Priyanka was so embedded in Kay's heart that she thought she could still hear her voice. Crisper.
Kay stiffened.
"Honey?" Nick pulled away a little, frowning down at her.
"Crisper," she whispered.
"What?"
Kay looked at him but she didn't see him. She saw through him, to a point a million miles away.
"Kay?"
"Crisper." The word bounced around inside her head. Bless her, Priyanka had given her the key from beyond the grave.
CRISPR.
Because Bill Morrell hadn't been a geneticist. He wouldn't necessarily have known how to edit genes using a CRISPR. But she knew someone who was a geneticist and would have known how to splice DNA into a gene.
Oh God.
Kay gave Nick a little push and rolled out of bed, pulling on the soft yoga outfit. She ran toward the room where she'd worked, but only got as far as the huge plaza. She was almost jumping with anxiety.
Nick was right behind her, frowning. "Kay, what's crisper?"
"Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. I told John that. Where's the office, Nick? Priyanka just gave me the key!"
"Come with me." He led her back, without once mentioning that a dead woman had talked to her. If Kay's head weren't whirling, she'd have kissed him for that. Down one hall and then another and he opened a door and there it was-her workspace, just as she'd left it.
Kay made a beeline, sitting down, opening the root directory.
"CRISPR is the gene engineering and editing system. It can target specific areas of genetic code and can edit DNA at specific locations. If the H1N1 was engineered with specific DNA, they had to use a CRISPR. It wasn't Bill Morrell. He wouldn't know how to splice and edit DNA at that level. Someone else did it, did the genetic engineering. I need to check usage of the CDC CRISPR-Cas9 machines. Someone used those machines, and I think I know who-"
The rest was lost in the explosion that rocked the Grange.
"Kay!" Nick shouted. He threw himself over her, mantling as much of her as he could. The force of the explosion had to be huge to make the floor shake. The Grange was built as solidly as technology would allow.
The floor stopped shaking, nothing falling from the above. Was another explosion coming?
He jumped up, pulling Kay with him. He grabbed her hand and ran while thumbing in the first number on his ASI cell. Each ASI operative had the bosses on speed dial. No matter what John "Midnight" Huntington or Douglas "Senior" Kowalski were doing, they'd answer, day or night. The Senior was away, so Nick called Midnight.
Midnight answered on the first ring. It wasn't a number you called to say hey, howzzit hangin'?
"Nick. Talk to me."
"The Grange is under fire. I don't know who or what is out there. I'm taking Kay to the safe room then I'm going up."
"Get back to you in a minute," Midnight said, and the line went dead.
Nick pulled Kay back for a second at an unmarked stretch of wall. "Here, honey."
"Here?" Her eyes were wide as she looked at the unbroken wall. She wasn't panicking and she wasn't out of breath. Good girl. He felt a surge of pride in his smart princess.
Nick put his hand on a section of the wall and a door slid open. As it did, a light went on inside. He knew what was there. A large, comfortable space with a separate electricity system, separate air system and food and water supplies. There was also a separate weapons locker.
Figuring this thing out was her business. Protecting her while she did it was his.
He urged her into the room but stopped at the door. "This is a safe room, honey. Nothing can get to you here. To get out, punch 2001 on the keypad by the door, but don't go out unless I'm on the other side of that door. I need to get topside."
"Can I help you in any way?"
Nick repressed a shudder at the idea of Kay in the line of fire. "No, no way. You need to stay safe here. We need you, I'm just the muscle."
"Okay." She was watching his eyes, taking her cue from him. "I don't want to get in your way. I'll stay here, don't worry about me."
God yeah, this was a woman in a million. Her world was upended, best friend dead, a man had died in her arms, and she didn't want him to worry about her. He kissed her, waited for the vault-like door to close, and turned to run for the main weapons locker.
His ASI phone buzzed. "Yeah?"
It was Felicity, only on speaker, not on vid. "Nick, you've got an overhead drone. Not a quadcopter like the one that came after Kay. We don't have a perfect visual, I'm piggybacking on a communications satellite, but it's got missiles. It just shot one at you-"