The origin of species

		(c) 2004, Wirewolf
	
  Darlene Irwin glanced around the hotel room with a critical eye.  She’d been in nicer places, but not many.  It was spacious, nicely furnished, and had a decent view of the Atlantic.  She spotted the mini-bar and allowed herself a sour smile.  ‘They’ve provided back-up entertainment,’ she mused.

  The luggage monkey came out of the bedroom where he’d placed her suitcases and said with an ingratiating tone common among bellboys, “Is there anything else I can do for you at this time, Ms. Irwin?”  She eyed him, judged him to be at least a decade younger and considered her response.

  Another glance out the bay windows at the sparkling summer radiance of San Juan, Puerto Rico reminded her of why she was here and thoroughly squashed any desire to flirt with the hotel’s staff.  “No, thank you.  I’m fine.”  She took the key card from him and slipped him a crisp note with a holographic Jackson folded over on himself.  Once the bellboy, whose name she had already forgotten, had closed the door behind him, she opened the doors to the small terrace overlooking the San Juan Merriott’s swimming pool.

  A brisk tropical breeze pushed her auburn hair back over her shoulders and brought her scents that made her wish she were here on vacation rather than on assignment.  She was determined to get to the beach for at least a few hours while she was here.  She deserved that much.  She strained to hear the surf she could see churning not a half-mile away, imagining herself laid out on the sand and watching the male bodies parade around her.  She couldn’t hear the breakers, though.  Only the stiff breeze and the low murmur of a TV from the room next door made it to her ears.

  Darlene sighed.  Her job as a field reporter for the Miami Herald had taken her to some interesting places before.  This, however, was her first time working outside the U.S.  She saw it as her first real opportunity to lift herself out of the midlevel status she had to endure at work.  She was certain that if she worked hard, was at least a bit lucky and got cuddly with the right people in the right places, she could soon have the leverage she needed to convince her bosses to post her somewhere really interesting.  Like Europe, perhaps.  Or maybe even Asia.

  As wonderful as San Juan was, and as nice as it was to have the Herald paying the bill, she felt stymied by the assignment she’d been given.  How could she impress anyone by covering a press conference given by Beecher Incorporated?  It wouldn’t matter how hard she worked or who she cuddled if all she was expected to furnish was a fluff piece on a company that produced genetically enhanced pets.

  The press conference was set for the following morning, so she had some time to work on the problem.  She scanned the mini bar and selected a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels to mix with a bottle of Coke.  It was late enough in the afternoon to ‘lubricate the ol’ brain cells’, as her father used to say.  She picked up her PDA and took her drink back onto the terrace.  She sat for a while, nursing her drink and thinking of a way to turn her assignment to her advantage.

  As she perused the data the Herald had sent with her concerning her assignment, it quickly became clear that there was little advantage to be had.  She’d essentially been sent to cover the newest breed of ‘Beecher Buddy’, as the TV ads called them.  The genetics research and development giant had already marketed several breeds of domestic pets with enhanced intelligence, fewer health problems and longer life spans.  What would the new models have?  Perhaps built in palm top computers.  ‘Or should that be ‘paw top?’’ she thought, a grim smile pulling at her lips.

  There was a chance, actually, that she might enjoy the presentation.  She owned a Beecher pet, after all.  Her smiled lightened a bit as she thought of her beagle, Charlie.  Smart as a whip and well behaved.  He always seemed to know when a date had gone wrong and she needed someone to snuggle.  She couldn’t imagine her home without his calm, happy presence.  She wasn’t about to replace him with some newer, fancier model, but it wouldn’t hurt to look.

  Frowning slightly, Darlene decided she would have to wait and see how the press conference went.  Perhaps she could spot some opportunity that wasn’t obvious just yet.  She concentrated instead on coming up with the body of her report and a list of possible questions.  She checked her company-issue imager.  It was unlikely she would need pictures or video to go with her report, but she never knew where her work would show up.  The Herald had expanded into several news markets, and she had no idea which outlet would carry her story.

  By the time she felt she was as prepared as she needed to be, she realized she was quite hungry.  A glance at the clock told her it was only 6 p.m.  Her gaze drifted out to the beach again.  She recognized what was likely to be her best chance to lounge by the surf.  She changed into one of her more modest two piece swimsuits and put on a pair of shorts and a halter-top over it.  A fashionable bracelet with a tiny encoded transponder linked to her expense account completed her outfit.  She headed downstairs with a slight bounce in her step.

  Dinner was as casual as her clothes.  She found a tourist trap restaurant that looked good.  It was a 3-wall structure, allowing the entire restaurant a grand view of the beach.  She ordered a salad and did her best to ignore the screeching children who were suffering from a deplorable lack of adult supervision.  Her waitress surprised her by recognizing her from one of her more notable stories.

  “Yeah, you did that bit about the fashion model’s strike in New York City,” the younger woman said with a notable Spanish accent.  “I thought that was so stupid.  They have the easiest job in the world and they wanted more money!”

  Darlene simply nodded and didn’t bother mentioning that the waitress obviously hadn’t been paying attention to the report.  Her story had been intended to highlight the difficulty and stress that went with being required to be physically and aesthetically perfect.  She wasn’t sure whether she was disappointed or relieved when the woman left without asking for her autograph.

  When she finished with her salad, she debated getting a margarita to sip while she lay on the sand.  The waitress approached one more time with a small scanner and a slip of paper in her hand.  Darlene smiled the tiniest bit to herself.  The waitress wanted her autograph after all.

  After waving her bracelet over the scanner to pay for her dinner and keying in a decent tip, she paused to give the woman time to make her request.  She was surprised when the waitress said, “This is for you.  A man gave it to me and said it was important you get it.”  She handed the small piece of paper to her, thanked her and left.  Darlene was left staring at the handwritten note, wondering if it was good news or bad.

  It was neither.  It was a request.  ‘After the press conference, please meet me at the café Pablo Casals at the corner of San Sebastian and calle Cruz in Old San Juan.  It is very important.  The company you are reporting on is hiding a secret the world must know.’  It wasn’t signed, nor was there any indication of how she would know this person from anyone else in the café.

  Ordinarily, she would have written the note off to the ‘nut factor’ that had long established itself in connection with the highly controversial business of genetic engineering.  Every few months or so someone would claim to have evidence of some company or other’s research on genetically engineered human beings.  The fact that most of the leading industrialized nations had signed the Sydney Accord banning such research meant nothing to them.  Conspiracy theories and hoaxes flourished.

  There were differences this time, though.  For one, Beecher, Inc. was known to be one of the world’s pioneers in genetic research and development.  If any company was capable of tinkering with the human genome and creating vat-grown human beings made to order, it was.  More interesting, and more plausible, was the possibility that Beecher had created some fantastic new animal.  In fact, Beecher’s own insistence that their newest development would ‘revolutionize the relationship between humans and animals’ had many experts in the field wondering how far the envelope had been pushed this time.  The company had managed to keep the specifics about its latest advancements secret.  There were dozens of theories, but no one outside the company knew for certain.

  The most important difference, however, was that Darlene needed a story bigger than whatever Beecher had to offer to get what she wanted.  If the note in her hands could lead her to a story of Beecher’s next genetic innovation, that might be worth dealing with a potential nut case.  At worst, she might buy the person a drink and listen to an idiotic story about how the newest line of enhanced cats were being designed by the government to be carriers of a mind control virus.

  It was worth it, she decided.  She might wind up wasting her time, but that came with the job.  She ordered her margarita and strolled out to the beach, looking for a vacant lounge chair to claim.  There was no reason to be more than cautiously optimistic, but then again if one never took chances, one was unlikely to ever get what one wanted.

  Darlene sipped her drink and winked at a handsome fellow she saw strolling toward her.

**************************

  The alarm woke her easily the next morning.  She’d been careful not to give herself a reason to ignore the 7 a.m. wake up.  She had no hangover, no extra occupant in her bed to explain her early rising to.  It had tempered her fun the night before, making certain she would be in good shape to attend the press conference the next morning.  It had been necessary, though.  She didn’t want to miss an opportunity because she was nauseous or preoccupied.

  A shower and a quick cup of coffee in the hotel’s café were all she needed before she picked up a cab to the convention center.  The trip was short, since her destination was only a few miles away, at the southern tip of the Condado Lagoon.  She enjoyed the drive, looking out at the odd mix of old and new buildings.  She remembered hearing that the San Jose church was nearby and that it was supposed to be the second oldest church in the Western Hemisphere.  Such things didn’t really interest her that much, but it pointed out the rich heritage Puerto Rico possessed.  She wondered if that should play a part in her report.

