What If...? 2099UG #1

I am the Surveyor. I sit entombed in an all-but-forgotten underground fortress with only an experimental supercomputer for company. Immense amounts of data, in volumes surpassing human comprehension, are sent to me from Earth via Alchemax, and my compound is equipped with (mercifully) the only existing receiver capable of pulling it all down. Within the confines of this awe-inspiring machine's mind, I have the means at my disposal to make or mold history to my liking. It passes the time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miguel O'Hara, now a major mogul at Alchemax, began as the megacorp's fair-haired boy. Possessed of a genius intellect and an affinity for genetics, he spearheaded the research arm of a landmark project called the "Corporate Raider" program, a sinister industrial-espionage strategy proposed by, among others, young O'Hara's then-boss, Tyler Stone.

With the concept of physical enhancement by way of genetic manipulation as its foundation, it had not as yet involved human subjects (due in no small part to O'Hara's insistence). Regardless, Stone took it upon himself to surprise O'Hara one day with a "volunteer" by the name of Sims, a convicted criminal whom Stone had offered the reward of a commuted sentence in exchange for his cooperation as a test subject for the Corporate Raider effort. O'Hara, despite his anger and outrage at Stone's maneuver, surmised that he was the only one at Alchemax with any regard for Mr. Sims' well-being, and seeing that Sims was intent on holding on to the prospect of freedom, reluctantly went ahead with the experiment.

History states that, by most accounts, it was a failure. By "tinkering" with the man's genetic structure in an attempt to augment his strength, O'Hara's equipment instantly mutated Sims into a hideous monstrosity that died seconds after the transformation.

Perhaps it is the fact that I myself am trapped in a twisted experiment, and that my own freedom depends on its success, that moves me to empathize with the plight of the unfortunate Mr. Sims. And perhaps it is this empathy that stirs me to ask the machine:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"WHAT IF...Mr. Sims Had Survived the Corporate Raider Project?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"OK, men, open her up. Mr. Sims? Still with us? Now you'll probably feel a fairly sharp tingling. That should pass in a couple of -- AAAAACK!!"

Miguel O'Hara was taken completely by surprise as a muscled, clawlike, horribly deformed appendage darted out from within the transformation chamber and clamped around his neck. Its grip felt somewhat unsteady, but even so, he felt his windpipe constricted to the width of a pinhole before he could blink.

His terror grew as a hulking, misshapen mass of rough-hewn flesh shambled forward, roaring and gibbering as it came and continuing to throttle him. Everyone in the lab stood agape as the thing that had been Mr. Sims birthed itself from the mutation pod, absently kicking aside the twisted scraps of metal ruin that it had made of its formidable restraints.

The creature somehow had maintained a vaguely humanoid shape, although at better than eight feet Miguel could make out little besides its massive chest and trunk; fleshy stumps of what might have been rudimentary extra limbs flopped from either side of its waist. Atop a bulging set of stooped shoulders sat a tiny, bald head, from which a hollow pair of red discs stared down at an increasingly panic-stricken Miguel.

The hapless young man in the murderous grip of his own misbegotten creation tried in vain to pry the creature loose, with no more success than he was having in trying to grant his poor lungs any oxygen. Dear God, there had to be some mistake, he thought incoherently, this couldn't be what was supposed to happen... His vision began to flicker; the strength in his limbs to flag.

Vaguely Miguel heard a voice shouting, followed by a short coughing sound to his right. The monster stumbled and howled in pain. He felt its hand give a little. Another coughing sound, and then another. The creature, whimpering, let go of Miguel's severely abused throat and slumped forward onto its knees. Miguel staggered backward, squinted and saw three bright splashes of yellow sprouting from its lower back.

Plumage? he thought distractedly. That wasn't part of the program...what the...?

As the creature finally fell forward onto its face and lay still, Miguel saw that it wasn't growing feathers, but that it had been taken down by three fearsome-looking darts loaded with the most powerful sedative Alchemax had on hand. The whey-faced laboratory aide leaning against the far wall holding the trank pistol in one trembling hand confirmed Miguel's assumption.

