soul and flame

thalassic series (new adult edition)

book three

Liz Shipton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

SOUL and FLAME

First edition. June 01, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Liz Shipton.

Written by Liz Shipton.

contents

Trigger Warning

Soul

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Get the Prequels

Newsletter

Social Media and Stuff

Playlist

Acknowledgments

About the Author

trigger warning

This book contains scenes depicting underage alcohol abuse, discussion of an alleged sexual assault, and therapy.

It also has swears.

The swear jar is now full.

soul

/səʊl/

NOUN

1. the immaterial or spiritual aspect of a human being

2. an individual person, particularly as a reference to a passenger or crew member on a boat

3. the heart, embodiment, or driving force of a movement or rebellion

chapter

one

LIGHT.

Razor-sharp, white light. Like needles in my veins. Microscopic knives taking me apart from the inside out. Slivers of silver-white, coated in blood.

I am falling. No, not falling. Flying. Falling sideways. Falling in all directions, like a cloud.

I am. That’s a bold statement. “I am.” As if I were anything. As if, in this moment, I am something. Someone. Who am I?

“Bird!”

That's me. I am Bird.

“Bird!”

I recognize that voice. Whose voice is that?

Have I been here before? I have a vague sense of deja vu, like a melody I can’t quite bring to mind.

“Bird, it’s me! Fife."

Fife. That’s the name. That’s the melody. I have been here before. I remember now. This is the place where Fife is a voice.

“Bird, don’t go!”

It’s not my fault. I keep trying to tell her that. I come and go. I don’t control how, or why, or when. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to come either. I’m here, and then I’m gone. I know, and I unknow.

But as quickly as I came here, now I will go. As quickly as the knives of light took me apart, they will put me back together. I’ll disappear. Be whole again, and somewhere else.

“Stay with us!”

Us. There’s someone else here. I remember that too. Someone important. A name. Another word I can’t recall. Another melody I can’t bring to mind. A memory of burned-out stars and blood and cannon-fire. A scar upon my chest. The words indelible on my heart.

“Stay with me and Malarkey!”

Malarkey.

Malarkey is here. Wherever this is, she’s here. Whatever this place is, this world where Fife is a voice and I am light, Malarkey is too.

I’m disappearing. I can’t stop it. I can’t control it.

For a sliver of a moment, I am light.

And then I am gone.

chapter

two

GOD DAMMIT, not again.

I open my eyes to a damp, gray sky. Specks and spits of water fill the air around me. The ground pricks and scratches the skin on the back of my neck. Grass. I wiggle my fingers. Wet grass. Fragrant. The clean, earthy smell of short, cut grass. Must be early morning—the fog is still in. My brain throbs against the inside of my skull like a swollen thumb. I close my eyes.

My mouth feels as though I just swallowed a spoonful of carbonated metal. I hear nothing but the squeal of my own ears, rebelling against my newly conscious state. The underside of my skin prickles. Pinpoints of light spark and flash against the close, gray sky.

I’m not alarmed. These feelings are familiar to me now. They are symptoms of what I like to call a “blip hangover.”

The headache is, I’m pretty sure, just a regular hangover.

So where am I this time?

As the ringing in my ears abates, the murmur of a busy outdoor space sidles in underneath it. I roll onto my side and push myself to a seat. I’m in the middle of a large, flat expanse of grass, surrounded by fogwood trees and a few buildings. A path cuts through the middle of the space. People walk purposefully, carrying bags. On their way to work, I guess.

I’m on the Green in Brume.

Not too far from my house. Or…where was I last night? I squeeze my eyes shut and rub circles into my temples with my fingers. Out. I was ‘out’ somewhere. Don’t remember what I was doing exactly.

“Are you alright?”

I snap my eyes open and squint up into the concerned face of a woman. She’s bending slightly at the waist, peering down at me through round, thin-rimmed spex, clutching the strap of the leather bag over her shoulder with both hands. Looks to be in her thirties. As our eyes meet, she recoils slightly. Doesn’t want to get too close, I guess. Doesn’t want to get close enough to actually have to help.

“Yes.”

I scramble to my feet, stumbling as the world briefly tilts and goes dark. Putting my hands out to still myself, I close my eyes and wait for it to come back. When I open them, the woman has taken a step back.

“I’m fine,” I say, attempting what I hope is a casual smile and not the crooked grin of a lunatic. “Thanks.”

She doesn’t look convinced. “Do you have…somewhere to go?”

“Yes.” My tone is short and I feel bad because I know she doesn’t deserve that. She’s just trying to help. It’s not her fault I’m beyond helping. “I live here.”

“Okay.” Brow still knitted in concern, she adjusts the bag on her shoulder and looks me up and down. I take the opportunity to do the same. I’m wearing my good leggings—the black ones with the zig-zag pattern down the sides—a too-short white tank top, and my usual denim hoodie, damp and streaked with grass stains. The grass stains are, I assume, from sleeping outside in this park all night.

Sudden panic grips me and I clutch my head with both hands. Finding it covered by my beanie, I draw a relieved breath. Still there. I look down at my clothes again. Good leggings…why would I be wearing those?

Oh right. I was 'out.' Bits and pieces start to come back. I went to that club in the Flats last night. Got drunk, obviously, and must have blipped here at some point. In fact…yep, I remember the exact moment it happened. I was dancing with someone, and if I recall, he was getting handsy. That must have been quite an experience for him: one minute he’s feeling up a girl he just met, the next, she quite literally slips through his fingers and actually disappears.

Probably screwed him up for life. Although, I do also remember that we were both pretty high on Tranq, so maybe it didn’t seem that odd to him after all.

I meet the woman’s eyes again and give her another smile. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“If you say so…”

“Just partied a little too hard last night.” I point vaguely in the direction of my house. “I live right over there.”

Her lips pull tight and she nods, evidently hearing ‘partied too hard’ and trying not to let a look of disapproval replace the one of concern on her face.

“Okay then.” She gives me a brief, tight smile.

I return the smile. “Okay then.”

A momentary pause, while I imagine she considers whether or not she should continue to be concerned for me, then she appears to decide that coming across a twenty-year-old girl passed out on the Green after a night of hard partying is not something she wants to disrupt her day too much over, and walks away.

I tap my brow to pull up the time.

>>> 0900

Shit. I’m going to be late to Rav's.

____________________

Rav’s house smells overwhelmingly of incense, for a change, which is great because I was really hoping to find a way to make my headache worse.

I sit on the squashed, low sofa, my hips finding their way into the massive indent that’s been made by so many asses sitting on this cushion before me. Every time I come here, I try to remind myself to sit on the other side of the couch, and every time, I forget.

I’m scooting myself out of the indent and to the other side of the sofa when Rav returns from the kitchen with two mugs of tea. She sets one on the squat, heavy wood table in front of me, and sits in the high-backed leather chair opposite, blowing steam off the top of her mug. She’s wearing her usual yellow silk scarf, bold, red-rimmed spex, and a flowy top that reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of ancient peasants. Her close-cropped salt and pepper hair is even more tidy than usual today, and her faintly lined, mole-speckled face is arranged into a pleasant smile.

“How have you been, Bird?”

I settle myself onto the other side of the couch, remembering as I do that this side is somehow even less comfortable than the side with the indent, and attempt a smile.

“Fine.”

That’s a lie. I have not been anywhere remotely close to fine. This morning was not the first morning that I woke up with no idea where I was. It seems like almost every day I’m waking up somewhere random, with either a blip hangover or a regular hangover, or both.

Of course, I can’t tell Rav that.

She knows about the drinking. That was the reason my moms sent me to therapy in the first place. So there was no hiding that. But the blips? That’s not something I really feel like I can tell her about.

It’s not that I don’t trust Rav. She seems pretty level-headed and nothing about her screams ‘evil’ in the way that, say, Dr. Lysett screams ‘creepy.’ But telling my therapist that the world’s most powerful corporation put a teleporter in my head that recently started going off at random and that I have no idea how to control sounds like a surefire way to get myself thrown into some kind of asylum.

My fingers instinctively go to the front of my beanie, tugging it down over my forehead. I feel all around the edge of it to make sure nothing is sticking out before I realize Rav is watching me. I try to give her a normal smile and pick up my mug.

She sips her tea. “Do you feel like you’re managing your symptoms okay?”

My symptoms.

Rav has diagnosed me with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. ADHD. She says I exhibit “classic symptoms” for “combined inattentive and hyperactive presentation.” Forgetfulness. Impulsivity. Spacing out. Insomnia. Struggling to maintain relationships with people. Nail-biting. Drinking. Talking to myself. She says it’s pretty common for it to go undiagnosed in girls. She also suspects that some of those things could be attributable to ASD—Autism Spectrum Disorder. ADHDASD. Lots of letters. Lots of letters that don’t really mean much to me, to be honest, but they seem to help Rav.

According to Rav, my brain is “wired differently” and her goal is to help me learn how to make my different wiring work for me. Wired differently to what is what I want to know. Isn’t everyone’s brain wired at least a little bit differently?

I return her look. “I’ve been doing okay.”

“Have you been practicing the techniques we talked about?”

I sigh. No, Rav. No, I haven’t been practicing the stupid breathing exercises and visualization techniques. No, I haven’t been entering important dates into my biochip, or making lists, or breaking big tasks down into smaller ones, or taking things one step at a time.

She arches an eyebrow at my sigh and mirrors it with one of her own.

“You know I can only do so much, Bird. I can only show you strategies that will help you manage your life. But just talking about those strategies in here won’t change anything. It’s up to you to implement them.” She sips her tea again and sets the mug on the low table. “Have you given any more thought to medication?”

I avoid her eyes. “I just don’t like the idea of something changing my brain,” I mumble.

She clears her throat. “And yet you’re still self-medicating with alcohol?”

I scowl at the floor. Touché, Rav.

She lets the silence hang for a few moments, then picks up her tea again. “Why don’t you tell me some more about that?”

I feel my pulse tick up a hair, and keep my eyes away from hers. “Do I have to?”

“Of course not. If what you want is to sit here in silence for forty-five minutes, we can do exactly that. But I hope you won’t mind me saying that I think it would be a colossal waste of everyone’s time.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with why you drink.”

“Uh…because I like it?”

“No other reason than that?”

I roll my eyes. “Sometimes people just like to get drunk, Rav. There doesn’t always have to be some deep, hidden cause.”

She eyes me. “I suppose that could be true. But in my experience, there usually is.”

“Well in my experience, there isn’t.”

She sighs. “Okay. Do you ever feel as though you have difficulty stopping yourself from drinking?”

“Only after I’ve had a couple and the fangs come out.”

She cocks an eyebrow. “The fangs?”

“Yeah, you know how like when a snake bites into something and the fangs unfold and dig in and won’t let go?”

“Mm.” She nods. “Binge drinking.”

She taps the side of her head and gestures with her fingers in the air to input something into her biochip.

“That’s quite common in people with ADHD,” she says. She finishes gesturing into her chip and sighs. “Can I share my theory about what may be going on?”

I stare at the floor while she waits for me to answer. When I don’t, she says,

“I believe you may drink because alcohol helps to alleviate your symptoms, in the short term. But what you must understand is that really, alcohol will only make your symptoms worse. Decreased impulse control, memory lapses, the inability to think clearly…alcohol exacerbates these problems, and then you turn to alcohol to make them better. Do you see what a vicious cycle it is?”

I glare at the floor. Sure, Rav. If you say so. It couldn’t possibly just be that I had a drink once and happened to like it. That would be insane. Your convoluted theory about how everything is interconnected and my brain is doing things I’m not even aware of makes way more sense.

She seems to read the herd of furious thoughts stampeding across my face because she says gently, “What are you thinking about?”

I keep my eyes on the floor and don’t answer. Again, she lets the silence hang for a moment longer than I’m comfortable with before she says, “I can only help you if you let me in, Bird. The only way we make any progress is if this is a dialogue. I can’t know how to help you if I don’t know what’s going on. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

The blips, says a voice in my head. Tell her about the blips.

No way. What good is that going to do? I told my moms, and they didn’t even really seem to understand what I was talking about. They just sent me here.

If nothing else, it’ll confuse her. Wipe that concerned look off her face for a few minutes.

She’ll probably just think I’m crazy. She’ll probably have me committed.

“...told you before, Bird,” I hear Rav saying, “everything you say in here remains in here. Client confidentiality means I can’t repeat anything you say to anyone, unless I believe that you intend to harm yourself or others.”

I shift and pick at my nails again. There is something I like about Rav. She burns too much incense, but other than that I can’t find much to fault. She seems straightforward and she doesn’t condescend. Maybe ‘like’ is too strong a word. But I trust her, at least. Enough to believe that she’s telling the truth when she says she won’t repeat what I say outside this room. It could be fun to tell her. If only to mess with her.

I take a breath. “Okay. Well…if you actually want to know, there is something else.”

She raises her eyebrows and waits.

So I tell her. Everything, from the very first time I blipped while I was stealing Electra’s necklace in the bathroom at Azimuth, to the time I woke up on the island, to the blip that killed Malarkey after Shale and the Anonymity rescued me from Grike, to waking up on the Green this morning.

She says nothing as I rattle off this information, but her eyes grow incrementally wider, and her brows inch progressively higher. By the time I finish, she is sitting stone-still on the edge of her chair, the mug of tea gripped, forgotten, in her two hands. She stares at me for so long that finally I say, “So yeah. That’s what’s going on with me.”

“That's…” She adjusts her spex and frowns at me. "It sounds like you’re telling me that you believe Zenith Biotech put some experimental technology into your biochip that causes you to…” I try not to smirk as she stumbles over the next word, “…teleport. Am I hearing that right?”

I nod.

“And Zenith wants to study you because, so far, this technology hasn’t worked in any other…subjects.”

I nod.

“And your concern is that the thing that makes this new technology work in your chip when it doesn’t work for other…subjects…is your use of alcohol.”

I pick up my tea, now cold, and watch her while I sip from it.

“And you say that these—I’m sorry, what did you call them?”

“Blips.”

“Blips. You say that these—blips—have been getting worse since you came back to Brume?”

“Yes. It happens all the time now. Like at random. I can’t really control it.”

“I see.”

Silence descends again as Rav studies me. Through her diplomatic, professional visage, I can see alarm in her eyes.

“You don’t believe me,” I say.

“I didn’t say that, Bird.”

“Well, you didn’t say you do believe me.”

“I…I believe you’re going through something very difficult. I will have to…I’ll have to do some more research. But regardless of what I think, it sounds to me that if alcohol is causing this many problems for you, it may be worth re-examining your relationship with it. Don’t you think?”

I open my mouth to reply, then close it again.

She removes her spex and briefly rubs her eyes. “Why don’t we end here for the day? It seems we both have a lot to think about.”

I set my mug back down on the table and glance at the door, suddenly nervous. I said way too much; I need to get out of here. She’s probably trying to figure out how soon she can call the authorities on me.

She replaces her spex and taps the side of her head, gesturing to input something into her biochip. “Alright Bird, what action items can we both take from this meeting to work on for next time?”

I stare at her. I just revealed a bunch of information that makes me sound like an outright lunatic, and she still wants to talk about the actionable steps we can both take toward treatment. Rav is nothing if not professional.

"So…you're not going to call some institution and have them come drag me off in a straight-jacket?"

She smiles. "Not yet."

"O—kay." I shrug. “I guess I’ll think some more about going on meds?”

She nods. “Okay, good. I think that’s a great idea. And how about giving some thought to your drinking? I’m not saying you need to take any drastic steps. Just…observe your habits for a week.”

“Okay.”

“As for me…” She eyes me briefly over the top of her spex. “I’m going to do some thinking about how we should proceed from here. About how I can best serve you and help you move forward. Does that sound good?”

I shrug again. “Sure.”

“Good.” She taps her temple and fixes me with a final, tidy smile. “Okay, Bird. I’ll see you next week.”

Outside, the wind has come up. It shakes the dark green needles of the fogwood trees. From the veg patch in front of Rav’s house I can see down over a hillside of solar-paneled rooftops and fogtraps to the harbor. The masts of the boats tied up there tilt back and forth in the choppy, slate-gray waves. A thick bank of fog is creeping down the coast from the north, and the south is completely obscured by a wall of filthy brown smog.

I step out of Rav’s gate and turn left toward my part of town. As I do, a figure comes around the corner at the end of the street. It’s a familiar and yet bizarrely out-of-context figure: pin-straight blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail; a small but well-muscled and perfectly proportioned body; expensive, form-fitting athletic wear. By the time I recognize it as Electra Nation, she’s so close that I almost don’t have time to dart out of sight behind some garbage cans.

The last thing I need is for Miss Perfect to know about my therapy with Rav. The second-to-last thing I need is Axioma Nation's daughter being able to tell her mom where I am. I'm not ready yet for Axioma Nation, and by extension, Zenith—to know I’m back in Brume. Not quite ready to have creepy Dr. Lysett poking around in my brain again. Maybe ever again.

I pull my beanie tighter and crouch as low as I can behind the cans until her footsteps are well past. When I poke my head out, she's about ten feet down the street. She stops and turns and I duck again. But she doesn’t appear to have seen me—she’s stopping for something else. In fact, from where I am, it almost looks like she’s stopping in front of Rav’s house.

She has stopped in front of Rav’s house.

She walks up to the door, and knocks. A few moments later, the door opens and I hear Rav’s familiar voice.

“Hello, Electra. Please come in.”

Electra steps across the threshold and the door closes, leaving the street in silence. I stare at the spot where she stood, my face scrunched.

What the hell is Electra Nation doing in therapy?

chapter

three

THAT NIGHT, I stumble down to the harbor with a bottle of Uncle Blenny’s grog tucked inside my hoodie. The moon is new—a sliver of burgundy like someone punched their fingernail through the sky, and the bay is socked in with fog, so the night is damp and dark.

I sit on the low stone breakwater at the edge of the harbor, peering through the chilly, swirling droplets in the air, feeling them settle on my skin. Waves hush into the channel and slap the wall below my feet, bumping the boats against their docks, lines and ropes softly tapping against their masts. Somewhere way out over the Salt, a gull cries.

The astringent burn of citrus and spice warms my throat and pools in my chest as I swig from the half-empty bottle. I close my eyes and inhale the salt and damp sand smell of the night. I revel in the quiet. Last night was too much. Too much noise. Too much light and color. Too much Tranq. None of it works. None of it stops me from waking up the next morning and remembering that Malarkey is dead and Sargo abandoned me. That I killed Malarkey and drove Sargo away.

