“I’m not going to do that.”
“Aren’t you?” I cock my head to the side and raise an eyebrow. I don’t see another course of action that won’t end up costing her career.
“No!” She wraps her fingers around my hand. “I won’t do that to you!”
I close my eyes and let all the possible outcomes buzz around in my head. There isn’t a definitive solution, and I don’t understand Riley’s motivations.
“I don’t know what to believe,” I finally say.
Riley runs her hand through her hair, sighing audibly. She looks around the room, as if she can find some answer in the equipment that surrounds us and then looks back to me with clear eyes.
“I can prove it to you,” she says, “but not here.”
“Where, then?”
She chews on her lip as she pokes around at the scanner controls. A light comes on over my head.
“What are you doing?” I ask
“I came in here to scan your implants,” she says. “If I don’t, someone might get suspicious. It’s just a low level scan; it won’t have any adverse impact on you. I need a minute to think.”
“Think about what?” I clench my fingers impatiently.
“I need a viable reason for taking you out of the facility,” she says. “Something no one will discover for at least a few hours.”
She looks at the clock and breaks into a smile.
“Got it!” She heads across the room and pulls an interface chip from a cabinet. She links it up with the computer and then brings it over to place it on the side of my head.
I feel the pulsing of the data as it’s loaded into me, information about various aircraft, including how to fly them.
“What is this for?”
“Just follow my lead, and don’t say anything.”
She pulls a gurney over to the exam stable and moves me to it. She straps down my arms and legs, but the restraints are loose. I could pull out of them easily.
“Start thrashing around,” she says. “Act like you’re having a convulsion.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it!”
I shake my arms up and down against the restraints and throw my head from side to side. Riley runs to the door and yells to one of the guards.
“We’ve got a serious issue with this specimen’s implant!” she tells him. “I need a helicopter on pad four in five minutes! Transport to Highland Med—they have the neurological resources I need there. I’ll contact them and tell them to expect us. You get that helicopter!”
“Yes, ma’am!” The guard takes off, and Riley yells at the other one to help her wheel me out of the room. I keep shaking and thrashing around.
“What’s wrong with him?” the guard asks. “He wasn’t like this before!”
“There’s a malfunction in the primary implant. I can fix it, but I need to get him to Highland to do it.”
“We’ll get you there,” the guard says.
I’m wheeled into an elevator and then out to the rooftop. I continue to flop around on the gurney, careful not to move too quickly or with too much force so I don’t break the straps.
“This is the only chopper that fits on this pad, ma’am! We can’t fit him and your guards in at the same time.”
“We have to make do,” Riley yells over the whirring blades. She shoves her medical bag under the seat inside the machine. “We don’t have time to wait for another one!”
I force myself not to smile. She chose the smaller pad on purpose so the guards wouldn’t fit. The data on how to fly the helicopter is already loaded into my head.
The guard stands on the pad, bewildered, as we rise into the air without him. The pilot, Riley, and I are the only ones on the chopper.
As soon as we’re in the air, Riley releases the straps from my arms and legs. She says nothing, just gives me a forceful look and a nod toward the pilot.
I come up behind him and wrap my fingers around his throat.
“Just fly.” I tell him.
His eyes go wide as I lean over and grab the radio with my free hand, pulling it from the control panel in the center. Once the radio is destroyed, I grab the pilot’s safety harness and pull the release.
“Hang on,” I call back to Riley.
With a quick twist, I break the pilot’s neck. The helicopter lurches forward for a moment as I pull his body from the seat and fling him behind me so I can take his place. With my left hand, I grasp the collective, which controls the main rotor’s blade, and ease it higher while opening up the throttle. I take hold of the cyclic control with my right hand to regulate the helicopter’s movement forward, backward, and side-to-side. My feet rest on the anti-torque pedals to control our heading.
It all happens in under six seconds.
“Oh, my God!”
I glance back at Riley, who is gripping her seat with both hands.
“Do you have this? Did the interface work?”
“I got it.” I give her a smile. “Where are we going?”
“West and north of Milton,” she says. “There’s a place out in the woods—a cabin my father owned. We should be good there for a while.”
I follow Riley’s directions to the cabin. It’s early spring, and I can see it clearly between the branches of the trees with their new leaves. I find a suitable spot to land and pay close attention to my airspeed as I approach, dropping to forty knots as I start to descend.
I gradually slow the helicopter, bringing the nose up slightly to decrease airspeed as I adjust the vertical speed with the collective. For a moment, the nose rises high enough that I can’t see my landing site, but I keep moving forward to control drift. I tilt the nose forward and lower the collective until we’re resting on the ground just a half mile from the cabin.
I put on the brake and help Riley out of the helicopter. We jog through the trees until we come to a small rustic cabin nestled between pines. Inside is one large room consisting of a living area and an eat-in kitchen. There are three doorways down a short hall.
