Project Genesis
Shikarou regarded the pokegirl on the bench for several moments before silently moving up behind her. His ears flicked and finally stilled. “I thought about startling you, but considering your security teams, that seemed unhealthy.”
Poppet whirled around to stare at him. “Shikarou! How did you do that?”
“I think you must have been reading a very good book.” His eyes widened when she started and snapped closed the reader.
“Don’t you try to have Aggie poke around either,” she warned.
“Actually, I suspect it’s why I’m here.”
She blinked and her eyes narrowed. “You’ve been snooping.”
“Do you actually think that something like what you are doing bothers me?” He shook his head. “Poppet, I, unlike my brother, have a pretty good idea of what my father is going to do with those pokegirls I gave him. Why should this bother me?”
“Why are you here?” She frowned suddenly. “What do you mean; you know what Kerrik did to his harem?”
“They are not his harem and it’s very likely that if they aren’t now, soon they’ll be dead. Father would have examined them down to their DNA and then tested them to destruction.” He flicked his ears as her eyes hardened. “Don’t get mad at me, you’ll have to take that up with him. Now tell me about Project Genesis.”
She glanced down at the reader and hit the power switch. “I can’t. I gave my oath and I know you of all people don’t want me to be foresworn.”
Shikarou hopped over the bench and settled down next to her. She put down the reader and slid into his lap. “Now, if someone were to pry that information out of me, without my permission, there’s little I could do.”
“And what would be the best way to do that?”
She rested her horn against his forehead. “Well, there are two schools of thought on that. There is the most efficient way, which would probably involve some kind of mental link between the two parties. Then there’s the most fun way, which would involve seduction.”
He raised an eyebrow as a smile played around his lips. “What if I used the most efficient way and then used seduction to make sure that I didn’t miss anything?”
She draped her arms around his neck and looked thoughtful. “I suppose you would have to be thorough, right?”
“Very.” He pressed his lips against hers as she relaxed her mental guards and he slipped into her mind.
***
Her computer played a few bars of Ode to Joy and Poppet glanced up and pressed a key. A display popped up and after reading it, she activated her com unit.
The display lit to reveal an Alaka-Wham wearing a lab coat. She smiled. “Good morning, director, what can I do for you?”
“Connie, we are going to be receiving a new inductee for Project Genesis this morning.” Poppet sipped at her tea. “I thought that, since we’re having the PLC representative down next week, you could give me a complete walkthrough just like you’re going to do for him.”
“Will we be saving this one so the rep can see the whole process, director?”
“No, we’re scheduled to receive another half dozen next week. One of those will be more than adequate for the level of detail the PLC wants.”
Connie smirked slightly. “I take it there are lots of bad boys out there.”
“There always are, Connie. I’ll be down when he arrives.”
“Yes, director. I’ll be waiting.”
An hour later, Poppet was down at the landing pad when the aircar landed. Two impassive OfficerJenny wearing BLSF uniforms exited the vehicle with a prisoner between them. A Conservatory Night Nurse checked their paperwork and then gave the prisoner a thorough exam, ignoring his protests.
Connie activated her electronic pad. “Seamus Powers, English, age 18. Excellent health, better than many of the former Tamers we get. He’s had all his shots and is pretty much ready for stage one.”
Poppet fell into her role of pretending to be the PLC representative easily. “What did he do to merit joining Project Genesis?”
“While a Tamer, he was involved in a pokebattle with another Tamer, um, in Glasgow, it turns out. He employed a Tigress by the name of Tabby,” she broke off and rolled her eyes. “Don’t you think they could come up with original names once in a while? A Tigress named Tabby? Give me a break.”
“Connie, the PLC isn’t going to be interested in your snide remarks.”
“Sorry, director.” She consulted her pad once more. “Seamus employed Tabby, a Tigress in his harem and was defeated. It turns out that this was her seventh consecutive defeat and she evolved into a Panthress on the spot. Powers managed to recall her to her pokeball while the evolution was ongoing and then he tried to leave with the menace pokegirl without turning her in, as required by law. The presence of the Panthress was reported by another Tamer and the authorities detained Tamer Powers. Once they verified that he did indeed have a Panthress in his possession and did intend to keep her and try to control her, he was arrested, tried and convicted.” She looked up. “It was pretty cut and dried. His license was revoked and his harem and other possessions confiscated. Then the Blue League evaluated him and his lineage and placed him in Project Genesis.”
