CHAPTER 12

After a twenty minute-long drive, Chloé stopped and let Jamie out as she requested, before taking off again, this time heading towards the exit of the city. The bear had woken up and ran away from the lab. Jamie was worrying for the vet, whom they left alone in the lab with the bear.

"You injected it with what ?" Jackson said incredulously in the phone.

"A microchip, with an RFID tracker", Mitch replied with slight annoyance, his voice rising from the speaker.

"What ? Why do you have a microchip with an RFID tracker ?"

"In case anyone had any plans to release it back into the wild. How about this ?" Mitch taunted proudly. "Don't ask questions, just be grateful."

"Okay, where is he now ?" Jackson admitted, concentrating again on the matter at hand.

"Same as five minutes ago, he's running through the woods, alongside the highway. It looks like he's headed towards the, uh... Meudon Forest..." the vet said hesitantly, and badly pronouncing the name.

"The Meudon Forest ?" Chloé repeated, correcting his pronounciation and also seeming disbelieving : why would the bear go there ?

"Yeah, that's what I said", Mitch grumbled, slightly vexed.

"The Meudon Forest is south, but according to the people from the bio-lab, that bear lived west, in les Hauts-de-Seine", Chloé explained.

"He must be going back to the others", Niamh suggested. "I'm not sure whether bears are as much pack animals as wolves are, but if they used to live together, that's where he would go now. After all, the lions were cooperating too and it also was rather out of character."

"Listen, you know how we talked about the bears changing ?" Mitch suddenly said, as if he was scared they would hang up the phone. "Well, I think they've developed some kind of endoskeleton", he announced, souding pretty much annoyed by how crazy this idea sounded.

"What ?" Niamh blurted out before she could stop herself. "I can't decide whether it's super cool or super bad. I mean, an endoskeleton ? That rocks ! But on the other hand, I guess it means that the bears, that are already dangerous animals, are now even more difficult to take down. Crap."

"So much for the butter-bears I guess, right ?" Jackson joked, the others looking at him like he went crazy, except for Niamh, who understood the reference and smiled at him.

On the back row, with Niamh, Abraham was looking at his phone, browsing for information about the Meudon Forest and the bear.

"The wildlife services and the police are waiting for us on the other side of the Meudon", he said to Chloé and Jackson.

Jackson left the phone on speaker, even though they remained silent, and so they could faintly hear Mitch friendly arguing with Jamie, who seemed to have just arrived at the lab. A few minutes later, they were in sight of the Forest.

"Okay. We're at the Forest, Mitch, northwest corner", Jackson announced when they went to park the car somewhere. "Where's the bear ?"

"In the west, due west of you. Looks like about... 500 yards in. It looks like Park Services are already here", Mitch said quietly before hanging up the phone.

When Chloé pulled the car over and stopped the engine, Niamh immediately jumped out of it eagerly. She closed her eyes and deeply inhaled the fresh air of the woods. It smelled a lot like humans around here, for obvious reasons, but she could easily forget it and focus on the smell of grass, trees, wet soil and little rodents. A childish smile stretched her lips without her noticing it consciously.

"Niamh, you should stay in the car, just in case, it could be dangerous", Chloé tried to command her.

"Nope. I come with you, end of discussion. You could still need me", the girl countered swiftly.

Two shots were fired, further on the path, and Niamh growled instantly, rounding her back in unspoken menace. She did her best to calm herself and school her features into a bored mask, and then followed Chloé, Jackson and Abraham. They walked a few minutes and met the wildlife services scurrying around the bear they had shot. Pricking up her ears, Niamh heard his heart beat slowly and his steady breath going in and out. She sighed in relief and focused on the matter at hand. A brown-haired man was now standing before them, looking like he was in charge of the situation.

"So, is one of you going to tell me what is going on here ?" he said with a strong accent, almost commanding.

Immediately, Niamh bristled at his behavior but managed to suppress her growl. She focused on the smells, thinking only about finding something useful. The wind was carrying different odours, but one was stronger than the others. She snorted, surprising the man, who glared at her, looking slightly offended by her reaction.

