Covenant (boyxboy)

Chapter Twenty One

Work was the only thing capable of keeping my thoughts off Connor. I didn't bother trying to sleep, I knew my guilt wouldn't allow it. But since I couldn't fix this latest injury I'd caused him, at least I could keep working on a cure for the first one.

Thinking of my sister Florence's cell cultures earlier today had given me an idea. I pulled up a bunch of EBG's old files, found where her samples were being stored in the cryobank, and submitted a request to have a batch sent down.

While I awaited for them to arrive, I ran pregnancy sims on the old data and put them side by side with the sims based on Connor's N-factor spike.

The patterns were similar. Whatever Connor's theoretical placenta was doing... Florence's real one had done some of it too. By the time the lab tech showed up with the cells I'd requested, I was so absorbed I didn't think to thank her. I grabbed the box from her hands, and the lab doors slid closed in her face. She'd probably go back up to her coworkers and tell them what a creep I was.

I prepped a slide, loaded it into the scope, and examined Florence's DNA sequence. Flushed the sample with omega-hCG and did it again. Isolated chromosome two and repeated the flush while under the scope, recording the results so I could play them back at quarter speed.

There, I got stuck for a bit. Florence's cells produced an N-factor spike too, not as strong as Connor's but close enough to point at correlation. But her chromosome two wasn't the cause.

I dug further, testing each chromosome one at a time until I found it. Florence's chromosome twenty one was the reactive one. It was smaller, which was good news because the next thing I had to do was write a program to analyze and compare the forty million nucleotide base pairs in her twenty one with the over two hundred and forty million in Connor's two.

That took a few hours. I finished the code and patched it into EBG's most powerful processor. Set up the two samples under the scope, checked and triple checked for logic fallacies that would stall the results, and at around five in the morning, I started it running.

The computer went to work. Its estimated time to finish the job was around twelve hours, so I had no choice but to sit with my hyperfixated energies for a bit.

I went to the break room and laid down on one of the bunks to wait it out, but my brain wasn't having it. The second I closed my eyes, my thoughts were swimming with DNA fragments interposed over Connor's stricken expression from last night. My stomach ached.

I wondered how he and Baraquel were doing. Hopefully they were asleep. Connor's vitals were blank on my phone, so he'd taken his watch off. The house security system was undisturbed, so I could be sure they hadn't left; but I had no way of knowing what they were up to.

Maybe I didn't want to know.

I could try to compose myself enough to look for Connor in a dreamwalk. But if he didn't want me watching his vitals, it was a sure thing he didn't want me in his dreamscape. I'd invaded his privacy so much already. I'd caused him so much suffering. I'd nearly gotten him raped. Nearly gotten him killed. Subjected him to an endless series of tortures. And now on top of all that, I'd trampled on his heart.

I wanted to regret sleeping with Jordan, but the pain it caused Connor was still less than if I used him that way. But fuck, I was just so tired of hurting him.

"Ez, buddy, you okay?"

I opened my eyes. Bo was at the break room counter, brewing coffee. He frowned over at me. "You been here all night? I got in this morning and found the scope working some monster analytics."

He carried over a steaming styrofoam cup, and held it out. "Sooo, I saw you got an Elioud to step out with you yesterday. First day of courting season! You're the man, man."