The Judas Contact (Boomers Book 1) (16 page)

“Hey.” She shook him, her hand on his leg. Despite the sheet and comforter separating the contact, her touch burned through him, setting his nerves on fire.

“Yes. But you aren’t going back to work.” It wasn’t even open for debate. He wanted her where he could protect her. He’d seen that haunted look in his mother’s eyes. Cages did that to people. He wouldn’t see her spirit snuffed out under a corporate boot on trumped up charges. He read between the lines. She didn’t cooperate, so they threw her in jail. When she returned, R.E.X. played the hero championing its lead scientist and her work in bio-enhancements began.

Somewhere between now and two years from now, they crushed her morals and ethics, forcing her to bend to their will.

Not on my watch.

“Okay. I’m not going back to work.” She squeezed his leg and rubbed her hand against his calf through the sheet. It was strangely comforting and erotic at the same time. “But I do have news for you. Results from the tests.”

“What tests?” He frowned. The last tests they’d worked on were the temporal mapping. That hadn’t ended well.
Not at all.
Not if he’d been driving back to the city with some single-minded purpose.

“Tests that I did on the chip’s DNA markers in your spinal fluid and in Michael and Rory. They came to check on you, too.” She kept her hand on his leg and perched on the edge of the bed. Warmth radiated from her, wrapping around him as firm as her grip on his leg. She should move.

But damn him, he liked having her there.

“Bring me up to speed.” He shrugged off the fuzzy remnants of sleep and focused on her. Everything from the rise and fall of her chest to the pink tongue moistening her lips set off a riot of reaction inside him. He would need all his attention to keep his hands to himself.

“Short version or long explanation?” She lifted her eyebrows, challenging him. His periodic impatience with her methods had made an impression.

“Let’s go with the short and then give me the long version if I can’t work it out.”

“Okay.” She pulled her leg up, shifting to tuck one foot under the other leg. It made her lean her weight against him. He fisted the sheet.

Protect her. Lock it down.

She stared at him steadily, as though waiting for him to get a handle on the impending implosion. “Okay?”

He nodded, not quite trusting himself to speak.

“The microchips they implanted are bio-organic. They have a specific DNA signature and marker, both of which can be identified from spinal fluid. I took a sample from you while you were out.” She held up a hand, silencing the fury that seethed up. “I wore protective gear and took precautions. Now let me finish before you start yelling at me.”

A mutter escaped before he could compress his lips and settle on to glare at her. He motioned for her to continue.

“Organic circuitry would allow for a longer life span of the chip, but it also allowed your brains to incorporate the chip fully. They will likely function as long as you do. I can’t pinpoint why they shut down, and I don’t think they did—fully. I think you just didn’t need them. Each of you had a different experience when they ceased working, and I’m not an expert on quantum physics. I could make the argument they stopped working when your choices led to a break with the time stream you came from, but…” she spread her hands. “That’s an inconclusive theory based purely on circumstantial evidence. What I can tell you is that the chips they implanted in you did not utilize your DNA, nor do the DNA markers of your chip and Michael’s chip match.”

Garrett frowned. “Do you have samples from the others?”

“Not yet. That’s the next stage. I am waiting for the Smart Cycler to finish and confirm my conclusions.” She wasn’t telling him everything.

“What conclusion?”

“Michael’s chip markers shared elements with Rory’s DNA. More than enough points to eliminate a familial match. It could only have come from her.” Ilsa pursed her lips, a sense of disappointment shadowing her expression. “It would also explain the very visceral attraction between the two of them. He literally recognizes her on a chemical level.”

 “That bothers you?” He forced his hands to stay still, even as he leaned toward her. She was so close—the scent of lavender teased his senses.

“Your chip has a similarly separate DNA matrix.” She blew out a breath, pushing the bangs out of her eyes.” It means you may very well have the same reaction to someone else as Michael has to Rory.”

He rejected the idea and shook his head. “Won’t happen, sweetheart.” The only person he’d reacted to in years sat two feet away. He didn’t care what the chip suggested.

