ã€ŠSunset Volume 2: High Noonã€‹


 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 1.

    Las Vegas, NV.

    He Reads that what has happened is called a 34. First, Alex feels the pain.

    Deep in the Story, he lives the experience of Hannah¡¯s head, lolling and heavy, on her neck. She feels blood dripping down her cheek from a gash in her right temple and a deep stabbing pain in her side. There is glass in it from the broken window. She is crying but doesn¡¯t realize it, as her vision begins to tunnel.

    There is something lodged in Gareth¡¯s stomach. Metal, maybe, or some shard of thick plastic from the crumpled door. Alex feels it work its way deeper as Gareth moves, wrestling free of the crush. His body is emptying itself, blood soaking his shirt. Alex feels the pain of bruising already starting on Gareth¡¯s face and chest. Gareth is dizzy and scared. He knows what has happened, but has lost his words.

    Alex doesn¡¯t want to relive the impact, his own shoulder hitting the door, ripping from its socket, but he does. He doesn¡¯t have a choice. Just seconds before, he¡¯d had his left arm thrown around the headrest, twisting to face the backseat, making some stupid sarcastic joke that made Hannah laugh. Now he flinches, knowing that arm is no longer held in place by anything but skin. It is at once searing and blunt. He watches as he cries out, but not because of his shoulder. He cries out because of Reeve.

    There was only a small scattering of glass on the black pavement, spread like diamonds across a night sky. Alex eased himself into a squat, mindful of his arm sitting in the makeshift sling they¡¯d crafted from the jacket Gareth had been wearing. He lightly dusted his fingers across the ground as the glass crackled beneath his sneakers. It was getting dark and the street was empty. All other evidence of what had happened had been hauled away by the time they got back to try to trace where they¡¯d taken Reeve. He touched the pavement. There was still so much Story to sift through, but Alex pushed.

    There is a man and his daughter walking back to their hotel. They are startled when a spray of glass hits them just enough to sting. Then they are sickened, and then terrified when they see the body, limp and dragging. In a few moments, they won¡¯t know what they saw, all of it wiped from their minds by the man in the black face covering.

    Alex sinks deeper. The man¡¯s black mask is hot over his chin and mouth, sticking to his face as he concentrates on reading thoughts like grains of sand beneath his skin. He counts them, picking out the ones that need erasing and grinding them to nothing. Alex lives in his careful method, which he uses to ensure no one remembers anything that had just happened. He is not here for them. He is from the aftermath. Alex turns the page back.

    Another man in black. This one from the car in front of them. The man¡¯s name is Kyle. Alex can feel a familiar ache in Kyle¡¯s neck, in his knees. He suffered the impact as well¡ªthey all had. There¡¯s only so much one can do in a 34, even with all the preparation.

    Alex feels the impact on the other two, also masked in black. Her back muscles seizing up, the scrape burning on her forehead. And the other over there. Alex threads through the stinging in that one¡¯s neck that tells him he¡¯ll soon be feeling the impact of whiplash. They do their job anyway. Alex doesn¡¯t want to care about them, but he can feel their pain and the adrenaline pumping through their hearts. It¡¯s shocking to him that they¡¯re afraid, even if it¡¯s just a little. You don¡¯t think about Neptune agents ever feeling fear, but they do. For themselves, but much of it, surprisingly, for Alex. He isn¡¯t supposed to be there. There was no approval for the shadow. Reeve had bent the rules.

    This isn¡¯t what he¡¯s looking for.

    Alex heaved a frustrated sigh, limbs heavy and aching as he explored the Story. He was light-headed from the painkillers Gareth had dug out of his go-bag, hastily snatched from the battered and bent car before the ensuing onslaught of police, ambulances, and apparently a Sol Cleanup team. They managed to get out of there in time, Gareth carrying Hannah while Alex limped behind, until they¡¯d found a public restroom to duck into until she woke up. By now, Neptune would have erased all record of it ever having happened, so it didn¡¯t much matter. That¡¯s why it was okay that they were back there, searching. Gareth had done his best to patch Alex and Hannah up, but it was a small first-aid kit, and there was only so much he could do in the limited window of time they could spare.

    The drugs made Alex¡¯s knack harder to control than it usually would be. There were so many details rushing at him so fast, and he didn¡¯t have time for this. He felt Hannah lightly touch his shoulder and faintly heard her voice saying, ¡°Anything?¡± But he couldn¡¯t answer her yet. He tried to shake his head or shrug or something, but he wasn¡¯t sure if it worked. He delved in deeper, working hard to focus.

    Reeve¡¯s mind is silent, disconnected from his own for the first time in a while. It makes Alex realize just how deeply ingrained his presence is in his head, and as he tries to shake that feeling of emptiness from his shoulders, he can see Reeve¡¯s limp form, lolling against the seat belt, head resting on the window of the driver¡¯s side door which is spider-webbed with cracks. There, in the Story, Alex can also feel, somewhere in the deepest parts of himself, the blank darkness that is Reeve. His consciousness has slipped from him. He is suspended in that colorless space that happens just before sleep. Not quite black. Alex re-lives his own panic as he registers the blood pooling on Reeve¡¯s once-crisp white collar, plastering his fine hair to his face.

    He feels the car jostle as one of the Neptune agents¡ªKyle¡ªjumps onto the hood. Alex can feel the ache in his knees as he does this. It¡¯s woven into the Story. His own bones throb with the sudden jerking motion of the car and he grits his teeth, biting back tears. He relives the struggle of trying to free himself but the seatbelt is painfully clinging to a gash on his chest and he can¡¯t seem to maneuver his way out. One of his arms is completely useless, a heavy weight holding him back.

    Alex hears the bang and crash of metal on glass as Kyle¡¯s crowbar shatters a hole through the windshield. Seeing it again, Alex feels his heart about to pound through his chest and he struggles for breath. Kyle rapidly widens the hole. His movements are efficient and practiced. Once it¡¯s big enough, he reaches through to cut Reeve¡¯s seatbelt and Reeve slumps over onto the steering wheel. The horn blares fitfully as Kyle drags his body out onto the hood of the car and down to the pavement. Alex watches, helpless, as Reeve is dragged across the jagged glass, a horrible sound against the metal of the hood. There is blood on the steering wheel which, only moments before, must have bruised Reeve¡¯s ribs. He watches as Reeve is hauled away. He re-lives the moment that his vision went white with fear.

    This is my fault, Alex thought to himself, as he took a step to the side, following the path Kyle had taken. Just one step and Alex has gone from inside the car to out, and in that transition, he feels the weight of Reeve¡¯s body, heavy and limp, in Kyle¡¯s grip. He calls out to his teammate, ¡°Allie, get over here. He¡¯s heavier than he looks!¡±

    Alex is startled by the fear he can feel even in Kyle. 34s are a risky maneuver. One they only break out for dangerous targets like telepaths. Kyle is replaying the crash in his mind, lining up the timing. One car in front of the target, one car behind. Slam the brakes in the front and gun the car in the back to cause a pileup that pins the target in the middle, open to attack at an intersection. They¡¯d done well. By the book. The Icarus was an easy hit in the driver¡¯s seat, clear shot. Kyle replays in his mind the moment Allie floored her gas in their third car, ramming into the target¡¯s side, forming a T, like an arrow hitting a bull¡¯s eye. Three cars, and then four.

    Alex flinches, stomach dropping like a stone in a lake, at someone referring to Reeve as an Icarus.

    The woman comes running from the car that had t-boned them, and takes Reeve¡¯s body from him, heaving him over her shoulder effortlessly, despite her tiny stature. Reeve is barely the weight of an empty knapsack to her. This is difficult for Alex, feeling Reeve¡¯s weightlessness. Reeve is too important to be reduced to single-digit pounds. It sharpens his anger into a knife.

    He sees Kyle slip a black hood over Reeve¡¯s head and cuff his hands together. Then he sees Allie walk south, sees Reeve¡¯s body bouncing, weightless, with every step she takes. Sees his blood drip onto the sidewalk. Sees the man with the whiplash, the one who¡¯d rear-ended them scant moments before, follow. His name is Fitz. Alex feels him Reach with his own mind and breathe into the blood and footprints on the sidewalk and turn them to smoke, sublimate them into the air.

    ¡°¡­don¡¯t know, he just started moving, so I¡¯m following him.¡± Hannah¡¯s voice barely poked through into Alex¡¯s consciousness. ¡°Yeah.¡± There was a pause. Then, ¡°Well, down the street. A few blocks.¡± Pause for two or three beats. ¡°Right, um. Hang on. Let me see.¡± She gripped Alex¡¯s uninjured shoulder tightly, stopping him. He looked up at her through the haze, realizing she was cradling her cell phone in the crook of her neck. ¡°Stop for a minute,¡± she said. It took Alex a moment to realize she was talking to him this time. ¡°Just a minute.¡±

    Hannah jogged a few feet to the end of the block, obviously working to hide the limp in her gait. Alex saw her look up at the street sign and say something into her phone as she walked back to where he stood. ¡°Right,¡± she said into the phone. ¡°Yep, by the Pharmacy on the corner. We¡¯ll wait for you there.¡±

    Alex shook his head noat her. But she had already hung up the phone.

    ¡°Listen,¡± Hannah said, ¡°We can¡¯t go wandering on our own before Gareth gets back. He¡¯ll meet us in a moment.¡±

    Alex hadn¡¯t even realized they¡¯d split up. He tried to shake the fog of painkillers and the Story from himself, slowly working his jaw until he could get his lips moving. When he did, they were heavy, slurring. ¡°Can¡¯t. They took him that way.¡± He pointed with his good arm. ¡°There¡¯s a fourth car. She¡¯s heading to a car.¡±

    Hannah nodded, ¡°Yes, and that Memory will still be there in five minutes when Gareth gets back.¡±

    ¡°But Reeve might not be!¡± Alex said. A man in a green coat sitting on a park bench across the street looked over. He was loud and the two of them were a sight. ¡°Shit.¡± He lowered his voice, ¡°They have him in a car, and I don¡¯t know where they¡¯re taking him yet. They have a head start on us by who knows how long. What time is it? It¡¯s probably been hours. We can¡¯t spare five seconds, let alone five minutes.¡±

    ¡°Alex, I want to find Reeve as much as you do, but it¡¯s almost 7:00; the sun has almost set. It¡¯s been hours. We can¡¯t catch up with them tonight. Not in this condition, not without a car, not without money. Wait for Gareth to catch up. He went to get us some cash, and some more first-aid supplies.¡± Alex recognized the tone in her voice. She was trying to make herself sound more confident and calm than she felt. She didn¡¯t want to wait either. After a moment, she said, ¡°We won¡¯t let them kill him.¡±

    ¡°Unless they already have,¡± Alex said.

    ¡°Shut up. Don¡¯t say that.¡± Hannah brushed her hair out of her face, and Alex could see that blood had soaked through the gauze bandage on her forehead. He was worried she was concussed. ¡°He¡¯s alive.¡±

    Alex nodded. He wanted it to be true, but he was scared. ¡°Fine.¡± He slumped down to sit on the curb, cradling his arm in the sling. ¡°Five minutes.¡±

    He heard Hannah carefully ease herself down next to him. She said, ¡°We¡¯ll find him. We¡¯re good, and this is what you were built for.¡±

    Alex didn¡¯t answer that, just looked across the street. The man in the green coat had gone back to reading some sort of leaflet. Alex reached out to his Story, following the chain from the curb, which connected to the street, connected to the curb across the way, connected to the park bench, connected to the man. Alex reached the fingers of his mind into that History, shoulders tense, wondering if the man was there for them.

    Hannah said, ¡°It¡¯s a pretty sunset at least.¡±

    He ignored her, concentrating.

    ¡°Fine, nevermind,¡± she said.

    The man in the green coat, Alex found out, was just a teacher who¡¯d been startled by a raised voice while burning his tongue on his coffee. Nothing more. ¡°Sorry. I thought maybe that guy was¡ª"

    ¡°I know,¡± Hannah said, ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡± She picked at the yellow-painted curb. Alex let his eyes unfocus, taking in the neon lights of the city. At least in Vegas, no one gave a shit who you were if you weren''t a high-roller in a casino. After a moment, Hannah said, ¡°Is he?¡±

    Alex shook his head noand Hannah let out a sigh of relief. He said, ¡°I felt Reeve go out, you know? It¡¯s in the Story. One minute, he was driving, and the next, he was blank. Just¡­ blank.¡± He shuddered. ¡°Why the fuck is Neptune bagging Reeve? It¡¯s gotta be some kind of mistake.¡±

    Hanna shrugged, shaking her head. Her long hair was barely tied back in a loose braid that had nearly come undone.

    ¡°No idea. But I¡¯ll tell you one thing. Neptune doesn¡¯t make mistakes.¡± Her eyes were red and wet, and the streetlights, having turned on at some point when Alex wasn¡¯t paying attention, made her skin glow with yellow light. It cast a long shadow in front of them, pouring out onto the pavement like ink.

    Alex took a breath to retort, anger flaring in his belly, but before he could say whatever it was he wasn¡¯t sure how to say, Gareth¡¯s voice interrupted from behind them. ¡°And, you¡¯re dead.¡± He laughed, but it wasn¡¯t real. He was forcing it. ¡°You guys are being lazy. Gotta be on your guard right now. Should have seen me coming.¡±

    Hannah looked up at him, tilting her head back as far as she could. He was holding a plastic bag that said ¡°Thank you¡± a bunch of times down the front in several different colors. It was weird, how cheery it looked. ¡°Nah, I felt you coming a block away,¡± she told him.

    Gareth was wearing a new black t-shirt with a colorful illustration of the strip and bold letters framing it that read, What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    She lowered her eyebrows at him. ¡°Really?¡±

    He shrugged. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I got one for each of you too. You look like you¡¯ve been in a car wreck.¡± He gestured to the bloody stain covering too much of her shirt.

    Alex grunted as he struggled to get back on his feet. His body ached and sitting down had been a bad idea. Resting meant he lost his momentum. His shoulder was a ball of fire, his legs quivering. Once he steadied himself on his feet, he said, ¡°Can we go now?¡±

    Gareth eyed him. ¡°I don¡¯t know. You tell me. Can you move? You don¡¯t look so good.¡±

    ¡°Fuck off. I¡¯m going back under. You and Hannah can come with me or you can stay here and munch painkillers.¡±

    Hannah raised her eyebrows from her seat on the ground. ¡°Jesus, Alex. He¡¯s just concerned about you.¡±

    Alex ground his jaw. ¡°I¡¯m not the one we need to be concerned with.¡±

    Hannah started to reply, but Gareth motioned for her not to. She bit it back. Gareth said, ¡°It¡¯s fine. You¡¯re okay, then we¡¯re okay. Let¡¯s do this thing, but let¡¯s do it right. You go under, we¡¯ve got your back, and once you have our direction, we regroup and plan our next steps. It¡¯s got to be a plan. We can¡¯t just go rushing in.¡±

    ¡°You think I don¡¯t know that?¡± Alex shot back.

    ¡°I think you know that plenty well, but I also think you¡¯ve got a head full of painkillers and panic.¡± Gareth dug into his bag, pulling out a box of jumbo bandages and tossing them to Alex, who gave him a puzzled look. ¡°You¡¯re bleeding again,¡± Gareth said, pointing to his collarbone.

    Alex looked down at his shirt. He remembered feeling the airbag go off and hit his chin, throwing his head back. There¡¯d been a burning sensation against his chest and neck where the seatbelt pulled and the airbag hit. His hands fumbled with the box, but he couldn¡¯t manage to get it open, his left hand useless as it was. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± he said, tossing the box to Hannah. ¡°We¡¯ll deal with it after.¡± The idea of trying to change into a new shirt with how his arm felt made him queasy.

    Gareth shrugged. ¡°Okay then. See you on the other side.¡±

    Alex closed his eyes, dropping his consciousness deep into the Story again. He felt Hannah¡¯s hands somewhere back in the present, gently bracing his back, and heard her whisper, ¡°Be careful. I¡¯ve got you,¡± and then he wasn¡¯t there anymore.

    There is a boy¡ªsmall, maybe six years old¡ªcrying. He¡¯s dropped his ice cream cone. It¡¯s mid-day. His mother is chastising him. This isn¡¯t the Memory he¡¯s looking for. He shifts the layers around, turning them like so many pages.

    ¡°Fuck, Alex, don¡¯t make it too easy on us over here!¡± Hannah said, as she barely managed to catch him from toppling over when he stumbled on the curb, wandering into the street. He didn¡¯t notice.

    He is in the passenger seat of a police car, along for the ride. The blare of the siren is piercing in his ears, and the flashing blue lights are overwhelming. One of them is talking into the receiver, telling them they¡¯re responding to the crash just reported. Closer. Alex realizes that in the present, his body is walking with the trail of the police car, as though it is moving in slow-motion, but it¡¯s going the wrong way. He doesn¡¯t need to go back to the crash. He needs to move forward.

    He feels Hannah guide him back to the sidewalk, hears a car move past them. He turns the page.

    Allie is thinking to herself, Shit, I hope he isn¡¯t dead, and Alex knows this is the one. His eyes adjust to this new moment in time, the ghosts becoming more solid, Allie and Reeve supplanting the cops that would turn down this street just a few minutes from now. She is strong, unnaturally so. It¡¯s not that she made Reeve lighter, it¡¯s that she¡¯s Strong. It''s her knack.

    She is clear now, walking past where he stands. Reeve hangs over her slim shoulders, unconscious or worse. Alex bites through the nausea and runs to keep up with them. His shoulder throbs in its sling. He can vaguely feel Hannah¡¯s presence behind him, trying to keep up. He barely notices the pain in his legs as he moves.

    The hood obscuring Reeve¡¯s face looks wet as it bounces with Allie¡¯s steps. That dampness terrifies Alex. It¡¯s eerie, like some alien thing has taken the place of Reeve¡¯s head.

    Alex reaches out with his good arm and takes hold of one of Reeve¡¯s cuffed hands. He doesn¡¯t often do this, interact with the Story, not because it makes a lick of difference¡ªit doesn¡¯t¡ªbut because it feels wrong. It feels cold and ghostly and like a magnet of the same polarity as himself. But this time, he can¡¯t resist. He takes hold of Reeve¡¯s hand briefly before passing through the image. He thinks to himself, please, please, please.

    They walk for what feels like miles, but Alex knows this is only because the Memory is playing slowly for him, and perhaps because of the pain. Kyle and Fitz are a few steps behind. Those are the names of Reeve¡¯s captors. Allie. Kyle. Fitz. Alex burns them into his memory. He is trying so, so hard to Reach into Reeve¡¯s body¡¯s Story, to see if he¡¯s still alive, but he can¡¯t. Maybe he¡¯s too afraid. Perhaps if Allie knew for certain one way or the other but she doesn¡¯t know. She is scared, too. She¡¯s got a job to do.

    They need him alive, though, and she wonders if she¡¯d hit too hard. She hates 34s. Too much gas, and it¡¯s all over. They need him alive, and that gives Alex some hope.

    Alex¡¯s feet ache. Or maybe Allie¡¯s do. He can¡¯t really tell anymore. He knows he¡¯s getting in too deep but he has no choice. Just as it feels like he couldn¡¯t take another step, they stop. There is a car waiting for them, a fourth team member in the driver¡¯s seat. He¡¯s a big man, with reddish hair and a thin nose. Allie stops as Fitz opens the trunk. He watches as she unceremoniously drops Reeve into the inevitable black bag in their trunk, zips it shut, and gets in the car with the others.

    Hannah kept her hand on Alex¡¯s back, following when he took a step back into the road, looking back at Gareth. ¡°Watch the traffic,¡± she said.

    Gareth nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll do what I can, but pull him back if you need to.¡±

    He takes a step forward to get in the car with them. He sits in the middle seat in the back, watching and listening. Once in the car, Fitz takes off his balaclava and says, ¡°He¡¯s gonna need some tending. Looked like he took a good blow to the head from the impact.¡± Alex is surprised at what a kind face Fitz has. His boyish, curly hair a mousy brown.

    The man in the driver¡¯s seat¡ªhis name is Harvey, Alex Reads¡ªsays, ¡°I¡¯ll get to it when we get there. You guys okay?¡±

    Kyle nods, saying, ¡°I¡¯ve felt better. I think we¡¯re all going to need a bit of tending.¡± He makes no move to remove his mask.

    Alex¡¯s breath catches in his throat as he watches Harvey type coordinates into his phone. Strains to see what he¡¯s typing, but Allie¡¯s shoulder is in the way. She is shaking out her short black hair after peeling back her mask. Swearing under his breath, Alex shifts his position, works to get a hold of this Page and turn it back.

    He tastes salt and realizes he is crying, wonders how long that¡¯s been happening. His head is scrambled¡ªthe drugs are finally starting to wear off, but the pain is setting in now, eating into his ability to concentrate in a different way. The Page is almost within his grasp, but it wavers. He is struggling to stay in the Story, but he can hear the buzz of traffic around him, can hear Gareth re-directing it and the complaints of horns. He needs to hurry. He needs to ignore those sounds. He reaches out his fingers one last time, straining, crying, sweating, and they brush through the ghost of Kyle¡¯s shoulder. This man who pulled Reeve from the car like a sack of rice. His anger flares, but he refuses to let it blind him. The Page turns back.

    He is in the front seat with Allie now. ¡°I¡¯ve felt better. I think we¡¯re all going to need a bit of tending,¡± Kyle says from the back, again. Alex looks to his left. Harvey is typing in coordinates. He can¡¯t make sense of them. Allie doesn¡¯t know the code. Shit. Try again. Don¡¯t miss this time, Alex, he thinks to himself. Don¡¯t fucking miss.

    Hannah¡¯s voice was a faint buzz in the back of his mind, saying, ¡°We need to bring him back out. He¡¯s too deep.¡± He starts to feel her tug at his arm. He is becoming too Aware, and he dives as deeply into the threads of this History as he can, maybe more deeply than he ever has before. His fear of getting stuck has been replaced by his fear of losing Reeve. He knows this might be a mistake, but he doesn¡¯t care.

    He struggles to move his arm away from Hannah while staying in the Weave. His head aches as he reaches tendrils of his mind and of his gut (which is as much a part of memory as anything) into the Story. He dissolves himself. This is new for him. He¡¯s never been this far in. Alex is used to the Memory being filled with ghosts, but now he is the ghost. He looks down at his hands, but doesn¡¯t see them and he knows now that he can do it one more time. Fast, faster than anything, which makes everything he¡¯s watching run slower, and the light is different, like it¡¯s suspended in thick gel. He blinks, slowly, so slowly. Time has stopped. He¡¯s not breathing.

    He turns back the Page.

    ¡°I think we¡¯re all going to need a bit of tending.¡± The echo from behind him re-plays in Kyle¡¯s deep voice. Alex is sitting in the driver¡¯s seat, wearing Harvey¡¯s Image like a skin. Like a ghost possessing a body. OH-4N and KK872. He knows what this means because Harvey knows what this means.

    Alex closes his eyes. He is too tired to drag himself back out of those depths. He can feel the lightest touch, like the brush of still wind against warm skin. He is moving. He can tell because that History fades. Now, he is seeing the formation of rock and sediment, worms and earth of the land beneath him. It¡¯s mesmerizing. Deeper and older than he¡¯s ever explored. It feels like forever. A comfortable forever. He¡¯s stopped crying.

    ---

    Entropy Residential Housing. Paris, France.

    ¡°Hey, has anyone seen my dad?¡± Wyatt called down the nearly empty hallway of the apartment building they owned, but no one responded. It felt like a slightly childish thing to call for a sixteen-year-old, but if his dad wasn¡¯t going to take his calls, what other option did he have? They were supposed to be getting breakfast together and if that didn¡¯t happen, fine, but Wyatt wasn¡¯t about to get blamed for missing it.

    He tried knocking on his dad¡¯s apartment door again, the largest penthouse suite, but there was no response. He frowned and started toward the stairwell. His dad liked to keep the top floor pretty empty, so he figured he¡¯d have better luck on a lower level.

    On the stairs Wyatt passed Eric, a wind manip with a wicked temper. ¡°Have you seen my dad?¡± he asked, switching to English instead of French and slowing to a stop. Eric narrowed his eyes at him impatiently and he saw his lip twitch in what could have been a suppression of a sneer. Being the boss¡¯ kid afforded Wyatt a level of protection other Entropy agents didn¡¯t have, but not necessarily a high level of respect.

    ¡°No,¡± he muttered and kept moving.

    Surrounded by people his father had elevated and chosen, Wyatt felt average at best. He even looked average, with short, dark brown hair and thick brows that looked heavy on his pale skin. Continuing on, Wyatt wandered down the halls of the fourth floor. There was a young woman living there that his dad would occasionally have up to his place. Sara smiled warmly at him when she opened the door, but hadn¡¯t seen his dad in a couple of days. Wyatt sighed and figured he¡¯d make his way toward the ground level and take himself to breakfast if their plans had been forgotten. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time.

    A group of several people he didn¡¯t recognize walked by. A couple of them looked emaciated and wide-eyed, marking them as newly promoted to permanent, dedicated housing. They always had that look about them after the warehouses. It would fade. ¡°Hey, anyone seen my dad?¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s your dad?¡± A man with a gregarious expression asked with a thick Balkan accent.

    ¡°Marcus Adler.¡±

    At least one of the thin ones flinched at the name and Wyatt swallowed. He never got used to it.

    ¡°He was headed for the second floor,¡± the man answered, his face gone stern.

    ¡°Thanks.¡± It felt awkward, so he jogged down the stairs, hoping he could catch up with him. Wyatt couldn¡¯t remember when that had really begun. His dad had only been in a minor leadership role when Wyatt was born and he remembered a wider, more sociable group of his father¡¯s friends being around when Wyatt was nine or ten, but at some point, he¡¯d vaulted up in the ranks and people who had never even met him were suddenly afraid of his name. It wasn¡¯t like Wyatt didn¡¯t know that there had always been reasons that Marcus Adler had made people afraid, but it wasn¡¯t directed at him until a few years ago.

    The second floor hallway was congested with people milling around, speaking in hushed tones. Wyatt followed their sideways glances to room 204. The door was left open and he went inside.

    A deep charnel smell hit him, halting him in his tracks.

    ¡°Might as well come all the way in.¡± His dad¡¯s voice was pitched to carry from some room out of sight. He followed it to the bedroom, taking as shallow breaths as possible.

    The body on the bed was almost unrecognizable as human anymore and Wyatt fought not to gag. The skin and flesh had been eaten down to bone.

    Adler was there, staring at it with an annoyed look on his face. They didn¡¯t resemble each other all that much except for the thin shape of their noses and round chin. Beside his own darker coloring and messy bedhead, his father had sky blue eyes and his hair was wheat blonde, longer on top and combed back. Even their voices didn¡¯t match. Wyatt¡¯s accent held a hint of Adler¡¯s strong British cadence, but he mostly had his mother¡¯s French inflections and he¡¯d spent more of his life in Paris than not.

    His dad sighed and shoved his phone back into the pocket of his suit pants. ¡°I don¡¯t know why they can¡¯t keep this shit to the hardwood floors or tile. I¡¯ve told them enough times. That is never getting clean.¡±

    ¡°Who is it?¡± Wyatt croaked, taking a step back. Was it?

    Adler scratched his head. ¡°Well, it¡¯s Ronnie¡¯s room, so we¡¯re just gonna have to assume it¡¯s him until he shows up somewhere. I didn¡¯t forget breakfast¡ª¡±

    Wyatt groaned and averted his eyes from the bed. ¡°Can we not talk about food right now?¡±

    ¡°But,¡± his dad continued at a slightly raised tone that lifted the hair on Wyatt¡¯s arms, ¡°I have to head out instead. They need me at the Kyiv office.¡±

    ¡°Can I come?¡± He hadn¡¯t been yet and was curious what it was like.

    ¡°No; while I¡¯m gone, you¡¯re in charge.¡±

    Against his instincts, he looked back at Adler. ¡°What do you mean? What do I do?¡±

    Adler cocked his head with an unamused smile. ¡°I can¡¯t hold your hand forever.¡±

    There was no worse-kept secret in Entropy than Adler¡¯s disappointment in how his son had turned out. Wyatt was too soft, too squeamish, too timid, and Adler regarded his negation power as practically useless. Wyatt had heard it questioned, in hushed tones and not-so-hushed tones, if he was even Adler¡¯s biological son at all. For his part, Adler didn¡¯t tolerate that kind of conjecture, and not because of his boundless trust of Wyatt¡¯s mom. Adler was a telepath, one of the strongest to ever live, some people said. It¡¯s not as though his mother could have kept an affair from him.

    ¡°When are you leaving?¡± Wyatt asked, reaching deep for his resolve.

    ¡°Now. You can call me if you need anything, and if I don¡¯t pick up, just wait until Gideon is awake and ask him.¡±

    Wyatt swallowed. That wasn¡¯t going to happen. Gideon was the one person in Entropy that Adler answered to and he was one of them, so calling him a ¡°person¡± was on the generous side, even though Wyatt knew he wasn¡¯t supposed to think like that.

    Adler made his way over to him and squeezed his shoulder. ¡°Just keep the wheels on the tracks. Worst case, just repeat the phrase, ¡®Why are you making this my problem?¡¯ That should kick people into gear.¡±

    He nodded. The softer tone in his voice caught Wyatt off guard and made him want to lean into his father¡¯s hand, even though he knew intellectually that it wouldn¡¯t last. It was just another tool in Adler¡¯s belt. Wyatt swallowed and guarded his thoughts. ¡°Okay.¡±

    ¡°Good, I¡¯ll be back in a week. Get this cleaned up.¡±

    Wyatt followed him out of the apartment. ¡°Why are you making this my problem?¡±

    ¡°Very funny,¡± his dad replied dryly. He pointed to a woman standing in one of the groups, Evelyn, an older Italian woman who wasn¡¯t Wyatt¡¯s biggest fan. ¡°Her.¡±

    Wyatt grit his teeth. Whining or arguing wouldn¡¯t help him when his dad took that tone. Nothing would. He walked over to Evelyn and nodded back to the apartment. ¡°I need you to clean that up.¡±

    She chuckled at him and glanced at the people she was clustered up with before turning back to Wyatt. ¡°Why don¡¯t you do it?¡±

    He held his ground. ¡°Because I¡¯ve told you to.¡±

    The disdain dripped from her. ¡°No.¡±

    Being Adler¡¯s kid afforded him some safety, but it wasn¡¯t like anyone was about to kiss up to him. Adler didn¡¯t care about Wyatt¡¯s opinions of people anyway.

    Wyatt, came his father¡¯s warning in his head. He was taking too long.

    ¡°I could hurt you and no one would touch me,¡± Wyatt forced out. It sounded shakier than he wanted.

    She raised her wrinkled brow at him. ¡°Okay,¡± she nodded, full of condescension, and turned around to walk away.

    Wyatt stood, mouth half open not sure of what to do.

    Do it.

    No, he thought back, she¡¯s old.

    Do it or I will make you, and it will be so much worse.

    Wyatt felt his core begin to shake. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time his father had used his telepathy to make him do something he didn¡¯t want to do and it wouldn¡¯t be the last, but still it hurt. Feeling ill, Wyatt marched up behind Evelyn and hooked her ankle, sending her flat on her face in front of a suddenly very silent hallway.

    ¡°Clean it,¡± he barked. His voice broke on the volume but he got the words out.

    She was slow to push herself up and it took all his willpower not to help her. She was old. Finally, she stood and nodded to him, mouth a little bloody.

    Good. You¡¯re getting better.

    Wyatt clenched his fists. It was the last thing he wanted¡ªbut that wasn¡¯t true. He could have refused and faced whatever consequences Adler could think of. And thatwas the last thing he wanted.

    Wyatt went back up to his apartment and didn¡¯t leave for the rest of the day.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 2.

    Las Vegas, NV.

    ¡°Gareth, what if we can¡¯t get to him? Reeve always does this part. I¡¯m getting really worried,¡± Hannah said, her voice a boom cracking through the silence. Alex flinched, jerking his arm from her grip before howling in pain. He couldn¡¯t comprehend how his arm was still injured. It felt like he¡¯d been gone for weeks, living the lives of beetles, the slow degradation of stones into dirt.

    ¡°Oh my god, Alex! I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯m sorry, please be okay. There were too many cars coming. We had to move you. We¡¯ve been walking for an hour,¡± Hannah said.

    Alex blinked up at her, uncomprehending. He couldn¡¯t see her. His eyes stung. Sometimes, when he was in the Story, he forgot to blink often enough. His mouth was slack, but he couldn¡¯t get it to straighten out or do what he wanted it to do.

    ¡°Alex. Come on. Don¡¯t do this, don¡¯t get stuck. You¡¯re almost there. I know you are. I don¡¯t know how to help you.¡± Her voice had taken on a whine to it, the one that happened when she was frustrated and wasn¡¯t paying attention. She was hurt, and tired, and scared. She put one hand on his cheek. He struggled to blink, and once he did, struggled to open his unseeing eyes again. ¡°Did you find it? Did you find out where they took him?¡± She shook his shoulders and he winced.

    Gareth¡¯s voice interrupted. Alex could feel his breath against his face¡ªhe¡¯d have stooped low to be level with Alex¡¯s shorter height. ¡°Come on, kid. I know you¡¯re in there. Look, take my hand. Step out of the Story you don¡¯t know and into one you do. You know the one. We¡¯ve used it before.¡± Alex felt Gareth take hold of his hand.

    A memory presses in around the quiet Story of the earth. Alex knows this one. He¡¯s seen it before, a thousand times. He knows it as though he were there when it happened. Gareth is young. Maybe six years old or so. He is sitting on his parents¡¯ porch¡ªa white-painted wrap-around porch surrounded by flowers. It¡¯s summer. The air is warm and fragrant. Alex sits down next to Gareth on the steps of the porch. He is solid again. Relieved, he watches the sway of the leaves on the trees scattered in their yard. Gareth is playing with a toy car. It looks tiny, even in his small hands. It is Gareth¡¯s favorite one¡ªred with a streak of blue across the doors. Alex watches, for the thousandth time, as Gareth rolls the wheels across the boards of the floor, listens to the now-familiar rattle of tin against wood as the wheels bounce across the space between boards. He counts. Three beats. He knows the rhythm. Gareth¡¯s mother¡¯s voice calls from inside, asking if he wants lemonade. Her voice is sweet. The toy car feels warm in Gareth¡¯s hand. Alex breathes in the summer air.

    The scene replays.

    When Alex opened his eyes, it was dark, but the kind of dark he could see. The Story he¡¯d been living in took place under a bright sun, but suddenly, he felt blinded. Before he could get his bearings, he noticed they were walking. He was holding Gareth¡¯s hand as he and Hannah guided him down the street. He didn¡¯t know where they were. He wondered how many times he¡¯d watched that Memory replay before coming to. Night had solidly fallen.

    ¡°Where are we?¡± he asked, voice dry and cracking.

    Gareth stopped walking. Hannah took a few moments to register that Alex had snapped back to the here and now, but once she did, she scrambled back to where they stood.

    ¡°You okay?¡± Gareth said.

    Alex nodded. ¡°Yeah.¡± He cleared his throat of the rasp. ¡°I am now. Thank you. Where are we?¡±

    ¡°I got us a room at the motel down the street,¡± Hannah said. ¡°We¡¯re heading there now. Figured we¡¯d walked you around town enough for one night and I¡¯m really starting to hurt.¡± She chewed her lip, hesitating, but she didn¡¯t break eye-contact with him. ¡°Did you find it? The location?¡±

    Alex cleared his throat again, as though he hadn¡¯t spoken in years. ¡°I have coordinates.¡±

    ---

    SolCorp Pharmaceutical¡¯s Chicago Office. Uranus Department.

    Marek hesitated before knocking on the door of the head of Chicago¡¯s Uranus department. It had been his office only five years ago and his life had gone in a thousand different crazy directions since then. He knocked.

    ¡°Come in,¡± came a familiar voice. So he went in.

    Emmett¡¯s startled expression as he looked up from the desk was gratifying. ¡°Hi, old friend,¡± Marek grinned.

    Emmett was an empath¡ªa little younger than Marek, but not by much. He had blue eyes and blond hair that looked soft enough to sleep in¡ªhe was deceptively sweet looking. He was not an imposing man, until you looked him in the eye; he had a fierce pride and passion for his work. He was wearing joggers and a sweatshirt that would have looked cozy, if not for the words See you in Hell emblazoned on the front.

    Despite the confrontational vibe his shirt projected, the office had been redecorated from Marek¡¯s more playful, rag-tag, ¡®I don¡¯t know, I just like it,¡¯ style of decor to something that could have been pulled from a magazine. It was cozy and warm, which, admittedly, was the other, equally prominent side of Emmett¡¯s personality. He was like a switchblade that smelled like fresh baked cookies. And Marek loved that about him.

    ¡°When did you get into Chicago?¡± Emmett asked, as he made his way around his desk.

    ¡°Literally thirty seconds ago.¡± He grinned and Emmett hugged him tight. They hadn¡¯t seen each other in over a year¡ªnot since Marek¡¯s last visit for work.

    Emmett leaned back with a genuine smile on his face. ¡°Congratulations on the promotion. How¡¯s it feel?¡±

    ¡°Wild,¡± Marek admitted. He helped himself to one of Emmett¡¯s exquisitely cozy-looking chairs and Emmett followed his lead. ¡°But Nancy is happily ensconced in her little beach house on the coast of Maine and she left me in charge for some reason. I asked her if she was having a stroke, but apparently not.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, they should have given her psych eval before making that decision,¡± Emmett grinned.

    ¡°How are things here?¡±

    ¡°Things are good. I finally managed to strong-arm the budget into that energy-saving overhaul throughout the whole building.¡±

    Marek blinked. ¡°You¡¯re a god. How did you do it?¡± Marek had fought for that project as head of the Chicago branch and gotten exactly nowhere, but that was very like Emmett. He was a force to reckon with when he wanted something. He made things happen and wasn''t afraid to go around or above (or below) someone to do it. For some reason, it was always the empaths you needed to watch out for.

    He shrugged and glanced at the ceiling. ¡°Stopped repairing anything in the Jupiter offices and apartments. The work tickets just kept falling in the shredder for some reason.¡±

    Marek shook his head at him in something like awe with a sprinkling of terror. ¡°I don¡¯t know how you do it.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know how you do it,¡± Emmett countered. ¡°Head of Chicago¡¯s Uranus to head of all Uranus in five years ain¡¯t bad.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m here actually.¡± Marek leaned forward. ¡°I¡¯ve got a vacancy to fill. I want you to come to LA with me.¡±

    There was a smirk forming but he could see Emmett was holding it back. ¡°As your Second?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he said, deflating a little. He would if he could. ¡°Second is going to the current Third, Becca. As much as our personalities don¡¯t particularly mesh, she¡¯s earned it. And she¡¯s been in LA her whole career, so the building knows her. I can¡¯t have it looking like Chicago is staging a coup on the Uranus headquarters.¡±

    The smirk broke through. ¡°What if we were, though?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m serious. I want you to come handle Physical Plant as Third. It¡¯s what you¡¯re best at, anyway, and I wouldn¡¯t want to trust it to anyone else.¡±

    ¡°If I did, does that mean I¡¯ll have your job in five years? If we¡¯re following the pattern.¡±

    Marek couldn¡¯t help but chuckle. ¡°Technically, that would mean Becca would have my job in five years.¡±

    ¡°Try me.¡± Emmett crossed his legs and sat back. ¡°Is the culture among the departments the same in LA as it is here?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure what you mean.¡±

    ¡°I mean how other departments view us. That Uranus is the catch-all for people who couldn¡¯t make it into the ¡®elite¡¯ departments.¡± He rolled his eyes and gestured with air quotes on the word elite. ¡°That we¡¯re plumbers and janitors, as if that¡¯s a bad thing, and they all look down on us because we don¡¯t work in the field, even though we¡¯re the reason they have food to eat and running water in the apartments we furnished.¡±

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    ¡°Ah.¡± Marek sighed. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s everywhere.¡±

    Uranus wasn¡¯t flashy. It wasn¡¯t the noble calling of teaching children or thrill of covert spy work. Infrastructure wasn¡¯t sexy but it allowed for everyone else to exist and do their jobs, and that was what Marek loved about it. Uranus was huge, bigger than most people realized, and touched every department in Sol¡ªfood, HVAC, IT, housing, you name it. And Emmett was the only person Marek knew who was even more passionate about Uranus than he was.

    Emmett nodded, considering his answer. ¡°So what have you done to change that culture during your time in LA?¡±

    Marek raised his eyebrows. ¡°Are you interviewing me for your promotion?¡±

    ¡°What would you say if I was?¡± he asked, cocking his head.

    Marek sighed. ¡°LA is pretty set in their ways, but I¡¯ve made some headway in making Uranus a little more casual, a little more friendly¡ªand less silent. Less something that¡¯s only ever behind the scenes. I¡¯ve got the Uranus Pet Program going, which Pluto says has had a significant impact on mental health. You¡¯d be running that. Baguette is the official, unofficial mascot,¡± he grinned.

    ¡°And that¡¯s great and all¡­¡± He paused and wrinkled his brow. ¡°Baguette is a helluva weird name for a dog or even a cat.¡±

    ¡°Well, sure,¡± Marek rolled his eyes with an effort to keep a straight face as he showed the picture of Baguette set as his cellphone background. ¡°She¡¯s my hamster.¡±

    Emmett was less impressed than was appropriate. ¡°Marek.¡±

    ¡°Listen, you¡¯re going to take the job because we both know you want it.¡±

    He smiled finally. ¡°Yeah, of course, I¡¯m going to take it. I don¡¯t know how Becca¡¯s been running things, but I¡¯m going to run it my way, and LA¡¯s just going to have to deal with it.¡±

    ¡°Why do you think I¡¯m asking you?¡±

    ¡°Alright.¡± Emmett stood up and stretched. ¡°When do you need me in LA?¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°Five years ago, but now will do.¡±

    ¡°Then I should get packing.¡±

    ---

    Las Vegas, NV.

    Reeve felt himself drowning. He opened his mouth to gasp, but his throat was clogged and his lungs were useless sacks. He forced his eyes open to look for the surface and saw a light yellow patterned quilt so close it took up his whole field of vision. The color and stitching were unexpectedly more terrifying than any watery landscape he had prepared himself for. Facedown on a bed, he tried to flail but found his limbs unresponsive and hogtied. He coughed, chest spasming. His skull and mouth were so full of the minds around him that he couldn¡¯t begin to translate them. They were blurred and unintelligible like text on a page held too close to the eye. The minds felt all but inhuman. A movement to his left made him startle. An agent in all black impersonally checked his restraints. The image of him looked surreal, fake even. That a person could stand next to him without Reeve knowing he was coming or being able to sense his thoughts at all was alien.

    He slowly turned his head, cheek dragging on the quilt, to look at the agent. He knew he had to be drugged somehow. He fought to ground himself and climb back down from the abstract. Black MOLLE vest and black tactical armor. Neptune. The car. Sluggishly wrenching at his bonds, Reeve rolled and craned his neck, searching the room for Gareth, Hannah, and Alex, horrified that they might be close by without him being able to feel them. They weren¡¯t, or at least they weren¡¯t visible. He gathered he was either in a cheap hotel room or a nice, but barely lived-in, studio apartment. There were three Neptune agents he could see. They were still in their gear, but had pulled down their half-balaclavas. The closest agent put a firm hand on the back of his neck and pressed him back down flat onto the mattress. He sucked in another breath, feeling the blanket contour around his teeth.

    ¡°Hey, you want me to hit him with another five mgs?¡±

    The hand pinning him maintained a painful grip on the point where his neck met the base of his skull. Reeve tried to reach out with telepathy, but it was as if there was nothing for him to latch onto. In his mind, he executed the steps he would take to gain control of the agent, but the only thing he felt was an indiscriminate crushing blur. His mouth was still open and the quilt, wet with spit, was bellowing in and out of his mouth with each breath. It turned his stomach and he let himself go limp.

    ¡°No,¡± another agent called. ¡°We need him conscious.¡±

    The hand relaxed. ¡°I¡¯d feel better if we just black-bagged him and let the Reintegration team sort his head out.¡±

    Reeve heard footsteps. More hands turned him onto his back. The movement and overhead lighting made his eyes feel squashed and misshapen. His back bowed with the hogtie and his wrists were trapped under him painfully.

    ¡°Yeah, you and me both, but HQ doesn¡¯t even want him alive long enough to get that close to the building. He doesn¡¯t look like that much.¡± A backlit figure loomed above him. Fingers grasped his jaw, moving his face back and forth. ¡°Are you with us, 37A?¡± Reeve wanted to yell. He managed a short groan.

    ¡°Just check his head already.¡±

    A voice from the far end of the room answered, ¡°Between the concussion and this much sedation, his mind¡¯s such a mess I couldn¡¯t find out his favorite color, let alone if his team¡¯s been indoctrinated. I have to wait for him to recover and find the right dosage.¡±

    Indoctrinated?

    ¡°How long?¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t say. After the hit he took, might be hours. He needs to be drugged enough to not resist me, but clear enough that I¡¯m not wading through mud in there.¡±

    Hands slapped at Reeve¡¯s cheeks. ¡°Hey. Come on, 37A. We¡¯re losing him again.¡±

    Reeve was dreaming.

    ---

    The motel room was dingier than Hannah would have expected, even from Vegas, but she couldn¡¯t help thinking that it was the comfiest bed she¡¯d ever felt. She hadn¡¯t realized how tired her body was. She propped herself up on her pillow as she watched Alex sit down on the other bed and Gareth poke through the contents of his go-bag.

    ¡°One gun, enough bullets that they¡¯ll do, and your razors,¡± Gareth said, glancing at Hannah. ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯ve got. The rest is still in the car. Or with Neptune, probably.

    Hannah frowned. ¡°My baby,¡± she said sadly, referring to her sniper rifle, which had been packed away hidden in a trunk compartment for the mission that had brought them to Vegas.

    Gareth said, ¡°So what¡¯s the plan?¡±

    For a few minutes, they all sat there in a stupor. Alex got back up and started pacing. She could feel his anxiety growing. She said, ¡°Alex, please settle. Take a minute. We¡¯ll figure it out.¡± He stopped and sat on the threadbare chair by the window.

    Gareth said, ¡°If we go rescue him, we¡¯re burning our bridges with Sol. You both realize that, right?¡±

    Alex nodded, his face set. ¡°I don¡¯t give a fuck. Reeve is the one who gave me a life. Sol can suck it. Whatever he did, it can¡¯t have been that bad, right? I mean, we would have known about it, wouldn¡¯t we?¡±

    Gareth shrugged. ¡°I want to believe that, but¡­ He¡¯s a telepath.¡±

    Alex¡¯s face flushed with anger. ¡°There is no way he did anything that bad, and you fucking know it.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not saying I¡¯m for ditching him, but I¡¯m saying we need to be realistic.¡±

    Hannah said, ¡°Maybe we can work it out with the company after we get him back. They can Reintegrate him or something.¡±

    Gareth shook his head. ¡°If we go get him back from a Neptune team, we¡¯re disobeying Sol, straight up. If we were hoping to work something out, we¡¯d have contacted Neptune by now and requested a meeting or something, or stayed to wait for the Cleanup team, but we didn¡¯t. Do you want to call Neptune?¡±

    Hannah thought for a moment, picking at her nails.

    ¡°No,¡± Alex said. He gestured to Hannah. ¡°It¡¯s like you said earlier¡ªNeptune doesn¡¯t make mistakes. They won¡¯t listen. That¡¯s not how Neptune works.¡±

    Hannah nodded, almost imperceptibly.

    Alex continued, ¡°So the question is, do you two love Reeve enough to stand by him anyway?¡±

    It felt like the air was sucked from the room. Hannah and Gareth exchanged a look, before nodding to one another. They were doing this.

    ¡°Okay, so what do we know?¡± Alex said, reaching to remember things he''d learned from tactics lessons and all the time Reeve had spent showing him how to plan missions. ¡°They have a telepath, a sublimator, a strongwoman, and someone else whose knack I didn¡¯t Read. So that¡¯s great. Always good to have an unknown, you know, just to keep things interesting.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± Gareth said as he was checking the gun. ¡°You got us a lot of intel. Knacks, a location, and you said they wanted him alive, right? So we have a little bit of time on our side.¡±

    Alex replied, ¡°Not too much time, though¡ªI have no idea how long they¡¯re planning to stay.¡±

    Hannah shrugged. ¡°They¡¯re feeling that crash too, for sure. I¡¯m not saying we should dick around for a week, but we have to assume we have enough time to make ourselves effective.¡±

    Alex repeated, ¡°So what¡¯s the plan?¡±

    Hannah knit her eyebrows. ¡°Well, I would say we barge in and let Reeve¡¯s telepathy cover us, but the prick went and got himself in trouble.¡± She chewed her lip. ¡°I hate how dependent we¡¯ve gotten on his knack.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll worry about that later,¡± Gareth said. He and Hannah tossed some ideas back and forth for several minutes, but they were just talking in circles without getting much of anywhere.

    Alex hushed them from his seat by the window. His face was thoughtful and tense, eyes darting back and forth as he sorted through his thoughts.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Hannah asked.

    ¡°Shut up, I¡¯m thinking,¡± Alex said. ¡°I might¡­¡±

    ¡°Might what?¡± Hannah said.

    ¡°Shut up, I might have an idea but I need to focus.¡±

    She huffed and crossed her arms, staring up at the ceiling. She could hear Gareth packing things back up into the bag.

    After a few moments, Alex said, ¡°Gareth, how confident are you that you can wall your mind off against a Neptune telepath?¡± He hesitated for a moment and then pressed on, ¡°I know you have practice.¡±

    Gareth balked for just a split second, but it was enough that Hannah could tell some painful memories flashed in his mind. But then he said, ¡°Pretty damn confident. What do you have in mind?¡±

    Alex said, ¡°We don¡¯t have much of a choice but to barge in. There¡¯s no getting around it. So we split up, create a distraction, and you go in. You can shield your mind better than any of us, and I¡¯m good at projecting my thoughts. I¡¯m useless with this arm anyway,¡± he gestured to his sling in frustration, ¡°I think I can draw the telepath out at least, and give you a fighting chance.¡±

    Gareth made a sound of protest as Hannah sat up. ¡°Oh, hell no. You are not going to go out there to lure in a fucking Neptune telepath while you¡¯re wounded. We don¡¯t even know why they¡¯re doing this!¡±

    Alex put up his good hand and cut her off, ¡°They¡¯re supposed to bring in Reeve alive. They didn¡¯t take any of us. I¡¯m not eighteen until the day after tomorrow, so they¡¯d have to keep me alive on technicality anyway, right? Plus, I haven¡¯t done anything wrong. Then again, it¡¯s possible that neither did Reeve, right?¡±

    Gareth shrugged. ¡°Who the fuck knows.¡±

    Alex sighed. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter right now. Fact is, if we¡¯re doing this, and I sure as hell am, we have to get moving. We need to be on this ASAP, as in like ten hours ago, and neither of you seem to have any better ideas.¡±

    Hannah slumped back down. ¡°So how are you going to distract them?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll find some spot nearby and I¡¯ll project my thoughts. Something lame about being scared because I woke up in the car and you two were gone and I just want to find my way back to Sol. It won¡¯t be hard to sell the scared part, at least, and it¡¯ll keep me safer if I sound like I want to go back.¡±

    ¡°So what¡¯s my role in this then?¡± Hannah asked.

    Alex said, ¡°You go with Gareth to get Reeve. That¡¯s the more dangerous part.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Gareth said. ¡°They¡¯ll be sending a telepath out to get you and bring you back to Sol. If you want to stick this out, we can¡¯t risk that. Hannah will go with you.¡±

    Alex shook his head. ¡°If she does, that kind of goes against the point of me projecting that I¡¯m alone and want to go back.¡±

    ¡°If we can check the area out beforehand, I can find a spot to watch from a distance. Take them out before they get to you.¡± She nodded to Gareth. ¡°If you think you can handle it unarmed and you trust me to make it work with this dinky ass gun.¡±

    Gareth looked at his hands, clenching them into fists in his lap. ¡°I can do it.¡±

    ¡°This is a terrible idea,¡± Hannah said.

    ¡°When do we leave?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°Dawn,¡± Hannah replied firmly. ¡°We¡¯ll need the light.¡±

    Alex shook his head. ¡°I can¡¯t sit up all night just waiting for the sun to rise.¡±

    ¡°So lay down,¡± Hannah said.

    Gareth stood. ¡°I¡¯m going to go get us a car. We can find the place and stake it out until morning.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 3.

    SolCorp Pharmaceutical¡¯s Kyiv, Ukraine Office.

    ¡°Not exactly what you expected, huh?¡±

    Anise raised an eyebrow at Nina, the woman in charge of her Kyiv orientation and, she assumed, her new mentor. ¡°Not exactly.¡±

    Anise del Sol hadn¡¯t known what to expect from the Kyiv Academy pilot program, but to be fair, she hadn¡¯t known what to expect from anything at all. She¡¯d never been outside of LAHQ, and even there, she had been restricted to the Academy wing and Atrium. Nothing in her studies had prepared her for the look of the ground on her first plane ride. The tiny dollhouse structures, the eerie slow motion cars, and heaviness in her chest as they took off and landed.

    She had been worried she¡¯d be too afraid of the crowds, the noise, the endless crush of unfamiliar minds, but it felt good. It felt like the challenge she¡¯d been waiting for. Still, she¡¯d figured there would at least be a measure of familiarity, despite the office being less than a quarter of the size of LAHQ. There wasn¡¯t.

    Anise had been in Kyiv for eight hours and they¡¯d let her sleep for the first seven of them. It was her first time having jet lag, after all.

    She watched Nina sip her tea. They were sitting in the Kyiv cafeteria, which was really just a long room packed with tables and a buffet station at one end¡ªa far cry from the Atrium. She had short, auburn-dyed hair and lipstick to match. Nina was wearing street clothes and Anise couldn¡¯t see a visible badge, which should have been there to verify her identity and display her department.

    ¡°So you¡¯ll be my new mentor?¡± she asked. ¡°They never said.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Nina said, setting down her tea. ¡°I guess I should start there. I¡¯m here to get you oriented, and you can always call me if you have trouble or have questions, but you¡¯re not going to have a mentor.¡±

    Anise blinked and set her coffee down. ¡°I¡¯m not?¡±

    ¡°No, as of today you¡¯ve graduated, so congratulations.¡± She smiled at her.

    Anise smiled back, disarmed. ¡°Thanks. Seriously?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, they said you don¡¯t need any more schooling. You just need your Post-Breathe, so why not stick you on the payroll while you do it?¡±

    It was really the last thing she¡¯d expected. ¡°Wow. Okay. Um, Saturn?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, you¡¯ll be with us, in Saturn.¡±

    ¡°Oh thank god,¡± she breathed.

    ¡°Of course. You¡¯re the prodigy, right?¡±

    She shrugged one shoulder. ¡°I just want it more than others.¡± She tried to keep her tone casual, but she was a step closer to what she¡¯d been dreaming about her whole life, and she could have done a dance around the little dining hall. Instead, she swallowed it and tried to stay professionally on task. ¡°So the room they gave me isn¡¯t a dorm?¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s just agent housing. We don¡¯t really have dorm space, so students will just be mixed in with everyone.¡±

    ¡°So, when can I start?¡± She grinned widely. She couldn¡¯t help it.

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m going to get you set up to start learning some admin stuff for now. The Post-Breathe process can be long, so we aren¡¯t going to schedule you full-time yet.¡±

    ¡°Alright, but are you gonna kick me out if I¡¯m there full-time anyway?¡±

    Nina laughed and then sombered suddenly, looking over Anise¡¯s shoulder. She turned and saw a man walking toward them. She sat up straighter and then stood when he reached their table, taking her cues from Nina.

    The man was tall, in his late forties she guessed, and wore a well-tailored suit. His golden-blonde hair was styled and his light eyes had a spark to them that could stop you in your tracks.

    ¡°You must be Anise del Sol,¡± he said with a friendly smile and extended a hand to her. He spoke with a British accent. ¡°Welcome to Kyiv.¡±

    She shook his hand. ¡°Thank you.¡± It was then that she realized with a start that the low-grade telepathic buzz she¡¯d been feeling since she arrived was emanating from him. How could a single person create that type of pressure?

    ¡°This is Mark,¡± Nina said, with a thread of nervousness running through her words. She was trying to cover it up, but it was there. ¡°He heads up the Mercury department for this branch, so he runs the show.¡±

    ¡°That I do,¡± he said, taking the seat next to Nina and looking up at them.

    They sat. She flicked a glance at Nina, who gave her nothing, but Anise could feel the gentle inspection of his telepathy around her head. The power behind it could have frozen her lungs in place if he relaxed his boundaries, but he didn¡¯t. She wanted to be like that, to have that. If she were to return the gesture with her telepathy at its full capacity, it would be like getting brushed with a feather in the middle of a hurricane by comparison, and that only fed her frustration and her hunger to be more.

    Instead, she inspected him with the rest of her training. His watch read an hour slow, so she guessed he¡¯d been in western Europe recently. From his clothing and gelled hair, she knew he cared for his appearance, and from his well-manicured hands and groomed eyebrows, she concluded that was something he cared enough about to hire professionals over.

    She considered the odd way he¡¯d approached. The way he¡¯d taken his seat was played off as casual by his tone, but it had been aggressive and quick. And he¡¯d observed the two of them as though it had been a test. He¡¯d wanted to see if they¡¯d get flustered, and that told her he valued boldness more than decorum, confidence more than obeisance. She could meet that.

    Nina cleared her throat. ¡°I was just explaining to Anise that she¡¯s going to be starting work right away instead of taking more boring math classes.¡±

    ¡°Good,¡± he replied, barely listening. He was studying her and she did her best not to shrink under his gaze. ¡°I¡¯ve gone over your file," he continued, giving her a curious look. "I know I¡¯m not in Saturn, but I¡¯d like to be involved with your telepathy training. I think between the Post-Breathe and I, we can get you far past your goal score. What do you say?¡±

    She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes slightly, letting her mouth take on a confused twist. ¡°You already know what I say.¡± With telepathic pressure like that, how could he not? He probably knew what she was going to say before she did, herself. She wanted that too.

    ¡°Good,¡± he repeated. His smile was smaller this time, truer. ¡°You just got yourself a new mentor, after all. I¡¯ll find you.¡± Pressing his palms flat on the table, he stood abruptly and left.

    Nina awkwardly stood to see him off, but Anise remained seated as she watched him walk away. After a moment, Nina sat down again.

    ¡°That¡¯s a big deal, huh?¡± Anise commented quietly.

    ¡°Yeah, it is.¡± She picked up her tea, but didn¡¯t drink it. ¡°Just proceed with caution, okay? Getting his attention is¡­ He¡¯s not someone you want to fuck around with. This isn¡¯t LA.¡±

    ¡°I can take care of myself.¡± Anise squared her shoulders. It was true, he was intimidating. But he had taken an interest in her. Maybe she wouldn¡¯t be destined for mediocrity. ¡°But do I¡ªDo I call him Mark or Mr¡­?¡±

    "We all call him Mark."

    As much as he appeared to be testing their daring, that didn''t quite match up with the impression of him she''d been able to glean. He didn¡¯t seem casual.

    "What''s his surname? Is he a gen?"

    Nina¡¯s eyes just barely flicked left and right before she wrestled her expression back to neutral. It was the briefest of seconds, but Anise had drilled those observation skills deep. Nina was uncomfortable.

    ¡°Yes,¡± she said, after a pause. ¡°He¡¯s a del Sol,¡± she clarified.

    It was an odd thing to be on edge about. She racked her brain to remember if he had been wearing his ID badge, but didn¡¯t recall him wearing one. The sea of telepathic pressure they were all swimming in shifted and her mind felt momentarily fuzzy. What had she been thinking? Badges.

    Anise shook herself out of it and turned back to Nina. ¡°When can I get a Saturn ID badge with my name on it?¡±

    She chuckled at that and shook her head. ¡°Now¡¯s as good a time as any.¡±

    Kyiv was different from LA, but maybe it could be better.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Company Housing.

    Logan made his way through the hallway on his way to Rafe and Mackenzie¡¯s quarters, trying his best to make it look completely natural. He knew it was wasted effort¡ªhis vibrant blue and yellow skin kind of negated any chance of getting by unnoticed. He paused at the door, leaning close to see if he could tell if anyone was home, then dug out his key.

    The door opened just as he¡¯d unlocked the door, making him jump. Louis cocked an eyebrow and waited for him to disentangle the key before opening the door the rest of the way.

    ¡°I could hear your heart pounding from the other room.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Logan smiled nervously as he stepped into the apartment. He hadn¡¯t counted on Louis¡¯ enhanced senses catching him.

    ¡°Who is it?¡± Mackenzie called.

    ¡°It¡¯s Logan,¡± Louis responded. Mackenzie strolled in to stand next to Louis. They were both dressed in smart suits, standard fare for the Saturn offices.

    ¡°Sorry to bother you,¡± Logan began. ¡°Rafe forgot his coffee thing. Uh, tumbler.¡± He gestured to the kitchen where he could see a black thermos on the counter.

    Mackenzie smiled warmly. ¡°The travel mug¡ªone of a set of two¡ªthat he puts together for the both of us every morning, and has for the past nine years? And never forgotten once?¡±

    Logan locked his face in what he hoped was a casual smile. ¡°Yes?¡±

    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    ¡°So he sent his Second and trusted friend, who has much more important things to do, to go fetch his coffee, and not one of the dozen administrative assistants in his office?¡±

    Logan shrugged. Why did I ever agree to this?

    Mackenzie laughed, more amused than annoyed and rested her head on Louis¡¯ shoulder while she chuckled.

    Louis flashed him a You¡¯re in for it now look, which didn¡¯t help bring his heart rate down.

    Mackenzie straightened. ¡°You have to tell him to stop trying to be covert with me. It¡¯s absurd that he thinks he can. He can¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± Louis asked, holding his eyes. It was an uncomfortable, intimidating stare¡ªLogan was sure it was part of standard Saturn training.

    He deflated. ¡°He¡¯s worried about you,¡± he told Mackenzie.

    She rolled her eyes. ¡°What else is new?¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡± Logan shook his head. ¡°But this time you lied and said you¡¯ve been in your office all week, so now he¡¯s roped me into checking to see if you were where he thinks you were.¡±

    ¡°Which is where?¡±

    ¡°Your study. With everything.¡±

    Mackenzie nodded for him to follow her into the study.

    Louis brought up the rear. ¡°At least he didn¡¯t think you were having an affair,¡± he offered.

    Mackenzie scoffed. ¡°He knows better than that.¡±

    The study wasn¡¯t torn apart the way it gets after she¡¯d used her knack, but it was clear that it wasn¡¯t all put away. There were papers split into stacks all across the floor and a tub of memory sticks next to a voice recorder.

    ¡°So yes,¡± she continued. ¡°You can tell him that I¡¯m looking.¡±

    ¡°Why didn''t you just say that? Is something wrong?¡±

    Mackenzie bit her lip. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I think so.¡± She scanned the room with its tables, piles of papers, writing desk, and wall of filing cabinets. ¡°I¡¯ve forgotten something important, but I don¡¯t know what it is.¡± She fixed her eyes on him and her voice lost a shade of its normal warmth. ¡°You know that feeling when you know you¡¯ve forgotten something but can¡¯t place what? It¡¯s like that, but so much worse. There¡¯s something in here, I hope, that can fill in what I¡¯m missing. It¡¯s important. I know it.¡±

    Logan swallowed and nodded. ¡°Can I help?¡±

    She smiled and shook her head. ¡°You don¡¯t have the clearance for this. Keep Rafe sane for me while I figure this out and I¡¯m in your debt forever.¡±

    ¡°I can try, ma''am.¡±

    ¡°Louis, walk him back to his office. And don¡¯t forget the coffee.¡±

    Louis gestured, and out they went. They were silent for a good while until Logan couldn¡¯t stand his nonjudgmental quiet.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure how I got talked into this.¡±

    Louis shrugged. ¡°You care about him. It¡¯s the same with me.¡±

    Logan turned his head. ¡°Yeah, actually, isn¡¯t her research through all that stuff normally solo? That¡¯s like one of her rules.¡±

    His brow lowered. ¡°I¡¯m mostly sorting because there¡¯s so much to go through. Just weeding the moments of a teen spilling soda on his shirt out from moments like a politician resigning suddenly.¡±

    Logan made a small sound of understanding. He really didn¡¯t have anything close to that kind of clearance.

    ¡°I normally wouldn''t,¡± he continued, ¡°I¡¯m not comfortable with it, but when she asked, she seemed scared. Like, proper scared, but trying to hide it. I think that¡¯s why she was keeping it from Rafe until she knows more.¡±

    ¡°I feel like I¡¯m not going to pass that along.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, keep that between us.¡± He gave Logan a hopeless shrug. ¡°We¡¯ll get the two of them through it. Just keep Rafe calm.¡±

    ¡°And knock off the spy stuff.¡±

    ¡°And knock off the spy stuff,¡± Louis agreed with a smile.

    ---

    Las Vegas, NV.

    Gareth clenched his fists, stretched his fingers, consciously willed his hands to relax, and then repeated the process. He felt too far away and he didn¡¯t like it. He didn¡¯t like the plan either, though he knew it made sense. But the other two were injured, isolated. Alex was goddamn bait.

    The thought crept in that the moments in which he could not count himself as a fucking fugitive were melting away. No going back. And to do it for a fucking telepath? He knew a younger version of himself would have been furious. He was more than a little furious, too, but he couldn¡¯t understand what was going on, and beyond his need to make sure Hannah and Alex were safe, Reeve was the devil he knew.

    Stop, he told himself. He needed to get his mind under control if this was going to work. He looked toward the rooftop where Hannah said she would be, and in the direction Alex had headed off to. Then he turned away. Settling on the apartment building the next street over, Gareth let his vision go soft and blurry.

    With as much as Reeve often made him want to hole himself away, Gareth hadn¡¯t used the tricks he learned in Entropy to avoid Marcus Adler¡¯s telepathy much since leaving. They really only worked when someone didn¡¯t know you were around. It wasn¡¯t going to do jack shit with Reeve in the room. It was more a method of camouflage, to hope the tiger passed by without noticing you.

    He pictured the borders of his mind stretching and thinning, the edges filtering out until they began to blend into air around him. He slowed his breathing and started quietly finding small images around him to hold in his mind like a photograph. There was a crack in the sidewalk under his feet that looked like a spiderweb. He studied it for a second and then tried to hold the visual in his mind with as much detail as possible. He held onto the mottling of the concrete and branching lines of the cracks, but soon the shape of the cracks started to degrade and look more and more artificial as his mind filled in the gaps. It was too complex of an image. He picked something else: a short tuft of grass growing in between the red-brown landscaping gravel. The rocks blurred after a moment, but he could keep the shape and color of those three blades of grass and move forward.

    Like handholds to carry him over an expanse, he grabbed small mundane snapshots, a bottle cap, a splotch of pigeon shit, a crumpled cigarette filter, and made his way within twenty feet of the apartment. There, Gareth waited and repeated the exercise, willing his heart to stop pounding.

    The front door swung open and three figures walked out. They were still in their over-dramatic black gear, so clearly designed with intimidation and function in equal measures. He hoped to hell that one of them was the telepath, because otherwise they were already hosed.

    Despite the heat, he felt goosebumps watching them walk away from the house, bracing for the shots. It began with him pleading silently, Not yet, not yet, worrying Hannah would lose her patience early and leave him with too little time to get in there. Or what if she simply had no choice, given the range of the guns she had to work with? But slowly, the thought turned into, Jesus Christ, Hannah, as time went on and on. The agents were still walking and Gareth was becoming more and more sure that her gun had jammed or the telepath had noticed her and pulped her brain, so now two Neptune agents were grabbing Alex while Gareth crouched in the bushes twiddling his fucking thumbs. The terror-sick feeling was taking over when the shots finally rang out, three in quick succession and then silence.

    Gareth took off running for the garden door in the back of the small rental. He hated being unarmed like this but there was nothing else to be done. The door gave way easily under his shoulder and he burst through into a compact bedroom space. Reeve, still in the same bloody clothes, was facedown on the bed with his hands and ankles cuffed together at his back, knees bent, ankles crossed, and arms pulled out straight. An agent with a small nose and wavy hair had been leaving the room, but turned at the sound of the breaking door.

    He would have loved to have a damn weapon to make quick work of this, or at least have enough space and freedom to properly psych himself up for the type of work that needed doing.

    The first bullet hit him square in the chest, left side, perfectly aimed to put his whole system into a dizzying arrhythmia as his knack healed up the muscles of his heart. Off to a bad start, honestly. It had been too much to hope that the agent would stop there. They would have read up on the rest of the team when reading Reeve¡¯s file. They knew who he was and what he was.

    Gareth rushed forward as the agent kept firing. It had been a while since he¡¯d had to do any real hand-to-hand shit beyond what he¡¯d been teaching Alex, and his body fell back into their lessons. He grabbed hold of the agent¡¯s arms and pivoted to flip him, but this wasn¡¯t Alex. He felt the man¡¯s balance shift instantaneously, faster than thought. One forearm slid under Gareth¡¯s left arm and another gripped the back of his shirt. It wouldn¡¯t be pretty, but Gareth figured his bulk could carry him. But the arm under his arm lifted, preventing him from bending for the throw, and the agent took a large step back, yanking Gareth¡¯s shirt and tipping him flat onto his back. His eyes shut on the impact and when he opened them again, there was a gun in his face.

    ¡°Just don¡¯t,¡± the man panted, setting his boot on Gareth¡¯s chest. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about your friend, but a team should have been waiting at the site to brief you.¡±

    Brief us? As if this was simply a matter of confusion and not a sudden hole in their family. Fucking Sol. Gareth made to kick out the man¡¯s knee, and the agent fired.

    His ears rang. It took him a second to recover from the pain and, frankly, the crunch of the bullet punching through his cheekbone. He laid still. His mouth filled with blood pouring out from the wound through his right cheek. If he swallowed, it would choke him, so he pushed the mouthful out, letting it drench his face.

    He turned his head to one side, hoping to keep the blood from draining back into his mouth and saw Reeve¡¯s boots, tied together by their laces, on the floor near the foot of the bed. The Neptune agent bent and checked his pulse. Gareth felt a pang of guilt he hadn¡¯t expected, but he shoved it down. The moment for that kind of feeling had passed when he¡¯d reset Alex¡¯s shoulder with a stomach churning crunch, and when he¡¯d pulled out a shard of glass from Hannah¡¯s side that kept going and going. The idea of the length of it still wrenched at his guts.

    Gareth grabbed the agent¡¯s arm with his opposite hand and slammed his other forearm into the outside of the agent¡¯s elbow, snapping it. He fell as Gareth rolled, sweeping Reeve¡¯s boots up with one hand. Gareth tried not to be where he was when he beat the guy over the head with the boot heel until he stopped fighting, but there was nowhere else to really be.

    A woman¡¯s voice coming from the other room pulled him out of the dark space behind his eyes.

    ¡°Fitz! We¡¯ve gotta go. Go out the back¡ª¡±

    She trailed off as Gareth ran into the room. It would be the strongman. He¡¯d hoped Hannah would have gotten this one.

    Gareth snatched up the agent¡¯s dropped gun and fired. Nothing but a dead click. Goddamnit. He dropped the gun and stood, preparing to grapple with her. She drew her gun and he tensed, ready for the pain, but she was aiming it beyond him at Reeve. Gareth froze.

    At a sudden loss, he put his hands out to the side, breathing hard. The bones in his face were knitting, moving, and it hurt.

    Her mask had been pulled down and he could see the pain and fury in her face. ¡°Fuck,¡± she hurled into the dead air and he could tell it wasn¡¯t even at him. ¡°Turn around,¡± she shouted, though her voice cracked.

    He did. What other option did he have? He could plainly see her shaking hands pointing a gun at Reeve¡¯s head, her finger on the trigger. His mind raced as he put his hands behind his back.

    Shots rang out. He searched his body for pain and didn¡¯t find it. Reeve just beside him hadn''t been touched, so he turned around. Alex was at the far end of the room with a Neptune side arm in his right hand. He was firing low, and while his aim was rough, he hit the strongwoman in the legs at least twice. It was enough to bring her down. Gareth saw her aim her gun at Alex in desperation and that was it. Gareth gave her a swift kick in the back, ripped the gun from her, and ended it.

    For a moment, Alex and Gareth just stood there, looking at each other.

    ¡°Is he okay?¡± Alex asked in a small voice, walking over to the bed, careful to avoid the dead agents.

    ¡°He¡¯s breathing,¡± Gareth managed. They didn¡¯t have time to recover the way he wanted to. ¡°Are you okay?¡± He nodded to his arm.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine. Hannah¡¯s getting the car.¡±

    He stuck her pistol in his belt. ¡°Let¡¯s go then.¡± He started inspecting Reeve¡¯s restraints. The hogtie was stiff nylon with thick straps, built for long-wear and security.

    Alex handed him one of Hannah¡¯s razors. ¡°Had it just in case.¡±

    Gareth took it without comment and cut through his bonds. Reeve¡¯s eyelids fluttered as he rolled him onto his back.

    ¡°Grab his boots,¡± he told Alex as Gareth gingerly lifted him over his shoulder. This son of a bitch.

    He followed Alex out of the apartment and stood there for a heart-pounding couple of moments before Hannah pulled up.

    ¡°What took you?¡± Alex called.

    ¡°I wanted to hide the bodies. Can you drive?¡± she asked Gareth. ¡°I want to check him over.¡±

    He didn¡¯t bother answering, just helped Alex lay Reeve down in the backseat and walked over to the driver¡¯s side. Hannah got in the passenger seat, but was craned through the center and bent halfway into the backseat.

    Whatever she was doing made Reeve groan. ¡°He¡¯s drugged,¡± she called. ¡°And banged to shit, but who the fuck isn¡¯t.¡±

    Gareth started driving. Without a telepath to clean up the sound of the guns from everyone in the area, they couldn¡¯t stay where they were one minute longer.

    ¡°Where the hell am I going?¡± he yelled.

    ¡°I have no idea,¡± Hannah responded.

    Alex started to pipe up but stopped at the sound of Reeve mumbling. ¡°What¡¯s he saying?¡± Gareth asked. He was too far away to hear.

    ¡°He¡¯s saying to go back to Beatty.¡±

    ¡°Fuck no, are you kidding?¡± Hannah yelled. ¡°We just got you out and you want to just waltz on back home like that¡¯s not going to be a problem?¡±

    ¡°Please,¡± Reeve slurred. ¡°Trust me.¡± There was a flutter on the edge of Gareth¡¯s head, as though Reeve was trying to reach out to him but couldn¡¯t get through.

    ¡°Please,¡± he repeated, then trailed off into something Gareth couldn¡¯t hear.

    ¡°It¡¯s numbers,¡± Alex called, sounding as confused as Gareth felt.

    ¡°Like an address?¡±

    ¡°More like coordinates,¡± Hannah commented. She pulled out her phone to write them down.

    ¡°No, that¡¯s it,¡± Alex blurted. ¡°It¡¯s a phone number.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, he¡¯s nodding at that,¡± Hannah said as she keyed it in.

    ¡°Text it.¡± Reeve¡¯s sounded faint, but urgent.

    ¡°Text what?¡± Alex pressed with a gentleness that Gareth couldn¡¯t have summoned in that moment for anything. He couldn¡¯t hear Reeve after that but he could see Alex bent over, ear near his lips, in the rearview.

    ¡°What the hell is he saying?¡±

    He saw Alex look up at him in the mirror. ¡°He¡¯s saying, ¡®cormorant.¡¯ I have no idea what that means.¡±

    ¡°Fuck it. I don¡¯t know how to spell it but I¡¯m texting it. Not like we have another plan.¡± Hannah turned back around in her seat and buckled in, mindful of the bruising on her chest.

    ¡°Are we seriously driving back to the house?¡± Gareth asked one more time.

    He felt it stronger now. It was definitely him. A desperate press of Reeve¡¯s mind, pleading.

    ¡°Yeah okay,¡± Gareth responded out loud. ¡°We¡¯re going but if you get us killed, I will fucking murder you.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 4.

    SolCorp LAHQ. Neptune Department.

    When Penn burst through Sage¡¯s office door, he knew something was horribly wrong. People didn¡¯t walk into his office without knocking and being invited. (Well, except for Freddie, but he wasn¡¯t about to try to tell her to do or not do anything.)

    Penn was carrying an open laptop and he looked harried and tense, more so than usual. ¡°This just landed on my desk but you¡¯re going to want it on yours.¡±

    Penn set the laptop on Sage¡¯s desk and swung it around so it was facing him. On it was a photo of a group of police officers standing in a loose group near two bodies behind a dumpster in an alley, partially hidden by a pile of broken-down cardboard boxes. The bodies were wearing Neptune Blacks.

    Sage¡¯s heart began pumping a mile a minute, enough that he could hear it in his ears. ¡°Is¨Cis Cleanup¨C¡±

    ¡°My people are on the scene managing it now, but it¡¯s worse than it looks.¡±

    He swallowed. If he was honest, he didn¡¯t want to know in what way it could possibly be worse. Even after years in his position, his first reaction was always a wish that someone else was in charge of handing this.

    Freddie came through the door from across the hall. ¡°What the hell is going on?¡± She looked annoyed until she saw whatever expression Sage had on his face, and then sobered.

    Penn turned the laptop to her. She froze and anger etched itself onto every inch of her face. ¡°Whose is that?¡±

    ¡°Retrieval. Will is my next stop. The entire team is dead.¡±

    There was an oppressive pain taking over Sage¡¯s chest. Losing any agent was tough, but losing several in one day? It was the kind of thing that would be felt across the department.

    ¡°The whole team?¡± she squawked. ¡°Jesus Christ. Who is it?¡±

    ¡°My people found their ID¡¯s, uh, Allie, Kyle¨C¡±

    ¡°Fuck,¡± she swore.

    Sage stared at the picture and did his best to look beyond the black figure and dark stain on the concrete. Low palms and stone landscaping. ¡°Where is this?¡±

    ¡°Las Vegas.¡±

    Sage felt the breath leave him. He¡¯d sent them there.

    Penn must have felt it because he cocked his head at him. ¡°What was the op? This is the one you mentioned the other night?¡±

    ¡°They removed an Icarus from a moon yesterday. I had no idea he had this in him. The offenses were serious, but nonviolent.¡±

    ¡°Was that an A designation?¡± Freddie asked. ¡°I don¡¯t have anyone new on my manifest.¡±

    Sage held back a swallow. He knew it didn¡¯t instill confidence. ¡°After a telepathic scan, yes.¡±

    Freddie nodded. ¡°What about the second team?¡±

    ¡°The Cleanup team that took care of the cars from the crash reported in just fine,¡± Penn told them.

    ¡°No, the second Retrieval team.¡±

    ¡°What second team?¡± Penn asked. By the sound of it, he was as scared as Sage was of the possibility that there was another team of agents dead somewhere.

    Sage really needed to get himself thinking faster than he was. Penn had never spent time in Retrieval, so there was no reason he¡¯d know, but Sage¡¯s mind should have gone straight there.

    ¡°When you erase one team member,¡± he explained, ¡°a second Neptune team moves in to help the rest of the moon understand what has happened. I¡¯ll pull up who that is and have them contacted immediately.¡±

    Sage typed rapidly on his keyboard to open 37A¡¯s file. He scanned the page twice before speaking. ¡°There should be a report from them submitted last night. There''s one from the first team, but there¡¯s nothing else.¡± He looked a little deeper. ¡°There¡¯s a team named for the role but¡­¡±

    ¡°But what?¡± Freddie snapped, not one for patience.

    ¡°The orders were never sent to them. I don''t think they were ever formally assigned. There was no second team.¡±

    There was a brief silence in which they all looked at each other with a single name in their eyes.

    ¡°I¡¯m gonna kill him,¡± Penn breathed, low and monotone.

    Freddie gave a growl of frustration. ¡°Jesus fucking Christ, Will!¡±

    Solidly still in the fear-stage while the others fell partly apart in rage, Sage tried to focus. His eyes raced through the file, skimming the first team¡¯s report, looking for any scrap of information that might help them. Sage¡¯s breath caught and the thundering in his chest threatened to pound right out of him. There was a foster with them. The team had been worried and emphasized the need to triage for trauma. He rushed back through 37A¡¯s file. No requests for shadowing approved¨Cthere couldn¡¯t have been, given the short notice needed to execute a mission like this. He would have felt relieved that he hadn¡¯t missed it, if he wasn¡¯t so scared for the student.

    Freddie¡¯s voice broke through his spinning thoughts. ¡°What is it?¡±

    He looked up and saw that she and Penn had trailed off from their angry exclamations and were looking at him, worry lines forming across their faces.

    He cleared his throat. ¡°That moon has a foster.¡±

    ¡°So we send someone out to the home ASAP,¡± Penn said.

    ¡°No,¡± Sage said, eyes drifting back to the words on the screen in front of him. The stark black letters standing out like a threat. ¡°The foster was with them. He wasn¡¯t supposed to be¨C¡±

    ¡°Fuck,¡± Penn ground out. ¡°Fuck, fuck, fuck.¡±

    Freddie¡¯s face was a mask, and Sage recognized her way of containing lethal anger and pain.

    ¡°I want someone to put physical eyes on this Retrieval team and confirm they are still in the building,¡± Sage said. ¡°Use a teleporter if you have to. And I want a second teleporter at the site of the 34 right now to give me a status on the rest of the Icarus¡¯ team.¡± If the Icarus was in the wind, who knows what he might have done to his old team. The two of them looked at him and didn¡¯t immediately move. Those were tasks that should be falling to the head of Retrieval and they knew it.

    ¡°I¡¯ll handle Will,¡± Sage told them and tried to make it sound like he didn¡¯t feel like crawling under his desk.

    They moved like they were dodging lightning. Sage wanted to get his shaking hands under control, but he wasn¡¯t going to wait. Will¡¯s office was one hallway over, closer to the elevator. He closed the distance faster and somehow slower than he¡¯d ever traveled through that hall.

    At the door, Sage paused to take a few breaths (maybe more than a few) to steel himself. He needed to not come off like he was going in there to ask for a favor. He walked in the door. Will was at his desk, leaning back in his chair, typing slowly with one hand and holding his coffee with the other.

    ¡°What is¨C¡±

    ¡°Have you been in contact with the teams you sent out for the assignment I gave you?¡± Sage demanded.

    Will looked up at him and squinted. ¡°Yeah, I must have,¡± he replied, turning his gaze to his screen. ¡°I saw a report come in last night.¡±

    ¡°But nothing since?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think so.¡±

    Sage¡¯s shoulders were inching up and he forced them down. ¡°What about the report for the second team to help the other members of the moon recover? Do you have their report?¡±

    His mouth stretched, thinking, and he shook his head with a casual shrug of one shoulder. ¡°They must be putting off writing it until today.¡± The offhand way he¡¯d said it only made Sage burn hotter.

    Sage¡¯s phone rang. It was Fredericka and he set it on speaker. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m standing in the apartment of the secondary team with two of the agents.¡± Her voice was hard and Sage was glad she could bring a little more force into that room with him. ¡°The other two are somewhere in the building. They haven¡¯t gotten an assignment in a week.¡±

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    ¡°Thank you.¡± He hung up.

    Will¡¯s forehead wrinkled as his face was gripped with a look of shock. He didn¡¯t speak.

    ¡°You never sent them out,¡± Sage explained, making his voice hard. ¡°You didn¡¯t send the assignment. You left, we left a traumatized, possibly injured moon, with a foster by the way, on the scene of a fucking 34 with no one to help them cope. Are you¨C¡± His voice was getting too loud and got ahold of himself. He''d been on a 34 once and would be glad to never do one again. It had worked to neutralize the target, but everyone had walked away worse for wear.

    Sage counted out one breath. Three beats in and five beats out. ¡°You¡¯re fired,¡± he said calmly. ¡°Have someone on your staff write up your resignation. I don¡¯t want you doing it because I need it by the end of the day.¡±

    Will got up from his seat. ¡°Sage¨C¡±

    ¡°And your other team is dead. The Icarus killed them all.¡±

    Sage walked out and shut the door hard. His hands were shaking, so he gripped them into fists and went back to his office to try to manage the fallout. It had already gone so ugly and he could only imagine it was going to get uglier.

    ---

    Beatty, NV.

    Gareth tore down the dirt road leading to their ranch in Beatty at a speed that made the car jounce over deep ruts, but no one was complaining. As he swung around the bend, he saw that there was a dark grey van parked in front of the house.

    Hannah checked for the third time that her pistol was fully loaded. "We shouldn''t be here," she muttered. The blood still on her face was dry and cracked.

    Gareth eased on the brakes as they pulled into their driveway. He didn¡¯t disagree with her, but if he didn¡¯t count the situation they were currently in, Gareth felt like Reeve had never let them down before. On the other hand, the current situation was a right bitch and a half.

    "Try to wake Reeve up."

    He saw Alex nod at him in the rearview, Reeve¡¯s head in his lap. He turned back to where there was a figure standing beside the van.

    "Stay in the car," Gareth said, getting out and slamming the door before they could argue. Gareth drew his sidearm and started toward him. He heard Hannah''s door open and glanced over to see her leaning heavily on the door with her gun resting on top of the window.  The man moved forward and Gareth caught the shape of a holstered weapon under his jacket.

    "Don''t fucking move!" he shouted, breaking into a jog. The man froze on the spot and, after a moment of hesitation, put up his hands over his head. Thinking of the three back in the car, the only way Gareth could stop himself from shooting on the spot was to keep moving forward until his gun was only inches away from his chest. The man had a thin nose and brown hair shorn short, greying at the temples. He was tall and long limbed, and had smallish eyes and big ears that stuck out just a bit more than most. Gareth wrenched the gun out of the man¡¯s holster and stuck it in his belt. The man, looking stunned, lowered his hands to shoulder level, fingers spread wide. Gareth raised the gun to point it at his head.

    "What are you doing here?"

    Gareth watched him stare at the gun, eyes wide, then meet Gareth¡¯s eyes again, swallowing his fear. "You called me."

    From behind them, he heard a car door pop open and Alex¡¯s voice urging, "Don''t! You need to sit down!"

    Gareth angled himself to be able to see them both, heart pounding. Reeve was levering himself out of the car and Alex was trying to pull him back with his good hand. If he could have shoved Reeve back into the car with his mind, he would have.

    "Shvedov!" Reeve shouted before wavering and then staggered as if to fall. Gareth''s head snapped back as the man beside him took a lunging step forward. Gareth moved to body block him, pressing the barrel of his gun hard against his forehead, between the eyes. He froze, stock still, glancing back and forth between Reeve and Gareth. There was something in the desperate, pained concern Gareth could see in his eyes that made him ease his tension on the trigger. He recognized that look and he could hear Alex struggling with Reeve behind them.

    Gareth took one step back out of his way and angled his gun up a fraction. He looked at Gareth then for a long moment, confirming his permission, before taking off at a run toward Reeve and Alex. Gareth tracked the back of his head with his gun and saw that Hannah was doing the same. Alex had gotten out of the car to hold Reeve upright and Gareth could see from where he stood that he had that look about him that said he was ready to pounce with tooth and nail the second he needed to. The man reached Reeve and Alex, ducking to swing Reeve¡¯s other arm over his shoulder and putting his hand around his waist to support him. Reeve sagged into his grip and gave his shoulder a weak pat.

    That was going to have to be enough for Gareth. For now. There wasn¡¯t time for anything else. He jogged over and moved to take the arm that Alex was bent under, but Alex gave him a look that could¡¯ve melted steel.

    Alex turned back to the man, "Who the hell are you?" He was yelling. Everyone seemed to be yelling except this strange guy with the pattern of a gun barrel still imprinted onto his forehead.

    "Alyosha," he said. "I am a friend." He spoke with a Russian accent with small gaps in his sentences, like he was searching for the next word. Reeve¡¯s eyes opened and closed too slowly to even be considered blinking. Alyosha shifted his hold on Reeve. "Help me get him into the van. We have to go.¡±

    Together, they guided (mostly dragged) Reeve to the van, and Gareth opened up the door to the back seat. Alex scrambled up onto the van, bending down to haul Reeve up onto the bench seat as they settled him to lay down beside Alex.

    Alyosha turned to Gareth. ¡°You¡¯ve been in a fight. Is Hannah well enough to drive that car?¡±

    Gareth gave his head an involuntary jerk. ¡°No! What? Yeah, yes we were and I think she is. Drive where? Wait, how the hell do you know her name?¡±

    He pulled at his sleeves impatiently. ¡°Reeve told me.¡± He looked over Gareth¡¯s shoulder at her. Gareth turned to see she was walking toward them, slower than normal with how sore she was. Alyosha raised a hand to her. ¡°Drive your car to the airstrip in Beatty! We will be right behind you!¡±

    She didn¡¯t respond and was looking at Gareth. They¡¯d come this far. Gareth nodded to her. Hannah turned around and headed for the driver¡¯s side.

    ¡°Gareth!¡± Alex¡¯s voice from inside the van was almost plaintive. ¡°What the fuck is going on?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re running,¡± he told him, ¡°and Reeve seems to have booked us a goddamn ride.¡±

    Alyosha opened the passenger side door for him. He was still noticeably keeping his free hand outspread where Gareth could see it and gave him a nervous smile. ¡°Please get in. There isn¡¯t time.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m keeping your gun.¡±

    ¡°That is fine. As long as someone in the van has a gun, I have no complaints.¡±

    He got in and as he did, heard Hannah start up the engine to their car behind them. She had been right. They shouldn¡¯t be here. Alyosha climbed into the other side and waited for the car to turn around and head back out toward the road before doing the same.

    ¡°So we¡¯ve got a plane to catch?¡± Gareth asked him, turning in his seat to look back at Alex.

    ¡°Yes, we do.¡±

    Reeve was on his back again. Alex was cross-legged on the seat with his back to the window. He had his good arm across Reeve¡¯s chest, steadying him. The bruises on his face from the impact of the crash were enough to make him cringe. Reeve, Gareth thought purposely, doubting he could hear him in the state he was in. What the hell did you do?

    They made their way through downtown Beatty. It was mostly empty, like it always was. It felt completely wrong that everything outside the van could look so normal. Alex was craning his head, watching to see if they would be followed. ¡°Hey, Gareth,¡± he said, pitching his voice to carry, ¡°your suitcase is back here.¡±

    Gareth shifted in his seat to try to see over into the back of the van.

    ¡°And my bag¡­¡± Alex reached over the seat, rummaging around. ¡°There¡¯s like a shit ton of our stuff back here!¡±

    ¡°I packed it,¡± Alyosha called over his shoulder. ¡°It¡¯s a sloppy job, but there were three more people than planned. I got as much as I could.¡±

    ¡°Three more¡­?¡±

    ¡°How did you know it was three more?¡± Gareth demanded.

    ¡°The passphrase came from Hannah¡¯s number so I guessed.¡±

    Gareth drew a breath to yell but Alex was quicker.

    ¡°You have our numbers? And how¡¯d you get into our house?¡± Alex asked, his voice dumbfounded. Gareth was rubbing at his forehead with both palms.

    ¡°I have key.¡±

    ¡°How?¡± Gareth nearly yelled. ¡°We were only in Vegas. You got here, let yourself in, and packed in the what, two hours after we texted you.¡±

    ¡°I, um,¡± Alyosha hesitated and a guilty-looking smile split across his face. ¡°I have a place just down the road in Beatty.¡±

    Gareth felt his face drop. ¡°You live here?¡±

    ¡°What the fuck is going on?¡± Alex yelled again from the backseat.

    ¡°Reeve will explain everything once he wakes up and we are coming up on the airstrip. One minute.¡±

    As he watched Hannah pull in through the gates ahead of them, Gareth felt the van come to a sudden stop before entering the airport. A shrill terror moved through him like an explosion, the epicenter in his stomach. His decision to let Hannah drive separately stung him like a wound and he felt his self-control unraveling. Gareth pointed his gun at Alyosha. Before he could shout the violent threats he had roiling in him, Gareth felt a vague but insistent intrusion. It felt like Reeve, but it was too disorganized to even come across as words¡ªjust this sensation that he shouldn¡¯t do what he was doing. Gareth turned around to see Reeve, jaw still slack and loose but his eyes were open and locked on Gareth.

    Alyosha put a hand up. ¡°Is okay,¡± he said softly. Gareth watched Hannah step out of the car with a look that could kill. Alyosha reached his other hand out the window and waved her toward them. Gareth glanced back at Reeve, but he had gone under again. Hannah came at a limping jog to Gareth¡¯s window. She was more out of breath than she should be.

    ¡°Get in,¡± Alyosha called. She hesitated, looking at Gareth.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he told her, shaking his head, ¡°just get in here.¡±

    She climbed into the back and Alex helped her rearrange Reeve so she could sit with his legs resting over her lap.

    ¡°Your phones,¡± Alyosha urged. ¡°Turn them all off. Then break them.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Hannah squawked.

    ¡°Please.¡± Alyosha flicked his eyes to the backseat. ¡°I¡¯m only following his instructions. Neptune will trace your phones. I have burners.¡±

    They did as he said in silence, and as soon as he had confirmed all their phones were dead, Alyosha sped off. Hannah was holding Alex¡¯s hand, resting it on Reeve¡¯s chest.

    ¡°Seriously though,¡± Alex shouted, ¡°Hey! Random guy driving the van¨Cwhat in the hell is going on?¡±

    ¡°Where are we going?¡± Gareth translated, shooting Alex a look.

    ¡°We¡¯re driving south to my other place, but we want it to look like we took a plane,¡± he looked up at Alex in the rearview. ¡°You aren¡¯t the only psychometrist in the Corp.¡± That made something in Gareth twinge, wondering just how much this guy knew about them.

    ¡°And this is all Reeve¡¯s plan?¡± Hannah asked.

    ¡°Yes. He said that this close to LAHQ, he could never outrun Sol so instead he wants them to think we are moving faster than we are. They¡¯ll assume we¡¯re flying south. Large cities in Latin America are the closest good places for Icarus to hide. Hopefully, by the time we get there, they will have finished searching the area and have moved on to the next place, thinking we¡¯ve already left. That¡¯s the plan at least.¡±

    ¡°Where¡¯s your place?¡±

    ¡°Guadalajara.¡±

    ¡°Christ.¡± Gareth sat back in his seat. ¡°That¡¯s like a twenty hour drive?¡±

    ¡°Twenty-nine,¡± Alyosha said flatly. He shrugged and laughed dryly. ¡°I did not get to make the plan. So anytime you feel like volunteering to take a shift driving, please do.¡± He grinned at Gareth and he unintentionally smiled back.

    ¡°He wasn¡¯t gonna take us with him?¡± Alex called up to the front. Gareth saw Alyosha¡¯s eyes shift from the mirror, focusing on the road. ¡°You said there were three more people than planned. He wasn¡¯t gonna take us with him,¡± Alex repeated, eyes a little glassy.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 5.

    Beatty, NV.

    They were gone. All of them. Even the foster.

    With a stomach full of swallowed fear, Sage ran one finger down the kitchen counter, past a tall black coffee maker, a dish rack full of clean dishes, and a sink full of dirty ones, likely from breakfast. He could smell chilies and spices, and there were stray dull yellow splotches of dried egg yolk on the plates. Four plates. They ate as a family.

    When he¡¯d gotten the initial news that the Moon and foster were not immediately found around the crash site or their home, he knew he had to go there to see it in person. There were too many questions, even outside of the obvious and pressing issue of where.

    Had the Icarus harmed them? Was he telepathically controlling them? How did he manage to overcome the Retrieval team? The Moon in general was unremarkably ranked, nothing special beyond the Icarus¡¯ above average telepathy score. No reprimands, no conflict reports, no commendations.

    What confounded him even more was the Icarus¡¯ crime. The telepath had been preventing Sol-ordered hits.

    Six mission reports filed by the team were singled out as suspect, according to Investigation. Casper had said the Icarus had meticulously faked mission reports and doctored the sites of the hit in case Cleanup did a sweep. In each one, the target¡¯s body had been conveniently collected by law enforcement before Cleanup arrived. He even went as far as to provide copies of falsified police reports showing that it was determined to be a death from natural causes. They were sparse police reports with nothing to back them up in the law enforcement database¡ªgood enough to pass a quick review, but not a hard look from Investigation once they were prompted to dig into it. That was the brand of offense they were dealing with. Nothing about him suggested he was violent.

    His eyes scanned the kitchen with its table and chairs. It was lived-in, but not untidy. Cabinets were shut. There were little notes pinned to the refrigerator. ¡°Don¡¯t forget chips!!!¡± ¡°Oil change @ 2:30 on Thursday.¡± The living room was much the same: average. He tried to picture the four of them sitting there. He¡¯d studied their photos while waiting for a teleporter to fetch him. There were drinks sitting on a coffee table and a throw pillow on the floor. They¡¯d left in a rush, but that had been the point. If the Icarus was messing with missions, they couldn¡¯t give him any notice at all. Hence the urgent mission assignment.

    With the exception of interfering with missions, the telepath seemed to have done every single other thing to the letter of the law, likely in an effort to avoid scrutiny. Sage never imagined he¡¯d break protocol and bring their foster along unauthorized. He would have to live with that call now, and he didn¡¯t imagine he¡¯d be sleeping until they had the boy back. His mind filled with should-haves. He should have been more on top of Will after giving him the order. He should have pulled the foster first, before the Icarus order. No, that would have tipped the Icarus off, and a 2.5 telepath wasn¡¯t someone you could rest on a simple ambush with, even for agents trained to defend against telepathy. You had to go in hard and fast and not give him a chance to use it. I made the best call I could, Sage told himself again. It didn¡¯t help.

    He walked down the hallway and into the first bedroom, which had belonged to 37A. It was neat, orderly. The bed was made. Any other time, that would have been a positive thing. But now it felt strangely sinister. The only thing out of place was the corner of a rug flipped up near the bed. He set the toe of one shoe against a glass jar the leg of the bed frame was set into. What have you done?

    He moved on. The second bedroom was clearly the foster¡¯s. 45C. It felt strange to take his name like that when his people were on a rescue mission, but the foster was AWOL and that¡¯s what the C designation was for.

    The room was in disarray, more so than a typical seventeen-year-old¡¯s room. Bureau drawers were left open, the closet had been roughly gone through. He glanced around the room, eyes running over the bookshelf stacked with textbooks, comics, and brightly colored figurines. There was a pride flag above the bed and a set of bulky blue headphones on the nightstand. Sage eyed a sticker-covered laptop on the desk that he made a mental note to have Casper go through.

    There was clothing scattered around the bed that had a rumpled quality to it that said it had been there for a while. A bright orange shirt peeked out from under the bed, partially covering a pile of worn notebooks. Sage thought of his time in the Academy and his roommate¡¯s annoying habit of stuffing his laundry under the bed instead of washing it. He could picture that gesture so clearly, superimposing the image of this Icarus onto it in his mind¡¯s eye. It only compounded the heavy reality of the thing. He looked back at the closet¨Cthe clothing that had fallen from the hangers wasn¡¯t wrinkled. It had fallen recently, in the process of hurriedly packing. He¡¯d been lost to Sol once, for fourteen years, and now they¡¯d lost him again. He had lost him, Sage feared.

    Perhaps it has been a mistake to order a scan before erasing 37A, but Sage had needed to know why. What in the world had compelled 37A to subvert Sol orders like that? What did he have to gain from it? Entropy was always on the back of Sage¡¯s mind, and he couldn¡¯t rule out that 37A was doing their bidding. He had an ex-Entropy teammate, after all. If that was the case, they could have a wider problem on their hands.

    He thought again of the initial Retrieval report that was sent to Will the night of the capture, and the thought of it made his blood boil all over again. Will had lied to him when he said he¡¯d read the report. He couldn¡¯t have read it or the foster would have set this rescue in motion twenty hours earlier.

    Downstairs, 18B¡¯s room was similarly torn through, with her wardrobe pulled open and things strewn about the floor. Her mission reports for the six in question, upon inspection, read slightly differently than other reports, suggesting she hadn¡¯t written them. It was the same for 38A, whose room was next door and in the same state of disarray.

    Someone had gone through these rooms in a hurry. It gave Sage a sinking feeling in his chest. He understood grabbing things to go on the run, whether the team itself had defected or 37A had telepathically made them quickly pack a bag. That wasn¡¯t what was making him uneasy. It was that 37A¡¯s room was methodically clean. There was no rushed packing job there.

    ¡°Sir?¡± came a surprised voice from the door. Casper, his fourth, was standing in the hall. His nose was already looking a little sunburned and his shirt was damp around the collar from sweat.

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting to see you here,¡± Casper went on.

    ¡°I needed to do a walkthrough,¡± he said, voice surprisingly steady. ¡°Catch me up to speed.¡±

    Casper took a breath. ¡°My people in Investigation are still working, but we did a sweep of this place, the site of the 34, and the Retrieval safehouse. Other than the phone that belonged to 37A, which was found with the Retrieval team, all their phones have been disabled. We¡¯ll go through the laptops we found with a fine-toothed comb, but none were from the Icarus¡¯ room, so I¡¯m not sure how much we¡¯ll get out of it.¡±

    His mind was churning through it all. The rooms, the four years of tampering. (Four years!) He was trained to think like an Icarus and he was good at it, so he let himself sink into that.

    ¡°But that¡¯s not the bad news.¡± Casper''s voice was low.

    ¡°What is it?¡± He readied himself for a blow.

    ¡°Penn¡¯s teams are handling the remains now, but I got a look at the scene. The two Retrieval agents found inside the safehouse¡­well, it was brutal. One massive blunt trauma and the other was shot. The two who were found away from the safehouse were shot and going from the entry and exit wounds, the shooter was at an elevated position.¡±

    Sage closed his eyes. ¡°And 18B has sniper training.¡±

    ¡°Yeah. And none of them were taken out with telepathy.¡±

    This was bad. All of it was so bad, but it was getting worse by the second. ¡°37A didn¡¯t break himself out of custody.¡±

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    ¡°No, sir, I don¡¯t think so.¡±

    They shouldn¡¯t have been alone. There should have been a team to help them after the Neptune intervention. Sage nodded and started up the stairs, sparing a look into a room with training mats. He saw the foster in his mind there, practicing, and let it settle his nerves into sharp focus.

    ¡°Do you think they¡¯re being telepathically controlled?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Casper answered behind him.

    ¡°Just your instinct.¡±

    ¡°I honestly don¡¯t know. To do what they did to that agent¡¯s face in the safehouse? Maybe. But there was an ex-Entropy agent in the mix so¡­¡±

    He was well aware. It hadn¡¯t been an easy call to label him an A or B, given that a telepath was involved and he couldn¡¯t say for sure if the man was acting on his own accord, but in the end, with so many agents dead, he wasn¡¯t willing to give the ex-Entropy agent a second chance.

    An agent in Blacks was waiting for them in the kitchen, her hood pulled off in the heat. That would be Retrieval, who had no one to report to but him now. He needed to do something about that.

    ¡°Sir, their second car is still in the garage. I¡¯d like to disseminate photos of any cars reported stolen in Las Vegas since yesterday and have teams spread out to cover all major and minor roadways that lead out of the state.¡±

    Sage frowned and looked at Casper. ¡°How far behind are we, judging from the bodies?¡±

    ¡°Two to four hours?¡±

    Sage turned back to the Retrieval agent. ¡°Wait on that.¡± He weathered Casper¡¯s askance look. ¡°Casey, right? You¡¯re a teleporter?¡± The agent nodded. ¡°Bring Casper and I to the nearest airstrip.¡±

    As the agent hurriedly looked up a photo to target, Casper clicked his tongue, something he did when he was mulling things through.

    Sage met his eyes. ¡°37A was ready for us. He didn¡¯t rush to grab his things because he had a go-bag already packed. The fact that the others packed in a hurry speaks well for their character, but makes me worry for their safety more.¡±

    ¡°We gathered he was ready from the house, but the airstrip?¡±

    ¡°He was bookish. Clean, methodical. He¡¯s been betraying us for years and getting away with it. Made targets disappear. Sank money into it. It only follows that he¡¯s been planning this for years, and would have invested in his own way to disappear. If I were him, I¡¯d know I¡¯d never make it by car in this area, where there are something like three roads in and out.¡±

    The Retrieval agent stepped forward. ¡°Sir?¡±

    Sage swallowed and let himself be teleported. It was dreadful every time, but it wasn¡¯t worse than seeing an abandoned car just inside the gate.

    Muttering a curse they both jogged to the car. There was blood on the steering wheel and on the floor.

    Casper was raking at his hair with a pained look.

    Sage merely nodded. ¡°Skip the roadblocks. We¡¯re going to need every agent we¡¯ve got casting a net through major cities in all directions and fanning outwards. They¡¯re in the air. Go.¡±

    ---

    Side of the Road. Chihuahua, Mexico.

    Reeve woke to sun on his face. Eyes closed, he took several breaths, focusing on the feeling of his chest rising and falling, the sharp burn in his ribs. Alex was scared and angry. Reeve could feel his mind and other familiar thought-streams nearby. He felt a certain calmness fill the shell of him that the sedatives had emptied out. He opened his eyes. The right was nearly swollen shut and he was lying in the backseat of a van. It was parked on the side of the road somewhere and it was uncomfortably stuffy inside. He sat up slowly, mindful of his injuries. Shvedov was in the passenger seat, reclined and fast asleep. He didn¡¯t seem to be shot or even have a black eye, and Reeve made a mental note to thank Gareth for that.

    Reeve eased the door open and set his feet on the hard packed dirt, steadying himself on the door. The horizon was hard, empty desert, and for a moment he worried they were still in Nevada.

    ¡°Good morning.¡± Hannah was leaning against the back of the van, peeking her head around the side. She pushed herself upright and walked over to him. She was striped with cuts and bruises, a lump high against her hairline.

    ¡°Morning.¡±

    Giving him a sad smile, Hannah cupped his cheek with one hand and ran her thumb lightly over the painful knot under his eye. Reeve smiled back. He raised a hand to touch her but held it just inches above her hair. ¡°Is this all from the car or Neptune?¡±

    She raised an eyebrow. ¡°Is this really what you think we¡¯re going to be talking about?¡±

    Reeve sighed and dropped his hand. ¡°No, I guess not.¡± He felt Alex¡¯s shock of surprise like a hopeful jump in his chest and turned.

    ¡°Reeve!¡±

    Alex was walking down the side of the road, carrying a plastic shopping bag in one hand, the other bound up in a sling. Gareth was beside him, carrying a couple gallon water jugs and wearing an unassuming plain shirt and baseball cap. He looked as average as a man built like a concrete wall could. Alex jogged to him and Reeve could tell it hurt, the muscles of his shoulder were all twisted and torn. He plodded to a halt. There was an avalanche of emotion in Reeve, finally seeing them up close. He didn¡¯t want this for Alex.

    ¡°You okay?¡± Alex asked rather louder than Reeve felt he needed to.

    Reeve could see Shvedov was awake now and watching him. His mouth was a grim, tight line, waiting.

    ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m foggy but okay. Your arm¡ª¡±

    ¡°Then what the hell were you thinking?¡± Alex yelled. ¡°What the hell were you doing?¡±

    Reeve shut his eyes for a second, a rest from the dry sun and from the expression on Alex¡¯s face.

    ¡°I was trying¡ª¡±

    ¡°No, shut up!¡± Alex burst out again. He shook the plastic bag in his hand. ¡°Do you know what this is? This is supplies from a gas station up the road. Protein bars and shit. Because your Russian exit strategy only involved enough food for two people! Not five, two!¡±

    Reeve tried to keep his voice steady. ¡°I needed to keep you all safe.¡±

    ¡°Safe!¡± Alex gestured wildly with one arm, ¡°This is not safe, Reeve!¡±

    ¡°Exactly! Most Icarus¡­¡± Reeve bit his tongue on the thought. ¡°This isn¡¯t a safe life. I didn¡¯t want this for you. I didn¡¯t mean to endanger¡ª¡±

    ¡°Endanger us how? What exactly did you do?¡±

    Reeve grabbed a fist of his own hair and let out a long breath. ¡°Okay.¡± He looked up at the sky, bright and clear. ¡°Okay, listen. When we were sent missions, I did my own research and I found out that some of the targets were innocent people.¡± He swallowed. ¡°I didn¡¯t kill them. I hid the targets and faked the mission reports.¡± He dragged his gaze from the sky and looked around at them, feeling their pain and fear. ¡°That¡¯s my crime against the Corp. I kept you all in the dark because I didn¡¯t want this to happen.¡± He motioned to the lot of them.

    Alex gave up and dropped the bag he was carrying. His eyes were focused on the horizon and was shaking his head. ¡°So you always knew this was going to happen, that¡¯d you¡¯d get caught. That¡¯s why you kept your getaway car next door. Were you just going to leave us behind and go live in a hut somewhere to weave baskets for the rest of your life?¡±

    ¡°I thought if you didn¡¯t know what I was doing, they would leave you alone because you¡¯re loyal to Sol. Only take me.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what they did. And you figured we¡¯d just let them take you? That we¡¯d, I don¡¯t know, go home without you and say, ¡®oh well, I guess we¡¯ll just have to make our own huevos rancheros from now on?¡¯¡±

    ¡°Alex¡­¡± Reeve took a step toward him. He didn¡¯t have the right words for this and just wanted to gather them all up.

    Alex hopped a step back. ¡°Well, fuck you. You clearly make shitty decisions and you don¡¯t get to make this choice. We¡¯re loyal to you. It wasn¡¯t even a question, you asshole.¡±

    Hannah put a hand on Reeve¡¯s arm. ¡°Why did you do it?¡± she asked.

    Reeve¡¯s shoulders sagged. ¡°I said¡ªif you weren¡¯t involved you were safer.¡±

    ¡°Not that. Why didn¡¯t you just carry out the missions?¡± The gash by her temple was angry, pulling when her brow furrowed. ¡°I mean, why did you fact check them in the first place?¡±

    Reeve dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. ¡°I couldn¡¯t... I didn¡¯t trust Sol not to lie. I hoped I was wrong and I wouldn''t find anything off-color, but I did. This is what I was taught. I was brought up to try to change things from the inside.¡± He looked away.

    Hannah dropped her hand from his arm. ¡°What?¡±

    But Alex¡¯s voice ran over hers. ¡°So you went rogue and you didn¡¯t think this was worth a, ¡®Hey guys, I plan on leaving you forever! Oh, but please do continue to work for the people I totally don¡¯t trust and are definitely gonna kill me!¡¯?¡±

    Reeve¡¯s head snapped up, stung. ¡°I didn¡¯t want this life for any of you!¡± He raised his voice to match. Behind Alex, he could see Shvedov watching with sad eyes and Gareth standing further back, his face blank.

    ¡°Well, great fucking job!¡± Alex yelled. ¡°You¡¯ve kept us very safe here somewhere in Mexico on the side of the road with numbers instead of names! And I was just getting used to mine. You¡¯ve really outdone yourself this time. Your accomplice even packed some clothes for me! I feel really taken care of!¡±

    Reeve took a deep breath and lowered his voice. ¡°I was trying to do what I thought was right.¡±

    Lines appeared on the sides of Alex¡¯s nose, as if he was fighting back a snarl. ¡°Yeah, and now I¡¯m back on the road with only a backpack and a shit load of people who¡¯d like us dead. I¡¯m so glad you came and rescued me from this same exact fate with Rick!¡±

    ¡°Alex!¡± Hannah barked. ¡°Easy.¡±

    He cocked his head at her, ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sorry, did I overstep?¡± Alex looked back at Reeve. ¡°I¡¯m a little out of it. I must have hit my head in the car crash!¡±

    Reeve swallowed. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. Is that what you want to hear? Because I am. I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    ¡°Get out.¡± Alex picked up the bag and pushed past him into the van. Sitting down, he looked at Reeve and his face was cold.

    ¡°Out?¡± Reeve asked, confused.

    ¡°Get out of my head. I don¡¯t want you in here.¡±

    Reeve felt like he was in the car crash all over again. He withdrew the threads of his mind that he kept seated and at home in Alex¡¯s head. Hannah brushed past him to sit next to Alex. Her eyes were hard but she thought to Reeve, I¡¯ve got him.

    Then, it was just him and Gareth outside. Reeve waited, bracing himself for Gareth to unleash the hornet¡¯s nest of his thoughts. He didn¡¯t. He turned around and lugged the jugs of water around the front of the van toward the driver¡¯s side.

    ¡°Gareth,¡± Reeve called. His stomach felt like it was full of broken glass.

    ¡°Later,¡± Gareth spat.

    Reeve stood for a moment, stunned and alone in the desert wind, before silently climbing up to sit beside Hannah. Alex, eyes glassy, was pointedly not looking at him.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 6.

    SolCorp LAHQ. Neptune Department.

    As Freddie walked down the hall on her way to Sage¡¯s office, she passed Penn just leaving. He looked tired, as he always did, and didn¡¯t quite meet her eyes.

    ¡°Any chance I¡¯m getting good news?¡± she inquired.

    His expression didn¡¯t shift. ¡°With the Icarus? Zero.¡±

    With a sigh, she entered his office, pushing the door open.

    Sage¡¯s office was cluttered, but in an organized way. The small pile of takeout containers in the trash, crumpled up blanket, and mound of clothes on the futon by the window would have told her that Sage hadn¡¯t left his office since the news of the Icarus had hit¡ªif it were anybody but Sage. His office always looked like that. Not every issue was as dire as a missing student, but everything that crossed his desk was a crisis with someone¡¯s life in the balance and he treated it as such. She had to admit she liked that about him, even if she wished he¡¯d fucking cool it every now and then.

    He was at his desk, brow wrinkled, as he studied his laptop and the second monitor set up. There were bags under his bloodshot eyes.

    ¡°You called me up?¡±

    He looked at her, thin-lipped, a different kind of pain there. ¡°You¡¯ve heard by now, they¡¯re all missing?¡±

    ¡°I think everyone in Neptune has heard by now.¡± It was an understatement. The whole department was reeling. Most of Terre certainly. If the rest of the company (beyond Mercury himself) weren¡¯t kept purposefully uninformed on Icarus matters, the whole building would be losing it. ¡°So how many Icarus should I be prepping my people to manage?¡±

    ¡°One minimum, two tops. You¡¯ve read the files?¡±

    ¡°The cliffnotes on 37A.¡± She hadn¡¯t had time to go through everything. ¡°Can I ask? It was a non-violent offense. Why wasn¡¯t he a B?¡± Not that she minded. She hated Reintegrating telepaths. They were among the three worst to deal with. Telepaths, empaths, and psychometrists were all a royal pain in the ass.

    He regarded her thoughtfully and when he answered, his tone was less hardened, closer to his private, truer voice. ¡°He almost was,¡± Sage admitted. ¡°But the sheer number of years he¡¯s been at it and the fact that he was doing so much to hide it proves he was able to resist his first Reintegration at only thirteen years old. It¡¯s not going to suddenly work now, at age twenty-one.¡±

    She nodded. ¡°Yeah, probably not. So it¡¯s the foster, obviously. The psychometrist.¡± They¡¯d been keeping an eye on him. He was set to join Neptune within the year.

    ¡°And the invisible.¡±

    Who is also an empath. She sighed quietly.

    ¡°I know,¡± Sage commiserated.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine. My people can handle it.¡± Wouldn¡¯t be the first time or the last.

    ¡°I don¡¯t doubt it. Still, I know you keep saying you¡¯re short on good telepaths, so I just pushed through immediate transfer orders to move a telepath to Reintegration.¡±

    ¡°Yeah?¡± Two members of the three-person Reintegration teams could have any knack at all, but the third had to be a telepath, which made the demand a little more pressing.

    He nodded. ¡°One that has a telepathy score high enough to undo whatever 37A has done to these two.¡±

    She raised her eyebrows. ¡°Can Retrieval spare them?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s coming from Cleanup.¡±

    ¡°Oh, well then, screw Penn, that¡¯s fine,¡± she joked, darkly. ¡°I¡¯ll get my people ready and prep to onboard a new telepath.¡±

    ¡°Good, but then I need you to do something else.¡±

    She cocked her head. Sage rarely delegated anything.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°I need to promote someone to overhaul the Retrieval office. I want someone who¡¯s not from LA. Someone who isn¡¯t used to how Will did things. You can get your house in order first, but before the Retrieval meeting tomorrow morning, I want you to go grab one of Penn¡¯s teleporters and go out to Philly to tell¡ª¡±

    ¡°No.¡± She cut him off and stood her ground.

    He lowered his eyebrows. ¡°You don¡¯t even know who I¡¯m sending you for.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I do.¡± Freddie rolled her eyes. ¡°Am I going to need Penn¡¯s teleporter to get back or will he just be taking care of that?¡±

    Sage hesitated then argued. ¡°The fact that you know who I¡¯m talking about means you know Gerrit is qualified for the job.¡±

    ¡°No, it means I know you think he is.¡±

    ¡°Freddie¡ª¡±

    ¡°Come on, I hate that fucking guy.¡±

    ¡°You hated me too when I got hired.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s not get ahead of ourselves.¡±

    Sage stared at her hard, but she could tell by the way he¡¯d pulled his hands away from the keyboard that he was feeling insecure. ¡°Tell me one thing you have against him professionally.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s annoying,¡± she replied without hesitation.

    ¡°In what way is he annoying?¡± Sage asked, looking genuinely confused.

    ¡°He¡¯s¡­¡± She struggled for the right word. ¡°Too nice.¡± Sage opened his mouth to speak but she didn''t let him get that far. ¡°If you¡¯re so sure, why don¡¯t you go get him?¡±

    ¡°Because right now, I have to both be Neptune and run Retrieval, which is spread out from Canada to Honduras, bring together reinforcements from the other offices, and manage some sort of transfer of power. Reintegration can spare you for a few hours until they¡¯re apprehended, and there¡¯s a minor involved.¡±

    She huffed. That was a card she had no counter for. ¡°You won''t consider anyone else?¡±

    ¡°I considered everyone else all through the night. I¡¯ve worked with Gerrit on a few joint missions and he¡¯ll be good for the job.¡±

    ¡°Fine,¡± she scowled. ¡°I¡¯ll have to buy some anti-nausea meds. I don¡¯t pop around as much as you, so I¡¯m not used to it. Plus, I have to go be in the same room as Gerrit del Sol.¡±

    ¡°Thank you,¡± Sage said, meeting her eyes.

    ¡°Do me a favor and get fifteen minutes of sleep at some point today. You look like hell.¡± Freddie left before he could respond.

    ---

    Guadalajara, Mexico.

    They got into Guadalajara around sunset. Alyosha had taken over driving to guide them through the dense city. The roads were jammed with traffic and in turns either strangely broad or too narrow to safely be a two-way street. The center of the city was two-thirds old world stone buildings with mossy foundations and crumbling masonry, and one-third skyscrapers, all sharp angles and glass, looking like they had been plucked from the modern world and dropped into the nineteenth century.

    ¡°It¡¯s so green,¡± Alex murmured.

    Reeve ran his finger down the glass. The trees here were bushy and a little wild. Not struggling for life in dusty patches like back at home. Hannah turned around in the passenger seat. Her face by her browbone was swollen out of shape on one side and turning plum colored. ¡°That¡¯s what not-desert living looks like.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s weird,¡± he whispered, his head turned to the window so Reeve could only see his red hair.

    ¡°You should see the rainy season,¡± Shvedov called back.

    A faded pickup truck tried to cut them off. Alyosha sped up to shoulder them out, leaning on the horn and yelling something aggressive-sounding in accented Spanish out the window.

    ¡°Woah!¡± Gareth shouted, bracing one arm on the back of the front seat and the other around Alex. ¡°We just did the car crash thing!¡± Reeve sent Alyosha a sharp questioning thought. He had maybe heard Shvedov raise his voice once in the years they¡¯d known each other.

    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    ¡°Sorry.¡± Shvedov shrugged. ¡°You said I should try to fit in,¡± he offered with a small smile.

    They made their way through the squares at the center of the city and headed on to the Eastern outskirts. The gleaming resorts and church spires slowly gave way to narrow gravel roads and graffiti. Tangles of power lines crisscrossed above them like dreamcatchers. The brightly painted houses were clustered together and on top of each other like a child¡¯s building blocks. On every street, there were stone walls in various stages of collapsing into rubble, and bars on every window.

    Into the silence as they rode, Alex called up to the front, ¡°So what you¡¯re saying, Alyosha, is that there isn¡¯t going to be a mint on my pillow tomorrow morning.¡±

    Shvedov chuckled. ¡°Nyet. But I think I will have enough pillows for everyone.¡±

    They wound through a maze of one-way streets, food carts, and squat stacks of red bricks. Alyosha slowed to a stop in front of a light brown unit with a bright aqua door and trim. There was an attached one car garage, which was really more of a barely-car-sized box with a full height aqua metal gate, making it look like a cage.

    ¡°This is it. You will probably want to get out here,¡± Shvedov said, turning the car off. ¡°There really isn¡¯t even enough room for me to get out of the van once it¡¯s parked inside.¡±

    Reeve slid the door open and stepped out. Gareth was leaning over the backseat to grab their bags. Three stray dogs were watching them from down the block and the word Internet had been spray-painted in huge black letters across the front of the building across the street. An elderly woman with a squint-eyed smile called to Alyosha from the window of the lemon yellow home next door. He waved and called back before unlocking the heavy padlock on the gate, which squeaked loudly. Hannah scratched at the back of Reeve¡¯s arm to get his attention. She was wearing her shorts and baggy shirt again.

    ¡°Hey, did you learn Spanish and not tell us?¡± she asked.

    He sighed, watching Gareth load himself up with bags like a pack mule while wrestling more out of Alex¡¯s stubborn one-handed grip. ¡°I tried, actually. I couldn¡¯t exactly practice it out loud with you guys, so I didn¡¯t get far. It would have been convenient if any of the countries we learned languages for weren¡¯t across oceans.¡±

    Gareth and Alex climbed out and shut the door. Hannah nodded her chin at Gareth. ¡°You took Spanish in school, right?¡±

    ¡°Sure,¡± he shrugged. ¡°Like two years of it before I dropped out of high school. Dos cervezas, por favor.¡±

    ¡°Dos?¡±

    ¡°I was a high achiever.¡±

    Alyosha pulled the van into the garage and began locking it up.

    Alex scanned the neighborhood. ¡°I have never seen so many sneakers thrown over power lines before and I spent time sleeping on cardboard. This is just goddamn excessive.¡± His mouth was swollen and there were angry scrapes across the burns on this face and neck. It physically hurt Reeve to look at him and Hannah.

    Alyosha unlocked the front door and caught Reeve¡¯s eye. ¡°We should get inside,¡± Reeve said, checking for faces in the windows of neighboring houses. Gareth nodded and nudged Alex with his armful of bags. They filed into the house. It was comfortably dark, if a little stale inside. The walls were bare, painted cream, and white cloths covered a dining room set, couch, and small television. Gareth dropped the bags into a pile by the door and stretched, popping his neck.

    ¡°Aw!¡± Alex picked up the corner of the cloth covering the kitchen table and held it up. ¡°Alyosha! You¡¯re a grandma!¡±

    Shvedov waved a hand at him and bent over to plug in a dingy refrigerator, which coughed to life. ¡°Who likes dust?¡±

    Reeve pulled out and sat in one of the kitchen chairs, resting his head on one hand. ¡°Bedrooms are upstairs?¡± he asked, looking at the narrow stucco staircase without a railing.

    ¡°Yes, there are two of them.¡± Shvedov turned on the faucet, which chugged to life before spitting water. ¡°I have no food here. I need to walk down to the store.¡±

    Reeve gave his head a shake. ¡°No one goes anywhere alone.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll go,¡± Gareth said, fitting the cap back on his head. ¡°I could use a stretch.¡±

    ¡°Just be careful.¡± Reeve had enough sense to look away before he caught the full heat of Gareth¡¯s look. Alex and Hannah uncovered the threadbare couch and sat down.

    ¡°Gareth,¡± Hannah called from the couch. She waited for him to turn and look at her. ¡°We¡¯re alive today.¡± She sat unsmiling and they exchanged a moment of silence.

    Gareth nodded once and told Shvedov, ¡°Hey, we gotta pick up some booze on the way back.¡±

    The door shut and Reeve found he was laughing silently with burning ribs.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Alex asked, sounding a little disgusted.

    Reeve straightened and blew out a breath. ¡°I just found myself envying Gareth and Hannah¡¯s way of talking without needing words.¡±

    He waited for some smart-ass retort but Hannah and Alex didn¡¯t say anything, which was worse.

    ---

    After the long, silent car ride, Guadalajara after sundown was anything but. Reeve stood with his back to the wall by the front door, keeping watch. Alyosha was making up a bed on the couch while Alex struggled to hear whatever was coming out his headphones as he worked to rebuild his music library on his new burner phone. The air outside the windows was full of snippets of music and raucous voices moving up and down the street. The songs mixed and blurred together into a pulsing tonal drone. The lights overhead kept fading to a dim yellow then back again. ¡°That happens,¡± Shvedov told him.

