by Jade Kerrion
“All right. And what do we do about the things from the lab? Hunt them down?”
Xin arched an eyebrow. “With what, exactly? The shot I fired had practically no impact on it. You’ll note that none of us did any real or lasting damage to any of them, and the one that died killed itself.” She pushed to her feet and walked around the table, picked up a tablet computer, and handed it to Lucien. “I found their genetic records and compared them to both Galahad and Danyael. There are trace similarities to Galahad in a few scattered places though not consistently across all six of them. One thing is consistent in all seven DNAs though…a fully sequenced tracker gene.”
“They put a tracker gene in me? Where?” Galahad asked.
Lucien handed the tablet over to Galahad. “According to this, chromosome four, in the telomere.”
Galahad scanned the report. “Telomeres, located at the ends of chromosomes, are a series of repetitive DNA intended to protect the chromosome from deterioration as a result of the shortening of chromosome ends, which necessarily occurs during chromosome replication. They are believed to control the aging process indirectly, and if they malfunction, they’re responsible for many types of cancers. Tracker genes are occasionally placed in the telomeres of clones and in vitros, almost like a trademark, indicating which laboratory they came from.”
“You didn’t know you had one in you?”
“No. It’s hard to tell unless there’s some kind of comparison to the DNA of others with similar codes.”
Lucien frowned. “Could the tracker gene somehow be facilitating those creatures’ ability to find you?”
“That’s never been the purpose or functionality of the tracker gene, but that’s not to say it can’t be done. I don’t think we can assume that the physical and scientific laws governing humans also apply to those creatures.”
“Let’s assume that the tracker gene works,” Lucien said, “and that they could show up wherever we are. It’ll be just one more thing to keep this game interesting.” His voice was calm as he accepted the information, adjusted, and kept moving. “What about Danyael? Anything on his genetic sequence?”
“Ah…” Xin hesitated. “Nothing definitive.”
“But…?” Lucien asked.
“Danyael has several genetic mutations, the combination of which has made him who he is, and—”
“Several mutations?” Zara snorted. “Just how messed up is Danyael anyway?”
“Power like his doesn’t come through a single mutation,” Miriya said. “It takes quite a bit of luck and chance to create an alpha empath. Go on, Xin.”
“There’s a single sequences on all those creatures that is an eighty…ninety percent match to his.”
“I see what you mean.” Galahad’s dark eyes scanned the DNA sequence flowing across the screen tablet. “This gene is one of many that control the rate of recuperation, the ability of the body to heal over time. The effects of a single mutation aren’t always obvious or easy to explain, especially in Danyael’s case, where there are several mutations working in conjunction, but we know he’s able to accelerate the healing in others. Mutated further in these creatures, perhaps—and I’m speculating here—the result is accelerated self-healing. That would explain why we couldn’t hurt them, why bullets didn’t stop them.”
“But why would just one of Danyael’s mutated genetic sequences show up in them but not in you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t from Danyael; it could have been copied from another mutant, perhaps one with a known capacity for accelerated self-healing. Let’s not dismiss the possibility of coincidence here.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in coincidence,” Lucien said.
Galahad shook his head. “I don’t, but mutant genes are notoriously hard to work with. Most scientific communities steer clear of them for fear of creating something they can’t predict or control. Despite all the advances we’ve made in our understanding of genetics, no one has ever fully explained how combinations of human genes interact with each other to create the vast spectrum of phenotypes. Mutant genes add several layers of complexity to that equation. To take a mutated gene and mutate it further in the hopes of enhancing it would be downright foolhardy.”
“And trying to create a human being a base pair at a time isn’t?” Zara asked.
Galahad conceded the point with an incline of his head and a faint smile. “I think we’d all agree that the scientists from Pioneer Labs aren’t the sort to be deterred by the limited odds of success. But I don’t think the data is sufficient to conclude that Danyael’s genetic sequence had anything to do with the creation of those creatures from the lab. More than likely, they were created before the scientists decided to use Danyael as a template.”
“So it’s a dead end,” Lucien said.
“Why don’t we just ask Rakehell and Cochran?” Zara asked. “This beating around the bush is ridiculous. There is an easier way, and that is to take both Galahad and Danyael to them and demand to know what happened. And with your telepath here…” She waved a hand toward Miriya. “She can pick the truth out of their minds, even if they decide not to talk.”
Miriya nodded. Zara obviously believed in taking the most direct route, charging through all obstacles, if necessary. No wonder Danyael’s reluctance to stir up the past annoyed her. It likely would have anyway, though the repellant effect of Danyael’s emotional barriers exacerbated the situation and heightened her dislike to the point that she could not see any good in him.
Zara’s cell phone rang. She stared at the caller ID. “It’s Jason Rakehell,” she said before accepting the call. “Jason darling.” Like the brush of silk against skin, Zara’s voice smoothed, transforming from the brusque, strictly business approach she had utilized thus far into a purely feminine, coyly mocking tone that could aim a punch straight into a man’s gut.
