He was stuck on the bottom of the Yongding.

No matter how much he moved or flailed, his right side wouldn't budge. Something was trapping him, pinning him to the bottom with the weight of an entire sunken ship. He jerked his hip for momentum, but only his pelvis and torso moved.

He was going to die.

It was a cruel twist of fate to survive a fall from the Haifo Bridge, only to get dragged to the bottom by the current of the angry river.

But it didn't matter. He couldn't hold his breath anymore.

Thorne tried one last time to swim away with all his might from whatever was holding on to him, felt something dislocate, and finally gave up.

"Do you think he's going to rip out a wire again?"

"It's Thorne. Do you even need to ask?"

Thorne blinked as laughter filled his ears. He was startled when he had to squint profusely. The brightness of his surroundings overwhelmed his sensations so much that he felt tears fill his eyes. Was he in some sort of afterlife?

He let this thought sink in. He had no pain at all. That was awesome. Definitely a pro. But he couldn't see very well, and his entire body felt like dead weight. But he could wiggle the toes of his left leg, and his left hand moved, only—was it tied down?

What sort of afterlife was this?

"He's awake."

"Wolf?" he said, but came out more like "Unf?" His throat was parched.

"Move aside," said another voice he vaguely recognized. It didn't bring him warm and fuzzy feelings the same way hearing Wolf's voice had, and for a moment he thought he might actually be in some sort of hell where the Lunars he'd captured had taken him captive.

"Agent T," said the same voice, this time crisp. "Stop panicking. You are alive and safe."

"Dim the light, he obviously can't see what's going on." Kai.

The blinding light went out and soon a comforting darkness filled his closed eyelids. He dared to blink…and blink…and blink.

And found himself staring at the bespectacled face of none other than Dr. Erland.

He groaned.

He wasn't dead at all. It was much, much worse. He was being interrogated by Dr. Erland in his creepy lab with his creepy tools and his creepy grins.

Kai was right. The man was a sick sadist.

"Could use a better view," he said, leaning his head back and rolling his tired eyes. "And you might want to consider using a different method of torture. I feel totally fine." Except that he had clearly blacked out and couldn't remember how he got here and half his body was destroyed. Dr. Erland didn't need to know that though.

Dr. Erland snorted, which was an unattractive sound coming from him.

Behind him, Jacin laughed. "Agent T thinks you're interrogating him."

"Thorne, you're fine," said Kai, making Thorne look up skeptically. Kai wouldn't lie to him. "Well, not really fine, but…" He trailed off, avoiding eye contact, and ran a hand through his long hair. Thorne studied his face. Kai had the face of someone who had just woken up the day after a hard mission—dark circles under his eyes and hair unusually wild.

Thorne wrinkled his brow. His head was the only thing that seemed to be functioning freely. "Kai? What—I mean—" Thorne's eyes popped. "Elanora is a traitor! She somehow set this up! And I—I—wait—where's Cress?"

Thorne felt a new rush of panic as Kai stuffed his hands his pockets uncertainly. "Dr. Erland?" he said, gesturing at Thorne.

"It's better not to skirt around the issue," said Dr. Erland seriously. "You have been in suspension for nearly two months. When your vitals stabilized, we operated immediately. Then we put you back in suspension temporarily to make the transition less painful. You are now a cyborg, Agent T."

Thorne drew back, wetting his lips, then looked at his body. He was covered in crinkly hospital paper—a gown of some sort. He could only see a glimpse of metal near where his fingertips were supposed to be. He tried to move them.

Nothing happened. It was like he didn't have fingers.

"Aces," he said, a sudden fear seizing him. He tried to move his head to look down in the direction of his lap. "Do I still have…um…?"

The guys groaned collectively.

"Your reproductive organs are quite intact," said Dr. Erland, his eyes trailing to the same spot where Thorne was looking.

Thorne wished he hadn't asked.