"What do you mean ?" Chloé asked for clarification.

"The bear has some kind of superthick skin", he explained, showing the bear sleeping behind him in his cage. "It took three tranquilizer darts to bring it down. Is this some kind of next-gen weapon that your agency is experimenting with ?" he all but accused the blonde analyst.

While she retorted something sounding rather annoyed, Niamh followed Jackson in the woods, dragging him by his sleeve away from indiscreet ears.

"I smelled something. When we got closer to the bear. I think we may find something in the undergrowth. Something dead. You help me ?"

"Yeah, of course", the zoologist agreed softly, before looking down and beginning to search the place.

They combed the area, the smell becoming stronger and stronger with each step. And eventually, they found him. A guy from Park services, probably. Judging by the state of the body and the smell, he died long ago. Niamh frowned and covered her nose and mouth. Jackson raised his voice and called for the others to come and see. In a matter of seconds, the three others were here, and Abe leaned on the dead guy to check his pulse.

"He's dead", she stated coldly.

"Elle ne devrait pas rester ici, Chloé, elle est trop jeune pour ça" (She shouldn't be here, Chloé, she's too young to see this), the man said, seemingly more shocked by the sight than any of them was.

"Elle est plus solide que ce que vous croyez" (She is tougher than you think), Niamh growled at him.

"He's ice cold, he's been dead for at least a few days", Abe said for everyone to know.

Jackson was already following a trail, leaving the others behind if they didn't come with him. Niamh walked beside him, trying to understand how he did to track the bears. She mostly used her sense of smell and hearing when she hunted, she rarely looked for visual traces. He looked for broken twigs, flattened grass, prints in dirt, and hair. He showed her a few clues that the bear went this way and let her find the next hints of his passage. She was excited like a five-year-old when she found something and Jackson confirmed it was an actual lead.

Eventually, they stopped when they exited the woods and faced the ruins of an ancient fort. There was no tree around it, only a vast grassy plain.

"What is this place ?" Jackson asked curiously.

"It's Fort de Châtillon, it was built in the 1870's, from the Prussian War. They tore most of it down forty years ago", their new companion replied.

"Oh, by the way, you weren't introduced", Chloé said. "Niamh, this is Jean-Michel. Jean-Michel, this is Niamh, she is... let's just say she's an intern."

Niamh acknowledged the man by nodding, but didn't show any more warmth towards him. She didn't trust him, the same way she didn't trust the others when she first met them. He wasn't her friend. They neared the ruins and stopped once again, the zoologist crouching down on another clue.

"What is it, rafiki ?" Abe asked to his friend.

"Bear scat. Multiple tracks. Must be three of them", the zoologist replied as he got up and continued walking towards the Fort.

"Three bears... Do you think we'll have enough darts to tranquilize them all ?" she whispered to him as she walked beside him.

"Chloé, Abe and I have guns, there are three bears. I think we can do it. And we are not going there to fight them, only to make sure they are all here", he reassured her.

"Niamh, are you sure you don't want to stay in the car ? With your arm, you would be in danger", Chloé suggested worrily.

"No, I'm fine. I won't be a burden to you, though. And as the other bastard said when I first met Abraham and Jackson, of all of us, I'm the least in danger ."

A half-smile etched on Chloé's lips as worry still painted her face. They walked down the yard inside the ruins, passing by multiple metal gates eaten up by rust, sometimes almost falling into dust. Jackson lead the way, the metamorph just behind him, until he pointed his finger at another gate, pierced by a hole.

"Look at this. Does that hole look big enough for a bear to get in ?" he said to Abe, walking a few steps behind him.

They stopped near the entrance, picking the tranquilizer guns from their backpacks and got ready to enter. Jean-Michel didn't look thrilled at the idea and made it clear.

"Attends, et si y'avait des ours ?" (Wait. If those bears are in there...) he kind of panicked.

