“Victor,” started Mitch.
“How did you find me?”
Mitch held up his cell. “Dominic. He called me, freaking out, said you took it back, that it was like before, when you were dead. I tried to call you but you didn’t answer. I was heading for the elevator when I saw the light burned out in the stairs.” He shook his head. “Had a bad feeling—”
The cell started ringing again. Victor took it from Mitch’s hand and answered. “Dominic.”
“You can’t just do that to me,” snapped the ex-soldier. “We had a deal.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” said Victor slowly, but Dominic was still going.
“One minute I’m fine and the next I’m on my hands and knees, trying not to pass out. No warning, nothing in my system to dull the pain, you don’t know what it was like—”
“I promise you, I do,” said Victor, tipping his head back against the concrete wall. “But you’re fine now?”
A shuddering breath. “Yeah, I’m back online.”
“How long did it last?”
“What? I don’t know. I was kind of distracted.”
Victor sighed, eyes sliding shut. “Next time, pay attention.”
“Next time?”
Victor hung up. He opened his eyes to find Mitch staring at him. “Did this happen before?”
Before. Victor knew what he meant. Once his life had been bisected by the night in the laboratory. Before, a human. After, an EO. Now, it was split down the line of his resurrection. Before, an EO. After—this. Which meant that it was Sydney’s doing. This was the inevitable flaw in her power, the fissure in his. Victor hadn’t avoided it after all. He’d simply ignored it.
Mitch swore, running his hands over his head. “We have to tell her.”
“No.”
“She’s going to find out.”
“No,” said Victor again. “Not yet.”
“Then when?”
When Victor understood what was happening, and how to fix it. When he had a plan, a solution as well as a problem. “When it will make a difference,” he said.
Mitch’s shoulders slumped, defeated.
“Maybe it won’t happen again,” said Victor.
“Maybe,” said Mitch.
Neither one of them believed it.
V
FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AGO
FULTON
IT happened again.
And again.
Three episodes in less than six months, the time between each a fraction shorter, the duration of death a fraction longer. It was Mitch who insisted he see a specialist. Mitch who found Dr. Adam Porter, a compact man with a hawkish face and a reputation as one of the best neurologists in the country.
Victor had never been fond of doctors.
Even back when he wanted to become one, it had never been in the interest of saving patients. He’d been drawn to the field of medicine for the knowledge, the authority, the control. He’d wanted to be the hand holding the scalpel, not the flesh parting beneath it.
Now Victor sat in Porter’s office, after hours, the buzzing in his skull just beginning to filter into his limbs. It was a risk, he knew, waiting until the episode was in its metastasis, but an accurate diagnosis required the presentation of symptoms.
Victor looked down at the patient questionnaire. Symptoms he could give, but details were more dangerous. He slid the paper back across the table without picking up the pen.
The doctor sighed. “Mr. Martin, you paid quite a premium for my services. I suggest you take advantage of them.”
“I paid that premium for privacy.”
Porter shook his head. “Very well,” he said, lacing his fingers. “What seems to be the problem?”
“I’m not entirely certain,” said Victor. “I’ve been having these episodes.”
“What kind of episodes?”
“Neurological,” he answered, toeing the line between omission and lie. “It starts as a sound, a buzzing in my head. It grows, until I can feel the humming, down to my bones. Like a charge.”
“And then?”
I die, thought Victor.
“I black out,” he said.
The doctor frowned. “How long has this been happening?”
“Five months.”
“Did you suffer any trauma?”
Yes.
“Not that I know of.”
“Changes in lifestyle?”
“No.”
“Any weakness in your limbs?”
“No.”
“Allergies?”
“No.”
“Have you noticed any specific triggers? Migraines can be triggered by caffeine, seizures by light, stress, lack of—”
“I don’t care what caused it,” said Victor, losing patience. “I just need to know what’s happening, and how to fix it.”
The doctor sat forward. “Well, then,” he said. “Let’s run some tests.”
* * *
VICTOR watched the lines chart across the screen, spiking like the tremors before an earthquake. Porter had attached a dozen electrodes to his scalp, and was now studying the EEG alongside him, a crease forming between his brows.
“What is it?” asked Victor.
The doctor shook his head. “This level of activity is abnormal, but the pattern doesn’t suggest epilepsy. See how closely the lines are gathered?” He tapped the screen. “That degree of neural excitation, it’s almost like there’s too much nerve conduction . . . an excess of electrical impulse.”
Victor studied the lines. It could be a trick of the mind, but the lines on the screen seemed to rise and fall with the tone in his skull, the peaks in rhythm growing with the hum under his skin.
Porter cut the program. “I need a more complete picture,” he said, removing the electrodes from Victor’s scalp. “Let’s get you into an MRI.”
The room was bare save for the scanner in the center—a floating table that slid into a tunnel of machinery. Slowly, Victor lay back on the table, his head coming to rest in a shallow brace. A framework slid across his eyes, and Porter fastened it closed, locking Victor in. His heart rate ticked up as, with a mechanical whir, the table moved and the room disappeared, replaced by the too-close ceiling of the machine in front of Victor’s face.
He heard the doctor leave, the click of the door shutting, and then his voice returned, stretched thin by the intercom. “Hold very still.”
For a full minute, nothing happened. And then a deep knocking sound resonated through the device, a low bass that drowned out the noise in his head. Drowned out everything.
The machine thudded and whirred, and Victor tried to count the seconds, to hold on to some measure of time, but he kept losing his grip. Minutes fell away, taking with them more and more of his control. The buzzing was in his bones now, the first pricks of pain—a pain he couldn’t stifle—crackling across his skin.
“Stop the test,” he said, the words swallowed by the machine.
Porter’s voice came over the intercom. “I’m almost done.”
Victor fought to steady his breathing, but it was no use. His heart thudded. His vision doubled. The horrible electric hum grew louder.