Note: The Caine virus appeared in "Sacrifices"; Klimo's backstory, in "Old Friend, New Enemy".


"You should not go in there," Dr. Yevshenko advised tiredly. "If you do, you should wear a proper suit."

Yevshenko had been dragged out of her cushy legit job as a biotech engineer to keep the nanoprobes alive while Kat's plan unfolded. Yevshenko took Max Steel personally: The original accident was her fault, the energy tightrope her failure, his fate the sum of her career. So losing a day's salary (and probably the job) to play nursemaid to some very hungry Max probes was only fair in her mind. But she still wanted things to go according to the rules.

Kat wasn't interested in rules.

"Screw it. Jefferson has the - er, what he needs, Berto and the government geek squad are rebuilding the generator. I'm expendable now. And," Kat said, fixing the good doctor with an unyielding look, "we can't leave Josh alone in there."

In there was the heart of the biohazard suite, deep in the R&D portion of black-ops N-Tek. It was for Level 4 hot agents - the Ebolas and the Caines of the world - should N-Tek ever meet any. Sealed off from the rest of the world, accessible only by one door, working on a separate air system, under negative pressure, it was a good place for viruses but a bit claustrophobic for people. Dr. Klimo had thoughtfully supervised its construction before going off to become a crazy evil snake-man.

Josh had been placed in there because nanoprobes in the last grueling stages of energy death had been known to become unpredictable.

She really hated that word.

Yevshenko nodded and glanced at the row of empty, bulky blue Chemturion biohazard suits. They might not guard against nanoprobes, but they were the best protection Level 4 had. "It's your decision. You are placing yourself at extreme risk."

"Nothing new there," Kat muttered. Yevshenko, her well-meaning doomsayer duties fulfilled, sent Kat through the airlock and decontamination chambers. She had to stop at the last door and wait for the pressure to equalize. Her breath fogged the tiny triple-thick glass porthole that served as the only window into the Level 4 room. Then the lock cycled open and she was in.

Sickbay in general was always a bummer; the hospital smells, the ruthlessly sanitary conditions, the beds with too-thin blankets. Not to mention the sick, injured, and sometimes dying patients.

The dying part sucked the most. And Josh was dying.

His bed looked like a computer convention, all wires and monitors and beeping things, and he himself, asleep, looked like a ghost waiting to happen: pale, skin tight against his bones. The portable generator was plugged firmly into the biolink, and the other end was anchored into the wall where it could run off company power. It chugged along with a noticible whining strain as the transphasic energy was sucked up faster than it could be replaced.

She thought he'd lost maybe twenty pounds in the last thirty-six hours.

There weren't any chairs, so she sat on the bed next to him. "Hey," she said conversationally.

His eyes blinked open, slowly, and more or less focused on her. "Kat?" he mumbled in such a weak and un-Josh voice that a knife twisted in her gut.

"Yup. Berto says to tell you they're fixing the generator."

Green electricity crawled across his skin - little lightning bolts of death. Nanoprobes biting the big one and sending up a hallelujah fireworks show as they went. The brown - no, blue - eyes slid shut and then struggled back open. "You shouldn't... have done it."

"I'm your friend," she said. "I had to do it. So shut up."

His mouth twitched like he wanted to smile, but didn't have the energy. "Best friend."

"You got it." The knife twisted a little harder, and it seemed to have moved up into her heart. Geez, she was turning into such a sap.

Josh's eyes closed again and stayed that way for several minutes. Kat thought sleep looked pretty darn good but didn't dare. Instead she sat around and mentally kicked herself.

Some bodyguard, she thought. Stubborn and prideful, she'd waited too long to take action, because she'd assumed that, being so awesome, she could pull it out at the last minute and everything would be okay. And one of her best friends was going to die because of that.

"My own worst enemy," she said softly to herself and, more loudly, "Sorry," to Josh.

He wasn't unconscious and mumbled out, " 'Sokay." His fingers flexed on the blanket, and she took them in hers, nanoprobe risks be darned. Yevshenko was probably freaking out, watching it on the monitor outside.

Kat thought she might freak out too: The last time she'd touched him, as she left for New York, he'd been chilly. Now he was ice - far too cold for any human or even a superhuman. Ice-cold hands, and blue fingernails to match.

"I found him," she said. She was angry at herself but her tone implied that it was directed at him - and it was, a little, since he'd been dying for months without a word of complaint. "Just FYI. Dread's alive and out there somewhere, planning armageddon. And Dragonelle totally managed to scam me even though I knew she was going to. How is that okay?"

"Meant well," he said. Green flickers again, stronger this time; his hair went brown-to-blond and she felt a sharp hot tingle on her skin where it touched his. "Did... a good job. A really good job. Kat."

"So did you." Meaning, he wasn't dead yet. Why is staying alive harder than it should be? she thought. An unwelcome memory popped up, and she mentally snarled. Dread and Dragonelle were so definitely not what she wanted to think about here.

But... she knew why the dragon had said it. That weird, weightless panic. That sudden sick stab of reality. Trying to imagine the world without someone in it.

What will happen to the plan?

To the better world?

How can we make the future...

... if you're not here?

"I'm not going to beg," she said firmly, mostly to convince herself.

Another mouth twitch: On the verge of shutdown, he still understood what she was talking about. His voice sounded half-asleep and drifting deeper. "Don't... have... to..."

She waited for him to say something else, but that was it.

Josh slid into a coma with four hours and thirty-nine minutes left on the clock.