Of more concern to him was how to go about creating the illusion he was continuously feeding Davey anesthetic when, in reality, he was doing his utmost to revive him. Bane had virtually no idea how vital signs were specifically affected by sedation. The wrong signs would be a dead giveaway to the surgical team that something was wrong.
Stable …
The word returned to him. The purpose of anesthesia was to guard against any unwarranted flux in bodily functions. All Bane had to do was keep Davey’s read-outs just as they were now, perhaps a bit lower, anything but the rise that would come as the boy slowly regained full consciousness of the scene around him. But how?
Bane’s fingers touched Davey’s forearm.
Stay calm, he thought as hard as he could, stay totally calm.
For a brief instant, noticeable only to Bane, the pulse and heartbeat waves rose into the highest grids on their screens. Davey had heard his thoughts, understood. All his vital signs stabilized with almost chilling suddenness. Then one of the lab technicians was handing Bane the black rubber mask that would pump anesthetic gas from the tank into the boy’s lungs. Bane fastened it around the back of Davey’s neck.
Don’t react, he thought even harder than before. Stay calm.
The needles, waves, and numbers wavered not at all.
“Should I start him at two?” the technician was asking him.
Bane realized that the operation was finally about to begin. A terrifying combination of precise surgical equipment and tools that might have come from a carpenter’s box was wheeled over on a cart to the surgeon who would perform the initial incisions and removed the skull bone enclosing the boy’s brain. To keep the skull area sterile, Bane concluded, the flesh would not be exposed until the last moments before that initial incision was made, thus securing the deception Davey’s hair would otherwise have given away and perhaps buying Bane the time he needed.
“Ready to begin gas flow at level two on your mark,” the lab technician was saying to him.
Bane held the thick rubber tubing which ran from the tank under the table, testing its strength. He tried to pinch it together, hoping to close off most of the flow, but found it was too strong to hold in any worthwhile position for very long without being noticed. He thought of readjusting the mask so that the anesthetic would be steered away from Davey’s nose and mouth, but he couldn’t think of a way to make such an obvious medical error without attracting immediate attention. How, then, was he going to keep the boy from losing consciousness again?
The answer lay before him, at eye level on the surgeon’s tray.
“You have my mark,” Bane told the lab technician.
And in the fleeting instant all eyes were drawn to the vitals indicators above his shoulder, he swept a scalpel off the tray, moving it immediately toward the tubing still grasped beneath the operating table.
The surgeon seated directly behind Davey pulled a similar scalpel from the tray and tested its weight. Bane figured he was going to use it for cutting back the scalp prior to removing the skull dome.
“Let me know when he’s under,” he said to Bane and Bane knew at once the deception would have to end shortly one way or another because the surgeon’s hands had gone to Davey’s lime cap.
Bane made a quick, neat slice in the rubber tubing, spilling the anesthetic gas into the room’s air and wondering if its effects or smell would be immediately noticeable. He took in several deep breaths, found no trace of gas in the air.
From the observation area, a motion that seemed somehow out of place brought Colonel Chilgers to his feet. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, only the general direction from which it came: the anesthesiologist’s chair.
The surgeon behind Davey was ready to strip off the boy’s cap and start in with his scalpel, awaiting word from Bane that the boy was under and his flesh could be sliced. Davey was starting to come round; Bane could feel it. In spite of the fact that he must have known where he was now and what was about to happen to him, the levels of his vitals remained stable. Still, Bane was waiting too long. The patience of the surgical team was starting to wane. Soon they’d know something was wrong. Bane started to reach slowly for his pistol.
I won’t let you down, Davey, I won’t let you down …
Chilgers’ eyes were locked on the anesthesiologist. Something about the man seemed all wrong, out of place. He saw the man’s hand sneaking toward his ankle and knew then this was a stranger, an intruder. He smothered thoughts of how the man had gotten in until later.
“He’s under,” Bane told the surgeon, who steadied himself with a deep breath and started peeling Davey’s surgical cap back, feeling knots of hair beneath it.
“What the hell? …”
The boy’s vitals began to fluctuate, red lines dancing crazily on the monitoring grids.
Chilgers moved his lips to the intercom which connected him with the four guards on duty outside the O.R. door.
“The anesthesiologist!” he screamed. “Take him! Take him!” Then, into another speaker to the O.R. “Stop the operation! Stop the operation!”
The guards started through the door.
Bane ripped the.45 free of his leg. His first three shots took out the largest of the overhead lights, casting the room in a dull, shadow-dominated haze. The four guards had drawn their guns quickly and surely as they stormed into the room, but the haze made them hesitate. All the green-garbed figures scurrying away or reeling back from the table in fearful confusion looked the same. Which was the anesthesiologist?
For Bane, the situation was far simpler. There were only four uniforms to consider and he dropped each one with a single bullet. Then, as reinforcements rushed for the doorway, he shot out the rest of the room’s lights and pulled Davey from the table, stripping the tubes and wires from him.
“Don’t shoot!” Chilgers screamed into the intercom connecting him with the blackened room below. “I need the boy alive! I need the boy alive!” His fingers scraped against the tile walls for the switch that would activate the emergency lighting. To allow for optimum viewing of the operation, all lights had been left off in the gallery and now the resulting darkness slowed Chilgers’ progress, obscured the familiar surroundings.
Below, chaos reigned in the O.R. as more guards swept in and green-garbed surgical team members scurried for the door in panic. Bane pulled Davey tighter to him, resigned to his failure and pondering the pain he could save the boy by killing him mercifully now. The boy hadn’t awakened enough to use his power, so there would be two bullets: one for Davey and one for himself.
Chilgers located the button, pressed it. A measure of the operating room’s lighting came back, certainly enough for the guards to locate the two figures huddled beneath the table. Bane steadied the.45, closed his eyes to the horrible necessity of firing it two more times.
Davey made The Chill.
Bane felt something, a blast of cold on a hot summer’s day. The hair on his arms pricked up, stood on edge, whipped about as gooseflesh sprouted outward.
Oh my God, he thought, it’s happening… .
The thick glass in front of the observation area shattered outward, huge shards and slivers becoming deadly projectiles that rained down with blinding force. Bane shut his eyes to the carnage as the bodies of guards and members of the operating team became bloody pincushions, barely resembling the beings they had been just seconds before. Severed limbs and heads blasted against the walls with sickening force. The fury spared no one. Over in ten seconds at most, it left behind a scarlet pool which dripped, ran, spread everywhere.