Re: Herr D’s CFLs

[Herr D]

“Dr. Francois LeBlanc?! They gave that nut a doctorate?”
“Well, it’s honorary. He IS an innovator . . . ”
“Yeah, yeah–so tell me what happened with Blanko and the demolished Oncology Wing.”
“He finished the laser targeting system–”
“That project for the military? Blow up the–”
“–bunker under the building but leave the building intact, that’s right.”
“He did this on the hospital grounds?”
“He had that trailer right outside the construction, remember? Anyway, he reasoned that he could reset the parameters and zap one cell or one cell’s nucleus instead of an entire room–”
“–okay?”
“So he spent the weekend making red sugar capsules, real easy to dissolve when wet, and then he rigged a miniature air-powered machine gun with a chain of them so he could fire them precisely and wired the whole arrangement into the targeting computer.”
“What did he put in the capsules?”
“A cocktail of various growth hormones, recombinant DNA, and mitochondria samples he stole from Oncology Research.”
“What?”
“He had this really old greyhound and thought he’d figured out a way to de-age it.”
“Oh, come on. Instant youth treatments? He actually thought he could repair all the old cells?”
“Apparently so. Anyhow, that’s not nearly what happened.”
“So he blew up the dog?”
“No, that’s the weird part.”
“THAT’S the weird part?”
“He replaced basically the entire dog’s body in seconds, thanks to that machinery. But he messed up the program. The turntable under the animal kept the right speed, the cells got worked on in about the right sequence, but he didn’t specifically program in just the dog’s anatomy. The computer’s fuzzy logic routines blended the anatomy of all the species of all the research samples. The red food coloring got adopted somehow, and now most of the clone is red.”
“C-clone?”
“Well, the cells were basically cloned around and into the dog as bits of it were torn away by the laser and projectile impacts. Then it got loose.”
“It could move after that?”
“It ate most of a security guard, killed one patient with a bite to the gut, burst into the samples room, and started sniffing. A quick-thinking orderly noticed it was only eating cancer samples. He dumped a bunch of them on the floor and locked it in. Then he wheeled every patient he could get to up to the door and back to their rooms until they tranked the clone.”
“Why on earth would he do that?”
“The creature only tried to get at the patients who had cancer. It’s being hailed as a new diagnostic tool.”
“What blew up the Oncology Wing?”
“Armed security shot a tank of oh-two trying for the creature.”
“Naturally Blanko isn’t being held responsible for any of this.”
“No. The guard and the patient the creature killed both had inoperable terminal cancer. The guard wasn’t supposed to be working. He’d lied about being fit for duty to try for his pension.”
“And that’s enough to keep Blanko out of trouble?”
“No. One of the patients the orderly wheeled up for sniffing was the mayor.”
“OH COME ON!”
“I know, Dave.”
“I make a mistake and I miss a promotion. You make a mistake and get no raise. HE steals and goes Frankenstein on us and gets an HONORARY DOCTORATE?!”
“Yeap.”
[Dave exits, slamming the door]
“I guess I’ll let someone ELSE tell him we’ve been elected to clean the creature’s cage. I hope it’s at least over the formaldehyde sickness . . . ”

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u438/jamais5/2014hm/SuccessfulClone_zps8c342aa3.png

*KTc