WILLA

"Not bad," Willa admits. "Not bad at all."

You bow. "Delighted to remake your acquaintance, Dr. Bray."

"Likewise. I'm sorry about the amnesia, but Grandpa's work always comes with some nightmarish drawback. At least you're not grunting and tearing your own limbs off."

You don't understand. "Should I be?"

"Our father did."

You feel love and frustration when you look at this small, dark-skinned woman, and those feelings say "big sister" in your heart.

"Hey," you offer, "maybe when Grandpa loses his memory, it'll make him a little less…"

She smiles. "Like himself?"

"Yeah." You laugh. "I guess you've known him longer than me now. Actually, I guess you always have."

"Wiping the old man's memory won't change him. He wouldn't do it if it would." Willa beckons you closer to her lab bench. A projection shows tiny machines, interlocked like bricks. "This is SIVA. My latest project. A general-purpose viral nanite to render all prior cytomachines obsolete."

You flinch. The tiny things make you think of Vex.

"Easy." Willa pats your arm awkwardly. You realize that she is afraid of you. "If you'd waited a few years, you could've used SIVA to repair your brain. Even let it transform your whole body. That's my plan, I think. Immortality my own way. I could be anything I want."

"Ew," you say. "Sounds like being made out of bugs."

She grimaces. "You realize that if Grandpa never dies, we'll never run BrayTech? We had plans, Elsie. Our plans. Not his."