Freak of Nature.

Julia Crane.

Kaitlyn, Quess and Christine, you know who you are! Thanks for all your support.

Chapter 1.

Kaitlyn turned a corner and caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror. Seventeen years old. Long dark hair, grey eyes. At least her face hadn't been marred by the accident, or the upgrades since.

The rest of her body had not been so lucky.

Half-human, half-machine. She didn't quite fit into either world. I'm an abomination, she thought, her shoulders slumping. She tore her eyes away from her reflection in the mirror and continued to trudge down the stark hallway.

The only sound was the squeaking of her sneakers on the tiles. Everythinga"the walls, the cold tiles underfoot, even the trash cansa"was sterile and white. If she never saw a white wall again, it would be too soon. The harsh lighting of the corridor often reminded her of a different bright light, the one that had ended her human life and began this stage of a existence, if it could be called that.

After they brought her back from the brink of death, the IFICS staff told her she should be grateful. But they didn't know what it was like being prodded and probed, having no future and no past. If only she hadn't checked the "donate body to science" option on her driver's license, then she wouldn't have been in this situation. Although, if it weren't for IFICSa"she still didn't know what the acronym stood fora"she would probably be dead. Sometimes, she wondered which was worse.

At least she no longer needed an escort to get to the treatment room. That had been annoying, considering they'd replaced a section of her brain with a computer that learned far faster than any human's. In the early days while her new body acclimated with the machinery, her weakness made it necessary for her to rely on them for everything. It had humiliated her.

Footsteps echoed in the distance behind her. Her sensors kicked in, a.n.a.lyzing the sound of the steps and the length of the stride. She knew who it was before she heard his voice, and she waited for his familiar greeting.

"Kaitlyn." Lucas greeted her the same way he did every morning.

"Lucas."

If she still had a real heart, it surely would have skipped a beat or two. Lucas was the only thing in her crazy world that made getting out of bed worthwhile. He made her feel when the Professor and his team said it wasn't possible. At least, she thought it was feelings, and not just electrical charges pulsing through her system. But isn't that what happens in the human body, anyway? Kaitlyn reminded herself. Human emotions and reactions were nothing more than synapses firing, telling the brain what to do. For Kaitlyn, though, they weren't as strong anymorea"the ghosts of feelings, just beyond her reach. But she knew they were there, and she knew she had them for Lucasa"good feelings.

She fell into step beside him in the white corridor without another word. A part of her longed to connect with him, but fear kept her quiet. She had overheard enough to know if it became known that she still had thoughts and feelings of her own, they would quickly be erased. Her only friend, Quess, had confirmed it. She guarded what was left of her mind too much to give it away, even if Lucas did make her body hum.

With a look to her left, Kaitlyn took in his beautiful profile. She could stare at his full sensual lips and strong jawbone for hours. He walked with a relaxed gait, his wrinkled white scrubs swishing in the relative stillness of the hallway. His muscular frame had lifted her off the floor more than once during the early days of the treatments, when she was trying to adjust to her new body. His unruly dark hair curled at the nape of his necka"she noticed he was in need of a haircut. She had an overwhelming, illogical urge to reach out and brush his hair out of his eye.

What would it feel like to have his big, steady hands trail down her body? His lips on her neck? If she no longer felt pain, could she feel pleasure? Her mind was always trying to make sense of the madness that raced through it.

Appalled at the too-human thoughts, Kaitlyn tore her eyes from his face and clasped her hands together in front of her.

Their relationship was clinical: she knew Lucas saw her as only an experiment and nothing more. He would probably be repulsed if he knew the thoughts that ran through her head when he was near. Even worsea"what if he decided to reprogram her? Her only friend, Quess, had warned her to keep her thoughts to herself. The company wanted a robot, not a confused half-breed. She couldn't risk them taking away anything more from her. Not even for Lucas.

The large double doors loomed ahead. She wondered absently what they had in store for her today. She'd long since accepted that her new existence meant she was a science project. Knowing what happened behind those doors didn't fill her with loathing and terror like it would a real human. It would if she still had the flight or fight response, but her sensors overrode any sign of acute stress immediately.

Maybe what she felt for Lucas was nothing more than a short circuit. She glanced at him as he opened one of the doors. A persistent, spreading short circuit.

As soon as they walked through the door, Professor Adams pushed back his chair from his desk and stood, knocking a file onto the floor. His wiry gray hair was disheveled as usual, and his small, round gla.s.ses were perched crookedly on the end of his bulbous nose.