    Hannah and Gareth were at the kitchen table with a couple of liquor bottles, more empty than full. Alex gave up on the phone and sat at the table to join them, playing table hockey with a bottle cap. Another blare of music struck up in a neighboring home, making Reeve jump. It was loud enough that Reeve could feel it in his back teeth.

    ¡°Is it always like this?¡± Alex shouted over the horns.

    Alyosha cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, ¡°Pretty much.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Hannah had her face scrunched up, straining to hear.

    Gareth laughed and tapped his fingers on the table. ¡°That¡¯s what you get for shooting off that rifle right by your ear all the time!¡± Hannah stuck out her tongue at him.

    More than a little tipsy, Hannah stood up, knocking her chair with the back of her knees. She took one last pull on a bottle of rum and set it down. ¡°Come on!¡± She beckoned to Alex with both hands. He laughed and put his good hand down on the table as if to stand up.

    ¡°Seriously? You look like an old banana.¡±

    She closed her eyes and bobbed her shoulders to the beat yelling, ¡°Come on, birthday boy!¡± Shaking his head, Alex stood up and took her hand. Reeve watched them, half his mind keeping watch for threats. He felt a pang of guilt at having forgotten Alex¡¯s birthday. Shvedov came to stand next to him, leaning in to be heard.

    ¡°Is the plan still to leave tomorrow morning?¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡±

    With her free arm over her head Hannah swayed, tangled hair whipping back and forth. She bounced, picking her knees up as she stepped. Careful of his sling, Alex hung onto her hand, swinging it while he danced, grinning. Gareth hooted into his fist and pounded his other hand on the table like a drum.

    This wasn¡¯t how Reeve had planned it, but he felt a guilty tug of relief that they were all here. He needed to believe that he could keep them safe.

    ¡°They¡¯ll forgive me eventually.¡±

    Shvedov gave his one-shouldered shrug. ¡°They already have. They just aren¡¯t ready for you to know it yet.¡±

    Reeve glanced over at him. His eyes were bloodshot and oddly calm. ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re here.¡±

    Shvedov shook his head and clapped him on the shoulder with a smile. ¡°I am going to try to get some rest. No one likes a sleepy pilot.¡±

    Hannah jumped and howled along with the muffled voices and police sirens filtering in from the street. They could dance, the two of them. Minding his stiff upper body, Alex rolled his hips to the music and threw his head back to crow along with Hannah. Gareth sent up a yell that choked on more laughter.

    Reeve couldn¡¯t help but laugh then, as Hannah and Alex started to attempt to belly dance. He winced at their sore movement as they tried to find their rhythm. From the corner of his eye he saw Shvedov reach to place a box of earplugs on a side table before moving into the living room to lay down on the couch. Reeve wanted them to never stop, to shout and laugh surrounded by pounding music forever. They were free and alive and felt it. And he wanted them to stop, to lay down and mind their wounds. He knew the last thing he was in a position to do was to tell them to do. But he could feel Hannah¡¯s exhaustion and the pain that the alcohol barely covered. He watched them burn off their tension, knowing she would stop soon and the others would follow her lead.

    Upstairs in the bedroom Gareth and Reeve were sharing, it wasn¡¯t much quieter. Gareth had grunted at Reeve¡¯s ¡°g¡¯night¡± and rolled onto his side, neon yellow foam showing in his ears. Reeve was lying propped up in bed next to him, still dressed. Between two caffeine tablets and the anxiety, he was confident he¡¯d be able to stay awake and alert most of the night, but the unceasing noise didn¡¯t hurt. He sifted through the neighborhood, minds packed together like a honeycomb. There was no one he found that knew his face or his Icarus number. They wouldn¡¯t know his name now. He kept looking.

    About an hour later, he could feel Alex walking toward his door. Even without being in his head, he easily recognized the familiar flurry of Alex¡¯s projected thoughts that swarmed around him like a school of tiny fish. Reeve reached over and put a hand on Gareth¡¯s shoulder. He jumped, coming awake in an instant¡ªscanning the room and half reaching for the gun on the table before looking at Reeve and pulling out one earplug.

    ¡°It¡¯s just Alex at the door,¡± he told Gareth, who lowered his brow and then relaxed, understanding enough that when the door swung open a moment later he didn¡¯t leap into defense. Alex stood in the dark landing, a bar of streetlight from the window landing across his chest.

    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± Gareth asked, groggily pulling himself up into a sitting position. ¡°You Reading too much?¡± There was a long pause before Alex stepped in through the door.

    ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s not like it¡¯s anything disturbing or even interesting. Alyosha seriously needs to get a life. His boring is so loud it¡¯s keeping me up.¡±

    It sounded a little bit like Alex had rehearsed it before coming to their door, but he couldn¡¯t say for sure. ¡°This one¡¯s probably the guest room then,¡± Reeve said instead, starting to get up, ¡°It¡¯ll be quieter.¡± Gareth beat him to it and swung his legs to the floor.

    ¡°I¡¯ll stay with Hannah. If you¡¯re having one of your Reading nights, I really don¡¯t have the kind of past you want to be bumpin¡¯ elbows with.¡± Gareth picked up his things and waited for Alex to move out from in front of the doorway. Alex stood for a moment, looking like he wasn¡¯t sure if he was going to argue or not, then shuffled to the bed. Gareth shot Reeve one last look before closing the door, his mind narrowing into one thought: fix it.

    ¡°So are you not sleeping tonight?¡± Alex asked without moving. Reeve hated not knowing the right thing to say, not knowing the real questions in his mind that Alex wanted answered.

    ¡°I¡¯ll sleep,¡± he lied. ¡°Come on, you should sleep. You can Read Gareth¡¯s snoring instead.¡± That got him a hint of a smile and Alex plopped onto the bed. ¡°You want some earplugs?¡±

    ¡°Naw,¡± he held up his newly loaded up phone. ¡°I¡¯ve got my own.¡± He smooshed at the pillow with his good hand and curled up facing Reeve, knees pulled high and balancing his sling on his side. ¡°Will you keep track of me? Pinch me or whatever you do if I get lost?¡± he asked glumly and a little too fast.

    ¡°Sure.¡±

    Alex was mad and he was hurt, but Reeve hoped it wasn¡¯t the kind of anger he made it out to be.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry your birthday didn¡¯t involve cake this year.¡±

    ¡°Shut up, freckles.¡±

    Reeve sighed and settled onto his back again, looking out the window. He thought it had gotten quieter outside, but he wasn¡¯t sure.

    He relaxed into the fact that his internal compass made sense again. He was able to telepathically place all four of them somewhere nearby. Reeve tried to imagine a life where he and Shvedov had flown off south, leaving three of his cardinal directions achingly blank, probably forever. Alex had started to drift off to sleep, breathing soft and slow. Reeve felt like an idiot.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 7.

    Guadalajara, Mexico.

    Reeve didn¡¯t sleep. He kept watch over the waking minds in the neighborhood, which grew fewer and fewer as the hours wound on. His eyes strayed to the bedroom and the way Alyosha had decorated. It wasn¡¯t spartan, the direction he would have gone. There was a patterned blanket draped over a chair sitting in the corner of the room. A wooden dresser with a tall mirror attached had a couple of knicknacks perched on it. It was cozy and it warmed something in him to know Shvedov had made a real home for himself here. It felt strange that he¡¯d never been in this house, though he bought it years ago.

    He remembered the day they had met. Reeve had been sitting in his car at the back of a grocery store parking lot in Henderson, Nevada, watching a man across the street work at a car wash. Through his binoculars, Reeve could see he was in his late twenties, had cropped brown hair, and a rather lean body on a wide frame. It seemed such a long time ago. He remembered he didn¡¯t chat much with his coworkers and had a tendency to bob his head when he smiled at customers, which was often. This was who Reeve had been ordered to kill.

    According to the file, he was an Entropy agent named Martin Boykavich. The name was tied in Reeve¡¯s memory to the sound of shaking melting ice in his coffee as he watched. The rattling sound was comforting. He had his mind opened up as an indiscriminate receiver for thoughts in the area, trying to tease out the relevant threads from across the street. It was unpleasant, but someone from Entropy was likely to notice any direct telepathic activity. To help keep himself grounded, he scratched at a tear in the upholstery on the front seat, focusing on the texture. It was a habit that annoyed the hell out of Gareth, but they had only known each other for three months, so basically everything about each other was still annoying. Neither he nor Hannah knew where Reeve was. All three liked to take long drives (or long desert walks for sunburnt Hannah) in order to be alone with their thoughts, so they didn¡¯t generally press him when he was gone for a day or so.

    The cursory observations Reeve had isolated from the tangled thoughts gave him the impression that the name on file was an alias. The mission file was sparse, which wasn¡¯t unusual when it came to missions involving Entropy. There just didn¡¯t tend to be much available intel. There was no information about whether he was knacked or what that knack might be. As Reeve tried to sort through the overwhelming din, he got the sense that if he had a knack at all, it wasn¡¯t prominent. Another thing he didn¡¯t sense was violence in the man, who was resigned to being called Martin. The images he could perceive were of clouds, looming close and beautiful.

    Reeve had broken into his apartment late that night. He stuck to picking the lock, not wanting to spook him with his telepathy by making the Super open the door. It wasn¡¯t a skill he often used and Reeve struggled briefly with it. The heavy clunk of the bolt shifting made him flinch and he hoped the sound of traffic just outside would mask much of it. He reminded himself to take a steadying breath before slowly turning the knob. It was dark inside. Palms flat on the door, Reeve remembered inching it forward, pausing now and then to move his body farther inside the apartment, careful to keep his telepathy closed off. The hinges creaked and Reeve grimaced. His heart was pounding in his ears and his breath felt too shallow as he braced himself to execute a less stealthy entrance. Horns blared down the street, putting him more at ease.

    Once inside just enough to step clear of the open door, he waited to let his eyes adjust to the level of light in the room. He could make out a couch and a table, and then an emerging outline of shoulders and a head. Reeve froze and held his breath, but when the shape came at him with a haymaker, the world swung back into action. He ducked the wild swing and reached out to push into his mind, freezing his muscles and stopping a second attack. It was over faster than it began. He could hear the man¡¯s desperate heavy breathing close to his ear.

    ¡°Get out,¡± a voice rasped, thick from forcing his jaw to move.

    Sidestepping, Reeve swung the door shut behind him and hit the light switch on the wall. He squinted and let his mind acclimate to the flow of Martin¡¯s thoughts. He was in loose pants and an undershirt; he wasn¡¯t much taller than Reeve. Not Martin. Alyosha Shvedov.

    ¡°Are you from Entropy?¡± he asked Reeve. His Russian accent was heavy. He would never forget the palpable fear and apprehension Alyosha had felt waiting for him to answer.

    ¡°No.¡±

    Relief, followed by more fear. ¡°Who are you?¡±

    There was no real reason to be indirect. ¡°I¡¯m from SolCorp.¡±

    He watched Alyosha digest this with a dread that was hard and remote. ¡°You were sent to kill me.¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± was all Reeve could think to say.

    ¡°So why am I not dead?¡± His English was decent, but dotted with awkward pauses.

    Once inside the apartment, Reeve seemed to have misplaced his conviction. He reached for it and found nothing. He relaxed his grip on Alyosha¡¯s muscles enough that he would be able to stand up comfortably, but not enough for sudden movements. Reeve opened his mouth to try to answer. He had practiced what he would say earlier in the day, back when he felt prepared for this. Nothing came.

    Alyosha huffed out a breath and gave a small, experimental shrug. ¡°Why don¡¯t you come all of the way inside.¡±

    Reeve stared at him, brow furrowed. ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Inside,¡± he repeated. With an effort, Alyosha slowly raised one arm waist high to point at his own head. ¡°You are already in here, yes? When you want me to be dead, then I am dead. Nothing I can do could stop it. But I am not dead, so you might as well sit down.¡± He gave a weak smile.

    In his thoughts he could see images being replayed of a man killed with telepathy. A slack, anonymous face against carpet, blood slowly leaking from his ears and nose, saturating the whites of his eyes. Alyosha understood what would happen if he gave Reeve a reason. What he didn¡¯t understand was why it hadn¡¯t happened already. Reeve released his grip on his body, keeping a firm lock on his mind. He felt some of the tension relax.

    Alyosha rolled his shoulders and glanced over at his kitchenette. ¡°I would like to get a glass of water. That okay?¡± He tapped his temple. ¡°You will watch.¡±

    It had been an unnerving reaction. More so because it wasn¡¯t from a place of sheer cockiness, but from a man resigned to the fact that there was nothing he could do to prevent the death he knew was coming.

    ¡°Sure.¡± Reeve monitored his thoughts and watched him take a bottle of water from the fridge and move to take a seat at his small table.

    He followed and sat down across from him, his whole body rigid. ¡°You¡¯re a part of Entropy.¡±

    Alyosha¡¯s eyebrows pulled together. ¡°Da, yes.¡± He took a drink, swallowed, and then started laughing soundlessly. ¡°I am sorry,¡± he said, putting up a hand, ¡°I just don¡¯t understand.¡±

    Reeve, the laughter bringing him back to himself, leaned forward in his chair. With folded hands and his forearms resting on the table, he began to sift through his past. Again, clouds were the first thing he saw, as if they were the undercurrent of his mind. Less diluted now, Reeve could feel these cloud images from many angles, and along with it came wonder and a sense of great pressure. ¡°You¡¯re a pilot,¡± he said with some surprise.

    ¡°I fly their planes, yes. They tell me where to be and then where to take people. I do that.¡±

    ¡°Why do you work for them?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t already know this from being in my head?¡±

    ¡°How you tell it could be as important as the facts.¡±

    He flashed that resigned smile again, looking down at the table and then back up at him, eyes bright. ¡°Okay,¡± he agreed, shaking his head slightly. ¡°I grew up on a farm. My father was a crop duster and he taught me how to fly. I was supposed to work for him.¡± He swallowed. ¡°But, I was not a good kid. I wanted to see the city. I left. I ended up with¡ªyou would call gangs.¡± He toyed with the bottle in his hands. Reeve watched. ¡°I flew for them. Bigger planes, across the continent. Drugs, this sort of thing.¡±

    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    He hesitated, then gave Reeve a sloppy side-grin and lifted one shoulder, a gesture that made him look like he had just been caught out at something. ¡°Then one day, these other men told me I worked for them now. It was¡­not a request.¡± He took another drink of water. ¡°So I shuttle them places. Bigger planes now. I don¡¯t know what for or sometimes who they are, but it is my job. They¡¯re not people you leave. I don¡¯t know why you want to know this.¡±

    ¡°Because I don¡¯t want to kill you.¡±

    ¡°Since when does that have anything to do with it?¡±

    That made Reeve smile back, disarmed. ¡°It¡¯s maybe not what we were taught in Sol, but it is what I was taught.¡±

    Alyosha looked at him like he was crazy. Reeve felt that was possible. ¡°So you don¡¯t kill me¡ªthen what?¡±

    ¡°I hide you. From Sol and Entropy.¡±

    ¡°Can that work?¡±

    ¡°If they both think you¡¯re dead.¡±

    Alyosha raised both his eyebrows. ¡°Has it ever worked?¡±

    It hadn¡¯t yet, but only because this had been the first mark he had ever approached with this plan. And he was highly motivated to make it work.

    ¡°Well, the other option is I can kill you right now if you¡¯d prefer.¡± He scratched his head. ¡°And if it helps, it¡¯s a fifty-fifty chance, depending on who finds you that if you die, I die too.¡±

    ¡°That is honestly not how I define ¡®helps,¡¯¡± he laughed. ¡°But I see what you are saying. I would owe you.¡±

    Reeve was surprised to find how comfortable he felt in his head. Not that it wasn¡¯t full of minefields of dark, painful memories, like Gareth, but it didn¡¯t seem to haunt him in the same way, or taint everything else. Like Hannah, his thoughts were very straightforward and honest. From that, it was clear Alyosha was willing to go with Reeve on this.

    ¡°When I leave here, I want you to go down to the airstrip, take their plane, and fly it down to Guadalajara or Mexico City. Your choice.¡± He pulled a thick billfold from his pants pocket and held it up. ¡°This should be enough to get you set up for a while. And use this,¡± he pulled out a cellphone, ¡°to call the contact number in there within the next two days to give me your location.¡± He put them down on the table and watched Alyosha study them before slowly picking them up, gently as if they were fragile. Reeve gave his head a controlled but swift surge of pressure, just enough to cause pain. ¡°If you run, you will have my team and all of Sol looking for you, and you should hope that Sol finds you before I do.¡±

    Alyosha nodded, but the lack of mental response to his telepathy reminded Reeve that Entropy was a hard act to follow when it came to threats. ¡°Will you make me kill people?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he said quickly and took a breath before continuing. ¡°No, not that kind of favor. But if you stay in contact with me, I¡¯ll make sure you have whatever you need to keep you off their radar.¡± He extended his hand across the table.

    ¡°You are serious?¡± His brow was furrowed and his jaw was slack.

    In response he left his hand out, waiting. Alyosha shook it.

    ¡°I¡¯m Reeve.¡±

    He was staring at his hand, as though it had acted on its own. ¡°Alyosha.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Standing, Reeve recognized the feeling in his belly that led him here. It was conviction and it was fear.

    Alyosha laughed and rubbed at his face with the heels of his palms. ¡°Why are you doing all of this?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s the right thing to do.¡± Reeve gave a small smile. ¡°And because one day I might need a plane.¡±

    The sky above Guadalajara grew rosy with dawn and Reeve finally dozed.

    ---

    SolCorp Pharmaceutical¡¯s Philadelphia Office. Neptune Department.

    Gerrit del Sol was reading through the roster of Retrieval agents who had been pulled for backup on three new Icarus, per a continent-wide alert from Neptune. It was a lot. Like, a lot. But he was the second highest ranking Neptune agent in Philly, so it fell to him, and that was fine. If nothing else, he was pretty good at keeping a cool head.

    He was just about to reassign a few of his agents to cover the openings created by the alert, when Fredericka came barging into his office. Gerrit was slightly younger than her, with short dark hair, a tall forehead, and faint five o¡¯clock shadow. He occupied a middle space between desk worker and field agent, so while he was dressed in a plaid button down and slacks, his Blacks were hanging on a hook by the door so he could gear up at a moment¡¯s notice.

    ¡°Hey,¡± he smiled at her after a pause of shock and stood up from his chair. ¡°How you been?¡±

    ¡°Oh, sit the fuck down,¡± she snapped with her characteristic scowl.

    He made an exaggerated grimace and sank back into his seat. ¡°Ma¡¯am?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re damn fucking right.¡±

    Gerrit knew when he was fully out of his depth and when someone¡¯s attitude wasn¡¯t expressly aimed at him, so he kept his mouth shut. Always better to let someone wear themselves out on their own. Particularly with Freddie. They¡¯d only worked together as Retrieval agents a couple times, years and years back. But her efficiency and the brutality with which she could use her light manipulation was a thing few people who saw it forgot. He¡¯d heard that since having left for Reintegration and rising through the ranks, she¡¯d managed to translate that energy into verbal form, but he¡¯d never been on the receiving end of it. He kept his mouth shut and waited for her to go on.

    ¡°I need you to pack an overnight bag,¡± she told him, face gone hard and neutral. ¡°You¡¯re coming with me. We¡¯ll have people send over the rest of your things.¡±

    He put his hands out, palms down. ¡°Hold on¡ª" If he didn¡¯t know better, he¡¯d have questioned whether this demand was professional or correctional. When the person in charge of Icarus Containment tells you to pack a bag, it had a level of effect that originated in the primal fear sector of the brain. But he did know better, because he hadn¡¯t done anything off-color. ¡°Can you back up please?¡±

    She crossed her arms in front of her chest. ¡°Neptune, in his divine wisdom, has promoted you to Third and your first crisis is already underway. You¡¯re pretty fucked, honestly, so get a bag, and let¡¯s go.¡±

    His mouth moved aimlessly. He mentally set the promotion aside for a second. He¡¯d come back to that. He knew Will was older, but his health was good, and Gerrit hadn¡¯t even heard whispers of him planning to step down. It had to have been something sudden and drastic.

    ¡°Is Will dead?¡±

    Her expression didn¡¯t change. ¡°Only professionally.¡±

    ¡°Uhh¡­¡± He let his mouth hang open.

    She sighed and walked around to his desk. With swift movements, she pulled the laptop her way, logged him out, and logged herself in.

    He shook his head at her. ¡°What the hell¡¯s going on, Fred?¡±

    ¡°No one calls me that anymore,¡± she snapped, not looking at him.

    ¡°Yeah, no kidding, but you¡¯re not really answering me, so I figured I¡¯d give it a shot.¡±

    Her hands flew over the keys and brought up four panels of Icarus files. His eyes lingered on the youngest one. A teenager.

    ¡°I saw these come up, but haven¡¯t gotten a chance to¡ª¡±

    Then she pulled up Neptune¡¯s report on Will¡¯s resignation. Gerrit rushed to take in the text as quickly as he could and felt the blood drain from his face with each word. Halfway down were the ID photos of four agents lost. Good people. Gone now.

    ¡°Will fucked up big time,¡± she told him, straightening as he read. ¡°So now we¡¯ve got four agents down, four Icarus in the wind, and no head of Retrieval. HQ¡¯s been keeping the worst of it as quiet as we can until there¡¯s a new head of Retrieval. The foster is one of the Venus Twenty-Five, so I imagine people could draw parallels to that fucking fiasco.¡±

    He raised his eyes from the screen, but Freddie was on a roll.

    ¡°The Icarus were prepared. Their trail ends at an airstrip. Sage thinks you can bring them in and I don¡¯t have time for you to argue that you can¡¯t. Plus you¡¯re my ride back to LA and I¡¯ve got my own shit to do, so if you don¡¯t mind, let¡¯s hurry this overnight bag thing along so you can make me almost lose my lunch back in my own timezone.¡±

    It was a humbling image, those eight faces staring him down through the screen, four Icarus, four fallen agents. And an even more humbling task. Sol agents didn¡¯t defect in groups. It just didn¡¯t happen. Rogue elements were supposed to be just that: rogue. An interpersonal matter gone wrong, substance misuse, mental illness. Hell, even ideological division¡ªbut individual.

    Gerrit logged her account out with a quick keyboard shortcut, shut his laptop, and shoved it in the computer bag he kept under his desk. ¡°Okay, let¡¯s go.¡± He went to the door and hefted his Blacks onto his shoulder.

    She hadn¡¯t moved from his desk. ¡°You¡¯re not even a little shocked you were chosen for the promotion?¡±

    ¡°Of course I am,¡± he breathed. ¡°But right now, you need me on my game, so what I¡¯m hearing is LA needs someone to lead a mission to bring these four in and rescue this kid. That is something my brain can handle without going into shock and without the distraction of leaving all my friends behind, so that¡¯s what I¡¯m going with. The rest can wait.¡±

    Gerrit stuck his head out of his office door and caught an agent going by. ¡°Hey, tell Ron LA needs me for a thing. I¡¯ll call him later to explain.¡± The agent looked confused, but nodded. He shut the door, dug a packet of antacids out of his Blacks for Freddie, and held them out. ¡°Okay, let¡¯s go.¡±

    She didn¡¯t move. ¡°You don¡¯t need your stuff?¡±

    ¡°When it¡¯s time to brush my teeth, I can pop back to my quarters for my toothbrush if I want to.¡±

    She made a face. ¡°Teleporters.¡± Fredericka snatched them out of his hand and chewed with malice.

    ¡°Why do you dislike me so much?¡± he asked.

    ¡°You give Neptune a bad rap.¡±

    Gerrit scratched his nose with his free hand. ¡°Honestly, I was kind of hoping you¡¯d have to think about it for a second before answering.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not the first person to ask me that the past day,¡± she explained, as if that helped. ¡°You¡¯re too friendly. You like everyone.¡±

    ¡°But people are likable,¡± he argued with a smile that was more from surprise than anything.

    ¡°We don¡¯t need to be liked. We need people to listen to us.¡±

    ¡°Reintegration doesn¡¯t need to be liked,¡± he corrected. ¡°Maybe even Neptune the office doesn¡¯t need to be liked. Retrieval and even Cleanup¨Csure, we¡¯ll ruin your day if you ruin ours first, but there¡¯s nothing wrong with us being approachable. We scan people into and out of the building every day, keep threats out, and come running to the rescue when there¡¯s danger. I mean, hell, we literally want people to approach us to report if something is wrong. I¡¯m not saying you¡¯re wrong, but I¡¯m not either.¡±

    She regarded him with an unimpressed expression.

    ¡°And,¡± he went on, ¡°it¡¯s not even a professional ploy. There¡¯s always something to like about people.¡± He held back on saying, ¡®even you,¡¯ as a joke.

    Freddie rolled her eyes. ¡°Alright, you don''t outrank me yet, so shut it and fuck up time and space, or whatever it is you do.¡±

    He gave one slow blink, then held out his free arm for her to come in close enough for him to get a good hold on her. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am. Take a deep breath.¡± He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and jumped.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 8.

    Guadalajara, Mexico.

    Gareth woke Hannah up in the morning, as gently as he could. She wasn¡¯t going to be in a pleasant mood after going as hard as she did on the booze the night before.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± he said without sympathy.

    She groaned and wrinkled her nose at him. ¡°You¡¯re an inhuman, hangover-proof monster and I hate you.¡±

    ¡°Come on, gotta get downstairs so they can put food in you.¡± She groaned low again but rolled off the bed, and he watched her trudge down the narrow stairway. Reeve and Alex were at the table, eating, and it almost felt normal, except for every single other thing.

    ¡°Well you look vaguely like shit,¡± Alex said with a grin. Hannah flipped him off half-heartedly.

    ¡°It¡¯s not fair that the only other person whose knack doesn¡¯t get fucked up from drinking gets to cheat on the hangover part. Water water water.¡± She chugged one glass from the jug and poured another.

    Picking at a sweet pastry, Gareth looked around. ¡°Where¡¯s Alyosha?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s getting our ride ready.¡± Reeve¡¯s face was a little ragged from not sleeping. ¡°He should be back any¡­ actually that¡¯s him,¡± Reeve said, nodding toward the door. A key turned in the lock, making Gareth jump. Alyosha stepped in and shut the door, quickly darting his eyes to the floor. He was still avoiding looking at Hannah whenever she was naked. He could empathize. Instead, Alyosha made careful eye contact with Reeve, probably talking in their heads.

    Reeve nodded and stood. ¡°Pack it up,¡± he said, ¡°we¡¯ll bring the food.¡±

    Gareth was happy to sit in the back of the van with Hannah and let Alyosha manage the busy streets. Hannah sat invisibly beside him, just in case they ran into trouble and needed a surprise edge, but he half thought it was to get out of carrying their bags.

    They were waved through at the gate of the airstrip and Alyosha pulled the van to stop beside a fifty foot Cessna.

    ¡°Wait, this one?¡± Gareth¡¯s voice was unstrung and incredulous. ¡°This is a¡­¡± he trailed off, staring, a cold dread beginning.

    ¡°It¡¯s a plane,¡± Alex said, leaning forward for a better look. ¡°We knew there was going to be a plane, right?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a fucking jet!¡± Gareth spat turning to look at Reeve, ¡°How the fuck did you afford this?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t buy it,¡± he said flatly.

    ¡°The hell does that mean?¡±

    Alyosha, shifting nervously, broke in with an apologetic smile. ¡°We shouldn¡¯t do this here.¡±

    Reeve nodded. ¡°Let¡¯s get inside.¡±

    Inside, the plane was even more expensive-looking. There were luxurious tan leather first-class chairs on each side of the cabin, the four in the back facing forward and the ones at the front facing the rear. Between them, attached to the wall on both sides, were tables large enough to have a wine and caviar tasting, which he had to assume was what they were built for. Beside him, Alex¡¯s eyes were wide as saucers.

    ¡°This is insanely cool and I want one for my birthday.¡±

    Reeve ignored him, standing with Alyosha up by the cockpit. ¡°Settle in,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯re not going to be sticking around.¡±

    Something about it all felt familiar. The dread solidified into a lump of cold fear and he was starting to realize what exactly they were doing. It apparently took a twenty-nine hour car ride for it all to really sink in. If he knew anything, Gareth knew how to run. It was coded into his DNA¡ªthat need to see the landscape speeding by, to grab onto the sense of freedom of knowing he could turn left or turn right and no one would stop him or even know which he picked. He knew from the start that leaving Entropy was suicide, and only the multinational protection of the Corp had shielded him from the particular type of violence that Entropy could bring down on a man. Without that, he could never stop moving.

    Looking down the string of days with no destination, his mouth went sour. And to his frustration, Gareth¡¯s instinctual response to this was to run. Book it. Take his bag and take a day, and then come back and start this bullshit. It was what he was best at. But he couldn¡¯t.

    Trapped and waiting to take off in this fancy-ass jet, Gareth did what he was second best at: he got into a fight with Reeve.

    ¡°So you stole it?¡±

    Reeve looked at him and then back toward the cockpit. ¡°Technically I had Shvedov steal it. He was already the pilot, I just had him take it with him when he went into hiding.¡±

    He wasn¡¯t getting away with a non-answer. ¡°Who¡¯d he steal it from?¡±

    Reeve sat in one of the front most seats. ¡°Entropy.¡±

    That¡¯s what he¡¯d been afraid of.

    ¡°There¡¯s no way Alyosha was an Entropy agent,¡± Alex said, shaking his head. ¡°He¡¯s so nice!¡±

    ¡°Thanks,¡± Gareth said snidely.

    Alex cocked an eyebrow. ¡°Are you trying to tell me that Alyosha isn¡¯t way nicer than you?¡±

    Gareth was burning through the fuse of his temper at a rapid rate, enough that Hannah must have felt it and touched his arm lightly as he went on.

    ¡°Can someone shut him up and tell me why we¡¯re planning to fly around the Americas in an Entropy jet?¡± He could see Alex¡¯s face flush, but the shaking in his core was too distracting to care in that moment.

    ¡°It¡¯s what was available. And he wasn¡¯t really an agent. He¡¯s a pilot they waylaid. You must have known people like that.¡±

    ¡°How did you even keep this thing parked?¡±

    ¡°Bribery. And telepathy.¡±

    Gareth dragged his hands down his face. ¡°You pissed someone off. Bad.¡± He¡¯d ridden in Entropy jets during his time there. Not often, only when he was traveling with Adler after his promotion.

    ¡°It was years ago.¡±

    ¡°Reeve, why didn¡¯t you buy your own private jet?¡± Gareth asked sarcastically. When he didn¡¯t answer, Gareth did. ¡°Because this plane cost literal millions of dollars, right?¡±

    Across the row, Alex mouthed the word, ¡°Yikes.¡±

    Reeve still didn¡¯t respond. Still invisible, Hannah squeezed his arm. ¡°What¡¯s done is done,¡± she said. It was something Gareth was telling himself a lot these past couple of days. He could hear Hannah drumming on the armrests with her fingers. ¡°Where are we going?¡±

    ¡°Brazil,¡± Reeve said with a sigh, thankful to change the subject.

    ¡°What¡¯s there?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°Another friend.¡±

    Gareth cut in, not content to let him off the hook yet. ¡°Where are we ending up?¡±

    Reeve made that snobbish face he got when he seemed annoyed that had to attend to the needs of lesser beings. ¡°I told you. Brazil.¡± He had the audacity to roll his eyes. ¡°Northeast. You wouldn¡¯t know the name.¡±

    ¡°Not where in Brazil,¡± Gareth ran over him. His voice was raised and he didn¡¯t care. ¡°Where are we going?¡±

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    Reeve blinked. ¡°I don¡¯t¡ª¡±

    ¡°Where? I assume Brazil¡¯s not an end game. What¡¯s your plan, if you¡¯ve been planning this for how long?¡± Gareth clenched his fist and just barely held himself back from slamming the side of it into the wall. ¡°Where are we going¡ªnot at this minute¡ªbut where are we going to go?¡±

    ¡°Gareth.¡± Reeve said his name lightly as if he were a child asking why, why, why. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I can¡¯t. It depends on a lot of factors.¡± He counted them out on his fingers, his voice slowly rising at each one. ¡°How many resources they commit to erasing us. How badly they want me dead. What kind of knacks the agents that are looking for us have. How badly they want Alex back.¡± He glanced at Alex, ¡°You¡¯re of age now but not graduated yet so I don¡¯t even know if they¡¯ll consider you an Icarus or just an abducted foster.¡± He turned back to Gareth, shoulders sagging, voice quiet again. ¡°I can¡¯t know yet. Just try to trust me that I¡¯ve got options lined up.¡±

    Gareth nodded his head repeatedly, lips tight. ¡°Trust you.¡± He stood up, launching himself at Reeve, wishing he could shove his body through one of the tiny oval windows like toothpaste through a tube. Reeve stood still, waiting and willing to take it. Which was just fucking like him. So superior, like he was saying, yes, angry child I¡¯ll let you take your little frustrations out on me. It only made it worse.

    Hannah was faster, putting herself between them in a flash. She was visible again, hands on Gareth¡¯s chest. He pulled up short. Beside Reeve, Alex was on his feet, looking spitting mad, but at this point, Gareth couldn¡¯t tell at whom.

    ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± Hannah breathed. Reeve was still waiting, stony-faced, behind her. Gareth took her hands. They were clammy.

    ¡°Hannah, careful¡ªyou opened something!¡± Alex scolded, shouldering past Reeve. Hannah scanned her body, a little bewildered. Gareth took her boney hips in his hands and turned her to see the wound on her side where they had pulled out that long piece of glass. The reddened scab had torn and blood was running down her side, mixed with yellow-white puss.

    ¡°Shit! That is really not good!¡± Alex¡¯s brow was pinched.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that bad,¡± she said, shaking her head.

    Reeve¡¯s voice was cold and exacting. ¡°Get the first aid kit behind you and find something to cover it.¡± He turned to walk away.

    Gareth shifted, shaking now, but unable to get to him without jostling Hannah. ¡°Just fucking cover it! Is that also part of your brilliant plan?¡±

    Reeve reeled on him. ¡°You¡¯re scared, we¡¯re all fucking scared! Take a breath and sit down.¡± He turned. ¡°I¡¯m getting us in the air.¡±

    Alex, eyes narrowed, grabbed at the back of Reeve¡¯s shirt as he went by. His grip was tight and sharp and it made Gareth feel a fraction of a bit better.

    Reeve froze and looked at Alex for a quiet, shocked moment. ¡°We¡¯re going to this city in Brazil to see a doctor. We¡¯re staying with a surgeon. Let me get us in the air.¡±

    Alex dropped his hand and went immediately back to Hannah and put an arm around her shoulders. Gareth was still holding onto her waist. Reeve disappeared into the cockpit.

    ¡°Find some gauze or something,¡± he told Alex.

    She put her hands on Gareth¡¯s arms and pushed. ¡°If the two of you don¡¯t let go of me, I will methodically spit on you in your sleep.¡± He took a step back, raising an eyebrow at Alex. ¡°It¡¯s just infected. I¡¯m not fucking dying,¡± she snapped, shaking them off gently. ¡°Now, can we just put something on this to keep from getting gross shit on the leather and get wherever the hell we¡¯re going without killing each other? I¡¯d rather not do Neptune¡¯s job for them.¡±

    The engines kicked on with a hum and the plane jerked to a start as they taxied to a runway.

    ¡°Sit. I¡¯ll find the gauze,¡± Gareth told them. He watched Hannah tug at Alex''s hair, laughing off his concern. He rummaged in cabinets and through supplies. Of course Reeve would be taking them to a doctor. So of course he had to cut their conversation short. He found a large bandage and covered up the seeping cut just in time to sit himself down as they lifted off. They were really in it now.

    ---

    SolCorp LAHQ. Neptune Department.

    From the moment Gerrit popped into the Neptune wing of LAHQ with Fredericka, things kicked into high gear. Freddie choked back a gag from the teleportation, and for all that he wanted to support her through that, he was immediately swarmed by admin staff from the Retrieval offices. They herded him and Freddie into the conference room, filled with what he gathered must have been just about the entire Retrieval division.

    Freddie smirked and turned to him. ¡°Must have forgotten to mention to you, we let them know you were coming. Whoops.¡±

    ¡°Is now really the time to be hazing me?¡± he muttered, dropping his Blacks by the door.

    Freddie just waded into the crowd, whispering, ¡°Go get ¡®em, Tiger,¡± as she walked by.

    Gerrit took a fortifying breath and scanned the crowd. There were easily three or four dozen people standing and watching him, some shifting from foot to foot, others whispering to each other. They looked spooked, and he couldn¡¯t blame them.

    Sage del Sol¨CNeptune, himself¡ªwas standing in the back corner, where Freddie joined him. Penn Harris and Casper del Sol were situated next to each other by the window. This was happening. Now.

    He took another breath and stepped to the front of the room, clearing his throat, and dove in. No time like the present. ¡°Hi, everyone. I¡¯m Gerrit del Sol. I know many of you haven¡¯t met me and it¡¯s gotta be a shock to suddenly have some guy from Philly standing up here. You¡¯re wondering why Will resigned and why I¡¯m here.¡± There were murmurs at that, but Gerrit made sure to make as much eye contact as he could with the people in the crowd (his people, now, somehow) as he spoke. ¡°But for now, I¡¯m asking you to put that shock on a shelf for later. Trust me, I¡¯m feeling it too, but right now we have bigger problems to focus on. Later, we¡¯ll have proper introductions and I promise you¡¯ll get your explanations.¡± He swallowed, glancing at Neptune. He hoped he wasn¡¯t promising something he wasn¡¯t supposed to. It would have been nice to talk to him first.

    ¡°Right now, as I understand it, we have a team of four Icarus in the wind, one of whom is a foster. One of the Venus Twenty-Five, for those of you who¡¯ve been here long enough to remember. Now, this news is as new to me as it is to you, so I¡¯m going to need to catch myself up to speed on this case. I figure that¡¯ll take me about twenty minutes tops, which should give you all plenty of time to organize three teams to take point with me.¡±

    He glanced at Freddie, hoping she¡¯d help him out just a little. Her face was unreadable, but that was standard. ¡°Since I don¡¯t know you all yet, I¡¯m not going to pretend to know who my best picks are for this. I¡¯m trusting you all to know yourselves better than I do. I want trackers¨Cat least a few telepaths, a psychometrist if we have one, an empath. A couple of teleporters. We¡¯ll also need some tanks for bringing these Icarus in when we find them¨Chealers, strongmen, telekinetics.¡± He looked at Sage, ¡°Can we commandeer a Comet or two, sir?¡±

    Sage nodded, and Gerrit said, ¡°Thank you, sir.¡± He continued, ¡°Fredericka, can I trust you to finalize these teams while I get up to speed?¡±

    He cringed internally at the look she gave him, but she rattled off a few names with instructions to stay put after the meeting.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± he said, meaning it. ¡°I look forward to getting to know all of you better. For now, who here is on Will¡¯s staff?¡± A few hands shot up. ¡°Great,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re with me. The rest of you, if you¡¯ve got other Icarus you¡¯re tracking, keep on top of it¨Cwe can¡¯t let this derail us from the rest of our job. And if you¡¯re between assignments, sorry to say you¡¯re not anymore. I need your brilliant minds working on this one. Send me any intel you can dig up.¡± He looked around at the silent crowd. They were alert and already shifting to organize. Good. It might have been a case of officers-in-the-room best behavior, but he could work with this.

    ¡°Thanks everyone. I¡¯ll meet my three teams back here in twenty minutes. Be ready to hit the ground running.¡±

    He could hear them kicking into gear as he walked out, grabbing his Blacks, Will¡¯s staff in tow. His staff now. Four of them in total. He¡¯d deal with that adjustment later. He turned to one of them, a short woman with wavy brown hair and a bulk of muscle. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±

    ¡°Cindy, sir,¡± she said.

    ¡°Nice to meet you, Cindy. Where¡¯s Will¡¯s office?¡±

    She balked for a second, and then said, ¡°This way, sir.¡± He appreciated her fortitude in stuffing the discomfort for the moment.

    ¡°Thank you¡ªI¡¯m not familiar with LAHQ yet, but I¡¯ll get there.¡± As they walked, he asked the group of them, ¡°Which one of you is Will¡¯s PA?¡±

    ¡°Actually, I am¨Cer I was, sir,¡± Cindy said, looking over her shoulder at him as they walked.

    He nodded. ¡°For now, let¡¯s not worry about past or present tense. If it helps, just think of me as the substitute teacher filling in for a mission and we¡¯ll save the real get to know you¡¯s for later.¡±

    She didn¡¯t say anything, but he couldn¡¯t blame her. He continued, ¡°So, I need you to contact any of our teams currently stationed in and around¨Cwhere was this team?¡±

    They turned a corner into Will¡¯s office. He hesitated for only the briefest moment before pushing himself through the door and into the seat at someone else¡¯s desk. His former superior¡¯s desk. He swallowed as he logged into his account on Will¡¯s desktop.

    ¡°Nevada,¡± one of the staffers said. ¡°Neptune has them sweeping north and south.¡±

    ¡°Great. Cindy, I need you to send orders to send the stateside teams south and activate any teams in South America to start¨Cthat¡¯s a pretty safe bet for an Icarus¡¯ first move. I want them focusing on any airstrip big enough to fly a kite. We¡¯ve gotta start somewhere.¡±

    She nodded and scurried out of the office. Gerrit opened up the Icarus files in their database and started scanning it. He could feel the other three hovering. ¡°So fill me in. What do I need to know? I can listen and read at the same time.¡± There was a beat of silence, so he glanced up. They looked unmoored. He took a deep breath and tried to put his best, most welcoming face on. Mission mode from word go isn¡¯t always the most friendly first impression, but Freddie hadn¡¯t been kidding when she said ASAP. He softened his voice and said, ¡°It¡¯ll be okay. We¡¯ll get these guys. And then when this crisis has settled, I¡¯ll take you all out for a well-earned drink. In the meantime,¡± he glanced at one of them¨Cthe youngest, who looked the most nervous, ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±

    ¡°Scott del Sol, sir. I¡¯m the post-grad intern.¡± He was young and fit, with light hair.

    ¡°Can you please pull together the standard from the armory? Enough for me and three teams. Thank you.¡±

    Scott nodded. There was an earnestness about him. It shone through the fog of just how out of his depth he must have felt.

    Gerrit turned back to the others. ¡°I hate to ask this of you, but I need you to start filling me in on the team we lost while I scan these files. I need to know what we¡¯re up against, and part of that is learning who they¡¯re capable of taking down.¡± He knew it was a hard ask, so he gave them as fortifying a look as he could. ¡°Thanks, guys. We¡¯ve got this, okay?¡±

    He focused in on Scott, who looked wide-eyed and even younger after the mention of the agents they¡¯d lost. ¡°We¡¯ve got this,¡± he repeated, and then repeated it again silently to himself. He¡¯d make sure of it.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 9.

    Natal, Brazil.

    It was late into the night when they touched down in Natal and by then it was becoming very clear to Gareth that if he reached his hand over and tried to feel Hannah¡¯s forehead to check for fever one more time, she would bite it off. Reeve had spent the last few hours of the flight up in the cockpit while Alex and Hannah played cards at one of the tables. The city outside the windows was lit up as a gradient¡ªdarker inland, getting lighter toward the coast, until it was bright enough to see the silent, crashing ocean waves against the beach. Hannah pressed her face to the window.

    ¡°You¡¯re kidding. Please say we can live here.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not exactly like you need to work on your tan,¡± Gareth pointed out.

    ¡°It¡¯s the ocean, dipshit. Everyone loves the ocean.¡±

    Alyosha put them down just inland on a small landing strip, which was really no more than a long, clear pathway set into sandy dunes with a few outbuildings and space for parking other aircraft. Reeve stepped back into the cabin as they slowed to a stop.

    ¡°Just grab what you¡¯ll need for the night. And put some clothes on,¡± he added to Hannah, picking up his messenger bag. ¡°We shouldn¡¯t be here very long.¡±

    The humidity slammed them in the face the moment they left the plane. Alex coughed and made a disgusted face.

    ¡°Oh, yuck. That¡¯s awful.¡±

    Gareth walked down the stairs onto the sand. There were a few small ultralight planes and single engines parked to the side of the runway, but nothing nearly the size of Alyosha¡¯s Cessna.

    ¡°I don¡¯t like this,¡± he called to Reeve. ¡°We¡¯re really standing out.¡±

    ¡°Nothing for it right now. We¡¯ll be out of here soon.¡±

    ¡°Reeve!¡± Alex whined drawing his name out for a long time. He set his bag down and rubbed at his shoulder. ¡°Why are we on the equator where the air is only water and I am dying?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re not on the equator,¡± he replied.

    ¡°They made the globe wrong.¡±

    In the ambient light, Gareth could see someone get out of a car parked on the edge of the strip.

    ¡°Is that a problem?¡± he asked, pointing.

    ¡°No, that¡¯s Dr. Jonathan Mabry, our ride. He¡¯ll wait for us while Alyosha does whatever it is you do to park a plane for the night.¡±

    Hannah spread her toes wide into the sand. ¡°So what did this one do that we were supposed to kill him for?¡±

    ¡°He was marked as a security risk. A Sol agent was shot in the street while pursuing a target. Dr. Mabry was passing by and treated him, maybe saved his life. But the agent¡¯s knack was misfiring from the injury and the attempt to wipe that from Jonathan¡¯s mind didn¡¯t take. That can happen.¡±

    ¡°So they were gonna kill him?¡± Hannah asked, brows drawn together.

    ¡°Technically, we were.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s so paranoid,¡± Alex muttered.

    ¡°That¡¯s what the Corp was established to do. Keep knacked folks safe by keeping the public in the dark.¡±

    Alyosha finished locking up the plane and joined them. He looked run down, and Gareth put his hand out to carry his bag from him. He accepted with a tired smile. They were all a mess, Gareth noticed for the first time. Reeve, usually clean-shaven in his stupid proper button-downs, was bruised and scruffy, and his own face, not to mention his head, was covered in stubble. Reeve led them across the dunes to the dark sedan. A man in his late-thirties was leaning against the hood. He was tall, of mixed-race, and wearing the cleanest clothes Gareth could remember seeing, but it had been a long few days. The doctor gave Reeve a quizzical smile and spread his arms out.

    ¡°What¡¯s all this?¡±

    Reeve rubbed at his head. ¡°Long story?¡± He extended his right hand to Reeve, shaking his head. When he took his hand to shake it, the man pulled him in for a shoulder thumping hug. Reeve chuckled a little, relaxing.

    ¡°It¡¯s good to see you.¡± He moved to hold Reeve by the shoulders out at arm¡¯s length. ¡°But someone¡¯s been knocking you around. Most of you.¡± He looked around at them, eyes hovering over Alex and Hannah. ¡°You can tell me on the way. How big do you think my car is, anyway?¡±

    ¡°We can squeeze.¡±

    They did. They stuck Alex with laying across three of their laps in the back seat because he weighed about seven pounds, as far as Gareth was concerned. Reeve filled Jonathan in on what had happened and introduced them all. Gareth was a little relieved at this, since he much preferred it when strangers didn¡¯t know the intimate details of his life.

    Jonathan drove them through the city. As late as it was, the streets were still bustling. Loads of street vendors, some in crazy costumes, hocked their wares to drunk tourists. The main strip was lined with towering resort hotels lit with colorful lights, and shaggy-headed palms along the beach. Jonathan lived in a twenty-odd story apartment building in a wealthy looking neighborhood not far from the main throughway. He pulled into a blocky parking garage.

    ¡°Is it going to be a problem that we look like we got into a prize fight?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a resort town and I¡¯m a doctor. Shouldn¡¯t be.¡± It didn¡¯t sound like much comfort to Gareth. They grabbed their bags and took the elevator up. They didn¡¯t end up passing many people in the hallways, but Reeve motioned for them to stay quiet anyway until they had all gotten inside. The apartment was richly furnished and he wondered if Alyosha was pissed he had gotten stuck with a place in Beatty. Gareth knew he would be.

    ¡°Shower,¡± Alex breathed. He pulled his hair out of the messy ponytail it had been piled up in, but it stayed vaguely in the same shape. ¡°Do you have one?¡±

    ¡°Do I need to check that arm first?¡± he asked, glancing at Reeve.

    ¡°It can wait an hour,¡± Alex said, picking his bag back up. ¡°I¡¯m gross. You don¡¯t want anything to do with this whole area yet.¡±

    ¡°Through there,¡± Jonathan smiled politely. Alex shuffled off sluggishly.

    Jonathan watched him. ¡°Your student?¡±

    ¡°Jon,¡± Reeve let out a long, heavy breath.

    He put up a hand to stop him. ¡°Let me see the damage.¡±

    Both Gareth and Reeve pointed to Hannah right off. She hopped up on the table without complaining, which worried Gareth all on its own. He and Alyosha settled their things into the guest room while Jonathan unpacked his medical bag. Gareth came back into the room in time to hear him hiss through his teeth, seeing the state of Hannah¡¯s wound. He examined it for a moment then looked up at Reeve.

    ¡°Is anyone else hiding anything this bad?¡±

    Reeve shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t think so.¡±

    ¡°Good, because you¡¯re going to have to wait.¡±

    Hannah sighed and pulled her t-shirt all the way off and laid down with it bunched up under her head like a pillow. The bruises under her eyes were new and tired. Gareth pulled a chair to sit by Hannah¡¯s head and brushed hair out of her face. ¡°You¡¯re a jerk,¡± she smiled, grimacing as the doctor washed out the cut.

    ¡°What the hell did I do?¡±

    ¡°Eh, you¡¯re just you.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to like it,¡± the doctor said without stopping his work, ¡°but I need to pack this.¡±

    Gareth could see Hannah swallow. ¡°If that¡¯s what it sounds like, can there be meds involved?¡±

    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    ¡°Yes, of course.¡± He went into his bag and pulled out a couple bottles, waffling between two before deciding on the left. ¡°Antibiotics, of course, and I think a fair number of you will be wanting these painkillers as well for the night.¡± He dropped the pills into Hannah¡¯s hand and held out two more to Reeve. He jerked his head to the side.

    ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t¡ªtelepaths can¡¯t tolerate sedatives.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s inconvenient.¡± He took his time preparing his tools, keeping an eye on Hannah as her eyes slowly went glassy. He raised an eyebrow, looking at the thick ring of scar tissue on Gareth¡¯s arm. ¡°That must have hurt,¡± he commented dryly.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± was all he offered, shooting Reeve a look. To his credit Jonathan didn¡¯t say anything further about it. He didn¡¯t seem like a bad guy or anything, but for people who had been fairly isolated for so many years it was uncomfortable to see strangers consider Reeve a friend. He caught Reeve looking at him, probably hearing all of this, and scowled. Gareth watched the doctor work as he carefully prodded lengths of wet gauze with a swab, disappearing under angry red skin.

    ¡°Distract me here, doc,¡± Hannah said, slurring a little. ¡°This doesn¡¯t feel great and it¡¯s just plain freaky.¡± She gestured with her hand and Gareth caught at it, holding it gently to keep her from accidentally smacking the doctor or her wound. ¡°How long ago did Reeve kidnap you?¡±

    ¡°He didn¡¯t kidnap me.¡± He laughed a little under his breath. ¡°He was much more pleasant than the other telepaths from your company. It was about two years ago. My options were pretty lousy and doctors are badly needed in this part of the world. Plus I¡¯m not sure if you noticed, but this has got to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.¡±

    ¡°I did notice,¡± she said sincerely. Alex chose then to wander out of the bathroom, rubbing at his head with a towel, his right arm out of its grimy sling and tucked gingerly close to his side. He stopped dead, seeing the doctor inserting gauze into Hannah.

    ¡°Holy hell-fuck!¡± His head snapped back and forth looking at Hannah and Reeve. ¡°Should he be doing that? That doesn¡¯t seem like a doctor thing to do!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Hannah drawled. ¡°It¡¯s to get rid of the gross.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s actually accurate,¡± Jonathan said without looking up.

    Alex hesitated, then hopped onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar. ¡°If I¡¯m ever that gross, just shoot me.¡±

    ¡°Okay,¡± Hannah exhaled, closing her eyes.

    Jonathan smiled thinly, concentrating. ¡°How long were you planning to be here?¡±

    Gareth watched Reeve turn to look at Alyosha on the couch. He¡¯d fallen asleep with his chin cradled in his hand.

    ¡°We were hoping to be out of your hair tomorrow night, once Shvedov had gotten some rest.¡±

    ¡°It might be longer than that, depending on how this thing looks in the morning.¡±

    ¡°I figured.¡±

    ¡°Beach!¡± Alex all but shouted.

    ¡°No,¡± Reeve said flatly.

    ¡°Well, if we¡¯re just sitting here.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re in hiding. And it¡¯s not as if you don¡¯t stand out¡­¡± he trailed off blankly, thinking. ¡°We need to dye your hair back to black.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re too recognizable.¡±

    Alex scrunched up his face. ¡°You¡¯ve gotta be kidding me. It¡¯s not like there isn¡¯t anything else about me that stands out.¡± He angled his chin up, gesturing to his burn scars.

    ¡°We need to be careful,¡± Reeve said, voice creeping into that condescending place he seemed to default to far too often.

    Alex took a breath as if to argue back, but Alyosha spoke up from the couch, his voice low from sleepiness. ¡°Let¡¯s figure it out in the morning. Nothing is happening tonight.¡±

    They stood in silence for a long moment. Alex sighed and mumbled, ¡°Fine.¡±

    The doctor finished taping on a bandage and turned, taking off his gloves. ¡°Let¡¯s take a look at that shoulder,¡± he murmured gently.

    Gareth and Reeve moved a sleeping Hannah to the other side of the couch. Dr. Mabry examined Alex and told him to keep the arm in a sling for at least a week. He cleared Reeve of any critical injury¡ªsome fractured ribs and bone bruises, but nothing he could really help with without dosing him with narcotics. Gareth left the two of them talking softly to shower and hopefully shave. They seemed safe for now.

    ---

    SolCorp LAHQ. Neptune Department.

    ¡°Where are we?¡± Gerrit projected as he walked into the Retrieval office. Scott¡¯s spine straightened instantly, sitting him up in his seat at the front Retrieval desk.

    After two days, Scott was feeling hollow. He had just started his internship and nothing about his orientation had prepared him for this level of activity. He was under the impression he was going to be observing and doing gofer tasks, but the sudden crisis mode had shoved him into a more active, high-pressure role. Right now, he was on duty monitoring incoming reports from the search.

    ¡°Nothing yet, sir.¡± His new (extra new) boss looked even more tired than he did. He knew Gerrit had been teleporting agents all over the place to expedite the search and that took a lot out of you. Gerrit didn¡¯t say anything else and Scott realized he was probably there to get a more detailed update than, ¡®no.¡¯ It was just him in the room. ¡°Cindy needed to step out to take a thirty-minute nap, sir,¡± he stammered. ¡°I can call her in. She¡¯d want me to.¡±

    ¡°Let her sleep,¡± Gerrit told him. ¡°You¡¯ve all really stepped up and I¡¯m grateful to every one of you.¡± Scott flushed at the praise, unsure of what to say, but he went on. ¡°You know if the satellite photos I pulled of the Beatty airstrip were sent out, to give folks a sense of what we might be looking for?¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    ¡°Alright.¡± Gerrit took a breath and braced himself. ¡°What have we got for numbers?¡±

    ¡°Uh,¡± he hummed, pulling up the latest reports. He suddenly worried he would sweat through his shirt. He was an intern, too low-ranked to be interacting with an officer. ¡°It looks like we¡¯ve cleared fifty-six airports so far.¡±

    Gerrit sat on the edge of the desk. ¡°That feels low for the number of teams we¡¯ve pulled in.¡±

    Scott had no context. He only had the numbers on the screen. ¡°Cindy keeps saying that people have to sleep, sir. And at that rate, they¡¯ll still have searched every airport in South America by the end of the week.¡±

    ¡°How many airports do you think there are in South America?¡± he asked, cocking his head.

    Scott squinted and looked toward the ceiling. He¡¯d looked it up at the beginning of his shift. ¡°Four hundred something?¡±

    Gerrit blew out a breath through pursed lips. ¡°Commercial airports, sure, but these guys aren¡¯t going to be flying into LaGuardia. I¡¯m talking local airstrips, little straight-away pieces of land just big enough for hobbyists and folks who take tourists for a spin.¡±

    His stomach dropped. ¡°I¡¯m not sure, sir.¡±

    He grimaced showing his teeth in a way that made Scott feel less like he was being scrutinized and more like Gerrit was in this with them. ¡°It¡¯s closer to 10,000. We need to be hustling and that fifty-six number feels slower than it ought to be. Any idea what the hold up is?¡±

    He opened his mouth then hesitated. On one hand, he wasn¡¯t sure what information he was authorized to spill. On the other hand, his division head was directly asking.

    Gerrit got off the desk and went around to sit at a chair beside him. ¡°I need your help here. I know this is a shitty situation, but it¡¯s what we¡¯ve got. This isn¡¯t ego, this is about the student. He¡¯s your age, right?¡±

    He had been desperately trying not to think about it. And when he ultimately failed at that, trying to train his mind to redact his name. Forget it entirely, like he was supposed to. It was Scott¡¯s first Icarus-related assignment and he just happened to know one of their names. They¡¯d never met, but Anise used to tell Scott that the three of them should get together when they¡¯d graduated. They were the three with the unexplained knack deviations. Lee used to say Al¡ª45C was just as up for breaking rules as he was, which made Scott cringe, thinking about what it would be like to be in a room with both of them at once. The rule-breaking comment had been funny then. Less so, now.

    Scott nodded. ¡°We were both part of the Venus Twenty-five.¡±

    His eyebrows rose. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize.¡± He waited silently for Scott to return to the original question.

    Scott bit his lip. ¡°Will spent a lot of his career in South America, so most of the teams down there that we¡¯ve activated were mentored by him.¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡±

    He looked to the side thinking of the wording of the reports, the tone when he¡¯d taken calls. ¡°Well, they¡¯re¡­having trouble adjusting.¡±

    The pain on Gerrit¡¯s face was palpable. Scott hadn¡¯t been in the office long enough or had any direct interactions with Will to form any sort of allegiance that could be bruised by his ousting. That wasn¡¯t the case with most agents.

    ¡°Politics,¡± he sighed. ¡°What should I expect?¡± he asked, softer. ¡°Complaints to Neptune? Dragging their feet? Straight up refusals?¡±

    Scott balked at the idea of a Neptune agent refusing to follow an order, but his foster team had always told him that he could be naive, expecting everyone to act in accordance with what was right. He lowered his brow. ¡°I¡¯d like to think they won¡¯t let it adversely affect the mission.¡±

    Gerrit nodded. ¡°But?

    In his mind, he matched the voices that carried resentment in their tones with the missing slots on the spreadsheets. Scott grimaced at his computer screen. ¡°But there are half a dozen teams who haven¡¯t been reporting since yesterday.¡±

    He braced himself for an outburst, but he recognized Gerrit was taking calming breaths. His foster team had taught him some for his own moments when he¡¯d like nothing more than to yell¡ªbut replacing windows was expensive, so self-control was a big one for sonic screamers.

    ¡°Are they still working?¡±

    He bit his tongue on an, ¡®I don¡¯t know.¡¯ He needed to do better than that. Fast as he could, he pulled up the historical data of the GPS vehicle tags for the teams who¡¯d gone quiet. There was still movement comparable to the others.

    ¡°It appears so, sir.¡±

    Rubbing at his face, Gerrit composed himself. ¡°You¡¯ve been reading their reports? Listening to what¡¯s said on the radio? What¡¯s going to do the least damage? Reaching out to these teams to let them know how much I respect Will? Or give them space?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯m qualified to answer that, sir. I¡¯m just an intern.¡± Scott did his best to pull his eyebrows down to the neutral mission expression.

    Gerrit regarded him. ¡°You¡¯ve been at this desk for what? Six? Eight hours? I haven¡¯t. I¡¯m just asking your opinion.¡±

    Scott hadn¡¯t expected to feel so nauseous starting his internship. He pushed through the urge to hesitate or stutter. ¡°There was chatter that they don¡¯t want you so involved. Probably giving them a bit of space is less likely to breed more resentment? But I just got here. You should probably ask Cindy.¡±

    ¡°I will. Okay. They¡¯ve got five days until I step in. Can you put out a notice that stresses the need to check small, local airstrips?¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    ¡°Good.¡± Cocking his head, he asked, ¡°What do you want from your career? Do you want to work admin or do you want to be on a team?¡±

    He thought of his foster team and each time he did, it made him miss them. ¡°I want to be on a team, sir. I¡¯ve been shadowing.¡±

    ¡°I thought so. You have that look to you. When you¡¯re in the field, just remember, we¡¯re all on the same side.¡±

    Scott held his eyes, pride burning in his chest. ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    With a kind smile, he started out the door, calling behind him. ¡°Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate all this. I¡¯ll man the desk tonight so you and Cindy can get some rest. We¡¯re behind the eight ball here, but we can still make this shot.¡±

    The head of Retrieval remembered his name. Scott blinked at that. But more importantly, Scott believed him. They could do it. Of course, they could. They were Neptune. They¡¯d bring 45C home safe.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 10.

    Natal, Brazil.

    They were at Jonathan¡¯s for two nights. They slept on blankets folded into cushions on the floor and on the couch and in the guest room bed. During the day, Shvedov dozed on and off, trying to catch up on sleep. From what he could tell during the moments he was awake, Gareth paced and Reeve didn''t sleep much, Hannah did nothing but sleep, and Alex, with his freshly dyed black hair, whined about not being at the beach.

    Their host was quiet, with an almost amused tolerance of this intrusion, giving them as much space as he could with six people crammed into a two-bedroom condo. He took a trip to his office to get Alex an actual sling not made out of a bedsheet and loaded Hannah up with antibiotics, changing the packing in her wound a couple times a day. By the afternoon of the second day, he announced she was well enough to travel, and Reeve and Alyosha agreed that they¡¯d leave that evening. They had been there too long already.

    But first, Alyosha needed to refuel the plane. Jon offered to drive him to the strip to get things ready while the others packed up. He poked his head into the guest room to see if Gareth would come, but he¡¯d finally fallen asleep beside a dozing Hannah.

    He sent a thought to Reeve asking what he thought they should do.

    Let Gareth rest. I need to work some timing out with my next contact, but we should leave in a couple of hours.

    He went back out to the main living space, where Jonathan was standing by the door and fiddling with his keys. Alex was on the couch, headphones in, bobbing his head to music.

    ¡°Hey,¡± Reeve said, pointing to his ears.

    Alex switched off his music. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±

    ¡°I need you to go with Alyosha to get the plane ready. I¡¯ve got to set up some communications with our next stop and I don¡¯t want to wake Gareth up.¡±

    ¡°Gee, thanks for making it clear I¡¯m your last choice,¡± he smirked.

    Reeve rolled his eyes at Alyosha. ¡°Just trying to keep everyone safe.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I know. I can go be Alyosha¡¯s bodyguard,¡± he grinned.

    ¡°I¡¯d go but¡ª¡±

    ¡°I get it, Mr. Over-Protective.¡± Alex stood up and stretched.

    Reeve looked to Alyosha, who shrugged and checked his watch.

    ¡°Just be careful.¡± Reeve mussed Alex¡¯s hair as he walked past.

    Alex rolled his eyes this time. ¡°I¡¯m not your foster anymore. That whole system is gone.¡± He slipped on his sneakers and set his gun into his belt holster. ¡°Now we¡¯re all just one badass team.¡± Reeve raised an eyebrow, but couldn¡¯t suppress a smile. Jon shifted his weight nervously and Alyosha recognized a look of discomfort watching a kid strap on a firearm like it was a natural thing. Alex was scowling as he draped a light over-shirt over his shoulders to conceal the weapon in the heat.

    Reeve looked at Alyosha and touched his mind lightly, letting him feel the pressure in his head, just to show him he¡¯d be close.

    ¡°One hour,¡± Alyosha said with a slight tilt of the head. ¡°I will call if we¡¯ll be longer.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, cause we¡¯ll be sunbathing,¡± Alex sang with a smile, opening the front door. Reeve shook his head at him and they were gone.

    Alyosha did his best to calm a mounting nervousness as Jonathan drove them through the unorganized flurry of motorbikes, buses, and four-wheelers carting around tourists holding tightly onto their broad hats. Alex gazed out the backseat window for a long time.

    ¡°So, what do we need to do?¡± he asked.

    Alyosha turned in his seat. ¡°I need to make sure we are full up on fuel and do a pre-flight check.¡±

    Alex got a wicked look on his face. ¡°Where are we going?¡±

    Alyosha didn¡¯t answer for a beat and Jonathan gave him a quick, questioning glance. ¡°Reeve has good reasons for not telling you.¡±

    ¡°But you know?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Alex let out a small frustrated groan. A moment passed.

    ¡°So Entropy, huh?¡± Alex asked bluntly.

    Alyosha couldn¡¯t help but laugh. ¡°Yes.¡± Alex really was just like Reeve had described, all the times he had complained through that reluctant smile of his.

    Jonathan furrowed his brow. ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡±

    A silence hung heavy in the humid air. Shvedov squinted into the sun. ¡°Entropy is a different organization with knacked people. I used to work for them.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± Jonathan¡¯s brow creased, but he kept his eyes on the road.

    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± Alex exclaimed, leaning forward. ¡°But what was it like for you? What did you do there?¡±

    Alyosha was starting to pick up on how the kid operated¡ªhis boisterous affectation was covering some anxiety, he was sure of it. ¡°I was a pilot.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I already knew that,¡± Alex said, a slight, annoyed whine entering his voice. ¡°I want to know more, though. Sol gives us such totally vague details about Entropy, it¡¯s practically useless. I Read some¡­¡± he trailed off for a moment before continuing on, ¡°pretty scary stuff from Gareth, but he doesn¡¯t like talking about it.¡±

    ¡°What makes you think I will talk about it, then?¡± Alyosha asked. He wondered how long it would be until Alex Read him, too.

    Alex scratched an itch on his cheek. ¡°Because you enjoy being a decent human being.¡± The kid wore humor like armor.

    ¡°Ah,¡± Alyosha chuckled. Alex watched him expectantly, then rolled his eyes, giving up with a huff. The muscles in Jon¡¯s jaw were tight and Shvedov tried to catch his eye with a reassuring smile.

    Jonathan turned left off the main throughway and onto a red dirt road. The buildings immediately changed from hotels and flashy shops to squat, brick homes with burnt orange tiled roofs, overgrown with scraggly weeds. Every yard was fenced off either by tall cream-colored stucco walls, chain-link, old and weathered planks of repurposed wood, or sometimes all three cobbled together to fill in the crumbling gaps. If it weren¡¯t for the green-headed short palms, the landscape would look like it was straight out of old sepia-toned films, between the brick and tile and the hard red dirt road.

    ¡°Right, you¡¯ve only been here in the dark,¡± Jonathan muttered as they stared out the window. ¡°This is what¡¯s outside the tourist district.¡±

    Alex¡¯s head popped up between the front seats, nearly on their shoulders. ¡°Feeling more at home, Alyosha?¡± Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.

    ¡°You are a funny guy,¡± he said, glancing at him before putting a hand on the ceiling to steady himself as Jonathan maneuvered to avoid a deep rut. There were heaps of dead, dried out plants and garbage everywhere. ¡°But also, a little, yes.¡± Alyosha grinned, unable to help it. He watched Alex laugh, his wide smile wrinkling the scarring on his cheek, but his teeth were mostly straight and young-looking.

    Alyosha picked at some grit under his nails and called over his shoulder. ¡°So, what do you know about Entropy?¡±

    Alex shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. Gareth¡¯s History is a nightmare, but I don¡¯t really have any context for it and I try not to Read any more than what accidentally just happens sometimes. He won¡¯t talk about it, so I don¡¯t have much to go on. And what I do have to go on, I don¡¯t like thinking about.¡± He looked out the window, watching the scenery go by, and continued. ¡°They¡¯re violent. But so is Sol. They have agents who take orders from a central leader-guy, but so do we¡ªdid we.¡± He shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t know. They kill people. Hannah kills people. She also sucks at dominos. It¡¯s just a thing agents do. I guess Entropy seems like Sol but with other types besides knacked people. Until a few days ago, I would have said they were scarier than Sol, but now I don¡¯t know anymore.¡± Alex¡¯s mouth tightened into a line. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re not like Sol.¡±

    ¡°They both want to kill you,¡± he offered.

    Alyosha ignored him. ¡°Why does Sol order hits?¡±

    ¡°Well, now I don¡¯t fucking know. I thought it was to protect the existence of knacked people, but now it seems like it was just for power. So how are they different?¡±

    ¡°Why do you think Entropy orders hits?¡±

    ¡°Because their pilots don¡¯t know how to answer simple questions?¡±

    ¡°Entropy doesn¡¯t really order specific hits.¡±

    ¡°Entropy doesn¡¯t¡ªthen what the hell was the point of all this back and forth?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think they really care who is killed. That¡¯s why they are so hard to predict. What matters is that someone or, better, many people are killed.¡±

    ¡°Okay, but that doesn¡¯t actually make any sense. What¡¯s the point? They¡¯re just dicks?¡±

    ¡°It won¡¯t make any sense to you or me. It can¡¯t. We¡¯re not five-hundred years old.¡±

    ¡°Sure, but not everyone who works there is ancient. Some of them are human or knacked like me. Why do they do it?¡±

    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

    Jonathan coughed and shifted in his seat. ¡°I know this isn¡¯t my conversation, but what the hell are you talking about, five-hundred years old?¡± Alyosha could see his grip tightening on the wheel and a muscle jumped by his temple.

    Alyosha tried to keep his voice gentle. ¡°Honestly, and I mean this, you do not want to know. I wouldn''t even talk about it here, but he needs to know these things and Reeve hasn''t told him. You¡¯ll probably never run into Entropy but you,¡± he turned to Alex, ¡°you might.¡±

    Every trace of lightheartedness had left Alex¡¯s face and when he looked at Alyosha, his eyes didn''t blink or shift. He didn''t look young anymore. This is what was under the armor. ¡°Why won''t Reeve tell me?¡±

    ¡°He does not want you to be afraid. Entropy is good at fear. It¡¯s how they control people who think they have no other options. Then there are some who are cruel and would kill people for fun if they thought they could get away with it. Entropy nurtures that kind of person.¡±

    ¡°Ew.¡± Alex slid back to sit in the seat, facade slipping back into place. It reminded Alyosha a bit of himself when he was that age. ¡°And Reeve doesn''t want me to know Entropy is basically sadists because it might scare me?¡±

    ¡°Probably. It scares me.¡±

    Alyosha saw Alex blink in almost a flinch before his eyes scanned the car floor and upward, eventually settling to look back out the window. Ahead of them, rising like mountains, were the sand dunes. Bone-white against the horizon but for narrow green caps, they looked as if the land was trying to mirror the rolling clouds.

    ¡°So, did you try to kill Reeve when you met him?¡± He had that mischievous tone back in his voice.

    ¡°Yes, of course,¡± Alyosha smiled. ¡°He broke into my place. You want to know how close I came to killing him?¡±

    ¡°What, like the length of a football field?¡±

    ¡°More like six.¡± He could tell Alex liked that.

    They rounded another bend and the road turned to sand. There were no more homes. Salt-weathered wooden posts strung with wire lined the side of the road, marking the path as the sands blew and shifted. It was so empty and white it reminded Alyosha of hills covered deep in snow, offset only by a long spine of wooden stakes.

    The runway up ahead in the daylight was just a long, flat strip, marked off by the black arcs of half buried tires every few feet. There was a stone outbuilding with only three walls. A few of the neon painted ultra-lights had gone since they¡¯d landed, and there were a couple more single-engine props and cars parked off to the side. The curves of his Cessna might have blended in against the white sand, if it wasn¡¯t so damn big next to everything else. Somewhere under all the drifting sand, there was a concrete disk holding the fueling station and he knew finding it wasn¡¯t going to be any fun at all. Jon pulled up beside the other cars and parked; he wasted no time in getting out of the car.

    ¡°So what do we do while you¡¯re getting gas?¡± Alex asked, fanning himself. ¡°Stand right behind you peering over your shoulder? Want me to wash your windows? ¡±

    Alyosha shook his head, laughing. ¡°Nyet. This will be very boring. Just stay in eyeshot with Jonathan.¡±

    Alex scanned the horizon. ¡°Yeah, that will be less boring.¡±

    Alyosha popped his door open and got out.

    ¡°Hey,¡± Alex called, getting out and looking over the roof at him. ¡°Wherever we¡¯re flying next, can I sit in the cockpit with you?¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡± He tried to return his playful look. ¡°I think you will like the view.¡±

    ---

    Alex watched Alyosha walk down the runway toward the plane. It was quiet. The sand sliding under his feet was so much looser than the packed dirt back in Beatty. He zig-zagged his shoe through it, drawing a long snake. He sighed through his nose. His big assignment was to stand around and wait. Dr. Mabry walked around the front of the car to lean against the side facing Alex.

    ¡°How¡¯s the shoulder?¡±

    Alex shrugged his good one. ¡°It¡¯s eh. I¡¯m fine.¡± Alex fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket with his right hand.

    Jonathan took a step forward. ¡°You want help with that?¡±

    Alex shook his head. ¡°I got it.¡± He leaned his back against the SUV next to them, resting a foot up on the tire of the doctor¡¯s car and untangling his headphones. Jonathan rolled his eyes just enough that Alex could barely catch it, the sort of look Reeve gave him like forty times a day. He meant to say something about it, but even before he could hit play, he felt his Knack slipping into the sun-warmed metal of the SUV¡¯s hood, back to when different hands were slamming the door shut.

    A man with cropped, dark hair closes the door and slowly sweeps his gaze across the airfield. There are two others with him, a woman and a shorter man squinting into the wind. They don¡¯t speak, just look at the skyline. They are dressed in all black. There is a shoulder holster over the closest man¡¯s shirt and a thigh holster strapped to his opposite leg. The others walk around the front of the car to him. They both have guns, the shorter man with a stocky shotgun. The first man motions toward the end of the runway where the planes are parked and the others nod.

    The sweat that broke across Alex¡¯s body soaked his clothes and left him feeling even hotter than before. A pounding deep in his belly startled him before he realized it was his own heartbeat and not some scalding writhing memory boring into his core. He quickly scanned the airfield, but was too far away to see well enough. Alex couldn¡¯t remember how long he had been leaning against the SUV. Alyosha had nearly reached their jet. His voice ran dry and tight. Too fucking far. Alex brought his foot up to climb and stand on the narrow ledge of their car¡¯s open window. He scrabbled, one-armed, onto the roof of the car, only remotely feeling Jonathan¡¯s hands pulling at him. Jon¡¯s repeated protests slurred together with the earthshaking pound of his heartbeat as the blood snapped in his ears. He wrenched his shaking left hand out of its sling.

    Straightening to stand up on top of the car, Alex searched the grouping of smaller planes. They were there. Just behind the nose of a red prop that Alyosha had already walked past, a man was standing with his gun trained on Alyosha¡¯s back. Alex opened his mouth to shout then fired a shot instead. The sound of it rung out, hollow in the open space. Alex didn¡¯t remember drawing his gun. Alyosha ducked to his knees, lightning fast, covering his head.

    The man with the gun dropped down behind the red plane. Alex was pretty sure he''d hit him and he stood, shocked for a moment.

    ¡°Jesus Christ!¡± Jonathan yelled, his voice cracking. He was hunched over, but stupidly stood upright, reaching up to urge him off the roof of the car. Alex meant to tell him to get down, bark it the way that Gareth would, but his lips and tongue were stuck full of pins and needles.

    Alex caught sight of the other two agents as they straightened from hiding behind aircraft. They looked at him with the same sense of shock he was feeling. It was too long a moment for everyone to be still, when there were this many weapons in hands. He saw Alyosha scrambling for cover. The woman was watching Alyosha too, glancing back and forth between them. In that brief space of time, Alex thought, well at least it looks like they don''t want to kill me. Then the shorter agent raised a gun in his direction and the moment ended.

    Alex dropped to his hands, sliding his knees down the back windshield onto the trunk. The hot metal burned his stomach and his shoulder spasmed and throbbed in protest.

    The sound of gunfire exploded in front of him. Peering over the roof, he watched the female agent walking steadily toward the aircraft, firing. The other agent was still moving carefully around the other plains, shotgun aimed in his direction. Alex gritted his teeth and leaned on his arms to take a couple of shots, which glanced off metal. The recoil reverberating through his bad shoulder felt like it was turning his whole body sour as old milk. There was a raucous of more gunfire beyond them as Alyosha returned fire from somewhere.

    The agent with the shotgun moved slowly, his route indirect instead of walking straight at him. Alex could see he was going to try to get behind him, flank him, and ass-up on the trunk of a car was a bad place to be caught. Alex wiggled down off the car and took cover behind it. He fired a shot around the bumper. The agent was moving faster now that Alex had dropped into hiding, and he had swung around nearly behind the car. If Alex didn¡¯t move, the guy would have a clear shot soon. But at least that meant the agent had to forgo cover himself. Alex popped his head up again and fired, missing.

    Alex swore under his breath. Out loud he hissed, ¡°Move!¡± to Jonathan and crawled past him to the nose of the SUV, mindful of the other agent, who was distracted by Alyosha. Raising a cloud of sand, Jonathan eased the door to the backseat of his car open and scuttled inside.

    Swearing and squinting through the grit, Alex saw the agent come into his line of sight and took a deep breath, preparing to fire, but the agent got off a shot before he could get a good fix and the concussive sound of it hitting the door next to him locked his muscles.  Movement beside him made him glance over. An object the size of a sugar packet had fallen into the sand. Alex picked it up. It was a bean bag.  A fucking crowd suppression bullet. He figured things could¡¯ve been worse, but not much.

    Another flurry of shots behind him snapped him out of it and he scrambled around the SUV for cover. He could see Alyosha wrapping himself tight against the jet¡¯s wheel, trying to reload. The agent advancing on Shvedov was still firing. Beyond that wheel, the closest cover was that falling-apart cement building, but that was a good fifty feet of open ground and he''d never make it. Alyosha was in trouble. Alex put the female agent in his sights, gauging if he could make the shot at this distance, but he heard a car door open and a tangle of pleading words in Jonathan''s voice that didn''t sound like human language. The pop of two shots made him jump and the sound stopped. Alex swallowed, thinking of the bean bag and the loud snap it had made against metal. Then the agent¡¯s footsteps were moving toward him again. Jonathan was going to have some nasty bruises, and Alex figured that, unless he wanted them too, he needed to be anywhere but where that agent thought he was going to be. He moved as quietly as he could around the tan Buick next to the SUV, hoping to come out around and behind the agent so he could end this.

    It was the last car in the row. Things were going to get real complicated real soon. Alex crept low, elbows dragging painful ruts into the sand. When he came around the back of the car, the agent was waiting. This time, he didn¡¯t hesitate and Alex fired from his crouched position hitting him center mass and then again high on one side of his neck. The agent staggered, made a deep choking sound, and dropped his left hand from the shotgun. He didn¡¯t fall. Alex watched the skin around the bullet hole in his chest tremble as it spit out the slug and his neck healed over. The agent started to gather himself, breathing hard, hacking up blood.

    ¡°You¡¯re fucking kidding me,¡± Alex ground out, shuffling backward a couple feet. He aimed carefully and took another shot, hitting his right hand and knocking the shotgun to the ground and then he took that time to goddamn run. He got to their car, ripping the driver''s side door open and half climbing in to find the keys weren¡¯t in the ignition.

    Alex yelled, ¡°Keys!¡± as he climbed the rest of the way into the car, pivoting to lean into the back seat and his breath caught. Jonathan was on the floor of the car on his side, nearly on his belly, with two clear gunshot holes in his upper back. His white shirt was soaked dark and he didn''t move a millimeter to breathe. It didn''t make sense.

    Alex looked up. Alyosha had managed to get from the nose of the plane to the staggered line of smaller aircraft. The female agent advancing on him had blood running down one arm. Alex saw Alyosha register that he was in the driver''s seat and nodded to him. Alex blinked, breathing hard through his mouth as he tried to process what Alyosha needed him to do. Leaning out the open door, he sent off some shaky coverfire and Alyosha made a darting run for the group of cars. Alex¡¯s ammo ran out and he was struggling with a spare cartridge (his only one) when he saw Alyosha get hit. The shot spun him like a top to the ground, landing facedown. Alex¡¯s blood went cold. The agent fired a couple more half-hearted shots in Alyosha¡¯s direction and turned to Alex.

    Something that could only have been a stick of dynamite went off against Alex¡¯s lower back, throwing him against the steering wheel. His stomach churned with pain and he gagged. He whipped his head around to see the other agent, bloodied but recovered, standing behind him and pumping the slide of his shotgun to reload. Ignoring the searing burn running down his legs, Alex clattered across the front seats on his hands and knees, and then ungracefully dumped himself out the passenger side. Choking on a whoop of air from the impact, he dove under the car and slithered for cover. But there wasn¡¯t a plan anymore. He didn¡¯t know where he was going.

    On the other side, he popped up to try the door of the SUV. Locked. He gave another desperate crawl underneath, hiding behind the oversized tires. Alex¡¯s body was moving, making choices, taking actions. His mind was seven steps behind him, watching Alyosha tumble to the ground. Jonathan bloodied. Those images began to get crowded out by the Story seeping in around the edges when he wasn¡¯t paying attention. It was nighttime. It was day out. He heard roaring engines and laughing kids. Disoriented, Alex wasn¡¯t sure what was happening as the sand, shadowed by the cover of the SUV, whirled past him, flowing away like a river. When the sun hit him, Alex felt the hand on his ankle yanking him out from under the car, then the agent throwing himself onto Alex¡¯s back. Alex thrashed with feral scratching at the arm that came around his neck, choking off the blood to his brain. His eyeballs felt like they were being blown up like balloons. The weight crushing down on his bruised back pressed the air from his lungs and the blackening edges of his vision shimmered like heatwaves on pavement. And then nothing.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 11.

    Sol LAHQ. Terre Department.

    Darwin finished up his session notes at around 12:40, managing to leave just enough of his lunch break to run down to the atrium for a kale bowl, if he could score one, before his student at one o¡¯clock. It was a decent enough achievement for his typical schedule and he had a tiny bounce in his step as he headed down the hall. It felt like a long day already and he was excited for it to be over in a few hours. His big evening plans? His comfiest hoodie, leftover zucchini noodles from the night before (no cooking!), and a movie. He loved his students, every single one, but sometimes there was nothing he wanted more than a nice, quiet night in which his biggest responsibility was making sure he didn¡¯t burn the microwave popcorn and set off the smoke alarm for his whole block of quarters.

    There was a huddled group of counselors in the hall by the elevator and Darwin prepared himself to give an awkward no-time-to-chat wave. He would be glad to skip whatever the office gossip of the day was.

    He was about to pass by when he realized that Ollie was at the center, his face red and splotchy. The two coworkers hovering around him looked dismayed.

    Darwin froze. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± he stammered, looking from one to the next, searching for who would answer. From the way his mouth was open and his chest was rising and falling, he didn¡¯t think it would be Ollie.

    Carol nodded at Ollie. ¡°One of his foster teams went Icarus.¡±

    Darwin¡¯s heart sank like lead. ¡°What?¡± He took a few delicate steps closer to them, as though if he weren¡¯t careful, he would step on something breakable.

    That was the what-if thought that kept each and every guidance counselor up at night, and it was the crux of most of their nightmares. That they¡¯d missed something, some indicator, some coded call for help, and now the children they were responsible for were in danger or worse.

    Ollie swallowed with an uncomfortable smacking sound. ¡°The student is missing. Assumed taken with them. I had no idea that¡ª¡±

    Darwin gaped, waiting on pins and needles for Ollie to struggle with a sniffle before he could get enough air to go on.

    ¡°The whole team,¡± the intern told him when Ollie wasn¡¯t able to go on. ¡°Just gone.¡± She looked terrified.

    Darwin shook his head vehemently and gathered his words. His own mind was racing, running down if there was anything he could reasonably do (no, he was far from Neptune as it gets) while getting tangled up in what he would possibly do if he¡¯d gotten news like this. He loved all his students, as draining as they could be sometimes, but the idea of one simply disappearing overnight was never on his radar.

    ¡°It¡¯s not your fault,¡± he told Ollie with as much force as he could imbue. ¡°You couldn¡¯t have known something like this would happen.¡±

    Those were the words they¡¯d all want to hear in this situation and the words not a single one of them would believe and he knew it.

    ¡°It¡¯s literally my job,¡± Ollie retorted then retreated behind his hands. ¡°Everything looked normal.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure you did everything you possibly could,¡± Darwin told him in as calm a voice as he could muster.

    ¡°We can only do what we can do,¡± Carol agreed. She was older and Darwin hoped her voice of experience would help. ¡°And you said one of them is a telepath, so who knows if your perceptions got interfered with.¡±

    Telepath. A thought made Darwin¡¯s stomach twist. He leaned slightly to try to catch Ollie¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°Which team is it?¡±

    When Ollie gave him a sad, silent look he already knew the answer before Carol chimed in with, ¡°One of the Venus Twenty-Five.¡±

    Darwin was worried he might be sick immediately on the hallway floor. He¡¯d vouched for them. He was the reason they¡¯d been considered, despite all the red flags. It was his fault.

    ¡°I¡¯m sure he¡¯s fine,¡± someone said.

    Ollie shook himself off, avoiding looking at Darwin. ¡°I have to go. Investigation needs to talk to me.¡±

    ¡°Okay, well we¡¯re here,¡± Carol told him, voice full of pity. She opened her mouth to say something to Darwin, but he turned on his heel to go back to his office.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he called back.

    Inside the safety of his office, Darwin stared blindly at his computer and tried to decide if he could call out of the rest of his day. And do what, though? Sit at home and wonder if Neptune would come for him too, to make him justify what he¡¯d done?

    He looked at the clock. Only minutes left of his lunch break. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he opened the file on his next student.

    ---

    Natal, Brazil.

    When Alex woke up, his hands were cuffed behind his back, his shoulder screaming, and his ankles were tied together. The first agent he had shot was walking toward him, shucking off his shirt and black Kevlar vest with sharp jerking motions.

    ¡°You all right?¡± a voice called.

    The agent tucked the vest under one arm. A raised red welt was spreading across his flank and there was a lump where he¡¯d banged his head. ¡°Fine,¡± he grunted. ¡°Impact knocked me out. Get him in the car.¡± Alex blinked and shook his head to orient himself. He was being handed into the backseat of the SUV next to the woman with the bloody arm. They wrestled him into the vehicle thrashing and squirming, but it was going to take a whole fucking lot more than that to get him to sit quiet. Alex rammed a shoulder into the gut of the guy behind him and kicked out with his legs.

    ¡°You want me to hit him?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Just fucking try it,¡± Alex snarled, aiming a wild, two-foot kick at her face.

    ¡°Do it,¡± the agent said. The agent behind him gave him one last shove and let go of him completely. Off balance and tumbling, Alex twisted to press himself against the door and break his fall. The woman caught at him, grabbing him around the midsection. Small blue winks of electric sparks snapped with static and gathered down the length of her arms toward him. A white pain lit up every fork and branch of his nervous system, contracting his muscles and wrenching his body rigid as a board. Alex thought he was yelling but his jaw was locked shut and his throat an immobile wrenching tube. When it was over, Alex collapsed, unmoving. He was placed into the backseat and he felt the car begin to move.

    ¡°We should call this in,¡± the healer said.

    ¡°We will,¡± the driver responded. From his decisive tone, Alex guessed he was the team lead. ¡°But let¡¯s show LAHQ we can bag the whole team first without them butting in. Is he awake?¡±

    ¡°I think so?¡± The woman who¡¯d shocked him was leaning over.

    ¡°We want the telepath to be able to track him.¡±

    Alex let out a slurred stream of obscenities.

    ¡°Yeah, we¡¯re good.¡±

    The car jolted and careened with a loud crack. Wrung out, Alex rolled, fetching up against the door. People were shouting. The car was swerving in a cloud of dust. Out the window, Alex could see the doctor¡¯s car slammed up against their bumper. The engine was roaring and Alyosha was behind the wheel. With the memory of Alyosha spinning to the ground, Alex reached deep for his last strength and heaved himself up, trying to work the door handle with his numb fingers. The SUV swerved evasively down the narrow, house-lined road. An agent was leaning out an open window firing at the car. Alyosha veered sharply and was sluggish to recover. Alex gave up with his hands, sliding down, limp onto the floor space in front of the seat and began to work the latch with his teeth until he heard the rising whine of an engine working hard and he curled his head away from the door.

    The impact sent them into a skid, back end sliding out to one side and clipping the side of a house. There was the slam of a second metal-bending crunch that made Alex wince, but it hadn¡¯t been their car that made the sound. Then all Alex could hear was the clattering of glass and shouted curses. The sound of Alyosha¡¯s car fell away. They kept driving. He was alone.

    ---

    It felt like a blip. Reeve had been in the middle of uploading files when he felt it. It wasn¡¯t much, just a brief thirty second interruption. His mouth went dry. At this range, his telepathy only had enough of a hook that he could sense his connection to the minds of Alyosha and Alex as two small, bright points. And then there was one bright one and one dim one. Then it was back. Since telepaths read thoughts and memories, they had no footing in the realm of the subconscious. When a person fell asleep or unconscious or they died¡ªthey were untouchable, unable to be accurately sensed or tracked. There were two bright points, and then there was one.

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    All at once, Reeve stood up, grabbed his phone, and yelled Hannah¡¯s name. He was calling Alex when she came in the room at a jog, Gareth behind her, looking disoriented. No answer, but with Alex, there was a chance he¡¯d blow Reeve off. He might have talked Jonathan into making a stop at the beach after all and fallen asleep on the sand. He called Shvedov, who he knew would take his call in the middle of an earthquake.

    Reeve was halfway to the door by the fourth ring.

    ¡°Reeve!¡± Hannah barked, bringing him back to a world with words and the faces in front of him. She was staring at him, bewildered, from the hallway.

    ¡°Something happened,¡± he managed to spit out, his mouth fumbling. ¡°Grab Jon¡¯s med bag.¡±

    Gareth¡¯s brow furrowed, looking at his phone. ¡°They¡¯re not picking up?¡±

    Reeve pocketed his phone and slung on his holster. ¡°And I lost track of Alex for a minute. He slipped off my grid.¡±

    ¡°Could that be a lot of things?¡± Gareth asked. Reeve shifted his weight back and forth, unable to stand still.

    ¡°Yes,¡± he snapped, ¡°and one of them is very fucking bad, so move!¡± Gareth and Hannah threw on clothes without another word, exchanging glances, and then they were out the door. Reeve blew past the elevators, heading for the stairwell.

    ¡°We¡¯re on the eleventh floor!¡± Gareth called, slowing to a stop. Reeve¡¯s nose twitched; the idea of standing still inside an elevator made his temples throb harder.

    ¡°Stairs won¡¯t be faster.¡± Hannah said gently and hit the down button with the side of her fist. He swallowed and waited for the elevator doors to open. Inside, he thought he could feel the car rocking to the bounce of his legs as he pumped his heel nervously. He fished two small bottles out of his pocket. Glancing at the labels, he pocketed the caffeine and took a dextroamphetamine pill. No one made a comment, but he could feel their unease and some surprise at how seriously Reeve was taking this lapse in contact.

    As they got out at the garage level, Reeve walked out onto the pavement, reaching and finding the mind of the closest driver he came across. He twisted her thoughts, heedless of her confusion. She drove past her assigned parking spot and came to a stop just in front of Reeve. She stepped out of the car, slack-faced and empty, leaving it running and got onto the elevator behind them. Reeve, Gareth, and Hannah climbed into the car. Reeve pealed out.

    The closer Reeve drove toward the airstrip, the more it became clear that the two points in his mind were too far away from each other. Each was periodically dimming and Reeve raced down the street, passing anyone possible. His thoughts took on the clean, streamlined feel of the uppers kicking in. Like his skull was made of chrome on the inside. The others in the car were tense and quiet with a fair amount of fear, some of it toward him.

    His phone rang.

    Reeve nearly slammed into oncoming traffic reaching to answer it. Alyosha¡¯s number flashed on the screen.

    ¡°Where are you?¡± Reeve shouted, unable to control the volume of his voice.

    ¡°Reeve¡ª¡± Alyosha¡¯s voice was forced and low. The call stayed open but silent and he put his foot down, sparing a quick thought to pity any law enforcement that might try to pull him over.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Gareth yelled behind him.

    ¡°¡¯Lyosha.¡± His voice was clipped, focusing. ¡°He sounds bad.¡± Panic rose, cold and razor-edged, in the minds around Reeve, but it was distant and impersonal. Isolated and compartmentalized like so many facts, like the images of long black bags that he pushed out of his mind.

    The whirring cloud of the thoughts of the people in the other cars on the road, those in the hotels, and in restaurants on the strip became both louder and clearer, but easier to filter out and ignore at the same time.

    Once out of the city, Reeve¡¯s stretching telepathy could sense a peculiar buzz of activity ahead of them to the left. It made his heart beat triple-time. Tearing down the dusty roadway, they could see that there were people outside their homes, standing on the street. They were clustered in small groups, talking. Hannah made a wordless sound beside him, pointing. Ahead of them was Jonathan¡¯s car, the nose crumpled, crashed into the side of a house.

    Reeve skidded to a stop, swerving in the dust. They were out of the car in a stumble of limbs. The crowd that had gathered around the crash murmured to each other and watched them, side-eyed. Some protested in Portuguese, but saw Gareth hold up the med bag. There were shouts of, ¡°Medico!¡± and Gareth repeated it back to them nodding as the crowd let them through. There were too many people. As he ran to the car, Reeve gathered their thoughts, their memories, and set a hook in each one of their heads.

    There was a bloody form on the floor of the backseat, shoved too far under the passenger seat by the impact of hitting the house to be identifiable through the spidered and misshapen backseat window. Reeve felt his lungs tie themselves in knots trying to catch a decent breath while he reached.

    He could feel Alex¡¯s mind moving away from them¡ªit wasn¡¯t him. Jonathan. Reeve forced himself to keep looking. Shvedov was sprawled out face down across the front seat under a glittering cover of broken glass. There was blood on the steering wheel and on the seat. One arm was reaching, gone limp, to the passenger-side floor, inches from his dropped phone.

    ---

    Emotions, Hannah had learned as a child, were held not just in some metaphorical heart, but in the body. In the gut or the jaw, butterflies in your stomach or cold, tingling fingertips. She stretched the tendrils of her empathy to search the car. A dead body might be silent, but an unconscious one sometimes still held the hum of emotions. Nightmares, for instance, felt like a sharp, piercing vibration¡ªa sensation, unfortunately, which was not dissimilar to the fright that shocked through the crowd and flooded Reeve and Gareth beside her. She tried to discern between them and the bodies in the car. It was impossible to tell.

    Hannah looked at Reeve, watching. Beside her, Gareth was doing the same. If they were at all conscious, Reeve would know before either one of them could crawl through a twisted window frame to get a hand on a pulse, whether or not they had made it in time.

    Reeve nodded to them and started to work at the door, trying to force the dented metal to budge. Hannah let out a breath she didn¡¯t know she¡¯d been holding and moved to climb up through the small opening of the backseat window, carefully widening it by chunks with the heel of her palm. Gareth grabbed her shoulder.

    ¡°Glass.¡±

    She shook him off and scrambled through, keeping her mouth shut tight on the scratches to her legs and arms, the stretching pain in her side. Alex was not in the backseat. Jonathan¡¯s body was contorted, though not enough to no longer seem human and allow for some disconnection. With a steady tug, she pulled him mostly out from under the seat and checked for a pulse, but given how still his eyes were despite the angle of his limbs, she already knew.

    Alex wasn¡¯t here. He wasn¡¯t anywhere. The shaking in her lungs spread throughout her body, not sure if she was glad he wasn¡¯t in this wreck, or if his something-else could possibly be worse. Hannah swallowed her heart, focusing on the task in front of her. That had always been her training growing up. Mission first, unit later¡ªthough this may have been the first time she¡¯d ever used it.

    She crawled into the front and got her arms around Alyosha¡¯s shoulders, supporting his head. His skin was cold in the heat and the blood on the seat was thick and dark. She could hear the clattering of more glass as Reeve cleared out the remains of the driver¡¯s side window. Lifting Alyosha up, she saw his eyes were dull but open and following her as she set him upright. His face was red and swollen. There was blood oozing from some unseen cut on his scalp. He hadn''t been belted in, and Hannah felt her whole body give in to the shaking as she flinched, hearing the sound of their own crash in her head.

    She forced her eyes open and focused on Alyosha. He had ripped off part of his shirt, balled it up, and pressed it against a wound on his shoulder, and it was stuck to him with drying blood. Reeve¡¯s arms came around Alyosha¡¯s waist and, together, they fed him through the window and onto the dirt. She followed, bare knees smeared red and black.

    ¡°Careful of his neck,¡± Gareth said. He knelt down to open up the medical bag, but then hesitated, his hands freezing. He raised his voice, ¡°Alyosha, can you move your legs?¡±

    Alyosha muttered in Russian, eyes fluttering. Hannah knew what shock looked like.

    ¡°What¡¯d he say?¡± she asked.

    Reeve ran the back of his hand across his face. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    Carefully, Hannah peered under the wadded up cloth. The shot was high up on his shoulder, but wide, probably avoiding bone.

    Alyosha groaned, pulling away from her, and raised his knees up. She let out another held breath. Not being paralyzed was at least something. Behind them, Reeve popped the trunk and Hannah watched from the ground, not wanting to look, but he shook his head at her. Alex wasn¡¯t there.

    ¡°Does he need a hospital?¡± Reeve asked her. His voice was flat and she honestly didn¡¯t know what he would do if she said yes.

    Her hands hovered in midair over Alyosha¡¯s shoulder. ¡°I don''t know. I don¡¯t think so, not for the bullet. Just somewhere clean.¡±

    The murmuring of the crowd was getting louder and Hannah kept thinking that there was no way someone hadn¡¯t called the police.

    ¡°All these people,¡± she started.

    ¡°I know.¡± His voice was hollow, automatic. He stood up. His eyes were open, but he wasn¡¯t seeing anything. Like she was waking up from a dream, the dozens of voices around them went suddenly silent. The locals were stock still, their mouths opium-slack. Looking around in something like shock, Hannah stood up and turned to study Reeve. He wasn¡¯t breathing. She watched him close his eyes and swallow. All at once, each person in the crowd turned and walked away. They walked into houses or farther down the road toward other homes. Hannah had never seen him use his telepathy to this scale. There had to have been at least two dozen people, zonked out, probably memory-wiped, and walking at a stoner¡¯s pace to their homes. What kind of accuracy could he have with that many minds? She couldn¡¯t imagine it¡ªit would be like playing twenty games of chess at once.

    ¡°Reeve!¡± Gareth¡¯s voice snapped them both out of it. Reeve took a sudden, but quiet, gulp of air. He scanned the emptying street and looked at Gareth. Whatever was exchanged silently between them, neither seemed to come away from it better than before.

    Once they¡¯d gotten Alyosha into his plane¡ªthe closest and cleanest place¡ªthey started in on him. Reeve paced, watching them. Gareth gingerly felt the surface of Alyosha¡¯s skull for obvious damage while Hannah tried to wash out the bullet wound, but Alyosha hissed and began to blindly struggle. Reeve dropped to his knees and put a hand on his chest with enough pressure to keep him from sitting up and softly shushed him until Alyosha quieted and went still.

    ¡°What did you do?¡± Hannah yelled. Gareth checked for a pulse, but she could see Alyosha''s eyes were open and blinking, slowly shifting randomly back and forth, scanning the ceiling of the plane.

    Reeve leaned back, wiping blood off on his pants. ¡°He thinks he''s somewhere else. He can¡¯t feel anything you''re doing.¡± His eyes had welled up, but he had shut his face hard against that.

    With nothing to say, Hannah went back to work, swallowing. The bullet had gone straight through and didn¡¯t seem to have nicked any major vessels. She finished washing it and applied a clotting agent from the med bag. Alyosha''s arm was relaxed and pliant as she worked. His face was calm and every now and then there was the smallest hint of his normally large grin. It made Hannah feel sick.

    ¡°What¡¯s he looking at?¡± Gareth asked quietly.

    ¡°The stars.¡±

    Gareth tucked a blanket around Alyosha¡¯s neck, careful to cradle his head, without any outward sign that he had heard Reeve.

    Hannah sighed. ¡°Nothing else we can do here. We can''t really know how bad it is without some kind of scan. It could be really bad or he could only be concussed and sore as hell. And if it is bad¡­¡±

    Gareth finished for her, softer than Hannah had heard his voice since Beatty, ¡°Then it¡¯s not going to matter if we¡¯re here or not.¡±

    Reeve paced.

    ¡°Alex?¡± Hannah asked, just the one word but it made Reeve stop short.

    ¡°They took him alive. I read Shvedov¡¯s memories.¡± He started walking again. ¡°He was cuffed, not in a black bag. I know what the car they were driving looks like. Alyosha managed to damage it. They¡¯ll want me to track them down.¡±

    Hannah hadn¡¯t realized until just then that she had still, in her mind, been thinking of this as some local crime problem. Tourists getting jumped. Some unfortunate, but unrelated, conflict. But Reeve was saying Neptune was here and that they were here for them. They had already gotten to them.

    Gareth¡¯s entire body flexed and tensed. ¡°What do we do?¡±

    ¡°We track them down.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 12.

    SolCorp Pharmaceutical¡¯s Kyiv, Ukraine Office. Saturn Department.

    Kyiv¡¯s Saturn office suite was small, but that didn''t mean it hadn¡¯t immediately become Anise¡¯s favorite place in the whole world. The department was made up of five offices at the end of one hallway on the third floor, one of which they¡¯d turned into a breakroom. Slowly, she was getting to know the agents there. Her fellow Saturn agents.

    Nina was still her guide, the one who was showing her the ropes. Nina was a healer, but after a particularly bad injury that resulted in PTSD, she had been taken out of the field. There were two others working admin and one field agent between assignments. Anise had been told there were more, but most of the agents who worked out of Kyiv were out on undercover assignment, and she¡¯d either meet them eventually or she wouldn¡¯t. Saturn didn¡¯t have the same kind of community feeling as other departments. Agents often worked alone for years on end with little contact except from their handler.

    And that''s what she was learning to be for now: a handler. Someone who communicated with undercover agents, took their reports, and analyzed them.

    ¡°What are you doing here?¡± Nina asked as she sat down at the small desk they¡¯d given her, tucked into a corner in Nina¡¯s office.

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± she replied.

    Nina shook her head at her. ¡°Isn¡¯t your first Post-Breathe thing today?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, but I don''t have to be there until nine.¡± Anise entered her agent number and password to log in. It never got old that she could do that.

    ¡°Anise, it¡¯s eight o¡¯clock.¡±

    She huffed, turning to look at her. ¡°Give me a break. I¡¯m fasting, so I don¡¯t exactly need time to eat breakfast.¡±

    Nina was thankfully silent for a moment. ¡°Are you nervous?¡±

    She could barely tell what she was, herself. ¡°It¡¯s just a calibration. I¡¯m supposed to feel a little funky and sore afterward, but they aren¡¯t altering anything. I don¡¯t know. I don¡¯t get how it works.¡±

    ¡°Me neither,¡± she said, turning back to her own work. ¡°That¡¯s the new method they do here. It¡¯s not a one-off like out west.¡±

    ¡°Whatever it takes, right?¡±

    The hour flew by and before she was ready, Anise found herself in the small Venus procedure room in a hospital gown. The room was a flurry of Venus agents. She recognized Dr. Madison, the head of Kyiv¡¯s Venus office, having met once before, but she didn¡¯t really know anyone else there. It made her think about how she barely knew anyone in the building. Anise realized those new acquaintances were her closest friends on the entire continent and she suddenly felt small.

    The door opened and Mark walked in, prompting her to sit up. The Venus agents deferred around him, making space.

    ¡°Hey.¡± She said it like a question.

    He gave her a thin smile. ¡°Figured you wouldn¡¯t mind if I was here for support.¡±

    The bolstering effect of the gesture took her by surprise, and it felt as though every vertebrae in her spine had turned to steel and nothing in the universe could knock her down. ¡°Yeah,¡± she smiled back. ¡°Is that okay?¡± She glanced back at the Venus staff.

    ¡°They do what I tell them to,¡± he replied simply. He walked around behind the gurney to stand by her head. Anise could either crane her neck to follow him or lay down and look up to keep him in sight so she laid down.

    ¡°Excuse me, sir,¡± the lead Venus agent said as she approached with an oxygen mask. ¡°We¡¯re ready.¡±

    Mark nodded to Anise and then to the agent. ¡°So are we.¡± She felt ready. She wasn¡¯t alone.

    ¡°Just going to sedate you now,¡± the Venus agent said, placing the mask on her face.

    Anise breathed deep and went under.

    ---

    Natal, Brazil.

    The cut over Alex¡¯s eye wouldn¡¯t stop goddamn bleeding. He blinked and shook his head, trying to clear his view. After a couple more shocks and a punch that bounced his unprotected head against the door, Alex decided to quit trying to get the door open and stay quiet. He leaned his sore face on the cool glass and watched the trees roll by against the sunset. The SUV was making some unnatural noises, jerking and coughing when they accelerated. He was glad Alyosha had managed to fuck them up a bit.

    ¡°He okay?¡± the driver called over his shoulder to the electric-skinned shithead next to him. Apparently he¡¯d been enough trouble to them that when he took a break, it got this guy worried. Either raising hell or passed out. Damn right. Alex sniffed. He liked that.

    ¡°He¡¯s fine,¡± she scoffed, and shifted to nurse the arm that Alyosha had put a bullet in. ¡°Banged up, but fine.¡±

    ¡°Well, keep him quiet, but take it easy. He¡¯s technically a minor.¡± Alex gathered he was their team leader. He had that cocky look on his face and the others shut up when he talked.

    ¡°You know he shot you both, right?¡±

    The driver clicked his tongue. ¡°Yeah.¡± The agent pitched his voice for Alex to hear, with that change of tone people used when talking to a kid that made Alex¡¯s lip pull back. ¡°But Sol ruled that it¡¯s not your fault what happened.¡±

    Whatever Alex had locked down to keep himself still snapped into pieces. ¡°Not my fault?¡± he burst, straightening up and flinging more blood onto the seat.

    The driver just said, ¡°Janice,¡± and the agent beside Alex started charging up her stupid arms again. Alex shut his eyes and jerked back involuntarily, rounding his shoulders defensively and swearing, mostly at himself.

    The car chugged and shook. The agent who¡¯d shot Alex turned around. ¡°Jesus, your arm¡¯s still bleeding?¡± He turned to the driver, ¡°We need to pull over so I can treat that.¡±

    Alex curled himself into as much of a ball against the door as one can when your arms are tied behind your back. A medic who can¡¯t get hurt. Very funny.

    ¡°We need to grab a new car anyway,¡± their leader nodded. ¡°This one¡¯s not going to make it to the rendezvous point.¡± Alex kept his face tucked down against his shoulder. They would need to transfer him. He pulled his legs up and tucked his feet under himself to get a feel for the leg restraints. They were metal leg cuffs and he didn¡¯t have a lot of hope for getting out of them, but he could maybe step through his handcuffs if his shoulder could take it.

    With every mile they drove, Alex¡¯s muscles tightened as he watched the agent ride in silence next to him, one hand clamped over her arm. At some point, he noticed his cheeks were wet but he couldn¡¯t even properly reach his face with his shoulders to wipe it off. The feel of it clinging to his skin made the knotted up shame in his stomach tighten.

    It was fully dark by the time they pulled into a driveway next to a car in front of a small home without any lights on. The driver asked the agent in the front seat, ¡°Can you do this here while I get that thing started?¡±

    He nodded and the agent in charge got out of the car. Alex¡¯s heart was a hammer against his ribs. The other agent got out and Alex felt the shunk of the door unlocking with the whole length of his spine. Janice was watching him. Alex decided to cry whatever silent tears he had been swallowing. Let her see how defeated he was, how small and young and bruised. She looked away when the other agent opened her door and Alex took that brief second to shift himself up to get his twisted hands on the door handle, wincing against the awful pain in his left shoulder. He froze like that, head low and defensive.

    ¡°Let me see it,¡± the agent said, pulling a pair of gloves from a medical bag.

    ¡°It went right through,¡± she hissed as he cut through the sleeve of her shirt.

    He pursed his lips and hummed as he examined it. Alex¡¯s muscles were tight as a bowstring, the tendons in his legs corded too rigid to even shake. He could feel his heartbeat in his toes. He waited.

    ¡°You¡¯ll be fine,¡± the agent told her, bending to give her a swift kiss on her hair before leaning down. Alex¡¯s legs jumped and he grimaced, trying to keep still. He watched the agent tap some powder onto her arm and ready a strip of white cloth to bind it. She glanced at Alex, then nodded to the medic without saying anything. Alex and Janice both took a deep breath in and held it. Leaning in, the agent yanked the cloth tight enough to make her yelp.

    Alex went off like a slingshot. Bracing his back against the door, he kicked his legs out, planting his feet right onto her arm and the medic¡¯s hand, while at the same time, he worked the door handle with frantic, pained clawing until it gave. His push off her arm sent him flying out of the car. His head cracked against the bottom edge of the door and he landed hard on his back. Alex coughed, fighting for breath. The pain in his bad shoulder shocked through him and the vibration it caused in his skull made it feel numb. He ground his teeth against the searing burn as he rotated his arms under his tucked feet and in front of him. He shoved himself upright with his forehead pressed hard to the dirt, his bound hands struggling to help. There was shouting and cursing behind him. With a mad amalgamation of hopping, scrambling, and falling, Alex launched himself into the tall brush beside the road. He forced himself down flat, under the thick tangle of rough plants that pulled at him whenever he moved. For a split second, he thought of the cats back in Reno, who would wedge themselves deep and inaccessible within trash heaps when chased. Alex kept crawling.

    With skinned elbows and knees, he fought his way through the brush, deeper and deeper, where it was dark and the dirt was cold. The leaves against his face trembled, then shuddered as if in a breeze, but Alex couldn¡¯t feel any wind. A force gripped his body and plucked him, fighting and flailing, into the air and held him suspended four feet off the ground. Seeing the expanse of air below him, his stomach flipped and Alex held himself still. It felt like a pair of strong hands were pinning him up, if hands could hold every inch of him simultaneously. Illuminated by the lights of their newly stolen car, the team leader stood with one hand extended in the air, aimed in Alex¡¯s direction. Alex had never been so satisfied that he¡¯d shot this guy, though the agent¡¯s face showed he was more upset than Alex had expected. The others were nearby, panting hard. The guy had the bean bag shotgun back in hand.

    ¡°Clear out the trunk,¡± the leader growled. He shifted his arm, and Alex¡¯s world reeled as he was swung end over end to hang upside-down in the air. He heard the sound of the trunk opening and kicked his feet reflexively, but there was nothing to kick. The blood was starting to snap and sing as it pooled in this head. He waited to be set down, trying to ready his limbs to spring up again, but it didn¡¯t come. They let him hang there until he was dizzy-sick and purple-faced. Then he let Alex drop the last few feet into the trunk of the car and the others slammed the lid. He gave the side a few weak thumps before the pain of pins and needles in his arms was too overwhelming to do anything except roll onto his side and sway with the movement of the car as they drove away.

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    ---

    Gareth followed Hannah and Reeve off the plane.

    ¡°Can you drive?¡± Reeve asked him without looking back.

    ¡°Yeah.¡± Gareth picked his pace up to a jog, not unhappy to put a minute of space between them. Reeve¡¯s mind was¡­pervasive. Gareth felt it everywhere, like he was air. He¡¯d seen him on his hardcore uppers before but this was different, like he¡¯d let some part of himself off the leash. He got in and started the car up. Gareth felt totally fucked. It wasn¡¯t a new feeling, but it was a feeling that kept getting stronger as time went on, and one that Alyosha¡¯s blood on his jeans seemed to accelerate. For once in his life though, it wasn¡¯t his fault. He thought that ought to make it easier, more out of his hands and along for the ride. It didn¡¯t.

    The others got in. Reeve¡¯s eyes were sad when he looked at Gareth¡ªthat look he got when he knew what others were thinking about him. Gareth shifted into gear, avoiding eye contact. ¡°Where we headed?¡±

    ¡°Back to the main road.¡±

    Gareth took them past the wrecked car, past a row of homes with bewildered faces in dark windows. He kept his jaw shut tight, uneasy about what he might say to Reeve if he didn¡¯t.

    As they reached the strip, Reeve told him, ¡°Take a left up here.¡±

    ¡°Where is he?¡± Hannah asked, leaning forward, crossed arms against the back of Gareth¡¯s seat.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Reeve admitted after a silence. ¡°They¡¯ve covered some ground and he¡¯s out of reach. I can only get a fuzzy direction.¡± Reeve looked around, gauging their position to the ocean. ¡°He¡¯s northwest.¡±

    Gareth drove up the dark coast. There was a flash in his rearview and he looked up to Hannah stripping down. He didn¡¯t pay much attention until Reeve turned to look at her. She was contorted to reach her bandage and was slowly peeling it off.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Reeve protested, turning around in his seat. Her face in the mirror was scrunched, brows lowered.

    ¡°We might need me. Can¡¯t go invisible like this.¡±

    Gareth shifted in his seat, antsy and wanting to pull over. ¡°Hannah, what the fuck!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m full up on antibiotics and,¡± she pulled the last strip off with a grimace, ¡°it¡¯s closed.¡±

    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± Gareth groaned and focused on the road. There weren¡¯t many street lights and the way was narrow. He hadn¡¯t seen a single house with lights on yet. Reeve could have stopped her. But he didn¡¯t, and that was probably good, because Gareth wasn¡¯t sure what he would have done if he started pulling that shit.

    They drove without talking for a long time. The idea of fiddling with a radio didn¡¯t feel right.

    Reeve spoke into the silence, ¡°I never meant for anything like this to happen.¡± Gareth wanted to shove a fucking shoe in Reeve¡¯s mouth. Anything to get him to shut the hell up. He thought it loudly.

    ¡°Stop it,¡± Hannah said gently. Which, to Gareth, was way too kind and understanding.

    ¡°If you had known what I did¡ªno, you wouldn¡¯t have gone through with those missions. You¡¯re not like that.¡±

    ¡°Stop it!¡± she blurted at a yell. ¡°You can¡¯t just have arguments out loud with my thoughts. You don¡¯t get to do that!¡±

    ¡°Oh, goddamnit,¡± Gareth muttered, gripping the steering wheel. Reeve took a breath to talk, but Hannah broke in.

    ¡°I get that you want to have the conversation and explain yourself and defend yourself, but sort of fuck you!¡± Gareth glanced back, but she was invisible. ¡°The only person that conversation makes feel better is you, and I¡¯m not really in the mood to make you feel better right now. And if you really want to have the conversation, you should wait until Alex is here with us! I think you owe him that much.¡±

    Gareth blew out a long breath. It wasn¡¯t fun being around a telepath when you¡¯re pissed, but he could admit it probably sucked more for the telepath.

    Reeve motioned to the side of the road. ¡°Gareth, pull over.¡±

    ¡°No.¡± If they were gonna fight, they were gonna fight on the move.

    ¡°We just passed Neptune¡¯s car,¡± he argued, trying to keep his voice level.

    ¡°Shit.¡± Gareth slowed and pulled off onto the dirt and tall brush. ¡°Alex?¡±

    Reeve shook his head. ¡°He¡¯s not there. He¡¯s still,¡± he pointed up the coast, ¡°that way. I can¡¯t sense anyone in the house, but¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll check it out,¡± Hannah¡¯s voice came from the backseat. ¡°Told you we might need me.¡±

    ¡°Be careful.¡±

    Gareth waited, tense, gun in his lap.

    ¡°There¡¯s no one there,¡± Reeve said at last, voice a little distant, communicating with Hannah. ¡°Their SUV¡¯s banged up. They probably ditched it and stole a different car.¡±

    ¡°Now what?¡±

    ¡°We follow Alex¡¯s signal. It¡¯s stronger. We¡¯re getting closer.¡±

    The back door opened and he heard Hannah get in. ¡°You get all that?¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s blood in their backseat.¡±

    No one spoke for a moment.

    ¡°He¡¯s alive,¡± Reeve said in that condescending tone he used when he was trying to comfort someone.

    ¡°You know they¡¯re just leading us someplace remote so they can kill us.¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Reeve enunciated slowly, ¡°but that hasn¡¯t worked yet.¡±

    ¡°So let¡¯s go.¡±

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Uranus Department.

    Emmett narrowed his eyes at the ceiling of his new office in LA as the lockdown siren sounded. It was the second lockdown since he came to LAHQ and he wasn¡¯t in the mood, and not only because the piercing siren was pitched to stomp directly on the base of your skull.

    As the siren blasts were getting longer and closer, becoming one long drone that signaled for everyone to get inside the closest office, Emmett got up and made his way out into the hallway. Emmett waved with a smile at a black-clad Neptune agent shouting at him, and walked into Marek¡¯s office across the way.

    Marek was bent over the hamster cage set up by his desk and gave him a confused look. ¡°Hey, you," he yelled to carry above the din. He pointed to the cage. ¡°Baguette really hates that sound.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s not alone," he bellowed back.

    The alarm cut out. Now people had to wait for a final short blast to signal that the lockdown was over, which could be in minutes or hours, depending on what the problem was.

    ¡°So, did you just want some company?¡± Marek asked, giving his tiny, precious furball one last concerned glance.

    "Not exactly. Department heads get an alert with the lockdown code and location, right?"

    "Yeah." He dug his phone out of his pocket and checked. "It''s another knack misfire."

    Emmett sighed. "They really send all the worst off students to LA, huh?" The last lockdown had been for a student whose telekinesis had gone haywire.

    "They do, but this is in Jupiter, two floors up. So, an adult this time."

    That happened sometimes, too. Few people had perfect control of their knack 100% of the time. Stick that in a pressure cooker of work stress and personal relationship drama, and bam.

    "Can you pop me there?"

    Marek''s eyebrows went up. "In a lockdown?"

    "Nevermind. Just bail me out or whatever if you have to.¡±

    ¡°Emmett¡ª¡±

    But he was already out the door. Even at HQ, they didn¡¯t have enough Neptune agents to patrol every single hallway at every given moment, and it just so happened that there was no one watching theirs right then. They weren¡¯t that far from the stairs, and he wasn¡¯t about to take an elevator. Ducking into the stairwell, he slowed down as he began to climb. Sound carried more there. There was a faint but distinct groaning coming from the pipes somewhere beyond the walls. Shit.

    The lights weren¡¯t on at the next landing, and he was climbing by the dim red emergency lighting only. A bad sign. He reached the second floor and, knowing he wouldn¡¯t be as lucky sneaking through this hall, left the stairwell.

    The hallway was dim except for emergency lighting, but there were small groups of Neptune agents in full Blacks staggered down the hall. A dozen doors down, a larger group was dealing with something he couldn''t make out.

    The group nearest him turned to stare as he opened the door. Emmett flashed his badge at them quick enough it couldn¡¯t be read, and continued on.

    ¡°Hey,¡± one agent shouted. ¡°You can¡¯t be here.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m here to help,¡± Emmett told him, cool as could be, despite feeling the agent¡¯s shock and anger echoing around the walls through his empathy. ¡°Trust me, you want my help.¡±

    The agent moved to intercept him and pointed behind him. ¡°Get back down the stairs. Someone will escort you to a room.¡±

    ¡°What are you going to do, arrest me?¡±

    By way of answer, three agents put hands on him in a tight grip, forcing his arms behind his back. He struggled as much as he could. He was making a scene, but he didn¡¯t care.

    ¡°First of all,¡± Emmett growled loudly. ¡°I¡¯m just going to assume that not calling me ¡®sir¡¯ was an oversight. And second, you¡¯re going to be really sorry when they find out that you¡¯re the one who kept me from helping.¡±

    ¡°Everyone must remain out of the halls during a lockdown, for everyone¡¯s safety,¡± the first agent lectured loudly.

    ¡°I would, if you all would do your jobs properly,¡± he muttered. The more he didn''t budge, the more irritated he could feel they were. The agents were beginning to move him backward when he heard someone call out above the other voices.

    ¡°What the hell is going on down there?¡±

    The figures parted for a man in Blacks to walk through them. His head was uncovered, and Emmett recognized Penn Harris from his directory photo. In that group of people charged up with outrage, Penn was a shade calmer. Emmett felt the lightest touch of telepathy and then nothing.

    ¡°Sir,¡± the first agent replied, squaring his shoulders. ¡°Uranus¡¯ Third is refusing to return to his office.¡± So he did know who he was.

    ¡°I see that.¡± Penn came to halt in front of them and met Emmett¡¯s eyes. He was taller than Emmett, but that wasn¡¯t something that would make him shrink. ¡°Do they do lockdowns differently in Chicago?¡±

    It could have been funny. ¡°Cleanup in Chicago knows better than to make matters worse during an incident, so I was coming to keep you from making more work for me later.¡±

    ¡°What¡ª¡± Penn tried, but Emmett was on a roll now.

    ¡°It¡¯s enough work to repair any damages done by whoever has just had the worst day of their year, but it¡¯s fairly annoying to have to clean up after Cleanup. In the last lockdown¡ªwhich, you¡¯ll recall, required two new sinks and three new toilets be installed¡ªyour people allowed the water to pour out from broken pipes for long after the student had been removed. That water has to go somewhere, and you may not realize it, but around here everyone¡¯s floor is someone else¡¯s ceiling.¡±

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m sorry that¡ª¡±

    ¡°In addition to that, in order to work safely around the broken light fixtures, your agents shut off power to two floors of Terre instead of just the one section of the grid required. As a result, teachers had to keep two dozen kindergarteners calm and entertained in a dark, windowless room with no electricity for three hours. Which is why, if I¡¯m ever in real trouble, I¡¯ll be calling a Terre agent.¡±

    Penn blinked at him. "So Marek is the laid back one in the friendship, is what you''re saying."

    "Oh, you have yet to see me wound up."

    Penn broke eye contact. "Let him go."

    The agents released him and Emmett took a moment to roll his shoulders and straighten his sleeves. "So what happened up there?"

    Penn''s expression was neutral, but Emmett could feel a sense of bewilderment. "Magnetic field manipulator."

    Emmett nodded, resolved to make it seem like this happened all the time. "So we''ve got a big ol'' ball of twisted metal up there?" He didn''t put extra emphasis on the word ''we,'' but he didn''t include it by accident either.

    "Yup."

    "Is the floor buckling?"

    A flicker of doubt crossed his face. "Not to my knowledge."

    "I''ll check," he said and started walking. Penn moved with him as the others stared on. Emmett continued, "Let me properly shut off this section''s water and electricity, and then I''ll check for structural issues."

    "You personally?" Penn asked, as he stopped to unlock the maintenance closet located at the top of the main stairway of each floor. There was a wall panel that had three long columns of black switches and a line of snaking pipes with blue shutoff valves, which Emmett immediately turned closed. Penn watched him. "You can''t have memorized the whole building''s grid in a week."

    "That''s an interesting theory," Emmett commented, selecting the four switches for this hallway. ¡°Now let¡¯s take a look at that floor.¡±

    He started walking back out to the hallway, but Penn grabbed him by the arm. ¡°Alright. Hold on.¡±

    He stopped and faced him. ¡°Problem?¡±

    ¡°You¡ª¡± He huffed. ¡°You can check the flooring after we¡¯ve cleared out. It¡¯s not like if the floor is fucked we can just opt out of cleaning. But you can¡¯t be out here.¡±

    ¡°Well, I am,¡± he countered.

    Penn held his eyes. ¡°Emmett, I¡¯m serious. When that siren goes off, these hallways become part of the field, and you do not have clearance to work in the field. If you¡¯re out here again, I will have my agents carry you out bodily to spend lockdown with your least favorite person, and I''m a telepath, so let''s not pretend I don''t know who that is.¡±

    Emmett cocked his head. "Okay but everyone knows who that is, and if you stick me with Jupiter I''ll just spend the whole time brow beating him over the budget until he begs your agents for the sweet release of¡ª"

    ¡°What I can do,¡± Penn cut in loudly over him to make him stop, ¡°is listen to you about what measures should be taken to reduce damages." Penn leaned forward. It was too dark to get a good view of his eyes, but Emmett''s empathy was giving him a decent read. Enough to know he was holding the guy¡¯s interest in more ways than one.

    "If you stay inside during the next lockdown," Penn continued, "I can promise that, unless I am actively physically engaged, I will take your call."

    That deal was a slightly better outcome than Emmett had bargained for when he set out.

    He let a smile tease at his lips. "I believe that you''ll take my call," he replied, letting his tone stray into flirtatiousness. "And I''m an empath, so let''s not pretend I don''t know why."

    Penn stared, a little dumbfounded.

