Reviving Emily: Project DEEP, Book One Read online

  Reviving Emily

  Project DEEP, Book One

  Becca Jameson

  Copyright © 2018 by Becca Jameson

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-946911-34-6

  Print ISBN: 978-1-946911-35-3

  Cover Artist: Scott Carpenter

  Editor: Christa Soule

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. And resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  About the Book

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Author’s Note

  Also by Becca Jameson

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  I really have to thank everyone who listened to me ramble on and on about this series for months while I worked out the plot and figured out where we were going. It’s a totally new genre for me. (Well, I mean except for the fact that it’s still erotic romance! Let’s not get carried away.) So, it took a lot of planning.

  The concept came to me in the early hours of the morning in a dream when I wasn’t quite awake yet. (Okay, gotta pause again here to say that “early” is a relative term. I don’t do “early.” Nothing in my world is actually “early.” I just mean whatever time the last hour of my sleep occurred. Probably more like ten in the morning.)

  In my dream, there were these scientists in a government bunker. They were studying diseases. They got sick. They had to be cryonically preserved… And from there, a series was launched. I spent a great deal of time studying cryonics and learning the difference between cryonics, cryobiology, and cryogenics--which are very different things.

  I worked very hard to ensure that my terminology was correct with respect to the field of cryonics, though I obviously took a great deal of artistic liberty when reviving the preserved since alas, as far as we know, no one has been reanimated to this date.

  Many thanks to Christa Soule for plotting with me when we were in the early stages, and then when we were in the middle stages, and still to this day.

  Thanks to my husband and countless friends who listened to me and added their two cents.

  Thanks as usual to my cover artist, Scott Carpenter, for designing these series covers. He rocks, and he nailed it once again!

  Praise for Becca Jameson

  “Time and time again, Ms. Jameson infuses her talent for creating pleasurable and entertaining love stories with wonderful characters, a depth of passion, and the joy at discovering your soul mate that is beautiful and thoroughly sexy.”

  Shannon, The Romance Studio

  “Becca Jameson can write sex, hot, steamy, make-you-cold-shower-twice sex. She also can write emotion.”

  Felicity Nichols, Mad in Wonderland Reviews

  “I always love reading Becca Jameson's bedroom scenes and how she makes her heroes fall so completely in love with the female leads in her stories.”

  Roni, Romance Book Scene

  “Becca has the ability to create the different worlds, draw you into them, and keep you wanting more with her writing ability. The way she writes the different characters, you can’t help but to feel for their emotions. When they are scared and upset, you are as well.”

  Crystal’s Many Reviewers

  About the Book

  It’s been ten years…

  For Ryan it’s been the longest ten years of his life.

  For Emily it’s been days.

  He spent those ten years developing a cure for the virus she contracted.

  She spent those ten years in a cryostat, her life suspended.

  She’s not the only one to be reanimated, but she is the first.

  The media is surrounding the compound.

  The religious zealots are picketing.

  But people have lives to live, and somehow they have to move forward.

  Ryan still has work to do. People to revive. A disease to cure.

  Emily has a blank slate. She can go anywhere. Do anything.

  She can’t stay in the bunker. It casts a pall over everyone.

  Now is not the time for distractions.

  Now is not the time to fall in love.

  Prologue

  Ryan watched in stunned silence as his mother cried, tears running down her face on the other side of the protective glass. She held his gaze. He would give her credit for that. But her words were bone-chilling and completely unacceptable to twenty-year-old Ryan Anand.

  Lifting his hands to flatten them on the glass, he shuddered. It wasn’t the first time he’d compared his mother’s self-imposed prison to a real penitentiary. After all, it had been months since the last time he touched her. She’d been living behind that damn glass for much longer than originally anticipated.

  And now this bombshell.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. The intercom system was cutting edge, perfect, not a single flaw. Too bad he couldn’t say the same for the work being done on his mother’s side of the glass.

  Ryan’s gaze shifted slightly to the right as his father, the renowned Lieutenant Tushar Anand, stepped up to set a hand on his wife’s shoulder. Ryan’s mother, Lieutenant Trish Wolbach-Anand, was no less esteemed in the medical community. The two of them had met at West Point before going on to attend the same medical school. Instead of being sent overseas to serve their country, they had married and been assigned to this secret government research facility outside the rural town of Falling Rock, Colorado. Project DEEP: Disease & Epidemic Eradication & Prevention.

