The Cure by Teyla Branton Read Free Book Online Page A

“How bad is it?”
    Ava shook her head, and her golden hair swung slightly at the longest tips near her chin. She had smooth, clear, wrinkle-free skin, high cheekbones, and a nose that spread a tiny bit more than necessary. Ava was the epitome of a beautiful, successful leader. Though she appeared only a few years older than me, she’d already lived three hundred years. “We don’t know yet. We haven’t been able to contact them since the initial distress call. But Cort and Dimitri will land soon and should be able to discover more even before they drive out to the facility. If the worst has happened, Dimitri hopes to salvage what he can.”
    “It’s the Emporium. It has to be.”
    Ava inclined her head, her eyes meeting mine impassively. “Most likely.”
    For Stella’s sake, I hoped it was a false alarm, or that our physicians and lab personnel had escaped with their research. The life of Stella’s husband depended on it. Bronson was mortal and at seventy much older than she was physically, but it was an autoimmune disease, not age, that was killing him. Stella had once been more at peace with his impending death, but her recent pregnancy had caused her to cling with hope to groundbreaking medical advances involving nanoparticles. Last week the information coming from the Mexican lab had indicated that curing him was a real possibility. We’d been expecting one of the doctors to arrive with the new formula.
    Dimitri had originally arranged for several doctors in the U.S. to work on the problem of Bronson’s illness, but one by one, the doctors’ grants had been withdrawn and their jobs threatened. The Emporium, who invested deeply in health care, wasn’t interested in cures, only in continued treatment. More suffering made money, not cures. They’d successfully blocked cures for cancers, muscular dystrophy, and paralysis due to spinal problems. Renegade Unbounded who were gifted in healing like Dimitri kept organizing research facilities, but the Emporium was just as good at ferreting them out and bribing government officials to impose prohibitive sanctions and restrictions—or threatening grants. With their genetic experiments and forced breeding, Emporium Unbounded agents were everywhere now, from the FDA to the senate. The facility in Mexico was one of the few unhindered research labs left to us—the only one with the promise of obliterating autoimmune diseases. Dimitri spent a couple weeks every month working there alongside his research scientists, and Cort double-checked all their data.
    Stella removed her headset and stood gracefully, the multicolored greens of her dress briefly flowing before settling over her full breasts, narrow hips, and the slightly mounded belly where her child grew. Delicately boned, she had the same confident bearing as all Unbounded, but while most Unbounded were simply arresting, Stella was beautiful. Every feature on her face was absolutely perfect, from her wide brown eyes to her sculptured eyebrows and flawless golden skin. These were complemented by thick, shoulder-length dark hair and a heart-shaped face. Born of an Italian father and Japanese mother, her Asian heritage was prominent and exotic. I’d grown accustomed to her utter perfection, the effect not dimmed by the knowledge of the nanites she, as a technopath, used to achieve such results. Given another option, why live forever with plainness? Though I’d once felt a world of inadequacies around Stella, over the past months she’d become the sister I’d never had, and I no longer let her perfection intimidate me.
    Mari caught her breath. “Stella! It really is you! I can’t believe it!”
    Stella smiled and hurried around the table to enfold Mari in her arms. “Oh, darling girl. I’m so sorry about the Hunters. I would have brought you in last week, but I wanted to give you more time to adjust.”
    “You look exactly the same as when I was a child.” Mari hesitated before adding in a rush, “Then