The pills containing contraceptives had been outlawed in forty-eight states, with a forty-ninth coming fast, but the black market demand for them was still booming.
Mac took the blue box and the entire drugstore bag back into the bedroom with her as Shane opened the packet and swallowed the pill. She’d obviously already taken one, and okay, as he followed her, he didn’t want to think too much about that because the questions generated weren’t helpful. When had she taken hers? Recently, after getting out of bed? Or up to twenty-four hours ago, when she was with someone else?
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that was jealousy he was feeling, and he tamped it back down. He didn’t even know this woman’s real name, so it was unlikely she’d be okay with him expressing his desire to own her.
So Shane kept his mouth shut and just breathed and watched while she stuffed the box and the bag into the drawer of her little bedside table. And when she bent down to pick up first one and then the other of her socks, he realized that she’d been walking around barefoot, and she hadn’t been limping.
At all.
“Your ankle seems much better,” he said as she sat on the bed.
“Yeah,” she said. “It is.” She rubbed her foot, then rotated it, and even seemed kind of surprised herself at how little it was bothering her. She looked over at him. “Thanks.”
“Hmm,” he said. “I’d like to think I’m responsible for, I don’t know, maybe … Relaxing you? So in that spirit, you’re very welcome.”
She didn’t laugh. She just sat there looking at him, almost as if she were trying to get inside of his head and read his mind.
Shane let her look, trying to emote a calm lack of desperation. Come on, Mac. Ask him to stay …
But then she said, “Shit,” almost under her breath. And she picked up his T-shirt off the bed and tossed it to him, before returning her focus to putting on her boots.
So much for his hopes of hanging here until she came back from work. But despite that ominous-sounding shit, the battle had not been lost. In fact, it had barely begun. He just had to be cool. After all, he knew where she lived, knew the bar where she hung out.
Shane breathed in deeply as he pulled his shirt over his head. God, she smelled impossibly good. He sat on the other side of the bed to put on his own socks and boots. “Can I ask you what you do?” he asked.
“You can ask,” she replied, “but I can’t answer.”
Can’t was better than won’t. “So … CSO?” He was teasing, but he felt her stiffen, so he added, “It’s a lifelong fantasy. Gorgeous Covert Security Org operative takes me home, lets me rock her world …”
She did laugh then. “Yeah, sorry to disappoint but I’m seriously not CSO.”
“Which is what you’d say if you were.”
“For all I know,” she countered, “you’re CSO.”
“Yeah, well,” Shane said, “the CSO is where former SEALs tend to go, but that door kinda slams shut with the whole blacklisted thing.”
“That still seems surreal to me,” Mac told him. “You’re so …” She searched for the right word.
“Don’t say cute,” he requested. “Or anything with the word boy in it.”
She laughed and crawled across the bed toward him. He turned to meet her. To kiss her back. And Jesus, just kissing her was better than most of the full-on sex he’d had in his entire fairly long life.
But then she pulled back, and he realized she was straddling him as he lay on his back on her bed looking up at her, out of breath, as he dry-humped her. Nice.
“You’re a straight-arrow,” she said even as she, too, struggled to catch her breath. “In a good way. You’re gleaming and … true.”
She meant it. He could see her respect for him in her eyes. Respect and admiration.
And he wanted … Damn, it scared him—what he wanted. So he defined it in terms of sex.
“Sixty seconds,” he whispered. “Come on, honey, just give me sixty more seconds …”
Mac laughed down at him. “A true romantic, huh?”
If she wanted romance … “Meet me back here tomorrow night,” he said, “and I’ll cook you dinner and give you the massage of your life.” And yes, he could see that the idea appealed to her. “But right now? I want only sixty seconds of your time. Because I know I can make you come as soon as I’m inside of you.” He pushed himself up, against her.
And God, she was going to do it.
Shane could see it there, in her eyes—the fact that she wanted to. And sure enough, she kicked off one boot and pulled one leg free from her pants, even as he quickly unfastened his jeans and pushed them down off of his hips, as she threw her bare leg back across him, as she came down hard, and he thrust up …
“Yes!” Jesus, this was unbelievable—how good it felt.
“Oh, God,” she gasped as she pushed him deeper, as he, too, helped. “Oh, God!”
She was laughing, and he was, too—it was that fricking great as she moved on top of him, as he pushed himself up to meet her, as he gazed into her eyes.
He’d already learned what she liked and where to touch her, but he’d been dead right, and it didn’t take anything more than his being inside of her to make her unravel, and he, too, let himself fall right over the edge into his own powerful release, surging inside of her again and again and again.
The intensity nearly made his eyes roll back in his head, and he struggled to stay present in the aftermath, even as his heart continued to race, and his breathing was ragged, and his brain wanted to disconnect so he could float in this happy moment.
He’d expected her to make an immediate dismount—she was, after all, in a hurry, but she didn’t move from where she’d collapsed on top of him, her face pressed against his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin.
He gave her an additional sixty seconds, and when she still didn’t do more than breathe, he spoke. “So. Tonight?”
