Chills were racing over her flesh. The implications of what others would consider miracles began racing through her mind. Because what some would consider miracles, others would consider a sign of evil instead.
“That’s what will happen to me?” she whispered.
“It already has if, somehow, you’re Honor Roberts. The research notes we found suggest that aging retards at twenty-five without mating in subjects that were given the serum as children suffering from fatal diseases. Unfortunately, Brandenmore had those subjects terminated before we could find them. Only Honor and Fawn were thought to have survived.”
Her fingers ached from being clenched on the comforter that covered them.
“Blood tests—” she began.
“Blood tests wouldn’t work,” Stygian injected. “The nature of the project changes not just blood type, but also genetics. Acts kind of like mating heat, which appears like a genetic virus to the body. The only way to prove inconclusively that you’re not Honor Roberts is a deep-level core genetic test on both you and your father for a match.”
“Why not just a DNA swab?” She couldn’t lie any longer. She felt as though she couldn’t breathe.
Sitting up, Liza clenched the blankets at her br**sts and stared down at him.
“Because, with medical advances, even ten years ago, surface DNA could have been changed. All you would need is a scientist familiar with Clean Slate DNA, which is what Honor Roberts would have had at the time.”
“Clean Slate,” she murmured. “The Omega Project changed her genetic makeup to the point that it could have been so easily reprogrammed?”
Clean Slate DNA was a complicated process. It literally changed a person’s genetic typing from one type to another and allowed for scientists and doctors to identify key components of the genetic strands that could be altered. It required another subject, a Beta, whose blood or genetic makeup didn’t allow for certain diseases or health complications. So far, it had only actually been done on animals, as far as the world knew.
“The Omega Project simplified Clean Slate DNA,” he told her heavily. “But once the project phase ended, Brandenmore decided it was time to terminate Faith, Judd and Gideon. Honor’s father was part of the Genetics Council, which kept her out of the termination selection. Instead, once the other three disappeared and they learned there was more to the serum as the children matured, they decided to begin researching once again. Only Honor was left, and her father’s influence wasn’t great enough to save her from it. It was then her parents elected to aid her in disappearing.”
“Elected to aid her?” she asked as she imagined what it would have been like for the parents.
Honor’s father was military, he wouldn’t have cried, she thought. He would have kept his head held high, but his gaze would have been damp. His expression would have been laced with misery.
“Her father gambled to save her life when she was less than two years old, fighting against it until only weeks before she would have died. He joined the Genetics Council, contributed to it. Lied for them, cheated for them and watched the slaughter of innocent Breeds so she would live,” he stated, his voice filled with regret, but still the words sliced deep, their cruel imagery causing her to flinch. “It was nearly too late, but the scientists pulled it off. Ten years later she was home with her parents, happy, free of the leukemia and bargaining to get rid of the nanny she’d had in the labs.
“Her father thought the nanny was under his control only, but later learned that it was the Council that commanded her loyalty. She reported the signs of anomalies Honor was showing, that the girl was unable to hide, and the scientists were desperate to reacquire her.”
Liza stilled, her gaze on her hands as she picked at the comforter as it lay over her legs. “What sort of anomalies?”
Because she had anomalies as well, ones she and Claire both had been taught to keep hidden, to never reveal lest they endanger them. This explained why their families felt it would cause their lives to be so irrevocably damaged in an age when unique abilities were prized.
“Honor had a photographic memory, but the nanny noticed the girl could watch movements, in either dance or fight, and within days she could execute them perfectly. She didn’t just remember it perfectly, but how to apply it and when. Rather as Shiloh stated you were able to do the night Claire was attacked.”
Liza didn’t lift her gaze, but kept it on her hands, her nails, the quilt. Anything but Stygian, anywhere but on the fact that she was dying inside.
“And Fawn?” she asked.
“They weren’t certain about Fawn.” Reaching out, he pushed back the nearly hip-long wave of hair that had fallen over her face. “She showed signs of advanced code deciphering, even before the termination order went out. We need that ability to crack the code on the files Brandenmore had hidden. So far, even our best code breakers have only managed to decode a very minute amount of the files we found.”
“Then you think there’s something in the files there that will help Amber?” she asked quietly.
“At this point, we’re willing to try anything,” he admitted. “The few codes we’ve managed to break lead us to believe it’s possible. It’s very possible.”
Liza had a photographic memory. She could watch certain moves, not so much dancing, which had interested her as a young girl, but in fighting, it was as though her brain could telegraph the moves from her sight to her actions.
And Claire, oh God help them, Claire could figure out a puzzle in seconds. Jigsaw puzzles, even the most difficult, were child’s play for her.
She could feel herself trembling, shaking from the inside out.
Shaking her head, she looked up at him, uncertain, forcing back the fear. She had to force it back to be able to think, to make sense of everything.
“I can’t be either of them,” she whispered. “How could I be, Stygian? It’s not possible.”
But it was possible. It was possible enough that dreams, nightmares and memories that weren’t exactly memories, that weren’t exactly clear, came together in her mind.
Lifting his hand again, he brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek as he watched her with a quiet confidence she would do anything to be able to attain.
“I read an article before the rescues,” he said then. “Rumors of Breed creation had begun leaking, and some enterprising young reporter had written of the possibility. He stated unequivocally that the manipulation of human and animal genetics could never result in a living, breathing, intelligent being. Some things he stated seemed highly possible, but when in practical application, highly impossible. And I had to smile, because it was that very creature he had deemed impossible who was reading the article.”