BDP46
I watched Ian go, wondering if I was losing my mind. A part of me wished I'd said to Hell with everything, taken him back to my apartment, and made such a racket my neighbors were pounding on the walls. Well, I hadn't. Once again I had chosen reason over pleasure. Not without a great deal of regret, but I had chosen it nonetheless.
I just couldn't forget that there was more at stake than our relationship, however wonderful and fragile it was. I hoped that Casca had been complacent enough to leave his data somewhere easily accessed. After all, except for my name-calling, no one had balked him in the least. He had acted as though the facility was his, and we were all his employees.
I was betting rather heavily on my read of him as being secure enough to keep his files here. Even if he wasn't, I had a better chance of getting the data anyway, considering the abruptness of his departure tonight. It was very likely that everything was still in his office. He'd been planning to add data this evening, he had to have been or he wouldn't have stayed tonight. If Cian were really smiling on me, Casca had already pulled up the files he'd planned to alter. I wasn't holding my breath, but it would be a nice stroke of luck if he had.
It took very little time for me to reenter the lab, my feet bringing me to Matheson's office before I was ready. I moved away from the door and headed to my office. In case Ian didn't get everything, I was going to make sure I got that DNA sample. I wouldn't be at all surprised if something unusual turned up on her after doing some tests. There had to be a reason Casca had overplayed his hand trying to get these two together. I grabbed my kit bag, shoved the necessary items in it, and headed back to the office where the Bronte girl was cooling her heels.
A sharp rap on the door was met with a muffled, "Who is it?"
"It's Dr. Burke. Let me in please, Beth." I was glad to see that she hadn't just opened the door. It made me think a little better of her. Lots of intelligent women had no common sense. Myself included sometimes.
There was the distinctive click of a lock turning, then the door opened to reveal Ms. Bronte. She had borrowed one of Matheson's sweaters that he kept in the office. He was always cold in the labs, no matter how many years he'd been working in them. He always had at least two on hooks behind his desk.
Over the years I'd even gotten him a few cable-knit fishermen's sweaters for Christmas. Nothing is warmer than Irish wool. In fact, it never gets cold enough here for me to wear one of those sweaters indoors; I always end up sweating like mad. I can only comfortably wear them outside, if I don't add a coat to it.
It used to amaze me that Matheson could wear it under his lab coat all day. Now I'm used to seeing him trundle around in a heavy Aryan sweater, and I tend not to notice that he's wearing them any more. I was not prepared to see one of my presents wrapped around Ms. Bronte. It disturbed me.
I know it's silly, I know that Beaker would be the first one to offer someone one of his sweaters if they were cold, but for a moment I was offended. It felt like she was intruding, even though I knew that she had borrowed it because it was there and she was wearing less clothing than I would wear to the pool in the middle of July.
On Beth's petite form, the cream-colored wool came down almost to her knees. She'd rolled the sleeves up to free her hands, but the shoulder seams were clearly halfway down her upper arms. It made her look like a little girl playing dress up, especially with the bare legs ending in high heels.
Part of my anger came from the fact that she looked like an innocent waif, which she clearly wasn't. In fact, the only reason she was here was to bear a child that would be even more alone than she looked right now, assuming it lived so long.
"Don't look at me like that. I didn't choose this." Beth crossed her arms in front of her. "Casca made me come tonight."
"You're an adult, he can't MAKE you do anything." I replied, surprised into being honest. Besides, I really wanted to know what was going on, and so far this was my only source of information.
"He can if you're not real." Beth said as she sank in on herself. The child image was back, stronger than ever. She looked about five years old.
"I wasn't aware this was a philosophical debate. You're as real as I am. You are over the age of eighteen, right?" I raised a brow at her, which she nodded in confirmation that she was, "So legally Casca can't run your life."
"But I'm not a person, not really. I'm an experiment, you see. I don't have any rights." Beth clearly believed the crap she was saying, her tone was very matter of fact, if sad.
"What do you mean, you're not a person?" I was starting to get angry. Even if she was the product of genetic manipulation or a specialized breeding program, she still had rights as an individual.
