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first thoroughly inspected.
    The official explanation was that the stringent measures were to protect the delicate materials involved in ongoing genetic experiments. In reality the measures were taken to protect the reason behind those experiments, and to assure that no activity or conversation held inside the clean room was monitored or recorded.
    Lately, GenHance chairman Jonah Genaro had been spending a great deal of time in the clean room, but he had no choice. A month ago he’d discovered a traitor on his staff, one who had been passing along information on GenHance’s most sensitive projects to the company’s primary targets, the Kyndred. He was taking no more chances.
    “I’m sorry, sir,” Dr. Elliot Kirchner told Genaro after he finished relating the details of his latest test trials, and handed off the file to his assistant, Nella Hoff. “Results consistently show that neuroblockers will not mute or nullify the negative effects.”
    Genaro regarded the two scientists for a long moment. Kirchner, a tall, gray-haired man with the graceless build of a long-legged bird, looked like an ostrich beside his petite, slightly built assistant.
    “Whoever injects the transerum will experience significant, cascading cerebral destabilization,” Kirchner continued. “The breakdown of behavioral inhibitors and impulse control will occur within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
    As they had all witnessed when Bradford Lawson, a GenHance executive wounded during a botched attempt to capture a particularly valuable Kyndred, had stolen and injected himself with the transerum. “Is the damage reversible?”
    Kirchner shook his head. “The transerum doesn’t damage the brain, sir. It alters it.”
    “Permanently,” Hoff added, nodding enough to make the bell of auburn hair around her face bob.
    As chairman of one of the largest and most profitable biotech research corporations in the world, Jonah Genaro was accustomed to success. Under his direction GenHance, Inc., was actively researching therapeutic treatments for dozens of genetic abnormalities and disorders. His company was also widely considered the global leader in ground-breaking genetic research procedures, medical applications, and other important developments in the biotech industry.
    Genaro had spent a great deal of time and money to create and maintain that illusion, to ensure that no one learned of the real work going on behind GenHance’s humanitarian facade: using Kyndred DNA to create a serum that would genetically enhance humans and turn them into living weapons. He would not accept that the work of the past eleven years—indeed, of his entire existence—had all been for nothing.
    Nella Hoff’s delicate floral perfume didn’t quite cover the odor of her sweat, and Genaro noted the woman’s nervous hand movements and damp temples before he addressed the chief geneticist. “What will it take to deal with this destabilization issue?”
    Kirchner frowned. “We’ve explored every possible modification, sir, without success. As it is now, the transerum cannot be used on humans without serious consequences.”
    “Unacceptable.” Before the geneticist could reply, he added, “Lest you forget, there are hundreds of human beings in the world who have already been successfully enhanced. The Kyndred were genetically altered and given extraordinary abilities. They still lead normal lives. None of them has gone insane.”
    “That we know of,” Hoff broke in. As both men regarded her, the skin around her nose tightened, but she plowed on. “I’m sorry, Mr. Genaro, but Dr. Kirchner is right. The transerum can’t be fixed unless we re-create the original experiment. The process used to enhance them was lost along with the geneticists who created them. The records were destroyed. There are no living witnesses. Where we are now, we’re dead in the water.”
    Genaro glanced at Kirchner, whose expression remained remote. “The Kyndred are