by Nalini Singh
"But?"
"The hundred percent chance of success is paired with a ninety-five percent likelihood of severe brain damage."
Kaia flinched inwardly. Bowen Knight was the enemy, but he was also a dynamic, intelligent creature. The idea of his eyes going dull, his mind stopping to function . . . Her gut clenched. "Not from the chip," she told him. "It's the compound Attie's using. It'll stabilize the chip, but there's only a slim margin you'll come out of it with the same brain function you go in with."
"Five percent." Bowen Knight whistled quietly. "Christ." Those midnight eyes locked with Kaia's again. "Lily told you the boundaries?"
Kaia nodded. "No machines if you're brain-dead." She should've left it at that, but he had to know the truth--if she kept it from him, she was no better than the security chief who had helped steal her people. "The models don't show you suffering brain death. Only severe brain damage."
"Your autonomic nervous system would still function," Atalina explained quietly. "You'd be able to breathe on your own, be able to swallow. There would be no need for machines."
Kaia's gaze was still locked with Bowen's, so she saw the slow creep of horror within the living obsidian. And she suddenly understood Bowen Knight's deepest nightmare: to be helpless against the world, his sense of self erased to leave only a hollow shell.
Chapter 5
My mind is who I am. Do not prolong my life by artificial methods should my brain suffer an insult that leaves me a flesh and blood ghost of myself.
--Living will written and signed by Bowen Knight. Witnesses: Lily Knight and Cassius Drake
HORROR CLAWED AT Bowen.
He'd christened himself in blood to protect his mind against a savage telepathic violation, had spent his adult life attempting to find a way for humanity to do the same. He'd fought so no human would ever again be turned into a mindless doll . . . but he'd forgotten that the Psy weren't the only threat to that integral component of his self.
"I can stop the experiment right now." Dr. Kahananui's voice, softer and less bluntly scientific than it had been to this point.
Bo wrenched his gaze from Kaia's, her inky pupils having flared against the brown of her irises--as if she'd seen his nightmare and understood it. "What would that mean?"
"All I have are the computer models--and I'll be able to refine them with more data now that you've woken," the doctor answered, "but to summarize, you'd have approximately a month to six weeks at full function before your chip goes into catastrophic failure."
She checked something on a monitor. "According to models the Aleines have run during your coma, you'll know when it begins--the migraines will be excruciating. Then will come the nosebleeds and the ocular degeneration. At which point, you can shut yourself up to die in peace, no chance of anyone disobeying your clearly stated decision to not be put on life support should you suffer brain impairment."
Four to six weeks of life versus an entire lifetime.
But that wasn't the real choice and never had been. "If I don't accept the risk"--if he didn't put his mind on the line for a meager five percent chance of success--"someone else will end up here, end up deciding to continue to stage three." Lily or Cassius or Heenali or Ajax, maybe even scared-of-his-own-shadow-but-brave-despite-it Zeb.
When Dr. Kahananui hesitated, he looked to Kaia. He already knew she'd give him the unvarnished truth. Unraveling her folded arms, she gripped the edge of the panel at the end of his bed. "Yes. The compound is unlike anything we've ever seen. Models can only tell Attie so much. She needs data from a living subject."
"Did you manufacture this compound? How much can you access?"
Dr. Atalina was the one who answered. "It's natural, created by a deep-sea creature as part of its life cycle. We have approximately a hundred grams--"
"No, Attie." Kaia put a hand on the doctor's arm. "What he wants to know is how many people it could save if it works."
"Oh." Dr. Kahananui glanced down at the organizer she'd picked up, but he had the feeling it was more a reflex action than anything--she had the information in her head. "If it works, we have enough to stabilize every individual who already has an implant."
Bowen's heart shuddered. Lily, Cassius, Heenali, Zeb, Domenica, Ajax, the others, they'd all be safe. "Will you be able to get more?" The world had so many vulnerable human minds.
