Authors: Stacy Mantle
“And what kind of problems are they experiencing with these creatures?” I had a fairly good idea if the results were even vaguely similar to the cloning I had heard about in the news. My fear for Daniel grew by the moment.
“Premature death, personality disorders from being raised in a lab. It’s all about nature versus nurture, darlin’.”
“The problem is that in order to create a perfect Were, you have to start with perfect DNA.” He smiled. “That means they have to locate samples from stable donors.”
“How do they determine what is stable?” I frowned.
“That all depends on how motivated, and how well-financed, the group is.” He shrugged. “Up until now, all of the clones were dying off before they reached full maturity.”
“What were they dying from?” Brock asked, his silvery eyes reflecting anger.
Tristan shrugged and leaned back, crossing his legs. “Primarily diseases we thought had been eradicated years ago. The problem with old DNA is that it reintroduces old problems. Diseases are reactivated, and we no longer have the ability to fight them.”
I could only sit there and stare in disbelief. “Bioterrorism.”
He cocked his head to the side. “I suppose you could think of it that way.”
“It’s also illegal,” I said before I could stop the words. It was an obviously ridiculous statement. The last thing these people cared about was whether it was legal or not. The lack of sleep and stress of the last few days was finally getting to me. I frowned.
A slow grin creased the corners of Tristan’s mouth. “The only reason anything in life is illegal is because a lot of people want to do it.”
Tristan’s information was proving to be overwhelming, and the more I focused on his words, the more I thought of the reasons I shouldn’t be here. I wasn’t qualified to handle a case like this. I’ve only been Shepherd for a year, and already I had regressed to being spoon-fed information by a Nephilim. Either I had to step up and educate myself on something more than communicating with animals, or I needed to step down as Shepherd. I couldn’t have it both ways.
“Someone has to know about this. Cloning takes manpower and some degree of intelligence.”
“Yeah, well you know what they say. Honesty may be the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.”
“What’s your role in all this?” I raised suspicious eyes towards him.
He raised his hand. “Role?” He laughed. “Darlin, I’m just here for the fun of it.”
Brock stared at him. “I guess we’re just supposed to take your word on that?”
“Seems to me like you don’t have a choice, son.” Tristan leaned back and took another long swallow of the tequila as he held my gaze. “Why don’t you ask your fearless leader to explain?”
Brock turned to me with a questioning look in his eye. “What’s he talking about?”
Glaring at Tristan, I relayed the bad news to Brock. “He’s working with Richard and if you’ll recall, I’m under a blood oath to Richard.”
Tristan seemed mildly amused. “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing, Alexandra.”
I shot Tristan a warning glance. “Why are you even here?”
“I stumbled into this the same way you did.” He lifted his shoulders. “I’m here to preserve my interests.”
“Interests…” I repeated. “Your interests in what, exactly?”
“My interest in remaining one of the last of my kind. If you think you’ve got problems with cloned animals, just wait until they figure out my DNA sequence.”
I felt Brock tense beneath me. “
One
of the last of your kind? Meaning there are more assholes like you out there?”
Tristan shrugged. “Despite being the offspring of fallen angels, my kind don’t exactly congregate for mass, so I couldn’t really tell you how many of us there are. We ain’t easy to kill, but it can be done.”
“How would one go about that, exactly?” Brock asked.
A dangerous smile crossed Tristan’s face as he met Brock’s gaze. “Care to take a shot, Sherlock?”
I leaned forward, reluctantly pulling myself away from the heat of Brock’s body. “Enough with the posturing, guys. Let’s get back to the Parallax issue. How long has this project been going on?” The sooner we figured out how to stop further development, the better off we would be.
“SCNT is a process, not a project, and it’s been heavily researched for the last fifty years. The military’s been using the principles of the project on an experimental basis with their special op groups. Recently, they put in a request for someone who can control the shifters that have been created. That request was backed up by a couple of private investors.” He shrugged, taking another swig of tequila. “Rumor has it they’ve been diversifying their efforts.”
