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her suffered from Alzheimer’s. But this drug, our drug—it gave them a chance to be useful. ”
“Useful,” Bryn repeated. Her throat was so tight it hurt. “They were incubators. I was there. When you were finished with them, you dumped them in incinerators. Don’t you get it?”
He flinched and looked away. “You just don’t understand the potential,” he said, but his voice was fainter now. Less certain. “We can cure everything with this, ultimately. We can stop the suffering of billions. Wipe out disease completely in our lifetimes. ”
“You can create a sterilized crop of controllable creatures who aren’t human any longer. Want to see what you’ve accomplished, doctor?” Bryn’s hand blurred to the side, and she picked up the gun and aimed it at Reynolds before Patrick could stop her. “Want to really see what you’ve made? Because I can show you. I can show you, your kids, and any other living thing in this house. And you will not enjoy it. ”
“Bryn. ”
She knew Patrick had said her name, but it only registered as a blip, a vague shadow. Her focus was a needle-sharp arrow pointed right at Reynolds. He seemed to be the only thing she could focus on.
A predator’s instinct.
“Bryn. Enough. ” This time, Patrick’s voice, and his hand on her wrist, broke through. She blinked and sat back, but she didn’t give up the weapon. “Take a good look, Doctor. This woman was murdered by people associated with Pharmadene; she was brought back. Doesn’t she seem grateful?”
“But hasn’t it made you better?” Reynolds asked urgently. “You won’t get sick. You can’t be injured badly, or for long. You can’t be killed except by . . . extreme measures. It’s what humanity has always wanted—health and survival, a guarantee in a hostile world. ”
“You have kids,” Bryn said. “Two kids. ”
“Yes. ”
“Well, I won’t,” she said. “Ever. I always wanted kids—two, maybe three. I always wanted a daughter, especially. And you know what I have now? Nothing. A future of survival. Of being twisted into some shape that isn’t human anymore, because you wanted to play God. You want that for them? Don’t you want them to have a life, not a . . . a living death?”
“I want them to be safe,” he said. “That’s what any parent wants for their children. They should become adults first, of course; they have to reach full maturity or the nanites will simply repair them to a permanent childhood. But yes, that’s what I want for them. A future without disease and decay and death. And you know what? Ask any parent who’s watched a child suffer, and they will agree with me. ”
How in the hell could a man look so reasonable, so compassionate, and be so wrong? He was endorsing torture and murder, and he didn’t seem to get it.
She wanted to force him to face it, in all the wrong, bloody ways that the nanites seemed to foster. It was all she could do not to pull the trigger and shatter his skull all over the nice, clean kitchen.
And then eat his brain, some part of her whispered, and she gagged on that image.
“You’re going to help us stop it,” Patrick said.
“I won’t. ”
“You don’t have a fucking choice, Doctor. ” He took the gun from Bryn’s hand and stood up. “Thanks for the tea. Now you’re going to show us to your office, where you’ll give us all the information you have on the Fountain Group, who’s involved, where they are, and anything else you can think of mentioning. ”
“Or what?” Reynolds actually crossed his legs and settled back in his chair, and sipped his tea. As if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Or you’ll kill me?”
“Yes,” he said, very calmly. “I’ll kill you quietly, and bury you somewhere your kids won’t see. You’ll just . . . vanish. Maybe the cops will find your rotting corpse, maybe not, but either way, your big, fancy dream ends here, today. You can end with it, or live to see your kids grow up. Your choice. ”
“You wouldn’t. ”
Patrick gave him a long, still very calm look, and Reynolds flinched and set down his tea. No longer looking all that confident. “Let’s go to your office,” he said. “I really don’t want your kids to be involved, and neither do you. Right?”
When Reynolds didn’t get up immediately, Bryn helped him with a hand under his arm. His muscles tensed, and for half a second he must have thought about trying to yank free, but then good sense prevailed. She walked him—with his tea—out to the wide living room that had a breathtaking view through the windows of a tree-filled valley and river.
“It’s upstairs,” he said. The three of them went up as a tight group, and just before they made the turn Bryn saw the kids’ door open up, and a small face peer out in worry.
“Everything’s okay,” she told the boy, and smiled. “Your dad’s just helping us for a minute. You just stay in there, okay?”
He nodded and shut the door. She hoped he wasn’t—as she would have been at that age—curious enough to try to sneak up and observe what was going on. Better keep an eye out, she thought.
Reynolds kept his study locked up, which was probably wise, and it required a key code to get in. No way to know if what he punched in was the real number, or a secret alert code that would sound alarms yet stay silent in the house . . . probably the latter. She knew Patrick would think of it, too, so she didn’t bother to say it.
“You go with him,” she told Patrick. “I’ll stay out here and keep watch. ”
He nodded, probably also understanding that Reynolds’ smug, brazen attitude made her want to rip his throat out—and that was something she was more than capable of doing, even at the best of times now. Reynolds wasn’t inspiring her better angels, not at all. Better if she worked off her tension by watching for unwelcome visitors, and keeping the kids from snooping.
