"Doubtful. Everyone in Hopeworth is microchipped. Every move is tracked."
Someone had microchipped her. Was that confirmation that she'd been a part of Hopeworth?
"Were there many families at Hopeworth?" Gabriel asked, obviously following her line of thinking.
Allars snorted. "Hopeworth is no place for kids, believe me."
"Then why do they employ a gynecologist?"
The old man shrugged. "The military has many strange ways."
"What about you, Mark?" she asked. "Did you ever have kids?"
Allars smile held more than a little bitterness. "Couldn't. Some of the tests they did on us back then made us sterile. They compensated us, of course, but I know the women, Meg in particular, were real resentful."
There was an edge in his voice that made her ask, "Just how well did you and Meg know each other?"
The old man shrugged, yet the sudden grief in his eyes belied his casualness. "We might have gotten married, if we hadn't been in the military. Marriages between personnel weren't allowed."
"Still aren't, in some sections, from what I hear," Gabriel commented.
Allars nodded. "As I said, the military has strange ways."
"What about Emma Pierce, then? Where does she fit into all this?"
"Emma was a friend of Meg's. Came to Hopeworth about three years after us."
"What sort of project was she involved in?"
He shrugged and dug a handkerchief out of his pajama pocket to wipe his watery eyes. "We didn't really share info. It was code-named Generation Eighteen, and I know everyone involved was either a shifter or a changer."
"Did they take cell samples from Emma, as well?"
Allars snorted. "Took a damn sight more than cells. They took her damn ovaries."
She blinked. "They what?"
"Yeah, real nice of them, wasn't it? Emma wasn't aware of it until much later, of course. At the time, all the women were on medication to prevent ovulation, anyway."
"But how could you not know you'd undergone major surgery like that? Surely there would have been a scar, at the very least.
"They were cutting into her, and the others, all the time. Taking little sample of skin, pieces of this, pieces of that. It was part of the job. Emma had volunteered to be a specimen, like me and Meg. The pay and living conditions were top rate, even for Hopeworth. But so were the costs, as we later discovered."
"What price did you pay, Mark?" Gabriel's voice was soft and held a hint of compassion. "Besides losing Meg, I mean?"
"I'm seventy-eight years old, and look at me. Shifters have a life span almost double that of humans, and here I am, ready for the scrap heap. But I'm luckier than some. Many developed cancers. Meg — " Allars hesitated, his gaze drifting to the photo of a gray-haired woman sitting on the top of the TV. Sam could see nothing of herself in that photo, despite Allars earlier statement that she was the spitting image of her. "Meg developed skin lesions all over her. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't quick." He hesitated, and wiped his eyes again. "I never saw her die, you know. The military came and took her away from me."
"What about Emma," she asked softly, and rubbed her aching head again.
"She had a rare muscle cancer." Allars shrugged and swiped at his eyes again. "Ate away at her until she couldn't walk, could barely even move."
Gabriel drew a small container out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. Painkillers, she saw with surprise. So much for covertly rubbing her forehead. "Thanks," she murmured.
He nodded, his gaze meeting hers briefly before returning to Allars. "So who looked after Emma when she lived at Melton?"
"Her sister, of course."
"Emma Pierce was an only child."