Opia

Chapter 32

"Artis!" James knelt in agony beside her still body.

Dean was on the other side of her, checking her pulse, opening each eye and turning her toward the light.

Blood began to pool at the corners of her eye and drip down off her face. She had overused them. Way overused them.

"She's still alive," Dean said. "The bullets hit the plates like last time."

"This is bad," Jame said, trying not to let himself get so caught up in distress that he failed to act. "I don't know if her brain or the equipment can handle two shots."

He felt along the injury. It was dangerously close to the first one. Why couldn't she have at least shot the other side?

"We're at least in a good place to fix her," Dean said.

James looked around at the trashed basement and know that wasn't true. Nothing looked usable.

He shook his head and said, "Too much damage. I've got to take her somewhere else."

"Belleview?"

"Too far. I have somewhere closer."

James reached down and tried to scoop Artis up off the floor, but his newly injured arm wasn't cooperating. Grabbing her arm, he pulled it up over his neck and got her body over his shoulders in a fireman carry. It still hurt like the blazes, but he'd at least be able to get her out.. He grimaced as he realized he was getting blood all over her, but he didn't have a choice.

"Where's closer?" Dean asked.

"My place."

"Your place?"

"Later. We've gotta go."

"You take her," Dean said. "I have to get in touch with the probers and then get to my hunters."

Dean was trying to stay in control, but James could see the panic hovering just below the surface. They were both fighting time.

#

James managed to get the four locks securing the garage unlocked in record time, then pulled Artis into the mini lab he had created.

It had taken a few years to save up enough to get the most basic of equipment and set the place up so that it was functional. Even as he had been pouring his time and money into the place, Jame had constantly questioned himself on why he was building it. There was a good chance that any probers that saw it would question his motives. His experience at the lab had given him the basic knowledge and skills for how to put a prober together. Though he was accepted by the probers, he would have a hard time explaining his motives were pure. All James really knew was that building the mini lab had felt like a kind of calling and, at that moment, as he laid Artis on the work table, he was so grateful he had followed through.

Artis gave a low moan from the table as her eyes fluttered open, then closed again.

"Artis, can you hear me?" James knelt beside her and laid a hand on her cold arm.

She made a sound in her throat that might have been an affirmative, but he wasn't sure.

"Can you hear me Artis?"

"Can't...see," she said, so quietly that James struggled to hear her.

Grabbing a flashlight from a nearby counter, James flicked it in her eyes, grimacing at what he saw.

They were shot. That much was obvious even from a quick look. The pupils were an odd green color and they were deformed into a blob like shape. The green was bleeding into the translucent irises. What should have been the whites of her eyes were also a sickly green color with tinges of red quickly spreading. Both mechanical fluid and blood were pouring into her eyes.