You stew in your room after that, too keyed-up to sleep but too tired to really move. But stewing doesn’t help take your mind off things, nor does it hurry the headache you’ve developed, doubtless from the feel-good and the Everclear—smart choice, that.

  They gave you a pager and a console when you came onboard. The pager you ignore—not interested in talking to anyone here. The console, when you power it on, turns out to be full to the gills with copies of basic protocols, maps and guides. It’s a hefty piece—something like the old DynaBook you’d seen Dad lug around when he was off-campus—gray plastic, with keys that feel disconcertingly tacky to press. You open a random protocol (Routine Maintenance Procedure for Atlas Defense Unit Engine Primary, Version 15.0), and you spend fifteen minutes reading the same sentence before you give up. The maps are no better.

  What will it be like, meeting with Meng? Surely Oladele has already passed along what you told her; you could’ve taken the chance to be more open about your discomfort, about Carol yanking your chain, but you weren’t, and then you made a fool of yourself to the team tonight. So the outlook isn’t great to start with. If you want to prove yourself, it’ll be an upward climb, even without accounting for the way Lau seems to think you’re only here because of nepotism.

  Is she right? you wonder for the thousandth time. Then you decide it doesn’t matter. You’re done feeling sorry for yourself. It’s not up to you whether Unit 49 has baggage; you sure do, to say the least, and that’s not up to them. What is up to you is what you do.

  So start by apologizing, obviously—except that’s not something you’re willing to do right now, prideful creature that you are.

  But if not that, then what?

  In the middle of all this comes a knock at your door, three loud, quick raps. You don’t want to answer, but what if it’s Meng? No, it wouldn’t be—but what if it’s one of her flying monkeys? Worse, what if it’s Gutierrez—or Holly, or Enika? You groan and shut down the protocol binder, drag yourself off the bed. Better safe than sorry, or whatever.

  You elbow the lock release, harder than you have to. The door slides back. There’s Carol, in civvies, a folded pilot’s suit over her arm, her face as sharp and hungry as you remember, her tangled black hair half-falling over her face.

  Oh, shit. You’re already bracing yourself for the inevitable vitriol. You manage, “What—?”

  But she’s not angry. She says, “You ran off earlier.”

  Heat rises inside you. You’re angry. “Yep.” You fold your arms. “So?”

  Carol lifts one shoulder; she’s looking right at you with those frank black eyes, and it feels hard to look back, but hard not to. “So Gutierrez told me you were looking for me—and I was supposed to give you this,” she says, and proffers the onesie.

  You could say, Sure, and, Thank you, but to be honest, you’re still a little sore from earlier, so you lift your chin and give your best glare.

  Carol doesn’t flinch. The silence stretches out.

  “And?” you say at last.

  “And maybe I was a bit of a dick.” Wow. Not expecting that.

  What do you do now? Suddenly you feel bad. You were staring. (She does have nice tits, shallow but pretty—but that’s beside the point.) You mumble, “S’fine. We both were.”

  She lifts a shoulder again. “No hard feelings,” she says. “You want the suit or not?”

  Right—the suit. Your suit. The suit particularly tailored to you, newly the pilot of Tokyo Calling. That suit. You look at it and a rush of feeling comes into you, because it’s the same red-blue-black-white that Rachel’s was, of course it is, they all are, and you suddenly vividly see yourself in it, the pale echo of her, her ghost—never mind what Holly told you about not comparing yourself: What will Carol think? What will you think of Carol? You have to work with her now, and how the hell is that supposed to happen? Who will she see when she looks at you in the suit? (You remember the sunset, the silhouette of the dead cleo. Surely, you think desperately, she doesn’t know about your outburst tonight, about getting foolishly high at the party with the rest of her team. You hope she doesn’t.)

  Carol’s raised her eyebrows.

  “Sure,” you say. “Yeah. Leave it on the bed.”

  That last bit comes out flippant and you regret it as soon as you say it. She’ll take offense to that for sure, you think. But she pushes past you, into your room, and you startle—she deposits the suit in a neat pile on your bed and leans on the wall next to it. Behind you the door slides shut, clunks quietly into the wall.

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  Carol’s folding her arms again. You look at her in disbelief. She looks evenly back at you.

  “That all?” she asks.

  (You should say yes, by the way, Kanagawa, that’s what civilized people do here, that’s how this script plays out.)

  “No,” you say.

  There’s a tension in you. Anger, maybe, unresolved despite her sort-of-not-an-apology. Or shame. (Hard to tell the difference these days.) Whatever it is it’s gnawing at you, and you don’t like it. Fuck Holly, you think, fuck it all. You have to ask her—about Rachel, about you. You are terrified of asking her.

  Carol raises her dark brows again.

  “Go ahead,” she says. “I’ll bite.”

