“Mr. Donner, there’s a section you didn’t fill out on the application. Could you please provide at least three personal references?”

  “... Who even knows that many people?”

  Jessie opened her locker. She sighed, seeing her tired face in the small mirror. She’d taken some medicine, but there was still an ache at the back of her head.

  What a Shones-damned day. But she’d done it. She’d survived the horrors of the night and pardoned the man with the most punchable smug face on the planet. And yet, she worried about him. She worried she’d just fed him into the grinder.

  And then there was her. Some of the questions the reporters asked… ugh, the audacity. Did this really serve greater justice? Was her previous relationship with Jett—whatever the hell that meant—a conflict of interest? Was she just getting bored of the GPD, so she was being reckless?

  Then there was Chief Mortis. Well, he was a dick anyway. Tetsumi had her back. That meant the Elites had her back. That was all that mattered.

  Or so she’d thought.

  “Whose side are you on, Faxton?”

  It had been the only out loud comment, soon after she’d entered the GPD Elite Level 5 Southwest Headquarters to start her shift. But there was also broken eye contact. Whispers. She swore she heard “Bet she’s sleeping with him.”

  Her head darted as she walked down the hallways, trying to catch someone in the act. Not that she could do much. Yanking the ear of a fellow Elite? That wouldn’t go over well.

  Damn it, was she still in high school? But at that, maybe she was. After all, she was still playing the hall monitor.

  Fine, she decided. I’ll just wait for this to blow over. Some more good shifts, some more solid arrests, maybe another commendation? That’d shut them up. And, she fervently hoped, Jett would vindicate her too. Or at least, not embarrass her.

  “Corporal Faxton?”

  Jessie turned at the quiet voice. “Officer Carter? What’s wrong?”

  The young officer had several pieces of her padding already strapped on for the training room. She looked like she’d been crying. “I… I didn’t have anything to do with it. I said no. I said I liked you.”

  Jessie felt a chill down her spine. “What do you mean?”

  “They just told our group on the way in. They’re assigning us a different trainer.” Her lip quivered, and she sniffed angrily. “They didn’t give us a reason.”

  Jessie gripped her locker door, trying to keep her breathing steady. Her head throbbed. Her hand trembled, and the metal creaked. She let go and relaxed her physical enhancement just before her locker door warped.

  Retaliation was Shones-damned illegal. What was next? She turned back to Carter, forcing her voice to remain calm. “Did they tell you who…? Never mind. Look, I’ll be okay. I’ll talk to some people. Again. Just… do me a favor and half-drown whoever replaces me, all right?”

  Officer Carter sniffed again, and gave Jessie a lop-sided smile. “I can probably do that.”

  A few minutes later Jessie was back in her motorcycle gear and striding through the hallways. Robbed of her training team, there was nothing left to do but collect Evan, get their assignment, and hit the streets. That might be telling. If they sent her somewhere ridiculously safe like Level 8 or 9… or if they assigned her some hellhole mission like raiding Oldtown…

  “Corporal?”

  “Evan?” Jessie looked up to see her partner waiting for her. Something was clearly off. He wouldn’t quite meet her eyes. “Officer De La Cruz?”

  He shuffled nervously, his hand brushing his midsection where he’d been patched up from the previous night’s injury. “Hi Corporal. Um, do you have a second to talk?”

  Jessie’s head pounded. “Sure, Evan. What’s wrong?”

  “Um… I’m putting in for a transfer.”

  Jessie couldn’t keep the frustration out of her voice. “Shones Evan, you too? I thought you liked Fulgen.”

  “What? Oh no, not that. I mean, I don’t object to what you did at all. It’s awesome. It’s just… Listen Corporal. I know I’m new at this. I know you outrank me. I know I’m just a Rune Warrior and you’re a sorcerer…ish. Sorry. What I’m getting at is, the last day has shown me that you’re playing a whole different game from the rest of us. And I can’t keep up.”

  Jessie crossed her arms, waiting for him to continue.

  “That ice sorcerer. That… monster. When I heard the roaring from outside I crawled toward the door. Thought maybe I could squeeze in a shot or something. When I saw what you guys were fighting. Shit, all I could think was I’m glad I got hurt. Because if I’d gone out there, I know I woulda died. That sounds stupid. You were out there, Fu was out there. Hell, civilians were out there. Does that make me a coward?”

