Generation 18 (Spook Squad 2)

“It won’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because the mere fact that you’ve brought me here will be enough.”

“Better here than out there. As I said before, Lyle, White and Benson have recently been murdered—and by a creature I doubt is natural.” He watched the realization dawn in the older man’s eyes. “If that’s true, the military might well be after you already.”

“But that makes no sense. I mean, the projects were shut down years ago!”

“But the Hopeworth staff are still experimenting, aren’t they?”

“Very likely.”

“So what if some of those projects have been revived? The people in charge might not want any word about what happened in the past to leak out.”

“They wouldn’t fear that, because most of us can’t speak about them.”

“Why not?”

Haynes tapped his head. “Because they tampered with our memories when we left the military. I can’t tell you anything truly vital because the information was removed and blocked.”

“Was it just the scientists who had the memory alterations?” he asked, wondering why Allars seemed to remember so much.

Haynes nodded. “There was no real reason to alter the memories of the test subjects, as they didn’t know all that much about the inner workings or logistics of the projects.”

“Mind if I test just how thorough the erase was?” When Haynes shrugged, he added, “Tell me about Penumbra.”

Haynes frowned. “Nope. No can do.”

“Lyle, Benson and White, along with you and Cooper, are the only survivors from the fire that destroyed the Penumbra project—is that true?”

Haynes nodded.

“From what Allars said, it sounded like an inside job.”

“Impossible. We were tagged and watched, twenty-four hours a day.”

“What was Penumbra?”

“I can’t say…I can’t.”

“The five of you also worked on Generation 18, that right?”

Haynes nodded. Yes and no answers were outside the limits of the blocks, it seemed.

“Emma Pierce was one of the test subjects?” Again a nod. “From which you took her ovaries?”

Haynes looked uncomfortable and dropped his gaze from Gabriel’s.

“Generation 18 test subjects were either shifter or changers. What were you hoping to achieve?”

“Hy…Hyb…” Haynes scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck, his expression uncomfortable.

“Hybrids?” Gabriel finished. Haynes nodded.

So the military were trying to develop shifter-changer hybrids—something that occurred only rarely in the natural order of things.

“What about Penumbra? What were you trying to create there?”