“What do you mean?”
Dr. Dante leaned closer. “Mah carrying enough of those mutated genes might not need to bite someone to change them.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “The VrK changes all the rules. It changes everything. Now? It could take as little as a scratch.” Dr. Dante slumped. “They want me to fix the VrK so they can have females and build their own lines. And there’s no telling what effects that could have on the probable transmission rates. Even if the bite isn’t as contagious as it could be, it could become more contagious if I tinker with it, so it works with resistant cells. I can’t do it. I can’t take the risk.”
“I don’t think Johnathan’s the type of person to go around making curs.” Even if the VrK used to make the Mah was more likely to create curs if the Mah bit a human.
“He might not, but what about someone else? What if a Mah doesn’t like the status quo and decides to build an army? What if one of them just hates humans so much they want to eradicate them?” Dr. Dante tore out the page he’d been writing on. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Tell him no.”
“They could decide not to give me the choice.” Dr. Dante crumpled the paper in his fist.
“Nox won’t let them do that.”
“He needs to worry about you, not me.”
“I’ll worry about you, then, and he’ll help me protect you.”
“And if I… you know…run? How can either of you protect me from that? I don’t even understand it, let alone know how to avoid it.”
Neither did Luca, but there had to be a way, and if there were, he’d find out.