Mac sighed. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to get away.” She lifted her head then to look at him. “My work is … Important. I’ve learned not to make promises.”
“So don’t promise,” Shane said. “Just try. Give me your cell. I’ll call you. Around six. See where you’re at.”
He could see the great big no in her eyes. But instead of shaking her head, she said, “How about—tentatively—a week from tonight? That’ll give you a chance to find out your schedule. If you’re starting a new job, you might want to go into it being flexible.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. This job isn’t … It’s basically some kind of medical testing. You know, Hi, my name’s Shane, and I’ll be your guinea pig today?”
Mac sat up. “That’s dangerous shit. There are drugs out there that’ll screw you up, big-time.” She shook her head and her vehemence was fierce.
“Whoa,” he said. “No, it’s not drug-testing. I wouldn’t do that—”
“But they tell you it’s not, and then you get inside and you sign the release and …” She exhaled hard. “Most of those programs are lockdown. You go in, you’re in.”
“There’s no lockdown in the world that I can’t get out of,” he assured her.
She wasn’t convinced. “In some of the programs, you’re strapped to the bed. And unless you’re Houdini—”
Okay, so that was an unpleasant thought. “I’m not going to participate if they’re going to do that.”
“You really think they’ll tell you in advance?” she asked, then exhaled her exasperation. “Which lab hired you?”
“It’s not a lab,” Shane told her. “It’s an R and D facility. Something called the Obermeyer Institute …?”
She froze. She was sitting there with her body still locked together with his, but she’d suddenly gone completely, totally blank.
He said, “They were very clear when they recruited me that there wouldn’t be drugs involved.” She still didn’t move, so he tried to explain, “They study something called neural integration. It’s—”
“I gotta go,” she said, and just like that she was off of him. She grabbed the candlestick and took it with her. And when she left the bedroom and went into the bathroom and closed the door, Shane was plunged into total and absolute darkness.
What the hell …?
He waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dim light coming in through the window—except that light wasn’t there anymore. He fastened his pants by touch, then went to the shade and lifted it and …
The streetlight right outside the window had gone out.
But that wasn’t the only light that had vanished.
He heard the toilet flush, and the bathroom door opened, and the pulse and sway of the candlelight was back.
Mac, however, had already left the building. So to speak.
“Let’s go.” She’d turned back into the cold stranger he’d first approached in the bar. She put on her scarf and hat and jacket, then tossed him his. She picked up the candle and unlatched the door to the apartment’s landing. She propped it open with her foot, her impatience barely concealed as she waited for him to get out.
It didn’t make any sense. “What just happened here?” Shane asked as he went past her.
She didn’t meet his eyes. She put her key into the deadbolt, and then blew out the candle and tossed it back inside. The power outage had clearly affected the common areas of the building, too. It was dark as hell in there.
He could hear Mac, though, latching the bolt and then swiftly going down the stairs to the door that led to the street.
He followed her outside, feeling his way. “Mac.”
She didn’t stop. So he chased. Not far—her bike was right there. And it was a Harley. She set to work unlocking it. In this neighborhood, she’d needed a variety of methods to keep it safe.
“What the hell did I say?” he said, and she still didn’t turn around.
But she did speak. “This was a mistake.”
“The Obermeyer Institute,” he said. “It was when I said—”
“What do you know about neural integration?” she asked, finally turning to face him, a heavy chain in her hands.
“Not much,” Shane admitted. “I mean, it’s common knowledge that the average person only uses ten percent of his or her brain—”
“That’s a myth,” she dismissed it.
“Then I guess I don’t know very much,” he said, searching her face, her eyes, for some kind of clue—and getting nothing but massive regret. “Is it the science?” he asked, reaching for her, touching her shoulders—only to have her almost violently shrug him off. And turn away to stow that chain and mount her bike.
“Are you … really religious?” he asked. It was hard to believe, but … “Is that why no tattoos or—”
She started the Harley with a roar.
“Because I don’t have to do it,” Shane shouted to be heard over the engine. “I’ll find another job.”
But Mac shook her head. “No,” she said. “You have to go. It’s important that you go. You’re a Potential, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, “but I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means,” she told him, over the noise of her Harley, “that I can’t see you again. I’m sorry.”
She adjusted the throttle, and the bike leapt away with a roar, leaving him standing there, still freaking clueless, watching her taillight vanish in the darkness of the night.
SIX
Anna sat at the conference room table inside the gated former college campus that was now the Obermeyer Institute, clutching a mug of coffee that the friendly doctor, whose name was Elliot Zerkowski, had given her. They were waiting for the results of the GPS search for Nika’s phone.
OI had a variety of different departments, including one called “Analysis.” The many busy and bustling staff members who made up Analysis’s night shift were also searching satellite images, trying to see if they could find pictures of Nika’s abduction—and ID her abductor as well as the car or van into which she’d no doubt been tossed.
This is where, the dark and mysterious Dr. Bach had told her, back in his car, as they drove over here, it gets a little strange.
You think?