    "I should get back to my office to start the paperwork on this," Emmett went on. When he tried to start walking again, Penn let him go. "Don''t fall through the floor, okay?" he called without looking back.

    The other Neptune agents in the hall shifted restlessly, ready to grab him again, but Penn never gave the order.

    Emmett smiled to himself. He could work with this.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 13.

    Natal, Brazil.

    Reeve didn¡¯t dare reach out and touch Alex¡¯s mind yet, but they were finally close enough that he could do it if he tried. He could close his eyes and pinpoint exactly where Alex was through the trees. Not telling him they were nearby, not scanning his thoughts to see if he was hurt, might have been the hardest thing Reeve had ever done.

    They were inland, far beyond the tourist zone and miles down cobblestone roads with nothing but palms and few locked gates on either side of the road, dark houses set deep down long driveways. It was quiet except for night insects, and the moon was filtered through sparse clouds. He¡¯d had Gareth stop the car when they were about a quarter mile away.

    Hannah, still invisible, touched his arm and thought, Do you have a layout?

    Reeve shook his head and kept his voice low. ¡°He¡¯s up there on the left. Either the road curves or there¡¯s a turn or a house.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll take a look,¡± Hannah¡¯s voice came from beside him as the touch of her hand slipped away. The soft sound of her footsteps quickly faded into the rustle of palms in the night wind.

    ¡°Keep good track of her,¡± Gareth said, staring after her. Turning nearly a full circle, he scanned the road. ¡°So what do we have?¡± He pulled out his two handguns and placed them on the hood of the car. Reeve set his gun next to it. ¡°Okay,¡± Gareth cocked an eyebrow. ¡°And I know Hannah had a .22 and her razor blades in her shorts, so those are in the car.¡±

    They stood back and looked at it in the moonlight. There were a few extra magazines but it wasn¡¯t much. Reeve didn¡¯t usually rely on firepower when a mind can be manipulated, but he hadn¡¯t ever fought against other knacked people in a way that wasn¡¯t friendly sparring. Neptune would be well trained to resist telepathy. In his mind, he could sense the bright spot that was Hannah closing in on the spot that was Alex. He didn¡¯t know why that somehow made him feel worse, more terrified.

    ¡°How many agents did you see in Alyosha¡¯s head?¡±

    ¡°Three. High profile Retrieval teams are more like four or five. A three person Neptune team is usually sort of like a sleeper cell. They¡¯re spread all over, stationed in areas without a Sol presence¡ªuntil they get orders to sweep their region.¡±

    Gareth was staring at him. ¡°How the fuck do you know all this?¡±

    He shrugged. ¡°I made sure I was as informed as possible.¡±

    Gareth sighed. His mind kept folding in on itself, eating its anger like a black hole pulling and crushing in with nowhere to go.

    ¡°So we¡¯ve got three Neptune agents, four guns, the two of us, and someone full of stitches.¡±

    The point in his mental map that was Hannah was closing in on them. ¡°She¡¯s back,¡± he said quickly, knowing how jumpy they both were. She stepped onto the road and became visible. Her side was bleeding again, but not badly, and no one brought it up.

    ¡°Did you see him,¡± Gareth asked, tucking his weapons back in his pants.

    ¡°No, but there¡¯s a house.¡±

    Reeve took a step closer to her. ¡°Show me.¡±

    Slipping in behind her eyes, he saw rushes and broad leafed palms as she waded through the brush following the line of the road. There was a narrow dirt driveway up ahead on the left side of the road. She followed it, moving through the bushes, low to the ground now, and crawling slowly. It was long and it emptied out into a sandy clearing in the brush with a small, almost comically square house. It had a floodlight above the door illuminating the clearing, which was empty of everything except a car and one Neptune agent in full gear sitting on its roof with what looked like a submachine gun. Skirting the edges, she found a spot where the blowing sands got clogged on some roots, forming a small hill in the weeds¡ªa place where they could lay hidden and get a good view.

    ¡°Get your stuff,¡± Reeve said, even before he had fully snapped out of her mind. ¡°We¡¯ve got a workable hiding spot. We¡¯re going to get him.¡±

    They crawled low in the loose dirt to the hill he had seen¡ªlittle more than a bank of sand barely high enough to cover them. But they could see it now: the small house with curtains drawn and lights on inside, and the car out front with an agent on watch. Reeve looked to the house, but Alex¡¯s presence wasn''t there.

    "I think he''s in the car," he sputtered. Reeve shifted his body back and forth, trying to triangulate the signal he was getting. "He''s in the fucking trunk!"

    Gareth huffed a breath out through his nose. "Hannah, any chance you could sneak your way in there?"

    She shook her head. "The floodlight. I still cast a shadow."

    He looked to Reeve next. "If we can get rid of the guy on watch quietly, we''ve got a chance.¡± Gareth rubbed at his face, brushing off an insect. ¡°Last time, we caught Neptune by surprise and it was still a close thing. This one¡¯s a trap."

    Reeve was apprehensive to put his telepathy to use against another agent. "They''re heavily trained to defend against telepathy. Best chance I have is to make him turn his gun on himself, because he''s readying himself to shoot someone now anyway. But that will give us away to the others."

    "You can''t just¡­" Gareth lifted one hand to mime an explosion.

    "Maybe. If anything, I''m in a good space for it now. But it won''t be instant like with a civilian, and he could get off a shot to alert his team."

    Gareth thought, nodding.

    "It¡¯s more risky to do it quietly, but that¡¯s still our best option."

    "I know," Gareth said.

    There was a pause. Everyone was looking at the car. Hannah leaned close to whisper, "You stay here and do that. If he gets off a shot, put his next one through his brain. Gareth and I will sneak over to the grass behind the house, so we can take them out as they walk out the door."

    They nodded. It wasn''t a bad plan. "Let him know we''re here," she continued. "He might need to be ready to run."

    A breath went out of Reeve, having been given some kind of permission to contact Alex in a way that wasn''t just for his selfish need for comfort.

    "Guns up on the watchman,¡± he cautioned. ¡°We don''t know their knacks and they might sense me."  Reeve reached out to that bright point and stepped inside. It was as familiar and easy as turning over a leaf to study the spidering pattern of veins underneath. The agent on watch didn¡¯t react. Reeve¡¯s awareness flooded with Alex¡¯s stomach-churning fear. He was in pain, but not seriously injured¡ªcurled on his side with blood dried into his hair. Reeve was confident that image would be fuel enough to liquefy that agent¡¯s brain instantly. He took another breath and tried to calm his own racing mind.

    Don''t react, he thought softly to Alex. Reeve¡¯s name surged from Alex¡¯s mind like lightning, with a feeling too intense for words. We¡¯re here. Just stay like you are and we''re coming to get you.

    Okay. Alex¡¯s jumbled emotions flooded and clogged behind Reeve¡¯s eyes and he struggled to contain it all. Fucking hurry.

    Reeve nodded to the others. ¡°He¡¯s hurt, but okay.¡± He felt Gareth beginning to unleash some of the rage he''d been squashing¡ªa lot of it was anger at him. That was fine. He could use it like that, direct it at targets. Hannah was breathing deep and fast, over oxygenating, psyching herself up to go.

    Her breath cut off short and she pointed through the trees out to the road. There were headlights, the first they''d seen all night. Reeve held his breath as they drove past the driveway and he kept holding it as they slowed to a stop just down the road. The lights shut off. Someone else was coming on foot.

    "Do we go now, or reassess?" Hannah urged. All his weight was on his toes and fingers, ready to set off at a run. Reeve looked back at the car. The agent was standing on the car roof now, on high alert. They¡¯d lost any element of surprise.

    ¡°We have to wait.¡±

    There was no sound for a while, and they concentrated on warding the direction they had come. Neptune backup could have been flanking them. It could be something else Reeve hadn''t thought of. He didn''t dare touch their minds to find out. When they could finally hear footsteps, they came from the driveway proper, unhurried and unquiet. Reeve peered through the leaves, trying to get a visual.

    "Sounds like two, maybe three," Gareth hissed. "Now what?"

    "We can''t put ourselves between what might be two Neptune teams. We need to wait until they''re all in one place." There were, in fact, two figures now blurred in the dark and walking down the drive toward the house. As they got closer, they could see the two men were in civilian clothing, not tactical gear. Reeve lowered his brow, considering options.

    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    Something happened in Gareth that stung through Reeve¡¯s connection to him like a red hot spike. Gareth grabbed his wrist in a painful, too-tight grip and leaned in close enough that Reeve could feel the heat of his breath against his ear.

    "You tell Alex not to move a muscle and to take the slowest breaths he can. Tell him¡­tell him to plug his ears."

    Reeve turned and stared at him, bewildered, mouth open but silent.

    "Tell him,¡± Gareth spat in a low growl. ¡°Then get back in your own skull and stay there. That," he pointed to the two men, "is Entropy. Do it now."

    A tremor ran through him. He did.

    Alex, we''re coming soon. I need you to block your ears now until I say so. He waited. Alex was as confused as he was, but he slowly reached his fingers up to his ears, too frightened not to trust him. Good. Now don¡¯t move. You''ve got to stay silent and take really slow breaths. Slowest you can, like when you''re meditating with Hannah.

    Reeve?

    He was scaring him.

    This is really important. We''re coming to get you, but I have to pull out now. Don¡¯t reach for me¡ªI''ll be back.

    He pulled his awareness before he lost his nerve and nodded to Gareth.

    "Shut your telepathy off. All of it. They will sense you and then we''ll die." The cold tone of Gareth¡¯s voice made the hair on his arms stand on end. Reeve pulled inward more than he had in a long, long time. The meds made it disturbingly easy to fold it up and tuck it away. He could never completely stop it, but it was as silent as it gets. Alex¡¯s light blinked out as he lost touch, and so did Hannah¡¯s and Gareth¡¯s and distant Shvedov¡¯s. He hated it. They were looking at Gareth, waiting. Reeve and Hannah had never encountered Entropy before. This wasn¡¯t in their training.

    "Now you, too. Don''t move. Slow breaths. The one on the right¡¯s an Elder. We need to slow our heart rates down and hope he doesn¡¯t notice us." All three of them flattened themselves to the dirt and forced their shaking muscles to breathe deep and measured. Reeve knew a little about them, but he had never seen one of the Anthropophagi before. He had assumed they would look different from humans, but this one didn¡¯t¡ªat least not from this distance. Reeve felt blind and helpless, slowly filling his lungs in the dirt. They listened to the footsteps slowly pass them and continue on into the clearing.

    "I need to see," Gareth breathed. ¡°Slowly." Reeve and Hannah slid up the bank on their bellies with him, what felt like one grain of sand at a time. The two men were walking slowly toward the car. The one on the left kicked at the dirt as he walked, swinging one leg aimlessly while looking at the night sky.

    "Why does Alex have to plug his ears?" Hannah whispered, barely audible.

    Gareth didn''t answer for a few seconds. They watched the two men stop in front of the car. The Neptune agent had his gun trained on them and they raised their arms above their heads as if surrendering.

    ¡°Because if this goes how I think it¡¯s going to, he won¡¯t be able to stay still or quiet if he can hear it.¡±

    Reeve turned to make Gareth explain, but was interrupted by the sound of gunfire.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ.

    Jake could feel the driver of the airport shuttle working not to give him a final weird look as he pulled to a stop to drop him off at the front doors of SolCorp. While the driver pulled his duffle bag out of the back, Jake stared up at the building¡¯s intimidating facade of glass and steel. He¡¯d been to LA once before to redo his evals at graduation and double-check his telepathy score, but not at all since then. Now it was supposed to be his new home, somehow.

    He realized he¡¯d gotten lost in thought for too long and turned around to apologize, but now it was the driver who was staring¡ªjust not at the building. He was standing, frozen, Jake¡¯s bag in his hand, looking just behind them at a car in the first row of the parking lot. A man, short, round, and maybe five years younger than Jake, was busy working to clean out his passenger side. What stood out about him was the set of burnt orange and black furry ears sitting high on his head. The man fumbled, dropping a handful of empty plastic water bottles, and when he turned to gather them up, he locked eyes with the driver and then Jake. With a look of fear, his ears folded back, held close to his hair, and Jake grimaced.

    He could feel the driver¡¯s confused interest at seeing this. And the shapeshifter, even from his car, could see it too. With a clear look of panic, the shapeshifter started toward them while pulling his phone from his pocket with visible terror he was trying to cover with a nervous grin.

    Jake put his hand on the driver¡¯s shoulder and slipped into his mind, causing his gaze to go vacant. With practiced ease, Jake erased everything about the man with the strange ears.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± Jake said loudly as he took his bag from the driver. ¡°Drive safe, now.¡± He nodded, still a little dazed, and got into the driver¡¯s side just as the shapeshifter made it to them.

    ¡°Uhh,¡± the shapeshifter began, his mouth hanging open at a loss for words, and pointed with distress at the shuttle van as it pulled away. He¡¯d shifted his ears back, but knew the damage had been done. The badge on the lanyard around his neck said ¡°Darwin¡± and placed him as part of Terre.

    ¡°It¡¯s okay, I took care of it,¡± Jake assured him. He flipped over the badge ID on his belt to show the symbol for Neptune department.

    Darwin gulped and Jake heard the plastic of the empty bottle still in his hand crinkle. ¡°Should I be filing an exposure report?¡± His voice had gone high and tight.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. No harm done.¡±

    ¡°Thanks,¡± he stammered, clearly terrified.

    Jake pointed at the front door. ¡°How do I get to Uranus department?¡±

    The man¡¯s eyes shifted back and forth. ¡°Uh, through the Atrium. Left elevators, twelfth floor? That should get you right in front.¡±

    ¡°Thanks,¡± Jake smiled. ¡°It¡¯s my first day in LA.¡±

    He shouldered his bag and headed inside.

    ¡°Thanks again!¡± Darwin called after him. Jake waved back at him and headed inside. He let out a deep sigh and pushed his own fears down.

    The Neptune agents at the front door scanned his badge, checking him against his photo, and gave him a quick and dirty telepathic scan to verify ID and intent before waving him through. Left elevators, twelfth floor, he remembered and headed up.

    The elevator dropped him directly in front of a small reception area with cheery walls and a shallow pot of pastel succulents on the desk. The man behind the desk looked up at him when he didn¡¯t move and smiled.

    ¡°Do you need something?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± he said, blinking. He walked to the desk and held up the sealed envelope of files in his hand. ¡°I think I¡¯m supposed to give these to you to establish housing?¡±

    Hugh, according to his name tag, stood with a smile to take them and expertly ripped the seam open.

    ¡°Ah, welcome to LAHQ, Jacob del Sol.¡± Hugh grinned warmly as he read. ¡°You¡¯re being transferred in from Neptune field work?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re in Cleanup,¡± he replied automatically, before catching himself with a pang in his chest. It wasn¡¯t ¡°we¡± anymore. ¡°I wipe sensitive information from witnesses¡¯ heads. I was part of a team.¡± He tried to explain, but Hugh had moved on.

    ¡°Mmhm, and you¡¯re a telepath with secondary on¡ªuh, one¡ª¡±

    ¡°Oneiro-telepathy. I can access people while they¡¯re dreaming.¡±

    ¡°Huh. That¡¯s not one that comes through this desk a lot. Alright. I see you¡¯re marked as a two-point-eight telepath,¡± Hugh muttered, shuffling through several pages, then froze. ¡°Two-point-eight?¡± he repeated, ¡°Is that entered right?¡±

    Jake nodded.

    Hugh raised his eyebrows. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen a telepath score that high in...ever I don¡¯t think,¡± he laughed as he continued reading. ¡°Is the rest of your team also on their way?¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯m the only one who got transfer orders for some reason.¡± He felt his eyebrows pulling together and made an effort to keep his face neutral. ¡°They¡¯re back home.¡± Home.

    A loud voice coming down the hall made him startle. ¡°Who¡¯s this tall drink of water, Hugh?¡±

    Jake blinked and laughed despite himself, then froze as he turned to see Marek del Sol walking toward him. It was a face he recognized, though he¡¯d never met the man himself.

    ¡°This is Jacob del Sol, a Neptune agent who just got moved to LA, and I¡¯m trying to get him checked in,¡± Hugh responded with more sass than he would have predicted. ¡°Just ignore him,¡± he told Jake.

    Jake laughed again, at a loss for words.

    The man was tall, with a pleasant roundness to him and a bright grin. He extended a hand. ¡°Hi, Jacob, I¡¯m Marek.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I know, sir,¡± Jake said, shaking his hand. ¡°You¡¯re Uranus.¡±

    Uranus waved him off. ¡°Has Hugh set you up with a pet yet?¡±

    ¡°Sir?¡±

    ¡°We haven¡¯t gotten there yet,¡± Hugh interjected.

    Uranus pointed at Hugh as he walked backwards to the elevator. ¡°Well, don¡¯t forget.¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t dare.¡±

    ¡°Nice meeting you!¡± he called.

    ¡°You too, sir,¡± Jake stammered. When the elevator doors closed, he leaned closer to Hugh. ¡°Was that really¡­?¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡± He shook his head with a small smile and went back to typing. ¡°Like I said, just ignore him. Oh, I¡¯m sorry, agent, you said you were in the Cleanup part of Neptune, but your file says Reintegration.¡±

    Whatever lightheartedness the strange encounter had injected drained out him and his tongue stuck. ¡°Sorry?¡± he asked, even though he¡¯d heard him just fine.

    ¡°You¡¯re here to transfer to the Reintegration division, do I have that right?¡±

    He nodded. ¡°I received word that I was being transferred to work in Reintegration, yes.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡± Hugh tapped his fingers against this desk. ¡°Well then, I have you all checked in here with Uranus housing, and I¡¯ve alerted Neptune that you¡¯ve arrived. Generally, new assignees can take a few days to settle in and you¡¯ll be hearing from your new superiors to set up orientation. Oh, and pets¡ª¡±

    ¡°Pets?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, Marek instituted this pet program. Anyone who wants a pet can have one assigned to them. It makes the place feel more like home. Are you interested?¡±

    ¡°Maybe?¡± Jake stalled. He was tired and confused as to what his role was going to be here. His foster team had a golden retriever when he was a kid, but he remembered that being a lot of work. He was about to say no, but then he thought about coming home at the end of the day to an empty apartment without his teammates. No one to make dinner with. No one to talk to. No one to overhear moving in the next room, a strange comfort, knowing he wasn¡¯t alone. ¡°Something independent?¡±

    ¡°Cat it is. Someone from the pet program will be in touch.¡±

    He nodded. He hoped it would help with the sinking feeling he had from being so far from home and everyone he loved.

    ¡°These are your keys and the unit number is attached.¡± He held them out. Jake took them and ran his thumb over the metal, studying them as though he¡¯d never seen keys before.

    ¡°Are you alright?¡±

    Jake snapped out of it and cleared his throat. His voice was a little rough. ¡°Can I ask you something?¡±

    ¡°Of course,¡± Hugh smiled.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t request a transfer.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t,¡± he trailed off and turned his head to one side and smiled a smile with no trace of happiness. When he looked back at Hugh, he felt like he could start laughing at any moment even though nothing was funny. ¡°I never passed the psych eval for Reintegration work,¡± he told him. ¡°I took it standard back in Academy, twice actually, and a few years back at my age twenty-five assessment. I failed the section for Reintegration all three times.¡±

    Hugh glanced around awkwardly, as though looking for backup, but they were alone.

    ¡°I don¡¯t understand,¡± he said.

    ¡°Are my psych evals in my file there?¡±

    Hugh bit his lip. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯m qualified to be reading your psych evals.¡±

    ¡°Are they in there?¡± Jake asked gently, his voice gone quiet.

    He sighed and began to page through the file as quickly as he could. Jake watched the muscles in his jaw grow tighter the closer he got to the bottom of the stack. When he¡¯d gone through the whole thing, Hugh tapped the pile of papers straight again and slid them back into their envelope.

    ¡°They¡¯re not in there?¡± Jake confirmed, his brow low. Hugh didn¡¯t answer. ¡°Are they supposed to be in there?¡±

    Hugh glanced up at the corners of the room and above the elevator and tugged at one sleeve. ¡°Yeah,¡± he said finally, ¡°they should be there.¡±

    Jake cocked his head slightly to one side and Hugh¡¯s sudden and sharp anxiety cut through his own with a pang of regret. Whatever this was, it wasn¡¯t his fault, Jake reminded himself.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said, meaning it. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have asked you that.¡± He glanced around too, eyes flicking around the corners of the room where the security cameras sat. ¡°I¡¯m sure it¡¯s just a clerical error. I¡¯ll ask my superior about it.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m sure that¡¯s what it is,¡± Hugh agreed with a sigh of relief.

    ¡°Thank you and I¡¯m sorry again.¡± Jake held up the keys and gave his best fake smile. ¡°How do I find the living quarters? East elevator or west?¡±

    ¡°West elevators. Sixth floor. Follow signs for the skywalk. It¡¯s a big place, but you¡¯ll get the hang of it.¡±

    ¡°Thank you,¡± he repeated. ¡°I¡¯ll figure it out.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 14.

    Original Version.

    Natal, Brazil.

    As they approached, Hal saw Jonah raise his hands above his head and he bit his lip on a smile and did the same. The Sol agent was not expecting that at all. He and Jonah did their best to keep the Sol presence in their area down, but it''d been quiet for a while. Not that it was ever too quiet, living with Jonah. He liked being stationed in South America with an Elder for a partner for that reason. Kept his life interesting in his downtime.

    But then there''s this Sol agent¡ªNeptune, from the look of his bulky uniform and excessive weapons¡ªstanding out in the open with this house lit up like a beacon.

    Hal kicked at the dirt with one hip cocked out, waiting on Jonah''s lead. The Sol agent stepped down onto the trunk, weapon aimed. His face was the absolute picture of confusion and Hal couldn''t hold back his grin any longer. He dropped his hands to an apologetic shrug and the agent fired. The impact vibrated through his body as his kinetic absorption powers kicked in. The force and momentum of the bullets ripped through his shirt, stalled against his skin, and then transferred through it, leaving now harmless lumps of lead to drop, inert, onto the ground. That flesh-ripping speed transmitted into his body and raced through his muscles like a tightening guitar string. Hal pulled at the hem of his tattered shirt, shaking loose the spent slugs. The door to the house swung open and banged on its hinges as two more Sol agents burst out. And now it started in earnest.

    Jonah''s arm shot out and he wrapped one hand around the first agent''s calf and squeezed. It made a sound that used to remind Hal of his mom prepping vegetables for Thanksgiving dinner (twisting celery, snapping carrots) but by now, it only reminded him of work. Jonah yanked, and the agent was flung off the trunk of the car with a yell and another sputtering of unaimed gunfire. His leg bent sideways, pinched in like a drinking straw where Jonah was gripping his shin, ankle pressed flush to the side of his knee. He landed hard and stayed put.

    The other agents opened fire. In the bright light, Hal watched several bullets rip through his partner, though he healed so quickly, you really had to look closely to see them hit him at all. More hit Hal too, coming to a dead stop before they so much as bruised him. Shaking with borrowed inertia, he started off toward the house. One agent, after pumping a few more rounds into him, adding fuel to the fire, finally realized how pointless that was. He raised an arm and Hal was sent off his feet, high into the air, before being slammed down onto the ground. He absorbed the impact and lay where he landed, taking a few breaths and adjusting to all the kinetic energy he contained.

    Jonah was bored with the unconscious agent by the car and turned to the others. He was an old-fashioned guy and liked to go for the women first. As Hal pulled himself to his feet, he watched the telekinetic raise his arm again, but Jonah was fast¡ªimpossibly fast. Before the agent could try to lift Jonah''s surprising bulk, he had taken an elbow to the stomach with enough force to knock him to his knees, heaving. The woman emptied the last of her clip into Jonah, backing up, but Jonah hardly noticed, reaching for her. Her body lit up with electricity and Jonah threw himself off of her, shaking his arm, surprised. Hal had reached them and he stood over the male agent, watching him as he fought his way to his feet. Jonah''s mouth was set in a grim line, but he could see from the gleam in his eye that he was enjoying the play. He doubted the girl could see it, but it didn''t actually matter. Jonah backhanded her with a crack that knocked her down. The agent launched himself at Hal, who, with a breathtaking release of tension, shoved his spread palm against the agent''s chest with a satisfying crunch, throwing him backward off the ground with all the pent up force of twenty gunshots set loose through Hal''s arm. His back hit the side of the house. The sound it made was wet. He flopped to the ground and the girl cried out. Hal looked down at him. The back of his skull was flattened, and his ribcage, where it previously had narrowed by the waist, was spread out like the skinny bodies of roadkill frogs made wide against the pavement.

    Jonah grabbed the girl again and she kicked out. The force of her kick reverberated back down her leg. Kicking one of the Elders was like kicking a brick wall (a brick wall that wanted to eat you). He saw her realize what he was, as the muscles in her face froze in fear. She electrocuted him again, making him drop her arm. Jonah punched her in the temple with a closed fist and, with a grunt, she hit the ground hard. Jonah looked at Hal and then at the dead agent.

    "Sorry," Hal shrugged. "I forgot the building was brick and not wood. Figured he''d just blow through some boards."

    Jonah shrugged back and placed one foot in the center of the girl''s chest, pinning her down. He grabbed her left arm and began to rotate it backwards over her head. To the woman''s credit, it was only at that point that she started screaming, which Hal found commendable. He had watched men snap from less. Still, she was trying to fight. But Jonah''s leg was an immovable force. When she screamed, her voice was higher pitched than he had expected, and he imagined it carrying across the plain, people lying awake in their beds listening. With a grisly pop, Jonah gave her arm one last yank and it slid, detached, out of her sleeve, like snaking lobster meat out of the shell. Jonah dropped it and leaned down to tear her shirt open and expose the red circle of raw meat. An arterial gush spouted to that most human of rhythms from what was left of her shoulder. Her screams were mixed with coughing, now. He lifted her into the air, like you''d lift something feather-light, and pressed his open mouth to the spot where her arm used to be. Her screaming stopped soon after. Not long after that, Jonah started chewing.

    Hal heard the first agent wake up. He figured he must be a healer, because he was able to limp on the rubbery new shin bones of his shattered leg.

    "Get away from her!" he screamed, leaning on the butt of the semi-auto, blood on his face from his rough landing. Hal strolled over to him, hands in his pockets.

    "That''s sweet, but she''s gone." Hal leaned down closer to the man''s level as he hunched over. The anguish on his face was perfect. A yell came out of him as he launched himself at Hal, desperate and pained. Hal wished he could tattoo that sound on his body. He couldn''t help but laugh as he took the blows and threw the agent to the ground, getting in a swift kick to one ear.

    Jonah was on his way over. Halfway there, he dropped the girl. She crumpled stiffly. He''d eaten his way to expose the white line of her collar bone. Hal stepped back. Always best to stay out of the space between him and what he wanted. The agent, shaking, pulled himself to his feet in front of Jonah, a long boot knife in his hand. With gritted, bared teeth, the Sol agent pushed it deep into Jonah''s chest. Hal was sure he had slipped it expertly between the ribs and set it squarely in his heart. They were well trained in Neptune, but that didn''t change the fact that Jonah''s heart no longer had a purpose.

    Jonah''s skin knit and healed around the knife. The man tried to pull it out in a panic, but it was stuck fast. Jonah gripped him by the throat and hip and lifted him, horizontal, digging his mouth into a gap in his black armor by the belly. The cries lasted longer this time.

    Hal thought about monsters in movies. The pointed fingernails, the long canine fangs. The identifiable markers that were supposedly necessary to prey on humans, that separated humans from monsters. None of it was true. Jonah didn''t have sharp fangs or claws. Sure, he was pale, but in these times of skin cancer paranoia, even that was rarely worth a second glance anymore.

    All Jonah had was brute strength and need. The catalyst to the first act of human violence: one hungry man wielding a rock. Strength and need. A natural combination that had been gifted to a blessed few in great, inhuman capacity.

    Hal dusted sand off his pants. As much fun as the back country was, he missed civilization. Hands back in his pockets, he made his way to the still lit house. He hoped there was something interesting to do inside. Jonah was going to be at it for a while.

    ---

    SolCorp Pharmaceutical''s Kyiv Office. Dining Hall.

    Anise sat at an empty table in the dining hall and tried to calm the nerves that jangled around in her chest. She''d had butterflies since getting a note that she''d be having lunch with Mark, the head of Kyiv''s Mercury division. He was both the highest ranked person she''d ever met and the strongest telepath she''d ever met, so if she was going to get anywhere close to her goals in the company, it was important she stayed in good standing. She''d chosen to wear a navy blue, Saturn-branded, long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans, resisting the urge to dress up for his station.

    "You''re early," came Mark''s voice from behind her, making her jump. Unlike other telepaths she''d known, she couldn''t feel the presence of his telepathy approaching her. She couldn''t sense the edges of it because it seemed to encompass the entire building.

    Anise glanced at the clock as she turned. "So are you." She didn''t stand to address him, and the tension in the corners of his mouth told her that he liked that she hadn''t. Anise liked that he didn''t subconsciously leer at her the way most men did, no matter their age. As a telepath whose minimal strength lay in detecting thoughts, she was more than a little sick of the things that happened in men''s minds when she was simply trying to have a conversation with them. She supposed with the strength of his telepathy, he could be hiding it, but that wasn''t the impression she got.

    "Let''s go," he said instead of sitting.

    She stood, then. "I thought we were getting lunch."

    "We are. Out."

    Anise raised her eyebrows and followed him to the front doors. She kept forgetting that as an agent in post-grad training, she could leave the building whenever she wanted.

    "I didn''t bring my wallet or anything," she told him as they got to the doors.

    He grinned at her, eyes a little wicked. "Me neither."

    A car was waiting for them out front and it drove them to a cafe across town. He was silent in the car so she followed his lead, taking the time to watch the city and all its people fly past them.

    When they finally sat at a little table in the restaurant, Mark began. "You don''t have to be nervous. I''m invested in you doing well here."

    She held his eyes, barely having glanced at the menu. (She knew she''d be ordering the second thing on the menu, no matter what it was¡ªa trick they''d taught her to free up attention when engaging in Saturn work in such settings.) "Why?"

    Mark brushed off her eye contact and flipped through the menu. "You have amazing potential. Once we get your knack up to snuff, you could be the perfect Saturn agent."

    It should have made her glow, but she was, so far, an incomplete package. She''d detected no change in her telepathy after her first calibration¡ªthere wasn''t supposed to be, but she''d been hoping anyway. "Can I ask what a Mercury officer knows about being an intelligence agent without overstepping?"

    "Possibly, but it won''t be easy," Mark replied without looking up.

    Anise bit her lip and opened her mouth to reply, trying to choose her words wisely, but Mark held up a hand to stop her.

    "I''m kidding. A thing I hope you learn about me quickly is that I have no tolerance for bullshit." He looked at her finally. "I''m not going to tell you to trust me because I don''t believe in it. But I will tell you that I know what I''m looking for, and you have everything except for power. And that, we can fix."

    She nodded, feeling out of her depth. The fix could kill her, they''d said. It didn''t matter. And she did trust him, for some reason. "I''ll do what I need to, sir."

    "Drop the ''sir.'' I don''t want that from you."

    She flinched at his harsh tone, but then the server arrived and they ordered. Her Ukrainian was rough and she had to substitute a couple of words for Russian, but she made herself understood.

    "So," Mark said, sitting back. "How are you feeling after your first calibration?"

    She shrugged. "Achey. A little off, but it will be worth it."

    "There''s something you want to ask me."

    She looked away for a moment. She hadn''t intended to let that leak through, but there was no hiding anything in this telepathic field. "Where are the other students? I heard there was one before me."

    "You heard wrong."

    Anise was surprised by how little he was trying to hide the tone in his voice marking this statement as a lie. As much as he seemed to value nerve, there was nothing about his voice that made her think he was someone to push. She went a different, more direct route. "What is the Academy Pilot Program? It can''t be to graduate all your students and stick them into their departments."

    "No, you''re a special case." Mark examined the nails on one hand. "Anise, what are the benefits of being gen''ed into Sol?"

    It wasn''t something she''d ever really considered before. She looked up into a middle space as she answered. "Well, we never want for shelter, food, community, purpose, money, medical care, or protection. There''s no promise of that for civilians."

    "And what would you say are the injustices?" He said it lightly, giving it an informal air.

    Anise balked and her stomach turned. "Hypothetically?"

    "Sure." His lips quirked.

    She took a moment to think, letting the sounds of the people around her sharpen her mind. She looked at them and compared her life to theirs.

    "Choice," she settled on, finally. "No one chooses to be born, but ignoring certain levels of socioeconomic restrictions, civilians can choose what they want to do with their lives. They can choose to move wherever they want. Marry. Have kids. And even if they hate their careers, they had a hand in shaping it and they have the choice to leave it. When you''re in Sol, you do what Sol orders. You can make requests, but they''re just requests. We can''t leave Sol." She swallowed. It felt wrong to say.

    Mark nodded. "What if there was a middle ground? The Pilot Program isn''t really for the Academy, though it''s part of it. What if agents could have more normal lives, if that''s what they wanted? It would give them more control and save Sol an unbelievable amount of money."

    "How does that possibly save Sol money?"

    "It costs an unfathomable amount of money to keep Sol running as it is now. Take Moon agents. They have one, maybe two assignments per month. The rest of the time, they need to be housed and fed and paid for just a couple of days'' work. What if instead, agents lived out in the world, wherever they wanted, doing whatever they wanted, and supported themselves. Sol would supplement their income, of course, but at a fraction of what they''d normally pay. Then a couple times a month, as needed, they''d be flown in for a job."

    Unable to fight the impulse, she glanced around the restaurant to see if they were being watched. "Isn''t that an exposure nightmare?"

    "Saturn agents do it all the time, don''t they? There are thousands of Saturn agents living among humans and holding down jobs all across the globe at any given moment."

    That was an angle she that had never crossed her mind for some reason. She had been training her whole life to live undetected among civilians. Anise shifted in her seat, fighting an urge to excuse herself. "It still sounds a little crazy."

    "It certainly wouldn''t work for all agents," he admitted, "but that''s why we''re piloting it on a very small scale."

    It was hard to argue that. "Well, part time is not what I want."

    "Good, that''s not why you''re here. And anyway, that''s the core of it, isn''t it? Choice."

    They ate while exchanging small talk. He kept the subject on her, which she didn''t fail to notice but also didn''t push. She spoke about LAHQ Academy, about being out in the world, about being impatient to get into the field.

    When they were done, Mark dropped his napkin onto the table. "Now," he said with a smirk. "Make our waitress think our bill''s been paid."

    She tried to hold back a nervous laugh. "I can''t."

    "Try."

    So she did. Anise spotted their server in the cafe and pinpointed her mind with an effort. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, Anise pushed, trying to insert the new narrative. All the while, she could feel the cold glare of Mark''s observance and it made her sweat. Her temples began to pound and bursts of color were going off behind her eyes as she strained. Relenting, she opened her eyes to see his expression. To her surprise his face showed kindness along with disappointment, when she was only expecting the latter.

    "You''re holding back. You''re worried you''ll blow your cover or hurt her."

    She swallowed. "Yeah."

    "You won''t. She isn''t one of your teachers. Civilians can''t recognize what telepaths feel like, so don''t worry about stealth. She''ll never notice you and you don''t have the power to hurt her anyway. Let loose."

    Shaking herself off and a little stung, Anise tried again. Closing her eyes, she narrowed her entire focus to their server and threw all her covert tactics out the window. But still, nothing about the woman''s head seemed to change. Mark''s mind suddenly spilled over into Anise''s head, filling it to the brim in a dizzying rush of pressure.

    Let loose, he thought to her and did something that upended her internal bearings. She felt as if he''d canceled her own internal gravity and her telepathy flowed out of her in a way she couldn''t stop. The only thing she could do was try to shape it, focusing on their server and the image of a stack of cash laid on top of their bill. Something clicked and she opened her eyes.

    As if called, the server walked to their table and picked up their untouched bill. She thanked them and walked away.

    Whatever Mark had done, he undid it, and her runaway telepathy went back to normal, quieting to a whisper.

    "Better," Mark said, standing up.

    "What did you do?" she asked, breathless.

    "Got you out of your own way. I''ll show you how later. Come on, I have a meeting."

    She scrambled to catch up with him and found him standing by the car, holding the door open for her. She got in and he went around the other side to join her. "Thank you," she said simply.

    He had a smug look on his face. "After your Post Breathe, you''re going to be a force of nature."

    ---

    Natal, Brazil.

    Hannah practically needed Gareth to hold her back, making all of them wait several minutes after the Entropy agents had walked back down the driveway and after they watched the headlights of their car wind away into the night. Next to her, Reeve still had his hands cupped and sealed around his nose and mouth, forcing himself not to hyperventilate. Gareth''s face was blank and distant. She couldn''t sense their energies. She realized she couldn''t sense her own. Everything was a little numb and the silence was much too loud. She let herself become visible, as if that might help.

    Finally after what felt like an hour, Gareth let out a long breath through his nose and said, "Okay." His voice at normal volume was jarring.

    "Can I let him know it''s over?" Reeve asked him, tapping a finger to his forehead and pointing toward the car. Gareth looked around, trying to see through trees and hills, and nodded. They stood up stiffly and pushed their way through tangled weeds and low palms.

    Growing up in training for Sol''s Mars Department, Hannah had seen some things. Nothing like this, but she knew death. As they came out into the clearing, there was this sweet smell that hung over the whole area. It was almost greasy as it hit the throat, but the closer they got, the more that smell was covered up by the scent of spilled bowel. It stopped them in their tracks for a moment. The dead agents by the house were between them and the car.

    She had never seen bodies like that: the sort of thing you''d expect from a body preyed on by a pack of wild dogs. She could see bones lined with shredded strips of gristle. (She couldn''t think of it as ligaments. Humans had ligaments. Meat had gristle. Meat was easier to walk by.) The woman''s chest cavity was open and empty, and there was nothing left of her face but red and teeth in the floodlight''s glare. The man hadn''t been touched. His body was not quite the right shape anymore from blunt force, but he still looked like a person. Hannah held her breath and locked the muscles in her throat closed to keep from vomiting. Reeve was pale.

    "He''s picky," Gareth said, sounding taken aback. The last thing Hannah wanted to do was open her mouth to speak. He pointed to the woman''s arm, torn off, sitting in the dirt uneaten. "Look." There was a bloody strip of bandage tied around her bicep. "He won''t eat damaged flesh."

    Shaking his head, Reeve turned to walk around the gore and Hannah quickly turned to follow him. Her own body had forgotten that it could possibly move until seeing him break away. The two of them moved at a run.

    "Alex, it''s us!" she shouted. There was thumping coming from inside the trunk when they got there. Another agent was slit open on the ground to the right of the car. A portion of his face and one eye was left, but his legs were gnawed down to his femurs and there was a pile of discarded intestines. Hannah caught this at a glance while running to the driver''s side to pop the trunk. She would process that later.

    "Hannah!" His voice, muffled from the trunk, felt like a fist squeezing her heart.

    "One more second!" Reeve yelled back, tapping the top of the hood. She hit the release and ran to the back of the car as Reeve was throwing the lid up. Alex whooped a deep breath and hooked his tied hands over the side of the trunk, hauling himself over the edge. Reeve caught him by the shoulders and carefully set his bound feet on the ground. Alex''s cuffed hands were folded and crushed up against his chest and he buried his face into whatever part of Reeve he could find. Hannah got her arms around the both of them. He didn''t seem to be hurt too badly, from what she could tell. At some point, Gareth had managed to get past the other bodies, putting a hand on top of Alex''s head and another around Hannah''s shoulders. Alex was crying, but so was Hannah, so that was all right.

    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    Against her chest, Hannah could feel Alex''s muscles tense. He sniffed and made a sound.

    "Oh god, what the fuck is that?" He lifted his forehead to look around, but Reeve shook his head quickly and brought up a hand to shield Alex''s eyes.

    "Maybe don''t," Reeve blurted. "You don''t want to." Hannah moved back to give Alex space¡ªshe could feel him getting more wound up.

    "Stop it," he said. He batted at Reeve''s hand, his face tense and pinched. Relenting, Reeve stepped away and locked eyes with Hannah, not sure what else to do. She heard instead of saw Alex register the agent beside the car. There was a pause and a deep guttural squelch. Hannah leaned forward to catch Alex''s hair as he pitched over, sick and heaving onto the dirt. She held his hair up and rubbed the spot between his shoulder blades while he wretched. When there was a break and Alex was just hung over at the waist, spitting, Reeve ushered him away out of sight of the body.

    "Come on, let''s sit in the car for a second." They helped him keep his balance as Alex obediently shuffled his hobbled feet over to the front of the car and plopped down on the edge of the driver''s seat.

    He looked up at them and in a quiet voice said, "Jonathan." His palms and fingers were scratched up, probably from beating on the inside of the trunk, and the metal restraints had worn his wrists raw. He kept twisting at them absentmindedly, trying to work his hands out.

    "I know," Reeve said softly and turned to Hannah. "Can you check the car for something we can pick these cuffs with?" She nodded. Reeve squatted down in front of Alex, one thumb moving back and forth on Alex''s shin. She got in on the other side to rummage through the glove box.

    "Who did that?" Alex croaked.

    "Not us," Reeve answered hurriedly. "It was Entropy." He hesitated.

    "I heard screaming," he said simply, staring at his shoes.

    "You did great keeping quiet. You really did."

    Alex squirmed and she could hear the clanking of metal. "Can we please get these off?" Alex shouted, panicking.

    There wasn''t anything useful in the glovebox. "I''ll check the house," she told Reeve. Hannah got out again and walked around the front of the car, steeling herself to go past the other agents.

    Gareth, standing a bit away from the group, called out, "One of them has the keys." That hadn''t even occurred to her. No one moved or answered. Gareth made his way to the body next to the car. She didn''t look and no one spoke. She thought she would get used to the smell here. People acclimate to so many things until they barely notice them. This wasn''t like that. It was as if, somewhere deep in the primal branch of her brainstem, it was encoded to panic at the scent of human insides. A base impulse to get away, to run.

    Gareth came back, but didn''t come too close. His hands were dark in the harsh light as he held something up and nodded to her. He tossed the key ring and she bent to catch it. The keys were tacky but she didn''t have any clothes to wipe them off on, so she handed them to Reeve as they were. Gareth knelt down, rubbing sand over his hands, scouring off the blood and mire.

    "Easy," Reeve said, trying to fit the right key in the lock as Alex fidgeted. He uncuffed his hands and then his legs. Suddenly free, Alex curled even farther into himself, holding his bad arm with the other. He was sweating and his teeth were chattering.

    "Can we get out of here?" Alex''s voice was raised and sharp. "I want to go."

    "Yeah," Reeve said, chafing his shoulders as if he were cold. "Gareth, think it''s safe to walk back along the road?"

    Gareth turned to look to where they had come from, past the house and the other agents on the ground and then to the street, looking for headlights, probably. Hannah could see every muscle in his body was fighting him. "Sure," he said, finally. It wasn''t what he wanted to say.

    "Alyosha!" Alex said, eyes wide and red-rimmed.

    "He''ll be okay," she said quickly. "Let''s go see him, huh?"

    Alex nodded mutely and let the two of them stand him up and lead him toward the road. He was limping and swallowing tears.

    "Close your eyes," Reeve told him as they neared the Neptune agent by the car.

    "No," he said quietly, his jaw clenched and shaking, but he kept looking straight ahead. Hannah couldn''t. She took another look at him as they passed, and then at Gareth. He was looking straight ahead too.

    ***

    Censored Version.

    Natal, Brazil.

    As they approached, Hal saw Jonah raise his hands above his head and he bit his lip on a smile and did the same. The Sol agent was not expecting that at all. He and Jonah did their best to keep the Sol presence in their area down, but it¡¯d been quiet for a while. Not that it was ever too quiet, living with Jonah. He liked being stationed in South America with an Elder for a partner for that reason. Kept his life interesting in his downtime.

    But then there¡¯s this Sol agent¡ªNeptune, from the look of his bulky uniform and excessive weapons¡ªstanding out in the open with this house lit up like a beacon.

    Hal kicked at the dirt with one hip cocked out, waiting on Jonah¡¯s lead. The Sol agent stepped down onto the trunk, weapon aimed. His face was the absolute picture of confusion and Hal couldn¡¯t hold back his grin any longer. He dropped his hands to an apologetic shrug and the agent fired. The impact vibrated through his body as his kinetic absorption powers kicked in. The force and momentum of the bullets ripped through his shirt, stalled against his skin, and then transferred through it, leaving now harmless lumps of lead to drop, inert, onto the ground. That flesh-ripping speed transmitted into his body and raced through his muscles like a tightening guitar string. Hal pulled at the hem of his tattered shirt, shaking loose the spent slugs. The door to the house swung open and banged on its hinges as two more Sol agents burst out. And now it started in earnest.

    Jonah¡¯s arm shot out and he wrapped one hand around the first agent¡¯s calf and squeezed. It made a sound that used to turn Hal¡¯s stomach, but now, it only reminded him of work. Jonah yanked, and the agent was flung off the trunk of the car with a yell and another sputtering of unaimed gunfire. His leg bent sideways, pinched in like a drinking straw where Jonah was gripping his shin, ankle pressed flush to the side of his knee. He landed hard and stayed put.

    The other agents opened fire. In the bright light, Hal watched several bullets rip through his partner, though he healed so quickly, you really had to look closely to see them hit him at all. More hit Hal too, coming to a dead stop before they so much as bruised him. Shaking with borrowed inertia, he started off toward the house. One agent, after pumping a few more rounds into him, adding fuel to the fire, finally realized how pointless that was. He raised an arm and Hal was sent off his feet, high into the air, before being slammed down onto the ground. He absorbed the impact and lay where he landed, taking a few breaths and adjusting to all the kinetic energy he contained.

    Jonah was bored with the unconscious agent by the car and turned to the others. He was an old-fashioned guy and liked to go for the women first. As Hal pulled himself to his feet, he watched the telekinetic raise his arm again, but Jonah was fast¡ªimpossibly fast. Before the agent could try to lift Jonah¡¯s surprising bulk, he had taken an elbow to the stomach with enough force to knock him to his knees, heaving. The woman emptied the last of her clip into Jonah, backing up, but Jonah hardly noticed, reaching for her. Her body lit up with electricity and Jonah threw himself off of her, shaking his arm, surprised. Hal had reached them and he stood over the male agent, watching him as he fought his way to his feet. Jonah¡¯s mouth was set in a grim line, but he could see from the gleam in his eye that he was enjoying the play. He doubted the girl could see it, but it didn¡¯t actually matter. Jonah backhanded her with a crack that knocked her down. The agent launched himself at Hal, who, with a breathtaking release of tension, shoved his spread palm against the agent¡¯s chest with a satisfying crunch, throwing him backward off the ground with all the pent up force of twenty gunshots set loose through Hal¡¯s arm. His back hit the side of the house. He flopped to the ground and the girl cried out. Hal looked down at him. His body was broken, spread out like the skinny bodies of roadkill frogs made wide against the pavement.

    Jonah grabbed the girl again and she kicked out. The force of her kick reverberated back down her leg. Kicking one of the Elders was like kicking a brick wall (a brick wall that wanted to eat you). He saw her realize what he was, as the muscles in her face froze in fear. She electrocuted him again, making him drop her arm. Jonah punched her in the temple with a closed fist and, with a grunt, she hit the ground hard. Jonah looked at Hal and then at the dead agent.

    ¡°Sorry,¡± Hal shrugged. ¡°I forgot the building was brick and not wood. Figured he¡¯d just blow through some boards.¡±

    Jonah shrugged back and placed one foot in the center of the girl¡¯s chest, pinning her down. He grabbed her left arm and began to rotate it backwards over her head. To the woman¡¯s credit, it was only at that point that she started screaming, which Hal found commendable. He had watched men snap from less. Still, she was trying to fight. But Jonah¡¯s leg was an immovable force. When she screamed, her voice was higher pitched than he had expected, and he imagined it carrying across the plain, people lying awake in their beds listening. With a yank, Jonah ripped her arm off, dropped it, and leaned down to expose her bleeding shoulder. Her screams were mixed with coughing, now. He lifted her into the air, like you¡¯d lift something feather-light, and pressed his open mouth to the spot where her arm used to be. Her screaming stopped soon after. Not long after that, Jonah started chewing.

    Hal heard the first agent wake up. He figured he must be a healer, because he was able to limp on the rubbery new shin bones of his shattered leg.

    ¡°Get away from her!¡± he screamed, leaning on the butt of the semi-auto, blood on his face from his rough landing. Hal strolled over to him, hands in his pockets.

    ¡°That¡¯s sweet, but she¡¯s gone.¡± Hal leaned down closer to the man¡¯s level as he hunched over. The anguish on his face was perfect. A yell came out of him as he launched himself at Hal, desperate and pained. Hal wished he could tattoo that sound on his body. He couldn¡¯t help but laugh as he took the blows and threw the agent to the ground, getting in a swift kick to one ear.

    Jonah was on his way over. Halfway there, he dropped the girl. She crumpled stiffly. He¡¯d eaten his way to expose the white line of her collar bone. Hal stepped back. Always best to stay out of the space between him and what he wanted. The agent, shaking, pulled himself to his feet in front of Jonah, a long boot knife in his hand. With gritted, bared teeth, the Sol agent pushed it deep into Jonah¡¯s chest. Hal was sure he had slipped it expertly between the ribs and set it squarely in his heart. They were well trained in Neptune, but that didn¡¯t change the fact that Jonah¡¯s heart no longer had a purpose.

    Jonah¡¯s skin knit and healed around the knife. The man tried to pull it out in a panic, but it was stuck fast. Jonah gripped him by the throat and hip and lifted him, horizontal, digging his mouth into a gap in his black armor by the belly. The cries lasted longer this time.

    Hal thought about monsters in movies. The pointed fingernails, the long canine fangs. The identifiable markers that were supposedly necessary to prey on humans, that separated humans from monsters. None of it was true. Jonah didn¡¯t have sharp fangs or claws. Sure, he was pale, but in these times of skin cancer paranoia, even that was rarely worth a second glance anymore.

    All Jonah had was brute strength and need. The catalyst to the first act of human violence: one hungry man wielding a rock. Strength and need. A natural combination that had been gifted to a blessed few in great, inhuman capacity.

    Hal dusted sand off his pants. As much fun as the back country was, he missed civilization. Hands back in his pockets, he made his way to the still lit house. He hoped there was something interesting to do inside. Jonah was going to be at it for a while.

    ---

    SolCorp Pharmaceutical¡¯s Kyiv Office. Dining Hall.

    Anise sat at an empty table in the dining hall and tried to calm the nerves that jangled around in her chest. She¡¯d had butterflies since getting a note that she¡¯d be having lunch with Mark, the head of Kyiv¡¯s Mercury division. He was both the highest ranked person she¡¯d ever met and the strongest telepath she¡¯d ever met, so if she was going to get anywhere close to her goals in the company, it was important she stayed in good standing. She¡¯d chosen to wear a navy blue, Saturn-branded, long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans, resisting the urge to dress up for his station.

    ¡°You''re early,¡± came Mark¡¯s voice from behind her, making her jump. Unlike other telepaths she¡¯d known, she couldn¡¯t feel the presence of his telepathy approaching her. She couldn''t sense the edges of it because it seemed to encompass the entire building.

    Anise glanced at the clock as she turned. ¡°So are you.¡± She didn¡¯t stand to address him, and the tension in the corners of his mouth told her that he liked that she hadn¡¯t. Anise liked that he didn¡¯t subconsciously leer at her the way most men did, no matter their age. As a telepath whose minimal strength lay in detecting thoughts, she was more than a little sick of the things that happened in men¡¯s minds when she was simply trying to have a conversation with them. She supposed with the strength of his telepathy, he could be hiding it, but that wasn¡¯t the impression she got.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± he said instead of sitting.

    She stood, then. ¡°I thought we were getting lunch.¡±

    ¡°We are. Out.¡±

    Anise raised her eyebrows and followed him to the front doors. She kept forgetting that as an agent in post-grad training, she could leave the building whenever she wanted.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t bring my wallet or anything,¡± she told him as they got to the doors.

    He grinned at her, eyes a little wicked. ¡°Me neither.¡±

    A car was waiting for them out front and it drove them to a cafe across town. He was silent in the car so she followed his lead, taking the time to watch the city and all its people fly past them.

    When they finally sat at a little table in the restaurant, Mark began. ¡°You don''t have to be nervous. I¡¯m invested in you doing well here.¡±

    She held his eyes, barely having glanced at the menu. (She knew she¡¯d be ordering the second thing on the menu, no matter what it was¡ªa trick they¡¯d taught her to free up attention when engaging in Saturn work in such settings.) ¡°Why?¡±

    Mark brushed off her eye contact and flipped through the menu. ¡°You have amazing potential. Once we get your knack up to snuff, you could be the perfect Saturn agent.¡±

    It should have made her glow, but she was, so far, an incomplete package. She¡¯d detected no change in her telepathy after her first calibration¡ªthere wasn¡¯t supposed to be, but she¡¯d been hoping anyway. ¡°Can I ask what a Mercury officer knows about being an intelligence agent without overstepping?¡±

    ¡°Possibly, but it won¡¯t be easy,¡± Mark replied without looking up.

    Anise bit her lip and opened her mouth to reply, trying to choose her words wisely, but Mark held up a hand to stop her.

    ¡°I¡¯m kidding. A thing I hope you learn about me quickly is that I have no tolerance for bullshit.¡± He looked at her finally. ¡°I¡¯m not going to tell you to trust me because I don¡¯t believe in it. But I will tell you that I know what I¡¯m looking for, and you have everything except for power. And that, we can fix.¡±

    She nodded, feeling out of her depth. The fix could kill her, they¡¯d said. It didn¡¯t matter. And she did trust him, for some reason. ¡°I¡¯ll do what I need to, sir.¡±

    ¡°Drop the ¡®sir.¡¯ I don¡¯t want that from you.¡±

    She flinched at his harsh tone, but then the server arrived and they ordered. Her Ukrainian was rough and she had to substitute a couple of words for Russian, but she made herself understood.

    ¡°So,¡± Mark said, sitting back. ¡°How are you feeling after your first calibration?¡±

    She shrugged. ¡°Achey. A little off, but it will be worth it.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s something you want to ask me.¡±

    She looked away for a moment. She hadn¡¯t intended to let that leak through, but there was no hiding anything in this telepathic field. ¡°Where are the other students? I heard there was one before me.¡±

    ¡°You heard wrong.¡±

    Anise was surprised by how little he was trying to hide the tone in his voice marking this statement as a lie. As much as he seemed to value nerve, there was nothing about his voice that made her think he was someone to push. She went a different, more direct route. ¡°What is the Academy Pilot Program? It can¡¯t be to graduate all your students and stick them into their departments.¡±

    ¡°No, you¡¯re a special case.¡± Mark examined the nails on one hand. ¡°Anise, what are the benefits of being gen¡¯ed into Sol?¡±

    It wasn¡¯t something she¡¯d ever really considered before. She looked up into a middle space as she answered. ¡°Well, we never want for shelter, food, community, purpose, money, medical care, or protection. There¡¯s no promise of that for civilians.¡±

    ¡°And what would you say are the injustices?¡± He said it lightly, giving it an informal air.

    Anise balked and her stomach turned. ¡°Hypothetically?¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡± His lips quirked.

    She took a moment to think, letting the sounds of the people around her sharpen her mind. She looked at them and compared her life to theirs.

    ¡°Choice,¡± she settled on, finally. ¡°No one chooses to be born, but ignoring certain levels of socioeconomic restrictions, civilians can choose what they want to do with their lives. They can choose to move wherever they want. Marry. Have kids. And even if they hate their careers, they had a hand in shaping it and they have the choice to leave it. When you¡¯re in Sol, you do what Sol orders. You can make requests, but they¡¯re just requests. We can¡¯t leave Sol.¡± She swallowed. It felt wrong to say.

    Mark nodded. ¡°What if there was a middle ground? The Pilot Program isn¡¯t really for the Academy, though it¡¯s part of it. What if agents could have more normal lives, if that¡¯s what they wanted? It would give them more control and save Sol an unbelievable amount of money.¡±

    ¡°How does that possibly save Sol money?¡±

    ¡°It costs an unfathomable amount of money to keep Sol running as it is now. Take Moon agents. They have one, maybe two assignments per month. The rest of the time, they need to be housed and fed and paid for just a couple of days'' work. What if instead, agents lived out in the world, wherever they wanted, doing whatever they wanted, and supported themselves. Sol would supplement their income, of course, but at a fraction of what they¡¯d normally pay. Then a couple times a month, as needed, they¡¯d be flown in for a job.¡±

    Unable to fight the impulse, she glanced around the restaurant to see if they were being watched. ¡°Isn¡¯t that an exposure nightmare?¡±

    ¡°Saturn agents do it all the time, don¡¯t they? There are thousands of Saturn agents living among humans and holding down jobs all across the globe at any given moment.¡±

    That was an angle she that had never crossed her mind for some reason. She had been training her whole life to live undetected among civilians. Anise shifted in her seat, fighting an urge to excuse herself. ¡°It still sounds a little crazy.¡±

    ¡°It certainly wouldn¡¯t work for all agents,¡± he admitted, ¡°but that¡¯s why we¡¯re piloting it on a very small scale.¡±

    It was hard to argue that. ¡°Well, part time is not what I want.¡±

    ¡°Good, that¡¯s not why you¡¯re here. And anyway, that¡¯s the core of it, isn¡¯t it? Choice.¡±

    They ate while exchanging small talk. He kept the subject on her, which she didn¡¯t fail to notice but also didn¡¯t push. She spoke about LAHQ Academy, about being out in the world, about being impatient to get into the field.

    When they were done, Mark dropped his napkin onto the table. ¡°Now,¡± he said with a smirk. ¡°Make our waitress think our bill¡¯s been paid.¡±

    She tried to hold back a nervous laugh. ¡°I can¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°Try.¡±

    So she did. Anise spotted their server in the cafe and pinpointed her mind with an effort. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, Anise pushed, trying to insert the new narrative. All the while, she could feel the cold glare of Mark¡¯s observance and it made her sweat. Her temples began to pound and bursts of color were going off behind her eyes as she strained. Relenting, she opened her eyes to see his expression. To her surprise his face showed kindness along with disappointment, when she was only expecting the latter.

    ¡°You¡¯re holding back. You¡¯re worried you¡¯ll blow your cover or hurt her.¡±

    She swallowed. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°You won¡¯t. She isn¡¯t one of your teachers. Civilians can¡¯t recognize what telepaths feel like, so don¡¯t worry about stealth. She¡¯ll never notice you and you don¡¯t have the power to hurt her anyway. Let loose.¡±

    Shaking herself off and a little stung, Anise tried again. Closing her eyes, she narrowed her entire focus to their server and threw all her covert tactics out the window. But still, nothing about the woman¡¯s head seemed to change. Mark¡¯s mind suddenly spilled over into Anise¡¯s head, filling it to the brim in a dizzying rush of pressure.

    Let loose, he thought to her and did something that upended her internal bearings. She felt as if he¡¯d canceled her own internal gravity and her telepathy flowed out of her in a way she couldn¡¯t stop. The only thing she could do was try to shape it, focusing on their server and the image of a stack of cash laid on top of their bill. Something clicked and she opened her eyes.

    As if called, the server walked to their table and picked up their untouched bill. She thanked them and walked away.

    Whatever Mark had done, he undid it, and her runaway telepathy went back to normal, quieting to a whisper.

    ¡°Better,¡± Mark said, standing up.

    ¡°What did you do?¡± she asked, breathless.

    ¡°Got you out of your own way. I¡¯ll show you how later. Come on, I have a meeting.¡±

    She scrambled to catch up with him and found him standing by the car, holding the door open for her. She got in and he went around the other side to join her. ¡°Thank you,¡± she said simply.

    He had a smug look on his face. ¡°After your Post Breathe, you¡¯re going to be a force of nature.¡±

    ---

    Natal, Brazil.

    Hannah practically needed Gareth to hold her back, making all of them wait several minutes after the Entropy agents had walked back down the driveway and after they watched the headlights of their car wind away into the night. Next to her, Reeve still had his hands cupped and sealed around his nose and mouth, forcing himself not to hyperventilate. Gareth¡¯s face was blank and distant. She couldn¡¯t sense their energies. She realized she couldn¡¯t sense her own. Everything was a little numb and the silence was much too loud. She let herself become visible, as if that might help.

    Finally after what felt like an hour, Gareth let out a long breath through his nose and said, ¡°Okay.¡± His voice at normal volume was jarring.

    ¡°Can I let him know it¡¯s over?¡± Reeve asked him, tapping a finger to his forehead and pointing toward the car. Gareth looked around, trying to see through trees and hills, and nodded. They stood up stiffly and pushed their way through tangled weeds and low palms.

    Growing up in training for Sol¡¯s Mars Department, Hannah had seen some things. Nothing like this, but she knew death. As they came out into the clearing, there was this sweet-awful smell that hung over the whole area, and the closer they got, the worse it smelled. It stopped them in their tracks for a moment. The dead agents by the house were between them and the car.

    She had never seen bodies like that: the sort of thing you¡¯d expect from a body preyed on by a pack of wild dogs. Hannah held her breath and locked the muscles in her throat closed to keep from vomiting. Reeve was pale.

    ¡°He¡¯s picky,¡± Gareth said, sounding taken aback. The last thing Hannah wanted to do was open her mouth to speak. He pointed to the woman¡¯s arm, torn off, sitting in the dirt uneaten. ¡°Look.¡± There was a bloody strip of bandage tied around her bicep. ¡°He won¡¯t eat damaged flesh.¡±

    Shaking his head, Reeve turned to walk around the gore and Hannah quickly turned to follow him. Her own body had forgotten that it could possibly move until seeing him break away. The two of them moved at a run.

    ¡°Alex, it¡¯s us!¡± she shouted. There was thumping coming from inside the trunk when they got there. Another agent was slit open on the ground to the right of the car. A portion of his face was left, but his legs were gnawed down to his femurs. Hannah caught this at a glance while running to the driver¡¯s side to pop the trunk. She would process that later.

    ¡°Hannah!¡± His voice, muffled from the trunk, felt like a fist squeezing her heart.

    ¡°One more second!¡± Reeve yelled back, tapping the top of the hood. She hit the release and ran to the back of the car as Reeve was throwing the lid up. Alex whooped a deep breath and hooked his tied hands over the side of the trunk, hauling himself over the edge. Reeve caught him by the shoulders and carefully set his bound feet on the ground. Alex¡¯s cuffed hands were folded and crushed up against his chest and he buried his face into whatever part of Reeve he could find. Hannah got her arms around the both of them. He didn¡¯t seem to be hurt too badly, from what she could tell. At some point, Gareth had managed to get past the other bodies, putting a hand on top of Alex¡¯s head and another around Hannah¡¯s shoulders. Alex was crying, but so was Hannah, so that was all right.

    Against her chest, Hannah could feel Alex¡¯s muscles tense. He sniffed and made a sound.

    ¡°Oh god, what the fuck is that?¡± He lifted his forehead to look around, but Reeve shook his head quickly and brought up a hand to shield Alex¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°Maybe don¡¯t,¡± Reeve blurted. ¡°You don¡¯t want to.¡± Hannah moved back to give Alex space¡ªshe could feel him getting more wound up.

    ¡°Stop it,¡± he said. He batted at Reeve¡¯s hand, his face tense and pinched. Relenting, Reeve stepped away and locked eyes with Hannah, not sure what else to do. She heard instead of saw Alex register the agent beside the car. There was a pause and a deep guttural squelch. Hannah leaned forward to catch Alex¡¯s hair as he pitched over, sick and heaving onto the dirt. She held his hair up and rubbed the spot between his shoulder blades while he wretched. When there was a break and Alex was just hung over at the waist, spitting, Reeve ushered him away out of sight of the body.

    ¡°Come on, let¡¯s sit in the car for a second.¡± They helped him keep his balance as Alex obediently shuffled his hobbled feet over to the front of the car and plopped down on the edge of the driver¡¯s seat.

    He looked up at them and in a quiet voice said, ¡°Jonathan.¡± His palms and fingers were scratched up, probably from beating on the inside of the trunk, and the metal restraints had worn his wrists raw. He kept twisting at them absentmindedly, trying to work his hands out.

    ¡°I know,¡± Reeve said softly and turned to Hannah. ¡°Can you check the car for something we can pick these cuffs with?¡± She nodded. Reeve squatted down in front of Alex, one thumb moving back and forth on Alex¡¯s shin. She got in on the other side to rummage through the glove box.

    ¡°Who did that?¡± Alex croaked.

    ¡°Not us,¡± Reeve answered hurriedly. ¡°It was Entropy.¡± He hesitated.

    ¡°I heard screaming,¡± he said simply, staring at his shoes.

    ¡°You did great keeping quiet. You really did.¡±

    Alex squirmed and she could hear the clanking of metal. ¡°Can we please get these off?¡± Alex shouted, panicking.

    There wasn¡¯t anything useful in the glovebox. ¡°I¡¯ll check the house,¡± she told Reeve. Hannah got out again and walked around the front of the car, steeling herself to go past the other agents.

    Gareth, standing a bit away from the group, called out, ¡°One of them has the keys.¡± That hadn¡¯t even occurred to her. No one moved or answered. Gareth made his way to the body next to the car. She didn¡¯t look and no one spoke. She thought she would get used to the smell here. People acclimate to so many things until they barely notice them. This wasn¡¯t like that. It was as if, somewhere deep in the primal branch of her brainstem, it was encoded to panic at the scent of human insides. A base impulse to get away, to run.

    Gareth came back, but didn¡¯t come too close. His hands were dark in the harsh light as he held something up and nodded to her. He tossed the key ring and she bent to catch it. The keys were tacky but she didn¡¯t have any clothes to wipe them off on, so she handed them to Reeve as they were. Gareth knelt down, rubbing sand over his hands, scouring off the blood and mire.

    ¡°Easy,¡± Reeve said, trying to fit the right key in the lock as Alex fidgeted. He uncuffed his hands and then his legs. Suddenly free, Alex curled even farther into himself, holding his bad arm with the other. He was sweating and his teeth were chattering.

    ¡°Can we get out of here?¡± Alex¡¯s voice was raised and sharp. ¡°I want to go.¡±

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Reeve said, chafing his shoulders as if he were cold. ¡°Gareth, think it¡¯s safe to walk back along the road?¡±

    Gareth turned to look to where they had come from, past the house and the other agents on the ground and then to the street, looking for headlights, probably. Hannah could see every muscle in his body was fighting him. ¡°Sure,¡± he said, finally. It wasn¡¯t what he wanted to say.

    ¡°Alyosha!¡± Alex said, eyes wide and red-rimmed.

    ¡°He¡¯ll be okay,¡± she said quickly. ¡°Let¡¯s go see him, huh?¡±

    Alex nodded mutely and let the two of them stand him up and lead him toward the road. He was limping and swallowing tears.

    ¡°Close your eyes,¡± Reeve told him as they neared the Neptune agent by the car.

    ¡°No,¡± he said quietly, his jaw clenched and shaking, but he kept looking straight ahead. Hannah couldn¡¯t. She took another look at him as they passed, and then at Gareth. He was looking straight ahead too.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 15.

    Natal, Brazil

    The days felt like weeks, waiting in Natal to let Alyosha recover enough to move on. Hannah and Reeve scavenged Jonathan¡¯s apartment for anything they could use, then hunkered down on the plane. They didn¡¯t want to move Alyosha, and anyway, there¡¯d be too many questions if they¡¯d all stayed in his apartment without Jonathan there.

    Reeve was trying to not think about it. There was nothing more he could do for him, besides use his telepathy to keep anyone from investigating the smashed up, bloody car with Jonathan in the backseat until they were gone. His face pulled at his mind, but the others needed him there and now to keep them alive.

    The plane was close, confining, and quiet. They were all too shook up to gripe.

    Alyosha was resting and Hannah had him set up with IV fluids for all the blood he¡¯d lost. He was in pain and wouldn¡¯t be able to use his left arm very well for a while, which meant that he couldn¡¯t be in the cockpit alone, but Reeve didn¡¯t think that would be too much of a problem since it was nearly impossible to get Alex away from his side, anyway. He stuck by him quietly, not saying much, sort of keeping guard.

    Hannah had looked Alex over and given him something to calm down, and put his arm back in the sling. No serious damage done, but he had a bruise on his lower back that looked bad enough it made Reeve cringe, sending a zing of pain down to his toes

    Gareth left that first night before dawn. Reeve hadn¡¯t been able to bring himself to stop him. Shvedov and Alex were asleep, and Reeve was busy cleaning and re-bandaging Hannah¡¯s side again after her romp through the bushes when he noticed Gareth going for the door.

    ¡°Hey,¡± he said, too surprised for anything else.

    ¡°I¡¯m going out. I¡¯ll be back in a few hours.¡±

    ¡°No.¡± He tried to make his tired voice sound final.

    Gareth clenched his fists. ¡°Are you going to fight me on this after tonight?¡±

    Reeve lowered his eyes. ¡°No.¡±

    He had come back late the next morning, a little drunk and with a new rip in his shirt. Reeve didn¡¯t bother checking why. That was the tone of the majority of Reeve''s interactions these days. After the initial shock and relief at his reunion with the others, even Alex was distant and wounded. The plane was quiet and tense and full of minds tracing every problem back to him. It was easy to blame Reeve. He knew it was justified.

    Reeve was used to pissing off Gareth and even Hannah, but he didn¡¯t realize how painful it would be to feel Alex this hurt by him. Not annoyed, not pissed, not angry¡ªbetrayed. It ached like an old wound.

    By the second morning, Shvedov felt he could manage. (He had said he could manage the day before, but Reeve made him take one more night. He liked their chances better if they had to fight off Neptune again, compared to potentially having to have someone other than Alyosha fly the plane on their own.)

    As they readied the plane to take off, Alex settled himself into the copilot seat. They were a sight, he and Shvedov, each with an arm bound close to his chest. Two good right arms between them. Reeve stood in the doorway, watching and keeping passive track of Shvedov¡¯s mind, checking for doubt.

    ¡°Alyosha said I could sit here,¡± Alex said defensively, even before Reeve had spoken up. He must have had that look on his face. He knew Alex could recognize when he was about to tell him to do something.

    Reeve raised an eyebrow. ¡°He might need help.¡±

    ¡°Do you know more about how to fly a plane than I do?¡±

    ¡°No, but I can read his thoughts faster than he can give instructions.¡±

    ¡°Reeve,¡± Shvedov put up his one hand to stop him. ¡°It is fine. I told him he could sit up here. The plane is not so big that if I yell you will not hear it.¡±

    Alex was looking at him, waiting for him to answer. In that moment, there was none of the anger and resentment in his eyes that had been burning slowly through the rest of his team. Reeve nodded without saying anything.

    ¡°Then you should tell our copilot where we are going,¡± Shvedov smiled. Alex beamed wickedly. The two of them could become formidable partners for Reeve to contend with together.

    ¡°East. To Liberia.¡±

    ¡°Africa?¡± Alex said, eyes wide. The itch in his head told Reeve that he¡¯d been loud enough for the others to hear and react.

    ¡°Yes. Natal to Liberia is one of the shortest routes across the Atlantic.¡±

    Gareth and Hannah came up behind him, crowding into the narrow hall. ¡°We¡¯re crossing the Atlantic Ocean?¡± Gareth demanded, startled. ¡°In this thing?¡±

    ¡°We need to get more distance between us and LA and we need it yesterday,¡± Reeve offered.

    ¡°Is it big enough?¡± Hannah asked.

    Just barely was not the answer they wanted to hear, and Reeve looked at Shvedov.

    ¡°No problem,¡± Alyosha told them, keeping eye contact with Reeve. Alyosha turned to smile at Alex. ¡°So I hope you like a view of the ocean, because we¡¯ve got about six hours of it.¡±

    ¡°Then where?¡± Gareth asked, shifting his weight.

    ¡°Then we don¡¯t stay anywhere very long. We keep moving.¡±

    Alyosha waved his hand at them. ¡°Everyone should go sit down so we can go. Go sit down and relax.¡± He kept Reeve¡¯s eye silently for a moment after the other two had turned to go back to their seats. They didn¡¯t exchange thoughts, but his look made it clear that the last part was meant for Reeve.

    ---

    Natal, Brazil.

    Gerrit studied the photo he¡¯d been sent and reached for it, teleporting a continent away. Right away, he was hit with the oppressive heat and a god awful smell.

    He¡¯d given the few nonresponsive teams in South America as much leeway as he could stand, trying to avoid blowing his entire relationship with them right off the bat, trusting that this petty grudge wouldn¡¯t keep them from doing the right thing when it came down to it. He¡¯d been dead wrong.

    When a single team remained in radio blackout by the end of his personal deadline, Gerrit sent in another team to trace their GPS signal. He¡¯d expected to get a report back about a team annoyed at being micromanaged. Instead, they found the team¡¯s car damaged and abandoned.

    Footage from the dash cam showed that the team had actually gotten custody of 45C. Had him in their car, and still didn¡¯t report in. They must have decided to press their luck so as not to lose this lead on the other three. That prompted an all-hands sweep outward to find them, checking old safe houses in the area. Any spark of hope was dashed by the phone call that they¡¯d been found.

    Spread across the sandy clearing were a series of white sheets laid across what could only be bodies. They were far enough from the beaten path that there were no witnesses to manage, so a group of agents were taking a break from the worst of the sun under the tent Cleanup had set up for their mobile command.

    Gerrit approached the body closest to the tent, doing his best to ignore the hum of flies. Penn appeared at his side just as he was bending down. Sweat was darkening the hair at Penn¡¯s temples, not surprising in this heat and the weight of his blacks.

    ¡°If you don¡¯t have to do that, I wouldn¡¯t,¡± Penn told him.

    Gerrit continued to go into a crouch. ¡°It¡¯s my name on the assignment. I¡¯m here to make sure they get home okay.¡± He lifted the corner of the sheet. Three days in the heat had not been kind. There were things you couldn''t unsee. He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. Who the fuck were these Icarus, that they coud take down teams like this? They¡¯d killed seven Neptune agents now after showing up from the obscurity of a common Moon team.

    ¡°Your Icarus didn¡¯t do this,¡± Penn told him.

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡±

    ¡°That was Entropy.¡±

    The idea wasn¡¯t bringing any sort of comfort. They were still dead. Gerrit stood to better look from sheet to sheet, trying to judge their size. ¡°They had one of my Icarus in custody.¡±

    ¡°The student isn¡¯t here. My people looked. There was an open pair of cuffs in the dirt by the car. It looks like he got away.¡±

    It could have been a relief of sorts¡ªthat he wasn¡¯t about to find the body of someone they desperately wanted to bring home, if it weren¡¯t for the rest of everything, and the fact that they were no closer to getting hands on these Icarus.

    Gerrit fought to get his head around it all. ¡°Did Entropy take him with them when they found him with the agents? Or are the Icarus working with Entropy, and had them come break their foster student out?¡± That would be a whole other beast of a task.

    ¡°I doubt either. Entropy isn''t about to balk at age to spare someone. And this is a long way for Icarus to travel to hook up with Entropy. It¡¯s not as if they don¡¯t have a presence in the States.¡±

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    So they were nowhere. ¡°What does your psychometrist say?¡± He felt like he remembered talking to one about Cleanup in the Neptune break room.

    ¡°We don¡¯t have one in LA anymore,¡± Penn said, voice tight. ¡°The knack became too much and psychosis took over. She¡¯s on a Pluto hold, on a waitlist to have her knack deactivated.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry to hear that.¡± He swallowed and made a mental note to check in with Sage later, to see if there was anything he could do, or at least where he could send flowers. With a shudder, he brought himself back to task. ¡°Why do you think it was Entropy?¡±

    Penn breathed out through his nose. ¡°Most of this wasn¡¯t scavenging. This was a Phage.¡±

    He froze up, his mind straying back to the gruesome, mangled flesh. ¡°How sure are you?¡±

    Penn didn¡¯t waver. ¡°I think I know what those teeth marks look like.¡±

    That didn¡¯t make any sense. ¡°Why would they attack my team?¡±

    He shrugged. ¡°Wrong place, wrong time, most likely. There¡¯s a strong Entropy presence just north of here. They aren¡¯t keen on Sol infringing.¡±

    He shot Penn a look. ¡°How do you know that?¡± Entropy intel had become sparser and sparser over the last decade or so, even on Entropy¡¯s major hubs, let alone in a country where Sol had limited presence.

    ¡°Because it¡¯s our job to clean up after the messes they leave,¡± Penn explained, without reacting to his look. ¡°It gives a decent clue as to where they are. Too many of our callouts are for bodies with this kind of damage.¡±

    Gerrit nodded absently. It was easy to forget that Cleanup didn¡¯t just take care of Sol¡¯s exposures. There was no point in hiding Sol just to let Entropy blow the whole thing up.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry about your team,¡± Penn said. ¡°Really. But your Icarus are long gone and you should focus on that. I¡¯ll make sure your people are brought to LA safely to be laid to rest.¡±

    He nodded. Gerrit had too much on his plate now to be able to spend a full day accompanying fallen agents, as much as he wanted to. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°So, how fucked are you?¡± he asked sympathetically.

    ¡°They planned for this and they have a small plane,¡± he sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll activate our people in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Lima, but with a three day lead, they could be anywhere on the continent.¡± He turned back to Penn. He wished he knew the guy better before prying, but he was starting in the weeds. ¡°Icarus tend to head for the Church¡ªdo you have any insights I could pick your brain over?¡±

    Penn¡¯s eyebrows drew together as he thought. ¡°Honestly, if your Icarus saw what the Phagi did here, I imagine they¡¯re thinking twice about taking advantage of the Church¡¯s edict of protection. The Children of God hunt these things. They go looking for them.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, but how often do they actually find them?¡± Like most people in Sol, the Anthropophagi were more or less off of Gerrit¡¯s radar. If he had to estimate how many there were in the world, the number would have been relatively low.

    A muscle jumped in Penn¡¯s jaw. ¡°All the time.¡± He said it slowly. ¡°I couldn¡¯t even tell you how many Phagi I saw when I was in the Church.¡± Penn raked a hand through his hair. ¡°The Church is tidier than Entropy, they make an effort, but we clean up the Church¡¯s messes too. I¡¯ve only got a select number of Cleanup teams we send out who have the stomach to deal with Phagi victims, and they¡¯re busy. I¡¯m telling you, if your Icarus are smart, they¡¯re seeing this shit and steering clear.¡±

    Gerrit''s heart sank. The idea that this sort of attack was more than a sporadic phenomenon was a dreadful, heavy thing that he didn''t have proper words for. But that was the benefit of telepaths¡ªhe didn¡¯t have to. When Gerrit would normally have needed to look away, attempting to grasp some sort of words that even remotely fit the gravity of what he was being told, instead he just looked at Penn and felt. Penn held his gaze for a moment and Gerrit felt a gentle nudge of his telepathy. Penn understood.

    ¡°Go.¡± Penn clapped him on the back. ¡°Run ¡®em down. We¡¯ve got this covered.¡±

    ¡°Thank you.¡± Gerrit looked from one sheet to the next. He¡¯d make sure to plan something for when they were brought back to LA. ¡°I¡¯m grateful for it.¡±

    ¡°I know you are. I¡¯m glad you¡¯re on the team.¡±

    ---

    Swansea, UK.

    One thing that Hannah appreciated about their team leader being a telepath was that she never had to tell him when she thought he was insane. He knew and he¡¯d either defend himself or ignore it. She wished whether he defended himself or not was a consistent indicator of just how terrible an idea it was he was having¡ªbut life just wasn¡¯t that simple.

    They had been moving at a breakneck pace since they arrived on the African continent: straight up the West coast, up into Spain and briefly in France, pausing only long enough so as not to run Alyosha into the ground. They almost never left the plane. It¡¯s not as though Hannah had wanted to stay in Africa long-term; even setting aside that there was a Sol HQ in Egypt, there was a huge Mars presence throughout the central and Southern regions of the continent. A better alternative, however, wasn¡¯t, in Hannah¡¯s opinion, landing in Wales in the UK¡ªa relatively small island where there was a major SolCorp Office right in Manchester.

    She and Alex were peering out the window into the dim light on a grey-green countryside beyond the airfield. It was late and they were all tired. The door opened and Reeve and Alyosha came back in after doing whatever it was the two of them did to avoid whatever customs hang ups were in place to keep people like them out.

    ¡°How long are we staying this time?¡± Alex asked, sounding glum.

    ¡°Hopefully, a while,¡± Reeve said, latching the door and then leaning his back against it.

    Hannah sat up straight. ¡°Wait, are you serious?¡±

    Reeve paused, nodding. ¡°If things go as planned.¡±

    ¡°Things going as planned is maybe not what we¡¯re best at,¡± Alex pointed out.

    Reeve gave a long sigh. The bruising around his eye was fading to a sallow shade of yellow and it made him look more like himself. ¡°Well, our ride just pulled in so, so far so good. Start grabbing some bags to last us a few days.¡±

    ¡°The plane?¡± Gareth asked. His energy was tight and anxious.

    ¡°This is a much bigger airport. It won¡¯t look out of place and we¡¯ve bribed folks to keep it off customs¡¯ radar.¡± Reeve pushed himself up to open the door and lower the stairway. He leaned out the doorway and raised one hand, waving.

    ¡°What about Manchester?¡± Hannah called, standing up and throwing on a baggy t-shirt. Alex and Gareth froze momentarily at the question before going back to gathering their things.

    ¡°We won¡¯t be here that long, and they¡¯re not going to think that we¡¯d be stupid enough to come so close to a base.¡±

    Alex cocked an eyebrow. ¡°How long do you think you can bank on them still thinking you¡¯re an idiot and not figuring out that you¡¯re crazy?¡±

    ¡°Maybe a little longer.¡±

    A loud female voice came from outside the door. ¡°Jesus Christ, Reeve! I was expecting you to show up in some little propeller thing!¡±

    Hannah caught the genuine smile that crossed Reeve¡¯s face before he leaned to grab her hand and help her up the stairs onto the plane. ¡°We had a lot of miles to cover,¡± he replied.

    She was older than Hannah expected, with a full head of short, silver hair. She spoke with an American accent, but with a touch of the type of lilt you hear in Irish or Welsh dialects. Stepping onto the plane, she was as tall as Reeve, with a strong, erect posture.

    She hugged him tightly, craning her head to kiss his cheek. ¡°It¡¯s so good to see your face!¡± she crowed. In another world, they could have looked like mother and son.

    ¡°You too.¡± When she released him, Reeve turned and said, ¡°This is Maggie Dalton. Maggie, you can probably guess the rest.¡±

    She smiled at them. Her eyes were quick and grey. ¡°Yes, I bet I can. Nice to finally meet you.¡±

    Gareth gave her a clipped, ¡°Hi,¡± and turned to Reeve. ¡°I¡¯m not liking how many people I¡¯ve never heard of act like they already know me.¡±

    ¡°She should be the last one.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not as comforting as you want it to be.¡±

    ¡°No, he¡¯s right,¡± Maggie broke in. ¡°You have to admit it¡¯s a little creepy. I can make up for it with alcohol and real beds.¡± She glanced around and clucked her tongue. ¡°You look pretty knocked around.¡±

    When Gareth didn¡¯t answer, Hannah nodded. ¡°That sounds great,¡± she said, and flashed her eyes at him as she loaded her bags on her shoulders.

    Outside, she led them to a long, dark van. ¡°Hey, space for all of us this time,¡± Alex laughed. Maggie slid open the backseat door for them and they climbed in, with Reeve pressing through to sit in front with Maggie.

    ¡°Now I don¡¯t want to misrepresent myself here,¡± she said, putting the van into gear. ¡°The only reason there¡¯s room enough in here for you all to fit is because Reeve let me know you were all coming. Normally it¡¯s a terrible mess with piles as tall as you.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s it normally filled with?¡± Alex asked, peering around.

    She smirked back at them in the rearview. ¡°A lady never tells.¡± Gareth snorted an involuntary laugh. ¡°Oh, and I¡¯ve got neighbors, so I told them that my nephew and his wife are visiting with a few of their friends. In case it comes up.¡±

    ¡°Wife?¡± Reeve coughed.

    ¡°Was that unreasonable?¡±

    His brow lowered. ¡°No.¡±

    She laughed low and Hannah bit her lips on a tight smile. ¡°Relax now,¡± Maggie told him, giving his knee a light smack with the back of her hand. ¡°It¡¯s only fifteen minutes until home.¡±

    Hannah set her head on Gareth¡¯s shoulder. Objectively, he was a terrible pillow, but after so long, the hard bulk of him was a comfort by association and she was asleep before they got into the city.

    ---

    Reeve had never seen her house. He knew, of course, that she had moved out of the flat he¡¯d set her up with years ago, but they never really chatted about what she bought, other than to make sure there would be enough room, just in case.

    Just in case. Looking back, he could see how much that thought had dominated his life. He didn¡¯t feel badly about it.

    Maggie lived up a hill on a dead end street that overlooked the city, lit up beside the pitch darkness of the sea just beyond it. It was a tall, thin house in a row of others shaped much the same and pressed nearly end to end. He wanted to see more, but his eyes burned with lost hours of sleep and long vigils as they sat parked in small airstrips while Alyosha and the others slept.

    With the houses so crowded together, they were silent as they carried their bags inside. Once inside, with the lights low, he could see her home was one part cozy comforts with too many pillows and thick rugs, and one part piles of coiled wires on the floor next to books with something heavy keeping them open to a certain page.

    ¡°Well,¡± Maggie said, ¡°you all need to sleep. We can get to the rest tomorrow. Bathroom is through the kitchen and there¡¯s another upstairs. There¡¯s a guest room here and one upstairs. The couch folds out and I went and bought a cot, but it¡¯s about as comfortable as a punch in the spine, so if I were you, I¡¯d opt for sharing the beds.¡±

    Suddenly standing in the soft light, safe (for the moment) and steady inside four solid walls, the tension in them sagged and felt heavy. They were all dead on their feet. ¡°Thank you,¡± was all Reeve could manage for a moment while he scratched at his head. ¡°I¡¯ll take the couch.¡± He caught Shvedov¡¯s eye. ¡°You should take one of those beds.¡± He nodded and forced an appreciative smile. Reeve could tell he was in a lot more pain than he¡¯d ever admit to. He saw Gareth motion to Hannah with his head and the two of them headed upstairs. Maggie showed Shvedov to the guest room and after a moment, Alex stepped in to help Reeve unfold the sofa bed. He was too quiet, but Reeve stayed out of his head. If he was still pissed, Reeve snooping to see for sure wasn¡¯t going to help.

    Alex tossed a few pillows from the floor up onto the bed and gave him a glum, tired smile. ¡°Night,¡± he said, picking up his bag gingerly and heading off in the direction that Maggie had led Shvedov.

    ¡°Get some rest,¡± Reeve told him.

    Maggie passed him on his way by and came back into the living room to sit in an armchair while Reeve finished making up the sofa bed. Really, it was already made and he was just fussing with it, which was likely why she hadn¡¯t offered to help. She waited quietly for him to sit down on the bed. He felt guilty laying on clean sheets without showering, but the hot water would have him sleeping standing up.

    ¡°It¡¯s a nice house.¡±

    ¡°It is.¡± She looked around automatically. She sat and waited while he leaned down to take off his shoes and didn¡¯t continue until he was settled and looking at her. ¡°How are you?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re okay. Exhausted, sore. But we¡¯re alright.¡±

    ¡°Not them. Not the collective you. How are you doing?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± Reeve sighed.

    Her eyebrows lifted. ¡°Don¡¯t you ¡®don¡¯t¡¯ me.¡±

    He dropped his head to push the heels of his hands against his eyes. He couldn¡¯t mentally afford to have this conversation. She worried about him. Always did. Reeve knew that her son had been about his age when he died. ¡°I¡¯m fine. I¡¯ve been preparing for this for years.¡±

    ¡°Things are almost never like how we expect them to feel. They don¡¯t seem too happy with you.¡±

    ¡°You read minds, huh?¡±

    She cocked her head. ¡°Cute.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m fine, really. Please.¡± He looked at her, felt her mind. He wanted to alter it and push her off this subject, but something about the position of her hands in her lap, the way one gripped the other just a little too tightly, made him stop. ¡°Please,¡± he said softly instead, ¡°let it be.¡±

    She let out a deflated breath. ¡°Well, of course you can tell I will.¡± She stood up and gave his shoulder a pat with a smile. ¡°Get some sleep. You look like shit.¡±

    Reeve laughed and watched her head upstairs. He looked around. They would be safe tonight. He had gotten them this far. He slept.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 16.

    Swansea, Wales

    Maggie was up early to make them breakfast, but Reeve was awake when she tried to sneak past and he got up to give her a hand.

    His voice crept into her head, softly, almost apologetic. We should be quiet so they can sleep. She would never get used to that feeling. No, we don¡¯t have to chat like this, his voice added after a pause. She shook her head, thinking of how the others lived with all their thoughts constantly known, but she quickly tried to smother the thought and gave him a smile. He wasn¡¯t much for chatter anyway. Very business-oriented. She couldn¡¯t imagine what he might do in his free time. She supposed what he did was collect people like her.

    They fried eggs and made a tall pile of toast and brewed coffee in silence. She watched him move around her kitchen, never needing to ask where she kept the forks or which cabinet the plates were in. When they had finished, Reeve turned to her and said out loud, ¡°I just called them down.¡± He nodded to the stairs.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you do anything like a normal human?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll help you set the table,¡± he huffed, rolling his eyes. It made him look so young. He was so young.

    The others filtered in to sit around her long table, except the pilot, who she didn¡¯t know much about. She saw Reeve raise his eyebrows and Alex spoke up, still rubbing his eyes. ¡°He¡¯s okay. Just wanted to sleep some more.¡± Alex wasn¡¯t what she had expected. His hair was a knotted, careless mess on one side, but he seemed older. Or maybe it was just that, looking at them together, the gap between him and the others didn¡¯t seem like much at all.

    She shook herself when she caught Reeve watching her, an unreadable expression on his face. ¡°Did you all sleep well?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Oh my fucking god,¡± Hannah groaned, lifting a hand to cover a mouth full of toast, ¡°the bed doesn¡¯t fold up into a damn airplane seat! It was so nice. Thank you.¡± There were other nods and some laughter. Still, they all had the deep set eyes of people who hadn¡¯t slept soundly in a while.

    Maggie ate little. The eggs were all right, but watching the others scarf down what must be their first hot meal in days made her reluctant to keep anything off their plates.

    ¡°So what¡¯s the plan?¡± Gareth asked. ¡°Where to now? There¡¯s no way we¡¯re just gonna sit here for a while.¡±

    Reeve wiped his mouth and sat back. ¡°Sort of depends,¡± he started.

    ¡°They don¡¯t know?¡± Maggie asked, eyebrows to her hairline. He didn¡¯t answer, but she caught a glimmer of something that wasn¡¯t frustration in the others¡¯ eyes. ¡°Reeve,¡± she scolded, ¡°you need to learn that even though people will do it, you can still ask too much of them.¡±

    He flushed and she regretted her tone, though some of the others looked like they were holding back smirks of satisfaction.

    ¡°Maggie here,¡± Reeve began after clearing his throat, ¡°has been doing some¡ªwell, a lot¡ªof research for me. She¡¯s the one who¡¯s been helping me determine which assignments were justified and which were political, and she¡¯s been looking into how Icarus survive outside of Sol.¡±

    ¡°Wait, how?¡± Hannah leaned forward. ¡°Have you been doing background checks on the names Reeve sends you? You¡¯re his accomplice in all this?¡±

    ¡°Not exactly.¡± How to explain this? She shot Reeve another look for keeping them in the dark for so much. ¡°I went through the background contained in Sol¡¯s files.¡± They stared at her with furrowed brows.

    ¡°She¡¯s kind of a hacker,¡± Reeve said flatly.

    ¡°You fucking hacked Sol?¡± Alex burst out and bent over laughing before she could answer.

    ¡°Technically, yes, but not like you¡¯re thinking.¡±

    Gareth was shaking his head. ¡°How? I never even heard of Entropy staging a cyber-attack on Sol. Security is too high.¡±

    ¡°It is. I could never just take a run at its firewall and expect to live out the week. After Reeve got me out of the country, I started writing a worm¡ªlike a computer virus. It would never be able to breach their security all alone, but if it were sent as an attachment to the company email address of an active agent who, say, absentmindedly opened it while connected to their secure server?¡± She smiled at Reeve. ¡°That might work.¡±

    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± Hannah breathed, staring at Reeve.

    ¡°It took a long time,¡± he said, nodding at Maggie in thanks, ¡°but it circulated enough that after about a year, the worm had created enough vulnerabilities that she could get in and poke around.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s got no patience,¡± she shrugged. ¡°I couldn¡¯t get full clearance, just one level above what you guys have.¡±

    Gareth gulped his coffee. ¡°That¡¯s goddamn insane.¡±

    Reeve raised his voice just slightly. ¡°Anyway, she¡¯s been doing some research for me on Icarus.¡±

    ¡°Mostly on the dark web,¡± she nodded. ¡°Hidden message boards, that kind of thing. Most information of any use came from the Church.¡±

    ¡°What church?¡± Hannah asked, turning to Reeve.

    ¡°The Children of God?¡± Gareth asked, a tinge of shock in his voice, and Reeve nodded.

    ¡°Wait,¡± Alex said, ¡°aren¡¯t they just like crazy vagrants with knacks or something?¡± He pointed at Reeve, ¡°You told me they were crazy vagrants!¡±

    ¡°They¡­¡± Reeve pressed his lips into a straight line while he thought, ¡°aren¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°Well, they are a little,¡± Maggie stepped in to save him. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m the one who¡¯s been talking with them. Donating to their cause. And they can be pretty fanatical.¡±

    ¡°Anyway?¡± Hannah asked, moving her hand in a circle, trying to get them to the point.

    ¡°Some Icarus hide in the Church or join them outright. It seems like it could be helpful for Icarus to spend some time around people who regularly kill the Anthropophagi.¡±

    ¡°They don¡¯t regularly kill them,¡± Gareth scoffed. ¡°They claim to, but mostly they get eaten.¡±

    Hannah had turned a little green.

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    Maggie cocked her head at him. ¡°Is that what Entropy told you?¡±

    He ground his jaw at her and said lightly, ¡°Listen, I was just starting to maybe like you.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m only saying that they¡¯re more effective than anyone who works with the Phagi would want anyone to believe. Entropy benefits from the idea that they are invincible.¡±

    There was silence at that. She felt she had overstepped. Talking so often with Reeve had made her feel a part of this. Seeing them all together reminded her that she was on the outside.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°She¡¯s a friend,¡± Reeve jumped in. ¡°Like Alyosha.¡±

    She cleared her throat. ¡°The Children of God are spread out all over the world and they hear rumors.¡±

    Reeve leaned forward to continue and she breathed out, glad he was taking over. ¡°There¡¯s talk of something called The Network. There isn¡¯t much information on it, but some people in the Church have heard about it. It¡¯s a group of Icarus who have banded together for protection. It sounds like they could be like me¡ªresisting.¡±

    ¡°You want to fight Sol?¡± Gareth snapped, his voice low.

    Reeve hesitated. ¡°No,¡± he conceded. ¡°I want to keep us all safe. If an Icarus can survive longer than a year, the chances of them ever being caught drop dramatically. I want to learn from them. Do I want Sol to stop killing innocent people? Yeah. But¡­¡± He pushed his plate away from himself. ¡°Maggie has a contact in the Church. He¡¯s sympathetic to Icarus and he said he¡¯d help us hide while we look for The Network.¡±

    ¡°I just have to get a hold of him,¡± Maggie¡¯s voice sounded weak to her own ears against the pressure in the air. ¡°They¡¯re sort of off the grid.¡±

    She saw Hannah reach out and put a hand on Gareth¡¯s arm and hold it there. He didn¡¯t react, even though he seemed tense enough to snap.

    ¡°I asked her to wait until I¡¯d spoken to you,¡± Reeve said quietly.

    ¡°What?¡± Hannah asked, ¡°So we could take a vote?¡± She looked around at the others. Her voice was sharp. ¡°Anyone else have ideas? We don¡¯t want to miss a chance to have some input here.¡±

    Alex lowered his brow and Gareth shifted uncomfortably while Reeve sat, stone-still.

    ¡°So that¡¯s the long term-long plan?¡± Gareth asked, though it barely felt like a question. ¡°We join The Children of God and try to find other Icarus?¡±

    Reeve¡¯s spine was impossibly straight. ¡°It¡¯s our best shot.¡± Alex stared at his empty plate, listening. Reeve turned to Gareth and Hannah. He said softly, ¡°Try to be discreet.¡±

    Gareth nodded stiffly, stood up, and walked away, climbing the stairs to the guest room. No one said anything, but Hannah craned her head to watch him go. He came back down with a jacket and walked out the front door.

    More silence. ¡°Are we okay?¡± Maggie asked.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Reeve sighed. ¡°He needs space. He¡¯ll be back later.¡±

    ¡°Will this work?¡± Alex asked, lifting his head.

    Something broke over Reeve¡¯s face when he turned to him. ¡°It has to.¡±

    Alex rubbed at his hair. ¡°Are we allowed to go outside too? I feel like I¡¯m gonna go insane being inside for this long.¡±

    Reeve stood up, and put his hands flat on the table. ¡°Yeah.¡± He stared at the plates for a second and looked over to Maggie. The brief eye contact felt like an apology somehow. ¡°Let¡¯s take a walk,¡± he said to Alex.

    He looked at Hannah, but she shook her head, saying, ¡°I¡¯m good here.¡± He nodded and put an arm around Alex and gave his shoulder a gruff squeeze as they moved for the door.

    Once they were alone, Maggie got up. Hannah hadn¡¯t moved, her face blank. There were small, tense lines at the corners of her eyes and along her brow. She was too young for all that. ¡°Well,¡± Maggie said, ¡°may as well help me do the dishes if you¡¯ve got it in you, dear.¡±

    She looked up, mouth parted but didn¡¯t speak.

    ¡°It always falls to the girls, doesn¡¯t it?¡±

    Hannah laughed. ¡°I guess.¡±

    They cleared the table and stacked the plates in the sink. Hannah washed while Maggie dried and put everything back in its place. Maggie thought she was a pretty girl, despite all she seemed to be doing to hide it. The baggy t-shirt went well past the thighs of the oversized, drooping sweatpants.

    ¡°You don¡¯t have to stay dressed on my account,¡± she said, without looking up. It¡¯s not like Reeve hadn¡¯t spoken to her about Hannah. ¡°I promise I¡¯ve seen it all before.¡± Hannah paused her work and looked over at her, laughing.

    ¡°Thanks, maybe later. Naked dishwashing isn¡¯t all that great actually.¡±

    Maggie pondered this. ¡°No, I suppose not.¡±

    Hannah chuckled at that and wiped hair from her face with the back of one soapy hand. ¡°So what happened that Sol wanted you dead?"

    "My son was sick." Maggie leaned her back against the counter as Hannah finished up with the last few dishes. "Heart defect. When he was nineteen, they put him on a new medication put out by Sol Pharma.¡± A mug slipped from Hannah¡¯s grip and clattered in the sink, making them both wince. Maggie waited for her to start up again before continuing. ¡°It helped until there was a complication from a side effect. He died."

    "I''m sorry," Hannah sputtered after a pause. Always that same pause, every time she told anyone.

    Maggie waved her hand, trying to relieve Hannah of any feeling of responsibility to comfort her. "Well later on, we found out that this complication had been covered up during testing, presumably to get the drug approved faster. His doctors hadn''t known what to look out for and by the time we noticed something was really wrong, it was too late.¡±

    "That¡¯s fucking awful." Hannah turned off the water and dried her hands on her shirt.

    Maggie nodded. "Anyway, it wasn''t getting much media attention and I was angry. My husband had died young. It''s just me now. So I organized an attack on Sol''s website and made an anonymous post claiming responsibility and why. It was just a denial of service. I wanted them in the news. I never saw any of their information or ever accessed their system. Three weeks later, there was Reeve, offering to kill me or give me a new start."

    ¡°They were going to kill you for inconveniencing the IT department?¡±

    ¡°Bit drastic, don¡¯t you think?¡± Maggie absent-mindedly tapped her fingers on the counter. "But it did make me damn enthusiastic about helping Reeve do anything that Sol wouldn''t like.¡± She smiled and poured more coffee for the both of them, gesturing to the couch. Hannah sat, leaning forward on her elbows, brow furrowed, distracted.

    ¡°Sorry about concocting a story that you¡¯re married to Reeve,¡± Maggie hazarded. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize it was you and¡ª¡± she nodded her head up at the staircase leading to the guest room.

    ¡°Gareth?¡± Hannah¡¯s eyebrows rode high on her tanned face. ¡°No, we¡¯re not together.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± Maggie played with a loose string on a throw pillow. ¡°I just thought¡­ Reeve then?¡±

    She laughed and gave Maggie a face that said she must think she had more than a few screws loose. ¡°No.¡±

    Maggie¡¯s attention drifted, trying to imagine living naked so casually. ¡°They must have shown some interest, though.¡±

    Hannah stared for a moment. ¡°I mean, sure Gareth did for a while, but we don¡¯t work. And Reeve, never.¡±

    She cocked an eyebrow. Hannah stared back, waiting. ¡°Humor me,¡± Maggie said. ¡°The most exciting part of my life for years now has been helping Reeve across the ocean and have you ever had to talk to that man on the phone?¡±

    Hannah bent over laughing loudly at that with a bit of a bray. Maggie sipped her coffee and waited.

    ¡°Reeve never hit on me. He knew it wouldn¡¯t go well.¡±

    ¡°Do you not like men?¡±

    ¡°I like men just fine.¡±

    ¡°Does he not like women?¡±

    ¡°No, he¡¯s had a few girlfriends, but it¡¯s complicated dating civilians, or so they tell me. He¡¯s bi.¡±

    ¡°Really?¡±

    Hannah shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m asexual.¡±

    Maggie furrowed her brow. ¡°I¡¯m old, dear. I don¡¯t know what that means.¡±

    Hannah gestured apologetically. ¡°It means I¡¯m not interested in sex. I¡¯m not averse to romantic relationships but, with my knack, I don¡¯t really date. When you¡¯re an empath and can feel someone¡¯s frustration...¡±

    Maggie clicked her tongue and shook her head.

    "Not like that,¡± Hannah added quickly. ¡°Gareth never said anything but supportive, nice things, but I can feel his energy and could tell he was frustrated."

    Maggie considered this and decided once again that life with superpowers was not worth it. "So you''ve never?"

    Hannah quirked her mouth to one side and shook her head, matter of fact.

    "But you must...?" She hoped her eyebrows would communicate what she was trying to ask.

    "Zero interest. I mean, I can. It¡¯s fine, I guess." Hannah cocked her head, slyly. ¡°Do you? Since we¡¯re getting to know each other, it seems like.¡±

    ¡°Alright, I catch your meaning,¡± Maggie laughed. "Do you have feelings for him though? Gareth, I mean."

    She considered it, squinting one eye. "I used to, but not really anymore. I sort of let it fade when I knew it wouldn''t work."

    "I''ve never been good at that, myself," Maggie commented, not making eye contact.

    Hannah shrugged.

    "Where will he go?" Maggie asked her.

    "To find a sex worker." It was blunt sounding, unworried.

    "Oh," was all she could think to answer. Hannah craned her neck to look out one of the front windows. Her forehead was already creasing from a life of too much sun and worry.

    Maggie set the pillow she''d been fiddling with down on the couch. "Do you like to play cards?" she asked, keeping her voice light. "And drink far too early in the day?"

    Hannah grinned at her, surprised. "Yes, I do."

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 17.

    Sol LAHQ. Neptune Department.

    Jake was notified via email that his orientation for the new position in LAHQ would begin a few days later. He¡¯d messaged his (old) teammates that he¡¯d arrived safely and about how big and confusing the building was, but he had been putting off calling them until he had any real news. He was worried that if he couldn¡¯t sustain the conversation with enough good things about this transfer, he¡¯d just get too sad.

    The morning of his orientation, he arrived in the Neptune wing and found that the divide between this and his old job was bigger than he¡¯d thought. After clearing one set of secure doors to enter the department, one could either continue straight into the offices that housed Cleanup (his specialty), Retrieval (finding Icarus), and upper management¡ªor one could go down. Floors below ground, one would pass through another, more restricted set of secured doors to enter the Reintegration wing, which was quite literally set apart from the rest of Neptune.

    With a tremor in his gut, Jake scanned his ID at the Reintegration door and the light flashed green. Beyond the door, he was met with a large, open office area unlike any of the others, including the other side of Neptune. Reintegration agents sat at individual desks, but had no walls or cubicles to afford them any sense of privacy.

    An agent at a desk set right by the door studied his face hard and checked something on his screen. ¡°Jacob del Sol?¡±

    He nodded, throat tight. He¡¯d tried to leave his sour stomach at home, but he knew no one expected that of him at this point in the game.

    ¡°Head straight back to the locker room on the right-hand side and get changed. Laura will be there shortly to take care of you.¡±

    ¡°Thanks.¡± Jake looked around as he walked. Everyone seemed busy at their computers or in discussion. Most were in office clothes like Jake, but a few were in full tactical Neptune Blacks¡ªthey must have been a Retrieval team in delivering an Icarus. Reintegration didn¡¯t do field work. As he got closer, he noticed that against the back wall, there was one office set apart from the others. The walls and door were clear glass. Fredericka del Sol, the head of Reintegration, sat at the desk inside. Jake gulped and hurried past.

    Walking slowly down the hallway, it wasn¡¯t long before he located a sign on the wall marking a locker room. When he went inside, he was surprised to see it was an actual locker room. Tile floors, rows of lockers with benches, and the smell of soap and steam hung in the air, telling him there were showers somewhere farther in. It was empty, making it slightly less awkward to pace the aisles until he found a locker with his name on it.

    As a Cleanup agent, Jake had never really considered it, but it made sense there was a locker room. In Cleanup and Retrieval, the uniform was either street clothes or Blacks in the field or office attire, but Reintegration had their own uniform when they were interacting with Icarus.

    Jake opened the locker. Inside was a stack of folded, plain grey scrub shirts, and two long, thin coats hung up on hooks. They were similar to a doctor¡¯s coat, but in dove grey. It set them apart from Pluto¡¯s white coats or Venus¡¯ blue lab coats, but still reinforced the medicalized atmosphere of Reintegration. Which all meant they¡¯d need locker rooms.

    Jake swiftly got dressed in the empty locker room, making sure his ID lanyard was clearly visible. The coat didn¡¯t feel like it sat right on his shoulders. A woman in a grey coat walked into the locker room and looked at him. She was tall with dark hair pulled into a bun.

    ¡°Jacob? You¡¯re shadowing me today.¡±

    He nodded. ¡°Just Jake¡¯s fine. You must be Laura.¡± He felt her brush his mind with her telepathy and he returned it, letting her get a feel for his mind so she¡¯d be able to easily identify him later. As the only telepath on his old team, it wasn¡¯t a practice he did automatically yet, but he was getting used to it.

    ¡°Well,¡± she smiled, ¡°you¡¯ve found your locker. You¡¯ll want to get yourself a bag for bringing clothes to and from. You never leave this wing wearing your Greys. And they don¡¯t provide pants, but you¡¯re going to want to bring a pair of pants to wear for Reintegration and then a pair to change into for office work and going home.¡±

    ¡°Do they need to be grey?¡±

    ¡°No, it doesn¡¯t matter, but it¡¯s not like your shirt is the only thing that¡¯s going to end up soaked in sweat, so bring an extra pair of pants next time.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± He didn¡¯t understand that. Like every Neptune agent, Jake underwent Integration, the gentler version for those without offenses against the company, like natural-born people being brought into Sol, but he honestly didn¡¯t remember much of it. Which was probably by design. And while he knew it was ultimately meant as a way to rehabilitate people, Jake knew, as everyone did, it wasn¡¯t pleasant.

    She handed him the file she was holding and he took it, but wasn¡¯t quite able to open it.

    ¡°I was nervous my first time too.¡± Her smile was thin, but sincere. She started walking and he fell into step beside her.

    ¡°It¡¯s a good first case to have,¡± she said. ¡°We¡¯ve been working with him for about a month now, five to six sessions a week, so we¡¯ve fallen into a rhythm and he¡¯s responding. It ought to be a smooth session and give you an idea of what it looks like when everything goes right.¡±

    The hallway dead-ended at yet another secure door. She scanned her ID and stepped aside for him to do the same. The doors buzzed open and they went in, passing a security outpost behind a thick glass window. The hallway was wide. Too wide. It was disorienting compared to the rest of the building. The white tile, white walls, and bright overhead lights only made it seem wider. Lined up along one side of the hallway were empty gurneys.

    ¡°This is offices,¡± she said, pointing to a row of doors, her voice a little bored. ¡°If you go right up there, you¡¯ll get to Icarus Containment, which includes dampener holding cells, interrogation rooms, and medical. We¡¯re heading left to the Reintegration rooms.¡± Jake slid into line behind her, making way for a group of six Neptune agents in full tac gear to walk past them. Jake could tell they¡¯d just delivered an Icarus to the containment teams. Wanting to look anywhere else, he took that moment to glance at the reports until they¡¯d gone by. Thick black marker dotted the page where the Icarus¡¯ name had been redacted. It was replaced at the top of the page with ¡°38C.¡±

    ¡°He attacked a civilian?¡±

    She nodded once. ¡°It was a sexual jealousy thing that got way out of hand. Used his knack. Nearly killed someone.¡± She looked at him with raised eyebrows. ¡°We see too many of these. Never date a civilian.¡±

    They turned left through another set of secure metal double doors. It was sparse. There were plain doors along both sides of the hall.

    ¡°Left is storage, supplies, and decompression. Right¡ª¡±

    ¡°Decompression?¡± he interrupted.

    She waved him off. ¡°For us. For afterwards. The right is Reintegration. We¡¯re a little behind, so you¡¯ll have to see the rest later. We¡¯re in here.¡±

    Jake hesitated, staring off to the left, wondering what could be in those rooms that could make this feel okay, but he reined that thought in and followed Laura into one of the rooms. It was almost bare, all chrome and white. There was one tall metal cabinet along the wall, one rolling stool, and one metal chair. As lacking as his memory was of his few integration sessions when he was eighteen, the smell of the cleaning solution and the familiar sharp sounds of the acoustics made his palms sweat.

    ¡°Are there many Reintegration rooms?¡±

    ¡°Just three. We see more incoming agents and natural borns than we do Icarus.¡±

    ¡°How long have you been working here?¡± he asked her.

    She plucked the file from his hands and slotted it into a clear holder hanging on the wall. ¡°Three years. They generally pull you after four years. No one does this work their whole career. Where are you coming from again?¡±

    ¡°Cleanup.¡± Her eyebrows rose. ¡°I did wipes,¡± he explained.

    She nodded, thinking. ¡°We don¡¯t do much wiping here. Except for pretty rare circumstances, wiping information isn¡¯t an effective means of altering behavior.¡±

    ¡°No?¡±

    ¡°No, we work on the deeper foundations. The things that cause you to make the decisions you make. I explain it as, say, if a friend hit you during a fight and you ended the friendship¡ªbut we wanted to mend it. Instead of making you forget the fight, we¡¯d focus on why you didn¡¯t forgive him.¡±

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    That made sense. It would adjust the present behavior and safeguard against recurrence.

    ¡°Can I ask you something?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s my job here.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t understand my transfer. I didn¡¯t request it. Is that normal?"

    Her brow lowered. ¡°Well, no, but not unheard of.¡±

    He hadn¡¯t meant to bring it up, but he couldn¡¯t keep it in. ¡°I¡¯ve never passed the psych eval for working Reintegration. I¡¯ve failed it three times.¡±

    She was quiet for a long moment. ¡°Sometimes they see strengths in us that we don¡¯t know in ourselves. Not everyone is cut out for this work, but if you¡¯re here, they say you are.¡±

    ¡°But¡ª¡±

    She pointed to the metal cabinet, cutting him off. ¡°That¡¯s all supplies. And that¡¯s observation.¡± She gestured to a long pane of darkened glass along one wall. ¡°It¡¯s normally empty, unless you¡¯re in training or it¡¯s a high profile case. There¡¯s a camera in the corner recording as well.¡±

    It was a clear signal, so Jake dropped it and did his best to keep up. ¡°Oh,¡± he said, following her lead. ¡°I would have expected it to be a two way mirror.¡±

    She squinted at him as though he¡¯d suggested something obscene. ¡°No.¡±

    He tried another tactic and sent her a gentle, questioning thought.

    No one wants to watch themselves work, she replied.

    The door opened and two men in grey coats came in. One was of middling height with a stocky build, pushing what looked like a four or five gallon covered metal sink on wheels, filled to the brim with ice. The other was pushing in a laptop on a metal cart, and was taller and slim.

    ¡°This is Eric,¡± she said, gesturing to the shorter one, ¡°and Bertram. This¡¯s Jake. He¡¯s shadowing me.¡± They nodded at him.

    ¡°Welcome to HQ,¡± Bertram smiled. His voice had a hint of an accent.

    ¡°Eric is our technician and Bertram is our monitor. You¡¯ll generally keep the same people with you throughout a case, but you¡¯ll have different teams on different cases, if that makes sense.¡±

    ¡°Technician I know,¡± Jake said apologetically, ¡°but what¡¯s a monitor? I mean, I get that you¡¯ll be monitoring but¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m the one keeping the bigger picture,¡± Bertram explained. He leaned against the wall, tapping his pen absentmindedly. ¡°Eric will be busy managing the subject¡¯s physical threshold while Laura¡¯s going to be in the thick of it. It¡¯s my job to watch for physical or telepathic distress and make sure all the agents in the room are actively aware of the subject¡¯s state in the case of hyperarousal.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll see,¡± Laura said with a shrug. ¡°It¡¯ll all fall into place.¡±

    The door clicked open. An agent in a black Neptune shirt held the door as a second agent wheeled a gurney into the room. The Icarus was awake and strapped in, laying down. He was wearing plain white, loose fitting clothing. His face was gaunt with deep circles under eyes and he was several days overdue for a shave. The flaking cracks in his dry lips made Jake¡¯s stomach clench.

    ¡°Alright,¡± Bertram began, his voice soft, ¡°let¡¯s get you up, okay, 38C?¡± Jake realized at that moment that this was the first time he¡¯d ever had contact with an Icarus. His brows drew together. How could he have only now thought about this, with all the weeks leading up to his transfer? The containment techs were unstrapping him and lowering the guard rails. The Icarus wore black dampener bands on both his wrists.

    She and Bertram helped him down off the stretcher and seated him in the chair. It looked more like the Icarus let it happen as opposed to really needing that much assistance. Eric made no move to help, but Jake could feel him watching, concerned, and ready to jump in if the Icarus went unsteady.

    Is he sick? he thought to Laura.

    No, she replied without looking back. Reintegration takes a lot out of you and in the beginning, we move them everywhere in stretchers. We want them getting as little exercise as possible. Everyone¡¯s safer if we can foster some temporary muscle atrophy.

    Jake was starting to sweat in earnest. When it was clear they had him, the agents with the stretcher withdrew without a word. Bertram and Laura tightened the thick, padded straps on the chair, which held him in place at the shoulders, legs, waist, and neck. The Icarus¡¯ eyes resisted their listless rolling and focused in on Jake.

    ¡°Who¡¯s that?¡± he croaked. His voice had a withered sound to it.

    ¡°This is Jacob del Sol,¡± Laura told him, enunciating. ¡°He¡¯s in training, but don¡¯t worry, he¡¯s not going to be in your mind at all. He¡¯s only going to be in mine, watching me work.¡±

    ¡°Hi,¡± Jake said weakly. What else was there to say? ¡®I¡¯m sorry?¡¯ No.

    38C¡¯s eyes blinked too slowly, then he turned his face to the wall. Eric opened the large cabinet and the door swung open without a creak. He handed Bertram a blood pressure cuff, pulse ox, and a tangle of nodes and wires.

    ¡°So once we get started,¡± Laura explained while Bertram hooked the Icarus up, ¡°I¡¯m going to make space in my mind so you can observe.¡±

    Jake nodded, watching Eric pull out a large jug of water and a blue tourniquet strip. The water was poured over what must have been almost ten pounds of ice. Eric carefully tied the tourniquet around the Icarus¡¯ forearm, just below the elbow. 38C watched all this with a tired disinterest. Jake¡¯s heart was starting to pound in his ears, but when Laura asked them all, Ready? he nodded anyway. Laura took her position behind the chair and Jake felt the pull of her invitation into her head. He went, taking a passive backseat and let her broadcast to him everything she was doing and feeling.

    38C¡¯s mind felt tight. Like trying to pull on a wool sweater that was a little too small. Scar tissue wasn¡¯t quite right because there was no scarring, but sometimes telepathy could leave a mark. A trace. Like a page full of pencil scribblings with one word in ink. Jake felt Laura sifting until she found the spot she was looking for. She touched on a part of his mind and lingered, letting Jake take a moment to soak it in. If minds were organized, straightforward, and unchanging, a telepath¡¯s job would be much easier. It¡¯s not as though they could go to the ¡°loyalty¡± section of the mind and shore it up. That didn¡¯t exist. The area she was working in had to do with his memories of growing up in the Academy. He watched her take a thought, a memory of a memory, and shift it. Not overwriting it with something new, just nudging it¡ªthe way a measurement two inches left or right can change the entire stability of a building. Then she wove an illusion, hijacking the Icarus¡¯ senses and convincing him he was somewhere else entirely, like being in a virtual reality or a dream without realizing it. He thought he was in a city park. A burbling of pigeons could be heard underneath the thrum of traffic. A woman was with him on a bench. She looked as though she¡¯d been crying. ¡°Let¡¯s just go,¡± she urged him. ¡°I don¡¯t understand it all, but can you and I just disappear?¡±

    Jake could feel the Icarus¡¯ mind churning, conflicted, angry and he could feel Laura¡¯s disappointment. Laura made another adjustment to his deep childhood keystones and ran the scenario again. And again. And again, until his conflicted reaction was of regret and sadness that he was going to lose her. She ended the simulation and wiped it from his mind.

    Now that we know which adjustment had to be made, we need to cement this change, Laura thought to him.

    Jake opened his eyes. He felt her lean into her alteration and hold it tight. She nodded to Eric, who responded by rolling closer on the stool. He positioned the tub of ice water and submerged the Icarus¡¯ arm past the wrist. At first, there was little reaction, but then Jake could see the heart rate numbers on the monitor begin the climb. With his connection through Laura, he felt the panic and the pain rising. 38C¡¯s muscles were jerking, pulling involuntarily at his bonds. Jake gripped his own fists to hold his ground. He knew it was involuntary, because he was in his head and the Icarus knew for a fact there was nothing he could do that would stop this.

    As the heart monitor crossed over 130 beats per minute, 38C began yelling. It wasn¡¯t words really, just a maddened wail. The sound of it in the close metal room was overwhelming and Jake fought to keep his breathing slow and steady. It went on for a long time, with Bertram silently taking notes. When he grew accustomed to the pain and his heart rate began to drop, Eric removed his arm from the ice. He waited for Laura to give him the okay to repeat the process and he released the tourniquet on the opposite arm, which had turned a sick shade of purple. The searing pain as the nerves shot alive began a new wave. When that had resolved, they returned to the ice bucket, this time with about two cups of salt thrown in. 38C was begging now, in between cracking screams. The sound of it wasn¡¯t as difficult to withstand as feeling the thoughts that fueled them through his connection with Laura.

    When Bertram called an end to it, they had been there for hours. Jake withdrew from Laura, probably too quickly, and locked himself back in his own head, trying to close himself off from it all.

    The Icarus looked catatonic and the others were all wrung through with sweat. Eric¡¯s breathing was a little erratic. No one was speaking. Jake felt faint. He remembered suddenly that they¡¯d been working with this Icarus almost daily a month and his body went cold.

    ¡°Excuse me,¡± he managed to get out, then clamped his mouth shut.

    Across the hall, came Laura¡¯s thought, though only faintly beyond the protective walls he¡¯d put up. They gave him pitying looks without judgment as he pushed past the agents who were coming in to retrieve the Icarus.

    Jake rushed into the bathroom across the hall and was sick until he felt like he¡¯d heaved himself inside out.

    As scary as it was to think that this transfer was some kind of clerical mistake, it was worse for Jake to think that what Laura had said was true¡ªthat his superior had seen something in him that suggested this was something he was suited for.

    He was supposed to call his team, his old team, that night. He couldn¡¯t do it. He didn''t think he could do any of it.

    ---

    Swansea, Wales.

    ¡°Do you want to talk?" Reeve asked him.

    Alex shook his head, feeling his shoulders tense in the fresh, cool air. "No, I just want to walk."

    They walked. Maggie''s house was set in a long row of tall, narrow homes on a rounded hill, like books on a shelf. Beyond the street, the hill sloped away steeply and a city lay at the bottom of it, small and grey. The sky was a clouded, dull grey that faded and blended into the edges of the sea at the horizon. The haze made the city look sleepy and isolated, hidden from the world. He wanted that.

    Alex drifted off the road, letting his steps drop with heavy thuds over the dirt, and plopped down to sit on the damp grass. He knew he¡¯d regret it later, when his jeans were wet and chilly, but he didn¡¯t care. The void where the gentle pressure of Reeve¡¯s mind used to be hadn¡¯t stopped feeling disorienting. It was lonely in a way and comforting in another.

    He ran a blade of grass through his fingers, feeling its smooth surface and the simple Story of warm sun, pattering rains, and cool dew at night. Alex thought to yank it up by the base with a satisfying snap and carry it with him, but stopped himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Reeve scan the road, turning slowly with that slightly blank look on his face. They were alone. Alex stared at the grass around him for a long moment, taking in how deep green it was next to all of this grey, until he felt Reeve settle down next to him.

    "You sure you don''t want to talk about all this?"

    "Yeah," he said, wiping his hand off on his jeans. They were already damp. He thought he¡¯d have more time. He looked at the haze and sniffed. "It''s cold."

    "We probably won''t be here too long.¡± Reeve had situated himself with one leg splayed out and one knee bent. It looked casual, but the rigidity with which he held the pose made Alex think of store mannequins. Reeve took a short breath and continued, ¡°Once Maggie gets a hold of¡ª"

    "No," Alex interrupted him sharply, looking down at the grass briefly. "It''s cold. That''s all." Alex glanced up at him. He wanted to yell, but mostly he wanted things back the way they were. "It''s just cold."

    Reeve nodded into the breeze and looked up to track a gull, dark grey against the dull sky. The silhouette of Reeve¡¯s annoyingly serious face was the one familiar thing in the whole landscape and, though the stories of the hill pulled at him, he held onto the now and let his head drop, heavy, onto Reeve¡¯s shoulder. Reeve finally knew better than to open his mouth.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 18.

    Swansea, Wales

    "I left a message with Noah," Maggie said, perched on the cushioned arm of a chair and watching Reeve settle into the sofa bed. "Provided he''s not in trouble, he''s normally good about getting back to me."

    "Thanks,¡± he nodded, shoving an arm full of bundled up clothes into his duffle bag. He was a mess, everything was a mess and he still wasn¡¯t used to that yet.

    "Worried about Gareth?" she asked.

    "No. Well, yes, but no more than usual. I meant it¡ªthey aren''t looking for us here yet." She put out a hand to placate him and her eyes caught, stuck over his shoulder. Reeve stretched his awareness¡ªAlex.

    Reeve turned around to see him standing in the open doorway of the guest room, a pillow mashed under one elbow.

    Reeve looked at Maggie. Do you mind? He''s pissed at me.

    She arched her eyebrows and stood up, managing to form the response, No, he''s not. Reeve squinted at her, bewildered, but didn¡¯t press. Wrapping her robe tightly around her, she hit the lights in the hall and made her way upstairs. Alex had closed the guest room door behind him.

    "Want to switch?¡± Reeve asked. ¡°Alyosha can''t be kind to read."

    "No, he''s not, but I don''t need to swap." He sat on the edge of the sofa bed and cocked his head. "You''re really not in here?"

    Reeve studied the blankets in his lap. "You told me to get out of your head. Back in Mexico."

    "So you''re really basically an idiot?" he sighed. "It''s fine. I''m tired of having all these snarky comments I can''t say out loud go to waste."

    Reeve rolled his eyes but couldn''t help smiling, so he was distracted when he realized Alex was climbing into bed, shoving Reeve¡¯s pillow out of the center of the fold-out. Reeve shifted to make space for him, both surprised and relieved.

    He reluctantly reached to switch off the lamp, even though Reeve hadn''t really intended to sleep. He liked being by the front door, alert and on watch. They were quiet in the dark for a moment. Alex fidgeted, creaking the old mattress. If he didn¡¯t stop squirming, maybe Reeve would be able to stay awake after all. But maybe sleep wasn¡¯t such a terrible idea, given the prospect of keeping himself from examining too closely exactly how glad he was for his company. Alex shifted again to rest his forehead against the side of Reeve¡¯s shoulder. "Remember when you''d let me stay with you when my knack was going haywire?"

