Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 159

                The doors open into a small anteroom. Windermere turns to us.

                ‘This is where we’re keeping him,’ she says, neglecting to utter Teague’s name. ‘If you hadn’t let the woman go we’d have had a much easier path ahead of us.’

                ‘What exactly do you want to do?’ I ask. ‘You have to tell us before we can go in.’

                Windermere looks down at her feet. She guards her secrets like a poker hand.

                ‘Teague’s life’s work was based around Thacker,’ Windermere began. ‘We have a lot of evidence to suggest that Teague tracked Thacker down at some point over the past year. We thought that if we had them both in custody we could stop them from doing any more harm.’

                ‘What harm has Thacker done exactly?’ Yates asks. ‘And why is he a living woman?’

                ‘Our research suggests that Thacker discovered a way to return to the dead, however doing so caused a lot of problems in his genetic make-up. Certain aspects of his appearance were turned off, some swapped. At some point in his transition back to the living plain, he randomly took on a vast amount of female attributes. What you’re seeing is an amalgamation of male and female. It’s nature controlled by mankind.’

                ‘How fascinating,’ Yates says, putting his fingers to his chin. Windermere sneers at his words. She makes it clear that she doesn't agree.
                I find myself in agreement with Yates. It seems like Windermere and her council friends are basing their dislike of Thacker based on a jumped up charge of terrorism, when all they seem to care about is the random choice of nature and genetics to make him male and female all at once. I don't care, Yates or Elle don't seem to either. Most importantly, and the only person who should be asked on the subject, Thacker doesn't seem to care in the slightest.

                ‘How exactly did Thacker earn the name ‘terrorist’?’ I ask.

                ‘Thacker presents a threat to the natural order of things.’ Windermere’s gaze turns stern. ‘If she is allowed to continue, we will have a world where death means nothing, when you can cross back and forth at your pleasure and have no consequences to show for it.’

                ‘I still don’t see how that makes her a terrorist?’ Elle presses.

                ‘Thacker has killed again and again over the course of his life, and now into a second one. Experiments crossing participants over to the dead and back again, some of them staying there. It was the writing of the paper under a pseudonym where we managed to track her down.’

                ‘You say participants?’ I watch Windermere for signs of deception. ‘Were they willing or unwilling?’