Free GeneSix by Brad Dennison Page A

it.
    “Mister Secretary,” Scott said patiently, trying not to say what he wanted to, that the Secretary was a bone-head who was hardly qualified even to be having this conversation with him. “Jake Calder doesn’t build up zeta energy, or store it like a battery. He generates it. And he generates it at no cost to himself. His wellness actually increases the more he generates it.”
    The Secretary simply could not wrap his brain around the concept of Jake’s power. Neither, apparently, could the D.T.D. It was a good thing Jake was on the side of good, Scott thought, using the terms of the comic books he had grown up with and which were still dear to him, otherwise those two agents would be dead.
    Scott had theorized, though he had not told Jake, that Jake could probably fire concentrated blasts of zeta energy through his eyes if he tried. Zeta radiation seemed to be harmless to humans, but zeta energy, cranked up to a severe degree, would be of an extremely high temperature and might have vaporized those two agents.
    Zeta energy seemed to be an unstable thing – the reactor explosion was one indicator. Unstable, except when it came to Jake. He seemed to command it, as though it were a part of him, which Scott supposed it now was. Scott wished he could understand how zeta energy really worked. He thought the answer might be multidimensional, but that would have to be explored at a later time.
    He answered the phone. A man’s voice, speaking in the sort of professional pseudo-monotone you heard on police shows, said, “Doctor Tempest. This is agent Tomkins with the D.T.D. I wanted to inform you we have taken your lab assistant, one April Hollister, into custody. We are holding her for questioning.”
    Scott drove a kick into a lab table, and a microscope balancing too close to the edge fell and destroyed itself on the hard tiled floor. There’s a few thousand dollars down the drain. But into the phone, he was deadly calm. “Might I ask why you apprehended her? Parking tickets?”
    “Doctor Tempest, there has been a serious breach of security.”
    “Ah, yes.” Still calm. If Agent Tompkins had any idea what this meant, he would be running for the hills. “You must be referring to the article in yesterday morning’s Press Herald.”
    Tomkin’s voice rose. He was clearly pissed off. “Of course that’s what I’m referring to. Your man, Jake Calder, attacked two of my men yesterday.”
    Before he could go on, Scott said, still calm, “I must correct you on that, Agent Tompkins. If Mister Calder had attacked your men, they would be dead. There’s no force on Earth that can stop him if he doesn’t want to be stopped. Except me. Remember that.”
    “Look, Doctor Tempest,” the agent’s professionally calm manner was fully fading as his ire rose. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but I’m directing you and Calder to turn yourselves in before we have to get rough.”
    Scott was almost unnaturally calm. “Listen to me, you low-life neanderthal. You don’t know with whom you are dealing with. We are titans compared to you. If Jake Calder and I wanted to, we could squash you like insects. Don’t ever forget that. Ever.”
    There was an audible gulp. “We knew it would come to that. We knew the power would go to your head. Listen to me, you ingrate. Your experiments, all of the equipment you have there to play with, has been furnished for you by the United States government. Your very freedom is provided only at our discretion. If it were up to me, you and Calder would both have been apprehended and dissected long ago. You’re a threat to the security of this nation. You are both to turn yourself in within two hours, or we will be coming to get you. Is that clear?”
    “Actually, I must correct you on a couple points.” Still calm. “One, I don’t really think anything has been furnished by the United States government. It has been furnished behind the backs of the American people, and