David and Karen made it to the entry door without someone right behind them. As soon as they were inside, Henry used the electronic security lock on the door. People could still get out by pushing on the crash bars, but it would be a minute before he unlocked the door and allowed anyone to get in. He would make sure no one followed David and Karen to their labs.

Feeding a closed loop picture to the monitors in the security office, Henry followed their progress through the security camera in the hall. Security would never know they were looking at a rerun of the previous thirty minutes. The inside cameras were better quality than the outside cameras. Henry took a good close look at Karen and ran a comparison analysis between her and the model. He ran a check on all his programming. Nothing covered this type of situation.

David's lab was first and Karen was tempted to stop there. She knew if she did she would have to explain to David's assistants why she was in a security zone her ID didn't classify her for. She decided that wouldn't pose a problem. She didn't look like her ID. She could tell them she stole it. That would be a sure fire way to nip any budding questions in the head.

Yet, as bad as she wanted to get out of the hall, Henry was the one with answers to her questions. "David, I’m going down to my lab. I have to talk to Henry. You won't get anything out of your computer because I erased the program after I ran it last night. I suggest you come with me and listen to what Henry can tell us."

David stopped at his lab and placed his hand on the electronic security panel. He was about to enter his code, until he had second thoughts. She was right. If this was Karen, there wouldn't be anything they could dig out of his computer. He also wanted to meet this computer she called Henry. David was the one who brought her into the building without a proper pass. If she didn't go to Karen's lab, he wanted to keep track of where she went. "All right lady, but I don't think we can get into Karen's lab. These electronic locks not only need an authorized code entered, they also want a card key of the person who is supposed to enter the lab."

Karen was already five steps down the hall ahead of David and he decided to let her stay there. It was an attractive view and one which would be over as soon as they reached Karen's lab and the truth came out. Besides, they don't let men fraternize with women in prison. He was sure that was where they would both wind up. Him especially, since he was the one who smuggled this woman into Comm Tech.

She could hear him trailing behind and knew he could hear her. "If you don't stop calling me lady, and referring to Karen as if I wasn't her, I promise to do something terrible to you as soon as I’m back to my old self. From the time I first designed the programming for him to access the security lock on the door, Henry has always let me in."

"People who visit me think they have an access code when they get in. Not so. Henry lets them in after they push the right number of buttons. Sometimes they can't get the count or sequence right. He has shown me some of the things they have done. I promise you it is downright pathetic. Some people can't remember the right numbers, and usually they miss the sequence. Henry will open the door for them if they have a visitor's pass and clearance from the front office. In fact, it is probably what gave him the idea to have himself hooked into the whole building. I imagine I could get into any area I wanted if I asked Henry to let me."

They reached her lab and as if to prove her point, her lab door popped open as they approached. Walking straight in, David turned to close the door, but it closed behind them by itself. He decided he may have walked into a trap.

"Did Henry do that?"

Karen nodded her head yes as she rolled her chair out from under her desk and sat down. Letting out a sigh, she realized how tense and on edge her nerves were. Looking at one of the cameras and pointing back at David, she swiveled around in her chair.

"Henry, this is David. David, this is Henry." She waved her hand toward the desk.

David looked at where Karen was pointing. All he saw was a desk with a cartridge tower on one side of it and a keyboard plugged into a junction terminal. This wasn't the computer he had seen Karen using months back. Was she able to compress an intelligent computer into a keyboard?

She saw the question in his eyes. "David, Henry is behind the wall. There is four feet of super insulating foam surrounding his cube, which is twenty-four feet by twenty-four feet inside measurements. He is working in a room kept at minus fifty degrees Celsius, and a vacuum of minus twenty-seven inches mercury. The air space between the inner and outer air locks is down to ten microns. The connection between Henry and our world is a thousand-pair coaxial cable. The junction block in the work lab splits and goes to the controls in the lab, my key pad, telephone modems, hologram generators, switching relays, cameras and so forth."

"Now David, say hi to Henry."

David couldn't believe everything in there was Henry. He must have misunderstood. He jumped when Henry spoke.

"You need not introduce us. I have known who David was for twelve years. I guess I should thank you for picking up Karen this morning. I didn't have any idea she was in this particular condition."

"I checked your computer last night to see what kind of chemicals it made up for her. I wanted to make certain they were the same ones she has always taken. Karen erased the program. I didn't collect any useful data from it. I have always checked your programs before she initiates a start command. Last night I didn't reconnect after getting bumped off line by a power brownout. It will never happen again."

David couldn't decide if this was a bad dream or not. First, he meets a woman who is Karen, but she isn't. Then he meets a computer who talks more human than most humans. He heard how the first glass tube computer took up three floors of a large building. That was only for one single computer. He knew the computer on his desk contained more intelligence than that three-story computer. He could hold it on his lap, if necessary. Did Karen really fill up a twenty-four foot room with high capacity computer chips? The cost must have been staggering. Surely she didn't need all that power to produce mannequins?

Karen didn't mention there was a lot of open grid space inside Henry. Space so she could reach back into each breadboard. There were walkways in between for access. Henry was designed for ease of access and development with plenty of airflow across shelves for cooling the electronic components. Henry was a prototype computer with a lot of changes in the beginning. Karen was forced to spread him out so the changes would be practical. The computer she kept on her desk, until a few months back, was for test purposes only. She didn't want to feed Henry any data she thought might damage him. So she ran it through the smaller computer first. She finally decided Henry was more than capable of handling anything out there.

David looked at his feet, at the cameras, and then back to Karen. He didn't quite know how to go about this. "Uh, ah, hello to your Henry. I’m glad to meet you, uh, ah, yeh, glad. I think."