Riley places her medical bag down and pulls her laptop out of it. She plugs it into the wall and turns on a wireless network router sitting on the counter.
“There’s a hardline leading to the cabin,” Riley says. “My father used to work here during the summers when the rest of us were out of school. I should be able to access the network from here. I won’t be able to get into the more secured data, but I should be able to find what I need.”
“What do you need?” I ask.
“I have something I want you to see.”
Riley sits down with the laptop in front of her at the kitchen table. She starts it up and clicks through a few files. A video begins to play on the screen.
The recording must be from security footage. In the bottom corner is a date and time stamp along with the letters “MILLS,H,C A1.” The angle is harsh, the camera obviously placed on the ceiling in the corner of an office. Captain Mills is sitting at the desk as Riley walks into the room.
“This is the day before I ever saw you,” Riley tells me. “This was my first day at the medical facility working with the project.”
I nod and look back to the screen as the women on the video begin to speak.
“Congratulations on the promotion,” Captain Mills says.
“Thank you, Captain Mills…uh, ma’am,” Riley says as she sits down on the opposite side of the huge mahogany desk. The furniture is designed to intimidate, and it does its job well. Riley reaches down to straighten her skirt at the knees, takes a deep breath, and looks up into the older woman’s eyes. “It’s a privilege to be a part of such an important project.”
“You know we only accept the very best,” Mills says. “Some would say that getting here is half the battle, but I don’t agree. I expect results from everyone who works on Project Mindstorm, and you have a lot to learn about our processes here.”
“Understood, ma’am.” Riley nods quickly. “I’ve familiarized myself with the protocols, and they aren’t dis
similar from the work I did with the agency over the past three years. Security is tighter, of course, but that shouldn’t be an issue.”
“You’ll spend the vast majority of your time here at the medical center in the lab with your specimen,” Mills says.
“I’m look forward to getting started.”
“The new specimens arrived just this morning. They appear to be a good lot, too. They’re of higher quality than the first half of the batch. I’ve got high hopes for them and for you, Dr. Grace.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Would you like to check them out? If we get down there early, you might get first pick.”
“I’d love to!”
Riley ends the video as the women in the image stand and walk out the door. I look over to her, but she says nothing. She brings up another file, and another video begins to play.
“An hour later,” Riley says softly.
The display shows a large room lined with gurneys. On each rolling table lies a man—naked, shaven, still, and silent. There is a group of people standing by a large computer display in the background, and Riley is clearly visible near the front, walking between the rows of bodies.
“The original eighty-nine of your group.” She points at the screen.
I look carefully until I locate first Isaac and then myself. I see Pike as well, but he’s in the back row and not as clearly visible.
“We’re all unconscious?”
“Yes. This is right before you received your implants.”
I watch Riley stop at my table. She picks up a tablet from a shelf next to me and reads it over. After a few minutes, Captain Mills joins her.
“He’s a hot one,” she says with a laugh.
I can see Riley’s blush.
“Where is he from?”
“I have no idea,” Captain Mills tells her. “Most of the volunteers came from that small agricultural area that had to be shut down due to lack of production. All I know is that this is what he wanted to do.”
I glance at Riley. She watches closely for my reaction, but I don’t know what to think.
“I didn’t know,” she says quietly. “I swear to you, Ste…Galen. I had no idea where you came from. I only knew what she told me.”
I want desperately to believe her. She reaches out and grabs ahold of my left arm, and I pull back.
“Don’t do that,” I tell her. “I know what you’re doing. If you want me to believe what you’re saying, don’t try to pacify me at the same time.”
“I wasn’t trying to…” Her voice trails off. “Spat told you about the other implants.”
“I’ve got a lot of things figured out now, Riley.”
Riley starts to reach for me again but quickly pulls her hand back, clenching her fists at her sides and nods once.
I want to believe her.
Therein lies the problem. I can’t trust her because I can’t trust my own thoughts and opinions about her. I want her desperately. I want to believe that she’s known nothing of my past, but how can that be true?
I turn my focus back to the Riley in the video.
“His statistics are optimal,” Riley says. “I know we only talked briefly about how I’d like to modify the trial, but he would be an ideal candidate.”
“I still need to run all that by the colonel,” Mills says, “but if your calculations are right, it could be worth the risk.”
“He would outperform all the other specimens,” Riley says. “I guarantee it.”
“Dr. McCall has some concerns about aggression levels, considering the increased TST dosage.”
“Yes, I’ve heard her concerns. They’re unwarranted.”
“But he would be more aggressive.”
“Isn’t that the idea?” Riley tilts her head to look at Captain Mills.
“As long as he can be controlled.”
“I’ll make adjustments to the subdermal control modules as well. His touch response will be elevated.”
“That could be advantageous to you.” Mills laughs loudly, but Riley looks confused.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, ma’am.”
Captain Mills crosses her arms and smiles at Riley.