From the shadows, Tyler Stone strode imperiously forth, his eyes impassive but never moving from the unconscious malformation at the base of the pod. He glided right past Miguel, who glared at him balefully from his crouched position on the floor as he suppressed a series of painful coughs, massaging his burning throat. Well, are you satisfied now, you inhuman son of a...?

Stone gazed down at the creature; he may as well have been contemplating a lame rat limping across a Downtown gutter. After a few seconds, he motioned the aide with the tranquilizer weapon closer and signalled him to remain alert. Having made sure he was covered, Stone knelt down and held his hand next to the creature's nostrils.

"He's breathing. Get him restrained and confined. Make sure his cell is reinforced." He turned to Miguel and smiled wolfishly as their eyes locked.

"Congratulations, Mike. Very positive; I'm quite pleased with your progress. Take the rest of the day off." He turned to the aides, who were already busily trussing up the mercifully unaware freak on the floor. "I'm going to my office. I want a full report on the specimen's status in five minutes." With that, he turned and stalked off, traces of his smile still lingering on his face.

Miguel could only watch helplessly as the Sims-thing was clamped into adamantium wrist- and leg-shackles and hauled unceremoniously, still doped senseless, toward a far corner and through a hydraulic door that read "EXPERIMENTAL STUDY -- ORGANIC." Underneath the main heading, the names of nearly two dozen smaller departments bore ominous portents concerning the other side of the door: Stimulus Archives. Gene Reservoirs. Irradiation Chambers. Tissue/Organ Harvesting. Vivisection. Specimen Disposal Protocols. Morgue.

He could only shudder and fight back furious tears. That man put his life in my hands, he told himself savagely, and what did I do with it? Gave it gift-wrapped to Tyler. He won't last a day in that hellpit, if Stone has his way.

The only thing that haunted him as maddeningly as the vision of the creature's tortured eyes as the darts brought it to its knees was Tyler Stone's vile, predatory grin. Miguel sincerely believed he had never seen anything so unremittingly foul, so irredeemably malevolent. All of his anger, shame, revulsion, and hatred slowly congealed around the image of that ghastly double-row of gleaming teeth that he had been assaulted with time and time again ever since he and Tyler had first been introduced. It was this pustulent, festering loathing that prompted Miguel to take a solemn oath, then and there, that he would live to see that grin wiped off of Tyler's face for good.

He decided he would take the rest of the day off after all.

Six minutes later, in a lavish penthouse office gracing the stratospheric heights of the Alchemax building, Tyler Stone spoke flatly into the computer console on his desk.

"Computer. Interoffice comlink path: CEO. Deep scramble protocol, ears only. Standby hack alert, all points. Access code Stone, Tyler-RD100137H30YTC3-BLADE. Redirect all incoming comlinks."

The computer's voice interface cheerfully recited the instructions it had just received, then lapsed into dutiful silence as the instant connection upstairs was established. A green light by Stone's right thumb indicated that he had won the attention of the Chief Executive Officer of Alchemax. Tyler stood and walked around to the front of his desk, steeling himself.

"Visual."

The far wall of the office faded into a reproduction of a scene one floor above him. A shadowy figure seated regally behind a huge, elegantly sprawling conference table turned to face him. Stone couldn't quite make out the figure's face (he never had, in fact, had the privilege of viewing his superior's countenance in its full glory) but just the same, he could feel the eyes boring into him, at once knowing everything about him but nonetheless intent on extracting the information he wanted through sheer force of will. This was a being to be despised, to be sure, but still one that demanded no small amount of reverence, even adulation, from anyone with any dim hope of one day being in his place. Stone, to his credit, did not waver.

After a moment, the figure spoke. "Well?"

"Yes, sir. The laboratory staff has completed its report to me regarding the latest developments in the Corporate Raider program, specifically the human subject volunteer, Sims."

"Sims. The convict. Outcome?"

