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“Bullet But it just grazed you and kept going It cut a kind of neat little furrow It’ll hurt, but the bleeding’s already stopped”
“Okay, Jack, snap out of it,” Caine said He sounded harried and worried Things weren’t going quite as he had planned “You knohat you’re here for”
Two of Drake’s soldiers returned, loudly abusing Mickey Finch and Mike Farmer, who had their hands tied behind the under desks “Oh good,” Caine said breezily, “the hostages are here”
“We told theuns they had, and this retard just did,” one of the goons crowed “All we had was a shotgun and a pistol and this kid had a ave up Little wussy The other one didn’t have a gun”
Mickey and Mike looked rew bleaker still when they saw Brittney on the floor in a puddle of blood
Drake strode toward theun He ran his tentacle over the stock, over the cockingit almost reverently There was an expression not far froun was a piece of crap, but this is cool Very cool”
“Maybe you two should get a room,” Diana said
“None of the freaks has power enough toone of these,” Drake said
“Yeah, not even Caine,” Diana agreed brightly “Now you can be the boss, right?”
Jack stood rooted in place watching all this, still unable to focus on his so-called job
How had he let hiirl not ten feet away froht die, if she wasn’t dead already He could take three steps and be standing in her blood, as he was sitting in his own
“Jack,” Caine said “Snap out of it Get to work Now!”
Jackhis head, his ears still ringing fro burned And the erly to the nearest computer console and sat down heavily in a swivel chair The monitor was old The look of the softas old The computer didn’t even have a mouse, it was all keyboard-controlled
His heart sank further still Old softwarehe was used to He slid open a drawer hoping to find a manual, or at least a cheat sheet
“How’s it look?” Caine asked He laid his hand on Jack’s shoulder, a friendly gesture meant to reassure Jack For the first time in his life it occurred to Jack that he wanted to spin around and punch Caine Punch him hard