The Bellevue Program

9.

"Where is she?" Ruby asked Alena, drawing her hand along the cage housing an ocelot who crouched low while pacing beside her fingers. She looked at it down her nose, the creature seeming to see her as an alpha

"She won't come out today" Alena sympathized slightly

Ruby didn't appear to react, and just watched he cat move back and forth, lifting its lips here and there to let out a slight noise.

Ruby looked over the cages in the large room, housing smaller animals both rare and dangerous, as well as exotic and beautiful. From rare big cats to poisonous snakes, this particular wing of the facility housed the zoo.

Alena was the lead Vet. Like all her colleagues, she was a result of the program, her womb mate was handed off at birth but Alena was raised on the premises, with a plan for her to be exactly where she was today.
They had already known she was going to be intelligent, it was the easiest gene to replicate, but in Alena they had infused certain traits to make her more sensitive to instinct. She could work best with the zoo, because she carried part of them in her DNA. It came natural to her to understand them, and could help Lino determine the best matches to intakes, what they could handle and what their bodies would reject.

"It's a full moon tonight" Alena offered

Ruby nodded "yes" and she continued gazing over the animals.

Ruby always felt calm with the animals, she found herself with them each time she waited for the new embryos to take. The girl had been inseminated just hours ago. That one had been infused with Lino's life's work. He had manufactured, slaved and worked day and night his entire life to create this one. There had been many failures, some of them born with too many animal traits, too many genetic misconducts, but this one was set to work.

Ruby counted on it, to continue the Bellevue line. The second embryo, was hers, she had waited all these years before she would allow her child to be created, to be sure that it was going to be the perfect Bellevue. 

Her sister would have been the perfect Bellevue, in her eyes she was. But her sister was the experimental embryo, her own father created them both, infused them both himself, and with Ruby delivered a beautiful child, bright alert and intelligent. Her sister, just as bright, just as intelligent however could not carry on the business, she just couldn't. Her malformations were too great, rendering her unable to perform simple things such as pick up a spoon. Her brain however was completely in tact. Her body misrepresenting the form of human and wolf. Her face was almost angelic, but thick mane of hair ran from the top of her head over her back, her hands short, with fingers curled up like a paw, including the pads. Her teeth bared a full mouth of canines, and she had a set of 6 nipples running over her torso. Her legs were bent up in a crouch, making it impossible for her to stand. Ruby thought she was perfect, but Amber as she grew realized that she was the second one, the one that was supposed to take over but her body not allowing her to be seen by the clients. 

"I'll try again tomorrow" Ruby said, and left, her heels clicking. She saw the world in her sister, but it wasn't returned. Amber despised Ruby for being not being deformed like her, that she was beautiful with her thick dark hair, red lips and tiny feet. She could wear pretty dresses and work in the lab. She had become so jealous she had attacked her on a number of occasions, once leaving deep claw marks from her shoulder down her chest.

Still, Ruby loved her, and never stopped trying to gain love in return. She had walked these halls her entire life, 47 years now, and still she found comfort in the walls, the history. She knew every corner, had overseen new structures within. The Zoo for example was expanded to include the underground, where Lino kept his collection. She didn't go down there, it was his own private living museum of sorts, she kept away, choosing not to be involved in what happens down there. The depths, they called it and it was where the hybrids and the uncontrollables lived. Down there were the creatures that were coveted by the governments, the officials, and the society figures that made this family so rich. Down there held the weapons of the future, potential soldiers with manufactured powers.

Her father would be proud of the accomplishments her and her siblings had made. The wealth was abundant in this family, steadily increasing through 3 generations from her great grandfather Bellevue. He began the facility during the first world war, he was a doctor during the war, but dabbled in transplanting on the side. There was always a soldier he could work on during the war, extracting skins from pigs and grafting them to the human flesh, watching and learning the healing process. Eventually transplanting and healing wasn't enough, and he began to create. He would take embryos and fetuses from cats or dogs to begin with, carefully dissecting limbs and cross attaching, then replacing in the womb. Most of the limbs would attach but die, some would live but not move. His studies then moved back to the soldiers, some that he had kept in his cells under the house for years, continually cutting and sewing into them, documenting accurately the results and formulas. When he finally married, his wife a stunning beauty with a mathematical gift and an interest in his work, she helped to create the beginnings of their program, using their own first child as a product of their studies.
Agatha Bellevue was born, a bright and immediately curious child seemed to take on all of their attributes and more. She saw more in their work and as times and technology advanced their work did too. Agatha went on to continue the studies but refused to have children until her line was perfected, she wanted her child to have even more, and with her fathers cross breeding studies she began the work of infusing parts of animal DNA into embryos.
Agatha had began inseminating imprisoned women, making them have these children, and over time those children became brilliant gifted adults, and in that time more advancements had been made, and finally Agatha had Chosen her serum, infused with canine DNA. The embryo was growing fast and she went ahead, producing Ruby's father, Jeremy Bellevue. The history was long, and proud. The family maintaining discrepancy while building powerful contacts, advancing the program further than they could have imagined.

Ruby took long steps, her head high, her hands folded. She walked through the almost empty lobby, a bright young secretary sat behind the desk and a security guard by the door. It was very late now, and most had gone to their rooms. Her side of the facility was shut down now, the secretary flashed a large white smile "good evening Ruby" she said

Ruby nodded, unsmiling and continued on to the elevators, going to her penthouse floor apartment for the evening.

She sat on her white leather couch, her silky red pajamas on with a cold glass of the orange liquid, watching the laptop with the camera pointed on the woman sleeping on the hospital bed. The blonde was sedated now, the iv in her arm dripping multitudes of vitamins and hormones to support the growing Bellevue. Her own Bellevue.