Flame. Flame.
They’re calling me. I open my eyes.
Flame. It’s show time.
I jump to my feet, still not used to the warm pressure of my suit. Internal lights activate as soon as I start moving, making it look like I am a burning coal.
Flame. Flame.
They are roaring for me. I shake my head to clear it and step out of the back-stage room I was relaxing in.
At the end of the hallway is a short flight of stairs with a curtain blocking the top. Beyond the curtains is the stage, and beyond that the crowd.
And they are waiting for me.
I focus on the curtains as I walk towards them dramatically, getting into my act even before anyone sees me.
The hems bursts into flames.
By the time I reach the curtains, they are completely aflame.
I brush them aside with my bare hands, bathing my fingers in the heat.
The crowd falls silent as I walk forward to the front of the stage. It is littered with the remnants of all the other shows. For the stage-hands, I’m almost pre-cleanup. All they have to clean up after I’m done is ashes.
I cradle a blue flame next to my chest as I walk, and then shoot it along the edge of the stage. A wall of fire bursts up between me and the crowd.
They roar in shock and love and fear. Flame. Flame.
I walk into the wall of fire, my fingers trailing through the rushing fire.
Flame. Flame.
I breathe in slowly, smiling. I’m beginning to feel the crowd – like another part of the fire to control. Or maybe just another type of fire.
Then I lower my hands to calm the fire until it flickers around my knees.
“Are you ready?” I ask, leaning forward slightly.
Yes. Yes. We are ready.
I close my eyes and let the flames roar in response to the people.
They surge up from around my knees and envelope me completely. The roar tumbls into my ears, swirling and pulsing further and further into my head.
+
I open my eyes and cough. Why is there smoke in…?
It’s a dream.
I sit up. None of my other dreams were so vivid. This one is different. Even the smoke doesn’t fade when I rub my eyes.
It’s real.
I jump out of bed and grope for the door. What is going on?
My hand finally hits the doorknob. Why did mother insist I stay in the guest bedroom instead of my old room?
I open the door. A wall of fire rushes in towards me. I put my hands up and stumble backwards instinctively. But the fire doesn’t burn.
It’s hot and a little uncomfortable, but it doesn’t hurt.
I fall to my knees and look at my hands wildly.
When will I wake up?
I stare at the palm of my right hand. A dark red flame appears out of nowhere, flickering lightly. I feel it drawing from my emotions, extending out from my hand like a weapon – or a limb.
Have my dreams come true?
I push the red fire to get it away from me. Anywhere but in my hand, feeding off my energy.
The fire smashes into the opposite wall like a spear and explodes. The whole wall cracks and half of it falls backwards, already in flames.
Through the gap in the wall I see my parents’ bedroom. It’s been repainted light blue, but the dressers are the same. I would know those scrolled handles anywhere.
The wall fell on the bed, and the quilt is already in flames.
My God! What have I done?
I hurl myself into their room and shove the fragments of the wall off their bed.
Smoke swirls into my eyes. I cringe by reflex, but it doesn’t sting and I don’t have any trouble breathing.
I lean down over my parents, shaking my father’s shoulder.
Their faces are gray. I can’t find a pulse.
I look up at the smoke swirling, at the flames creeping in every direction.
Asphyxiation. I should be dead by now too.
I kiss their foreheads. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Then I look down at my hands in shock.
What am I saying?
Flames kindle in my palms. I stare at them.
It’s not just a dream anymore.
I shoot the fire in my hands towards the ceiling. I killed them. It’s the night before Christmas and I’ve killed them all.
The whole house is burning. I feel a part of it collapse, but I stay next to my parents’ bed, staring down at their gray faces, at the blisters that formed on their faces after they were already dead, at the curled, stinking ends of my mother’s hair.
I am a murderer.
+++

A flame curls in on itself, crawling out of my hand and snaking up my arm. Little tendrils run up in patterns that are achingly familiar, and yet still hold the random beauty of fire. The hair on my body flashes vainly in the heat, stinking sulfur in my nostrils.
