CHAPTER FORTY-TWO—CONTACT  

First thing Monday morning, James brought Heather up to his personal lab. She sat in the extra desk chair, her head and chest open while he took readings of her power core and ran routine stability tests.

She had scanned as much of the area as she could on her way up from the basement, but her thermal sensor was unhelpful. One useful note, however: she suspected the mysterious room by James’ lab was some kind of generator room or electrical hub.

The more her thoughts turned toward escape, the more she visualized pulling a repeat of Larkspur on that generator, blowing the whole facility sky high.

She watched James putter, his mind elsewhere. His desk was clear. He was on to other projects.

She weighed her chances of making a break for it. She’d have to time it when James took the tether off her ankle to escort her back to her cell. She could incapacitate him with a measured shock, and hopefully smash her way through the window. Sprinting, electrified metal would be hard to apprehend.

However, the fence outside could be electric, which was a problem if the voltage was too high.

She also figured the polymer encasing her vitals wasn’t bulletproof. Inorganic didn’t meant invincible.

James pulled open a drawer across the room and produced what Heather recognized as the pain simulator.

“I need to put this back in,” James said.

Heather buzzed a sigh, but sat still and let him access her neural network. If her escape plan were further along, she might have fought him on it. Better to play along for now.

He plugged in the device, snapped the protective frame back on.

“You can go ahead and close your cranial panels,” he said. “It’s done.”

Heather complied.

“Did it connect?” James moved across the room, where he proceeded to rifle through papers and boot up his laptop.

She searched reluctantly for the connection of the pain simulator. She wondered if she could consciously block it out, and therefore limit its influence. As her attention touched on the accessory, something pushed through in her mind, surprising her. It was text, forming a message:

Heather, it said, You were right, obeying these people is only making things worse. I want to help get you out of here, if you’re willing to work with me. If you don’t want my help, I understand, and I won’t get in your way.
I outfitted the pain simulator with a communicator, so when I test it in the next few minutes, you should be able to access the nearest cellphone tower once the device is activated. I’ve programmed the coordinates to this lab, Empetrum, into the device too. Search for them and you’ll find them. When I test it, reach out to your parents, tell them where we are.
We’re far from civilization, and Empetrum is heavily guarded, with a few fences and security checkpoints between us and the perimeter. It will be very dangerous if Benson catches us, but I’m willing to try if you are.
I’m sorry it took me so long to listen.

Heather stared at him, repressing the millions of questions begging to be given voice. A very real hope after so much despair.

James glanced up to meet her gaze, shy and hopeful and tired. He had nothing to gain by lying to her.

Either way, she’d know for sure as soon as the pain simulator turned on.

He took the remote for the device from a desk drawer, holding it like he feared it would burn him. “I have to test it again.”

Heather watched him. “Okay,” she said quietly.

She squeezed her hands together in her lap, and James activated the device. The signal buzzed oddly in her head, fading in and out like it struggled to translate into a discernible pain response.

She glanced up at him, inquisitive, wondering if he had tried to dampen or eliminate it.

He kept his gaze on the remote, his lips pressed together. His thumb clicked the button again.

The pain signal smoothed out and flared. She winced. Then, somewhere, in the back of her head, she detected something else. Her attention started to fray, splitting between where she sat in

James’ lab, and another piece reaching out all around her.

A weak connection, but it was there.

Hope swelled in her chest.

“Going up two,” he said, and clicked it twice.

Heather stiffened as the pain intensified with sharp, unexpected stabs. She gripped the arms of the chair and tensed her shoulders, closing her eyes. She felt James’ gaze on her as he waited breathlessly for something to happen.

She gave a small shake of her head. With two more clicks, the pain signal ripped from her head down her spine and into her legs. She tried to recall her dad’s cell phone number—she hoped to catch him at Larkspur, where the other engineers might know some way to help. It was difficult to focus.

The signal was still too weak, though she reached out, invisible fingers extending blindly in the dark, trying to find purchase. Trying to find something that could translate her thoughts into a message, and beam it to her parents.

She opened her eyes and gave him a determined, meaningful look. He upped it to level eight and she stiffened. She pulled forward, an electronic, mistuning warble slipping from her voice box. She stared at James’ shoes in front of her, holding onto his presence like a lifeline, to keep her from ripping her brain out or screaming at him to stop it, while she stood still in a barrage of discordant, all consuming pain, trying to listen. Her mind reaching, reaching, reaching.

Something caught and held.

Her eyes widened, her vision blurred out.

She threw words into a choppy message, struggling to keep out nonsense information and not certain of her success: Dad, it’s Heather we’re ok James and I are trapped at Empetrum but planning to escape nothing yet but if you could help that would be great please reply right now.

She mentally shoved it away, pushing it toward her connection with a cellphone tower that she thought was southeast of them, hoping that doubled as sending it out. Her dad usually had his phone on him. It would start vibrating on his desk, or in the pocket of his slacks, if he was at Larkspur. It was 9:34:46. 47. 48.

Heather waited. James stood by, his thumb on the remote’s power button.

Please hurry up, Dad, she thought. She clamped her hands behind her head, ducking it between her knees. Just one second longer. She told herself. One second longer.

HEATHER! A reply came from Richard’s cell phone number. The message was full of frenzied typing mistakes. im so incredbkt relieved tonhear from you yes we all want to help you and james ge tout of empetrum what can we do to help???

I don’t know. Heather replied, closing her eyes hard. The emotion was overwhelming, receiving the first words from her family in two weeks. Since dying and being resurrected as a machine. Since everything and everyone had fallen apart. We don’t know how we’re going to do it, but I’ll let you know as soon as we do. I’m sorry I can’t talk any more right now but I’ll contact you again as soon as I can. She felt the urge to cry. She wished she could. I love you.

She waited again. She sent Empetrum’s coordinates.

I love you too.

“Okay,” her voice sounded small and crackling. “Okay too much. James please—” her tone broke. “Please turn it off—”

Abruptly, the pain cut off and Heather remained immobile. She stared at the floor for a few moments, trying to recover from the shock and gather her thoughts. Finally, her death grip loosened around the base of her head. She slowly straightened up and stared at the engineer before her in awe.

James looked his age in that moment, callow and vulnerable. “I—it worked okay?” he managed.

“The bug fixes took?”

“Yes,” she said.

He nodded. “Good…” He exhaled unsteadily. He wiped a hand across his mouth, spent a moment in indecision, then moved to put the remote away across the room. “Good.”

+

I love you too.

Richard stared wide-eyed at his phone, having turned away from the counter where Sesame’s body was quickly taking shape. He felt light-headed.

Very quietly, the small box with the child’s voice attached to his laptop spoke, “Richard?”

He glanced up, and realized his colleagues were all looking at him.

It was all Richard could do not to react. He knew Benson had a surveillance tap in the lab they were in. Very slowly, as calm as he could even while his heart pounded hard in his chest, he got up and passed his phone to Eve.

Eve’s face went ashen as she read the message.

“It’s time,” Richard said.

+

“Director.” Benson’s administrative assistant found him in his personal lab, splitting cell cultures under a fume hood.

“Yes?” Benson continued to work. His right hand managed the automated pipettor, systematically driving a solution of detached cells and fresh media into eight new plates. The motions were second nature to him.

“Security has informed me that all your surveillance feeds of the Larkspur facility have been deactivated,” Walker said.

“What? When?”

“Earlier today. They were removed from their positions and destroyed by Knight and his colleagues,” she said as he discarded the pipette tip and stacked and labeled the plates. “I’ve reviewed the last few minutes of footage, and Knight reacted to something on his phone shortly before it happened.”

“We must have overlooked something.” He transferred the newly split petri dishes to a nearby incubator. He locked the protective glass panel in front of them, followed by the incubator’s heavily insulated door. “You’re sure they found all of them?”

Walker nodded. “Everything’s gone black. I’ll have to review recent footage for more information.”

Benson removed his gloves and snapped off the light in the fume hood. “Okay…”

“And this came for you.” Walker extended a small envelope. “Your mother told Roberts to pass it along to you.”

The director took it and opened it up, revealing an index card. Reading the diminutive capital letters, he suddenly brought the note closer to his face with a startled frown.

Dr. Director,
Your kingdom’s coming down.
Sincerely,
A Liar

+

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE—CONFRONTATIONS 

Benson pounded on the door of his mother’s dingy single apartment. After what felt like an eternity fuming in the corridor alone, the door unlocked and Alice appeared, braced for impact.

“What do you mean by this?” Benson demanded, shoving the envelope into her hands as he barged unbidden into the apartment.

“You look well, Michael,” Alice said. She shut the door and turned the envelope in her hands, smiling bitterly. “A little pale, though. Spending too much time in the lab?”

“You said I was wasting my time continuing to consider you a threat!” Benson cried. “I can’t believe you’re helping them. As if I wouldn’t have found out on my own, but why would you wave it in my face?”

Alice’s gaze fell to the card. “I told them,” she said softly, as if she hardly believed her own words.

“About us, your grandfather. About you and Empetrum. Everything.”

Benson stared, eyebrows raised. “Do you have a death wish?”

“What on earth did you do to Knight’s daughter?” Alice asked. “Empetrum’s in the business of kidnapping children now?”

“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

Alice moved toward the kitchen. “I have something else for you.” She pulled a short stack of papers off the counter and extended it.

Benson snatched it from her hands, exasperated.

“This is a printed copy of the information I gave them,” she explained as Benson glanced through the pages. “If anything happens to me, I told them to take this information to the press.”

“Ah, there it is, the self-preservation,” Benson muttered, tossing the stack back onto the counter in disdain. “You think I’m afraid of some bad publicity?”

“You should be. Maybe the Conxence will take up their case. You should let your prisoners go before this gets any worse.”

Benson cracked a wan, spiteful smile. A panicky tightness pulled in his chest at the mention of the rebel militia. “Go ahead and try it. We can deal with unwanted visitors.”
 “That sounds like a bluff to me.”

“I really should just drag you back to Empetrum and give you that mindwipe,” Benson snapped. “If you’re determined to be a problem.”

So soon after the death of his mentor, Benson hadn’t had the heart to lose his only remaining family member. Even if it was his gloomy, deadbeat mother. Enough of his sentimentality should have worn off by now.

“Do it then,” Alice said. She stepped toward him, eyes burning. “By all means, don’t be shy! Give me the Q-13 if it’ll make you feel in control!”

“What the hell do you want from me?” Benson shifted back. He paused, and his face softened into a surprised smile. “Oh, you want out.” He laughed. “You had me there for a second. I almost thought you were trying to make amends or stand up to me, in your own pathetic way.”

“I am trying to make amends,” Alice said. “You have to stop this, Michael. Victimizing your peers and destroying lives won’t give you what you’re looking for.”

“And what am I looking for?” Benson managed to keep his voice steady, despite the immense weight inside his chest, the terrible memories clawing through his mind. He did not fear them anymore. “I’m very curious what you think that is.”

Alice didn’t answer.

“So you want me to adopt toothless, ineffectual ideas about the world,” Benson said. “By taking up my grandfather’s work, I’ve failed you, is that it? You blame me?” Heat spilled into his tone, inundating his waning efforts to curb it. “You were the one who brought me to Empetrum in the first place. It was you who drove my father away and left me alone. Grandfather was the only one in our family with purpose after Delva dragged our name through the mud. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he worked hard for it until the day he died. And then he left it in my charge. He was the only one who saw anything in me, so how on earth could I have turned out any differently?” He spread his arms. “Why would I want to be anything else!”

“I know you loved him, but you don’t have to follow his path,” Alice pleaded. “You can be free of this.”

“I don’t regret anything.”

“Then show me.” Alice squared her shoulders. “Show me you can follow through—that you became the perfect person to lead that hellhole you call a research facility. Prove you aren’t that elusive and ever-changing definition of coward your grandfather hung over absolutely everyone. See, being away from that poisoned air, I finally figured it out. Real cowardice is playing along. And even though he’s dead and gone, you’re still playing his game.”

“Shut up.” Benson’s inherently soft features lowered into a glare behind the narrow lenses of his glasses. “I did this because I wanted it.”

“Did you? You were just a child. I watched as he traumatized you, desensitized you—”

“You’re right, you just watched!” Benson snarled.

“And I’m sorry!” Alice said. Her voice shook, and Benson was disgusted by it. “I failed you, and I will never forgive myself for that. But Empetrum is yours now, Michael, not his. You don’t have to be bound by your grandfather’s cruelty. You don’t have to make that your legacy.”

“Don’t you dare make me out to be the victim in all this,” Benson said. The side of his mouth twitched up to form what he hoped was a confident smile. “You are so obsessed with bringing out this person that doesn’t exist. Don’t you understand? There isn’t anything there.”

Alice wanted so badly for her greatest mistake to fix itself. This wasn’t about Benson. His mother had only ever looked out for herself, and Benson had never needed her concern, or her remorse. Benson would never give her the reconciliation she wanted. It was too late, anyway, but Benson wasn’t broken.

Maybe he wanted to be a monster.

Benson turned. “I’m done here.”

“I crossed you in the most blatant way possible, yet you’re just going to overlook it.”

“I haven’t overlooked it.” Benson paused. “In fact, I hate you all the more for it.”

“But not enough to do anything to me?” It was more a statement than a question.
 “It doesn’t matter what you told Knight or Delva, or what they do with the information,” Benson said. “No one is going to help them, and I’m not going to do you the service of taking those memories that haunt you so much, or relieve you of your failed life. Rot in your guilt for all I care.” He opened the door, glancing coldly over his shoulder as he left. “Nobody can touch Empetrum.”

+

James paid greater attention to his surroundings. Cameras lurked in every corner of the facility like an invasive species. He assumed his apartment was also under surveillance, though he hadn’t found evidence of it.

He felt watched as he leaned against his kitchen counter with a composition book, outlining equations and symbols for small stun devices that Benson would find troubling if he were to decipher James’ notes. When he was ready to make the devices, he would have to be really quick about it.

He felt sick with anxiety every time he thought about escape plans. There was no easy way out of Empetrum. He wasn’t even allowed off the grounds outside of Benson’s direction.

Late the next evening, he would activate the pain simulator remotely for two fifteen-minute intervals so Heather could collaborate with her family. Despite his hopes, he hadn’t been able to completely disentangle the pain signal from the communication one while updating it. They didn’t have much room for trial and error, if any.

His pager beeped from the other end of the room, halting his thoughts. He stole over to the table, and found a message from the director.

Please come to my office.

Benson had postponed their followup at the end of the work day. He’d had some errand to run.

James took a slow breath as he headed across campus. The days of late summer brought long, warm dusk, in which the air smelled like heated earth and green leaves. It was sort of calming, even here, and he tried to remind himself all over again of the world outside.

On the off chance he and Heather succeeded, escaping the grounds wouldn’t rid him of Empetrum. Whether he had a rigged legal fight and a prison sentence ahead of him, an impending re-kidnapping or assassination, or life spent hiding from the government itself, he wasn’t sure. He only hoped that Heather could be free.

Maybe the Conxence would take him.

There was the question of Hodgson too. They couldn’t leave her behind, but James’ ID card didn’t have access to her cell. He would need someone else’s. Yeun’s, or one of the security guards that appeared to have universal clearance.

The director’s office was open. James ventured into view, knocking furtively on the door.

Benson stood in front of the window at the back of his office, considering the lab below with his hands clasped behind his back. He turned.

“Good evening, Siles,” he said, and it sounded extra chilled. “Please take a seat.”

James complied.

Benson didn’t move from the window. “How did it go today?”

James tried to ignore a growing sense of foreboding as he summarized the day’s progress.

“Productive. I ran diagnostics with Heather, reinstalled the pain simulator after making some bug fixes that would have interfered with the integrity of the pain response. Then I shadowed Yeun and studied Compatible modulators.”

“Good.” Benson said evenly, like he was absorbing the information slowly, running it through a filter in his head. He observed James for several moments after that. “I wanted to talk to you about Larkspur.”

James’ face went cold. “Okay.”

“Are you aware of anything that’s been happening over there in your absence?”

“No,” James said. That was truthful, he didn’t.

Benson studied him again, his frame silhouetted in front of the window, still as a python calculating its strike.

“I know about what you actually did with your first test subject,” Benson said finally. “You call it ‘Sesame,’ right?”

James’ heart squeezed. Fear flushed up the back of his neck. “Yes.”

“You pulled its neural network and left it for Knight to find,” the director went on. “Which he did. He plugged it into his laptop, and it found the internet, upgraded its intelligence, and now they are building it a humanoid body in exchange for information.”

James straightened up a little, shocked. “What?”

“You really didn’t know about any of this?”

“No.”

“I can’t help but wonder what else you’ve blatantly lied to me about?” Benson said.

“That was shortly before Heather’s transfer,” James struggled to keep his voice steady. “It was a frightening transition for me, and I was reacting defensively.”

Benson pushed up on his glasses. “But not anymore?”

“I understand the situation better, and have chosen to embrace it.”

“…More or less.”

James swallowed. Benson’s gaze felt like a vice around his throat. “I don’t want to cause any more trouble.”

The director nodded, thinking. “That’s all I needed. Thank you.”

James hesitated, then stood up. He felt the director’s icy attention on his back as he left his office and escaped down the hallway. It was all he could do not to break into a run.

+

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR—MEDIATION

By Tuesday evening, the Larkspur engineers had finished Sesame’s body.

“It’s beautiful,” Sesame said, using the laptop’s automated voice as Richard transported his setup to the counter beside the android’s open cranium. The black facial panel lay dormant in the light gray head.

“All right, Sesame,” Richard said. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to unplug everything in order to put you where you need to be,” Richard explained. “But don’t worry. If there are any major hitches, I’ll just hook you back up so we can figure it out.”


“Okay.”

“Here goes…” Richard gently pulled the chord connecting Sesame’s neural network to his laptop.

Eve and Chelo propped the android up and kept the head from drooping as Richard carefully fitted Sesame’s neural network into the cushioned frame inside. He craned his hands into the tight space, plugging in wires, taking care to unite the wire leading to its power core last.

As soon as the last connection clicked in, the robotic body jolted. The facial screen switched on, blinding white.

Richard snatched the last piece of the frame off the counter and snapped it in over Sesame’s neural network. His colleagues returned the android to a supine position on the counter, and they all stepped back.

The robot lay still for several long moments. Slowly, the cranial panels closed, sealing the neural network inside. A fan in its chest began to hum softly.

The light of the face panel flickered, the visual screen glitching in multicolored bars of pixels as it tested its connection. Then it faded from white to dark gray. Large cartoonish eyes opened from the dark background, and a simple black line for a mouth materialized on the screen.

“Woah…” Sesame’s voice tuned until it found the tone he had chosen a week before. He stared up at the ceiling, stunned. Very carefully, he planted his robotic hands on the table and pushed himself up to a sitting position.

“How do you feel?” Richard asked.

The robot looked at its hands, turning them one way, then the other, curling and opening the fingers. It turned its head to look at him. The face glitched and materialized a few times. Finally, it figured out how to smile, and the virtual mouth matched the words as it spoke. “I feel good.”

Addie stepped forward to help him steady the robot as it twisted, dangling its legs over the edge of the counter. Together, they helped it down to the floor.

Sesame stood still, his head just above Richard’s elbow, staring at his own feet. “I’m so tall.”

“Welcome to the bipedal body plan.” Chelo smiled, crossing her arms.

He shot her a virtual grin over his shoulder. Experimentally, he put a foot forward, faltering. Addie and Richard reached out to support him as he tried to walk on two legs for the first time.
Sesame watched the floor. He smiled. “I like this.”

“Everything feels functional?” Eve asked.

“So far so good.” Sesame kept his hand on Richard’s forearm to steady himself. “Is there a mirror?” he asked eagerly. Even though he’d used his voice a little prior to this, Richard was still unaccustomed to it. Expressive, humanoid, speaking more naturally every day. He had even chosen pronouns. “I want to look at myself.”

Richard accompanied him to the restroom on the first floor, and Sesame was walking on his own well before they reached it. The android gripped the sink and stood up on his toes, peering into the mirror. Another smile spread across the dark screen of his face.

He changed his eye color from the default black to a range of different hues, and finally settled on a teal color. He threw a smile at Richard and the other engineers, who had congregated by the open door.

Watching Sesame operate his new body brought Richard a challenging mix of emotions: relief that they’d held up their end of the bargain, dread and uncertainty of how to move forward. This creature that had loosely adopted the visage of a human child currently played the part of friend or ally, as long as they kept its trust. Now that it had intellect and independent physicality, Richard had no idea what its next actions would be.

Sesame explored other features of his body, opening and closing his chest panel and touching his fingertips to the blue light beaming modestly from his right shoulder.

“What do you think?” Richard said.

Sesame turned and threw his arms around him, squeezing him a little too tightly. “It’s perfect! Thank you!”

Then he ducked under his arm to go hug everyone else in turn. “Thank you so much! I love it.” He ran a few steps into the lobby, losing and regaining his balance as he took a wide look around. He raised his hands high and gazed through his fingers at the ceiling. He twirled again, laughing. “I can’t believe this is mine!”

Richard felt like he was only dreaming this. So much had changed in such a short time and in such unexpected, impossible ways that it felt like his daughter had been missing for two years instead of two weeks.

After Sesame had flitted around and experimented some more, he consented to staying still long enough for the engineers to double-check his body’s functionality. Then, he helped them clean up, immensely enjoying himself. He smiled constantly, listened well, and talked whenever he had the opportunity, and Richard found his tension toward the android beginning to ease. Foolishly, perhaps.

Before long, Sesame was walking with Richard to the car, holding his hand, but not for support.

Richard opened the door to the passenger seat for him and Sesame got in.

“I was here when I was with the laptop, right?” Sesame said, looking around. “Your car is different than James’.” He opened the glove compartment as Richard slipped into the driver’s seat and shut the door. Sesame mimicked his movement and pulled his own door closed. He curiously pulled a car manual from the glove compartment.

“Leave everything in there, please,” Richard said, fastening his seatbelt.

Sesame replaced his find and, watching Richard closely, he located his own seatbelt and pulled it over his chest.

“Like this?” he asked, fumbling with the latch.

“Yes.”

Sesame pushed up the door to the glove compartment and gazed up at the sky through the car window.

“When Heather and James come home, I wonder what they’ll think of my new body,” he said as

Richard started the engine.

Richard backed the car out of his parking spot and navigated toward the main road.

“I think they’ll be happy,” Sesame decided finally.

“Yeah,” Richard agreed tightly, a lump in his throat. “I think they will.”

+

Heather watched her internal clock in acute apprehension. She paced, listening to the rhythmic hum of her movement and the click of her bare feet on the floor.

In two minutes, James would activate the pain simulator. He was across campus in his living quarters, but the remote had a wide area of influence. It had to. It was for controlling her, after all.

After so much time spent waiting, deciding that no risk was too high to keep her from attempting escape, she found herself afraid. Of contacting her family, of getting caught, of having decided to trust James again.

She didn’t know what she felt toward him anymore. Less hostile, perhaps. A willingness to work with him. She was embarrassed to realize she wished he was with her at that moment for moral support while she waited to grapple with the pain simulator again. To finally tell the people she loved what had happened to her.

She paused to regard herself in the small mirror in the far corner above the sink. She still somewhat expected to see herself as she used to be, and the empty gray face was forever a bitter surprise. Even if she and James really did manage to escape, she couldn’t imagine confronting the long, dysfunctional life that awaited her because of him.

Still, she wanted the chance to see what continuing to live could be like. Despite James, despite everything.

With her time running out, she lay down on the bed against the wall. She knew she was being monitored, so she would have to give as few visual cues as possible to the watchful cameras.

She folded her hands across her middle and stared at the ceiling, trying to focus. She had already considered what she would say. Fear welled up through her circuits at the thought of having to go through with it. Her parents deserved to know what would be coming home to them—as much as she wished she could hide it from them forever, to continue being the Heather they knew, and not this unnerving hybrid of metal form and organic memory. She kept thinking there had to be a way to take all this back, but the door to her old life, the only thing she truly wanted now, had closed forever.

Gradually, a headache reared into existence, a warning from James.

Heather closed her eyes. Bring it.

Soon, the pain increased and Heather focused on the communication signal. The pain wasn’t real, she reminded herself. She couldn’t feel real pain. Without this device, she could cut off her hand and only feel a breach of her electromagnetic field before it moved in over the gap.

Level eight wasn’t as hard to bear the third time she had experienced it. The communication signal was tenuous in the concrete confines of her cell, but it was functional enough. She had fifteen minutes.

Dad, are you there?

__

Richard’s phone vibrated from where he had left it on the kitchen table while he and Su made a late dinner, with Sesame as happily underfoot as a toddler.

Richard read the message, then brought the virtual keyboard onto the screen.

__

Yes we’re here. What’s the status? Are you all right?
Heather felt a smile wash through her, despite the pain that strove to consume her attention.
I’m ok, she replied. I have 15 minutes, but I’ll be back in about 10 after that for another 15—if that makes sense. Sorry. Contacting you is hard.

__

Richard scrolled through the message, Su at his side. Sesame craned his neck to read it too.

Richard lowered it a bit so the android could see it more easily.

“How is she texting so fast?” Richard muttered.

Why? he texted.

Long story, came the reply. Later.

Sesame hopped up and down. “Plug me in! We could do this so much faster.”

“What?”

“Where’s your phone charger? And that cord you used to plug me into the laptop? You could splice them together and I could mediate!” Sesame was already on his way down the hall to grab Richard’s briefcase from the home office. “It wouldn’t take long at all.”

Are you at Empetrum because of James’ neural transfer project? Richard typed as Sesame reappeared.

“Do you have tools here?” The robot planted the briefcase on the table. “Please tell me you have stuff.”

Richard dug out the wrapped neural cable and extra charger cord. “They should be in that drawer.”

He pointed to a narrow compartment at the far end of the counter.

Richard’s cell phone vibrated again.

Indirectly, yes, but they want him for something else now. How much do you know?

Sesame helped us find info about Empetrum’s origins and the people who run it, Richard replied.

Su brought the whole drawer to the table. But nothing about why you and James disappeared.

“Why is your phone a heat-sensitive touch screen?” Sesame whined, reading the text as Richard set the phone aside to work with the wires. He found the tools he needed, clipped the heads off each cord, and took to stripping the insulation.

His hands were shaking.

__

That night when I went down to the lab, I walked in on James arguing with a security guard who worked for Benson too. It hurt to remember. She found herself omitting details automatically. She couldn’t bear to tell them what had really happened. They took me to the facility because, according to them, I had seen too much.

This is Mom, came the reply. We’re gonna plug Sesame in so he can talk to you, make this go more smoothly.
Ok, Heather sent. Then what her mom had said registered, and she opened her eyes, confused.

__

“Alright,” Richard said. He severed a strip of electrical tape and wrapped it around the newly united wires. “I’ve got it.”

Sesame was already opening the top of his head and inclining it forward.

Su handed over the phone, and Richard attached it to one end of the spliced cord. Unlatching the top of the protective frame inside Sesame’s head, he pushed the other end into the port he had used to connect him to the laptop.

Sesame propped himself up onto the nearest chair. His face panel went blank and the words of their text conversation showed up white against the dark gray.

“How do I connect with her?” Sesame asked.

“I don’t know.” Richard pulled up a chair and took a seat in front of him. Su stood very close beside him, silent and nervous. “I’m not even sure what she’s messaging with.”

Wait—Sesame’s going to talk to me? Heather texted. He talks now?

“There she is,” Sesame said, a watermark smile flashing behind the words on his face panel. The brief visual lit up on the phone beside him.

__

HEATHER!! Text burst into her mind almost immediately. It’s Sesame! Hello! I’m a humanoid now!

Heather’s eyes widened. What?

More excited words inundated her.

James left me behind so Richard and everybody could tap into my memories, but when Richard plugged me into his laptop, I found the Internet and updated myself! I have an android body now and I can talk to people and everything! I’m not a mouse anymore. It’s great!

Wow. Heather didn’t know how to reply. It was hard to imagine Sesame in a body like hers. That’s amazing. I hope we’ll get to meet again soon.

Me too! Sesame said. How are you making contact? This isn’t James’ number.

Yeah, I think they took his phone. Heather hesitated. He made a different sort of communicator, but it’s disguised so we don’t get in trouble—so it’s hard to use.

She stared up at the ceiling, warring with herself, distracted by the pain signal. She knew lying to them would waste time and resources they didn’t have. But the longer she put it off, the longer they could pretend that maybe things could be okay.

There’s something I need to tell you, she said. That night…at Larkspur…the security guard killed me. Shot me with some kind of poison dart. Empetrum would have preferred to leave it at that, but James transferred me to bring me back. The body he was making for his project at Empetrum wasn’t finished yet, so he put me in Larkspur’s android instead.

__

Richard read the text scrolling across Sesame’s facial panel, and his heart sank so quickly it felt like it had imploded in his chest.

“Oh no…” Su said.

I’m dead, but I’m alive. She said. I’m Heather, and I’m not. I’m sorry.

“No,” Richard gasped, removing his glasses to rub a hand across his eyes. His throat tightened. “No no no…”

“So he did do it,” Su murmured. “That bastard…”

Your mom says James is a bastard, Sesame said.

“Don’t tell her that—” Richard straightened up, horrified.

__

Heather decided not to tell them that she agreed. It was thanks to James she wasn’t all the way dead, but getting her killed in the first place put it in the realm of “too little too late.” What’s important right now is that James knows more about the inside of Empetrum than any of us, and he’s promised to help.

If they were lucky, they could tackle the existential devastation later.

There was a pause, and she hated to think what her loved ones were going through in that moment, dealing with an impact she had been processing for two weeks. At the very least, she had been able to tell them herself.

__

Su crossed her arms, her face stony. “If he’s helping her, I guess he’s on our side for now. I’ll respect that.”

Your parents will work with him, Sesame translated, generously.

Thank you. Heather said. My time’s up for now. Please stand by, I’ll be back in 10 minutes. I just need a break from using this device. It creates a pain signal—Benson made James make it.

“What?” Richard leaned forward indignantly. “She’s in pain?”

You’re in pain? Sesame asked, but he didn’t receive a reply. “Ohp, connection’s lost,” he said, his face re-materializing to replace the text.

Heavy silence suffocated the kitchen. Richard stared at the phone on the table, eyes wide, feeling like his soul was leaving his body.

“Is this real life?” Su said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Is this actually happening?”

Richard glanced up to see she was in tears. He stood up and wrapped his arms around her, on the verge of sobbing himself. Sesame looked like he might want to join the hug, but he remained where he was, troubled.

“I can’t believe that he—” Su’s voice cracked as she buried her face in Richard’s shoulder. He held her as she broke down. “Our daughter…”

A part of Richard tried to focus on the practical positives: Heather was alive in some form, and communicating with them, and James had agreed to help from the inside. But all their private, catastrophizing fears about the situation had just been confirmed, and the agony of it dragged him under like a riptide.

Sesame quietly watched them hug each other and cry, observing their pain, giving them this moment and waiting for the next one. Richard wondered if the robot even understood how devastating this all was. For Sesame, his transfer had been a rebirth.

Only time would tell what it would mean for Heather.

+

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE—ICNS 

“This is my voice!” a child-like tone exulted from the confines of the lab. “I am hearing it! What I imagined! Richard, this is my voice! My own!” They laughed, and sounded like they might cry. “I am so happy.”

Richard smiled wearily at the laptop, where Sesame was still tethered. “I’m glad you found a pitch you like.”

“Can I play with my face too?”

“It’s not quite ready yet,” Richard said as he joined Chelo and Eve at the other counter, where they were setting up to start adding to the android’s skeletal frame. Addie and Greg were busy at a workstation against the wall, making the finishing touches to the sleek dark screen that would generate Sesame’s face. It may have been a bit of a shortcut on their part, but Sesame would likely appreciate the creative freedom.

“That’s my body,” Sesame said eagerly, as if trying to convince themself it was true.

Richard attended to his work, melancholy. It had been three days already since they had met with

Alice Benson, and he didn’t know what to do next. They had been systematically locating suspicious surveillance devices in the Larkspur facility, but hadn’t removed them, as much as he itched to do so. They assumed Michael already knew about Sesame, but hoped to stall his inevitable discovery of Alice’s involvement until they were ready to move.

Alice had given them permission to stay in contact, very cautiously. She asked to know if they came up with a strategy she could help with, and she promised to pass along any new information if she caught wind of James or Heather.

So they were waiting, planning. Or, attempting to, at least.

Richard wrestled with the desire to go to the press immediately, light the fuse and see how much of Benson’s empire it could burn. But whether James was innocent in the situation or not, Empetrum’s government ties meant it wouldn’t go down without an all out brawl.

While the police made a show of looking for answers they never intended to find, the government would launch a misinformation campaign to poison the well before journalists had a chance to dig up enough evidence to mobilize the public. In all the scenarios Richard could think of—even the optimistic ones— Benson had plenty of time to cover his tracks.

And after talking with Alice, he knew any wrong move could get Heather killed.

+

Yeun’s prediction had been spot on. After the trial with the pain simulator, Benson took James an hour and a half northeast to the national capital, to where Non-Comp’s progenitors lived and trained: the Institution of Compatible National Security.

As Benson scanned his access badge outside the glass double doors of the entrance, James glanced back at the wide, deserted street of one of the capital’s industrial districts by the shipping pier. It was easy to forget a whole world existed outside Empetrum.

Benson ushered him inside. The lobby of the ICNS stretched out before him in black marble, with white cushioned benches placed back to back with a shock of indoor plants on the shelf between them. Beyond that, at the back of the room, stood a security desk, posted with the facility’s title in a tall, commanding font.

Directly behind the desk sat a pair of double doors, and they looked more to James like fire doors than anything else.

Benson strode straight up to the desk and had James hand over his Empetrum ID. The guard kept it, swapping it for a visitor’s badge on a neon yellow lanyard. He pressed a button under the desk and with a long, gentle tone, the lock on the fire doors beyond clicked back.

Benson thanked the guard and proceeded.

The doors opened to a wall, with a sign pointing left toward the offices, or right for the training facilities. Benson turned left and led James through a few more corridors, before James found himself stepping into an office suite. An administrative assistant presided over a podium-like desk in front of a wall of frosted glass panels.

