The doctor helped Rea to his room. Eric followed. Rea sat on the bed with a groan. He looked down at the blood making his shirt stick to his skin. As Rea took off his top, Gears began poking at him.
"This doesn't look as bad as I thought. The bullet grazed you. I can have you as good as new in no time," Gears murmured.
While Rea settled back on the mattress, he tried to figure out what was going on exactly.
"Eric, does someone want to kill you?" Rea asked.
"I don't know."
"How about you, Gears? Have you seen anything suspicious?" Rea looked at the top of the doctor's bent head. Gears didn't look up but kept working on Rea's torn flesh.
After a short time, the doctor finally answered.
"When I first started cleaning water, I was so excited over what I'd created. It was tunnel vision. I couldn't see the bigger picture. Back then, some people tried to kill me. They wanted the key to making clean water. Some people thought I shouldn't have the kind of knowledge I had. There were individuals who believed water shouldn't be free. That's when I came to your father. I asked him to train me to protect myself. Your dad said he could train a blind cow before he could train me. He called me a lost cause. After that, he introduced me to you. We've been together since then. If someone were trying to kill me, you'd know before me, right?" Gears glanced at him and pushed his glasses. "Wait? Why do you think she wasn't after you? She seemed pretty ready to kill you."
"She? As in a girl?" Eric asked. "I didn't picture a little girl."
Rea glared. "That was an adult hired killer who just happened to be female." Rea gritted his teeth to stop himself from swearing. He paused. He needed to get a better answer out of both of them. "I'd like to know if someone's trying to kill either of you. I want to know if you've done something I should be aware of. No judgment. I just want to help."
"Why do you persist in thinking we did something?" Gears frowned.
"Yeah," Eric added. "You're the one that's bleeding."
"I've been doing this for years, and I don't think there's a good reason someone would go to all this trouble to kill me," Rea explained. "I think I was in the way in the greenhouse. This killer could be here to hunt for someone more important. You, Eric, are looking at taking a critical job with the C.T.O.N.A., right? Someone might not want that to happen. Gears, you're too smart for your own good. Someone might want to hijack the water bases. There are good reasons for someone to see you both dead."
"Yes, but if you were dead then no one would be protecting us or the water bases. If you were gone, all facilities would be weak. Someone could steal Gears' information. Also, few people know about the position I was offered." Eric turned in a circle. "Besides, I've been lucky so far, and nothing has come my way."
"I don't believe in luck," Rea grunted as Gears stitched up his side. The doctor daintily swabbed blood with a gauze pad, but the pressure felt like he dug into his skin.
"Mac doesn't believe in luck or God. I'd say he lacks faith in something."
"When I find something worth having faith in, I'll let you know."
"You do that. Now stop moving. I have to get this wound immaculately clean. You know how I feel about dealing with infections down here. Cleanliness is next to godliness." Gears started prodding him again. Rea looked up at the ceiling fan near the vent in his room. The fan spun in lazy circles. He tried to concentrate on that instead of the persistent ache.
"Is Gears a good doctor? Does he know what he's doing? You're going to live, right?" Eric showed genuine concern. Rea thought his unease might be a mixture of real worry for him and worry that Rea was the only person who would help him.
Eric needed him alive, and they both knew it. Eric would depend upon his support and the support of the water bases if he actually became a leader of the C.T.O.N.A. Breaking the NEDs away from Canada would be a giant undertaking. Taking on protection against the snow and ice on the surface would need a herculean effort as well.
"Gears is brilliant in whatever he does. I'm going to be fine." Rea swore as Gears tugged on his skin again, "I take that back." He winced.
"Why do they call you Gears? Did your parents name you that?" Eric questioned as if trying to act normal while Gears performed minor surgery.
"My name's Adam, but I got the nickname when I was young. My family said my gears were always turning. I'm always inventing new things." Gears lifted his head. "There you go, Mac. All set."
"What did you do?" Rea asked when his wound didn't hurt anymore. His skin looked smoothed over. Only a small bandage was left.
"I used this new cream I invented called RCC100. The letters stand for Rapid Clot and Clean, and I got the formula figured out on my one-hundredth try, give or take. The thick cream stops bleeding and makes a new skin for healing. I sent you a sample to put away for safekeeping. All the guys nicknamed it Gears' Goo, and they laugh. I don't appreciate their teasing, but I can't get them to call my special cream the proper name."
"I'll tell them to call it RCC100," Rea said absently. "But don't say 'my special cream' around them, either."
Rea wrinkled his brow before swinging his feet off his double bed. He stood and swayed. His hand landed on Gears' shoulder. While he got his equilibrium back, Rea thought about that last sentence. The scientist had an obsessive need to keep a small sample of everything he worked on in a locked room. Gears did that so if he ever had to go back to his original formulas, he could get them back. It was odd he didn't get the sample of RCC100.
"I never got any of this." Rea's eyes swung with uncertainty to Gears. "Are you sure you gave me some to put in the safe?"
"I gave it to Charlie. He was supposed to give you all the samples." Gently, Gears tried to guide Rea back into bed. Rea shoved his hand off his chest.
His friend was trying to say he should stay in bed and recover, but there was no way Rea would lounge around while there was an assassin in the building and now a missing drug sample.
Rea went over to his plastic dresser that was shoved into the corner next to the bathroom door. He pulled out a clean shirt and slammed the drawer. The old plastic bent and sagged, but he ignored his pathetic furniture. While he tugged his shirt over his head, he considered what Gears said. There was a part of Gears' explanation that seemed off. What was it?
He reached under his bed to grab two small handguns. He handed one to Eric and then put one in the waist of his pants.
"Wait. Did you say samples, as in more than one?"
"Yes, more than one. I gave him RCC100 and a drug that can immobilize you for about twenty-four hours." Gears paused and tipped his head to the side. "Oh, and a drug which erases your memories, mostly. I haven't named the immobilization drug yet. The memory drug I called Clean Slate 3000 or CS3000. I think it sounds like a fast motorcycle."
"Not good." Rea grabbed his two-way radio off the desk next to his computers. He stomped past the table by the door. He didn't wait for Eric and Gears.
"You don't like the name? I think it rolls off your tongue." Gears chased him into the hall.
Rea wasn't listening. His mind put together what he needed to do next. He headed out into the hallway, hoping his battered body was up to whatever he had to deal with. His eyes shot back to his companions. Both stared at him wide-eyed.
"Gears, do you have your medical bag?"
"Yeah." Gears patted the straps on his backpack. "Why?"
"Eric, I'm calling Ken. He'll take you to your room. He'll get you dinner. You and I will talk later. Keep this gun on you, just in case." Rea gestured to the gun he'd given Eric and nodded at him. "You can update Ken on everything. He'll help you. I want you to stay until I get this worked out. Gears, let's go find Charlie."
Rea left Eric and hurried toward the interrogation room with Gears running behind him.
"What's the problem? Don't you like the name? You know, I like motorcycles, but I guess you don't. There's no problem, really. Whatever I call it, the guys rename it." Gears pushed up his glasses. He shrugged his shoulders as they walked swiftly.
Rea sighed and observed Gears' lack of worry. It was exactly like Gears to think nothing was wrong.
"The name isn't the problem. What's wrong is you gave a bunch of drugs to two men I wouldn't trust with a toilet seat, and now they have an assassin as well."
"The girl?"
"Call her whatever you want but pick up the pace."