Covert Talents: Age of Expansion - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Uprise Saga Book 1)

by Amy DuBoff

  Oh, fuck… So this new line of Hochste aren’t just enhanced Weres. They want to be able to turn anyone into a hybrid! Ava’s heart pounded in her ears. Jared had said they wanted her because she was ‘unique’—she had no interest in sticking around long enough to find out how they wanted to exploit her.

  “Have you completed these new nanocytes?”

  Jared’s face twisted while he tried to resist answering her question, but she stabbed a telepathic spire into his mind. “Over there!” he blurted out, pointing toward a door she hadn’t noticed before.

  “You first,” she said, following him across the room.

  The scientist grimaced when he reached the door and pulled it open.

  A moment later, Ava understood why. Inside was a sophisticated laboratory like something out of a movie from the old video archive from Earth—test tubes, culture incubators, a laboratory glove box, and the obligatory array of microscopes and monitors displaying gibberish to Ava’s untrained eye.

  “This is where you keep all the secrets, eh?” she commented.

  Jared grunted in response, wringing his hands.

  “Where are the nanocytes?”

  He shuffled across the room and grabbed a vial from a sealed case.

  Ava snatched it from him. She held the vial up to the light. The contents were a slightly thicker consistency than water and had a metallic sheen, but it was otherwise unremarkable to the naked eye. “Will this work on anyone?”

  “That’s what the tests were to find out.”

  I can’t let them use this. “Where’s the rest of it?” Ava asked.

  Jared was about to respond when a comm embedded in Jared’s jacket chirped. “I’m coming back from C Wing. I’ll see you in the lab.”

  Ava recognized it as Andrea’s voice. Oh shit, I need to get out of here! There was no time to do anything with the other nanocytes—frankly, she didn’t even know how to destroy them. Getting the sample to the proper authorities had to be her priority.

  There was just the problem of what to do with Jared.

  “Out, now!” Ava directed him back out to the main room. She tucked the vial of nanocytes into her bra for safekeeping.

  When Jared reached the island of computer stations, she inclined her head for him to sit.

  “Now, Jared,” Ava said, staring into his eyes, “I need you to forget everything we did here today.” Even knowing that the man had done some horrific things, she still hated what she was about to do.

  “I remember…” he murmured.

  “Not for long.” Ava dove into his mind, searching for his recent memories that had yet to be encoded into long-term storage. While it was possible to strip the deeper memories, as well, it was a much more time-consuming and delicate process. Since it had been less than an hour, taking care of his short-term recollections should be sufficient.

  It took her a matter of seconds to find what she was looking for. She destroyed the memories related to entering D Wing and made selective edits to those related to their prior conversation, making it appear as though they’d chatted and he simply decided to leave.

  Someone of Andrea’s skills would be able to identify the alterations, but, with any luck, it would take her some time to become suspicious. Ava just needed an hour or two.

  To hedge her bets, she left a final instruction for Jared to begin an observation of one of his subjects. The task should delay him and stave off Andrea’s suspicion while Ava took care of her remaining business.

  “Get to it,” she told Jared, and then she took off at a jog toward the exit.

  This better work, or I think I’ll be the next one in a holding cell. Ava gulped.

  She broke into a sprint down the straight corridor through which she’d entered and slowed only when she reached the security door. She briefly considered going straight to A Wing to meet up with Luke, but there’d be no log of her entering through the lobby arch, and it might flag her on the way back out. It was better to keep things looking as proper as possible.

  Fortunately, no ID badge was required to exit, and the B Wing door began sliding open as soon as she tapped on an indicator mounted on the wall.

  She peeked out into the hall. Clear—for now.

  There was no knowing which hallways might be under surveillance by security personnel at any given moment, so she took a brisk but controlled pace toward the building lobby by following the exit signs. At last, she made it to the outer door.

  Just as she had made it past the security arch, she saw Andrea emerge from C Wing.

  Ava quickly spun around to hide her face, but it was too late.

  “Ava? Hello!” Andrea called out.

  Shit! Ava composed a pleasant smile and turned back to greet the director. “Oh, hi! I finished up with Jared and was just about to go see Luke.”

  “How did the test go?”

  Oh, fucknuggets. It’s going to be pretty damn obvious our conversation was cut short when there’s no record of the test Jared was supposed to perform. Ava shook her head. “Please don’t be disappointed, but I had a little too much to drink at dinner last night and I have a headache that just won’t quit. I wasn’t feeling up for telepathy. Tomorrow?”

  Andrea evaluated her. Ava could feel the other woman’s prodding at the wall around her mind, but Ava held the shield firmly in place.

  After several seconds, the director nodded. “Of course, I understand. Tomorrow will be fine.”

  “Thanks.” Ava glanced toward A Wing. “Luke is waiting for me—there was some model he was excited to share with me.”

  “By all means. We’ll talk later.” Andrea’s eyes narrowed just the slightest measure as she inclined her head, then walked toward the arch into B Wing.

  Ava breathed a tentative sigh of relief and resumed her route to A Wing.

