The Experiment, Part Three
Here's the next installment; I've also edited the previous two installments so the formatting is now uniform among all of them. Enjoy!
"Did you touch anything?"
"Huh?" Mike looked up from where he had been instructed to wait in the lobby, replaying the day's events and imagining how the story he was about to tell would sound if it were true.
"The lab, the doctor. Did you check his pulse or touch the body at all?" The detective inquired, leaning forward slightly to examine Mike's expression more closely. The name plate on her crisply pressed suit read 'L. Fondren.'
"Um, no. No, I've.. never seen anything like that before. I didn't know what to do." Mike's voice was low and he stared down at the ground, avoiding eye contact with the detective.
"Tell me exactly what you did after you found the doctor," the detective instructed, in a tone that was at once soothing and assertive. This wasn't her first investigation.
"Well, not much really. I just stood there staring at him, I don't know for how long. I puked. Then I ran," he replied, trying to maintain his timid demeanor.
"Look at me, please," ordered the detective, less soothing this time. Mike complied, meeting her gaze. Her piercing green eyes seemed distrustful of everything they observed.
"You're sure that's all you did?" she probed, hands on her hips.
Mike merely nodded. He desperately wanted to leave; the being in his apartment was slowly transitioning from a creature to his own child in his mind and he was sure she needed his attention.
"The address and phone number you gave the other officer, they are still valid?" asked the detective, jotting some notes down on a yellow pad. Mike responded with another nod.
"Good. this type of case is fairly routine, but we'll be exploring all possibilities. If we have any additional questions we'll contact you. Thanks for your cooperation," said the detective, somewhat mechanically. With that she turned and headed back in the direction of the lab.
The sun had nearly set by the time Dr. Singh's corpse was wheeled out of the building by the medical examiner's staff. Mike left shortly thereafter, obsessing over the way he handled the interview and hoping he didn't arouse any undue suspicion. He raced back home as fast as he could.
****
"I feel like we're missing something, sir," Detective Fondren lamented to her precinct commander as she paced back and forth in his small, lightly furnished office. "Aside from a very convenient suicide note, there's nothing else to indicate he was so distressed."
"This isn't your first rodeo, Lisa; you know that in some cases there are just no outward signs of trouble," answered the commander, following her steady pacing with his eyes.
"I know. But something just doesn't fit. I'd like to take a look at the doctor's files; personal and professional." She had stopped pacing and stood in front of the commander with her arms crossed. He shook his head slowly.
"We don't have the resources for that. This was a suicide Lisa, just another overworked research scientist who couldn't cope with the demands of his position," replied the commander in a placating tone.
"Let me do it on my own time," she answered quickly, "maybe I can get that IT guy to help me find the files. I'd bet he knows a lot more than he told us."
"If you want to chase this hunch on your own time, I can't stop you," said the commander with a shrug, "just don't use departmental resources or pursue it while you're on the clock."
"Thank you sir," she replied and walked out of his office.
"Mister Keene," she thought out loud as she reviewed her crime scene notes on the way to her vehicle, "the doctor called you for a reason, and I will find out why."
****
The next few days were a crash course in parenting for Mike. He developed a bond with this new roommate while feeding her, burping her, changing diapers and performing various other duties as if he were expecting to be a father and nothing was out of the ordinary.
One afternoon as his offspring was napping, he began to review some of the doctor's files. Some were indecipherable to anyone without expert knowledge of genetics, but others provided some much needed clues: the bottles contained ordinary baby formula, the baby was grown in an incubator which the doctor disposed of after she was 'born,' on August 3rd.
She was now one week old. Her maternal genetic material had come from a frozen snow leopard egg, plainly labeled 'Specimen S49.' The doctor had extracted Mike's own genetic material from a stray hair left behind during one of his many visits for computer maintenance.
If he were not so deeply involved, Mike would have found the entire scenario to be fascinating. But, being an integral part of the situation, he found himself feeling betrayed and violated. He was also growing increasingly fond of the product of this experiment.
As he was considering names for what he was now viewing as his own child, there was a loud knock on his apartment door.