    Reeve quirked his mouth and summoned a tone of annoyance. "I don''t know if I let you, but you came in to stay with me a lot after that first time." Reeve took a shallow breath and eased back, settling into the familiar connections he had forged in Alex¡¯s head so long ago. It was comfortable. Maybe he had been out of it too long, but something about his mind felt different. Foreign. But then again, a lot had changed in the past few days. He kept his telepathy contained enough that Alex still had his privacy, but close enough that he could really know him. Reeve gave his mind a small nudge of pressure to let Alex know he had seated himself back again and he felt Alex¡¯s muscles relax despite the terrible mattress.

    "It helped,¡± Alex continued, without acknowledging the telepathy. ¡°You''d let me read you. Stupid, boring stuff, like you driving or you and Hannah cooking. I didn''t scare you the way I did everyone else who knew what I could do. Even Gareth and Hannah at first."

    Of course he remembered. They were some of his dearest memories. This was the same and not the same. Reeve shook his head and ruffled Alex¡¯s hair to dispel something he couldn¡¯t name.

    "Yeah,¡± Alex groaned, ¡°and then you''d do that and ruin it." Which just made Reeve smile and muss his hair up more. Alex batted at him and then let his arm flop across Reeve¡¯s chest.

    As his eyes adjusted to the low light of the street lamps, he could make out silhouettes of furniture and Alex¡¯s face made blue by the dim light. "And you''d fall asleep in the middle of the bed, spread out like a starfish, and I wouldn''t sleep at all. That hasn¡¯t changed much."

    "You''re a crap sleeper, anyway.¡± Alex pulled the covers up to his neck. "It''s cold," he whined while shifting himself closer to Reeve, who maneuvered his trapped arm above Alex¡¯s head and rested it above the pillows, awkwardly. Alex settled his head on his shoulder, as if oblivious, and Reeve blew a tangle of Alex¡¯s hair out of his face, resigned.

    ¡°It¡¯s too cold here. Brazil was too hot. France was too humid. What the hell is your ideal climate?¡±

    ¡°Climate controlled. Or¡­¡± Alex pouted and was quiet for a moment, breathing, and Reeve closed his eyes, feeling Alex¡¯s chest rise and fall next to him. That palpable proof that Alex was alive and safe and whole. ¡°Home,¡± Alex finished. ¡°It was good at home.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± Reeve shifted his arm down to give his shoulders a squeeze. Alex pressed his face closer to Reeve¡¯s neck in response, enough that he could feel his breath. His thoughts buzzed against Reeve¡¯s mind and he tried to ignore it. Suddenly antsy, he shifted his trapped arm.

    ¡°If you fuck with my hair again, I will kick you.¡±

    Reeve chuckled and patted his arm. ¡°I know. We should sleep.¡±

    ¡°This mattress is shit.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡±

    ---

    Gareth had just started to get comfortable when they had a visitor. While he wasn¡¯t particularly a natural loner, he had never really made a habit of accepting strangers into his life. Alyosha had managed to slip in under the radar, since he was constantly with them but so busy and out of sight that Gareth didn¡¯t have the time to get annoyed with him. It had taken a few days of living and idling in Maggie''s house to finally relax around her. Gareth was sitting in the living room, watching some television with them when Reeve perked up in his chair, face tense and still.

    ¡°Maggie,¡± he said quickly, ¡°there''s someone walking this way who knows your name. They''re looking for this address.¡±

    It was like an electric shock had gone through everyone in the room. Gareth and Alex shot to their feet and Alyosha and Hannah came jogging in from the kitchen. Before anyone could speak, Maggie''s phone rang.

    Eyes wide, she picked up her cell and Reeve nodded to her to answer it. She set the call on speaker. No one was breathing.

    ¡°Hello?¡± Her spine was straight, but her voice shook.

    ¡°Maggie,¡± an accented male voice came over the line, ¡°do you mind calling off your telepath? He¡¯s gonna give me a damn migraine.¡±

    She deflated, dropping her head into her hand. ¡°Noah,¡± she said, exhaling heavily. ¡°Jesus Christ.¡± Maggie nodded at Reeve, ¡°My contact from The Church.¡±

    ¡°There in a sec,¡± the voice called and hung up the phone. Alyosha was shifting nervously, weapon ready, and Hannah locked eyes with Gareth, looking to gauge how worried she ought to be. He didn''t have a clue, so gave his head an almost imperceptible shake.

    Maggie moved to the door. ¡°He''s been here before. I trust him.¡± Reeve followed her, jaw clenched. It was clear no one was about to call him off, headache or no headache.

    Gareth kept his eyes on Reeve, knowing he''d be the first to know if the situation was about to go south, and readied himself to react in whatever way Reeve did.

    Reeve nodded to Gareth, no doubt hearing his thoughts and he held his breath, willing himself to not balk at Reeve knowing he still trusted him to know what was best.

    There was a knock and Reeve moved to open it, but Maggie stepped in front of him, grabbing the latch and saying, ¡°It''s my house.¡± Gareth did sort of love the way she acted like she obviously outranked him every now and then. He wondered why Reeve let it slide. She opened the door and the man who walked in, slowly but without invitation, looked to be in his forties, tall with short dark hair. His skin was a warm, honeyed tan, and he had a dark birthmark high up on one cheek. His coat was two sizes too big for him and his clothes were well worn. Wet from the rain, he stamped his feet on the mat and moved to give Maggie room to shut the door behind him while shouldering a bulky backpack and sticking out his hand to Reeve.

    ¡°You the telepath?¡± His accent was mixed, but most predominantly Australian. Reeve hesitated, then shook his hand, nodding once. Noah jerked his head in a come-on gesture. ¡°Then get it over with,¡± he said, dropping his hand, ¡°so I can get settled. It was a long walk.¡± Reeve turned his head to one side to study him. Gareth took a few steps closer and Alyosha followed. He watched Reeve¡¯s eyes go blank as he combed through the other man''s mind. Noah clenched his eyes shut, lips tight. Gareth thought about how he used to be like that, back when he was a kid just starting up with Entropy. A long moment passed. Alyosha and Gareth exchanged a look. Then Reeve shifted his balance from foot to foot and it was over.

    ¡°He''s fine,¡± he said, stepping back.

    ¡°I''m Noah,¡± he clarified, stretching his face and scanning the room. He put a hand on Maggie''s shoulder and leaned down to kiss the air beside her cheek. ¡°How are ya, love?¡±

    She smiled and patted his cheek as he pressed past her to set his bag down by the loveseat, peeling off his wet coat and throwing it on the railing of the staircase. Slung on his back in a long, battered sheath was an old machete and another by his thigh. He plopped down heavily with a long sigh, holding his head with one hand. His arms were dense with tattoos, mostly in black and grey, with religious iconography, down to a tattooed rosary on the back of one hand. They reached up from the collar of his shirt to cover his throat, up to his jawline. Gareth¡¯s first impression of him, and his warm tone of voice, didn¡¯t match up with someone who would be that heavily tattooed.

    ¡°Telepaths always knock me for a loop,¡± he said, giving his head a shake. Noah looked them all over, blinking rapidly like he was just waking up. ¡°You¡¯re all Icarus? All of you?¡±

    When no one spoke, Alyosha cleared his throat. ¡°Everyone except me. I am like her,¡± he said, nodding to Maggie. ¡°A friend.¡±

    ¡°You coming along though?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± he said quickly, glancing at Reeve, as if he thought he might answer for him.

    ¡°There sure are a lot of you. Okay,¡± he sighed, leaning back before freezing with a wince. ¡°You all seem pretty trigger-happy, so I¡¯m tellin¡¯ you now that I¡¯m taking my knives off, because it¡¯s impossible to get comfortable with ¡®em.¡± He unbuckled the straps on one shoulder and untangled himself from the rest, setting it down on top of his bag.

    Gareth stretched his fingers before pulling them into a fist. ¡°You have a knack?¡± he asked.

    ¡°No one but Sol calls it that,¡± he said, his expression sour. ¡°I have a gift, God-given. I''m what we call a howler. You''d call it Sonic Screamer, I think.¡±

    Reeve nodded. ¡°You¡¯ve helped other Icarus hide before, then?¡± he pressed, motioning the rest to sit. They eased themselves back into chairs or sat cross-legged on the floor, except for Maggie, who stood behind Noah, her back against the wall. Reeve stayed standing and no one crossed the room to sit near Noah.

    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°I¡¯ve trained a few Icarus to impersonate The Children of God and I¡¯ve trained a smaller number to become Children of God. You can probably guess which ones tend to last longer.¡±

    ¡°You can probably guess,¡± Reeve said, one eyebrow cocked, ¡°which ones we plan on being.¡±

    ¡°Probably,¡± Noah smiled, stretching his shoulders. ¡°From what I hear, you don¡¯t seem like a very religious man.¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re gonna want to start. Faith will be your best weapon. They can¡¯t withstand it.¡± Noah lifted his tee-shirt sleeve as far up his shoulder as it would go, showing that the tattoos kept going up to cover the entirety of his ropey muscle. ¡°Symbols of faith are our protection. Our armor. And your armor can be anything: Christianity, Witchcraft, Islam, Shinto, Hinduism, Judaism. Whatever you can reach. Doesn''t even have to be a religion known to man. Whatever faith you can forge for yourself will work. As long as you believe in something."

    There was silence at that, and Gareth watched Reeve¡¯s eyes dart around the room. ¡°Well,¡± Reeve said, eyes settling on the door, ¡°It''s late. I hear you were traveling fast. You must be tired. We can get into this in the morning.¡±

    Noah¡¯s forehead creased. ¡°Morning?¡± He leaned forward to crane his head toward the window and the dark sky behind the orange lamplight. ¡°This is my morning.¡± He lowered his brow, straightened it, then his face broke into an incredulous smile.

    ¡°Maggie, love,¡± Noah called over his shoulder. ¡°Could you brew us a very large pot of coffee?¡± He motioned to the others. ¡°The Children of God sleep when the dogs sleep. You call them Phagi or something ridiculous like that. Now¡¯s as good a time as any to get on our schedule. You can spend it learning about The Church.¡± Maggie made for the kitchen with a thin smile.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to make us stay up all night with you?¡± Alex asked.

    Noah leaned back. ¡°I¡¯m not going to make you do anything. All I¡¯m gonna do is show you how to best survive. You can take my lessons or not. But you should.¡±

    ¡°Alright, alright,¡± Reeve sat down and sighed, setting one hand on Hannah¡¯s knobby shoulder and giving it a jostle. ¡°We might as well get it over with. We should only have to do it once.¡±

    Noah leveled a pointed finger at Reeve and shook it a few times. ¡°Let¡¯s start there. You¡¯re definitely going to be doing it more than once.¡±

    Noah rubbed at his temples and slipped the boots off his feet by prying off the heel with his toes. ¡°When you''re at a Sanctuary, ninety-nine percent of the people there will be on a night schedule, but one or two will stay up during the day to keep watch while the others sleep. And that duty rotates. If it''s being occupied, the Sanctuary is never empty and someone is always awake.¡±

    Hannah cocked her head. ¡°Why? Not a lot of hunting activity during the day, is there?¡±

    ¡°Course not. But Neptune,¡± he rapped his middle finger on the coffee table three times, ¡°Neptune hunts anytime.¡±

    ¡°Is Neptune bothering you so much that you need guards?¡± Reeve asked. ¡°If anything, I''d think you''d have Comets, recruiting teams I mean, out looking for you.¡±

    Noah scoffed. ¡°Your company would never recruit us. We already have a higher authority and they hate that.¡± He reached a hand just under the collar of his shirt and pulled out a crucifix. It was carved from wood and fully half the length of his hand. ¡°Neptune raids our Sanctuaries looking for Icarus. Not often, but I''ve been in a few and it can be ugly. They¡¯ve been doing it more and more lately.¡±

    ¡°Then why do you do it? If Icarus are getting you killed, why help us?¡± Gareth asked, an edge to his voice. The ¡°us¡± stung him to say, which surprised him.

    ¡°Ah.¡± Noah held the nasal sound for a long time. ¡°Trust. You don''t have any. And that''s good for Icarus, but that''s shit for trying to fit in with The Children of God. You''re at least gonna have to learn to fake it.¡±

    Maggie came in with her hands full of steaming mugs and Hannah got up to help her hand them out. Noah nodded his thanks. With his coffee in one hand he picked up his necklace in the other. ¡°Hakhnasat orchim,¡± he said, tucking it back into his shirt. ¡°There are almost no laws you need to follow to be a part of The Church¡ªJust hakhnasat orchim and maybe one other.¡± He said it slowly, enunciating it for them. ¡°It''s in the Talmud and Old Testament¡ªa law of hospitality, and for us, it''s a sacred charge. Anyone who shows up at a Sanctuary will be sheltered, fed, and protected. If you think about it, it would have to be law. We''re a bunch of people from many different countries, of many different faiths, all wandering in and out of people''s homes while heavily armed.¡± He chuckled to himself, then straightened out his face and looked at Reeve. ¡°What I''m saying is, you''ve been donating money to our cause through Maggie, here, to try to gain our favor so we''d help you. But if you, all of you, had just shown up unannounced at the door of any Sanctuary, they''d have let you in. You didn''t buy us¡ªthat¡¯s our way and you''re going to need to learn to think like this. Not that I don''t appreciate the funding,¡± he smiled again at that. Reeve¡¯s jaw was tighter than a vise.

    ¡°What¡¯s the other law?¡± Alex asked into the silence.

    ¡°Pardon?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s the other law, besides ''hacky-sack orchid'' or whatever?¡±

    ¡°Kill the dogs.¡±

    It seemed to suck all the air from the room.

    Noah let the pause hang over them and then cleared his throat to ask, voice lighter than the conversation had any right to be, ¡°Now, which of you have ever fought one of these things?¡±

    The feeling deep in Gareth¡¯s gut was immediately as if his intestines were struggling to push a too-large chunk of ice through their length.

    Beside him, Alyosha forced out, ¡°I have.¡± Gareth, his mouth dry, raised the thumb and first two fingers of a hand resting on his knee.

    ¡°And you¡¯re still alive. Impressive¡±

    Shvedov shook his head and looked at the carpet. Gareth set his face in as neutral a position as he could. ¡°We¡¯re ex-Entropy.¡±

    ¡°Ah.¡± Noah stretched his lips in an awkward grimace that he must have meant to show sympathy, but just looked like a baring of teeth. ¡°Well, good. They¡¯re gonna need you two. It¡¯s not easy to lose to a dog and not die.¡±

    ¡°How do you know we lost?¡± Gareth sneered.

    Noah looked him up and down. ¡°Am I wrong?¡±

    Gareth¡¯s nostrils flared and he gulped his coffee without answering.

    ¡°What about the Network?¡± Reeve cut in. His face was stoic, but his voice was tight.

    Noah shrugged. ¡°I reckon I know about as much as you. I hear whispers that it exists.¡±

    ¡°You didn''t bother looking into it?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Noah sipped his coffee and put it back down. ¡°I had no idea if you''d ever actually show up here. You didn''t buy me, I''m not your employee, and I was a little busy.¡±

    ¡°Great.¡±

    ¡°I do know a tracker in The Church who could probably find them for you.¡±

    ¡°Who?¡± Reeve hesitated, thinking. ¡°Where?¡±

    ¡°No, we''ll get to that later.¡±

    ¡°Later?¡± Gareth burst out, his neck corded from tension.

    ¡°Yes. Unless you intend to split up when you leave here. Do you?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± The voices came jangled together all at once from all across the room.

    ¡°There, see? Exactly. At the most, you might come across two Children of God traveling together. Never five. We¡¯re loners. You stand out. No one is going to mistake you for Children. You''re going to be difficult to house and expensive to feed. No Sanctuary will turn you away, but many may want to. I''ve got to train you in our etiquette so that you all seem worth the trouble and the risk. Neptune being tipped off to the location of Icarus at a Sanctuary is not unheard of. It''s against our creed, but we¡¯re human. The Children of God will give you everything you ask for and I have to teach you to know how to give them back everything they¡¯d never ask for.¡±

    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± Gareth muttered with a sniff. They needed a lot of things right then, but having a cult member teach them manners wasn''t on the list.

    ¡°That right there for one. Might want to lay off the blasphemy.¡± Noah leaned forward. ¡°Think there''s nothing else anyone can teach you about these things?¡±

    Reeve was there in his head, a heavy pressure cautioning silence. Fuck that.

    ¡°I get that you''ve had a lot of experience hunting these ¡®demons'' down, but that doesn''t tell the whole story.¡±

    ¡°So how many have you killed?¡±

    Gareth opened his mouth, but it was as if there was no air in his throat, his lungs empty as a vacuum. He gave a small cough. His hand was shaking.

    ¡°What about,¡± Hannah started, her voice trailing before picking up elsewhere. ¡°They were human once, so are they all bad? How do you know which ones to kill?¡±

    She was running interference for him again, trying to diffuse the situation. He wondered when she''d get sick of failing.

    ¡°They are abominations,¡± Noah replied, his voice raised slightly. ¡°The result of an unholy sickness. All of them must be destroyed.¡±

    ¡°I just thought, if they have personalities¡­¡±

    Noah clucked his tongue. ¡°They have personalities in the way that the most severe drug addicts do. They exist, but when they''re hurting, they will rip their mothers to shreds to make it stop. And they''re always hurting.¡± He cocked his head at her. ¡°You''ve seen one?¡±

    He saw Hannah swallow. Gareth edged his knuckles between the couch and her shoulder blade for contact and it pinned his shaking hand still.

    ¡°Just recently,¡± Reeve answered. ¡°It was¡­gruesome.¡±

    Noah nodded. ¡°I can''t make you feel better by saying they aren''t all like that. They are. They''re in human shape, but that''s where it ends.¡±

    ¡°You don''t¡ª¡± Gareth sputtered, shaking his head. ¡°You can¡¯t pretend it¡¯s just that. You''re finding them when they''re hunting, sure, but they aren''t always the beast.¡± He could feel his heart racing. His foot was tapping to the beat. ¡°I''ve lived with them. Not among them without realizing it¡ªin the same building as them. Sharing common spaces.¡± Hannah was looking at him, eyes wide. It wasn''t something he''d ever shared out loud. Alex was looking down at the floor, and Gareth swallowed against rising bile, wondering which parts of his history Alex was remembering in that moment.

    ¡°You ever meet a kind one?¡± Noah asked. His tone was interested. Gareth wished he would sound more hostile.

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Any you think shouldn¡¯t be exterminated?¡±

    ¡°No, but I''m saying they have more motivations than just eating. Simplifying them can kill you.¡±

    ¡°True,¡± Noah admitted. ¡°But usually it''s the teeth.¡±

    Gareth huffed and sat back, gathering himself.

    ¡°You can show us how to kill them?¡± It was Alex. His voice was hollow and Gareth¡¯s stomach churned at it. Alex was still looking down at the floor, but not seeing anything.

    ¡°Yes,¡± Noah said gently, glancing around at the others.

    ¡°Can you really kill them?¡±

    ¡°Hey,¡± Noah said and waited. ¡°Son, look at me.¡± Alex lifted his chin and Gareth felt pulled in all directions by the grim, straight line of Alex¡¯s mouth on his otherwise expressionless face.

    ¡°I turn them to dust,¡± Noah continued, keeping eye contact with him. ¡°You will too.¡±

    Alex nodded with glassy eyes. Reeve reached down to lightly put a hand on Alex¡¯s shoulder, but he shook him off.

    ¡°Right,¡± Noah said. ¡°This can wait. You''re all tired and the night just started. Anything I teach you now, I''ll have to teach you again later when you''re not dead on your feet. I¡¯m gonna take some time to pray and get settled. Keep each other awake. We''ll pick this up later.¡±

    He left them alone in the living room. Maggie had left at some point, but Gareth hadn¡¯t noticed when. No one had anything to say.

    ---

    When the coming dawn had dusted the horizon with pink and Noah had waved the others off to bed, it was only he and Reeve left awake in the living room. Alex was curled up on the pullout, face buried deep in the pillows to cover his head. This was all going to take some getting used to.

    Noah had told the others to stay up however they could and spent the rest of the night reading a tattered and dogeared novel.

    Reeve watched Noah cross the room and pull the curtains shut, carefully overlapping the seams, blocking out the sun. There was a deep shaking in Reeve¡¯s belly, a cold sickening tremble that came from extended sleeplessness. It was becoming a comforting feeling, an affirmation that his team was watched over and safe. He leaned into it.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± Reeve said softly from the couch. Noah glanced quickly at Alex. ¡°He¡¯s out,¡± Reeve assured him.

    ¡°No thanks needed.¡± Noah¡¯s eyes looked as bloodshot as his own felt.

    ¡°How long will we stay here?¡±

    ¡°Not long. Best thing is to learn all this in a Sanctuary like the rest of us did when we were new.¡±

    Reeve swallowed. He wasn''t ready to leave Maggie yet.

    ¡°Where will you take us? Is there one nearby?¡±

    ¡°I''m sure there is,¡± Noah said. Reeve stood up to get out of his way as he rearranged the cushions of the couch to his liking. ¡°But I''m not taking you there. There''s too many of you and you''re all just so damn papered.¡±

    ¡°What does that mean?¡±

    ¡°It means your corporation,¡± Noah replied, spitting out the word like it was sour, ¡°thinks it can control the world with organizational flow charts and paperwork. I mean look at you. You move like a Sol agent, not a man who has been called by God to go fight the worst things that have ever walked this earth.¡±

    Reeve gently sat down on the edge of the pullout bed, careful not to disturb Alex. ¡°And you can fix that?¡±

    ¡°With the rest, yeah I think I can. You might be too far gone. Got so much paperwork stuck up your ass it might never come out.¡±

    Reeve''s eyes narrowed and a muscle by his mouth twitched before he realized Noah was laughing silently. He ran a hand over his head; he really was tired, to let someone get a joke over on him without knowing exactly what he was doing.

    ¡°So where will you take us?¡±

    ¡°To my Sanctuary. Each one is owned by one of the Children. Someone''s paying rent on it, even if they''re only there once a year. If we go to mine, I''ll have more authority to back you.¡±

    ¡°I thought it was a holy mission to accept everyone.¡±

    ¡°It is, but you¡¯ve been inside the minds of men¡ªyou know it''s always more complicated than that.¡±

    Reeve sighed. ¡°Where is your Sanctuary?¡±

    ¡°Belgium.¡±

    ¡°That''s not too bad.¡±

    Noah nodded, lying down on the couch. ¡°It shouldn''t take us more than a few days.¡±

    ¡°Alyosha can fly us there in a few hours.¡±

    ¡°Pardon?¡±

    ¡°We have a small plane. Well, a Cessna.¡±

    Noah laughed, then quieted himself. ¡°Not anymore, you don''t.¡±

    Reeve took a quick breath in but checked himself, glancing at Alex, asleep and still. ¡°Why?¡± he asked after a moment, his eyes narrowed as if that would keep his volume down.

    ¡°It would be expected that any man joining the Church who owned something like that would sell it to fund the cause.¡±

    ¡°Even though it would help your cause, since you''re constantly traveling?¡±

    ¡°You have somewhere you need to be?¡± he asked, casually.

    Reeve rubbed at his eyes, regretting getting into this conversation at all. ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°We wander looking for these things, finding Sanctuaries as we go. There¡¯s no need to get anywhere that fast.¡±

    ¡°You''re telling me I should try to sell a private jet while laying low?¡±

    ¡°No. I''m telling you to park it and pretend you don''t have it.¡±

    Reeve''s mouth went slack while his mind raced, muddy with exhaustion.

    ¡°You wanted to get behind the shield of The Church because we can show you how to hide from Sol. So listen to us. Do as you¡¯re told and I can keep you all alive.¡± Reeve didn¡¯t nod, but he didn¡¯t say no, either.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 19.

    Flanders, Belgium.

    ¡°Here,¡± Noah called in a hushed tone, motioning to them with the bright spot of his flashlight. ¡°This is how you find a Sanctuary.¡±

    No one was happy. After they had stowed away on a train to the east coast of England, they had done nothing but walk long hours during the nights, quietly and with Noah on such high alert that Alex thought he would snap. They slept on the ferry and after that in a hotel during the day, when it was safe for Reeve to brainscrew the staff, and they basically didn¡¯t sleep at all huddled under overpasses when it wasn¡¯t. There sure as shit weren¡¯t enough of the former to make up for the latter. Alex hated it, but he kept his mouth shut. Everyone did. They were loaded down with bags filled with everything they couldn¡¯t part with (stowing the rest at Maggie¡¯s), and the weight slowly took up all the space in Alex¡¯s mind, pushing out any desire to talk. They were this silent trudging army in the dark, like ants hoping the asshole in the front had some idea where they were going.

    The one clarion thought that rang through Alex¡¯s mind over and over as Noah led them up the final street to his Sanctuary was this: we made it without running into any trouble. In hindsight (hell, in present-sight) it was probably not the most appropriate thing to celebrate while attempting to fit in with people who hunted them on purpose, but Alex figured he¡¯d worry about that later.

    Noah knelt and pointed to a twig that had been stuck into the dirt with the top few inches of it snapped and hanging to one side. It was well into the early morning hours. The houses were dark in the quiet Ghent suburb. Noah fingered the broken top and pointed them off in the direction it was hanging and smiled. At least he was starting to relax and Alex wanted badly for that to mean it was alright for him to stop peering into every shadow, waiting for it to move or spit out the undead. Silently, they followed him a few meters down the road to another stick with a bent top wedged into the ground. They gathered around it in a hush while Noah looked at them expectantly.

    ¡°Okay,¡± Reeve said softly, voice low from disuse, ¡°but that could literally be from any five to eleven-year-old kid in a four block radius.¡±

    Noah nodded, brow low. ¡°You get to know the difference.¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Hannah whispered harshly.

    Noah cracked a smile. ¡°Well, sometimes you get a bit lost.¡±

    In the dark, all Alex could hear was slow, measured breathing and he wished someone would laugh.

    Noah waved their silence off. ¡°You¡¯ll have a general area to look in and then you¡¯ll know that when you start seeing these, you¡¯re getting close. Come on.¡± He led them down the street, pointing out markers as they passed. He tapped the top of one stick, stopping. Unlike the others, this one was split down the middle an inch or so, like a Y. ¡°This marks the last one in the line.¡±

    Gareth pointed to the house that the marker was in front of. ¡°So is this it?¡±

    ¡°No. There are two sets of signs. But this shows you that you¡¯re very close and to start looking for the next set.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you own the damn house?¡± Hannah asked, her voice more sour than normal.

    ¡°Yes, I know which one it is¡ªI¡¯m doing this for you, right?¡±

    Alex stared at Reeve, waiting for him to say something. He didn¡¯t want to be the guy Noah didn¡¯t like, but it kinda seemed like that ship had already sailed for him and Reeve. There was a tickling somewhere in his mind that itched just enough to be uncomfortable as Reeve looked at him, face blank.

    ¡°So what do we look for next?¡± Reeve asked Noah flatly.

    He straightened, hefting his bag. ¡°You¡¯re going to want to find a door with a pile of shoes on the stoop. If you¡¯re someplace where you can¡¯t leave shoes outside, like an apartment building, there¡¯ll be something more subtle, like a coin glued down to the floor.¡±

    ¡°Shoes?¡± Alex asked, clearing his throat. ¡°There are a lot of those too.¡± Gareth motioned to a house across the street with a mat full of shoes. Noah nodded and they walked over.

    ¡°You¡¯re looking for an odd number of shoes. If it¡¯s a Sanctuary, there¡¯ll be one missing. Or one extra. Kind of depends on your mood that day.¡± He chuckled to himself, tapping the odd sneaker out with his boot. He pulled open the storm door and ran his thumb over the small carvings of crosses, pentacles, stars of David, and a myriad other shapes Alex didn¡¯t recognize, cut right into the wood of the door, barely visible but intricate. ¡°And if you¡¯re still not certain, the symbols of faith are a pretty sure measure.¡± He gave the group of them a look up and down and let out a deep breath while pulling a keychain out of his jacket. ¡°And even if you¡¯ve got a key, always, always knock. Ready?¡±

    No one answered, so he knocked.

    ---

    The door opened slowly to a broad man in his late fifties and a head of slightly thinning, blond-grey hair. He had one hand held out of view, extended behind the jamb. Even in the dim streetlight and backlit in red, Noah recognized the man immediately as someone who had been in the Church nearly as long as he had.

    ¡°Warren, may your God keep you,¡± Noah called, hoping he¡¯d stick to English. The last thing he needed was this Icarus telepath barging into his skull because he didn¡¯t speak the language.

    The man at the door nodded and his arm relaxed. ¡°Noah.¡± His voice was surprised. ¡°I am yours in Christ,¡± he responded automatically with his thick Dutch accent, but his grey eyes were wary and they scanned the group. ¡°Are you all brothers?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m training them,¡± Noah said and held up his keys.

    ¡°You pay the bills?¡±

    ¡°I do.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, brother.¡± He extended a hand with a small smile and Noah shook it, holding it between both of his.

    Warren stepped back from the door and Noah stepped inside. ¡°Thank you,¡± he nodded, ¡°we¡¯ve been traveling hard.¡± Noah motioned to the others to watch their step by the shotgun leaning up against the door frame. There were no lights on in the narrow entry hallway, but ahead of him he could see the low red glow of the kitchen. It had been easily six months since he¡¯d been back to his house, but somehow the smell was still the same: dust and cigarettes, coffee and petrol. Behind him, he could hear the others stumbling and hissing to each other as they spilled out into his small kitchen space. He could already feel the muscles in his back and the ones keeping a vise grip all the way up to his temples beginning to ease.

    ¡°Your eyes will adjust,¡± he told them, dropping his bag to the ground and stretching. ¡°The red bulbs save your night vision.¡±

    Warren went to the fridge (which had no light at all) and pulled out some bottles of water, tossing one to Noah and offering them to the rest, which they accepted but didn¡¯t open. Noah gulped his. Warren leaned against the counter. ¡°So what¡¯s the deal? Sol?¡±

    Noah heard Reeve take a breath to respond but held it, waiting, so he turned around and clapped Reeve on the arm before he lost his delicate patience. He nodded to Warren. ¡°Yeah, this one¡¯s a close friend of a supporter. What¡¯s the load on the house right now?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll fit.¡±

    ¡°Anyone using the den?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Great,¡± Noah turned to the group behind him, ¡°that¡¯ll be you. This way.¡± Without argument, they followed him, shuffling in the dark, through the kitchen and past several unlit doors until they got to the den. Feeling the wall, he switched on the overhead red bulb. It was just enough to see. The stack of cots was still leaning up against the far wall, but the couch had been moved to the other side of the room and a skinny young man with a bandaged arm was sitting there staring vacantly at the floor. The armchair was missing, but there was a coffee table he had never seen before and a desktop computer set up in one corner where he remembered there being a lamp. The area rug was different, but that was to be expected.

    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    ¡°There should be blankets and pillows in that closet. Go ahead and put your stuff down. Feel free to root around and set yourselves up. If you¡¯re having trouble seeing, close your eyes and count to ten. It¡¯ll help.¡± When no one answered him, he sighed. ¡°What is it?¡±

    After a beat, Reeve asked softly, ¡°And we¡¯re safe here?¡±

    ¡°Safer than you¡¯ve been in a while. Why do you think I dragged your asses all the way here?¡±

    Reeve¡¯s voice snapped, ¡°Don¡¯t answer that.¡± Noah wondered which one of them was about to give him mouth and laughed.

    Warren knocked on the door frame, making the others jump. ¡°Are they hungry?¡± he asked. Noah turned back to look at the others. The pressure in his head built sharply and Noah flinched.

    I don¡¯t like this. Reeve¡¯s presence beat the back of his eyes like a hammer. He doesn¡¯t trust us.

    Of course he doesn¡¯t trust you, he thought as quickly as he could. Probably the last time he saw more than one Sol agent at a time, he was being shot at. And telepathy won¡¯t help him trust you. Out loud he asked, ¡°You want food?¡±

    ¡°I think we¡¯ll get settled first,¡± Reeve responded then stammered a bit, sounding off balance. ¡°But thanks. And we can fend for ourselves, you don¡¯t need to cook.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s no trouble,¡± Warren said, ignoring Reeve¡¯s uncomfortable tone.

    ¡°Is he okay?¡± Hannah asked, nodding to the man on the couch.

    ¡°Michael. He¡¯s pretty new,¡± Warren explained, blandly. ¡°Last night was the first time he¡¯d been picked up and held by one. It does that to some people. It¡¯s too wrong. Something breaks.¡±

    Noah looked at the man, heart full of empathy. He remembered his first time touching a dog and wished he didn¡¯t.

    ¡°I¡¯ll shift Michael down here,¡± Warren went on. ¡°Clear out a bedroom for...¡±

    Right. It had been awhile since he¡¯d taken on Icarus students and there were going to be a long list of things that seemed entirely unnecessary to be explained to any normal person that were bound to make Icarus twitchy. Noah clicked through his teeth. ¡°Hannah,¡± he finished for Warren, gesturing. Her eyes bugged out and the others were visibly uneasy.

    Warren pointed. ¡°There¡¯s a bathroom off this hall with a shower and a closet full of clothes if you want something clean. Take whatever you need.¡±

    ¡°Thank you,¡± Gareth called, and it was one of the first times he had heard him not sounding angry. Noah gave them a reassuring look, though it may have been lost on them in the dusky light. And anyway, the second Warren had left he wheeled on Noah, temper flaring.

    ¡°What was that?¡± Hannah hissed at a whisper.

    Noah put up a reassuring hand. ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be right for you to sleep down here.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± she halfway to shrieked. Reeve¡¯s presence was growing in his mind. If he got any more scared, Noah was going to be pressing an ice pack to his head for the next twelve hours.

    ¡°Women don¡¯t share sleeping spaces with men,¡± he explained as calmly as he could.

    ¡°That¡¯s ridiculous!¡±

    ¡°It really isn¡¯t,¡± Noah said softly, hoping his lower volume would encourage her to stop yelling. ¡°It¡¯s entirely normal for almost anywhere else in the world besides Sol to separate sleeping quarters for men and women.¡±

    ¡°For fuck¡¯s sake,¡± Alex whined, ¡°don¡¯t you all have bigger things to worry about than maybe accidentally seeing a boob?¡±

    ¡°When there isn¡¯t room, we deal, but there are a lot of traditional thinkers around here. When we can make the allowance, we do, because it keeps the peace and doesn¡¯t harm anyone.¡±

    Hannah let her arms flop to her sides and shrugged sharply. ¡°So, what? Men and women can¡¯t sleep in the same room¡ªno one in the Church is gay?¡±

    Noah sighed, letting his eyes close briefly. Sol. ¡°Listen,¡± he said, overly conscious of his curt tone and the dull ache of the telepath in his mind, ¡°people of all faiths and belief systems come through here, and in order to live together, there are things that are not talked about.¡± He swallowed and softened his voice. ¡°I get that isn¡¯t what you¡¯re used to, but you¡¯re here now, and you need to at least outwardly square yourself with that.¡±

    Reeve cleared his throat. ¡°Give us a minute?¡±

    ¡°Sure, but, I need you to stop talking in my head, okay?¡± Noah went on. ¡°In the Church, you never use your gift against another brother without express permission. You need to get into the habit of not reading people¡¯s minds. It won¡¯t make you any friends.¡±

    Reeve was speechless for a second, but finally nodded. Trusting he¡¯d done what he could, Noah headed into the kitchen. He was thankful for the reprieve, but it also occurred to him that perhaps it was partially due to the fact that the telepath knew he needed one, which he didn¡¯t love. Either way, his temples were pounding. Noah checked the state of his liquor cabinet. Decent. He poured a shot of whiskey, drank it, took his boots and machete off, poured another shot, and sat down at the table with Warren.

    ¡°You can say it,¡± he told him after a long moment.

    Warren shook his head. ¡°Say what?¡±

    Noah slumped a little lower in the chair. ¡°That''s a lot of Icarus.¡±

    ¡°It is,¡± he agreed noncommittally. ¡°Do you have doubts?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t, actually,¡± he replied, more surprised than he expected. ¡°I don¡¯t think they¡¯ll ever fully join up, but they¡¯ll fight for the cause while they¡¯re here. And I get the sense that even if it would benefit them, they wouldn¡¯t betray us unless we betrayed them first.¡±

    Warren raised his eyebrows and peered around Noah toward the den. ¡°Should we take this conversation elsewhere?¡±

    Noah laughed and took a drink. ¡°No, they¡¯ve got a telepath still learning the ropes. And a Reader. They¡¯ll know one way or another.¡± He looked around the room, taking in the smaller details he had missed before his eyes had adjusted. There were tacks sealing the curtains against the windows. He shook his head bringing himself back to the present.

    Warren nodded, tapping out a cigarette. ¡°You¡¯re a howler, right?¡±

    ¡°Yeah. And you¡¯re¡ª¡±

    ¡°Telepath.¡±

    Noah sighed inwardly. ¡°That''s what I thought.¡±

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Company Housing.

    Mackenzie stretched on her hands and knees to grab the top paper of a stack just out of reach. Her knees complained, but it wasn''t anything she wasn¡¯t used to. She scanned the shorthand and swore. Nothing fit together enough to make sense of this feeling. It didn¡¯t help that, as much as she tried, it was impossible to hold the many pieces in her brain at once to see the full picture. How much sand do you have to fit into your hands before it becomes a beach?

    ¡°Hey.¡±

    She turned, jumping. Rafe was standing in the doorway, his long hands cupped around her favorite mug. She wanted to feel that moment, the care and thoughtfulness, all the love in the concern of his well-lined face, the sheer beauty of him, more handsome than when they¡¯d met¡ªbut she couldn¡¯t. Her study had been off limits for weeks.

    She clucked her tongue reflexively. ¡°I¡¯ve told you,¡± she started, working to keep her voice gentle.

    ¡°Louis called,¡± he spoke over her evenly. ¡°You missed a meeting with Legal.¡±

    Shit. ¡°What time is it?¡±

    ¡°Three. He covered for you but, Mack, you haven¡¯t left this room in seven hours.¡±

    She took her glasses off and massaged the bridge of her nose. That couldn¡¯t be right. ¡°Have you been playing hooky all day to stay home and time me?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s my day off.¡±

    She felt a deep pang at the realization that she¡¯d forgotten and at how gentle and patient his voice was. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said, meaning it. ¡°I got caught up and messed up the day for both of you.¡±

    He took a step in to join her or pass her the tea, but she put up a hand. ¡°You can¡¯t.¡± Mackenzie got to her feet and went to him.

    ¡°I can¡¯t make any sense of it,¡± he assured her and gave her the tea.

    She lifted her head and kissed him lightly. ¡°Neither can I.¡±

    ¡°Well, me much less than you.¡± The tea was too hot to drink, so she leaned into him. He put his arm around her and the warmth of it made her wish this was all they had to worry about doing. ¡°Louis¡¯ worried about you.¡±

    Mackenzie cocked an eyebrow up at him. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s Louis who¡¯s worried about me?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t get me wrong, I am too,¡± he chided, ¡°but Louis would trust you to go swimming in a volcano if you said you could, so if he says he¡¯s worried, you better believe I am more than ever.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just a little in the weeds.¡± She was and more.

    ¡°He says he doesn¡¯t know what you¡¯re researching.¡±

    ¡°Well, he¡¯s the second best Saturn agent in Sol. Do you think he¡¯d tell you if he did?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I do.¡±

    She clicked her tongue again. He just might, too. ¡°I can¡¯t tell you or Louis because I really don¡¯t know. There are small pieces I¡¯ve found that don¡¯t make sense, but it¡¯s nothing that, as an individual thing, signifies any kind of problem. But there¡¯s a sense of something bigger.¡±

    She felt his chest rise and fall. ¡°I want to understand. Can you put it another way?¡±

    Mackenzie squinted, thinking hard. ¡°It¡¯s like, there¡¯s a strong smell of lilacs so you start looking around and find a lilac bush. That, in itself, isn¡¯t so wrong. But then you realize that lilacs can¡¯t grow in this climate. So you look for and find more lilacs. That doesn¡¯t tell you anything, except that something is off. A lilac bush can¡¯t tell you why it¡¯s there, but you know it shouldn¡¯t be. I¡¯m thinking that if I find enough lilacs, I¡¯ll understand what¡¯s happening.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m guessing this isn¡¯t about flowers, though.¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°I wish it were. Next time try setting yourself to solving some invasive species of vine, please.¡± Rafe kissed the top of her head. She smiled. A crisis in his daily life was a knack misfire or or a student finding yet another way to sneak contraband into the Academy. At worst, it was shouldering the onus of loving and caring for a sudden group of misplaced gens recently retrieved. And she loved that that was the world he lived in. She thought harder on it and realized that she and her knack were likely what constituted a crisis in his life more than anything. Careful of the tea, she held him against a feeling of guilt. ¡°You should talk to Louis,¡± he said. ¡°At least have someone to roll all this around with.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not giving him half of a key to a door when I don¡¯t know what¡¯s behind it.¡±

    ¡°He can handle it. He¡¯s the second best Saturn agent in Sol,¡± he reminded her of her own words.

    ¡°And I¡¯m still the first.¡± He flashed her an unimpressed look, so she relented. ¡°When I know more, I¡¯ll bring in the people I need to bring in.¡± That gave her a seed of a thought, though. Not enough to articulate, but it was a sense of a growing idea. ¡°I¡¯m going to go into the office. I shouldn¡¯t have left Louis like that.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡± Rafe squeezed her one more time and let go. ¡°But eat and drink something.¡±

    ¡°I will,¡± she promised. ¡°If I don¡¯t, apparently my own Second will inform on me.¡±

    ¡°What can I say?¡± Rafe spread his hands and smiled wide. ¡°I¡¯m the king of spies.¡±

    Mackenzie laughed at that.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 20.

    Sanctuary. Flanders, Belgium.

    Noah came to them early the next evening. They had eaten a hasty meal, quietly crowded around the table and leaning against counters.

    ¡°This way,¡± he said, motioning them to follow. Michael, bandaged and silent, sat at the guard''s post by the door, holding a shotgun in tight fists. Hannah could sense his numb fear.

    They followed Noah to a deep closet, the door hanging open. It had its own dim red bulb lighting up a stockpile of weapons. There were firearms, large and small, and a variety of long knives, from chunky combat blades to what looked like full length swords, and an overwhelming majority of machetes. Some of them were soot-blackened, like they had been scavenged from burned down buildings. Hanging from a series of nails on one wall were dark tangles of holster straps.

    ¡°You''re coming out with us tonight. We''ve got to get you properly armed.¡±

    ¡°We don''t even know how to fight them yet!¡± Alex¡¯s voice was full of panic and a little shrill.

    Noah¡¯s was calm and easy. ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯re doing now.¡± He reached for a long single-sided blade. It was gritty with dark specks and he shook it, testing the weight. ¡°Guns are good as a last resort and for running into human trouble. For the beasts, a well-aimed shot can buy you a few seconds if you get into tight quarters. Slow them down, if you¡¯re lucky. Mostly, it just pisses them off. This,¡± he held up the knife, ¡°is going to be your main killer.¡± He gave the blade another shake, his mouth a flat line. ¡°But not this one. This one¡¯s shite.¡± He tossed it to the back of the pile and picked up a heavy looking curved blade and nodded at it, his brow low.

    ¡°The key is to sever the spine at the neck. That¡¯ll kill them temporarily.¡±

    ¡°We have to behead them?¡± Reeve coughed, but Hannah broke in over him.

    ¡°Temporarily?¡±

    Noah huffed through his nose. ¡°Yes, their ability to heal is, well, better than you can imagine.¡±

    Hannah felt her eyes darting, bouncing between objects and faces, restless. She tried to keep them still, keep them a little less wide, but settled for trying to ignore their stinging. Gareth was too far in shadow to see clearly. His familiar silhouette was unearthly still and she looked away. Noah was talking.

    ¡°If you can get their heads off, you¡¯ve got a moment,¡± he continued, gesticulating with his hands. ¡°The body can¡¯t move without the head and the head can¡¯t act without the heart. But they¡¯re going to seek each other.¡±

    ¡°What does that mean?¡± Reeve asked. His voice was steady and controlled. Too controlled. Beside him, Alex shifted uncomfortably, watching Alyosha out of the corner of his eye.

    ¡°It means if you hack a dog¡¯s head off and leave it in the street, you might think it¡¯s dead, and it will look dead, but only until the pieces pull back together and heal. So they¡¯ve got to be destroyed separately.¡± Noah pivoted, and took a sharp breath to say more before swallowing it. He handed the knife he¡¯d been holding to Alex, locking eyes with him. ¡°Grab two each, and whatever guns you feel like hauling.¡±

    They shifted to make room for him and Noah stepped back away from the closet. Hannah touched his arm and asked, ¡°Should I bother? I¡¯m normally more help when I¡¯m invisible.¡±

    Noah shook his head. ¡°No point in going glass for dogs. They can hear your heart and feel the heat of your body. No sneaking up on them. Grab some blades¡ªsomething nose-heavy.¡±

    When she turned back to the closet, Gareth was looking at her. She knew the look and she hated it. He was looking at her like she was small and fragile. She¡¯d deal with him later. For the moment, she focused on carefully sifting through the pile of long knives and picked up a couple of battered machetes like the ones she¡¯d seen Noah carry. Gareth was hovering and muttering to Alex about which knives he should be holding. Alex was white-knuckle gripping the knife Noah had given him, and his face was set and blank, mouth a grave line, not rolling his eyes or snarking over Gareth¡¯s quiet instruction like Hannah would expect him to. She looked at Reeve and saw he was watching them too. She waited for him to turn and catch her eye and thought, Now what? to him. He didn¡¯t respond, only turned and followed Noah out into the sitting area. When she entered with Alyosha, Hannah saw that Warren was there too, sitting hunched over on the edge of an armchair, eyes closed and face tense.

    Noah wasn¡¯t the only one rockin¡¯ a whole body full of ink. Even stuffy Warren, who looked like the type of old man who would have given her a dirty look at the hardware store, didn¡¯t have an inch of visible untattooed skin on his thick arms. She must have stopped short, seeing him, because Noah said softly, ¡°It¡¯s fine. He¡¯s scanning the minds in the area looking for dogs.¡±

    ¡°Why do you call them dogs?¡± Alyosha asked, pulling on a holster.

    Warren answered without opening his eyes. ¡°Revelation Twenty-two Fifteen, ¡®Outside are the dogs;¡¯ the wild unholy who devoured the dead.¡±

    Noah drew one of his machetes and tested its weight. ¡°Psalms Fifty-nine Six. ¡®They return each evening, suffer the hunger of dogs, and prowl the streets.¡¯¡±

    Hannah blinked at the hardwood floor and cracked her knuckles. Gareth and Alex walked into the room carrying their blades and Noah nodded at them.

    ¡°Good,¡± Noah said. ¡°They should all be sharpened already, but we¡¯ll make sure before we leave.¡± He bounced the knife in his hand. ¡°Now, I think they train you Sol types to precision and speed, and there¡¯s nothing wrong with that, but this work is all power. More like chopping wood. I¡¯ve seen some Children use axes, but I don¡¯t recommend it. I¡¯m guessing I don¡¯t need to show you how to throw a swing that needs a lot behind it.¡±

    Hannah, Alex, and Alyosha shook their heads. Reeve was distracted, tracing lines that had been whittled into the handle of one of his long knives.

    ¡°Don¡¯t get too attached to these,¡± Noah said, placing his flat on the coffee table and sitting down. ¡°You¡¯re going to lose them.¡±

    Hannah furrowed her brow, but before she could speak, Warren sat up straight. ¡°We have to go. Now.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Gareth snapped, shifting his weight.

    Warren stood and slung his harness around his shoulders. ¡°She¡¯ll probably be dead by the time we get there, but if we run we might catch it before it moves on.¡±

    For a long moment, Warren and Noah were the only ones moving an inch. Noah slung his machete back into the holster and grabbed a can of gasoline from an open closet, the movement was automatic and swift. ¡°We¡¯re going.¡±

    ---

    They pounded down the dark streets in a loose group and Alex pumped his legs to stay solidly in the middle of the pack. People in cars and on the sidewalks turned their heads to watch as they jogged past. They had all been given oversized coats from a pile by the door to cover their weapons, but nothing would cover the two bright red jerrycans Noah and Warren were carrying. Alex¡¯s two machetes banged against his sides as he ran, making him wonder how he could have ever thought his pistol was heavy. The muscles of his thighs shook with the exertion and his belly shook with fear. He had no idea where they were going or what exactly was the plan for when they got there. They blindly followed Warren as he led them off the main drag and through a maze of dark alleys. Every sweat-drenched inch of Alex¡¯s body was yelling at him to stop, turn around, to shout to the others to go back. He kept running.

    The sudden sensation of strange telepathy nearly made him trip. Here we go, Warren¡¯s voice rang through his mind. The blunt intrusion after Reeve¡¯s familiar presence made his face ache. Alex came to a sudden, staggering halt at the mouth of a lightless one-way street when Gareth stretched an arm out to stop him from moving any closer. From what he could see, it was mostly the back-end of buildings and barely wider than an alley. Most of them came to a shuffling stop beside him, but Noah and Warren only slowed long enough to drop their gas cans and draw their knives. Ahead of them, a middle-aged man stood up from a crouch. He was shirtless and his hands and chin were bloody. His expression at the two armed Children running at him was one of annoyance. Alex was too far away to see what the heap on the ground in front of the Phage was, but with a memory that shivered down his shinbones, he could guess.

    With one hand, the dog ripped the metal ladder off the fire escape and threw it at Noah and Warren, who ducked and scattered to either side of the empty street. It came skidding to a halt in front of Alex, but his legs were cemented to the cobblestones. The Phage gave his hands a quick shake, spattering black on the pile of white trash bags in the dim light. He grabbed and quickly threw on the t-shirt that he¡¯d hung on a doorknob.

    With a rough scraping sound, Hannah pulled out her machete. Shaking, Alex followed suit with the others.

    ¡°The neck,¡± Alyosha said without turning back. All at once, everyone was running, them forward and the bloody man in the too-clean t-shirt toward them. It was a tangle of confusion¡ªtoo many limbs and far too dark. Noah was batted into the wall like you¡¯d kick a rock off to the side of the road. Then it was close, marching stubbornly forward, heedless of the group of people in front of him. Gareth moved to the front but with one swift kick, the Phage threw him back, taking Reeve and Alyosha down with him. Alex¡¯s chest hiccupped, trying to breathe. The sound of gunfire shocked through his chest, concussive and deep, as Hannah emptied her mag into its chest and throat. They blew holes through the t-shirt, but faster than his eyes could register, the bullet wounds closed. Behind them, the sound set off a chain of shouts from people on the main street and Warren loudly cursed.

    The Phage barely missed a step. Alex held his long blade out in front of him, backing up, trying to angle to get between it and Hannah as she struggled to reload. Behind it, Alyosha stayed on the ground cradling the shoulder that was still healing a gunshot wound, but the others pulled themselves up from the ground and came at a run. Reeve got there first and with a rushed swing, sank his knife inches deep into the side of the thing¡¯s neck. Alex was close enough to see the dark red edges of the wound split for a flash before they zipped back up, sealing around the blade. It wheeled on Reeve, who stumbled, still gripping the knife, stuck fast. Regaining his balance and with wide eyes, Reeve gave the blade a violent yank, but neither the weapon nor the attached Phage budged. Alex heart pounded and he felt sick. Everything was moving too fast and he was trying to hold the Story back. The Phage reached a hand out and took Reeve''s shoulder in a vise grip just as Noah appeared, holding the wooden cross he wore up in front of him like a brand. The Phage winced, dropping Reeve, and backed away, taking the knife with him.

    ¡°If your blade sticks,¡± Noah shouted, ¡°drop it.¡±

    Walking slowly to the side of the street, it took a moment to yank the knife out its neck, taking a chunk of the surrounding flesh with it and leaving a gap like a shark bite, which filled in and healed as rapidly as it was made.

    Warren ran by them, heading back to the main street. ¡°I have to manage the crowd,¡± he called. ¡°Put it down.¡±

    The Phage was watching them, standing too still. It gave the machete one swift swing and embedded it inches deep into the brick wall.

    ¡°Surround it,¡± Noah said calmly. ¡°Give it nowhere to run.¡±

    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°It,¡± the Phage spat, ¡°is so sick of this shit.¡±

    Alex¡¯s blood went cold, hearing it talk just like a normal person. It moved toward Noah, and the rest fanned out as they were told. Alex could see Alyosha still on the ground, having dragged himself to lean against a concrete wall. Noah gave a backhanded swing as he moved backward in step. His knife thudded into its forearm as the dog blocked and with one fluid motion, Noah let go of the machete, dropped, and hooked his free arm around the foot the Phage had lifted midstep. It toppled hard, sounding much heavier than it should have. Alex took a step forward and brought his machete down in a two-handed swing at its neck, but it came down hard against the cobblestones inches from Gareth¡¯s blade. He had taken the same shot. The impact reverberated up his arms and set his teeth on edge.

    It dodged, rolling into Alex¡¯s legs and he went down. The pain in his shins was electric, and the weight as it bowled him over was more like being slammed by a steel beam than a body. Before he could get on his feet, he saw the Phage run past, throwing Hannah against the wall with one swipe before bolting down the street. Alex ducked as Hannah¡¯s gun was knocked from her hand and flew past his head.

    ¡°Fuel,¡± was all Noah said before he was up and after it like a shot. A hand grabbed Alex¡¯s shoulder and he flinched, wheeling.

    Easy. Reeve¡¯s voice in his head was soft, but his face wasn¡¯t. He hauled him up and they set off running with the others before Alex could even grab his dropped machete. They weren¡¯t that far behind Noah but the Phage was far ahead of them. It was moving fast. Not as fast as a knacked speedster, but faster than it should be. They weren¡¯t gaining on it. In the quiet late-night streets, all Alex could hear was the pounding of their feet and the sloshing of the gas in the can Gareth had grabbed.

    Noah shouted back to them over his shoulder. ¡°If you¡¯ve got firepower, slow him down!¡±

    Panting, Alex wrestled his pistol out of his jacket and tried to line up a shot, but it was too dark and they were all moving too fast. Noah and Gareth were bobbing in and out of his line of fire and he couldn''t take the shot. Beside him, he heard two rounds go off as Reeve fired, but it had no effect. Alex watched as the dog turned left down an alley and they sped to catch up.

    ¡°Aim low,¡± Noah yelled.

    ¡°Hannah!¡± Reeve called. He put on a burst of speed and handed up his weapon to her. She grabbed it without stopping and the moment she took to aim seemed like a lifetime, but then she took three evenly spaced shots that made the dog¡¯s foot turn and stumble. It kept running, but slower now, and they got closer. On its heels, Alex saw the Phage break into the light as they left the alley and spilled out into the street. The lamps flashed, blinding him, and he squinted hard to follow the others.

    It crossed into the intersection. As they sprinted down the sidewalk, movement beside him made Alex skid and slow. Reeve had nearly come to a stop and had his eyes closed like he was concentrating. Before he could call out, the building roar of an engine brought Alex¡¯s attention to a car barreling down the street. It crossed the center line and swerved, accelerating to hit the Phage straight on. The collision brought the vehicle to a violent halt. The Phage was thrown up on the crumpled hood and collapsed the windshield. Next to him, Reeve was running again and dragging Alex with him. The car door opened and a woman clamored out, screaming as the thing on her roof rolled onto the pavement, limping on legs that crooked at odd angles.

    They followed it into an alley and found the Phage had stopped to face them. Noah reached him first, but was launched backward with a punch that landed with a crack. Alex didn''t stop running until he was practically on top of it, worried that if he stopped moving forward he wouldn''t be able to start again. With his momentum, he slashed at its throat, but too slowly, and the blade caught and slipped straight out of his hand as he followed through. Both machetes gone. Gareth came up on the other side and swung to hack into the back of its neck with a yell. It turned and caught his arm with one hand and struck the underside of Gareth¡¯s elbow with his other palm. The snap was wet and Alex could see a shard of bone where his arm was bent in the complete wrong direction, sticking up like an old, weathered post. Alex scrambled backward, swallowing. Gareth yanked his arm away and retreated, holding it steady, his teeth bared in a grimace. It struck Alex that while his lungs and sides burned and he was panting hard from running, the Phage¡¯s chest didn¡¯t move at all. It¡¯s not that he had disbelieved Noah, but seeing it was a different thing entirely.

    He¡¯d lost sight of Hannah and Reeve, unwilling to turn enough to let the Phage out of his eyeline. Noah was slowly standing up, his eye bloody with a knot high on one cheekbone. The Phage headed toward Noah with long strides and Alex fired on it with whatever was left in his gun. Its only reaction was to ask Noah, ¡°How¡¯s the lesson going, monk?¡±

    Reeve slit the back of the Phage¡¯s knees with his knife¡ªfast, fast enough to keep from getting stuck. The dog crumpled with a deep throated yell. Reeve drew his blade back, holding it like a baseball bat but the thing stood up, slow and inexorable. It picked Reeve up with both hands and lifted him. The movement was almost too fast at first to see what had happened and then a dizzying, pulsing pressure threatened to collapse Alex¡¯s skull as Reeve¡¯s connection with his mind overran its banks like a flash flood. The strangled wail that filled Alex¡¯s ears didn¡¯t sound like Reeve, but as he looked around, dazed, he could see no one else was yelling. There was blood running down Reeve¡¯s shirt and he was blindly clawing at the spot where the dog¡¯s mouth was latched onto his side. Alex opened his mouth but made no sound as he clicked fruitlessly through his empty magazine.

    Noah, on his feet, shouted, ¡°Ears!¡± and drew a deep, whooping breath. Alex nearly understood too late and dropped the empty gun to crouch and clamp his hands tight over his ears.

    The high-frequency sound that came out of Noah¡¯s wide-stretched mouth wasn¡¯t human, to put it simply. To be more exact, it sounded like something that would leave the throat of some fifty-foot, dark-spined sea-creature that lived too deep in the ocean to ever see daylight. The hypersonic note ricocheted through the bones of Alex¡¯s hands and froze his lungs in place, holding him pinned long enough to feel his body begin to throb for breath. When it stopped, Alex realized he¡¯d closed his eyes and, opening them, he saw the Phage had bent doubled-over, clutching its head. Reeve was a limp form on the ground, unmoving.

    Alex¡¯s mind rang and sung like running a finger along the rim of a wineglass and he stumbled onto his feet. Gareth was already up, with the long, thin knife Reeve had dropped in his hand. In one sharp movement, he drove the blade inches deep into the top of the dog¡¯s skull and then clamped both arms down on the handle hard, muscles straining. Noah ran forward as it bucked, lifting Gareth¡¯s whole body with it. Still Gareth managed to keep the stunned Phage mostly bent. One two-handed lop and Noah had ended it. The body dropped and Gareth was slammed down onto the stones by his own force.

    ¡°Reeve!¡± Hannah called, limping toward them with a bloody lip.

    ¡°Grab the body.¡± Noah¡¯s voice was blunt and muffled beneath the ringing. He was struggling to shake himself out of his long coat.

    Alex walked forward. ¡°Reeve?¡±

    ¡°Grab the goddamned body!¡±

    Alex met Hannah¡¯s eyes and swallowed, slowly approaching the two bodies slumped over onto the ground. There was something seeping from the ragged end of the dog¡¯s neck, a thick sludge, darker than blood without being black. Concentrated. He knelt down. Reeve was breathing, but unconscious. There was a small rivulet of blood running from one of his ears. Gareth fell back on his haunches, deflated and clutching his barely healed elbow. Noah wrapped the head up in his jacket, knife and all, and held it like a sack. Hannah tentatively took a fistful of the dead thing¡¯s shirt.

    ¡°Reeve,¡± Alex said again. He leaned over the Phage to shake him, when the headless body moved.

    ¡°Christ in heaven!¡± Noah growled, backing away, holding the bundle above his head. The dog¡¯s body slid across the floor on its belly, arms unmoving by its sides. As if some invisible rope was tied to its collar and was hauling it off. ¡°Hold it!¡±

    Alex leaned on the Phage¡¯s back with his knee, pinning it, and Hannah latched onto its shoulders. He could feel it tugging, though the muscles in its back were limp. Alex could sense the Story emanating from it like steam and he gritted his teeth against it.

    ¡°This isn¡¯t done yet,¡± Noah barked. ¡°Here¡¯s what¡¯s going to happen: Alex, you¡¯re with me. Hannah, take care of Reeve. Just stop the bleeding, I¡¯m sure he¡¯s fine. Probably has a perf¡¯ed eardrum, though. Gareth, you just sit on that damn thing until Warren gets here to burn it. Don¡¯t let it follow us.¡±

    ¡°No.¡± Alex wasn¡¯t sure if he¡¯d actually voiced his thought out loud, but it was Gareth.

    ¡°Now.¡± Noah¡¯s voice rasped at the edges, straying into hypersonic.

    Shaking, Alex stood up as Gareth waited to take his spot. Gareth looked like he was about to run, but he didn''t. Noah retrieved the gas can from the side of the alley and nodded to him to follow.

    Alex cleared his throat. ¡°What''s going to happen to Reeve?¡± he asked, barely above a whisper.

    ¡°He''ll be fine,¡± Noah said quietly as they walked to the end of the alley and turned to walk down the street. He had the dark bundle held tight under one arm. ¡°Killing this thing for good will help him.¡±

    ¡°How?¡± Alex¡¯s feet and hands felt numb. His pistol was empty and the machetes were gone. He was unarmed and he felt it.

    ¡°It¡¯s not easy to become like them. A dog has to really want to change you; it doesn¡¯t happen by accident. Reeve¡¯d have to be bitten by the same dog on three separate nights. By killing this thing, we remove that possibility altogether. So when...if you get bit, your mission has to be to kill that one.¡±

    ¡°Three nights in a row? Can¡¯t you just hide out a night and break the cycle?¡±

    ¡°No. Doesn¡¯t matter how far apart the nights are. The only thing that can interrupt the cycle is being bitten by a different one. That resets the counter.¡± He grunted and adjusted the wrapped up coat. ¡°Here,¡± he said, stopping and turning to Alex, ¡°you ought to feel this.¡± He carefully gathered the corners of the coat closed, working around the hilt of the knife still in it, and held it out to him. It hung at an odd angle, tilted slightly off to the right, counter to gravity in a way that turned Alex¡¯s stomach. Alex rubbed the palms of his hands on his jeans.

    ¡°Tight grip,¡± Noah said. ¡°It¡¯s not something you want to drop.¡±

    Alex nodded silently and wrapped his fingers around the knot of cloth at the top of the bundle. The story rushed in and he tried to maintain his focus here-and-now. When Noah released his grip, the head in the bag yanked Alex¡¯s arm to the right. He fought to keep it still, flexing his arm, eyes wide. The pull was constant and steady, but it grounded his knack.

    ¡°There, see?¡± Noah¡¯s voice was tense. Alex shifted his body. The bag didn¡¯t swing like it should with his movement and the pull was always in the same direction, straight back where they had come from.

    Alex nodded again. ¡°It¡¯s like a magnet.¡±

    ¡°Yeah. Devilish thing. Let¡¯s go.¡±

    They walked a couple more blocks down the dark, empty street before ducking into a dead-end alleyway. Alex¡¯s arm was tired and strained from pulling the bag along, like dragging a concrete block behind him.

    Noah took the bag from him and squatted on the ground, motioning to Alex. ¡°Now, there¡¯s a lot of ways to do this wrong. Grab the petrol.¡±

    Noah pulled a long hunting knife strapped to his calf and began to carefully unwrap the contents. ¡°The head needs to be pinned down while it burns or else it can slide away, so you¡¯re gonna want either dirt or cobblestones like this¡ªsomething a knife can dig into. Everyone has their own preferred weak spot for entry into the skull.¡± Using the tip of the blade, Noah illustrated different angles of approach. ¡°Eyes, temple, ears, nose. Use whatever works for you, but do not use the mouth. Never touch the teeth. I¡¯m gonna show you and next time you¡¯re gonna do it.¡±

    He peeled back the last flap of fabric and set his left hand firmly on top of its hair. The head was lying on its side, expression slack and there was very little blood or whatever it was that came out of the neck. Noah rotated the knife in his hand and quickly stabbed it hard through the temple and sank it deep to the hilt.

    ¡°Now this is the scariest part of the disposal. You¡¯ve got to get a good grip on something without really holding it to test the anchor. It helps when they¡¯ve got long hair, but when they don¡¯t, like this one, you have to get creative.¡±

    Noah grabbed the shell of the dog¡¯s ear in a pincer-like grip. ¡°This is probably as good as you¡¯re gonna get normally, but thanks to your friend, we¡¯ve got this skewer planted in it to grab onto.¡± He let go of the ear and got a firm grip on Gareth¡¯s knife before slowly lifting the hand that was pinning the head down. It immediately shifted, trying to rotate on the blade through its temple, the stump of the neck homing to the body, but it was stuck fast. ¡°There, good. If the blade¡¯s not set and the thing shoots off, you want to be already grabbing something to keep it from sliding.¡± He stood up and Alex followed. The head looked uncanny sitting on the cobblestones. Out of place. Fake, almost.

    ¡°Now the gas?¡± Alex asked, trying to keep his breathing steady.

    ¡°Just a splash or two, you don¡¯t need to soak it. It¡¯s gonna burn.¡±

    Alex unscrewed the cap and sloshed some of the gasoline onto the head. It splashed across the blank, open eyes and fell into the slack mouth. Alex set the can down and coughed bile, trying to keep himself upright. It just looked like a man. Brown eyes and a pale scar on his chin that he must have gotten as a kid. Noah clapped him on the back and he gulped.

    ¡°Always matches,¡± Noah said, handing him a folded and creased book. ¡°No lighters. You could lose your hand.¡± Alex took the matches and Noah, with a hand on his shoulder, guided Alex back a few paces. ¡°Go ahead.¡±

    It took him a few strikes to get the match to take and when it finally flared up, he tossed it on the head but nothing caught.

    ¡°Go again,¡± Noah shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s not the best ignition source, but you don¡¯t want to get much closer than this.¡±

    Alex dropped another match, a little more carefully this time, and the gasoline vapor lit up blue with a whoosh. Then the head caught with a flash that made Alex turn away and shield his eyes. When he could look back again, the head looked like nothing but a large ember and had lost all definition of features. It was black and mottled with glowing orange and white, flickering and flashing in bright flecks. The smell hit Alex and his entire body felt cold. It was a sulphurous shit stench, a distinct scent that made Alex think of breezes at night that would make the others groan and say that they must be near a waste treatment station. Within a minute, the head had turned grey and white with ash and collapsed under its own weight, flattening into a shallow mound of flaky soot.

    Noah walked forward and kicked it, sliding his shoe back and forth, raising a cloud. Alex buried his nose and mouth in the crook of his elbow. ¡°Scatter the ashes,¡± Noah said, unfazed. ¡°Don¡¯t leave them in a pile.¡± With the toe of his boot, Noah flicked the two knives away from the dark smudge on the cobblestones. They were charred and blackened. He wrapped his hand in the fabric of his coat and picked them up. ¡°That¡¯s it,¡± Noah muttered, encasing the weapons in the cloth. ¡°They do that to the other half and it¡¯s done.¡± Noah turned to look at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for him to say something or ask a question. Alex couldn¡¯t move. Noah sighed. ¡°Okay, let¡¯s go check on your friends.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 21

    Sol¡¯s LAHQ. Uranus Department.

    Marek always beat everyone into the office. Not needing to trek through the halls played a huge role in that, but he also liked having that silent, alone time to get the office prepped for everyone else. Little things that someone in his position probably shouldn¡¯t be doing, like ensuring the coffee was on, the creamer hadn¡¯t gone bad, the bins of tea bags were properly filled in the break room, and the whiteboard schedule of where the top five would be needed that day was up to date. If there was time, and he generally made sure there was, he¡¯d send out a good morning memo and his first ¡°Baguette Update¡± of the day. Those were always great. Funny little pictures of his hamster with some caption or another. Today¡¯s was especially good, he felt: Baguette in a hot pink doll convertible, accompanied by the caption: ¡°Rev your engines for another great Wednesday!¡± Other departments didn¡¯t care enough about morale, in his opinion.

    But that morning, Becca had beaten him there. She worked an absurd number of hours like the rest of them but she tended to stay later into the night, so Marek paused, bag over his shoulder, when he saw her light on. He leaned in without knocking.

    Becca was fine. He wanted badly to like her more than he did. Or rather, he liked her fine when she was interacting with others, but she truly did not like him, and that active ire set the tone for the entire relationship. She had big, light brown, curly hair and light hazel eyes that could match a glare from even the toughest of Neptune agents.

    ¡°Hey,¡± he called. ¡°Early morning for you.¡±

    She barely looked up. ¡°I needed to run some numbers before you send Jupiter the final budget proposal.¡±

    They¡¯d had a painful number of meetings going over everything top to bottom. He knew she hadn¡¯t forgotten that, because no one could forget the sheer bullheadedness with which Emmett argued his points. ¡°Anything you want to run by me?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    With that tone, Marek half expected her to shut her office door with her telekinesis. ¡°Oh-kay. I¡¯m sending it at nine, so just let me know if you¡¯re not set by then.¡± When she didn¡¯t reply, he made his way to his office. Whatever she was doing, Marek assumed he wasn¡¯t going to like it. It wouldn¡¯t be the first time she¡¯d taken his suggestions or even directives and ignored them, at best. Torpedoed them, at worst. He dumped his stuff in his office and hit the breakroom. Grabbing a coffee mug, he dumped in two sugar packets and teleported to Emmett¡¯s quarters, just inside the door.

    ¡°Emmett, good morning,¡± he called out. The entryway was still dark, so he guessed he hadn¡¯t gotten up yet. ¡°I brought you coffee.¡± He added quieter, ¡°Sort of.¡±

    ¡°Marek?¡± Emmett¡¯s voice said his name, but his tone said, ¡®What the fuck?¡¯

    ¡°The one and only. Probably.¡±

    ¡°Just a sec.¡±

    Marek flipped on the light and walked, heel to toe, through his kitchen. He debated if he had time to brew a batch of coffee right then, but Emmett¡¯s coffee maker was so fancy-looking he didn¡¯t trust himself not to press all the wrong buttons and accidentally fax China or something.

    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± Emmett came out into the kitchen in jeans and a soft looking sweater. He looked harried and there was still a slight pattern of pillow creases on one side of his face.

    ¡°I brought you a beverage,¡± he smiled.

    Emmett just stared at him. ¡°Why?¡±

    Marek looked to one side. ¡°It¡¯s Tuesday?¡±

    Emmett shook his head and grabbed the mug from his hands. He froze, mug halfway to his body, staring at the mug of sugar.

    ¡°Just add coffee,¡± he offered.

    ¡°What the fuck is wrong with you. This is weird, even for you.¡±

    He opened his mouth, not sure if he wanted to defend himself or launch into the Becca thing, but just then, Penn emerged from the hallway leading to Emmett¡¯s bedroom, working to properly knot his tie. Marek clicked his mouth shut and turned to Emmett, who was looking more annoyed than anything. Huh.

    ¡°Good morning, Marek.¡± Penn¡¯s matter of fact voice was reassuring. He hadn¡¯t intended to increase the awkwardness of his morning a thousand fold like this.

    ¡°Good morning,¡± he replied, casually standing back to observe as subtly as one can, when one has teleported into someone¡¯s apartment uninvited.

    Emmett tilted the cup in Penn¡¯s direction. ¡°He wanted to bring me a drink.¡±

    He narrowed his eyes at the mug as he finished straightening his tie. ¡°Okay.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s Beverage Tuesday,¡± Marek explained with conviction. ¡°New initiative.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not Tuesday.¡±

    Marek pointed at him. ¡°That explains why the coffee is late.¡± He smiled into the awkward abyss.

    Penn exchanged a look and likely a telepathic message with Emmett, then nodded at Marek. ¡°Always fun running into you, Marek.¡±

    ¡°You too, Pennsylvania.¡±

    He left and Marek turned his thin smile to Emmett.

    Market kept his comment to simply, ¡°That¡¯s new.¡±

    Emmett let out a breath. ¡°Yes, it is, but it¡¯s early and you didn¡¯t even bring me coffee.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, sorry about that.¡± Market scratched at the side of his head. ¡°I wanted to catch you before you went in though.¡±

    Emmett began whatever alchemical process was required to run his coffee maker. ¡°What for?¡±

    ¡°Well,¡± he began, then began to wonder if this was a terrible plan. He¡¯d come too far. ¡°Becca beat me in today and she¡¯s working some numbers on the budget.¡±

    He saw Emmett¡¯s nostrils flare. ¡°The budget is set. Or it¡¯s not set-set but it¡¯s ready to go to war with Jupiter set.¡±

    Marek broke out his most calming voice. ¡°I was also under that impression.¡±

    ¡°So what the fuck is she doing?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but I wanted to prepare you so you didn¡¯t spontaneously combust or murder her when I have to email out proposal changes for approval.¡±

    Emmett grabbed his work bag and pulled out his laptop. ¡°Well, let¡¯s find out what Miss Rebecca is up to.¡±

    They both skimmed the proposal document, though Marek had looked at the numbers so many times he was beginning to struggle to hold them in his head.

    ¡°There,¡± Emmett pointed, his voice was thoughtful instead of the torrent of rage he¡¯d been expecting. ¡°She shifted funds from your new Moon thing to infrastructure repairs.¡±

    Marek squinted at the page. He¡¯d floated a program to help Moons feel more connected to Uranus, team building stuff, care packages, organized meetups of teams in the same area as each other, more communication. That would technically fall under Becca to implement and, while she hadn¡¯t jumped up in excitement, she hadn¡¯t fought him on it either. Apparently she had decided it was easier to go around him. Again.

    She and Marek had never seen eye to eye on Uranus¡¯ relationship with the Moons. Marek had been on a Moon and understood the isolation and disconnect that could come with it. Becca not so much. She favored a hands off approach to let Moons do their own thing with as little interaction with Sol as possible.

    He glanced at Emmett. ¡°That¡¯s clever of her,¡± he mused. ¡°I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re not about to fight her over you getting more money.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to do that, yes.¡± Emmett stood up and stretched his neck. ¡°What do you think you¡¯ll do? Are you going to fight her?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he sighed. ¡°The thing¡¯s due in under three hours and it¡¯s seemingly important to her. We¡¯ll get it in the next round and I¡¯ll talk to her then.¡±

    Emmett raised an eyebrow. ¡°You could always talk to her before then. Isn¡¯t this communications?¡±

    ¡°Please, my job is hard enough as it is. I¡¯m letting sleeping dogs lie. She knows what she¡¯s doing.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡± Emmett looked at him. ¡°Can you maybe get out?¡± He said it kindly.

    ¡°Yeah.¡± He couldn¡¯t hold in a smile. ¡°So, was he good?¡±

    ¡°Get out.¡± Emmett poured his coffee, which smelled better than anything Marek had ever brewed. ¡°And yes.¡±

    ---

    Sanctuary. Flanders, Belgium.

    Warren sat with his back to the window, smoking quietly. Reeve had been unconscious for almost a full day. They¡¯d thrown half a dozen stitches into his side where the bite was deepest and packed his right ear with gauze. Warren had offered to sit up with him through the daylight hours to keep an eye on him while the others slept. It honestly wasn¡¯t that bad of a mauling compared to what he¡¯d seen. Most of them had clearly never seen someone get bitten before, and assumed that was why he was still out. Only the tall one had ever had a piece taken out of him, but he wasn¡¯t offering anything up to the others about it. Anyway, they weren¡¯t wrong in thinking that that particular brand of pain could do a thing to a man beyond what it did to the flesh, but being hit full force by a Howler was not something to be underestimated. They wouldn¡¯t know if he had hearing damage until he woke up.

    The blinds in the small upstairs bedroom were pulled shut against the sun, but that only did so much. Reeve was propped up in the bed, and Alex¡ªthe one with the sissy lilt to his voice¡ªwas asleep next to him, on top of the covers, a pillow shoved over his face to keep the light out. They had wanted to stay up with him too, but the Church knew from experience that it''s always better to sleep off that kind of shock. Whether people liked it or not. They¡¯d all been given something for the pain, a bit stronger than was admitted.

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    Warren felt Reeve come to before he opened his eyes. Even from an exterior position, Warren could sense the analytical, tense field that was Reeve¡¯s mind pouring out like smoke, seeking all the corners of the room, then pushing past. It hit Warren¡¯s mind like a gust of wind and he sealed his head off against entry.

    Reeve, everyone is safe, he projected, hoping to calm him and prevent a more aggressive ingress into his head. The Sol telepath was uncomfortable; the flow of his mind was so regimented it almost felt as if it had corners.

    What happened? His eyes opened in a tight squint.

    You were bitten. And you got hit with Noah¡¯s scream. ¡°Can you hear me?¡±

    Reeve closed his eyes. Yes. You¡¯re muffled though.

    How¡¯s the pain?

    Don¡¯t ask.

    He watched Reeve shift, peeking under the pillow to scan what he could see of Alex. Is anyone hurt? he asked.

    You. The rest are fine. They¡¯ll be waking soon. Warren snuffed out his cigarette. He has a sinful attachment to you.

    What?

    This one. He shaped an image in his mind of Alex from last night as he was falling asleep, one hand resting on Reeve¡¯s arm.

    Flinching, he felt Reeve¡¯s mind increase its pressure in the room. He responded in kind, maintaining a firm boundary and pressing out. Reeve was exhausted, weaker than he knew, and his walls began to crumble. Reeve¡¯s anger swelled like a heat searing across his skin, but he wasn''t about to drop his pressure.

    He¡¯s family. Reeve¡¯s response was densely packed and intended to sting.

    Warren narrowed his eyes, hovering at the edge of Reeve¡¯s mind. He would never break through, but he didn¡¯t mind knowing he could. It¡¯s ungodly.

    ¡°Reeve?¡±

    They both looked over with a start. Alex was sitting up, hair a rat¡¯s nest, eyes puffy in his pillow-wrinkled face.

    Reeve breathed out. ¡°Hey.¡±

    ¡°Jesus,¡± he groaned, setting Warren even more on edge, ¡°you woke me up with your telepathy. Ease it up, huh? I guess you¡¯re okay?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m okay,¡± he said, carefully putting an arm up to guard his bandaged side. Warren could feel the protective mental shell Reeve kept around the lot of them closing again. ¡°Maybe just no sudden movements though.¡±

    ¡°You fucking scared me!¡±

    Warren grit his jaw, standing abruptly. ¡°I¡¯m going to get some sleep.¡±

    As he reached the door he felt Reeve send out, Thank you, but he let it slide off of him without responding.

    ---

    As it turned out, The Children of God were categorically opposed to taking a night off. Hannah was bruised and battered; they all were, except for Gareth. Even Noah had a knot on one cheekbone that left the white of that eye tinged bloody. The Children did not take a night off to recover. Even the old man who¡¯d shown up while they slept, arms covered in tattoos of pentacles, roses, and suns, looking tired and haggard from travel, was up and raring to go. No rest for the wicked. Or the holy. Whatever.

    They had tried to leave one of their own at home to stay with Reeve, but Noah had made it very clear that any action that held members of their ¡°team¡± above other Children would be taken very unkindly. So that was that. Michael, still bandaged but no longer shaken, was up on the rotation to stay home with Reeve and the sleeping Warren, while Noah and the old man (who¡¯d ignored her question about what his name was and had a habit of spitting on the floor) brought the others out. Reeve looked wrecked lying in bed. There were bluish circles under his eyes that had nothing to do with sleep and he turned his head a little when they spoke, to hear them better. But when she and Noah checked his wound, it was a healthy red. She slathered it with an antiseptic anyway. Reeve was at least strong enough to fake being in good spirits--or as good of spirits as he¡¯d had since they¡¯d left Beatty.

    It was a clearer night, and stars and moonlight made it easier to see out on the streets. She had grabbed heavier firepower this time and probably too much ammo, going by the look the old man gave her. They still looked out of place as an ominous group in long coats, but it seemed like the immediate locals had grown used to their strange presence¡ªor at least no one called the cops. She walked close to Alex and Gareth, taking the shivers of their fear as a comfort for once¡ªreassurance that she hadn¡¯t lost her mind.

    ¡°You won¡¯t always have a telepath to help with your hunt,¡± Noah said, leading them down a street running parallel to the main road. ¡°You¡¯ll need to learn to find dogs on your own. One way is to stick to areas with bars or nightclubs, places where predators could guide some sloshed stranger away without raising too many alarms.¡±

    ¡°Is that their preferred method of...choosing?¡± Alyosha asked.

    ¡°I don¡¯t really have a damn clue about preference, but it¡¯s the easiest to spot when you¡¯re starting out. It¡¯s certainly not the only way to isolate a victim. They¡¯ll stalk tourists, people leaving work, break into homes, they¡¯ll even try to pick you up sober if they¡¯re young enough to remember how to flirt¡ª¡±

    ¡°Homeless camps,¡± Gareth said flatly, making Hannah startle.

    Noah held his tongue for a moment, but didn¡¯t stop walking. ¡°Yes,¡± he agreed, ¡°anywhere people are vulnerable. Proverbs thirty-fourteen, ¡®There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among humanity.¡¯¡±

    Somewhere ahead of them a car horn honked jarringly into the night. ¡°How?¡± Hannah started as he led them down the street, taking detours down each alley to check the back entrances to restaurants and bars. ¡°How can you tell that it¡¯s something that needs shooting and not just a couple of drunks?¡±

    ¡°First of all, shooting will get you nowhere. But there are subtle clues you¡¯ll learn to pick up on as you go along. Until then, mostly you have to get up close, bump into them and test how solid they are. Pick a fight even. But with a group in coats like this, they¡¯ll probably know what we are and react one way or another when they see us.¡±

    ¡°That all sounds like a terrible idea,¡± Alyosha muttered. Beside him, the old man spat on the concrete.

    ¡°S¡¯keep moving,¡± Noah called.

    The air was cold and smelled like dumpsters and piss. It did not make her feel particularly religious. They paused to watch a man hovering in one dark corridor, and Alex stopped beside her. In the streetlight, his eyes were red-rimmed like hers. She scrubbed the palms of her hands against the inner fabric of her coat sleeves to dry them. The man doubled over vomiting and they moved on.

    ¡°So did you break Reeve¡¯s hearing for good?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°Anything¡¯s possible, but I doubt it,¡± Noah answered without looking back. ¡°A ruptured eardrum will heal in a few weeks without permanent damage. Trust me, I¡¯ve seen a fair bit of that.¡±

    ¡°Alright, not to be an ass,¡± Gareth started, waving a hand palm-up in the old man¡¯s direction. ¡°But is anyone going to tell us who this guy is and why he doesn¡¯t talk?¡±

    Hannah raised her eyebrows. The old man didn¡¯t seem to react. ¡°Is he deaf?¡± she asked quietly. (Then she felt silly for asking that in a whisper.)

    ¡°No,¡± Noah sighed, rushing them across an intersection and back into the maze of alleyways. ¡°He¡¯s taken some vow of silence. I¡¯ve seen him lighting candles to Harpocrates, Hellenistic God of silence. He carries a picture of Him. I looked Him up once, to see what I could find out¡ªI guess He¡¯s a young Horus, and also represents the sun, which always comes back to overcome the dark. Makes sense, with the work we do. But the guy won¡¯t even write, so I¡¯ve never met anyone who knows his name. Everyone calls him Spits and from what I can tell, he doesn¡¯t seem to give a damn.¡±

    ¡°Spits,¡± Alex repeated dryly.

    ¡°He spits,¡± Noah offered by way of explanation.

    The rasp of a machete hissing past cloth startled them and curled Hannah¡¯s stomach into a tight knot. The old man had his weapon out and had taken off at a steady run down the next alley. They hurried to follow. Hannah fought to maintain her disciplined deep breathing, but still found herself panting through her dry mouth while she readied her gun. In the middle of the alley, she could finally see them. A woman was bent over some prone form; her head was craned upward and frozen like an animal caught drinking at a pool of water.

    Hannah weaved through the group, but as she found a clear shot, the dog and her bloody chin bolted. A loud metallic creaking jolted Hannah to the bone and she brought herself to a stumbling stop as a dumpster flew clear over their heads from behind, spattering her with grit and droplets of foul liquid. It came down on top of the dog with a sound Hannah never wanted to hear again, pinning the flattened thing to the pavement. She froze in shock before noticing that the old man was ahead of them, his free arm outstretched, controlling the dumpster.

    ¡°Holy shit,¡± she coughed, holstering her gun. ¡°Spits, I love you!¡±

    The steel of the dumpster groaned, lifting up one corner as the dog heaved herself up. Something in Hannah¡¯s chest curdled and the old man leaned forward and the container shuttered, pressing down. Noah, Alex, and Alyosha had reached the dumpster, knives out. Nothing she could do there that they couldn¡¯t. Shaking herself and wiping some muck off the bridge of her nose, she ran to the body on the ground.

    He was thin, in his early twenties, and he was going to bleed out unless she stopped it. There was so much blood on his chest that Hannah couldn¡¯t immediately tell where it was coming from until she tore his shirt. The energy coming off of him made the hairs on her arms stand on end. Gareth dropped down on his knees next to her, pulling off his jacket and balling it up. She took it from him and pressed it hard against the wound by his collar bone with as much weight as she could manage. The man didn¡¯t cry out in pain and her heart sank. He was pale and there were clicks in his breathing as he moved his lips mechanically like a fish, but his eyes were clear and open. He was seeing her and she didn¡¯t want to look. At the dumpster, she watched Alex bring his machete down on the thing¡¯s neck as it was clawing its way out from under the dumpster. Noah picked up the head as Alex staggered backward.

    ¡°Hannah?¡± Gareth asked in a hushed tone.

    She looked back down at the man on the pavement. His lips were blue and the pauses between his breaths were growing longer. She shook her head and handed off the compress to Gareth. She laid down next to him, close to his face.

    ¡°Hey,¡± she said quietly, then louder when his eyes started to roll. ¡°Hey, help is coming. Try to...you need to save your strength. If you think you can sleep for a little bit, you should sleep. I¡¯ll be right here. I¡¯m not leaving you alone. It¡¯s okay, you can sleep.¡± He blinked at her and she held his limp hand. She felt the icy edge of his fear ebb. He closed his eyes and stopped breathing shortly after.

    Hannah sat up and collapsed backwards with her legs pulled halfway up her chest, wet hands hanging slack over her knees.

    ¡°That was good,¡± Gareth said softly, as he used the ruined coat to clean the man¡¯s torso.

    ¡°No, it wasn¡¯t,¡± she snapped. ¡°Not anywhere close.¡±

    ¡°You know what I mean,¡± he replied calmly. ¡°You saw him relax.¡±

    She nodded.

    Noah¡¯s voice above them, hoarse in a low whisper, made them raise their heads. ¡°My lord, Christ, please have mercy.¡± His face was frozen in fear. Hannah followed his eyeline and saw a second wound low on the man¡¯s chest, streaked with blood, uncovered as Gareth tried to clean him up. Noah dropped down next to him and began to tear the rest of his shirt off.

    ¡°He¡¯s gone,¡± Gareth protested, leaning back as Noah snatched the wadded up coat and finished toweling the young man off. The second reddened oval of a bite on his chest was raised and puckered. Hannah looked up to see Noah staring at her, waiting expectantly.

    ¡°This was healing,¡± she stammered, confused.

    ¡°Check his arms,¡± Noah told them. ¡°Flip him over.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Gareth put his hands up. ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Have mercy on his soul.¡± Noah spoke in a low monotone while he methodically ran his hands down the length of both the dead man¡¯s arms. ¡°Lead him safely to your holy dwelling. ¡®For many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, these to everlasting life, but others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.¡¯ Book of Daniel, chapter Twelve verse¡ª¡± He stopped, pausing to double back and run his thumb over a section of the man¡¯s shoulder. Without warning, he grabbed Hannah¡¯s hand by the wrist and yanked it forward. He set her hand where his had been.

    ¡°Here,¡± he said softly. ¡°Feel that?¡±

    There was a raised scar, crescent shaped. She rummaged through her pockets, pulling out a lighter to cast a little more light and fumbled the sparkwheel with slick thumbs until it caught. The skin was a fresh new pink, several weeks healed.

    ¡°Three bites?¡± Gareth asked, standing up and taking a step back.

    Noah nodded. He took out a rag from one pocket to wipe his hands. ¡°Fuck.¡±

    Behind them the sudden flash and glare of Alyosha setting fire to the body trapped under the dumpster made them all squint and flinch away.

    ¡°Is it possible,¡± Hannah asked when her eyes had adjusted, ¡°they aren¡¯t from the same one?¡±

    ¡°Of course, but not likely.¡± Noah answered, handing her the partly soiled rag. ¡°We can¡¯t risk that.¡±

    Gareth bounced his long knife in one hand. ¡°I¡¯ll do it.¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Noah shouted. ¡°Sorry, that won¡¯t work. We¡¯ll have to hold a Vigil.¡±

    ¡°What does that mean?¡±

    Noah spread out the stained coat to cover the man¡¯s body. ¡°We watch the body. A dog¡¯s feral cycle is three days: for two, they''re able to act something akin to human, and on the third, they become a frenzied beast. You must be bitten on three different nights, and then you must be dead for three nights before you wake. It¡¯s a mockery of Christ. If he will rise, any damage done to the body will only be healed three nights from now.¡±

    ¡°Even if we burn him?¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t kill the demon because he¡¯s still human right now. Normal bodies don¡¯t burn to ash like a dog¡¯s. We have to wait and if he turns, then we can destroy it.¡±

    Alex came around the corner with Spits. His face was unreadable. She wanted to grab his hand, but hers were still bloody and, as he got closer, she saw his were smeared with darker ichor.

    ¡°Anyone hurt?¡± Gareth asked, once they were back into a tight huddle around the body. They all shook their heads.

    ¡°Good,¡± Noah said, standing up. ¡°Now, let¡¯s get the body home. We¡¯re going to have to take the long way back to stay in the dark.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Alex asked, his head shooting up. ¡°No, whatever, tell me later.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 22

    The Church had a cot set aside for this type of thing. It was a stained, hospital green cot, missing the mattress, but with three rows of straps attached to it as restraints. Alyosha sat on a threadbare couch pushed up against the wall with Alex beside him, and tried to watch the body lying on top of the cot. The other Church members had cleaned the body up, but it was harder than it ought to be and he settled on staring at the middle space not far from its pale fingertips. Alex was still enough that Alyosha could almost believe he had fallen asleep, except that his posture was stiff as a board.

    The door to the room opened, making both of them jump. Warren came in with a long knife in his hand.

    ¡°The sun¡¯s setting.¡± He said it like an apology and handed Alex the knife.

    ¡°Still have one more night though, right?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°Should, yes, but can¡¯t be too safe.¡± All their sleep schedules were a disaster. It seemed that when there was a potential dog within their walls, the Church didn¡¯t hunt or even leave the Sanctuary to run errands. The lockdown made the small house feel that much smaller. So did the two telepaths.

    Alyosha shifted his weight. Always best not to think about telepathy in front of a telepath. ¡°How¡¯s Reeve?¡± he asked instead.

    ¡°He wants to get up and moving,¡± Warren grunted. ¡°At this point it¡¯ll be easier to resew his pulled stitches than talk him into resting.¡±

    ¡°That sounds like him,¡± Alyosha chuckled.

    Alex didn¡¯t laugh. ¡°So how long do we have to wait?¡±

    Warren cocked his head at him. ¡°Until the third sunrise.¡±

    ¡°No, I mean how long from when it moves until we can kill it?¡±

    Warren sighed. ¡°At a certain point, there are no rules and it¡¯s your call. I wait until its death wound has healed. You won¡¯t be alone.¡± He turned to leave.

    ¡°How much left on our shift?¡± Alex called.

    ¡°Under two hours. Someone will come get you. Yell if you need something.¡±

    He shut the door, slow and quiet, as if he was afraid of waking someone. Alyosha dragged a hand down his face. ¡°Do you think you will be able to sleep after this?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡±

    Alex deflated and blew the hair out of his eyes in a puff. ¡°Jesus, Al, I don¡¯t know what¡ª¡± he trailed off, pausing, then burst out. ¡°Holy shit, I cannot call you ¡®Al¡¯!¡± He laughed with his eyebrows high on his face as though laughing had surprised him. ¡°Wow, the full four syllables or nothing. Al does not work.¡±

    Alyosha smiled, but something about the way Alex¡¯s hands didn¡¯t unclench when he laughed made him worry.

    ¡°That is okay,¡± he told Alex, ¡°I could not call you ¡®Al¡¯ either.¡±

    ¡°Do not,¡± he agreed, then his expression went slack as he turned toward the body. ¡°Have you ever seen someone come back?¡±

    ¡°No, not like this.¡± Alyosha leaned forward, elbows on his knees. ¡°I don¡¯t think,¡± he clicked his tongue, thinking. ¡°I don¡¯t think that they ¡®come back¡¯ like you say. I think it''s something else. Something I don''t know the word for.¡±

    Alex leaned back, unsmiling. ¡°If I want cryptic, vague answers, I can go hang out with Reeve upstairs.¡±

    He craned his neck to look at Alex. A part of him wanted to smile at that response, but it didn¡¯t come. ¡°I knew someone once who did this. Entropy. He wasn¡¯t kind, but he was not purposefully cruel to me and that was almost the same thing. He was likeable, somehow. I don¡¯t know when it happened. One flight, he was suddenly dead and like them.¡±

    ¡°Was he suddenly a sadistic prick like the rest of Entropy too?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he admitted. ¡°I do not think that these people are beasts or dogs like they call them. But they are not the same as they went in. They are something else.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re religious, right?¡± Alex asked. He nodded. ¡°So,¡± he continued, not making eye contact, ¡°do you think the bodies are possessed by something? A demon or whatever that needs three days to put the meat-suit on?¡±

    Alyosha made a face. ¡°No, that is what I mean. Some things were the same. A lot of things. I don¡¯t think about it.¡± He shook his head. ¡°Maybe the difference of the feeding was so extreme that it felt like so much had changed.¡±

    ¡°Was he still likeable?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    There was a beat of silence. Alex asked, ¡°What are we doing?¡±

    ¡°If Reeve is the king of vague answers, you are the king of vague questions.¡±

    Alex rolled his eyes. ¡°The Church. Babysitting dead bodies. Reeve said he¡¯d been preparing for this for years. Is this seriously the best solution he came up with?¡±

    Alyosha rapped his fingers on the edge of the couch and gave him an apologetic smile. ¡°When you are drowning, you grab onto the first solid thing you can find, then you look for land.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I guess.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re angry.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m angry. I don¡¯t know how to stop being angry at him for all this shit.¡±

    ¡°It will fade.¡±

    ¡°But if I¡¯m not feeling pissed, I¡¯m shitting myself. You¡¯re seeing this, right?¡± He waved his arms a little wildly in front of the body. ¡°This dead guy is lying here and he¡¯s going to wake up or something and be this thing that can snap me in half. And we¡¯re supposed to do something about that, but if I have to get any closer to that cot and Read it, I¡¯m gonna fucking throw up.¡±

    There was a loose thread in the couch and Alyosha picked at it. It was not like a wake, staring at this dead man. He didn¡¯t know him, and anyway, they weren¡¯t even really mourning him. It was like being at the wrong wake. Awkward and intrusive, but waiting for who you came here for. ¡°Do you want to try praying?¡± he asked Alex.

    ¡°What?¡±

    He shrugged. ¡°It is what they do. They stay alive.¡±

    ¡°You know how?¡±

    ¡°Yes?¡± Alyosha held out his hand and Alex dropped his hand into it. ¡°I haven¡¯t in a long time. Not out loud.¡±

    ¡°Maybe just think it.¡±

    Alyosha gave a nod and took a breath, closing his eyes. He stopped and opened them with a terror that the body would have moved. It hadn¡¯t. It was still there, pale and waxy. ¡°I don¡¯t know how to do it with my eyes open.¡± It felt silly to say and stranger to feel.

    ¡°It¡¯s okay. I¡¯ll watch,¡± Alex said quietly, his eyes on the cot.

    ¡°No, it can wait.¡± He took Alex¡¯s tense hand in his and gave it a squeeze. Alex leaned into him, heavier than his size made seem possible. Flashes of watching the Neptune SUV drive off with Alex inside swam in his head with a stabbing pain. The other two could take care of themselves, but this one and Reeve, he wanted to stow away someplace safe. He willed it so. That would have to do for prayer for now.

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    ---

    Reeve shouldn¡¯t have gotten out of bed. There should have been more people in the room when it happened, but they were distracted. Fist fights will do that.

    By then, the stitches on his side were more painful than the actual wound. When he moved, it felt like they were tearing him open instead of holding him together. He wanted them out, but grit his teeth and kept his mouth shut. Instead, he listened to the activity downstairs, staring off at the blank white walls and tapping into long-forged connections to see through their eyes. Alex was in that small room with Noah and Alyosha. The corpse had been strapped down to the cot. Alex focused hard on it and it didn¡¯t move. He was sitting up close next to Noah and bouncing his foot on the floor. They were all heavily armed. One night left.

    Hannah was in the shower¡ªnot showering, just standing there, and Reeve let her be before she could tell he¡¯d been there. Gareth. It was always this with Gareth. He was pacing in the kitchen. His racing thoughts scratched at Reeve and he closed his eyes to wade through them. He felt Gareth attempt to swat at him like a fly, but he kept sifting. Reeve sighed, got up, and eased himself downstairs, padding down each step as fast as he dared.

    Warren and Spits were sitting at the table, arguing and watching with disgust, respectively.

    As Reeve rounded the corner, forcing himself to stand straighter, Gareth spotted him and rolled his eyes.

    ¡°Oh, for Christ¡¯s sake,¡± Gareth groaned.

    ¡°He wants to leave,¡± Warren told him with unmasked anger.

    ¡°I know,¡± Reeve replied, walking into the kitchen.

    Gareth pulled his coat off in short, violent jerks. ¡°I just need to go for a walk. I¡¯m going fucking crazy, stuck in here.¡±

    ¡°No one leaves when there is a Vigil. For everyone¡¯s safety.¡± Warren said it slow and clear.

    Gareth stopped at a window and pried up an edge of the curtain to peer out. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to go for a drive or stay out the whole night. I just need to walk around the block a few times. The house is full. You don¡¯t need me for an hour.¡±

    ¡°If the dog we killed was part of a pack, they could be out looking for us.¡±

    ¡°How the fuck would they know me?¡± Gareth was raising his voice now. He pointed down the hall toward the bedrooms. His hand was shaking. ¡°I have seen this happen before. I just need some goddamn air before it happens again.¡±

    Reeve closed his eyes against the electric tangle of minds. ¡°You need to stay,¡± he said as gently as he could, and regretted it as he felt something in the twisting mess of Gareth¡¯s head snap.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you¡ªno, I¡¯ll be right back.¡±

    Spits and Warren stood up with more speed than Reeve expected. ¡°No one leaves,¡± Warren shouted before taking a breath, and quietly threatened, ¡°You¡¯re endangering us all and we will make sure others know this is the respect you have for the Church. ¡±

    Gareth grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair. ¡°Well, we''re both gonna have to fucking deal, then.¡±

    ¡°These are their rules,¡± Reeve urged, his eyes darting around the room. Spits wouldn''t be saying much, but Warren could be a massive problem for them. If they lost their Church protections¡­ His mind was too cloudy to figure it all out, but it would be bad. He looked back at Gareth and pleaded, ¡°Don¡¯t make me do this.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going for a walk. Nothing¡¯s going to happen.¡± He hurried down across the kitchen toward the front door.

    I¡¯ll stop him, Reeve thought to Warren automatically.

    ¡°You can¡¯t¡ª¡± Warren started, his words running together.

    But Reeve had already stretched his control. It was easy, with Gareth¡¯s thoughts so busy, to slip past that interior border of privacy of self that Reeve had set and take charge of his body, stopping it from walking out the door. He sensed Gareth take in what had happened with mild shock and felt his mind shut down and sink into itself silently as if into quicksand.

    Reeve wanted to say something to comfort him, but just then, he was lifted into mid-air. Spits swiped with his outstretched arm and sent him flying into the far wall, hard.

    Reeve crumpled to the ground, the air knocked out of him. He clutched at his side. It was wet. He sputtered for air, but even shallow breaths caused searing, white flashes of pain. Warren and Spits were watching him, mouths a hard flat line. He saw, in the shifting of his expression, Warren register that the attack had severed Reeve''s control over Gareth. Reeve dropped his head back to the floor and hiccupped in pain ungracefully.

    It was from this low angle that he saw Gareth, now free, tackle Spits from behind and land a blow with his fist to the side of his skull. Lying on the ground, Spits summoned a coffee mug, flinging it to break against the back of Gareth''s head. Warren looked about to jump in, himself, but a glance in Reeve''s direction made him freeze and his face go deathly pale. Startled, Reeve tried to look behind himself but stopped as blood entered his eyeline. There was a great puddle of it, nearly black under the red lights, slowly crawling across the floor and he was puzzled, seeing that it was coming from his own body. Warren was on him in seconds, his hand crushing down over Reeve''s own against the wound.

    In a clatter of footsteps that jarred Reeve to the bone, he saw Alyosha, Alex, and Noah rush into the room.

    ¡°What the fuck is going on?¡± Noah boomed, unearthly loud¡ªenough to make the glasses in the cabinets shiver and his ears twinge. Alyosha and Alex clamored to their knees beside Reeve, panic in their faces.

    ¡°My fault,¡± Reeve ground out. ¡°It¡¯s not that bad.¡±

    ¡°What the hell did you do?¡± Alex squawked, his hands running over him, aimless and frantic. Alyosha worked his arm underneath Reeve¡¯s head, supporting him.

    ¡°He used his telepathy against someone,¡± Warren said, prying up Reeve¡¯s hand to take a look at his side. Exposed, the air felt like fire. ¡°I can¡¯t see how bad it is,¡± he mumbled. Warren¡¯s head shot up, ¡°The dog?¡±

    ¡°Michael and Hannah,¡± Noah answered.

    Across the kitchen, Gareth and the old man were still scuffling as Gareth continued to try to beat on him between being hit with flying furniture. Gareth¡¯s eyes looked far away, and Reeve wondered if he even remembered in that moment who he was pummeling and why. Alex stood up and Reeve could see his hand tighten around the machete he¡¯d brought with him. The thudding of heavy footsteps growing faster and faster made it feel like the whole house was shaking, until Reeve realized it was his heartbeat against the floor.

    ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± Reeve urged through gritted teeth.

    Alex¡¯s expression didn¡¯t change and Reeve wasn¡¯t sure if he¡¯d heard him. Alex walked a step behind Noah toward Gareth and Spits.

    ¡°Help me get him up onto the table so I can sew this up. Someone fix the damn table.¡± Warren¡¯s voice was neutral, and he was careful to avoid gripping too close to the bite wound as he lifted Reeve up. Alyosha righted the kitchen table from where it had been thrown and pulled it close to them by the wall, where Warren gently set him down on it. As Noah crossed the room, Reeve braced himself for another one of his screeches, but it didn¡¯t come. Noah went to the far wall and ripped off a patch of duct tape that Reeve had assumed was covering a hole. Underneath was a light switch. He flipped it. One single, bare bulb of white light flashed on above them, blinding everyone. The room was full of the sounds of hissing and groaning as they recoiled, wincing and covering their eyes. Through squinted eyes, Reeve could see that Gareth and the old man had frozen where they were grappling on the floor.

    Noah waited a moment then yelled, ¡°Knock it off!¡± It wasn¡¯t enough to hurt their ears, but it was loud. As the shuddering of reverberating dinnerware came to an end, Reeve heard a distant crashing sound. Disoriented and squinting up on the table on his back, he turned his head toward the sound and waited for his eyes to adjust. Washed out by the glare of the sudden lighting, he could see the dead body scrabbling along the floor, mouth pushed flush against the pool of blood by the far wall. Chaos erupted.

    Reeve watched it from the table. He tried to get up but fell back down, dizzy and sick. Bodies rushed past him, weapons in hand. The resulting composite of shouting was almost too jumbled to make any sense of. The dog moved, bent slightly at the waist with its head swinging back and forth in a bucking motion. It was not a thing that could pass for human out on the street. Too-bright flashes glinted off blades as they ripped through the air, making Reeve blink. The thing lashed out, fingers crooked into claws, and curled a bloody lip with a wet, guttural sound that was almost more vibration than it was a voice. It was not a thing that knew language.

    People were thrown. People cried out. He heard the pop of breaking bone. It felt distant, watching it. Maybe it was the fuzzy vignetting of blackness framing his vision that made the whole scene not seem real. Maybe it was denial. After several knives had gotten stuck in the dog¡¯s skin, someone started shooting. Reeve dragged one shoulder up so he could see the hallway to the bedrooms. He was half expecting to see Hannah there holding the gun, but she wasn¡¯t. He struggled to remember where she was last. For a short moment, the impact of the bullets backed the dog against the wall, but like it was learning, it thrashed its head and began moving inexorably toward them.

    Spits pushed to the front of the pack, a pentacle held high up in his hand. The beast flinched and snapped its head to one side, as far as a neck could go. Its one visible eye was wide and round, iris fully surrounded by white. It clawed at its own hair, bringing it down to shield its face. Someone began chanting in that clear monotone the Children reserved for quoting their bible.

    ¡°When the wicked come upon me to devour my flesh, mine adversaries and mine enemies, they stumble and fall.¡±

    The group slowly moved forward, some with weapons and others with whatever they could grab, having lost their knives in the beast.

    ¡°When the wicked come upon me to devour my flesh, mine adversaries and mine enemies, they stumble and fall.¡±

    They swarmed it. Reeve watched the Phage grab Spits¡¯ arm holding the pentacle and bend it. The pentacle, pressed against the beast¡¯s shoulder, left a mark like it had burned it and the dog let go, quailing. Its neck was spined with knife handles, making it hard for anyone to land a clear cut. Reeve was blinking slower, missing full seconds of the struggle at a time. Someone was tossed, rolling past him, banging into a table leg, making his body jerk. He braced himself for a stab of pain, but it didn¡¯t hurt anymore.

    Someone else was thrown sharply upward into the ceiling and, with a crack, the light went out, throwing them into darkness. All Reeve could see was a faint red tinge to the pitch blackness. People were yelling. Voices he knew, but they sounded underwater, distorted and quiet. There was crashing and the meaty thuds of impacts. Something wet splattered across Reeve¡¯s face. The red light faded and he blacked out.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 23

    SolCorp¡¯s Kyiv Office.

    Walking through the halls on her way to meet up with Mark for another lesson, Anise did a double take at a group of three kids around nine or ten and one teen walking in the other direction.

    ¡°Asher?¡± she called, coming to a stop and stretching to remember his name. He had been several years behind her in Academy, but there weren¡¯t so many kids that they didn¡¯t all mostly know each other¡ªand it had been forever since she¡¯d seen a familiar face.

    He slowed and looked at her, brow pinched. ¡°LAHQA?¡±

    She nodded. ¡°Anise.¡±

    ¡°Oh yeah. Hold up,¡± he called to the younger ones he had with him. She walked to him as he herded them into a small grouping like a mother hen.

    ¡°Hi!¡± a little girl with brown curls piped at her. The two little boys didn¡¯t seem to care that she existed.

    ¡°Hi, there.¡± Anise bent down to her with a smile. She wasn¡¯t a kid person, but she had enough training to fake it. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±

    ¡°Beth.¡±

    ¡°Hi, Beth. What department do you want to be in when you grow up?¡±

    She looked down, suddenly shy. ¡°I wanna be a veterinarian.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Anise gave Asher a confused look. ¡°So, Uranus?¡±

    ¡°They said I can be a firefighter if I want,¡± one of the boys crowed.

    She knew enough to know they weren¡¯t strange answers out among civilians, and that was the idea of the program, but it still rattled her to her core. They looked small and excited and, in some strange twist of fate, their mentors wouldn¡¯t have to break it to them that they¡¯d never be firefighters or have any life like they¡¯d seen on television. Straightening, she turned back to Asher, needing to get off the subject. ¡°When did you get here?¡±

    ¡°Just a week ago.¡±

    ¡°How is it so far?¡±

    He shrugged and scolded two of the kids to be quiet. ¡°It¡¯s fine. It¡¯s cool to be able to go outside again and the classes are way more interesting.¡±

    ¡°They let you out?¡± She¡¯d figured the fact that she¡¯d been able to leave right away had been because she¡¯d graduated.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± he smirked. ¡°Something about how Academy kids end up all stunted. Before LAHQA, I did live in the real world for a bit, and I think they¡¯re right. I¡¯m sick of wearing these, though,¡± he said, holding up one wrist and showing her the thick black dampener band designed to weaken his knack. ¡°But I¡¯ve got my Post Breathe at the end of the week.¡±

    Anise couldn¡¯t help but cock her head at that, but before she could ask, the little girl tugged on his shirt. ¡°Come on,¡± she complained.

    ¡°Sorry, they¡¯ve been bothering me to do this training thing. I¡¯ve got the forms memorized better than them.¡±

    Anise glanced at her watch. She could stand to be only on-time to her meetings every now and then. ¡°I¡¯ll walk you.¡±

    They started off together, following the tiny ones in front, who seemed to have taken to the map of the place better than she had. ¡°Your Post Breathe is this week?¡± she pressed, trying to sound casual.

    ¡°Yeah. Did it really suck?¡±

    ¡°I haven¡¯t had mine yet.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s weird. Why?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ve just had like a half a dozen calibration sessions.¡±

    ¡°Calibration?¡±

    She shook her head at him. ¡°Must just be because we have different knacks. And you¡¯re nat-born.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, must be.¡±

    Ahead of them the kids disappeared into a room on the right. Asher waved at her, saying, ¡°See you,¡± as he followed them inside.

    Unsettled, Anise hovered across the hall to get a good view into the room. It was a small sparring space with thick red mats on the floor, and the kids had jumped right into their training as if it were a game they¡¯d been dying to get permission to play.

    They paired off and Asher helped the odd kid out while reminding them the right order of the moves. It was some sort of hand-to-hand combat, but there was something chilling about listening to Asher say, ¡°Careful, this is where you would break the arm, but we¡¯re just practicing,¡± and explaining why it was important to aim for the nose when you stomp on the opponent¡¯s face. Anise tried to think back to when they had started training her to go that hard, and she was pretty sure it wasn¡¯t until high school, or junior high at the earliest. All those lessons were burned in her memory but this felt worse, somehow.

    ¡°Crazy, right?¡±

    Anise startled. She was too distractible today. A woman in a Pluto coat had stopped to stand beside her, looking into the room. ¡°Yeah.¡± Anise watched the small girl with the curls sweep her leg, throwing a young boy to the ground with a thump and bringing her little foot down next to his head with a wordless yell.

    ¡°That¡¯s not Krav Maga,¡± Anise commented, swallowing.

    ¡°No, I think it¡¯s called Line¡ªL.I.N.E. I forget what it stands for.¡±

    The more drills they went through, the more Anise noticed a pattern. ¡°Every technique ends with a killing blow.¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡± The Pluto agent let out a deep sigh. ¡°It¡¯s different in practice, you know? It¡¯s one thing to talk about, think about it in theory, and another to actually see it.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡± Anise couldn¡¯t pull her eyes away from Asher helping to better position the little boy¡¯s arms to properly break an elbow.

    ¡°It¡¯s brutal. The kids, the Post Breathes, all of it.¡±

    This time, Anise didn¡¯t look at her on purpose, worried her expression would scare her off. She could feel the goosebumps on her arms and the fear emanating from this woman¡¯s mind. Something wasn¡¯t right. ¡°It¡¯s not so different,¡± she said quietly.

    The woman laughed. ¡°Then you haven¡¯t been here that long. You¡¯ll see.¡± She fiddled with the ID badge clipped to her waistband. ¡°It¡¯s worth it. We both know that. Those kids could have a life we never had a chance to consider. Omelette and breaking eggs and all that. At least that¡¯s what I keep telling myself. How long have you been here?¡±

    ¡°Under a year. I know him from Academy,¡± she said, nodding to Asher.

    The Pluto agent went pale. ¡°Are you a student?¡±

    ¡°There you are.¡± Mark¡¯s voice made her turn before she could answer. A vibrating panic from the Pluto agent shivered in Anise¡¯s chest as they watched him walk toward them.

    Anise checked her watch. Shit. She¡¯d lost track of time. ¡°Sorry,¡± she cringed. ¡°I ran into someone from LA.¡±

    He stood stock-still in front of them, face stern, more stern than she was used to seeing it. ¡°Anise, can you go wait in my office?¡±

    She nodded and stole a glance at the Pluto agent as she walked away. She looked terrified. Anise walked slower than normal, waiting to hear what he would say to her, but she didn''t hear anything except for the distant shouts from behind the training room doorway.

    The walk to his office was long and she tried to keep her mind empty on her way. Anything else felt like she was breaking some sacred tenet, though she couldn¡¯t explain why. Mark¡¯s office had beautiful windows on two walls and she sat in a plush armchair set in the corner by a tall potted fig tree. She couldn¡¯t shake the butterflies in her stomach as she waited.

    When Mark finally arrived, every tell in his body language spoke to him being in a foul mood. His eyebrows were a straight line instead of their charmingly cocky lift, his fingers were restless, and he was walking too fast. He sat at his desk without speaking and she moved to sit in the chair across from him.

    ¡°Is something wrong?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he answered. He had an impressive ability to temper his voice. ¡°It¡¯s just exhausting to keep everyone on the same page. It¡¯s fine now.¡±

    Anise closed her eyes against a surge of pressure in her head. The butterflies settled and were replaced with a warm calm. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m sure it¡¯s fine,¡± she agreed.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Terre Department.

    Darwin paced in the hallway, waiting for his boss, Whitney, to be ready for him. His ears were out. He didn¡¯t even bother trying to put them away. He was far too nervous and half-wished he¡¯d thought to bring a hat. Ever since Ollie¡¯s team had gone rogue, he was sure that every out-of-the-ordinary contact or meeting was to break it to Darwin that he was being fired, demoted, investigated, or all of the above. He couldn¡¯t understand what the team had been thinking. What possibly could have happened? He tried hard to not use the telepath¡¯s name even in his mind, but he didn¡¯t know his Icarus number to replace it with and that wasn¡¯t the kind of thing you could really ask about.

    Whitney¡¯s door opened and called his name.

    Freezing mid-step despite the strange look from a couple of teachers passing by, he made his way to the door.

    ¡°You wanted to see me?¡± he asked. She gestured for him to sit, so he did, knee bouncing.

    ¡°You¡¯re not in trouble,¡± she began.

    ¡°You¡¯re sure?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± There was a smile. Thank god. ¡°One of your students¡ª¡± Darwin¡¯s heart began to pound. ¡°¡ªis being transferred.¡± His shoulders dropped.

    Working to control his expression, he did his best to respond. ¡°Oh? Um, which one? For what reason?¡±

    ¡°Madison is being moved to the Kyiv pilot program.¡±

    He took a moment of silence despite feeling self-conscious and rude for taking up her time. There were too many questions piling up behind the dam of his mouth. Madison was a good kid, if not as mature as the Sol academy standard. He settled on the one that was most important to Madison. ¡°When?¡±

    ¡°She was moved yesterday.¡±

    ¡°Yesterday?¡± She was only a couple years to graduation. He¡¯d probably never see her again. She had one of those giggles that wouldn¡¯t quit, unable to hold it together, keeping him from moving the conversation along. ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°She was regarded as a good fit for the new pilot program.¡±

    He thought back to the first time he¡¯d heard about Kyiv, the student and her struggle with her knack, but couldn¡¯t remember her name. She hadn¡¯t really been one of his students to begin with, but it was irking him. He should have known her name.

    ¡°Madison doesn¡¯t need a Post-Breathe,¡± he hazarded. His whole body was telling him to say, ¡®yes, ma¡¯am,¡¯ and leave, but he couldn¡¯t.

    Whitney looked vaguely taken aback by that. She narrowed her eyes at her computer and he could feel his ears flatten against his hair. ¡°You had one of the early ones?¡±

    He nodded. ¡°Kinda?¡±

    ¡°It isn¡¯t only for Post-Breathes. I¡¯m not at liberty to go into the other half of the program, but the two projects support each other well.¡±

    Darwin continued, nodding, ¡°I guess that makes sense. Otherwise the students would be coming right back after their Post-Breathe.¡± And he hadn¡¯t heard anything about that.

    ¡°Exactly,¡± she smiled. ¡°Now, I wanted to tell you personally because we¡¯re being asked to keep this on a need-to-know basis while the program gets on its feet.¡±

    He bit his lip. ¡°For how long?¡±

    She gave him a pitying look. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m just passing along the orders I got. It¡¯s not something you need to worry about.¡±

    The word ¡°orders¡± sent a chill up his spine. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, Darwin.¡± He was dismissed.

    ¡°Thank you, ma¡¯am.¡±

    He took two wrong turns on his way back to his office despite the fact that he¡¯d spent his whole life on these series of floors. Everything about it made him uncomfortable. It felt like a wrinkle in his sock that made it so he couldn¡¯t think about anything else.

    By the time he made it back to his office, he¡¯d remembered the student¡¯s name. Anise. Sitting at his computer, he brought up the student database and typed in her name. Instead of hitting search, he sat back and stared at the black text on the page. Anise del Sol.

    He¡¯d been given orders. Orders he¡¯d come dangerously close to questioning. Not disobeying, mind you. But pushing for information, clarification. That was his job as a student advocate, he liked to think, but even that didn¡¯t go as far as disobeying a direct order. His mind inadvertently wandered again to his old classmate. Ree¡ªno. He shook the name out of his head, only to see a flash of a different, mostly-forgotten face and the slightest smell of red wine. He felt himself start to hiccup and tried to shrug it off, feeling the too-familiar dissociative haze of his Reintegration filling his senses. Even after all this time, he still felt it this clearly. He knew, to some degree, how it worked. A trauma response¡ªhe was a mental healthcare professional, after all, even if it was just in Terre. But this was a helpful response, he reminded himself, even as a half-remembered phrase wandered into his mind. Something about ¡®non-violent disobedience for the greater good?¡¯ Gooseflesh raised on his arms and he leaned hard into that hazy feeling, wanting nothing to do with any of this stuff.

    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    What did he think he would learn from the search, anyway? That she was still in Kyiv. That she¡¯d graduated and been placed. Not much.

    And after his questions and the info they¡¯d given him in general, it was more than possible they¡¯d be monitoring him. A search would be recorded in his history. They had the ability to track all his computer activity. They might even already know he¡¯d typed out her name. Darwin began to sweat even more than he already was from the get-go. If they were watching, not completing the search would signal to them that, while he¡¯d had a momentary lapse, he knew better. Proof, a gesture that he would comply with the order to not worry about it.

    He exited out of the database.

    ---

    Sanctuary. Flanders, Belgium.

    The night air was colder on Gareth¡¯s face than it should have been. The sweat pouring off him had drenched his shirt until it stuck to his lower back. He could feel it running in droplets down his sides. He was sucking in air through his mouth and the sound of it made him sick. Gareth faced the direction of the road they had gone hunting down the other night, but his eyes were unfocused and he wasn¡¯t seeing anything.

    A car horn snapped him out of it. He realized he was standing in the middle of the street and the car was swerving to drive around him, laying on his horn hard. Gareth watched him roll down his window and start yelling in a language Gareth didn¡¯t know before suddenly stopping, his mouth frozen open in a dark hole. The driver peeled out, accelerating too fast and fishtailing back into his own lane. Gareth looked down and took stock of himself. His shirt sleeves were covered in blood and the legs of his pants were splashed with something darker. He walked back inside the house.

    His eyes had adjusted so he could just barely see by the red lights again. The smell of the room got his heart racing. It smelled like Entropy. It smelled like he was a kid again. His mind blanked. He walked across the room and helped Alyosha tighten the strip of cloth he was tying around one bicep, mindlessly kicking aside a few splintered pieces of chair for more solid footing. Alyosha¡¯s face was too white.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± he told Gareth quietly.

    He nodded, clenching his jaw and forcing himself to look around. The old man was crouched down by the refrigerator, which had been knocked over (or maybe thrown by telekinesis, he hadn¡¯t seen it happen.) There were teeth marks visible on both his arms where he''d locked them around the things¡¯s body. It wasn¡¯t moving anymore and the abrupt, flat plane created by the stump of its neck looked odd, out of place. When he turned back, Alyosha was watching him and they looked at each other blankly for a moment. Gareth wondered if that was what he looked like right now.

    Alyosha bent to pick up one of the discarded long knives from the floor and walked over to stand in front of a closet that had one of the last remaining intact chairs shoved under the doorknob. That was where they¡¯d tossed the head.

    Gareth walked into the living room where Noah had Reeve on the floor, closing his side while Alex cradled his head on his knees. Gareth couldn¡¯t see much of Noah, but Alex¡¯s back and side were completely drenched in blood. He must have fallen into the puddle at some point. Gareth cleared his throat.

    ¡°How much of that¡¯s yours?¡± he asked. It sounded like a croak to his own ears.

    Alex looked at him. His mouth was a hard-set line, and he didn¡¯t answer.

    Gareth shifted, stretching his fingers. The healing bones in his hand and wrist weren¡¯t quite ready yet. They felt too light, like they were hollow. It¡¯d be right in an hour, but for now, it just reminded him of that eviscerating grip.

    ¡°Noah,¡± he started haltingly, watching Reeve¡¯s eyes move sporadically behind blue-tinted eyelids.

    ¡°He¡¯ll live,¡± Noah interrupted, voice gruff and tired. ¡°Go help Warren check on the others and get out of my light so I can sew this up.¡±

    Gareth stood there for a full thirty seconds thinking he had begun to cross the room before he realized his legs hadn¡¯t moved. He couldn¡¯t feel them. He bent and scratched one knee¡ªstill there, still his¡ªand crossed to head down the hall. Warren was by the shattered remains of the door to the bedroom where they had been holding the Vigil. He was limping badly and had a bloody shirt knotted around his shin. Gareth rushed to catch up and as he did, felt the world break open and rush back into the void. Hannah. He pressed himself sideways to get into the room at the same time as Warren without knocking him over.

    Michael was curled up, chin tucked into his knees by what was left of the doorframe. He was covered, dizzyingly, head-to-toe in scrawled crosses, drawn on his skin in black marker. He was in shock, but alive, and Gareth pushed past him. His head whipped around the room without seeing Hannah anywhere, panic making his breath come too fast. He spotted a bath towel caught on the edge of the knocked over cot. He clamored over the cot too quickly, his leg catching on a ripped strap, and he stumbled. Coming down hard on one knee, he stopped to take a breath. He could hear Warren murmuring, trying to snap Michael out of it.

    Gareth put a hand out to lever himself up, but his fingers came down on flesh, making the hairs on his arms and legs stand on end. When he looked down, he saw his hand hovering in mid-air and Gareth nearly collapsed with relief. His arm buckled and he eased himself onto the floor, feeling with his hands, to determine how she was laying. An arm there, here the bones of her hips. She groaned as he pulled her upright.

    ¡°Wake up now,¡± he told her, patting her all over her face and arms.

    ¡°My head¡¯s killin¡¯ me,¡± she moaned and slowly bled into visibility. She didn¡¯t appear immediately injured from what he could see. Gareth blew out a breath, slow and whistling.

    She squinted at him. ¡°Holy shit,¡± she gasped, touching his torn and stained shirt. ¡°Is everyone alright?¡±

    ¡°Everyone¡¯s breathing.¡±

    Hannah sat the rest of the way up, looking nauseous. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. It was so fast.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s dead. What happened?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re okay?¡±

    He raised an eyebrow. ¡°Of course I¡¯m okay. When am I not okay?¡±

    ¡°Plenty of times,¡± she mumbled. ¡°We heard yelling from you guys and then suddenly it was happening.¡±

    ¡°It was like¡­¡± she trailed off and shut her eyes, brow tense. ¡°Nothing slowed it down. It was on top of Michael, but the drawings kept making it freak out when it would try to bite him. I jumped on it, trying to pull it off of him because¡ª¡±

    ¡°Because you¡¯re an idiot.¡±

    She rolled her eyes and then winced as though it had hurt. ¡°It threw me off and I landed over here. Smacked my head. Really hard. Lost my towel at some point. I must have gone invisible just before I passed out, hoping it wouldn¡¯t find me.¡±

    ¡°You were lucky it could smell the blood in the other room,¡± Warren called, purposefully averting his eyes from her. ¡°Let¡¯s get them in the living room with the others.¡±

    ¡°Can you walk?¡± Gareth asked her.

    ¡°Let¡¯s find out.¡±

    He hauled her onto her feet. She wobbled for a moment and shut her eyes tight, gripping her temples with both hands. She steadied and waved him off, bending slowly to pick up her towel to cover herself.

