Page 49 of CHOICE Lover
Before she can pepper him with a million questions, he takes her hand and leads her out. Chryl follows, humming a tune he doesn’t recognize, and he does his best to ignore her and the interested looks she and Electra are getting from his staff. Once the three of them arebehind the closed door of his office, he waves his hand, gesturing for Electra to speak. “Go ahead.”
“What?” she says.
“Ask away. I know you have questions.” Res6 takes a seat at his desk. Electra and Chryl follow suit, plopping into the chairs opposite his desk. He checks his inbox and finds a few documents he can retina-sign while he supplies her with answers.
“Okay, questions then,” she begins, but hesitates. “If the report says I’m likely to get the same cancer my mom had, what do I do?”
Res6 stops what he’s doing, his attention drawn by the distressed wobble in her voice. What is with his visceral urge to draw her into his chest? That’s not like him at all.Be rational, he scolds himself. He’s about to offer her a logical reply when his inbox pings. “Oh, here it is now.”
She moves to stand beside him, leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen. He scrolls down through the report, pausing momentarily on a couple of yellow-highlighted rows. “What are those?” she asks.
“Minor predictors. Those abnormalities are unlikely to manifest as an illness, but given the right circumstances, they could be triggered. Anything highlighted, regardless of the color, should be corrected.”
“I see,” she says.
He stops scrolling at the first green row. It reads:
Generalized Breast Cancer Risk 94%.
“Oh God,” she whispers, putting a shaky hand over her chest. He stares at her hand for a long, unsettling moment.
“The report doesn’t mean you have cancer. It is only a predictor based on a set of data points,” he says, his voice admittedly robotic.
He’s still staring at her hand. He’s not sure what comes over him, but he takes it and cradles it in the space between them. It feels like the right thing to do, which only means her distress is doing things to him that cannot be explained with datasets.
“It says ninety-four percent.” She draws in a few sharp, panicked breaths.
It takes everything in him not to pull her into his lap and promise to fight every battle that comes her way. He clenches his jaw so hard, his molars feel like they might crack. What was the exercise she showed him? Something about touching his forearm. Zorgdamnit, why can’t he remember?Because you were too busy enjoying her touch to be paying attention to what she was showing you, you idiot! Now she’s panicking again, and your mind is blank.
The twisted knot in his chest is deeply concerning. It has to be the romance novels—besides her, they’re the only other variable he can think of. He needs to steel himself like he did in the years after Jerme died and figure out how deal with this very real woman—wait! That’s it. He places her hand on his forearm. “R—”
Before he can finish, Chryl is there, wrapping her arms around Electra’s middle from behind and squeezing—behaving more human than he is. Electra’s eyes go wide, her hand falling away. For a moment, they’re both frozen. Does she see the irony that a manupartner is the one attempting to comfort her too?
Chryl says, “Genetic engineering and gene therapy, in combination with advanced diagnostics, nanotechnology, and regenerative medicine, have effectively eliminated disease. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. That means Daddy can fix you!” Chryl exuberantly bounces, which in turn rattles Electra.
“Thank you, Chryl.” Electra extricates herself from Chryl’s embrace and looks to him. “I must not be to that video yet. Is she right?”
He evaluates the manupartner for a moment, shaking his head. He doesn’t recall that bit of data being encoded into the manupartner’s base mRNA sequence. It’s possible she learned it during her lease with her previous owner. He should check her file—
“Res6, am I goingto die again?”
His gaze snaps to Electra. Her skin has lightened a shade, and her expression is stricken. “She’s right. There is a solution. You’ll be in the DNA modifier for no more than an hour. We have one here downstairs. We don’t use it much anymore since our product is . . .” He can hear the company message he’s about to repeat, along with her words concerning his company, so he starts again. “Occasionally, when we are working on advancements, we have to use it, so we keep it updated with the latest software package.”
Her eyes are glistening now. He shoots up from his chair, determined to be the one to comfort her this time, but Chryl beats him to it.
Chryl ushers Electra back to her chair, pressing her shoulders until she plops into it. Chryl steps behind the chair, digging her fingers into Electra’s hair, massaging. “There, there, honey cakes. It will all be better once you’re recycled.”
A sob bursts out of Electra. She jumps up, batting Chryl’s hands away. “I hate the future,” she cries, and darts out the door.
“Damn it, Chryl.” Res6 glares at the manupartner. “Sit there and stay put.” Then he runs to catch up with Electra, pulling her into the nearest vacant room.
“Hey, it’s okay. Remember, you’re safe now. I can take care of this.” She blinks up at him, her lashes wet with tears. “In an hour, it will be as if you were born with perfectly scrubbed DNA.”
“It won’t change me, will it?” She reaches up, brushing her fingers over her cheek.
It strikes him that Electra wishes to preserve her appearance, despite being born in a time without the medical advancements to simply fix or even experiment with every nuance of one’s aesthetic. He tracks the movement of her fingers, and the urge to kiss every single freckle barrels into him. “Only the things that may shorten your lifespan.”
After a moment of deliberating, she nods. It’s a quick ride down to the corrections department. He takes her hand and is guiding her down the hall, passing the refrigeration chambers where they store the DNA samples and other biological material, when a commotion from inside one room draws his attention.
