She stopped at the foot of Two-Step’s bed and gave him a nod. She could see that he was preparing himself mentally when the seizure started. A distant look came over his eyes and his face went slack for a moment. He jerked once, violently, and fell to the side, bouncing off the bed, jerking uncontrollably on his way to the floor. Xia was ready when it happened, and she moved quickly, making sure his head didn’t hit the tile as the rest of his body slammed on the floor. Once on the floor, his body convulsed so violently he bent into a misshapen L, and he let out a constant, low guttural moan.
“I’ve got an overload,” Xia yelled. “I need assistance.”
Several other testing monitors came running as Two-Step continued jerking in and out of his L shape.
Xia worked frantically and pointlessly on her code deck.
“I can’t bring him out of it,” she said.
Two-Step continued to moan and convulse. He began to drool and his eyes fluttered in their sockets.
Granger took out a code deck and scanned Two-Step’s tattoo. “Let me try,” he said.
Xia didn’t resist. She knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything.
While Granger worked to pull him out of the overload, a small trickle of blood came from Two-Step’s nose and ran down his upper lip.
“We need to get him to the infirmary,” Xia said.
Granger, his face turning a shade paler, nodded in agreement.
Two med techs wheeled a gurney down the center aisle as test subjects looked on, their terrified and concerned faces multiplying in the mirrors like a crowd watching a career-ending injury at a sporting event. The med techs carefully put Two-Step’s convulsing body on the gurney and wheeled him out of the room.
Xia knew the overload was planned and ultimately harmless, but the sight of Two-Step convulsing had shaken her, and she sat on the bed, staring at a small spot of blood and drool mixing on the floor.
“Are you okay?” Granger asked. It was the most human she had ever heard him sound.
She looked up at him. “I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.”
“Why don’t you take a short break? The rest of us can cover you.”
The other test monitors agreed.
It was a good idea. Maybe she could use the time to try to contact Kat and see how the others were doing. At the moment, she was more worried about them then she was about Two-Step, but she wanted to make sure she did everything she could to help him get out of the building.
“Yeah, I think I will. Thanks. I’ll go check on him in a minute.”
Chapter 53
“What in the hell are you doing down here?” Slade asked.
Jacob froze, his mouth going dry. The hum of the hallway’s lights was deafening. He had the pistol in his hand, but Slade already had his weapon trained on him, and he didn’t want to take the chance he wouldn’t be able to move quickly enough to avoid being shot.
“Try to talk to him,” Kat said.
Thank God for Kat. She knew Slade, and she had more experience in firefights than Jacob. If she thought it was a good idea to try to talk to him, Jacob would try. It was better than any idea he had. But what to say that hadn’t been said to Slade when they met before? What approach to take?
Jacob swallowed. “You knew we were planning something here. This is it.”
“Step the rest of the way in the hallway and let the door close by itself. Bring your right hand around so I can see it.”
The loud clunk of the door shutting sent an echo down the hall.
“Tell him you have a gun in your hand,” Kat said. “Tell him you are going to put it down slowly.”
Jacob told him.
“Slowly,” Slade emphasized. “Now, slide it over with your foot. Slowly.”
Jacob used the toe of his boot to send the gun across the floor, keeping his hands away from his body.
“You know I can’t let you go now,” Slade said, using his weapon to gesture toward the cameras. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”
“If you let me go and we finish the job, there won’t be any video evidence that you ever saw me.”
“I don’t care,” Slade said. “If I wanted to help you, I would have told you yes before. I didn’t even want to help Gomez. I only told him I would because of our past. I don’t have a past with you. You’re nobody to me.”
“Sandy,” Kat said, “can you access the lights from the security system?”
“I think so, let me check,” Sandy said. “Yes, but it’s going to take a minute.”
“Keep him talking Jacob.”
It was clear Slade didn’t want to talk. Jacob needed a new tactic. Something to keep the conversation going.
“But Gomez was, right?” Jacob asked.
“He was, and now he’s dead, so I don’t see how that matters too much.”
“You’re right, he is dead. Do you know why he wanted to do this job? What he was going to do with the credits from it? He was going to use it to pay his father’s medical assistance bills, so his mother didn’t have to struggle to get by.”
There was a slight change in Slade’s eyes. It was brief, but Jacob could see it.
“I’ve got the lights,” Sandy said.
“I don’t give a shit about his mother either,” Slade said. He continued to talk about Gomez and their time serving together, but Jacob tuned him out, listening to Kat.
“Sandy, when I say ‘Three’ I want you to cut the lights to that floor. Turn them back
