Hannah used her finger to scrape the last bit of soylant from the inside of the glass. It tasted like salted ham with the consistency of half-melted cheese... but she was starving, so she ate.

She felt justified in her contempt for Emmanuel 165, his optimistic fucking words, and his lectures which seemed disjointed, ambiguous, and impossible to follow. All she knew was that a tiny handful of proxies had been keeping Jon away from her for the last hour, and this bot's reassurance wasn't making her feel any better.

"I can assure you," Emmanuel said again, "Mr. Nightly is receiving the best treatment for pain we can offer."

"Thank you," she said, then adjusted the pink scrunchy in her hair, part of a mismatched ensemble provided by Emmanuel.

The only decoration in the dim, oversized office was a trio of nude men sleeping on mattresses in the corner. Behind them, a dark panorama of tinted windows hid the skyline of her hometown.

Two identical women (Ellie units, she remembered) entered side by side with unlit pendants. Their hair—once jet-black—had deflated into semi-translucent waves. Jon sat on a rolling chair between them. He was clothed in white sheets like a mummy and the blanket around his chest held him to the back of the chair. His hair brushed the ground.

Hannah's chest pattered like a lovestruck schoolgirl. "Hey," she said. She took his hand, pale, dry, and mottled with purple splotches. "Nice beard."

His mustache raised with a smile. "My... five-o-clock... shadow." His eyes glistened as they followed her hair to the floor. "Rapunzel... in a tower?" The joke prompted another coughing fit.

Hannah peeled the napkin from her empty glass and held it to his mouth. "Does it hurt?"

Jon spoke as if every word had to be processed before it left his lips. "I can't... feel a thing."

Emmanuel smiled as if to say, "Told ya so."

"I look old," Jon said.

Hannah smiled. "You look like your dad."

"How... did that... happen?"

Emmanuel motioned for the Ellies to leave, then folded his hands on his desk. "That's actually where I'd like to begin our conversation, Mr. Nightly. Can you recount for me the exact circumstances in which you received T4?"

* * *

Jon was fairly certain he was actually Jon... but memories from his former lives were just as persistent as memories from this one...

The meds replaced his agony with exquisite numbness. He still had a bit of mobility in his neck and hands, but his ability to feel what he was touching had died with the pain. Although the sound of his voice was normalizing with practice, a mass in his throat made every word a challenge.

In a way, he was luckier than Hannah. Life tripping had prepared him for the nature of unchecked realities. But Hannah had been yanked straight out of paradise. The fact that she was sitting in this office was a symbol of her graciousness and self-control.

"Mr. Nightly?" Emmanuel said.

Is Nightly my last name?

"Do you remember receiving T4.1?"

"Sorry," he wheezed. "I'm having... it's difficult... putting words..."

The bot nodded. "Brain block is another symptom of the disease."

"And what..." Jon inhaled, "is the disease?"

"It's cancer, Mr. Nightly."

Hannah shook her head. "Cancer?"

"What kind?" Jon asked.

Emmanuel didn't hesitate. "Every kind."

Jon's eyes drifted to the dark windows as his mind failed to process the appropriate emotions.

"The cancer is consistently destroying the organic conduits between your brain and IPDs. Inside the system you were able to rely on the mainframe for facts and calculations. Before that, your internal devices aided your brain in almost every mental process. But out here—"

"Can I have... lenses?" Jon asked.

"I'm afraid we're currently out of lenses, and—until our medical equipment is back online—we aren't equipped for ocular implantation."

Hannah wheeled Jon closer. "We'll find you a new pair as soon as we're done here."

"I know it's difficult to focus," Emmanuel said, "but it would help us diagnose your condition if you could recount the way in which you received T4."

Jon shook his head. "I... don't remember."

"Why does it matter?" Hannah asked.

Emmanuel kept his eyes trained on Jon. "It matters because a our scans indicate that Mr. Nightly only received a quarter of the required dosage."

The couple exchanged a confounded glance. "How is that possible?"

While Hannah and the doctor bickered over possibilities and implications, Jon dredged through his mental molasses to recall what went wrong. He had vague recollections of giving his father a kidney... of his little sister pretending to be a nurse when they were kids... of hiding his wife's pills... of car accidents and spinal taps and blood transfusions... but T4? In this life?

He remembered the demon. He remembered the vials. But who actually administered the T4? Where did they do it? And why the hell did he only receive a quarter dose? "I don't know," he said, interrupting the fruitless discussion. "I don't remember how I got it."

"I'm afraid you're an unfortunate anomaly at PEC Corp," Emmanuel said. "If we would have caught the cancer sooner, there may have been something we could do, but our medical systems have been offline for quite some time."

"How long until you're operational again?" Hannah asked.

"We expect to be online soon."

"How soon?"

"Unfortunately, we can't give you an accurate answer at this point in time."

"Where... did the cancer... come from?" Jon asked.

"When you were a child, you had a disease called Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia—"

Hannah scoffed. "That's ridiculous. He never had—"

Jon touched her arm. "I... I think I did..."

She looked hurt. "I guess I forgot. What is it?"

Emmanuel replied, "In the late twentieth century, A-L-L was a dangerous and prevalent form of cancer that afflicted many children."

"But," Jon huffed, "didn't they fix it?"

"Our records confirm your remission, Mr. Nightly. But we think the A-L-L may have served as a precursor to your current disease."

Jon closed his eyes. "And... the quarter dose..."

"A standard dose of T4 would have cured the cancer immediately."

"No." Hannah shook her head. "I want to talk to a real doctor."

"I can assure you, Ms. Lasker, my colleagues and I are just as capable of helping Jonathon as a human."

Shaking became trembling as her voice adopted a savage growl. "I want to talk to a human, not a fucking Nintendo."

