“No.”
“Legos.”
“Afraid not.”
“What did you play with as a kid?”
“Guns.”
“Just guns?”
“And knives.”
“Guns and knives.”
“Also, explosives.”
“You—” Dr. Dante rubbed his forehead. “Have you ever used clothing with Velcro or did you staple gun your clothes to your body?”
Nox stifled a laugh.
Dekker’s face reddened. “Yeah, doc. I’ve used Velcro.” Dekker peeled back the strap of the bullet-proof vest he had on and laid it back down.
“Well, the defective genes could act as the hooks on Velcro. And the genes that need to connect are the loops—you know the fabric side with the little hoops of string.”
“I know what the loop side is.”
“Just checking. I mean you did play with bombs…” Dr. Dante pinched the bridge of his nose. “The problem is, where would they get enough Mah DNA who’d taken the VrK?”
“I killed a lot of Sarvari when they were hunting us.” Nox had no idea how many, but more than a dozen he was sure.
“Those were destroyed,” Phillips said. “I oversaw it myself.”
Dr. Dante tugged on his bottom lip.
“What about Canada?” Nox left behind a swath of shredded bodies bleeding into the snow. “There were at least a thousand men there.”
“Denton mentioned a breakthrough about a month ago that finalized the formula,” Phillips said. “That lines up with Nash being there.”
“Was there a source of defective DNA in Canada?” Dr. Dante said it to Dekker.
“Yeah, there were defectives among the dead.” Dekker rubbed the back of his neck. “When we collected the bodies, there was evidence Paul had been tying them. Most were Mah who Phased out. But a few were…grotesque.”
“I thought your father wanted them destroyed,” Nox said.
“Just add it to the list of things Paul did against our father’s orders.”
Dr. Dante looked up. “Then Canada had everything they needed; stem cells, a large sampling of mutated chromosomes, and brain tissue.”
The color leached from Dr. Dante’s cheeks and his smile shriveled. “Oh shit.”
“You okay?” Nox put a hand on his shoulder. “Dr. Dante?”
“A single neuron can hold memories. That’s why the cur came after me.” Absolute agony twisted Dr. Dante’s features. “It remembered.”
“What do you mean remembered?”
“The brain tissue they used.” Dr. Dante looked at Dekker. “It belonged to your brother.”