You carefully do not look at Lau during sparring today. You imagine, from what you can see in your peripheral vision in the big mirror, that she is looking at you—in between sets, sitting on the bench or stretching by the wall, her black eyes burning holes into the image of you. But whenever you think you see this, she turns her head or lunges forward or changes position, and the illusion, if an illusion it is, is gone.

  “Hey,” says Debrah. “Earth to Kanagawa.”

  You blink and come back to yourself: sweating, half-bent, facing Debrah, deep into demonstrating one of the fundamental hand-to-hand forms, Something Something Crimson Crane. She’s looking at you in a way that makes you feel at once pitied and judged, though only a little, the way a small and coughing child might be judged by nearby adults.

  “Hey, yeah,” you say, cheeks flaring with heat, “I’m good.” And you sweep your leg around into a textbook Bridge over Yangtze, missing the buoyancy the salt of the cradle would have lent you in maneuvers like this.

  “Hmm,” says Debrah, “alright.” She steps closer, circles you slowly. You imagine Fishhawk’s piercing long-range sonar lancing you as she walks; you imagine Aileen, who came before her, in the sleek silver bulk of her Titan—then there is the cool touch of Debrah’s hand upon the small of your back, she pushes, and you gasp and flinch forward and the wavering semblance of your having had control crumbles altogether.

  You stumble out of the position and look sheepishly at Debrah, who, to her credit, does not laugh. “Right,” she says, “what’s up? Be honest with yourself, Emma, you can do better than that.”

  “You have me at cradle pace,” you say peevishly, feeling heat rise further in your face, “without cradle saline to keep me from falling over.”

  “Fair,” says Debrah. “Let’s do full speed, then.” Without turning she lifts her voice: “Hey, Gutes! Need you for a minute.”

  Oh fuck no. Across the room Gutes is mid-tumble with Holly; at the sound of her name her head shoots up and then the rest of her follows, and then she shakes off Holly like water from a dog and is sauntering toward you, handsome and full of teeth as ever. “Debrah,” she says, sketching a bow and a salute, “lovely as ever. What can I do you for? Smalls! Haven’t seen you in forever!”

  Well, that’s categorically not true; she last saw you the day you went on your first patrol, after all, last time Carol was around, for that matter. Debrah says calmly, “Want you to run her through a pair exercise, please, full speed,” and Gutierrez lights up, and you recoil.

  “Sure,” says Gutes, “like, what, Ten Hands?”

  “No,” you say. “Let’s do what I was doing. Crimson Crane, first form.”

  “Wow! Brave choice,” says Gutes. “I like it.”

  Debrah’s looking at you like you have gone from coughing to red-faced choking, but she isn’t your parent and fears she might be misconstrued if she tries to step in. She says, “You sure about that, Emma?”

  “Yeah,” you say. “Fuck it. I mean, doesn’t it get easier to perform at full speed anyway?”

  “Strategically, no. Physically, also no,” says Gutierrez, helpfully—Debrah, still looking at you, just holds up a hand, which shuts up Gutierrez with a rapidity that you find truly miraculous.

  “Emma,” says Debrah gently, “you don’t need to prove anything.”

  “I know,” you say. God, how many times have you heard that before? “Let’s just do it.”

  “Attagirl,” says Gutes with a smile like a shark, and falls into position. So do you.

  Earlier on the carcinate target you’d done what I’d said, to your credit: punch till it’s dead, don’t get hurt. Well, you’d tried. You have that in mind now as you settle into your guard stance and circle Gutierrez, and you slow your breathing until it is even and steady as your heartbeat. Debrah is still frowning at you. You don’t dare look.

  “Come on,” says Gutierrez, “ladies first.”

  Which makes no sense, but fine. You lunge.

  Gutes meets you effortlessly in the middle. She’s probably only a couple inches taller, but it feels like feet: she swats away your strike like the mosquito you are, then ducks and, with her shoulder, drives right into your chest, forcing you to stumble back.

  Luckily she’s not using all her weight or you’d be on your ass already. As it is, it’s all you can do to stay on your feet. This definitely isn’t Crimson Crane, you think, and then her knee is coming up toward your chest and it’s all you can do to scramble sideways and miss it: what’s the next step in the form again? Ah fuck it, she’s not doing it either, anyway. You lash out weakly with one elbow, then the other, and both connect; it’s like pummeling a mountain.

  “Come on, Gutes,” says Debrah, sounding muffled, “play fair.”

  “Oh, please, Debs,” says Gutes, not bothering to step back from you, “you get me to do your dirty work and then you want to give me rules? It’s like you don’t want anyone to have fun here.”

  “Fuck you,” you say.

  “What?” says Gutes, looking at you now finally—and her smile doesn’t waver, but neither do you: you surge forward and up, a mirror of the move she did on you, shoulder into her gut, right under her ribs.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The breath leaves her lungs in a satisfying oof. You don’t let up. You flail at her, her gut and ribs and legs, anything you can reach—there is an animal heat rising inside you, frenzying you with each new hit. Fuck her, after all, she still hasn’t owned up to the fucking lube in your toothpaste bottle. Then her arms close around your back like a vise; she leans into your lunge, bringing you down and forward, and you can do nothing to stop the death roll. She goes tumbling back, you in her grip like a lover held close, and the world briefly upends, and then you are on the floor, both of you together, her breath hot against your throat, your arms pinned beneath the muscular bulk of her thighs.

