Chapter 1

Bob Davidson entered the conference room of Davidson Genetics. The company was one of a thousand little known research and development startups that resulted from the relaxing of strictures on the study and manipulation of stem cells. As things turned out, it wouldn't remain little known for much longer. At least not much longer in a historical context. The first hint of that was about to be delivered to the board members and major investors of the company.

"Thank you for being here. I'm not going to beat around the bush or waste your time. I'm just going to give you very good news about RD684." He pushed a button that dimmed the lights. Another button turned on a large flat screen LCD unit mounted on the wall. He gestured at the screen that now provided most of the light in the room.

"As you can see by the chart, the results of the clinical trials are good. In fact, they're so good that we're a little worried about it. You know the old saying - if it looks too good to be true, it probably IS too good to be true."

A voice spoke out in the dark.

"So you think the results are skewed somehow?"

"We can't find any problems," said Bob. "Believe me, we've looked and looked. The fact is that RD684 is producing results that are nothing short of astonishing. The doctors participating in the study are elated, and whether you know it or not, a good physician is pretty difficult to get excited. The women are reporting they never felt better and every symptom ... I repeat EVERY symptom is being remediated after a treatment period of only three to four weeks."

"This is the menopause thing, right?" came the voice of a man Bob knew was an investor, but who usually had no frequent contact with the company.

"That's right," said Bob. "This project addresses the hormonal changes in a woman who has entered menopause, and the symptoms such women suffer. RD684 appears to counter the body's loss of hormones through the natural aging process. The symptoms just flat disappear. It's really quite astonishing."

"Side effects?" same a deep voice.

"None that we've been able to identify," said Bob. "The women are happy and the doctors are too."

"What's the delivery method?" asked another voice.

"We started with injections, because the taste of the drug was awful. One of our junior people came up with the idea to counter the taste with something sweet. We have one group still getting the shots, and another group that is taking it in what amounts to a piece of taffy each day."

"Taffy? You mean like candy?" The voice sounded incredulous.

Bob nodded. "One of the marketing people did a preliminary packaging design. I meant to have them here for this meeting, but I left them at home," he said. His assistant stepped up to him and whispered in his ear. Bob nodded and the man hurried out.

"Why candy?" asked one man.

Bob explained. "We tried putting it in a pill, but the results were not acceptable. Even when it's in the stomach if there's any reflux action the taste comes up, and it tastes awful. We think it's the corn syrup in the candy that deals with the taste, but haven't proven that yet. It's possible it could be put in chocolate too."

"Are you telling us that we have a product that tastes like candy, and solves the symptoms women complain about during menopause?"

"I DID say it sounds a little too good to be true," Bob said, smiling in the darkness.

"How does it work?" asked another voice, this one female. "Isn't this just another hormone replacement therapy?"

"Not at all," said Bob. "RD684 stimulates the body's normal production of stem cells," said Bob. "At the same time it encourages the naturally produced stem cells in the body to migrate to and replenish the lost function of the organs that produce the needed hormones."

He brought the lights back up and looked at the stunned faces before him.

"RD684 doesn't replace hormones. It encourages a woman's body to make new ones. And the brain then regulates that process. She gets what she needs, in this case estrogen and ... as far as we can tell ... nothing else."

Bob's assistant returned and handed him a small, flat square.

"We were able to locate a sample of the preliminary packaging concept that was undergoing some heat testing." He held up the object, which was wrapped in pink waxy paper. He handed it to the board member nearest him.

"Looks like that candy my kids love," said the board member holding the square by opposite corners. He handed it to the woman sitting next to him.

"Starburst," she said. "It looks like a Starburst candy." She peered at the wrapper. "Cute!" she snorted.

"What?" asked the man next to her.

She pointed to white printing on the wrapper, a circle with a cross extending from the bottom.

"They put the symbol for female on it," said the woman. There were chuckles around the room and the candy was passed along so all could examine it.

"This is FANTASTIC!" yelped a man Bob knew had provided more than half of the money for the research. "Have these gone to focus groups yet?" Bob also knew he was chafing to see some return on his investment. He held up a hand.

"It is fantastic," he said carefully. "But the trials aren't over yet, so let's not get ahead of ourselves. We need restraint and patience. There are three more months in the trials. Then the FDA will take a look at it. If all goes well ... well ... a year from now then we can think about marketing, and about making you all very rich people."

