Page 182 of Victorious

Y.

Mitch held his breath and typed.

QUERY: ARE YOU AN EO? Y/N

Y.

Mitch broke into a smile. If an EO was designated as an automatic threat to the system, how could it be permitted to protect it? The answer was, it couldn’t. The EO on the other side must have grasped the loophole at the same time because code spilled down the screen, and then it disappeared, replaced by a single, blinking cursor.

Mitch threw up his hands.

For the first time in ages, it wasn’t a gesture of frustration, but a sign of victory.

He was in.

XXXNOW. THEN.

60 MINUTES BEFORE THE END

EON

“YOU have to put him down,” said Noah.

He’d come straight to the Command room to make this declaration. He hadn’t even changed out of his field gear, which was dented and dirty and scraped from the motel, and the theme park, and the sprint through the woods.

Now, he was dangerously close to arguing with Gabriel.

In front of Helena, and Malcolm, and the other four agents in Command. Not that any of them seemed to notice. Still.

Gabriel felt the faint tug of defiance, and he had neither the time nor the inclination to indulge it. “Is that an order, Agent Harris?” he asked, arching a brow.

Noah faltered but didn’t fall back into line.

“Eli shot me in the chest. He blatantly disregarded orders.”

Technically, thought Gabriel, he circumvented them. If the gun had held bullets, instead of tranquilizing darts, he wouldn’t have been able to. But Gabriel knew Eli’s mind well enough by now to understand how good he was at cognitive gymnastics.

Truth was relative. Personal. The only way to defy an order was to convince yourself you weren’t.

“He’s uncooperative and unpredictable,” said Noah, raising his voice. “He’s defiant, and disloyal, and a hazard to your program, and if you don’t stop him, he will tear down everything you’ve built.”

Noah’s fury wasn’t directed at Gabriel, but on his behalf. Ever the loyal soldier. And perhaps he had a point.

Eli’s fortitude, his unique and persistent ability to resist Gabriel’s will, had certainly proved educational, but he had other patients now, ones who required his full attention, and his energy. And Eli was currently a strain on both.

He could still prove an asset, if he could be broken, made to heel.

Gabriel had obviously hoped he’d cross that threshold on his own.

But sometimes, patients required a little push.

Gabriel laid his palm against the sensor.

The door slid open onto a barren steel cell. No cot, no sink, nothing but reinforced concrete and metal posts. Even the metal table that normally occupied the space had been removed.

The room was empty, save for Eli, who’d clearly been pacing.

He managed to still himself when Gabriel entered, but suspicion glinted in his eyes. He had the look of a caged animal. A predator, made prey.