The Process

Kaleen begins the transformation

 

The Process

 

From the moment Kaleen arrived at the hospital, death began to look better and better. She did not like needles, and there were more needles in her future than she ever imagined existed. She did not mind the physical training, the gym or the food, but the needles almost got to her. 

            The Suit was there every day to monitor her progress. She could count on him to arrive with his driver at almost the same time every day. This type pattern made her job downright easy at times. To avoid assignation, change your routine. Make them work at killing you!

            Kaleen breezed through the second and third set of physical agility tests they had her run. This training was too easy, so she took it upon herself to make everything harder so she could improve ahead of their learning curve. 

            “Sir, she is probably the fastest person we’ve seen on this course, and she added two more obstacles to it. What next?”

            “Let’s see how she handles live rounds. Make sure she knows nothing of it, and keep the sharpshooters aware that if she dies, they all die. Don’t aim to hit her, aim to barely miss her. Give her a break, set them up,” the suit ordered.

            While Kaleen rested, Agent Sloan brought her the revised documents to sign. Kaleen read the changes and signed the forms to admit her into the drug trial. Before she allowed Sloan to leave, she asked her a question.

            “If you were in my shoes, what would you have done?” Kaleen asked. “Given my choices that is?”

            “I would have pissed myself and had a heart attack when they caught me,” she said. “Did you have any idea how many guns were on you when you landed?”

            “Twenty more than I could handle, and that’s why I’m here. Ten, I think my odds were pretty good. Thirty, well, there you got me. Right now, twenty sounds good. And they have fifty in the towers, twenty on the ground doing foot patrol and another thirty mobile units. That’s a lot of coin to spend guarding a little old girl like me, don’t ya think?”       

            “You have no idea what they are going to give you or maybe you would just love to escape and let them kill you,” Sloan said. “I know what you can do now, and I know what they want you to do later, when they are through. I know what your future holds Kaleen. They own you heart and soul.”

            “Hey, with a fire like that, we could have some fun,” Kaleen teased. “Get a pass to my cell and let’s party. Two fine girls like us could drive these guards wild!”

            “No thanks,” Sloan declined. “I’ll stay on this side of the fence.”

            Kaleen returned to her obstacle course to make another run at it. She beat the Marines and the Seals last time around, so she was very interested in what they had for her this time. As soon as she started the course, tracer rounds flew by her head, one touching her hair as it zinged past her face.

            Kaleen was enraged at this development. She cleared her course and attacked the first sharpshooter with fury. Within seconds, she stripped the rifle from his hands; field stripped it and laid it in pieces at his feet.

            “What, you thought I was going to kill you with your own gun?” she laughed as the smell of urine filled the immediate area. “I’m not that kind of girl and I only kill for money, not chump change.”

            “Kaleen, that’s enough of the agility runs. We only wanted a baseline of how good you are now,” the suit said. “Let’s wrap this up. We have all the data I need. Tomorrow, mental conditioning.”

            “That’s a load of crap!” Kaleen said. “You know I am mentally tougher than any one of these elite soldiers you have out here. Not a one of them stands a chance against me if I wanted to kill them.”

            “It’s more than survival now Kaleen. You have to learn to use your body, all of it and you have to learn how to use it without thinking,” the suit continued. “We want you to use the reflexes all humans have at birth, without inhibitions. You are still very reactionary to your environment. Granted, you are the best we’ve seen, but you are only the best. We want more, and tomorrow we start the long process that will get the best out of you.”

            He turned and left Kaleen on the training grounds dripping sweat and wondering what that process could be. She picked up her towel and stripped to the waist to dry off. Her persistent nudity still created a stir among the guards, but she liked to keep them off balance. She walked back to her cell with two guards flanking her. Sweat glistened from her skin and she made no effort to cover herself. The more they focused on her chest, the less they noticed she stole parts of their weapons.

            More testing, more testing. Is that all they wanted to do to her? Now the needles started again. They drew blood from her, they took bone marrow from her, they took endless urine samples, stool samples, sweat samples and performed three PAP smears. Months transpired while they studied her base DNA sequences, tested her baseline reflexes and trained her to think in a feline manner. After months of exhaustive testing, they began the procedures. Injections and inhalation therapy, plus all the vaccines a cat had to have, she endured them all. 

Then the day came, the final procedure they told her. This was the big day, and she was going to take a long nap, for something like six weeks while the DNA grafts did their thing. She signed more papers, and paid special interest to the one paper that granted her full pardon for the crimes of her past. The attorneys cast a quick eye to each document, insuring the accuracy of the signatures and validity of each sheet of paper included in the huge file.