Ghostwalker 05 - Deadly Game

under her bed. "I don't see any slippers anywhere. Why don't you grab a pair of socks if you don't want to wear shoes?" He tossed her a pair.
    Mari caught them and sank down onto the cot again. "How did all this happen, Sean?
    When did it all go to hell?"
    "Just put the socks on."
    "If Brett comes back here, I swear one of us isn't going to walk out of this room alive."
    She paused, the sock hovering near her toes. Her gaze met Sean's. "I mean it. I can't let him touch me ever again. I hate it that much."
    "I'll take care of it. I'll find a way."
    "You've been saying that for weeks now. I'm not the only one being forced into something disgusting, Sean. We talked about this and you said you'd get Whitney to listen to you, but he didn't. Would you honestly want to live this way?" She donned her socks and stood up, following him out the door.
    "Is Brett the reason why you did it? Are you hoping Whitney will keep him away from you if you're pregnant with Norton's baby?" He led her down the hall to the elevator.
    Mari shoved her fingers through her hair, betraying agitation. "I'm not accepting him.
    One way or the other, I'm not accepting him."
    "Whitney told me he doesn't want the women to feel the same way over the men, because if the pairing doesn't work – if for some reason she doesn't get pregnant, or the baby isn't what he'd hoped – then he can send another partner."
    She stiffened. "The baby isn't what he hoped? What exactly does he plan to do with a baby that isn't what he hoped?"
    Sean frowned. "I hadn't thought about it. Maybe adopt it out?"
    "Adopt it out?" She dragged her feet, slowing as they made their way down the corridor toward the laboratory.
    "Well come on, Mari, you can't tell me you want to sit around with a crying kid hanging on you."

    "If it was my kid, yes. Is that what you'd want? Your child sent away?"
    "I don't know what I want. When Whitney talks about how genetic enhancement can save so many lives and if we just developed a group of soldiers with superior skills, so many young men and women would never have to lose their lives or have catastrophic injuries, it makes sense. I can go out and do what I've been trained to do and know that someone else, someone not nearly as skilled, might be killed – would probably be killed – if I wasn't doing my job. Doesn't it make sense to work toward finding a solution to war?"
    "The babies are still our children, Sean," she pointed out. "They aren't robots; they deserve to have the same choice you as an adult have. They deserve the same rights other children have."
    Sean pulled open the door to the medical laboratory and waited for her to enter first. "If you could just hear him, Mari."
    "I have heard him. He raised me. He found me in an orphanage, and facilities and laboratories like this one have been my home since that day. I didn't play like normal children; I didn't even know there was a normal. Martial arts and shooting guns were normal to me. I've never been on a swing or gone down a slide, Sean. I was out in the field playing battle when I was six. I never had a holiday. No one tucked me in at night. Is that the kind of life you want for your son or daughter?"
    Sean shook his head. "I'll talk to him again."
    "It won't do any good. You know it won't. He'll just present his 'this is for the good of mankind' argument, and no one can get around that. He doesn't think with emotion, Sean.
    He discounts emotion altogether. When he pairs a couple, it's just physical attraction. Or that's what it seems to be. He doesn't want to run the risk of emotion, because then the parents might care about each other as well as their child. What would happen when he decides to experiment on the child – or he doesn't think the pairing was what he wanted after all and he wants to break the couple up?"
    "He wouldn't do that."
    "No? I think you're deluding yourself, and I don't understand why. We had hundreds of discussions about this and you always agreed with the rest of us. What Whitney is doing is wrong, Sean."
    Mari looked around her at the cold stainless-steel counters, sinks, and gurneys. She hated this room. It was so cold, yet when they turned on the spotlights, it was glaringly hot.
    Surgical instruments lay like torture implements in neat little trays. She tore her gaze from the knives and forced herself to smile at the small, thin man waiting for her. "Dr. Prauder, I'm reporting for a checkup."
    "So I've heard. Whitney wants a full report on