She got up as they entered. “Good afternoon, Dr. Benson. I’ll let Varnet know you’re here.”

“Thank you,” Benson said, and crossed his arms, waiting.

It was odd to see Benson under these circumstances. Taking orders rather than giving them, nobody calling him “Director,” nobody overtly scared of him.

James idly glanced around at the minimalistic wall art. His right hand still stung a little from where Heather had shocked him. He tried to work out where that could have stemmed from, whether it was a static discharge, or something else. Heather’s behavior suggested it had surprised her too.

The sound of a door opening down the hallway broke the stillness and James startled. The receptionist returned, followed by a heavy-bodied woman in sharp business attire. The newcomer wore her dark, wavy hair tied up in a loose bun, her dangling earrings catching the light.

Something in her body type and the almond shape of her eyes reminded James of Heather, should she have been able to grow up. He felt his face grow hot, and a knot of guilt twisted painfully in his chest.

Varnet’s full lips curled into a smile. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. Her gaze flicked first to Benson, then to James. “This is Yeun’s new lab partner?”

“Yes,” Benson said. “James Siles. Roboticist and neurobiologist.”

“Neuro?” Varnet looked at him with renewed interest. She stuck out a hand. Her fingernails were neat and manicured with sleek white polish. “Anusha Varnet, head coordinator of the ICNS. I call the shots here.”

“Nice to meet you,” James managed, shaking her hand.

She stepped aside, gesturing down the hallway. “Come down to my office, let’s chat a bit.”

James followed, practically holding his breath.

Varnet’s office was bright and organized, punctuated with potted plants and photographs around a modern, white lacquered desk. Her aesthetic was in direct opposition to Benson’s darker, more muted sensibilities. The contrast set James on edge, and he felt very uncomfortable in a room with both of them at the same time.

Once they had taken a seat in two available chairs, Varnet positioned herself at her desk and said,

“How long have you been at Empetrum, Siles?”

James swallowed. “A little over a month.”

She glanced at Benson, who didn’t react, and back to James. “How do you like it?”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m adjusting.”

“Good,” Varnet said. “I’m sure Benson has briefed you of the situation at the ICNS, and all the work that’s yet to be done.”

James nodded. “I’m told there aren’t enough Compatible recruits.”

“That’s right,” Varnet said. “We only have a handful who were able to support the modulators, and who also passed physical and psychological exams to be brought into our program. As you can imagine, we’re very interested in getting Non-Comp off the ground.”

James had heard that title so many times over the past week. He hated it.

“Have you started working with Dr. Yeun yet?” she asked.

“Yes,” James said. “I’ve been reading up on the background materials, and practicing procedural techniques with Yeun. My expertise is heavier on the robotics side.”

“We’re bringing him up to speed as quickly as we can,” Benson said, nicely.

“So you have neurobiology as a specialization,” Varnet said. “Interesting choice, Benson. Do you think the key to developing Six’s strain of Non-Comp to viability has something to do with its nervous properties?”

James felt Varnet’s eyes on him, but he kept his gaze trained on his hands in his lap. After mountains of graphs and theories and data surrounding modulator research and its offshoots,

James had finally heard someone utter a name, even if it was likely an alias.
Six. They called the four-armed progenitor Six. These were real people, with feelings and thoughts and families.


“The nervous properties are actually really solid in our most recent prototype,” Benson was saying. “Our current obstacle has been developing a modulator that can engage properly with an edited genome. We’ve found the Compatible gene markers our original modulators were built around change when knitted into a non-Compatible system. Siles has a particular knack for merging biology and mechanical technology. I’m confident he’ll do very well.”

“Glad to hear it,” Varnet said.

James waited, holding his breath, for his previous project to surface in the conversation as proof of his capabilities—to find out that Benson had also lied to him about not wanting to pique the government’s interest in O.R.T. But Benson didn’t bring it up, and Varnet didn’t ask for credentials.

He stifled a sigh of relief when Benson stood up to go.

“I don’t want to take too much of your time,” Benson said. “I was hoping to show Siles around the facility, see the recruits. They’re in a training session right now, aren’t they?”

“Yes, go ahead upstairs,” she said. “I’m sure your new bioroboticist would like to see with whom he’ll be working in the coming months. The recruits are up in the gym with Gresham and Hill. But please stop by again when you’re finished. I’d like to talk more with you, Siles.”

James nodded, numbly, and then he was following Benson out the door.

As they made their way back up the hallway, cutting across a different corridor to elevators on the other side of the building, the abundance of hushed, empty air struck James as eerie. The ICNS was three stories tall. He could hardly imagine what it must be like for the few existing soldiers, spending all their time in a place built for a much higher occupancy.

They took an elevator up to the second floor, then went down a wide hallway to a door with a window reinforced by a checkerboard of wire. Benson opened it to the sound of running footsteps echoing off equipment.

James nervously stepped inside the gymnasium. It was massive, with high, industrial ceilings, stocked with mats, cushioned floors, pull-up bars, foam pits, and a small city of wooden parkour structures in the back. Dr. Hill stood near the adjacent wall with an electronic tablet docked on his forearm, next to a tall, muscular man with a stern jaw, gauges in his ears, and athletic attire.

“That’s Victor Gresham,” Benson said, nodding toward the latter. “The recruits’ trainer and caretaker.”

James felt like he was on a leash as Benson strode across the sidelines to Hill, who acknowledged them with a nod. Gresham spared him only a glance.

Across the room, James spotted the recruits, and his breath caught. The literature behind Compatibility technology listed the progenitors at the ICNS as young adults, but nobody had bothered to clarify that the soldiers were teenagers.

More innocent kids, snapped up by the system like Heather.

They were running some sort of cardio circuit involving jogging, sprinting, and hurdles. At this phase of the workout, they appeared to be concentrating on simply remaining mobile. The one called Six immediately stood out. He towered over his peers, and he indeed possessed an additional set of fully-formed arms, sticking out of a tank top that had been slit down the sides to accommodate them. His dark, curly hair was clipped back in the front to keep it out of his heart-shaped face, and he ran next to a boy with green skin. The latter must have been the plant one, James thought with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

He felt like he had stepped into someone else’s fever dream as he watched the very people Yeun described in the stem cell culture lab, training, running, avoiding obstacles, spurring each other on to complete the circuit.

Each of them had a segmented metal band attached to their right wrist. A modulator. The reason James had been consumed by Empetrum.

At the front of the group, competing with a girl with springy, pink-dyed hair, ran a boy who seemed to be composed of shadows. Wisps of black smoke trailed out from the collar of his t-shirt and off his arms, as if fatigue were causing him to lose grip on physicality.

Aside from Six, the green kid, and the shadow one, the rest of the recruits otherwise looked normal from a distance. James found himself trying to think, based on what he knew about genetics and physiology, who the next target after Six would be for Non-Comp. Concussion, telepathy, pyrokinesis, smoke, plants…

Telepathy, maybe. It was probably electromagnetic in some way.

Gresham called out to the kids across the gym, making James jump for the second time. “Stop! Get water. Line up on the floor in five minutes for group conditioning.”

The recruits slowed. Following his teammates toward a wall of cubbies, Six clasped two hands behind his head and stretched the other pair back. The kids seemed in good spirits, chatting while they caught their breath before Gresham’s next task.

James watched them interact. Their voices filtered across the gym, but he couldn’t hear much of what they were saying.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Benson said quietly. “Someday we’ll have unraveled the secrets of each of those Compatibilities.”

James’ attention followed the four-armed teenager. The green kid said something and Six glanced James’ direction, his eyes widening in embarrassment as their gazes accidentally met. Six looked away and leaned down to say something to his teammate. The green kid pulled a water bottle from his cubby, and gave James a once-over from the distance, eyelids lowered and brows raised in an appraising, semi-judgmental way. He flitted over to a girl with a round face and short black hair, aiming his water bottle at her like a sword and asking her something.

James looked down at his shoes, pretending not to be straining to hear their conversation.

“I don’t read you without permission, I don’t read him,” she said. She must be the telepath, James thought. His forehead felt cold, uncomfortable being the center of the recruits’ curiosity.

“Aw, come on Hui-Ling,” the green kid said.

“Don’t give me that, Collin. You know I’m not supposed to read staff or superiors.”

They lowered their voices, then, their conversation attracting the attention of their other teammates. Six offered something. Despite his size, he had a timid, gentle countenance. Collin threw his head back with a guffaw, earning a squirt of a water bottle from the girl with pink hair.

Hui-Ling muttered something, and a boy with broad shoulders and a dark, freckled face, who had otherwise been observing from the side snorted, and the whole group burst into laughter.

“Rett!” The smoke boy pushed against his shoulder, as Rett grinned into his water bottle. “It wasn’t that funny.”

James felt a stone in his chest, weighing him down, slowly crushing him.

“See, Siles?” Benson said. “They’re well taken care of here. They get along. They’re happy enough.”

James’ brow furrowed. Happy enough.

He figured they had all been forced into the program, and weren’t allowed to know how deep it went. Did any of them believe in the cause or were they all simply making the most of it?

They were just kids.

Gresham left Hill’s side and strode out onto the floor. “All right everybody, it’s time! Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

The recruits took their places out on the floor without comment.

“Pushup position,” Gresham said, his voice deep and commanding as he strolled among them and began to count. “One! Two!”

James found himself watching Six yet again, who pounded out two pushups for every one his teammates did, with his accessory hands behind his back. Once Gresham reached twenty, Six let his other arms down, curling his original pair under his chest to keep them out of the way while his second pair worked.

Once James and Yeun had developed a viable form of Non-Comp, he wondered if the target group would remain adolescents. He supposed the age group’s natural hardiness helped with the physical demands of regular transformation in and out of their Compatible phenotypes, but that meant the government’s human weapons had a shelf life of roughly ten years. And that was assuming the current recruits were all fifteen years old, which James could tell they weren’t. Six and the green kid looked at least sixteen. Rett looked closer to James’ own age than some of the younger recruits. The others could easily have been Heather’s age, or perhaps even younger.

It wasn’t at all sustainable. It seemed more likely that the ten years functioned as more of a trial period until they could lock down the recruits’ free will, so that when that period of physical and mental elasticity passed, no bearer of a Compatibility would even think about betraying the ICNS.

He felt sick. The government was building an empire, and creating superhuman sentinels to fortify it. What was Benson’s stake in all this that he would push so hard to support that? He of all people had to know that systems like the one rising to prominence felt no obligation to honor agreements, and Benson’s obvious desire to pursue his own research unimpeded by ethical responsibility couldn’t possibly be worth assuming such a risk.

Then again, James thought, it could be. After all, Empetrum’s boldness and pressure for innovation had captured James in a heartbeat.

That kind of power was irresistible. Infectious.

Six was starting to fall behind. The extra work with his second pair of arms had put him at a disadvantage, and he was shaking and struggling hard in a sequence of intense core conditioning. He was three reps behind and counting, his face screwed up in effort.

“Patrick!” Gresham barked at him. “Don’t do this today.” The civilian name embedded like an arrow into James’ chest.

The green kid, Collin, spoke up. He was winded himself, and a couple of leafy twigs had sprouted out the top of his head under the strain. “Come on, Dragonfly. You got this.”

Anxiety pressed dull and firm against James’ throat. Hazards were blooming all around him, a cavernous series of extrapolated consequences hanging over his head, hinging on his loyalty to the director’s goals. Cooperating with Benson was the only way he could protect Heather, but he was starting to think about insubordination constantly.

Quietly, tiredly, James knew Heather wasn’t the only casualty, and that she wouldn’t be the last. The recruits appeared to be thriving as a team, but they would soon enter the field, sent out into combat as secret weapons, which would invite far more harm than they had already endured. He was going to help manufacture more Compatibles, and O.R.T. would likely one day get appropriated to create even more havoc. The horrors that had already happened were beginning to feel like the first few raindrops of an impending hurricane.

James told himself he had to stop trying to think ahead about consequences of what continued cooperation would mean. He didn’t have a choice here. He felt for these kids and the hardship they had ahead of them, but he wasn’t responsible for them. His charge was to make sure nothing else happened to Heather. That was where his true loyalty began and ended.

He was powerless to stop Benson, Empetrum, the ICNS, the falling hammer of the government.

All he could do was try to protect Heather. That at least felt halfway possible.

+

CHAPTER FORTY—ELIAS     

James descended the front steps of Empetrum with the final load of updated security cameras in his arms, watching his footing. At the bottom, he looked up and halted abruptly. Yeun reclined in the passenger seat of the jeep waiting to take James out to the perimeter, and was attempting to get the stony-faced guard to maintain a conversation.

Yeun noticed him standing there and smiled. “Hey. Want some help?”

James stared at him, trying to figure out what the purpose of this was. “Why?”

Yeun snorted. “‘Why?’ How many of those are you installing today?”

“Two hundred.” James hoisted the box into the back. It was getting heavy. “I’m just entering location data and swapping the old ones out. It’s not going to be interesting.”

“Sounds interesting enough for me,” Yeun said. “And please, call me Elias. Formalities are more of the director’s thing.”

“Benson put you up to this…”

Yeun laughed. “Oh no, this is all my own meddling. I’m just bored.”

James shoved over some boxes in the back of the jeep and climbed up. The guard took that as his acquiescence to Yeun’s involvement, and started the engine.

“Benson made it sound like you’d be a handful while he was out of state,” Yeun said. “But you’re not hard to keep track of since you’re always in your lab working. You’re a lot like him in that way.”

James crossed his arms, staring turbidly at the distant fence marking off the edge of the Empetrum campus. The jeep arrived at the first gate, and the guard at the security booth opened it for them.

“The director’s position is a big job. I wouldn’t want that kind of responsibility,” Yeun went on as they continued into the middle security checkpoint, an empty span of woodland between Empetrum’s heart and the outer perimeter. Regarding camera setup, James planned to start furthest out and work his way in, a method approved by Benson before his departure. Hill had screened James’ code for the devices before approving duplication.

“Sometimes I wonder if he even wanted it.”

“What?” James leaned forward. He couldn’t hear Yeun’s voice well over the engine and air whipping past.

Yeun tilted his head back. “Nothing—just muttering to myself.”

“Do you know him well?” James asked. “The director?”

“More or less.” Yeun draped an arm across the back of the seat and looked at his colleague. “We were classmates, friends, even. He got me my job here at Empetrum, put in a good word with his grandfather, who used to run the place. They copped together an offer I just couldn’t refuse, you know?”

James watched the trees sweep past him, the wind buffeting the side of his head.

“Are you friends now?” James asked finally.

“I hope so,” Yeun said, and something in his voice sounded a little haunted.

As the jeep came to a stop on the outer perimeter, James opened the back door and dragged out a collapsible utility wagon.

“Just tell me what I gotta do,” Yeun said brightly, getting out as James snapped the wagon into shape.

James handed him a notebook with a pen stuck in the spiral binding.

“We’re going to mark down the coordinates,” James said, planting a plastic bin of supplies in the wagon. “Scan the serial numbers of the cameras we’re removing, and record the serial number of the new series.”

“You got it,” Yeun said.

James loaded the four boxes of cameras onto the wagon, pulled a GPS and electronic tablet from his supplies, and trekked ahead to where the first surveillance camera stuck out of the ground. He kneeled down, and Yeun joined him while the guard took over operation of the wagon.

James tugged the old camera out of the ground and looked on the underside where the bulb met the metal stake, finding the barcode. He checked the GPS in his other hand. “Okay, coordinates 44.163…” He paused, glancing aside at Yeun to make sure he was writing it down.

Yeun looked up at him. “Keep going.”

James resumed, rattling off the coordinates, then connected the scanner to the tablet and scanned the serial number. He handed Yeun the old one, took a new camera from the wagon, scanned the number, and planted it in place of the other one. He paired it with the old model’s network before moving on.

He thought about Heather’s mom and dad, hoping they were making headway, even as James dutifully worked to secure his and Heather’s imprisonment.

“One down,” Yeun said, and stowed the old camera in an empty crate. “You were going to do all these yourself? That would take you a good couple of days, at least.”

James got to his feet, brushing dirt off the knees of his jeans. “Kind of glad for the busywork, to be honest.” He consulted the GPS, and trudged on.

“I hear ya,” Yeun agreed. “It’s a beautiful day for it.”

James grunted. Soon, they had come across the next camera.

“So I’ve been wondering something, and I think you may have an answer,” James said, uprooting the device.

“Shoot.”

“What happened to the other bioroboticist? Hill’s lab partner?” James said. “I hear bits and pieces that there was someone else involved with modulator research, but that they’re not here anymore. And with the ICNS needing Non-Comp so badly, I can only assume it didn’t end well with them?”
Yeun hesitated. James read him another sequence of numbers. Yeun wrote them down, accepted the old device, and pretended to be nonchalant as he said, “She quit.”

“I got the impression people don’t just quit from Empetrum.” James narrowed his eyes at the GPS, lining up his next target.

Yeun glanced behind them at the guard, who appeared disinterested.

“They can, it’s just complicated.”

“Yeah, I heard about the process. If you leave, the director deletes your memories or something. Is that what happened to her?” James was privately surprised at his own directness. He hadn’t started off the day in a particularly bold mood, but now that he was out from under the frigid lights and black camera eyes in the lab, it started welling up how sick to death he was of Empetrum’s secrets and supposed entitlements. Yeun seemed to value transparency more than other personnel did, and James was curious just how much he could get him to admit.

Yeun’s demeanor clouded. James could feel it brewing beside him as they walked to the next device.

“Not exactly,” Yeun said.

“What do you mean?”

Yeun uneasily retrieved a camera from the wagon as James pulled one from the ground. “Let’s just say whatever threats Benson made to you were mild compared to what he can do to dissenters.”

Ice bloomed up James’ back. “She’s dead, then.”

Yeun stiffened. “What? Why would you say that?”

James frowned at the camera in his hand. He rubbed at a smear of dirt crusted over the barcode with his thumb. “He killed my friend for much less.”

Yeun was quiet for so long James thought he wasn’t going to answer. James opened his mouth to read another GPS coordinate when Yeun’s soft voice stopped him, “Yes, she is.”

James looked up at him. Yeun’s troubled gaze trained on something in the moss and pine needles of the forest floor. Suddenly, it seemed like the three of them weren’t alone. How many of

Benson’s ghosts wandered these woods?

“What happened?” James asked. He glanced at the guard, who didn’t react.

Yeun glanced at the guard too.

“Q-13,” he said finally, crossing his arms. He still couldn’t look at James. “Nobody survives it.”

“You mean like there was a lab accident?”

Yeun shook his head.

Fear and disgust twisted in James’ stomach. “A punishment.”

“Olsson snapped—she…” Yeun let out his breath. “Just—promise me you won’t cross the director.”

“I don’t plan to.” He looked at the device in his hands. “Does he threaten you too?”
 “He doesn’t have to.”

“Because you believe in all this?” James sat back on his heels and gestured around him. There wasn’t anything Empetrum-related within sight he could gesture to, other than the security cameras. “Bio-enhancement? Human weaponry? None of you are happy with reality as it is, I understand that, but just being human’s not good enough anymore?”

It had never been good enough for James. He didn’t even know how to be human. He figured that was something that should have been intuitive, but it had always been a puzzle he couldn’t work out.

He thought of all the days he had spent pushing himself to be better, to work harder, to reach higher and need less. All those nights he had lain awake thinking of the possibilities, of what the world could be if he contributed to it in a major way. He remembered how he had channeled everything into his hopes for O.R.T.

Hopes that had proven destructive, in the end.

“It’s a matter of manifest destiny for me, I suppose,” Yeun said, slowly. “You grow up being told to accept things as they are. But if you hold the keys to the building blocks of reality, no one can tell you what is or is not possible, what sort of difference you can make in the world.”

James’ eyebrows constricted, incredulous. “Do you want a Compatibility?”

“Honestly, no, I don’t,” Yeun said. “I want to know how they work, why the human genome has evolved them, how to manufacture that evolution. I’m more after knowledge. Progress, not power.”

James scoffed. “Aren’t you though? Aren’t we all, in some form? We’re all just grasping for control any way we can get it, burying anything and anyone that stands in the way.”

“It’s not wrong to want to carve out a safe place for yourself,” Yeun said, quietly. “To make sense of this life and the circumstances it’s dumped us into, to see if we can’t make it better.”

James shook his head. Human commoditization projects for the military and mind control didn’t sound at all like progress to him. After a long silence, he scanned the barcode on the underside of the camera.

As he finally read Yeun the GPS coordinates, he tried to focus his full attention on them. Self-loathing sat heavy and painful in his chest, and he couldn’t stand thinking about having ever wanted anything at all.

+

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE—ENOUGH 

The next morning, James followed Yeun down the hallway of white linoleum and metal doors on the basement level. He still expected the prisoner ward to have a dungeon-like appeal, and the clean, well-illuminated space never ceased to unsettle him.

“You can wait out here,” Yeun said cheerily, stopping before the door of his test subject’s cell. James could see Heather’s door from where he was, and it inevitably attracted his attention like a magnetic field.

Yeun caught him staring. “Or, you can wait in the examination room if you want.” He waved a hand toward the other end of the hallway. “I’ll be in there shortly.”

James turned. As he headed down the hallway, Yeun pulled open the door and greeted the cell’s occupant. James tried to take deep breaths against the tight, imminent panic in his chest.

Yeun had briefly explained the situation with his test subject: The additional arms had manifested, but not correctly. They were working to build them up, assessing stability and quality of physiological functioning until they could work out the reversible version the Compatible progenitors enjoyed.

Sooner or later, James was going to have to face it. Yeun had mentioned it would be better to have the first encounter out of the way by the time Benson returned from his trip.

James opened the first normal looking door he came to on the other side of the corridor, and took a furtive step into the dark, feeling for the light switch.

The fluorescent bulbs buzzed to life, and James found himself in a narrow room with a wall of thick, reinforced glass to his right.

Near the door sat a small stand of tinted goggles. With a sinking feeling, James looked through the barrier into the dimness of a large, empty room. A single metal chair with armrests waited in its center, set into a bald concrete floor. Everything in the room from the chair to the water spigot in the corner bore varying levels of scorch marks.

James snapped the light off and hastily backed himself out into the hallway, his breathing disturbed and heart pounding hard. He felt like he’d just come across a corpse. Yeun stepped out into the corridor by Erika Hodgson’s cell, and James frantically tried to get a hold of himself.

Yeun waved his arm forward and called, “Two doors down.”

James moved numbly, turning his back on him before Yeun’s test subject emerged. The room

James entered next was much more agreeable—a quiet island of physical therapy equipment in the concrete death trap of Empetrum’s basement level.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the other late bioroboticist, Olssen. Benson had threatened to kill and maim enough times since James had known him, and James had vaguely assumed he hurt people in his research and hired people like Alder to do his dirtywork, but now James knew for sure that the director had personally executed someone.

The door opened and James jumped.

Yeun offered him an encouraging look as he entered, showing in a tall woman in her mid twenties with dark shoulder-length locs tied into a high ponytail. Her hands were bound in front of her, escorted by a guard. As she emerged into the room, James saw the extra arms extending large and twisted from her back like tree branches. She touched the ground with her long other hands, carefully walking them alongside her steps and trusting some weight to them, though her legs didn’t seem to need the extra support.

Her eyes met his, and James stiffened.

“This is him?” Hodgson said warily, her gaze following him as the guard took her along the edge of the room to a padded bench. She took a seat and began arranging her other arms behind her while Yeun fetched a roll of kinesiology tape. The back of her t-shirt had been cut out to give the arms room.

“Yes,” Yeun said. “This is James Siles. He’s going to help me sort out your Compatibility.” He held up a strip of bright blue tape. “Right accessory arm, please.”

Hodgson shifted the appendage over, offering the region with the most prominent elbow-like joint, the second of three. As she did so, her attention stayed on James, one eyebrow constricted as she sized him up.

James tried to meet her gaze, a lump in his throat, but couldn’t keep it. The physical therapy session began, and Hodgson attended to her exercises.

Yeun didn’t request any help, so James took a seat in a white plastic chair against the wall, drowning in his own awkwardness as he and Hodgson kept an eye on each other.

From prior briefings, James knew she had been a prisoner here for six months. He wondered what her life had been like before all this, how she felt about her current situation. Had she also been facing death row, or had her introduction to Empetrum been much like Heather’s?

He now knew Benson converted researchers to test subjects if they crossed him. Maybe she and Yeun used to be colleagues.

The thought made him even more uneasy, watching her and Yeun interact. They were obviously used to each other. Hodgson did everything Yeun asked of her without comment, as if she had somehow accepted this. He wondered how Benson or Yeun had secured her cooperation.
He caught a glimpse of his future watching them, and he couldn’t tune out the persistent signal of Hodgson’s humanity and presence of mind through it all.

In that hard plastic chair, he realized it would never get easier, never make sense. There would only be more of this: human beings used as lab rats, aware of what was happening to them, whose suffering was just as severe and mind-destroying as it would be if James himself were in their position. Scientists who didn’t care.

An eternity ago, with the O.R.T. scanner and an unconscious prospective test subject presiding, Benson had insisted that progress had to be made. According to Yeun, curiosity was grounds enough.

But it wasn’t progress or curiosity that had fueled the death and imprisonment of his friend. Benson had singled out the both of them for his own reasons. One, a candidate for indoctrination, and the other, an innocent bystander who knew too much.

On the surface, the boldness and innovation preached by Empetrum had made so much sense to him in the wake of his former colleagues’ rejection. James had felt like an outsider his whole life, fighting to appease judgmental and withholding caregivers, withering under a complete lack of exposure to kids his own age. Keeping everyone at a distance felt safe, normal.

Empetrum played easily into the narrative that he was alone because he was special. Because he was smarter than everyone, and meant for more—somehow worth more—than other people. He was destined to be an agent of revolution, an author of a bright new world where his father would survive, and no one would stare at him like he was obsessive ever again. Extrapolated at Empetrum, supposedly, that gave him the right to ask the highest price of others.

But nothing justified that.

He had spent his short two decades of life trying so hard to be intelligent, worthy, useful, to work through the nights when he felt his true self creeping back in—a lonely, overworked child forced to grow up too fast, who wished the rest and companionship that seemed to come so easily to others might visit him one day, too.

Heather had also confessed feeling like an outsider long before all this. It had surprised him that she’d had trouble making friends, and he’d begun to wonder if maybe most people secretly felt alone. The pain and confusion he felt about his own life didn’t make him special. There was no great meaning behind it. But the ways it had shaped him had made him uniquely useful as a cog in the doomsday machine he’d found himself in. Hyper productive and easy to exploit.

“Siles, are you all right?” Yeun’s voice interrupted his thoughts, and he realized every gaze in the room was on him: Yeun, Hodgson, even the guard present.

“What?” He raised a shaking hand to his forehead, trying to stand up. He felt dizzy. “Yes, sorry, I don’t feel well.” He glanced at Hodgson, then away. “I’ve been working too much and I—I forgot to eat today, I think. I’ll go do that.”

“Sounds good,” Yeun said. “We can shadow another time, when you’re feeling better. I hope at least this small session was helpful.”

“It was. Thank you.” James unsteadily made his way to the door. “Good luck Ms. Hodgson.” He winced.

“The director will want to speak with you when he gets in later,” Yeun called after him. “Are you going to be okay?”

James escaped into the hallway, heading toward the elevator as his vision swam. A guard fell into stride beside him, but he hardly noticed. His ears rang, his breath harsh and cloudy in his head.

His heart beat hard against his sternum.

It was a mere roll of the dice that he stood in the role of researcher, instead of occupying his own cell at the end of the hallway. Keeping in line kept no one safe, not even himself.

Every corner of Empetrum was a chopping block.

He sat down heavily at the counter back in his lab, trying, failing, to catch his breath. He turned his head and stared at the toolbox of fine-tipped screwdrivers on the counter beside him.

If he rebelled against the director, his chances of success were slim. If he failed, Benson’s original threat of separation wasn’t the likely punishment. Benson might turn his wrath on Heather. Or

James could wind up like Olsson.

Abruptly, he stood up, grabbed the toolbox from the counter, and left the lab.

+

The door to her cell opened, and Heather glanced over from where she sat on the bed with a hardbound scientific journal in her lap, resigning herself to doing whatever James wanted just so he’d leave her alone. He had been drifting in and out of her cell over the last few days, making checkups, asking how she felt, if she needed anything. When she told him no, he’d drift out again and not come back for twenty-four hours, more ghost than human.

She hadn’t figured out any new information to help with her escape plans, and was cross about it.

James had that toolbox with him. Heather’s eyes narrowed as he strode forward.

She set the book aside. “You’re not putting anything else in my head, are you?”

“An issue with the pain simulator’s code came to my attention,” he said. “I need to fix it.”

Heather blinked. “Oh…” She opened the panels in her head and scooted to the edge of the bed, relieved to have the device out for a while.

He made short work of the screws in the frame inside her head, plucked out the pain simulator, and replaced the frame with a firm snap.

“That’s all I need for now,” he said, gathering his supplies. “Thanks.”

Heather watched him go, confused.

A month earlier, the sheltered kid she used to be might have worried his brusque behavior meant she had done something to annoy him. But now she knew James better than that.

Something was happening. He still looked like he hadn’t slept in years, and carried himself with the same slumped shoulders and haunted expression of someone who knew he had irreparably destroyed their lives. But for some reason, after almost two weeks of tears and dissociation and excuses, something subtle and familiar had returned to his gaze, something she realized she hadn’t seen since before the night of the transfer.

James Siles was calculating.

+

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX—BENSON

The opening and closing of a door disturbed the silence of a modest apartment. A light switched on and the flat’s solitary owner stepped into the kitchen, depositing two heavy cloth bags of groceries on the island counter.

She tossed her keys beside the bags and pushed her hood back, revealing short hair that had gone fully gray many years earlier than her peers, a set jaw, and a straight, jutting nose. Shaking out her hair, she rid herself of her wet jacket and disappeared into the nearby laundry room to hang it up.

As she returned to the kitchen, she realized her cellphone still lay connected to its charger under the overhead cupboards, a red light flashing in its top right-hand corner. When she flicked it open with her thumb, the number of the two missed calls was unknown to her, but whoever it was had left a message on the second try. She set her voicemail to speaker as she proceeded to empty her grocery bags on the counter.

“Hello Benson,” said the voice on the message. “This is Evangeline Pérez Delva…” The woman froze, her gray eyes widening. “I don’t know if you remember me. I founded and led Larkspur with your dad for a while way back when. Listen, I wouldn’t bother you if this weren’t extremely important, but I need to talk to you about what happened after you all left Larkspur, and what you know about Michael’s involvement with a place called Empetrum. If you can, please call me back as soon as you get this message. My friend’s kid is in danger, and you may be our only hope.”

Delva gave a phone number, thanked her, and then the voicemail ended.

Alice Benson stared at the phone long after it fell silent, a head of lettuce in one hand and a hard knot in the pit of her stomach.

Delva didn’t know what she was asking.

She nervously continued to put groceries away, considering her options. How had she even found her? Alice wasn’t being careful about covering her tracks, of course, but she wasn’t that careless. If government tracking resources were involved, they would most certainly favor Empetrum.

She could just neglect to call her back. Nothing had to change.

After putting the kitchen in order, Alice lingered for a moment, staring pensively at the opposite wall. Whatever Michael had done, it wasn’t her problem. She had renounced Empetrum. Nobody could bring her back into the equation. Not Michael, not Delva.

Her father’s sick ambitions had already taken years away from her, irreparably infected her life and psyche, stolen her husband and son.

She navigated to her phone’s call history, staring down Delva’s number.

Empetrum could hold no power over her if she just stayed out of the way. Anyone with any sense would see the trap for what it was and put as much distance as they could from the entire situation.

Yet her thumb hovered over the call button.

After nearly twenty years, she was finally ready to try building a life she could learn to accept with grace. She was slowly, cautiously making friends, volunteering in the community, working and paying her bills. If she got involved with Delva, this second attempt at her life would end.
Lawrence was dead, Michael was too, in his own way. Alice was not responsible for their victims.

None of this was in her hands anymore.

Cursing under her breath, she pressed the button and raised the phone to her ear.

Delva picked up almost immediately. She must have been waiting. “Hello?”

“Hi…Mrs. Delva?” Alice said, already impatient to get the conversation over with. Alice was her own brand of insane, she thought, going through with this. “This is Alice, returning your call. I’m willing to help if I can, but I can’t tell you anything over the phone. Are you still on the east coast?”

“No, west, near Worthing,” came the quick reply. Alice was relieved she had sensed the urgency, at least.

“It’s pretty late now, but can we meet at Aisling Park by the fountain. One hour?” Alice said. “He keeps tabs on me, so my window is brief.”

“Of course, see you then,” Delva said, nearly interrupting her. “Thank you.”

Disconnecting the call, she frowned at the looming thunderheads out the window above the sink, wondering if the sky was this turbulent over Empetrum as well.

She figured she would find out soon.

+

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN—WHISTLEBLOWER

Rain hammered onto the pavement, slapping through the foliage of trees and muffling the world in its watery cacophony. Richard took a steadying breath before quickly opening up the car door and stepping outside. He hurried to deploy his umbrella before the downpour drenched him.

He squinted for fellow silhouettes in the dark obscurity of the shower, but couldn’t see far. Fear pounded in his chest, wondering if it would be Michael waiting for them at the fountain instead.

Alice had accepted far too readily. When Eve had left a voicemail that morning, they were both expecting a dead end.

As they neared the fountain in the heart of the area, they saw a single figure, standing alone with a black umbrella, carefully watching the gloom around them.

The woman from the surveillance photos tightened her grip on her umbrella as she spotted them. The Bensons felt more myth than human, dangerous and terrible but forever out of reach. Richard hesitated, but Eve marched forward across the flooded square.

“Been a while,” Alice Benson had to raise her voice to be heard above the downpour.

“Yes, it has,” Eve agreed, reaching through the rain to shake her hand. She gestured to Richard.