  This you could have foreseen because it is just how you’d approached the carcinate Meg in sim, too. You’d kept trying to get the softer underbelly to present itself; with a lance like Barracuda has, it might have been easy—but Carol was not there, Carol is never there, you haven’t heard from her in a solid thirty-six hours, and what if she is mad at you after all despite assuring you she isn’t—

  Enough. So you’d tried the belly and been met with those seeking claws closing around you instead, once you got close enough to strike, and that had been the end of it. But there is one thing that distinguishes your performance here, now, from sim and everything that came before, from Crimson Crane and the precise science of fighting in your Titan. Here, you have teeth.

  You twist around so your mouth is upon the meat of Gutes’ arm, and you bite.

  She yelps and lets go. Debrah says, “Time out!”—and you roll away and get to your feet, panting, mouth tasting of sweat and blood, not Gutes’ but yours, welling from the crack in your dry lip.

  Gutes is looking at you, dazed, purple impressions where your teeth were, blooming against the brown of her skin. Debrah says, “Whoa, okay,” and she’s stepping between you two, both hands up. “Emma. Friends, not food. Come on.”

  You look at her, and something wells up inside you—hot and fast, full of teeth—but she’s smiling, and that confuses you enough that you falter for a moment—which itself is long enough for Gutierrez to push past Debrah, step around her outstretched arm to face you. (Gutes isn’t taller than Debrah, but she fairly makes up for it by being built like a tank.)

  For a long moment she just looks at you. You look at her. You think back to the taste of copper when you came shooting out of the minefield, me in your head and Carol waiting, unaware of everything you were doing; you think of staring down the waves in the Bay from the top of the seawall, the way your heartbeat quickened when you thought of jumping off.

  Then Gutierrez says, “Damn, Kanagawa,” and you realize she isn’t angry, isn’t even resentful: her tone is awe, that and nothing more. “That hurt.”

  “You deserved it,” you say without thinking.

  Which is true. You mean that, and you aren’t sorry for it. You steel yourself for a rebuke from Debrah—ready for her to tell you it’s too far—but no, nothing.

  “Wow!” Gutes says, laughing a little. “Kitten’s got claws.” And now she’s smiling too, rueful, massaging her arm where you bit her. “Okay,” she says, “fine, point taken, sorry, Dee—let’s follow form this time?”

  “Sure,” you say. You don’t really want to, but you probably won’t learn much that’s relevant to the cradle if you don’t at least stick to cradle techniques, right?

  And Debrah? She’s looking at you searchingly, the smile long gone. Then she glances back at Gutierrez, her big stupid hopeful sweat-beaded face and meaty fists, and she says, “I think you’d better take a break.”

  “Nooo,” says Gutierrez. “We were just getting to the good part. Please?”

  “I need a moment with Emma, actually,” says Debrah. “Thank you, Trace.”

  “Fine,” says Gutes plaintively, “but you’d better pay me extra for the overtime. Meng’s getting serious about our paycheck with Carol coming back on the team, you know.”

  You hardly notice this last part; you are already directed elsewhere. In the mirror to your right, behind you, you have noticed that Lau is looking at you—and this time, she really is looking, and she doesn’t look away.

  Your chest is tight. You need air. You turn away, make for the door; you can hear footsteps following you; you don’t care.

  Then the sim room envelopes you, and the vast empty sterile chill does calm your racing heart a little. You breathe in the chemical scent, somewhere between salt and alcohol, and think involuntarily of the wave pump and the little white room with the air conditioner; more, of patrol, of the cradle surrounding you and lifting you up; of Carol and coming apart. Then the door bursts open with a report like a gun. Debrah did say she wanted a moment, after all.

  There is an open pod three feet away. You move without thinking, duck inside, press yourself to the curving shell—smell of saline stronger here, clinging despite having been drained long enough ago to leave no puddles.

  “Oh, come on,” says Gutierrez, somewhere to your right. “Debs is gonna be pissed.”

  “Just tell her it’s not your fault.” That’s Lau. You cringe back against the pod. “She wants to send you out to do her dirty work, she can deal with you failing at it. Or you can just drag the newbie out. She’s in here.”

  Plaintively: “You don’t think it’s my fault?”

  “No,” says Lau, “but you can lie.”

  “Aww. Hey, fuck you,” says Gutierrez. “You didn’t get bitten.”

  “She should have bitten you harder,” says Lau. “I hope she does it again when you find her.”

  “You can workshop that,” says Gutierrez. “You’re nailing the sexual tension, but the delivery could use polish.”

  “You’re unbelievably sad,” says Lau.

  Silence. Your heart thumps like a drum from somewhere in your throat. You hold your breath and count: one, two, three, all the way up to twelve.

  Then Gutierrez says, “Fuck it, I’ll say the kid kicked me and ran out the back door,” and Lau says, “That’s a stupid excuse,” and Gutierrez says, “Come up with a better one, then,” and the pause that follows is answer enough.

  “Just getting to the good part,” says Lau. Her voice is muffled, as though she’s already turned away. “Beating helpless babies? That’s the good part?”

  “Oh, please,” says Gutierrez, “don’t be a fucking hypocrite.” And the door punctuates this with such finality that you cannot imagine there is any reply, though you wouldn’t know if there was; they’re both gone again, after all.

  Still you hold your breath, count thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, twenty, and only then do you get up. You’re alone now, you tell yourself. Through the window in the little door you can see, even from here, that the girls are all still in there. You could rejoin them. You could say Gutierrez lied.

  But you are still a coward, for all that you’re learning now to use your teeth. Better find that back door.