"The damage, however, was severe. It took multiple surgeries to get everything right, especially with the condition of your shoulder. The stab wounds were so deep that nearly everything connected to it was severed by the time we were able to intervene. You have cybernetic parts from your right pectoral through your fingertips. Your leg might have been salvaged had we been able to reconstruct it sooner, but as you were shot closer to your thigh, either the wound or the impact with the water severed several major arteries. The rest of your limb was replaced as well." Thorne gaped at him in horror, but Dr. Erland continued as if he were just talking about the weather. "It will take some time for you to adjust to these changes. You may find that your balance is off initially."

"Balance?" said Thorne angrily, his mind catching up with the doctor's words. "Balance! You're talking about balance? Guess what, genius? I can't even feel the right side of my body. Only my hip and abs move. You better put me down for another surgery and call a real doctor."

Looking highly affronted, Dr. Erland backed away and muttered something to his team.

"Back me up, guys!" said Thorne, but his voice cracked. He swallowed and wished someone would bring him some water. "And why am I strapped down on my left?" There, he could feel the bindings cutting into him as he squirmed around.

Jacin and Wolf came to the other side of his bed. There was no denying it anymore, even though Thorne wanted to. He was in a bed in MiB's medical clinic. And he, Agent T, was a dysfunctional cyborg lying in one of its beds—the kind reserved for agents that were so badly injured on the job they couldn't go home.

Two months in a suspension tank.

"You regained consciousness a few days ago," said Wolf. "But you moved around too much and ripped out one of your wires. They had to perform another surgery to reconnect it." He exchanged a look with the guys.

Jacin smirked. "You're tied down so you won't mess up your limbs again."

"We must start out on the proper foot," said Dr. Erland, not bothering to conceal his amused smile.

"That's a terrible pun right now," said Thorne. "My foot isn't working."

"It is not supposed to work yet. Now that you are awake we can begin to program your new limbs. This will take time, unless you want a control panel installed in your brain to do the work for you."

"Untie me."

Dr. Eland hesitated.

"Untie me now," Thorne growled.

"Very well," said Dr. Erland.

When Thorne's left side was free, he turned to lift up the paper-gown-thingy and scowled at the four of them. "Give a man some privacy."

They left the room quickly, telling him to press a button by his bed if he needed any help. With a cringe, he lifted the crinkly paper and began to examine his body.

Despite the masterful work and clearly expensive titanium MiB had afforded him, he realized quickly that he didn't have the stomach for this yet, vomited violently, and blacked out.

When Thorne had taken time to process his new status as a cyborg and the implications of it (read to him in a report by a somber-voiced Dr. Erland), requested some additional features (who wouldn't want hidden guns and GB's?), and denied an MiB psychologist (as if he needed therapy!), his team finally came back into the room.

He had too many questions on his mind about Sybil Mira and what else had happened since his encounter with her on the Haifo Bridge. But his mind was already overloaded with the new state of his body, which Dr. Erland had asked the surgeon to turn on. They were heavy as lead as he sat up. The grim faces of his teammates did not encourage him either.

"Give it to me straight, Jacin," he said. "Kai and Wolf will sugarcoat it."

"What do you want to know?"

"Just the essentials. Is Cress safe? Did you catch Elanora? Is Sybil dead? Is the Amplifier still in MiB possession?"

Jacin brushed a lock of blond hair off his forehead. "We destroyed the Amplifier. After what happened on the bridge, Rikan and Torin decided it wasn't worth keeping anymore."

"I gave Cress the Amplifier. She didn't steal it. I did."

"We know," said Kai, but Thorne shot him a look that silenced him. He gestured at Jacin to continue.

"And yes, we caught Elanora," he said, curling his lip. "Took about a month and a lot of collaboration with MiB Australia. She was a mole. If we hadn't been working on a big case like Sybil's, someone might have noticed that all of her information was falsified. We've tightened up security since—"

"You need to take a refresher course in technology, Thorne!" said Kai, cutting off Jacin with an angry huff. "You had complete access to all her files at your apartment! You saw them."

Thorne frowned. "You have surveillance at my apartment?"

"No," said Kai, exasperated. "You do!"

"And you watched it?"

Wolf cleared his throat. "We had to, buddy. Trying to piece together all of the missing links wasn't easy with you in a box."

"It was painful for everyone involved," said Jacin dryly.

"Shut up."

Jacin smirked and waited until Thorne threw up one hand in surrender and told him to go on.