  You don’t say anything. Your heart races; your fists clench. You take a step closer—she’s taller than you, probably heavier, despite that lean, wiry frame; she’s definitely stronger, because you’re way out of practice, and you’ve seen the cords move in her arms and shoulders when she dresses. Maybe if you hit her she’ll hit back, hurl you against the wall, break you. No way you’d have any kind of upper hand.

  Carol watches you move. Her eyes flicker, and then she half-smiles.

  “Ah,” she says. “I get it.” She unfolds herself languidly, straightens. “You’re not slick, Kanagawa.” Then she closes the distance between you, takes your face in both hands, and kisses you.

  Like Carol herself, there’s nothing gentle here. It’s like she’s drinking from your mouth. You don’t lean into it. You don’t pull away, either. The shock of it thrums through you.

  But when she breaks the kiss you’re filled with a sudden surge of bright sharp conviction and you do lean forward then, clumsily find her mouth with yours, try to get her lip between your teeth, wanting to draw blood. Her breath tastes like cloves. You hear Carol snort. Then her hand’s on your jaw, pushing you away; and then she kisses you again. Rougher now. You let her take. You’re hungry for it. (You remember Gutierrez saying that’s just how she is—like this? Did she know? Does it matter? For once you just let it happen.)

  Her hands move to your shoulders, your hips, and then you’re a tangle of limbs on the narrow bed, panting, and Carol’s hoodie has come halfway off, her shirt’s coming up over her lean ribcage to reveal the shadow of the bottoms of her breasts. Your fingers skim past her navel—her breath hitches—you latch onto that, dig your nails in, feel the way her ropey scars make ripples like light over shallows across the spare plane of her belly. Then she’s got your crew neck all the way off and she sinks her incisors into the soft meat of your shoulder and it’s all you can do not to cry out.

  She tastes like sweat and salt; she’s teeth and skin and heat and bone, and you don’t bother to ask, you don’t even think about it, you just let her have it. You go limp and lean into her like it’s the water of the cradle. You let her undo the catch of your jeans and unzip your fly; you let her tug the legs halfway down to your knees. Then there are fingers inside of you, deft, questing, and you shock like it’s saltwater all over again, except this time it isn’t cold at all, it’s searingly, blazingly hot.

  She finds your clit with her thumb and you arch your back; your eyelids flutter. So does your cunt. She’s fast, unforgiving, working you like you’re some kind of machine—made of steel and ceramic instead of flesh and blood—and it’s so indelicate that it nearly hurts. It’s methodical and animal all at once. When you tighten, when your hips buck to meet her thrusts, she doesn’t stop you, doesn’t tell you to shut up. She just keeps fucking you.

  So you let her.

  Your climax arrives suddenly—no fanfare, no great feeling, nothing like when you’re alone; just one final clench and then a release. You lie there panting, Carol still inside you, and think: How long since you’ve been even a little bit naked with someone else? How many times? Maybe once or twice at the end of your days in the Academy. You close your eyes and don’t think about it anymore, just let your body’s spasms ride you out, and then Carol has your wrist in one hand and is shoving your fingers down her pants—past the fly—no underclothes, just the hot thick wetness of her cunt. You gasp when you sink into it. So, you think, does Carol, but it’s hard to tell. You’re still lightheaded from your own orgasm and your face is buried in your dead sister’s teammate’s shoulder; the damp mass of your tangled curls are a snarled curtain around you. Everything seems muffled, underwater.

  Carol moves silently, furiously, atop you. Without a word she moves your fingers deeper into her; the swells of each inner ridge strain against your knuckles. Carol’s unbelievably strong even here, on the inside. You don’t think you could pull yourself out even if she didn’t have your wrist in a death grip, even if she weren’t kneeling over you, her shallow, taut-peaked tits grazing your bare chest, her breath hot against your neck.

  When she gets close—you feel it—she draws her knees in toward your ribs, clasps them tight like an iron lung, and you hear her breathing grow rougher. Then she makes a quiet, straining sound—right in your ear—and comes, and the surge of it runs through you both in a long, shuddering wave.

  As soon as it starts, it’s over. She doesn’t give you any time to breathe or wipe up the mess on your fingers and thighs or collect yourself. She just leans back and grabs your shoulders, turns you onto your side, and drags your jeans the rest of the way off, then hers, baring you both. You have an instant in which you reach for her face, her hip, anything you can grab. Then she’s on top of you, tangling you together once again, still wordless, brutal, instinctual. You don’t protest. It’s nice to just let yourself go.

  Later on you wake to find the room empty, your new suit puddled on the floor, the scent of cloves and tobacco hanging around your pillow; and, oddly, your toothpaste tube next to your bed, on the cardboard box you’ve designated as an ersatz nightstand. Your silent, dark console has been placed neatly beside the toothpaste. There’s a note under the latter. In big blocky handwriting it reads: REPLACE THIS.

  You unscrew the cap to discover that it’s been filled with lube.