McCallister hesitated a bare second before he said, “I’m going to need to see the prototype in action before I jump into that kind of money. I’m not—”
“I know how much you’ve got in the bank, Pat. Don‘t kid a kidder. You may not have access to the trust, but you don’t do so badly for yourself. Couple of hundred thou won’t break you.”
McCallister stared at him for a long, long moment, then nodded sharply, once. “It had better work.”
Manny shrugged. “It’s science, man. We fail before we succeed. I don’t guarantee anything.”
Well, that was comforting.
Pansy touched Bryn’s arm, making her jump, and said, “Come with me. You’re going to want to sit down for this.”
It’s just an IV, Bryn told herself, as she watched the clear fluid drip slowly from the bag into the flexible tubing. Just saline.
It wasn’t just saline, and it was going into her veins, and that scared her so much her mouth felt dry. The shots, at least, were fast, over before she could really think about the implications. But sitting here like this as Manny’s prototype whispered into her veins, that was something else entirely.
“So,” she said, to take her mind off of things, “how long have you been working on this?”
Manny didn’t seem to hear her, but he finally answered as he scratched down notes in a chart, referring to the machines she was hooked up to. “McCallister brought me a sample of Pharmadene’s drug when it was first started in trials,” he said. “He wanted to know the potential for abuse. I told him there was nothing but potential for abuse. So technically, I suppose almost a year since I started taking the thing apart.”
“And this is … an antidote?”
“For what, death?”
“Manny!” Pansy called from the next room. “Behave.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. He didn’t sound sorry. “As far as I can tell, your condition isn’t fixable by any medical means. The drug maintains you. It doesn’t bring you back to life, just supports your vital functions. If I wanted to get poetic, I’d say it replaces your soul.”
That was … uncomfortable. Bryn looked at the needle going into her arm. “So what exactly does this thing do?”
“No pain at the entry site?” Manny asked. It wasn’t that he sounded concerned, really, just inquisitive. All this was an intellectual problem for him.
Life and death, for her. Or whatever passed for life these days.
“It’s fine,” she said, and dry-swallowed. “I’m really thirsty.”
“Yeah, that’s a side effect,” he said, and poured some water from a carafe nearby. He handed it over, and she gulped it down in three convulsive swallows. “Not too much. You’ll vomit.”
Comforting. She leaned her head back against the leather headrest and studied the ceiling girders high above. “I can’t believe that I’m taking experimental IV drugs from some guy who bunkers himself in a warehouse.”
“You left out paranoid. A paranoid guy who bunkers himself in a warehouse.”
“I was trying to be nice.”
“Don’t waste it on me; I mostly don’t notice. Or care.”
“Do you have any qualifications?”
“Why, would it matter now? The IV’s already in. If you wanted to see my Johns Hopkins certificate, you should have asked before.”
“Do you have one?”
He shrugged. “Somewhere.”
She eyed him curiously and wondered what his story was, but mostly what she was concerned with was what the hell was going into her body. Slowly. To no apparent effect. “I repeat—what the hell is this stuff?”
“If I tell you it could prejudice the trial,” he said. “Just tell me if you feel anything.”
“Anything like what? Because I’m feeling pretty damn unnerved right now!”
Manny, unruffled, checked his watch and the level on the bag above his head, then stood up and went to the door. “You can test it now; the solution should be filtered throughout her system.”
“Try what?” she asked, feeling ridiculously exposed, as if they’d left her naked and defenseless. “Uh, could someone please explain anything to me?”
McCallister stepped into the room, shut the door behind him, and exchanged a look with Manny before he said, “How are you feeling, Bryn?”
“Pissed off,” she said. Her voice was shaking, and she was breathing faster than she should have been. The urge to rip the needle out of her vein was almost irresistible. “Terrified. How’s your day?”
“Interesting.” McCallister pulled up a stool across from her and said, “Your pupils are a little wide.”
“Probably because whatever’s in this stuff is making me high, but not in a fun way.” She swallowed hard and lowered her voice. “I’m scared.“
“I know.” He leaned forward and studied her for another few seconds before he said, “What color underwear do you have on?”
