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When he had been a child, overwhelmed by every second, unable even to explain to the people around him what was wrong, there had been a voice in his head that promised one day he would be cured. Someone would find a way to nullify this hell he carried behind his eyes. Someday he would be able to experience the world as others did. Simple joy in simple things.

It was the only reason he’d stayed alive. And though he eventually stopped believing the voice, it had left a deep enough mark that surviving had become a habit, one he had never broken, despite daily consideration of it.

Now it turned out he’d been right. There was a cure for him.

The choir began to sing again. Tremulous whispers that bounced and echoed around the chapel. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever known, as lovely as the times with Samantha, but instead of a fading memory, it was here, real enough, and right in front of him.

All your life you have tried to be a leaf and let the current carry you away.

What if instead you became an eagle and soared on the breeze?

“I know you think he’s your friend, but Smith used you. He sent you out to kill for him, and when you failed, he abandoned you. He felt no more love for you than a chess player feels toward a powerful piece, knowing full well that he’ll sacrifice it to win.”

A memory came to him then. John, saying to him, “You’retherook. Overlookedonthebackrow.” Speaking in their old way, running the words together to make it easier for Soren. It had been in the apartment in Tesla, the one filled with books, the one where John had reunited him with Samantha.

The itch struck again.

Soren looked at the graceful chapel lit by candles, rich with the scent of wax and furniture polish, ringing with song, the beauty of which he had never known. Then he reached behind his neck with both hands.

Cooper cocked his head. “What are you doing?”

Soren ignored him. His neck felt normal, but he knew there was more to it, and he focused, applied all of his effort. Like trying to wake from a dream, that moment when both worlds seem real, when the boundary between them is pliable, and as he thought that, his hands touched something cold and hard. Looking Cooper straight in the eyes, he wrapped his fingers around it and tugged.

The world froze, twitched, shifted like a video call with poor reception, and vanished.

The chapel, the candles, the choir, gone.

All but Cooper, sitting opposite him in the bright cell of white tiles pierced by holes, 415,872 of them. The man stared at him with an expression of mingled confusion and horror.

Slowly—so, so slowly—Soren slid his right hand out from behind his head and looked at the cable that had been jacked into his neck. The voice inside him raged and screamed, told him to put it back, that it wasn’t too late, that this was what he had always dreamed of.

He opened his fingers and let it fall. “No.”

But it sounded like, “Nnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooo . . .”

CHAPTER 17

The ground was cold and hard as cast iron taken from the freezer. Luke Hammond felt the chill leaching into his chest, the stones digging into his legs, the dull ache in his muscles. Then he packed the discomfort away. A trick he’d learned at nineteen, as a long-range recon scout in Laos. Catalog the conditions, but don’t feel them. Focus on the mission.

The night vision function of the binoculars had been destroyed along with all the other electronics when they’d been hit with the electromagnetic pulse. But the clear Wyoming sky glowed with starlight, and he could see the outpost easily. A cluster of trailers and prefab units surrounding an inflatable structure a hundred yards across and bumpy with rooms and hallways. The hum of generators rose and fell with the wind. A handful of cars and four large buses formed a makeshift parking lot. The outpost had no sign, no fence, no permanent structures of any kind. The whole facility looked like it had been thrown together a week ago—which it had.

There was only one guard, stamping his feet as he lit a cigarette. No serious soldier would have made that mistake on watch, but no one here expected an attack. That was part of the point, and why Luke and his team had traveled almost fifty miles perpendicular to the path of the New Sons to reach this place. In this otherwise unoccupied wasteland, “security” was mostly to protect from coyotes.

He lowered the binoculars and glanced sideways. Eleven men, all prone, all silent, looked back. They were dressed as he was, in layers of black clothing and woven hats. The most visible parts of them were their eyes and their weapons.