“This is the friend I mentioned. Thanks for meeting with us. You have no idea how important this is to us.” She nodded toward where the windows of a coffee shop glowed across the street. “Mind if we go in there to talk? Get out of the rain?”

Alice looked across the square, then made another survey of their surroundings. Finally, she nodded, and they made their way to shelter. Richard walked behind them, considering this specter who had turned out to be a real person.

Richard searched for traces of Michael’s features or mannerisms in his mother’s form as they walked, some kind of proof that this person really was who they thought she was. Alice’s shoulders were slightly rounded from years of careless posture, in contrast with Lawrence and Michael’s prim, collected demeanor. So far, the only similarities among the three of them were the straight angle of the nose, and the hooded, gray eyes. A stubborn pair of traits, Richard thought, to have passed down three generations.

Eve opened the door for them and Alice muttered thanks as she stepped into the warm atmosphere of coffee beans and soft jazz music. A small brass bell clanged as the door closed behind them, pushing back the thundering rain.

Richard ventured forward between the mismatched tables and Alice warily trailed behind as Eve stopped at the counter to order them all coffee. They found a rectangular table tucked away in a corner and took a seat across from each other. Alice selected the chair that faced the entrance.

“So you’re the friend from the voicemail,” Alice shed her coat over the back of the chair and propped her closed umbrella against the bricks of the wall behind her. “My son has put your child in danger?”

“Yes,” Richard said quietly. “At least, we think so.”

Alice nodded, lowering herself into her chair. “Well,” she said. “I hope I can help.”

“Thank you. By the way, my name’s—”

Alice held up an urgent hand, interrupting him with sudden sternness. “I don’t want to know your name.” She hesitated at Richard’s stricken expression, and straightened up a little, apologetic.

“The less I know about you, the better, for your own safety. You’re already on the radar far more than I’m comfortable with.” She glanced out the window, her gaze turning weary and venomous.

“Fuck. I really thought I had put Empetrum behind me…”

They sat in awkward silence after that until Eve returned with coffee. Alice accepted her drink with quiet thanks, removed the cardboard sleeve from her disposable cup and wrapped her hands around the unprotected surface. “So…” she said. “I was very surprised to receive your call.” She lifted her gray eyes from the lid to regard the two across from her. “How did you find me?”

Eve and Richard exchanged a glance.

“We have a friend that’s very good at hacking,” Eve said.

“This ‘friend’ wouldn’t happen to be affiliated with the Bureau or the government?” Alice said, searching their expressions. “Some innocently helpful police agent, perhaps, who suggested reaching out to me was a good idea?”

Richard shook his head vigorously. “I tried to go to two different police departments the night my daughter disappeared, but they refused to help me. I think they’re in on it, somehow.”

Alice stared him down, her mouth set, tracing the rim of her coffee cup with her finger as she considered his words. “My guess is that’s an accurate assessment,” she said finally. “Before we begin, you need to understand that just by agreeing to meet with you, I’m placing us all in a very precarious position, especially with the information I’m prepared to offer up. The more you know about Empetrum, the more of a threat you become to the powers that be. Getting involved in this isn’t something you can come back from.”

“My daughter’s in danger,” Richard said. “I’m already involved.”

“Understood,” Alice said. She leaned back in her chair, arms crossed and coffee cup at her elbow.

“So, bring me up to speed. I’m sure you don’t like dredging up the past any more than I do, Delva. So things must be pretty serious for you to contact me.”

Eve glanced at Richard, who nodded. “Essentially, Larkspur’s still alive and well.”

Alice nodded once. “I suspected. I heard about the relocation post scandal.”

Richard took it from there, “A colleague of ours has created a dangerous machine, and when I asked him to discontinue it, he secretly aligned himself with another lab to pursue it against our wishes.” He swallowed the tightness in his throat. “His actions have led to his sudden disappearance, along with my fifteen-year-old daughter, who was at Larkspur for a summer internship.”

An expression of dread and surprise crossed Alice’s features.

Richard went on before he lost his nerve. He hadn’t expected her to be surprised. “I don’t think he meant for the situation to go where it did, and he left a recording for us to find, citing your son Michael, and Empetrum as being involved.” He purposefully neglected to mention Sesame as a conscious entity. He didn’t trust Alice at all. “He gave no indication that he expected my daughter to be wrapped up in it too.”

“What does his machine do, if I may ask?”

“It’s a neural transfer device. It moves the consciousness of an organic organism into a mechanical replacement body.”

“Yeah, that should be destroyed as soon as possible,” Alice said.

Richard nodded, unsettled. “When the two of them disappeared, an android we had been working on vanished as well. I was tranquilized by one of Larkspur’s security guards, and the police fought me to drop the matter when I tried to involve them. Because of this, we think Empetrum may have governmental ties.”

“Your suspicions are correct,” Alice said. “Is Larkspur still under the FBSI?”

“Yes,” Richard said.

“Empetrum is too,” Alice said. Her words hit Richard like a punch to the gut. “The Bureau keeps it far under the table, of course, but the government likes having places like Empetrum around. That neural transfer project sounds like a doorway to Armageddon. I hope Michael doesn’t have a lot of interest in it.”

Richard thought he should be more stunned by how easily she absorbed his account, but he was starting to take everything at face value at this point too. He would have to deal with the implications of the Bureau’s ties to Empetrum later. Heather took precedence. James too, if he wanted to come home. If he hadn’t hurt her.

“What is Empetrum, exactly?” Richard asked. “How is Michael involved?”

Alice took a long draught from her coffee cup, as if to steady herself. “About a year after my father left Larkspur, he managed to strike up a deal with the feds through the Bureau, proposing to develop technology no one else would deliver. The company is now in the hands of my son, who succeeded Lawrence as director.”

“We found the obituary,” Eve said. “What happened?”

“Massive stroke,” Alice said, her voice quiet. “It was sudden, unexpected. When the directorship changed hands and Michael wasn’t yet settled, I took the opportunity to leave, and I’ve been trying to escape having anything else to do with that horrible place ever since.”

“Lawrence didn’t pass Empetrum to you?” Eve asked.

Alice scoffed and showed her palms. “I’m not management material. I never wanted the damn place anyway. I worked there because it was easier.”

“You did work there, then,” Eve said. “Why on earth did you follow him after the fallout?”

“He was my dad…” Alice turned a sad, uneasy smile on Eve. “And you know better than anyone how he could talk—how he could make his ambitions sound like your own.” She let her gaze drop to the table. “It just seemed to make so much sense back then. He made such noble speeches about sacrifice and progress, he made you feel like you were trying to make the earth stand still if you didn’t follow his lead.”

Eve nodded slowly. She gestured at Richard. “I’ve told him what happened between Lawrence and me.” She lowered her voice, “The human experimentation, why Larkspur had to go underground…”
Richard stared intently at his own coffee cup. He felt Alice’s eyes on him.
After a long pause, Alice said, “At Empetrum, he continued it. But test subjects don’t volunteer anymore.”

“You can’t be serious,” Eve said.

Richard shuddered.

“They’re funneled in from death row,” Alice said. “People no one will come looking for. The source makes it easier for some to justify, I suppose, but it’s sick, all the same. Nobody deserves that kind of treatment.”

“Where is Empetrum?” Eve asked.

“It’s in the area,” she said. “Forty minutes from here, maybe.”

“That close—” Richard muttered. He leaned forward, incredulous and angry. “That close? Where?”

“Up in the hills,” Alice said. “Northwest, secluded. It’s in the middle of a big nature reserve.”

“What happened after he set the facility up?” Eve asked.

Alice hesitated, looking at Richard, who nodded for her to continue.

“After a couple of years,” Alice said, “everything was built and ready to go, and we moved into the living arrangements there—my parents, my husband and son, and myself. It was okay there for a while, and I let Michael come in and watch. We homeschooled him.” She paused. “Then my mother passed away the year after. Cancer.”

“I’m so sorry,” Eve said.

She nodded. “It tore my father apart. He was already going downhill before, but after Mom’s death, he became—pathological. He obsessed over the Q-13, as that project he started at Larkspur came to be called, terrified he’d never see it to completion. He often complained at me about how no one understood his vision, how no one was truly loyal. Somewhere in there he decided on his own that Michael would be his successor, and so my son began to spend quite a bit of time with him. I didn’t interfere. I was too afraid of how he would react if I pushed back.”

“Eventually you changed your mind?” Eve asked.
 Alice nodded again, slowly. “By the next year, my husband had had enough. He filed for divorce. Empetrum has a policy where if someone wants to leave, they have to agree to a mindwipe—via this machine one of the other scientists presented to my father as part of the initial employment process.” A cloud settled further over Alice’s features.

“He was so fed up, and felt so guilty about everything we were doing that he agreed to give up several years’ worth of memories, and he even forfeited charge of our son. He didn’t dare fight Lawrence for him. Michael didn’t understand. He was only fourteen. He tried to blame himself.”

“Have you been in contact with your ex-husband at all since then?”

Alice shook her head. “Michael’s likely found him by now, but he hasn’t mentioned anything about it to me. He may be keeping his distance out of respect for him.”
Eve and Richard weren’t sure how to reply. They waited for her to continue.

“Losing him was hard,” Alice said after another weary, thoughtful pull from her coffee cup. She took stock of their surroundings again, making sure no one was eavesdropping before she continued. “I retreated into my work for a long time, trying to cope with it. Michael was devastated, and my dad gave him direction and attention I just couldn’t manage at the time. The Q-13 grew more and more dangerous. I had nothing outside Empetrum—no family, no friends, a blacklisted career— so I did as I was told.”

Richard tried hard to stop fidgeting as his cold apprehension grew.

“Life continued on like this,” Alice said, wearily. “Eventually, Michael went to college, working at Empetrum during the summer. After graduate school, he came back there to work full time, specializing in the Q-13, as designed. He had only been officially employed at Empetrum for two years when Lawrence died, launching him into the director’s position. By then, he was fully trained.

“By that time, I wanted out, but I didn’t have the guts to defect. Attempting to leave Empetrum without a mindwipe could land me in mortal danger. Injection with the latest Q-13 prototype was a favorite threat of Lawrence’s.” She glanced out the window to her right. “In the early days of Michael’s directorship, I begged him to steer Empetrum toward better ethics, but he made his intentions clear.”

Her fingers tightened around her coffee cup. “I left, then, certain he was going to try to stop me—but he didn’t. He didn’t even threaten me, he just let me go, and didn’t say why. He still refuses to explain.”

Alice made another brief survey of the coffee shop, which remained empty, except for a couple who had come in and taken their coffee to go.

“But he keeps tabs on me,” she said. “Just as he monitors Larkspur.”

Richard’s stomach dropped. “What?”


“The security guard that attacked you was most likely part of this,” Alice said. “And I doubt they were the only source. Next time you go to Larkspur, I would advise checking your video cameras, walls, and furniture for surveillance taps, microphones and the like. Also, running additional background checks on all your other employees, if you can do it quietly, would be advisable as well. So you know who you can trust, if anyone.”

“And are you on that list?” Eve asked.

Alice’s eyebrows rose, surprised by the question. She cracked a haunted, sideways smile. “Best to assume not.”

“Why would Michael want to keep us under surveillance?” Richard asked.
 Alice shrugged.

“Control. Convenience. Any number of reasons. It’s beneficial to him to have that information available. If your colleague works at Empetrum now, it sounds like this contact came in handy for him.”

Richard worried that Michael already knew about Sesame, who was currently at home with Su. Richard itched to check on them.

If Michael had been watching them this whole time, how much did he know? Luckily, Alice had called Eve back once she had already left the facility. Unless Michael had bugged their personal spaces as well.

Eve was studying Alice. “So, you’ve been in recent contact with Michael?”

Alice fidgeted with her sweater. “Yeah, he called me about a month ago to gloat about finding me again. I’ve been moving around a lot these last few years trying to avoid him, but I’m tired of running. I’m too goddamn old for this nonsense.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I had no intention of crossing him, so he should just forget about me. He didn’t buy it.”

“Sounds like he was correct in being suspicious of you.”

Alice gazed out the window, eyelids lowered. “Guess so.”

Silence closed in. Across the room, the sudden hiss of the espresso machine made Richard jump.

He readjusted his glasses, uneasy. “So what is the Q-13, exactly?” Empetrum’s pet project, a cruel punishment hovering over would-be dissenters.

Alice glanced past them toward the door again before refocusing on her interviewers. “It’s a human weaponry serum,” she said. “It’s based in an artificial protein that rewires the body’s physiology to generate a high temperature, high abrasion projection without sustaining any self-inflicted damage—In theory, at least.” She lowered her voice. Richard and Eve stared at her, horrified, as she went on, “In the earliest stages, it caused cancers or organ failure, but later on, as Lawrence made more headway, many of the trials became combustive. As far as I know, it’s still unviable. An organic vessel simply can’t handle that much power crammed into it without the serum first overhauling the body’s fundamental makeup in a molecularly stable way. The last trials I saw, though it’s been three years since I last worked on it, the body rejects it just as the Q-13 activates for the first time. It doesn’t integrate quickly enough, so the substance breaks down, and completely atomizes the host.”

Richard felt sick. “And people who rebel get injected with that?”

“It was a threat,” Alice said. “I don’t know if Michael’s taken up the practice.” Her gaze fell to the table, sorrow weighing on her. “I haven’t told anyone about this until now. I had resolved to keep it a secret for the rest of my life.”

“Why are you telling us now?” Eve asked.

“Not sure. Saw an opportunity. There’s nothing I can do to make up for my complicity in Empetrum, but it’s something, at least.”

She reached into her pocket and produced a memory stick, which she handed across the table to Richard. “This contains everything we’ve discussed—the whole story, along with directions to where the facility is located. It’s pretty much anything that came to mind in the time between your phone call and driving out to meet you here. I would appreciate if you contacted me again in about a week or so. If I can’t be reached, take this to the nearest prominent news station and tell them everything. Despite Empetrum’s governmental ties, enough public involvement could seriously throw a wrench into things. The Conxence seems to have the right idea. I’m sorry, I wish I could offer you stronger leverage than this.”

“No, you’ve been a great help,” Eve assured her before Richard could. “Thank you.”

“Do you have any theories on why Michael recruited our colleague?” Richard spoke up.

“Empetrum is in the business of bioweaponry,” Alice said. “Sounds like your colleague had the right amount of talent and crazy to fit that picture. Empetrum always has use for scientists who want to push boundaries.”

Richard considered the device in his hands. “If we publicized this information, as you asked, my former colleague will get scorched too, and I’m still not even sure if he’s done anything.”

Submitting the matter to the press would undoubtedly spiral everything even further out of control. In the uproar, Empetrum might sustain a hit, but James might not survive.

“It sounds like he’s not completely innocent, either, bringing your daughter into this.”

Richard shrank back. “I don’t know.” They had no idea whether or not James had done anything to Heather. Perhaps she was just a prisoner, held there to secure James’ compliance. Maybe she was still unharmed. “What else can we do?”

Alice’s lips tightened indecisively. She glanced out the window again, thinking. “It could take time for politics to get going, which may or may not even work due to Empetrum’s connections. If at all possible, I’d try to get a hold of either your daughter or your colleague, however you can. Empetrum is heavily guarded inside and out, so if they are there, as you suspect—” Her gaze trained on Richard, grim, “—it’ll be nearly impossible to get them out yourself.”

+

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT—ACCESSORY 

The boy lifted his gaze to consider his disquieted reflection in the chrome elevator doors: shoulders forced straight, the fluorescent lights glaring off the large lenses of his glasses. A thick cocoon of gauze shrouded his dominant hand, and despite the pain killers, the wound still burned, deep, throbbing, and livid.
The director presented a much more confident picture—sharp, direct features, better posture, with hard, stern lines around his mouth and eyes. Michael knew he looked timid and inferior standing next to his grandfather.
Everyone knew.
“I’ll put you on data entry duty today, Michael,” the director said, his steady, calculating voice bouncing faintly off the corners of the compartment. “Try to only use your left hand.”
Michael nodded. “I’m sorry…”
“Accidents happen,” was the simple reply. Michael knew his grandfather was annoyed.
A few days before, Michael had forgotten an important buffer when preparing one of the Q-13 variations for the upcoming trials. He’d heated it too quickly, and the flask had boiled over.
In panic, he had impulsively reached out to turn off the hotplate, and the substance had splashed onto his hand.
He still felt it radiating in his metacarpals. Sometimes numb, sometimes so hot he could barely keep from sobbing at the pain of it.
The director had assured him it would fade.
“It was an incomplete mixture,” he had said. “It didn’t take. You’ll be fine.”
His grandfather would be running a trial today, and Michael was glad he didn’t have to watch. It had been hard enough to stomach when he hadn’t tasted the Q-13 for himself.

~

Heather lay on the bed in her cell, her hands docked behind her head and bored out of her mind.

Beds weren’t even comfortable anymore. Regardless of the surface beneath her, she either chose to be awake, or she chose to hibernate, but neither felt better than the other. The main difference was that time spent in hibernation was time she didn’t have to deal with living.

Eighteen hours and thirty-two minutes had passed since James had separated them. As promised, he had brought her reading material—mostly scientific journals. She figured her prison didn’t stock young adult fiction or video games in their data library. He had also brought a blank notebook and a pen, but Heather felt distinctly uncreative, given her situation.

Heather had spent most of her time in solitary confinement sitting against the door, listening to the guards patrol. They came by every ten minutes like clockwork. She didn’t have to write any of her notes down. She remembered everything perfectly.

She listened for signs of the other prisoner, Erika Hodgson, but she was either too far away, or too quiet for Heather to hear.

Earlier, she had heard a man come down the hallway and open Erika’s door, judging by the location of the sounds. Heather caught him say, “Good morning, Ms. Hodgson.”

A woman’s voice, minimalistic and monotone, had responded to the dusty, chipper voice of the man. The latter was another scientist, Heather guessed. Doors closed, footsteps retreated, and the hallway had gone silent again.

Heather had sat under the security camera for some time, staring up at it and hoping Larkspur’s android had secret electrokinetic powers, or wireless hacking abilities to take over the surveillance system remotely and direct it to her bidding.

But as far as she could tell, it was only a body. Just the wrong body, nothing more.

She had dug around the cell, but the faucets didn’t work, and the cabinets were empty. She suspected her quarters were even more sparse than the cell that held organic prisoners.

She wondered how many test subjects there were. Maybe she and Erika could work together somehow, if only they could get in contact.

James certainly wasn’t going to help. If she even mentioned the possibility of escape again, Benson would find out and shut down that avenue. As things were, she expected James wouldn’t just try to discourage her, but might actively rat her out to the director—eager to please, frantic to obey.

Heather had experimented with moving her bed, testing how strong Larkspur’s android was. She found it stronger than she used to be, due to the metal supports and wire contractile units populating her limbs. She had picked up the end of the bed and didn’t feel any strain, holding it until her chest began to hum and her whole body started getting warm. It took about five minutes.

This body had been made to double as search and rescue equipment, but she didn’t know where its limit were, and with that security camera staring at her, she avoided actions that might attract the director’s attention.

She heard footsteps, and she hastily sat up as the locks on her cell door pulled back. The door opened, and James appeared, carefully, and pushed the door shut behind him.

Heather’s robotic brow constricted, simulating the human expression as much as it could. James was a shell of himself. Somewhere, her brain compared this image with a memory of him at Larkspur. It was like looking at the husk of a house that had caught fire in her hometown a few years back. Still standing, still house-shaped, but dead. Uninhabitable.

He carried a small toolbox. Heather shifted position so her legs dangled over the edge of the bed, waiting as he came near.

“I have to install some things in your neural network,” he said quietly, setting the box beside her on the bed. “Can you open your cranial panels, please?”

Heather complied. He looked so fragile, she didn’t feel like fighting with him today.

As he set to work undoing the screws in the protective frame locking down her neural network, she asked, “What are you installing?”

“A better heat sensor, first,” he said. “I know it’s not as good as the real thing, but I thought it may be useful to you, for now.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

“If I have time, I can start on advancing more of your sensory systems, which might help you feel more—I don’t know—normal.”

“But I’m sure He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named keeps you too busy for that.”

James sighed, conceding. He placed screws in an empty compartment of the toolbox as he freed them from the frame. Heather held still as he worked. She glanced down at the toolbox, considering two small devices in the compartment next to the screws. One, she presumed, was the temperature sensor.

“What’s the other thing you’re installing?”

“We’ll get to it…”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

With a gentle, calculated jerk, he unclipped the frame, and set it aside on the bed.

It was still so odd for Heather to see something that was inside her head just come out and lay beside her. She almost tried to compare it with what it would be if her body were still organic, but she knew it could never be a true comparison. Those rules didn’t apply anymore.

James picked up one of the devices and pulled a cap off one end, betraying a chip adapter. He craned his hands into her head, and she felt the pressure as he plugged it in.

“It’s in,” he said. “Go ahead and see if you can support it.”

Heather took a moment, searching. She found the awareness, the presence of a different area in her mind that wasn’t there before, like an additional room had been tacked on with the door closed.

In her mind, she opened the door.

James lit up before her in blues and oranges and yellows, a 360-degree signal superimposed on her vision in a way that was overwhelming at first, but she found she could push it back to the periphery of her awareness, and bring it forward again by degrees.

She focused her attention on the door to see if she could detect the guard through the walls, or more importantly, the other prisoner several doors down.

But the thick concrete walls blocked her vision.

“It works,” she said. “But I thought thermal cameras could see through walls.”

James shook his head. “Not really.”

“Oh.”

“The next thing, I would like to plug in and then explain,” he went on, selecting the other device from the toolbox.

“I’m gonna need you to explain it before you plug it in,” she said, warily. She prepared to snap her cranial panels shut if he tried to force it again.

James stared at the device in his hands, thinking it over. “It has to go in either way.”

“Order from the boss?”

He nodded.

Heather buzzed a sigh, hunching her shoulders and turning her head to look at the adjacent wall.

She traced a path of discoloration on the concrete with her eyes, weighing her options. She activated the camera in the back of her head. James hadn’t moved.

He didn’t seem keen on even trying to spin this one. They both knew their situation was despicable.

Heather looked at him. “So, what is it? This other one?”

“Pain simulator,” James said. More words hastily followed, “It was either that or paralysis on command. I thought maybe you’d be able to…live with this one better.” On that last sentence, he glanced up, and stared directly into her eyes.

Heather searched his expression. She tried to assess whether coded phrases and secret information were still on the table, or if his brain had just finally fried.

“It’s activated remotely,” he went on. “And I have no intention of using it with any regularity. I’m hoping it just existing will mean security will ease up on you.”

Heather cocked her head, eyes narrowed.

“I have to install it and test it,” he said. “The director will be here in a few minutes to watch. I’ll make it quick…I’m—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Heather cut him off.

James swallowed it. He nodded, his gaze falling.

Something in his pocket beeped, and James stiffened, all color draining out of his face. It filled Heather with rage. Maybe when the director showed up, she would break his glasses.

“He’s on his way?” Heather ventured.

James nodded again. He ran a hand through his hair, exhaled heavily.
She shifted position and offered her open cranium. “Fine. I’m going to trust you on this for now, in the name of survival.”

“Thanks,” his voice trembled.

She narrowed her eyes at the floor as, with shaking hands, he plugged the device into a port on the other side of her neural network. The connection registered, but the door remained inaccessible, silent and ominous like a parasite.

James replaced the frame inside her head and after reattaching the screws, she closed her head.

They waited in injured silence for a few minutes. When Benson finally did arrive, Heather glared at him, but he pretended not to notice.

At Benson’s direction, James produced a small, flat remote with only a few buttons.

“You may want to lie down for this,” James said.

Heather obeyed, watching Benson, recording every inch of him to scrutinize later for clues to their location and how to get out.

“Just so you aren’t alarmed,” James said as she got situated. “This device works at different levels of signal that should process like a pain response, with no actual damage being inflicted. I’ll start on the lowest setting. Are you ready?”

“Just get it over with,” Heather said. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the director’s serene attention.

She heard a modest click as his thumb depressed a button on the remote, and Heather became aware of a dull pain easing into existence. A nagging headache coupled with minor muscular pain was an odd, almost welcome sensation, reminiscent of her organic body. She hadn’t realized she missed pain, even.

“What does it feel like?” he said.

“Like I have a fever,” Heather said.

“Okay.” He pressed the button again. “This is two.”

Heather’s headache intensified, stabbing behind her eyes. Her neck felt cramped and sore as the ache spread throughout her body. The moveable parts around her eyes tightened, and she pulled her head to one side, realizing after she had done so that nothing but the remote could alleviate the pain. She didn’t have traditional muscles anymore.

“Are you doing okay?” James asked, tentative.

“It hurts. Good job, I guess.”

He swallowed, and turned his attention back to the remote. “Three…”

Heather stiffened as the pain intensified with sharp, unexpected stabs. “How many levels are there?”

“Ten.”

The process continued on, the signal climbing up to level six. Heather pressed her arms into the bed, trying to stay calm and still. Pain pounded viciously in her head, radiating throughout her torso and down her arms and legs. She felt like she was back in her old body, and that it had been hit by a train.

“Can you try to sit up?” James asked.

Heather simulated a tight scoff. “Are you serious?”

“That should do it,” James said, looking at Benson, who shook his head.

“Take it all the way up,” the director said, calmly.

James hesitated. Heather braced herself.

“Seven,” James said. “Eight…”

It was only two clicks of a button, but her whole body suddenly felt like it was imploding on itself, bones fracturing, joints dislocating, organs ripping and muscles tearing under the pressure. Panic flooded through her, a need to rip out the device. She curled up in fetal position, gripping her head with a ragged, artificial gasp. She popped open her cranial panels, ducked her head and reached in, as if to rip out the frame, crush the device. Anything to make it stop.

“No, don’t—” James started forward. His hand touched hers, and at a sharp snap of electricity, he gasped and jerked away.

Heather needed to breathe, hear her heartbeat, something living and rhythmic to focus on that might help her block out the signal, but there was nothing to latch onto. Just cold metal. Just wires and deadness and pain.

Suddenly, the screeching in her limbs and head snuffed out, and her body went quiet. She relaxed, closing her eyes, feeling the need to rest for the first time since the transfer. For once, she reveled in the robotic stillness, felt an odd sense of comfort that, outside of that device, her body was incapable of experiencing that kind of suffering.

She slowly dragged herself to a sitting position. She cradled her head in her hands, despising the modest click of metal against metal as they touched.

“Impressive,” Benson said. “Finish up here and meet me outside so we can leave.”

“Yes sir,” James replied.

Benson departed, and then it was just the two of them.

“That really hurt,” Heather said, the volume of her voice very low. She blinked a few times, trying to pull free from the lingering disorientation. Her irises readjusted and she glanced up at him, the tops of her eyes lowered in confusion. He was favoring his hand, looking at her with a strange, soft incredulity. “What?” she said.

James snapped out of it. He shook his hand in the air a bit and picked up his toolbox with the other. “Nothing I just—you electrocuted me. It caught me off guard.”

Heather’s eyes widened. She tried to think back, sifting through her memories to see if she had remembered anything through the pain. It was hazy. There was panic. A breach of the electromagnetic field on her hand. A sharp jolt of power flashing from her chest and up her arm.

“Thanks again,” James said, holding the toolbox close to his chest, preparing to take his leave. “I have the only remote for that device, and I won’t ever use it again if I can help it.”

Heather moved the arm the electrical current had passed through, testing its connectivity, then hugged it to her middle. “Lose that remote, please.”

“I’ll try. See you later.”

After a beat of silence as he crossed the room, she asked quietly, “Are you still going to save your dad?”

James stopped at the door. He didn’t turn around.

“No,” he said. He knocked on the door for the guard outside to open it for him. “He doesn’t need my help.”

Heather straightened up a little more, dread creeping through her circuits. “Is he…?”

“He found a treatment that seems to be working,” James clarified. The door opened.

“So this was all for nothing.”

“Yeah,” James said.

Heather watched him go, and once the onerous door closed, she listened to his and the guard’s footsteps recede down the hallway.

James might have become connected to this place with or without his machine, but supporting his project had helped them become friends. Without it, she probably wouldn’t have gone down to the lab that night. She could still be home, safe, with her family.

For now, she knew she couldn’t sink into what could have been, or the brain-fracturing grief and rage of how senseless this all was. She had to focus on what was in front of her.

She looked at her robotic hands, then at her chest, curious.

And maybe Larkspur’s android could help her after all.

+

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE—LEADS

Heather sat with her back propped up against the wall, a hardbound biochemistry journal in her lap, which James had given her to read to assess any differences in her cognitive processes with the neural network. Without raising her face, she glanced above the edge of the book to where

James hunched over a workstation across the room, picking apart the device that reminded her of a turkey baster—a rod with a bulb at the top. He dropped a couple of screws into a plastic tray, pulled out a wire-laced internal component, squinted at it, then scribbled something in the open notebook on the edge of the fray.

She had hoped he would have returned to the lab a little more lucid, ready to pool their resources to break whatever hold Benson had over him, but that morning, James had come in with a stack of academic journals and the same weary, hollowed countenance as he tried to explain why he wanted her to read through them.

Heather was mostly reading them for something to do now, though she didn’t understand most of it. Robotic or not, she had only a basic frame of reference from recreational reading for Western Blots, receptor families and ion channels, and understood little of the journals’ frenzied insistence on abbreviating everything. It was nice of him to remember she found cell biology interesting, but now the mention of science in general sent a sour buzz through her circuits.

She recalled a sleepy, early morning a lifetime ago, meeting a young engineer whose mutual love of science felt like stars aligning. She had been torn from her life for her parents’ secrets, yet for lack of options, she had made herself believe things would be different. Better.

She turned a page, frowning as she tried to make sense of a graph. All the information from the previous pages was stored in her memory as soon as it met her eyes. A lot of it she had recorded but not retained, kept on file in photographic format. As she read on, trying to recall and apply the information as the journal’s descriptions advanced, more of it assimilated in the imageless integration she was used to, back when her brain was organic. The more she practiced with it, the more the surface photographic memory moved toward something more useful. Some of it knit itself in right away without first sitting in that photographic stage.

It was similar enough, but her drastically enhanced memory retention felt so alien. She could glaze over information, choose not to read certain paragraphs, but her neural network had still pulled and stored some of it, subconsciously.

She used to idolize people whose brains worked like computers. Now it seemed trite and misguided. Intelligence wasn’t worth much without humanity to ground it.

She feared that the mechanical medium of her brain and its internal programs would steadily prune away who she was, little by little, as simulating humanity became a tired script.

Meanwhile, James continued to tinker at his assignments. Hopeless.

When he was absent overnight, she had tried everything she could think of to find weak points in the metal rope keeping her tethered to the workbench. It was tight, tough, and she would have thought her robotic hands would have the strength to rip through it, but she couldn’t even snap it from the leg of the counter.

She’d tested the strength of the counter legs as well—they looked like wood but the centers were metal. She’d taken a second crack at pulling them from the floor, with no success.

James would have to be the one to remove the tether, but there was no way he’d do it at this rate.

She watched him work, studious and oblivious, even while Benson had broken the rest of him, ignoring her gaze on his back. He knew where they were. He had knowledge of variables that she didn’t. Yet he hadn’t offered any other secrets. Instead, he buried himself even harder, scrambling to put himself back in Benson’s good graces, pushing everything else away. She hated his apologetic looks and occasional, clumsy attempts to check in or sympathize.

It wasn’t enough to be sorry.

+

Richard had a pit in his stomach as he arrived at Larkspur the next morning with his laptop and Sesame’s neural network tucked carefully in his bag.

He and Su had spent most of the night with Sesame going through its memories, but Sesame had only personally seen Michael Benson a handful of times at best. James had mostly kept it at Larkspur.

They had gleaned that James had been staying on campus at Empetrum over the last month or so, after Richard had asked him to discontinue the neural transfer project. When James brought Sesame to Empetrum, he had kept it in the apartment, so Sesame had actually seen very little action as far as the goings-on of the facility.

They did have visuals, however. Richard had directed Sesame to take screen shots, of the location, the grounds, the on-campus housing, the main facility from the outside and whatever Sesame had seen within, as well as small glimpses of scenery on the commute, though James had kept Sesame’s box under the dashboard on the passenger side, so the robot’s view out the window had been extremely limited.

Besides guards, the only person Sesame had seen at Empetrum was Michael, and despite Richard’s hopes that James had talked to the robot about his activities at Empetrum, he hadn’t. At this point, they could still only speculate on whether or not the clinical prototype had been constructed, and what James had since done with it.

They followed Sesame’s memories all the way up to when James pulled its neural network and hid it. He had been acting normal driving to Empetrum Friday night, dropped Sesame off in the apartment, and left.

He spent very little time at the apartment the majority of the weekend, leaving early in the morning and returning late at night, leaving Sesame alone in a makeshift pen in the living room. But Sunday, he returned suddenly in the middle of the day, pallid and agitated. Sesame had watched him rush around, packing, muttering to himself too quietly to make out. He had tugged a suitcase out the door, come back, gathered up Sesame and some notebooks, then had driven back to his apartment in Worthing.

There was something on the table with a note. James left Sesame across the room, and Sesame had watched him pick up a small black device in shaking hands. James didn’t touch the note, so from Sesame’s vantage point, it didn’t know what the note said.

It had been hard to watch. James was upset all the rest of the day, overturning his apartment looking for something, leaving Sesame alone, forgotten again on the end table by the door. Sesame stayed still, observing everything, feeling safer not drawing attention to itself, as it had explained to Richard and Su later.

Finally, in the early light of Monday morning, James emerged from his bedroom disheveled and distracted. He lingered in the opening to the hallway, ran a nervous hand through his hair. Something occurred to him, and he looked up, making eye contact with Sesame, his gaze tired, frightened, trapped.

James strode across the room into the kitchen, and Sesame heard him digging in drawers. After a few minutes, James had copped together tools and containers and then he retrieved Sesame’s box and put it on the table.

Sesame tried to escape as the lid came off, sensing something bad was about to happen, but

James caught it easily, pulled up the panel in Sesame’s back to access its neural network. Then the recording that Sesame had played Richard and his colleagues fell into place with so much new, terrible context:
Sorry to do this to you Sesame…
Richard, if you end up having access to this: Whatever happens between now and your finding this message…I’m sorry.

