." His companion answered, slightly nervous. Smiling, the intruder wondered if Luthor could tell that the guy was lying. "With all the other lab waste. It's protocol. It had no identity."
"It?" Lex's voice raised. "Yesterday IT was Karen 1 and needed new clothes and books, toys and ice cream. Now, IT was thrown out with the waste. Tell me, what do you think the police will say if some homeless person finds the body?"
"She was cremated." Lex's companion elaborated, and now the intruder could get a visual on him. Tall, mid-twenties but already balding, with intelligent features and ironically, glasses. Hands in the pockets of his lab coat, the assistant gave off no nervous body language, but seemed to actually not care if Luthor was upset or not. The intruder's sidelong smile deepened. It wasn't usual to have this much fun on an investigation, but he was truly enjoying this.
"Well, that's something, anyway." Lex dropped what sounded like a book on a table with a ringing thud. "Can the experiment be duplicated?"
"No, once we discovered the flaw, we had to discard all the seed from the samples you gave us. Dr. Starke took all the notes home, to see if he could work it out there. He's really distraught, Mr. Luthor. He had a great deal of hope pinned on these experiments."
Lex chuckled, and the intruder recognized the tone. It was the same one he used himself in business settings. One thing was for sure, the last thing Lex wanted to do was laugh about it. "Tell me something, Philip. How long do you think before I get my IT people in here to find that research?"
The lab assistant swallowed deeply. "I suppose you could have done that already, sir. But the fact that you didn't tells me that you believe me."
Lex nodded. "If you can get Project Galatea back on line, Philip, Dr. Starke's job is yours."
The lab assistant nodded slowly, and Lex left, sweeping down the hall, so lost in his own brooding anger that he didn't notice the shadow behind him slip into the lab and softly close the door behind him. The lab assistant had gone back to the computer and was copying files from the hard drive to an mp3 player. As the handle snapped into place, Philip turned around, staggering back against the desk as the shadow shifted into focus.
'I hope that thing is empty." The figure said, and Philip swallowed nervously. Tall and demonically black, the figure seemed to move with leathery sounds that made Philip think of the fruit bat exhibit at the Metropolis Zoo.
"It is. It holds twenty gigs of information." Philip said. "I have almost all the files on it now."
"Good." It grunted, not moving. "Tell me where to find Starke." Philip shuddered. He hadn't been afraid of Lex Luthor, but this, this apparition was something else again. Looking at the computer, he nodded, reaching for his pocket organizer. The computer beeped in notification that the file transfer was complete, and Philip turned, information in hand. The figure was gone, and so was his mp3 player.
Bruce made his way out of the lab as quickly and quietly as he had come in, his photographic memory already sifting out necessary details in the lab. The research assistant's name was Philip Gardner, and Bruce was pretty sure he'd find a place for the kid some place in his research and development department. He made a note to call a recruiter friend in the morning, to feel the kid out. He shot a grappling hook from the hand held launcher, and disappeared over the warehouse beside the lab. Alfred had found William Starke's address before Bruce had even left Gotham, so the good Doctor was next for a visit from the famous Batman of Gotham City.