"Yes, ma'am." He nodded before returning to the tests she had him working on. Matching for potential Breed mates was an exacting and time-consuming job. She was pleased to have found an assistant she trusted with it.
The tests on Mercury were another matter.
She sat down at her desk and carefully noted the information in her journal. She was going to have to find a way to convince Mercury to continue the tests. She needed this information, because there was always the chance it could happen again. No one knew the number of Breeds who had developed feral fever before the rescues. And she hoped no one ever found out.
* * *
Jonas stared at the report, his eyes narrowing at the findings Ely had sent to him, before he pressed the intercom button into his secretary's office. Or rather his redheaded robot's office, he thought with a silent grunt. For a new mother, the woman was decidedly un-maternal at work.
"Rachel, I need the heli-jet prepped for a return to Sanctuary. Inform Jackal we'll be heading out again."
"Yes sir, Mr. Wyatt."
He grimaced at her cool, competent voice. He missed his last secretary, Kia, but she'd left in a storm of tears for some damned reason more than three months before. He still hadn't figured out why she was so upset with him. But at least she'd had a personality. The piece of cardboard manning the desk now was as dry as dust.
"Mr. Wyatt, you had a meeting with Ms. Warden in an hour. Should I reschedule that?"
"God yes," he muttered. The last meeting he had with Warden he'd sworn Breed genetics were rubbing off on her as she demanded answers for the disappearance of a Council scientist. Her eyes were shot with anger and her cute little face had tightened in almost dislike. For some reason, she didn't seem to believe that he had no idea where the former scientist, Jeffery Amburg, was located.
Not that he hadn't been lying; he knew very well where the scientist was currently being held. He just had no intention of telling her.
"Mr. Jackal is here now, sir," she told him. "The jet will be awaiting your arrival on the roof, destination Sanctuary. Do you require anything else?"
Yeah, a secretary with a sense of humor would be a nice start. Where the hell had Merinus Tyler found this droid?
But at the moment a cardboard secretary was the least of his concerns. He lifted his briefcase to his desk, loaded into it the files and reports he needed, then disconnected his PDA from the computer. He had everything now.
Shutting down his office took only minutes, and then he was striding to the door, opening it as Jackal came to his feet, his expression as stoic as always. But there was a hint of amusement in his gaze this time.
Jonas gave his secretary a hard look. She stared back at him, as placid as always. He was going to have to inform her how much he wouldn't appreciate it if she was entertaining his enforcers when she refused to entertain him.
The damned woman.
"Looks like we're heading home for the weekend, Jackal," he announced, putting his secretary's lack of loyalty out of his mind. He would deal with her later.
"Have a nice weekend, Mr. Wyatt," she called out as he left the office.
He didn't bother to return the farewell.
"Is there a problem?" Jackal asked as they moved through the empty hallways of the Justice building. Saturday evening wasn't exactly peak hours.
Jonas grimaced, the potential for disaster so far outweighed "a problem" that it was laughable.
"Mercury," he informed the other man, his voice quiet as they stepped into the elevator and Jonas hit the button for the roof.
Jackal snorted. "That little paper pusher of Vanderale's?"
Paper pusher, his ass. Ms. Rodriquez was looking for something; Jonas just hadn't figure out what yet.
"That's my suspicion." And Jonas hoped his suspicion was right. His own investigation into Mercury's lab years had brought him to the conclusion that the feral fever had been nothing more than rage.
At one time, Mercury had been very close to the animal that his genetics had been altered with. His sense of smell had been off the charts, his ability to run long distances had broken records. Sight, hearing, night vision, scent and taste he had been exceptional.
Until he'd begun showing shows of feral displacement. Pacing his cage. Growling in irritation, refusing to perform his missions within their proper parameters. And the unknown hormone attached to the adrenaline that flooded his body at those times. Feral fever or displacement the scientists had called it. Jonas preferred to think of it as the call of the wild. All the signs Mercury had exhibited in the labs had been those of an animal going insane in the search for freedom.
But that didn't explain what was going on now. Or why the hormone was showing itself once again. Unless, somehow Mercury was mating his little paper pusher as Jackal called her.
"Give Merc space, Jonas," Jackal advised him as they stepped into the heli-jet. "If he's acting weird, then he deserves it. That man is too damned calm the way it is."