"No, to harvest it again anytime within the next century would be to harm the being who created it. But," the doctor continued, "with the data from a successful experiment, I can take the first step toward attempting to replicate and manufacture the compound--it's so complex and rare that the task is apt to take decades, maybe my entire lifetime."
She could give him no quick answer for humanity's desperate need, but she could save the lives of people he loved. All he had to do was risk everything that made him Bowen Knight. "Five percent is better than no chance," he said, his voice like gravel. "Right now, we're all on the fast highway to death."
"What will you do if it fails?" A soft question from Kaia.
"I won't be able to do anything," he said flatly. "I'll be too brain damaged."
Her fingers clenched even tighter on the edge of the panel. Because while Dr. Kahananui might take his words at face value, Kaia was a darker creature. She understood that he'd make his choices, put contingencies in place. Cassius and he, they were bound by blood and horror. His best friend wouldn't struggle with fulfilling Bo's choice, wouldn't hesitate to run a blade across his throat.
That was when Dr. Kahananui spoke. "Even if it fails," she said, "you'll have the compound in your brain. I'll be able to study its interaction with your neural tissue over the years and gain critical data that could one day lead to a long-term solution."
Bowen stared at her. She was trying to comfort him, but she'd just slammed the prison door on his personal hell, then locked it and thrown away the key. He couldn't ask his best friend to put him out of his misery, not without stealing the chance of psychic safety from future generations.
His sister and friends would all be dead. But countless humans would still be walking around in a world where human minds were considered easy prey. And a slim chance was better than no chance.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Do it," he said. "All three stages." For some reason, he'd looked at Kaia as he spoke . . . and he caught her slight flinch. For him? Because of him? Not that it mattered. In making this choice, he'd put himself in a purgatory where his life couldn't go forward or backward for--"How long will it take to get to stage three?"
"Not counting today, exactly two weeks," Dr. Kahananui answered.
His heart thudded at the ruthlessly short time frame. A man could do many things in two weeks, but he couldn't live an entire lifetime. He couldn't make promises, couldn't dance with a woman under a moonlit sky and know that tomorrow and every tomorrow to come for decades, he'd wake up by her side.
And the security chief of the Human Alliance couldn't set up a framework that would protect his people for untold years to come. But he could damn well try. His brain was working right now, and his heart was strong--
Wait.
Raising his hand, Bo spread his fingers over his chest, felt the powerful beat of that heart, sensed the life-giving rush of blood pumping through his arteries. "My heart was punctured by shrapnel. I didn't imagine that."
"No, you didn't," Dr. Kahananui said. "You went into total heart failure soon after the shooting."
"There was nothing left," Kaia added. "No way for the surgeons to patch you back together."
Dr. Kahananui gasped at that instant, gripping at her belly. Bo jerked instinctively toward her, but his body wasn't ready yet; it reacted sluggishly. Kaia, however, had her arm around the other woman. "You in labor?" It was a sharp question.
"No." The doctor came fully upright again. "Just a muscle spasm." She patted Kaia's cheek when the cook with a scientist's background made a distinctively suspicious face. "I have plans to take this baby to full term and to birth in the ocean
and not even the resurrection of Bowen Knight will stop me."
Bo looked at the heavily pregnant woman. "In the ocean? Won't the baby drown? I know changelings don't shift until about a year of age." It had taken time and an excruciating amount of patience to learn that fact--changelings were remarkably insular for a people who had a reputation for being wildly affectionate.
"Maybe not all changelings are the same," was the enigmatic response from Kaia.
Dr. Kahananui, meanwhile, was back beside him, running a scanner over his chest. "As for your heart, it's functioning at perfect efficiency. Your primary physicians attempted to clone one, but for whatever reason, the cloning process failed multiple times."
Bo had to concentrate to keep his attention from drifting to Kaia--it was as if he were connected to her by an invisible cord. She moved and his gaze wanted to follow. "Then what is it I have inside my chest?"
"A mechanical heart. A cutting-edge piece of tech."
