The Zookeeper Pt. 01

Another idea I had recently and just had to work on. I'm sorry about not having anymore "Blow Your Mind" or "Wanna Bet" right now. FYI, I am working on a new Wanna Bet chapter, but am taking it slow because I want it to be a good chapter and not just something I churned out. I have written myself into a corner on the Blow Your Mind series as I have started the next chapter and torn it up four times now and I just can't find the story arc that makes it work for me. I'm sorry about that, but I hope you enjoy this one.

THE ZOOKEEPER

Frank looked at the others in the room and quietly sighed to himself.

"God, why did I get saddled with people who can't see anything but the money?" he thought as he watched his senior lab partner and her research assistant yet again point to some bs on the clipboard in front of them to Director Stutendt. Again, as if on cue, the director nodded her head and murmured something.

"And slight pause, then all three look at me, and then..." Frank thought to himself, mentally counting down for yet another repeat of what had been going for the last two hours.

"Dr. Olsen, while we appreciate your concerns on this product, we feel that your overly cautious attitude is holding back a very promising invention. We have gone over this numerous times, and I feel that your attitude and, to be blunt, your stubbornness, is hindering this team." Director Susan Stutendt said in her very crisp "I am the lab director here, and this is MY show" voice that he had grown too loath.

"Indeed. While I have the fullest respect for your abilities as a researcher and your dedication to safety, I think you are deliberately trying to stall this roll out." Dr. Brenda Rands stated in her best "head professor" tone (she had been before being lured away by a huge raise and access to some great equipment).

Frank gave a nasty glare to her research assistant, Tracy Panner (not quite finished on her doctorate, would be presenting in a couple of months) that caused her to close her mouth with a flush. Frank would take grief from his nominal boss and his co-worker, but he wasn't about to let some assistant chime in.

"I am not trying to stall anything. What I am telling you, all of you, is that this material has way too many variables and odd feedback from tests to be considered safe for public use. I understand how big this is and how much of an impact this can have on the medical community." Dr. Olsen stated, mentally adding "Not to mention the fucking bottom line for the company".

"But, and this is a HUGE but, there are too many strange results! We haven't even finished lab testing on tissue samples yet, never mind animal testing, and you want to jump to human trials? Do you have any idea the potential blowback this could cause? I get the bottom line, but if this goes up in our faces, the bottom will be blown off the boat."

The director shook her head. "Dr. Rands, I see your concerns are justified. Dr. Olsen is simply too scared to sign off on this project. Dr. Olsen, I am re-assigning you to the mapping and sequencing section pending further review of your work at our company. Dr. Rands will be taking charge. Please sign here acknowledging this transfer."

Dr. Olsen glared at each of them in turn. Ms. Panner couldn't meet his gaze, and Brenda broke under his stare. Ms. Stutendt met his glare but swallowed. This minor victory won Dr. Frank Olsen snorted and took the paper. Instead of storming off in a huff, he started to read it.

"What are you doing? Just sign it and get out." Dr. Rands said with a bit of a rush.

Dr. Olsen smiled at her. "Oh no, I think I will read the entire thing." His smile broadened as Brenda and Susan both blinked and then had looks of concern quickly cross their faces.

"You idiots didn't think I saw this coming? You didn't think I knew how you were trying to get me mad and get me to sign in a huff and then storm off? God save me from such useless humans." Frank thought to himself as he read on. The document was long, but he carefully read each page and once it became apparent he was reading each page, the director started her tap-dancing and trying to get the document back.

After a few minutes of this Frank stated "ENOUGH."

Everyone quieted down.

"I know that if I keep reading I'm going to find some paperwork that will be a confession to cover you three from any accidents that happen with this and make me take the full fall."

He leaned forward and grinned. "But I am thoroughly sick of this bottom-line bullshit and having to constantly fight all of you over the speed at which we are working. I have decided I am going to resign my position and accept a professorship at Central University this coming fall. While I will enjoy it vastly more than working here, the pay is not, shall we say, quite adequate for my currently level of life. I will make you three a deal. In exchange for this severance package and full control over the live testing, I will sign off on the requested trials and will do my level best to push this forward until the day I leave."

