Jax woke up in pieces.
First came the sound; a low, mechanical hum that seemed to vibrate through his skull. Then the sensation of cold metal against his wrists and ankles. Then the light.
The light was the worst part.
It was directly above him, an LED panel blazing white-hot into his retinas, so bright that even with his eyes closed he could see it burning through his eyelids like the sun through tissue paper.
He tried to move. Couldn't. His arms were strapped down, his legs were strapped down, and something was wrapped around his chest that felt like it was designed to restrain a gorilla.
The light kept blazing.
"Turn it off," he croaked.
Nothing.
"Turn it the fuck off!"
The light dimmed. Not all the way; just enough that he could open his eyes without feeling like his brain was being microwaved. He blinked, tears streaming down his face, and tried to make sense of where he was.
A room. Small. Clinical. White walls, white ceiling, white floor. The bed he was strapped to was metal, adjustable, the kind you'd find in a hospital if the hospital was designed by someone who really didn't trust their patients. Monitoring equipment beeped softly to his left; heart rate, blood pressure, other readouts he didn't recognize. An IV line ran into his arm, feeding him something clear.
And across from him, maybe fifteen feet away, was a window.
Not a regular window. This one was thick; inches thick, the kind of glass that could stop a bullet, maybe several bullets. Behind it, shadows moved. People. Watching him.
Jax's heart rate spiked. The monitor beeped faster.
A speaker crackled overhead.
"Well, well, well!" The voice was bright, cheerful, the vocal equivalent of a golden retriever who'd just been told it was time for walkies. "Sleeping Beauty finally wakes up! I was starting to think we'd lost you there, champ. Could've sworn you were a dead man back at that warehouse."
Jax squinted at the window. He could make out two figures behind the glass; one tall and broad, one shorter and leaner. He couldn't see their faces.
"Gotta say," the cheerful voice continued, "what the heck was a kid like you doing out in Port Richmond? That's a rough part of town even without the, uh, extracurricular activities."
A second voice cut in, deeper but younger; couldn't be more than a year or two older than Jax, if that. "He was doing demon hunting. Remember? We went over this."
"Oh! Right, right, right." The first voice laughed, loud and genuine, like this was the funniest thing he'd heard all week. "Sorry, sorry—I've had way too much espresso this morning. Brain's going a mile a minute. Demon hunting! In Port Richmond! With a—what was it, a pocket knife?"
"Serrated," the younger voice said flatly. "Six inches."
"A six-inch serrated pocket knife! Against a Class B manifestation! Kid, you've either got the biggest balls in Philadelphia or the smallest brain. Maybe both!"
Jax had heard enough.
"Where's my money?"
The laughter stopped.
"Where's my fucking money?" Jax pulled against the restraints, feeling them bite into his wrists. "Did you take it? That was mine—that was for rent—you better give that shit back right now or I swear to God—"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The cheerful voice was back, but with a conciliatory edge now. "Easy there, tiger. Let's all just take a breath, okay? Nobody's trying to—"
"FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!" Jax was thrashing now, the bed rattling beneath him, the monitors screaming warnings. "THAT WAS MINE! I KILLED THAT THING! I—"
"You did! You absolutely did!" The voice was placating, almost impressed. "And let me tell you, that was one hell of a kill. Really something special. But here's the thing, champ—and I need you to hear me on this—you're not licensed."
Jax froze.
"You're not insured. You didn't pass a background check. And according to Mr. Kowalski—nice guy, by the way, very cooperative once we explained the situation—you told him your 'assistant' was going to fax over your paperwork." A pause. "You don't have an assistant, do you?"
Jax didn't answer.
"Yeah, I didn't think so. Look, I get it. Times are tough. Economy's in the toilet. A kid's gotta eat. But operating as an unlicensed contractor? That's bad mojo for our department. Real bad. We can't just let that money go through; there's paperwork, liability, chain of custody issues. You understand."
"I understand that you stole my rent," Jax spat.
"We seized your rent. There's a difference. Legally speaking."
Jax pulled against the restraints again, hard enough that he felt something pop in his shoulder. The straps held. Of course they held. These people, whoever they were, had clearly done this before.
"Relax," the voice said. "Seriously. We're not here to torture you. This isn't Guantanamo. We just want to talk."
There was a muffled conversation behind the glass; Jax could hear the two voices conferring, but couldn't make out the words. Then the cheerful one came back on the speaker.
"Hey, Zion? Why don't you go grab a bite to eat or something. Maybe hit the cafeteria, get yourself a sandwich. This might take a minute."
A pause. The younger voice, Zion, sounded frustrated when he responded. "You sure?"
"Positive. I've got this. Go on, get out of here."
Jax heard footsteps receding. A door opening and closing. Then silence.
Then a different door—closer, to his right—clicked and swung open.
The man who walked in didn't match the voice.
The voice was all sunshine and golden retrievers. The man was... something else. He moved like he owned every room he'd ever walked into, shoulders back, posture perfect, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He was maybe late thirties, early forties; hard to tell. His hair was silver-gray, short and neatly groomed, and he had a beard trimmed so precisely it looked like it had been done with a laser.
He wore a dark, form-fitting sweater under a white lab coat that probably cost more than Jax's entire wardrobe. Everything about him screamed expensive and important and not someone you want to piss off, but his expression was open, friendly, almost warm.
He was carrying a folding chair.
The man crossed the room, set the chair down directly in front of Jax's bed, and sat. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, putting himself at eye level.
That's when Jax noticed the eyes.
They were purple.
Not a trick of the light. Not contacts. Purple; a bright, vivid violet that seemed to glow faintly in the clinical white of the room. Inhuman eyes in a human face, looking at Jax with an expression of genuine curiosity.
