Page 68 of If I Were Wind
She rose and locked the doors, the front one and the one opening to the bathroom, before sitting back down next to me. She also checked the windows. More spies around? “It’s about the Eros,” she whispered so low that I had to lean closer to hear her.
“The drug?” I asked.
Her quick nod carried a tonne of dread. “Remember last year when I found out Roy was taking methapentin?”
I nodded. Methapentin was used to reduce the pain of breaking a long-term partnership. Two ex-partners could suffer from severe withdrawal. Since Roy had never had a partner, his need for methapentin was a mystery. Well, one of the many surrounding him. “I haven’t seen him take it in a long time though.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not about that. After that day,” Peggy said, measuring every word, “I kept an eye on the dispensary and asked for a job there.”
“Because you wanted to spy on Roy?” I couldn’t remove the frustration from my voice. But then I remembered that I would probably have done the same.
She bit her bottom lip. “At first, yes, but then something else attracted my attention. The Eros is made from the combination of two main drugs, the erotrigine and the secrethyol. That’s where the name Eros comes from, by combining the first letters of these two drugs.” She paused and watched me, as if the chemical gibberish she’d just spouted should provoke a reaction from me.
I waited for her to add something else. But when nothing came, I coughed. “That’s interesting, but I don’t follow. What are these two things? Why are you interested in them?”
“There are things that don’t add up.” Paper rustled as she searched through the scattered documents and books on the bed. She selected a book, the titleEvolutionary Biologyflashing in big red letters. “It all started with Michael.”
“Michael? Peggy, I’m completely lost. You were talking about Roy, then the Eros. What does Michael have to do with anything?”
“I’m attracted to Michael. Miss Hammond said we can’t reproduce, right? That’s why the beasts are created in the mill, because the existing beasts can’t produce babies. But why do we feel sexual urges if we can’t mate?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again, not sure what to say. But she didn’t wait for an answer.
“I studied zoology and evolution.” She tapped a hand on the book. “If we don’t have working reproductive organs, as everyone said, we shouldn’t feel the need to mate, and I’m not talking about just having babies. I’m talking about sexual urges of all kinds, from every range of the spectrum. Why do we want to mate if our organs are dead? And then there’s the Eros. They force us to take it, saying that it’s for our own good, but what if it does something else?”
“Like what?” I was still a bit lost but intrigued as well since I always felt the urge to mate when Roy was around.
“That’s what I’m researching. The erotrigine affects the reproductive system. I have to understand what it does in combination with the secrethyol, but I have a hunch. What if the Eros doesn’t keep our powers under control? What if it blocks our reproductive organs?”
I leaned back, a chill seeping into my bones. “Are you saying that the Eros prevents us from having functional reproductive organs and that they’re giving it to us on purpose so we don’t reproduce?”
“I have no evidence of that.” The ‘but’ was implied.
“Bloody hell.” I mulled that over. “But why would they do that? Wouldn’t it be more convenient if we had children? They wouldn’t need the mill.”
“Exactly.” She pointed a finger at me. “It’s all about control. Imagine what would happen if every couple had two, three, or more beastly children. And what if a beast falls in love with a normal human? Would there be half beasts? And on top of that, would a beast, who becomes a parent, let their children be used by the government, to become the government’s property, sent to war, and die?”
“Oh, my goodness.” It sounded like something Raven Park would do. Crippling us to keep us under control.
“And there’s more.” Her voice was gaining confidence, maybe because she was unburdening herself. Something Roy should do.
“What?” I asked.
A glow sparked in her eyes. “Take Roy, for example. He’s very possessive and jealous.”
“A tad.”
Her gaze travelled skyward. “Come on, Kristin. What happened in the training hall between Nathan and him was a primaeval mate fight, where a male fights off another male for a female. Anyway, the question is the same. What’s the point of Roy behaving, for all intents and purposes, like an alpha male, who wants to be the only one to mate with his female, if we aren’t supposed to procreate? His possessive drive can only be explained if he could produce an heir, and if he wanted to have it with you, because he thinks you’d be the perfect mother for his offspring. I believe that the beasts have the same sexual behaviour as other animals who live in close packs, have ranks and mating seasons, and all that.”
I released a long breath. “Blimey, Peggy, these are heavy considerations with a lot of implications.”
“That’s why I was in the mill that day, to research what the secrethyol does, but a technician kept watching my every move, so I had to leave before I found anything useful.” She took my hand. “I don’t have anything to do with the bomb.”
“I believe you.” In fact, the bomb had slipped off my mind. “How can you gather evidence about the Eros? What if it cripples us? How can we know?”
Her chin dipped down. “I…I have an idea, actually.”
“What is it?”