Chris Allman wrote faster, trying to keep up with his thoughts. His thoughts came at him in fractured pieces, and it hurt to think, but he managed to focus on the one thought that remained constant through all of the grief and the pain of losing Sara.

"Kari..." he whispered as he wrote. "Kari can fix me."

The implant on the back of his neck glowed softly again, a soft pulse... pulse... pulse... that almost seemed as if it was communicating with something.

***

Samantha had already pulled up all of Chris Allman's data history and was in the middle of analyzing the lastest sync burst from his implant when Dr. Harold Osbourne made an appearance in her lab.

"You missed the morning meeting Samantha," Osbourne said in that condescending way of his. It was the tone he adopted whenever he wanted to play "the good guy" to remind Samantha that it was Osbourne who actually ran the research facility while she only worked there, technically for him.

Osbourne was about six-feet tall, slim and had a head of hair that was always perfectly done, much to Samantha's annoyance. He usually favoured suits even when in the lab, but this morning he had decided on wearing a lab coat. Maybe it was supposed to make him look like the photo they had used of him for Time magazine.

Anyone seeing the two of them together always knew who was in charge. Samantha's usual dress code of laboratory-goth, along with the pair of high-tech goggles she needed for some of her work, always made her look like she had strolled out of the pages of a comic-book and had taken up residence in the lab. The first impression was never that she was the most senior researcher, or that she was about to bite someone's head off for stepping uninvited into her lab.

Samantha didn't even look up at Osbourne.

"I'm busy," she said shortly, reaching up to move the high-tech goggles from her eyes to her forehead. Deep in thought, she peered at the scrolling data on the screen in front of her.

The holographic displays in the workshop were all lit up, ten screens in all, covered with Chris Allman's implant readings over the past year. One of the screens showed Kari Cheng's chart, but Samantha was not going to draw any attention to that. A detailed schematic of his X-11 implant floated in the air before Samantha; large numbers labelled SYNC CLOCK counted up to 00:05:55 as she watched. In the center of the screens, a diagnostic was running on the current X11 implant, the screens quickly cycling through operating processes.

"Samantha," Osbourne scolded, "we already talked about this. It's the one weekly meeting that you're actually expected to attend—"

Samantha broke in. She didn't have time for a lecture. Not right now. There was too much going on, and she was still trying to make sense of it all.

"At seven-twenty-three yesterday evening, one of the X-Eleven implants began showing erratic spikes in its data. It's returning larger than expected data packets, and the timecode is completely out of sync, meaning that it's either malfunctioning or it has been hacked. I've been running diagnostics and running a cross-check against other implants from that batch to make sure it's an isolated case. If it's a hack, then there's no telling what else is compromised or how far it can spread. "

Osbourne bristled visibly.

"I thought you said we couldn't be hacked."

"No, you said you wanted it unhackable. I pointed out that as long as we didn't cut any corners and designed everything inhouse, it would make it almost impossible to hack. Do you need me to remind you which corners you decided to cut? I have a list."

Osbourne waved dismissively, determined to get control of the conversation.

"Surely, you can fix it later. These meetings are important to bring the team together so we have accountability—"

"I'm trying to make sure that the thirty patients who have these implants in their heads don't all drop dead at the same time," Samantha said dispassionately. What she didn't add out loud was, "You fucking idiot." But it was understood.

It also shut Osbourne up.

Samantha would have laughed at the range of expressions that ran across Osbourne's face as he processed the enormity of what she was doing. That it might have been important and not a case of Samantha being a complete bitch had never factored into his thinking. All he cared about was his precious fucking meeting and trying to assert his dominance. Osbourne was an officious prick and actually relished going to meetings and talking about funding and all of that bullshit that Samantha hated, so he was useful to a degree. It meant that was something Samantha never had to do, so he was a good shield. Unfortunately, the relationship only worked as long as they stayed in their own lanes. She let him pretend that he ran that lab, and he left her alone to do the research and development that kept the lab running while he attended his seminars and expensive lunches and dinners held in his honour for his revolutionary work.

For Samantha's revolutionary work.

Osbourne had been famous for years for his work on finding a cure for Parkinson's disease, and he had been working on a theory of how to stimulate neural pathways with the aim of rebuilding memory. Samantha had met Osbourne when she was an undergraduate and had seen the potential in his research almost immediately. They had spent several hours going over the theory. When Samantha had laid out plans for how an implant at the base of the brain could potentially help generate the signals to counteract the misfiring neurons, Osbourne had all but hired her on the spot. He had recognized Samantha's genius and was more than willing to throw tons of money at her to develop the technology. Out of that had come the first Curatio implant, and both of their lives had immediately changed.