"Sims survived, sir. With radical mutations. Aggressive behavior following DNA alteration warranted heavy sedation. The ease with which he broke out of the restraints in the pod and nearly crushed the windpipe of the supervising research geneticist would indicate that the augmented strength parameters laid down by our staff appear to have been met, if not exceeded."

"Current specimen status?"

"In reinforced confinement. Aside from nominal side effects brought on by the sedative, his life signs appear stable. It looks as though he could remain alive for quite some time, although we cannot yet calculate an adjusted projected life span."

Stone could just make out the CEO's eyebrows arching in contempt. He detested delays.

"Pending his recovery, sir. Sir, if we subject him to excess duress without waiting for the effects of the sedative to pass completely, we run the risk of compromising the specimen himself, and possibly depriving ourselves of valuable information."

The chief expelled a gravelly sigh. "Stone, permit me to broaden your perspective."

"Sir?"

"You had no difficulty procuring a human subject. I must say I would have gone through much the same channels as you did, had I been in your place. Casting about in the convict pool, indeed. Granted, the terms of your agreement exonerated a known criminal, but he's hardly a danger to society in his present position. Quite ingenious."

Stone was wary, but allowed himself the momentary luxury of basking in the chief executive's rarely-granted praise. "Thank you, sir. "

The figure dismissed Stone's toadying. "Regardless, you would be well-advised to keep in mind that obtaining another volunteer will doubtless be equally simple. You have my leave to wait for the drugs to wear off, but in the future, Stone, take care not to waste too much effort preserving any single specimen. Sims is hardly likely to be the only one available to you."

The far wall of Stone's office faded back into existence, and the comlink was severed before he had a chance to reply. Stone hastily brushed off the thin layer of sweat that had formed on his upper lip, hoping that it had escaped the CEO's notice. He doubted it.

Tyler Stone sat back down at his desk and began drawing up an agenda and timetable for study on the human subject.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summer was soon to subside to fall. The late afternoon was mild, sunny, and perfectly gorgeous. The New York crowds were out enjoying a rare opportunity to commune with nature, such as it was, and Miguel O'Hara sat on a park bench near his Babylon Towers apartment building while children frolicked on a nearby swingset, as he emotionally flogged himself without mercy. The frozen dessert cup he had picked up at a corner vending module in an effort to lift himself at least partway out of black depression had long since curdled in his stomach, and his thoughts turned inexorably back to Sims. How Sims had looked at him with hopeful pleading before the experiment...and murderous despair after. And, of course, he thought about the smirking, slithering Tyler Stone, and how the man's despicable machinations had led to the ruination of an unsuspecting bystander. Worst of all, Miguel couldn't make himself forget that he had played a central, if unwilling, part in Stone's manipulation. Every time this last occurred to him, he sank further into his dejection.

A bright shout of excitement close by jerked him out of his thoughts with a start. A girl of about five or six, dressed in a green frock, streaked past him, laughing deliriously. Close behind her followed another girl of the same age, in a similar frock colored red, with one arm extended forward, straining toward her companion. As they ran past, Miguel had just enough time to notice that they looked exactly alike. The first girl reached her destination, a large tree about fifteen feet away, and clung to it desperately, breathing hard. The second brushed her fingers against her when she drew close enough.

"Base! Home base!" shouted the first.

"No way! I got you!" protested the second.

"Did not! I touched base first!"

"Did not! Daddy, she didn't, did she?"

Miguel glanced over to the right, where a smiling man, obviously Daddy, strolled over to the twin sisters and gathered them up with an offer to settle the dispute with a glass of ice-cold lemonade. The girls agreed, with enthusiasm, to put their differences aside.

As the three walked off hand in hand, Miguel wondered offhandedly if Mr. Sims had a pair of beautiful twin daughters like these. He tried conjuring up an image of Sims offering them a glass of lemonade in his present state, and found he couldn't bear to do it. Any normal young girl would be horrified witless at the very suggestion that she may have come from genes such as his, from...

He froze where he sat.

Genes.

Twins.

Genes.

DNA.

Twins.