  The security guard waved her forward, but then frowned and held up his hand. “Ma’am, may I see that device in your right pants pocket?”

  Why is the cloaking module a problem now when I got through just fine this morning? She slipped the metal rectangle from her pocket. “This? It’s just for sightseeing—I’m heading out on a tour straight from here this evening.”

  The guard took the module, his gaze lingering on a minute imprint of the manufacture’s logo. “Ah, yeah. I did one of those when I transferred in. Have fun.” He handed the device back to her.

  “Thanks, I will.”

  He waved her through.

  Letting out a long breath, Ava hurried down the main entrance corridor for the wing and followed the route to Luke’s work area.

  When she entered the open common space for the lab, three of the techs were working at the central computer stations, and Luke was holed up in his office.

  She jogged to his office and tapped on the glass.

  Luke looked up from his work and waved her in. “How’d it go?” he asked when she stepped inside.

  “Oh, it was lovely.” Ava closed the door behind her and pulled out the cloaking module. She let it sit on his desk to record. “How’s your morning been?”

  “Great… you know, work-y,” Luke replied. He looked into Ava’s eyes. “How long do you need for the loop?”

  “More time than we have right now.” She activated the device. “We’re in even deeper shit than I realized.”

  Luke sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “They’re gearing up for a war,” Ava said. “I don’t know against whom, but they have all sorts of armaments, and I think the genetic engineering might be for some sort of super-soldier.”

  “Fuck…” Luke’s face drained.

  “What equipment do you need to analyze on the capabilities of nanocytes?” she asked.

  “Uh… That’s not really my specialization,” he replied.

  “It gets to be now. Grab whatever you need. We’re getting out of here.”

  Luke sighed. “Granted, I can figure out how to run an analysis. But that equipment isn’t mobile, Ava. I’d need to adapt some of the stationary comp
onents in this lab.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “I can probably complete a rudimentary analysis within half an hour.”

  That’ll be cutting it close… With any luck, Jared wouldn’t squirm his way free before then. “Do it. Work as fast as you can—I need to know what abilities these soldiers may possess.” Ava pulled out the vial from her bra. “I got this.”

  “Fuck, Ava! Where did you…?”

  “I’ve been busy.” She returned it to inside her shirt. “Get what you need to take the sample and bring it back here.”

  Ava deactivated the module while Luke grabbed the necessary equipment. When he returned, they refreshed the cloaking module to represent Luke’s office with him working on the computer and her nowhere to be seen. In reality, she was camped out behind his desk out of sight from anyone passing by the glass wall exposed to the rest of the lab.

  She knew she could have bolted the moment she had the opportunity to get out, but the analysis was too important. The FDG needed proof to intervene as soon as possible—transporting a physical nanocyte sample for analysis, getting the results, and preparing for action would take two days or more. Those captives might not have that kind of time, if her hunches about Andrea were correct.

  “Analysis in progress,” Luke told her in the safety of the cloaking module’s field.

  “I have a sneaking suspicion what it’s going to say.”

  “We’ll know soon enough.”

  Ava set her jaw. No one messes with my home. If Andrea thinks she can get away with this, she has another thing coming.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Only one suspect to go, and Kurtz had more questions than answers.

  In preparation for his final interview, Kurtz had looked into the detailed personnel files for all three suspects to corroborate their claims about the timing for when they were first approached by their mystery contacts, to see if there were any commonalities. Both the lieutenant and the major had indeed been on leave three years prior, on the dates they claimed in their written statements. The lieutenant had passed through the station that supported FDG transit, when extra capacity was needed, and the major had been passing through a station that handled thousands of passengers.

  The two incidents were within a day of each other. Kurtz remembered that timeframe because the unit he was attached to had just completed a major op. They needed to route through the ancillary station while FDG headquarters dealt with some repairs to the fleet. Never before had there been damage on a scale sufficient enough to mess up docking orders.

  But more than ships, they’d lost some good people on that op. It wasn’t an occasion he’d soon forget. It was those events that ultimately precipitated his investigation into NTech, and had set the tone for the last three years of his career. He now needed to see it through to the end.

  Returning his thoughts to the review of personnel records, Kurtz noticed that the third suspect—a comm tech named Alan Goert—hadn’t left FDG headquarters during that same timeframe. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t been contacted by the same group at some other time, but it was a wrinkle in the near-pattern that had been forming.

  Kurtz sighed. It’s all still circumstantial coincidence. What is the thread that ties it all together?

  He didn’t yet have an answer, but perhaps the final interview would reveal the clues he needed.

  Denise met Kurtz outside the interrogation room, the same space they’d used for the previous two conversations. The other suspects were still being held in the brig until the investigation was complete.

  So far, Kurtz hadn’t heard anything that would support leniency, should they be court martialed. They had been acting in accordance with a moral compass, but they’d still violated FDG procedure and were a security threat. Kurtz wasn’t happy that he would have to make the decisions that would dictate the fate of their lives when he was done with his investigation, unless he could determine for sure that their minds were under someone else’s control. More importantly, he had to find out how to remove the foreign control.

