Wild Tiger Chase | Book #2 (Complete)

50: duality

— Rio — 

Keep your distance. Don't approach him. Ignore his wounds.

His orders were simple; still, Jackal's office was so silent and everything was so still inside it, that when his gaze crossed Toni's, Rio almost ignored them and barged in to take care of him.

Sissy was working on her gem grinder to the left, and Modraniht jotted down notes on a plexiglass board. Fortunately for Rio, before he could step inside, Jackal sighed and took a loud step into his field of view. Rio froze and reeled back, his eyes widened and his heart racing. He hugged the briefcase in his arms and pressed his back harder against the wall.

With a hum, Jackal stopped in front of the three massive plexiglass boards filled to the brim with notes and diagrams written in rushed calligraphy. She tilted her head this way and that, then let out another sigh and continued walking. Rio peeked through the door's dirty, narrow glass window.

"What are you trying to say, exactly?" She stopped and pivoted around to face Modraniht. "What do their genes have to do with all this? All I want is to understand why Léon's powers feel so wildly different from Antônio's and see if we can draw some conclusions from that."

Before answering, Modraniht put the lid of his pen back on and took a deep breath. "Do you know where power traces come from, Connie?"

Rio almost liked to see his team working. Jackal had always been a great boss, an even better colleague, and in the beginning, Rio loved being beside such an interested and inquisitive mind. Still, as the months, then years passed, something about her changed.

Jackal rolled her eyes like a teen listening to their strict parent. "Of course I do, Yule. Power traces come from the ancient derelicts that reappeared when the polar ice caps melted; the bacteria changed our DNA and caused all this." She outstretched her arms as if to show her surroundings; Rio thought that maybe she was showing herself too—and everything she had done...

Which, considering everything Rio had seen in their six years working together, was a lot.

Modraniht nodded. "You also know that the first thing that happened when we started to change was—"

"Yes. The personality enhancement. Then the stress, the steep increase in production of mood stabilizers, the pharmaceutical cold war, yeah yeah yeah." She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow as if to say, is that all? "Your salary comes from that money, you know. Thank my father for that."

"Right. Maybe I will," Modraniht said in a strained voice. "What I'm saying is that, ultimately, the frozen derelicts not only changed our DNA. When they interacted and eventually merged with our genes, they were also changed by them, which explains the different power traces. These powers aren't given by chance; they're an expression of how our genetic code was written and, at the same time, they respond to very complex colonial patterns."

"Wait." Jackal perked up. "So our powers can... somehow communicate with each other? Like... like intuitive communication? Body Language, all that shit?"

"I wouldn't go as far as calling it communication," Sissy said in a distracted tone. She flipped a few switches and pressed a couple of buttons in the grinder's panel. "They must use it mainly to establish some sort of stability. Like limiting the number of cosmic trace wielders, for instance. Nature is always trying to achieve balance, after all."

"Balance is overrated." Jackal huffed.

Sissy scoffed; Modraniht shook his head.

"As I was saying, if there's anything that could make such a drastic difference in how the cosmic trace behaved during your"—Modraniht's voice hardened—"compulsory testing, it's got to be the gene variations and how they affect power traces."