Kaitlyn's sensors activated. The green screen in her right eye kicked into gear and the bulls-eye dot centered on Professor Adams. There was the usual ticking sound in her ear but in less than a second it stopped, and she had his diagnostics: Unarmed. Physically out of shape. Not a threat.

No one else was in the room; if so, her heat sensors would've warned her. There was just the hum of the computers and the distant whir of the lab refrigerator.

"Lucas, we've upgraded Kaitlyn's microprocessor again, so I want you to compare her scans to last week," he said, as if she wasn't even there. Glancing over the top of his gla.s.ses, Professor Adams handed the clipboard to Lucas.

He flipped through the pages, and then nodded at Adams. "No problem."

Kaitlyn stood completely still but fought the sudden urge to roll her eyes. She wasn't sure why she would want to roll her eyes. The movement held no meaning; the very idea made no sense to her, though some part of her felt like it should. Maybe an old habit from her previous life?

She made a mental note to ask Quess later. She helped fill in the gaps that Kaitlyn often experienced.

"Kaitlyn." Lucas's sky blue eyes met hers briefly, then flickered away just as fast. The look made the pace of her breathing quicken, despite the mechanisms that regulated her body functions. "Please, sit down so I can attach the monitors."

Wordlessly, Kaitlyn walked over to the stainless steel table and sat down on the white plastic chair with her back to Lucas. She stared straight ahead at the large double sink, sitting as still as a statue and willed herself not to react to his touch. They wanted a robot, so that was what she gave them.

For now.

Lucas pulled the tape off the back of the electrode and softly pressed the round pad to her temple. He was so close she could smell his aftershave: a mixture of sandalwood and cedar with a hint of rosemary. Scanning, she a.n.a.lyzed the scents, and a list of potential brands flooded her mind.

Her body tensed as Lucas reached around her to press the other pad to her left temple. For an instant, the nearness of his warm body and his arm around her made it hard to breathe. Why did he alone have this effect on her?

Finished placing the electrodes and completely unaffected by their encounter, Lucas turned on his heel and switched the machine on.

A pulse of current invaded Kaitlyn's brain, and she straightened up in her seat. It wasn't painful; it was more of an annoyance. Like a slight buzz between her temples. Maybe even a tickle. She found it somewhat interesting that the test never picked up on her body's awareness of Lucas. Obviously, the computers didn't know everything.

She sat still as the test ran. Lucas scribbled notes on his clipboard, his face lit by the blue screen of the computer.

The door to the lab swung open, and a nurse walked in with short, brisk steps. Her long brown hair was pulled up into a ponytail today. It made her look younger. Kaitlyn had seen this woman every morning for the last eighty-nine days, but they never spoke. The nurse barely looked at her. Kaitlyn didn't even know her name. Quess told her that the staff was forbidden to interact with her unless it was necessary for testing.

"Almost done." Lucas spoke to the nurse who waited off to the side, clutching her little basket filled with vials. A smile lit the pretty woman's face, and her cheeks turned bright pink. Lucas seemed oblivious to the affect he had on women.

A couple of minutes later, Lucas pulled the pads off Kaitlyn's head and clicked the machine off. There was no touching this timea"thankfully.

The nurse swabbed Kaitlyn's arm with a cotton ball that reeked of strong alcohol, careful to only touch the skin. Two shots were administered, and then her blood was drawn.

Kaitlyn felt nothing. A computer chip implanted in her brain overrode the nerves that told her she was experiencing pain.

Sometimes when she was locked in her room alone, she wondered what pain felt like. She couldn't remember. They a.s.sured her it was a good thing that she couldn't recall her past life, or the accident that had brought her there. Easy for them to say. It wasn't their lives that were ripped away from them.

Once in a while, Kaitlyn had flashes of memories, sitting behind a piano, running in the woods, or floating in the water. She was always alone, but it was like watching someone else. She felt no more of a connection to those memories than she did to the plots of movies. Whatever life she had before was gone.

"Kaitlyn, I need you to come over here." Lucas's voice filled the room.

She didn't tell the staff about the memories for fear that they would have them removed, just like she didn't tell Lucas that he alone made her feel human.

Without a thought, Kaitlyn rose to her feet and walked towards Lucas, who stood beside the treadmill. The machine part of her obeyed before she had time to consciously acknowledge his command.

She stepped onto the treadmill and waited as he adjusted the settings.

