The Combine
By: CK1

Lucas Fitch sat on his favorite Central Park bench, grinning like a Cheshire cat as the sun went down. Pigeons gathered around his feet, looking for any spare scrap of bread. With a quick motion, the young man with the coal black hair and brown eyes threw a spread of crumbs from his pocket, which the animals quickly devoured. He turned his head downward, long enough to see the birds sputter around helplessly before the toxin took effect. All the pigeons fell dead within thirty seconds, without even a single peep.

Lucas came from a long line of what could be conservatively called "Mad scientists." His great-grandfather Werner had been quite something in Germany, the son of royalty whose idea of science was vastly different than his peers. Good ol' Werner had a short career in mad science, unfortunately, thanks to a drought that plagued the farmers of his village. Unable to cope, they quickly blamed the crazy man in the castle that overlooked the town, since he was obviously hexing them. They burned him at the stake in late November of 1886, but not before he could father a child.

Werner's son, Werner, Jr., was much more successful than his father. Wisely keeping his unusual activities out of sight of other people, he managed some rather remarkable feats in his eighty-four years. Still living in the same village, Junior would steal healthy young men and women for his experiments, but only from neighboring villages. He managed the first 'sex change', if it could really be called that, in 1903, but the man he created didn't live long before going septic. He also dabbled in animal husbandry, and more importantly, animal-human reproduction. Some of his creations lived, but usually were killed the following hunting season.

Junior begat Loraine, the first female mad scientist in the family, but a lady easily on par with her patriarchs. She was fascinated with sex, as were most of the family, and spent years on the enhancement of sexual organs, plus the early discovery of pheromones and a actual working aphrodisiac. Loraine, born in 1938, had been moved to the United States at the outset of World War II, but with her family's money, had no trouble setting up a lab outside of New York City. The sheer volume of people made test subjects plentiful.

Test-subject 56-A-123BSA, a man named Arnold Fitch, had somehow managed to touch Loraine's well-hidden tender side, and the two were married. Arnold, who was relatively unharmed by Loraine's experiments except for now possessing six testicles, gave her what she wanted most, an heir named Lucas, in 1967. In 1968, Arnold met an unfortunate end, falling victim to the incredibly rare condition of testosterone poisoning.

Now, in 2000, the sole remaining member of the family sits on a park bench with his greatest invention in a small box beside him. He had done his family proud. Lucas had all their cunning, all their accumulated wealth, and not a shred of human decency. The entire world, in his humble opinion, was a stockyard for him. A steady, never-ending source of test subjects for his incredibly odd, if rarely successful, experiments. But, this one would work. This one was sheer genius.

Lucas had picked this spot because of the amount of homeless and 'ladies of the evening' who swirled the perimeter of the park here. His eye was caught by a particularly striking young woman, obviously of Hispanic decent, who turned tricks on this particular corner. As she stepped out of the building where she and her last john had been sealing their contract, Lucas stood up and, tucking the box under his arm, walked across the street.

As he got to the center line, he turned his lip down into a scowl. A cop had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and was arresting his test subject ! How dare he !

Lucas, who already had a second subject waiting in a hotel room nearby, made a quick decision. If this do-gooder cop was going to get involved in his experiment, then he was REALLY going to get involved. Lucas came up behind the pair as the officer was about to put his catch in the squad car, and pulling out some chloroform, incapacitated the cop.

"Gracias." The grateful hooker said, reaching down to get the handcuff keys. Lucas, motioning with five 100-dollar bills, whispered that he wanted her to help him move the officer into a nearby alley. She quickly agreed, and under cover of dark, moved officer Ronny Donahue into a safer location. As they did, Lucas grabbed the keys himself, pocketing them.

Stepping back from the pair, Lucas opened the small box that he'd been carrying. From the shoe-box sized container, he pulled what appeared to be a very large tuning fork attached to a small laptop computer. The two prongs were tipped with a pair of crystals that shimmered in what light was available, which the computer spat out data on such subjects as 'dimensional dynamics' and 'neural cohesion.'

"Hey, where are the fuckin' keys?", the young lady asked as she searched the cops belt. Lucas snickered a bit, before pushing a large blue button on the side of the computer.

A violently bright energy stream shot from the device, swirling around both the prostitute and the policeman. As the stream intensified, it became evident which was which by a spectral shift in the beam. The policeman's prone body seemed to glow a translucent blue, while the hooker shone a shimmering yellow. Melinda Hernandez, a teenage runaway and hooker in the stable of 'Slim Jimmy' Jefferson, was more afraid than she'd ever been before.

