Sarah's lab feels colder than usual. She's set up new equipment since my last visit – machines I don't recognize borrowed from universities or stolen from Church facilities. The familiar medical monitors have been supplemented with devices that look more suited to quantum physics experiments.
"Sit here," she says, patting an examination table surrounded by scanning arrays. Her professional mask is firmly in place, but I can see the tension in her movements, the way she keeps a careful distance. "And please... try to stay as human as possible during the tests."
The phrasing would be funny if it wasn't so necessary. "No promises, but I'll do my best."
She begins attaching sensors – the usual medical ones for heart rate and blood pressure, but also new ones that make my skin tingle and the darkness behind my eye stir restlessly. One machine hums at a frequency that makes my teeth ache.
"Your baseline readings are significantly different from this morning," she says, studying a display. "Body temperature is fluctuating between 95 and 101 degrees, seemingly at random. Brain activity shows patterns I've never seen before, especially in the visual cortex."
"That's not surprising." I watch the patterns flow across her screens, recognizing shapes similar to the ones I wove in the air as a child. "I see things differently now."
"How differently?"
I consider how to explain it to someone limited to normal human senses. "You know how dogs can hear frequencies we can't? It's like that, but with... everything. Colors that don't exist in our spectrum. Geometries that shouldn't be possible. Connections between things that normal physics says shouldn't be connected."
She makes notes on her tablet. "And the darkness behind your eye? Has that changed since your... episode?"
"It's more active. More aware." I touch the skin beside my left eye, feel it pulse in response. "Before, it was like looking through a window into their reality. Now it's like... like the window is getting bigger. Like sometimes the glass isn't there at all."
"That matches what I'm seeing in your cellular structure." She brings up a microscopic view of what I assume is my blood sample. "Your cells are exhibiting quantum behaviors that should be impossible in organic matter. They're literally existing in multiple states simultaneously."
"Like Schrödinger's cat?"
"More like Schrödinger's entire body." She zooms in further. "Look at this. Your DNA is... shifting. Rewriting itself in patterns that remind me of the symbols on the knife. But it's not just changing – it's changing in response to stimuli we can't detect. Like it's adapting to some kind of radiation that our instruments can't measure."
The darkness pulses, and one of her machines starts beeping frantically. "Sorry," I say, trying to rein it in. "It doesn't like being analyzed."
"It? You're personifying it now?"
"Not exactly. It's more like..." I search for words. "Like it's part of something bigger. Something that thinks in ways we can't understand."
She's quiet for a moment, studying her readings. "Tell me about the first time you remember feeling it. Not using it – just being aware of it."
"I always had it. Even as a baby, they said I would stare at things that weren't there, reach for shapes only I could see."
"But when did you first understand what it was?"
The memory surfaces – not the ceremonial demonstration I just remembered, but something earlier. Something I usually try not to think about.
"I was four," I say slowly. "Sister Anne – one of my caretakers – was reading me a bedtime story. Something normal, fairy tales. But I kept getting distracted by the way reality looked thin around her, like I could see through it to something else. I tried to show her, tried to point at the places where our world wasn't quite solid."
"What happened?"
"She got excited. Called Mother Superior. They brought me to the chapel in my pajamas and had me try to show them what I saw. That was the first time they really understood what I could do – not just see Their realm, but reach for it. Touch it."
Sarah makes more notes. "And now? What do you see when you look at me?"
I study her, letting the darkness expand just slightly. "Quantum probability clouds, I think you'd call them. Places where you're not quite solid, where other versions of you blur together. And behind that..." I stop, not wanting to frighten her more than she already is.
"Behind that what?"
"Threads. Connections. The places where reality is sewn together, and the spaces between the stitches where Something Else shows through."
One of her machines makes a sound I've never heard electronics make before – a kind of harmonious whine that sets my teeth on edge. Sarah studies the readings with a frown.
"Your brain activity just spiked across all frequencies, including some our equipment shouldn't be able to detect. And your cellular structure..." She trails off, staring at her displays.
