Wynn straightened when data streamed above the control panel, huge amounts of it at a rate she couldn’t decipher.
“What is this?” she whispered when images of the beasts intermixed with stacked files, reports, and personnel files of scientists she didn’t recognize.
As soon as she focused on something, it disappeared, replaced with some new fragment of data, making her head spin.
“After Knox took you, I found the origin of the animals. Scientists created them in an underground lab not far from your location. After years of experimentation, they turned on their tormentors.”
She blinked, trying to process what he said with what she saw, but her mind was having none of it. Then Foster’s face appeared, and her breath stalled in her throat.
Not possible.There was no way he had something to do with the beasts, the things that killed him.
“Where is this coming from?” Her voice sounded scratchy, wooden, in her own ears. “How are you showing me this?” He had only touched the panel with his hand, and he didn’t wear a PALM.
“The files and images are from my memory.”
She gasped and spun to face him. “How is that possible?”
He stared at her with a slight pucker on his brow. “I can download a certain amount of data and retain it for future use.”
She stiffened at her next thought. “Is your body completely organic?” Maybe Calypsons were cyborgs.
“Yes. I have less technology in my body than you.” He gently tapped the side of her temple near her ocular implant, inert now that she wore no PALM.
“Then how can that work?” Wynn shook her head in disbelief. “The process would corrupt information. No human could do that without tainting the data.” But she’d seen a similar process in action with what they’d done to her memories.
Wait. Her thoughts jerked to a stop, a moment of breathlessness, then tumbled forward again, parallels forming one on top of another. Without being aware of it, she moved from Iax’s lap to the seat beside him to access the files herself.
She’d already made connections between him and the beasts, the way their eyes glowed, but was it more than that?
Did the government have access to Calypson technology? How many scientists were working on this?
“Foster was in there.” His face was now buried under the data that came after it.
“I found evidence that your colleague was a part of the project for many years, even before you joined him at your outpost. A group of people who called themselves Strata ran it.”
The moisture in her mouth dried up. “Sonotgovernment sanctioned.”
She didn’t want to believe it, but it was right there in front of her. Her mind raced to her time with him, filling gaps in with this new knowledge. Foster had left the outpost more often than was strictly necessary, and she’d always thought he’d gone to Asia Prime for R&R.
The name Strata prickled against another memory, one where Foster had been talking about a newsreel he’d just watched. She had never heardof the extremist group but now realized he must have been probing to see if she wanted in on the project.
Whatever her response had been, she must have reacted incorrectly, because he hadn’t told her more. She was glad of it now. The shit in front of her was messed up. They’d kept these animals in inhumane conditions, tortured them to discover pain tolerance, submitted them to the harshness of Earth’s atmosphere over and over again.
No wonder they’d killed their creators.
“Their eyes,” she whispered when a new image of a beast rose in front of her.
“There is some evidence that they had been experimenting with Calypson DNA.”
Her stomach twisted in knots. “How?” How the hell would they have gotten hold of Calypson DNA?
“That is what I intend to find out.”
“You and me both,” she muttered, her fingers tapping away at the terminal, searching for more parallels from her experience on theCorvusto the lab he found on Earth.
Wherever she dug, she ran into walls. The data collected about the beasts was entirely organic. It didn’t begin to explain how that white box had stolen her memories. But this information could have been used to help the success of her own work on Earth, strengthening their seeds.
Her mind was a mess of questions, of worry, and of confusion. How had Foster done it? Kept these two separate lives? He’d been her best friend, her only friend, for years. Had she known him at all? It felt like sabotage and betrayal both.
