The doors of the haematology ward swung open again, and Shadow and Abraham turned to see Alex walk into the room.

'Look, Shadow, I've thought about it and realised that I basically kicked you out of the operating theatre yesterday, and I could have handled things better, but I –' Alex saw Abraham and skidded to a halt. She raised her protective goggles, and her eyes widened. 'O-Oh. Commander Tower.'

'Dr. Alexandrite,' Abraham said. 'Good morning.'

'Are you here to see your grandson?' Alex asked.

'No, I'm not. I had to discuss something with Shadow in person –'

'Just go and see him.' Shadow crossed his arms and looked away. 'We still don't know if Elijah's procedures are going to be viable, let alone successful. You should spend time with him while you have the chance.'

'About that …' Alex said. 'Shadow, we put a rush on the lab results for you and Elijah's bone marrow biopsies.'

'And?'

Alex's eyes glimmered. Shadow knew that look all too well. The light in her eyes was a glimmer of hope. 'There were no adverse reactions!' She clasped his hand in hers and said, 'We can go ahead and start the treatment plan!'

Shadow winced. The similarities were fleeting, but they were also self-evident. Alex was in her 40s, her blonde hair was cropped short, and she had tattoos of constellations on her toned arms. But there was something about her – that spark, hope and drive – that reminded him of someone he used to know.

'When do we start?' he asked

Alex let him go. 'Not for a few days. We still have other patients for you to help, and we want to do their procedures first before we –'

Shadow's eyes widened, and he stopped time with a flash, grabbing hold of her arm. 'Damn it, Alex!'

She looked down at him in bewilderment. 'What? Why do we need the Cone of Silence?'

'Why do people always insist on making references to books that were published while I was in stasis?' Shadow muttered. 'Listen, Abraham doesn't know that we're going to change my HLA type for Elijah's sake. What's more, GUN doesn't know either.'

'What?' Alex lowered her surgical mask, and she looked horrified. 'We've been sending reports about all of your procedures and our proposed treatment plans to GUN's biomedical division. How could they not know what we're doing?'

Shadow grimaced. 'The less you know, the better. And when you're dealing with GUN, it's better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission.'

'Shadow, that's not good enough. If we perform an unauthorised procedure on you, then GUN could get our hospital shut down.' She risked a glance at Abraham, who was frozen and unseeing beside them. 'Wouldn't Commander Tower have the authority to approve your procedures?'

'It's not that simple,' Shadow said. 'He still has to answer to the rest of the organisation. And he already has reservations about the fact that his family is incidentally benefiting from the program. If he decides that I'm going too far for his family's sake, then he could call off the program in order to stop me. And what will happen to your other patients then?'

Alex crossed her arms tightly, and her voice was flat when she spoke. 'I can see where you're coming from, but I don't have to like it. And why didn't you tell me this sooner?'

Shadow threw up his hands and said, 'I haven't had time! You charged in here and violated Elijah's doctor-patient confidentiality before I could stop you –'

'That's it!' Alex pulled her surgical mask back on, saying, 'Start the clock again. I've got this.'

'I'm not certain that you do have it,' Shadow said warily. 'And the commander isn't stupid. It's highly likely that he'll realise I stopped time.'

'Oh, please. Just click those red heels together three times or whatever and get on with it.'

Shadow looked down in bewilderment. It was true that the metal trim on the heels of his air shoes was red, but he had no idea why that was relevant to the situation. 'Fine. It's your funeral.'

Time resumed, and Alex gave Abraham a sunny smile. 'Sorry about that. Shadow had to interrupt and remind me that I can't discuss Elijah's medical information with anyone other than his parents or legal guardians. You know how it is.'

Abraham frowned. 'That's all very well and good, but this is a unique case –'

'Sorry, no exceptions. I know you're the commander of the organisation facilitating this program, but you're also the grandparent of one of the patients. It's a conflict of interest.'

'I guess you could call it that.' Abraham's gaze rested on Shadow for what felt like longer than necessary, and Shadow felt his hackles begin to rise. '… A conflict of interest.'

