As though awakened by his words, Myles heard the alarm on his watch chatter. Something about the familiar tune dulled his mind to the bizarre man that stooped before him, so he shrugged the current matter away for the moment and pulled his antisthesid dose from his pocket.

The old man smirked, watching him intently. “Time for man to play God again, eh, Mr. Myles?”

The remark passed right through him. Myles brushed aside the flap of his lab coat and lifted up his shirt to expose a plasticized nipple the size of a pea on the side of his abdomen. In a short moment he pushed the antisthesid injector against the nipple and clicked the button on its end, experiencing a deadened cold, like tendrils wafting up through the air.

He let his shirt fall back into place and pocketed his injector. He recalculated. This was by far the strangest encounter in Myles’ entire life. His career had been brought to a standstill by this mysterious creature, yet… the old man had made some sense. He had no reason to deny this loss of employment. Higher authority mandated the endeavors of lower authority. It was simple. Logical. His orders were clear, and that was all that mattered.

“Yes… Yes, of course. I will comply with my new orders,” Myles said, rubbing his forehead. “Am I to move my personal effects to the barracks with the other team members?”

“That is correct. Why don’t you start on that right away?”

Myles frowned. “But we are about to revive the Subject… sir.”

“If you mean ‘we’, excluding yourself, then that is also correct.” The old man grinned, revealing a set of unnaturally perfect teeth. Perhaps if Myles could Feel, he would have been shocked, almost horrified by the young man’s teeth in the old man’s jaws. Perhaps he would have Felt suspicious of the Level 1 clearance, skeptical of the old man’s sarcastic contempt. Maybe he could have seen through the façade, or at least noticed the very blatant fact that the elder was an offender of the first and greatest law of their society: he did not use the antisthesid, and therefore he could Feel.

“Best get started, Mr. Myles,” he croaked, pushing himself from the desk and limping towards the door with a thin silver cane.

“But Syme—”

“Don’t ever call me by that name.” The old man pulled the door open and put one foot outside, leaning his head back in with narrow eyes and a mischievous grin. “Just call me Doctor.”

 *  *  *  *

Hope. Is it meaningless? Meaningful?

Hope is a lie, all a lie, gone! A myth, a fantasy, a relic…

Is hope a reality? Is it real? Can it be bartered, sold or traded, felt, caressed, loved? Could hope be loved, or were the two the same?

It was cold. There was a chill, an iciness she had never before experienced. It was surreal, almost; the coldest Alaskan tundra used to sting her skin and bite at her lips until she was numb. That was the point of danger, when one could Feel something for so long until it couldn’t be Felt at all. This was unlike that numbness, but rather beyond it. There was a strange tension as though a single misstep would shatter the world like glass.

Her thoughts trembled as though embittered and furious with the temperature. They grew increasingly frantic, shouting and darting away before she could understand them. But there was one thought that stayed, warm hands extending from the distance.