He flashed her a smile, but it was sad at the edges. “Sometimes it feels like I’m in a fight, and all I’ve got are my hands, and the other guy has a knife. But that guy with the knife, eventually he’s going to face someone with a gun. And the one with the gun is going to go up against someone with a bomb. The truth is, Syd, there will always be somebody stronger than you. That’s just the way the world works.” He looked up at the shining skyscraper. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a human versus a human or a human versus an EO or an EO versus an EO. You do what you can. You fight, and you win, until you don’t.”

Sydney swallowed, and turned her attention back to the skyline.

“Any word from Victor?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light.

Mitch shook his head. “Not yet. But don’t worry.” His hand came to rest on her shoulder. “He can take care of himself.”

III

MERIT CENTRAL HOSPITAL

THEIR steps echoed on the stairs.

“What exactly happens at the apex of these episodes?” asked Dumont.

“Nerve impairment. Muscular seizure.” Victor ticked off the symptoms. “Atrial fibrillation. Cardiac arrest. Death.”

Dumont glanced back. “Death?”

Victor nodded.

“Do you know how many times you’ve died? Are we talking about three to four recurrences or a dozen—”

“One hundred and thirty-two.”

The doctor’s face went slack. “That’s . . . not possible.”

Victor considered him dryly. “I assure you, I’ve kept track.”

“But the sheer strain on your body.” Dumont shook his head. “You shouldn’t be alive.”

“That is both the cause and the crux of our problem, isn’t it?”

“Have you experienced cognitive impairment?”

Victor hesitated. “There’s a brief period of disorientation immediately after. And it’s getting longer.”

“It’s a miracle you’re still forming sentences.”

Miracle. Victor had always hated that word.

They reached the fifth floor, and Dumont pushed open a set of doors. He hit a switch and the lights came on, one shuddering wave at a time, illuminating a broad floor that was indeed in the process of being torn apart and put back together. Plastic sheeting hung in makeshift curtains, equipment covered in white tarps, and for an instant Victor imagined himself back in the half-built Falcon Price building, voices bouncing off concrete.

“There are some exam rooms this way,” said Dumont, but Victor refused to move.

“This is far enough.”

They were standing in the middle of the tangled space. Victor would have preferred a clean line of sight to the exits, but the tarping made that impossible.

Dumont set his things down and shrugged out of his coat.

“How long have you been an EO?” asked Victor.

“Two years,” said the doctor.

Two years. And he’d only just shown up in their search matrix.