Roy

 

We were all assembled, Obi, Dara, Finni, me and Doc, in our office, four days after the incident with “Blood Bird” as Finni had nicknamed it. He had the worst habit of finding nicknames that were both annoying and stuck.

“I think we’re looking at this all the wrong way,” Dara said. “I’ve gone back over the raid files. Remember, this building was laughably easy to take. And it wasn’t one of those typical inanis-shifter experimentation horror shows. It was quiet and hidden in plain sight. Why?”

“Maybe this is one of the places they set up to make them look legit,” Finni suggested.

“We already ruled that out,” Dara snapped. She had circles under her eyes and her shoulders were filled with tension. She hated a puzzle she couldn’t solve.

I couldn’t blame her. We were coming up on a month and had no answers.

“Kesari, is there anything from the labs – anything?” Obi asked.

“Not yet, I’m afraid,” Doc said, adjusting her glasses. She looked worn out, too. “It’s all so random. Sedatives, then adrenaline pills, then pain medication.” She flipped through the notebook and waved her hands at the mess of chemical formulas. “Unstable compounds that seem almost laughably naïve to try to make work. Almost like they were put here to frustrate and confuse us.”

“Maybe this place isn’t as special as the Director thinks it is,” Finni said with a shrug.

“No, there’s something here,” I said slowly. “You don’t go to this kind of trouble if you don’t have something big to hide. As for the cocktail of drugs, we’ll find the pattern sooner or later.” I glanced around at the team. “Take the rest of the day and the weekend.”

“Sir?” Dara asked.

“Everyone is burning out and frustrated,” I said. “People need a break. No work. Only guard duty. Obi, you’ve got the schedule, can you spread the word?”

“I’m on it,” Obi said as they got up and left the room.

“Well, that was very nice,” Doc said, poring over her notebook. I knew it was from the newest lab she was tackling downstairs and I couldn’t help but peek over her shoulder. She’d doodled carbon rings in the corner and something about the structure nagged at me.

“Nothing nice about it. People are at the end of their ropes.” I sighed.

“Quiet will be nice,” Doc said, stifling a yawn.

“Hey, that goes for you, too,” I said, more stiffly than I meant to.

She gave me her cheeriest of grins but her eyes were gleaming. “And you?”

“Beyond checking in on the guards, yeah, me too,” I said.

I’d gotten used to having her around sooner than I anticipated. While she still spent a great deal of time in the labs, Doc would come up here to do her equations and type up reports. And I couldn’t help but notice the knot of tension in my chest always loosened at the sight of her.

For all her talk, Doc wasn’t forcing a friendship. She was comfortable to be around. And I found myself even enjoying her breathless chatter when she had too much coffee.

Her long fingers were drifting towards her fourth and I snatched it away. “No, no more–” Kesari. I caught myself with a hard breath and moved the cup over to the other side of the table.

“Dictator,” she said, not even glancing up.

Try as I might only to focus on my reports, I kept sneaking glances at her. She was stuck, I could tell and I wanted to ask her if I could help.

Kesari, why don’t you…?

I winced, rubbing my forehead. I’d slipped up a few too many times the last few days. I had to watch it with her name. It was already bad enough she called me Roy. Or Sir when she was feeling sassy or annoyed with me.

A name gave too much away. It forged bonds you couldn’t undo. I’d learned that the hard way a long time ago. Since then, I’d always been careful with how I used names, so they couldn’t use me. You had to as a Runner.

“Ugh,” Doc said, tossing the notebook away from her. “I give up. I have no idea what this is.”

“You’re tired,” I said. “Want me to look at it?”

The words were out before I could take them back.

Doc gave me a funny look as she rubbed her eyes and smeared her mascara slightly. It gave her a sultry, stayed out all night and did dangerous things look. A bad girl look on someone who was the nicest and sweetest of good girls. It made me break out in a cold sweat, even as I wondered why she kept wearing the damn stuff if she was only going to rub it off.

“You know how to balance chemical equations and figure out missing elements in a compound?” Doc asked dubiously. “You can read all this and draw structural formulas?”

“Yes, Kesari,” I said shortly, not wanting to get into it as I took the notebook.

Glancing through it, I picked up a pencil and got to work on a fresh sheet. Kesari had closed her eyes and was resting her head on her folded arms. I glanced up every once in a while, try as I might not to. She looked so serious, except for the way her bottom lip jutted out.

Catching myself again, I went back to work and then I sat back. “I think I got it.”

Kesari jerked up and in a flash was next to me, leaning on the table and staring at the paper. Suddenly she let out a little gasp. “You did. Roy!” She turned to me and smacked my shoulder. “You know… Are you a biochemist? Where did you study? What degrees do you have?”

“I did some work towards a Ph.D. in something like that, yes,” I muttered, hoping she caught on to how much I didn’t want to talk about that. “At Princeton.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kesari demanded. “You mean you could have been helping me this whole time – you’re way faster than I am! I’m a lab girl – I can deconstruct in my sleep. But formulas aren’t my strong suit. I’m good with numbers but they’re so boring.”

“I’m not faster. You’re tired and needed a fresh pair of eyes. I was your eyes. That’s all.”

She stretched across the table and picked up another notebook. Flipping to a page, she slapped it down and said, “Here, try these, Eyes. And remind me to kill you later.”

