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Yorkton bustles and coughs and groans beyond the thudding of music that wafts in from the club. Pipes rattle and hiss in thin, rotting walls. Brittle curls of paint peel and wither. Termites make a meal of the rickety floorboards. A nicotine yellow bulb dangles from the ceiling. It and the blinking of dubious clusters of tech give the cramped room a nauseating glow.
Sevro stands at a cluttered workbench, feeling dizzy, and not just because of the nightmarish lighting and the stink of mildew.
“Are these…” Sevro’s mouth is dry. “These were his eyes. Darrow’s.”
The box is insulated and smooth. Soft white light filters from the inside, where—innocuously, as if it’s the most normal thing in the worlds—sits a pair of lifeless Red eyes in a vacuum-sealed pouch.
Mickey says on an exhale, “Yes. I held on to them for sentiment’s sake. Also, you never know when you’ll need a relatively healthy pair of Red eyes. They’re surprisingly difficult to find, you know.”
“I don’t.”
Mickey wanders away from the cryobox, picking up various tools and gadgets to bring with him. He says, with a hint of trepidation. “You are working on it, though. Getting him back, I mean.”
“Obviously,” Sevro snaps. Why the fuck wouldn’t he be? He stands there and stares down at the eyes in the cooler. Darrow’s eyes.
A thought worms its way into his head. The one that keeps coming back to him since Kavax filled him in on what happened at the Triumph.
They could kill him.
They could kill him and grind him into dust, shoot him into the sun. He could be dead right now. You could already be too late.
This could be all that’s left of him.
The eyes stare at Sevro. Sevro stares back down at them. He tries picturing Darrow with these eyes, but can’t come up with anything substantial. All he can think of is the grainy video of the Carving. Even then the angles were weird and detail was sparse. He feels stupid and useless. Helplessness building and building until it shatters into the rage that’s always there.
This could be all that’s left of him.
“I want them.”
Mickey makes a “hm?” sound.
Sevro turns. He points at the cooler. “I want them.”
“You…” Mickey suddenly seems disquieted, like he’s only just realized he’s got a terrorist armed to the teeth in his meager little club. “You can take them if you like.”
“No, I want to have them. I want you to give me these eyes. You can have mine.”
The opportunity to have Sevro’s eyes perks Mickey right up. He laughs a little and says, “Oh! Certainly. That can be done. Some tweaks will have to be made to remedy the astigmatism, myopia, and anything else I may have missed—but it can be done.”
“Good. You’ll do it on the ship. Right now we have to get the hell out of here. You packed?”