Richard arrived at the top of the stairs and started down the hallway, passing his office to first see if Eve was there yet.

She was.

“Morning, Rich,” Eve said gently, logging into her computer. “Any luck?”

“Nothing new about Benson,” Richard admitted. “But got some visuals on Empetrum, and when

James’ actions started falling apart. Sunday was the turning point, I think.” He set his bag down on the desk, and carefully got out Sesame’s setup so it could participate.
When he opened the laptop, Sesame’s makeshift voice spoke up, “Are you still working on my body?”

“Of course, let’s go down and take a look in a couple minutes…” Eve produced an envelope from her briefcase and handed it to Richard. “I found those photos I mentioned.”

There were only a few. At the top of the thin stack was a photograph of Eve, twenty years younger, and three others: a tall man with sharp features and gray hair, a younger individual on Eve’s right side who had a similar nose and was just as gray, despite appearing to be in her late thirties. The man to the right had his arm around the shoulders of a boy of about ten, with thick rimmed glasses and cow-licked brown hair. The boy’s features were softer and chubbier than the man from Sesame’s memories, but Richard could see the resemblance.

Eve drew nearer to view the pictures with him. “None of the Bensons liked pictures taken of them. I used to tease Lawrence about it…” She indicated each one with her finger. “This one is Lawrence, to my left. That’s his daughter to my right, Alice, who worked briefly at Larkspur as a biochemist. And then this is Michael, Alice’s son. I remember Michael was a good kid. Bright, but painfully shy. As different as night and day next to Lawrence’s confident charisma, but Lawrence adored his grandson.”

Richard stared at the photo for several moments longer, his attention on Lawrence. He had never seen his face before, only heard his name.

Richard moved the top photo to the back and sifted through the others Eve had found of Michael. One was candid, of the boy watching his grandfather work with a microscope, and in the other, he was trying on a lab coat and looking very uncomfortable to have suddenly found himself faced with a camera lens.

“Sesame,” Richard said. “Could you pull up a picture of the man James was talking to, for comparison?”

Sesame complied and Richard held the third photo up beside it.

“Yeah, that’s him all right,” Eve hummed.

“May I see the photos?” Sesame said.

As Richard held up the photographs for the laptop’s webcam, Eve wearily took a seat on the edge of her desk. “I never learned for sure,” she said. “But I think Alice was helping with Lawrence’s awful project. She feigned ignorance when asked about it, but then she disappeared too.”

“Empetrum can’t be that far away, if James was doubling up,” Richard said.

“That’s very true,” Eve mused. She sighed. “To think the Bensons were this close all along.”

“Be careful if we find it,” Sesame said. “There were lots of guards around, and I do not think Michael will welcome us.”

Richard and Eve nodded in dismal agreement.

“Do you think it was Lawrence who set this up, or could it have been Alice?” Richard said. “Or maybe Michael took the initiative all on his own later on?” He considered the photo of all three Bensons. “Sesame, while we work on your body today, can you see if you can find where the Bensons ended up after the fallout with Larkspur?”

“On it,” Sesame said.

“You may not find anything about the scandal,” Eve said. “The government didn’t want to be publicly associated with what happened, so they did everything they could to cover it up. That’s partly how Larkspur was able to downsize, relocate, and continue to operate underground from the east coast.”

Richard looked at her, shocked. “Why did the government bother to cover it up? Couldn’t they have just said, ‘We didn’t authorize this.’ and moved on?”

Eve looked worried. “I guess I didn’t really question it. At the time, I was swamped running damage control, while dealing with the loss of an old and dear friend. Up until that point, I had trusted Lawrence implicitly, and I never expected he harbored the capacity to hurt people like that. After everything was said and done, I was just relieved—selfishly, perhaps—that the government had put out most of the fires, and kept it away from us.”

Richard’s gaze fell. He glanced at Sesame’s activated webcam, wishing he knew what the ex-mouse was thinking. “Is it possible Lawrence disappeared after Larkspur to create Empetrum?”

“It’s something I wouldn’t put past him,” Eve said. “But the Larkspur thing got him blacklisted. Legally, he would have been barred from registering a new biotech company, and no existing one would hire him after the public outrage he caused. Not to mention, his unethical project had every hallmark of being an incredibly elusive undertaking, with little promise of return. Even disreputable sponsors would see it as a colossal waste of time and money.”

The laptop piped up, “Richard, Eve?”

“Yes?”

“I found an obituary.”

Richard stiffened but Eve was the first to speak, “Whose?”

“Lawrence Benson,” Sesame said. An image pulled up onto the screen and the two engineers crowded in to read it. It wasn’t much, just a passing mention in a newspaper for a town in the central region of the country. It didn’t offer any new information, saying he was a biochemist, survived by a daughter and grandson, whose names were not provided.

Richard squinted at it, confused.

“That’s the town he was from,” Eve said. “I imagine he still has family in the area that would have wanted to know.”

“Who would have submitted it to that local paper?” Richard said. “Alice? Michael?”

“Either one, I guess,” Eve said. “Letting relatives know while staying off the grid.” She breathed an incredulous exhale, pressing a hand to her forehead and straightening up to pace. “Three years? He’s been dead for three years? No mention of his spouse either, so she must be gone too…So then is it really Michael pulling the strings?”

“I am looking for Alice,” Sesame said.

Eve halted her pacing and turned to look at the computer.

“We cannot talk to Lawrence,” Sesame explained. “And even though I am curious about Michael, we know all that matters about him for the present situation. The trails for him and Lawrence are sparse, but I am finding information on Alice Benson more easily. She reappeared the same year Lawrence died, and does not seem to be making an effort to cover her tracks now.”

Richard readjusted his glasses and exchanged a glance with his coworker. “Do you think she would help us?”

Eve’s brow furrowed. She ventured closer to the computer. “I guess it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

“She seems to have changed her phone number a lot in the last few years,” Sesame said, and as it did, a number came up on the screen, as well as pictures taken by surveillance cameras. Richard marveled at how quickly Sesame was able to access such information. “I think this may be her current one. It is for this woman. Her most recent address is local, which seems strange. Is this Alice Benson?”

Eve leaned forward again, studying the photos. Richard looked at the physical photograph in his hand, and extended it to place it up against the screen. She was older, heavier, her hair cropped much shorter than the photo, with bags under her eyes and a forehead creased in a way that made Richard think she had spent most of the last twenty years worried.

But it was her.

Eve was silent for a long, intense moment. Finally, she tugged her cellphone from the pocket of her slacks.

“You just earned yourself a damn good body, Sesame,” she muttered, thumbing in and double-checking the numbers before raising the phone to her ear.

+

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR—CANDOR  

James seldom left the lab. He averaged five hours of sleep a night, but otherwise lived there, planted in the same spot at the workstation across the room while the trashcan by the door filled up with empty instant noodle cups, meal replacement bars wrappers, and energy drink cans. A week after Heather’s organic death, she had started counting the energy drinks consumed in a single day, and had had to speak up at least once to keep him from a dangerous caffeine overdose.

He only changed his clothes every other day. They barely spoke to each other. One day, he had tried to install an additional time-keeping device in her neural network to see if she could integrate it, but she refused to open her cranial panels until he had cleaned himself up and eaten something other than vending machine food.

In obtuse, sleep-deprived frustration, he had tried to pry open the panels himself but she stood her ground until he relented. He returned an hour later, clean and cross, with a wrapped boloney sandwich from some kind of cafeteria. She adapted the device with no problems, and he took it back out, refusing to answer questions about why he needed to know if she could access outside software.

For a while, she had hoped maybe he was developing his own escape plan, pretending to work on what Benson wanted but creating something that could help them escape instead.

But he seemed to be sinking all his attention to that turkey baster thing, reading pages and pages of files on his computer, soldering and programming on other scraps of metal she hadn’t bothered to ask about. Probably more stuff he’d soon try to plug into her head.

Heather had liked to think she could never hate someone. But James’ presence was suffocating, his submission disappointing and disgusting. She hated herself, too, for getting mixed up with him, even with Larkspur, in the first place. She watched him work from afar, her hostility building until, finally, she just couldn’t take it anymore.

“You’ve abandoned me, James,” she said, leaned up against the wall between the tall windows, arms crossed, watching scenery that never changed.

She didn’t know whether she meant for him to hear her, but he paused working.

“I’m doing the best I can,” he said, in a tired monotone.

“My whole life I’ve felt like I was in everyone’s way,” Heather said, glaring out the window. “I bent over backwards, trying to be kind, concerned, convenient. Hoping that would make people want me around, but it was never good enough. I never figured out how to be good enough.” She narrowed her eyes. “I was even killed because, yet again, I was in someone else’s way. And now I’m a sentient decoration for your messed up lab.”

James didn’t turn around, though his shoulders were tense.

“I would have started school today,” Heather went on. “Things would have been better if I had just left well enough alone. But I got my dad to take me to Larkspur. I convinced myself you and I were friends.”

“If it matters,” James said, quietly. “I thought we were friends too.”

“But now I think that, deep down, you wanted this to happen—to get back at my dad for turning down your horrible mad science project.”

“That’s absolutely not true.” Finally, James swiveled around in his chair to face her, a cornered look on his face. “I didn’t know it would come to this. I thought I was part-timing at another reputable biotech company, not some kind of mafia. Because, you know, typically, when a guy tries to quit his job, the company lets him. They don’t go ballistic, sabotaging his other workplaces and trying to pin it on him, and executing innocent bystanders.”

Heather blinked. “They framed you at Larkspur?”

James hesitated. If Benson had a gag order on him, he had probably said too much.

“If I don’t do this—” He flung an arm back at the sprawl of incomplete projects at his desk. “He will kick me out and keep you here. And I can’t let that happen. This is the only way I can protect you.”

“This isn’t protecting me,” Heather said. She crossed her arms and looked away. “Maybe I should erase my memory, forget I was ever human. It would be easier.”

“You can’t—”

“Why? Because I have so much left to live for?” Heather snapped. She spread her arms wide.

“More of this? While I was human, maybe I still had a chance, but like this, I’ll always be alone.”

She wished she could cry, that she could feel the cathartic force of a scream leaving her throat and lungs, and get some release from the loathing and sorrow raging inside her. But she only had simulated sound, trapped inside a cold, artificial body, left to drown.

“This happened because you were an easy target,” she said bitterly. “Not because you’re smart. I hope you know that.”

He stared at her, his red-rimmed hazel eyes wide and horrified. His gaze shifted, something in him crumbling as he stood up. Heather watched him, warily, incredulously. This was indeed news to him.

He made for the door to the lab. He was long gone by the time the mechanism caught the door, bringing it to a soft, anticlimactic close.

Heather hugged her knees in the silence. She figured there was logical benefit to dispelling any illusions James-the-Engineering-Prodigy might have had—illusions that the hours of isolation in his lab had also chipped away in her—but realistically, she’d just wanted to hurt him. Get him to do something other than numb out in the corner.

She felt petty and spiteful, admitting that to herself. But continuing to play her old persona of a nice, well-adjusted girl always excited to lend a helping hand felt grotesque.

If she ever made it out of here, she would spend the rest of her life trying to prove to people that she was human, even as her humanness inevitably slipped away.

She still didn’t know if she could, in good conscience, go on being Heather. Technically, she was a clone, designed to replace and continue on. Was that proximity close enough? Or maybe it would never be anything more than just a twisted game of pretend.

+

Erika was doing pushups in her cell. She planted all four hands, trying to put as much weight on the arms off her back as possible. They had only existed for ten days, and she still couldn’t trust much weight to them, but they could build muscle. She intended to build them up until she could walk on them if necessary.

With as large as they were, maybe they could one day be strong enough to throw somebody. While she had nothing else to do, she resolved to do whatever she could to make them useful, to bolster the careful physical therapy Yeun was doing with them, maybe to eventually use against her captors.

Now that the exhaustion from the gene therapy and activation was finally wearing off, Erika was getting her strength back. 

She figured her behavior would be noted, but let them suspect. Let them prepare. 

Erika Hodgson hadn’t given up yet.

+

James sat on the floor in the storage closet across from his lab, his face bowed and his fingers clawed in his disheveled hair. The dimness of the space was quiet and placid—a kinder sort of darkness than the one screaming in his chest. His whole body was ablaze with it, the grief and pain that everything had gone so sideways. That he had walked a razor’s edge of abuse and exploitation and had had no idea until it was too late.

He didn’t understand why Heather was blaming herself just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. If only she had never met him. If only he had never even existed.

His face was hot, and he brushed at the persistent tide of tears leaking from his eyes, but he couldn’t stop crying. How dare he weep over this, some deep part of him that sounded a lot like his father whispered. Was he crying for Heather, or for himself? His own pain, his own regret? He couldn’t tell for sure.

He just couldn’t tell anymore.

His pager beeped in the pocket of his slacks. His arm felt like stone as he twisted to retrieve the device and read the message:

Please come to my office.

His hand tightened on it. He raised his arm to hurl it across the room, smash it to pieces against the wall, but he couldn’t bring himself to follow through.

He thumped the back of his head once against the door. Finally, he typed, I didn’t tell her anything important.

He bent over, leaning his forehead on his drawn-up knees and closed his eyes. He was so tired.

The pager beeped again.

Now.

Slowly, with great effort, James replied. On my way.

He dragged himself to his feet, pulled a paper towel from a nearby dispenser and dried his eyes as best as he could. Finally, he opened the door, letting light spill into his hiding place. The guard waited for him across the hallway, and nodded for him to proceed alone. James complied.

The director’s office was open, and James hung in the doorway.

Benson folded his hands on top of his desk, expectant. “Come in, Siles.”

James wandered forward and dropped into the chair in front of the desk.

“Care to explain your outburst down in your lab just now?”

James leaned forward, resting his face in his hands. He shook his head.

After a calculated silence, Benson said, “She was just trying to get a rise out of you. You need to move past this attachment you have to her.”

James didn’t respond. He felt like he was going to throw up.

“Why are you still keeping her in your lab?” the director asked. “Why insist on torturing yourself like this?”

James thought about trying to spin a logical angle for Benson, but really, he just couldn’t bear the weight of what he had done to Heather. Carrying it alone poisoned him more every day. Maintaining the status quo made him feel like he was on a treadmill, running faster and faster, knowing it would soon spin him apart.

“I don’t know,” James said, finally.

Benson sat still, observing him. It didn’t make sense to him that Benson would inquire after his broken spirit as if it even made a difference to him. As long as James performed well, what did it matter that he hated himself?

Subconsciously, he had been lamenting the seemingly ongoing curse of his intelligence, radicalized by his parents, harnessed by Empetrum, but Heather was right. James was uniquely suited to biomedical engineering, but he wasn’t the only person who could work on Non-Comp. Benson just had easier access to him through Larkspur, through the Bureau. If he had turned Benson down after that first phone call, would any of this have happened? He might have at least had time to get help before the trap slammed closed.

“You’re too sentimental,” Benson said finally. “That will ruin your work if you let it.”

James nodded, his face turned toward the floor. A complete disconnect sounded appealing. He was so incredibly tired of hurting, of feeling guilty for hurting. Of trying to explain himself, knowing it didn’t matter.

“Do you have any more pressing tests to complete with Ms. Knight?” Benson asked. “Besides the device to control her, which I hope you’ll be finishing soon?”

“Just that one,” James murmured. “And yes, I’ll be finishing it soon.” He had opted for a pain simulator, a crueler device than paralysis-on-demand, but while the latter would simply physically disrupt conduction of her robotic spinal cord wherever the device was attached, the pain simulator was complex and software-based, something he hoped she could learn to override.

“Good. Then I’ll have her moved to a housing unit downstairs where she won’t be a distraction. Keep your distance until you need to install that device. You can’t carry on like this with her in your lab. It’s destructive.”

“Housing unit…” A prisoner cell, more like. He dully considered the alternative language like acrid steam swirling above a witch’s cauldron, bending the light, bending reality, urging him to accept that all of this made sense.

+

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE—WITHDRAWAL

Heather dismally watched the goings on of the grounds outside. Guards chatting, birds foraging in the bushes. Far above, a jet traced a small white trail across the sky. She wondered if it was even possible for her to clear her own memory, as she’d threatened. She was afraid to try.

As she sat there alone, she gradually realized her mom and dad still probably wanted her back, robot hybrid clone or not. She supposed that was enough incentive to keep freedom on her mind for now.

If James wasn’t going to help her, she would have to leave him behind. If he was too scared to listen to her, what else was she supposed to do?

That question seemed to be all she had. Confusion that would never have an answer, an existence with no remedy.

She heard footsteps. Heather turned her head to look at the door as a badge beeped in the reader outside and the lock clicked back.

James entered the room, followed by a guard, and any urge to apologize Heather might have felt died when a man she recognized from a jagged shred of memory appeared behind them, standing watchfully in the doorway. Benson’s bespectacled gaze wielded power, like a tangible collar around James’ neck.

Heather shrank back a little against the wall as the director’s gray gaze met hers.

“I’m going to move you downstairs,” James said, hollowly. “I think it will be better if we have our own spaces.” He nodded reluctantly at the guard, who stepped forward to tie Heather’s arms behind her back and lift her down from the table. She didn’t fight him, despite the dread that flooded over her as the restraints clicked down around her hands. James unlocked the ankle tether.

Benson stepped aside, and the guard guided her out the door and into the hallway. James hung back behind them, walking beside the director as the group made its way to the elevator.

Heather tried to glance back. James’ gaze remained on the floor.

Briefly, her attention grazed the wall behind him—a locked metal door at the end of the hallway by his lab. A prohibitive sign warning danger and high voltage.

James said nothing in the elevator, or all the way down the silent hallway on the basement level. Heavy doors with viewing panels lined the corridor, each bearing a cell number. From one further down, a single sheet of paper hung in a transparent sleeve. She zoomed in her vision so she could read it more clearly as they approached.

Subject: Erika Hodgson
Project: Non-Comp MBE
Researcher: E. Yeun

They passed the door and Heather tripped, trying to twist around to keep looking at it.

There were others. She wasn’t the only one trapped here.

They came to a cell two doors down from the occupied one. It, too, possessed a similar notice, except it displayed her and James’ names, with O.R.T. listed as the project.

Heather shot an apprehensive glance at James as another guard joined them to unlock her cell and her escort took her inside. James remained by the door, avoiding her gaze. After releasing her wrists, the guard ordered her to stay where she was, and then left her.

Finally, James spoke. “I’ll bring you something to do a little later,” he said quietly. “But aside from that, you won’t have to see me for a while.” He forced himself to look at her, then. Utter misery burned in his gaze. A continued apology, despite the resignation.

After all his aching and worry about Benson separating them, James was the one separating them. Heather figured he hadn’t made the decision on his own. Fury sparked through her circuits at how completely both of them were under the control of this person she knew nothing about.

She hoped her parents had found something useful in Sesame’s neural network. But her loved ones were just regular people. She didn’t want any of this horror to befall them too.

As she watched the guard close her into the silence of her cell, she knew she was on her own.

+

After leaving Heather in her cell, Benson took James to Yeun’s lab on the first floor.

The door was propped open. “Dr. Yeun?” Benson called.

“Yes?” Yeun’s voice issued from across the lab, through another open door. Then his face appeared, a sterile mask over his mouth and wearing a fully buttoned up lab coat.

“I’m putting Siles in your care for a little while,” Benson said, ushering James into the room. “He’s been reading the background data for Non-Comp, and is ready for hands-on experience.”

Yeun blinked, then looked at James, whose gaze fell to the floor.

“Sure thing,” Yeun said.

“Thank you.” Benson took his leave, abandoning the roboticist with his future supervising researcher. “Be gentle with him. He’s having a rough day.”

Yeun waited several moments for Benson to leave earshot before he said, “Well, I’m just finishing up some mice husbandry work if you want something to keep your hands busy.”

James stepped forward, lethargic. “Mice?”

“Yeah, for Non-Comp,” Yeun said. As James entered the secondary lab, Yeun pointed at a station near the door. “Lab coats, surgical masks, and gloves are over there. Come on over once you’re situated.”

As James donned the sterile gear, he surveyed the room. Cages lined the back wall, and Yeun worked among a system of stations for transplanting mice, cleaning cages, replacing bedding, and reintroducing them. Yeun assigned him to sterilizing cage components at the island in the middle of the room.

After a long period of silence, Yeun said. “Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“I know the director’s been coming on strong lately,” Yeun said. “He just wants to make sure you’re on board.”

James turbidly focused on his work. Yeun returned a group of mice to their clean cage, and James watched for evidence of something weird about the mice, something human weaponry related, but he couldn’t tell.

“So you use human test subjects too?” James asked finally.

“Here and there,” Yeun said. “But you don’t have to worry about that today.”

They worked in silence for a while, a dark cloud hanging around James.

Finally, Yeun spoke up again, “If it’s any consolation, Benson’s leaving on a business trip in a couple of days. He’ll want to get some things set up with you before he leaves, but you should have more space to breathe after that. You’ll report progress to me, as we’re going to be working together soon, and I’ll go as easy on you as I can.”

“Oh,” James said.

Briefly, the thought crossed his mind that Benson’s absence presented a window, but he swallowed the temptation to follow it further. The director wouldn’t be on site, but he would still be very much in control. There were still security guards, and all the ultimatums Benson had stacked against him and Heather.

“What is the business trip for?” James probably wasn’t even allowed to ask.

“Sponsor stuff.” Yeun snapped two halves of a cage together and dumped aspen bedding inside.

“He’ll be gone for a few days.”

“Why so long?” James slid one cage aside and started on another.

“It’s on the east coast, I think,” Yeun said. “To avoid Conxence interference. We’re not sure how much they know about us yet. Better not to take the chance, you know?”

Before long, they’d finished up, and then Yeun was taking him through a door in the back of the lab. “Have you ever done any cell splitting?”

“Not really,” James said. He found himself in a narrow room with sturdy, sealed incubators on the counters, and fume hoods at the back of the room. Compound microscopes and cabinets populated the adjacent wall.

Yeun smiled at him. “Want to learn? Keeping live stem cell cultures is a big part of the job with Non-Comp.”

“Okay.”

“Wash your hands, put on some gloves, and take a seat over there.” Yeun nodded to one of the fume hoods.

James obeyed.

“I’ll give you some dishes and fluid to practice with. No live cells,” Yeun said, opening one of the cabinets.

Yeun furnished the fume hood with a small stack of empty petri dishes, a motorized pipette controller with a disposable pipette, and an erlenmeyer flask full of water. He took hold of the gate-like window at the front of the fume hood, pulling it down. “First, you pull down the sash like this, as close to your hands as possible to avoid contamination while you’re working. Unwrap the pipette here, it goes into the tip of the pipettor. This button sucks up, this one releases it…” After showing him how the equipment worked, as James had never used motorized pipettes before, Yeun taught him how to pull up the simulated cell culture from one petri dish, and decant it into two more dishes, rattling on about more of the biological steps involved in preparing and caring for stem cell cultures.

Yeun smiled, observing his technique. “You’re a natural.”

James pressed his lips together and kept working for a few minutes more.

“About Non-Comp…” James said finally. “Benson said there are currently Compatible subjects with the original science, the one Hill developed with another bioroboticist, who doesn’t work here anymore…”

Yeun hesitated. “Yes, there are six known Compatibilities. All unique.”

“What do they do?” James asked. “I’m told we’re going to try to replicate them.”

“Yes.” Yeun went over to the nearest incubator and lay a hand on it. A label read P.J.E. “The person these cell cultures originate from has an extra set of arms. It’s the most benign and straightforward of the group, so this is the one I’m working to produce in a human subject first. And although there have been a few hangups, it’s going well, overall. My current test subject has a healthy genetic code on all the markers I needed, and has taken well to gene therapy.”

James laid down the pipette and pulled his hands from the fume hood. He wondered if someday he would be far gone enough to talk like this, like human enslavement was just a neutral technicality. Even using mice for research turned his stomach now.

Yeun renewed his smile, sensing James’ discomfort, and moved to the next incubator, “This one’s bearer has rudimentary pyrokinetic abilities, and this one—” He pointed to the next in line. “—can create a burst of projectile force. Telepathy, both reception and projection—” He gestured at each of the incubators across the room. “—That one’s bearer turns into a smoke-like substance, phasing and reforming the body at will. Oh, but that one interests me the most, to be honest.”

James looked in the direction Yeun indicated. The final incubator was marked C.R.B. James assumed the initials on each of the incubators corresponded to the subjects’ names. “What’s that one?”

“This one generates plant matter from their body,” Yeun said. “Can you believe it? And it’s not just leaves. They can create large projections that take on a variety of forms like vines and branches, which they can move as easily as their own original limbs. They’re crossing whole genetic domains! And Compatible MBE is only stimulating genes these individuals already possess. We didn’t introduce foreign genetic material.”

“Oh,” James said, considering the incubator, his hackles raising. “Why didn’t you start trying to duplicate that one, if it’s the one that interests you the most?” Empetrum obviously did what it wanted.

“That Compatibility is complex and still poorly understood,” Yeun said. “I pick at its mysteries in my free time, and while it doesn’t seem to bother its natural bearer much from what I’ve observed, when introduced to another system, it either completely doesn’t take, or it becomes extremely volatile. I’m not keen on letting it anywhere near another human system until I’ve uncovered more about what makes it tick.”

James cringed.

“Let me show you the modulators.” Yeun waved him toward the door. James followed, apprehensive.

In the main area of Yeun’s lab stood an illuminated shelf with electrical devices mounted on clear polymer frames. James had barely noticed them when Benson had dropped him off, still too shaken from his argument with Heather.

“These are the devices that drive Compatibility technology,” Yeun said. “Hill and Olsson developed a pair of compounds that are entered into these devices, one that drives the genetic activation, and another that dismantles it upon deactivation, both stabilizing the Compatible phenotypes and making them reversible.”

“Why bother making it reversible?” James leaned in to examine the devices, labeled with the model and development date. Some looked like bracelets, others were shaped like oversized microchips. A chill went up his spine as he imagined how the devices worked—hijacking a person’s genetic code and driving a rapid, manufactured evolution.

“Reversibility gives us some security over the technology,” Yeun said. “If something happens where they need to expel one of the recruits from the program, for example, the former recruit won’t be able to keep their Compatibility and use it against us. Though I prefer to focus on the modulators’ benefits to the recruits—They bolster weaker Compatible affinities, and stabilize the ones that could be dangerous if connected completely to the bearer’s nervous and endocrine systems.”

“Ah,” James said.

Yeun wistfully surveyed the modulators, his hands in his lab coat pockets. “Soon, we’ll be able to get Non-Comp up and running, if we put our heads together. I’m excited to see what you’ll bring to the project. Your neural transfer project really blew me away, you know.”

James swallowed. He stepped away from the shelves, leaning against a nearby counter cluttered with boxes of pipette tips, compound microscopes, flasks of ethanol and used slides.

“Benson’s planning on taking you to see the Compatible recruits,” Yeun went on. “He’ll probably want to do that tomorrow, to help this all sink in a little better, get you moving forward, and give our sponsors a status report they’ll like at the meeting.”

James ran a hand through his hair and tried to take a steadying breath, but it was shaky. He told himself he just had to keep moving, try to minimize damage where he could. It was the only thing he knew how to do.

Yeun came over and leaned against the counter beside him, keeping a respectable distance. “I know it’s a lot to deal with. I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now,” he said, quietly. He crossed his arms and considered the floor. “Personally, I think Alder was way out of line with what he did to your friend from Larkspur, but the director has to be really careful. I don’t know how much you’ve heard about the situation in the capital, but it affects us a lot here. We could become a target of the Conxence ourselves, if we’re not cautious, or if we take too long to bring Non-Comp to a stable form. There have been threats of giving the project to some other lab, even with the breakthroughs we’ve made this year.”

James felt the fragile turbulence inside him settle into a cold, exhausted heat in his chest. He didn’t care if the militarized rebellion came for them. In fact, he hoped they would.

He hoped someday, he would watch Empetrum burn, even if he went down with it.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN—AFTERMATH          

Richard woke up on the floor.

He slowly pushed himself up with a soft moan, raising a hand to his head.

The details of the attack returned to his memory by degrees: Alder appearing in the doorway, approaching his desk with a concerned expression. “Sir, there’s something I need to tell you.”

Suddenly, Alder was grabbing him, clenching an arm around his throat, and a biting substance sprayed into Richard’s face.

Richard bolted upright and swooned, his hand landing heavily on the edge of his desk as he caught himself. Where was Heather? The dizziness was still subsiding as he fixed his glasses and groped through the dark to the door.

“Heather? James?” He stepped into the hallway. James’ door was closed, and he found the office empty. “Heather?” No answer.

Richard hurried downstairs and pulled unsteadily on the door to the empty lab. “Heather are you here?”

The fluorescent lights buzzed in the excruciating stillness.

Dread thudded in his chest as he found the equipment room, the storage areas, and the adjoining lab vacant as well. Running now, Richard burst clumsily into the lobby and crossed the polished floor to a door near the front entrance. He weaved down the hallway, opening every door and calling his daughter’s name.

“Heather!” He ended up back in the dim lobby. Where were the security guards? “Heather! Answer me! Where are you!” He rounded the desk to check the security screens. The surveillance system had been disconnected.

When he booted it back up, every feed confirmed his fears. The facility was stagnant, deserted.

He tried to access the archives to see what had happened in the last couple of hours he had been unconscious, and the most recent bit of footage he found featured James using an electric saw to sever the head of the big 3D printer in the equipment room. It cut out again shortly before that. He toggled back and forth. James alone at one of the counters in the lab, staring turbidly at his laptop. James in the other room, mutilating their equipment. No record of Heather.

Richard stared long at the screen, on the verge of hyperventilation. He straightened up suddenly as he remembered seeing something he hadn’t had attention for earlier. He lurched back to the nearest lab entrance and stood in the doorway, frozen, his eyes fixed on the empty counter.

The android was gone.

Richard stepped forward. Black spots plagued his vision, as his mind tried to make sense of the absence, put the pieces together.

The old facility. James, insisting it was sabotage. But James would never.

Abruptly, Richard pushed back through the door, sprinted across the lobby, and tripped up the stairs again. He snatched his cell phone from his desk. The time was 9:14. There was a string of texts from Su, starting from 2 hours earlier: How’s goes it?

Where are you guys? Is everything ok?

Richard, please answer, I’m getting really worried.

Are you on your way?

Hello??

She had called him several times, but he’d missed all of it.

Richard called his daughter. Her cell phone rang from within the confines of the room. Slackening his phone from his ear in dismay, Richard craned his neck to look over the desk at her backpack.
If he checked her phone, there probably would have been worried texts from Su as well.

James was very likely the last person to have seen her. Richard dialed his number, praying for encouraging news.

The call went straight to voicemail. He tried again, with the same result. He waited to leave a message the second time, but after the tone, he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He tried a third time.

At the tone, he said, shakily, “H-hey James…I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t find Heather. Is she with you? Are you all right? Please call me as soon as you get this. I don’t understand why you destroyed our equipment, but we can talk about it. I’m so worried about Heather. Please call me back.”

His throat ached as he rounded his desk and looked out the window above Heather’s bag. The parking lot was empty, save for his own car. There should have at least been a security guard at the facility. Two of them, in fact.

Any moment, Heather would return to Richard’s office and ask why he was crying, trying to see through a barrage of tears to tap in the correct sequence that would call his partner. Heather would complain about how embarrassing he was being while he tried to laugh it off and joke about being overly protective. He would wrap his arms around his daughter, and most assuredly begin to cry anew from the overwhelming relief—because he had thought she’d been kidnapped with no warning or explanation. He had been dying inside, worrying something unspeakable had happened to her.

Standing alone in the darkness of his office, cellphone up to his ear, Richard waited like a lost child for that moment.

+

Heather’s system emerged from dormancy with a soft click.
Her eyes opened, and her vision sharpened to startlingly high resolution. A white paneled ceiling loomed above her, set with long, cold lights.

She blinked. Her eyelids clicked. Disoriented, she tried to sit up, but her wrists were strapped down. James sat against the wall nearby, his head down and arms folded over his knees, asleep.
Something tweaked abruptly in her head and her body seized. She dropped back to the table with a hard metal clunk. Her vision glitched.

James gave a start, jerking up so quickly his head banged back against the wall. He pulled forward, gripping his affronted cranium with a groan. He twisted and met Heather’s gaze, dumbstruck.

Heather looked down, testing her hands as she surveyed the sleek metal body stretched out on the table. A glowing circular power core with a crystalline center poked out from the open panel in its chest. The core didn’t fit. The outside panel that was supposed to close and protect it had been removed, and strips of black tape spanned the gap, keeping the device in place. A wire ran from somewhere inside, off the table down toward the floor.

Her eyes widened.

She recognized this body.

“James…” A dull, faltering buzz issuing from her face adjusted to an electronic semblance of her own voice. It was eerie, a voice absent of breath vibrating through vocal cords. A soft, horrified imitation. She looked to James, who slowly raised himself to his feet. “What have you done?”

He rubbed the back of his head, staring at the floor. “They…they killed you. I didn’t have a body ready. Had to improvise…” He trailed off, closing his eyes in an expression of pain. “I’m so sorry.”

Heather stared at him, dumbfounded. Her voice sounded very small to her, incredibly artificial. “You continued with your machine…”

He nodded, shoulders slumped. Mechanical grease marred the front of his shirt. “I tried to quit. He wouldn’t let me. Things got so messed up so fast.”

“Please tell me I’m a copy,” Heather hardly dared to say it, emotion building. It would still be devastating, but maybe she could learn to accept it, if the real Heather was still alive. “Please, you have to be lying. I can’t be dead!”

James shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was raspy and quiet, “I verified it myself. Multiple times.”

Heather could only stare at him, her eyes large and lost, her body as still as a sculpture.

He seemed to crumple in on himself in the long silence between words. When he finally spoke again, his voice dragged out with overwhelming inertia. “Your body is gone, Heather,” he said.

“Converted to energy. I’m sorry.”

She shifted her gaze to the ceiling as his words sank in.
“Do my parents know?”

He shook his head.

