Page 114 of Shadow Blind

That’s what the fucking things had been doing, electrifying their prison, making it impossible for Lovett to douse them again. Clark swiveled his chair and stared at the computer screen. The bot ball had shrunk to its normal size and spread out across the bottom of the tank.

The evolutionary leap he’d just witnessed was inconceivable. The NNB26 prototype had gone from passively restoring themselves to actively protecting themselves.

In the process, they’d deliberately taken their first human life.

Chapter forty-five

Day 23

Denali, Alaska

His fingers drumming against his jean clad thigh, Cosky’s eyes narrowed on Aiden’s clenched jaw as he finished his sitrep. “So, yeah, we’re fucked. Back to square one.”

Aiden grunted an acknowledgement and rolled his tense shoulders. Fucked described them alright.

“Kuznetsov’s mistress,” Aiden said. It took effort to keep his tone even. “She’s obviously more involved than you boys suspected.”

According to Cosky, they’d found multiple concealed weapons in the bag she’d left on the Thunderbird, including knives hidden in the heels of her shoes. And then there was the syringe she’d used to kill Daniel and make her escape. One didn’t carry concealed weapons unless they were worried about their safety. Had she felt in danger because of her proximity to Kuznetsov? Or had she been involved in her lover’s weapons dealings? The fact she’d killed Daniel so easily showed she had the same psychopathic tendencies as her lover.

“Did the lab isolate what was in that syringe?” His mouth tightened beneath a surge of guilt. He should have been there. He should have been that bitch’s assigned guard, not Daniel. This was his battle. It hadn’t been Daniel’s.

“Yeah, about that…” Cosky scrubbed his palms down his face. He followed that with a sudden, hard yawn. “Faith says the residue they found inside the syringe was tetrodotoxin—or at least a pumped-up version of it. Tetrodotoxin is found in the Blue-Ringed Octopus. One bite can kill an adult human in minutes. Only the shit in the syringe was synthetically modified for quicker absorption.” His face darkened. “Daniel didn’t have a fucking chance.”

“When we run into her again—” and they would, he’d make sure of it— “we need to be prepared for her toxic tricks. Has the lab come up with an antidote?”

Cosky shrugged. “They’re working on it.”

Aiden simply nodded. The lab had a lot on their plate. Right now, they were focused on the nanobots Wolf had returned with.

The active nanobots.

The tension of that news still made Aiden’s jaw ache.

“I hope the lab rats know what they’re doing.” He stirred uneasily, his skin crawling. “One slip up and those damn things could infect everyone on base.”

Twitching fingers…twitching faces…blind, enraged eyes…the spray of blood across snow.

With a deep breath and a masked shudder, he took a mental trip around the memory.

“Faith says there’s been no contact between the lab personnel and the bots since they transferred them to the tank with the atomic force microscope.” Cosky didn’t look relieved, though. Fuck, he looked as uneasy as Aiden felt. “They’ve sealed the fuckers inside a leak proof, specially designed container made from the same alloy as the ones that Wolf brought back. As an extra precaution, the tank they sealed them in is enclosed inside a specially designed air-vacuumed room. They’ve got a bunch of those high magnification microscopes looking inside the tank and monitoring the room surrounding it. The images are then beamed to computers on the outside.” He paused, looking queasy. “So far, their precautions seem to hold them.”

Aiden shied away from thinking about that too hard. They were damn lucky none of the lab rats had been infected when they’d transferred the bots to their new home. Plus, those fucking bots were microscopic. How the hell could the lab rats be so sure they wouldn’t find some tiny crack in their tank and sneak out? Same with their specially designed room.

The damn things shouldn’t be kept anywhere near people. It was too fucking dangerous. But it didn’t sound like there was any other choice. It would take months to set up a remote lab that could monitor and experiment on the fuckers. They didn’t have months. They needed answers and ways to deactivate them ASAP.

“How the hell can they do any testing if nobody can get close to them?” Aiden asked, trying hard not to let his doomsday imagination go wild.

From Cosky’s wince, he was going through the same disaster scenarios. “Robotics. Faith says everything is done through robotics. From itty bitty microscopic ones inside the tank, to big ones outside.” His face turned grim. “Your brother was damn lucky. He hit O’Neill and then the ground hard enough to break some ribs along with his arm. If the bot case had cracked…” He shook his head, his face grimmer than ever.

It had been six days since the Thunderbird had returned to base, and it looked like they’d gotten lucky. No signs of bot infection. Cosky, Wolf and the rest of the Thunderbird’s crew had been released from isolation the day before, a day after Aiden had awakened.

He still couldn’t believe he’d slept through the whole damn thing. Instead of joining forces with Wolf and his men, he’d left them to shoulder his fight, his responsibility. He’d pushed to get the Shadow Mountain warriors involved, and then he’d abandoned them. Not by choice, but the results were the same. Other men had paid the price because of his obsession. One man had died because of him. Another lay in the bed next door, fighting for his life.

The guilt of that sank deep, burned like acid in his gut.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Cosky’s voice went hard.

“Yeah? What’s that?” Cosky had no fucking clue what was going on in his head.

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