    Warren was trying to pull Michael upright, balancing on his one good leg. Gareth rushed over and helped Michael up. The boy¡¯s face was blank and Gareth avoided looking at him. Gareth glanced at Warren¡¯s leg. What he could see through the torn pant leg was badly swollen.

    ¡°Is it broken?¡± he asked Warren.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Gareth slouched and motioned for Warren to use him as a crutch. He hesitated longer than was probably tactful, before slinging his arm around Gareth¡¯s neck. They hobbled down the hall together with Hannah guiding Michael behind them.

    In the living room, Reeve was awake, if a little green looking. Alex, eyes wide and burning, reached out his hand for Hannah from the couch and she took it and leaned down to kiss the top of his head.

    ¡°Oh, my god,¡± Hannah gasped.

    ¡°He¡¯s okay,¡± Noah repeated, annoyed. Noah was sitting next to Alex, leaning over a side table, sewing up a gash in his own forearm.

    ¡°Warren,¡± she called, watching him settle Michael in a chair. ¡°If you¡¯ve got a splint, I can set that.¡±

    ¡°In the bathroom.¡±

    Hannah looked over at Gareth. Her mouth was a little slack, tired, but there was tension in the muscles around her eyes, the way she got when she was feeling his energies. And worrying. He bobbed his chin slightly, nodding to her that he was okay, and she left, her hand gripping Warren¡¯s elbow as they walked.

    Gareth settled cross-legged on the floor next to Reeve.

    ¡°Hey,¡± Reeve said, weakly. ¡°I¡¯m not sure that went well.¡±

    Gareth snorted and looked up at Alex but the kid was looking so damn solemn. And angry. Noah gestured and Alex cut the last suture and helped him wrap it. Noah slid to the edge of the couch, ready to stand up. He swept his eyes across the room, looking at the three of them.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to stay here and make sure Reeve doesn¡¯t stand up, and everyone ought to drink some fluids. I¡¯m going to go into the kitchen to help the others destroy the dog.¡± They nodded. Noah licked his lips and stared off at one wall, taking pains to breathe slowly.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Alex asked, his voice smaller than normal, but tightly controlled.

    ¡°The second Reeve can travel,¡± he started, rubbing at one eye, ¡°which should be soon, once we get his blood pressure up, you all need to get out of here. You can¡¯t stay in this Sanctuary a minute longer than you have to. We¡ª¡± he took a long breath out. ¡°I¡¯ll come with you and get you to the next Sanctuary. Finish up your training. You can¡¯t stay here after this. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s safe for you.¡±

    Gareth looked down at Reeve who, wide-eyed, was craning his head to look at Michael. ¡°Is he?¡± Reeve asked hoarsely.

    ¡°He¡¯s catatonic. Trust me, this isn¡¯t going to be what he remembers about tonight. You¡¯re lucky we don¡¯t have dead bodies here, or else I wouldn¡¯t like your chances¡ªeveryone¡¯s got limits,¡± Noah continued. ¡°I can get you out, but then you have to keep your heads down and do every single damn thing I say. Because the second time something like this happens, I can¡¯t protect you.¡±

    Gareth tried to swallow, but this throat stuck, feeling like it was full of wood pulp. He stared at the floor. He heard Noah stand up and step slowly across the room.

    ¡°Wait,¡± Reeve wheezed, trying to sit up. Gareth pressed him flat with a hand on his shoulder. He could have only used one finger.

    Alex looked over at that, eyes hard and voice harder. ¡°You need to shut up and listen. We all do.¡± Then, quietly, ¡°You two have done enough, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡°I like you guys,¡± Noah cut him off. ¡°I do. I want you people to make it. I will get you to our tracker once I can swear to him that I trust you. But if you do anything to silence these Children, I will help them kill you. And if you think we couldn¡¯t take down at least one of you, you haven¡¯t been paying attention.¡±

    No one spoke. Gareth could taste bile with every breath.

    ¡°Gareth,¡± Noah called as he walked out of the room toward the kitchen, ¡°don¡¯t let Reeve sit up.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir,¡± he responded, meaning it with every trembling muscle in his body.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 24

    Sanctuary. Somewhere in Western Europe.

    The next Sanctuary they hit was empty. Noah had knocked and knocked, but no one was home. They broke in through an open back window and Reeve felt like there really must be a better system. But it was good to be under a roof without strangers.

    Once Noah had unlocked the front door from the inside and let them in, they took a moment to explore and take inventory of what they had. Weapons were stocked, the pantry had plenty of nonperishables, and the two bedrooms were packed in with rows of cots. A white light flipped on in the other room, startling Reeve out of the red haze he¡¯d been squinting in. He went towards it.

    It was Hannah. She was rummaging through a pile of blankets in one bedroom. Noah appeared at his side.

    ¡°Hey,¡± he called to her. ¡°Turn that off.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± she asked, turning.

    ¡°The light.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no one else here.¡±

    Noah let out a deep sigh. ¡°That¡¯s exactly the¡­ Everyone!¡± he shouted. The place was small enough that they were all probably already listening. ¡°I don¡¯t care if you¡¯re personally alone in this house. You¡¯re in the Church. Act like it, and not just when someone is watching. This life works for a reason.¡±

    Hannah turned the lamp off. ¡°Sorry,¡± she said into the dark.

    Reeve blinked blindly and put a hand to his stitched up side in reflex. He heard Noah shift his weight and pitched his voice to carry.

    ¡°We need to go out hunting tonight. With the place empty, the area hasn¡¯t been kept up and there might be some dens.¡± No one made a sound agreeing or disagreeing. It¡¯s probably the best Noah could have hoped for with what he was asking. ¡°Everyone suit up.¡±

    Reeve put a clumsy hand on Noah¡¯s arm. ¡°I¡¯m guessing I¡¯ll be the one staying home?¡±

    ¡°Of course you¡¯re staying home. I have no idea how you¡¯re even bloody upright. But you¡¯re not well enough to stay as the sentry, so I¡¯ll be staying with you.¡±

    ¡°Wait, what?¡± Hannah walked into the hall, tangled in the process of buckling on a holster.

    ¡°I¡¯m staying home,¡± Noah repeated, his voice a little too amused for Reeve¡¯s liking.

    ¡°Whoa, whoa, whoa¡ªwe don¡¯t know what the fuck we¡¯re doing.¡±

    ¡°Yes, you do,¡± he replied simply. ¡°We¡¯re going to be parting ways after this Sanctuary. If I hold your hand any longer, it¡¯ll end up killing you.¡±

    Reeve could feel the fear pulsing through the house like a bitter wash through his mind. The others started moving again after a moment of silence and hustled to prepare.

    You¡¯re not really sending them out alone, are you? he thought to Noah.

    Of course not.

    Gareth, Hannah, Alex, and Alyosha left with a minimal amount of complaints and a lot of glances in his direction. They were armed to the teeth. Even in the dim light, Hannah and Alex''s faces were bruised from their previous encounter. Reeve knew this was the last thing they wanted to be doing, but they didn''t argue.

    "Be safe," he called from where he was resting on a torn up couch.

    "We will," Alex said simply. They silently accepted Noah''s blessing¡ªsomething about being as cunning as snakes and as pure as doves. Reeve was having a hard time paying attention.

    After they''d left, Noah turned back to him. ¡°I¡¯ll give them a couple minutes¡¯ head start and then follow them.¡± He began pulling his gear from his bags. ¡°Do me a favor and don¡¯t follow with your brain. It¡¯s distracting and you can¡¯t help anyway.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re going to be pissed at both of us. You know that, right?¡±

    Noah smiled. ¡°You¡¯ve survived it this long.¡±

    Noah hadn¡¯t intended for that to sting like it did. Reeve could feel it was meant as a friendly joke, but it still made him balk. Noah left shortly after, leaving Reeve alone and sore as all hell, laying on a couch with a shotgun on the floor beside him.

    He couldn¡¯t stop thinking about Guadalajara for some reason, about that first night when Hannah and Alex, bruised and battered, haltingly danced in Alyosha¡¯s kitchen. How they¡¯d laughed and drank and barely spoke to him. He¡¯d survived their anger this long. He had to concede the point. From an outside perspective like Noah¡¯s, it wouldn¡¯t seem like that huge of a struggle to live with the silent resentment, the frustration and anger. But Noah wasn¡¯t a telepath.

    Reeve knew their silent complaints about him on a good day, let alone now. Nothing was silent. Reeve tried to focus on the quiet noises outside, staying ready for anything. It was no good. His side ached and his head raced. Hours passed in this restless haze.

    Eventually the stillness of the empty house was broken as the group poured through the front door. Reeve shot up from the couch, ignoring the searing pull of the stitches. The stink of gasoline filled the room as they crowded in. Gareth had Hannah¡¯s arm pulled up around his shoulder and he was helping her walk. Behind the black coats, there was blood running down the outside leg of her pants. Alex and Alyosha had eyes like saucers as they scrambled to pull gear inside, mindful of Hannah¡¯s leg. Alex¡¯s lip was busted and Alyosha had a limp of his own.

    ¡°Jesus,¡± Reeve breathed. ¡°Are you okay?¡±

    Hannah didn¡¯t answer. She was upright and awake, but it was like she didn¡¯t hear him.

    ¡°Get Noah,¡± Gareth said tersely, raising his voice to call Noah¡¯s name again. ¡°We need him to stitch this.¡±

    Reeve glanced at the floor. ¡°He¡¯s not here.¡± He tried to explain, but it only came out in a short burst of stuttered mush, which he shut his mouth on once he heard himself.

    He was saved by a knock at the door with Noah entering directly after.

    The rest swung around, swearing, startled, and still in a heightened alert state.

    Noah put a hand up to settle them. ¡°Get her on the couch,¡± he said, gesturing to her leg. ¡°I¡¯ve got my kit.¡±

    ¡°Where were you?¡± Alex asked, pulling off his coat. It looked stiff and Reeve knew the black of the coat was hiding whatever gore he¡¯d been splashed with.

    Reeve half hoped Noah would lie, for his own sake.

    ¡°I followed you.¡± He rummaged through his med bag. ¡°I wanted to make sure you were ready, and be there if things went wrong.¡±

    ¡°Things went wrong!¡± Alyosha shouted.

    ¡°And it didn¡¯t go wrong,¡± Noah said gently, ¡°it just didn¡¯t go as planned.¡±

    ¡°It went wrong,¡± Alyosha repeated.

    ¡°Is it a bite?¡± Reeve asked.

    ¡°I think it just hit her, but it looks cut. I didn¡¯t see nails,¡± Alex trailed off.

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t need ¡®em. Hit somebody with a pipe hard enough and it¡¯ll slash you up something ugly.¡± He watched Noah slit her pant leg up to mid thigh. ¡°It¡¯s not that bad,¡± Noah muttered, relief in his voice.

    Noah turned to Alyosha as he prepped a needle. ¡°Sometimes it goes that way. If your lives were in danger, I¡¯d have stepped in.¡± He nodded to Hannah. ¡°Is she with us?¡±

    Gareth looked up blankly. ¡°I think it¡¯s shock.¡±

    Noah nodded. ¡°That¡¯s normal. This is going to hurt.¡± He covered the wound in antiseptic and Hannah arched her back, letting out a short wail, the life back in her eyes. She swore a blue streak while Noah stitched her leg, which was significantly more reassuring for Reeve to hear than nothing at all.

    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    When he¡¯d finished, Gareth turned to Reeve. ¡°You knew he was following us?¡± He didn¡¯t even get a chance to answer. ¡°Goddamn it. I¡¯m just so tired of this shit.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll be rid of me soon,¡± Noah said with a smile. ¡°Tomorrow, I¡¯ll get you to a Sanctuary where you won¡¯t be alone and then see how you do without training wheels.¡±

    ¡°The dog got away,¡± Alex said, voice too small.

    Noah nodded. ¡°That happens.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Alex argued, ¡°I mean, we obviously can¡¯t do this alone.¡±

    ¡°You did. This is what it is sometimes.¡±

    Hannah turned to Reeve. She was pale. ¡°I don¡¯t want to do this,¡± she croaked, tongue thick. ¡°You seriously couldn¡¯t think of anything better than this when you were plotting?¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t plotting,¡± Reeve snapped, then lowered his voice. ¡°This is the safest way, but if you don¡¯t¡ªIt¡¯s not just my decision.¡±

    Gareth rubbed at his scalp. ¡°Thanks for letting us in on the planning, but I don¡¯t know. Just being on our own? I don¡¯t like that either.¡±

    ¡°I can try to keep us safe if you want to try something else. I have my telepathy.¡±

    Hannah¡¯s face was lined with pain and her eyes were hard. ¡°Thanks, but you couldn¡¯t even keep your head out of the line of fire when you were in whatever little fortress you built in Beatty. The Church at least has a track record.¡±

    ¡°Hannah,¡± Alex started softly. Noah took that moment to silently extricate himself from the room, disappearing behind one of the bedroom doors.

    ¡°Am I wrong?¡±

    Alex¡¯s face twisted, ¡°No, but¡ª¡±

    ¡°You know I¡¯m right,¡± she shot back. She looked back at Reeve. ¡°You know I¡¯m right.¡±

    Reeve took a breath. ¡°I have a system set up as a backup to the Church. I¡¯m saying if that¡¯s what you all wanted, I could work out a plan that would keep us as far off Neptune¡¯s radar as possible.¡±

    Hannah hauled herself upright and muttered under her breath, ¡°Cause you¡¯re so good at that.¡±

    Reeve choked out half a laugh. ¡°You want to know how I got caught? How Neptune found me out in Beatty?¡±

    No one answered, but Reeve had been listening to the question from their minds for weeks now, so it didn¡¯t matter. ¡°You told them. You turned me in to Neptune. So I¡¯d love it if we could stop talking about how this is all my fault.¡±

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± Alex¡¯s voice was a little unstrung.

    Reeve slid down the wall to sit with his knees bent. ¡°You don¡¯t remember because they wiped you.¡±

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you say something before they grabbed you?¡± Gareth demanded, shaking.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t notice. They were good. I couldn¡¯t see it until I re-connected with your heads after being away. I can tell you or I can unlock it.¡±

    ¡°Unlock it.¡± Gareth¡¯s voice was hard. The others nodded. Reeve did. It was easy. He¡¯d be working the knots out for days, gently at the edges, so all it took was one final push for the barriers to melt away. He knew what they were seeing. He¡¯d already watched.

    ¡°It was before our last mission.¡± Reeve said quietly. Hannah, Gareth, and Alex had their eyes closed, processing. ¡°We¡¯d been sent a mission, but I¡¯d decided to hide him instead. I¡¯d done it before, so that paperwork was all in order and you never even knew we¡¯d had an assignment.¡± Reeve listened in.

    There was a knock at the door. Gareth answered it and found four agents in dress shirts and slacks waiting to come in. Reeve wasn¡¯t there. He¡¯d gone off the day before, on one of his trips out of town. He¡¯d told them he was tracking down some part or another for his car. They were Neptune agents, an Investigation team. They explained they¡¯d been sent to double check with the team in person about their last target. The scene had been a little too clean and HQ had asked them to confirm the details of the mission report.

    ¡°I told them I didn¡¯t know what mission they were talking about,¡± Hannah said, brow furrowed. ¡°And that I wasn¡¯t sure where you were.¡±

    Reeve nodded. ¡°And then they wiped you and sent the next false mission as a trap. And here we are.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to actually say that I¡¯m partly to blame for all this? Because I told the truth about something I had no idea there was even something to lie about?¡± Hannah¡¯s face was wet, but Reeve was barely seeing it.

    ¡°How the fuck can we cover for you if we don¡¯t know there¡¯s anything to cover?¡± Alex broke in.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± Reeve yelled back. ¡°But you didn¡¯t try.¡±

    ¡°Jesus Christ, Reeve,¡± Hannah said sourly. ¡°I hope you think about this conversation later when you¡¯re not sure why people don¡¯t trust you.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve never had Neptune show up to confirm anything before,¡± Gareth interrupted, eyes blank.

    ¡°It was a high profile target,¡± Reeve said, grateful for the question.

    Alex looked up. ¡°How high profile?¡±

    Reeve mussed at his hair. ¡°The file¡¯s intel said this guy was an Entropy agent, but he wasn¡¯t even close. He wasn¡¯t even knacked. He used to work for Sol years and years ago, back before it was all gens and Sol employed a few non-knacked specialists to train them. This researcher, he¡¯s a scientist, had made copies of projects in case he needed collateral when he left, but he hadn¡¯t done anything new with them in decades. He just stuck them in a drawer.¡±

    ¡°And Sol just suddenly needed to make sure he didn¡¯t go public?¡± Gareth asked.

    Reeve shook his head. ¡°Worse. Sol was cleaning house. He told me that Sol would have killed him to prevent us, knacked people, from reading those documents.¡±

    ¡°What was it?¡± Hannah asked.

    ¡°No.¡± Reeve swallowed. ¡°They want me erased because they figure I know it.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a little fucking late, Reeve,¡± Gareth sneered.

    ¡°If you don¡¯t know, you and Hannah have a slim chance. And Alex, you were still technically a student. If this had happened a few weeks later, it would be a different story, but I think their procedures state they have to try to save you because you were a minor when you defected.¡±

    ¡°What did he have?¡± Alex asked, ignoring him.

    ¡°No.¡±

    Alex huffed impatiently. ¡°Maggie had the technology, Alyosha had a plane, Jon¡­ Jonathan was a doctor. What did this guy have that you wanted? These files?¡±

    ¡°Paranoia.¡± Reeve let his hands flop in front of him, exhausted. His side burned with every breath. ¡°He was sure Sol would come for him one day, so he¡¯d been stashing away money in hidden accounts, buying fake identification papers and real estate in different names.¡±

    No one spoke for a moment. When Reeve looked up, he saw that Alyosha had disappeared at some point, too. He hadn¡¯t even heard him walk past him out of the room.

    ¡°For the record,¡± Hannah croaked. ¡°When we went and got you back, not knowing what you did, these two thought it could be a mistake. I didn¡¯t think that. I was sure you¡¯d done something wrong, something bad enough for Neptune to take you. There¡¯s a long, terrifying list of possibilities for things that can get you erased. And we came to get you anyway. I came knowing you¡¯d done something awful. So I need you to just eat that you fucked up. Next time you dream up some secret conspiracy shit, you need to tell us so we don¡¯t accidentally blow your cover. You asshole.¡±

    Reeve clamped his eyes shut and didn¡¯t move.

    Hannah raised her voice, ¡°Now, I need you two to help me get into a bedroom because, Reeve, I love you and I don¡¯t want to hate you, but right now being in the same room with you is hard.¡±

    Reeve realized belatedly that she was feeling his pain and her own. He could relate, so he kept his head down until he heard the bedroom door close. Noah would leave them alone soon and they¡¯d be on their own again¡ªsomething Reeve found absurdly foolish, given how the night had gone. He didn¡¯t sleep.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Company Housing.

    Mackenzie¡¯s head was pounding and any movement of her eyes seemed to set off new waves of pain. Still, she kept leafing through pages that might give her more information to add to the pieces she had already stowed away safely. There was a man in Paris who kept coming up in her notes, and she needed to either send someone she trusted to go check him out or find a way to get there herself. Given how concerned Rafe had been, she didn¡¯t like her chances of being able to extricate herself from LAHQ, but she had her own concerns about who to choose to go in her stead. She needed Louis and Grace here, and this was sensitive.

    Tossing aside page after page, she wished she could even articulate what she was looking for. More than anything, it was a feeling. The knowledge was there in her head; she couldn¡¯t touch it, but it was in there. Every now and then, something she read would send this electric zing through her, like lightning forking and branching, reaching out to touch these inaccessible parts of her mind¡ªsignaling that it was connected to the chain.

    She stared long and hard at a series of drawings, willing them to trigger something, but nothing clicked until she moved onto another stack of drawings and found one sketch of a young woman, hair in a thick, wavy bob. It wasn¡¯t a face she recognized. There was a lot of graphite on the page, darkening the edges and she¡¯d even gone in with black pen on top of it to try to make it darker. It was one way Mackenzie sometimes conveyed a sense of dread in her Knowing, when words didn¡¯t feel true enough in the moment. The background amidst the darkness was hard to make out, but it looked much like a high-ranked corporate office, though she couldn¡¯t say whose. She¡¯d drawn a star anise pod in high detail that covered most of her chest.

    The caption she¡¯d written at the bottom read, ¡°She will bring it all crashing down.¡±

    The lightning struck through her mind, illuminating her far edges with a deep fear. A pull like an itch somewhere in her body told her she had seen this woman before. She¡¯d drawn her before or written her down. Somewhere.

    Head reeling, she stood and rushed across the room, eyes half closed and blinded by migraine. The other Knowing of her wasn¡¯t from the same time she¡¯d used her knack. It was later, maybe. Closer to now. She let the sick feeling in her stomach guide her to the filing cabinet that held her records from last year¡¯s Knowing. There were two full drawers of papers, and that didn¡¯t include voice recording data.

    It took her two hours of going through shorthand, challenging her limit on her ability to push through a headache, until she found what she was looking for. Another drawing, this one lighter and picturing two people. The woman¡¯s face was both soft and hard at once, and she was pressed, forehead to forehead, with a familiar man in glasses. To one side, she¡¯d sketched a rough waterlily shape she didn¡¯t understand.

    The caption she¡¯d scrawled read, ¡°She could be the one to bring it all crashing down.¡± There was no dread in reading it, but something like hope. Below that, she¡¯d added as an afterthought, ¡°Send Fox to Paris.¡±

    Fox del Sol. That¡¯s who the man in the drawing was. One of her top ten agents. Someone she would count as trusted, but he hadn¡¯t automatically made his way onto her shortlist for this Paris assignment. At the moment, Fox was undercover in Bulgaria, she knew.

    Send Fox to Paris.

    Okay. That settled that, but who was the woman?

    She went to her computer, glancing back at the first drawing with the anise pod, and did a search in the Saturn database for ¡°star anise.¡±

    Anise del Sol popped up right away. She studied her face. Yes, that was her. Too young yet for the drawing, but still her. She was a fresh agent in Kyiv, and not likely to cross paths with someone like Fox.

    She could bring it all crashing down.

    The illumination sparked across her mind, inundating and absolute, raising the hair on her arms with urgent hope. Fate wasn¡¯t fixed¡ªor, it was and it wasn¡¯t. She could help it along.

    With a fresh sheet of paper, she made a note: reassign Fox¡¯s current handler. Promote him if she had to. Request an agent from Kyiv be the one to make Fox¡¯s last contact on that Bulgaria assignment. If fate willed it, it would be Anise del Sol.

    Then, she¡¯d send Fox to Paris.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 25

    Sanctuary in Antwerp, Belgium.

    The red lights made it hard to relax, as if the color itself could put an edge on his anxieties. Alex squeezed his eyes shut against them, but it didn¡¯t much help. Even when his eyes were closed, he knew the lights were there and why. It made his mind wander to the darkness they were meant to help him see through and the things that lurked there. Somehow, it was worse without Noah. After tense goodbyes and the solid, surprisingly fortifying hug Noah had given him, Noah had left them well and truly on their own, with only a short list of Sanctuary locations. He missed Noah¡¯s quiet knowledge and calm confidence in them, even when it wasn¡¯t deserved.

    The first few nights without Noah, they didn¡¯t hunt at all, but despite himself, Alex had pressed. It was what they were supposed to be doing, and not doing what Noah had said had only ever gotten them in trouble. That didn¡¯t mean he wasn¡¯t as terrified as they were. Just thinking about it, gooseflesh raised on his arms, making the hair stand on end. He pulled the musty smelling blanket up further, sinking into that child-like feeling of safety that comes with a blanket tucked in tight.

    Cover your neck with your blanket and the vampires can¡¯t get you.

    Why was it that all children seemed to inherently have that quiet, unspoken knowledge?

    Alex shifted onto his side and curled up. The couch was lumpy and old, and one of the cushions beneath him was flatter than the others. He¡¯d slept on worse, but that didn¡¯t mean he had to like it. He couldn¡¯t decide if he was grateful not to be out hunting tonight or if trying to sleep in the dark was worse.

    He could feel Reeve¡¯s mind gently resting in his own, a presence like a big cat¡ªor at least that¡¯s how Alex always thought of it. That¡¯s how it felt. He let his mind brush against it and took comfort in its purring-pulsing familiarity. They¡¯d both drawn the short straws tonight and took on the task of house-sitters while the others went hunting dogs. It was nice for once to be able to stay with one of his own. He knew he wasn¡¯t supposed to be thinking that way¡ªNoah cautioned against it all the time¡ªbut he couldn¡¯t help it.

    The pressure in Alex¡¯s head eased back with a start, and he realized that he¡¯d probably woken Reeve up by pushing in closer. Reeve had insisted he¡¯d prefer to squeeze into the smaller but lumpless love-seat across from Alex¡¯s couch. The cushions were all uniform. Alex heard him sit up.

    ¡°You still awake?¡± Reeve¡¯s voice was gravelly with sleep.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Alex said, not yet opening his eyes. ¡°I can¡¯t relax. I just keep seeing...¡± He couldn¡¯t bring himself to say it out loud. Since that first hunt, the image of that head stuck with him. The way it reached out to the body like a magnet, and the way the thick, black blood had smelled on his hands and clothes. Reeve would know what he meant.

    Reeve made a small sound of acknowledgement and Alex heard him stand up and shuffle to the kitchen. Eyes still screwed shut, he listened to the squeak of the faucet turning on, the delay as the water chugged to a start, the splash and gurgle of water filling a glass, and the drip-drip-drip after Reeve shut it off. Footsteps coming towards him. Reeve¡¯s familiar weight sinking down onto the couch near Alex¡¯s feet. He opened his eyes and propped himself up. Red light flooded the water in Reeve¡¯s mason jar as he gulped it down, making it glow bright and deep. Reeve¡¯s freckles looked dark in that strange light, and the wisps of his fine hair caught the glow like a crimson halo.

    ¡°Sorry I woke you up,¡± Alex said. ¡°I just. It¡¯s comfortable when you¡¯re in my head and I wanted that. It¡¯s comfortable.¡±

    Reeve nodded, ¡°It¡¯s okay. I wasn¡¯t really sleeping all that well anyway.¡±

    Alex knew he was lying. He¡¯d been sound asleep for the first time in weeks, if you don¡¯t count being unconscious. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    Reeve finished his water and put the jar down on the old pressboard coffee table. ¡°They¡¯re okay out there. They¡¯ll be back soon, I¡¯m sure.¡± Alex wasn¡¯t sure which one of them Reeve was trying to reassure.

    Alex sat the rest of the way up, tangling himself in the blanket. He wrestled with it for a moment, swearing under his breath before giving up and just scooting over to sit beside Reeve. ¡°This is pretty weird, huh?¡± He rested his head on Reeve¡¯s shoulder. ¡°I miss Beatty.¡±

    ¡°I know,¡± Reeve said, a hand raising to brush his fingers through Alex¡¯s mussed hair, just for a moment, before falling again and finally resting around Alex¡¯s shoulders. ¡°I¡¯m really sorry I got us into this mess.¡± His voice was quiet and earnest.

    It was the first time Alex had heard Reeve apologize without a hint of annoyance or defensiveness. There was vulnerability in Reeve¡¯s voice that made him hold his breath for a beat, as though he might scare this moment of rawness away.

    Reeve said, in the same small voice, ¡°I really am.¡±

    Alex nodded, feeling the subtle friction of his cheek against the sleeve of Reeve¡¯s shirt. ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± he said, and meant it.

    ¡°I really screwed up,¡± Reeve said. ¡°I dragged you all into this mess with me, and I didn¡¯t mean to. I¡¯m an idiot. I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d get caught, you know? God, that sounds stupid when I say it out loud. ¡®I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d get caught.¡¯ What a stupid thing to say.¡± His voice maintained its quiet, steady monotone. He sounded tired.

    Alex pressed his face a little closer to Reeve¡¯s neck, let his nose brush against the hair that just grazed Reeve¡¯s shoulders. It tickled a little, but he didn¡¯t reach up to scratch it. Reeve smelled of turmeric from the meal they¡¯d eaten earlier that night. ¡°It¡¯s really okay,¡± he said. ¡°I mean,¡± he gently knocked Reeve¡¯s knee with his own, ¡°It¡¯s not. But it is. You know? This whole Church thing is a trip, but I can¡¯t say for sure that it isn¡¯t better than the Neptune team I¡¯d have been shipped off to if we¡¯d stayed.¡± He sniffed and wrinkled his nose a little, trying to ease away a lock of tickling hair. ¡°At least this way I get to stay with you.¡± He paused, then caught himself and hastily added, ¡°Stay with everyone, I mean. You know?¡±

    Reeve¡¯s thumb rubbed a little circle on Alex¡¯s shoulder, and he said, ¡°Yeah,¡± and breathed out through his nose. Alex noticed he and Reeve had both been holding their breath.

    ¡°I¡¯d hate Neptune,¡± he said into Reeve¡¯s neck. They sat in silence for a beat, and then he said, ¡°Not that this is all peaches and cream, but...¡± He trailed off. He felt Reeve nod. ¡°They seem like jerks.¡±

    Reeve laughed at that¡ªnot loudly, and without much animation, but the quiet snuff of his mirth made Alex smile.

    ¡°I¡¯d have fought for you to be placed elsewhere, you know,¡± Reeve said.

    ¡°Yeah. But it doesn¡¯t matter now.¡±

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Neptune Department.

    Freddie rolled her shoulders in her chair. The Neptune conference room furniture looked stately, but wasn¡¯t built for ergonomics. She looked around at the others, each with their own brand of sour expression as they looked over whatever notes they¡¯d made for the department meeting.

    If Casper¡¯s brow was any more furrowed, it would break through into his brain cavity. Penn had the dour expression of a man trying to maintain some sort of dignity as he walked the plank to a watery death. And Sage, well, Sage was Sage. She could read him better than she could five years ago, so she knew now that his hard, jaw-clenched look was hiding a wide-eyed, heart-palpitating anxiety. He¡¯d push through. It was when he looked relaxed that she had to worry, because that meant he was too depressed to properly hold the facade.

    She knew what her own expression was. She worked in a damn glass office when she was in the basement and Uranus polished that thing to within an inch of its life. Her resting face was flat and mostly unreadable. She¡¯d been told once that, between her bangs and the way she maintained her brows, her expression always looked as if she were raising her eyebrows to scrutinize you. She¡¯d taken that feedback and made sure to never change up her grooming habits ever again.

    Gerrit walked into the room and the weekly departmental meeting set was complete. He looked nervous, and the fact that he¡¯d come in under his own power rather than teleporting didn¡¯t speak well for his mood, either.

    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    ¡°Alright,¡± Sage sighed as Gerrit took his chair. ¡°Penn?¡±

    Penn nodded and cleared his throat. ¡°It¡¯s been a quiet week for student or undiscovered knack exposures. A good dozen minor Phagi exposures managed.¡± He glanced down at his notes. ¡°We¡¯ve been keeping up with post-mission cleans, but we did have one near-crisis with a moon who seemed to have taken one look at their assignment and just willfully fucked it up beyond recognition.¡±

    Freddie gave a snort of a laugh and choked it back.

    ¡°My apologies, sir,¡± he grimaced and went on. ¡°In my defense, it was that bad. We had to briefly crash two social media sites while we purged the data and got things under control.¡±

    Sage exhaled. ¡°Don¡¯t make a habit of it or else I¡¯m going to have Mercury on me.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir, but any chance you can get on Uranus about doing some mass recertification on exposure control protocols with all these Moons?¡±

    ¡°I can bring it up at the next department heads meeting.¡±

    ¡°Because it¡¯s not going to get any easier,¡± Penn pressed. ¡°It¡¯s not like the world is going to look at technology and suddenly decide, ¡®no that¡¯s enough.¡¯ There are only going to be more cameras and more ways to disseminate information in real-time. One of these days¡ª¡±

    ¡°Yes, Penn, we know,¡± Freddie interrupted, folding her hands in front of her. ¡°The end is nigh.¡± It was the dead horse he¡¯d been beating to a pulp ever since she¡¯d met him. That there would be one tweet too many and suddenly there goes the neighborhood. She got that as time went on, Cleanup¡¯s budget and resources were going to have to rise exponentially to keep up, but his nightmare scenarios didn¡¯t keep her up at night.

    ¡°You¡¯ve made your point,¡± Sage said in his firmest voice as he took back control of the conversation. Sometimes, she wasn¡¯t wholly sure if he appreciated or resented her instinct to jump right in and herd their people into place. ¡°Is that all?¡±

    The tension in Penn¡¯s face could be felt across the room. ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    Casper shook his head into the following silence. ¡°Can I say¡ªJust listening to you call that a ¡°near¡± crisis is giving me an ulcer.¡±

    Penn shrugged, looking hopeless, and Sage turned to fix his gaze on Casper.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Casper replied to the look. ¡°We currently have fifty two active cases on our plate¡ªmany of them are relatively low level. I closed twelve in the past week, the majority of those being folks who were cleared or being given a stern warning. There are two cases, however, that mean I need to hook up with you, Gerrit, because I think I know how they¡¯re going to go, and I want teams positioned and ready when the call gets made.¡±

    Gerrit smiled an uncharacteristically thin smile. ¡°Can do.¡±

    Sage turned again. ¡°Gerrit?¡±

    He sighed. ¡°The Icarus roster is mostly holding steady. This morning, a team out of Panama picked up an Icarus they¡¯d been tracking who ran from the Philadelphia office, so she should be incoming.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll get me that info?¡± Freddie asked. She¡¯d need to go over the file in order to choose the best Reintegration agents for the job.

    Gerrit nodded and brought one hand up to his face. Then, noticing it, forced it back to the tabletop where one finger tapped aimlessly.

    ¡°As far as a report on 37A¡¯s team, we¡¯ve lost them.¡± It sounded like it hurt him to say it. ¡°It¡¯s been weeks since our last sighting and my teams in South and Central America are all run down, pulling twenty-hour days. I think it¡¯s safe to say at this point that they haven¡¯t gone to ground. I want your permission, sir, to move 37A to priority one for Retrieval teams, active and passive, worldwide, not just South America.

    ¡°Worldwide?¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir. I acknowledge that it will compromise other tracking efforts, but I don¡¯t even know where to start looking. It¡¯s been too long. They could be anywhere.¡±

    They all turned to look at Sage, who she expected to be doing his best not to shrink, but instead his head was angled at the table blindly, eyes moving back and forth as if he were reading something. ¡°Pacific is too wide. Has to be Africa or Europe. His telepath score isn¡¯t good enough to smuggle that many people onto a commercial flight. Cargo plane? No, it¡¯s too big.¡±

    Sage looked up, face calm and set. Mission-mode. She didn¡¯t see it on him often, but when she did, it made her sit up straighter. ¡°The team in Natal made a report before they engaged, right? Bring a copy to Mars, redacted as needed, and see if that plane description can narrow down the actual type. They might be able to give us more of an idea of their range. Tell us if they¡¯re still on the continent. And send a couple of teams to check out islands that could act as stepping stones, just in case. Ascension comes to mind. See if you can get anything from that. Those islands are isolated enough that locals would notice anything out of the ordinary.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± Gerrit managed, looking sheepish.

    ¡°And yes, you have my go-ahead. This one is smart, but they¡¯ll mess up somewhere. They always do.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, sir.¡±

    ¡°Frederika?¡±

    She raised her eyebrows and stretched her mouth against the tension in the air. ¡°I¡¯m fine.¡± She exhaled and went on. ¡°Steady progress continues with all our wards. We¡¯re prepped and ready to do post-grad integration for the students graduating into Neptune. And I need your sign-off to move 17B¡¯s residence from Icarus containment into a reentry support team for the remainder of his Reintegration. He¡¯s ready.¡±

    ¡°You have a team picked out?¡±

    ¡°Yes, but I should probably run it by Gerrit first, because it¡¯s going to fuck up their availability.¡± Reentry teams were typically Retrieval teams based in LA. It was a tricky middle point in an Icarus¡¯ recovery, but a good sign that they¡¯d have their name back soon and be off her radar.

    Gerrit nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll find you later today.¡±

    Sage waited a moment to see if she was done and then nodded. ¡°Okay, keep me looped in.¡±

    The three others left and she stayed, sitting with Sage at the table. When they were alone he deflated slightly. ¡°What a mess.¡±

    She gave him a sardonic grin. ¡°It¡¯s a real shame we didn¡¯t suck at our jobs when we were coming up, huh?¡±

    He grunted and stared at the door. ¡°Did I pick the wrong person?¡±

    She balked. ¡°Gerrit?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s nowhere with these Icarus. Was it the wrong call for Retrieval and now this is my fault? I did it so fast. I should have¡ª¡± He was blinking too fast and his voice was getting that breathy sound to it, huffing out at awkward moments. Those were ingredients for a panic attack and she needed to get him off the heat.

    ¡°Easy.¡± She put her hand up. ¡°Slow it down. Kinda pissed at you for making me defend a choice I didn¡¯t agree with, but no one would have these Icarus nailed down. Not you, not anyone. How many times in your career have you tracked an agent who knew ahead of time to prepare because they knew they¡¯d be declared Icarus?¡±

    ¡°Never,¡± he admitted.

    ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s fucking unheard of. I want you to cut everyone, including yourself, some slack.¡±

    ¡°I want to call Rich.¡±

    Freddie dropped her chin in her hand, glumly. ¡°Rich also couldn¡¯t magically locate four people holed up somewhere. You said it. They¡¯ll fuck up and then Gerrit will be on them.¡± She groaned. ¡°As much as he¡¯d like to, Gerrit himself is not about to catch these people with his own two hands. It¡¯s the teams on the ground, and if Will had tried to push those teams as hard as Gerrit has, they¡¯d have mutinied. The dude can galvanize people. He¡¯s not the wrong choice. Now please stop making me tell you that.¡±

    He nodded. ¡°You¡¯re right. I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯m fine.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡± She squeezed his shoulder. ¡°I¡¯ll get you the info on 17B. That one¡¯s good news.¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡± His tone was about as far from jubilant as could be.

    ¡°Eat something.¡± With a deep breath, she headed back to her office. What a mess.

    ---

    Sanctuary in Brussels, Belgium.

    Their burner phone rang for the first time in two weeks. Reeve was busy sleepily frying up a giant pan of eggs. It was a familiar smell and sound, a comforting constant in different kitchens and countries and company. The sound of the ringer made him freeze, his muscles locking.

    ¡°Can you watch these?¡± he quickly asked Peter, the only other current occupant in the Sanctuary. He looked up blearily from his coffee and nodded. Reeve ran to the small room he was sharing with Alyosha and Gareth. Hannah and Alyosha were already there, eyes wide. Reeve tore through his bag to get to the phone and hit the answer button the moment he had it in hand.

    ¡°Hello?¡± he asked, a little breathless. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex tumble into the room.

    ¡°Reeve?¡± came the voice on the phone. ¡°It¡¯s Noah.¡±

    Reeve blew out a breath and mouthed his name to the others. ¡°Good to hear from you.¡±

    ¡°How are things going?¡± he asked.

    ¡°Fine. We¡¯re on a routine. Not a lot of successes, but no major incidents.¡±

    ¡°Can you be in Nuremberg in five days, max?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s in Nuremberg?¡±

    ¡°I am.¡±

    Reeve held the phone to his chest. ¡°Shvedov, can we get to Nuremberg in under five days?¡±

    Alyosha¡¯s eyes darted back and forth as he did the calculation and Reeve sensed him come to an answer. He told Noah, ¡°Yes,¡± just as Shvedov gave him a thumb¡¯s up.

    ¡°Good. How are you on funds?¡±

    Reeve scratched his head. ¡°Getting tight but, with my knack, it¡¯s never that tight.¡±

    ¡°Good. Come to Nuremberg. Call when you¡¯re close and I¡¯ll give you a location. I have news.¡±

    ¡°News?¡± Reeve scrunched up his face and shook his head at the others when they looked at him questioningly.

    ¡°I¡¯ll explain when you get here. Be safe.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, you too.¡± He hung up and sat down on the bed.

    ¡°So what¡¯s going on?¡± Alex urged. Reeve saw he had hold of Hannah¡¯s shirt sleeve. Their thoughts were a steady flow that pricked at his anxiety.

    ¡°How quickly do we have to leave if we want to get to Nuremberg?¡± he asked Alyosha.

    ¡°Right now.¡±

    ¡°Right.¡± Reeve sighed. ¡°Someone tell Peter we¡¯re leaving him high and dry. Tell him¡­ Leave him one of the shotguns.¡±

    Hannah nodded and left the room.

    ¡°Did it sound like good news or bad news?¡± Alex pressed.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Get your things together.¡± He saw Shvedov give Alex¡¯s good shoulder a squeeze and leave down the hall. Alex didn¡¯t move.

    ¡°Did we pass?¡±

    Reeve looked at him, unsure what to say.

    ¡°Does this mean we¡¯re Church-approved now?¡±

    ¡°I think we¡¯ll find out in Nuremberg.¡± He went back to shoveling his clothes back into his pack. Alex didn¡¯t leave to go to his room, where his things were. Reeve felt the cloud of Alex¡¯s mind, loud and persistent, wrapping around himself like a thick blanket, pulling inward. Reeve resisted the urge to meld into the weave of it, tempting like warm water, to see what Alex was holding back. Instead, he kept packing without turning around. Alex¡¯s eyes felt like heat on his shoulder blades and the scar on his side stung when he breathed. Each second that passed, Reeve fully expected to hear Alex¡¯s voice, maybe angry and annoyed, maybe scared. After another moment of silence, he heard Alex leave the room.

    Reeve deflated, dropping the shirt he was folding. He stared at it, crumpled and creased. He tried to explain to himself why he had just done that, why it had made his heart race. Running his fingers over the buttons and stitching, he searched the shirt as though it might hold answers, but only found stains on the cuffs that nothing could get out.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 26

    Sanctuary. Somewhere in Germany.

    They crossed the border into Germany a day later, traveling through the night. Reeve convinced people driving vehicles large enough to fit them all to give them rides when he could, and when he couldn¡¯t, they walked. They pitched lean-to¡¯s in secluded areas and slept in piles or crashed in hostels that were empty during the day while Reeve stayed up, keeping the staff from bothering them. His head reeled from lack of sleep and the uppers made his jaw ache with a familiar pain. They kept as silent as possible, so as to leave less of a trace for trackers and psychometrists. They got into the city the night of the fourth day, and Noah texted them the address. A young man dropped them off in his van and drove away to find himself unexpectedly in the city and with no memory of the last two hours.

    They walked the last mile to the Sanctuary, not wanting the driver to bring them too close.

    When they reached the correct street, the five of them fanned out to comb the sidewalks for signs partially obscured by shaggy hedges. They followed the sticks into a smallish apartment building. Their feet plodded heavily, sweeping the doorways for something off, until they came across one with two doormats, one stacked on top of the other. Eyes red and tired, Gareth knocked three times and the lot of them stood back, waiting.

    Noah answered the door and grinned at seeing them. ¡°Welcome, brothers. Enter with Christ.¡± He swung the door open and stepped back.

    ¡°May your god protect you and yours,¡± Shvedov answered. It sounded practiced and not yet automatic, but sincere, nonetheless. They piled into the apartment. Noah slapped Reeve on the back and put an arm around Alex as they filed in. It was a tiny, maybe two bedroom flat, and furnished sparsely.

    ¡°You made it,¡± Noah said, his voice light with pride. ¡°How was the travel?¡±

    ¡°Cold and dirty,¡± Alex answered.

    ¡°It was fine,¡± Reeve sighed.

    Noah gestured for them to sit in the living room. ¡°Any Neptune run-ins since I left?¡±

    Hannah plopped down onto the floor and started stretching her calves. ¡°No,¡± she said.

    ¡°Good. Good, everyone get comfortable. Let me take that,¡± he reached out an arm to take a bag from Alyosha. Reeve watched him, over eager, but not looking at his thoughts. He¡¯d learned better, but he kept his channels open, hoping to find something passively.

    ¡°How are you healing?¡±

    Reeve snapped back into the present to look at Noah. ¡°Oh, yeah I¡¯m fine.¡±

    ¡°Good,¡± he said again. ¡°I talked to a tracker. He says he¡¯ll talk to you. I¡¯ve gotta tell you though, he¡¯s not happy about it.¡±

    ¡°Why?¡± Shvedov raised his eyebrows.

    Noah shrugged. ¡°He doesn¡¯t like Icarus.¡±

    ¡°When?¡± Reeve asked.

    ¡°Tomorrow night. He¡¯s in Munich now, about an hour south of here.¡± He pulled a book from the shelf and leafed through the pages until a small slip of paper fell out. He picked it up and handed it to Gareth.

    ¡°This is a location for a dead drop. That will tell you where to meet.¡±

    ¡°Damn, this guy is paranoid.¡±

    ¡°He really doesn''t like Icarus,¡± Noah said simply, shrugging.

    Reeve looked around to see everyone else was scanning the room too, all wondering if they were leaving now. ¡°We¡¯ll stay and sleep through the day and head out tomorrow.¡± He turned to Noah, ¡°If that¡¯s alright with you, if you have the space.¡±

    ¡°No point in asking. It¡¯s a Sanctuary.¡±

    He nodded and cracked a smile. ¡°In that case, how much hot water do you have?¡±

    Later, after they had showered and eaten with loud, raucous mouthfuls crowded around the small Sanctuary table, Reeve began laying out a bedroll on the living room floor. The sun was beginning to come up, though the thick curtains blocked out the worst of it.

    Noah called his name from the kitchen, leaning around the corner. ¡°Go sleep in one of the bedrooms.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m alright here. I was going to stay by the door.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sleeping. Take a bed while you have it.¡± When Reeve hesitated, he continued, ¡°I¡¯m just going to keep you up out here with the tv on. Go. I¡¯ve got tonight.¡±

    Reeve nodded, his throat catching on a thank you he didn¡¯t say. He stowed his bedroll in their pile and headed down the hall. He stuck his head in the first bedroom and saw Gareth and Hannah collapsed and already sleeping in a tangled pile, crowded on a twin bed. (They''d found that, when space was tight, the Church allowed for some leeway in gendered company if you already traveled together.) In the second bedroom, a small light was still on. Shvedov had set up a cot by the door and had wrapped himself tightly with blankets nearly up to his eyes. Alex was in the bed mashing at a pillow. Reeve scanned the room for a second cot, but didn¡¯t find one.

    ¡°There¡¯s room,¡± Alex whispered, noticing him and moving to one side. Alex pointed to Shvedov. "I told him the same thing."

    Something in his belly squirmed and his feet felt nailed to the floor. He couldn¡¯t put his finger on why and shook it off. He moved quietly past Alyosha and sat on the bed. It gave with his weight and he immediately felt his need for sleep multiply. He sat there silently for a long moment, looking down and staring at the dirty cuffs of his jeans, knowing they were too dirty to leave on, but unable to move.

    ¡°Are you okay?¡± Alex asked softly. The buzz around his head was murky with sleep, but pricked at Reeve with that same unease he felt in his stomach. Reeve nodded, unbuttoned, and stepped out of his jeans, leaving them in a stiff pile on the ground. He laid back, his muscles relaxing into the bed, and closed his eyes. It burned like fire, but he willed himself to keep them closed a little longer until the sting began to fade. The orange-tinged darkness seemed to spin behind his eyelids and sent a wave of gooseflesh running down his body. With a click, Alex switched off the light and the sudden pitch black startled his eyes back open. The burning abated, but he was blind and he felt his heart rate rise.

    Alex shifted next to him. He could hear his breathing near his ear. He narrowed his telepathy to avoid listening to his head. ¡°How is your Reading tonight?¡± Reeve asked.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine actually. Quiet.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s good.¡±

    ¡°How¡¯s your head?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m fine. You should sleep.¡±

    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t worry about that, I¡¯m ¡®bout to pass out.¡±

    Reeve felt the bed move as Alex turned to face away from him. He felt the sudden absence of his body heat keenly. He closed his eyes again and focused on the searing pain. Alex¡¯s arm reached back, blindly banging against Reeve¡¯s chest and stomach. Reeve caught it in his hand to protect his sore rib cage. Alex¡¯s hand twisted in his hold to get a grip on Reeve¡¯s wrist and pulled. Not hard. Not enough to turn him over, just enough that Reeve knew what he was doing.

    Reeve shifted onto his side and Alex started tugging again, wrapping Reeve¡¯s arm around his waist and tucked his hand under his belly. Reeve moved closer to settle in, using his free hand to try to tame the worst of Alex¡¯s hair.

    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    Alex shifted back, forming his back to the bend of Reeve¡¯s chest. He laid his arm over Reeve¡¯s, hand resting lightly on the back of his wrist. Reeve curled his legs up to mirror Alex¡¯s without touching him. Alex let out a light, contented breath. Reeve¡¯s hand was frozen, held unnaturally still against Alex¡¯s stomach. If he moved it, Alex¡¯s shirt shifted against his skin and it doubled the volume of Alex¡¯s thoughts.

    ¡°Reeve? Do you think this guy we¡¯re going to meet is crazy?¡±

    ¡°Not any crazier than anyone else in the Church, probably.¡±

    Alex grunted in agreement. ¡°I can¡¯t feel your head.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re telepathy. It¡¯s all...tucked away or something.¡± His voice was sleepy and soft. ¡°Normally I can feel you, but it¡¯s like you¡¯re almost gone.¡±

    Reeve opened his eyes again, his eyelashes catching Alex¡¯s hair. It was dark, but he could make out the line of his shoulder. ¡°It¡¯s a new city,¡± he said after a moment. ¡°I¡¯m concentrating outwardly, so I¡¯m not really using my normal links. I want to get the lay of the land.¡±

    Alex didn¡¯t respond, but he felt him nod his head. Reeve tried to keep breathing slowly and keep his hand still and hoped that Alex was too tired to call him out on his excuse that didn¡¯t make sense. He was exhausted.

    ¡°Night,¡± Alex murmured, moving his hand over Reeve¡¯s arm. Reeve closed his eyes again, the sting fading, dropped his forehead against Alex¡¯s back, and gave his waist a brief squeeze.

    ¡°Night.¡±

    ---

    Munich, Germany.

    They left the next night. Hannah had half-hoped Noah would go with them, but that wasn¡¯t how it worked in the Church. They stole a car and made the couple hours¡¯ drive to Munich and found their way to the address on the paper.

    It led them to the parking lot of a public park. ¡°Now what?¡± Hannah asked.

    ¡°Some kind of dead drop,¡± Gareth said, scratching his head.

    Hannah scanned the area as best she could in the low streetlights. ¡°So there¡¯s some message here. This is a little ridiculous.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s probably hidden in plain sight,¡± Alyosha said, exhaling heavily.

    ¡°They¡¯re like that,¡± Alex said, nodding. ¡°Something that seems just a little off.¡±

    It wasn¡¯t easy to search a dim parking lot without looking suspicious, but they did what they could. Gareth found it eventually.

    He waved them over. ¡°Roadkill.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Reeve protested. ¡°Really?¡±

    Gareth pointed to a squirrel just where the pavement met grass.

    ¡°Did you check it?¡± Hannah asked, curling her lip.

    ¡°No, but what kind of squirrel gets hit by a car while it¡¯s parking?¡± He crouched down and flipped the poor thing over with a twig. It looked like it was harder to do than she¡¯d expect. He bent low, shining a light, his face set. ¡°Aw, Jesus, there¡¯s something in its mouth.¡±

    Alex shook his head, ¡°That¡¯s fucked up.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s old school Cold War shit,¡± Reeve said from behind Hannah.

    Gareth slowly pulled out a plastic-wrapped bit of paper, rolled into a tight tube. He stood, shaking it. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±

    They went into the park and sat on some benches under a tree. The park was nearly empty this time of day and no one bothered them. Still, Hannah kept her back to them, facing the parking lot as Gareth unrolled the note.

    ¡°It¡¯s a ripped piece of menu. ¡®Bohm¡¯s¡¯ something. There¡¯s an address. He wrote ¡®nine pm¡¯ on it and a little drawing of a daisy. What the fuck?¡±

    ¡°We should go then,¡± Reeve said, voice stiff.

    ¡°We need to ditch this car,¡± Alex replied. ¡°We¡¯ve had it too long.¡±

    Reeve nodded. ¡°We¡¯ll see if we can walk there.¡±

    Gareth put a hand on Reeve¡¯s shoulder to slow him down and turned to Hannah. ¡°Will you go invisible?¡±

    ¡°You think we have something to worry about?¡± Alyosha asked, cocking his head.

    ¡°I don¡¯t trust anything.¡±

    Reeve tensed his brow. ¡°I trust Noah.¡±

    ¡°That must be awesome for you.¡±

    ¡°Gareth,¡± Reeve started in that voice that Hannah knew was the beginning of a fight. Gareth wasn¡¯t having it.

    ¡°I¡¯m just saying it wouldn¡¯t hurt to have a backup plan. I just had to shove my fingers down a dead rat¡¯s throat because this guy doesn¡¯t trust us, so I think having one extra person in the wings is fair.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± she said. Dropping her bag, she went transparent and slipped off her clothes in two quick movements. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±

    They showed up at the pub about thirty minutes early and stopped just outside the door. ¡°How are we supposed to know who it is?¡± Alyosha asked, sneaking a look through the window. Hannah pressed her face close to the glass. It was dark inside, with thick wooden tables and tinted hanging lamps.

    ¡°I think I¡¯ll be able to figure it out,¡± Reeve said.

    ¡°No telepathy against the Church,¡± Alex reminded him.

    He nodded. ¡°No prying, just an open net.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a little seedy, but busy,¡± Gareth said. ¡°That¡¯s a good sign he doesn¡¯t intend to fuck around.¡±

    ¡°Do we all go?¡± Alex asked.

    Reeve shook his head. ¡°Shvedov, you stay here and mind the exit. I think the rest of us going in won¡¯t look off, since Hannah¡¯s ghosting. Good?¡±

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Gareth agreed.

    ¡°Lemme have my razor, just in case,¡± Hannah said quickly.

    Reeve shrugged and Alex dug into her bag and pulled out a small razor blade. She plucked it from his fingers and put it in her mouth, carefully curling her tongue around it to set it into place between her teeth and cheek.

    Reeve opened the door and Gareth followed him in, a little slower than normal, allowing her to slip in between them and make her way into the building. They paused at the front while Reeve scanned the room. It was busy, which was good, but the clientele didn¡¯t seem like the type to have never seen a bar fight, either.

    Back left, Reeve thought to them. He¡¯s alone and has a bouquet of daisies on the table like he¡¯s waiting for a date.

    Let me go first, she thought to them. He nodded.

    Hannah spotted the table at the very back. A man was sitting on his own at a large corner booth in the back, the type with a high wooden partition on three sides for privacy. He was reading a battered paperback and the empty cocktail glass made it clear he had been here a while. The daisies were a little crushed and wilting. He was short and probably around Reeve¡¯s age, maybe a little older, with scraggly brown hair, half-heartedly combed back from his face. His arms, where they were visible under his rolled-up sleeves, were heavily tattooed, more colorful than the older Children they¡¯d seen, crawling up his wrists onto his hands, culminating in a sacred heart. Hannah got as close as she dared, close enough to smell the cigarette smoke soaked into his somewhat ratty clothes. He didn¡¯t react.

    Okay, she thought to Reeve and moved back to stand beside the Child, waiting for them.

    The man looked up as they approached, but didn¡¯t stand. His face took on a hard, twisted look as he studied Reeve, following him with his eyes; that made her nervous.

    ¡°I¡¯m a friend of Noah,¡± Reeve said after stopping in front of him. ¡°Am I at the right table?¡±

    ¡°Sit,¡± he said, gesturing with one hand. The others fanned around, but the man never took his eyes off of Reeve. His energy was strung taut. It made Hannah want to take a step back. ¡°You are Icarus?¡± he asked him. His voice was accented. Eastern European, maybe Russian.

    ¡°Yes,¡± Reeve nodded.

    ¡°What did your name used to be?¡±

    There was a beat and she could see the darting movement of his eyes as he considered the question. ¡°Reeve del Sol.¡±

    Something happened faster than Hannah could register. There was a flare of energy that pummeled through her chest. She moved her head to look at the man, but the sight of Reeve ripping his pistol out from under his jacket rocked her onto her heels. Shocked and delayed, she spit the razor into her hand and turned to swing it at the Child, but he hadn''t moved. She stopped her hand, the blade aimed at his neck but frozen, waiting. She turned her head. Gareth had thrown his shoulder in front of Alex, blocking him from the man¡¯s line of sight just as Alex yelped Reeve¡¯s name in a small voice that broke at the edges.

    She looked to Reeve for direction and saw that he had his gun in his lap, held below the table and pointed backward at his own stomach. A wave of cold nausea choked her and she turned again to look at the man. His face was hard and his nostrils flared in anger.

    The man¡¯s eyes didn¡¯t waver from Reeve¡¯s as he slowly said, ¡°Put it down, Hannah.¡±

    Her tongue stuck uncomfortably to the roof of her mouth, dry and cold, as she tried to steady her breathing and her shaking hand.

    ¡°He¡¯s in my head,¡± Reeve said softly, not moving a muscle. His voice sounded like he was in pain. ¡°Everyone stay calm.¡±

    ¡°Reeve,¡± Gareth ground out, his voice low. The muscles in his arms were jumping, coiled to spring. Hannah¡¯s instincts were to think loudly to Reeve, ask him for direction, but she held back, lost. She studied the man instead. What sort of telepath could overpower Reeve, but not notice her when she first walked over to stand next to him? She let her hand drift closer to his throat.

    His arm shot out and took hold of her wrist in an iron grip. He yanked it down so his fist was resting innocuously on the table to the naked eye. She twisted to grab this throat with her other hand but the indent that the gun barrel was making in Reeve¡¯s shirt stopped her. Alex made a sudden motion that Gareth swiftly quieted, keeping him from launching himself across the table.

    The man gave her arm a jerk. ¡°I am going to scan her head and see what the fuck you think you are doing.¡±

    Hannah swallowed a small noise and tensed her body, trying to build up her mental defenses.

    ¡°You can do that,¡± Reeve said flatly, ¡°but as soon as you do, you will lose your hold on my mind.¡±

    ¡°You think you can kick me out?¡± His face was quiet and even.

    ¡°You¡¯re a mimic. So you have the same level of skill as I do right now.¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°You had surprise on your side, but I¡¯m guessing you don¡¯t have uppers in your system.¡±

    He sneered at that. ¡°So why don¡¯t you kick me out now?¡±

    ¡°I think I could. But it¡¯s not worth having to find someone to sew my stomach up if I can¡¯t do it on the first try.¡±

    The man sat back, though the painful grip on her arm didn¡¯t loosen an inch. ¡°I don¡¯t remember you ever sounding this reasonable back in the Academy.¡±

    Reeve blinked. Hannah looked to Gareth, who was staring in her direction.

    ¡°Still a superior prick, though, I see.¡±

    ¡°Mimic,¡± Reeve murmured, his brow pulling down. Hannah watched his eyes go slightly vacant and when she turned, the man across from him had a thin bead of blood gathered below his nose. He sniffed and shook his head.

    Reeve sat back too, pistol still pressed tight to his stomach. ¡°If you¡¯re going to scan her, do it now. It¡¯s going to be a long night, Misha.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 27

    National History Museum. Bulgaria.

    Anise walked slowly down the grand halls of the National Historical Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria. The glass cases were filled with treasures in gold and platinum shapes and adorned by ancient hands, but she wasn¡¯t interested. She was on her first handler assignment to see an agent based out of the Manchester office.

    Over the past few months, Anise had gone through several calibrations and worked on her training with Mark whenever he was in town, which was less often than she would have expected. With each calibration, Anise found herself feeling more and more at home in Kyiv. She had set aside her anxiety over her knack, confident in Venus¡¯ work, and focused on becoming a valued analyst and handler for Saturn, even though her coworkers still seemed to hold her at arm¡¯s length. There were a couple of young students in the building now, but that wasn¡¯t her life anymore and she didn¡¯t pay them any attention.

    She scanned the room again, making a slow circuit. She had a drawing pad in her arms so she could do mindless sketches of each exhibit while she kept watch on the crowd out of the corner of her eye. She knew her agent toured the museum once a month on a designated day and time, so he¡¯d always be reachable. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her blood felt like lightning from finally being on assignment, even if it was as a handler and not the agent. After what felt like an hour, her agent arrived.

    Fox del Sol. Age 29. Based in Manchester, gen¡¯ed and educated as a young child in the Philadelphia Sol Academy, before being sent to a foster team in Atlanta as a teenager. Bio-manipulator. She¡¯d studied his picture, so his orange hair, falling over his ears in waves, and his curved nose were easy to pick out from the crowd. Not to mention his height¨C he¡¯d be hard to miss by just about anyone. He was taller than she¡¯d expected, though she¡¯d reviewed his file within an inch of its life¡ª6¡¯4¡± looked different in person than on paper. His limbs were lanky, and he carried himself with a casual, almost sleepy confidence. She waited for him to make his way halfway around the room before approaching him.

    He was hovering around a case of pots with intricate designs carved on them, and as she stopped, she dropped her pencil. He automatically bent to pick it up.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± she said, defaulting to Russian. She smiled up at him. ¡°I love a man with blue eyes.¡± It had seemed like an odd pass-phrase to use, but his eyes were a deep, warm brown.

    He smiled in return and gave the counter phrase, in Russian as well. ¡°That¡¯s what my sister always says.¡± He shifted his stance toward her. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen you here before.¡±

    She wasn¡¯t his normal handler was what he meant, which was true. His handler had been transferred recently and they had received an order from LAHQ to send Fox on his next museum visit.

    ¡°I¡¯m just passing through.¡± She passively listened to his mind, out of curiosity. He was a little on edge because she was new, and he thought she was pretty, if a little young for him.

    Fox reached for her sketchbook and she gave it to him, along with her pencil. He flipped through the pages and Anise quietly marveled at how well he played at being truly interested in her terrible drawings. He stopped at one page and began to scribble something on the bottom edge.

    ¡°You¡¯re a lousy artist,¡± he teased quietly as he wrote.

    ¡°It¡¯s Impressionistic,¡± she countered, trying to sound defensive, despite the fact that her sketches were clearly indefensible.

    ¡°Oh?¡± he smirked as he finished writing and flipped to a fresh page, signaling that she didn¡¯t need to read it now. ¡°What exactly is your impression?¡±

    She cocked an eyebrow at him. ¡°That you¡¯re a lousy flirt.¡±

    He laughed at that and handed her the sketchbook back. Anise took it and wrote out the message from LAHQ, a phone number she¡¯d been instructed to memorize, at the bottom corner. She tore it off and held it out.

    She looked at him through her lashes. ¡°Call me.¡±

    Fox slipped the paper into his pocket. ¡°I might do that, Monet.¡±

    She left the museum without looking back. Anise felt lighter than air the entire cab ride to the airport. She¡¯d really, actually done it. Getting a hold of herself, she checked what he¡¯d written. It was a little tough¡ªhis penmanship was as bad as her art¡ªbut it simply read, ¡°I¡¯m still in good standing. Nothing new to report.¡± Nothing so bland had ever felt so thrilling.

    ---

    Munich, Germany.

    Misha had changed. How could he not? His presence in Reeve¡¯s mind felt like a snake, head reared and watchful, ready to snap at the first movement of his telepathy.

    ¡°Let him in, Hannah.¡± Keeping his voice steady felt like all Reeve had left at that point.

    ¡°Is he Neptune?¡± Gareth asked.

    ¡°Of course he¡¯s not Neptune,¡± Misha scoffed.

    ¡°He¡¯s an Icarus. Hannah. He¡¯s not going to find anything that will make him try to make me shoot myself.¡± Misha gave a short chuckle at the word ¡°try.¡±

    ¡°What happened to the Children of God never using their gifts against the Church?¡± Alex asked, with venom enough that it made Reeve both proud and scared for him.

    ¡°You are not Church,¡± Misha answered matter-of-factly.

    Just do it, he heard Hannah¡¯s urgent thought and saw Misha register it, too. Reeve found his opening as Misha¡¯s telepathy slid to read Hannah and he surged forward, blotting out all entrance to his mind. He closed his eyes, hands working automatically from memory to eject the magazine from his pistol. The weight of it hit his lap and he felt like he could pass out if he let himself. The gun was ripped from his hands and Reeve opened his eyes, shocked. Gareth ejected the bullet that was in the chamber and pushed the pistol back into his hands.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Reeve said, mostly to Alex.

    ¡°We need to get the hell out of here,¡± Gareth muttered, glancing around the bar.

    Misha released his hold on Hannah and reached into his pocket. He threw some bills on the table without looking at them. ¡°My place. We can talk there.¡±

    Reeve, Hannah thought, but he shook his head at her, watching Misha stand and head for the door. His coat was long, normal for the Church. It was patched in many places and stained in more. They followed him out the door. Reeve grabbed Shvedov¡¯s elbow as they walked by and he fell into step behind them. Misha led them around the corner into the alley behind the pub and started up the metal fire escape. Reeve looked at the others. Gareth shrugged. They followed.

    By the time they got to the top, Misha had unlocked the narrow door and gone inside the flat above the bar. It was smoky and sparse, with equipment scattered all around. Misha lit a kerosene lantern with a matchbook from his pocket, adjusting the wick to make it bright enough to light the whole room. In the bright light, Reeve could see Misha¡¯s knuckles were swollen and painful looking. He set it on a low table and sat crossed-legged on a blanket-covered futon. Shvedov, last in, closed the door behind them and leaned against it. Hannah blinked into place, her arms folded across her chest.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    ¡°What the fuck is going on?¡± Gareth snapped. ¡°Are you okay, Hannah? Does this guy even know Noah?¡±

    ¡°Of course I know Noah. Jesus Christ.¡± Misha tapped out a cigarette. ¡°You were looking for a tracker, I am the tracker.¡±

    ¡°This is Misha del Sol,¡± Reeve said, looking at Gareth.

    ¡°Just Misha now.¡± He scowled around the filter as he lit it.

    ¡°We were in the LAHQ Academy together. In the same year.¡±

    ¡°What the fuck did you do?¡± Misha asked, clicking his tongue absentmindedly. ¡°Icarus happen. They always will in a system like the Corp. They will go after you, but some shit is unavoidable. But you took a whole fucking team. Are you stupid?¡±

    ¡°This wasn¡¯t exactly the plan.¡±

    ¡°They won¡¯t let you go,¡± he said, lowering his head to look up at Reeve. ¡°All these agents, a goddamn foster. It¡¯s not a defection, it¡¯s a rebellion, and they¡¯ll hunt you more than they ever hunted me.¡±

    Reeve focused on Misha, trying to ignore the pangs of fear swirling around him. ¡°Which is why we need to find The Network.¡±

    Misha waved a hand. ¡°Noah mentioned it.¡±

    ¡°Do you know where they are?¡± Hannah asked.

    ¡°Nyet, I¡¯ve never looked. Why would I want that many Icarus around? It¡¯s a sitting target.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a fortified target.¡± Reeve cocked his head. ¡°How long have you been running?¡±

    Misha laughed. ¡°You¡¯re kidding right?¡±

    Reeve lowered his brow, narrowing his eyes. ¡°No,¡± he said, as sincerely as he could.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been out of Sol since Adam.¡±

    Reeve felt his arms and legs go numb. He couldn¡¯t remember the last time he¡¯d heard that name spoken out loud.

    ¡°Is that some religious, Church saying?¡± Hannah asked.

    ¡°What the fuck? No, it¡¯s a person. Our teacher.¡±

    Reeve closed his eyes for a moment, forcing himself to take stock of his limbs and fingers, coaxing his muscles from spasming. ¡°When?¡± he asked Misha.

    ¡°Partway through Reintegration. Got out before they could finish scrambling my brain. You thought I had stayed?¡±

    ¡°We all did.¡±

    ¡°They fucked with your head?¡± Misha asked. Reeve didn¡¯t answer. ¡°What do you remember?¡±

    ¡°Enough.¡± His voice was huskier than he wanted it to be. Reeve glanced around the room. He wasn¡¯t going to get out of this easily. ¡°It¡¯s hazy.¡± He shook his head. ¡°Contradictory.¡±

    ¡°You never told us you¡¯d been Reintegrated,¡± Hannah said gently. She¡¯d be feeling his unease. He tried to bite it back.

    ¡°I was fourteen. It was a long time ago.¡±

    Misha raised his eyebrows. I¡¯m surprised they gave you a student.

    Something red-hot rose in Reeve¡¯s chest. Drop this now, he thought to Misha with more force than he intended.

    ¡°You should probably stay here tonight,¡± Misha said, standing up and discreetly wiping off blood from his nose. ¡°There¡¯s no electricity, but the hot water¡¯s connected to the bar downstairs. I might have blankets in that closet.¡±

    ¡°Will you help us find the Network?¡± Shvedov asked from nearly beyond the circle of lamplight.

    ¡°I¡¯ll look. And try to keep you idiots alive a little bit longer. I need sleep.¡±

    ¡°Drop my telepathy,¡± Reeve called.

    He turned, shaking his head with a small smile. ¡°I don¡¯t trust you that much.¡±

    ¡°Likewise. Mimic Gareth. Trust me just that much.¡±

    He saw the expression on Misha¡¯s face shift and felt Gareth¡¯s blind disgust behind him. Misha stood there a moment more, then turned to walk down the hall.

    Watching him go, Reeve realized he had been dead wrong. He could remember exactly the last time someone had said Adam¡¯s name out loud.

    ---

    ¡°Reeve.¡± Alex wasn¡¯t sure if he should look at him and picked at a callous on his hand. He could hear his pulse in his ears. Reeve turned back around to them. He looked pale.

    ¡°Why did you do that?¡± Gareth demanded, his shoulders shaking.

    Reeve blinked as though that was the one question he wasn¡¯t expecting. ¡°Do what?¡±

    ¡°Why did you tell him to take my knack?¡±

    ¡°He didn¡¯t take it. You still have it, he¡¯s just copying it.¡±

    ¡°Reeve,¡± Hannah scolded in her ¡®that¡¯s not the point and you know it¡¯ voice.

    He turned to the side, swiping the back of his hand across his brow. ¡°He¡¯s sick,¡± Reeve said with a lowered voice. ¡°I remember¡­ He has Lupus I think, related to his knack. Flares up when he mimics. It was painful.¡±

    Alex¡¯s stomach felt sour. ¡°Why have I never seen this? I Read you all the time.¡±

    ¡°You know I keep back the worst things from you. You Read me to ground yourself, not wade through my shit.¡± Reeve looked sad. Alex clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering.

    ¡°Everyone sit down,¡± Shvedov called, dropping his bag on the floor and finding a seat.

    ¡°Did you already know this?¡± Gareth snapped at him.

    ¡°No. But standing on our feet all night won¡¯t help settle things.¡±

    Alex took Hannah¡¯s hand and pulled her to an oversized armchair, one they could both fit into, if tightly.

    ¡°Is there really anything to settle?¡± Reeve sighed, dropping to the ground, long legs drawn up at the knee.

    ¡°Yes,¡± Hannah said firmly. ¡°You were in Academy together?¡±

    ¡°Yeah. He was a transfer from the Kyiv Academy when they closed it down.¡±

    ¡°Were you friends?¡±

    A smile creeped up one half of Reeve¡¯s face. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have called us friends.¡± His mouth dropped like a flatline. ¡°But we had the same mentor.¡±

    ¡°Adam,¡± Alex said. Reeve just barely flinched and Alex regretted it.

    ¡°He was erased my junior year. All the students he had mentored, and a few others, were put through Reintegration, or at least I thought they were.¡±

    ¡°What the hell did he do?¡± Hannah asked, eyes a little wide.

    Reeve rubbed at his face. ¡°His teaching style was unorthodox. Unapproved. He snuck students out of the building for real life lessons.¡±

    "And all this time, you never fucking said anything. Let us believe Beatty was your first time out of that building." Gareth''s nostrils flared with anger as he spoke, but he kept his voice moderated. Reeve met his eyes, but didn''t speak.

    ¡°They killed him for that? Your mentor.¡± Alex stared at shadows moving on the floor.

    He nodded.

    ¡°I¡¯m glad we fucking left.¡±

    ¡°Can we trust this guy?¡± Alyosha asked, probably changing the subject to help Reeve. Alex made a note to glare at him about it later.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he said frankly. ¡°The last time I saw him, he was a scrawny, sickly sixteen-year-old who smoked too much pot and never really gave a shit about anyone¡¯s feelings.¡±

    ¡°At least we can say he¡¯s no friend of Sol,¡± Hannah offered.

    ¡°Noah says he can find the Network. I say we stay with him for now. Besides, he¡¯s avoided Neptune for over a decade. He¡¯s doing something right.¡±

    ¡°You didn¡¯t think it was weird when he didn¡¯t come back to class?¡± Hannah asked, her voice a little sharp.

    ¡°I never went back to the Academy. I finished out my time in one-on-one training.¡±

    ¡°And they still put you in charge of a team,¡± Gareth mused.

    Reeve smiled thinly. ¡°Is that ever not going to sting?¡± He shrugged. ¡°I had been at the top of my class before it all went down, even having skipped two years. I Reintegrated. It wasn¡¯t fast.¡±

    ¡°Are you okay?¡± Alex asked, his mouth dry.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine. I¡¯d like to be doing anything else but this right now, though.¡±

    Alex nodded and gave Hannah¡¯s shoulder a squeeze. ¡°I¡¯m going to find the bathroom.¡± No one argued, so he got up and stiffly crossed through the kitchen and into the hallway. He found the door to the narrow bathroom and walked in, closing it behind him. He stood in the dark, flipping the light switch on and off a couple of times before he remembered that there was no power. All he had were the street lights filtering in through a slit of a window, just a few inches tall, up by the ceiling. He found the sink and ran cold water. He let it run over his hands and wrists before rubbing it on his face. There were no towels that he could find.

    Standing up, he looked at the dark, vague figure of his reflection as the water dripped from his chin. He wanted this cold water thing to be as grounding as it seemed like it should be. He tried to see his eyes, leaning in, but only caught glints of what could have been water. He lit up his phone, squinting from the glare. He pissed, flushed, and walked back out into the hallway.

    Hannah was standing there in the dim light and he had a shock of worry that he¡¯d been standing in the dark all Bloody Mary for an hour or something.

    ¡°We roshambo¡¯ed for the spare room,¡± she said. ¡°I won. There¡¯s room for one more if you wanna squeeze.¡±

    ¡°Thanks,¡± he said, wiping most of the water off his face with the back of his arm. She held up his bag and he took it, glancing down the hall, back toward the lamplight. He could see Gareth standing by the door, getting undressed, lit up in strange shadows from below. Reeve was backlit, but he knew his posture and shape by heart.

    The spare room was too small to be a bedroom. It couldn¡¯t have possibly been intended for that. The twin bed took up an easy third of the space and they stumbled over folded cots piled in a corner. Hannah kept her phone lit up long enough for them to scramble under the sheets. The sheets were cheap and were the strange sort of cold that felt almost damp. They were crowded together, all elbows while they got settled, yanking the too-thin blanket up high. He was too tired and too out of it to want to talk, so he pressed his forehead against her shoulder and closed his eyes, waiting for sleep to come. His knack pulled at him and he let it murmur at the edge of his awareness. A parade of strange faces climbing in and out of the tiny bed, flashes of Hannah on the plane, back in Beatty.

    Alex bit his cheek. He felt the cold water from earlier on his face again, saw his black shadow-face in the mirror. ¡°Turn over,¡± he whined, trying to push it aside.

    She did without comment. He slipped his arm over her waist and she patted his leg with one icy foot. Sleep didn¡¯t come.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 28

    Sanctuary. Munich, Germany.

    Misha was awake before the rest of them. Gareth woke when he silently lit the lantern on the counter and started running the kitchen sink. He blinked, sitting up quickly in the sunken, battered armchair. He shook himself off, hoping Reeve wouldn¡¯t notice he had fallen asleep when he was supposed to be on watch. The grimace on Reeve¡¯s face proved he was too occupied with the things a body is occupied by when it spends the night on a hard floor. Gareth wondered how long it would take for Reeve to realize Gareth was never going to argue when he offered to take the least comfortable spot in the house.

    A cloud of steam was rising up from the sink as Misha rinsed out a large travel thermos before filling it with hot water.

    ¡°¡®Morning,¡± Reeve said, bleary-eyed. ¡°I half thought you were a dream for a second.¡±

    ¡°I am happy to see you too,¡± Misha replied blandly. He opened a cabinet, empty except for a tall canister of instant coffee and a spoon. He tossed a few scoops into the thermos, closed it, and shook. ¡°Help yourself to whatever you can find. You won¡¯t find much. I¡¯ll be back in a few hours.¡±

    ¡°Where are you going?¡± Reeve asked a little sharply.

    ¡°I said I would look for this Network nonsense. I have to see a contact.¡±

    ¡°Who?¡± Alyosha asked.

    ¡°What?¡± His voice sounded genuinely shocked at the question.

    Reeve stood up and stretched his stiff limbs. ¡°I¡¯m coming.¡±

    Misha shook his head. ¡°No.¡±

    Hannah and Alex came down the hall looking a little tussled. Alex climbed over the back of the futon to sit beside Alyosha.

    ¡°You think I should just trust you?¡± Reeve asked.

    Misha took a sip of his awful looking coffee. ¡°That would be nice, yes.¡± Reeve didn¡¯t respond. ¡°Fine, you are paranoid. You are a little smart after all. You can come and listen from outside,¡± he said, tapping his temple. ¡°My friend is a private man.¡±

    ¡°Fine.¡±

    Hannah shook her head. ¡°No one goes anywhere alone.¡±

    ¡°For Christ¡¯s sake,¡± Misha muttered.

    ¡°I¡¯ll go,¡± Gareth said, standing up and trying to smooth the worst of the rumples from his pants.

    ¡°Okay,¡± Misha snapped. ¡°The rest of you should consider doing a sweep of the area. I think I¡¯ve cleaned out all the stray dogs, but at least try, for appearances.¡±

    Alex had a concerned look to his pinched eyebrows that made Gareth think that they would definitely not be doing that. Hannah watched them as he and Reeve hurriedly got dressed the rest of the way. Her eyes were strangely unreadable.

    Misha clicked his mouth when they were done. ¡°Do you people even try?¡± He bent and rummaged through a bag on the floor, pulling out two necklaces with oversized crucifixes and held them out, one wood and one metal. They took them, told the others to be careful, and followed him down the stairs into the night.

    Misha told them to wait by the corner of a battered, abandoned building while he went across the street to an autoparts garage. Reeve leaned his back against the brick, crossing one thin ankle over the other. Gareth shrugged his shoulder, feeling tangled in the too damn big coats the Church wore. It was a shit area of town and it made Gareth¡¯s palms itch. He clenched his jaw and tried not to pace.

    ¡°What is this?¡± he hissed to Reeve, jutting his chin out.

    Reeve¡¯s voice had that flat tone of being two places at once. ¡°It looks like organized crime.¡±

    Gareth screwed up his face. ¡°Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound most of the time?¡± Reeve didn¡¯t answer and kept his head down, eyes vacant. ¡°¡®Organized crime,¡¯¡± Gareth mocked under his breath.

    ¡°We don¡¯t have to do this,¡± he said quietly.

    ¡°Do what?¡±

    ¡°Find this Network. We can stay in the Church if you want. We can split up, if you all decide it¡¯s safer. We can rethink all this.¡±

    ¡°Oh, shut the fuck up.¡±

    He did, thank god. The sky was clouded over and blank under the dull streetlamps. The side door to the garage opened and two men stepped out and began to cross the street. Lit under the garage''s lights, one was young, late teens, and the other looked to be in his forties. One, then the other, noticed he and Reeve and continued to stare hard in their direction, slowing their pace.

    "What''s with them?"

    "Who?"

    "These two guys who just walked out."

    "What about them?"

    ¡°They''re staring at us."

    "Well, they just left the place of a man who appears to sell illegal firearms and we''re loitering on the corner, watching the building. They''re probably worried we''re cops."

    The men didn''t change the direction they were walking, but they didn¡¯t stop watching them either. They crossed the street and ended up on the sidewalk across from them. The younger one kept his eyes down and was glancing over quickly, but the older one¡¯s head didn''t waver. It was too dark to see their faces now. Gareth''s heart was beating loud in his ears.

    "Can you check?"

    "Gareth, I''m actually pretty busy. I still have a net up for anything Neptune, but I need to focus right now."

    His tone made Gareth sniff automatically. The two turned down a side street and he heard a car drive away. He paced a few times before settling in to lean against the wall next to Reeve. Out of the corners of his vision, he carefully watched the streets and intersections for any flickers of movement. His limbs felt frozen and heavy, his muscles twitching as a car turned the corner and slowly drove past them. Gareth prepared for it to kick off, but it was an elderly couple inside who barely noticed them as they passed.

    "He''s coming out." Reeve said, opening his eyes and stretching his neck.

    Gareth tried not to flinch as he watched the door swing open again and Misha walked out. "Everything okay?" he asked Reeve, watching Misha jog across the street.

    "Yeah."

    Misha got to the corner and tapped out a cigarette. "You get all that?" He asked, his mouth curling into a little sneer.

    Reeve nodded.

    Misha cupped his hand around the cigarette as he lit it and looked at Gareth. "He''s going to look into it and have someone call me," he muttered around the filter. "In case this asshole didn''t say."

    Reeve shook his head and started walking. "What the hell is the Church doing dealing with crime families?¡±

    ¡°Where the hell did you think those closets full of weapons came from? Jesus?¡±

    ¡°Why haven¡¯t we heard about this until now?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s unspoken. Most Children aren¡¯t involved, but there¡¯s a small group willing to get our hands dirty to keep things running and the pious supplied.¡±

    ¡°That doesn¡¯t make any sense,¡± Gareth said. ¡°Entropy works with the families. They wouldn¡¯t fucking tolerate crossing paths with the Church.¡±

    Misha shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s business. They don¡¯t have much of a choice but to put up with it.¡±

    ¡°In what world is Entropy forced into anything?¡±

    Misha shrugged again, without stopping. ¡°Just how it¡¯s always been. Entropy needs the families for manpower and an information network untouched by Sol. The Church needs access to falsified papers and weapons--a lot of weapons. The families like Entropy¡¯s money. And they like the Church as reliable repeat buyers, and help with jobs they don¡¯t want to do themselves. Especially when non-Entropy blood-sucking filth becomes a problem. You are thinking it¡¯s about principle. I say it¡¯s about¡ª¡±

    ¡°Money,¡± Reeve finished, blandly.

    Misha looked back, ¡°Yes.¡± He shook his head at Reeve.

    ¡°So now we wait?¡± Gareth asked, stretching his fingers and glancing around.

    ¡°Yeah, but we¡¯ve got to talk about you,¡± Misha said, looking at Reeve.

    ¡°Christ, what about me now?¡±

    ¡°Your head,¡± Misha said, tapping his own forehead. ¡°You¡¯re being an idiot with it.¡±

    Gareth raised his eyebrows and kept his mouth shut, tensing his lips to keep from smiling.

    ¡°Will you please complete a whole thought?¡± Reeve sighed as they turned a corner.

    ¡°Shut off your telepathy.¡±

    ¡°Are you kidding?¡± Reeve laughed.

    ¡°I am not kidding. Drop your net.¡±

    ¡°Hey,¡± Gareth called, looking around at unfamiliar store fronts. ¡°This isn¡¯t the way back. Where are you taking us?¡±

    Reeve grabbed Misha¡¯s shoulder to turn him, but Misha deftly shrugged him off. ¡°Keep walking.¡±

    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    ¡°Where are we going?¡±

    ¡°Shortcut. Do it now.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m keeping track that the others are safe,¡± Reeve snapped.

    ¡°This will keep them safer, or do you think I don¡¯t know what the hell I¡¯m talking about? Has Neptune found you yet?¡±

    Reeve and Gareth exchanged a quick look. Reeve¡¯s face looked pained but he nodded. They took another turn. Gareth was turned around and had no idea where they were now. Misha stopped at a bus stop sign on a quiet street and held out a cigarette to Gareth.

    He said, ¡°I don¡¯t smoke.¡±

    Misha¡¯s hand didn¡¯t waver. ¡°Pretend. Try looking like you¡¯re in the Church.¡±

    Gareth snatched it and fumbled with the box of matches in the oversized Church coat.

    ¡°What the fuck is going on?¡± Reeve snapped under his breath.

    ¡°Did you sense any Neptune before you dropped your net?¡±

    Gareth¡¯s blood went cold.

    ¡°No.¡±

    Misha smiled. ¡°That¡¯s because Neptune isn¡¯t here.¡±

    ¡°You realize I won¡¯t get detention if I punch you now.¡±

    ¡°You ever hear of Comets?¡± Misha said quietly, glancing at his phone.

    ¡°Recruitment teams.¡±

    He nodded. ¡°Are you scanning for Comets?¡±

    Reeve shook his head. ¡°Not specifically.¡±

    ¡°You are all thick. What knacks do they put on Comets?¡±

    ¡°Knack sensing.¡± His voice was flat.

    ¡°Yes. Neptune is looking for you, and they¡¯ll send word out to Comets, since they travel so much. They¡¯ll know they¡¯re looking for a telepath. Telepaths don¡¯t tend to stay off Sol radar long, so if no one¡¯s picked you up yet, it¡¯s a red flag. You¡¯re in hiding. Act like it.¡±

    ¡°So, what?¡± Reeve asked through gritted teeth. ¡°Is my knack just completely useless the rest of my life?¡±

    ¡°No. I forget how isolated and stupid they keep you all in Sol. Your net is loud. You need to learn to be quiet.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not going into anyone¡¯s mind,¡± Reeve argued. ¡°I¡¯m only listening.¡±

    ¡°Okay, it¡¯s like this. You are keeping an eye on a room of people, and even if you¡¯re not physically searching them, you¡¯re still stomping around the room. People familiar with telepaths can hear you.¡±

    Misha jerked his head in one direction and set off walking. Gareth flicked the cigarette away with a burst of sparks.

    ¡°It¡¯s not your fault,¡± Misha said. ¡°They don¡¯t teach you to evade other knacked people, so why would you need it?¡±

    ¡°So, I can learn.¡±

    Misha gave Reeve a quick up and down, and if Gareth weren¡¯t fighting his own fear, he¡¯d have thought it was hilarious. ¡°Probably.¡±

    ¡°How?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he snapped. ¡°Ask a telepath in the Church.¡± If Reeve had a retort, he kept silent.

    ¡°So now what?¡± Gareth asked.

    ¡°We go the long way home, just in case, and he keeps his head quiet and we wait to hear from my friend. It might make you feel safer, but there¡¯s no sense in being a damn beacon.¡±

    They followed Misha as he weaved in and out of side streets. Reeve wouldn¡¯t meet his eyes.

    Back at the fire escape, Misha hesitated. ¡°You go on,¡± he said, waving at Gareth. ¡°I want to talk about old times with this one.¡±

    Gareth stopped. Reeve looked more nervous than confused, which wasn¡¯t comforting.

    Reeve shook his head at Gareth. ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯ll be right up.¡±

    There was only so much Gareth could deal with in one night, so up he climbed. Alyosha was sitting on the futon facing the doors, shotgun over his knees, waiting. He stiffened when Gareth closed the door.

    ¡°Where is Reeve?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s just outside. Misha wanted a private word or some bullshit. Who knows. Shout if something goes wrong.¡± Gareth threw off the heavy coat and went to take a long shower.

    ---

    Reeve had barely slept. Without casting his wide net of surveillance across several blocks, the only way he could relax even a tiny bit was with his eyes watching the door, the windows, or listening to the silence of the apartment and the predictable rumbles of the city throughout the day. He told time by sound. The blackout curtains cast the whole day under a pall, so he listened to the change in traffic, in the music downstairs, and the changing voices of birds.

    He wasn¡¯t the only one who slept fitfully. Reeve felt Gareth wake up several times, shaken by nightmares. Reeve absorbed the pressure of his thoughts in the room without prying. They were wordless and sweat-filled. It took Alex a long time to fall asleep. Reeve felt his mind buzzing loudly in the small bedroom after they had turned in, and for long after Hannah had fallen asleep. For what felt like a long time, he and Alex were the only ones awake. Reeve listened passively without reading, nervous of what he might find. Instead he pictured him, curled up on his side, inventing a scenario to keep him from pressing into his thoughts, invading his privacy. But that¡¯s how he slept, how he always ended up, one arm practically off the bed, with his murmured snoring.

    When Alex couldn¡¯t sleep back in Beatty, he¡¯d normally lay on his back, an arm above his head, and stare at the ceiling in the dark, unintentionally thinking loudly about his homework or some other problem that had come up in the day. Except for the times his mind wandered elsewhere and Reeve used every inch of his telepathy to ignore the warm buzz melting through the wall they shared. It was distracting, to say the least. Now Reeve just pictured him on his back, tapping one lazy foot, and wondered what of the many things was keeping him up tonight. He didn¡¯t press and eventually even Alex slept.

    When night came, he woke Shvedov with a gentle shake. He handed him the gun and gratefully took a seat in the armchair Shvedov had been sleeping in. His bloodshot eyes burned like a branding iron when he closed them. He closed them anyway.

    He woke hearing Gareth say, ¡°Hey,¡± and feeling a boot tap his foot. He jolted as he came awake and scrubbed at his face.

    ¡°Misha heard from the guy. Thought you¡¯d want to know.¡±

    He nodded, swallowing a yawn. ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°More travel. Misha got us a train.¡±

    Reeve stood up stretched, looking around the room. People were up and dressed, eating something from a takeout bag. ¡°Where?¡± he asked Misha.

    ¡°Berlin. He¡¯s got a friend who may be able to give you information. We can leave today.¡±

    ¡°Good.¡±

    ---

    Alex watched Misha give some counter-sign to the man at the gate and exchanged a few quick words in German. He let them in and gave them the number of the train car they needed. No one paid them any mind as they all clamored into a train car, hauling inside the heavy duffle bags Misha had brought with them. Inside, it was dim and empty but for a few crates.

    Misha dug out a battery lantern and switched it on. The light was harsh on the eyes in the confined space, but there was plenty room enough for everyone to spread out instead of being packed against each other. Still too many people in one train car, though.

    ¡°Now what?¡± Alex asked, plopping down to sit in front of the light.

    ¡°We wait and enjoy the ride?¡± Alyosha suggested.

    ¡°And the fact that we can¡¯t be expected to hunt dogs while we¡¯re in a moving train car?¡± Alex added. ¡°We can¡¯t, right?¡±

    ¡°There are some things I have to get done before we arrive.¡± Misha said, rooting around in his bag. ¡°And for us to get straight.¡±

    ¡°What now?¡± Gareth¡¯s voice was that low grunt of a thing that he used when he was annoyed.

    ¡°The contact in Berlin is willing to trade for information, yes. But he does not want money. He is most likely going to have a job for us.¡±

    ¡°What kind of job?¡±

    ¡°Nothing legal.¡±

    ¡°This is what you do? Pull hit jobs to arm religious zealots?¡±

    ¡°Gareth,¡± Hannah started.

    ¡°I do the things I do to stay alive. Just like, right now, I am doing the things I do because you have asked it of me. This isn¡¯t Sol. There aren¡¯t mission reports. It¡¯s messy.¡± He shrugged. ¡°You¡¯ll learn or you won¡¯t, but right now, Noah¡¯s made it my problem.¡±

    Gareth huffed and sat back.

    ¡°It¡¯s a transport job.¡± Misha relented sourly. ¡°They need us to make sure some cargo gets from point A to point B. I told him you could handle that. If you idiots can¡¯t, tell me now so I can jump off this train and walk home.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Reeve said from across the traincar.

    ¡°What is it you need to get done?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°I like this one,¡± Misha mused. ¡°He listens.¡±

    It was just condescending enough to irk him, but Alex was finding he didn¡¯t mind too much. Mostly because of how supremely annoyed Reeve had looked when Misha said it.

    ¡°You have to join the Church,¡± Misha finished.

    Gareth paced a little, looking at Reeve. ¡°He really does give non-answers all the time. Are you sure you weren¡¯t best friends in school?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± they both said, running over each other, though Reeve¡¯s voice was bland and Misha¡¯s a fair bit more colorful.

    Misha shook his head with a silent laugh. He shrugged one arm out of his patched coat and untangled his sleeve with a snap of his elbow. He yanked up on the cuff, revealing a forearm covered in tattoos and stripped with irregular scars. They were a mis-matched patchwork of different styles, colors, and sizes.

    ¡°Here,¡± he said, touching one just below the bend of his elbow with two fingers. ¡°This was my first. It¡¯s the mark of the Church. Every one of us has this and without one, the contact will not help you.¡±

    ¡°No one in the Sanctuaries ever asked to see it,¡± Alyosha said, cocking his head.

    He shrugged. ¡°We are trusting. And anyway, you don¡¯t need to be a Child to be accepted into a Sanctuary.¡±

    ¡°You want us to get tattooed?¡± Gareth asked, a little incredulous.

    ¡°Nyet,¡± Misha replied with a curl of his lip. ¡°I want to tattoo you.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re joking,¡± Hannah deadpanned.

    ¡°He¡¯s not,¡± Reeve said with a small groan.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Alex asked, leaning forward into the lamplight to get a better view.

    Misha held out his arm to him. Alex put out a hand as if to touch it, but froze in midair. The tattoo was simple black ink: two matchsticks, one crossed over the other, squared off at the center to form an equilateral cross. One of the matches had a bright red tip and the other was burnt, skinny and slightly bent, twisted from the fire. ¡°It¡¯s called a Sun Cross.¡±

    ¡°I thought not everyone in the Church was Christian.¡±

    ¡°They aren¡¯t. A version of the Sun Cross has been used by religions across basically all cultures and faiths. If Noah were here, he could give you examples. Draw you the versions used by the Celts, Norse, Jews, Islam, Chinese¡ªbut you¡¯re stuck with me. I can tell you it¡¯s been used in some way by practically all religions back to prehistory. It¡¯s a sign we can all connect to and a symbol of power the dogs can¡¯t survive.¡±

    ¡°I assume it¡¯s just the Church that makes them out of matchsticks,¡± Reeve commented with a raised eyebrow.

    Misha shrugged. ¡°All Children have a Sun Cross, but the style varies and you can trace who trained you by the shape of your mark. Almost like a lineage. You¡¯ll see many have a simple cross inside a circle. Some just look like plus signs, others are more ornate. I got mine from Noah and he got it from the woman who trained him.¡±

    Hannah frowned, her mouth squished into a flat line. ¡°Aren¡¯t you afraid someone will think you¡¯re just really into the Zodiac Killer?¡±

    Misha looked at her, his head cocked and mouth slightly agape. ¡°It¡¯s never come up.¡±

    Reeve cleared his throat, ¡°Does this really have to happen?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± Misha¡¯s head snapped back.

    ¡°Hey, Reeve, it¡¯s not what I planned, but now you can finally stop telling me I can¡¯t get a tattoo,¡± Alex said with a grin.

    ¡°Where?¡± Reeve sighed.

    ¡°Just not on your face. Or anywhere you need to take your pants off to show it.¡± Misha pulled out a smaller zipped bag. Inside was a package of gloves, a spool of thread, a bottle of black ink, and a small glass jar filled with rubbing alcohol and sewing needles. He heard Reeve swear under his breath. ¡°How the fuck did you think I was going to do this?¡±

    Hannah shook her head. ¡°I¡¯ll lose my invisibility. I don¡¯t think we can afford that right now.¡±

    ¡°You can hide razors in your mouth,¡± Alex said. ¡°Won¡¯t the ink be below the skin?¡±

    ¡°Not while it heals.¡±

    ¡°Fuck.¡±

    Misha snapped on some gloves and gestured vaguely with one hand, palm up. ¡°You can hide razors in your mouth.¡±

    Hannah¡¯s eyes and lips tightened.

    Misha dipped a length of white thread into the jar and began to wrap it around the needle.

    ¡°If she needs to sit this out with your contact, we¡¯ll be okay with the rest of us, yeah?¡± Reeve asked.

    Misha rolled his eyes. ¡°If you¡¯re going to be difficult, we can skip one of you. I told him there¡¯d be five people, so we¡¯d have someone to stay at the Sanctuary.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± Gareth said from the far end of the car.

    ¡°Then why the fuck bother being here?¡± Misha snapped.

    Gareth shook his head. ¡°No, I mean I actually can¡¯t. I¡¯ll heal it. You can try, but I''ve been through this and I¡¯ll heal it in minutes. My body will reject the ink.¡±

    Misha let out a streak of Russian that Alex truly wished he understood. He looked back at Hannah. ¡°Then let¡¯s make this work, huh?¡±

    The sun had long been up when the train pulled into a station in Berlin. They had felt dawn break by the way the metal warmed after the long, cold night, and by the thin bars of light spilling in through the gaps around the doors. They hadn¡¯t slept much. Alex held his bandaged left forearm in his other hand and marveled at the odd sensation. His arm felt bruised and raw and a little numb at the same time.

    Underneath it all was a strange sensation, like an undercurrent. He could feel the ink, Read it. There was a hum of fire and the papery crack of soot. It hung like white noise in his head, distracting him.

    ¡°Misha,¡± he called softly, putting voice to a question that had been plaguing him. ¡°What are they? The Phagi, I mean.¡±

    Misha grunted by way of response and cleared his throat. They were all tired. ¡°They are something wrong with the world.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not saying I don¡¯t want all of them dead, but what are they?¡±

    ¡°Sol¡¯s line is that they¡¯re just differently-powered people.¡±

    Alex frowned. ¡°Sure, and they really buried the lead on that whole cannibalism bit. But think about it, with how science-y Sol is, you¡¯d think Venus would¡¯ve hauled one in and studied the hell out of it.¡±

    ¡°Must''ve,¡± Reeve agreed quietly. It was satisfying to teach Reeve a thing or two.

    Misha slouched. ¡°If Sol knows anything, they¡¯d never just give that knowledge away.¡±

    ¡°So you don¡¯t think they¡¯re demons or something?¡± Reeve asked Misha, with more than a little of his standard Reeve tone.

    ¡°I do.¡±

    Alex turned to look at Misha in the odd light.

    ¡°Demons,¡± Reeve repeated.

    ¡°If you had to describe a demon, could you describe something worse than them?¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t make sense though,¡± Hannah mumbled, sitting glumly on a crate with gauze shoved between her teeth and lower lip. ¡°The whole cross thing working.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s to make sense of?¡± Misha sneered. ¡°God exists. It¡¯s stupid to think anything else.¡±

    The sound of the train changed, becoming louder, like the metal was uncomfortable.

    ¡°Do we go straight to this contact or find a Sanctuary?¡± Alyosha asked. He¡¯d been so quiet, Alex startled at his voice.

    ¡°Sanctuary. I¡¯ll call and let him know we¡¯ve arrived from there. Pack up. It¡¯s going to be a trek from the station.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 29

    Sol LAHQ. Saturn Department.

    ¡°So,¡± Louis began, leaning against Mackenzie¡¯s door frame and crossing his ankles. ¡°I just got sent the mission wrap up for Fox¡¯s assignment in the Balkans.¡±

    Her eyebrows rose above the rim of her glasses, but she didn¡¯t look up from whatever notes she was jotting down. ¡°And?¡±

    ¡°And I didn¡¯t realize his mission had ended.¡±

    The eyebrows returned to their normal position. ¡°He¡¯d gotten all he was going to get out of the prime minister. No point in dragging it on.¡±

    The prime minister¡¯s wife, who Fox had been seeing, probably would have preferred it had. ¡°Alright. Now I¡¯m seeing that he was immediately put on a new assignment, bypassing the standard waiting period, but, as it turns out, I don¡¯t have the clearance to view that assignment.¡±

    She sat back and looked him in the eye, finally. ¡°That¡¯s correct.¡±

    He studied her with his knack, but the sounds of her pulse were steady and slow. Nothing about the tension in the muscles of her face, the way she moved her eyes, gave Louis anything to work with. Normally, seeing this confident, stonewall side of her gave him a rush of pride, but he normally wasn¡¯t on this side of it. Louis kept his voice as casual as hers.

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to tell me where one of our best agents is.¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Or what intelligence push his mission is a part of.¡±

    ¡°Correct.¡±

    ¡°Sandy didn¡¯t make up any new ID documents for him, so he can¡¯t have gone far.¡±

    ¡°I see you¡¯re doing your own intelligence push.¡±

    ¡°Mackenzie,¡± he groaned, dropping his cool facade.

    ¡°Louis Solomon.¡± It wasn¡¯t a whine to match his. Simply his name, and it made him pause. ¡°For now, I just need you to run the analysis on his finished mission and trust me.¡±

    ¡°You know I do,¡± he argued. ¡°But you¡¯re also not an island. These top clearance missions need approval from Mercury, right?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s recommended, but not required.¡±

    ¡°Jesus¡ª¡± he dropped off as he ran it through in his head. ¡°Even Mercury doesn¡¯t know? Can you be using Saturn assets for your own side project? Which I completely and totally trust as serious and valid,¡± he continued quickly, seeing her face, ¡°but you can¡¯t put ¡®I have a bad feeling¡¯ on a mission report and get it approved.¡±

    ¡°If I can¡¯t do exactly that, then what was the point of giving me this job?¡±

    He deflated. She was right, of course. There were maybe two people in Sol with the authority to make calls completely free of Mercury oversight, and she was one of them.

    ¡°Just. Just let me help you,¡± he pleaded.

    ¡°You already are,¡± she said firmly. ¡°Keep doing your job to the high caliber that you always do. Pick up my slack as I drop things. Keep the department above board and give no one reason to take a closer look at anything. That¡¯s what I need from you.¡±

    ¡°I can do that,¡± he said, moving to sit in the chair across from her. ¡°I can do that,¡± he repeated, ¡°but I need you to promise you¡¯ll bring me inside when you¡¯re able to.¡±

    Her lips curved up on one side as she looked him over. ¡°You¡¯re one of the best things I¡¯ve ever done.¡±

    ¡°Mackenzie,¡± he scolded, not allowing her to sidestep his demand, however much he was touched by it. He didn¡¯t know his mother, and she was as close to that as he had.

    Her expression turned serious. ¡°Of course I¡¯ll bring you in.¡±

    ¡°Thank you.¡± Now all he had to do was hold her to it.

    ---

    Sanctuary. Berlin, Germany.

    Reeve made Tex-Mex that first night in Berlin, and Gareth couldn¡¯t think of anything that was more Reeve without him being a jackass. It was nearly afternoon by the time they got to the Sanctuary, and Gareth had gone with him to the grocery down the block almost as soon as they¡¯d arrived. There were only two Children at the Sanctuary, but still, it was a lot of people to overwhelm one place all at once, and the lot of them would need to eat. When they returned with bags full of peppers, rice, beans, tomatoes, tortillas, meat, and cheese, Alex fell into laughing fits. It was a good sound.

    Misha pacing and talking loudly in German on his phone was less good. This Sanctuary was a good size, at least¡ªmainly because the large basement had been converted into a warren of smaller bedrooms.

    While Reeve put the food away, Gareth stepped outside to sit on the stoop for a moment of quiet. The busy sidewalk wasn¡¯t quiet either, but the sounds were anonymous. Small snippets of strangers¡¯ conversations, most in a language he didn¡¯t know. Even the music thrumming from passing cars had nothing to do with him. It faded quickly as they went, taking the song with them before he even had time to try to identify it.

    He looked up and saw Reeve opening the door.

    ¡°Misha has news,¡± Reeve called, sticking his head through the door.

    Gareth followed him inside, where the rest were already gathered in a sitting room.

    ¡°Change of plans,¡± Misha announced without preamble, seeing Gareth walk in. ¡°It¡¯s no longer a shipping job. They need us to take a decoy package and take care of anyone who tries to steal it.¡±

    ¡°They want us to kill people?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°Who? Why?¡± Reeve asked, his voice tight.

    ¡°Who doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Misha shook his head. ¡°As for why, fairly certain they¡¯ll be thieves by default.¡±

    ¡°It matters,¡± Reeve snapped.

    ¡°Fine, it can matter, but you don¡¯t get to know or ask.¡±

    There was a gap of quiet and Gareth silently cursed his knack again. He heard Reeve let out a slow, deep sigh.

    Ignoring it, Misha continued. ¡°They only want three of us now, including me. Can¡¯t have the cops showing up, so we¡¯ve got to be fast and quiet. No gunfire. Who¡¯s coming with me, then?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll go,¡± Hannah said, a little muffled still. She pointed to her mouth. ¡°I fucking did this, so if I don¡¯t use it, I¡¯m gonna be pissed.¡±

    ¡°Good,¡± Misha said loudly, preventing any discussion Reeve wanted to have over it. ¡°One more.¡±

    ¡°Me too,¡± Reeve nodded.

    ¡°No. I¡¯m not going to manage your morals and the job at the same time.¡±

    A muscle in Reeve¡¯s jaw twitched. ¡°I¡¯m the smart call if you need quiet.¡±

    ¡°No telepathy,¡± he answered automatically.

    ¡°I can do it,¡± Alex said, pushing himself up off the wall.

    Misha shook his head again. Alex snapped back with a flinch. ¡°I don¡¯t doubt you can,¡± Misha said, ¡°but I want you,¡± he continued, pointing at Alyosha. ¡°You¡¯re too quiet and you¡¯re not an Icarus. I don¡¯t get why you¡¯re here. I want you with me. Can you take care of yourself in a fight?¡± Misha barely waited for him to nod before proclaiming, ¡°Good! We leave late tonight.¡± Alex caught Gareth¡¯s eye, staring hard. He had that same left-behind look. Gareth was glad not to be alone.

    That night, the dining room was packed. There was a long, wooden table and they overcrowded it anyway with people, plates of food, and bottles of beer. It must have been something about the platters of out-of-place Southwestern American food, but the energy was lighter than normal. It was loud and a little raucous. People laughed and told stories that had nothing to do with their current circumstances. Strange misadventures as kids, that time Hannah slept-walked partway into town¡ªjust funny no-consequence things. Alyosha banged on the table laughing and Hannah¡¯s eyes were bright with drink.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    Gareth would remember it as the last relaxing night he¡¯d have in a long time.

    ---

    Late that night, they picked up a panel van from a warehouse after showing their tattoos, along with instructions of the route they were to take. Misha drove, being more familiar with the area. Hannah was already invisible in the passenger seat and Alyosha was in the back.

    ¡°You good?¡± Misha asked her.

    ¡°I¡¯m good.¡± She was, too. She could feel Alyosha¡¯s nervous energy crackling off of him like static electricity, but for Hannah, it was just another mission. Finally something familiar. There was something to be said for her calm, but she also knew that it wasn¡¯t always a virtue. Misha¡¯s energy was off too, but not in the same way.

    ¡°I make you uncomfortable,¡± she said out loud.

    He turned his head, surprised, and squinted in her direction, slightly to the left of where she sat. ¡°I¡¯m not used to being around people I can¡¯t see. I can¡¯t keep track of you without borrowing telepathy.¡±

    ¡°If you want, I can go visible until we need it, but I¡¯ll be naked.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he said, his lips pressed together in a deep frown. ¡°That might actually be more uncomfortable.¡±

    As they left the concentrated, well-lit area of the city, she began to get more wary, checking side streets as they passed.

    Alyosha leaned up from the back. ¡°Did they say where they think we¡¯ll be jumped?¡±

    ¡°Nope,¡± he called back, ¡°but I would say it¡¯s soon. A lot of these buildings are unoccupied.¡± Glaring at street signs, Misha took a left down a street with sparse streetlamps. ¡°So, Alyosha, you¡¯re here with Reeve because he¡¯s your friend?¡± The venom on the word ¡°friend¡± was heavy.

    ¡°That, and I owe him.¡±

    ¡°Ah. It¡¯s never good to be obligated to a telepath because you never really know if you owe them or if they¡¯ve made you believe you do.¡±

    ¡°So you never trust telepaths?¡± Alyosha asked.

    ¡°It¡¯s not a rule, but no.¡±

    Alyosha leaned forward, elbows on the shoulder of the front seats. ¡°I do owe him. I was in Entropy and now I am not. Reeve did this.¡±

    Misha grunted. ¡°Entropy. Agent?¡±

    ¡°Pilot.¡±

    ¡°Shit. You aren¡¯t trained? I¡¯m not going to look out for you when we do this.¡±

    ¡°I knew how to fight before Entropy. That¡¯s not what they wanted me for.¡±

    ¡°And that¡¯s not what Reeve needs you for either, huh? The flying. That¡¯s why Reeve¡¯s here and not squatting in some filthy warehouse in Mexico.¡± Misha looked back and forth. ¡°But I don¡¯t see a plane, and yet, you¡¯re still here. What is he going to use you for next? Besides this job, I mean.¡±

    Alyosha chuckled and sat back. ¡°We¡¯ll see.¡±

    Hannah ground her jaw. ¡°For fuck¡¯s sake, what if Reeve¡¯s not a bad guy?¡± she snapped at Misha. ¡°You could try to maybe consider that. He can be an ass, he is an ass, but not as bad as this.¡±

    Misha smiled thinly. ¡°Breathe, okay?¡±

    Hannah focused on the fact that socking the person driving the vehicle was an inherently bad idea.

    ¡°I was just trying to make him angry,¡± Misha continued. He glanced up in the rearview. ¡°I wonder why he is not angry.¡±

    There was a pop as the driver¡¯s side window was hit with a bullet. They both ducked and Hannah felt pulverized glass dust smack the left side of her face as it punched a neat hole in the window. She forced her eyes open to make sure Misha wasn¡¯t hit, then focused on trying to spot the shooter. The window had instantly clouded up from absorbing the impact, which made it feel like trying to see through six inches of ice. The car swerved off the left side of the road and onto a patch of dirt by what looked like an empty lot, and Misha brought them to a fast stop.

    ¡°Bag!¡± Misha yelled, reaching his arm back to grab his bag from Alyosha.

    Misha ducked low, working at the zipper as another bullet tore a chunk out of the already compromised window, then another on Hannah¡¯s side, snowing in the glass. There were thuds of more slugs hitting the doors.

    ¡°Misha,¡± she began with a pang of panic. ¡°Can we use guns now?¡±

    ¡°No, they¡¯ve got silencers. Do you? Wait. I want them to come in a little closer. Be ready on my go.¡±

    Hannah gripped the long knife she¡¯d brought. In the dark in close quarters, there was no reason she should rely on weapons she could fit in her mouth. Plus her lip was still swollen and hurt like hell.

    There was a dull clunk as someone pulled in the locked back door of their van.

    Misha held up two dark canisters from his bag and barked, ¡°Cover your ears.¡± He popped his door open a crack, causing a fast increase in bullets slamming into his side, pulled the pins, and Hannah didn¡¯t wait to watch him throw them out into the lot. She doubled over, shut her eyes, and pressed her palms hard against her ears. She just barely heard raised voices from outside and then two successive cracks rocked through her skull and she could see the world light up behind her closed eyes. The pain in her ears was sharp and urgent. Even protected inside the van, the world had gone silent, except for a high-pitched whine. When she tentatively opened her eyes, Misha was sitting up in his seat. Outside the car, there was a rhythmic flashing light that illuminated smoke through holes in the driver¡¯s side window. She registered that the explosions hadn¡¯t blown out the windows--stun grenades.

    She yelled something to Misha questioning his sanity, but it was an if a tree falls in the forest sort of thing. If Misha couldn¡¯t hear it and neither could Hannah, did it really happen?

    In response, Misha gestured to the doors with two fingers and they were off.

    Carefully opening her door, Hannah slid out low. The air was thick with the gunpowder, sulfur stench of the flashbangs. The first man had been too close to her door for her to take by much surprise. Having been on the other side of the van, he was only in as bad of shape as she was, so as the door opened, he let loose rapid fire. Lunging, they wrestled over the gun, but that wasn¡¯t a fight she was going to win with one hand in the dark. Instead, she climbed up high onto his back where he was less likely to want to shoot and brought him down with a knife in the ribs.

    She worked her way around the front of the van. There was a vague pounding sound in her head that was too slow to be her heartbeat, but she set her rhythm to it anyway. The second one had been hit full force by the stun grenades and was struggling to reload his pistol, glancing around, panicked and shaking his head sporadically to clear his ears. She waited for him to finish reloading, then set her knife up under his jawline and picked up his pistol where he dropped it.

    Once she had a gun, it went quickly.

    She¡¯d cleared her area when she heard Misha turn the van on. Her hearing was back, though painful. The flashing and muffled pounding had grown into the horn of a car alarm set off by the flashbangs. She headed back.

    Closer to the van, Misha was handing Alyosha something and she heard him say, ¡°Light this on the road.¡± Alyosha took it without argument.

    ¡°Hey,¡± she said to Misha, making sure she was far out of range of the too-long knife he carried. Misha startled, turning in the direction of her voice, muscles stiff.

    ¡°Just me,¡± she said gently. She approached slowly with the gun dangling in front of her, hanging from one finger by the trigger guard. ¡°Will you wipe my prints off this?¡±

    ¡°What?¡± he snapped angrily. It took him a second to understand, then he snatched the gun and rubbed it all over with the fabric of his coat before letting it drop to the ground.

    A loud bang and bright light from the road made Hannah duck and brace her ears, but it wasn¡¯t a fraction as loud as the flashbangs. Misha seemed unfazed and a moment later a deeper, concussive explosion above their heads rattled her bones and ricocheted around in her chest. The firework blew a wide spray of white and red light like a giant blooming flower before fizzling out with a crackle.

    Misha opened his door and called ¡°Let¡¯s move!¡± as he knocked the remaining clouded glass out of his window with an elbow. Hannah trotted around the van and jumped into the car in time for Misha to peel out.

    As they bounced back over the curb and onto the street, Hannah barked, ¡°In what goddamn way was that quiet?¡±

    Misha shrugged, ¡°No cops.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, but probably a dozen people called them.¡±

    ¡°Probably, but reports of illegal fireworks makes this a lower priority, compared to just loud explosions. Plenty of time for us to get out.¡±

    She fought to catch her breath, holding two fingers against her temple. ¡°Anyone hurt?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Alyosha called from the back.

    ¡°You are good,¡± Misha said, nodding to the backseat. He turned to her. ¡°He¡¯s a little vicious.¡± Misha clucked his tongue. ¡°Go visible. Right now, you¡¯re just floating blood.¡±

    She faded back in and wiped at her face with a clean spot on her forearm. ¡°Yeah, that happens.¡± Behind her, Alyosha was a mess too; the two of them clearly preferred to fight in close quarters rather than at the end of what basically amounted to a sword. Misha, on the other hand, was fairly clean¡ªa benefit to spending his life fighting things you really don¡¯t want to get close to.

    ¡°But seriously,¡± Hannah continued, wiping her hands on her thighs, ¡°flashbangs? The guy, the mob boss dude I¡¯m guessing we don¡¯t want to piss off, did say quiet and fast, right? And I know your English isn¡¯t that fucking bad.¡±

    ¡°He knew what he was getting into when he gave me the job.¡±

    ¡°What he was getting... What does that even mean?¡±

    ¡°Everyone is so stuck on shoving these tiny pinches of gunpowder into slugs, but there are better, bigger ways, eh.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not serious.¡±

    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I be?¡±

    Hannah flailed her hands involuntarily, trying to compose herself. ¡°So you never use guns.¡±

    ¡°Of course I use guns,¡± he retorted out the side of his mouth. ¡°I¡¯m not an idiot. But anyone who uses anything smaller than a shotgun is absolute shit for brains.¡±

    ¡°What the fuck?¡± She was yelling now, still on the adrenaline rush of the fight. ¡°This isn¡¯t a war zone. There are other people around.¡±

    ¡°And the first time I accidentally hurt someone, you can give me all the shit you like, but precision isn¡¯t only a bullet between the eyes.¡± He shot her a look. ¡°You¡¯re a sharpshooter, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    She huffed before answering between gritted teeth. ¡°Sniper.¡±

    ¡°Ha! Yes, you can put a bullet in someone from half a mile away, very impressive. Have you ever been shot?¡±

    ¡°Only in training.¡±

    ¡°Okay, let me tell you something about bullets.¡±

    ¡°Tell me something about bullets?¡±

    He ignored her, continuing, ¡°Even the best aimed bullets can go straight through you, like threading a needle, and never hit anything vital. You bleed, you¡¯re sad, you heal. It¡¯s stupid. You know what never does that? C-4.¡±

    ¡°Holy shit,¡± was all she could manage. Then, ¡°He said to be quiet.¡±

    Alyosha leaned in, his voice the calmest thing in the van. ¡°You did have me set off fireworks.¡±

    ¡°Actual fucking fireworks!¡± Hannah shouted.

    ¡°I was there. Surrounded and outgunned. And no police came.¡±

    Hannah lowered her voice sullenly and spoke as slowly as she was able. ¡°If you put ¡®quiet¡¯ and ¡®fireworks¡¯ in the same box, even a toddler would call you an idiot.¡±

    ¡°I have been doing this since before you had tits and I¡ª¡± But he didn¡¯t get any farther.

    Alyosha raised his voice and said something in Russian that sounded harsh, but Hannah yelled louder over him, a bloody finger near Misha¡¯s face. ¡°Hey. First of all, number one¡ªI still don¡¯t have tits, so that makes you an authority on goddamn nothing. And second¡ªI don¡¯t even fucking know.¡±

    ¡°I hit a nerve, huh?¡±

    Her volume lowered. ¡°Just don¡¯t get us killed playing with your cartoon TNT bullshit.¡±

    ¡°Is anyone hurt?¡± Misha repeated, annoyed.

    No one replied.

    ¡°Then try shutting up or getting the fuck out of this van.¡±

    They drove on.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 30

    Sanctuary. Berlin, Germany.

    They waited up for Misha, Hannah, and Shvedov to return. It was a quiet, tense night. Gareth helped Alex fold laundry while Reeve did dishes. The two Children stayed in with them. It seemed like after their dinner together, they were invested enough in everyone coming back alright to postpone patrol.

    It was long after midnight when there was a knock at the door. Reeve and Gareth stood up from the couch, but let one of the locals answer it. He let them in without a word.

    ¡°We¡¯re all fine,¡± Misha announced loudly, and as they entered, Reeve understood why, as they rounded the corner of the hall. They were bloody. There were streaks of it that Shvedov had missed when wiping his face, and Hannah, in Shvedov¡¯s coat, had patches in her hair that shone black in the dim, red light.

    ¡°What the fuck happened?¡± Alex all but yelled.

    ¡°No one¡¯s hurt,¡± Hannah said, forehead tense and eyes narrow. ¡°Just a little messy.¡±

    Ignoring the ache in his stomach, Reeve asked, ¡°Go okay?¡±

    Misha nodded. ¡°You¡¯ll get your information tomorrow morning. We need sleep. And showers.¡±

    There were more bedrooms than they were used to, enough that if they shared, no one had to sleep on a couch or the floor. It felt like true luxury.

    Reeve, sitting up in bed, carefully applied ointment to the fresh tattoo on the inside of his left upper arm. He let his awareness bleed out a little. Hannah was tired, but alright¡ªannoyed and had a headache that could kill a man. Her stomach was maybe the strongest of the lot of them. Alyosha was wound in tightly but would be okay come morning. Reeve could feel Alex¡¯s mind twisting in conflict, standing in the hall with his bag, between moving himself into Hannah¡¯s room or giving her space. Gareth made the decision for him when he held his bedroom door open for her. It felt like no one had spoken a word in an hour. They were all dead tired, crashing after the adrenaline and worry.

    Alex came into his room and smiled in spite of himself and his tired, bloodshot eyes.

    ¡°What?¡± Reeve asked.

    He shrugged. ¡°Just not something I ever thought I¡¯d see.¡±

    Reeve scowled and handed him the tube of balm. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you want to do this on purpose. It¡¯s dripping.¡±

    ¡°Gross.¡± Alex casually smoothed some of the lotion over his tattoo like he¡¯d been doing this his whole life. He put his hand on the lightswitch, waited a moment for Reeve to object, then switched it off and climbed into bed without a word. Reeve moved over for him, rolling onto his side to face the wall, though he regretted it immediately, when his tattooed arm complained.

    ¡°Are they okay?¡± Alex asked quietly.

    ¡°I¡¯m not supposed to be looking.¡±

    ¡°Reeve,¡± was all he said, voice flat.

    ¡°They¡¯re okay.¡±

    ¡°Thank you. Jesus.¡± He rolled over and threw his arm over Reeve¡¯s side, nearly overlapping Reeve¡¯s arm, but on top of the blankets. Alex¡¯s hand felt light, as though he was being particularly careful. The feeling made Reeve freeze up, almost holding his breath, unsure of what to do. He pulled his telepathy back in, walling himself off as though that could keep him out of some sort of unnamed trouble. A moment later, Alex rolled on his back and roughly flopped over onto his other side, his back to Reeve, mashing at the pillow.

    Alex was extremely talented at making Reeve¡¯s mind race a million miles a second with absolutely no ability to identify what it was he was even thinking about. Like a warp-speed panic over non-specifically existing. For this, Alex was both a common cause and cure, which Reeve felt was unfair to the both of them.

    Paralyzed, he listened to the sound of his own breathing, drowning out the shadow of Alex¡¯s thoughts. He turned over to face Alex anyway. Almost before he knew he¡¯d done it, he¡¯d shifted closer and stretched out his arm, and Alex leaned back into him. He rested his hand on Alex¡¯s forearm and his elbow on Alex¡¯s hip. The racing in his mind didn¡¯t slow, but it stopped having such an unpleasant, icy grip.

    ¡°Reeve?¡±

    He grunted a tired response.

    The silence made Reeve wonder if Alex had fallen asleep. Then finally, ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    Reeve rubbed at his arm with his thumb and Alex shifted backward to lean against his chest. He lifted his arm, reflexively protecting the sore tattoo, and when he set it down again, his hand came to rest low on Alex¡¯s stomach. A heat rose in his body like standing next to a bonfire. Eyes closed, his hand moved, shifting idly instead of staying still, and with just a little too much pressure, until he noticed that Alex was holding his breath. Reeve snatched his hand back and scratched at his face. He sniffed, hoping it seemed natural.

    Alex snuggled back into him, and suddenly, if he didn¡¯t put his hand back down somewhere, it was going to become very obvious that he was avoiding it. Which raised about ten thousand questions in Reeve¡¯s mind, and he fought hard not to ask them of himself. Damned if you do and damned if you don¡¯t, he let his hand fall down, aiming for his side, but it landed on the bony notch of Alex¡¯s hip.

    He lay still, his entire focus on his hand keeping a natural pressure, unmoving, but not so still it was obviously intentional. He hoped. Despite his better judgment, he let one finger lightly trace the curve of his hip until he felt Alex¡¯s sharp intake of breath. A shock went through him, and again, he dropped his hand around Alex¡¯s waist and tucked it underneath him so it was too pinned to move. That solved one problem, temporarily, until he realized how much closer it pressed them together.

    Reeve opened his eyes into the dark and tried to focus on slowing the warm rush of Alex¡¯s thoughts. He should have seen it coming, but it still surprised him when Alex squirmed in his grip, hips shifting and back arching in a way that more than bordered on unsubtle. Reeve bent his knees, shifting back slightly to close his arm tighter, gripping Alex in a fierce hug that hurt Reeve¡¯s ribs, and for a moment, it was like he was back in Beatty and things were quiet and safe.

    His forehead crushed into Alex¡¯s shoulder blades and as he relaxed, he tilted his head upwards, brushing Alex¡¯s back with his lips, feeling the way the fabric of Alex¡¯s shirt dragged over his skin. He couldn¡¯t deny anymore that this was intentional. He¡¯d made the choice to see what it would feel like and it made his heart race. Alex¡¯s hand brushed his arm, lightly tugging at it. Reeve reluctantly loosened his grip, letting his palm linger on Alex¡¯s belly. Alex¡¯s breath was coming quick and silent. Reeve dropped his barrier. He had to check. The familiar fluttering of Alex¡¯s thoughts flooded back in.

    Light and achingly slow, Reeve¡¯s fingers drifted across the surface of Alex¡¯s stomach. A slight curl of his fingers and he¡¯d be able to lift Alex¡¯s shirt, but he couldn¡¯t coax his hand to move.

    When his littlest finger grazed bare skin, something akin to lightning lit up every nerve ending in his body. Alex¡¯s hand came over his, the pressure of his fingers firm and sure (more sure than Reeve felt), and moved Reeve¡¯s hand under the hem of his shirt.

    It¡¯s not like Reeve had never touched Alex¡¯s skin before. He¡¯d grappled, trained, corrected his stance, and lived in close quarters for years. He¡¯d rubbed strained muscles, taken care of him when a flu left him sweating and weak, and wrapped him up in his mind, arms, and memories when his Reading spun out of control. Reeve already knew his body¡ªwhere the small scars on his shins were, the tiny raised birthmark on his lower back, and the fresh scrapes up and down his arms.

    This was different. This was something else entirely. The second his palm made contact with skin, he no longer needed coaxing. He ran his hand up, slow but firm, skimming Alex¡¯s ribs and pressing the flat of his palm against his chest, reaching higher to grasp at his shoulder. Alex reached back and gripped Reeve¡¯s thigh, fingers almost clawing, pulling Reeve closer while shifting his hips back.