I suppress the tidal wave of emotion that thought brings up with another big gulp from the bottle.

“For a dog?” Mama K had demanded when I told her I jumped off Shale’s boat in the middle of a lightning storm to rescue Malarkey. “What were you thinking? You could have been killed!”

Mama K will never understand why I would risk my life to try and save a dog. Stupid. That’s all that decision was to her. Like every other decision I’ve ever made. Like every other plan I’ve ever come up with: short-sighted and reckless. And maybe she’s right—maybe it was. I could have drowned. I nearly did.

A message alert pings through my head. I swipe through the air to open it.

>>> HEY PÁJARA! COMO VA?

Locuaz recently started calling me ‘Pájara’, a new nickname to add to the many she already has for me. I haven’t asked her what it means. I haven’t said much at all to her since I got back. I haven’t even told her about Malarkey. I thought about it a few times, but I just can’t find the words.

I stare at the message for a long time, the bright green text illuminated against the black night. Above it are three more, just like it, going back at least a week. All unanswered.

>>> OYE PÁJARA

>>> QUÉ TAL CHICA?

>>> QUÉ PASA?

I swipe them all closed. What would I even say to her? That I’ve been out drinking every night, taking Tranq and getting felt up by random dudes? While she’s been finding her purpose doing selfless humanitarian work with Yote and the Neozapas in Pocosín? Why would someone like that want to talk to me?

My eyes inevitably land on the message above Locuaz's: the last message Sargo sent me. I force myself not to open it. Not to read it for the thousandth time.

He hasn't messaged me since that last one. I haven't tried to message him either. He’s probably not even in Pocosín yet anyway. Probably not back online. And anyway, I’m too angry with him for abandoning me.

Tapping my temple to close Messenger, I turn my attention back to the bottle of grog. I gulp from it to assuage a small, cold stab of panic.

I shouldn’t have told Rav about the blips; that was probably a mistake. What if she doesn’t believe me—what if she decides I am legitimately crazy? The only way she would ever believe me is if I could somehow prove to her that it’s happening. I’d need to show her a blip. Do it right in front of her. And in order to do that, I’d need to be able to control the blips.

Rav probably thinks I’m just getting blackout drunk and waking up with no memory of what I did. Which, to be fair, is what I thought was happening until Axioma Nation showed me a mind-boggling hologram of the future and I began to actually believe that what’s happening to me is teleportation.

I instinctively reach up to tuck a sharp edge of aluminum foil back up inside my beanie and pick up the bottle again.

What was it Rav said I should be doing? Oh yeah: “Observing my habits for a week.”

Okay… I close one eye and use the other to peer down the neck of the bottle. I’m observing.

I put it to my lips and swallow some. I observe that this stuff smells like rocket fuel.

Setting the bottle down, I tilt my head back and close my eyes.

Spits and sparks of light begin to dance behind my eyelids. My bones prickle with the needling feeling of static. I snap my eyes open.

Lifting my hand and holding it in front of my face, I can see it’s dissolving into a trillion tiny needles of light.

God dammit. I’m blippi—

____________________

“Bird!”

Fife’s voice. Razor sharp light.

I try to see her this time, try to move, to orient myself, but there’s nothing to orient. I am nothing. I am everything. I am light and dark.

____________________

—ng again.

My feet find solid ground. The world reassembles around me. My sizzling skin sews itself back together. I turn my hands over and watch the light fade out of my veins like tiny bubbles. I look around.

Where am I this time?

Dark, damp air and the masts of tied-up boats. Below my feet, wood planks. A dock. Still at the harbor, then. Still in Brume. Not far from where I was just sitting, actually. I turn over my shoulder and spot the bottle of grog still sitting on the breakwater.

This is exactly what I’m talking about. Inconvenient. Now I’m going to have to walk all the way back over there and—

The underside of my skin prickles. Light needles my veins.

Oh, for flog’s sake, not again.

____________________

I wake in cold, inky blackness. The darkness presses against my eyes, the silence against my ears. There is no solid dock beneath my feet this time, no damp night air. No air at all, in fact. I inhale and my mouth and nose fill with water. I barely stop myself from pulling it down my windpipe. Immediately, I need to breathe again. But I can’t. Because I am underwater. Deep underwater.

The surface, far above me, crinkles and shimmers against the winking blackness of the night sky. I have to get to the surface; I have to get to that shimmering, crinkling edge.

But I’m weighed down by my clothes, hindered by their shape and fit. My arms won’t fully extend over my head to help pull me up. I uselessly kick my sluggish, heavy legs. I burn precious seconds of oxygen struggling to get one arm out of its sleeve, my hand stuck, the water making it impossible. Already, my lungs are starting to ache. My vision is beginning to tunnel, my hands and feet to prickle. It almost feels like QMTP, but I know it isn’t. It’s oxygen deprivation. It’s drowning. Desperately, I look up at the surface again. It’s further away now. I’m sinking.

One arm pops out of my hoodie and I kick my legs and pull. Slowly, I begin to move toward the surface, the weight of the hoodie still clinging to one arm like some toddler mermaid dragging me toward a watery grave.

My lungs are collapsing into themselves when I finally break the surface and gasp a cold, clean breath of air. So much air, in fact, that I choke. My head fills with light as I gasp and cough and snort in saltwater, pedaling my legs to stay afloat. I’m momentarily afraid that I’m going to pass out and go under again.

By the time I swim to the distant shore and haul myself onto the dark, cold sand, it’s all I can do to roll onto my side and lie there, shaking. The tide rolls up around me, drenching me and receding. I clutch at my head and find my beanie still miraculously there. Slowly, my breath returns. I crawl up out of the waves and sit up and stare at the expanse of light-devouring black water.

Jesus, I think, you just blipped into the Salt.

What if I had blipped further? Deeper? What if there had been no shore? What if I had woken up so far out that I couldn’t make it back to land? Or so deep that the pressure simply crushed me?

Suddenly, the realization that this could happen again—could happen at any time—hits me like a sack of rocks. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. I have no idea when it might happen, and no idea where I might end up. This isn’t just inconvenient. This is terrifying.

A gust of wind sweeps off the water and goes right through me, eliciting a shudder that seems to shake me back into myself. It's cold. Colder than Brume. Where am I?

I collect my galloping thoughts and stand up, scanning the beach to get my bearings.

I’m in a small bay, surrounded on all sides by tall cliffs. The beach I’m standing on is just a spit of land at one end of the water. Something about this place is familiar, but I can’t put my finger on what, exactly. The air is thick, hazy, totally obscuring the stars, and it smells of sour smog and chemical smoke. I reach for my bandana, but I’m not wearing one. Another shiver wracks my body. It doesn’t get this cold in Brume. As far as I know, it only gets this cold way out in the Turf, where the lack of water in the land and air makes temperatures plummet overnight and soar during the day. Where nobody survives.

Keeping my arms tight around me, I put my back to the Salt and walk to the top of the beach, where the cliffs meet the sand. The cliffs are tall but not vertical—actually, the slope of the rock looks like a relatively easy climb.

It takes me about thirty minutes to get to the top of the cliff, and as I come over the crest and see what’s on the other side, I realize why the beach felt so familiar: it’s Naze.

The remains of the old climate settlement sprawl in the valley below me on the inland side of the cliff. An endless mess of tents, huts, shacks, and abandoned EVs stretching toward the horizon and disappearing into darkness. A massive graveyard, millions of souls deep. People killed twenty years ago by the virus, trapped in this over-crowded, underfunded death camp. Until recently, I didn’t think anybody had survived. Then I found out it’s where I was born.

I haven’t seen Naze since Sargo and I stopped here when we first fled Brume on Panga. That was the day we rescued Malarkey. At that time, I had no idea this was my birthplace. I had only a strange sense of deja vu. A feeling that I had been here before, and that I had left something very important behind here.

A snarl curls out of the dark. It snakes around the back of my neck and slithers into my ear, pulling all the hairs on my arms into sharp, trembling points.

Before I can even think to move, something enormous barrels into me from behind and shoves me over the edge of the ridge. The world goes upside-down and right-side-up and upside-down again as I bounce head over heels down the steep cliff-face, whatever hit me tumbling with me—a spitting, snarling mass of legs and teeth scratching and clawing at me as we both plummet down the slope of the valley toward the floor. We slide for what feels like forever, over rock and sand and scree, and slam like rag-dolls against a boulder at the bottom of the hillside.

The animal rolls to its feet, stumbles sideways, and shakes its head, its coat dusty and matted with blood. My clothes, still soaking wet from the Salt, are caked in dirt and ribboned with bloody scratches.

“What in gods’ names is going on?”

Blurry figures appear out of the dark, doubling and contorting like reflections in warped glass. I blink once, twice, trying to make them still. Then darkness scrambles across my field of vision and everything disappears.

chapter

four

MY EYES BLINK OPEN. Or at least, one of them does. My left cheek is pressed up so close against something soft and scratchy that I can’t open my eye. I lift my head and pain shoots down one side of my neck. As both eyes become operational, I see I’m lying facedown on a cot. I push myself up to my elbows. The movement triggers more pain: shoulder. Ribs. My hands, spread on the mattress below me, are a mosaic of cuts and scrapes, some taped up with white medical tape.

I scan the room. A dirt floor. A few more cots made up with the same rough, graying blankets as the one I’m lying on. Against one cinder block wall is a stack of metal shelves stocked with boxes and bottles, and next to it, a small sink. I reach up to check for my hat. A small spike of panic shoots through me when it isn’t on my head.

“Be careful!”

Wincing, I twist over my shoulder. A large, heavyset woman with a shiny red face and frizzy graying hair is stepping through a door to the outside, through which I can see bright sunshine and red sand. She wears a thin, sweat-stained tank top and khaki shorts. Her pink hands are full with a metal canteen and a small ceramic bowl.

“That shoulder may not be ready to move yet,” she says, closing the door behind her with her hip, “but let’s have a look at you and see.” She crosses to a metal table in the middle of the room and as she sets the things down on it, I spot my hat.

“Can I have that?” I blurt.

With a quizzical frown, she picks the sorry-looking gray lump up off the table. “This?”

I nod firmly. Looking slightly baffled, she brings it over. I snatch it from her hand, check the inside lining, and pull it onto my head.

“Where am I?”

She returns to the table and pulls on a pair of white latex gloves. “This is Naze. A climate settlement about a hundred miles from Brume. You took a bit of a spill from the top of the ridge last night.” She comes back to my cot and pats her palm on the mattress below my head. “Lie down.”

Keeping one eye on her, I lie down, turning my cheek to one side. “There was…an animal.”

“Sandcat.” Her fingers press into the area around my shoulder and I suck in a sharp breath. She hums. “Still sore. But healing. A bad scratch, but not infected. You can sit up.”

She steps back from the bunk as I do, removes her gloves and tosses them into a bucket near the door. Then she picks up the canteen and bowl and brings them to me. In the bowl is some kind of gray slop and a metal spoon.

“Get some fuel in you,” she says. “Then we can talk about who the hell you are and what exactly you’re doing here.”

I reach warily for the dish, watching her. Something about her voice is familiar. Tough, but warm. Her eyes, too. Somewhere deep in my subconscious is a memory of her. She must be someone I know from my childhood in Naze, I guess. A friend of my moms’ maybe?

She gives me a narrow look as I take the bowl and retreats to the sink against the far wall. While she washes her hands, I push the gray slop around with the spoon and dig through my memories of Naze, trying to find her face.

My brain is so scrambled with shock, anxiety about blipping, dreams of Fife, and QMTP hallucinations that I can barely hold anything straight enough to make sense of it. I can conjure this woman’s voice, but not her face. I can hear that deep, earthy voice saying, “Come on, little Bird,” while strong arms scoop me up and sandwich me against an enormous bosom. I see the world, tilted sideways, going by me as this woman carries me away from a creek. I’m young in the memory—seven or eight, maybe. Small enough to be carried. Shale’s face swims before me. And Fife. We were in the creek. We were making brackish. And then a scary old man from ‘Outside’ appeared. He tried to drink the water.

“Pathra,” I say aloud. That’s it. That’s her name.

The woman freezes. She turns slowly, her hands dripping. She stares at me. The room is silent but for the water pouring from the still-open faucet.

“I’m Bird,” I say. “Bird Howsley.”

Her eyes go wide. Her mouth falls open and the light of recognition spreads across her face like a slowly rising sun. “Is it really…?” she says. “Are you…?”

I nod. In a few quick steps, she closes the space between us and squashes me between those massive arms and broad, familiar bosom.

“Ouch!”

“Oh gods, sorry!” She releases me and steps back, holding me at arms’ length. “Little Bird. I can’t believe it.” Her eyes dart anxiously around my face. “What on earth are you doing here? You’re not—in trouble, are you?”

“No, not in trouble,” I lie swiftly. “I’m—it’s kind of hard to explain.” I dig through my head for some plausible explanation that won’t sound like the ramblings of an insane person who just woke up at the bottom of the Salt. “It’s to do with Zenith.”

“Zenith?” Her brow furrows.

“You remember the Lottery? When they took us away?”

She nods. “Of course.”

“They’re studying some kids that were in the program. They sent me here.”

“Zenith sent you here? They haven’t sent anyone here since your family left.”

“I’m working with them on something.”

“Working for Zenith?” Her eyes brighten. “I always knew you’d do big things, Little Bird.”

“Yeah…” I shift uncomfortably, but nod and smile. Let her think I’m doing well. What harm can it do?

“How are your mothers? And your brother?” She sits beside me on the bunk, her eyes bright.

“They’re…good. Living in Brume. Shale is…” a terrorist “...fine.”

“Well, you send them my regards.”

“I will.”

She holds my gaze with her big, gentle smile for a moment, then wipes her eyes, shaking her head.

“I should have known it was a Howsley. Only people I ever knew to come walking out of the Turf like it was nothing.”

I cock my head with a frown. “What do you mean?”

“Your mother—your real mother, I mean. She turned up here one day all by herself too, driving that shitty green truck. Her and that cat. Like crossing the Turf alone was just…something you did. Your father too. Bit of a loose cannon, that one.”

My eyes widen. “They survived the Turf?”

I don’t know much about my birth parents. My mom was Mama K’s sister. She was killed by the virus when I was just a baby. Mama K doesn’t like to talk about her, and I never felt compelled to dig too deeply because I never felt like I missed my real parents—as far as I’m concerned, Mama J and Mama K are my parents.

Pathra smiles. “Oh yes. Your father used to say that surviving the Turf wasn’t impossible. Just very, very, very nearly impossible.” She looks at me quizzically. “Your Mama Kestrel never told you any of this?”

“She just told me my mom was killed by the virus. And she never talks about my dad.”

Pathra sighs. “Kestrel took Heron’s death very hard. And, to be honest, she never really approved of your father.” She spreads her palms on her thighs and smooths her khaki shorts. “But it’s not my place to tell you all this. You should talk to your moms about it.” She motions to the bowl in my hand. “Eat.”

I swallow an obliging mouthful as she walks to the sink and begins washing up a small stack of dishes next to it. I know so little about my life before Brume. All I really have are snippets of memories and dreams—and those are so mixed up I don’t know even what’s real and what’s imagined anymore. Shale and Zenith and the Lottery and—

“Fife!”

The name leaps from my lips so suddenly that Pathra jumps, dropping a plate into the sink with a clatter.

“Sorry,” I stammer as she stoops to pick it up. “I just…I can’t believe I forgot! Where’s Fife?”

Pathra retrieves the plate slowly, turns on the faucet, and rinses it silently. When she finishes, she sets the plate down and pauses, bracing her hands on the edge of the sink. Then she closes the faucet and turns to me, drying her hands on a scrap of rag, her eyes pained.

“Oh, Birdie. She was your friend, wasn’t she?”

“Was?”

She comes to the bunk and sits beside me again, taking my hand in hers. “I wish I didn’t have to be the one to tell you this, Little Bird…Fife died. She—she got very sick. We think she may have been sick for a while and…well, either she didn’t tell anyone, or she didn’t know either. But all of a sudden, she couldn’t walk. Couldn’t eat. She went downhill in just a few days. We did what we could for her, but…out here…we aren’t equipped to deal with that kind of thing. Her father was fixing up one of the old EVs—he seemed to think he might make it to Brume with her, but…” She puts a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Was it…was it the virus?”

“No. We don’t know what it was.”

“When did it happen?”

“Not long ago. Two months, maybe?” Her eyes become distant and she smiles a small, sad smile. “Shame. She did such a good job with the veg. The carrots haven’t been the same since she went.”

I frown, a snippet of memory returning to me. The day Sargo and I stopped here—the day we traded the filter for bread and veg; the man we traded with said the girl who tended the veg had died six days before. The girl who cared for Malarkey.

My eyes widen. “Did Fife have a dog?”

Pathra blinks in surprise. “Yes. A big brown and white thing. Absolute nightmare of a creature. We only let Fife keep it because we all knew she was soft-hearted and she did such a wonderful job keeping the veg alive. After she died, her father tried to starve it to death. Somehow it must have gotten away, I think. Poor thing.” She frowns. “How did you know that?”

Malarkey. She was Fife’s dog.

I could tell Pathra that Sargo and I came through Naze two months ago, mere days after Fife died. Pathra wouldn’t have recognized me. I could tell her that we rescued the dog. That we sailed with that dog to Alluvium, and then to Grike. That that dog saved my life more times than I can count, and that I failed her even more times than that. But what would be the point?

I swallow a lump in my throat. “She—she just always said she wanted one.”

Pathra gently squeezes my shoulder, then pulls me into a hug, and she smells so comfortable and so familiar—sand and saltnut leaves and the dry, earthy smell of the desert—that I let it happen. I close my eyes, breathing in her smell and feeling, despite learning of Fife’s death, a calm that I haven’t felt in weeks.

Finally, she pulls away and smoothes my hair, smiling. “You should get some rest.”

I nod, wiping my eyes with the heels of my hands.

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you need to,” she says. She stands and walks to the sink, scoops up the bowl and crosses to the door. “It’s good to see you again, Little Bird.”

“It’s good to see you too.”

The door closes softly behind her. I take as deep a breath as I can without stretching my ribs too painfully, and exhale slowly into the cool, dim room. I’m safe here. I’m exhausted, and injured, and at some point I’ll have to figure out how to get back to Brume, but for now, at least, I’m safe. I ease myself onto my back and clasp my hands across my stomach, closing my eyes.

