“We’ve been working on this end all through the night with these samples you sent,” said Green. “By all outward appearances the male in question should have strength beyond the normal for a shifter and should heal at a rate that basically equals a blink. The Fae component of his blood, that you told me he was born with, should have increased as well. You said the subject is actually in a weakened state and healing is halted?”
The subject was James himself, though he’d not included that tidbit when he’d sent Green his samples. He wasn’t ready for everyone to know just how weak he truly was and how damaging his torture had been. “Yes. Also, the male in question can’t shift forms.”
“And he’s natural-born?” asked Green, a low whistle following. “This doesn’t make any sense. He should be able to shift faster and be even larger in shifted form than he was before this all occurred. Could the inability to shift and heal fully be psychosomatic?”
James stiffened. Yes, but admitting his problems were all in his head and not the results of the experiments and torture he’d been on the receiving end of while being held captive wasn’t a place he was currently at. He pressed an even look to his face. “Possibly.”
“As for the other samples, from the holding cells,” Green said. “We’re finding some interesting results that go hand in hand what your Dr. Mercy there told everyone in her debriefing. The prisoners she knows by the names Brad and Vic had high levels of shifter coming back from their samples, and I’m finding trace amounts of Fae DNA in there as well, but since they were gone when your team raided the establishment, and none of us have been able to find them, I can’t say for certain this is their DNA or cross contamination.”
James nodded. Made sense.
Green moved awkwardly. “Another thing. One of my teammates, Wilson Rousseau, came in while I was testing the samples. He glanced over the charts and my notes. When he came across the names Brad and Vic, he told me about his time being held by Gisbert Krauss’s men in South America.”
James waited, wondering where the story was going.
Green continued. “Wilson said there were two graduate students who had been taken down there and held prisoner in the same holding facility as him. He said they were tested on and then moved right away, before anyone could rescue them.”
James paused, considering what Green was saying. “If they’re the same two that were being held near me, then they’ve been in the clutches of these assholes a long time.”
“Too long,” said Green in a hushed breath. “You all make any advances on any other facilities the Corporation might be using?”
“The massive amount of data we retrieved is all encrypted,” answered James. “Our tech teams are working on it but it’s pretty sophisticated. They’re getting bits and pieces here and there.”
Green nodded. “This is big.”
“And inter-related to what you guys have going out over there,” said James. “It’s a cluster fuck.”
“And then some,” added Green.
James asked another question. “Was there anything more you found?”
“That is all we’ve come up with so far. We got hit with some hard news so we’re not functioning at full capacity right now,” said Green. He touched his brow. James knew what had the man worried. PSI had been told about the I-Ops finding out a teammate that had been presumed dead and even buried was neither. James couldn’t imagine what the men were going through. He suspected they’d pull away and become harder to contact as time wore on. They just had too much on their plates.
“Have you made any headway on the samples I sent from Seattle?” asked Green.
“I’m retesting what you sent. I’m picking up trace amounts of just about every type of supernatural known to us,” he said, still unable to believe the readouts.
“Yeah,” Green said, sighing. “We are too.”
“This is bad.”
Green nodded. “Really bad.”
No more words needed said on it. They all knew shit was about to hit the fan and they could only hope it was contained to Seattle. “Your team all back from out there?”
“Yes. Colonel came back with a wife,” said Green with a wide grin.
James had to force himself to smile was well. That was what would be expected of him. He didn’t feel the same emotions he once did. He felt dead inside. Like a man going through the motions with no real rhyme or reason. “Found his mate?”
“More like finally manned up and claimed the woman he already knew was his mate. Word around here is that you know her,” returned Green. He stepped to the side and a woman James hadn’t seen in nearly a year appeared in the view. Her long, red, curly hair was down and pretty much going in all directions. It suited her. Always had. She was quite the wild woman.
As he processed why she of all people would be in I-Ops headquarters, he snorted. “Jinx, you’re Colonel Brooks’s mate?”
“Yes,” she said, returning his expression before hers saddened almost instantly. “Oh, Jimmy, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were missing all those months. I thought you’d done what you always do—gone silent and underground for long bursts. Had I known, I’d have called for help.”
He flinched, not wanting to dwell on his time being held captive by the Corporation or the tortures he’d endured. “I’m good.”
Jinx didn’t look convinced. Probably because he was far from good. His body hadn’t healed the damages done to him, and while it had only been just shy of two weeks since he’d been freed and resumed his position with PSI, he should have been back to normal. He’d gotten transfusions from his fellow PSI operatives, and those should have kick-started his own body’s ability to heal. As a natural-born shifter male, he could take a lot of damage and his body could repair itself normally within a day or two. A week at most. He was far from fine. The cane at his side reminded him of that.
“Can I do anything at all to help?” Jinx asked, concern lacing her every word.
They’d been friends a long time. He was happy she’d found a mate, but slightly envious as well. It was hard not to be at his age. He’d been alive a long time and doubted he had someone special out there, destined for him.
No.
He’d burned up his goodwill with karma years ago.