DNA.

Miguel's jaw dropped open. He drew in a sharp breath as the wheels of his mind kicked into overdrive.

As the whirling images in his head began to form an idea, he began to think that he just might be able to do even better than simply wiping the filthy grin off Tyler Stone's face.

He began to think he just might be able to do that, and possibly help Sims as well.

Miguel leaped off the bench and tore down the sidewalk toward his apartment. As he raced past the surprised twins and their father, the girls exchanged a brief look, giggling nervously.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nights were coming earlier with the turn of the season, but this one in particular couldn't have come soon enough for Miguel, once he was through pacing back and forth in his apartment in a near-trance state from such deep, intense thought and planning. He wasn't at all sure about the feasibility of his strategy; put bluntly, he had come close to scrapping the entire idea, since he hadn't been able to dismiss or eliminate the possibility that what he had in mind could very well result in little more than an agonizing death for Mr. Sims (with him as the sole executioner this time), or the end of his own professional life, or both. Alchemax held no special place in Miguel's heart, so the prospect of an Alchemax-free future had been daunting but not so much so that he couldn't live with the risk to his career. The risk to Sims had been an altogether different matter. The only thought that had allowed him to stomach that risk was the firm belief that Sims, if handed a sharp object, would gladly have slit his own throat before going on living as the monster he had become.

Now, underneath Alchemax headquarters, Miguel handed the metal-plated security locking card to his late-model sports car to the guard in charge of the parking garage, and left the man to stow the car in the underbelly of the giant skyscraper. Miguel lived close enough to the building to have need of his car for work only in times of inclement weather, but tonight was different; the car was a key tool to his success tonight. He needed something that would provide instant, lightning mobility, and the sleek, swift model that his cushy position had enabled him to afford fit the bill wonderfully.

Having positioned his vehicle, he scurried up the steps toward the main entrance.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upstairs, in his lofty, palatial chamber, Tyler Stone was putting the finishing touches on a frighteningly intricate and detailed plan of action for further research on the human subject for the Corporate Raider program. He was momentarily distracted by a brief message readout that flashed on the desktop screen by his left hand. The entry guard was filing a routine report to him concerning the arrival at the parking garage of one Miguel O'Hara, of the Research and Development department, Genetics division.

Well, that's certainly a relief, he thought. If Mike had gone rogue on us over this Sims mess, I'd have had to revise the entire research schedule.

With this minor anxiety alleviated, Stone returned to the task at hand.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miguel counted his blessings as he made his way through the successive stories of the building: most of the regular employees had left for the night. The place was never empty; Alchemax always kept at least a skeleton crew of researchers and bean-counters on hand around the clock. However, Miguel managed to avoid most of them, and the ones he did encounter gave him no problems; most of them gave him a simple "good evening" and went on their busy way. Eventually he arrived at the laboratory where this whole nightmare had bloomed.

The place was strangely eerie in its silence. The computers were on, but the only sound was the distant hum of their power source. Miguel stared resentfully at the empty pod at the center of the room, where he had nearly been strangled to death just that afternoon by a mockery of nature of which he had been the unwitting author. The pod, however, was not why he was here...at least not yet. Slowly Miguel's head turned toward the forbidding portal in the far corner, from which the cruel legend taunted him: "EXPERIMENTAL STUDY: ORGANIC."

Pausing briefly to check an inventory display for the whereabouts of a certain occupant of the next room, he strode deliberately up to the implacable, gray slab of metal and placed his palm and splayed fingers on the infrared scanner. With a menacing hiss, the door slid back on its tracks, and Miguel squinted into the chamber of horrors from which just one simple door had shielded him during so many thousands of work-hours in the genetics lab.

The first thing that hit him was the smell. There were the usual, pervasive odors of preservatives and disinfectants that reminded one of hospitals, but there was also another smell underneath: heavy, oppressive, animal. The scent of caged beasts in close quarters.