"Huh ? T'as raison, reste là, c'est... c'est trop dangereux pour toi. C'est trop dangereux. De toutes façons, si tu devais te faire attaquer par un ours, je crois que je serais du côté de l'ours" (You don't have to do this. You're right, it's dangerous. But more importantly : if you were to come under attack by bears, I would be rooting for the bears), Chloé verbally stabbed him and Niamh then knew there was something between the two that went wrong.

"Boom ! She just destroyed you", she snickered in a low voice before approaching Chloé, hand raised. "Hey Chloé, I know it's childish, but what about a highfive for that monstuous fatality you just hit him with ?"

The analyst just looked back at her, trying to look serious and mature, but still unable to hide the amused hint of a smile from rising the corner of her lips.

"Come on, highfive !"

Surrendering to the total child in front of her, the blonde agent obeyed and highfived her, sighing, but also almost laughing.

"Yay", Niamh muttered as she followed suit to Jackson and Abraham into the ruins. "Childishness shall prevail !"

"Guys, I mapped this place for the city. It's a maze in there, you'll get lost", Jean-Michel warned them even though he looked rather upset by Niamh's snide comments. "Do you have a gun for me ?" he asked nonetheless when everyone got inside the fort.

"No", was Chloé's annoyed answer, and he decided to quicken his pace to catch up with them.

There definitely was something off with these two, Niamh thought, but she didn't have time to investigate it right now. They were progressing slowly, extremely carefully, worried and afraid that a bear could jump at them at any moment. Water was dripping from the stone ceiling with an upsetting and repeatitive sound. Everyone was just extremely tense and jumpy, and those who had guns were clutching at them in stress. Unconsciously, even if she was technically unarmed, Niamh walked faster to come next to Abraham at the forefront. Though she was injured, falling back wasn't in her nature. On her left, Abraham was softly humming a song, causing Jackson to turn at him, making a strange face.

"Really ?"

"What ? It comforts me", the giant justified himself.

It was indeed a scary mission, entering the den of three mutated bears with only tranquilizers. He was forgiven, in Niamh's opinion.

"Come on, big guy. I'm sure it will be over quickly. In and out, noone notices", Niamh whispered, worried about not drawing attention on them.

They walked for a few more minutes before she made them all stop by raising her hand. They looked at her with curiosity and fear, but with respect. They trusted her instincts, now. She closed her eyes, wanting to be sure she heard correctly, and focused on her hearing. A low sound was rumbling through the corridors, one she identified as snoring. She remained silent and perfectly still for a whole minute, and then opened her eyes again and turned to the others.

"They're asleep. I counted two breathings. They must be thirty meters further, after a few rooms", she announced quietly.

"How would you know that ?" Jean-Michel protested in a high-pitched whisper of incomprehension.

"Spider-sense", she snapped back swiftly. "Make no noise and we should be able to find the third without an issue", she warned them.

They all nodded and started towards the bears. Eurasian bears weren't the biggest kind of bears in the world, 'only' one meter at the withers, but they were nonetheless great predators, very powerful and capable of extreme violence. Having to walk between two, even asleep, was proving to be emotionnally difficult for them. Chloé wiped her forehead of cold sweat, Jean-Michel was obviously trying to stick to them the most that was possible without stepping on their feet, and even Jackson and Abraham, though used to lions and rhinoceros, weren't feeling easy.

"There's no signal. I can't call this in", Chloé whispered, looking at her phone screen.

When they tiptoed next to the bears, Abe and Niamh triggered their reaction to a hostile predator, making them snore louder and slightly move in their sleep. They glanced at each other and quickened their pace to get as far as possible from them, to make sure they didn't wake up. The bears growled lazily nonetheless, scaring the newest addition to their group.

"Don't worry, they're just sensing Abe and I are dangerous. They won't wake up, though", she stated casually, taking a sadistic joy in seeing their new companion panic a little.

They continued to walk quietly until they reached one last room, their shoes slipping and making wet noises in the mud. It made their progression slower and louder, but they eventually managed to make it to the third bear. He was fast asleep and snoring, just like the others. Niamh was highly tempted to get closer and touch his fur, sense if he already had this endoskeleton Mitch talked about, but she knew better. If she could make the bears shift in their sleep just by her presence, she didn't want to know what herself touching one would do. Especially now she was injured and accompanied by four other persons.

