Surit didn’t mention syncing that day. So there was one last-ditch tactic: feel physically bad enough that Surit didn’t want to try it. On the other hand, Tennal was kidding himself if he thought that was a real solution.

Besides, Tennal didn’t have any control over how he felt. It wasn’t intentional that he didn’t sleep the next night; he couldn’t shut his brain down. The only thing between him and a sync was Surit’s decision. When Tennal thought about it, random muscles hurt in the space between his ribs.

It became obvious what was happening around dawn on the third day, when Tennal finally acknowledged his heartbeat had probably been elevated for thirty-six hours straight. The uncertainty was as good as an interrogation technique. Making him wait wasn’t just something Surit was doing so he could feel better. It also worked to break him.

Tennal held out throughout the day. The army regs they’d left him access to gave him something else to try to focus on, though he had almost no focus left; he read the same sentence over and over as he tried to lose the hyperawareness that was keeping him jittery and exhausted. Surit came and went. Tennal thought he was doing well, all things considered.

So it was a mystery to him why Surit sat up in the middle of the night, threw the room lights on, and said, “That’s it. I’m getting a medic.”

A layer of unreality had settled over everything from the lack of sleep, distorting Tennal’s reactions. “Why?” he said. The word echoed oddly in his head.

“You’re hyperventilating,” Surit said.

Tennal wrestled just enough distance away from his body to realize Surit was half-right. Tennal’s blood had been hammering in his ears anyway, from the soother withdrawal and insomnia, so he hadn’t linked it to the way he couldn’t quite get enough air. It wasn’t something he remembered doing before. He was having a wealth of new experiences on this trip. He made himself slow his breathing. “I’m all right.”

Surit had gotten up by this point, all six-feet-something of him in pajama trousers and a white top that had been washed repeatedly within an inch of its life. “You’re not,” he said tightly. “You haven’t eaten in three days. I don’t think you’ve slept. I keep waking up to check if you’re still breathing. If you’re on a hunger strike—”

“I’m not on a hunger strike,” Tennal said. It was noticeably easier to speak now that he’d forced his lungs into doing their fucking job. The idea was ridiculous. “What good would that do?”

“Then you’re ill, and you need medical attention.”