Carnevale and Subterfuge by Selena Illyria Page B

a small smile. He had a teasing glint in his eyes but he didn’t say anything more.
    Diego gave him a nonchalant shrug.
    Roberto shook his head. “You’re torturing her. Hell, you’re torturing yourself.”
    “Let’s focus on what we’re seeing here.” Diego brushed off Roberto’s comments. The collar had two purposes: It was a gift and it had a tracker in it. Also, one of the spikes detached to become a floating camera. If he couldn’t watch over her in person, he’d do it from afar. His attention turned to the officers getting the shots. So far, the secondary testing that Drogan had ordered had come up clean.
    He leaned over to Roberto. “Can the cyborgs manipulate their blood to make it pass for normal?”
    Roberto was silent for so long that Diego feared the answer. “Honestly, no. It’s not totally implausible, but that would take a lot of planning on their part. They’d have to know ahead of time if blood testing was going to happen. This is impromptu. Not enough time, I’d guess.”
    That answer wasn’t good enough for Diego. “Find out for sure. Too many lives are on the line for this.”
    “Like Anarrae’s?” Roberto shot out.
    “Like yours, if you don’t find out.” Diego’s stomach contracted in worry for Ana’s safety.
    Roberto chuckled. “To hear is to obey.”
    “Not funny.”
    “ I thought it was.”
    “Ambassador, this could take a while. Perhaps we could continue our tour elsewhere? Perhaps the cafeteria? It’s dinner time.” Roberto gestured toward the door.
    Diego’s stomach rumbled. “I would love to.”
     
    * * *
     
     
    Anarrae entered the security code for her suite of rooms and waited for the computer light to turn green. Instead it beeped, the red light blinking at her, mocking her. “I didn’t change my code while I was out,” she said.
    She tried again. Again the soft buzz floated up to her. Ana hit her wrist com. The ship’s AI didn’t respond, so she put in a message to tech support.
    “What seems to be the problem?” Lieutenant Anders asked.
    “My security pad is malfunctioning. I tried the AI and got no response.” Ana glared at the pad.
    “We’re doing some maintenance on the AI mainframe right now. We should be done in a few seconds. Sorry for the delay. I could send someone to you who’s in the area.”
    Ana blew out a breath and let her head drop forward. “So thankful that the captain didn’t do a full AI integration.”
    “What?” Confusion filled the speaker.
    Ana rolled her eyes. “Sorry, yeah. Please send someone over.”
    “It will be a few seconds. I’ll stay on the line just in case.” The speaker started to play what was termed on Earth as elevator music.
    Ana leaned against the wall next to her door and relaxed. Her arm no longer throbbed and her headache was almost gone. All she wanted to do now was crawl into bed for some much-needed shuteye. She wasn’t scheduled for duty until tomorrow.
    “Lieutenant Lavender?” a deep male voice asked.
    Ana looked up and up and up until her gaze caught moss-green skin, a lipless mouth, a flat nose, and large black eyes. She blinked. She was pretty sure she had never seen this person before, and she knew almost everyone. Ana pushed off of the wall and straightened up.
    “Yes?” Worry filled her. Had she done something wrong? Still new to the Hades’ Helmet , she was getting used to the ins and outs of the ship.
    The man smiled; at least that’s what she thought as she watched the sides of his mouth curl upward. The mystery man wore a standard-issue uniform for the Hades’ Helmet, complete with epaulets to show his rank as a corporal. He held out his hand.
    “Corporal Froggie. And yes, that’s my real name. I just transferred into the tech department from the Goliath. What seems to be the trouble?” He gave her a small smile that did nothing to ease her nervousness.
    Ana reached out and shook his hand. As soon as their palms touched and he had a firm grasp, she felt a sharp prick