Warner had never been to this level before. He noted how rudimentary everything looked here, and wondered what purpose it might serve the rest of the time. As soon as the doors opened, the antechamber gave way to another room, even smaller, with concrete walls and a tile floor. There were no windows, which was to be expected, but a monitor screen took up almost an entire wall. Across it, the image of the cell on the other side was splashed in high definition.

  The moment he laid eyes on her, he felt that stab of malaise again, the one he’d been struggling to squash ever since he got that first message from Lyssa. He wasn’t too shocked to see that the split in her skull that ran down from the top of her head to the left temple had already begun to heal. Last he saw her, he’d just put a metal plate where the bone had shattered and stapled the wound together with metal braces. The braces were still there, but the wound had faded to a bright pink line that cleaved her scalp in two. Her hair had begun growing in. At this angle, she wasn’t looking at the camera. She stared straight into empty space.

  Had her face not been etched into his memory ever since their night together, he might not have recognized her. After a bullet had shattered her temple, after her blood-matted hair had been shaved off one side, and after he, Warner, took a bone saw to her cranium, she looked the worse for wear, yet nowhere near as bad as he’d expect. She was still beautiful in her own unsettling, almost frightening way. The most striking thing about her remained the contrast between her porcelain skin, the dark color of her eyebrows and eyelashes, and the mesmerizing green of her eyes. He found himself wondering why they hadn’t made her prettier—he supposed if they could modify the rest of her at will the way they had, it would have been no issue to give her a more fashionable cantal tilt or fuller lips.

  “Mr. Vogel,” a voice said somewhere on his right, and Warner gave a start. He hadn’t even noticed the two lab-coat-clad men in the other corner of the room. One of them, he recognized as Ramirez, who cut an awkward figure in the white coat with too-short sleeves. The other turned out to be Lyssa’s assistant, the long-suffering Russell, who looked every bit as out of place as the military man, although for different reasons. He looked, for lack of a better term, like he was about to throw up on Warner’s shoes.

  “You really shouldn’t—there’s no need for—”

  “And yet, here I am,” Warner said, feeling no satisfaction whatsoever at the sight of the poor assistant’s face turning crimson. “Twelve hours ago, I was up to the elbow in her gray matter. I have the right to ask her a few questions, don’t you think?”

  Russell had no right to object anyway, as Warner knew full well. Even though he’d been Lyssa’s assistant for literal decades, basically her stand-in while she remained comfortably holed up in her home, as far as Warner was concerned, he was still only Russell. Many times over the years, Warner had wondered what this squirrely, nerdy-looking guy had done to distinguish himself in Lyssa’s eyes. Looks could lie, but as far as he knew, Russ’s personality had nothing special about it either.

  Ramirez stepped forward. “I must remind you this is a matter of national security. Everything you say to it—”

  Warner had had enough. “Her.”

  The man didn’t flinch, only his nostrils flared. “Think carefully before you speak, Mr. Vogel.”

  Warner filed the threat away for future reference. “I thought she was secured,” he pointed out.

  “We must take precautions.”

  Precautions in case she somehow got loose. Then, Warner wanted to say, all the precautions in the world would be pointless. The moment she slipped those massive reinforced-steel restraints, they were all as good as corpses.

  “What’s Quinn up to?” Warner asked. “I found him to be better company.”

  The man scowled but said nothing. Warner stepped towards the control panel below the screen. Only when he’d already tapped the touchscreen did he realize he hadn’t given any thought at all to what he’d say.

  Where is Nero?

  He gave a shake of his head, then spoke. “Welcome.”

  Behind him, the government man scoffed.

  Warner paid him no heed. He watched the figure in the center of the screen, careful to not so much as blink so he wouldn’t miss her reaction.

  Except the effort turned out to be for nothing because there wasn’t one. She continued to stare straight ahead.

  “For all we know, it can’t even hear us,” the military man muttered. “You probably short-circuited its brain. It’s little more than a vegetable drooling on itself. I almost feel bad.”

  “She can hear us,” Warner said. “And she understands perfectly well what’s happening. Don’t you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Maybe those hands of yours aren’t nearly as steady as you think.”

  Warner pictured it with perfect clarity. The room was narrow, Government Jackass stood only a few feet behind him. All he’d have to do it turn around. Disarm him in one move. Press that government-issued stun gun into the flesh under his chin. He wouldn’t have time to react or to stop him.

  Instead, he let out a calming exhale.

  “Out.”

  “What?” The other man’s voice was a low growl.

