PROTOTYPE 22
By Heck



Comments to heck@beadyeye.me.uk

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The programme aired two nights later.

Susannah and Ruth had tied up all the loose ends, carrying out further
interviews with Lucy, wrapping up the last few tests. These were mostly
psychological and mental, designed to show that her enhancement wasn't just
physical. They had also obtained, from archives and location shoots by other
CNN crews, background footage and interviews with key NASA personnel.

Four of us sat in what had come to be called 'Lucy and Sean's Place'. It had
become obvious that my suite wasn't being used, and nobody ever expected to
find me there, so it seemed natural that Lucy's suite should become 'ours'.
Susannah, Ruth, Lucy and I sat in a row on the big sofa [the torn fabric had
been explained away as an 'accident' and the original had been replaced],
watching the opening credits.

"I think you're going to like what we've done", Ruth was saying. "Eighty
minutes of some of the best TV I ever produced".

The show opened with archive footage of Europa blasting off on its fateful
mission. It seemed strange to me that, in those days, spacecraft were actually
piggybacked into space, strapped to giant rockets. Nowadays, of course, they
get up under their own power, so it was fascinating to see how things used to
be done. There were a couple of background interviews with senior NASA staff,
before they got to the meat.

Susannah's voiceover was giving the history of the mission, and explaining why
Lucy had gone EVA. The shot cut to a CGI simulation of the shuttle in space
with its waldoe extended and a white-suited figure working at the end of it,
and there the frame stilled.

"And nothing more was heard of the Space Shuttle Europa from then on",
Susannah's voice continued. "Until one day last September. The Deep Space
Vessel Parsival, returning from the terraforming project on Mars, picked up a
curious sensor echo. What that echo turned out to be was like something from
science fiction. A miracle, if you will".

The screen changed to a headshot of Susannah, sitting in the high back chair
where she had conducted her first interview with Lucy.

"This is a bar of high quality forged steel". The scene continued with Lucy
bending the bar between her hands, and then giving her account of what had
happened. Afterward, the shot cut to an exterior view of the Johnson Space
Centre.

"So, at last", Susannah took up the narrative, "the mystery of what had
happened to Europa was cleared up. If Lucy Radovic was to be believed, the
entire ship and crew were utterly destroyed. Only Lucy survived". Cut to a
headshot of a man in a white shirt and tie. "We asked this man, John
Fairlings, Flight Director at NASA, what the odds on her survival were".

"Literally millions to one", the man said. "If, as we always supposed, Europa
had been in collision with a sizeable meteorite, the chances of anyone within
the blast radius surviving are simply too infinitesimal to calculate".

"But now, it seems", Susannah continued as the scene changed again, to Lucy in
the interview chair. "A meteorite may not have been the cause".

"When I woke up", Lucy said. "I was in a biohazard dome in a facility that
turned out to be part of the SETI building. That was when I met Dr Sean
Cameron, Professor Michelangelo DeLuca, and Robert Hindmarsh". I did a little
double take at that. I had almost forgotten that Rob even had a surname; how
Lucy knew it was a mystery to me. "Three men who were to become very important
to me".

"What did they tell you?"

"A lot". Lucy gave a little laugh. "They had been recruited to work with me by
the FBI, the military, and possibly some other faceless government department
that even they didn't know the name of. They had been performing tests on my
comatose body, and what they deduced made my hair stand on end".

"It must have been something pretty scary?"

"You said it. They found out that, somehow, my body had been changed,
enhanced, they called it, during the sixty-four years I had been missing".

"Changed? How?"

"Everything had been improved. My bone and muscle density, my senses, my
cardiopulmonary efficiency, everything".

"That must have been a shock to you?"

"I'll say. It took some getting used to".

"And is that why you were able to bend that bar just now?"

"Yes, it is".

"And the result of that is, what? You're stronger, faster than, pardon the
word, a 'normal' person?"

"That's right, Susannah. Dr Cameron and the others figured out that I was
enhanced by a factor of about fifteen".

"Whoa! Back up, there! Fifteen? Are you saying that you're fifteen times
stronger and faster than, say, I am?"

"That depends on how strong you are in comparison to me before I was enhanced
but, approximately, yes". There was no bragging in Lucy's words. She was
simply stating facts. "And not only that. My senses; smell, vision, hearing
and so on; are very much more sensitive too, and my mental processes and
reflexes are much faster. I have greatly incremented stamina, and my immune
system is hyper-aggressive".

"You heal quickly?"

"Right. Very quickly".

The shot changed again. Lucy was in the other suite, surrounded by the techs
that were hooking her up to various monitors.

