The Good Intentions of a Cyborg Werewolf

Exam - XIII

It had almost been three hours since Luke returned and he hardly said a word. Not that he spoke often, but aside from a cryptic explanation that he had taken too long to return and they now had to 'wait' Erin couldn't get anything out of him. He just stood near the door, leaning on the wall, barely moving in a pose that seemed impossible to hold for that amount of time. He also hadn't eaten which also didn't seem right, and not even Mercer seemed to know what was wrong as he sat at his desk, toiling at his chemicals. Erin imagined it had something to do with the mermaids, specifically the one that passed away in his arms. The detail that stuck with her most was his hands, the way they hung open, their language. It was the same way her hands were when she thought of Kyle. It was a specific kind of emptiness when you knew a life had just gone. Either too fast or too agonisingly slow. Erin wanted to help.

"Since we're waiting..." she began, breaking the silence, "anybody want to just talk? Why don't we put some coffee on? Y'know I still don't really know much about-"

"I'm going out," Luke grabbed his coat and flung the front door open, letting it slam behind him.

"Don't take it personally," Mercer sighed as he leaned back in his chair, "Lucas has difficulties when it comes to mortality."

"And you?" Erin asked.

"Death has always been a part of my life," Mercer stood up to stretch his back. "Coffee was it?"

"Sure," Erin nodded as he entered the kitchen. "Can I ask you... how exactly did you two meet? What's the impetus for this whole operation?"

"You mean crusade?" Mercer chuckled. He seemed to lose his humour quickly as the pot began to fill, and he leaned back onto the counter to face Erin properly. "We met when I still worked for Celestial. It's hard to believe it's been two years already."

"What did you do?" Erin asked.

"I thought I was designing tools to help people," Mercer waited a moment for the last drops to fall into the pot before he took a couple of mugs from behind the sink. "I was the lead engineer specialist for a performance-augmenting chemical interface."

"The suit?" Erin took one of the mugs with a nod of thanks.

"Actually, no," Mercer continued, "not yet at least. Believe it or not it all started with gene therapy for people with degenerative illnesses. My initial works after entering as a low-level assistant were experiments with rapid cell reproduction. Using computer-controlled interfaces to systematically apply chemical catalysts in failing body parts, such as organs or cancerous tissue."

"Wow," Erin nodded, pretending to understand more than half of that. "I'm gonna guess you didn't cure cancer, though."

"I didn't cure anything," Mercer took a sip from his own cup, "it was all, at best, theoretical, but animal testing had proved disappointing."

"You tested on animals?"' Erin asked, aghast. "That's unethical!"

"Not as unethical as using human subjects," Mercer shrugged off her criticism. "The underlying problem was the body's inability to metabolise at the proper rate. The cell replication and repair required unsustainable energy needs that would've required a human to consume roughly twice their body weight in nutrients a day to accomplish."

"There's a 'but' in there, I can tell," Erin took a sip. She glanced towards the desk where the chemistry set Mercer tinkered with was set up.

"Things changed when the 'UTO's' appeared," Mercer took a long sip. "'Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms.' Creatures that seemed to appear coincidentally as my research neared its peak."