The Catalyst: (Book One) Read online

  The blonde let out a little shriek and dived behind her. Robin sighed.

  “He just wants another glass of water, Amber. Please get him a refill.”

  Amber peeked out from behind Robin’s shoulder and grabbed the glass. She scurried away to refill the glass from the water bottle in the corner of the lab. While Addar watched Amber with an unreadable look on his face, Robin set the papers next to him on the table. The move caused her to lean closer to him than she had been since he left the tank. As she placed the pen on top of the stack, she heard a soft sound.

  She turned her head to see he had leaned forward until his nose was within a few inches of her hair. The sound was his deep inhale. He was smelling her. She was not sure what to think of it. Perhaps, she should schedule some time in the university radiology lab to use their CT scanner. His olfactory bulbs could be larger than a human, he could have more scent receptors. The thought sent a bolt of excitement through her.

  He could have a sense of smell closer to a dogs than a humans. How fascinating. When she stepped back from him, his eyes were closed, a small frown on his face. After a few beats, he shook his head and opened his eyes. They were darker than before, holding some emotion she could not interpret. She tapped the stack of forms, as much to distract herself as him.

  His gaze dropped to the papers. The loss of his attention was like having a physical weight lifted from her. She took a few steps back and observed him. He picked up the pen and clicked it once, clearly learning the simply action from watching her. Then, he began on the test. She had been prepared to do the first few questions for him, but he seemed to need no instruction.

  Her eyes grew wider and wider as he breezed through the test questions. After only ten minutes, he clicked the pen and set it down on top of the completed test. She would need to double check, but from what she could see he had not missed a single question. That would put him in the above average intelligence bracket. When he learned English it would be possible to give him more in-depth testing.

  “Amber,” she called.

  The blonde hurried to her side, ponytail bobbing.

  “Yeah, Dr. Kay?”

  “Please score this for me.”

  Amber blinked, but took the stack from her.

  “That was fast,” she murmured.

  Robin nodded.

  Amber walked over to her desk to begin checking the test, leaving Robin and Addar alone again. Unlike the last time, his attention was on her and her alone. When she turned to walk toward her own desk, his gaze followed her. She sat in her chair, raising her eyes to meet his. His head was cocked to the side in the movement she had come to realize was him puzzling out something.

  “Addar,” she said softly, too quiet for the average person to hear.

  His lips quirked up in a small smile.

  Chapter Seven

  He was silent, as he had been for the past two hours. She could feel his eyes on her face, searching for something only he could know, as she tried to focus on her paperwork. Amber had left nearly half an hour before, casting a questioning glance over her shoulder. Robin understood her concern. She was going to take what could be an unstable life form to her home.

  She had been staring at her desktop, not really seeing the papers before her, considering that very thing. He could not be expected to live in the lab. It was inhumane. She inhaled sharply at the thought. But he was not human, was he? She let her gaze rise to his. As she knew he would be, he was staring at her.

  No. She could not leave him in the small room off the lab. It had been used to house other small mammals from time to time. The largest animal it had housed was an extinct breed of lowland gorilla that had been classified as extinct two decades before. But Addar was not a gorilla. She may not know much about him, but she could see the depth and intelligence behind his eyes.

  He was at least as intelligent as a human. The longer she considered him, the higher her estimation crept. Her mind was already considering the possibilities if he was found to be above human intelligence. She would not be able to keep him away from the scientific community. A being with those kinds of cognitive gifts would have to be shared.

  She let her eyes roam his face, taking in the high cheekbones and perfectly straight nose. He would make any male model sick with jealously, she thought with an internal smile. Almost as soon as the thought entered her head, she pushed it aside. Dropping her gaze back to her desk, she shuffled her paperwork into a neat stack and labeled it as documentation Amber would need to scan into the database.

  There was nothing left to distract her. She took a deep breath and pushed back from her desk. Addar rose to his feet as she was rounding the side of her desk, his shoulders back and chin raised. Whoever he had been before must have been in a position of authority, if his posture was anything to go by. She considered him as she approached. Would he remember who he had been?

  She stopped with six feet between them. With what she hoped was a neutral expression, she took a step back and gestured for him to follow. He raised one eyebrow.

  “Addar,” she called softly.

  She could not be sure, but she thought he tensed at the sound of her voice.

  “Robin,” he returned in a flat tone.

  She tried again, taking another step back and waving him toward her.

  He cocked his head to the side. After staring at her a moment, he took a step toward her.

  She repeated the sequence several more times, taking a step back and waiting for him to follow. When her back was against the door, she grabbed her jacket and the sweatshirt he had refused to wear earlier. His eyes followed the gray material, as she held it out to him.

  “Addar,” she said.

  His eyes narrowed, but he took the sweatshirt and pulled it over his head.

  She averted her eyes to keep from looking as his t-shirt stretched over the muscles of his chest and abdomen. She coughed delicately.

  “Robin.”