  The building was more like a bunker and thus the occupants referred to it as the DEEP bunker. It operated like the CDC except completely under the radar. Their research focused mainly on potentially life-threatening diseases from around the world, developing vaccinations and cures when possible.

  Ryan had always known his parents’ work was dangerous, but never more than right this moment. As he glanced back and forth between his mother and father, he realized that although they had been married for over twenty years, he was pretty sure they hadn’t spent more than a few hours alone together on any given week in the last several years.

  “Mom…” There were no words to express how devastating this day was. His parents had been researching a rare form of viral-onset anemia for five years. They’d always known the risks involved in working in the DEEP bunker, but no one anticipated this level of devastation. Of the original twenty-one-member team of medical professionals, Ryan’s parents were the last two survivors, and his mother had obviously succumbed to the symptoms of the disease.

  “It won’t be forever.” She forced a smile that did nothing to assuage Ryan’s frustration and deep sadness.

  Anemia AP12. Ryan had first heard the term five years ago when General Winst
on Custodio was brought into this remote bunker in Falling Rock, Colorado, after spending several months at a small village in Africa where he contracted the disease. So far it hadn’t spread to many other parts of the world, but people in Africa were dying every day. The team hadn’t been able to save General Custodio’s life—unless being cryonically preserved was considered still living.

  Ryan glanced at his father again, knowing he too was not far behind his wife. The symptoms were there—bruising, fatigue, pallor. Ryan knew enough to realize his father had about another month, maybe two.

  “I hate that you’re in there alone,” he told his parents. “I should be with you.”

  His mother shook her head. “No. I would never take that risk. You need to stay out there where you’re free to come and go without threat of quarantine. You have school.” She slid into the padded chair on the other side of the window and leaned against the frame. “Follow your dreams, Ryan. You’re so bright. You can be anything, do anything.”

  His dreams.

  Ryan would never know what those dreams might have been under normal circumstances in a normal world with normal parents. His parents had worked in this secret underground bunker for as long as he could remember. It was all he knew.

  “I’m going to medical school, Mom. You know that.”

  She smiled. “I think we’ve done you a disservice never introducing you to other opportunities. Maybe you’d rather be an English professor or an engineer or an artist or something.”

  “An artist?” Ryan laughed. “Have you forgotten the crayon drawing you stuck on the fridge when I was a kid?”

  She giggled, causing a round of coughing that made Ryan cringe. He hated to see her sick like this. “I remember, but maybe you could have honed your fine-motor skills if you hadn’t been surrounded by beakers and petri dishes.”

  “I love science, Mom. You know that. I dream in science.” He wasn’t kidding. He’d had a brain for science from a very young age. Perhaps it was genetic. “I won’t veer from my plans. Two more years of undergrad and then I’ll be in medical school.” He hadn’t told his parents his specific field of interest yet, but it didn’t matter right now.

  What mattered today was that he would never see his mother again. Or at least he had to assume that would be the case. Every member of the team was now cryonically preserved in a special room one story beneath Ryan’s feet. Thank God the bunker had been built with this future consideration in mind, including everything a cryonics facility would need—not just the cryostats in which to preserve the bodies but also the equipment needed to vitrify each member of the team.

  At the age of twenty, Ryan knew every bit of the cryonic terminology. He doubted there were many other university juniors who could explain the vitrification process used to remove 60 percent of the body’s water, replacing it with a cryoprotectant that prevents the human body from a literal freezing when submerged in liquid nitrogen.

  Finding a cure for anemia AP12 was within reach. The team had worked frantically for the last five years to develop a drug that would reverse the effects. But an unforeseen lab accident meant time had run out for them. Now, finding a way to resuscitate everyone once a cure was found would be the next hurdle. Possibly insurmountable.

  The next person to join the Hope Room, as his parents called the eerie room filled with two dozen cryostats, would be Trish Wolbach-Anand. Her own husband would ensure she was safely stored. Ryan couldn’t imagine how difficult that would be for his father.

  His father finally spoke, his voice choking up. “Your grandmother has all of our papers in order. Monthly deposits will show up from the government in your bank account for the rest of your life.” He spoke without stating the obvious—he had less than a month himself. Ryan would be left without either parent.

  Ryan had practically been raised by his maternal grandmother, Patricia Wolbach, since his parents had often spent days and even weeks inside the bunker. Until Ryan left for college two years ago, he’d lived in the small ranch home a few miles from the bunker most of his life. His grandmother still lived there, staying in touch with Ryan all the time, always there for him on holidays and vacations.

