The Gender Game by Bella Forrest (historical books to read txt) 📗

(it would be rather hypocritical for Matrus to import goods as destructive as guns from Patrus) the design was practically identical.

I paged through the dusty pages until Lee and Samuel returned, both panting as they moved inside. Apparently their walk had turned into a jog.

Lee headed to his room to take a shower and get ready for the evening—something for which he only needed fifteen minutes. Then he was downstairs again, looking crisp and fresh as ever, wearing a new suit—deep burgundy in color.

Leaving the house, we rode back down the mountain to the city, while the sky darkened overhead. On arrival at the lab—a seven-story building whose walls consisted entirely of shiny, dark-tinted glass—Lee punched a code into a number pad and the gates drew open, allowing us inside. After parking and removing our helmets, Lee took my right hand and planted it firmly around his arm before leading me through the revolving doors.

My heels clacked against the sleek floors of the reception area. There was nobody behind the long white desk, even though a phone was ringing. Lee moved to it and, leaning over the counter, picked up the phone.

"Hello?" he answered, frowning. "Oh, Viggo. Yes, Lee here. Nobody's behind the desk. Why were you calling? Maybe I can help. Huh. Okay, yes." Lee moved behind the desk and examined a computer. Then he read out a string of numbers. "Did that work? Okay."

Lee hung up and looked at me. "That was Viggo Croft," he murmured, moving to my side. "The code to the back gate was changed, he was calling in for it. He'll be heading here—"

A door creaked from some distant part of the building. Then footsteps grew louder. A door opened to our left and in stepped a tall, handsome man with a mane of dark brown hair. Wearing a trench coat and heavy boots, he looked less unkempt than in his photo, with just a little stubble darkening his thickset jaw, though he had a scar across his right cheek which I hadn't noticed in the photograph. His olive-green eyes swept over the room and landed on us. They paused on me for but a second before he gave Lee a brief nod and headed across the room to another door.

"Viggo." Lee spoke up before he could reach it. He took my hand and led me toward the warden. "This is my new wife, Violet." My attention was drawn momentarily to Viggo’s hands as we neared; his knuckles were red and raw, like he'd punched someone or something one too many times without adequate protection.

Viggo's eyes returned to me, his right brow raising a fraction. He nodded, his expression remaining stoic. I nodded back just as curtly.

Then his focus resumed on Lee. "Good evening, Mr. Bertrand." He turned and left the reception.

The room went quiet, still, in his absence. As though his presence had brought with it an aura of tension.

"Well," Lee whispered, blowing out softly. "That was quick…"

"Yeah," I said dryly. "He didn't seem to approve of me."

Lee chuckled. "There aren't many people he does approve of, apparently. He's a loner. Lives in a cabin by himself up in the mountains."

Lee fell silent, his eyes narrowing like he was straining to listen to something. Then he said, "Do you hear that?"

I strained to listen and nodded. I could just about make out voices murmuring somewhere in our vicinity.

"My colleagues, a few rooms away. The work day is over, but they often hang around in the evenings… Anyway, let's take a look around."

We moved to an elevator and Lee punched the button for the seventh floor.

"There are seven levels in total, as you can see," Lee said, trailing a finger over a map of the facility that hung against the elevator door. "The lab is huge with hundreds of rooms. It's recently been renovated and expanded," he explained. "It was less than half the size only last year."

That would explain why everything looked so new and shiny.

Arriving on the seventh floor, I realized why Matrus ought to be afraid. I wasn't a scientist, but the apparatus contained within these labs looked sleek and sophisticated. The building itself seemed to be almost as large as the city lab in Matrus. That was saying a lot, considering that Matrus' lab was also used for routine euthanasia of criminals. In Patrus, from what I knew, they didn't bother with all that hassle. If somebody committed a serious crime like murder, they were publicly hanged.

"Are you aware of everything they're developing here?" I asked Lee in a whisper as we moved along the wide hallway and peered through open doorways of the labs.

"Not everything," he said. "But a fair amount. A lot of time and resources are going toward developing the 'smart drug'. Its official name is Benuxupane," he added. "The drug has already been formulated and deemed fit for consumption. Several scientists in this lab are going to take it within the week."

"Will you?"

He shook his head. “No.”

"Do you know the real reason they're developing it? What exactly do they plan to do with it?"

"Matrus' news channels have basically got it right," Lee muttered beneath his breath. "Emotions are a hindrance to King Maxen's plans."

Before I could ask anything more, we turned a corner and arrived outside a closed white door, next to which was a screen. Lee swiped his thumb, and the door opened.

We emerged in another lab, the largest I had seen so far, with row after row of tables lined with microscopes, Bunsen burners, and specimen racks filling the room from wall to wall. Around the edges were glass cabinets, some containing books, others piles of folded lab coats… but as we roamed the lab, one in particular caught my eye. Lee noticed where my attention had flown, and it appeared that this was where he was leading me.

"You've spotted it, haven't you?"

It was hard not to spot. One of the glass cabinets was unique from the others. It didn't have shelves, and the