Miles was anxious to offer help, but as they approached the point of no return in the procedures, Raven sat him down at a distance on a stool with a face mask across his mouth. The memorystick around the edges molded to his skin in a flexible but efficient seal, and the electropores even filtered viruses. Still, Miles wasn't entirely sure if it was only to block germs. So he bit his tongue rather than shrieking when Raven muttered, "Damn it…?that's not right."

"What's not right?" Miles asked, as Raven and the medtech busied themselves about the table and didn't answer.

"There's no electrical latency in the brain," Raven said, just before Miles started to repeat his question, louder. "It should be coming up by now… Tanaka, let's try a good old-fashioned shot of shock, here."

Lisa Sato's head bore something resembling a swimming cap, studded with electronics and sensors, tight to the dark hair plastered flat with cryo-gel. Raven did something to his control screen, and the cap made a snapping noise that made Miles jump and almost topple off his stool. Raven scowled at his readouts. His gloved hand went out, almost unconsciously it seemed to Miles, to massage his patient's limp hand.

"Close that drain," Raven said, abruptly and inexplicably, and the medtech hurried to comply. He stepped back a pace. "This isn't working."

The bottom fell out of Miles's stomach in a sickening lurch. "Raven, you can't stop." My God, we can't afford to botch this one. Those poor kids are waiting for us to deliver their mother back to them. I promised…?

"Miles, I've done over seven thousand revivals. I don't need to spend the next half hour jumping on this poor woman's corpse to know she's gone. Her brain is slush, on a micro-level." Raven sighed and turned away from the table, peeling down his mask and drawing off his gloves. "I know a bad prep when I see one, and that was a bad prep. This wasn't my fault. There was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could ever have done." Raven was far too controlled a man to throw his gloves across the room and swear, but he hardly needed to; Miles could read his emotions in his set face, the more fierce for the sharp contrast with his usual easy-going cheer.

"Murdered…?do you think?"

"Things can go wrong without someone intending them, you know. In fact, that's the statistical norm. Though not around you, I suppose."

"But not, I think, in this case."

Raven's lips flattened. "Yeah. I can do an autopsy, in a bit, here." When he had recovered his tone of mind, presumably. "Find out exactly what kind of bad prep this was. There are a number of choices. I thought there was something odd about the viscosity of that return fluid…" He paused. "Let me rephrase that. I bloody insist on the autopsy. I want to know exactly how I was set up for this failure. Because I don't like being set up like this."

"Amen," growled Miles. He slipped off his chair, jerked down his mask, and approached the table with its mute burden. The blood pump was still keeping the skin hopefully flushed, deceptive promise. Absently, Raven reached out and switched it off. The silence hurt.

How was he going to explain this to Jin and Mina? Because Miles knew that would have to be his next task. In his rush and his arrogance, he had taken away their hope…?no, he'd only taken away their false hope. This ending was apparently inevitable, however and whenever it was arrived at, now or later, by his hand or another's. The reflection didn't console him much.

I will get you justice…?no. He wasn't in a position to make any such pledges to them. And I will try sounded too weak, mere preamble to another adult put-off. But guilt fueled his rage against his-their-unknown enemy as nothing else could. How odd, how suspect. How futile.

A sharp rap fell on the operating room door. Roic, awake again? He wasn't going to greet the news of their fool's errand with any joy, either. Miles stretched his back, grabbed his cane, walked to the door, and glanced through the narrow glass. And was immediately glad he hadn't just yelled, Come in, Roic! Because standing outside was Consul Vorlynkin, looking harried, with Jin and Mina in tow, one tugging on each arm.

Miles slipped through the door and stood with his back pressed to it. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to wait at the consulate till I called." As if he couldn't tell, by the way Vorlynkin was being pulled about. He supposed it was a good thing the children seemed to have lost all fear of the man, but it would be better if he hadn't turned to putty in their hands. Yeah, like I should talk.

"They insisted," Vorlynkin explained, unnecessarily. "I told them she wouldn't be awake till tomorrow-you told them how unappetizing you looked when you came out of cryo-but they still insisted. Even if they could only see her through the glass. I don't think they slept all night. Woke me up three times… I thought maybe if they could just see, they'd settle down. Take naps later, something." Vorlynkin's voice slowed as he took in Miles's grim stance. So he only mouthed, and did not voice, the words What's wrong?

Miles wasn't ready for this now. Hell, he wasn't ready for this ever. He'd had the unenviable task before of informing next-of-kin or the friends who stood in that place, but they'd always been adults. Never children, never so wide open and unarmored.

Mina and Jin's excitement was quelled, as they looked at him. Because if things had gone well, wouldn't he be puffing it off already, taking the credit? There was no way to make this better, and only one way to make it over. He wanted to kneel, to grovel, but it seemed only right to look Jin in the eye. He took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Something went wrong with the cryorevi-no, with the cryoprep. There was nothing Raven-sensei could do. We tried…?we think your mother died during her cryoprep eighteen months ago, or sometime soon after."

Jin and Mina stood still in shock. But not crying, not yet. They just stared at Miles. Stared and stared.

"But we wanted to see her," said Mina, in a thin little voice. "You said we would see her."

Jin's voice was throaty, husky, entirely unlike himself. "You promised…"

The trio had fallen apart from each other at the blow of this news. Quite spontaneously and uncharacteristically, Jin's hand found Mina's. Mina's other hand wavered and gripped Vorlynkin's again; he looked down at her in dismay. "Now?" he said. "Are you sure…??" His hard gaze rose as if to nail Miles to the wall.

"They have a right," said Miles in reluctance. "Though I don't know if an ugly memory is better than no memory. I just…?don't know."

"Neither do I," admitted Vorlynkin.

Mina's chin jutted out. "I want to see. I want to see her."

Jin gulped and nodded.

"Wait a moment, then…" Miles slipped-fled-back through the door and said, "Raven, we have visitors. Next of kin. Can we, ah, tidy her up a bit?"

Raven the supposed Jacksonian hard-ass looked deeply shaken at this news. "Oh gods, it's not those poor kids? What are they doing here? Must they come in?"

"They've a right," Miles repeated, wondering why those words seemed to resonate in his mind. He ought to know, but these days he couldn't blame every memory lapse on his own ten-year-old cryorevival.

Raven, Tanaka and Miles hurried to get the silent figure decently draped, to remove the useless tangle of technology from about her, tubes and electrodes and the strange cap. Miles smoothed the short black hair back over the ears. Its slickness rendered the middle-aged female face sophisticated yet skull-like, and Miles wondered how the children's mother had worn her hair. Weird little things like that could matter all out of proportion. A swift and useless tidying-up, this.

Over, let it be over. Miles went to the door and held it wide.