Access Denied: The Bullseye

8. Thriller Odds

Genevieve smiled, but her eyes didn't miss the orange bottle Nicole swept into her drawer before pushing it shut. "I'm walking. So, I'm all fixed up now." She probably thought she had been slick in hiding her bottle from Genevieve, but she had seen it.

Nicole Harvey was on medication. It could be for something simple-maybe she had a headache. But no one hides their headache medicine like that.

"Did they let you out today?" Nicole asked, motioning for her to sit down in the chair she dragged over. Genevieve shook her head. All she had done for five days was lay on a single bed. She felt better standing.

"This morning," she told Nicole. "But I have to come in if I feel anything." She was never going back there. "So, this is where you work?"

"Yep."

"Well?" she asked, trying to get their conversation back in flow. Nicole was suddenly quiet and Genevieve didn't understand why. She hadn't mentioned the pill bottle even if it bothered Nicole. And she hadn't done anything else that could have done affected her somehow. "What do you do around here?"

"We make stuff that blows itself and other stuff up." Her quiet-self gone, the devilish smile that spread across her face made her look more vibrant. "In fact, I even happen to have been given the original prototype for the velcrom-"

"What's the velcrom?" Genevieve asked as Nicole started looking for the velcrom prototype.

"You don't know?" Nicole said, looking up from her search. Her face disappeared beneath her red mane. "Velcrom is what we at the weapons division have started calling the thing your brother made. People in Intelligence-by that I mean the tech gunnies. They all just called it, the chip." Her inner outrage was shown through flat tone and face that hated the lack of creative names for a weapon of mass destruction. "I mean, yeah. We get it. It's a microchip. I feel sorry for their kids-I mean what are they going to call them when they're born? This is my son, boy. And here's my daughter, girl?"

"So, velcrom is the thing Jackson made?" she asked as her smile faded from listening to Nicole's rant. She had a knack of thinking about things that probably weren't the most required thoughts or words in the situation. Possibly that's why she was a weapon's specialist. Compliance wasn't something that rewarded you in the long term when you are an inventor.

"Yep."

"And you have it here?"

"Yep."

"But it doesn't actually work, does it?"

"It is a prototype. Just to see if an idea works on a small scale before you go full throttle-evil scientist and buy everything you need to make a microchip of mass destruction."

Genevieve tensed, but feeling the muscles in her stomach tighten where her bullet wound was, she tried to relax. Deep breath in. And then out. "My brother may be an evil genius?"

"You're brother might be a lot of things," Nicole replied simply, not giving any indication of seeing Genevieve's change in breathing. "He's M.A.I-Mentally Advanced Individual-for a reason. All of them are smarter and just... faster with this"-she flung her arms in the air-"stuff. They just are."

Being smart was one thing. Being a Mentally Advanced Individual was another. M.A.I's were trafficked and they were sold and no one knew about it. For course, people knew about it-but they weren't everyday men and women. They were high profile politicians and businessmen. People in high positions in law enforcement and intelligence and government. M.A.I wasn't in civilian clearance. The only reason Genevieve knew about it was because Jackson was one.