Kory pried herself from her nest of a bed and basked in the true daylight. Every aching bone, over-extended tendon, and crusted-over break in her skin joined together in a resounding chorus of agony. Their song was not one of lament, but one of transcendence. One way or another, the cells would multiply, and the wounds would heal. The pain was comfortable, joyous even. Why bother to intellectualize such a primal process? She stood before the risen sun, letting its light drown in the limitless dark of her eyes, stretching through the stiffness and hopeful against reason for what the new day promised.

  That morning, she made the conscious choice to wash her hair after days of putting it off and to put a little more effort into her appearance than usual. She readied herself as quickly as possible, given her typical proclivity to dawdle, and then slipped out of the apartment. On the rare occasion Kory woke earlier than Nash, she would make an intentional racket in the kitchen as a way to signal her presence to her roommate, thus inviting her company. But today she desired the opposite. She didn’t even consider going upstairs to rouse Zol and have him join her. It was a foregone conclusion what he would say. And besides, she’d had enough of all of them these past few weeks. The change of pace and faces was exactly what she needed. But first, a little treat as a reward for leaving the house.

  The café she chose was one of many places she used to linger with Nash, wasting half the days away. As she took her coffee and pastry to go, she tried to remind herself to bring her friend here again sometime soon. She could do with a break from this new, tense, always-three-steps-ahead version of Nash, and she also knew the girl she grew up with was in there somewhere, ready to be exhumed by a passionfruit Danish and a nail appointment.

  Her brisk walk through Cinnfoara’s airy streets led her through a little district of mostly older buildings with more character than refinement. Before long she arrived at a place so personal, so integral, it felt wrong to have abandoned it almost completely. In Billy’s gym, life continued just as she’d left it. It was still the usual hub of activity, filled with a diverse group of alternatively minded individuals engaged in the unpopular study of hand-to-hand combat. As she entered through the main door, sunlight from the high windows on the second story deck illuminated the practice space below. She saw Billy on a mat across the room coaching a pair of fighters. Once he saw her wave to him, he excused himself and ran to her.

  When he reached her he hugged her tightly and spun her around. Kory wasn’t sure what surprised her more, the gesture or the sound of her own resultant laughter. Unlike the usual wicked cackle at somebody else’s expense, this sound was purer. The strength of his embrace both reassured and enlivened her. His bright violet eyes shone from behind a messy head of curls. She had forgotten how close they used to be until recently, and for whatever intangible quality her group lacked she was sure Billy was the missing piece. Now she only had to find the words to explain to him what was going on. He nearly beat her to it when he set her down and took a step back. Kory saw his face fall as he noticed the cut on her lip and the bruise over her eye.

  “What happened to you?” Billy asked, looking her up and down with growing concern. “You didn’t leave us for one of those ‘unlicensed’ places I hope.” He joked nervously.

  “Nothing like that,” she smiled, hoping to ease his fears. “I’m sorry we haven’t been around, but I want to lay it all out for you.”

  “Yeah, I mean, you never have to apologize to me… that’s not what I meant at all!” He laughed, a little embarrassed by his attempt at backtracking. Kory looked past him to the crowded room full of people who must have each needed something from him.

  “How much time do you have?” she asked. All the lightness was still in her voice, but her gaze was firm.

  “As much time as you want,” he said, leading her to a cluster of chairs on the far edge of the room. Kory nearly gave in to the touch of his hand on her shoulder when a sudden chill landed there instead. She stopped to look behind, wondering if she’d left the door open to the cool morning air. Realizing she had not, she shook the feeling and followed Billy across the floor.

  #

  “I thought you said it was just him we needed to worry about,” Sohrab hissed, failing to conceal his ire.

  “That’s honestly what I thought!” Nash whispered. “I had no idea she would just show up! You of all people should know that I would never plan it this way.”

  “You think you’ve planned everything every which way haven’t you?” The two continued to squabble in hushed tones from the second-floor balcony of Billy’s fighting gym. The upper level consisted of modest rows of stadium seating with causeways in between leading to the hall in the back. Just moments before, Nash located and disengaged a locked back door, granting them access to the unused area. The increasing precision of her telekinetic ability gave her a dangerous sense of pride for a someone who should have kept that talent a secret. But times had changed for her. She was so much more than this world and its impositions now, and all she needed was to see if Billy could be more too. Nothing like a little extra help from time to time.

  “That’s what we agreed on,” Nash snapped. “You read his mind and tell me whether or not he’s got what it takes.”

  “And what makes you want him specifically?” Sohrab derided.

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  “He’s helped out Zol and Kory a lot, he seems savvy enough, and they trust him.” She posited, assuming this would be enough to hedge her bets on whatever potential she hoped he had.

  “She might trust him a little too much,” Sohrab said, nodding to where Kory and Billy sat towards the far end of the practice floor below.

  “No…” Nash’s jaw dropped. “Is she… is she about to tell him something?”

