“A GUARD? YOU KILLED Aranea18 to save a Guard?” Professor Conguise’s patrician lips curled upward in a snarl.

McBrid would’ve loved to have pointed out that at the moment the professor didn’t look much different than a Guard, except without the fangs. His tongue ran over his teeth, feeling the flat caps that covered his fangs. He’d been lucky. Except for his teeth and a more burly physique, which he attributed to working out, he looked like an Almighty. He had brown hair and blue eyes. Those would’ve been impossible for his mother to hide. The teeth hadn’t been easy but she’d been determined to protect him and his grandfather had been determined to protect his only daughter.

“She was worth more than all the Guards combined. What were you thinking?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t.” That was true. His instincts hadn’t taken over like that since he’d been a young boy.

“Well, you should’ve been.” The professor walked to the window in his office. “This sets us back months.”

“I don’t agree, sir.” One of his most useful abilities was being able to merge the subservience of a Guard with the arrogance of an Almighty.

“You don’t.” Conguise turned toward him. “Why should I care what you think?”

“Because I’m the expert on the Araneas.” He took a small step forward. It was plotted and planned but he kept his face impassive as if he didn’t realize he’d done it. “If you recall, I was the one who suggested we use Servants instead of Guards for this creature.” The professor didn’t like them called mutations. Conguise believed he was creating new species not mutating existing ones.

“Yes. So?” Conguise’s nose was wrinkled a little as if he smelled something distasteful.

Perhaps, the man could sense McBrid’s differences. Conguise knew that the different classes could breed and produce viable offspring. McBrid had read all the Necessary Truths. He’d spent too many years watching over his shoulder to work somewhere and not investigate everything. So shortly after he’d started, he’d broken into Conguise’s office and had spent every evening for several months studying everything he could find. There’d been pages and pages of information on their ancestry and the lies told to the populace.

He leaned forward. Conguise took an unconscious step backward. He had to tread carefully. If Conguise were too nervous around him, his days here were over and that meant his time on earth was done. “I understand the physiology of the Araneas better than anyone.”

“Obviously, not well enough.”

Touché. “That was an unfortunate mistake and it won’t happen again. I…None of us had any idea she’d be that fragile.” He leaned back as Conguise’s eyes sparked with interest. “Something as strong as her. As fast as her. As deadly as her…and yet, her body was weak. It truly is amazing.”

“Yes, she was and now she’s gone.”

“I can create another one. A better one.”

“She was the only one who survived the process,” snapped Conguise.

“That’s not true. Eight males survived.”

“Not for long.”

“Because she killed them, not because of the transformation.” He moved to the chair by the desk. His time for penitence was over. “May I?”

Conguise frowned but nodded, taking his own seat behind the desk. “You believe you can duplicate the success?”

“I know I can.” He was almost positive he could. He’d tampered with the serum, making the dosage weaker and unknown to Conguise, he’d changed the proportions of the DNA of the contributing spiders.

“Hmm. You said you’d make a better one. Better how?”

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“Aranea18 was amazing but uncontrollable. If you recall, her Servant host was similar. We chose her because she was strong and had a will to live.”

“Yes, and that was the correct choice because she did survive unlike the others.”

“But it also backfired.” He was excited to try this again. Aranea18 had been his duty, his creation but she’d become more trouble than she was worth. “As you’re aware there were many issues, too many, with Aranea18.”

“She was extraordinary. We failed. We needed to learn how to control her.”

“That would’ve never been possible, not with her.”

“How do you propose to change it for Aranea19? She still needs to be strong, fast and deadly. I won’t allow you to make a weaker one. They must be strong.”

Why they needed an army of giant spider-like monsters, he had no idea. The professor usually used DNA from creatures that had existed centuries ago, but for this one and a few others, Conguise had dabbled with local specimens.

“And she will be. I think Ableson was on the right path before…his accident.”

Ableson had been his friend. They’d spoken many times about their work. At the hospital, when Ableson had woken, McBrid had been the first person he’d asked to see. Ableson had been terrified that Conguise would discover what he’d done. He’d begged McBrid to go to his house and the lab and remove all his notes.

He’d thought Ableson had just been frightened because his friend had taken his work home with him. It was against policy to remove anything from Level Five, but they all took their work home. Results were expected—more than expected. If a scientist didn’t produce, that scientist was officially fired. Unofficially, they disappeared. He’d agreed to his friend’s request and had retrieved all the notes and experiments that weren’t logged into Conguise’s system.

“You think if she bonds with you, she’ll obey?” Conguise shook his head. “Don’t make the same mistake Ableson did.”

“I didn’t say Ableson had been right. I said he was on the right path. There’s a big difference.” He’d spent weeks poring over his friend’s notes, and unlike Conguise he knew what had really triggered the River Man to attack. He’d do what scientists did—learn from others—but unlike Ableson, Conguise didn’t supervise his every action.

“The right path? What path was that? The River-Man almost killed him.”

“Yes. Unlike Ableson, I don’t intend to try and get the creature to bond with me.” That was a foolish belief spurred on by Conguise’s teachings. The professor tried to merge the host and the parasitic DNA but that never worked. The DNA destroyed the host. No matter how much serum the professor injected into his creations the host would transform. It’d be replaced by something else, something new, but the professor refused to see that.

“Then what path are you talking about?”

“The Guard who became the River-Man loved his companion.”

“He killed that Servant.”

“Yes.” Actually, that wasn’t what had happened. “But he may not have if you’d changed her too.”

“You give too much credit to the other classes. They don’t feel love the way we do.”

He knew for a fact that was false but as always, kept his mouth shut on that topic. “I believe that if I find a female who is in love with a male, they will breed and she won’t…eat him.”

“You plan on using Servants again?”

“Yes.” He hated experimenting on Guards.

“Good luck with that. They’re the most faithless of the classes.”

“But when they love, they love deeply if only for a few months. We don’t need them to pair forever, just long enough to produce offspring.”

“That’s true.” Conguise’s eyes widened and a small smile played at his lips. “I hadn’t considered that.” He smiled fully. “That’s why I keep you around McBrid. You think differently than I do and although you’re usually wrong, sometimes you brush against genius.”

“Thank you, sir.” Mostly wrong, his ass. His assumptions were almost always correct but Conguise would never admit that.

“Do you think they can be controlled?”

With food, like any other wild animal, but that wasn’t what the professor wanted to hear. “With your permission, we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Go. Find your Servants in love.” Conguise held up one finger, halting McBrid’s exit. “I’m having a dinner party in two weeks. I’d like you to attend. It’s to celebrate Viola coming home from college.”

“She’s almost finished, isn’t she?” He knew of the professor’s daughter, all the scientists did. Many hoped to catch her for a wife, cementing their place in Conguise’s lab. He wasn’t one of them.

“She is. Spring will be her final semester. She’ll come to work for me, of course.”

“Level?”

“One to start. She’ll have to earn her promotions just like everyone else.”

“Of course.” Please. The professor doted on his daughter. She’d be on Level Four before a year was out. Level Five? He wasn’t sure she’d ever make it there. She was a kind, young woman and may not agree with the experiments on Level Five. “Shall I bring a date?”

“No. No.” Conguise shook his head. “I’ve invited everyone necessary. Just show up the Saturday after this one at six.” The professor turned back to his work.

“Thank you, sir.” He walked to the door and stopped. “How is Ableson? I haven’t seen him since his release from the hospital.” No one had.

Conguise looked up, his face now a mask. “He’s fine. Working on some research for me. Not ready to come back to the lab but still useful.”

“Tell him I said hello.” Tell his corpse, because that’s what happened to anyone on Level Five who failed Conguise.