'Exactly. Besides, we've sent GUN reports of everything we've been doing. You can read the reports –'

'I've read them.' Abraham narrowed his eyes. 'And while I can appreciate brevity, the reports were … sparse. I had to call Shadow up and ask him what you meant by 'rewinding' time.'

Alex gave him a saccharine grin. 'Sorry about that. We've had to rely on Shadow's explanations of his powers when writing up our treatment plans, and he's not exactly … communicative.'

'Good grief,' Shadow muttered. He knew that Alex throwing him under the bus was an effective way to get them both out of this predicament, but it still rankled. 'I'm already giving you my blood and bone marrow. What more do you want?'

Alex turned to him. 'Oh, I forgot. That's why I was coming to find you. Now that we have your bone marrow exam results back, we can go ahead with some of our other patients' procedures. I need you back in the operating theatre in 45 minutes.'

Shadow tried not to flinch. The bone marrow exam had taken mere minutes, but it had still been gruelling. He had no idea how long bone marrow donorship would actually take. At the very least, he knew it wouldn't be a brief procedure. He tried to come up with a response, but he couldn't. He gave up and nodded instead.

'Is your handler available to stand watch for you again?' Alex asked.

'It depends. How long is the procedure?'

'It can take anywhere from one to two hours.'

Shadow's ears twitched, flattening slightly. Last time, he'd only laid on the operating table for a few minutes, but it had still felt like an eternity. If they only sedated him, then he would have to lie with his thoughts for hours – and his thoughts were currently a chaotic, writhing mess.

The disaster that hadn't happened outside the hospital, mere moments ago. His new-found concerns about his future. Silver's worries about his past. The safety of their timeline itself. The ongoing investigation into the terror attack. He didn't want to be trapped in a semi-conscious state with the sum total of his problems … But his wants were irrelevant, secondary to his need to protect himself from unnecessary risk.

Alex kept her voice casual, but her eyes creased with concern. 'Do you want us to put you under this time?'

He began to shake his head, but then he stopped. His chest tightened. It was a sensation that was becoming far too familiar. '… Maybe.' Shadow crossed his arms, ignoring her evident shock. 'We'll see. But either way, Rouge has better things to be doing with her time.' He also knew that despite Rouge's assurances, there was something about seeing him go under the knife that bothered her.

'I can do it.'

It took Shadow a moment to realise that it was Abraham who had spoken. He looked up in surprise. 'With all due respect, Abraham, you're not a field agent any more.'

Abraham scoffed and placed one hand on his hip. Shadow noticed the barely discernible lines of a handgun holster beneath his military uniform jacket. 'I may not be Rouge,' Abraham said, 'but I only retired from active duty a few years ago.'

'You have better things to be doing with your time as well. The terror attack on the concourse isn't going to investigate itself.'

'Be that as it may … What kind of risks are you expecting if you want another operative here?' Abraham asked.

'I'm expecting that people could start targeting the hospital now that the program has been announced to the public. Protestors have already swarmed GUN's headquarters on several occasions, and this place is a much easier target. There are no perimeter defences, and every other room has floor-to-ceiling windows. I haven't even seen a single security guard since I arrived here.'

'If you don't want to involve Rouge, then we can station GUN soldiers on the premises –'

'No,' Shadow said sharply. 'With how vocal people are being about their dislike of GUN, having an active military presence would just attract more attention.'

Alex glanced at her watch and began to fidget. 'We only need one operative to cover for Shadow while he's incapacitated, right?'

Shadow fought the urge to sigh. He was running out of options. Omega was probably at loose ends while he and Rouge were busy elsewhere, but if GUN soldiers would scare the patients and staff, then bringing a killing machine into the hospital would terrify them. The person standing watch for him didn't have to be a GUN agent, though. They just had to be strong enough to handle anyone who might try to blindside him while he was incapacitated. He began to unlock and relock one of his inhibitor rings, racking his brain for a solution. He would rather die than ask Sonic to help him with something like this, and he also didn't think Sonic was capable of standing in one place for more than a few minutes, let alone a few hours. Amy might be willing to help, but Station Square was on the other side of the United Federation. And while she might be willing to drop everything she was doing to help him, he didn't want her to. Was there anyone else –

Shadow's eyes widened. He turned and dashed towards the doors of the haematology ward, but Alex grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him back.

