8

The Mountain

Stemple ran through the rain to retrieve a chart Everling had left in Bethany’s hospital room. He never understood why Mountain weather needed to mimic the outside world since everyone knew they were faux weather simulations. He grabbed a deflector, pulling the covering over his shoulders and raising the hood as he traipsed through the lobby and out into the street.

Stemple jerked at a flash of lightning and rumble of thunder. He slogged across the wet road, avoiding the tiny streams running down both sides, where the water diverted to the irrigation system for the farming section.

The hospital door slid open and Stemple shook himself from the covering. He felt a surge of excitement at getting an opportunity to look at Bethany close up. He’d found a serum plan about an hour ago that led him to believe Everling was conducting experiments on her. Why would the man risk his wife? Had he gone rogue? What result was he expecting?

Stemple approached the door to Bethany’s room. He stopped, took a deep breath, and pushed the door pad. The door slid out of the way with a slight whoosh. Stemple stepped inside, turned to the left, and froze.

Bethany’s bed was empty. The covers were pulled back, disheveled. The machinery keeping her alive was turned off. Stemple glanced around the room. Where was she? Everling hadn’t mentioned her being moved. If she had succumbed, he surely would know by now.

Stemple spotted the chart. He grabbed it up as though it would protect him from Everling when he asked about Bethany. Maybe they’d taken her for some kind of testing. He faded into thoughts of what had happened and didn’t hear the door open behind him. A hand came to rest on his shoulder.

Stemple jumped at the touch, spun around, and backed into the bed. His mouth fell open as the chart clattered from his hand.

“How are you, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Stemple’s chest constricted tightly enough to cut off his air. This couldn’t be possible. He was looking at a very animated and awake Bethany Everling. His mouth opened. What came out resembled babbling more than English.

“Mrs. Everling, er, uh, Bethany. When did you wake up? How did you wake up?” Stemple took in her appearance. She looked ten years younger than she had mere hours ago. Maybe it was a trick of the lighting or he hadn’t looked close enough when he was here this morning.

“It’s simply astounding, isn’t it?” a male voice said. “I’m sorry I sent you over here, but I couldn’t resist seeing the surprise on your face.”

Stemple swung around. Everling stood in the doorway, grinning.

Bethany waltzed to Everling’s side and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Hello, my darling.”

“Surprise? A Birth Remembrance party is a surprise. This is . . .” Stemple couldn’t think of appropriate words.

Everling nodded. “You could say this is a party of sorts. We’re getting younger by the hour.”

“I-I don’t understand. How is this possible?” Stemple bent and picked up the chart. There were no cancer cures that could promote this kind of cell regeneration.

Everling closed the doorway and strolled to Stemple. He slapped him on the back. “I did it, my boy. I broke the code.”

“The code for what?” Stemple could only think of her cancer. It wouldn’t explain the age regression. All this time he’d thought he was Everling’s confidant. Their work together had never touched anything so far-reaching.

“Longevity. I’ve discovered the fountain of youth using Lander DNA,” Everling said. He gently cupped a hand under Bethany’s chin and turned her face side to side. “Isn’t she lovely?”

“You’re also looking quite well, my dear.” Bethany gazed into Everling’s eyes.

Stemple searched Everling’s face. Wrinkles and signs of aging were gone. His hair had started filling in the thin spots. The skin had tightened like that of a man ten years his junior.

“How did you do this? Our experiments never progressed this far. In fact, none of our work was even directed—” Stemple cut himself off as the thought took hold. Treva was right after all. She’d called this and he’d ignored her talk as foolishness.

Everling nodded. “True, but I was doing experiments of my own. I didn’t want any deliberations on whether I should be using myself as a test sample for the injections.”

Stemple jerked up straight. “We need controlled studies of long-term effects you’ve obviously ignored. Experimenting on yourself . . . have you lost your mind?”

Everling narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. “I’m going to forget you said that to me.”

Stemple refused to remain silent. Fear emboldened him. “This is absurd. You don’t know what might happen. There could be cell collapse, organ failure, or a hundred other maladies.”

“I can see the results on my wife and myself. They get better by the hour.”

“What? It’s continuing? Are you still taking the drugs?” Stemple started to pace.

Everling cast his eyes downward. “No . . . I stopped both of our injections when Bethany awoke.”

