I skipped ahead. We’d chat. I’d try to trick her into something. All normal stuff. A few other possibilities popped into being for this afternoon and I needed to take a closer look at those later, but for now I tried to look farther ahead.

After that. What’s happening later?

For the first time in a long time, the future was a big goose egg.

Maybe no news was good news? I liked to think I’d get a hint if I was supposed to die, but…

I hugged my arms to my body, trying to suppress a wave of the chills. It wasn’t like I always knew what was coming. I made good guesses, but it was still guessing—picking the most likely future out of the options that showed.

I couldn’t see everything. And I’d been blindsided before, missing the real future in the mountain of possibilities.

Whatever happened, I always saw something.

Until now.

I hopped up to pace and rub my arms some more, but the emptiness stayed. I kept twitching, thinking I saw motion, but it was just the tech in the walls flashing.

What did it mean? And what was I going to do about it?

It wasn’t like I had tons of options. I couldn’t get the front door open, let alone make it down the hall alive. There were cameras everywhere. A ridiculous number of guards. Plus I was twenty-something stories underground. Escape was not an option now or ever.

All I could do was hope I’d be able to talk myself out of…

Whatever this was.

Sickening unease carried me through the long hour. By the time the pressurized door whooshed open, my head throbbed with strain and frustration.

“Good morning, Quanta.” The real Akua set my tray on the plastic dining table. “Have you been well?”

“I’ve been stellar.” I managed not to scowl, but she probably heard the urge in my voice. The girl knew exactly how I’d been. I had no doubt she’d been watching my live feeds 24/7, getting all twitchy to get back to me and start a new wave of psych tests.

Akua uncovered my plates and then stepped back to stand near the door. Half her dark braids were pulled into a bun and she swept the other half over her shoulder so she could lean against the wall. A thread popped out of the Blue Helix embroidered on her pocket, but everything else about her was flawless from her photo-finish skin to her thick, black eyelashes.

She was maybe ten years older than me, but it was hard to say when both of us had such modded DNA and I was guessing my age to begin with. Nineteen-ish? Twenty-one?

It was hard to keep track. I hadn’t been super lucid the years I was lab rat.