Synthetic Life

Synthetic Life (2)

Chapter 2-

Violet slumped into her office coach. The fabric sinking with her mood, the incident out in the cafeteria was... wrong. She had felt nothing towards anyone since before she had turned. Violet had started to wonder if she would spend the rest of her very long life alone. The man had been different though, and she couldn't put her finger on it.

The blood was on track to get though regulations now, but getting the humans to trust, use, and buy the stuff would take more effort. Nothing in this world is free, and her advertising team was being silly. They were saying commercials, billboards, and samples. That made it sound like she was selling plastic spoons, not something that took her and others years of painstaking labor to develop. Violet had not always been in the lab, but her mind was always on the project and she found most of the flaws even before they had to waste valuable time testing the prototype.

She looked out though the skylight again, seeing the endless universe above. So much was at stake with her life, she was trying to get something that was manufactured to go into humans and vampires as their life forces. The people that hated the idea of anything unnatural going into the body will hate it. They will say genetically engineered, dangerous to society, dangerous to lives, and more. The support will be great but so will the opposition.

Her secretary brought in a vase with a red pattern around the sides," Miss. Violet, this vase is a present from the staff. Someone knew an expert glass maker and had them make a vase where you can put liquid inside. I got one of the technicians to fill it with some of the blood," putting the vase on the desk she left, her pride in being involved in office affairs was clear. Violet may have been an aloof boss without much want for being involved with social activities, but her secretary was shy and reserved while always wanting to be more involved.

The vase sat on the desk with a read glow around it. The lights in the room all seemed less important, the vase was not the focus point of the room. If someone were to open their eyes and look around, they would be drawn to the  vase.

Violet thought about the vase for maybe a second, and then forgot about it. Having a vase delivered was the least important thing in her day. She wanted to know who the man in the cafeteria was, so she reluctantly got up off the couch to go over to her computer. Her personnel files were very complete, so she opened up the program. Violet didn't have all too much information to go on, but she typed in the approximate age and some other characteristics until it was narrowed down to about twenty people.

The files had the people's pictures on the fronts, and she was drawn to his. It was in the center of the first page, his smile gleaming out into her office. Violet clicked on it, and a normal report on him appeared. His age was apparently twenty-seven, he was not married, his next of kin was a friend, and he had pulled her out of the fire.

Violet was taken back, she had never known who had done that deed, but she was always grateful to whomever had the thought to come and get her. She had assumed that her secretary had told a fireman, or something equally normal. But the fact that it was him, made her wonder.

In the cafeteria she had sensed something different about him, and this was another thing pointing in the same direction.

Zeke had been distracted since he had gotten the demand to file the incidence report. He had been dreaming of ways to talk to Violet for so long, and that was his next meeting. He was so enamored with her, and he had spent only a couple of minutes even near her. She was different with her, and he had no idea of what it was. He minded his own business most of the time, but somehow this was different. He felt like he needed to help her get the blood though all of the regulatory tests.

Every time he tried to go talk to Violet, Zeke got cold feet. Maybe he was afraid of how she would react, if she was really an ice queen like the people in the office say. Now he had a reason he had to go to her office, and he wasnât sure that he wanted to. She seemed so distant, but he knew that she was only that way because she was stressed. He wanted to get to know her in a normal situation, with normal office meetings, with normal problems, with normal meals, and with normal dates eventually. Somehow he knew that Violet wasnât normal either so there was no way for their relationship.

With the way his day was going Zeke knew that he had better not test his luck with wondering about the office, he would probably spill something else boiling onto his bosses. He returned to his office and sat to write the incidence report. Even though it wasnât perfect, it was an excellent excuse to go into her office. Every time he goes near there he can smell how she is perfect and not quite human, different then him, but even more different then everyone else. That just made her more special and perfect though, he was glad that she wasn't normal either because it would be so much easier to explain what he was if she was already aware of the supernatural world around them.

The report was the key, he would finally get a chance to talk with her. Meanwhile Violet was still reading all the files on Zeke she could find. She was starting to think that she was going crazy, because every time she learned another interesting factoid she wanted to know another. Zeke was almost done with his report, thinking about how he would strike up conversation with Violet.

Neither of them had done anything about the pull they felt towards each other, but still they were worried about the first impressions they had given. Zeke was horribly worried about how spilling an entire tray of coffee had looked to her; VIolet was worried about how her yelling at him to file the report, before escaping quickly, had looked to him.

Zeke’s report was almost done, and he was debating wether or not to give it to Violet yet. He could give it to her tomorrow and remind her again how clumsy he was earlier, or he could give it to her now when it is fresh in her mind and she is likely to be forgiving. Choice two was obviously a better choice, but he was biased and wanted to see Violet again.

He walked over to the elevator to go to her office, and then took the short ride to her floor. He was a little worried about how she would react to him being in her office. Violet had gotten out of the cafeteria as fast as she could. Her secretary was not there, so he went to the door and knocked.

Violet could smell Zeke; and then heard the knock. Quickly closing all the programs on her computer that had his personnel files on them, Violet told him to come in. He looked the same as he had earlier, but all she could do was stare at him.