Team Sol, Anchor: “Medjay, as the head of our security team, I wanted you to be the first to know.”

  Team Sol, Guardian: “Yes, sir. New orders?”

  Team Sol, Anchor: “Ha! I wish. The bad news is, the Mana Containment Force has been dissolved. A new bioweapon erased the Elven Council. Dragon Clan Zeraxis has taken control now, and they’ve cut ties. The controllers barely got a memo out before the shutdown.”

  Team Sol, Guardian: “I seem to faintly recall my old family saying that exact thing before I joined the MCF. ‘Just you wait, ONE political upheaval and it’ll all be over. Who cares if the job offers immortality?’ I’m pretty sure the lecture went something like that.”

  Team Sol, Anchor: “Well, there’s bad news on top of bad news. We’re stuck here. No pickup, no backups, and no more methods to reacquaint ourselves with our old lives. Unless you can save those memories for yourself, you’ll lose them.”

  Team Sol, Guardian: “That’s slightly cursed. Granted, my old family were humans. They’re all long gone by now. There isn’t much for me to remember.”

  Team Sol, Anchor: “What will you do?”

  Team Sol, Guardian: “My job. What else can I do?”

  Team Sol, Anchor: “I’ll do the same, then. Let’s just keep this between ourselves. If we tell the others, then our whole team will fall apart.”

  Team Sol, Guardian: “With respect, sir, that sounds like a terrible idea.”

  Team Sol, Anchor: “What else can I do? The strongest dozen people on this planet would become free agents at best, and warlords at worst. I trust you, so please trust me in return.”

  -Meeting, Mana Containment Force: Team Sol (Ivan, Medjay, Earth Year 914 BC)

  Kris:

  The eatery was only occupied by a half dozen officials and other staff. Most of the people in the building took to unusual schedules and often stopped in for a bite whenever they had a moment to spare. Even Kris had to admit to taking meals at unusual hours when she’d been in the building to help the various departments that either liked her expertise or just wanted to rub elbows with the daughter of their hero.

  Still, the food was always stellar, thanks to the number of Anvien who’d taken to culinary pursuits after being freed.

  Kris’ brows furrowed as Mari placed her order. It was a custom meal that had the cook’s brows rising with an expression of creative excitement. When they sat down, Kris had pasta in cream sauce that she’d come to prefer from one particular chef. Mari, on the other hand, had asked for something that had taken longer to scrape together the ingredients than it had for the food to cook.

  The dark-haired girl had a flat, circular dish that looked like thin, grilled bread cut into wedges. Each wedge oozed with cheese and meat. The smell told of unimaginable spice levels. Something new about Mari since the procedure, then. Mari hadn’t gone for spicy foods in the past.

  “Quesadilla. Want some?” Mari’s sudden comment shook Kris from her thoughts with a jolt.

  “Uhhh, sure, I’ll try it.” Kris stretched her two-pronged skewer forward and then paused as Mari offered it with her hands. Hands shaking with mild excitement, Kris set the implement down and reached out her hand to take it.

  “Is your hand alright? Do you need something for the swelling?” Mari’s concern was heavy in her voice, but Kris shook her head.

  “I don’t really feel it anymore.” She snatched the wedge from the other girl before the cheese could drip onto the table between them.

  With trepidation, Kris bit down on the breaded wedge with a satisfying crunch. Then, she widened her eyes at the explosion of flavors that hit her tongue. All of that was short-lived as the bite of the spices hit her not more than a few seconds later, making her eyes water as she fought to swallow before hunting for a drink to take the edge off.

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  “Such a shame I don’t have a good salsa recipe crammed into my head. I’ll have to ask Ivan for cooking information next time I visit the Nexus.” Those were… a lot of words. A lot of words Kris didn’t really get the meaning of.

  Drinking off a bit of the heat, she cleared her throat.

  “Would you tell me about what happened? What it’s like? And what she is like? I keep hearing little things that I know nothing about. You know how I feel about learning new things.”

  Mari fell into thought before her, and Kris worried that she might’ve asked something too invasive.

