The tank was seven feet tall and four feet wide, made of reinforced glass and steel. It sat in the center of a white-tiled room in the basement of the DCB facility, surrounded by monitoring equipment, cables, and machines that Jax didn't recognize.
It was full of water.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Emil stood beside the tank, one hand resting on the glass like he was showing off a prized aquarium. His purple eyes were bright with excitement. "State of the art. Temperature controlled, oxygenation monitored, with a drainage system that can empty the entire thing in under four seconds. We had it custom-built."
"For drowning people," Jax said.
"For controlled drowning," Emil corrected. "There's a difference. You'll be monitored the entire time; heart rate, brain activity, oxygen levels. We'll push you right to the edge of death, hold you there, and pull you back before you cross over. The goal is to trigger your Redline response in a safe environment."
Jax studied the tank. The restraints bolted inside; wrists, ankles, a strap across the chest. The machines humming quietly around it.
It looked like torture. It probably was torture, technically speaking.
But he'd frozen in Kensington. He'd almost gotten himself killed, almost gotten everyone killed, because he couldn't control what was inside him. If this was what it took to fix that...
"Alright," he said. "Let's do it."
Emil's smile widened. "That's the spirit! Strip down to your shorts and step inside. The restraints are for your safety; you'll thrash when the panic sets in, and we don't want you hurting yourself."
Jax glanced at Zion, who was standing by the door with his arms crossed. The team leader's face was unreadable, but he gave a small nod, something that might have been encouragement or might have been resignation.
Jax pulled off his shirt.
Across the facility, Luna sat alone in the cafeteria, staring at a plate of eggs she had no intention of eating.
Her Blackberry sat on the table beside her. It had been silent for almost an hour now, which somehow felt worse than when it was buzzing constantly. The silence meant they were waiting. Planning. Deciding what to do next.
Una semana, they'd said. One week.
Six days left. Maybe less, if they decided to move up the deadline again.
"Hey! Luna! You look like someone ran over your cat and then backed up to make sure!"
Luna looked up.
The thing sitting across from her wasn't quite human.
It had a human body; broad shoulders, muscular arms, standard-issue DCB tactical gear, but where its head should have been, there was a CRT monitor. An old one, the kind with the bulky back and the curved glass screen, like something pulled from a 1995 office. The screen displayed a crudely animated smiley face, yellow circle with two dots for eyes and a curved line for a mouth.
"Screen," Luna said flatly. "Go away."
"Aw, come on!" The smiley face on the monitor shifted to a frowny face, complete with a single animated tear rolling down. "I'm just trying to spread some positivity! You know what they say, a smile is just a frown turned upside down! Or is it the other way around? I always forget."
Screen, real name unknown, Wired designation CRT-7, member of Bravo Team, was one of the stranger things the DCB had produced. His ability was tied to whatever his monitor-head displayed: show a laugh track, people nearby would start laughing uncontrollably. Show a sad scene, they'd burst into tears. Show static, and they'd feel confused and disoriented.
Right now, his screen showed the frowny face, and Luna felt a faint tug of melancholy at the edges of her mood. She pushed it away with practiced effort.
"I said go away," she repeated. "And turn that shit off. I can feel you trying to make me sad."
"Oops! Sorry!" The frowny face immediately switched to a neutral expression; just two dots and a straight line. "Force of habit! I emote with my face, you know? It's hard to turn off. Kind of like how you can't stop your eyebrows from doing things when you're angry."
"My eyebrows are fine."
"They're doing the thing right now, actually. The angry thing. Very expressive!" Screen's monitor flickered to a cartoonish imitation of angry eyebrows. "See? Like this!"
Luna's Blackberry buzzed.
She flinched, couldn't help it, and snatched the phone off the table before Screen could see the screen. But he'd noticed the flinch. His monitor shifted to a question mark.
"Everything okay?" he asked. His voice was cheerful, but there was something underneath it; genuine concern, maybe, buried under layers of cartoon affect. "You seem jumpy. More than usual, I mean. And you're usually pretty jumpy! In a fun way, though. Like a cat!"
