Book 18: A Stranger

Alex

I’m rarely in my office in the spires above the ice but was forced to make an exception today. After my lecture this afternoon, I had a meeting with a few of the other biology professors, which the dean did not attend, and found myself in the gray confines of this dusty little box of a room, which is home to bound copies of the research I’ve done over the years.

Laney blinks up at me expectantly while I look over the lab report on the blood samples the Beta asked for.

“Interesting. Was this confirmed?” I ask, pointing to a line of text.

She nods, so owlish I wonder if she’s even breathing. She can’t be more than twenty, and even then, she looks more like a terrified, socially awkward twelve-year-old girl in the blue scrubs the clinic volunteers have to wear during their clinicals. “It’s a foreign substance, bu