  “You heard me. Get out. Go wait with Lyssa in the other room. Or better yet, go back to your office at the Defense Ministry. There’s nothing for you to do here.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “Warner Vogel, Head of Research at this company. Which you already know, of course. Just like you know that the contract VogelCorp has with the Ministry specifies that on our grounds, the authority of a VogelCorp employee with a certain level of clearance supersedes yours. Our part of the bargain is to deliver the products of our research. How we do that research—that’s not your jurisdiction. Do you recall that? Or do you want to look at a copy of the contract?”

  “This is insane. This—” he gestured at the screen— “this is unprecedented. This is—”

  “A Unit Six soldier, yes. Very exciting. I intend to get all the knowledge I can from her. This is what I do here. This is my work. And right now, I’m fed up with you interfering with my work, so I’m showing you the door.”

  “This isn’t over,” Ramirez snarled.

  “Tell your boss that the only government agent I’ll allow here is Quinn from Psyops,” Warner said cheerfully.

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  The door opened silently, letting Ramirez out. Russell began to trudge after him.

  “You. Hold up.”

  He stopped, all but tripping over his own feet.

  “I didn’t say you could go anywhere, Russ.”

  His eyes darted back and forth, like a pair of nervous hamsters. “Mr. Vogel?”

  “Warner. If we’re going to work together on this, we’re going to be on a first-name basis. That said, you do want to work with me on this?”

  The poor guy stammered but couldn’t get any coherent words out. Warner felt bad for him.

  “Look, if you’re scared, I completely understand. You can leave. No one will ever force you to come into a berserker’s presence again.”

  “No!” Russ exclaimed. “No. That’s not it. I’d—I’d be honored to work wit you, Mr.—Warner. It’s actually kind of a lifelong dream.”

  Warner could practically picture Lyssa giving him instructions to say those exact words or pack his desk. Poor guy. He gave Russ what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  “Great. So, want to update me on what’s going on here?”

  Russ gulped. His face went from just crimson to blotchy, with random white patches over red—or maybe red patches over white.

  “The vitals are normal—well, they’re what was expected. We don’t really know what the baseline for these creatures should be—”

  “I see.”

  “As far as we know, she can see, hear, and, hopefully, understand us just fine. Not that she’d given any indication. Mr. Ramirez—Captain Ramirez—tried to talk to her, but nothing he said could get so much as a twitchy eyelid.”

  “Let me guess. He threatened her with fire and brimstone, and every torture known to man.”

  Russ nodded. “And then some.”

  Warner heaved a discreet sigh. “Well, she clearly wasn’t impressed.”

  “Her heart rate didn’t even go up. As far as I can tell, she has no startle reflex whatsoever. I don’t know what it would take for her to—”

  Warner tapped at the touch screen once more. “This is Warner. I thought you might want to talk to me.”

  On the surface, there didn’t seem to be any discernible reaction. But Warner could see Russ getting agitated out of the corner of his eye, so he guessed there had been one.

  The decision came out of nowhere, and it only took a moment for it to turn from a crazy idea to rock-solid certainty. Warner threw a glance around the small room. He tapped away at the screen, ignoring Russ’s increasingly nervous onomatopoeia in the background. He didn’t want to give the guy a heart attack or have him summon Lyssa or Captain Ramirez at the worst possible moment. The control panel demanded an authorization, and he scanned his ID. For a moment, he was sure he’d get hit with an error message, access denied, and that would be that. But then the green check mark appeared. Aware of Russ’s utterly stunned stare on the back of his head, Warner headed towards the other set of doors that slid silently open, then scanned his credentials once again. The doors slid shut behind him, cutting off Russ’s exclamation, and Warner found himself in a small decontamination area. Turned out he’d figured correctly—this facility was intended for quarantines. Whatever it had been used for, VogelCorp sure as hell didn’t want to let it out by accident. He supposed the rationale still applied to the current situation. Deadly virus, berserker—both about as easy to contain, and lethal in case of failure. He might as well be walking into a room full of vials of a deadly plague.

  Better watch my step, then, he thought.

  The room he found himself in was left carefully blank. He didn’t see the many cameras, but the awareness of being watched from every conceivable angle never left him. He stepped towards the contraption in the center, in which the berserker was held down with thick metal braces.

  Not that she was struggling too hard to get out. She seemed to have passively accepted her fate, but he wasn’t fooled. Given half a chance, this slight figure would turn him, and Russ, and everyone else in her way into dead meat.

  That’s when he became aware of her eyes moving. Following him. Those green eyes looked even more incredible in bright light. Warner could see all the shades of green within her irises, and the flecks of gold scattered throughout.

