Acceptance Read online

  © 2021 Natasha Oliver

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  To the woman who’s got kids and a dream.

  To the middle-aged woman brave enough

  to try something new.

  To the woman who has failed

  but refuses to bow out.

  CHAPTER ONE

  AmLife

  August 7th, 9:30pm EST

  “They have the money, Cliff! It’s not easy funding your research all over the world,” Harry said. “Stop worrying, your name will be included.”

  Included? Is that what Harry thought? He was upset about inclusion? “I have risked my life—” Tusk squeezed the arms of his chair as he regained his composure.

  They were dining at a popular establishment among the DC elite. An outburst was not necessarily out of the ordinary, but Harry had said he was trying to keep a relatively low profile tonight – not exactly an easy accomplishment when you're dining with one of the country’s most well-known senators.

  “Listen, they have facilities everywhere. Pick a country and they’ll even open an office there for you. The point is, there’s no need for us to pay off the local authorities or manage the costs of rundown facilities on our own anymore. It’s a win-win, Cliff.”

  It wasn’t about the money. It was about trust! If Harry thought politicians were cut-throat, wait until he was on a team of scientists working towards a common goal. History only ever had the space to remember one person’s name.

  “No more hiding or running from Katherine and her team. This will give us legitimacy, Cliff. Think about it.”

  Tusk didn’t trust Dr Mallory Fined, the newly emerged leading scientist on evolved abilities – and his former assistant’s aunt. He had gone to graduate school with Mallory, and while most of his classmates were taking on six-figure debts to follow their passions, Mallory wore designer outfits to class. Her backpacks were more expensive than the books she placed in them. But she was intelligent, and no one could take that from her. As much as Tusk and the others wanted her to be there because of her money or her family connections, the truth was, she was there because she deserved it, and that wound up Tusk even more.

  Dr Fined went on to become the founder of a small biotech company that focused on genetic manipulation to reverse the effects of terminal diseases. Her company recently announced it was five years away from uncovering the genetic markers that activated evolved abilities. It was, of course, hyperbole, but the public didn’t know that. The public couldn’t understand that each human was different. They didn't want to hear there wasn’t an easily identifiable and replicable pattern to evolved abilities, or that scientists were at least a decade from finding a “trend” that could then hopefully be extrapolated to the general population (or at least the evolved population).

  Dr Fined had old money, plus new money from her biotech firm, and these combined to create an attractive façade. Tusk had worked with her kind before. She would come in, take over his research, use it to advance her own, and then take all the credit. Oh, sure, his name would be “included”, but only as a footnote a research student might mention somewhere in a thesis.

  “I don’t trust her, Harry,” Tusk said. “And neither should you!”

  “You don’t trust anyone.”

  “And neither should you. Have you asked her why all the secrets? Why didn’t Leona just tell us in the beginning who her aunt was? That she was the head of AmLife? They’re after my research, Harry.”

  Harry sat back as the sommelier approached and refilled his glass. Tusk rolled his eyes and waited. He expected Harry to fire back some banal defense for the Fineds; instead, he spun his wine glass around by its stem while it still sat on the table.

  “Harry—”

  “How long have we been doing this, Cliff?” Harry finally looked at him. “Aren’t you tired of the running? The cat and mouse chase?”

  “It’s about the science—”

  “It’s about the ego, Cliff. You and I both know that. But we’re getting old now. Too old to be living on the edge like you’ve been doing. Barely escaping Katherine’s noose.” Harry lifted his glass to his nose and inhaled before putting it back on the table. “I want legitimacy, Cliff. And I know you do, too. We’ve worked hard enough, and for long enough, hell, we deserve it. I’ve started the process to close the remaining facilities that Katherine hasn’t found.”

  Tusk ground his teeth to stop from launching across the table.

  “I’ve made it so that you can finally step out into the light, Cliff. No more hiding in the shadows. No more facilities with unstable power supplies and local authorities we have to bribe.”

  Tusk’s thoughts were circling too fast for him to focus on just one.

  “You are the lead scientist on Project Tomorrow. You. Not Fined or anyone else on her team. They all answer to you.”

  Yes, that was how things worked on paper, but sooner or later, he would be enveloped into her fold. He would have to use her systems and her scientists, her lab equipment and her engineers to build it, which meant all his designs, his research, his planning and findings would ultimately belong to AmLife.

  “Harry,” Tusk began, but then Harry held up his left hand.

  “Hear me, out, Cliff. I’m chair of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. The subcommittee is submitting a proposal to us tomorrow afternoon that the National Science Foundation award AmLife a 75-milliondollar grant. Seventy-five million! That will secure their position as the company the country – no – the world looks to for understanding evolved abilities. There’s no stopping that train, but you ... You are the congressionally appointed scientist with oversight. You approve the spending of that money, you approve the team members, you approve which of Fined’s projects get pursued and to what extent.”