Stemple glanced at Bethany. He would have to temper his questions now that Everling’s wife was back in the picture. She had always presented herself as a friendly woman when she wanted something, but an authoritarian taskmaster as a boss, and she didn’t like having her judgment or her husband’s questioned.

“Was there a control on this to stop or slow the process when you reached a certain stage?” Stemple said, treading lightly with the questions.

“At the time that wasn’t my goal. I just wanted to stop Bethany’s cancer.”

“Has it stopped the cancer?”

“I took needle biopsies. The tumors are shrinking.” Everling looked hopeful.

Stemple ran a hand through his hair. “We need to start monitoring this. Do you have anything to slow or stop the process?”

“That was not my immediate objective. I was going to tell you we’d start the next phase forthwith. But as it stands now, I’ve achieved my goal.” Everling wrapped an arm around Bethany’s waist and pulled her close to nuzzle her neck.

“How do I get access to the samples?” Stemple asked. “The damage could be fatal.”

“There will be plenty of time. Right now I want you to start dismantling the Lander project. I no longer need test subjects,” Everling said without looking away from his wife.

“Dismantle the project? Doctor . . . this has been going on for years. Why would you shut it down?”

“I’ve gotten everything I need. And getting rid of them will give the Board one less thing to harp on about going forward.”

Stemple watched his reaction closely. “You couldn’t care less about what the Board thinks. What’s the real motivation here?”

Everling looked at the floor again. His jaw clenched.

Bethany motioned with her thumb and forefinger. “We’re this close to discovering immortality. Maybe he used the wrong word saying dismantle. Let’s say we’re revamping the program to the next phase.”

“Are you still getting rid of the Landers?” Stemple asked.

“Yes,” Everling said.

Stemple got the feeling this wasn’t Everling’s idea.

Bethany held up a hand. “I’d like to do one more set of experiments on the test set we have now. But we need to get the gene-splicing started right away.”

Everling turned to Bethany. “I’ve sent a team to retrieve the child.”

“The Lander child? I never asked how you obtained the information.” Stemple gritted his teeth. Using children for experiments . . . This was not what he had signed on to do.

“I know where Glade Rishon’s family has lived all these years. Leaving them alone was the condition of his cooperation. Now it’s time to break the deal. I need his child. He would never cooperate if he knew I was bringing her here, so he needs to go,” Everling said.

“What do you want us to do with Glade and the rest of the prime project? Let them go?”

Bethany spun around to face Stemple. “Are you crazy? You can’t release those . . . subjects into the world. They’re dangerous. It could come back to haunt us. They’re a violent sort, if you remember the riots a decade before the drug therapy began. Destroy them.”

Everling turned away from the conversation with his head down.

“Excuse me, Doctor. I don’t think I understand what you’re saying,” Stemple said, numb with shock. He refused to address Bethany on something this important.

Everling’s shoulders squared and he turned back. “The Landers are no longer useful. I want them all destroyed. They’re my property.”

“They are not your property! These are living, breathing people.” Stemple’s voice rose even though he was trying to control himself. He couldn’t be a party to murder. Already his mind had shifted to possible scenarios for getting the people to safety.

Everling peered over the edge of his glasses. “When did you turn into such a bleeding heart?”

“What’s a bleeding heart?”

Everling raised a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Just a phrase from before you were born. But anyhow, this is business. Their destruction is an acceptable loss.”

“How do you possibly think you could spin people’s lives into a business loss?”

When had Everling become so indifferent to killing?

“We have everything a society could want. We’ve eliminated poverty, most disease, war, famine, and every other imaginable friction to everyday living. Only lack of longevity remains as a deterrent to happiness, and now we’ve solved it,” Bethany said.

Stemple stared at her. He knew continued questions would put him in dangerous territory with her, but he had to understand. “You used Lander DNA to create this longevity. Why do you need to involve their children now?”

He could see trouble coming.

Bethany’s eyes narrowed and her lips pinched before she spoke. “I—we—don’t owe you an explanation since you are merely an employee, but since you have been loyal to this point, I will humor your curiosity. The gene-splice to create longevity did not require a progression to make it work. It was just a code insertion. Where we want to go now requires a step from our DNA to theirs. A child who is a product of them and us carries that progression.”

Charles Ganston III sat behind the antique oak desk, rubbing his finger in the groove worn smooth in the weathered surface near his right hand. Generations of Ganston men had spent their time pondering at this same spot.