    Reeve made a quiet, breathy sound into Alex¡¯s back before catching himself. When Alex twisted, rolling in his grasp, Reeve lifted his hand as though he¡¯d touched fire and rocked backward, nearly onto his back, sure that Alex was putting a stop to the silent moment he¡¯d broken with that muffled sound. He shifted his legs, trying to give him as much space as the small bed allowed, but when Alex came to rest on his other side, he slipped one arm under Reeve¡¯s neck and with the other, tugged at Reeve¡¯s shirt.

    Reeve leaned forward again, wary, and tentatively ran his hands up Alex¡¯s back. Alex nuzzled into the crook of Reeve¡¯s neck with shaky, uneven breaths against his skin. They shifted like that together until Reeve¡¯s hands were tangled in Alex¡¯s hair, before trailing back down beneath the covers, where he found Alex¡¯s shirt had ridden up. His skin was hot and Reeve experimented with increasing pressure. When he heard Alex gasp, it seemed that time suddenly sped up, lurching them forward and into each other. He slowed his breath to steady himself and found his fingers tracing the band of Alex¡¯s boxers, low on the small of his back. He willed his fingers to slow, even as he tried to suppress his gasping voice, mindful of the crowded Sanctuary.

    Alex¡¯s hand slid off Reeve¡¯s shoulder to grab at his lower back and pulled, closing that small, critical distance that was still between them. For a short moment, feeling Alex¡¯s hardness pressed against his own, Reeve¡¯s mind was blank for the first time since he could remember, focused solely on that sensation. They rocked like that for a long while. Reeve lightly kissed Alex¡¯s neck, lips against hot skin, before moving up his jaw, and settling just at the corner of his mouth. He let himself press his lips against Alex¡¯s cheek, just short of fully kissing him, barely feeling Alex¡¯s gently parted lips beneath his own. But something about taking that final step felt as though, somehow, there was no coming back from it¡ªdespite the feeling of their cocks pressed against each other through their clothes, grinding in a steady rhythm.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    Reeve opened his eyes and pulled back from his face without losing that contact. It was dark, but not so much that after adjusting, Reeve couldn¡¯t make out Alex¡¯s face, his hair already clinging to his forehead from sweat, his mouth left partly open while he breathed, and his eyes steady as anything.

    Something in Reeve overran itself. The pressure of Alex¡¯s head was blaring. Without prying, Reeve let it float through him and it resounded in a singular thought. He couldn¡¯t use that though, couldn¡¯t rely on it; he needed to ask. But their silence seemed sacrosanct, as if speaking would break some spell and bring them back to the real world, where they had set relationship parameters years ago and this couldn¡¯t happen.

    He gulped in a breath, tried to speak, and nearly choked on his fear, letting it out in a chuff of air. He tried again, but only managed to get his name, before hesitating again. ¡°Alex.¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± It sounded like a statement, not a question.

    Reeve forced his mouth closed and evened out his breathing to steady his voice, canting his head to see Alex¡¯s eyes and pulling his body back a fraction. Alex gave a small whimper at that, raising gooseflesh on Reeve¡¯s arms as he felt the shock of heat run through him, despite his rising anxiety. ¡°Is this¡ªare you okay?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Alex said again, louder, in a tone normally reserved for calling Reeve a nerd.

    Whatever was left of Reeve¡¯s reservations crumbled in that moment and he allowed himself a second to lean in and hide a smile into Alex¡¯s neck, thinking of that. Nothing about this night was normal, but in that moment, that tone of voice, it just felt like home.

    Kissing whatever he could reach of Reeve¡¯s face, Alex ran his palm lightly down Reeve¡¯s body, until he reached Reeve¡¯s waistband and slipped his hand beneath it. Reeve exhaled more sound than intended and muffled it into Alex¡¯s shoulder as he closed his fingers around him. After that, it was all he could do to close his eyes and keep the hum of his breath quiet. Alex ran the tip of his tongue over Reeve¡¯s bottom lip and they crashed into each other, and before he knew it, he was fumbling with Alex¡¯s waistband too, gasping at the sensation. Alex kissed him deeply, their kiss keeping them quiet as they moved.

    They parted only long enough to shuffle out of their clothing. When his shirt came up over his head, Alex had a bit of a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. Reeve froze there, sitting up and staring, as something inside his chest fit into place.

    Alex noticed and froze too, a pang of self-consciousness rippling through his mind.

    ¡°What?¡±

    Reeve smiled, shook his head, and rolled over partway on top of him. He felt Alex melt into Reeve¡¯s fist, relaxing again. He snaked his hand down Reeve¡¯s arm, resting on his forearm just above the wrist, feeling it move. It sent a shiver through Reeve to feel that, and when it finally boiled over and Alex came, he arched his back and shoved his face into the pillow to muffle a moan.

    Without missing a beat, Alex uncurled and moved his hand down to stroke Reeve¡¯s cock again, and Reeve had to drop back onto his side to keep from falling. Alex was sure and steady, but he was still shivering a little in the aftermath. Reeve let himself run his hand over Alex¡¯s body before going rigid, and Alex gasped when Reeve gripped his shoulder and sealed his mouth against Alex¡¯s collarbone as he climaxed. It wasn¡¯t until it was over that sounds began to escape him, warm and muted against his chest.

    Reeve leaned back. He needed to look at him. Alex had brought the back of his hand to his face, and when he moved it, his hand and nose were bloody.

    ¡°Shit.¡± Reeve said it a little too loudly as he sat up and brought himself down to a whisper with effort. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± He grabbed his shirt where it had landed on the bed and pressed it to Alex¡¯s face. Alex sat up straighter and all Reeve wanted was to grab a flashlight and check his pupils, but he waited, one fist gripping the sheets and swearing up and down. ¡°I should have warned you. Are you okay?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m okay,¡± Alex said tentatively, taking the shirt from Reeve and dabbing at his face. The blood was stopping already.

    ¡°I¡¯m so sorry,¡± his voice broke a little, in spite of himself.

    ¡°I¡¯m really okay. You¡¯ve given me way worse in training. What was that?¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t thinking. It¡¯s like an overflow. I lose track of my boundaries after a certain point. What¡¯s me and what¡¯s not. The pressure can leave some nasty headaches or dizziness. It¡¯s not just me¡ªit happens to most telepaths.¡±

    ¡°It was intense.¡±

    ¡°I should have warned you. I can pull it back when I¡¯m paying attention¡ªit¡¯s just, well, it¡¯s been a while and you¡¯re...¡± Distracting.

    Alex gave his face one last wipe and when it came away clean, he tossed the shirt onto the floor. ¡°It was like I could feel everything you were feeling.¡± He was a little breathy. When he saw Reeve holding his breath, half into a panic, unsure how to react, he laughed and said, ¡°Don¡¯t worry so much¡ªit was actually really hot, you numbskull.¡±

    Reeve let out a breath, and let himself slide back down. Alex curled up next to him, his arms hooked around his chest and his head on his shoulder, heavy and relaxed.

    ¡°You sure you¡¯re okay?¡±

    Alex nuzzled into his neck. ¡°Mmhm.¡±

    He ran his hands up and down Alex¡¯s back and arms, feeling every muscle gone slack, and pulled the blanket up to cover them. Alex¡¯s breathing was already growing slow with sleep. Reeve kissed his forehead. ¡°I don¡¯t think I could survive hurting you.¡± He didn¡¯t think Alex was awake to hear him.

    ---

    SolCorp¡¯s Kyiv Office.

    Anise couldn¡¯t sleep. Her Post Breathe was mere days away and it was all she could think about. She tossed and turned for an hour before giving up and throwing on a Saturn logo tank top and a pair of joggers and going for a walk.

    It was the middle of the night, but there was still a decent amount of activity in the halls. Someone was always up, always working on something, chatting in hushed tones where hallways intersected.

    She was wandering through the lower levels of Venus and lost in thought when she felt something strange that made her stop.

    Her telepathy wasn¡¯t great, but it wasn¡¯t terrible. She could sense minds and the vague feelings that hovered around a person, even though she struggled to control them or block them out. The minds of humans hummed in her head like floating white noise machines as they moved around the building.

    But there was someone in the hall with her who was completely silent. Her eyes showed her a man, on the shorter side, in street clothes, and bald¡ªbut that didn¡¯t match up with what her knack was telling her. The man walking toward her was a complete void. He didn¡¯t show up on her internal map. Invisible. A ghost. She stopped and watched him come toward her and focused her telepathy. Maybe she was just missing him. Maybe he was in Neptune and had been trained unbelievably well to resist detection. Nothing. It couldn¡¯t be her defective knack. Even people with poor vision can tell their blurry world apart from a black rip in reality.

    He didn¡¯t seem to care that she was staring at him. He looked straight ahead and didn¡¯t even glance at her as he passed by. Anise shook off a shiver of goosebumps and turned to follow him.

    ¡°Hey,¡± she called, honestly not sure what she was going to say next. He didn¡¯t respond and she picked up the pace to try to catch up. ¡°Hey,¡± she repeated, raising her voice.

    The man stopped when he got to the end of the hallway where it turned left, and she instinctively stopped too. He turned and looked at her. Something in his stare turned her blood to ice. He was unreadable and that was something she wasn¡¯t used to. He regarded her with his blank expression for a long moment, then turned and unlocked the door in front of him with a key from his pocket and went inside.

    While there was nothing he had done that was technically against the rules, she couldn¡¯t tune out the alarm bells screaming in her mind. He felt wrong. Swallowing the feeling that even she knew was illogical, she went forward and tried the doorknob. Locked.

    With a sigh of relief, she headed back toward the housing wing, even though she didn¡¯t know who she could wake up at this hour. She wanted to knock on Mark¡¯s door, but as much as he seemed to be warm to her, he was a rank that you didn¡¯t wake up in the middle of the night because you had a bad feeling. She wanted him to continue to think she was worth his time and his help¡ªand there was no way she wasn¡¯t going to come off sounding absurd right now. She bit her lip, agonizing, and decided to forfeit her chances of sounding sane and just wake up Nina. She had said Anise could always come to her, so now she was going to have to eat her words.

    Nina answered the door in a t-shirt and socks, her hair a right mess sticking off to one side. ¡°What is it?¡± she asked, squinting.

    Anise pushed inside. ¡°I need you to wake up first.¡±

    ¡°You think I¡¯m asleep right now?¡± she quipped.

    Anise walked into her small galley kitchen uninvited. ¡°A little bit, yeah.¡± She poured a glass of water, dropped a couple of ice cubes into it, and handed it to Nina.

    Nina deflated, but she sipped the water and gestured to Anise to go sit down.

    They sat on either side of the couch and Anise waited for her to stop rubbing her face.

    ¡°I¡¯m really sorry to wake you up,¡± Anise said softly. She was calming down, beginning to feel foolish about her reaction. She should have tried to go to sleep.

    ¡°It¡¯s okay. What is it?¡±

    Nina¡¯s voice was less murky and her eyes were still heavy-lidded, but that was probably the best she could hope for right now. ¡°Listen, it¡¯s going to sound silly and you¡¯re going to think I¡¯m making a big deal out of nothing or imagining it, but just hear me out.¡± She took a breath. ¡°I saw someone in the building that my telepathy couldn¡¯t detect. Not at all. Complete blackout.¡±

    Anise shut her mouth and held her breath, waiting for the outburst over waking her up at three in the morning for this.

    Instead, Nina nodded once, her eyes drifting up as she thought. ¡°Where?¡±

    She hadn¡¯t been expecting that. ¡°Venus lower levels. I couldn¡¯t sleep, so I was just walking the halls. He went into a locked door.¡± Nina didn¡¯t say anything, so she continued. ¡°So I didn¡¯t read it wrong?¡±

    ¡°No, you read it right.¡± She sat up, looking more awake. ¡°It¡¯s nothing you need to worry about if you want to wait until morning to get into this.¡±

    ¡°Do I look like I can sleep?¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡± Nina drank her water. ¡°Let me make sure you have clearance.¡±

    ¡°You know my clearance level.¡±

    ¡°Not for this, I don¡¯t. Why don¡¯t you get yourself some water, too. You¡¯re pale.¡±

    Anise nodded. She was a little dizzy. Nina messaged someone on her phone while Anise poured a second glass of water. Anise hadn¡¯t spent much time in Nina¡¯s quarters, so she took a moment to glance around. There were pictures on the fridge of Nina when she was younger (and with longer hair) with another young woman Anise didn¡¯t know.

    With a pang of guilt, Anise began rooting around her cabinets.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡± Nina called.

    ¡°I¡¯m making you coffee.¡±

    ¡°Oh. Thanks.¡±

    ¡°Least I can do. Who¡¯s this woman you¡¯re with? She¡¯s pretty.¡±

    ¡°She was my girlfriend.¡± Her tone was strained, but Anise wasn¡¯t at the top of her game to notice.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that a lot of pictures to keep up of your ex?¡±

    ¡°She died.¡±

    Anise froze, the scoop stuck halfway into the can of grounds. ¡°Oh, god. I¡¯m sorry. What happened?¡±

    ¡°She was in Mars.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s awful.¡± What else was there to say? ¡°How long were you together?¡±

    ¡°Five years, but I was either on assignment or she was deployed for most of it.¡±

    Anise restarted the coffee routine. ¡°So this whole pilot thing where people can choose career paths is pretty personal for you.¡±

    ¡°It should be personal for all of us.¡± Nina attempted to smooth her hair. ¡°So what do you know about the Phagi?¡±

    She hit the brew button and started looking for mugs. ¡°The what?¡±

    ¡°Jesus, fuck the coffee. I have a healing knack, so it¡¯s not like the caffeine¡¯s going to help me anyway. Come sit down.¡±

    ¡°Sorry.¡± She shut the cabinet and went back to the couch. ¡°Sorry.¡±

    ¡°What do you know about the Phagi?¡±

    ¡°Just what''s in the textbooks.¡± Which were painfully vague on matters of otherly-powered people or even knacked people in other organizations. This was ostensibly because they were too disorganized to worry about, but that never made a lot of sense when set alongside the fairly useless history of the founding of Corp they had to memorize. The context struck her and her heart went still. ¡°Wait. That was an Anthropaphage?¡±

    ¡°Yes. You¡ª¡±

    ¡°What the fuck is it doing in a Sol office?¡± she hissed.

    ¡°I¡¯m trying to tell you. The pilot program isn''t just the Academy system. Each department is doing something to support what the changes in education will mean over time."

    "But what does that mean?"

    "It means that if we want to put more knacked people out in the world, living normal lives, we need to do things to reduce exposure risks. Like using Post Breathes to control volatile knacks.¡±

    ¡°Okay, but there¡¯s a cannibal monster in the basement right now.¡±

    There was a knock and Anise heard the door open. She shut her mouth tight, assuming they were being too loud, but it was Mark who walked in.

    ¡°Sorry, sir,¡± Nina said, pulling over a blanket to cover her bare thighs. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯m explaining it well.¡±

    ¡°Anise,¡± he said, ¡°Let¡¯s take a walk.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 31

    SolCorp''s Kyiv Office

    She nodded to Mark and gave Nina¡¯s arm a squeeze. ¡°I¡¯m sorry again.¡± Out in the hall with Mark, she continued repeating herself. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to wake everyone up, I just got freaked out.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s understandable.¡± She felt him scan her mind. ¡°Let me pick up from where Nina left off. Any plan that even entertains the idea of integrating into the human world or revisiting SolCorp¡¯s policy of secrecy has to address the Phagi. Right now they¡¯re responsible for something like thirty percent of Neptune¡¯s exposure callouts.¡±

    ¡°What about the Children of God? Aren¡¯t they the ones meant to be keeping them at bay?¡± He led her downstairs and she focused on keeping up with his long legs instead of trying to see where they were going.

    Mark scoffed. ¡°The Children of God have been fighting the Phagi for centuries and there aren¡¯t any fewer now than when they started. Phagi were around before knacked people and will probably be around after us. We can¡¯t wipe them out, and why would we want to?¡±

    ¡°Because they kill and eat people.¡±

    ¡°Well, next to us, at least they¡¯re making good use of the meat.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure that¡¯s funny,¡± she said softly. ¡°And my understanding is that it''s a mindless feeding frenzy, not well-researched targets. It¡¯s not the same.¡±

    ¡°I know the current material paints them as monsters, but the Phagi and knacked people have common origins. Similar enough that Venus¡¯s Post Breathe gene altering technology for knacked people should be adaptable to Phagi genetics. That¡¯s what they¡¯re working on.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re looking for a cure.¡±

    ¡°Sort of. We¡¯re looking for a treatment that would eliminate the negative aspects. We¡¯d be hypocrites if we tried to ¡®cure¡¯ them of their knack qualities like healing, strength, speed. Their frenzy is only every third night, so if we can eliminate that, their existence would be much more palatable.¡±

    She raised an unconvinced eyebrow. ¡°And the whole cannibal thing?¡±

    ¡°You know, I don¡¯t let many people take that tone with me.¡± His voice was mild, almost amused, but Anise still felt an instinctual dread. He continued, ¡°What do you expect them to do? What would you do if you woke up tomorrow without your knack, but with an undeniable need to consume human flesh and blood?¡±

    She thought about it with a sour stomach. Setting her shoulders back, she remembered herself and the things she could do. ¡°I would kill myself.¡±

    Mark didn¡¯t react. ¡°That¡¯s a very popular answer. One problem: Phagi can¡¯t. They can try all they like, but they do not have the ability to kill themselves. So what are they supposed to do?¡±

    She avoided the question. ¡°Can they die at all?¡±

    ¡°Yes, with great effort. Are you suggesting we set up voluntary death camps?¡± Anise didn¡¯t answer, because he had to know what she would say. Mark went on. ¡°Venus has been researching mass-producible bioengineered blood and organs for medical use for years now. Kyiv is just increasing that push and expanding the range of use. The Phagi can eat GMO¡¯s like the rest of us.¡±

    Anise found they were back in the hallway where she¡¯d started, stopped in front of that same door. He pulled out a keyring and unlocked it.

    ¡°After you.¡±

    Bracing herself, she walked inside and he followed close behind. The word ¡°lair¡± flashed in her mind, but it was nothing like that. It was simply a well-lit Venus lab. Two agents were working. There was room for many more, but it was three in the morning after all. One was hastily typing on a desktop and another was peering into a microscope the size of a refrigerator covered in complicated looking controls. Beyond them was a small chamber with clear glass walls. Inside, the man from the hallway was sitting upright on a hospital bed. His stare was blank like she remembered, and it was like he was in a blind spot of her telepathy.

    Seeing them, the agents straightened. ¡°Sir?¡± the one at the computer asked.

    Mark waved his hand. ¡°We¡¯re just looking.¡± As though they were in a shop.

    Anise studied the Phage. Red tubing was running from a machine in the room to his lips, where it was taped in place at the corner of his mouth.

    ¡°Are we safe here?¡± she asked.

    ¡°He¡¯s fine.¡± Mark raised a hand to wave and the Phage returned the gesture, though there was no shift in his expression.

    Anise took a step back and turned to the scientist at the computer. ¡°Is that a big drinking straw?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± the Venus agent said nervously. ¡°It¡¯s a pump and it¡¯s fed down into their stomachs. It doesn¡¯t seem to hurt them and they have no gag reflex. We¡¯d love to have a port put in, but it¡¯s not possible.¡±

    ¡°Why?¡±

    The agent looked at Mark, confused, and he took over. ¡°They¡¯re studying how much and how long we have to pre-load Phagi with food so that they sleep through their frenzy. It¡¯s a stopgap until we can find a cure, as you put it, but it¡¯s neater than the alternatives. Local Phagi who don¡¯t want to hurt people in their frenzy come here so we can control them.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re trying to help them.¡±

    ¡°We are helping them, and why wouldn¡¯t we? It¡¯s more reasonable than an antiquated policy of ignoring them other than to clean up their mess and keep them out of the news. I would argue it makes us a better ally to humans as well.¡±

    Mark turned to leave and she followed, flashing the Venus agents a look of thanks. It was odd to hear someone call non-knacked people anything but civilians. He was walking again and she quickened her pace to keep up.

    ¡°You think civilians would ever go for this without it turning into world war three?¡±

    ¡°I think the world is getting smaller. This isn¡¯t the seventies anymore. Sol won¡¯t be able to control the narrative forever, so we better get prepared to present the best face on both groups. Do you really think that civilians will make a distinction between the Phagi and a knacked person strong enough to crush a motorcycle? Or one who can control their minds? The bigger issue is that you think knacked people have more in common with humans than we do with Phagi. I think differently. And civilians will too.¡±

    They walked in silence for a while as she thought about this. The arguments pinged around in her head. It all bothered her, but she was fresh out of school. What did she know?

    The next time Mark stopped, she realized they were in front of her door. She looked from it to him. Her stomach ached with all the implications her head was formulating. His argument left too many gaps that she wasn¡¯t quite sure she wanted to fill. She couldn¡¯t have been the first to wonder about it, though. A program that involved both knacked people and Phagi was bound to bring up the question¡ªit sounded too much like Entropy Games.

    His eyes were tired, but not angry. ¡°Ask me.¡±

    There was a hiccupping in her chest. She tempered and avoided anything too dangerous. She¡¯d gotten him up so late and he¡¯d been so kind and understanding about it. ¡°Does LAHQ know about all this?¡±

    ¡°They know enough of it. They¡¯ll thank us later.¡±

    It wasn¡¯t that she didn¡¯t expect that sort of answer, she had, but she was surprised that he hadn¡¯t lied to her. It only created more questions.

    His face went soft and he cocked his head. ¡°Get some sleep. I¡¯m sorry the whole thing scared you.¡± He patted her on the back and opened the door for her. ¡°Big day coming up.¡±

    She would have thought sleep would never come, but as he walked away, she felt herself beginning to drift. Anise barely made it to her pillow.

    ---

    Sanctuary. Berlin, Germany.

    Misha woke them up banging on the door as he opened it.

    ¡°Wake up,¡± he barked loudly. ¡°What the fuck is wrong with you? It¡¯s late.¡±

    Reeve shot up in bed with a jolt and Alex, beside him, jumped, automatically going for his gun, which was just out of reach on the bedside table. They were under the blankets, but Alex¡¯s stretch for his pistol had uncovered their top halves.

    Misha¡¯s eyes flicked between them and the bloody shirt on the floor next to the pile of the rest of their clothes.

    ¡°Gotta keep that closer, Alex,¡± was all he said, and he shut the door behind him. They heard him shout from down the hall, ¡°We¡¯re out the door in fifteen.¡±

    Shaken, Reeve got out of bed. They dressed quickly in silence, listening to the voices down the hall at breakfast, the clank of silverware. If he could hear them talking about who brewed this terrible coffee, they¡¯d hear them if they spoke. He had his hand on the doorknob when a tug on his shirt stopped him. Alex got his far hand on the other side of his shirt and turned him around. He just looked at Reeve for a moment, then tipped his head up to kiss him, soft and light, sending electricity through his veins. Reeve grabbed at his forearm to steady himself.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

    ¡°You still okay?¡± Reeve asked, trying to keep his voice casual, glancing over at the door in case Alex missed the hint.

    ¡°You can stop asking,¡± he said quietly.

    Reeve gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head and forced himself out into the hall.

    Alyosha offered to stay behind so the Children could get their sleep schedule back to normal while the rest of them accompanied Misha to get an answer. After last night, no one seemed in the mood to sit around twiddling their thumbs. They stopped outside a glass office building.

    ¡°You wait here,¡± Misha said, pointing to some benches. ¡°You,¡± he looked to Reeve, ¡°come up with me. I don¡¯t want to listen to you bitch about not being there.¡±

    He didn¡¯t argue or mention that Misha seemed to bitch a great deal himself, and followed close behind. Misha gave his name, using the last name Church, at a shiny black reception desk. The pristine, professional look of it made Reeve feel uncomfortable, reminding him of Sol. Reeve in his buttondown at least seemed to fit in, compared to Misha in his long, tattered coat. The receptionist checked her computer and nodded. Misha took him to an elevator and selected the thirty-second floor.

    Reeve watched him as he stood, leaning against the wall and staring, bored, at the numbers that marked the floors as they lit up one by one. He thought of the sharp look in Misha¡¯s eyes this morning. Reeve lowered his gaze to study the floor.

    ¡°Are we going to have to have a conversation?¡± Reeve asked, keeping his voice as emotionless as possible.

    ¡°No,¡± he answered flatly.

    Reeve raised his eyebrows. ¡°No?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re surprised.¡±

    Reeve let out a breathy, exasperated laugh.

    ¡°I mimicked you this morning,¡± Misha said, turning to look at him. ¡°I didn¡¯t go into any heads, just listened on the walk over here. He seems fine.¡±

    Reeve blinked, heart pounding.

    Misha continued, one eyebrow raised. ¡°Are you?¡±

    The elevator came to a stop and pinged for their floor. Misha brushed off his sleeves and knocked his dirty boots against the wall to shake off the worst of the clods in a rare display of personal grooming.

    ¡°Just keep your mouth shut in there, huh?¡±

    Once they got the okay, they were moved into a well-appointed office with floor to ceiling windows. A man waved them in. He wore an expensive suit and looked to be in his early fifties. He had a body like a runner, rail thin and sinewy.

    ¡°Kurt,¡± Misha said a little loudly with a wide smile, shaking his hand as he stood up from behind a long desk. Misha continued in German and Reeve blinked, on edge. He caught the phrase ¡°Reeve Church¡± and jumped to extend a hand to the man. Misha gestured to the man and overly enunciated, ¡°Herr Fischer.¡± He didn¡¯t like this. Not much point in him being in the room if he couldn¡¯t understand what was being said.

    Fischer shook his hand, nodding to him curtly. Afterwards, still looking at Reeve, he moved his left hand in small circles and said something.

    ¡°Your tattoo,¡± Misha muttered.

    Reeve swiftly unbuttoned his sleeve cuff and rolled it up to bare the slightly swollen matchstick cross. Fischer smiled and sat down.

    ¡°Sit,¡± Misha said, before returning to some back and forth in German. ¡°He is happy with the job,¡± Misha told Reeve smugly. ¡°I will ask him about your information.¡±

    Misha spoke and Fischer tapped at his desk absentmindedly. Misha translated quickly, staggering between sentences.

    ¡°I have heard of this Network. I met a man once, who came to us for work. He used to be a part of the American company, SolCorp. He was a superior ass and I didn¡¯t much like him.¡± Misha paused his translating to give Reeve a sour look.

    ¡°He told me that he was trying to find the Network¡ªbut he didn¡¯t know what city they were in. As he understood it, when you made yourself known to the Church in a city, the Network will somehow know. The Network would contact him when he was close to them.¡± Misha returned to German in a harsh tone.

    ¡°What did you just say?¡± Reeve hissed.

    ¡°That he needs to learn English because I don¡¯t have the patience for this shit. Shut up.¡± Fischer continued. ¡°He says he never saw the man again and didn¡¯t give him work. No one has asked him about it until we did.¡±

    ¡°Can you ask him how long ago this was?¡±

    ¡°I can remind you to shut the fuck up.¡± But he translated anyway. ¡°He thinks it was two or three years ago.¡±

    Reeve nodded. ¡°Tell him ¡®Thank you.¡¯¡± Misha did, and Reeve repeated it phonetically, using his surname.

    ¡°Now we go,¡± Misha said, sounding more ornery than usual. He practically shoved him toward the door. Staying behind, Misha shook Fischer¡¯s hand again and accepted an envelope that looked stiff with bills.

    Back in the elevator, Reeve said, ¡°I thought we were working for information?¡±

    ¡°We did. This should be a much fatter stack. You are welcome.¡±

    Reeve swallowed. ¡°Thank you.¡±

    ¡°Does that help?¡±

    ¡°Yes¡ªand no, not at all.¡±

    ---

    Entropy Games Office. Paris, France.

    Adjusting his grip on his suitcase, Wyatt ran through the list for the eighth time as he walked into the games office building, where the legitimate business side of Entropy Games was centered. He¡¯d packed clothes, toiletries, one good suit, comfortable clothes for the ride, cash, and the company card.

    The receptionist working the desk smiled in greeting. She was expecting him and brought out two large rolling suitcases from behind the desk as he approached.

    ¡°Liz dropped these off for you.¡± She asked, ¡°For the convention in London?¡±

    Wyatt smiled politely back. ¡°Yeah, thank you.¡± He loved and hated working game conventions. He loved being away from home, being around normal people with normal jobs and families, and having space to just exist out of view. He hated the part where his father, Adler, would scrutinize his performance as a company ambassador to the smallest misstep when he got back, and knowing Arielle would be watching him as well. There would be five people working the convention, but there was always one whose job it was to report back.

    Pulling the two bulky cases over to the side, Wyatt waited for Arielle. There were two vans going, and she was driving this one with just the two of them. He waited. And waited. Eventually, Wyatt resorted to thumbing through the suitcase contents. His father would blame him, surely, if they forgot something. The printed canvas banners were there, the games of course, tablets for point of sale, branded tablecloths, a range of branded merch, like buttons, tote bags, stickers, dice, playing cards, and clothes.

    "That''s a new one."

    His father''s voice made him jump. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid.

    Adler had his suit jacket neatly draped over one arm and had caught Wyatt refolding one of their t-shirts for sale. It had the Entropy Games logo across the chest: a white pawn chess piece casting a shadow of a black knight chess piece, except in this version, the pawn was neon pink leopard print.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± he stammered, taking an involuntary step back.

    ¡°Arielle will be down in a minute.¡± Of course. He¡¯d be giving her last minute instructions. His father plucked the shirt from his fingers and looked closer at it with a wry smile. ¡°That¡¯s ridiculous,¡± he chuckled as he folded the shirt and handed it back to Wyatt.

    It was never good when his father was in a pleasant mood. It didn¡¯t denote anything¡­safe.

    ¡°What¡¯s going on? Is everything okay?¡±

    ¡°Of course.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re cheerful.¡±

    ¡°Well, I got some news. Actually, you might be interested to know. You remember Gareth, right?¡±

    There was a jolt in his blood. Of course he did. One of the few of his father¡¯s friends that he liked and that had liked him back. ¡°He¡¯s in Sol now.¡±

    ¡°Not anymore. They burned him some months past, but since then he¡¯s been missing.¡±

    ¡°And?¡±

    ¡°And now we know where he is, so I¡¯m going to set up a reunion.¡± The sincere look of glee in his eyes was distressing, as if he truly believed Wyatt would think this was great.

    Wyatt was speechless.

    ¡°You¡¯ll wrinkle that,¡± Adler said, as he put his coat back on. Wyatt realized he was crushing the t-shirt in his grip. Adler patted him on the arm. ¡°Good luck at the convention. Push that new woodland creature co-op. It¡¯s cute and the miniatures went way over budget.¡±

    He left. Wyatt smoothed the shirt in his hands and repacked it.

    When he arrived at their London hotel, Wyatt could barely recall the six hour drive. His mind had wandered off, going through his memories. Many of them were hazy fragments because he¡¯d been too young to really remember them. It was less recall and more an innate sense of Gareth¡¯s presence. But there had been a few that had taken root as he¡¯d gotten older.

    He knew he must have been nine or ten at the time, because Adler had been promoted by then and they were living in Paris full-time. His childhood had been a little lonely, he now understood after talking to people who didn¡¯t grow up the way he did. There were very few other kids around, if any, let alone near to him in age, and most of the adults either treated him coolly or avoided him entirely.

    Wyatt recalled walking through the dining hall, a little overwhelmed by all the dissonant chatter and guarded looks, but he had burst into a run when he spotted Gareth. Looking back and doing the math, Gareth had to have been only sixteen years old at the most, but to Wyatt, he was one of the grown ups and may as well have been thirty for all he could tell. Gareth was tall like Adler, but bulkier, strong. The kind of thing where Wyatt could latch onto his leg, sitting on Gareth¡¯s foot, and it wouldn¡¯t slow Gareth down at all.

    He remembered running up to Gareth, who was sitting down to eat, and shouting excitedly, ¡°Gareth! Gareth! It¡¯s Friday!¡±

    Gareth turned to look at him and took a second to finish chewing, face serious, before saying, ¡°No, I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s Thursday, kid.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Wyatt protested loudly. ¡°It¡¯s Friday and you¡ª¡±

    ¡°Hey,¡± Gareth called to the table next to them where a group of people were chatting. ¡°Hey, it¡¯s definitely Wednesday right?¡±

    Wyatt drew out the word ¡°No¡± as long as his little lungs could carry him.

    The people at the other table had looked confused and critical of the whole interaction. Wyatt understood now that it was because they hadn¡¯t known to play along.

    ¡°It¡¯s Friday,¡± one of them told Gareth with a dour expression.

    ¡°See?¡± Wyatt burst out, elated and relieved.

    Gareth cocked his head with a deep squint. ¡°Huh, I guess it is Friday.¡± All of a sudden his face transformed into a bright smile and he pointed one finger at Wyatt. ¡°Wait, didn¡¯t I promise to take you to the zoo on Friday?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± he whooped.

    ¡°Well, okay then.¡±

    He remembered Gareth popping out of his chair and scooping him up with one arm, whirling him around as he spun. He recalled the giggling and hiccuping sensation of stopping abruptly at his father¡¯s voice calling Gareth¡¯s name. When Adler raised his voice, it had always frozen Wyatt in his tracks with a sinking feeling. It still did. His dad had never hit him. He had never needed to.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Gareth asked.

    ¡°I need to be on the ground in San Francisco for two weeks. You and Mia are coming with me.¡± If Gareth had been as close to an uncle as Wyatt had ever really had, Mia was as close as he¡¯d get to an aunt. Looking back, he couldn¡¯t strictly speak to what kind of relationship the two of them had, exactly, but they were around each other often and never complained about spending time with him.

    Gareth put him down carefully. ¡°Mia¡¯s still recovering from her disagreement with Guillaume. Her leg¡¯s a mess.¡±

    ¡°Then it¡¯s a good thing I¡¯m not asking her to walk there,¡± his father had countered.

    Gareth sucked his teeth with a click. ¡°When?¡±

    ¡°Now.¡±

    Wyatt remembered feeling like a deflating balloon, but by that age, he¡¯d learned not to challenge his dad.

    ¡°Come on,¡± Gareth argued. ¡°I promised him all week I¡¯d take him to the zoo today.¡±

    Adler looked down at Wyatt with a scowl he recognized, his look of being inconvenienced. It was a look he was still very familiar with.

    Wyatt allowed himself a tentative, ¡°Please?¡± and a pout.

    His dad¡¯s expression intensified, causing a spike of fear, then broke into a thin half-smile. ¡°You¡¯ve got four hours.¡±

    Wyatt remembered some few moments of their actual time at the zoo, but those parts had faded more than the dining hall and the silly faces they¡¯d made at each other during the Metro ride. He wished he¡¯d retained more of that day.

    Gareth had never come back from that trip to San Francisco. Mia either. She¡¯d been killed somehow, and he¡¯d betrayed them for Sol. It had heartbroken Wyatt for a long time. He¡¯d wanted for a good portion of his childhood to get a chance to see Gareth again, but he didn''t anymore. It wasn¡¯t that he no longer cared, or that he blamed him for leaving. (As someone around the age Gareth had been when he¡¯d left, he got it.) But if Wyatt ever had the chance to see Gareth, it would be because Adler had found him. And Wyatt didn¡¯t see a way for Gareth to leave that encounter alive.

    At the hotel, Wyatt showered off his cold sweat and got dressed. He needed to be on tonight. His dad would know if he wasn¡¯t.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 32

    Berlin, Germany.

    Alex had gotten himself comfortable on a bench¡ªknees drawn up and leaning against Gareth¡¯s shoulder. He closed his eyes against the cool morning light. He really hadn¡¯t gotten as much sleep as he should have. Not that he¡¯d complain in a million years. He sat up when Gareth nudged his shoulder. Reeve and Misha were walking out of the office building, an odd looking pair among all the suits.

    ¡°News?¡± Hannah asked when they got there.

    ¡°Sort of,¡± Reeve replied. ¡°But we should probably head back, yeah?¡±

    Misha nodded. ¡°Talk at home.¡±

    Misha led the way, which was good, since Alex had no idea where they were. They walked in a staggered group. It gave Alex some time to think. Reeve was in front of him and it took some willpower not to reach out and grab his arm (or ass). Instead he ran a thumb over his own bottom lip and let himself Read for a moment, remembering.

    When the Sanctuary was in sight, movement ahead of them caught his eye. A small girl, maybe five years old, in a flower dress hopped down the steps of one narrow home and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, watching them approach. He didn¡¯t think too much of it, until she didn¡¯t move. They slowed. At the head of them, Misha came nearly to a stop, studying her before angling himself to walk around.

    ¡°Gar-ret!¡± she called, making them all jump. The way she said it sounded phonetic, struggling with the th sound. She trotted forward heading towards Gareth. Reeve and Hannah moved aside to let her. That would make Alex angry later, but he knew that truly what else could they have done? What other reaction would there have been?

    In front of him, she repeated his garbled name and held out an envelope, a little wrinkled from being in her pocket. Gareth¡¯s eyes darted for a second before plucking the envelope from her outstretched hand.

    Once the envelope was gone, her smile faded and her face changed into something confused. She turned to run.

    ¡°Hey,¡± Hannah shouted, grabbing her arm before she could take more than a few steps. Alex took a step to the side, closer to Gareth, looking at the envelope. It was plain white with a ¡°G¡± scrawled on the front.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Misha asked.

    Gareth shook his head, just looking at it.

    Hannah knelt down at the girl¡¯s level. ¡°Hey,¡± she said, her voice kind and soft, ¡°where did this letter come from? Who told you to give it to him?¡±

    The girl spoke frantically in German and began yelling for her mother.

    ¡°Let her go,¡± Reeve sighed.

    ¡°She might know something.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s been wiped, and to dig the information back up I¡¯d have to scramble her brain. She¡¯s just a kid.¡±

    Hannah dropped her arm and stood back up as the girl ran off without looking back.

    While Alex was watching their exchange, Gareth had opened the envelope and taken out the single sheet of paper.

    ¡°We have to go.¡± Gareth¡¯s voice was strung tight and too loud.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°We have to go now,¡± he shouted.

    ¡°Not here,¡± Misha hissed, looking around. ¡°Inside.¡± He tried to usher Gareth forward with his arm, but Gareth flinched and violently jerked his arm away.

    ¡°Let¡¯s get inside,¡± Hannah said. Her voice was harder than she¡¯d use if it were Alex who was freaking out. She was better with Gareth that way.

    They traveled the last half a block to the Sanctuary at nearly a jog. Once inside, Gareth paced the room.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Reeve repeated. Gareth shoved the letter at Reeve. Alex peered over his shoulder. It was a handwritten note, but even before he could read it, he froze. It was Entropy Games'' letterhead. A neat script in black pen read, ¡°Good to see you,¡± and was signed simply, ¡°M.¡±

    ¡°M,¡± Reeve said, considering. ¡°Is this?¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡± Gareth¡¯s voice was husky. ¡°It¡¯ll be Marcus Adler.¡± He stopped pacing. ¡°We can¡¯t be here,¡± he urged loudly.

    Alyosha came into the room at a jog, gun low but ready. ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± he breathed, looking around.

    ¡°I have no idea,¡± Misha drawled. ¡°Hey! What the fuck is going on?¡± he shouted, looking at Gareth and clapping his hands on every word.

    ¡°It¡¯s Entropy,¡± Hannah answered fast, voice raised, clearly trying to get him to shut up. ¡°They know Gareth¡¯s here. He used to work for them.¡±

    ¡°Okay,¡± Misha shrugged, ¡°so we move to a new city.¡±

    Gareth was pacing again. ¡°No, you¡¯re not getting this. Marcus Adler¡ª¡± he trailed off, tongue stuck.

    Alex swallowed. ¡°This is the guy who¡­¡± Stories of Gareth¡¯s that he¡¯d accidentally Read over time played in his mind¡¯s eye. They still made him sick and he shut his mouth on talking about it any further.

    Gareth nodded. ¡°And he¡¯s here. You need to go.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean ¡®you¡¯?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s here for me. I don¡¯t want him anywhere near you.¡±

    ¡°No way,¡± Alex burst out. ¡°No fucking way.¡± Alex looked around to make sure he wasn¡¯t the only one who understood that Gareth was talking crazy. His eyes froze when they landed on Alyosha, who was standing in the entrance to the hallway, gun visibly shaking in his hand. He had the same fearful look that Gareth did.

    Beside him, Reeve¡¯s face contorted. He started to say Alyosha¡¯s name, but Gareth cut him off. ¡°That doesn¡¯t make any sense. Why didn¡¯t he kill you?¡± he asked Alyosha, voice accusatory. ¡°If he knew we were here, Adler would have left your body here for us as a message.¡±

    ¡°Gareth,¡± Reeve started.

    ¡°Maybe he didn¡¯t know he was here,¡± Hannah offered.

    Gareth scoffed. ¡°He knows.¡±

    Alyosha shoved his gun back in its holster and looked up at Gareth. Even from across the room, Alex could see his eyes were raw.

    Alex interrupted any further discussion by ripping the letter out of Reeve¡¯s hands and taking it into the empty kitchen.

    Alex ran his fingers across the front of the letter and let his consciousness sink into its History.

    Immediately, Alex flips back from Gareth¡¯s trembling hand and the little girl on the sidewalk. He knows these Stories already. It¡¯s not what he wants. He reaches back.

    The letter is in the inside pocket of a man¡¯s coat. It¡¯s already written on and sealed. Alex studies the man''s unshaven face, but he already knows this isn¡¯t the man Gareth calls Marcus. It¡¯s not the face Alex has seen in other Stories. The floor beneath Alex¡¯s feet bounces and sways. Looking around him, he sees that he is on a train. Inside the Memory, Alex blinks slowly. It helps him go a little deeper in a controlled way. He doesn''t have time to get lost right now. The man with the letter¡¯s name is Edward, and he is sitting alone in the middle of a row, staring out the window. He has a blocky frame and dark hair. Edward is thinking about where he is going to be staying in Berlin once he gets there, trying to remember the name of the hotel he¡¯d used the last time he was here. Edward is a telepath, but no where near as strong as his boss.

    Alex turns the page back, staggering a little as the moving train dissolves under his feet.

    He heard voices calling his name, some urgent, some angry. He was too focused to pick out who was who.

    Edward is there again, in a different set of clothes. Edward stands in front of a heavy wooden desk. He is nervous, almost scared, and Alex can feel it keenly, like cold fingers on the backs of his knees. Shifting, Alex looks at the man behind the desk. This is a face he recognizes and he¡¯s not sure anymore if the fear he¡¯s feeling is his own or Edward¡¯s or both. Edward is awaiting an assignment, watching as Marcus Adler licks and seals the white envelope.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Adler is older, in his late forties, but with a full head of wheat blond hair just long enough to style. He¡¯s wearing a suit and Alex isn¡¯t used to seeing him with glasses on in Gareth¡¯s History.

    ¡°How soon can you get this in his hands?¡± Adler asks without looking up. Alex knows the voice, that same British inflection.

    ¡°Tomorrow. Day after at the latest.¡±

    Adler is silent and Edward knows this means Adler isn¡¯t displeased, but not particularly pleased either. Adler picks up his pen and scrawls a G on the envelope. He holds it out along with a fold of bills. ¡°Make sure your men in Munich who made the report get this.¡±

    Before Edward can walk forward to get it, Alex steps past the desk, to the window, careful in his movements. Outside, he can¡¯t recognize any of the architecture. Too much to ask that he¡¯d have his office in view of Big Ben or something. Alex scans the papers on the desk, wishing he could reach his hand out and flip over the torn and opened mail. He spots one envelope hanging slightly over the side of an inbox and Alex squats, craning his neck to read the underside of the letter. By now Edward has taken the letter and begun to walk out of the room. Alex feels the tug of the letter¡¯s Story pulling him along with it, leaving the room behind. He lets go of the pages.

    When he opened his eyes, Alex saw he was basically surrounded. Reeve, Hannah, and Alyosha were crowded around him, with Misha a few steps behind. Gareth hadn¡¯t moved from his spot across the room, but he¡¯d stopped pacing and stood stock still, watching him. Alex cleared his throat and pitched his voice to Gareth.

    ¡°He¡¯s not here.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    Alex held up the letter, giving it a shake. ¡°He wrote this in France and handed it off. He¡¯s not here. Someone who works for him in Munich tipped him off.¡± Alex pushed the letter into Hannah¡¯s hands, nodding to Alyosha and happy to be rid of it. The rest thankfully took the hint to back off. As they drifted back into the living room as a group, Gareth started pacing again. Still catching his breath, orienting himself in the present, Alex backed up to lean against the wall next to Misha, who was quieter than normal, watching them.

    ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± Hannah said.

    Gareth didn¡¯t agree and instead bit his lips between his teeth, eyes elsewhere. ¡°They know I¡¯m here. He¡¯s just toying with me.¡± He looked at Alyosha and amended, ¡°Us. Jesus, Reeve, you took one of their agents, you stole their jet¡ªthis isn¡¯t going to be only me. We¡¯ve got to split up.¡±

    ¡°Out of the question,¡± Hannah spat just as Alex let out a sharp, ¡°No.¡±

    Reeve walked to Gareth, hands out and placating, long fingers spread wide. ¡°We know how to hide and we can be more careful from now on.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not hearing me,¡± Gareth ground out.

    ¡°We¡¯ve gotten this far.¡± Reeve clapped a hand on the top of his shoulder, giving him a gentle shake. ¡°We can handle this.¡±

    Something in Gareth snapped, and Alex flinched as Gareth grabbed Reeve by the shoulders and threw him into the closest wall hard enough to make the house shake and held him there.

    Beside Alex, Misha took a sudden half step forward as if to intervene, but Alex put a hand out to stop him and shook his head. Better to let them move through it.

    Gareth¡¯s shoulders were rising and falling fast and Alex could see the veins pumping in his temples. Reeve¡¯s face was impassive. Gareth took a step back with one leg so he could lean forward into Reeve, arms out straight.

    ¡°You know how Sol¡¯s telepath scale says at one end, you¡¯re not a telepath and at the other, you¡¯re so powerful you¡¯re insane?¡±

    Reeve¡¯s eyelids fluttered. ¡°That¡¯s not really what it says.¡± Alex shot a glance at Hannah. In true Reeve form: missing the fucking point.

    Gareth ignored him. ¡°Adler¡¯s a psychopath, so take a guess where he falls on your stupid scale.¡±

    ¡°Gareth,¡± Reeve said softly, but that only made Gareth give his shoulders one more good, violent jerk, shoving him into the wall again.

    ¡°I¡¯ve had both of you in my head and he¡¯s better than you,¡± Gareth hissed. It seemed like he was trying to whisper, but wasn¡¯t pulling it off. ¡°He won¡¯t just off you like Neptune. He will make you kill Hannah and Alex and he will make you love it. More than you¡¯ve ever loved anything in your life. Then he¡¯ll let you wake up to that, and if you¡¯re lucky, he won¡¯t make you live with it for too long.¡±

    Reeve raised his hands up and set them on Gareth¡¯s arms, without pushing him off. His eyebrows were stretched high on his face. ¡°Okay.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Gareth and Alex both said it at the same time. Alex¡¯s heart had skipped to double-time.

    ¡°I said okay. You have a better handle on what all this means. We do it your way.¡±

    Gareth dropped his arms. They all stood there in a stunned silence for a moment. Alex¡¯s heart sank.

    Hannah shook her head several times before she could speak. ¡°No. This is stupid.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not,¡± Reeve replied evenly. ¡°I don¡¯t like it and I don¡¯t want to do it, but it¡¯s not stupid. Anywhere we go right now, six people moving together in the Church draws a lot of attention. And without the Church, we¡¯re undefended for the time being. We can¡¯t keep Sol off our backs without help right now.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s right,¡± Misha sighed. ¡°About this at least.¡±

    ¡°The only reason we¡¯re alive right now is because we¡¯ve stuck together,¡± Alex yelled. He was pacing now, he realized. He came to stop but he was shaking too much to stand still, so he sat down in the nearest chair.

    ¡°I know.¡± Something in Reeve¡¯s voice caught, sounding like it had stumbled over the same lump that was threatening to choke Alex. He was glad he¡¯d heard it before Reeve had taken that slow breath to even himself out. ¡°But two groups of three have a better chance of moving unnoticed.¡±

    Alyosha gestured to the three of them. There were hard lines forming around his eyes. ¡°And you three haven¡¯t done anything to piss them off. They should focus on us.¡±

    Hannah threw her hands up. ¡°And what if you¡¯re wrong and this Adler guy decides to come after us to punish you? That sounds like the shit you¡¯ve talked about.¡±

    Alex shut his open mouth. It wasn¡¯t something Gareth had ever talked about with him. All his Entropy knowledge was stolen, contraband, unwilling.

    ¡°That¡¯s the risk,¡± Gareth said, finally able to stand still. ¡°Either they definitely find us in a pack of six and what you said happens anyway, or we split up and they might be able to track down a few of us. And I know they¡¯ll be more pissed off that I got away.¡±

    Reeve turned to Gareth. ¡°The place must be being watched. How do we get out?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got that,¡± Misha called, unfolding himself from his position on the wall. ¡°I have an idea, but we need to wait until dark.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re on board with this plan?¡± Reeve asked, eyebrows high.

    Misha shrugged one shoulder. ¡°It¡¯s not your plan, so I like it.¡±

    Hannah let out a huff. ¡°Can we at least vote on this or something?¡±

    ¡°Sure,¡± Reeve said, looking around. ¡°All those opposed, raise your hand.¡±

    Hannah¡¯s arm shot up and Alex raised his with her. No one else did. His stomach dropped.

    Reeve nodded. ¡°Okay. It¡¯s only temporary. We¡¯ll wait, what, two weeks? Until we can lose them and then join up again.¡±

    ¡°Three weeks,¡± Gareth said quietly.

    ¡°Fine,¡± Hannah huffed. ¡°Where do we meet?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Gareth said quickly. ¡°I don¡¯t want to know where you are. We shouldn¡¯t be able to contact you.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    Misha sighed. ¡°We¡¯ll ditch our burner and get a new one. You keep yours. In three weeks, we¡¯ll call and set up a location.¡±

    No one argued. Alex didn''t breathe.

    ¡°We should pack,¡± Reeve said finally. ¡°Please try to keep the yelling at me to one at a time.¡±

    Alex followed Reeve close behind, back into their room, and shut the door a little too loud.

    ¡°Alex,¡± Reeve started, closing his eyes.

    Alex took a brief moment of satisfaction seeing Reeve shifting his weight uncomfortably as he walked past him without a word, striding to the chair that held his piled clothes. He started shoving them into his bag, expecting Reeve to say something but he was silent, too. Which somehow pissed Alex off even more. He heard the floor creak as Reeve took a step towards him, then another.

    Alex wanted to do everything at once, from turning and clinging to Reeve like a life raft to throwing the wooden chair at his face. Alex shut his mouth on a question and bent low to grab his shirt from where it had fallen on the floor by the bed the night before, shoving it into his pack and piling the rest of his things on top of it, sandwiching it, creating a barrier between the fabric and his hand. His face felt hot, which didn¡¯t seem right. He wasn¡¯t supposed to be the one feeling¡ªhe didn¡¯t know what it was he was feeling. He wasn¡¯t sure he¡¯d ever felt it before. He built up the best barrier in his head that he could, needing Reeve not see this feeling. As though throwing a rug over a bloodstain meant he could pretend it wasn¡¯t there. The skin of his ears felt like it was on fire and he kept his head lowered, hiding behind his hair. There was more creaking and Alex froze and closed his eyes, preparing himself not to jump at Reeve¡¯s hand. A question was clawing its way out of Alex¡¯s mouth against his will.

    Alex jumped at the sound of the door clicking shut gently. When he spun around, Reeve was gone. His things were still there on the bed, unpacked, and his bag and gear were on the floor.

    He sat on the floor by the wall, remembering how to breathe. When the light outside was getting low and he felt numb enough, Alex picked up his pack and left the room, taking care to avoid stepping on the same spot Reeve had been standing.

    ---

    As night fell, five figures left the Sanctuary with the hoods of their coats pulled up against the sudden, heavy rain. They moved as fast as they dared, down dark, back streets in a tight group. They didn¡¯t slow to hunt for dogs, just focused on covering ground.

    A little over two miles into their trek, two of the Children split off and began to double back. Alyosha, Gareth, and Reeve didn¡¯t turn or wish them goodbye, for risk of drawing attention. The two local Church members would make their way back to the Sanctuary. By then, Misha, Alex, and Hannah would have left the house, heading in whatever direction Misha was taking them. The others didn¡¯t know and they didn¡¯t want to. With Hannah so often invisible, all they could do was hope that a group of five would be enough for Entropy to keep their eyes on them and give the others time to get away unnoticed.

    For the next hour or so, the three of them pressed on without pausing. The rain let up not long after the Children left and the weather manipulator took his knack with him, back toward the Sanctuary, but they kept their hoods up, just in case. The dark roads brightened into more populated ones. There were night sounds and figures crowding and passing them on sidewalks. Alyosha tried not to stare at them, checking them for weapons, following their hands. When Reeve¡¯s pace slowed abruptly, Alyosha nearly plowed into him.

    ¡°What is it?¡± he asked, slowing down.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know where I¡¯m going,¡± Reeve muttered without looking back.

    ¡°Misha gave you a couple of Sanctuary locations?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, but I mean right now. The Sanctuaries aren¡¯t in this city and I don¡¯t know how we¡¯re getting there or where the hell this street even goes.¡±

    Alyosha looked over at Gareth, who didn¡¯t acknowledge him, busy watching the crowd. Without waiting for an answer, Reeve sped up his pace for a block or so but then slowed back down again.

    ¡°Reeve,¡± Alyosha said softly.

    ¡°Do I just go straight until the street ends or something? Or until we pass out and fall asleep?¡±

    ¡°Reeve.¡± He said it louder this time and grabbed his arm. When Reeve turned around to look at him, his face was drawn. ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡± He tried to lock eyes with Reeve to make sure he was hearing him, but it was impossible. His eyes were darting rapidly, but unlike Gareth, he wasn¡¯t seeing anyone.

    ¡°We need to keep moving,¡± Gareth urged through gritted teeth.

    Alyosha¡¯s turn to ignore Gareth, he tugged Reeve off to the edge of the sidewalk. ¡°It¡¯s okay,¡± he repeated. ¡°We¡¯re going to walk until morning and there will always be some place open that can point us to a cheap hostel. Tomorrow we¡¯ll pick a city, but for now, let¡¯s walk.¡±

    Reeve¡¯s eyes finally slid back to rest on Alyosha, and the sudden stillness looked unnatural. ¡°This is wrong.¡± The neutral, flat way he said it made Alyosha feel cold.

    ¡°Come on,¡± was all he said, and stepped in front of Reeve to begin walking again. He could lead for the night. He could do that much.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 33

    SolCorp¡¯s Kyiv Office. Venus Department.

    Anise woke to a woozy feeling that was both light and heavy at once. As though her skull had been replaced by a balloon and her blood with lead. Opening her eyes, she saw she was in a hospital bed. The room was small and stark, with a large observation window out into the hall.

    The Post Breathe.

    With an effort, she could remember being wheeled into the procedure room. Mark seeing her off. Then nothing.

    Weak but alive, she had dodged the worst-case scenario. Anise reached for her telepathy and felt a hitch in her chest and a fluttering of panic¡ªshe felt nothing.

    A Venus agent walked in at a brisk pace. ¡°Good morning,¡± he said in a neutral tone.

    ¡°Something¡¯s wrong,¡± she croaked. If her knack was gone, what good could she be to Sol? To anyone?

    The agent checked her vitals, hovering over her face. ¡°You look good and stable to me.¡±

    ¡°My knack.¡±

    ¡°Oh,¡± he straightened. ¡°It¡¯s okay, you need to be kept in a dampener room for at least twenty-four hours after the procedure while you recover. No one has a knack inside this room.¡±

    Anise went limp with relief then felt sick again. ¡°I have to wait a day to see if it worked?¡±

    ¡°Well, you¡¯ve been here for over twenty-four already. We¡¯ve had this conversation a couple of times.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t remember.¡± She tried to move her legs, but they felt like dead weight.

    ¡°It¡¯s okay. You¡¯re much more lucid this time. I¡¯ll call Mr.¡ªI¡¯ll get Mark for you. He wanted to see you when you were up. I¡¯ll send some people in to get you more comfortable.¡±

    She nodded. ¡°Thanks.¡± He left and she did her best to quell her anxiety. More agents came in and began to remove all the tubes from her body. Anise was too weak to help much, but their impersonal looks made her think they didn¡¯t expect much from her. That ¡°Mr.¡± fluttered in and out of her mind, but she was too tired to work through why it was bothering her. By the time Mark knocked on her window, they¡¯d gotten her settled, sitting up in bed with only a saline IV in the back of her hand.

    ¡°How are you feeling?¡± he asked, coming to the side of her bed.

    ¡°I honestly don¡¯t know. Did it work?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re confident it went exactly to plan, but we won¡¯t know until you try.¡±

    ¡°When can I try it?¡±

    He smiled. ¡°You know, I asked that on my way in here because I know you. He said whenever you feel ready¡ªso he obviously doesn¡¯t know you.¡± She tried to laugh and he put a hand on the top of her head. ¡°If you were going to have a rejection, it would have happened by now, so you¡¯re in the clear for complications.¡±

    She tried to sit up straighter. ¡°So let¡¯s do it.¡±

    Mark shook his head and sat on the edge of the bed, angling to face her. ¡°Not yet. I need you to understand that once you leave this room, everything is going to be different.¡±

    ¡°Wasn¡¯t that the idea?¡±

    ¡°Yes, and you should be ready for it, but you may get overwhelmed.¡±

    ¡°Okay. I trust you.¡±

    He narrowed his eyes at her. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure I told you not to do that.¡±

    She cleared her throat. She didn¡¯t want to seem as frail as she felt. ¡°Tough.¡±

    At that, he stood and unfolded the wheelchair propped up against the wall. She was struck by how careful he was not to tug on the IV line when he moved it to the hook that stuck up from the back of the chair. It was a little difficult to stay upright, but she fought. Unclicking the breaks, he rolled her to the open door.

    He paused there. She could see the raised black bar across the floor that marked off the dampening tech. ¡°I just want you to know,¡± he told her, ¡°that I know it might be a lot but I¡¯m not wheeling you back in here, even if you ask.¡±

    The finality of that pricked her palms with sweat but she nodded. ¡°I can handle it.¡±

    He pushed her into the hall and a wall of sound slammed into her chest. It was less like passing through a barrier and more active, as though it were an animal that had been waiting at the doorway to ambush her. She was buried in the din. Too loud and too present on her skin in an innumerable jumble of textures and pressures and it was all too much to process. Too everything.

    Anise squeezed her eyes shut against it. Her breathing was coming fast as she grappled with the realization that this is what she wanted, had been hoping for, had been pinning all her dreams on and it was excruciating. Terrible. Harrowing, was a better word. She felt physically harrowed. If this was her life from then on, she didn¡¯t know how she could possibly cope; she knew she couldn¡¯t.

    The air was whooping past her teeth now, which she only knew because her lungs were beginning to ache. It should have made a sound but it was drowned out by the million tons of pressure from the sensations of her telepathy on her skin and echoing in her ears.

    Mark¡¯s mind was there, imposing and inaccessible. It overshadowed everything and pierced through her. For the first time, Anise felt how deeply he¡¯d planted himself in her mind.

    She opened her eyes, hoping to get her bearings. Mark had moved around in front of her and was kneeling down, watching her. There was something deadly about the way he looked at her. His expression was devoid of affect, his eyes keen and hard. It made her think that if she was drowning, he wouldn¡¯t reach out his hand¡ªif she couldn¡¯t save herself, she wasn¡¯t worth the effort.

    Digging her nails into the armrests with trembling muscles, she fought to translate the howl that was assaulting her. She thought back to the lessons she¡¯d had with him and further back to the exercises she¡¯d learned in their core telepathy classes on how to tame this type of overwhelm. They were exercises she¡¯d studied, but she never truly thought she¡¯d ever need them. She used them now, with the fierceness Mark had taught her.

    Slowly, so slowly, Anise began to be able to stifle the thrashing animal enough that she could translate it. She sat in a daze, dredging up more half-forgotten exercises meant to distill meaning from a group of minds. It was like digesting a city and her eyes felt hot with the threat of tears. There was too much and so much of it was staggering that she felt her breath start to hitch again. When the panic began to take over, he was there, pressing down, soothing her thoughts, and a sense of calm welled up.

    The thoughts moved over her and she let them tell their stories. Eventually, she was able to gather the flow of thoughts and lay them around her feet, like a foundation that her body was stuck into as though it was a live wire.

    ¡°Anise,¡± he said, getting her attention. Her eyes had been open, but it had been a long time since she really saw anything. ¡°What did you want to ask me the other night when I showed you the Phage¡ªwhen you asked about LA instead?¡±

    She tried to steel herself and didn¡¯t think she was very successful. ¡°I was going to ask how Entropy fits into all this.¡±

    ¡°Why didn''t you ask me?¡± A measure of humanity had wound back into his expression, but she wouldn¡¯t have called his face kind.

    ¡°I was scared.¡±

    ¡°Do you need me to answer the question now?¡±

    Anise shook her head.

    ¡°And why¡¯s that?¡±

    ¡°Because I can hear that everyone around here knows that you hate being called ¡®Mark.¡¯¡±

    ¡°But I¡¯ve told them to. Why?¡±

    ¡°Because it wouldn¡¯t be very wise for anyone to call you¡ª¡± She thought it instead. Marcus Adler. ¡°Psychometrists are rare, but not that rare. So they can¡¯t call you anything else in this building.¡±

    He nodded, stood up, and went behind her. "They''re rare because that''s how we wanted it. It was the only way this would work." She craned her head to watch him as he pushed her into the empty patient room across from her dampener room. The vibrating hum of the constellation of minds shifted as she moved, and she marveled at the detailed map her brain could hold. He parked her bedside and he sat on the foot of the bed.

    She shook her head to bring herself back into the moment. ¡°Who knows?¡±

    ¡°To start, everyone in Kyiv except for the students.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re kidding. The entire office?¡± She tugged at her hospital gown, suddenly self-conscious and began to shiver. ¡°Are they all, did you bring them in, or¡ª¡±

    ¡°Most of the people in this building are Sol agents who believe that changes need to be made and were willing to listen to someone who would push back against how things have always been done.¡± He pulled the blanket off the bed and draped it over the front of her. ¡°This program, this system of living the life you want and coming in when you¡¯re needed, is how I¡¯ve been running things with mid-tier agents forever. It works.¡±

    ¡°Mid-tier?¡±

    ¡°Lower end aren¡¯t independent enough and need supervision. And upper ranks are obviously full-time.¡± He cocked his head at her expression. ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°I just never thought about there being tiers.¡± She''d always thought Entropy was built on chaos.

    He gave her an unimpressed look. ¡°I know what they teach, and I¡¯m not going to say it¡¯s all false, but if you think we don¡¯t benefit from you all thinking we¡¯re unorganized and rudderless, you¡¯re crazy.¡±

    ¡°Why are you doing all this?¡±

    ¡°A lot of reasons. I wasn''t lying that night. Despite Sol cranking out people like a factory, we''re outnumbered and if we don''t present a unified front with a realistic plan to control how and when we come out, the humans will try to wipe out each and every one of us."

    An image of a bloody world war wracked with firebombing and swathes of knacked people rotting alive with radiation sickness flashed through her mind. "Could they?"

    "No, but it''ll be an impossible PR battle to win over half the world''s population after we''ve killed the first half in self defense."

    Despite the blanket, she still felt a chill in her bones that she couldn''t shake. Her education on Entropy had been minimal but she remembered hearing about Sol agents being targeted, horribly disfigured, and killed. "And everyone there is okay with an alliance with Sol?¡±

    "As a Saturn agent, you can appreciate the benefits of people only knowing what they need to know. But you''ll know everything."

    "Me?"

    "I thought you wanted to go places."

    "I do."

    "Then you''re well on your way. But for now, you should rest."

    ---

    Somewhere in Central Europe.

    They spent the first forty-eight hours or more on trains. When Alex had first asked Misha where they were going and he¡¯d answered, ¡°Nowhere,¡± Alex figured he was just being a dick, and hadn¡¯t had the energy to push it further. The second time he saw the Zurich train station, Alex started to understand. He just didn¡¯t care.

    It was a good twenty-four hours of following Misha on and off grubby train cars before the idea of interacting with another human didn¡¯t make him nauseous. Hannah could clearly sense this and sat silently nearby in the darkened freight car. Her only other option was conversation with Misha, which she had zero interest in. For his part, Misha seemed completely content in their silence, speaking only sparsely when they¡¯d sneak off during stops for food and bathroom trips at the station, or to switch trains.

    It seemed like everything had passed the point of no return. Alex felt like he was generally pretty good at rolling with those moments in his life. The second you leap into a swimming hole before you¡¯ve hit the water. The moment after you swallow a pill and know that whatever happens next, you¡¯re in it until it¡¯s over. Those irrevocable choices that put you in a free fall. The last few days were full of them, shit that couldn¡¯t be put back how it was. It made him think less of diving into water and more like shooting a gun. You have this tentative control over a bullet right up until the moment you fire. Everything that happens in the split second between the barrel and where the bullet comes to rest is out of your hands but entirely your responsibility. And a lot could happen in that small space of time.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Needless to say, Alex moped for the majority of their trip, head limp, temple resting listlessly against the hard wall, staring out a gap in the door and watching the countryside slide by.

    They were going in circles, doubling back, taking odd detours, and returning to the same stations over and over. Eventually, the pressure buzzing in Alex¡¯s head couldn¡¯t be placated by tapping his foot or getting into imaginary arguments and rewriting conversations.

    ¡°I take it we¡¯re doing this to lose our tail and not because you''re stalling while you figure out a plan?¡± he asked into the silence.

    Misha didn¡¯t look up. ¡°Do I seem like someone who stalls?¡±

    ¡°How much longer do we have to do this?¡±

    Misha frowned, thinking. ¡°Less than a day.¡±

    Hannah groaned and Misha gave her a sour look.

    ¡°Where are we ending up?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m taking you to see the twins at a permanent Sanctuary in Italy.¡±

    ¡°Permanent? I didn¡¯t think that was a thing,¡± Hannah commented, sitting up straighter.

    ¡°Sometimes, Children who have medical training live at a permanent Sanctuary so other Children know that if you¡¯re injured and can¡¯t find help, as a last resort, you can travel to whatever city you know has one of these. They are very few. It¡¯s not a great system, but the twins keep a Sanctuary in Bologna.¡±

    ¡°Twin doctors?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°One of them is. The other, I think, has just lived with a doctor for a very long time.¡± The sound of the train changed. ¡°We¡¯re stopping. Pack up. We¡¯re changing.¡±

    They groaned and Alex and Hannah made eye contact that lingered for the first time since they¡¯d set out. She looked worried and dead tired, but also alert. She flicked her eyes in Misha¡¯s direction and briefly rolled them back in her head. Alex gave a silent laugh and didn¡¯t feel so alone anymore.

    They got off at the central station in Bologna, Italy. The brick and orange-painted stone buildings gave the city a warm cast in the afternoon light. They took a crowded bus to a domed arena parking lot and stood on the side of the street.

    ¡°We¡¯re walking from here,¡± Misha told them, adjusting the straps on his packs.

    ¡°Is it far?¡± Hannah asked.

    Misha cocked his head at her. ¡°Would it matter?¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°If I say, ¡®yes, it¡¯s very far,¡¯ are you going to get back on the bus or something?¡±

    She squinted at him, her mouth open. ¡°Oh my god,¡± she said, ¡°you suck at any kind of human conversation.¡±

    Alex cocked an eyebrow, watching them. It was nice to almost laugh, though.

    Misha shook his head. ¡°Let¡¯s go. It¡¯s not that far.¡±

    Hannah bugged her eyes out at Alex and he took her hand and tugged her along to fall in line behind Misha. The roads narrowed quickly as soon as they turned off that strip. Dense, top-heavy trees bent to form arches over narrow streets and short, dark, wrought iron fences surrounded single family homes. Cars were lined up, parked bumper to bumper along one side of the road.

    ¡°So why here?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°Do trains make you both full of stupid questions?¡±

    Alex ignored him. It would take more than that and Alex had a lot of practice. ¡°I mean, do you need a doctor or something?¡±

    ¡°Nyet.¡±

    ¡°Yet,¡± Hannah muttered.

    Misha sighed. ¡°It¡¯s a larger Sanctuary, so groups don¡¯t stand out. No one will bat an eye if we stay there for a while, and it won¡¯t seem strange if I¡¯m not pulling jobs to make us money or get us weapons, since that¡¯s my role. But I can¡¯t do that right now, because you idiots are incapable of not making enemies with fucking everyone.¡±

    Alex gave Hannah a look, but they stayed quiet the rest of the walk.

    They stopped in front of a three-story house with butter yellow walls and dark green shutters covering the windows. The roof was flat with a tall spindly antenna reaching up into the sky. Misha unhitched the metal gate and they followed him onto the short, curved driveway that led to a short garage sitting beside the house.

    ¡°This is it,¡± Misha said, walking to the door. ¡°Try to not be terrible, huh?¡±

    Alex shifted his feet as they waited after Misha¡¯s loud knock. He was on edge, muscles tight, half expecting Neptune agents to open the door.

    The woman who did open the door smiled as she recognized Misha and opened the door wide. She was tall and slender with short, dark brown hair. She bent and greeted him with a kiss on both cheeks. He saw Misha return a genuine smile and vaguely gestured at the two of them.

    ¡°I¡¯m bringing some friends. They are in training.¡±

    ¡°Of course,¡± she said, guiding Misha inside so they could follow. ¡°I¡¯m Helena,¡± smiled, dipping to kiss the air beside both of Alex¡¯s cheeks. He hoped he¡¯d returned it correctly.

    ¡°Alex,¡± he got out and cracked the best smile he could manage. Hannah seemed to handle the whole greeting thing with a bit more grace than he did.

    ¡°Have you been long traveling?¡± Helena asked with an amused lilt as they filed in the door. She was English, he could hear now.

    ¡°Is it that obvious?¡± Misha laughed.

    This Sanctuary was much different than he¡¯d had expected. It was larger and much cleaner for starters, though the stale smell of tobacco smoke still hung in the air. The dark tile floors looked freshly mopped and the white walls led up wooden beam ceilings. Having two people who lived there permanently must have made a huge difference in how okay you were with a stack of cruddy cots taking over half a room or duct tape over holes in the walls. Standard, soft white lighting was a welcome change, but he could see there were blackout drapes on every window and several unlit lamps with red bulbs.

    ¡°There¡¯s a bath down here and another upstairs,¡± she called back to them. ¡°There¡¯s three bedrooms upstairs free and no one¡¯s using the attic.¡±

    Alex let Hannah shower first. The house buzzed with Story and he wasn¡¯t ready to climb into a common tub just yet. He found the narrow winding stair up to the attic, where the memories were quieter, and dropped his bags on the floor. The ceilings were low and slanted, but there was a short bed, a dresser, and a lamp. The luxury of privacy made it a four-star hotel as far as he was concerned. He was really beginning to appreciate the Church¡¯s culture of, ¡®Hey it¡¯s nice to meet you¡ªhere are my showers, you¡¯ve probably been sleeping with rats,¡¯ before anyone was expected to socialize.

    When he had showered, he stuck his head in Hannah¡¯s room, but she was asleep, face down on the bed. He headed downstairs, where he could hear movement in the kitchen. Helena was there, setting out food¡ªactual, not from a street vendor, food. Sudden hunger seized every inch of his body.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Misha?¡± Alex asked as he took a seat at a stool in front of the kitchen island and began eating. He was too tired for etiquette and Helena didn''t seem to react at all.

    ¡°Sleeping,¡± she said, getting him a glass of water. ¡°Feeling better?¡±

    ¡°Much,¡± he sighed. ¡°Thank you.¡±

    Helena waved him off. ¡°Do you need anything looked at?¡±

    Alex froze, brow furrowed.

    ¡°I¡¯m a doctor,¡± she continued.

    ¡°Right,¡± Alex exclaimed, shaking his head. ¡°No, I think we¡¯re good. Just tired and sore.¡±

    ¡°Good,¡± she smiled, leaning on the counter. ¡°Misha explained a little bit about why you¡¯re here.¡±

    ¡°Oh,¡± Alex said before he could catch himself and cringed inwardly. He really wished he knew exactly how much of what that meant. ¡°Sorry, I just¡ª¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± she interrupted. ¡°We¡¯re meant as a place for people to lay low for a bit and heal.¡±

    Alex nodded and gulped a little too much water. He felt like he was coming off as a real downer and he hated that. He tried to put on a lopsided grin. ¡°Hey,¡± he asked, ¡°are you and your sister identical twins? Do you have the same knack?¡± He caught himself and quickly stuttered, ¡° Sorry¡ªgift?¡±

    Helena chuckled deep in her throat. ¡°You¡¯re from Sol, right?¡±

    His head jerked back involuntarily. He hesitated. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s fine,¡± she repeated. ¡°Emma isn¡¯t my sister and I don¡¯t have a gift. Well, she does. We¡¯ve been together for seven years now.¡±

    Alex¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°And you have to pretend to be sisters?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± she laughed. ¡°She¡¯s Italian and I¡¯m from Britain so that wouldn¡¯t really work, now would it?¡± Helena sighed and rolled her eyes. ¡°It¡¯s just the nickname we¡¯ve been given. I think it makes it easier to swallow for the more conservative ones.¡±

    ¡°Wait, you don¡¯t have a gift?¡±

    ¡°Emma was already in the Church when I met her.¡± She shrugged. ¡°People do crazy things for love.¡±

    Alex was silent for a little too long and suddenly realized it. ¡°That¡¯s some bullshit,¡± he said quickly. ¡°That you have to put up with the sister thing, I mean.¡±

    ¡°It is what it is,¡± she said with a smile. ¡°At this point, it¡¯s funny to me. We just have to be careful,¡± she said looking at him with her eyebrows high, a slight emphasis on the word, ¡°we.¡± She turned away and started to clean up.

    ¡°This is going to sound weird,¡± Alex blurted. He felt flushed, so he scrunched up his face to try to hide it. ¡°But other than someone on the team that raised me, which is really complicated right now, I haven¡¯t really ever met someone else who¡¯s gay. Or, at least that I¡¯ve gotten to talk to much.¡±

    She whipped around, her forehead pinched. Her tense shoulders dropped and her face softened. ¡°I¡¯ll put on some coffee.¡±

    Alex looked around to see if anyone else was wandering in, suddenly nervous.

    Helena smiled warmly and said, ¡°It¡¯s okay. We can hush up if we have to, but right now, it¡¯s just us.¡± Alex watched as she filled and turned on the coffee pot.

    Alex sighed. ¡°Sorry. I don¡¯t mean to be dodgy about it. I hate this bullshit homophobic crap.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t I know it, kid,¡± Helena laughed. ¡°But we make do with what we¡¯ve got.¡±

    The sound of the coffee beginning to percolate was comforting. Alex said, ¡°I don¡¯t even really know what to ask. Or say. It feels good to not be the only one, though. The guy I mentioned, the complicated one¡ªhe¡¯s not really the type to talk about sex and stuff. So even before it got complicated, it¡¯s not like I had a lot of conversations or verbal support, you know? I mean, don¡¯t get me wrong¡ªthey were all always accepting, never once gave me shit about it. But the other two¡­ well, Hannah is ace and gets squicked out, and the other guy is hella straight and kind of like a dad, so I don¡¯t exactly want to shoot the shit with him about it, you know?¡±

    ¡°I thought all you Sol types were at least a little gay,¡± Helena laughed, which made Alex laugh with her.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t really know. I think so? That¡¯s the culture, or so I hear. But it¡¯s not like I ever got to spend time with many other people. We lived in this super tiny desert town, I was home-schooled, and then we ran before I could even join a team of my own. And I didn¡¯t join Sol until I was fourteen.¡± He paused as Helena moved to pour them both steaming mugs of coffee. ¡°Sounds pretty great though, doesn¡¯t it? A whole company of bisexual beasts.¡±

    That made Helena laugh again, so surprised and hard that she nearly spilled hot coffee all over herself.

    ¡°Whoa, careful!¡± Alex shouted, moving to help, but she had already course-corrected.

    Helena said, ¡°That is quite a picture.¡± She set the mug down in front of Alex and took a sip from her own.

    Alex said, ¡°So how do you manage it here?¡± He gestured towards the empty room, to the Church in general. ¡°It¡¯s not exactly pride parade central.¡±

    ¡°We have our ways. It¡¯s a little different for Emma and I. We¡¯ve been together for a long time, so we don¡¯t have to play the games anymore.¡±

    ¡°Games?¡±

    ¡°Sure,¡± Helena said. ¡°There¡¯s a whole sort of, well, kind of a cruising or flagging culture in the Church, I suppose. It takes some getting used to, but we¡¯re here and we find our way around it. You just have to keep it quiet, not so much because people would hurt you or anything¡ªno one would kick you out or do you harm, and there¡¯s no real rule against it. But people can sometimes preach or be jerks about it. There are some unspoken rules¡ªsee no evil, hear no evil, only instead of evil it¡¯s just gay sex.¡±

    Alex¡¯s face flushed.

    Helena laughed again, lightly. ¡°It¡¯s okay¡ªnothing to be embarrassed about.¡±

    Alex asked, ¡°So, um, what do you look for then? If you¡¯re flagging or whatever, I mean.¡±

    ¡°Well, first and foremost, train your gaydar well so you can pick up on subtle cues, because around here, subtle is usually the way.¡± She looked him up and down, a good-humored glint in her eye. ¡°I¡¯m surprised you haven¡¯t run into more lectures, honestly. But then again, people don¡¯t always love talking to Icarus, which might be your saving grace right now.¡±

    ¡°Are you telling me to act less gay? Because that¡¯s so not gonna happen.¡±

    ¡°I would never!¡±

    Alex laughed. ¡°So, other than gaydar, what else do I look for? That can¡¯t be all of it, right?¡±

    Helena shook her head. ¡°No, that¡¯s not all of it. Mostly, it¡¯s code words you¡¯re looking for. If you think you¡¯ve found someone you¡¯re interested in, or if you¡¯re just feeling particularly.. hmm, wound up? Find a shared bed space. If someone asks you how much space you need, that¡¯s your cue. Or you could do the asking, doesn¡¯t matter. If you ask and they say, ¡®not much at all,¡¯ you¡¯re getting laid. If they say they need their space, it¡¯s a don¡¯t-ask-don¡¯t-tell, no one has to talk about what transpired kind of situation, and you just go to sleep like nothing happened. That can be awkward, but usually people just let it go. Occasionally, you¡¯ll ask the wrong person and get an earful, or they¡¯ll find a different bed to sleep in, but usually it¡¯s not too bad.¡±

    Alex nodded, brows creased and thoughtful. ¡°But how do you manage to¡­ you know. Without people hearing you or noticing? It¡¯s not exactly private.¡±

    Helena shrugged. ¡°You just stay very, very quiet.¡±

    ¡°I¡­ don¡¯t know how to feel about that,¡± Alex said. ¡°What if you get caught?¡±

    ¡°No one really talks about it,¡± Helena said. ¡°I mean, again, you might get a lecture or some passive-aggressive preaching trying to save your soul, but it¡¯s up to you what you want to do about that. Some people listen politely, say they¡¯ll take it into consideration, and then let it drop. Others push back and argue their side. Mostly, it stays civil because we have more to worry about with our mission than what people do to each other¡¯s junk.¡± Alex sputtered into his coffee and Helena chuckled. ¡°Sorry,¡± she said. ¡°When Emma¡¯s around, I try to bite it back a bit. She prefers the polite route, so that¡¯s the high road I take too. Left to my own devices?¡± She shrugged. ¡°We each find our own ways to be proud.¡±

    Alex nodded. ¡°I feel like I¡¯ve been spending all my time trying to keep the peace, or at least keep my head down, especially because my team are largely huge fucking embarrassments who can¡¯t sit down and leave well enough alone.¡± He laughed. ¡°But that might be a story for another day. I guess what I mean to say is, I don¡¯t think I know how I¡¯d really handle it if someone tried to save my soul or whatever. I don¡¯t think I could just politely take it, but I also feel like I¡¯m on thin ice all the time.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s tough to acclimate. Probably in some ways, even more so for you than it was for me. I didn¡¯t have as much un-learning to do.¡±

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Alex said, sighing.

    Helena gave him a pitying look. ¡°It¡¯s alright. You¡¯ll figure it out when it comes up. And it will come up, eventually. But you seem like you¡¯ve got a good head on your shoulders.¡±

    That made Alex perk up and Helena¡¯s eyes warmed to see it. Alex said, ¡°Thanks. I don¡¯t usually feel like it these days.¡±

    ¡°You just have to have a little faith,¡± Helena said. ¡°You¡¯ll settle in. To the Church, to your sexuality, the whole thing. It takes time, but that¡¯s okay. One thing I will say for us queers is this¡ªyou¡¯ve got family no matter where you are. The Church is a family, yes. But your queer family is there too, so we¡¯ve got double the love. Sometimes the more pious of us in the Church are like your shite uncle who complains too much and talks with his mouth full at the family reunion, but he¡¯s there for you in the end. But your queer family is solid. You¡¯ll learn to sniff us out and we¡¯ll always be there to catch you. And one day, you¡¯ll be there to catch someone yourself.¡±

    ¡°I like the thought of that,¡± Alex said.

    They sipped their coffee in silence for a moment longer before Helena patted the counter and said, ¡°Now then. This food is getting cold, so I¡¯m going to go find out where everyone disappeared to. Help yourself to whatever else you like while you¡¯ve got first pick.¡±

    The house woke up as the sun went down. Helena had him latch all the wooden shutters and seal the curtains against light. He sat in the front room by the staircase as his eyes began to readjust to the warm red lights, listening to traffic outside, the shuffle of feet overhead, and water moving through the pipes. A shorter woman with cropped hair appeared in the kitchen to help Helena cook and he tried not to listen to their quiet murmuring. He had a feeling like a cold stone pressing down on his lungs.

    Misha was the first to come downstairs. ¡°You didn¡¯t sleep?¡± he asked, looking around.

    Alex shook his head.

    ¡°That was stupid.¡±

    Alex gave a shrug aimed less at the comment and more at Misha himself, and belatedly realized that Misha probably couldn¡¯t parse the difference. ¡°We don¡¯t have to go out tonight, do we?¡±

    ¡°Not you.¡± He lit a cigarette. ¡°You two aren¡¯t leaving this house.¡±

    ¡°Should you be going out?¡±

    Misha wandered away from him suddenly to stop in front of an ashtray on the counter. ¡°What part of ¡®sacred calling¡¯ don¡¯t you people get?¡±

    ¡°I mean, but¡ª¡±

    ¡°I know, I know. Sol didn¡¯t exactly foster faith, even though it could be your greatest weapon right now. Ever wonder why that might be, huh?¡±

    Alex stared at him, face contorted.

    Misha shook his head. ¡°I¡¯ll stop the side work that makes money, but this isn¡¯t Icarus shelter for me.¡±

    They were interrupted by a voice from the kitchen, shouting, ¡°I hear Misha¡¯s here!¡±

    Misha returned with an ornery, ¡°Emma.¡±

    Emma walked over, one arm out to embrace him. Her eyes seemed to follow him just fine, but she still asked, ¡°Is that you?¡± Her English was good, but accented.

    ¡°Da, it¡¯s me. Good to see you, sister.¡± He gave her a quick one-armed hug and turned her. ¡°This is Alex.¡±

    ¡°I heard about an Alex.¡± She turned to him and smiled before glancing him up and down. He smiled back a little awkwardly.

    ¡°For fuck¡¯s sake, the boy thinks you¡¯re hitting on him.¡±

    ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s my gift,¡± she laughed, gesticulating. ¡°I can only see infrared. I see body temperatures, so I was studying your patterns to recognize you later.¡±

    ¡°Wow, that¡¯s¡ª¡±

    ¡°Weird?¡±

    ¡°No, just sounds complicated.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s beautiful,¡± she smiled.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 34

    Prague, Czech Republic.

    The directions Misha had given Reeve were more vague than the directions Noah had given them to train in finding Sanctuaries on their own. Significantly more vague. After sleepless hours of simulated rest in a ratty hostel, they¡¯d taken a bus to Regensburg, a small city Misha had suggested. It sat on the Danube and was surrounded by a patchwork quilt of farms. There, they¡¯d wandered in an increasingly hopeless search for the Sanctuary.

    Reeve used his telepathy on the second night. He did it at first without saying anything, just listening and taking in the sounds of the city with a very passive mind. It wasn¡¯t helpful. He hadn¡¯t really expected it to be, but he¡¯d hoped. Afterward, he¡¯d asked the others if he could do a scan to comb the city for the Church. Exhausted and cold, they¡¯d agreed.

    He¡¯d still found nothing. The Sanctuary was likely empty, which was sort of ideal, but it also meant they couldn¡¯t find it. They moved on to Prague, where a scan of the city had hit immediately on one mind who lived in dim red lights and was out on a patrol. Reeve was keeping his scans very light, and because of that, their information was vague, too. He didn¡¯t dare bring more attention to himself by digging deeper and so could only follow the fuzzy cluster of Church thoughts. This is what led them to the front of a bar in the center of Prague.

    ¡°There?¡± Gareth asked, nodding.

    Reeve dropped his heavy pack and leaned against the cold brick wall of a closed bank building south of the bar. Prague was beautiful. He wasn¡¯t too tired yet to admit it. It was bright with burnt orange roofs and blue-grey cobblestone streets. And it was clean, which was, it turned out, more of a problem than he expected. When you wandered around the seedy outskirts of cities in long coats and bulky packs, people didn¡¯t tend to bother you. They either kept their heads down or knew these were people best left alone. In Prague, they hadn¡¯t yet found a bad section of the city and they were getting stares. Stowing their coats in their bags helped, and a small nudge from Reeve was enough to convince the local authorities curious of the shape of their bags to move on and forget them.

    ¡°So how do we do this?¡± Alyosha asked.

    Reeve shrugged. ¡°Go in, get a drink, split up, and look around. Look for tattoos.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t you pinpoint him once you¡¯re in there?¡±

    ¡°Too many people if I keep my telepathy low profile. I won¡¯t be able to untangle it.¡±

    ¡°Fine, let¡¯s go,¡± Gareth sighed.

    It was crowded, but not so much that you couldn¡¯t move around, and the music wasn¡¯t as loud as he¡¯d expected, which was a welcome surprise. Reeve hung back while Alyosha and Gareth waded through the crowd to the maze of small, round tables toward the back.

    Reeve sat down at the bar and waited for the bartender to get to him. The bar was tall and made of worn, honeyed wood. It was something he¡¯d have really loved to look at on another day. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone watching him and concentrated on keeping his pulse down. The man stood, wavered on his feet, and walked at a slight tilt toward him, sitting clumsily a couple stools down from him and fiddling with a beer bottle. He was young, slightly younger than Reeve, with shaggy blonde hair and a thin, plaid scarf around his neck. As far as Reeve could tell without using telepathy, best case scenario, he was about to get hit on in a language he didn¡¯t speak, which ranked lower on his list of things he¡¯d like to do right now than getting into a bar fight.

    The bartender got to him and, thankfully, switched to rough English at Reeve¡¯s expression. He ordered a soda water with lime, something he could pass off as alcohol. He had gone too much without sleep to even attempt a weak drink.

    ¡°American?¡± The voice beside him was loud, with scarcely contained joy. He turned to see the man busily shifting over the last two seats to sit beside Reeve, a grin split ear to ear.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Reeve answered, turning, unable to repress a small chuckle.

    He struggled into the seat next to Reeve with a wild sway, but caught himself by grabbing hold of Reeve¡¯s shoulder and gripping it tighter than he probably needed to.

    ¡°Oh, thank God.¡± He settled into the seat and rested his forehead on his arms against the bar. ¡°It¡¯s good to hear a familiar voice.¡±

    ¡°Been here a while?¡±

    The man nodded, talking a little too fast to avoid slurring. ¡°I work IT for a security firm. The money¡¯s good, but I miss the States.¡±

    Reeve took his drink from the bartender and glanced around him.

    ¡°Thomas Andrews,¡± the man next to him said brightly, extending a hand.

    He shook it. ¡°Reeve.¡±

    Thomas nudged Reeve¡¯s bag on the floor with his toe. ¡°Backpacking?¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡± Reeve felt his whole body tense before he could stop it. ¡°My first time in Eastern Europe,¡± he said with his best I-hate-small-talk-go-away smile.

    There was a loud, sharp crack from the back of the room and Reeve was upright like a shot, craning for a better view. Before he could even think about whether or not it was a good idea, he¡¯d sent a panicked probing thought to Gareth.

    It¡¯s okay, he got back from Gareth, someone dropped a pool cue.

    Reeve let out a breath. It wasn¡¯t until he looked down at his new friend that he realized he had automatically brought his right hand up by his belt where he normally kept his pistol. Reeve dropped his hand as casually as possible and sat down. He needed sleep. This was completely unacceptable. Thomas was watching him silently. His eyes had lost their lidded, drunken look.

    Reeve stared straight ahead at the colorful line of liquor bottles and went to sip his water, but the ice in his glass shivered with his shaking, so he set it down with a thud. ¡°I need a nap,¡± he said weakly in explanation.

    ¡°Well, it¡¯s almost ten at night¡ªkind of an odd time for a cat nap.¡±

    Reeve didn¡¯t respond, concentrating on taking a drink with a more steady hand.

    Thomas put an elbow up on the bar and slid down closer to Reeve. He half expected the move to send the man tumbling off the stool, but he kept his balance.

    ¡°You seem like you¡¯re shit outta luck.¡±

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Reeve agreed with a humorless laugh.

    ¡°Are you?¡±

    Reeve turned to look at him, brows lowered. ¡°Excuse me?¡±

    ¡°You know, shit outta luck. S¡ªO¡ªL.¡±

    Reeve focused on the cold sensation the air created against his tongue when he inhaled, letting it remind him not to hyperventilate. His mind churned through facts. Thomas was aware of the Corp and had either felt his telepathy or was inferring from his jumpy response. But he hadn¡¯t even flinched at the pop of the pool cue, which any agent would have done. Unless he¡¯d orchestrated it as a test. No, that was getting too far in the weeds. Reeve just had to hope.

    Turning to face the bar again, tensing his muscles to react, he answered, ¡°I¡¯m not drunk enough yet to talk about my ex¡¯s.¡± Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched Thomas smile. Reeve took another drink. ¡°Are you religious?¡±

    Thomas turned to face the bar, mirroring him. ¡°Very,¡± he said, his voice solemn. He tugged his scarf down to show a tattoo on the side of his neck¡ªa white dove among flames, a symbol for the Holy Spirit. It wasn¡¯t the tattoo that made Reeve¡¯s whole body partially collapse in relief, it was what the tattoo was ostensibly covering up: a pair of pale, crescent-shaped bite scars.

    Reeve rubbed at his face before unzipping his jacket and lifting up the sleeve of his tee-shirt where it covered his Church tattoo.

    The man¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°You know, I wasn¡¯t expecting that.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m new.¡±

    ¡°What do you need, brother?¡± He lifted his sleeve to flash the equilateral cross on his wrist. It was different from Misha¡¯s. The cross''s arms were flared, wider at the ends than in the center.

    ¡°Sleep,¡± Reeve answered honestly. ¡°And Sanctuary.¡±

    Thomas nodded. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got two others with me.¡±

    ¡°So call them.¡± He threw some money on the bar in front of him and motioned to the bartender that he was paying for Reeve¡¯s as well.

    Reeve sent a thought to Gareth. ¡°You don¡¯t seem nearly as drunk now as you did five minutes ago.¡±

    ¡°I was never drunk; I was bait.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    ¡°That¡¯s why I approached you. You were alone, pale, kind of sick-looking, and had that blank-faced emotionless thing they do when they aren¡¯t mimicking human expression. I¡¯m sorry, man, but you look dead. So I grabbed your arm to see if you felt human or not.¡±

    ¡°Oh my god.¡±

    ¡°Nothing personal.¡± Thomas zipped up his hoodie. ¡°Your monk should have given you a list of locations to get you started.¡±

    ¡°He did,¡± Reeve groaned, ¡°but it¡¯s like a ten block radius to find a damn twig or something.¡± He could see Gareth and Alyosha pushing through the crowd.

    ¡°Ah. Who was it?¡±

    ¡°His name¡¯s Misha.¡±

    ¡°Oh, that fuckin¡¯ guy. I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, tell me about it.¡± Reeve let Gareth and Alyosha go past him and followed them out of the bar before turning to them. ¡°This is Thomas. He¡¯s going to take us to the Sanctuary.¡±

    Thomas put out a hand, but Gareth just shifted his weight. ¡°Can we do all this inside?¡± Reeve winced internally. It¡¯s like Gareth was an expert at losing the good will of strangers. But Thomas shook it off, nodded and set off walking. They followed, packs heavy. The straps felt like they were cutting into his skin, wearing deeper into the grooves on his shoulders.

    They walked for close to an hour before they got to the Sanctuary. Reeve still had no idea how he was supposed to have found it. He made a note to ask Thomas to show him later. After he¡¯d slept.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Pluto Department.

    Darwin was struggling to get a song out of his head when he walked into one of Pluto¡¯s Psychotherapy offices. These suites were a nice, but jealousy-inducing reprieve from his basement room every now and then. The soft hush of white noise pervaded the space, and there were tall potted plants with broad leaves in the corners. Unlike the other hallways, it was carpeted and the chairs were soft, with tall rounded backs.

    The waiting room was empty except for one man sitting in a chair in the center of a row set along one wall. Out of the corner of Darwin¡¯s eye, he saw that the man was bent over, learning his forearms on his knees. Politely, he didn¡¯t look further and headed straight for the reception desk.

    ¡°Is Danny with a patient?¡± Darwin asked, leaning down.

    ¡°Uhh, yeah,¡± she answered, running one finger down today¡¯s date in the schedule book. ¡°Need something?¡± Her eyes cycled through four or five inhumanly bright colors while Darwin watched. He tried to remember what her knack was and couldn¡¯t.

    ¡°Can you just make sure he gets this and have him call me?¡± Darwin folded the print outs and held them out.

    ¡°Sure,¡± she smiled thinly, though it didn¡¯t reach her eyes.

    Darwin cocked his head. ¡°You okay?¡± he asked softly.

    ¡°He won¡¯t leave,¡± the receptionist whispered and nodded behind Darwin. ¡°He doesn¡¯t have an appointment.¡±

    Darwin craned to look at the man, then winced as he realized it probably looked about as subtle as turning and pointing, but the man in the chair was staring straight down at the carpet, not seeing him.

    ¡°And he¡¯s Neptune,¡± she continued in a hushed tone, ¡°so they need clearance for treatment, and he doesn¡¯t have it.¡±

    The Neptune agent had overgrown, dark hair, and a good week¡¯s worth of facial hair. Darwin turned his head back around, remembering himself. ¡°I think I know him,¡± he said. His face was thinner, but still recognizable as the Neptune agent who had covered his tracks in the parking lot when he accidentally showed his ears to a taxi driver. ¡°Thanks for getting that to Danny.¡±

    ¡°No problem.¡±

    Darwin walked over to the man in the chair and stood in front of him. He opened his mouth to speak a few times, his tongue getting tangled up as he fought not to stutter. ¡°Are you okay?¡± he asked, trying to keep his voice gentle and quiet. The man looked up. He had dark circles under his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks were deep. It immediately seemed like a ridiculous question to ask.

    He nodded anyway. ¡°Sorry,¡± he said huskily, ¡°I¡¯ll go.¡± He used one arm to heft himself up out of the chair and wavered.

    Eyes wide, Darwin grabbed at him. ¡°Whoa!¡±

    ¡°Sorry,¡± he repeated, putting one hand to the side of his head.

    ¡°Do you want us to call you doctor?¡±

    The man laughed and rubbed at his glassy eyes. ¡°No, I¡¯m not sick, just dizzy.¡±

    ¡°Have you eaten today?¡± Darwin asked before thinking.

    ¡°I thought...I don¡¯t think so.¡±

    ¡°Okay, I¡¯m going to make sure you get home okay and get some food. Is that alright?¡± He nodded and turned to go. Darwin looked back at the receptionist, who mouthed a ¡°thank you¡± to him, and Darwin felt a pang of guilt but wasn¡¯t sure why.

    They walked down the hall and Darwin watched him out of the corner of his eye, worried the agent would stumble, but he seemed steady enough now. He felt a cold knot in his stomach, thinking that he had intruded on a Neptune agent who wasn¡¯t looking for his company. A Neptune agent. He needed to explain or he¡¯d sweat his way through his shirt and have to go back to his quarters to get a fresh one.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know if you remember me,¡± Darwin started, ¡°but you helped me out of a situation a while back.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I remember your ears,¡± he said with a small laugh. When he smiled, his face creased easily, but fell slack again quickly, as if it pained him. Darwin couldn¡¯t help but wonder why he didn¡¯t have clearance for treatment¡ªthe depression was glaring. The kind of thing he¡¯d be coordinating with Pluto about if one of his students looked that way. He hit the elevator button to the floor that led to the living quarters skywalk.

    ¡°You really don¡¯t have to walk me home. I¡¯m alright now.¡±

    Darwin shrugged. Looking at the man¡¯s Neptune card key hanging off his belt made him a little antsy about insisting anything to him. The lines of the Neptune symbol seemed crisp and hyperreal. He got into the elevator with him. ¡°It gives me an excuse to stretch my legs.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m Jake.¡±

    ¡°Darwin.¡± He shifted his feet, ready to shake his hand if Jake moved to offer it, but he didn¡¯t. Darwin tapped his foot, swallowing and feeling hot in the tight space. His ear itched and he resisted scratching it. He twitched it once, twice, then over and over until he couldn¡¯t help it anymore and he raked at his hair, ruffling it, then smoothing.

    ¡°Listen, I work with that office a lot,¡± Darwin babbled, trying to get it all out fast before he let his better judgment take over, ¡°and if you want, I can help you get the right paperwork¡­¡±

    Jake looked at him, his eyebrows drawing together. Darwin swallowed.

    ¡°Rules are rules,¡± Jake shrugged. His voice reached for a light pitch but his sloped posture and pained expression couldn¡¯t carry it off.

    Darwin nodded. A chill starting in his toes ran up his spine at a Neptune agent using the word ¡°rules.¡± He understood that these agents had sensitive information and all, but he¡¯d never heard of someone actually being denied treatment. It gave him a sinking feeling that was, more and more, becoming a frequent occurrence. When he looked up, Jake was watching him, something like pity in his eyes.

    Darwin¡¯s cell phone rang. He jumped, feeling as though every bone in his body had vibrated with the tone. He saw Jake take a step back, bobbing his head at him to take it. At least that¡¯s what Darwin thought it meant, but he was struggling with finding the bones in his fingers to grasp the phone in his pocket and pull it out. Beth, one of his supervisors in Terre, flashed on his screen and he took it, giving Jake a grimace.

    ¡°Hello?¡±

    ¡°Hi, Darwin. Do you have time to conference with a teacher about one of his students? It¡¯s your free block right? He¡¯d like to meet in your office if that works for you.¡± Her casual voice felt out of place.

    ¡°Uh,¡± Darwin began, his jaw hanging open as he drew the syllable out, looking back at Jake, who was smiling. The elevator bobbed to a stop and Darwin¡¯s eyes bounced back and forth as the doors slowly opened.

    Jake put up one hand to keep Darwin from walking off the elevator. His fingers were steady. Steadier than Darwin¡¯s at the moment. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± he said firmly, but couldn¡¯t withhold a small chuckle at the end. ¡°Thanks for the company.¡±

    Darwin nodded slowly. Beth¡¯s voice was calling his name in his ear. Jake leaned over and pressed the elevator button for the ground floor and then the door close button. ¡°Thanks,¡± he said again and stepped off the elevator just as the doors started to close again.

    ¡°Of course,¡± Darwin called.

    The voice on the other end of his phone resounded loudly, ¡°Darwin?¡±

    ¡°Sorry!¡± he said, feeling jumpy. ¡°You caught me at a weird time! Sure I can meet with them. I¡¯m heading to my office right now.¡±

    He blinked at the control panel. He hadn¡¯t told Jake what floor he was headed to or even what department he worked for. He let out a heavy sigh, closing his eyes. Telepaths.

    He¡¯d have to be more careful about what he thought about. He counted his breathing, reaching for the song that had been impossible to shake earlier, but couldn''t remember how it began.

    ---

    Sanctuary. Prague, Czech Republic.

    Reeve woke, shifting in the tangled sheets, and drew his leg back into the small circle of warmth where he¡¯d been laying. He hadn¡¯t realized how much he¡¯d gotten used to sharing a bed. The sharp pang of not knowing where Alex was made him feel colder. He saw Alex in his mind again, the last time they¡¯d been alone together. The back of his head, his shoulders hunched and tense, his mind a kicked hornets¡¯ nest, defensive and sharp. Not touching him had felt like the kindest choice he¡¯d had in that moment. Reeve was tired of feeling like an idiot every minute of his days.

    He could hear voices in the other room. Reeve sat up and rubbed at his closed eyes until he saw bursts of orange spatter across the darkness. He blinked hard, shook his head, and headed out.

    Thomas, Gareth, and Shvedov were in the small sitting area, chatting. Reeve was relieved to see that Gareth was finally acting like an even partially decent guest. He didn¡¯t have the energy to devote to making sure their host wasn¡¯t annoyed enough to tip someone off.

    ¡°Feeling better?¡± Thomas asked, as Reeve walked in. He had a pair of jeans on his lap and was busy sewing on a patch.

    ¡°A little.¡±

    ¡°We didn¡¯t want to wake you,¡± Alyosha said, his tone of voice a little too gentle for Reeve¡¯s liking, but he nodded him a thank you.

    ¡°I¡¯ve already told them that I don¡¯t know anything about this Network, sorry.¡±

    ¡°S¡¯okay. Right now, we just need to lay low. Entropy troubles. Hate to bring that to your door.¡±

    Thomas shrugged. ¡°Happy for the company. Never had much contact with Entropy. Sol either, really.¡±

    ¡°Sorry to break your winning streak.¡±

    ¡°I thought you weren¡¯t Sol anymore.¡±

    Reeve dropped his head, letting it hang for a second. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m not. It¡¯s still... Nothing makes sense right now.¡± He rummaged through his coat pockets where he¡¯d dropped it and took a caffeine pill. He had grown seriously tired of European coffee.

    ¡°I could definitely use the help with the hunt. Not easy with just one, and you¡¯re the first to come through in over a month.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve been here that long?¡± Gareth asked, eyebrows raised.

    Reeve cocked his head, ¡°You don¡¯t really work IT, do you?¡±

    Thomas laughed. ¡°No, it¡¯s just an ideal cover. No one wants to know about your IT job and if they do, just say it¡¯s for a securities firm and you¡¯ve signed a non-disclosure. Bam, conversation ended.¡±

    ¡°Smart.¡± Reeve stretched and gave the room a glance around. ¡°Hey, if I give you cash, can you run out and buy us food? I want to do a sweep to see if we¡¯re still being followed.¡±

    ¡°Sure,¡± Thomas said.

    ¡°I¡¯ll come with you,¡± Gareth offered. ¡°I need the air.¡±

    After they¡¯d left, Reeve leaned back on the couch with his eyes closed as he began his light, careful combing of the city.

    ¡°He seems nice.¡± Alyosha¡¯s voice had shifted in the room, now sitting across from Reeve in an armchair.

    Reeve hummed in response.

    A moment of silence passed before Shvedov commented, ¡°We forgot to ask him about his knack, or gift, or whatever.¡±

    ¡°He creates pockets of extra-dimensional space.¡± Reeve could hear the curtness in his own voice and swallowed. ¡°I checked him out.¡±

    ¡°Ah,¡± Alyosha responded with a falsely casual tone.

    Reeve sighed. He turned his head to one side without opening his eyes. ¡°I¡¯m actually trying to concentrate here,¡± he said a little shortly.

    Alyosha was quiet for not even half a minute before his voice broke in again. ¡°Is that such a good idea?¡±

    Reeve gave up and opened his eyes, giving Shvedov a deadpan stare. ¡°What? Concentrating?¡± It was the sort of response that Reeve would expect an eye-roll for. He would have gotten one from Hannah, and a near lethal eye-roll from Alex.

    Shvedov¡¯s eyes stayed steady and held his. He¡¯d seen too much to get a rise out of Reeve¡¯s bullshit. It was something Reeve normally liked about him, but not today.

    ¡°Scanning the city, checking heads,¡± Alyosha said finally.

    Reeve took a few breaths, eyes darting to the corner of the room. ¡°One problem at a time. Entropy¡¯s the bigger threat and I¡¯m keeping it as low profile as I can to keep us alive.¡±

    Shvedov put up his hands and stood up to go putter around in the kitchen. Reeve didn¡¯t feel like he¡¯d snapped at him, but he was questioning himself now. He wanted to slip into his mind and check, but held back with an effort. Entropy wasn¡¯t in Prague.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 35

    Sanctuary. Prague, Czech Republic.

    If Gareth hoped they¡¯d be able to get out of going out on hunts with Thomas, he was wrong. When the sun was truly down, Thomas gave them a crash course on being bait, which Gareth felt was the stupidest possible goal to have. After assessing all three on their ¡°drunk¡± walks, Thomas promptly announced Thomas would play the drunk for the night, but promised to work more with them. Great.

    Reeve and Gareth stood off to the side of a different bar than the night before, while Thomas went inside. Alyosha was comfortable back at the Sanctuary, along with their firepower. To avoid attracting attention, they¡¯d left their largest weapons at home.

    In replacement, Thomas had given Gareth a small blanket.

    Thomas had rigged it up with his knack, and Gareth had been instructed to casually throw it over the dog¡¯s head. Because that sounded totally reasonable, like it was a goddamn canary. Gareth tapped it against his thigh nervously. Reeve looked like he might try to strike up a conversation while they waited, but one look shut that down immediately. If he had to fight a monster with a blanket, he wanted zero distractions besides his own extensive inner ranting about how ridiculous that sounded.

    When Thomas came out, Gareth was ready, nerves strung taught. Thomas came through the door with his arm over the shoulder of a small blonde woman. His footsteps sounded heavier than they should have; he could really sell the drunk thing without turning it into a fake stagger.

    He steered her to the right to walk past them and just as they were right next to Gareth, Thomas gave an exaggerated slow blink and put a fist to his mouth. He stepped back from her, putting up a hand and bending at the waist, and even managed to make himself look a little green. That was Gareth¡¯s cue. He snapped the blanket open and threw it over the woman¡¯s head, but the blanket didn¡¯t stop. As though with gravity, it kept falling. For half a second, Gareth could both see the woman¡¯s legs in her black heels, and the top of the blanket as it drifted to the ground. His arm kept moving downward until he hit the end of his reach and he dropped the blanket. It fell to the ground with zero resistance. Gareth glanced around with a pang of panic, but it had happened so quickly that no one seemed to have noticed. He was almost a little pissed at how well it worked.

    Thomas stooped to pick up the blanket where Gareth had dropped it. He carefully folded it and straightened, stone sober.

    ¡°Now what?¡± Gareth asked. ¡°Can we just leave it in there?¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°I can only hold it for so long before it collapses and spits out whatever¡¯s in there. Now we have to take it somewhere quiet.¡±

    They walked to the nearest public park, which was by the local train station. Gareth walked at the back of the line so he could better keep watch. Reeve could say all he wanted that there was no Entropy presence, but it didn¡¯t mean a damn thing. Every face that lingered on them as they walked by made his heart race just a little more. The park wasn¡¯t that big, but it was unlit and choked with trees in enough areas to obscure them from view.

    ¡°This still feels really public,¡± Reeve muttered while they stood, waiting to get their night-vision back.

    Thomas didn¡¯t respond, just laid the blanket out on the grass, portal side down, and nodded at them. Gareth flexed his jaw and pulled out the long knife. His whole body felt pricked by chills.

    ¡°We¡¯re going to want to do this fast,¡± Thomas said. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet slightly, like a boxer. ¡°No hesitating.¡± He bent down, picked up one corner of the blanket and looked at each of them. After a beat, he yanked it up, revealing the crouched, off-balance form of a short woman. She looked small and confused, eyes wide.

    Gareth hesitated. Reeve did too, which helped some, but not in that moment. Before the blanket hit the ground, Thomas launched in, swooping low for her neck. Gareth almost flinched when the knife went in too low as she bolted up, and it stuck fast. That helped. Gareth came in next with Reeve from behind her while she was still getting her bearings. A white heat tore down Gareth¡¯s arm as she swiped back at him with her nails, deflecting. Thomas was instantly back in the fray, his own teeth bared. They were in close, a huddled fray. Gareth set his jaw to lean in with the others. It went quickly. Quicker than any hunt he¡¯d been on before. There were too many of them and she was surrounded in close quarters. They overwhelmed her.

    Reeve tied the head up in an opaque sack while Thomas covered the body with the blanket, where it promptly disappeared. Gareth knelt down and scrubbed the blood on his healed arm off on the grass. He took a moment longer than he needed to, focusing on the sensation, where he was, trying to smell the grass and not the ichor.

    Thomas stood and tucked the blanket under his arm. ¡°I know you¡¯re new, but it¡¯s important not to wait. They always look like people.¡±

    Gareth sniffed at that and spat reflexively at the smell. He brushed his knees off, standing. ¡°You don¡¯t need to tell me that.¡± He let the hardness into voice¡ªdidn¡¯t bother trying not to.

    ¡°I think I did.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s finish this,¡± Reeve broke in, ever trying to be the fucking protector. ¡°Burn it.¡±

    Gareth didn¡¯t argue.

    ---

    The Twins. Bologna, Italy.

    They stayed with the twins for almost a week. Objectively, it should have been a vacation, but Hannah was practically climbing the walls. She liked to think she had a decent core of zen, but between Gareth and Reeve being gone, and living with goddamn Misha, her ability to stay centered was severely lopsided. Alex seemed better, though, and after a couple of days he was a little more like himself. His energy was off but she didn¡¯t push it. There was great food and they basically just relaxed, helped Helena clean, or watched subtitled TV. Misha was in a decent mood, probably from being surrounded by other Children. He went out every night on the hunt. She¡¯d overheard Helena giving him a bottle of pills, which she hoped were some sort of sedative. The other residents were quiet, several recovering from awful looking wounds. The energy of the house seemed to dissipate that desperate, post-apocalyptic vibe the Children had, and it was all a little bit more mellow than usual. They didn¡¯t find many dogs, either, which helped, she was sure. Hannah was not better, but not worse at least.

    The sun was down, but the Children hadn¡¯t set out yet when Hannah stepped out on the front porch with a beer to get some air. The smoke got to her a little and they¡¯d all agreed she and Alex weren¡¯t prisoners to the point that they couldn¡¯t get any fresh air at all. The breeze smelled good, like cooking and city traffic and kicked up leaves. Across the street, beyond the line of parked cars, a figure caught her eye, standing mostly in darkness. Too still. She blinked, waiting for them to move or for her night vision to adjust a bit more to get a clearer view, but neither happened. It made something inside her curl inward and pricked the hairs on her arms. She went inside, locking the door.

    ¡°Misha,¡± she called, walking back to the kitchen.

    ¡°What?¡± he asked, annoyed, clomping down the stairs.

    ¡°There¡¯s¡­¡± she started, then stopped. She closed her eyes and blew her hair out of the way. This was stupid. She pressed on though. It¡¯s not like Misha could dislike her more. ¡°It¡¯s probably nothing, but there¡¯s someone just standing across the street from the house.¡±

    ¡°For how long?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. At least for the couple of minutes I was on the stoop.¡±

    He let out a long sigh. ¡°Turn off the lights in the front room.¡±

    ¡°The red ones?¡±

    Misha rolled his eyes. ¡°Are those the lights that are on? Yes.¡±

    She did and followed him to the window. He stuck his head through the blackout curtains and swore. ¡°These fucking shutters. No way to do this quietly.¡± She heard him fumble with the latch then go still again, head behind the curtain.

    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± Alex hissed, suddenly beside her, making her jump.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

    ¡°I don¡¯t see anything,¡± he said when he came back out.

    ¡°Let me in.¡± She pushed past him. Hannah squinted into the night, trying to avoid glancing at the street light coming from down the road, focusing on the dark patch in front of them. There, just barely. Her heart began to pound. That same outline sticking up from behind a car. ¡°He¡¯s still there.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing there, your eyes are shit.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re shit,¡± she replied automatically.

    ¡°She¡¯s a sniper,¡± Alex reminded him without as much venom as Hannah would have liked.

    When Misha didn¡¯t respond, she blindly reached back and yanked him down with her. He shook her hand off but settled in next to her.

    ¡°Where?¡±

    ¡°Follow my hand.¡± She drew a line down in the air and waited, staring hard at the dim shape.

    Misha clicked his tongue. ¡°I don¡¯t see anything.¡± Then it moved. The figure shifted, pacing a little, before returning to the same spot.

    ¡°Please tell me you saw that,¡± Hannah whispered.

    ¡°Stay here,¡± he told her softly and stood up. Alex slipped in beside her.

    ¡°What the fuck¡¯s going on?¡±

    She swallowed. She really hadn¡¯t wanted to bring this to Alex unless she knew for sure it was something to worry about. ¡°I think someone¡¯s watching the house.¡±

    Misha came back before Alex said anything. He tugged at her to move, so she stood. He¡¯d brought Emma with him.

    ¡°Still there?¡±

    ¡°Hasn¡¯t moved.¡±

    Misha ducked in to check, because he was a complete asshole who didn¡¯t trust her at all. She turned to the others to try to convey this in a look, but it was too dark. He motioned to them. ¡°Emma, come tell me if you see anyone.¡±

    It clicked with Hannah just then, why he¡¯d gotten Emma.

    ¡°There¡¯s a couple of people down the road across the street on their patio.¡±

    ¡°No, right across the street.¡±

    ¡°No. No one.¡±

    ¡°We can see someone,¡± Hannah murmured. ¡°But they¡¯re cold?¡±

    Misha latched the shutters and stood up. ¡°There¡¯s a dog watching the house.¡±

    ¡°Is that normal? Just stalking a Sanctuary?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°No.¡±

    He and Emma rushed out of the room and Hannah followed after them.

    ¡°Is it Entropy?¡± she called.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    They stopped in the sitting room where the one other Child who wasn¡¯t recovering from some awful injury was suiting up to go out. Hannah couldn¡¯t remember his name.

    ¡°There¡¯s a dog standing outside, watching the house.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    Alex put a hand on her arm and leaned against her slightly. ¡°I don¡¯t get it--why doesn¡¯t it just come in?¡±

    ¡°Every inch of this house is warded with symbols of faith,¡± Emma told him, her voice hard. ¡°They can¡¯t touch it.¡±

    ¡°Are we going out?¡± Hannah asked.

    ¡°You fucking stay here,¡± Misha snapped.

    ¡°No one¡¯s going out until I say,¡± Emma barked.

    They waited and watched, but it didn¡¯t move. There was a strange simmering fear in Hannah¡¯s chest. She didn¡¯t know exactly how much she should be afraid. It had the Children spooked, which was enough to get her blood pumping, but as the hours passed and nothing happened, the threat seemed more and more distant, more desensitized. At the same time, flashes of what was left of those Neptune agents in Brazil kept pressing in from all sides, blotting out her thoughts and her logic. She and Alex were too silent. She doubted she could say anything he wanted to hear.

    ¡°That¡¯s enough,¡± Emma called, late in the night. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±

    Hannah and Alex stood up, but Misha shook his head as he walked past them. ¡°Not you.¡±

    They watched out the window, Alex¡¯s hand crushing her fingers. The Children went out the back and circled around the house. She saw them appear from the left, a moving jumble of dark outlines against the grass. Misha wasn¡¯t with them. They got as far as the street before stopping for half a minute and turning back around. The figure didn¡¯t move. Hannah began to question if it was even there at all, that it was some trick of the light, a shadow.

    ¡°What the fuck is going on,¡± Alex hissed.

    She shook her head but couldn¡¯t peel herself away from the window until she heard boots on the hard tile as they came back in.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Alex asked.

    ¡°Get upstairs,¡± Misha said, his voice flat. ¡°Get your bags.¡±

    Hannah stood up. ¡°Wait, is there anything out there?¡±

    A muscle in Misha¡¯s cheek twitched. ¡°Yes, you idiot. Get your bags.¡±

    ¡°Is it¡ª¡± Alex started, but stopped as Misha drew in a quick breath to shout.

    They got their bags. Misha was waiting with his packs. Emma was with him, her face hard. The room was too quiet.

    Alex dropped his bag on the ground. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re leaving.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, no shit,¡± Alex snapped. ¡°Tell us what¡¯s going on.¡±

    Misha rolled his eyes and bent to scoop up Alex¡¯s bag from the floor, adding it to his armful of straps, and turned on his heel. ¡°Tell Helena goodbye for me,¡± he called without looking back.

    Hannah stared at Misha¡¯s back and then at Alex. She could see a faint tremor in his face as the anger built in him. She shook her head slightly at him, hoping he¡¯d follow her lead and relent for now. At least until they knew what the fuck was going on. She hated living in this world where they didn¡¯t quite know the rules enough to feel grounded, but enough that when they fucked up, there were consequences.

    They followed Misha around the corner of the back hall, mouthing a thank you to Emma as they walked by. Hannah had no idea if she could even see something like that. Misha led them through a door and down a narrow stair into the basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he set his bundle of bags down and handed Alex his pack.

    ¡°What are we doing?¡± Hannah asked, as calmly and quietly as possible. The cellar was cool with slightly damp air that brushed at her face when she moved. The walls and floor were stone. Crates and boxes sat in huddled corners. Misha didn¡¯t answer¡ªof course he didn¡¯t¡ªand instead, went to one wall with a row of rolled up floor rugs leaning against it.

    ¡°Help me,¡± he muttered as he started to move them.

    Hannah let out a breath, but they didn¡¯t argue, working silently to shift the tall awkward bundles. The carpet was heavy and had a musty smell that made Hannah purposefully avoid thinking about whatever smelled like that entering her lungs. It became clear pretty quickly that the rugs had been covering a squat, wooden doorway. When it had been cleared enough for him, Misha motioned to them to get their things and set his shoulder to the swollen wood of the stuck door until it gave way. Alex grabbed a couple of flashlights from a pile of them hidden under the stairs and handed one to Hannah. Misha shook his head at them, but could fend for himself. She wasn¡¯t going in blind.

    The air beyond was close and wet, mustier than a faceful of damp carpet. Hannah switched on her light, but the hall was too narrow for it to illuminate anything but Misha¡¯s back. She switched it off. Hannah could hear her feet scrape on stone and her elbows dragged painfully on rock if she didn¡¯t keep them tucked in close to her sides. The passage got narrower still, forcing them to turn sideways and awkwardly juggle their bags to slip through before they stumbled out into a startlingly open space with a sudden step down into cold water that came up to the top of her boots.

    She switched her light back on and swung it around. It looked too old and too small to be an old subway tunnel, but the water smelled too clean to be a sewer system. Alex turned his light on behind her. He was perched on the lip of the passageway, a few inches above them.

    ¡°A secret tunnel? Are you fucking kidding me?¡± Alex hissed. The arched walls of stone bounced it around them.

    Misha started walking and didn¡¯t respond until they fell in line behind him. ¡°They run all under the city.¡± He was speaking at normal volume but it sounded much louder, enough to make Hannah flinch. ¡°It¡¯s a natural river. I think the Romans ran it down here underground or something.¡±

    ¡°What are we doing?¡± Hannah asked again. The water reflected the bright burst from her flashlight as it churned with their steps.

    ¡°We¡¯re running .¡±

    ¡°Entropy?¡±

    ¡°Yes, it was here for you.¡±

    ¡°How did it find us?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t we kill it?¡± Alex asked, his voice tight.

    ¡°What?¡± Misha slowed.

    ¡°The dog. There were like five of us. Isn¡¯t that what you do?¡±

    ¡°Should we be talking this loud?¡± Hannah whispered, shoulders rounded against their bouncing voices.

    Misha turned back and sneered at her. ¡°We¡¯re sloshing through ankle-deep water in an acoustic-nightmare tube. Even if we don¡¯t talk, anyone down here knows we are too.¡±

    ¡°Why are we running?¡± Alex pressed.

    ¡°Because Emma would never have asked us to leave.¡±

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t we fight?¡±

    ¡°Because it probably would have killed us all.¡±

    ¡°I thought this is what you do.¡±

    Misha let out a frustrated sigh that strayed into a growl at the end. ¡°There is a difference.¡±

    ¡°What, are there different species of Phagi or something? Misha, Jesus Christ,¡± Hannah snapped, ¡°I think it¡¯s pretty clear we don¡¯t fucking get it.¡±

    He stopped, turning to look at them before plodding onward. ¡°There¡¯s no good way to explain.¡±

    ¡°Then do it badly,¡± Alex said slowly, voice determined.

    Misha clicked his tongue and was silent for long enough that Hannah figured he wasn¡¯t going to answer. ¡°Imagine a teenaged telepath,¡± he eventually said into the loud silence of the tunnel. ¡°Not gen¡¯ed in some test tube. Born out in the world. At seventeen, he¡¯s starting to master his knack.¡±

    ¡°Okay¡­¡±

    ¡°Would any civilian¡ªjust a guy off the street¡ªstand any chance against this kid in a fight?¡±

    ¡°Probably not,¡± Hannah answered sullenly.

    ¡°Now think of an adult telepath, raised and trained in the Corp. A Neptune agent. Would a civilian survive?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Would police? Military?¡±

    ¡°Not likely.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡± Misha emphasized with a head bob. ¡°Kid and Neptune. You get the power differential there? Now scale that up and you¡¯re looking at dogs versus dogs in Entropy. They¡¯re older, they¡¯re trained, and they have purpose.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s going to happen to them back at the house?¡± Alex asked. His voice sounded thin.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. But their chances are better with us here than in that house.¡±

    Hannah paused a second to take a few breaths. The humidity was making her chest feel tight. ¡°So why couldn¡¯t they tell us to run?¡±

    ¡°Hakhnasat orchim. We follow the old hospitality laws. They¡¯d be known as untrustworthy if they suggested we leave.¡±

    ¡°So they¡¯re expected to die with us as opposed to saying, ¡®Hey, we¡¯ve got better chances if you book it?¡¯¡±

    ¡°Yes, we are expected to die for each other.¡± He paused. ¡°But that doesn¡¯t mean they would have. They could have decided the greater good would be to give us up so they¡¯d survive and no one goes on to tell of the violation. I don¡¯t think they would have, but¡ª¡±

    ¡°Okay, hold on.¡± Alex¡¯s voice boomed in the closed space. ¡°There are sacred rules that say you can¡¯t be rude to people, but you can kill them if you don¡¯t like the rule and no one finds out?¡±

    ¡°Grow up,¡± Misha scoffed. ¡°That is how all rules work. Everywhere. Learn that right now.¡± He sighed. ¡°Anyway, it¡¯s always best never to ask someone to die for their beliefs. You might not like the answer.¡±

    ¡°Does the ¡®that¡¯s how all rules work¡¯ thing apply to that rule too?¡± Hannah asked, her face twisted in a sneer.

    She expected a sarcastic retort but after a silence, Misha answered in a flat tone, ¡°Yes.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 36

    Sol LAHQ. Company Housing.

    Marek dug out his copy of the key to Emmett¡¯s flat and let himself in. Emmett¡¯s current foster dog¡ªa big, brown, box-headed pitbull (with a killer excited-wiggle) and his foster-fail (a tiny, elderly, wiry-haired, bug-eyed thing with a flat face that Emmett had fallen hard for)¡ªran to greet him at the door, snuffling. The big one nosed at his hand for pets and he gave him a scratch by the collar.

    ¡°Hey,¡± he called. It smelled great in the apartment. ¡°Oh, man, did you make your garlic parmesan popcorn?¡±

    ¡°Yes, he did,¡± replied a voice that wasn¡¯t Emmett from somewhere around the corner in the living room.

    Marek lowered his brow. ¡°Okay.¡±

    He stepped into view of the living room where Emmett and Penn were sitting together on the couch, a bowl of popcorn between them. Emmett was rubbing his eyes in a gesture of frustration that reminded him of every mentor Marek ever had, and Penn had reclined back in complete resignation. He was the smart one.

    ¡°Good evening, Penn-tagram,¡± he grinned.

    ¡°What¡¯s wrong, Marek?¡± Emmett asked.

    ¡°Did you like that? It was on theme.¡± Marek kept his eyes on Penn, whose expression didn¡¯t shift. ¡°You know, because Halloween is coming up.¡±

    Emmett gave Penn his sweetest smile, signaling Marek¡¯s imminent demise, and walked out into the kitchen with Marek.

