The Lethal Agent (The Extraction Files Book 2) (40 page)

LRF-FIC

SEPTEMBER 16, 2232

Vince, Theo, and Dr. Arrenstein hovered over Dr. Perkins like she was a shiny new toy.

“Aida, can you hear me?” Vince asked, his voice shrill.

“Is she awake?” Theo asked the other two.

“Did you see that? It went in the nose? How the hell did you know it would do that?” Dr. Arrenstein spun and gaped at Mable as she climbed off the body of Dr. Holtz.

“It’s the only thing that made sense. Direct access to the brain,” she replied as her feet hit the floor. Dark circles sat beneath her eyes. She was wearing down.

“Aida,” Vince continued. “This was a terrible idea. How could you do this?” he asked Dr. Arrenstein.

“Aida?” Theo asked as the others bickered.

Dasia stepped forward and pushed them all back. This was her idea, her plan. If Aida was going to die of infection, then it was because Dasia had suggested it in the first place. “Geez guys, give her some air.” Vince took the most convincing, a firm hand on his chest, but he, too, gave in.

Dasia took a deep breath and tried to quiet her pulse. She needed to think. She didn’t want to consider what it would mean if Aida never woke up. It would be all her fault.

She had to figure it out.

Aida lay on the table like she was asleep. She hadn’t made a sound, not when she saw the bug, not when Mable put it on her cheek. Not even when it crawled up her nose like a snake.

She had just gone limp.

Dasia slid her hand in Aida’s and squeezed lightly. Like she had done nothing more than doze off, Aida’s eyes fluttered open. “What’s going on?” she asked as she looked from Vince to Theo to Dr. Arrenstein.

“We need you to try to input a code to terminate the colony.” Dasia produced her tablet, already cued to the screen thanks to Director Filmore.

“I don’t know the code” She closed her eyes again and covered her face with a shaking hand.

“I know you don’t. Just try. Any numbers that come to mind.”

“I don’t know it!” she insisted.

“Prove it. Enter some numbers. Just twelve digits. Go on. Show us.” Dasia held the tablet closer to her face and waited.

Aida snatched it. She pushed to sitting and fumed several angry hot breaths. She stabbed at the tablet with her finger like a knife, hitting the virtual number pad so hard she could have broken the screen.

“There,” she said as she shoved it back at Dasia.

Dasia looked at the screen and hit the ‘submit’ button, as Aida had failed to do so already. She held her breath. Her hands shook despite how she tried to keep them steady.

A long, eternal fifteen seconds passed. The icon on the screen spun and spun and spun, as if it would never do anything else. Dasia could feel the world ending. She could sense the failure only inches away.

Then the spinning stopped.

She turned the screen back toward Aida and showed her the displayed message.

“It seems you were able to figure it out.” Dasia smiled.

“What? How? I don’t—”

Mable and Dr. Arrenstein were on her with a can of gas before she could even process it. Like a flash mob, they tackled her to table and flipped her. Mable climbed over her and began the delicate process of Slight removal.

Even Theo and Vince knew well enough to step back and let her work.

She was a vision. Her cuts were controlled, her tools moving with precision. Dasia was in awe of her.

In less than two minutes, Mable had isolated the bug. It screamed and bucked against the clamps before she threw both against the wall. The bug fizzled into a cloud of dust as it struck.

Mable spent another five minutes closing the incision and getting her cleaned up, but by the end, Aida looked no worse for the wear. She was asleep, but there were no visible signs of her infection.

“And now we wait,” Mable said matter-of-factly as she climbed down.

Dasia watched as Theo grabbed Mable’s hand and squeezed. He leaned in and whispered something in her ear before she kissed his cheek and let him in to see his sister.

Mable wove through the crowd of nervous men and made her way to Dasia. Her hair was splayed around her face from her hours of intense work.

“You were great,” Dasia mused as she wrapped an arm across Mable’s shoulders.

“But you’re the brains of the operation.” Mable tilted her head to rest on Dasia’s arm.

Dasia smiled and kissed her head. “You should get some rest.”             

Theo walked over a few minutes later and offered to take her home. Mable looked at Dasia with sad eyes, but Dasia only said, “Go on. I’ll catch up later. I just want to make sure she wakes up.”

“You’ll let us know?” Theo asked.

Dasia nodded and watched them leave. Theo’s hand was on the small of her back. They moved together, in fluid motion.

Dasia smiled.

At the table, Vince sat beside Aida’s sleeping figure, his face buried in his hands. “How long did it take her to wake up last time?” she asked with a hand on his shoulder.

Vince popped up with a jerking motion. “Oh, uh, two or three hours.”

