Chapter 1

The next thing Ed hears is a voice whispering to him. "Wake up, sleepyhead. Ed, wake up."

"Wha, what?"

"Get up." He sees Sloan standing in front of him in the hotel robe. "I can’t get out of here until you get up. And what’s the big idea? I don’t need a watch dog."

"You didn’t see the way you looked last night, or rather this morning."

"Let’s go get some coffee and than we can shower and get dressed, that is if our clothes have arrived."

"Mark said anything we wanted would be here this morning. What didja ask for?"

"Jeans and tops, and underwear. I remember the cabin and socks. I figure we’ll be looking for Tom so I’ll need something to work in. I wonder how we’ll find him. Attwood seems to think we can. Somehow I don’t think her highness will make it so easy. Come on, Ed." She hauls him out of the chair and pushes it aside. She leaves the room and heads for the coffeepot. She knows she turned it off so she’ll have to make new.

Walter sees Ed come out of Sloan’s room. He hopes that it doesn’t mean trouble. Ed comes over to him still wrapped in the comforter. "Dr. Attwood, Sloan said she heard Tom last night. I figure it was a dream, but could she have? I mean we really don’t know what they can do."

Walter looks at him and sees the concern in his eyes. "Call me Walter, Ed. We’re all in this together. You’re right. We don’t know. And Mark’s people probably wouldn’t tell us anyway. I think if he’s alive, he would try to contact her. However, if he can only do so in dreams, it won’t do us much good."

Ed wanders over to Sloan to see if he could make the coffee brew faster.

"Ed, after 48 hours on the run, I didn't think things could get any weirder. But then we got here. Pulling up in a long stretch limo and being ushered in the back way with a phalanx of Dominants as armed guards, I keep thinking I ended up in a very bad movie. I can't believe they rented the whole floor. I guess that’s their idea of how to hide in plain sight."

Later, after everyone had showered and dressed, Walter comes in the living room of the suite. He places 4 laptop computers in front of Ed and Sloan, with a stack of CD’s. "You two are our main resource. Since there is not a lot we can do now, you get to do what you do best. Research. With these computers, and the information I was able to acquire, we start researching her career. We find what projects she had worked on, what facilities she has and all about her resources. Look for discrepancies. A project that has one figure for cost but actual costs are different. We have to find out what her cash flow is and where she is spending it. She probably has a secret lab that is NOT on the books. This is likely where Tom will be. What I do know is that the place she was to take Lewis doesn’t exist. I bet Tom is wherever Lewis went."

"How did you get this information?" Asks Ed, as he looks at the discs

"Well, you might as well know. I was going to tell you anyway. I used to work for the government in what was called government service. I can’t be more specific than that. Well, I got a little older and a little slower and a lot tired of people taking pot shots at me so I retired. I died. And than I became a deadman in the service of the government. My job was to be a watcher."

"Were you there to watch Ann?" Said Sloan, with venom.

"No, my job was to watch my erstwhile boss. She must have suspected that was my job. I must have made a mistake somewhere along the line. Or it could be that she no longer thought she needed my services. She is ruthless enough to eliminate anyone in her way. That may be why she needs Tom. He is the perfect assassin. He has no past. He doesn’t exist. There is nothing to erase. When she no longer needs him she’ll kill him. But she probably won’t hurt him until she has him do whatever she needs. That means she needs him to cooperate. The more he resists her, the better chance we have to find him.

Thus they begin. Searching for discrepancies between the official records and the actual records. After 2 weeks of 14 to 16 hour days Walter declared a holiday to evaluate what they knew. With Ed watching television and playing video games, Sloan felt lost. Mark was conferring with Walter. She walks over to them and asks, "What are we doing this for?" She sits on the arm of the couch.

Walter looks at her, startled. "We’re here to find Tom."

"No. I mean why are we fighting. I mean if the new species is actually caused by something like global warming, we cannot win a war. We can only delay the inevitable. We can, however, make the transfer easier.

Ed walks over to them and said "I smell Dr. Parker in lecture mode"

"Ok, lecture mode. If the specie-ization is caused by a global phenomenon, than even if every dominant was killed right now, today, they would appear again where ever a disaster occurs that would be a trigger."

"And what happens when the 1.6 differential starts appearing in the general population. What do we do? Test every baby born and have it confiscated by the government. How would that go over? This species change could have been meant to happen over many generations. Let’s say 50. With 20 years to a generation that’s 1000 years." She snaps her fingers. "That’s all that is, in the process of evolution. Nothing. Look, dominants breed faster than Homo sapiens. When they breed with Homo sapiens, the resulting offspring is always a dominant. In a few generations we’ll be a ‘protected species’ because we’ll be going extinct." She sighs, "I’m sorry, I guess I’m depressed. I miss Tom and I’m afraid I’ll never see him again."

Mark gets up to talk to Sloan. He puts his hand on her shoulder and pulls back in shock: lifebond. He had never heard of a lifebond being formed with a human. Apparently she was unaware of it. "Dr. Parker, I need to talk to you, privately. Could you excuse us gentlemen."