Chapter Nineteen

I almost choked on the water, but Cole pulled the straw away. I managed to swallow what remained in my mouth while I reeled over the time that had passed. The surgery surely hadn’t taken that long. It was very routine. So what happened?

“You were exhausted,” said Lucas as if he could read my mind. I glanced at his ear, looking for Nicholas’s co-crest. But it wasn’t there. Luke didn’t have to read my mind; as usual, he just knew what I was thinking. “I believe it had been somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-six hours since you’d slept before you even underwent the surgery.”

Knowing androids and their Vulcan-like calculations, “somewhere in the neighborhood” no doubt actually meant exactly.

“And your system needed vast amounts of rest to begin repairing the damage the poison caused,” said Charlotte. It was the first time she’d really spoken up. But she was the ultimate mothering type, so discussing rest or rehabilitation was right up her alley.

Beside her, Lex shifted a little, preparing to talk. Lex had always been an android who gave new dimension to the term, “strong and silent type.” He was very strong and he was very silent. However, he and Charlotte shared a special bond. He’d saved her life when they first met. Now they were what humans would call soul mates.

When Charlotte spoke up, it often seemed to embolden him enough to add his two cents if he felt them worth adding. Which he did now. “Angel, the reason we had to go to these lengths to get in here is because… we need to get you out of here.”

Charlotte nodded. “We wanted to at least wait until you woke up on your own. Just to give you that extra bit of healing. But now that you’re awake,” she paused and rolled her shoulders back, “we need to leave.”

“She’s right,” said Lucas. The expression on his beautiful face was earnest, and his storm-wrought eyes were intense. “I’m afraid we’ll have to move you, Samantha. We’ve taken every precaution we can to keep you from sustaining damage while we do. But if we’re right, IRM-1000 controls everything that happens at this hospital. Which means he’s most likely been informed that your critical treatment has passed and you’re recovering.”

“And… he’s most likely on his way,” said Daniel.

“That’s assuming he isn’t here already,” added Cole under his breath. Which was exactly what I had been thinking.

I glanced at the orchids, and I felt myself blanch. Zero had made references to orchids…. I was absolutely certain the flowers had been sent by him, if not placed here by him personally. “Guys, you said you cleaned the room. Did you check the orchids?”

Daniel nodded. “We removed several devices from them, and more from the room in general.” He glanced at the window. “From the van he rigged outside, Byron ran a scan of the entire facility for interference signatures. Our immediate area is clean for the time being. But that’s unfortunately both good and bad.”

“Because he won’t hear us talking,” I reasoned, “and because he won’t hear us talking.”

Daniel nodded.

“Smart cookie,” said Cole with a wink and killer smile. But I wasn’t as impressed with my thought processes. After all, every single other person in the room had probably already had them, including Mabel. And probably Nanuk.

“Okay, then let’s get out of here,” I said. I tried not to let any reluctance or fear escape into my voice, but the truth was, I was already beginning to feel a fair amount of pain in both my stomach and my arm, and that pain was fast spreading.

For me, pain was incredibly disorienting. I knew from experience that if it got bad enough, I wouldn’t be able to communicate anything intelligent or help Prometheus in any useful manner. And frankly it also put me in a really foul mood. That was bad enough, as far as I was concerned.

So when Lucas turned to Cole and said, “Locate her pain medications; we’re taking them with us,” and Cole, who had left the chair beside me and was on his way to the hospital room door, replied with, “I’m already on it,” I was flooded with so much relief, I actually let out a breath and sank back on the pillows.

Apparently both boys “got” me, and I could not have been more grateful. Only one uncomfortable thing remained before I could get dressed and we could get the hell out of Dodge. The IV had to be removed.

“Lucas, will you….” I glanced sidelong at the arm with the tape and tube, and my tongue felt dry again. But I didn’t have to finish my sentence for him to understand.

“Just look away,” he instructed gently as he glanced back over his shoulder at Daniel and nodded. Daniel strode to the monitor beside my bed and placed his hand to it, closing his eyes. When his hand turned gray and the network of wires beneath his skin briefly showed through, I realized he was pulling his “magic hacking” thing on the machine so it wouldn’t show any unusual readings when Lucas pulled the needle from my vein or removed the blood pressure cuff.

I obediently turned my head and closed my eyes. It was times like this that I seriously couldn’t understand how I’d ever managed to conduct any medical science at all. I absolutely detested needles. And in creating the antidote for Anthrocore, for example, I’d shoved a very long needle into the marrow of my bone over and over again for a week.

