Chapter 855

"Wait. What are you two doing?!"

The moment Skye was secured inside the life-support pod, Evenson saw Moira and Helen Hailun practically glowing with excitement as they started wheeling her toward another machine.

That machine was not a medical device.

Evenson immediately stepped in front of them.

"Science requires practice," Moira said. "Lots and lots of practice."

"I understand the philosophy," Evenson said, pointing at the machine with a trembling finger. "But why does that thing need to be involved?"

He knew exactly what they were pushing.

The Biological Reconstruction System—the same machine they had once used to resurrect Gabriel, an experiment that had reduced the Ancient One’s body to something resembling magical soup.

And now they were planning to put Skye inside it.

"She isn’t even dead yet!"

Evenson’s voice rose.

"You two aren’t here to save her. You’re here because you want to use the machine!"

"Science requires practical application," Helen said, apparently determined to follow Moira’s lead. "And our practical analysis indicates that this is the most efficient treatment option."

She gestured toward Skye.

"Multiple organs have sustained catastrophic damage, and her spine has been severed. The doctors who treated her initially used extremely crude surgical methods. They removed damaged tissue without being able to reconstruct the organs properly."

"Even if she survived, she would be left with severe functional impairment."

"The Biological Reconstruction System can repair those injuries. However, our previous clinical data shows that reconstructing individual organs with precision is extremely inefficient."

Helen’s eyes brightened.

"Complete biological reconstruction is considerably easier."

Evenson stared at her.

"So you’re planning to rebuild her from scratch?"

"Not exactly."

Moira took over.

"We were thinking of removing everything below her neck first."

She casually drew a line across Skye’s throat.

"Don’t worry. We can keep her alive with only her head."

Evenson’s expression went blank.

"Then we’d deconstruct the damaged tissue, break it down into usable biological material, and have the reconstruction system use those raw materials to grow a new body. Once that’s finished, we’d reconnect the head."

Moira sounded almost proud of the efficiency.

"That would completely eliminate her injuries. The reconstruction process would also remove pathological changes caused by environmental factors and eliminate latent carcinogenic mutations."

She paused.

"If you give me permission to modify her genome, I could even remove hereditary diseases from her family line."

Evenson spread his hands.

"That isn’t treating her. That’s replacing her!"

Moira shrugged.

"From a certain perspective."

"You’re already going that far. Why bother keeping the head? Just throw that in too!"

"Then she’d die."

Moira sounded genuinely puzzled by his objection.

"We can reconstruct her body. We can’t guarantee that we can reconstruct her soul."

She glanced at him.

"Unless you want to help with that part."

"Absolutely not!"

Evenson nearly jumped.

"Just repair her normally! Stop looking for shortcuts!"

He finally understood what was happening.

They weren’t proposing reconstruction because it was necessary.

They were proposing it because it was easier.

It was the difference between cooking a complicated meal and heating a frozen dinner.

Traditional treatment required precision. Every piece had to be handled correctly—the damaged tissue removed, the organs repaired, the blood flow restored, the dosage calculated, the temperature controlled.

The reconstruction system was a microwave.

Put Skye inside.

Press a button.

Wait for the beep.

New Skye.

"I know you have plenty of experimental material now," Evenson said, trying to reason with them. "And I know you don’t want to waste resources on someone who looks like an ordinary woman."

Moira’s eyes narrowed.

"But she’s not ordinary."

Evenson immediately regretted those words.

"I can guarantee that part of her genetic structure was artificially engineered. I’m only telling you that because it’s relevant. Do not get any strange ideas."

The faint disappointment in Moira’s eyes vanished instantly.

A dangerous gleam returned.

Evenson pointed at her.

"I’m serious. She’s important. Treat her properly. No experiments."

"She’s important to you?"

Moira’s expression changed.

She and Helen exchanged a glance.

"That statement could be interpreted in several ways," Moira said carefully.

"Oh, for God’s sake."

Evenson rubbed his face.

"What are you two thinking?"

Neither scientist answered.

He gave up.

"Forget it. Just do your jobs. I’ve got something else to deal with."

He turned and walked away.

The moment he was gone, Moira glanced at Helen.

"Not ordinary..."

She clicked her tongue.

"If he hadn’t said that, I was actually prepared to follow the standard treatment protocol. Now I’m curious."

Helen’s eyes brightened.

"Then how about this?"

Moira looked at her.

"She already has extensive organ damage. We could remove the damaged organs, manufacture replacements, and transplant them back in."

She paused.

"We’d keep the originals for research."

Moira slowly nodded.

"He only said we couldn’t reconstruct her entire body."

"He never said anything about organ transplants."

The two scientists looked at each other.

Somewhere far away, Evenson probably felt a disturbance in the universe.

Evenson arrived in the company’s underground security room.

Officially, it was a security facility.

In reality, it was a private interrogation chamber.

The Eredar twins were already waiting.

Across from them sat a man who looked barely alive.

His skin was deathly pale. His eyes were dull and unfocused. His hair was filthy and tangled, his beard overgrown, and his body had wasted away until he resembled a living skeleton.

One of his hands was missing.

Evenson looked him over and gave a quiet laugh.

"Looks like life in Correction Room Thirteen hasn’t been kind to you."

The man didn’t answer.

"Although," Evenson added, "judging by the way you look, I suppose you’ve finally kicked the habit."

The man was Miles Lydon.

