'Are you writing a damn novel over there?'

Makena looked up at Shadow and rolled her eyes. 'Do you even know how many keys you need to press on a flip phone just to type a single letter?'

'I just write "yes" or "no". It gets the job done.'

'Well, that's not gonna cut it in this instance.'

'Just tell her "I'm alive" and call it a day.'

'Oh, come on!' Makena protested. 'My mom would panic if she got a message like that from an unknown number.' She scanned the screen and punched one last button before pressing the phone into his outstretched hand. 'Well, thanks for lending me your archaic brick.'

'You're welcome,' Shadow muttered, snapping the phone shut and putting it into his pocket.

'Is there a reason why you use one of those? Aren't your fingers too big for the keys?'

Shadow flexed his hand, and the sharp points of his claws appeared beneath his gloves. 'I can make do.'

'Wouldn't it be easier to use a smartphone?'

'I wear gloves.'

'So? They make gloves that work with touchscreens now, you know.'

'… Just how old do you think I am?'

Makena stuck out her tongue at him. 'You're using a Motorola. You're positively ancient as far as I'm concerned.'

'It's a burner phone that I use for missions, you little brat.'

Makena laughed. Then she cringed and said, 'Does that mean the government is gonna read the message I wrote to my mom? Ugh, I'm so embarrassed.'

'Stop worrying. My partner monitors my outgoing communications, and that's only if she has nothing better to do. She's the only person who would read it.'

'Your partner reads all your messages? That sounds kind of toxic.'

'She's my mission partner,' Shadow said. 'She's an intelligence agent.'

'Oh. That makes more sense.'

'What did you think I meant?'

'I mean, you seem like the kind of person who would get into a lowkey toxic friends-with-benefits let-me-check-your-phone kind of situation.'

'Speak English, damn it.'

Makena smirked, but then her eyes widened. 'Oh, wait. Are you talking about … um, what's her name … Rouge?'

'How do you know her name?' Shadow asked in bewilderment. 'She's visited the hospital, but you two have never met.'

'She's in the tabloids a lot. Both of you are, for that matter.' Makena giggled. 'It's funny to see them try to get pictures of you two together. Usually, it's a blurry low-angle shot of the two of you vaulting across the rooftops of Central City.'

'Well, we're both government agents. If it were too easy to photograph us, then we'd be pretty damn bad at our jobs.' Shadow braced one hand against the hospital bed and weighed Makena up. '… Do kids find this sort of thing interesting?'

'What? The tabloids? Not really. But when my mom signed us up for the hospital program, I tried looking up more about you. I couldn't find a lot, though. You don't really do interviews or anything, do you?'

'I don't talk to the press.' Shadow glanced up. There was a TV screen mounted on the wall of the recovery ward. The afternoon news broadcast was airing, and a live feed of the news anchors was intercut with clips of him stopping the fuel tanker in his tracks with his bare hands. He sighed and turned back to Makena, but her shocked expression startled him. 'What is it?'

The red glow of the news feed was reflected in her eyes, and she tilted her head. 'You're kind of like a superhero, aren't you?'

'I'm not a hero.'

She gave him a wry smile, 'Are you sure?' He looked at the screen again, and the news broadcast was showing footage of him intervening in the terror attack on GUN's headquarters.

'I've killed people, Makena.'

Her smile instantly disappeared. 'Oh. Well. You are a soldier, I guess.' She frowned. 'Or an agent. Is there a difference?'

'The government pays me to make their problems disappear. Does it matter what it's called?'

'I guess not.' Makena braced her elbows against her thighs and propped her chin in her hands, studying him. 'My mom always told me to stay away from the cops. She says the same thing about the military, and she was nervous about signing me up for this, because, y'know … GUN is involved. But you seem different.'

Shadow frowned. 'I can understand people not wanting to trust GUN. Even I don't trust them. But why would your mother tell you to avoid the police?'

Makena looked down at herself, then back up at Shadow. She spread her hands helplessly. 'Why do you think?'

'Oh.' Shadow hesitated. 'I didn't …'

'It's fine.' Makena grimaced. 'You were born in the 50s, weren't you?'

'In the late 40s. And I wasn't born. I was created.'

'Oh. Right.' Makena's brow furrowed, and she said, 'So they just made you out of pixie dust or something? You didn't have a donor or anything like that?'

'A donor?'

'Someone who provided the biological materials required to make you. You're supposed to be a hedgehog, right?' Makena tilted her head to one side. 'Your DNA had to come from somewhere.'