"As for Cress…" Jacin paused. "It was tricky. With everything that had happened from the time Sybil kidnapped her to you going rogue, we had to assume the worst when we got to the bridge and she had the Amplifier."

Thorne's heart dropped into his stomach. "You didn't?"

"No," said Kai quickly, "she's alive."

"But it was messy," said Wolf.

Thorne, who hadn't realized that he'd sat up so straight in the bed, relaxed against the cushions and let out a long breath.

Jacin said, "We didn't realize that she was trying to help you. We got there and saw Sybil stabbing you and then all of a sudden Sybil was stabbing herself and Cress took down one of her henchmen and then agents weren't able to shoot anymore. You got up, walking around like a zombie, and Elanora was shouting that Cress was controlling you, and by the state of your wounds it was clear she was. Cress wouldn't drop her glamour so the backup agents in the second hover shot her. Protocol."

Thorne sucked in a breath.

"It was a clean shot." Kai held up his hands, as if asking Thorne for forgiveness. "Only a flesh wound, Thorne. Enough to break her concentration and drop the glamour until we could subdue her."

"We didn't realize she was trying to help you," Wolf repeated apologetically. "Until Elanora pushed you off the bridge and all hell broke loose."

The three of them all looked embarrassed.

"But she had the Amplifier," said Thorne. "She should have been able to control everyone, including the hover."

Jacin shrugged. "We were wrong about the Amplifier. We've only seen it used in the hands of extremely powerful Lunars. Cress is barely average, at best, and she hadn't used her glamour properly in a long time because of our regulations"—he exchanged another sheepish look with the guys—"so she was out of practice. As the name suggests, the Amplifier only amplifies the user's powers. She barely had enough strength with it to try to get you help, let alone control everyone else."

"But she's okay? She survived the shot, you said."

Thorne tried to imagine Cress on the Haifo Bridge, facing Kai, Wolf, Jacin, Elanora, and any other agents who he hadn't seen show up. He saw her tear-stained face, her dirtied blue dress. The one he'd loved. He imagined her silhouetted against the moonlight, eyes closed, putting all of her energy into the Amplifier. To save him.

The voice in his head had been her glamour.

"Another hover took her, Sybil and the other two men to MiB headquarters. Everyone else focused on finding you and Elanora."

"What was I stuck to in the river?"

Jacin raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"In the river, I got pushed to the bottom and was drowning because I was stuck to something."

"No you weren't," said Jacin, frowning.

"You were tossed around by the river pretty badly," said Kai, "but we got you downstream. You were floating in the water like a dead man."

"Huh." Thorne let his head fall against the pillow.

"Once you were in the tank, the Amplifier was destroyed, and search teams were out looking for Elanora. We interrogated Cress and then we put her in an MiB cell."

Thorne's jaw dropped open, then he glared at Jacin. "Excuse me?"

He shrugged again. "She used glamour illegally."

"Because I told her to! An agent of the MiB!"

"You were suspended."

"She didn't know that!" Now Thorne imagined Cress in her blue dress, still, but this time behind bars, lonely and cold and sad and wishing she'd never met him.

"Okay, let's all calm down a minute," said Wolf, putting a hand on Jacin's shoulder. "She was only in jail for a little while until we figured out what was going on. We've gotten to know Cress since then. We like her. She's a sweet girl."

"She's—" Thorne stopped, ready to defend Cress, then realized he didn't need to. He pressed his lips together.

"She came by often to see you while you were in the suspension tank," said Kai, finally breaking into a gentle smile.

Thorne didn't return it.

"She still cares about you."

Looking down at his right side, Thorne shook his head. "She shouldn't."

Jacin snorted. "Because you're a cyborg now?"

"Because I almost got her killed. I was blasé about the rules and just took what I wanted. She's Lunar and I'm an Earthen agent, remember?"

Cress always deserved better than a cad like me.

"You're still suspended, by the way," said Jacin, nonplussed.

Kai groaned. "That was full of tact."

"What? He said not to sugarcoat anything."

Thorne closed his eyes. "How long am I suspended?"