He stared at the large expanse of halo-screen on the far wall displaying an image of the outside with sunshine and trees, and he imagined the fresh air. Not this recycled air inside the Mountain, scrubbed and infused with psychologically calming compounds. There was just enough substance to keep the populace from going stir-crazy but not enough to affect performance. Over the years the drugs had become a normal part of Mountain reality.

Ganston, while in his forties, had discovered what effect the drugs had on the people’s DNA—high mortality of newborns . . . now accepted as a fact of life.

The Mountain’s dirty little secret.

Neither the life of relative ease, the lack of poverty and adversity, or the absence of disease could coerce a growing faction of the younger generations to remain inside. They wanted out of the Mountain.

His intercom sounded. He waved a hand across the panel. “Yes.”

“They’re ready in the conference room,” his assistant Jax said.

Ganston passed his hand over the link. He practiced patience and plodding in his plan, so as to miss no details. The 3-D machinery was procured to erect the buildings. Food and animal herds were sequestered. And he even added his own element of insurance.

He moved through the side door and took a seat at the head of the slate-gray conference table. The polished stone surface lay bare except for the tray in the center containing a clear flask of drinking water and a group of empty glasses. Flanked by his three trusted Politicos, Ganston pushed back the nagging doubt of a major misstep in his personal vendetta against Everling. He planned to rectify it very soon and just hoped no other anomalies cropped up because of it. He felt enough guilt over Bethany Everling’s cancer. He pushed aside self-recrimination that he was no better than Everling and thumbed through the day’s agenda.

“Sorry, Charles. I was having problems with Everling’s lab,” Lilith said. The redheaded researcher swiftly took her seat at the other end and slid her long legs under the table.

Ganston ran his finger over his halo-tablet, opening two new data points. “What’s the latest intel on that project of his?”

Even though each person at the table remained loyal to his cause, Ganston required them to carry out projects that would put them on the wrong side of the Company if ever exposed, thus assuring their allegiance to him.

Lilith shook her head. “Not much, I’m afraid. He keeps it boxed up tight.”

“I expect more from you. I need information that can give us the upper hand in our negotiations. Over the last 150 years the DNA gene pool inside this mountain has degraded to the point where two or three generations down the line, there will be no saving this colony. Everling’s job is supposed to be finding a cure. I want to know what detaining these Landers has to do with it!” He slammed a fist on the table and the water in the flask vibrated.

Lilith flinched. “I know he’s doing experiments on Landers. But that’s not common knowledge, and you have to be part of the project to get inside. I don’t have clearance.”

Ganston looked around the room. “Does anyone else here find slavery repugnant?”

The participants nodded their heads.

“Then why are we as the Political Council allowing it to take place?”

Byron, the bald man to Ganston’s right, raised a finger. “Because it’s been going on for years. I remember when it first started eighteen years ago. They said the program was to help rehabilitate these vagrants with their memory loss.”

“They disappear, but none have ever been released that I know of,” said Hurst, the long-haired man to Ganston’s left. “None of the common people in the Mountain even know Landers exist. Everling has kept the populace in the dark all these years. That’s the first clue this is wrong.”

“Everling labeled them as a danger to the general public,” Lilith said.

“Since when did he care about the people outside the mountain? This will be a case in point when we come out openly against Everling’s leadership. He is spending millions in bio-coin to maintain a system of slavery.” Ganston played his words carefully. He was planning a Council showdown, and it would bolster his plans if more factions expressed discontent and came on board with his plan for the outside colony.

“Has anyone ever seen or interacted with any Landers? Are they as dangerous as he says?” Ganston looked at each person in turn.

They each shook their heads.

“I saw one male subject last year. He was a young guy about twenty or so. He didn’t look or act dangerous.” Lilith shifted in her chair. “As a matter of fact, I saw him again this year, and he didn’t look like any kind of threat then either. But at the time he was sitting in a holding cell, so that could bring about a docile demeanor.”

Ganston set his jaw. “You’re letting me down! I need specific information that makes Everling look bad.”

Hurst chuckled. “Everling is looking pretty good lately.”

Ganston slowly turned his head in the man’s direction.

He recoiled. “No, I really mean it. Have you seen him? I don’t know if he has a woman on the side since his wife took sick, but he’s looking refreshed and renewed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he may even be dyeing his hair.”

Ganston growled his displeasure and stabbed a finger at his notes.