Bowen spread his fingers over his chest again . . . and realized this heart would keep on beating if the experiment failed. It'd keep his mindless body moving, keep him from dying. "I haven't heard of this technique before," he said in an effort to exist in the here and now rather than the unknown future.
"It's a rare procedure because of the complexity of creating hearts and because only a single biomech company has done it successfully." Dr. Kahananui continued to take readings as she spoke. "You're the first living recipient of this latest and most stable version. It's a prototype not intended for transplantation into a living subject for another two years at least, but Silver Mercant was able to cut through the red tape for you."
Across the room, Kaia's gaze held only ice, only distance. "You have powerful friends, Bowen Knight."
"No," he said after thinking through the unexpected piece of information, "it's Lily who knows Silver." She worked most often with the telepath in charge of EmNet--the worldwide Emergency Response Network. "This tech is Psy?"
Kaia raised an eyebrow. "Is that a problem?"
"Just a fucking irony." After all that the Psy had done to humans, stolen from humans, after all that Bo had done to make sure a telepath could never again get into his head, he now had a piece of expensive Psy technology inside his chest. "The experiment with the compound"--he touched the side of his head--"did the Psy have a hand in suggesting that?"
Before the shooting, he'd had a meeting with Kaleb Krychek, in which the staggeringly powerful telekinetic had told Bo that the PsyNet--the psychic network the Psy needed to live--was on the verge of collapse. In another magnificent irony, it was the sustained lack of human energy in the network that had led the psychic race to the brink of disaster.
The Psy desperately needed humans. Cooperative humans.
Coercion wouldn't work.
Mind control wouldn't work.
Krychek needed Bo to tell humanity to trust the Psy.
Bo wasn't heartless, but the Psy had caused too much horror for him to let his heart overrule his head. He'd asked Krychek for a specific gesture of good faith, an act done with no assumption of a return--but simply because it was the right thing to do.
"Put humans and Psy on equal footing when it comes to psychic privacy," he'd said. "Then, maybe, we can talk."
This might be Krychek's response.
But Dr. Kahananui shook her head. "No, this is a purely BlackSea operation."
Which meant the Psy might still be working on their attempt at a solution. But, even if they were, it was impossible that they'd magically come up with an answer in two short weeks. This was the throw he had to play. "Did you tell my sister about stage three?"
Again, he looked to Kaia for the answer. She understood him, would know exactly what he was asking beneath the straightforward question.
"No," she answered. "There was no point if stage one didn't bring you to consciousness. If it did, the choice had to be yours."
"Don't tell her," Bo said, the words an order. "Lily, my parents, Cassius, none of my people can know. But especially not Lily. And if the experiment fails, you tell them I died and that you had me cremated because the compound made my body toxic. Never let them see what I become."
Chapter 6
Lil, I got you the special holographic concert tickets you wanted. After four hours lining up in the rain. This better be the concert of the century.
--Message from Bowen Knight (17) to Lily Knight (13)
KAIA HEARD FAR too much love in Bowen Knight's harsh demand. It wasn't pride that made him ask to be hidden away. It was a fierce love that sought to protect his sister from the consequences of the choice she'd made to enroll Bowen in this experiment. Lily Knight might mourn her brother, but she'd die without guilt, without horror.
And Bowen's parents would pass on never knowing their son was trapped in a living hell.
Kaia took another physical step backward.
No one had warned her that the cold and merciless security chief of the Alliance was also a protective brother and stalwart friend. No one had told her that the man building a deadly army would also be willing to walk into his darkest nightmare for a minuscule chance at giving his people an answer.
Shoulders stiff, she clenched her stomach.
Remember Hugo.
It was a brutal reminder that this same loyal and loving man had had a hand in the abduction and probable torture of her childhood friend.
Remember.
This time the reminder was older and steeped in a child's anguish, for humans had been responsible for all the terrible losses of Kaia's life. Bowen Knight's people liked to think of themselves as the underdogs, but Kaia knew too well that humans could be cruel and self-serving and murderous.
