Page 111 of Flickerstate

“Norah.” He draws my name out. “When did you start worrying about this?”

I shouldn’t tell him. Maybe he’ll storm out in anger or disgust, and I’ll lose a leaguing partner just when I need to recruit more.But I owe Vik the truth. “I dreamed something crushed my skull. I dreamed we were walking the campus loop, and an out-of-control driver hit me. I couldn’t tell whether they hit you. And then, in the clearing…”

“Are you talking now about a dream,” he asks, “or something that happened?”

“It happened. You were walking to the clearing, and a branch broke. It almost hit you. If I hadn’t been there, the branch wouldn’t have broken.”

“There’s no way to know if that’s true.”

“There’s reason enough to wonder. Reason enough for you to hate me.”

“Hate you?” He pauses. “Norah, did you…end things because you thought, if I knew about your bite, I’d hate you?”

“You deserved to know. I didn’t tell you.”

“You did tell me, actually.” His face, usually impassive, looks thrown open—like a door I could walk through. His lips part. A quick breath before speech.

“Guys,” Candace calls from the common room. “Get out here. Shit to discuss.”

“We’ll talk later.” Vik rises from his crouch and offers me a hand.

I take what’s offered. And I’m glad I do, because I stand too fast, triggering vertigo. Without Vik’s hand I might not have fallen. I would certainly have stumbled.

He squeezes my hand before he releases it. The pressure echoes through me, like he has a grip on my heart and he’s pumping itmanually, making it work, making it sing. I try not to let that feeling—too naked, too embarrassing—show on my face as I follow him into the common room.

Candace sits on the sofa with arms and ankles crossed. She’s changed into another casual-for-her ensemble, blue jeans and a black Polo shirt. “Do either of you,” she asks, “know what ‘Cruciform’ means?”

“Cross-shaped,” Vik says.

Her lips thin. “Not theadjective. The hypothesized machine.”

“It’s in the book.” He gestures to the paperback in her lap. “The author lists a bunch of prototypes she claims Highwall tried to build.”

“What else—” I’m not sure what I want to ask. “What did the book say about the Cruciform?”

“Nothing, really,” Candace says. “It’s mentioned in a long list of Highwall’s prototypes. The other items in the list don’t inspire confidence in the author. A machine to receive messages from your future self. A machine to change past probabilities. Are these even possible? We’re tempting reality-destroying paradoxes, with some of them. But the Cruciform—it sounds like an alternative to leaguing. Like the machine Highwall wanted to discuss with LDS.”

“She mentions it.” Sick, shaky excitement builds in me. “In the notebooks—she mentions it. She and her core research team managed a five-person league. They cured her bite with it. But they couldn’t sustain it. Their league broke down. Afterward, they started discussing a ‘technological alternative,’ a machine powered by navigators’ future possibilities the way a beast-bite feeds onfutures. Highwall and Lucasson thought the machine would only temporarily increase risk of death, but—right after Highwall talks about testing it out, she writes that Miuradied. I think he was first into the machine. I think it killed him.”

Vik blanches. “Jake. Jake died. And he was a candidate. What if that’s what the files are for—choosing students as batteries for this machine?”

“Jakedied?” Candace echoes. “What about the other candidates?”

Vik, eyes horrified and disbelieving, passes a hand down his face. “Ninety-six candidates going back eight years. Most are just fine. They graduated from the Academy, went on to college or specialized training. The older ones have the usual jobs. Nav research at prestigious universities, emergency response, high-profile bodyguarding. But every year, between one and three of the candidates dropped out suddenly. Over eight years, about a dozen total. Most of the dropouts were ultimately fine too. They transferred to other schools with nav programs, graduated, whatever. But four of the dropouts died shortly after they left the Academy. Even if the Cruciform only increases risk of death for a little while,someof the people used as batteries might die during that window—”

“Wait,” I say. “In the notebooks, it says that after Miura died, Highwall met with MO, whoever she is, and they agreed todismantlethe Cruciform. The machine shouldn’t still exist.”

“MO’s a she?” Candace asks.

“Oh,” Vik says. “Hmm.”

Candace and I stare at him while he pulls his phone from his pocket.

“‘Oh hmm’what?” I burst out.

“I’m searching Google Scholar for Highwall’s published articles. She’s first author on pretty much all of them, but some have four, six, even twelve authors. If any of the other authors has the initialsMO…” He trails off for a minute, scrolling and tapping on his phone. “I’m going to keep looking. But, Candace, can you search for Molly O’Reilly? She was working at Stanford when she collaborated with Highwall. And Norah, Marissa Olson, UNC-Chapel Hill.”

I type “Marissa Olson UNC-Chapel Hill” into my phone browser’s search bar. The first hit is LinkedIn offering me forty-plus “Marissa Olson” profiles. I keep scrolling. Past a clinical psychologist’s personal website, a D1 soccer player’s Instagram…