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The donor lost consciousness for the first tiained consciousness once, for approximately three minutes Consciousness was lost for the final ti at 5:13 arated with the nervous systes and records have been attached

Things are going to be different now

–FROM THE NOTES OF DR STEVEN BANKS, SYMBOGEN, OCTOBER 2027

>> Yes, I can hear you, Dr Banks Thank you I’ I feel… light Like there’s nothing holdingme down?

>> I can hear the bone saw It’s very loud Bone conduction is funny

>> Did you put so inside the incision? I think youinside the incision It feels like so on me Like there’s pressure where pressure isn’t supposed to… isn’t supposed to… oh

>> My mother took me to the carnival once It was in a field Just a field Most of the tiic Everything was irl She said no, be a scientist,of yourself… I’m cold I’m cold

>> It hurts

>> It hurts

>> [screa]

>> [screams continue]

>> I don’t… I don’t… I can’t… I’o home I can’t--

>> [barely audible] I’m still in here Let me out I’m still here

–THE FINAL WORDS OF CLAUDIA ANDERSON, AS TRANSCRIBED BY DR MICHAEL KWAN, SYMBOGEN, OCTOBER 18, 2027

Chapter 12

NOVEMBER 2027

Daisy fidgeted as the elevator slid down into the bowels of the factory, plucking at the helances at ht we had somehow been struck blind by the discovery that Dr Banks had ed to find us It wasn’t like Captain Candy’s was a natural place to conceal an underground biotech lab If he’d located us here, heHe had to have a reason

I leaned against Nathan’s side, trying to cal of my heart under control In that moment, I would almost have welcomed Sherman and his weird biomechanical control At least then I wouldn’t have felt soconsciousness

The elevator dinged as it reached the ground floor lobby I stepped forward, alet out of that sht space full of questions and uncertainties I wasn’t in a hurry to see Dr Banks--I was never going to be in a hurry to see hi would have been better than staying where I was and trying to figure out how this wasry All of this ry, and that hat I didn’t know I didn’t kno to deal with the anger I didn’t kno to handle the sheer feeling of betrayal that ca to need to figure things out, and fast There were five figures waiting for us at the front of the Captain Candy Chocolate Factory lobby, outlined by the early lass s The boards nailed up to protect us froht feet up froht Peoplethe boards back into place There otmore than silhouettes, I could tell who four of the five people in the lobby were The low-slung figure in the wheelchair was Dr Cale, and the two nizable by outline alone One of the figures, a y female, was unfamiliar to me And the fifth…

The fifth was one of the first people I remembered, one of the first humans to sit doith me and tell me I didn’t have to be defined by my accident and my memory loss, that I could learn to be a full, productive ed He’d been lying all along, of course--he’d known exactly what I was, and that each of the skills I learned would be learned for the very first tiet ainst SymboGen’s pseudo-parental treatainst Sally’s parents, he’d always knohat to say After all, he was one of the people who had createda job at SymboGen, even when he tried his best, and he hadn’t convinced et for her Maybe he didn’t know ht as he saalking slowly across the lobby toward him, with Nathan by er than she used to be and only a little weaker than she had the potential to become, who had survived the apocalypse and the discovery that she wasn’t even the species she’d always believed herself to be? Or did he see the broken girl he’d worked so hard to keep under his control, the experi its first steps out into the world? And did it one This body was ain I was even suddenly grateful for Sher Sally would never have done to herself I looked like someone else I was someone else