  “I hope this guy’s got some better dirt,” Denise commented while she looked in the tiny viewing window into the holding room.

  “Don’t hold your breath.”

  Denise flashed a smile. “You might be surprised what kind of crazy shit comm techs overhear.”

  He chuckled. “Want to take the lead on this one?”

  The security offer shrugged. “Yes, sir, I’ll give it a go, if you don’t mind.”

  “Be my guest.” Kurtz held out his hand for her to enter the room first.

  The suspect, Alan, was seated at the table with his hands already cuffed to the securement bar. He watched Denise and Kurtz enter with wide-eyed distress. “Sir, ma’am, what’s going on? They’ve been holding me for over a day, and no one will explain.”

  “I apologize for the delay in this conversation,” Kurtz began while gesturing for Denise to take the sole chair across from Alan at the table. “We deferred this chat to see if any contrary evidence would surface, but I’m afraid the leak stopped as soon as you were in custody.”

  Alan swallowed. “I don’t know what you think I’ve done, but I promise you I haven’t done anything to hurt the FDG.”

  “Nothing is that isolated,” Denise said, taking over. “What may be innocuous to the FDG could have greater implications for the Etheric Federation. That’s why we have a chain of command. Break that chain, and there are problems.”

  “I’ve never broken chain of command, at least not knowingly,” Alan insisted. “This must be some kind of misunderstanding. What do you think I’ve done?”

  “No need to put on a show, Alan. We know what you did.”

  “I…” The helpless man looked to Kurtz when he realized Denise wasn’t going to budge. “Sir, you have to believe me. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Denise folded her hands on the table. “Then how do you explain your user account being tied to secure FDG information being transmitted outside of our network?”

  Alan’s eyes widened further. “What? No! I’d never!”

  “We have a record of the action, so that isn’t up for debate. What we’d like to know is why you did it.”

  The comm tech shrank back in his chair. “I’d never betray the FDG like that. Either you were looking at the wrong thing or someone is trying to set me up.”

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want to frame you?” Kurtz asked.

  Alan shook his head. “Well, no… I mean, I’ve tried to be friendly, you know? We’re family here. I try to get along with everyone.”

  A nice sentiment, but he’s lying about something. He must be. Kurtz crossed his arms and scowled at the captive, allowing just a hint of yellow to creep into his eyes for extra intimidation.

  The comm tech continued drawing into himself. “Who did the information go to? Maybe they could tell you more. They’re the ones you should be going after!”

  “It was routed to an NTech facility,” Denise revealed. “Do you have any ties to the organization?”

  Alan thought for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “I’ve heard of them, of course, but I don’t think I know anyone there. I’m not from that system.”

  “Have you ever visited there?” Kurtz asked.

  “No, never.”

  Denise glanced back at Kurtz then returned her attention to the suspect. “Do you have a history of memory loss?”

  Alan paled. “Whoa, hold on! You’re not suggesting that I did this and don’t remember? That’s crazy! I’m telling you, someone must have set me up.”

  “Answer my question, please.”

  “No, I don’t have a history of memory loss. And you’ll see I have a great service record and have always done my part for the Force. I’m one of the last people you should be investigating.”

  Perhaps we do need to vet the evidence further. It is possible someone else was using his credentials. Kurtz nodded. “We’ll take your statement under advisement. Please
understand that we’ll have to hold you until this matter is resolved.”

  Alan worked his mouth, but then bowed his head, shoulders rounded. “Do what you have to do, sir. But let me know when you find the real guy, because I have a thing or two I want to say to him about messing with me like this.”

  Denise stood. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “Please hurry,” Alan pleaded. “I’m going crazy cooped up in that cell.”

  “We’re doing our best,” she acknowledged, and then followed Kurtz into the hall.

  The two sentry guards entered to retrieve Alan while Kurtz and Denise stepped down the hall to debrief.

  Denise frowned. “You know, I think he honestly believes he’s innocent.”

  “I didn’t detect any deception, either. That doesn’t change the fact that it was his login credentials that transmitted that data.”

  “Could someone have hacked his profile?”

  “You know more about the security safeguards than me.”

  She nodded. “Well, it’s unlikely, but certainly within the realm of possibility that someone used his account without his knowledge.”

  “Is there any way to confirm it was actually him?”

  “There are internal cameras in all the communication rooms. We could pull up the feed covering his station and see if he was the one sitting there.”

  “Do it,” Kurtz ordered.

  Denise led him back to her office. She plopped down in the chair behind her desk to pull up the footage while Kurtz remained standing.

  After three minutes of navigating menus and searching through the security archive, Denise located the right feed and displayed it on her main screen.

  Kurtz shook his head. There was no mistaking that the person working at the terminal was Alan. “It bothers me how easily he lied.”

  Denise released a long breath and leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers. “Like I said earlier, he does honestly believe he didn’t do anything. It doesn’t come off like a lie if he thinks he’s telling the truth.”

  “But he did it.” Kurtz pointed to the screen.

  “What if he has no memory—or an altered memory?”