Authors: Joni Hahn
With a loud sigh, she backed away from him and climbed to her feet. Loneliness washed over him.
“What’s really wrong with you, Teague?”
She turned her back on him, her arms crossed over her middle. “Nothing I can’t handle on my own.”
Teague had grown so used to being alone, she wouldn’t accept help, regardless of whether she needed it or not.
He came up behind her and ran his hands down her arms. “That’s the thing, Teague. You don’t have to handle it on your own.”
Whipping around, she swallowed hard, her eyes red-rimmed against her pale face. “There’s nothing you, or anyone else can do for me. Don’t concern yourself, Dylan.”
Now he understood her obsession with genetics. She wanted to fix her family history for the future. Stiff and in-control Teague Hamilton had no evil plan to take over the world with Cyrus - only a hope to save hers.
She tossed her cup in the trash and walked away. “Just forget today happened, Dylan. Get back to the lab. You have a big day tomorrow.”
***
“You have lost it, Teague Benet Hamilton.”
Rubbing her eyes with a thumb and forefinger, Teague sat back in her lab chair. She was tired after spending the night working on her DNA and checking on Dylan while he slept.
The super agent’s in-your-face charm had turned her character on its ear.
She’d always been the straitlaced, logical, dependable scientist. The employee that was always available because she didn’t have a social life, the hermit that valued her privacy as a comfort zone.
Yet, here she sat, a week after meeting said super agent, wearing contact lenses instead of glasses, makeup on her face, and thinking about what she would wear to Jocelyn’s birthday party.
She almost felt… shallow.
Jocelyn and Hope had made her feel more than welcome, inviting her to coffee, giving her a plant as a welcome gift, and sneaking her up to the D.I.R.E. roof lounge for late night drinks. She’d tried to decline their invitations, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer.
They talked about everything from ongoing projects to fashion, and of course, men. For relationships she didn’t want to nurture, they now felt almost like friends.
Mitchell stuck his head around the corner. “Are you ready to see the clone?”
They’d brought back the blond man that held her at gunpoint on the beach. Mitchell and his team interrogated him yesterday. Now, it was her turn to talk to him and take
his
DNA samples.
Turnabout was fair play.
She was anxious to see what made Cyrus’s clones tick. What differences lay between them and naturally conceived humans.
“Yes, Mitchell,” she said, walking to a nearby cabinet and grabbing a case of supplies.
He led her out of the lab and down the hallway. “Do you have any specific instructions for me?” she said, “Or, can I do my thing?”
Pressing the elevator button, he allowed her to enter before he followed her inside. “Do your thing, Doctor. I don’t anticipate anything significant. We used Agent Monroe, our electrical conductor, to interrogate him and quickly realized the clone would rather die than answer questions. Their do or die loyalty to Cyrus is genuine.”
“Do you think it’s safe for me to be alone with him?” she said, as they made their way down the security wing.
“You won’t be alone. My son, Tristan, will be in the room, but he will be cloaked.” Mitchell pointed at a tall, dark and mouthwatering man approaching from the other direction. “The clone won’t know he’s there.”
She gave Tristan a quick onceover. “He turns invisible?”
Mitchell gave her a half grin. “Yes, among other things.”
Tristan nodded at her before disappearing into a green fog.
Holy smokes
. She would never call anything impossible again.
Turning the corner, they made their way down the hall, to a cell just doors from the one she’d visited a week ago. The blond clone lay on the bed, an arm over his eyes. The early morning sun laid shadows over the mountains in the window.
“Van? I’m Dr. Hamilton.”
At the sound of her name, he sat up on the edge of the bed and stared at her. Blisters and red blotches dotted his arms, his skin pale. Walking over to him, she picked up his hand. The skin beneath his fingernails was discolored, his breathing labored. All signs of electric shock from Agent Monroe.
“I’ll clean your wounds for you.”
With a skeptical nod, he glanced at Mitchell beyond her. She looked over her shoulder.
“I’ve got this, Mitchell.”
Taking her arm, her boss placed a small band around her wrist. “If you need anything, press the red button on this band. We have guards just down the hall.”
Teague didn’t know if the band was just for show, or if it truly was an option. Either way, she felt comfortable knowing Tristan was in the room.
“Thank you.”
Setting her case on the bed, she dragged a desk chair close and got to work. “First, I’ll take care of any ailments you have, then I’m going to take some cultures.”
“Cultures?” he said, watching her dress the blisters with an ointment.
“Yes, blood, urine, saliva, etc.… you know the drill.”
He stiffened, but didn’t reply.