Apparently, there was a dangerous new drug out there called oxyclepta di-estraphen, street name Destiny, that users injected into their veins.
It was illegal, but sparingly available in virtually every major city around the world—provided you made the right connections and could pay the exorbitant price.
The drug allowed its user to access the otherwise underused parts of his or her brain that controlled regenerative cell growth.
In plain English, that meant that, with this drug, theoretically at least, a seventy-five-year-old cancer patient would not only be able to cure his own illness, but could use the power of his own brain to create the hormones and enzymes necessary to naturally transform his entire body into that of a strapping, healthy twenty-year-old, with decades of life ahead of him.
With this drug? A human being could conceivably live forever.
The catch, besides the high price tag, was the fact that the drug was immediately addictive. One injection, and boom. The user was instantly hooked. And detoxing was not a possibility. Addicts needed to continue taking the drug, or they would, without exception, die.
The whole live-forever thing was undeniably a major enticement in spite of the drawbacks—particularly for those who were facing terminal illnesses and certain death. Provided the user had truckloads of money to continue buying the drug, forever and ever, Amen …
Although, along with the instant addiction came delusions of grandeur. Since most Destiny users were rich, it was possible that their feelings of superiority and belief that they were above the law were there from the start. But the drug appeared to break down the users’ morals even more, further corrupting their sense of right and wrong.
But the biggest problem with Destiny was that only a very small percentage of the population was able to absorb the drug without eventually suffering the very serious side effect of violent insanity, also known as jokering.
Joseph Bach and his team of scientists had recently been called in by the Boston police to contain an addict who’d jokered after only one injection of Destiny.
“Why did they ask you to apprehend this man?” Anna asked Bach now.
He took a sip from his own mug—he drank herbal tea instead of coffee—before replying. Dr. Zerkowski, who’d instructed her to call him Elliot, was also watching Bach, as if he, too, were curious as to how the dark-haired man would answer.
“Because the police often find themselves outmatched. You see, people who are addicted to Destiny have access to a wide variety of neural pathways,” Bach said, then broke it down even further for her. “The drug allows addicts to cure their diseases and to rebuild strong, healthy bodies, it’s true, but it also allows them to develop other mental powers. They might have, say, telekinetic or telepathic abilities.”
“Be able to move things with their minds, or read others’ thoughts,” Elliot interpreted.
“Or they might be able to manipulate electricity—”
“Shoot lightning bolts from their derrières.”
Bach looked at Elliot, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“What?” Elliot said. “We had one of those last month.” He turned to Anna. “Talk about bad surprises. Last night’s joker was less amusing. He was able to stop a bullet with his mind, turn it around, and send it rocketing back to kill the SWAT team sniper who’d tried to take him down.”
“Dear God,” she breathed.
“He could also use vocalizations—words—to punch people,” Elliot said. “I know that sounds crazy, but while he was talking, if he emphasized a word, you’d feel it like a punch in the face. Total comic-book super-villain stuff. That’s where the verb to joker came from.”
“Batman,” Anna said. “I got that, yes.”
“The bottom line,” Bach interjected, “is that when someone mak
es the choice to try Destiny, they—and we—have no idea which neural pathways they’ll be able to integrate.”
“That means we don’t know if they’ll only have the ability to play the piano and sight-read music at a professional level, or maybe the power to melt all the wood-glue in the furniture to make your desk fall apart,” Elliot again explained. “Or if they’ll be more dangerous, like that bullet-bender. We also can’t know how long they’ve got before they joker and become a danger to themselves and everyone around them.”
Anna looked over to find Bach watching her. “And you,” she said. “You have similar powers even though you haven’t taken this drug?”
“It’s absolutely possible—for those of us with potential—to achieve a more fully integrated neural net, drug free,” he told her, “with training and many years of hard work and discipline.”
This was crazy. “And you don’t risk those same side effects?” Anna asked. “Jokering, or …?”
“There’ve been no documented cases of that.”
“How many of you are out there?” she asked. “Potentials—or whatever you call yourselves?”
“Potentials are the people we believe to be more inclined to develop powers after participating in our training programs,” Elliot answered for Bach. “The people who learn to more fully integrate, to use their brains more completely, like Dr. Bach … We call them Greater-Thans.”
“There are currently just over eight hundred known Greater-Thans living here in the U.S.,” Bach told Anna. “Most are integrated at thirty percent. About a hundred are Forties, a few dozen have reached fifty, and only a handful have gone beyond that. At least that we know of.”
“The average person,” Elliot chimed in, no doubt because he could see that Anna didn’t quite understand, “like you or me—we’re called Less-Thans or fractions. We spend our lives at about ten percent integration, give or take a few in either direction. There’s a myth that says we only use ten percent of our brains, but that’s not true. That’s not what that ten percent means. You and me …? We do use all of our brains. But we tend not to use more than about ten percent at any given time. But it’s not just about being able—or unable—to use more of the different areas in our brains simultaneously. It’s about having the potential to learn to use those relatively underutilized and definitely unexercised parts more completely.”
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