“Don’t screw with me, Zara.” Jason shouted so loudly into the phone that everyone in the room could hear him even without the benefit of a speakerphone.
She winced and held the phone away from her ear. “I wouldn’t do that, Jason. You weren’t that much into it, if I recall.”
“You know why!”
“Not really. A real man wouldn’t let something as petty as unsettled scores against his father get in the way of a good lay.”
Lucien caught a glimpse of Miriya’s smirk, and he winced. I’ve always appreciated her frankness, but I can certainly see how or why someone else wouldn’t. I don’t know how she maintains that warmly feminine purr while viciously emasculating a man.
Practice, I bet, Miriya replied with a soft laugh.
“Where is Galahad?” Jason’s voice shouted through the phone.
“Oh, he’s safe and warm with me.” She winked at Galahad, a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “He’s beautiful, too, stunningly beautiful. In all your rants against him and your father, you never mentioned how breathtakingly gorgeous he is. It’s probably a good thing, or I might have broken into Pioneer Labs earlier to steal him.”
“I want him, Zara.”
“I don’t think he’s interested. He’s not really inclined that way.” Zara laughed softly. She looked at the piece of paper Xin held out to her. His cell phone signal is coming from Georgetown. “And by the way, Jason, send the cleaning crew to pick up my place after you’re done trashing it.”
“You’ve got that psycho clone with you again, haven’t you?” Jason snarled into the phone.
“He just called you a psycho,” she mouthed at Xin with a grin.
Xin shrugged, chuckling silently.
“Jason, Xin has a bigger claim to fame in her current life than you do in yours. Your blanket hatred of anything that isn’t a naturally born human is growing tiresome.”
“If you knew—”
She cut him off. “I do know.” The purr vanished from her voice. Her tone was clipped, terse, and vibrated with annoyance. “I’ve heard it often enough. You’re a neglected child; your father was obsessed with his pet
project and left you home alone. What you’ve always failed to mention is that you were left at home with all the luxuries money could buy and in the company of devoted nannies. If you think your life was so miserable and you can’t get over how deprived you were, maybe you could consider switching places with Galahad. You are a tiresome, self-centered prick, Jason. If you want Galahad, come and get him, only, you’ll have to get through me, and we both know I can beat you in any fight, any day of the week.”
“That’s telling him.” Xin laughed as Zara hung up on Jason.
“No, it’s not.” Zara wore an expression of disgust. “He can’t be told, or he would have regained his senses long before it came down to the burning of Pioneer Labs.”
“Lucien called him a tiresome prick too, yesterday.”
“Yeah, well, Lucien’s usually right about people,” Zara conceded with a grin at her friend. “Let’s add Jason to the list of complications. He’s dangerous; he commands a host of paranoid pro-humanists. The world would be better off without them, but I could have trouble explaining that to the police.”
“I could wreck him financially,” Lucien offered solicitously.
Zara smiled. “Tempting. Very tempting.”
Miriya nodded. “We should at least remove him and his pro-humanist buddies from the equation. He’s muddying the waters, and we don’t need that.”
Galahad looked over at Lucien. “Are people truly so bloodthirsty?”
Lucien shrugged. “Only the females.” He ducked the pen that Xin threw at his head. “And you object, Xin? Weren’t you a military general in a former life?”
“That was a long time ago.” She smiled at him. “I could have changed, you know. It’s been three thousand years after all, give or take a century or two.”
Zara cut in. “I vote for taking Jason out. We don’t have to kill him, just check him into a hospital for two weeks or so. I need to get my dagger back anyway.”
“Your dagger?” Xin looked at Zara quizzically.
“The one I left stuck in his arm after he fired that gun at Galahad last night. Let’s go.”
“Danyael’s not ready to move,” Miriya pointed out.
“So?” Zara tensed at the mere mention of his name.
“We don’t go without him.”
“We don’t need to take him. This isn’t a group outing.”
“Were you planning on taking me along?” Miriya asked.
“Of course.”
Miriya shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere without Danyael. I’m here to help you, but more importantly, I’m here to make sure that Danyael’s shields do not collapse, or that I’m around to shield him if they do collapse. An empath of Danyael’s caliber without shields could make what’s happening in D.C. right now look like a Sunday school picnic.”
Zara opened her mouth to retort, but a knock on the door drew everyone’s attention.
A young housemaid peeked in and looked at Lucien. “Excuse me, sir. The police have arrived, and they want to speak to you.”
Lucien pushed to his feet. “I’ll take care of this. Galahad, stay out of sight. I know there aren’t any pictures of you out there yet, but let’s not take any chances.”
Galahad nodded.
“Do we just wait?” Zara asked, a little testily.
“You’re welcome to hunt down those things from the lab, but I wouldn’t recommend it,” Lucien shot back. He walked out of the study, closing the door behind him.
Zara scowled and sank into her comfortable leather chair. “Surely there must be something we can do,” she said to no one in particular.
