Free Infinity Rises by S. Harrison Page A

properly taking in my surroundings.
    “Finn is gone. My name is Infinity.”
    “Finn? Hello, Finn? Can you hear me? I can’t hear her anymore, Dr. Pierce; what’s happened? Is something wrong?”
    “You’ve got eyes, girlie; there aren’t many things that are right at this particular juncture in time. Finn has multiple cuts, abrasions, breaks, and fractures; she’s hemorrhaging internally, and there’s a good chance that I’m gonna find a lot of other nasty surprises waiting for me if it comes to the point where I have to perform any kind of serious surgery. Now take that blasted thing off your head and bring me those clamps, gauze, and sutures!”
    “Sorry, of course, it’s just that . . . what does it mean if she’s not responding to the Neural Interface?”
    “I’m not sure. It could mean a lot of things. Finn might have lost contact because of her head injuries, she could have gone into an irreversible coma, or, cross your fingers and hope like hell that I’m right, she might have gone even deeper into her own subconscious to find Infinity. I don’t have the proper equipment to tell, but I’m hedging all my bets on the last option, and I suggest you do, too. Because otherwise . . . well, otherwise, Finn is simply not going to survive this. And, if Finn dies, then I’m afraid there’s gonna be a lot more people who’ll be following right behind her.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    A stark-white room from ceiling to floor, no windows. A frosted-glass door in each wall, one of which has been smashed.
    This place looks like some kind of empty laboratory. There are five more Drones, all seemingly inactive. One of them appears to have shut down while holding a rather husky teenage boy in a bear hug on the floor. A crying blonde girl, approximately seventeen years old, is crouching by a puddle of vomit, and over there, sitting against the wall and staring into nowhere, is Finn’s private-school roommate and my very own little computer-hacking accomplice . . . Bettina Otto.
    I flick a fallen chair upright with my foot, help the boy with the damaged shoulder into it, and stride over to her. She doesn’t look very happy. In fact, her nowhere-stare looks a lot like shock to me. I tie my hair into a quick ponytail, kneel down beside her, and wave my hand in front of her face. “Hey, Otto, wakey wakey.” Her expression doesn’t change at all. I remove her glasses, make a flat palm, and, with a loud smack, backhand her across the face.
    Her eyes flutter reflexively as her cheek twitches and turns a bright shade of pink, but the still semigormless glaze behind her stare tells me that I didn’t quite get through to her. I raise my hand again, right in front of her face this time, so even without her glasses, she can’t miss it. “Speak up now, or I’ll just keep smacking you around until you do.”
    She blinks a few more times, a tear trickles from the corner of her eye, and she looks up at me, squinting. “Finn?” she asks croakily. I drop my hand and push her glasses back onto her nose.
    “Nope, try again.”
    “Infinity? Is . . . is that you?”
    I give her a quick nod, help her to her feet, and grab her shoulders. “You did it, Otto. You got me into Blackstone Tech.”
    “What . . . Blackstone? Oh yeah, I . . . I guess I did,” she murmurs, obviously still a bit dazed.
    “Don’t be so modest; I couldn’t have done it without you.” I give her a little congratulatory punch on the arm. “Now, come on. Let’s go kill Richard Blackstone.”
    Otto frowns at me with obvious apprehension. “What . . . No, I . . . I just want to go home,” she whimpers.
    I grab her face by the chin. “Hey, you seem to be forgetting a couple of very important things here. Richard Blackstone used me like a slave my whole life, and the last time your sister Mariele was seen alive was when she was working at his house! We had a deal, Otto. You get me in here and help me kill that bastard, and I help you