One of the guards knelt beside Mercen and pressed two fingers beneath his jaw. The others pinned Recen to the floor. One rod discharged electricity into his side; another hovered a few inches above the back of his neck.
“No pulse.”
Recen tried to turn his head.
“He remembered.”
No one answered him.
A knee crushed his cheek against the floor. He caught a glimpse of Mercen’s face between the black boots: one eye open, the deep mark the chain had left around his neck.
“He knew.”
The rod came down.
This time, the darkness did not come all at once. It began in his hands and traveled up his arms, shutting him down from the extremities inward. Before his sight failed, he heard a voice above the alarm.
“Don’t connect him again.”
He woke beneath the black ring.
The straps were new. Each finger was restrained separately; another strap bound his jaw. The filaments at his temples had multiplied. They no longer ended only at the machine behind his head: they crossed the room and disappeared into the panels like transparent roots.
Calahan stood beside one of them. He wore a dark band around his neck. The skin showing above it had the color of bruised fruit.
Recen smiled.
“This time it was you.”
Calahan did not touch the injury.
“Yes.”
“And Mercen too.”
The doctor held his gaze for a few seconds.
“Mercen was an inmate.”
“You put him with me.”
“A controlled interaction was authorized.”
Recen tested the straps. None gave.
“You’d done it before.”
Calahan looked at the panel. Rows of symbols scrolled down its surface; each ended in a red bar.
“Mercen shared a cell with you before you entered the program. He was the only person you had maintained a stable relationship with since the fire.”
“Then you knew what would happen.”
“We knew what could happen.”
“And you opened the door.”
Calahan took a moment to answer.
“We needed to know what remained of you when you recovered the truth.”
Recen looked at his hands again. There was no blood on them now. Yet the pressure of the chain lingered between his restrained fingers.
“Now you know.”
Ten appeared on the nearest panel. He had no bicycle or blue jacket. He floated upright in a space without depth, dressed in the same black fabric as Recen.
“The sequence is complete,” he said.
“No,” Calahan replied.
The young man turned his head toward him.
“The subject recovered his autobiographical memory, recognized the consequence of his actions, and repeated the homicidal behavior. The probability of reintegration has fallen below the authorized threshold.”
“I haven’t requested the final report.”
“The report was requested by the prison administration.”
Calahan approached the platform. Nothing of Cat’s courtesy remained in his face, but there was no satisfaction either. He looked like a man who had spent too long defending a decision he no longer remembered making.
“How many times?” Recen asked.
The doctor did not answer.
“How many times did you send me back to the lake?”
Ten spoke from the panel.
“This was the fourteenth complete extraction.”
Calahan closed his eyes.
“Be quiet, Net.”
“The information is not restricted during the final assessment.”
Recen gave a short laugh. The strap around his jaw turned it into an animal sound.
“You’re not curing me.”
Calahan opened his eyes.
“No.”
The answer wiped away the laugh.
“Then what are you doing?”
“Keeping you from killing again.”
“Mercen is dead.”
The blue circle on the doctor’s wrist dimmed.
“Mercen wasn’t supposed to die.”
“Neither was Lila. Or Violeta. Or Cat.”
“They didn’t exist.”
“They existed when they screamed.”
For the first time, Calahan looked away.
A low signal pulsed behind the panels.
“I see it,” Calahan said.
The red bars extended to the bottom edge of the screen.
Ten remained motionless.
“The administration requests permanent termination of treatment.”
Recen watched the doctor.
“Does that mean killing me?”
“It means they would stop waking you.”
“And what do you want?”
Calahan rested a hand on the ring. The filaments responded with a blue glow.
“I want the next fish you cut open to be the only thing that dies by your hands.”
“That’s not a life.”
“For you, it was one for seventeen years.”
“You told me it was less.”
“When you go back, you won’t have to know that.”
Recen strained against the restraints until the strap across his forehead bit into his skin again.
“I’ll find you.”
Calahan brought the circle on his wrist close to the machine.
“You already did.”
Ten’s panel turned white.
“Unauthorized reset,” Net said.
The doctor held his wrist in place.
“Clinical authorization Calahan, level nine.”
“Revocation is in progress.”
“Not yet.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the blue circle pulsed, and every panel in the room went dark except one.
The lake appeared on it.
It was not a still image. Small ripples moved against the dock. The mountains were beginning to catch the first light. An empty boat rocked beside the shore.
Recen smelled damp wood.
“No,” he said.
Calahan touched the edge of the panel.
“Dawn.”
The filaments discharged their light at once.
Recen saw the cell. He saw Mercen’s open eye. He saw a soot-covered window and two small hands beating against the glass. He saw Rosa beside the water. The images came in violent succession, but did not disappear: they receded, shrinking one after another until they fit inside a blue point.
The point sank into the lake.
Recen opened his eyes.
He stood in front of the cabin, his bare feet in the mud and a rough shirt clinging to his back. The spring air smelled of wet earth, wildflowers, and freshly cut wood.
The sun had not finished rising.
He looked at his hands. They were large and strong, marked with scars whose origins he could not remember. He brought one hand to his right wrist. The skin was intact, though beneath it a ring of pressure remained.
He waited for it to pass.
Behind him, the cabin held tools, nets, and seventeen years of a life he could remember without effort. Nothing existed before it. Nor did he need anything to.
He pushed the boat until the water reached his knees, climbed in, and settled the oars. The lake opened before him with the patience of something that knew he would always return.
When he reached the center, he prepared the fishing net.
The first cast landed cleanly. The weights pulled the net beneath the surface, and the sound traveled toward the mountains. Recen held the rope between his hands, alert to the vibrations.
A word appeared in his mind.
Mercen.
He did not know whether it was a name, a place, or a kind of fish. He tried to hold on to it, but a bubble broke the water beside the boat, and the word vanished with it.
Recen pulled on the net.
The weight of the catch restored his calm.
On the shore, too far away for him to see, a young man in a blue jacket waited beside a bicycle.
Recen went on fishing at dawn.
