For becka_sutton‘s prompt, after Engineered

“Hey, Liam, I think I figured something out.”

Cara and Alex tensed. Ever since Jason had defected, the Boss had been miserable. It wasn’t Namae Sauter’s fault, but since she’d gotten Jason’s workstation, she’d also gotten all of his blame.

(Nobody could actually do anything to Jason, short of a tac nuke, and they weren’t entirely sure that would work, either. After his roses had eaten two recovery teams, they’d stopped trying).

Liam limped over to her desk, his cane thudding the deck angrily. “What do you have, Sauter?” he snarled.

“I think I’ve figured out the formula Jason was working on in his spare time. Not the roses – they’re a mess – but the reverse-aging one?”

The Boss softened barely-perceptibly. “I wondered what he’d been doing. So what’s in the formula?”

She swirled a beaker full of a viscous red-purple fluid. “Blood of grape and juice of girl.”

“Blood of… ah, Sauter, have you been working overtime? I think you’re mixing your words.”

“Not exactly.” She opened the curtains to her greenhouse; Cara and Alex saw Liam’s flinch, but he managed to hide it from Namae. Inside, a few rose-like vines writhed, but more than that, there were grapevines.

Grapevines? They seemed to be something like fingers…

“Unknowable formulae,” Cara breathed reverently. “Alex…”

“That’s a dryad. She’s made a dryad…. a grape dryad?”

The girl in the case looked, he thought, sad. Wistful, maybe, reaching for the glass. And tapped.

“Technically, it’s sap,” Namae was saying. “She doesn’t bleed, though her fruit seems to. But the formula works on rats, and I’m ready to start orphan testing.”

“Beakers and tubes,” Liam swore. “I…”

Cara and Alex shared a look. Had their boss found an ethical limit? They hadn’t known it was possible.

“I think it might cure cancer, too,” Namae added, and, with a quiet sigh, The Boss passed out.

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For lilfluff‘s prompt, combined with wyld_dandelyon‘s prompt.

“I think I’ve figured it out!” Jason looked up from his table excitedly, a “eureka” sort of expression taking over his whole body. “Cara, Alex, check this out!”

Cara, who was knee-deep in bioengineering a slow, undetectable poison that would take ten or fifteen years to kill the target, and Alex, who was trying to come up with the truly irresistible scent, looked up at Jason impatiently. It was Liam, the team’s handler, who came over to Jason’s workstation.

“What is it, Jay?”

“I’ve gotten them to have retractable thorns!” He held up the length of rose stem, showing how, when he ran his hand over it, the thorns slid into the stem. “See: pet it the right way, no prickers. Pet it the wrong way;” he put on a glove and repeated it. “Bleeding all over the place.” The inch-long prickers ripped into the leather of his glove and held onto it; he pulled his hand out and let the roses keep the glove.

“Why not just make them prickerless?” Liam shook his head. Jason had a brilliant mint – one time out of ten. It was just a matter of directing him.

“Anyone can make a rose without thorns. Mine, mine only prick people who don’t know their secret. See?” He pointed to the tall hedge of them, growing around an arbor in his controlled space, the flowers a melange of rainbow colors.

Liam stared. “Jay, those are the fanciest colors I have ever seen on a rose.”

“I know,” the scientist sighed. “That, and sometimes they bite people. I haven’t figured out how to deal with that yet.”

“Forget the biting,” Liam commanded. “Once they’re cut, they won’t be biting, and those colors – we can finance another base with that. Jason, you’re… oW! Your flowers stung me!” He swayed a bit. “Jason, what’s..”

“They don’t like talking about being cut, Liam. And, ah, they’re a little bit venomous, too, but I don’t think it’s fatal. You should be okay in an hour or two.” Jason helped his boss into a chair. “I’m going to go plant these on my island now.”

“Your…”

The mad scientist smiled crookedly. “Well, it’s going to be my island, at least.”

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