He’s expecting to see stats about neural degeneration or something equally dire, but the monitor is just blinking from flat black to bright white. The changes speed up, until the screen is flashing like a strobe.

“Why are you, uh, making that … do … ?” He pauses, groping for a way to form the question that won’t come out quite right.

And then he opens his eyes to see her looking down at him. One eyebrow is arched, and she’s biting her lip and shaking her head. He’s sitting down now, even though he wasn’t before.

“How—?”

“Photo-sensitivity. Let’s just say you’ll be a tad epileptic for a while. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen.”

He feels his eyes watering and remembers a smoggy city skyline, jagged with towering offices. It’s someplace he’s never been.

“Is the … what you said … normal?” he asks.

She bobs her head from side to side. It’s not a no. It’s not a yes.

“You’re too keyed up,” she says. “All that adrenaline is speeding up activation, tweaking some of the, you know, delicate processes.”