Page 93 of The Syphon King

“Put Quantum here,” one of the King’s ordered when they entered the large room.

“We need better fucking restraints than this on our brother,” the Vex King ordered. “Get the bed with the titanium cuffs.”

“On it.”

“Thirty seconds,” Harlow said, glancing at the white giant on the table a few feet away, his lower jaw and chest covered in blood. He turned his attention back to his brother, fighting not to see how fuckingdeadhe was.

“Make sure he’s strapped tight,” Vex ordered as Harlow stared at the seconds on his watch.

He stood exactly next to quantum at the ten second mark. “Nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... one...”

Come on, come on.

His dead face remained dead, and he nodded.

“The seconds aren’t exact,” one of the Kings said as Harlow paced next to him, his heart raging with worst-case scenarios.

“What’s plan B if hedoesn’t wake?” Nidev asked.

Harlow didn’t take his eyes off Quantum. “He’ll wake.” He planted himself next to his bed, crossing his arms.

“Twenty seconds.”

The announcement cranked up Harlow’s adrenalin. He was flailing within his own head, needing his brothers. The pushing and shoving in every emergency, Augustine keeping them contained, Kult working out the problem, Pain sucking down their fears and agony, Atlas showing him exactly what Kult said to fucking do while Sync made music of all of it.

“Thirty seconds, Dr. Harlow,” a voice said from somewhere in the room.

“You can do this, son.”

Harlow spun to the emphatic voice behind him. The sight of Dr. Ubaldo brought a jolt through his body.

“You need to save your brother now. You know what to do.”

His calm assurance broke the stranglehold on his fucking brain, allowing answers to flood in. “I need an external defibrillator. And someone prep a high-dose epinephrine shot. If the synthetic adrenaline surge doesn't kick in within a minute, we’ll manually jumpstart his system.”

Harlow hurried to the other side of the table. “If you have a neural stimulator, get that too. Hook it up to his temples andset it to pulse mode. I need the bio-monitor fully active on him with real-time updates on his heart rate, brain activity, and blood oxygen levels.”

“What about Zodak,” Vex demanded.

“As soon as I wake this fucker up, he’ll know what to do.”

Quantum suddenly took a huge breath and sat up on the bed.

Shock and relief nearly knocked his legs out from under him. “You’re a fucking minute late!”

Quantum hurried off the bed. “Zodak’s dark energy grew the second before I zapped us. I had to up the kill dose thereby slightly increasing recovery time.”

He stood next to Zodak’s still body, looking around. “Do you have a nanofabrication unit?”

“Yes. The Bio-synth Fabricator. We also have a Medi-bot Quick Deploy storage with a five-minute turnaround.”

“Get it online and configure it for high-speed synthesis of AI-integrated nanobots. I'll upload the specs from my database—we need to hurry and get his darkness quarantined before itkills more than his body.”

Everybody scattered in various directions while Harlow realized the Marsh Kings were helping too.

“I need a visual on Zodak immediately,” Quantum ordered.

“The screen on the ceiling above to your left,” one called out.

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