"You know the drill." He stepped back, writing on his ever present clipboard.

Kaitlyn settled into a steady rhythm, the sensation of her sneakers pounding on the rubber, relaxing. There was nothing to look at but lab equipmenta"wallboards covered in scrawled numbers, cabinets full-to-bursting with gadgets and notebooks. She watched the blinking red numbers of the treadmill slowly rise.

"I'm going to increase the speed," Lucas told her, his hand blocking the numbers as he hit the *up' arrow. "If you need me to stop, yell."

Kaitlyn nodded, so he knew she comprehended. It was annoying, the way they talked to her like she was an idiot when they were the ones who put a computer in her brain. Although, she never gave them a reason to do otherwise.

She let her mind wander as they tried to push her to failure.

As she ran faster and faster, arms swinging, she thought of how they could take her heart and her memories, but a small part of her mind was still her own. Something they failed to calculate into their little experiments. All they discussed was her potential: how they could use her to their advantage. The logical side of her knew they'd never talk like that around her if they for one minute thought she could still think for herself.

It would have made her sick to her stomach. Only she couldn't get sick. Her stomach was now nothing but t.i.tanium gears and who knew what else.

No one asked her opinion after the accident, when her body wasn't salvageable and on the brink of death. Apparently, she'd opted to donate her body to science, though in hindsight, she couldn't imagine why. IFICS had seen an opportunity, and they had taken it. Now Kaitlyn was left to pay the price for their greed. Over and over again.

"Sir, it's reached maximum capacity," Lucas said, clearly impressed.

"Very good." A grin spread across Professor Adams's face. "She continues to exceed expectations. Soon, she will be ready. Dr. Harrington will be pleased with the news."

Chapter Two.

Kaitlyn heard Quess plodding down the hall before she unlocked the door, and turned the doork.n.o.b. The poor girl had to spend her summers with her grandparentsa"Professor Adams and his wife. As punishment for some act of teenage belligerence, Quess had to clean this wing of the compound, which included Kaitlyn's room. Not that she minded, because it gave her more time with Quess.

Kaitlyn clicked off the television and leaned back on her pillow, her legs crossed in front of her at the ankles. She had already seen the movie Munich several times. She really enjoyed the movie, but welcomed the interruption. Recently, Professor Adams had a TV installed at Lucas's request. He thought she could learn about human interaction through watching movies. For some reason reality shows and the news were off-limits,which made no sense. Wouldn't she learn more from a reality show than make believe?

She peeked her head around the door. "Ms. Kaitlyn, may I come in?"

"Yes." The blinking red light in the corner of the room was an ever-present reminder that her room was monitored, so she had to watch what she said and did. That usually wasn't much, anyway. To say her life was monotonous was an understatement.

Quess dropped her bucket down on the floor, breaking the silence, and pulled out an old rag. She started dusting around Kaitlyn's rooma"not that there was much dust. The room was spa.r.s.e. Kaitlyn watched as Quess's small pale hand efficiently wiped down the white dresser, and then moved over to the windowsill. Her unruly copper hair looked like fire in the sunlight.

Neither spoke a word. Kaitlyn wondered if the way she stareda"robotic, silent, almost as if she were a statuea"bothered Quess. Kaitlyn could sit for hours on end, unblinking and with nothing to do but stare at the four walls around her. But Quess never complained.

After Quess finished dry mopping the tile floor, she turned and looked at Kaitlyn with a mischievous glint in her hazel eyes. "Ms. Kaitlyn, would you like to walk the grounds with me? Grandpa Adams suggested you might want some fresh air."

Walking the grounds was Kaitlyn's favorite thing to do, but she kept her face stoic. She didn't want to show any emotions to the camera. They've already taken so much from her she wouldn't allow them to take anything more. "If Professor Adams thinks I need fresh air, then I will go."

"I thought you might." Quess picked up her bucket and waited for Kaitlyn to follow.

Anything to get out of this white, stuffy little room and away from the endless testing, Kaitlyn thought. She gracefully stood from her bed, smoothed down the front of her dress, and followed behind the young girl.

She remained silent throughout the maze of hallways, past the dark, quiet labs and the even darker cafeteria. Cameras were everywhere: posted in high, shadowed corners, hidden behind black-gla.s.s windows. Kaitlyn lived her entire new lifea"or half-life, as it werea"under scrutiny, like the science experiment she was. Except on the rare occasion she went out with Quess. Even then they didn't have much privacy.

