by Amy DuBoff
“That is the question, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t say there was a straightforward answer, Colonel. We have three events, each connected to politically charged situations that won’t be easy to smooth over. Discovering the leaks was just the first step.”
“The pattern, though…”
“Colonel, I’m no longer convinced there is a pattern. A few details line up in two of the cases, but that alone isn’t enough to make a compelling case.”
“I’ll give you that,” Kurtz agreed, “but those details also add up to more than I can ignore.”
Denise smoothed her hands over the pants of her shipsuit. “I want there to be a connection, too, because then it will all make sense. But sometimes, people just act for themselves. What I said when we started this investigation may be wrong—it really might just be coincidence. These could be three separate incidents that just happened to come to a head at the same time.”
“Even if that’s the case, how do you explain Alan’s lack of recollection of his actions?”
“Maybe he was drunk-subterfuging?”
Kurtz scowled at the security chief.
She laughed. “Sorry.”
“I can think of half a dozen ways to explain memory issues, and none of them paint a very good picture. Someone wanted this covered up.”
“It’s like some evil alien overlord is messing with us tiny humans, just to see how long it takes us to go mad.”
That’s it! Kurtz leaned against the cool, metal wall. He shook his head, letting out a weary breath.
“I’m joking.” Denise’s brow knit. “Wait, what is it?”
“These incidents all seem disconnected, but that was by design—you’re right, we weren’t thinking big enough. The commonality is that each deals with one facet of the system containing Nezar, Coraxa, and Alucia. Each incident addressed one of those planets.”
“Okay, I agree that there are connections to the three planets within the same system, and that probably is a factor. But we still don’t know what it’s about.”
“That system, of course.”
Denise sighed. “Well yes, but what about it?”
“If there are two opposing forces, then the target is most likely what’s caught in between.”
“Coraxa?”
“All the signs point back to that planet. We’ve known for years it’s special.”
“It is—no argument. But then how do the incidents connect? It might just be two sides playing political games against each other.”
“No, after what I’ve seen, I think this is the work of a third party.”
“Someone on Coraxa, perhaps?”
“No, more removed than that,” Kurtz said.
Denise raised an eyebrow. “I really was joking about evil aliens.”
“As unlikely as it sounds, it’s the solution that ties everything together with the neatest bow.”
“Solutions aren’t always neat and tidy.”
“True,” Kurtz conceded, “but offer me another explanation.”
“I…” Denise faded out. “Okay, I’ve got nothing. But I don’t get the motive. Why would these aliens, or whoever, be after Coraxa? Why fuel a civil dispute between Nezar and Alucia?”
“That is what remains to be seen,” Kurtz replied. “But Coraxa, for the time being, is the center of the action.”
***
Andrea strode into the observation room deep in the heart of D Wing. Looking around at the monitors, she noticed that Jared had gone to speak with one of the subjects.
Just as well. I have an overdue chat of my own. She strolled into the corridor with the line of holding cells and stopped in front of her latest acquisition.
The man was in his thirties, and with his thin build and prematurely aged skin from too much unprotected time in the sun, he hardly looked like someone with the fortitude to last with her.
He inched back on his cot. “Why have you brought me here?”
“For some very important work,” Andrea replied, depressing the door control to slide it open. “Come with me.”
With her vampiric speed, she rushed in through the open doorway and pinned the man’s arms behind his back.
He gasped when he realized what she’d done, and offered no resistance when she prodded him out of the room, realizing he was powerless in her grasp.
Andrea could hear his racing heartbeat and smell an extra sweetness in his blood from the Etheric energy of his native Coraxa coursing through him. Her grandparents may have considered him a delightful snack, back before more civilized ways were developed to extract Etheric energy than to drink pure blood. But, those ways were less effective, less efficient.
And certainly less enjoyable.
The high from taking the energy directly out of the blood and the immediate access to power was a drug to her, one that constantly required Andrea to push off her immediate desires to satiate her lust for blood and seek her long-term goal.
No matter how tasty the snack.
She directed him to an experimentation room with a clear outer wall and no furnishings. Claw marks along the right wall gave clues to the room’s previous occupants, and the man quaked on his feet, hugging himself. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Make you better.” Andrea extracted a syringe and the vial of nanocytes she’d been carrying in her lab coat pocket since morning.
Inserting the needle into the top of the vial, she drew what amounted to no more than four drops of the solution. As small a quantity as it appeared, when administered directly into his bloodstream, it contained enough nanocytes to permeate his body in half a day.
Andrea jumped into super-speed again and wrapped the man in a choke-hold, inserting the needle into his jugular before he knew what had happened. She released him and raced out the door, dropping back to normal speed when she pressed the door controls to seal him inside.
The man reached for his neck. “What was that?”
“Hopefully, the next phase of human evolution.” She smiled at him.
He held his hand over the puncture site and stumbled back toward the far wall. He collapsed against it then slid to the ground. Within seconds his hand had dropped from his neck, and he curled up on his side, falling fast asleep.
