Lana was worried. Brianna's bullet wound was already healed up, you couldn't even tell she was shot. But the poison…
Sam picked up Brianna's limp arm and looked at her arteries or veins or whatever they are called. Lana didn't care about technical names.
"They're bright green," Sam said. Astrid, Diana and Jack arrived.
"That means the poison is in her bloodstream," Astrid said. Lana looked at Dekka. She was sitting holding Brianna's head in her lap with silent tears running down her face. Edilio sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder.
"She's still breathing and still has a pulse, Dekka. She won't die," Edilio reassured her. Dekka didn't look reassured.
"Wait, the green in her veins or arteries is fading!" Sam cried excitedly. He accidently dropped Brianna's arm and Dekka practically hissed at him.
"It's called veins. Blood turns blue when there's no…" Jack started explaining in a quiet voice. Lana tuned him out, she didn't need a medical lesson. No one bothered to say shut up to him. Maybe because he was watching his girlfriend almost die.
"She's definitely getting better, look at her skin! It's turning back to normal," Diana said. Everyone had a flicker of hope that Brianna was going to be fine.
"The poison has a side effect though. It still hurts like crazy, and it's hard to walk. So she is going to be out of action for a while when she gets better," Quinn said. He let that sink in.
"This isn't good. If what Dr. Weigman said was true…" Astrid started saying but then trailed off. Lana didn't care, she had enough on her plate as it was. She saw Jack start to look around out of the corner of her eye. He must have finally stopped giving everyone the artery/vein lecture.
"Um, I'm gonna go see what these computers can tell me," he said and started walking towards them. Lana realized computers probably make him feel better.
After a lot of waiting, encouraging thoughts to reassure Dekka, and random outbursts of joy from Jack who was hunching over a computer, Lana decided she has done all she could. Brianna's skin was back to the normal color, her veins were all blue again, and she was still breathing and had a pulse.
"She's not dead, and I'm pretty sure she won't be dead," Lana said. Dekka now was crying tears of joy.
"She won't be up for a while, and if what Quinn said is true, she shouldn't even move for a long time," Lana added. The Breeze was going to be out of the battle for a while. She wouldn't like that. The group of kids were interrupted by Jack.
"You might want to see this!" Jack yelled. The nine FAYZians rushed over to Jack, with Dekka carrying Brianna. Caine offered to carry her, but Dekka shot Caine a murderous look and he back off.
Jack was looking at a computer screen with hundreds of paragraphs of tiny writing all over it. Lana was thankful there were two kids who were smarter than her and liked reading this kind of stuff so she never had to. Jack had already read the whole thing and was giving them a 'brief' summary.
"Jack, get to the point already," Caine groaned after ten minutes of Jack rambling on about some amazing scientific advancement.
"Okay, okay. Anyways, the Extractor is meant to extract, or remove, a single mutation in a human's DNA, like our powers, and inject, or put, the mutation into someone else," Jack said in his usual pedantic way with a smug expression. Caine looked like he was about ready to punch Jack after that.
"So that means Dr. Weigman and the General want to take our powers out and put them into someone else," Astrid said. Jack nodded.
"I think we should have figured that out by the name of the machine without having to have Jack hack into their computer," Diana said sarcastically.
"She has a point. The name 'Extractor' is kinda obvious," Lana said.
"I still would have hacked into the computers, anyway. Now, I'm trying to find out if they could somehow duplicate the mutation to put in multiple people…" Jack trailed off and started typing away.
"What I don't understand is why the CIA tried to kill us. Aren't they supposed to be the good guys?" Edilio asked. Astrid frowned.
"They may not be the CIA. I don't think the CIA would ever do anything along the lines of this," Astrid said. Sam nodded.
"The CIA isn't evil, it's good. Or at least that's how they're supposed to be," he said.
"Guys," Jack started. "This is bad."
"What?" everyone else, except Brianna, said in unison.
"They can multiply the mutation," Jack said and glanced worriedly at the circle of kids around him.
"So? What does that mean?" Quinn asked. Astrid answered for Jack.
"It means the General wants to make an army of soldiers with our powers," she said.
Dr. Weigman was stumbling along after the General. He wasn't what one would consider graceful. But that didn't matter, all that mattered was he was an evil scientist with an IQ that went through the roof. And he listened to everything the General said so he didn't die in a tragic "accident."
"I underestimated these children. I specifically made the telepathic one go first because I thought he was the only one most likely to escape," the General mumbled. Dr. Weigman didn't know if the General was thinking outloud or talking to him, so the scientist stayed quiet. Suddenly the General turned on Dr. Weigman, causing the clumsy scientist to bump into him and fall down.
"And you, you incompetent fool! That Extractor moves slower than a snail!" the General spat.
Dr. Weigman whimpered. He knew the only reason the General kept him around. It was for the Extractor. If it wasn't because of that, the General would have treated Dr. Weigman similar to how a wolf treats a sheep.
"And," the General continued. "You just hid under your computers like a scared child, where the actual children could easily find you!"
Dr. Weigman was terrified the General would kill him. Wouldn't care anymore. Would try and find someone else who could operate the Extractor. Dr. Weigman was almost 100% positive no one else knew enough about technology and computers to operate the Extractor. Almost.
Just before the General seemed about ready to rage on Dr. Weigman, he composed himself and curtly turned around. He started walking again.
"Keep up, Carson," he snapped. Dr. Weigman scrambled up off the floor. He decided now was not the time to correct the General.
"You are going to improve the Extractor while I think of a new plan. A plan that these children won't be able to escape. I won't make the same mistakes again," the General ordered. Dr. Weigman soon forgot his near-death experience because he was giddy to work in the lab again.