The facility was forty minutes outside the city in a valley Marcus had bought in twenty-eleven through a holding company that had been dissolved in twenty-thirteen and reconstituted in twenty-seventeen under a different name.

It was a single-story building with three rooms.

The brother had been in the second room for thirteen days.

Tali met them at the door.

She nodded at Iris. She nodded at Caleb. Marcus stood six feet behind them, outside the reach of even that much courtesy.

"He’s awake," she said. "He’s been awake for two hours. He knew you were coming."

"Has he eaten?"

"He ate two hours ago. He has not asked for anything since."

She stepped aside.

The second room was small and warm.

A bed against the south wall. A reading chair beside the bed. A window that did not open. A small table by the chair, with a teapot and three cups. The fourth cup, Caleb noted, was missing. Tali had taken it.

His brother was sitting up in the bed.

He was wearing soft cotton pants and a long-sleeved shirt that hid the augment line at his throat. He had been growing his hair out for the last two weeks. The hair was longer than Caleb had ever seen it. He seemed thinner than he should have been, and stronger than he had any right to be. The great-grandfather’s logbook was open on his lap.

He raised his eyes and smiled at Caleb first.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Then his attention moved to Marcus, and the room changed before either of them said anything.

"Father."

"Son."

It was the first time Marcus had said the word son to the brother out loud in nineteen years.

The brother did not let it pass.

He said: "Sit down, Father. The tea’s still hot."

Marcus sat in the reading chair.

Iris took the third chair from the corner and sat by the door, in case anyone needed something.

Caleb sat at the foot of the bed.

The brother poured tea for the three of them.

He left his own cup empty.

"I’m full," he said. "I had soup at lunch. I want the cups for you."

Marcus took his cup.

He set it on the side table without drinking.

Marcus’s hands were on his knees, and the hands were not steady. Caleb had not seen his father’s hands not-steady before. He turned aside to let Marcus have the minute without being watched.

The brother saw it and said, "It’s all right, Dad. Ask me."

Marcus said, "You know what I’m here to ask."

"Yes."

"You know what I’m asking you to do," Marcus said.

"Yes."

"You know what the risk is."

"Yes," the brother said, and the word did not shake.

"I want to ask you anyway. I want you to be able to say no. I have spent two years building the cover that lets me ask you now in a room I chose and at a time I chose and after I have heard you say my name in your own voice. I could not ask you when you were eleven. I could not ask you when you were thirteen. I could not ask you when the augments went in and you were twenty-six and asleep. I am asking you tonight in a chair I bought for this exact conversation and I want you to know I am asking. The asking matters. The asking is the part I could not skip. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Father."

"Will you come to the chamber on Day Sixteen?"

"Yes."

"Will you let me extract the piece from your chest and return it in the chamber on Day Sixteen, knowing that the extraction may not leave you alive?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The brother gave him a small smile, almost apologetic, as if he had known this would be the part Marcus could barely stand to hear.

"Because I have been awake inside this body for two years and I have had two years to think about it. Because the piece in my chest has kept me alive. Because the piece in my chest does not get to keep me alive forever. Because I have read the great-grandfather’s logbook for ten days and I have decided I agree with him about how this ends. Because I am not afraid of the chamber. Because I am afraid of the day after the chamber if I am the only one of us who walks out. Because I want my brother to walk out. Because I want my mother to have one son alive on Day Seventeen. Because I want you to have a son alive on Day Seventeen too. Because if it is one of us, I would rather it be me, because I have spent the last two years awake in a coma and I do not want a third year."

He paused. His eyes moved to Caleb, then back to Marcus.

"Are those the right reasons, Father?"

Marcus let that stand because he could not do anything else.

The brother gave him the mercy of not answering.

He said: "I am saying yes. That is the answer. Drink your tea."

Marcus picked up the cup.

He drank.

Caleb watched his father’s hands stop shaking around the cup.

The brother turned to Caleb.

"Brother."

"Yeah."

"I want one thing from you. Not for the chamber. For after. I want you to take the logbook home with you tonight. I want you to read it before Day Sixteen. I want you to know what our great-grandfather thought he was doing, and what he wrote down about it, and what he did not write down. The not-written-down is the part I have spent ten days working out. I have made notes in the margins. I want you to read them. I want you to know what is in my head before we are in the chamber. If the chamber goes wrong, the logbook stays. The notes stay. You will be able to keep reading them. I want you to." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"I’ll read it."

"Tonight," the brother said, and his hand stayed on the logbook.

"Tonight."

"Good."

He picked up the logbook and closed it with both hands.

He handed it across the bed. Caleb took it, and the logbook was heavier than it seemed.

They sat with the tea for another twenty minutes.

Nobody said anything important. Marcus talked about a meal he had eaten in two thousand seven that he had been thinking about for a week. The brother described the soup Tali had brought him at lunch. Iris told a story about a dog she had owned at twenty-two. Caleb laughed at one of Iris’s lines and did not remember laughing until after he had done it.

The brother did not eat. He held the empty fourth cup in his lap and turned it once between his hands.

At twenty-two-twelve, Marcus stood up.

"Tomorrow is Day Fifteen. We are coming back here tomorrow night to move you to staging. On Day Sixteen, we will take you to the chamber together. Tali will be with you for the next twenty-four hours. She is staying. She has not slept in this building since Day Two. You will tell her if you need anything."

"I will, Father."

Marcus walked to the bed.

He put his hand on the brother’s head, palm flat, fingers spread, like he had done when the brother was three years old and asleep on a couch in a house Caleb did not remember.

He left his hand there until the brother’s breathing settled under it.

He took it away.

"I’ll see you tomorrow night, son."

"I’ll be here."

Marcus walked to the door. Iris stood up. Caleb stayed seated. The brother turned toward him.

"Stay another minute. Just you."

Marcus and Iris left.

Caleb stayed in the chair at the foot of the bed.

The brother kept his attention on him.

"Don’t be sad for him yet. He has not earned it yet. He is still doing the work. Be sad for him on Day Seventeen if there is one. Not tonight."

"Okay."

"Brother."

"Yeah."

"If I do not come back from the chamber, tell Mom what I said. Don’t tell her what Father said. Tell her what I said. The yes. The reasons. The part about Day Seventeen. Tell her the part about wanting one of us alive for her on Day Seventeen. That part is for her. She will know what to do with it."

"I’ll tell her."

"Thank you."

He held out his hand, and Caleb took it.

The brother’s hand was warm. The piece in his chest was warm. The silver in Caleb’s ribs warmed in answer.

The two pieces talked to each other across the bed without using words.

The brother let go first.

He picked up the empty teacup again.

He turned it once between his hands.

He said: "Go read the logbook. I’ll see you tomorrow."

Caleb stood up. He took the logbook. He went to the door. At the door he glanced back.

The brother was facing the window that did not open, smiling a little, small and crooked, the first expression in the room that did not belong to pain. Caleb left before the room could make him say something stupid.

In the car back to the safe house, Iris drove.

The first ten minutes passed without speech.

At the third stoplight she said: "You’re going to read the logbook tonight."

"Yes."

"All of it."

"Yes."

"I’ll put the kettle on. You’ll need the tea."

She did.

Caleb read the logbook by the lamp in the living room of the safe house from twenty-three-twelve until oh-four-forty-six in the morning, and he did not stop once except to refill the teacup his brother had handed to him in his head every time he turned a page.