Chapter 14

''Jess!'' Mark yelled angrily as he knelt down to try and rouse Jaime from her faint. Instead, Nancy (the night nurse) came rushing into the kitchen. Mark hadn't realized it was past the time of their regular shift change, but that explained why Jaime had been allowed to leave the nursery without her nurse at least calling out a warning. ''Get her vitals and then call Michael Marchetti - he should probably still be up at Clayton - and tell him we need him here,'' Mark instructed. He reached for the datacom while Nancy tended to their fallen patient. He keyed up the datacom, not taking any crucial time to leave the room now that Jaime had already overheard him. ''Steve, it's Mark'' he transmitted as calmly as possible. ''Can you tell me what just happened?'' When there was no immediate answer, he tried again.

''Oscar, do you need assistance? Back-up? An ambulance?''

''I should've known I couldn't trust you, Oscar!'' Steve's voice said over the device. ''Yeah, maybe you did come alone, but you've got the shrink ready to call in help - which means you told him where we are. I can't trust either one of you anymore!''

''Steve, the building isn't safe,'' Oscar transmitted (letting Mark know where they were headed). ''Let's go back to the house, sit down with Mark and work this all out.''

''Oscar, I'm warning you; don't come any closer! And Doctor Conrad,'' Steve said bitterly, ''if you call in the cavalry, the next shot won't be at the ground.''

From the floor, Jaime began to stir restlessly. ''Steve...Oscar...I...I heard...a gun...'' Her eyes snapped open and she tried to sit up, her head still obviously swimming.

''Everything's okay,'' Mark soothed. ''Don't try and get up until the room stops spinning. You may have hit your head when you fell.''

''Was somebody...shot?'' Jaime asked weakly. ''I heard a shot. Where...where's Steve? Need to talk to him...''

Steve was blinded by anger and confusion and no longer thinking clearly but something drove him into the burned-out remains of what used to be a bustling, state-of-the-art research hospital. The third floor (and up) on the side that had once housed the Bionic Wing was completely gone. The fire had clearly burned hottest and fastest there. The other side still held the skeleton of its upper floors and the lower floors on that side (including both the huge glass doors in the front and the rear exit near Rudy's office and the cafeteria) were still intact. Moving solely on instinct, driven by both a need to get away from Oscar and to find something he didn't even realize he was looking for, Steve headed up to what used to be the locked, secure ward on the second floor.

While the entire building was (of course) deserted now, the ward that had most recently housed the worst-afflicted of Anna Kingsley's victims seemed especially eerie. Every door that had once been locked was now wide open - and not sure himself if he was searching or simply wandering (and hiding), Steve moved from room to room. He sat down for a minute to think in the padded cell where Russ had spent more time than anyone should be forced to. Where would he go from here? A part of him wanted to find Oscar and ask for help...but what if Oscar was 'the person he trusted the most'? He longed to return to the warmth and comfort of his own home and family...but what if he, himself, was the person 'programmed' to hurt Jaime (or, more accurately, to kill her)?

What if Anna had been lying (again) and the anguish he was feeling now had no basis in reality? Every possibility was worse than the last.

''Where's Steve?'' Jaime persisted as she was being helped through the house and into bed. ''I wanna talk to him. If he's...in trouble...wanna help!''

''That's not a good idea right now,'' Mark tried to explain. ''Steve needs to help himself before anyone else - including you - can help him. I'm sorry.'' He pulled down the bed covers and motioned for Jaime to lie down. ''In the meantime, you should get some rest. You've had a long day.'' (If her husband didn't make the right choices in the next few minutes, it was going to be an even longer night.)

''Not tired,'' Jaime told him. ''And I don't want...a needle.'' She sensed (correctly) that the therapist was about to sedate her.

Jaime's speech was breaking up and she had already fainted (although she'd revived quickly). In his opinion, this was more than she could handle - so Mark gave her the shot anyway. ''You need to rest,'' he told her more firmly, easing her down onto the pillow and pulling the covers up. ''And you don't need all of the added worry and stress; not right now.''

Steve got up from the floor no closer to a solution than when he'd sat down. He could hear Oscar's footsteps coming down the empty hallway and he panicked, keying up the datacom. ''Stop where you are and turn around, Oscar,'' he demanded. ''There's at least one more bullet in this gun - and I'm not going back to The Hole or to jail.''

''Nobody wants to send you to jail,'' came the answer...but the footsteps stopped.

Steve crossed the hall into the private room where Jack Hansen had been held. He stood at the window, where he could see the back parking lot. ''You need to get in your car and go,'' he told his boss. ''Now. Maybe I'll call you in an hour or so but that's going to be my decision to make. I'm watching your car now and you have five minutes to pull it out of here before I use this gun...for real. I am not kidding. Go. Now.''

Oscar turned and headed back down the stairs, out the door and into his car. His new plan was to drive around to the front of the building, park out of view of the window and then call Mark to come down and assist their troubled friend. As Steve stood at the window watching him go, he leaned against the heat register in sheer exhaustion. The control panel on the top slid open...and his hand came to rest on yet another unexpected little metal box. He knew the little boxes were probably a vital clue and maybe this could all end if he placed them into the right hands. Quite possibly, they contained more components like the one that had brought down the airplane, but at the very least Steve knew their exteriors could be dusted for fingerprints. There was only one person he was positive he could trust. Slowly, he keyed up the datacom once more.

''Mark, you still there?'' he asked.

On the other end, Mark quickly picked up his own datacom. ''I'm here, Steve.''

''I want you to bring Jaime down to National Medical and send her up to the second floor security wing...alone.''