They stopped by the supply closet and stowed Quess's bucket before Kaitlyn pushed through the heavy metal door that led outside into the afternoon sunshine. The cool air against her skin was a nice sensation. Being locked away made her appreciate the little things.

Where the lab and dorm were sterile and white, outside was a mini paradise. Kaitlyn believed the compound was remote, being surrounded on all sides by thick forest and absent of any sounds beyond that of nature. A glance towards the distant front gatea"hung with barbed wire and electronically lockeda"showed it was being patrolled by its usual armed guards.

Scanning the area, she was relieved to see the courtyard was empty as they made their way down the stone path flanked by dogwood trees leading to the woods. Sometimes staff members would sit at the picnic tables for lunch or dinner, or gather around the back door for a smoke break. Kaitlyn always felt awkward on the rare occasion she crossed paths with staff members who were not a.s.signed to her. They either gawked at her like she was a freak or avoided eye contact completely.

Kaitlyn watched with curiosity as Quess spread her arms wide and twirled around laughing. Her head tilted up towards the sun.

"It's so beautiful." Quess gave one more twirl and linked her pale, skinny arm through Kaitlyn's.

Kaitlyn found human contact very strange. She could feel the warmth from Quess's touch, but she didn't understand why the girl would want to touch her. It made her uncomfortable.

She looked straight ahead and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. With her heightened sense of perception, she could hear wild life scurrying in the distance. A mother deer and her baby were grazing on the open field four hundred and twenty-two meters to their left. A persistent Pileated Woodp.e.c.k.e.r tapped away at a tree. Only a few feet away a squirrel jumped from one branch to another.

Once they pa.s.sed the large birch treea"their normal point of safety from prying eyesa"Kaitlyn looked at Quess and smiled dropping the mask she usually wore. There were only heat sensor cameras beyond this point in case anyone tried to break into the secure facility. The heat sensors made it possible for the guards to make the distinction between humans and animals.

"What did they do to you today?" Quess asked, her pretty freckled face tilted up to meet Kaitlyn's eyes.

Ever since Quess had warned her not to show any emotion around the staff, she'd considered the girl a companion. Kaitlyn shrugged. "Nothing interesting. More testing and physical activity." She remembered her stray thought about the *rolling of eyes' and added, "But I do have a question for you."

"Sure." Quess slowed her pace.

"Quess, what does it mean for me to *roll my eyes'? The phrase crossed my mind today at the oddest time. I felt like I should know what it meant, but I couldn't figure it out."

The young girl giggled. "It's so funny when you ask such strange questions. How can you remember you should wear pants, but not what rolling your eyes means?"

Kaitlyn sighed. "I wish I knew. My mind is a mess. I seem to only know what they want me to know. It's very frustrating."

"Well, that's where I can help out." Quess touched Kaitlyn's shoulder, a brief show of solidarity, or maybe, sympathy. "Rolling your eyes is just a saying. Well, really it's an action. Like if you think something is ridiculous, you roll your eyes. Watch." Quess came to a stop. She demonstrated, her hazel eyes making a full circle.

Kaitlyn thought about it for a moment, her mind categorizing not only the verbal definition but the visual. She grasped the meaning, but she couldn't understand why *rolling of the eyes' had anything to do with it. She didn't bother to press the girl any further.

Who knew? A lot of sayings didn't make any sense to her logical, mechanical mind.

One time, Kaitlyn heard the professor say it was *raining cats and dogs'. When she was relieved from the laboratory, she had rushed back to her room to look out the window. She wanted to see the animals falling from the sky, but there was nothing but a lot of rain.

Another time, she heard the Professor's wife tell him that he was *going to h.e.l.l in a hand basket,' because of his latest experiment. Even Quess didn't get the logic of that statement. The going to h.e.l.l part made sense, but why in a hand basket? There were many mysteries in the english language.

"How much longer will you be here? Don't you start school soon?" Kaitlyn asked quietly. She hated the thought of being alone, and once Quess was gone, she really would be alone. No one else talked to her like she was a real person, like she was a human being. She was a machine to them. Just an experiment, with a more human-sounding project name than most.

"I'm staying here for school this year," Quess said. "Boarding school didn't agree with me."

Relief flooded Kaitlyn. She had been surprised that they would even let Quess near her, what with Kaitlyn's very existence being *top secret.' Quess had explained that the professor and his team had used hypnosis on her; she would forget Kaitlyn whenever she stepped foot off the compound.

They'd thought of everythinga.