My skin prickles. I snap my eyes open.

No. Not again.

Needles of light split the skin on the backs of my hands like sunbeams. The metallic sparks of QMTP begin to dance across my tongue. In my ears, the squealing hiss of static shreds the peaceful quiet.

Please, I beg silently, tears springing to my eyes, please don’t dump me in the middle of the Salt. I just want to go home.

chapter

five

THERE IS SIZZLING, white light and then there is peace. The smell of damp earth and pine needles, and the soft, distant lilt of birdsong. The air is cool. I open my eyes.

I’m standing in a forest. Fog winds in thick tendrils through the trees around me. Stout red trunks that shoot like monuments into a dark, green canopy. Fogwood trees. Far above me, hard, gray light can be seen through the branches. Little of that light makes it down to me on the forest floor. To my right, about fifty yards away, is a mound of dirt with a small pile of stones stacked on top of it. I recognize this place. It’s where I buried Malarkey. I’m in Brume.

I’m home.

Like I wanted to be. I thought 'home' and I landed here. Just like I did after Malarkey went overboard in Grike. I squeeze my hands and flex them. I’m trembling. I thought for sure I was going to end up at the bottom of the Salt.

Did I do that? Did I…blip myself home? Did I control it?

A gust of wind comes at me through the canopy, shaking branches with a low roar like an approaching rush of water. Needles rain down on me as it passes. The feeling of being watched, of being pursued by some inescapable force comes over me like a cold, dark shadow.

Maybe I did control it, but I have no idea how. And it could still happen at any time. I may have dodged a bullet this time, but I'm still basically at the mercy of this totally uncontrollable force.

Feeling like a hunted animal, I creep out of the forest and down the gentle slope of the valley toward the city. I can't help looking over my shoulder as I climb up the long stairs to my house, the hair on my arms standing up. I creep through the front door and down the hall to my room, knowing that the flimsy walls of this building won’t protect me. Nothing will. I stand stone-still in front of my bedroom window, looking out across the solar panels and fog traps of Brume, breathing carefully, waiting.

I don’t disappear. So I go to bed.

____________________

A week passes. My shoulder heals. The cuts are superficial; they look worse than they are. The blips happen almost daily. Usually, they’re small. Just a few feet. Down a staircase. Through a wall. Enough to make me trip over myself, or drop whatever I was carrying, or bang my shins on some suddenly present piece of furniture. Once, I end up with one foot in a toilet in the girl's bathroom at Azimuth. A few times, I wake up on somebody's roof.

At some point, Shale messages me. It's such a bizarre, out-of-context thing to happen that when I swipe the message open and see that it's from him, I just stare at it for a good five minutes before I send anything back.

>>> HEY BIRB, says the message.

>>> HELLO, says my wary, heavily-edited reply.

>>> CAN WE TALK?

>>> ABOUT WHAT?

A long minute goes by with nothing, then

>>> ABOUT WHY YOU JUMPED OFF MY BOAT AFTER I RESCUED YOU FROM GRIKE, FOR ONE THING

Another long pause

>>> AND ABOUT HOW YOU SURVIVED, FOR ANOTHER

I let another five minutes go by while I consider my reply. What’s his angle here? Trying to get to me? What was his angle when he rescued me from Grike? I doubt he did it because he was concerned for my safety. Trying to pull me into his next insane stunt with the Anonymity, more likely. But he did rescue me. I send a message explaining what happened after I jumped in to get to Malarkey, and about teleporting back to Brume. He doesn't reply for a long time. Finally, he sends,

>>> SO I WAS RIGHT

>>> IT WOULD APPEAR SO, I reply. I tell him about the tests Zenith put me through in Grike, and the room Axioma showed me with the projections of the future.

>>> QMTP IS MEANT TO SAVE THE WORLD, I write. I'M SUPPOSED TO BE, LIKE, THE SAVIOR OF HUMANITY.

>>> YOU BELIEVE THAT?

>>> I DON'T KNOW. I GUESS SO. I HAVE NO REASON NOT TO.

Another long pause, then he sends,

>>> FROM WHAT I'VE HEARD, AXIOMA NATION IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED

>>> WHERE DID YOU HEAR THAT?

>>> I CAN'T DISCLOSE THAT. BUT I WOULDN'T TAKE ANYTHING SHE SAYS AT FACE VALUE.

I frown at the last message. Is he concerned about me? Or just protecting his asset? Another message comes through as I'm puzzling through the implications of this conversation.

>>> ANYWAY, THAT ISN'T REALLY THE REASON I MESSAGED YOU.

He types something, deletes, types it again.

>>> THE REAL REASON I MESSAGED WAS TO INVITE YOU TO MY WEDDING

I gape at the words, sure I must be misreading them.

>>> YOUR WEDDING? YOU HAVE A FIANCE?

>>> I DO

>>> WHY AM I ONLY JUST FINDING OUT ABOUT THIS?

>>> FOR REASONS THAT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS, WE KEEP THINGS ON THE DOWNLOW

I guess that makes sense. I watched Shale shoot his colleague in the face just because the guy accidentally heard Shale's real name. From what I understand, no one in the Anonymity can reveal their identity to anyone. I could be killed just for knowing about Shale's involvement with them, and so could he.

The recognition of that fact sends a bolt of panic through me. What am I doing messaging Shale? He's a member of a dangerous underground organization. No, scratch that: he’s the leader of an extremist faction of a dangerous underground organization. So what if he was right about QMTP? He basically turned me into a fugitive and upended my life.

I raise my hand to close Messenger and another message appears.

>>> LOOK…

Again he types, deletes and types again.

>>> I THINK WE GOT OFF ON THE WRONG FOOT, he says. IT'S MY FAULT. WHAT I DID TO GET YOU OUT OF BRUME WAS UNACCEPTABLE. I CAN SEE THAT NOW. I THOUGHT I COULD MAKE UP FOR IT BY TAKING YOU OUT OF GRIKE, BUT…OBVIOUSLY THAT DIDN'T WORK OUT

I finish reading with narrow eyes and wait for the next message.

>>> AND THAT'S FINE. I WANT US TO START FRESH. I WANT TO DO A BETTER JOB. YES, I STILL WANT YOU IN THE ORGANIZATION AND THAT'S A BIG PART OF WHY I'M REACHING OUT BUT…YOU'RE ALSO MY LITTLE SISTER. AND I CARE ABOUT YOU.

My frown deepens as I read the last sentence. Is this for real, or is this some kind of trap?

>>> COME TO THE WEDDING, says the next message. YOU CAN MEET SOME PEOPLE IN THE ORGANIZATION. WE CAN TALK.

I expect more, but nothing follows this, and after a minute and a half of waiting, I purse my lips and cautiously send

>>> MAYBE

His reply comes back immediately.

>>> THINK ABOUT IT. NO RUSH. IT WON'T BE FOR A WHILE.

I go to the Flats that night. I take Tranq and dance. I know it’s the wrong thing to do, but it feels like the only thing I have control over. I can't sleep, and I can’t just sit around all night thinking about what Shale said and waiting to see if I disappear. I’d rather go out and get so drunk I feel like I disappear.

____________________

By the time I head to Rav’s for my next appointment, the blips have gotten so bad that my nerves are completely shot. Turning the corner onto her street, I’m so preoccupied that I almost run right into Electra coming the other way. At the last minute, I manage to skirt around her, tucking my chin to my chest and pulling my hood up over my head to hide my face. Ten feet down the street I risk a glance over my shoulder to see if she recognized me, but she’s rounded the corner and disappeared.

Rav’s usual friendly smile falters as she greets me on the doorstep.

"Gods Bird," she says, "you look awful.”

“Nice to see you too,” I mutter as I push past her into the living room. The smell of incense and the cloying warmth of a room that has had the windows closed all day immediately stifle me. I wrench off my hoodie and fling it onto the sofa along with my pack, then flop after them. I almost tug off my beanie but stop myself, tugging it down instead, poking my fingers under the edges to make sure nothing it poking out.

Rav closes the door and remains in the doorway, observing me with her arms folded, a look of wary concern on her face.

“And how did this week go?”

“Not great, Rav.” I finish adjusting my hat and sink back into the sofa. “Not great.”

She studies me a moment longer. “Tea?”

“Sure,” I sigh. “Why not?”

I chew my nails until Rav settles into the high-backed leather chair across from me five minutes later, setting two mugs on the squat wooden table. I pick mine up and blow steam off the top, just to have something to do with my hands. Rav taps the side of her head and inputs something into her biochip, then picks up her mug.

“Tell me what happened this week.”

I look into my tea. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you won’t believe me.”

She pauses for a moment, then, “Why would you think that?”

“Because it’s to do with what I told you last week.”

She clears her throat. “About the blips.”

I nod.

“And you don’t think I believe what you told me about the blips?”

“Yes.”

“And why is that?”

I restrain a frustrated sigh. Always like this with her. Always questions. She somehow always manages to come up with questions that get me to talk but don’t betray any of her feelings. She’ll never actually tell me whether she believes me or not. She’ll just find a way to talk around it until she gleans all the information she needs from me to make some kind of analysis.

Rav sets down her tea and clasps her hands in her lap. She chews the inside of her cheek, and I get the distinct impression she's doing some kind of calculation.

Finally, she says, “I have something to show you.”

She taps her brow with two fingers, then pushes those fingers through the air toward me to make a file transfer. Frowning, I hold out two fingers to receive the file, then press them to my brow to open it on my chip. It’s thousands of pages long. The first page says

>>> THEORIES ON QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT AND TELEPORTATION

I look at her. “What is this?”

“I did some research." She takes a breath. "After you left last week, I sent a message to an old colleague who went to school with me at Latitude Tech. He now works as a researcher for Spindrift Hydro, but when we were at school together, he studied quantum mechanics. Anyway, I reached out to ask him…well, to ask him what he thought. About your blips."

I stare at her. "You asked him…what, exactly?”

"He seemed to think it was possible. He said that with Zenith’s funding and resources…Well, he sent me a lot of information—scientific papers, stuff like that, most of it far too dense for me to even begin to wrap my head around, but he did walk me through some of it. Broke down some of the more digestible theories for me and…” She picks up her tea. “Well, he’s a smart guy.”

I stare at her, trying to understand what’s happening. It feels like Rav just told me she’s fluent in an alien language.

“Are you telling me you believe me? You don’t think I’m crazy.”

“I’ve told you not to use that word,” she says. “But no. There’s nothing about your behavior that suggests to me that you are losing touch with reality. That’s why I reached out to my friend in the first place. If I had thought you were in danger of having some kind of psychotic break, I would have taken a very different action.”

Silence descends and I let it sit between us while I sort through a slew of thoughts and feelings. Rav believes me. I’m not alone. I close my eyes and take another deep breath. When I open them, the Quantum Entanglement file is still open, the words etched across my vision. I swipe through the first few pages. It’s a wall of text so dense it makes me cross-eyed.

I stare through the text at Rav’s face. “Okay. So…now what?”

She takes a breath. “I have some thoughts. If you like, I can try to explain some of what I’ve learned.”

I shrug, nodding dumbly, and swipe the file closed. “Sure. Okay.”

“I’ve marked some places in that text where my friend was able to point me to some things that might be relevant for you. You don’t have to read it now. I’ll do my best to summarize. But I thought it might be useful for you to have in case you wanted some…” she smirks, “light reading.”

I raise an eyebrow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Rav make a joke before. She seems to be…enjoying this.

She taps her brow to close her copy of the file and sits up a little straighter, adjusting her spex on her nose and untying and retying her scarf.

“Now, keep in mind that I am not a physicist or even very much of a scientist,” she says. “I’m good at parsing information, and I’ve had a lot of help this last week in trying to get a basic grasp on some of this stuff. And these are just theories. I could very easily be wrong. This is all new territory for me too. I’m just trying to help.”

I nod.

“So, I’m not going to go too deeply into all the technical stuff about how the teleportation actually works because, frankly…I don’t understand it. And to be completely honest, I don’t think my friend really understands it either. Something about photons. I think what he was saying was that in order for you to make a ‘jump,’ as he called it, the biochip would need to turn your physical body into photons, then transmit all the data about your body from those photons to some different photons in a new location. He said it would be like using light to send data about you to somewhere else. Does that make sense?”

“No. But keep going, I guess.”

“Great. Because that’s not the part that really interests me.” She leans forward, her eyes bright. She is enjoying this. “The part that I think is interesting is related to what you told me last week, about how this process—what did you say Zenith called it?”

“QMTP.”

“What does that stand for?”

“Uhhhh…” I raise my palms in a wide shrug. “Quantum…something something something?”

“Okay. Well, whatever it stands for, you told me last week that Zenith said this process—this QMTP—has so far only worked for you. Is that right?”

“I think so. I think there were other kids who showed some signs, but they said no one else had triggered it as reliably as I have.”

She nods emphatically. “And I think I may know why. One of the chapters I marked in that text for you talks about a study done about fifty years ago. Researchers at a university tried to do exactly what Zenith is doing now. They never managed to achieve actual teleportation, but they came quite close. When they studied the brain activity of the subjects they tested the technology on—I think it was lab rats—they found increased activity in the prefrontal cortex in the brains of those subjects that came closest to teleporting. And, when they later examined the brains of the subjects, they found ‘atypical neural pathways’ in those same brains.”

She sits back, a triumphant look on her face.

I stare at her blankly. “I don’t…get it. What?”

“Don’t you see, Bird? The prefrontal cortex is the same area of the brain responsible for your ADHD. The subjects who came closest to achieving teleportation were those with differently wired prefrontal cortexes, just like yours.”

“So you’re saying…”

“I’m saying that the reason QMTP works for you and no one else is because of your ADHD.”

The air seems to go out of the room. Differently wired. That’s what Rav has been saying about my brain since the day I started coming to therapy. My brain is wired differently. Wired in a way that facilitates QMTP. I slowly parse the information out loud.

“So you’re saying…because my mind always feels like it’s somewhere else, it was easier to actually make it go somewhere else?”

She utters a surprised laugh. “I guess you could say that. I’m sure it’s a gross oversimplification, but if it helps you to think of it that way, fine. I suppose you could also say that because your brain is used to going a million miles an hour, it was easier to make it travel at light-speed.”

I stare at her with my mouth open, my heart beating hard, another realization dawning on me. “So…it’s not grog?”

She raises her hands, palms facing me, in a conciliatory gesture. “Now that, I don’t know for sure. I think it’s entirely possible that alcohol may act as a catalyst, of sorts. Kind of like it does with ADHD. It’s all…intertwined. Like I’ve told you before, alcohol exacerbates many mental health issues. It also affects the prefrontal cortex. It makes your ADHD symptoms worse, and it’s possible it may affect teleportation too.” She fixes me with another intense stare. “Last week you told me the blips have been getting worse since you came back to Brume. Is that still true?”

I catch my breath. I haven’t even told Rav about what happened last week. What’s been happening all week. So I tell her. Everything, from the blips on the dock after our last session, to waking up underwater, to Naze, to the hellish feeling I’ve been having that I’m constantly on the edge of blipping into oblivion. I talk fast, the words tumbling out of me. I pick up my tea and put it back down again so many times that eventually she reaches a hand across the table and lays it firmly on top of my mug.

“Take a breath,” she says.

I meet her eyes.

She slowly demonstrates the big, full breath she’d like me to take. Feeling childish, I mimic her.

“Good,” she says. “Another. Into your belly.”

We take another one. I feel the trembling in my hands begin to abate.

She nods. “That’s better. Now. Let’s talk about these blips. It sounds to me like they’re becoming a real concern. Dangerous, even.”

I nod, slowly.

“What about your drinking? How did that go this week? Did you observe anything?”

“I observed that I did it a lot.”

She sets her mouth into a firm line, evidently not appreciating my humor. “And it sounds like the blips got worse?”

I sigh and look at the floor.

“Do you think it’s safe to assume that drinking could be making the blips more frequent and unpredictable?” she asks.

“I guess.”

She taps her temple and inputs something into her biochip. When she finishes gesturing, she folds her hands in her lap. “Can I ask why you haven’t tried to contact Zenith about this? Out of everyone, it seems like they would be the ones best able to help you.”

My hand instinctively reaches to tug down the front edge of my beanie. As my fingers touch the knobbly gray wool, I pause.

You’ve told her this much, says the voice in my head. Maybe it’s time to show her your full crazy.

Slowly, I pull off the beanie and turn it inside out. Several sheets of aluminum foil fall out of it and onto the floor. I stoop to pick them up, then smooth them on my lap, keeping my eyes away from Rav’s. I hear her shift in her chair.

“What’s this?”

I pick at the edges of the foil. “I…” Jesus, how do I explain this? I take a breath. “I just…don’t know if I can trust Zenith. And I don’t want them to find me.” I look up, and Rav arches an eyebrow. “They’re testing this stuff on kids, Rav. The QMTP. It feels…bad. Like, I know it’s for a good cause. Axioma Nation thinks that QMTP is going to fix the world somehow. But I just can’t get past the stuff I’ve heard about them. Stuff my brother told me. And my brother might be even crazier than me, I don’t know. But other people have said it, too.”

“Said what?”

“That Zenith are evil and they can’t be trusted.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Then, “And this explains the tin foil how, exactly?”

“Oh.” My face reddens. “I…put it in there to stop them tracking me. I read about it on the Net. People used to wear tin foil hats, I guess, because they thought the government was tracking them. I don’t think the government actually was tracking them, I think they were mostly just conspiracy nuts. But—”

“You think Zenith are tracking you?”

“I know they are.”

Her arched eyebrow raises higher. “Can they do that?”

“They can do whatever they want.”

“And this—” she motions at the sheets of foil in my lap. “Do you believe it works?”

“Do you believe it works?” Not “does it work?” Cautious phrasing. Not admitting one way or the other whether she believes that Zenith are tracking me, only that she believes that I think they are.

I shrug. “Zenith headquarters are in Brume. And they haven’t found me yet.”

She nods slowly and I drop my gaze to the floor. I feel her eyes on me while silence envelops us. I tuck the foil back into my hat and put it back on, then chew my thumbnail while I wait for whatever comes next.

Finally, she says, “Okay. So you don’t want to go to Zenith. In that case, I may have another proposition.”

I look up.

