25
NetMedics trailed them through the halls and whenever one of them tried to get his attention, Geoff gestured for them to remain quiet. He sped up and put a hand on Macy's back, slowing her so he could get to the laboratory door first. He knocked and was admitted by Halbot.
"I've brought Macy to see if she can help revive him."
Jacqueline looked down at the girl and frowned slightly. Miss McKenna was trying to peer past her into the room instead of displaying her usual reserved, polite manner.
The scientist kept her voice down. "Dr. German is here." She tried to open the door for them, and was surprised to find Geoff was holding it in place.
"Is the boy Panned?" he asked, making certain he had eye contact with her before nodding very slightly.
Her eyes narrowed for a second and the returned the movement, adding, "No. He's on the table," while admitting them into the lab. She stepped aside and watched Macy enter cautiously, her eyes locked on the prone form before them. The lights were down except for what shone on the subject beneath the equipment array over the gel platform. Halbot looked up at Geoff while reaching into one of the deep pockets of her lab coat. She passed a Ring to him and he nodded at her again.
Macy slowed as she approached the illuminated figure. Drs. Sanders and German murmured behind the equipment bank beside the far wall. Geoff tugged at the yielding alien material, snapping it rigid before he quickly dropped it over his daughter's form from behind. "Now!" he said, and Dr. Halbot used a Handler to activate it.
"Lights," said Halbot, and one of the medics turned them on.
Dr. German blurted, "You Panned your daughter?"
Geoff grabbed the girl by the shoulders and manhandled her before a stretch of blank white wall. "Look!"
It took a moment for them to see it. "He's possessing her remotely," Dr. Halbot realized, closing her eyes.
The boy on the table appeared frail and frightened. "Macy?" he asked softly.
"You keep your mouth shut!" McKenna snapped.
"Is she all right?" he managed to ask before his eyes rolled back into his head and he writhed weakly in some sort of mild convulsion.
"Are you certain?" Sanders queried.
Geoff turned toward the NetMed who'd summoned him. "Tell him what you told me."
"She woke up violent," the young man confessed. "We couldn't restrain her. We gave her Nembutal."
"My God," murmured German.
"Get her on a table," Sanders commanded. "We need to see what's going on in her brain."