  “Some of it, sure. I’m not fully wrapped around it all myself, though. I guess that I’ll try. Marielle was a guardian. A protector of the things she held dear to her. In the end, she lost it all. Her mother, her friends, then her father right before losing her world. And then she found something in Sylvia, only to lose that, too.”

  A somber atmosphere fell over them. The sheer gravitas of emotion underlying those words was enough to steal any response from Kris’ mind. How could she even begin to understand that level of pain?

  “People here have vented so much of their frustration, loss and pain on me.” Mari’s tone came out low and hollow. “All because of some assumptions they had. And for a while, I believed I deserved that. Now that I know the truth, I’m left with a tight knot of emptiness in my chest. When I think about it all too much, that empty spot just fills with anger. Fuck those people.”

  Kris reached her hand out and seized Mari’s with all her strength. It probably hurt, not that it showed on her face. “Mari, I’m here. I’m sorry that all of that happened. If there is one thing I’d love to do, it would be to stop the cycle of revenge all through history. They vented their desire for revenge on you, and it wasn’t right. But we can’t just keep perpetuating that. If you have to be angry with someone, then be angry with me.”

  Mari’s gaze softened, and Kris felt the grip returned with a childlike weakness. “No, you’re right. I think for a long time, maybe I was unsure of why you said all the things you did. Every time you came along to stop those assholes, you said some of the meanest things. I get it now. You’ve always been so smart.”

  Kris replied with the smallest of nods. She knew it had likely hurt Mari every time. Talking about her like she was some piece of trash just to curb the ire of the school bullies in some vague effort to blunt the emotions of everyone involved.

  Maybe that played a role in her decision. Kris felt she owed Mari for all the harsh words she’d said. And despite it all, Mari had always remained silent and taken it in stride.

  Kris felt a tightness in her throat. “I’m sorry. I’ve abused your friendship for our whole lives. I wouldn’t be surprised if you hated me.” Then she ran a finger along her lips. Despite it all, Mari was making an effort for her. It made her feel worse, but there was a level of happiness buried inside it all.

  “Well, I believe I have the sole right to tell you when you’re being a bitch, now.” Mari’s playful tone cut through the emotional chaff and brought a smile to her lips.

  “I suppose so. I’m glad, you know? That you came back.”

  “I wonder if it’ll stay that way. This is all very new to me. But we can discuss our relationship a bit more later. Everything in that recording…”

  Ah yes, the topic they’d been avoiding.

  “They wanted me to be a global protector. And the carrot they offered, too.” Mari reached up and brushed her bangs out of her face, revealing her piercing red eyes—the mark of her affliction.

  Kris decided not to ask about the unusual turns of phrase that Mari had picked up. “A fate they wished to force on you. You don’t have to do anything the empire tried to make you do. Alynne knows about the issues. You can leave them to her to find solutions to. You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “This goes beyond that, though. They had my belongings carefully stored. I imagine they did the same thing for everyone else. Worse, the colony ship had thousands of people on it. And a piece of the hull that you’ve been testing on? My ship is here. The Gift of Life was brought out of space, I’m sure of that. And the rest of the people are out there, somewhere. I want to know what happened to them all.”

  Kris had to admit she was curious, too. The amount of mana that could be spreading from the rest of the ship? It could begin creating new monsters if it wasn’t found and contained soon enough. “I do find it hard to believe the ship is in space when a chunk of the hull is in my lab. So, where do we begin?”

  Mari smiled. “‘We,’ huh? Alright. You study magic, and I’ll get back in shape. Seems as best a place to start as any.”

  “I can do that. But what about the nanites they created? We should test things out properly before making any major steps.”

  Mari’s eyes swept down to the table and began massaging the joints between her fingers, which Kris knew was a thing she did when she was deep in thought. And when she was thinking of a way to avoid telling the whole truth.

  “No matter how I think about it, you’re right. What the message claimed sounds too powerful to just use haphazardly. I’ll work on building up some strength for now.”

  And with that, they finished their meals.

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