Page 19 of Reverie
She clicks to another slide. It’s clearly a clandestine view of a lab, taken at an odd angle and through material that might be a lab coat. The place looks deserted, and it’s apparent that the picture was taken well after the 1940s, but not in recent years.
“Since the end of the Cold War, however, they’ve been focused on bringing about the next phases.”
Her face takes on an even more grim cast.
“Keep The Desirables alive.” She clicks to show what looks like shelves of medicines, all labeled the same.
“Ensure genetic superiority.” A picture of a mass grave with innumerable bodies piled on top of one another.
“Eradicate The Undesirables.”
When she lands on the final slide, the air grows thick, and Leo and I both freeze. The picture is of the BwP logo embossed on the door of our vault…except the vault door is open.
Fuck.
“So The Legion,” Leo starts, his fingers drumming wildly on the tabletop, “they haveourproduct, and they’re using it to…” Leo moves his hand in the air, searching for a word.
“From the best we can tell, they’re using the products your company has created to do a few things. They’re using your technology to create clones—super soldiers and genetically superior individuals of their choosing—so they can keep the people they want alive and disease-free, and use that same technology as a kill switch.”
“Well fuck me,” Max mutters from the corner. He doesn’t look put off by the information. He’s slack-jawed, sure, but the twinkle in his eye is unmistakable. He’s geeking out while we’re talking about mass genocide and New World Order.
“Okay so, why exactly do you need me?” I ask. “If they already have Panacea, then what are we going to do? Walk up to them—whoever ‘they’ are—and take it back?”
I join Leo in the finger-tapping.
“Obviously not, Hunter,” Misha drawls, and I roll my eyes over in his direction. He still maintains his bored expression as he leans in his chair, but Luna shifts closer to her husband. When she puts her hand on his shoulder and he reaches up to cover it with his own, I want to rub my forehead at the headache that’s forming. They’re the picture of domesticity…except they’re both wearing five guns apiece.
“They have the science. So what The Resistance needs now is a countermeasure,” Max adds.
“Which is why you needed to put Luna in the trial,” I say, piecing everything together. “Were you even sick?” My eyes narrow as I assess her.
What’s real? What’s fake?
She straightens in her seat and a strange look comes over her face.
“Yes, I was sick. Very sick. The cancer I had was aggressive and untreatable, according to our doctors and the ones we saw outside of the compound. But I didn’t have high hopes for them finding a cure because they couldn’t find one before.”
“Before?” Leo asks.
Luna nods. “Yes. When I was a teenager, I developed lung cancer. It was a rare thing and a genetic luck of the draw.” She inhales deeply, almost as if she were testing that her lungs still worked. “I was saved and cured, but it came at a great cost. It came from me being caught by The Legion and used as a live lab rat for their cure serum.”
Leo and I must stare at her dumbly, because when she pulls a switchblade from her pocket with an eye roll and cuts her forearm in one long stroke from elbow to wrist, we both jump in our seats.
“Wait a minute,” she says with a sigh. “Maybe two or three.”
The digital clock on the wall rolls over from one minute to the next, but I stare transfixed as Luna’s skin knits back together before my eyes.
“Holy,” I start to say.
“Shit,” Leo finishes.
Luna sighs. “The Legion had another push to pursue their research in the eighties and nineties because of the AIDS crisis. It was a new virus, and people were scared of it. So they needed live guinea pigs to test the first version of their biodefense system—a serum that facilitates rapid healing and acts as a prophylactic against any diseases.”
I stare for a few moments after she finishes talking.
“Okay, so let me make sure I’ve got it right. You had cancer as a teenager,” I say.
“Correct,” she confirms.