Ruthless Integrity - Marie E. Reid

Prologue 

            The screaming finally stopped.  The silence was deafening.
               The group surrounding the inert form of the young girl stood in hushed silence.  Her smooth, sun-kissed golden-brown skin still glistened with the perspiration of her efforts, even though she had taken her last breath.
                The baby seemed huge, compared to the mother, a petite five feet…deadweight, one hundred pounds, and only sixteen years old.  It had been a hard labor and delivery, and protocol dictated that the team stand by and watch the girl suffer then die. 
            From previous experiments, they knew the combined genetic make-up of the male DNA wouldn't tolerate chemical intervention.  Not that easing the young woman’s pain would have made a difference to the outcome.  The deaths of the mothers were a foregone conclusion due to the feeding patterns of the fetus during gestation.  The babies literally drained the life from them.
            Linda Forsythe, the lead surgical nurse had been present at too many of these debaucheries of modern medicine.  When she came on board, they told her that the community did research and experiments with genetic mutation and cloning.  It wasn’t until she attended the first birth that she realized they were not experimenting, but implementing.  If she had known the true scoop in the beginning, she never would have signed a damn contract.
            Well, she'd had enough; she wanted out.  After watching each attempt to create, nurture, and finally birth one of the new-order of man, she realized she wasn't hardcore enough.  She still had feelings for the young girls chosen for the experiments.
            These young women were acquired from foster homes, some were runaways snatched from the streets, then promised a lifestyle they never could have imagined.  And they were given that lifestyle, leading the young women to believe it would be a permanent arrangement, but the mothers never survived the births.  The powers-that-be considered these poor girls throwaways; they deserved better.
            Linda detached herself from the group around the operating table, took the baby from the doctor’s outstretched hands and moved to the back of the room.  There, a neo-natal team waited to receive the child.  While the surgical team cleaned the girl’s body and prepped it for disposal, the neonatal team weighed, examined and cleaned the baby, documenting necessary vital statistics.
            They readied it for transport.

* * *

          The doors to the operating room burst open and a nurse hurried through the opening with the tiny bundle swaddled from head to toe.  She looked neither right nor left as she moved down the stark hallway made more so by the glaring overhead lights and the pristine environment.  She reached the door at the end of the corridor and stepped through it, out into the sizzling night air.  She handed the baby and a file folder to the uniformed soldier, nodded then returned the way she came.
            Smiling, the soldier moved to the open door of the limousine.  He stooped and handed the child to the woman on the back seat; he handed the folder to the man seated next to the woman.  He waited for acknowledgment from the man, his superior, then closed the limo door and stepped back.  The car sped off into the desert night.
            It was close to midnight, yet the temperature outside was still one hundred and twelve degrees.  They were fifty-two miles from their destination, the ideal setting...medium-sized community on the river, with the crime rate proportionate to population; good testing grounds.
            For several minutes, while the man perused the file in his hands, the only sound inside the vehicle was the soft hum of the air conditioner.  Then he looked up.
            “Let’s have a look.”
            The woman unwrapped the tiny bundle, staring down at the still form of the sleeping infant, “Oh...”
            She examined the miniature body…smooth, unblemished parchment colored skin spoke of the genetically-crossed heritage.  The child had perfectly formed appendages, tufts of downy-soft, reddish-brown hair with golden highlights.  For a newborn infant, despite the wrinkly skin, the child was beautiful.
            “What about the eyes?” the woman asked.  “Is it documented?”
            “Yes.  This one has the eyes, and no birthmark.  Our experiments have finally paid off!”
            Their other hopeful attempts had proved failures.  Something had been missing in the others.  The drugs had been introduced into their systems, but they were unable to trigger the necessary boost to the dominant DNA.  The gene was there, but recessive, totally useless.  The other infants had been normal, multicultural children, who had been placed for adoption.
            Well, except for that last one, the one before this, that one exception.
            The enhanced medicinal treatments triggered the DNA, but the experiment went awry, creating a deviant predator.  Not that the child hadn’t been beautiful and perfectly formed when born, but they should have taken note of the odd-shaped birthmark at the base of its spine.
            In the beginning, the ones with that birthmark were deformed, more animal than human.  They had to be destroyed.  However, the beauty of that last one overwhelmed them; they were careless.  They unleashed a terrible menace into a world they only hoped to improve.  By the time they realized the significance of the birthmark, it was too late.
            It had a two-year head start.
            Cunning instincts fully developed, it wouldn’t let them get close enough to bring it back in to destroy; it knew what they intended.  It had slipped away from its foster parents, and now on its own, its genetic engineering made it quite capable of survival.
            The woman smiled as she replaced the covering around the infant.
            This child would be their redemption.  They could foster this child with any race and it would fit in, blending with the current multicultural societal trends.  This child, when it came of age, with its specialized DNA mixture and the chemical boosts, it would track the other and eliminate it.  If this child turned out as planned, it would be superior to the original DNA donors.
            Of course, there was a down side.  They wouldn't be able to prevent this child from eliminating all behavior it considered deviant, while tracking the other.  Hell.  This child’s target changed to meet its needs, to feed its hunger, turning into any and every form of the predatory serial killer, at will, the scum of the earth.  So anyone who fell into those categories deserved whatever happened to them.
            “It’s been a long time in coming, but I think this one will be our blueprint for the future,” the man said interrupting the woman’s thoughts.
            “Yeah, but let’s not get our hopes up.  Not until we complete the tests and successfully eliminate the other.”
            “I have a good feeling about this one.  I’m hoping that its inherent humanity battling for dominance will assist us in accomplishing our goals.  As soon as it begins to walk and talk we’ll start the tests.  If everything works out, this child will be able to scent and track the other one.  We’ll make it right.  Then our benefactors can breed this one.”
            “True,” the woman turned to look at him, “but won’t the other scent this child?”
            “Doubtful.  It got away from us before we were able to develop, perfect and test its olfactory senses.  Without this child’s scent, it won’t be able to track it.”  He closed the folder.  “Still, we can’t underestimate it.  It’s highly intelligent like the donor, and its primal instincts are finely tuned.  It’s a killer with tracking instincts for prey.”
            “What happens if it senses this child?” the woman asked.
            “That’s the beauty of the third DNA we added.  This one will overcome the other.”
            The woman looked up.  “How?  What do you mean...why wasn’t I told?”
            “It’s not something I’m at liberty to divulge at this time.  Let’s wait and see how the testing goes when the child is older.  It might not work.  Then it would be a matter of the strongest surviving a confrontation.”
            “Can we stop the other one if it defeats this child?”
            “If we can catch it unaware, which is unlikely.  Even in its developmental stages it was acutely attuned to danger.”
            “Damn.  Do we have a family ready for this one?”
            “Yes, as a matter of fact, we do.  Coincidentally, the family is related to our lead surgical nurse.  We'll switch the babies tonight.”
            “Good.  We’ll be able to monitor its progress.  Linda will know what to do when the time comes.”
            “Yeah, but until that time, she’s on a need-to-know only.”