Taking a step back from the panel, Kaia told herself not to be taken in by his concern for his sister and the others who had the chip. How a man treated his own people didn’t necessarily translate to how he treated outsiders.
“We’re only in stage one of the experiment,” Atalina responded. “In layperson terms, a big reason for your extended coma was that the shock of the shooting threw your already degrading chip into an ever steeper decline. We’ve managed to not only halt that decline but reverse the attendant brain swelling.”
Bowen Knight was too much a strategist not to ask the next question. “Can you freeze the chip in time, so it degrades no further?”
Atalina’s gaze met Kaia’s.
“I think he can take it.” Kaia didn’t think many things scared the man in front of them.
“Take what?”
“Stage two of the experiment is intended to stabilize the chip, so that stage three can take place. Attie’s run endless computer models stopping the experiment at stage two—they all end up with the chip failing and you brain-dead in approximately three to four weeks.” That chip always kicked back in, carrying on in its fatal path until it exploded inside Bowen Knight’s brain.
Eyes as close to black as she’d ever seen on a human caught hers, his charisma potent. “What’s wrong with stage three?”
Atalina thrust her fingers through hair that had begun to show strands of white when she’d been only fifteen. Most teenagers would’ve been mortified. Attie had made the pragmatic decision to just accept the change and—quite accidentally—turned it into a fashion statement. “Stage three models all predict success in permanently stabilizing the chip.”
“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.