Jogging through the tight traffic of downtown New Fresno, Tigershark was anxious to catch a glimpse of his quarry. Buildings lifted high above him, glistening in an early morning sun that only promised another hot summer day. It must have been in the seventies already. He would praise the fact that he did not sweat, if it was not for the fact that it did not save him from getting overheated.

He was already tired and wished this fool chase over. He was determined to catch the man; the alternative was too nightmarish to think about.

As usual, his presence among the human population brought on stares, pointing, and curses. In six years, the shit hadn’t changed. Humans still hated his kind. This was why his current mission was so damned important. If the humans found out what was going on, why he was chasing a human, gemues’ already hellish lives would only become worse. Beyond a shadow of a doubt he knew he was a lucky one, not all of his brethren shared his good fortune – monetarily or otherwise.

“David, you need to hurry up.” Angelina’s voice came over the net set receiver and settled in his ear. “He’s headed for the New Fresno Medical Center.”

“Damn it.” Tigershark grit his pointed teeth. “Be there in two shakes. See what you can do to slow him down.”

“Short of killing him?”

“Right,” Tigershark agreed. “We need to find out if he’s been in contact with anyone else.”

“Great. Just hurry.”

“As fast as my rebreather will let me, dear.”

Tigershark signed off, mentally cursing his need for the water rebreather on his back. He knew, however, he wouldn’t have gotten this far without it. He and Angelina had been tracking this perp for nearly twelve hours since the first reports, which was too much time for him to be out of water. Unlike Angelina, whose lungs had never been tampered with during transformation, long periods in atmosphere poisoned his system with accumulated carbon dioxide. He would have long since collapsed from asphyxiation were it not for the contraption devised for him six years ago.

Tigershark contemplated the hours they had been on this particular case, realizing that the man shouldn’t still be alive. Most were on their deathbeds in less than five hours. The man was showing signs of strength in trying to fight his affliction. But from what they had been told, he wasn’t going to survive exposure.

The gemue crossed the street, heading for the hospital. Angelina was already there, waving him forward. Her impatience was obvious. She wouldn’t go in there alone; she wasn’t exactly a smooth talker, and they were less likely to get thrown out the door immediately if the both of them entered. Tigershark put on a burst of speed despite the extra hundred pounds of weight on his back.

As he came even with her, he growled, “Come on!”

Tigershark’s heart leapt in fear. He could see the man through the plasteel sliding doors; skin hanging loosely from his bones, the victim plopped down in a chair in the waiting room. It wasn’t long before one of the staff moved to assist him. The gemue , however, couldn’t let the doctor help him, not without precautions. He disconnected his mask, snorting water at the entryway as the doors slid to.

“Don’t touch him!” he bellowed.

Satisfaction filled Tigershark when the doctor leapt to his feet and away from his would-be patient. An expression of both surprise and anger twisted his thin face. The doctor stared at him for long moments, as if trying to decide what was going on, and then his brows furrowed. He shook his head, kneeling before the patient and reaching for his wrist.

Stubborn ass. “NO! I said don’t touch him!”

Tigershark’s warning still echoed through the lobby as he leapt and tackled the doctor. The move did what it intended, got the man away from certain danger, but the move sent them both skidding into the wall under the reception desk Tigershark was barely able to keep the full weight of his body and the added weight of the rebreather from crushing the thinner man.

“Don’t you listen,” Tigershark growled, pinning the man’s shoulders down. The doctor in turn had lifted his arms grabbing the gemue’s shoulders. “You really didn’t want to do that.”

“Get off me!” The blonde emphasized his order by pushing up once more. Tigershark’s eyes widened as the thinner man successfully levered him and his rebreather’s 260 pounds away from his pinned body.

Before he could react to this revelation, an arm latched about his throat, even as an odd voice reverberated in his elfish ear. “You heard the man...get the hell off him!”

With another astounding feat of strength and leverage, the new entry to this fray lifted him bodily and launched him toward the entrance. Tigershark landed his own body length away; his head snapping back with the impact. Momentum carried him further away from the doctor, and his tank housing squealed across the polished tile. Tigershark was quick to look for his assailant, knowing his current position put him at a disadvantage.

A man approximately his own height but more heavily muscled was already on top of him before he could focus, and he slammed a foot into Tigershark’s sternum. Air woofed out of his lungs and stars erupted in his vision.

He glanced up through watery eyes to find a pale-skinned face – completely devoid of hair – hovering over him. The expression on baldy’s face was livid. Acerbic humor rose up in Tigershark despite the dire circumstance.

