October Novel Prep Challenge

When Drakkon fails to obtain the plans, he kidnaps / tries to kidnap the cat to reverse engineer the hybrid.

Drakkon finds out about the secret clockwork heart. She's terrified that it will fall into the wrong hands, so Leigh divides it into pieces and hides them. Some sort of treasure hunt might come out of that later.

Leigh is recognized for her skills and offered a government post where she has access to classified information. A conflict of interest comes to her attention and she's suddenly not sure she's on the right side. Perhaps Drakkon's army is in order after all.

Her mother or father falls desperately ill and needs a very expensive operation / medicine / medical procedure that the family cannot afford. Drakkon offers a large sum of money in exchange for the plans.

Drakkon isn't the only one who wants the plans. The government is after them, too, as well as at least one major university. They all want to take the technology, which has so far been only used on animals, and implement it on humans. It's highly controversial and the church comes after Cornelius and Leigh with metaphorical pitchforks. OR... they do testing on a human (maybe mom or dad, to save their life related to the medical condition?) and it turns out the technology affects the brain. The human subject turns evil / into a vegetable / into a different personality.

A major tabloid wants to interview Leigh, skews the article and smears her name all over the newsstands.

The cat dies.

The cat becomes super-intelligent.

Cornelius becomes obsessed with creating a human hybrid and goes insane.

Power becomes a problem when the technology is implemented on humans. Food alone is not enough to provide its energy needs. They must be plugged in. Or they suck power from their surroundings. Or they cause lightning storms wherever they go.

They create a human hybrid and it escapes into the general populace, changing its name and identity.

Cheers,
Michelle