Once, he had been Skye’s boyfriend.

Right now, even if Skye were standing directly in front of him, she probably wouldn’t recognize him.

Evenson couldn’t help thinking that his earlier fortune-telling had been disturbingly accurate.

He’d joked that Skye had the fate of a woman born under the Killing Wolf star.

Apparently, dating her came with a hidden difficulty modifier.

Then again, perhaps Skye simply hadn’t finished ruining Miles’s life the first time.

Maybe she was planning to finish the job now.

There was a reason Evenson had brought Miles here and left him inside Correction Room Thirteen for so long.

Gospel had been extraordinarily successful since its founding.

Politically, they had powerful allies in General Ross and the Vice President.

Militarily, the building itself was protected by powerful magical defenses. Attacking it would probably be easier if someone simply went after the Pentagon.

Internally, the Eredar twins provided security, and Peggy Carter had recently joined them as well.

The one major weakness remained cybersecurity.

Evenson knew almost nothing about computers beyond how to use them for gaming.

The twins weren’t much better.

No matter how powerful their magic became, there was no spell called Fel Enhancement: Laptop.

Moira’s team specialized in biology. They could use computers, but that was about the extent of their expertise.

Gnos was supposedly a great scientist, but his genius leaned heavily toward engineering and mechanical systems. Electronic warfare wasn’t exactly his specialty.

They couldn’t protect a multinational company’s entire network by installing antivirus software and praying the computer didn’t crash.

The twins had tried recruiting programmers.

They’d found people capable of maintaining basic network security.

None of them were remotely qualified to launch a cyberattack.

Miles Lydon was different.

That was why Evenson had ordered Lily Grant’s people to bring him over after the Hong Kong incident.

They had removed the SHIELD electronic bracelet from his arm, amputated the hand wearing it, sedated him, packed him into a coffin, and shipped him to the United States.

The man had lost his career as a hacker the moment Skye cracked and exposed his electronic signature, programming methods, and attack patterns.

But Miles was still one of the founders and current leaders of Rising Tide.

He had once been a superstar in the hacking community.

His skills might have been obsolete.

His network wasn’t.

When he’d first arrived, Evenson had asked him a simple question.

Where could they find another hacker capable of matching Skye—someone who could compromise a SHIELD network with little more than a secondhand laptop?

Miles had given him an answer Evenson hadn’t wanted to hear.

Nowhere.

Skye was a genuine genius.

Hacking wasn’t something you mastered simply by accumulating knowledge. Knowledge was the foundation. What separated an ordinary programmer from an elite hacker was the ability to make intuitive leaps—to see connections nobody else saw.

Even cloning Skye’s body and giving the clone every piece of knowledge she possessed wouldn’t guarantee the same result.

Without Skye’s way of thinking, it wouldn’t be Skye.

So Evenson had asked a second question.

Did Miles know any hackers even remotely comparable to her?

They didn’t have to be quite as good.

They could make up the difference.

Worst case, they’d feed the guy enough Brain Green supplements to keep his neurons working overtime.

Miles had refused.

After losing his skills, his contacts were the most valuable things he had left.

He wasn’t giving them away.

He’d hidden behind the claim that he’d promised Skye he would become a better person.

He’d betrayed her, he said, but he still loved her.

And judging from the way these people had abducted him, they clearly weren’t good people.

So he wouldn’t cooperate.

The wording had been very deliberate.

He wouldn’t easily cooperate.

Evenson had understood the message immediately.

Pay me more.

Unfortunately for Miles, Evenson’s own allowance had required an argument every time he wanted another hundred dollars.

There was no chance he was paying a hostage for information.

So Miles had been sent to Correction Room Thirteen.

A little forced rehabilitation.

The problem was that Evenson had gotten busy.

Very busy.

He’d completely forgotten about the man.

If Skye hadn’t been shot, Miles might have remained in that room for who knew how long.

Perhaps Skye had finally decided to sacrifice herself just to finish the job.

Evenson sat across from him.

"Miles Lydon."

The man’s eyes slowly lifted.

"Have you reconsidered your answer?"

Nothing.

Miles simply stared at him.

Evenson leaned slightly toward the twins.

"Is he actually sane?"

"He should be," Saloralis said.

"Moira reported that he occasionally suffers muscle spasms, screams without warning, swings between extreme agitation and extreme lethargy, talks to himself, claims someone is trying to kill him, and has made several unsuccessful suicide attempts."

She paused.

"But his mental state is normal."

Evenson stared at her.

"I’m beginning to suspect Moira has a very unusual definition of the word normal."

He turned back toward Miles.

"Let me ask again. Among the hackers you know, who is closest to Skye’s level? Give me their information, and your suffering ends."

Miles sat motionless for a long time.

Then something finally clicked.

The dullness vanished from his eyes.

His voice came out cracked and trembling.

"Mexico..."

He swallowed.

"Sambola. She’s almost as good as Skye."

His hands shook as he wrote the hacker’s contact information on a sheet of paper, along with everything else he knew about her.

Evenson examined the information.

Then he kept his promise.

"One last thing."

Miles looked up.

"You wanted the pain to end."

Evenson raised one hand.

There was no dramatic spell.

No explosion.

Miles simply dissolved into ash.

Evenson stood.

"Notify Gnos."

He glanced toward the twins.

"Once Skye has recovered, have him install the Edge of Tomorrow system."

...