“How—” She looked down at herself, unable to fathom that the robotic body before her had replaced her own. Yet it was moving, speaking with her voice. She saw with its eyes, heard with its auditory receivers. A forced, irreversible symbiosis. “Why did this happen? Who made you do all this?”

“I don’t know how much I’m allowed to explain…”

“No, James. You have to explain,” Heather said, desperate, furious. “What happened to clinical trials and willing volunteers? What happened to saving lives? I was your friend, and you got me killed!” If she were still organic, she would have been nauseated. Profoundly, forcefully sickened by the implications of everything he had done to her. “The real Heather is dead because of you!”

She still wanted to think she was Heather, that her soul transferred over with the cognitive scan, but there was no way to verify that. For all intents and purposes, she was just a clone. A remnant.

James stood like a tattered shadow before her.

“Didn’t you stop to think?” her voice faltered, warbling in and out of pitch like a broken speaker. She pulled at her restraints. “Just once? Didn’t you think even for one second that this wasn’t the answer? That all of us who supported you at Larkspur weren’t just tools to move around until you got what you wanted?” She lay back and looked away. She couldn’t stand his crestfallen face anymore. “That’s all we ever were to you, weren’t we? Just a means to an end.”

“I tried to keep you out of this…” James said.

“Out of what, James?” The minutes of memory before the transfer bloomed behind her eyes, playing on loop. The guard, the gun, James kicked to the floor. A dart in her arm. Heaviness, darkness.

“They were helping me when Richard told me to give it up,” he said finally, his voice little more than a whisper. “I realized they weren’t who I thought they were, and I tried to back out. They said you knew too much. I didn’t think that deserved this…I don’t know…”

Heather stared at him, trying to make sense of that response.

“If I had known how this was going to end up,” his voice trembled. “I never would have built the first prototype.”

“Wouldn’t you have?”

He took a breath so unsteady it was almost a sob. “I would give anything to fix this.”

“Take me home, James” Heather said. “Please, at least do that much.”

“I can’t…”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“It means I don’t hold power here. If I push back any more, it will just make things worse. Please, you have to believe me.”

She looked at him for a long moment, trying to recognize the man before her. It was strange how quiet her body was without breath. Silent, cold despair. Ice seeping into cracks.

She turned her face away. “I want to be alone right now.”

“Okay.” He stepped back from the table. He cleared his throat, but his voice remained unsteady,

“Your neural network and power core aren’t secured in place, so I can’t let you off the table yet…But I’ll give you some time, then I’ll be back to untie you, begin diagnostics…to make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m not all right,” Heather said.

James’ lips tightened, conceding. “I really am sorry, Heather. This may be my last chance to say it.” He dismally left her line of sight.

The door closed behind him, and Heather stared at the ceiling, listening to his receding footsteps.

She didn’t know what their relation to each other would be when he returned. She didn’t know what to think, or what to do.

There would be no recovering from this.

+

A guard was waiting outside the examination room.

“Don’t you people sleep?” James muttered.

“I’m to escort you to your apartment,” the guard said simply.

James said nothing else as he stalked down the hall and out the security doors into the cool night air. As he trudged across the Empetrum campus, the guard soundless behind him, James glanced up at the sky. In so remote a place, the stars crowded like armies in the endless expanse, indifferent to the atrocities committed under them that night.

“So I’m a prisoner too?” James asked as they made their way up the stairs of the housing complex reserved for researchers. The guard didn’t bother answering. “Benson made it sound like that.”

James opened the door to his apartment and paused, waiting for the guard to leave. The man gestured for him to proceed. Warily, James obeyed, and his escort followed him in.

“You’re not going to stay here, are you?” James said.

“Those are my orders.” The guard shut the door behind them.

James ran his hand through his hair, and numbly took to removing his shoes.

“You received a voicemail,” the guard said. He pulled James’ confiscated cell phone from his breast pocket. “The director thought you should hear it, now that you’re finished with your experiment.”

Richard.

James nodded, nauseated.

The man tapped the cracked screen, playing the message on speakerphone, and James soon realized it wasn’t whom he had expected. Instead of Heather’s dad, he recognized his own father’s voice.

“Hello James,” Jonathan Siles said. “I just wanted to let you know I started this new type of treatment a few weeks ago, and—though we were pretty skeptical at first—I’m actually responding remarkably well to it.” James gave the guard a tight, quizzical expression. “The way things are going, the doctors say I have a good chance of making it into remission.” There was a pause. “So yes. That’s all I have to say. I hope things are going well on your end. Have a good night. Hope maybe to hear from you soon…”

As the message ended and the guard stowed the phone, James exhaled and turned, unable to believe what he’d just heard.

“I’ll give you a minute,” the guard said, quietly, and left James to his thoughts.

James drifted further into the living room. His dumb shock gave way to jerky, incredulous exhales, which melded into a steady chuckle on the edge of sorrow and mirth.

He leaned against the nearest wall. He wrapped his arms around his aching sides and squeezed his eyes shut as the laughter pulled harder from his throat and lungs. It was compulsive, painful.

He couldn’t breathe, but he couldn’t stop.

His father was going to be fine. If only James had called them when he’d thought about it.

This had all been for nothing. He had destroyed Heather’s life, her family’s, and his along with it—for nothing. It was over. His whole motivation behind organorobotic transference had proven unnecessary just as the project had been torn out of his control.

He was banned from access to all communication with the outside world, so he had no way to explain anything to anyone, not even to Heather’s parents. And James could do nothing to help her. Benson had claimed him, body and soul. He felt his grip in his chest, squeezing too tightly, strangling everything to ash.

He slid to a sitting position on the floor, still laughing and sobbing hysterically at once, tears streaming down his face.

He couldn’t make any of this right. James had nothing left now but Empetrum.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT—SUBMISSION      

James responded to Benson’s summons on his pager without comment. He thought maybe he should show more backbone, but the night before had torn it out of him.

He felt reduced to a whipped terrier as he stood before Benson’s desk, waiting to be spoken to.

“The procedure was a success, then—as expected?” Benson said. “She woke up? She spoke to you?”

“Yes,” James said, vacantly. “But I’ll need to monitor her.”

“Of course. I won’t take too much of your time. I just needed to discuss some guidelines moving forward.”

James waited for him to continue. Heather was still strapped down on the first floor, in the middle section of his tripartite lab. He hated himself for leaving her in isolation for four hours. Even though she’d asked him to give her space. Even though he had really needed the time to recover some shred of composure before facing their new reality.

He could hear the rumors of his broken, sobbing laughter in his mind. It was still a ready tightness at the back of his throat.

“First off,” Benson said, “Ms. Knight may not go home.”

“Why?” James asked, lifelessly.

“You used Larkspur’s android,” he said. “They’ll find a way to trace it back here.”

“I can build her another body and destroy the old one,” James muttered. “Can she go home then?”
Benson gazed at him, eyebrows patiently raised, like James had said something stupid. “Her whole existence points back to you, even if you were to wipe her memory. Richard Knight is never to find out about Empetrum.”

“If you didn’t want him to find out about Empetrum, you shouldn’t have killed his daughter,” James said, sullenly. “You mentioned the ability to wipe organic memories a few days ago, when we were talking about death row inmates. Why couldn’t you have done that instead of murdering an innocent child who had heard very little of my argument with Alder?”

“‘Hearing very little’ sinks companies like this one, Siles,” Benson said. “Organic mindwipes are inexact, which would have been its own loose end. And they don’t always take. Maybe if you had played it off instead of yelling at her to run away, Alder wouldn’t have had to take such measures…” He straightened his tie. “Or, if you had just resigned willingly from Larkspur, of course, none of this would have happened at all. Everyone would have moved on, bodies and connections intact.”

James numbly lowered himself into one of the cushioned chairs before the desk. He bent over and rested his head in his hands.

If he had just been better—more calculated, more correct—this wouldn’t have happened. The logic was insidious, yet familiar. He did blame himself for Heather’s death.

“If it helps,” Benson went on. “Dhar and I haven’t told the higher ups anything about your project. I don’t really want the government’s hands on it, if I’m being honest. You can retire it now, if you like, since you had so many misgivings. I have other more pressing projects I want you to join as soon as you can.”

James stared at the floor between his shoes, trying to get himself to accept this. His good intentions had only invited devastation, with more to come if he tried anything else. Avoiding heavier consequences was the only thing he had control over now. In time, he hoped one day Richard would find a way to get to his daughter.

“Until this blows over, you will be under close surveillance for your own safety,” Benson was saying. “Keep your pager with you. You may house Ms. Knight in your lab with security accommodations, as long as you can handle it without vomiting information like you did earlier this morning. Expect to meet with me once a day to make a full report.”

James nodded, slowly.

“Ms. Knight must cooperate, or she will be punished,” Benson said. “She doesn’t need to know anything else.”

James said nothing, contemplating a painful twisting in his chest.

“This arrangement will proceed according to your initiative,” Benson went on. “I can only guide you to a point, but if you refuse to make yourself useful, I reserve the right to fire you if this doesn’t work out. In that event, you will receive a substantial mindwipe and be dismissed, and Ms. Knight will remain here. Understood?”

James straightened slowly. “Understood.”

Benson studied him for a long moment. “One more question. Where is your first test subject? The mouse?”

James didn’t move. After hours of shock and tears and trembling, a silent, steady darkness unfolded in his chest. The weariness of a much older man settled into the features on his long, callow face. The birth of a mad scientist, he thought.

“I destroyed it,” James said.

“Did you?”

“I was trying to cut ties with the project. I didn’t want the reminder.”

Benson cocked his head, skeptical. “I don’t see you as the culling type.”

“I deactivated and dismantled it,” James said. “It was quiet, humane. Heather doesn’t know, and I’d rather she not find out. I stripped the neural network down to its components, to repurpose, but I didn’t make it far after that. The pieces of the body are scrapped somewhere. I don’t know how much of it made it here. We left in a hurry.”

Benson was nodding. “It’s for the best, I suppose.”

James nodded too. He had surprised himself.

How easy it had been in that moment, to lie to the director.

+

Heather lay still with her eyes closed and senses dulled. At least she could do that much, drown it out for a while. She could hardly allow herself to think before the horrific implications of her new state of being pushed her to the edge.

And she was alone. James had made it clear he didn’t plan to help her.

She dimly heard the door open. Pulling herself to full awareness, she opened her eyes to see James enter the room with a guard. He looked like a zombie, dark circles under shadowed eyes, holding what appeared to be gray gym shorts in one hand.

“I hope I didn’t make you wait too long,” he said. “I’m going to take you through those doors over there to the main part of my lab, but before I release your wrists, remember the energy unit in your chest isn’t tied down well beyond the tape, and there are very makeshift supports in your head for the neural network. I had to throw it together on a time crunch…So please don’t try anything reckless, okay?”

It sounded like he was threatening her. She glared at him. “Fine.”

He avoided her gaze while he checked along the underside of the table for the straps’ release button. The metal bands snapped back into the table. Heather held a tentative metal palm over the energy unit in her chest and sat up. Her body hummed softly as it moved.

A disorienting sense of vertigo rushed her as a camera in the back of her head she’d forgotten about activated, adding a third visual feed in her brain.

She carefully shifted her legs around so they dangled off the table, watching her free robotic hand plant on the edge of the surface. She didn’t feel connected to this body, like her consciousness could peel away from it at any moment. She felt as if she were outside looking at it—her organic face translucent and superimposed on the large cartoonish eyes, the oval, metal face set with tear-track seams.

She grudgingly accepted his arm to steady her as she lowered her feet to the floor. She locked out her knees so they wouldn’t buckle and stood still for a moment, noticing the pressure sensors in her limbs. Compared to her organic body, the tactile sense in Larkspur’s android was crude at best.

Finally, she figured out how to close the small “eye” inlaid in the back of her head, and felt a little less like screaming.

She looked at the gym shorts. “Are those for me?”

He handed them over. “If you want. I—I thought the familiarity might be…I don’t know…”

“Thanks,” she said, very quietly. She didn’t feel naked, but at least she could indulge the constant of cloth against her foreign robotic exterior—pretend old rules still applied.

She paused, trying to decide how she would don the shorts, then bent her knees experimentally.

Her legs seemed sturdy enough.

James kept his distance.

She glanced at the guard standing near the door.

“So you have your own lab here,” she said, managing to balance enough on one foot to work the shorts on with her free hand. As she bent forward, she felt something shift inside her head. “More than one lab, it sounds like.”

He nodded, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Good for you,” she droned. As she adjusted the shorts on her robotic hips, she noticed a vague tactile sensation—less a signal from pressure sensors and more a simple awareness of whether or not she was being touched. An electromagnetic field, like Sesame had. She had felt it on her back while on the table. “I’m so glad you paid my life for this.”

James stared at the floor, passive and tired. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.”

“May I pull out that wire?” he asked, uncertainly.

“I can do it.”

She carefully pried her mechanical fingers through the tape, searching for the connection point along the side of her chest cavity. She gingerly pulled the wire free, and set it on the table behind her. “Were you supposed to transfer me?”

“I was supposed to let you die.” He was still wearing the same shirt he’d worn to work the day before, stained with grease with the rolled up sleeves scrunched and uneven.
“Who was that guard?” she asked.

“Not who we thought he was,” James said. “I’m not allowed to give names.” He gestured toward the door, as if he barely had the strength to lift his arm. “This way. Please be careful.”

His sullenness angered her, but she complied. The guard stepped forward as James moved toward the door. Heather found herself sandwiched between the two, her metal feet clicking against the floor.

She tilted her face up to regard the back of James’ head while he opened the door to the other lab. He seemed quite a bit taller than before. Larkspur’s android was shorter than Heather was accustomed to. Her rightful body used to come up to James’ chin, but in this mechanical one, she hardly reached the top of his shoulder.

She recalled the android had some amenities. An unfoldable back panel, infrared vision, hyper-extendable limbs, chemo-sensors, a thermometer, hygrometer… The Larkspur engineers hadn’t stocked the chem packs yet, unfortunately. They might have otherwise helped her escape if she could figure out how to mix something toxic or explosive.

As they entered the other lab, a busy but lonely space with more cabinets and counters, and four tall windows at the far end of the room, Heather’s attention gravitated to her chest. Beams of soft light swirled from the device behind the tape. Her body was in there, ripped from its identity as cell and muscle and bone, slowly being burnt up so she could pretend to exist. Staring into it filled her with revulsion.

Had it incinerated her soul too?

“Is my dad okay?” Heather asked, afraid to.

“As far as I know.” He continued to the counter across the room and pulled out a padded desk chair for her.

Heather ventured forward, and finally her gaze landed upon an incomplete android propped up against the far wall like a corpse. She hesitated. James noticed her looking, and followed the direction of her attention to the makeshift robotic body slumped on top of the counter.

“That’s why you took Larkspur’s android instead?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He searched inside the drawers of a metal tool chest. “I figured waking up in a different body would be nightmarish enough.”

Heather slowly lowered herself into the chair. It was tall for her. As she adjusted it, she considered the simplistic, robotic head, the skeletal limbs.

James unrolled a small, soft case on the counter behind her to the left. It held a spread of fine-headed screwdrivers. As he slipped one from its place, he said carefully, “Heather…I need you to promise you’ll cooperate. If either of us try to rebel, they told me they’ll focus all the consequences on you.” She twisted around to look at him, and to her surprise, his hazel eyes met hers, earnest and afraid. “Please, you have to cooperate.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed. “And stay here forever?”

“We don’t have much choice. This happened because I tried to tell them no. Please. This is for your safety.”

“My safety?”

“I have the resources here to build you a more suitable body—”

“Yeah, but if I can’t leave here, what’s the point?” she said. “My neural network might as well be plugged into a toaster. What kind of life can I have like this?”

James opened his laptop on the counter near the incomplete robot. “I’m sorry.”

“You keep saying that.”

“It’s all I can offer right now.” His back was turned, but the guard that had followed them in stood by the door, watching her closely.

“No it’s not, James,” she said. “You know what’s happening. You know how to stop this.”

He hunched his shoulders. “I don’t,” he rasped. “I can’t.”

Heather’s vision cut out for a moment and her head twitched sharply. She wearily raised a hand to her face. Metal fingers touched the smooth metal panel. She felt she was wearing some kind of helmet. But when she blinked, or spoke, she felt the movement. Her face existed as eyes and the shallow imitation of a mouth set into the metal panel.

“I’m printing you some updated cranial frame supports for your neural network in the other room,” he said.

“That was fast,” she muttered, carefully leaning back into the chair. The light glinted off her exposed thighs. She hated it.

“I had already made the digital models,” he said. “Just hadn’t had the chance to implement them with that body—Are you okay? I saw you twitch or something just now.”

“I don’t know,” Heather said. “It happened earlier. This time wasn’t as strong.”

“Your body could still be calibrating. We’ll keep an eye on it.”

Heather studied her robotic knees in injured silence.

After several more minutes of computer work, he closed the laptop and turned around. “Can you open your cranial plates?”

“I don’t know how,” Heather said.

James came forward and hesitated before reaching over to the top of her head. “May I?”

Heather shrugged. “Have at it,” she said. “You’ve already gone this far.”

She cringed as his fingers contacted her head. He was shaking. He firmly depressed the side panels that extended up in ellipses from the circular auditory devices on either side of her head.

The depression brought a release of pressure, and with a modest hiss, the two parietal panels, and two more anchored at the front and the back of her head opened outward.

Heather winced as her mechanical brain—little more than a wad of chips and wires—was exposed to the outside air. An awareness ticked off somewhere in her mind that her head was open. A mere notification.

He looked inside. With a metal probe, he gently nudged the existing frame, pushed aside some wires in one corner, then the other. Heather felt it in dull breaches of the electromagnetic field covering every exposed surface. She stared at her knees, her hands folded in her lap, waiting for it to be over.

“So, what are you going to do to me now?” she asked.

“Stabilize the neural network and energy core, and get you outfitted with a proper chest panel.”

“And then?”

She heard the soft clink of him setting the tool down. “Keep you safe.”

“What do they want with me?” she said. “With you?”

He leaned against the counter, looking worriedly out the window. “They want my expertise with something, so badly they were willing to destroy my life to get me on board, to end yours to protect it. I don’t want to help them, but I don’t get to decide that anymore. I played right into their hands.”

“I think you’re working for evil people now.”

“I think so too,” he said, unsteadily.

His breath grew shallow. He leaned harder against the counter, trying to get a hold of himself, as his breath tightened up further, wheezy and frantic. He gripped the front of his shirt.

“James?”

His legs crumpled and he sat down hard on the floor.

He put his back against the nearest leg of the counter. He clutched his head and put it between his drawn up knees, gasping for air and shaking and most certainly crying.

The guard watched impassively from the door.

Heather didn’t dare look at James directly, so she watched in her peripheral vision, her shoulders tight and mechanical hands squeezed together in her lap.

Witnessing proud, diligent, controlled James tight in the grips of a panic attack was deeply unsettling. Part of her wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him. But a coldness was rising within her, as she saw him for what he was.

James Siles, for all his layers of masks and attempted approachability, was narcissistic, naive, and cowardly. He had only accepted her friendship, and allowed himself to believe he was her friend too, because she was useful to his ego. He had needed someone to believe in his insanity, and Heather had jumped at the chance to be needed.

Solemnly, Heather listened to his visceral, uncontrolled panic. Him in his organic, breathing body, still trying to understand what he had wrought.

She pitied him. Immensely.

She considered the reflection of the ceiling in her folded robotic hands, wondering what her parents were doing at that moment. Her heart, whatever form it took now, ached for them.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE—SESAME  

Richard sat hunched forward with his elbows on his desk, his hands hooked on the back of his ducked head. Confusion and despair buzzed furiously in his fatigued mind, along with all the conversations he had had over the last eleven hours.

Su had been the first. Heather wasn’t at home. But why would she have been?

Richard had called the guard who was supposed to be on duty with Alder the night before. She had come down with food poisoning and Alder had assured her he would call in someone to cover for her.

Richard had called James dozens of times, but each attempt went straight to voicemail. He had left more voicemails, but all went unanswered. James had dropped off the face of the earth. Along with Heather.

He had contacted the Worthing Police Department, and they said they’d send someone out. But he waited anxiously for half an hour with no arrivals. He called them again to ask if someone was still on their way. He had to explain the situation all over again—but this time, the officer on the phone tried to make light of it, asking about Richard’s mental wellbeing, and finally dismissed his mounting agitation.

So Richard had called the police of the next nearest town, but as soon as he mentioned the address of Larkspur, the officer on the phone shut down.

In desperation, Richard had driven out to the Worthing Police Department himself to talk to someone in person, but they made him wait, explain his presence over and over again to different people. He waited for each newcomer to take notes, but as his stripped patience wore thin, and he started demanding to talk to whoever was in charge, they asked him to leave. He refused, and then they threatened to arrest him.

When it seemed they would actually follow through with that threat, Richard left. He was angry and scared, but he refused to spend the night of his daughter’s kidnapping trapped in a jail cell.

Finally, with nothing else to do, he went home, and he and Su stayed up most of the night, driving down main streets and backroads between Larkspur and their house, hoping to find her, waiting for Heather to make contact. Somehow. She knew both her parents’ cellphone numbers by heart. If she could call, she would.

Richard went to Larkspur very early the next morning to review the surveillance footage, and noticed Alder in the corner, arms folded, supervising James’ acts of violence in the equipment room. He searched for clues in the lab but found nothing new.

He looked up Alder’s contact information from the database, and compulsively tested it. All the emergency contact numbers were disconnected, as was his phone number. He had looked up the home address Alder had given, but when he checked it online, no such location existed.

Richard stared at the wood of his desk, suffering. Nothing made sense. He had the feeling that something terrible and very much over his head was happening, but he had no idea what. Or why.

Su was home, calling Heather’s friends and acquaintances back east, asking if any of them had heard from her. She had seemed to be settling in well, enjoying her internship at Larkspur and academic opportunities coming up in the fall semester. The idea that she would run away didn’t make any sense.

And her relationship with James was strictly a work friendship. Wasn’t it?

“Richard?”

He lifted his haggard face to regard Eve. He glanced aside at the clock. The Bureau would open in a few minutes.

Eve’s brow furrowed. “Have you been here all night?”

Richard shook his head, his throat aching. “Something happened.”

He explained, his voice shaking so hard he could barely get it out. Outlining the situation made it sound even more unbelievable.

“I called more than one police precinct, but no one will help me and I have no idea why.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Su and I have been searching all night but we still can’t figure out what’s going on.”

“Why would James and Alder…” Eve trailed off. She froze “You don’t think—”

Richard threw up his hands. “Of course I think! I worry James has pursued that blasted project behind my back, gone rogue or something—and that Heather’s involved somehow. I never took him for the evil mastermind type.”

“But James would never hurt her,” Eve said. “There’s got to be a better explanation for this.”

“You should have seen his face when I slammed the door on his project. It meant so much to him.

Could he have been angry enough?”

“Pulling something like that wouldn’t help anybody, and James would have known that. He was careful with his ethics in developing the project, only using a live test subject that was otherwise at death’s door.”

“That we know of—”

“What if Heather did help him, and got in over her head? Maybe Alder was pulling strings somehow?” She sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t suppose James will show up today and explain himself.”

“Doubt it. This is so out of character for him. He must be in trouble too. I hope they’re together, wherever they are…” He bit back tears. Heather must be so scared. It killed him not knowing where she was, how to help her, whether she was in imminent danger. “If he hasn’t hurt her.”

His shoulders sagged, and he cradled his face in his hands. The top floor began to stir with the sounds of the other engineers filtering upstairs for work. He glanced at the clock again. The Bureau was finally open.

Richard snatched the wireless phone and punched the speed dial. Upon connection, he listened to a brief automated recording, typed in a code, and listened again.

Eve watched him in silence for a few moments, her jaw tense, and then excused herself to talk to their arriving colleagues.

“Yes, hello, I have a question about one of my employees,” Richard said finally. “Steven Alder. What can you tell me about him?”

As Richard waited on hold, his colleagues appeared a step removed from the doorway, briefing each other of the situation in hushed tones.

“Don’t speculate,” Chelo hissed. “Give James the benefit of the doubt.”

“You’re thinking it too, then,” Greg said.

The person on the other line returned to tell him they had no records about Alder. Richard thanked her and hung up. “What the hell!”

Addie shouldered her way in. Her colleagues hung back. “What is it?”

“Steven Alder,” Richard despaired, pushing his phone away. “The Bureau has no idea who he is, but they’re the one who hired him! How could we be that stupid?” His face slackened. “Unless…”
Unless the Bureau was keeping information from him too. But they couldn’t all be connected. The Bureau wouldn’t take his daughter from him.

“I bet Alder is a common denominator in the other facility’s sabotage too, the way all this is going. But James?” Richard said. “Why would they do this? Are they working for someone or acting on their own? What is there to gain from all this?”

“We’ll find them,” Addie said. “It’ll be all right.”

Richard exhaled unsteadily.

“Do you think it’s illegal to search James’ office?” Greg called from the doorway.

“I glanced in there last night, but nothing was obviously out of order,” Richard said.

“Let’s scour it then.” Greg crossed the hallway in a single step and gripped the doorknob to his colleague’s office. Richard dragged himself up from his desk to follow.
James’ office was in its usual busy state, with half-finished prototypes and sticky notes of code and to-do items hanging from the shelves above his desk. Richard glanced around, still uncertain of what he was searching for, or whether there was really anything to find.

Alder wasn’t a new hire. He had attacked Richard so calmly. As if Richard were a mere loose end. For a split second, he had even thought Alder was going to strangle him to death.

Heather had definitely had her phone with her the last time he saw her. Someone else had to have put it in his office.

He peeked into James’ filing cabinet, but nothing seemed amiss. He rifled through them, recognizing most of the project labels on boxes of prototype pieces, reference material, and analog notes. He found nothing about organorobotic transference.

Even if James had discontinued the project, the information would still have been among his other files. Unless James had separated or destroyed them, a break from his usual pattern.

Greg stepped up behind him, looking over his shoulder. “Find anything interesting?”

“James’ research content for his neural transfer project isn’t here,” Richard said. He glanced around the office, and paused. “Sesame’s box isn’t here either. I don’t remember seeing it yesterday. Did he bring it in?”

“I overheard James telling Heather he’d left it home yesterday,” Chelo said.

“That’s odd.” Greg pulled on the drawers along the other side of James’ desk. “He always brought it in for Heather.” He bent down and peeked in the crevice between the desk and the wall and paused. “Wait—hold on, something’s here.”

He muscled the desk over a little and pushed his arm into the space. Richard came closer as Greg pulled out a food storage container stuffed with a small dark towel.

“What is that?” Chelo moved in as well.

Greg carefully pried up the lid and unwrapped the edges of the towel to reveal the pastel sheen of an antistatic cloth. He exchanged a puzzled glance with Richard, and peeled the folds aside, betraying a wire-ridden mass of computer chips.

Richard’s face went cold. “That looks like Sesame’s mental device,” he said. Greg handed over the container with its electronic bundle.

“James…” Eve sighed from the doorway. “What on earth have you been up to?”

“He really is in trouble, isn’t he?” Addie said. “He seemed shaken this week.”

“He should have said something!” Chelo groaned.

“Maybe he couldn’t,” Richard said quietly. “If he felt like he was in danger.”

“And James has never been good at asking for help,” Addie said.

Richard’s gaze fell again to Sesame’s neural network. He felt sick. “I wonder if we can tap into Sesame’s memories.” Careful to touch it only through the antistatic cloth, he nudged it over onto its side, betraying a rectangular slot. “It looks like James used the universal standard for input ports.” He turned around. “Can someone find an adapter cable for this?”

“On it.” Eve left the doorway.

“Let’s see if we can’t make some sense of this.” Richard handed the bundle back to Greg and went to his office to retrieve his laptop. They all headed downstairs to set up in the lab.

Eve emerged from the storage room with a cord with ends that fit both the neural device and computer inputs.

“Ok, what have you seen, Sesame?” Richard muttered, plugging one end of the cable into Sesame’s neural network and connecting the other with his laptop.

An icon materialized on the screen, but as Richard moved the cursor, it opened on its own. A colorful vortex of code shifted and swirled in countless layers across the folder window, as if it were a portal to a much vaster dimension.

“What is this?” Richard said. He guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised to find something so disorganized. This was an electrical manifestation of a living being’s consciousness, after all. Still, how was he supposed to navigate this?

Unassumingly, the bar at the top of the file domain switched to a single word:
downloading…

“What’s it doing?” Chelo hovered close behind. Her eyes widened as the icon to the internet browser blinked and sprang open. Information flashed past in a vehement cascade—faster than anyone’s eyes could track.

“It’s found the internet,”Addie said.

“Not good…” Richard reached to pull the cord from his computer. It sparked just as his fingers contacted it.

Richard jerked back with a sharp gasp.

“Please do not touch that,” a voice issued from his computer, pieced together from a myriad of voices ripped from their contexts to form new meaning. “I am not finished yet.”

The five engineers gaped at the computer screen in a mix of stupefied amazement and horror.

“Sesame?” Addie ventured.

“Yes!” A handful of different laughs filtered through the laptop’s speakers. Sheer, disjointed delight. “I am speaking! Can you believe this? It is wonderful!”

“What are you doing?” Richard demanded, holding his affronted hand.

“Learning to be human,” it said, just before the screen went black.

“Sesame?” Richard hung back. “Are you still there?”

No answer.

“No! Sesame, we need your help!” Richard lurched back up to the computer in dismay. “You’re the only one who may know what happened to James and Heather! Are you listening? Sesame!”

The screen remained dormant, yet the computer still appeared to be running. Richard couldn’t be sure whether or not Sesame was simply ignoring him—or maybe it had uploaded itself onto the internet, never to be heard from again.

“Well…” Eve said, incredulous.

Richard stared at the black screen in mute despair.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR—MOVING TARGET        

When Erika came to, her first thought was that this was all just an elaborate fever dream, a neurotic coping mechanism that was easier to live in rather than face the questions of how she was supposed to keep living on without her mother.

In this state, she didn’t have to be strong for her family, to be the protective sister, the sturdy oldest daughter, because she was here, at Empetrum, warped out of control. The timing was too convenient, too ridiculously awful to be real.

She lay on her stomach, supported by pillows. Her arms were pulled back and upward, suspended in three points each by what felt like cloth slings. However, it took her a moment to realize that her actual arms, the ones she was born with, were tucked up close to her face among the pillows. An IV clung to one of them.

Slowly, she drew her hands into loose fists. Looming above, out of her field of vision, two other appendages responded the same way, and she wished in that moment that she was just imagining all of this.

She was back in the hospital room in which she’d weathered gene therapy. From somewhere in the corner off to her left, she heard a shift of fabric and paper, the sound of someone setting aside a book and standing up from a chair. Carefully, she lifted her head up enough to turn it the other way to see who it was.

It was Yeun, naturally.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, coming nearer.

“Does it matter?” Erika mumbled wearily. Her whole body ached. “How long was I out?” 

“About a day and a half,” he said. “The activation was harder on you than expected. Nothing some extra electrolytes and a lot of sleep couldn’t fix, though.”

Erika tried to move the gargantuan limbs off her back. They responded, swinging gently in their slings. They ached too. “Why are they still there? What happened?”

“Your body wouldn’t take them back,” Yeun said. “Despite my best efforts.”

A month ago, Erika would have gone weak at the knees at such a statement. Now that the die were cast, she felt surprisingly indifferent. She started thinking about where she could get them amputated when she got out of here. She decided to write it on her hand or something before the mindwipe so she wouldn’t have to do the same brainwork twice.

“Guess your experiment’s done, then,” she said, expecting to be disappointed. “Time for my exit interview.”

Yeun shook his head, dismally. For a fleeting moment, it almost seemed like maybe he was beginning to want her released too, but Erika knew better.

“There’s still a lot to learn from your accessory arms,” he said. “This technology is new, so there’s a lot we can’t take for granted. I need to see how developed the nervous tissue is, whether or not your body will accept them longer term, or how they handle muscle building or healing. We may still be able to get them to reabsorb, in time. I’m getting a lab partner soon, who’s extremely good at this sort of thing, so that day may be sooner than later.”

Erika just stared at him, eyebrows lowered. She sighed and settled in as he left her view to check on her IV setup. “You’re never going to let me go, are you? I bet your boss won’t allow it. Because of that gene therapy, I’m as good as Compatible now.” From the corner of her eye, she could see the other arms, hanging. They reminded her of the articulated skeletons of sea creatures strung up in museums. “Maybe you won’t recruit me to be a soldier, but I’m no different than that kid whose DNA you mixed with mine. There is no end to my usefulness to you, and you’ve already invested all these resources into corrupting my genetic code, so you’ll only keep pushing this experiment out further and further until either you kill me or I escape.”

A heavy silence answered her. She hesitated, thinking maybe he’d slipped out while she was talking. “Yeun?”

She couldn’t see him far over on her other side, but when he spoke up, it didn’t sound like he’d moved at all. 

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “And I’m not going to keep you here forever, either.”

+

James spent the next handful of evenings in the sizable shell of the scanner, working at strange angles or utilizing a portable crane to mount larger, heavier pieces onto the frame, like the translucent panel on the underside of the lid. He was constructing the machine directly inside the wing of his lab furnished for high electrical output.

Benson never asked James to justify any of his activities, nor submit any formal requests to move forward. He didn’t worry James would waste resources or bring something dangerous into existence, never asked James to consider how his efforts could be abused. He only asked how he could help push it forward.

Empetrum seemed to suit his goals and pacing better. He thought maybe he should transfer fully from Larkspur.

His back ached as he craned his arms down inside the body of the scanner, and he let his mind wander to help drown out the sensation. He had analyzed O.R.T-1’s sensory abilities before leaving Larkspur that night, and he’d found Sesame was emitting some sort of electromagnetic field across his surface area. James had traced it to the neural network, possibly an electrical extension to represent the peripheral nervous system. He was excited to tell Heather.

He wished he could tell her about the clinical prototype too. He was eager to see how the neural network would handle the human brain, though as the reality of clinical trials sank in, he was beginning to understand Richard’s misgivings—however hurtful they still were. He found himself worrying no one would be willing to undergo the transfer.

