Grendel remembers...<br/><br/>The Driftwood cluster, named after a beach on Garn, showed concern and eagerness on all of its component's faces.  The cluster was spread all over the planet and was present at least on monitor screens if not physically present in the clinic.<br/><br/>The technician read the request forms one more time to be sure and then spoke.<strong>"So as to be sure, you wish this child to be constructed by seperate chromosones from each of you, psychic potential boosted and a gender of..." </strong>he looked at a reference screen<strong>"...<em>gethen</em>."<br/></strong><br/>All the faces of the cluster nodded, a few more quickly than the others.<br/><strong><br/>"It is quite possible.  But <em>youall </em>(the tech had to remember the correct pronoun for the cluster) must understand, this procedure is not condoned in the greater Imperium.  Should this become a later problem, we won't have any records of this dreamchild."</strong><br/><br/>They still nodded.  The tech kept his thoughts to himself.  If stupid people in groups, even clusters, wanted to destroy their lives and spend credits doing it, he might as well get his share.<br/><strong><br/>"Let's get started.  I'm afraid it is cash only, you understand."</strong><br/><br/>-----------------------------------------<br/><br/>Some of the secretive souls running their little off-X-route lab wondered why the Imperium never quite found out about their 'human improvement' clinic.  The truth was known outright by a few, suspected by a few more and unguessed by most of the staff.  It was much easier for Imperial Intelligence to allow a illegal black lab to be unnoticed rather than start one of their own.  It also allowed for plausible deniability later.<br/><br/>The child known as Chraenta was flagged for later observation.  It was impossible to tell how psychically strong a newborn was.  The teenage Chraenta would be tagged, and bagged if necessary, later.<br/><br/>-----------------------------------------<br/><strong><br/>"OK, team, we start with talking and go from there."</strong>The non-descript group of people watched out for their quarry, a sullen and androgynous adolescent.  They quickly checked the discreet stunners and hypodermics they had on their persons.<br/><br/><strong>"Wait."</strong>said one of the agents, listening to their internal commlink.<strong>"New info.  The kid's not psychic enough.  The original rating was in error."</strong>The group grumbled, Control had screwed up again.  But there would others for Aura.  They walked past young Grendel, no longer giving them a second thought.<br/><br/>Their first thoughts were enough.  Now believing Grendel to be a null-skull like most of Humanti, the hunters hadn't bothered to guard their minds or activate their battery-draining mind shields.  Grendel saw in their minds how they initially rated in their tests, how it was nigh-impossible for the tests to be that wrong about Grendel.  It could only be that someone had edited that correct record and falsified it.  They had hid their shock at realizing they were now<em>hunted</em>.<br/><br/>But was their mysterious benefactor a friend or someone who just wanted a pet psychic for themselves? Grendel had to find out for their own safety.<br/>