"Of course, Ms. Lasker. Was there a particular human you would like to speak to?"

"Doctor... Z-something."

"I'm afraid I'll need more—"

"Zylestra."

"Awesome," Emmanuel said. "Doctor Zylestra is right here!"

The couple looked to the corner of sleeping bodies. "Do we wake him up?" Hannah asked.

"I've already contacted him inside the system. If he agrees to meet with you, I will serve as his proxy. I do hope you receive the answers you're looking—" The bot froze mid-sentence. His pendant turned orange and his face contorted into the taut, jagged expression of genuine anger. "God... goddamnit..." His limbs juddered like the animatronic mascots at a kid's restaurant as Doctor Zylestra assumed control of the proxy. "Who the... who the hell..." The eyes blinked in rapid succession. "Who are you?"

Hannah placed her hands flat on the desk. "My name is Hannah Lasker. You consulted with my father in Year 35. My partner is sick and we need to talk to a real doctor."

"Emmanuel," said the doctor. "E... Emmanuel takes care of any outside issues."

"We talked to him. He's not making any sense."

Jon rubbed her back with swollen fingers and wished he could feel the ridge of her spine.

The proxy's eyebrows pursed in the center of its face. "You think I give a throwaway fuck about..." It grunted. "Just... go back to sleep. Doctor's orders, okay? Just... go back to sleep..." The pendant flickered off. Emmanuel's expression froze, then smiled. "Was Doctor Zylestra helpful?" he asked.

Hannah bolted from her chair aimed right at the pasty doctor in the trio of the sleeping men.

Suddenly, a bulky caucasian with a tiny head, belted taser, and unlit pendant stepped from the open door and tackled Hannah before she could reach the doctor.

"Let me go!" She struggled in his arms as the bot awaited silent instructions from whatever hivemind was keeping the brutes in line.

Emmanuel addressed Jon across the desk. "I apologize on behalf of Ian 885. It's his duty to keep the towers operational."

Jon's voice only scratched a little now, but he coughed anyway and pretended to convulse with more dry heaves. "Hannah..."

"Let me help him!" she exclaimed and Ian released his grip. She ran to Jon's side, tore a piece of cloth from his bandages, and held it to his lips until he finished hacking.

Ian crossed his arms and stationed himself beside the bodies.

"Can't I..." Jon started, "get more T4?"

Emmanuel shook his head. "I'm afraid T4 manufacturing ceased in Year 57."

"A year after we moved here..." Hannah said, adjusting her headband from her tussle with Ian.

"What happens... next?" Jon asked.

Emmanuel lowered his head without breaking eye contact. His speech pattern changed, as if a colloquial explanation might drive the point home. "Your body's been basting for hundreds of years in a mishmash of faulty genetics and dangerous carcinogens while your partial dose of T4 tried in vain to fight back. Every cell in your body has been broken and repaired millions of times. We're doing everything in our capacity to help you, Mr. Nightly, but without better facilities, you will die."

Hannah narrowed her eyes. "I don't under—"

"How long do I have?"

"If the cancer continues to make headway at the same rate, you have seventy-four days until death."

Again, Hannah shook her head. "If you can't help him, we'll get another opinion."

"I can assure you that's not possible, Ms. Lasker."

"We're not going to sit here and listen to another vague explanation—"

The windows became transparent behind Emmanuel and flooded the office with harsh, iodine light.

Jon squinted. Hannah raised her hand to shield her face.

As the outside world came into focus, Jon realized the full extent of his callowness and longed for the silly misadventures of Ty, Brandon, Jeff, and the others. If the rags weren't holding him to the chair, he would have fallen to the floor.

Chicago was gone, replaced by a flat dump of crumbled rock and metal beams. A dozen black buildings jutted from the wreckage and stood taller than Jon thought possible. A pattern of grey smudges crept vertically along the outside of the window where ivy had grown and withered. "Where..." he stuttered, "where are the trees?"

"I want to go back," Hannah said. "Can we just go back?"

"Yes," Emmanuel replied. "In fact, I highly recommend it."

* * *

From a few steps back, Jon's tattoo looked like blue lacework along his left arm, and another few inches on the right. Hannah's own tattoo had faded into near oblivion. She could still make out the skin-toned flowers and pale strawberries, though she couldn't remember their meaning. "You didn't call," she said, finally alone with her partner.

"I—"

"Five years. We promised."

"I'm sorry. I don't..." His voice drained like a flushing toilet.

She touched his knee. "We're together now."

A smile creased his cheeks, but it was short lived. "What do we do?"

"We go back. If the pain finds you, you'll will it away."

"I'm dying, sweetheart... whether I'm inside or out."

That damn word again. She touched his cheek and pulled his gaze back to hers. "Emmanuel said it was for the best."

He shook his head. "I need to stay here."

The words perched between them like a raven.

"Hannah," Jon said with a heavy breath and childlike inflections, "is this life real?"

She managed a smile. "Real or not, we're in it together."

* * *

Jon refused to return to the system but gladly accepted another dose of pain killers. The nurses rolled him to the adjoining room for rest.

He's taking this too well, Hannah thought. He should be kicking and screaming and demanding answers. Maybe his body just hurt too much...

But Hannah's body didn't hurt. Hannah's body was capable. It wanted to break something. It wanted to wake them up... all of them! She could hide from Emmanuel and Elli while rallying every godforsaken homo sapien in the building. Then she would show them their world and convince them to fix it.

But most of all, she wanted an answer. She wanted to grab the rubber face of the synthetically-retarded pseudo-Asian hack, shake him 'til his quantum transistors popped and his eyes bled oil, and cry at the top of her lungs her most crucial question: "What is death!?"