  “Not bad,” she said. Her voice was of a slightly lower pitch than he remembered. Perhaps from lack of use. But it lost none of its ability to make him vibrate.

  “I thought we might talk eye to eye,” he said. “Like equals.”

  “Warner Vogel,” she said in the same husky voice. The tone remained flat. “Scion of the Vogel family, Keeper for six generations since the Split. We’re not equals.”

  “Yet I’m the reason you’re here,” he said.

  “How presumptuous. Although I suppose it would be an impressive name to add to my list of kills. I might get a promotion.”

  “I doubt you’ll be getting anything. You fucked up. You allowed yourself to be captured. Alive, no less. What would the punishment be for that, back in Alliance territory?”

  She watched him. Not simply watched him—he acutely felt himself observed.

  “Oh, Warner. Privileged, clueless, Keeper piece of shit.”

  It was jarring, a sharp contrast to her icy calm demeanor. It hinted at what might be going on beneath the fa?ade, which meant he was getting somewhere.

  “Now, if I were to escape and return home with a full report of what happened, everything I’ve seen and heard here. Everyone I killed here. Why would I be punished, rather than rewarded? It makes no sense, does it?”

  Warner felt a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. But he decided to save his winning move for later.

  “So if you get loose, you’ll go right back to where you came from. To the Alliance of Free States.”

  “When I get loose,” she corrected him.

  “And I guess they won’t mind that the contraption I removed from your skull is no longer there?”

  Now her expression shifted. He could see it. Her eyes narrowed.

  “Here we go. I knew I was on to something,” he said. The whole conversation felt like dancing around an open fire while covered in gasoline. “I have a few guesses what it was meant to do. But I figure it’s going to be a problem for you, isn’t it? Once they realize this, they won’t just punish you. They’ll kill you. Am I right?”

  The silence that settled over the room made his ears ring.

  “I was made to withstand whatever you decide to do to me,” she said at last. “I won’t even flinch. You won’t get a single word out of me. I can keep a secret, Warner—just your luck.”

  His stomach flipped. After all, she did have something on him, and he didn’t want to think of the shit fit Lyssa would have if she ever found out about their connection.

  “And here I thought you were talking. Right now.” He let himself smirk, seeing the look on her face. “So what does that thing do? You must be pretty confused right now. And worried. With good reason.”

  She said nothing. He wondered if he’d pushed his luck too far.

  “Maybe I can help,” he said. It felt like making a leap of faith. For a second, he was sure he fucked up—rushed it.

  “If you actually try to help me,” she said, “you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.”

  “I’m not going to make empty promises. No one in their right mind is going to let you go, and I know you realize this. But I can make it all a lot less painful than it has to be. My colleague, for one, already suggested you be vivisected.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she said. She said it in such a way that he had no choice but to believe every word. And no doubt, before he removed that thing from her head, this was one hundred percent true. But now? He thought there might be something there. A weak spot.

  “You’re not what you were before,” he said. “I can see it. You want to live. Everyone wants to live. And you want to know what happened to you every bit as much as I do. I won’t release you, but I might give you some answers. How does that sound?”

  “And in exchange, all you want is for me to betray my country and everything I stand for.”

  “I’m not interested in politics or warfare or the Alliance. I’m interested in you.”

  He thought he saw the ghost of a smile in the corners of her lips. He didn’t like that smile one bit.

  “You. The technology of you. I sawed your skull open less than twelve hours ago. The scar is fading as we speak. I want to use that, for good.”

  “Oh. So that’s it. I play lab rat, and in exchange, you euthanize me peacefully. I’d say that’s a raw deal.”

  “It’s about as good as it’s going to get. I know you don’t care about the greater good, least of all for the enemy side of this war we’re in. But what I’m offering you is to die knowing who you really are. I’d say it’s not such a raw deal.”

  He let his gaze linger on hers. She held it like a champion. Not a muscle twitched.

  “You must be tempted. At least a little bit.”

  She was silent. Her eyes seemed to grow darker. If he didn’t know better—

  “Then tell me,” she said, her voice suddenly quiet, her tone very flat. “What happened? Why did I survive?”

  “The thing in your head caught the bullet. And after that, I removed it, along with many, many pointy shards swimming around your gray matter. We’re having this conversation because I saved your life.”

  “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she said. “Everything is different.”

  “I know. I can help you make sense of it. You don’t need to commit treason. Although God help me, I don’t see why you’d stay loyal to people who would have you killed.”

  “You people want to have me vivisected.”

  He lowered his chin. She had him there. “Fine. I just want to study you. The technology that created you. That’s it. Do we have a deal?”