Chapter Nine #2
“Hey, you called it the ‘reckoning,’” Helen reminded him dryly. She really had to talk to the man about privacy. Talking about her sexual sensitivity in front of four other males, even though two of them were in some measure her doctors, was a little too much information.
A part of her, however, was busy admiring yet again how Jed McNeil could pull apart a complex situation.
Right now, even as her mind was busy trying to put together what he’d broken down, he was already turning toward the screens, snatching the remote from Dr. Kirkland’s hands.
He replayed the scene one more time, slowing down the film frame by frame.
He paused at the one where Armando was in mid-air.
“There. Helen wasn’t looking at Armando. Her gaze was in this general direction.” He pointed at a spot in front of where he stood in the video, then clicked the remote. “Eight Ball, use the trajectory and pinpoint the exact spot Helen was looking.”
Geometrical lines aligned and separated on the screens as Eight Ball started his program. “Trajectory is ninety-eight percent accurate. The angle of Hell’s eyes falls right about a foot in front of Jed McNeil. The arc of sight goes from there to five feet beyond you to the wall, dude.”
“Something definitely caught your attention, scream or no,” Kirkland said as he studied the different angles the super computer had drawn on the stilled frame.
Jed turned from the screen and looked directly at Armando standing by her. His voice was calm. “Two things. You used a dose of the serum about the same time Helen did. I want to know why.” Then he turned to Helen, his eyes gleaming, “There was another presence on site.”
“Huh? How did you get to that conclusion? The microeyes are showing noth—oh.” Helen blinked. The experience in the stairwell in Frankfurt...
Jed nodded. “It seems that, for some reason, those who have taken SYMBIOS 2 have some kind of sense of another remote viewer.”
“I did think about that incident in similar lines yesterday morning,” Helen admitted, frowning, “that I crashed into the remote viewer. But Jed, it’s impossible to feel another remote viewer’s presence.”
“You were wearing the energy alarm ring,” Jed said. “Where is it?”
“T took it back to the labs. Probably to test what happened at the stairwell.” When she was at the CIA, she’d been told about energy alarms, which agencies used to detect the presence of remote viewers in a small area.
She’d never seen one until T had given her a ring to wear when Helen had been about to go for the test set by the agencies.
It seemed her chief had been suspicious herself.
She rubbed her bare finger thoughtfully.
“According to T, the energy alarm shouldn’t have affected me at all.
It sets off a warning at the lab and I wouldn’t know till someone contacts me about it. ”
“It didn’t happen that way. Something set it off and you knew because you reported that you almost fell down the stairs,” Dr. Kirkland said.
“Well, that still doesn’t explain why Armando feels it.”
“He took the serum,” Jed said, an icy edge to his voice again. “Didn’t you?”
Armando didn’t show any emotion. “Guilty.”
“Why?”
“I needed to stop the pain.”
“How?”
“When everyone had gone off to the dog-and-pony show with Hell. Kirkland and Derek left everything easily accessible.”
Helen remembered how everyone had been eager to start the test. Almost the whole Medic department had left so they could be on hand if the serum had a negative effect on her. Of course, the few personnel who were left wouldn’t question a COS commando walking into the clinic.
“We’re going to talk later,” Jed said. He turned to Helen, his eyes raking her up and down, as if he was considering whether she was up to it. Apparently he thought she was, because he added softly, “Get ready for a remote-view session.”
“But her leg—” Dr. Kirkland protested.
“A quick check-up, but we must hurry. If there really was a remote viewer here at COMCEN, I want to know where he is right now.”
“But she’s barely got the serum out of her system, Jed.”
“We aren’t using the serum,” Jed said, his eyes never leaving Helen. “She can handle it.”
Of course she could. She’d been trained to be pushed to the limits, and one limping leg wasn’t going to be a problem.
However, the feminine part of her was just a tad miffed that he looked at her as only some kind of extension to his spy games.
They had been planning to go have a meal with an admiral before the incident, for crying out loud.
And then afterwards...he’d promised her afterwards...
This supersoldier-spy thing was really getting in the way of her love life.
Helen squinted, pretending to consider the idea of refusing him. “I’m still starving,” she announced. “If you bring me something from the cafeteria, I’ll work for food.”
“Done,” Jed said. He looked around. “Get started. Armando, you’ll stay in the next room and get thoroughly checked out. Thoroughly. Brainwaves, Kirkland, and a drug test. You’ll stay till it’s all completed, do you hear me, Chang?”
Armando hooked his thumb on his belt. “Time out, I suppose.”
“More like a spanking,” Helen said. What did he mean when he said he injected the serum to stop the pain? Was his “reckoning” this pain that he kept having?
“Chang? I didn’t hear your answer.”
“Yes, I’ll be in the next room.” Armando exchanged a glance with Helen as he pulled open the door by the examination bed. “This is my reward for saving damsels in distress.”
She grinned. She couldn’t help it. He was probably in serious trouble but he didn’t seem at all remorseful. Dr. Kirkland ordered Derek to move the tables with the monitors out of the way, as he headed to the medical cabinets.
It was a familiar procedure. Helen returned her attention to Jed.
“If he’s going to draw blood from me, I’m going to need food. Send up some,” she hinted again. “Then I’ll see your fake ass in virtual reality, Hades.”
Jed walked to the examining table and paused to look down at her.
Something indefinable flickered in his light eyes.
He said nothing, simply locked his fist in her hair and pulled her head back.
His mouth came down on hers hard. He angled her chin just so.
His tongue tangled with hers for a brief moment.
It happened so quickly, she didn’t think Dr. Kirkland, intent on measuring meds, even noticed. Derek had his back to them.
“That,” he said softly, “wasn’t Hades kissing you.”
A smile touched his lips before he turned and strode out. Stunned, Helen stared after him. She touched her lips. The freaking man had a sense of humor after all.
KEVIN KIRKLAND SHUT the cabinet door. There was a mirror on the inside of the door that Derek had recently hung.
In all his years monitoring Jed McNeil in the Virus Program, Kirkland had never seen the man kiss any woman in public, not even Nikki Taylor, an injured GEM operative Jed had rescued and with whom he’d had a relationship a long time ago.
Such a long time ago, Kirkland reminded himself, his head of hair wasn’t salt and pepper then. Before Jed brought her to GEM. Before she got her memory back. She was Nikki Harden now.
He considered Jed a friend. He’d started out as he was doing now with Helen, just charting vitals and making scientific observations on the subjects for the Virus Project, but over the years, the doctor-subject relationship had morphed into something closer.
It had to, since Jed McNeil had to trust him when it came to things he had no control over, such as drugs and medical needs.
It wasn’t exactly a communicative kind of friendship.
Jed wasn’t much of a talker when it came to his personal thoughts.
An excellent communicator when it came to being a leader; a great conversationalist when it came to philosophy, music and sports; a remarkable chess player; even an excellent cook; but not exactly very sharing about his past or his beliefs.