Rise of the Transgenics Read Online Free PDF Page A

before, and with Harry’s
help, I will be again.”
    Merton lost his temper at that point and
slammed his fist on the table, startling everyone. “Goldman’s in
charge,” he stated in no uncertain terms. “Do I make myself
clear?”
    Only Farrell seemed unperturbed and gazed
unconcernedly at all the action going on. Merton impatiently waved
the scientist out. Halsey, bleeding hand and all, hastily left the
room. The door slammed shut and the man in charge turned to Harry.
“That means I want results, young man.”
    Well, at least he didn’t call me kid, Harry
thought. He then articulated what needed to be done. “Sir, I have
the specs. I explained everything in this,” he held up his
findings, “what the engineers have to do.”
    He handed over a sheet of paper, and Merton
studied it intently, finally passing it over to the engineers. One
of them said, “We’ve already built a smaller model.”
    “And it works, at least the prototype does—on
paper,” Harry added.
    One of the engineers smiled confidently. “We
can build this.”
    Merton turned back to Harry. “I’ll be honest
with you, Goldman. I’m not a scientist. This is something that’s
over my head. Anyway, we’re not alone in this project, not anymore.
A special sub-division attached to the government has taken over.
It’s not my call, I don’t like working under another government
agency’s direction, but I don’t have a choice. We’re now working
for Applied Scientific Research, ASR for short, and they want to
know what to do.”
    Harry felt a bit snowed by everything, but
his girlfriend, anger now spent, decided to pad back to his
position and settled herself into his lap. Just holding Anastasia
comforted him.
    Merton continued his speech and reiterated
his earlier point. He wanted results. “It’s a private laboratory.
We made a contract with them, and since they’re handling the
funding, they want a finished product.”
    “And that would be...?” Harry asked, already
having a pretty good idea of what they wanted.
    Rubbing his chin, he added, “And what they
want is simple. They want to know how the process began and what it
takes to reverse it.”
    This was a little difficult for Harry to
swallow. The Russians involved with their transgenic experiments
were trying to create the perfect spy, so why wouldn’t the America
government do the same? Wisely, though, he kept his mouth shut.
Merton’s gaze met everyone else’s in the room, and then he tapped
the paper with a meaty forefinger. “Are you sure this will
work?”
    “It should,” answered Harry, hoping that he
sounded confident enough. In reality, it was all guesswork. Bright
as he was, there were only so many things he knew. However, he
didn’t want to admit weakness in front of the man who controlled
his destiny as well as Anastasia’s.
    The Director hemmed and hawed, read over the
paper again, and finally, gave the go-ahead to build a larger
version of the prototype that would ostensibly shift Anastasia’s
form from feline to human. “This is on you, son,” he warned, and
with that, he dismissed everyone.
    Back in the lab, Harry, his girlfriend, and
Farrell, sat around the table discussing the matter quietly. “I
don’t trust them,” Anastasia said. “The Russian scientist made me,
so who’s to say that your people won’t do the same to someone
else?”
    Farrell, who’d said not a word during the
meeting, tapped the computer. He had a thoughtful look on his face.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “All I know is that I’ve been
tasked to watch over you and help you out if I can. I haven’t heard
anything about creating superspies from the Director or anyone
else.”
    “If you did, would you tell us?” Harry
probed. His BS-O-Meter had gone off during the meeting when ASR was
mentioned, and now it was working overtime. “You didn’t tell us
that we were going to be working with another agency.”
    The agent spread his hands wide in a gesture
of