“What?” She blinked at him, and felt a surge of heat in her face. God, she hated blushing. “None of your business!”
“Tell me.”
“No!”
“Condition Sapphire. Tell me!” He’d raised his voice, shouting it in her face, and she felt all the tension, all the anger, all the hate she’d pushed down for days now suddenly boil up to the surface.
Bryn surged up out of the chair and screamed back, “Go to hell, you son of a—” The truth hit her in a cold rush, and she paused, staring into his eyes. “Oh,” she said, in a much calmer voice. “Oh.”
McCallister smiled—a real, relieved smile. “Manny,” he said, “you are a genius.”
“Is that news? I thought you knew that when you promised to pay me—let’s see—two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. To start.” Even Manny was smiling—or at least, he looked like he was tempted.
“Try it again!” Bryn said, and grabbed McCallister’s hands. She squeezed hard. “We have to make sure! Come on; order me.”
“Kiss me,” he said, still smiling.”
Maybe it was the smile that did it, but she felt a wild and uncontrollable impulse to follow that order. Bryn froze, stared at him a stricken second, and then said, “Something else.”
The glow in his eyes faded, and so did the smile. For a second he’d seemed … so different. Almost human. But now … now it was just business again. “Walk to the corner,” he said. “That’s an order.”
She didn’t move. And didn’t feel any impulse to, either. What she did feel was a corresponding need to slap him.
“Manny, if this stuff is supposed to counter that protocol thing, I think it works,” she said, and sat back down in her leather chair. “So maybe it’s a good time to explain to me what you just did to me.”
“I didn’t so much reprogram the nanites as chemically inhibit some of their functions,” Manny said. “I’ve been working on turning off specific design features of the proprietary drug ever since Pat made it available to me for study, more than year ago; I’ve also been working to develop a protocol-free version. That one’s a little tricky, but I thought the counteragent would work in the meantime. It’s got a toxic side effect that would kill most people, but for someone like you, taking Returné, that doesn’t matter. The nanites will clean up the mess. Does make you a little loopy, though.”
“It’s toxic?”
“Not so you’d really notice.”
McCallister stepped in, fortunately. “We had to address your vulnerability to the protocols, especially Condition Sapphire. I thought you wanted that as much as we did,” McCallister said. He seemed to have recovered his composure nicely; she couldn’t see even a trace of emotion left in him now. “If you can be ordered to talk about anything and everything, you’re useless to me as any kind of asset. Before I could tell you anything of note, I had to be sure the protocols wouldn’t trigger if Harte ordered it.”
Well, that just warmed her with the blanket of his concern. Or not. “So now I can lie about things.”
“Just like you normally would.”
Bryn stared at him with calm, level intensity until he looked away.
“Yeah, maybe we should sit down and have some coffee,” Manny said. “You’ll be good for about a week before you need another dose of the inhibitor.”
“Great,” she muttered. “More needles.”
McCallister gave her a look. “Would you rather lose your free will on command?”
“No. But I’d rather do it without puncturing any more veins.” She eyed Manny as he bent down, expertly slipping the needle out of her arm as he applied the cotton pad and bandage to stop the bleeding. He glanced up and gave her an awkward half smile. “Thank you, I guess.”
He shrugged. “I don’t get paid in thanks.” But there was a glow in his eyes; he was pleased. “You start feeling faint or strange, you yell for me or Pansy. Loudly. None of this hero crap.” He glanced aside at McCallister. “She stays put for a minimum of four hours before I let you walk out with her. Give me the syringe.”
“No,” McCallister said.
“She needs her shot.”
“And she’ll get it. From me.” McCallister met Bryn’s eyes briefly, then looked back at his friend. “It has to be that way. The syringes have sensors embedded all over the surface, and they’re coded to two users—a primary and a backup. For Bryn, that’s me and Joe Fideli. If anyone else, including Bryn, tries to administer them, the nanites inside self-destruct and become inert. Useless. It’s a security measure to prevent theft.”
Manny stared at him and slowly shook his head. “And here I thought I was the paranoid one.”
“You are,” McCallister said. “But you’re just one person. Multiply it by an incredibly greedy corporation and you get some idea what we’re up against.”