A tear rolls out of my eye, steam rising from my cheek as it trickles down. I reach up to feel the salt crystals where its path ended.
I am on fire.
I stand up, glaring at the remains of my parents’ house, at the sifting ashes of their bodies, and sigh. My fondest dream a nightmare. How fittingly morose.
The blare of siren shakes me out of my stupor. They must not find me like this.
Demon-blood runs in my veins. Ann would say so. Oh, my love, if you could see me now. I shake my head as a flare bursts out of my hands at the ground in front of me. They will find no traces of bodies. Let them think we all died, together.
The truth is never prettier than fiction.
I turn away, the flames on my body fading slowly. Back into my skin, now smooth and hairless. My clothes are still burning – what’s left of them. I carefully press the burning parts against my skin to starve them of oxygen.
Breathe. Stay calm. Fire cannot hurt you now. Don’t make more. Don’t think about it.
I slip into the shadows, fleeing what remains of the house. Leaving myself behind in the ashes of my father’s house.
Tires skid onto the street and sirens whine to a halt behind me. I don’t turn back to watch.
I died in that fire. I am not me anymore.
I am something far more powerful. Far more primal.
Beyond humanity. Individuality.
I am flame.
+++

They should have known. Or guessed. I open my eyes wide and look closely at the wall, waiting for the retinal scan to let me into the facility.
Underground, of course. That’s always where you put your secret hideout. Or, in my case, your personal training facility.
I don’t just love spy technology. That’s only half the fun.
Well, I did need somewhere to test my ideas, but that’s beside the point.
The scanner beeps.
Scan inconclusive.
I curse and pull my hood further over my face. I know my cameras are too good. They already got a shot of my face, but I can’t let them get even clearer footage. Especially because I don’t know where they’re feeding to. Not anymore.
If I disconnected the wireless feeds when I turned over Cathar Industries to the government, they’re just storing data right now. But still.
I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Let’s try this again.
My cheeks start to glow in my reflection on the wall in front of me. Like the low flames on burning alcohol. There wasn’t enough light the first time for complete retinal verification.
I hunch my shoulders and open my eyes wide again. The scan starts.
Scan incon…
I throw myself to the ground, arms around my head. Gunshots ring in my ears as I roll to the side, my clothes already smoking from the sudden flames that flashed out of my body. I close my eyes and pull it back in.
I really am a different….being, now. Even the machine recognizes that.
I have five seconds before the cameras will pick up a consistent thermal signature and sic the guns on me again. I close my eyes and call up my memories of the blueprint for my defense strategy. Eight guns within the walls in full range of motion housing, shooting from three dimensions – even the floor – with cameras staggered irregularly to create a 3D image for the guns to access no matter where I am.
Statistically the safest place is closer to the scanner and the door to my training facility: 90% coverage instead of 97.9% everywhere else.
I did that because most people’s initial response after setting off the triggers would be to run away.
If I take out two guns on the far wall that lowers coverage to 45%, and the smoke will lower image quality to a functional coverage of 39%.
And I have to move. My five seconds are over.
I let my fear out in a rush of fire, doubling the appearance of my body mass – mostly so it look like I’m taller. I programmed the guns to execute relatively painless deaths. Which means they go for headshots. For the first hundred rounds.
I flick my wrists, shooting lines of fire at the guns. The heat should melt their housing containments. I can’t tell if they stop, but I don’t die.
So I keep fighting.
I shove gouts of flame in different directions to confuse the cameras, rolling and jumping to get clear shots at all the guns. It seems to be working.
My ears are ringing, but at least I can breathe.
Finally, I shoot one last blast of fire and watch it weld the housing of the last gun in on itself.
Then I remember the laser.
Retinal scanners aren’t normally built with the capacity to create lethal roving beams.
But I never was normal, was I? And now I’m not even me.
I throw my hands up in front of me, shoving away from me with everything in me. A wall of fire bursts away from me.
In the swirling flame, I see the blood-red laser trailing towards me, but it’s moving slowly. They say the seconds just before you die stretch into minutes.
