A standalone short story in the Syntax universe.
An assassin has come to Tower 072, and no one can keep him from his target.
Only minutes from escape, he suffers a violent seizure, collapsing in a service corridor.
A lonely surveillance operator becomes the only person in the building to see him fall. Antho is no murderer, but in watching the killer stumble he recognizes something that links them together.
When he rescues the assassin in secret, he finds the monster on his screen is only a young man, cursed with the effects of a trauma as outsized as his deadly skill—and somehow linked to the stirring of a terrifying power. Unable to walk away, Antho makes a choice that could cost them both their lives:
He takes the assassin home.
Revised Second Edition