"I'm fine," Luna said, shoving the phone in her pocket without looking at it. "Mind your own business."
"Okay!" The question mark became a thumbs-up emoji. "But if you ever need to talk, I'm a great listener! Mostly because I don't have ears, so I can't interrupt. Ha! That's a joke. I do have ears. They're just... inside the monitor somewhere. I think. Actually, I'm not sure how I hear things. Huh."
He stood up, gave her a little wave with his very human hand, and wandered off toward the food line, his CRT head swiveling to display a happy face to everyone he passed.
Luna watched him go. Then she pulled out her Blackberry and looked at the message.
5 days. We know where you work. We know where you live. Don't make us come find you.
Her hands were shaking.
Five days. They'd moved up the deadline.
She deleted the message and left the cafeteria without touching her food.
The water was cold.
That was Jax's first thought as he stepped into the tank, the liquid rising past his ankles, his knees, his waist. Cold and clear and smelling faintly of chlorine, like a swimming pool. The restraints clicked shut around his wrists and ankles, the chest strap pulled tight, and suddenly he couldn't move, couldn't do anything except stand there, pinned in place, water up to his chest.
"Comfortable?" Emil's voice came through a speaker mounted on the wall. He was outside the tank now, standing behind a bank of monitors with a technician in a white coat. "The first session is always the hardest. Try to relax."
"Easy for you to say," Jax muttered, but there was no real heat in it. This was the job. This was what he'd signed up for. If it meant learning to control the Redline, he could handle a little discomfort.
"I'm going to raise the water level now. When it reaches your nose, you'll want to hold your breath. Don't fight it, just let your body do what it does naturally. We'll handle the rest."
A mechanical hum. The water began to rise.
Jax watched it climb. Past his chest. Past his shoulders. Past his chin. He tilted his head back, gasping one last breath as the water touched his lips, his nose—
And then he was under.
The world went silent. Muffled. Just the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears and the distant hum of the machines keeping him alive. He held his breath, cheeks puffed, chest tight, staring up through the water at the distorted lights above.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
His lungs started to burn. The pressure in his chest built, demanding release, demanding air. His body wanted to breathe, needed to breathe, but there was nothing to breathe except water.
Forty seconds.
Fifty.
The burn became agony. His vision started to blur at the edges. His heart was hammering now, faster and faster, his body screaming at him that something was wrong, that he was dying, that he needed to do something—
He thrashed against the restraints. Couldn't help it. Pure animal panic, every survival instinct firing at once, his wrists straining against the metal cuffs hard enough to bruise.
Sixty seconds.
His mouth opened. Water rushed in.
And somewhere deep in his chest, something flickered.
The heat came; that burning pressure spreading outward, filling his veins with fire. His heart thundered. His skin began to glow, faint red light pulsing beneath the surface, visible even through the water.
There it is, he thought. Come on—
He reached for it. Pulled.
And something answered.
The glow intensified. The restraints groaned. Strength flooded through him, not full Redline, not that overwhelming surge he'd felt in the warehouse, but something. A fraction of it. A taste.
The metal around his right wrist bent.
Then the water was draining; rushing out through vents at the bottom of the tank, dropping so fast that Jax was gasping air before he even realized what was happening. He hung in the restraints, coughing, choking, water streaming from his nose and mouth, the red glow fading from his veins as quickly as it had come.
"Excellent!" Emil's voice through the speaker, bright with genuine delight. "That was excellent, Jax! Seventy-three seconds until partial activation. Faster than I expected!"
Jax couldn't respond. Could barely breathe. But he felt... good, almost. Like he'd accomplished something. Like he was making progress.
"Now," Emil said, appearing at the edge of the tank with his tablet, "let's talk about what just happened. The good news: you achieved partial activation without dying. That's exactly what we wanted."
"And the bad news?" Jax managed to croak.