“Look, most of attraction is based on the release of dopamine and serotonin. It’s chemical. Your brain and your body react to signals sent from the brain. The chip means you’re predisposed to feeling that way for someone else.” But she wasn’t happy about that fact.

“Ilsa, I’m not looking for a date. Just answers. Okay?”

“Garrett,” her gaze cut back up and locked on his. “You’re not getting this. Your body won’t attack whoever this person is. You already have her DNA in there. Your body will recognize that and it won’t hurt her.”

That gave him a jolt. She assumed a number of factors. “Ilsa…”

“No, it’s awesome. Really. You’ll be able to touch someone.” She grinned, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “That’s huge.”

“It doesn’t matter.” If it wasn’t her, it didn’t matter. “What else do you have on the chips?”

She exhaled. “Command controls are embedded. I know a handful. But the reset will have removed them. They have to be reprogrammed to add command controls back. At least I think they do. It has everything to do with the way I laid out the motherboards. If a command went bad, I wanted a simple way to erase it. I guess Rory and the rest of you were right. Your chips are my chips. I have no idea how they put them together the way they did, but they are based on my design.”

“So we reset everyone and that removes the ability to control us? No more episodes?” He chose to focus on the key piece of data.

“That’s the theory. We will want to finish the temporal mapping and I’m going to want to test that photograph again. You had an embedded command, theoretically it should be gone now and you shouldn’t react to it this time.” She chewed at her lip so hard it kept alternating between white and red.

“You’re uncertain?” He wanted to see the photograph, but not if it put Ilsa at risk again.

“Not uncertain. I am sure that if that chip is my design, whatever control codes were implemented are gone. I have no doubt about that. But they changed these, they grew them, developed them from specific tissue and DNA markers of others. So that’s going to affect what I can tell you. Long term monitoring and reports will give us more.” She let go of his leg and he felt naked with the absence of her touch. “I’m going to go make some real food. Well, actually I think I’m going to go and order some food. Rex said he would go into Montauk and get us something to eat. We should be done in a day or two and you’ll be free to go back to the city.”

She slid off the bed.

“Ilsa…” But what the hell was he going to say. Stay
with me? Stay with the team?
They could relocate her to a much safer place for her research and she wouldn’t have to see any of them again.

“Yeah?” Hope flared in her eyes and he kicked himself. He wanted her to stay because he liked having her there. It should have infuriated him to wake up and find that she’d dropped him with a single word. But all he felt was a nagging sense of pride for the woman’s intelligence and skills. She deserved so much more than he could offer.

“I’ll take a burger.”

“Oh.” The flash of hope died. “I’ll tell him.”

He bit his tongue as she left so he wouldn’t say anything more. The door closing behind her sounded so final. But they were going to eat together and they still had work to do.

His phone rang. Flipping it open, he stood. “Leave me alone, Simon. I’m not risking our scientist.”

“I’m not worried about that,” the telepath’s voice carried no amusement. “You know your job and you know what you can and can’t do with her. But we have another problem.”

Didn’t they always? He dragged on a pair of pants, ignoring his almost painful erection. “What now?”

“That project on the tenth floor. It’s bio-genetic and it escaped last night.”

Garrett’s eyes narrowed on the bedroom door. “Tell me everything.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for me to stay here? If that creature is coming here after me, then I’m the perfect bait.” Ilsa sighed as Garrett snagged the duffel bag out of her hand and circled around her to load it into the van.

“No.” He’d been a man on a mission since descending from his room. The arrival of Rex, Michael, and Rory within minutes stymied her arguments. She didn’t want to leave the house. With her work nearly complete, her excuse to stay with them also seemed to be extinguishing. She turned to follow him back into the house.

“What about my research?” She had samples here, schematics, and readouts from the equipment to still go over. They weren’t even done with the temporal mapping.

“We’ve backed up everything onto two hard drives. We’ll secure one and take the other with us.” He didn’t slow down, taking the stairs two at a time, and she had to jog to keep up.

“But do you have another location where we can work?” She growled as he disappeared around the corner before she could make it up there. She glanced in each room as she passed, finding him in his room packing his black clothes.