“Do you want me to stay with her for a while?”

“No, thanks. I’m not going anywhere.” He offered her a pained smile and returned to his worry.

When the room filled with quiet, Dr. Arrenstein leaned down and said, “I’m proud of you, kid.”

“It wasn’t just me. It was all of us.” Dasia couldn’t have done it without Mable or Osip or even Theo.

“Still, you did good.” Dr. Arrenstein pulled back a moment later and commed Director Filmore. “It worked. She’s in recovery now. The code was accepted. Hopefully that’ll put an end to the attacks.”

“Thank you, Dr. Arrenstein. I was about to comm you, actually. New York was just attacked. Some sort of nuclear explosion related to the hadron collider. They’re calling it a total loss. I’m incredibly sorry.”

Dasia heard the words as if they were shouted down a tunnel.

New York.

Nuclear explosion.

Total loss.

Like a bullet right through her heart. It was a sad, patched together thing, hardly worthy of the name, but all the same, her heart was destroyed while it beat in her chest.

Not again.

Dr. Arrenstein spun, his eyes wide. “Dasia, wait!”

She didn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anymore. Dasia ran. She bolted from the clinic and ran down the sterile corridors. Her heart pumped and her feet pounded. Angry, unfair tears trailed down her cheeks. Osip and Knox and even Jane. All gone. A nuclear explosion. A total loss.

LRF-PQ-241

SEPTEMBER 16, 2232

Alone in their apartment, Theo lifted Mable from the floor and spun her around. “I can’t believe you did it. You actually did it!”

Mable choked out a laugh and smacked his shoulders until he put her back down. “She’s not awake yet. Don’t get carried away.”

“But she woke up last time. She woke up every time. And they have no reason to kill her now. She terminated the colony. No one will go to 196. It’s over.” Relief flooded through him.

“No. It’s not. We still have to clean up. Do damage control. Dasia said there were cities down all over.” Mable looked at him with pursed lips. She was beautiful even then.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She tried to turn away but he grabbed her shoulders.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“You just performed a marathon of surgeries and saved the world—literally. I think you can—”

“I killed four people.”

Theo pulled her against his chest and wrapped her in his arms, a protective barrier against everything else. “You saved millions,” he reminded her. “And you didn’t kill anyone. The bugs killed them. You tried to save them.”

“What if I killed her?” Mable’s voice was muffled against his body suit.

“You didn’t. She volunteered to be infected. You took the best possible care of her. Even Dr. Arrenstein couldn’t have done it as well.” Theo pulled back and looked her in the eye. “She was lucky to have you.”

Mable hung her head, not arguing, but not believing him either.

Theo squeezed his arms around her tight enough to pick her up and heave her onto the bed. Before she could squirm away, he flipped her over and slid her against him. His lips were less than an inch from her ear when he told her, “You were amazing today. If I ever doubted it before, I’m completely sure now.”

“Sure about what?” she whispered back.

“That I love you.” Theo tipped forward and kissed the top of her ear and smiled when she froze, refusing to answer or acknowledge him.

The great Mable Wilkinson, afraid to be in love. Theo couldn’t help but smile. All her hardness, all her strength, it was nothing more than a defense.

“Is it okay if I don’t love you back?” Her voice was so quiet he could barely hear her.

“Yeah, that’s okay.” He kissed her neck.

Mable flipped over to face him, her eyes searching his features. “Really? You’re okay with that?”

Theo nodded and let his lips turn into a wide smile. “I am really okay with that.”

“Why?” Her eyes searched his face as if the answer might be there.

“Because I think someday you’ll want to be in love again. Someday you’ll remember the good about being in love. It’ll be more important than the pain of losing the people you love. I think someday you’ll be ready again.” He kissed her forehead.

Mable looked at where her hands toyed with the collar of his body suit. “What if I never love you?”

“Then I’ll spend my whole life with the person I love. I think that would be okay.”

“What if I love someone else?”

Theo sighed. “Then I’ll love you and be happy for you. I want to be a part of your life as long as you let me.”

She rested her hand on his cheek and leaned in to kiss him, a small little peck on his lips. “Is it okay if I love you, too?”

Theo couldn’t help but kiss her, not a shy one, but a good one—a good kiss that made his heart nearly burst in his chest. “That’s okay, too,” he told her finally. Theo centered over her and relished the moment. It had taken them a long time. They’d gone from enemies to friends to lovers and everything in between.

Mable pulled away and asked, “What about Dasia?”

“What about her?”

“What if I love her, too?”

“Then it’s like you said. You’re lucky. And you’re worth it.”