Glen turned to greet Kasumi as the small thief slipped into the room.
"Did you get it?' Glen asked.
Kasumi held up a vial filled with a dark blue liquid. "Not a problem."
"Excellent!" Glen motioned for Kasumi to follow her to the constructor pod. It had a few additional modifications, most notably a large interface pad currently occupied by a small mechanical spider-like construct.
"Kasumi," Glen said, indicating the construct. "Screep. Screep, this is Kasumi."
"Charmed, I'm sure." Kasumi said, raising an eyebrow at Screep.
"Screep is a Glyche skriever." Glen said, rubbing Screep's head plate as another might pet a cat. "These little fellows were the backbone of the Glyche civilization. Given resources and time, they can build just about anything; core units, facilities, even Starscreamers like the Gamechan. Little Builders, that's what they are, which is why I asked Screep to help me out on the strawberry project."
"Really?"
"Indeed. Now, the vial, if you please."
Kasumi shrugged and handed over the vial. Glen took it and plugged it into one of the new additions to the constructor pod. A holographic screen popped into existence above the console, showing a DNA helix.
"All right," Glen said, pulling out another vial, this one filled with red liquid.
"Uh, Glen," Kasumi asked, her eyes on the vial, "Is that … uh … yours?"
"John's actually." Glen said. "I'd use my blood, but between my interactions with the Glyche and the Kindred, my cybernetics, that whole avatar of the Solarion thing which I still don't really get, I'm worried that I might not be human enough for what we're trying to do."
Glen put the vial of John Shepard's blood in the console beside that which now held Tali's blood sample. A holographic rendering of John's DNA appeared above it.
"All right." Glen said, rubbing her hands together. "Last but not least …"
Glen opened the constructor and placed a single strawberry seed inside the compartment. Upon closing the door, a third hologram rose above the constructor, this time showing the genetic pattern held within the strawberry seed.
"Okay," Kasumi said, "Now what?"
"Now I simply explain the problem to our friend, Screep."
"I dunno, Glen; I mean, building a starship's impressive, but can Screep really build a dextro strawberry from the ground up?"
"Aha!" Glen said, raising a finger. "not from the ground up. We don't need to convert the strawberry; we simply need to mirror the levo proteins so that the strawberry is technically both."
Kasumi raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Excuse me?"
"My mistake was trying to convert the entire structure of the strawberries so that they were dextro-compatible. What we need is to make a strawberry that's both levo and dextro." Glen paused a moment before adding, "Omni."
"Excuse me?"
"Omni-protein." Glen said with a grin. "Universal compatability. The body takes the dna strand it needs, and in doing so tears apart the strand it doesn't, making it harmless. The body just converts it to harmless waste, no anaphalactic shock guaranteed."
"And you said you aren't a genetic scientist!" Kasumi teased.
Glen coughed and rubbed the back of her head. "Well, I'm not. It was Screep's idea."
Screep let out an affirmative chirp. Surprised, Kasumi said, "Wow. You are a smart little thing, aren't you?"
Screep let out a soft trilling noise that sounded strangely like a purr as Kasumi rubbed the skriever's head plate.
Rolling her eyes, Glen muttered, "Yeah, yeah, he's a friggin' genius. You gonna get to work or what?"
Screep let out another chirp before tapping its small legs against the controls.
"And you understand what it is we're wanting, right? To make sure the fruit produced by the seed in the constructor is compatible with both blood samples."
The skriever let out an annoyed buzz that made Glen raise her hands.
"Hey, just making sure." Turning to Kasumi, Glen clapped her hands together and said, "How about we get some lunch so our little friend here can work in peace?"
"Sounds good to me." Kasumi said with a grin. "If we hurry, we might be able to get in on that picnic basket I saw John packing on the way down here."
"Good catch!" Glen said, bumping fists with Kasumi as they headed for the door.
They caught the happy couple just as they were about to step onto the elevator that led directly to the base of the cliff upon which the house was built. Tali grabbed John's hand moments before he could hit the button.
"Wait," she said, eyes narrowing. "I sense something."
"Yeah?"
"I sense … trouble."
"That's an awfully nice picnic basket you got there, John." Glen said, poking her head out from the left side of the elevator door.
Kasumi poked her head out a moment later, a mischievous grin on her face. "Be a shame if anything happened to it."
"Yeah, they're trouble all right." John said, crossing his arms. "An arms-smuggler and her thief-accomplice."
Kasumi and Glen exchanged looks for a moment before both slowly sinking to the ground, back-to-back and clutching their stomachs.
"So hungry …" Kasumi said as Glen let out a piteous moan. "Need … chicken sandwiches."
Tali giggled even as her husband proclaimed, "Mercy? The Shepard-Zorah Empire shows no mercy to its enemies!"
He pressed a button that made the doors slide shut, but not before Glen blocked it with her tek-boot protected foot. This gave Kasumi enough time to slip inside the lift. Tali held the picnic basket, a determined look on her face until she fell into a fit of giggles.
"Kasumi!" She managed between spouts of laughter, "You bosh'tet! This is unfair!"
Tali collapsed, still giggling as the picnic basket appeared to float out of the lift. John lunged at it, but Glen brought her foot up just in time to trip the muscular human. Finally regaining her breath, Tali hopped over the bodies of John and Glen, and quickly gave chase to the picnic basket as Kasumi carried it away.
John quickly got to his feet and moved to join the pursuit, but Glen grabbed his ankle to stop him.
"Hey," Glen said, "Been waiting for a chance to catch you away from Tali."
"Really? Why?" His eyes widened. "The strawberries?"
"I'll know for sure by the end of the day. Between you and me, though, it looks pretty good."
Grinning, John grabbed Glen's hand and hauled her to her feet before hugging her. "Thank you, Glen."
"Hey, glad I could help."
"Oh, not for that." Glen caught the glow of an omni-tool in her peripheral vision. She scarcely had time to turn before the magnetic soles of her tek-boots activated, promptly sticking to the outer wall of the elevator chamber. Glen tried to deactivate them, only to find that John had shorted out the boots, essentially cutting off her control until the self-repair protocol repaired the damage.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a picnic basket to liberate." He gave her a mocking bow before hurrying the direction of Tali and Kasumi's laughter.
Glen managed to slip her foot from one of the boots when a familiar chirp caught her ear. She glanced in the direction of the sound only to find Screep focusing its camera eye on her.
"Ah, finished already?" Glen asked as she tugged at her other leg. "I thought it'd at least take you another few hou-AAGH!"
Glen fell face-first on the ground, narrowly missing Screep by about three inches. After a few moments, she pushed herself up and stared the skriever in its camera eye.
"I could use some good news about now."
Screep let out a satisfied-sounding chirp.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