"Rikan said six months and then probation for at least a year," said Kai, grimacing. "But it's better than jail or getting kicked off MiB entirely. I think the review board was lenient because you helped us catch Sybil Mira. Plus, we put in a good word for you."

"And two of those months are already over," said Wolf, giving him a thumbs up.

Thorne swore. "What am I supposed to do for the next four months?"

Jacin crossed his arms and looked at Thorne like he was the dumbest person on the planet. "Take some time off. Figure out how to use your limbs and become the best damn agent MiB has ever seen. You have any idea how fast you'll be able to run once you've had some training?"

"Yes," said Thorne sourly, "I'm aware of the capabilities of cyborgs."

"You're still not going to be able to beat me in a race, though," said Jacin.

"I beat you once," said Kai.

"You got lucky," Jacin huffed.

"We also got you a new apartment," said Wolf, then rushed on before Thorne could protest again. "We weren't sure how many people Elanora told about your agent pad. Of course, we assume your personal apartment hasn't been compromised. Cress hasn't see that one, has she?"

"No," said Thorne, growing exasperated. "But how should I know? Maybe she hacked into my personal records too."

"She didn't," said Jacin.

"And how would you know? You saw those netscreens! My face was on them!"

Wolf held up a hand. "We've investigated Cress thoroughly. She cooperated and gave us everything we wanted, including access to all of her hacked files. That was another reason we put her in a cell, Thorne. She did have MiB files on her person, and admitted to hacking into them illegally. But she didn't put your picture up as a screensaver. That was Elanora acting under Sybil's orders."

"She had files of me and her dressed up in matching agent clothes!" As soon as Thorne had said it aloud, he regretted it.

Kai's ears turned a slight shade of pink, and Thorne knew he shouldn't have said anything. But Kai laughed awkwardly. "Yes, that was definitely Cress. She has a bit of an…overactive imagination." He laughed again. "But her skills are unparalleled. She helped us track down Elanora. It seems that she's been wanting to become an agent since she met you."

"She could have said something."

"She didn't think you'd take her seriously. She's extremely embarrassed that you saw those pictures."

"I'll bet."

"Torin has her training to be a tech agent," said Wolf.

Thorne looked away. Cress, a tech agent? Cress, working at MiB? Cress, comm'ing field agents with information? It was too much to process.

"We thought you'd be happy about that news," said Kai.

Thorne shrugged with one shoulder.

"Do you want us to call her and let her know you're awake?"

"No."

His answer was met with silence, but he didn't make eye contact with the guys. He wanted them to leave. He wanted to be alone.

"Are you sure?" said Kai finally. "I'm sure she'd want to see you."

"It's better if Cress just forgets about me."

"Thorne…"

"I said no."

He faced the other side of the bed and said nothing until the guys left the room.

Thorne had initially felt noble at the idea of Cress getting over him, but after two months of training on his own and working with his cybernetic surgeon to perfect the connection to his new titanium limbs, he realized that it was him who needed time to get over her.

Cress had made much more of an impact on him than he'd realized, but it had taken a life-altering experience and a clean break to realize it.

Some days he wondered if he'd fallen in love with Cress.

But he couldn't go to Cress now, not after what had happened. Cress would think that he only wanted to be with her now because she was training to be an agent. Or worse, that it was because he was just a cyborg now, and didn't even have his good looks anymore to offer to anyone else.

Some days he wondered if he just missed having someone to fall asleep next to.

One evening, in a moment of weakness, he decided to walk to Cress's neighborhood. His new agent pad was on the opposite side of town now, so there was no real reason for him to be in that neighborhood anymore.

He only wanted to pass by the flower shop, for nostalgia's sake. He wasn't going to go to Cress's apartment, of course. It was mere coincidence that it was a few blocks away.

A short walk later, he was in front of her apartment. He swallowed, remembering the last time he'd dropped her off here, just wanting to get back to his own place even though she'd asked him to stay.

He was never one to dwell on the past, but he had wondered many times what might have happened if he'd said yes to her offer. Would Sybil never have been able to take Cress captive in the first place? Would he have been able to kill whoever had come to take her away?