    ¡°Okay, sorry.¡± Marek found his composure. ¡°You emailed me that you wanted to talk about student allocation.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, on Monday.¡±

    He made an embarrassed face. ¡°I misread your tone.¡± He jerked his head in the direction of the living room. ¡°And I didn¡¯t realize this was, like, a regular thing.¡±

    ¡°Not all of us have a stack of relationship declaration forms in our bedside table.¡±

    He shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m the head of Human Resources. I¡¯m doing quality control.¡±

    Emmett¡¯s jaw dropped slightly and he realized too late how that sounded.

    ¡°Quality control of the forms, oh my god.¡± He ran a hand through his hair. ¡°Anyway, I¡¯m surprised you have time for movie night with the Halloween party coming up.¡±

    Emmett shrugged. ¡°Everything¡¯s in order and I can¡¯t start decorating the space until the 26th. And my costume just needs finishing touches.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s your costume this year?¡± he asked as casually as could be.

    Emmett gave him the stink-eye. ¡°Nice try.¡±

    Back in Chicago, Emmett was known for going distinctly overboard on his surprise costume builds, and Marek was looking forward to LA getting the Emmett Halloween experience.

    Penn¡¯s voice sounded from the other room. ¡°God-fucking-damnit.¡±

    Emmett¡¯s head dropped back with a sigh. ¡°I guess we¡¯re talking students after all. Three, two¡ª¡±

    The lockdown siren sounded.

    ¡°Oh.¡±

    ¡°Infrastructure?¡± Emmett shouted.

    ¡°No, you¡¯re set,¡± Penn told him as he rushed to the door and shoved his feet into his boots. ¡°I have to literally run,¡± he said hastily. ¡°Gage is in Kyiv on assignment and my backup teleporter isn¡¯t answering.¡±

    Emmett pointed at him. ¡°Can Marek just bring you?¡±

    Both Marek and Penn turned to him. ¡°What?¡±

    Penn knotted his laces. ¡°Not a good idea.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯ll be there for two seconds, tops.¡±

    Now Marek was speechless. Penn looked divided, but was clearly considering it. The blaring siren made it very difficult to think and only heightened the urgency of the situation.

    ¡°Alright,¡± Marek relented. ¡°Where is it?¡±

    Penn hesitated as he stood, then dug out his phone to show him the photo he¡¯d been sent. It showed a hallway in what looked like the Mars wing, with the back of a Neptune agent in frame. Penn looked him in the eye, deadly serious. ¡°Drop me, then bounce.¡±

    He nodded. ¡°Ready?¡± Marek flashed Emmett a look, put his hands on Penn¡¯s shoulders, and jumped.

    One would think it was the sound of gunshots that made Marek freeze up, but even before that, the immediate scent of gunpowder made every synapse in Marek¡¯s brain come to a screeching halt. The smell fully overpowered the cloak of ozone produced by teleportation and reached squarely into the instinct center of his brain.

    Seconds passed, but Marek couldn¡¯t say how many. It wasn¡¯t until he felt hands shoving him to the ground that he began to see again. Penn was shaking him, voice loud in his ear, saying, ¡°Get out of here.¡±

    Between the time the initial agent had sent the alert photo and the time Marek had teleported in, the action had moved. Right beside them, an agent in fatigues was in the air, being lifted by telekinesis and held against the wall, but he still managed to continue pulling the trigger of the gun in his hand. He was ranting, but the blood was singing in Marek¡¯s ears and he couldn¡¯t make anything out. A Neptune agent near them was laying on his side, coughing and wheezing, likely having taken a hit to his bulletproof vest. A vest Penn was not wearing, unlike the on-call Cleanup team. Down the hall from them, he could see one Mars agent prone on the floor. A Neptune agent and another Mars agent were working on him and there was blood on their hands. Marek took all this in in an instant while Penn was getting him low to the floor.

    Penn must have been the first telepath on the scene, because as soon as Penn stood up, there was silence. The gun and magazine, separate, dropped to the ground with a clang.

    Penn simply said, ¡°Zoey,¡± and the Mars agent slowly slid to the floor, unconscious, and the agents were on him like black ants swarming a dropped bit of food. There were more agents than before, flooding down the hallway.

    His mouth was dry and he couldn¡¯t remember the last time his heart had ever beat this fast. It made it feel like his whole body had a visible, grotesque pulse to it. The feeling wasn¡¯t something Marek could believe was survivable, and he began to feel sure he was about to have an aneurysm or something.

    ¡°Marek.¡± Penn crouched in front of him. His voice was calm and quiet. ¡°Give me the gun.¡±

    Marek scrunched up his face and looked down. The gun was in his hand, pointed at the Mars agent. When did I pick that up? Why would I have picked it up? It had been over ten years since he¡¯d touched one. It felt the same. Warm, heavy.

    He tilted it slightly to see if he¡¯d put the magazine back in it, a terrifying thought, but he hadn¡¯t. It was empty and harmless. He was almost shaking too much, but he loosened his grip. Penn took the gun gently and stuck it in his belt.

    ¡°You¡¯re okay,¡± he said, holding his eyes.

    Marek nodded and worried more about what Penn would go through if Marek¡¯s heart gave out right in front of him.

    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± a man exclaimed above him. ¡°What is he...?¡± It was Gerrit, looking down at him, true fear on his face. ¡°I was in Canada when I¡ª¡±

    ¡°My teleporter is unconscious,¡± Penn broke in, talking fast. ¡°Can you please bring the injured to Pluto. Then Marek too. I''m gonna stay with him until you can.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    Gerrit nodded and was off, heading for the bleeding agent down the hall.

    ¡°I¡¯m not hurt,¡± he argued between breaths. He didn¡¯t realize just how fast he was breathing until he tried to use his throat to do anything else.

    Penn gripped his arm with one hand and held his hand with the other. Marek was confused when he didn¡¯t exclaim at the inhuman throbbing.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he told Marek. ¡°I knew it was bad, but I didn¡¯t know it would be this bad. Just breathe.¡±

    With a flash, Gerrit appeared next to them, and with one final worried look, Penn left to attend to whatever it was he attended to.

    Then Gerrit was getting an arm under him and trying to coax him to his feet, and Marek startled.

    ¡°Can you stand? We can do this sitting, I guess.¡±

    He couldn¡¯t answer. He didn¡¯t know and his vision was swimming, black at the edges.

    Gerrit raised his voice. ¡°I need to move you, sir.¡±

    He swallowed, squeezing his eyes until he could see shapes against the blackness. ¡°Just Marek.¡±

    ¡°There he is.¡± It sounded like he was smiling. He opened his eyes to check and he wasn¡¯t.

    ¡°I¡¯m alright,¡± he got out. ¡°I can get myself home.¡± He didn¡¯t know why he was saying these things. He needed to be in Pluto.

    Gerrit shook his head. ¡°If you try to teleport to your quarters like this, you¡¯re gonna end up in New Jersey.¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll get bagels.¡±

    ¡°Ready? Here we go.¡±

    It had been a long time since Marek had been teleported by someone else. When he thought about it, it was probably the exact amount of time it had been since he¡¯d held a gun. The flash and tear felt different as a passenger. Less of a satisfying release and more like having duct tape ripped off the length of your vagus nerve.

    When his eyes adjusted to the light again, he was sitting on the cold, hard floor of Pluto¡¯s trauma bay. People were rushing in all directions, and this time, Gerrit did pull him to his feet to get him out of the way.

    ¡°Go do what you¡¯ve got to do,¡± came a familiar voice. ¡°I¡¯ve got him.¡±

    ¡°Thank you,¡± Gerrit said with audible relief. ¡°I have to get back.¡± With a gust of ozone, he was gone.

    Simon came around the side to slip his arm under Marek. He was almost comically too slight to hold Marek¡¯s weight, but he was stronger than he looked.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± he told Simon as he began walking him down a hallway.

    ¡°Marek, your clothes feel like you fell in the pool.¡±

    He switched tactics and told the truth. ¡°I think I¡¯m having a heart attack.¡±

    ¡°Just try to breathe slowly. You¡¯re having an episode of PTSD symptoms,¡± Simon told him, voice gentle, as he settled him into a hospital bed.

    Dakota was his doctor, but he was sure Simon knew his medical records. Marek had been medically desked two years into his career as a field agent. For most, it was a physical injury that took them out, but for Marek it had been PTSD.

    He shook his head while Simon bent over some small rolling cart and keyed in a password to unlock it. ¡°No, I¡¯m not,¡± he argued. ¡°I don¡¯t have that anymore.¡±

    Simon came back with a small cup of pills. ¡°That¡¯s not how it works. The best thing for you right now is to rest. Take these and it¡¯ll help you sleep it off.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you want to check my heart?¡±

    Simon gave him a patient, kind smile and set the cup down. ¡°Okay. But I need you to take slow, deep breaths now so I can hear anything.¡± He got his stethoscope on and had Marek laid down. ¡°I got the story from the first agents in,¡± Simon explained while he listened to Marek¡¯s heart. ¡°Someone shooting their teammates. Don¡¯t you think it makes sense that would hit close to home?¡±

    Marek¡¯s brow pinched. It was embarrassing how obvious it was now. One of Marek¡¯s teammates had turned on them. He¡¯d never know why. Marek didn¡¯t think she would do it and he couldn¡¯t bring himself shoot her, so when he hesitated, she shot their other teammate, killing him. Marek did shoot then, when she turned the gun on him. It was only him left now. After that, he couldn¡¯t even be around guns without breaking into a sweat. Budget disputes were his maximum level of conflict now.

    Simon slipped his stethoscope around his neck and picked the pills back up. ¡°You¡¯re slightly tachycardic but your heart is fine.¡±

    Marek took the pills and swallowed them. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be. Dakota will follow up with you in the morning.¡± He pulled out a set of loose hospital pajamas from a drawer for him to change into.

    ¡°Thank you.¡± He smashed his face into the pillow. ¡°You¡¯re a Bio-manip. You knew I wasn¡¯t having a heart attack the moment you saw me.¡±

    ¡°Get some rest.¡±

    Worried he might become teary, he stayed face down until Simon had left. He didn¡¯t bother changing, just pulled the blankets up to his chin and prayed for dreamless sleep. The pills delivered.

    ---

    Sanctuary. Prague, Czech Republic.

    Reeve felt it in his telepathy as a faint itch, a tiny flutter of color trickling down the dun canvas of his surveillance web to prick at the back of his throat. He was holding so much of his telepathy back, he nearly missed it. There¡¯s a startle when you feel an insect on your leg, but this wasn¡¯t like that. This was more like after you¡¯d checked and you¡¯d seen that there¡¯s nothing there¡ªthen you look away and feel it again. A distinct tickle that raises goosebumps on your arms. You tell yourself it¡¯s nothing, you just looked, that it¡¯s just the breeze moving your leg hair and not a spider slowly climbing its way up your calf. That¡¯s what it was like. Except when he looked again, it wasn¡¯t nothing. Reeve stopped what he was doing and focused on the flickering colors, strengthening his telepathy just enough for the edges to become sharp and defined.

    Reeve immediately locked his telepathy down. He stood up and headed into the front room, shouting, ¡°We have a problem.¡±

    Alyosha came into the room at a jog. Gareth was already there, levering himself up from the couch.

    ¡°Adler?¡± he asked. Reeve could see the bloody tinge at the corners of Gareth¡¯s eyes. He¡¯d slept about as much as Reeve had, and he was glad his telepathy was shut down so he didn¡¯t have to feel that fear. Seeing it was enough.

    Reeve shook his head. ¡°Neptune.¡±

    Gareth didn¡¯t react. Alyosha shut his eyes and exhaled. Even without his telepathy, he couldn¡¯t miss the I-told-you-so there.

    ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± Thomas called from down the hall. He was just out of the shower and must have dressed in a hurry hearing him, because his light blue shirt was dark in patches where his skin was still wet.

    ¡°Neptune,¡± Gareth said numbly.

    Thomas nodded. ¡°Okay, so lay low and maybe they¡¯ll pass right by.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Reeve sighed. There was annoyance in his voice but it was all inward, so he stamped it out. ¡°They¡¯re inbound, I felt it. They weren¡¯t combing the city for us¡ªthey had direction. They¡¯re coming here. They must have a specialist.¡±

    ¡°Shit. Specialist?¡±

    ¡°A tracker.¡± Reeve was thinking in too many directions to explain well, so he gesticulated as if that might help. ¡°Knack detection, mappers, enhanced sensory tracking, psychometrists¡ª¡±

    ¡°Run or fight?¡± was all Gareth asked.

    ¡°They¡¯re too close to run. My protections are light on purpose right now.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Thomas interrupted. ¡°Go get your things and come back here.¡± They looked at him. ¡°Now!¡±

    They went. Reeve ran upstairs to the small bedroom he¡¯d been using. It made sense. He didn¡¯t actually know what a Neptune team might do to Children who were found harboring Icarus. He assumed that with their willingness to take them in, the danger couldn¡¯t have been huge, but he couldn¡¯t say for certain. After all, putting themselves in danger for their faith was what the Church did, and they might be crazy enough not to care about Neptune¡¯s punishment in theory. In practice, Thomas had every right to want them out. He shoved his things in his packs as fast as he could, stuck his pistol in his belt, and ran back down stairs, just behind Alyosha.

    When he came back into the front room, pulling on his coat, Thomas was standing by an open doorway by the kitchen table. There wasn¡¯t a door in the kitchen, last he¡¯d checked. It was shaped like a doorway, but the proportions were a little off, not quite narrow enough for its height. There was no way to close it in sight, only an opening, and the inside was dark¡ªnot dark like some mythic void, which is what he¡¯d expected, just dark in that there were clearly no lights or windows.

    ¡°Get in,¡± Thomas urged.

    Gareth was looking at it sideways. ¡°Is it safe?¡±

    ¡°Compared to what?¡± he asked, exasperated.

    ¡°They¡¯ll find us,¡± Reeve argued, pulling his eyes away from the doorway.

    ¡°Maybe. So fight now or maybe fight later. Just get in.¡±

    Reeve looked at the others. Shvedov shrugged hesitantly, and they walked in. The walls inside were a perfect replica of the walls of the home. The same faded green wallpaper lined the sides, the ceiling, and the floor. It was less like Thomas had opened a door to a new room, and more like Thomas had pushed his thumb into a wall made of clay, stretching and extending it in this one spot.

    ¡°I won¡¯t be able to hear you,¡± Thomas told them, speaking quickly, ¡°but try not to run around in there. The movement makes it harder for me to maintain the space. This isn¡¯t going to feel great.¡± And with that, the opening zipped shut, plunging them into a darkness normally reserved for the unconscious. A sharp pain spiked through Reeve¡¯s skull and he reflexively clenched his eyes shut and worked his jaw to try to get his ears to pop. Alyosha made a pained noise somewhere in the black beside him.

    As his ears relaxed to a dull ache, Reeve asked, ¡°Alright?¡±

    Gareth¡¯s voice came from behind him, ¡°What the fuck was that?¡±

    ¡°Not sure.¡± Reeve looked around, but the dark was thicker than paint. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine what happens to the air pressure in a thing like this, but I¡¯m guessing it¡¯s something.¡± Reeve set his packs down and, bending, felt blindly for their phone, trying not to think about how long the oxygen would last.

    ¡°I hate this,¡± Alyosha announced quietly.

    Reeve turned the screen of his phone on and immediately regretted not looking away as it did. The dim light lit up like a sun in the dark. When he opened his eyes again, the others were shielding theirs. The uniform green wallpaper on all six surfaces looked wrong in this light.

    ¡°Now what?¡± Reeve asked while Gareth and Shvedov put their bags down.

    Alyosha had his pistol out, waiting. ¡°We see how good of a liar Thomas is.¡±

    The phone screen went dark, throwing them into blindness for a second before Reeve could mash at the button.

    Gareth knelt and began checking the magazines in his guns. ¡°What are the odds that someone like this doesn¡¯t just sell us out to save his ass?¡±

    Reeve hated that he had been wondering something similar. ¡°I don¡¯t know. It must be a possibility, but not so common that the Church gets a rep for not being safe for Icarus.¡± He leaned his head forward, trying to remember exactly where on the wall the opening had been¡ªhe wanted to be ready to run if he had to. It was hard to tell.

    ¡°How would they? It¡¯s not like Icarus who get picked up get to put out a newsletter. And this is exactly how I¡¯d do it.¡±

    Reeve turned back to look at Gareth.

    ¡°How I¡¯d turn over a group of Icarus. Isolate them, get distance¡ª¡±

    ¡°Is this helping?¡± Shvedov interrupted.

    ¡°He¡¯s right,¡± Reeve said as the light flicked off again.

    ¡°Who?¡± Gareth asked, squinting when the light came back on. ¡°Me or him? I can¡¯t see.¡±

    Reeve huffed. ¡°Both. I don¡¯t know. Let¡¯s just shut up and be ready and hope we don¡¯t have to kill Thomas.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 37

    Sol LAHQ. Large Conference Hall.

    Jake had never seen anything quite like the LAHQ company Halloween party and he badly wished he wasn¡¯t there. He¡¯d let himself get pressured into coming, at least for a little while. He couldn¡¯t even use being a telepath as an excuse to avoid a crowded room because they knew his control meant he didn¡¯t ever hear thoughts unless he wanted to. It was an LAHQ tradition, they insisted, not something to miss, and from what he had heard, this year¡¯s party was something truly unique, with Uranus¡¯ new Third at the helm.

    It was held in the largest conference hall, bedecked in spiderwebs, black lights, garland bats, and life-sized skeletons that appeared to be scaling the walls and hanging off the ceiling. One plastic skeleton had been rigged up to look like it had half-ripped a light fixture from the ceiling while it dangled from the wires, which sparked at intervals, a stark bright white in the dimly lit room. Clearly, a lot of time and work had gone into this thing and he couldn¡¯t imagine how someone could gather that kind of effort.

    The music was low, thrumming, and haunting, but mostly buried in the murmuring din of voices. The place was packed wall to wall with people, most in silly costumes or fake gore. Most, but not Neptune. A memo had gone out earlier to remind everyone that there was a manner of decorum Neptune agents had to maintain at all times. It wouldn¡¯t do to have a Neptune agent dancing around in a clown costume one night and then conducting business in their Blacks the next. Jake thought it was silly. Neptune agents were people and he didn¡¯t think anyone in Sol was naive enough to think they could get away with disregarding even a non-combat Reintegration agent actively in a clown costume. But he wasn¡¯t one for disobeying orders, so, like most of the other Neptune agents, he wore comfortable street clothes. He saw a couple of agents he recognized in shirts with jack-o¡¯-lanterns on them or things like that, but that was the extent of it.

    That almost made it all worse. If he was back home, where he wanted to be, he and his team would be dressed up in real costumes, handing out candy to the neighborhood kids and playfully arguing over which horror movies to watch as they snacked on whatever candy hadn¡¯t been claimed. Jake was heavy with guilt over the slew of unreturned calls from them, and more so over their last two voicemails, which he hadn¡¯t even been able to bring himself to listen to. It hurt too much knowing he¡¯d probably never get to see them again. He had nothing to tell them that wouldn¡¯t just make them worry and hurt more. Their calls were getting farther and farther apart as time went on, which was probably for the best, but only broke his heart even more.

    From his position near the door, Jake couldn¡¯t find his Reintegration coworkers, the ones who had bothered him non-stop to come for an hour just to see what all the fuss was about. They¡¯d never let him live it down if he just turned and left, so he began slowly wading through the crowd, moving deeper into the party.

    All of it was so strange and surreal. People normally separated by floors, buildings, clearance codes, ranks, and, frankly, propriety were all mingled together in a chattering mass. To one side, just feet from Jake, he could see the head of Uranus hopelessly bumping into people in a huge Kool-Aid Man costume wearing a banner that read, ¡°Beverage Tuesday.¡± He was doubled over laughing at what appeared to be the head of Saturn, having used the department¡¯s flair for disguises to dress herself up to look just like the head of Uranus. These were people Jake didn¡¯t typically bump elbows with and he didn¡¯t feel the ambition to start now.

    Still no sign of his coworkers, but he did make his way to the buffet table lined with spooky-themed hors d''oeuvres. Jake wasn¡¯t hungry. If he had a drink, he would have something to do with his hands so he headed to a table lined with punch bowls made to look like large black cauldrons with smoke billowing in clouds rising from them. Two at the end had been labeled as non-alcoholic but someone, who¡¯d clearly worked their way down the other punch bowls first, had scrawled, ¡°Sad telepath juice,¡± on a piece of paper and propped it up in front of a blood-red drink with fruit floating in it.

    It seemed appropriate, so he poured himself a glass and moved to continue his search. But as he cast his eyes over the room, he startled, seeing the crowd parting around a huge creature costume, maybe twenty feet away, towering above everyone. It looked painstakingly crafted¡ªa looming, hooved cryptid covered in moss, sticks, and animal bones. Underneath that, it was covered in green-grey silicone skin and had multiple fey-like arms hanging from its barrel-like chest, some of which were animatronic, grasping at the crowd. Whoever was in there must have been balancing on stilts to reach that height. He couldn¡¯t imagine the amount of work that must have gone into it.

    Jake turned to keep going but couldn¡¯t pull his eyes away, so he walked right into a young man. Jake put his hand out to make sure he was steady and checked to be sure he hadn¡¯t spilled anything on either of them. He pitched his voice to sound above the din. ¡°Sorry, I¡­¡± He pointed to the huge costume.

    The man was maybe eighteen or nineteen, with light blue eyes and blonde hair cut short. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± His voice was bright and loud. Friendly. They both stood silently for a second as they watched the creature make its way past.

    Jake lifted his eyebrows and turned back to the young man. He was wearing jeans and a black, long-sleeved shirt that had a copy of a human skeleton overlaid where his bones would be. It glowed under the black lights. They both registered that they were looking at each other¡¯s outfits.

    ¡°Neptune?¡± the man asked.

    He nodded. ¡°You?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m in Neptune post-grad,¡± he explained. ¡°So, sort of. I¡¯m Scott.¡± That explained some of his energy. The exuberance of being fresh out of training.

    ¡°Jake.¡± They shook and settled in shoulder to shoulder to stay out of the way of the buffet goers. He pointed to the punch bowls on the end, where Scott had been heading when he bumped into him. ¡°Telepath?¡±

    He shook his head with a sheepish grin and leaned in to get himself a glass of the same red punch. ¡°No, I''m a sonic screamer, but It¡¯s my first big company party and I don¡¯t want to get sloppy in front of my new boss."

    That was understandable. Jake tried to remember how to keep a conversation going, how to have small talk at all. He used to know how. Was good at it even, but every thought felt like he had to carve it out of stone with his fingernails.

    "What division are you joining?" He forced out.

    "Retrieval. What are you?"

    He cringed. Why did he have to ask this kid that question? "I started in Cleanup but just got moved to Reintegration."

    The kid didn''t flinch. He always expected people to flinch. Instead, he raised his glass. "Someone from my foster team worked Cleanup before being transferred to Retrieval."

    Jake pulled his eyes away from the crowd at that. Neptune teams weren''t typically fosters. Ever. He opened his mouth to ask about it when Scott spotted someone in the crowd. He lifted an arm above his head, then switched to cupping his hand around his mouth and called out, "Darwin?"

    A short, bright yellow shape walking by turned at the name. It sparked a memory in Jake too.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    ¡°It¡¯s Scott,¡± he said, stepping forward.

    Jake squinted in the dim light. His face was partially obscured by the hood of his oversized Pikachu onesie, but it was definitely the same shape-shifting guidance counselor from before.

    Darwin¡¯s face lit up and they hugged, knocking his hood off.

    Jake moved to slowly back away, but Scott turned to him. ¡°Darwin was my guidance counselor. I haven¡¯t seen him since I graduated.¡± Scott¡¯s open, easy-going smile only made Darwin¡¯s awkward display of teeth appear even more like a grimace.

    Jake found a thin smile. ¡°Hi, again.¡±

    Scott looked surprised. ¡°You know each other?¡±

    Darwin froze, speechless, for a moment. Long enough for Jake to pick up on the thread of his anxiety, though he was covering it somewhat better than their last encounter. Still, his flustered state was too much for Jake to just let hang over the pit like that, enough that it pushed Jake past his own walls. He took a breath and dredged up whatever willpower he hadn¡¯t spent forcing himself to come to this damn party and faked it.

    ¡°We¡¯ve just run into each other a few times since I transferred. It¡¯s a small building, after all,¡± he joked.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Darwin chipped in, finally. ¡°How are you doing?¡±

    Jake didn¡¯t know how to hold his facade and answer that question with anything but the most bald-faced of lies, but thankfully he realized he was asking Scott.

    ¡°I¡¯m great.¡±

    ¡°Keeping in touch with your foster team?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, of course. They¡¯re good. I miss them.¡±

    Jake was beginning to wonder if his insides hadn¡¯t all flipped themselves upside down.

    ¡°How are you?¡± Scott asked Darwin.

    ¡°Oh,¡± he stammered. ¡°I¡¯m fine. Good.¡±

    Jake didn¡¯t have to be a telepath to tell it was a lie, and a bad one, but as a fellow liar, he wasn¡¯t about to call him on it.

    Darwin turned to him. ¡°What about you? How are you feeling?¡± His voice was sincere. Worried, even.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± he assured him. ¡°But I¡¯m supposed to be meeting some people, so¡ª¡±

    ¡°Jacob,¡± a voice called. It wasn¡¯t his coworkers; they wouldn¡¯t call him that.

    They all turned to see that Penn Harris was moving to join their little circle. Jake had met him twice during his time in Cleanup, and every time it was intimidating.

    ¡°Sir,¡± Scott and Jake chimed together, standing straighter. Darwin took the opportunity to move back out of the way.

    Penn had on a t-shirt that appeared to have been printed for the occasion. It had a large illustration of a cell phone, underneath which were white block letters that read, ¡°The scariest thing I could think of.¡±

    ¡°I thought that was you.¡± Penn shook Jake¡¯s hand. ¡°I was sad to lose you in Cleanup. Your mind is something else.¡±

    Jake looked at the ground and swallowed. ¡°I was sad to be transferred from Cleanup, sir.¡± There was a brief flare of hope in his heart that Penn could reverse the transfer. All his transfer requests had been denied, but maybe if Penn himself was on board, it would be different. ¡°I¡¯d love to rejoin the team, sir.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he replied, with a dour smile, ¡°that call came from above.¡±

    He nodded. He never should have let himself think it was possible to get out. ¡°Thank you, sir. I¡¯m sorry to put you on the spot there.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡±

    They all turned as the large creature costume raised its head and let out a bellow of smoke, lit up with a sickly greenish glow.

    ¡°How many people do you think are in that thing?¡± Scott stammered.

    ¡°One,¡± Penn answered glumly. ¡°Emmett, Uranus¡¯ crazy Third.¡± He fixed his gaze on the teen. ¡°Hey, is that Scott?¡±

    He smiled big. ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    Penn¡¯s smile went all the way to his eyes this time. ¡°I picked this kid up from a Catholic orphanage and had an impromptu day-long road trip back to LA, just the two of us. Looks like you¡¯re taking to Neptune well.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± Scott beamed.

    Penn shook his head at Jake in wonder. ¡°Glad to hear it! But, boy, do I feel old right now.¡±

    A voice across the hall began calling Penn¡¯s name. He clapped both Jake and Scott on the back in response and said, ¡°Scott, you wanna come meet my teleporter? I¡¯ll bet Gage would enjoy meeting you.¡±

    Scott looked at him, a little starstruck. ¡°Sure,¡± he stammered. He wandered off as well, leaving Jake and Darwin alone in the crowd.

    The two of them just looked at each other for a moment. He¡¯d pulled his yellow hood back up. Pikachu¡¯s happy face sat on top of his own.

    ¡°Hi.¡± Darwin¡¯s awkward smile stayed unnaturally still as he talked. Jake could tell he was really trying.

    Jake gave up on pretense. ¡°You don¡¯t have to make small talk. We both clearly hate it.¡±

    ¡°Okay, but are you feeling any better?¡± Darwin pressed his lips together. ¡°Did things get sorted out?¡±

    Jake studied his face. The tension there was more than just long-standing innate skittishness. Something was wrong and he wanted to have the strength and capacity to ask him what, but he didn¡¯t. He couldn¡¯t hold anyone else up. And it¡¯s not like his situation was something he could just open up to anyone about.

    ¡°I ought to find my friends,¡± he said instead. ¡°I hope whatever you¡¯ve got going on works out.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m fine,¡± Darwin assured him, talking fast and looking around to see if anyone was listening. ¡°I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll run into you again soon,¡± he teased. His voice was tense as a bowstring and didn¡¯t really sell the humor of it.

    Jake smiled, putting in the effort to make it wrinkle the skin around his eyes. ¡°You¡¯re probably right.¡± He raised his glass and drank. It was tart and sweet. ¡°Happy Halloween.¡±

    Halfway out, Jake spotted his coworkers off to one side, in black shirts with ghosts and pumpkins on them, laughing and moving to the music. Jake knew he didn¡¯t stand out. He could make it to the door without them noticing. It wouldn¡¯t be a lie to say that he¡¯d looked for them. He made for the exit.

    ---

    Sanctuary. Prague, Czech Republic

    Thomas took two breaths with his back against the wall to try to calm his heart, then immediately started cooking¡ªanything to appear normal. He¡¯d been in one Sol raid before, but never alone. He had water on to boil and a bag of noodles open on the counter when the bang of someone kicking in the door gripped his chest. He rushed out into the front room, steak knife in hand, so it wouldn¡¯t look like he was expecting them, and prayed they weren¡¯t trigger-happy or, worse, a telepath.

    The door was on the floor along with the hinges and screws. There were three of them in full Neptune black. The one in front made a gesture and the steak knife was yanked from his hand and thrown across the room to slide underneath the couch. Focusing on what he¡¯d been taught, Thomas dropped onto his knees, hands laced behind his head. He closed his eyes. It made it easier.

    Thomas could hear the swish of their long strides, two of them going past him, quickly moving from room to room, clearing the house. Heavy footsteps pounded the floorboards above him. He heard one stop in front of him.

    ¡°You¡¯re Church?¡±

    He didn¡¯t like the way they talked. All Sol people really. Their language was too close. Too tight. You weren¡¯t in Sol. You were Sol. He wasn¡¯t Church, he was a member of the Church. A Child of God. Thomas managed to swallow all this with a deep gulp.

    ¡°Yes,¡± he said, opening his eyes. The genderless face looking down at him had blue eyes.

    The other two came back into the room with him.

    ¡°Nothing,¡± one said shortly.

    The first one looked down at Thomas. ¡°Where are the Icarus?¡±

    Never lie to Sol. ¡°There is no one else in this house.¡±

    ¡°Where are they then?¡±

    ¡°There were other Children of God staying here, but they left.¡±

    The agent shook their head at the others. ¡°You¡¯re saying they were all Church members?¡±

    ¡°We have ways of knowing each other.¡±

    ¡°Did you know they were ex-Sol?¡±

    ¡°¡®Never forget to show hospitality to strangers and outsiders, for in doing so, some people, without knowing it, have sheltered angels.¡¯¡±

    ¡°What the fuck is that?¡± one asked, a woman.

    ¡°Hebrews thirteen-two.¡±

    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± the shorter man muttered, thick with disdain.

    ¡°Technically, it¡¯s Old Testament.¡±

    He clocked him good for that. Thomas reeled and took it, folding his elbows in around his face.

    ¡°How many were there?¡±

    Thomas straightened again. Two of them had guns pointed at his face now. ¡°Three.¡± They were taken aback by that, though he didn¡¯t know why. He guessed his new friends weren¡¯t telling him everything.

    ¡°Three?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°When did they leave?¡±

    ¡°Not long after we woke up.¡±

    ¡°This isn¡¯t right,¡± the one who¡¯d hit him said, his voice tight.

    ¡°So scan for their knacks,¡± the one in front barked without looking back.

    He stepped back, pulling down the lower half of his mask, and closed his eyes. And right about then was the part where Thomas knew he had to not look like he was sweating that. He breathed and he silently prayed.

    The one in charge cocked his head. ¡°Are you suicidal or something, being a smart-ass like that right now?¡±

    Thomas furrowed his brow. If he tempered, they¡¯d know he was lying, and deploying what he felt was his natural charm had already failed him. He knew his poker face and he knew who Sol thought the Children were. He cocked his head back, stretching to present the ragged bite scar on his throat.

    ¡°You¡¯re not the scariest thing I¡¯ve come up against in the past twelve hours.¡± He smiled and hoped there was blood on his teeth. It tasted (and felt) like it.

    The agent¡¯s eyes crinkled like he was smiling underneath the fabric. That was the moment the agent at the back called over, ¡°Just him, but he¡¯s a pocket creator. My money says he hid them.¡±

    Well, fuck.

    And then, there was nothing but black.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 38

    Sanctuary. Prague, Czech Republic

    Everything went from silence to chaos in a fraction of a second and Alyosha thought he might know what it would feel like to be shot out of a gun.

    He hit the ground at an awkward angle, wrenching his shoulder. Reeve landed hard on top of him as they slid to bang against the far wall in a jumbled pile with their bags. The pressure in his ears was screaming and he definitely needed a minute to recover, but Neptune was already shooting. They had silencers, but after the dense noiselessness of that room, it felt like fireworks going off in his skull. Gareth, thrown clear of the tangle, gave them some cover fire and moved in front of them, shouting at them to move. They scrambled to their feet and got around the corner of the hallway where Reeve shoved him through the door of the first bedroom. Reeve knocked over the pile of stacked cots into a tangle of metal. It didn¡¯t give them much physical cover, but it was something they could hide behind. Gareth rushed in and slammed the door. His movements were jerky and he was clutching his stomach. He was bleeding from multiple spots on his torso.

    ¡°You¡¯re shot,¡± Reeve panted, as he shook out a pill bottle from his pocket. Alyosha guessed there was no point in trying to hide his telepathy now.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Gareth answered, getting down with them behind the cots.

    ¡°A lot.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡± They were all breathing hard and it made the room feel very crowded. ¡°What¡¯s the plan?¡±

    ¡°Kill them,¡± Alyosha offered. Movement to his right caught his eye. An arm and head of a woman in a Neptune black mask were melting out of the wall. There was a gun in the hand. Alyosha fired. The others swore and nearly jumped out of their skins. He missed, but it did the trick, and the arm and face slid back behind the wall.

    Gareth belatedly announced, ¡°Phaser,¡± and spun around, scanning the room. ¡°Reeve.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m working on it,¡± he called, ¡°They¡¯re trained to defend against telepaths.¡±

    She appeared through the wall again and Gareth managed to get off a shot that clipped her arm before she could fire. Alyosha pulled himself up and set his back against Gareth¡¯s.

    Another round went off from the adjacent wall, making them spin. Then again. This time he saw it, just an arm sticking through the wall and firing blindly.

    Gareth cleared his throat. ¡°That¡¯s very bad.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Reeve asked. He had moved farther away from them and crouched down, his eyes shut and concentrating.

    ¡°They¡¯re distracting us,¡± Alyosha told him. Alyosha kept shooting back, and hitting the wall. She was moving too fast.

    ¡°Get down,¡± Reeve warned.

    He and Gareth dropped to their knees in time to avoid being plowed over by the bedroom door as it was flung off its hinges. The cots were thrown to the sides of the room along with the bedside table and a low wooden trunk, all held against the walls as if they were being spun in a centrifuge. It made them an easy target in the dead center of the room. Two agents in the doorway opened fire. Before Alyosha could move, Gareth covered him with his body. Alyosha realized he didn¡¯t actually know how many bullets someone with Gareth¡¯s knack could take before his body couldn¡¯t keep up. Could he take a headshot? Alyosha gripped his gun tight enough to hurt while the two agents emptied their magazines.

    When the shots stopped, Gareth leaned back and turned around, a bewildered look on his face. Alyosha didn¡¯t wait. He fired off three rounds, hitting the shorter agent and knocking him down. As he took a breath to re-aim, he saw that the floor to the left of him was all torn up, full of ricochet marks. The other agent reloaded and fired again, hitting the ground six inches to the right of Gareth, amidst another scattering of wood splinters where more bullets had hit before. The agent stared at the floor and shook his head violently. With a gesture, he hurled Reeve across the room to smash into a twisted pile of cots.

    The rest happened too fast to follow well. Alyosha fired until a side table slammed into him, driving him into the far wall. He blinked, his head ringing as he lay on his back and saw Reeve forcing his way out from under the tangle of cots. Gareth was trying to shoot, but he was getting shot more and was knocked back down to one knee. The angle of the shots hitting him wasn¡¯t right, as though they were coming from Alyosha¡¯s direction. He looked up and saw the third agent leaning through the wall just above him. She hadn¡¯t seen him. It was an easy shot and he took it. It hit her in the soft skin under the jaw and he flinched at the spray as she fell backwards through the wall. Alyosha looked up to see the last agent take aim at him but faltered, staggering before falling badly. Then it was too quiet again.

    Alyosha sat up gingerly. He was sore and bleeding from somewhere, but he was too numb to tell how badly. Reeve stood and hauled Gareth up with an effort. Gareth was making sickly wet hacking sounds.

    ¡°Is he okay?¡± Alyosha called to Reeve.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Gareth grunted. ¡°Been better.¡±

    Alyosha pointed to the last agent down and tapped his head. ¡°Was that you?¡±

    Reeve nodded and walked over to him. ¡°Are you hit?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    Reeve knelt and muttered, ¡°I hate that answer.¡± He started looking Alyosha over, hands fast and methodical. There was blood matting down some of Reeve¡¯s hair¡ªa blow taken from one of the falls, but he didn¡¯t know which one. Reeve finally sat back. ¡°You¡¯ll live, but we ought to take it out to clean the wound.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m shot?¡± Alyosha looked around, feeling his heart pounding harder. He just did this in Brazil. Being shot is definitely something you feel.

    ¡°Shoulder blade,¡± Reeve said, his voice soft. ¡°It didn¡¯t go in far. Honestly, it probably went through Gareth first.¡±

    Alyosha turned his head, trying to see it, and focused on locating the pain, but his whole body was a shiver of adrenaline.

    Reeve put his hand on his jaw and pulled his head to face him again. ¡°Hey, you¡¯re okay. Stay with me.¡±

    Alyosha nodded. Reeve gave his cheek a pat and gently helped him to his feet, keeping an arm under him for balance. There was a lot of blood on the floor, most of it Gareth¡¯s. A strange pattern of bullet strikes on the floorboards where Reeve had caused the agents to miss them framed where they had been huddled and it raised gooseflesh on Alyosha¡¯s arms and legs.

    ¡°Those meds really help.¡±

    Reeve shook his head and eased himself out from under Alyosha¡¯s arm, making sure he was steady. ¡°They take about twenty minutes to kick in, but they¡¯ll help with cleanup. We should take their guns with silencers for next time.¡±

    Next time. Alyosha looked at the two agents laid out by the doorway. Gareth was stooped over them. ¡°They¡¯re alive,¡± he said flatly. ¡°Knocked out. This one might be bleeding, out I think,¡± he said, gesturing to the shorter agent.

    ¡°The phaser?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s very dead,¡± Alyosha said.

    ¡°What do we do with these two?¡± Reeve asked.

    Gareth stood back up with a groan and spat blood. ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°If we leave them, Sol gets information about us. That we¡¯ve split up, and they¡¯ll stop looking for a group of five.¡±

    Alyosha used his foot to right one of the knocked over cots and sat on it. ¡°That would make life more dangerous for us.¡±

    ¡°And the others,¡± Gareth added.

    ¡°So we kill them.¡±

    Alyosha couldn¡¯t tell if that was a question or not. ¡°We were just trying to a minute ago, yes?¡±

    Reeve carefully touched his bloody hair. ¡°When they were awake and trying to kill us.¡±

    ¡°Reeve,¡± Gareth started.

    ¡°Are you going to tell me you feel good about killing a man after you¡¯ve knocked him unconscious?¡±

    ¡°Of course not, but what are our options? Wait for them to wake up so we can hand them guns and then kill them?¡±

    ¡°There are always options,¡± Reeve breathed, exasperated.

    ¡°Yeah, I just listed them,¡± Gareth argued sharply. ¡°Unnecessary risk to Hannah and Alex, kill them, or stupidity.¡±

    Alyosha pushed at his hair; it was stiff and stringy with sweat. ¡°If you can¡¯t¡ª¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t say that,¡± Reeve snapped.

    He put up a hand. ¡°I¡¯m just saying you don¡¯t have to.¡±

    Reeve¡¯s lip curled into a sneer. ¡°I didn¡¯t pull you from Entropy so you could execute defenseless men.¡±

    ¡°And you left Sol so you could stop.¡±

    Reeve sat down next to Alyosha and put the heels of his hands over his eyes. ¡°Jesus Christ.¡±

    There was a shuffling sound that made him jump.

    ¡°That¡¯s Thomas,¡± Reeve said quickly to settle them. ¡°He didn¡¯t sell us out.¡±

    Thomas appeared at the door, holding onto the frame to steady himself. His face was bloody and already bruising. ¡°Hey,¡± he smiled weakly. ¡°Sorry about that.¡±Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    ¡°It was worth a shot,¡± Gareth said. ¡°We¡¯re just trying to figure out what to do with these two.¡±

    ¡°The bodies?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re not dead.¡±

    ¡°But they need to be,¡± Reeve sighed.

    Thomas nodded solemnly. ¡°Then it¡¯s cruel to make them wait.¡±

    Gareth cocked his head. ¡°Crueler than killing them? They¡¯re passed out.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯ll wake up.¡±

    ¡°At some point.¡±

    ¡°And then they¡¯ll feel pain and fear.¡±

    Beside him, Reeve let out a drawn out breath through his nose and said, ¡°He¡¯s right.¡± He straightened and walked toward the door. Alyosha stood. He saw Gareth fumbling for his pistol but they¡¯d both emptied their guns in the fight and their ammo was in their packs in the hall. Reeve hadn¡¯t shot off a round. He fired two, then, in quick succession.

    Reeve looked at Thomas. ¡°You got a prayer for that?¡± His voice was rough.

    Thomas swallowed, eyes shifting in rapid movements. He cleared his throat. ¡°¡®If I am wicked, woe to me. But if I am righteous, I still do not dare raise my head because I am so filled with shame, so soaked in my misery. You rise up to hunt me like a lion. To hurt me, you have worked miracles.¡¯¡±

    The sound of sirens rose around them. Alyosha shut his eyes. All the gunfire. The pain in his body was creeping in now, red-hot and sharp.

    ¡°Amen,¡± Reeve breathed. He shoved his gun into Gareth¡¯s hands and stepped over the agents. ¡°You take care of this. I¡¯ll take care of the cops.¡±

    ¡°Can he do that?¡± Thomas asked after he¡¯d left.

    ¡°Probably,¡± Alyosha shrugged and immediately regretted it as pain radiated from his shoulder. ¡°Are you okay?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got a mad headache and I have to move out of the city now, but otherwise.¡±

    ¡°Good.¡± Gareth clapped a hand on his shoulder. ¡°So what¡¯s the best way to get rid of these bodies?¡±

    Thomas choked on a laugh then sobered, looking mortified. ¡°I can store them in another pocket and dump them across the city. I¡¯d rather not burn this Sanctuary.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s do that. Wait,¡± Gareth stopped them. ¡°Would you really have to set this place on fire?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Thomas retorted, making a face. ¡°It¡¯s an expression.¡±

    They helped load the bodies into one of Thomas¡¯ portals in an old towel and he took it and left. By then the sirens had long stopped, but Reeve was nowhere to be seen. Alyosha stood at the window, watching Thomas walk away, worried he¡¯d suddenly be snatched up by some force, swallowed up like a stone dropped in the ocean and it¡¯d be their fault.

    ¡°Let me see your back,¡± Gareth called.

    Alyosha had just started to get used to the stabbing pain and was learning which movements would send his muscles into a screaming fit, but he went. Gareth cut his shirt off. There was no saving it, anyway. The benefit to the voice of reason being away dealing with police was that Gareth hunted down a bottle of liquor for Alyosha to nurse while he worked. It helped, but not that much. From what he could see of the tools in the med kit, Sanctuaries were much more set up for closing gashes and cuts, not so much removing bullets.

    Afterwards Gareth got him settled on his stomach on the couch, surrounded by pillows. The pain in his shoulder was like a living thing, yelling for attention, and he wasn¡¯t nearly as woozy as he wanted to be. He downed what was left and handed the bottle to Gareth.

    After a moment, he said, ¡°Thank you,¡± voice thick.

    ¡°Yeah, man, ¡®course.¡± Gareth¡¯s voice was somewhere in the kitchen cleaning up.

    ¡°For taking it out and for getting shot with it.¡± He wasn¡¯t saying it right. Part of his brain was insisting he shut up, but another had some dream-logic conviction that he was speaking important truths.

    There was a gap of silence. ¡°Get some rest,¡± Gareth called.

    He tried. Mostly he listened to the shush of the mop against the floorboards. Reeve came back a bit later. Raising a few fingers was the best wave he could manage. A face swam into his vision as Reeve squatted by the couch to study him. Reeve¡¯s eyes and face were red. Alyosha tried to speak, but his tongue was stuck. In a dizzying rush that made Alyosha¡¯s head reel, Reeve stood up.

    ¡°Is he okay?¡± Reeve asked.

    ¡°Yeah,¡± came Gareth¡¯s voice. ¡°He¡¯s just drunk.¡±

    ¡°Jesus Christ, Gareth.¡± Alyosha heard Reeve¡¯s footsteps walking away. ¡°It¡¯s a blood thinner.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s fine. Are you?¡±

    ¡°We won¡¯t have any issues with local law enforcement or neighbors. I take it Thomas is tying up the other loose ends?¡±

    ¡°Mmhm. Seriously, are you okay?¡±

    ¡°We need to leave first thing tomorrow.¡± A long silence. ¡°Just drop it,¡± Reeve sighed. ¡°Give me this one. I don¡¯t question you when you walk out.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, but you¡¯re the telepath. You know when I¡¯m about to go off the rails.¡±

    ¡°No one¡¯s going off the rails.¡±

    ¡°Fine. Listen, I found the phone in the pile of our shit.¡±

    ¡°Good. I must have dropped it when we got thrown out of that thing.¡±

    ¡°Right, but I can¡¯t get it to turn on.¡±

    ¡°Fuck.¡± Reeve¡¯s eyebrows lowered and he held his breath for a moment before letting out a sigh. ¡°Okay. Just charge it overnight. I¡¯m not going to be sleeping for a while, so I¡¯ll take over cleaning and wait for Thomas. You should sleep. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever seen you take so many hits.¡±

    ¡°Won¡¯t argue.¡±

    ¡°Thank you.¡±

    Alyosha slept.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Company Housing.

    Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Mackenzie massaged her temple while she read and reread the two documents that had prompted her to send Fox into such a precarious assignment. She hadn¡¯t been able to get them out of her head. She¡¯d hoped sending an agent she trusted would help, but it had only gotten worse. They were scraps of information, really. Fragments regarding a man named Austin Greene. She often wished she had more control in her outpouring over how much of each piece she was able to record before the next one possessed her, but maybe no more so than right now. Whatever was in these two puzzle pieces was more than it was on the surface. It was as if the fragments had invisible threads that reached deep into her cortex, calling out to whatever information was on the other side of those connections. She¡¯d known, once, when she knew everything. There was a chance it was written down somewhere in this room. Maybe it wasn¡¯t.

    She looked again at her writing, the one ripped from a yellow-lined legal pad, translating from shorthand.

    Austin Greene is running. He¡¯s outside the entrance to Sol Headquarters, running towards the door. It¡¯s sunny; the sky is a beautiful blue but there¡¯s smoke in the air, two dark plumes of it. The building is smoking. There are people all around. So many people. I¡­ they¡¯re panicking. His white shoes are one size too big, enough to feel with each step. People are scared. Austin is scared. There are thirteen small flecks of green broken glass laying on the portion of the parking lot his shoes are passing over. They come from a carbonated water bottle, dropped while trying to juggle too many bags when Julian del Sol was moving in. That was six days earlier, when¡­

    She¡¯d lost the thread, or not lost it, just followed elsewhere. It was all one thread when you pulled back far enough. The foreboding image of the smoke lingered in her mind more and more. Mackenzie set the sheet of legal paper down and picked up a drawing she had done with scrawled notes around the margins. The drawing is of a car, parked, all four doors open, while a young man is working to clean the upholstery. She studies his slight frame, facial hair, and the scratchy way she¡¯d drawn his hair. Mackenzie wasn¡¯t an artist skilled in rendering, but she could get the point across.

    The margin simply read: Austin Greene is in Paris, cleaning his car. There is blood on the backseat from the dead body.

    It wasn¡¯t much, she could acknowledge that. She¡¯d pulled it because the name matched, despite taking place across the globe. When she¡¯d put the name through Saturn¡¯s search, she was able to locate a French citizen, an American ex-pat, whose passport photo could realistically match her crude sketch.

    There was more somewhere. There had to be. Maybe Fox would find her a clue.

    ¡°Mack.¡±

    She looked up to see Rafe leaning into her office.

    ¡°They¡¯re here,¡± he told her.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be right there.¡±

    Mackenzie waited for him to close the door before collecting the two documents and slipping them back into their envelope. She pried up the modified floorboard underneath her desk, slipped the envelope inside, and replaced the board so it was flush.

    Dusting off her pants, she headed out to the dining room, which was full of her Saturn officers: Louis, Grace, Sandford, and Stormy. Once a month, she hosted them all for dinner. Logan often joined as well, even though Rafe held his own Terre officer gatherings. Logan was family, even among spies.

    They greeted her loudly with their joyful ruckus, even Louis, though his eyes rested on her with a more serious light to them. He knew what she must have been working on, if not the contents of what it was. After some playful hellos, she went to help Rafe bring dinner to the table.

    Dinner was a breath of fresh air, with its good food and distracting, if familiar, banter. When they were finished, Louis and Logan had taken up the task of clearing the table and began cleaning, even though they didn¡¯t have to. You couldn¡¯t tell those two not to.

    ¡°Am I going to get my rematch?¡± Grace asked, sipping her wine.

    They often played some sort of board game as a group after dinner, if they had the energy and time for it. She honestly didn¡¯t think she had either, but the others were in such a pleasant mood, she wouldn¡¯t ever dissuade them. Last time, it had been some sort of resource game that relied on deceiving your opponents¡ªwhich meant that Logan and Rafe tended to get in a bit of trouble, trying to stick it out with a group of Saturn agents.

    ¡°If you want to get your ass kicked again,¡± Sandy replied brashly.

    ¡°He got lucky,¡± Stormy added sweetly. Stormy tended to win most any game they played, but they were gracious when they lost, unlike some of the others.

    Grace was smiling, even as her voice rose. ¡°He¡¯s a dirty cheater is what he is.¡±

    Sandy stood, being overdramatic. ¡°That is a grave allegation and I¡¯ll have you know that¡ª¡±

    More was said, but Mackenzie didn¡¯t hear any of it. She was gliding across threads, connections, blind and reaching.

    ¡°Stop,¡± Rafe called, voice pitched over them, loud enough to cut through her haze. He leaned down to touch her shoulder. ¡°Mack, love. You okay?¡± The words were soft in her ear, but only barely penetrated.

    ¡°I have to go check something.¡± Making her mouth work was harder than it should have been. Louis was watching her with a knowing quiet. She didn¡¯t wait around to get any response.

    Back in her office, she locked the door behind her. The words were reverberating in her skull. Louder and louder. She made her way to her audio file storage and struggled to remember anything to do with the phrase in her head that might help her nail down a date. Nothing.

    Mackenzie pulled her hands up, stopping herself from blindly rummaging through them. She slowed her breath, then held it and waited for the thumping pressure in her chest urging her to breathe and the fuzziness that made the periphery of her vision seem to melt into nothing. That was the space that felt most like when she was recording. Think.

    Her throat complained, feeling pulled by the vacuum of her empty, convulsing lungs, while she held what Sandford had said in her mind. She closed her eyes, watching colors swirl.

    There. Something. A motorcycle crash. A drawing she¡¯d done.

    Mackenzie took a whooping breath in. She remembered that drawing from four years ago¡ªit had been upsetting to view, but that meant she could look up when that was recorded and check the voice recordings from around that time.

    It took her hours. Rafe knocked once, calling in to check on her. She pulled herself away long enough to assure him she was fine, but only because if she didn¡¯t, he was likely to try to break down the door. She was close; she knew it. It was here.

    It was near midnight when she found it. A recording of her voice in its flat, monotone done.

    ¡°A man bends over Austin Greene¡¯s shoulder while they look at a computer screen. The screen shows a Sol intranet directory, lots of small faces, some I know. ¡®Are you sure?¡¯ he asks. His name is Reeve del Sol. Their voices are so loud in my head right now. It hurts. Why are their voices so loud? ¡®You¡¯re saying you¡¯ve seen him coming out of an Entropy building?¡¯ Reeve asks. There¡¯s a deep pain in his body that nothing touches. Austin is frustrated, angry. ¡®What part are you not hearing? I have one-hundred percent seen this motherfucker around Entropy folks.¡¯ I can¡¯t know the screen well enough. I can¡¯t. I push into it and feel the pixels firing. The computer. 01010011 01101111 01101100 01000011 01101111 01110010 01110000 00100000¡±

    She forced herself to not fast-forward through the numbers.

    ¡°01000100 01101001 01110010 01100101 01100011 01110100 01101111 01110010 01111001 00100000 01010000. No. Hmm. Oh. Their voices. ''That''s a grave allegation,¡¯ Reeve tells him. Austin turns his back on the computer. ¡®It¡¯s a grave fucking fact.¡¯ There are so many people crowded into the little house. Too many and so many in pain. There are sounds seeping in from outside, cats yowling, fighting. Two cats. One black with white socks. She¡¯s seven years old and owned by¡­¡±

    Mind swimming, Mackenzie switched off the recording and hid it with the other files. Sitting at her desk, she did a search of the Sol registry and found no record of any agent named Reeve del Sol. That could mean one of two things. They weren¡¯t there in time yet, or he was an Icarus. The only one she could trace was Austin Greene.

    It was three in the morning by the time she climbed in bed, shivering from cold sweat and exhaustion.

    Rafe gave a sleepy inhale of surprise as she slid in beside him. ¡°Everything okay?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± she told him. It was all locked away for now. ¡°I¡¯m sorry to do that to you, love.¡±

    ¡°I understand,¡± he murmured, finding her hand and bringing it up to kiss her fingertips. ¡°Just part of the privilege of being married to such a brilliant soul.¡±

    She smiled and kissed his cheek. Mackenzie had thought he¡¯d fallen asleep, but his voice flowed out into the darkness of their room once more.

    ¡°You know how much I love you?¡±

    She laced her fingers in his. ¡°I know everything.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 39

    Bologna, Italy.

    The cold water was chilling Alex to the bone. By the time they¡¯d caught the pale glow of light from an opening to the city, it had wicked up his body until it felt like his inner core was shaking. He¡¯d expected the light to be dawn; it felt bright enough after sloshing through the tunnels, but it was only the dim glow of street lamps as the night sky began to fade to dull grey.

    The opening emptied out to a sandy incline with worn ruts of footsteps. Still, their shoes and pant legs became encrusted with dirt as the dry sand clung to their wet clothes.

    ¡°Now what?¡± he asked at the top of the incline, leaning his back against the edge of the stone wall that lined the entrance to warm himself. The wall wasn¡¯t really warm, but it was dry and that was close.

    ¡°Keep moving. It¡¯s going to follow us.¡±

    ¡°Where?¡± Hannah¡¯s voice was loud.

    ¡°Somewhere it won¡¯t follow us,¡± Misha snapped. ¡°When are you going to get it through your skull that I¡¯m never going to answer that question when the people trying to track us down might have psychometrists?¡±

    They followed him silently, walking until dawn. The dim rays were more comforting than most things in Alex¡¯s life these days. Misha bought them bus tickets and they boarded a long bus and sat together on a bench. Alex thought there couldn¡¯t be much worse than riding a bus when you¡¯re varying levels of damp to soaked from the waist down. He immediately regretting the thought as his mind began spitting out things that were much worse: monsters, Neptune, dislocated shoulders, being this cold, Reeve, being shot at, being away from Gareth, Entropy, sleeping in communal beds, car crashes, Norovirus, living with bigoted fanatics¡­ He let out a deep sigh and begrudgingly added being away from Reeve to the list.

    The commuters and other passengers avoided looking at them except to glance at the corner of their vision with a look of disgust. Alex realized they must look homeless, with their dirty clothes and ratty, overstuffed bags.

    He sunk into the seat. They were homeless. Really and truly. He hadn¡¯t missed it, though it was familiar.

    Alex rested his head against Hannah¡¯s cold, tense shoulder. She grabbed his hand.

    Alex woke up some time later as Misha shook him roughly. He jumped, disoriented, not remembering falling asleep. The pinched look on Hannah¡¯s face told him she felt the same way.

    ¡°We¡¯re walking from here.¡±

    Alex stood, a little unsteady, and gathered his things. ¡°How long have I been asleep?¡±

    Misha shrugged. ¡°Three or four hours. Let¡¯s go.¡±

    They walked, half staggering, with only the sun as a comfort. He had no idea for how long. The ground under his feet burned with Story. Like he was standing in a puddle of water in a burning house and it was only a matter of time. They ended up on a busy Italian street, crowded with small rounded cars, buses, and scooters. It looked like a small town downtown, but he could tell this place wasn¡¯t small. Both sides of the street were lined with little shops, cafes, and temporary stands under white canvas tents. Many were clearly geared toward tourists.

    ¡°We¡¯re in Rome,¡± he said quietly.

    Misha didn¡¯t answer. The people they shouldered past on the narrow sidewalk looked at them knowingly, like they¡¯d spit on them if they could. Alex studied the stores as they went by, passing everything from designer clothing with stylish mannequins in the window to American fast food burger joints. Everything seemed alive under his feet and he grabbed onto Hannah¡¯s arm to anchor his Reading. He let his vision unfocus, letting Hannah guide him along, half-blind, and hid himself into the weave of her Story.

    He was startled out of his trance when Hannah loudly asked, ¡°There?¡±

    They¡¯d come to a stop at the corner of an intersection and he rocked like he was seasick, getting his legs under him. He blinked hard, realizing his eyes were nearly shut. In front of them was the corner of a tall stone wall. It was taller than a five-story building with some sort of ornate statue set into the corner near the top of the wall. The sight of it next to windowed buildings just as tall made the wall look like something out of a bad dream.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Alex asked. He shook his head trying to wake up.

    ¡°It¡¯s Vatican City,¡± Misha said blandly.

    The light turned and Misha urged them across.

    ¡°And that¡¯s where we¡¯re going?¡± Hannah pressed.

    Misha made a face at her but nodded. ¡°It won¡¯t follow us there. It can¡¯t. All the faith here would twist the flesh right off its fucking bones.¡±

    They followed, keeping the wall on their right for long, silent minutes, watching as it slowly became shorter and shorter, some of its height being replaced with iron bars. The wall turned right down a street and they followed, walking past a military jeep and soldier in full camo. The road dead ended at the set of imposing stone arches admitting them through the wall. A forest of tall, ivory Roman columns towered over them, looking impossibly heavy and light at the same time. This kind of overwhelming grandness was offset by a hexagonal information desk and a hundred tourists all wandering in different directions. Misha pulled them off the side to sit on the short set of steps with their backs to one of the massive columns, warm from the sun.

    ¡°Now what?¡± Hannah groaned.

    ¡°We hide out here for a bit and pray they¡¯ve lost us.¡±

    ¡°At a Sanctuary?¡±

    ¡°No.¡± The frown etched deep lines in Misha¡¯s face. ¡°There isn¡¯t one. Nothing to hunt here.¡±

    Alex pulled his aching knees up to his chest and rested his head on them. ¡°So we¡¯re just sleeping on the ground for a few days?¡±

    ¡°No one will bother us here as long as we¡¯re gone by morning. You¡¯ll see.¡±

    Hannah sat up suddenly. ¡°Does the actual church know about the Church?¡± She squinted at her own question.

    Misha shrugged. ¡°Maybe. Not in any way that makes a difference.¡±

    ¡°If Entropy found us,¡± Hannah continued, barely listening to his first answer, ¡°do you think they¡¯ve found Gareth and the others too? Or that they only followed us?¡±

    Misha leaned forward, his face contorted. ¡°I don¡¯t know, I¡¯ll let you know when I find a pre-cognitive to mimic. For shit¡¯s sake, they better be alive because I can¡¯t wait to hand your skinny ass back to your twitchy, PTSD-ridden healer.¡±

    Alex rolled his eyes and turned to glance at Hannah. She was bobbing her head in a fast nod, eyes scanning the horizon. He really didn¡¯t want to have to deal with what might go down if there was a fistfight in Saint Peter¡¯s Square. Then she leaned forward and extended her palm to Misha.

    ¡°Money,¡± was all she said.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    ¡°Excuse me?¡±

    For all the muscle exhaustion they were feeling, her arm didn¡¯t waiver.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to give me money now.¡±

    ¡°I am?¡±

    ¡°Yes, you¡¯re going to buy me, Alex, and hell, maybe even yourself, an ice cream.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re out of your fucking skull.¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯m not. We passed a gelato truck on the way in here, so this is all very plausible and I¡¯m sick of your bag full of sat-on protein bars.¡±

    ¡°Fuck off.¡±

    ¡°No. You can rip Reeve to shreds for all I care and I don¡¯t give a shit what you think about me, but Gareth got more fucked by Reeve in this thing than anyone. If this is the hill you really want to die on, you¡¯ll die on it. Give me your wallet.¡±

    Misha stared hard at her, face blank. But he reached into his pocket and pushed a thin fold of euros into her hand. ¡°Could use some time away from looking at your cunty face, anyway.¡±

    Hannah stood up and looked at him with mocked surprise. ¡°Oh, so you are a pre-cog, because I was about to say the exact same thing.¡±

    Alex watched her stride away and disappear in the crowd.

    After a moment, Misha said, ¡°I like that,¡± with a laugh, snapping Alex back to attention.

    Alex¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°Hannah?¡±

    Misha¡¯s face looked like someone had thrown shit at him. ¡°Fuck, no! You. That shit-eating grin on your damn face. Been a while since I¡¯ve seen it.¡±

    He felt his face drop in surprise. Alex hadn¡¯t known how much seeing the two of them squabble would cheer him up. Wasn¡¯t even sure why it did. Maybe after so many arguments with real venom¡ªwell, no, that wasn¡¯t it. There was real venom there, just no lethal consequences.

    ¡°You all deserve each other,¡± Misha continued, lighting a cigarette.

    Alex reached to touch Hannah without thinking, to ground himself, and only felt stone and tugging Story. The sun was fading behind the dome of the basilica. ¡°Tell me something about Reeve when he was a kid.¡±

    Misha sobered, hesitating. ¡°Not really my place.¡±

    Alex cocked an eyebrow. ¡°What have you done with Misha?¡± he asked, deadpan.

    Misha smiled around his cigarette. ¡°What do you want to know?¡±

    ¡°Anything.¡±

    ¡°He was a prick.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I think you covered that.¡±

    Misha shrugged.

    ¡°Forget it.¡±

    ¡°You know you¡¯re a psychometrist, right?¡±

    Alex let out an involuntary bark. His chest silently heaved with laughter as he could feel his edges blending with the Story of the stone around him, the euphoric moments of overwhelming faith, joy, and old pain.

    ¡°I just mean, what the fuck do you need me for?¡±

    ¡°Reeve¡¯s a control freak. He takes it out of my head.¡±

    Misha puffed on that, quietly. Then, ¡°What a fucking asshole.¡±

    The sky was darkening quickly and Alex watched as the tourists slowly filtered out and folks bent under packs filtered in to find nooks and crannies by the walls to settle in for the night. He remembered the streaks of bad luck when he and Rick wouldn¡¯t have a place to crash and they¡¯d piled cardboard sheets on top of each other to cushion the concrete. Maybe life wasn¡¯t so much one long line, but a series of circles. More like a spiral, looping back on itself but still moving forward, because he wasn¡¯t back at square one. He wasn¡¯t the same kid.

    Misha waved in their general direction, interrupting his thoughts. ¡°The Pope decreed the cops can¡¯t hassle us at night, so it¡¯s a safe place to sleep.¡±

    Alex''s mind wandered and he tried to ignore the sick feeling in his chest.

    "I know the twins are together, but do people who travel in the Church have relationships?"

    "Sure," Misha replied, quick and matter-of-fact.

    When he offered nothing else, Alex asked, "Do you?"

    Misha regarded the burning end of his cigarette. "Yes. We travel together a couple months a year and other than that, we do our own thing."

    "That''s so little time." If Alex was ever going to be with someone, he didn''t think he''d want it to be short bursts like that.

    "There are people who travel together full time. This is just what works for us. More time than that?" He shrugged and flicked some ash. "He struggles with some Catholic guilt. And I struggle to have patience for his Catholic guilt.¡±

    ¡°But aren¡¯t you Catholic too?¡±

    He gave Alex a heavy-lidded, unimpressed look. ¡°You¡¯ve identified the problem.¡±

    Alex gave an empathetic grimace. ¡°What¡¯s his name?¡±

    ¡°Noah.¡± He said it flatly but it still nearly made Alex cough. That Noah? The one who connected us with you? Before he could make his mouth to work, Misha sat up. ¡°Ah, here she comes.¡±

    He spotted Hannah walking through the thinning crowd with her hands full of small paper bowls. Alex wanted to ask more but the fact that Misha had answered him so plainly felt like an olive branch of connection he wouldn¡¯t have extended if Hannah were there.

    Hannah handed a bowl to him and one to Misha.

    ¡°Oh my god, Hannah,¡± Alex said with a little wonder. She just sat and began to eat.

    ¡°Is it good?¡±

    She smiled at him.

    ¡°You two ever panhandle before?¡±

    Alex nodded, though he had really hoped he was done with all that.

    Hannah looked up. ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Well, you¡¯re going to have to. That was basically the last of my money.¡±

    Hannah laughed so hard she fell onto her side.

    ---

    SolCorp¡¯s Entropy-Controlled Kyiv Office.

    Anise loitered in the hallway by the training rooms. She hadn¡¯t run across Asher, her old classmate, since that first time they ran into each other and she wanted to know how he was doing.

    The hallways felt different now, since her Post-Breathe. Part of it was that there was a measure of comradery that hadn¡¯t been there before. Everyone there was working toward the same goal: a freer, reformed Sol with expanded rights for knacked people, and the fact that it was covert intensified that. There was a sense of, I know you know, and getting one over on the rest of the world that her little Saturn heart was uniquely built to appreciate.

    But part of it was her telepathy. The newly enhanced awareness was overwhelming and distracting at first, but over the course of the first week, with the help of Adler¡¯s training, the sea of thoughts shifted from pawing at her to being more like an extended sensory map that provided knowledge without her even being that conscious of gathering it. She imagined this was what it must be like to be a cat with long whiskers, or, perhaps more accurately, a shark, with its lateral line allowing it to understand all the information the endless ocean waters have to offer, and using it to track down its next meal.

    Finally, an older man came down the hall with a group of young teens and headed into one of the training rooms. She stuck her head inside. It smelled like vinyl mats, sweat, and cleaner.

    ¡°Excuse me,¡± she smiled. ¡°I¡¯m looking for one of your students. Asher?¡±

    The old man shook his head at her. ¡°I don¡¯t know any Asher. Are you sure he¡¯s part of the program?¡±

    She gave him a look. Anise leaned on her knack with all the finesse Adler taught her so he wouldn¡¯t feel her in his head. He really didn¡¯t know Asher. There was no trace of his face in his mind. Or in the minds of the kids.

    ¡°Sorry to bother you,¡± she said and stepped back out of the room.

    ¡°Hey,¡± came Nina¡¯s voice. ¡°Do you just not answer your phone?¡±

    Shit. Anise patted her pocket. ¡°Sorry, I left it in my quarters.¡± She¡¯d gotten used to not having one in the months before the Post-Breathe.

    Nina set her hands on her hips. ¡°Come on, you¡¯ve got an assignment.¡±

    Her heart raced and she cracked a smile. ¡°Then get walking.¡± On their way to the Saturn office, she still couldn¡¯t get Asher out of her head. ¡°I was looking for someone I went to Academy with,¡± she explained. ¡°I saw him here a while back, but no one seems to remember him.¡±

    Nina shrugged. ¡°You¡¯d have to ask Mark. We¡¯ve had some teachers cycle in and out.¡±

    It didn¡¯t feel quite right, but it was true that there was nothing she could do in that moment. Adler had gone off to wherever it was he went off to when he wasn¡¯t in Kyiv. She¡¯d sit on it. Once they¡¯d gotten to the office, Anise stood anxiously in front of Nina¡¯s desk.

    ¡°So what type of assignment?¡±

    ¡°A real one. Not as a messenger anymore. You pass field requirements now and Mark¡¯s trusting you with something important.¡±

    There was a swell in her chest. She was ready. ¡°What is it? Is it undercover?¡±

    ¡°Nope, not a long term thing. A simple assassination.¡±

    Anise frowned. She¡¯d never killed anyone. ¡°That sounds like a job for a Moon.¡±

    ¡°Not this. This needs to be clean and traceless without bringing in Cleanup. We want zero scrutiny after the fact.¡±

    She nodded. It was part of the gig sometimes, she understood. ¡°Who¡¯s the target?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll be sent a secure file when you get there.¡±

    She felt the worry show on her face and locked it down. ¡°Where am I going?¡± she asked, lifting her chin.

    Nina kept her voice even. ¡°Manchester, England. Tonight.¡±

    There was no ignoring the fact that Sol had an office in Manchester, but Anise matched her tone without addressing it. ¡°I¡¯ll go pack.¡±

    Nina handed her an envelope. ¡°Here are your papers, flight, and hotel information. Don¡¯t bring your gun.¡±

    Hotel information meant she wasn¡¯t going to be staying in company housing. She nodded, took the envelope, and headed to her room in a nauseous, cold sweat. She was ready, she told herself.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 40

    Manchester, England.

    Anise¡¯s redeye flight was uneventful. She found she sort of liked flying, or rather that she liked airports. The tiny, cheesy shops, high ceilings with ornate light fixtures, and endless choices of heavy food in portions that made no sense right before loading into a cabin where you couldn¡¯t move for hours. There was no better place to people-watch than in an airport. Packed tightly into terminals, anxious, and overtired, no one seemed to care who was listening, and her telepathy gave her an extra layer of insight. Layovers were never boring. She studied the women, archiving their walks, unique nervous tics, the way they held themselves as they sat in chairs, and their patterns of speech into her memory to pull from later when she might need them.

    For now, she was Elizabeth Halloway. (She decided she liked Beth more than Liz.) Studying abroad, Beth was flying to the UK to meet up with a man she¡¯d met online for the weekend. She¡¯d be stood up, of course, and be properly heartbroken.

    The taxi ride to her hotel in downtown Manchester was less than pleasant. The condition of the streets varied greatly from perfectly acceptable to keep-a-hand-on-the-ceiling rocky, and graffiti seemed to be a real issue in some areas. After she¡¯d checked in at her hotel by North Bay, having made small talk to the receptionist about her plans, Anise pulled out her laptop, sat on the crisply made bed, and checked into her secure Saturn dashboard.

    As promised, a file was waiting for her and she rushed to open it, then felt the blood freeze in her veins.

    The name listed as the target was Ace del Sol. It wasn¡¯t someone she knew, but taking out a fellow Sol agent wasn¡¯t anything she had considered for herself growing up. She also knew that the breadth of Saturn¡¯s overview wasn¡¯t something she could name a hard limit on. It was possible this was normal.

    She read on. He was known to visit the Cardishead Chippy whenever traveling to the Manchester office and his flight had landed just a couple hours before hers. There was a photo that appeared to be taken from a company ID and nothing else.

    With shaking hands, she grabbed her phone, brought up Adler¡¯s number, then hesitated. What was she going to say? ¡°I won¡¯t do this?¡± What made her think she could bother someone like him with her objections to her first assignment after he¡¯d spent so much time helping her get into the field.

    Instead, she called Nina.

    ¡°Hey, make it there okay?¡±

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Anise said, then went tongue-tied.

    ¡°You¡¯ve read your assignment,¡± she said gravely.

    ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°Anise,¡± she sighed. ¡°What was unclear?¡±

    ¡°I guess, I guess I just needed confirmation.¡°

    ¡°And if I hadn¡¯t picked up? You carry out your orders. It¡¯s important to make sure it can¡¯t be linked to you and obviously it needs to be off Sol grounds.¡±

    Anise swallowed bile. ¡°Understood.¡±

    ¡°Are you going to ask me why him?¡±

    Of course she wanted to ask why. She wanted to yell it. Her voice shook but she managed to get out, ¡°That¡¯s not part of the job.¡±

    ¡°Listen,¡± she said, voice softening, ¡°you never get to choose and you don¡¯t have to understand. The goal of the Reformation is to have as little disruption as possible, so that if we do it right, everyone else won¡¯t even notice and it will be a natural shift in ideology. In order to do that, certain obstacles need to be removed.¡±

    ¡°I understand.¡± Worse things had been done by knacked people and humans to justify obtaining a greater peace. All the hits Sol assigned to their Moons, the private military contracts they committed their Mars people to, and the assassinations Saturn agents carried out were all done for a greater good. She didn¡¯t have the bigger picture to see all the pieces on the board¡ªyet. He¡¯d said she would, if she stuck with him. ¡°Should I call you when it¡¯s done?¡±

    ¡°Only call me if there¡¯s a problem.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll see you soon.¡± She hung up.

    Anise felt a creeping numbness in her hands and feet and she breathed deep to quell the anxiety. Still there was a wordless pull deep in her foundation that was telling her to move. Who was she to argue? This is what she had worked for, wasn¡¯t it? She had a job to do.

    Her return flight was that night, so she had only that day to get it done. Showering and putting on something cute, but not too cute, she plastered on a smile and had the front desk get her a cab to Cardishead, a southwestern neighborhood of Manchester that housed several industrial buildings, including Sol Pharmaceuticals. There was a small public park entrance less than half a block from the restaurant, so she stood by the big blue sign, eyes down at her phone, waiting for her date. It was a hazy day with little sunshine and a nip in the air made her shiver as she considered her options. She¡¯d never used it but she knew unleashing her telepathy could disrupt a brain enough to kill, except Sol would know what that looked like. While she thought, she plucked her image from anyone who began to notice her too much or wonder why she was still there. It was easy now to simply remove herself from their minds, as though she didn¡¯t exist. She was doing so for the fifth time as the day stretched on into the afternoon, and she thought of Asher and the teacher who¡¯d never heard of him.

    She had to put that on pause as a group of three got out of a car in front of the place. Ace was there, which meant that the other two were likely Sol agents too.

    The tingling sick feeling at the base of her spine surged and her stomach flipped. She had nothing on her but her purse, but she supposed that if something went wrong, she wasn¡¯t meant to survive. That was the job too. She gave them five minutes, then went into the little fish and chips shop and got a table for two. She was meeting a boy there, after all.

    Keeping her telepathic profile low, she listened while awkwardly staring at the menu. It wasn¡¯t hard to pull off seeming anxious. She filtered through the information she could get just by being near them, without actually penetrating their barriers. They were Neptune agents and, in a stroke of luck, none of them were telepaths. They were in Retrieval, the branch of Neptune that saw combat, which meant they didn¡¯t go anywhere unarmed.

    Her foot began to bounce and she forced it still, not allowing herself to look at them anymore. She didn¡¯t need to. She could hear and feel them enough to know they were still there. As she began to steel herself to do what she had to do, a small voice fought its way to the surface of her mind.

    She wasn¡¯t in Kyiv anymore, isolated and far afield. What would happen if she approached them? the voice asked. If she told them everything? Begged asylum and protection? Probably they¡¯d see her home to LA safely, where she¡¯d be put through Reintegration. All she had to do was go sit at their table and say, ¡®Please, I need help. I¡¯m trapped.¡¯ Or even just think it to them. She could narrow it down to one sentence: Help, Entropy has taken over Kyiv. That would set everything irrevocably in action.

    ¡°Did you seriously bring your own silverware?¡± she heard one agent burst out laughing, snapping her out of her thoughts.

    ¡°You would too,¡± Ace joked back, good-natured.

    ¡°Psychometrists,¡± the third agent scoffed, shaking her head.

    Unsettled, she tried to find that tiny voice again, to think things through, but it was like trying to speak with laryngitis. You can push but nothing comes out.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    This was the job. She¡¯d never know whether the people she¡¯d be ordered to take out in her career really deserved it. Del Sols or not. Maybe she was naive to think Neptune was the only mechanism with which Sol disposed of threats. A chill ran through her and a thought blotted out everything else. This is the job. They¡¯re expecting me to be good at it. He is.

    Taking a breath, she drove into Ace¡¯s head and took control fast enough to subdue his shock. She was strong enough to do that now. She dredged up his darkest pains, his most agonizing thoughts and memories, pushing them forward.

    ¡°Are you okay?¡± one agent asked. ¡°Hey.¡±

    Anise glanced over, a reasonable response for a bystander.

    Ace was crying, his expression suddenly drawn and his mood turned black.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Anise snapped through Ace¡¯s mouth, though the sobbing was twisting his voice. ¡°I just need a minute.¡± He stood up hard enough to nearly knock his chair over. She didn¡¯t have quite the finesse she needed puppeting like this, and Ace was fighting her. He was trained to defend against telepaths¡ªall Neptune agents were. She needed more practice on people besides civilians around town, who had no defenses at all. She turned Ace around and walked him into the bathroom at the back of the place. Anise felt cold. She planted her instructions as deep as they could go and got out of his head.

    ¡°What the hell was that?¡± one agent asked.

    ¡°You¡¯re the one who¡¯s met him before.¡±

    Anise struggled to keep her breath even while she stared blindly at the table surface, waiting for his mind to wink out, like flipping off a lightswitch.

    The gunshot set off a chaos of screams and scrambling from the other patrons just as it sent the Neptune agents to their feet. In an instant they had their guns out and were rushing to the back of the shop. They wouldn¡¯t find any threats back there.

    Shaking, she sat stock still as if she¡¯d woken up. Ace¡¯s mind was gone from her awareness, an expected side effect of a bullet passing through it. Had she actually done it?

    A hand grabbed her arm and she lashed out with her mind, scanning him. He was another Saturn agent¡ªone who knew what she had been there to do.

    Rocked back on his heels, the man in his forties, Brian, kept hold of her arm. ¡°Time to go.¡±

    Confused, she let him lead her out of the restaurant and past the clusters of patrons on the sidewalk talking in hushed tones. When they were about a block away she found her voice again and pulled them to a stop.

    ¡°What the fuck are you doing?¡±

    ¡°Getting you out of here.¡± He pressed a button on his keys and the car beside them lit up.

    Glaring, she got in and they sped off.

    ¡°They sent someone to watch me?¡± she asked, not bothering to hide the weight of her offense.

    ¡°Don¡¯t take it so bloody personally,¡± he said, checking his mirrors. ¡°Every Saturn agent is shadowed on their first real mission. There are no dress rehearsals and not everyone can do it their first time¡ªand fuck, they gave you one helluva first assignment. Does someone hate you or something?¡±

    She turned her eyes to the road and fumed.

    ¡°I¡¯m just joking,¡± he continued. ¡°We¡¯re all doing our part. I¡¯ll tell them you did well. I won¡¯t tell them you were thinking about trying to get asylum, but that doesn¡¯t mean they won¡¯t know, so just be prepared.¡±

    She snapped her head back to him. ¡°You¡¯re not a telepath. Why the fuck do you think you know anything about my mind?¡± She was trying to not sound too defensive, but it wasn¡¯t working.

    ¡°You had the look.¡± Brian replied simply. ¡°We all know that look. We¡¯ve all had that look at one point or another. It¡¯s okay. They¡¯ll have expected you to think it.¡±

    She sat, speechless. She began to recognize things and suddenly, too fast it seemed, he had pulled over to the side of the road in front of her hotel.

    ¡°You can¡¯t, you know,¡± he told her. ¡°Even if there weren¡¯t enough of our people to come for you inside the building, now there¡¯s no going back. What you did there, which was clever by the way, ended all that. There¡¯s no asylum after that. Give my love to Kyiv.¡±

    She got out of the car and bent at the waist to look back at him. ¡°You¡¯ll have to forgive me if I don¡¯t.¡±

    Without looking back she marched inside, rushing past the desk and up the stairs to her room to go be sick. After her belly had been emptied out, Anise stood in the shower. Had she really done that? Had that really happened?

    She realized with a jolt that she couldn¡¯t remember the color of the car that had brought her back to the hotel or even form a clear image of Brian¡¯s face.

    He¡¯d been right, though. She¡¯d sat there, alone as far as she knew, nothing keeping her from going up to them and asking for help. Certainly no one there to coerce her to do what she did. No immediate threat to her safety. And she¡¯d carried out her mission anyway. There would be no forgiveness after that. There was no explanation she could give.

    Her cell phone was ringing when she walked out into her room, wrapped in a white hotel towel. It was Adler.

    She swallowed and picked up. ¡°Sir?¡± Her mouth still tasted bitter.

    ¡°I got an alert that some agents just called in a suicide in Manchester.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s with this meek attitude all of a sudden?¡±

    Hearing his voice, a conversation drifted back to her that they¡¯d had just after her Post-Breathe about how few psychometrists there were. ¡®They''re rare because that''s how we wanted it. It was the only way this would work,¡¯ he¡¯d said. She realized it was very possible that the only thing Ace had done wrong was have a knack that put their plan at risk of being discovered.

    ¡°Anise.¡± His voice was loud and annoyed in her ear.

    ¡°Sorry.¡± She sat to keep from getting too dizzy.

    She heard him heave a frustrated sigh. ¡°Come home.¡±

    ¡°Okay. Sorry.¡±

    She packed her bag and checked her flight information. What else could she do?

    ---

    Sanctuary. Prague, Czech Republic.

    The phone was dead. Gareth checked it when he woke up, but the screen stayed black. He messed with the buttons, took the battery out and replaced it, and resorted to smacking it. He called Reeve in and watched Reeve do all the same things. The fall had killed it.

    Gareth scratched at his head. He needed to shave. ¡°That was our only way to find Hannah and Alex.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡±

    ¡°Well, now what?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, we¡¯ll figure it out.¡± His voice didn¡¯t sound fine. Gareth knew that going without sleep for this long did a number on his ability to lie.

    ¡°You got anything else to keep me from panicking? We¡¯re two small groups of people laying low across the globe and we have no way to reach out to each other without getting killed.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. We¡¯ve got over two weeks to make a plan?¡± Reeve threw up his hands. ¡°If nothing else Misha is enough of an asshole that he shouldn¡¯t be impossible to track down within the Church. He leaves an impression.¡±

    ¡°What about calling Noah?¡±

    ¡°Sure, if he¡¯s still got the same number he might be able to relay us, but mostly he called me because he switched phones so often. Anyway, we¡¯ll need a phone first. We should pack up.¡±

    They were on the road a few hours later. Thomas had hugged them all and called them ¡°brother.¡± He was leaving soon too, heading back west. Gareth half wanted them to go with him, but there was no sense getting the guy killed. They stole a car the old fashioned way and Reeve started driving.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t want to ask in front of Thomas, just in case,¡± Alyosha called from the backseat, ¡°but do we know where we¡¯re going?¡±

    ¡°I know where I think we ought to go, but I want your input.¡±

    ¡°Nice of you,¡± Gareth quipped.

    ¡°We need to lay low and I can¡¯t use my telepathy, so would you be okay with hunkering down with one of my contacts?¡±

    ¡°Fuck yes,¡± Gareth burst out. ¡°No searching for Sanctuaries and looking for goddamn monsters?¡±

    ¡°It will keep us out of the loop if Misha tries to get hold of us through the Church.¡±

    ¡°So would being dead,¡± Alyosha added.

    ¡°I¡¯m much more into this acting like agents thing, instead of wandering the streets like these fanatics,¡± Gareth said. At least that was familiar. He knew more of the steps and he could fathom what was coming when things went wrong. ¡°Is there a reason why we didn¡¯t just go straight there in the first place?¡±

    ¡°Well it¡¯s a long-ass drive and I sort of thought it might be the direction Misha would be taking them, since it¡¯s closer to his home.¡±

    Gareth nodded. ¡°That makes it an even better idea, now. So it¡¯s east?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to like where. It¡¯s in Ukraine.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I don¡¯t like that.¡±

    ¡°A little over an hour outside of Kyiv.¡±

    ¡°Kyiv as in Sol¡¯s Kyiv Office?¡±

    Reeve didn¡¯t respond.

    ¡°Are you crazy?¡± Gareth shook his head.

    ¡°The man I placed there was in no danger of setting off alarm bells. It¡¯s remote. Remote enough that we wouldn¡¯t be on their radar, either, and at least Shvedov can speak the language.¡±

    No one spoke. Gareth turned around to look at Alyosha, who had his eyebrows halfway up his forehead, but he couldn¡¯t read his eyes. He slowly realized he¡¯d been looking for Hannah. He turned back around.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m all for getting distance from this shit. What do you think, Alyosha?¡±

    ¡°Eh,¡± Alyosha stalled. ¡°It¡¯s no worse than being on the streets and living with people who interact with the families. And I like the idea of no hunting.¡±

    Gareth nodded. ¡°Okay. That¡¯s a consensus.¡±

    ¡°Okay,¡± Reeve said with a reluctant sigh.

    ¡°What?¡± Gareth said a little loudly. ¡°What else?¡±

    ¡°This guy¡¯s a true civilian. Worked maintenance, solid single dad. Sol took his knacked daughter when she was small. For whatever reason, he was another one who was resistant to brain wipes. They kept trying to erase her from his mind, but it wouldn¡¯t stick.¡±

    ¡°And we were their solution.¡±

    ¡°Thing is, I lost contact with this guy over six months ago.¡±

    ¡°What does that mean?¡±

    ¡°It means he¡¯s not answering my calls. Which could be a lot of things. He could have lost his phone, which we¡¯re finding happens. He could have moved or he could just be sick of hearing from me.¡±

    Gareth could see that happening, but he resisted making the joke. ¡°Or?¡±

    ¡°Or Sol may have found him.¡±

    ¡°Jesus Christ.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s what happened. If they had, Sol would have picked me up months earlier.¡±

    ¡°That is actually a valid argument,¡± Alyosha said. He leaned up to be heard and grimaced. Gareth knew his back couldn¡¯t be feeling too great right about now. ¡°Are we doing this?¡± Alyosha asked. No one answered, so Reeve kept driving.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 41

    SolCorp¡¯s Entropy-Controlled Kyiv Office.

    Anise had gotten very little sleep on the plane ride home and she just wanted to crawl into bed, but she did her best to hold her head high and made her way to Adler¡¯s suite after dumping her bags. As strange as she felt, there was a certain satisfaction as she strode down his hall and knocked on Adler¡¯s door that came from being someone, especially someone of her age and low rank, who could confidently go to the head of Kyiv Mercury branch¡¯s apartment unannounced.

    She was used to him looking more pleased with her than he was when he answered his door, and it made her walk slower, seeing it.

    ¡°I hear you did well,¡± he said.

    She bit her lip. ¡°I didn¡¯t run into any problems. You¡¯ll see everything in the report.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no report on this. I¡¯m proud of you for getting it done on your own.¡±

    ¡°I¡­¡± Anise lost her nerve to speak at all and dropped her eyes to her shoes.

    ¡°Anise.¡±

    She looked up. Adler gave her an appraising look and the pressure of his mind flooded through her head. She felt as though every fear, regret, and hesitation, every moment on the plane she thought back to the feeling of Ace''s light going out, were being inspected and judged.

    Anise braced herself for his disapproval, lecture, or worse, but a sense of peace took root in her instead. Because of her, they¡¯d be able to continue their agenda in the UK office so no one else had to get hurt. She felt like she was floating and closed her eyes, the pit in her stomach fading. The fear was gone, blotted out. Vanished. The echo of the gunshot in her head was just noise now, a testament to her ability. It was okay if she didn¡¯t love every moment or understand every order. That was the job. And she was exceedingly good at it.

    Adler dropped his hand on the top of her head and she opened her eyes, feeling slightly punch-drunk from it all. He leaned down to look her in the eye. ¡°Nothing in the world can stop you now.¡±

    She believed him, all tension gone from her body and mind. ¡°Yes, sir,¡± she said in her most condescending tone. It felt like a risk but it made him smile.

    Adler held the door open for her. ¡°Come in,¡± he said, voice warming. ¡°I want you to meet someone.¡±

    She raised her eyebrows at him and followed him through the small foyer and into the sitting room where a man was standing, giving her the same confused look. He was in his late thirties, tall and well-built, with short, brown, pin-straight hair, and had slight bags under his eyes. He wore a plain, bordering on boring, grey suit. His jacket had been thrown onto an armchair, his shirt sleeves partly rolled up. Something about his serious face looked strangely familiar.

    ¡°Anise,¡± he said, gesturing, ¡°this is Penn Harris. Penn, Anise del Sol.¡±

    Anise¡¯s muscles tensed up. Penn Harris was Neptune¡¯s Fifth¡ªhead of Cleanup for the entirety of Sol. And she had just killed a Sol agent. A Neptune agent. Was he here for her? But Adler had said she¡¯d done well, so, summoning her training to appear collected no matter what, she extended a hand. ¡°It¡¯s good to meet you, sir.¡±

    Mr. Harris flashed Adler an odd look. ¡°It¡¯s good to meet you too.¡± His voice was sincere despite whatever look he¡¯d shot to him. This wasn¡¯t about her.

    Anise felt a gentle nudge of Mr. Harris¡¯ telepathy in greeting. It was electric and sharp, like a rope bearing a heavy load. He¡¯d had it wound up so tightly in his head that she hadn¡¯t recognized he was a telepath. It was so different from the loose presence that flowed out around Adler like a moat. Anise returned the greeting to Mr. Harris. She was self-conscious of how it must feel compared to Adler¡¯s telepathy, but she held her chin high. Her telepathy score had improved dramatically since her Post Breathe. That was nothing to be ashamed of.

    ¡°How do you like Kyiv?¡± Mr. Harris asked her, taking a seat. Taking that as a cue, she followed suit, sitting on Adler¡¯s couch, trusting that he¡¯d let her know if that wasn¡¯t appropriate.

    ¡°It¡¯s very different from LAHQ but I love the freedom I have here.¡± Anise allowed herself a moment of awe for how quickly her life had gone from dreading a future of unexceptional tedium at a desk to sitting here socializing with some of the most powerful people in SolCorp, being spoken to not as a child, but almost an equal. She felt a hundred feet tall.

    Adler poured himself a glass of water. ¡°Penn¡¯s invested in our Pilot Program, its mission, and how it will affect Cleanup.¡±

    Anise scrunched up her brow and turned to the Neptune agent. ¡°How would it affect Cleanup?¡±

    She caught a quick, subtle flash of his eyes in Adler¡¯s direction that made her think this wasn¡¯t public information and he was checking to see if she could be trusted. Whatever signal he got must have been positive, because he cleared his throat and answered her.

    ¡°The ultimate goal is for a more seamless integration of knacked people into the rest of the world, in order to reduce the number of exposures as people become used to living with humans.¡±

    ¡°I would think integration would lead to more exposure.¡±

    ¡°Not the way we¡¯re doing it,¡± Adler replied.

    Mr. Harris scowled at him. ¡°And if it does, I¡¯m going to be pretty pissed off. That¡¯s not the deal.¡±

    She chuckled politely.

    ¡°You see, Anise,¡± Adler said, sitting down on the arm of the couch near her, ¡°Penn had it in his head to set some pretty hard-nosed parameters in order to come on board with us years back. Bless.¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± She cocked her head at Adler as her mind raced. Secrecy was the core of Sol¡¯s original mission and the reason Neptune¡¯s Cleanup division existed¡ªwhy had the head of it agreed to their shared goal when it would chip away at that secrecy?

    Mr. Harris cleared his throat again and regarded her. ¡°You¡¯ve been mentoring under Mark here?¡±

    It wasn¡¯t exactly the neatest way to change a very interesting subject but she turned her attention to him nonetheless. ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°But you¡¯re in the Post Breathe program?¡± He gave Adler a strange look.

    ¡°Not that kind of Post Breathe,¡± Adler replied. Before she could open her mouth to speak, the wave of telepathy swept through her, taking that snippet of their conversation from her memory.

    Anise stared mutely into the uncomfortable gap before it was filled with a sense of welcome. She glanced down in silence, waiting for someone else to speak. As she did, Anise noticed there was a tattoo peeking out from the cuff on one of Mr. Harris¡¯ forearms. Tattoos weren¡¯t common outside of Mars, as you had to get special dispensation. Especially in Neptune.

    Adler must have caught her staring. ¡°Penn used to be a member of the Children of God.¡±

    Anise blushed, kicking herself for being sloppy. It had been a long day. ¡°Really?¡± She cocked her head at Adler, then blinked and shook herself at a passing moment of deja vu.

    Mr. Harris¡¯ forehead creased as he lifted his sleeve, slightly showing off a portrait of a weeping Virgin Mary. ¡°Just for a few years. They found me first, before Sol, when my knack showed up.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s it like?¡±

    He tugged his sleeve down. ¡°I don¡¯t recommend it.¡±

    Something about his tone made her remember who he was and who she was. ¡°I should let you talk.¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Adler agreed, but with warmth, so she knew he hadn¡¯t been annoyed at her showing up.

    ¡°It was an honor to meet you,¡± she said, smiling at Mr. Harris as she turned to go.

    ¡°Any friend of Mark¡¯s¡­¡± he called after her.

    Adler walked her out.

    Once in the hall, he gave her a heartfelt one-armed hug. ¡°You¡¯re going to own Saturn one day.¡±

    Anise smiled too and let herself into her quarters, feeling light and a little dizzy.

    There was a vague memory that she had felt sick on her way back. She wrote it off as the airport food. Anise had the best sleep of her life that night.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    ---

    Alone in Marcus Adler¡¯s apartment, Penn checked his phone for messages. A few updates had been sent to him regarding two minor Cleanup calls and one knack misfire that looked like it was toeing the line for whether or not he¡¯d be needed there on the ground, but he wanted to give the team a chance to handle it on their own first. He slipped his phone back into his pocket as Adler came back in from seeing the young woman off.

    ¡°You trust her?¡± Penn asked. He¡¯d have preferred a heads up before meeting someone who¡¯d be that surprised to see him there.

    ¡°I do.¡± Adler sat back down. ¡°I¡¯m planning on bringing her to Paris with me on my next trip.¡±

    ¡°You think she¡¯s going to help you crack Saturn?¡± For as much covert work as they were undertaking, they¡¯d hit a wall when it came to recruiting anyone out of LAHQ¡¯s Saturn branch.

    ¡°Yes. Now, I don¡¯t remember¡ªwhat were we talking about?¡±

    Penn cleared his throat. ¡°You were about to explain to me why I shouldn¡¯t be concerned about the overall increase in Phagi-related callouts.¡±

    ¡°Right. Did you answer my question as to why you thought there wouldn¡¯t be?¡±

    Penn cocked his head. ¡°Because that¡¯s the whole damn point.¡±

    ¡°Well, yes, but what motivation would Sol have to adjust their stance on the Elders if they were suddenly less of a problem? What would push them towards helping if the pressure eases?¡±

    ¡°Are you actively making things worse to force Sol to realize they need to act?¡±

    ¡°No, but don¡¯t think for a second that I won¡¯t, if it comes to it.¡± Adler¡¯s phone buzzed. ¡°Excuse me,¡± he said, looking down at it. ¡°It¡¯s Gideon. I have to take this.¡±

    Penn nodded to him and Adler stepped into what Penn assumed was his bedroom. Sitting, he did the math to figure out how many years it had been since his first meeting with Adler. Four? Five years? It wasn¡¯t a thing he¡¯d ever felt at ease about, but it felt better than doing nothing.

    Penn could still remember the gut-twisting lurch of landing in Paris to meet Adler for the first time. He recalled the disorienting shock of finding himself in a bathroom after Gage teleported them. ¡°He wanted to give you a second to recover,¡± Gage had told him. ¡°Come out when you¡¯re ready.¡±

    Gage had been a surprise. Well and truly. Penn became close friends with the teleporter not long after he transferred in from Kyiv. He was effective, funny, and shared a lot of Penn¡¯s views on the future of Cleanup¡ªhow it was on a losing trajectory, how Sol¡¯s isolationism ignored the hard and true fact that the Phagi, the Church, and Entropy had real effects on the world they all lived in. On reflection, he realized it was Gage who had first brought up the point that, by choosing not to step in to do something about the Phagi, especially with all the technologies Sol was capable of, SolCorp was allowing humans to be slaughtered in numbers that were entirely unnecessary.

    Penn had tried, again and again, year after year, to make Mercury and Neptune (back before Rich had retired) understand that Sol needed to do something to address the Phagi, but he was shot down every time. After a particularly spectacular failure of a conversation with Mercury and Rich, Penn had been ready to throw in the towel and start asking for forgiveness instead of permission; Gage had been there to listen. That was the night Gage confided in him that there were a lot more people that shared his views than he realized, people who were already acting to find a way forward. That he¡¯d actually grown up in Entropy. He¡¯d had his mind worked on by a powerful telepath, his childhood friend, in order to pass SolCorp¡¯s rigorous security. The same telepath who was currently in the other room, fielding a call from the head of Entropy as Penn reflected on the past.

    Gage¡¯s was a sad story. His mother had been turned when he was a small child. Entropy had taken them both in to keep them safe; her from the Church, and Gage from her. It was a way for Gage to stay with her, even through her beast night. All he wanted was a way to help his mom. Sol had the capability to do so, if they¡¯d only take the step. He¡¯d told Penn that Marcus Adler wanted to meet with him to talk. At the end of his rope, Penn had agreed.

    Penn recalled Adler¡¯s telepathy looming like a deep base note in Paris. He hadn¡¯t let himself ask all the questions that were pressing on the backs of his eyes. The whys, the hows. This was where he was, so he took the leap.

    The bathroom opened up into a stately office with a dark wooden desk designed to impress. There were bookshelves of darker wood covered in a scattering of books and curios. A window looked out over the city. Gage had taken up a post by the door and was watching him without expression.

    The man who sat at the desk appeared as he¡¯d expected, but photos didn¡¯t capture the way in which he could look at you. There was a menace there, beyond the surface, like a mousetrap waiting to spring.

    The man had stood and regarded him with a level of formality and respect that had taken Penn aback.

    ¡°Mr. Harris.¡±

    Penn remembered nodding to him. ¡°Mr. Adler.¡±

    He¡¯d gestured for Penn to sit. ¡°Thank you, Gage.¡± The teleporter stepped out and closed the door.

    They both sat and Penn looked at him, suddenly blank of all the things he¡¯d considered saying.

    Marcus Adler got an amused twist to his face. ¡°I¡¯m surprised you didn¡¯t take up my offer to meet in a public place.¡±

    ¡°I have enough of an idea of who you are to know that meeting in a public place wouldn¡¯t change anything.¡° Penn glanced around, struggling to think. ¡°How do you expect this conversation to go?¡±

    He cocked his head at that. ¡°How do you expect this conversation to go? That¡¯s the real question. You wouldn¡¯t have come here, blind and without backup, if you didn¡¯t already know where you stood.¡±

    Penn wasn¡¯t interested in being forced to give up ground. ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± he answered honestly. ¡°I don¡¯t know you. Truthfully, Sol doesn¡¯t know you. What we have comes in the form of boogeyman ghost stories. What I know, I know from cleaning sites with Entropy agents who weren¡¯t quite dead yet and scanning their heads.¡±

    The subject hadn¡¯t seemed to bother him. ¡°That¡¯s the issue, isn¡¯t it? You have no idea what we do here, so how can you decide we¡¯re enemies? Most Sol agents would have expected to be teleported into a damp dungeon or some cave where we all live in our own filth.¡±

    Penn had to give him that. There was a measure of surprise at how beautiful the room was and how many minds filled the building with perfectly peaceful and banal thoughts in their heads.

    ¡°You¡¯re saying Entropy doesn''t have enmity for SolCorp?¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t have to. Gage told you a little about us, that we¡¯re already using Sol labs to work on our pet projects?¡±

    ¡°A cure.¡±

    ¡°A cure for the affliction, not the state of being. There¡¯s nothing wrong with Elders at their core, except that which robs them of free will.¡±

    ¡°Nothing wrong with them?¡± Penn schooled his face. ¡°Mr. Adler, you know my history. You¡¯re aware of what I do for a living. You know the bodies I¡¯ve seen.¡±

    ¡°I do. But you cannot fault a person for taking what they need to survive. Their only option is to eat or wait until they have no control and eat anyway. These are the facts that Entropy has been managing since before you or I were born. Before Sol existed.¡±

    ¡°And how is that going?¡±

    ¡°We have facilities across the globe where Elders can come to get portioned-out meals and be confined during their third night for others¡¯ protection. Our cure, as you call it, also involves lab grown food for them. We¡¯re taking every avenue we have at our disposal.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯re going to get anyone in Sol to agree that they aren¡¯t monsters.¡±

    ¡°Then they can go ahead and have one of their animal-talkers ask a cow how it feels about us and our dinner. We¡¯re all killers when it comes to our survival, and worse monsters when it comes to our comfort.¡±

    ¡°Still.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve already convinced them, or started to. You must have assumed by now that Gage is far from the only person in Sol sympathizing with us.¡±

    ¡°Gage was raised in Entropy.¡±

    ¡°We have plenty of del Sol¡¯s on board with our vision.¡±

    ¡°So what¡¯s your end goal? Install or convert enough people to bring the building down and institute a take over?¡±

    ¡°No. You¡¯ve gone back to the filthy cave perception. We want to join Sol, or rather join a Sol with a slightly altered vision. If all goes to plan, nine-ninety-percent of SolCorp will never even know that anything has happened¡ªonly that there¡¯s been a subtle ideological shift, followed by a Venus breakthrough to help the poor, primitive Phagi become more peaceful members of society.¡±

    ¡°And Entropy would, what? Disappear?¡±

    ¡°Yes. This isn¡¯t about winning or ego. It¡¯s about reality. You, of all people, must know you¡¯re losing the information war. It¡¯s admirable that you haven¡¯t lost already.¡±

    ¡°I can agree that it¡¯s unsustainable. But hasn¡¯t Entropy¡¯s view always been that you¡¯d rather break it wide open? Get us all killed?¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s be honest here. There isn¡¯t a soldier in the world who could kill you or me.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t telepath a bomb into not going off.¡±

    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s true.¡± He tapped on the surface of his desk. ¡°Our corporate games office is twenty-five percent people like us and the rest are human, but they all know who they work for. Just because Sol hasn¡¯t done it, doesn¡¯t mean it can¡¯t be done.¡±

    ¡°How?¡±

    ¡°A simple combination of good pay, a little fear, and exposure. It¡¯s hard to be scared of a teleporter after you¡¯ve had lunch with them. They¡¯re disgustingly charming.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve noticed. That doesn¡¯t hold true for telepaths, I¡¯ve found.¡±

    Adler chuckled. ¡°No. We¡¯re not as easy to swallow, but humans have their own range of tolerable to less tolerable individuals, so why can¡¯t we?¡±

    Penn could still feel the cold ache that had gripped him when he realized what was being said. ¡°You don¡¯t think you can prevent a war.¡±

    ¡°Neither do you.¡± Adler had regarded him thoughtfully. ¡°You thought I could. You thought I could be your answer.¡±

    ¡°I want to prevent it.¡±

    ¡°Of course you do, Mr. Harris.¡± Adler had extended a hand, palm up, his voice nonjudgmental. ¡°That¡¯s what makes you, you.¡± He closed his fist. ¡°But some things are impossible. Whatever you may think of me and my methods, you should know that if we could prevent what¡¯s coming in any way at all, beyond any doubt, that is the course my superior, Mr. Gideon Wright, would insist upon.¡±

    ¡°But you can¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°No. Alone, Entropy as a whole won¡¯t survive it. And no amount of organizational trees will keep Sol alive either.¡± Penn recalled the panic that gripped him, having no way to predict what would happen as Adler stood and made his way around the large desk. ¡°Your politicians won¡¯t save you. Humans love a common enemy to unite around. It wins elections.¡± Before Penn could stand to greet him, Adler took a seat in the other chair in front of his desk. It struck him as a goodwill gesture. ¡°What I can promise you,¡± Adler went on, closer to Penn now, with nothing but air between them, ¡°is that together we can survive and protect our people. We¡¯re both what the other needs. Sol has the manpower, scientific advancements, and resources that we lack.¡±

    Penn had struggled to catch his breath. ¡°And what do you bring to the table?¡±

    ¡°Entropy has humans who will defend our right to exist, Elders who will fight for us, and a sustainable model of operation. But most importantly, we can see what¡¯s in front of us and we¡¯re willing to do something about it. Now. Without forming a committee or creating a five-year study and flashy line graphs. Your corporation is blind and, whether you realize that or not, it¡¯s by design. They don¡¯t want you to know who we are because if the del Sols ever understood their other options, they might not choose the hand that made them¡ªbut none of that will matter if we¡¯re all dead.¡±

    Penn¡¯s phone went off again, jarring him out of the memory. The knack misfire had gotten onto social media and his team was scrambling to track down witnesses. With a sigh, Penn stood.

    Adler walked back into the room. ¡°Sorry about that. It looks like I¡¯ll be heading to Paris sooner than anticipated. Are we good?¡±

    They shook hands. ¡°We¡¯re good. I have to run off to handle a Cleanup emergency anyway. It never ends.¡±

    ¡°It will, Mr. Harris.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 42

    Outside Kyiv, Ukraine.

    They were in the car for an ungodly amount of time, in Gareth¡¯s estimation. Enough for all of them to get their share of being sick of driving. They stopped to pick up supplies before crossing the border into Ukraine so that once Reeve got them through, he could lock up his telepathy, however he did that. Reeve hadn¡¯t been kidding when he said remote. They drove through miles of nothing but farmland, never-ending fields dense with tall grass and dotted sparsely by buildings. Very sparsely. It was a little like home in Beatty, he felt, after fifteen or so miles of nothing, but with way more wheat or whatever it all was.

    They missed their turn off the first time. The narrow road was crowded with untamed brush, and grass grew between the beaten down tire ruts. After a quarter mile, the trees opened up to grassy hills and at the bottom were more fields, long and stretching, with a farmhouse nestled on the edges.

    ¡°That¡¯s him?¡± Alyosha asked.

    ¡°That¡¯s it.¡±

    ¡°Have you ever been here?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    Gareth stretched. ¡°Well at least it¡¯s true that no one is going to have any fucking reason to be out here to randomly stumble across us.¡±

    They pulled to a stop next to a green truck with strips of rust along the side, and spilled out of the car as soon as it stopped, eager to get their legs moving again. The place was smaller than he expected, and beaten up. The boards on the squat house were weathered and he could see places where they needed replacing. The roof was old and looked heavy. More unkempt brush grew under the windows. From there, it was a short trek to a tall, blocky barn. It was in better shape than the house¨Cbut not by much.

    ¡°What is his name?¡± Alyosha was slower than the rest of them to get up and he was moving stiffly.

    ¡°Edward. He speaks passable Slavic from his father¡¯s side, but no Russian.¡± Reeve looked more on edge than normal, which, for someone with his caffeine addiction, wasn¡¯t comforting.

    Gareth looked out over the fields that went on and on like a sea. ¡°How much of this land is his?¡±

    Reeve quirked his mouth thinking. ¡°Something like fifteen, twenty acres.¡±

    Alyosha whistled and gave Gareth a look, which he wasn¡¯t sure what to do with. The guy had a spare house in Mexico. He shook his head at him, agreeing anyway. Gareth ran his tongue over his teeth, wishing again that the others were here. There was a gnawing wound in his stomach that ached when he thought about that, not knowing if they were okay. Knowing he was the reason they split up. He sniffed and loaded up his arms with their bags. ¡°Let¡¯s go see if this guy is home.¡±

    Reeve knocked at the door with increasing loudness before cautiously trying the doorknob.

    Gareth cocked his head at him and tried not to laugh. ¡°This whole no telepathy thing is really killing you, huh?¡±

    He gave a nervous laugh. ¡°It really is. I really just want to be able to know before we go in.¡±

    ¡°Sucks being mortal like the rest of us,¡± Gareth smiled.

    The door was unlocked and they walked into the kitchen. It was fairly dark inside, even with the shutters open. In the center was a thick, rough wooden table. Everything was covered in dust.

    ¡°He hasn¡¯t been here in a long time,¡± Gareth commented. He found a light switch sticking out of the wall surrounded by exposed wires, but nothing happened when he tried it.

    ¡°Let¡¯s sweep the house,¡± Reeve said, turning in place. ¡°At least it doesn¡¯t look like there was some huge struggle here.¡±

    There were dishes in the drainer that had been clean once, but were now filthy with dust. Canned food lined the cabinets and a green, moldering loaf of bread was collapsing in on itself inside the short non-functional fridge. There was no one in the house, but there were clothes in the closets.

    Gareth could tell before they¡¯d opened the barn doors. There was no mistaking that smell. Edward was hanging from one of the beams. The body had been there a while. Rats had been at him and there was a pile of something terrible on the dirt floor underneath him. Gareth pulled Reeve back and closed the barn door again. He took a breath and tried to work through the practicalities, because the wide-eyed look on Reeve¡¯s face made it seem like he wasn¡¯t going to be able to.

    ¡°Is there anyone who¡¯s going to be poking around looking for this guy if he falls off the grid? A landlord or something we need to worry about?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Reeve shook his head. ¡°I own it.¡±

    ¡°You own it.¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°How?¡±

    Reeve closed his eyes and shrugged, shaking his head. ¡°It¡¯s rural Ukraine. It was like five grand.¡± Reeve blew out a breath and leaned on the closed barn door. He dropped his head back and left it there. Not a lot of people ever saw it, but Reeve had an odd way of panicking. Gareth knew because he saw plenty of it when they first met and they were both fucked up in ways that didn¡¯t mesh well. He¡¯d go still, like a tree. Body almost limp, even his face relaxed. It was all beneath the surface and you could hear it in the uneven rhythm of his breathing; it would catch and pause at odd moments, then exhale in a quiet, staggered shudder.

    Gareth looked at him, the muscles in his lips and nose wrinkling, only partly from the smell in the air. ¡°Hey, man, you didn¡¯t do that.¡±

    Reeve laughed, and loudly.

    ¡°He¡¯s right,¡± Alyosha commented.

    ¡°Jesus, I¡¯m fine,¡± Reeve insisted, pushing himself off the barn.

    Gareth stifled a groan of no one said you weren¡¯t and moved to follow, but Alyosha pointed to himself saying, ¡°This is my area.¡±

    Alyosha stepped in front of Reeve. ¡°Hey. This man¡ª¡±

    ¡°Edward.¡±

    ¡°Edward, yes, he died years ago when Sol sent that order. If you weren¡¯t the maniac that you are, we¡¯d both be dead.¡± That made Reeve laugh again, but silently. ¡°You gave him time, but you do not get to choose what he did with it.¡±

    Reeve didn¡¯t answer but he didn''t argue either. Alyosha put his arm around him and led him back to the house, which made Gareth feel that much more alone. It wasn¡¯t like keeping Reeve¡¯s freak outs in check had ever been his job, so he didn¡¯t expect to be good at it, but he also didn¡¯t expect to feel like the odd man out. They¡¯d left for Reeve and now they were here for Gareth and it was all tangled up, so much so that Gareth couldn¡¯t tell who had the high ground anymore. Who had the right to get angry. He liked knowing that. He liked the lines of debt being clear. And he liked not having to think about it.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Company Housing.

    Gerrit couldn¡¯t sleep. He wouldn¡¯t have normally described himself as someone who dealt with insomnia, but that had been changing. Some nights, it felt like his body had entirely forgotten how to sleep. He¡¯d lay in the dark going over everything, feeling haunted by faceless Icarus. It was always work.

    Water. A drink of water wouldn¡¯t help him sleep, but maybe getting back into bed would convince his body it was time to rest. He sat up. 3:58AM. With how he was feeling, by the time he¡¯d tricked himself into a state close to sleep, praying his body would take the hint and make the final leap, he¡¯d be getting up soon anyhow. He got dressed, teleported to the Neptune wing, and headed down the hall to the analysis room, where the Retrieval night shift worked managing reports and processing paperwork.

    ¡°Sir?¡± Cindy and Scott, the intern, looked up with a start.

    ¡°I couldn¡¯t sleep,¡± he said, coming around the table to sit next to her. ¡°Any major alerts overnight?¡±

    ¡°No. We just finished going through the late morning reports that came in from Cairo and Kyiv.¡± She turned the monitor to him.

    Gerrit clicked through. There were a lot of messages reporting not a lot of news. Teams were covering ground, but nothing pinged until he hit one that woke him the rest of the way up. A team with a knack sensor out of Kyiv had radioed in that they were tracking a telepath and healer traveling together.

    ¡°Cindy,¡± he urged, pointing, ¡°did this team file a follow-up report? The one out of the Czech Republic?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, sir. Not that I remember. I assumed the subjects were from the Church.¡±

    He cursed under his breath. ¡°They split up.¡± He stood, heart pounding again. That would change everything about their search. ¡°Contact Kyiv. I want a status report on this team.¡±

    Gerrit teleported in front of Sage¡¯s office before remembering it was four in the morning, but the lights were on in Sage¡¯s office anyway. He knocked.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    ¡°Yes?¡±

    Gerrit went in. ¡°Sorry, sir¡ª¡±

    He¡¯d interrupted something, he could tell. It wasn¡¯t just Sage who was up. Penn was there and the two of them had a pained look in their eyes already.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Sage asked.

    Whatever was going on there, he railed ahead. They¡¯d want to know. ¡°I think we have a lead on 37A.¡±

    Penn¡¯s expression didn¡¯t change and Sage looked sad. That wasn¡¯t the sort of positive reaction he¡¯d been expecting.

    ¡°Prague, right?¡± Penn breathed.

    Gerrit swallowed a response.

    ¡°I was going to call you in the morning.¡± Sage looked tired and heavy. More than usual. Gerrit realized Sage was wearing the same thing as yesterday. ¡°Penn just sent people to deal with three dead Neptune agents found at 10AM local time outside a Catholic Church in Prague.¡±

    A lump welled up in his throat and all Gerrit could do was nod. If the agents had known it was 37A, they would have called for backup, but they¡¯d all been looking for a group of four.

    He cleared his throat. ¡°37A¡¯s team has split up, sir. That team thought they were investigating a healer and telepath. They didn¡¯t connect it to 37A because they were only tracking two knacks.¡±

    Sage sighed and put his head in his hands. ¡°Update all the guidance to your agents¡ªdo not engage with any unidentified Icarus. No telepaths, healers, or invisibles, even if they¡¯re alone.¡±

    ¡°I will, sir.¡± Gerrit had never expected being Third would be like this.

    Penn nodded to them both. ¡°I should make sure my people don¡¯t need anything. It¡¯s technically easy enough to contain, but calls like this are hard on my agents.¡±

    Gerrit wiped his hand across his mouth. ¡°I¡¯ll take you. I want to go to Kyiv anyway. Talk to their supervisor and see if I can help with the search. We can¡¯t be far behind them.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s a good idea.¡±

    He¡¯d have expected that if someone was going to object, it would have been Sage, but it was Penn for some reason. Even Sage seemed a little surprised.

    ¡°Why not?¡± Gerrit asked.

    Penn¡¯s face was neutral, but his eyes looked a little hard. ¡°They don¡¯t know you there.¡±

    ¡°Just don¡¯t be gone long,¡± Sage told him. ¡°You¡¯re an officer now. We can¡¯t be in the field all day anymore.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    ¡°It was a good catch,¡± Sage told him, voice softer. ¡°The telepath and healer report that the others missed.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, sir.¡± It was a kind thing to say. ¡°You sure you don¡¯t want me to take you?¡± he turned to ask Penn.

    His lips tightened, before finally relenting to nod. ¡°Thanks.¡± He put a hand on Gerrit¡¯s back and guided him out of Neptune¡¯s office. ¡°You¡¯ve never been to Kyiv,¡± he said once they were in the hall. ¡°Can I show you an image of the location in your head for us to jump to?¡±

    ¡°Yeah that¡¯s great,¡± he nodded. ¡°Save me looking it up.¡± He closed his eyes and waited because having that dual input always made Gerrit motion sick¡ªsomething his teammates and coworkers in Philly had always teased him mercilessly over, since apparently being a teleporter was supposed to magically make you immune to all nausea.

    Penn was in his head all at once and it was a tad overwhelming, the way he could go from barely noticeable to filling up Gerrit¡¯s mind with that sort of pressure. He saw a brightly lit lobby with a gleaming tile floor and nodded. He kept his eyes closed to hold the image there and extended his arm. It would be a stretch, but he could do it in one jump.

    ¡°Ready?¡±

    Penn put an arm around Gerrit¡¯s waist. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    He jumped.

    The temperature of the air shifted. The lobby was as Penn had shown him, but brighter, and there were more people. There was an immediate squeeze in his temples like oppressive telepathy, but more. So much more. Then all at once, it was gone and Gerrit began to wonder if he¡¯d imagined it.

    Penn held onto him, stock still, a little longer than Gerrit would have expected.

    ¡°You okay?¡±

    Penn nodded and stepped back.

    The lobby was small but clean, with tall glass windows, and after his early morning start, the afternoon sun was disorienting. A pair of children caught his eye. Two girls who were maybe sixteen years old. Seeing children that close to the front door was itself enough to give him an instinctual jolt, but then he registered that they were walking toward the door.

    ¡°Hey,¡± he called at them sharply. ¡°What are you doing?¡±

    They turned at his voice, confused and hesitant.

    Penn grabbed his arm and gave him a stern look. ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡±

    Gerrit shot him a look back, ready to teleport out of his grip.

    ¡°We¡¯re just going to get some lunch,¡± the taller girl told them.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Penn said quickly. He did his best to turn Gerrit around but he shook him off.

    ¡°Some lunch?¡± he hissed at Penn. Sure, Kyiv didn¡¯t have the Atrium, but he knew they had food on site. ¡°Are they¡ª¡±

    ¡°Students are free to come and go in Kyiv, just like the rest of us.¡± Penn moved to stand between him and the doorway. The girls were glancing behind them as they opened the door and walked out onto the street. ¡°I understand it¡¯s a shock, but it¡¯s all part of the pilot program.¡±

    ¡°And you¡¯re okay with that?¡± he exclaimed. He¡¯d heard they were trying some new format at the reopened academy, but he figured that meant they maybe abolished grades or brought in some sort of Montessori model. Not thrown all caution to the wind.

    ¡°I¡¯m one of its biggest proponents,¡± Penn insisted. ¡°And if I am supporting this, me, Mr. exposures-are-the-bane-of-my-existence, what does that tell you?¡±

    ¡°That you¡¯ve lost your mind? This is an exposure nightmare.¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°They¡¯ve learned restraint and how to conduct themselves, unlike Academy kids, who go from zero to a hundred once they leave schooling. This program has had significantly fewer exposures proportionately in the entire time it¡¯s been running than what I deal with in the single week following graduation in LA.¡±

    He huffed in disbelief. ¡°Why haven¡¯t we heard about this?¡±

    ¡°Why do you think? Look at you. Because Mercury knows people will freak out unless we¡¯ve had time to gather enough data showing that it works. So keep it down and trust Mercury on this.¡±

    Gerrit swallowed. It was hard to argue with your boss. It was harder when your boss could ostensibly know the future. If there weren¡¯t other time-sensitive things, including a different student in clear and present danger, he might have pressed. ¡°Which way is the Neptune wing?¡±

    ¡°This way.¡±

    Following him through the halls, it was strange to see the mixing of students and agents. Weirder yet to see people in Venus blue lab coats standing around chatting with people in Mars fatigues and others in suits. It wasn¡¯t that people were encouraged to keep to socializing only within their department, and god knows that Gerrit did his best to befriend everyone he met, but agents tended to stick to their own people, the ones they had the most common with. Sure, Jupiter and Mars were both part of Sol, but their day-to-day lives had very little common ground.

    The one constant was that they all seemed to give him an odd look, as if they knew he didn¡¯t belong there. He supposed it was possible that the building was small enough that everyone knew each other, but there was an almost suspicious energy to it that he didn¡¯t see them flashing at Penn.

    He flashed his best smile to no reaction.

    ¡°Do I have something in my teeth?¡±

    Penn gave a surprised laugh. ¡°I don¡¯t think that¡¯s it.¡±

    ¡°Not the friendliest bunch, huh?¡± he muttered.

    ¡°You know each office has a culture of its own. They¡¯re just a little more insular than some.¡±

    ¡°Sure, but...¡± A group of three elementary-age kids ran by, chasing one another and giggling, completely oblivious of them. ¡°You¡¯re here often?¡± he asked Penn. The telepathy pressure was back. Less than before, but growing steadily.

    ¡°Enough. I try to stay up to date on the pilot program.¡±

    A short young woman walking in the opposite direction waved at them. The telepathy increased as she got closer, and Gerrit could only assume it was coming from her; an impressive feat despite her young appearance.

    ¡°Hi, Mr. Harris,¡± the girl said. She had a brown bob and wore a Saturn hoodie.

    They pulled to the side to stop and talk to her and Gerrit sensed the pressure peak, then slowly begin to fade. It was as if they¡¯d walked through some sort of cloud of pressure. He turned to look behind them as if he could track it moving past, but there was nothing.

    ¡°Did you feel¡ª¡± The question died on Gerrit¡¯s lips as he suddenly lost his train of thought.

    ¡°Anise,¡± Penn smiled. ¡°This is Gerrit del Sol, Neptune¡¯s Third, here to check in with Retrieval.¡±

    She dipped her head. ¡°Honor to meet you, sir.¡± She didn¡¯t look at him like an intruder, which he appreciated, even if his patience was getting a little thin.

    ¡°Anise is an up and coming Saturn agent and one of the first success stories out of the pilot program.¡±

    That caught his attention. ¡°Really? You like the program?¡±

    ¡°Best thing to ever happen to me.¡± She dipped her head again. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re very busy.¡±

    ¡°Take care,¡± Gerrit managed awkwardly as she strode away without looking back. Penn touched his arm.

    ¡°This way.¡±

    Penn dropped Gerrit off in front of the Retrieval offices and he spent the next half hour or so talking things through with the team. They were surprised and unnerved to see him there, but also seemed appreciative that he¡¯d cared enough. They already had people in the field trying to find where the Icarus had come from and gone. They were doing the things he¡¯d do. There wasn¡¯t much else to be done.

    Penn wasn¡¯t in eyeshot when he was done and he realized he didn¡¯t know if he was responsible for bringing him back to LA, so Gerrit opted to text him and wander around while he waited for a response. The energy of the building was strange and he wanted to better understand it. He usually felt at home at any Sol office. Sure, he may not know the layout or which department breakroom always had the best snacks, but he¡¯d never felt foreign before. He came across the Pluto wing, the Uranus office, and the small dining space, where he helped himself to a coffee and a meal bar and stood by the entrance to the cafe where he could watch everyone. Teleportation always left him hungry.

    A tap on his shoulder made him turn. A man in his forties with short brown hair and a grey speckled beard was standing there, a hefty backpack in one hand and a small stack of papers in the other. The papers were heavily creased, as though they¡¯d been folded and shoved in his pocket.

    ¡°Excuse me,¡± he said with a smile. His accent was western European, but Gerrit couldn¡¯t immediately place it. ¡°Can you tell me where the Uranus office is?¡±

    He¡¯d pronounced it with a hard ray sound in the middle of the word, which Gerrit found jarring, causing him to go silent for a beat.

    ¡°Yeah, actually,¡± he nodded belatedly. ¡°One floor up and stay left. No...yeah, stay left.¡±

    ¡°Thank you.¡± The man slapped the papers against one thigh. ¡°I just transferred. You Sol people really love your paperwork.¡±

    Gerrit smiled awkwardly with a sympathetic laugh as the man walked off. What the fuck did that mean? He stared at the man¡¯s back as his mind churned. ¡®You Sol people.¡¯ It would make some level of sense if he was a newly discovered recruit, maybe, but if that were the case, he wouldn''t have described himself as a transfer.

    It came all at once, a vertigo-inducing thought. Of all the explanations as to why Kyiv didn¡¯t feel like Sol, that was one idea that hadn¡¯t even crossed his mind. Because it wasn¡¯t possible. It just wasn¡¯t. He needed Sage and Casper to help sort this out. He took a breath to teleport.

    Gerrit.

    Penn¡¯s voice in his head ground his synapses to a halt. At a measured pace, Gerrit walked to the nearest table and took a seat. He waited in a silent void. After a minute or an hour, Penn walked into the cafeteria with a tall man in a smart suit. There was something familiar about him. They got close enough that Gerrit could only see from their chests to their knees, because he couldn¡¯t move his head.

