Dr. Caroline Denaro is the woman of Rick Lockmann's dreams--his most macabre nightmares. When she touches him, she gets under his skin--literally. Within days he realises his life will never be the same.

Her spectral appearance belies the potency of her touch. A touch that carries both viral and plant gene sequences. Rick doesn't realise it--at first--but his body is changing. As the days go by, Rick seeks the source of his infection: the remnants of Caroline Denaro's genetic research. Only by understanding what she has enacted, can he have any hope of changing the outcome for himself--or her.

Rick is sick--nearly unto death. His contact with Denaro has infected him with Wound Tumour Virus (WTV), a plant virus that has never before attacked humans.

Rick's illness has not gone unnoticed. Genetechnic, Denaro's employer, removes him from the hospital and sequesters him within their complex. His mutation is both a subject for study, and a source of potential social backlash.

It doesn't take long for Genetechnic to realise, however, that his antibodies are the most valuable resource of all. Rick may have recovered from the virus, but Denaro has not. She has begun to act as a viral vector, and is spreading a deadly form of the virus throughout the complex. Psychopathic and vengeful, she destroys everyone she can touch, from her own doctor, to Genetechnic's most hardened defenders.

It's up to Rick to stand against her, but he doesn't do it alone. The Defensive Security Office (DSO) has been called in to challenge Genetechnic's questionable research. Rick's closest friends--horrified by what has been done to him--have also contrived a rescue mission of their own.

Denaro's reign of terror is complicated by an unexpected byproduct of the plant and virus genes circulating through her system. Her body has succumbed to the foreign proteins--but has rejected part of her own mortality as a result. Caroline Denaro's spirit is repeatedly shunted from her ailing body. As time goes on, and her body deteriorates, her out-of-body self learns to manipulate her environment, in order to gain some degree of physical presence. It was this extra-corporeal being which infected Rick initially--and it is this Denaro he must also challenge.

Rick defeats her, using the strength, speed, and healing ability that are products of his mutation. Denaro dies, and eventually, Rick recovers fully.

His problems are not over, however. His life can never be the same as it was. Rick Lockmann is now photosynthetic. Not only are his physical needs different, but he has to come to terms with his mutant status--and the knowledge that he harbours the world's most valuable DNA within his cells.

Rick stood under the moonlight and stared at the brilliant skies. He was enjoying a sensation of peace, while watching the almost frenetic activity taking place overhead.

His eyes picked up the changes in the light waves as they were jettisoned across the heavens, to finally impact on the rod and cone cells of his vision. Unlike other people--who saw only velvet skies with pinpoint stars and the occasional cloud--Rick saw layers, arcs, and angles of light, that blended and glitzed the skies. Overlapping streams of multi-coloured radiance: cooler, but every bit as potent, as the lights of day.

It was the wildness of the shifting wavelengths that stirred him--the ever-moving restlessness that appealed to his own energy surges. The heavens were never still, and he knew his keepers couldn't understand why he derived so much pleasure from looking at what was, to them, a dark sky. It was the price of his mutation, that even though he'd been given new depths of perception, it was something he couldn't share--something he alone could appreciate. Other people didn't possess the equipment to see things as he did.

Rick suddenly realised how lonely he was. Despite the almost continuous inquiries about his health and well-being, the weight of his bodyguards' eyes on his back, and the visits from his well-meaning friends, he stood separate--and alone. No more casual invitations, no more dropping by to watch or do things, no more fun. He didn't know whether it was because they were afraid of overrunning his metabolic imbalances, or the size of the retinue that lagged behind him wherever he went--or maybe, it was just that, somehow, in the making of this new Rick, they'd forgotten him as a person. Maybe now they saw him as something else.

Hell, the last time he'd had any fun, it'd been to shoot a dawn game of basketball with Cole, and even that had been orchestrated to try to find out what he had planned for his future. Well-meaning of course, but the outing had lost something after that. If anything, it had made him feel more isolated, because up until then he'd been hoping he might make his future at least partly match his past. A month ago he never would have guessed that the sound of a basketball thudding in his hall might be the most welcome reprieve in the world. A reprieve from his thoughts, from his separateness, from what he'd become.

So, he stood alone in his yard, seeing what only he could see, and forcing himself to focus on the way the light waves rode the skies. Even when the stars appeared as shards of glitter, and the moon was fatly placid, breathy gusts would stir the tranquil image, and turbulence would lie waiting on the next spin of the orbiting globe.

So much movement. Of clouds and moon, wind and light. Each star glinting through its ever-changing dance of colour. And, through it all, the earth swirled, even as the moon rolled across the heavens. The kinetics of the scene grounded him--somehow helping him to take his own frantic energy bursts in stride.

Here, he was just one more piece of the turmoil. Of the eternally energetic litter cluttering the night.

He smiled.

When he was underneath the stars, it wasn't so hard to admit what he'd been lacking for the past month. Something that everyone's keen observation and concern had stolen from him--simply because it had made him feel less than human. Being out here, he was made to feel that he had a place in the universe. He began to feel that once more, he belonged.

The freezer units were unguarded. During the day, this area was well-patrolled, but at this time of night, the only eyes were at the end of electronic tethers. There were electronic surveillance units everywhere.

He'd been assured that the situation was controlled--that the surveillance cameras would be watching him with blind eyes. They'd thought it would be a matter of great importance to him. The truth was, he felt no qualms about dismantling the cameras, any more than he'd feel qualms about murdering any human opposition that came his way. He was going about the devil's work anyway, so if the price was worth your damnation, there was no point in half measures.

Her remains had been sequestered: her parts savaged and scattered throughout the freezer units in the name of science. He'd already been warned about the damage her body had undergone--the multiple gunshot wounds that had changed her from monster to corpse.

It didn't matter. They'd warned him so he wouldn't be shocked by the condition of her remains--so that he'd recognise her when he'd found her. How could they think he'd ever be able to forget the way she'd looked? The distortions that would be easily recognisable as long as there was a centimetre of skin left. As long as there was a gram of tumorous tissue to pass as flesh.

Fools! This was nothing. He'd already endured the worst, and chopping her up further would only give him pleasure. Mutilation would act as a form of vengeance.

He found her. The chills from the deep freeze were no worse than the chills she'd given him in life. The thought gave him pause. Should he do this? Should he take the chance on re-creating something that should never have existed in the first place?

It was as deep as his thinking went. There was nothing for him without his work--without the thrills and edginess that kept him honed. It nurtured the evil that lurked within--the crimes against humankind that others were willing to commit, so long as only their minds, but never their hands, wreaked the damage. It justified his existence, somehow. As their tool, he was useful--and well paid.

Tazo Raeiti performed his first surgery for pay. It was a messy job, but at least there was no bloodshed. He double-wrapped his trophies, and prepared to go. But first, he took a look around, to ensure that he'd left no traces of his work. He hadn't needed to take out the surveillance units after all.

They'd discover what he'd done, but only when they came to do the devil's work themselves--and it might take them a while longer yet to get up the courage.