“In another couple of days they should become infectious, according to John’s information,” said Madeline, taking one of the young chimps out of his cage. He wrapped his legs around her, draped one powerful arm around her neck, and reached out with the other to touch the new woman.

Ayala smiled at the cute little guy, and stepped close so the he could touch her face and inspect her. As she gently extricated her long black hair from his playful grip, she said, “So, how have they responded so far? Have you seen a decrease in pathogens in their blood?”

Madeline smiled, expertly throwing the monkey up and over onto her back so she could pick up the clipboard hanging from his cage. He squealed, almost like laughter, and the other three rattled their cage doors, wanting to join in.

“Calm down, you three,” said Madeline in a motherly tone, then, flipping a few pages over she found the graph she was looking for and showed it to Ayala.

Ayala studied it, looked back at Madeline, then back at the chart. “Is this correct? Nothing, they have none?”

Madeline nodded, handing the chart to Ayala to study while she manhandled the excited little chimp off her back and back into his cage. Closing the door, her soft voice placating the monkey, she turned and started walking toward one of the computers, Ayala following incredulously.

“Yes, Ayala,” Madeline said, signing in to the PC, “nothing. We have run a battery of tests on the little guy and as far as we can tell his blood is completely clear of any pathogens. Turns out that when you have detailed schematics to work from it really isn’t that hard to build it right first time. Well, maybe not first time, the cell walls of the first fifteen constructions collapsed as soon as the resonance chamber was deactivated, their internal pressure too great for the casing I had designed to coat them. Of course, I didn’t know that until I got the test tubes under a microscope.

“Turns out I had misread a section of John’s notes in my haste to input what I thought was the easiest part of the cell’s design, basing it on my knowledge of human cell structure rather than the much higher pressures required to contain this little bad-ass’s internal bio-machinery.”

Madeline pointed at two diagrams she had called up on the screen and Ayala tried to follow along, the entire conversation seeming like Russian to her. Actually, her Russian was pretty good, this was more like Finnish, she didn’t speak a lick of Finnish.