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Katya smiles at me and raises her glass. “I’m counting on it.”
I feel a sense of completion as we descend back toward Heidelberg. It feels like coming home, not just to a place I live, but to a place my brain lives. I’m returning to sanity, desperately needed sanity. As we land, get into a car, and are transported through the city, I start to breathe more freely. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.
The Fleisch lab is located at the edge of the industrial district. There are tall chain link fences, more than one row of them, topped with razor wire and punctuated with guard towers. I see Cosmos’ dark eyes flicking across them with mild interest.
“We rebuilt the facility your husband raided,” Katya tells me with a glance at Cosmos, who does absolutely nothing to acknowledge what she said. “It’s much more secure now.”
“Great,” I say. “Sounds brilliant.”
I can’t wait to get into a proper laboratory. I have to admit that my curiosity is now thoroughly engaged. I’m not a geneticist by trade, but data is data, and I’m going to be at the forefront of research that potentially blends the line between science and religion forever.
“There’s housing on campus,” she says. “You’ll have your own apartment in one of the newly built constructions, two thousand square feet of modern luxury.”
Cosmos doesn’t seem to care about any of this. Every time I glance over at him, he’s just smiling to himself sort of distantly. It’s actually creepy, or would be, if I didn’t know him better.
We pull up outside the apartment building. It’s not of interest to me. It’s built in a vague square shape and has windows. Maybe I’ll care later. For now, I want to see what I’m going to be doing.
“I’d like to go see the lab,” I tell him. “Do you want to check the apartment out?”
“Sure,” he says with an easygoing shrug. He’s being a little weird, but I don’t have time to give too much thought to that. I have craved work like nothing else.
“I’ll take her to the lab,” Katya says. “You settle in, and I’ll have her home before you know it.”
“Alright,” Cosmos says, getting out of the car. “Be good, Elise.”
“I always am.”
“No,” he laughs. “You’re not.”
“Don’t mind him,” I tell Katya as we drive away from the apartments and toward the main laboratory. “The Brotherhood has some really old-fashioned ideas about marriage.”
“Men will always seek to control the blood,” she says. “You see, Elise, men have always known there was a need to dominate women. Whether they like it or not, we are the portals of life itself. We are the gatekeepers and the manifesters of existence. Every woman is powerful beyond any man’s wildest dreams. Those of us with the blood are even more powerful, and that drives men to dominate us even more harshly. Never forget. When someone is trying to control you, it is because they know how valuable you are.”
“Cosmos would say he was just trying to protect me.”
“Yes, he would say that,” she smiles. “And he no doubt is, because it is not enough merely to control the blood, it must also be defended from others. He’s protecting you from even worse dominators.”
“Like Starlight,” I suggest.
“Like Starlight,” she agrees, with a small shudder. “Falling into his hands is a fate I would wish on nobody, not even my worst enemy.”
“We’re safe from him here,” I point out as we exit the car and pass security, which I note is well-manned and tight. “Very safe, I’d say.”
She smiles at me with a certain amount of indulgence and nods in what might be agreement. She’s leading me through the facility now. It is big. There are a lot of halls and a lot of doors, and I’m sure I’m going to need a map to learn to get around. I’m very excited to learn what she has in mind for me.
“I’ve got something very special planned for you, Elise,” she says, leading me down another flight of pristine white stairs. A couple of what might be my colleagues pass us coming the other way.
“Guten Abend.”
“Guten Abend,” she replies.
“Guten Abend,” I also say. It feels so damn good to be polite in German again. It’s like coming home.
Finally, we come to our destination.
“This is the laboratory you’ll be resident in.”
By resident, she must mean it’ll be where I work. A funny twist of phrase, but okay. I look around the room she’s led me to. It’s deep in the complex. In fact, if I’m not completely mistaken by the number of floors we’ve come down, it’s about four stories underground. There’s a heaviness to the area; it sort of feels draining for reasons I can’t explain. The windows are very thick and reinforced. The walls must be thick too, nobody can hear you scream thick.
