“Obviously, the animal’s condition will result in death—a slow and, I’m sure, a painful one. You alone can end its suffering. You know this, and so do I. These games will avail you nothing. Trying to hide your ability is senseless and futile. Now do as you’ve been told.”

Just then a long, wailing scream echoed from somewhere outside the room. The voice rose to a pitch, then came to a sudden, abrupt halt. Silence followed.

“I won’t,” the girl replied.

“That wasn’t a request. It was an order, and failure to execute that order will have dire consequences. Do it, child. I am growing weary, so do it now.” The lieutenant’s thinly veiled anger was beginning to surface. He stopped pacing once again.

“No.”

The lieutenant’s left eyebrow twitched. He took a deep breath, then said. “One last time—”

“No! I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!”

Circling behind the table, the lieutenant drew his weapon—a standard-issue repeating—and lowered it to the kitten’s head.

He spoke in a calm voice. “End the animal’s life, or I’ll do it for you.”

A fresh tear fell from the girl’s right eye. The lieutenant felt the pistol in his hand waver slightly—or was that his imagination?

“I said no. If you don’t know what that means, then go ahead and shoot.”

The lieutenant smiled. This was going to be fun indeed.

“I’m afraid that won’t do, little one, won’t do at all. No easy way out for you, child.”

The lieutenant lowered his weapon.

“We’re through for today.”

Behind the little girl, a door opened silently. Stepping down, the child glanced briefly at the kitten and wiped her cheek before leaving the room.

Lieutenant Rumm stood motionless, hands clasped behind his back. A skittish man dressed in white stepped into the room. The lieutenant glanced briefly in the tech’s direction.

“Shall we recommend employing a neuro-adjuster?”

“Not yet.” The lieutenant wanted to save that unpleasantness until last. He knew that allowing an adjuster to meddle in the girl’s brain could kill the patient. The science, after all, was not yet exact…and their methods were questionable, to say the least.

“Perhaps they’re wrong about her,” said the tech.

“I doubt that,” the lieutenant replied. Still, he wasn’t sure. The proof would come, however; it would come later that evening, as the lieutenant went about the nightly routine of polishing his boots, ironing his uniform, and cleaning his weapon…for he would find that the triggering mechanism of his standard-issue repeating pistol had been melted to a lump.

AMANDA LAY curled in a fetal position in the corner of her cell. She had stopped concentrating on the lock three nights ago, but not because she had given up. She had simply come to the conclusion that if she could save her strength, somehow ferret away a reserve of her energies, the perhaps—just perhaps—she would have enough in store for one small, final attempt at freedom. But the timing would have to be just right.

Last night she heard the sound she had dreaded would come—the crackling, electrical sound of the access door in the room next to hers phasing open. She heard muffled cries, pleading, and a brief struggle. Oh, my God, Henderson, they’re taking Henderson, she had thought to herself. Just a few hours ago, the lights in her cell had dimmed and flickered ominously once again.

You’re next, said the voice within her. She told the voice to shut up. It was the voice of weakness, and she refused to listen. Not while she still drew breath. She had seen her share of hard times, of turmoil and tribulation, but she had persevered through the worst of it. She would find a way out of this, or die trying.

Amanda hugged her arms close and lay in the darkness of the cell, waiting.

THE QUEEN was disappointed.

The slobbering, insensate monstrosity before her was a useless failure. How long would this take? Soon they would run out of subjects, although it would be a small matter to procure more. Still, the lack of progress, the lack of activity, annoyed her. She would much rather be engaged in some desperate battle on foreign soil than babysitting lab rats on this derelict platform.

She reminded herself of the possibilities, of the potential that lay in the experiments.

The metamorphosis had taken only two days in the latest of the experiments—far shorter than the Queen’s own gestation period had been. But, thus far, they had been unable to duplicate the result of her change. The Queen’s situation had been unique, resulting in a being who retained the mental faculties and psychic abilities particular to specific humans, while at the same time inheriting Zerg traits of regeneration and near invulnerability—in short, a perfect creation.

The Queen knew it would be impossible to reconstruct such a magnificent being as she. But if they could just come close….The Zerg had long been fascinated by the human psychic potential, and coveted it; coveted it in the way a land-bound organism might look to a winged creature and covet flight.

So far, all attempts had ended in failure. The human subjects, after the transformation, would awaken brain-dead and invalid—horribly malformed anomalies like the one before her now. Each time, however, adjustments in the formula were made; each time she felt they were getting closer.

The voice of the Cerebrate coursed once more through her mind: Refinements complete. Incompatibility with subjects possessing subordinate gene pattern. Ramifications of gene pattern/formula codependence are currently being assessed.

Interesting, thought the Queen. Perhaps some progress was being made after all.

She scanned the monitor bank, her eyes falling on the monitor displaying the cell of the next candidate. It was the young woman. The girl had hardly moved in the past three days. Perhaps she had given up after all; perhaps she wasn’t as strong as the Queen had thought.

She had telepathically called one of the workers from below. The aberrant creature stepped forth out of the shadows. It was a mutated, almost reptilian being that at one time may have been a human. The worker did not meet the Queen’s penetrating gaze.

“Bring out the young female subject,” she said. “Her time has come.”

THE TUMOR on the kitten’s neck had now grown to three times its original size. The rise and fall of the animal’s rib cage as it breathed was almost indiscernible.

Sarah sat staring at the kitten through bleary eyes. Lieutenant Rumm smiled. Somewhere outside the room, a patient shrieked unintelligibly.

Lieutenant Rumm reached into his pocket, withdrawing a fused clump of metal. He threw the mass onto the table, where it landed with a heavy thud.

“Do you know what this is?”

No answer.

“It used to be a trigger assembly. The trigger assembly to my weapon, to be exact. The possibility of this happening without outside interference—such as a plutonium leak, let’s say—is about a  thousand to one. I brought this matter before my superiors, but the trigger mechanism itself wasn’t enough to convince them. They require incontrovertible evidence. And so our game continues.”

The lieutenant began pacing. Sarah thought it was a wonder that he had not yet worn a permanent rut in the floor.

“I am convinced beyond a doubt that ability was the cause of this. You used it to neutralize my weapon, yet refuse to use it on the tumor. Why?”

Silence.

“I have my own theories, of course. I believe you refuse to channel your ability into any thing organic because of what you did to your mother.”

At this Sarah looked up, her eyes suddenly very wide.

“What did she do, child, send you to bed without supper? Chastise you? Yell at you?”

Number 24 looked down slightly.

“Ah, she yelled at you. And so you used your ability to try and make her stop. And what happened next, hmm?”