James thought of his body as simply a vessel that enabled him to do his work. If his were dying, he’d gladly make the jump. His father was most likely the same way, but he understood others had different philosophies about the body’s worth and purpose.

He debated calling his parents to fill them in, and perhaps glean a status update. A part of him considered visiting them.

James pulled his arms back from the depths of the scanner and swapped the wrench in his hand for a pair of needlenose pliers. No, he was too busy now.

If he ended up remembering to call them, he decided he would refrain from mentioning his project until it was ready. He wanted to leave no room for doubt when he finally pitched the possibility to his father.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE—DISCONNECT         

By the following Friday, everything was constructed, connected, and functional, and James had begun busying himself with the mechanical replacement body for the first human trial. Now came the time to begin looking for a willing volunteer. He didn’t even know where to begin that phase.

There was no way hospitals would give him access, and he wanted to keep O.R.T. far under the public radar for now.

Perhaps Benson had connections.

Constructing the body was therapeutic busywork, and having regained some extra headspace, James began to wonder about Empetrum’s other projects. He figured he’d ask as soon as the second prototype was truly finished. He especially wanted to know what Yeun, a fellow bioroboticist and a friendly, informal presence, was working on.

As he packed up to leave Larkspur for the weekend, he received a text from Benson:

Good evening. Please let me know when you arrive tonight. I’d like to see how your project is coming along.

“Bye, James!” Heather chimed as she and her father crossed his office door, headed for the stairs.

For once, Heather was excited to leave. They were taking a trip to the beach that weekend.

“Have a good weekend,” James called after them. He typed a quick reply to his other employer: Sure thing. I’m leaving Larkspur now.

When James arrived, he called Benson, and soon, he was scanning his badge to his personal lab. “I’m still working on the mechanical body replacement,” James explained, showing the director into his lab. “But besides that, everything’s finished.”

Benson studied the robot pushed to one side of the counter. Currently, the android was merely an incomplete torso with half a head and a hole in its chest. James pulled a case off a shelf next to the unfinished android and carefully opened it up to reveal the neural network, cradled in anti-static foam. Benson leaned forward to get a better view as James brought over the power core. He admired both without touching, cognizant of the need for electrical grounding prior to handling such devices.

“You always manage to exceed my already lofty expectations, Dr. Siles,” he said, glancing at him. “And the scanner?”

James eagerly led him into the high voltage electrical lab. A smile spread across the director’s face as they neared the machine at the back of the room.

James undid the thick clamps running along the edge of the scanner’s domed lid. He gripped both the handles and pulled it open, revealing the neural transfer devices resting in the sleek depression in the scanner’s lower half. Dormant lights dotted the concave underside of the lid.

James stepped over the tangle of cords snaking away from the machinery, and after plugging two of the main ports into the high-voltage sockets, he returned to the scanner and flipped up a small compartment on the nearest end, depressing the button inside.

The lights in the scanner pulsed to life, and Benson squinted in their sudden intensity. Lights on the neural transfer devices flickered as well, waiting for something to read. The machine emitted a gentle, expectant hum.

“So, everything is functional?” Benson said

“I tested everything I could without transferring myself,” James said, looking at the ready machine with fondness and anticipation. “—that being the DNA targeting system and the mass-to-energy conversion.” He lay a hand on the helmet-like contraption inside the scanner. “—as well as the neural transfer devices. Everything worked beautifully. I was able to improve almost everything from the prototype, which had already worked pretty well in its own right.”

“Indeed.” Benson said. “How’s your little test subject doing?”

“Better than I had expected. Thriving beyond his former potential, actually.” Just two months before, James had been wondering about the very plausibility of O.R.T. But now the project had become mature and tangible, impossibility finally blooming into imminent technological revolution.

“Wonderful,” Benson said with a good-natured smile. “We can start human trials as soon as possible. Say, this weekend, maybe?”

“I was actually just going to ask you about—” James halted as the full meaning of the director’s words took hold. “—this weekend? That soon?”
 “Of course. I can have someone by tomorrow evening at the latest,” Benson replied.

James stared at him blankly, dread knotting his insides. “You haven’t—I mean, nobody outside the Bureau’s jurisdiction knows about this project, right? It’s far too sensitive to get too many people involved this early…”

Benson kindly held up a hand. “No outsiders. Certainly no public involvement. The Bureau has kept this quiet even from the higher ups. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the details.”

“I don’t mean to sound paranoid,” James said. “But…who will the candidate be?”

Benson looked at him, thinking it over. “Probably unwise of me to answer further questions at this point. Getting into classified stuff here.”

“But they’ll be willing, right? Informed and consented?”

“Of course.”

James had a really bad feeling about it. But Benson had been so supportive. He couldn’t continue O.R.T. without Empetrum.

“Oh wait,” Benson suddenly brightened, as if remembering something. “I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? The replacement body isn’t ready, yet. Forgive me.”

James nodded, trying to swallow his anxiety.

“You’re understandably nervous about this. You’re about to revolutionize our world,” Benson said.

“It’s natural to feel afraid.”

James nodded again. Was that what he was feeling? Fear of moving forward? His father didn’t have time for him to stall after coming this far. “I just would like to know who the volunteer is,” he fumbled. “So I can at least make the replacement look somewhat like them.”

“I thought you were on a time crunch?” Benson said. “This is to help your father?”

“Yes—but,” James cut himself off. “Did the Bureau tell you that?”

Benson shrugged. “It came up. It’s why I made sure to reach out to you as soon as I could.”

James looked at his machine, his mind racing. He felt sick. The Bureau had no business knowing about his personal life. Did Richard tell Dhar? It was probably Eve.

“Did someone seriously report me?” James asked, incredulous. “When?”

“I don’t know,” Benson said. “Dhar didn’t take it as an issue. We just want to see you reach your full potential. From where I’m standing, Larkspur seems to be committed to misunderstanding you and your vision. To holding you back.”

James crossed his arms, staring at the floor. “I’ll see if I can finish up enough of the android tomorrow. Can we do the trial on Sunday?”

Benson smiled. “Of course.”

+

James worked on the android late into the night, running on sheer nerves. When he finally stopped to get some sleep, he couldn’t manage it. He lay awake staring at the ceiling in the dark, his mind replaying his conversation over and over again with Benson in his lab.

Benson was probably right. James was just afraid of moving into a step he knew he couldn’t rescind once taken.

He got up early to resume work. He had to be as ready as possible for whomever Benson brought in to experience James’ machine.

Shame haunted him, even as he tried to bury it in work, berating himself for feeling so torn. O.R.T. was somewhat macabre by nature, and James preferred to ignore his own mortality as much as he could. On some level, he lived in constant fear of death, driven by a a need to move, to create.

This project would put him in the room with death constantly. He had to learn to face it.
Benson didn’t seem scared of it.

He also tried to ignore the burn of anger at his Larkspur colleagues’ betrayal. He wondered if he should confront Eve about it, knowing that would put him on even thinner ice. She and Richard had probably already guessed he was continuing O.R.T. behind their backs.

He had done nothing wrong. They didn’t understand him and never would. Heather tried, but she was just a kid. She didn’t know any better, and soon Richard would turn her against him too.

Sunday morning, James managed to bring the android to a tolerable level of completion. It had eyes set into a metal face, with seams affording a decent amount of expression. The cranial panels opened easily, and a highly reinforced and padded frame sat inside waiting for the neural network.

The torso was reasonably finished, power core and diagnostic sensors installed—just needed some extra fine tuning and a polymer shell. Its legs and arms were functional, but barebones. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable of bodies to wake up in, but it would have to do for now.

He didn’t want to let Benson and the volunteer down. He didn’t know what the volunteer’s situation was—how much time they had left, or whether they had just died and James was racing decomposition. He had to come through for the people who believed in him and his project.
Millions of questions coursed through his mind as he returned to his lab later in the day to set up for the trial. Would the volunteer be there alone? Would their family attend? The world was going to change that day.

Yeun came to visit and help him set up a station for his computer, and to prepare the machine. James confessed he was anxious, but Yeun offered a pep talk. He said he couldn’t stay to watch the trial, but hoped James would tell him how it went later.

And then the time had come. The machine hummed gently as it waited on standby. The piecemeal android lay dormant on a gurney perpendicular, wires feeding from the scanner into the neural network in its head. James checked all the wires repeatedly, and booted up the programs.

The door opened, and a couple guards with a medical gurney entered, followed by Benson. On the gurney lay a middle-aged man in hospital pajamas, who seemed to be asleep. He was breathing. James looked for signs of disease, but couldn’t tell just by looking at him.

“This is Joseph,” Benson said, as James stepped away from his computer to follow them to the scanner.

“Hello, Joseph,” James said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Thank you for doing this. I promise you’ll come through just fine.”

“He can’t hear you,” Benson said. “He’s been on hospice for a while, hasn’t been conscious for a couple of days now.”

“If I may ask,” James said. “What’s the cause?”

“Cancer,” Benson said. “Neither he nor his family offered many details.”

“Consent was given?” James asked, opening the lid to the scanner.

“Yes,” Benson said. “We have all the paperwork, if you’d like to see it.”

James’ heart pounded hard. “That’s okay. I believe you.”

The guards helped him lift Joseph into the scanner. As they did, James noticed a gaping hole through the middle cartilage of Joseph’s right ear, cut out with the inner edges scarred over. He froze.

“What is it, Dr. Siles?” Benson asked from a respectable distance behind.

James hardly dared speak, horror soaking through his body. “H—he has a tag.”

James normally didn’t follow politics very closely. He was aware of advancing government overreach, but in researching living arrangements on the west coast, he’d fallen down a couple online rabbit holes about safety bulletins and Conxence activity in the capital city.

Forums warned it was easier than ever to get arrested on grounds of political dissent. People detained under these circumstances were often marked by law enforcement—they cut out a large portion of cartilage from auricle of the right ear with a bladed clamp. After tagging, police released some detainees, but depending on activities and affiliations, others disappeared completely. People were increasingly afraid to associate with those that had been tagged.

James had thought it was more internet conspiracy than truth until that moment. Empetrum was affiliated with the government. He suddenly had a morbid guess for what Benson’s source of “volunteers” was.

“Tag?” Benson strolled up to have a look. “Hm. Well, someone’s personal affairs are none of my business. We can’t deny someone care because of their political affiliations can we?”

“Where did he come from? Did he actually volunteer?” James said, his heart in his throat. “You have to tell me the truth.”

Benson turned to face him, unbothered. “You’re overreacting.”

James moved to unplug the wires from the android’s head with trembling hands. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this. Is he even sick?” He could hardly believe the words coming out of his mouth, but the creeping sense of off-ness that had permeated the last couple of days had burst open into an intense, animal need to escape.

“Heavy accusations there, Dr. Siles.” Benson watched him push the android away from the machine and move to his computer setup to start unplugging and deconstructing it.

“Please send him back to wherever you got him,” James said shakily. “If you won’t tell me—”

“Death row,” Benson said. James halted, stunned. “Sure, he’s tagged, but he’s in the system for arson. Killed three people. Don’t know if that was Conxence motivated or not. Sounds like he went rogue to me, if it matters to you.”

James stared, trying to piece Benson’s words together, choking on indecision. He made it sound like Joseph was dangerous. Giving someone dangerous a robotic body. But James had also been about to end someone’s organic life without their consent. Had “Joseph” consented?

“He’s as good as dead anyway,” Benson said. “His execution date’s coming up. You’re in the pursuit of saving people, right?”

James pulled his laptop from the table and hugged it to his chest, backing toward the door. “This is why Empetrum is a secret, isn’t it…Does the Bureau know you do this?” He couldn’t even use the term, could hardly think it.

Empetrum used human test subjects.

“Of course,” Benson said, waiting for the implications to sink in.

“But this is—profoundly unethical.”

“Reality is complex,” Benson said. “If we stopped to avoid crushing every ethical flower, no progress would ever be made. It’s misguided to try. We’re only partial to humanity because it’s our own species, and for our ends it’s more efficient, more humane, not to waste time with other animals.” He gestured to the man in the scanner. “Empetrum sources criminals, James, scheduled to be euthanized anyway. Many of them, we’re able to mindwipe and rehabilitate when we’re done. They get a second chance.”

“‘Many of them,’” James could hardly speak. “What do you use them for?”

“I’m not confident you’re ready for that information.”

James took another step toward the door, eyeing the guards, afraid they would try to stop him, wondering if they were ex-death row inmates themselves, in a new kind of prison. “You’re right. I’m not.” They couldn’t work the machine without him. “I don’t think I should be here.”

If James abandoned Empetrum, O.R.T. would fail or be dangerously delayed. He would have wasted months of work, his father would be left to die without a failsafe. But if James stayed, Benson would twist him, little by little, to accept monstrosity as well.

Not to mention, he hardly dared to imagine what new, horrible avenues Benson’s federal affiliations would push O.R.T. into. He could create a whole robotic army off the cognitive scan of a single zealot.

Fuck.

Richard was right. James had to cull this project before it really hurt someone.

Biting back the emotion rising in his throat, James turned away from his machine, from Benson, from his would-be test subject.

“I’m happy to give you some time to think about this,” Benson said.

James paused at the door. “I’m resigning.” It hurt to speak. “Thank you for your interest in my work, and for this opportunity, but I can’t continue like this. I’m sorry I wasted both of our time.”

Richard and Eve’s reluctance to let him develop O.R.T. had stymied his progress and hurt his pride, but he had come to rely on Richard’s quiet empathy and Eve’s ethical commitments. It wasn’t about not making waves, James realized, but about being careful to create positive ones. About solving more problems than he created. Maximize good, minimize harm.

The cracks his activities at Empetrum had already made in his relationship with Larkspur were on the verge of collapsing into a full rift, shattering everything he realized he still wanted. Maybe it wasn’t too late to save it.

Lesson learned. No one had to know.

Benson motioned to the guards, who put “Joseph” back on the gurney and wheeled him out. James shifted out of their way, spooked. Benson moved toward him.

“Before you go to Larkspur tomorrow,” Benson said. “Be sure to keep everything you’ve seen and heard here to yourself.” James felt rooted in place. “I’ll know if you try anything. Your role at Empetrum is vital. It would be a shame if that were to change.”

James forced himself to meet his gaze. The taller of the two, James had to look down, but in that moment, James felt smaller than a child.

Benson’s gray eyes were steady and intense. “Do you understand?”

James stared at him, his throat extremely dry. He managed a nod.

Benson’s face softened with a pleasant smile, and he continued on ahead to the door, taking his leave. “Good. We’ll pick this up again tomorrow evening.”

James shook his head, dazed. “I’m resigning, Dr. Benson. I won’t be there.”

The director paused at the door. “Fight it if you want,” he said. “But we both know there’s no going back for you. You want this too much.”

James watched him go, his forehead cold and breathing disturbed. Only after Benson was long gone, did James unplug everything, pull the robot’s neural network and power core, and gather up anything he could think of that could be used to revive the transfer machine without him. He abandoned everything else in his lab and hurried to his apartment on campus, where he hastily repacked his suitcase and stowed everything, including Sesame, in his car.

At any moment, he expected guards to apprehend him, but they all just watched him from their posts. As far as the rest of the facility was concerned, the evening’s events were only business as usual.

He left his Empetrum facility access badge and apartment key in the unit.

James spent the long drive back to Worthing emotionally destroyed. Benson had talked him up, offered unwavering confidence, happy to cultivate his reckless ambitions instead of shying away like Richard and Eve had.

And James had been caught in the spell.

He was ashamed to realize how easy it was for him to start turning his back on Larkspur. For several weeks now, he had known his loyalty was shifting, but he hadn’t cared. He had conflated their hesitance about his dangerous ideas with total rejection, and he had let himself reject them in turn.

Benson’s words still stung as James pulled up to his apartment in Worthing. There’s no going back for you.

Empetrum was just a biotech company. Benson couldn’t force him to do anything, yet James still felt like he was marked.

Evening sunlight spilled into James’ empty apartment in Worthing, casting a long shadow across the floor as he paused in the doorway, Sesame’s box heavy in his hands. The scents of woodwork and paint had since overtaken those of human habitation in the silent, stagnant air. He had returned very seldom to his dwelling over the last month, and the abandoned feeling of it burned his throat.

His eyes locked on something on the kitchen table. Leaving Sesame and his other effects crowded around an end table by the door, he warily ventured toward the object, his heart pounding in his ears. It was a pager of some kind. Under the small rectangular device lay a note, neatly handwritten:

You’ll be needing this soon.

James took the pager in his shaking hands and turned to glance at his hushed surroundings. This certainly wasn’t legal. James exhaled heavily, and dropped into one of the chairs at the table.

No matter what tactics Benson used to try to intimidate him, James resolved to resist. Even if Benson was watching his every move, he debated simply pretending nothing had happened and hoping for the best. Either way, O.R.T. was dead.

The weight of James’ guilt and fear sat so heavy in his chest that he barely had room for breath, for grief that his precious failsafe—this project on which he had hung so many hopes—would likely never move another step forward. He knew there was a way to develop it ethically, but only people like Benson would support him.

There’s no going back for you.

Maybe Benson would pull strings and get Richard to fire him, or try to get him blacklisted so he had to choose between his career or Empetrum. Benson had already proved himself incredibly manipulative, and James had a terrible feeling he would be stubborn as well.
J

ames spent half the night overturning his entire apartment, looking for surveillance devices. His search turned up fruitless, and he lay awake the other half of the night worrying about it.

He had work at Larkspur the next morning. He should have called out sick, but because he had never called out sick in his life, and he feared Benson would out him to his colleagues the first chance he got, James went.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX—O.R.T-2         

James lingered down in the lab after hours, alone with his laptop, still fussing with the program for Larkspur’s android’s A.I. protocols. He couldn’t go home. He couldn’t stay here. He felt like Benson was watching him at all times, and James just wanted to forget everything and pretend he didn’t even exist.

Heather had inevitably noticed he was out of sorts, but he rebuffed her attempts to figure out what was wrong. He couldn’t drag anyone into this.

After two days of silence from Benson, he was starting to hope that maybe as long as James didn’t tell anyone, Benson would leave him alone.

His cell phone rang, and the name in his caller ID killed that hope. He rejected the call and pushed the phone away from him, cradling his face in his hands.

After a few moments of heavy silence, the screen of his phone lit up again, and the gentle beeping sent even more ice creeping up his spine.

James stared at the pixels.

He raked both hands through his hair, trying to get a hold of himself. He considered getting up, going straight to Richard’s office where the director was finishing reports, and confessing everything. Getting fired from Larkspur could never be worse than whatever Benson had up his sleeves. But he was too afraid to face Richard.

“You’re going to want to pick that up.”

James snapped his head up to see a security guard, blond, toned, a countenance of easy determination. Steven Alder. James’ attention touched first on the Larkspur security guard uniform and then the gun in Alder’s hand.

James’ phone quieted, and James stood up, backing away from both the missed call and the uniform as Alder raised his weapon.

“What are you doing?” James tripped backward over a seat left between the counters as Alder advanced. “Alder what are you doing?”

“The director will call back,” Alder said. “When he does, you will answer your phone.”

The phone on the counter began to ring again. When James didn’t move, Alder angled the gun toward James’ chest. Eyes wide, James reached forward, his whole arm trembling, and took the device from the counter.

Tapping the talk button, he raised it to his ear.

+

Richard typically completed and sent off their weekly report for the Bureau database on Friday, but he hadn’t had time before leaving on vacation for the weekend. So, with Heather’s approval, they were staying later that night to catch up instead.

As Richard typed away at his desk, Heather sat leaning against the wall behind it, reading a paperback.

She yawned as she turned a page. She loved her internship at Larkspur, but it had been a long day.

“How are you doing Heather?” Richard’s voice made her look up. He glanced back at her.

“Tired,” she said. “You?”


Richard smiled. “Same.”

“How far do you have left to go?”

Richard slumped forward, propping his chin on a hand. “Half an hour, I hope.”

Heather pulled her cell phone from her pocket to check the time. 6:03.

“Thanks for hanging in there.”

“No problem.” Heather contemplated breaking out leftovers from lunch that afternoon. She pushed her cellphone into the front pocket of her hoodie. Larkspur had a general collared-shirt-and-slacks dress code, but she had started taking cues from Chelo about bringing something comfortable for the morning and evening commutes.

Richard clicked the electronic mouse and resumed typing. As he consulted some notes on his second monitor, he said, “Hey, why don’t you go bug James? He’ll be more interesting than all this paperwork.”

Heather straightened up. “I thought he already left.”

“I don’t think he did.”

James had been out of sorts the last two days, his fidgety, industrious nature on full anxious overdrive. When she’d asked if he was okay, he’d insisted, pallid and on edge, that he was fine.

Maybe he had received bad news about his dad.

She didn’t know how to ask him about it, but maybe he would appreciate some company, at least.

“You sure you’ll be fine here?” she asked facetiously, lingering at the desk.

Richard smiled, amused. “I’ll make it. You have your phone?”

Heather waved it in confirmation on her way to the door.

“Tell him to go home, would you?” Richard called after her. “That one works too hard.”

Heather twisted around, flashing a smile. “I’ll try.”

+

“Dr. Benson,” James said, his voice flat.

“Good evening,” Benson said calmly. “We haven’t heard from you for a while. I’m beginning to think you really meant what you said about resigning.”

“I did.” James apprehensively watched as Alder moved closer to him. It still killed him to say it. “I was impulsive to dive so deep so quickly. I haven’t told anyone and I don’t plan to. I just need to do things my own way.”

“Your ‘own way’ is a straight shot to stagnation and mediocrity,” Benson said. “I thought you wanted to be somebody in the world of biotechnology. To innovate the future.”

“I do—but—”

“Then explain to me what the problem is.”

James hesitated. Wasn’t it obvious? Was he really overreacting? “T-the human trafficking? Experimenting on people without their consent?”

“I believe it’s just you saying they don’t consent.”

“Well, do they?”

“What do you care? They’re felons. They deserve what’s coming to them. They made their own choices in life, yet instead of being senselessly destroyed by a punitive government, they get to help us move our species forward.”

James stared at Alder, trying to keep his cognitive footing. What Benson said made sense to him.

He lived in constant fear of never being good enough. He felt odd and contorted between an idealistic morality Benson had riddled with holes, and a need to feel like his life meant something. He had come too far, worked and suffered too much, for it all to come to nothing.

Maybe Empetrum really was the way forward, but every fiber of his body said no.

“Realistically, I’m arguing with you out of courtesy. It would be better for everyone if you chose this willingly,” Benson continued. “Because whether or not you realized it, Siles, you’ve been handed off. Our shared sponsors want you at Empetrum, and I gave you a chance to integrate on your own terms. Sooner or later, you were going to tell Knight and Delva, and even though you scare them, they would have attempted to fight for you. If their wings were not clipped first, that is.”

James’ mouth fell open, as Benson’s words permeated his ribs like rot. “What?” he whispered.

“The destruction of the facility back in Dunesborough,” Benson said. “Funny that you were so set on it being sabotage, when it was you who sabotaged it.”

James stared, shocked. “But I…I didn’t.”

“Knight held you back, so you ruined this facility too. Set them back yet again, made all of them regret ever associating with you.”

“You can’t do this…”

“We’re not negotiating anymore, I’m afraid,” Benson said, with a lilt in his voice, like he’d grown bored of this whole thing. The mere annihilation of James’ life.

“They’ll never believe that I destroyed our work,” James said, his voice shaking.

“Will they?”

“You can’t make me do anything—” He halted as he heard the line click. “Benson? Do you hear me? I’m not going back to Empetrum!”

Alder stepped forward, and James shifted back in fear, all his bewilderment and anger draining out of him. “Let’s do this quick and easy. Stand over there. Let me do my job, and then we’ll go to Empetrum and do what the director wants.”

Abruptly, James tried to dodge around the side of the counter. Maybe he could make it to his car without sustaining a mortal wound. But his car keys were up in his office. He couldn’t bring the Knights into this. Could he just—run? Could he call the police or were they in on it too?

“Hey—” Alder grabbed James’ arm. He tugged him back and easily twisted his arm behind his back. James struggled but Alder caught and twisted the other arm too. “Cut your losses before you make this any worse. Too many people are banking on your coming through for you to turn out to be a passive, spineless coward.”

“Okay,” James said, his throat tight. “Okay fine! I’ll continue research.” He felt like scum, but he needed to buy time. “Just leave Larkspur alone.”

“Too late for that,” Alder said. “Forgive us for not trusting you.”

“Why are you doing this?” James tried to wrench his arm from Alder’s grip. Alder twisted his arm further. He wrenched it painfully, and James’ cell phone slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. “Larkspur’s trying to do good work! Harming them and destroying my reputation will accomplish nothing.”

“We could have done this quietly,” Alder barked. “But you tried to run. You act on our terms, now.”

The door to the lab opened, and James’ heart leapt into his throat.

“Heather run get out of here!” he shrieked, pulling against Alder’s grip. Pain spiked up into his shoulder.

Heather jumped. “What—”

“Go—” James’ voice cut off abruptly as Alder released his arm, jerked his shoulder up and jabbed the side of his fist into James’ throat.

James choked, clutching his neck and gasping for breath.

“James!” Heather shifted forward. The door closed behind her, sealing them in the soundproof lab.

Alder raised the gun toward her. Heather froze and held up her hands.

“No—” James lurched toward the gun, but Alder quickly deflected him with a kick to the ribs.

James staggered and fell. He tried to get up, but doubled over, folding his arms across his stomach. Stars plagued his vision, his ears ringing.

“Stay where you are,” Alder ordered. “Both of you.” He kept his aim trained on Heather. “Siles, you’ve just ruined everything.” He switched the gun to his non-dominant hand, and pulled a different device from his belt. He pointed it at her. “She’s seen too much.”

“Leave her alone,” James pleaded. “She won’t tell anyone. I’ll go. I’ll go and work and no one will ever have to see me again. Please—”

Alder sighed. “Sorry, kid. This isn’t personal.” He fired the other device at her, and a small metal dart lodged into her arm.

She fell against the door with a gasp, her hand flying to her arm. The door opened a crack and she tried to slip through the space, but then Alder was there. Heather was too frightened to make a sound as he tugged her back into the lab. The door sealed them back inside.

James stood up with difficulty, bracing a hand on the nearby counter for support.

Alder guided Heather around so his back was to the door, blocking the exit. Only then did he release her. She stumbled back toward the other exit near James. He reached out to catch her, and she fell heavily into his arms, her face ashen and confused, her eyes unfocused. He had hoped to try to run, to lead her to safety, but she swiftly lost consciousness.

“What was in that?” James asked, his voice shaking.

“Something lethal,” Alder said gravely. “Untraceable.”

“What?” James gasped. Tears filled his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. “But she’s just a kid.” He slowly sank to the floor with Heather’s body, his voice waning as his strength drained out of him. “She had nothing to do with this…Is there an antidote?” He couldn’t wrap his mind around what had just happened. How things had escalated so quickly.

Alder shook his head.

“Let me save her,” James said. He pressed two fingers to her jugular, feeling for a heartbeat. It was slow, weakening.

Alder began an exasperated sigh, but James cut him off with rage, “Benson wants a transferee, right? I’ll do it tonight. Let me save her!”

Alder stared at the pile of them, annoyed. “Fine, but she won’t leave Empetrum.” He rounded the counter and picked up James’ cracked cellphone from the floor. “Get what you need together. I’m knocking Knight out upstairs and then we’re finishing up here and leaving.”

“Don’t kill him too—” James gasped.

“I won’t. Relax,” Alder grunted. “Don’t leave this lab until I come back.” He paused at the door. “I’ve locked all the exits. I’ll know if you try anything, and I don’t think I have to remind you what’s at stake.”

James watched him go, pain and fear and self-hatred pulsing through his body while he sat on the cold floor with his victim.

His victim.

James had brought this evil here.

He felt for her pulse again. He couldn’t find it.

No one would try to rescue James from Empetrum after this, even if they came for Heather. Benson was getting exactly what he wanted.

“I am so sorry,” James whispered, brokenly. He gently laid her down and stood up, brushing at tears as he moved to comply with Alder’s orders. The words dripped hollowly from his lips like a leaky faucet. “I’m so sorry…”

Within minutes, Alder returned. At gunpoint, he directed James to gather what he needed for the impending transfer. He originally wanted James to stab Larkspur’s android through the face for the engineers to find, but James managed to convince him to let him take it for Heather’s new vessel.

He couldn’t stomach the idea of letting her wake up in the one he had hastily constructed for Benson’s deadlines.

Then, he went back in for Heather. He didn’t have much time before her neural integrity began to break down.

The facility stood dark and watchful as he transported her through the lobby and out the front doors, his arms locked under hers and her feet dragging on the floor. She was still warm, but her heart had stopped. Through the haze of frantic calculation, lining up how he was going to outfit and run the machine before their time ran out, he searched for some human feeling other than a swiftly growing numbness, but it had burnt out. Incinerated in the sheer horror of this moment.

Alder helped him get her into the back seat of James’ car, and James carefully looped the middle seatbelt around her. They packed bags of ice around her head. In bleak, heavy resignation, he closed the door.

Finally, Alder walked him back inside the facility, and turned the surveillance system back on so it could record James destroying key members of the equipment room while Alder stood watchfully in the doorway. Alder had told him to make it convincing, or they were leaving Heather there.

Maybe Alder was lying to him, and she was just sedated in a particularly convincing way, like in a spy movie. Maybe she would wake up before he had to transfer her. He could buy some time, try to strike a deal. Keep her safe from Benson.

As Alder drove him away from Larkspur, up into the hills, further and further from civilization, James clung desperately to that small hope.

+

Heather became aware of dark and silence. Occasional lights burst across her vision—flashing, forking like lightning, and flickering away. She tried to remember how she’d gotten there. She remembered being afraid.

Suddenly, light burst in, rooted into her face and ripped down the length of her body.

Her chest seized up. She couldn’t breathe. Her back arched and eyes snapped open wide. She saw the outside contour of some kind of machine, barely out of view. Wires crowded the edges of her vision. She was screaming, but it was odd. Strangled, buzzing. Her ears didn’t register it properly, cutting in and out like a mistuning microphone.

Her head was open. Arcs of fire pulsed down her limbs.

James stood behind a computer setup across the room, hands clasped anxiously under his nose, next to a man with narrow glasses.

She waited, blankly, in those few delirious seconds, for her throat to unlock, for air to fill her lungs.

But it never did.

Darkness rushed out from behind her eyes and dragged her under.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE—EMPETRUM       

“And, that’s it,” Yeun said brightly. “Last treatment done.”

Erika carefully moved from her side to her back, wincing at the soreness in her upper body.  Lately, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her shoulders were uneven somehow. It was subtle, but they felt wrong against the pillows. Yeun said there weren’t any obvious signs of deformation when she had asked.

She had also grown a little taller, she’d noticed. Her clothes were slightly shorter than she remembered. She didn’t feel at all at home in her own skin and hated the suspicion that it would only get worse from here.

He gave her a tiny plastic cup with vitamins and a glass of water.

“We’ll let things settle over the weekend, give your body a chance to produce some more stem cells naturally,” he said as she methodically put the pills in her mouth and washed them down. They took the edge off the crushing, restless fatigue. “If nothing else exciting happens, we’ll remove the cannulas on Monday and transition into phase two.”

Erika nodded. She looked forward to being free of the tubes, even though their damage had been done. After over a month of imprisonment at Empetrum, escape felt more and more like something she thought about just to pass the time.

“So that was bad, then,” she said. “What happened the other night.”

Yeun shrugged. “Neutral. A strong reaction, yes, but I ran diagnostics while you were sedated and you’re totally fine.”

Her brow furrowed. “But definitely not a normal response to stem cell therapy.”

“Your last treatment did have a little activator serum in it,” Yeun said. “To help get things going.”

“What’s activator serum?”

“A catalyst that’s unique to this and related projects.”

Erika blinked, unsatisfied. “So what is phase two?” She watched him pour her a small cup of coffee. “Or have I not earned an explanation yet?”

“I don’t want to worry you,” he replied as he doctored the drink with sugar and cream. They’d been through this enough times that somewhere along the line she had mentioned how she liked it, and he remembered without being reminded.

“That itself worries me,” she replied, accepting the coffee.

After some deliberation, he said, “I’m going to take a blood sample, then do some scans.”

“Looking for what, exactly?”

“Altered genetic sequences, and new neurological tissue,” he said, beginning to clean up his effects. He passed off the chrome coffee pot to the nearby guard.

“Yes, but for what?”

“You’re doing great, Ms. Hodgson,” Yeun said, smiling nicely as he took his leave. “You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

Then he was gone, and Erika leaned her head back with a exasperated groan.

+

Benson insisted that James come check out the facility as soon as possible. They set up an appointment for the next evening, as soon as James could arrive after work.

Empetrum lay twice as far from Worthing as Larkspur, located high in the surrounding hills where overhanging trees crowded along winding roads.

James’ nerves intensified as the terrain became increasingly rugged and he could no longer utilize his GPS. While he received surprisingly excellent cell phone coverage, the turnoff he was looking for was unmarked and uncharted—so he had to rely solely on Benson’s directions.

Finally, he made a right turn onto a narrow gravel road that swiftly disappeared into the trees. He proceeded warily, but before long, the gravel melded to pavement. At the last bend, he spotted the first checkpoint, a chainlink fence punctuated with brick pillars and barbed wire.

He pulled up to the security booth. A guard in a black uniform stepped up to the driver’s side window, which James rolled down to hand him his Larkspur ID. “My name is James Siles. I have an appointment with Dr. Benson.”

The man returned the badge, lifted the vehicle barrier, and waved him through. James found himself driving through another stretch of forest, occasionally spotting guards patrolling. Another, taller fence loomed up in front of him. He stopped at a sliding gate, and another guard met him at the window for verification.

Looking over his badge, the second guard said, “Continue straight, and you’ll find a parking lot around the other side of the facility.” She waved at a man in the security booth behind the fence, and with a low hum, the imposing section of fence slid over so James could drive through.