I scream my fear into the fire, not daring to believe it can be true. The room fades into fire and laser fighting for mastery. I push harder, bracing my legs and staring at the point of the laser.
It slows to a stop, flaring up in gouts of white flame. I shove my shield of fire back towards the scanner, closing my eyes and walking forward. It feels like I’m dragging a car behind me.
Then I shoot five points of flame as fast as I can think, barely moving my fingers before they slam into the retinal scanner.
The laser flickers.
I punch my shield forward, slamming it into the wall.
A flash of white.

“Hey, before you go, I wanted to ask you something,” he says. A little too casually.
I spin on my heel and raise my eyebrows. “Yeah?” I still don’t understand how Sergei keeps his office so neat. No sticky-notes on the file-cabinets. Not even a pen out of place. And the amount of paperwork he whips through the place every day… I’m just glad he never sees my office.
Nobody sees my office. Because I don’t really have one, technically, but that’s beside the point.
“I’ll need to see some blueprints for the new camera design, and they’re not on our official product list, so I was wondering…”
I sigh. “Why do you need to see the blueprints? You know all the features inside and out. All you need to do is get us sales. Leave the design to our specialists.”
He swivels his chair faster as I talk. Good. You’re not happy with my youthful tempers. That’s right. Put on that grandfather face and tell me why you need to see the blueprints. I need your reasons.
“You know as well as I do, Thomas, that the likelihood of me making sales triples if I can give a personal testimony that I’ve seen the integrity of the blueprints,” Sergei says. “Doesn’t matter if I’m not trained in the field. Executives like to hear confidence – with facts behind it. If I can’t provide those facts from my own experience, I can’t function at my best. Selling your product.”
I wobble my head a little and push up my bottom lip. “Fair enough, I didn’t think of that,” I say, as if considering it. “It’s just – this camera is… it’s a huge breakthrough. It’s my brainchild. I – I trust you and everything, but I just…” I shake my head. Don’t overdo it, Thomas.
Sergei nods, respecting my attachment to the plans for the spy camera. “To be completely honest with you, Thomas, I do have a personal interest in seeing these plans myself. I wouldn’t be here, selling espionage and spy products, unless they intrigued me. And I honestly think your micro-camera spells the beginning of a new age of information-gathering in this industry. I just want to see how you did it.”
He smiles. Self-deprecating, the dictionary would call it. And I know because I’ve actually read those things for inspiration. When I’m desperate.
But he’s also trying to take the focus off himself and butter me up in the process. Clever, but not clever enough. And does he think I don’t know that honesty is usually the best lie? Of course he wants to see the blueprints because he likes spy-stuff. But that’s not the real reason.
There’s another reason, Sergei, if I know anything about you.
+++
I run a hand through my hair. Seriously? Already going bald?
The results are in. Sergei’s too normal. Sure, he has a couple well-placed questionable smudges in his past – taking advantage of a security breach to snoop at a classified federal facility, a handful of suspect foreign connections, and a former liaison with what turned out to be a group of mostly harmless Syrian insurgents – but they’re too stereotypical, too close to the mean incident number and level of every background analysis model I’ve run him through. He’s not different enough.
It’s not that his record is too clean. That would be a mistake worthy of an amateur, and if Sergei is anything, he’s not an amateur. That’s not the problem.
His record is too normal.
And now that five years have gone by, it doesn’t really matter that I’ve found him out now. He kept his cover, did his work, learned my secrets, passed them on. The damage is done.
For Cathar Industries, at least.
I don’t even know who he’s working with. I should hire someone to figure that out. Or not. I don’t want sticky fingers all over what the FBI will insist on analyzing for themselves.
Oh, yeah. The FBI.
They are not going to like this.

She's not someone I'm used to talking with. Succinct. Pretty. Business – oh, above all, business.
"So how are you today?" I ask for the second time. I'm assuming she didn't hear me the first time. The Saudi guys at the next table were having a bit of an argument.
