Breed

Chapter Thirty-three

"You're sure these are sterile?" Peter asked, looking at the light reflecting off the scalpel in his hand.

"Freshly stolen from the hospital," Drake said.

"Stop stalling," Mikaela said, "or hand me the knife and get out of my way."

He sighed. "I'll do it." He brushed Mayumi's hair back from her forehead, and made an incision at her hairline. "This is insane," he said. "I'm scalping a Japanese exchange student."

"That's probably good," Mikaela said. "It would seem racist if you were scalping an Indian student."

He continued the incision down to her temple, then peeled the skin back, exposing Mayumi's skull. "Ryan?" he asked. A red dot from the pointer attached to Ryan's chair illuminated a spot on her exposed skull. "Drill," he said, and held out the scalpel. Mikaela took the blade, and handed him a drill. "And you're sure this bit is the right size?" he asked, pulling the trigger on the drill long enough to know it was charged up.

"Yes," Ryan said. "The implant should be about the diameter of your pinky."

"You're sure she's out?" Peter asked Tucker. She closed her eyes, then nodded slowly. "Here goes, then." He pulled the trigger on the drill, and it whirred to life. It didn't bite into the bone, and instead pulled to to the side. It caught on her skin, and tore a bloody gash above her ear. "Shit," Peter said. But already the bloodflow was slowing.

"It's fine," Mikaela said, and used one of the towels to dab at the wound. With the blood out of the way, he could see that the wound was already healed.

"I guess that was a freebie," he said. He repositioned the drill on Ryan's red dot.

"Let me help steady it," Mikaela said.

"Demi might have been useful," Tucker said.

"Only if necessary. The fewer people here, the less the chance of infection," Peter said. He locked eyes with Mikaela, standing on the opposite side of the table, the both of them holding steady to the drill. She nodded, and he pulled the trigger. The drill bucked against hem, but they held fast. The bit found a small purchase, and began to tear into it. Shavings of bone started to peel off, into the bit jerked forward, and blood began to bubble out of the hole.

"Tweezers," Pete said, holding up the drill. Tucker switched out the drill for a set of long tweezers. Then she took a towel and shoved it against Mayumi's cranium, sponging away as much of the blood as she could. Pete peered into the hole. "Damnit. Didn't see it. Again." She pushed the towel into Mayumi's skull again. "Light," he said to Mikaela, and she shined an LED flashlight where Tucker was pressing. There was only a fraction of a second where the head wound wasn't covered in blood.

"Headwounds are like a fountain," he said, "but I think I saw it. Nobody move." He slipped the tweezers through the hole. "Damnit," I brushed it," he said, because something in the skull was harder than the rest. "Come on, give me something to grab onto. Damnit," he retracted the tweezers. "I don't just want to go jabbing around in the dark."

Tucker raised an eyebrow at him.

"Found it," Drake said, teleporting into the room. He held the telescoping rod to Peter.

"Sterile?" he asked.

"Um," Mikaela nodded for him to follow her to the sink. She used a solution of alcohol and a swab to clean the end of it, then carried it over to Peter.

"You think it will work?" Ryan asked.

"Worth a shot," Peter said. "Hard to know if it's metallic enough unless we try."