I swallowed. I guess I learned my lesson? No more freaking out the handlers with telepathy. Unless they really, really deserved it. “How is Marco these days?”

“He’s returned to work,” Akua said. “In a limited capacity.”

“But he won’t be visiting?” I kept my voice innocent, but it was his fault I was in iso.

“No.”

Akua’s firm answer sparked a wave of fluttering futures: Marco braces his shoulder against a wall as he walks down a fuzzy corridor. Once upon a time he had perfect hair and a cocky smirk. These days, his hair hung lank around his face, framing haunted eyes that stared straight at his feet.

Now that I had a read on him, I flicked forward, but all his options were more of the same. Shuffling feet. Numb. Staring at nothing.

I almost regretted it, but a breath of relief gusted free before I could stop it. Marco made Darren look like a stand-up citizen. I’d wanted to throw him off before he started running me through “experiments” that looked a lot more like torture than science.

All I’d done was get in his head and show him a couple ways he might die. It had worked a lot better than expected.

Too bad the trick didn’t work on Akua or Darren or the others. Something about mental fortitude.

But seriously. What a lamebrain. I’d trade for one of his deaths any day. Mine were way more gruesome. Just the thought sparked a wave of gory options.

Strapped to a lab table and euthanized; grabbed screaming by a pack of guards in body armor; shot down as I lunge for the door; thrown into the bank of fake windows, my body cracking the screen and revealing the room behind as my blood pools in the glitchy, holographic shards.

Same old same old, but I still had to swallow a bubble of dread. The worst-case futures looked a lot more solid—and more likely—than I remembered.

Is that what’s coming? Is that why I can’t see?

Still nothing.

My own timeline was the hardest to pin down, but I knew with sick certainty that I was out of years. I hoped I still had months.

Or days at least?

Picking up my fork helped hide the tremble in my fingers. Worrying would only make me screw up. I planned to do everything I could to stall my death as long as possible. I’d lose that chance when I started freaking.

As I scarfed my pancakes, I kept trying to peek into my future, but nada. I doubted the game session was the problem. Maybe the holo room was where the bad news started?

It usually was. Darren was like all the bad news in the world jammed into one human shell.