Shadow's head began to spin. He knew that Gerald had used salamanders to create the ill-fated Biolizard, subjecting living creatures to experimentation for the sake of his goals. He also knew that Gerald had created him and used Chaos Drives to infuse his body with Chaos Energy … but that didn't answer the question of where his body had come from in the first place.

'Hey, Shadow?' Makena's worried face came back into focus as he blinked to clear his vision. 'I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.'

'I'm not upset. I don't get upset.' Shadow cleared his throat. 'If someone else had a hand in my creation, I don't know who they are or what happened to them. They're probably already dead by now.'

Makena looked crestfallen. 'Shadow, I'm so sorry.'

'Why? I didn't know them. It didn't even occur to me that they may have existed until you mentioned it.'

Makena locked her fingers together and said, 'I don't know. It's just … sad. I don't know what I'd do without my mom.'

'I can't miss someone that I never knew.'

'Well, my dad died before I was born, and I still miss him.'

Shadow's breath caught in his lungs, and it took him a moment before he could speak again. '… I'm sorry.'

Makena forced a smile. 'You're just proving my point, you know.' Before he could respond, she swiftly changed the topic and asked, 'What's it like working for GUN?'

Alarm bells went off in Shadow's head, and his body began to tense. 'Why?'

Makena wound a curly strand of hair around her finger. 'Just wondering.'

'You're a smart kid. You should be smart enough to know that you can't bullshit me that easily.'

'Okay, fine,' Makena huffed. 'If I can't get a college scholarship, I was going to join the military. I heard that they cover people's tuition costs.'

Shadow glared at her, and she grabbed a pillow, hiding behind it. 'Hey. Look at me.' She sheepishly lowered the pillow, and he said, 'Don't even think about it.'

'Why not? You work for GUN, don't you? I know you don't think you're a hero, but you're still a good guy. They can't be all bad.'

'I'm not a good person.' Shadow's voice was rough, like facets of a broken jewel reflecting truths that he didn't want to admit. 'And GUN isn't a good organisation.'

Makena's eyes were wide, but her gaze was soft. She had doe eyes, like a newborn fawn. She was the type of person that GUN would turn into roadkill.

'What did they do to you?' Makena asked.

Shadow could feel the weight of the medals on his jacket as he took a deep breath. '… They ruined my life.' Makena was too stunned to respond, so he continued. 'GUN isn't the same as it used to be, but that's not saying much. They'll still chew you up and spit you out, whether you work for them or not.'

'But what about the program? They sent you here to help people, right? Are they really that bad?'

'They didn't send me here to help people.' Shadow nodded towards the television, and images of the protestors outside GUN's headquarters flashed across the screen. 'I was sent here to help clean up their public image. They don't care about you or anyone else at this hospital. They just want to be known for helping sick kids instead of killing them.'

Makena's warm skin took on a grey tint. 'O-Oh.' She clutched the edge of her bedsheets, digging her fingernails into the cotton '… Why would you want to work for people like that?'

'Those people are either dead or no longer a part of the organisation. I'm not working for them. I'm working for GUN.'

'Even after everything they did to you?'

'They have what I need to accomplish my goals.' Makena's expression shifted, and Shadow lowered his voice. 'Don't even start. My goals couldn't be more different from yours. What's more, I may work for GUN, but I'm not like them. They're willing to use people like me to make you believe that they have your best interests in mind. If you know what's good for you, then you'll stay the hell away from them.'

Makena stared at him for a moment. Then she heaved a dramatic sigh. 'All right. Maybe I can get a sports scholarship or something.'

'A sports scholarship? Why wasn't that your first thought?'

'I've been too sick to attend practice.' Her expression brightened. 'But I should start getting better soon. I start high school next year, so maybe I can go to tryouts and start playing volleyball again!'

Shadow got off the bed, wincing as he did so. He may have accelerated his recovery, but his bones still ached from being drilled into. 'That's the kind of thing a kid your age should be worried about – practice and tryouts. Not hospital bills and military enlistment.'

Makena toyed with the oximeter on her finger. 'I-I just don't want to put my family in any more debt than I already have.'

Shadow froze midstep. Then he looked back over his shoulder and forced a smile. 'These things have a way of working themselves out. Just focus on getting well.'

Makena smiled back. She leaned forward, and the afternoon sun shone through her hair, illuminating it like a sunset. 'Hey. You said you're not a good person or a hero – you say a lot of stuff, actually – but your actions say otherwise.' She winked at him. 'I know I said I never knew my dad, but I'd like to think that he would have been like you.'