“This isn’t about the research, Ilsa. This is about keeping you secure while we deal with whatever was on the tenth floor. Rory said it was a furry beast of some kind?” The statement carried an implied question.

Folding her arms across her chest, she suppressed a shudder. The beast’s face pressed against the window, its hot stare boring into hers haunted her dreams. “I saw what Rory saw. Furred face, elongated snout, off center eyes, more peripheral than straight on, which would likely affect its depth perception, and a shaggy brown type of fur. The light was bad so the color may be off. Claws extended from one hand, though the shape was thicker…” She bunched her fist as though her second knuckles and not her third were the ends of her fingers. “…like a paw. But it had a thumb, which doesn’t jive with paws. Its eyes were the worst—something was wrong with it. Hurt, pain, anger—it wanted something and it looked at me as though I had it.”

Garrett paused in mid-stuff and lifted his brows. “You saw a lot more than Rory did. Her attention wasn’t on the creature for that long. Any theories on what it might be?”

“No. I didn’t have clearance for the top three floors. I didn’t want it either. That’s where much of the top secret and eyes-only clearance work took place. Many of those scientists lived on site behind security. I liked having a life.” Not that she’d had much of one. She spent close to fifteen hours a day in her lab, sometimes staying the night if she was close to a breakthrough. But at least she’d had the option of going home.

“Then we’re treating it like a hostile until we have further intel. Are you packed?” He zipped closed his bag and herded her out the door.

“I didn’t exactly bring a lot of luggage with me. Just the duffel Rory packed and you already loaded it into the car.” But he wasn’t listening to her. He cut left and into her room. She followed him and stared around the shades of green layered into the furniture, curtains, and decorations. She liked the room, the comfort, the color and, if she were one hundred percent honest with herself, the closeness it gave her to Garrett.

“Looks like you have everything. What’s in there?” He pointed to the laundry hamper.

“Dirty clothes that I won’t be wearing until they’re laundered.” A girl had to have some standards.

“Those will work for lure.” Michael’s voice so close to her back made her jump. She jerked forward three steps and whirled to meet the burning blue eyes regarding her with only mild curiosity.

Garrett roamed forward, inserting himself between them. “Keep them contained until I’ve put some miles between her and this place. Simon said that he and Drake are tracking it, but it seems to be on a direct course for Long Island—but R.E.X. is keeping it out of the news. Simon has to play mental hopscotch to keep up with it.”

A spear of regret shoved through her heart. Beyond staying with Garrett, she wanted to finish her tests. Having a telepath as a subject could provide her with amazing data. But she’d give up the project if they’d just let her stay longer. Not that any of them asked for her opinion.

“He told me. When are you leaving?” Michael’s somber voice was deep and his face a hard mask of tension. She would not want to piss him off, but Garrett towered over him and didn’t seem the least intimidated.

“In five. I just need to grab a cooler with food and drink. Not telling you which way we’re heading.” Despite the statement, she heard the undercurrent of request.

“Better that way. We can’t reveal what we don’t know. You sure you’re up for this? I can send Rex or we can wait an hour and Drake can take her.” Michael’s offer sounded perfectly reasonable. Kind of like genocide on paper, all fun and games until an entire people was wiped out.

“Don’t be a dick. They aren’t going anywhere near her. She’s mine to look after.” Garrett’s hard tone jerked her attention to his profile. His tense jaw locked and his gaze never left Michael’s. Challenge threaded through the air.

“Really?” Rory’s man toy lifted his eyebrows. “You sure you want to take me on?”

“Bare knuckles if I have to.” Menace vibrated in Garrett’s words, but he never raised his voice.

“Boys.” Rory stuck her head in the open doorway and feathered a hand down Michael’s spine. The casual touch relaxed the fearsome expression and he fell back one step, bringing himself into more contact with the smaller woman. “Play nice.”

Garrett snorted. “Yeah, go play with Rory. I’ll take care of llsa.”

Rory’s flashed a fast grin. “See, Michael? I told you they would be fine. Ilsa, are you good with all of this?”

“Not particularly.” That brought all three sets of eyes around to look at her. “But none of you asked until now. I think I should be here. Whatever it is, it’s a project, or a creation. I can help.”