I leaned forward, placing my arms on the table between us as I realized the implications of his statement. “Wait a minute… They’re trying to clone Shepherds?”
He shrugged. “It’s something they’ve been exploring.”
Brock cursed as I shook my head. “Impossible. Even if they were successful, they wouldn’t be able to control the cloned Weres. I haven’t been able to read a single one of them.”
Amused, Tristan stared at me. “Well, they wouldn’t know that now, would they?”
I rubbed my tired eyes. “This is too much.” I stood and began pacing the room nervously. In the space of an hour, my life had become forever altered.
“Don’t think on it too long, darlin. Rumor has it, you’re number one on their most wanted list.”
Brock looked visibly alarmed. “Alex, we need to get you out of here.”
I lifted a hand. “No, wait. If they do want me, we could work it to our advantage.”
“Whatever you’re thinking, I can already tell you I don’t like it.”
“We need to think about this, Brock.”
Brock moved closer to me, as if he could somehow protect me from this previously unknown threat. The move wasn’t lost on Tristan who watched us carefully, appearing amused by Brock’s protective movement.
“Why would they want me?”
Tristan laughed. “The first female Shepherd in over 2,000 years. Seriously — you’re really asking that question?”
“Then they don’t know Alex very well,” Brock said. “She would never follow their orders. The Council can’t even control her most of the time.”
“It wouldn’t matter, Brock. They would just create a copy of me that would follow orders.”
Tristan nodded in agreement. “Hell, they used the cells from a mass murderer for their initial model. I never said they were smart.”
“Wait — they did what?” A cold chill ran through me. I already knew the answer.
They used the man who held Modnik captive for so many years. The man I killed in the jungles of Costa Rica.
Diego Jimenez.
Tristan affirmed my assumption as a shiver ran down my spine. Steadying myself, I moved to Tristan and took the bottle from him, removing the cork and taking a long swallow of the fiery liquid.
Even Diego’s name shook me up. The man was a monster. He thrived on evil, actually enjoyed the pain of others. And I thought I was free of him — that we all were. Now his clones were running around? I could barely process the information.
“Christ.” I fell into the couch. “You saw what happened with the cats in the park. They’re not natural and I can’t communicate with them.” I leaned back into the couch. “How do we fight that?”
Tristan stood, stretching his arms over his head. “That just happens to be my area of expertise.”
He glanced at his watch, then stood and pulled on his jacket. “When you’re ready to get to work, give me a call. Meanwhile I have somewhere to be.
Meanwhile I have somewhere to be.”
Brock glanced down at me and I shook my head.
Let him go. We’ve got other problems and he’ll be back.
We watched in silence as he left the room.
Brock rubbed the back of my neck, sensing the headache that was threatening to develop into a full-fledged migraine. It was just another example of how ill-equipped I was for the job of Shepherd. The headaches were making appearances more often. The more I used my ability to communicate with an animal, the worse they became. I was getting weaker and experiencing less control over animals. It should have been the other way around. I leaned into Brock’s strong hands and let him relax the tension away from my neck.
I leaned forward with a heavy sigh. “Maybe I’m just losing my touch…”
“Doubtful,” he smiled, sitting behind me. “We’ll figure this out. One way or another.”
“We need to find Bren first,” I said. “He needs to help Modnik.” Thoughts of the violent attack kept crowding my thoughts. I stubbornly pushed them to a deeper place, knowing I had to concentrate on the living first. Modnik’s cubs would need a lot of care, and since I didn’t know any counselors who specialized in Werejaguars, it would be up to me to ensure they were properly cared for.
I reluctantly left Brock’s side and moved to my desk chair. “Alexandra Wilde,” I said to the computer, waiting for the voice recognition to log me in as I glanced at Brock, “Will you check on Jace and the cubs for me please?”
“Woof,” he said sarcastically as he disappeared from the office, leaving me to my thoughts.
“Very funny,” I called out. “But while you’re at it, ask Jace to come to the office once the twins are down.”