Shadow's chest seized. Then he adjusted his wrist guards, tugging sharply on the clasps, and gave her an awkward nod as he walked off.

As soon as he was out of her line of sight, his shoulders slumped, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. There was no world in which he would ever have known how to respond to Makena's words.

He still didn't know how the people in his life truly saw him. Rouge seemed to alternate between treating him like a teenager or an adult, depending on which way the wind was blowing on a given day. He still couldn't tell if Abraham saw him as the child he'd known aboard the Ark, or as an experienced military operative who was the same age as Abraham himself. The truth was that he was both all and none of those things at once.

His face burned, and he nearly tripped over his own feet. Everyone saw him as something different, but no one had ever seen him as anything remotely similar to a … father. His hands balled into fists inside his pockets. He knew that Makena's words had been innocent and well-intentioned, but they still made him want to smash through a window and attempt to outrun how they made him feel.

'Shadow?' Alex stood at the exit of the recovery ward, and she had changed out of her surgical attire. 'You look like you're going to bite someone's head off. Are you okay?'

Shadow shook his head, dispelling the mental fog that he'd become lost in, and walked over to her. 'It's nothing.'

Alex pressed his credit card into his hand. 'Here. We put your card details on file for Makena.'

Shadow slipped the card into his pocket and said, 'Can you make sure that no one finds out that I'm the one who's covering her expenses?'

Alex narrowed her eyes. '… Can you tell me why?'

Shadow placed one hand on his hip and glared back at her. 'It's not as though I'm using a company card to siphon money from GUN's coffers. It's my own money. I just want to remain anonymous.'

Alex sighed. 'If you say so. We'll tell them that an anonymous benefactor asked to cover the costs of someone with Makena's specific condition.' She stared at him, and he could almost hear the gears turning in her mind. Then she beckoned for him to follow her, and they left the operating theatre complex, making their way back to the haematology ward. 'Shadow … For someone who says they don't want to help others, you're certainly going out of your way to do just that.'

'I didn't come here to help people.' Shadow gazed at his hands, and the silver scars over his hipbones gleamed beneath the bright lights as he walked. 'I wanted a chance to see whether I could truly be a cure or not.'

'Do you realise what a strange distinction that is, though? Curing someone is inherently the same as helping them.'

'I'm not doing this for the sake of others. I'm doing it for myself.'

Alex shrugged. 'Even if you're doing it for selfish reasons, you're still helping people through your efforts. All roads lead to Rome.'

Shadow gave her a strange look. 'Can you still say that after the Shattered World Crisis?'

'The emergence of Dark Gaia aside, it's still a figure of speech.' They passed through the doors of the haematology ward, and she began to scrub her hands while Shadow removed his jacket and equipment. 'Still, you're here on GUN's behalf, aren't you? You're under no obligation to help people on your own dime.'

Shadow plugged in one of the ultrasonic cleaners and winced as he submerged his wrists and inhibitor rings. 'Like you said, I don't want to help others –'

'Shadow, do you hear yourself?' Alex snapped. 'You decided to foot the bill for a little girl's medical care. If that's not the textbook definition of wanting to help someone, then what is?'

Shadow stared at her, and the ultrasonic cleaner thrummed in the resulting silence. It felt like his hands were being stabbed with needles. 'That's not …' He looked down, confronted by the distorted sight of his hands beneath the water's surface.

A little over a week ago, he'd held Maria's hands beneath the Black Moon, renewing his promise to fight with her wish in his heart. She had wanted him to give everyone a chance to be happy and follow their dreams. While he was determined to follow his own path, he still thought that her memory was worth honouring. He had no love for humanity, nor did he want to help them, but he was willing to fight in order to protect the world that Maria had loved so dearly.

He wanted to believe that the world truly was worth fighting for. He really did, but he couldn't believe in something without evidence. When they had looked down on the Earth from Space Colony Ark, she had seen a world that was worth protecting. He might have Maria's heart and soul, but he didn't have her eyes. He didn't know what she had seen in the world that he had promised to protect, and maybe he never would.

Shadow removed his hands from the ultrasonic cleaner and began to wash his hands, scrubbing until his claws left angry red scratches on his knuckles and wrists. He constantly said that he didn't want to help people, but his actions were indisputable evidence to the contrary, creating a cognitive dissonance that felt like it was going to tear him in half from head to foot.