“I’m fine, really, Jinx. Congratulations on your mating,” he said, his hands moving to the countertop to support his weight. He didn’t want to have to sit on the stool near him and show his weakness to others. “I’m dying to know what Brooks is going to do about you and that club of yours. Somehow, I’m doubting he’s going to let you keep running it.”
Jinx blew out an annoyed breath. “That jerk is telling me I can’t go back and run my own place. I think he wants me barefoot and pregnant here with him.”
James laughed softly. “I’m guessing he just wants you safe and close to him.”
“If you say so,” she said, partially under her breath. “He’s an alpha douchebag.”
“Ah, but he’s your alpha douchebag,” James reminded her.
“Dammit,” she said with a smile.
Green guffawed behind her. “Colonel has made other arrangements for Jinx’s club. It will remain open but it’s being guarded by a whole lot of men now.”
Jinx waved a hand in the air and rolled her eyes. “I can handle my own place.”
James knew how headstrong Jinx was. It was part of her charm. But with the readouts he had in front of him and the samples that surrounded him, James knew better than to permit someone he cared about to put themselves in harm’s way. “Jinx, listen to Brooks on this. There is some seriously bad juju out there right now. If I was you, I’d ask the club be closed, at least until we get a handle on it all.”
Jinx paused and then neared the camera on her end more. “It’s really that bad?”
“Yes.”
“Aneta is taking over the club for me,” she said, her voice tapering off. “Is she safe there? Are my girls safe?”
James considered lying to her, bu
t they’d been friends too long for him to do it. “No. Not even with the extra security. Get them out of the there, Jinx. Take them to your backup location in New Orleans.”
Green leaned in and looked at Jinx. “You have another club in New Orleans?”
She blushed. “I do.”
“Does Brooks know this?” asked Green.
Jinx pursed her lips. “Um, not really.”
Green groaned. “Colonel bit off more than he can chew with you, didn’t he?”
That brought a smile to Jinx’s face. “He did, and I’ll go tell him to arrange relocating my girls and my boys to New Orleans right away.”
“Why is it you listen to Hagen, but not your own mate?” Green asked, a devilish look on his face. The man was toying with Jinx.
“I like to make Asher work for it,” supplied Jinx with a shrug of her shoulders. She glanced at James. “Do you need one of my girls to come to you? Sex can sometimes speed the healing process.”
James’s arms began to strain from holding himself up. “No. Thank you, though. I haven’t used the services your girls provide in years.”
“Over a century, Jimmy,” she corrected.
Had it been that long?
She didn’t give a chance to respond. “Don’t give up hope on meeting her. I think she’s closer than you know.”
He didn’t need cryptic messages. He had enough to worry about.
“I’m good, Jinx. Take care of yourself and your people. Let us work on solving what is going on in Seattle and in the meantime, try to listen to your husband,” he said before touching the screen and ending the video call.
James practically fell onto the stool, the pain in his leg past his threshold.
Chapter Four
Laney Steele sat before her modified, souped-up computer system. It was a work of art. The envy of her small network of fellow computer people. Dr. Frankenstein himself would be in awe of what she’d pieced together and brought to life. Of course, her creation had a lower than likely chance of being chased down by peasants with pitchforks, but still, it was pretty awesome. If she did say so herself.
Plus, if her system ever did manage that level of animosity from people, that would only up her cool factor among other computer geniuses.
Put a stamp of approval on all her hard work.
GothGirl kicks major system ass.
She currently had eight monitors, four sitting in a row before her and four others mounted above those. The refresh rates were top notch, as was everything to do with her system. Each monitor displayed something different, though they could flow into one another with the same data should she choose to do so. Cooling fans were installed around the system because of the heat it kicked. Didn’t matter much that she had extra internal fans in each CPU. The additional cooling was required. Her system ran that hot.
“Just like me,” she mused softly. “Hot mama.”
Laney nearly laughed herself right off her comfy computer chair as joy continued to bubble through her. She was hardly a sex kitten. No. She’d been honest when telling LabLupus that she was far from bombshell material. Her best buddy, Harmony, wore that title with honor and pride. Laney was more the weird chick who looked slightly Goth but was really just too lazy to bother buying anything more than a select few colors. Not that she needed much in the way of clothing. She wasn’t a frilly girl. And her attire kept people at a distance. As she preferred. She wasn’t exactly the most social of girls.
She spent her money on her computers and technologies. Not on clothes, purses, shoes or makeup. What extra she managed to obtain she was sure to pay forward—to those who couldn’t do for themselves anymore.
Her boys.
She smiled slightly, thinking of how they were hardly boys. The men who resided in the building with her. Fellow squatters. Her neighbors.
Laney wasn’t sure what she’d do without them all. They were something of a family, as mismatched as they may be. She checked in on them nearly daily, making sure they had what they needed, as most tended to be shut-ins.
