An earnest start, perhaps, but not a particularly smooth one. After half an hour you’re in pieces, bent over the bench, drenched in sweat and red-faced.

  “Okay,” you say, “maybe let’s try again once I’ve got the Walkman.”

  I say, I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO JUST DO IT. And, WHAT DIFFERENCE WOULD A WALKMAN MAKE?

  Your face scrunches. “Helm,” you say, “give me a moment. I need to think.”

  The Walkman, of course, is an excuse. All you need for this exercise to work is a sound, and goodness knows a pager will do that for you. If anything it’s worked too well. Each time the buzzer plays you jump like a gnat, and even worse, in your head, from the front-row seat I enjoy, I can see the way you scatter to the four winds, and all the progress you’ve been making about Carol—and slowthink—and the visit with Shanghai—goes right out the window.

  It’s twofold, in fact, because you are frustrated, too. You were to begin with—when aren’t you, but all this blue-balling has only exacerbated it—but each time I interrupt you and lose your train of thought, it becomes ten times worse. Which is the point of the exercise, to fluster you and make you forget your own focus, to wreck both your emotional and rational serenity, but enough is enough, and you will learn no more by continuing now.

  So this reveals the underlying problem. I may torment you all you like, and you will never find middle, because you do not have a baseline of peace to begin with.

  You’re stalling. I say, LET’S GIVE IT ONE MORE TRY HERE. TEN MINUTES.

  “Alright,” you say. “Fine. Ten minutes.” You smear both palms down your face, take a moment to consider the sweat on them. Then: “But I want to focus on something this time.” You hadn’t before, had only thought of one foot in front of the other, and the reply you’d never received, and you recognize now, rightly, that that didn’t help. You say, “I want to dry run one of the combat sequences. Talk you through my steps.”

  Good choice. So be it, then: WALK ME AGAIN THROUGH CHRISTCHURCH, I say, AND YOUR PLAN FROM LAST NIGHT.

  “No,” you say. “I want to go through our first sprite. 2941’s offspring. They’re who we’re going after, aren’t they?”

  RIGHT, I say. FAIR ENOUGH. ON YOUR MARK.

  Ten minutes. Step up to the track, towel on the bench, sweat bleeding into the collar of your tee: you take your mark, settle into the stance, exhale long and slow. Ready—go.

  “Cleonicerotids,” you say. The rhythm of each step guides your breathing, your speech: in, out, left, right, words between. “Two of them. Let’s say I’m facing them alone.”

  Which would never happen under normal circumstances, but let’s say. BOTH TARGETS ENTERED LOCAL TERRITORY FROM THE MOUTH OF THE BAY, I note, SOUTH AND SOUTHWEST. HOW DO YOU APPROACH?

  (Yes, good, picture the ruins of Old Hong Kong; you are there and the targets are south-southwest, approaching at a hundred knots, and you have nothing but your shields and your fists to defend yourself with.)

  “Long,” you say, “and slow. I have to use stealth. I’m alone; I am outnumbered; I’m a shield, which means defense and surprise are my best tools.”

  I say, WHERE DO YOU HOLD?

  In, out, in again. “Mid-field,” you say. “Between Lantau and Old Hong Kong. Use the ruins to my advantage, make them my cover. Read the tides—”

  THAT’S CHEATING, I say, AND WON’T WORK IN THIS SITUATION. YOU ARE COPYING FROM YOUR DUAL APPROACH WITH CHANG. YOU DO NOT HAVE CHANG HERE.

  Your breath hisses out between your teeth. “Okay,” you say, “then further out. East. Among the detritus of the old city.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The fallen skyscrapers, the silent steel forest. The tallest of them spear through the meniscus between sky and sea, easily further than the top of your Titan-body.

  SURE, I say. THEN WHAT?

  You say, “I wait and read the currents—”

  The pager yelps. So do you—“Fuck!”—and you stumble, falter, nearly miss a step. “Damn it—” You’re so easy to fluster: your whole nervous system is awash with noise.

  KEEP GOING, I say. FROM THE TOP, IF YOU MUST. And: BE SPECIFIC.

  Your knuckles whiten. “Okay,” you say. “Two targets, cleonicerotids.” You shut your eyes, breathe in. “I need to be within range to attack either of them,” you say, “meaning patience.”

  YES, I say. BUT IS ATTACKING YOUR BEST OPTION?