  She was still considering whether or not she would mention San Jose when the cab deposited her at the entrance to the convention center.  After paying and tipping the driver, she made her way up the shallow steps to the building’s entrance.  Her mind was finally up to full speed as she located the conference room that Beecher had rented for their press conference.  She stopped briefly for a look at the placard Beecher had placed at the door of the conference room.  It was basically a scaled down version of the billboards they’d put up in various cities across the U.S.  It showed a generic pair of happy, healthy middle-class kids playing with a handsome German shepherd.  Underneath the picture was their slogan, “Beecher, Inc.  Breeding a better tomorrow.”

  Darlene shook her head minutely at the poor choice of wording for their ad campaign and headed into the room.  As she looked for a seat, she saw that there were quite a few media companies represented.  As this was her first assignment outside the country, there were several media outlets she didn’t recognize.  Some were local, obviously.  A few were from smaller markets or special interest concerns.  She’d never heard of “The Maryland Ethics Network,” and judging from the age of their equipment they were too far from the mainstream to draw large sponsors.

  There was at least one person present that she knew.  She caught sight of him as she looked around for the best seats.  The young man with the generic good looks was Tom Spencer from WTSP in Tampa.  Over the years there had been a few stories she’d worked on that had overlapped the west-coast outlet’s coverage.  As a result she’d gotten to know Tom well enough to be on a first name basis.

  “Well, fancy meeting you here,” she said as she approached.  Tom seemed genuinely surprised at her appearance.  Then he smiled and shook her hand gently.

  “Darlene, wow!  Hey, you look great!  I didn’t know you were covering this.”

  She smiled and said, “Thanks.”  With a nod toward the announcement placard on the stage, she added, “Yeah, I’m here to see the dog with the X-ray vision.”

  Tom laughed politely and countered, “You think that’s what this is about, huh?  I was told they had engineered scent glands on their foreheads so they would sniff each other’s noggins instead of their butts.”

  “I guess we’ll find out shortly.  May I?”  Darlene gestured at the seat next to Tom.  He gladly moved so she could sit down.  “I saw your piece on that guy who hijacked the school bus in Orlando.  Great work.”

  “Thank you, thank you.  I had some good luck on that one.  The officer doing the negotiating was a friend of mine from college.  He’d moved to New York after graduation, but came back a few years ago.”

  “Really?  Hmm.  What did he miss, the heat or the mosquitoes?”

  “His family, he said.”  Tom did a quick check of his own imager.  Then he cast a sidewise glance at her.  “How about you?  I haven’t seen much of your work lately, not since your story on Ortega’s run for president.”

  Darlene shook her head.  “That wasn’t as well received as I’d hoped.  I’ve been working on making a bigger name for myself, but I haven’t been able to get the breaks I need.  I’m hoping this story will be the start of a real turnaround for me.”

  Tom’s expression grew sly.  “Oh?  You think you can get noticed with a fluff story like this?”  His eyes narrowed slightly and his tone became more professional.  “What do you know about this that the rest of us don’t?

  Thinking of the note she’d been given the night before, she kept her expression friendly and her tone light.  “Nothing.  I’m just trying to stay positive.”  She smiled as a middle-aged man dressed in casual clothes approached the podium onstage.  “If you really want to know what these genetics guys are going to tell us, you should listen to him, not me.”

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”  The man at the podium scanned the small crowd before him.  “If I could have your attention, we’ll begin immediately.”

  The journalists settled down and got quiet.  The spokesman on stage smiled and said, “I’m glad you could all come today.  It’s going to be a most remarkable day.  My name is Eric Gorton, and I’m the project leader on this amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering.  After we’ve shown you the incredible progress we’ve made and answered your questions, I’m sure you’ll agree that humans will never look at domestic pets the same way again.”

  “If he’s not careful, he’s going to use up all his adjectives before he finishes speaking,” Tom said quietly.  Darlene silently agreed.

  Eric stepped away from the podium and gestured to the large white Mylar film-screen behind him. From behind the screen, a projector lit it with video taken from Beecher’s archives.  It showed people doing the kinds of things they were expected to do when engaged in manipulating the DNA of experimental plants and animals.  Folks in lab coats hunched over computers and other complicated lab equipment.  Other people were out among fields of crops or in animal barns, pointing and nodding.

  “For thirty years, Beecher Incorporated has been on the forefront of cloning, gene splicing and recombinant DNA research.  Our efforts have produced a variety of results, many of which you’ll no doubt recognize.”  Eric waved his hand at the screen and the video changed.  It showed close ups of farmers working around coops of chickens.  “Our enhanced poultry produce eggs that have no cholesterol and contain trace amounts of anti-polio vaccine.  The meat of these birds also harbors our own genetically engineered microorganisms that, when eaten by the consumer, produce several disease fighting compounds in the bloodstream.”

  The pictures changed, this time showing huge wheat fields.  “Our efforts in crop production have also yielded huge gains in productivity as well as nutritional benefits.”  The farmers then gave way to families at home with their pets.  “And of course, our most notable gains have been in our lines of domestic animals.  Dogs, cats, birds and reptiles.  Hamsters and rats and ferrets, oh my.”  He grinned as a few scattered chuckles answered his joke.  “All with enhanced intelligence, improved long term health and greater life spans.”

  The screen went dark and Eric moved to the center of the stage.  “But Beecher wasn’t satisfied with these advancements.  We dreamed of more, of improving the relationship we humans have with our beloved pets.”  He clasped his hands together and smiled benevolently.  “And we have finally succeeded.  There’s someone I want you folks to meet.  Her name is Clio, and she’s a truly incredible individual.”  He turned to face off stage and said, “Clio, come meet the audience.”

  Every journalist expected Clio to be an animal.  Most of the breeds Beecher sold nowadays were quite capable of understanding and following fairly complex instructions.  As they watched, a German shepherd walked slowly and calmly out onto the stage and sat at Eric’s left side.

  It was like any other dog Darlene had seen, with one major exception.  There was something *wrong* with its head.  The shape of its skull was not right.  The top of its head seemed to bulge somewhat.  That wasn’t all.  While its eyes and ears seemed to be where they belonged, its muzzle seemed a bit shorter and wider.  It gave the overall impression that someone had hit this dog on the nose and the mass within its head had migrated to the top of its skull, like some cartoon character come to life.  She couldn’t be sure, but she thought its neck looked a bit thicker, too.

  “Now,” said Eric, obviously relishing his role as spokesman/entertainer.  “Everyone who’s ever had a pet has at one time or another wished to better understand their animal companion.  Perhaps to calm their fears of going to the vet, or to understand why they are feeling bad, or even to get them to confess to breaking the lamp in the living room.”

  Darlene got a funny feeling in her stomach.

  “Real communication between animal and human,” Eric enthused.  “It’s been a goal of ours since we heard of Dr. Doolittle as kids.”  He paused dramatically.  “But, to accomplish this goal, to reach a point of being able to learn what is on the minds of our four legged friends...”  He gazed out at his audience, a strange smile on his face.  “To bridge that immense gap would require...”  He looked down at the dog by his side.  “What, Clio?”

  “Speech,” said the dog.

  Although many in the audience had figured out what Eric was leading up to, it was still a shock to hear a dog use human speech.  There were gasps and murmurs swirling around Darlene as she realized the funny feeling in her stomach had been right.

  Eric beamed at Clio and said with obvious pride, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Clio.”  He turned to the audience and intoned dramatically, “The world’s...first...talking...dog.”

  Darlene got the impression that Eric the spokesman had expected a greater reaction from the journalists.  The murmurs died down quickly and several hands were raised.  Eric ignored them and began extolling Clio’s virtues.  “The applications of such an animal go beyond conveniences for pet owners, as well.  Imagine Seeing Eye dogs that can give their differently-abled companions vocal directions.  Rescue animals that can not only tell their handlers exactly where accident victims are but also reassure those victims that help is coming.  Guard dogs that can give verbal warnings to trespassers.  Police dogs that can read a perpetrator his or her Miranda rights.”

  That last scenario seemed a bit far-fetched to her.  She imagined it would take years of testing and training, not to mention a lot of convincing within the American judicial system, to reach a point where an animal could participate in the process of arresting a suspected criminal beyond biting his arm and dragging him to the ground.  The potential was there, though.  It was obvious to her that Beecher’s new enhancement in domestic canines was, indeed, going to revolutionize the relationship between humans and dogs.  She couldn’t help but wonder, though, if this new breed had anything to do with the anonymous note she’d gotten the previous day.

