The doctor frowned. “The mutation is advancing.”
Gemma’s chest pinched. “Faster than it was?”
“Yes. I suspect being in this place has accelerated the timeline.”
Gemma gripped the edge of the cot, tears pooling in the bottoms of her eyes. “So, I am going to die before we leave here, then.”
Doctor Manae’s lips pressed into a thin line. “No, I don’t believe that’s the direction this is heading.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring.”
“Would you prefer the truth?”
“Always.”
The doctor hesitated. “Like I said, the orb didn’t infect you the way we understand viruses. It didn’t replicate. Itrewrote. Like it was installing a new language into your cells, one your body doesn’t quite know how to speak yet. It even learned how to reconfigure itself around the implant.”
Doctor Manae turned the electropad to show her. “We’ve never seen an organic molecule hold structure like this. I firmly believe that if it was going to kill you, it would have done so already. This ability to learn and adapt is not random. It’s deliberate. In essence, that implant never would’ve been effective at thwarting its progress.”
Gemma stared at the screen, barely breathing. “So, itdidchoose me.”
The doctor didn’t answer right away. She set the electropad aside and leaned forward slightly, her tone quieter now, more intimate. “When you found the orb, what did you feel?”
Gemma swallowed. “Um, I don’t know. There was this sense, I guess, that it wanted me to touch it.”
Doctor Manae nodded. “We’ve only begun to decode the architectural patterns in this temple. But according to Gunner, there’s a theory among xenolinguists that objects like the orb aren’t energy sources. They are conduits. Gateways, maybe. Or . . . seeds.”
He’d said as much when he’d spoken with Gemma. Well, at least the conduit part.
“What do you mean by ‘seeds?’” Gemma asked.
“Not in the plant sense, but in the evolutionary sense. Designed to be sown and cultivated. To adapt. For lack of a better analogy, it saw you as the soil in which to plant itself.”
“So, if I’m not going to die, what am I becoming? Can we cure it or reverse it?”
Her pulse raced. She should be happy that Doctor Manae didn’t think she was dying anymore, but to think she was becoming something else, with the powers she already contained . . .
Something needed to stop this evolution from taking place.
“That,” Doctor Manae answered Gemma’s question, “is what I want to find out.”
The door to the diagnostic room hissed open.
“Knock, knock,” came a too-cheerful voice. “Figured the lab was due for a little charm.”
Gunner stepped in, his blond-red hair mussed and his shirt slightly askew, as if he’d dressed in a hurry or gotten distracted halfway through. He had a half-eaten protein bar in one hand and an electropad in the other.
Doctor Manae arched a brow. “Gunner, we’re in the middle of something.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I waited ten whole minutes to barge in.” He winked at Gemma.
She managed a thin smile.
“What do you want?” Doctor Manae asked.
“Just an update. A little scientific gossip between friends.”
The doctor sighed and passed him her electropad. “We’re seeing rapid replacement of red cells with the modified strain. Structure’s crystalline. Likely a new protein chain forming.”