  “No,” you say. “I’m a defensive unit. My shields are my greatest asset. I should—”

  The pager beeps. Doggedly you say, “I should withdraw to a sheltered position, analyze, and call for reinforcements.”

  WISE CHOICE, I say. WHAT IF NO REINFORCEMENTS ARE AVAILABLE?

  You say, “We’re a team. Isn’t that the point?”

  CONSIDER THE HYPOTHETICAL.

  You say, “Not even B-team?”

  NOT EVEN B-TEAM, I say, FOR THE SAKE OF THE ARGUMENT. SUPPOSE CENTRAL HAS FALLEN, TOO.

  “No,” you say. “Wait. We have maybe thirty Titans total at combat readiness. There’s local teams on call—” You’re right, though not good enough at geography to name them offhand: Hainan, Taiwan, maybe Shanghai. “Satellites would alert them in five if our maydays went off, maybe ten tops—”

  I say, THAT IS YOUR STRATEGY? ASSUME SOMEONE WILL BE THERE TO HELP YOU?

  You say, “Am I wrong?”

  YES, I say. YOU HAVE NOT CONSIDERED TRAVEL TIME. YOU WOULD HAVE WALL BREACH BEFORE THEY COULD REACH YOU.

  “Then I’m screwed,” you say, “aren’t I?”

  YOU ARE A PILOT, I say, AND IT IS YOUR DUTY TO DO EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER TO DEFEND THE CITY, SCREWED OR NOT.

  You say, “Fine. So I fight.”

  I say, HOW?

  The pager goes off. You startle—say through gritted teeth: “I take up the Black Tortoise and wait for my targets to draw close.”

  DO YOU? TOO CLOSE AND THE CITY WILL BE AT RISK, I say. YOU ARE AT A DISADVANTAGE ALREADY. TWO VERSUS ONE. CONSIDER YOUR OPTIONS.

  “I am,” you say.

  ALL OF THEM.

  “Assume they both approach me together. Guess approach vector via wake confluence and parallax estimates. Sonic cloaking till five hundred,” you say, “use the terrain and currents to my advantage, work with local thermoclines, scramble my signature once they cross five hundred—”

  The pager yelps again. You say, “Barriers up at two hundred.”

  GOOD, I say, BETTER. KEEP GOING. WHAT ELSE?

  “I don’t fucking know,” you say, “parry and strike?”

  I say, YOU ARE A SOLO UNIT AND WILL INEVITABLY FALTER AND BE OVERWHELMED. WHAT THEN?

  “Eject and commit seppuku,” you say. “Cry for help.”

  FLIPPANCY DOES YOU NO FAVORS.

  “No shit,” you say, and, “I’m serious about crying for help.”

  Which isn’t entirely unreasonable, since you really would want to call mayday and request reinforcements at that point, but still. I say, CONSIDER YOUR COMBAT FORM. SUPPOSE YOU HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO ENGAGE. WHAT WOULD BEST SUIT 2941.1 AND 2941.2, BOTH CLASS C CLEONICEROTIDS? BLACK TORTOISE OFFERS YOU LITTLE OFFENSE. BESIDES, YOU HAVE NOT MASTERED IT. Which implies no deep sync, but you are already assuming that.

  “Then Ten Hands,” you say. The pager goes off. “It’s my best shot,” you say, “the thing I’m least likely to fuck up.”

  Your impatience is mounting again; it’s manifesting in lazy answers, ones you know I won’t like, in the vain, fundamentally flawed, fundamentally human hope that it will cause me to give up—which is not among my precepts. WOULD CHANG AGREE?

  “Chang isn’t here to share,” you say.

  THAT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.

  “Doesn’t it? You’re the one who said I shouldn’t consider her positioning,” you say, “since I’m alone.”

  VERY WELL. TEN HANDS, I say. WHO DO YOU ATTACK FIRST?

  “Whoever is closer,” you answer instantly.

  WRONG, I say. YOU ARE LETTING YOUR ENEMY CONTROL YOUR APPROACH. THAT GIVES THEM POWER. THINK BIGGER, EMMA.

  You say, “Oh, so we’re on first-name bases now?”

  The tone sounds before I can reply. You say, “I’m done,” and drop to a trot, veer to the edge of the track without bothering to look.

  WHERE ARE YOU GOING NOW? I say.

  “Getting some fresh air,” you say. Then you amend that: “Food first.”

  YOU HAVE FORTY-FIVE MINUTES TILL YOUR MEETING, I observe.

  “Yes, Helm,” you say, “I know.” And, “I won’t be late.”