Read Online Bear Claw Bodyguard by Jessica Andersen - Free Book Online Page B

introduced to North America and took over their ecological niches, different strains of bioengineered plants had “escaped” from their test fields and outcompeted the native strains to take over. In most cases, the damage had been contained. Perhaps not in this one, though.
    “A science—oh.” Chondra’s mouth stayed round in surprise for a moment, and then she rolled her eyes up and slapped her forehead. “Duh, why didn’t I think of that?”
    “Probably because you’re doing your own official lab work in addition to the queries I keep piling on you,” Tori said, “and you’re running ragged.” Lord knows, she was, though not for the same reason. She thrived on being overworked, and usually did fine on just a few hours of sleep per night when she was off on an assignment. Now, though, she was low on sleep, but not because of work. Instead, she had spent the past two nights tossing and turning restlessly, all too aware of the man sleeping on the floor below, and the fact that there wasn’t anybody else around for miles.
    And she so wasn’t going there.
    Forcing herself back on track—it was bad enough she was asking Chondra and a couple of the others to sneakaround to help her out, worse if she was only giving the conversation half her attention—she said, “See if you can find out who might have been doing work like this, and what they were trying to accomplish. Don’t contact them, though. Just get me the names.”
    Chondra’s eyes widened fractionally. “You’re going to turn them in?”
    “I’m going to do whatever gets me a handle on controlling this thing the fastest. The forest is the priority here, not the politics.” At least for right now. Once she’d dealt with the Forgotten, she would blow the whistle on the culprits. Because losing track of a genetically engineered organism—especially one that she suspected would be highly toxic to humans, based on the amatia DNA—and then failing to call the proper authorities wasn’t just irresponsible, it was criminal.
    “Anything else?”
    “How is June coming with that life-cycle analysis?” Another of Tori’s techs—and also a trusted friend—had pitched in immediately when she heard what was going on. She had been analyzing different samples, trying to figure out how the fungus—or fungus hybrid?—reproduced, and how its youngest stages spread.
    In several sections of the Forgotten, Tori had found areas where the fungal growth was far thinner and younger-seeming than that in the surrounding areas, as if an acre or so of the stuff had died off and then been re-seeded onto the trees. She was hoping that if they could figure out why the die-offs were happening, then she might be able to trigger a more widespread killing of the fungus.
    Maybe. Hopefully.
    “Her preliminary report should be in your email,” Chondra answered. “As far as I know, she hadn’t cracked the die-offs yet, though she’d got some info on the spores.”
    “And not good info,” Tori muttered after pulling up the report and scanning the first few lines. “They’re fire-resistant.” Which meant that torching the Forgotten with a series of controlled burns designed to wipe out the sick trees wouldn’t take care of the problem. If anything, that would make it worse by sending the protected spores into the air.
    “We’ll keep on it,” Chondra said. “There’s an answer. We just need to make sure we’re asking the right questions.”
    “And based on the sequencing data, those questions might be less about natural life cycles and more about which labs have been trying to engineer a potentially toxic, definitely parasitic fungus that contains sulfur-bacteria DNA.” Tori shook her head. “This is getting weird.”
    “As far as I’m concerned, it got weird the second some guy took a potshot at you and you didn’t get on the first plane coming home.” Chondra crossed her arms and gave a disapproving look. “Are you sure you don’t have enough to come