Chapter Four
Devon was tapping her nails against the desk in a slow, rhythmic pattern.
She watched the camera monitors as the small fleet of trucks and Hummers wound their way up her driveway.
She wasn’t at all upset by the intrusion this installation promised to be.
Nor was she nervous about having humans around the house constantly.
After all, she had been fully human once upon a time.
And, unlike some of her brethren, she found humans to be useful, wonderful people.
Like Liam Nash, for instance. He was an extraordinary individual.
He was clearly a hardnosed soldier from teeth to toes.
Yet she was already aware, after such a brief amount of time in his company, that he was so much more than that.
While she wasn’t going to claim to be an expert on him after so limited an exposure, she had noted one very important thing.
He had a gentle side. It had been in the delicacy of his touch, the abundance of his concern, as he had put aside his righteously earned indignation at her uninvited touch in order to tend to her well-being.
The contrast between those two facets had kept her thinking about him frequently over the past couple of days.
Devon let her eyes move over Nash as he hauled things off the truck, his huge body twisting and bending with fluid ease.
His strong, muscular legs glided and bent as needed, showing no hint of error in movement despite the awful leg wounds he had suffered during the previously mentioned encounter with a Morphate while in the Secret Service.
Devon wondered if his crew knew he was the first human, the first person, to ever figure out how to permanently destroy a Morphate.
His report had claimed it to be a stroke of luck, and so it might have been, but it wasn’t as though the weapon were a mainstream material or, as he had mentioned, anything a human being would willingly want to touch for fear of its toxicity.
Irradiated mercury.
Devon had gleaned from her conversation with Nash that his team could be appropriately armed with mercury-filled bullets.
She had to assume that meant they were trained in the handling of them as well as their purpose.
The toxic ammunition, while instantly fatal to Morphates, was potentially just as poisonous to anyone who handled it.
Mercury broke down body tissue on contact no matter what the species.
Radioactive mercury … well, that was a no-brainer.
Mercury ammunition was ineffective without a way for the liquid metal to break out of the bullet.
Often, when a bullet impacted the internal bone structure of the body, it would deform on impact, which would release any substance contained within the bullet.
However, just as often it would remain intact.
The shooter couldn’t depend on those odds when in a fight for his or her life.
At present, those who knew about the effects of mercury on Morphates used bullets tipped with a wax-like substance.
It held the mercury in during storage, as well as for the duration of the trip down the gun barrel and to the target, but dissolved quickly at body temperature.
The result was effective and deadly, culminating in a gaseous cloud of Morphate remains.
However, accidents were frequent and misfires dangerous or deadly.
The ammunition couldn’t be used in the summer safely when high temperatures threatened the special wax plugs.
Carelessness could end in mercury leaking everywhere, poisoning the weapon’s carrier.
The delivery system, as Nash had pointed out, was flawed and unstable and had needed dire improvement.
Devon had seen to it that the military would court Candler International for the solution, and she was in the process of providing one.
The first prototypes were resting carefully in the armory behind the surveillance room she now sat in.
She would introduce Nash to them shortly.
She smiled when she thought of how his face would awaken with excitement, just as it had when she’d told him she’d come up with the solution in the first place.
Just like it had when she’d touched him.
Mmm, an unsafe thought, she scolded herself as she watched him move and speak with his team.
He was a beautiful specimen of masculinity, there was no denying that, and part of her itched to get a peek at the underlying sexuality she sensed within him, but unfortunately they were going to have a working relationship and she always felt that it was best if work and play remained separate.
Besides, it was one thing for her to work with, make friends with, and come to rely on humans, and quite another to sleep with them.
Oh, it wasn’t unheard of. There were humans out there who could tolerate the savageness of Morphate lovemaking.
In fact, some sought it out specifically for its roughness and, of course, the blood drinking aspects.
But it was something of an unspoken understanding among lawful Morphates that humans ought to be avoided whenever possible, especially in this respect.
However, there were also unlawful Morphates.
Morphates who looked on humans as lesser individuals, with no more or even less value than a domesticated animal.
That led to a frightening devaluation. Those Morphates thought it all right to use humans and discard them cruelly.
So far such activity had not been discovered by mainstream humans, but rumors were beginning to circulate …
even more so now that Dark Phoenix had broken free of the Alpha Council and its laws.
And if humans knew just how savage and psychotic these unlawful Morphates could be, relations between the races would devolve into chaos.
But in the present climate of Morphate rebellion and feuding, discovery was only a matter of time.
That was why it was so crucial that Morphates and humans alike discover ways to protect themselves against the superhuman strength and savagery of the unlawful Morphates.
Perhaps just knowing protection existed would help curb the unlawful Morphates.
As for herself, Devon wasn’t fond of lying and passing herself off as just another human.
Nor would she ever use a human in such base and evil ways.
She found humans to be spirited and beautiful.
She, unlike some, remembered that she had once been a human, and she remembered what human cruelty had felt like when she had been stripped of all her rights and been experimented on by Dr. Paulson until she had become what she was now.
If she ever did indulge in relations with a human, it would have to be with the truth between them. Otherwise, she would be no better than the beastly worst of her arrogant brethren.
And they disgusted her.
Morphates had the potential to be a wonderful species.
Devon believed that with all of her heart and her soul.
But things had gotten out of control, the decades of focus spent on trying to rebuild Dark Cities that had devolved into chaos and filth had been unbelievably hard on both the original Morphates and their new generations.
Devon remembered those days all too well.
But that had been a very long time ago. Many things had changed, and now she felt it was time for a little equalization between Morphates and humans. Before it was too late. Before humans found themselves overrun and overpowered and all their best ideals stolen from them.
And yes, she had a private agenda. Devon was playing a dangerous game, and now she was dragging more innocents into the fray by protecting herself with the humans from NHK.
But she couldn’t use a Morphate protection force, not considering the details of her research and its purpose.
For although Nash thought he was protecting her, what he was actually protecting was her research and the prototypes.
But NHK at least would have a far better chance than anyone else.
Why not with Liam at the helm? After all, he was the only human she was aware of who had experience killing a Morphate.
Besides, if she had surrounded herself with loyal Morphates, it would have made for just another clan in a war full of bickering clans.
No. When she had her victory, it would be with humans by her side.
They deserved to fight for their liberties as they traditionally always had.
Except this time, they wouldn’t quite understand what they were fighting for, or even necessarily that they were part of an intense war.
The playing fields were about to be drastically altered.
Devon had been working in secret for decades, hiding from her enemies as she had strived to make her plans come together.
She needed to fulfill her obligation to the mortal military, bringing her people down a peg by placing in human hands the means to level the field.
It was a slippery slope. What would then keep the humans from mounting an all-out war against Morphates and using their new weapons to eradicate the interlopers entirely?
But she could ask the same of Morphates who had guns.
Good or bad, she had committed to her course and she would stick to the outcome.
She refused to allow herself to consider what would happen should she fail.
Things were already rising to a head between the feuding clans, as well as the racist Morphate and human factions. She knew she was racing against time.
The idea of losing the race woke her up at night screaming in terror and soaking in sweat.