“And why do you think that is? Do you think you would still feel that way if I hadn’t pumped you full of drugs and manipulated your circuitry to cater to my every whim?”
I look at her closely—her silky hair wrapped up in a bun, her crystal clear eyes, her soft hands that have brought me so much comfort—and everything I see reminds me how much I want her even now, knowing what I know. Maybe it is ingrained in me. Her point could be completely valid, but it seems immaterial to me. Knowing that I’ve been programmed to want her doesn’t lessen the intensity of the feelings I have for her.
“Yeah,” I finally say, “I do.”
Chapter 19
“How can you even say that?” Riley takes a step away from me.
“Because I still feel it,” I tell her. “Even when I wasn’t sure how much you knew, how I felt about you didn’t change.”
“You only feel like that because of what we did to you.”
I narrow my eyes.
“How long do the drugs stay in my system?” I ask her.
She stares at me for a moment before answering.
“TST levels remain stable for three days, enough to keep you at ninety percent or better for ten. After sixteen days, it’s nearly gone. FOG works on something similar to half-life. After a week, it drops to fifty percent. Two weeks without additional injections, you’d be down to twenty-five, and so on.”
“How long was I gone?”
“Seventeen days.”
“And the FOG injection—that’s the stuff that includes the hormones and whatever makes me drawn to you?”
“Yes.”
“It reacts with the drugs you take,” I say, and Riley nods. “So if most of it was out of my system, and I wasn’t anywhere near you in order for the reaction to take place during all that time, why is it that all I could think about was getting back to you?”
“It’s conditioning,” she says. “Your system wants the drugs, and I provide them.”
“No.” I shake my head. “That might have been a driving force initially, but at the end, when they dumped me in the woods, thinking about you was the only thing keeping me alive.”
I place my hand on her cheek and step close to her, pressing my body to hers.
“Can you explain that?” I ask. “If most of the drugs were already out of my system, and I hadn’t been near you for this hormonal reaction to take place, how is it that I still wanted you more than anything else? I wasn’t even sure if I could trust you, but I still needed to be with you.”
Without waiting for her answer, I place my lips over hers. I kiss her softly, blending our lips and mouths and tongues. I feel relief in the action, understanding that she was deceived just as I was.
Riley lowers her hands from my shoulder to my chest and breaks the kiss.
“There’s more,” she says. “I didn’t know where you came from, but there are things about you I did know.”
I drop my hands to my sides and Riley turns back to the computer.
“There’s one more video I think you should watch,” she tells me. “It might…well, it might change your mind about how you feel. I don’t really want you to see it, but I think you should.”
Riley activates another file, and the image of the laboratory where I have spent most of my conscious time comes into view. She steps back from the computer and wraps her arms around herself.
“This is our first day in the lab together,” she says. “Your implants have all been installed and activated, but you haven’t awakened yet.”
I see myself lying on the bed, strapped down. A moment later, Riley enters with a man who looks familiar. It’s one of the techs from the debriefing.
“That’s Terry Kane,” she says. “He is the lead tech on the project.”
“I remember seeing him before.” I focus on the screen as both Riley and Kane stop at the table near the computer.
“Welcome home,” Kane says with a smile. He takes a small version of a tablet and pokes the screen. “Specimen seven-two-eight-nine. You’ve been activated in the system as his controlling doctor.”
“So I should be all set?”
“He’s all yours.” Kane smiles again. “The drug treatments are set to your specifications.”
“Thank you.”
“The dose is really high.”
“I’m aware of that. I plan on comparing his progress to the other specimens at various stages of training for the tech team to observe and compare. Shweta Rahul is in charge of one, Dr. McCall the other. The specimens will form a three-man team once their training is complete.”
“McCall, huh?”