Over Stimulated Page 6

  “No.” Adam nodded toward the bed. “Call the nurses if you need anything.”

  The moment the door latched shut behind her, leaving her alone with Taylor, she was by his side. She brushed a strand of hair from his forehead and kissed him. “I love you too.” She should have said so earlier.

  She climbed into bed, on the side not hooked up to wires and tubes, and rested her head on his shoulder. She stared at the wall, unable to stop the events of the day from racing through her head. Despite the exhaustion overloading her senses, she didn’t see sleep coming anytime soon. How were they going to get out of here? And how long until Taylor could help her figure it out?

  Chapter Eight

  The moon crept past and over the hospital room window, while she lay next to Taylor. She didn’t know how much he’d processed, and she wanted to be the one to talk him through why they were here.

  Until then, she was bored, frustrated, and feeling powerless. It didn’t matter how many reassurances Adam gave her about shielded rooms or their not being prisoners. She assumed she and Taylor were being watched. She couldn’t work, and she couldn’t reach out to any of her contacts.

  She could do two things though, and Adam would expect her to.

  She extracted herself from Taylor, careful not to jostle him, and got comfortable in the chair next to his bed. She brought her handheld online. Adam said she and Taylor were registered. She needed to see it for herself.

  The hospital had an unsecured free signal, but she wanted the one with the high-end encryption. Not for the challenge of sneaking in undetected—she wanted to see how closely Adam was watching and what kind of alerts he had in place.

  It didn’t take much to crack the password and use their signal for her network and internet access. From there, she hopped to the hospital records, where her and Taylor’s registration status was like Adam said. It set her on edge, to know he accomplished that so quickly, and was upfront about it. Max and Taylor’s records looked exactly the way they should, according to the work she’d done previously, except now they were registered and legal, happy members of the system since they were kids.

  If only that were true... It would have been better than running all this time. But it would have other drawbacks. Being constantly monitored. Taken away, if Taylor did something that raised suspicion. Not allowed to go where they wanted without getting clearance.

  She followed their files to the sources—Church and government databases. It was the same there. Records identical to the ones she’d fabricated, but with that one little registration exception.

  She didn’t like it, even if it was fake. There was nothing to be done right now, but at least she had an idea what the system looked like, so she could reverse it as soon as they left this place.

  Her next task was easier—finding a list of nearby hotels and reserving one for the next few days. She and Taylor couldn’t afford to be here longer than that.

  Sunlight crept through the blinds before Taylor groaned and stirred. Seconds later, he opened his eyes. She was by his side in an instant, intertwining her fingers with his.

  He focused on her. “I had a horrible dream you brought us to a Church hospital.” A smile twitched on his face. “Bad joke. I’m sorry.” He knew where they were.

  She shrugged. “Me too. I’m sorry, that is. I didn’t have a choice.”

  He squeezed her hand. “It’s so quiet. Why can’t I hear anything?”

  She gave him a brief rundown of what Adam told her about the staff and the building. Everything, except the bit about where she came from. She still didn’t know what to do with the idea of her father being Null Patient Zero.

  Taylor pulled her close, tangled his fingers in her hair, and kissed her. Relief mingled with adoration and heat and spilled through her. She didn’t imagine that would get old anytime soon. He glided his lips along her jaw and to her ear, and his whispered words brushed her skin. “I don’t trust him.”

  “Me neither.” She kept her reply quiet, and gave him another kiss before standing.

  “Excuse me.” A voice broke into the intimate quiet.

  Max spun, to find a woman standing in the door, wearing a simple sweater and corduroy—of all things—and holding one of those sexy paper-thin handhelds.

  The woman crossed the room, hand extended. “I’m Dr. Amstead. You can call me Violet.”

  Max shook her hand.

  Taylor’s eyes grew wide when he did the same. “You weren’t kidding.”

  Violet laughed. “It’s true; most of us are like your friend. Not readable. Null, if you prefer.”

  “Girlfriend,” Taylor corrected her.

