Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“What’s Ashaya’s Psy ability?” Adam mostly dealt with Lucas or one of the sentinels, so hadn’t had any reason to speak in depth with the scientist.
“M,” Lucas said. “Specialization in DNA. She was one of the Council’s top experimental medical scientists, remains the best of the best in her field now she’s doing independent work.”
They ended the call soon afterward, and Adam kept on pacing, kept on thinking. An M-Psy, one who worked on the DNA level, had failed to create a workable shield. Yet he’d demanded his sister do it. Saoirse was at a massive disadvantage.
…her take is that if they feed off each other, they…risk becoming locked in a singular loop of thought.
Where would an M start? Inside the body. Inside the mind.
He rang Saoirse, not knowing if she was at the Canyon or at the facility. “Chirp,” he said when she picked up. “I have an idea about your shield.”
No jokes about him being an engineer all at once, no sisterly digs. Because Saoirse knew what Eleri was to him. “Hit me.”
“Don’t attempt to create anything for inside Eleri’s brain.”
“Are you a foreseer now?” she muttered. “One of the concepts I came up with last night while Amir glared at me anytime I stopped eating—as did our own daughter who I carried in my womb, I should add—is an embed. I planned to talk to the doctor treating Eleri about it.”
“Malia and Amir both know you forget to eat when deep in work,” Adam said with a brotherly scowl. “They need to glare. And I don’t think you should put the embed on your list.”
He told her about Eleri coming to consciousness. “I’m connected to her directly through the blood bond”—it wasn’t a mating bond but it was powerful nonetheless—“and I couldn’t make the shield hold beyond a minute. For that to work, Eleri needs the building blocks, and those building blocks are gone.”
Dr. Czajka had been clear on that point when he’d spoken to her last night. “Focus on the outside. Like you do with jetcraft.”
“Eleri isn’t a machine.” He could hear the scowl in her voice. “But your reasoning makes logical sense. I’m going to take this to my crew—wouldn’t it be something if a bunch of jet nerds came up with an answer that’s eluded the Psy race all this time?”
Adam didn’t say it out loud, but he knew why it had—because the Council had just used up those like the Js, pushing them to the point that they eliminated themselves from the equation. Fixing the damage had never been on the agenda; “used-up” Js were of no value to the Council.
Adam’s falcon stirred, its feathers a shadow skin beneath his human form.
No one was ever again going to use his J.
Chapter 42
We are the Quatro Cartel. Here for each other forever! No matter what, we promise to always answer when one of us needs help.
—Bram Priest (age 10) (circa 2065)
Bram had done everything he could when it came to the Sandman case in Raintree. He’d spent much of the past day with Senior Detective Tim Xiao going over documents they’d found at Hendricks’s place, and pulling information out of the memories he’d scraped from Hendricks in order to answer outstanding questions.
Many of his answers had led to physical or forensic finds that could become part of the investigative file, adding more weight to the case against Hendricks.
He’d worried it would push Xiao’s boundaries when Bram told him he now had Hendricks’s memories, but though the detective had obviously been torn, he was also an experienced officer who’d seen far too much grief caused by killers like Hendricks.
“Just make sure his remains are eventually discovered in a condition where they can be ID’d,” he’d said to Bram. “I promised the families that closure.”
“It’ll be done,” Bram had said, certain he could trust Adam’s word on that.
Unofficially, the case was already over, all other loose ends tied up.
The falcon team on former Sandman suspect Dae Park had even answered the question of Dae’s lies, nocturnal movements, and disturbing presence: Mi-ja’s son owned a small house in an isolated corner of Raintree that he’d turned into a manufacturing lab for a potent illegal substance. He was too smart to sell in Raintree, but he had a regular rota of customers in the nearest big cities.
He had also, it became clear, been tasting his own merchandise. That particular drug was known to incite its users to bursts of brutal violence after long-term usage—and Dae’s blood had shown high concentrations.
Needless to say, Dae Park was no longer a free man.
As for Yúzé and Saffron, they’d left the previous night to go visit Eleri.
Getting into his vehicle, Bram knew he should follow the two out of town, get back to his personal mission of gathering as much data as possible when it came to devolving Js. It was important, might help the Corps come up with a system for helping future Js who were facing the same end as the entirety of Bram’s tiny family of four.