She unties and reties her scarf, and takes a breath. “Now, this is…extremely unorthodox, and I wouldn’t suggest it if the situation wasn’t so…unique. But it’s possible that, with some support from my old colleague, I may be able to help you learn how to control these…blips. If my hypothesis is correct, and they are linked to your ADHD, it may be possible to learn to manage the blips as we learn how to manage your symptoms.” A wry smile crosses her face. “Consider it part of your treatment plan.”

“You really think that’ll work?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. But if going to Zenith is not an option, it’s the only thing I can offer you.”

“How would that even work?”

“Well, it will mean gaining control of your relationship with alcohol, for starters. Then, changing your habits. Implementing the techniques and strategies we’ve talked about before, and possibly…” She pauses. “Possibly going on medication for some time.”

I shift in my seat.

She sighs. “I know you’re resistant to medication. I can’t force you. But know that there are many different options, and we can work together to find the right one. And I promise: it won’t change who you are. Only you can do that. Medication isn’t a quick fix. And ideally, it isn’t a permanent one, either. Think of it as way to support your brain while it re-learns how to operate. All medication will do is…take the edge off. Quiet down the noise so you can focus on getting better. Does that make sense?”

“What if I forget to take it?” I mumble.

“You won’t. These days, it’s all delivered through the chip. Totally automatic.”

I chew my thumbnail and glare at the floor. “It sounds hard.”

“Yes, it will be hard. Most things worth doing are.”

I roll my eyes. “Spare me the inspirational quotes.”

She sits forward in her chair and puts a hand on my knee. “It won’t be easy, by any means. But I think with time and commitment, it may be possible to make some headway. And to be honest, Bird, it doesn’t sound to me like you can go on much longer the way you are.”

I look up, and she holds my gaze.

“What do you think?”

chapter

six

THREE DAYS LATER, I stand in the middle of Rav’s empty living room. Rav has pushed the sofa and the squat wooden table against the wall, and she sits silently on the arm of her leather chair, one hand pressed to her pursed lips. On the floor, about ten feet in front of me is a threadbare burgundy rug, three feet square, which I’m staring so hard at that my eyes are starting to water.

Inside my head, I’m screaming.

Rug. Rug. Louder. Rug! Flogging rug!

To my right, I hear Rav adjust her position.

“Can I ask,” she says quietly, “what you’re thinking?” It’s the first thing she’s said in probably fifteen minutes.

I squeeze my eyes shut and tip my head back. Then I open my eyes and look at the ceiling.

“I’m thinking ‘rug’.”

She adjusts her position again. I hear the rustle of her scarf untying and retying. “Okay. Have you tried ‘red rug’?”

I drop my head sideways and fix her with an incredulous look. “Really?”

“I’m just thinking out loud.” She holds her two palms up to face me. “Sorry, you’re right, not helpful.” She chews daintily on the end of her thumbnail for a moment. She somehow makes chewing her nail look elegant. I’ve come to recognize it as her thinking pose.

"And you’re breathing deeply?" she says. "Into your belly and back?”

“Yes.”

“And playing the tape forward?”

“Yes.”

‘Playing the tape forward’ is something Rav started making me do a while ago to help recognize and quell impulsive thoughts. When I get the impulse to do something reckless, I’m supposed to 'play the tape forward’—visualize myself actually doing the thing, or in the moment just after I’ve done the thing. It's supposed to help me think about the potential impact of my decisions before I act.

But then Rav had the idea that maybe we could also use ‘playing the tape forward’ to help me control the blips. Visualize myself doing it. Kind of like Dr. Lysett wanted me to do when she was trying to trigger QMTP at Zenith, but instead of remembering myself blipping in the past, I’m imagining myself blipping in the future. I don’t know if it makes any more sense, but it’s certainly less upsetting than dredging up painful memories.

So far, playing the tape forward has worked a little to stop the blips from occurring completely at random. When I feel one start to happen, I can imagine myself not blipping, and most of the time, it stops. Yesterday, I had the idea that if I can stop the blips from happening by playing the tape forward, maybe I could trigger a blip to happen by doing the same thing.

So far, it doesn’t seem to be working.

Rav clasps her hands. “Tell me again what happened when you blipped back to Brume from Naze. When you felt like you had control over it.”

I sigh and skulk over to the couch.

“I just thought ‘home.’ That’s it. But I was already blipping. I felt it start to happen, and I thought ‘I want to go home.’ I wasn’t thinking hard about it. It was more like…an impulse. Like a wish. I just didn’t want to end up at the bottom of the Salt again."

Rav nods. She watches me solemnly, then says carefully, “You said there was one other time that you were able to control it.” She pauses before she says gently, “You didn’t want to talk about it last time it came up. Do you think you’re ready to talk about it now?”

I stare at the floor between my feet and let the room slowly fill with silence.

"I only ask," Rav continues, "because there might be something there that puts us on the right track."

No, Rav, I think, I don’t want to talk about how I killed Malarkey.

The silence thickens, and Rav sits in it like a cat sits before a mouse hole, waiting. That's the problem with Rav: she's much more comfortable in silence than I am. Every time we play this game, I lose. Eventually, I always break.

"I was in the Salt," I tell her, "and I thought I was going to drown.”

I study my nails while I wait for Rav to acknowledge this, hoping that’s all I’ll have to say. But she says nothing and doesn’t move. So I continue.

“Malar—my dog fell over the side of a boat and I jumped in after her. I managed to get to her, but we were in a storm and the water was rough. We were drowning. Then I felt the blip start to happen, and I just thought ‘I want to go home.’ And I landed here.”

Rav is quiet for a long time. Then she says, “That must have been very scary. And your dog…she…”

“She died. When we woke up in Brume, she was dead. The blip killed her. I killed her.”

Silence again. Then Rav says quietly, “I hope you don’t truly think that you killed her.”

“Well then I don’t know who did,” I mutter.

“She was drowning and you tried to save her. It’s not your fault it didn’t work.”

“It’s my fault she was on the boat.”

“There’s no way you could have known what would happen. It was an accident.”

“My whole life is accidents. All I do is make mistakes and mess things up. That’s why I’m here, talking to you.”

Rav sighs. “That’s catastrophic thinking, remember?”

“I was stupid. Jumping off that boat was stupid. I could have drowned. And I couldn’t even save Malarkey.”

“Can we reframe those thoughts?” Rav’s voice takes on a professional edge. “Yes, jumping off that boat was reckless. You’re lucky to be alive. But it was also brave. Lots of other people wouldn’t have done that. They would have let fear get the best of them. They would have left their dog behind.”

I pick at my nails and don’t respond.

“That’s why we don’t want to change who you are, Bird,” she continues gently. “That impulse—the impulse to want to help the people you love—that’s a good impulse. And that doesn’t come from your head. That comes from here,” she taps her chest, “in your soul. Right now it’s a bit…unrefined. But that's the stuff we want to keep. This teleportation business, the blips—that’s cool, sure. But your impulses, your gut—that is your superpower.” I roll my eyes, but her voice is firm. “You just have to learn how to work with your impulses. Learn to control them instead of letting them control you.”

“Yeah, okay.”

She sighs again and clasps her hands in her lap, sitting back in the chair. Silence settles as she studies me.

"The first time it happened, the first time you controlled it…it sounds like you were probably very scared.”

I shrug, still watching my fingers as they dig around the edges of my chewed up nails.

“Do you think…” She sits up a little, as though something has just occurred to her. “Do you think that might be why it worked? Because you were in a heightened emotional state? Scared—desperate, even?”

My fingers still. A heightened emotional state.

“Dr. Lysett used to say that," I say. "She thought QMTP was triggered by stress.”

I shove away a momentary flash of that office, the calidifying gun, the mesh cap, Lysett’s relentless, empty smile.

“Maybe she was on to something there,” says Rav. “Maybe there is a component of that that we need to tap into. Perhaps not stress, exactly, but…strong feelings. A feeling of wanting to be somewhere very badly. Of it being important. Could it have been the strong feeling you had about wanting to go home that made it work?”

“I don't know. Maybe?”

“And the second time…” She sits forward, her eyes brightening. “The second time it happened, you had the same strong feelings. You wanted to go home badly because you didn’t want to end up somewhere dangerous.”

“I don’t know, Rav…”

She sits back slightly, holding up her hands. “I know, I know, this is all just conjecture. But…is it worth a shot?”

“Is what worth a shot?”

“Well, what if we tried blipping somewhere more…meaningful. That,” she waves a hand at the rug, “that doesn’t mean anything to you. You don’t have strong feelings about this rug, do you?”

“I think it’s pretty ugly. Other than that, no.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Okay, so let’s try blipping somewhere you do have strong feelings about.”

“Like where?”

“That’s up to you. Can you think of anywhere? You don’t have to tell me where. Somewhere close by.”

I take a breath and turn my eyes up to the ceiling. Strong feelings. What place near here do I have strong feelings about? My mind wanders through Brume—the street near my house, Azimuth campus, the harbor, the forest. Then I see it. As soon as I picture it I feel a pang in my chest.

“Yes, I have one,” I say.

“Okay, great!” Rav stands. “Do you want to try it?”

“I don’t know…" I stand reluctantly. "I guess?"

She pulls the rug out of the center of the room and rolls it up as I walk to my spot. I plant my feet hip distance apart and try to feel them rooting into the ground, like Rav always tells me to. I close my eyes and visualize the place: a little pile of stones stacked on top of a small dirt mound at the base of a tree. Malarkey’s grave.

Almost immediately, I feel it: pain in my chest. The pain that I keep at bay with grog and color and light and noise. The pain that brings with it a deluge of thoughts so unbearable I feel like I'm drowning: Malarkey is dead. Sargo left me. I killed Malarkey and drove Sargo away. I am reckless and selfish and—

“Focus Bird,” says Rav quietly. “You control your thoughts, remember? They don’t control you. Stay focused.”

I try to think about something else. Anything else. What does Rav always tell me to focus on? Breathing. I try to focus on my breathing.

Breathe in—feel that string attached to your head, lifting you up like a flower to the sun.

Breathe out—find your center. Feel your feet firm on the ground, rooting you down like a mighty tree.

I picture the tree. Malarkey’s resting place. The cathedral of the forest. Cool, gray air. Damp earth. Peace.

Malarkey, I think. I want to go to Malarkey.

“Bird!” Rav’s cry is excited, almost panicked. “You’re—”

chapter

seven

SPACE.

White, endless space.

And pain. The stretching and splitting of my soul into trillions upon trillions of specks of light. A sense of deja vu. I'm in the place again.

This time, it’s different though. Something has changed. Something is firmer. More stable. I stretch a hand in front of me and I see it. I see my hand. Faint and insubstantial, like a hand coagulating from mist. I lift my other hand to meet it. Look at them side by side as they solidify. I look down at my feet. I have feet. I am a person.

“Bird! You’re here!”

Out of the void of light and pain, a figure emerges. Hazy, barely corporeal, as though it too is coming together before my eyes, assembling from points of light too small to see. Lanky, pale hair and skin so thin it looks like it barely contains the bones inside it. Sharp edges and hollow eyes. Hunger, and sickness.

“You found me,” says Fife.

Darker-than-white smudges are beginning to blot the edges of the void. Towering shapes rise like mountains around us. Beside me, a twisting, branching form shoots from nothing into nothing. I watch as it grows and becomes viable. Darkens. Solidifies.

“What is this place?” I say, and my voice is smoke and light.

A ball of red fire explodes into existence far above my head, dazzling me. I throw an arm across my face, and when I lower it, the fireball has dimmed. It hangs high above us, filling the place with pale, red light. A sun. A pale, red sun in a white sky.

Beside me, the twisted branches of the solidifying form have settled. A tree. I’m standing under a tree. The ground beneath my feet is sand. Around me, mountains have settled. I stand in the bottom of a valley, surrounded on all sides by high ridges. I’m in Naze. Or—some strange, dreamlike approximation of Naze—hazy, misremembered, painted in broad strokes. But I see it now: the saltnut tree, the valley; the pale, red sun; the hard, red earth.

“You came back,” says Fife.

“You’re…dead," I reply, shaking my head.

Fife frowns and turns her gaze down to her own translucent hands. She turns them over, studying the backs of them.

“I don’t think so.”

“I spoke to Pathra. She told me you died.”

Fife looks around. She covers her mouth with her hand. Her eyes go wide. “You’re right," she whispers. “I remember now.”

"Where are we?" I ask.

We stare at each other. Around us, the void shifts and warps. Glitches. Shudders. The red sun flickers and becomes still again.

“I found your dog,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else to say. “I rescued her. After you died.”

Fife’s eyes brighten. “Yes. You brought her back to me.”

“I—” Her words stop me. “Brought her back…?”

She nods. “You've been here before. Sometimes…I hear you. I try to stop you, but you always…leave…” She trails off, gazing over my shoulder, her eyes distant. “Once, you came with someone else. You left her here.”

“Malarkey.”

“You were upset. You didn’t want to leave her, and I tried to stop you but I couldn’t reach you. I couldn't see, I could only hear you, like a voice, underwater and very far away. And then…you were gone. You left her. And when I looked at her closely, I realized…she was mine. You brought her back to me.” Fife turns to look over her shoulder. “So I kept her.”

Out of the blank, white haze, another form begins to emerge. It lopes easily along the distant horizon—approaching, but getting no closer, like a ghost treading water. My heart soars.

"Malarkey!"

And then the light warps. It splits and shifts. The world flickers and begins to disappear.

“Don’t go,” says Fife. “Stay with us a while.”

“I can’t!” My voice breaks into drops of mist and evaporates like breath on a cold morning. “I don’t know how to stay. I don’t know how to make it stop.”

Fife seems not to have heard me. “Why do you always leave?” she cries. “Why did you leave me behind?”

____________________

The ground meets my feet and my knees buckle. I break my fall with my hands, but my arms fail to support me, and I fold over into dirt and fogwood needles, my forehead to the ground. Just behind my eyes, I can feel a levee's-worth of tears swelling.

Through my head rattles a series of pings. I startle upright, swiping hair from my cheeks with mud-streaked hands, and tap my temple to open messenger.

>>> WHERE ARE YOU?

>>> BIRD, CAN YOU SEE THIS?

>>> PLEASE REPLY. ARE YOU THERE?

Rav.

A hiccuping breath goes through me as I gesture in the air to send a message back.

>>> I’M HERE

>>> OH THANK GODS. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK. ARE YOU OKAY?

>>> I’M OKAY. I MADE IT

>>> YOU MADE IT???

I pause. Made it where, exactly?

Blinking, I look around. To my right, stretching regally skyward until it disappears into a dark canopy of leaves high above me, a fogwood tree. At its base, a small mound of dirt. On top of the mound of dirt, a little cärn of stones.

I'm here. In exactly the spot I was picturing. Exactly where I wanted to go.

The full weight of what just happened lands squarely in the pit of my stomach. I did it. I blipped here. It worked.

My heart kicks up a beat. I send another reply.

>>> YES. I MADE IT. I’M HERE

>>> TO THE PLACE YOU WANTED TO GO?

>>> YES

A long pause. Finally, Rav types

>>> CAN YOU GET BACK?

I snort out a laugh that comes dangerously close to breaking the dam that is holding back the tears.

Can I get back?

Slowly, wiping my face on one arm and clinging to the tree beside me with the other, I get to my feet. My heart is pounding. My hands are shaking. My legs feel as though I just ran for miles. Every breath threatens either laughter or tears. I stagger to a log and sit down. I send another message.

>>> I DON’T THINK I CAN BLIP BACK. I THINK I’LL HAVE TO WALK. FEEL PRETTY TIRED

>>> DO YOU NEED HELP? I’LL COME RIGHT NOW.

I take a breath, closing my eyes.

>>> NO. IT’S OKAY. I’M OKAY

>>> ARE YOU SURE?

>>> YEAH. JUST NEED A MINUTE

I open my eyes and stare at the pile of stones that marks Malarkey's grave. I feel as though I could sleep for ten years. Or run up a tree to the moon. I send another message to Rav.

>>> I’LL BE FINE. I THINK I SHOULD GO HOME THOUGH. IS IT OKAY IF WE END EARLY TODAY?

After a short pause, Rav sends

>>> YOU JUST BECAME THE FIRST PERSON IN HUMAN HISTORY TO TELEPORT. I THINK ENDING EARLY WOULD BE FINE.

I brace my hands on my knees and stretch my back and belly with breath, with the smell of the forest. My heart begins to slow. Another message comes through.

>>> ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU DON’T NEED HELP?

>>> I’M SURE. THANKS RAV

>>> OKAY. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO DRINK PLENTY OF WATER.

I frown.

>>> WATER? WHAT ARE YOU SUDDENLY AN EXPERT ON POST-TELEPORTATION RECOVERY?

>>> IT NEVER HURTS. PEOPLE ALWAYS NEED WATER.

>>> OKAY RAV

>>> I’LL SEE YOU ON FRIDAY. WELL DONE, BIRD.

I swipe Messenger closed and the forest settles around me like a gossamer curtain. I become aware of sounds—the wind in the branches, snatches of birdsong. For a long time, I sit perfectly still, staring at Malarkey’s grave, Fife's face and her words spinning around my head.

“You brought her back to me."

What does that mean? What was that place? It was the first time it felt like a place, and not just a vortex of light and pain. It was real. Fife was there. I could see her. And if I had stayed a few seconds longer…maybe I would have seen Malarkey too.

My body convulses with an abrupt shiver and I sit up, realizing that the light has faded and the air is growing cold.

Slowly, testing my weight against my shaky legs, I stand. My strength has returned somewhat. My hands and heart are steady. I take a few steps.

I glance one more time over my shoulder at Malarkey’s grave before I step between the gap in the trees that will take me out of the forest. As I do, another message alert pings through my head. I tap my temple to open it.

>>> HEY BIRD. IT'S ME. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW I MADE IT. I’M IN POCOSÍN.

My heart goes still.

Sargo begins to type again, then stops. I stand, paralyzed, watching the cursor appear, disappear, appear again. Finally, he sends

>>> I WISH YOU WERE HERE.

The words land square in the center of my chest like a block of ice. I stare through the text, not seeing it, anger flooding me like a cold, red tide.

How dare he? says the voice in my head. He abandoned you.