  Eric gestured to his company’s ‘newest breakthrough’ and said, “But perhaps you should hear about her potential in her own words.”  He stepped back, casting only the quickest glance at Clio as she stepped forward.

  The conference room was silent as the journalists waited for the dog to speak.  Clio sat for a moment, looking around at the audience before her.  Her mouth opened a bit, and Darlene noticed several folks around her leaned forward in their seats.  When the Shepherd licked her nose and darted her eyes back toward Eric for a moment, she suddenly got a mental image of the dog blurting out, ‘But I don’t know what to say!’  A moment later she realized the dog’s hesitation was staged when Eric encouraged her with, “Go ahead.  They won’t bite!”

  Despite the lame attempt at humor, the audience was still waiting eagerly to hear more proof of Eric’s claims.  Clio rewarded their attention with, “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Clio.  I am happy to meet you today.”

  Darlene had to admit it was impressive.  The dog’s words were clear enough to understand, even if they were a little high pitched and growly.  She also seemed to have a little trouble with hard consonants.  Her ‘t’ came out more as a ‘d’, and her ‘p’ sounded more like ‘b.’

  She noticed something else while watching the dog speak.  Its lips seemed far more mobile than normal.  Thinking about it, she remembered hearing or reading that human speech was the result of several elements which only hominids possessed.  It was a combination of larynx, jaws, tongue and lips, paired with a brain capable of coordinating them properly.

  “I am a five year old German shepherd.  I can use about eight hundred words.  I am expected to live twenty years and use fifteen hundred words.  I can do simple math.  I am obedient and safe.  I-”  Clio froze for a moment, her eyes drifting over the audience as though she were looking for someone.  She licked her lips and gave a short, soft whine.  Then she looked up and concluded, “I will always come when called.”

  Once the dog was done with her little presentation, Eric moved to her side and knelt to give her both praise and a small treat.  Clio wagged and thanked him verbally.  Beecher’s project leader turned spokesman stood and smiled at the audience.  He motioned towards the dog and said grandly, “There you have it, ladies and gentlemen.  Clio the talking dog!”

  Once again, the journalists responded with quiet talk and lots of raised hands.  This time Eric seemed to take it in stride, since he held up both hands and said, “I’m sure you have lots of questions.  Clio and I will do our best to answer them.”

  Darlene looked at her list of possible questions.  In light of what they’d all seen, most of them were of no use.  Uncharacteristically, she sat quietly and listened to the first questions posed by some of the others around her.  It didn’t surprise her when the first question posed concerned Clio’s IQ.  Eric answered that her abilities couldn’t be measured accurately against the standards of human IQ tests.  Someone else asked if there were any more like Clio in Beecher’s labs who could also speak.

  “Clio has many siblings, and they are all being tested and educated as we speak,” answered Eric.  “The genetic patterns used to create her and the others like her are not the easiest to create.  The whole process is rather time consuming at this stage in development.”

  Next to her, Tom Spencer got the next question in.  “How did you actually manage this?  Did you alter her genes to this point or add human genes to hers?”

  Eric Gorton nodded once to acknowledge the question.  “A very good and important question, Mr. Spencer.  Twelve years ago, as you are no doubt aware, forty-five nations signed the Sydney Accord which bans governments, businesses and individuals from creating any form of life using both human DNA and the DNA of any other creature.  Beecher, Incorporated believes in this ban and does not support the use of human DNA in enhancing animals.”  He knelt next to Clio, laying a hand on her shoulder.  “This breed of German shepherd has been manipulated through very specific methods to incorporate the physical aspects you’ve seen today.  We altered her mouth, vocal chords and whatnot, enlarged her brain and boosted her brainpower.  We did...”  He held up his other hand, a single finger extended.  “We did use human *patterns* to enhance her mental abilities, but we did *not* introduce any human DNA into her makeup to bring her to this point.”

  “So it’s basically a dog that’s been stretched out and filled in a bit to give her a few of our abilities?” Tom clarified.

  “That’s a succinct and relatively accurate way to describe it, Tom.”  Eric grinned widely and added, “Though, of course, we at Beecher prefer to call it ‘core pattern enhancement.’”  He stood and called on another reporter for a question.

  Darlene continued to sit quietly as those around her asked questions.  Something was bothering her about this demonstration.  She couldn’t pinpoint the source of her discomfort, though.  She stared at Clio, trying to figure out why a gene-tinkered dog was making her feel uneasy.

  “When will they be available to the public, and how much will they cost?” asked a woman from Dog Fancier magazine.  Eric’s apologetic reply was that he was not able to say, since Beecher’s marketing people were still working on that issue.  He happily added that it would be only a matter of months before the first speaking dogs would be put up for adoption.  Someone else asked how Clio got her name.  Clio herself said, “There are nine Greek Muses.  I was named after the Muse of History.”

  Looking again at her notes and list of possible questions, Darlene struggled with her feelings.  There was something about the whole thing that bothered her, something elusive.  She kept thinking of Charlie, trying to imagine him speaking to her.  She couldn’t imagine what he might say to her.  She also couldn’t understand why she found the concept of Charlie speaking at all so unsettling.  When Michael Rocha, the elderly man from the Maryland Ethics Network, stood and asked his question, she got the first clue she needed to figure it out.

  “Does she have a soul?”

  Eric gave a pale smile and calmly replied, “Well, now I don’t think that’s a question we’ll be able to answer today.  That’s the province of philosophers and theologians.”

  Michael wouldn’t be put off so easily.  “Is she self aware?  Is she fully sentient?”

  Beecher’s spokesman kept his cool, apparently having expected these kinds of questions.  “We haven’t done any serious psychoanalysis on Clio yet, so I can’t-”

  “So you don’t know if she has the qualities we associate with being a person?  It seems to me she has them.”  Michael paused a moment, giving his next statement more weight.  “If she has the qualities of sentience and self awareness that would make her a produced person.  That would mean you were making and selling slaves.”

  There was a tense silence in the conference room.  Darlene realized with a mildly sick feeling that Michael and his under-funded network had seen the potential moral dilemma before she had.  Her respect for him and his fringe group edged upward.  She also realized the old man had singled out exactly what was bothering her about this whole demonstration Beecher was putting on.

  “Clio is not a person,” Eric said simply.  “She’s a dog.  Dogs are not people.  Only humans are people.  She’s no more a slave than a normal dog or any other animal humans press into service.”

  The conference had taken on the air of a debate.  Darlene supposed that was why none of the other reporters complained when Michael kept pressing Eric.  “So where’s the line?  You’ve got a dog that talks and thinks, yet you say it isn’t a person.  If she were a human with fur and a tail, would that make her a soulless animal?”

  Eric smiled patiently.  “To be honest, I don’t know.  That’s not my area, nor is it my concern.  What I can tell you is that wherever that line is, it’s not here with Clio.”  He patted the enhanced dog on the head and shrugged.  “You’re questions are valid and important, and will have to be answered in time.  But that time is not now, because Clio here is merely a dog.  A dog whose core DNA pattern has been artificially enhanced to give her special abilities.”

  The small crowd looked to Michael, curious to know if he’d stop there or press on.  The old man seemed to consider his next question.  He pointed to the German shepherd on the stage.  “What about her?  How does she feel about this?  Is she allowed to make choices about what happens to her?  Has her happiness and well being been taken into consideration by the people trying to breed more of her?”

  Eric grinned, as though he felt he’d just won the argument.  “Beecher Incorporated has always placed the animal’s priorities above any others.  We understand that we are responsible for bringing these creatures into existence, and that we are also responsible for what happens as a result.  It would be of no benefit to anyone involved if our enhanced animals weren’t perfectly suited for the roles they will fill.”  He glanced down at the dog.  “As for her happiness, I suggest you ask her.”

  With the same anticipation they’d shown just before Clio spoke, the gathered reporters leaned closer, focussed on the question Michael deemed so important.  The old man cleared his throat and addressed the subject directly.

  “Clio, what makes you happy?”

  The shepherd licked her lips and shifted her hindquarters as though she had intended to stand up but changed her mind.  She glanced at Eric for a second before she spoke.  “Run.”  She whined softly.  “Running.  Playing with Pam.  Making Pam happy.”

  “Pam is Clio’s trainer and handler,” Eric supplied.

  “Why isn’t she here?” Michael queried.

  “She’s responsible for many more dogs than just Clio.  She’s training the newest batch of animals as we speak.”

  The old man from the Maryland Ethics Network looked around at the other journalists.  “If I might beg a few more moment’s indulgence.”  He turned back to Clio.  “Clio, what makes you *unhappy*?”

