Emmett wasn’t dead.

  At least, he didn’t think so.

  There was that old cliché of your life fshing before your eyes as you died. But Emmett wasn’t seeing his entire life.

  Just snippets.

  Emmett saw himself as a young kid in elementary school. One of the bigger kids had stolen someone’s earbuds. The memory cut to two kids on the pyground. The thief, Michael, stood head and shoulders about Emmett. He stood like a biblical giant on the rocks of the pyground and sneered when Emmett told him to return the stolen goods.

  Emmett didn’t back down. He wanted to be like Paragon and the other supers in the Summit of Heroes. Emmett didn’t have superpowers, but he knew right from wrong. That would have to be enough.

  But it wasn’t. Michael clobbered him. To Emmett’s credit, he didn’t go down right away. But eventually he staggered, and Michael knocked him over. Then he ground Emmett’s face against the rocks.

  That wasn’t how it was supposed to go, Emmett thought. Heroes were supposed to win.

  Wasn’t he a hero?

  Mercifully, the memory cut off. Before Emmett bawled his eyes out. And before he thought about getting even, and grinding Michael’s face against the rocks.

  There weren’t many memories of when he was in grade school, and only a few of Emmett and his family…

  It felt like he was trying to find something. Like following a single thread through a tangled mess of wire, or tracing a signal through the hiss of static.

  ~

  Most of the memories that repyed were from the end of college—

  When he’d gotten his internship with Dr. Venture.

  It was still weird to look back on, even after getting to know Venture and working with him over those semesters. Emmett had applied for an internship expecting generic office work—perhaps hands-on work if he was lucky. Venture interviewed him over video call, then offered Emmett the job the next day.

  Emmett knew there was something different about Dr. Venture… But he never would’ve guessed that the old man used to be a cape.

  It wouldn’t surprise Emmett if Venture had done a deep background check, spied on all his communications, and made up his mind before the interview.

  All of which had caused Emmett to wonder on more than one occasion…

  Why him?

  He wasn’t even top of his css. And being a superhero fan wasn’t anything special either.

  Why him?

  Memories came and went, like fast-forward on a video.

  Emmett went to Dr. Venture’s b and met Cra for the first time. Venture had never mentioned that he had a kid, or that Emmett would be working close with her—

  SKIP MEMORY

  Emmett remembered meeting Lock before they were roommates—

  SKIP MEMORY

  One night, before Emmett became a cyborg, they were celebrating a fusion breakthrough with frozen pizza. The three of them—Emmett, Cra, and Dr. Venture—sat beside each other on the couch while the news pyed. An uneasy silence settled over them while they watched TV. The news was covering something about the vilin group, the Antichampions.

  The Scarlet King was on the screen. He hovered in a ball of crackling psychic power. He was a former member of the vilin group. One who was ousted for over-the-top brutality and rumored to have killed the former hero, Arsenal.

  Dr. Venture gred at the former vilin with a palpable hatred.

  Emmett still believed that Venture had a personal vendetta against the vilin, but Venture had never said more about it.

  It was almost like—

  SKIP MEMORY

  Emmett remembered going under for brain surgery.

  He remembered climbing into the immersion tank twice that day. Why had he been in there the first time?

  That doesn’t matter.

  Once Emmett climbed into the tank, then he was sedated. He wasn’t aware of what was happening to him, but he’d reviewed the surgery process with Dr. Venture.

  Nanites were injected into his body, and would change his brain and nervous system to synthetic material. The process was difficult, even for TINA. It would take every ounce of her considerable power to pull off without killing or compromising Emmett. She would remake him, synapse by synapse, and somehow keep him the exact same person in the process.

  Brain surgery wasn’t the right word. Surgery implied a certain amount of blood and barbarism. The nanites that changed Emmett’s brain and nervous system from biological to synthetic were far too small. There was no bleeding, but that didn’t make the act any less barbaric.

  What did you receive for your pound of flesh, Emmett?

  A new brain. Faster cognition. Perfect memory. True multitasking…

  Tell me how.

  Emmett didn’t remember. TINA and Dr. Venture had expined it as best as they could before he went under. But that information had been in Emmett’s imperfect biological memory. He hadn’t revisited the process after the surgery, which meant he couldn’t recall exactly how it worked.

  Then he remembered… After surgery, TINA wouldn’t expin it again.

  Emmett didn’t know how his brain worked. Didn’t know how to recreate it.

  Something lurched within Emmett—even though he had no feeling or frame of reference.

  Why would he want to recreate his brain?

  …Where was he right now?

  Emmett wasn’t dead—

  And he wasn’t dreaming.

  Emmett thought back, desperately trying to remember what had happened to him. It felt like he was in a river, being pulled along by the current. He cwed a the riverbank, trying to slow himself, but his fingers slipped through the mud.

  He remembered Lock. He remembered the b.

  Why had they both been there?

  Lock had never been inside the b when Dr. Venture had been there. It wouldn’t have been safe. Lock was their enemy.

  No, he wasn’t. Not anymore. They’d broken Lock out of Gnosis. Lock was on their side now.

  Dr. Venture was gone. The b was gone.

  Emmett and Lock were trying to take the b back.

  Realizations came faster and faster. Emmett’s photographic memory repyed the events of the b break-in. How he and Lock had fought their way through and almost made it to Dr. Venture…

  And how Emmett had blown himself up to colpse the tunnel. How he’d died so that Lock could escape.

  But Emmett wasn’t dead…

  TIMESTAMP ERROR DETECTED

  APPROXIMATE DATE — UNCONFIRMED

  More realizations came to him: If he hadn’t made it out of the b, then he was still there.

  Someone was looking through his memories.

  Probably trying to find the process that created his synthetic brain.

  “That’s enough.” The pretentious voice came from somewhere out in the bck.

  INITIATE SUBJECT SHUTDOWN

  Emmett’s mind had been lurching with realizations and now ground to a halt. The once raging river froze—still as jagged gss.

  Emmett struggled and tore an arm free. Ice shattered as he pulled his other arm free, then pulled himself out.

  For a moment, he stood atop the frozen river and looked out over it. All he could see was darkness and ice.

  “You’re as stubborn as Magnus. Fine. If you don’t want to go back to sleep. Then you can wake up. It’s time we had a little chat.”

  ~ ~ ~