I swipe the message closed with a furious finger and storm out of the forest.

chapter

eight

>>> APPOINTMENT WITH RAV: 10 MINUTES

Tapping my left brow to clear the reminder, I take a look around to orient myself. I just landed on the roof of the main hall at Azimuth campus. From this vantage point, I can see the whole of Brume stretching below me to the edge of the slate blue Salt. The morning fog has burned off, leaving the day breezy and clear.

Fogtraps, soaked with drinking water, stretch between solar-paneled rooftops, and the dark green spires of fogwood trees climb the slopes of the valley surrounding the bay. Below me, the chatter of a few students walking between classes rises like the babbling of a stream.

I scoot to the edge of the roof and watch a group of girls my age disappear into the hall’s massive double doors directly under me. Hard to believe that just two months ago, I was being escorted off this campus by Principle Yip after being expelled. Now, I can pretty much come here whenever I want. In the last two weeks, as I’ve started to have more control over the blips, this has become one of my favorite places to sit. To contemplate the city. To watch the ebb and flow of students below me, oblivious to my presence, absorbed in the hustle of their own lives. I tap my left brow again to check the time.

>>> 0930

If I don’t get going soon I’m going to be late.

I disappear from the roof and stumble back into existence on a secluded path at the edge of campus, tripping over my own feet as I land. Still not sticking the landings. Catching my balance with a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one saw me, I start the long walk across town toward Rav’s. I still like to walk, even though it does feel like a painfully slow way to get around now. It helps to clear my head.

There’s no sign of Electra leaving her appointment as I round the corner at the top of Rav’s street and make my way to her front door. I knock and stand on the step until I hear Rav’s soft-shoed approach, then, with a smirk, I blip sideways just before she opens the door, disappearing around the corner of the house. She utters an exasperated sigh.

“Very funny, Bird.”

“Are you getting tired of that one yet?” I blip back onto the porch with a grin.

“Sure am,” she says, stepping aside and opening the door to let me in. I toss my pack on the floor by the sofa and settle into the cushions—remembering to sit on the not-ass-indented side this time. Rav closes the door and crosses to stand behind her leather chair, leaning on it with both elbows.

She smiles at me. “Tea?”

“Sure, why not?”

Five minutes later I wrap my hands around the chipped ceramic mug Rav always gives me when I visit, inhaling the scent of lemon and ginger.

“You seem well,” Rav observes as she sits opposite me, adjusting her scarf—periwinkle blue today. I take a tiny sip, nodding vigorously.

“Tell me about your week,” she says.

I swallow too-hot tea and set down my mug.

“I’m really getting the hang of the blips, I think. I don’t need to have strong feelings for the place I’m going any more. I think maybe I only needed that in the beginning. Sometimes I don’t end up exactly where I was aiming for, but I can go pretty much anywhere in town now.”

“Are you still getting the—what did you call it? Blip hangovers?"

"Sometimes, if I do it a lot. And I get pretty tired."

"Well, take it easy. There’s no reason to be tiring yourself out.”

“I was thinking I might blip to Naze. I haven’t tried going that far yet—well, not on purpose.”

She inhales sharply. “Be careful, Bird. Don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s only been a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, of course, I’ll be careful.” I scoop up my mug again and take a big gulp, burning my tongue.

Rav eyes me over her spex. “I mean it, Bird. You’re excited. I’m glad things are going well. But you need to stay focused. Don’t let your excitement get the better of you. How are your other symptoms?”

“Good! I started doing the reminder thing you talked about—setting messages for myself to remember when I need to do stuff. That helps a lot. And my nails are growing back a bit.” I hold out my hand for her to see. “And,” I flick my eyes away with a slight flush, “I haven’t drank in two weeks now.”

Her eyebrows raise. “That is impressive. Have you been tracking your days?”

“I’ve been keeping a tally on my chip. Today is day fourteen.”

“Excellent, Bird.” She smiles. “That’s really great. Do you think the meds are helping?”

I nod. “Definitely.”

She taps her temple and gestures to input something into her chip, then turns to me again with another smile.

"I’m glad to hear it."

"Yeah! Kind of feels like…I'm fixed."

Her face twists. "Fixed."

"Yeah…" My euphoria ebbs slightly at the look on her face. "Is that…wrong?"

"First of all, Bird, I need you to stop thinking of your brain as a problem to be 'fixed.' We've talked about this, right? It's not broken, it's just differently-wired."

I roll my eyes and she sighs, sitting forward in her chair and setting down her mug.

"This is often one of the hardest things for me to explain to my patients, but…this initial progress is great. Don’t get me wrong. Outstanding. I’m not at all trying to take that away from you. But as I’ve said before: what we're doing here is not 'fixing.' We're learning how to…harness the power of your different wiring. It's not a one-and-done kind of thing. It will be a continuous process. A daily practice, if you like—of both managing your symptoms and managing the blips. There may be setbacks. You should be prepared for that. Progress won’t be linear, and it may be a lifelong process.” She must see the look of disappointment clouding my face because she continues, “It won’t always be this difficult. Very soon, if you’re diligent, it will just become part of your life.”

“You mean I’m always going to have to work twice as hard as everyone else just to be normal?”

She sighs. “Can we reframe that thought?”

I scowl. “How?”

“Well, think of it this way. You’re going to know yourself—I mean really know yourself—better than most people will ever know themselves. You’ll have a real understanding of what makes you you. And, if you continue to be successful at controlling the blips and managing your symptoms, you’ll have the grit and persistence to do anything. It’ll be another superpower to add to your arsenal.”

I roll my eyes again.

She smiles and picks up her tea. “Anyway. Don’t get caught up thinking about the rest of your life yet. One day at a time, right?”

I sigh. “Right.”

She sips and studies me for a while. Finally, she says, “I have some thoughts on what we were talking about the other day.”

My eyebrows peak. Last time I was here, I was telling Rav about the other world I see when I blip. The world with Fife and Malarkey. In the last two weeks, as I’ve been blipping more and more, that world has become clearer. It’s a place as real as the world in front of me now. Since the first time Fife and Malarkey appeared out of the void, they’ve become substantial. Corporeal.

Rav sets down her tea and taps her brow to pull up a file on her chip. She motions to transfer it to me.

“You don’t have to read that now—it’s quite dense. I had a long conversation with my friend yesterday about what you told me, and he had some pretty interesting things to say.”

I sit up in my chair. “Like what?”

“I told him what you told me: that when you blip, you travel through this world—this other place where your friend and your dog seem to be alive. I asked whether he agreed with you that it’s some kind of hallucination created by your brain. And he didn’t seem to think so.”

She pauses to adjust her scarf and I watch her impatiently. The room is so still that the rustling of that periwinkle fabric as she unties and reties it is amplified tenfold. Finally, she picks up her tea and carefully clears her throat.

“He thinks it’s another dimension,” she says.

“A what?”

“Now,” she holds up a hand, "this is going to sound unbelievable, but hear me out. His thinking is that what you are seeing is, in fact—well…death. Or…some kind of afterlife. It’s his opinion that death may actually be…just another dimension.”

I sit back against the cushions and press my hands to my eyes.

“Just another dimension? Sorry…so, wait—so…you’re telling me, first of all, that there are other dimensions? Because, I mean…that’s news to me.”

“It was news to me too,” she says. “And don’t forget, this is all conjecture. But according to my friend, it’s been theorized that an infinite number of other worlds may exist alongside ours. What you’re seeing may be one of those worlds. A world that your dog and your friend went to after they died in this one. Possibly a world that we all might go to eventually.”

I stare at Rav, my mouth open. “So I really did blip through hell and leave Malarkey there.”

Rav frowns. “What?”

“Nothing. I just…when I blipped back to Brume the very first time, the time Malarkey died, I told my moms I had blipped through hell and left Malarkey there. Like, as a joke. But I guess I was kind of right.”

Rav nods slowly. “It’s curious to me why your body…or brain, or whatever it is that controls QMTP, would choose that particular path.”

“That’s what you’re curious about? I’m pretty curious about why my body is going through other dimensions at all. Is that like…an expected side effect of teleportation?”

“Actually,” Rav sits up a little, her eyes brightening, “according to my friend, it is.”

She has that gleam in her eyes that usually means her friend explained some really dense, really complicated quantum stuff to her, and she’s just itching to share it with me. Usually, it goes way over my head.

“How deep do you want to go with this?” she asks.

“I don’t know…I mean…I guess I’ll listen, if you really want to explain it.”

“I think I can summarize it pretty well.” She sets down her tea. “Have you ever heard of something called Fermat’s Principle?”

I shake my head. When would I have ever heard of that, Rav?

“Okay,” she continues, “well, Fermat’s Principle states that the path that light takes to get to a given point is always the path that requires the least amount of time.”

“...what?”

“Basically, light always takes the fastest path to get where it’s going.”

“O—kay.” I frown. Already this seems weird. “How does light…know what the fastest path is?”

Rav grins. “That’s exactly what I said. Apparently, that’s the big question. My friend told me that this theory was very controversial when it was first conjectured because it seems to ascribe intention to light. It seems like Fermat is saying that light knows where it wants to go and how to get there. Which seems—”

“Bananas.”

“Yes. Bananas. But what they figured out eventually was that, actually, light does have the ability to test alternative paths between points. All waves do. It’s a fundamental property of waves.”

“It is?”

She nods. “He explained it to me—something about wavefronts and time-varying wave fields…it all went pretty over my head, to be honest. It’s in the file I sent you. But what I got from it, is that light tests an infinite number of paths to a point, then takes the fastest path to get to that point. My friend thinks it’s possible that some of those paths might go through other dimensions. So the fastest route between point A and point B might not stay in one reality. It might pass through an infinite number of parallel worlds on the way. Kind of like taking a shortcut through a bunch of side streets instead of sticking to the main road.”

“But you’re talking about light. Not…people.”

“Remember what I told you before we started all this? When you blip, the biochip turns you into light. And that light tests and passes through any number of parallel dimensions while on the way to its destination!” She sits back in the chair, grinning. “Isn’t that cool?”

I shake my head. “I guess so. It seems insane.”

“I think it’s wild.”

“I think you should have been a physicist, Rav.”

She waves her hand. “No, no. It’s far too complicated for me. I just like stuff that bends my mind, you know? But it still doesn’t make sense to me why you would end up in the dimension of the dead every time you blip, as opposed to any other dimension.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, like I said, according to my friend there are an infinite number of other dimensions. Why do you keep teleporting through that one, as opposed to any of the others?”

I shake my head, offering her a feeble shrug. Why would I go through the dimension of hell as opposed to, say, the dimension of cake and ice cream? Cake and ice cream sounds like a lot more fun.

Rav watches me for a moment, then sits forward again. “I do have…a thought on it, actually. If you’d care to hear it?”

She seems hesitant, almost embarrassed to say what she’s about to say. I raise my eyebrows at her and wait for her to go on.

“Perhaps…” She clears her throat. “Now look, I’m not a spiritual person, and this could be nonsense, but…is it possible you have some kind of…I don't know, I mean it sounds so trite, but…some kind of unfinished business, with your friend?”

“Unfinished business? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But…I suppose it’s possible.”

“Could it be that that’s why you two keep coming together?”

I arch an eyebrow. “Like…she’s haunting me?”

“I know…” Rav puts out a hand. “I know. It sounds ridiculous, and like I said, I’m not a person who usually buys into that kind of thing. But given the circumstance…I mean, we’re already dealing with a very unique situation here.”

I settle back against the sofa cushions and send my gaze through the window. Unfinished business? With Fife? We were kids when I left Naze. What kind of unfinished business do kids have? Nothing that seems important enough to haunt someone over.

I stare at the floor between my feet, letting the information absorb.“I guess I could ask her.”

“Ask her? Can you…talk to her?”

I frown. “Yeah, of course. They’re real, Rav. I can pet Malarkey’s ears.”

She eyes me for a long time with an uneasy look. “Do you talk to her?”

“Uh huh. Sometimes I hang out there while I’m blipping between places.”

A small, uncomfortable silence settles. Rav clears her throat. “For how long?”

“I don’t know. An hour or more?”

“I see.”

“But you know something else that’s weird? It always feels like no matter how long I stay there, I always get to where I was going, like…instantaneously. I’ve checked. I check the time right before I blip, and check it again right after, and even if I’ve been hanging out there for an hour or more, it always seems to be less than a second.”

Rav studies me silently. “Do you think it’s a good idea to be doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Hanging out there.”

“Sure, why not?”

Her eyes don’t leave mine. “We don’t really understand how this works, Bird. You could get stuck, like Malarkey. And now, knowing what we know about that world—that it could be, well…death.”

“We don’t know that,” I point out.

“Okay, yes, you’re right, we don’t know that. But…I would be cautious, Bird.” She catches my eye over the top of her spex. “Very cautious. This isn’t something to be messing around with.”

“I’m not messing around!”

She raises her hands, palms facing me. “I’m not saying you are…”

Anger thumps in my chest. I inhale and exhale once through my nose, glaring at her.

“Please just tell me that you’ll be careful, Bird," she says. "I know…I know it must be tempting. To want to spend time in that world. With your dog. Your friend. But…we are treading on very unstable ground here. And…that world isn’t where you belong. Your dog got stuck there and died.”

I flop back against the cushions, folding my arms, flicking my eyes away from hers.

“Yeah, whatever, I’ll be careful.”

Silence descends. Finally, she sighs. “I think we should end here today.”

“Fine.” I begin to stand, scooping my pack from the floor by the sofa.

“One more thing.” Rav stands too. “Have you given any more thought to going back to Zenith? Showing them what you can do? Telling them what you’ve learned?”

I sigh, letting my head drop back. I have thought about it, but every time I imagine myself going back to another session with Dr. Lysett, I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.” Rav folds her arms and watches me. “What about your tin foil hat?”

My hand goes to my hat instinctively. “What about it?”

“You’re still wearing it.”

My face reddens. “Yes. Why?”

She shrugs. “I had the thought the other day, that if you truly can teleport wherever you want, whenever you want, then being tracked or caught by Zenith may not be such a concern for you. If they did try to pressure you into anything, you could simply…blip away.”

I narrow my eyes. I hadn’t thought about that.

“And I thought that, maybe,” she continues, “that might make it easier for you to stomach going back there. They won’t be able to hold you against your will. Not that I think they would do anything like that. But…if that was a concern you had…I don’t know. Think about it. From what you told me, Zenith’s project sounds important. And it sounds like you’re important to the project. It might be good for you to share your knowledge and get involved in some kind of community.”

She steps around me to open the door. I nod slowly and follow her. After I step through, I turn.

“Thanks, Rav.”

She smiles. “You’re welcome, Bird. I’ll see you next week. And please: think about what I said. And be careful.”

“I will.”

She closes the door and I turn to the street. I’m barely through Rav's gate when a ping shoots through my head and a new message pops up. I swipe it open.

>>> HEY BIRD. IT’S ME AGAIN.

Sargo. My stomach does a wobbly flip. Another message comes through

>>> I KNOW YOU’RE MAD.

And after a few seconds, another

>>> I JUST…

He types. Deletes. Types again. Deletes again. Types again

>>> NEVER MIND

>>> SORRY

I stand in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the text overlaid against the backdrop of the bright blue sky and slate blue harbor. My stomach churns with a tumult of confused emotions. I raise my hand to start a reply, and hesitate.

He abandoned you, says the voice in my head. He left you in Grike, alone, at the hands of a corporation whose motives are suspect at best and malicious at worst.

He was upset, I tell myself. I hurt him.

Hurt him how? By doing something you had every right to do? You and Sargo aren’t together! It’s none of his business who you sleep with.

My gut wobbles again. I’ve been so focused on mastering the blips and managing my symptoms for the last two weeks that I mercifully hadn't even thought about that night with Savage.

Another series of messages pings through my head.

>>> I JUST MISS YOU

>>> THERE

>>> SORRY

>>> I WISH YOU WERE HERE AND I MISS YOU

My heart twists and begins to thump. The problem, of course, is that deep down, in spite of everything, I miss him too. I miss his smile. I miss his eyes. His stupid, overly-careful-but-probably-totally-reasonable approach to life. He’s the only person who knows what I’ve been through. He’s the only person who would truly understand what it meant to lose Malarkey. I haven’t even told him she’s dead.

Taking a breath, I raise a trembling hand and start a reply. Then I stop.

What am I doing messaging him? When I could just…go to him.

My thumping heart kicks up another notch. I could blip to Pocosín.

I swipe in the air to clear away all the messages, my head beginning to spin with the possibility. It’s far. Farther than I’ve ever gone before. But is there any reason I can’t do it? I told Rav I was thinking about going to Naze…and what's the difference between Naze and Pocosín to a beam of light? Doesn’t light travel at thousands of miles per second? What does it matter if I’m going a hundred miles or three thousand when I’m moving at light speed? According to Rav's physicist friend, I’m already blipping through other dimensions for Christ’s sake, what’s a couple thousand miles down the coast?

Rav also told you to be careful.

Rav doesn’t know. She’s a therapist, not a physicist. She doesn’t know any more than I do. No one does. I’m the one with the teleporter in my head. I’m the only person on the planet who knows how to use it. Who’s more qualified to make decisions about it than me?

I take a breath and glance over my shoulder. I’m still standing in the street in front of Rav’s. Hopefully, she’s not watching me through the window, wondering what the hell I’m doing. Adjusting my pack on my shoulders, I walk around the corner, then stop again, my hands tingling.

Am I really going to do this? Am I really going to blip to Pocosín?

How would I even find Sargo if I did? I have no idea where he actually is. Sure, I could blip to the city, but how would I find him in a city that size?

Unless…unless I can blip myself to him. Is that possible? I got from Rav’s living room to Malarkey’s grave by telling myself I wanted to go to Malarkey. Could I do the same by telling myself to go to Sargo?

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Focus. I have to focus. I do want to be careful. I don’t want to end up at the bottom of the Salt, or in the middle of the Turf or—stuck forever in the dimension of hell with Malarkey and Fife. Strong feelings. Strong feelings about Malarkey helped me before. Maybe my feelings about Sargo can help me now. I conjure the image of his face.

Sargo, I think. I want to go to Sargo.

chapter

nine

AND THERE HE IS.

His wide, surprised eyes appear inches from mine, dark as brew and flecked with gold. Sable hair tumbles into them as his mouth falls open and he runs into me.

"Holy shit!” I say, as I bounce off his chest and we both stagger backward. “It worked!”