  The dog’s ears dropped, raised, then dropped again.  She stood, took a step back, then said, “Not happy.”  Eric placed a calming hand on her neck and quietly said, “It’s okay Clio.  He’s just asking you to tell him what makes you not happy.”  The shepherd leaned against his legs and looked up at him.  He smiled at her and rubbed her neck.

  Eventually Clio sat back down and got her ears to come back up.  She licked her lips again and said, “Not happy alone.  Not happy hurt.  Hurting.”

  “Hurting?” Michael said sharply.  “What is it that hurts you?”  He cast a dark look at Eric, who was ignoring the audience.  Beecher’s newest spokesman was calmly watching his furry charge.

  “Head hurts,” replied the dog.  “Sometimes it hurts too big.”

  Eric sighed and knelt again.  He affectionately rubbed one of her ears and said, “Clio is a prototype.  And, as is often the case of prototypes, she’s not perfect.  She *is* our first successful attempt, but she’s not perfect.  There are some minor problems with her altered physiology.  One of those problems is that she experiences what she has described as a ‘pushing hurt’ around the top of her cranium.”  He turned his gaze to Michael.  “In other words she gets headaches, and it makes her unhappy.  We are working to correct this problem and in the meantime we do our best to make Clio comfortable.”

  The immediate tension seemed to bleed out of the room afterwards, though Darlene noticed the nature of the questions seemed to change a bit.  Inquiries about the methods used to create a talking dog were balanced with questions about the possible consequences of such advancements in the genetic manipulation of animals.  Someone asked about the discrepancy between her opening speech and her poorer grammar during the Q & A.  Eric said simply that the monologue had been memorized and that her true speech patterns were less developed.

  Darlene let her imager record the press conference but didn’t ask any questions of her own.  She used it to take some video and still images of Clio, but was content to let the other journalists ask the questions.  Her mind was spinning with the potential story her mysterious contact offered.  If Clio was nothing more than a benign pet that Beecher Inc. had custom designed and the note had come from some paranoid twitch with an overactive imagination, then she could put together a suitable presentation out of what she had captured on her imager.

  If, on the other hand, Beecher was truly ‘hiding a secret the world must know,’ then the Clio story would be little more than a footnote in comparison.  Her mind was buzzing with the potential of what Beecher’s alleged secrets could mean, both to her and to the world.

**************************

  The taxi-ride from the convention center to the café mentioned in the anonymous note took less than fifteen minutes.  It could have taken less if the streets of Old San Juan weren’t so narrow.  The taxi driver obviously knew the place by heart.  Still, he had trouble moving much faster than a brisk walk.  Darlene found she didn’t mind, since it let her gawk at the small Spanish-style houses wedged together along the streets.  They were uniformly painted solid pastel colors that surprised her.  Decorations were sparse but attractive, and often done in wrought iron.  Most of the people walking the narrow streets, she noticed, were tourists.  She suspected that few if any Puerto Ricans lived in Old San Juan and that the small, gaily colored houses were rented by the same tourists who were happily wandering the cobblestone streets.

Reflecting on the local architecture helped to keep her from getting fidgety about her appointment.  It wasn’t quite enough to quell her curiosity, though.  As the taxi puttered to a stop a few yards from the intersection she began to feel a nervous energy building within her.  A secret rendezvous with a mysterious stranger who promised to give her a major story was something one expected in badly written movies.  To face such a meeting in real life seemed to take away the cheap feeling.

  Pablo Casals was the only café on San Sebastian.  It was obviously meant to attract tourists.  Darlene suspected the locals wouldn’t be caught dead in the place.  It was swimming in the exaggerated colors and sounds of ‘the Caribbean’, and made her think of all the places in Miami that she avoided.  As if that weren’t enough, the waitress who came to her table undoubtedly had the worst fake Jamaican accent she’d ever heard.  She ordered a soda and hoped she wouldn’t have to wait long for her ‘informant’ to show up.

  Darlene pretended to be interested in the gaudy décor while she looked around for anyone who might be the person she was supposed to meet.  The few other patrons in the small café seemed uninterested in her.  She was assuming the person she was supposed to meet was a man since the waitress in the beach restaurant had said it was a man who left her the note.  But that didn’t necessarily have to be the case.  She could see one older gentleman sitting by himself, dividing his attention between a newspaper and the traffic passing by outside.  He was the only other person who was sitting alone.

  She had a hard time sitting quietly.  She’d just witnessed ‘the world’s first talking dog.’  Now she was waiting for a stranger to talk to her about something even more surprising.  Clio’s demonstration had been a surprise, to be sure.  She needed to be working on getting her story finished for submission.  Until she could concentrate on it, however, it would have to wait.

  For half an hour she did her best to ignore the tinny Latino music coming from the back of the café, the noise and traffic on the street and the laughter of the few tourists who’d come in for an afternoon snack or drink.  She nursed her soda and debated buying one of the café’s overpriced sandwiches.  She took her imager out of her pocket and reviewed the video and stills she had of Clio.  Where do they go next, she wondered.  What could Beecher be planning for their next Buddy project?  Bigger brains?  Better vocal control?

  When 45 minutes had passed, she decided she’d been stood up.  It irritated her that she’d wasted her time.  There wasn’t much else she could have done.  She’d come to the right place at the time mentioned.  If they guy had flaked out on her then that was his problem.  Hers was now getting her fluff story ready for submission.  She looked around the café one more time before she left.  The only seemingly possible candidate was the older man sitting by the window, reading his newspaper.  He’d ignored her when she’d arrived and hadn’t paid her the slightest bit of attention that she could tell.

  Darlene had only taken a few steps down the street in her hunt for a taxi when she heard a soft voice behind her say, “Ms. Irwin?”  She turned to find herself facing the lone newspaper reader from the café.  For a split second she tensed, trying to remember what her self-defense instructor had told her all those years ago.  She quickly realized it wouldn’t be necessary to kick him or gouge his eyes.  This close to him she saw he really wasn’t in good enough shape to threaten her.  She was quick on her feet and it looked like a good sprint would seriously wind him.  Still, she made sure she had a clear line back into the café before she said, “Yes?”

  “My name is Malcolm Bryer.  I’m sorry for making you wait in there, but I have to be very careful about talking to you.”  He extended a hand and she shook it.  He reminded her of James Earl Jones, only not as handsome and definitely heavier.  His skin was several shades darker, as well.  His voice had the same soothing timbre to it, though.  He looked up at the bright sunshine and said, “Nice day to sit in the park and have a chat.  Do you mind?  There’s the Plaza San Jose just a few blocks away.”

  “Why not talk in the café?”

  “Indulge an old man, please.  It’s better for both of us.”  He looked up and down the street, a look of mild concern on his face.  “Besides, I’d rather sit outside for a bit, if you don’t mind.”

  She thought there was nothing harmful about sitting in a public area with a man who wasn’t really able to physically threaten her.  Still, she knew nothing about him and what he really wanted with her.  She hitched her purse strap further up her shoulder and slipped her hand inside it.  With her hand on a reassuringly heavy lump within, she nodded and said, “Lead the way.”

  Bryer was right about it being a nice day.  She couldn’t help but notice the warm, salt-tinged breeze that carried the echoing cries of seabirds.  The pleasant conditions mingled awkwardly with the anticipation rolling around in her stomach.  It was hard to know how she should feel about the man she was following.  They’d only just met and already she found his behavior unsettling.  Why had he ignored her in the café?  Why didn’t he want to stay in the café to talk?  And why did he have to be ‘very careful’ about talking to her?

  When Darlene tried to ask him about his intentions, he brushed her questions aside with, “The Plaza’s only a few minutes away.  It’s really very nice there.  You’ll like it, I’m sure.”  Frustrated, she tried to curb her impatience by studying him as they walked.  It wasn’t easy, though.  The sidewalks of San Sebastian were as proportionally narrow as the roadway itself.  She could barely stay abreast of him as he walked.

  If she’d been forced to guess his age, she would have pegged him somewhere between 50 and 60.  The slight graying of the hair at his temples and the few noticeable wrinkles on his face and hands were the only clues, however.  His face, posture and movements suggested he was in good health but little else.  She thought she could see a slight discoloration on his upper left arm but couldn’t tell what it was.  Birthmark, she thought, or perhaps a tattoo that had been removed.

  “Ah, marvelous,” he exclaimed as they arrived at the Plaza San Jose.  The open-air plaza was a comfortable looking place with white wrought iron benches and carefully tended old trees shading the pinkish crushed coral paving.  In the center of the plaza stood a statue of Ponce De Leon, one hand on his sword and the other outstretched, as though deliberately offering a perch to the two birds roosting there.  Just beyond the plaza they could see a large white building.

