The Eden Factor (Kathlyn Trent/Marcus Burton Romance Adventure Series Book 2) (20 page)

***

Kathlyn vomited twice before she
was fully lucid. Whatever they had used to knock her out had her sick. Her
stomach was lurching and the world was distant and foggy. Someone was holding
her head as she puked and she was too ill to shake them off. She had no idea
where she was, or what was going on.

"Kathlyn?" the male
voice was soft in her ear. "Kathlyn, can you hear me?"

Her raspy breathing filled the
air. She lay back down on the soft bed with her eyes closed, trying to steady
herself. When she finally opened her fuzzy eyes, a familiar face loomed over
her.

 "Fayd?" she gasped.
"What...?"

He stroked her forehead.
"Shush, Kathlyn. Don't talk right now. Just rest."

She felt horrible.  Her empty
stomach was heaving again. "Oh, my god," she breathed.
"What's... happened?"

Fayd put a cold cloth on her
head. "I'm sorry you feel so terrible. You reacted to the anesthesia we
gave you. You've been out for two days."

"Two days?" Kathlyn
repeated. Her fuzzy eyes were clearing. "What in the hell is going on,
Fayd?"

He stroked her forehead again and
she lifted a weak hand to knock him away. "Cut it out," she said, her
voice a bit stronger. "What's going on?"

Fayd's liquid brown eyes gazed
down at her. "I'm sorry it had to be like this," he said. "It
was the only way."

"Only way for what?"

"To get you here."

The fog in her head was clearing
somewhat and her stomach was settling. Now she could feel the distinct burn of
anger in her gut. "Fayd, make sense. What have you done and where am
I?"

Fayd smiled faintly; he liked it
when she took charge.  "This is so important, Kathlyn. You and I are going
to go down in history in this endeavor. “Before she could snap at him again, he
held up a hand to silence her."You remember Dr. de Tormo."

The fat man moved up from behind
Fayd. He was clean and non-smelling, and looked very different than what she
remembered. "Dr. Trent," he greeted her.

Kathlyn eyed him. "Now I'm
really confused."

Fayd went on. "I understand.
But hopefully this will all make sense to you when you've heard me out. First
of all, I want to thank you for your help in Iraq."

She didn't respond. She just
glared at him and he continued. "When we first heard of your angel, we
were very surprised and quite excited. Normally, we would not have believed
such a wild story, as you know, but with your name attached to it, we were
extremely interested.  The matter of acquiring the proper digging permit was
not an issue, considering our connections. But before we could make proper
plans, we had a bit of upset."

Kathlyn lifted an impatient
eyebrow. "Which was?"

"The Vatican," Fayd
replied. "They had found out about your angel somehow. We think it was a
wire interception. At any rate, they demanded to send a representative to
document the find."

Kathlyn shook her head. "I
know all of this, Fayd. What's your point? You still haven't told me where I am
and what's going on."

"I'm getting to that,"
he assured her calmly. "As I was saying, The Vatican wanted in. Kathlyn, I
don't have to remind you what that would mean. Every barrier would be thrown up
to an independent, completely scientific analysis of the angel. The Vatican
would get a hold of it and rip it to shreds in the name of religion. They've
done that before. And they have repeatedly condemned you for your attempts to
validate myths. This angel discovery, by you, would only make them like mad
dogs."

Kathlyn was feeling a bit
stronger. She sat up, shakily, shrugging off Fayd's assistance. "That's
nothing new. And?"

Fayd began to pace as if he was
lecturing. "And, we did not want that to happen."

"You keep saying 'we'. Who
is 'we'?"

"My colleagues at
CeMEH."

Her anger was growing. "So
you and your cronies wanted to protect my reputation, is that it? I don't need
anyone to defend me."

"Not even at the price of
proving you right about your relic?"

She looked queerly at him.
"Prove me right? What in the hell are you talking about?"

De Tormo stepped forward at that
moment. "Dr. Trent, the Vatican wanted to do some tests on our
angel."

"What kind of tests?"

"DNA strands. Full cell
strands."

"You can't extract full DNA
strands from petrified bone."

De Tormo nodded his head.
"Ordinarily, no. But the theories of extracting DNA from extinct animals
has been the subject of stories and science for years. In fact, CeMEH has one
of the most advanced laboratories in the world for just that process.  We've
been perfecting the process with ancient sheep bones for about ten years now.
We've managed to treat two thousand year old sacrificial bones, extract minute
amounts of DNA from what would have been the pulp of the teeth, fill in the
missing sequences with modern sheep DNA, and implant the sequence strand in
vacated sheep embryos. The result was a sheep hybrid with superior wool and
meat production than the animals we know today, exactly as the ancient
Israelites would have had."

Kathlyn stared at him. "I
never heard anything about that experiment."

"Of course you didn't. Not
with the world raving about Scotland's Dolly. We didn't want to make this one
public yet, at least until we refined it a bit."

"What does that mean?"

De Tormo shrugged. "Only
something a scientist would understand."

Kathlyn understood he wasn't
willing to divulge the information completely, so she tried another angle.
"What did you treat the ancient bone with?"

"A protein plasma
extract."

"What kind of protein plasma
extract?"

"Would you understand me if
I told you?"

"I understand about
nucleotides and phosphate backbones. Try me."

De Tormo wasn't being evasive; he
just didn't want to waste his time if she couldn't comprehend. "To put it
in simple terms, we treated the teeth of the relic with a combination of protein
enzymes and plasma in an electrophoresis pressure chamber. Teeth are always the
best bet in DNA research because of the porous, pulpy centers. The enzymes
themselves were very simple. Nutritive, mostly. The tricky part was
regenerating the DNA, not breaking it down, which is what most digestive
enzymes do when they are used to extract DNA from living beings."

