The scalpel vanished, and the doctor retreated from view. Nick heard the scrape and shuffle of tools, and then Haverty reappeared, holding a syringe, its contents a vivid, viscous blue.

“What do you want?” pleaded Nick as the needle disappeared from sight.

Seconds later, a pain pierced the base of his skull. Cold began to flood his limbs.

“What do I want?” echoed Haverty, as Nick shivered, shuddered, spasmed. “What all men of science want. To learn.”

III

I

ASCENSION

I

THREE WEEKS AGO

II

EON

“WHAT about you, Rush?”

Dominic blinked. He was sitting at a table on the upper level of the canteen, Holtz on one side and Bara on the other. After getting Dom the job, Holtz had stayed close, helped him fit in at EON. A cheerful blond kid—Dom couldn’t help but think of him that way, even though Holtz was a year older—with a mischievous smile and a perpetually good mood, they’d served together, two tours, before Dom stepped on an IED and found himself retired. It was nice to have a shared shift break, Bara’s presence notwithstanding.

Rios sat alone one table over, the way she always did, a book open beside her food. Every time a soldier passed too close, she shot them a look, and they retreated.

“What about me?” asked Dom.

“If you were an EO,” said Bara around a mouthful of sandwich,

“what would your power be?”

It was an innocuous question—inevitable, even, given the environment. But Dom’s mouth still went dry. “I—don’t know.”

“Oh, come on,” pressed Bara. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought of it.”

“I’d want X-ray vision,” said Holtz. “Or the ability to fly. Or the ability to transform my car into other cars whenever I get bored.”

Rios looked up from her own table. “Your mind,” she said, “truly is

a marvel.”

Holtz beamed, as if it were a compliment.

“But,” she continued, “if you bothered to read the eval files, you’d know that an EO’s power is tethered to the method of their NDE and the state of their mind at the time of incident. So tell me,” she said, turning in her chair, “what kind of accident gets you the power to change the model of your car?”

Holtz made a comical frown, as if genuinely trying to puzzle it out, but Bara was clearly bored.

“What about you, Rios?” he shot back. “What would your power be?”

She returned to her book. “I’d settle for the ability to create quiet.”

Holtz let out a nervous laugh.

Dominic let his eyes slide over the group.

He hadn’t expected it to get easier—hadn’t wanted it to get easier—