'Let go of me –'

'Shadow, you're bleeding!' Alex pulled up the back of his jacket, and he heard a sharp hiss. 'O-Oh hell … What happened?'

Shadow looked over his shoulder and winced. He'd thought it was just surgical pain, but the incision in his lower back had ripped open, and his fur was matted with blood. 'I told you I had a high pain tolerance.'

'Oh, stop it. How on earth did you do this to yourself?'

'I don't know.'

Abraham had been watching in silence, and he finally spoke up. 'I'm not certain, but stopping an 80-ton fuel tanker in its tracks may have had something to do with it.'

Shadow shrugged out of Alex's grip and turned to face her. She turned pale and asked, 'What?'

One of the receptionists glanced up from her computer. 'Dr Alex, it's already all over every news website. Our paramedics even brought in the truck driver for emergency treatment.'

'I was in surgery,' Alex retorted. 'But Shadow, I didn't think I'd have to tell you not to over-exert yourself –'

'And I didn't think that a fuel tanker was going to hit a school bus outside the hospital, but here we are.'

Alex turned white. 'I-I thought you prevented a collision from happening.'

'I did.' Shadow pulled his jacket aside, and his fingernails dug into his palms as he willed the wound to close again. The incision began to burn. He still had the box of acetaminophen in his jacket pocket, but what was the point of using it? As he accelerated time for himself, the effects of any medication he took would dissipate in an instant. He knew that he could rewind time for himself instead, to a moment before the wound had reopened. But erasing the consequences of his carelessness felt like taking the easy way out. It was weakness – plain and simple.

Once he was no longer bleeding, he looked up. Alex looked horrified, and even Abraham, who had no doubt seen far worse injuries, visibly flinched.

'Why are you looking at me like that?'

Abraham and Alex exchanged glances. He couldn't read their expressions. 'Listen, Shadow,' Alex said. 'We don't get our theatre slot for another half an hour. Why don't you go and have a break?'

'A break? We haven't even started yet.'

'On the contrary, I think you started yesterday and never stopped.'

'But –'

'Did you even sleep last night?'

'I don't need to sleep.' And it was a good thing he didn't. Between the surgical pain and the constant intrusion of nurses checking that the apheresis machine was still working as intended, he'd only slept in fits and starts. 'The only thing I need is to –'

Shadow broke off and turned on his heel, skating out of the room so quickly that he left scorch marks on the linoleum. He'd forgotten why he'd attempted to leave in such a hurry in the first place. He dashed down the corridors, scattering doctors and patients alike in his haste. As he passed one of the windows overlooking the internal courtyard, he saw a flash of cyan light out of the corner of his eye. He blasted his thrusters and came to a halt.

Silver stood in the courtyard below, and his hands were outstretched. The playground equipment scattered throughout the courtyard shimmered, and he could hear the delighted squeals of children playing. He was struck by the thought that Silver would be far better suited to this than he was. Unlike Shadow, Silver genuinely cared about people, and he would stop at nothing to give them hope and a better future. But whereas Silver's power came from his mind, Shadow's power came from his blood. He could wish that things were different, but it was no … use.

Shadow gritted his teeth and opened the window with a slam. 'Silver!'

Silver startled, and there were panicked shrieks as several children flew off the swingset. Silver's cuffs flared with light, and he caught them without lifting a finger, safely returning them to the ground. He gave Shadow an unimpressed look. 'I thought you were trying to save these kids, not kill them.'

Shadow vaulted out of the window, landing by Silver's side. 'You shouldn't have let me break your concentration in the first place.'

