<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 10pt;"><strong> Please read the OOC Thread before posting (and put all OOC and chargen info there) (http://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=63682.0)</strong></span><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><div align="center">_____________________________________________</div><br/><br/><em>People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.   </em><br/>~Iris Murdoch<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>2175 AD <br/>GenCorp Executive Tower </strong><br/><br/><br/>Peter set his briefcase down on the hallstand and paused to appreciate the afternoon light that lent his white-on-white decor an almost sanctified air. The apartment was warm. Too warm. He hurried toward the biotank in which Sverta lay limply, sunk deep in her fluid, her tubes and filaments rustling. The day had turned unseasonably hot, and it wasn’t as though she had the freedom to shift out of the sun’s glare. He frowned and closed the drapes.<br/><br/>“Got stuck in a Board meeting.”<br/><br/>Kneeling to adjust the tank’s temperature gauges and filters, Peter shook his head. Had he really just apologised?<br/><br/>When he was satisfied that no damage had been done, he sat on the nearby sofa, studying Sverta’s vestigal nostril-slits and the smooth concavities where eyes might have grown. It was difficult to regard these new GenMods as little more than glorified tomato-bushes. Which was the whole point of them, really, but even he had to admit there was something inherently disturbing about the FructaFille prototypes.<br/><br/>The concept of the GenMod "companion plant" had been a stroke of genius on his part, and largely responsible for his controversially rapid rise to the Directorship. GenCorp was banking on the thousands who’d happily part with a year’s salary for the sake of fresh produce and something semi-responsive to care for, when the alternative was standard ration synth-meals, mechpets and solitude. The World Genetics Council had finally decreed the experiments sound and classified the FructaFilles as plants, despite their features. Though perhaps those should be toned down somewhat; he’d talk to the Techs tomorrow.<br/><br/>Reaching forward, Peter plucked a ripe fruit from one of Sverta’s thicker tendrils. As he did, a spray of red flowers unfurled along her trunk and shoulders. Of course the way she quivered and blossomed at his touch could be nothing more than an animal-- or rather, he amended quickly, a vegetable-- reaction. Sverta’s tendrils stroked his chest and flower-buds burgeoned on her skin, bursting moments later into full display. Her perfume was unusually rich and heady today. He felt almost giddy with it as he bit into the fruit.<br/><br/>“Delicious, my dear.”<br/><br/>Where the swell of a woman’s hip would begin, Sverta’s trunk branched into the root-ball from which she fed on nutrient-rich fluids below. Peter found himself wondering what it might be like were GenMods permitted fully-formed bodies. He frowned again. Clearly, he’d been too long without proper female company. Brushing Sverta's vines aside, he hunted through sofa cushions for the neurophone plug.<br/><br/>That night, as he spent himself inside an elegant woman whose company per day cost one thousandth of a GenMod FructaFille, Peter's thought werre filled with a red dazzle of flowers. Sverta, in an adjacent room, drank their pheromones through her pores and swayed to the measured rhythms of the Earth, while bloom after bloom flourished on her body like fireworks in slow-motion.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><div align="center"><em>~<strong>Forty-Five Years Later</strong>~</em><br/>_____________________________________________</div><br/><br/><br/><br/><em>Intra-Office Level 17 News Feed, Gencorp: March 15, 2220</em><br/><br/><strong>Terrorists Arrested In Sector 7</strong><br/><br/>SecCom forces deployed to Sector 7 today uncovered a terrorist pod during a raid on an illegal shanty town in the saline swamps south of Greentown. Five individuals were detained for questioning over recent thefts. A man thought to be Harlan Soames, responsible for the theft of more than thirty GenMod units and the mastermind behind a further sixty-two related incidents, eluded capture and is being sought for questioning. His four accomplices, as yet unidentified, are also being questioned.<br/><br/>Nine GenMod units from the recent robbery at The Luxom Export Co. were recovered. A further twelve, thought to be from an earlier crime, were found roaming the swamp in poor condition and were later put to sleep.<br/><br/><strong>News Just In:</strong><br/><br/>Another supply convoy arriving from the Midwest has been hijacked in an act of bloody violence that has left six Luxom employees and three SecCom guards dead.<br/><br/>As of 1700 hours, security levels citywide will be set to High Alert. All citizens are advised to check news feeds for curfew hours and information regarding rations.<br/><br/>SecCom’s media spokesperson, Janet Brown, will be releasing a public statement later today.<br/><br/><br/><br/><div align="center">_____________________________________________</div><br/><br/><br/><br/><strong>The Office of Dr. Tamis Dunsany<br/>"Downstairs", GenCorps Laboratories<br/>21:30<br/>March 15, 2220</strong><br/>____<br/><br/><br/>“Did you have to shoot them all? All goddamn twelve of them?” Tamis slapped the report down on her desk, her lips tightening at the hard-faced, silver haired man sitting opposite her.<br/><br/>Gordon Frank brushed some imaginary lint off his uniform with the back of his fingers. “We had no choice, Tam. You’re well aware of why.”  The leader of the SecCom’s Retrieval Unit sighed, planting his elbows to the desk and leaning in toward her. “Look, I know why you'd be upset over it. But on-site disposal is policy now. Just doing my job.”<br/><br/>Tamis replied with a long moment of silence, studying her ex-lover. He was Company man, through and through. Married to the job, as most were, nothing unusual there—but Gordon took company policy as gospel. She’d never admit to it, but that was part of why she’d ended their affair. If her decision had hurt him, he’d never shown it.<br/><br/>Finally, she let out a deep sigh and sank into her chair, raking her fingers through auburn hair; a habitual gesture of frustration. It wasn’t just the money, to Tamis. It was the suffering those GenMod units went through, only to end up so much organic waste lying face-down in a swamp. Yes, she knew damned well the truth of why they couldn’t be recovered— Tam herself had done the autopsies, seen the synth-larynx the rebels had implanted in each one.  They'd been given the means to make words and taught to speak, just like the last few recoveries. Like the one who’d lived long enough to plead with her for help, begging for its life.<br/><br/>SecCom had been ordered to make sure there was no repeat of that incident. If word of the GenMods’ capacity for reasoned speech got out…<br/><br/>And now, as Assistant Chief Psychobiologist,  it was her job to reconfigure the design, to prevent even the surgical gift of vocal chords making a difference, thus making sure all future GenMod units suffered in absolute silence. The whole thing was making her sicker every day. “Gordon. I’m sorry I snapped at you. Of course, you’re right.” She offered him a watery smile. “Got some leave accrued. Think I’ll take a few days.”<br/><br/>Gordon studied her in return, his expression unreadable. “Do that, Tam. You seem... over-wrought.”<br/><br/>The rest of the conversation was a little less stilted, the idle chat of acquaintances catching up. She didn’t stand up for his departure, nor offered a return of the kiss on the cheek he’d given her. Tamis knew that even with their history, if he the slightest inkling what she had planned for those days off Gordon Frank would slap her ass in an interrogation cell so fast her head would spin.<br/><br/>Picking up the autopsy reports from where she’d thrown them, Tam started pondering ways get copies past Gordon’s goon-squad upstairs and out of the office.<br/><br/>