Page 34 of Saint

“We believe they found out about the effects quite by accident. The woman who died, Mary, she was one of the first to be exposed. Her exceptional perception of emotion and feeling was like nothing they’d seen before. At first, they were going to blow it off, then others were discovered.

“Children with speed, strength, or intelligence unlike others. That’s when they decided that they would use the children as experiments.”

“We think they discovered that children were easier to expose to the radiation without suspicion, and for whatever reasons, it worked better. It didn’t work the older you got,” said Adam.

“That’s right,” said Stephanie. “If you were above the age of fourteen, the likelihood of it affecting you was less than forty percent. If you were eighteen or older, it was less than ten percent. The rest, unfortunately, it killed, and if the radiation didn’t kill them, they ensured that they died by other means. Accidents, etcetera.”

“So, what exactly did this stuff do to us?” asked Akin.

“The radioactive particles soaked into different parts of your brains, causing an overload of that portion of the brain. For some, it was artistry, physicality, technology, or the pieces of our brain that no one has yet to be able to figure out.”

“Fire starter,” whispered Nat.

“Yes, honey. Fire starter,” said Ryan. “We all have the ability to do it, but our brain has not been, shall we say, jump-started in that area. Yours was inadvertently jump-started. They had no way of knowing where that would happen.”

“That’s why they turned to injecting the brains,” said Stephanie. “If they wanted superior intelligence, which is what they ultimately focused on, they injected the parts of the brain responsible for superior intelligence.”

“So, they didn’t inject anyone for superior strength or speed any longer?” asked Griffin from the back of the room. Stephanie smiled at the ghost and nodded.

“That’s right. They realized that other than you and David, no one survived that. Their bodies were torn apart by the force. The same is true for Juan and his ability to transport.”

“Naked,” he frowned. “Sorry, Julia.”

“It’s okay,” she laughed. “After I screamed, it was funny.”

“That’s not helping,” he frowned. The room chuckled with them, and Ryan brought their attention back.

“The schools that the agency was running were using a modified version of the radioactive particles small enough to be injected. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Because of that uncertainty of success, they stopped the schools,” said Ryan.

“But it didn’t stop Michelle Fryar,” said Paige. “She believed that the injections should be continued, and there was a way to convince others of it.”

“All of us,” said Spook, holding tightly to Valentina.

“Yes. All of you. What she didn’t know was if the skills could be passed on to the next generation. We know that they cannot. There are no signs of radioactive particles in Esme or Fan. They are intelligent, but not obscenely so.”

“So, all of this is because she’s crazy and thinks she can reproduce all of us?” asked Marilisa.

“Well,” smiled Thomas, “she’s definitely crazy. She also, as we know, is considered genius as well. She was at The Depot at the same time as Griffin and some of the others. In spite of that, she’s shown no signs of having the radioactive particles in her body, at least not at the levels that all of you have them.”

“How is that possible?” asked Marilisa.

“We’re not sure, but we think we might have an idea. Both of her parents worked on this project. Both were highly intelligent, above average IQ levels. Her mother was an expert in radioactive exposure and how to prevent that from happening. I suspect that she protected her daughter, and she didn’t even know it,” said Thomas.

“But she has a high IQ,” said Stephanie.

“She does, but it’s not VG-genius level, necessarily. Her IQ level is below most of yours. It’s below mine. Her parents had high IQs. It stands to reason that she would simply because they were adamant about her education.”

“Then she truly is delusional,” said Marilisa.

“Indeed. We learned yesterday that she was terminated from her job at the DOD. Jim Reich is an old friend of my grandfather’s,” said Thomas. “He called to tell me about some interesting files they found that she had encrypted. Even videos of some very strange things in the mountains of Wyoming.”

“Oh, shit,” muttered Kane.

“She had you being watched from every possible angle. I’m not sure how she did it, but she bypassed Akin and Ashley’s sound barriers, Gable’s animal friends, all of it. He’s destroyed those files for us, and I owe him one,” said Thomas.

“You said that you picked up on radiation from her when Saint, Brax, and Griffin returned from meeting with her. But you said you believed she was protected,” said Stephanie.

“Yes, that’s true. Remember, she’s been exposing herself to this over and over again since her childhood. Her parents were no longer available to protect her,” said Ryan. “What concerns us most at this point is that if she no longer has the DOD as her cover, if she no longer has the ear of the United Nations, she’s going to be reaching out to other sources that we don’t want her to touch.”

---