Frank pushed a folder over to the director who opened it with a bit trepidation. She started reading and he could tell she was getting pretty mad. Just before she blew up Frank said "I know exactly what you have promised the board and WHEN you have promised it. Without my signature, you are out of time and out of luck and the board will be out of patience. I may not get my package, but I know you won't keep your job."

Director Stutendt blinked and opened her mouth and Frank held up his hand. "Please Director, enough of the verbal tap-dancing. When you are going to have an affair with your personal assistant and then fire him when he tries to break if off, it is really smart NOT to allow him access to all your dirty little secrets. It's even smarter to check out who he talks to and who lends him a sympathetic ear."

With that, Susan deflated and after a moment signed the packet.

"Excellent. I will hold up my end of the deal, you had better hold up yours. I'll push forward on this, but package or not, if we get to something that is not safe, I will hold off." Dr. Frank Olsen stated. The Director Susan Stutendt, Dr. Brenda Rands, and Research Assistant Tracy Panner all glared at him, but with resignation.

THE NEXT WEEK

"Hmmmmm, I am still curious about this, erm, form our experiment has taken." Frank said to Tracy as she carefully moved the robotic arms to mix some chemicals.

Tracy nodded. While she really didn't like Dr. Olsen, considering him an overbearing and overly cautious man, she couldn't argue his intellect. The pace for the development of the product had picked up dramatically, but she was beginning to share his concerns. There were a LOT of weird things about what was coming out of their work.

"Yes Doctor. This stuff should be liquid, the fact that it keeps solidifying and taking on these forms is very odd to say the least."

Several large trays were on the other side of the glass. In each one was a sample of the product in its different versions.

"I wouldn't be so concerned if our end result looked more, um, human." Frank muttered.

The trays each held what appeared to be a patch of material, not cloth, but almost leather or fur. In one tray was a patch of white very short fur, one would say it was probably rabbit fur if giving it a glance. The next one had what someone would think was a type of snakeskin, or a couple of types of snakeskin melded together. The third was actually several small patches of fur, one being completely jet black, one having tiger stripes, and the other having a spotted cheetah pattern. The fourth looked disturbingly like a section of regular human skin, but with an odd tint or tan to it.

"But if we can make this work..." Tracy murmured.

"Yes, a patch of artificial skin that can link into and completely replace burned, damaged or destroyed skin perfectly. Even fix nerve endings if we can get it to link to the body. We would revolutionize medicine with this." Dr. Olsen said softly. He chuckled and said to Tracy "You know, it's moments like this that almost make me want to pull my deal, that moment when you feel like you are just on the edge of that breakthrough, that discovery, the one you have been working for your whole life."

He then sighed. "But damn it, there is just something off about this. Something that makes my hackles rise. I learned long ago to trust my feelings, and my feelings are saying this is dangerous."

Tracy said nothing but kept her focus on her work. She was just a set of hands at this point, and she was supposed to listen and report everything Dr. Olsen said to Dr. Rands and the Director, hopefully something they could hold over him. But he was too damned smart and never once said or did anything they could use against him.

But tonight, after he left and she was "cleaning up", they were going to move to the human test subjects. Dr. Rands had convinced the Director to take the leap and Tracy was on board fully. She knew she would pass the board in a month, and she had parlayed her loyalty and her support for a full-time job in the R and D department under Dr. Rands and if she could be in on this at the start she was on easy street for life.

After some more tinkering and muttering, Dr. Olsen called it a night and left Tracy to clean up. The second he was gone she texted Director Stutendt and Dr. Rands and they quickly came down to the lab. Tracy was already loading small samples into auto injectors and she was just loading the last one as they came in the door.

"All is in readiness?" Susan said, glancing around with a hint of nervousness.

"Yes ma'am. I have one sample of each type here. Ready for our test subjects." Tracy replied.

"Good, let's get this over with." Brenda said. She looked at the open fume hood at the samples and shivered. No matter how much she worked with them, there was just something off about them. Something that seemed to speak to the primitive human in here, here be the animals in the night. Some did it more than others.

