“Do you have the other camera in the containment area keyed up?”
Phillips flicked a look up at Harrington before she spoke. “You sure you want to watch him die.”
Koda. She meant Koda.
“I have to see what happened.” If Reese didn’t, he was sure he’d never sleep again.
“Second icon down to the right of the player screen.”
Reese brought up the next video. The camera angle faced the transparent doors of the containment area, giving an unobstructed view of the inside from front to back.
No sound played with the stark black-and-white image of Koda standing statue-still in the center cell. He lifted his gaze. The power of his stare stole the breath from Reese’s lungs.
Nothing about Koda had physically changed since Reese saw him last, but the man staring at the camera was not the same one he’d abandoned. Still no anger, no hate, no sadness, but resignation. It radiated from him even through a digital image, days in the past.
Tears burned Reese’s eyes, and he scraped them away.
In the empty room, Koda’s cell door opened.
He rewound the footage.
The door opened.
Reese hit pause and leaned closer to the screen. There was no sign of anyone in the room to key in the first set of codes for the main locks. Even if the gatekeepers on floor two had triggered them to open, they wouldn’t have without that first security clearance.
“What do you see?” Phillips asked.
“Those doors shouldn’t be able to unlock.”
“Why?”
“Because it takes a two-person activation.”
She glanced at the screen. “Is there a way around it?”
Reese shook his head, then shrugged. “If someone reprogrammed the system.”
“Could Dr. Echols reprogram it?”
An uneasy feeling settled in Reese’s stomach. “Yeah. He’d probably be the only one. But Echols was huge on security. This was his life’s work. Why would he want to reprogram the doors so they could be opened without a two-person activation?”
She nodded at the computer. “Continue.”
“But—”
“Please, Dr. Dante, watch the video.”
Reese hit play.
Koda calmly exited the center cell and walked over to the outer door of the beta chamber. That door also opened, and in one fluid movement, the betas poured out into the room, surrounding Koda who smiled and touched each of them, and they did the same in turn, slipping their hands under his clothes. They’d continuously craved skin-to-skin contact, and it almost always resulted in the loss of clothing and them burying Koda under their bodies, hiding him from the world. Other times they made no effort for privacy when they copulated.
Although Reese had never labeled what they did with any term meaning sex. He had no idea what to call it, but it was clearly something far more intimate. Sometimes they stayed entwined for hours, their movements mirroring how the ichor had behaved when divided. Each section working independently exploring each other until finally merging back into a single organism.
This time, they remained circled around Koda until he gave them some silent command. and they stepped back making room. Their once liquid movements turned rigid as if waiting for orders.
One of them came forward. He was taller than the other males, and a wad of scar tissue marked his back. A lot of them had scars, so it wasn’t a good indicator of their identity.
Reese leaned closer. “Turn around.”