Emil glanced at his tablet. "That little flicker you just did? Based on the energy output we measured, I'd estimate it cost you approximately six months."
The words didn't register at first. Jax hung there, water dripping from his hair, trying to process.
"Six months," he repeated.
"Off your lifespan, yes." Emil said it like he was discussing the weather. "That partial activation; three, maybe four seconds of enhanced state, burned approximately six months of your remaining life. Give or take."
Jax stared at him.
Three seconds. Six months.
"That's..." He shook his head, water flying. "That's insane. You didn't tell me—you didn't say it would cost that much—"
"I told you everything costs something." Emil's smile didn't waver. "And this is actually quite efficient for a first attempt! With practice, we'll get that number down significantly. Minutes instead of months. Maybe even seconds, eventually."
"Eventually." Jax's voice was flat. "And how many training sessions until 'eventually'? How many months do I burn before I learn to do this without killing myself?"
"That depends entirely on you." Emil tapped his tablet, making notes. "Some Surge-types take weeks. Some take months. It's highly individual." He looked up, still smiling. "Ready for round two?"
Jax looked at the tank. At the water already starting to fill it again. At the restraints that had bent under his brief surge of power.
Six months. Gone. In three seconds.
He thought about saying no. About walking out. About telling Emil to go fuck himself and his custom-built drowning tank.
But what was the alternative? Go back to freezing in combat? Get himself killed, get his teammates killed, because he couldn't control the one thing that made him useful?
He looked at Zion, still standing by the door. The team leader's face was unreadable, but his hands were clenched at his sides. He'd heard the number too. Six months.
Their eyes met. Jax saw something there; not quite sympathy, but something close to it. An acknowledgment.
Zion looked away.
"Fine," Jax said, turning back to Emil. His voice was hollow. "Let's go again."
Emil's smile widened. "That's the spirit."
They ran him through it three more times that morning.
Each session was the same: water rising, lungs burning, that terrible threshold moment where his body started to shut down and the Redline flickered to life. Each time, he managed to touch it, just barely, just for a second, before they drained the tank and pulled him back from the edge.
Each time, Emil cheerfully announced the cost.
"Four months that time! You're improving!"
"Three months! Excellent efficiency!"
"Five months, you were tired on that one. The body burns more when it's depleted."
By the fourth round, Jax could barely stand. He sat on the floor beside the tank, wrapped in a thin towel, shivering despite the temperature-controlled room. His wrists were bruised from the restraints. His throat felt like he'd swallowed glass.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, a number kept ticking.
Six plus four plus three plus five.
Eighteen months.
A year and a half of his life, gone in one morning.
"Enough for today," Emil said finally, making notes on his tablet. "You did well, Jax. Better than expected. We'll pick this up tomorrow—same time, same place."
He left. The technician followed. The door clicked shut.
Jax sat there, staring at the tank, trying to do the math. Fifty years total. Nineteen years already lived. Whatever he'd burned in the warehouse. Now another eighteen months.
How much did he have left? Thirty years? Twenty-five?
And how many of those would he spend in this tank, drowning over and over, burning months to gain seconds?
"You should eat."
Jax looked up. Zion was still there, he hadn't left with Emil. He was standing a few feet away, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
"I'm not hungry."
"I didn't ask if you were hungry." Zion's voice was flat. "Your body just went through significant trauma. If you don't fuel it, tomorrow will be worse."
"Tomorrow." Jax laughed a hollow, broken sound. "Right. We do this again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Until I either learn to control this thing or run out of time trying."
Zion didn't respond.
"You just watched," Jax said quietly. "The whole time. You just stood there while he drowned me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Zion was quiet for a long moment. His jaw worked, like he was chewing on words he didn't want to say.
"Because Emil knows what he's doing," he said finally. "Because this is how it has to be. Because—" He stopped. Looked away. "Because I trust him."
The way he said it, I trust him, didn't sound like trust. It sounded like something else. Something heavier.
"Do you?" Jax asked.