As his car skirted the rim of the concrete courtyard surrounding the building, James leaned forward over the steering wheel to look up at the facility, two stories high with tall, thin windows slashing lines of transparency in the walls, and it wasn’t the only building on campus. Other structures watched from behind another interior fence, the landscaping style and outdoor common areas suggesting they were residential rather than additional labs.

Other patrolling guards helped wave him over to the correct parking area, and he got out, taking a moment to survey the campus, contained within the fence and the wall of trees beyond. The air was clear, quiet, and invigorating.

James ventured up to the front entrance, where a short bout of steps led to sleek double doors set into an alcove of the outer wall. A woman waited at the top of the steps, calm and formal. Her black and violet business attire, razor sharp bob and immaculate makeup gave off such an intimidating air of sophistication that James felt severely underdressed in his button down shirt and slacks.

“Good evening, Dr. Siles,” she said, extending a hand. “I’m Lynn Walker, Benson’s administrative assistant.”

James shook her cold hand.

She opened one of the doors. “This way, please.”

James followed her through the entrance into a short L-shaped hallway. At the single frosted glass door at the end, she placed her index finger on a small oval scanner and the two gained entry to a wide corridor that extended in two directions. James glanced around, his gaze first finding a wall of paneled glass across the way that looked into a bright, spacious biology lab.

Walker led him to an elevator in the wall to their right, which they took to the second floor. Skirting a balcony view of the lab below, he followed Walker deeper into the facility, where he found himself stopping at a door near the end of what looked like a hallway of office spaces.

M. H. Benson, Director, a panel on the door read.

Walker knocked, and James recognized the voice giving them permission to enter.

She pushed the door wide open. “Director, James Siles is here.”
 A huge window spanned the back wall of the office.

Silhouetted against it, a man stood up from a large wooden desk. “Thank you, Walker.”

She made a discreet gesture for James to step forward. The young engineer obeyed, entering the neat, cozy office accented with dark wood and burgundy tones. The door closed behind him.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you face-to-face,” the director said, rounding his desk and extending a hand. “I’m Michael Benson.”


Benson was a slim individual, with good posture, even features, and thin rectangular glasses. His presentation was just as upscale professional as Walker’s, and he carried himself with the air of one well-versed and assured in his trade, as if he had held his position for many years. However, James guessed he couldn’t have been much older than thirty.

“It’s great to meet you.” James shook his hand, noticing as he did that a large burn scar faded the skin of Benson’s right hand.

Benson smiled, a soft, confidence-inspiring expression. “I’m very excited you’ve agreed to work with us, even if it’s only part time for now.”

“Thank you for being so accommodating,” James said. He was extremely grateful of the liberties Benson was allowing him to take. They both knew a stunt like this was unprofessional at best, but even with little information about James’ situation, Benson eagerly made room for it. “Though, at least for the next month, I expect I’ll be here enough to fill a standard forty-hour week.”

“Glad to hear it. I understand the demands of your position at Larkspur may make structured work hours a hassle, so how often you come in will be your choice. I had the customary living arrangements prepared so you can have that resource at your disposal, though boarding here is not mandatory, of course.”

“Thank you,” James said.

Benson gestured at the door. “Would you like to see your lab?”

James followed him out and walked beside his tranquil gate as he headed down the hallway. At the end of the passage, just before it opened up to the section with the elevator, Benson placed a passing hand on the nearest door. “This is your office, to use however you like.”

James peeked in the window as they continued to the elevator.

“By the way, how’s that project of yours going?” Benson said, as the elevator arrived to take them to the first floor.

“Really well,” James said. “The first trial was successful. It was miniaturized for a rodent test subject, and I’ve just about come to the end of my personal ability to fund the next phase.”

“Then you’ve come to us right on time,” Benson said. “Does this project have a name?”

“Organorobotic Transference.”

“I like that,” Benson said, smiling. “I hope you’ll tell me all about it as soon as we’re finished looking around, if you have some time to spare.”

“Of course,” James said, nervous and extremely flattered.

Upon reaching the first floor, the director took a right. However, he slowed on their way past the airy, pristine lab beyond the paneled windows.

“This is the shared biochem lab,” he said. “Occasionally we need extra counter space or storage, or a change of scenery. But each of us have our personal laboratories.”

James’ gaze lingered on the lab beyond, the fume hoods, black epoxy resin counters set with sinks and gas hookups, the refrigerators, centrifuges, and transparent overhead cabinets full of glassware. Giddiness stirred in his chest. He loved this place already.

“Dhar passed along your resume to us,” Benson said as they continued on. “But it says nothing about where you acquired the biochemical training you’re employing in Organorobotic Transference. That requires quite a bit of neurobiological understanding as well, doesn’t it?”

“My father’s a neuroscientist,” James said. “He trained me.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Benson said. “Be sure to let me know how I can best support your many talents.”

James nodded, sheepish. “Thank you.”

Benson stopped at a door near the end of the hallway beyond the communal lab. “This is yours. I apologize, it’s a bit of a mess right now, but it should have some reason to it by the time you’re ready to set up—which I assume will be Monday?”

James nodded, his heart in his throat as he prepared to see his very own personal engineering lab for the first time.

Benson opened the door and flicked on the light. A stack of black crates and moving boxes sprawled in the middle of the room, fringed by the angular forms of machinery covered in sheets.

A long, resin counter hugged the adjacent wall, underneath tall windows.
The discordant space was the most beautiful thing James had ever seen.

“This is all mine?” James stepped forward, exploring the clutter in growing excitement.

“It is,” Benson said.

James was checking labels and peeking under sheets at the equipment, “Kamuntu Inc.? This is the best of the best—”

“Is it to your satisfaction?”

“Are you kidding?” James grinned, inspecting the parameters on a medium-sized 3D printer across the room. “This is incredible.” He noticed a door to his left, and moved to open it.

The tall windows shed light on a polished floor, countertops, a CNC mill, lathes of various sizes, desktop computers, and an industrial-sized 3D printer. He took another left, and tried the handle of a sturdy metal door. It was unlocked.

The lights were motion activated, and as he entered, sudden illumination lit up the room. It had a cement floor and heavy duty electrical hookups complete with power grids, emergency breaker boxes, safety equipment, and a powerful ventilation system. He froze in the doorway, awestruck.

“Like it?” Benson said from behind him.

James could only utter a dumbfounded scoff in confirmation.

“Let me know if we need to build this up a little more,” Benson said as James drifted deeper into the room to examine the equipment. “I’m a biochemist myself. Our previous bioroboticist never tackled anything of your magnitude, so I’m not sure how much energy capability you’ll need for your work. I assumed it would be considerable.”

“Oh yeah, this should do it,” James said, assessing the hookups. “This room can easily power the full-sized prototype.” He could even rebuild Larkspur’s generator prototype in here, if doing so wouldn’t lead to immediate legal incineration.

“Good.” Benson said, pleased. He let James poke around a bit longer before calling him back. “If I may interrupt, Dr. Siles, there’s one more place at your unlimited leisure—which I think you’ll enjoy.”
Down the hallway, through the clean and bright communal biochem lab sat a modest single door. “This is the data library.”

Ten rows of long, heavy bookcases lined the space, with workstations at the room’s edges. James was still reeling from his tripartite heaven of a personal lab, and he didn’t think he could be even more delighted, yet Benson had astounded him yet again.

“We have all of this and more in the online databases, of course,” Benson said as James pulled the nearest academic journal from its place and flipped through its pages. “But, in my opinion, nothing beats print.”

A person after James’ own heart. Digital media was incredibly useful and efficient, but there was something about analog—the smell of paper, printed text under lamplight, the texture of a ballpoint pen scratching out ideas—that felt real and grounding.

“This is so impressive.” James slipped the volume back among its counterparts. He could literally live in any one of the places Benson had shown him.

“Any questions?” Benson said.

“You said there was on campus housing available?” James was considering staying at Empetrum until he had finished the second prototype. He could commute straight to Larkspur on weekdays.

Benson smiled pleasantly and turned. “Follow me.”

As they reemerged into the lab, someone else had just entered, donning a crisp white lab coat.

“Dr. Yeun,” Benson said. “Good timing. This is James Siles, our new roboticist.”

“Pleased to meet you, Siles,” the scientist said, extending a hand with an open, unguarded smile that lit up his entire face. “Elias Yeun.”

“Yeun specializes in biorobotics, like you,” Benson said as James, surprised and elated, accepted the handshake. “There will be plenty of time for you two to bond over the details later, but for now, we have housing to survey, and we should let you get back to what you were doing, Dr. Yeun.”

“Of course,” Yeun said. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his lab coat and smiled again.

“Nice to see a new face around here. I’m a fan of your work, Dr. Siles, what little I’ve heard of it.”

James’ eyes widened, his face instantly hot. “Really?”

Yeun nodded amiably. “Our director definitely snagged a good one. I hope you can thrive here.”

“Thank you so much,” James stammered. He realized Benson had left them, raising a hand as he departed. He tripped to catch up with the director. “I’ll, uh, see you around? Nice to meet you, Dr. Yeun.”

“Likewise,” Yeun called after them. “Welcome aboard.”

The housing buildings were through a smaller fenced partition, stationed off to the side of campus. The larger of the two was for the majority of the facility staff, and a smaller, two-story brick apartment building belonged to the research scientists.

“Do you have research projects here too?” James asked as the director led him up the stairs that bisected the latter complex, which held four apartments per floor.

“I am.” He unlocked the door of the one he explained would be James’ and let him inside.

“Biochemical genetics. My work revolves around metabolic resilience and gene therapy, but we can get into that later.”

The apartment was already furnished, with ample natural light and no noise pollution due to the rural location. Just breathing the air filled James with energy.

“Consider this space yours to use how you want.” Benson lingered in the entryway while James roved among the high-ceilinged rooms, getting a feel for the place. “Just let me know if you plan any renovations, and I’d appreciate if you kept your experiments in the lab.”

“Can do.” James couldn’t believe he even had creative freedom of his company provided living space.

Soon, the two headed back to Benson’s office where they talked business, ironing out the particulars of James’ unorthodox employment wishes. Then Benson asked for more details regarding O.R.T. After his failure to convince Richard, James began with trepidation, but he quickly found Benson easy to talk to. He listened with interest, commended James’ ethical considerations with his choice of test subject, and received his intention to continue to clinical trials with ready enthusiasm.

On the trip back through the forested hills to Worthing, James couldn’t stop smiling. Everything about Empetrum inspired him. He could do whatever he wanted there, and any project he chose to pursue would be met with full support.

Finally, nothing stood in his way.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—PHASE TWO     

In between setting up his lab at Empetrum over the weekend, James closely monitored his test subject. Everything remained stable and functional, and O.R.T-1’s cognition and learning capacity appeared to have improved. It was settling into its new state of being, and its behavior quickly evolved based on the parameters of its body plan. It stopped trying to use its nonexistent sense of smell and instead turned to a more deliberate use of touch and observation as its primary senses.

It was learning how to rear up, and when it fell onto its side, it could already right itself without help. It used its flat metal snout to push around objects in its path, or pry against whatever it could reach when James had to hook wires to its back to run diagnostics.

O.R.T-1, which Heather had started calling Sesame, much preferred Heather over him—admittedly with good reason. Heather was nothing but tenderness and love with it, a source of escape from James’ battery of tests. She offered it things to look at and explore, she petted and complimented it, and it was always eager to interact with her, even though she’d only had two days so far to bond with it.

James passed it off to her as soon as she came to greet him Monday morning.

“How are you doing?” she asked James, neglecting to open the box. Her tone suggested she wanted more than a monosyllabic answer.

“Fine,” he said, opening the door to his office. “Yourself?”

“Good,” she murmured, not following him inside.

After a few moments of uncharacteristic silence from his friend, James paused removing his laptop from his bag and turned his attention to her. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” she said quickly. She removed the robot from its box. “I’m just—it’s nothing.” She carefully situated O.R.T.-1 in the crook of her arm. “Have you been testing him? How does it all look?”

“He’s very stable,” James said. “As far as I can tell, everything worked perfectly.”

“Mm…” She ventured forward and set the box on his desk. Stroking Sesame’s nuzzling face, she said. “Are you really okay?”

“I’m fine,” James insisted as kindly as he could, stepping out into the hallway. “I got over it.”

“Already? I mean, you must have shaved off a week of your life working on that thing.” Heather followed him down the stairs.

“Probably.” He pushed his way through the door into the lab. Richard was in the lab, and James didn’t want to keep talking about this. He managed a smile as he held the door open for her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were more attached to that project than I was.”

“But you were—You mean you really are over it? Completely and totally over it?” Heather lowered her voice.

“I’d like to move on,” James said simply.

Heather paused, letting him break away from her to attend to his work. The android lay like a cadaver on a chrome counter in the back lab, waiting for the device that would bring it to life.

+

The songs of frogs and crickets wafted into James’ lab through the open window. The breeze from outside was gentle enough that it didn’t disturb his notes sprawled across the counter. The thick, green scent of local flora stirred a sense of nostalgia in James he didn’t realize he still harbored, dredging up a small soft animal part of him that had missed the climate of his childhood.

Benson came to check on him after a few hours. James had to close the door to the fabrication portion of his lab, muffling the gallant hum of the automated CNC mill as it processed components for the human-sized neural network.

“I just came to let you know I’m heading out for the night,” Benson said. “Is there anything you need before I go? I see you’ve already begun, so I assume the materials we gave you are working out?”

“Yes, very much so.” James smiled, ablaze with inspiration. “Thank you.”

“Splendid,” Benson said. “I forgot to mention it before, but extra supplies are stored in the room across from your lab. You have badge access to it. If there’s something you need that isn’t there, I’d be happy to order it for you.”

“Thank you,” James said. “I actually wanted to ask you about a certain material I’ll need for the energy unit.”

“A substance capable of handling a staggering amount of energy?” Benson smiled knowingly.

James nodded. A feeling of warmth and belonging crackled through his chest. “For the first prototype, I used a tungsten alloy—”

“I believe we have something better. I’ll do a little digging and have Dr. Jones ready to show you tomorrow evening when you come in. She’s our materials engineer.”

The humming ceased from behind the door to the fabrication lab. The roboticist glanced back.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” Benson said. “Good luck. If you have any more questions, feel free to come by my office when I’m there, and I believe you have my number as well.”

“Yes,” James replied, thanking him again.

Benson nodded and took his leave. “Good evening, Dr. Siles.”

“Good evening,” James replied, his hand already twisting the handle to attend to his equipment.

+

The Empetrum facility was quiet the following afternoon. Siles was still at Larkspur. The other scientists were between breakthroughs or crises for the time being, and Michael Benson was waiting on an immunoassay. He had another day before he needed to make a report to Empetrum’s sponsors, so he had time to procrastinate.

Not to mention, he didn’t feel like figuring out how to reiterate for the millionth time in a way they would believe that Empetrum was making every effort to develop a mature form of Non-Comp as quickly as possible.

It was pointless trying to push back. Their sponsors were a pack of businesspeople and politicians with no scientific frame of reference, who refused to accept the simple facts of how long stem cell therapy took. Vihaan Dhar was really the only one willing to take his word for it, but that man’s capacity for patience got on Benson’s nerves in other ways.

While the government constantly breathed down Benson’s neck, nobody was ever asking about when Larkspur would get up to speed. Dhar was happy to coddle Knight and his lot, letting them pursue their nice projects, oblivious to what their own android project was inevitably going to lead into.

With the political resistance movement determined to throw a wrench into whatever they could in the capital city up north, everything boiling under the surface was going to come to light soon.

And when Larkspur caught on, he expected every one of those engineers to refuse to proceed as a matter of principle. Even though the government had graciously kept Larkspur afloat in their nearly two decades underground, Knight and Delva, that bleeding heart former director who refused to let go, would lead the charge to pull out and try to go private.

At least Dhar had finally given Benson the go-ahead to reach out to Siles, after months of pestering. A young engineer with so much potential deserved a fighting chance to become truly revolutionary.

But Benson didn’t want to think about that right now. For now, he had a phone call to make. Considering an index card he had just received from his administrative assistant, he retrieved the cordless phone from his desk and dialed the number on the card. Walker never failed him.

The voice of the woman who answered struck a deep chord within the director, past impressions of encouragement and frustration, care and neglect. Nostalgia, and deep, deep resentment.

“Hello, Mom,” he said. “Found you again.”

After a few moments of silence, Alice Benson’s voice hummed, “Great job. You want a gold star or something?”
 Benson scoffed and leaned against his desk. His tone turned probing, “You not only moved back into the state, but settled in the same county as the facility. Why?”

“Would you buy that I missed you?”

Benson blinked. “No.”

“A gesture of goodwill, then.”

“Let’s get to the point.”

“I’m letting you win,” Alice said. “I’m sick to death of this. I haven’t done anything to cross you since the day I left, and you can bet I don’t intend to. I want to stop glancing over my shoulder. I’m nearby now. Come get me if you want, bug my phone, keep watching my life, but you’ll just be wasting your time. Especially as I fully intend to ignore you.” She paused. “So, there’s your reason. What will you do, Dr. Director?”

Benson’s brow furrowed as he tried to read between the lines of his mother’s exposition. “As you said, I’ll continue to keep tabs on you.”

“Just let me know who’s watching me this time so I can invite them to coffee once in a while,” Alice retorted. “No doubt you’ve noticed this paradox: I’m not a threat, not an asset. Yet you just keep hovering.”

“You defected without a mindwipe. That does makes you a threat.”

“Perhaps to celebrate your stalking victory, you might finally fill me in on what you were thinking back then? I understood what I was setting myself up for when I decided to leave Empetrum. Why did you bend the rules? Why do you let me walk free, knowing what I know?”

“As long as you behave, I have no reason to confine you.”

“And if I decide, say tomorrow, to suddenly broadcast everything I knew about Empetrum to the world?” The spite in Alice’s voice stung.

“Why are you threatening me?”

“Because you called to gloat, asshole.”

Benson covered the receiver and took a very long, exasperated breath. “Your safety is up to you,” he said finally. “If you step out of line, I may not be so lenient again.”

Alice laughed bitterly. “Wow thanks.”

“Do you understand?” Benson demanded.

“Perfectly.”

“Make sure you don’t forget it, then.”

“I won’t. Rest assured.”

“Good.” Benson firmly replaced the receiver. He stared at it for a moment, his breathing disturbed, heat blooming up the sides of his face.

Benson’s grandfather wouldn’t have hesitated that day, had he still been the director. There were rules about leaving Empetrum, and Alice had broken them. Benson had broken them too. The decision was still a thorn in the director’s side, an insult to Empetrum and what it stood for, a lingering reminder that, while Benson was well trained to be his grandfather’s successor, he was still too soft in a few places.

And even when he was trying to intimidate her, Alice knew just where to stab.

+

Nothing happened over the weekend, so, as promised, Yeun took the stem cell cannulas out of her spine and arm. He took blood for analysis. She wished hard that something in this whole process would destabilize, so he would just let her go home.

But who was she kidding, she thought, lying still in the bed of an MRI machine. So far, Yeun was getting what he wanted. Ages ago now, she had just wanted to get close enough to see what Empetrum looked like, to blow off steam, maybe put it on a priority list for the Conxence. But instead, she was giving her enemies exactly what they wanted, the development of human weaponry of some sort. Among the IVs and endless waiting and Yeun’s bedside manner, she had almost forgotten that’s what this place existed for.

It all seemed so pointless. 

At the end of the day on Thursday, after all the results had come back, she presumed, Yeun came into Erika’s room with a folder.

She watched him with a bored expression as he stole forward. Erika thought about making some wise-cracking remark as she’d grown accustomed to, poking at him, never able to nettle him much. But a profound sense of unease permeated the air as Yeun went to a free-standing bulletin board along the wall, pulled it up to the foot of her bed with a little space for him to move, and opened up his folder.

He took a steadying sigh, swiveling around to face her. “We’re all set to go for phase two,” he said.

Erika looked at him, solemnly, her hands folded in her lap. Her shoulders were pressed back against a wide electric heating pad. It calmed the tingling and tenderness of the region—barely. The restless feeling of deformation at the lower part of her shoulder blades was enough to make her want to chuck the pad across the room at him, wires and all.

“Not until you tell me what phase two is,” she said.

“That’s why I’m here.” He pinned up the first image from the MRI, which depicted a rear view of her neck and shoulders, in minimalistic black and white like an old photo negative. She watched him put four of them up, one by one. All focused on the nerves of her neck, arms, and upper back. His folder held more pages, but he closed it. “The stem cell therapy and stimulation of neurogenesis has been successful so far,” he said. “We’re seeing another brachial plexus forming here, around T-7,” he pointed to the part of her vertebral column corresponding to about the middle of her chest region. Erika’s stomach sank. “The brachial plexus, of course, provides the vital musculocutaneous innervation for your arms, chest, and shoulders.” 

Yeun was trying to hide behind big words, but Erika had taken enough science in college to know what that meant. The result of their twisted gene therapy was forming a second set of nerves. Specifically, nerves that commanded her arms and shoulders. The purpose of this was beginning to dawn on her, but she still couldn’t guess what the end application was. The fact that he was so reluctant to tell her made her extremely nervous.

“Why would I need another brachial plexus?” she asked quietly, feeling sick.

“Perhaps I should start at the beginning,” Yeun said, fidgeting with his folder. “Several years ago, my colleagues found a set of genes that, if stimulated in just the right way, could give rise to unique forms of physical enhancement in an otherwise ordinary human being.” 

“Human weaponry,” Erika said. 

“An evolutionary advantage,” Yeun said. He cleared his throat. “Which we are working to integrate into the military sphere in a sort of special task-force.”

Erika gave a single nod with raised eyebrows, as if he had simply repeated what she’d just said. “Yeah, human weaponry.”

Yeun cleared his throat. “We found that these genes are extremely rare, and we were only able to find six young people to integrate into this task force. They’re responding well to training, but they’re still very inexperienced, and for the research to really bring back returns, we need to find a way to develop these biological enhancements in people who don’t naturally carry the gene, but whose bodies can support the process.”

“So you’re…” Erika didn’t want to say it. “You’re trying to turn me into one of them?”

“Exactly,” Yeun said. “Though if this trial works out, you won’t be recruited. We’re still developing the technology, and our ideal candidate for the program is of a younger age range, anyway.” 

“They’re kids, then?” Erika said, her voice kicking up a notch in anger. She was twenty-four. The age group below her were minors. “You’re forcing kids to be these soldiers?” When she’d first heard the rumors of human weaponry, she’d imagined a sea of burly, faceless drones, not a pack of children. 

“Teenagers,” Yeun said. “Don’t worry, they’re well taken care of. Anyway, this is the young man whose DNA you and I are working with for this project.” He opened the folder and thumbed through the remaining pages. “His is the simplest of the six known natural enhancements—or, ‘Compatibilities,’ as we’ve come to call them, referencing their inherent genetic compatibility with the technology.” He pinned up a photograph on the board, and Erika felt the color drain from her face.

The boy’s head was blacked out to preserve his identity, but Erika thought the act was superfluous. If she saw this kid in person, she’d know exactly what he was. His towering frame stood in front of a height grid, measuring over seven and a half feet from head to toe, and he had not one, but two fully-formed pairs of arms, spread out like wings for the photographer. The page was a copy from some other report, and at the bottom, next to filing information, were the initials P.J.E. 

Erika’s breathing grew tight in her chest. “You’ve been trying to mix my DNA with his?” 

“Correct,” Yeun said. He glanced at the monstrous photos. “Compatibilities are brought out with an electronic device called a modulator. It manifests them, stabilizes the effects in some of the more volatile ones, and deactivates the abilities at will. The physical effects are reversible, even in this one.” He used his folder to point at a silver band on the young man’s wrist, which Erika hadn’t noticed at first. “When this deactivates, the second pair of arms goes away.” 

Erika shook her head. “This is wrong.” She pushed the covers aside and swung her legs off the side of the bed. Standing up was arduous. She was still fatigued from the stem cell integrations, and the immature brachial plexus in her ribs complained and tingled against the fabric of her t-shirt. She didn’t know what she intended to do. “I’m done. You’re letting me go, Yeun. I draw the line at phase two.”

The door had opened at the front of the room, and a calm, chilling voice answered her. “You are not the one who draws lines here, Ms. Hodgson.” 

Erika turned her head to look at the newcomer. Two guards accompanied the director. Yeun stepped back, uneasily, as if giving Erika and the director room to face off.

Erika reached out and gripped the handlebar at the head of her hospital bed for support. She forced her shoulders straight and defiant, staring down the man behind it all. 

“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” she said. “How do you intend to keep me going along with this, huh? Brainwash me? Keep me in a coma? Threaten my family?”

The director blinked, unruffled. It struck her all over again how mousey he looked between the larger forms of the guards at his sides. Somehow it made it all the more menacing, that this slim, soft-featured person commanded all of them, confident that he would control her too.

“Dr. Yeun,” the director said. “The modulators you are calibrating for Ms. Hodgson have components that must be implanted close to the spinal cord, correct?”

Erika tried to stand her ground.

“Yes,” Yeun said, uncomfortable.

The director leveled his calm intensity on Erika. “Rebellion, Ms. Hodgson, will first earn you no anesthesia for any of that procedure,” he said. “If you still have fight in you after that, you may be mindwiped completely, and passed off to the military as a resource, regardless of the outcome of this experiment.” His features remained placid, yet his gray eyes took on a direct coldness that froze her to the core. “Either way, if you continue to cross me, I will personally see to it that your life is nullified, and reconstructed from the ground up. If you try to deny us progress, you will never see your family again.”

Erika stared at him in horror. She was shaking. “You wouldn’t…”

“Do not make the mistake of underestimating what I won’t do to push this endeavor to full maturity, Ms. Hodgson,” the director said. “As Dr. Yeun mentioned, there are six known Compatible progenitors, and that was only within a very specific age group, sampled over a limited time frame. The work, you see, has only just begun.”

Erika’s heart pounded hard in her ears. Slowly, she sat back down on the bed, despair welling up in her throat.

“Prudent choice,” the director said. He turned to go, while the guards remained. “I’ll leave you to it, Dr. Yeun. Be sure to notify me if she acts out again.”

“Yes, Director,” Yeun said, offering Erika an apologetic expression as the director left them.

Erika stared at the floor, biting back furious, desperate tears. She carefully scooted herself back, twisting to push her legs back under the covers. Her limbs felt heavy and her spine ached, as fatigue crashed in around her, and she hated herself for feeling so helpless.

Yeun pulled the bulletin board away toward the wall, and proceeded to remove the images. “I’m sorry he had to be harsh with you—”

“Save the good-cop bullshit,” Erika snapped, lying down and turning her back on him. “Threat noted. Congratulations, you got what you wanted. If there’s nothing else you need from me right now, then just leave me alone.”

There was a long pause, the quiet shuffling of paper.

Then, finally, “Of course.”

Erika glared savagely at the wall, listening to him take his leave. 

“We won’t be ready to install your modulator until Monday,” he said, quietly. “So you’ll have a few days to adjust to the idea.”

Erika elbowed the electric heating pad out of the way and pulled the covers up to her chin, refusing to answer. 

Yeun paused at the door, hesitating. “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the result you wanted.”  Then he left.

Erika settled in, and finally let the tears flow. She hated them. 

She knew she wasn’t the first person to have to deal with Empetrum, and she wouldn’t be the last. Just a single victim in a harried, soulless overturn.

Did that four-armed kid—did P.J.E.—know he was a victim too? Did he know they were farming him for resources any way they could, seeding his genetic code like a virus even as they trained him to lock down the corrupted status quo?

Did he want out?

If Erika ever got the chance she would make the director remember her. She would raze Empetrum to the ground, and cull any chances it had of resurrecting.

Then, she would come for the six progenitors.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE—FALSE COMPATIBLE        

James came to gradually, realizing the side of his face lay numb and cold against a hard surface.
His kitchen table? No, a lab bench.

Morning light streamed in through the tall window, illuminating his work area and glinting off the crystalline surface of the updated, more powerful energy unit. The neural network sat close by, a more advanced device than the first prototype with a smoother finish. Scattered across the counter near his head lay pieces of the incomplete DNA targeting system. The reflective application panel nested safely in a foam square, waiting for installation.

Groggy, James dragged his wristwatch in front of his face and read the numbers. His eyes widened. “No…”

“No!” He jerked up so abruptly he almost tipped his chair over backward.

“No no no no no.” He grabbed his badge, and staggered to the door.
Swinging out into the corridor and running down the hallway, James checked his watch again. He had minutes to leave before he would be late for work at Larkspur.

He only realized he wasn’t paying significant attention to where he was going when he suddenly found himself face-to-face with Archibald Hill—a stern, gray-haired scientist who always seemed either irked or hostile. James gave Hill a deer-in-the-headlights expression before stammering an apology and dodging around him to the door. Yeun had told him Hill was harmless, but James still preferred to keep his distance.

Not that James often encountered many of the other scientists. They had usually finished for the day by the time he arrived. With the exception of Benson’s occasional interjection and Dr. Jones’ advice about the new material for the energy unit, James had spent most of the last eleven days shut away in the isolation of his personal lab.

James ran down the path to his apartment on the Empetrum campus, pounding up the stairs and scrambling to unlock the front door. Once inside, he changed into the first clean dress shirt he found, then rushed into the bathroom to brush his teeth and shave. Grabbing his briefcase, he darted back out to the parking lot.

As he drove through the gates, he checked his overall presentation in the visor mirror and frowned at his reflection. He had nicked his face a few times and had completely forgotten about his hair.

He ran a hand through it.

Flicking up the visor in distaste, he concentrated on taking the winding road as fast as he could.

There was no way he could be late. Absolutely no one could find out about his activities outside Larkspur until he decided what he intended to do. Of course, Empetrum was supposed to remain a secret in general, but he could worry about that later.

James arrived at Larkspur on time—tired, disheveled, and very annoyed as he trotted upstairs to his office.

He barely avoided kicking something at the top of the stairs. Surprised, he looked down to find a robotic rodent close to his foot. It sat down and stared up at him.

“Heather?” James raised his face toward the hallway. “Why is Sesame loose?”

Heather’s face poked out from the doorway of Richard’s office. “Because he’s very well behaved and comes back when I call him. I think that neural network you gave him makes him smarter than normal.” She paused, cocking her head and narrowing her eyes. “What happened to you?”

James retreated to his office. The little robot got up and trundled after him, as if determined to get in the way. “Nothing. Just overslept.”

“Sesame, come here,” Heather said, and James spotted the robot crossing the doorway.

Heather entered the room a moment later with O.R.T-1 in her arms. She smiled.

“What in the world did you reward him with to teach him that?” James asked. “Is there even anything he wants?”


“He just likes attention, I guess. Mice are social, right?” Heather said, rubbing a finger up and down Sesame’s back. It shifted position in her arms so she could rub its side. “Are you sure he can’t feel anything?”

“Like I said, there are hardly any sensors…” He considered the robot, the side of its face snuggled into Heather’s arm. “But he does seem a lot more attuned to his environment than I would have expected. I’ll have to look into that when I have time. Thanks for taking him under your wing for me.”

“No problem.” She bent down to let Sesame run free. It lingered by her side for a moment, then climbed lovingly over her foot and left to explore the hallway.

“Just watch he doesn’t fall down the stairs. I almost tripped over him.”

Heather glanced back at the robot. “Sesame, don’t go near the stairs, okay?”

James opened his laptop, following her gaze. “Think he’ll listen to you?”

Heather docked her hands on her hips, watching the robot, and said brightly. “We’ll see.”

+

After a few minutes, Heather called Sesame and brought him downstairs. Work took place in the lab so they could better collaborate as they continued working through the android’s programming. A degree of AI was the goal, but for this phase, a network of protocol cascades would suffice.

Heather knew very little about programming, so struggled to figure out where to offer help. She played with Sesame when she wasn’t seated dutifully beside one of the engineers, watching them plan and type and troubleshoot.

The program wasn’t coming together as smoothly as everyone had hoped. Even James, the most lethal programmer of the bunch, couldn’t seem to make much headway. Heather couldn’t tell if he was actually stumped—a state which rarely lasted long for him—or if he simply wasn’t trying very hard. James had been increasingly distracted and apathetic about his work lately.

She wondered if he was perhaps still working through feelings from his rejected project. She didn’t believe he was over it, despite his insistence. Or he could have simply burnt himself out, working at such an unrelenting pace for such a long time. Either way, he was back to talking more readily, and had begun to show up for breaks with the rest of them. He looked just as sleep-deprived, but he actually seemed happier. That was a relief.

Still, it wasn’t like him to oversleep.

+

The modulator—the device that would activate what Yeun’s gene therapy had set up—had been installed the day before, and the site was already healed. Yeun said he’d treated it with dilute activator serum, which had powerful regenerative properties. Erika wasn’t looking forward to finding out what the real deal would be.

Tuesday morning, she lay prone on a table in an operating room, with her arms up like goalposts by her head and strapped in.

The director and another stern, sharp-featured scientist stood nearby, both in lab coats and waiting as Yeun prepared to activate her modulator for the first time. He pulled up a medical cart with a small styrofoam box on the top tray. Erika watched, her face cold with dread, as his gloved hands opened it and plucked a tiny rectangular vial of fluid from the ice within.

Erika glanced at their audience. “I’d rather it just be you and me,” she said to Yeun, very quietly. “If you’re going to go through with this…”

Yeun looked at the director for his opinion. The latter glanced aside at their other colleague, then turned slowly and took his leave. He waved a resident guard closer to Erika on his way to the door.

When the older man lingered, the director’s soft, purring voice spoke up, “Come on, Dr. Hill. We’ll monitor remotely.”

A venomous look crossed Hill’s face, but he followed.

Erika watched them go, surprised. Yeun came forward, instructing her to turn her face so it rested straight downward on the forehead rest. She complied, wondering if it would even be possible to fight back from such a position.

“Okay,” Yeun murmured. “Just going to move the gown out of the way so nothing snags…” 

She felt the air cold on her skin as he carefully peeled aside the fabric on either side, betraying most of her back. He let her keep her sweatpants, thankfully. 

“Do you want a weak sedative?” Yeun asked.

Erika fought back tears. Her heart pounded hard in her chest. “That would be great, actually…”

He administered an injection, and waited with her for it to take effect. 

