Chapter 20 #3
“You were an aberration,” River replied.
“Your ability … I can't explain why that happened.
We weren't looking to do that. You were supposed to be like the other survivor. The woman. The one who can withstand pain. Variants in the OPRM1 gene can dictate how effectively your nervous system utilizes endogenous opioids to dull pain signals, how fast the COMT gene clears stress hormones from the nervous system, and can control how we process pain. Both you and the woman had the same skills, yet the drugs affected you differently, not in a way I was anticipating at all.”
Everyone was just staring at her, and it was clear River was annoyed they weren't all gushing over her games, manipulating people’s bodies, their DNA, their genes, the very fibers of their being to meet her own personal goals.
“You’re looking at this all wrong. You're looking at it from an emotional standpoint instead of considering all the implications. Don’t you understand what we were doing?
We were physically improving people. Once we learned how to improve something a person was born with, we could figure out how to transplant that same knowledge to give someone skills they’d never had before.
We can change the world. Control how a human being developed, control who lived and who died.
Control life itself,” River gushed, and it was clear she was still enamored with her plans.
“We collected samples of various drugs, stored them in the lab we had built at the cabin, and then we needed test subjects.”
“Victims,” Rose inserted, making her mother huff.
“Advancement requires sacrifice,” River said.
“But Rock forgot that. Your father went soft, thought we were taking things too far.
When word in our community got out about the child genius working on a drug to improve the chances of survival of children living in poverty, I knew she was the answer I'd been looking for, the missing piece of the puzzle. Your brother wanted super soldiers, so I got him a contact with the military. I knew people would be more focused on his research, and nobody would look at what I was doing.”
“Ridge was always unstable, you knew that, and you used it against him,” Rose accused.
“I made the choices I had to make to create a drug that would change the world. Imagine, a world without sickness, without death, where people live forever, strong and healthy, what a world.”
“You're going against the natural order of things,” Rose told her mother. “Death is as naturally a part of life as life itself. It’s the way things are supposed to be. Improving the chances of survival of children living in horrendous poverty is one thing, but trying to eliminate death … it’s crazy, Mother. ”
“The whole world would have worshipped me,” River continued, like her daughter hadn't spoken.
“I would have been a queen, one uniting the entire world under a single person. But then you came along and everything changed. I only wanted one child, a vessel to pour all my energy and resources into. I wanted to abort when I found out I was pregnant with you.”
Rose flinched at the harshness of her mother’s words.
Behind her, Kate saw Steel and Leo flinch as well.
Steel, no doubt feeling the pain of the woman he loved, and Leo probably thinking about how he’d told her to terminate her pregnancy.
She saw his arms tighten around their daughter, and she had never been more glad than she was in that moment that she’d gone searching for him, that Leo and Ariella had been able to form a bond.
“You changed your father, you made him soft. He told me he couldn’t do it anymore.
Couldn’t keep sacrificing other people’s sons and daughters.
Said that I either agreed to stop or he’d turn us both in.
I begged for time, for one last Christmas with our parents, you, and your brother.
He agreed. But only Ridge was supposed to officially survive that explosion.
I was supposed to be declared dead so I could keep working even if your father had set his own plans in motion.
But he ruined it again. He saved you. I thought maybe as you grew, I'd be able to bring you into the fold, but Ridge told me you were useless, terrible when it came to biology and chemistry.”
“Call me useless as much as you want to, Mother, but it’s not going to change the facts.”
“What facts? That you ruined things again? These men would have been the perfect specimens for studying their tolerance to various illnesses. Then there’s the child, I can save her life, study her.
I have the scientist back, and you could have chosen to help me or become a test subject yourself.
The others could have been experimented on, become part of the greatest evolutionary change to ever occur in the history of the world. ”
“No, Mother, those weren't the ‘facts’ I was referring to,” Rose said, making air quotes when she said facts, and shooting her mother a dark grin. “I was referring to the fact that I'm going to be the one to end you.”
With that, Rose, who was now a mere two steps away from them, surged forward, knocking the wheelchair backward, with both her and River in it.
They crashed to the floor.
Pain flared in Kate’s neck, along with a rush of wetness.
And all hell broke loose.