He was greeted with multiple groans from the assembled group.

Fifteen miles from Davidson Genetics, Clarissa Davidson entered a modest three bedroom house that was home. She'd never thought of it as anything but home, but it wasn't her original one. She and her little brother, Matt, had come to this house when they were six and five, respectively. They couldn't remember that and, to her dismay, it was getting harder and harder to remember the people who held the names "mom" and "dad" in her memory. Uncle Bob had been her "parent" for almost as long as she could remember, after her parents were killed in a car crash.

She entered the house as she had hundreds of times before, tossing her book bag on the couch and turning for the kitchen to make herself a snack. An observer might have thought she looked like she was floating as she moved. That observer might, under the right lighting conditions, have thought she was a ghost too. That was because she was very tall, very thin, and very pale. Everything about her was pale, from her limp dull blond hair, to her almost sallow complexion. She was thin to the point that people thought she was underfed, which wasn't true at all. She ate like Matt, who ate like a horse.

Had Matt been there, the observer could easily have imagined that a PAIR of ghosts was floating from room to room, perhaps some pair of star-crossed lovers who had died in some horrible way while they were in love. Matt's form was strikingly similar to hers, except that is hair was a dull brown, instead of blond.

It was their physical appearance, in fact, that helped them retain the memory of their parents. They had inherited most of their physical characteristics from those parents. When she looked in the mirror, Clarissa saw her mother, and when she looked at Matt, she saw her father ... sometimes, at least.

It sounds as if she might have appeared sad, but that was not the case. While she looked thin and wan, Clarissa was mostly a happy teenager, going through life much like her friends. She didn't consider herself to be deprived, or anything like that.

Which is not to say she was completely happy with things. She knew she was a beanpole and that was an unhappy thing, sometimes. At home there was no problem. Uncle Bob was both fun and satisfying to be around. He was a very smart man and he recognized and appreciated intelligence in those around him. Recognizing and appreciating it in his fosterlings was no exception.

She wasn't surprised that Matt wasn't home yet. The robotics club was meeting after school today and he was a founding member. She grabbed a stick of string cheese, stuffed a more than mouth-sized piece of chocolate cake in her mouth, and went off to participate in one of her favorite hobbies - snooping on her brother.

Not that she thought there would be anything really interesting to find. She and Matt, having undergone terrible trauma together, had grown up with a relationship that was much better than many siblings have. There was no competition between them for much of anything at home. Uncle Bob loved them both and provided for them both. He had enough money that they didn't want for anything, though there were times he said "No," when they pestered him to buy this or that thing. There was some minor competition between them when it came to using brain power, but that was friendly competition.

Still, sometimes Matt surprised her, like when she had found a Playboy magazine under his mattress. That had been a year ago and it had astonished her. Not that she didn't know boys were interested in naked women. But this was Matt! He wasn't like other boys!

She'd kept track of that magazine, carefully peeking to see if it stayed in one position, or if there were signs it was being removed and replaced. Those signs were obvious and that led her to think about what that meant. Obviously, Matt was looking at the magazine each night. She was pretty sure what that meant too, and THAT made her wonder about Uncle Bob. He was a man too. But he didn't go on dates, and he was usually home most nights. As far as Clarissa could tell, there were no women in his life.

That's when she started snooping in HIS room too, looking under his mattress, and in his closets, and even in the chest of drawers in his room. It was puzzling, because she never found anything that suggested he had a sexual life and yet ... she was sure he must. All adults did ... didn't then?

The magazine under Matt's bed disappeared one day. Just like that, it was gone. No new one appeared. She didn't say anything to Matt, of course. They were close, and she was pretty sure he'd tell her the truth if she actually asked him, but she was also sure he'd be mad that she'd snooped, and she didn't want that. If they knew she snooped, they'd stop her. And snooping was about the only fun she had any more.

Nobody asked a beanpole out on dates. She didn't even own a bra, because her chest was only thirty-two inches around. She didn't have breasts, in her own opinion. She had swells of flesh, with darkened tips that had a slightly different texture, but that was about it. Her hips were also underdeveloped. Hip huggers, on Clarissa, simply slid down her thighs, unless she cinched them on with a belt.