It was something like Chinese take-out, on an alien world that had never heard of China, or dim sum. Still, it fit the bill, more or less. White, cardboard-like boxes, filled with a variety of things that had the textures of meat, or vegetables, or fish. Half a dozen bowls of sauce, arranged on the workbench on front of Gareth from sweet to hot, according to his palate. The Nari woman preferred things less salty, and the two Yuudixtl were looking for better umami. Whatever that was.
Gareth had a low-sided bowl in front of him, and had learned to snag a quick sample and eat it before pouring more out. So far, he was batting better than average for taste, as long as he didn’t ask what anything was.
He was quite confident he didn’t want to know.
The smells, however, kept him eating.
Talyarkinash sat directly across from him as she ate, watching him like a hawk. He couldn’t tell if she was still interested in him or fearful. Probably both, if her ears moved the same way a Terran cat’s did.
Morty was next to her. Xiomber was on this side. Both were face-down, shoveling in food as fast as they could chew. Gareth was actually tasting his food.
“What are the established capabilities of genetic engineering in the Accord of Souls?” Gareth finally asked the table, unsure who would answer.
All three took turns staring at each other, hoping someone else would go first. They had been that way all afternoon.
Gareth had decided it was finally time to wrestle with the eight-hundred-pound gorilla.
“What answers are you looking for, Gareth?” Talyarkinash finally asked,
“I realize the first question I want to ask is too open-ended,” he replied. “As you said earlier, the limits might be in our imagination and not in your science. Could you undo it later?”
“Undo it?” Morty asked. “Kid, we’re grappling with the need to maybe make you over into a god, for lack of a better term. The most powerful being since the Chaa left. You want to give that up?”
“Morty, you’re talking about making me something God never intended me to be,” Gareth said. “I get that. But if you can make me into a Vanir, could you reset me to a human later? Could you possibly undo what you did to Marc?”
“Crap, Gareth,” Xiomber joined in. “Nobody’s ever wanted to downgrade. This has always been about trying to work our way around the Chaa’s limits and not die in the process.”
“I’m not a god, Morty, Xiomber,” Gareth said. “I went to Sunday School when I was a kid, and there’s only one God.”
“First off, up until very recently, humans had lots of gods, kid,” Xiomber said with authority. “Some of your cultures still do, from what research I did when we went looking for Maximus. So maybe you need a better pantheon.”
“I need to know that we can undo it,” Gareth was firm. “I can settle for being a hero out here. That’s all I ever wanted to be. But making myself over into a monster just to fight Marc, makes me just as bad as him.”
“There are no humans in the Accord, Gareth,” the Lynx woman pointed out. “Maximus is a Vanir now, by both scope and genetics. He could breed true with a Vanir woman.”
“And if you also make me one, like you plan, you’ve forever taken away from me the only woman I’ve ever loved,” Gareth replied, trying to hold the heat and anger in, at least as much as possible.
“Who is she?” Talyarkinash asked carefully.
Gareth stewed for a moment and then reached for his wallet. The scent card was still there. But so was a picture he pulled out and handed to the woman criminal scientist.
“Philippa Adeline Loughty,” he said. “Pippa. A human woman I’ve been in love with for many years. I was just about to go see her and finally propose when someone opened an illegal, cataclysmically-dangerous, private wormhole and upended my entire life. If I’m a Vanir, we can never have kids. Never raise a family. Nothing. That’s what you’ll have taken away from me.”
“Gareth, you can never go back to Earth,” Morty said. “You know that.”
“You don’t know that, Morty,” Gareth anguished. “Like Xiomber said, maybe you’ll be able to completely wipe my memory, one of these days and just deposit me back at the Arsenal like nothing happened, except for a hole in my memory.”
“Would she wait for you? Talyarkinash asked.
“Yes,” Gareth stated categorically, thumping the tabletop with a finger. “She already has, because I wanted to wait all these long years until I made it to Field Agent. If she disappeared, I’d wait for her.”
“Wow,” the woman murmured.
The others fell silent. Gareth listened to his heart pound, sure they could hear it as well.
Gareth poured a cluster of purple things that looked like barbeque pork slices onto his plate and added a dollop of the yellow sauce from the middle. It wasn’t mustard, but that wasn’t pork, either.
He was eating ashes, either way.
“I have an idea,” the Nari said quietly. “I don’t know if it would work, but it might be worth a try. Gareth, what do you know about biomimetics?”
“I’m not even sure how to spell it, Talyarkinash.”
“It’s a study of natural creatures and how evolution has produced various biological solutions to mechanical needs that we can mimic, shaving off development time in prototyping and adapting things,” she tried to explain.
Gareth listened, but the words went over his head.
“Modifying spiders to make their webbing super strong so we can use it as thread. Or inserting useful vitamins directly into milk in the cow. That’s our cover here. The lab upstairs does a little work, but mostly it’s a front for money laundering and giving people new lives by modifying their face and genes to hide from cops.”
“Okay?” Gareth asked.
“I’m frightened with the raw potential that humans have for manipulation,” she said. “But also a little excited. We absolutely need to make you over into a Vanir just so you can hide in plain sight afterwards, but maybe we can limit the major modifications by using biomimetics as a basis.”
“Did any of that make any sense to you?” Gareth asked the two Yuudixtls.
“She’s talking about building you toys, Gareth,” Xiomber finally said. “Baking all the powerful enhancements into biologically-powered genetic systems that you could maybe undo later. Or at least turn off.”
“That true?” he turned back to the woman.
Excitement brought out the beauty in those tanzanite eyes. Brought it back, and pressed the underlying fear of a berserker loose in her lab to the back. Mostly.
Probably about as good as it was getting for now.
“More or less,” she said. “The possibilities are absolutely a blank page. I’m not even sure where I want to start. But I can turn you into a pseudo-god, with a little effort.”
“Dream bigger,” Gareth said.
Morty and Xiomber turned to him, jaws agape. Hers fell open a moment later.
Gareth just fixed them with a hard gaze.
“Whatever it is, you’re already thinking too small,” Gareth said.
He drew his inspiration from the two scientists across from him. Two criminals that were responsible for him being here, but were also going to give him the chance to stop Maximus and make it all right.
Two hard-headed Yuudixtl that reminded him of dreams from when he was a kid.
If he could not go home, he could still become a hero. He would just never allow them to make him a God. Mom and Dad wouldn’t stand for that level of arrogance from their oldest child. Pastor Jacob would cast him from the kirk. And rightly so.
“I’ve met Nari and Grace,” Gareth said. “Seen Vanir and Elohynn, Borren and Moisa, at least at a distance. Yuudixtl, however, give me an idea. I could look it up, but I’m pretty sure the Chaa didn’t do it, or the Yuudixtl would have turned out differently.”
“What are you babbling about, Gareth?” Morty sputtered.
“You’re going to make me over into a Vanir,” Gareth conceded. “I get that, since the only other choice I could see easily made would be an Elohynn, but I don’t want to have to deal with wings all the time, as cool as that might be, and every kid’s fantasy when they’re eight.”
Talyarkinash started to say something, but Gareth cut her off, even as rude as it was when a woman was talking.
“You’re building me tools?” he asked her, eyes boring in. “Weapons that I’ll need to fight Maximus and his gang? Going to make me a god, according to the old stories?”
She nodded, apparently breathless with anticipation.
Gareth shook his head firmly. Locked eyes with Xiomber first, and then Morty before returning to her.
“No,” he told her firmly. “I want you to make me a dragon.”