Bewildered nausea roiled through me at the thought, but I forced images of tiny gray kittens with enormous eyes into my brain and the nausea was gone.

I chalked my work success up to sheer willpower and an overwhelming desire to correct injustice. It was either that or flat-out insanity. And since the latter was probably more likely, I focused on the former with everything I had.

“There,” said Lucas in a soft voice. “It’s done.” I turned to find him moving several tubes aside as Daniel lowered his hand from the monitor. It continued to beep along steadily as if nothing had happened. I looked down at my now free arm and the cotton ball he was holding to the crease in my elbow. I’d been so distracted by my thoughts, I hadn’t even felt him remove the IV.

He wrapped a length of medical tape around the cotton to hold it in place, then straightened and smiled a pure Lucas smile that assured me he found my idiosyncrasies adorable.

Cole walked back in with a plastic bag filled with prescription bottles. I didn’t even want to know where he’d gotten them from. We definitely didn’t need all of them right now, but I wasn’t disappointed he had them. Prometheus could use all the help it could get. I just hoped wherever he’d gone, there’d been no cameras filming.

He handed the bag to Lex, who tucked it into one of many big pockets in his equally big, winter jacket. “The important thing is that we move quickly,” Cole said, coming back around the bed to stand beside me with Daniel and Lucas.

Lex took something else from another massive pocket in his jacket and handed two small bundles of folded clothing to Charlotte. She took them and came toward me around the bed. “We’ve got some comfortable things for you to change into that are easy to slip on,” she said, taking up position beside me. She nodded and smiled at Cole. “Compliments of the lieutenant.”

Cole actually blushed a little before he cleared his throat awkwardly and then looked sternly at every guy in the room. “Eyes around, boys. The lady needs her privacy.”

Almost at once, everyone turned around. Except Cole himself, who lingered a little, his smirk returning as his eyes met mine. I scowled at him. He grinned bigger.

Without even looking back at us, Jack called out, “That goes for you most of all, Lieutenant!”

Cole shot the back of Jack’s head a glare before he reluctantly obeyed his own order and turned around. Charlotte then leaned over the bed and gave me a once-over, probably doing her android-scanning thing to determine the best way to get the clothes on with the least amount of movement.

She succeeded, and I was touched to find that the clothes she had were a pair of Luke’s sweats, a brand new pair of fleece socks, and best of all a large Columbus Police Department hoodie. They all smelled like fresh dryer sheets, probably because Charlotte had washed them. But the hoodie carried a hint of leather scent and shower gel still, and my belly grew a little warm when I remembered that it was the same way Cole had smelled in high school.

All the clothes already had a little of Nanuk’s hair on them. I smiled at that. And I felt immensely more comfortable in my existence having actual clothes on. The soft socks were a thoughtful touch.

When we’d finished, she gave Daniel a pat on the back. He turned back around, and everyone else followed suit. “Are you ready for this?” he asked me.

I nodded. “But where are we going?”

“My boxing trainer is an old friend,” said Cole.

Boxing, huh? That would explain a few of the bruises, I thought.

“He has a place we’ll be using until Nick can get a new secure location squared away. I’d take you to my apartment, but frankly that’s the first place IRM-1000 will look.”

I nodded again and reached up toward Lucas, “Okay, help me up.”

“Oh, no,” Cole laughed, shaking his head. “You aren’t walking anywhere, Sammy. Why do you think we left out the shoes?”

I’d noticed that, actually. But I’d just figured they were in a rush.

Now I grew irritated, and frankly embarrassed. What was I, some courtesan whose shoes were hidden to keep her from running away? But the boys either didn’t notice my discomfort, or they didn’t care. They seemed to have planned this entire thing out to the letter and weren’t going to budge from the plan.

Cole reached for the glass of water one last time, and handed it to Lucas, along with a bottle of white pills he’d had in his hand. “Pain killers for the road, because your meds are already wearing off – and you don’t want them to do that, believe me,” he told me as if he’d had plenty of experience with pain and its subsequent medications. Cole seemed to be all rugged edges these days, so I believed it.

I let Lucas place a pill in my hand. I recognized it of course; it was a good dose, not too strong to disrupt my ability to stay awake, but strong enough to allow me to think. I swallowed it with a final pull on the straw, and Lucas took the glass away.

Behind him, Jack and Daniel spoke with Charlotte. “As discussed, you’ll have to take Mabel and Nanuk back the way you came. Remember the drill. Visit any other open patient rooms and play the part. It will keep you both safe.”

