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"He's right," Gideon put in from across the room, where he was typing on his computer keyboards, hacking through what had to be thousands of records recovered from Dragos's dead lieutenant in New Orleans. "Before the Order took them down, the Ancients blew through human settlements like locusts. They fed, they raped, they slaughtered. Resist their will, and they would annihilate you."
Jenna nodded, recalling the nightmare of the wave that consumed an entire population. The mention of the escaped queen who'd refused to surrender to the Ancients. Her city had been toppled in response. Her legion pursued with a dogged purpose.
"Let's say all of this is true," Dylan added now, swiveling around in her chair. "Even if there was another nonhuman race of beings on this planet and some kind of supernatural grudge match between them and the fathers of the Breed, that still doesn't mean every Breedmate has an Atlantean father hiding in her closet."
Gideon smirked. "Speaking of which, how'd that hack I wrote for Gabrielle with Department of Children and Families work out?"
"She accessed her records, but there wasn't much to discover," Jenna replied. "Both parents are listed as J. Does. Her teenage mom was too far gone mentally to provide any specific detail when she was committed. As for Gabrielle's father, it's anyone's guess. Her mom mentioned a boyfriend, a seasonal worker who disappeared soon after she became pregnant."
Gideon's brows lifted, his blue eyes intrigued. "Male of unknown origins who disappeared after getting a young woman pregnant?"
"Oh, come on," Dylan interjected. "Don't tell me you actually think this is possible too? Of everyone, I expected you to be the voice of reason."
"There is logic in the notion." He lifted his hands in surrender. "I'm just saying."
"Claire is looking into details about her parents' deaths in Africa," Jenna added. "It's been some fifty years now, but the relief group her mother worked for kept pretty good accounts. She thinks she might have answers in a couple of days."
Dylan stared, still skeptical. "And there's the matter of Tess's father. Dying in a car accident is a pretty mortal way to go."
Jenna shrugged. "I know. I need to get some more information from her about that before I can rule anything out."
Dylan gave a shake of her thick red hair. "Meanwhile, it makes perfect sense to you all that these immortal warriors - this Atlantean legion that serves an exiled queen - have been walking around the planet undetected for thousands of years."
Everyone glanced her way now, three pairs of eyebrows lifted in question. She blew out an exasperated gust of air and threw up her hands. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But the Breed is different. The Breed banded together, colonized. They protect their own. If there's some kind of immortal race out there who's fathering offspring and walking away without ever looking back, then I want no part of it."
"Maybe it's safer for them if they leave," Jenna guessed.
Dylan frowned. "Safer for an immortal?"
"No," Lazaro Archer replied. "Safer for their daughters if they never know who their true fathers are. At least until the last of the immortals' sworn enemies is dead."
Jenna looked at him. "The last of the Ancients may be dead, but his memories and history are still alive and well inside me. Possibly somewhere close to forever, if Gideon's right about my longevity odds."
"Maybe that was the point." Archer's ageless eyes glimmered with shrewd intellect. "He was the last of his kind on this planet. For all he knew, he could have been the last of his entire race. If the Ancient understood his death was coming, ego may have made him seek out some way to keep a part of him alive."
"So, why would he make me choose if I wanted to be his walking, talking memory box?" Jenna asked. "He gave me a choice between life or death that night. What did he mean by that?" Archer grew more serious, grimly so. "Maybe we have much to learn about these immortals. And through you, the Ancient has given us that chance."
As that statement hung over the room, one of Gideon's computers beeped. He swung around and typed a flurry of keystrokes. "You gotta be kidding me. Can it actually be that easy?" While Jenna and the others watched, he jogged over to a table containing half a dozen thick black collars. Ultraviolet obedience collars engineered by Dragos's operation and outfitted on all of his laboratory-raised Gen One assassins. Hunter and Nathan had both worn them while they served Dragos, and they'd both been damn lucky to be free of them without having lost their heads in the process.
As for the assassins who'd once worn the assortment of collars on Gideon's table? Not so fortunate. Hunter had been collecting the devices from every one of Dragos's personal army that he killed. Most of the polymer rings had been detonated beyond repair - a hazard of retrieval.
But there were a couple that Gideon had reengineered. It was one of those he fetched now.
"Thanks to Tavia, I was able to get past some password-protected, encrypted files," he explained as he carried the collar over to a lidded, large metal box beside his workstation and placed it inside. Then he picked up a cell phone he'd jury-rigged as a remote control. He started typing a sequence on the keypad. "If my calculations are correct, this code should reset the detonator to neutral."
The device in the box emitted a low hum in response.
"Ah, shit." Gideon's expression went a bit slack. "Archer, hit the deck!"
Before Jenna knew what was happening, she and Dylan were whisked to the floor beneath the sheltering bulk of two Breed males - just as a beam of intense UV light burst from under the lid of the metal box. It was gone just as quickly, evaporating like a brilliant ray of sunlight doused by shadow.
"Holy hell," Gideon said, rising to let Jenna loose from beneath him. The protection was unnecessary for Dylan and her, but Gideon and Archer were a different story. Gideon raked a hand through his mussed spiky blond hair, giving his geeky genius look an added dose of dishevelment. "Well, I'll be damned. That's a first."
"You've never seen one of those things detonate before?" Archer asked, giving Dylan a hand up from the floor beside him.
Gideon grunted, shook his head. "No. I've never been wrong before." He cracked a cockeyed smile a second later. "But now I know how to blow these suckers up on demand."
Just then, Tess appeared in the open doorway of the tech lab. She glanced at all of them, then looked around the room as if she sensed something recently amiss. "Savannah said you wanted to see me, Jenna?"