He recovers his footing and steadies himself as I find my bearings, my heart beating at a thousand miles an hour. I can feel my pulse in my temples, in my back, in my limbs—as though my body is reassembling itself around the racket of my heart. I try to catch my breath, feeling dizzy, elated.

Sounds rise out of muffled static. A clamor of voices, bustling activity. I look around. We’re at a harbor. But it’s like no harbor I’ve ever seen; ships the size of buildings tower over us. Massive vessels, ten times the size of even the Kingfisher or the Valkyrie, each bearing the name of a Big Four company. Zenith Biotech, Spindrift Hydrosolutions, Heliacal Solar and Energy, Star Net. All of them are stacked multiple stories high with metal containers. Cranes tower over the ships and crew climb all over the hulls, cleaning, running lines, hauling crates and barrels. The docks around us swarm with people: sailors, merchants, passengers carrying luggage.

The sound of the crowd is so overwhelming that I struggle to hear Sargo as he says, “Bird? What are you…” He closes his mouth and opens it again, his eyebrows knitting together. “How did you…”

“I blipped here!” My voice is breathless. “Holy shit.” Dizziness overwhelms me and I lean over, putting my hands on my knees and gulping down air, trying to slow my racing heart. “Holy shit I can’t believe I blipped here.” Someone bumps into me from behind and I stagger sideways. I feel Sargo catch me by the elbow.

“You blipped here?”

Straightening up, my pulse slowing, I meet his eyes. “Yes!”

He drops my arm, his face still contorted with shock and confusion. “What do you mean you—”

“Teleported! I teleported here.”

“I don’t…you…”

I gently disengage his hand from my arm, and then with a grin, I vanish. I reappear directly behind him and tap him on the shoulder. He whirls around. I disappear, popping up on the other side of him and tapping his other shoulder. As he spins around to find me again, his face begins to clear, the shock and confusion giving way to astonished understanding.

“Holy shit…” he says.

“That’s what I said!”

He reaches out a hand to touch my shoulder, like he wants to check whether I’m actually there, but instead of letting him touch me, I disappear again. I blip myself to the roof of a building on the edge of the dock and watch him spinning in a circle below, looking for me in the crowd. Should I feel bad, toying with him like this? No. He abandoned me. I’ll let him spin for a bit. See how long it takes him to figure out where I—

His eyes turn up to the roof and he spots me.

Dammit.

Grinning, he points at me. “Nice try, Howsley,” he mouths.

I hang my head in an exaggerated show of defeat and blip back to him. As I reappear in front of him, his arm shoots out, wrapping around my waist. He pulls me against him and just like that, I’m overwhelmed by the familiar salt-and-wood scent of him, and I fail to move.

He looks down into my face and smirks. “Gotcha.”

For a moment, we just stand like that. His smirk becomes a smile, and he carefully lifts a hand to push a rogue tangle of hair away from my eyes. He tucks it up inside the edge of my beanie.

“Hi,” he says.

I find my voice and manage to say, “Hi.”

The arm around my waist loosens, and he steps back, shaking his head slowly. “You teleported here? From where?”

“From Brume.”

“From Brume?!” His eyes go wide again, his eyebrows shooting into his hairline. “That’s like…many thousands of miles. I thought you were in Grike?”

God, that’s right. There’s so much to tell him, I don’t even know where to begin.

He sees my momentary loss for words and quickly says, “I’m sure there’s a lot to catch up on. Actually, I…I’m on my way back to Panga. Do you—” He scratches the back of his neck, seeming suddenly nervous. “Are you staying? Do you need to go back?”

I shake my head, steadying myself with a breath. “Not yet.”

“Do you want to come—I don’t know…have some tea?”

A voice in the back of my head makes a small noise of protest. He left you in Grike, it says. He abandoned you after you risked your life to go there and get him back. But that little voice is presently drowned out by the thundering of my heart as I drink in the deep brown color of his eyes in the sunlight, the soft black curls of his hair.

“Tea sounds great.”

He holds out his hand and my heart skips as I take it. Smiling, closing both of his hands around mine, he turns and begins shouldering his way through the crowd, pulling me behind him.

The harbor is massive—it takes us nearly twenty minutes to walk from one end to the other, past rows of towering container ships to a smaller pier on the outskirts where an array of sailboats are docked. The ships in the rest of the harbor dwarf even the big sailboats, and I can’t hide my smile as my eyes fall on Panga’s cheerful yellow hull, bobbing against the pier like a toy duck surrounded by giants.

We hop aboard and climb down the companionway steps into the galley, greeted by the familiar smell of Panga’s musty old couches and the faint remnants of whatever meal Sargo last cooked on her tiny stove. He puts the kettle on and I sit on one of the low sofas, grinning like an idiot, staring around at all the things I didn’t realize I had missed so much until now.

Before long, the cabin fills with the scent of cinnamon and oranges. Sargo hands me a mug then sits on the low couch on the opposite side of the narrow cabin, just a small wooden table and a couple of feet between us. I turn my eyes down into my mug as I sip, suddenly shy; suddenly aware of the memories we made together in this small space; the time we shared here. The kiss.

He clears his throat. “How did you…learn to do it?” His voice is quiet. As if he too feels the sudden overwhelming weight of many unspoken words whispering through this room.

I fumble my way through an explanation of the last two weeks. Rav. Her friend the physicist. My ADHD. I tell him how I’m learning to manage my symptoms and my drinking; how doing so is giving me control over the blips.

I carefully sidestep around the death of Malarkey. Her shadow lurks in the back of my mind as I tell him about everything else, but I’m too afraid to bring it into the light. Afraid to say the words out loud to him because I’m sure that as soon as I do, I’ll break down. I can feel an immeasurable sadness burning in my chest, threatening to rise into my throat every time I stray too close to it. Not sadness for me; sadness for Sargo. Sadness that he’ll never get to see Malarkey again. That he never got to say goodbye. That he left her in my care and I failed to protect her.

I can’t tiptoe around it forever, though. When I finish my spiel, Sargo sets down his tea, and says with a big smile, “So how’s Malarkey?” and I lose it.

His face twists. I manage to choke out an explanation: that Shale rescued me from Grike, that Malarkey went overboard, that I jumped in to get her back and we blipped and…

He lunges from his couch across the small space and pulls me into his arms. I sob into his shirt. I cry harder than I’ve cried for Malarkey since the moment I found her dead. I cry for her, and for Sargo, and for me. I cry because deep down I know Rav’s right. Deep down, I know that the world where Malarkey is still alive is a loophole too good to be true.

When I finally stop, dragging a hand across my cheeks, and try to sit up, Sargo closes his arms tighter around me, pinning me against him. I let him hold me there, the soft fabric of his shirt against my face, the weight of his chin on the top of my head. We sit like that for a long time.

Finally, he says, “She was a good dog.” The voice inside his chest is deep against my ear.

I nod against him. “Apart from when she wasn’t.”

He laughs quietly, and unwraps his arms, taking my shoulders in his hands as I sit up. Our eyes find each other, and his are so red and watery that I realize he must have been crying too, and that nearly sets me off all over again. I quickly look away, and he stands, picking up his mug. He drains the last of his tea, then walks around the table into the galley and sets the mug in the sink. For a moment he just stands there, contemplating the mug. Then he looks up, clearing the sadness from his face with an effort.

“Well we definitely can’t sit around here all day crying,” he says. He looks around for a moment, as though at a loss for what to say next. Suddenly, the whispers of all those unspoken words rush up at me like a roar. He abandoned you. You drove him away. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. Finally, he says, “Why don’t we take a walk?”

I nod, tipping back the last of my tea and eagerly not pointing out that we still have so much more to talk about. “Sure.”

Pocosín is hot and bright. Not a swampy heat that presses against your skin and drowns you, like the heat in Alluvium. There is no low-hanging cloud cover to block the sun: just a clear, intense blaze. As though the sun were sitting right next to you. As though it were tapping you on the shoulder. My beanie, still firmly pulled down over my head, is unbearably hot in this sweltering heat, but I can’t summon the courage to take it off yet. I fiddle with it while we walk, feeling sweaty and ridiculous. Suddenly, Sargo stops.

“You’re fidgeting,” he says.

I come to an abrupt halt too. “Oh…sorry.”

He eyes me for a long moment, then tugs at the edge of my beanie. “Could we maybe…take this off?”

Instinctively, my hands clutch at it.

“Why?” I ask, more sharply than I mean to, knowing it’s still lined with an embarrassingly large amount of tin foil that I definitely don’t want him to see.

He pulls his hand away, looking slightly startled. “Just…want to see you better.” He shrugs and smiles. “That’s all.”

I adjust the edges of the beanie. It is…very uncomfortable. I’ve been wearing it for so long it’s started to feel like an extension of my head, but…maybe it’s time. Rav’s right: I can blip wherever I want, whenever I want. Maybe I don’t need to worry about Zenith tracking me anymore. I’m faster than them. I’m powerful now.

I slowly pull off the hat, folding it carefully to hide the foil and tucking it quickly into my pocket. I shake out the long half of my hair with my fingers, feeling a relieving rush of air against my scalp.

He smiles. “That’s better.” He holds out his hand and I slip mine into it, my heart skipping at the touch of his fingers. We keep walking.

“Apparently, it’s not always like this,” says Sargo. “So hot, I mean. Most of the year, it rains.”

My mouth falls open. “Rains?”

He nods. “One of the only places left in the world where it still does. All the time, apparently. I’ve been told that if I have the chance to get out of here before that starts, I probably should.”

We walk back through the harbor toward one of the main gates, and when we pop out of it onto the street, I realize with a jolt that this city is way more than I bargained for. Despite everything I’ve seen in Brume, Alluvium, and Grike…nothing could have prepared me for this.

Towering apartments made of stained yellow stucco rise all around us, their open windows full of lines of drying laundry. The street is packed with electric vehicles, sitting end to end and side by side, so close they’re nearly touching. All of them honking, all of their drivers shouting and waving angry fists. Bikes, tuk-tuks, and pedestrians weave skillfully in and out of the densely aligned traffic. The noise, the crowd, the smell—tar and metal, and sweat, and about ten different kinds of cooking—overpowers me.

The edges of the street, where I imagine we’re supposed to walk, are so crowded with stalls and people that the best we can manage is a slow crawl, weaving through gaps so narrow that I have to turn sideways to pass between them. Everyone seems to be shouting. Vendors behind stalls chant repetitive sales pitches. People in EVs flag down sellers weaving on bikes between their vehicles, then lean out of their windows to buy fruit, water, and little bags of red snacks that look dangerously spicy.

Sargo again takes my hand in both of his and leads me down a side street. We’re plunged into a blissfully cool, narrow passageway that is marginally less crowded and noisy. At the end of the alley, he turns right and leads me along another crowded street, bordered on the left side by a narrow river. The river is as packed with boats as the street is packed with EVs. Skiffs, little row boats and pontoons fight their way around each other, some so loaded down with passengers that they seem to be close to sinking.

“Most of the city is like this,” Sargo says, pointing over the heads of the crowd around us, one hand still wrapped around mine. “A lot of the streets are canals.”

“Why?”

“Flooding. The city used to be right on the edge of the canal that connected the Atlantic and the Pacific—before it was the Central American Strait. As the Salt started to rise, the city kept flooding, and they kept moving the limits of it back, away from the water. But the Salt kept rising. Eventually, they just embraced it.”

The street opens up and the crowd disperses a little. We’re no longer shouldering our way through people. Sargo gives me a tug to pull me alongside him so we’re walking side by side. He twists his fingers through mine and smiles at me sideways.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

He wiggles his eyebrows. “To my tía’s house.”

“Your what?”

“I found a relative here. An aunt. She was Mama Marlin’s sister. She’s been showing me some things—teaching me about her side of the family. Making me bolillos. She’s a great cook.” He looks suddenly guilty. “Uh—I told her about you. I hope that’s okay.”

“Told her what?”

He winks. “That you were my student, and that you kidnapped me and almost got me killed by pirates. That you’re going to be the savior of humanity and you’re wanted by the world’s biggest corporation for questioning.”

My heart stalls and I stop dead in my tracks.

He turns with a grin. “I’m kidding. I just told her you’re my friend and that you’re…pretty cool.”

We make our way along the water’s edge. Wrought iron fences separate the houses from the street. I note that, despite the city’s obvious wealth, every home still has a veg patch out front—although some of the veg is so foreign I don’t recognize it. Sargo stops in front of a cream-colored house. Bright pink flowers spill from boxes on the windowsills and the front yard is so dense with knee-high greens that the small stone path we take from the gate to the blue front door is nearly invisible.

Sargo knocks three times, and the door swings open to reveal a tiny, heavyset brown-skinned woman with black, asymmetrically cut hair. The underside of her hair is shaved in a way that looks much more sophisticated and intentional than my half buzzed hackjob. Her well-painted eyebrows and elaborately made-up eyes and lips tell me she’s someone who’s either never tried to hide or is always hiding. She looks to be about Mama K’s age, with quick, discerning eyes that take me in with slight suspicion before landing on Sargo with a bright smile.

“Sobrino!”

“Hola, Tía.” He grins and turns to me. “This is Bird.”

Her eyes fix on me again, warm this time. “Hola Bird, me llamo Khala. Mucho gusto.”

“Mucho gusto!” I cry, delighted to remember one of the phrases Locuaz taught me on our long passage to Île Tor.

“Ah!” Her eyes brighten. “Hablas la lengua?”

“Uh—” My smile falters as the extent of my knowledge of the language is exhausted. I shrug weakly. “No…?”

She smiles. “Está bien, no me importa.” She steps back, opening the door. “Adelante!”

“Don’t worry about the language barrier,” Sargo says quietly to me as we step across the threshold. “I think you can get a patch for your chip that does translation, but that kind of seems like cheating so I’ve just been trying to learn. Most of the time we don’t really understand what the other is saying. It’s been a lot of hand gestures and talking too loud.”

I drop my voice to a whisper as we follow the woman down a cool hallway. “So, is her name Tía, or…?”

“No, ‘Tía’ means ‘Auntie.’ Her name is Khala.”

At the end of the hallway, we step into a bright, open living room. The polished stone floor is cluttered with busts, sculptures, and several broken, twisted objects that appear at first glance to be junk, but which, on closer inspection, turn out to be art. Each wall is painted a different, bright color and cluttered with paintings. Several easels stand at random intervals throughout the room, and paint-spattered canvas cloths cover most of the furniture. The far wall is completely dominated by a floor-to-ceiling window and a set of doors that lead onto a balcony overlooking the canal.

Sargo steps around me, dropping my hand, which I only now realize he had still been holding.

I turn to Khala. “Are you an artist?”

She nods. “¡Sí! Estas,” she gestures at the paintings on the walls, “son mias.” She turns to Sargo. “Tu amiga es muy bonita. Puedo ver por qué te gusta ella.”

With a wink, she steps around him. I raise questioning eyebrows at him for a translation, but he just shrugs. Khala crosses to a doorway in the far wall and turns to us.

“Quierien comer?”

“Now that I understand.” Sargo turns to me, grinning. “You want to stay for lunch?”

Khala fills us with empanadas, bolillos, pupusas, salsas, and so much meat that eventually I have to use both hands to physically push away the plates she offers me.

“No, gracias,” I say emphatically, utilizing the only other word I remember from Locuaz.

She frowns as she appraises what I’m sure must look, to her, like a very underfed body. “Eres demasiada delgada, chalaca.”

I perk up. Locuaz used to call me chalaca. Among many other things.

“What is chalaca?” I ask.

Khala nods, dabbing her mouth with a napkin and holding up a finger as she finishes swallowing her last bite. Then she stands and strides across the room to a painting on the wall. Three skeletons wearing enormous hats adorned with garlands of flowers dance hand in hand under a purple night sky and yellow moon.

She points to a skeleton. “Chalaca.” Then she points at me. “Chalaca.”

Next to me, I can feel Sargo’s shoulders shaking with silent laughter. I fold my arms.

“Yeah, yeah, very funny.”

We leave Khala’s as the sun is beginning to tilt past its midday point, and walk back through the city, Sargo pointing out things he’s found, and teaching me words he’s learned. For dessert, we buy sliced fruit coated in salt and chili powder from a street vendor. By the time we get back to Panga, the sun is halfway below the horizon. We climb onto the bow and sit in the sail bag together to watch it disappear.

As the last rays slip out of sight, I feel him brush a stray hair from the side of my face, and realize he’s watching me.

“I like your hair,” he says.

I blush and cover the short half of my hair with my hand. “I don’t know. It looks kind of ridiculous.”

"I think it’s badass.”

He gently pulls my hand away and strokes one finger down the shaved side of my head and around the curve of my ear. My skin prickles as I watch his eyes following the path of his finger in amused, contemplative silence.

“What’s funny?”

He shrugs. “I think you’re the only person I know who could end up with a haircut like this on accident.”

He grins.

The slant of his mouth steals my breath, and before I know what I’m doing, I’ve leaned in and captured it with my own. His lips tighten in surprise, and I sense a moment’s hesitation before they soften and he sinks into me with an almost inaudible sigh.

A breeze comes in off the harbor and I shiver, and when Sargo's lips respond to the shudder by smiling, the shiver blooms, goosebumps rippling like raindrops along the skin of my arms and shoulders.

"Cold?" he says.

A bolt of desire arcs to the center of my chest. I grip the back of his neck. "No."

His lips feel so good. So soft, the taste exactly like I remember. Mint and salt and citrus. The smell of sand and fogwood. I fist my hand in his shirt, my skin heating. And then I’m unfolding myself, climbing onto him, pinning him into the sailbag and straddling him on my knees. I feel his hands comes to my hips and use his shirt to pull him closer, wanting that smell all over me, wanting the hard strength of his chest against mine.

It’s been so long since I’ve felt him against me like this. Since I’ve smelled and tasted him. Since the day we kissed in the galley after we sailed together in Grike. The memories make my head buzz. The night we spent on his bed. The roughness in his voice. The way he ground against me and the way I arched into his hands. The way he said, "Come for me, Howsley." We could become those people again; drunk on each other, out of control.

I start to open the top button of his shirt. I don’t care that we're outside. I don’t care that someone might see. I want to touch his soft, brown chest, and press my lips to the side of his neck. I want to taste his skin and graze my teeth along the shelf of his collarbone. I get the top button open and move my fingers to the next—

Suddenly, his hands are around my wrists. He pulls his lips from mine just enough to say, “Bird—”

I freeze and pull back. His eyes are bright and hard, the pupils enormous. His chest rises and falls.

