Print came in, and using hand gestures requested Harry to turn away from him.  “Harry, my boy, Ariel tells me you’re normal in many ways now.  I wished you could do more than make faces to tell me about yourself.”  Bill started the exam the same way that Ariel did, first behind the ears and then down along the neck.  Harry seethed with each touch of the white-suit’s hands along his waist.

When Harry turned, he saw a strange look in Bill’s eyes.  From the time Harry entered the big white building Bill seemed detached.  Now Bill’s face looked more alive, less clinical and more involved as his hands worked their way down from Harry’s shoulders to his waist once again.

“C’mon Harry, it’s the day of love, Valentine’s Day.  Let’s see you do for me what you did for Ariel.”

Bill started to examine Harry’s pelvis.  Instead of the warm, comfortable feeling he got from Ariel, Bill irritated him with the intensity of his probes.  Bill went from using his fingers to his entire hand and the pain rose from Harry’s abdomen into his chest.  He tried to stay obedient as he endured the discomfort of the frantic touching, but his weeks of anger at Bill overcame his control.

 

Hours later when the staff at the big white building discovered Bill Hodgkins’ body, Harry had long since vanished into the night, dressed only in a white lab suit.

Local authorities said Hodgkins appeared to die instantly when the patient ripped away the project director’s throat and severed the carotid artery.  Their reports said that Hodgkins did not defend himself from the strange, inexplicable rage that overcame one Harry Branscombe.  No further details.

The institute staff never found a note among Bill’s lab reports or scrap of evidence to describe what happened in the examining room that night.  Ariel burned her report from the day when Harry came of age, and kept her findings secret, long after management officially shut down the xeno-transplant program.