Free GeneSix by Brad Dennison

the lab, his white coat unfastened, its tails sweeping behind him almost like some sort of cape. She loved the way he moved, the way he spoke, even the way he reached for a cup of coffee.
    One time, when hooking up a new coffee maker, he actually looked at the globe and computed in his head how many scoops of coffee would be necessary to produce exactly the correct pot.
    Jake Calder, of course, said, “Why don’t you just read the directions?”
    The doctor looked at him in his slightly distracted way and said, “Hmm?”
    She found this so incredibly endearing.
    She had never told the doctor how she felt. She almost did, on the previous Valentine’s Day. But when he looked at her, with eyes behind which such a super intelligence worked, she found her knees growing weak and she simply couldn’t get the words out.
    It was early Tuesday morning. She had a nine o’clock class, and then at one she would go to the lab and work with the doctor and Jake until maybe seven. Then it would be back to her dorm for many hours of homework.
    She left her dorm at seven, moving at a slight jog. The grass was shiny with morning dew, and the sun hadn’t been in the sky long. She wore a navy blue sweat shirt with the front zipper pulled to her neck, and matching sweat pants. A wide white stripe decorated the side of each leg. Beneath the sweat pants were running shorts, and if the morning turned off warm before she was done running her laps, she could toss aside the sweat pants before she worked up too much sweat and dehydrated. A runner had to be careful. She would use the quarter mile between her dorm and the running track as the opportunity for a light warm up. Her pony tail bounced against her back as she ran.
    Suddenly, a man in a dark suit and a gray trench coat stepped in her way.
    She said, “Excuse me,” and was making a move to run around him when a second man stepped in front of her. Then a third to her side.
    She stopped, not sure what to do, when a fourth was suddenly behind her, grabbing her and covering her mouth and nose with a cloth reeking of a smell she recognized as ether.
    She was screaming, “No! Let me go!” through the ether-soaked cloth, as the world started growing dark.
    Once she was out, one of the men draped her over his shoulder like a sack. One of the others produced a walkie-talkie from his coat and said into it, “We have her.”
    Within a minute, a black Chevy Impala was speeding into view and coming to a screeching stop by them. They loaded April into the car and climbed in themselves, and the car sped away.
     
    The phone in the lab was ringing, and Scott supposed he was going to have to answer it. This was something he hated to do, but April wasn’t due at the lab until one, and Jake was off somewhere still pissed off, not only because of the argument between them but because two D.T.D. agents had tried to arrest him the day before.
    Scott doubted anyone on Earth could arrest Jake, if Jake was not willing to go with them.
    A few months ago, Scott had had a discussion with the lunkhead in the president’s cabinet, known as the Secretary of Technological Development. He was not a scientist, as one would think such a position would require. He was just another sleazy politician who gained his position in the cabinet as repayment for a favor.
    Scott had tried to explain to the idiot that Jake Calder possessed potentially limitless power.
    “Scott,” the Secretary had said in his patronizing way, “nothing is limitless.”
    “If there is a limit to his power, it is somewhere on the cosmic scale. Much beyond the comprehension of a normal human. Maybe even beyond mine.”
    “Scott, you give him too much credit. I’m sure that, while as powerful as he seems to be, there is a limit. After all, just how much zeta energy can he possibly build up before it burns him out?”
    The plebeian used the term zeta energy with a straight face. He always did. He was too dense to catch the joke behind