He had saved Rouge's life on countless occasions. Whether it was when she was in danger on Prison Island or when she was nearly shot by Omega during her attempt to free Shadow from stasis, he had saved her with no questions asked. He could deny it all he wanted, but with or without his memories, that was still the type of person he was at his core. In White Space, he'd seen a young girl fleeing for her life, and he had helped her without a second thought – not because he'd realised that it was Maria, but because he'd felt an irrepressible desire to help her.

He knew that the desire to help others was supposed to come from a place of compassion and empathy – from the heart. But he had been created solely for the benefit of humanity, and his heart was a pale imitation of Maria's. The inexplicable urge he felt to help others might come from the heart … But what if his heart wasn't truly his own? What if his very instincts weren't his own? What if his repressed desire to help others was just another echo of Maria's wish?

'Shadow?'

He flinched and slammed one hand against the metal sink, raising the other arm to shield himself. After a moment of silence, he looked up to see Alex staring at him in dismay. He exhaled, turned off the tap and shook the water from his hands. 'Sorry. I was lost in thought.'

'You weren't just lost in thought. You were disassociating.'

'I was distracted.'

'It was more than that. I had to call your name five times.'

Shadow abruptly walked off, saying, 'It won't happen again.'

Alex hurried after him and stepped into his path, forcing him to stop. 'Shadow, you do understand that I'm not criticising you, right? I thought you were having a PTSD episode.'

Shadow scoffed and crossed his arms. His hands closed around his upper arms like steel vices. 'Even if I were, you would have gotten my attention sooner if you had yelled at me.'

'Shadow, I …' Alex leaned down, and the constellations tattooed on her arms shifted as she rested her hands on her knees. Her eyes were wide and worried. 'I couldn't help but hear part of your conversation with Iain. Even if you don't know who to ask for help, you know there are still things you can do to help yourself in the meantime, right?'

Shadow took a step back and cracked a bitter smile. 'If you think that journalling is going to fix my problems, then you're out of your damn mind.'

Alex rubbed her face with one hand and shook her head. 'I was actually thinking of cognitive behavioural therapy.' She gazed at him through the cracks between her fingers. 'You know, I've been wondering if you've been doing this to yourself on purpose … but I don't think you are.'

Shadow stiffened. 'What do you mean?

'One of the main types of CBT for PTSD is called prolonged exposure therapy.'

Shadow pointed at the GUN logo on his jacket, and then he gestured to their surroundings with a sharp snap of his wrist. '… Don't you dare talk to me about exposure therapy.'

Alex pressed her lips together. 'Exposure therapy is supposed to be –'

Shadow glared at her. 'Did you hear a single word I just said?'

Alex glared back, not missing a beat. 'Yes. Unlike you, I'm capable of listening when other people are talking.' She exhaled. 'Exposure therapy is supposed to be done in a safe and controlled environment. Neither GUN nor our hospital are either of those things. Whether it's intentional or not, it sounds to me like all you're doing is exposing yourself to more trauma.'

'I'm trying to move on with my life!' Shadow snapped. 'And I can't do that if I keep letting my past dictate my actions!'

'If you're doing things just to prove that your past doesn't control you, then you're still being controlled by your past! You're hurting yourself just so you can prove a damn point!' Alex slammed one hand against the wall, and the bang echoed through the corridor. 'I'm going to kick you in the shins one of these days, Shadow, I swear.'

Shadow bared his fangs at her and snarled, saying, 'Good luck doing your rounds with your leg in a cast.'

They glared at each other. After a moment, Alex's shoulders fell, and Shadow looked away.

'You can't save everyone,' Shadow said. 'You're not even a psychologist. Why the hell are you wasting your time trying to help me?'

Alex spread her hands, looking down at her arms. On closer inspection, the tattoos on her arms weren't real constellations. The stars were scattered across her skin, disappearing beneath her scrubs. She held up one arm and forced a smile. 'I can't save everyone, but I still have to try.'

Shadow rested one hand in his jacket pocket, unable to tear his eyes away. 'Why stars?'

Alex shrugged. 'We're all made out of stardust. That's what I believe, anyway.' She ran one thumb down her arm and said, 'And I'd like to believe that we become stars again once we die.'

Shadow cleared his throat. 'That's ridiculous. You're also going to run out of skin.'

'Come on. Don't you believe in anything?'

'No.'

'You say that, but your actions say otherwise.' Alex walked over to the door of a hospital room and gave him a regretful smile. 'You believe that it's never going to get easier, don't you?'

