The word hit Ambrose like the shudder of anxiety that tightened his chest whenever he left a responsibility dangling for too long at work. In the rapid-fire chaos of the past two days (had it only been two days?), he’d forgotten about the second part of the procedure. The hypothalamus modification had been successful—he hadn’t slept, wasn’t tired—but the follow-up calibrations were necessary to prevent side effects. Without the release valve of dreaming, he would begin to process events like an insomniac. His subconscious would assert itself in his waking life. Eventually, it would fragment beyond repair and he’d be just like the early test subjects: a drooling, paranoid mess adrift in a world of hallucination.

He pictured Martin’s leering face on the dragon’s body.

It had already begun.

“Oh,” he said, feeling very much like a scared, insecure younger brother.

“Right,” Len said. “Oh. So we need to get back to the office.”

“That’s a poorly conceived plan.”

“It’s the only place that’s equipped to handle the aftermath of a Level Seven. Come on, Ambrose, you know that.”

“It just seems…” Like a trick, he thought. Like something Martin would do to get him to walk right back through the door of UniCorp HQ with minimal hassle. “Where’s Mistletoe?” he asked Ivor.

“Your charming counterpart took off. Behold, her parting gift.” The old man lifted up his robe to display an ugly bruise on his shin.

“I have to find her,” Ambrose said. The thought of losing her forever made him feel deeply alone. She was the only other person who could understand what it felt like to find out you weren’t quite human.

“First we have to get you calibrated,” Len said. “The new ID Ivor hardcoded into you should work topside, so as long as we take my private entrance to the lab instead of walking in the front door—”

“I never knew there was a private entrance.”

“There is. It’s mine.”

Ambrose still wanted to run. He wanted to find Mistletoe and escape Eastern Seaboard City together. But Len was right about the urgency of the calibration. He imagined a world filled with grinning Martin-dragons and shuddered.

“Fine,” he said to Len. The security team stood at grim-faced attention. Where do they find these guys? Ambrose imagined a silent waiting room packed with beefy goons. “Let’s get this over with.”

*   *   *

They emerged from the subway tunnels into the streets of Little Saigon and jogged toward a long, black, cylindrical transport across the street. The security team lowered flaps on their windbreakers to cover the UniCorp insignias. The side of the transport said, in bright red letters, ENJOY RED SQUIRREL TEA. Beneath the letters was a picture of the green, black, and orange pellets available from Red Squirrel.