"There we go," the man said. His voice was different without the speaker; warmer, more personal. "Face to face. Much better than talking through glass, don't you think?"
Jax stared at those purple eyes.
"Who the fuck are you?"
The man laughed, the same golden retriever laugh from before, but softer now. "Straight to the point. I like that." He extended a hand, then seemed to remember that Jax was strapped to a bed and couldn't shake it. He withdrew the hand with a sheepish grin. "Right. Sorry. Force of habit."
He leaned back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other.
"My name is Dr. Emil Vance. I'm the regional director of the Demonic Control Bureau's Philadelphia division. And you, Jax—" He smiled, those purple eyes glittering. "—are the most interesting thing that's happened to me all year."
Jax didn't blink.
"Give me my money."
Emil blinked. Then he laughed again; harder this time, like Jax had just told the best joke he'd heard in weeks.
"Oh, you really are a goofy one, aren't you?" He wiped at his eyes, still chuckling. "Kid, you died. You were clinically dead for, what was it, thirty-seven seconds? And your first words upon waking up in a government facility are 'give me my money.' That's incredible. That's beautiful. You must've really smacked your head hard on that concrete."
"Eat a bag of dicks, purple-eyes."
Emil's grin only widened. "See? See? That's what I'm talking about. That's personality. Most people wake up strapped to a table, they cry, they beg, they ask a bunch of boring questions about where they are and what's happening. You? You demand cash and tell me to eat a bag of dicks. I genuinely like you, Jax. I think we're going to get along."
"Fuck you."
"Noted." Emil tilted his head, those purple eyes studying Jax like he was a particularly interesting specimen in a jar. "I do wonder, though... the resurrection, the heart rate spiking like that; your BPM was over a thousand for nearly forty-five seconds, did you know that? That should've liquefied your organs. Should've turned your brain into scrambled eggs." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder if there was any cognitive damage. Memory loss, perhaps. Gaps in recall..."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Emil focused on him again. "The warehouse. The demon. What do you remember?"
Jax's jaw tightened. He didn't want to give this guy anything; didn't want to play his game, answer his questions, be his lab rat. But the truth was, his memories of the fight were... fractured. Incomplete. Like a movie with scenes cut out of the middle.
"I remember dying," he said finally. "I remember the demon beating the shit out of me. And then..." He frowned, trying to grab onto something that kept slipping away. "My heart. It was going fast. Really fast. And there was... light? Red light?"
"And after that?"
"After that, I woke up here with your ugly mug staring at me through a window."
Emil nodded slowly, like this confirmed something. "Fascinating. Memory blackouts during Surge state. That tracks with the literature, but it's rare to see it this pronounced in a first manifestation." He was talking to himself now, his eyes distant, his fingers drumming against his knee. "The consumption behavior too; that's a Conduit trait, not standard Surge. Which would suggest a hybrid expression, or possibly..."
"Hey." Jax rattled the restraints. "Hey. English, dickwad. What the fuck is a Surge state? What the fuck is a Conduit?"
Emil blinked, coming back to the present. He looked at Jax with something like surprise.
"You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
"You've been hunting demons for—how long? Three years? Four?—and you don't know what a Wired is?"
Jax stared at him.
Emil stared back.
"Oh my God," Emil said, and the laugh that came out of him was delighted, almost giddy. "Oh my God. You really don't know. A demon hunter who doesn't know about the Wired. That's like a fish who doesn't know what water is. That's amazing."
"Are you going to tell me or are you going to keep jerking yourself off about how much smarter you are than me?"
"Both, probably." Emil stood up, still grinning. He reached down and started unbuckling the restraints on Jax's wrists. "The Wired, Jax, are people like you. People who've been exposed to enough demonic energy, usually through prolonged contact with e-waste spawning grounds, that their biology starts to... adapt. Mutate. Evolve, if you want to be generous about it."
The first strap came loose. Then the second.
"Most Wired develop minor abilities. Enhanced reflexes. Increased healing. The ability to sense demon presence." Emil moved to the ankle restraints. "But some, a very rare few, develop something more dramatic. We call those expressions 'Surges.' Temporary states of massively enhanced physical capability, usually triggered by extreme stress or..." He glanced up at Jax with those purple eyes. "...death."
The last strap fell away.
Emil straightened up and turned his back, walking toward the door.
"Follow me. I want to show you your blood work. The results are fascinating—really, you should be flattered, we haven't seen numbers like yours in years." He glanced over his shoulder with a wry smile. "Oh, and thanks for the blood, by the way. We took about six vials while you were out. Hope you don't mind."
Jax sat up slowly. His body ached; not the sharp pain of broken bones, but a deep, hollow exhaustion, like he'd run a marathon and then gotten hit by a truck. He looked at Emil's back. The man was maybe fifteen feet away, walking casually toward the door, completely unguarded.
One good hit. That's all it would take. Sucker punch him, grab his keycard, find an exit. This was a government facility, sure, but it was also a building, and buildings had doors, and doors led outside, and outside led to—
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Emil said, not turning around. His voice was light, conversational. "This is a government facility, after all. Armed guards, security checkpoints, the whole nine yards. You might make it to the first hallway before someone blasts your head off. Maybe the second, if you're quick."
Jax froze.
He hadn't said anything. Hadn't moved. Hadn't done anything that would indicate what he was thinking.
Emil glanced back, and there was something in those purple eyes now; something knowing, something that suggested he saw a lot more than he let on.
"Coming?"
Jax looked at the door. Looked at Emil. Looked at the monitoring equipment, the IV stand, the restraints that had held him down.
He didn't trust this guy. Didn't trust this place. Didn't trust anyone who smiled that much while talking about blood work and brain damage.
But he also didn't have a lot of options.
Jax stood up, his legs unsteady beneath him, and followed Dr. Emil Vance out of the room.