And now, she and all her people were utterly immune.
She knew her face still held the pleasure of that when the door to the decontamination booth hissed open. “Sorry about that,” Daniel said, still arranging his short blond hair as he padded on sock feet to where his shoes waited. “You should have knocked on my door earlier.” He looked at his thick watch, brow rising. “I didn’t realize it was that late.”
Trisk pushed back from the desk, quashing a flash of guilt for her tweaks, some made with his knowledge, some without. “I know you get busy. Besides, they won’t put anything away for another half hour.”
“True, but I hate pulling the skin off the pudding.” Sighing, he bent low over his knees, his sweater in warm shades of autumn matching his brown trousers. “I’m going to request a live trial next month,” he said as his long fingers manipulated the thin shoelaces into behaving. “Maybe Cuba? It’d be nice not to have to worry about that anymore.” He grinned as he looked up at her. “You shouldn’t have the only project making money.”
She smiled back, liking him this happy. “I think it’s ready now,” she said. “There haven’t been any significant mutations in a hundred generations.”
“Not since you helped me strip its redundant DNA out.” Standing, he reached for his suit coat, and she rose, the scent of his aftershave strong as he shoved his arms into his sleeves. She liked the clean, woodsy aroma as she fixed his tie, not caring that his suit was stuck in the fifties.
“Trisk, I can’t thank you enough for your help with the virus’s coat,” he said. “It never occurred to me to modify the protein skin so as to use the host’s own immune response to create those additional, secondary side effects.”
“Just making the value box bigger.” She turned to the door, uncomfortable about everything she hadn’t shared with him. Humans were so far behind, but perhaps that was because the elves and everyone else kept them that way. “It’s what I did my doctoral thesis on,” she said, not wanting to talk about it. “If I hadn’t come up with it, someone else would have.”
“Maybe, but you’re the one who did,” he insisted, and after a last look at Larry heading for the decontamination booth, he followed Trisk into the hall. “It’s an entirely new way to think about viruses.”
The silence stretched as they walked to the glass doors. The quiet was unusual for the chatty man, and his hard-soled shoes sounded loud and obvious. Grimacing, she forced her baby-doll slippers to make some noise, not wanting Daniel to notice she wasn’t making a sound. Through the big glass doors, George read a magazine, oblivious to them approaching.
“How about dinner tonight?” Daniel said suddenly, surprising her. “Just you and me.”
Trisk’s step faltered, and she lengthened her stride to hide it. “Ah . . .” she hedged.
“Aw, come on,” he cajoled, pushing his glasses back up his nose as he got the door for her. “It’s my birthday. Don’t make me spend it alone.”
“Dr. Plank, all you have to do is ask any of the ladies upstairs, and I’m sure they would be more than happy to keep you company,” she blurted, and George chuckled, never looking up from his magazine.
“Is it my breath?” Daniel asked good-naturedly. “Did I forget to zip my pants again?”
She laughed nervously. “No!”
“Then what?” His expression became serious, and she sighed, wishing she’d done something different the last three years. Ignored him, maybe. But striking up a friendship had seemed harmless and made tweaking his virus easier. “Trisk, I’ve known you for three years,” he said as they headed for the big silver elevators. “You don’t have a boyfriend that I’ve ever heard of. You spend all your time here or at home. We have a great friendship, as far as I know. Did I do something wrong?” His eyes pinched. “Did I not do something I should have?”
She hit the elevator call button and turned to him. “Daniel, you’re a great guy—”
“Oh no,” he interrupted, and her eyes flicked up, reading real hurt behind the dramatic fa?ade of being crushed.
“It’s not you,” she fumbled. “It’s me.”
Groaning, he dropped back a step.
“It is,” she insisted as the elevator opened. She hesitated a moment, then taking a deep breath, she got in. Daniel was silent behind her. The doors shut, and she stared at the numbers counting up, wishing it would go faster. A relationship was fraught with more trouble than it was worth, not only endangering her career, but raising issues she wasn’t ready to deal with yet.