Page 61 of Dark Gambit: The Play

Edna sighed. "How the world has changed, and at the same time, it hasn't. No matter what the political regime is about, it's always about money. Communists, fascists, dictators, monarchs, autocrats, you name it, they are all after wealth and power, and the people they govern are fed fantasies and lies about ideals and morals to keep them compliant, or they are terrorized into toeing the line. Regrettably, we see the same thing happening in democracies, which used to be a little better before they adopted similar tactics of mass control."

As the soup was served, the political talk thankfully moved on to Callie's culinary skills, and the atmosphere lightened.

"This is the best butternut squash soup I’ve ever had." Syssi scraped the last drops off her bowl. "Would it be too presumptuous of me to ask what's the secret?"

Callie put her spoon down. "You have to bake the butternut squash first, along with carrots and sweet potatoes, and the ratio between the vegetables is critical. I keep adding them in small quantities until I get the right taste."

"Don't you follow a recipe?" Kaia asked. "Like one of each?"

"You can't do that because you never know how flavorful the particular vegetable you are working with is. As a general rule, I use one sweet potato and one carrot for each medium-sized squash, but if you want the flavor to be just right, you need to keep tasting."

Annani listened to the back and forth about cooking methods with a smile on her face, but her mind was somewhere else.

Turner was onto something with his idea about resurrecting the Doomers and using them to benefit the clan. They were a neglected asset. The problem was that compulsion was not enough to change them from the inside out.

Was it possible to turn murderers and rapists into good people?

Given Wonder's transformation, maybe it was. Gulan had been a timid girl who had hated her size and her physical strength. She had been raised as a servant, and if not for Esag breaking her heart, she would have never run away. She would have lived out her life as a servant without ever thinking that there was anything more she could do.

The woman who had awoken thousands of years later was a different person. Not an ounce of servitude had remained in her, and she could not even stand her old name because it reminded her that she used to be a servant. She was a warrior, if a reluctant one, but she had used her strength to save herself and other innocents.

Gulan had been the product of her upbringing. Wonder was the woman she had been born to be.

Then again, Gulan's parents had not been monsters like the fathers of those Doomers. But who was to say that those fathers had been born like that? Maybe they had become monsters because of the way they had been brought up?

Biology and genetics were complicated fields that Annani understood only superficially, but what if what was encoded was not only what was inherited from the parents but also one's life experience? Was it possible to reprogram that somehow?

Her eyes shifted to Kaia.

Fate had sent the girl to the clan for a reason, and it might not only be to provide William with a wonderful life companion or to decipher Okidu's journals. Her unique set of skills and her sharp mind made her the perfect person to figure out how to reprogram genetic behavior anomalies, especially since she had all the time she needed to explore and test her ideas.

Kaia did not suffer from humanity's biggest limitation, which was time.

46

DARLENE

"Do you want to go to your auntie?" Karen handed Darlene one of the twins.

She still couldn't tell them apart. To her, they looked identical, but she could get away with it by calling them sweetie, honey, or handsome baby boy.

"I'm heading out tomorrow." Gilbert bounced Idina on his knee as if she was a baby, but she didn't seem to mind. "I wanted to fly out, but Kian suggested that I take a moving van with a couple of Guardians to help me pack, and I took him up on his offer."

"Which ones?" Eric asked.

"I forgot their names. Max brought them over and introduced us. One of them is going to rent the van, and the other one will drive me to the rental place, and we will continue from there. I figured that driving over wouldn't make my trip that much longer than flying."

Darlene tensed at the mention of Max's name. Tomorrow was the Guardian’s day off, and they'd made plans to give Eric's idea a try. She'd gone over the scenario in her head a thousand times already, and she still wasn't comfortable with it even though Max's role would be minimal.

She would wear a modest, voluminous nightgown, and she would be on top of Eric with it covering everything so he couldn't see anything, but it still freaked her out and not only because she was about to get bitten for the first time, and not by Eric.

For some reason, having Eric bite her scared her less than getting bitten by Max. She loved Eric, and he loved her back, and anything that happened between them was done with love and care. Having Max at her throat would feel like a violation despite her agreeing to it, and despite him doing them a favor.

It was silly.

So many women who were in a loving relationship got artificially inseminated, and it wasn't to save their lives, but to have the incredible joy of having a child with their partner. The only difference was that instead of having it done at a clinic, she was going to do it in the privacy of her bedroom, with the donor administering the donated venom himself.

"The drive is about six hours long," Eric said. "Between driving to the airport, going through security, and then driving from the airport there, it would have taken you three hours or so. That’s half the time it’ll take for the ride, but you will gain the help of two guys who can work like machines to help you pack and load the van."