"They took a frozen egg from Elizabeth Bronte, she was an American spy during the second world war, fertilized it, and inserted it into a female surrogate. I'm not the only one, but the rest of them were boys. Dr. DeAngelo, the man who helped to create me, got in trouble. It was a big scandal at Vorshlag. He started using his own sperm instead of the samples provided. I heard about it from the lab techs, they gossip right in front of me like I'm a piece of furniture. They're still mad, 'cause they can't duplicate his results. What a pity, no more viable offspring." Beth shook her head and grinned, clearly not sorry at all.
Neither was I. Although I had to wonder how many more children there were. Beth had said that the others were all boys though. I wondered about Ian for a moment. Was he one of the 'boys' from before Dr. DeAngelo began switching sperm? He could also have been after, that would explain why he'd been treated so poorly. No man likes to be a cuckold, even in a situation such as this. Also, "Why are you telling me this?"
"So you won't hate me. Besides, it's hardly a secret. Everyone at Vorshlag knows what I am. Casca will be in here any minute to take me back. He'll probably punish me for disobeying again, but I just couldn't do it. It shouldn't be my problem that they can't use Elizabeth's ova to produce more like me. I don't see why I should have to play broodmare on top of lab rat. It was the last straw. I don't care what happens to me anymore, not really. But if I had a baby, they'd take her from me and do the same things to her. I just couldn't." Beth's voice had run the gamut, from defiant to frightened to angry, but with the last two sentences it broke.
To my horror, she started to cry. I'm not good with weepy women. I usually have the urge to smack them and tell them to quit whining. Beth didn't whine though. In fact, she was oddly silent. No sobs, just crystal tears, with one following the next. There was something so hopeless about it, as if she were used to her suffering being ignored. She wasn't crying to get attention or sympathy, she was crying because she was that miserable.
I did something I would never have believed I'd do. I wrapped my arms around Beth and made those stupid little soothing noises. I must not have been doing something right, because instead of calming down, she just cried harder. I held this sobbing girl in my arms and wondered how old she was. I also cursed Vorshlag. This was the second damaged child I'd met that had ties to that place. My original plan, which had been to send her back where she came from, didn't seem like such a good idea. I was going to have to do something else. But what?
There was always cousin Finn. He lived not too far from here, and he was always picking up strays. What was one more, even if it was two-legged instead of four? He was much better with hurt things than I was, and Nottingham was about all I could handle in the way of emotional stress right now. "Beth, how would you like to go somewhere other than back to Vorshlag?"
"I can't. I've run before, I just can't get very far before I'm out of money. I can't get a job because I don't have a birth certificate, which means no social security number. The only work I can get is illegal, and they've got connections enough to find me that way too. The punishments are pretty bad too, when they catch me." Beth sighed in defeat.
I wondered how many times she'd tried to get away. The way she was talking, I suspected that there had been several attempts. What she'd said made sense. No one would hire you without some form of identification, and a social security number. Without friends in the appropriate places, Beth had been doomed from the beginning.
"I can't promise anything, but I think I can help you. Come with me." I wasn't about to say anything else, just in case Casca had surveillance equipment in here as well. Better safe than court-martialed, after all.
"Why would you help me again? No one does something for nothing." Beth looked at me suspiciously.
"You're a smart girl. I bet if you think about it, you'll figure something out." I smiled at her. "Actually I'm doing it for several reasons, some of my motivation is from my principles as a responsible scientist, but the fact that it will give Casca fits plays a very large part, I must admit."
"I saw the way you watch Nottingham. That's part of it too, isn't it?" Beth asked shrewdly.
"Yeah, but that's my problem. Are you coming, or are you going tamely back into your cage?" I asked, really not wanting to bring Ian into this, as I held the door open.
"No more cage. I'm with you. But won't Casca catch us? He won't be unconscious for long. When he wakes up he's going to be pissed." Beth hesitated by the exit.
"He's at the hospital. Trust me, Casca isn't going anywhere soon. The nurses are used to ignoring men with more authority than him, and when they think he's recovered he'll still have forms to fill out in triplicate." I grinned at the image my thoughts generated.
"Does that mean we have time to pick up my clothes from Casca's office? My legs are freezing." Beth shivered theatrically. "Besides, I should leave the sweater here. It's really nice. This Matheson person would be mad if it were to come up missing."
"I've got a pair of sweat pants in my office that you can have, it's on the way out. Casca's office is further into the complex." I said a silent apology to Weis, who was never getting those sweats back. I'd had them in a duffel bag by my desk since Ian had worn them. I kept finding reasons not to give them back. I guess I should just buy him another pair.
"What about the sweater?" Beth paused, reluctant to take it off.
"Just wear it. I'll get it from you when we get where we're going. Come on, I've got to get you out of here and get back again before he returns, remember?" I shooed her down the hall.
"Where are we going?" Beth asked as she walked beside me.
"Let's not talk about it here. I don't trust the walls not to have ears." Fortunately, that was all I had to say. We made it to my office in record time, and complete silence.
I watched her pull the sweat pants on as I pulled all the equipment back out of my kit bag. It seemed like a waste of effort to have packed it up in the first place, but if I hadn't, I'd have needed it. When she was dressed I called her over. "Beth, I want to take some blood and tissue samples. I need to know if they've been drugging you, and if so, what they've been using."
"Sure, if you promise to tell me what you find. I know they give me regular injections. It would be nice to know what was going on with my own body." Beth held out an arm for the blood sample with the ease of long practice.
Samples taken and stored, we left. I resisted the urge to wave to the cameras as we passed through the main body of the lab. I really should have asked Ian to try to confiscate the video recordings from tonight while he was out gathering information. Even at three-second intervals, there were still too much on those tapes that could be used against us.
Well, no use crying over it now. I'd just have to hope for the best, plan for the worst. Besides, I doubted that Ian could get in to the control room and make off with the tapes tonight. Every last one of the guards would be glued to those monitors tonight, and they were probably playing back some of the footage.
I winced at the thought, but I knew it was true. The best the Dragons could hope for is that the gits would keep any pirate copies to themselves, and not distribute them to all their buddies. I did what I could on the way out, I informed the M.P.s at the exit to check for and confiscate all forms of recording that they found on personnel leaving the building. I didn't think it would do anything more than catch the obvious ones, but it would send a message to the others. It might make them more careful of who they shared their copies with.
I watched Ian go, wondering if I was losing my mind. A part of me wished I'd said to Hell with everything, taken him back to my apartment, and made such a racket my neighbors were pounding on the walls. Well, I hadn't. Once again I had chosen reason over pleasure. Not without a great deal of regret, but I had chosen it nonetheless.
I just couldn't forget that there was more at stake than our relationship, however wonderful and fragile it was. I hoped that Casca had been complacent enough to leave his data somewhere easily accessed. After all, except for my name-calling, no one had balked him in the least. He had acted as though the facility was his, and we were all his employees.
I was betting rather heavily on my read of him as being secure enough to keep his files here. Even if he wasn't, I had a better chance of getting the data anyway, considering the abruptness of his departure tonight. It was very likely that everything was still in his office. He'd been planning to add data this evening, he had to have been or he wouldn't have stayed tonight. If Cian were really smiling on me, Casca had already pulled up the files he'd planned to alter. I wasn't holding my breath, but it would be a nice stroke of luck if he had.
It took very little time for me to reenter the lab, my feet bringing me to Matheson's office before I was ready. I moved away from the door and headed to my office. In case Ian didn't get everything, I was going to make sure I got that DNA sample. I wouldn't be at all surprised if something unusual turned up on her after doing some tests. There had to be a reason Casca had overplayed his hand trying to get these two together. I grabbed my kit bag, shoved the necessary items in it, and headed back to the office where the Bronte girl was cooling her heels.
A sharp rap on the door was met with a muffled, "Who is it?"
"It's Dr. Burke. Let me in please, Beth." I was glad to see that she hadn't just opened the door. It made me think a little better of her. Lots of intelligent women had no common sense. Myself included sometimes.
There was the distinctive click of a lock turning, then the door opened to reveal Ms. Bronte. She had borrowed one of Matheson's sweaters that he kept in the office. He was always cold in the labs, no matter how many years he'd been working in them. He always had at least two on hooks behind his desk.
Over the years I'd even gotten him a few cable-knit fishermen's sweaters for Christmas. Nothing is warmer than Irish wool. In fact, it never gets cold enough here for me to wear one of those sweaters indoors; I always end up sweating like mad. I can only comfortably wear them outside, if I don't add a coat to it.
It used to amaze me that Matheson could wear it under his lab coat all day. Now I'm used to seeing him trundle around in a heavy Aryan sweater, and I tend not to notice that he's wearing them any more. I was not prepared to see one of my presents wrapped around Ms. Bronte. It disturbed me.
I know it's silly, I know that Beaker would be the first one to offer someone one of his sweaters if they were cold, but for a moment I was offended. It felt like she was intruding, even though I knew that she had borrowed it because it was there and she was wearing less clothing than I would wear to the pool in the middle of July.
On Beth's petite form, the cream-colored wool came down almost to her knees. She'd rolled the sleeves up to free her hands, but the shoulder seams were clearly halfway down her upper arms. It made her look like a little girl playing dress up, especially with the bare legs ending in high heels.
Part of my anger came from the fact that she looked like an innocent waif, which she clearly wasn't. In fact, the only reason she was here was to bear a child that would be even more alone than she looked right now, assuming it lived so long.
"Don't look at me like that. I didn't choose this." Beth crossed her arms in front of her. "Casca made me come tonight."
"You're an adult, he can't MAKE you do anything." I replied, surprised into being honest. Besides, I really wanted to know what was going on, and so far this was my only source of information.
"He can if you're not real." Beth said as she sank in on herself. The child image was back, stronger than ever. She looked about five years old.
"I wasn't aware this was a philosophical debate. You're as real as I am. You are over the age of eighteen, right?" I raised a brow at her, which she nodded in confirmation that she was, "So legally Casca can't run your life."
"But I'm not a person, not really. I'm an experiment, you see. I don't have any rights." Beth clearly believed the crap she was saying, her tone was very matter of fact, if sad.
"What do you mean, you're not a person?" I was starting to get angry. Even if she was the product of genetic manipulation or a specialized breeding program, she still had rights as an individual.
"They took a frozen egg from Elizabeth Bronte, she was an American spy during the second world war, fertilized it, and inserted it into a female surrogate. I'm not the only one, but the rest of them were boys. Dr. DeAngelo, the man who helped to create me, got in trouble. It was a big scandal at Vorshlag. He started using his own sperm instead of the samples provided. I heard about it from the lab techs, they gossip right in front of me like I'm a piece of furniture. They're still mad, 'cause they can't duplicate his results. What a pity, no more viable offspring." Beth shook her head and grinned, clearly not sorry at all.
Neither was I. Although I had to wonder how many more children there were. Beth had said that the others were all boys though. I wondered about Ian for a moment. Was he one of the 'boys' from before Dr. DeAngelo began switching sperm? He could also have been after, that would explain why he'd been treated so poorly. No man likes to be a cuckold, even in a situation such as this. Also, "Why are you telling me this?"
"So you won't hate me. Besides, it's hardly a secret. Everyone at Vorshlag knows what I am. Casca will be in here any minute to take me back. He'll probably punish me for disobeying again, but I just couldn't do it. It shouldn't be my problem that they can't use Elizabeth's ova to produce more like me. I don't see why I should have to play broodmare on top of lab rat. It was the last straw. I don't care what happens to me anymore, not really. But if I had a baby, they'd take her from me and do the same things to her. I just couldn't." Beth's voice had run the gamut, from defiant to frightened to angry, but with the last two sentences it broke.
To my horror, she started to cry. I'm not good with weepy women. I usually have the urge to smack them and tell them to quit whining. Beth didn't whine though. In fact, she was oddly silent. No sobs, just crystal tears, with one following the next. There was something so hopeless about it, as if she were used to her suffering being ignored. She wasn't crying to get attention or sympathy, she was crying because she was that miserable.
I did something I would never have believed I'd do. I wrapped my arms around Beth and made those stupid little soothing noises. I must not have been doing something right, because instead of calming down, she just cried harder. I held this sobbing girl in my arms and wondered how old she was. I also cursed Vorshlag. This was the second damaged child I'd met that had ties to that place. My original plan, which had been to send her back where she came from, didn't seem like such a good idea. I was going to have to do something else. But what?