Her duties for the day in regards to the two who needed to be looked in on the most—Gus and Bill—were done. She’d made sure both of them had food, had what they needed in their rooms, and that they were settled for the day. Gus liked books and Laney visited the library twice a week to get him different ones. Bill enjoyed building model planes. She’d picked up a new one for him. He’d be at it for days and days.
Now she was free to do what it was she did.
Search for the truth.
She looked around at her computer system, what she’d invested most of the money she kept for herself. It seemed as though a small fortune was in it. Well, it wasn’t exactly her fortune she’d invested, but still.
She’d amped up everything and had spent years building the perfect machine. She didn’t want to think on the cost. Some she’d bartered for. Some she’d worked for, and others she’d helped herself to a five-finger discount—not really, because she didn’t actually go and lift it from the store. She was a master of theft, and overriding ATMs was a go-to way to get cash for her. She only took from those who had plenty to give, and sometimes she even played the part of the Robin Hood, though she doubted the authorities or die-hard do-gooders would see it that way.
“They’d lock my butt up for sure,” she said, with a grunt.
She wasn’t exactly proud of how far she’d fallen from the perfect suburban, middle-class child she’d once been. That had all been a lie. A big fat front to hide who and what she truly was.
An engineered super freak.
Laney wasn’t entirely sure how she came to be, but in her mind it involved test tubes and growing in a glass jar. Though she knew she had a mother, or at least a woman who had carried her to term. She often wondered if the woman had loved her or if Laney was merely a way to make money, or worse, something the woman was forced to carry. Laney would bet her hard drives that Mother Nature had very little to do with it all.
Her hands began to shake and she closed her eyes a moment, chasing away her inner demons. She looked up at her system again. It was the envy of any serious programmer. Her code-writing abilities far surpassed others out there and she wasn’t afraid to let them know. Naturally, they knew her by GothGirl, not her name—or rather the name that had been put on her adoption papers. Laney had a better ring than Female 43867, the name that was originally labeled on the paperwork she’d uncovered. Guess she could at least send her adoptive parents a thank-you card for going above and beyond with the whole giving–her-a-real-name bit.
She looked down at her fingers as they swiped across the keyboard with a speed others simply did not possess. Her adoptive parents had gotten more than they’d bargained for. By age twelve Laney’s hacking had gotten her assigned to house arrest. The ankle bracelet that had been placed upon her to monitor her activities was a joke. She’d found a way around it within twenty minutes of it being placed upon her person. More like ten minutes, but she’d then spent the next ten tweaking it to show her as moving within the dwelling, even though the ankle bracelet was stationary on her bedroom shelf.
Of course, it wasn’t long after that her parents had thrown their hands in the air, unable to deal with her. She was too much of a handful and was always finding trouble in places trouble shouldn’t have existed. At least that was what their parting words had consisted of.
They aren’t your real parents, she thought. A coldness settled into her chest as she thought upon the information she’d uncovered about her origins.
She couldn’t go to that dark spot again. She’d only just begun to dig herself out of a pit of emotional despair. Harmony, who also happened to be a fellow computer enthusiast, would slap her upside the back of the head if she dared to allow herself to fall into a funk again. It had been two years since Laney had learned the truth of who and what she was, and only a few months since she’d finally stopped throwing a pity party for herself.
Snap out of it.
Normally, she�
�d preferred to spend her evening in, mining for data on the servers she’d recently discovered, and then spend some time online upping her status in her favorite role-playing game. She was almost to the highest level and an asset to her gaming league, especially since she was the team healer. Without her, the rest of the guild wouldn’t get too far in a battle.
In real life she was hard-pressed to do much beyond look at an injury, even a slight one, and try to keep her lunch down, but in the virtual world, she was whatever she wanted to be. She was someone others cared about and she had more friends than she could tally. In real life, she had Harmony.
That was it.
The only reason she even had Harmony was because the girl didn’t take no for an answer. Harmony had tracked Laney down via the net and refused to leave until Laney went out for coffee with her. That was four years ago. They’d been friends ever since.
And Harmony knew the truth about Laney. Of what she’d uncovered in her quest to locate her birth parents. The truth about something the government referred to as the Asia Project. Now it was a matter of tracking down her incubation lab.
“Bitter much?” she asked herself, her fingers skimming over the keys quickly.
Her gaze scanned the multitude of screens she had before her. It was her small slice of paradise, despite the fact it was in an abandoned hotel that had seen better days and the room hadn’t seen the light of days in years. It had everything she needed. She kept the utilities on by simply hacking the providers’ servers, making it look as if she wasn’t using any power, and when she was, making it appear as if it had been paid in full. The best part was, no one would ever think to look for her there. And the building, which had been slotted for demolition, was safe because Laney made sure to keep an open virtual door to the city’s servers, always monitoring for anything being mentioned about the hotel. She’d then hack accordingly, protecting it any way she had to. Besides, as behind as the city had gotten in its attempts to clean up and revitalize the downtown area, they had more important things to worry about than the old hotel.
Act of Surrender: An Immortal Ops World Novel (PSI-Ops / Immortal Ops Book 2) Page 4