AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Right away,” he assured me. “And call me if anything happens with Reggie.”
“Sure thing,” I said.
And so it was that I found myself alone in the dim lit room, my chair scooted up to the bed, clutching Reggie’s clammy hand. I’d gone from heaven to hell, in the space of just a few hours.
It seemed that heaven and hell weren’t all that far from each other after all. All it took was one hard shove, and there you were. Dodging the pitchforks and the flames.
CHAPTER21
Shane
The sky was getting light and Ethan was still staring into that screen, scrolling and sifting data while we watched. I personally had only used SmokeScreen that one disastrous time a year ago, the one that ended with me being abducted and six of my colleagues murdered. Not being a gearhead like Ethan and Freya, I didn’t really know the intricacies of how it worked. I just hoped that it would.
My ignorance had served me well in Halliwell’s dungeon. All I had was vague sense about vastly accelerated dynamic machine learning. The algo wrote new mini-algorithms for itself instantly whenever it encountered an obstacle, and if the computer had enough juice to make the vast number of computations, SmokeScreen would find a way to gently, unobtrusively, secretly ooze around any obstacle, like… well… smoke.
Or so it had been described to me, back in the day.
Rose, Jed, Remy and I all sat there guzzling coffee, nerves thrumming, while Frey and Ethan conversed in a code only a fellow super-nerd could understand.
We jolted up six feet into the air when the door opened, but it was just Kat, poking her head in. “Trey is taking me and Holly down to the hospital,” she said. “Angela said to tell you there are breakfast sandwiches ready. And three-berry muffins. We’re taking a box of them down to the hospital. Get ‘em while they’re hot.”
“Okay,” Jed said. “Thanks.”
Ethan smiled at her. The energy that buzzed between them gave me a stab of jealousy. Lucky bastard. He’d passed all the trials on his quest to save the fair lady. He’d come through with flying colors. So far, I hadn’t won any battles for mine. The only thing she cared about was helping Reggie. If I failed at that…
I turned my mind away by force. That train of thought led to nowhere good.
Kat left, and the rest of us paced around, waiting for something to happen. Finally, Angela came in with a platter of food, muttering in disapproval about the importance of a good breakfast. Her usually beaming face looked pale and drawn.
An hour or so later, Frey and Ethan crowed loudly in triumph. “Yes!” Ethan and Freya high-fived with a resounding smack, and then hugged each other hard.
“What?” I demanded. “What did you do? Did you find something?”
“We got around another important wall,” Freya said. “With no apparent detection so far.”
“Well, that’s excellent, but now what? Have you gotten into their files?”
“Working on it,” Ethan said. “These things take time.”
That was a brief bright point that preceded another long, deep valley of boredom. I began to regret my decision to be up here to witness the search, rather than staying down at the hospital to support Red. That had been stupid. I was about to announce my decision to drive down to town when Frey and Ethan erupted again.
“Whoo-hoo!” Freya yelled. “Yes!”
“There’s a file here named R. Clarke, with an extensive document list,” Ethan told me, grinning. “At least a hundred items. All of them are dated within the past three months. There’s also a record of drugs being sent to the Cascade Clinic, on a weekly basis.” He looked over at us with a frown, his smile fading. “That seems strange, considering what Rose found in the medicine.”
“Maybe the stuff in the fridge was a decoy,” Freya said.
“But what about the compound itself?” I insisted.
“Working on it… hang on.” Ethan’s eyes were fixed on the screen. “Here’s a document with a long list of chemicals. Rose, you’re up. Come take a look.”
Ethan rolled his chair away. Freya leaped up to fling herself at Jed for a celebratory kiss passionate enough to freak me out. I had not processed my baby sister being married to my old Ranger buddy and long-time colleague Jed yet, but I was too distracted right now to be too uptight about it. Rose leaned toward the screen, studying the recipe for Reggie’s medicine. Damn. It was actually happening. It had worked.
Ethan looked over at me and grinned, holding up a warning hand. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “I’ve been up all night and my defenses are way down. If you get sloppy and emotional on me, I’ll fall apart all over you.”
“Fuck you, man. Don’t you dare try to shut me down.” I grabbed him and hung on. Ethan hugged me back, then pulled away, grinning.
“Let me call Kat,” he said. “I promised I’d keep her up to date.”
