“Did he disappear too? Because this is starting to sound like a conspiracy.”
Luca laughed a little. “Sort of.”
“Another secret project?” Nox smiled a little and butterflies blossomed in Luca’s stomach.
“Uh, no. I found an article about him being arrested several years ago.”
“For what?”
“He tried to send a bomb to a lab owned by New World Genetics.”
Nox returned his attention to the people outside the window. “Where have I heard that name?”
Luca snorted. “Where haven’t you heard of them. They have commercials on every channel. They’re a big name in trans-genetic research. The hospital where I was treated received a lot of funding from them. The house I live in belongs to them. They let us stay there with no time limit and rent-free from the first time I was diagnosed and began treatment, all because they believe people responded better when their family could be with them as much as possible.” His parents would have lost everything if they hadn’t been so generous.
When Luca’s cancer returned, they’d assured him any and all his medical bills, including hospice were covered.
And Luca’s family wasn’t the only one New World had helped over the years.
Nox rubbed his wrist, scraping his fingernail over the letters across his wrist.
N
O
X
No, not letters. Symbols.
Luca retrieved his computer and flipped it open.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m an idiot.” He chewed his thumbnail while the computer woke up and connected to the Bluetooth again. “It was right there in front of me the whole time, and somehow I missed it. How could I miss it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your tattoo.” Luca typed New World Genetics into the browser. A menu bar appeared at the top of the screen: All images, video, shopping. He chose images, scrolling past awards, buildings, PR photos of men in business suits looking very out of place next to groups of kids in various stages of cancer treatment.
A sign for one of the labs, another still-shot of a commercial, then the logo in simple black and white on the side of a sedan.
N for new, the O representing the planet earth, and the X representing a chromosome in mid-division.
Luca brought his gaze up. “I think I know who brought you back from the dead and made the Anubis.” He turned the computer around.
Nox looked at his wrist.
“That could be why Dr. Dante and Dr. Echols vanished. They went to work for them in the lab where you were.” A place that created monsters would probably work hard to stay under the radar. Which meant their employees stayed out of the limelight.
Nox dropped his hand into his lap and looked more lost than ever before.
Luca closed the computer again. “I was thinking.” He ran his thumb along the edge. “Since there’s no sign of Dr. Dante or Dr. Echols, maybe we could look for Dr. Markus.”
“No.” Nox looked at Luca.
“Why not?”
“He tried to blow up a lab.”