Something was just off with this entire case and I needed to stop relying on others to spoon feed me information. At some point in my short career as a Shepherd, I had become complacent. Leaning back in the chair, I thought about everything that had transpired up to that time. First the strange symbol that seemed to be showing up on all of our victims, Bren disappearing, and now Modnik had been attacked. Technology certainly couldn’t explain that, but I Googled
cloning
and
SCNT
just in case.
The first animal to be cloned was Dolly the Sheep, according to the press. She’d died six years later from cancer and yet they normally lived twice that long. The next animals cloned, and the ones cloned most often, were cats. It didn’t surprise me. Humans share over 200 diseases with the species, and genetically speaking, chimpanzees are the only species closer to us in genetic similarities.
As I scrolled through the entries, I learned that all that was needed to clone anything was a few cells, electrical current and a willing surrogate. SCNT wasn’t nearly as complicated as the scientists made it out to be. But then again, all I had to base this opinion on was the internet. Of course, I’d used the internet to build my first explosive device. So there was likely some accuracy to the report.
I tapped a pen on the desk. The more I thought about it, the more it made perfect sense. Natural shifters were nearly impossible to control, which is the main reason my job as a Shepherd is so important. There are only a handful of people in the world that can control a shifter. And that’s important when you’re dealing with a person who can become a wild animal by simply thinking about it. Weres are much larger than their animal counterparts, and as they retained the ability to reason and plan out attacks, they were ten times as dangerous as any soldier in the field. They could easily get in and out of houses, military installations and God only knows what else without notice. Creating a controllable super-shifter really did make perfect sense.
Brock knocked softly on the door then entered carrying a fresh cup of coffee. “Find anything?”
I motioned to the screen. “I think they’re really doing it. I think they are really creating shifters.”
“The question is what we’re going to do to stop them,” he said, looking over my shoulder at the screen.
I typed Parallax into the search engine as Brock reviewed the text on display. “Apparently not impossible if this is anything to go on.” May as well start at the top, I thought. The company president was
Keenan Fa’al.
I opened up a new window in the secure database, pulling up all records for the man. My efforts were rewarded with a dialogue box telling me the name didn’t exist. The police database harbored records for everyone on a national level, and Richard’s department accessed everyone in North America, with or without a record. The guy should have been listed somewhere. I turned back to the internet, which was less reliable than the police database, but generally resulted in more leads.
Brock moved back to the chair in front of my desk, watching my expression. “Not a real popular name, huh?”
“Not popular in the court system, too popular on the net,” I groaned. “There are over 200,000 pages for this guy.”
“That either makes our job either really easy or really difficult.”
“If this week is any indication, I’m guessing it will fall into the really difficult category.”
I scrolled through the results as Brock poured himself a glass of water. He held out the pitcher, offering me some, but I just shook my head, distracted with the results.
“According to the net, this guy is a saint. Philanthropist, with a focus on children’s hospitals and medical facilities. He graduated summa cum laude from MIT with a doctorate in Chemical Engineering, and received an honorary degree from John Hopkins University. His last vacation was spent in Sierra Leone where he donated his time to refugees. He’s hosting a fundraiser for the SATA foundation tomorrow night.”
Brock drained his glass of water in one swallow before pouring another. “Looking good on paper and being good are two different things,” Brock said.
Jace interrupted the search with a knock on the door, as he leaned in, “The kids miss their mom. Can they stay in here with you?” Pasha and Tau were on either side of him and he motioned to them when I nodded. He held up his watch. “Council meeting in thirty minutes.”
“Ugh. I completely forgot about the Council…” Motioning for Jace and the kittens to come in, I moved to the couch. “Come on in, you two.”
Tau bounded in with a backwards glance at Jace and jumped gracefully to the couch where he could cuddle next to me. Pasha took things a little slower, as was her way. She lowered herself into a half crouch, ears turned slightly back as she awaited encouragement from Jace, her most favorite person in the world. Then, with a word of encouragement from him, she leapt forward in one long jump, landing square in my lap. I wrestled with both of them, listening to Brock read off the many accomplishments of Keenan Fa’al as we tossed out possible ways to gain access to Parallax’s President — discarding each of them in turn. Before I could relax, my half hour was up.