Eileen stumbled sideways, grabbing onto one of the sturdy wooden posts holding up the roof of the stable. Her stomach rumbled. “Karen — please — I don’t feel so good — ”
Karen stared in horror. Eileen’s body was visibly shaking, her face beet-red, and her skin was starting to crawl and bubble as if underneath was boiling liquid. Her pants and shirt had gotten tighter around her body, and it seemed like her shoes didn’t fit right.
“Oh man oh man shit shit shit shit — ” Karen paced back and forth across the room, trying to think of an answer. This was a mess. The proto-SPLICR hadn’t been designed to be consumed by anyone, much less a human. If she couldn’t think of a solution fast, there was no way of telling what would happen to her boss. The retrovirus had been designed to be semi-intelligent, and was likely doing its best to try to make sure its host’s genetics and epigenetics both matched its internal models, but they were so different from Eileen’s that its embedded AI was probably just wildly grasping at straws right now. Actually, check that: Only half of its internal models even existed, so it was probably just flailing.
“Karen — !” Eileen was holding onto the post for dear life, trying not to fall. She groaned, and Karen heard the loud sound of a bone cracking. Eileen whimpered in pain.
Screw it. She had to do something. If nothing else, she had to stabilize the SPLICR or Eileen not only wouldn’t be human much longer, she would likely just be a blob of protoplasm in a few minutes. Karen darted over to Eileen. “I’m sorry!” she cried, and grabbed several hairs on Eileen’s head and yanked them out.
“Wha — ” Eileen could barely even form words. “What did — why did — ”
“Hair follicle,” said Karen, flying back to the genetic sampler. “Likely to be the least-damaged of your DNA. It’s far enough from your bloodstream that SPLICR likely hasn’t done much to it yet. I’m going to add some other human samples, and hopefully that’ll be enough to stabilize it. Hold on!”
Eileen could do little but hold on. She felt her body starting to twist and torque, and she groaned at the sudden pop of a new bone growing into her spinal column.
Karen tapped madly at the computer. She didn’t have the time to try to fix this right, or to run simulations, or anything. Just jam some of the existing human samples together, a little of her own, whatever was salvageable from Eileen’s, some of the girls at the office whose hairbrushes Karen had raided a few weeks ago — and hope that SPLICR would have enough to work with to keep Eileen from being irreparably damaged. Or killed.
The centrifuge spun up, and a bright red sample poured into it. The clock was ticking, and Eileen’s body horror show was getting worse and worse. Karen didn’t have the time to wait for the best samples to filter out. She slammed the STOP button with her fist, yanked one of the samples free, and drew it into a syringe, trying not to let her hands shake.
She raced over to Eileen, jammed the syringe into her leg right through the torn cloth of her business suit, and thrust the plunger, driving the second half of whatever concoction she’d made into Eileen. Eileen cried out in pain, whimpering, and Karen took a step back, and another.
Karen took a deep breath. She had no idea what was going to happen, other than that SPLICR would stabilize Eileen somehow. But what it would do? That was anyone’s guess.