She stopped her ministrations. “I won’t shock you, Van. I’m just trying to make small talk. After all, we were going to work together.”
Did she really just say that? She abhorred small talk. If talk wasn’t intended to be meaningful, why do it at all?
His tired, blue eyes grew leery. “You work for D.I.R.E. now.”
She shook her head. “No, I work for me. I’m here because
you
tried to kidnap me.”
He said nothing, only stared at his arm. With a sigh, she went back to work.
“I had every intention of working for Cyrus,” she said. “He’s the one that ruined everything by getting arrested. You didn’t help by holding me at gunpoint.”
God, she’d been around these agents too long. Now, she thought she was some kind of master interrogator. Tristan must be laughing his head off.
“I asked you to come with me,” he said.
Giving him a pointed look, she said, “Would you go with someone who pointed a gun at you?” Opening a package, she placed a bandage over a blister that had burst. “I was scared.”
She worked in silence, dressing his burns and blisters, wondering how Cyrus had made him, and the others, so loyal to his cause.
“You work with genetics.” His words were a statement, not a question.
Nodding, she said, “Yes, for a very long time. It’s a passion of mine.”
“You were destined to work for Mr. Matheson.” His voice held a deep note of experience, like an elder bestowing knowledge on the young and naive.
She whipped around to look at him, unease trickling down her spine. “What do you mean by that?” Reaching into the box, she retrieved a sample of ibuprofen and handed it to him.
“You were a child prodigy, were you not?” he said, tossing back the pills.
She’d spent her childhood summers working at Dr. Capri’s Sacramento lab while finishing a Montessori high school program at the age of twelve. By the time she was sixteen, she’d completed her bachelor’s degree at Arizona State. After mastering the PhD program, she’d gone to work in the lab fulltime.
“I suppose you could say that. I’ve studied genetics my entire life.” Removing a vial and supplies, she tied the rubber strap around his bicep and prepared his arm for the blood work.
“Is Keegan here?” he said, in a low voice.
She looked up at him. “Who?”
“Mr. Matheson’s woman, Keegan. D.I.R.E. took her from him.”
D.I.R.E. took her? So, Cyrus had his own personal vendetta going on, too. This battle between him and D.I.R.E. was vicious, which made Dylan’s job all the more dangerous.
Shaking her head, she inserted the needle and proceeded to draw his blood. “I haven’t seen her.”
He leaned down into her face, his blue eyes searching. “He won’t stop until he finds her.”
“How? They can’t be together. He’s in prison.” The vial full, she pulled out the needle and covered the donation site with cotton and a bandage.
“She is his key to life, just as you are the key to his new world.”
She whipped around to look at him, shock leaving her skin cold. “Me?”
Van’s smile was patient. “Yes. Cyrus needs you both to live.”
“Okay, Dylan,” Clint said, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Standing in the lab barefoot, wearing only a pair of jeans, Dylan held out his arms in front of him and stared at the copper and gold armbands. They felt heavy on his forearms, the sites where they fused to his flesh red, but healing well.
Surrounded by Mitchell and the entire team of D.I.R.E. super agents, Dylan felt a pride, an exclusivity he never thought he could earn. Yet, a part of him knew he was born to do this, to play a part in the war of good versus evil. With this new enhancement, he was ready to kick evil’s ass to hell.
“
Hoorah
.” He bellowed it in the room.
Hoorahs rang out as the agents grinned back at him. These guys were the Barney Badasses of the world and
he
got to work beside them. It would’ve been his luckiest day ever if Teague were there. Where was she?
Checking his armbands one more time, Clint stood back and said, “Let’s start small, McCall.”
Extending his arms, Dylan envisioned a KA-BAR fighting knife in his head. With a wide smile, he watched the nanobots skitter from the armband channels like an atomic swarm of ants, self-assembling into an exact replica of the Marine Corps fighting knife.
With raised brows, Aidan Monroe took the knife from his hand. The agent turned it over and looked at Tristan Jacobs.
“It’s a
freaking knife
.”
“Let me see…” Riordan St. James extended a palm toward Aidan. The knife flew into his waiting hand. He examined it, attracting and repelling it between his hands.
He grinned. “It’s real.”
Picturing another knife in his head, Dylan smiled as it formed in his hand. He tossed it to Jaydan Rose. He caught it and grinned, bending it against his palm.
“Rubber.”
“Not exactly.” Clint held up a finger. “Technically, it’s graphene. The nanobots are cube-shaped, with legs like a fly. They’re lined with sheets of graphene, which is twenty percent flexible. It’s also a superb conductor of electricity, and the best conductor of heat on the planet. It also acts as a filter, blocking all liquids and gases except water.”
