The scream was so sudden. So loud and shocking that it seemed to punch Eve in the brain. Spiro didn’t even have time to throw back his head—the scream just ripped its way out of his chest with such force that blood flecked the Fixer’s lips. The sound was so enormous that everyone shrank back. Even the guards flinched. Had they been less professional and had their fingers on their triggers rather than laid along the sides, Spiro would have been riddled with bullets.

The scream rose and rose …

Then it stopped.

Spiro clamped his jaws shut as every muscle in his body went into a spasm of such tight rigidity that even his goggling eyes seemed to swell. His lips were curled back from bloody teeth. Veins stood out everywhere, and Spiro’s pale skin was flushed a dangerous purple red. Red veins whipsawed across the whites of his eyes.

“Talk to me, Bryan,” growled HK.

“I…,” he began, but then bent over the computer again, typing furiously. Then Eve heard his tap-taps slow. “Wait…”

HK snapped her head around to look at him. “What?”

“Look,” whispered Bryan, pointing.

HK turned back and stared. Spiro’s color was fading from the violent flush to a paler, humaner tone. The veins still popped on his arms and neck, but now they looked like a bodybuilder’s after some heavy sets. Nothing looked like it was going to explode. And the man was breathing. Panting, but not in a labored way. Eve thought there was a sense of exhilaration to it. His eyes were still strange, though, with the sclera now an even shade of scarlet.

“How are his vitals?” asked HK.

“Leveling out,” said Bryan with a sense of wonder in his voice. “My god, HK … he’s leveling out.”

Everyone stared. Eve even found herself leaning forward, her breath held, fists balled.

HK took a tentative step forward, and one of the armed Fixers moved up to stand beside her, rifle stock tucked into his shoulder.

“I got you, HK,” he said quietly, though clearly loudly enough for Spiro to hear. If he could hear. The last test subject had stroked out by this point. And the one before that kept screaming and screaming until something in his heart ruptured. A valve, Eve thought.

HK spoke very calmly and slowly.

“Spiro?” she said. “Can you hear me?”

The Fixer blinked several times and looked momentarily confused. Then he gave a single jerky nod.

“Do you know who I am?”

Spiro licked his lips, either unaware of the salty blood on his lips or past the point of caring.

“Y-yes…”

“That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good. Tell me your name. Can you do that?”

The confused expression came and went, came and went. His lips formed the words several times before he finally managed to put sound to them.

“Spiro … Spiro Frangopoulos.”