My Lamia 5 (2/19/16)

  Kristi awakens to the light in her eyes, the Lamia and Naga are swimming about in the nearby pond. Kristi watches them, thinking how they look so much bigger in the water than on land, except when they only have their torso above water. Well the Lamia could be mistaken for a normal human at these moments, excet maybe...movement in the nearby bushes catches Kristi's attention; her pupils become slits as she grabs the thing at lightning speeds. She is holding a chipmunk, her stomach growls. She tosses it back into the bush in disgust at herself.

   "Haven't had any meat since...yesterday," she thinks to herself, "that jerky bracelet."

   She thinks back to her lunches at work, always keeping a nice fish or turkey sandwich, and shopping....her memory is fuzzy, shopping at the store...its...all the same memory, same movements, same items, every week...but...she can't even think of where that store is. She has driven around town before, those memories are clear, finding a club, eating out...but this store, she can't even think of what it looked like on the outside. It then dawns on her that she went to sleep almost as soon as the lights were turned off and told to go to sleep...despite everything.

   Her thoughts are interrupted by the Lamia making a song like sound, both the Lamia and Naga are watching her. Despite everything she *laughs* and with a running start leaps into the pond...surprising herself as she leaps nearly twenty feet into the air and comes down like a spear into the pond. It is much deeper than it looks as she kicks off the bottom and moving her body in a wave motion leaps nearly two inches from her toes free of the water before splashing down on her back. She feels the Lamia's snake like body to her side and grabs hold riding her around the pond; both laughing as the Naga swims under them and comes up on the other side.

  ******

   "What was that?" asks Tod watching the camera with the head handler/bioframing enginner representative beside him, "If replicants are capable of all that...I find it rather hard to believe you'd mix them into the general working population even under observation."

   "Actually," says the representative not missing a beat and with a smile making him look a bit cryptic in his suit, "this is your fault."

   "Excuse me?" asks Tod

  "According to the tapes," says the handler, "you initiated the manual over-ride we have you...however it is possible sir that you may have mistaken giving her back control of her arm...for re-setting the automatic controls...you told her she wasn't human while in manual control."

  The handler *chuckles*, "Replicants are mass produced, not just for filling slots in the thinned out across the system work force thanks to the Andros boycots, but for...other applications. So as not to put my own ass on the line I will let you imagine what that means."

   He stops for a moment watching the trio playing in the pond, some splashing, the Lamia being surprised when Kristi kisses it on the cheek and licking her back, only for the Naga to join in licking them both, all three laughing.

  "The automatic controls," continues the Handler, "are psychosomatic, a placebo. Controlled with false memories, hobbies, and all that, which you very well know of course sir. When you told her she wasn't human while in manual control you initiated a neural pruning program. It is removing all memories she hasn't personally experienced herself, this will leave obvious gaps, possibly making her dismiss her entire life up to this point. She is not unlike a clever animal that was being kept to plow fields...and has now been set free...as it were. Some physical changes will also occur."

   "That aside," says Tod Durande, "and putting aside the legal loopholes for them to even exist, are you saying she's going change? As in turn her legs into a tail and all that...I saw the eyes..."

   "No," says the handler, "human legs and the snake tail are far too different, that sort of metamorphosis would require major changes to her lower organ structures, spine, changes througout her torso in fact, neural structure...outside of a controlled laboratory setting allowing such changes would cause complications, potentially fatal ones, for them. If you want we could change her into a Lamia if you're concerned about a replicant affecting the safari project, it would take a few weeks but..."

   "No," says Tod, "how much of a change can we expect?"

   "Well," says the handler, "Its not universal, but I will have my people send you a file on it. So far we've only seen her eyes change, a minor and quick alteration, at the very least we can expect some strength increase...but that...as you've already seen, isn't much of a change, and is really just the limiters put in her mind being shut-down. Typically I've personally seen the skin toughen, maybe some scales appear, a forked tongue, but nothing too dramatic so far. But like I said I'll send you a full file to look over."

   "The replicant aside," says Tod turning away from the monitor showing the three of them leaving the pond, "how goes the other orders?"

   "The sea-side enclosure has been fully converted to fresh water, the geokinetic immitation wave control is fully functional to prevent stagnation along with some waterfall lagoons, and the ecologists have begun placing the lower order organisms in there. The Gorgon house in the Jungle/Swamp enclosure is nearly complete, the Gorgon should be arriving shortly, I trust you want the Nure-Onna in the same enclosure?"

   "No," says Tod, "put that one in the sea-side enclosure. Also don't forget to habitiate them to each other's scents, along with the Lamia and Naga. I would prefer not to have any incidents when they eventually meet."

  The handler knows this already, it is HIS job, but keeps his mouth shut about that, "On that sir," he says however, "we do have one complication, the Glyconic is not compatible with these others...it doesn't have the same genetic structure and would likely be regarded as a food...even by the replicant should she go full wild...not likely. but the other four definetly would."

   "Drat," says Tod, "and that would have fit in so well in the plains habitat. Really don't want to change that one, so expensive. But the Lamia and Naga never really seemed to care for, always staying so close to the doors out...and I doubt the Gorgon or Nure-Onna are likely to explore too far out of where we are putting them. Anything else you have that could fit in?"

   "Well," says the handler, "we do have some others...not yet available on the open market, much like the Naga, like her not really fit for mixing with the general public safely, but for this safari...."

  He pulls out a paper pamphlet.

  "A pamphlet?" asks Tod

  "Not so easy to download," jokes the handler handing it to him.

  Tod is wide eyed looking at the creatures, "These...are comptaible? But they're..."

  "The same," says the handler, "if the replicant can do so well with the Lamia and Naga, these will do well as well...besides...these would really bring in the tourists."

  Tod smiles, "One of each then, spare no expense as the saying goes."

  ******

  Kristi walks out of the pond and stops, something is wiggling in her hand. She is holding a fish, not really sure what kind of fish, a rather generic looking, possible engineered fish species. She also has no idea when she caught it. But she is hungry.

   "Could build a fire," she thinks looking around, "plenty of firewood I guess...but..."

   She concentrates hard, she thinks one is supposed to build a ring of stones, after digging a shallow hole for the firewood...and make a fire. She concentrates hard, all she can imagine is a lighter, a fire starter stick, "wait," she thinks, "banging two stones together maybe, I think I saw that on something...but..."

   She looks around there are no rocks to even make that ring she was thinking about, let alone...there is a smashed up stone bench. She walks over to it, followed by the Lamia on the other side of the pond, the Nage coiling up and just watching them.

   "Guess these will do," she thinks aloud, "but...do they spark?"

  She tries to lift one with one hand, despite her earlier shows of strength it is still awkward and apparently a very hard stone. She looks around not sure where to put the fish so she can use her other hand, noticing the Lamia is eying the fish also. Put it down it might flip into the pond, or the Lamia might eat it. She puts the fish in her mouth without thinking about it and tries to life a stone piece with both hand and by reflex extends her jaw wide and swallows the fish whole.

  She stops and just stands there wide eyed at what she just did, not disgusted, not wanting to vomit. She tosses down the stone piece, "guess I don't need this," it doesn't spark it just crumbles upon impact with the other stones.

   "Well," says Kristi standing, "that...was weird. So how's about we find that wall today."

  She remembers everything that happened, and the very clear evidence she was told the truth by the man over the intercom, that Tod guy, but...if she is going to trapped in here she is going to know what all "in here" is.

   ******

   After following the winding trail for some time they finally reach a wall. Kristi sits down, the Lamia and Naga coiling up behind her, following her.

  "Damn," she says with a *huff*, "how big is this fricken place?"

  She looks in both directions, no signs of a door, but she is at a curve in the wall. The Naga looks back down that direction and even back in a straight line through the trees. It actually *shrugs*. Kristi looks at it and follows its gaze, "what are you..." it dawns on her that she can see the pond from here...the path took a long winding through the trees like a park approach, the wall was actually near where she was hidden through some trees and...something odd along the wall.

   "A gate..." she says in disbelief, "I just walked in a circle and there was a gate...like not even a hundred feet behind me..."

   She looks up at the Naga, "you knew didn't you...wait...what that guy said...you came through that gate and...what ever."

   She follows along the wall towards the gate, finding and peeking through to a brightly lit grassy place with lots of hills and no sparse trees.

   "Huh," says Kristi.

  The Naga and Lamia both make *hissing noises and look back in the opposite direction*.

  "Yeah...I don't blame you," says Kristi, "that looks...pretty sucky in there. So something better in the other direction?"

   The voice of Tod comes over the intercom, "Good morning Replicant, Lamia, and Naga"

  "I have a name," says Kristi, "Its Kristi,"

  The Lamia and Naga both look at her with a strang interest.

  "Yes of course," says Tod, "in any case not sure if I mentioned this, there are four enclosures in total, a prairie, a forest which you are in and the prarie is what you are looking at, as well as a mixture of swamp and jungle and a fourth that is...essentially a pool with islands and a wave device immitating the ocean...only with fresh water as you arn't exactly a tri of mermaids. That said I will be giving you your privacy for the time being, I do have other work to attend to. Just thought I'd let you know...oh...also each enclosure is about two square miles so...you have plenty of space to...frollick, as well as food in the form of wildlife and various edible plants, namely year round fruits and vegetables. As you are a permanent resident, even if we wanted to your...other traits have been coming through making you unsafe to be around humans anylonger. But that likely sounds like an excuse to you, well...this is...awkward honestly. Never had this issue with the Lamia or Naga, not use to talking...snakes or whatever you qualify as. So have fun...I guess."

  *click*

  "I am not a sssnaake," hisses Kristi her tongue feeling weird on her teeth, she sticks it out...way out, it is long, can move around oddly and is forked, and she can taste and somehow knows what she is tasting in the air with it.

   "ooookay," she says, "So I...you know I kind of do want to see this giant pool...uh..."

  She looks at the Lamia and Naga as they turn seemingly understanding her, "you two need names."

  They snap back looking at her with great interest.

  She stops wide eyed looking between them, "Okay, uh..."

  She looks at the Lamia, "I...name you..."

  The Lamia leans down flicking its tongue out, "Lydia," says Kristi after some thought.

  She looks at the Naga which is also looking intently at her, "I name you...Nadia."

  The Lamia speaks clearly, "Designation Lydia, accepted."

  The Naga speaks clearly, "Designation Nadia, accepted."

  Kristi's mind flashes to a weird room, a memory merging her interview at work with a lab, her interviewer who she never saw at work again sitting in the office but also a lab of somekind, her sitting in a chair and on a table. She thought she was joking at her interview saying, "Designation Kristi, accepted."

  "Woah," says Kristi coming to her senses, and also because Lydia the Lamia has picked her up and is happily licking her face as is Nadia the Naga. On impulse she flicks out her own long tongue across there's.

  "Neat," says Kristi, "So...how about that big pool huh?"

  ******

  Tod had been about to turn off the feed in his office and head out, but now stands there hand over the button, "Names...all these years and he...never gave them names...I wander. Well have to look into those manuals a bit closer when I have the time then won't I."

   ******