He looks back to the monitor and continues. “At the same time, Flame-fingers from around the world have begun sending us their lineage and their own ‘family remedies.’ I’ve been entering it all as it comes in. I flag the ones that look the most promising, especially those used to treat revenants. In the meantime, Bran and I try to duplicate the remedies in our lab.”

He clicks on another page titled ‘Testing Platform.’ It’s a table, with columns labeled Treatment Goal, Treatment Origin, Formulation, Comments, Bardia Testee and Results.

“Okay, here’s where you come in,” he says, and clicks on the first, Treatment Goal.

“Resisting Death,” I read out loud. Under it are listed four treatments, each linked to the Flame-finger who submitted them. The first one reads, Treatment: ‘Eternal Tears’ Origin: Amesbury, 17th century manuscript. The Formulation field has yesterday’s date and links to Bran’s and Siaka’s profile pages, since they were the Flame-fingers who reproduced the formula. Under the comments, Siaka types, “All original conditions respected.” And he tabs over to “Bardia Testee” and types, “Arthur Poincaré.”

“So, once Livia gets us connected with the new platform,” Siaka says, “you’ll be able to take over from here. Arthur will take the remedy and you will keep notes on how he responds and type it into the system. If there aren’t any horrible side effects, we will greenlight it for other Flame-fingers to produce and bardia to test it across the world.”

“Horrible side effects?” I ask. “Like what?”

“Well, the last one made Arthur’s hair fall out,” Siaka says with a grin. “It came back after his next dormancy. But for the entire month, he wouldn’t leave La Maison without a ski cap, and he locked himself in his room whenever Georgia came over.”

I turn back to my screen, where I’ve opened up the bardia’s Worldwide Consortium database. A world map is lit with green circles, numbers popping up when you scroll over each one. A number at the bottom of the page calculates the international population of bardia at over ten thousand.

“This is going to be a massive project,” I say.

“Yeah.” Siaka sips his Coke and looks thoughtful. “But it’s a fascinating subject. And there’s the knowledge that if we find something that makes the bardia stronger, our work can help humanity.

“To be honest, now that you’re here, I’m really looking forward to this. Just think. We’ve literally years of working on this...together!” He reaches out and pats me on the shoulder. It’s one hundred percent Just Friendly, but I wasn’t prepared, and the hairs on my arms stand on end. I scoot back in my chair and look away.