Shadow's eyes widened, and he shrank back. Then he steeled himself and walked over, joining her. 'Unless you want me to have another "episode", then I would suggest that you stay out of my damn business. I'm not one of your patients, and I'm not going to become another pinprick on your tattoo sleeve. You can't help me, so stop trying.' He looked up at her. His chest felt heavy, and it wasn't just because of the weight of his medals. 'You said that an important part of your job was knowing when to step back.'

'I never said that I was good at what I do.' Before he could gather his wits and keep arguing, Alex swiftly changed the topic, tapping the nameplate on the door. 'Let's get on with it. The sooner your work here is done, the sooner you can go back to abusing whisky and cigars … or whatever it is you do to cope with your problems.'

Shadow exhaled through his teeth, but Alex held the door shut, refusing to let him in. 'What now?'

'This patient is a unique case. Her parents have some … misgivings.'

'They signed up for the damn program, didn't they?'

'They did, but they still have some questions for you.'

Shadow gave Alex a sharp look. 'Depending on what they ask me, I may give them more than the answers they're looking for. Are you sure this what you want?'

'I want someone to give them a much-needed dose of reality,' Alex gave him a wink. 'I can only say so much, but you're the kind of person who says whatever the hell you want. I think you're the perfect person for the job.'

'Just cross your fingers that I don't scare them off,' Shadow muttered, and he walked past her, pushing the door open.

The hospital room was lit by dim sunlight that filtered through the overcast skies outside the window. A middle-aged couple turned to face him. The patient's father was wearing a suit, and the mother's curled blonde hair lay limp. They were dressed well, and their shoes weren't worn out. Alex stepped inside, quietly shutting the door behind her.

Shadow crossed his arms and glared at the couple. 'Well?'

The father cleared his throat. 'R-Right. My name is Hadriel, and this is my wife, Naomi –'

'I couldn't give a less of a damn what your names are. The only thing I care about is the fact that you're wasting my time.' Shadow placed a hand on his hip, and his claws gleamed beneath the light. 'I don't have all day, so hurry up.'

'Right.' Hadriel said, 'Listen, we had to sign a lengthy waiver when we opted into this program, and we were wondering … What exactly does the alien DNA entail?'

Shadow gave him an irritated glare and held up one hand, protracting his claws. 'What, did you want a demonstration?'

'No, no,' Naomi stammered. 'T-These creatures. The Black Arms. Are they … demonic?'

Shadow raised his eyebrows. 'They're a violent alien hivemind that tried to devour everyone on Earth. I'm not sure how much more demonic you can get.'

'No, I mean … Are they literally demons? As in fallen angels?'

Shadow began to tap one foot on the ground. 'They fell out of the sky. Does that count?'

The mother hesitated, squeezing her hands together. 'So … What does that make you, then? Are you possessed?'

'If I'm possessed, then may God have mercy on whoever's trapped in here with me.'

The parents both flinched. 'So you believe in God, then?'

Shadow's eye twitched, and he gave Alex an exasperated look. She took a deep breath and shrugged. Shadow turned back to the parents, digging his heel into the desk. 'Well, you can't kill the devil without entertaining the idea of God. They go hand in hand.'

'… I beg your pardon?' Hadriel asked.

'And when you look at humanity, it's not that hard to believe in the idea of original sin,' Shadow said under his breath.

'Wait, wait … what do you mean, killing the devil?'

He gave Hadriel the darkest look he could muster. 'The leader of the Black Arms? Black Doom? Devil Doom? Were you living under a rock in 2005?'

'N-No,' Naomi said, knotting her fingers into her cross necklace. 'The devil is an angel of light, not an alien –'

Shadow smirked. 'You'd believe differently if you saw him. Not that you ever will, though. He's dead.'

'A-All the more reason why this "Black Doom" can't be the devil. The devil has to be sealed away in chains for a thousand years before the dawn of the new millennium –'

Shadow groaned and buried his face in one hand, cursing under his breath. 'Listen to me and listen now. I don't give a damn whether you ascribe to the Gaia Manuscripts or the King James Bible – the devil that you're so terrified of is dead, and I killed him myself.'

'We haven't used the King James Bible since the 50s,' Hadriel said in bewilderment. 'We use the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures –'

Shadow growled under his breath and crossed his arms. 'Time's up. I'm not getting paid enough to deal with you people, and I couldn't care less what book you use to justify your choices.' He glanced around the room. 'Where is your child, anyway?'

The couple glanced at each other, and the father stepped aside, revealing a plastic hospital crib amongst the other medical equipment in the room. Shadow's heart sank, and he slowly walked forward. He rested his hands on the side of the crib.