  “Is that the San Jose Church?”

  “Indeed.  Built in 1532 and still in use today.”

  Darlene looked at Bryer and motioned towards the church.  “Would you prefer to sit inside?”

  An uncomfortable look passed over his features as he shook his head.  “Ah, no, I’d rather stay outside.  I have no business with the Almighty today.”

  He chose a bench under a large tree and sat with a grunt.  Darlene joined him, taking her hand out of her purse and getting her imager ready.  He looked at the device and frowned.  “I know I didn’t mention it in my note, but it would be better if you made no records of this meeting.”

  Darlene had dealt with reluctant interviewees before.  “Well, how am I to back up my story without any hard data?  I at least need to take notes.”

  Bryer gave her a patient look.  “This...story, as you call it, is not about me.  It’s about my employers.”

  “Beecher, Incorporated,” she guessed.  “Makers of genetically altered life forms.”

  For a moment, he just stared at her.  Something she had said seemed to strike a significant chord with him.  He finally confirmed her statement with a quiet, “Yes.  Just so.”  He glanced over at the church.  “Look, this is not easy for me.”  He turned his gaze back to her.  “And it won’t be easy for you, either.  Not if you have a shred of humanity in you.”

  That intrigued her, but didn’t tell her anything crucial.  “Why’s that?”

  He paused again, studying her with eyes that seemed to measure her very carefully.  “Let me ask you something.  What did you think of what you saw this morning?”

  “Clio the wonder dog?”  Bryer nodded.  “Well, it was interesting, and it seems to me to be an indication of some interesting developments to come.  If you guys have managed speech in dogs, I can only guess what will come next.”

  Bryer nodded slightly, focussing entirely on her.  “And what would you guess?”

  Darlene felt a little thrill at having figured out what this whole clandestine meeting business was about.  Some gene-tinkerer at Beecher wanted to leak their next advancements to the press, perhaps get his name in the media.  She didn’t know enough about genetics to hazard an accurate guess so she said, “Why don’t you tell me?”

  Now Bryer shook his head in denial.  “No, I can’t tell you.”  He leaned closer to her and lowered his voice.  His deep, soothing voice trembled now and it seemed to her that he was either genuinely excited or genuinely frightened of what he was saying.  “I have to show you.”

  “Show me?” she repeated.  “Show me what?”

  He frowned again.  “Ms. Irwin, how is your constitution?”

  It was her turn to frown.  “My constitution?  What do you mean?”

  “Do you have a strong stomach, Ms. Irwin?”  He stared directly into her eyes.  “Can you look upon a terrible wrong and not flinch?”

  Darlene did not like the turn the conversation had taken.  “A terrible wrong?  What do you mean?”

  Bryer leaned away from her, his eyes turning once again towards the centuries-old church.  “I mean exactly that, Ms. Irwin.  A terrible wrong.  Committed against humanity.  Against nature.  Against...decency.”

  She felt goosebumps on her arms and reminded herself that he’d done nothing to warrant her belief in his claims.  “What kind of wrong Mr. Bryer?  What are you talking about?”

  “If you want to know, if you want to see...”  He pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket.  "If you think you are strong enough, then go to this address tonight at 9:00.  There will be a car waiting for you.  It will take you to Fajardo to see what I’m talking about.”  He handed her the slip of paper.  As she took it, he gently held her hand for a moment.  She wasn’t comfortable with the contact, but he was obviously trying to press home his point so she bit back her complaint.  “I’ll understand if you decide not to come, but I reiterate: this is *most* important.  History will have to be the final judge of what is revealed tonight, but in the meantime, you must help others see what is going on, see the wrong being done in their name.”

  Darlene shook her head.  “Hold it, hold it.  What is this?  First you send me an anonymous note saying you want to meet me, now you want me to get in some stranger’s car at night to see something you won’t tell me about?”  She shifted to the edge of the bench, getting ready to leave Malcolm Bryer to his amateur dramatics.  “If you have something to tell me or show me, that’s fine, I’ll go along.  But all this secrecy crap is getting on my nerves.  Tell me what this is about or I’m outta here.”

  He gave her a disdainful frown.  “I’m sorry, Ms. Irwin.  I seem to have misjudged you.”  He turned his attention to the statue of Ponce De Leon.  “I’d assumed you were clever enough to have figured out my position in this situation.  I see I was wrong.”

  Patience was never one of Darlene’s strong points.  “Look, if you want to spill some company secrets about the next super pooch, that’s fine with me.  That’s why I’m here.  But don’t expect me to fall in with your cloak and dagger fantasy.  I’m interested in getting the story, not in playing games.”

  Bryer gave her an indignant look.  His voice tightened as he said, “This is no game.  I’m putting my job at risk doing this, not to mention my professional reputation.  My employers would be most upset if they knew I was even talking to you.  If they find out I intend to reveal their dirtiest secrets to you...”  He looked away, trying to get himself under better control.  “The consequences will be most unpleasant for both of us.”

  “Both of us?”  Darlene’s disbelief was plainly evident.

  Malcolm Bryer closed his eyes for a moment, trying to get his irritation under control.  “Ms. Irwin, think for a moment.  Where do you imagine I want to take you tonight?”

  “That’s a good question.  Perhaps if you told me I’d feel better about this.”

  His voice and expression were back under control as he told her, “Have you heard of a town called Fajardo?”

  “No.  Should I have?”

  “It’s a town some distance west of here.  It’s where Beecher Inc. has its main research facility.”

  Darlene frowned.  Now that he’d mentioned it, she seemed to remember hearing that Beecher was based in Puerto Rico.  A moment’s concentration brought it back to her.  She’d asked her editor why the press conference was being held in San Juan, and he’d told her that Beecher was based nearby.  “You want to take me into their labs?”

  “Just so.  And not just into the labs, but into an area inside that Beecher most definitely does not want you or anyone else to see.  If we are caught there, you, I and a few others will be prosecuted.”

  “Others?”

  “I’m not the only one greatly disturbed by what my employers and doing.  And I could not get you inside without some help from a few key people whose trust and confidence I’ve earned this past year.”  He leaned closer and lowered his voice again.  “We must sneak you in and out, Ms. Irwin.”

  Darlene wasn’t sure how she felt about that.  It made sense now, what he was proposing.  But it seemed even more dramatic, more like a bad movie script than real life.  She was still missing one important piece of information, though.  “And what is it you want me to see once you sneak me in?”

  Bryer shook his head.  “Description is inadequate.  You must see to understand.”

  She held back her irritation and managed to ask with reasonable politeness, “Not even a hint?”

  He stared at her a moment.  “Consider this,” he finally said.  “Having seen Clio and her achievements this morning, what do you think would be the next logical step in design?”

  Her impatience managed to creep into her voice as he continued to evade her question.  “I’m not a genetic engineer.  I doubt I could even guess.”  He simply stared at her.  She snapped, “What?  A disk player in their foreheads?  A gland on their paws that secrets pine cleaner?  How should I know?”

  He shook his head.  “I’m not talking about minor changes in Clio’s design.  I’m talking about the next step.  Once you have intelligent, talking animals, what’s the next step in design?”

  That stopped her.  Suddenly her imagination started to follow the thread Malcolm Bryer had laid out for her.  She didn’t like some of the things she came up with.  “You mean-”

  He placed a finger against his lips and urged her to be quiet.  Then he patted her arm and said, “Just think about the possibilities and how far they could be taken.  And whether they *should* be taken.”  He watched her as she took in what he’d said and worked through it.  “Now, are you willing to meet with Mrs. Domingez tonight?”

  She was still unhappy with the situation, but now that she understood something of what Bryer wanted to show her she felt the risk was truly worth it.  With a nod, she said, “Alright.  Yeah, I’ll be there.  But I’m bringing my imager.”  She regarded him a moment before asking, “I’m not going to get any arguments about what I aim it at, am I?”

  Malcolm Bryer gave her a wan smile and replied, “My dear Ms. Irwin, you and your imager are the whole reason I’m doing this.”

**************************

  Darlene couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so anxious.  Even being the maid of honor at her sister’s wedding hadn’t bothered her as much as what she now faced.  It might not have been so bad if Malcolm Bryer had given her some specifics about what she was going to see.  As it stood, however, she only knew she was risking arrest for trespassing to get a story that might boost her career.  While she didn’t know exactly what the story would center on, the hints Bryer had given suggested something far beyond Clio and her eight hundred-word vocabulary.

  That was the whole problem, she realized as she waited for her ride to show.  The potential was there.  The secrets Bryer promised to show her might very well be of tremendous importance.  She might be about to learn things about Beecher, Inc. which would soon be splashed all over the major media outlets.  And her name would be forever attached to that breaking story.