  Heat flooded Max’s cheeks. It wasn’t anywhere near the first time he’d called her that, but she liked the sound of it a lot more now that she knew he meant it.

  “Right.” Violet looked between the two of them. “We can’t start treatment until we know you’re in a good place, psychologically. You need to have recovered from the noise that assaulted you last night.” Taylor grimaced, and she added, “I’m here to do the evaluation.” She turned to Max. “You can wait outside if you want, but this will take a few hours. Once I clear him, we can start him on the treatment.”

  “What does treatment entail?” Max asked. Up to this point, she was willing to go along with a lot, to make sure Taylor was safe, but she wanted details.

  “Nothing invasive.” Violet’s smile was gentle. “We administer the drug intravenously over the course of a few days, and monitor his mental state and vitals, to make sure he remains stable.” She looked at Taylor. “You’ll slowly be reintroduced to external thoughts, and if all goes well, you’ll be out of here in a week or two. But for now, your friend—girlfriend—needs to leave.”

  Taylor pushed himself into a sitting position. “She can stay. She’s not going to mess up any sort of psych check.”

  “It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t emit emotion.” Violet made a few notes on her pad. “She makes you react emotionally, and we need your head as clear as possible for this.”

  Max didn’t like the idea of going, but she was playing along until they gave her a reason not to. “It’s okay. Now I know you’re all right, I’ve got a hotel nearby. I need a shower and a little sleep.” She hoped he would pick up on the subtext. Mostly that sleep wasn’t in her future for a while, and that she was no happier about walking away than he was about letting her go.

  His smile looked forced. “You really should. Get some rest, I mean.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I’ll do what I can, and I’ll be back as soon they let me.”

  He pulled her to him, gave her a quick kiss, and released her without another word.

  She hated leaving him in this place, but while she was on the hospital network, she put the teeniest, tiniest alerts in place. She’d know in an instant if they moved him, changed his status, or even if Adam found her alerts and disabled them—which she expected he’d do almost immediately, once he realized they were there.

  With any luck, she’d have time to check in with her contacts and figure out next steps, in a place that wasn’t monitored.

  A SHOWER HELPED MAX wake up a little bit, as did being in a room that was more hers than that hospital. She gave the bed one last longing glance and made herself comfortable in the chair next to the desk.

  She located the free Wi-Fi and hopped from that connection to another, and then across several hundreds of others, until she was comfortable it would be difficult for anyone to trace her. She had research to do.

  PharmNu was affiliated with IasoChem, and they both most likely had something to do with The Church.

  Adam was the connecting piece to all three. Since she still didn’t trust him, he seemed like the perfect angle to approach both her job and Taylor’s situation.

  Her messenger chimed, and she opened the message from Cypher6669. I’m sorry about warping, the other day. I thought I’d been made.

  Cypher claimed watching an odd mishmash of old movies gave him
the shifts in dialect. She was pretty sure he changed his speech patterns to make it harder for others to trace him. She didn’t blame him.

  She sent a quick, No worries. The conversation with him felt ages ago. Vanishing that fast came with the territory for any of her contacts. She didn’t even remember what they’d been talking about.

  His reply chimed through the room. I’m sending this story into the world tomorrow. I thought you’d want to know. P-72 isn’t real.

  Tears from nowhere pricked her eyelids. That was what he’d been telling her. She was grateful he couldn’t see her. You’re so very wrong, she replied.

  Really? I’ve seen evidence that says I’m right. Secondhand knowledge, not fifth or even third. Not the friend of a cousin of a friend. Have you ever even known someone who ha—

  Yes. I know someone.

  Shit. Is it you? No. You wouldn’t be talking to me.

  No. She probably wouldn’t. But Cypher’s question triggered something else. Something she couldn’t quite grasp. It was a reminder that most people didn’t know who she and Taylor were. The reputation that got them work implied he was a Normal and she was the powerful Psy—the person who stayed in the background, because she could pluck a thought from the top of anyone’s head.

