Galen composes himself. “Perhaps that was part of the equation, Luka, but in the end Happy needed me. People, Luka, are generally idiots. Tell them the truth and they’ll skew it to fit their agenda. I’m Galen Rye, voted in by a base of supporters so devoted that I could walk into the West Sanctum Vertical, start executing Regulars, and still win a snap election the next day. In the beginning, Happy needed leaders like me, leaders who could tell their devotees to do what they’re told. The stupidity of the masses, Luka, is not to be underestimated. I preyed on their fears, on their prejudices, on their idiocy. I told them I’d stop migrants taking a chunk out of their subsidy percentage, and they called me a hero. I told them I’d bring back conscription, and they called me a savior. I promised to loosen USW weapons laws, and they chanted my name! Do you think I care about migration? About homelessness? About any of the arbitrary things I’d spout day after day? No! But I knew what the brain-dead hive mind of the people wanted to hear. I manipulated them until they were loyal, dedicated, steadfast. Phase One of Happy’s plan involved poisoning ninety-eight percent of the population of Earth. A thing like that cannot be achieved without people like me at the reins—”

“Enough,” the Maddox host says, cutting Galen off. He turns to me. “Do you agree to our terms?”

“Yes,” I say, still smiling at Galen, who looks back at me with concern in his eyes.

“Good,” the Maddox host says. “Now, I believe you requested to know who the third subject of our tests will be.”

He stands and walks to the elevator. Tyco, Galen, and I follow and we descend to floor sixty-five, right back to where I had freed Malachai, right back to where Woods had thrown himself to his death.

“Right this way,” Happy says through Maddox as he opens the door.

I step back into the laboratory. The room is exactly as it had been, except there are no holographic projections of test subjects hovering in the air now, and the E4-EX-19 arms have been repaired.

A person lies on one of the operating tables. The paralysis needle is obviously not activated, because I can hear their ragged breathing, in and out rapidly, hoarsely.

“Who is it?” I ask, suddenly afraid of what I’m going to see when I walk over there.

“Take a look,” the Maddox host says, extending his arm.

I step closer, my heart beginning to race as I see her brown hair, great chunks of it missing where it looks as though she has pulled it out. I move to the operating table, slowly moving around it until I can see her freckled cheeks, her wild blue eyes, the look of insanity and anger carved into her face.

“Jesus,” I whisper. “Mable?”