But she wasn't listening to them. Unless she can speak Arabic.
Which is more likely than I want to think. I know absolutely nothing about her, and she's from the FBI. And she's investigating me for a possible security breach of a pretty serious nature.
Not that I did the security breaching myself. I just hired the guy that did.
On accident, of course.
Well, I hired him on purpose, but not so he could work behind my back.
I didn't…
I stop my train of thought and look up at her face.
How is she doing this to me? So nervous.
And she's small, too. Like, not even five feet tall.
I mean, not that it makes much of a difference when we're sitting across from each other at a small coffee table in the middle of the market district in New York.
The least I can do is act dignified and... polite. Although she's not doing a very good at being polite herself. Ignoring me for the second time now.
"Are you done?" she asks.
I raise my eyebrows and cock my head to the side. "Done with...?"
"With your attempts at social pleasantries."
Oh. That.
I laugh. It's stifled, but a laugh.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you allowed me to even get started."
She smiles and looks down at her paperwork. Not blushing - most definitely not blushing - but rather annoyed. Unless I'm doing an absolutely horrible job at reading her, which is possible.
"Mr. Cathar," she says, leaning forward and losing all traces of her smile. "I'm not here to be nice with you, do you understand that? There is no need for social niceties to happen here. I'm investigating you for your role in a potentially international security breach, and..."
"I know that," I say. "But have you ever heard of masking? Hiding what you're really feeling under something that... people will be... just slightly better able to relate to?"
She stares at me.
"That's hardly necessary in this case, Mr. Cathar."
I raise my eyebrows. "On the contrary, miss, um...?"
"Brown."
"Miss Brown, thank you... I think the high stress of this situation, for me, at least, requires a fair amount of masking."
Which is essentially the same thing as talking.
For me.
Because I'm an introvert.
I mean, talking to someone is like reading ten books at once and trying to filter all that information into a ten-page essay. Figure out their motivation, their lies, their fears...
People are not just an open book. They are multiple open books.
And it's honestly exhausting reading them for long periods of time. Especially in situations where they are trying their best to keep from giving you any information at all.
But on the other hand, the more information I can deal with - which I find is most easily produced when I talk to them, for long periods of time - the faster I can figure out the underlying flow of a person's character.
So most people think I'm an extrovert. Or just talkative.
But I'm not.
Again I stop myself in a crazy whirl of thinking. How does she do this to me? I'm not even analyzing her anymore because I'm analyzing myself!
Like an idiot on a date. Make that a first date.
I take a deep breath and focus my eyes on her face, rather than on the swirling pattern that the steam leaves on my coffee as it rises.
She really is pretty. And not much makeup, either. I like that.
I mean, a touch here and there, to wash away the sleepy look. But not anything that grabs for attention. Simple. Clean.
They're words I think I could use to describe Miss Brown - her first name will probably be kept from me if she has her way - but they don't go very far in showing skills or personal motivation.
Although the way she paints her nails - clear, semi-gloss polish with white edging....French, I think - shows that she either got them done for her, or she's very, very careful. Meticulous.
She doesn't strike me as a woman who would have someone else do anything for her that she could do for herself.
Self-made.
Another thing I like.
I close my eyes. Thomas. Stop.
"Let's begin," I say.
"Thank you," she says. "I hope your analysis was successful." She smiles out of the corner of her eyes as she bends down to adjust one of her flats under the table.
+++

I hug my textbooks close. Why does it alienate them? The tile flooring blurs under my feet as I walk down the locker hallway. They should be my friends if I’m smarter than they are. I stop at my locker and fumble with the key I shoved into the tiny pocket of my skirt, almost dropping it. I wish my hands didn’t shake when I’m nervous. Which is always.
I lay the books down in a neat stack and unhook my jacket, slinging it over my shoulder. Hang out with people smarter than you are and you’ll learn from them. That’s why we have teachers.
I close and lock the door, resting my hand on the padlock for a moment before facing the daily ritual of smirks and laughs as I walk out of the school building and back to the orphanage.
