A. Arthur - Shifter's Claim

“So she’s getting worse,” Rome added. “She’s going to get worse as long as the drug is in her system and you don’t know how to get it out. Is that what you’re saying?” he asked, raising his voice for what may have been the first time Ary ever heard.

Papplin looked from Rome to Ary apologetically. “That is what I am saying.”

Comastaz Laboratories

Sedona, Arizona

“There’s a problem with the sequence, a gap that I can’t quite figure out,” Dr. Mario DiLaurent told Captain Crowe as Lilah, the lab assistant Crowe had hired for him, stood on the other side of the lab table.

“Maybe it’s a genetic gap that goes with a particular family,” she offered. “It looks like a mini-strand is missing.”

“It is. I’ve been over this a million times. This is the blood taken from that…” he hesitated, “that thing you pulled out of the field and this is how the DNA breaks down. No human lives with a broken DNA strand.”

“They’re not human,” Crowe pointed out.

DiLaurent’s brow was prickled with sweat, the man was more than nervous. So much was riding on this project and Crowe was anxious to share this discovery with the whole world. The thought of creating a super-soldier based on the genetics of a real-life half animal, half human would be a phenomenal discovery. It would also be a very lucrative one, especially for the three creators in this room. They had to fix the genetic sequence and they had to do it soon.

“We need another one of its kind, preferably one from its direct bloodline,” DiLaurent stated.

Crowe frowned. “Then I guess it’s a good thing those assholes lost the blood samples we were going to send for final testing. It held the incomplete DNA so it probably wouldn’t have created the super-soldier I’ve got in mind.”

DiLaurent hurriedly shook his head. “No, we do not know what that DNA would produce. I think our best bet is to duplicate what it seems like nature has given that one. Keep everything as close to matching him as possible so there’ll be less chance of fallout.”

“Great, now we need all new blood samples. Ones that match that creature’s exactly. Where the hell are we going to get that?” Crowe asked, cursing this turn of events.

Lilah sighed. “Go back to where you found this one and look for another one. There’s bound to be a female somewhere because there’s no way a man like this was traipsing around out there all alone.”

DiLaurent resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the simpleminded assistant. “It has to be a direct match, a sibling or a child.” He paused then ran to his cell phone, pressing buttons wildly. “Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

“What is it?” Lilah asked.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. A few weeks ago my cousin sent me a blood sample, or rather the DNA strand from a blood sample. He works in the lab at George Washington Hospital in D.C. He said this was left on a microscope and he read it. He thought it was unreal and so he sent it to me to get my advice. I’ve been so busy working with our tight timeline I didn’t pay it much attention. But now that I’m thinking about it, now that we’re talking about it…” He paused, still looking at his phone. “I got it! I got it right here!”

Moving quickly he thrust his arm forward so Lilah could see his cell phone. She looked at it once, and then looked back at the sequence showing on the screen of DiLaurent’s laptop. For good measure she looked back once more. “You need to get both of these sequences loaded and run them together, make sure they’re a match,” she told him excitedly.

“Does it look like a match?” Crowe asked.

Lilah was already nodding her head. “It does. It looks like a match.”

“Then your one and only job for the foreseeable future is to find me the one that blood sample belongs to. I want that one here on this table within the week. Do we understand each other?” Crowe commanded.

Lilah looked at DiLaurent and they both replied, “Yes, sir.”

It looked like Lilah would be heading to Washington, D.C., to find out whose blood sample that was in the George Washington Hospital and to bring that someone or something back to Comastaz. There was a lot riding on this, surely this “person” wouldn’t mind donating some more of its blood for a good cause, even if that cause put an end to its kind for good.