Patient waiting was clearly not part of Zara’s skill set. Miriya could identify with Zara’s sentiment, but after that near fiasco when she attacked Danyael without waiting to fully assess the situation, she was willing to take things more slowly. “Tell me about yourself, Galahad.”
He smiled. “I’m not sure there’s much to tell.”
“You’ve lived a very different life from the most of us. That’s interesting in and of itself. Will you relax, Zara?” Miriya directed her question at the other woman without actually looking at her. “It’s not your fault. What happened to Carlos isn’t your fault. And just to be clear, it’s not Danyael’s fault either.”
Zara froze for an instant but recovered quickly. She glared at Miriya. “Stay out of my head.”
“That’s really hard. You’re projecting very loudly.” Miriya looked at her now. “We’ve got enough issues as it is, and there’s really no time for you to take a guilt trip on how you might be even partially responsible for what’s happening out there.”
Their gazes locked, flashing violet against icy green.
From behind her computer monitors, Xin looked up. “Play nicely now, children,” was all she said. “Danyael’s resting and doesn’t have the time or energy to heal anyone.”
Zara stalked from the room. Galahad inhaled deeply, released his breath in a soft sigh, and followed. Miriya chuckled softly the moment the door closed behind them. “About time.”
“You did that on purpose?”
“They needed to talk,” Miriya said and then left Xin to her work while she perused a book from Lucien’s extensive collection.
Xin shook her head. “Sometimes I think mutants are even weirder than clones. And humans are by far the weirdest of all.”
Zara heard footsteps behind her but did not turn away from her perch by the window.
“You think you’re somehow responsible for this?” Galahad asked quietly.
She did not answer immediately. Her bedroom window overlooked the patio where the gruesome corpse was surrounded by cops and other emergency personnel who were probably debating what to do with it. The people on the patio huddled in clusters, constantly glancing over their shoulders to see if the creatures were coming back. Lucien was out there too, the only one who looked like he was in control of the situation, cool and collected as he always was in public.
“I did have a hand in it from the beginning.” Zara pulled the heavy velvet drapes across the window. She walked past Galahad and closed the bedroom door he had left open when he followed her into her room. Conversations like these were best held in private.
“Who sent you to kill me? I can’t believe it was Purest Humanity.”
Zara chuckled softly, a rich, warm sound. “I wasn’t there to kill you. I just came for a blood or tissue sample. The professors have the central computers at Pioneer Labs stuffed full with false genetic codes to deter hackers. Your full genome was one of the best kept secrets in the world, at least until yesterday.”
“You got a whole lot more than you’d bargained for.”
“My day is usually not complete unless I get myself into trouble. I get bonus points for getting my friends into trouble too, so as you can imagine, yesterday was a whopper of a day. In my defense, Xin was an active conspirator.” She pulled out her Pioneer Laboratories security card, imprinted with her photograph, and tapped it against the palm of her other hand. “She did this for me.”
“Xin did this?”
“She has access to some truly scary technology in her work with the government, and every now and again, she’ll commandeer them for a pet project.”
“Is that allowed?”
“Not really, but she’s too hard to replace, so they just look the other way.” Zara relinquished the security card as Galahad took it out of her hand to take a closer look at her photograph.
He smiled, a slow, private smile that was like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. “May I have this?” he asked.
“Sure, and would you like my autograph too?”
He laughed, slipping the security card into his pocket. “How did you meet Xin?”
“I was looking for a top-notch hacker with flexible morals who might be willing to take on some part-time jobs for my agency. I asked around and it didn’t take long for her name to rise to the top. She’s not just top notch, she’s world class. Her morals aren’t nearly as flexible as I’
d like, but nobody’s perfect. We’ve been associates for almost three years now. For the most part, we get along beautifully, as long as she turns a blind eye to some of the people I hire and most of the work I do.”
“And what do you do, Zara?”
“I own the Three Fates.”
“Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos?”
A dazzling smile flashed. “You know your Greek mythology. You really do have a vast repertoire of random knowledge,” she said. “The Three Fates provides free agents for hire.”
“Mercenaries?”
She looked unapologetic. “Technically, yes. Let’s be clear though: we haven’t done any completely illegal work yet.”
“There’s a difference between completely illegal and partly illegal?”
Her laughter was wicked and shimmered like silver bells. “You’re starting to sound like Xin. There’s a big difference between completely illegal and partly illegal. The size of the difference is controlled by the quantity and quality of the lawyers you hire. Legal fees constitute thirty percent of my expenses; it’s high, but that’s the cost of doing business.”
“Would breaking into Pioneer Labs fall under the completely illegal or partly illegal category?”
“Neither.” She laughed again. “That was just light-hearted mischief, until, of course, I absconded with you.”
“How did you get into this line of work?”
“That’s not important.” Her tumultuous childhood, the many wars that had eventually ripped the heart and soul out of the Mediterranean paradise of Lebanon, the years spent in the squalid conditions of a refugee camp, the harrowing journey to America—to the one land that still held out the promise of freedom to any who came to its shores—none of that mattered any more.