Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 135(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
“Some strange tattoo marking appears on the woman’s neck right after sex. I hear it hurts, like someone is carving it into their flesh. The couple then does a blood exchange, and the woman converts to GTECH.”
“Blood exchange?” I ask, aghast at such an idea. “Like in a vampire novel?”
“Well, I guess.” He laughs nervously. “They don’t bite each other, though. They slice their palms and press them together. There is a plus side for the female. The plus side of all of this is eternal youth and immunity to all human illness, among other things. Of course, the poor woman has a really nasty Zodius soldier hanging around all the time, and if he goes and gets himself killed, say by pissing off Julian, then she goes bye-bye right along with him. One dies, the other dies. Or so they think. It’s not fully known if that’s the case. There are just too few lifebonds. That’s what they call them: lifebond.”
Lord, help me and us all. I think I understand now. Women are being thrown into the camp and used for sex until someone bonds with them. And I officially want to throw up.
“The idea that they breed women I assume they kidnap is just plain barbaric,” I say, pausing as he wipes his forehead with a cloth, and it’s only then that I realize he doesn’t look good. His skin is milky, and sweat pebbles on his upper lip and forehead. His white lab jacket is damp under his arms. “Are you okay, Milton?”
He runs his hands over his thighs. “They didn’t dose me this morning.”
My eyes go wide. “Why? Why would they do that?”
“I’ve failed to find the answers they seek. You’re the new kid on the block. They don’t need me anymore. Out with me. In with you.”
I draw back, shocked at the harshness of his words.
He scrubs his jaw. “I’m sorry. I’m not myself. It feels like I’ve swallowed acid, and it’s eating me alive.”
I soften and touch his hand to console him. It’s clammy, yet he shivers as if cold. A buzzer sounds, and the electronic steel doors, the only entrance or exit to the lab, slide open. Julian walks into the room dressed in Army green fatigues, a wolf on either side of him, power radiating off of him.
Beside him is his son, Dorian, dressed in matching fatigues and looking every bit twelve at six months old. I’d seen him from a distance earlier, but up close, it’s simply incredible. Julian halts at the end of the table and motions to Dorian. “Meet my son, who cured you of your cancer.”
The boy’s gaze fixes on me; the black of his stare so deep, so complete, it feels as if I’m being sucked into a hole. “Thank you, Dorian,” I say softly, hoping the obligation I feel to say the words won’t seem obvious.
“What good news do you have for me, Milton?”
Julian’s question jolts my attention from Dorian to Milton, who looks as if he’s about to choke on his tongue.
I quickly interject, pulling the attention back to me. “Since every ICE user who goes into withdrawal doesn’t die, pre-existing conditions, or some inconsistency in the ICE doses, would be an obvious place to begin looking for cause of death.”
“Read the files, Ms. Walters,” Julian snaps. “There were no pre-existing conditions and no difference in one vial of ICE from the next.”
“That’s impossible.”
“And yet, it’s true.”
“That we know of—”
“No pre-existing conditions and no difference in one vial of ICE to the next,” Julian repeats. “Your failure to be more informed disappoints me.” He cuts his gaze to Dorian. “Show the lady what happens to people who disappoint me.”
The boy’s lips curl, his dark eyes expressive, excited as if he’s been rewarded with a toy, and I’m the toy. He raises his hands, and the wolves charge at me. A scream rips through my lips, and I scramble to my feet and back up, hitting a concrete beam, trapped as the wolves halt so close their breaths fan the bottom of my lab coat.
Dorian laughs a laugh of pure evil. “I do believe she’s frightened, Father.”
My gaze swings toward Milton in the misdirected hope of intervention. He’s still sitting, his head on the table, his body shaking. He’s dying.
With bravado I don’t feel, I appeal to Julian. “I’ll do what you want. But please, I need Milton’s help. Don’t make him suffer.”
“I take it from your desire to cling to the aid of this human scientist that my scientific team has displeased you?”
“I’ve barely had time to evaluate anyone’s value, but killing off resources won’t help us win the scientific battle.”
“You would be better served to focus on the big picture and not on a few humans without purpose.”
“I’m human,” I say softly.
“You’re female,” he states. “You’ll soon learn how purposeful that is around here.”