  A little. “Of course not. That was scary as shit, and it’s all right to feel that way. We faced a total unknown.”

  “And then…” Evan sighed. “What you did pardoning Jett Fulgen, that was also brave. It was right. But this negative attention, what’s happening already. The eyes of other cops, of the public, of the chief? I’m sorry Corporal, I’m just not built to take it. This is the only job I have. I can’t just fall back on a fortune if I get fired or driven out. So I totally support you, Corporal. I’d just rather do it from a safe distance.”

  You asshole. “I understand.”

  Jessie’s expression softened even as her anger grew within. How dare he? He was running at the first damn sign of trouble. What had he dealt with, a few stitches and some other Elites whispering about her? Jett had practically let himself be disemboweled rather than let that monster target anyone but him. Wally? Shit! He couldn't even walk, and he fought with tools! She's seen medals handed out for less.

  “Okay, thank you,” Evan said. “So, we're good?”

  Sure. “No.”

  Evan blinked. Jessie's rage and frustration poured out.

  “Officer De la Cruz, you have no idea what it means to be a cop, or a partner, and certainly not a friend. Last night was traumatic, I get that. If you needed admin leave or a transfer for psychological reasons after that hell? Sure, I understand completely.”

  She stepped forward and lowered her voice. “But ‘I need to run away because this is getting hard?’ ‘Because I don't want people to talk about me the way they talk about my partner?’ Bullshit. Damn you. Shones damn you, Evan de la Cruz. Good luck and good riddance. I just feel sorry for whoever they put you with next.”

  Evan's jaw worked for a long moment. Jessie could feel tears welling, but she blinked them back. Finally, Evan lowered his head and stepped past her.

  Jessie leaned against the wall and tried to compose herself. The thought of resigning occurred to her, but she quickly dismissed it. That would let them win, and besides, it would put Jett’s pardon in jeopardy.

  “I'm not sure this is a good time,” she heard Captain Tetsumi murmur.

  Jessie snapped her head up and wiped her eyes. “Captain?”

  “Corporal Faxton?” This was a male voice, familiar. Jessie turned around, feeling a strange sense of disconnect.

  “We really need to stop meeting like this,” said Captain Tetsumi, standing next to the man. “People are going to start thinking I give you preferential treatment. I do, but I’d rather they not think that.”

  Chris Eisner, Ice Guardian and the face of G-Tech, smiled at Jessie as she approached. “It’s good to see you again,” he said. “I’m sorry we didn’t have proper time to catch up yesterday evening.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Hello, Chris,” said Jessie. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I was just having a chat with your captain about a conundrum Team Snowcrest has. You know how our police liaison system works, right? It’s part of the Licensed Vigilante Sorcerer Act.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Well, we like to keep two liaisons per team, and one of Team Snowcrest’s just up and quit this morning. Something about a large cat, I believe.”

  “Ah.” Jessie held up a hand and gathered her thoughts. She sighed and steeled herself. “I think I see where this is going. But I have a huge headache right now, and I don’t feel like talking sideways.”

  She looked to Tetsumi, then back to Chris. Was this really happening? Was her career really sinking that quickly? Was this a viable way out, appearing just like that?

  When she fed Jett into the grinder, did her hand get stuck too?

  “Very well,” said Chris. “Yes. We want you to join Team Snowcrest as a Liaison. Recent events have shown that regulars struggle with the challenges G-Tech faces. We need someone who can keep up with us. Who can really contribute, in addition to providing police legitimacy. We believe that person is you.”

  “And it has nothing to do with me pardoning Jett Fulgen for you guys?”

  Chris pursed his lips. “I certainly won’t say ‘nothing.’ We do feel a certain indebtedness to you for what you did regarding young Mr. Fulgen. But it certainly wouldn’t have made our decision on its own. You fully merit this offer, Corporal.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Captain Tetsumi.

  Jessie considered. With no partner, and with the GPD rapidly souring against her, this was perhaps her only way forward. But she hated being forced into—

  Captain Tetsumi’s phone rang. She glanced at it, then clicked it off in exasperation.

