Read Online Deadman's Switch & Sunder the Hollow Ones by Saul Tanpepper - Free Book Online

now?”
    â€œShut up.”
    â€œJake,” I say. “Go find that pistol and bring it back.”
    He’s more than happy to. He must think I’m actually going to use it to shoot Stephen. After he leaves, I lean over again and say in a loud voice, “Stephen, can you hear me?” The words echo in the terminal.
    â€œDon’t get so damn close to him, Jess. Please.”
    â€œStephen! Answer me!”
    His head slowly rises toward me. His eyes don’t move, just his head. His skin is dry, despite the warmth and humidity inside the terminal. His mouth hangs open and his breaths seem much too shallow.
    â€œAre you sure he gave you whatever was in that syringe?” Kelly asks. “Maybe he gave it to himself.”
    I was just beginning to wonder that myself. I raise my hand to my neck, as if that’s going to tell me anything. I haven’t shown any symptoms of having been injected with anything. And now he’s acting totally out of it.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Reggie asks.
    â€œLater, Reg,” I say. “Why would he inject himself?” I ask Kelly.
    He shrugs. “Might not have been intentional. Maybe it was. The guy’s a psychopath. Who knows what drives them to do what they do. I mean, why would that nurse infect herself so she’d reanimate? That’s just…”
    â€œFucked,” Reggie says.
    I reach out. The boys shift uneasily, alarm on their faces. But Stephen doesn’t move when I touch his forehead. “He’s burning up. Whatever happened back there on the tram—whether he got the injection or not—there’s clearly something wrong with him now.”
    He’s infected and his body is struggling to stave it off.
    Now a similar struggle wages inside of me, threatening to consume me. Except this infection is in my soul. The germ that’s trying to take over isn’t engineered from bits and pieces of genes and viruses. Not directly, anyway. It’s built from guilt and paranoia.
    Why should I fear what Stephen might’ve done to himself?
    Because you’re afraid of what Arc was trying to do with us.
    â€œHave you decided?” Jake asks, returning. “Or are we going to keep standing around here for another half hour chatting while he screws with us?”
    Kelly snatches the pistol from his hand. “Nobody’s that good of an actor. Stephen might be infected.”
    We quickly tell them about the struggle on the tram and the syringe with the
    (green)
    white liquid inside.
    â€œWe thought he’d injected me, but I’m not sick.”
    â€œSo, we definitely should shoot him.”
    â€œI am not going to shoot this man! Not until we know for sure he’s going to reanimate.”
    â€œJess.” Kelly reaches out, but he stops himself. It’s like he’s seeing me now for the first time, seeing the blood on me. Back there, when we were both sure I’d been injected, we hadn’t known what was inside that syringe. It might’ve been a virus; it might’ve been something else. Now…
    Now, based on the limited knowledge we have of disease transmission, how could I not be not infected? Reggie might be too. But it’s clear to me that Kelly doesn’t want to touch me now.
    â€œMaybe Jake’s right,” he says, barely managing to keep his voice under control. But his face flickers with emotion—fear and anger and hatred—and his fists clench and release with helplessness.
    â€œFirst of all, we don’t know for anything for sure. Any thing. Second, Stephen does. We kill him now, we lose our last chance to find out how to get out of here.”
    â€œJess, you need to think ab—”
    â€œThose other two Arc people? I’m pretty sure they’re dead,” I say, standing back up. “Did you see the blood behind that security door? I did. There was a hell of a lot of it. Stephen’s the only one left who can