When he got back from the supermarket, Adam settled into the same chair where Juzo had made him sit to tell him about the project.

  He set the groceries aside and searched on his phone for news about defectors and stolen files related to Markabia or the Edda Peninsula.

  Nothing. Of course. Why had he thought this time would be different, when luck had never been on his side before?

  His eyes drifted to the small wooden box resting on a shelf near a photo of himself standing on cliffs by the sea.

  ‘What will you do with his ashes?’ Kara had asked the day before.

  ‘I’ll take care of him,’ Adam had replied, holding the box containing his brother’s remains.

  He put on some music, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and sat in his living area, sipping while gazing out at the towering buildings across from his apartment.

  When it was time to pick up his date, Adam headed out. He had plans to have dinner with one of the lovely nurses he’d met at the hospital.

  Sliding into the car, uneasiness gripped his legs. He couldn’t shake the fear that last Friday’s ordeal might repeat itself.

  At least the blue compact’s start button was working this time, and everything suggested the engine wouldn’t give him another nasty surprise like it had that night, when it refused to start for no apparent reason other than the presence of that belligerent Cyclops.

  That morning, he’d taken the 909 in for a checkup after retrieving it from Proxima’s Traffic Department, where he’d also paid a fine for leaving it stranded in the middle of the avenue. As if he’d done that on purpose!

  He drove through the Yellow District, and upon entering the Red one, he took a detour that made his trip longer—all just to avoid passing through 13th Avenue and by Liberty Park, steering clear of retracing the route he had taken with Juzo.

  After picking up the nurse, they went to a fancy restaurant in Ciccone, a neighborhood that instantly put Adam in a good mood—or at least, it used to.

  Adam and the nurse chatted while waiting for their main course.

  The conversation revolved around how she managed to live with five cats in a tiny studio apartment. He nodded every so often as though it was the most fascinating story in the world, but in truth, his mind was on an endless loop. Juzo wounded in the park. The old photos illustrating the horrors of the project. The Cyclops standing before him, moments before he blacked out. It played in his head like a song stuck on repeat.

  Excusing himself, he headed to the restroom.

  While peeing, a memory surfaced: his first meeting with Juzo at the B-Crush nightclub. Once again, chills ran down his spine.

  Washing his hands, he caught his reflection in the mirror and frowned.

  At first, he thought his imagination was playing tricks on him. Careful not to wet his pants on the sink’s splashed counter, he leaned closer to the glass for a better look. He rubbed his chin and felt its roughness: the shadow covering his face wasn’t just an illusion but a real stubble.

  He tried to remember the last time he had shaved, but oddly enough, there was no recollection of it in his memory. How was it possible not to have noticed the excessive hair growth on his cheeks before?

  He rinsed his face and stood for a while staring at the mirror, as if he was struggling to find himself in the reflection.

  He, Adam White O22, had turned into Juzo Romita.

  And, as if he needed a reminder, he glanced down at the color of his shirt: olive green, identical to the military uniform his twin had worn. The worst part? He didn’t even remember ever seeing it in his closet before.

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  Returning to the table, he found the nurse waiting for him, but the appetite for dinner—and for the date itself—was gone. Still, he forced himself to be polite, determined not to ruin the evening. He stuck it out through dessert, paid the bill, and offered to drive her home, postponing any plans to have a drink at his place.

  What he really wanted was to return to his loft and figure out how he’d ended up looking so unsettlingly like Juzo.

  An hour later, that’s exactly what he did.

  That night, the doorman on duty was a boring guy Adam never spoke to. Thankfully, old Rubén Blue wasn’t there—he had no desire to talk or listen to silly jokes.

  He opened the door to his loft, turned on the light, and a spark blew out the bulbs. Stress overload, he told himself; it wasn’t the first time it had happened.

  Guided by the glow from the street streaming through the windows, he made his way to the kitchen area to switch on another light. He took a deep breath before pressing the button, hoping his static energy had lessened, but it happened again. The same thing with the living area lamp, but this time not only did the bulb burst, he also received a shock that lit up in the dark.

