"On thing you must understand about undiluted Shadowplay, Ms. Frost," Shockwave finds the sensation of his thoughts splintering; the fissures around the insulating layers of complete personality rewrite widening and his own image begins to split like a double exposure and taken on a more masculine but worn shape, "Is that I'm not broken. They've simply robbed me of anything worth breaking."

It wasn't a no.

Slumped in his chair, Shockwave finds looking Emma in the face increasingly difficult with eyes lighter in color, paler like thinning ice wreathed in furrows of wrinkles and bruise purple shadows. Something in him has shook loose for him to drop the guarded manifestation of his psyche.

"I won't stop you," He says distantly, "But you won't like what you'll find."