The hospital smelled like every hospital—antiseptic over illness, recycled air through ducts that had seen too many years. Jennifer sat in the molded plastic chair beside David Coyote's bed and watched him not-sleep.
His eyes moved under closed lids, tracking something she couldn't see. His lips shaped words without sound. His hands twitched in patterns that looked deliberate—gestures toward an invisible interface.
Three days since the seizure. Three days since she'd ridden in the ambulance while monitors screamed and paramedics worked with the controlled urgency of people who'd seen worse. The doctors said he was stable. The scans showed organized activity replacing the chaos—coherent rhythms emerging from neural storm.
But Jennifer had spent decades reading bodies. She knew what recovery looked like. This wasn't it.
She leaned forward. Thinner than three days ago—how was that possible? The bones of his cheekbones sharper, his weathered handsomeness sharpened into something gaunt. His eyes moved faster now behind closed lids. More focused. Like someone reading text instead of scanning landscape.
"David," she said softly. His given name, not the persona. "Can you hear me?"
His eyes opened.
For a fraction of a second, she saw something looking back that wasn't quite him. Something older, or larger, or simply other, using his eyes as windows. Then it passed, and he was blinking at the ceiling, surfacing from deep water.
"Jennifer." His voice …