"Okay, guys. That's three. Can we now and alert Wildlife Services ?" Jean-Michel pleaded in a nervous voice.

"Let's go", confirmed Chloé, as they slowly turned back.

The brown-haired man took the lead, walking quickly as if to escape this place as fast as possible. Niamh scoffed at his ways and cast a glance full of contempt to Abe, who just scolded her by his look. He was too nice and kind to let her be mean to the poor man without showing his disapproval. She sighed and sent him an apologetic look in response, which brought back a smile on his face as they kept walking. Behind them, she could hear Chloé telling stories about how she was the one to kill the spiders when she lived with him to Jackson.

"Spiders, okay, you're right. But come on, Chloé, those are mutated bears, you can't blame him this time if he's scared out of his mind", she defended the man before realizing she was precisely mocking his weakness only seconds earlier. And then it hit her. "Wait, you were living together ?"

Chloé sighed and avoided her eyes for a moment, but answered anyway.

"He was my fiancé. We broke up."

She was harsh on her words, sounding like she didn't want to talk about it, and Niamh got the message. She nodded with a comprehensive smile and returned back to her silent walk beside Abraham. Noone talked anymore until they arrived in a room which Abe stopped in. He was frowning, as if looking for something.

"What is it ?" Jackson asked his friend when he got past him and saw he wouldn't move.

"This is where the bears were sleeping..." Niamh spoke out, figuring out what was bothering Abraham at this moment. "Their smell is still strong here, but they're gone.

"Okay. Let's get out of here, come on", Jackson hurried them with concern.

As they were all about to leave for the corridor, a powerful roar echoed through the whole ruin, making everyone jump on their feet in fear. Niamh's heart missed a beat, before accelerating to twice its normal rhythm. Adrenaline whipped through her veins like a wild horse, turning her eyes gold immediately, before she could calm herself down a little. She contained the eager shaking of her hands and took a fighting stance, mobile on her legs and ready to bolt into danger.

"Just stand your ground. All right ? Don't- Don't run away, but don't let it think you're a threat", Jackson ordered them.

The bear grunted louder, taking a few steps towards them, baring his yellowish fangs at them.

"He already knows we're a threat..." Niamh hissed, rounding her back to seem bigger and lowly growling at the animal.

And then all she knows is that Jean-Michel was running away, calling for help. Niamh let out a really offensive curse at him as Chloé was shouting him not to.

Well, so much for the 'I'll be rooting for the bears' part, I guess... she thought aside, completely disconnected of the moment.

"The other bears. We gotta stop him", Jackson said to Chloé, and they both headed towards where the other man went.

Abe and Niamh stayed and faced the bear. He grabbed his dart gun and aimed at the beast, that was running at them, then shot. The first tranquilizer dart went swiflty into his skin, but it didn't slow him down. Niamh pushed Abraham aside, barely controlling her strength, her only concern being putting her friend out of danger, out of the bear's trajectory. He tripped when she pushed him, but didn't try to stand up again, focusing on reloading his gun.

Meanwhile, the girl was growling at the bear, her eyes shining with menace and danger, keeping the beast's attention drawn on her. It was like she hypnotized it. Adrenaline flowing though her whole body, she didn't feel the pain in her shoulder anymore, allowing her to dodge expertly the paw the bear flung at her. She jumped backwards, landing with perfect balance and emitted a challenging growl that infuriated the bear even more. Her reflexes were so sharp she managed to avoid the next attack as well as the dart that flew dangerously near her waist before planting itself in the bear.

"Hey, that was close, Abe !" she protested.

"Sorry, you moved in the last moment", he retorted distractedly, too focused on his reloading and aiming to put much intonation in his voice.

The bear, extremely angry now, though the tranquilizer was starting to affect him, stood on his hind legs and tried to smash her with one powerful blow she only avoided because she did the last thing he could expect : she rushed at him and toppled him to the ground, surprising him. He groaned in incomprehension as she bared her teeth at him, clenching her fist and ready to punch him in the snout.