Poppet nodded as she watched the Night Nurse strip Powers in preparation for a body cavity search. “What happened to the Panthress?”
“She was condemned and slated for use, um, in pokepower, according to the notes.”
“So he had an innocent pokegirl turned into a monster and now she has to be destroyed. It sounds like he’s a perfect candidate for Genesis.”
Poppet smiled slightly as the Night Nurse ran out of patience with Powers and slammed his head against the concrete wall before going back to probing his orifices for contraband. “Connie, have a word with Roseanne and mention that she should probably do this in private when the PLC rep is around. Humans are sometimes squeamish about this sort of thing.” He started struggling again and the Night Nurse grabbed his hair and slammed his head against the wall repeatedly until he went limp. “Also caution her about harming our subjects too much. A concussion could affect the results. Oh, and Connie, you might want to mention that if she changed gloves between searching the anus and the mouth, they might struggle less.”
“Yes, director, I’ll talk to her today. Should we proceed to the conversion chamber?”
“By all means.” Poppet followed as Connie led her back into the building.
The conversion chamber was three meters by three meters and they stood outside the viewing window as the two OfficerJenny carried Powers in and strapped him onto a table.
Poppet fell back into her role as the PLC representative. “Why are the OfficerJennys still here?”
Connie glanced at her and one of her antenna twitched. “Oh, that again.” She nodded. “The two OfficerJenny are here as witnesses to the conversion. The league is mildly concerned that the human might be freed by a pokegirl or otherwise escape to cause more trouble.”
Rosanne pulled a cart filled with surgical equipment into the room. She began humming as she draped surgical cloth around Power’s groin and picked up a razor. Through the speaker on the wall, Poppet recognized Mozart’s Requiem. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe Rosanne enjoys her work too much,” she asked quietly.
Connie shrugged. “She’s one of the best we’ve got and I don’t think her bedside manner or lack thereof is anything to be worried about. The subject’s memories will be suppressed once this process is over.”
“True.” She paused. “Make sure her training records are complete before the representative arrives.” She frowned and pulled a handheld from her pocket. “Schedule her for breeding too. She’ll be ready in a month.”
“Yes, director. That will make her happy.”
“Good. I like to see someone who enjoys her work that much rewarded for her effort.”
Powers was yelling and thrashing until Rosanne popped a ball gag into his mouth. She leaned over him with a broad smile. “Lad, you might not want to be thrashing around like a fish whilst I’m working around yer privates. Ye might end up with something missing that ye might later want.” She chuckled as the former Tamer froze. “That’s a sight better, lad.” She went back to work shaving.
A few minutes later, she was finished and cleaned up. She smiled. “Ye can relax for a moment, lad. Besides, I can see that ye didn’t find that too distasteful.” She gave his now erect penis a quick squeeze. “I’ll spray ye down with a nice ointment and we’ll let that soak in for a bit before I get back to work.” She pulled a spray bottle from the cart and spritzed his groin down before rubbing the ointment all over his crotch. “Ye liked that too,” she teased as she put her stuff away. “I’ll be right back, now don’t be leaving me.”
She left the room and joined Poppet and Connie. “Director, how nice to see ye. To what do I owe the honor of yer visit?”
“I like to watch all the inductees when I can, Rosanne. You know that. What do you think?”
The Night Nurse shrugged. “Physically, he’s healthy. I think he’s just a moron by choice, not genetics. He was scanned by one of the psychics on the way down and she agreed that his mind is healthy, just unused.” She snickered. “Ye wouldna think they could get by without a brain, but he’s proof that ye’d be wrong.”
Poppet shook her head. “Proceed, Rosanne.”
“Yes, director.”
They watched as Rosanne reentered the room and patted Powers on the leg. “It’s nice to see a man wait for a lass for a change. Now what I’ve got to do is examine you for growths. I’ll be palpating your groin and you may feel a little twinge here or there.”
