Part 7 (1/2)

The machine's side panels slid far enough apart for Jason to telekinetically lower Threnody inside. He held her down as the thick fluid flowed over her, sliding up her nose, into her mouth, down her throat, drowning her. Even unconscious, Jason could feel her struggling as he telekinetically attached the tubing to the sides of the tank. Lucas tapped in another command, and seconds later a heavy, gray stream of nanites mixed with the regen-therapy fluid began to flow through the tubing into Threnody's body. Dozens of sealed wires extended from the sides of the tank, pressing against her skin to monitor her vitals.

Lucas came around to Jason's side, carrying a handful of wires. He peeled the tape off the tiny electrodes, sticking them to Jason's temples and his chest. A second set of vitals showed up on another screen; Jason's baseline. It eerily matched Threnody's.

Quinton stared at the jagged moving lines representing two heartbeats. ”Jason?”

”I've got her,” Jason said, sounding distant.

”He's in deep,” Lucas said, eyeing Jason critically. ”He caught her in time, so maybe this will work.”

”Maybe?” Quinton said.

”We're going to be stuck here for a few days, and Jason is going to need to be awake for the entire process.” Lucas glanced over his shoulder. ”Find me a shot of Adrenalin.”

Quinton went for their bags. ”You think he can handle it? He dosed himself pretty heavily with that stuff back in Buffalo.”

”If he pa.s.ses out, she dies.”

Quinton came back with not one dose of Adrenalin, but a dozen.

Lucas pressed the hypospray against Jason's throat and administered the dose. Jason shuddered, leaning heavily against the biotank. Lucas helped him sit down, back to the machine. He was pale-faced and breathing quickly, sweat beading along his brow.

”Jason?” Quinton said, closing his eyes against the sudden pull at the back of his mind.

”I've got her,” Jason repeated like a mantra. ”I've got her.”

A biotank could force cellular regeneration to happen faster than the human body could do so alone, building off a patient's own stem cells through the persistence of nanites. With enough time and training, Jason might one day accomplish the same on his own in minutes, not hours or days, but he still didn't know what he was capable of. As things stood, he was barely holding Threnody together, his power slip-sliding through cellular levels, chasing after nanites. He tried to recall through remembered agony what he had done on the flight out of Buffalo. Jason forced himself to concentrate on the shape of Threnody's cells to get a feel for her DNA and build off the genetic blueprint of her body.

Quinton looked at Jason, feeling the other man's power pulling at the back of his mind through the permanent bond they shared. He winced at what felt like an itch on the inside of his skull and tried to ignore it. Quinton pressed his hand against the dusty, dirty plasgla.s.s and didn't take his eyes off Threnody.

NINE.

SEPTEMBER 2379.

INVERCARGILL, NEW ZEALAND.

She took a breath.

Then another. Deeper.

It was cold; wet.

Fluid was in her lungs. In her mouth.

Threnody cracked open her eyes to a world made of light. Fractured light, seen through the heavy, curved plasgla.s.s of a biotank and the thick, undulating fluid that breathed for her. She closed her eyes. Opened them again. The world didn't change.

Shadows moved around her outside the biotank. She could hear the soft, constant beeping of a monitor, the sound deep and distant through the fluid. She tried to move her hand, felt her fingers get tangled in tiny wires, so many attached to the length of her body. They didn't hurt.

She did.

Who am I?

Go to sleep, someone answered. The voice was clear, accented, sounding like those who hailed from London. Stretched in a way she felt in her bones. In her nerves.

Who am I?

Threnody Corwin. Now go to sleep. We aren't finished.

She was dragged under by waves of water and light, a riptide of power that took her to the depths of the ocean. Which was impossible, for this wasn't any ocean found in the world.

She slept.

When she regained consciousness, it was to cold air blowing across bare skin and pressure in her chest. She struggled to cough up the thick fluid in her lungs and replace it with oxygen. Strong arms held her steady, a deep, familiar voice filling her ears and not her mind.

”That's it, Thren,” Quinton said. ”Like that. Keep coughing. It's almost all out.”

His skin was dark against her own, his grip solid as she heaved and jerked in his support, coughing out every last minuscule bit of the perfluorocarbons that she didn't remember swallowing.

”Hate this part,” Threnody rasped as her body shuddered through the motions.

”I know. You're almost there.”

When she was breathing air and not fluid, he picked her up from the cold metal floor and carried her to a portable sterilization tent. The plastic walls smelled too sharp in her nose. She thought she could taste it. Wires were stuck to her skin, in her veins, dangling like long-dead vines made of plastic and metal.

”Ready?” a voice asked.

She opened her eyes, watched as Jason came into blurry focus at the entrance to the small tent.

”Ready,” Quinton answered for the both of them.

Jason sealed the inner layer shut, then the outer. The soft hiss of the sterilization process starting up echoed in her ears, vaporizing the viscous fluid sticking to her body. Threnody held one hand close to her face, struggling to focus. Her hand shook, but with no spastic jerk to the movement of her muscles. Just exhaustion, nothing more complicated than that.

”Should be dead,” Threnody murmured, letting her head drop onto Quinton's shoulder. Gravity pulled her hand down, arm swinging in the air.

”Go to sleep, Thren,” Quinton said, voice rough.

”Did we make it inside the seed bank?”

”Yeah.” He swallowed. ”Yeah, we made it.”

She took a breath, felt air flow into her lungs; sterile and cold. Unconsciousness took her once more. When Threnody woke again, she was lying on a flight deck, wrapped in thermal blankets and clean clothes. It was silent, and the person watching over her this time wasn't Quinton.

”Where are we?” she asked, her voice dry, tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth.