Looking at the two of them made her feel sick. Her father, who had been her entire world, had died only four months ago. While her pain had gotten more manageable, her anger and resentment had taken some of her pain to fuel themselves. Duran Jarreau had begun his courtship of her mother at her father’s funeral. They had married earlier in the week. She had tried to convince herself to be grateful that Duran had saved her mother from the bottomless abyss of pain in which she had begun to sink.
However, when she had caught the man looking at her legs with lust while her mother’s back had been turned, she had gone to her mother with her fears. An angry, heated argument had ensued. Now, as a result, she felt as though both of her parents were lost to her. Her father’s death had killed their family.
A nanny had been hired to raise her younger brothers. They were handling things far better than she was. It was mostly due to the fact that as their new patriarch, Duran had formed telepathic bonds with her brothers. With their father gone, they had need the mental stability that Duran provided. She had refused. Duran was taking her mother on a two-week honeymoon to Sinope.
She looked around at her new room and wiped away her tears. Duran had sold their family home and moved them into his mansion. The swimming pool and extensive grounds had enticed her brothers, but for her it had been a cruelty. Most of her memories of her father had been in that house.
“Behave while we’re gone and don’t exceed your daily budget,” her mother said. Her mother made no attempt to hug or kiss her goodbye.
Duran must have nudged her mother’s mind and furthered the distance between the two of them. At least he hadn’t killed her affection for her sons. The boys looked more like their mother than their father. She watched through the window as Duran’s private shuttle lifted off to take them to the land port.
She answered her vid-screen when it pinged.
Strass’ solid black eyes and unruly black hair filled her screen. “I heard your parents are leaving town. Are you finally ready to have some fun?”
Strass had been her boyfriend on and off for the past year and a half at the academy. They had met in an oceanography class. He had shown an interest in her after learning who her father was and had been attentive and affectionate with her to make a good impression on him. Being awarded a chance to serve as one of her father’s research assistants had been her most attractive feature to Strass. He had always had other girlfriends. That didn’t bother her. It was expected in their society. She had gotten along with a few of the other girls, but giving Strass her understanding and her virginity hadn’t been enough to keep him around after her father had died. She was no longer of benefit to his career plans. Had her father lived and decided to give them another mother, not that he would have tolerated another female distracting him from his work, she would have accepted it. However, hearing Strass refer to Duran as one of her parents turned what feelings she still had for him to dust.
“No, I’m on my period. Sorry,” she said with a shrug.
Obviously disappointed that sex wasn’t anywhere in his immediate future with her, Strass made a little small talk before ending their conversation. He’d find some other female or a couple of females with whom to slake his lust. Glad his telepathy was as weak as any feelings he might have ever had for her, she changed into a swim dress and went out to the pool.
Some light remained on Aurilius. She hadn’t joined her brothers for dinner with their new nanny, Angelica. The woman had come with an impeccable resume, but she worked for Duran and answered to him. She wasn’t sure if Angelica was truly there to care for her brothers, or if it was just an act to throw her off as she spied on them for Duran. Tracy stayed in the pool until Angelica came out and reported to her that her brothers were asleep.
“If there is nothing you need, Miss Tracy, I will retire to my room for the night.”
Tracy observed the woman. It wasn’t fair of her to be unkind to Angelica. “Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Tracy responded.
Angelica curtsied to her and left. Angelica was plain as far as Laconian women went. It was why she was a servant and not a mistress. In the beauty department, high standards were set for Laconian women. Laconian women outnumbered Laconian males, and competition for males was fierce. Tracy closed her eyes and fantasized about marrying a human male, maybe from the Galaxic Militia. He would be faithful only to her and look at her with worshipful eyes. Human males were enamored of Laconian females. The only drawback to taking one as a husband was that children of such unions were weak telepaths. The squeaking of Megachiroptera as they flew overhead in search of food pulled her from her musings.
What kind of life did she want for herself? Did she want to emulate her mother and try to become one of Strass’ future wives, always coming in as second or third in his life? Or, did she want to give up on the idea of marriage and devote her life to her own scientific pursuits in honor of her father’s memory?
“I’m not staying here. I need to be gone before they get back.”
She went inside, dried off, and changed. Activating her vid-screen, she navigated to the academy’s site. With her father’s encouragement, she had graduated with a degree in oceanography. Dr. Heintz had been grooming his daughter to take over his research on Asteroidea, sea star, regeneration. There were several research assistant positions available on Epopeus for graduate credit, and she intended to secure one. Desperate to leave her mother, Duran, and Strass behind, Tracy began to fill out the first application.
In order to complete one of the sections, she needed her family’s census code which had changed with her mother’s marriage to Duran Jarreau. He was now their patriarch. Tracy got up and went to his office to find it. She flipped through a few folders on his desk to no avail before moving on to search the drawers. The last thing she wanted to do was call the pervert and ask him for the code. She didn’t even want them to know what she was doing until it was too late.