Charlotte nodded, and so did Mabel. She gave Nanuk a loving pat on his big head, and he licked her hand. Very clever, I thought. Not only had the therapy dog thing worked to get them in safely, it would get them out safely too. I wasn’t surprised Cole had come up with the idea. I’d seen his test scores. He was a genius like his older brother no matter how much he wanted to run from the label.

Daniel addressed Lex. “You’re set to come with us?” Lex nodded resolutely, and Daniel turned to the remaining members of Prometheus. “Everyone good to go?”

They collectively nodded.

“I’m going to carry you again, Samantha,” said Lucas, who was already leaning over me to move aside my pillows and blankets. But I moved my legs away a little, and he hesitated, tilting his head to the side to give me the quintessential questioning gaze of a confused android.

I didn’t want him to carry me. God, I hated being carried! I could not stand to be an invalid! Besides, Lucas was one of our group’s best fighters; they needed his hands to be free. “No,” I said, placing my good hand on his bicep. “Luke you don’t –”

“I’m sorry but that’s actually an order whether you mind or not,” said Daniel, who first gave Lucas a look of reprimand, then pinned me hard with his bi-colored gaze. I stared up into those double-ringed eyes and went cold when he did not smile. Being on the receiving end of that look was a first for me. And it was a little unsettling.

I nodded rather meekly and dropped my arm.

“Shit...” muttered Cole with a shake of his head. He was putting his phone away. “That was Nick. Unmarked service vehicles just drove by the front of the hospital. It’s time to go.” He strode to the open door, popping his head out to look left then right. He glanced back over his shoulder, gave a nod, and everyone in the room mobilized.

Lucas was immediately scooping me into his capable arms. He was strong enough to do it slowly, so that nothing in my body was unnecessarily jarred. Even so, I winced a little when I felt something deep in my right side give a warning pang.

“The pill you took will begin working soon,” he said softly, speaking into my ear as he turned toward the door. A strange shiver moved through my body. “Until then just try to hold on.”

I took his suggestion to mean “hold on” in more than one way and hastily wrapped my undamaged arm around the back of his neck to hold on tight. Cole, Sonia, Lucas, Lex, Jack, and Daniel flooded out the door with Daniel leading. We raced rapidly down the hall as if to make up for lost time. Charlotte, Mabel, and Nanuk remained in the room to gather their things and thoughts before they would head out to play their own parts then meet us later at a predestined location.

The speed with which our group ran frankly scared me. It meant we were cutting it closer than I’d thought. I wondered, how close were we cutting it, exactly? Something felt off. “Luke, what’s going on?” I asked, knowing he’d be able to tell from the tone of my voice that I wanted the whole truth, and also that I was afraid. I knew that of everyone there, Lucas was most likely to give me that truth.

“The unmarked vans Lieutenant Black mentioned,” he reminded me. “If they belong to Vector Fifteen, we have very little time to get you to safety. A short while before you awoke, we received word that Zero’s helicopter landed on a private pad at AirTrans.” He paused for emphasis as we made it expertly around a corner and headed down another long hall. AirTrans was the new Columbus airport used by the private jets and choppers of the world’s richest, most influential people. “IRM-1000 has proven fast and efficient.”

I felt mystified by how much of an understatement that was. If one of Zero’s choppers had landed at the new heliport for Columbus, chances were really good he was either on his way to the hospital – or he was already here.

But getting me to safety was not highest on my list of priorities just then. What about everyone else? Hell, I was the only one Zero didn’t want dead. I gritted my teeth, shut my eyes, and felt my stress levels elevate.

Cole and Daniel led the team through the police-cleared halls of the hospital floor to the stairwell. Once inside, we descended a few levels of concrete steps. Lucas took the stairs with the same grace as always, straight-backed and fleet-footed despite me in his arms.

We stopped on the ground floor and faced the exit door. A sign in bold above the door stated that an alarm would sound if it were opened. Cole waited as Daniel placed his hand to the mechanism attached to the door. His hand turned gray again, and various lights on the alarm control flashed. There was a clicking sound before Daniel removed his hand, giving us a nod.

Cole popped the door open for Lucas and held it while we all rushed through. But Cole gave us a signal to wait, and we held our ground as he alone stepped away from the shadows beneath the overhead lamps. From the depth of the dark around us, I wagered it was around midnight in Columbus. The lights cast foggy illumination across the grass and bushes.

I could tell Cole was waiting for something, probably a signal. But I had the impression he felt the same thing I did, that sensation that something was off. If he’d been a cat, his hackles would have been raised.

A few seconds after Cole stepped out, Shawn appeared in the shadows at the far corner of the building. His light hair was easy to see in the darkness. I was so happy to see him alive and well after witnessing him get shot outside Zero’s home.

