Legend of Michael by Lisa Renée Jones Page A

she’d only recently started to feel when he was near. Had he been here? While she slept? She shook her head. No, that was nuts. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since Saturday night. She glanced at the clock on the wall and shook off the memory, cringing with her tardiness. She’d arranged to have ten lab techs begin a round of brainwave testing on the soldiers as of mid-morning, and she still had preparations to do.
    Another ten minutes of searching for her keys, and she gave in and called Kelly to come get her. “You lost your keys?” Kelly said. “How very unCassandra-like of you.”
    Five minutes later, Kelly pulled her blue Camry to the curb and shoved the passenger’s door open.
    “Something is going on,” Cassandra said the minute she slid inside, as she started replaying the events of the weekend.
    “Adam’s involvement is enough to make me nervous,” Kelly said, cutting her a worried look. “I don’t care what your profiles say about the man being within normal aggressive range. When you look into his eyes, pure evil looks back. I am betting these brainwave tests of yours are going to be far more revealing than discovering the X2 gene has been.”
    Cassandra’s cell phone rang, and she fished it out of her purse, silently wishing for a call from Michael. Instead, it was one of her staff members. The call was quick, and she hung up more worried than ever.
    “Okay, Kelly. Now I know something is wrong. My staff received a memo that all soldiers scheduled for the brainwave testing were indefinitely reassigned.”
    “Reassigned?” Kelly quaked, whipping into the main parking lot. “What does ‘reassigned’ mean? As in another military base? The GTECHs?”
    “I don’t know,” Cassandra said, motioning across the parking lot as she spotted her father in deep conversation with a ranking officer. “But I intend to find out.” The minute the car stopped, Cassandra was out of the door, purse over her shoulder. “I’ll meet you in the lab.” She slammed the door and took off across the pavement, her black high-heels pounding across the concrete slab.
    “Father!” she yelled, making sure he knew she was here and wasn’t about to let him get away.
    With a barely-there glance over his shoulder, he offered a short wave of acknowledgement and continued speaking to the officer. About the time Cassandra reached the two men, the officer saluted and then headed across the parking lot.
    “I’m on my way to a meeting,” her father said. “Whatever you need is going to have to wait.” He started walking away, dismissing her.
    She double-stepped to keep up with him, firming her voice. “I just heard that some of the GTECHs in my studies have been reassigned. Why wasn’t I told?”
    “You’ll get a briefing when everyone else does,” he said, quickening his pace.
    She grabbed his arm, drawing him to a halt. “Don’t dismiss me like I’m one of your soldiers.” He’d apparently forgotten she could be as dogmatic as her mother when she wanted answers. “You brought me here to do a job. I need to know what’s going on to do it. I can quit. They can’t.”
    “You try my nerves, Cassandra. You are my daughter, but you are also an employee of the base who will get the information as I deem it necessary.”
    “I can’t do my job without proper communication. I had expensive, specialized testing scheduled this morning that just got flushed down the drain.”
    “Duty first, Cassandra,” he said tightly. “I’ve taken command of a secondary base which required immediate high-level security. You’ll find a list of soldiers removed from evaluation status is already in your inbox.”
    “How many soldiers?” she demanded.
    “Fifty.”
    That was one-fourth of the GTECHs. “What about our research? We don’t know enough about the GTECHs to simply send them off to duty like any other soldier.”
    “Dr. Chin left this morning with the troops,” he said. “He’ll oversee the scientific