  “Faxton, for the love of the Shones,” she said. “If you won’t do it for yourself, or for Chris, or even for me, do it for Fu. She’s been asking for an update every five minutes.”

  It took me a while to calm down after City Hall. I was generally better than Wally at not falling apart under pressure. At least on the outside. At least at first. Often to my detriment. As a result, Yuki didn’t realize that I, too, might need one of her aetheric brain shots. I spent most of the elevator ride back to the surface trying to work up the gumption to ask her for one. I never did.

  It slowly dawned on me that this was my life now. Someone had searched, I dunno, old news articles, social media posts, public records. About me. Some of that shit had happened hundreds of miles away in a different country. They’d done this research in a matter of hours, at the asscrack of dawn on a weekend, all so they could be ready with my worst memories and a microphone, ready to catch whatever drippings they could squeeze out of me. I would never get away from it.

  It was actually a relief to go through a second mind-numbing round of form filling and paper signing back at G-Tech. Among them was a particularly distinctive and bizarre form: My application to join the city’s Licensed Vigilante Sorcerer program. That would get me the official green light to punch bad guys outside of the GPD’s command structure.

  I might have cut loose a little bit during my largely pointless “job interview.” I barely registered the figures on my actual job offer, except to acknowledge it was several times what I’d ever been offered for an hourly or salary job in my life. It was rivaled only by the sponsorship deals I’d signed—and subsequently sunk—during my pro skid days.

  By the time that was over I felt a little more grounded. Also, I finally got my name badge and lanyard and became an official G-Tech employee. My job title was “Sorcerer Trainee,” which felt like a step down from “Fire Guardian Acolyte.”

  I came out of my interview to find Wally dusting off an official G-Tech polo shirt and inspecting his own lanyard. He was an “Engineer.” What kind? The kind that engineers stuff, I guessed. The true impression I got was that, because Wally was multidisciplinary (“hacking” + “gadgets”) and they needed multidisciplinary people, his exact role would be clarified over time.

  We met Isabel Marin outside her office on the fifth floor, which was the highest floor, and which seemed a little unambitious for a single building footprint on the mighty Topside. “I think we’ll start up top and work our way down,” she said.

  “Isn’t this the top?” I asked.

  “Of course not. The roof is.”

  The roof was accessible by a flight of stairs past Marin’s own office. Once we emerged, I got it.

  “What do you think, Mr. Fulgen?” Marin asked.

  “Is this… what I think it is?”

  “Well, it’s not tailored for skidding per se. However, it is our training center for speed and agility sorcerers. I think you’ll find it useful.

  As if to emphasize the point, a grey and blue blur whizzed by on the outer track.

  The rooftop was a speedster’s playground, made up of four components. At the far outside was a running track. It only had three wide lanes, and its outer edges formed quarter pipes, curving up to join the outer wall of the roof. Just inside that was another track, shaped like a figure eight. Its curves had similar quarter pipe walls. Inside one loop of that track was a police style obstacle course, and in the other one was a climbing wall with slablike platforms and wedges at regular intervals. A female sorcerer was scaling that by wall jumping and parkouring like something out of a video game. Then, as if for a victory lap, she hopped back down and made it all the way back up in a single jump.

  The blur from earlier came to a sudden stop in front of us during its circuit of the outer track. I wasn’t too surprised to find it was Tessa Vale, Chris’s Lieutenant. “Morning, Miss Marin,” she said.

  “Good morning, Miss Vale,” Marin replied.

  Vale regarded me coolly. “Mr. Fulgen. I trust everything went well at city hall?”

  “Oh, you know,” I said nonchalantly. “Met the mayor and stuff.”

  Vale rolled her eyes, then sped away.

  “Hell, I need to give this a spin,” I said, summoning Bullet Train.

  “Really, Jett?” asked Wally. “I want to see the workshop.”

  “I gotta.”

  I wasn’t sure what the protocol was, so I kicked my shoes on, waited for Vale to zip past again, and zoomed over to the inner figure eight track just to eliminate any chance of collisions.

  It was glorious. I hadn’t skid on an honest-to-goodness track in months. I whooped as I took the curves at various heights, warming up. Then I went all the way up and performed a grind around the edge using the metallic grooves built into the treads of my skid shoes.