A third dart was shot in his leg, and the bear eventually stopped moving, sent sleeping again by the breathing still uneven and fast, Niamh was trying to refrain herself from completely letting loose of her control on herself. Sitting on the bear's belly, she was heaving, her chest raising and falling down as she did her best to school her respiration. Carefully, Abe approached her, his gun still ready to shoot, in case she was still running on adrenaline.

"Niamh ?" it was Jackson's voice. She turned to him and stared at him blankly. "Are you okay ?"

"Yeah... I-I think so..." she nodded.

Still sitting on the bear, she could feel under her hands the hard shell, the endoskeleton Mitch mentionned. She slowly got up, nearly loosing her balance, and joined the others. On the way back to where they left the Wildlife Services, she finished to process the adrenaline in her system and began to feel her shoulder again. She immediately cursed herself for being so stupid, but it was too late. She must have groaned a bit too loudly, because the others looked at her, and saw the red stain on her t-shirt, right where her stitches were.

"Oh my God, Niamh, did the bear harm you ?" Chloé worried as she took a closer look to her injury.

"No, it's just... I think the stitches broke. I'll have Mitch redo them once we're back", she casually dismissed her concern.

She reached for her bottle of pills in her bag and swallowed a pair of them. That should ease the pain until they got near the vet. When they arrived at the place they left the Park Services at, an ambulance was there, and the cage with the bear was gone. They handed Jean-Michel to the medics and when they saw her bleeding, they tried to heal her too. One of them almost lost a finger in the operation and so the rest of them decided it best not to risk theirs and left her alone.

"You know, maybe you should have let them redo your bandage at least", Jackson suggested.

"Too risky", she flatly answered, eyes closed as she let the painkillers slowly take her pain away.

"Je le mérite peut-être pas, mais en tout cas, merci de m'avoir sauvé la vie" (I know I don't deserve it, but... Thank you. You saved my life), she heard Jean-Michel say from afar, her senses less controlled now that she was on medicine.

"Moi oui, mais pas toi" (Of course I did)", Chloé responded, sitting next to her ex-fiancé. "Je peux te demander un service ?" (Would you do me a favor ?)

"Ouais." (Yeah)

"Comporte-toi bien avec ma soeur" (Be good to my sister) "Pas comme avec moi" (Better than you were to me), Chloé requested softly.

Niamh reopened her eyes and took a deep breath, frowning in compassion and hurt. She just understood why Chloé didn't want to talk about her ex-fiancé, and why she could feel the tension between the two. She could understand the betrayal their leader would have felt when she discovered her sister and her fiancé were dating. She couldn't feel what it felt like to lose a lover because she never had anyone that meaningful to her, but she could understand betrayal and grief.

"Do you know what she's saying to him ?" Jackson wondered as they looked away in decency when the analyst hugged her ex-fiancé.

"Yes. It's personnal, I shouldn't be listening in", she replied reluctantly, feeling like she saw something really private.

"Then don't", Abe gently said with a comprehensive smile.

"I don't. Not on purpose at least. I heard it, but I didn't try to. My senses don't ask for permmission when I take these pills... I'll keep what I heard secret, though. It's her choice whether to tell us or not."

Chloé let go of Jean-Michel and went back to them. All four of them then headed towards their car and drove silently to the animal lab. Once arrived there, they found Mitch and Jamie looking at papers that looked like the tests results. Mitch raised his head to beckon them to come closer and take a look at it, but instead noticed the red wetness on Niamh's shoulder.

"You can't be serious ! What did you do ?" he sighed upsetly as he grabbed her by the arm and forced her to sit on the nearest chair.

"Bears. They woke up, we had to tranquilize them. I operated as a diversion so Abe could shoot the bear."

"You fought a bear ? God dammit, you're fucking crazy ?"

"Look, I'm fine, the bears were sedated, everything's okay. I just... accidentally broke the stitches when I dodged his attacks", she mumbled while he pushed the clothing on her shoulder to have better access to the bandage and then sighed.

"I can't see anything, take the sling and your shirt off", he mumbled, looking away.

