He arrived at the foot of the ICC building and looked up. The building was 118 stories high, and he wondered if the height of the building would affect a first-born’s elemental earth magic. He had no idea what it would take to move the earth up ninety stories to the research wing where the first-born was being held. The video clip he had seen earlier, that had shown the first-born using her elemental earth magic without putting her hands in the right direction, had been recorded from her time at a different facility.
Gio entered the lobby. He gave the wide-open space and modern art pieces a cursory glance before he went to the elevator and pushed the button for floor ninety. From what little he’d been told, the AMT Oversight Committee held floors ninety, ninety-one, and ninety-two. The nearest AMT compound was in the Ningxia region, but the facility in Hong Kong served as a special research post. No one had wanted to tell him what they did here exactly, but his visit today should rectify that problem.
The ride to the ninetieth floor was surprisingly short, and when the doors opened, a woman wearing a lab coat greeted him. This woman had to be Dr. Carlie Chan. Gio stepped forward and said, “Dr. Chan.”
She nodded. “Mr. Sinclair. Right on time, follow me.”
The woman turned, started walking down the hall, and Gio could do nothing but follow. From her tone, he could tell that she thought he was a waste of her time. Good, maybe that meant she would avoid small talk and take him straight to the first-born he’d seen in the video.
Chan stopped at a door, slid a card through a panel, and entered a code. The door slid open, and without looking back, she entered. Gio crossed over to the door. After witnessing the abuse he’d seen at the other facility back in Scotland, he braced himself for whatever lay on the other side.
There was a woman restrained to a bed, her head lolling back and forth. It was obvious that she was under the influence of some kind of drug. Of course, after witnessing what the woman could do—use her elemental earth magic without putting her hand in the direction of elemental earth energy—Gio couldn’t fault the researchers for doing it.
The first-born woman’s black hair was chopped short, her skin pale, and her almond-shaped eyes half-lidded in a drug stupor. The woman at least looked physically unharmed.
But he’d only recently discovered that all first-born Feiru went through some kind of experimentation, and he would have to dig a little deeper to find out if she’d undergone her own set of experiments. The drugs sedating her could be mas
king the experiments’ aftereffects.
No one had wanted to tell him anything over the phone or via email. It was time to find out some information. Gio looked at Dr. Chan and said, “What have you found so far?”
Chan rattled off her report. “E-1655 is a 25-year old female from Thailand. She previously possessed low-level elemental earth abilities. But two weeks ago, during an exercise to try to induce fear and bring out her defensive reflexes, columns of rocks rose from the floor to protect her from a fake surprise attack by AMT guards. She was subsequently sedated, moved to this facility, and tested for abnormalities. But despite extensive testing, her results remain unclear.”
“Unclear how?”
Despite the fact that Chan was a good six-inches shorter than he was, she managed to look down her nose at him. “When a Feiru first-born’s hands are placed in the correct compass direction, regardless if they’re conscious or not, particular elements of their DNA will react to elemental particles in the air. So, E-1655’s DNA activity should increase when her hands are positioned to the north. However, in this subject’s case, sometimes the repositioning of her hands will affect DNA activity, sometimes not. If the subject were lucid, she should be able to draw on elemental earth energy at a moment’s notice, regardless of where she puts her hands.”
Gio looked to the woman labeled E-1655. “Is there no way to have the subject awake to test that theory?”
“We aren’t willing to risk it until enough safeguards are in place.”
That delay would work to his advantage, giving him more time to look through the files and locate the pediatrics facility. “Is this an isolated case? Or is it possible that first-born abilities are evolving into something new?”
“That is what we are still trying to determine. Communication between facilities is not what it once was.”
He sensed a ‘but’. “How about in this facility? Are there any others here with abnormal abilities?”
Chan hesitated, her former arrogance gone, indicating that she didn’t want to talk about it. But he’d been given high-level clearance, which he reminded her.
Finally, she said, “A few days ago, one of the scientists here was dissecting a rat, post-experiment, per usual. Partway through, the rat’s organs started to heal. When the researcher jumped back, severing contact, the healing stopped. When he picked up the rat again, the flesh knitted completely back together and the rat started to move again.”
Gio resisted a blink and kept his face free of emotion. “He brought a dead rat back to life?”
Chan shook her head. “Not exactly. The rat was mostly alive, although I think you’re missing the bigger point.”
No, he understood the enormity of the situation completely. “Where is this researcher now?”
“He’s being kept in quarantine, in an observation room down the hall.”
“Right. My clearance should be high enough, so take me to him.”
Chan looked like she wanted to tell him to sod off, but she merely nodded. “This way.”
As he followed the doctor down the hallway, something niggled at the back of his mind about the healing incident with the rat. It was almost as if he’d heard a story about something similar before, a long time ago.
Chapter Thirteen
When Marco had seen the waitress watching them, he’d quickly realized that he had one of two choices: either give up coming to this place—La Noche—for information, or kiss Cam and deal with her wrath later. He’d opted for the latter.