Powers grunted around the gag.”
“Yes, I know, but the exam is part of the procedure and if I don’t do it, I’ll be getting into trouble and I know ye don’t want that, do ye?” Rosanne shifted one of her fingers to scalpel while she spoke and poked Powers hard in the groin, staying between his legs and well below his line of sight. He didn’t react, telling her that the spray anesthetic had done its job. Quickly, she moved a small tray from the cart to between his legs.
Powers tried to speak around the gag again and Rosanne glanced up at him. “That’s right good of ye, lad. I’m glad ye’ll let me do this without causing me any trouble.” Quickly she sliced his scrotum open and efficiently removed his testes. She placed them in a saline bath and covered the tray before putting it back on the cart.
Next, she pressed the incision closed. Her hands glowed as she used a healing technique on the wound. “There, now that wasn’t so bad, was it,” she asked as she swabbed up the blood, still carefully keeping out of his line of sight.
Powers made a noise of agreement.
Poppet turned back to Connie. “Why did you do that?”
“Director, if you are going to be accurate, shouldn’t you pretend to be repulsed by what happened?”
The Unicorn smiled. “How about you pretend I am and proceed?”
“Yes, director. The Harris Conservatory is a functional ranch and it is our policy to collect any sperm from subjects entering Genesis to help with the breeding programs here. The sperm will be tested and, if found to be deficient in any way, it will be destroyed. This is all part of the agreement we have with the Blue League for Genesis.” She cocked her head. “Why is a PLC representative coming to inspect a Blue League project?”
Poppet looked amused. “Genesis is a Planetary League Council project. The idea that the league runs it is just a fiction to maintain deniability. If you could pull the records, you’d find out that every league has a version of Genesis. Most of them even call it Genesis.”
Connie nodded. “Do you find it ironic that we, as pokegirls, are so heavily involved with a project designed to help increase the numbers of humans?”
Poppet shrugged. “I don’t feel irony, I feel vindicated. It proves that, no matter what they might think, humans will always need us.”
Rosanne had taken the cart out of the room while they spoke. When she returned, she was wearing a medical isolation suit and carrying bag of powder. The OfficerJenny quickly exited the room and joined Poppet and Connie at the window.
Powers stared at her for a moment and then began struggling against his bonds. “Now, lad, this won’t hurt ye a bit.”
She opened the bag and poured it down Powers’ body. He screamed around the gag and began to glow softly. When the glow had faded, Powers had changed into a slim brunette woman. She looked down the line of her body and saw her breasts. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she went limp.
“Lass, ye are making me own gender look bad. I’d have expected a stronger showing from ye. Still, yer human and guess ye can only do as good as ye can.” Rosanne pressed a button on the wall and a hurricane of air swept through the room, driving all the remaining gender dust from the room and into a filtration unit where it would be collected for reuse.
Poppet turned to Connie. “What happens to Powers now?”
“First of all, the official records will be updated to reflect her change from Seamus to Shannon. Next, she’ll be hyper ovulated and the eggs will be harvested for phase four of the program. The Blue League is experimenting with using pokegirls and pokewomen as surrogates for pure human embryos. The process seems to work well; the biggest concern involves possible contamination and threshold in the female children. Currently, their studies are inconclusive.” She carefully didn’t mention that the Conservatory had proven that threshold was not contagious almost twenty years ago. The Blue League wasn’t aware of that study and, currently, Poppet saw no reason to change the status quo.
“After six hyper ovulations and harvestings, Shannon will be allowed to rest for a month and then she’ll be modified according to her breeder’s wishes with permanent bloom and buttsprout and, finally, she’ll be bred.”
Poppet turned as one of the OfficerJenny looked curious. “I understand that all permanent gender dust recipients have a trigger that will cause them to turn back to male. What is it in this case?”
“Officer, all of the gender dust we use here is modified by a classified process to trigger only when the subject handles a Dawn Stone. All the breeders are aware of this and they know that allowing her to possess one could result in their being evaluated for Genesis.”
The OfficerJenny nodded. “That makes sense. What do the other leagues do?”
Poppet’s smile turned predatory. “Why, it turns out that they buy our dust.”