Warrior Reborn (29 page)

Because of Salvatore?

“We chose selective restriction, rather than a total block of new DNA, to allow those lost to us the option to return here for safety. Your DNA will be added to the system, to allow access to more secured areas such as this lab.”

Fire and force fields. Jason took a deep breath, turning to take in the lab to cover his surprise at the breadth of their super powers.

Unfortunately, the details of Briet’s lab were surprisingly unimpressive. Light ash cabinets lined the left wall. The long glass table flanked the center like a kitchen island. A series of steel fronted doors were implanted along the right wall. As he’d seen, at least some were refrigerated. No windows lined the room and the lighting embedded in the ceiling activated upon entry.

Grimm sat on a high-backed chair at the table and waited on him.

“No equipment?”

“Do you need equipment? Briet doesn’t.” Grimm’s question was more a test than conversation.

Jason leaned his head back more to practice patience and then met the healer’s gaze again. “I have to figure this out on my own?”

Grimm shook his head and nodded to the chair beside him. “I helped to train Briet. Her skill set is different from mine, though we overlap some. Let’s see what you already know. I can help you work from there.”

With a nod, he sat as Grimm slid one plastic tray between them.

“Given the toxicity of the poison, shouldn’t we use protective gear?” asked Jason.

“Some precautions are in place within the Sanctum’s environmental monitoring system, which filter airborne pathogens. But for now, we’ll exercise more protection.” Grimm flipped a four-inch by six-inch section of the glass table, revealing a display panel. A quick command of numbers initiated the movement of four layers of opaque walls, two descended from the ceiling, two rose from the floor, ringing the table in a solid, cylindrical enclosure. Four full layers between them and the exit to the door.

“These will keep anything from escaping into the rest of the Sanctum?”

“To the best of our ability,” said Grimm, as he opened a drawer beneath the table and withdrew two packages. “Gloves.”

Jason ripped open his package, contemplating how one tiny slice of glass or puncture would make the gloves ineffective. He had only pulled it over his knuckles before the glove started to glow.

Damn.

“It takes a little bit of practice. The field prohibits tactile sensation. But we don’t have much to grip in this exercise.”

Jason widened his eyes as he finished pulling on the gloves and tapped his fingers together. They didn’t meet; a field of a thirty-second of an inch restricted the touch. A tap to the table and again no contact. “No chance of infection.”

“Or cross contamination.” Grimm’s mouth twitched up at the corner.

“You designed these?”

The bit of humor left Grimm’s face, but he nodded and selected several of the capsules from the tray. “Necessity drove the invention.”

Jason recognized the two vials of Briet’s blood from the previous night. “I put the syringe they injected her with in her purse. It should have been with her when she was brought here.”

Grimm moved a second plastic tray before Jason. Briet’s purse lay at the bottom. The last tray held glass slides.

Finally, something innocuous and familiar.

“Back light.” At Grimm’s words, three stripes of light appeared below the surface of the glass tabletop, one below Jason’s hands.

“You can prep the slides and the light will help with the dimensional view.”

Jason raised a brow, waiting on an explanation. When Grimm pursed his lips, quickly acknowledging Jason’s confusion, he realized he wasn’t going to get one.

“I guess we’ll start at the beginning and you’ll humor me if I cover what you already know,” said Grimm.

Jason nodded, the nervous feeling of the first day of school skittering across his skin.

Grimm provided narrow glass rods and Jason prepped slides with each of Briet’s samples and one with the residual from her attacker’s syringe. He positioned the glass slides over the light strip in order of the timeline. Attack first, second event triggered and then Briet’s healed blood.

“How far have you seen?” asked the healer.

“To the DNA level.”

Grimm pointed a finger to the last slide, the clean sample after Briet’s healing. “Descent is a function of focus. Very much like normal vision. Your eyes adjust from reading or close objects and readjust for distance. Use your breath to regulate the speed and aim for the middle, not the depth of the DNA. The toxins and their relation to the cells are where you should target initially.”