    ¡°Now, Mr. Harris,¡± came the man¡¯s voice, ¡°I feel like we talked about this. About you keeping an eye on him? I¡¯m due in Paris.¡±

    ¡°You know what it¡¯s like to wrangle teleporters.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m a little more heavy-handed than you are.¡±

    British accent. Gerrit was racking his brain to connect the dots. Where did he know this man¡¯s face from? But it was like grasping at fog.

    Penn sighed. ¡°It won¡¯t be a problem.¡±

    ¡°I know it won¡¯t be a problem because I¡¯m going to fix it.¡±

    Gerrit knew pain and only pain and then nothing.

    With a sniff, he opened his heavy eyelids. Penn was there standing in front of him.

    ¡°Hey,¡± Gerrit smiled. He sipped his coffee and made a face. It had gone completely cold on him. ¡°Did you get a chance to talk to your people? Because I really ought to get back to LA. They don¡¯t need me here.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m good,¡± Penn told him, though his voice was a little off.

    ¡°Are you sure?¡± he pressed. He didn¡¯t want to pressure the guy. ¡°If you need some more time, you can always text me and I¡¯ll come get you.¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯m all set.¡±

    ¡°Then let¡¯s go.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 43

    Entropy Residential Building. Paris, France.

    Wyatt flexed his fingers as he stood outside Gideon¡¯s door, grateful the hallway was deserted so there was no one to see how long he¡¯d been standing there.

    Between the Kyiv office and issues popping up overseas, Adler wasn¡¯t home as much as he normally was, leaving Wyatt in more of a leadership position than he felt comfortable with. He did his best to manage, but slowly he began to notice that people stopped bringing him problems, shifting them to other people like Conner, who ran their finances, or Henri, who was in charge of the local warehouses. Most of him was relieved that the burden was being lifted without trying, but there was also a sinking understanding that it meant it was clear to everyone that Wyatt was an empty shirt, too incompetent to handle what he¡¯d been given authority to handle. His father wasn¡¯t going to be pleased with him, but what the hell else was new?

    It left him idle most days and he spent his time in the Entropy Games office proper, where he could check in on game development and production. He couldn¡¯t do much there either, honestly, but at least the people in the offices had little to no contact with the rest of the Entropy business and didn¡¯t view him with the same kind of disdain.

    All of that also meant that when something big was brought to him, they¡¯d really run out of options.

    With a deep breath, he knocked on the door and let himself into Gideon¡¯s flat. Gideon, like most Elders, had lost any concern about privacy or modesty, so having to let someone into the apartment was an unnecessarily hassle in his eyes. If Gideon didn¡¯t want him there, he¡¯d have no qualms kicking him out and feel nothing about it.

    His flat was on the opposite side of the building from Wyatt, on the top floor. Most of the Elders were housed in the basement for convenience and because they didn¡¯t seem to mind, but Gideon cared. Or something akin to "care." He understood there were trappings of leadership that mattered.

    The flat was dark and smelled like bleach from the frequent visits of their cleaning staff. All the tall windows had been painted over years ago, keeping the place dim no matter what time of day. You¡¯d think, given the Elders¡¯ low affect and lack of interest in most things human, that his home would be barren. It was anything but. Gideon had lived in that building for something like a hundred years and had slowly filled his flat with oddities that caught his eye. There was a painfully inaccurate globe by the coat rack and an oil painting of a woman in flowing skirts that Wyatt assumed would be worth a fortune if it were ever appraised. There was one mounted wide-nosed machete hanging on the wall, a souvenir Gideon had kept after a run-in with the Church, his dad had told him once.

    And there were games, because Entropy had chosen their front based on what pleased him. He preferred the simple classic games without flashy graphics or flimsy cardboard tokens. There was a large, heavy Go board with smoothed black and white stones that looked like river rocks, and intricately carved chess pieces lined up on a sideboard. He didn¡¯t often play with anyone, just against himself or occasionally Adler.

    He¡¯d had the kitchen gutted and ripped out years back, replaced with a luxuriant home office.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Gideon¡¯s low voice surprised him, though he couldn¡¯t say why. He walked out of the bedroom into the living room and stood to face Wyatt. He was imposingly tall with a long face, prominent chin, and a permanent five-o¡¯clock shadow. His hair was a commonplace dark brown, cut short and parted on the side. His hazel eyes were hard to look at. They were the only part of him that looked hundreds of years old, where the rest of him appeared to be in his late forties. Gideon had a divot on his upper lip, deep enough that it changed the way his facial hair laid on his face and Wyatt tended to focus on that when they spoke, instead of his eyes. It was easier.

    Wyatt cleared his throat. ¡°I¡¯m being asked something I don¡¯t have an answer for.¡± The utter stillness with which Gideon could stand and stare you down made Wyatt even more self-conscious of the way he shifted his body when he was nervous.

    ¡°What is it?¡± he repeated with the same delivery.

    ¡°Well, one of the families is contacting our people in New York, saying we¡¯re late putting in our regular order from them. They¡¯ve been really pushy about when it will be submitted. I didn¡¯t know what to tell him.¡±

    ¡°There aren¡¯t going to be any more orders with the families.¡±

    Wyatt frowned. Entropy had always done a decent amount of business with a handful of crime families to source weapons and pull in extra boots on the ground when they needed it. ¡°So our guy¡¯s just supposed to tell him, ¡®No.¡¯¡±

    ¡°You should tell him, ¡®No.¡¯ You¡¯re a harder messenger to kill and it might save us the trouble of having to replace our lead agent in New York.¡±

    Wyatt gave something between a choke and a laugh. It hadn¡¯t slipped his notice that Gideon had said ¡®harder¡¯¡ªnot ¡®impossible.¡¯

    ¡°You want me to¡ªwait, are we ending our relationship with the families?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± His expression never seemed to shift.

    ¡°Since when?¡±

    ¡°Does a date change anything?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he admitted. ¡°But they¡¯re going to want to know why and I don¡¯t want to accidentally get us into a war when I don¡¯t have a good reason.¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t need a good reason. I¡¯ll have Adler do it. He should be home by now.¡±

    ¡°Wait, what?¡± Wyatt huffed. Everyone knew everything before he did.

    Gideon turned and picked up a stray newspaper on the coffee table, a signal he was done with the conversation. ¡°Make sure I¡¯m all set for tonight,¡± he said without looking up.

    ¡°Of course.¡±

    Wyatt let himself out. Tomorrow night would be Gideon¡¯s third night, so by dawn, he¡¯d be moved to a secure location. The security was for everyone else. It was Henri¡¯s job to keep the schedule and ensure they had space for everyone on any given night, so it should be all set, but Wyatt would head over and check in with him anyway.

    Wyatt headed back to his flat to grab his wallet, but slowed when he heard a young woman¡¯s voice he didn¡¯t recognize drifting down the hall.

    ¡°This is really nice.¡±

    ¡°It ought to be,¡± his father said.

    Wyatt rounded the corner to see Adler and a girl he didn¡¯t know standing by the open door of his mother¡¯s flat, each with a suitcase in hand. She was pretty, but young. Too young.

    ¡°Hey,¡± he called, picking up the pace. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize you were coming in today.¡±

    ¡°My schedule is where I am at that minute. Keep up,¡± he mused.

    Wyatt¡¯s eyes fluttered as he felt Adler sweep through his head. ¡°Can I talk to you alone for a second?¡±

    ¡°Right back,¡± he told the girl and headed across the hall to his place.

    Wyatt shut the door behind him and pointed to the door. ¡°Really?¡±

    ¡°Do you really think I don¡¯t know this entire boring conversation already? She¡¯s not using it.¡±

    That wasn¡¯t the point and he knew his dad absolutely knew that. ¡°It¡¯s still Mom¡¯s flat.¡±

    ¡°This might not be permanent. We¡¯ll have to see.¡±

    Adler took a step toward him and the door, but Wyatt held his ground. ¡°So are you fucking her?¡±

    His father¡¯s face twisted. ¡°Don¡¯t be disgusting.¡±

    It was a relief, but created more questions than it answered. Wyatt knew his dad screwed who he pleased and giving nice quarters to his new favorite was something that at least made sense, even if she was Wyatt¡¯s age.

    Pushing past him, Adler called out to the girl. ¡°I have to run for a bit because apparently we¡¯ve got problems in New York.¡± He stood impatiently for Wyatt to get out into the hall so he could shut his door. ¡°Show her around while I clean up your mess.¡± He smiled as sarcastically as he could. ¡°Thanks.¡±

    His father strode off for the stairs, leaving him and the girl standing awkwardly in the hall. He avoided looking at her for the moment, opting to watch Adler disappear down the stairwell.

    Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

    ¡°You don¡¯t have to give me the grand tour,¡± she said. The tone wasn¡¯t soft, but it sounded like it was coming from kindness.

    Wyatt shook his head and looked at her. ¡°No, it¡¯ll be worse for me later if I don¡¯t.¡±

    She just barely raised one eyebrow at that and he realized it might not have been the most polite thing to say.

    ¡°I¡¯m Anise,¡± she replied bluntly. ¡°Lead on.¡±

    ¡°Wyatt.¡± He felt put off balance, as though it wasn¡¯t out of the realm of possibility that he might forget where things were. ¡°I¡¯m two doors that way. What¡¯s up with you and my dad?¡±

    Her eyebrows shot up dramatically. ¡°Dad?¡±

    He looked at her askance. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°Sorry, I didn¡¯t realize he had kids.¡± She spoke slower toward the end and it sounded as though she had the realization that it wasn¡¯t the most polite thing to say, either.

    Didn¡¯t realize? He decided to just push past that. ¡°It¡¯s fine.¡± He supposed it could be better than Adler having regaled her with stories of all his fuck-ups.

    She composed her face again. ¡°Anyway, he started training me about a year ago.¡±

    ¡°A year?¡± That was a long time to not hear that he had kids. She didn¡¯t seem as oblivious as that.

    ¡°Well, I didn¡¯t know who he was until a couple weeks ago. I¡¯m out of the Kyiv program.¡±

    ¡°Oh, you¡¯re a del Sol.¡±

    ¡°We aren¡¯t all named that, but yeah. He¡¯s been mentoring me.¡± She sounded defensive.

    He felt defensive, too. Great. How awesome of his dad to dump them on each other.

    ¡°Mentoring you in what?¡± His dad was qualified in a lot of stuff but nothing you particularly wanted to be taught. Murder, sadism, having people terrified of you in place of real friends, being a cold bastard and a shit father. The list could go on.

    ¡°Telepathy.¡±

    Fuck. Just what he needed.

    ¡°So, what¡¯s your knack?¡± she asked.

    ¡°We don¡¯t call them¡ªI¡¯m a power negator.¡±

    She blinked. ¡°I didn''t think those existed.¡±

    ¡°Sol lies.¡±

    He may have sounded a little too smug, because she changed the subject. ¡°Tour?¡±

    ¡°Right.¡± He got himself together. ¡°This level is mostly empty. Stick to this hallway. Gideon¡¯s on the other side of the top floor and you don¡¯t want to run into him.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s in charge?¡±

    ¡°Yeah. This way.¡± He led her down the stairs.

    ¡°Other than the Phagi being, well, creepy, is there a reason you don¡¯t want to run into him?¡±

    Wyatt shrugged. ¡°Elders,¡± he corrected. ¡°And you can¡¯t predict when you might suddenly make the transition to being food, in his eyes.¡±

    ¡°Is that a big problem around here?¡±

    ¡°Depends on who you are. If my dad makes it known he likes you, you should be pretty safe, but Gideon does what he wants.¡±

    ¡°So who lives here?¡±

    ¡°Generally, anyone who¡¯s not manual labor. The people who would have their own places anywhere else in the world. A lot of the higher ranked people have flats around the city, anyway.¡±

    They passed a group of men going up who leered at her with an intensity that made him sick. If she noticed, she didn¡¯t give any sign.

    ¡°She¡¯s my dad¡¯s student,¡± he snapped in French. They gave him a dirty look and kept going.

    ¡°Thanks, but you didn¡¯t have to do that,¡± she said when they were gone. ¡°I can get the next one.¡±

    They hit the ground floor. ¡°This is more housing. Elders are mostly in the basement, so we won¡¯t go there. There¡¯s a big kitchen where you can sometimes find a meal, but it¡¯s not great.¡±

    ¡°Okay. Are there offices somewhere?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, we¡¯ve got a building downtown that¡¯s all games offices.¡± He watched her watch the people around them. She had a look about her like she thought she was invincible. That was the sort of thing that got people killed. ¡°I¡¯ve actually got to head over to another building on an errand for Gideon. I can show you if you want.¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡±

    He hailed a cab out on the sidewalk.

    ¡°So what¡¯s the building?¡±

    ¡°One of our warehouses.¡±

    ¡°Exciting.¡± It was both sarcastic and lighthearted.

    ¡°It¡¯s not what you think it is,¡± he told her, probably sounding too serious for the conversation.

    ¡°Oh? What do I think it is?¡± she asked, looking amused.

    ¡°Storage full of boxes.¡±

    ¡°And what is it?¡±

    ¡°People.¡±

    The cab pulled up and they got in. He didn''t want to say anything more in front of the driver, but he realized she must have thought he¡¯d meant that there were people there instead of storage, but that wasn¡¯t what he was saying. He¡¯d meant it was storage full of people instead of boxes. Wyatt wasn¡¯t sure what his dad would do about him bringing her, but she¡¯d have to know at some point, and part of him wanted to make sure she knew who his dad was. He didn¡¯t like the idea of scaring her, but around here, scared meant alert.

    The cab dropped them in front of the self-storage building. The early evening night sky was muted with light pollution.

    ¡°Weird looking warehouse,¡± she commented.

    ¡°Some people call it the Spa.¡±

    She cocked her head. ¡°Even weirder looking spa.¡±

    ¡°Come on.¡±

    The guard at the front desk waved them through.

    ¡°Any idea where Henri is?¡± Wyatt asked.

    ¡°Should be in containment two.¡±

    Wyatt thanked him and they started toward the elevators.

    Anise was beginning to look uncomfortable. ¡°What is this place?¡±

    ¡°I thought you would have brained it out of someone by now.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m about to if you don''t tell me.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s where the lower ranks live, and a place where Elders can stay on their third night.¡±

    She nodded, thinking, as he pressed the down button. ¡°Adler said their Venus research in Kyiv is to figure out something less messy than how it¡¯s done now.¡±

    ¡°Messy is one way to put it.¡±

    An older man wheeling a flatbed cart full of cleaning supplies came down the hall toward them and made some comment to Anise in what sounded like Italian. The lewd hand gesture he made with it was universally clear. Wyatt drew a breath to say something, but Anise touched his arm. Her face was entirely serene as she looked at the guy, which only seemed to encourage him. He stalked closer, right up until he doubled over sharply with a wheeze of pain and grabbed at himself as though he¡¯d been kicked squarely in the balls.

    The elevator dinged.

    Anise got in. ¡°Did you know that pain is entirely contained in the mind? If your brain tells you you¡¯ve been injured, then you have, whether or not it¡¯s actually true.¡±

    Wyatt flinched and felt his stomach sour. ¡°Of course I know that,¡± he shot back, voice huskier than he wanted it to be. ¡°Adler¡¯s my dad, remember?¡±

    They rode the elevator to sub-basement one, and he found himself feeling slightly less guilty about where they were about to be.

    ¡°Your knack?¡± she asked just above a whisper.

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t work on telepaths.¡±

    She gave him a confused look, but the floor lurched as the elevator came to a stop. He could admit it didn¡¯t make logical sense that his negation didn¡¯t work against telepathy, but he also understood that his father had been in his head since he was a baby. And like she¡¯d said, if the mind believes in a limit, the body can¡¯t push past it. No matter how he tried to think about it, it never took long¡ªbarely moments¡ªfor his mind to slip away from the subject, like smoke in a breeze.

    When the doors opened, it was the familiar stench that hit first. It was a latrine smell with a copper tang. He saw it hit her nostrils by the tension in her face, though she took it better than some did their first time.

    ¡°Is that normal?¡± she muttered.

    He nodded. Wyatt stepped off the elevator and headed down the hallway. It looked much the same as every other hall in the place, with uniform metal rolling doors, but it was louder here. A couple of workers stood, leaning up against the wall, chatting and looking at them warily. Their clothes were ratty and stained. Somewhere behind them, there was a low moaning that sounded more exhausted than anything, and ahead of them was a rhythmic clang of a hand (or head) banging on the other side of one of the doors, shivering with every impact. The concrete floors had old, faded, rust-red stains in places that were impossible to completely scrub away, usually spilling out underneath doorways.

    They turned the corner and the hallway no longer looked like all the others. There were just two doors on either side, each one highly reflective solid chrome steel, as tall as the ceiling, with a vault-style spoked wheel lock. One of them was open.

    ¡°What the hell?¡± she asked, stopping.

    ¡°Blast doors. They¡¯re designed for nuclear bomb shelters, but they¡¯ll work to keep the Elders in. All the walls here are concrete over half a meter thick. Four rooms here, four on the opposite side.¡±

    ¡°That seems expensive.¡±

    He laughed, surprised that that¡¯s where her mind went. ¡°Well, most places they just stack cinder blocks around them, but home base can be a little more permanent.¡±

    Wyatt peered inside containment two. It was a small room, smaller than the other storage units¡ªa necessity to make room for the thicker walls. Henri was there, running his hand over the walls, searching for structural damage. The floor looked damp and smelled of bleach.

    ¡°What do you need?¡± Henri asked in French and did a double take at Anise. ¡°And who¡¯s this?¡± He gave Wyatt a mischievous look.

    Wyatt looked at her out of the corner of his eye. ¡°English?¡±

    ¡°Not on my account,¡± she argued with impressive pronunciation. Not quite native, but still.

    Wyatt switched back to French. ¡°This is Anise. My dad¡¯s mentoring her.¡±

    Henri whistled. ¡°So let¡¯s not piss you off, huh?¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t recommend it,¡± she smiled.

    ¡°You all set for Gideon tonight?¡± Wyatt asked.

    Henri slapped the wall. ¡°Yup.¡± The squeak of wheels rolled up behind them. ¡°And, there, just in time.¡±

    One of their workers rolled a flatbed cart up to the door. On it was an unconscious man in his forties in soiled clothes, with one arm that ended in a bandaged stump above the elbow. Wyatt frowned at him and then Henri. Gideon wouldn¡¯t be happy about the arm.

    Henri put up his hands. ¡°I know, don¡¯t start with me. But Gideon¡¯s own directives said to cap the number of pulls. We¡¯ve been busy. I don¡¯t have anyone whole.¡±

    ¡°What happened to his arm?¡± Anise asked.

    ¡°Someone else ate it.¡± Wyatt delivered it matter-of-fact. It was. ¡°It normally only takes one limb to keep an Elder sated enough to keep from spending the whole night tearing out chunks of concrete from the walls. Out on the streets for their third night, they¡¯d kill a dozen people but not eat that much.¡±

    ¡°So, ¡®cap the number of pulls,¡¯ means¡ª¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re trying to lie a little lower to decrease the number of vagrants and tourists getting snatched,¡± Henri explained. ¡°So this is what I have for him tonight.¡±

    It was a bad place to be stuck, to have been given orders that were going to directly piss off the man who gave them to you. Wyatt felt for him. ¡°Just make sure there¡¯s no one working the floor tonight that you like, because he¡¯s just as likely to grab one of them on his way in if he¡¯s unhappy with this meal.¡±

    Henri nodded and helped the woman who¡¯d brought the cart to carry the man in.

    ¡°Is he dead?¡± Anise asked flatly. Honestly, he¡¯d been hoping for a slightly more dramatic reaction from her.

    ¡°Drugged.¡±

    ¡°Does that affect the Phagi?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± came Adler¡¯s voice from behind them, causing a spike of pain in Wyatt¡¯s chest. ¡°There¡¯s no amount of poison you could eat that would bother our Elders.¡±

    Anise didn¡¯t seem fazed to see him there, but the worker woman had pressed her back to the damp walls and even Henri was doing his best not to stand out.

    ¡°You found us quickly,¡± she said. There was a lightness to her voice, but even Wyatt could tell she was covering for a measure of unease.

    ¡°I always know where you and Wyatt are. Can¡¯t say I expected this place to be included on your tour.¡± He fixed Wyatt with a gaze that made his fingers go cold and numb.

    ¡°Gideon asked me to check in for tonight. It seemed efficient.¡±

    Adler didn¡¯t smile. ¡°I¡¯m sure that¡¯s exactly what you were thinking. I trust you¡¯ve found she can take care of herself.¡±

    ¡°I was curious,¡± Anise said in his defense, but his father didn¡¯t turn his head.

    ¡°You¡¯re lucky I¡¯m in a good mood.¡±

    Wyatt swallowed. His good moods were never all that good for anyone else. ¡°What¡¯s happened?¡±

    ¡°Interesting news out of Italy.¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 44

    Saint Peter¡¯s Square. Vatican City, Rome.

    Hannah wasn¡¯t great at panhandling. Misha kept saying it was something about her expression. Alex tried to give her pointers at first, but they settled on having her keep watch instead, half a block away. They spent long days at it, outside the Vatican walls, moving frequently around the city to stay out of the way of those locals who laid claim to whatever corner they had been working. It was enough to get by. They returned to the Square at night. In the mornings, they used the bathhouse set up for the homeless who lived there. It kept them comfortable enough. Well, comfortable in a relative sense¡ªHannah was wrung out from hyper-vigilance, had a sharp, burning pain in her shoulders and hips from sleeping on stone, and there was a chill in her bones she hadn¡¯t been able to shake since the tunnels. She could feel the toll taken from a person, from being looked at like you¡¯re trash by hundreds of passersby. She kept her mouth closed on it though. They were all feeling it, so there was no point in talking about it too. It seemed to be wearing on Misha more than the rest of them, probably for the first time since they¡¯d met. Hannah wanted to dig him on that, but didn¡¯t.

    All this to say that if she¡¯d been alone, Hannah would absolutely have to rely on theft to get by. Which is what made her suspicious when a tourist approached her as they were bedding down in Saint Paul¡¯s Square. She was tall with blonde hair, cropped short enough to show her ears. Her clothes were normal enough and her chunky necklace caught Hannah¡¯s eye. She held out a bill with something akin to pity on her face.

    Misha reached up to take it with a, ¡°Spasiba,¡± but she snatched her hand back and locked eyes with Hannah, who gave Alex a quick look and extended her hand.

    The woman asked, ¡°Where¡¯s Gareth?¡± and it was as if every cell in Hannah¡¯s body came awake. Hannah felt the others beside her go rigid. She drew her hand back, leaving the money.

    ¡°Who?¡± Misha asked, but the woman didn¡¯t acknowledge him. Her voice was accented. Maybe French.

    ¡°I¡¯ve never met him,¡± she continued, ¡°but Mr. Adler is adamant that they reconnect. I have a gift here for him.¡± She pulled a zippered bag about the size of a paperback novel out of her coat and held it up.

    Hannah swallowed. Her heart felt like the others must have been able to see it banging against her ribs.

    The woman sighed. ¡°Come on, Hannah. Is he with this Reeve? He seems to have caused a significant financial headache.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know where he is,¡± Hannah said finally.

    ¡°Really?¡± She sounded unimpressed.

    ¡°Really,¡± Alex said. ¡°You fuckers made him pretty paranoid. We don¡¯t know where they are.¡±

    Hannah nodded. ¡°So kindly fuck off.¡± She still had her knife on her belt, which she knew she could get to fast. Her pistol was in her sack and would be harder to fish out, but she gripped her bag tight, just in case.

    ¡°That¡¯s fine.¡± The Entropy agent scanned the square. ¡°They¡¯ll come find us. Mr. Adler is also very interested in your company.¡±

    ¡°You think you can force the three of us out of this square to go be your hostages?¡± Hannah stood and Alex and Misha stood with her. She could feel the grip of her pistol now inside her pack.

    To Hannah¡¯s right, the man who had been curled up under a blanket shot up and stood stock still, watching them. Three more figures¡ªtwo tourists and another homeless man¡ªturned on a dime and started walking toward them. With a flash of wind, another man teleported in beside the woman from Entropy. They had quickly become outnumbered.

    ¡°The three of you? No,¡± the woman said with a hint of a smile. ¡°We don¡¯t give a shit about the bible thumper, so it¡¯ll only need to be the two of you, and you don¡¯t need to make it there in one piece.¡±

    ¡°Not a damn chance,¡± Alex growled, shifting beside her, planting his feet. He had his hand inside his pack, too.

    Misha grabbed Alex by the wrist with a grip Hannah could see even in the dimming light was painfully tight, and jerked him back. Hannah hesitated, seeing his eyes go glassy with fear.

    ¡°If this kicks off,¡± Hannah argued, stalling, ¡°it¡¯s going to be loud and there¡¯re gonna be cops.¡±

    ¡°Exactly. If you don¡¯t come quietly, this place is going to be swarmed with Gendarmes.¡±

    Hannah whipped her head back and forth. ¡°I just said that.¡±

    ¡°Meaning if you don¡¯t come easy, there are going to be a lot of dead Gendarmes. We don¡¯t care either way.¡±

    Misha raised his arms up, palms out and fingers spread. ¡°You really don¡¯t care about me?¡±

    Hannah¡¯s stomach dropped and she stole a glance to the side to look at him hard. She didn¡¯t think Misha would actually cut his losses and give them up. Never ask someone to die for their beliefs. Her tongue had cemented itself to the roof of her mouth. The three other Entropy agents had nearly reached them. If they were going to make a move, it was going to have to be then.

    The Entropy agent rolled her eyes and tossed Misha the pouch. ¡°Leave the backwater alive,¡± she called to the agents behind her. ¡°Let him tell the others.¡±

    ¡°Lucky me.¡± Misha bobbed his eyebrows at Hannah and lunged. Hannah had her gun halfway out of her bag before she realized Misha had lunged at her and not the other woman, and, with a leap, had thrown his arms around both her and Alex.

    The earth tipped. A flash of light so bright it made a mockery of the color white forced her eyes shut. An unending wave of nausea was building inside of her and the queer smell of ozone hung in the air. She opened her blind eyes and threw Misha¡¯s arm off of her. She reeled, unmoored, and doubled over with her hands on her knees.

    The world came into focus. It was darker, unlit in the evening light, and they were in a back alley cluttered with dumpsters. She worked her jaw, spitting the saliva and bile that was flooding her mouth.

    Beside her, Alex had dropped to a crouch, gasping.

    Misha calmly picked up their bags where they¡¯d dropped them.

    Alex looked up at him. ¡°The teleporter.¡±

    Misha nodded. ¡°One more time,¡± he said in a voice that was meant to be comforting. Hannah found herself a little surprised he could manage the tone. She shook her head absently, but he grabbed them both and the force rocked through them again. Hannah squeezed her eyes tight, wrapped her arms around Alex, and held on. It scrambled her insides and she choked on her gorge rising. For a moment, she felt her boots sink down into dead leaves with a crunch, and then the world ripped in half again.

    When she came to rest on a hardwood floor, that was all she knew about where they were. It didn¡¯t matter. She bent in half and wretched. To say she vomited wouldn¡¯t be accurate. That would have made it sound like an action she took, whereas this was more violent, a thing that happened to her, something that clawed out of her while she fought in the small gaps of space in between to take choked, whooping breaths.

    When she had been emptied, Hannah stumbled backwards and looked up. There were spots in her vision and she blinked to try to clear them. Even with her eyes closed, the flash of the teleport still had her eyes burning. The air was heavy with ozone, a cloying smell like sugared bleach.

    Beside her, Alex was recovering by his own pile of heavings. She recognized the room. Standing unsteadily, she glanced around. Munich. They were back in the apartment where they¡¯d first met Misha.

    ¡°You said one more time!¡± Alex shouted raggedly before coughing more.

    ¡°I lied,¡± Misha said simply. He was standing up straight, as though the travel hadn¡¯t affected him.

    Hannah wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and made her way to the futon to sit and glare at him.

    ¡°Back here?¡±

    ¡°It was the safest place I could think of,¡± he shrugged. ¡°The sickness won¡¯t last, but maybe don¡¯t eat anything for a few hours.¡±

    ¡°Not gonna be a problem,¡± Alex called, sitting on the floor and scooching to lean his back against Hannah¡¯s legs. She put a limp hand on his shoulder. ¡°How are you okay?¡± Alex asked, looking up with an effort.

    Misha waved him off and walked to the kitchen, making sure to step over where they¡¯d been sick. ¡°When I mimic, I can use their knack at the same level of mastery as they have.¡± He came back with a couple bottles of water and handed them to Hannah and Alex. She sipped one tentatively to cool her raw throat.

    ¡°Should we call Reeve?¡± Alex croaked.

    ¡°It¡¯s early, but yeah. I¡¯ve got this knack for a little while longer. If we can get through to them, I can get us there fast.¡± He rummaged through his bag.

    Hannah groaned at the thought of going again. She tilted her head back, watching him dial.

    Misha dropped his arm. ¡°They¡¯re not picking up.¡±

    Hannah sighed. ¡°Try it again.¡±

    He did.

    ¡°Are you dialing it right?¡± Alex asked.

    Misha screwed up his face but handed the phone to Alex, who keyed in their number.

    ¡°It¡¯s just ringing.¡±

    It finally started to register. ¡°They¡¯re probably busy,¡± she gulped. ¡°Traveling or dealing with Church business or they don¡¯t have a signal. No need to panic yet. I¡¯m sure they¡¯re okay. We know Entropy hasn¡¯t found them yet, at least.¡±

    Misha swore. ¡°Yeah, but we should use this transport while I have it. You know these idiots, where would they have gone?¡±

    Hannah threw her hands up. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±

    Misha sat down across from them and looked at Alex. ¡°East or West?¡±

    ¡°East,¡± Alex said quietly. ¡°We stopped in France to refuel. He¡¯s not going to want to retrace his steps and that¡¯s Entropy country. Plus Alyosha¡¯s going to have a better lay of the land going East.¡±

    ¡°You think he¡¯s stupid enough to take one step closer to Sol¡¯s Kyiv Office?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s absolutely that stupid,¡± Hannah crowed.

    ¡°Okay, I doubt they could get very far just the three of them. This will save us half a week of travel.¡± He picked up his bag again. ¡°One more time.¡±

    Alex pointed a finger at him. ¡°I swear to god¡ª¡±

    ¡°One last time,¡± Misha confirmed slowly.

    ¡°Jesus Christ,¡± Hannah moaned, standing up. ¡°At least I couldn¡¯t possibly puke anymore.¡±

    Misha cocked an eyebrow at her and she didn¡¯t like what that might be implying.

    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    ---

    Entropy Residential Building. Paris, France.

    Anise was just finishing getting dressed when loud knocking caught her attention. It was too quiet to be at her door so she ignored it. But it went on for a second and then a third round, so she gave up on taking the time to dry her shower-wet hair and went to see what was going on.

    She opened the door to see a man, maybe ten years older than her, with short dark hair and wearing a sweatshirt, knocking on Wyatt¡¯s door.

    ¡°Hey,¡± the man called in American-accented English. ¡°You in there?¡±

    ¡°Yeah,¡± Wyatt answered, muffled through the door, after a moment. ¡°Just a second.¡±

    ¡°Everything okay?¡± she asked, making the man jump.

    He put his hand on his chest in exaggerated surprise. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize that apartment was occupied.¡± He walked toward her and held out his hand. She was in joggers and a t-shirt, but he still found a way to leer at her briefly. Men were like that.

    ¡°I¡¯m Jack.¡±

    ¡°Anise.¡± She left off her last name like she¡¯d be told to.

    ¡°That¡¯s a new one,¡± he smiled. ¡°Always happy to meet another expat. I¡¯m from New York.¡±

    ¡°California.¡±

    ¡°So what do you do, Anise, that got you up on the top floor?¡±

    ¡°Undercover stuff.¡± It was the easiest answer.

    His smile broadened. ¡°No kidding, me too.¡±

    She cocked her head. ¡°Really?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m a shadow.¡±

    She shook her head and looked up at him with doe-wide eyes. He¡¯d talk more if it seemed like she was interested. ¡°Sorry, I¡¯ve only been here a few months.¡±

    He leaned against the wall by her door. ¡°Oh, I check in on all our sleeper agents. Most agents don¡¯t live at one of our bases. That¡¯s what makes us so much more efficient than, say, SolCorp. We don¡¯t have to pay to house or feed the majority of our agents and they get a small stipend to supplement their income, but still, if we say jump, they jump.¡±

    ¡°And your job is to drop in for coffee and make sure they¡¯re doing their jobs?¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°No, they never know I¡¯m there watching them. I go eat at the restaurant they work in, drive their cab to work, be that chatty stranger on the subway. Hell, I¡¯ve even purposefully gotten into a fender bender with one. They all know someone from Entropy will be checking up on them, but they never know when or who, so any interaction could be an Entropy shadow looking in on them. It keeps people in line.¡±

    Anise nodded. ¡°Oh, okay. Panoptics.¡±

    ¡°Pan what?¡±

    ¡°Nothing. If you could be watched at any time, you¡¯re being watched all the time.¡±

    The smile returned. ¡°Yeah.¡±

    Wyatt came out of his room with sleep rumpled hair and pillow marks pressed into the side of his face.

    ¡°Hey,¡± Wyatt said, stepping into the hallway. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±

    Jack smiled. ¡°Your new neighbor is quite charming.¡±

    Wyatt smiled thinly. ¡°Yeah.¡± She was well aware that it wasn¡¯t the word he would have chosen.

    ¡°Anyway,¡± Jack continued, ¡°I just picked up someone newly assigned to Paris from the train station and I wanted her to meet you.¡±

    Wyatt looked around the hall, empty but for the three of them. ¡°Are you sure?¡±

    He gave him a look. ¡°I left her in my place downstairs. I wanted to make sure Mr. Adler wasn¡¯t up here first. I¡¯ve already warned her about him.¡±

    Anise lifted an eyebrow at that, then forced it down. She watched Wyatt flush and look at everything in the hallway that wasn¡¯t her.

    ¡°Jack,¡± he said softly and shook his head. It wasn¡¯t the most delicately handled thing in the world. His panic was silly. She wasn¡¯t naive. And did he really think that Adler didn¡¯t know what everyone in the building thought of him?

    She watched Jack comprehend and play it off with much more skill.

    ¡°That he¡¯s in charge and to do anything he says. Not get in his way.¡±

    ¡°Right.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll go get her.¡± He turned and left.

    With no good excuse not to, Wyatt turned to Anise in awkward silence.

    ¡°Is he trying to set you two up or something?¡± she asked blandly, to break the ice.

    ¡°No,¡± he chuckled, relaxing. ¡°Sometimes if someone new seems¡ª¡± he trailed off, trying to find the right word. ¡°Thin-skinned? He¡¯ll take pity on them. I like him for that. My dad needs him to be subtle, not like some of our other people. He¡¯s kind. Anyway, he¡¯ll bring them around to meet me because Jack¡¯s away most of the time, so there¡¯ll be another person they know who won¡¯t bowl them over with the same sort of the Lord of the Flies shit that can go on here.¡±

    She could ignore that he¡¯d just called her unkind. She knew he thought she was cold and unfeeling. That didn¡¯t bother her. But as much as she could admit she felt exceptional among her peers, there were some judgements that irked her.

    Anise fixed him with a look. ¡°And you don¡¯t stoop to any of that.¡±

    Wyatt flinched, remembering something. ¡°I try not to.¡±

    ¡°Because you don''t have to.¡±

    He narrowed his eyes at her. ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t have to jump into the pit and fight dirty for your scrap of territory. Look who you live next to.¡±

    She watched his face harden. She¡¯d hit a nerve.

    ¡°Easy,¡± she said, eyebrows high on her face. ¡°I¡¯m not saying you live a charmed life. I¡¯m just saying that before you start passing out morality awards, we need to remember that you don¡¯t know what you would do to survive in their situation.¡±

    ¡°Oh and you do,¡± he snapped. ¡°Look who you live across from.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not listening. No one knows what they¡¯ll do to live, if they¡¯d hold onto their moral code, or sacrifice someone else¡¯s life for their own. That includes me.¡± She let herself smile a little bit. ¡°But I was trained to be an intelligence agent who can get close to a person and then put a knife in their ribs when I¡¯ve gotten what I need, so I think I¡¯ll be okay.¡±

    Wyatt wasn¡¯t going to like her any time soon, so she might as well be herself.

    Jack rounded the corner accompanied by a woman in her early thirties with fair coloring and long hair. The only luggage she had with her was a large crossbody bag with a mandala embroidered on it. She bobbed her head at them. Anise could see what Wyatt meant. She looked shy, submissive even. Not the type who would thrive in a place where, if you didn¡¯t hold your own, you lost what was yours.

    ¡°This is Wyatt,¡± Jack told her slowly. ¡°He¡¯s nice.¡± He gestured positively to Wyatt with a forced grin then turned to them. ¡°This is Klara. Her English is very bad and her French is worse. Decent telekinetic, though. I¡¯ve got a soft spot for fellow telekinetics.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll explain it to her,¡± Anise offered.

    Jack lowered his brow. ¡°You speak Finnish?¡±

    ¡°Telepath,¡± Wyatt sighed, sullenly.

    Using her telepathy, it was simple to impress upon the woman a sense of understanding¡ªwho they were and what Jack wanted her to know about Wyatt, that he was a safe person. Anise felt her nervousness at all the new people, at not knowing the language, and at being in this building at all.

    ¡°So she¡¯s new here,¡± Anise said out loud. ¡°Doesn¡¯t that mean she¡¯s supposed to go straight to the Spa and not to the top level of this building?¡±

    Jack didn¡¯t seem concerned. ¡°Sure, but no one has to know about this little detour. Once she¡¯s there, it¡¯ll be lock and key.¡± He gave her a pitiful look. ¡°And she¡¯s new.¡±

    She understood. Her life would only get harder from here and she¡¯d either sink or swim. ¡°Let¡¯s walk her there.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Technically, you¡¯re still taking her directly to the Spa, but it¡¯ll give her another hour of sunlight.¡±

    Wyatt stared at her. It was a level of kindness he hadn¡¯t expected out of someone like her. ¡°I like it,¡± Jack smiled.

    ¡°You two coming?¡±

    ¡°Let me get my shoes,¡± she said.

    The walk was pleasant. The sun was out and Anise used her knack to convey to Klara what they were doing and the gist of their conversations. Jack bought them all breakfast from a food truck and they ate as they walked. Jack liked to talk, so it was easy to let him. Anise was quiet except to try to direct conversation when Jack strayed into talking about work. Klara looked enamored of all the life bustling around her and tried in stammering English to tell them about her family back home. Family she¡¯d had to leave because of her knack. It was a pain, despite feeling it through her link with Klara, that Anise couldn¡¯t understand. It was simply so far from her experience of everything.

    When they got to the storage facility, Adler was waiting for them. He was standing behind the reception desk, looking at something on the computer while the person working reception that day sat to the side, stock still, eyes downcast. The group of them stopped just inside the door. Normally she should have been able to feel his telepathy as a warning, but he must have hid it from her. Wyatt¡¯s entire posture immediately took on the look of someone who was ten years old and caught out being someplace he shouldn¡¯t have been.

    ¡°Mr. Adler,¡± Jack began, ¡°I hope you weren¡¯t waiting for me.¡± At the mention of the name, Klara shrunk in on herself and took a step to the side to try to hide behind Jack.

    ¡°Not specifically,¡± Adler replied coldly, standing up straight. ¡°But I was curious what you all were about when I felt the group of you coming down the street together.¡± He paused to walk around to the front of the desk, nothing between them and him. ¡°I hope you don¡¯t have some problem with the way we run things here, Jack.¡±

    ¡°Of course not, sir.¡± Jack¡¯s voice was a little ragged. She knew the sound. Adler was in his head. She hoped she wasn¡¯t about to watch this man drop dead.

    ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± Adler smiled. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t want us to have to part ways.¡± He held out a hand and curled one finger.

    Klara stepped out from behind Jack, head held high, and walked over to stand beside him. She looped her arm around his and smiled up at him coyly, a completely different person than the one they¡¯d spent the morning with.

    ¡°I¡¯ll handle her personally from here, since you¡¯ve taken such an interest.¡±

    ¡°Thank you, sir,¡± Jack stammered, eyes on the ground.

    Adler reached over and slipped Klara¡¯s bag from her shoulder and held it out to Jack. Anise felt Jack and Wyatt react to this, as though the gears in their chests had ground to a halt.

    Jack took the purse from him and tucked it under his arm.

    Adler¡¯s smile faded. ¡°Jack, do me a favor and go let Henri know I¡¯m going to be a little late.¡±

    ¡°Of course, sir.¡± Jack left without looking at either of them. He went down the opposite hallway toward the stairwell.

    Adler turned to Anise. ¡°Be at my office at noon?¡± His voice was cool but neutral. She didn¡¯t like him looking at her that way.

    She nodded.

    Adler looked at Wyatt without saying a word, then turned and walked down the hall to the elevators. Klara was moving in-step with him, arm in arm, a glowing look of admiration spreading as she gazed up at him. Anise couldn¡¯t deny that she felt sick.

    The two of them stood in silence until they heard the elevator doors open and close.

    ¡°What just happened?¡± Anise asked.

    Wyatt scoffed at her. ¡°Which part didn¡¯t you follow?¡±

    She bore his disdain as if she hadn¡¯t noticed. ¡°The bag. I felt the two of you react.¡±

    Wyatt looked off to the side and took a breath before fixing her with a glare. ¡°It means she¡¯s not going to need it anymore. He wanted to make sure we knew.¡±

    Anise¡¯s heart sank. Klara had been so nervous. She closed that line of thinking. Looking at Wyatt, she could see that every inch of his posture was screaming that he blamed her. ¡°I didn¡¯t know that would happen.¡±

    ¡°Get out of my head,¡± he snapped.

    ¡°I¡¯m not,¡± she said, forcing herself to say it calmly. ¡°My telepathy is just very receptive, and even if it wasn¡¯t, the way you¡¯re looking at me is pretty clear.¡±

    ¡°Go be receptive somewhere else. No, I¡¯m leaving. Do whatever the fuck you want.¡± He left, taking the defensive tangle of his mind with him.

    Wyatt broke her heart a little. If she¡¯d met him in the Academy, she would have laid any money she had on him being given a desk job far from the action. Something admin or maybe some sort of caregiving role. But that was not in the cards for him. He kept up as best he could, but it was like watching a pigeon swim¡ªit could do it for a short while to keep from drowning, but it wasn¡¯t pretty.

    Then it was just her and the receptionist, who didn¡¯t dare look at her. She had hours, but she started walking to the game office building, mulling it all over in her head.

    She¡¯d been in Paris for a week. In that time, she¡¯d seen things¡ªgrisly things in the halls that she didn¡¯t like to name. And other, more subtle things like this that chilled her. Some of these things were easier to rationalize than others. Entropy didn¡¯t have a branch like Neptune. They had a panopticon: surveillance and swift punishment. Order had to be kept with fear and enforced sharply when people trespassed, or else the system fell apart. Honestly, if she peeled back the years of teachings that Sol was head, shoulders, and body above Entropy in all their practices, Neptune occupied a similar role in creating a sense of fear and repercussions that kept people in line. Why else did they dress the way they did? Why else would they take your name?

    Other things were harder not to keep her up at night. The Spa and its bloody floors. The squalid way the workers that were kept there lived.

    But she also knew that the conditions that caused those things would go away if they were able to pull off the sweeping reformation of Sol, and so she understood why Adler was willing to risk everything to make it work. As much as Wyatt saw it as a culture of cruelty and laid all of that on his father, Entropy had been operating like this since before Adler was born. A reformation of Sol would be a reformation of Entropy. There would be money for better housing and, most importantly, the Elders would have a way to control their third night (if they had one at all). Plus a humane food source¡ªand with that, the hard, traumatic labor required by the system needed to keep the Elders contained would disappear. It would all be worth it.

    She killed time at a cafe, but was still twenty minutes early to her meeting with Adler. The game building was everything the Spa wasn¡¯t. It was clean, civilized, bougie almost, with large, well-tended potted plants, interesting wall art, and young developers who were maybe less than trendy but didn¡¯t care. It was more like Sol than not.

    Anise opted to sit in a small, barely used lounge area on the top floor of the office. Anise made an effort not to think of where Adler was. What he¡¯d been doing. If he¡¯d had to shower before coming here. Ever since her first assignment in Manchester, she¡¯d been able to shut those thoughts down, label them as unhelpful, unnecessary to making her an effective agent. Learned to relegate them away. It sounded easier said than done, but after her first mission, it came as natural to her as breathing.

    When she saw Adler walk into his office down the hall, she waited until noon to approach him, even though he¡¯d undoubtedly known she was there. Taking a breath and setting her shoulders back, she knocked on his door.

    ¡°Come in.¡±

    She did. The office was stately, with an imposing desk of dark wood, a grand bookcase built into the wall, and a sitting area with sleek leather chairs. She waited in front of his desk and he didn¡¯t look up from the papers in front of him.

    ¡°Do you have a problem with what happened this morning?¡±

    ¡°I understand why you did it,¡± she answered honestly.

    He looked at her over his glasses and she stood firm, refusing to wilt at his inspection. She understood what he wanted in a student.

    ¡°I understand why you did as well.¡± He sighed and sat back. ¡°I have you on a plane back to Kyiv tomorrow.¡±

    It hit her harder than she would have expected. ¡°Is that why you want me to leave?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he replied, ¡°but you¡¯re wasted here. The flat stays yours for when you¡¯re in town. I want you to keep taking assignments out of Kyiv for now, until I have a way to use you properly.¡±

    ¡°I can do that.¡±

    He looked back down at his papers. ¡°I¡¯m there often enough to keep up your lessons.¡±

    She nodded, touched that he¡¯d considered it. She let herself smile. ¡°Going away dinner tonight? Your treat?¡±

    He gave a soundless laugh and stood up to come around the desk to her. ¡°A ¡®see you soon¡¯ dinner,¡± he corrected and then rested his hand on her shoulder with gentle pressure. The iciness was gone from his face and the telepathy that he¡¯d kept wound up tight flooded in, familiar, harsh, but caring too. ¡°Go pack,¡± he told her, giving her shoulder a squeeze before heading back to his desk. ¡°And pick a restaurant.¡±

    She headed back to the apartment. Her mind felt clear.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 45

    Sol LAHQ. Neptune Department.

    Penn looked up as he heard footsteps coming toward his office at a jog. One of his monitors came to a halt in his opened door, a little out of breath. ¡°Check the trendings, sir. I think we¡¯ve got a situation.¡±

    With a deep sigh, he pulled up trending hashtags on their program, designed to scan and track anything notable on the main social media platforms. He didn¡¯t have to look too hard. The phrase ¡°Vatican magic¡± had a certain ring to it that was hard to skim past.

    He clicked on it and was brought to a short, fifteen-second video of a young woman in Saint Peter¡¯s Square. She was maybe twenty, smiling for the video, flashing a peace sign. Behind her, maybe twenty feet away, a man was standing there, viewed from the back, and then he wasn¡¯t. The woman holding the camera could be heard saying, ¡°Wait.¡± The camera panned and someone who appeared to be the same man was halfway across the square by a line of pillars. The first girl asked, ¡°What?¡± and she replied, ¡°Hold on, I¡¯m recording, let me play it back,¡± and the recording cut.

    Penn turned off the sound and let the video play through again. He glanced at the date and views. Four-thousand views, but it was only a few hours old. Not good. ¡°Get the bots on this, commenting about it being fake. Make up some little detail that proves it¡¯s CGI.¡± The man was there and then he teleported away.

    When the monitor didn¡¯t respond, he looked up. She was biting her lip. ¡°Read the top comment, sir.¡±

    He scrolled. Did you collab with and a tagged username. With a prick of fear, he clicked the username and went to its most recent video.

    When this video was also of Saint Peter¡¯s Square, Penn swore. This video was a slow pan of the square from the opposite direction as the first. Penn picked out the same man from his clothing far off in one corner. Then the man teleported closer to the camera, facing forward, and Penn began to sweat in earnest. It was someone he recognized.

    The boy taking the video said, ¡°Whoa,¡± and focused his camera on the group of people the man was with. Five people facing the camera, three facing away. There was a tense moment when one of the three made a lunge for the two beside him, and this time, it was this other man who teleported. The boy half-shouted, ¡°Shit!¡± and the five people''s heads turned. The camera shook and jumped as the boy ran and the video ended. Penn checked the views. Twenty-five thousand.

    Penn put his head in his hands. ¡°Get the bots on it. Get whoever does our masked magician video channel¡ªKelley? Get him working on creating a video breakdown of how this trick was done. I¡¯m going to prepare to crash and scrub the site.¡± She nodded and left. Following her to the door, he gave a shout loud enough for the rest of his staff to hear.

    ¡°Everyone, check your email for the links I¡¯m sending you. This is what you¡¯re on today. I need to get a read on containment potential, so find out where else it¡¯s been posted and when. Kenny and Leanne, I need you to get me blown up stills of each of the faces in them. Thank you.¡±

    Penn shut his office door a little too loud. His hands were shaking. After sending out that email to his staff and composing a stressful email to Mercury that they were in hot water and he may have to cause a global disruption to fix this, Penn took a moment to breathe.

    The first teleporter was one of Adler¡¯s regular teleporters. Someone who brought Penn back and forth between LA and either Kyiv or Paris when Gage wasn¡¯t available. He didn¡¯t know the other four and he didn¡¯t want to, but he could only assume they were Entropy as well.

    There was a tentative knock. A tentative knock was the only sort that he hated more than an urgent one. The person on the other side of the door was afraid.

    ¡°What have you got?¡± he called.

    It was Kenny, a large tablet in hand. ¡°Yes, sir. I was going to run the stills through facial recognition, but I recognized one of them. It¡¯s the student Icarus. Different hair color, but the scar¡¯s a giveaway.¡±

    Penn swallowed. ¡°Thank you. Run them all anyway and send the results my way. I¡¯m on it.¡±

    Rubbing his eyes, Penn tried to think straight. What the fuck was Adler doing going after their Icarus? Especially the kid? And in such a stupidly public manner? He had planned on waiting to see if the containment potential report could tell him if it would even be worth the trouble, but Penn had a bad, bad feeling about all this. He picked up his phone and dialed the Cleanup tech desk.

    ¡°Sir?¡±

    ¡°Crash it.¡±

    ¡°Crash which, sir?¡±

    ¡°Whatever you can.¡± He hung up, then dialed Gerrit.

    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±

    ¡°The good news in your missing foster has been spotted in Rome. The bad news is he was captured in several viral videos. I¡¯ve got to work this but Kenny is pulling stills now. He¡¯ll take care of you.¡±

    Gerrit sputtered a little. ¡°Thank you.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got to go.¡±

    Another knock. Gage stepped inside his office and shut the door. He looked uncharacteristically sheepish. ¡°I thought you might need me.¡±

    ¡°You thought right.¡±

    ---

    Entropy Residential Building. Paris, France.

    Gage teleported Penn into the hallway in front of Adler¡¯s flat. He hadn¡¯t gotten to take two breaths to calm his stomach when Adler¡¯s voice rang out.

    ¡°Come in, Mr. Harris.¡±

    Adler was walking toward the door as he opened it. ¡°Gage,¡± he called. ¡°I saw your mother downstairs a couple hours ago if you want to see her. She¡¯s asked about you a couple times.¡±

    The teleporter gave half a smile and a knowing look to Penn before heading down the hall. Penn stepped past Adler and waited just inside.

    ¡°What¡¯s the emergency?¡±

    Penn pulled up the video that clearly showed the first teleporter¡¯s face. As much as he wanted to yell, he kept his voice quiet and controlled. ¡°This is my day now. That is your people going after one of the highest profile Icarus we¡¯ve had in years. What are you doing?¡±

    Adler peered at the video. ¡°Oh, that one.¡± He waved a hand and walked away to go take a seat, as though Penn was just bringing up some minor issue. ¡°I¡¯m trying to locate Gareth.¡±

    He turned his head to one side in surprise. ¡°Who the hell is Gareth?¡±

    One of Adler¡¯s eyebrows raised a fraction. ¡°Fuck¡¯s sake. One of your high profile Icarus¡¯ team.¡±

    It clicked. ¡°The ex-Entropy one. Right. What do you want him for?¡±

    ¡°That has nothing to do with you.¡±

    Penn pointed to the phone. ¡°It has everything to do with me right now.¡±

    ¡°I would think you and your department would be used to being collateral damage for everyone by now.¡±

    ¡°Mark¡ª¡±

    His head jerked and he gave Penn a sharp, embittered look.

    Penn dipped his head in apology. This wasn¡¯t Kyiv. ¡°Force of habit. Mr. Adler, can you please ask your people to be more mindful of how public they¡¯re being? I can contain this, but there¡¯s a meeting in my future that will inevitably involve discussions about why Entropy is targeting our Icarus.¡±

    ¡°So clean it.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Penn waited, but Adler wasn¡¯t a man who repeated himself. Penn scoffed. ¡°I¡¯ll handle it.¡± His phone went off in his hand. It was his staff. ¡°Excuse me.¡± He answered.

    ¡°Sir, we need you here right now. It¡¯s bad.¡± Penn¡¯s eyes flashed at Adler, heart in his throat.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be right there. Hang tight.¡±

    Without a word, Gage teleported in by the door, summoned by Adler no doubt.

    Adler nodded to him. ¡°Good luck, Mr. Harris.¡±

    Penn spared him one last look, then walked to Gage and let himself be ripped across space.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Neptune Department.

    Gage dropped him into the center of the kicked wasp¡¯s nest of his people rushing about.

    ¡°What¡¯s the damage?¡± Penn shouted, pushing into their main bullpen, with its rows of computers and screens up on the wall.

    He was immediately swarmed with a ring of agents around him. He took the tablet he was handed and watched a bookish looking woman with short hair behind a desk. The video was titled, ¡®Proof that Superheroes Live Among Us.¡¯ Penn read the subtitles while his people filled him in.

    ¡°We had several outages and worked to scrub the videos. It was going okay until this¡ª¡±

    I¡¯ve been saying for years that the government has been covering up the fact that people with superpowers exist all around us, but today we got actual, undeniable proof.

    ¡°It¡¯s been picked up by digital and broadcast news¡ª¡±

    I¡¯m sure by now that you have seen this video capturing a total of four people teleporting, but I understand that¡¯s the sort of thing you could fake, even with separate accounts posting it. Here¡¯s why it¡¯s different this time.

    ¡°We don¡¯t know what to do, sir. We¡¯re pushing the hoax angle but we¡¯re not getting traction with something that vague.¡±

    On this platform alone, there are five different live cams recording Vatican square 24/7. When I scrubbed back to the correct time, because there¡¯s a backlog of six hours on these cams, this is what I saw. There. I know it¡¯s far away but you can clearly see a person disappear and reappear and then three people disappear. Here¡¯s another angle from another live cam.

    ¡°It¡¯s getting away from us.¡±

    These are live cams run by news organizations, travel companies¡ªnot people who would all conspire together to run a hoax with some user with only 800 followers. And how could they even do that? These videos were all streamed live. This is real. Then the platforms where these videos originally ran crashed? That¡¯s just more proof, in my eyes. They¡¯re hiding something from us.

    Penn felt like his body was turning itself inside out.

    ¡°Who¡¯s picked it up?¡±

    ¡°We anticipate everyone will be running something on it, whether serious or a special interest of a viral phenomenon within two hours.¡±

    His phone rang. Sage. ¡°We¡¯re on it, sir.¡±

    ¡°Would I be in the way if I came down?¡±

    ¡°We need all the hands we can get.¡± He hung up. ¡°Reception?¡±

    ¡°Some exactly what we want and more than a few people saying they¡¯ve also seen things, but sir, they¡¯ve identified the shortest woman as 18B.¡±

    Penn could feel the headache building. ¡°Thank you. Tell Gerrit. Keep doing what you¡¯re doing. Scan her social media to locate three close friends and create a write up on each one to see who would make the best leak.¡± He held up the tablet. ¡°And get me her address.¡± He turned back to Gage. ¡°Mercury, now.¡±

    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    He didn¡¯t even have time to take a breath to prepare himself when Gage popped him into the entry space in front of Mercury¡¯s office, making his assistant, Shane, nearly jump out of his suit.

    ¡°It¡¯s emergent,¡± he told Shane and walked into Mercury¡¯s office. ¡°I apologize, sir, but we¡¯re in a lot of trouble.¡±

    Josh, looking up at him, appeared apprehensive, but not angry that he¡¯d barged in. ¡°Fill me in the quick way.¡±

    Penn went into his head and gave him everything his team had told him.

    Josh cleared his throat, adjusting. ¡°Talk to me.¡±

    ¡°Our people are doing everything in our power, but this is moving faster than we can run, sir.¡± He glanced at the floor and then back. ¡°Two videos is one thing, but at this point, we¡¯re looking at seven corroborating videos from seven different sources. When I leave here, I¡¯m going to go ruin a woman¡¯s life for telling the truth.¡±

    His boss sat in silence for a moment. ¡°What do you need from me?¡±

    Penn didn¡¯t bother keeping the emotion from his face. ¡°Due respect, sir, for you to understand that that¡¯s terrible.¡± He let out a defeated huff and straightened. ¡°And for you to get whatever wheels in motion you will need to prepare to contact the CIA and whoever else benefits from keeping this contained as a last measure. And let Mars know she may need to prepare her people.¡±

    Josh leaned forward slightly. ¡°You think Mars might have to get involved?¡±

    ¡°I think I¡¯m going to do everything I can to reel this back in, but there¡¯s a chance that this is the big one and we don¡¯t really know what¡¯s coming if it is.¡±

    Josh¡¯s shoulders rose with a breath. ¡°Go.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    When he got back to Cleanup, Sage was there, bent over a desk with two of Penn¡¯s staff.

    ¡°You up to speed?¡±

    Sage nodded and handed him a printout of a fit looking young man. ¡°You¡¯re looking for someone to leak that the woman in the video faked the whole thing?¡± Penn nodded. ¡°He¡¯s a close friend. Social media looks active and, let¡¯s say, attention-seeking.¡±

    Penn nodded again. He¡¯d be someone who might use this to get followers. ¡°Good. I¡¯ll have someone put it in his head that she¡¯d confided in him that she was planning this whole hoax. I¡¯ll take care of the woman at the center at the same time. Tomorrow she¡¯ll post an apology video for faking the whole thing. She¡¯ll be horribly discredited and probably get death threats for six months.¡±

    ¡°Tomorrow?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s more realistic. No one apologizes until they know for sure they can¡¯t get away with it. And then it¡¯s just working the comments and holding our breath to see if it takes. It¡¯ll be out of our hands at that point.¡±

    ¡°What about the five live streams?¡± Sage asked.

    ¡°Doctored video. Like she said, you can only scrub back six hours from the present. It¡¯s been far longer. By the time she posted her video, no one could go back and verify what was really on that footage.¡±

    ¡°Good.¡± Sage lowered his head and raised his eyebrows. ¡°You alright?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t ask me that question right now.¡±

    His phone went off again. Emmett. A text. He¡¯d be worried. Love you. You¡¯ve got this.

    Penn¡¯s chest was feeling tight. It would probably be fine. Probably, it would resolve itself¡ªwith a herculean effort¡ªand most of Sol would never even know there was a crisis. Those that did would forget about it in a few months. The thing was, there was no way to tell that crisis apart from the one that wouldn¡¯t end that way. He looked at Sage. ¡°Let¡¯s just get this done.¡±

    ---

    Sanctuary. ?ilina, Slovakia.

    Their last jump landed them just outside a Sanctuary in Slovakia. Alex had followed inside, oblivious of other voices, and crawled into a bedroom to lay down and nurse his wretched stomach. The Sanctuary was close, with narrow hallways, a crowded galley kitchen, and several beds crammed into small bedrooms upstairs. Alex felt wrung out and run over, and he fell asleep almost as soon as he collapsed on the stiff sheets.

    The next morning, he woke tense and sore. The other two were still asleep on their cots, crammed in at Tetris angles in this walk-in closet-sized bedroom. He fumbled for Misha¡¯s pre-pay, which he¡¯d kept in bed with him, and tried dialing Reeve again. Nothing. Alex nudged Hannah¡¯s cot with his foot and she came awake with a start. They must have been in such a bad state last night, practically holding each other up, that no one challenged her about staying in the same room as them.

    ¡°What?¡± she asked groggily, pushing herself up from her face-down sprawl.

    He held up the phone. ¡°Still nothing.¡±

    Alex tried to find the brakes on his speeding mind as he chased down all the gory reasons why they couldn¡¯t answer the phone. Hannah sighed and reached out her hand for the phone. He handed it over. Normally it was the past that pulled at him, but now it was the future that had tangled him up and turned him upside-down and whispered about bloody alleyways right behind his ear. He needed to focus. He needed caffeine.

    While Hannah called, he ventured out into the Sanctuary. He hadn¡¯t gotten used to the eerie quiet of everyone being asleep in a crowded house during the daytime. He slunk into the kitchen and grabbed an energy drink from the fridge. When he got back, Hannah was grumpily pulling on her shirt. She tossed him the phone and shook her head.

    Alex bit his lip and tried not to get pulled back in. ¡°Misha?¡±

    She leaned over the divide and shook his shoulder, but Misha only groaned. It wasn¡¯t like him. Alex was used to Misha being the one waking them up at all hours. Hannah shook him again and he swatted at her hand before turning over and pulling the blankets over his head.

    Hannah frowned. ¡°Now what?¡±

    ¡°I want to know what that thing is. The gift, or whatever, for Gareth.¡±

    Alex dragged Misha¡¯s pack across the floor, purposely making a scraping noise, but Misha didn¡¯t budge. He shrugged and opened the bag. The pouch was right on top. Alex hesitated, so Hannah snatched it up. With a look like she was regretting it already, she unzipped it and peered inside.

    ¡°It¡¯s a suture kit,¡± she muttered, her brow furrowed. She squinted at it closer. ¡°Yeah,¡± she said, answering no one, ¡°it¡¯s a suture kit.¡±

    Alex leaned forward, too. Hannah had taught him basic medical and he recognized the forceps, scalpel handles, and hooked needles. The once-white packaging that held the thread was aged and stained. ¡°What is that supposed to mean?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. He¡¯s never said anything to me about medical stuff, but there¡¯s lots he doesn¡¯t say.¡±

    Alex held out his hand. ¡°Well, one way to find out.¡±

    Hannah drew the kit back with a grimace. ¡°Are you sure? Entropy is...¡±

    Alex dropped his hand. ¡°What, you want to wait to ask Gareth, who, I¡¯m sure, will be happy to recount its meaning to us?¡±

    Hannah bit her lip. ¡°I mean, it¡¯s a little fucked up to pry when he¡¯s not here.¡±

    ¡°I mean,¡± Alex mimicked, ¡°that is exactly what I do all day long, though. Sort of.¡± He said it with humor, but it was mostly to cover up the growing knot of unease in his stomach.

    Hannah¡¯s knuckles were white as she gripped the kit, pausing. It made Alex hold his breath a little with worry, but it didn¡¯t take long for him to get over that. Easier to find out than to wonder. He couldn¡¯t Read the phone to tell where Gareth and the others were, but he could damn well get to the bottom of this mystery. He reached out his hand again. ¡°He should have answered his damn phone.¡±

    The kit was heavier than it looked, forcing his arm to give an inch or two. With the inertia and heft of it, it was like the Story sank into his palm as he held it, heavy as lead.

    Alex pushes past the years of quiet dust, sitting in a desk drawer, moving house at the bottom of a footlocker, waiting on a shelf next to piles of books. As he works backward, it strikes him that the kit doesn¡¯t have any kind of label or name tag. Someone had kept track of it through the years. Knew what it was by sight. He turns the pages back.

    It¡¯s raining. Gareth and another man are ducking under the sparse cover of an awning on a closed loading dock. Gareth looks about the age that he was when Alex met him. It has to be close to when he left Entropy. The man is a little younger than Gareth, probably in his late teens. He has shaggy brown hair matted to his face with rain. Gareth is trying to sew up a gash on the man¡¯s calf but the wound is wide, with enough skin missing that it probably needs a graft. Gareth is struggling. The man is patiently sitting there, wincing, his eyes shut. Alex doesn¡¯t move closer. He reaches back and turns the page, shifting to find the first instance of Gareth¡¯s face.

    He is in a windowless but brightly lit warehouse with absurdly high ceilings. The kind of place you could house airplanes in. It is filled with rows of steel shipping containers in pale gray, navy, and rust. The wide aisles are bustling with people, and along one wall, there¡¯s a crane truck that looks like a flatbed with a scorpion tail.

    Gareth is standing next to him by the doorway. He¡¯s young but already so tall. It makes his arms and legs look awkwardly long and gangly. His face has a rounder cast to it than Alex is used to. The backpack on his shoulder holds everything he owns. His lips are pulled in a tight straight line.

    A man jogs over to him. He¡¯s in his late twenties, but something about him seems older. He doesn¡¯t have glasses yet, but the sandy hair and square jaw are there and Alex still knows him. The man flashes a smile as he comes to a stop, which surprises Alex.

    ¡°You new?¡± he asks.

    ¡°New to San Fran. They sent me here.¡±

    ¡°Oh, the healer,¡± he says, his face lighting up. ¡°Good, I need another one. I¡¯m Marcus Adler.¡±

    ¡°Gareth. You in charge?¡±

    Adler looks over his shoulder at him as he walks over to a desk to grab the top black suture kit from a small stack. ¡°Of what? Everything?¡± He hands Gareth the kit. ¡°Not yet,¡± he continues with a gleam in his eye, ¡°but in this building, yes. Welcome to The Spa.¡±

    Gareth balks. ¡°Spa?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what I call it, anyway. It¡¯ll catch on. Keep that with you,¡± he continues, pointing to the kit, ¡°you¡¯re going to need it. Come on, let me show you where you¡¯re living and what you¡¯re doing.¡±

    He leads Gareth down one row of containers with long, fast strides. Alex has to rush to keep up with their long legs. The containers have their doors open and people are living inside of them like a metal row house in a range of states, from several bedrolls crowded together to a loveseat and a real bedframe. They stop at one with two other beddings set up in it.

    ¡°This is you. You can leave the pack.¡±

    Gareth hesitates, looking around. His jaw is as tight as his fist around the backpack¡¯s strap, but at the expression Adler was giving him, he drops it inside the container, other hand still clutching the suture kit. Alex can feel he knows what happens when you don¡¯t do as you¡¯re told.

    Alex follows them out back toward the front of the warehouse.

    ¡°Now,¡± Adler says clapping his hands together, ¡°aside from other things, this is actually a working warehouse for Entropy Games, so if someone tells you to load or unload boxes you do it, understood?¡± Gareth nods. ¡°Good, for the most part you¡¯ll be prepping and helping our Elders contain their third night here. You know what I¡¯m talking about? Good.¡± He leads them down a long corridor of shipping crates at the far end of the warehouse, all closed and locked with chunky padlocks. Gareth¡¯s nose burns with the ripe smell of it.

    ¡°The beast night can cause more public attention than we want right now,¡± Adler explained. ¡°We have three dedicated containment rooms. If you run out of space, I¡¯ll show you who to call.¡±

    ¡°Why only three?¡± Gareth''s eyes dart to the hundreds of crates.

    Adler stops and turns. He raps on the crate next to him with his knuckles. ¡°Do you think that could hold them?¡±

    Gareth looks at his feet and shakes his head.

    ¡°Right.¡± Adler pats the side of the crate he¡¯d knocked on and calls, ¡°Sorry!¡± before continuing with a small smile. He stops at a mobile staircase parked along the wall and starts climbing.

    ¡°What are¡ª¡±

    ¡°Stop asking things. I¡¯m showing you.¡±

    It¡¯s crowded on the stairs with the three of them, and even though he knows it doesn¡¯t matter, Alex doesn¡¯t want to touch either of them. He looks where Adler is pointing. From above, he can see there are three clusters of crates at the back of the warehouse, all one level except for a single container sitting on top of the center of each one.

    ¡°Those containers on the ground are packed with cement blocks. Our guests are put into a container with, well, we¡¯ll get there, and are lowered into the center of that block of crates. Then one more heavy crate is set on top of them. All this is done while they¡¯re asleep, or at least it¡¯s supposed to be.¡±

    Adler trots back down the stairs with enough speed to make Alex flinch as he moves by.

    ¡°Now, even with that barrier, it¡¯s best to keep our guests sated and distracted. We still lose too many crates a year to being torn open as it is. Here¡ª¡± He stops at one of the containers and opens the lock with a key on his waist. There is a woman inside, slumped and listless. Alex¡¯s whole body shivers and itches, feeling both Gareth¡¯s cold, stoic terror and Adler¡¯s amusement so close in proximity.

    She is shackled to a loop in the center of the crate. There¡¯s a ratty blanket and gallon jug of water in the dim space, along with a bucket for waste. She is thin but healthy-looking.

    ¡°There are other people whose job it is to clean these containers, but if someone above your rank tells you to clean them, you do it.¡±

    Gareth sputters, then finds his voice with a gulp. ¡°How will I know who¡¯s above me?¡±

    Adler cocks his head. ¡°The people above you are the ones that tell you to do something and then you do it. Anyone else gets you to do that and they¡¯re above you now. Follow? Now, we need to feed the Elders to keep them sated and occupied.¡±

    ¡°You put her in the crate with them?¡±

    ¡°Sort of. City¡¯s been turning up the heat on missing persons, and they never eat a whole person in one night anyway, so it¡¯s a waste. Part of them goes in the crate. That¡¯s where you come in.¡±

    Adler beckons him to approach the girl. He hesitates. Alex takes a step backward.

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, they¡¯re all dosed to keep them calm. It¡¯s in their water.¡± Adler¡¯s voice is almost comforting, as though Gareth¡¯s reluctance is from fear of the woman hurting him.

    But Gareth doesn¡¯t move. Alex can feel that he¡¯s barely breathing, trying to ward off the whooping gasps of his panic.

    Adler¡¯s shoulders drop. ¡°Now.¡± His voice echoes loudly in the container, and Alex feels Gareth¡¯s fear vanish. Simply gone into thin air. That heavy weight and pain is suddenly replaced with a certainty that almost makes him sleepy, it¡¯s so comfortable and secure. So sure.

    Gareth walks briskly to stand across from Adler and crouches down with him. Suddenly the gnawing pit of fear is back and Gareth¡¯s chest is moving like a bellows. He falls backward, barely catching himself with his elbows. Alex feels that all Gareth wants is to either be away from here or have that certainty back, even if it was just Adler¡¯s telepathy fooling him.

    Adler watches intently, and waits for Gareth to pull himself up properly. ¡°So,¡± Adler says lightly. ¡°You have your kit? Good. There are a few other tools, saws and things, but it¡¯s not a one person job, anyway. We take arms first and move onto legs if they survive it. More will survive as you get the hang of it, as they say. One limb per guest should do it. If they ask for two, you do that. One of you will be doing the cutting and the other will sew her up.¡±

    Gareth doesn¡¯t say anything, but Adler considers him closely.

    ¡°You want to know why? We¡¯re not going to feed our fellow agents meat that died days ago. Fresh means fresh. Keep her alive and she keeps.¡± He briefly smiled at his own joke and continued, ¡°It extends how often we have to go out and haul in more prey. It¡¯s less work in the long run. Less police to deal with. You understand in theory?¡±

    Gareth can¡¯t speak.

    ¡°I said, do you understand in theory?¡±

    Gareth¡¯s head pops up like a champagne cork and chimes, ¡°Yes, Mr. Adler,¡± in a bubbly cheerful tone. Then his head drops, wide-eyed.

    Adler leans forward into Gareth¡¯s sightline. ¡°Now you say it.¡±

    ¡°Yes, Mr. Adler.¡± His voice shakes, but holds.

    ¡°Good. You get the theory, so now I¡¯ll give you all the steps in detail, in a way you won¡¯t forget. I hate having to repeat myself.¡±

    He reaches out and puts one hand on Gareth¡¯s closely shorn hair. A moment later a sound comes out of Gareth that builds to a full-throated yell. Alex opens his own mouth as if to shout, as he feels Adler¡¯s lightning fast mind shredding through Gareth¡¯s with an unsettling mix of violence and exactingness. Alex can see now how someone could wield a butcher¡¯s cleaver with elegance and precision. But all he knows is that he needs to stop feeling it and hearing that scream, so he tries to locate his hands.

    Alex dropped the kit on the floor and Hannah caught him before he followed it.

    ¡°What is it?¡± she asked, her voice tight.

    Alex shook his head. ¡°Hold on, I¡¯m gonna need a minute. It¡¯s bad.¡± He looked up. ¡°Can you try dialing them again?¡±

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 46

    Paris, France.

    Fox del Sol followed his mark into a cafe at a respectful distance, timing it so they wouldn''t be in line right behind each other. Getting a top-secret, off-the-books assignment from Saturn herself was something that Saturn agents dreamed about during their training. A fantasy that would never actually happen. But here he was.

    It also had to be said that while most Saturn agents would leap at the chance to fulfill this fantasy, Fox was not one of those people. When Mackenzie Davis asked you personally to do something, you did it¡ªbut it was going to be hard.

    The thing was, Fox did not enjoy a challenge. He¡¯d excelled at Saturn work from a young age. A natural, they¡¯d said, which was lucky, since Fox preferred not to try very hard at anything. There were better things to do with his time¡ªlike nothing. Nothing was pretty great. Trusting that not trying was going to cut it was something he could not do with an assignment given directly by Saturn. He was going to have to give it everything he had, and that was going to be exhausting and not at all enjoyable.

    Plus, the assignment was vague as hell, so not only did he have to gather information, he also had to figure out what information needed gathering. He needed a drink, and not the kind of drink he could order in this cute little coffee shop.

    Austin Greene was busy ordering ahead of him. That¡¯s all he had to go on. Saturn needed information about him, except the only intel she had was his name and location. The rest was on Fox.

    Austin was a short man; an American with a hint of a babyface camouflaged by stubble. Fox was working on getting his hands on his documents, but they seemed hard to locate, likely at least in part due to the fact that Austin was transgender. Fox would never have clocked it, but his bio-manipulation knack caught onto something in his endocrine system that, with a little exploration, explained at least some of the barriers he¡¯d hit in searching for those documents. But even with that complicating factor, it was proving tricker than it should have been for a simple enough task.

    Austin got his coffee and went to sit down at a little table in the center of the cafe. Thank fuck. That meant Fox could take a load off and stop following him around the city for a change. The guy was a Private Investigator, and while Fox wasn¡¯t especially worried about being made, he did not love that his target was predisposed to being highly observant of his surroundings.

    He ordered an espresso and pastry. All in all, the food and wine in Paris partly made up for the whole situation.

    Fox settled into a table along the wall in view of Austin and leaned back to stretch out his legs with a long sigh. He got out his laptop and opened a ¡°best travel spots¡± site with large blocks of text for appearances. The espresso was good but still a little strange to his palette. It was going to take him some time to get used to regular coffee again, after living on the Turkish-style coffee in Bulgaria for so long. He rubbed his face.

    Austin appeared to be simply hanging out, enjoying his coffee, and looking at something on his phone. It quickly became apparent to Fox that Austin was waiting for someone, in the way he always took note of every person coming through the door. He was shrewd about it, so likely not waiting on a friend. Probably trying to catch some husband out on his affair.

    Fox hadn¡¯t had this much up-close time yet, so he studied him, careful to be casual about it. The quality of his clothes made him assume that Austin was making ends meet, but only just. This wasn¡¯t some elite P.I. working for France¡¯s upper echelons. He was getting by. The strange lack of documents and strata of work suggested he was here illegally. Running from something? His vigilance seemed all business, and Fox didn¡¯t feel any sort of fear from him, so that didn¡¯t quite fit. Fox had been following him around for a couple of days and he seemed like just some guy. Fox really needed to bug his apartment and get a better idea of what he was dealing with.

    It was subtle, very subtle, but Fox saw Austin begin to track the two newest people to come into the cafe. Two young men in casual clothes, one American and one local. The American had a swagger and the other didn¡¯t; he was tense, which was not the same as nervous. Neither of them attempted to take stock of their surroundings, so they were confident in their safety here.

    Fox watched Austin watch them and got a little lost in thought, working over and over what he could possibly be looking for. He thought back to the conversation with Saturn. He¡¯d been given a phone number by a new, young handler in Bulgaria and when he¡¯d called it, it had gone to Mackenzie Davis. Not her reception desk, not her personal assistant, directly to Saturn. ¡°I need you to do something for me and for me only,¡± she¡¯d said. Saturn had a voice that stuck in your head. She was a legend. There was no other answer he could¡¯ve¡ª

    Fuck. The two people Austin was watching chose to sit at the table right next to Fox. Austin would be focusing in on their direction, and he didn¡¯t like his odds that he wouldn¡¯t notice him being a little too curious about the guy. Fox wasn¡¯t above flirting or fucking him, but it was early in the assignment for something that might not even need to be done.

    ¡°You need to let it go, man,¡± The American was saying.

    ¡°How am I supposed to let it go?¡± the other argued, putting his coffee down, un-sipped. ¡°She¡¯s sleeping across the hall from me. In my mother¡¯s apartment.¡±

    Fox sighed. He wasn¡¯t going to get anything else here. He was debating going back to his apartment, but something tickled at the back of his brain. The local was facing him. There was something familiar about him. No.

    Fox pulled up Entropy Games¡¯ corporate site and scrolled through their executive leadership page, but no matches. He must be losing his mind.

    ¡°Do you seriously think you have another option besides just living with it? Have you ever won an argument with your dad?¡±

    The man huffed. ¡°I know.¡±

    Fox took a bite of his pastry to mask his sudden nerves. He tasted none of it. A pity, as he knew it was probably very good. Tilting his laptop toward the wall, Fox did an image search for ¡°Marcus Adler¡± and ¡°son.¡± Immediately, a photo came up from some press event with Marcus Adler and the man sitting in front of him. You¡¯ve got to be fucking kidding me.

    Sure, okay it was Paris. Entropy¡¯s headquarters were in the city. He was bound to come across someone. But not the fucking only child of Entropy¡¯s second hand. He doubted this would be an opportunity that Sol would have again anytime soon¡ªa bio-manip within handshake range of Wyatt Adler, but also there was next to no information on his level of involvement besides accident of birth¡ªand an assassination wasn¡¯t his assignment.

    Right? Fox didn¡¯t know what his assignment really was. It probably wasn¡¯t this. Was it?

    And why, for the love of fuck, was his target investigating Marcus Adler¡¯s son? It sounded like a pretty reliable way to get murdered. Who was this guy? One possibility he couldn¡¯t rule out was that ¡°Austin¡± was another Saturn agent. It would explain the shaky documents. (Their papers were always supposed to be iron-clad, but it wasn¡¯t always the case. Maybe out of LA, but during his years in Manchester, he¡¯d had to roll with some substandard stuff.) He didn¡¯t really buy that though. He could be civilian intelligence looking into the strangeness that was Entropy games. (Anyone would have to admit they owned a significantly excessive amount of property for a board game company.) But again, nothing about Austin, besides who he was watching, suggested any of this.

    What the fuck was going on?

    Maybe he was hired to investigate the American and not Marcus Adler¡¯s son? What fucking luck that would be. Yikes.

    ¡°She¡¯s not that bad.¡±

    ¡°Jack¡ª¡± He cocked his head with a glower. Wyatt had a softer sounding voice than he¡¯d have guessed.

    ¡°Or if she is that bad, your dad will get bored of her or she¡¯ll piss him off and then she¡¯s not your problem anymore.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s talk about anything else.¡±

    Fox had to get out of there before Austin realized he wasn¡¯t the only interested party here. This was all running too hot and he had even less of an idea of what his assignment was than when he¡¯d walked into the cafe.

    Bug the apartment. Keep tabs on him for a while longer and see if this was a fluke. Talk to Saturn. Then make a call.

    He packed up and booked it. This was going to be harder than he¡¯d anticipated, and even he could admit that he¡¯d gone a little on the dramatic side when estimating how damn hard this was going to be. For tonight, he¡¯d give Austin a little space while he worked all this through in his head. With wine. And plenty of it.

    ---

    Sanctuary. ?¨®d?, Poland.

    Reeve leaned over the sink and splashed cold water onto his face. He couldn¡¯t sleep any longer. It didn¡¯t matter. The sun was setting and the Sanctuary would be waking up soon. They¡¯d driven through the night with Alyosha pouring over maps, leading them through small back roads to avoid major border crossings. They got to the Sanctuary in ?¨®d? that Thomas had given them an address for by dawn.

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    He looked at himself in the mirror, ran a hand over his face, down his jaw, and scratched at his chin. After spending a week living in a farmhouse with no electricity or running water, Gareth and Alyosha both looked halfway to mountain men with short beards. Reeve not so much.

    His hair had grown out long enough since Beatty that he could almost tie it back, but his face was patchy with peach fuzz and small sections of sparse darker hairs. Gareth was happy to give him shit about it every chance he got. Still, he barely recognized himself¡ªwhich was probably good, considering they were in hiding. His preferred clothes were torn or stained with someone or something¡¯s blood by now. All his button-downs made sense when his telepathy was his go-to but with that out of the picture and having to get significantly more physical, it was more practical to wear his few tee shirts, anyway. He didn¡¯t think he could stand to keep the scruff, though.

    Reeve heard movement and went downstairs to investigate. The Sanctuary was a tall, three story building that had previously been a hotel. It was a little full, so the three of them had wordlessly crowded together into one bedroom that shared a bathroom in the hall.

    In the kitchen, he found a woman at the table cutting slices off an apple with a paring knife. Her skin was a shade darker than Gareth''s. She was in her late forties and her short, natural hair had streaks of silvery white. She looked at him appraisingly.

    ¡°English?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Yes, please,¡± he replied, more than a little relieved. ¡°Reeve.¡±

    ¡°Allison. Your god keep you. You must have come in this morning.¡± She had a long neck and though slim, he could see she was dense with muscle. A pentacle hung on a long cord around her neck.

    He nodded. ¡°Been on the road. I¡¯m trying to find a Child named Misha. Have you seen him?¡±

    She raised her eyebrows and mimed an explosion with her hands, ¡°Misha?¡±

    ¡°That Misha,¡± Reeve laughed.

    ¡°Not in months.¡±

    He sighed silently. ¡°Thanks.¡± Alex and Hannah were a veritable force to be reckoned with on their own and despite their barely amicable relationship, he knew Misha would do everything he could to keep them alive¡ªif only to avoid having to tell Reeve he¡¯d failed at something. It was enough for now. He puttered in the cupboards looking for the coffee. ¡°Oh, I need to find a telepath too.¡±

    ¡°Anyone in particular?¡±

    ¡°Not really.¡±

    She sat back in her chair. ¡°Alright, you found one then.¡±

    He turned, a little surprised, giving up on his search and moved to sit down.

    ¡°You ask a lot of questions and you look like a mess. I think you want that coffee first.¡°

    ¡°It¡¯s fine. I probably shouldn¡¯t have the caffeine anyway,¡± he said a little sheepishly. ¡°I need training to use my telepathy without it being so noticeable to the people who sense these sorts of things.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re ex-Sol?¡±

    Reeve cringed. ¡°Is it still that obvious or are you scanning me?¡±

    ¡°Only an Icarus would be this embarrassed to ask for help with his gift. And we don¡¯t use our gifts against each other.¡±

    He really didn¡¯t enjoy being transparent. ¡°I¡¯m not sure that¡¯s entirely fair, but it¡¯s certainly fair for me.¡± He let out a long breath through his nose. ¡°Can you help me?¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡± She bobbed her head. ¡°How much time you got?¡±

    ¡°Almost none.¡±

    ¡°Okay,¡± she said, unphased. ¡°Let¡¯s take this to the living room so we¡¯re not interrupted by breakfast.¡±

    Reeve wandered out into the living room while she threw out her apple core. The sitting room looked like it could have been airy and welcoming at one point, but was crammed in with supplies, several patterned and mismatching couches, crates, and a workbench covered in tools. He found a seat on the couch that looked the least stained. He counted his breaths and tried to ignore the pricking of sweat on his body.

    Alison came in, holding a glass and a bottle of clear spirits.

    ¡°What¡¯s that for?¡± he asked.

    ¡°You.¡±

    His heart rate doubled. Reeve sucked on his lips, watching her. ¡°No.¡±

    She shrugged and sat, setting the plastic bottle on the black chest being used as a makeshift coffee table. ¡°You want to learn how not to attract attention?¡±

    He leaned forward. ¡°What is this supposed to do, other than incapacitate me?¡±

    She quirked her mouth and poured him a glass. ¡°You can¡¯t silence your telepathy because you can¡¯t hear the sound it¡¯s making. If you¡¯d been born with a ringing in your ears, there are certain sounds you¡¯d never notice. This,¡± she gave the bottle a slosh, ¡°basically paralyzes it. You need to remember what silence feels like before you can emulate it.¡±

    ¡°Sedatives are not silent,¡± he retorted, his face pinched and stomach tight. ¡°It¡¯s loud. Being on downers is as loud as it gets. It makes me an open receiving channel, unable to block or filter anything out. All one jumbled mash.¡±

    She raised an eyebrow. ¡°I know. But there¡¯s a threshold you cross if you stay there long enough. It changes.¡±

    ¡°You did this?¡±

    She nodded. ¡°Yeah, but I was younger than you and less set in it than you are, so don¡¯t you ask me how long it takes, because I can¡¯t tell you.¡±

    Raised in the Academy, Reeve began using his telepathy as a small child, guessing images on cards that the teacher hid from view. It was a game then. He didn¡¯t believe there was some mystical sensation to be had without his telepathy besides doubt and, frankly, powerlessness. Maybe it was different for natural born telepaths, who come into their knack spontaneously or in small pieces over the years. Reeve was quite literally bred for this. It was more than background noise¡ªit was the air, the fabric of his mind.

    Then again, what choice did he have? They had to find Misha and the others, and they¡¯d be stuck trekking through Europe, asking for him from Sanctuary to Sanctuary, hoping to get lucky, unless he could get his telepathy back to comb large areas quickly and effectively.

    ¡°I¡¯ll just keep adding more to your glass until you start.¡± She moved to pick up the bottle again, but Reeve set his hand over the glass.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure how well you think I¡¯ll function or be useful to the Sanctuary.¡±

    ¡°I think you¡¯ll be incapacitated and a pain in the ass, but you¡¯re a danger to everyone you¡¯re around until you fix this, right?¡± She nodded to the glass and thinly smiled. ¡°I¡¯ll pour right over your boney fingers.¡±

    He laughed humorlessly and picked up the glass. She opened her eyes wide expectantly. Reeve knew he¡¯d gone through some uncomfortable and even painful training building his telepathy at the Academy and he tried to reframe this as an extension of that. Problem was, most of that training sat behind a fog that only got thicker the more he thought about drinking. He swallowed.

    It burned with a chemical taste reserved for extremely cheap vodka that made him think the Sanctuary only kept this around to sanitize wounds. He coughed despite himself and set the glass down. He pointed to the stairs.

    ¡°I should let my friends know what¡¯s happening before I get wrecked.¡±

    ¡°In a minute.¡± Allison refilled his glass.

    Reeve stood and shook his head. ¡°No. I don¡¯t think you get how much of a lightweight I am.¡±

    She stood, bringing the glass with her. ¡°I don¡¯t want you uncomfortable. I want you incapacitated. Bring the bottle. You¡¯re going to want to be alone while you do this. I¡¯ll send your friends back up with water and food later.¡±

    Reeve sighed with closed eyes, then took the glass from her and raised it in a toast. ¡°May your gods keep me,¡± he said and downed the glass. He coughed again, though less this time.

    Allison patted him on the shoulder. ¡°You¡¯ll be alright.¡± Her voice was softer. ¡°Just hang on through it.¡±

    He didn¡¯t have a response.

    Reeve headed upstairs, bottle in hand. The feeling of the plastic neck of the bottle inside the grip of his fingers held more than liquor or vodka or tangible memories. He knocked on their bedroom door and entered without waiting. Shvedov and Gareth were getting dressed. He held up the bottle to them with a look of dismay.

    ¡°Whoa,¡± was all Gareth could say, buttoning his jeans. ¡°What the fuck?¡±

    ¡°Apparently this is step one to making my telepathy usable again.¡±

    Shvedov gave him a look of pity.

    Gareth finished dressing without saying anything and his jaw was tight. He knew him well enough to know it was a silence of sympathy and, in its own way, respect. It had taken them too long to read each other like this.

    Reeve stepped out of the way. ¡°You should head downstairs and grab food. The telepath said she¡¯d explain it to you. I just want to lie down.¡±

    They left. Gareth squeezed his shoulder on his way out. Reeve curled up on his side, on the bed closest to the door. A foreboding heat was sinking into his bones, warming his fingertips and cheeks. It didn¡¯t take long for the constant roil of thoughts that surrounded everyone to start knocking holes through his boundaries, like an angry river butting up against a crumbling dam.

    He closed his eyes tight and focused on taking slow breaths, but it grew from a trickle to a flood far faster than he¡¯d expected. Sedated telepathy was less like the open radio station he¡¯d described it as, and more like a gun turned inward. He flexed his wrists, remembering the Neptune shackles from when they¡¯d drugged him. That was a different kind of haze, more targeted to keep him from affecting them. Reeve couldn¡¯t remember the last time he¡¯d been purposefully, profoundly drunk. It would have been before they¡¯d taken in Alex.

    The pressure built as it flooded into his head. With a friction like sandpaper, the shove of too much information pressed downward behind his eyes and tumbled down his throat in a violent crash of color.

    Fumbling and clumsy, he tried to piece out individual thoughts, the mundane, the private, the ugly, to translate them, to find some clarity or anchor in the flow.

    Where is he?

    I really need to fix that.

    What is going on in there?

    I¡¯m starving. I can¡¯t remember what we¡¯re having tonight.

    What the hell are we going to do about this?

    God, I can¡¯t stand her anymore. Why am I still here?

    I need this.

    They were meaningless and originless. Anonymous as raindrops. He thought back to training Alex to control his knack. The days and nights when it overwhelmed him and he¡¯d hang on to Reeve or Gareth or Hannah, his palm pushed flat against their skin for more contact, to focus on one familiar memory to ground himself. That wasn''t working for Reeve as his grip gradually withered. Anyway, thoughts of Alex made his stomach twist and he couldn¡¯t bear to follow it. The undertow pulled at him.

    back there going to make it as long as the electric live like that I¡¯m not I love you what is it now isn¡¯t too high going to kill him how can he milk bread eggs beef is he fucking move already what would I do if just need to sleep that mole is disgusting one day

    And then the rush was too fast for him to understand. He was the only person in existence who spoke this language of liquid color and swirling form, but he couldn¡¯t translate it anymore. It became a lost, churning thing with no name. He gripped the raised edge of the mattress and clenched his muscles and he choked on the inner worlds of everyone within a two block radius.

    It wasn¡¯t often that Reeve remembered that he¡¯d had a very strange childhood compared to non-knacked children. It came back to him now. In InfoWE, the shortened and friendlier sounding version of the Information Withholding and Extraction class, they taught students to withstand pain. And to inflict it. And to be witness to it.

    On the Sanctuary cot, Reeve was repeatedly clearing his throat and gulping as his diaphragm spasmed in a strange miscommunication of the drowning sensations in his mind. It felt like being waterboarded by his own telepathy. He reached for that memory of those classes, pushing past the missing edges he so often avoided, and settled in with the lesson learned that he only had to withstand this for one second and then make the decision to withstand it for another.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 47

    Sol LAHQ. Saturn Department.

    ¡°Do you have your pick for the Miami job?¡± Louis asked. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy and there were more lines in his forehead than normal, owing to either tiredness or dehydration. His shoulders were rounded and his shoes had scuffs on them. Strike one.

    Grace tapped her fingers on her desk. ¡°It should be in your inbox. It probably got buried.¡±

    ¡°Right.¡± The movement of his eyes was all wrong. He glanced around the room as if he were running down a to-do list in his head on loop and was worried he¡¯d forget something. Grace had seen him busy. She¡¯d seen him overtaxed just shy of the breaking point, like the last time Mackenzie had gone into Everything. Even then, he didn¡¯t look like this. He was avoiding her gaze. He was uncomfortable. Strike two.

    ¡°It says to send Daniella,¡± she told him, watching, waiting. ¡°She¡¯s free in Philly and could do this in her sleep.¡±

    ¡°Thank you,¡± he nodded and turned to go. Whenever Louis found himself in her office and in over his head, no matter how pressed he was for time, he¡¯d pause, hang his head, and take a few breaths. He knew her office was one place he could go and not worry about anyone taking a lapse in his game face as a weakness. He took three steps toward her door without slowing. Strike three.

    ¡°Louis,¡± she snapped. ¡°Get back here.¡±

    He halted, thankfully. She wasn¡¯t in the mood to chase him. He came back in and faced her.

    Grace stood. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡±

    He shut his eyes instead of looking at her. ¡°I¡¯m just busy, that''s all.¡±

    ¡°Louis.¡±

    He pulled out the chair in front of her desk with more force than it warranted and sat. ¡°You know better than to press for information above your station.¡±

    She stayed standing and looked down at him. ¡°You know better than to pretend what¡¯s going on is business as usual or just a matter of clearance. Something is going on. You¡¯re not right. Mackenzie¡¯s not right. You¡¯re working something off the books.¡±

    Louis was extremely good at what he did. He could have denied it without a hint of a lie, the same as she could have. Instead, he lowered his eyes. ¡°Grace.¡± It was a tired, pleading sound.

    She sat. ¡°I want to help you.¡±

    ¡°I know. This isn¡¯t my call.¡± Louis¡¯ pained expression was a comfort. He wanted her to.

    Doing her best to ignore the twisting in her gut, Grace held her head up. ¡°Does she not trust me?¡±

    ¡°Of course she trusts you. I¡¯m not even inside.¡±

    Grace pressed her lips together. In her mind, Mackenzie trusted Louis implicitly and assumed she shared most everything with him. Afterall, he semi-annually held the title of Saturn, with all its connected clearance, so there was no need to split hairs there. But now she wasn¡¯t, with whatever this was¡ªor she was, only inasmuch as to make life hell for Louis. Whatever this was, it was deep and it was serious.

    ¡°I¡¯m here,¡± she told him.

    He nodded. ¡°I know. Thank you.¡± He left, face drawn and blank.

    Dropping her head back to rest on her chair, Grace sighed. The knot in her stomach ached, but the best way to help at that point was to ignore them. She pictured that knot dissolving into nothing, the way she would remove things from her mind after a mission, or the times after she had returned to being Third after spending a couple months with a Second¡¯s level of clearance. It raised goosebumps on her arms. She didn¡¯t feel lighter or better, but she could work without it weighing on her mind, so she did.

    ---

    Sanctuary. ?¨®d?, Poland.

    Reeve started to numb to it after almost two days. Two miserable days. His throat was raw and he was sweating like he was back in Beatty. The room tilted and sloshed when he moved, so he did as little of that as possible.

    The door opened slowly. Alyosha had far too many things in his hands to carry safely. He was balancing a liter bottle of water, a glass, more vodka, a small plastic bucket, and a plate of toast. He gave Reeve a weak smile. He thought he looked horrible.

    ¡°How are you doing?¡± Shvedov asked. It was hard to hear his voice over the telepathic din that was plugging up all his senses, but that familiar tone was there.

    ¡°As horrible as I look.¡±

    Alyosha clicked his tongue. ¡°You¡¯re reading me.¡± He carefully set everything down on the floor and opened the vodka. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be able to do that.¡±

    Reeve didn¡¯t respond, only took the glass he was handed and tipped it back. He sputtered. There was more in the cup than he expected. More was the last thing he wanted right now. There was great competition for the first thing he wanted right now. A backup liver was in the running.

    ¡°Anything yet?¡±

    Reeve laughed. It was a long wheezing sound. Alyosha offered him the toast. ¡°Sorry,¡± he said, not taking the plate but looking up at him. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of everything right now.¡± He saw Shvedov in layers. Normally his telepathy and the rest of him were aligned, like having half of a sentence on one pane of glass and the other half on another¡ªwhen you looked through them both at once, there was no delay or hitch. Now they had split.

    At the top was the swirling color of the brightest currents¡ªthe ones that were either familiar enough or intense enough to stand out for him to (sometimes) translate them. Beneath that was the visual input of Alyosha. High creased forehead, ears that jutted out, and eyes that were small but kind. Behind him, bleeding through him, was the deep roil. An advancing, churning wave constantly surging closer to him with so many shades stacked on top of each other that they became a color his mouth couldn¡¯t contain. Reeve wasn¡¯t and had never been religious, but the deep wave was hard to look at. Every sense in his body screamed at him to avert his eyes, like it was a holy thing that shouldn¡¯t be looked upon, or couldn¡¯t be looked upon without losing something he wasn¡¯t ready to give away.

    ¡°Any change then?¡±

    Reeve resignedly took a bite of toast. It tasted like the crush of color in his head and throat. He chewed it aggressively, as if that could possibly help. ¡°It¡¯s easier to hold,¡± he admitted. ¡°Not as all-encompassing.¡±

    ¡°That is good, right?¡±

    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    He nodded and pushed the toast away. The floor dipped and squeezed his eyes shut. Nothing felt right. The bed felt like a cliff¡¯s edge. ¡°You should get away from here.¡±

    ¡°You should sleep.¡±

    ¡°No, that¡¯s¡ª¡± Reeve rolled, face down, letting his nose smash into the damp pillow. ¡°You should go someplace safe.¡±

    ¡°You keep saying that.¡±

    He turned. ¡°I do?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Alyosha sat on the bed. Reeve tipped with the sinking mattress and swallowed. ¡°And other stupid things like that, about protecting me. But you can¡¯t remember, so maybe consider that you¡¯re not in the best frame of mind right now.¡±

    Reeve made a quiet groaning sound into the pillow. He¡¯d lost the thread of Alyosha¡¯s thoughts. It all felt wrong.

    Shvedov gave him a pat and left his hand on Reeve¡¯s clammy back. ¡°You know I love you, but you are really pathetic right now.¡±

    Reeve grunted again. The world spun and he fell asleep.

    When he woke up, disoriented and cotton-mouthed, Reeve could hear Alyosha and Allison talking quietly in the room. Allison noticed right away that he was awake, that familiar and unfamiliar lightning-fast awareness of being around telepaths.

    ¡°Good morning,¡± she smiled.

    ¡°Morning,¡± he muttered, turning and realizing he was only in his boxers. He tugged the blanket to cover himself where he¡¯d kicked off the sheet. He was too warm for it, but he didn¡¯t have Hannah¡¯s philosophy about clothing.

    Her face was flat, but her eyebrows were high. ¡°Alyosha says it¡¯s getting better.¡±

    Reeve worked his lips. His tongue felt like a strip of dryer lint and his stomach was burning in his chest. ¡°Alyosha made me drink more.¡± It came out more slurred than he liked.

    ¡°Of course he did. That¡¯s why I like him more than you.¡±

    He tried sitting up but stopped, sick and weak. He stared at the two of them. The input of his telepathy was still¨C no swirling, no flowing. An imposing blank wall.

    Motion sickness hit him hard and fast. He lunged for the bucket and heaved up a caustic, bitter liquid. After spending his whole life with a sense of motion in the core of him, stillness made it feel like he was in freefall. Alyosha helped lever him back onto the bed, one hand on the floor supporting himself.

    ¡°I don¡¯t want this,¡± he choked out.

    ¡°Are we there?¡± Allison asked, leaning down. He tried shutting his eyes but it didn¡¯t help the vertigo.

    He raised his voice as much as his raw throat could rasp. ¡°This has to stop.¡±

    Shvedov was looking panicked but Allison was completely unperturbed.

    ¡°Calm down, now. It¡¯ll stop. Just memorize how this feels.¡±

    ¡°Memorize?¡± Reeve¡¯s voice was a squawking cough of a sound. ¡°I¡¯ve been blackout drunk for days.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll remember it. Let¡¯s leave him alone to sober up, then I¡¯ll take care of the rest.¡±

    Reeve spun. His eyes were burning hot and he knew if he blinked there could be tears, so he didn¡¯t. He held them open, letting the pain sear deeper and deeper, trying to pin his awareness to the sensation, like he was rotating on an axis. His whole face felt heated now and he pressed his face to his sheets with keen embarrassment.

    ¡°I will stay for a little while,¡± Alyosha told her quietly.

    ¡°Are you sure?¡± she asked. There was something different in her voice, a tone he couldn¡¯t place.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Reeve heard the click of the door and didn¡¯t look up. It felt like he was rapidly flipping end over end, moving forward, passing through the mattress like a ghost. Something cold and wet touched his face and he flinched sharply. It forced his eyes closed, which only made the burning worse. Shvedov caught at his hand and held it.

    ¡°Hey.¡± His voice was quiet and tired. The cold was back and after a few breaths, Reeve could tell it was a wet cloth Shvedov was dabbing on his forehead. His pulse was pounding in his temples.

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t she want you to stay here?¡± he asked. His voice sounded odd to himself, but his nose was stuffy and pressed into the pillow.

    ¡°It¡¯s nothing. Will you quit worrying about me for ten minutes?¡±

    Reeve sighed. ¡°No.¡± He tried to laugh, but it turned into a cough and then a gag. Shvedov gathered up his hair for him.

    ---

    Sol LAHQ. Uranus Department.

    ¡°How can something so cute smell so bad?¡±

    Marek slowed down at the sound of Emmett¡¯s voice coming from the Uranus Pet Program office. He stuck his head in to see Emmett with his fingers between the the bars of a temporary kennel, scratching the chin of a shaggy little brown dog.

    ¡°You smell like the LA river,¡± Emmett cooed. ¡°Yes, you do.¡±

    ¡°New one?¡± Marek asked from the doorway. It was late, but the Pet Program office was never silent with the shifting of dogs, cats, and small rodents (at Marek¡¯s insistence) in their pens. They tried to keep most pets with a foster until they found a home, but there were always a couple who lived at the office.

    ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s in rough shape, but a sweetie.¡±

    Marek went over to take a peek into the kennel and smiled at the little dog¡¯s wagging tail. ¡°I thought you were clocking out early?¡±

    He shook his head, mouth going a little thin. ¡°Evening plans got canceled.¡±

    ¡°Do I need to beat someone up?¡± he offered with a smile.

    Emmett rolled his eyes. ¡°Please, you may be the one who¡¯s been in the field, but we both know if one of us is going to kill someone these days, it¡¯s me.¡±

    Marek laughed. It might be true. Marek had certainly lost his taste for physical conflict. ¡°I take it from the good humor that Penn had a work thing?¡±

    He nodded, heavy with frustration. ¡°There¡¯s always some crisis in Cleanup.¡±

    ¡°Did you see my latest Baguette Update?¡± he asked, hoping to get a smile out of him. He was proud of this one. He¡¯d posed Baguette with a little doll-sized coffee mug and labeled it ¡®Beverage Tuesday.¡¯ If nothing else, Marek could really commit to a bit.

    Emmett¡¯s smile was more wicked than anything. ¡°Did you see my email about that info I need for the quarterly report?¡±

    Marek coughed. ¡°Hey,¡± he changed the subject to what he¡¯d been looking to ask Emmett in the first place, ¡°have you been having trouble with your email lately?¡±

    Emmett brushed his dog-fur-covered hand on his jeans. ¡°Sure, it¡¯s email. You have to be more specific.¡±

    Fair. ¡°A couple of times now, I¡¯ve seen a message come in late at night, like two, three in the morning and I read it and think, ¡®That seems off, but I¡¯m in bed so I¡¯ll deal with that in the morning,¡¯ but when I come in, it¡¯s not there.¡± He knew how silly it sounded but that was never the type of thing to hold Marek back.

    ¡°What sort of off?¡±

    ¡°Reports for missions I don¡¯t recognize. Conduct reports that disappear.¡±

    He frowned. ¡°Did you talk to IT?¡±

    ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°And?¡±

    ¡°And now I¡¯m asking you."

    He lowered his brow. ¡°Vanishing emails from three in the morning as you''re falling asleep? I think you dreamed ¡®em.¡±

    Marek sighed. ¡°That¡¯s what IT said.¡±

    Emmett crossed his arms. ¡°What the hell are you doing looking at work emails at three in the morning when you get in here at like five?¡±

    ¡°I always do one final check if someone decides not to stay the night," he admitted. ¡°Just in case I¡¯m needed.¡± He left off that he''d also do a final check while a partner was using his bathroom if they did stay over. Some departments would write off Uranus as being low stakes, but Marek didn''t see it that way and neither did Emmett.

    Emmett shook his head at him with a smile. "God help the people who manage all the relationship declaration paperwork you produce."

    Shrugging, he tried to play it off like the subject of the emails was put to rest. He should have known better.

    Emmett¡¯s forehead became lined as he regarded him. "This is really bothering you."

    Empaths. Empaths plus a friend he''d known for over a decade.

    "Yeah. It is. I don''t think I''m dreaming it."

    He nodded, thinking harder. "Take a screenshot next time. So you''ll have something to bring to IT."

    It was a simple, obvious idea, and one he should have thought of. Now he just had to remember to do it when he was, admittedly, half-asleep.

    "Hey."

    They both turned. Penn was in the doorway, in full gear.

    "The worst is taken care of so I delegated the rest. Still want to get dinner?"

    "I''d love that, thank you," Marek jumped in with a grin.

    Emmett glared at him, then smiled at Penn. "Sure."

    "Alright," he said, pointedly ignoring Marek, "Let me shower and change real quick and I''ll meet you at your place."

    Emmett looked down at his fur-cover clothes. "Yeah, me too."

    "I''m ready now," Marek teased.

    Penn rolled his eyes. "Goodnight, Marek,"

    "Goodnight, Pennadict Arnold."

    Penn paused as he was leaving, his face pinched. He stopped to give Marek a true scowl then walked off.

    ¡°Wow,¡± Marek muttered when he was gone. ¡°He really did not like that one, huh?¡±

    Emmett¡¯s expression was slightly off. ¡°Yeah, that hit a nerve.¡±

    He frowned. ¡°He¡¯s not normally so touchy.¡±

    Emmett worked to brush off his pants the best he could. ¡°Well, isn¡¯t Benedict Arnold¡¯s claim to fame treason?¡±

    ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll stick to calling him Pennitentiary or whatever.¡±

    He raised his eyebrows at him. ¡°And you wonder why he¡¯s not your biggest fan.¡±

    ¡°No, I don¡¯t.¡± Marek clapped him on the back. ¡°Go. Date, you crazy kids.¡±

    ¡°Get some sleep,¡± Emmett replied and headed out.

    He probably was just tired, Marek told himself. He¡¯d been really burning the candle at both ends and relying on coffee to get him through, which was probably why he felt a headache coming on. He¡¯d probably just imagined it. Marek let out a breath and headed for home, alone tonight, to get some rest. And stop checking his email in the middle of the night.

    ***

 Sunset (High Noon) Vol 2. Issue 48

    Sanctuary. ?¨®d?, Poland.

    Gareth was pretty done with the Church. While Reeve was languishing upstairs, first depressed and plastered, then pitifully hungover, he¡¯d been out every night with these damn lunatics. Very few had any language in common, so he mostly ran alongside them until someone shouted at him, pointing in some direction or another. It was one thing to chase down these things when he was with a purposeful group, and a totally different thing to do it while feeling like he was along for the ride and they may not even notice if he wasn¡¯t there.

    But of course they would notice. So he went.

    There was a time in his life when the idea of watching these dogs or Phagi or elders or whatever you want to call them¡ªwatching them be destroyed would have sounded great. Some kind of revenge fantasy. In reality, it was the farthest thing from a daydream. Seeing them, even dead and burning, turned his short fuse¡ªand he knew it was short¡ªinto a powderkeg. Alyosha had set him off a couple of times. He was probably just trying to be kind, but Gareth mostly wanted people to be absent right now. Luckily, Alyosha was happy to leave him alone, between spending time with Allison and keeping the lump that was Reeve company. Plus she¡¯d told them it was best to leave Reeve to himself through this, as there was no telling what forces like that could do to observers. Gareth was fine with skipping that shit show, even if Alyosha wasn¡¯t. Gareth was sore and drained from healing bones and cuts. The only positive had been that with Reeve sequestered, no one tried to talk him out of venturing into the city to find someone who could distract him for an hour or two.

    Gareth spun his heels for another four nights while Reeve and Allison did whatever it was they were doing behind closed doors upstairs during the night. Reeve surprised him one evening when Gareth had gotten up early by coming down the stairs and nodding to Gareth across the room like nothing had happened.

    Gareth dropped his gear and went into the kitchen. Reeve¡¯s eyes were sunken in. He had shaved and had a yellow-green cast to his skin, but otherwise, he looked like himself.

    ¡°You good?¡± Gareth asked.

    ¡°Tired, but yeah.¡±

    ¡°Are you¡­¡± Gareth floundered for the right word. ¡°Operational?¡±

    He gave him a look that was half glare and half smile. ¡°I¡¯ll be able to use my knack.¡±

    ¡°Thank god.¡±

    This time he did smile. ¡°Never thought I¡¯d hear that.¡±

    Gareth sniffed. ¡°What the hell have you two been doing up there?¡±

    ¡°Honestly? Trying to use my telepathy without her smacking me, which would signal she could sense it.¡± He scrunched up his face. ¡°I¡¯m feeling a little black and blue.¡±

    ¡°Now what?¡±

    ¡°I told Allison before I went to sleep that we¡¯d want to get on the road immediately and keep looking. That work for you?¡±

    He lowered his voice a bit. ¡°Get me the hell out of here.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m with you. Why don¡¯t you pack? As soon as I tell Alyosha, I¡¯ll find Allison and let her know we¡¯re going.¡±

    Gareth raised his eyebrows.

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Those two things are going to happen pretty close together. You¡¯ve been out of it for a while.¡±

    ¡°And?¡±

    ¡°Reeve.¡±

    Watching it register on Reeve¡¯s face was more satisfying than it should have been. He blinked fast and his mouth opened toward one side. Gareth wished he knew if Reeve had used his telepathy or come to it on his own.

    ¡°Shvedov and Allison?¡±

    Gareth opened his mouth to respond but spotted them coming down the stairs behind Reeve.

    ¡°Morning,¡± he called, trying to keep his grin to himself, watching Reeve¡¯s floundering expression. ¡°We were hoping to head out soon.¡± Reeve did not have time to manage a poker face. Alyosha looked at Gareth, who gave him a shrug, before laughing. Allison gave the both of them a deep smile.

    ¡°I figured,¡± she said, her voice going up at the end. She slipped her hand into her back pocket. ¡°I have something that might help you.¡± She held out a bit of paper to Reeve.

    ¡°What is it?¡± Reeve asked, as he unfolded it. Gareth glanced over Reeve¡¯s shoulder. It looked like a phone number.

    ¡°I asked around about Misha. Horst had his cell number. Alyosha told me a little about why you need to find him.¡±

    The small kindled hope Gareth had quickly faded. Reeve¡¯s lips were tight together and he lightly tapped the slip of paper against his open palm. Alyosha was staring at the floor. It was his old number.

    ¡°Thank you. I guess he didn¡¯t tell you why we can¡¯t find him.¡± Reeve sighed.

    She put her hand on her hip, taken aback. ¡°No, I guess not.¡±

    ¡°To keep them safe, Misha destroyed his phone and we kept ours so they could find us, but we couldn¡¯t find them.¡± He held up the paper. ¡°This doesn¡¯t work anymore.¡±

    She looked askance at him. ¡°I don¡¯t know him that well, but he¡¯s memorable, and I don¡¯t see Misha ditching his cell. His work is all in munitions and it takes a long time to build those contacts. I don¡¯t see him making himself unreachable.¡±

    ¡°Extenuating circumstances,¡± Gareth said, hoping to stop the explanation from going any farther.

    ¡°I¡¯m just saying.¡± She touched Alyosha¡¯s shoulder, then pushed past them to start gearing up with the others in the sitting room.

    Before Gareth could say anything, Reeve was dialing.

    ---

    Union Station. Los Angeles, CA.

    It wasn¡¯t often that Louis felt the flip and turn of fear in the pit of his stomach, but today he did. He couldn¡¯t conjure a single piece of good news that would warrant this type of invitation.

    As he entered Union Station, he glanced up at the stark white clock tower to see he was just on time. There were certain meetings it wasn¡¯t good to be early for.

    Everything about the ticket concourse to his left assaulted his enhanced senses. It was packed with people standing, walking, sitting. Some waiting for trains and others were simply tourists sightseeing at the historic building. Their chatter as it bounced off the walls and high ceilings was enough to make him walk slower, as if he was pushing his way through deep water. Ahead of him was the waiting room, which was shaping up to be even worse. The walls were free of art, but instead covered in endless tile in different colors and styles as his eyes climbed the impossibly tall walls of the vaulted art deco ceilings.

    The ceiling.

    Louis'' enhanced vision reeled at the mass of inset wood panels, each ornately adorned with geometric inlay. It had a warmth to it that Louis felt like he could fall into if he let himself. The inlays held slightly different grain patterning than the wood they decorated, and it contrasted with the square insets in such a way that it almost created a lattice effect, echoing through iterations from largest squares down to their tiniest increments. There were chandeliers hanging from them¡ªlooming circles made of yet more squares that glowed and illuminated the warm wood. He was used to getting caught up in the geometry of nature¡ªthe veining in a stone, the weave of a blade of grass, the golden ratio hiding in plain sight everywhere you looked. And he was used to the geometry embedded in man-made materials¡ªpatterns that weren¡¯t meant to be noticed, but couldn¡¯t help repeating: the particular tooth of a saw or a given press mold. But as he gazed up at this ceiling, its intentional geometry caught his eye in a way that made him feel a little dizzy¡ªhe kept wanting to pull back from his enhanced sight, to see the forest instead of the trees.

    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    If he didn¡¯t know any better, he would think this location had been chosen especially to put him at a disadvantage.

    Pulling his eyes away from the architecture, he scanned the aisles of opulent wooden armchairs and tables covered in crisp white tablecloths off to one side, until he spotted Mackenzie. She¡¯d chosen an armchair near the entrance to the women¡¯s restroom, likely because it had a lot of foot traffic. As he approached, she removed her jacket from the seat next to her so he could sit.

    Her features didn¡¯t react to his presence but she shifted herself in the seat to better face him. She looked worn, but those who didn¡¯t work with her every day likely wouldn¡¯t have noticed it.

    He took a seat. ¡°If you¡¯re trying to scare me,¡± he said, ¡°It¡¯s working.¡±

    ¡°Does that sound like me?¡±

    ¡°No it doesn¡¯t.¡± Louis watched the crowd with tense vigilance for any hint of anyone paying them too much or too little attention and glanced back at her. ¡°Are you ready to talk to me?¡±

    The lines in her forehead and between her brows deepened. ¡°Not exactly, but I do need to talk to you about something.¡±

    He shrugged, not wanting to seem overeager. ¡°Anything.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s about Fox.¡±

    Louis felt his pulse begin to gallop and he made an effort to slow it before responding. She waited patiently, her eyes dancing across the crowd as well.

    ¡°What about him?¡±

    ¡°He was attacked. He¡¯s fine, no injuries he couldn¡¯t manage as a bio manip, but his apartment was broken into in the middle of night and someone tried to kill him.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re sure it wasn¡¯t a simple burglary?¡±

    ¡°A burglar with a knack?¡±

    ¡°Shit.¡± He shut his eyes, thinking. ¡°Did he get their affiliation?¡±

    ¡°No, they made a run for it once they realized he wasn¡¯t going down easy. According to Fox, he made significant alterations to his attacker¡¯s biology before they got away, so they likely didn¡¯t live out the night to report back.¡±

    Louis studied her face, a picture of calm. ¡°It has to be Entropy, right?¡± Beyond Sol and Entropy, the only other organized group of knacked people, if you could call them organized, was the Church of the Children of God and they had no interest in politics.

    She gave no indication of an answer one way or the other. ¡°You understand why I¡¯m talking to you here now?¡±

    He didn¡¯t want to say it out loud, but he did. ¡°There¡¯s a leak.¡±

    She lifted one eyebrow, expression neutral. ¡°Except?¡±

    The tone of her voice reminded him of when she¡¯d quiz him on protocols and analytics when she first started training him. He cleared his throat. ¡°The only person in LA who knows where Fox is, is you.¡±

    She nodded and ordered, ¡°Run it down.¡±

    Louis¡¯s eyes drifted from left to right, not seeing anything as he moved through the branches of exposure.

    ¡°Tech,¡± he began.

    ¡°Indicating our secure channels are not secure.¡± She looked at him to continue.

    ¡°Fox was made. But without more knowledge of his assignment, that¡¯s hard to assess.¡±

    ¡°Human error,¡± she agreed. ¡°I chose Fox for a reason, so it¡¯s not impossible, but unlikely.¡± She held his eyes, waiting.

    Louis was overheating in his suit coat, either from the heat of the crush of bodies milling around them or his rising blood pressure.

    ¡°A mole.¡±

    She nodded again. ¡°Indicating someone has been passing on surveillance to a hostile entity. But?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s surveillance that had to have come from inside your office.¡±

    ¡°So someone with a specialized knack like telepathy, psychometry, enhanced senses, etc.¡±

    His mouth had gone dry from the weight of the implications and Louis was working to get his mouth around his words when a thought hit him like a knife to the ribs. ¡°Did you bring me out here because you think it¡¯s me?¡±

    Mackenzie balked. ¡°Of course not.¡± The offense in her voice was comforting and he felt himself deflate in relief. She shifted in her chair, sitting up straighter as though truly flustered, then narrowed her eyes at him. ¡°Besides, I know how fast you are. If I knew it was you, I wouldn¡¯t have had any part of this conversation to give you a chance at reacting. You¡¯d be gone before you sat down.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s oddly reassuring.¡± He smoothed his hair. He was losing his cool and he knew it. ¡°Have you talked to Grace?¡±

    ¡°No, and you won¡¯t either.¡±

    Louis felt a coldness spreading from his hands and feet. He¡¯d known Grace for years¡ªshe was solid and steady. ¡°Are you saying you don¡¯t trust her?¡±

    She gave him a pained look. ¡°Of course I trust her. That¡¯s why I need her undistracted and on the job.¡±

    He let out a breath. It was true enough that he hadn¡¯t been at his sharpest for a while. ¡°What¡¯s your plan?¡±

    She shrugged. ¡°Initiate an extra-rigorous audit of our cyber division and tell Fox to be more careful.¡±

    He leaned forward, incredulous. ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s all I can do for now without playing more of my hand.¡±

    Louis stared at her as he floundered. ¡°Why are you telling me this?¡± he demanded.

    ¡°I thought you wanted me to talk to you.¡±

    ¡°Jesus,¡± he exclaimed, careful to keep his voice low. ¡°I want you to tell me what the hell you¡¯re chasing so I can help you, not give me cliffsnotes on things I can¡¯t do anything about.¡± When she didn¡¯t respond, he added, ¡°You¡¯re not telling Rafe this?¡±

    ¡°Of course I¡¯m not telling Rafe this,¡± she snapped. ¡°And you aren¡¯t either,¡± she repeated the phrase like a refrain.

    ¡°I should.¡±

    She didn¡¯t bother addressing that. She knew him better. ¡°I¡¯m telling you because I want you to know and so you can better keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.¡±

    A laugh escaped him before he could get a hold of it. Out of the ordinary? He shook his head at her. ¡°I don¡¯t know what the fuck to do with you sometimes.¡±

    ¡°Trust me.¡±

    ¡°I do.¡±

    ¡°Go back to the office then. I¡¯ll be right behind you. I know this mess isn¡¯t like any assignment I¡¯ve ever given you, but we can do this.¡±

    He nodded and headed for the door without answering. Louis didn¡¯t know how to respond to something like that. And he needed the fresh air.

    ---

    Sanctuary. ?ilina, Slovakia.

    Misha was not feeling great. He¡¯d slept late, but it still felt like sleep could drag him down if he gave into it in the slightest. It was a bone-weary weight, like a dead body strapped to his back, arms, and legs, making every movement a leaden struggle. The swelling in his joints brought a familiar pain. Squeezing, sharp, and insistent. He had expected it when he¡¯d mimicked the teleporter. That never made it any easier somehow.

    Knacks that he¡¯d mimicked often and trained with, like telepathy, didn¡¯t set him off like this. He¡¯d bitched and moaned about Adam making him mimic telepathy over and over, along with a handful of other more common knacks. It taught his body to recognize the knack rather than see it as some kind of outside threat like it would a virus, but that kind of exposure therapy had left him sick most of his days in the Academy. He sullenly, and silently, admitted it had been the best way to prepare¡ªbut he was also pissed he hadn¡¯t mastered teleportation before he¡¯d run.

    He could hear Alex and Hannah coming up the stairs and popped a couple of the tiny white pills Helena had given him in Italy. They were intensely bitter and he made a face. In a couple of days, he¡¯d be himself again. The two of them had bags under their eyes from sleeplessness and worry. The idea of taking either of them out on the hunt tonight scared the hell out of him because of how distracted they were. They should probably be laying low, anyway.

    ¡°You look like hell,¡± Hannah said sitting down on her bed.

    ¡°You¡¯re not gorgeous yourself,¡± he countered with something like a smile.

    Alex tried to put a hand on his forehead and he slapped it away.

    ¡°Jeez, sorry. You look like you have a fever.¡±

    ¡°Because I have a fever.¡±

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you rest, then?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s Lupus, not pneumonia. Resting doesn¡¯t make you all better.¡±

    As Hannah was taking a breath to retort, Alex heard a low hum and startled. With a look of relief, Alex reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone. The screen was flashing insistently in his hand. He gave Hannah a bug-eyed stare.

    ¡°Well, I about shit myself,¡± said Alex.

    Misha stuck out his hand for the phone. He really didn¡¯t have the energy to deal with these two and put out whatever fire in his supply line someone was calling about.

    Something visibly clicked in Alex¡¯s head. ¡°Who the hell¡¯s going to be calling this number?¡± Misha didn¡¯t have the energy for this conversation either.

    ¡°You need to stop going into my bag,¡± he spat. Misha grabbed the phone without looking at him and answered the call. ¡°Da.¡± His voice was clearly annoyed, but he was certain no one was going to be surprised.

    A shrill tone came over the line. ¡°Are you goddamn kidding me?¡±

    Misha held the phone out and glared at it before putting it back to his ringing ear. ¡°You called me, eh? Who is this?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s Reeve, damn it.¡±

    ¡°Reeve¡ª¡± Misha let out a breath. The looks on Alex and Hannah¡¯s faces were almost enough to make him smile. ¡°Jesus Christ. Why the fuck aren¡¯t you answering your phone?¡±

    ¡°Why the fuck are you answering yours?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter.¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t¡ª Are they okay?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re all fine here. You?¡± Hannah and Alex were intensely invading his personal space to hear what was being said.

    ¡°We¡¯re okay.¡±

    ¡°Where are you?¡± Misha asked.

    ¡°?¨®d?, Poland.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re less than a day¡¯s drive from you. Have you had any heat?¡±

    ¡°Nothing recently,¡± Reeve said.

    ¡°Good, you come to us then. Sanctuary on Cest¨¢rska, ?ilina, Slovakia.¡± Misha heard him mangling the pronunciation to someone off the line.

    ¡°Okay, we¡¯ll be there. Can I talk to the others?¡±

    Misha groaned and rolled his eyes but hit the speaker button after Hannah smacked his arm. Hannah and Alex spoke over each other like they couldn¡¯t hear the other at all.

    ¡°Are you okay? Did you run into any trouble? You wouldn¡¯t believe all this bullshit.¡±

    ¡°Are Gareth and Alyosha there? Why aren¡¯t you answering your phone?¡±

    There was a pause of silence while Misha assumed Reeve was trying to understand the din. ¡°We¡¯re fine,¡± he said, his voice uncertain. ¡°Just relieved you¡¯re okay.¡±

    There was a rustle and Gareth¡¯s voice came over the line. ¡°Misha, why the fuck do you still have this number?¡±

    ¡°I figured you were over-reacting,¡± he said honestly. ¡°It was a stupid idea.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going to kill you.¡±

    ¡°No, you¡¯re not.¡± There was a scrambling of voices over the line and he¡¯d had enough. ¡°Jesus Christ, you¡¯re all going to see each other tomorrow. Travel safe. I¡¯ve got your number now.¡± Misha hung up.

    ¡°What the hell?¡± Hannah whined and flopped back onto her bed. Alex tackled her and they hugged, laughing.

    ¡°I can¡¯t believe you didn¡¯t throw your phone out.¡±

    ¡°I have no idea why.¡± He tossed the cell into his bag. ¡°Listen, the number of idiots I have to deal with is going to double in twenty-four hours, so could you get the hell out of here so I can get some extra sleep?¡±

    Surprisingly, they didn¡¯t argue or bitch. ¡°Let us know if you need anything,¡± Alex said, grabbing some of his things. They were twittering like birds as they walked down the hall. Misha drooped, then laid down again, pulling the covers up over his head.

    ***