“We’ve had several instances of doctors becoming more…intimately involved with the specimens. They’re young, virile men, and the combination of hormones and steroids we inject into them creates one hell of a sex drive.”
Riley’s eyes widen with a look of horror.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” she says quickly. “I’ll keep things strictly professional.”
Mills laughs gently and shakes her head before leaning against the gurney. She reaches out and places a hand on my still chest.
“You misunderstand,” the captain says. “I encourage the relationship.”
Riley is obviously dumbfounded. She looks down to my chest as the captain’s hand slowly caresses my skin.
“Excuse me?” Riley finally says.
“Dr. Grace,” Captain Mills says as she takes her hand away and stands up straight, “I’m saying you should consider it. Granted, the last batch of specimens didn’t work out and ultimately had to be voided, but they sure were a lot of fun when they were alive!”
She chuckles and starts to walk away.
“I’ll put seventy-two down as yours!” she calls out as she leaves the room.
Riley pauses the video, waiting for my response.
“You didn’t want that kind of relationship with me.” I turn to Riley, unsure of what to think.
“I’m a doctor,” Riley says. “Under normal circumstances, I keep a completely professional relationship with everyone I work with—colleagues, test subjects, students—anyone. I had no idea what they had in mind, not before then.”
“You still resisted.”
“It felt so wrong to me,” she says. “I’ve told you this before. I felt like I was using you. It didn’t seem…consensual.”
“You thought you were raping me?” I find the idea absurd.
“I was, in a way.” She looks to the floor and lifts her hand to smooth back her hair. “How could you give true consent, given the circumstances?”
I see the logic in what she says, but I can’t agree with her conclusion. I never thought of it that way, and I still don’t. Of all the things she’s had a hand in doing to me, this is the least of my concerns.
“I wanted it. I always wanted it, even before you allowed me. It was all I ever thought about outside of training.”
“And why do you think that is? Do you think you would still feel that way if I hadn’t pumped you full of drugs and manipulated your circuitry to cater to my every whim?”
I look at her closely—her silky hair wrapped up in a bun, her crystal clear eyes, her soft hands that have brought me so much comfort—and everything I see reminds me how much I want her even now, knowing what I know. Maybe it is ingrained in me. Her point could be completely valid, but it seems immaterial to me. Knowing that I’ve been programmed to want her doesn’t lessen the intensity of the feelings I have for her.
“Yeah,” I finally say, “I do.”
Chapter 19
“How can you even say that?” Riley takes a step away from me.
“Because I still feel it,” I tell her. “Even when I wasn’t sure how much you knew, how I felt about you didn’t change.”
“You only feel like that because of what we did to you.”
I narrow my eyes.
“How long do the drugs stay in my system?” I ask her.
She stares at me for a moment before answering.
“TST levels remain stable for three days, enough to keep you at ninety percent or better for ten. After sixteen days, it’s nearly gone. FOG works on something similar to half-life. After a week, it drops to fifty percent. Two weeks without additional injections, you’d be down to twenty-five, and so on.”
“How long was I gone?”
“Seventeen days.”
“And the FOG injection—tha
t’s the stuff that includes the hormones and whatever makes me drawn to you?”
“Yes.”
“It reacts with the drugs you take,” I say, and Riley nods. “So if most of it was out of my system, and I wasn’t anywhere near you in order for the reaction to take place during all that time, why is it that all I could think about was getting back to you?”
“It’s conditioning,” she says. “Your system wants the drugs, and I provide them.”
“No.” I shake my head. “That might have been a driving force initially, but at the end, when they dumped me in the woods, thinking about you was the only thing keeping me alive.”
I place my hand on her cheek and step close to her, pressing my body to hers.
“Can you explain that?” I ask. “If most of the drugs were already out of my system, and I hadn’t been near you for this hormonal reaction to take place, how is it that I still wanted you more than anything else? I wasn’t even sure if I could trust you, but I still needed to be with you.”
Without waiting for her answer, I place my lips over hers. I kiss her softly, blending our lips and mouths and tongues. I feel relief in the action, understanding that she was deceived just as I was.
Riley lowers her hands from my shoulder to my chest and breaks the kiss.
“There’s more,” she says. “I didn’t know where you came from, but there are things about you I did know.”
I drop my hands to my sides and Riley turns back to the computer.
“There’s one more video I think you should watch,” she tells me. “It might…well, it might change your mind about how you feel. I don’t really want you to see it, but I think you should.”
Riley activates another file, and the image of the laboratory where I have spent most of my conscious time comes into view. She steps back from the computer and wraps her arms around herself.
“This is our first day in the lab together,” she says. “Your implants have all been installed and activated, but you haven’t awakened yet.”
I see myself lying on the bed, strapped down. A moment later, Riley enters with a man who looks familiar. It’s one of the techs from the debriefing.
“That’s Terry Kane,” she says. “He is the lead tech on the project.”