The two men, each inches shorter than both me and Yusuf with their thin frames hidden in billowy lab coats, shared a glance. We could throw down if we needed to, I knew. When I’d been arrested after that douche at Genesis’s bar had called her a slur and I’d slugged him, the guy had had thirty pounds on me. I still managed to bust his nose. Yusuf could probably snatch both of Kaori’s backup over his head at the same time and toss them clear across the room.

But there wasn’t a lot of use in fighting, in giving her the chance to call her new security team with their rubber bullets and Tasers to escort us to wherever she wanted us to go in the first place.

I was the first to break away from the machine, to the relief of the two guys.

“This isn’t over,” Yusuf said when he passed Kaori.

She didn’t say a word.

*   *   *

At least Kaori kept me and Yusuf together. No one used the word prisoners but what else are you gonna call it when you’re led to a room and two people are posted by the door to make sure you don’t leave?

“I’m really sorry, Dr. Hassan,” one of the guys—Fred, I remembered—said after he opened the door to the dorm bedroom in the hotel hallway, and we all waited at the threshold like vampires before they’re invited in. I guess Fred didn’t mind so much about locking me up, just Yusuf.

“It’s fine,” Yusuf mumbled.

“I’d really like you to rethink your definition of fine,” I deadpanned.

“We’ll round up some water and snacks and bring them to you while you… wait,” the other guy said. “And again. Uh. Sorry.”

Fred shut the door behind us. Inside the little pod hotel room, I flashed back to my first day here, fumbling around with Yusuf as my only tether. I tossed myself onto the bed with a bounce, while he stood and frowned.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked.

“Kaori said the Envisioner told her that some virus is coming that’s going to wipe out a quarter of humanity. She used me to change the outcome. Like what I did with you and the riot.”

“I knew she’d try to use you like some lab rat,” he rumbled, low. “She’s the one who was all about extracting usable information from the machine predictions and now she’s forgetting all of that and using you to—to snap your fingers and change things, never mind how fundamentally fucking impossible that is. Any of this. All of us are just tools to her. I knew it, even after the years with her. She fooled me. Even still, it… it…”

I could read the words in his lost eyes. Even still, it hurts.

“Hey, it’s okay. Come back to me.”