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“Everything okay?” Mark asked.
“You tell me.” Callum didn’t look away from the window. “Is there something I should know about Jenna?”
Shit. “Like what?”
“I made my way down here, and she was standing in the hallway, facing the wall, sucking in air like she’d just run a marathon.”
Damn it. Mark should’ve insisted on carrying her in. At least that way, she wouldn’t have had to battle a panic attack.
But he would keep Jenna’s secret. “This is all hard on her. She feels responsible for the creation of these robots, and their deaths.” No mention of fears or agoraphobia.
“Is she going to be able to handle this?” Callum stepped back from the door.
“She’ll get it done. Just give her space.”
He pushed the door open, and Jenna glanced up at him from the microscope she was looking into.
“Permission to come aboard?”
Her jaw was tight. “Just you. Callum already suspects I’m cuckoo for cocoa puffs.”
“I told him the incident he witnessed was stress about helping the robots and he bought that, so it’s okay. How are you feeling?”
“My hands are shaky, and I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing I didn’t eat too much before attempting my dash in here or it would’ve ended up all over the floor. But I’m handling it.” She blew out a breath. “Better having you here with me.”
“Good.” Slowly, he moved closer. He didn’t want to infringe on her space, and he wouldn’t reveal their personal relationship to Callum, but Mark was glad his presence helped her.
“You don’t want Callum in here?”
“No. He would just watch, waiting. No matter how fast I go, he’d want me to go faster, and—” She heaved in a breath. “It’s just a little too familiar.”
Because Adil Garrison had done the same thing. Pressure her until she couldn’t give him what he wanted, and then he took her outside and destroyed her, piece by piece.
Mark gave her a smile. “You work at your speed. You’re accomplishing more than anyone else, so your speed is fast enough.”
“Let’s hope.” She looked down at the computer screen next to the microscope. “I’m not messing around this time. I’m working straight from the assumption that Joaquin doesn’t want these robots to survive or remember anything. I’ve already applied a first potential compound to the blood work.”
Mark watched as she worked, muttering at the screen in her normal fashion. He stepped outside the lab to provide Callum with all the details they’d discovered about the computer hacking. While the information was helpful, it didn’t allow them to be proactive—evidently, these government backup servers were located all over the country.
Shutting them down wasn’t an option; they contained too much info. Using their locations to stake out potential robot attacks wasn’t an option either—there were just too many of them.
So they would still be working on the defensive, not where Mark liked to be. Callum would be going back undercover, this time focusing on what was on those servers Joaquin was attempting to access.
Callum went to make phone calls, and Mark went back into the lab. Nurses had once again been running steady streams of samples and data to Jenna. Mark had stayed nearby in case she’d needed him, but apparently once she’d recuperated from the panic attack, she’d found a way to steady herself.
Mark watched her from just inside the door. She was so focused, she didn’t even see him there. It was so damned sexy. Her hair had half fallen out of her ponytail, and her glasses were so far down her nose they were in danger of sliding off. She’d rolled up the sleeves on the boxy white lab coat.
Damned if he didn’t want to see her wearing that lab coat and nothing else. When this was all over, that was going to happen.
She straightened from whatever she’d been staring at on the screen. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
There was pure relief in her eyes. “I think I have it this time. I think I can save her.”
This robot was a young woman named Sarah, twenty-four, and just like yesterday, her body was failing, now dependent on drugs she hadn’t been given. “Really?”
“It might take a couple of tries to get it right, but yeah. She’s definitely responding.”