"What about it?"
"It's like your body is trying to exist in more spatial dimensions than we have. Like it's folding through spaces that aren't there." She looks at me directly for the first time since I entered the lab. "Vesper, I don't think this is just about seeing their reality anymore. I think you're... evolving. Becoming something that can exist in both spaces at once."
The darkness pulses in what feels like agreement. "Like what my mother tried to do?"
"No, this is different. Your mother forced the connection, maintained it artificially. This is more like... natural adaptation. Your body is literally rewriting itself to accommodate your growing awareness of their dimension."
"Is it dangerous?"
"Everything about this is dangerous." She starts disconnecting sensors. "But the real question is: dangerous to whom? To you? To everyone around you? To reality itself?"
I think about how it felt in that warehouse, letting my form become something that couldn't exist in normal space. "All of the above, probably."
She's quiet for a moment, organizing her thoughts. "There's something else. The energy signature you're putting out... it's similar to readings we've detected at Church ritual sites. Not identical, but close enough that I think they're connected."
"Connected how?"
"Like they're trying to replicate what you do naturally. Their rituals, their seeding attempts – they're all artificial attempts to create the kind of quantum state you exist in naturally. But because it's forced, it's unstable. That's why most subjects die or go insane."
"And their success? The man they took tonight?"
"Based on the readings we got..." She pulls up new data. "They found a way to prepare him gradually. Expose him to their reality in small doses until his body started adapting. Not as completely as yours, but enough to survive the transformation."
The implications hit me hard. "They're learning. Getting better at it."
"Yes. But that's not what worries me most." She faces me fully. "The readings from their ritual site... they're not fading like they usually do. They're spreading. Growing. Like the barrier between dimensions is getting thinner and isn't healing itself anymore."
"The Convergence," I whisper.
"Maybe. Or maybe something worse." She starts shutting down her equipment. "Your presence seems to accelerate the effect. Just being here, just existing in this partially transformed state – you're changing the quantum structure of local reality. And after tonight's episode..."
"What?"
"The effect is stronger. Your cells aren't just adapting to their reality anymore – they're actively trying to bridge the gap between dimensions. You're becoming a walking doorway, Vesper. And I'm not sure we can close it."
I think about Mother Superior's words from so long ago: You're not different, dear one. You're evolved. Advanced. The first of what humanity will become.
"What should I do?"
Sarah's hands hesitate over her instruments. "If it were anyone else, I'd recommend immediate containment. The kind with lead walls and quantum isolation fields. But..." She sighs. "You're still our best weapon against the Church. And if James is right about the Convergence, about all of this being inevitable..."
"Then containing me won't matter."
"Exactly." She starts packing up her samples. "I'll need to run more tests. Monitor how fast you're changing, try to predict what you might become. But Vesper?" She meets my eyes. "Be careful with your power. Every time you use it, every time you let that other reality touch ours, you're not just changing yourself. You're changing everything around you."
I slide off the examination table, feeling the weight of new knowledge settle onto my shoulders. "I'll try. But Sarah... what if I can't stop it? What if this transformation is just... what I'm meant to be?"
"Then we'd better hope that what you become is friendly to humanity." She tries to smile but doesn't quite manage it. "Because at the rate you're evolving, you might be the next step in human development. Or the last one."
I leave her with her tests and theories, her machines that try to quantify the unquantifiable. The darkness behind my eye pulses with something that might be satisfaction or might be hunger.
In my pocket, my phone buzzes. A text from James: Church is excited about tonight's success. Planning something bigger. Need to meet.
Always something bigger. Always another step toward whatever apocalypse they're trying to create. Or maybe, if Sarah's right, toward whatever apocalypse I'm becoming.
I head for the roof, needing air that hasn't been processed through laboratory filters. Needing to think about what it means to be evolving into something else, something that might not be human at all.
The darkness pulses, and for a moment I swear I can hear Mother Superior's voice: The first of what humanity will become.
I just wish I knew if that was a promise or a threat.