  “Wait, shh…” he urged. “I think I can listen to them both if I concentrate.” A few tense seconds passed, consisting of Sohrab staring intently at the pair while Nash stared intently at the side of his head. “You’re not going to like this,” he sighed.

  “What is she saying!?”

  “She’s already on to the part about the eel.”

  “Dammit!” Nash cringed, “She doesn’t even know how she’s screwed us!”

  “Well, if you ever told her anything instead of assuming…” Sohrab accused.

  “I would if she’d leave her filthy cave of a room!” Nash fired back.

  “Trouble in paradise?” he grinned, eager to salt the wound.

  “Just focus,” she pointed at Kory and Billy. “What are they saying… thinking now?”

  “It’s not going well,” he mused. “He doesn’t know what to think of what she’s telling him, and he’s deep in denial there’s anything beyond the small world he’s built for himself.”

  “Some asset you turned out to be,” Nash scoffed. “Don’t you ever have anything good to tell me?”

  “You don’t think I hear that ninety-five times a week from people a lot tougher than you? Worst still, you’re not even paying for this privilege! You think those high rollers don’t turn on me when I tell them what they don’t want to hear? Because the check cashes either way.” Sohrab turned to look her in the eye, his own full of fire. His acrid tone silenced her, if only for a moment. “And for your information, I can only reveal what’s already there. I am working on the ‘influence’ thing, for the sake of my employers’ and my own interests, but it’s an uphill battle against your stubborn kind!”

  “What do you mean?” Nash shrank back a bit, her voice lowered noticeably.

  “Those brutes down there aren’t the only ones that hone their abilities,” he nodded towards the lower floor, focusing once more on his targets.

  “Uh-uhm… what’s happening now?” Nash stammered, looking back down at Kory and Billy.

  “It’s nearly over,” Sohrab said. “She didn’t explain herself well or consider his motivations at all; a common error among the naive.”

  On the edge of the practice space below them, Kory indeed appeared deflated, as if some failure of a performance had sucked the life out of her. She and Billy arose from their chairs, and he hung his arm around her in a gesture of consolation. There was a certain sadness in her visage as he walked her back across the room to the front door. She shivered as she approached the threshold, anticipating the cold beyond the safety of his building. With one last apology muttered toward the floor beneath his feet, she passed without another word to the street outside.

  “How much does he know?” Nash asked gravely.

  “She did you the courtesy of only sticking to stories about her and Zol, not revealing your power or any suspicion of his.” Sohrab answered before walking back through the causeway to the hall behind. He stopped in front of a window, thinking he might see Kory drift away outside.

  “You didn’t see anything useful from him at all?” Nash pressed, joining him at the window.

  “He never thought about it the entire time she spoke to him, and if there was ever a time, it was then,” Sohrab said, turning towards her. “Doesn’t mean he has no talent, but it might be buried a lot deeper than you think, what with the stigma and all… they can’t all be you, darling.” He placed a cool, mocking hand on her face, which burned hot with frustration. She glared out the window at nothing in particular then willed her eyes to shut against the waves of disappointment crashing over her.

  “So now we –”

  “Now you take me to space with you, deal’s a deal.” Sohrab chided as he left Nash’s side and started towards the exit stairs at the end of the hall. “I have another engagement to attend to. See you in the next long day.”

  The sound of an exterior door closing on the level below marked his departure. Nash didn’t like carrying the weight of what came next alone. Not only would Kory be sulking for the next few days for reasons she wouldn’t admit to anyone, and reasons Nash couldn’t confess to knowing, but she’d also be less than thrilled when Sohrab re-entered their lives soon. Something led Nash to believe there was ill-feeling between those two.

  Admitting her vantage point would only add the pain of betrayal to the ignominy that Kory bore alone. What twisted the knife the most was when Nash returned to their apartment later that morning and found a passionfruit Danish in a paper bag on the kitchen counter, with Kory silent on the couch, curled up under a blanket like a ball of dough failing to rise. For days, few words passed between them save for curt pleasantries. The grief Nash knew Kory must feel, and the lens of guilt through which she viewed her own participation formed a twisted knot within her. She pressed it down and threw herself headlong into planning the mission to come. At least they had one more excursion on the docket before Sohrab joined them, sparing Kory of having to know about his future involvement, at least for now.

  What gave her more than a little comfort was the extent to which her uncle had come through for her. Already the Stardust’s stock model hydro stasis chambers had been replaced with next generation combination pods: exemplary machines that could not only suspend a body’s consciousness but repair advanced damage as well. Even the sleeping areas were retrofitted with infrared options that would speed healing from minor wounds. Nash wasn’t sure what had spurred the development of this specific type of medical technology, given that it wasn’t something most of the general population needed, but she was happy to have it anyway. These upgrades couldn’t have been cheap, but certainly cheaper than the second thing she’d asked Enzo for. As far as she knew, ground had already been broken far below a remote piece of real estate he'd gotten for little more than a handshake. However much it did or didn’t cost, the money spent was barely a fraction of the value generated by her team’s strange and violent work.