The atmosphere in the executive suite had curdled into something utterly suffocating. The air conditioning hummed, but it couldn't strip away the jagged, residual ozone of Malcolm Ford's failed purge or the lingering, terrified scent of the broken Beta woman.
The heavy doors to the hallway hissed open, and Marcus stepped inside, his expression one of polite expectation—until he saw the tableau before him.
He stopped dead. His eyes darted from the sobbing, naked woman huddled on the floor, wrapped in a cheap, oversized wool sweater, to the innocent intern kneeling beside her, and finally to the doorway of the resting suite. There stood Malcolm Ford, half-dressed, his chest heaving, his skin vibrating with a pale, ghostly silver light that looked like moonlight trapped under his veins.
"Sir?" Marcus's voice was small, hesitant. "What happened? I thought... I thought the coordination was compatible."