Jason nodded and took deep breath. Positioned over Briet’s healthy sample, he stared at the slide. Given previous practice with the children’s slides, he slipped easily down the slope of focus.

“Breathe.” Grimm’s voice permeated his fog. “When you reach the level you desire, sweep your focus across the image, it will help retain the level.”

Blood cells, normal in shape and density, all illuminated within his field of vision. Jason shifted his gaze too fast to the edge of the sample and suddenly snapped from infinitesimal focus to normal. A whirl of dizziness snatched at his stomach and head at the same time. He hunkered over, eyes closed to regain composure.

“Breathe out. Next time, you need to lock-out of the focus before you return, otherwise vertigo takes hold.”

“Good to know.” A little late, but better late than never. “How do I lock-out the focus?”

“You ever experience the picture puzzles, images within images?”

“Sure.” Jason kept his eyes closed, waiting for the dizzying imbalance to diminish.

“You will cause your gaze to un-focus in the same fashion. Just do so before you look at anything else.”

“Got it.” He opened his eyes and shifted over the drug sample from the syringe used by Briet’s attacker. He’d seen the best case, now the worst. Briet’s words from his first visual experience planted in his mind, he flexed his fingers, released tension, and aimed for consistent breathing before he looked at the sample.

With no blood on this slide, he had only the toxin to examine. He expected an inert matter, but the active movement of molecules signaled a live virus. Tiny, quick, multi-sided crystals rolled and collided, composing a framework that mimicked fluid. Suspended in the tide of the crystal were egg-like globules. The crystals rolled, connected, and broke apart, occasionally increasing in number.

If he could slip another level down, he might be able to discern the chemical composition of the crystals. First, he wanted a look at the ‘after’ shot. Concentrating slowly, he applied Grimm’s process for coming out of focus. The result cut down on the nausea.

“This is still alive and looks like it is regenerating.”

Grimm frowned. “Disturbing, but I’m not surprised.”

Jason shifted to the last sample. Similar to the previous one, it contained crystals, the exception being that the current sample included Briet’s blood and cell tissue as well. The globules were gone. The crystals had reformed into uniform rhombus patterns, the new crystals frozen in the process of attacking both the dead blood and cell tissue.

“I know you want to investigate more, but that is your limit for today.” Grimm’s voice permeated Jason’s fog.

“I can do more.”

“Jason, trust me on this. You need to stop for now.”

He locked-out focus and blinked. He didn’t want to stop but Grimm was packing away two of the trays, the final one for the storage of the virus still on the table. Given Briet’s dependency on him for recovery, he would listen to the healer’s dictate on limits, for now.

“If you’re finished with these, I’ll lock them away.”

Jason nodded, and closed his eyes to ease the slight burning and dim the throb of a headache. He heard Grimm flip the table’s control console again. A light whoosh of air signaled the walls receding to their housings.

“How were you able to repair the damage to her cells?” asked Jason.

“The toxin seemed to have a finite life. I was able to regenerate Briet’s cells faster than the virus could reproduce and eventually it exhausted itself. Poor design, which is fortunate for us.”

No kidding. The design hadn’t counted on Briet transport to the Sanctum, or Jason’s presence.

Grimm sat back down and stripped off his gloves, placing them on the second light strip. “You can look at them again. For now, I have the samples secured for only your access, mine and Briet’s. What do you conjecture about the toxin’s methodology?”

Jason placed his gloves with Grimm’s and watched in surprise as Grimm gave another sequence of commands on the table’s control panel and the gloves disintegrated.

“My guess? The structure of the initial drug was multifaceted. The first part is a reproducing infection to canvas her blood stream—small, fast, and efficient. A trigger mutated the second component, most likely when her body tried to fight off the infection with fever. That might have dissolved the containment of the…globules, allowing mixture and the mutation. The resulting combination attacked her cells. I wasn’t able to see a specific connection between this drug and Briet’s DNA.”

Grimm nodded in agreement. “Your theory describes my findings from healing her. You can focus later on breaking down the toxin.”

“You mean see actual chemical structures?”

