Gabriel: Zero Point (Evan Gabriel Trilogy) by Steve Umstead Page A

to say to him as a small child. Words he remembered all these years later. Images arose in his mind of Ekaterina Gabriel poking him in the upper chest. “This is your strongest muscle, Evan. You have a heart like no one else.” Words she repeated in the hospital, dying of cancer. Some of the last words she ever said to him. “Use it,” she had said. “Listen to your heart. It’s your strength.”
    He looked down at his forearms, the first thing he noticed when coming out of the tank. Muscles he hadn’t had before going in, but superficial muscles. Not like what his mother had told him he had as a scrawny six-year old.  
    “Evan, are you okay?”
    He looked up at Knowles. She was staring at him with a look of concern; he could see that in her eyes. The same look she had given him as the tank lid closed over him. Her feelings were genuine, and she genuinely was concerned for him, her job and its controversy aside.
    He thought back to his brief conversation with Admiral Cafferty’s attaché during OCS. She had asked him why he enlisted in the Navy, and his answer was that he had nothing else, and thought he’d be good at it. And he was good at it. Thinking back to signing his original enlistment paperwork, he knew then he was following his heart. As he was when he expressed a desire to join Special Warfare, and as he was when he willingly underwent an experimental medical procedure to augment his abilities and turn him into an even more capable soldier.  
    “I understand,” he said. “And this is who I am now.” He held up a hand as Knowles started to speak. “I appreciate your concern. I really do. But this is the path I’ve chosen. I understood the risks, though not to this extent,” he said with a small smile.  
    Knowles walked over to the locker where the planted bloody shirt was. The blood drops on the floor between the table and the locker were gone; the cleanup crew apparently wanted to make sure everything was back in order. Maybe for the next test, he thought, grinding his teeth .
    She opened one of the doors and reached inside, withdrawing a white box. She returned to Gabriel, holding it with both hands.
    “Let me see the gunshot wound,” she said as she placed the box on the table.
    “It’s fine,” he said, waving her off. “Bleeding stopped.”
    “I’m sure it has. My nanites have added benefits all around. But I want to make sure.” She opened the box and picked up a small plastic device shaped like an old-fashioned turkey baster.
    He frowned, knowing what was coming. He pulled up his shirt, and Knowles bent to peer at his wounds.  
    “Through-and-through. That’s good.”
    “For you, maybe,” he said.  
    She smiled. “And for you. No surgery, at least until the medpack procedure tomorrow.” She used the device to squirt a grayish liquid liberally over both his entry and exit wounds. Gabriel stared at the far wall, knowing the biofoam would sting. And it did. But not like the auto-injectors did. Everything had changed for him. Everything was new.
    Knowles pressed a self-seal patch onto each wound, then closed the box. Gabriel lowered his shirt, noting with a corner of his mind that while his wound may be have been cleaned up, his bloody shirt with two holes in it still showed he had a hell of a morning.
    Knowles stared at the medical kit after she closed it for a long moment.  
    “What’s next for you?” he asked. “More tests?”
    She gave a faint smile, then turned from the table.
    “Something tells me this program will be winding down soon.” She looked around the lab. “I think some of the equipment may have been damaged in this last test. Plus, I believe I may be looking into retirement. I hear Jamaica is a beautiful destination.”
    Yes, she certainly had read his jacket, he thought.
    He was about to answer when an overhead speaker crackled to life with Biermann’s voice.
    “Lieutenant Gabriel, if your mission to retrieve your shoes was successful, please report to