  She too would mourn this loss. Trish was her only child. Her husband, Ryan’s grandfather, had died before he was born. It would be Ryan and Patricia from now on. Alone. Waiting. Wishing. Hoping.

  A tear ran down his mother’s face. “I’m sorry we didn’t spend more time at the park, the zoo, the science center. We didn’t travel as much as I would have liked.”

  “Mom, those things don’t matter. You know that.” Quality time was far more important than quantity, and although Ryan’s parents had been absent for most of his life, when they had been present, they were completely his. Christmases and vacations had been devoted to family time. Sundays had been spent playing games, building forts, doing science experiments. Compared to other people Ryan knew, he wouldn’t trade his life for anyone’s.

  Tushar kissed the top of his wife’s head and set his chin on her silky blond hair. She’d kept it long all these years. At forty-five, she still wore it in long waves down her back when it wasn’t pulled in a bun while she worked.

  The contrast between his pale, blond, blue-eyed mother and his dark-skinned, Indian father was striking. Ryan had been told all his life he’d hit the genetic jackpot, his brown, wavy hair and tanned skin the perfect shade women found attractive. His eyes were dark. Mysterious, they said.

  He’d ignored any overture from women, however, his interests far more academic. He would much rather have his head inside a book than anywhere else.

  “I know what you’re thinking, son,” his father said, interrupting Ryan’s memories. “And I want you to stop it. Live your life. Find love. Find peace. Find…happiness. Do not dwell on this. It’s not your responsibility.”

  Ryan stared at his father, understanding what his words meant while at the same time calculating how long it would take him to get through school if he added a class every semester and studied nights and weekends.

  He wouldn’t let this be the end.

  He couldn’t.

  After all, finding cures for rare blood diseases was going to be his specialty. And he would find a cure for anemia AP12 if it was the last thing he did.

  Chapter 1

  Ten years later…

  * * *

  “I need those funds, Damon. Now. Yesterday. What’s taking so long?”

  Dr. Damon Bardsley spun his entire desk chair around to face Ryan, his glare of irritation not unexpected. “Do I look like I have an accounting degree to you? I don’t work for the bank, Ryan. I’m a scientist, just like you. And besides, we’re not ready. Let’s focus on how we’re going to reanimate these people, instead of how we’re going to pay for it. The money will be here when we need it.”

  Ryan blew out a breath, his grip on the doorframe tight. “You’re right. I just get so frustrated with the bureaucracy. The clock is ticking.”

  “Yeah, and you’d better keep your temper under control, or you’re going to find the powers that be yanking you from this project. Half of them are already leery about you leading this team as it is.” Damon pointed at the computer in front of him. “Take a breath. Look over this data with me. Data always calms you down,” he joked.

  Ryan stepped into the room and pulled a second desk chair up next to Damon. The two of them had been working together for two years. They spent a lot of hours in this bunker with little outside human interaction. Ryan’s motivation was personal. Damon was just a geeky scientist with a vision.

  While Ryan had spent a year after medical school and residency buried in a lab developing a cure for AP12, Damon had gotten his doctorate in cryobiology and then moved into cryonics. They met two years ago when Damon was brought on board to help with his end of the project. Both had been hired by the government to put together a team of doctors and scientists to revive the twenty-two people cryopreserved inside this bunker—twenty-one scientists and General Custodio. Now t
hat they had the cure for AP12, all they needed was the technology and the funds to reanimate the team and administer it. They were so close.

  “I’ve been poring over the stats on all twenty-two victims, and I think we need to start with Lieutenant Emily Zorich. Twenty-nine. A doctor of hematology, same as you. West Point graduate like your parents. She was the one who came the closest to developing a cure before she succumbed to the disease.”

  Ryan ran a hand through his hair. Naturally, he wanted to bring his parents back first or at least as soon as possible. But he was also reasonable, if not a little selfish. After all, if his team failed in their attempt to revive anyone, he didn’t want the first experimental reanimation to be on his mother or father.

  Ryan stared at the vibrant photo of Emily Zorich and nodded. Dark hair, smooth pale skin. Green eyes. He had never met her in person. He’d known ten years ago that she was crucial to the project, but every time he’d been in the bunker, she’d been either involved in something on another floor or not around.

  Since then, however, he’d gotten to know her well. After all, her notes were the most comprehensive of anyone’s on the team. She had been so close to a cure. After years of studying her extensive research, Ryan felt like he knew her better than he knew himself some days. “You’re right. She’s the best choice.”