The "rabbit" sample didn't really instill much fear. It was based on some spliced Rabbit DNA due to its speed of regeneration. Part of that whole "breed like rabbits", the splicing had been focused on the reproductive system of the rabbits and the speed at which they reproduced.

The "snake" one though made her shiver. This was focused on the snake's ability to grow a new skin and shed the old. They had mixed several snake breeds DNA, including pythons and cobras, and had an odd mix in the final product. It looked like two types of snake-skin melded together.

The "cat" samples also made her nervous. They had used DNA from tigers, leopards, cheetahs, and panthers and had resulted in a weird patchy type of skin of different types. Dr. Olsen had used the "big cat" DNA for a recessive gene he had found that he thought had potential for regeneration of cells.

The final one was the control. Using mostly human DNA, Dr. Olsen had spliced in a bit of the other DNAs and had gotten the most "normal" looking result. This one gave her some very odd feelings as well, not so much fear, but feelings like respect and awe, like she was in the presence of raw power.

All of these had various pros and cons, but the end result was all of them showing potential to graft seamlessly to a human and link with their DNA resulting in a perfect skin graft complete with nerve endings repaired. The profit potential for this was vast, enough to make her and the director millionaires even with the company's skimpy policy on sharing credit and sharing the spoils. Dr. Olsen was much too conservative to push this, and Dr. Rands knew that she and Director Stutendt had overpromised the board of directors on a timeline. Nervousness or not, odd looking or not, they had to speed things up or they were all going to be out on the street.

"Very well, let's get these samples and move to lab C, then we can..."

"What the hell is going on?" Dr. Frank Olsen shouted as he stormed in the door. "Samples to lab C? What are you doing? We need at least another week before I'm even going to consider signing off on them! You are going behind my back!"

Brenda immediately got in his face. "Now just hold on one moment! That is a very serious accusation you just leveled and further talk will result in me summoning HR..."

"To what? Give me a dumb look as I show them that you falsified a log? I just happened to open the wrong page to sign out and saw my name, poorly forged, under a transfer order for tonight just after I happened to leave the facility! God, not only are you idiots incapable of seeing the potential disasters we are facing, you can't even cook the books correctly!"

Brenda, Susan, and Frank got in each other's faces and the shouting match got going. It was here that Tracy proved that Frank's low opinion of her skills and her intellect were well founded. Trying to be clever, Tracy took the samples on a tray and tried to move around the arguing group and sneak off to lab C. While doing this she moved behind Frank. Right as Susan, finally losing her cool, snapped and shoved him hard backwards.

Right into Tracy. The tray went flying, the samples all fell to the floor and shattered. That would have been that, but the tray smashed into the fume hood and shattered it. Parts of it then punctured several gas lines which caused a pressure explosion at the rear of the hood. The shock wave blasted over the main samples and blew them into the four people.

Dr. Frank Oslen had the "human" sample hit him in the face and neck. It wrapped around him like a face hugger from the movie Alien and he went down on the ground thrashing around as the sample activated and bonded.

Dr. Brenda Rands had the "rabbit" sample wrap around her hand and lower arm. It activated and she began to thrash as she felt weird sensations begin to course through her.

Director Susan Stutendt had her legs wrapped by the "snake" sample. She shouted as she fell down to the floor with her legs wrapped together, and then began to scream as strange feelings blasted through her body starting at her legs.

And Lab Assistant Tracy Panner got the "cat" sample full on in her chest (she was wearing a low cut blouse), neck and face. She made a whimpering sound and then dropped to ground convulsing.

For several minutes there was nothing but the flashing alarms and some odd noises from the four people as they all lay on the ground twitching and jerking.

And changing.

Dr. Olsen had been right in his concerns, the samples of this new skin graft they had developed were very much NOT what they had envisioned. But that was something that none of them every gave any thought to ever again.

Dr. Olsen had also been right in his contempt for the three in terms of being able to plot their way out of a paper bag. Brenda and Susan had used their accesses to "fix" some of the security systems so that their unapproved transfer of test material would not be noted. But in doing so, they had turned off many of the alarm systems and the explosion and the results had not triggered any alarms other than in the room.