“Sure thing,” I said, grabbing the pencil and hiding a grin.

Kesari was pacing back and forth, staring at the compound. “Wait a second.”

Suddenly she was back next to me and the pencil was out of my hand. “Hey!”

“This first one, it is…” Suddenly Kesari sat down on my leg and leaned against me.

“What the hell–? Kesari, I am not a chair!” I spluttered as heat pooled in my chest. “Do you mind? There’s a chair right there.” I let out a sigh when she ignored me. “Or just sit there, sure.”

She was warm and it was hard to keep from putting an arm around her waist. Her scent was making me a little dizzy and I was about to push her the hell off of me when the papers were held in front of my eyes. Not a word was said.

“Steroids,” I said. “I thought it looked like that. Is this significant?”

“Lanestrol?” Kesari asked in a high voice, standing up and beginning to pace. I hated that my body wanted her to stay. “Animal steroids. Why would they need animal steroids unless…?”

“Hybrids,” I said grimly, thinking back on the reports I’d read about the TLO.

“I thought they didn’t want to make more,” she said in a whisper.

“Who knows what they want?” I asked.

“This is dangerous, so dangerous,” Kesari said distractedly, running her hands through her hair. "Shifters are balanced and bound to a spiritual plane. Bellator sacroanimalis. But a hybrid is splitting and re-stitching DNA. Inserting proteins and carbon sequences that might or might not work…”

“What happens without that balance? After things start to bump against each other? When the machine parts don’t function or play nice?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It would vary hybrid to hybrid. But it would take a terrible toll.”

"Do you think this place was dedicated to stabilizing the hybrid problem?" I asked as a theory began to form in my mind. "Maybe Dara was right.”

“Maybe they left because they didn’t want to clean up the mess,” Kesari said. “That means…”

“Sir!” Came a shout over my earpiece. “Situation out front.”

I rocketed to my feet and sprinted out the doors. Flying down the stairs and outside, I belatedly noticed Kesari was right there with me.

“Kesari,” I hissed, turning and grabbing her elbow, “Go back inside.”

“Roy,” she breathed, staring beyond me. “Look. I think we were right.”

Turning, I saw a man on his knees, encircled by agents and with hands up in the air. “I need to talk to the girl,” he shouted in a cracked, broken voice.

Immediately I moved in front of Kesari, but she sidestepped me and walked forward. I darted forward and threw out my arm before she could go any further. “Check killing me off your list,” I said. “Stop, right there, Kesari. I mean it.”

“He’s a hybrid,” she said, her brows knotting up with pity. “Your name is Hunter, isn’t it?”

Turning, I stared at the man, ragged, bearded and with burning eyes. They gleamed with opalescence even in the middle of the day. And he nodded.

“I need you to save me, Dr. Iyer,” he begged, hands clasping together as he fell into the snow. He reeked of blood, sweat and God knows what else. “Before it’s too late.”

 

A half-hour later, a freshly scrubbed Hale Hunter was lying on a hospital bed in one of the third-floor rooms, heavily guarded and attended by Kesari. She’d kicked me out ten minutes ago, so I was forced to observe through the window. Her team was taking his blood and vitals, while Kesari talked to him and I eavesdropped.

His answers were terse and unhelpful. “Heal me and I’ll talk. Rot in your prisons. But if you don’t, it’s only a matter of time…” Hunter’s voice became gruff. “I’m a desperate man. Help me while I’m lucid.”

She nodded, then came outside where Obi, Dara, and Finni were hovering at my elbow. I’d told them to leave multiple times, but with this new development, no one wanted to.

“From what I can tell, the instability is causing him to half-shift, for lack of a better word.” Kesari’s face twisted with disgust and pity. “Into a kind of chimera of whatever animals that Lilian Frost, used to give him his abilities. It could take days, maybe weeks to unravel.”

“This isn’t your problem,” I said in a rumble.

“I think it might our problem,” she answered, her eyes worried. “I think we’re taking over for the people who were here. They cut and run, willing to take their losses and leave cleanup to us.”

“Hale Hunter is a wanted criminal. He should be in custody, not a hospital,” Finni said with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, I’m with the boss on this one.”

“I don’t know if he would make it,” Kesari said, her eyes wide and she pushed her glasses on her head as she rubbed her eyes. “Oops,” she muttered at the black streaks. “He’s not long for this world. But this isn’t like the Kazans – that was at least a ritual that was based on shifting. This is something else entirely.” She paused. “It’s like forcing shifting onto an inanis. But you don’t get a true shifter, you get someone with some of the same abilities, none of the supernatural energy to balance it out and a gradual degradation of the proteins holding them together.”

“English, love,” Finni begged.

“His body is fighting whatever Frost did, but at the same time, what she did is trying to take over,” Kesari explained. “Changing his form and taking over his mind. He says he’s not often lucid – the other time he’s completely given over to blind instincts.”

“So, this fool is going Jekyll and Hyde Frankenstein shifter on us?” Dara asked.

“Yes,” Kesari said simply.

I turned to Obi. “Call Piper and tell her what’s going on, along with everything Kesari said, leaving out Dara’s comments.” Dara made a noise. “Ask her what the call is.” He nodded and vanished. “What do you need?” I asked Kesari.

She pulled a notebook out of her pocket and handed it to me. Notes, questions, and chemical equations were written across it. “Help.”