The Sosumi Corporation had agreed to fund the research, pouring more than $100 million into the facilities. It gave Samantha all of the space she needed to develop and refine the hardware and then the software that ran Curatio. Before she had even completed the second smaller version of the implant, Osbourne was already calling it the cure for diseases of the brain.

By the end of the second set of trials, Osbourne had advised Samantha that within four iterations of the hardware, they were going to be preparing for clinical trials on humans. That had been five years ago, and Samantha had worked steadily, seeing the improvements in the test subjects and knowing that she was about to change the world.

Curatio had started the full clinical trial on humans over a year ago, and everything had changed.

Sometimes Samantha missed the naive girl she had been back then, so idealistic and full of potential. That was before Kari Cheng had come back into her life as one of the test subjects.

For just a moment, Samantha considered telling Osbourne that there was a possible connection between the Curation X11 implant and time travel, just to see what his reaction would be.

He would most likely race off to brainstorm possible uses and how best to sell the technology so they could get even more funding, but that was just the way Osbourne's brain worked. He saw the potential for profit. Samantha just wanted to change the world.

She shook her head ruefully. There was no way she could tell Osbourne anything about time travel, at least not until she got all of the data she needed.

Whrrrrrrrm... Beep-Beep-beep-beepbeepbeepbeep!

The sync clock reached 00:05:55 and reset to 00:00:00, starting the next countdown. A new screen with scrolling code popped up in front of Samantha. She scanned the code, reading quickly and almost forgetting about Osbourne.

"Thirty patients?" Osbourne finally said. "That's quite serious."

"Yup. All of test-group ten. It was a really hard choice for me though," Samantha quipped. "Dead patients or boring team meeting... so hard to choose. I almost chose the meeting to be honest."

Osbourne watched her carefully, and she could see him looking at the screens for the first time, reading the data and trying to see what she was up to.

"Chris Allman's implant is the source of this?"

Samantha nodded and typed rapidly on her keyboard, resigned to Osbourne's presence. A screen popped up with Chris Allman's vital signs.

"This is from the last sync," Samantha said and triggered a new screen with readings from Chris' implant. Osbourne stepped closer, taking his glasses out of his lab coat pocket and putting them onto his face.

"This isn't normal," Osbourne noted. "The kalvometric readings shouldn't be anywhere near that high. Is that where the added data is coming in?"

Samantha expanded one of the screens and pointed.

"Yeah. I've got servers one and two decrypting the data, but with the sync bursts the way they are, it's going to take at least an hour. I've already built four test units to run the code, and they've had critical malfunctions."

"How critical?"

"Critical in an explosive way."

Samantha jerked a thumb at the row of moulded heads made of ballistic gel in the corner of the lab. All of them had scorch marks at the base of the necks.

Osbourne nodded.

"We can't risk this getting out. Not now. The clinical trials are almost over, and I've assured the board that we're ready to go to market. Whatever is going wrong, you need to fix it. People are counting on us."

People, who need to use the cure or people who want to sell it?

Samantha shrugged. "Sure thing. It would be great if we could get Allman in here."

Osbourne nodded. "Get me a location on Allman, and I'll see what I can do."

Samantha typed rapidly. The screens changed to a 3D map of the city of Toronto. Thirty data cards popped up, scattered around the city, each one displaying different patient information. A moment and the map rotated, Chris Allman's data card expanding. A location marker placed it on the 14 Division Police Station.

"Looks like our boy's been a little busy," Samantha said slyly. She couldn't help but glance at the computer in the corner where Kari's data was still being decrypted. Chris Allman and Kari had been up to something and looking at the data coming from Chris' implant, he might be the key that she needed.

"Shit," Osbourne spat. "Looks like I'll be making a different kind of call." He pulled out his cellphone as he turned to exit the lab. He paused and turned back to Samantha. "Good work here Samantha. Sorry I was a little tense with you there, but the team really looks up to you... you know, despite everything."

"Good to know," Samantha replied with her best fake smile. "I'm going to get back to work before I'm going to have to let you explain to the board of directors why thirty of our patients are dead."

Osbourne exited, and Samantha smirked as she pulled up Chris Allman's data screens again. One stroke of a button and Kari's data screen popped up as well.

She placed the screens next to each other, noting how Kari's data stream from the timestamp of her disappearance matched almost perfectly with Chris Allman's.