  Tusk sat back in his chair, completely unaware he had been leaning forward. His hand was shaking so much he would’ve spilled his wine if his glass had been filled any higher, but his thoughts were circling too fast for him to notice.

  “What’s the catch?” It was the only question that really mattered, Tusk realized, and when Harry shrugged and gave him that politician smile, Tusk knew this arrangement had come at a high cost.

  “The research and findings belong to AmLife.”

  Tusk shook his head and then pushed his chair back. He was d
one. He would happily go back to a life on the run if it meant he got to keep his work. Harry had always been his financial backer, but he would find others. Any number of the organizations he had sold subjects to would support him, not to mention the few governments that had already approached him. He would find a way.

  “Sit down!” Harry whispered sharply. “We don’t have a choice.”

  “What do you mean ‘we don’t have a choice’?”

  “I mean, you’ve been gallivanting all around the world … Taking what you want, eliminating what doesn’t work for you.” Harry chuffed. “I can only help you so much. Katherine’s on our asses, Cliff. And it’s only a matter of time before she actually gets her hands on you, which means she’ll finally have the proof she needs against both of us, and I can’t have that.” He sat back and lifted his glass like he was going to take a sip, but once again just inhaled it before putting the glass back down. “I’ve got people on Katherine, I’ve got one of her associates somewhere no one can find her, but Cliff, for you, this is the best there is, and trust me, it’s pretty damn good. You start with a clean slate. Clean … you know what I’m saying here?”

  In the pursuit of science, Tusk had broken a few laws. A lot of laws. “It was necessary, and you know that.”

  Harry chuckled, and this time he did take a sip of his wine. “Even a jury of your peers won’t see it that way.”

  Harry was right. But this deal didn’t feel right.

  “I need to know if you’re alright with this because if not, I’ve got about twelve hours to find a new congressionally appointed scientist.”

  “This is not how I envisioned our dinner unfolding,” Tusk said.

  “That’s the thing, Cliff – things evolve.”

  Change of plans

  August 7th, 10:30pm CST (-1 EST)

  Rox watched the black and white images on the screen from the surveillance drone overhead. It was a simple, 2D image of white dots moving inside a transposed digital copy of the floor plan of the house it was flying over. Its purpose was only to show how many living heat signatures were inside. Right now, it showed three dots. There should have been four.

  Rox looked over at Danny where he crouched beside her underneath the canopy of red oak trees that marked the perimeter at the back of the property. He didn’t move, didn’t flinch, didn’t have an itch to scratch or a shiver to make him shudder. The only thing in motion were his eyes, and she could swear when he was in deep concentration, his left ear twitched, but just the top.

  The night was clear with only a few clouds slowly making their way across the sky. The moon was less than half, but the stars were visible this far out from Houston’s city center. They were deep inside middle-class territory. Each house was a replica of the next: two-car garages, basketball hoops set up in the driveways, and front lawns perfectly manicured to look like the cover of a home and garden magazine.

  Rox reached out with her ability, and the first thing her mind catalogued was the heartbeat next to her, and then the smaller animals taking refuge in the treetops above. She pushed farther, into the backyard and past the sprinklers on a timer. She pulled back when she reached the walls of the house. Its electricity scratched along the base of her neck as it sought to merge with her energy. She exhaled a slow and steady breath before pushing through the discomfort into the back door. She came across the two white dots that were moving in a back-and-forth pattern. The third dot was stationary on the second story. Asleep?

  “We’ve got a problem,” she whispered to Danny. “We’re missing one.”

  His gaze pivoted to her as he extended his hand, silently asking her to pass him the drone’s monitor so he could have a look. It was his first sign of movement since they wound through the copse of towering red oaks bordering the back of the houses in this neighborhood. Rox would hate to come across him in the dark of night. It was not his army fatigue-like attire; it was the solidness of his physique and the granite features of his face that displayed no emotion other than a stern determination.

  She had worked with Danny long enough to know he played by his own rule book. He considered working with Halo a low-risk gig, but he had said often enough that it was the low-risk assignments that got good soldiers killed.

  Technically, she was the field lead, and the next decision was hers to make, but Danny signed on with them for a single purpose: to shape Rox into field-lead material. So, while he wouldn’t tell her what to do, she knew he had an opinion about their next course of action.

