Humans are bioformers.
While other species also domesticated animals in their development, no other species formed their animals to the extent Humans did through natural means alone. While many species eventually domesticated animals into forms they preferred through genetic development, Humans did so before they even developed steel smelting, simply by selective breeding.
Humans have a frightening natural ability to form and domesticate animals and plants. That makes them one of the most effective bioformers we know. Only the Hyphea have shown to be faster and more effective in forming and reforming lifeforms.
And ever since Humans began using unigel and derivative xenobot technologies, the developmental distance between known Hyphea strains and Humans is closing rapidly.
— Excerpt from the memo "The Unseen Dangers of Human Bioformer Capabilities," Federation Senate ca. 350 P.I.
The Mayflower docked at Burrow One exactly on time. Jane watched the docking process from the glass elevator down to the airlocks to board the ship.
With her in the elevator stood Claudia Elswyr, a Martian-born intelligence officer, go-between to the AIN.
Dressed in retro jeans and a thick studded belt, Converse sneakers, and a retro punk rock t-shirt, she looked more like a rebellious teenager than an intelligence officer — but that was probably the reason behind the style choice.
Her official cover was being Jane's assistant.
And 2010s punk-rock chic was exactly the newest business trend back on Earth.
Jane studied the petite, brown-haired woman.
"Claudia, how old are you?" Jane had to know; she herself was young, but Claudia looked about eighteen.
"Twenty-one, Miss Nesbitt." Claudia's Martian Texan-Chinese accent was almost unnoticeable. Certainly not if you didn't know she was Martian.
"Please call me Jane. Miss makes me feel even older next to you."
"As you like, Jane."
The woman gave Jane a wry smile.
"AIN officer at twenty-one. Must have been a short youth for you..."
"I grew up on Arcadia Planitia. A little-known fact about life on Mars: you're either grown up at fifteen, or you're useless. While on Earth, children get pampered until they are twenty or older, on Mars, we get treated as adults quickly. So I joined AIN at fifteen. Finished the Academy at twenty. And now I'm here. Playing secretary."
That made Jane smile. Claudia had spunk.
"Afraid you'll get bored?"
"There's a war going on. So yeah, playing assistant wasn't what I expected to do for the next few years."
"Trust me, you'll miss boredom in a week."
Claudia's face didn't hide her disbelief.
"Who are we picking up here anyway, another nerd?"
Nerd, huh. Girl, you're lucky I like you.
"Dr. Victor Cardinal. I pulled some strings and got him released into our custody."
Claudia's eyes grew wide. " The Monster of Massachusetts?"
Nerd, huh….
Jane hid her smile while nodding.
"I'm forming a new research wing for AIN here on Burrow One. Given what we discovered on Burrow's Moon, Dr. Cardinal is exactly the right person for it."
"When his laboratory exploded, it took down a whole wing of the university, killing more than three hundred and forty students. That man is a menace."
That was true. Cardinal had played fast and loose with safety measures.
But that was before AIN and Drake discovered the Batract involvement in some of Earth's worst scientific failures. Now, no one was sure if Cardinal was really responsible. And no one dared to release the mentally unstable doctor back into society.
"True. That's why we'll supervise him."
The elevator stopped, and the door opened.
Mayflower's security guided her and Claudia to the ship's starboard loading dock.
"We didn't have time to build a sufficiently secure prison, so we decided to use the station's original prison module and carried it here."
The large guard explained while Jane stood inside the massive dock, staring up at the module parked inside the cargo space.
Almost a hundred meters tall, the prison module was a self-contained environment. Allowing for guards to be housed and Earth's most dangerous prisoners to be contained securely and indefinitely.
This module had been used for only one prisoner. The personification of the mad scientist.
"Jane, are you really sure about this?"
Claudia seemed even smaller next to the module, and the closer they came to the airlock the less confident she seemed.
"Pretty sure. We need him."
Her words projected more confidence than she felt in reality. But the die was cast. She had dragged the man light-years to Burrow. She couldn't turn around now.
