Page 41 of A Monster's Light
We got to work, setting up a makeshift infirmary in the common building. It wasn’t the type of work I was used to. I was used to fighting, not healing. Throughout all of it, I couldn’t help but feel a sense that something was off, but I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong, nor could I verbalize the feeling.
The last affected settler was Annabel.
“Good work, Igor,” Mark said as he took a still-struggling engineer from the super soldier’s arms. “I guess the chemical didn’t affect you.”
“My system detected it, and I held my breath until it was too dilute to be effective.” Igor’s eyes never left Annabel.
“How long was that?”
“Five minutes.”
“Jeez! Five minutes!”
“I didn’t know what to do when they started retreating. I didn’t follow them.”
“That’s okay. You were busy helping Annabel. You did good, Igor.” Mark patted him on the back. “One of the drones is following them.”
“Negative,” Igor said. “They took it down. I lost contact with it just outside of the settlement.”
I’d almost forgotten that the super soldier could connect mentally with all the devices in the village.
Mark squared his features. “I see. Well, you still did good.”
My communicator buzzed from my belt, and I picked up to an agitated Vostak. “Is the transport still there with you? It hasn’t arrived yet. Penelope is on it.”
My stomach sank. The transport should be there by now.
“What now?” Mark dragged a hand over his hair.
“The transport is gone.”
Chapter 23: Dana
I stared Dr. Noble down. So this was the asshole they’d originally planned on sending Gnnar and me to. At first, I hadn’t realized who she was because I was expecting a man, but Dr. Noble was a woman. A very perfect-looking woman, who had clearly used everything in her arsenal to stay looking not a day over twenty-one, despite the fact that I was sure she’d been working at Exotech for at least two decades.
Omnia Pictures had referred to Dr. Noble as a he in past videos and publications, yet no one had ever corrected us, not even Exotech themselves.
Hell, not even Igor had known! He’d referred to the doctor as a man as well, and Igor was the product of many of her chemical compounds. Though, in his defense, they’d kept him in the dark about many things and it wasn’t until he’d been given to Dr. Kingsley that he started remembering little things here and there.
“So you’re the journalist that got away.” Dr. Noble looked down at me over her picture-perfect nose from across the table. “It’s too bad we never recovered that Kadrixan of yours.”
“Gnnar isn’t mine,” I lied.
“A trifling detail. I see he didn’t go berserk like I’d expected him to. They must metabolize the chemical a little more differently than I thought.”
Sick of listening to her, I got straight to the point. “What does Nova Vita want from this? The ore? They can’t even extract it. If they could, they’d have started mining it before the Kadrixans arrived.”
“You think Nova Vita is behind this?” She cackled. “They could only wish to accomplish what I could. They can’t even transport one Kadrixan warrior to my lab. No. This is personal.
“Those rebels and monsters ruined my life’s work. I had it all. Exotech and Nova Vita were willing to give me anything and everything I needed at the snap of a finger. I had unlimited funding, unlimited equipment, unlimited test subjects. I could’ve achieved such great things. Dr. Kingsley and Kim and I could’ve lifted humanity from the coils of mortality. We were so close.
“So no. This has nothing to do with the ore. Nothing to do with Nova Vita. This is about our work. We’ve been cut off. Forced to work in hidden labs. We have limited resources. They couldn’t even get one measly Kadrixan warrior out to me so I could finish researching what made them heal so quickly.”
So that was what she’d wanted Gnnar for.
“They told us we needed to procure our own test subjects. Can you believe that?” Dr. Noble asked, her voice going shrill. “So we did. It’s so nice of you to round up everyone for us in one transport. I didn’t expect to find you too. This is a sign. You shall document Dr. Kim’s and my work from now on. The world… no, theuniversewill know of our achievements.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “No. I’ll do no such thing.”
