Read Separation for Free Online Page B

be okay. We trust the FBI.”
    “Sort of,” muttered Harry as he walked over
to this computer and started to type out a message to the man in
charge.
     
    Morning couldn’t come soon enough. Leonardo
had been in a state of agitation most of the night, sniffing the
ground and every corner of the cabin and running from place to
place. Even when the clock struck one and Harry desperately wanted
to grab some shuteye, he couldn’t take the risk their new
acquaintance wouldn’t try his luck in the great outdoors.
    Additionally, Anastasia got sick. She ran in
twice during the night to use the bathroom, and the sounds of her
barfing made him think she was either heaving up a giant fur ball
or she’d caught a cold. The second time she exited the bathroom, he
stopped her advance. Leo had finally passed out, so no problem
there. “What’s going on? You catch a cold or something?”
    Anastasia groomed her hair with a few nervous
swipes. “I must have eaten something bad,” she said. “I couldn’t
keep anything down.” She glanced at the sleeping mole-man. “Do you
want me to keep watch?”
    “No, get some rest.”
    She gave him a peck on the cheek. “Good
idea,” she murmured, and walked into the bedroom.
    Now it was morning, and she sat at the table,
eating an entire roasted chicken, and washing it down with a diet
soda. She never seemed to gain weight, an enviable trait. Harry
tried not to yawn. Not sleeping didn’t help, but he had other
things to worry about than someone’s caloric intake.
    “I remember bad men coming,” Leonardo was
saying as he ravaged a loaf of bread. “I no remember where I was
first, but I see them coming to take me when I sleep. I wake up,
they hit me, and then I look like this. I am rat now.”
    “Actually, you’re more like a mole,” said
Anastasia as she finished stuffing her face and went over to guard
the door, her arms crossed over her chest. Her tone was not unkind.
“They turned me into something I’m not, and did worse to others.
I’m fine with what I am now, but we want to find out who did this
to you, and we need the help of the FBI.”
    Leonardo stopped eating and asked Harry, “The
bad men, they make you, too?”
    “Uh... no,” he replied. “My wife... some
other scientists transformed her. I chose to look like this.”
    A look of confusion painted the mole-man’s
furry face. “I no understand. Why do you want to be cat?”
    It wasn’t an easy question to answer on one
hand, but on the other hand, it was. Mortally wounded in a fight
against another transgenic, Harry had used a Genesis Chamber along
with a DNA cocktail and emerged in his current form. It was the
same DNA cocktail that had made Anastasia what she was. The
transformation had saved his life. You had to be grateful for some
things, and being alive counted for a lot. In fact, it counted for
everything.
    The trade off, though, was society not being
in acceptance mode. He always told himself things would get
better... but the memory of that rotten scumbag of a talk show host
intruded.
    “It’s complicated,” he started to say, but
decided to move the conversation in a different direction. “Look,
Leonardo, we have a chamber at FBI headquarters, and I need to run
some tests, but my plans are almost viable.”
    At least, he hoped they were. He’d been
racking his brain ever since discovering his mistake. He was close,
very close, to solving the problem, but needed more time and time
didn’t seem to want to cooperate.
    “What does viable mean?”
    “It means I think that I can change you
back.”
    A look of hope dawned on Leonardo’s face and
he put down the mostly eaten loaf. “You can do this?”
    “He can,” Anastasia affirmed from her
position. She came over to pat him on the head. “Now finish your
breakfast. And don’t worry.”
    The sound of a car horn alerted everyone to
the arrival of their ride. Leonardo jumped up, his nose twitching.
“We go now?”
    “Wait,” Harry cautioned. “I