Flesh and Bones

[Fairchild]

Nagrebetskiy was sitting in his office, his feet on the desk. The rest of his research team had already left, after another well-spent day of working on Vergil. He leaned in and pressed the volume button a few times, letting a bit of music into the air. Nervously he fiddled a small, plastic die in his hand, clearly thinking hard about something. The professor ran his hand through his hair and looked at it. A few white hairs remained stuck to his fingers. He sighed and leaned back again.

He was getting old, evidently. The academic life on Cambridge was enjoyable while it lasted, but he never regretted leaving it and coming to Atka. When Gallia had invaded, the war had been on everyone's tongues, even on the scientists' who were supposed to remain independent whatever the cost. Bretonia didn't own the CRI, thank goodness, so he could probably have stayed and enjoyed the respect his students had for him, from time to time innervated by the rumours. But he packed his bags and left.

That was a long time ago. Now he was here. Without any major breakthroughs or publishings for three years. Long. Too long. Vergil was still a long way from completion, but was now at a stage that didn't require his full attention. He needed a distraction. He put his feet on the ground and fired up his console. A popup asked for authorisation as he navigated to Cryer archives.

The archives started decryping as he put in the password and a moment later he began browsing through all shelved projects, not looking for anything in particular. He noticed a few familiar names. Andy Blacker's project to create the most powerful painkiller known to mankind. "Project Braintrust", supposed to map a person's brain and upload it to a computer. He smiled under his nose, something that was extremely difficult with the technology of those times would be a breeze with Vergil. Early versions of AlderFluid, dropped because of the similarities to banned drugs in most of the Houses.

He scrolled further down, to the time before he even had been born. James Weyland's project of a cryosleep chamber, shelved because of patent infringements. Jozef Bram's genetic resequencing project, a later version of which was actually completed. Ken Tenma's human cloning project. Shelved, obviously because of ethic--

Nagrebetskiy looked closer. It wasn't ethical concerns, as anyone in the right mind would have immediately assumed. He read through the record in the "reason" column again and again. A few times.

"Inability to conduct the research project in zero-gravity conditions."

Intrigued, he opened the files. Still twiddling the die in his hand, he scrolled down to the last research log entry.

[Fairchild]

The following morning, Nagrebetskiy was sitting over a cup of GaiaBean behind the soundproof glass of his office. On the other side, the scientists and interns perfected the first batch of Vergil that would be implanted in the original line of human test cases. Something else than Vergil was occupying his mind though.

The thoughts of continuing Project Nisei were becoming more and more real. He had already studied Tenma's notes the previous night and he had found several inconsistencies and issues with their methods. Nikita was confident in his abilities and knowledge to actually finish up the project on his own.

He rubbed his chin. The main problem still remained - clones could not be grown in zero-G. And there was no suitable place for the project to be carried out. The research institutions funded by Wisp - the CRI and Mark Levy University of Denver - were almost impossible to do anything secretive in. CRI was pretty much owned by Cryer, however its placement at the very root of Cambridge Docking Ring and the overall crowds notoriously passing through every single building completely discarded the Bretonian university as a viable option. Levy on the other hand seemed like an appropriate place, but Nagrebetskiy just couldn't get himself to trust Liberty. Almost every corporate facility, public place or university was bugged by Ageira in one way or another.

So none of those were an option. But he remembered something. There were plans of funding another research institution in Kusari. Those plans were still just that - plans, but Nagrebetskiy began thinking what he could do to speed it up.

He opened the models of Kusarian planets on his holographic display - New Tokyo, Kyushu, Junyo, Honshu and Tomioka. He immediately discarded Tomioka and Junyo - planets that were owned by corporations weren't secure enough. Besides, Tomioka was politically unstable and Junyo had no actual landmasses. That left three. With a quick hand wave he discarded Kyushu as well - again, the political tensions. That only left out New Tokyo and Honshu.

After examining both of the models a bit more carefully, he noticed one particular island on Honshu that seemed to be almost unincorporated. It had just a bit of civilian population and was far enough away from any bigger cities. He expected the Kusari government to be eager to lease or even sell the land under the premise of "educational goals".

He evaluated what he had learned and after a while of consideration he sent in a memo through to the Board about his findings.