His eyes widened. “So you’re the first generation born with it inside you.”
It wasn’t a question, but she confirmed anyway. “Yes. And for the record, there may be reasons he’s regretted his invention, but he’s never wanted to uninvent TERA. It has helped far too many people to live better lives.”
“Exactly.” Technologically Enhanced Rehabilitation Alleles were nanotechnology at a microscopic leveclass="underline" they traveled through the blood and repaired bodily damage at a cellular level. Congenital defects, genetic diseases and cancers were cured by delivering the proper rehabilitative information to cells.
“Why regret that?”
She rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t. But as with most inventions, there is the positive intention behind creating it, then the negative end of the spectrum. After diseases and many different health issues were cured, there were those who wanted to take it further. Ego, vanity and greed took control, and that wasn’t what he wanted for his miracle cure.”
“Okay, most everything gets misused—”
“Misused? That’s like playing the wedding march at a funeral. Young girls are using TERA to change their hair and eye color – genetically. Being dissatisfied with their bodies and using anything available to reach an ideal appearance has all but eliminated ethnic differences and severely damaged the concept of health and beauty.”
“True, the superficiality of some of its uses sucks, but the effects of aging, environmental influences and accidental traumas are practically reversible. It’s a trade-off.”
“And physical abilities have been optimized. Athletics associations want to treat it like steroid use, but the effects are everlasting and never leave your system, so any athlete who had a childhood illness, or a parent with fertility issues, wouldn’t be able to play.”
“Since that’s practically all of them, there is no unfairness.”
“Except to healthy people who’ve never had to take TERA, and now they are told that healthy isn’t good enough. You must have this drug that optimizes every part of you, if not changes you completely.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“There is a whole universe of psychological and philosophical issues. Super-soldiers, ethnic cleansing, conformist ideologies. Those are the biggest factors. Once laughed at and now all too real. And all that even before we learned of TERA’s changes over time.”
He couldn’t argue with that. There were perfectionistic murmurings everywhere. Not just athletes and entertainment stars. Not just the military. It infiltrated society even at the grade-school level. That there might be unexpected changes was terrifying to contemplate. “What changes?”
“As you said, I am in the first generation born with TERA. I’m not even thirty years old. All of the effects aren’t clear, yet, but how can we be expected to handle them when we don’t even have the mental strength to embrace a world where people have different skin colors?”
Before he could say anything further, she darted away. Reid eyed their surroundings to see if she drew attention, found nothing, and dashed after her.
Four
Reid crouched directly behind her. “What kind of changes?”
She looked around them, her face strangely tight. “Well . . .You haven’t noticed any strange appendages, have you?”
“What?” He paused, then he took in her dancing green eyes. She was probably getting him back for calling her “sweetheart”. Oh, well. He’d have to do it even more now. “That’s not funny, sweetheart.
What changes?”
She exhaled an impatient sigh. “Nothing that will affect the next two hours, Lieutenant.”
For what felt like the thousandth time, he snapped, “Reid.”
“Fine, Reid, but we have to make up time. TERA is a very long, difficult debate, and we won’t solve the concerns anytime soon. As for the changes, who knows? Are we headed toward the future from the Terminator movies, or the world of X-Men? All I do know is that the criminals searching for us right now have the same enhancements we do, so it’s not like we have an advantage.”
“Maybe not in that way, but I do have years of training and experience. So here’s what we need to do.”
She was right. They needed to make up time, and stopping to debate the merits of a miracle cure was not a beneficial use of their resources.
Knowing she was born with TERA a part of her DNA, he was able to trust her civilian instincts a bit more, triple-check her less. At first, TERA had been created to focus on one illness at a time.
Degenerative eye or nerve diseases, but not both. Being born with it in her system meant she had, naturally, a more general formula affecting the make-up of her entire body. Optimizing each organ and muscle and nerve. She truly could hear and see as well as he did, if not better. As long as she stayed in shape, which, eyeing her body, he had no doubt she did, she would be strong and fast. It was time to test his theory.
For the next hour, he pushed her, testing the limits of her speed and sight, no longer worrying about finding places to rest. Judging from the expression on her face, she loved it. How often did she get to push herself like this anywhere outside a gym? The fresh air and exertion had his heart pumping and racing as they climbed and dropped, ran across clearings, and hid from sight at a split-second’s notice.
Their enemies were everywhere, it seemed. There shouldn’t have been so many. His commanding officer said there had been a tip-off that the doctor would be attacked, but this seemed more than that. Was there a reverse tip that had betrayed military involvement in a rescue mission? That would explain the enemies’ numbers, but not why they hadn’t simply blown the jet apart sooner.
“Reid?” Jessica’s voice was barely a breath of sound.
They’d climbed a tree, hoping to get more of an aerial view, only to find they were seconds from an ambush. Reid leaned against her back, pressing her closer to the trunk and hoping his camouflaged sky suit would block her clothes. Navy blue wasn’t too bad, but it was still a clash with the environment and easier to spot. Angling his chin alongside her face, her melon-scented hair caught, tangling with his whiskers. He wanted to wrap his fingers around her ponytail and slide them down until he was free of the silky web, but he couldn’t move. His hands were holding a branch above them and any movement to free himself could get him killed. So, instead, he inhaled and enjoyed the sweet scent.
Keeping his own whisper nearly silent, he replied, “Yes?”
“Why send so many if the explosion was meant to kill him?”
Good question. These men were sent to search. Was it really just to find a body and take a few pictures for proof? They wouldn’t have needed so many for that. But if the military intel had been flawed, then that meant the doctor had been meant to survive to be captured. “Who knew you were flying with him?”
“It was a last-minute decision.”
“Influenced by whom?” She held silent, so it had to be a good question. Letting her consider it, Reid returned his attention to the ground below him. One man was settled against a tree very close and slightly ahead of theirs. Reid could see his head, back and arms clearly. Nothing in his face or on his clothes pointed to an alliance, an ethnicity, or an identity of any kind. Only the taser in his hands hinted about his purpose.
Time crawled by, seconds becoming minutes until the scant amount of time they’d made up dwindled and they were just as far behind as they’d been. At this rate, there would be no rendezvous for them. What about Mike and the doc? Would they make it, at least? Mike had said they’d landed safely. A good pair of zoom lenses would have shown which doc had landed on which side of the river. Were there twice as many over there? Or could it be that Jessica was their true target?