Good, he got the full dose in his bloodstream. There were other ways to dose a recipient with the nanocytes, but the alternate methods took much longer to take effect. She didn’t have any time to spare with this experiment. By morning, she’d know if the treatment resulted in any bonuses for those with extra Etheric sensitivity—a test case to see if the residents of Coraxa would be as useful as she hoped. While the nanocytes should be able to transform anyone, any opportunity to maximize those returns would be well worth taking.
There was nothing more to do with the man until morning, so she headed back toward the observation room.
After five steps, her comm lit up with an alert: someone had accessed restricted files and was caught by an automated security sweep. She had no doubt who it might be.
***
“Is it finished yet?”
“No, Ava. For the fourth time, the analysis is not complete, and I’ll let you know as soon as it is,” Luke groaned.
Ava scooched back under Luke’s desk with a huff. How fucking long does it take to analyze a bunch of nanoscopic technology that no one has ever encountered before? She frowned. Damn it, even she knew she was being unreasonable.
“I’m sorry, Luke,” she murmured. “I just want to get out of here. I keep expecting an army to walk in and grab me any second.”
“Maybe you should go,” he suggested. “I can finish up here and then meet you back at the cottage.”
“No, absolutely not.” She tried to give him a firm look of superior finality, but it was decidedly difficult from her hiding place on the floor.
Luke smiled down at her. “You’re kinda cute when you’re trying to be all tough.”
“Trying to be? Let’s not forget how I dropped you.”
>
“I think you have some pent-up aggression you need to release.”
Ava thought about it. “You know, this is the longest I’ve gone in a very long time without sparring with one of the Weres on my team. That makes for one exhausting workout.”
Luke’s smile faded. “That isn’t some sort of euphemism, is it?”
“What? No! No, no, no. Those guys are like brothers to me.” She tilted her head, eyes narrow. “Why?”
“Nothing.”
A little jealous, eh? Ava concealed her smirk.
Luke came to attention. “Analysis is done!”
“About time!” Ava emerged from her hiding place just enough to view the computer screen.
“Oh… this isn’t good.” Luke paled.
Ava stared at the information on the screen, but it may as well have been alien code. “What? I have no idea what I’m looking at here.”
Luke touched on some sequences in the analysis. “Okay, so I’m not a nanotech guy, right? I don’t have a clue about how to break down the machines to their components and analyze what they’re supposed to do. So what I did was something of a workaround. We have the different divisions of NTech, each with their own specialization. But we’re an integrated company, so we need to know how those different components interact.”
“Right, what about it?”
“I tricked the system. I told it I was working on a genetic model and needed to know how this nanotech would impact my patient, since it would influence my genetic therapy treatment plan.”
Ava sat back on her heels. “All right, that was creative.”
“You can stroke my ego later. If this analysis is right, we have a huge problem.”
“Lemme guess… Were-vampires.”
Luke’s jaw dropped. “How did you…?”
“There were suspicions based on some information we gathered at another NTech lab. And when I saw that they were holding the Weres here, it was pretty much guaranteed that it was all connected. I also maybe sorta mind-read one of the secret researchers a little bit ago.”
“Ava!”
“The details aren’t relevant. This analysis is exactly what I need to get to the FDG so they can move in. Can you save it on an external drive?”
“They’ll be looking for any drives leaving the facility. Those security arches work both ways.”
“What about the hard drive on the cloaking module?”
“Yes, that could work.” Luke reached for the device. “Stay hidden and stay quiet.”
Ava pinched her thumb and index finger and drew them across her lips while she tucked back under the desk.
Two agonizing minutes passed while Luke synced the module’s hard drive and established a link to transfer the complex model. It was unlikely they’d be able to access the information on just any old computer, but Ava was confident the FDG would have the means to reassemble the data packet.
“Got it!” Luke whispered. “We can leave any— Oh, shit.”
Ava frowned. “That sounded like an especially bad ‘oh, shit’.”
“The system just sent up a red flag. These sequences must have been marked to send a notice if they were accessed.”
“What does that mean for us?”
“A bunch of really big, well-armed security guards are headed straight for us.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Oh, fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Ava scrambled to her feet.
“We can’t be here, Ava,” Luke said, his voice pitched with fear.
Ava pulled herself together. “Grab whatever you need. We need to get the hell out of here.”
Luke shut down the equipment in his office and then they began marching as quickly as they dared toward the exit. No more than four meters outside Luke’s office, they were stopped by one of the techs on Luke’s team—Marty, based on his ID badge.
“Heading out early?” Marty asked.
Is he a stall tactic or just lonely? Ava didn’t care to find out either way. “Sorry, I just came down with a major migraine and Luke is taking me home.”
“Yeah, I’ll drop her off then be right back,” Luke said, playing along.
Marty frowned. “That’s what’s going on, huh? When I saw you crawl under Luke’s desk, I thought something else was up.”