  Why was that relevant? She sent an answer to Cypher. It wasn’t me. But I was there. I’ve never seen anything like it. And saying it out loud or typing it made it feel more real. I can send you proof. It would take her seconds to grab evidence from the hospital network and toss it his way.

  Well, shit. At least you’re clean.

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Yeah. At least.

  She sent him enough evidence to convince him not to break the story about P-72 being fake—it would only harm his reputation—and cut the conversation short with a weak goodbye.

  She needed a distraction. Digging into Adam should take her mind off what could have happened to Taylor if it weren’t for his deception and attempts to bring her—them—into his world.

  With his name and the hospital’s, public search engines returned pages of results. He was a doctor, first and foremost. A leading mind in drug research and innovation, and on the board of directors for the company that hired them.

  It explained his interest in making sure an asset he acquired was on the up and up.

  The next link she clicked made her stomach lurch. The article was from fifteen years ago, about the time registration hit the public spotlight. So old, the image attached to it was two dimensional. She only meant to scan the text, but with each word, she was sucked in further.

  It was a manifesto Adam wrote in his early days of medical school, about how Psys were cursed. A mistake. God’s garbage. How the only way to deal with them was extermination. He spoke on it across the nation.

  She peeled her gaze from the vitriol. This was the man overseeing a hospital wing of infected Psys and Ees?

  The further back the stories went, the more they were filled with hatred and misinformation. She scanned the dates for something newer. There was a three-year gap after the manifesto, before he was in the public eye again.

  The newer articles might as well be about a different individual. This Adam spoke at tolerance rallies and donated to sympathizer groups that helped hostels like the one she and Taylor stayed at, in Logan.

  Adam had drawn a lot of heat for his newer, kinder views.

  Rather than making her want to trust him, it made her wonder even more what he was hiding.

  And how was he related to IasoChem? Were they actually bribing someone in the FDA to push their drugs through the system more quickly than was legal or safe?

  She used the connection to Adam, to nudge the company from multiple angles. Who else was on the board with him, who might have connections to IasoChem?

  All the unknowns made her head spin. Worse, none of her leads took her anywhere. She returned to Adam’s past, to see if maybe he made some of his business contacts earlier in life.

  And maybe a little to discover who he was before his public Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act.

  What unleashed the monster inside, then hid it away again?

  His med-school records were easy to uncover. Top-ranked school. Graduated with honors. Head of his class. Standard, boring, she-expected-it kind of crap.

  Her frown deepened. Except he didn’t have any financial information attached to his college history. A tiny thing, but there was no sign anyone ever paid for it—himself, loans, a mysterious benefactor.

  None of his time with the college was tied to his former life. There was no other info on education. No previous addresses. She followed the threads of nothingness outside the college databases. The world had been ninety percent digital for decades. Given who he was, the odds that his entire past was on paper were so tiny, they were laughable.

  So why was there no trace of him anywhere? Like IasoChem, it wasn’t that his history was a little spotty; it didn’t exist. No matter where she looked or how deep she dug.

  For a guy who hired her to uncover digital secrets, he was almost as good at hiding things as she was at finding them.

  And she placed Taylor’s life in his hands.

  She’d either made the biggest mistake of what was about to be their very short lives, or the best decision for their future. The bile rising in her throat made her lean toward the mistake option. Fuck.

  MAX AND TAYLOR HAVE landed themselves in the last place they ever wanted to be, and it’s even harder than ever to know who to trust.

  But she doesn’t know the worst of what awaits. To find out if Max and Taylor can escape The Church, read OVER SHARED, the final book in the Null Equation serial.

  › Grab OVER SHARED Now

  About the Author

  USA Today Bestselling Author Allyson Lindt is a full-time geek and a fuller-time author. She likes her stories with sweet geekiness and heavy spice, and loves a sexy happily-ever-after. Because cubicle dwellers need love too. Read all of her books to see why A Lust for Reading said her books made them "smile and literally laugh out loud", Revenge of the Feels loved the sizzling attraction, ...danger, betrayal and humor" and readers call them "book nirvana","geek hotness", "sexy" and "fast paced".

  Read more at Allyson Lindt’s site.