“What?” I say. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing!” He cups my face with firm, trembling hands. “You’re not doing anything wrong. I just…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have started this.”

"You didn't…"

He closes his eyes and exhales. "Then…you shouldn't have."

Confusion sears my chest. “Why not?”

“I just don’t—I don’t think this is a good idea.”

The confusion tightens to pain. “What do you mean? You don’t…want to?”

“No. I mean—yes, I do.” He grips my face tighter. “God, I—really, really do.” He draws and releases a long breath. “I do,” he repeats. “Want to.”

He gently pries my fingers from where they still hold the half-opened button of his shirt. Then he pulls my hand to his groin, pressing it flat against the front of his pants. I feel the thick hardness of him straining there and catch my breath. His eyes burn.

“See?” His voice is low. “You see what you do to me? I can’t stop thinking about it.”

I stare back into his hazy, lust-filled eyes, my heart humming high in my throat. I want to tell him that I’ve thought about him too. That some nights I’ve thought about the way he told me to come for him. Growled it. Like he had been waiting to tell me to do that for a long, long time. Sometimes, I can only come when I imagine he’s telling me to do it. Sometimes, I imagine him making me beg for it.

But for some reason, I can’t say any of that out loud to him. I feel inexplicably nervous. Shy. Touching him is one thing. But…talking about it is…different.

I sit back a little, confused, letting my weight settle onto his thighs.

“If you want me, then why…why not?”

“Because I don’t want that to be all this is,” he says, “and it seems like every time we see each other now, we…lose control. I lose control. I’m not…myself.”

“But we haven’t seen each other,” I counter. A needy, petulant tone creeps into my voice. I don’t like the sound of it and swallow my next words, watching him, my hand still pressed to the front of his pants, where I can’t help but notice he’s still hard.

“Right, but that’s…kind of the point,” he says, shifting under me, pulling himself up a little. “We haven’t seen each other in…a while. It just feels like we should hang out more first. Talk, maybe? Don't you think we have…more to talk about?”

I fight back a sigh. I don’t want to talk. If we talk, we might fight. I don't want to fight. I want to touch him. I want him to touch me. We don't fight when we're touching each other. We can't fight when our mouths are sealed together.

I lean in again, but he pulls back almost imperceptibly. I stop, barely touching my lips to his. I feel his breath on them. I feel him taut beneath me, coiled and trembling. A sharp ache seizes my chest. Like I’m about to cry or about to scream. I squeeze him gently and he moans.

“Please, Bird,” he whispers.

Please what? Please do it? Please stop? Does he even know what he wants? His eyes are watching mine like he doesn't know what to do and needs me to tell him. Like he’s afraid of what he might do if I push him any further. Like I'm suddenly supposed to be the responsible one. I hold his gaze a moment longer, feeling suddenly powerful. Heady with it. I know in that moment that if I wanted to, I could make him forget his reservations. I could push him over that edge and turn him into that wild, thoughtless animal again. It would be easy.

But it wouldn’t be fun. It would hurt him. I would hurt him if I did that.

I close my eyes and tilt my forehead to his, breathing out hard through my nose. I lift my hand and settle it gently on his shoulder, and feel his hand come up to cover it. He relaxes beneath me and tilts his forehead back against mine. We sit like that for a long time, our shared breath slowly calming, his body uncoiling, the tight ache deep in my core gradually unwinding and ebbing away. I open my eyes and look at him. His eyes, just an inch from mine, are closed.

“Okay,” I say, my voice hollow. “We can talk.”

“Thank you,” he breathes, his voice so soft it’s barely a whisper.

“But after that—”

“After that,” he says, lifting his hands and sliding them into my hair, pulling my forehead harder against his, “we’re going to do whatever you want.”

I pull away and settle back into the sail bag next to him, folding my arms, feeling my heart slow, my breath return. I try not to scowl. He said he missed me. He said he wished I was here. He messaged me, for flog’s sake. He held my hand. He touched my hair.

I always thought Sargo Paz was smarter than me for taking his time with things. For being thoughtful and careful and not just blindly following his gut. But now I’m starting to think he just doesn’t know what he wants.

Over the water, the flat, red disc of the moon is rising. The sounds of the busy day have ebbed, and the stillness of the night is beginning to settle over the bay. Stars appear, faint and iridescent in the pale, lavender sky. Suddenly, Sargo squeezes my shoulder and sits up.

“I almost forgot!” He rolls sideways out of the sail bag so abruptly I have to stifle a laugh and jumps to his feet. “Stay right there.”

He dives toward the cockpit and disappears down the companionway steps. Moments later, he returns, carrying a small leather case, which he hands to me as he plops back into the sail bag.

“I got you something.”

Smiling quizzically, I take it. “You got me something?”

“Mhm.”

I squint sideways at him as I open the leather pouch and reach my hand in, my fingers closing around something cold and metal. As I pull it out, my blood freezes. It’s a sextant. The exact make and model as the one Savage showed me how to use that night.

I swallow, shoving away the scent memory of grog and ash and pineapple that scrambles back into my nose, trying to arrange my features into something that I hope resembles a pleasantly surprised smile.

“Oh! Wow…”

“I know you already have that one that you borrowed on Île Tor,” he says quickly, “but I figured you’ll have to give that one back at some point.”

“It’s great,” I lie, turning it over in my hands. It’s a nice gift, I tell myself. Just say thank you. Sargo holds out his hand for it, and I hand it over, almost relieved at no longer having to hold it.

“This one’s more modern anyway,” he says, adjusting the arm and putting the lens to his eye. He points it up at the sky and tweaks the mirror on the side, finding the moon. “Easier to adjust, more accurate.” He lowers it. “I’ve been practicing with it a bit. I actually started teaching myself in Grike, before I—”

He stops abruptly, drops his gaze, and fiddles with the sextant in his hands.

Before you left.

An unpleasant silence settles between us, and bitter resentment creeps around the edges of it. I’ve been ignoring it all day, but Sargo’s right. We do have more to talk about.

“Sorry I left,” he says quietly.

I stare straight ahead, my lips pressed into a tight line. He seems to be waiting for me to say something back. When I don’t, he says, “I was just angry. And confused. And…disappointed.”

“Disappointed? What right do you have to be disappointed in me?” I purse my lips again. “I’m not going to apologize for something that I don’t think was wrong.”

“I know. I knew that as soon as you told me. And it…it wasn’t wrong, I just…I don’t know. I was confused.”

“So you left?” My voice is sharper than I mean it to be and his head snaps up. I keep my eyes fixed on the thin, orange moon, fighting the tremor in my voice. “You left me there. At a lab run by a company whose motives I told you I didn’t fully trust. With people I didn’t know.”

“I knew them,” he counters, his voice slightly defiant. “I wouldn’t have left you there if I thought it was dangerous. I trusted Zenith. I still do.”

“Well, I don’t! Anyway, that isn’t the point.”

“Then what’s the point?” His tone hardens, matching mine.

“You always leave!” My voice threatens to crack and I force myself not to let it. “That day in Naze, when I wanted to rescue Malarkey, you walked away. That night on the Kingfisher, after dinner, you bailed.”

His voice edges into exasperation. “On the Kingfisher you were drunk and in Naze you were acting like a lunatic and I was tired of arguing with you!”

“So you abandoned me?! In a random Settlement in the middle of the Turf? On a Reckoner ship full of murderers? You just…left me? At a lab thousands of miles away from my home?”

“You make it impossible to stay!” He tosses the sextant aside and rubs his face with his hands. “You make rash decisions that put my life in danger! You screw up and then you expect me to clean up your mess! You turned me into a fugitive in my hometown. You get drunk and…sleep with murderers!”

I glare at him, my mouth falling open. “It is not your business who I sleep with. And for your information, I haven’t been drunk in two weeks. I’m working on my problems. What are you doing?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“How long are you going to hide out in Pocosín with your Auntie eating bolillos?” I snap. “The only reason I stayed at Zenith at all was for you! Because you believed in what they were doing! You told me it was important. That we should stay and help. And then you just left!”

I climb out of the sail bag and stand, whirling to face him.

“You need to make up your mind about what it is you want. You need to make up your mind about what you want with me. You messaged me today, remember? You told me you missed me.” I take a breath, trying to slow my heart and failing. “You know, I used to think you did things slowly and carefully because you were smart. Now I think you’re just scared.”

He opens his mouth to speak, his eyes furious.

But before he can say anything, I vanish.

chapter

ten

I LAND by the saltnut tree, my heart hammering against my sternum and my blood roiling. In my blind anger, I briefly wonder if I've made a mistake and blipped to the actual Naze. Then I see Fife's feet, swinging from a branch above me, silhouetted against a stark, white sky. Malarkey gallops out of the void with her head down, tail spinning.

"You're back," says Fife, peeling a piece of bark off the branch between her fingers and flicking it at me.

I catch Malarkey's head between my hands, staggering backward at the sheer force of her barreling into me. Squatting beside her, I squeeze her ears, taking deep breaths, saying nothing.

"You get drunk and sleep with murderers."

How dare he?

"Something wrong?" Fife's voice is detached, her attention still on the branch in her hands.

I breathe out hard through my nose. "Just…Sargo."

"What's Sargo?"

Fife doesn't lift her eyes from her fingers, which are still lazily and methodically stripping bark. Sometimes I forget that Fife has no knowledge of the world beyond what she experienced during her short life in Naze. She doesn't know who Sargo is. She doesn't really know anything about me.

And maybe I like it that way.

Fife doesn't know anything about Sargo and that's fine with me. Let him stay out there, in that other world. This place is just for me, Fife and Malarkey.

I press my forehead to Malarkey's as she wiggles with happiness and tries to maneuver her tongue around my face.

"No one," I tell Fife, giving Malarkey’s ears one last squeeze and standing. "Not important."

I pull myself up onto the lowest branch of the tree and scoot along it until I'm sitting next to Fife. She pulls another branch from the hemp sack she has between her knees and hands it to me. I channel my rage into my fingers as I dig under a loose corner of bark and start peeling.

We work in silence for some time, nothing in my ears but the sound of peeling wood, cracking twigs, and Malarkey sniffing around in the sand below us. My thoughts begin to dissipate into the still, peaceful quiet. It's a repetitive task, stripping bark. Meditative. Soothing.

Like helping Sargo work on Panga used to be soothing.

I huff through my nose and heave my finished branch into the dirt below. No, I tell myself. Not like that.

I don't have to think about Sargo here. I don't have to think about Rav, or Zenith, or Savage, or Shale or any of it. They can't follow me here. No one can. I don't have to think about the past or the future. I don't have to think about anything but stripping the next piece of bark off the next branch. Easy. No colossal mistakes to be made. No people to hurt.

"You're dropping all the bark."

Fife's voice pulls me out of my seething thoughts. I blink. I've been absent-mindedly throwing the bark away into the dirt below us.

"Sorry." I toss the branch and pull a new one from the sack.

Fife continues to peel bark away from her branch with nimble fingers. "How long will you stay this time?"

I sigh. "I don't know. I’m not supposed to do this anymore."

Fife looks up. "Do what?"

"Hang out here."

"Why?"

"Rav doesn't think it's safe."

“Who’s Rav?”

“My—” God, so much to explain. So much that I don’t want to bring here. “A friend. She…looks out for me.”

"Why doesn’t she think it’s safe?"

"She thinks I'll get stuck."

Fife turns her attention back to the branch. "What would be wrong with that?"

I frown. “Because I can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t—I don’t belong here.”

"Where do you belong?"

I hesitate. Good question. Where do I belong?

I haven't felt like I belonged in Brume for a long time. A city full of artifacts from a life I left behind long ago. I don't belong in Grike, where I’ll just get poked and prodded by Dr. Lysett, or in Alluvium, where Shale's motivations for inviting me to his wedding are suspect at best and malicious at worst. And after today, I certainly don't feel like I belong in Pocosín with Sargo.

"You should just stay here," says Fife, turning back to her branch. "You like it here."

"It's not that simple…"

"Why not?"

“Well…” I pick at my branch. “You're dead, for one thing.”

She shrugs. "So?"

"This isn't my world."

"How is this not your world?” she says. “You're in it, aren't you?"

I turn the branch over in my hands, a strange, cold feeling starting to creep from the base of my skull and down my spine. Stay here? In the dimension of the dead? Something about that feels deeply, deeply wrong. But something about it…doesn't. I do like it here. It's quiet. Nothing can follow me here.

I shiver, trying to shake the creepy, unsettling chill crawling over me. I toss aside the branch and hop down from the tree.

"Where are you going?" says Fife.

"Nowhere. I don't know. I just need to think."

"Think here."

"I'm going home."

Fife sighs and sets aside her branch. "You always leave."

Malarkey bumps the back of my hand with her nose and I reach down to scratch her behind the ear.

"I'll be back."

Fife's exasperated sigh fades into the ether as I disappear.

____________________

A week later, I sit on Rav's couch, still picking at the edges of that conversation. All week, a shadow followed me everywhere I went. A creeping, unsettling feeling that I couldn't shake. It had something to do with a realization I made when talking to Fife: that I could very well stay there if I wanted to, and there would be nothing anyone could do about it.

Worse than that, though, was the realization that gradually dawned on me as I dragged myself through the monotony of the last seven days. Now that I’m not spending every day practicing blipping, there is very little for me to do in Brume. I don’t even have any friends in the city. I spent the week wandering listlessly, struggling to fill my days. I thought about blipping back to Pocosín to find Locuaz, but I still can't bring myself to face her. I don’t want to see how happy and fulfilled she is doing good work with Yote and the Neozapas. She's just going to ask me questions and then I'll have to talk to her about my feelings and she'll get concerned and just…

Ugh. No.

I thought about going to Alluvium to find Shale, maybe tell him I’ll come to his wedding. But deep down, I still don't trust him. And the only other option open to me is Grike—back to Dr. Lysett and her creepy, invasive tests.

All of it sounds awful.

“Bird?”

I snap my eyes off the floor, suddenly aware that Rav has been talking.

"What?”

“You seem distant.”

I sit up a little, shaking a hand through my hair. It at least feels good not to be wearing that stupid hat all the time. I guess that’s one good thing that came out of my visit to Pocosín.

I reach for my mug, then remember that Rav didn’t make tea today, so I sit back, picking at my nails instead.

“What’s up?” says Rav.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Seems like quite a lot of nothing.”

I flick my eyes to hers and back to my nails. “Yeah. A lot of nothing.”

She clears her throat and uncrosses and recrosses her legs. She’s wearing a skirt today, which is unusual. “Feel like talking about it?”

“Not really.”

I hear her stifle a small sigh. She taps her temple and inputs something into her biochip, then folds her hands in her lap. A long, long silence fills the room. I know what she’s doing. She’s trying to make me uncomfortable enough to want to fill that silence. I’m not playing that game today.

I continue to alternate between picking at my nails and glaring at the floor, until she says, “Okay then. Well, I guess we might as well end here today.”

I look up. “What?”

“There’s no point sitting around wasting time. I have plenty of other things I could be doing.” She stands and crosses to the door.

I scowl at her. “What things?”

“I’m not obligated to disclose that to you.” She opens the door. I fold my arms and don’t move. This is another trick. She’s trying to make me want to stay by pretending she doesn’t care if I go. Pretty sure there’s a term for that.

Reverse psychology.

That’s it.

Rav arches an eyebrow. “Well?”

I look her up and down and notice she’s wearing heels in addition to the skirt. Very unusual. I’ve never seen Rav in anything but flat slippers and soft pants. In fact, if you had asked me last week, I would have been hard-pressed to imagine her ever leaving this house. The fact that Rav has a life outside our sessions strikes me as bizarre. Like trying to imagine Fife outside the dimension of the dead.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Why are you wearing those shoes?”

She folds her arms and doesn’t answer.

“You have a date or something?” Her lips press into a hard line. I smirk. “It is a date.”

“Are we talking, then?” Her voice is crisp and professional. “Because if we are, then I’m afraid we’ll need to talk about you, not me.”

“Who’s it with?”

She shifts her weight from one hip to the other, eyeing me with pursed lips. I return my attention to my nails.

“If you tell me who it’s with, I’ll tell you about my week.”

Rav's professional visage doesn’t crack. “I don’t engage with bargaining or manipulation, Bird.”

I roll my eyes minutely. “Fine. We can talk.”

The door closes and her heels tap smartly over the wood floor as she returns to her chair.

“If you must know,” she says as she sits, straightening her skirt, “it’s with an old college friend.”

“The physicist?”

She eyes me for a long moment, then adjusts her spex and says, “Yes, the physicist.”

“Rav, you tricky minx.”

"Alright. That’s enough about me. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

I sigh and let my head flop back against the couch. Rav sits, patient and still.

“I see you’ve stopped wearing your hat.”

I address the ceiling. “Yeah.”

“What brought that on?”

“I don’t know.” I lift my hands and let them drop in a half-shrug. “Just figured you were right. Zenith probably can’t trap me if I can blip wherever I want.” I stare at the ceiling for a few more moments. “I went to Pocosín.”

“Pocosín?” Her voice betrays no small amount of alarm. “What’s in Pocosín?”

Another long sigh leaks out of me. “Just some guy.”

“Ah.” I hear the smile in Rav’s voice and it irks me.

I continue to talk to the ceiling. “We had a fight. He threw a bunch of shit in my face about stuff I did. I threw a bunch of shit in his face about stuff he did. It was just a big pile of shit in everyone’s faces.”

“I see.”

“But then…" I sigh again. "I started thinking about it…and he’s right. I did do stupid, shitty stuff. And no matter how hard I try to change, that stuff will always be there."

"Those things are in the past, Bird. You have to let them go and move on."

"Okay, but what about what you were saying the other day? About how it’s not a linear path and there will be setbacks…it’s like, how many setbacks? How non-linear is the path? How many more stupid, shitty things am I going to do? Am I ever going to stop doing stupid, shitty things? Because right now, it kind of feels like I can't escape them. Because I can't escape me.”

I sink back and pick at my nails again.

“Then I came back to Brume and…all week it was like ‘what am I even doing here?’ I don’t belong here anymore. I don’t go to school here. I don’t have a job. I don’t have any friends. I guess I thought maybe if I went to Pocosín…” I shrug, chewing my thumbnail. “But that didn’t really work out. I don’t know. I was so focused on all this,” I gesture around at Rav’s living room, “the blips, and the symptoms and managing stuff and getting better. And now it’s like…now what?”

