many lab coats she donned, she would be nothing more.
Normandy removed his glasses, wiped them with the corner of his pristine lab coat, and slipped them back on. “We’re dealing with something new, undiscovered, undocumented. I can tell you what I have calculated, but what we hope to achieve has never been attempted before much less seen to fruition, and our previous ninety-one patients were, as you know, failures. I shall explore the missteps in my calculations. You be grateful that Ninety-Two is still alive. Still human.”
“Wait one second.” Sparkman waggled her finger ferociously. “You’re not holding me responsible for all of the other times you’ve fucked this up.” Her long braid whipped the air as she shook her head. “I wasn’t even here for most of them.”
Normandy frowned at the smudged fingerprints Sparkman left behind on the photos. “You are here now. You are a witness and a participant in all of this.”
When Normandy created his own version of Sparkman, a better version of Sparkman, he would remove this penchant for outbursts. Normandy didn’t value Sparkman’s intelligence. He valued her discretion and her effectiveness in getting him what he needed.
His gaze fell to Sparkman’s battle-worn hands as they again touched the fingerprint-clouded photographs. He would also minimize the oil output of Sparkman’s skin by twenty percent.
A trench carved itself into the middle of Sparkman’s otherwise smooth forehead. “But it’s different now. What the hell are we dealing with?” Her golden-red brows arched. “All I know is that the patient burned through propofol so quickly that the entire tube was drained within an hour. Ninety-Two metabolized meds that were supposed to last an entire day in a fucking hour.”
Normandy resumed squinting at the screen. “There’s no reason to be crude. I will review her tests. The answer is in there.”
“Look, old man, I don’t think you understand. If you did, you’d be as alarmed as I am.”
Normandy took a breath and peered at Sparkman over the rim of his glasses. “What was to happen in three years took only three weeks. Thus far, Ninety-Two has been a triumph.”
Sparkman’s eyes hardened, and she brushed her hand across her smooth, freckled cheek, but said nothing.
“If you’re no longer comfortable with what we’re accomplishing, I can have you sent to Rehabilitation.” The corner of Normandy’s lips twitched with a grin. Before Ninety-Two, Rehabilitation had been his best creation.
“Fuck you,” Sparkman spat.
Normandy pressed his hand against his stomach. “Your cursing, Lieutenant Commander. Your cursing. I cannot abide the foulness of your tongue. Perhaps that is something they can address during your Rehabilitation stay.”
Silence burned through the lab.
Sparkman’s broad shoulders slumped. “Everything’s fine,” she conceded. “The changes,” she waved at the displayed reports, “they happened a lot faster than I was expecting, or even prepared for, but,” she cleared her throat, “it’s fine.”
The threat of Rehabilitation guaranteed that Sparkman would never truly step out of bounds. That is, after all, why the Key had commissioned the program.
“I do have one question, though.” Sparkman tugged on the stiff collar of her costume lab coat.
Normandy resumed tracing the edge of one of the photos. “You will not learn if you never ask.”
Sparkman nodded toward the holoscreen and Ninety-Two’s resting frame. “If she’s transformed this much in so little time, what will she be three weeks from now?”
Normandy considered this as he again removed his glasses, folding them gently before hooking them onto the breast pocket of his coat. “More, Lieutenant Commander. Patient Ninety-Two will be more.” The shrill, prolonged beep of Ninety-Two’s pulse monitor grabbed Normandy’s attention.
“Dammit, Normandy, she’s flatlining!” Sparkman charged toward the door separating them from Ninety-Two—protecting them from Ninety-Two.
“Sparkman!” The soldier halted just short of the doorway as Normandy lifted his glasses from his pocket. “Wait.”
Sparkman’s fists clenched and unclenched by her sides. “She’s dying!”
With one fluid motion, Normandy slid his finger down the volume control toggle, silencing the piercing electronic screech before motioning to the patient’s brain wave monitor. The lines were flat. “She’s braindead. Of absolutely no use to us.”
“Let me get the bot.” Sparkman moved her wrist toward the cuff scanner. “We can try to save her.”
“The corporation does not need a strain that terminates its host.” Normandy’s fingers curled tightly around his glasses. The frames bit into the soft flesh of his palms. “She is not worth saving.”
“But—”
“Enough!” Normandy snarled. Spittle sprang from his lips. “Leave me to clean up this mess.”
Sparkman leaned forward almost imperceptibly before she dropped her hand from the cuff scanner, and her shoulders again slumped