Me, Yusuf, and Kaori hover by the Envisioner in the dead silence. Kaori snarls into her radio, with no answer from the other end. A blurry black mass approaches the clear glass door of the Theater. When they’re close enough, I can see that a goggled man in black is anchoring Xin to his chest with an arm around her throat. He levels a gun at the three of us, separated by the glass door until Xin weakly raises her hand to open the door with her badge. Already her face is turning purple as her other hand claws at the arm around her neck.

No hostage demands or bargains. The man doesn’t speak before he raises his gun and shoots Yusuf in the chest before Kaori can fire a round. I collapse to the ground over Yusuf, screaming and jamming my hands over his wound, blood already seeping through the cracks between my fingers. Shouting and begging. No no no no. And jesus there’s so, so much blood. Kaori misses and shoots the wall, but it’s enough to rattle the guy into shoving Xin at us. Kaori recovers, whipping her arms to the side, and she shoots him in the side of the neck. He crumples to the ground.

Everything arced in bolts of lightning across my brain. In the machine gun rattle of my heart and the bullet wound that I could swear was leaking blood out of my chest, exactly where Yusuf got shot in the vision. The scenes were like the projection of my doc on the wall that I’d shown him. Except I couldn’t figure out which was the trick of the light and which was the wall.

*   *   *

Do you know how long it takes for a grenade to blow after you’ve pulled the pin?

I don’t know, either. But years back, the crowd in the gay bar in Ukraine where I’d been filming spilled out into the street once the police rammed down the door. I’d watched a flash-bang grenade hit the glass-strewn pavement and time had stopped for an instant when the steel canister had bounced by my foot. I didn’t have time to think, I just wound up and kicked the thing back and watched the line of police with their riot shields and flak armor scatter.

I don’t know how long I was cemented in front of the Envisioner with my eyes closed, only that when I opened them, the last of the other white coats were gone. Only me, Yusuf, and Kaori, now. The game pieces falling into place.

Yusuf’s wide eyes beamed like a lighthouse at my side. He looked so brittle that I could snap him at the waist.

“What do you see?” Kaori snapped, which seemed to yank him back to Earth.