The first time I had seen Isaac Dvali was at his father’s compound in the Equatorian desert. There had been something uncanny about him even then—an adolescent boy who had been hybridized with Hypothetical nanotechnology and raised in isolation from the rest of the world. I had never really gotten to know him during the time we had been together in the badlands—I doubted anyone had ever really gotten to know him—but I was friendly toward him, and I believed he welcomed that friendship. It was Isaac, probably more than any of us drawn into the temporal Arch, who deserved a second shot at life.

But not this life, I thought, and not like this.

Much of his body had been destroyed in the attack on Vox Core. What was salvaged had been badly burned. It was a testimony to Voxish medical science, and to the power of the Hypothetical biotech embedded in him, that Isaac had survived at all.

Allison hung back queasily as I approached Isaac’s nest of tubes and wires, while Oscar hovered at my shoulder. “Many parts of him had to be regrown,” Oscar was whispering. “His left leg and arm, his lungs … most of his internal organs in fact. Only a fraction of his brain tissue was salvageable.”

Isaac’s head was encased in a gelatinous cowl that filled in the missing portions of his skull. His right eye, jaw, and cheekbones were intact; everything else was a foaming, pinkish mass. Skin, bone, and brain tissue were slowly being reconstructed from within, Oscar said.

I took a step closer, and Isaac’s single good eye rolled to follow me. I guessed that meant there really was someone buried inside this living wreckage—an arguably human being.

“Isaac,” I said.

“It’s unlikely that he can hear you,” Oscar whispered.

“Isaac, it’s Turk. Maybe you remember me.”

The boy made no response. His good eye remained moistly observant. The other socket looked like a cup filled to brimming with scarlet jelly.

“You’re hurt pretty bad,” I said, “but they’re fixing you up. Takes time. I’ll come and see you once in a while while you’re getting better, all right?”

He opened his toothless mouth and sighed.

*   *   *

I could tell by Allison’s expression that the encounter had made her angry, though I wasn’t sure why. She waited until we were back in the pedestrian walkway before she turned on Oscar. “You’re not just treating him,” she said coldly. “I saw the interface. You Networked him.”