"Here at CNN", Susannah's commentary went on, "we don't take anything for
granted. So we put Lucy through a series of test to disprove what she said. Dr
Eileen Sutherland".

Shot of a trim, middle-aged woman in thick, black-framed spectacles.

"Our brief from CNN was thorough", she said. "We were told to conduct a series
of tests, including DNA scans and sonograms, with the explicit aim of showing
Miss Radovic up to be a fake". I frowned at that, as I watched the screen. I
hadn't known that. "The idea of a human being, enhanced or otherwise,
surviving sixty-four years in space was so preposterous that were determined
to shoot her down in flames".

"And could you?" Susannah asked. Sutherland looked perplexed.

"Well, frankly, no. The DNA showed her to be exactly who she purported to be,
and the other tests served only to strengthen her story".

"So you're satisfied that what Lucy Radovic has told us is true?"

"Insofar as her identity, and her being enhanced, are concerned, yes".

"Did you test both her physical and mental abilities?"

"We did, yes. Miss Radovic has an IQ as high as it is possible to measure.
Well beyond genius level. Her mental prowess and the speed of her thought
processes far outstrip any unaltered person. Her visual, auditory, and
olfactory acuity is far past our ability to measure, and her reflexes are
superhumanly fast".

Cut back to Lucy.

"What else did the three men tell you?" Susannah asked.

"They told me it was all theory, but it fits all the facts. They thought an
alien ship was responsible for the destruction of the Europa. They didn't know
whether it was by accident or design, but I prefer to think of it as an
accident. But whatever it was, these aliens rescued me but were unable to heal
me because of their heavier gravity. So they had to keep me in some sort of
stasis until they returned to their home planet. Once there, they enhanced my
body so I could cope with the higher gee, healed me and, sixty-four years
later in relative time, put me back where they found me".

"Aliens? Isn't that a bit far fetched?"

"Possibly. I don't know. I have no recollection of anything that happened,
from the time the shuttle was destroyed until I woke up at SETI".

"But, aliens? What were they like? Where were they from?"

"Like I said, I don't know. I have no direct knowledge of them, their ship, or
their world. It's simply a theory, formulated by three brilliant men, that
happens to fit the facts".

"You told us before about seeing a dense, black shape just before you 'blacked
out'. Was that their ship?"

"Possibly. I presume so. It certainly wasn't a meteorite".

Cut again, to the façade of the FBI headquarters in Washington DC.

"Then things took a sinister turn", Susannah was saying. "Lucy found out that
the military and, more significantly, the FBI were taking more than a passing
interest in her progress. Together with the men, DeLuca, Cameron, and
Hindmarsh, she came to the conclusion that they were interested in far more
than her welfare".

Lucy again.

"I didn't like the way things were going", her image said. "And I became
particularly worried when the FBI agent let it slip that the biohazard dome I
had woken up in had actually been a containment facility, a cell, if you like,
designed to confine me. Sean, Mike, and Rob grew worried too, for their own
safety as well as mine. So we decided to escape".

"I believe one of the men was killed during the escape?"

"Yes". Lucy's face fell and moisture filled her eyes. "Professor DeLuca, Mike,
died while trying to help me, shot by what we presume to have been an FBI
agent. He was a lovely man, a family man, and he didn't deserve it".

"Who were the FBI agents, and the others? Who did this to you?"

"I don't know the name of the man who shot Mike, but the three people who
appeared to be in charge were; FBI Assistant Director Santana, General
Jackson, and a man called Charles Bouvier".

"AD Santana. Was he ... ?"

"She".

"Was she the one who let slip that you were a prisoner?"

"Yes. She also assaulted Dr Cameron".

Outdoor scene. Susannah's piece to camera inside the helicopter.

"We've come out here into the desert at the request of two fugitives who seem
to have an incredible story to tell. We can just see them now in the distance,
standing with a motorcycle at the side of the highway". Camera pans away, and
zooms in on Lucy and me. It had just focussed, when we jumped onto the bike
and screamed off into the desert. Then followed the whole sequence of the
chase by the Humvee. I winced as I watched myself lose control of the bike,
and Lucy and I tumbling off. I watched her scoop me up, unconscious, and race
across the flat terrain with the big black monster vehicle right behind.

Susannah had had the presence of mind to keep sound going, and the camera
stayed fixed on us. Some of the cameraman and soundman's expletives were
beeped out.

"Beep, beep! Look at them go!"

"Stay on them!"

"Are you kidding? This is beep fantastic!"