"What ? Mitch, you can't just..." Jamie protested.

"It's okay. He needs to see my shoulder, and being clothed doesn't make it easy", Niamh retorted as she carefully removed the sling, and then her blood stained t-shirt.

Mitch hissed when he looked under the bandage and gave her a light hit on the back of her head.

"Stupid."

"Hey ! Don't you dare hit me !"

"You completely blew your stitches, and the edges of the wound look like minced meat", he scolded her. "Well, at least, it stopped bleeding, but you can't just fight a bear like it's nothing at all. You need to rest."

"Yeah, and the animal Apocalypse can wait", she snidely snapped back. "Just... Just stitch it again and put a nice Hello Kitty bandaid, will you ?" she spat angrily.

"You know what ? This time I do it, but if you fight another bear and you need me to redo your stitches and bandage, you can go see another vet", he groaned dryly.

He quickly sewed the wound, not taking any precautions so Niamh winced a lot more than usual when the needle went through her skin. His revenge for her poor behavior, she thought. When he was done, he bandaged her shoulder again, but couldn't find a Hello Kitty bandaid to piss her off. He washed his hands while she put her shirt back on and then gathered everyone around the computer he projected the results on.

"So, this is the DNA profile of our bear from the lab. And this is the same bear's DNA six years ago, when he was first tagged", he showed them, his previous annoyment still slightly audible.

There was a difference between the two. A yellow spot that appeared on the second DNA and not on the first. Niamh frowned. If she remembered well her science classes, this was an additionnal gene that wasn't supposed to be here. It just... popped out of nowhere.

"It changed. Because of the Mother Cell", Jamie asserted.

"Uh, yes and no", Mitch nuanced.

"What does that mean ?" Jackson asked, looking a bit lost by this discovery.

"Okay, think of it this way. None of the earth's creatures are born perfect. Right ? We all have genetic anomalies. Be it a birthmark, double-jointed wrists, webbed toes... but the anomalies that become the norm are the... the ones that are adaptive. That are more useful to survival, like opposable thumbs", he explained, moving his thumbs as an illustration.

"What does it have to do with animals ?" Chloé wondered, frowning in incomprehension.

"I would say we are facing a wave of adaptive anomalies in the animal kingdom. Maybe triggered by the Mother Cell, since it began recently and all at the same time. The bears now have a superthick skin, the bats fly higher, the lions are telepathic or something..." Niamh hesitantly trailed off.

"They all make their species more capable of survival. Stronger, better", Jackson confirmed.

"And what I think... Just like our ancestors developed opposable thumbs, I think the Mother Cell is just accelerating these mutations", Mitch said reluctantly, siding with the metamorph despite their argument. "I think we would see them occur naturally, but not for another... several generations. Maybe a couple hundred of years from now, depending on how long it takes us to screw up the planet", he grumbled moodily.

"But we're seeing it now because of the Mother Cell", Jamie insisted, adamant on blaming Reiden.

"But here's the good news...", Mitch began.

"If the Mother Cell can make a naturally occurring situation worse, maybe it can do the opposite", Jackson said immediately, understanding quickly what the vet's idea was.

"Correct", Mitch approved, before going back to the computer, browsing the files and looking for something.

"Yeah, Hartley tried that, injecting that shit in his eye. Didn't turn out well, did it ?" Niamh scoffed.

"Maybe we can find a way to transform the Mother Cell into something that will actually work. Hartley tried to inject it pure, but if we can find a formula to adapt it, maybe... I don't know..." Jackson sighed as he passed a hand through his hair almost in desperation.

Mitch then displayed another diagram on the computer screen, apparently he found was he was looking for.

"And this, is your DNA, Niamh", he simply stated, showing her the top quarter of the screen. "Then going down, is human, wolf and bear."

She simply stared at it blankly, incapable of speaking or doing anything but to gaze at the screen. The first DNA diagram, her DNA, was strangely akin to the others, but only on the central structure. There is a common knowledge that all DNAs are the same to a certain point, they all have the same base, and then it's a matter of last common ancestor. Chimps shared 98% of their genome with humans, mice shared 90% and flies shared 60%. She looked like a human, so she expected to be something like 97-98% like them. But it appeared she was more likely to be only 80% of her DNA that matched with the human's. And the wolf and bear parts didn't match at all. It was like her DNA wasn't that of a wolf, not even partially. It was something completely different.