Why don’t they get that? They should like me.
A hand drops onto my shoulder. I gasp and try to turn around. But whoever it is puts his arms around me and hugs me tightly. Heat rushes to my face and I lift my foot to stomp on the boy’s toes.
“I miss you, Ann,” he whispers into my ear.
Alex! I relax and lean my head back onto his chest.
“You came back,” I whisper. I wipe my sweaty hands on my skirt. They stop shaking.
He lets go of me and I spin around to hug him properly. He laughs and picks me up so my toes can’t touch the ground.
You feel so much older, Alex. More of a… more of a man.
I don’t know why I talk to him in my head. But it makes me feel better…even when he’s not there at all. When no one is there. Which is almost always.
“You can put me down now, Alex,” I say, too happy to be really mad at him. He laughs again – I feel it in his chest – and sets me down like a bird.
I lean against the lockers and look hard at his face, smiling my braces at the world. I know you don’t care about them, Alex.
“You’ve been working out,” I say. His cheeks are defined, his favorite shirt looser around the shoulders than I remember.
“Nope. Just working.”
“You got a job!” My eyes go wide and I do a little skip-thing. I worried so much about you not finding work. You don’t know how much I worried.
“Real work?” I ask, looking him straight in the eyes.
“Yeah.” A little twinkle starts in his left eye.
“What?”
“I saved some extra…and I, I wanna take you out?”
“Now? You know the rules, Alex.” All too well, since you’re an expert working around them. “I have to be…”
“…at the orphanage before four o’clock. I know.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “But as soon as we get there we can’t be together. Ann, I miss you.” His eyes beg. “I didn’t come here just to say hi.”
I swallow. You miss me just as much as I miss you. I know. But I won’t get fostered if I get in trouble. You know that, Alex. There’s a reason your face wasn’t enough to get foster-parents. Your record held you down. And I…
“You won’t get in trouble, Ann. I’ll make sure it won’t happen.”
I look down at Alex’s shoes. You said that every time you got in trouble, Alex. ‘They’ll never know. I won’t let them catch me.’
“Ann, you need to talk to me,” Alex says quietly. “Out loud.”
“I…I want to get fostered, Alex. I’m at the top of the list, and if something happens now…” …I’ll be seventeen, at least, before I can get back to where I am now.
His eyebrows furrow. “Don’t you – you love me, right?” he whispers.
“Yes, Alex. I love you. And I won’t let you put yourself in danger of kidnapping charges just to be with me.”
“Kidnapping…?”
“I’m still a minor. You’re not. If we were both minors it would be totally different.”
He sighs. “---- laws.”
I bite my lip. You know I don’t like swearing, Alex.
He looks at me funny. Almost with a laugh in his eyes. “Sorry Ann, but it’s true.”
“I know…” I say.
“Alright, well let’s get going,” he says, turning away from me. “Don’t wanna be late.”
I hesitate for a moment. I’m sorry, Alex. I really am. I just don’t want anything to happen to you. Please don’t be mad. I can tell by the way he turned away that…
“Alex,” I say. “We can talk outside the orphanage until four. It – it’s better than nothing.”
He looks back and smiles, holding his hand out for me. “I know,” he says. “Anything is better than nothing.”
I put my fingers between his and squeeze them tight. Sasha looks away and digs in her locker when we walk past her. Rachel stops talking to her and rolls her eyes. Some of the guys raise their eyebrows and wink.
But no one catcalls. No one laughs at me.
I look up at Alex’s face, my eyes teary. Thank you, darling. Thank you.
He doesn’t look at me, but squeezes my hand just a little, to let me know that he knows what I go through, that he wishes with all his heart that he could be here every day to walk me home.
He pushes the school door open and we walk into the sunlight.
+++
“This way,” he says, leading me around a familiar turn off the route to the orphanage. I know immediately where he wants to go. The orphanage is two minutes away. It’s 3:55. We have time to go back one last time. Almost as good as a date.