'I think the sound of you yelling would break anyone's concentration.' Silver glanced to the side, holding one of his hands palm-up. The circular emblems on his gloves glowed, and the metallic creaking of swingset chains and seesaws tinkled like a broken music box. 'What is it?'

'I was looking for you. I thought you may have already left.'

Silver gave him a wry smile. 'You do realise I was lying my ass off earlier, right? I'm not going to Empire City.'

'I'm not stupid. You're a terrible liar, but sticking around to let Abraham interrogate you would have been an exercise in poor judgment.'

'Ugh. Did you need me for something?'

'Come and find me at the operating theatre suite in half an hour.' Shadow looked around the courtyard and sighed. 'I need someone to stand guard for me while I'm under anaesthetic, and you're clearly at loose ends.'

Silver bristled. 'Not all of us hate kids, you know. I just wanted to cheer them up –'

'You can't. You can only distract them, at best.'

'Is that so wrong –'

'Distractions are a weakness!' Shadow snapped. 'And messing around with these kids isn't going to help save your future. Get your head out of the clouds and focus, damn it.'

Silver looked as though Shadow had just kicked him in the shins. 'God forbid that I take a moment to remind myself what my future could look like instead of what it is now. There are barely any people left alive in my time, let alone children!' Silver exhaled and steadied himself. 'I don't know what I expected from you after everything that we discussed earlier. But I'm here to help you. The least you could do is not take out your frustration on me.'

Shadow turned his back and walked off. 'If you really want to help, then you know where to find me. Don't be late.'

He closed the door to the internal courtyard behind him and leaned against the glass wall. He pressed a hand to his earpiece and attempted to ignore the burn of antiseptic in his lungs. 'Rouge?'

'Hi, sweetheart –'

'Can you send me the Project Shadow files?'

'Which ones?'

'All of them. You were the one who originally bypassed GUN's security and sent your findings to the former president, weren't you? Don't you know how to access the master files?'

'Yes, but … Send them where? You don't have a phone.'

Shadow pulled his burner phone out of his jacket pocket. 'Send them to my burner. And send me a digitised copy of Professor Gerald's journal while you're at it.'

'Shadow, I can't send PDFs to a flip phone.'

'Can you convert the files into a text-based format instead?'

Rouge let out a pealing laugh, and he heard the sound of her spinning around in her desk chair. 'Oh, aren't you adorable? I'm not texting classified documents to you, dumbass.'

Shadow growled under his breath. 'Fax them to me, then. Don't hospitals still use fax machines?'

'They're one of the few places that still do. But I'm not sending all of that information to a random fax machine at the hospital. It's a security risk – and more importantly, it's far too much work.'

'Can you print them out instead and bring them over here?'

He heard her chair abruptly stop spinning. 'For Chaos' sake, Shadow. Has your memory gotten so bad that you've forgotten you can teleport? Come here and get them yourself.'

'You can get this kind of thing done more quickly than I can.'

'On the contrary, I think Archival & Requisitions will work much faster if you're breathing down their necks. Ciao, darling.'

The faint static in his ear disappeared, and he vanished as well, reappearing in GUN's archives department.

The sudden silence was overwhelming. He padded through the dimly lit space, weaving between the wooden desks adorned with green banker's lamps. Wall-mounted screens cast a cold glow over the double-height room, and the filtered air tasted stale. He walked over to the executive desk near the entrance and placed his hands on the desk's surface. The gleam of his inhibitor rings drew the eye of the chief archivist, an elderly man who looked up and flinched. 'Agent Shadow. What a rare sight.'

'Can you retrieve the Project Shadow files and Gerald's journal for me?'

'Do you have the required level of clearance –'

Shadow reached forward and snatched the man's keycard, snapping open the clasp of the lanyard it was attached to with a swift tug. 'I do now.'

'I don't know why I even ask,' the man grumbled. 'Why don't you just use my computer as well while you're at it?'

Shadow sat down at one of the other computers on the executive desk, raising the chair to the correct height. 'That won't be necessary.'