  Four hours ago, Halo had couriered a package to the family residing in the house the drone circled. The package had been signed for, and someone from the family had opened it and used the mobile phone inside to call the only number listed in its address book. The conversation had been brief, but the extraction was confirmed for four: Tessa Andersen, dental hygienist in her mid-forties; her husband, Glen Andersen, residential property manager only a few years older; Tessa’s eldest son from a previous relationship, Christopher Andersen, aged seventeen; and Tessa and Glen’s only son together, Tommy Andersen, aged ten.

  “Your call,” Danny said.

  He had drilled into her that the safety of her team was almost always paramount. When she asked what could be worth more than the lives of those who trusted her, his answer was swift and succinct. The mission.

  This was a simple extraction. There was nothing in the Andersens’ background that pointed to them being anything more than the unfortunate victims of an EO hate crime. But where was that fourth dot?

  Rox glanced over at Danny. He was watching her with that same intense look he had on his face whenever she caught him staring at her. It was as if he were trying to read her thoughts, figure out some secret she had no idea she held.

  “I don’t think it’s a trap,” she said.

  In addition to the background check that Walter ran, Meita had Tessa and Glen Andersen followed for a month and their financials analyzed by an investigative auditor she kept on retainer. They would’ve never green-lighted this mission if they had not been confident this family needed help.

  “What evidence you got it’s not a trap?” Danny asked.

  He was testing her.

  “Doesn’t feel like one. Too unsophisticated.”

  “Unsophisticated plans are the best ones. Got anything else besides your gut?”

  Danny taught her that nothing would ever be more valuable than her instincts and to always trust them. They were telling her right now that the family in that house needed Halo’s help. She had been that family. Or something close enough to it to know that bad things happened to EOs who didn’t know how to protect themselves. The Andersens relied on the local police for protection, but sadly the local police were too afraid of the exaggerated news reports about EOs to offer any meaningful assistance.

  “Stop making it personal,” Danny said and took a step closer. “They aren’t you.”

  For a moment she forgot to breathe, then she remembered Danny wasn’t evolved. He couldn’t read her thoughts, but the intensity of his stare was just as unnerving.

  “We don’t know what they are,” she said as she broke eye contact with him.

  “Your call.”

  It was. She didn’t have the time to write out a list of pros and cons, so she took his advice and followed her instincts. “Pops, can you review the drone footage for this place?” She used the field name that Danny had given Walter three years back when they infiltrated Wonderland together to rescue her.

  “I’ve already scanned the footage for the last two hours; nothing seen coming or going,” Walter replied.

  Rox stretched her jaw to ease the discomfort that ran through her ear canal whenever she used her earpiece.

  “What’re you thinking?” Danny asked her.

  Ruby. She was thinking about the time when Ruby snuck out to meet with her boyfriend to discuss where they were going on their first date. It had been the worst possible time for an after-dark rendezvous, and as a result, she and her little bro
ther, MJ, were kidnapped. The memory of the journey it took to reach them in Luang Prabang still gave Rox nightmares.

  “Can you also check to see if the older son has a girlfriend?” she said.

  There was a moment of silence. “And how is that relevant?” Walter responded.

  “We’re missing a dot,” Rox said.

  “Oh.”

  Danny slowly nodded as he realized what she was thinking.

  “I’ll have to get back to you because I’ve got to read through the file,” Walter said.

  “Fine. Also, set a timer,” Rox said.

  “For?” Walter asked.

  “Fifteen minutes to find out why we’re short one white dot.”

  “Right. I don’t hear from you by then, I’m sending Po,” Walter replied.

  The first time Rox met Po was in a fight. He had snuck up behind her and jammed a needle into her neck. In his defense, she was trespassing on private property and, despite being shot with two tranquilizer darts, was still quite mobile and dexterous. In her defense, however, a military-grade armed response, complete with helicopter and wolf, seemed like overkill at the time.

  Po’s real name was Curtis, and he was parked two blocks away in a sleek, new silver minivan that blended into their surroundings. He was their support if anything went wrong. Curtis was a former police detective whose wife went missing ten years ago. They never found her body or any clues leading to her disappearance. It was a cold case, and if Halo hadn’t taken him in, he wouldn’t have survived. He owed Sam his life, but now that Sam was gone, he stayed with Halo just to piss off Walter.

  “Follow my lead,” she said to Danny.

  She walked to the edge of the trees where she crouched and crept along in the shadows until they were against the fence separating the Andersen house from its neighbors. Someone had discovered that the Andersen family was evolved, or at least had an evolved member because the wife had been abducted on her way home from the grocery store five months ago. She had been blindfolded and pushed into a nondescript van. She had been too scared to remember the route or anything about her kidnappers except the anti-EO hatred they spat at her. Her escape had been the result of either dumb luck or “kidnapper incompetence” the police report concluded. Tessa had been the one to reach out to Halo.