Page 201 of Immune

Fletcher doesn’t react, and Kaito doesn’t turn around. Xeon looks at the floor like my lie is just another piece of furniture, and Ewan puts the headphones down on the table next to me, close enough for me to choose them if I want them.

Mercer studies me for a long second, but he doesn’t call it on me, and there’s the third reason. Maybe.

“I knew Conrad O’Reilly,” he eventually says.

My lungs forget how to do the only job they have.

Dad.

Not Doctor. Not O’Reilly. Just Conrad.

“I worked under him before NOVAC went public. Before the emergency approvals. Before everything got shoved past ethics and into panic.”

His mouth tightens.

“He believed he was saving people.”

That sentence hits worse than any kind of accusation could, because I know. I fucking know. My dad used to fall asleep at the kitchen table with charts under his cheek because he wouldn’t stop working. Mom would rub his shoulders, and Maine used to steal all of his pens. I used to draw on his notes until he laughed and told me my monsters had very good clinical instincts. He believed he was saving people, and maybe that’s how the world ended. Not because someone set out to destroyit, but because someone wanted to rescue it so badly that they stopped asking what that rescue would cost.

The heat under my skin pulses harder, and my scent slips again. Wild honey and rain, sharpened by panic.

One of the guards inhales and Fletcher turns his head slowly. Not a threat, but a warning. It works, too, because the guard looks away.

Hale doesn’t, though. His eyes narrow.

Shit.

Mercer notices the wrong thing at the right time. “Commander, if you want answers, maybe stop letting armed men stare at injured survivors like they’re puzzles.”

Hale’s gaze cuts to him. “Careful.”

“No,” Mercer answers mildly. “We messed up six years ago. I’m not too keen on doing it again.”

I stare at him.

That isn’t funny, but it almost is. Hell, even Ewan’s mouth is twitching.

Valeria looks like she’s only seconds away from developing a headache with everyone’s names written on it.

Mercer opens another folder, slower this time, turning it so the contents face us. It’s all graphs, trial notes, and subject categories.

OMEGA STABILIZATION RESPONSE.

HEAT SUPPRESSION FAILURE.

GENETIC MARKER VARIANCE.

My eyes lock on to that last phrase. Marker. Blood marker. NOVAC marker.

They can follow reaction.

“What marker?” I ask. Mercer goes still and Hale’s head turns. There. Too much interest. Idiot mouth. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Then I add, “The pilot said it. Blood marker. NOVACmarker. I want to know what Vector was talking about before they follow it straight through your fancy wall.”

That saves it.

Maybe?

Mercer taps the page once, not eagerly. Never eagerly. “Some Omega lines responded differently to the early stabilizers. Stronger immune adaptation. Stronger scent volatility. Stronger reproductive resilience. NOVAC called them marker-positive.”