Lone Werewolf Duology (bxb)

18. What Doesn't Kill You

Volya didn't have time to picture what the Mnemosyne would look like, so he prepared to be surprised. He didn't have much time for that either, since Liam led him to a stand-alone building next to the main house. It had a blast-proof door that required an honest-to-god retinal scan to enter.

Granted, after the twelve-year-old girl snuck in and turned herself into a centaur, the precautions from the spy thrillers made sense. He just hoped he wouldn't have to play limbo with the laser beams in the Mission-Impossible style too, because as fast and strong as he was, he wasn't super-flexible.

Liam bent at the tapered waist for the duration of the scan, demonstrating his long, lean lines. Now, there was a flexible man.

So is Toshka, the inner voice reminded him. What? Just saying. It's not a contest or anything. Maybe that wasn't the mysterious voice of his ancient blood talking, just a deeper thought in his subconscious. Nothing so precious that he had to bury it, but his ears still flashed with heat of embarrassment.

The inches-thick door opened without screeching, like it was woven from feathers, rather than solid steel.

Inside the lab, to Volya's immense relief, there was just Sangha, June and zero laser beams or any other rule-of-cool security nonsense. Instead, the inside of the Mnemosyne lab was pretty long, since it was a trailer, maybe 40 or 50 feet, about 10 feet wide and a bit taller than it was wide. Every square inch was ergonomically stacked with the gleaming computer terminals, divided with the mesh shelving units. Binders and print-outs sat in stacks. High-backed office chairs stood by each desk, as well as knee-high filing cabinets topped with a soft cushion to double as a stool, inviting the spirit of cooperation. There were no windows, but one wall of the trailer crawled with living plants.

"My pet project," Sangha commented with a smile when she noticed Volya's gaze stop and travel along the greenery trying to deduce from the leaves' shape and any signs of wilting if it was the actual plants or plastic.

Smack in the middle of everything, under its own transparent dome custom-installed in the trailer's roof, towered a gigantic cylinder full of cherry-red substance.

"Is this..." Volya's voice broke. He cleared his throat, made a conscious effort to nod at the world's biggest jar of marmalade instead of pointing, and finished his question. "Is this the Mnemosyne?"

"Yes," Sangha replied to his semi-rhetorical question. The thing was so weird and out of place otherwise, that it could only have been Mnemosyne.

Volya gawked, wondering how exactly one interfaced with that. He noticed a control panel, a breaker, and a bunch of silvery hoses snaking away from its bottom.

Meanwhile, the usually self-absorbed June came to life. She rapidly circled him, scribbling the lightning-fast notes on a decidedly low-tech clipboard.

"Take your shirt off, sit there. Take the socks off too," she commanded.

One of the desks held a puck-like device, Alexa or whatever, and it took upon itself to translate everything that had been said. Volya couldn't decide if he'd missed Marina or was happy she wasn't there to smirk at his embarrassment.

"Oh, no, not the socks," he quipped to cope with the building unease. He'd never had a woman other than a nurse ask him to undress, let alone do it in a clipped, commanding tone, words overrunning one-another.

June's mouth contorted in such an obvious distress that remorse flooded him. She obviously didn't read jokes, particularly the really stupid ones.

"I'll do it, okay? Don't worry," he hurried to reassure, plopped down on the closest swivel chair and peeled off the contentious hosiery. It wasn't the smartest move, because the ribbed metal floor was chilly even in the summer. Dancing on it in bare feet, Volya hooked up the bottom of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head.