Skin Tight by Ava Gray Read Free Book Online Page A

it.
    In the cells, the overhead lights had gone down hours before, leaving the subjects to their own thoughts, should they be fortunate enough to own any. Most of his colleagues preferred the daylight, but so deep beneath the ground, it wasn’t like sunlight ever touched any surface here.
    Sometimes he likened it to working beneath the sea. Some people simply were not suited for extreme environments. Those who flunked out of the Foundation’s training program also failed at life, but they never wanted to admit they hadn’t read the fine print.
    It was deliciously quiet. Each cell had been soundproofed, so he didn’t have to listen to their whimpering all night long. The ones who could speak were fascinating. A few of them had even earned higher privileges through exemplary performance.
    Gillie was his favorite. She’d kept her name, instead of a number like the failed experiments. She retained all her faculties and, indeed, possessed a rather whimsical charm. Instead of a cell, she had an apartment at the end of the hall. She had books and television, but no Internet. They couldn’t take the risk that she’d try to get a message past their blocks and firewalls. While she seemed content with her life—and she’d known no other since she was a child—it would be unwise to consider her a willing guest. Still, he knew she harbored a strong fondness for him; whether it matched his regard for her, only time would tell.
    Dr. Rowan couldn’t take the credit for her or any of the other successes. He’d been brought into the research late, but he’d seen the promise of it at once. Forced evolution—a chemical compound that could jump-start the process and within a single lifetime offer incredible advances? It was nothing short of revolutionary. He imagined the thrill the serum’s inventor must have felt when the first test group went live in Pine Grove. Free vaccinations were incredibly alluring to lower-class parents, and when one added in a private clinic, it became irresistible. No government red tape? Sign us up .
    It had taken years to collect the subjects they now held. One disadvantage the initial team hadn’t foreseen: underprivileged children had a way of slipping through the cracks. Their parents didn’t file taxes or hold down jobs with any regularity. Oh, the parents had signed releases, but they went off the grid thereafter, making them difficult to track. The arbiters of the tests had reckoned impoverished individuals would lack the resources to move around. Clearly, they hadn’t researched the hypothesis enough. Dr. Rowan would not have made that mistake.
    So sometimes it was too late by the time they tracked their subjects down. The change had begun, but without proper treatment, their prognosis was irrevocable. Still, they must be studied until they could offer no further insight into where the serum went wrong.
    Dr. Rowan went over the test results a second time, but he didn’t like them any better. His findings were conclusive: test subject 34-Q needed to be put down. Her psychosis had grown worse, and she was no longer responding to the medication. She had become violent when offered physical contact. If released from the facility, which wasn’t an option, she would become a burden on the state, a shameless abuse of resources.
    He’d known her most of her natural life. They’d scooped her up five years after the initial trials in Pine Grove. Fortunately, many test subjects lacked a caring nuclear unit, part of the reason they’d wound up getting free vaccinations in the first place. The parents of 34-Q hadn’t argued when the Foundation quietly proposed to assume responsibility for her care. And for years, he’d tried to salvage her. He hated to admit failure.
    But she was inferior stock. Instead of completing a successful transformation, she’d splintered into fragments. She sat and rocked, nothing more, and if one tried to touch her, she screamed. She’d long ago lost the ability to