Page 15 of Clive Cussler Desolation Code (The NUMA Files #21)

Vaughn’s Island

The Overseer was back on the island, resting on a hospital bed, with an IV hooked up to each arm. With his shirt off, a series of scars could be seen running up and down and all across his chest. Some of them were ragged: the type made by shrapnel, burning metal, and fire. Others were surgical. Where Vaughn and his doctors had repaired him and given him a new lease on life. One by one his internal organs had been replaced. A new heart, new lungs, a new liver, and both kidneys. He had endured countless operations. And grown stronger each time. There was one drawback. Embedded within each organ were a series of microchips. They were linked to the computer TAU, as it sought to learn more about human physiology.

Initially, the idea disgusted him, but he’d been given no choice in the matter, having been pulled from a prison hospice and put on Vaughn’s operating table without even being aware of it.

Waking up alive and changed was different than rejecting the change in the first place. Too weak to do anything about it initially, by the time he grew strong enough, he wanted more. If communing with a machine was the price to pay, so be it.

An alarm started beeping as the IVs emptied. He pulled the needles out himself and reached for his shirt. By the time the doctor came in, he was clothed. “Vaughn wants to see you,” the doctor announced. “He’s in the control room.”

A look of disgust appeared on the Overseer’s face. He detested Vaughn. Hated him the way only those who are completely dependent on another individual can hate someone.

Whether it was true or not, Vaughn insisted he could turn the Overseer’s organs off, shutting down his heart or lungs with nothing more than a word to his all-seeing computer.

The Overseer stood and left the hospital room without a word. Hate-filled or otherwise, he’d been called.