We start running. I stifle a laugh at the memories. It was the only place we were free. Climbing the rafters. Playing tag. Laughing. You found it for us, Alex.
We skid around the corner of an old brick building and I stare for a half-second at the front of the old warehouse.
There’s an old sign above the huge sliding door: McKE nd IPS, INC.
McKendips, incorporated. Still here.
“Cummon,” he says. “Let’s go inside.”
I laugh. “What else did we come here for?” You sound…excited, Alex. Too excited.
He drags the door open just enough for us to slip inside. It’s dark and smells like memories I’ve forgotten under layered stains of tears.
Then he shoves the door closed.
Light filters weakly through dirty windows high above us, and I realize how gloomy it is. It’s not the same place anymore – most of the windows are boarded over and it stinks like mice.
I suddenly don’t want to be here.
I turn to Alex. “Hey, can we go? I don’t like…” I stop. He’s staring at me without moving, his face in the shadow.
“I didn’t come just to say hi, baby,” he whispers, breathless. “I came for… more than that.”
Alex? He slides a hand behind my head, stroking the soft spot under my ear with his thumb. Stop, Alex! You’re scaring me.
“Alex, what are you doing?” I whisper. His other hand settles on my hip.
“This,” he whispers, leaning forward and pressing his lips against mine.
My gasp is lost in a flood of conflicting emotions. He feels so real, so good; but this is not the only thing he came for. He wants more. And I – I want to give myself to you, Alex. I do. But this isn’t….its not right.
I try to push away, but he resists for a second. Then he lets go.
“Alex!” I say, stumbling backwards. “Not now! Please. You love me!”
“Yes. I love you, Ann,” he says, smiling. “But I need you, too.”
“But you have to wait! Please. For me?” Please, please, please don’t do this to me, Alex. I love you too much. Don’t lose yourself like this.
He looks down, then flicks his gaze up my body until he’s looking at my eyes.
“I'm done waiting, darling,” he says, almost sad. Then he jumps forward and hugs me close, his hands slipping under my shirt, exploring my back.
I scream and try to push him away.
“Don’t worry, baby,” he whispers in my ear. “I know what I’m doing.”
My heart stops. Alex? Alex? Where are you? Come back!
Please, I’m begging you.
Come back.
+++
My heart burns. My eyes hurt, and I can feel the dried-out trails of tears on my face. I don’t want to move. There’s nowhere for me to go now. Nothing.
How could you? Alex…
I squeeze my eyes closed and wish more tears would come. But they are long gone. You were the only one I had…
I am on fire. My body hurts. I open my eyes.
It’s dark.
I uncurl and sit up slowly on the gritty warehouse floor.
My hands shake as I smooth my skirt down over my thighs. The buttons on my shirt refuse to line up.
I stand up slowly and stagger towards a wall. What do I do?
My life is gone. He took it away and…
Now what?
The orphanage. They’ll help. Or at least try.
I take a deep breath and smooth my skirt.
Just take one step, Ann. Don’t keep yourself in this hell. Move.
I put one hand on the wall and walk, searching for the door.
My other hand is sweating. I wipe it off on my skirt.
Just have to keep moving.

“Whatever you think, don’t say it.” Ann smiles at me like she always does, quick and birdlike. “Saves a lot of heartache.”
I nod absently, my train of thought suddenly interrupted. She glances back at me, sensing my lack of involvement in the moment.
“What?” So sharp, blunt. I smile at the conjunction of those two words. But she is that. If she has a question, she asks. Not everyone, but those she trusts. Of whom I find myself a part. I smile again.
“That guy over there,” I say. “With the fire.”
She looks across the huge old-fashioned circus tent to the fire-breather that caught my eye.
“What about him?”
“Just watch him,” I say. “He’s awesome.”
She laughs. “All guys think fire is awesome.”
“It is,” I say.
“Did you want to get closer or something?”
I look at the clean sparkle in her eyes. “How’d you guess?”
Since we met, she’s had the uncanny ability to discern my intentions. Back then, I grimace, I didn’t exactly like that about her.