But speaking of his light hair being visible – I was betting mine was too. Surreptitiously, I pulled the hood of Cole’s hoodie up over my head, but of course I had way too much hair to cover. The hood wouldn’t even stay up, much less stay up with the hair tucked inside. I gave up.

Shawn waved covertly at us, confirming my suspicions about the signal.

The overhead lights cast a halo around Shawn as he crept quickly toward us. He held a handgun in a firm grip, lowered safely at his side. He nodded at Daniel, his troubled sea colored eyes glinting in the overhead lights. Why did all androids have such beautiful eyes? Even after Nicholas had left FutureGen, they’d continued to be created with vividly colored eyes.

Maybe because if you’re going to make something, you make it the way you wish you’d been made, I thought to myself. Still… I’d never seen one with gold eyes like mine. I wondered why.

Your mind is wandering, thought Daniel in my head.

I startled, my eyes widening. He was the one wearing the co-crest Nicholas had made, and it hit me that he could listen in on my thoughts at any time. Had I been thinking anything embarrassing? I couldn’t remember!

He laughed mentally, the sound the same as if he’d done it out loud. Good to know the meds are working.

I nodded mentally and literally felt his attention pull away.

No one has eyes like Daniel’s either, I thought, looking over at him as he faced Lucas. He was right – my mind was wandering. No other android had eyes that were double-ringed, each ring a different color. His irises were an outer ring of sky blue and an inner ring of emerald green. The effect was striking.

Out in the real world, Daniel said, “All clear.” Then he looked at me. “Matt and Shawn took out the cameras between here and the van. We just have to get to the parking lot, Sam. Nicholas will meet us there. Hang in there.”

Everyone was telling me that tonight: “Hang on,” or “Hang in there.” It was frustrating considering how much more danger they were all in.

I didn’t have a chance to say anything since Lucas at once turned and began to run across the manicured lawn. I held on tight and realized Daniel had told me to “hang in there” for more than one reason. Running at this speed was not only super painful, it was hard for both of us. On a particularly painful step, I inhaled a hiss before managing to stifle my reaction.

But as I looked down and watched Luke’s shoes eat up the wet ground while the fog twirled around us like grabby, misty fingers, I gradually lost all thoughts of pain and found myself drawn to focusing on something else.

The immediate area was deserted, and the temperature had dropped. It was winter in Ohio; patches of snow still clung to some areas around the manicured lawn, where it had been piled during their last snowstorm. Steam billowed from our lips as we moved. So I knew it was cold.

However, I wasn’t cold. And, I wasn’t thinking about the pain anymore because there was no pain. I felt good, in fact. I felt too good. Warmth was moving through me, uninvited, sensual, and… somehow wrong. The warmth was like a warning in my veins.

Oh no, I thought. Zero.

I knew it with every fiber of my being. He was near.

I turned my head to look over Luke’s broad shoulder. Jack and Cole took up the rear of the group, both having pulled their guns and readied them in firm, police-trained grips. Matt had joined us at this point too, and he and Shawn flanked Daniel up ahead of us. They were Yin and Yang when they worked in tandem like that, Matt’s darkness blending into the night and Shawn’s bright whiteness standing out like a beacon. Both men also held handguns at the ready.

My fear ratcheted up when I saw that. It wasn’t that armed missions were exactly a rare thing, it was just that this was happening too fast.

I glanced over to see Sonia running alongside me and Lucas – and she had two guns. On the other side of us, Lex the normally gentle giant was also carrying a weapon.

That was highly unsettling to me.

At last my eyes fell on Daniel again, the leader of Prometheus. He never carried a gun. The reason he didn’t carry one going into a mission was because when he needed one, he simply took it from his enemy before using it against them. Every single time. My GhandiBuddhaJesus was a superhero, unique in design, model and creation, and capable of physical feats that defied reason. But what made him my personal idol was not his unique beauty or grace or ridiculous talent at fighting. It was the fact that every time he’d taken a weapon from his enemy and used it against them – he had tried the peaceful route first.

Except… not this time, it would seem.

Daniel held an automatic at the ready in his left hand. He was left handed, another unique thing about him when compared to other androids. Seeing that hand holding anything but a paint brush was disconcerting, but especially so before we’d even begun fighting. It was like a slap to the face.

They’re terrified, I realized. And they’re pissed off.

I remembered Zero’s attack on Prometheus and I thought of the losses Daniel had mentioned. What had they been? Who had they been? Who had we lost?

Whatever had happened, Daniel and the others were not only gearing up for defense, it was clear they were out for revenge.