I removed myself to the hospital to check on my teammates. Alice was in ICU at the trauma center but stabilized, according to Seth. Mitch and Jay were being treated in the ER, in side-by-side examination bays.
“Ah, there you are. Everything okay?” SAC Jay asked.
“I was going to ask both of you the same thing.”
“Well, I won’t be at the dojo for a bit, but the bullet went through and through and the muscle should heal,” she said. “What’s going on with the operation?”
I told her about my two very different debriefings. “I’ve already had calls from both President Polner and Director Tyson. Director Tyson is clearly initiating a drastic level of damage control,” she said.
“That’s what he said,” I nodded.
“No Caeco, I mean he is trying to repair the damage his reputation has already suffered. He went on record in two presidential briefings as downplaying the alien threat. Now that threat has been exposed like a rotten worm, deep in one of the oldest cities in this country. Which is why he’s flying in to take over, himself. He’ll attempt to take credit for rooting out this threat and neutralizing it.”
“We can’t let him take credit like that!” I said.
She gave me a sad, sympathetic smile. “He’s our boss, Caeco. We have to do as he orders. If he wants to control the press conferences, there is nothing we can do to stop that.” Her smile changed at the end, transforming into something sly.
“What do you know? Is there something we can do?”
“Us? No. But I wouldn’t waste any energy worrying about this, Caeco. It won’t likely go his way.”
She so obviously knew something. But she wouldn’t say what. Instead, she sent me to the next bay to visit Mitch.
I found him looking tired and pale, but he didn’t seem to be in any pain.
“Cakewalk!” he said as soon as he saw me.
“Hey, Mitch. How ya doing?”
“Well, I have to stay lying down or I tip over. Weighted heavy to the right now.”
“Shit, you’re joking about it?” I asked.
He gave me a little shrug. “I’m deflecting. But I’m also alive. No so very long ago, I was facing the very real fact of my imminent death. Either that shit that crazy Juliet injected into me was going to kill everything that was me or you guys were going to have to.”
“What was it like?” I couldn’t help asking. He waited while a nurse came in and injected something into his IV line. He smiled at her, ignoring the hypodermic in favor of her pretty face. I, however, read the label and noted it was a mild sedative.
“This will help you rest,” she said, plumping his pillow with an answering smile of her own. Then she left, and once his eyes stopped watching her butt as she walked out, he finally answered.
“It hurt when she stuck me with that silver pen, which now, obviously, wasn’t really a pen. It throbbed and ached while we were setting up for the entry, and I was getting these weird shooting sensations up my arm, but I ignored them. Then we made entry and we were going down the stairs. You three were shooting the dogs and I didn’t have a clear field of fire, so I was checking our six while waiting to step in when someone ran dry. But my left arm just suddenly moved, all on its own, like it wasn’t mine. It yanked forward just as I was bringing my rifle up to take Agent Jay’s arc of fire. My finger was just slipping into the trigger guard when it did, causing the shot that hit Jay. After that, my hand and forearm went crazy and pains were moving up my arm. At that point, I knew what it was… knew it was that nano shit that was in those crazy bastards you fought in the shipyard. I mean, it was suddenly clear as day. That shit was spreading up my arm and I wasn’t going to be me for much longer. Then your Chinese pal chopped my arm off and it was all gone.”
His smile had slipped away almost at his first words, a gradual horror taking over as he relived his arm becoming something else.
“Was it like that for you? You know? When they put those things inside you?” he asked.
I hadn’t thought about that day in a long, long time. I’d been very little when the nanites were first introduced, and it had taken numerous upgrades and many additional treatments until the colonization and integration was successfully complete.
“It was cold. Like an injection of ice. And yeah, it did run through me. But it happened very fast, as fast as blood moved through my veins and arteries. It seems like it was a lot slower for you… like maybe the technology moved right through the muscle and flesh rather than the circulatory system.”
“Thank God. If it had done the blood thing, I’d have been gone almost instantly,” he said, his eyes blinking sleepily.
“That tech had enormous control of those bodies, both the men in black suits and the dogs. Perhaps it has to integrate at a much slower pace to get that degree of control and change?” I suggested.
“Yeah, you don’t have things taking control of you, do you?”
“Only once. Locked up all my muscles.”
“What happened?’
“A friend made it so that it couldn’t happen ever again,” I said.
“Oh,” Mitch said, thinking about that. Then the light dawned. “Oh! Your friend with the voodoo?”
“Yeah. He’s got lots of that,” I agreed.
“Well, you should thank him when you think of it. I only lost control of my arm and hand, but that was horrible. Losing your whole self would be unimaginable.” His eyes fluttered. “But I’m just glad your new boyfriend showed up when he did. Never thought I’d be happy to have someone cut off my arm.”
“Fan is my enemy, not my boyfriend,” I said.
“Yeah, well, he sure watches you pretty closely,” Mitch said, yawning.
“Yes, because I am the most dangerous opponent near him. We fought with knives!”
“Shit, that’s like your version of flirting,” he said with a snort, immediately yawning again. “Just glad he showed up.”
“Yeah, me too.”
He nodded, eyes now closed, and then he was out—sound asleep.
Good. And actually a really good idea. I can go a long time without sleep; a factor of my genetics, my nanites, and my training. But I was feeling pretty tired and one thing my instructors had hammered into me was to always grab sleep when I can.
Twenty-two minutes later, I was back at the hotel, in my bed, and falling fast asleep as my head hit the pillow.