Nodding toward Dylan, Clint said, “Toss those knives back to McCall.”
Catching both in one hand, Dylan watched the nanobots skitter back into the channels of his armbands, disappearing from sight.
Tristan shook his head. “Damn Clint, you outdid yourself this time. How do they work?”
“They’re programmed as a large-scale autonomous swarm, made to self-assemble and create whatever his brain sends through his central nervous system.” Clint smiled at Dylan. “Go ahead. Show off a little.”
Clint didn’t have to tell him twice. He just wished Teague were there to see it. Her absence stung.
He watched the nanobots swarm from both armbands into his hands, creating an M4 carbine assault rifle. Holding it against his shoulder, he fired against a far wall. Everyone ducked.
“Damn…” Aidan said, rising slowly.
Dar Naylor said, “How’d you do that?”
Dylan grinned. “If I know how it works and how it’s put together, I can create a working model. If I don’t, I can create something that looks like it, but doesn’t function.”
“Deception,” Riordan said, with a clever smile.
Clint nodded with a matching grin. “Deception.”
“So…” Jaydan said, twirling his finger in the air. “Turn around. Let’s see the tattoo.”
Baring his back to the team, he showed them the carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern, the atomic number six overlapping in the center. Cubed nanobots exited the tattoo at his neck, completing it.
Dylan glanced over his shoulder. He’d been looking forward to this moment ever since Clint told him about the traditional razzing each new super agent received.
Jaydan grinned. “Does it change each time you think of a different tattoo in your head?”
Dylan said, “Before you walked in, I had a picture of Hope on my back.”
Rose lost his smile. Just when the razzing reached total bullshit levels, Teague rushed into the room, her beautiful face rosy. She wore a pair of navy pants that outlined the curves of her hips, a pale blue bra visible beneath a white blouse. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, silver hoops at her ears.
“Did I hear a gun shot?” She looked around the room. “I was afraid to come out of my office.”
“Just McCall, testing his nanobots.” Clint grinned.
She looked stunning, more beautiful than the memories that had plagued him over the last few days, since he’d last seen her. He didn’t realize an identical image of her appeared beside him until she cocked a jet-black eyebrow.
“Really, McCall?”
Damn, he had to watch that.
Don’t think about her cleavage. Do not…
The nanobots started to move. He blocked the picture in his head, forcing his mind to focus on the woman standing before him. They slid back into her image beside him.
Crossing his arms over his chest, he nodded toward the image. “It’s missing your tattoo.”
Her face turned a darker shade of pink. “User error.”
His teammates chuckled.
“Lack of first-hand knowledge.” He countered with a half grin.
Jaydan Rose smirked. “Another user error.”
The room erupted in laughter. His eyes met hers across the expanse.
Where have you been?
Of course, she looked away.
“What can I do for you, Teague?” Mitchell walked toward her.
Excitement lit her eyes, making them sparkle like glitter. “You’re not going to believe this...”
Walking over to the tabletop computer, she brought up a file containing photos. The team surrounded the table, Dylan at her side. She pulled up several photos of blood samples. Each one contained organisms that looked a lot like sperm.
“That loyalty Cyrus injected into his people?”
Mitchell nodded as he studied the photos.
“He didn’t do it through their genetic code.” She glanced at Clint. “He inserted nanobots with the data into their bloodstream and sent it to their brains.”
Clint whipped around to look at her, his eyes round. “
What
?”
She nodded. “Yes, he’s inserting knowledge into their brains. They’re learning through their neurons.”
“Are you sure?” Mitchell said, studying the photos closer.
Teague’s eyes glowed like she’d just received a puppy for her birthday. “Any of you are welcome to check my findings. But, I think you’ll find them sound.”
Dylan placed a hand at her back. Proud didn’t begin to describe how he felt about her at the moment. The woman was freaking magnificent. He wanted to kiss her so damned bad he salivated.
Mitchell’s gaze went to his hand on her back, before looking at Teague. “So, you’re saying not only is Cyrus using genetic manipulation before the rest of the world, he’s also using nanotechnology in ways we haven’t mastered yet?”
“Yes.” Her voice rang with confidence.
Dylan’s gut told him the truth seconds before he said it. “He’s using time travel.”
“But how?” Clint said. “The machine Chalmers built in the eighties was destroyed. We have the machine they built in the past, and Chalmers is dead.”
Teague’s logical question rang like a gong in the silent room. “So, what happened to the specifications?”
***
“I’m surprised you agreed to see me.”
