Pelliccia (Book1) (2011 Sci-fi Watty Awards Winner)

Chapter 8

Yukon Territory year 2012

Tap… tap…. tap… tap… tap… The constant tapping further irritated Dr. Bucur’s already frustrated mood. Dr. Bucur and the Tall man had been working long hours in the retro fitted laboratory. They were both at odds to why every attempt they tried to re-program or re-engineer the nanites to take on the properties of the feline or hare DNA that they wanted without copying the ones they didn't  always failed.

“Can you please stop the tapping.” Dr. Bucur mumbled in annoyance.

  Tap… tap.. tap..

“Stop!” He snapped loudly this time.

The tall man looked over waking from his focused concentration. “Excuse me?” He asked.

“The tapping, can you please stop the tapping?” John repeated.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even realize.” The tall man replied.

“Have you even made any kind of progress yet?” He asked throwing the data filled papers from his hands down on the desk.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t think of anything. It seems like I’ve used up all my ideas.”

“Well we need to come up with more.” He said irritated. “We are running out of room here. You know we can’t expand. We only have 6 more subjects to come up with a solution before it is really going to be hard to run this place without risking more outside help.”

“We can barely contain it now John. It seemed like a simple problem to solve when we decided to start testing, but it just isn’t working.”

John threw up his arms. “I’m the micro-biologist; you are the micro-engineer. I can only do so much, I’m certain it’s an issue with the programming.” John said.

“Well where’s our micro-programmer then? I keep telling you it’s not that simple. You should know, you were the one on the original design team before the government dumped it.” The tall man argued. “Why didn’t you bring one of the programmers into the project from the beginning?”

“You know why, we were certain the programming was complete. We never had an issue with that part before, and besides it’s too late for that now.” John ranted. “No one will go along with us now, after we’ve conducted 25 illegal human tests, not to mention the countless other felonies we committed to get this far.”

“This was your idea John. I went along with it because I knew things would work out. I still believe that. Let’s just calm down and figure it out.” The tall man said as he put his hands on John’s shoulders.

John looked back at him taking a couple of slow breaths. “You’re right. It’s just time is running out.” He sighed. “Also with the new girls, Brittany and Sara, still showing the side effects I don’t feel that we are doing enough.”

“You know we are doing all we can.” The tall man said. “How about we look at the files for each of the programmers and see if we can bring one in.”

“I have already been thinking about that, and there’s only one that I’d even think about trusting.”

“That’s great let’s bring him in then.”

“It’s more complicated than that.” John said.

“Why? Who is it?” The tall man asked as Judy interrupted them with their lunch.

“Ok you two, I have soup and sandwiches, and I’m not leaving till you clean your plates.” Judy demanded.

“We’ll talk about this later.” John said then turned to Judy. “Great! I’m starving.”