"We'll meet again for a further assessment after I've had time to review all current data," Attie said to Bowen after agreeing to his stipulations about what to do should the experiment fail. "In the meantime, I assume you'd like to get out of bed?"
A curt nod. "I want to have a shower."
"I'll have an orderly come and assist you."
"I'm sure I can do it myself once you unhook all these wires and tubes."
No, Bowen Knight was not a man who'd ever be anything other than in control. Even fresh out of a coma, there was an authority to him that had Attie hesitating. Kaia stepped into the breach--her cousin was brilliant but didn't do well with confrontation of any kind. "If you fall on your face and drown in two inches of water, it makes the entire experiment moot."
His eyes flashed dark fire at her. "A compromise, then. I'll get myself to the shower, but the doctor can position an orderly outside the room."
Attie frowned. "I'll increase the pulse on the muscle trainers." After doing that, she took him through the mobility tests a second time around. "Hmm, you should be able to move well enough to take a short shower." She glanced over. "Kaia, can you grab the alarm?"
Knowing exactly what her cousin wanted, Kaia stepped out of the room and made her way to the medical supplies closet inside the lab farther along the corridor. As she walked, she breathed deep. In and out. And she made herself remember.
The hazy summer nights on the beach when her papa had rocked her to sleep while her mama read her a story.
The laughter as her mama dived with her into the deep, Kaia swimming in the slipstream created by her larger body.
The delight when her papa let her fingerpaint on his big white canvas.
The stomach-aching fun at Hugo's poker parties where they bet using toothpicks and unshelled peanuts.
All three were gone now and there was only one common denominator: humans.
Kaia wrenched open the closet to retrieve the alarm.
Attie had removed most of the wires and tubes connected to Bowen Knight's body by the time she returned. The only ones remaining were on his arms--and Attie was currently decommissioning those one by one.
Kaia accidentally met his gaze when she entered. He broke the contact almost at once, a dark reddish flush on his cheekbones.
&nbs
p; She nearly stumbled.
Gaze going to the connections Attie had thrown into a biohazard container, she realized this dangerous and intelligent man was embarrassed. So much so that he was still avoiding her gaze even though he'd never once looked away previously.
Kaia busied herself going over to the far wall, keeping her back to him while Attie finished. "If you decide you want a view," she said, "put your hand on this hidden panel." She lifted up the square cover cunningly camouflaged into the wall. Beneath was the black matrix of the panel.
"But," she warned, "you'll probably have an audience, so make sure you want to be seen when you open the window." It was hard to keep a secret on Ryujin. Everyone knew Atalina's subject was the security chief of the Human Alliance. Some--the ones Hugo had trusted with what he'd found--were angry.
Others were as curious as a nosy pod of dolphins.
There were apt to be a few "casually" waiting around nearby right now--people would've noticed Attie's rush to Bowen's room and how long she'd been in here.
"There." The sound of the biohazard container being shut. "You're no longer tethered. I've also removed the two muscle trainers you had on your face, as your facial muscles are reading as fully mobile."
Turning, Kaia went to hand Attie the alarm, but her cousin had picked up the biohazard container and said, "I'll dispose of this and organize an orderly. Make sure you explain how the alarm works, Kaia."
Kaia wasn't prepared for the suddenness with which she found herself alone with a half-naked Bowen Knight who still had a hint of red on his cheekbones. Her fingertips tingled. She wanted to brush them across the red, soothe his discomfort.
Squelching the impulse, she held her breath and slipped the strap attached to the small personal alarm over his head. Her thumbs brushed accidentally through his hair, the soft strands sliding across her skin like a caress. And his eyes, they watched her with a focus that wasn't as ruthless as it should've been.
She withdrew her hands as the flat disk of the alarm settled against his chest. "Squeeze it if you need assistance," she told him, "and the orderly will respond. It's waterproof so you can take it into the shower."