There was always cousin Finn. He lived not too far from here, and he was always picking up strays. What was one more, even if it was two-legged instead of four? He was much better with hurt things than I was, and Nottingham was about all I could handle in the way of emotional stress right now. "Beth, how would you like to go somewhere other than back to Vorshlag?"
"I can't. I've run before, I just can't get very far before I'm out of money. I can't get a job because I don't have a birth certificate, which means no social security number. The only work I can get is illegal, and they've got connections enough to find me that way too. The punishments are pretty bad too, when they catch me." Beth sighed in defeat.
I wondered how many times she'd tried to get away. The way she was talking, I suspected that there had been several attempts. What she'd said made sense. No one would hire you without some form of identification, and a social security number. Without friends in the appropriate places, Beth had been doomed from the beginning.
"I can't promise anything, but I think I can help you. Come with me." I wasn't about to say anything else, just in case Casca had surveillance equipment in here as well. Better safe than court-martialed, after all.
"Why would you help me again? No one does something for nothing." Beth looked at me suspiciously.
"You're a smart girl. I bet if you think about it, you'll figure something out." I smiled at her. "Actually I'm doing it for several reasons, some of my motivation is from my principles as a responsible scientist, but the fact that it will give Casca fits plays a very large part, I must admit."
"I saw the way you watch Nottingham. That's part of it too, isn't it?" Beth asked shrewdly.
"Yeah, but that's my problem. Are you coming, or are you going tamely back into your cage?" I asked, really not wanting to bring Ian into this, as I held the door open.
"No more cage. I'm with you. But won't Casca catch us? He won't be unconscious for long. When he wakes up he's going to be pissed." Beth hesitated by the exit.
"He's at the hospital. Trust me, Casca isn't going anywhere soon. The nurses are used to ignoring men with more authority than him, and when they think he's recovered he'll still have forms to fill out in triplicate." I grinned at the image my thoughts generated.
"Does that mean we have time to pick up my clothes from Casca's office? My legs are freezing." Beth shivered theatrically. "Besides, I should leave the sweater here. It's really nice. This Matheson person would be mad if it were to come up missing."
"I've got a pair of sweat pants in my office that you can have, it's on the way out. Casca's office is further into the complex." I said a silent apology to Weis, who was never getting those sweats back. I'd had them in a duffel bag by my desk since Ian had worn them. I kept finding reasons not to give them back. I guess I should just buy him another pair.
"What about the sweater?" Beth paused, reluctant to take it off.
"Just wear it. I'll get it from you when we get where we're going. Come on, I've got to get you out of here and get back again before he returns, remember?" I shooed her down the hall.
"Where are we going?" Beth asked as she walked beside me.
"Let's not talk about it here. I don't trust the walls not to have ears." Fortunately, that was all I had to say. We made it to my office in record time, and complete silence.
I watched her pull the sweat pants on as I pulled all the equipment back out of my kit bag. It seemed like a waste of effort to have packed it up in the first place, but if I hadn't, I'd have needed it. When she was dressed I called her over. "Beth, I want to take some blood and tissue samples. I need to know if they've been drugging you, and if so, what they've been using."
"Sure, if you promise to tell me what you find. I know they give me regular injections. It would be nice to know what was going on with my own body." Beth held out an arm for the blood sample with the ease of long practice.
Samples taken and stored, we left. I resisted the urge to wave to the cameras as we passed through the main body of the lab. I really should have asked Ian to try to confiscate the video recordings from tonight while he was out gathering information. Even at three-second intervals, there were still too much on those tapes that could be used against us.
Well, no use crying over it now. I'd just have to hope for the best, plan for the worst. Besides, I doubted that Ian could get in to the control room and make off with the tapes tonight. Every last one of the guards would be glued to those monitors tonight, and they were probably playing back some of the footage.
I winced at the thought, but I knew it was true. The best the Dragons could hope for is that the gits would keep any pirate copies to themselves, and not distribute them to all their buddies. I did what I could on the way out, I informed the M.P.s at the exit to check for and confiscate all forms of recording that they found on personnel leaving the building. I didn't think it would do anything more than catch the obvious ones, but it would send a message to the others. It might make them more careful of who they shared their copies with.