I woke strapped to a medical chair in a facility that looked like a nightmare had designed it.
White walls. Surgical lights. Machines I could not identify humming around me. The restraints were titanium—no hope of breaking them. An IV dripped something clear into my arm. Not sedative. Something else. Something that made my mind sharp and alert despite wanting to fade into unconsciousness.
"Stimulant," a voice said from the shadows. "I need you lucid for this conversation. Aware. Present."
Not Kane's distorted mechanical voice. Someone else. Smooth. Familiar. Wrong.
A figure stepped into the light.
I stopped breathing.
"No. That is impossible."
Knox stood before me. Not the Knox I knew—scarred from the ambush, supposedly unconscious from tranquilizer darts. This Knox was clean, compo