  She frowned at her unwarranted optimism.  She had yet to see or hear anything that would prove Bryer was telling the truth.  For all she knew, she might be nothing more than a part of some disgruntled Beecher employee’s scheme to embarrass a leading genetics research company.  This time tomorrow, she mused nervously, I’ll either be talking to my editor about a career making story or asking if the Herald will pay my bail.  She had, at least, managed to put together a decent report to turn in to her editor on the Clio story.  The die had been cast, though.  She hadn’t boarded her flight back to the states, and wouldn’t be back in the office the next morning.  No matter what happened next, she would have some explaining to do tomorrow.

  It was hard not to pace as she waited in front of ‘La Baz’, a nightclub that might have ordinarily interested her.  As it was, her eyes were on the lookout for a dark blue sedan rather than any of the potential hook-ups that were going into the club.  She even surprised herself when one of the suave predator-types moved closer and charmingly asked if she was waiting for someone.  Her terse reply of, “Yes” and her refusal to meet his eyes warned him off.

  When an old 4-door stopped in front of the building and an older woman stepped out of it, she took a deep breath and moved toward her uncertain future.  “Mrs. Domingez?”

  As the woman waved to her she could see thick rolls of loose skin wobbling on her arms.  She was short and heavyset and could barely see over the roof of her car.  “Mrs. Irwin?”  Darlene nodded and got in the car at the woman’s invitation.  No sooner were the doors closed they were away from the club and out in the sparse traffic.  “I’m sorry about Malcolm’s choice of meeting places.  He said you wouldn’t stand out as much if you were waiting around in front of a place like that.”  Her voice matched her matronly appearance.  Darlene sensed her disapproval of the club and what it represented.  She decided to keep her own opinions about clubbing to herself.

  “Mrs. Domingez, could-“

  “Please,” the woman interrupted her.  “Call me Rosa.”

  “O.k.  Rosa... could you please tell me what this is all about?  What is it we’re going to see?”

  Rosa took her eyes off the road only long enough to give Darlene a sharp look.  “Has Malcolm not told you?”

  Darlene shook her head, trying to emphasize her frustration.  “No, he has only alluded to some terrible thing that’s going on at Beecher.  He refused to tell me any details.”

  Rosa crossed herself and muttered, “Madre de Dios.”  She scowled at the road that was taking them out of San Juan and, Darlene assumed, toward Fajardo.  “He’s right Mrs. Irwin.  They are doing terrible things there.  It is a sin like no other!”

  “What is?  What’s happening there?”

  “They are playing God, that’s what!” Rosa declared, her car weaving a bit as she gestured toward the darkened sky with one hand.  “They are defiling his work, twisting it in the most evil ways.  They’re serving the devil!”

  Mrs. Domingez’s statement gave her a sense of foreboding.  Such religious fervor was typical of some of the extreme anti-genetics people she’d met.  Even more bothersome was the fact that it did nothing to answer her question.  “That doesn’t tell me-”

  “Those poor tormented souls,” moaned Rosa.  “I pray for them every day.  It breaks my heart to think of them.”  She turned to Darlene and all but demanded, “You will stop them.  You will show the world what they are doing!”  With her attention diverted, the car began to drift towards the shoulder of the road.  They passed a road sign too close for Darlene’s comfort.

  “Rosa, the road!  Watch it!”

  The older woman brought the sedan back into its lane and crossed herself again.  “Forgive me,” she muttered.  “I just get so angry when I think of it!”

  “That’s OK,” Darlene assured her.  “Just keep your eyes on the road, please.”

  With a short nod, Rosa’s concentration returned to her driving.  “Don’t worry, dear.  It’s all in God’s hands.”

  “Yes, of course.”  Just as long as I don’t wind up meeting him tonight, Darlene thought grimly.  She decided she would wait to see what horrible crime Beecher had committed against man and God, as Malcolm and Rosa saw it.

  It was nearly 11 p.m. when Mrs. Domingez suddenly pulled off the highway.  Darlene looked around at the deserted stretch of road and wondered what her guide had planned.  Rosa turned to her with an apologetic expression.

  “Malcolm, he told you what happens now, yes?”

  Feeling a bit alarmed, Darlene put her hand on the door latch.  “What do you mean?”

  Rosa sighed and pointed up the road.  “The facility is just ahead.  We are going to get you in secretly, so no one must see you.  I’m sorry, it’s the only way.”

  The statement made sense, but she still didn’t understand what the woman wanted of her.  “What do I do?”

  Reaching into a pocket on her blouse, Rosa withdrew a laminated ID card with her picture on it.  She clipped it to her collar.  “I’m one of the assistant laboratory technicians, so I can get inside without my car being searched.  But the guards, they mustn’t see you.  I’m sorry, but the only place to hide you is...”  She looked behind her, at the rear of the car.  “It will only be for a few minutes.”

  Shortly afterwards, curled into a ball on the blankets Rosa had thoughtfully placed in the trunk for her, she found herself muttering quietly.  “This whole thing is getting crazier by the minute.”

  Truthfully, though, there was no part of the story, as she knew it, that warned her off it entirely.  She could justify everything she’d done and more if what Malcolm and Rosa said was true.  Although they hadn’t given her any concrete data as to *what* was going on inside Beecher, there was enough circumstantial evidence to continue.  So it was she willingly rode into Beecher Inc.’s main research facility in the trunk of Rosa Domingez’s car.  She could hear the lab technician briefly chatting with someone she assumed was the gate guard.  They spoke in rapid fire Spanish, so she got nothing out of their conversation.

  When Rosa finally stopped the car and shut off the engine, Darlene waited as patiently as she could to be released.  She heard and felt Rosa get out of the car and close the door after her.  Her slow footsteps moved toward the back of the car.  She put her hands against the lid of the trunk, getting ready to leave her stuffy prison.  As the key slid into the lock, however, Rosa’s voice warned her.

  “Don’t get out when I open the trunk.  There are cameras here.”

  Dismayed, Darlene wondered how she was supposed to get into the building if cameras were monitoring the car.  Unhappy but unwilling to risk exposure, she remained lying in the trunk as Rosa opened the lid.  Cool night air rushed over her, pleasantly fresh after even a handful of minutes inside the trunk’s confines.  Rosa looked at her a moment before saying, “Watch what I do carefully.”

  She reached into the trunk and pulled out a small cardboard box of loose newspapers.  She walked away from the car, leaving the trunk lid open.  As she stepped away, she said, “Look at the pole by the paper bin.”  Once the large woman had stepped away Darlene could see where she was going.  There was a big green metal bin with the universal symbol of three curved arrows that stood for ‘recycling.’  Behind it, near a tall chain link fence topped with razor wire, was a pole with a street light on it.  Also mounted on the pole was a closed circuit camera.  The camera swung slowly in an arc, monitoring the area around the recycling bin and the nearby fence.

  Rosa stretched as tall as she could to dump her box of newspapers into the paper-recycling bin, then walked back to her car.  As she put the box back in the trunk, she said, “I’ll leave the trunk open a crack.  You watch the camera.  When it’s pointed away, you get out and climb into that blue rolling bin next to it.  In a few minutes, Kyle will come out and bring you in.  Then we can show you what you’re here for.”

  Rosa pushed the trunk lid down, but didn’t latch it.  Through the slim opening Darlene could see the pole and its camera.  She also saw a large blue metal bin with wheels next to the big green dumpster.  More hiding in small spaces, she thought sourly.  This had better be worth it.

  It wasn’t as hard to get into the blue bin as she feared.  The camera’s slow movements made it easy to get out of the trunk, close it and make her way to the blue bin without getting caught.  The rolling bin had a hinged canvas cover that she flipped back without trouble.  There were a few tiny scraps of what she assumed were shredded documents inside the bin, but otherwise it was empty.  She climbed inside and pulled the canvas cover back into place.  Feeling excited and somewhat silly, she waited for the next step of infiltrating Beecher’s facility.

  Happily, it was only a few minutes before she heard a heavy door open nearby.  This must be it, she thought.  Sudden doubts rose as she wondered where she would be taken next.  What if this wasn’t...what had Rosa said?  Carl?  No, Kyle.  What if someone else brought her in by accident?  How would she explain being inside the bin?  She felt the edges of panic brush her nerves as heavy footsteps and the rattle of rolling metal wheels came close.

