She just snorted and muttered something under her breath about men being incompetent to handle their own affairs much less take care of a baby. She said, “I’ll take care of Gina. I’ll need to borrow your study for use as a temporary nursery.”

“We have a spare bedroom we aren’t using. Can’t you put her in there?”, I pointed out,

“I wanted to keep that room available in case something untoward happened to you,” she said dryly.

I blushed hotly and said, “Go ahead and use my study.” There wasn’t any point in arguing with her, she would just do as she pleased in any event and it was easier on everyone if I acquiesced early in the game. She told me it would be some time before she got home, she intended to buy baby furniture and supplies before she went home. I started to ask her how much it would all cost when I saw the resolute look in her eye and stopped myself. This wasn’t a game I was going to win. If I told her she was spending too much money she’d just spend that much more. I could save myself money if I kept my mouth shut and let her take care of Gina in her own way.

Presently the researcher came back with a diapered Gina and I directed him to give her to Pauline. He handed Pauline the infantine body of his former colleague like he was handing over a ticking time bomb. His motions were careful, but he was obviously relieved to have the responsibility for Gina taken over by someone else. Pauline swung Gina over one hip and then started walking out of the room saying she’d talk to me that night.

I sighed as I turned to the researcher and asked him what he had discovered. He told me that apart from being a baby, Gina appeared to be perfectly healthy. I told him to rejoin his study group and that I would be with them in a minute. After he left, I took a large dose of Tagamet and then went to join the group myself. When I arrived the group of researchers had discovered what was happening to the subjects; apparently the mapping function on the receiving end was remapping the state function into an earlier entropic state. How it was occurring or why was anyone’s guess at this point. Our main concern was finding the differences between the device’s expected function and its produced function. We decided that if we could understand the changes the device was introducing we could establish a gradient relationship and incorporate a filter routine to control the output.

We all worked until it was late and then I ordered everyone to go home to get some rest. This wasn’t a problem we were going to solve in a few hours and it wasn’t going to do our productivity any good to get exhausted. I told everyone there was a news blackout on the results of this experiment and warned them about the potential fallout from the press if they got wind of what happened to Gina. I asked them to keep quiet about that days events and to keep them secret from everyone including their spouses.

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