  She noticed his gaze was fastened on the jacket in her hand. She gave him a quick nod and slipped it on, settling her purse strap on her shoulder. It would be so much easier if she could communicate with him. She gave him a quick glance and opened the door to step into the hall. No longer needing the encouragement, he followed her silently.

  Robin only considered it for a moment, before she took off down the hall toward Bruce Norman’s lab. She knew he had what she needed. He had offered her his language software when she was learning Spanish. His security was the school’s system, not the updated technology Renon had supplied to her. The simple system ran off a code. One Bruce had given her nearly eight months before. Knowing him, he had not changed it.

  The keypad outside his lab only hesitated for the briefest of moments, before the door slid open with a soft hum. She went straight across his lab to the wall where he kept his software. Her eyes quickly scanned the cases until she came to the one she was looking for: English. She snatched it off the shelf and shuffled the cases to close the gap. With how infrequently he used it, she hoped it would be a few weeks or months before he noticed it was missing.

  She hoped she would think of a good excuse by then. Turning to go, she bit back a scream. Addar was inches from her. So close she could feel his breath on her face. He obviously did not understand personal space. She met his gaze for a moment, before she slid around him and walked back to the door. He followed closely behind her.

  The trip from the basement was silent. She tried to appear relaxed, but from the glances Addar was throwing her she was failing. It was good that it was so late. The grounds of the university were quiet and empty. No one around to see her break the law. She grit her teeth at the thought. What was done was done. She could not un-clone Addar.

  As she waved down a taxi, her mind helpfully supplied a solution to her ethical problem. Simply destroy him. She actually gasped at the thought, as complete revulsion filled her. No. Never. Her gaze slid to the side to take in Addar’s profile. He was as alive and worthy of life as her. As easy as
it would be to erase him and pretend she had never had the insane idea to clone an unknown organism, she would not do it.

  The taxi came to a stop in front of them and Addar visible jerked in surprise. Eyes narrowed, he glared first at the car and then at her. She gave him a small smile, careful not to show her teeth. He did not look amused. Robin opened the door of the taxi and slid into the car, praying he would follow her. As she told the driver her home address, Addar gingerly sat on the seat next to her. She reached across him for the door and pulled it closed.

  Again, she felt him lean in. Sniffing her hair and the side of her neck. She sat back slowly, clearing her throat. The driver, who had been watching them in the rearview mirror, jerked his eyes away and pulled into the flow of traffic.

  “You two working late?” the driver asked.

  She could read between the lines. Robin sent him a prim glare.

  “You can just pull up in front,” she said instead of answering.

  He shrugged and stopped at the curb in front of her apartment building, turning around in his seat to give her an expectant look.

  She glanced at the dash and quickly handed him the amount of bills necessary to cover the ride. By the time she looked to her right, Addar was out of the car and standing rigidly in front of the doorman, Benny. Benny gave her a curious look.

  “My friend will be staying with me for a little while,” she said simply.

  Having worked at the building for two decades, Benny knew better than to ask about a guest’s personal business. He nodded and opened the front doors for her. She slipped him two twenty dollar bills, as she passed and he nodded. For in case her parents decided to stop by. Three years before, when she had just started dating Ken, her parents had shown up unannounced. Using their key to get into her apartment, it had been a very embarrassing situation for everyone.

  Benny would pass on word of her company to the front desk clerks to prevent a similar situation from happening again. No one needed to know Addar was not a new boyfriend. It would be far less complicated if that was the understanding. She led Addar across the lobby to the elevators and pressed the button for her floor. Now, if she could get to her apartment without encountering any of her neighbors she could relax a bit.

  The door slid open and Marty from 9A, stepped off. He started to smile. The expression froze on his face when he saw Addar standing behind her. His eyes returned to her and his gaze turned demanding. As if she owed him some kind of explanation. She raised her eyebrows.

  “Good evening, Marty,” she said, stepping around him.

  His gaze followed her. By the time she was in the elevator, Marty and Addar were staring at each other, sizing each other up. She cleared her throat.

  “Have a good night,” she said to her neighbor, before turning her attention to Addar.

  He was staring at the human man, as if trying to figure out his actions. From the tension in his spine, he was not liking some of his conclusions.

  “Addar,” she called softly.

  His gray eyes snapped to her. With one last disdainful glance, he stepped past Marty and joined her in the elevator. She immediately pressed the button to close the doors. That could have gone very badly. Robin punched the button for her floor, casting Addar a glance from the corner of her eye. As she knew he would be, he was taking in her actions, following the movements of her hand.

  She just wanted to get him safely into her apartment without any more uncomfortable encounters. When the elevator doors opened on her floor, the hallway was blessedly empty. She hurried down the hall, already pulling her keys from the depths of her purse. Addar’s footsteps were so quiet, she checked three times to be sure he was still following her. He was, but his attention was on his surroundings rather than her.

  Robin opened her door and let out a heavy sigh of relief. Once Addar was in her entryway, she closed the door and locked it. The relief of being in her home faded slightly when she realized she was alone with Addar. He was staring at her again, with the same calculating expression. She gave him a small smile and hung up her purse and jacket.