  At some point Habby popped out to watch me in action. He drifted easily along beside me; in fact his momentum seemed to be determined by mine.

  [These skills are rather impressive, Jett. But how will they help you in combat?]

  ?I’ll kill them with awesomeness.?

  [That’s not a thing, Jett.]

  ?Maybe Issa just wasn’t awesome enough to manage it.?

  I finished off with a one gun salute, marvelling at how easy my newly boosted strength made the maneuver.

  When I finally rejoined Wally and Marin Wally was fidgeting almost like he had to pee, and Marin was studying me.

  “Wow,” she said. “You really do love that sport, don’t you?”

  “Oh. Yeah, don’t be surprised if I try to move our bunk up here. You know anything about skidding?”

  “No. But I can tell when someone is doing what they love.”

  The tour instantly became boring as hell as we started to descend, because the upper floors were just office space. Wally and I both said hello to Denise from HR, as well as a few other executives whose names I quickly forgot. Then we popped in on Catalina Castillo, the PR lady.

  “Morning, Castillo,” Marin said. She checked the wall clock. “Or, I suppose I should say afternoon.

  “Ah, come in,” Castillo said, though it took her a few moments of typing before she looked up from her computer. She looked stressed, but she composed herself and gave me a smile. “I don’t want to steal your time, Isabel, but I wanted just a moment to debrief with Mr. Fulgen while he’s here.”

  “By all means.”

  I cleared my throat, stepping into the room but not taking the offered seat across from the woman. “Right. So, um, honest critique. How’d I do earlier?”

  She regarded me for a moment. “You mostly shut the hell up for the press, which is what I asked. I did not anticipate Mayor Garner making a personal appearance, or I would have coached you more. Fortunately the mayor is down to earth and has a good sense of humor. So you almost apologizing to him—but ultimately failing to do so—was not nearly as big a gaff as it would have been for some of the City Council members.

  “Now. I also saw that both you and Mr. Donner struggled with questions about your past.”

  She let that hang, and an icy hot pellet of anger formed in my gut. I tensed as if ready for an attack. “A little.”

  “You are in the spotlight now. And you are in a controversial position, and you are a controversial personality. They will be relentless, trying to push your buttons. There is one way to stop it. At least on specific sensitive topics from your past. But you are going to hate it.”

  She said “hate” with a growling vehemence that I could feel. I caved in and plopped into the chair. “All right. Hit me with it.”

  “An interview. You tell your story, using the right words, in the right time and place, when we have a measure of control.”

  “You’re right, that idea sucks balls.” Marin cursed behind me. I drew in a breath. “But, I think I get what you’re saying. If they already have the story they’ll stop asking for it. And you’re right, doing it on my terms sounds a little less painful than doing it on theirs. You’re saying you can actually get me interviewed? When?”

  “?Luces benditas! Do you know what kind of calls I’ve been answering since I got back to the office? Everyone in Gigopolis wants to interview you! As for when? There is some wiggle room, and we need time to prepare you. The important factors are first, the longer we wait the fewer options we will have. And second, the sooner we get it over with, the easier your next public appearance will be. Right now I have a solid lead on Grand City Deep Dive with Lys Corwin. It would be perfect. She is compassionate but professional. She will feed the hungry masses what they want without carving the meat from your flesh, comprende?”

  I drummed my fingers nervously on the edge of her desk. On the one hand, she was absolutely right. On the other hand, as this idea became more real, panic started to well up in me. I did not want to revisit those awful events. Didn’t matter who was asking the questions. Didn’t matter how nice they were. Didn’t matter how much time or coaching I got. I was being asked to replay the worst mistake of my life.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  She put her hand on mine, surprising me. “I know this is hard, Fulgen. Ok? But we can get through it.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  She held my gaze for a moment. Then she winked and said, “Okay, Isabel, that’s all I need. Get him out of my face, I’m busy as hell. We’ll set up a meeting soon, Mr. Fulgen, okay? Start talking strategy.”

  I stood. “Can’t wait.”

  Castillo clicked her tongue. “My first real coaching lesson for you, Mr. Fulgen. Sarcasm is a knife. You can’t whack everything you see with it, and if you try it just gets dull.”

  Shones. I might have been immune to fire, but I felt that burn.