The toddler lying in the crib couldn't have been more than two years old. Her pale skin was marked by bruises and rashes. Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared up at him in bewilderment.

Shadow grimaced. He was anticipating a frightened shriek as soon as the toddler made sense of what she was looking at. '… Alex?'

Alex joined him beside the crib. 'Ruth has juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia.'

Shadow looked down, and the scars over his hipbones gleamed beneath the light. He felt exhausted. 'Am I a type match?'

Alex shook her head. 'No.'

'Makena's surgery was one thing, but this is another. It's not feasible to change my HLA profile for each patient. I haven't even gotten GUN's authorisation to do it for Elijah yet.' Shadow turned to face Hadriel and Naomi, and his grip on the side of the grip tightened. 'We'll give her blood transfusions to keep her alive until we can find another solution –'

'No!' Naomi's hand flew to her mouth, and she looked horrified.

Shadow stared at her. 'She can't have blood transfusions?'

'Their religious beliefs prohibit it,' Alex said. Her tone was neutral, but her voice was strained. 'If they go against the Watchtower Society's guidelines, then they'll be disfellowshipped.'

Shadow felt anger began to simmer in his chest. 'Then you two need to cross your fingers that we can find a way to use my bone marrow to help her before it's too late …' At the look on Hadriel's face, Shadow trailed off. '… You can't be serious.'

'Their beliefs don't prohibit bone marrow transplants,' Alex said, 'but it's a matter of conscience.'

Shadow felt something touch his hand. He looked down to see Ruth's tiny hand gripping one of his fingers. His inhibitor rings reflected the afternoon sunlight, scattering golden light across the ceiling, and she giggled as her eyes darted back and forth. He turned his back on Hadriel and Naomi, letting Ruth tug his hand free from the edge of the crib. She clung to his hand with a surprising amount of strength, and she began to chew on one of his claws.

His chest began to ache. '… This isn't even about me, is it? But if can't give your daughter my blood or bone marrow, then there's little else I can do for her.'

'We can't choose what we believe,' Naomi said in a strangled voice.

'Spare me. At some point, your church chose to believe that people should refuse to give their children life-saving medical care. I was created before that "translation" of yours was even published, for God's sake.' Shadow looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes. 'If your conscience dictates that you should still let your daughter die, then I hope your church and your beliefs will be enough to console you once she's gone.'

A deathly silence flooded the room, and Shadow gently removed Ruth's hands from his fingers. 'Even if there were nothing that we could do for her … You shouldn't be wasting your time talking to me. You should be spending your time with her instead.'

Shadow strode out of the room, hauling Alex with him, and slammed the door shut behind him.

Alex lowered her surgical mask and slumped against the wall. '… Damn. You're the reason why people say, "Be careful what you wish for", aren't you?'

'Hmph.' Shadow crossed his arms and looked up at her. 'What are we going to do?'

'I don't know.' Alex gave him a calculated glance. 'I have an idea, but I don't know whether it will work. There are two women in Österreich who are writing a research paper on how to use the CRISPR-Cas9 system as a gene-editing tool, but their work won't be published until next year at the earliest.'

Shadow gave her an uncertain smile. '… You think that GUN may have developed gene-editing technology beyond the scope of publicly accessible technology.'

'It wouldn't surprise me.'

'You want to strip out a specific segment of my DNA and use it to replace the genes that are causing Ruth's illness.'

'You're a smart cookie, aren't you?' Alex folded her arms, and the constellations on her arms shifted. 'I don't want to tell her parents yet. I don't even know whether we can convince GUN to help us –'

'I'll help you. GUN can either cooperate, or they can get the hell out of my way.'

Shadow strode off, and Alex chased after him, following him back to the reception area of the haematology ward. As he put his shoes back on, she gave him a teasing grin, 'I thought you didn't want to help people.'

'Shut up,' Shadow muttered. 'I may have my reservations, but I'm not heartless.'

'I never said you were.'

Shadow materialised the Chaos Emerald in one hand and took a deep breath. Not only did he have to convince GUN to let him undertake the procedures that would save the life of Abraham's grandson, but he also had to convince them to hand over a sequence of the genetic code for one of their biological weapons.

But he was also going back into the lion's den for his own sake. GUN had used him to delude the public about their intentions. They had misled him about his PTSD diagnosis. Who knew what else they had been keeping from him?

Alex squeezed his free hand. 'Good luck.'

'I don't need luck.' Shadow raised the Emerald, and said, 'I need some damn answers. Chaos Control!'