"Try to get closer". I assumed Susannah was talking to the pilot. "We might be
able to pick them up".

'Pang!'

"Beeep! The beeps are shooting at us!"

"Veer off! Veer off!"

"Oh, shbeep! He's lost it!"

"Ohmigod! They'll be killed!"

"No, she's all right. She's getting up. Jebeep beep! She's picked him up! Look
at this, Suze! She's running with him!"

"What the beep?"

"She's running with him!"

"She can't run that fast!"

"Obviously, she can! Beep!"

The lens zoomed in. Close-up on Lucy, cradling my senseless form, pounding
across the desert with a look of intense concentration on her lovely face. She
appeared to be breathing deeply but regularly, with little sign of effort in
her expression.

The chopper crew were silent, apparently dumbstruck by the spectacle. The
camera stayed glued on Lucy and me, and you could see signs that I was
beginning to come to. Sitting next to Lucy, watching us on TV, I was as caught
up in the action as I would be if I was watching a movie. I felt strangely
detached yet involved at the same time, as if intrigued and excited by the
plot of an action film. My mouth was dry, my pulse raced and, despite myself,
I was getting turned on.

It was all very silly. I knew how it ended.

The figures on the screen glanced behind. The armoured Humvee was closing,
drawing level.

"Oh, no!" Susannah's voice cried. "They'll be caught!"

The car pulled alongside and Lucy came to a halt. The vehicle sailed past,
coming round in a wide arc with gun barrels poking out of every window.

"Looks like the chase is over", came the voice of the cameraman, and on the
soundtrack you could hear the amplified voice of the FBI giving us
instructions, even over the racket of the rotor.

"Set down", Susannah told the pilot.

A figure stepped out of the truck carrying a long-reach, cattle-prod type of
thing. It had looked sinister the first time I saw it, but on the screen it
looked even worse. The helicopter landed, but the occupants remained inside
focussing on the vehicle where Lucy and I leaned our hands on the hood.

"Stay on them", Susannah directed, and then spoke to the pilot. "Chuck, get
ready to lift off if those guns make any effort to aim at us".

"Where's the guy going?"

There was me, turning to run at Lucy's word, and there was Lucy, grabbing the
front of the truck and heaving it clear of the ground.

"What the fbeep?!"

"No! No, that's not possible! She can't do that!"

"No? Well, she beeping is! Look!"

I flinched as I watched the taser-man touch his instrument to Lucy's side,
seeing her go rigid but never losing her grip on the bulbar.

"Ow!" Susannah's voice gasped. "That's gotta hurt!"

"What's he doing now?" the soundman said. "Hey! He's beating her with a chain!
Hey! No fair!"

And there I was, tackling the man head on, bearing him to the ground, beating
his head on the dirt. On the sofa beside me, Lucy gave my hand a little
squeeze.

"I didn't know you'd done that", she whispered. "Thanks".

"My pleasure".

The TV showed Lucy boosting the massive truck higher and higher, to the
accompaniment of shouts of encouragement from inside the chopper, and a hearty
cheer as she finally toppled the whole thing over to lie on its back, as
helpless as a stranded turtle.

"Woh! What sort of woman is this?" whooped the excited cameraman.

"Amazing!" Susannah's voice said. "Look, here they come".

The camera showed us sprinting toward the 'copter, throwing ourselves inside.
The lens panned to a close-up of Lucy's sweat and dirt-streaked face. In
seconds, a microphone appeared under her nose.

"Lucy Radovic", Susannah's voice came. "You have just single-handedly defeated
six armed FBI agents in an armoured truck. How does that feel?"

Lucy made no reply as the lens zoomed out to include me in the shot. Lucy was
slightly red in the face and breathing deeply, while I was grey and panting
like a dog.

Cut to studio-shot of Susannah.

"That was five days ago, scenes that stunned CNN audiences worldwide. Since
then, Lucy Radovic has been under the protection of this channel, in a secret
location". Zoom out to include Senator Sumner, sitting across a desk from
Susannah. "Senator Edward Sumner, you were present during many of the tests we
carried out. What are your thoughts?"

"Susannah, this is clearly a most remarkable young woman". His craggy face,
wearing its politician's smile showing what just had to be too many perfect
white teeth, filled the screen." From what I've seen and heard, I'd have to
say that almost everything she claims, or is claimed on her behalf, is true".

"Almost everything?"

"I'm having difficulty coming to terms with an alien intervention".

"But she admits that is only theory. Can you think of any other explanation?"

"Off hand, no".