He inserted the keycard into a slot on the computer terminal and began trawling through GUN's internal database. He only had to refine his search terms a few times before he found what he was looking for. He attempted to open the first set of files, but a pop-up prompted him to enter a password.

'…What is this?'

The chief archivist leaned over and lowered his glasses, peering at the screen. 'Oh, that. You're looking at the original files. They're in an outdated file format, so they're hosted on a virtual machine that replicates the computers where they were originally stored. The virtual system uses the same password as the original systems.'

Shadow took a deep breath. Then he lowered his fingers to the keyboard and began to type.

M. A. R. I. A.

She was the key to everything. She always had been.

Shadow rested his head in one hand, scanning the screen and losing himself in the square of sickly white-blue light. 'You haven't changed the password in more than 50 years?'

'Most people don't use the original files. They use the exported versions. Either way, you can only access either version with the correct clearance and security privileges.'

Shadow sent the files to the first printer on the drop-down list of nearby devices, and he heard a faint whirring in the distance. Then he tabbed over and sent the digitised scans of Gerald's journal to the printer as well.

'We do have touchscreen tablets available –'

Shadow got up, holding up one hand as he did so, to both dismiss him and point out the fact that he was wearing gloves. He walked off and crossed the room, passing rows of shelving units filled with non-descript archive boxes. He stood in front of the printer, waiting with his arms crossed as it spat out page after page. It was bitterly ironic that there was a division in GUN dedicated to preserving history after the number of coverups the organisation had perpetrated. He grabbed the sheaf of paper from the output tray and stalked off. He should return to the hospital. There was nothing for him here, but …

Shadow pulled out a chair and sat down at one of the long wooden tables. He turned on one of the banker's lamps and spread the pages across the table with one hand. There was nothing for him here, but it was quiet. It was more than he could say for the hospital.

He flipped through the pages of the Project Shadow files, scanning for keywords as he became lost in thought.

After he had joined GUN, he had made no effort to learn more about his past, even though GUN's resources meant that he now had a wealth of knowledge at his fingertips. In the rare instances that he had looked at these documents before, it had been to check the technical specifications of his equipment … or to search for more information about the nature of his abilities. He knew that his memories would continue to return over time without additional effort – Black Doom had said as much, and it had turned out to be true. So why would he want to speed up the process? Why would he want to make things harder for himself?

When he had fallen from the Ark after fighting the Final Hazard, he had sustained post-traumatic amnesia from his resulting brain injuries. However, there were numerous types of amnesia, one of which was called psychogenic amnesia. It was a way for the mind to protect itself from traumatic events. And while he could only recall incomplete fragments of his past, he knew that even if he had suffered severe head trauma, he should have healed from his injuries by now. He could only assume that he didn't merely have psychogenic amnesia.

At the end of the day, it didn't matter. Whatever memories were still locked away in his past – buried both in his mind and in the depths of GUN's archives – were certain to be painful. Even if he hadn't made the choice to forget, he had made the choice to move on, leaving his past behind on the Ark. He was no longer the same person that Maria had known. He had lost too much of what had made up his old self. Too much time, and too many memories.

In a way, his old self had died when he had fallen to Earth, like a shooting star burning up in the atmosphere. While he knew he was physically still the same person, he sometimes thought of his old self as a different person. Younger. Softer. Weaker.

… Happier.

Because he hadn't always been this way, had he?

Time and time again in White Space, when confronted with the person he had become, Maria hadn't recognised him. The person she'd known hadn't learned how to fight yet. The person she'd known hadn't been consumed with rage and anger. The person she'd known no longer existed. The person she'd known had probably been kind, patient and innocent – attributes that had been stripped from him along with his memories.

She had deserved so much better.

He held the corner of one page in his fingertips, and the words blurred in front of his eyes. How were you supposed to forget something that you couldn't truly remember in the first place?

He heard the scrape of a wooden chair, and a young woman sat down on the other side of the table. He didn't look up, but he could see her in his peripheral vision. He didn't know why she had to sit opposite him when every other chair at the table was empty. He waited for her to spread her own documents over the table or pull out a laptop, but she was motionless.

