I’d stopped the seizure. I’d stabilized him. But the PSI-317 was still flooding his brain, the implant still leaking poison into his system. Every second that passed brought him closer to irreversible damage.
Havoc pulled up a file on his laptop, turned the screen toward me. Xavier’s face stared back, a clinical photo, cold and detached. Underneath, walls of text I couldn’t process fast enough.
“There’s more. Kill switch protocol. Remote termination.”
Ice flooded my veins. “What?”
“Dresner can trigger the implant remotely. Force maximum chemical release.” Havoc’s fingers tapped nervously against the keyboard. “Catastrophic neural overload. Instant death.”
“Then why hasn’t he?” The question came out strangled.
“The damage from the river.” Hellhound sounded grim. “The fall Xavier took destroyed part of the regulation system. The implant’s been malfunctioning, leaking chemicals instead of dosing precisely. That damage is the only reason Dresner hasn’t killed him remotely already.”
“The signal’s intermittent,” Havoc added. “The kill switch might not work fully. But even without it...” He gestured atXavier’s unconscious form. “The chip’s leaking PSI-317 at an accelerating rate. His brain is drowning in it.”
I stared at Xavier. His face was slack, peaceful in unconsciousness. No tremor, no tension. Just respiration.
How long until the next seizure? How long until his brain couldn’t take anymore?
“How long?” The question came out steadier than I felt.
Havoc met my gaze. The pity there made my stomach drop.
“Hours. Maybe less. We need those codes now.”
Havoc set up in the corner, laptop balanced on a stack of philosophy books, secondary monitor rigged on the windowsill. His fingers flew across the keyboard, muttering under his breath, half prayer, half profanity.
A progress bar crawled across the screen. 12%. 15%. 18%.
I stayed at Xavier’s side, one palm on his wrist monitoring his pulse, the other holding a penlight to recheck his pupils every few minutes. Repetitive. Obsessive. But I needed the data points, needed to see the progression or deterioration in real time.
Hellhound paced. He moved like a caged animal, checking the windows, the door, the perimeter. Keeping watch while Havoc worked, and I monitored and Xavier lay broken on the surface between us.
The storm outside intensified. Wind howled against the Gothic windows, rattling the glass in the frames. Snow piled against the panes, turning the world beyond into formless white.
Inside, we waited.
“Come on, come on.” The progress bar inched forward with agonizing slowness. 23%. 26%.
I verified Xavier’s respiratory pattern again. Still Cheyne-Stokes, irregular, cycling between deep and shallow. Not great, but not immediately life-threatening.
His skin was clammy under my touch, pale except for the fever flush high on his cheekbones. I grabbed a cloth, dampened it with cool water, pressed it to his forehead.
He didn’t react. Gone too deep.
Twenty minutes after the first seizure, Xavier’s respiration changed.
The pattern shifted, faster, shallower, more erratic. I watched his chest, counting each cycle. Thirty per minute. Too fast.
Then the tremor started.
It began in Xavier’s palms, a fine vibration that spread up his arms, into his shoulders. His eyelids fluttered.
“No. Not yet. You can’t...”
Xavier’s back arched.
“Seizure! Havoc, how much longer?”