Lilith sat up straight. “I do know there have been a large number of unexplained missing subjects in the Prison Unit.”

He stopped taking notes. “How do you know this if you can’t get in there?”

“His logistics filter through my science procurement department when there are changes for food, clothing, bedding, and such. Even the number of synthesized meals has decreased radically. I’d say they’re losing subjects at the rate of four or five a day.”

“Could he just be starving them?” Ganston rubbed his chin.

“No. There’s no profitable reason to starve test subjects. Fit and healthy is always more desirable than weak and sick,” Lilith said, leaning back in her chair.

“Could they have been released?”

She shook her head. “There haven’t been any authorized transports. Besides, Everling never released a test subject in all the years I’ve been at the helm of procurement.”

“Could there be deaths in the program?” Ganston tapped his chin. This program of Everling’s seemed to be taking on a more sinister tone.

“There have been sporadic deaths in the past. I’ve seen the records. But if this is a rash of deaths, he must have them stacked up in there like cordwood, because there sure haven’t been any requisitions to dispose of them,” Lilith said with a look of horror.

Ganston leaned back in his chair. “I think I know where I can get some answers.”

Bethany stared at the pile of dust on the gurney. She ripped off the filter mask and threw it at the biohazard can. The mask missed the opening and skittered across the floor like an upended turtle. She pursed her lips. Her husband had lost four subjects this week and they were still no closer to solving the instability than six months ago before she became ill.

Stemple and Noah stepped from behind the bio-shield.

“We’ve done every variation imaginable on those samples, Dr. Bethany—uh, Dr. Everling.” Stemple’s face went crimson.

Bethany had never noticed Stemple so flustered. She smiled wryly. “Bethany will do.”

“Excuse me?” Stemple said.

“Just call me Bethany. You can drop the Dr. Everling. There’s only one of him,” Bethany said as she smiled fondly at her husband.

“Thank you, ma’am—uh, Bethany. I still don’t know why the subjects won’t hold together.” Stemple’s expression was filled with panic.

Noah glared at Stemple then turned to Bethany. “Do you, my lovely partner, have anything intelligent to add to this conversation?”

Stemple looked as though he’d been slapped.

Bethany fingered some calculations on her halo-tablet. “Well, part of our accelerated maturing process seems to be triggering the same acceleration of Hayflick. We have the last test group coming online in two days. We’ve reworked the enzyme sequence to slow down maturation.”

Noah smiled. “I’m glad to have you back in the lab. With you helping me, we can solve this.”

Conflicting emotions roiled inside her. Bethany was sure she’d known the proper procedures to bring this project to fruition, but Noah had been a hindrance since day one. If he’d listened, she could have secured samples of the child’s DNA long ago. She could have been breeding a Mountain of immortals by now and the cancer might never have happened in the first place.

Deplore her husband’s inaction or herald his solving her cancer?

Charles Ganston sat facing the virtual window in his office as he waited for his niece. It reminded him of the area outside the Mountain where they were secretly building the community.

The door to the outer office slid into the wall, and Jax hurried into the office. “Mr. Ganston, we’ve secured five more 3-D tooling machines.”

Ganston smiled. With the raw materials they’d squirreled away and the full manpower roster, he could literally build the whole basic town. “We can get everyone into the new town in less than a month,” he said.

“Sir, do you think we should push it that close? We don’t know if there’ll be any structural or geological problems.”

Jax was one of the younger generation. He’d started out enthusiastic about the secret project, but as launch time moved closer Ganston noticed the young man’s enthusiasm taking a sharp turn. The building blocks of downfalls. Jax might need to be replaced.

“I’ve done mountains of due diligence, if you don’t mind the pun. Everything is on schedule,” Ganston said. He tapped his fingers on the desk.

Jax glanced over to the model layout spread across the eight-by-eight-foot table area on the other side of Ganston’s office. “You haven’t discussed how this is all going to run. I know the finances to support this project are coming from your family inheritance and the group you’ve put together. Are you going to create an organization to compete with the Company?”

“No one organization should ever be the absolute ruler without people having a say. We can learn from past mistakes and avoid those pitfalls. We will have an elected government. Those specific points will be part of our New World Constitution.”

“New World Constitution?” Jax scrolled through the files on his halo-tablet. “I don’t seem to have anything about that particular proposal in my notes.”