I get the impression he knows the doctor.

Sandwiched as he was between his tank housing and the man’s foot, the gemue felt as if a vice had been strapped around his chest. Grabbing the guy’s boot, he attempted to push his assailant off. His foot didn’t budge – the man didn’t do so much as sway as Tigershark grunted with the effort. That sent another shock of fear through him, since not many people were stronger than he was, pound for pound.

A flash of movement caught his eye.

He tried to warn Angelina off just as she impacted the man in the chest. Her impetus knocked the pale man off balance. A braid of white hair streamed behind her as the two of them tangled. Tigershark slashed at his assailant’s calf, hoping to incapacitate him, only to cry out as his claws impacted something unforgiving where pliant flesh should have been. Drawing his hand back into his field of view he found that one long, tough nail had snapped above the quick.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

The gemue wondered if the man was wearing some kind of body armor under his pants. One thing was certain; it would behoove him not to underestimate either of them.

Tiger struggled to get up as the man recovered from the double hit. He hadn't noticed Tiger's contribution at all, and, by the way he was moving, Angelina’s technique had been no more effective. Baldy grabbed Angelina about the neck with one hand and flung her from him before she could lay claws into him. He fought with skill undue any Joe off the street. Tigershark was seeing someone specially trained. If the man’s trappings didn't contradict the notion, Tigershark would have guessed a law enforcement background.

Angelina got to her feet, coiling to spring at the man again, fury clear to read in her elongated face and silver-gray eyes. Baldy noted it and crouched, ready for the charge. Tigershark could see that this was going to be an all out brawl if things didn’t settle down.

Tigershark tried to push up once again – an awkward attempt at best. A combination of the extra weight on his back and his supine position made him feel like a turtle flipped over in the sand. His gaze returned to the two mismatched combatants, grimacing as Angelina sprang forward, engaging the larger man. Anxiety rose higher, and he struggled with the cursed equipment.

The two opponents tangled for long moments, the bald man trying to keep slashing claws off his face with one arm, as he pushed Angelina’s chin up and away from him. The man swatted her arms down, lunging into the newly opened space. He grabbed Angelina by the throat and lifted her off the ground. Angelina’s feet flailed, bicycling as she tried to gain purchase in his clothing or his skin. Tigershark wondered a moment if she intended to disembowel him if she could manage it.

Tiger fell upon his collar, desperate to be free of the device. He needed to halt the hostilities before something drastic happened. His rush, of course, made it an impossible job to make the latches to give. Finally, they surrendered to his fumbling fingers, and he pushed the mask and collar over his head. Tigershark moved to the straps across his chest, feeling heat in his face. Being unable to rise without freeing himself from his rebreather was embarrassing. It didn’t matter that no one else was paying attention to his plight. He planted both feet, sliding down the length of his the device. Gathering his weight over his legs, he pushed himself up. Tigershark watched Angelina and the man that towered over and outweighed her continue brawling. Angelina’s opponent drew back a fist, and the emotion on his face made it clear that he intended to put Angelina down for the count.

“Stop!” Tigershark’s deep voice echoed off the sterile walls.

The noise caused both Angelina and the bald man to stop their struggle, and the man dropped Angelina back to her feet, hand still curled around her throat. Two pairs of eyes locked on him.

“Both of you stop!” He emphasized his order with a slashing motion.

He turned to the thin man, the doctor, assuming he would be the level head in this situation. Tigershark offered him a hand up. The violence of the situation seemed to have stunned him, for he hadn’t risen from the floor.

He eyed Tigershark warily.

“Give me a moment to explain,” Tiger said in a reasonable tone, shaking his elongated hand once toward the man in a gesture of goodwill.

His mouth thinned, but he nodded and took Tigershark’s hand. Tiger pulled the blond to his feet, realizing as the doctor straightened, that he had at least four inches on his own height. He wasn’t used to being shorter than others.

Shrugging uncomfortably, he then turned back toward the oozing man who had been the bone of contention between the doctor, his bodyguard, and Angelina. Tiger waited patiently as the other two reluctantly joined the group.

“This man is contagious.” Tigershark tried to keep the information between the four of them. He knelt down next to the man, who, in the few moments of their altercation, had declined to a point where only several square inches of his body did not have open sores.

The doctor took a step back, seeming shocked by the news. “What?” He stared at his unprotected hands and then wiped them on his smock, though he had yet to touch the steadily declining patient.

