Inheritance Read Online Free Page B

second. “We could do that.”
    “What’s your hesitation?”
    “Well, a lot of the stuff online was talking about how there’s no proof that we have these abilities. Maybe we should get some proof first.”
    “How?”
    “My dad says he can set up an academic review board to examine us.”
    Reese remembered that David’s dad was a biochemist. “Your dad works at a pharmaceutical company in Menlo Park, doesn’t he?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Why didn’t he suggest that his company do it?”
    “He doesn’t want any suggestion of bias, which there would be if he was involved. He has friends at UCSF who could put together a group of scientists.”
    “What do you think about the Imrian offer to help us?”
    “I don’t trust them. Why? Do you want to take them up on it? And what was the thing that Amber gave you, anyway?”
    She glanced at the device on her desk. “It was a cell phone. She gave us a way to call Dr. Brand.” She suddenly remembered something. “Wait, do you still have my cell phone?” While she and David were at Blue Base, someone had put a report on it that laid out the military’s project to create supersoldiers with Imrian DNA. “I gave it to you so you could read that report, remember? That is totally proof.”
    David exhaled, his breath sending static over the phone. “No, I had to leave it with my stuff and then the base exploded, so it’s gone.”
    “Crap.” She heard a clicking noise and checked the receiver. Julian was on call-waiting. She’d have to call him back.
    “Do you not want to do this academic board testing thing?” David asked.
    “I agree we need proof,” she said quickly. “But do you think the testing is going to show us what we can do? That thing that Amber did when she touched us—how did she do that? We need to learn that.”
    “I definitely don’t trust Amber,” David said, and there was a sharp tone to his voice that startled Reese.
    “I know,” she said hastily. “I don’t either. But how are we going to figure out exactly what we can do? The government doesn’t know much about what happened to us. It would be great to have scientific proof that we’re not lying, but that might not explain how we can use our abilities.”
    “I tried to—to communicate with you last night.”
    She was taken aback. “You mean… telepathically?”
    “I guess. It didn’t work. I couldn’t sense you at all. Not like I could when we were at Project Plato.” He paused. “That
did
happen, right? I’m not crazy, am I? Could you hear me then?”
    “Yes,” she said. “At Plato, I could definitely hear you.” Their disembodied connection had been so strange and yet so intimate, as if their minds had met on some extra-dimensional plane. “It’s different when we touch, though.”
    “Yeah. That feels more like I’m in your head. The time at Project Plato, it felt like I was talking to you on a really bizarre telephone.”
    She sat up, putting her coffee down. “Wait. Was Plato the only place it worked for you? I thought we communicated telepathically yesterday too. In my room when Amber and Julian were here. You couldn’t hear me?”
    He didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I can’t remember.”
    There was a catch in his voice that made Reese think he was holding something back. “What is it? If you couldn’t hear me that’s okay. I don’t know how this works either.”
    “That’s not it.”
    “Then what?”
    His breath whooshed into the phone. “I didn’t like Amber. That’s all. I was distracted by that.”
    She was surprised. If he had been distracted, did that mean he was jealous? She was unexpectedly flustered. “Oh. Um, well, we can try it again sometime when she’s not around.”
    “You promise?”
    She could hear the smile in his voice, and heat crept up her neck. “Yeah.”
    “So… are you okay with my dad setting up that academic review panel thing?”
    She had forgotten they were discussing scientific