Prototype by M. D. Waters

a new reward.”
    Reid tips his coffee cup at me and grins. “Time to ante up, Mrs. Burke.”
    He laughs and I stop pacing. “This is not a joke, Major. Not to me.”
    Noah’s gaze lifts from a spot on his desk to meet mine. “Any thoughts on the gene mutation thing?”
    “No, why?”
    “He could be telling the truth. Or his version, anyway.”
    The fog I am caught up in parts, and I am swept up in words left unsaid. Noah’s expression holds no sign of his thoughts, but I recognize the uneasiness in his eyes. Declan’s ploy to gain sympathy from the world has had a different effect on Noah. While I have had nothing but concern for my missing parents, Noah wonders if I am dying.
    I tear my gaze away from his. He takes me back to the day I died in the hospital ward, and I have no want to relive that time. “I have been gone a long time, and I was perfectly healthy before. Even if there were something wrong, he could not possibly know.”
    “But what if—?”
    I snare his gaze with mine in such a way that stops him from continuing. “I am fine, Noah.”
    Major Reid’s voice cuts between us, and I startle, having forgotten he was there. “Look at her. She’s
fine.
” He drags out the last word and punctuates it with a wave of his hand.
    “She’s completely healthy,” Sonya says from the doorway. She waggles a computer tablet and looks only at Noah. “Other than some predispositions to preventable diseases, there’s nothing in her genetic sequence to suggest—”
    “Wait, what?” I say. Did she say what I think she just said?
    Sonya’s next intake of breath is slow, and her eyes never leave Noah. “From what I can tell, Burke’s lying. Dr. Malcolm agrees.”
    She did it.
“You ran it. Without my permission?”
    She finally looks at me with steely resolve, confirming my suspicions.
    I never should have let her leave with my blood, and would not have if not for Dr. Malcolm and his long-winded story distracting me. “Unbelievable.”
    Noah drops forward in his chair and the wheels click and rattle on the floor. “What’s she talking about, Sonya? Ran
what
without permission?”
    She looks at Noah with little to no concern in her eyes. “In all fairness, I wouldn’t have dared if not for the fact that you asked me to—”
    “He
asked you to
?” I feel momentarily out of breath as I swing a glare at Noah. “You asked her to?” How could he do this to me?
    Noah stands with his eyes wide and hands raised defensively. “Hold on a second.” To Sonya, he says, “What
exactly
did I ask you to do?”
    Reid slides into the armchair in front of the desk, effectively removing himself from this conversation. But according to the glint in his eyes, it has nothing to do with being uncomfortable. He enjoys being a spectator to the unfolding drama.
    Sonya says, “You asked me to learn every detail of Travista’s cloning process. So that’s what I’m doing. That’s why you brought Phillip Malcolm here, isn’t it? I’d love to say we’re managing just fine, but I can’t. We’re at a dead end.”
    She looks at me. “I’m sorry, but you are my first and probably last shot at getting my hands on a clone. The more we know, the better—”
    “So this is about getting your hands on a
clone
? I am still a human being, Sonya, and I never gave you permission to run those tests. In fact, I expressly forbade it. I am not a project.”
    Reid leans forward and braces his elbows against his knees. “Wait a second, Mrs. Burke. Let me get this straight. You claim to want to help the resistance take down your husband—”
    “He is
not
my husband.”
    “—and here we have a real shot at him except you’re suddenly afraid of needles? Sounds awfully suspicious to me.”
    I should not be surprised he went there. Any excuse to make me look like the bad guy. “When did learning how clones function result in ‘a real shot’ at Declan Burke?”
    “Emma,” Noah says, and his is the only calm voice in the room.