Luke blushed. “Uh…”
“Maybe I worked myself into a headache.” Ava wished she could have waited around to see Marty’s reaction, but she took off at a brisk walk toward the exit.
Based on the redness of Luke’s face, however, she guessed that Marty’s jaw had hit the floor.
They broke into a jog as soon as they were out of the common area of the lab.
“Fuck, Ava, that alert was tied to my work station. There’s probably a hold on my badge.”
She glanced over at him. “I’m not leaving you behind no matter what. You’re a member of my team.”
He nodded his understanding, but the worry remained on his face.
Footfalls from multiple pairs of heavy boots sounded from down the perpendicular hall between them and the exit.
Aaand there are the guards. Ava looked around for a potential hiding place and spotted a supply closet two meters up ahead. She tapped on Luke’s shoulder and pointed.
He bolted to it with her and they slipped inside, closing the door softly.
Just enough light leaked in from around the edges of the door for Ava to see Luke’s rigid form as he braced for them to be found. Standing a mere half-meter apart, she had the urge to hold him for comfort, but she didn’t dare move a muscle.
She held her breath as the guards—she counted six—passed by, showing no break in their pace to indicate they’d spotted them in the closet.
After a count of thirty, Ava cracked the door open. The corridor was clear.
“Marty will point them back this way any second,” she whispered. “It’s now or never.”
“What about my ID badge when we leave?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Before he could question what she had planned, Ava made a flat-out run for the exit. Two strides short of the door, she dropped to a jog.
“Shit!” she shouted while she burst through the doors. “Why didn’t you tell me what time it was?!” She glared at Luke.
“Sorry?”
“Sorry won’t cut it! I’m going to be late for my wildlife expedition. What kind of vacation is it if I don’t get to go to the petting zoo?!” She stormed through the security archway. “Can you believe this shit?” Ava said to the security guard.
The guard looked at her, bewildered. “I wouldn’t worry about it, ma’am.”
“You too? All you men are the fucking same!” she shouted.
To her relief, Luke took the chance to dart through the archway.
“I better make it by the check-in time, or you’ll never hear the end of it.” She gave one last glare at Luke for good measure and turned back to the guard to make sure he was still watching her and not his monitor. “And don’t you dare pretend you don’t want to snuggle with a baby cocobera!”
She spun back toward the door with a grand flourish and ran outside.
Luke ran after her, and they didn’t slow until they reached his car. He used the remote unlock, and they piled inside.
“Oh. My. God,” he said while starting the engine. The car sprang to life, and he sped to the exit. “That was epic.”
Ava wiped her hand down her face. “If Edwin ever gets ahold of that footage…”
“Who’s Edwin?”
“One of the guys on my team. He’s made it his personal mission to document my best moments and post them for all the universe to see.”
Luke smirked despite the tension from the last half hour. “So I can find you online?”
Oh, fuck. Now I’ve done it.
***
Andrea scowled at the NTech Security Chief, Tucker. “What do you mean they walked out the front door? There was a flag on that account!”
“Yes, ma’am. There was appar
ently a… distraction,” the chief replied with a quaver to his voice. He stood a full head taller than Andrea, but he’d turned into a scared puppy the moment he saw her eyes flare red.
“Then go find them.” She emphasized each word, rising onto her toes.
Tucker took a step back. “I’m afraid our jurisdiction doesn’t extend beyond the lab, ma’am.”
Andrea held in a curse. “Are you going to follow my orders, or do I need to go after them myself after I rip out your fucking—”
“Doctor, what happened?” Jared wandered into the room, looking dazed.
She pivoted her rage to her assistant. “About time you showed up! What took you so long with that subject?”
“I’m… not sure.” Jared swayed slightly on his feet and brought a hand to his temple.
Andrea turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
“I…” He looked around, as though to get his bearings in a place that should have been familiar. “I went to see Ava, we talked, and then I went to interview the subject.”
Andrea frowned. His tone was too measured and mechanical. “How did your talk with her go?”
“She… wasn’t feeling up to the interview and left early.”
That much matched up, but clearly that wasn’t the whole story. “Jared, I need you to be honest with me.” She looked into his eyes, using the pathway to bore into his mind.
The confusion Jared was expressing externally matched his inner thoughts. He was thinking about his most recent actions, and there was a clear memory of him outside one of the holding cells, but everything between their morning briefing and that most recent memory was… blurry.
Ava was good—very good—but this was a rush job. Frankly, Andrea expected better.
“We’ve been compromised,” Andrea stated.
“What… how?” Jared asked.
“By you, obviously.” She groaned. “Little Ava is bolder than I’d given her credit for. She must have taken control of you and implanted a memory in an attempt to cover her tracks.”
“I wouldn’t…”
“But you did, Jared. This is why we haven’t tried to experiment on telepaths. They’re too unpredictable. Fuck!” Andrea paced next to the computer console. This development was a wrinkle in their plans, but not a disaster.