Kathlyn digested that. But
something else began to occur to her, too. "You're not from The Vatican,
are you?"

"No."

She looked at Fayd. "Then
why the lies? What difference would it have made to me where de Tormo was
from?"

Fayd tried not to look sheepish.
"The Vatican did indeed send a representative, Kathlyn. But it wasn't de
Tormo."

"I don't understand."

"De Tormo is from
CeMEH."

"If he's from CeMEH, then where
is The Vatican Representative?"

"Being detained by my
superiors. We told the man we weren't planning on manning an expedition for
another week or so; as far as I know, he's still waiting to accompany me on the
dig."

"I don't get it."

Fayd moved closer to her.
"Kathlyn, Dr. de Tormo is an evolutionary biologist. He's been heading up
the cloning research at CeMEH since its inception. This angel is exactly what
we've been hoping for, something tremendous to prove the theories of the origins
of man.  It's everything we could have possibly dreamed of and more."

A warning light went on in
Kathlyn's head. "I know I'm going to be very sorry I asked this question,
but what, exactly, are you dreaming of?"

"Bringing an angel to
life."

A cold chill ran down Kathlyn's
spine. The horror of it was almost too great to comprehend. "You're out of
your mind," she hissed. "Listen to what you're saying; bringing an
angel to life? What kind of madness is this?"

"It's not madness, I assure
you," de Tormo said. "In all honesty, it was The Vatican's idea
first. Their scientists came up with the theory immediately after learning of
your potential discovery. But we don't want them to have creative rights to
such a thing; it would be hidden from the world, destroyed if it succeeded.
They would do it on a religious basis and the world right now isn't ready to
comprehend the validity of an angel from Heaven. We would do it on a scientific
basis, substantiating a race of beings that once ruled this earth with wings
and horns, the basis for all biblical and mythological theory.  People
understand fact better than fiction. Does that make any sense to you, Dr.
Trent?"

Kathlyn was mortified. "No,
it doesn't," she said frankly. "I think this is the most outlandish
thing I've ever heard."

"We thought of all people,
you would understand," Fayd said quietly. "You've always stood up for
your beliefs of the improbable."

"I've always stood up for my
faith," she countered strongly. "But I don't play God. And that's
exactly what you are intending to do."

"But don't we play God every
time we procreate? Isn't that what babies are?"

"God gave us that ability
with our bodies. He didn't make a lab for us and tells us to start creating out
of a microscope."

"But isn't that what
in-vitro fertilization is?"

Kathlyn could see they had an
argument to match her. "That's not the same thing and you know it."

Fayd and de Tormo looked at each
other for a moment as if trying to figure out how to deal with her. "We
were hoping you would help," Fayd finally said.

"Help with what? Creating a
Frankenstein?"

"Proving science," he
replied. "As I said, we need you."

"To do what?"

Fayd suddenly moved forward,
bracing an arm on either side of her and staring her in the face. His action
had been so swift that it had nearly startled her. "We need a fertilized
ovum from a genetically perfect source," he said. "In the name of
science, we were hoping you would be willing to donate one of yours."

Her horror was overtaking her.
"But I don't have a fertilized ovum."

He lifted a long, black eyebrow.
"That is why I am here."

***

"Marcus," a voice
hissed in his ear. "Marcus!"

Marcus didn't know that he had
been asleep almost thirteen hours. All he knew was that his head was killing
him and someone was whispering in his ear.  He struggled to open his eyes.

Juliana was standing over him.
Her face was grim. "Marcus," she said softly. "Wake up. I need
to talk to you."

Marcus didn't like the look on
her face. He startled himself up, bashing into her chin. Juliana staggered back
as he reached out to steady her.

"Sorry," he said.
"Are you all right?"

She nodded and rubbed her chin.
"I just got a phone call a few minutes ago from my mother."

"Your mother?"

"Yes," she said.
"I'm not going to go in to a long story here, but you know that Kathlyn
and I have been friends since grade school."

"I know."

"And you further know that
Kathlyn hasn't talked to her parents since she was in college."

"I know."

Juliana took a deep breath.
"Kathlyn's mother called my mom early this morning wanting to know how to
get in touch with her. Marcus, Kathlyn's dad died yesterday. Her mom wanted her
to know."

Marcus stared at her, feeling a
natural stab of grief for a man he would never know but owed everything to.
"Christ," he groaned. "What happened?"

"He had a genetic heart
defect. Practically the whole Trent family has it,” she said quietly. "It
finally killed him."

Marcus looked strangely at her.
"Genetic heart defect?" he repeated. "What are you talking
about?"

Juliana looked at him, realizing
she had just done something she promised Kathlyn she would never do. But she
further realized that she’d meant to do it. "Marcus, I'm sorry, but she
just didn't want you to know. I didn’t think it was right, but she didn’t want
to tell you."

Marcus could feel his horror rising.
"Know what?" he demanded. "What goddamn heart defect?"

Juliana put her hands on his big
forearms to quiet him. "I thought surely by now she would have said
something by now."

"Said something about what?”

Juliana and Kathlyn had been at
odds about the subject since before the twins were born. It was a genetic flaw
that Kathlyn prayed the twins would not inherit from her. When the
pediatricians declared them perfectly healthy, Kathlyn saw no reason to burden
her husband with her fears. But Juliana felt differently. Now she knew Kathlyn
was going to kill her for spilling the beans.

“She and her dad share the same
heart valve defect," Juliana said gently. "There was never any hope
of a valve replacement, apparently because of the way the defect involved the
entire heart. The only hope was a heart transplant, but because she's healthy,
they won't put her on a waiting list." She watched Marcus' expression
slacken with shock. "Don't you remember when she was in labor with the
twins, how they kept her on oxygen and a heart monitor the whole time?"