Under the Knife(112)

Ignore it.

“Fine, then,” Cameron said, in the halting tone of a man holding on to control of his rage by his fingernails. “Then lie down with your stomach to the ground and spread your arms and legs out.”

“Okay, okay. Take it easy.” He made as if to sit on the ground and stared at Cameron as he approached, his eyes probing for weaknesses, anything at all he could exploit to his advantage.

There.

Right there.

That was it.

That’s what he needed.

Cameron was favoring his right knee.





RITA


Rita blinked.

Spencer?

Spencer!

Spencer was here. In this room, talking to someone—Sebastian, maybe? She wondered if Spencer had been the one who’d shut Delores down. But what the hell would Spencer …

Wait.

She’d blinked!

She tried it again.

Yes, most definitely a blink!

The paralysis was wearing off.

Morpheus must have injected her with the paralysis-reversal drug (Sugammadex, was it? that’s what Nikhil was using), as it was programmed to do.

She tried wiggling her fingers. They felt heavy and slow, like big, thick sausages. But they responded.

Concentrate, lovely Rita.

You can do it.

She began to cough, quietly, around the tube. Her gag reflex, no longer stifled, was kicking in.

Her arms were lead weights. She strained to lift them toward her face—

(Concentrate!)

—and the tube sticking out of her mouth.





SPENCER


The man wasn’t lying down.

Spencer was pissed but not stupid. He kept himself between the man and the closest doorway, brandishing the robot arm.

“I said, lie down!” Furious as he was, Spencer didn’t want to hurt the guy any more than he had to—just keep him out of action and get the cops here. Let the cops take care of him.

“Okay, okay.” The man waved his hands wearily. “Just, don’t punch me in the face again, man. Okay?” He started to lie down.

Then, before Spencer could react, the guy was on his feet and moving.

Damn, he’s fast.

The man shot to Spencer’s left. Spencer threw the Swiss Army at him, but the big, metal cylinder went wide as the man abruptly reversed direction.

Which was okay. Spencer had thrown it as a distraction. Right after chucking it at him, Spencer launched himself low, toward the man’s center of gravity …





SEBASTIAN


… Sebastian saw him coming and, at the last possible moment, dodged smoothly aside, sending Cameron off-balance.

Only for a moment.

But it was all Sebastian needed.

Cameron’s right knee was moving more slowly that the rest of him. Exactly as Sebastian had anticipated.

Sebastian dropped to a crouch and kicked out with his leg in a move similar to the one he’d used on the skate rat earlier in the day.

Except this time, he didn’t hold back.

This time, he didn’t swing his leg wide.

His foot slammed into Cameron’s right knee with the force of an industrial press.

The effect was more than he’d intended. Sebastian knew the outcome even before he felt the cartilage and bone and ligament collapse and heard the snap, sharp and loud as the crack of a whip.

The result was immediate. Cameron cried out, seized his ruined knee, and crumpled.

Sebastian rose, breathing hard, and watched Cameron writhe on the ground, clutching his knee in agony.

Such a waste.

He sensed movement to his right.

Finney materialized from the shadows.

He was holding a gun.

A gun?

A Glock. And he was holding it all wrong.

Which didn’t matter so much because he was pointing it at Sebastian.

Where the hell had Finney gotten a goddamn gun?

“Boss?”

“Thank you, Sebastian.”

Finney fired it four times into Sebastian.





FINNEY


The force of the bullets blew Sebastian off his feet and out of the pool of light they were standing in. He toppled over some stacked building materials and disappeared.

The gun shook in Finney’s hand.

It wasn’t too late. He could still salvage this. Set things right, make things the way they were supposed to be. The universe lusted for order. It craved balance. Every action needed a reaction. Why couldn’t these people see that? Why couldn’t he make them understand?

The gun shook.

He had to move quickly. Not much time. Someone would be here soon to investigate the noise.

The big man first. Then he’d finish off whatever was left of Sebastian.

Then Wu.

He’d save Wu and her sister for last.

He approached the large man, who was the same one Sebastian had pointed out to him today in the park. A neurosurgeon. Campbell, or something? How on earth had he found them? No matter. He’d take care of him. He’d take care of all of them.

The big neurosurgeon was on the floor, curled into a ball, clutching his right knee, moaning.

He looked up as Finney approached.

Finney raised the gun toward the man’s upturned face, which was streaked with tears.