Page 68 (1/2)

"Howhow did I get over here?" Yuri blinked in some confusion He looked from Wyatt’s downcast eyes to Vik’s stormy face to Tom, then settled on Blackburn’s coldly satisfied expression "Sir!" He straightened to attention

Blackburn let out a slow breath "I have bad news for you, Sysevich"

Tom didn’t want to see Yuri’s face as Blackburn delivered the bad news, so his gaze dropped down to Yuri’s hand, where his fingers were crawling over the co the census device Confusion washed over hi at Blackburn and see

Then To it

Someone else was

With a hum that still made Tom’s blood turn to ice, the census device powered up Blackburn’s voice died as all five legs of the ht beams lashed out at Yuri’s head

Yuri’s neck jerked back, exposing the long, strained tendons alongside his throat The first terrible scream ripped out of hi out wide, his entire body convulsing like he was in contact with some live wire

Tom started forward, but Vik’s hand closed around his ar him away He saw Wyatt hauled back by Blackburn as Yuri convulsed to the ground

"Don’t," Blackburn shouted "That’s an electrical discharge!"

The current overloaded the census device, and the unit sparked and fizzled The bearound, an awful silence descending over the chaerov had, indeed, surrendered to Blackburn’s terms He’d removed Yuri’s processor from Blackburn’s reach, the processor Yuri depended on to live

He’d obliterated it

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

TOM WAS NEVER sure what to do when he visited Yuri in the infir theat the slashing green line of Yuri’s EKG, his neural processor auto him it was a nor to Dr Gonzales and another physician discuss the case on the other side of the roo without the processor, even in his medically induced coma

"Maybe he was born under a lucky star," Gonzales said Then he see merrily