Second Nature

Chapter 63

63 

Gen spread her two-foot wingspan, circling high above the twenty-acre complex of Redstone Military Laboratories. A birdwatcher would have found it odd to spot an osprey, a fish hawk that belongs along coasts and inland waters, flying above the desert. But none of the soldiers and technicians below bothered to look up as they shuttled between the lab and the loading ramps of three Army trucks.  

Gen's sharp vision roamed the compound. She saw Col. Eberhard exit a small adobe bungalow and stride toward the main lab building. So that's where he lives. Gen tucked her wings and dove toward the bungalow's rear window, smashing right through the glass and tumbling across the wooden floor. The impact broke the osprey's neck; it healed in seconds. Gen hopped on talons into the bathroom and found what she needed: a hairbrush, with silver hairs caught in the bristles. Gen touched a single hair from Jack Eberhard and read his genetic blueprint. 

Mitobots disassembled and absorbed most of an antique cast-iron tub to gain two hundred pounds of mass needed to create Eberhard's clone. Seconds later, Gen stood naked in human male form: Eberhard's genetic double. In the bedroom, she put on the dress uniform of a U.S. Army colonel. Then she turned before a full-length mirror, working to make her copy more exact.  

Eberhard looked older than the clone Gen had created. She aged the cells, silvering the hair and deepening the wrinkles; then added the pale scar that ran across his square jaw. Now she looked much more like Eberhard, except for the anomalous purple eyes.  

But in spite of the fact that her very cell structure duplicated Eberhard's, her version of the colonel still didn't look convincing. Gen-Eberhard looked like she could be Eberhard's identical twin, but she didn't look completely like the man himself. 

Then she realized her copy was missing the colonel's attitude. Gen-Eberhard tried on a demeanor of arrogance. Puff out the chest. More. Add a furrow of perpetual anger to the brows. Good. A subtle sneer. Better. Now tweak the expression with an overlay of stress. Wow. She shuddered to recognize her nemesis. 

Gen-Eberhard grabbed a pair of dark sunglasses off the dresser to hide her purple eyes. Then she exited the bungalow and strode toward the lab with an air of personal power. Her plan was to enter the isolation suite and release dissemblers to destroy the lab and all records of Project Second Nature. 

Two guards snapped to attention and saluted Gen-Eberhard as she entered the lab's main area. The colonel paused and gave the men a hard look-over. "Standard security procedures," Gen-Eberhard said, "A quiz: Who gets notified during a laboratory emergency?" 

"You do, sir," one guard said. "Immediately." 

"Yes, of course, but I mean a catastrophic accident," Gen-Eberhard said. "Suppose the entire laboratory is consumed in flames. Who gets notified then?" 

"Hollomon Air Base, sir," the second guard said. "Capt. George Hughes, security chief for White Sands Missile Range." 

The other guard nodded and licked dry lips. Gen-Eberhard glanced at a wall clock. "Contact Capt. Hughes now, and relay to him my orders to execute an emergency response to Redstone Labs at eleven-hundred hours." 

"Which drill, sir? The fire scenario?" 

"Tell him men are wandering in the desert, bewildered. They don't even remember what happened to them." 

The guard frowned. "Sir...?" 

"Just follow my orders." 

"Yes sir. Right away, sir." 

She turned and headed toward the Biohazard Level Four isolation suite. In front of her, a technician in a white lab coat walked through an aisle lined with aluminum pens, and the rabbits inside paid little attention. But as Gen-Eberhard passed the same rows, the sight of the colonel made the animals go berserk with fear, scrabbling into corners, trembling so hard their pens rattled.