He gritted his teeth and looked up.

The woman who sat in front of him was in her mid 30s. Her hair was a vivid shade of fuschia, and her half-lidded eyes were dusted with pink eyeshadow. She was clad in a jumpsuit and a beige crop jacket. GUN's organisational dress code didn't encourage self-expression, but she didn't seem to have gotten the memo. Her elbows were on the table, and her gloved hands were clasped together, partially obscuring the expression on her face.

Shadow stared at her, but she didn't speak, forcing him to make the first move. He narrowed his eyes. 'Can I help you?'

She observed him, considering his words. 'No. I don't think so.'

Shadow gave her a scathing glare. Then he brushed the Project Shadow files aside and drew the printout of Gerald's journal toward him, flipping to the first page. It contained a scanned note from the person who had located and compiled the surviving pages of the journal. The note concluded with an initial – the letter 'T'.

'Who are you?'

She looked down at the pages beneath his gloved hands. 'I'm T.' She leaned forward, and the triangular gold clip holding back her hair gleamed in the light. 'My name is Tori, but most people know me as Professor Victoria.'

Shadow glanced down, and his eyes widened.

FROM: Archival & Requisitions… Regards, T.

'… You're the person who retrieved Gerald's journal.'

Victoria's expression remained unchanged. 'What was left of it, anyway. Time and tragedy were not kind to the journal's pages … Nor were they kind to any of you.'

'I would tell you to leave the past alone,' Shadow muttered. 'But you can't do that, can you?'

'No, I can't. I'm a historian.'

'Why are you talking to me?' Shadow leafed through the pages of the journal. It was nothing he hadn't seen before. The tattered, stained and redacted pages were the same ones that he had come across during his explorations of White space. 'Are you looking for primary sources? Is that it?'

'I'm always looking for primary sources. I don't just work for GUN, you know. I'm also an author.'

'Good for you. What's next? A gripping account of the Ark Disaster? A biography of one of the victims?'

Her brow creased. 'Shadow, why are you here?'

Shadow turned the last page of the journal and swept the pages aside. Several of them drifted to the floor. 'You're the one who came over here and started talking to me.'

'No, no.' Victoria massaged her temples with her fingertips. 'I know we haven't met until now, but I know that you insist you've left your past behind. If that's true, then why am I watching you poring over it?'

'I did leave it behind. But I don't have the luxury of pretending as though it doesn't exist.

Victoria was silent for a moment. Then she leaned forward and placed a manilla folder in front of him, on top of the scattered pages. 'Abraham asked Archives & Requisitions to reproduce the photographs from Gerald's journal for you. These are the hard copies.'

Shadow reluctantly accepted the folder, placing it to one side. He already had regrets about seeking out more photographs. He had left that photo of Maria and Gerald behind on the Ark for a reason. He needed to follow his own path, not allowing himself to become bound by either of their wishes. If it weren't for the terror attack and the vandalised image of Maria, he wouldn't have felt the urge to remember what her face truly looked like.

Victoria hesitated. Then she took a deep breath and said, 'If you want more photographs, I can use my connections to get you more.'

A bitter chuckle escaped his lips. 'You were the one who compiled the journal, and you already have access to all of GUN's resources. What other kind of connections could you possibly have?'

When he didn't answer right away, he looked up. Her blue eyes transfixed him, and he felt as though he was falling in slow motion. 'Shadow …'

He should leave. He should get up, stow his documents under his arm and leave. But her eyes drew him into their orbit, in the same way that the Ark orbited the Earth – watching over the people who lived in the shadow of its tragedy.

Maria's family had all had brilliant minds. Gerald had been a scientist. Maria had been a budding engineer. Maria's father was an archaeologist, and Ivo's father was a roboticist. Ivo himself was a genius unlike any the world had ever seen. But they all had one thing in common – they were doomed to love a world that would destroy everything they had ever held dear.

'My name is Victoria Robotnik.' She rested one hand on Shadow's, and he could feel her fingers trembling. 'I'm Maria's niece.'