Pygmalion Unbound Read Online Free PDF Page A

connected by a wall. From the orientation materials she had reviewed in the weeks before coming here, she knew that each lab had a different biohazard level. Level 1 had about as much containment capacity as an ordinary college chemistry lab. Level 4 was right out of The Andromeda Strain , with airlocks and self-contained pressure suits; it housed the nanotech that had been used to create Maria. Once she had been activated, and a checkup completed, Maria had been moved to a special section of the Level 1 lab. The green area was located in between the four labs.
    Maria attracted a few glances from passersby in the hallway, especially the men. She looked at everything with all with the same wide-eyed fascination. Kelly immediately felt protective of the naïf who walked beside her, holding her arm as she went. Franklin keyed in his code, and the series of three doors at the end of the hallway opened, and they brought her into the open.
    Maria froze and Kelly was afraid she’d overloaded. Going from a clean lab to the outdoors was refreshing — she did hiking in the north woods over the weekends to unwind. But for someone who had never experienced the open air before, it might cause a cascading feedback loop.
    But Maria moved her head, taking in the small space of neatly groomed lawns crisscrossed by concrete sidewalks with small spots of landscaping — a stand of birch here, an oasis of columbine there, a small rose garden — sprinkled about the grounds. She stared up at the cloudless spring sky, the sun still rising in the east.
    “Blue” was all she said, then she looked at Franklin. He led them on to the admin building, in through the main lobby where she attracted more stares from the AC personnel and delivery staff, and into the large courtyard beyond the glass-and-chrome reception area.
    “It’s beautiful,” Kelly said.
    Within an enclosure formed by three stories of smoked glass and composite concrete walls lay a small paradise. Pines as tall as the building provided shade, a grove of birches stood in one corner, a small waterfall cascaded from a rock outcropping and flowed into a small stream that wended its way through the area and disappeared into another pile of rocks. Hibiscus and columbine, rhododendrons and azaleas were a riot of color against greenery like hostas and shrubberies.
    “They spent a lot of money and time on this,” Franklin said. “Same people designed a lot of the newer zoos. AC’s management thought of it as a meditation spot. And it gave off a green image.”
    “I’d never leave here,” Kelly said, awed. “My grandmother had a farm in New Hampshire, and I spent summers there when I was young. I’d spend all day, out in the quiet and the sun.”
    She paused and looked around. A bird called from one of the birches, answered by a warbling from another in the pines.
    “Western meadowlark,” said Maria. “ Sturnella neglecta , an icterid. The fluted warbling song distinguishes it — ”
    “It’s a pretty song,” Kelly said, taking Maria’s hand and smiling as a parent would with a precocious child. “That’s all you need to know. Or say.”
    Maria cocked her head. “Yes. It is.” She smiled. “Pretty.”
    Kelly smiled. “That’s your first lesson, Maria.”
    Franklin watched the exchange. It’s gonna be a long haul , he thought. Data retrieval was there. Interpretation was something else again. Six months ? Lotsa luck, Doc .
    They stayed in the garden for several hours, letting Maria wander on riverstone paths through the forest. She touched everything, leaves on the hostas to the smooth bark on a birch, the prickly Frasier fir needles and smelled every flower, cataloguing the odors of roses, honeysuckle and lavender, and expanded her descriptive vocabulary.
    Hidden in the greenery, mounted high on the walls of the admin building, tiny cameras recorded it all and sent it to Crane’s office, where he sat staring at the video screen.

4
    Kelly and Franklin took Maria