The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance #1) - Dianne Duvall Page 0,17
So I stayed on as a research assistant and started making casual comments I knew would catch their attention and make them trust me.”
“Like what?”
“Like… several times I expressed my frustration when working with wannabe psychics who clearly lacked your gift and said what a shame it was that you’d died because we could’ve learned a lot studying you.”
“That’s kind of creepy. You made it sound like I was a lab rat or something.”
“Which is exactly how they thought of you. Another time, I asked what had happened to your body after you died. I knew you had no living relatives, so… I let the rest hang. They told me you were cremated. And I said something along the lines of that’s too bad. We could’ve learned even more by dissecting you, maybe even discovered the key to unlocking those gifts in others.”
She stared at him in horror.
“I know. I didn’t really think that, Lisa. But I knew they’d like it. And they did. They lapped it up. It’s how I managed to score a transfer here. But this place has security like you wouldn’t believe, and I had no idea what to look for or where to find it. I had to enlist the aid of an ex-girlfriend who is determined to become the next Woodward and Bernstein. Her new boyfriend, too. He’s a total computer nerd who just about orgasmed when I told him I wanted him to hack into heavily encrypted files. They’re both totally high on the idea of becoming the biggest whistle-blowers in history. They can’t wait to expose this place for what it is.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a highly classified military installation.”
So the voice in her head had been right. “What kind of military installation?”
He glanced at her belly and back. “The kind that performs experiments.”
Nausea arose. Lisa swallowed hard. “This isn’t your baby, is it?”
His features grim, he shook his head.
The backs of her eyes began to burn. “Then whose is it? Are they…? Is it…?” She shook her head helplessly. “Is it a clone or something? Are they trying to clone people?” Hadn’t such experiments been banned?
His throat worked in a swallow. “No.”
“Are they… genetically manipulating fetuses, trying to engineer some kind of supersoldier or something?”
“Or something,” he murmured.
“Brad.”
“I’m sorry. I was so busy trying to find a way to get to you that I didn’t really think about how I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” she asked, ready to scream in frustration.
Leaning forward, he took her hands in his. “This place studies paranormal beings.”
She frowned. “You mean psychics?”
“No. I mean the kind you usually only find in fiction. They train men—like those Special Forces guys you see in movies—then send them out to hunt… things… beings… they lock up and keep restrained here so they can submit them to all manner of torture. They call it research, but it’s barbaric, Lisa. I didn’t know that kind of depravity existed anywhere outside of horror films.”
She heard little after the word things. “What kind of things?”
“I don’t know all of it. But I do know there was a… They had a vampire, Lisa. An honest-to-goodness, as-real-as-you-and-me vampire.”
Disbelief shot through her. “A vampire? Vampires don’t exist outside of fiction and folklore.”
“Well that fiction and folklore is at least partially based on reality, because they do exist.”
She stared at him, doubt assailing her. Vampires? Really? Was Brad insane? Had he lost it and… Was he the one who had drugged her? Was he some lunatic who had imprisoned her in his basement or something and gotten his sister to pose as a nurse? Because vampires didn’t exist.
“I know,” he said, holding on when she tried to pull her hands away. “It sounds crazy. I didn’t believe it either. I still wouldn’t if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. They had one. This big, scary fucking guy who’s damn near seven feet tall brought it in.”
“What scary guy?”
“I don’t know who he is, but they treat him like he’s a general or something. Everyone does everything he says. He made them upgrade security. I didn’t know why at the time. He insisted they add fail-safes that would…”
“That would what?”
“That would stop anyone who ran preternaturally fast.”
Lisa stared at him.
“I know. I thought it was nuts, too, until he and one of his hunters brought the vampire here. He made the vamp run through every hallway to test the fail-safes. And Lisa… that thing ran so fast he was just a blur. The fail-safes