Page 25 of Perfection

Could she feel his tension, read his thoughts, he wondered. He focused on thinking about nothing in particular.

Amazingly, calm began to thread through him. As if in a fog, he noticed she wasn’t speaking any longer. He blinked his eyes open. She was there, seeming quite pleased with herself, although he couldn’t imagine why. He’d told her it wouldn’t work. But he did feel more…rested somehow.

“Look around. You’re floating.”

And so he was.

“Great antigravity machine, Nine,” he said.

“It was not me,” Nine said emphatically.

She frowned, gracefully descending, and left him literally hanging in the air.

“Hey, I—” No sooner had he spoken than he dropped to the floor like a melon off a delivery cart, landing with a hard thud. His body had been so relaxed he’d totally forgotten the rule about rolling in order to break a fall. He gave a stupid yelp as his hip protested in pain.

Kindra leaned over him. “See. I knew you could do it.”

Looking entirely too satisfied, she smiled and extended her hand to him. He took it, but instead of standing, he pulled her down to the floor beside him.

She grumbled and gave a soft laugh. The icy person she had been at the morgue earlier had warmed. She appeared more vulnerable. They reclined on their backs, staring up at the stars through the glass ceiling, both silent for several minutes.

“Was that it?” he asked. “Spiritual unity?”

“In part. The beginning.” She paused, and he could hear the pace of her breathing escalate. “There are different levels to the exercise. It’s the next level Isabelle’s mother was speaking of, the touchstone by which the experience is judged. You have to tap into it with a particular area of the brain.”

She swallowed audibly. “Itcouldbe where the virus attacks…”

He nodded. “I see where you’re going with this. The brain-spiritual connection has occurred to me also. But you believe it only attacks D Generation?”

“It appears so, although, with only one victim, it’s difficult to be absolutely certain.”

“Maybe it’s a punishment for playing God in the first place,” he said offhandedly, knowing it wasn’t a nice thing to say, but it was what he felt. He hadn’t trusted the scientists after his son’s death, and he didn’t now. If anything, he held her more responsible now that the fancy GEI science had failed a D Generation child, too.

He turned his head to look at her, and she slowly blinked. Surprisingly, she didn’t seem offended.

“You keep saying that. But it’s really not up to me,” she said as she curled onto her side, facing him. “I like to lie here for a bit afterward. You’re welcome to stay.” Her tone implied she didn’t expect him to.

“No problem,” he said, determined to take what she dished out and learn as much as he could about GEI ways, despite the fact he needed to get home. “I’ll hang out a few minutes.”

Casually, he eyed the soft peak and curved valley of her hip and waist, musing how the relaxing interlude resembled the aftermath of sex. On second thought, not nearly as good.

No, he needed to keep her at an emotional distance. His attraction to her was too strong.

At once, he placed the blame on the spiritual unity process. It couldn’t possibly beher. She was off-limits, both by law and by his personal code. Yet he didn’t want to desert her. She was a font of information.

On a sleepy sigh, her limp arm unexpectedly landed across his chest.

York tensed while every cell in his body stirred in response to the intimate contact.

He directed his thoughts from the woman at his side to something real, tangible, and obtainable as he mentally walked through the case and his next moves. He knew where to start: with the one piece of information he’d withheld from Kindra.

It was something Vi said two days ago while on a rant. Like him, Vi had lost family because of some backdoor genetic service. It was a damn shame Coders had no choice other than to deal with the dregs of society when they needed genetic help. It wasn’t about money as much as access. GEI doctors didn’t normally treat Coders, and Coder doctors didn’t have the equipment and research funds to gain much-needed expertise. Vi wondered what would happen if GEIs started to die. Then, maybe something would be done to benefit everyone, not just the genetically enhanced elite.

He didn’t suspect Vi, but he wondered if she’d heard anything more overt from her sources. How many other Coders blamed the GEI, or perhaps the WHO specifically, for medical errors and inequality?

Tomorrow, he’d see Vi at the precinct to gather a list of the top Coder-GEI scandals.

Kindra moaned, and York immediately lost his train of thought. She felt warm and soft against his side.