Ganston walked over to the community model. “I was planning on introducing it here.” He pointed to the building at the center. “This will be the center of our new government.”

Jax frowned as he looked at the model. “What do we need a government for? We don’t have one here and everything works fine. When there are problems the Company solves them.”

“But the Company will not be a part of our community. The old structure from our history before the Sorrows will be a wonderful pattern if handled correctly.” Ganston smiled as he glanced over the model.

Jax moved to stand at his side. “What does ‘correctly’ look like?”

“Basic points, my boy. To start with we will be isolationists. We will mind our own business and keep everyone out of ours. And no infections!”

“Infections?” Jax asked. “You mean diseases?”

Ganston turned to face him, his hands clasped behind his back. “No, I mean foreigners. Historically they came here and infected our founding generation with ideas and cultures that were counterproductive. They won’t be allowed in our new country. Only people born and bred here and their progeny can be citizens.”

Jax knitted his brows together. “What happens to the Landers that have come here? As I hear it, many of them suffer from some sort of amnesia and the Company created a program to help rehabilitate them. It must be working because none of them stay in the Mountain.”

Ganston frowned. “Landers will—”

The intercom beeped. He moved to his desk and ran his hand over the sensor embedded in the surface next to the halo-screen console. “Yes?” He glanced at his wrist and tapped the clock interface. Perfect timing.

“Your five o’clock appointment is here, sir,” the receptionist said.

“Send her in.” Ganston smiled as he stood. He pushed a button on the operating panel of his desk, the model lowered, and the cover closed, creating a table-like surface.

“I need to talk to my niece alone,” Ganston said to Jax.

Jax nodded. He swiped the sensor and the office door slid open for him to exit.

Treva strolled in. She and Ganston met in the center of the room and hugged.

“Uncle Charles, I haven’t seen you in weeks, and what’s the first thing I need to do? Separate you and my new boss from coming to blows.” Treva cuffed him in the elbow.

Ganston smiled. “The old coot is just lucky you were there to save him.”

Treva shook her head and chuckled. “I’m sure you didn’t bring me here to trade combat stories. What’s going on? I’m in the middle of a rather large project. I’ve only got about five minutes to spare, but you said it was urgent, so I came.”

“I am finally ready to show you my next project,” Ganston said. A grin crossed his face.

“So we both have new projects,” she said.

Ganston pointed toward the table as he pressed the button to retrieve the model. “I present the city of Stone Braide.”

The tabletop parted in the center and the sides folded down into the frame. The model rose with the soft whine of a servomotor and locked into place. Treva moved toward the table, and Ganston watched with amusement as she studied the miniature buildings and businesses complete with streets, scenery, and homes.

She turned. “Where’d you get the name Stone Braide?”

Ganston gestured. “Do you see the image on the sandstone-colored building at the center of the model?”

“Yes.” She moved closer and bent over to peer at the structure, reaching out to touch the symbol above the front doors of the tiny building. Three pointed ovals were woven together at the center, with a larger circle overlaying the three as though they were intertwined like a braid.

“That’s a curious symbol. It has a certain energy to it. Where did you get it?” Treva straightened up and faced Ganston.

“You know my passion for collecting antiques. This is a replica of a large stone image uncovered a few years ago in an area close to the Mountain.” He smiled. “Look closely at the model.”

“To laser out a town of this size in the Mountain is going to take years,” Treva said as she studied the landscape from all angles. “I’m not an engineer, but I see a few things I know they couldn’t manage in here.”

Ganston put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. “That’s why this town is outside the Mountain.”

Treva backed up and sat down next to his desk. “Outside? Are you crazy? Everling will have a stroke. He’ll bring you up on charges. You could spend the rest of your life in detention.”

Ganston sauntered to his desk and looked at his ComTex. “He’s the least of my worries. I want you to think about coming outside with us. I’m going to give you time to let this sink in, and I’ll have my assistant message you a package of data, but you must keep it to yourself.”

Treva’s eyes widened. “But sending me data is dangerous. It could get intercepted.”

“We’ve got that covered,” Ganston said. His intercom beeped. “Send her in.” He turned to Treva. “She’s right on time.”

Again the door slid open and Ganston set his sights on Mojica. Using only one name like the rest of the members in her clan, she stood six feet tall, with an ancient Amazon warrior build of sinewy muscles and flowing black hair that complemented smoky dark eyes and heavy lashes. Make no mistake about it, any man who challenged her position as the head of security found himself on the ground looking up.