"Don't worry, Miss. You will be unharmed. You'll be better than ever after my Combine is finished.", Lucas said, reassuringly as the streams of energy washed over them. The computer in Lucas' hand glowed as two figures appeared on the screen, and data streamed on various subjects next to them.

Officer Ronny Donahue and Melinda Hernandez stood there, paralyzed by the dual streams of energy coming from the Combine, unaware that they were slowly, unavoidably, growing closer. Lucas smiled as the yellow and blue energy fields finally met, joining into a brilliant green cocoon.

"You see, my device works on the very fabric of reality itself. I got the idea watching TV . . . so I guess it's really good for something.", he chuckled to himself as he began to expound to the pair the very complicated secrets of the Combine.

"Basically, I'm removing the officer here and you, Miss, from the world as we know it, and replacing you with a single entity. In essence, taking your two forms, your two minds, and combining them into a single discreet being.", Lucas said as he adjusted a few of the controls, bring the two fields together faster now. It was difficult to see inside the swirling maelstroms now, but in the center appeared to be a third person altogether.

A green light flashed on Lucas' unit, indicating the Combine process was complete. Flipping the small blue switch, the energy stream disappeared and, standing in the place of Officer Donahue and Miss Hernandez was a single young woman. She looked around, disoriented but apparently unharmed from the process, with both handcuffs locked around her left wrist.

Dressed in a bizarre fusion of police uniform and sexy party-gear, the new woman was a perfect fusion of the two. Her soft skin was a bit lighter than Melinda's had been, but darker than officer Donahue's. She stood about 5' 9", taking more after the hooker than the cop, and had soft black hair that flowed down her back. Her green eyes were a remnant of the cop, as were her good muscle tone and bone structure.

"What . . . what happened ? Where am I ?", She asked, looking down at her disheveled clothes. She was wearing Officer Donahue's large blue shirt, complete with badge, and Melinda Hernandez's black miniskirt. Beneath the skirt, thankfully hidden to all, were the cop's white briefs, stretched over the woman's wide, sexy hips. The hooker's fishnet stockings were fused with the cop's black socks at the ankle, while on her feet, she wore a pair of black dress shoes with 4" heels somehow attached to them. Lucas walked up and took her arm. His touch seemed surprisingly caring to her, although somewhere in the back of her mind, it also felt very cold and evil.

"Are you all right, Miss ? I heard you scream.", he said, taking the opportunity to closely inspect his creation. She looked perfect. Beneath the blue shirt, he could see a black lace bra that was overflowing with her naturally ample breasts. A genetic addition from the cop, more than likely.

"What's your name?", he asked. He'd hoped that the psychological fusion would be as perfect as the physical, and crossed his fingers as he touched her tan arm.

"It's . . . Muh . . . Uh, Linda. Linda Donnelley.", she said, sounding a bit unsure. Lucas sighed. A completely separate entity, whose memories were constructed from the pureed recollections of two distinct individuals. At first, her mind would be clouded, as her subconscious shifted and put all the conflicting information into a coherent context that she could function with.

"It's nice to meet you, Linda. I'm Lucas.", he said, extending his other hand to complete their introduction. She instinctively shook it hard, and looked around.

"How'd I get here ? I can't seem to remember anything." Lucas stroked her shoulder, reassuring her.

"I saw some young ruffians race out of the alley as I came in. They probably tried to . . . do something unspeakable to you. Something that traumatic takes time to get over, Miss Donnelley." Linda nodded, unaware that the suggestion was planted for a reason. As he said it, the memories were born of a gang of young man trying to attack her, but being scared off by the approach of this heroic young gentleman. She smiled at him, now well under his power.

"Thank you, Lucas. I guess you saved my life.", she said, still not sure why she was dressed in such absolutely bizarre clothing. As Lucas led her out of the alley and to the 'safety' of his apartment, he knew that he had truly created something this time. All the two-headed monkeys and horribly botched attempts at teleportation were washed away in a blast of yellow and blue. He'd take Linda Donnelley home, have some fun with her, and watch how she evolved. Maybe she'd become his dream girl. Maybe she'd go insane from conflicting memories that couldn't be assimilated. Either way, once she'd outlived her usefulness, Lucas would just combine her with someone else. Or something else . . .

The End (Maybe)