Dr. Olsen was the first to come too.

He looked around and then closed his eyes. Yes, he could feel the changes, he could feel how HE was the alpha here. He knew he was different now, and he knew that these others were to serve him. He looked around and quickly began to rewire some things and snap open some gas valves. He jerked Brenda to her feet and she blinked at him.

Frank smiled at the cowed, meek and weak look that he saw. "Stand over there, touch nothing."

Brenda wiggled her nose and nodded. She staggered over to the wall, seeming having issues walking. Frank, he no longer thought of himself as a doctor but "the leader", jerked Tracy to her feet. She glared at him and growled. Frank gave her a vicious look and she blinked and lowered her head and eyes. She made a strange purring sound and then went over where Frank pointed. Brenda began to tremble as Tracy moved next to her and seemed to be very afraid. Frank pulled Susan up to her feet. Susan swayed slowly and let out a hiss. She locked eyes with Frank and after a moment lower her gaze. She glided over by Tracy, hissing at Brenda who cowered even more.

Frank looked at a piece of glass and saw his reflection. He grunted at it. He knew it was him, but a new him. The old Doctor was gone.

After some more tinkering, Frank nodded and then used Tracy's cigarette lighter to light a rag which he dropped in a garbage bin. He glared at the three females and said "Follow me." He led them out the door, following the blanked-out path they had planned to use to get to lab C. Lab C was a very out of the way small research station in the basement, but it went very near a small exit that led to a back path that hooked into a longer hiking trail. He led them out into the night and down the path.

Frank didn't feel scared. In fact, he could see just fine in the dark, like he had cat's eyes. He was leading a trembling Brenda along by her arm and he could feel Tracy behind him. Tracy was moving very quietly and seemed to be almost down on all fours prowling. Frank could hear a very soft hissing sound from Susan who was moving the slowest, but also not having any issues moving in the dark. After a bit a large flash of light followed by an explosion lit the area they had come from.

"You had four people ready for testing?" Frank asked to no one in particular.

"Yessssssssssss, four humansssssss." Susan replied. Frank chuckled at the hissing sound.

"Well then, you had them off the books, I am guessing you personally gave them a ride, so as of now, we are all dead in a horrible lab accident. And since you turned off most of the alarms, I am guessing that facility will be a total loss. Which works well my pets, it works very well indeed."

Frank smiled and led the three off into the dark plans already forming in his in now very twisted mind.

FIVE MONTHS LATER

Julie pulled her coat closer around herself and preened at the reflective glass of the front door to "Shvalski's Diamond Exchange". She couldn't explain why she LOVED this coat but she just did. The second she had touched it that morning when she opened the package, she knew she had to wear it, even if it was early summer and going to be in the 90's.

She paused for a moment and frowned. "It really is odd, liking this coat so much. But the fur! OOOOOOOOOOOO, I just want to keep rubbing it and feel it over my skin!" She practically purred. She posed again and then went inside as the security guard buzzed her in.

Shvalski's was the oldest and largest diamond exchange in the city, and the state too. It had been in business since the late 1880's, family run, and was THE place anyone who was anyone went to buy diamonds or have diamond jewelry made. The current owner was Joshua Shvalski the 5^th, and his son was working in a cousin's store learning the trade until he would join his father here. Mr. Shvalski was a widower, and he had nearly an entire female staff. There were a lot of jokes made about that, but he was and had always been the perfect gentleman to every girl who had worked for him. He had loved his wife dearly (and so had the staff) until she had passed several years ago and her memory was still very alive in the store.

Jokes or not, Mr. Shvalski was no fool when it came to selling diamonds. Pretty smart women made sales, either to men who were easy to manipulate due to nearly always not knowing anything about diamonds or to women who just instinctively seemed to warm up to a woman who could talk about precious sparkly stones and make them feel special. So, the majority of his staff were very easy on the eyes.

Tuesday mornings were the slow period though. Monday was usually the "weekend damage" as they referred to the rush of wives and ladies who had suffered various mishaps during the weekend parties and affairs and rushed to have their precious diamond jewelry fixed. Wednesdays saw the pick-ups in walk ins.