She sits down beside him. She doesn't want his eyecaps out. She doesn't want to see behind them.

"Your inhibitors," she says at last. "How far down are they?"

"Twenty percent."

"Well." She tries for a light touch. "At least we know your limit now. Just nudge them back up to normal."

Almost imperceptibly, he shakes his head.

"Why not?"

"Too late. I went over some sort of threshold. I don't think — it doesn't feel reversible."

"I see." She puts one tentative hand on his arm. He doesn't react. "How do you feel?"

"Blind. Deaf."

"You're not, though."

"You asked how I felt," he says, still expressionless.

"Here." She takes the NMR helmet down from its hook. Acton lets her strap it across his skull. "If there's anything wrong, this should—"

"There's something wrong, Len."

"Well." The helmet writes its impressions across the diagnostic display. Clarke's got the same medical expertise they all have, stuffed into her mind by machines that hijacked her dreams. Still, the raw data mean nothing to her. It's almost a minute before the display prints out an executive summary.

"Your synaptic calcium's way down." She's careful not to show her relief. "Makes sense, I guess. Your neurons fire too often, eventually they run out of something."

He looks at the screen, saying nothing.

"Karl, it's okay." She leans toward his ear, one hand on his shoulder. "It'll fix itself. Just put your inhibitors back up to normal; demand goes down, supply keeps up. No harm done."

He shakes his head again. "Won't work."

"Karl, look at the readout. You're going to be fine."

"Please don't touch me," he says, not moving at all.

Critical Mass

She catches a glimpse of fist before it hits her eye. She staggers back against the bulkhead, feels some protruding rivet or valve catch the back of her head. The world drowns in explosions of afterlight.

He's lost control, she thinks dully. I win. Her knees collapse under her; she slides down the wall, sits with a heavy thud on the deck. She considers it a matter of some pride that she's kept utterly silent through all this.

I wonder what I did to set him off. She can't remember. Acton's fist seems to have knocked the past few minutes out of her head. Doesn't matter anyway. Same old dance.

But this time there seems to be someone on her side. She can hear shouts, sounds of a scuffle. She hears the sick jarring thud of flesh against bone against metal, and for once, none of it seems to be hers.

"You cocksucker! I'll rip your fucking balls off!"

Brander's voice. Brander is sticking up for her. He always was the gallant one. Clarke smiles, tastes salt. Of course, he never quite forgave Acton for that tiff over the gulper, either...