  She unconsciously held her breath when the footsteps stopped next to her hiding place.  Silence enveloped her for a second.  She strained to catch any clue as to what Kyle or whoever was doing.  When a soft tap followed by two more rang through the bin she occupied, her heart seemed to start running double time.  Should she respond?  Rosa hadn’t said anything about secret knocks.  Still, it seemed reasonable that someone wanting her brought safely and secretly into a secure facility like this would want to be certain the right bin was brought inside.  Her nerves stretched tight, she gently rapped on the side in the same one-two pattern the person outside had used.

  Tremendous relief surged through her as the footsteps moved away without comment.  She could hear Kyle or whomever rummaging around in the rolling bin he’d brought out with him.  It was easy to make out the sound of large bundles of paper being shifted around, and she could easily imagine that Kyle was on the janitorial staff of Beecher’s Fajardo facility.  The load of paper that was in the bin Kyle had brought out was transferred to the recycling bin and Darlene’s bin was suddenly shoved up the ramp to the entrance.

  Still willing to wait for her clandestine hosts to decide how best to handle her entrance into the labs, she kept calm and listened for any clue as to what was going on outside.  Once her bin had been pushed over the threshold and into the facility proper, the floor over which she was pushed obviously became carpet.  The noise of rolling metal wheels diminished enough that she could hear Kyle whistling to himself.  At one point, she was wheeled into an elevator and brought up a short distance, perhaps one or two floors.  Shortly after, she was pushed over another threshold and onto a hard floor of some kind.

  She was somewhat startled when the canvas cover was swung back and her hiding space was filled with dim fluorescent light.  Two faces hovered over her, looking grave.  One was Rosa and the other a young man she could only assume was Kyle.  A quick glance around showed her she was in what looked like a conference room.  A stylish metal plaque on one wall was embossed with the large letter B made of double helix spirals, Beecher’s logo.  A quick scan of the room showed the company wasn’t averse to spending lots of money on such a room.  It was better appointed than the best luxury hotels she’d seen.

  “Mrs. Irwin, I assume,” said the young man, extending his hand to help her out of the rolling bin.  She nodded and thanked him as she carefully stepped out onto the highly polished hardwood floor.  As she suspected, “Kyle” was dressed in a blue utilitarian suit with the “B” logo on it.  He had a large ring of keys and an ID badge clipped to his collar.  A red rag hung from one back pocket and he had a flashlight holstered on his hip like a policeman’s baton.

  “There are staff still in the building tonight,” said Rosa.  “Kyle will take you to see the truth about this place, but you must stay with him.  You will not wander away or we will all be in trouble, ci?”  Darlene nodded, eager to get on with the ‘tour.’  Rosa stared at her a moment, then stepped closer.  The older woman looked up at her with a grave expression.  “You will see terrible things tonight, Mrs. Irwin.  You must be strong.  You must be brave.”

  Darlene assured her she would do her best.  Standing in the pricey comfort of the genetics company’s conference room, however, made such statements seem overblown.  The sincerity Malcolm Bryer and Rosa Domingez had shown in trying to convince her to come here was the only thing she could use to balance against the lack of malevolence she felt from her surroundings.  Thinking of the soft-spoken man who’d talked her into this, she asked, “Where’s Malcolm?  Is he here?”

  “No Mrs. Irwin, no,” Rosa said.  “He only works during the day.  Someone might ask questions if he showed up here at night.”  The older woman turned to Kyle.  “I have to get to my station.  Take good care of her.”  Kyle nodded.

  Rosa left them to do her job.  Darlene felt a bit nervous being left in the company of a young man she didn’t know in a building she wasn’t supposed to be in.  She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder and slid her hand inside.  The heavy object inside gave her enough reassurance to get through whatever trials she would face.

  “So, Kyle.”  The young man regarded her solemnly.  “What can you tell me about this terrible secret Beecher is keeping from the world?”

  The thin young man with the beginnings of a scruffy looking beard spoke in a calm, measured tone, as though he was worried about upsetting her.  “I will tell you everything you want to know.  Probably more than you’ll want to know, when it’s all over.  But first I must ask you to do something you probably won’t like.”

  Darlene stiffened.  Kyle hadn’t moved or made any overt threats, but she wasn’t happy with what he’d just said.  “What?” she asked warily.

  “I need to get you down to the sub-basement of the building.  There aren’t any cameras in the room I’m taking you to, but there are cameras in the elevators.”  He gestured to the blue rolling bin.  “I need you to get back inside so we can get you down there.”

  Kyle was right.  She didn’t like it.  But there still wasn’t any sign that she was being deceived.  She hoped she wasn’t being naive about the whole thing.  She would have felt better if Malcolm were there.  Before she got back into the bin, she asked, “What’s down there?  Where are you taking me?”

  Kyle paused before answering, “The company morgue.”

  Startled, Darlene blurted, “Morgue?”  Kyle nodded.  Without thinking about the redundancy of the question, she asked, “You mean as in dead bodies morgue?”  He nodded again.  Suddenly she got a picture in her head that helped to describe everything she’d been told, everything she’d been asked to do.

  Beecher was a huge company with many ‘products’ on the market.  It made sense that during the development of the many different kinds of genetically enhanced animals it sold, there had to be occasional failures; creatures who fell outside the normal parameters of both nature and human manipulation.  The morgue she was going to see was no doubt the final resting place of those failures.  She would probably see what amounted to freak-show animals, created inadvertently in the name of ‘progress.’

  Feeling more secure now that she knew what the story she would break was all about, she nodded to Kyle and carefully climbed back inside the bin.  “Let’s go, then.”  She felt a bit disappointed as the canvas cover was flipped back in place.  Such a story wouldn’t be the sensation that Malcolm, Rosa and Kyle apparently thought it would be.  There was shock value to such a story, but the phenomenon was hardly unknown in the modern world.  Beecher, Inc. did its best to prevent unregulated breeding of its manipulated animals, mostly by simply creating animals that were sterile.  Rumor said it was not just because of copyright laws, but because the offspring of such a breeding were not entirely predictable.  Seriously deformed spawn from two mated ‘Beecher Buddies’ was practically an urban legend, one that the company did nothing to discourage.

  Still, if Beecher was keeping such failed attempts at breeding, or even of the manipulation process itself, the results of those failures must be something to see.  Darlene patted the imager in her pocket as Kyle wheeled her back into the elevator and brought them down 3 floors.  Whatever it was being kept a secret in the basement of Beecher’s lab, she would expose it to the world.

  When they came out of the elevator, she noticed the floor had changed to tile or something similar.  Kyle pushed her though several turns and one long hallway until they at last came to their destination.  She heard him jingling keys and opening a pair of double doors.  Once they were on the other side of those doors, he flipped open the canvas top of the bin.  Darlene stood up and looked around.

  They were in the scrub room of the morgue.  Disposable blue paper coveralls were stuffed into a garbage bin.  A shelf over the bin held boxes of clean coveralls and disposable rubber gloves.  There was a desk covered with newspapers and Beecher documents.  A small portable CD player and a cheap lamp competed for space on the desktop.  Behind her were the doors through which they’d just come.  In front of her a similar set of double doors lead to what she assumed was the morgue itself.

  There was a smell there.  It was the subtly unsettling odor of hospitals and sickness.  She grimaced as it registered.  She’d always hated the smell of hospitals.  She imagined she wouldn’t like the smell of a morgue, either.  Thinking about what she was about to be exposed to, she pointed to the boxes of paper coveralls.  “Should we put on one of those?”

  Kyle shook his head.  “We won’t need them.  Unless you want one for warmth.  It’s cold in there.”  He looked at the doors to the morgue.  “Mrs. Irwin, this-”

  “Actually, it’s Ms. Irwin, not Mrs.,” she corrected him.  It was a line she would have used to flirt with the attractive young man who wore no wedding band that she could see.  Standing as a criminal trespasser in Beecher’s company morgue was not the place to hit on someone, she knew.  She was simply tired of hearing him and Rosa assume she was married.  “Call me Darlene.”

  He nodded once, then swallowed.  He hesitated to speak again and she wondered what was bothering him.  Had she unnerved him by essentially announcing she was single?  That truly hadn’t been her intention.  She tried to motivate him to speech by asking, “Something on your mind?”

  “Mrs., I mean Ms. Irwin, this isn’t going to be easy.”  He glanced again at the doors through which they were about to pass.  “I don’t know what you think you’re about to see in there, but it’s probably not what you think it is.  It’s really horrible.  It’s not just because it’s a morgue, it’s...”  His mouth worked for a moment, trying to frame words his brain couldn’t provide.  Suddenly he looked like he might cry.  He stepped closer to her and gently put his hands on her shoulders.  There was nothing provocative in the gesture.  It was meant to be comforting.  “You need to prepare yourself.  They’ve...they’ve been trying to make...”  His voice failed and a single tear fell from his eye.  Darlene felt the same funny feeling in her stomach she’d had when she realized what Eric Gorton had been about to unveil to the press conference that morning.