Grimm nodded his head once in speculation. “I think you will be able to physically break down the structure. But you need to build up the stamina and precision for the process. The dimensional view will help there because exactness is the key. I can help you with that later. Briet can perform the process with an incredible measure of success. There are safe samples you can practice with tomorrow.”

***

Mia stood, leaned over to whisper something in Briet’s ear, and then joined Jason at the doorway. “I’ve updated her on all the latest.”

“You probably think my request was silly, but thank you.” At least he hadn’t offered crazy as an option, but Mia was trying to hold in a smile, so he suspected she didn’t find fault with his request. She looked so normal.

“I know you care about her. So do we.” She raised one eyebrow. “You look like you have a question?”

“Feels a little rude.”

“Just the newness of all these strange things. Go ahead.”

“Are you the—human one in your relationship?”

Her eyebrows pulled together in a perplexed fashion, but she answered. “Yep, I’m the one who didn’t bring any super powers to the table.”

“Ouch. That’s not what I mean, and I really doubt that’s true.” Jason glanced to Briet and back at Mia. “The way you’re here for her, I can tell you have an enormous capacity for compassion. Not to mention that everyone says your name with a reverent tone.” He gave her a small smile when she laughed at the comment. He slid his hands into his pockets, suddenly uncomfortable with the topic. “I just wondered how you adjusted. To all of this?”

Her eyes widened in understanding. “I had a lot of quality time with Turen before I was introduced to the Sanctum. Or any of the other Guardians. My indoctrination with Turen was more…abrupt than yours with Briet. I also had a view into their history. Guess it eased the way. By the time I arrived on these grounds, very little stood out as overwhelming. Frightening, yes. Odd, definitely. But not as new as everything probably seems to you.”

“You’re saying I’ll acclimate.”

She smiled and leaned in to touch his arm. He could swear her blue eyes twinkled. “So soon, you’ll be bored.”

“Doubt it. Thank you for being so honest with me.”

He heard a sound and they both turned. Turen stood in the doorway, evidently there long enough to have heard the conversation.

Jason had categorized the man as calm, stoic and mostly reserved. Until he saw the look Turen gave his mate. The man’s gunmetal eyes turned a soft light gray. His expression, one of such adoration Jason turned away, embarrassed to intrude on such an intimate moment.

“Jason?”

Mia’s voice pulled him back.

“How did you know? Which one of us was human?”

Jason shrugged. “Turen
folded
to get Briet with Ansgar. My
folding
seems to be limited to finding her, while she bops everywhere. I took a chance it was a defining difference.”

“You’re very observant. I imagine you’re equally perceptive about Briet, as well.”

He waited, listening to their footsteps fade down the hallway, until there was only silence. He pushed the door almost closed and moved to the bed. Crawling up next to Briet’s body, he cuddled her side against his stomach and chest.

“I was able to see the stuff they pumped into your body. Grimm helped me with the procedures.” With a finger, he traced along the outline of her face, across her forehead, over her temple, sketching a map for his kisses to follow. “I would rather have had you with me. This is definitely not easy. I can’t image how so many kids managed to learn this stuff without killing, themselves. Or each other.”

A nuzzle at her neck, and he breathed against the folds of her hair. “If you were awake and giving me grief, I could almost find this fun.” His fingers tightened where they cupped the indentation of her waist. “I miss you.”

Eyes closed, he pacified himself with the rhythm of her breathing and her pulse against his cheek. Fatigue nagged at him. Sleep pulled him under. Dreams drew him forward, the mist rising and parting on a courtyard view of tall trees, limbs thick beneath a heavy green canopy.

“Run. He’s seen us.”

Jason heard the high voice, the squeal of little girls and experienced the disorienting sensation of his body being hoisted into the air round the waist.

No. Not his body.

He looked down at the thick arm around his alter body’s skinny middle. This body felt disorienting as it kicked with scrawny legs with knobby knees.

Definitely not his body. If this was Briet’s vision again, the scene was nothing in recent history. He had intimate knowledge of her body and she didn’t have legs that resembled the coltish ones thrashing back and forth now.

A dream from her memory perhaps?