Getting there was the difficult part.
Adrian was still on the floor beside the open stasis chamber.
He lifted his head.
The room remained almost completely dark, broken only by the slow pulse of red emergency lights.
Red.
Black.
Red.
Enough.
Apparently.
He could make out more than he should have been able to.
The legs of a table.
A cabinet.
Equipment clustered around the chamber behind him.
The open doorway farther across the room.
And beside it—
Adrian narrowed his eyes.
A small rectangle on the wall.
A switch.
Maybe.
Five meters away.
Six at most.
Adrian planted both hands on the floor.
Fine.
He knew how to stand.
He'd been doing it for nearly four decades.
One knee beneath him.
Then the other foot.
Push.
For a moment, it worked.
Adrian rose.
His legs trembled, but they held.
Almost.
He shifted his weight forward.
His hips moved somewhere his brain hadn't expected them to move. His balance followed a fraction of a second later.
Something behind him swung sharply in the opposite direction.
Adrian took one step.
His foot landed too close.
His knee buckled.
His hands hit the floor before he consciously decided to catch himself.
Adrian stayed there.
Hands.
Knees.
Head down.
Fine.
Standing could wait.
He looked toward the rectangle on the wall again.
Still there.
Adrian started moving.
Hand.
Knee.
Other hand.
Other knee.
It should have felt ridiculous.
It did.
Just not nearly as ridiculous as standing had.
After the first few movements, something changed.
Not much.
The awkwardness remained. His arms weren't the length he expected. His legs folded differently beneath him. Wet hair kept sliding across his face.
But his body seemed to understand the movement better than he did.
His weight shifted smoothly from one side to the other.
Something moved behind him.
His balance corrected.
Adrian stopped.
The movement stopped with him.
He looked over his shoulder.
Darkness.
Nothing useful.
Later.
He continued.
Halfway across the room, something clicked to his left.
Adrian froze.
Completely.
One moment he was moving.
The next every muscle had locked in place.
His head snapped toward the sound.
Something shifted above his scalp.
He stared into the darkness.
Nothing.
Then—
Click.
A tiny electrical sound.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
Adrian waited.
Nothing followed.
No footsteps.
No voices.
No movement.
He forced himself onward.
The wall drew closer.
And with it came details he shouldn't have been able to see.
The seams between the tiles.
A cable running along the floor.
Something metallic lying beneath a table.
The edge of the switch itself.
The emergency lights weren't enough for that.
Adrian knew they weren't.
Yet somehow they were.
Another problem for later.
He reached the wall.
Definitely a switch.
A perfectly ordinary light switch.
Adrian almost laughed.
After the van, the magic, the restraints, the experiments, the tank and whatever the hell had happened to his body, apparently his next great challenge was operating a light switch.
He placed one hand against the wall and tried to rise.
One foot.
Then the other.
His legs immediately disagreed.
Adrian caught himself against the wall.
Stayed there.
Good enough.
He reached up.
His fingers found the switch.
Click.
Nothing.
Adrian stared at it.
Of course.
Then something heavy clicked somewhere behind the wall.
A low hum travelled through the room.
One ceiling panel flickered.
Then another.
Then—
Light exploded across the laboratory.
Adrian recoiled.
His eyes slammed shut.
Pain stabbed through them.
Too bright.
Far too bright.
His legs gave way.
Adrian dropped back to his knees, one hand pressed against the wall.
Brilliant white remained burned across the inside of his eyelids.
Fantastic.
He had spent the last several minutes trying to find light.
Apparently light had opinions about that.
Adrian waited.
Then opened one eye.
Immediately regretted it.
He waited longer.
Tried again.
This time the brightness was merely unpleasant rather than unbearable.
Slowly, the room came into focus.
Adrian forgot about his eyes.
The laboratory was larger than he'd thought.
White tiles covered the floor and most of the walls. Stainless steel work surfaces ran along one side of the room. Glass-fronted cabinets contained containers and instruments Adrian couldn't identify.
Machines surrounded the stasis chamber.
Some were still active.
Most weren't.
A wheeled cart lay on its side.
Metal instruments were scattered across the floor.
One monitor hung at an angle from its mounting, its surface cracked.
Several drawers had been left open.
A chair had fallen backward.
Nothing about the room looked destroyed.
It looked abandoned.
Quickly.
Adrian's gaze moved farther.
Something dark marked the white tiles near the doorway.
He stared.
Blood.
Not much.
A few drops at first.
Then more.
A smear along the floor.
There were small spots across the lower part of one cabinet and what looked disturbingly like the partial print of a hand dragged across its metal surface.
Adrian swallowed.
The trail continued through the doorway.
He couldn't see where it went from here.
Nobody had come.
The thought returned immediately.
Nobody had come because nobody was here.
Or—
Adrian stopped that thought.
Pay attention.
Right.
The room first.
He turned carefully.
Now that he could see properly, the stasis chamber looked even less reassuring.
It stood nearly twice his height, a thick curved glass front surrounded by metal and cables. The interior was empty now.
Mostly.
Fluid still ran from the open chamber onto the floor.
Adrian followed it with his eyes.
A clear trail crossed the white tiles.
From the chamber.
Across the floor.
To him.
His gaze stopped.
Long strands of wet white hair clung to his shoulder and chest.
He already knew about those.
Seeing them properly didn't make them any less wrong.
But that wasn't what caught his attention.
Something white lay behind his legs.
Adrian slowly looked down.
Fur.
Long.
Wet.
A thick, pale shape rested across the tiles.
He stared at it.
He had felt it in the chamber.
He had seen it in the darkness.
Some part of him had already understood.
Seeing it under the lights was different.
Adrian shifted his weight.
The thing moved.
He stopped.
It stopped.
He moved again.
So did it.
Adrian reached down.
Slowly.
His fingers closed around wet fur.
Two sensations arrived at once.
Fur against his palm.
And fingers around—
Adrian released it immediately.
The pale shape dropped back onto the tiles.
His stomach turned.
It was attached to him.
Not glued.
Not strapped on.
Not some piece of equipment he'd dragged out of the chamber.
Him.
Adrian stared.
The very end twitched.
He hadn't told it to do that.
“No.”
The thought came without sound.
No.
That wasn't—
Movement.
Adrian's head snapped up.
Someone was standing across the room.
His body reacted before his mind did.
He dropped lower.
One hand hit the floor.
His weight shifted backward.
The white thing behind him snapped sideways.
The figure across the room did exactly the same.
Adrian froze.
So did it.
Human.
Mostly.
Smaller than him.
Long white hair hung wet around its head and shoulders.
Adrian couldn't make out the face properly from here.
He didn't need to.
Something pale rose above the figure's head.
Adrian stared.
The stranger stared back.
He slowly raised one hand.
The stranger raised one hand.
Adrian lowered it.
So did the stranger.
No.
He leaned slightly to the side.
The figure followed.
Adrian looked at the surface behind it.
Dark glass.
A wide observation window set into the wall.
Reflective now that the room behind it was unlit.
There was nobody standing across the laboratory.
Adrian looked back at the white-haired figure.
At the hand held exactly where his own hand was.
At the pale shape behind it.
At the unfamiliar outline where Adrian Voss should have been.
His stomach dropped.
That wasn't someone else.
That was him.