Page 38 of Hollow State

"Without the test results that Wynn ran at the institute, and the fact that you have some pretty nasty bruising on your body from the ride home, it's better to be safe." Darwin shifted to the arch and pressed. Same response, same speed, no lag on either side. "Push into my hand like there's a gas pedal under it."

Kane pushed, and the plantar flexion came through strong and even. Darwin held the resistance until the tendon stood up under the skin before letting go.

"I think you're the one who needs a good examination," Kane said.

"Why do you say that?" Darwin pulled the portable computer closer and keyed in the numbers and dated them. Kane was making good progress, and despite the day's events, his body was handling the situation better than expected.

"You're limping," Kane said.

"I'm pretty sure I broke my toe," Darwin said. "But there's nothing you can do about that except wrap it, and that's been done."

Kane burst out laughing. "Only casualty in the bunker, and you got it fighting a tree."

"That's the part I resent." Darwin ran the reflex hammer along the sole of Kane's foot, heel to toe, and watched the toes flex down instead of fanning. "Nothing worse than having a pathetic battle scar."

"Walking away unscathed from a day like today is a good thing." Kane folded his hands in his lap. "Do you want to talk about what happened? About Prewit?"

Darwin carried the tray to the counter and started placing instruments into the sterilization pan. "Prewit was one of the most patient men I've ever known." He rinsed a few things and turned. "We had some equipment that could take anywhere from ten minutes to forty to give us results. Every other man I've ever worked beside would be drumming a hole in the counter by minute two. But Prewit, he would go snag a cup of coffee, take a stroll around the corridor, or sit and read an article."

"Is that where you learned patience?"

Darwin chuckled. "Prewit told me my kind of diligence was overkill."

"I might agree with him on that."

"Most would." Darwin let out a long breath. "I can't believe he's gone. I also can't help but feel responsible."

"When I was first recovering at the institute, I spent a lot of time with him and his son," Kane said. "They both told me you tend to do that, even when it's not your fault."

"I might not have caused this. But it's my creation that put everything in motion. That weighs heavily on me."

"I imagine it would." Kane sat up a little taller and stretched his back. "But without you, Elis would've died, and Prewit would've never had all those years working side by side with his son. They both loved that."

Darwin knew that. He’d seen how proud Prewit was. There was no denying that. And Darwin could admit that gave him a sense of accomplishment, too.

"Both of them told me stories of other soldiers who got to hold their babies for the first time. Or who were able to stand and walk their wives down the aisle. Or just simply return home and hug their families." Kane leaned forward. "You did that. And you can't let Finch's greed destroy all the good parts of it. We will stop him."

"Prewit was an optimist. That never quite rubbed off on me," Darwin said. "He believed science was a kind of miracle. But to me, science has always been black and white. It works, or it doesn't."

"What about the gray areas? Seems like there's a lot of that when it comes to what you do."

"There is." Darwin rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. "But that's just what we don't know. What we're searching for. Either a diagnosis, whether that’s something we've seen before, or something brand new. Or we're working on new advancements, or new ideas to solve old problems. Prewit looked at everything as a possibility. He'd get excited about what could be. I reserved my emotions until I knew I'd solved a problem with a certain level of efficacy. According to Prewit, it meant I walked around with sagging shoulders seventy percent of the time."

"You don't sound like you agree."

"I don't disagree," Darwin said. "And I don't mind being a pessimist when it comes to lab work. It's my job to make sure the drugs and treatments I create are safe. Or, at the very least, the benefits outweigh the risk. And what's most important is that I truly love what I do. I can't imagine being in any other field."

"I owe you my life. My ability to walk," Kane said. "I'm grateful to you and your dedication to your work for that. But I've learned more about you in the last ten minutes than I have in the last five months," Kane said. "We've played cards together. Read books and had intense conversations on all sorts of interesting topics. But in all honesty, I know very little about you. About the man behind the stethoscope."

Darwin leaned against the counter, took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses. His first instinct was to justify. Give a valid reason—but was there really one? There were excuses. There were things in his past that made him guarded. The same things he used to keep people at a safe distance, so he didn't have to do anything other than save them—medically speaking.

It sounded odd, but that's all he'd ever wanted to do with his life. Nothing else had really mattered to him, until now. This bunker had changed everything, and he couldn't begin to explain it if he tried.

"What do you want to know?"

"It's going to be that easy?"

"Probably not." Darwin shoved his glasses back up his nose. "But if you leave it up to me to tell you something meaningful, I'll give you a lame story about how my brother and I used to time each other to see who could do their math homework the fastest."