A silhouette appeared in her dimly lit window, and Thorne jumped back, remembering where he was, who he was.

A quick pivot and he was in the shadows, knowing she wouldn't be able to see him from her angle. He waited, holding his breath, to catch a glimpse of her face. He could make out the back of her head, with her cropped hair outlined against her neck.

"Turn around, Cress," he whispered.

A second shape appeared next to her, and he saw her retreat, away from the window and towards whoever was there. The light went out shortly after.

Thorne balled up his cyborg fist, spun on his heels, and disappeared into another alley.

"That was awesome!" said Kai, slapping his shoulder. "We need to go out for celebratory drinks after all that."

Thorne grinned proudly. "Bet you didn't think I had that in me after six months off."

"Respect, man, respect," said Kai, shaking his head.

"You still didn't beat me," said Jacin smugly.

Thorne didn't even care about Jacin's quip. He was back, his flying skills were as on par as ever, and the mission had gone exactly as planned.

He was still Agent T, and he was still unstoppable.

"How's it feel to be re-instated?" said Wolf, loosening the tie around his neck. He dropped his shades in his locker and kicked it shut.

"Not quite re-instated yet," said Thorne, but it was hard to keep the cockiness out of his tone. "Gotta fly under the radar this year."

"Good luck with that," said Jacin sarcastically. He winked at Thorne though, and then threw his duffel bag over his shoulder. "Count me out for drinks, boys. Off to see Winter for the weekend."

Thorne, Kai, and Wolf whistled and teased him for a minute, then saw him off.

"Good to have you back, Thorne," said Jacin, before shutting the door to the locker room behind him.

"I'm actually pretty tired too," said Wolf. "But I'd be up for a quick snack in MiB cafeteria before I head out."

Thorne clicked his tongue. "Fine, fine, just the cafeteria for tonight. But you owe me a round of drinks later."

"After that mission, I can't help but agree."

Kai laughed, and the three of them headed out of the locker room as well. They strolled up through the winding MiB corridors, chatting excitedly about everything that had gone down. Being an agent was such a rush, and a successful mission boosted all of their egos.

They were nearly at the cafeteria when Thorne stopped abruptly at the sight of Cress rounding the corner in front of him. He planted his right leg too hard into the ground, and he could hear the audible crunch of titanium against his shoe.

MiB headquarters was huge. They weren't on the tech side of the base. He hadn't thought he'd run into her for at least a few days, and when he did, he had planned for it not be when he had just returned from a mission, hadn't showered, and was totally caught off guard.

He turned self-consciously to favor his left side. The human side.

Cress watched him with wide blue eyes, her arms cradling what looked like a stack of portscreens. Her hair was a little longer than the last time he'd seen her, just reaching her shoulders, and she was still dressed in uniform.

She looked good.

Thorne had to bite down on his tongue to keep from saying something inappropriate.

"Hey Cress," said Kai. "Can we help you with anything? You look overwhelmed."

Wolf grabbed Kai by the jacket before he could begin to walk forward. "Kai and I were just leaving. I'm sure if you need anything, Thorne can take care of you. Take care of it, I mean," he quickly corrected. Thorne cast an annoyed glance at his two team members. Wolf cleared his throat loudly. "Nice to see you, Cress."

Cress nodded at them as the two stalked off towards the cafeteria. Thorne felt rooted to the ground, paralyzed by Cress's presence and his inability to say anything interesting. The guys had told him she'd asked about him, but he'd ignored any opportunities to interact with her.

He had thought six months had been enough to rid his mind of any remaining feelings for the pretty Lunar girl with the moon tattoo. These days, she only crossed his mind while he tried to fall asleep clumsily on one side or the other—neither felt quite right with so much metal attached to him.

But now, seeing her, he wasn't prepared for the way his heart beat frantically, trying to find a way to reconcile all the emotions coursing through him.

Thorne stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Hey."

Cress studied him for an instant, her eyes a little too intense for his liking. He stared nervously at the ground. Any second now Cress would give him a haughty look and walk past him. He knew he deserved it.

Cress burst into tears.