Under some financial plasti-forms, she found something that never should have been in Duran’s desk. It was one of her father’s vid-pads. Tracy pulled it out from under the pile of documents and held it to her chest. Her heart constricted with pain and longing for her father. What was Duran doing with this? Like every scientist at the academy, her father’s work and research belonged to the facility so that it could be continued. Tracy powered on the vid-pad.
She closed her eyes on her tears that the sound of his voice evoked. He was recording his findings on the Asteroidea’s ability to order particular stem cells to differentiate in order to regenerate an amputated limb. In the recording, he was describing the sea star’s ability to take inventory of its body’s cellular imbalances, and how it could order what replacements it needed to regain equilibrium. It had the ability to create its own cellular inventory and could release chemical commands much like humanoid pituitary glands.
A gate in her mind rushed open and swept her away in a memory.
“Never! It is an abomination! I will not contribute my research to the pursuit of such a travesty of science. The entire concept is one that I find repugnant and against the order of creation. Keep your credits! My goal is pure research. No, my family does just fine on my earnings. No, I will not reconsider. You know where you can put your credits, Jarreau.” Her father had ended the call and met her wide-eyed stare with a furious stare of his own. “One lesson I hope you will learn from me is not to allow your research to be corrupted for a profit. It sickens me what some biological research facilities want to attempt. If nature didn’t create it….”
“It shouldn’t be,” Tracy had finished for him.
Her father was of the belief that if left alone, biological systems evolved best according to their own designs. He studied life. He didn’t tamper with it. Unfortunately, he had stumbled across something profitable in his research. Her father had been arguing with Jarreau, her new stepfather, months before his death. Tracy’s heart thudded in her chest. This was all too convenient. The most logical conclusion was that Jarreau had killed her father, making it look natural, and had married her mother to get his hands on her father’s research. The first thing Duran had done was to pack up their family home, sell it, and move them into his mansion. All of her father’s things had been placed in storage, supposedly for his children to have one day.
Tracy had kept something of her father’s. She put the vid-pad and everything else back just as she had found it. The thick, tan carpet squished softly under her feet on her way back to her room. Duran must have had all of her father’s things put into storage so none of them would notice if any of his things were missing, like his notes and ideas that came to him randomly which he had recorded to explore later. Had she been living, along with her brothers, with their father’s murderer? Had Duran blocked that memory from her mind?
Tracy hadn’t been able to part with what her father had always referred to as his lucky writing stylus. He had been able to write his ideas down on his vid-pad much faster than he had been able to type. Tracy had spent several hours searching for his stylus on more occasions than she could remember which had given them lots of reasons to laugh. Eventually, Tracy had programmed the stylus and the most recent data entries that he had made with it to trace signals back to each other. It had worked to save his work and ping on her vid-screen where his stylus had ended up.
More than once, his stylus had been on the academy’s floor in the men’s restroom. She shook her head at the memory. Now, she took the stylus from her jewelry box and closed the application page on which she had been working. Pulling up the old program made her feel close to her father once again. The ping on the map that appeared wasn’t at the storage facility. The ping for her father’s notes was out in the middle of nowhere.
Tracy secured the stylus to a lanyard and put it around her neck. She put her black, shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and dressed in dark serviceable clothing appropriate for field research. Arming herself with a sonic blaster, she slipped her satchel’s strap over her head, put her vid-screen inside of it, and left the house via the door to the pool. She waited until the security drone had flown to the front of the house before running full-speed at the back stone wall where she scaled up and over it. At least her former nightly escapades with Strass had been good for something.
On the street, Tracy waved at a friend who drove past going in the opposite direction. Luckily, Jaimie turned around. “What are you doing out so late this evening,” Jaimie asked. “Going cock riding?”
Tracy walked to the door and got inside of her friend’s transport. “No, I want to collect some samples.”
“That’s better than collecting carpet burns.”
“Rough night?” Tracy asked.
“Yes, it was great,” Jaimie said with a naughty smile and a laugh. “He made me an offer, and I accepted. He’s going to speak to my….” There was an awkward silence. “I’m sorry, Tracy,” she whispered.
“Don’t do that. Okay? You can say he’s speaking to your father without me freaking out. I’m happy for you. Once you’re married, I can use you and your new clout. I’ll put you on my applications as a personal reference.”
“What applications?” Jaimie asked worriedly.
“I’ve decided that I want to be a research assistant on Epopeus. I don’t want to get married.”
“Go for it, as long as I can visit.”
“Anytime. Hey, drive me to the edge of Fig Forest.”
“That’s creepy.”
Thinking fast, Tracy came up with an excuse. “Yes, but I’m searching for a particular pond-growing amoeba.” Tracy smiled at her beautiful, well-manicured friend.