As his eyes became accustomed to the dim lighting, he also noticed distinctly unsettling sounds which his unannounced arrival had spurred. Inhuman wailing, scrabbling claws on polymer-plastic walls, the shuffling thump of an unwieldy body shifting in its troubled sleep; Miguel decided he had best find the right holding cell before his eyes adjusted well enough to discern the origins of these noises.

As he approached what the inventory display had listed as Cell ORG-3912, Miguel slowed to a noiseless, measured pace as the thing that had been Sims came into view. He let out a pained sigh at the pitiful sight that sat before him, separated from him by a shatterproof sheet of fortified plastic.

Sims was not asleep. He sat with his back against the wall and his overgrown legs drawn up to his swollen chest, staring numbly ahead at the opposite wall seven feet away. His shoulders rose and fell with his labored breathing. Miguel could see a number of claw marks on his face and neck, as well as scrapes and bruises on his knuckles, knees, and forehead; an indication, thought Miguel, that he had unleashed a good deal of his fury and anguish upon himself and the four walls which held him since he had regained consciousness.

Miguel stood before the cell for almost a full minute before he gathered up the courage to crouch down, lean in toward the plastic and call out, in a small voice, "Mr. Sims?"

No reaction, not even from the other bestial oddities that inhabited this sterile jungle. After a moment's thought, Miguel cursed himself roundly for not having considered that the mutations might well have robbed Sims of the cognitive skills necessary to understand him, or grasp the situation at hand. Still, since he had not heard a peep from any of the room's denizens as a result of his initial approach, he decided for now that he simply hadn't made himself heard. After a careful glance back to check the door leading to the outside lab, he repeated, this time a little more clearly, "Mr. Sims?"

Sims didn't move. All right, thought Miguel, am I wasting my time here? Enunciating his words carefully, he made a request. "Mr. Sims, I need to talk to you. I... I want to see if I can help you. If you can understand me, please raise your right hand."

The huddled captive continued to stare blankly into space. Despite additional entreaties from Miguel, it appeared he was hopelessly unapproachable. Miguel turned away from the plastic, at a complete loss. If Sims was unable to communicate -- if, indeed, he no longer retained any shred of higher intelligence -- how was Miguel ever going to win his trust, or encourage his cooperation? The answer was simple: he wasn't. Sims was doomed.

A different answer, however, came from within the cell. Miguel heard a low, guttural grunt behind him, and turned to see Sims, still staring at the wall, with his right hand hanging limply in the air.

His heart jumped into his throat. Nearly forgetting that he was trying to avoid attracting the attention of others, he barely choked back a cry of triumph. "Sims..." he stammered, astonished that he had made it this far. "Sims...Sims, look this way."

Sims lowered his hand as his head swiveled around until his round, dull eyes came to rest on the young man he recognized dimly as the one who had tried to talk him out of this. He stared at Miguel with the same apathetic blankness which he had afforded the wall.

Miguel asked the first question to come to his mind. "Do you know where you are?"

Sims could only reply with a series of rattling croaks. The mutations had apparently reconfigured his throat and mouth so radically that his entire speech apparatus had been rendered vestigial. Swell, Miguel thought bitterly, his mind seems to be fine, but he has no way of saying so.

Inspiration struck. Miguel stood up quickly enough to make his knees pop. Sims was mildly startled. Miguel turned back toward the door to the lab. "I'll be right back. Bear with me for a minute; I've got an idea." He ran back into the lab, picked up a portable notation console, with a lightweight combination keypad and screen, and hurried back to the cell, where Sims now sat closer to the plastic barrier, his eyes still glazed but fixed on Miguel.

Miguel's eyes dropped to the lower right-hand corner of the front of the cell, toward a small compartment set into the plastic. It was through this that food and water were passed into the cell whenever its occupant was able to feed itself. Now Miguel switched on the small console, slipped it through the sliding door, and pushed a button that conveyed the miniature payload to the cell's tenant.

