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Kyle stuffed small packets into his pocket and ripped the top off a big one.
I did the same and gulped down the pint, half expecting the others to start a chorus of Chug! Chug! Chug! and a little disappointed when they didn’t. I lowered the empty packet and let out a pleased sigh as the surplus of brains energized my muscles and tweaked my senses. Nowhere near as supercharged as with a combat mod, but the extra brains would give me the fuel I needed if this confrontation turned into a clusterfuck.
Once Kyle and Sorsha were ready, I opened the door a crack, pleased to see the hallway was empty, then I slipped out and ran as quietly as possible to the gator room, relieved to find Kyle and Sorsha right behind me.
Within, the gators were lined up along the fence as if they’d sensed me coming.
“Hello, darlings,” I murmured. “Time to come out and play.”
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Kyle asked as I unlocked the gate. “You can’t possibly have trained them in such a short time.”
“I didn’t train them.” I pulled the enclosure door open. “I didn’t have to. They know what I want and will do it for me.”
Sorsha looked ever-so-slightly uncertain—the first time I’d seen her look anything but cool and composed. But when the gators stayed where they were, she relaxed a bit.
“I need Biggie and Tupac,” I said, smiling when they lumbered forward and through the open gate.
The six-footers and the rest of the smaller ones moved to follow but stopped when I made a tsking noise. “No, I only need the grown-ups for this,” I told them. “It might get dangerous.”
They stared up at me with forlorn expressions. I sighed. “Okay, y’all can come, but you have to stay out of the way.” I crouched between the two big gators and rubbed their toothy jaws. “Let’s get that bitch.”
Chapter 35
“No hissing,” I told the gators, voice low yet stern. “No bellowing. No noise, okay? We’re being sneaky. Now let’s do this!”
Head high, I started down the corridor, flanked by the two enormous reptiles. Man, if those bitches from high school could see me now!
snick snick shwuush snick shwuush snick snick shwuush
I stopped. Sighed down at my eager guardians. Claws and tails made more noise than I’d expected.
“I stand by my decision to use the gators as backup,” I whispered to the others. “But Reno will hear us coming. Kyle, can you go ahead and take him out?”
“Consider it done.” He loped noiselessly to the far corner, did a quick peek around, then disappeared from our sight. A second later my zombie hearing picked up a soft “oof,” then silence.
After a brief, tense wait, Kyle reappeared and gave us the all-clear.
“Nice,” Sorsha murmured.
I grinned. “Yeah, Kyle gets shit done.”
I got my gator procession going again, striding with glorious, reptilian purpose to Kyle.
“What did you do with Reno?” I asked him.
“Supply closet and zip-ties.”
“The techs in the histology room might hear us when we go to deal with Kristi,” I said. “We can help Billy take them out of action so they don’t cause problems for us later.”
Sorsha merely smiled. “If Billy needs the help, then by all means.”
Once around the corner, Sorsha pulled the histology room door open. Both techs and Billy looked over at her. Sorsha gave Billy a single short nod then closed the door again.
Several soft thuds. Then nothing.
“I think he has it covered,” Sorsha said.
“Niiiice,” I murmured.