“Do you want me to wait?”
“No, I want to take my time and have fun. After all, my parents are off world.”
Jaimie said, “You sure do know how to party.”
Tracy shrugged and listened to everything Jaimie’s future husband had promised her in his proposed marriage contract. Honestly, she was grateful for the distraction. When Jaimie pulled over to the side of the road where Tracy indicated, she asked, “Are you sure about this? It’s so dark, and it’s late. The bats are out.”
“Jaimie, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I have my vid-screen and a sonic blaster.”
“Alright. Ting me if you need me.”
“I will. Again, congratulations!”
Tracy got out of her friend’s transport and watched as she turned around to drive back to the affluent neighborhood from which they had come. Jaimie’s father was incredibly wealthy, and she and her mothers and brothers enjoyed spending that wealth. As the only daughter, Jaimie had been lavished with attention and affection. That had been Tracy until a few months ago. She owed it to her father to discover the truth. She stepped from the side of the road and into the grass. Then, she allowed her eyes a moment to adjust before stepping between the wild branches of fig trees and away from the road.
Of all of the wild forests she had seen on Aurilius, this had always been the one she considered to be the most beautiful. It had been left alone for centuries to thrive and replenish itself. The weak trees died and were replaced by stronger saplings that grew up through their decomposition. The fig forest was a living example of what her father had believed. He had not approved of genetically modified plants or animals and had shared that belief with most of the scientific community.
Carefully, Tracy walked for miles through the dark forest. Most of the fig leaves were the size of bath towels. The smell of ripe figs and rich soil filled the air. Occasionally, she passed by wild blueberry bushes where families of shrews searched for food. Not wanting sticky fingers, she left all of the ripening fruit to the bats and other small rodents that were active in the night. The animals avoided her while she followed the signal she received from her father’s last notes.
Ahead, she saw a small amount of land that had been cleared around a grey cement building. A covered two-seater roller was parked outside. While she hadn’t even realized anything was located all of the way out in the middle of the forest, someone else did and had either stayed late or didn’t intend to leave. Indecisive about what to do, Tracy waited in the dark for over an hour before a man left the building.
With her vid-screen, Tracy zoomed in and recorded him as he typed in a numerical code, 31215145, to lock the door. She waited another twenty minutes after he had driven off before sneaking up to the door and trying to code. Glancing around, she couldn’t find any visible signs of security. Obviously, somebody didn’t want this place pinging on any type of system. The barest illumination allowed her to see the data pad attached beside the door in the alcove. Silently, it slid open.
Cautiously walking inside of the dark entry, she noticed another data pad on the other side of the door. Quickly, she reentered the code, and the door closed. A faint light grew brighter in increments allowing her eyes time to adjust. She was relieved that she had known what to expect with the door. While simple, the same type of security had been used effectively for centuries for shelters such as this. The shelters had been constructed underground and were well-hidden in case of alien attacks. Tracy wondered to which wealthy family this one belonged.
Clutching her vid-screen, she continued to follow the small blip on her screen that was symbolic of her father’s last notes. In the shelter, codes were no longer needed. Doors slid open when she walked too close to them. The first door to frighten her opened onto a breakroom. The door slid closed again as she passed it and climbed down to another level.
Tracy swallowed the saliva that had filled her mouth. It was the precursor to the nausea that now threatened to make her sick. This level was open but partitioned into different research sections with plasti-glass walls. To her left, clear, fluid-filled containers held humanoid arms at various stages of growth. On legs that shook with the strength of her revulsion, she forced herself to walk closer and read the vid-labels beneath each one. The arms had been cloned.
“What horror is this?”
Sickened, Tracy backed away, careful not to touch any of it. She left the section and jogged to the back-right corner of the lab where she found a desk. There she found her father’s data pad. It had been plugged into a console unlike anything she had ever seen. The technology seemed alien and far more advanced than anything at the academy. Tracy unplugged her father’s vid-pad, powered it off, and put it in her satchel along with her own vid-screen. She couldn’t go home. Duran would see into her mind. Then, he would know that she had discovered that he had killed her father and stolen his research and his family.
Just as she turned to leave, her hair stood on end as the charged buzz of a blaster sounded directly behind her head. “Get your hands where I can see them,” a deep male voice ordered.
Tracy couldn’t stop the trembling of her hands. Of course, there had been a guard. She silently admonished herself. Roughly, her wrists were seized and secured behind her back. The man moved around to face her, and her fears redoubled. It was worse than anything she ever could have imagined. She could feel the wrongness emanating from within him. In this lab, they had done something far more terrifying than cloning humanoid tissues. Tracy backed away, stumbled, and fell. She screamed as it reached for her. Then, everything went black, sound feeling, and consciousness abandoned her.