“If they’re storming the building, they’ll have revivers outside.”
“No, David—”
“I’ll bring her to them! They’ll fix her!”
“And then take you both,” Zack said.
“You’ll get us back, just like we got Amanda and Theo back.”
“You think Melissa won’t expect that next time? You think she’ll make it easy?”
“Zack, you have to trust me—”
Theo kicked a file cabinet. “NO! She’s going to die in seconds! That’s what I’m trying to tell you! You’re the only hope she has, Zack! You’re the reviver!”
The cartoonist drank him in through saucer eyes. It had been five days since his last healing attempt, one that had gruesome consequences for a poor young fawn. The thought of trying again on Mia, a much larger creature, seemed as safe as closing her wound with dynamite.
“It won’t work,” he insisted. “It’ll just kill her quicker.”
David nodded darkly at Theo. “He’s right. You didn’t see what happened last time.”
Theo was all too familiar with the risks. He’d stopped at this very place in the God’s Eye to view the alternate outcomes. Zack only managed to save Mia ten percent of the time at best. In nearly all other instances, she ended up a pristine corpse or a desiccated husk. Most horrific of all were the riftings, the times Mia woke up screaming in agony as her distended stomach exploded in a torrent of blood and gases.
Theo had spent long, painful hours analyzing the details, looking for some identifiable factor that separated the wins from the losses. In the end, it all came down to timing. There was a three-second window where Zack succeeded more often than not. It was almost here.
“Zack, I’ve seen it. I’ve watched you bring her back to life. But you got to get ready. You have to do it exactly when I tell you. Please.”
David gripped Zack’s arm. “Let me take her to the agents. It’s her only chance.”
“David, shut up! You’re killing her!”
“You’re killing her! You have no idea what you’re doing!”
Zack tuned out his friends, his addled gaze drifting around the cubicle. He was stunned to find a recent issue of Wonders with his own image on the cover, the famous photo of his plummet from a hotel balcony. Once again he saw his face contorted in purple agony as Amanda’s great tempic hand squeezed him from above. In cropped context, it looked like God Himself had reached down to smite him. Now the bastard’s cruel hand was coming for Mia.
No, thought the cartoonist. You will not.
“David, get back.”
“Wait. Listen to me—”
“Get back!”
Theo pulled David to his feet. Zack lay Mia flat on the carpet, then joined the others at the cubicle entry. The augur fixed his stare on the wall clock, his finger raised tensely.
“Wait.”
Suddenly Mia wheezed a loud and broken gasp. Her eyes fluttered to a close.
“What was that?” Zack asked.
“Her last breath,” Theo replied. “Go.”
Zack clenched his fists and squinted in nervous concentration. Mia’s limp body shuddered. Her skin lit up with a gauzy incandescence. Zack gritted his teeth, struggling to hold the temporis that bucked and swerved like a rickety spotlight. He knew that if any part of Mia fell outside the glow, even for a moment, she’d be lost forever.
Four seconds into his battle, the magazine cover penetrated his thoughts, shaking his focus and plaguing him with an overwhelming sense of futility. He shot his rage upward at the malignant forces of the universe—the ones who took his world, then yanked his brother away on a short rubber string. Now they teased him with a flicker of hope for Mia. He could already see the punch line coming.
Suddenly, Amanda’s lovely face bloomed in his thoughts like a sunrise. Her lips curled in a wry and canny smirk.
Oh Zachary, you schmuck. You cynic. You think I wasted time cursing the heavens when you fell from that balcony? Uh-uh. I ran right to the edge and caught you. That’s not God’s hand smiting you in that photo. That’s Him and me saving you.
Warm tears spilled down Zack’s cheeks as his inner Amanda stroked his face.
It’s so easy to believe, after everything we’ve seen, that we live in a cold and senseless universe. But as long as we have a world to live in, as long as we have people to love, we are the lucky ones, Zack. We are the blessed.
Now go catch our little sister. Bring her back to us.
With a last cry of strain, Zack engulfed Mia in a cool blinding flash. David and Theo unshielded their eyes to find Mia motionless on the floor. Her feet were bare and her hair was damp from the shower. Her clean silk blouse was unbuttoned all the way to her navel, revealing a perfectly unblemished sternum.
The men stood as frozen as statues while they waited for her body’s response. They knew this was the crucial moment, the point where Mia would scream or explode or merely die quietly. Or . . .
She sat up with a lurch, gasping with urgent breath. David and Theo flanked her sides.