Manny saw David, in his mind, but he was a kid, no more than nine-years old. And Manny saw himself, a year younger that his older brother. They were sitting together on the porch of their house, sharing an apple. A happy time, before the State took their mother away. Before foster homes, and juvee hall, and suicide.
“I didn’t want to kill you, David.”
“I know. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No, Manny. I shouldn’t have killed those cats. It was wrong. You did the right thing to tattle on me.”
“But juvenile hall…”
“I was never going to be happy, Manny. That’s how it was for me. It wasn’t your fault I ended it. It didn’t have anything to do with you.”
“I wish things turned out better.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
David took something out of his pocket, handing it to Manny. It was small, yellow, and seemed to shine with its own inner light. A die-cast pickup truck.
“I love you, David.”
“I love you too, Manny.”
The warmth was all around him now, covering him like a blanket. It was different, so different than all of the other times he’d died taking N-Som. There was no fear, no pain, no emotional turmoil. Manny was infused with a deep and calming peace, which welcomed him into the thing he wanted most of all.
Everlasting rest.
Emmanuel Tibbets let out a gentle breath, closed his eyes, and went to sleep for the last time.
Jack Kilborn
Disturb
“Theena.”
Bill knelt down next to her, gently taking her hand off the wound.
“Bill…”
It was bad. The tear was ragged, ugly. The ax had penetrated the dermis and subcutaneous tissue, neatly severing her external obliques. There was a lot of blood. Deep inside, he caught a glimpse of liver and ascending colon.
Bill placed her hand back over the injury, keeping pressure on it. Her pulse was weak, but rapid, her skin clammy to the touch. The onset of hypovelemic shock, brought about by massive blood loss. This was turning into a repeat episode of what happened with David in the lobby.
He wouldn’t fail this time. He wouldn’t let her die.
“I’ll be back.”
“Don’t go.”
Bill ran out of the gym, trying to remember the direction of the lab. He found it by noticing all of the medical supplies Theena had dropped in the doorway. Bill scooped them up; streptokinase, atropine, epinephrine, beryllium, an IV drip and a bag of saline. He then entered the room and picked up the bottle of alcohol and the syringe Theena had used on him, as well as the metal first aid box.
When he arrived back in the gym, Theena was in V-Fib.
Bill hung the IV from one of the nearby exercise machines and threaded the needle into her wrist. She wasn’t breathing, and her heart was in chaotic arrhythmia, shaking and trembling in her chest. Bill hit her chest as hard as he could, sending shock waves of pain through his injured shoulder. Then he titled up her head, pinched her nose, and filled her lungs with his breath.
Into her IV he injected a syringe full of epi. He began chest compressions, both arms rigid, bending her rib cage to force her heart to pump blood. He could only keep it up for thirty seconds before the ripples of agony in his back made him close to passing out. Bill forced his breath into her, and gave another thump on the chest.
Her pulse was still erratic.
“God dammit!”
Bill wouldn’t let it happen. Not again. He couldn’t lose her, too.
He drew a 500 milligram dose of beryllium, a powerful anti-arrhythmic, into the syringe and injected the bolus in an IV push. After another thirty seconds of CPR, he checked her heart.
A normal rhythm had returned, but it was too slow, much too slow.
“I won’t let you die.”
Bill administered a dose of atropine, and the effect was almost instantaneous. Her heart rate rose dramatically.
Bill checked her carotid. Pulse still weak. She didn’t have enough blood in her system to raise the pressure. He had to close up that wound.
In the med kit was a box of single use Ethilon needles, pre-threaded with black monofilament. He tore open a pack and then dumped rubbing alcohol over his hands and a pair of scissors.
Theena moaned when his fingers entered her. The blood flow had slowed considerably. He tied off four veins, and then gently tucked her ascending colon back into her muscle wall. Then he sutured the subcutaneous tissue back over the oblique, and closed her up with twenty-eight stitches across the epidermis.
His back was on fire when he finished, his forehead sopping wet. Bill checked her pulse.
Strong and steady.
“Bill…”
Her eyelids fluttered. Bill felt his chest well up, emotion threatening to choke him.
“Theena.”
Pain be damned, he bent down and held her. In that single moment, the only thing that mattered in the whole world was the woman in his arms. Alive and breathing.
He hadn’t let her die.
Bill gave her a shot of lidocaine near the injury to help with the pain, and then located the elevator card.
They weren’t completely out of the woods yet. Theena was still in critical condition, and needed to get to a hospital. Plus there was the danger of Rothchilde coming back. Bill needed to get them out of there, along with enough evidence to make sure N-Som was never approved and Rothchilde was implicated to the fullest extent of the law.
Bill took the elevator to the lobby and used the phone to dial information. He got the number for the Hoffman Estates Police Department. After several minutes of convincing them that he’d already tried the Schaumburg PD and they hadn’t come, they promised to drop by. Bill reminded them to bring an ambulance.
Then he went back into the bowels of the building to find the N-Som file he’d gotten from Mike Bitner’s place. It seemed like an eternity ago.
The file was where he’d left it, in the conference room. Inside was enough information to expose the truth about N-Som. Hopefully this, coupled with Theena’s testimony, would be enough to put the DruTech President away for a long time.
It was the very least the bastard deserved.
Jack Kilborn
Disturb
The only drawback to flying by helicopter was the noise. Unless Rothchilde wore one of those ridiculous radio headsets, he had to yell for his pilot, Frederick, to hear him.
The bird banked left, Rothchilde’s dinner almost leaving his stomach from the maneuver. Below them, streetlights and headlights sparkled like stars, competing with the real deal overhead. The Chicago skyline could be seen in the distance, anchored by the blinking antennae of the Sears Tower and the Hancock Building.
Rothchilde decided it might be prudent to leave the country for a few weeks. He wasn’t sure how this whole DruTech mess was going to resolve itself. The best scenario had Manny killing Theena and Bill, and then dying himself. But things seldom ended neatly.
The smart thing would be to send in his own troops and clean the place out-bodies, evidence, everything. Unfortunately, Rothchilde had murdered both of the people he could use to do that, Halloran and Carlos. Their bodies would be found, and Rothchilde wasn’t anxious to answer persistent questions from either the police or the mob.
