“Catch her!” Tesla’s voice fills the room.

They scrabble but can’t get a proper hold of me as I slip off the edge of the gurney. I can’t even open my mouth to produce the scream that should accompany the extraction of the metal tube as it’s ripped from my back by the momentum of the fall.

“Get out of my way!” he shouts.

I hit the ground with the side of my face and crumple on my left shoulder. I’m horribly conscious, my body caught in an agonising arch, my legs tangled in countless wires. Up close, I see the concrete floor slopes gradually down towards a grated drain in the middle of the room. Eerily familiar. I can’t look away from the hole and goosebumps rise on my skin. My face gets wet with tears. A split lip, the copper tang in my mouth. I want to wipe it all away, keep my blood and water from the sloping floor, the grated drain.

Tesla fights through the press of bodies and bends over me. The scent of soap and warm skin. That woodsy, mountain air smell that makes me think of Jamie.

“Scheiße,” he says, muttering. “Give me that.”

There’s a prick in my arm that means nothing against the collateral agony of my body, then the creeping relief of morphine smudging pain’s sharp edges. His hand smoothes up and over my brow and the rough terrain of my hair. The comfort in it makes me think of my mother. April – gone, her absence a bruise still tender in my chest, but this isn’t comfort. It’s analysis, inquiry, feeling for damage from my fall. “Brünnhilde,” he says and clicks his tongue. It sounds meaningful, but I can’t pick why. With surprising gentleness he hefts me up, forklifting his arms beneath my chest and hips.

“Move!” he says. The medics hovering behind him make way.

Someone loosens the tangle of cords from my legs, helping to lift me back onto the table. Thankfully the morphine hit is on an upwards trajectory, numbness like a rising tide. I watch Tesla in the black glass, bearing down on a short clipboard-hugging doctor.

“I did not authorise this procedure,” Tesla says. “This Asset is under my jurisdiction.”

“Sir,” the doctor says, through her mask. “The girl had no tracker and the new implant registered a discrepancy between the chronology of her activation and her vital readings. I’m afraid the dose of anaesthetic was too low.”

“This does not explain why you would attempt to take core samples from an immature Asset.”

“Her – her vital reading indicates imminent maturation and Counsellor Knox requested it.”

“This child has not been through Orientation,” he says, lowering his voice, his cool cultured accent more menacing than a shout. “The covenants of the reform make it illegal to sample from developing Assets. Why is that, doctor?”

“Due to their – their unstable regenerative capabilities in deep tissue trauma,” she says as though reciting from memory.

“Meaning?”

“She – she will be permanently scarred.”

“Which violates what?”

“The Protection of Asset Identity Act, where permanent marking of the body may give rise to questions that threaten the secrecy of the organisation.”

“So you are familiar with the covenants of the reform.”

“I – yes, sir. Counsellor Knox did not indicate the Asset would be underage.”

“And this lapse in communication explains the girl’s hair?”

“Counsellor Knox indicated the Asset was scheduled for discipline, sir.”

A strangled roar echoes around the room. “That man is a goddamn dinosaur!”

“Counsellor Knox–”

“Robert may be the Chair of the Executive, but he has no jurisdiction over the Assets in my care. You will remedy this godforsaken mess and dispatch her to recovery immediately.” He hurls the small round disc from his hand. It shatters on the floor and Tesla strides out; his signal disappears with him.

KNOX

“Evangeline.” A male voice murmurs by my head, a foreign signal in the bandwidth, sharp and aggressive against mine. I’m lying on my stomach, my face to the side, but the surface is soft, crisp, clean linen. “Evangeline? Can you hear me?” Louder this time, a touch of impatience.

I fight to come up from the murk, my head anvil heavy, a deep ache in my spine.

“I’m Counsellor Knox. You’re in recovery. You can move if you want, but I think you’ll be more comfortable on your stomach for now. There was quite a bit of damage to the extraction site. Dreadful waste. Can you look at me?”

Knox. The name makes me shiver but I’m not sure why. Cracking an eyelid takes major effort but I manage to peer through the hazy light.

“Quite a pain threshold you’ve got.”

It doesn’t sound like praise.

I mash my lips together, looking for moisture.

“Thirsty?” He bends down, pale blue eyes, silvering brown hair, soft jaw, cleft chin. Blandly attractive, late forties, if you go for clefts and old age. He’s not wearing scrubs or a white coat, no sign of a stethoscope, but there’s definitely medical equipment beeping near my bed. Am I in hospital? My back throbs.

He lifts a glass from the trolley beside me and jabs the straw between my chapped lips, poking me in the gums. I sip carefully, not wanting to drool on the bedding, grateful for the cool wet relief on my parched tongue, but there’s an astringent smell to his fingers. I’m glad when I’ve drained the water and his hand moves away. He steps out of my line of sight. The sound of water being poured, refilling my glass.

I can’t lift my head but from this angle the room stretches away from me, concrete, cavernous. There are eight beds either side of the aisle in the direction I’m facing, each surrounded by wires and tubes, IVs and monitors. All of the beds are full. Each patient wears a headset like misplaced earphones, the pads over their temples. A tube runs from each headset to a monitor and each monitor has a pipe that reaches all the way up the walls to the ceiling, where they connect with a larger central pipe made of black glass. Strangely, I feel none of their signals in the bandwidth. They can’t all be civs, surely?

In the bed next to me lies a girl. I’ve never seen anyone so pale, her skin chalky, translucent, her hair – almost white – spread in a gauzy halo on her pillow. Like the others, she doesn’t move. If I couldn’t see her chest rising and falling beneath the sheet, I’d think she was a corpse.

Delayed comprehension hits me and I quail inside.

Counsellor Knox. My back. My hair.

I’m in the Affinity compound. Benjamin and Davis caught me. I woke during a medical procedure, metal probes in my spine. Agony. Terror. Confusion. Miriam and Jamie are here somewhere. I’m in terrible trouble. Everybody knows about Aiden. Everybody knows what I’ve done. They have my pack and the blood sample. Did they find Kitty? Did she make it home? I need to talk to Tesla.

Furious Tesla.

“I saw the footage from the Roxborough Detention Centre.” Knox comes back into view, placing the filled glass on the trolley with a clunk. He cocks his head. “Quite a show.”

“I can explain.” My voice sounds weak and rough.

“You will,” he says. “I’m sure it’s a fascinating story.”

I want to ask for my backpack, explain about the blood sample, beg for them to run tests, but instinct warns me against bringing it up with the man who had my spine skewered and my hair chopped off. “I need to talk to Tesla.”

“Ethan is prepping your aunt and your boyfriend for their hearings. You should call him by his proper title, Counsellor Tesla.”

Aunt. Boyfriend.

A surge of terror and longing for both.

“Can I see my aunt?”

A troubling pause as he studies my face.

“You’re very alike.”

I want to hide myself in the mattress.

“She’s your mother’s twin sister?”

“Can I see her, please?”

“She’ll be in isolation until she has completed ReProg.”