Page 96 of The Syphon King

Same four men returned, armed with syringes.

“Commence injection. Same as before.”

Harlow focused on stilling the shake in his hands as he slowly administered the dosage.

“Medi-bots injected,” Quantum called, watching the screen above them.

“All eyes on cardiac response,” a King said.

Harlow’s gaze moved quickly between the containment to their patient’s revival readings.

“Rhythms still irregular.”

“Should we hit him with the defibrillator now?” a King asked.

“Wait on that. Increase the ATP by five percent. Let’s stabilize the rhythm gradually.”

“ATP increased,” the King said.

“We're seeing improvements,” another Kingannounced, hope edging.

“We got us a stable heart rhythm!” Harlow yelled out. “Fuck yeah!”

The cheering brought a mix of hope and dread as he eyed the containment.

“Harlow, keep a close eye for fluctuation in the dark energy.”

“Eyes fucking glued to it. We should reinforce just in case.”

“Boost it another fifteen percent.”

“Containment enhanced,” a King said. “It’s holding.”

“Once he’s fully stable, we’ll begin the extraction of Zen’s essence from the dark energy. While I restore them to her, Dr. Harlow will start procedures to permanently enable Zodak to transmute and control all future dark energies that he siphons.”

“He’s stabilizing. Heart rate steady and strong,” a King called.

More relieved breaths filled the room.

“Time to wake his brain,” Quantum announced. “Bring the prepared neural activation injections loaded with 25,000 units. This will cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver targeted electrical pulses. Start at 0.5 Hz.”

Again, they stood next to Zodak at injection sites.

“Commence injections,” Quantum said as the same four carefully emptied theirsyringes while hope and dread spiked through Harlow.

“Neural injections complete,” Quantum said, eyes on the screen above.

“What the fuck is happening here?” Harlow demanded, pointing at the containment screen. “Is it trying to tear her apart?”

All eyes flew to the various monitors.

“What is it doing?” Nidev demanded.

“Can it kill this part of her?” another King asked.

“I need to extract immediately,” Quantum hurried. “But we need to continue with neural revival procedures.”

“Go, we got it,” Harlow hurried. “You need to do it fucking quick.”

---