  “What?  What are they trying to make?”

  In a quivering whisper, Kyle said, “People.”

  A slow, black dread filled her.  Her breath started to stutter as a bleak chill slid down her spine.  The whole miserable scenario changed, darkening her mind as all the details came together to frame a completely different picture than what she’d had an hour ago.  The anonymous note; the secret meeting; the determination Malcolm, Rosa and Kyle had shown; the seriousness of sneaking her inside Beecher’s research facility: it all made sense in a way it hadn’t before.

  Then Darlene realized what she was about to see.  Beecher, Inc. had ignored the Sydney Accord and tried to produce genetically manipulated human beings.  She was about to witness the results of the failures of those attempts.  She shuddered.  Kyle was right.  This was going to be *hard*.

  Kyle stepped back from her, wiping at his eyes.  They both took a moment to compose themselves.  Finally, he looked at her and asked, “Ready?”  She nodded, thinking that she couldn’t ever really be ready for something like this.

  Kyle pushed open the swinging doors to the morgue and stepped inside.  Darlene followed, arms folded over her chest.  It was cold, as Kyle had said it would be.  Her breath frosted the air.  The room itself didn’t add any warmth to its visitors.  The cement block walls were painted off-white and the ceiling was dotted with buzzing florescent lights.

  Before them was a wall of white tile and metal drawers.  Each of the drawers was labeled with bar-coded stickers.  A hallway extended past one side of the wall.  When Darlene leaned to one side to see further down the hallway, she could see that the wall of drawers was only one of many.  She could see at least half a dozen more rows of drawers off the hallway.  A quick count of the drawers came to ten per wall.  That meant sixty or more corpses, assuming they were all full.

  Her skills as a reporter finally kicked in at seeing the true size of the morgue.  She pulled her imager from her pocket and began snapping stills of the rows of drawers.  Her hands were shaking a bit but she was able to get a number of good pictures.  Eventually, her focus shifted to the nearest wall of drawers.  Kyle watched her, waiting to see when she would be ready.  Without taking her eyes or her imager off the drawers in front of her, she nodded.  Kyle moved to one of the drawers

  He put his hand on the latch, then hesitated.  Glancing at Darlene, he seemed about to say something more before he opened the drawer.  The words didn’t come and, with a sad shake of his head, he pulled the drawer open.

  It slid open silently.  Darlene hadn’t known exactly what to expect; some monstrous misshapen lump of failed humanity, or perhaps a normal-looking person whos internal workings had unexpectedly collapsed into a fatal ruin.  What lay on the shiny metal surface of the drawer, however, was a large dog.  Her first impression was a German shepherd from the markings and color of the fur.

  Then reality seemed to twist slightly.  Her eyes were playing tricks on her.  The dog lay on its back, yet its body lay flat as a person’s would.  A sudden realization hit her.  The dog was the wrong shape.  It was actually a person; a small person dressed in a strange dog costume.  For several moments her mind fluttered between knowing what she was seeing was a dead dog and knowing what she was seeing was a dead person.

  Finally, she moved.  She wasn’t aware she had stepped closer until she noticed her hand was lightly perched on the arm of the small corpse in the drawer.  As her perspective changed, her vision seemed to clear, and the true horror of what she was seeing gripped her with frightening intensity.

  The fur under her hand was real.  The shape of the body was right/wrong for a person.  It was completely wrong for a dog.  But it was completely right for a person who’d had genes from a dog mixed into their own.  She snatched her hand back from the cold, dead fur.

  “What have you done?” she whispered in disbelief.  She couldn’t take her eyes from the dead person who had been the victim of some ghastly genetic experiment.  “How could you do this?”  Tears gathered in her eyes.  The whole idea of what she was seeing seemed to plunge her soul into icy water.  She reached again for the furry arm and touched it, needing to confirm the reality of what she saw.  It was completely real.  “How could you?”

  “It wasn’t me!” Kyle protested.  “She wasn’t right inside.  She just died!”

  Darlene didn’t hear him.  In spite of her horror, she found herself studying the dead body before her.  If it had been a human being, the form would have been that of a young girl perhaps 7 or 8 years old.  She was covered entirely in brown, black and tan fur.  Her chest, trunk, arms and legs were normal in proportions and form.  But her head, hands and feet bore the marks of what had been done to her.

  Darlene flashed back to Clio on the stage, talking to the press earlier that day.  This little girl’s head was similarly shaped.  Her face was formed into a dog’s muzzle, with a triangular, leathery nosepad, bifurcated upper lip and long narrow jaws with a slight underbite.  The pointed cups of her ears were where they would normally be for a dog, on top of her head.  A thick ruff of fur surrounded her neck and thinned out as it reached her chest.

  As the idea of what lay before her began to settle in her mind, she gathered her determination and gripped the girl’s wrist.  With a slight twist, she could see the palm of her hand.  It was an amalgam of human form and canine anatomy.  The five fingers all had pinkish pads on their tips.  A larger pad of beige and black skin had replaced the heel of her palm.  Thick, blunt claws tipped each of the digits, replacing the fingernails that should have been there.

  Looking further down the body, she noticed the girl’s feet had been altered more than her hands.  Were she alive and standing she would have been plantigrade, the form of her ankles and heels as normal as Darlene’s own.  From the instep to the toes, however, things had been changed.  They looked to have been modeled after a dog’s paw, with four large clawed toes and a thick pad of exposed skin on the balls and heels of the feet.

  Something then occurred to Darlene, something that bothered her even more than what she had seen already.  She didn’t know why the idea upset her so much, but she had to know.  She put her hand on the dead girl’s knee and pulled it toward her.  There, under her legs, was a tail that ended just below her knees.  That was too much.

  “Why,” she croaked.  She turned to Kyle, her eyes wet.  “Why would you...would they do this?  Why did they do this to her?”

  “I don’t know.  I’m just a janitor.  I didn’t know about it until Mr. Bryer told me he needed my help.”  The young man looked down at the dead girl in the drawer, the muscles in his jaw trembling.  “I used to just clean out in the hall.  My boss told me not to clean in here.  Then Mr. Bryer told me he needed me to help him.  He told me how to get the keys for the doors and to see for myself.”  He looked at Darlene, his expression full of pain.  “There’s more.”

  “More?”  Darlene felt a moment of weakness.  What could be worse than this?

  “This is the cooler.  The ones behind it are the freezers.”  He stepped around her to the second row of drawers.  Without preamble he pulled open a drawer.  A misty puff of frosty air obscured the object within, but only for a second.  Then Darlene could see another corpse.  This one was frozen for permanent storage.  And it was more disturbing than the dead dog girl was.  It was an even younger dog girl.  She looked to have died before her fifth birthday.  The fur that covered her was patchy in places, and as dense as scales in others.  Her hands ended in three fingers that had only one knuckle each.  Her legs were misshapen to the point that she could never have walked.  The worst part was her face.  The canine jaws had overdeveloped to the point that she looked like a monster from a movie.

  Darlene was rooted to the spot, trying to deal with what she was seeing.  Kyle opened another drawer.  This one contained another little dog girl, one who’s skeleton had obviously failed to develop properly.  He opened another, to show yet another canine girl whose body was a pathetic mismatched collection of human and canine body parts.

  She could take no more.  She backed away and took shelter in the scrub room, trying to keep her dinner down.  Her mind was spinning.  It felt like she’d somehow been dragged into someone else’s nightmare.  How could anyone in their right mind do such things, create such things?

  Kyle closed the drawers and followed her into the scrub room.  He didn’t come near her.  He just watched her.  Eventually, he said, “I’m sorry.  I told you it would be hard.”

  Darlene had leaned back against a wall and slid down until she was sitting on the floor with her hands between her knees.  Her stomach had settled down enough that she didn’t think she would vomit after all.  “I had no idea,” she whispered.  “Malcolm was right.  If he’d just told me, I’d have never believed him.”  She closed her eyes, the images of dead girls covered in fur refusing to leave her alone.  “If I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d have never...”  She was suddenly struck by an image of the first girl she’d seen, alive and playing like any 7 year old would.  A 7 year old that died of some internal failure without knowing what she actually was.  The mental image of that innocent girl falling to the floor before a group of genetic engineers who probably felt only disappointment at another failed experiment caused her breath to hitch in her chest.  Could such heartless people actually exist?

  ‘Of course they can’, she told herself.  ‘You’ve just seen the proof.’