CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Zig pushed the new plant into the soil and watched as Ginny patted the earth around it.

‘That’s great, Gin! You’re getting good at this. Will your mum be cross with you for getting dirty again?’

‘Daddy is picking me up today. I’m staying with him until Sunday afternoon,’ the young girl said, brushing the mud off her T-shirt with an even muddier hand. ‘He doesn’t mind. He’ll be too busy talking to Hugo about bone structure and other important Lab things to even notice. I wish you would come to Daddy’s house again sometimes. You’re more fun than they are!’

Zig smiled. ‘Me and your dad don’t really get on. Anyway, I thought you were interested in those things, too. Are you still doing your research on the brain?’

Ginny smiled. ‘Yes! Celia was really impressed with my 3D images. I’ve scanned my mum’s brain and mine, that’s a Non-Lab and a Hybrid, and next I’m going to scan a Lab. I’m going to ask Celia if I can scan hers when I see her today. Then I want to scan the same types, but male. And compare the differences.’

‘That sounds really interesting, Gin. You’ll have to tell me the differences between them all,’ Zig told her. ‘You’re so clever!’

‘With brains, but not with plants,’ she replied, as Zig leaned over to help her rearrange a lopsided beanstalk.

The next morning, Ginny carefully resized the image on the computer and rotated it. She opened the tool menu and selected a colour. She colour-coded the new image to match the three other images she had in the file. Then she typed up notes comparing the different sizes of different lobes in each example.

‘Hey, is that me?’ Celia asked, coming to stand behind her.

‘No, that’s Mum. This is you,’ she replied bringing up another image. ‘Your frontal lobes are 3% smaller than my mum’s and 20% larger than mine. The frontal lobes are linked with behaviour; they can take 20 to 25 years to reach maturity.’

Celia pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. ‘This looks really interesting, Ginny.’

Hugo glanced at the screen as he walked past and stopped.

‘Who do the images belong to, Ginny?’

She explained who she had chosen as her examples of Non-Lab, Hybrid, and Lab.

‘Hey, could you scan my brain image in too?’ he asked excitedly.

Soon they were all peering at the images on the screen.

‘My frontal lobe development is only 13% below yours, Celia!’ Hugo grinned. ‘And my hippocampus is almost on a par with your mother’s, Ginny. How does yours compare? Oh, 75% of mine. That shows how quickly we develop long term memory and spatial navigation ahead of Non-Labs!’

‘It would be great if you could compare the brain image of a young Non-Lab of your age with your own development. I know the Compound scientists have information on this,’ Celia added.

‘The bigger the database you have the more useful the information will be to us, Ginny,’ Hugo continued. ‘Do you think I could have a copy of this, please?’

‘Of course you can have a copy, and any new stuff I come up with, too!’ Ginny beamed with pleasure. ‘I wonder if Daddy wants to see my research.’

Some time later Celia looked at the clock. ‘I’d better get back to the Compound. Do you want a lift home, Hugo?’

‘Yes please, Celia,’ he replied. ‘Here, I’ll back this data up, Ginny. You go and help your dad pack up.’

Ginny jumped up from her chair and headed off to find her father. ‘I wonder if he wants to watch the new James Bond again?’

Hugo backed up the data onto a memory stick for Celia, and then quickly repeated the procedure with his own stick.

‘That was an interesting day’s work,’ Celia remarked to Ginny and Hugo as they headed for the main door of the building. She stopped. ‘Oh, I’ve left a folder in the kitchen. Here are the keys, wait for me in the car.’

She emerged a few minutes later and was startled to hear the crunch of gravel as the car drew up by the front door with Hugo grinning at the wheel.

‘You can drive!’ Ginny exclaimed. ‘You must teach me how to do it!’

‘When you’re bigger,’ Hugo smiled as he slid into the passenger seat.

‘Who taught you?’ Celia asked him.

He shrugged. ‘No one; I just watched you, my mum, other people drive. There’s not much to it really, is there?’

She smiled as she slipped into the driver’s seat. ‘You surprise me every day!’

Over the next few nights Hugo examined the images copied from Ginny in great detail on his laptop at home. He carefully studied each female Lab and noted that Celia’s development in most areas was higher than other female Labs. He typed up notes and comments on each of her strengths. A selection of female Hybrids had results even higher than those of Celia. The data he collected on male Labs and Hybrids repeated this pattern. He smiled as he noticed his own results were well above any of the others and then tapped his lip impatiently. How could he persuade Takir and the Radical team to accept that he was the ideal candidate as donor for a future perfect being? There had to be a way!