Tigershark glanced over the victim, swallowing against a knot of anxiety. He’d schooled himself against this, or thought he had. Catharsis still seeped through his defenses.

Once more he recalled his incident aboard USNS Clinton. The symptoms were exactly identical to the dead and dying servicemen and women on that ship. A shiver moved across his skin at how close he’d come to getting blamed for that outbreak.

Patches of the patient’s loose skin were thick and gray, hair was falling from the man’s head, and the telltales of his transformation showed about his neck and hands.

Tiger nodded solemnly. “And believe me, you don’t want what he has.”

He stood again. A glance around the room reminded him there were bystanders watching this interaction. They weren’t close – not anymore. Most, in fact huddled in corners as far from the five of them as possible. Some had even decided their emergencies could wait.

“Can we move this elsewhere? These people don’t need to hear this.”

The blond man nodded. “There’s an examination room open.”

“Perfect,” Tiger said, waving his partner over. “Angelina?”

She nodded without a word and took one arm as Tiger gathered up the other.

“What are you doing? You said he’s contagious.”

“Not to us,” Tiger replied with a shake of his head. “We’re already there. Make sure the stuff he left behind in the chair is sterilized. Full body suits, we need zero exposure. We’re talking a class one biohazard here. In fact, you should have your staff clear the lobby until it is.”

With that he turned toward the room indicated and slowly walked the patient to it.

The larger man chimed into the conversation by adding, “I gotta hear this.”

Heavy footsteps followed in Tigershark’s wake.

Once the five of them were inside, Tiger met the two men’s gazes, crossing his arms over his muscular chest. “My name is David Scott, but most people call me Tiger or Tigershark. This is Angelina Cortez.”

He waved a hand at his partner who was standing guard over the deteriorating patient. He did not offer the humans a hand to shake, because of the contamination now on his skin. “We are representatives of the Gemue Allegiance, sent to investigate a rash of mutations in the local area.”

“Gemue studies are illegal.”

The air of authority in the bald man's statement caused Tiger to frown. “It wouldn’t be the first time the law was broken regarding this topic. Or else we wouldn’t be here.”

Tigershark almost laughed at his own off-color humor, the double meaning perfectly clear to him. An illegal experiment had put him into this body and Angelina into hers as well. The joke was lost on his audience, however.

The doctor seemed to remember his manners. “I’m Dr. Tom Martin, head trauma surgeon for the hospital. This is my brother, Steve.”

Steve nodded; his expression angry and distrustful.

“What are you?” Tiger directed his question specifically to the man introduced as Steve, but he had a suspicion that the explanation applied to both brothers.

The two opposite him peered at each other, and Steve twisted his foot to the outboard, only then noticing the cuts in his pant leg. Several of them gaped, giving Tiger a good view of the banded metal beneath the fabric. Combined with the soft whir of pistons cutting through the silence, he had his answer.

“Cyborgs.” Tiger nodded. “Okay, that answers that.”

Shock at his nonchalant reaction was clear in their expressions, but they remained silent.

“Why won’t you let me help the man?” Doctor Martin inquired after a few moments. The patient's moans provided constant background noise to the conversation.

“All right, explanations,” Tiger said, peering at the floor a moment. He moved over to the sink and turned on the hot water, scrubbing his webbed hands and the parts of his wetsuit that had contacted the patient. When he had finished, he turned back to them and quietly explained: “This man has been exposed to a mutagen that is highly contagious, and easily spread by touch. Data indicates that it kills most of the people who come in contact with it.

“Those who don’t die are turned into gemues – biologically. They look more like something that’s been skinned than any gemue you’d recognize. Added to that is the fact that they become carriers of the mutagen. They can’t touch another human for the rest of their lives. Only a handful of humans appear to be resistant to the disease.”

The doctor, in aggrieved tones, said, “I’ve never heard anything about such a disease. CDC would have caught wind of it by now.”

Tigershark shook his head. “This is being kept quiet. We in the Allegiance don’t need a panic, nor do we need vigilantism from the masses against any and all gemues.”

Angelina nodded, adding, “Someone out there is making carrier gemues. They are sloppy, primitive, as if their creator is trying to get them out the door as fast as possible. He also likes them to look like sharks.”

She glanced at Tigershark and then back at the other two, whose brows rose in alarm. He knew what they were thinking – standing as they were before two shark-like gemues.

Tigershark sighed and attempted to ease their fears. “We are talking about a true shark-like appearance – not humanoid. These creatures possess only a few aberrations that would give them away as gemue.”

“Like?” It was Steve who asked.