Cut to Lucy, performing her feats of strength in the hotel suite. Susannah
elected not to comment over this section, allowing the pictures to speak for
themselves. An astute move, I thought, because the video footage was more
dramatic and eloquent than words could ever be.

Cut again, to the Hoverdrome and a headshot of Susannah.

"We performed one more test. We brought Lucy here, to the Metropolitan
Hoverdrome, to see just how fast she is". Zoom out. "This is Mikhail Cobbla,
the famous hover-racing world champ. He has agreed to pace her in his racing
hovercraft, and monitor her speed. Mikhail, what do you expect to happen?"

"Susannah, from what you've told me I expect her to be very fast for a human
runner. I plan to just cruise along beside or behind her, keeping pace".

"You don't intend to make a race of it?"

"What would be the point? I'd lose her in my wake in seconds".

Cut to aerial shot. Lucy and Mikhail preparing to go.

"Lucy will signal to Mikhail when she's ready to go, and ... she's off! Wow!
She's really moving! Mikhail has his work cut out just to catch up".

Voiceover: "You can see from these pictures that Lucy Radovic has to be the
fastest human on the planet. Olympic medallists, eat your hearts out! And we
clocked her at ... " Cut to close-up of speed camera printout. " ... one
hundred two point nine three kilometres an hour. That's right. You didn't
mishear. One-oh-two point nine-three kph. And yet, that wasn't the most
dramatic thing that happened that afternoon".

Scene change to the end of the lap and Mikhail's unfortunate wreck. Zoom in,
to Lucy heaving the hovercraft clear of his trapped body and scooping him up
to carry him to safety.

"So it seems our superhuman Lucy is a superheroine, too. Senator Sumner".

Cut back to Ted Sumner in the studio.

"I am satisfied that Lucy Radovic is exactly who she claims to be. This is a
woman who, by whatever means, has been given a great gift. But, gifted or not,
she is still a human and still qualifies for her inalienable human rights. I
intend to see that she gets them, and to that end I have already caused the
records to be amended so that, once again, Lucy is a Citizen of these United
States of America, with all the rights and privileges that allows".

Another hand squeeze and a brilliant smile, from the woman at my side.

"Furthermore", Sumner went on. "While I have been unable to find any record of
military or FBI involvement in her case, it is clear to me that Lucy has been
subjected to unwarranted intrusions, confinement, and harassment by somebody,
and this is intolerable. Now, I recognise that there are certain aspects of
her unique physiology that will be of enormous interest to the medical and
scientific communities, and it is my hope that she will choose to assist those
fraternities, but there is the operative word. It must be by her choice.

"Nobody has the right to impose their will upon another so, if there are to be
any experiments or research, it must be with her full and free cooperation,
and with full knowledge of any consequences. Personally, I hope she will
choose to cooperate but, if she declines, I will support with my dying breath
her right to do so".

Back to headshot of Susannah.

"Impassioned words, indeed. We contacted the FBI and asked to speak to
Assistant Director Santana. We were told she was on assignment and unavailable
for comment. Convenient? General Jackson was also unavailable. In fact, nobody
had anything to say on the subject.

"What really happened to Lucy Radovic? Was she rescued, or possibly abducted,
by beings from another world? Alien space travellers? Who knows? Not even Lucy
herself, it seems, knows for sure.

"One thing is certain. She has been vastly altered, enhanced. In the words of
Sean Cameron, she is a prototype for a new, improved model of human being.
Should we cash in on her amazing talents, or leave her alone to live her life
in peace? I know where this reporter stands; firmly in the camp of
leave-her-be.

"But perhaps we should let Lucy herself have the final word".

Cut to reprise of Lucy performing feats of strength, with Lucy herself doing
the voiceover.

"I feel very grateful to have survived the accident and I wish with all my
heart that the rest of my crewmates had been rescued, too. I miss them
terribly. I know I have been given these strange and, to some, scary abilities
and, whatever the reason, I'm glad to have them and will be looking for an
opportunity to use them in the service of all mankind.

"But, surely, that should be my choice? Whatever the records say, I didn't die
in two thousand four, and I am an American citizen. I know I'm not fully
familiar with everything in this time period but I do know that the Bill of
Rights still exists, giving me the right to live my life free of unnecessary
hounding. I should not have to run and hide for fear of what some department,
government or otherwise, might do to me.

"As to the future, it may well be that I will decide to allow the scientists
to study me, especially if a case can be made for medical advancement. But
after all, this is my body, and it is my right to make an informed choice.

"All I ask is the opportunity to be left alone, get acclimated to the
surroundings in which I find myself, and be given peace and time in which to
make my choices".