Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

until she was done, there was nothing Gonzalez could do to speed up the process.

Most likely, whoever found Wagner would take him to a hospital where doctors would keep him in a nano-induced coma until his injuries were taken care of. However, there was also a chance that whoever found Wagner would be smart enough to realise what the absence of his wrist-comp meant.

Which was why it was important for Ingram to keep everyone away from Wagner for as long as possible. Worse come to worst, she would have to level the whole residence, killing Wagner, but if at all possible, Gonzalez wanted him alive for now. He wanted to see what the sonofabitch would do next. Panicked, harried people made mistakes. And Gonzalez wanted to capitalise on those mistakes. Not to mention, he was convinced that the people Wagner worked for would be seriously pissed off to discover that he had lost his comp and that all the information on his account might be compromised. Imagining what those pissed-off people might do to Wagner gave him a rather warm, fuzzy feeling.

‘Site of injury isolated. Beginning transfusion,’ the Medibot announced, and Gonzalez thanked his foresight for creating a batch of universal nano-blood that could be given safely to anyone in an emergency. ‘Nano-crystals removed. Beginning regeneration of blood vessels. Beginning muscle stitching. Beginning ligament stitching.’

‘She’ll be fine.’ Rivas turned to look at Gonzalez. He still wore his filthy, blood-covered nano-reinforced pilot garb, minus the tattered jacket that still half-covered Eloise, his gun belt slung over his shoulder. His personal first aid kit was empty, but it was clear he hadn’t used any of it on himself. The gash on his forehead, probably courtesy of some branch on Wagner’s property, was still seeping blood, and his left hand, burnt from the laser gun, hung awkwardly.

‘Well done, Lieutenant.’ Gonzalez nodded. ‘That was some good thinking to check if the energy shutters were one-way only.’ He knew Rivas was going to blame himself for not realising the shutters existed in the first place, regardless of what anyone said. ‘Now, take care of your hand.’

Rivas lowered his gaze to his hand and winced. It was only then that he realised what that nagging pain he had felt at the back of his mind was. He had held the laser gun until the shutters overloaded, and by then not only had the skin been scorched but the heat had penetrated deep enough to damage the muscles and melt some of the cartilage in his finger joints. His protective glove, part of the nano-reinforced outfit he wore, had absorbed most of the heat, but ultimately it had begun melting right into his hand. He was only able to function past the searing pain of the injury because of the nano-meds infused into the glove, which had instantly numbed the area. It wasn’t enough to take the pain away entirely—after all, that type of anaesthesia would probably knock him out cold—but it had made the pain distant, something he could ignore. Until now.

He grunted in anguish, reaching for the medicine cabinet. He didn’t need to be reminded twice. The fabric melted into his hand would probably need to wait until the Medibot was available to remove the contamination, but in the meantime, a fresh shot of nano-painkillers was pure bliss.

Thank God nano-meds exist. How did people cope before the third nano-tech revolution? he pondered as the sensation in his hand was reduced to a mere dull ache.

‘Tilly is working on Wagner’s comp. Ingram is still holding her own, but she is running low on ammo. Just came in to make sure Eloise is alive…’ Gonzalez’s voice drifted away for a heartbeat or two of silence as he studied Eloise’s vitals on the display. ‘I need to get back.’ He really wanted to stay exactly where he was to make damn sure that Eloise was okay, but there was nothing he could do to improve on what the Medibot was doing. Ingram, on the other hand, could benefit from his input.

He was quickly running out of people he could use. In an ideal world he would have had at least two Stealthies back at Wagner’s residence, covering each other. And a proper doctor looking after Eloise. And someone to replace Rivas so the man could get some proper rest. And someone to replace him so he could finally get some decent sleep. But none of that was available.

‘Yes, sir! I will call if anything changes here,’ Rivas promised, rummaging through the cabinet for something that could begin to repair the damage to his palm, and Gonzalez nodded.

He was halfway out of the room when the Medibot spoke up again. ‘Ribs five, six and seven broken. Left lung punctured.’

Gonzalez spun around, eyes flicking back to the display showing Eloise’s vitals.

‘I’ve got this, sir.’ Rivas put his good hand on Gonzalez’s shoulder. ‘There is nothing you can do here to help.’

For a second, Gonzalez didn’t react, but then he nodded briskly and left without another word.

***

Less than an hour later, Gonzalez groaned as the nanobots began their work. He had just enough time to put the syringe down and curl his unaffected hand into a fist before the worst hit.

Never gets any bloody easier!

Tilly had finished programming the nanobots with her usual efficiency, and hadn’t hesitated to add some hard-assed complaining before she agreed to the modifications Gonzalez had insisted on. She didn’t have a doctor’s do-no-harm subroutine, but her ethical programming was fully functional and Gonzalez’s instructions had clashed with it.

In an ideal world, Gonzalez would have taken advantage of a full-body nano-transformation and waited the damn two weeks to complete it safely. But they had about two weeks less than that. Tilly huffed and puffed but eventually relented to programming the nanobots to only partially transform Gonzalez’s arm, focusing on the area around his wrist. Luckily the wrist-comps did not rely on BCCs. It was believed to be poor practice to have technology relying on technology when good