Luke Powers stared at Cyrus Matheson across the table at Cedros restaurant in Tokyo. It took all he had not to reach across the table and rip that smug smile from his good-looking face. If Cyrus hadn’t told Hope about Seth and Kimberly’s betrayal, Luke would still live in semi-blissful misery.
Now, he knew the ugly truth.
Cyrus, a man almost half his age, had known the truth of his life, long before Luke. Seth, and Cyrus’s grandfather, Clay Matheson, had orchestrated a number of foul and disgusting things over the decades. Sending children to the past to hide them, using their young, healthy DNA to create a race that remained younger, longer, among them.
Too bad neither man had lived to benefit from their investment. His father had died an old, guilt-ridden bastard who loved Luke’s wife.
He hoped Seth burned in hell.
Cyrus stretched an arm over the back of the booth. “Why does our meeting surprise you, Powers?”
Looking around the restaurant, Luke leaned over the table and lowered his voice. “Considering you’re supposed to be in prison, I’d think you’d want to be in hiding.”
“As far as the prison is concerned, I’m still there.”
Luke sat back against the padded seat. So, he’d substituted a clone in his place. Convenient… And, brilliant.
He gave Luke a high-browed, cocky stare. “As for you, Powers, I know you won’t tell anyone because you need me… for some reason.”
Cursing in his head, Luke clenched his beer in a tight fist. He hated to be the one in need. However, at this point, he’d do whatever it took to get back to Annie.
“Do you have a time machine at your disposal, Matheson?”
Cyrus widened his eyes, but said nothing.
“Someone besides D.I.R.E. must have the technology,” Luke said. “If not you, who?”
Taking a sip of wine, Cyrus swallowed it down. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”
Luke had been in business long enough to know how to read people. While Cyrus lied like the best of them, he did, indeed, lie.
“Is that you
can’t
help me, or you
won’t
help me?”
Smiling at the waitress as she set plates of lobster and crab on the table, Cyrus thanked her with charming decorum. Blushing, she walked away.
“I’m willing to pay,” Luke said. “Name your price.”
Drizzling butter on his lobster, Cyrus said, “Why do you want to use a time machine?” Setting the cup on the table, he gave Luke his complete attention. “To learn a truth you already know? Or, to change the past?”
He’d be damned if he’d discuss his agenda with Matheson. However, he had to give him
something
to convince him to help.
Breaking a crab leg, Luke wondered why the hell he’d ordered food that took so much work. “I want to see Annie.”
Cyrus swallowed down a bite of food and stared at him with raised brows. “That’s it? You just want to
see her
?”
He hated mincing words. Frowning at his plate, he said, “I want to talk to her.”
Cyrus went back to his food. “That’s changing the past.”
“And what the hell’s wrong with that? You, your grandfather, my father, and D.I.R.E. have all done it at will. Why are you privileged?”
“
Because we own the technology
.” Cyrus’s arrogant tone scraped along his nerve endings.
“I inherited my father’s entire estate, Matheson. Therefore, I own the time travel technology.”
He gave a bark of patronizing laughter. “I’m afraid not. Your father made a deal with Chalmers – the machine for your wife.”
Gritting his teeth, Luke allowed the rage to bob on the raw edges of his nerves. “Just another person your grandfather and my father sent through time for their own purposes.”
Nodding, Cyrus dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. “Yes. It was quite the common occurrence, once upon a time.”
Why did he feel outraged at that response? Something he didn’t know existed until a few weeks ago, Cyrus had grown up with and continued to use.
You’re pissed because your father slept with your wife seventy years ago – long before you were born, long before you knew they had both deceived you
.
“But, I may be willing to help you…” Cyrus glanced up from his plate, cunning glittering in his narrow, blue eyes. “If you can help
me
.”
Now, they were getting somewhere.
Luke sat up straight. “What?”
“Dr. Teague Hamilton. Find out where D.I.R.E. is keeping her and I’ll take you to the past.”
His son would know Teague Hamilton’s whereabouts. However, he didn’t want to alienate Riordan for Cyrus’s gain.
“I don’t know if I can get that information.”
Cyrus shrugged before popping a bite of lobster in his mouth and swallowing. “Then, I can’t help you.”
Luke let out a deep breath. “Are you saying you have access to a time machine?”
“Are you saying you can discover where they’re holding Dr. Hamilton?” Shaking a finger at him, Cyrus said, “Don’t patronize me, Powers. We both know your son has first-hand knowledge of her location.”
He called his bluff. “And, I know you have a time machine.”
Cyrus leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “Then let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Get me her location and I’ll take you to the past to see Annie.” Raising his wine to his mouth, he said, “Bring her to me and I’ll leave you there.”
***