  Cursing, he shook his hand until the unpleasant tingling subsided.

  Keeping away from any outlets, he took off his shoes to ground himself by touching the floor with his bare feet; one of his female friends had said that was a way to get rid of excess static.

  A tingling sensation pricked the soles of his feet, and after a few steps, the discomfort intensified until it felt like he was walking on needles.

  He staggered and, trying to break his fall, thin threads of energy leaped from his fingers, snaking over his hand like tiny lightning bolts, stinging him with their electrifying venom.

  With power tightening around his heart, Adam suddenly knew how to stop it. If it had worked for Juzo, even if they were different situations, maybe it would work for him.

  He extended his arm and, mimicking the movement his brother had made, clenched his hand. The discharges stopped sparking between his fingers and gathered in his palm, forming a ball of fire—a white fire. The pain ceased.

  He had created a Fotia.

  But it wasn’t like Juzo’s Fotia. It wasn’t just a cluster of electrical discharges but a true ball of fire, a white flame that crackled in his hand without burning his skin. A small white sun; what astronomers, according to the documentaries he’d watched, called a white dwarf.

  Imitating Juzo’s action again, he clenched his fingers a couple of times and managed to make the fireball disintegrate. Adam was left with a tingling in his hand—whether from nerves or from holding a mass of fire, he wasn’t sure.

  He waited for the sensation to fade and repeated the act. This time, to make it disappear, he didn’t clench his fingers; he just thought about it. The fireball extinguished.

  “Of course, of course,” he whispered, panting and excited. “Clenching your fingers activates the wrist implants, Adam, and you don’t have implants. So how do you activate it if—?”

  The mind, he thought.

  Yes, the mind. He controlled the power with his mind.

  Trying to create the fireball a third time, now with his other hand, he extended his arm, took a deep breath, focused on doing it, and huff! The electricity flared up again, forming white flames. But this time it shot upward like a bolt, striking the ceiling.

  Covered in bits of debris and paint chips, Adam spat out dust, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the hole he’d created above his head.

  “Late as it may be, the Binary Atavistic Project is finally complete,” he heard his own voice say, though it wasn’t him speaking.

  Someone else was inside him; another presence nesting in his mind, a spirit hidden beneath the wide berth of his consciousness.

  Shrouded in darkness, he looked at himself in the living area mirror to make sure he was alone and that the voice really came from him. It was his reflection he saw, but he felt as though he were staring at someone else. It was his mouth that moved, but it was Juzo speaking through it.

  “Now you and I are one entity,” Juzo said.

  “What do you mean by that?” Adam asked, feeling foolish talking to his own reflection. No, more than foolish—he felt insane.

  The electric flames sprouted between his fingers again, like spontaneous combustion. He tried to make them disappear with his thoughts, but this time they were so out of control they ignored his commands.

  He attempted to put them out by shaking his arms, and although those mysterious Fotias were harmless to him, when they brushed against his legs, they ignited his pants. He let out a shriek, and responding to his desperation, the ball of energy vanished.

  He pulled his pants off as fast as he could, threw them to the floor, and stomped on them to put out the small fire.

  On his thigh, where the flames had kissed him, a red mark now appeared. He touched it, and it burned.

  He went to find the burn cream in the bathroom and suddenly lost contact with the floor; looking down, he realized he was walking in the air, about five feet above ground.

  The parquet floor was down below, and he was up above, floating.

  And with the grace of a leaden bag in free fall, he crashed back to the floor, snagged his foot on one of the dining chairs, and it toppled onto him.

  Sore and nauseous, he stood up and ran to the bathroom to throw up his dinner; he stumbled along the way but made it to the toilet in time.

  He wiped his mouth with his hand and let himself slide against the shower wall, eyes puffy from vomiting, heart pounding in his throat, overwhelmed by shock, and the fear of death racing through his mind.