The two guards in front of the airlock searched them. Everything made from metal had to be left outside.
To Jane's surprise, this included Claudia's bra; the underwire was made from steel.
Claudia's death glare backed the guard up a step. "Sorry, ma'am, it's protocol. You'll get everything back when you leave."
"Sure I will. Without you perverts fondling it."
Jane was happy she'd chosen a sports bra today.
"Leave them be, Claudia. They're just doing their job."
The moment the airlock sealed, Claudia's scowl was gone.
"I played a role. Don't forget I'm an assistant."
Then she looked back at the Hatch.
"I just hope those perverts don't cut off their hands on the nanowire hidden in the cups."
Jane shook her head. It was best not to ask.
The airlock finished its cycle and they were greeted by another pair of nameless, faceless guards in helmets.
"Follow us."
The interior of the module was a sparkling white. They passed multiple security checkpoints, and while walking one of the guards explained.
"We can house up to six high-risk prisoners. Each cell is a self-contained environment and surrounded by a multitude of sensors."
The guard seemed to miss social contact. Jane could understand him after a three-month journey locked inside this monolith, she would go insane.
They passed a force field that left Jane's hair standing upright.
"Electrostatic field. Blocks all incoming and outgoing signals. We're here."
In front of them was a wide room filled with books and magazines. Between them sat an old man with long gray hair and a scrubby white beard.
He rocked his upper body while reading a book, then threw it aside, snapped up another one, and continued reading.
All the while, Jane could hear him mumbling to himself.
"Is he dangerous?"
The old man looked less like a danger to others, to Jane. More like a mental patient.
"The first few years we had some problems, but he chose his segregation himself. He's harmless, physically. But his head, that's another story."
Claudia almost whispered. "How long was he locked up here?"
"In this facility, thirty years. And another five on Earth. He hasn't spoken a word to me in the fifteen years I've worked here. Good luck getting him to come with you."
With this, the guard handed Jane a datapad to sign.
"Sign here and he's your problem. I'm just happy to leave the prison for the journey back. Fuck this place."
After she signed, the guard turned, and both of them left.
Even with Claudia at her side, Jane suddenly felt alone.
They looked at each other and stepped inside the roomy cell.
Dr. Cardinal seemed not to even register them, still deeply invested in his reading.
"Dr. Cardinal?" Jane tried the first approach, direct.
Almost as expected, the doctor didn't react.
Claudia moved to an angle from her and didn't interfere. Jane knew this move from Andrè — it was the L-formation, to safely engage a target without harming the partner.
Traveling with Andrè and Eleri had left an imprint on her. She missed them now. But they had a different role in the plan.
She had to get Cardinal to trust her and work with her.
She sat down on the bench next to Cardinal. He moved slightly away from her. Good, he still reacts to outside stimuli.
"Dr. Cardinal, do you know where you are? My name is Jane. I'm here to get you out of here."
"Nooo." Cardinal jumped up, throwing the big book he held at Claudia. Almost as if he recognized her as the biggest threat.
Claudia only evaded getting hit in the head by ducking quickly. Jane was astonished by the almost clairvoyant reaction time.
Cardinal retreated like a hurt animal into a corner of the room.
"I won't go. Won't go."
The voice of the man was rough, from not speaking so long.
"They want my mind. I won't give it to them. They took Nessy. Now they want me."
Cardinal's voice became softer now. Jane thought for a moment she knew it, from somewhere. It was like a grandfather's voice.
"Dr. Cardinal, my name is Jane Nesbitt. I'm not here to hurt you."
The doctor relaxed. "Nessy?"
Jane looked at Claudia for a clue, but Claudia could only shrug. No one knew who — or what — Nessy was.
When Jane turned back to face Cardinal, the old man had moved quickly. He stood face to face with Jane, his eyes only centimeters away from hers.
"Jane?" His voice...
Jane knew it from somewhere.
"Little Jannetta?"