It wasn’t enough to put her under. She wanted to be awake for this, anyway. If it didn’t work, she immediately wanted to know, instead of waking up monstrous and surprised. Or never waking up at all.

The sedative took the edge off the fear, and Erika lay still, her body feeling relaxed and heavy, as Yeun prepared to move forward with phase two.

“Ready?” he said.

“Yeah,” Erika rasped, reluctant.

She felt his fingers on the rectangular plate of the modulator that was accessible from the outside, getting into position. With a soft click, he opened a panel and slid the vial in. He hadn’t said, but she suspected it contained activator serum.

“Here we go,” he murmured. “In three, two…”

Erika shut her eyes tight.

“One.”

She felt a modest depression, then sharp pin pricks set into her skin in a wave. She gasped, feeling like it had bitten her, deep. 

After a brief, unpleasant electrical shock, warmth flooded from the epicenter of the modulator, spreading fast. The device throbbed hot and restless in her back, as pressure grew, squeezing her spine tighter and tighter.

“Keep breathing, Ms. Hodgson,” Yeun said gently. “Remember to breathe.”

Erika obeyed, taking strained, deliberate breaths against the pressure. Then the spikes of pain started, shooting up in not one, but two distinct spots on her back. With every arc, they grew more and more intense, and suddenly her back muscles seized up and she gasped as two hot, reaching columns of confused biomass pushed into the open air, stretching out and snapping together into something with structure and weight. 

She felt elbows bend, muscles spasm, hands extend long and cramping as they materialized from the formless, reaching things.

Then the hot, vibrating pain of the modulator snuffed out. The unseen limbs held themselves in the air for a timeless moment, their muscles quivering under the shock and strain. Then the elbows drooped at painful angles, and slow, heavy hands found the table down by her feet. Dimly, she thought maybe they would break if they twisted wrong.

Groggy and breathing hard, she didn’t dare look back. She didn’t have to be coherent to know that the monstrosities Yeun’s device had brought about were nothing like what he had hoped. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she lamented the fragile, alien things, wishing they would at least be an asset to help her escape.

But she was too shaken, too tired to hope.

+

In a private surveillance room at Empetrum, illuminated by the screen of a monitor tuned into one of the operating rooms downstairs, Hill scoffed, and Benson crossed his arms.

“What on earth are those?” Hill said scornfully, leaning closer to the screen to get a better look at the state of his colleague’s test subject. “It’s like he didn’t even bother to calibrate that modulator.”

“Yeun takes every precaution,” Benson said, frigidly. “As you do.”

He watched Yeun attending to the young woman on the operating table. She lay face down, her arms tense and strapped like goalposts by her head, breathing heavily in the aftermath of a traumatic metamorphosis.

Midway down her back on either side stretched large, misshapen limbs that unfolded like wings, their existence facilitated by a small chrome panel on her spine and the activator serum housed within. The long fingers of her new pair of hands weakly gripped the edges of the table, trying to stabilize, and then they went limp as she lost consciousness.

Yeun lurched forward to catch them at the elbows and preserve the angle. There were two other bends between the primary joint and their articulation points. Three total hinge joints each. A fortunate and fascinating addition, Benson thought. Structurally, they would have been far too fragile, otherwise.

The arms were far from the anatomical duplicate of her originals Yeun had planned, and had sprouted closer to her spine, but the origin points were level with the correct vertebrae, and seemed to have decent innervation and muscle tone. Pride stirred in Benson’s chest for his colleague. This was an important breakthrough for Non-Comp.

“Are you going to go rescue him?” Hill asked, as the pair watched Yeun on the screen, calling to the guards to support the woman’s accessory arms while he attended to the modulator higher up on her back.

“Why? He’s handling it,” Benson said simply.

On the security camera feed, Yeun tried to deactivate the modulator. Benson readjusted his glasses and watched intently. Yeun’s movements grew more and more worried as the modulator wouldn’t trigger the reabsorption of the extra limbs as designed. He pulled equipment over to check her vitals, leaving the defibrillator where it was, which was a promising sign. Activator serum could be intense.

Hill shook his head. “I don’t know why you let him head up this project, Benson.”

“Yeun has worked extremely hard for this, and he’s producing great results,” Benson said quietly.

“You of all people know modulator technology is finicky. With Siles on board, the two of them will puzzle out the issues in no time. You’re welcome to advise them, of course, but I want you focused on your work keeping the ICNS recruits stabilized.”

“Siles isn’t going to be much help to you,” Hill said. “He’s just a kid, primarily mechanically-minded with no gene therapy experience whatsoever. And he’s from Larkspur. It’s not enough for him to be reckless in his own pet projects. He’ll take one look at this—” He gestured toward the screen. “—and run screaming.”

“I can train him,” Benson replied. “I know it’s a gamble. Time for natural acclimatization is short, but there are many routes to securing his cooperation until then.”

“If you can,” Hill sighed. His thin eyebrows pinched downward as he continued to watch Yeun’s progress. The guards were helping him move the woman off the table, to transport her to somewhere she could rest. “If you mess it up you can just kill Siles too, I guess.”

A soft smile graced Benson’s unthreatening features, trying to be patient. “It’s been a year and a half, Hill. Empetrum stresses innovation and progress. Not grudges and nostalgia.”

Hill scowled, arms crossed. “I wouldn’t call murdering my lab partner nostalgic.”
 “What Olsson received was only Empetrum policy. She tried to destroy us, don’t forget that.”

Hill scoffed bitterly and stepped away from the screen. “Don’t think because you managed to punish one of our own that you’re fit to be Lawrence’s successor.”

Benson swallowed the hot indignation rising in his throat. “It’s high time you grew up and accepted my grandfather’s choice,” he said.

Hill halted and turned. “I knew you when you were a child,” he snapped. “Passive. Timid. A boy left crying or mute after trials with the Q-13 while I helped him build this place! Posture all you want, Director. All he saw in you was a puppet to be molded.”

“He saw potential,” Benson said, straightening his shoulders. He rested his hands against the small of his back, and squeezed them together. “I will make this company greater than my grandfather ever imagined, and I will perfect his life’s work.” He looked at the screen again. He knew the look on Yeun’s face well. Despite everything, Elias was berating himself for the hitch. He’d been that way since college. Benson pivoted so he faced Hill directly. “As you are well aware, Dr. Hill, I am no longer that child. If you can’t get over your personal hostilities, I’ll call for your resignation.”

Hill blinked. “You’re actually threatening me.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a precarious political situation. If we’re going to move forward, we must be unified,” Benson said. “Your contempt of your colleagues is divisive and petty, and I’m not going to tolerate it anymore.”

“But I’m co-responsible for modulator research—our core source of funding,” Hill tried to scramble together his terse, inflammatory composure. It gave Benson pleasure to watch him squirm. “I’ve given everything to Empetrum.”

“Then you would lose all of that,” Benson said, steady and formal. “So, reconciling yourself with the current state of affairs is in your best interest. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Hill glared, then looked away. He gave Benson room as the director headed toward the door.

Benson allowed himself a smile as he left his colleague alone. Hill would never resign, Benson knew, and he wouldn’t behave himself completely. But if Hill pulled back just a fraction of his snide comments toward Yeun, and stopped trying to undermine Benson’s authority, the director would consider his warning satisfactorily heeded.

Benson headed downstairs, to find Yeun and congratulate him on a job well done.

+

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—PROTOTYPE   

Monday during lunch, James denied Heather’s request to watch him work and shut himself away in the equipment room. He tested the scanner several more times, running a battery of trials coupling different tissue samples with material lacking a genetic signature.

James had to make sure the scanner didn’t just convert the DNA, but also anything else associated with it, such as the rest of the cell containing the genetic material, all the way up to the proteinaceous segments of the hair and any clothes a patient wore inside the scanner.

It had to be a clean process. Nothing left behind.

His experiments left him with bandaged fingers and assurance of success and he decided to use the remainder of his free hour exploring his professional options.

“Hello, Mr. Dhar,” he greeted once he had connected with the head of the Bureau.

“What can I do for you?” Dhar replied warmly.

Nerves fluttered in James’ chest. “I wondered if you could verify something for me. Yesterday, I got a call from a Michael Benson from Empetrum. He said the lab’s involved with the Bureau?”

“Of course,” Dhar said after a pause. “It’s true Empetrum is connected with the Bureau, same as Larkspur. They’re a secretive branch, and like to keep off the radar, but they do important work over there. So Benson made you an offer, then?”

“Yes. I’m still thinking it over.”

“As you should. I think you’d be a good fit.”

“Thanks.” James almost asked him if Richard had really said anything about his project, but couldn’t bring himself to.

+

The fluorescent lights reflected off the sleek surface of the android’s completed body. Heather drew nearer to watch as James helped Chelo connect the remaining metal and polymeric facets of the outer layer, which all came together with satisfying, resolute snaps.

Heather examined the gray face. Seams ran from the large, closed eyes down its metal cheeks, and she knew it was to help with forming expression, but at some angles, she thought they looked like tear tracks. Inside its head, a blank space laced with wires waited for the final piece.

Proportionally, it looked a little cartoonish. In the design phases, the engineers decided it would be better received by clients if it were humanoid, but “friend-shaped,” as Chelo called it. Professional grade, multi-purpose androids hadn’t yet hit the public sector, and the private, more lifelike experiments that had seen some recent media coverage were met with unease by most people.

“It’s done,” Eve sighed. Smiling, she rubbed her hands together. “Now on to the programming phase.”

Heather exchanged a glance with James at that, who was checking the ports inside the robot’s head. His narrow face cracked into a tired, long-suffering smile and he straightened up from the table, stretching his back. She knew he was already deeply immersed in complex, exhaustive programming for O.R.T. He was probably sick of it by now, if that was even possible.

She offered a sympathetic expression and followed her dad toward the equipment room.

+

There were a TV and two security cameras in Erika’s medical room. Some days, she tried to pretend she was in a hospital, and not in a windowless level of an evil, pointless research facility in the middle of a wildlife reserve in which her family had camped regularly throughout her childhood. Some days, she closed her eyes and imagined setting a fire, burning it all down.

At first, it was just the fatigue and malaise, but lately, more serious symptoms had set in. She could hardly move her arms without sharp, stitching pain shooting all the way across her ribs and needling up the back of her neck. When she didn’t move, the whole area was itchy and restless. Yeun assured her this was a good sign.

To what, though, he refused to say. At the start, he had said he would keep her informed, but now, he didn’t want to tell her what the goal actually was.

Erika stared dully at the TV, which had only three stations: science documentaries, obscure black-and-white movies, and cooking shows. No news of the outside world. Nothing to inspire her to take her life back.

Dimly, she heard footsteps approaching, and she choked back the desperation rising in her throat. Yeun entered with his usual cheery greeting and started prepping for her second-to-last stem cell treatment.

Erika turned her face away.

+

As soon as lunch hour struck the next day, James closed down his coding work with his colleagues in the lab, and disappeared upstairs. He was already trotting back down to the lobby by the time the rest of them were on their way up.

“Where are you off to?” Greg halted at the foot of the stairs to give him room.

“Errands,” James said simply.

“Right now?” Chelo asked. “Where?”

James hesitated. “Pet store.”

“…Pet store?” she glanced back at Richard.

James readjusted his shoulder bag, trying to shrug off their scrutiny as he landed off the first step and directed himself toward the door. Heather had mentioned to him Richard may have given his colleagues a summary by now, since she’d heard Greg ask a week and a half ago.

“That means you finished it!” Heather gasped, popping out from behind the group like a jack-in-the-box. “And you weren’t gonna say anything? Are you testing it today?”

“Tonight.” He slowed a little, turning back. He didn’t dare look at Richard. He was glad Eve wasn’t there that day. She might have tried to stop him. “The place closes before I get off here, so…”

He felt their gazes on his back as he crossed the lobby alone and exited the front doors. He hadn’t discussed anything with them, but the way they were looking at him, he knew Heather was correct.

They all knew exactly what he would be testing that evening.

+

James pushed on the door to the small shop. As an automated tone heralded his entrance, he felt incredibly out of place. His family had never owned animals, and he had given up trying to change that after age eight. He had never set foot in a place like this.

James strode up to the counter. Birds chirped unintelligibly from dispersed corners, and puppies yapped in the back. The warm, earthy smells of animals filled his nose: fur, wood shavings, birdseed, rodent food. He found the mix of stimuli calming.

“Can I get a mouse please?” he asked the employee at the register.

“Pet or feeder?”

James hesitated, temporarily stymied. “Uh, do you have any mice that are dying?”

The kid blinked. “Dying?”

James rubbed the back of his neck. “Or died earlier today. That works too.”

The kid stared at him. “You doing some kind of taxidermy project?”

“No—” James really didn’t want to explain. “It’s humane, I swear. I’m short on time. Do you have one or not?”

She rolled her eyes and stepped around the counter. “Wait here.” She disappeared down a hallway lined with aquariums.

“I sound completely deranged,” James muttered to himself. He felt left for dead at the counter as a man came in and queued up behind him.

Within a few minutes, the kid returned with a small takeout box. She opened it, showing James the black mouse inside. Its fur was unkempt, its body lumpy and sunken as it lay at the bottom, its whiskers quivering weakly. James was surprised by how innocent and fragile it looked.

“Had this one in quarantine. Probably won’t last to tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” James was sweating.

“When they start refusing food, it’s pretty inevitable. Seen it enough times.”

“Okay.” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket as the clerk secured the lid.

“Don’t worry about it,” the clerk said.

“Really?”
 “We were gonna lose it anyway.” She held it out. “Just out of curiosity, what are you using it for?”

“Neural transfer project.” James gingerly took the box. “I’m an engineer. I want to see if I can save it.”

The clerk flashed a sideways smile. “Weird. Good luck with that.”

“Thanks.” He left, holding the box close to his chest.

When he returned to Larkspur, Heather, of course, wanted to see the mouse before James stored it in his office. He grudgingly allowed her a peek.

She helped him set it up in a larger container with breathing holes, water, and an apple slice from her lunch, and then managed to coax him to join everyone else in the kitchenette for the remaining minutes of break.

The awkward silence among his colleagues was troubling. With a living creature in his office, O.R.T. was beginning to take on much more weight than in the days when it was just an idea.

“I made sure to get a sick mouse,” he said as he pried open a yogurt cup he had grabbed on his way out the door that morning. “The pet store employee said it’s deteriorated to the point of refusing food, and will be dead by tomorrow morning. I’m actually saving its life.”

“Can I watch tonight?” Heather asked. “You’re testing it after work, right?”

“I wouldn’t mind showing it to all of you, if you want to stay.” Dread knotted his insides, but he absolutely refused to be ashamed of his project.

Richard managed a smile. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

James knew he should have tested it over the weekend where he wouldn’t have an audience, but he was too impatient.

Plus, he really did want to give Heather the chance to witness it.

+

James tried to ignore how nauseated he felt as Heather helped him bring out the components of the machine, set them up on one of the counters, and hook the long wires up to his laptop across the room. With jittery hands, he started his computer and activated the program.

Everyone had stayed to watch, gathered behind his laptop.

He administered a diluted antihistamine to sedate the mouse, and waited for it to take effect. If he was successful, the mouse didn’t need to be conscious for it to work—the machine converted physical brain structure more than electrical impulses firing in real time. Plus, he didn’t want it to be aware when the machine atomized its failing body.

He felt guilty about ending its life early, but judging by the mouse’s further eroding alertness by the end of the workday, it would only be by a few hours at most.

Heather gently stroked its head as its already weak consciousness faded. “Don’t be afraid,” she said quietly. “You’ll feel much better soon.”

When the mouse was properly sedated, he clipped the very end of the animal’s tail, transferring some blood onto the DNA reader before laying mouse in the scanner and attaching the modified brainwave receivers around its head. He had omitted the electrodes for this model, instead choosing to connect the neurological detection devices into a dome-like network that enveloped the rodent’s entire head.

All feeds were operational, warming him with a growing sense of hope and vigor. He closed the lid and secured the latches of the scanner, hooking up the accessory wires to the small animal robotic body he had thrown together.

Due to the necessity of working the power core and neural networking device into the robotic body, his test subject would get a size upgrade. The robot was shaped like a guinea pig, with two small, camera eyes, but no superfluous details like a tail and outer ear. Heather had already commented on his depressing lack of flair.

He only needed the body to be complex enough to demonstrate how the test subject would behave in it, to make sure everything transferred over properly. He could upgrade the creature’s new physicality later, if he had time.

After checking connections, he approved the target lock on his computer. The green bars in both the transfer and conversion regions of the program charged simultaneously, and then the light came on. A 3D map of the mouse’s brain appeared on his laptop screen, each minute region turning green one by one as his machine advanced its meticulous scan. So far so good.

Finally, the scan completed, and prompted initiation of the next step.

“Ready?” James strapped his protective goggles to his face and his colleagues did the same.

“Here we go…” Begin transfer.

James watched the computer screen, his hands curling into fists on the counter. “Please work,” he whispered to it.

Transfer in Progress, his computer reported, and electricity surged down the wires into the neural networking device, which he had implanted into the back of the robotic body, over top of the power core. The lights in the lab dimmed, struggling to overcome the small machine clamoring for their power source.

The neurological transfer took a few minutes. Then the program switched to the conversion stage, during which the machine made even more noise.

His colleagues watched in silence behind him, and he could hardly breathe in the tension. James glanced aside at Richard, who stood excessively close to Heather. The director’s daughter flashed James a hopeful, congratulatory smile.

Finally, the light ceased, and the machine whined softly as it cooled down.

Transfer/Conversion Complete.

James strode to the setup across the lab, nerves prickling up his back. His colleagues watched breathlessly as he undid the clasps on the scanner and opened the lid. The interior was empty, save for the neural scanning devices he’d programmed the machine to ignore in the physical mass-to-energy conversion. No trace of the mouse had been left behind.

“Woah…” Heather leaned forward to try to get a better look, but Richard held her back. Everyone’s attention gravitated to the motionless robot at the other end of the countertop.

James unplugged the wires from the robot and checked the state of the power core, which reported an impressive level of energy for such a small amount of mass. He allowed himself a relieved exhale to find the energy receptacle stable and functional. He secured the neural network and clicked the dorsal panel into place across the robot’s back. He straightened up, waiting for something to happen. Any moment, the robot would begin to move.

But it remained still.

“Just give it a little more time,” he said anxiously. “It’ll come around.”

They waited a few minutes longer, and James’ heart sank further as each excruciating second passed with no change.

Finally, he looked up at his colleagues. Addie covered her mouth with a hand. Heather met his gaze, her expression soft and worried.

The prolonged silence became oppressive.

“Everything was—I was so sure…” James said in quiet dismay. He gently nudged the robot, hoping the movement would illicit a response. Nothing happened. “It should have woken up…” He drifted over to his computer, to check the procedure history, looking for signs of a hitch. “I’ll find out what went wrong and try again. The conversion worked beautifully, I just wonder where the transfer program was faulty—”

“Maybe you should call it a night, James,” Richard said softly.

James’ raging thoughts stopped dead. “What?”

“Actually, I don’t—” the director cut himself off. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

James stared at him, his shoulders dropping and throat tightening. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m gonna head out,” Greg said, shaking himself a bit. “Thanks for the demonstration.”

Chelo and Addie uneasily followed suit. Even Heather looked perturbed, despite her efforts to hide it.

“It’s okay. You’ll get it,” she said, on her way after her father. “See you tomorrow.”

He could only stand by his machine, staring after his colleagues in profound, futile disappointment.

Soon, he was completely alone.

Dazed, he hooked his foot on a stool and pulled it close enough to take a seat. James looked again at the computer screen, but he couldn’t focus on it. He was shaking. Finally, his hands clenched, and he pounded his fists once on the counter, ducking his head with a snarl of rage.

After several long moments, he lifted his head, glaring at the inert robot across the room.

He picked himself up, miserably closed his laptop and wrapped up the cords. He stored his machine in a corner of his office, and brought the robot home in the box Heather had helped him prepare earlier that afternoon.

He couldn’t get Richard’s face out of his head. He hadn’t realized he would have just one chance. The mouse was dead anyway. Why were they acting like he had done something cruel?

Back at his apartment, he brusquely deposited everything on the kitchen table and face-planted on the couch. He figured he should try to figure out what had gone wrong, but he was far too tired, too discouraged to think anymore.

The end of his project was nigh, anyway.

Come morning, Richard would ask him to discontinue O.R.T. And James didn’t know what he was going to do then.

+

CHAPTER NINETEEN—OUTCOME

Pine trees. Tall grass riddled with purple wildflowers. The weathered yellow house on the hill. Stables full of the horses that had companioned her childhood—dragons for the young dragon riders, steeds for Pirate Princess Tristan and her paladin, Erika, whose three more years gave her the wisdom to keep her mistress out of trouble. When the rain pounded down, the scuffed-kneed adventurers read thick novels up in the hayloft, their legs dangling over the equine heads.

The stables were almost empty now—many of its inhabitants sold to help pay for the countless medical procedures that weren’t able to save Erika and Tristan’s mother in the end.

The memorial service. Lavishly adorned with the wildflowers their mother loved so much. Amie Hodgson had taught Erika and Tristan all the flowers’ names, along with which were good for tea, which were poisonous, and which were her absolute favorites.

Dad. Sturdy, inspired, protective. Working with his hands gave him purpose. He had stayed at the hospital whenever he could. It devastated him to have to stand back and watch.

Tristan. Forfeited even classes at the community college to work and help make ends meet—putting her ambitions on hold. The flaming passion in her eyes was crushed and dull that day. Inundated with pain.

Erika’s disappearance had been only five days after the funeral. When she had most needed to be there for her family.

She couldn’t be strong enough for them.

Her eyes were open, her vision blurry in the dim space. The smothered, frantic beeping of her heart monitor screamed at her side, gaining clarity, and she realized she was awake. Then the pain registered.

Her whole torso seized up with electric barbs clawing down her spine, through her arms down to her very fingertips. It pushed out at odd points in her back, as if maybe there were limbs there too. With a cry of agony, she pitched forward to a sitting position, to get up, to do anything but sit there and let it rip her apart.

Hands braced against her shoulders.

“Ms. Hodgson!” a man said urgently. “You need to lie down—”

She fought against him. Deliriously, she thought she was on fire, the way her skin burned.

The man turned his head and shouted back toward the door. “I need help in here!”

The door burst open and two figures in dark uniforms came in. 

“Hold her,” the man said. “Watch that tube in her back.”

“Let go!” Erika cried as the soft hands exchanged for two sets of larger, rougher ones, clamped on her tender arms and holding her still. She squirmed and kicked, every movement spiking with pain, but she kept fighting.

She felt the bed under her, her legs tangling wildly in the covers, the hands tight on her arms, her vision a gray, slurring haze, but clear as anything, her family appeared before her eyes in a burst of yellow light and tree branches. Dad, Tristan. Mom. Hot tears rolled down her face. 

Was she dying? She opened her mouth to call out to them.

A needle went into her arm and Erika screamed. 

“It’s okay, Ms. Hodgson!” the man said, raising his dusty voice to be heard over the beeping of the urgent heart monitor, and the panicked, feral sound of her own cry. Her limbs began to feel heavy, a fog filled her mind. Medically-induced peace descended upon her like a security blanket, and the screeching nerves in her ribs started to muffle, enough that she finally recognized the voice of Elias Yeun.

“Erika, it’s okay.”

+

James woke with a start. He listened, heart pounding, the silent dark of his apartment crowding in front of his face.

Something rustled fitfully in the kitchen, followed by a clumsy dragging, clicking sound. He sat up, eyes wide. The sound repeated, further in than before.

Abruptly, James clambered across the couch and fumbled to turn on the lamp, almost knocking it from the end table. As soon as the light came on, he spotted the box on its side on the kitchen floor. Empty.

James warily left his perch and crept into the shadows of the kitchen, where his hand found the light switch around the corner. He snapped on the light, beholding a small gray form crouched in the middle of the floor. It turned its head, disoriented. O.R.T-1 looked even more like a guinea pig when mobile.

“It worked…” James ran a hand through his hair and leaned hard against the wall. He laughed outright, and the sound spooked his test subject, which jerked up and attempted to flee. It slid and tripped, unable to gain traction, before it tried to turn too quickly and fell over onto its side.

“Sorry, you’ll get used to it,” he said gently, nearing the creature. It had gone very still. When he reached for it, it jerked and its robotic legs waved frantically to resume escape, but he picked it up. O.R.T-1 was still a little too disoriented to truly struggle. He was glad he hadn’t given it a mouth to bite him with. Hesitantly, it turned its head, and he watched the machinery inside the dark camera eyes readjust as it took in his face. James’ expression softened. “You’re already adapting.”

Delicately, he lowered it to the linoleum and set it on its feet. “Here…experiment some more.”

James sat cross-legged while he observed the creature journey torpidly across the floor. It glanced back at him every few seconds while it searched for a place to hide. It examined the space under the oven, then bent down to touch its blunt face to it and paused, confused.

James hadn’t expected there to be so much lag time between transfer and regaining consciousness. Maybe the transfer sent the subject into a short coma as its neural network straightened everything out.

He wanted to call Richard right away with the good news, but the glaring lights of the microwave reported it was past midnight, so he decided it could wait. He was already on thin ice.

But his project had worked.

Maybe his prospects weren’t so grim after all.

+

CHAPTER TWENTY—OPPORTUNIST      

Tension crept in the air as James ventured up the steps to the second floor, rustling box in hand.

He turned his back to the muffled voices from the director’s office, and quietly opened his own office door across the hallway.

Heather’s voice piped up in greeting behind him, startling him into nearly dropping the box.

The intern noticed the package right away, as well as the frantic, scraping movements inside as James repositioned it. “He woke up?”

“He did.” Relief flooded his chest to be able to tell her. He shouldered his way into his office, with

Heather close behind, and removed the lid so she could see. She gasped softly to see the small, animal robot attempting to keep its balance inside the box.

“James, this is incredible.” She beamed at him. “You did it! Can you believe it?”

James allowed himself a wan smile. He set the box on his desk, the only empty spot in a field of open notebooks, keyboards, and 3D printed models of neural components.

“That’s all you’ve got? A smile?” Heather said, softly so as not to scare the mouse. “Come on, you’ve just made history.”

James pushed aside a stack of notebooks scrawled with mechanical diagrams and set his briefcase down. “This is just step one.”

Heather rolled her eyes at him and turned her attention to the robot, who stared up at her. “Dr.

James Siles, saving lives with science.” She shot him a sideways smile.

Another smile tugged at the edge of his features. He liked the sound of that.

“Can I hold him?” Heather asked. When James nodded, she respectfully extended a hand to the creature, waiting for O.R.T-1 to take interest in her fingers before making contact. She carefully laced her fingers under its belly. “Hello, little one.”

“It probably can’t feel that,” he said as she docked it gently in the crook of her arm and stroked its back. “I didn’t put a whole lot of sensory components in.”

“Really? I think he likes it,” she replied softly. James turned to watch O.R.T-1’s reaction for himself.

The transferred mouse did seem calmer under her fingertips. It nestled down, and he saw its camera eyes angle, peering up at him warily. It had just picked its favorite person.

“He’s earned a name,” Heather said. “What do you think we should call him?”

“Whatever you want to call him,” James said. “You won’t like what I’d pick.”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” Heather cooed at the robot. “Do you have any ideas?”
 “O.R.T-1,” James said.

Heather stared a moment, perhaps deciding whether he was serious or not. Her lips tightened.

James shrugged.

“Can I show my dad?” she asked.

He hesitated. “Yes.”

She carried the robot out of the room, and James anxiously followed her across the hall.

“Dad!” Heather pushed her way into Richard’s office. “Look! James’ machine worked.”

“It did?” Richard readjusted his glasses and turned his surprised gaze to his colleague for an explanation.

“Yes,” James said, rubbing the back of his neck as Heather brought the robot to her father. “It woke up after midnight last night. Its neural network must have just needed time to sort itself out. I’ll start tests right away to cross reference its current mental faculties with the network scan the machine took before transfer, as well as monitor its overall stability.”

Richard nodded, unsure of what to say. He smiled at his daughter. “Could you babysit him for a while? I’d like to talk to James for a moment.”

Heather nodded, and exchanged a glance with James. “Mind if I show him to everyone?”

Swallowing his reservation, James confirmed. At least she was breaking the ice for him.

Heather warily took her leave, and silence dragged into the room with the closing of the door.

“It’s a relief to see your mouse pulled through,” Richard said finally.

James nodded, allowing himself some hope. Surely, after seeing the success of a project originally deemed impossible, Richard would forget his previous misgivings.

“But I was talking to Eve last night,” the director continued softly, “And, we have to ask that you discontinue this project.”

Distress pounded against James’ ribcage. “What? Why?”
 “It’s just too questionable,” Richard said.

James’ heart dropped. His hazel eyes narrowed. “Too questionable?”

“Well, what I mean is—”

“If you’ll just give me a chance, I’ll prove everything transferred completely,” James insisted.

“I really wish I could support you in this. We all do.”

“This is all Eve, isn’t it?” James demanded.

“We arrived at the decision together,” Richard said.

James was burning. He would have to tell him. “Richard, I need to see this through. It’s not just a matter of—well I mean…” James cut himself off, his gaze falling to the floor. He took a breath and closed his eyes in an expression of pain. “My dad’s dying. He has cancer and the outlook isn’t good. This is my only chance, perhaps his only hope. Please. Don’t ask me to give this up.”

Richard stared at him, his expression a sickening mix of dread and sympathy. “I’m sorry, James. That’s devastating news.”

“So you see why I can’t let this go.”

“I understand where you’re coming from,” Richard said, haltingly. “But I really don’t think this is the way to do it. Have you asked your father whether he would even be open to this option?”

“Well, no, but I thought—”

“How long do the doctors say he has?”

“Maybe half a year.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?” Richard rounded his desk. James shifted back a step.

“I didn’t want to get you involved in my family drama,” James said. “I wanted to handle this on my own.” They would never understand. The absolute certainty of it filled up his chest like dark, murky water.

“I know this is very hard,” Richard said gently. “But what you plan to do isn’t the best way to go about this.”

“There is no other way,” James tried, hoarse. “If his doctors can’t save him, I can’t stand by and just let it happen.”

“Do you need time off to go visit your parents?”

James’ gaze fell to the floor. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We don’t get along.”

Richard looked like he wanted to contest it, but didn’t. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

James nodded.

“I won’t ask you to shut down your mouse,” Richard said. “But please don’t pursue this any further.”

That was as good as a death sentence. This project was being there for his father in the best way he knew how. What did other people do in family crises? Richard made it sound like they just sat around and accepted it.

James didn’t want pity. He wanted the people he respected to trust him.

“I know this is the last thing you wanted to hear,” Richard said as James turned to leave. “Especially after all that hard work.”

“I’ll be okay,” James lied. Once free of Richard’s office, he made for the restroom to calm down. Heather would be sure to find him, otherwise, and if he spoke to anyone now, he would lose it.

No one was going to see him break down over this.

+

For the rest of the day, James invested every bit of attention to the android. His colleagues knew him well enough not to ask him about it. No one mentioned the trial the night before, or Richard’s request.

Heather didn’t know what to say when she found out, so she gave him space too.

When the time came, he fully intended to go upstairs and eat lunch with his coworkers like a well adjusted human being, to show everyone he wasn’t going to be melodramatic. But he couldn’t bring himself to face them without work to hide behind.

Alone in the sterile silence of the lab downstairs, he put aside his work and folded his arms on the counter.

What to do now, he wondered dismally. Giving up was unthinkable. The machine had worked. His dad was still alive. He couldn’t stop now.

The door across the lab opened. He looked up, watching Heather step inside with a plastic container in her hands.

He stared at her a moment, and he felt the weight of crushed hopes in his face. He didn’t bother to hide it. Even though they’d only known each other for a few weeks, she had a knack for seeing right through him.

“What’s in the box?” he asked. Her nervous expression softened and she came forward.

“Toy bricks,” she said. She took a seat and pushed it across the counter to him. She offered a wan smile and removed the lid, revealing a rainbow puddle of the minute plastic pieces they had chatted about the day they met. “Want to build something?”

James stared at them, brows lowered and eyes dull. He couldn’t believe she had remembered this small detail about him.

“I originally brought these hoping they’d cheer you up, because we thought your machine hadn’t worked,” she said. James slowly reached forward and took a piece from the top. “But it feels like you still need some cheering up anyway. I’m sorry about what happened.”

James studied the tiny brick of red plastic between his fingers in despondence. He set the piece on the counter between them and took a few more from the box, as carefully as if he feared they would burn him. “Thanks, Heather. This is nice of you.”

Heather smiled, softly. “That’s what friends are for.”

Surprise fluttered in James’ chest, but he focused on the square frame he was idly constructing on the countertop. He had no idea how to respond to a statement like that.

“What are you making?” she asked.

“A tower,” he said. “Those were your favorites right?”

Heather nodded. “Mind if I help?”

“Please do.”

They took turns adding bricks, James from one side of the chrome counter, Heather from the other. They didn’t talk much, and James was grateful for it.

He wanted to ask her if she thought he should pursue the project anyway, but didn’t. He was afraid to know what she thought. And he could never ask her to choose, to risk turning her against her father.

Whatever happened now was his responsibility alone. He would let her believe he had accepted defeat and moved on.

Except, as soon as he had initiated the transfer the night before—functionally pulling a living organism from its body and placing it into one of his own design—something had broken. James had fallen through a trap door. His colleagues had seen exactly what he was capable of, and it scared them.

Losing the support of his coworkers was painful, but he knew he had to see this to the end. It was necessary. He just hoped that someday, his colleagues would come to understand.

That night, as soon as he returned home, he shed his bag and jacket, deposited O.R.T.-1’s box on the kitchen table, and scrolled through the call history in his cell phone until he came to the number without a name. He tapped the call key and waited.

“Dr. Siles, nice to hear from you again,” Michael Benson’s voice purred in his ear. “I take it you’ve thought over my offer?”

“I have.” James straightened his shoulders, somberly lifting his gaze to the window. “And I accept.”

+