Ganston motioned her to a seat, then looked at Treva. “I would like you to meet Mojica. She’s head of Mountain security.”

Treva looked nervous. She started to rise. “I don’t think—”

“Easy, my child. She’s on our side. She’s leaving the Mountain to be our head of security in Stone Braide,” Ganston said with a wink. “Mojica, this is my niece Treva Gilani.”

Treva wrung her hands but sat back down.

Mojica held out her hand. “Just call me Mojica. And don’t look so scared. I’m not going to arrest you for imprisoning Landers.”

Treva’s eyes widened. Her face drained of color.

Mojica turned to Ganston. “She’s a nervous one, isn’t she?”

Ganston leaned over and patted his niece’s hand. “We need to know what information you can give us on the Lander project.”

She swallowed hard. “Uncle, that’s dangerous business. There are so many ways we could get caught if I told you anything.”

Mojica batted her thick lashes. “My elite force is from my own clan and completely loyal to me. There will be no slipups with information.”

Treva’s ComTex chirped and she looked down at it. “I’m being paged. I’m needed in the lab.” She rose to leave.

Ganston stood with her. “One question. Do you know where the test subjects are disappearing to?”

Treva started to walk to the door. She turned, pressed her lips tight, then shook her head. “This is against my better judgment to tell you . . . but they’re desiccating.”

“What?” Ganston asked. “What does that mean?”

“They’re turning to dust. Poof. Gone—and so am I.” She ran her hand over the panel button and the door slid open. She hurried out.

Treva strolled into Lab Section Ten and seated herself at the desk opposite the retainer pods, her hands shaking. She remembered what Stemple had said about the gag order. She couldn’t jeopardize this job, not when she was so close to putting her plan into action.

She glanced at the plascine wall across from the desk. It looked like an ordinary gray-white wall with five widely spaced doors. To the uninitiated it just led to an assortment of plain storage rooms.

But when the control panel on the desk activated, the wall became a different world. She stared at the buttons. Many of them she never used, but she knew the purpose of each.

On the top row, one green button correlated to each of the five pods and turned the plascine wall of the pod transparent, exposing the interior living area.

The next button controlled the virtual wall. Each pod came equipped with a VW that afforded stimulation from outside scenery. It could be raised into the ceiling for solitary confinement status or lowered to reward compliant behavior.

The next row of black buttons controlled doors. The pale blue buttons were intercoms.

The bottom row of shield-covered buttons terrified Treva. With a bright shade of fire-red, they meant just that. In times of emergency, someone could lift the cover and hit the button, unleashing a firestorm inside the pod. Blowtorch-like jets in the ceiling, walls, and floor would incinerate and sterilize everything in the room.

Treva had heard stories. Her head jerked, probably more of a shiver than anything, but it helped to dismiss the agonizing and horrific thoughts. She pressed the green button for the first pod. The plascine wall changed from solid to translucent then slowly to transparent, allowing her an interior visual.

Glade Rishon seemed to be sitting in the same location each time the room materialized. Treva wondered if he did that on purpose. She’d never thought of looking at the interior camera ahead of time because it felt like she’d be invading his privacy.

She used the code and accessed his chart on her halo-tablet to finish her work.

Glade sat at the table with his back to her, staring at the virtual screen. She knew from past experience he realized the wall behind him had changed, but he refused to play the game by turning to greet the intrusion to his meditations.

Treva opened the intercom. “Hello, Glade. How are you today?”

“The same as I’ve been for the last eighteen years. That question holds no meaning any longer, and I feel you’re humoring me by asking it,” Glade said without turning from the screen.

Treva bit her bottom lip. So much for polite conversation. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I just—”

“You just what?” Glade slid around to face her. His fortyish good looks and chiseled features always took her breath away, especially his eyes, green with gold flecks that seemed to increase in number when he smiled.

Right now he wasn’t smiling.

Treva averted her eyes, regrouped her thoughts, and looked back at Glade with a broad smile. “I need the required weekly tissue sample, and I have another injection for you.”

Glade narrowed his eyes. “Since you came, I’ve started feeling better, more normal. What are you doing to me?”

Treva’s heart ticked a staccato beat. Her eyes searched the lab, looking for others, then she turned back to him. “You must never talk like that again. No one must know.”