Zion didn't answer. He turned and walked out, the door swinging shut behind him.
Jax sat there for a long time, alone with the tank and the silence and the weight of eighteen months he'd never get back.
It was after 9 PM when Jax finally made it back to the Rittenhouse Arms.
He'd spent the afternoon in the medical wing; doctors running tests, taking notes, talking about him like he wasn't there. They'd made him eat something. Made him drink water. Poked and prodded at the bruises on his wrists and clucked their tongues about "tissue stress" and "recovery protocols."
None of them mentioned the eighteen months. Maybe they didn't know. Maybe they didn't care.
The doorman stared openly as Jax shuffled across the lobby. The elevator ride felt like hours. The hallway stretched forever.
He was fumbling with his keys outside unit 808 when the door to 810 opened.
Luna.
She looked almost as bad as he felt. Pale, tired, dark circles under her eyes. She was wearing sweatpants and an old t-shirt, her hair loose and tangled, the cat-ear beanie nowhere in sight. She'd opened her door like she was going somewhere; but when she saw Jax, she stopped.
They stared at each other across the hallway.
Jax waited for the insult. The sneer. The what happened to you, you look like shit delivered with maximum disdain.
It didn't come.
Luna just looked at him. At the bruises on his wrists, visible below his sleeves. At the way he was leaning against the doorframe because he couldn't quite stand on his own. At whatever she saw in his face.
Something shifted in her expression. Not softening, not exactly, but something.
She didn't say anything. Neither did he.
Then she stepped back into her apartment and closed the door.
Jax stood there for a moment, processing. That was the first time Luna had looked at him without hatred. The first time she'd seen him as something other than an obstacle.
He unlocked his door and went inside.
He collapsed onto the couch without turning on the lights.
The apartment was dark and quiet. He should sleep, knew he should sleep, but his mind wouldn't stop. Kept replaying the tank, the water, the feeling of his lungs filling up while the Redline flickered just out of reach.
Eighteen months.
He'd spent his whole life fighting to survive. Scraping by. Finding ways to make it to tomorrow. And now he was voluntarily burning through his tomorrows, trading months for seconds, all so he could learn to control a power that might kill him anyway.
What was the point of surviving if he used up all the time he was supposed to survive?
He stared at the ceiling, counting the cost.
And then he heard it.
Through the wall. Unit 810. Quiet enough that he almost missed it, probably would have missed it if he hadn't been lying perfectly still in the silence.
Crying.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just quiet, muffled sobs, barely audible through the drywall. The sound of someone trying very hard not to be heard.
Luna.
Jax lay there, listening. He thought about getting up. Knocking on her door. Asking if she was okay.
But he already knew what would happen. She'd scream at him. Tell him to mind his own business. Slam the door in his face and hate him even more for witnessing her weakness.
So he didn't move.
Just lay there in the dark, listening to Luna cry through the wall, feeling something crack open in his chest that had nothing to do with the Redline.
She'd defended him yesterday. He's not a lab rat.
She'd looked at him tonight without hatred. Just two people going through something terrible, recognizing each other.
And now she was crying alone in her apartment, and he was lying here knowing about it, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing she would let him do.
What do you want in life, Jax?
Emil's question. The one he still couldn't answer.
But lying there in the dark, listening to Luna cry, he felt something; not an answer, not yet, but the shape of one. A shadow of a want he didn't have words for.
Something that felt like wanting to help someone. Wanting to matter. Wanting to be the kind of person who could make someone else's pain stop.
He'd never wanted that before. Never had room for it; not when every day was about survival, about food and rent and making it to tomorrow.
But now—
Now he did.
The crying stopped eventually. The apartment went quiet. Luna had either fallen asleep or found a way to put the walls back up.
Jax closed his eyes.
Eighteen months gone. A year and a half of his life, traded for a few seconds of power.
He wondered, distantly, if he'd ever have to spend more.
And if he did, for the right reason, for the right person—
Would it be worth it?