Sims regarded the device dully. Miguel put a hand to the barrier and looked at him intently. "Please, Mr. Sims. Don't quit on me now. I'm not doing this for Alchemax...in fact, if they find out what I'm doing -- and I can't be sure they haven't already -- I doubt I'll be doing much at all for Alchemax in the future. Please, just use the console to talk to me. I'll repeat my question: do you know where you are?"

Sims eyed Miguel warily for a few seconds, then tentatively reached down and drew the console to him. Languidly, he poked the keypad a few times with one crooked finger, and turned the device around so the screen faced Miguel. **BACK IN JAIL**

"No, Mr. Sims, you're not back in jail. Your sentence is still commuted. You're in another part of the Alchemax building. The lab where..." He cleared his throat. "...where you and I were this afternoon is in the next room, through that door."

Sims punched the keypad again and showed it to Miguel.

**WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ME**

Miguel frowned. "Um...well, to be frank, I don't know. This is pretty much out of my hands at this point; I had no idea that human beings would be involved, and I won't carry on with experimentation on one."

**I DONT BELIEVE YOU**

"I'm sorry you feel that way, but fair enough. You're entitled. All I can say is that you have to trust me when I tell you that I want to do what I can to get you out of this, since as far as I'm concerned you were brought here under false pretenses. I do hope that you remember how I reacted when I saw you escorted into the lab?"

Sims apparently had nothing to say to that. He simply glowered at Miguel sullenly.

"Please, I give you my word, I had no idea what Tyler had been planning --"

At the mention of Tyler Stone's name, Sims' eyes snapped into focus and blazed with rage. Before Miguel had time to register this sudden shift in emotion, the man was on his feet, filling the cell with his fearsome mass, pounding on the walls and bellowing at the top of his lungs. The other inmates were aroused by the din and protested loudly at the disturbance. Miguel instantly regretted his indelicate faux pas, and he tried desperately, without much success, to quiet Sims down.

"Sssshhhh! No, don't! Sims, you'll bring everybody running in here! You can't attract attention! They might sedate you again! Please, stop! Stop it!" He kept his own voice as low as possible, but he didn't know if the wild brute before him was taking in anything he was saying.

Fortunately, there was enough residual sedative left in him to make his eruption a brief one. Soon enough, Sims' fury was spent. He collapsed against the barrier, moaning miserably. Miguel, afraid to leave him in this state, cast another nervous glance over his shoulder toward the lab to see if anyone had been drawn by the clamor. When he saw no one, he persuaded himself, reluctantly, that such bursts of activity were commonplace in the holding cells of the Experimental Study department, and that the guards and staff had learned to tune them out. "Are you all right?" he asked cautiously.

Sims savagely jabbed the keypad until Miguel feared that his finger would ram straight through it.

**I WANT HIM DEAD I WANT HIM DEAD I WANT HIM DEAD**

"Yeah, well, you'll have to take a number." In an effort to regain his interest, he cut to the chase. "Listen to me: I thought of something this afternoon and evening. I've never even considered trying anything like it before, and I have a feeling it may be extremely dangerous. I mean a fatal kind of dangerous. And I must admit up front that I don't think I can make you look like you did before you arrived here."

Sims seemed to crumple where he knelt.

Miguel was determined not to lose him. "However, if my theory holds, I think I can reverse the mutations you've undergone, and if not return you to your original state, at least make you look human again. Furthermore, if this works, it could buy you enough time to get away from here."

Now he had Sims' undivided attention.

**EXPLAIN PLEASE HELP ME**

"Well, I'll have to explain as we go, because I don't want to spend any more time in here than I have to. I'm sure you can understand that."

**GOD YES GET ME OUT WHERE ARE WE GOING**

"Next door, back to the lab. And one important thing, Sims, and I want you to listen carefully: you have to follow me on this. I know how you feel about Tyler Stone -- " Sims tensed. "But if I free you and you break off and go on a rampage to get to him, you're going to get yourself killed in seconds. And even if you do survive a pinheaded stunt like that, I won't help you. You'll die looking this way."

Sims looked at Miguel steadily. Miguel had a feeling he had been right to issue this last caveat; he may well have saved them both a humiliating defeat.

