Remember Jamie Baker (Jamie Baker #3)(76)

Having the ACEs tease me made me realize I had friends. I’d never had any of those before aside from Teddy, and his friendship had always been brittle. Excited to tease them back, I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh, shut up, you morons, or I’ll put you through the wall next.”

I realized my mistake the second Smut wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. “The same way you did Romeo?” he asked.

Shortstop followed this with, “Do you promise?”

And, not to be outdone by his comrades, Johnny G said, “There is a God. Kiss me first, Angel, and don’t be as gentle as you were with Goldilocks there. I’m a big boy. I can take it.”

I slapped a hand over my face. “Seriously? I’m surrounded by twelve-year-olds.”

They started laughing even harder. Even Ryan was laughing now. He had no sympathy. “Sorry, babe, you walked right into that one.”

He was right. I did. But prideful me remained stubbornly haughty. With an exasperated huff, I glared at Major Wilks. “I’m going to see Tyson.”

He stepped toward the infirmary with a nod. “I’ll join you. We have some things to talk about.” As he pushed open the door for me, he shot a stern look to his men. “Join us once you’ve all grown up, gentlemen.”

I was grateful for the reprimand, even if he was on the brink of laughter. Which he totally was. I could hear it in his voice, and his lips twitched as if he was using a lot of effort to keep a smile off his face. That he had my back, even in the face of my disgrace, warmed me to the old softy enough to forgive him for ordering his men to tranq me.

Once inside the medical center, I forgot all about the people in the hall. Dr. Haggerty, Blake, and Geek were in the far corner of the room, hunched over a microscope, while Tyson sat in a standard hospital bed playing cards with Abiodun. Relief washed over me at seeing that he was okay. I had a vague recollection of blasting him with a lightning bolt before I went unconscious. Ryan had said he was fine, but I’d needed to see it for myself.

I stepped up to my fellow PACs, wary of how they were going to react to me now, but I needn’t have worried. Both of them shot me smiles. Abiodun’s was soft, but Tyson’s was huge. “Jamie!” he cried. “You’re finally awake!”

The young teenager’s enthusiasm was unparalleled. I’d fried him, and he was still excited to see me. I nodded in his direction. “So are you.”

The commotion caught the others’ attention. Dr. Haggerty and Blake came over to speak with Major Wilks, both offering me smiles, but Geek never looked up from his microscope. Whatever he was studying, he was clearly fascinated.

Abiodun rose to his feet, offering me his chair next to Tyson’s bed. Before I could sit, Tyson scooted over, patting the mattress next to him. He was such a cutie; I couldn’t resist the offer. “I was afraid I’d killed you,” I admitted as I sat down on the edge of his bed.

He smirked. “You did.”

“What?”

He shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, but he still puffed out his chest a little as he explained. “My heart stopped. They had to bring me back with the shock paddles like in the movies.” He elbowed me with a conspiratorial glint in his eyes. “Good thing we were already at a hospital, eh?”

The lights and monitors in the room began flickering. I was so horrified that I grabbed him up in a fierce hug, and held on as if I planned to never let him go. “Tyson, I’m so sorry!”

If I was squeezing him too tightly, he didn’t complain. “It’s okay, Angel. I’m all right, and you’re obviously feeling better. Everything’s fine now.” He laughed and hugged me back. “Especially now. Hey, Abiodun, it looks like I’ve died and gone to heaven after all.”

Several chuckles rang out in the room. How could they all be so cool about this? Still unable to let him go, I pulled back just enough so that I could see his face. I shook my head. “It’s not fine. Tyson, I blasted you with lightning.”

“Because I stuck you with a tranquillizer dart.” Guilt wiped the smile from his face. “You were freaked out, and I startled you. It was an accident. It’s okay.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Tears threatened to spill down my face again as I tried to remember exactly what happened. “I’m not sure it was an accident. I don’t know what happened, but—”

Abiodun’s low, calming voice cut me off. “You weren’t yourself, Angel. You were being controlled. It wasn’t your fault.”

My eyes flew to Abiodun at the startling revelation. “What do you mean, controlled?”

Major Wilks’s stern voice rang out from behind me. “You were being mind controlled.” He said it as if that sort of thing happened all the time.

I glanced at him, surprised to see that Ryan, Smut, Johnny G, and Shortstop had entered the room as well. Ryan took note of the way I still clung to Tyson and raised an eyebrow at me. He was trying to suppress a smile, but the look still made me blush and I let go of Tyson, feeling strangely guilty. Tyson sighed, disappointed, and Ryan winked at me, making my cheeks flame even hotter. Jerk.

“Mind controlled?” I asked, forcing my gaze back to Major Wilks. “Seriously?”

Major Wilks nodded toward Blake. “It was Edwards who figured it out.”

Blake seemed surprised when I looked to him for an explanation. He gazed at me a second too long and then cleared his throat. “I’d heard of a project while working at Visticorp. They’d developed a swarm of nanobots that worked together in a hive fashion, and could be controlled remotely. As far as I know they’d never tried to combine the nanobots with anything organic, but with Visticorp’s advancements in certain fields, biohacking didn’t seem too far of a stretch for Donovan.”