Particularly because she was doing her best to destroy my business.
She stands up and smooths her already-smooth jean skirt. I don’t know why I notice, but she does it every time she stands up. It’s almost like a subconscious expression of the neatness of her personality.
“What are you looking at?”
There it is again, the honest question. She’s far from thoughtless, but she speaks her mind without hesitation.
“Um, nothing?” I say, standing up and shuffling through the crowded bleachers to the aisle. I reach back and catch Ann’s hand in mine, towing her after me.
“Tom,” she says. “I’m not asking twice, you know.”
I smile down at her as she sidles next to me in the aisle. “Good.”
She rolls her eyes. I wince. For some reason, I really don’t like it when she does that.
“Okay,” I say. “I just noticed that you smooth your skirt every time you stand up.” We’re walking down the aisle steps to the open ring around the main stage.
She raises an eyebrow. That’s an expression I don’t mind.
“Don’t you mean ‘Have been noticing’?”
I cough. “Uh, yeah.”
“And…”
“And nothing. I was just noticing.” I smile at her and squeeze her hand a little.
She shrugs, almost like she doesn’t care. I still don’t know why she does that. I mean, I get the feeling she doesn’t like it when I pay attention to her like that. We’re engaged.
So it’s not like I’m creeping on her or anything. But I get the feeling that she feels objectified.
Not the right word, but whatever.
We’re almost to the fire-breather’s booth. It’s mesmerizing, the way he manipulates the flames. Even though it’s all technology and illusions.
Unless he really is a pyrokinetic dynamic.
“Hey Ann, what do you think about dynamics?”
“Demonic.”
“What? You think they’re…?”
She looks at me, her eyes steady. “What else would they be?”
“They’ve been all throughout history. Have you read the research?”
“Demons have pretty much always been around, too, Tom,” she says. “And yes, I have read the research.”
Of course she had. A rising prosecuting attorney for the government always reads the research.
Especially Anastasia Brown.

“She’s unresponsive, Doctor.”
“I know.”
“She’s flatlining! You’re a doctor. You know what that means.”
“Yes, I know. It means her heart is dead. But she’s not dead. You’re not really and truly dead until your body has ceased all activity.”
“But…”
“Trust me. I know what I’m doing. We are more than our hearts, darling.”
“I’m sorry? What did you just call me?”
“Sorry, I’m under a lot of stress right now. The life of this young woman is in the balance and my actions are all that will keep her alive. Or kill her.”
“Are you… are you okay?”
“Of course I’m not okay!”
Silence.
“I’m sorry. I should have realized…”
“No, I’m sorry. I need to focus and yelling at you is not going to do that. If I give her the serum when too much of her is still alive, then she’ll hyper-react. If I wait too long, there won’t be enough to catch hold of it.”
“A sweet spot.”
“And there’s no instruments that measure how much of a person is dead, so I’m playing on guess-work. Experimentation. Failures.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Shhh.”
Feel how warm she is. How much is still in her? Too much? Not enough? Can’t wait any longer. Too much rests on this. Just do it. Get it over with.
“Four minutes and forty-three seconds, sir.”
Two more. Four forty-five. Insert needle. Femoral artery, at the hip. Second injection, other leg. Now carotid artery. Activate the brain. Spark autonomic nervous system.
And wait.
“Is that all?”
Nod. “For now.”
“Do you think she’ll survive?”
Swallow. Deceive. “I don’t know.”
Has to be dead to change DNA without immune system rejection. Has to be alive to actually work. Balance.
Knife-edge balance.
My whole life a knife. Balanced on the edge. Progress carefully masked from society. I don’t fit. They wouldn’t like my methods.
“Heart-beat!”
Too much? Hyper-reaction beginning? Nurse should go.
“She’s breathing!”
Too fast after each other. She’ll reject. It’ll overwhelm her. Fire, fire, everywhere.
And then the end.
Again.
Success a lover and my enemy. Seductive dreams. But no reality.
When will she give me a taste? Just once.
All I ask.
To see my dreams come true.