Back at my bunker, I had something else to do. The robot-hands I had made for Galatea had finished the two tunnels I had planned, one to the warehouse near the river and one into the river itself, allowing them to dump the excavated earth into the river without being seen. It had been a little annoying to store it while waiting for that outlet but now it was done and the robots could slowly get rid of the earth and ground-up rocks. It would take some time to do so, as I did not want to dump too much at once to avoid discovery, but it would get done.

But now, I had to plan out the biotech lab I needed for the strengthening project and just thinking about it sent shivers down my spine. My plan called for a viral carrier, tailor-made to my specific DNA to introduce the changes I wanted and creating it was more or less proven technology. So, it was simple, for a given value of simple. The only reason it was not developed further was the amount of money needed to get the treatment from experimental in animals to useable on humans. In addition, experimenting with viruses always carried a bit of a risk, just because of what they were.

Sure, I was taking a risk but that was life. The risk of the project was far lower than living in a bunker that was powered by an experimental fusion-generator and using a suit of armour powered by the equivalent of a nuclear warhead. Still, I did both on my pursuit of knowledge and independence.

But with the same equipment used to create the carrier for the changes I wanted in me, it would be possible to create weapons worse than anything I had yet to create. Nothing came even close, the possibilities for abuse and were endless, starting from relatively simple bio-weapons that simply killed a lot of people to the truly horrific ideas of plagues, tailor-made for specific genetic markers, killing those who had them and being only a slight annoyance for everyone else. So, a plague killing everyone with green eyes? Possible. Or killing everyone with the genetic markers found in specific ethnicities, so genocide could be unleashed at the press of a button.

And those were only the obvious examples of Bad Things™ that could happen, there was one other thing, far more scarier than either of them. Not scary because of what it could do, no scary because of the implications. There was a tickling idea somewhere in the back of my mind, an idea to use the equipment to create a process to slow down the decay of telomere-chains in an individual, effectively slowing down the aging process. Maybe even a way to reverse the process to a point. Even the slightest suggestion that something like that might be possible would paint a target on my back, because everyone and their grandmother, especially the grandmother, would want to have the process and control it. It might not be a true fountain of youth, but I had no doubt that everyone who had even the slightest bit of power would scramble for it.

In addition, once it was known, even average humans would want in on it, claiming a right to live longer, no matter what the reality was. Longer lives would increase overpopulation even further, increase the damage to the planet as a whole.

No, even the idea was apocalyptically dangerous. I might revisit it once I was grown to the point that I wanted to retain that age, maybe in ten years, but for now, the danger outweighed the benefits to a ridiculous extent.

My precautions would have to be appropriate to the danger the equipment and the experiments represented, making sure that there was no contamination due to mistakes. The first step would be to build the lab-room into the bedrock, isolated from the rest of the base. Best eliminate any material exchange from the inside to the outside, working in an pressure-suit with its own oxygen-reserve, bringing the pressure inside the lab down quite a bit and using an inert atmosphere to limit possible failure-points. What else should I do? Use a dedicated generator for the lab and only place data gained by the experiments inside the lab on an isolated system only connected with weak, short-range wireless transmissions to allow Galatea access. The airlock, between the rest of the base and the lab should feature a decontamination-shower and strong UV-radiators, to kill anything I might bring out with me. And to top it all off, a system that floods the room with an incendiary gas mixed and oxygen causing a contained fire to melt everything inside, even the rocks themselves, if either Galatea or I feel the need to do so.

But most important of all, the classic idea of loose lips, sink ships applied here again. If nobody knew about the lab, it should be safe.

The equipment for the lab was another challenge. Most of it was relatively easy to acquire, once again, for a given value of easy, but some would raise red flags from here to the other side of the globe, due to the problematic applications it could be used for. But those pieces of equipment were relatively easy to build, I would just have to make them myself. It would take some time, but I had no doubt that it would be worthwhile.

Once I was finished with the design of the Pandora’s Box, as I started to think of the laboratory, I felt a need to do something different, to relax in some way. A quick look at the clock told me that it was early afternoon, so I sent a message to Sophia, asking if she wanted to meet me in one of the parks by the river for a picnic. Her affirmative answer arrived within minutes, while I dressed. The weather had taken a turn to true summer, gracing us with temperatures in the thirties (celsius) and blazing sunshine, so I decided to wear something at the edge of my comfort-zone, capri-shorts, a crop-top and my sunglasses. Part of me wanted to chicken out, due to the amount of leg and shoulder shown, even my midriff was bare, but I felt daring and stuck with it.

Once I was dressed, I prepared a basket filled with goodies, a few sandwiches, fruit, coffee, cookies, all those great things one can easily eat with one’s hands, before leaving the bunker, sneaking out through the backdoor of the warehouse. It was a lot closer to the park compared to using the exits up on the hill and it was obscured from view, giving me a sense of security.

I arrived first at the park, setting up below one of the trees on the grass, spreading a blanket, everything as one would expect in a cheesy movie, with the only wirkle that it was not a boy doing manual the labour but a girl, waiting on another girl.

Maybe ten minutes, Galatea told me that Sophia was approaching, still tracking her mobile phone, so I stood, intent on greeting her. I saw her walking roughly in my direction, looking at the screen of her phone, no doubt intent on calling me to ask where I was, so I shortcut the process and called out to her. The effect was quite satisfying, she looked up and literally froze for a moment, taking my looks in. At that moment, I knew that I had done the right thing, daring to wear such short clothes, just for the look on her face as she looked me over. The blush on her face, once she realised just what she had done added to the happiness I was feeling. It felt good to be physically desired, a new experience for me, at least in such a blatant fashion.

She walked over, now grinning. “Hi Cat. You look awesome.”

I gave her a hug and a peck on her cheek. “Why, thank you kindly. You look quite good yourself.”

And she did, her dress of the day was a simple, white sundress, elegant in its simplicity and it greatly emphasized her olive skin. Her hair was in a simple ponytail, drawing focus to her slender neck, almost as if she wanted to entice vampires into existence.

Neither of us felt a need to immediately start eating and I had nothing in the basket that would spoil in a short time, so we simply settled down, sharing some small talk, but mostly basking in the enjoyable weather. We ended up with me, sitting against the tree and she laying down with her head on my thighs. In that position, her hair had an almost magical attraction to me, it screamed to be petted, to be played with and tickled.

Sitting like that, I was easily able to forget the thoughts I had before, forget about the horrific possibilities I could cook up in the lab I had planned. What did the Doctor want to say about a moment at one point? This was one such moment. A moment you wanted to invite to stay, to last forever.

But, as it had been with the Doctor, the moment would not last. So I enjoyed it while it lasted.