Read Online Overload Flux by Carol van Natta - Free Book Online Page B

pharma companies. The expansion of galactic civilization has given us millions more chances to encounter new diseases, and the pharma industry has blossomed. Pharmas are monstrously profitable as is, and they expend a great deal to avoid regulation and accountability. If pharmas had no competition, imagine where we’d be.”
    On their way out of the building, Luka detoured to the lab and asked them to add amino origin tracing to the array of tests he’d ordered. The clone idea was worth pursuing, if only to rule it out.
    The only thing worse than Etonver ground traffic was Etonver parking, which explained why they had to walk six blocks to where they’d left the vehicle. Fortunately, pleasant fall days were one of the compensations for living in Etonver.
    Despite the relief of being able to stretch his legs, Luka’s thoughts were chaotic. He’d been off balance ever since coming back to Rekoria, and he still hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about the patterns and possibilities that fit the too few facts they had. He had no objectivity left to work on a murder case in which one of the victims had been a good friend.
    It had been Leo who’d convinced Seshulla Zheer that La Plata needed a reconstruction specialist in the first place. Luka had a large number of casual acquaintances across the galaxy, but few friends. Sooner or later, his obsessiveness, intuition, and hidden talents made most people uneasy or angry. Leo was one of the few who took them in stride, and more than that, respected and valued them.
    Luka knew he wouldn’t be good for anything unless he regained some equilibrium. Maybe a long run after work would help him find it.
    They turned a corner, and he wished he hadn’t been distracted by his upcoming meeting on the way in, because then the presence of a Citizen Protection Service minder treatment clinic would have been less of a shock. There was a sameness about the look of the clinic, like all the other CPS clinics he’d ever seen or been in on other planets. But it was the distinctive smell that got him, a kind of smoldering-medicinal-plastic miasma that drifted out over the walkway. Almost as bad as the cheap potato-mash alcohol his father favored. The rest of his thoughts fell apart as dark and bitter memories came tumbling like sharp rocks swept in by floodwaters.
    * * * * *
    Mairwen was puzzled when Foxe slowed to a stop on the sidewalk in front of the local CPS minder clinic. She was almost getting used to his sudden changes in focus. She waited for him to turn and explain, but he was staring at the door with unseeing eyes. His expression reminded her of the haunted look from the warehouse and in the spaceport, though not as vivid.
    Not knowing what else to do, she simply stood with him, keeping watch to make sure he wouldn’t be a casualty of some inattentive pedestrian. After a long passage of seconds, an obnoxiously loud vehicle horn caused him to startle and wake from his trance. She waited, keeping an eye on him as he found his bearings and noticed where he was.
    “Sorry, I...” he said, and then hesitated. He slanted a long look at her, then focused on the pavement. “Old, bad memories.”
    “It’s okay,” she said softly. She had more than her share of her own, just buried deeper at the moment.
    He took a slow, deep breath, then started walking again, faster than before. Once they were past the clinic, some of the tension left his face, but not his shoulders or his gait. She didn’t expect an explanation, so she was surprised when he spoke, his voice low and flat.
    “My mother was a high-level telepath in the Citizen Protection Service, recruited right after second testing, but she didn’t do well on the enhancement drugs. After she left the service on disability, my fökking father refused to take her to the treatment clinic because he thought it was her own fault for getting addicted. As if the CPS had given her a choice. He believed she should