"It... doesn't match", Chloé flatly noticed, brows raised in surprise.

"No, it definitely doesn't", the vet sighed quietly.

Niamh's breath was uneven, shallow, as she watched the very proof that she was different. Tears of wonder and amazement were welling in her eyes without her perfectly knowing why. It was like meeting a long dead ancestor and finding out you were so close to each other. She looked at it longly, looking for something even more unusual than her abnormal DNA, and eventually found something. She remembered seeing it on their bear's DNA, the yellow anomaly. Except this time, as they didn't have another DNA sample to compare, it didn't stand out as much. She pointed it with her finger and turned to Mitch, looking quite unsure and even afraid.

"Is that... ?" she trailed off, her voice croaky.

"Yeah. It's the new gene that appeared in the bear's DNA as well. Or at least, it appeared in the same place on yours", he explained soflty, almost with compassion, his exasperation at her suddenly gone.

She blinked multiple times, feeling lightheaded, and sat on the nearest chair before falling. Her legs felt weak and her breathing seemed unable to pump enough oxygen into her lungs.

"So what ? That means she will develop a superthick skin too ?" Jamie asked, a bit lost.

"I don't know. This is just the DNA map, not the detail of every gene. This could merely be the location of all mutated genes the animals develop, and not especially the superthick skin gene. It could be anything", Mitch answered gently.

"Please, be a butter-bear gene", Niamh weakly joked, still emotionally shaken.

"Okay, time out, can anyone explain what is this 'butter-bear' thing ?" Chloé interrupted them, raising her hands in a stop motion.

Mitch couldn't muffle a nervous laughter, quickly followed by Jackson and Niamh, which triggered Jamie's laugh as well, though she didn't really know why, she was just empathetic.

"When Mitch said that the bear was hibernating, back at your place, he said it could be because he was changing. I joked about the fact that after telepathic lions and angry wolves, if would be cool to have a butter-bear. A big teddy bear with nice and shiny butterfly wings."

"Now that is... unexpected", Chloé said slowly and with surprise.

"So anyway, it means that I was indeed affected by the Mother Cell. Great", Niamh blurted out suddenly. "And if I am infected, it's more than probable that the rest of the metamorphs are infected too. The wolf I met in front of Reiden's offices said his pack was sick. Two people turned bad and killed three others. They had to put them down."

"Wait, a wolf ?" Mitch repeated incredulously.

"Yes, a werewolf. He tried to threaten me, but I managed to cool down the situation", she casually dismissed his concern.

"Actually, she punched him in the face", Jamie whispered to the vet with an amused look.

"Anyway", Niamh said a bit louder, not willing to talk about this event furthermore. "Do you think it could be possible to adapt the formula of the Mother Cell to reverse the mutation ?"

"Well I'm a veterinary pathologist, but sure I can invent a cure to the Apocalypse, just give me a minute", he sassed sarcastically*.

"I'm sure you'll do well, Mitch", Jamie reassured him with good humor.

He sighed deeply, but couldn't do anything more about the situation. He transferred the results of the DNA tests on a flashdrive, deleted them from the computer with Jamie's help to make sure there was no trace of it left. They didn't want anyone to find Niamh's DNA by accident and discover the existence of the metamorphs. They also divided the work with Reiden's files between them all, and everyone got a fraction of the huge data they collected, to read and analyze. They spent the rest of the day at the lab, ordered food for a late lunch and studied the financial documents they stole from the company, startling everytime a lab tech entered to pick something in the storing drawers.

By the end on the day, they hadn't found anything, but they didn't lose hope. It was a huge amount of work, they couldn't have sorted it out on the first day. They saved their progression and decided to go back to Chloé's place to spend the night.

* If someone guesses the reference, well done :) I'd like to promise a more interesting prize but I don't know what u_u