  She turned to find he had moved into her space, holding his discarded sweatshirt inches from her face. She took it slowly and nodded. He cocked his head to the side, watching her hang the sweatshirt on the hook next to hers. She felt his gaze leave her halfway through the action. By the time she turned back, he was halfway across the room, taking in the furnishings. She had not heard him move.

  A shiver went down her spine, as her mind immediately began tossing out unhelpful ideas. He was likely a predatory species. The location of his eyes in the front of his head, the stealth of his movements, the watchful way he took in the world around him. She had a predator in her house. Robin nervously chewed on her bottom lip, as she watched him examine the pictures on her walls.

  He seemed to pause longer at the ones that held her smiling face. After he had seen every framed photograph of her and her family, he moved on to studying the furniture. He glanced at the sofa, then at a framed photograph of her family on that very piece of furniture. Without any hesitation, Addar moved over to the sofa and reclined on it as her father had in the picture.

  She blinked at him. His learning was amazing. Perhaps, alarming. As she watched, his gaze drifted back to the same photograph. He snatched the remote off the coffee table and pointed it at the TV as her father had. After only a moment, he had found the power button and was staring at the TV with a narrow-eyed glare.

  “Addar?”

  He turned his attention to her. His gray eyes were watchful and vaguely annoyed. She raised her chin. It was an automatic reaction to having that sort of look aimed at her, but she mentally kicked herself when Addar’s gaze took in her posture. He turned off the TV without looking and slowly rose from the sofa to face her. His lips pulled back in a snarl.

  She relaxed her posture. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the language software from her bag and gestured for him to follow her across the room where her home computer was set up. He hid his sharp canines, but looked less than pleased. She tried to ignore him, as she set up the software and dug through her desk drawers for the headphones. Robin set them on the desktop and rolled the chair between her and Addar.

  He was still frowning at her, but when she switched on the computer, his expression turned interested. He watched the computer’s loading screen and then followed her movements, as she loaded the first disk and started the program. She could hear the woman’s voice speaking through the headphones. He would not understand any of her words, but once the pictures and vocabulary started…

  She handed him the headset and gestured for him to sit. He did, but it was with an obvious air of distrust. By the time he settled into the chair and placed the headphones on his head, the woman had stopped talking and the first picture filled the screen. He frowned at the image of a human man. Robin slowly reached forward and tapped the speaker image on the screen to have the voice pronounce the word ‘man’.

  Addar’s head cocked to the side and he mimicked her actions by pressing the same image again. From her place so close to him, she could hear the woman say ‘man’ in his headphones. After two more times, his frown cleared and he sent her what she assumed was an expectant look. She tapped the arrow at the side of the screen to move to the next image. A woman.

  A strange expression crossed Addar’s face as he took in the image. He looked down at himself and then over at her. His gaze travelled over her with a slowness that made her stand up straight and take a few steps away from him. His eyes were intense and dark, as he took in the differences in their bodies. From his stare, it was as if he had not realized she was a different gender than him. She swallowed hard and turned her back.

  Moving away from him to the kitchen, she busied herself making a simple meal. If he was a predator as she believed, he would probably be more comfortable with a meat based dish. She stood with the refrigerator door open, tapping her nails on the top of the door with indecision. She had ground beef and ham. As she
started to grab the beef to make a couple burgers, she reconsidered.

  If his diet was similar to a humans, perhaps she should make a salad instead. Or maybe a bit of everything. Still considering, the awareness of being watched slowly penetrated her mind. Her spine snapped tight and she whipped around to find Addar standing behind her. His gaze was a dark, steely gray.

  “Robin, you are woman.”

  She blinked.

  “Robin is woman,” he repeated with an edge to his voice.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He nodded in answer, something he had not done before.

  Robin stared at him with wide eyes. Just how much had he learned in fifteen minutes? He gave her another long look and turned away. She watched him walk back to the computer and put on the headphones. She had brought home the entire set of disks for English. By the end he would be fluent. From his rate of learning, it would take far less than the five months estimated on the case.

  Chapter Eight

  Robin rolled over in bed and stared at the clock. Six. Far too early to be awake on one of her days off from classes. She started to yawn, when she heard a sound from outside her door. She immediately jerked upright, clutching the covers to her chest and staring at the door.

  “Good morning, Robin,” came Addar’s deep voice.

  She alternately relaxed and became tenser. When did he learn that phrase? When she went to bed the night before he refused to settle on her couch, preferring to stay at the computer. Surely, he had not made it through all of the disks.

  “I understand it is rude not to speak when spoken to,” Addar said, a slight edge to his voice.

  Eyes wide, Robin stuttered out a greeting.

  “Better. Should I offer you food or beverage?”

  In a daze, Robin stumbled out of bed. She did not realize she still had her blanket in her hands until she went to open the door and found her fingers tangled in the material. She was being ridiculous. Addar was no more of a threat than he had been the night before. With that thought in mind, she dropped the blanket and opened the door.