The portscreens clattered to the ground as she rushed forward and threw her arms around him. Thorne stiffened instantly, first of shock, then of worry that she would feel metal instead of flesh. But as Cress sobbed into his shirt, Thorne slowly relaxed and let his arms—both of them—work their way around her too.

"Hey, shh, it's okay," he said. "It's okay."

"I was so worried," she said.

"Nah, I'm fine. You think a few bullets could break me?" He lifted his finger to stroke her hair, but dropped it before he could make impact. Maybe that wasn't what she wanted. Maybe she just needed to know he was alive and safe. The way he had needed to know that about her.

Cress shook her head and looked up at him through tear-stained eyes. "I'm sorry," she sniffed, taking a quick step backward. "I didn't mean to get so emotional. You know—knew—me. Sort of." She cringed and took another step back, then scrambled to pick up her portscreens.

Thorne stooped to help her. Seeing him had clearly upset her, and he didn't know how to fix it. This was why he had avoided her, he reminded himself. He was only skilled at tearing things down, not at building them up.

And yet everything inside him was screaming to take her home.

He was so messed up.

"I thought you'd at least contact me," she said, taking the last portscreen from him. "But I understand why you didn't. You have every right to think I'm a crazy stalker. I—I don't have to come down this hallway anymore, if that's where your team usually goes. And once—once I've passed training, I'll put in a request to a different MiB base." She breathed in a few more times, trying to steady herself, and managed to put on a cordial smile. "There's not much keeping me in New Beijing anyway."

Thorne was having trouble breathing properly himself, though he was much better at hiding it than she was. "No," he said quickly. What was she saying? Cress had saved him and she was the one apologizing? "Please don't do that. I don't think you're a…a stalker. I'm the one who's sorry, Cress. I should have contacted you. I needed some time to adjust to my new situation." He extended his cyborg arm, holding his palm up, making sure she got a good look at it. It was only a half lie, but she didn't need to know that he had also needed time to get over her.

Time had definitely not been enough for that, though. Now that she'd mentioned her stay in New Beijing, he found all sorts of questions wanting to burst out of him. Why had she come to New Beijing in the first place? Why did she not feel like she belonged here? Where would she go, if she decided to leave? Why had she never told him about her skills in hacking?

And most importantly, why had he never bothered to ask her these questions before?

"I'm sorry, Cress," he said again, hoping his sincerity was evident for once. "This is terribly inappropriate of me I'm sure, but you know—knew—me as well. Sort of." His mouth tilted into a half-smile at the repetition of her words. "Would you want to get a coffee with me?" he blurted, then looked away.

"Now?"

Thorne glanced up, hopeful, then his eyes snagged on the digital clock behind her on the wall. It was past eleven p.m. His first thought went to wondering why she was working so late on a Friday, and his second thought went to what she must be thinking.

Agent T only wanted to hang out with Cress late at night. He was skilled at coming over, staying a few hours, and then disappearing again. He liked to sneak around, play games, and didn't like to be seen with her in public.

An eleven p.m. "coffee" would sound suspicious to him too.

"No," he said. "It's getting late and I have to get home. I thought, perhaps, next week some time. If you want." Remembering her late night visitor, he added, "And if your boyfriend doesn't mind. We should catch up."

Cress's eyes widened. "I don't have a boyfriend."

"Oh." Thorne processed this momentarily. "In that case, how about dinner?"

A small blush spread across her neck. Stars, he loved it when she blushed. She looked like she wanted to nod, but she clutched her portscreens against her chest tighter instead. "Like…a real dinner?"

"As opposed to a fake dinner?"

"No," she said shyly, taking a step closer to him. "I meant…at a restaurant?"

Thorne laughed, relief washing over him. "Yes, at a restaurant. Your pick."

Cress considered him. "So…it's a date?" Her body language told him she didn't believe him, and it made his left palm feel sweaty.

"If you want it to be," he hedged. She didn't respond though, so he decided to throw caution to the wind and reclaim some of his Agent T swagger. "Yes, Cress, I'd like to take you on a date. I'd like all of New Beijing to see that I'm on a date with the prettiest girl I know."

"For a Lunar," she said, the blush spreading to her cheeks.

"No," he said, smiling more than he had in weeks. "For anyone."