**FAIR ENOUGH**

"Fine. Stand back," he said as his eyes turned upward toward the blinking panel on the wall that would raise the barrier and turn Sims loose.

As Miguel helped the hulking weight of Sims up the short flight of steps to the open transformation pod (Miguel noted that although Sims was visibly quailed by the sight of the pod, he still made every effort to climb the steps; Miguel's respect for the man rose a notch), he filled Sims in on the basic concepts behind his premise.

"This equipment works by taking bitmapped genetic blueprints from our data archives and imprinting them on living subjects. Generally, we've been rewriting isolated areas of each subject's genetic structure and leaving most of the rest as is, noting how each change affects the overall development of the subject." He felt awkward. "We -- I tried to take into account all of the implications of the augmented strength program used in your trial run, but...well, I just didn't have enough time to cover all contingencies, I guess. As I said, your arrival was...unexpected."

Sims' expression told Miguel that his excuse was about as lame as it sounded. He went on.

"Anyway, here's where my theory comes in. One of the first files in the data archives is the blueprint of my own DNA. I've been using it as sample working material for use on our lab animals. What my plan boils down to, is that I'm going to take that blueprint and imprint it, in its entirety, on you. If my theory holds, you and I will end up with the same DNA blueprint, and you'll come out of this looking...well, like me.

"However, there's one big unknown in all this that I want you to know about right now: until now, I've never used a file to do anything more than rearrange a few aspects of a subject's DNA map at a time. Here, I'm going to use the computer and pod to replace everything in your DNA makeup with counterparts corresponding to my own. I'm going to rewrite you completely. Chances are the procedure will be uncomfortable; in fact, I'm pretty sure it will be severely painful, given the degree of alteration involved. Mr. Sims, not only can I not guarantee success; I can't guarantee you'll survive this run. Do you still want to go through with it?"

Sims replied by pushing Miguel away impatiently and lurching the rest of the way up to the pod on his own, seating himself in the chair and waiting for Miguel to prep him for experimentation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upstairs, Tyler Stone's computer reported a power surge in the main genetics lab. He turned toward the screen and inquired further. Upon closer examination, he found that the bulk of the power had been routed to the transformation chamber's generators. Stone smiled. Looks like he's picked up the pieces, he thought with a self-satisfied grunt. On impulse, he called up on his monitor a back-issue of the company newsletter with Stone and Miguel on page one, posing for the camera, firmly shaking hands. Both looked confident, ready for any task. Not much love between them, no, but a dynamic pair nonetheless. So full of promise on that first day, Stone mused to himself. I've groomed the boy well. Good to have you back and working, Mike.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the generators finally died down, Miguel nearly sprinted up the stairs toward the pod, which was opening with a vibrating hum. Miguel had been chilled by the screams of anguish emanating from the chamber and filtering through to the control room, but he was terrified by the silence that held now.

"Mr. Sims? Mr. Sims, answer me!"

Miguel couldn't see anything quite yet; the pod opened at an agonizingly slow pace. He strained to listen inside...

"...hurrrrrrts..."

He closed his eyes and exhaled. Thank God, the man had survived. "Stay where you are! I'll have you out in a minute!"

"...can't...movvvve..."

"Don't try to. The cells in your muscles are brand new; they aren't ready for immediate use. They shouldn't take long to toughen, so just hold still."

He waited for the outer shell of the pod to lift. It was all he could do to keep from leaping at it and tearing the entire apparatus from its moorings so he could take a look at what he had done to the poor man this time. Finally the shell was out of the way enough to reveal the new Sims to a wide-eyed Miguel. They looked at each other for a long time.

Slowly, Miguel's face stretched into a smile. "Hey there, twin brother. You make a pretty shockin' handsome mutate."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The same desktop screen to Stone's left that had earlier announced Miguel's arrival lit up again, this time to announce...Stone frowned and looked more closely at the readout. It was a routine report announcing Miguel's departure. Puzzled, Stone called up the surveillance system and accessed the securicam in the parking garage, where the departure report had originated. He was greeted by the sight of O'Hara showing his Alchemax ID to the security guard, the guard giving him the card to his vehicle, and Miguel offering a slightly trembling left hand for a friendly handshake before getting in the car and driving off.

