Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) by Nicholas Sansbury Smith Page B

to think. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out why they were there. Colonel Gibson hadn’t bought the expensive equipment just in case; he’d procured them to create a cure to the Hemorrhage Virus that Dr. Medford had created—a cure that was never developed.
    Shaking her head, Kate went to Reactor 1. She peered inside the small window of the cylinder and then to the monitor. The machines didn’t do anything but keep the cells alive and extract the media the cells lived in. The real machines were the hybridoma cells that produced the antibodies. And they were already churning them out at a remarkable rate. She couldn’t see them growing, but the read-outs from the computer showed something amazing. 
    “Is this right?” Kate asked.
    Ellis typed several commands into the computer connected to Reactor 12. He turned in her direction with a glowing smile behind his visor. “Our modifications to the hybridoma cells seem to be working. The genes we added are successfully producing enzymes that increase antibody production by over three times the normal rate.”
    She hadn’t expected it to work so well. In fact, she was almost shocked to hear the antibody production was expedited at this level. The cultures normally took about eight weeks to finish, but the cells inside these bioreactors had been genetically engineered using an experimental technique developed to speed up the production of antibodies. It would cut the time down significantly. They might meet their two-week timetable after all. Heck, at this rate, they might even beat it.
    Kate put her gloved hands back on the reactor, leaning in for another look. The faster the antibodies populated, the more human lives they could save. She almost didn’t even recognize the feeling rising inside her—hope. If the other three labs were yielding the same results, then maybe they could all push the timeline up.
    “This is good,” Kate said. “Actually, this is excellent. Now we just need help connecting with other labs to expedite antibody production outside the US. Tomorrow morning, I’ll see if Secretary Ringgold has made any progress.”
    Ellis nodded and followed her to the exit. They locked the room and walked through the empty labs until they got back to their own.
    “Do you mind filing the report and documenting what we did today?” Ellis asked. “I have something to finish up.”
    “Sure, thing.” She looked at the clock. It was already past eleven, and Beckham was probably back from his patrol. She didn’t get to say much to him after Jensen’s burial, and she wanted to make sure he was okay.
    Kate hurried through the report and double-checked her work before she finally shut off her computer. “All done; I’m heading home for the night.”
    Ellis kept his visor pressed against a microscope. “Sounds good.”
    She took a step toward the lab exit, hesitated, and said, “Aren’t you going to wrap things up here?”
    “In a bit, but I’m going to study these blood samples a little longer.”
    “What are you looking for, exactly?”
    Ellis pulled his visor away from the scope and swiveled his chair to face her. “Nothing specific. Just studying the samples we recovered from Colonel Wood’s cache.”
    Kate thought of Beckham again. He was probably waiting for her in their room. She still hadn’t told him about her pregnancy, and part of her wanted to rush out of the lab. But Ellis was keeping something from her, and she needed to know what.
    “Doesn’t sound like you,” Kate said. “You always know what you’re looking for.”
    “I’m worried, Kate.” There was trepidation in Ellis’s normally cheery voice, and his smile was gone.
    “Worried about what? I thought you would be pleased about the results.”
    “I am, it’s just...”
    “What?”
    “I’m worried that Kryptonite isn’t going to work on the scale we think it will.”
    “What makes you think that?” Kate worked her way back to his station and pulled a stool over next