The Prisoner by Carlos J. Cortes Page A

return bolted horses, or pigs, back to the stables. Action did.
    “Close shop and let’s drive over to Nyx. Call the DHS and have them send muscle to meet us there in fifteen minutes.”

chapter 14
     

     
    21:45
    Her skin felt defiled beyond recovery, and no amount of scrubbing altered the feeling. After a long time under the shower’s high-pressure jets, rubbing handfuls of bactericidal gel into every inch of her body Laurel could reach, it still felt the same. She reamed her ears, blew her nose, inserted soapy fingers into her anus and vagina, and rubbed between her toes, but the sensation persisted. The surface muck had run away in gushes of brown liquid, eddying around the shower’s drain, but the tank’s fluid had leached into her skin, clogging her pores. Lanolin and nutrients should have felt like body lotion, but they didn’t. Laurel took a deep breath. At least the steam had the gel’s piney tang. In her nose and ears, membranes clung to memories of cold jelly. And to think she’d been in the fluid only a few minutes. … How would skin feel after marinating for years? She leaned a hand on the polymer wall of the shower cubicle, doubled over, and retched for the umpteenth time. Then she wrapped her arms around her waist, turned her face to the full blast of the shower, and rocked.
    Dr. Carpenter—Floyd—seemed nice. No, he was gorgeous; tanned and with unruly blond hair that screamed for a woman’s fingers to comb through it. Despite her queasy stomach, she felt giddy.
It must be all that rocking
. After they dropped Russo at the surgical theater, he’d herded them into the showers, making a face as they discarded waders and oilskins. She’d glanced across at him, and her eyes locked on his raw gaze. He was ogling her, the soft weight of his smile pressing against her breasts, belly, and thighs.
    A loud bang outside jolted Laurel from her reverie, hands flying to clear her eyes of the running water.
    “Get out, now!” The male voice was tinged with hysteria.
    Laurel slammed both hands on the enclosure door and jumped outside, to collide with a bewildered-looking Lukas and Raul. Floyd Carpenter was showing a different face from the man who had greeted them at the sewer entrance. Gone was the calm demeanor, replaced by panic.
    “Your implants are broadcasting!” he yelled.
    She reached to the lump in her neck. “Broadcasting? What are you talking about?”
    “Come with me, fast.” He turned on his heel in a whirl of lab whites.
    Raul jerked his head toward Lukas. “You know anything about that?”
    The little man darted a drizzle of nervous glances between Laurel and Raul. “I-I swear, I had no idea—”
    “Well, you do now.” Raul dashed to a pile of towels on a metal rack, grabbed one, threw another to Laurel, then bolted out the door, leaving a trail of wet footprints and water drops in his wake.
    Twenty yards down an impersonal corridor, they piled through a set of double doors into a surgery room crammed with equipment, screens, and blinking lights.
    “Look!” Floyd pointed to a large screen where, superimposed on a heartbeat track, another complex line spiked and fell in a fast sequence. “These implants are emitting high-frequency signals.”
    Laurel narrowed her eyes. Someone with enough insight must have demanded that the designers include a transmitter. It made sense. The cunning addition gave Hypnos an ace up their sleeve. A card they had kept secret, even from Congress and the committee that approved the hardware.
Damn!
She stared at the trace on the screen, her mind churning with the implications.
Another detail we didn’t know. How many more are we yet to discover?
    “Do you have X-ray machines here?” she asked.
    “Well, yes, but—”
    “Then get an apron.”
    Floyd opened his mouth a couple of times like a flounderingfish. Then his eyes froze as the penny dropped. In two strides, he hurtled through the doors, his footsteps echoing down the corridor.
    “I swear—”