Read De Novo (The Gene Thief Series Book 1 - Short Story) for Free Online

with an awkward and tired smile. His reaction was typical and unrevealing. A slight smile, but that was all she found due to his dark aviators. Once she entered the plane, he folded up the staircase and door behind her and rushed into the cockpit.
     
    The plane was already running and before she could even buckle herself in, he floored it. She stared out the window looking down on the canopy and, unlike many other missions, there was no longing to return. Tired, starving, and soaking wet, she couldn’t wait to return to her own space.
     
    The danger level may have only been a 5.5, but the suck-factor was definitely an eight or higher.
     
    They landed. Kira rushed into her apartment and got straight to work. No time to change into dry clothes or eat. Mixing different PCR primers and other chemicals to cleave the sequence at specific sites, she was able to get it done in record time. The final product was a normalized amount of DNA with the target gene suspended in nuclease-free water. She sealed the top with parafilm and rushed out the door.
     
    The blue drop box was around the corner, an old USPS box. Located next to an abandoned building, the compartment for the vial was inside, and it required a code.
     
    76432901.
     
    It always boggled her mind how she remembered that number, or when she learned in the first place.
     
    Add it to the list of never-to-be-answered questions.
     
    Inside of the old post office box, a small black box shot out of the inner left wall like a drawer. She stuffed the vial side and closed it.
     
    Once the black box sealed itself shut, she left.
     
    Job complete. On her walk back to her apartment, she was able to breathe, and relax. Her heart could stop skipping beats, and she could sleep. Yes, sleep. Nothing in the world sounded more attractive than a good 10 hour nap.
     
    Casually walking back to her apartment, she looked up at the sky. The sun was beaming. It made her feel like she had spent years in that rainforest. The warmth of the sun felt so foreign. The rays washed over her, cleaning off the filthy residue of the rainforest. She could feel her body replenishing itself. As soon as she entered her apartment, she plopped down on the couch like a sack of potatoes and crashed. Nothing could stop this. It was as if her eyelids were weighed down by anchors.
     
    Tomorrow morning, payment would be in the bank, and life would be good. That is, assuming she was able to deliver with time left to spare.

Chapter 9
     
    Enter password here.
    She rapidly entered the password on the tablet and waited to see the balance in her account. It was the only way to figure out if the mission was a success or not.
    New payment received.
    Just what she liked to see. It wasn't a large sum, definitely not the biggest she's ever received, but it was more than she needed. The balance on her account reached well into six figures but no one would ever know by looking at her apartment. She had adopted a minimalistic lifestyle, and money carried very little weight in her world.
    What did spark her interest was why the payments varied so much. Sometimes the amounts made her look twice at the number of digits, and others made it seem like she did it all for peanuts.
    Did that indicate something about the people she was stealing these genes for? Were the smaller sums of money indicative of everyday people dealing with some sort of crisis?
    Who knows?
    Add it to the list of never-to-be-answered questions.
    She walked over to one of the bare walls and took out a magic marker. She added an X next to the others. Each one representing its own mission. She didn't feel the need to differentiate the missions because at the end of the day, they were all the same. A different gene, different targets, but the same outcome.
    She was yet to fail at any single mission and, by the grace of that vine, she was able to continue that streak. She walked away from the wall and went back into her living room. She turned on the small box TV,