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Déjà vu. This was all the stuff I’d heard when I was in the tank.
“His eyes are open!” I squealed in a rush of ridiculous excitement and didn’t even care that I sounded silly. Hell, if it wasn’t for me, Kang wouldn’t be here in the lab all regrown. Maybe from now on he’d listen to me when I told him a serial killer was chopping zombie heads off.
“Heart rate twenty-six. Thirty-two. EEG fluctuating.”
“Hey, Kang,” I said, loud and clear. “You’re doing great.”
“Save the cheerleading, Angel,” Pierce snapped. “He can’t hear you.”
“Bullshit.” I glared at Pierce. “You’ve never been in slug snot, so you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. When my eyes opened, I heard everything, all this voltage and heart rate stuff, even though I couldn’t move.” I pushed to my feet, supporting myself on the edge of the tank as I leaned over. “Hey, Kang.” I waved. “You’re going to be okay, I promise. I’ve been where you are, so I’m guessing you can hear me fine but can’t talk, and I know that shit’s scary as hell. You had a bit of an accident, but you’re getting healed up. If you don’t wake all the way up this time, they’ll put you back under to cook a bit more.” I grinned. “But don’t worry. You’ll wake up for real in no time at all.”
Kang’s eyelids fluttered, and his eyes met mine.
“Heart rate spiking,” Jacques said. “Fifty. Fifty-eight. Sixty-two.”
Dr. Nikas nodded once. “Take him to zero.”
“No!” Pierce pivoted toward Dr. Nikas. “Do not return him to stasis.”
Dr. Nikas bristled. “Not doing so could cause irreparable damage. We are considerably ahead of sched—”
“Bring him back,” Pierce said through gritted teeth. “Do it.”
Jacques cut an uncertain glance at Pierce. “Seventy. Seventy-two. Seventy-eight!”
I collapsed into the wheelchair heavily enough to send it rolling back toward Jacques.
Dr. Nikas stepped between the tank and Pierce. “No,” he said. “I will not do it.”
Jacques was the picture of consternation, but I wasn’t. The instant I heard the “No” from Dr. Nikas, I snaked my arm behind Jacques and shut down the voltage. “You said zero, right?” I asked Dr. Nikas with the utmost innocence.
Dr. Nikas looked at me with surprise that shifted quickly to admiration. “Yes, Angel. Zero.”
Pierce gave a cry of angry frustration. “Turn it back on!”
“It’s over,” Dr. Nikas said with considerable force as Jacques scrambled to adjust other settings. “Even if I believed it to be a wise course of action, I can’t revive him again today.” He moved to the door and opened it. “Now, I have work to attend to that requires my expertise. I’m sure you do as well. I’ll call you later.” He held the door open and waited.
Pierce swept a dark scowl over the room before stalking out, jaw clenched tight.
“What was that all about?” I asked the instant the door closed. “What’s important enough to risk Kang’s life after all the work you’ve put in to get him to this point?”
Dr. Nikas sighed. “Through Allen, you captured some of the information Pierce wants. But he has a long history with Kang.”
Huh. Interesting. Pierce was downright desperate to get Kang to talk. Ages ago, Kang had told me he was only seven when his parents died in the Korean War. That put him in the general vicinity of seventy-ish. But Pierce was hundreds of years old. How long a history could they possibly have? Or maybe it was simply a matter of perspective?
“Well, thanks for letting me be here for Kang’s wakeup call,” I said then smiled wryly. “Especially since I doubt Pierce will let me come to the next one.”
“It is not Pierce’s decision to make,” Dr. Nikas said crisply, but then his expression warmed. “I am pleased you were here. I had no idea you experienced awareness before full waking. The EEG indicated otherwise. I very much wish to discuss it with you once other urgent matters are dealt with.”
He gave my hand a squeeze, then had Jacques wheel me to a room that could have been a parlor in a grand estate. Rich colors, elegant trim, and bookshelves everywhere. Ranged around the room were several comfy chairs, and near the center was an antique coffee table and a plush couch that begged to be napped upon. No ambiance immersion system screen in here, but in its place the room had the most realistic fake fireplace I’d ever seen.
A plate of brainy finger food rested on the coffee table beside a slim laptop bearing a note in Dr. Nikas’s neat print that read “for your use.”
I grinned. Who was I to argue? Especially when I was dying to catch up on the events of the outside world.
I checked my email—both personal and work—then sent messages to my professors, telling them I’d been diagnosed with mono and that I’d have to telecommute for a week or so. So far I hadn’t missed any classes, thanks to the grand tradition of Louisiana schools’ closing for the entire week of Mardi Gras. But I had a feeling I was going to miss my biology lab tomorrow.
Once I finished all of the being-responsible crap, I skimmed the local news to see if the world had decided to end during my slug snot adventure.