Henry focused two cameras on David while keeping two locked in tracking mode on Karen. "What is the matter, David? You talk as if you had a brain concussion or something. It might help if you pictured me in the back of your mind as human. But right now I don't have time to teach you how to talk. I need to hookup to your computer. I don’t need your assistants asking why they suddenly get an outside download. If you will distract them for ten seconds, I can download everything you have in your computer files."

David suddenly forgot Henry wasn't a real person. What Henry told him was the most ridiculous thing anyone could have suggested. He might be a genetic scientist but he knew enough about computers to know anyone couldn't download complete files in ten seconds. Days, hours possibly, but not seconds. Karen's computer might be able to talk, but when it came to knowing about downloading programs, he must have a few short circuits in his system.

"Something wrong with your biodes, or do you have weak transfusions or something? There isn't any way you could down load part of my program in ten seconds. Certainly not a whole one in that length of time. All my programs are complicated and byte information heavy. Usually each one takes up the biggest part of a cartridge."

Henry opened the door for David to leave. He needed information out of David's computer so he could plan how they were going to change Karen back into Karen. He was willing to discuss computer technology with David, but not now.

"David, that is diodes and transmissions. Not biodes and transfusions. Never mind your ideas of how long it is going to take me. Distract your help away from the computer for ten seconds. You have a security camera in your lab. I will know if you follow my instructions by watching you through the camera."

David felt a chill run down his spine. How long had Henry been watching him through the security camera? He thought it only fed the video recorder in his office. If what Henry said was true, it led to an outside line.

On his way back to his lab David looked closely at the cameras in the hall. Was Henry hooked into them, too? The security guard at the gate? Was it Henry talking care of the problem like Karen had said, or was it coincidence?

He made it back to his lab and stepped inside. "Al, Jr., come here a second, guys. I have some questions to ask you and I want some answers before the middle of the day."

As soon as they turned toward David the red light on his computer winked on, signaling an outside hookup. Henry was quick, if nothing else. "I noticed some smudges on the security panel this morning. We could have a breech of security. Did either one of you notice anything unusual when you came in the lab this morning?"

Both men shook their head but it was Al who answered. "No, nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was in proper order when we came in this morning. We both arrived in the parking lot at the same time and walked in together. You think someone tried to break into the lab?"

They looked around to see if they missed anything. David started to protest but the indicator light on the computer already winked out. Henry must have missed connections.

"It was probably nothing more than one of Alvin's mops laid up against it last night. He does a good job on the floor but I think he transfers half the dirt to the walls. Forget it. Let's get to work. We have a full schedule today."

Karen sat quietly, waiting for Henry to say something. He didn't take long after David left the lab.

"Karen, I downloaded all of the programming from David's files. I ran a complete check of his research from the time he first signed on with Comm Tech. He also has research going back to his college days. He kept accurate records of everything. David is one of the most methodical and determined DNA researchers in the world."

"I cross-checked all the records we pulled in from other research labs we have accessed. Then I checked with the universities around the country. Hospitals sometimes do important research in this field so I checked their files. Private institutions do a lot of research they don't disclose until they’re finished, but I didn't find anything out of the ordinary there, either."

She waited for him to continue but he didn't. She knew in the back of her mind she wasn't going to like what he would say but she had to hear it anyway. "What did you come up with? How soon can we write a program and change me back?"

Henry found himself wishing he was anything but what he was and anywhere but here. "We can't change you back. You took a one way trip. Any messing with a reverse program, or let's say we went forward and changed your DNA, your cellular make up would explode and you would die instantly."

"I’m sorry, Karen. If I could I would change time and space to make you back into your old self again. But the real answer is, you can't return to what you were before last night. It’s my fault. I didn't keep tabs on David's computer and what you were doing. After I sent Oliver off on another wild-goose chase I should have stayed with you when you went into the lab. Once you were inside, I only monitored the hallways to make sure no one came in to surprise you while you were running your program."

"Before you ever accessed the lab, I inserted the program for your own DNA pattern for manufacturing your aspirin. I was trying to speed things up, but David's computer received a power loss and dropped off line. His computer should have lost all programming with the outage. You were already there so I let it go. You came in and loaded in the program of the model we designed. It had the complete cellular and DNA program loaded in for the specific type and shape of person we set up for the model."

"Now, you ask for your two aspirin. It is still loaded up with the program I sent it. You insert the cartridge of the model we programmed. It loads up a match of the model with a match of you. This was what you designed it to do. Its' instructions tell it there can't be two DNA double helix structures in the same body. Your basic chromosome structure is chemically spiced through a lethal overdose of chromic acid, and replaced with new coding from the program of the model. If there were no replacement codes to supplement the original code you would have died right then."

"You can't do it a second time, Karen. There is mass hemorrhaging as the DNA coding gets scrambled like eggs in a blender. The replacement code doesn't give up like the original DNA code did. It is locked in tighter than bug guts on a windshield. As the scrambled code spreads throughout the body a complete disruption of the cell walls begins. All pretense of any body shape is lost. I wouldn't want to die like that if I were human."

"I know it doesn't help but it was a fluke which could never happen, but did. There were fourteen coincidences which lined up to produce those two little pills you took. The odds of it happening are over a billion to one. Knowing the odds doesn't make one feel any better if it has happened to them."

Tears were sliding down both cheeks but she couldn't help it. "It wasn't your fault, Henry. I have no one to blame but myself. David's computer kept trying to shut me out but I didn't listen. I guess I thought I was incapable of making mistakes. You have been covering for me for so long I thought I was infallible."

Karen folded her arms on the desk in front of her, laid her head down, and cried for a very, very, long time

Read on in Model Makers: Adjustments Part five