Read Deus Ex - Icarus Effect for Free Online Page B

Bradley's. Anna didn't know the man as well as Temple, just by hearsay and reputation as something of a
    hard ass; he was a senior agent working liaison with the Secret Service and the Department of Justice. His presence underlined the gravity of
    what had happened. "I'm afraid we had to take your eyes."

    "What?" Her hand automatically reached upward. Pads of gauze covered her face, and in a sickening moment of understanding, she realized
    that the orbits of her skull were empty. Something hard and plastic protruded through the bandages from one of the sockets.

    "We can't talk like this. Wait a second." Bradley came closer and Anna heard the whisper of a cable uncoiling. Something connected with a snap
    and she felt a sudden giddy rush of vertigo as an image exploded before her.

    She saw a strange figure swaddled in bandages and crowded by electronic devices, like a hi-tech mummy. Monitors and an oxygen cylinder
    framed a bruised, puffy face. "I can see again." The figure mimed the words as she said them, and then the point of view shifted, taking in Ron
    Temple at the window, framed by sunlight. His round face was tight with concern. "Me. I'm looking at me."

    The view bobbed. "I'm running you a feed from my optic implants," said Bradley. A thin, brassy cable extended from inside his right-hand cuff
    and into a socket on the temporary eye interface.

    "I look like shit," she managed, swallowing a sob.

    Temple came to the bed and perched on the edge, taking her hand. "Yeah, sweetheart, you do. But you'll be okay. The doctors got the round
    out of you, it didn't hit anything vital. Tissue damage mostly. The Kevlar took the brunt of the impact, slowed it down some."

    The next words fell from her in a breathy rush. "Matt's dead. Byrne and Connor, too ..."

    Temple gave a shallow sigh. "Anna ... They're all dead. You're the only one in the detail to make it."

    "We hoped Hansen, the Belltower guy, might pull through," said Bradley. "They lost him on the operating table."

    "How long have I been in here?" She gripped Temple's hand hard.

    "Four days."

    "The senator?"

    Bradley's point-of-view nodded again. "She's okay. We already got a statement from her. That, plus imagery from the traffic cams, and we're
    assembling a model of the incident. But that's why we had to subpoena your optics. You're the only one who got a good look at a face. I had tech
    forensics from the FBI reconstruct a few stills from the data in the image buffer."

    "We'll get you replacements," Temple noted. "Good stuff, new Caidins or maybe Sarif..." He handed her a sip-bulb of water. "I'm sorry you had
    to wake up blind ..."

    "Thanks for being here, sir," she said, taking a drink of the cooling fluid. "Has someone—" Anna took a shaky breath and started again. "Has
    someone told Jenny?" Jennifer Ryan was Matt's wife of some sixteen years. They had two girls, Susan and Carole. She remembered their house
    as a warm, welcoming place.

    Temple nodded gravely. "She knows. I'm sorry, Anna."

    "I understand you and Agent Ryan were close?" asked Bradley.

    The other man answered before she could. "Ryan was her ... mentor."

    "Something like that," said Anna, the words barely a whisper. She swallowed and straightened up. "Do you have the images with you? Can I see
    them?"

    Bradley and Temple shared a look. "Okay," said the agent, and he drew a folding Pocket Secretary PDA from his jacket; it opened up, blooming
    like a metallic flower. Bradley hesitated, then held it in front of him, tabbing through the virtual pages. "We're sifting through witness statements at the moment, still building the picture."

    "Leads are coming together," Temple offered. "We don't have any suspects as yet... These creeps just melted into thin air."

    "We had a report about an unmarked helicopter putting down briefly in Montrose Park, but D.C. air traffic control have nothing on that," noted
    Bradley distractedly.

    "I never saw anything," said Anna, her thoughts churning. "What