Dismissing the gesture with mild contempt, Stone wondered why on earth Miguel would be leaving the building so soon after firing up the transformation chamber. Running the chamber without a subject in it to accept the blueprint data was harmful to the equipment and dangerous to everyone in the building, that much he knew, but if there had been a subject in the pod, as there must have been, what had Mike done with it? Left it sitting there? He certainly hadn't had time to write up a post-trial report, or to file the necessary requisitions with Experimental Study for the specimen's storage or disposal (whatever the case may be). But aside from those disturbing inconsistencies, there was something else: something elusive...nagging...that handshake...

Stone replayed the scene that had just taken place in the garage, and it hit him all of a sudden, with the force of a cannon. That trembling hand. It wasn't possible, was it? He called up the newsletter photo of the two of them on Mike's first day once more, and he drew in a hissing breath as the handshake in that picture confirmed his suspicions.

Mike wasn't left-handed.

Stone slammed his fist down on the desk as he shot out of his chair and stormed over toward his office door, barging through it and shouting at the walls as he stomped, enraged, down the hall. "Computer! Security to main genetics lab! Top priority! Voice authorization Stone!"

Tyler was no longer smiling.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He burst through the main entrance to the laboratory with a dozen in-house guards in tow. The working area was lit and running, but deserted.

"Fan out! Report anything that moves, and pin it down!"

A voice chimed in over the control room intercom. "Gee, Ty, I never would have had you pegged for the rough-stuff type."

Stone's head jerked up toward the control room, as did a dozen primed and high-powered weapons, ready to fire on command. All of the men on the floor were afforded a sight which would remain burned in their memories, for better or worse, for a long time to come. One of the guards barely stifled a surprised laugh.

Miguel O'Hara looked down on them from his control room chair with his feet propped up comfortably on the instrument panel in front of him, a goofy, lopsided half-smile resting on his face. He was dressed only in his underwear; he wore a pair of vintage "boxer" shorts, decorated with twencen animated characters. A gift from a certain ex-lover of his, he'd never quite gotten around to getting rid of them (to the chagrin of his fiance?).

Tyler could only gawp. He spluttered, "O'Hara!"

"Yeah, Ty, it's me. I suppose you're wondering about this one other guy who has my dashing good looks and impeccable taste in fashion? He's outta here. Told me to tell you the room service was the pits. No tip for you, Tyler."

"You've had it, Mike. You have no idea what you've just done," Stone growled, although his voice had lost much of its menacing effect. Now he simply sounded like a sulky little boy.

"Maybe, maybe not. But I wouldn't do anything hasty, Ty. There's a guy out there somewhere who's awfully grateful to me right now for saving him, and equally ticked off at you for screwing him. I think you'd want to make sure I was kept happy around here, otherwise you might have to take up sleeping with one eye open."

He grinned, and thought a moment.

"Come to think of it, you might want to consider taking that up anyway. He didn't look too pleased when he left."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miles away, on a deserted stretch of road, a stylish automobile sped westward, away from the approaching dawn and the already-distant New York skyline. A young man wearing another man's face sat at the wheel with one elbow hanging rakishly out the driver's-side window. He was a free man now. On the run, granted, but in that there was something liberating in and of itself.

He needed some time to gather his thoughts. He couldn't spare a lot of time, but it was necessary. There were certain things he had to do. Soon, for instance, he would be heading back east, back toward New York, back toward Tyler Stone. He owed that man. He owed Tyler Stone, and he intended to make good. And in doing so, he might just make some headway toward repaying another man to whom he was indebted, in a different way. He thought about that man as he looked down in the passenger seat, at the Alchemax ID tag with Miguel's name on it. It was a name he would remember with great fondness.

A smile spread over the new face of Marcus Sims as he drove on, all the while making plans for the future.