THE LAST NIGHT
LOCATION UNCERTAIN
THE first thing Eli noticed was the smell.
The antiseptic odor of a lab, but beneath that, something sickly sweet. Like rot. Or chloroform. His other senses caught up, registered a too-bright light. Dull steel. His head was cotton, his thoughts syrup. Eli didn’t remember what it felt like to be drunk—it had been so long since anything affected him—but he thought it must have been more pleasant. This—the dry-mouthed, head-pounding longing to retch—was not.
He tried to sit up.
Couldn’t.
He was lying on a plastic sheet on top of a crate, his wrists zip-tied to the wood slats beneath. A strap ran across his mouth, holding his head down against the crate. Eli’s fingers felt for something, anything, found only plastic.
“Not as fancy as my old lab, I know,” said Haverty, swimming into focus. “But it will have to do. Needs must, and all.” The doctor dipped out of Eli’s sight, but never stopped talking. “I still have friends in EON, you know, and when they told me you were being released, well—I don’t know if you believe in fate, Mr. Cardale”—he heard tools being shifted on a metal tray—“but surely you can see the poetry in our reunion. You are, after all, the reason for my breakthrough. It’s only right that you’re now going to be my first true test subject.”
Haverty reappeared, holding a syringe in Eli’s line of sight. That same electric blue liquid danced inside.
“This,” he said, “is, as you might have guessed, a power suppressant.”
Haverty brought the blade to Eli’s chest and pressed down. The skin parted, blood welled, but as Haverty withdrew the knife, Eli kept bleeding. The pain continued too, a dull throb, until slowly, Eli felt the wound drag itself back together.
“Ah, I see,” mused Haverty. “I erred on the side of a low dose, to start. I gave the last subject too much too fast and he just kind of . . . came apart. But, see, that’s why you’re the perfect candidate for this kind of trial.” Haverty took up the syringe. “You always have been.” He plunged the needle into Eli’s neck.
It hurt, like cold water racing through his veins.
But the strangest thing wasn’t the sensation of pain. It was the spark of memory—a bathtub filled with cracking ice. Pale fingers, trailing through the frigid water. Music on the radio.
Victor Vale, leaning against the sink.
You ready?
“Now,” said Haverty, dragging Eli back to the present. “Let us try again.”