Free Girl Undercover 6 & 7: Emma's Secret & The Truth by Julia Derek Page B

subject line among the senator’s emails and hearing what Emma had said today, it seemed these two knew each other. Maybe I’d find some emails exchanged between them. It was worth a look. Surely, it would be a lot easier to get into Emma’s account than it had been getting into Janine’s. I didn’t want to involve George into this matter, so Ian would have to do the hacking. He owed me bigtime after I had gotten him the password to Janine’s account and retrieved the recording device for him. He also needed to make amends for having tricked me.
    The thought of how he’d fooled me to make me go back into the dining room caused the skin on my cheeks to go hot. I had to clench my teeth together not to snap something nasty at him as we stopped at the TRX stand. I made myself smile instead and pointed at the TRX handles.
    “Let’s do some squat rows to warm you up,” I said. “Give me twenty.”
    Grabbing the handles, Ian began squatting and pulling himself back to a standing position repeatedly.
    “Don’t you want to know what else they were talking about?” he asked when he’d finished the last rep.
    “I do, but it’s better that we discuss that when we’re alone. How about we get together at your place tonight and you can tell me?” I gave him a seductive glance and smile that conveyed better than any words ever could what I really had in mind. Well, what I had in mind after we’d checked Emma’s email, that is.
    His eyes gleamed darkly as he returned my smile. “Sounds good to me.”
    As we continued the session, I focused on pushing Ian hard so that we didn’t have to talk more than necessary. There was plenty of time for that tonight.
    ***
    “I’ll be damned,” I said, doing my best to sound shocked. “They’ve actually been putting microchips into the hybrids?”
    We were sitting in front of the two big computer screens in Ian’s apartment. I had managed to convince him to hack into Emma’s email account almost as soon as I got to his place by telling him I had reason to believe she was involved with The Adler Group. Getting into her account had been as easy as I’d suspected. Right as we were about to check her actual emails, however, I made the mistake of reminding Ian that I needed to hear the rest of all the unforeseen things he’d supposedly learned while listening to the politicians’ dinner conversation. The words had begun pouring out of his mouth. Now I was struggling to make him stop talking without it being obvious that I couldn’t care less about his growing delusions.
    “I’ve never been more serious in my whole life,” Ian replied and sipped on the big glass of red in his hand. “It doesn’t seem like they’ve put microchips into all hybrids, only in the ones created over the last fifteen, twenty years or so. In some labs. But for sure in all of the killer hybrids so they can control them. I did get the impression that it’s mandatory for everyone to have a microchip inserted into their brains before leaving the labs now, though. So that headquarters can keep track of them.” He exhaled. “God knows what else they’ll be able to do by inserting these chips… I can only imagine they’ll be using the chips to make the hybrids do what they want them to do when they want them to do it. But I really don’t know.”
    He rubbed his face, looking frustrated. “The only thing I’m sure of is that they’ll play a big part in the coups. Adler and their cohorts will order all the killer hybrids to attack us using those chips…”
    Ian was muttering, which made it seem like he was talking to himself more than to me. I sighed inwardly; the man must be close to snapping finally. I had to do what I could to stave that off. It was amazing how I could remain so sexually attracted to a nutcase like him.
    “Wow…” I said. “This all sounds terrible. Did they talk about how old a hybrid must be before it’s let out of the labs?”
    “They never said anything about that. I