“Multiple dorsal fins, human eyes.” Tiger shrugged. “The latest carriers were caught by fishermen – net fisherman, tuna and salmon – commercial. Their catch infects them, because they shoot the ‘sharks’ rather than throwing them back. Wasteful, resource wise, but cost effective for them. However, the shotgun sticks make messes, exposing the crew to the mutagenic virus through cuts or open sores. From initial exposure, the virus mutates, to be transmitted through sweat. Shaking hands, touching, any kind of contact, moves the virus from the host to the next victim.”

“We are trying to find out who started all this,” Angelina interjected, cutting Tigershark’s explanation short. She seemed unwilling to have him provide the entire back-story.

“There was only one carrier when I last encountered this mutagen, and it was destroyed before it could become an issue. The creators must have been happy with the test, because it seems these gemues are being mass-produced. Someone thinks this is cute, or has a serious vendetta against the human race.”

“This has happened before?” Steve queried, taking a step toward Tiger.

Tiger nodded, turning to Angelina sidelong and saying softly, “Angel, see what information you can get out of our sick friend there. He doesn't have much time left.”

She nodded and turned back toward the bed, speaking to the frightened man in soft tones.

Tigershark leaned on a stool that was nearby. “Even though it happened six years ago, it’s not something I’ll easily forget.”

*****

Tigershark glanced up as he finished telling the pertinent parts of his experience on the USNS Clinton six years prior. Tom and Steve both seemed stunned by his story.

“Why didn’t you report it?” Steve growled when he finally regained his voice.

The sharkmue glared at him impatiently. “I was on a military ship. The military handled it. Who was I supposed to report it to?” He drew in and let out a frustrated breath. “I thought it was taken care of!”

“Well, obviously, it isn’t,” Steve retorted, arms falling to his sides, and fists tightly clenched.

An audible growl escaped the sharkmue’s lips, and he squared his own shoulders as that red hot wave of anger moved him toward action. He blinked when the doctor stepped between them, his intervention the only thing to prevent a fight in the observation room.

The doctor shook his head, meeting the gemue’s gaze. “Who would do such a thing?”

“That’s what we want to know,” Tigershark said, snapping out of his dark mood. “There was a man named Marcus who was involved in the research around that time, but…”

“He’s dead!” Such utterance by the doctor came as a shock to the gemue, and by the look on the taller man’s face he hadn’t meant to let that slip. More quietly, he added, “He couldn’t have anything to do with this.”

“You…knew him?” Tiger blinked.

“I killed him.” This time there wasn’t the scared expression he’d seen before. There was satisfaction in that mellow voice.

Tigershark scanned over Tom’s slight, less-than-fighter style frame, and he quirked a brow in disbelief. To say he didn’t seem the type would have been a huge understatement.

“Tom.” The stockier man grabbed his brother’s shoulder. The action and the caution in Steve Martin’s metal-tinged voice brought the doctor back to the present once more.

Tiger narrowed his eyes. Yes, there was definitely more to these two than he thought.

“As I was saying, Marcus was involved in gemue research and development, but he died six years ago. We think we know who is responsible for the creation of these gemues, but we haven’t been able to catch up with him. Nor have we been able to find any credible evidence to support our theories.”

“Who?” the shorter Martin demanded, sounding altogether like a police officer. Tigershark believed more and more that he had been one at some point in his past.

“You wouldn’t know him.” Tigershark’s reply was coarse, reflecting his irritation with the man.

“Can we help this man, please?” Tom said, swinging the subject off on another tangent.

“Sure.” Tigershark's reply was flippant. “Got a contamination suit?”

Tigershark watched as the doctor's brother leaned in, whispering something and seeming uncomfortable. Straightening, Steve Martin said louder, “Be careful.”

The simple statement seemed to be a warning against both being in the presence of the contagious man as well as remaining in the company of two gemues.

Shooting another glare at Tigershark, the pale man left the room.

Tigershark’s mouth thinned.

Someday, the prejudice against gemues would fade or be squashed. Tigershark was beginning to think it wouldn’t happen in his lifetime. Suffering the ignorance of others was not something he was good at. He was always hard put not to fuel the anger towards his kind – the violent streak in him made it difficult at best. The old ache still plagued him to beat sense into people who blindly hated gemues – those who regarded them all as stupid.

Someday.

He sighed, turning his attention back to a more receptive audience. Today was as good a day to start as any.

A/N: Another cleaned up chapter. There is less that is new about this one, but I did make sure it read better.

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