“It looks to me as if you’re the one who got caught,” Rita said.
Con had to bite back a grin.He did love this girl.
“Yes.”Stella’s straight back didn’t sag even a little, but she turned and walked over to the big desk and sat down.“Yes.”
She rested her hands on the desktop, spreading her fingers out as if she wanted to stop them from doing something else.
Rita glanced at Con and then, as if by silent agreement, they crossed over and sat in the two chairs that faced her.
“In nature, the hunter can—and often does—find themselves the hunted.There is always a bigger predator,” Stella murmured.
“Until you get to the top of the food chain,” Con pointed out.Stella probably thought that she was the top until she found out she wasn’t.
“Yes.”Stella looked around her, then finally let her gaze meet Rita’s.“The Butterfly Effect.”
Rita frowned.“That’s a theory.”
“It’s also a device.We worked on it until we realized we couldn’t…perfect it.”
“We?”Con asked.
Stella leaned back, the first sign of sag in her body.“Alastor.A brilliant scientist, but not quite brilliant enough.He recruited me to do what he couldn’t.”
Recruited?Or seduced, Con wondered.
“And then betrayed me, us, all of this.He stole the device even though he knew it wasn’t working correctly.I can only presume he used it and it didn’t go well.”
“Or it operated as expected,” Rita said.
“There is that,” Stella agreed.She abruptly rose again and paced to the window.“I actually chose all this.I made a bargain that seemed worth what I lost.There is a lesson in this.A pity there is no one to learn from it.”
Rita half frowned and Con agreed.What?Were they chopped liver?
“What did you give up, Stella?”Rita asked.
It did seem as if Stella were in answering mood.Con had a feeling that didn’t happen that often.
Stella didn’t turn.“My daughter.I gave up my daughter.I left her in a world, a life I couldn’t bear anymore.This was not what I signed on for.”
Con couldn’t imagine anyone signing up for this bleak and colorless future.Maybe time hadn’t liked it either.
There was a long silence.“The ironic part?I helped make it this, a little bit at a time.I wonder when I stopped seeing it?”
“The boiling frog,” Con said.
“What?”Rita said.
“It’s a metaphor.I think it’s a metaphor, anyway it’s about small steps to hell.My mom always used to tell me to stop and check my course regularly.”
“Your mother was wise.”Stella spun around.“Maybe we’ll get out of here and have a chance to live and learn to do better.”
Would she learn?Con wasn’t so sure.The big course changes were harder than the little ones.
“This used to be Area 51, didn’t it?”If he was right, then yes, it was a long walk to any possible civilization, to help.If anything still existed out there.
“Yes.”Stella almost smiled.“It was the inevitable evolution of one batch of secrets to another.”
She turned back to the window, as if she couldn’t face them anymore.Then she stiffened.