Jannetta... Only one person had ever called her that. Long ago.
She was three. Before her family was taken.
Before Jane or Claudia could react, Cardinal had Jane by the neck, pulling down the back of her shirt to look at her upper neck and spine.
"Nothing." His grip loosened. "Good."
The old man was strong. Surprisingly so.
As fast as he had gripped her, he released her.
"Little Jannetta. I thought they took you, too?"
Cardinal collapsed, crying.
"What the hell was that?" Claudia was now next to the still-shocked Jane, inspecting her neck for injuries, while Cardinal wept on the floor.
"No idea, but... I think I know him."
Jane tried to remember, but everything before the night was a haze. Her father, her mother, her sister, nothing but faces in a fog.
And Uncle Vic... he had called her Jannetta.
"Uncle Vic?"
The crying stopped.
The old man, who had looked almost menacing just a minute ago, now seemed broken beyond repair.
"You remember?"
A shimmer of hope.
Jane knelt down. "Sundays. You always came over on Sundays to talk to my father. And then in the garden we grilled, and you made..."
"Root Beer Floats"
Both Jane and Cardinal smiled.
Jane had to fight a tear.
But how was this possible? How could she forget? And how did her father know the Monster of Massachusetts?
"Jannetta, I'm so sorry. I should have searched. Looked out for you."
"It's fine, Uncle Vic. Mr. Drake found me and cared for me — and the other children."
"Drake. That alien bastard."
Cardinal's face grew darker, hate and anger so intense that Jane took a step back.
"He's no human, do you know that?" Cardinal stood up, radiating anger. From the corner of her eye, Jane saw Claudia shift into a fighting stance.
Jane quickly grabbed Cardinal's hands. "Yes, I know. But that's not important right now, Uncle Vic."
The words had the desired effect. As quickly as the hate appeared, it went away, replaced by the friendly, deeply wrinkled, grandfatherly face.
Claudia's face, on the other hand, was pure surprise.
"He's what?"
It seemed the AIN had classified this information excessively, if even the officers working on the plan weren't informed.
Jane and the others had a days-long debrief, probably throwing the upper echelons of the AIN into an existential crisis. So it was understandable, in a way, to regulate this information heavily.
Claudia would have to get the right access and deal with the revelations as they came.
"An alien machine. An infiltrator. A saboteur. Shapeshifting abomination."
Cardinal was back in his rage.
"He's gone." Jane pressed Cardinal's hands. "He's gone and won't come back."
Victor and Jane, who had just now registered that she had begun to think of him as Victor, calmed down again.
She tried to signal Claudia to shut up, but the AIN operative was focused on something else — her p-p communicator.
"Let's get out of here, Uncle Vic. I prepared a nice apartment for you."
Victor seemed happy. Jane was fascinated by how quickly he shifted between eldritch godlike rage and childish fascination.
"Can we visit an amusement park? It's been so long since we visited one, Jannetta."
"Uncle Vic, we're at Burrow, the home system of an alien race — our friends, the Shraphen. You'll like them."
"Oh." Surprise flashed over the doctor's face. Then he began to grin. "So that was that odd feeling I had a few days ago. We left FTL?"
"Yes, Uncle Vic." Jane was relieved he took the surprise so well. She almost expected another meltdown.
Victor smiled like a teenager, then whispered, "You know, now I'm relieved. I thought I lost my mind when it happened. But leaving transit always gives me erections. So that explains that."
Jane closed her eyes. Slowly, very slowly, she began to realize working with Victor would be a challenge in itself.
Claudia interrupted her train of thought.
"Dr. Nesbitt, I got a call from the Ignaz Semmelweis . They have a badly injured Shraphen. Something horrible happened on the moon. They ask for your expertise. The Marine might not make it."
With a glowing face, Victor pressed her hands. "You're a doctor?"
"Yes, Uncle Vic. Seems they need me."
"Splendid. I always wanted to cut up an alien. Shraphen, you say?"