Page 53 of Victorious

“We may be small, but we’re well funded, thanks to the board.”

“The board?”

She nodded. “My predecessor, Stell, was the first to see the need for EON. He secured funding from a few key people in the security and tech sectors who recognized the urgency and provided the necessary resources. By now, the government knows of us, and shares any relevant intel, but we function autonomously, which gives us certain … freedoms.”

As she spoke, Gabriel felt his attention drawn to each and every surface.

The consoles in the center of the room appeared to be running code, documents appearing and disappearing on the screens as they were pulled, sorted. He glimpsed the sigil of a hospital, the telltale format of medical records. Hardly public information.

His gaze tracked up to the walls. The leftmost one resembled the bank of screens in Helena’s office, the latticework of EON laid out frame by frame.

Straight ahead, the screens were filled with what looked like security footage from a hundred different locations. They turned over in rapid succession, interiors and exteriors flitting past as recognition software scanned the faces.

“We use a matrix designed to search for and cross-reference certain criteria,” Helena was explaining. “We flag near-death experiences, obviously, but that’s just the first point. From there, we also look for any sudden changes in lifestyle, relationship, movement, pattern. Anything to indicate a radical shift or destabilizing force.”

Gabriel thought of his own movements. The strangeness of the accident. The sudden departure from the hospital, the renting of the house upstate. “And when your system finds someone?” he asked.

“We deploy field agents to follow up on any leads.”

He wondered whose trail they’d followed—his or Paul’s. If they’d ever had his patient in their sights, or if, until that night, he’d truly stayed clear of EON’s radar.

Gabriel turned to consider the rightmost wall.

There, a dozen faces stared back at him from an array of driver’s licenses, mug shots, school photos, wedding pictures. Each was surrounded by a mismatched tapestry of grainy camera stills, article clippings, lines of text.

“The open tickets,” said Helena. “Targets we know of or suspect and are currently pursuing.”

Gabriel took a step closer to the wall, searching the profiles for any discernible pattern—age, race, gender, class—but the only obvious commonality was that they’d each defied death. Each had survived a seismic trauma and been permanently changed by it. Fascinating.

Why you? he asked the faces on the wall.

Helena was turning back toward the black doors, but Gabriel hesitated, caught by three photos in the bottom right corner. A university ID. A mug shot. And a shot from what looked like an EON cell. The man in them was thin, with cold blue eyes in an angular face and short hair so blond it almost registered as white.

He stared into the camera as if expecting it to blink first.

Combative? wondered Gabriel. Or simply arrogant?

“Victor Vale,” said Helena, the frustration heavy in her voice. “Rios has been assigned to him for months now. But so far, he’s evaded capture.”

Gabriel watched as fragments of timestamped security footage flashed across the screen. In each, Victor looked right at the camera. “He doesn’t seem to be hiding.”

“The footage has been doctored,” explained Helena. “But instead of taking himself out of the videos, he’s putting himself in.” She gestured to the timestamps of two separate feeds. They were marked less than an hour—and three states—apart.

Clever, thought Gabriel, gaze tracking back to the mug shot. And he knows it.

“If it was up to me, I’d write him off,” said Helena. “He’s more trouble than he’s worth. But the board wants to make a point.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because,” she said, “he’s the one who killed Stell.”

Gabriel frowned. “What’s his power?”

“Pain.”

“The ability to give it, or take it away?”

Helena shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but of course it did.