【ｍｉｓｓ ｔｈｅ ｍａｒｋ】| Crosshair x OC (BOOK 1 of the CHANGING WAVES series)

28 | Gerasko

Zeta slouched, shakily lowering himself onto a nearby chair at a computer desk. "You might want to sit down for this one, Snipes."

Crosshair felt Rylann's gaze on him as the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. "Zeta..." Cross pulled out a seat from the large strategy table, gesturing for Rylann to sit at the chair beside him which she did without a word.

The older clone shook his head as Delta rolled over to them, hands clasped on his lap. Zeta looked over at Delta, eyes drooping as sadness swept over them. "Delta and I are researching because... I'm dying."

Crosshair felt his blood ice over. No. It couldn't be. "But... how? You were fine two weeks ago."

Delta's wheelchair pushed itself forward as Delta stared Cross in the eyes, his grey irises hard and serious. "Right after you left, Zeta had an episode. We thought it was a stroke or something of the sort, but it turned out to be something completely different."

Zeta sighed, pulling out his datapad, pushing up his glasses much like Tech would. "Do you recall the early years of your adolescent phase of growth?"

Cross almost shuddered at the recollection. "Yes, I do," he stated, bitterness seeping into his tone. "Painful."

"The muscle cramps and shifting bones is a normal symptom of puberty, but because of your rapid growth, it was compacted and became very painful." Zeta handed the tablet to Crosshair who almost dropped it from his trembling fingers. "The same thing is happening to me but in reverse." Crosshair's stomach dropped as a video of Zeta's cells deteriorating at a rapid pace. "My body is breaking itself down, Cross."

"But you're not even at the age of elderly yet," Cross argued, unable to wrap his mind around his father figure growing old. "Aren't you just thirteen? You shouldn't hit your elderly age until you're what? Twenty-five?"

Zeta adjusted his glasses. "Well, technically, the proto-clones have aged a lot faster than you lot since we were the first attempt at rapid-aging. Delta got the good-luck of never looking a day older, and it seems I got the other end of that."

Crosshair remained silent as his throat constricted. He believed that this feeling was what came before what Wrecker called crying. He wanted to cry. Crosshair wanted to scream and cry and throw things. There had to be something to help. A cure. If Kaminoans could age clones, couldn't they reverse it?'

"What can we do?" Cross asked, dropping the tablet into his lap.

"What's there to do?" Zeta asked no one in particular. "It's not like I can ask the Kaminoans for their top-secret cloning formula so that I can figure out if it's possible to reverse-engineer it. They want to forget we exist except when they need us to fulfill their inhumane cloning tactics to send more pawns off to a war that makes no sense."

Rylann brought a hand to her mouth, wheels turning behind those dark grey eyes of hers. "Would it help if I got you this formula?"

"Hypothetically, if there is a formula they used to help create the rapid aging, then I could figure out how to reverse it." Zeta sighed, both hands rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses. "I just don't know how they even got it to work in the first place, whether it was using an injection, a chip, altering the DNA..." Zeta paused, eyes shooting up towards Rylann. "Did you say you would get me the formula?"

Crosshair blinked from his stunned stupor, eyes flicking to Ryle. How would she get this said formula? Why would she risk getting this?

Rylann flushed, looking down at lap, fingers toying with the saber at her belt. "Well, I could try." Her gaze rose to Zeta's, dark curls falling before her eyes. "My master is a supervisor of Kaminoan diplomacy for the Council as well as overseer of training. She may have some leeway."