Rav draws and releases a long breath. She sits forward in her chair and studies her hands for a moment. Finally, she says, “Your work isn’t done, Bird. Remember I said it would be a lifelong process? A daily practice? You want to know what now? That’s what’s now. You just keep going.”

“That’s so…boring.”

“Sometimes.”

I pick a chunk off the corner of my pinkie nail and a dot of blood appears. Shoving my hands under my legs with a huff, I fix Rav with an impatient stare.

She returns the look with an equally patient smile. "You're doing good work, Bird. Now you just have to keep doing it." She taps the side of her head and makes a few notes. “Anything else?”

“I…went back to see Fife and Malarkey.”

She doesn’t move, but I sense a tiny stiffening of Rav's posture.

“And how was that?” she says.

“It was fine."

Rav watches me carefully. "And…?"

"I don't know…while I was there, I started thinking…"

I hesitate, and Rav uses the pause to swoop in.

"I know I can't tell you what to do, Bird, but I feel like I need to impress upon you the risk of doing that. We don't really know what that place is. To the best of our knowledge, it's a place where people go when they die. It's a place where we know a living thing got stuck and died."

"But why would it be so bad for me to get stuck there?” I blurt. "What if I decided I wanted to stay? I like it there. It’s peaceful. I don’t have to worry about screwing things up or being an asshole. There's nothing for me here. There's nothing for me anywhere. I have nothing to do and nowhere to go. Everything is empty. Except my head: my head is full of noise."

She watches me quietly. “What kind of noise?"

"Bad memories. Stupid things I've done. It just feels like…what’s the point? What’s the point in ‘just keeping going’ if my own head is so awful I can't stand to be inside it? What's the point if I'm just going to screw everything up anyway? Why not just blip away to hell and never come back?”

Rav’s face goes deadly serious. The next thing she says is slow and deliberate.

“How often have you had thoughts like that this week?”

I shrug, picking at my nails again. “Every day, I guess. It kind of feels like a cloud, following me around.”

She adjusts her spex. “And have you ever had thoughts like this before?”

“Like what?”

“A feeling that there’s nothing here for you, or that you would be better off not in this world."

“I don’t know. Yeah I guess I used to think about it at school sometimes.”

“Have you thought about acting on these thoughts?”

“Well, yeah…I mean, like I just told you. All this week I just wanted to blip into hell with Malarkey and Fife and never come back.”

She sits up, taking a breath. “Bird…have you considered that doing that—blipping into the world of the dead and never coming back—could be construed as tantamount to suicide?”

The creeping, unsettling thing that's been following me around all week steps out of a corner of my mind and comes into the light. The thing that's been standing behind a curtain in my head all week, watching me. I couldn’t bring myself to see it.

Suicide.

I avoid Rav’s eyes, searching for something invisible on the floor.

“Have you thought about how doing something like that might affect the people in your life here?” she asks. “Your moms? Your friend in Pocosín?”

“Not really,” I mumble.

“Don’t you think they would be pretty upset?”

“I guess.”

“Maybe as upset as you were when Malarkey died?”

I shrug. It doesn’t seem possible to me that anyone could be as upset as I was when Malarkey died.

In the corner of my eye I see Rav inputting something into her chip. Then she says, “Have you made a plan for how you might do this?”

I frown and look up at her. “A plan?”

She nods.

“I don’t really make plans. But…I don’t really need one, do I? It’s pretty easy. I could do it right now if I wanted to.”

She sits forward quickly in her chair. “Let’s not…consider that an option, okay?"

She reaches to her throat to adjust her scarf, finds it missing, and clasps her hands in her lap instead.

“I should tell you, Bird, that the things you’re telling me are the kinds of things that would oblige me to break client confidentiality.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I would need to alert your moms that you’ve been having these thoughts. Depending on the severity and frequency with which you’ve been having them, or continue to have them, I may also be obligated to alert authorities.”

A small spike of panic stabs the inside of my chest. “What authorities?”

“I’m not saying I’m going to do that.” She lifts a hand to calm me. “I don’t want to alarm you. But this is a pretty serious matter. I'm afraid we may have gotten sidetracked with the QMTP stuff. At the end of the day, I'm a psychiatrist, not a physicist. I want you to understand that I have to take this seriously. It’s an important part of my job to make sure you’re safe.”

“I am safe. Don’t call anyone.”

I realize I’m on my feet. Rav stands too, her eyes fixed on me.

“I’m serious, Rav.” I take a step sideways, tripping against the couch. “You can’t call authorities. What authorities?”

Zenith? Somewhere in the carousel of thoughts starting to spin around my brain, the specter of Zenith rears its ugly head. What other authorities are there? Don’t they basically run everything?

Rav stands very still, her hands raised in front of her, as though approaching a wild animal. “Bird, please sit down. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“Well, you did, Rav.”

“I just want to be honest with you.”

I barely hear her. Inside my head, alarm bells are clanging. Authorities. Tell my moms. No. No way. I take a couple more steps sideways, maneuvering myself toward the door, feeling trapped.

What are you doing? says a voice in my head. Why are you sidling around like a cornered animal? You don’t need to get out the door, idiot, you can teleport.

Rav sees the realization cross my face. Her eyes widen. “Don't, Bird—”

But I’m already gone.

chapter

eleven

AS RAV’S office dissolves around me and disappears into light and static, the thought that comes to me is Île Tor.

I’m not sure why it’s the Reckoner island that pops into my head in that moment of blind panic, when escaping Rav’s—escaping Brume—is the only thing that matters. Maybe because it’s far away. The furthest place I can think of from Brume, Grike or Pocosín. A beautiful turquoise jewel in the middle of the Salt where it would take Zenith at least a week to get to me.

I reappear in near-darkness, tripping and catching myself with an outstretched hand against a rough, cold wall. I let my eyes adjust and look around.

This is very clearly not Île Tor.

A small wave of panic rolls through me. I gulp down air and try to suppress it.

Where are you, Bird? Figure it out.

The space I’m in is small and dark. Closed in on two sides by cinder block walls, and a heavy door directly behind me. Ahead of me, dim light comes around a corner that evidently leads into some kind of larger space. The sounds of a busy market reach me around the corner. Clattering tools, a roaring hubbub of voices, the jangle of music—strings and percussion. Everything sounds close, pinned in somehow; muffled. The smell of damp, cool earth reaches my nose.

I take two tentative steps, laying one hand on the cinder block wall, and peek one eye around the corner. To my left and right stretches a long, high-ceilinged tunnel, crowded with market stalls and people, lit by a hodgepodge of mismatched lights that cast a kaleidoscope of different colors onto the walls and bare dirt floor.

Reckoner’s Row.

My heart ticks up. The only other time I've been to this place was when Savage and his crew kidnapped Sargo and I on our way to Alluvium. It's a dangerous underground market full of sketchy people, weapons, and drugs. I was aiming for somewhere safe. This doesn’t feel remotely safe. I was trying to blip to the Reckoner island; I wasn’t trying to blip to Reckoners. I blow out a long breath, stepping back from the corner and pressing my back to the cool wall.

No one’s seen me yet. All I need to do is get myself somewhere else. But where?

A series of pings ricochet through my skull and a flurry of messages come through. I swipe the first one open.

>>> BIRD WHERE ARE YOU?

>>> IT’S RAV.

>>> PLEASE TELL ME YOU ARE OKAY. YOU DON’T HAVE TO COME BACK. JUST SEND ME A MESSAGE WHENEVER YOU GET THIS.

A twinge of guilt goes through me. I shouldn’t have run out on Rav like that. She was just doing her job.

>>> I’M FINE, I send. JUST NEEDED SOME SPACE TO THINK.

A few moments later, I get

>>> OKAY. THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME KNOW. I DIDN’T MEAN TO SPOOK YOU. BUT I DO NEED YOU TO REALIZE THAT THE THINGS YOU’VE TOLD ME ARE…SOMEWHAT TROUBLING. I CAN’T JUST PRETEND I HAVEN’T HEARD THEM. I HOPE YOU UNDERSTAND.

>>> OKAY, RAV. I UNDERSTAND. SORRY I RAN OUT ON YOU.

She begins to type another message, but I tap my temple to close Messenger before it sends. I pull my hood up and step around the corner into the Row, shoving my hands into my pockets and turning my gaze to the floor. The heaviness of our conversation settles around me like a suffocating cloak.

Is Rav right? Would blipping into the land of the dead and staying there forever be tantamount to suicide? Have I spent the last week contemplating suicide and been too afraid to admit it to myself?

I make my way along the Row in a foggy daze, lost in thought, idly browsing the stalls. They are strewn with all manner of things: veg and canned food, clothes, toys. Weapons. Slates and spare parts. Solar panels, desalinators. Black market goods. The words Zenith Biotech are everywhere, along with the names of other Big Four companies.

My eye lands on a table full of knives, machetes, cleavers and axes, all glinting under the multicolored lights. I pause, stretching out a finger to touch the black rubber handle of a burnished stainless steel hunting knife. Definitely not something that’s legal to sell—rubber has been outlawed for civilian use for well over a century. Not really thinking about what I’m doing, I close my hand around the handle and pick it up. It’s heavier than I expected it to be. I turn it over, examining the blade.

“Careful. You might cut yourself.”

My blood goes still. The icy point of a different blade presses into the side of my throat. I freeze with the knife still in my hand, my spine stiffening. I recognize that voice.

"What do you want, Fetch?"

The girl twists the point of her blade against the side of my neck.

“That was some stunt you pulled in Alluvium. You owe us a lot of coin.”

Right. I had almost forgotten about my escape from the Kingfisher. The flat-out run through the streets of Alluvium the morning after I had that encounter with Savage. Fetch chased me down outside Shale’s warehouse. She would have killed me if Shale hadn’t intervened.

I tighten my grip around the handle of the knife. “I don't have your coin.”

Fetch tsks in my ear. "That's a shame."

Something inside me shifts. A flicker of irritation that hardens to anger in my chest. There was a time when the sound of Fetch's voice in my ear would have turned my insides to water. When my only response to the sound of that voice and the feel of a knife in the side of my neck would have been sheer, blind panic. But that was before I literally went through hell. That was before I ran out of things in this world to care about. That was before I knew how to blip.

I stand a little taller, pulling my shoulders back. "You don't scare me anymore," I mutter.

"Oh yeah?" Her hand grips me hard around the bicep. "And why's that?"

I scoff, tossing the knife back onto the table and preparing to blip. But a sudden realization stops me cold. Fetch’s grip is hard around my arm. What happens to Fetch if I teleport while she’s holding onto me? I’ve never teleported while I was touching someone else. Not since the day I killed Malarkey. What if I end up dragging Fetch through hell with me? What if she gets stuck? What if I arrive on the other side to find the eyes burned out of her head?

The grip around my arm tightens. “Why don’t we take a little trip to see the captain?” Fetch breathes into my ear. “See if you can't rustle up a little healthy fear of him.”

My mind begins to race. Do I really want Fetch dead? Do I want to be responsible for killing her? I may hate her with the fury of a thousand suns, but I can’t be responsible for killing her. Killing Malarkey was a mistake. If I blip with Fetch, knowing she might die…that would be murder. I can’t have her blood on my hands. I can’t be a murderer.

Fetch wheels me around by the arm as a trio I recognize emerges from the crowd. The massive, mohawked Goliath, rolling up their sleeves to reveal tattooed, alabaster forearms; lanky Red Bread, his mane of ginger hair and beard resplendent under the kaleidoscopic lights; and between them, the short, wiry figure of Jameson Briggs-Savage, pulling up the collar of his shabby black coat. He dips a tattooed hand into the pocket of that coat and retrieves a small silver dart. Clicking it on, he puts it to his lips, exhaling a plume of smoke that settles around me in a thick, ash-and-pineapple cloud.

Blurry images of the last night I saw him flash through my head: his wily face, his cabin, his bed. The feelings of guilt, confusion and anger that I’ve been shoving down since my fight with Sargo resurface like dead fish on the surface of a lake. But there’s something else in there too: an unexpected rush of nervous excitement. I suddenly remember how disarmingly handsome Savage is. The keen gray eyes. The ageless, sun-browned skin and scruffy blonde hair. The perpetual look of near-predatory, half-amused boredom.

The corner of his mouth twitches up. “Look what the tide dragged up.”

I school my features into a stony glare. “Nice to see you.”

“Is it?” He arches an eyebrow.

“No. Not really.” I glance left, into Goliath’s steely eyes. “Hey Goliath.”

They return my greeting with nothing more than an almost imperceptible incline of their square head. Of all the people in Savage’s crew, Goliath was the first one who ever showed me any measure of kindness. But it seems that kindness may have been exhausted when I bailed from the Kingfisher without paying for my passage last time I sailed with them.

Savage scratches at the blonde scruff under his chin. “Bit of luck running into you, Alluvium. If I recall correctly, you owe us quite a bit of coin.”

“We’ve covered that,” says Fetch from behind me, a note of impatience coloring her voice.

Savage’s eyes cut over my shoulder to her. For a split second, I see their relationship painted on his face as clear as day. Not a ship's captain considering whether or not to reprimand his first mate for her insubordinate tone, but a father who long ago gave up trying to reign in the strong-willed girl he somehow managed to raise this far. A father who already lost one daughter—Fetch’s sister—and may be secretly terrified of losing another.

His eyes return to mine as he evidently decides it isn't worth getting into it with Fetch here.

“Good," he says. "So we’re all on the same page, then.”

He casually pulls his butterfly knife from another pocket in his coat. As it snicks open, I glance at the patrons packed in tightly around us, wondering if someone might raise the alarm. But no one pays us any mind. This is Reckoner's Row, not Brume city center. A stabbing is probably just ‘Thursday’ to these folks.

Savage stops the knife in its open position and drags on the dart again. Slowly. Deliberately.

"What do you think we should do about this, then, Alluvium?" he says, smoke pouring from his nostrils and curling around his lean, filthy face. "I imagine we’re all eager to find a harmonious solution to this little situation."

I restrain an eye-roll. There was a time when his menacing tone would have sent me into a blind panic. But the inside of my head is utterly quiet. It's a strange feeling: the bone-chilling realization that I'm not scared of this man and his knife any more, because I have absolutely nothing to lose. I don't care if he kills me. I don't care whether I'm in this world or not. I've already been to hell. And for over a week now, I've been considering going back.

I regard the tattoos across Savage's knuckles as he tosses the knife between his hands. HOLD FAST.

Do it, I think. I dare you.

The knife stills. I raise my eyes to find him observing me carefully. He narrows his eyes then gestures with a tiny tick of his wrist.

"Step back, Fetch."

The grip around my arm tightens so painfully I almost yelp.

"What?" she snaps.

Savage closes the gap between us in a single step, bringing the scent of grog, smoke and pineapple right up against me.

“I said, step back,” he says, leering down his nose at me. "Alluvium and I are going to have a little chat."

A final twist around my arm and Fetch's grip releases. I glare up into Savage's face, our chests nearly touching. He presses the edge of his blade against my cheek.

"You don't seem afraid,” he says.

"I'm not."

"And why is that?"

"Maybe I decided death doesn't seem so bad after all."

He scoffs. "You think you know what it feels like to want to die?" he asks in a low voice. The cold edge of the blade glides softly down my cheek. "You have no idea."

The sharp prick of the point lands at my jawbone. Savage curls a lip, revealing the gap in his mouth where a tooth used to be.

"What happened, sweetheart? You got a taste of the real world and decided you didn't like it?"

“No. I went to hell and decided I prefer it there."

A flicker of amusement passes through his eyes. “Is that so?” He leans closer, putting his mouth against my ear, and whispers, “You don't know anything about hell."

"Maybe not as much as a man who lost his daughter there," I reply, quietly enough that only he can hear, "but I know some."

Savage pulls back, glaring at me. A terrifying silence stretches between us. I shouldn’t have said that.

"Where did you hear that?" he growls.

"I didn't—"

He flips the knife over and raises it in one smooth motion. I watch it happening like it's happening to someone else. Watch him draw the knife back and prepare to sink it into my throat.

And in that moment, I understand how I ended up in this murderer's bed. I couldn't put my finger on it before, but I see it now. I was drawn to this darkness. To this wretched, miserable soul who consistently fails to do the right thing. To another person who knows what it's like not to be strong or brave. Who knows what it's like not to do his best. Not to show up for the people that need him. Who knows what it’s like to be small, and selfish, and angry. Who has let darkness swallow him.

Savage is a monster, I think. But maybe, so am I.

And then, at the last possible second before the knife sinks into my neck, I blip.

____________________

I reappear in the alcove just off the Row, dark and dim, surrounded on all sides by close cinder block walls and stacked boxes.

I guess you didn't want to die after all, says some twisted, sarcastic part of my brain as I stumble and catch myself against the wall.

I choke in a lungful of musty, underground air and laugh out loud. My head spins. I reel in the giddy rush of adrenaline pouring through my veins. Some deeply rooted instinct must have kicked in. Some small part of me chose to live.

I sit heavily on a box while I wait for my heart to stop pounding, bracing my elbows on my knees and staring at the opposite wall.

Now what?

Does this mean I don’t want to end up dead, after all? Should I go back to Brume? Find Rav? Tell her there’s nothing to worry about? False alarm, Rav: turns out I’m not suicidal. I'm just a coward. A miserable coward who, when it came right down to it, didn’t have the guts for death. I guess I’ll just go back to wandering aimlessly, being an asshole, making stupid, shitty decisions and ruining people’s lives.

The adrenaline begins to ebb. My heart slows, and the fog settles over me again like haar. Somehow, I feel even worse than I did before.

I feel empty. Detached. Like a—what did Locuaz call it? An alma sin ataduras. A lost soul.

Where do people go when they don't want to be anywhere? Where do lost souls go to be the scum of the earth?

And then it hits me.

I blip back to Savage.

He stands with his knife still raised, his face a baffled mask of fury and fear, his other hand clutching at the air I disappeared from less than a minute before. As I reappear there, he reels backward. A few shouts go up from the crowd around us.

“What the hell is happening?!” Fetch’s voice demands over my shoulder.

Savage's eyes are wide. There is genuine fear in them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him truly afraid. It's grotesquely comical. His weight is on the back foot, as though he can’t decide whether to lunge at me or run.

“What is this?” he says in a low voice.

“A superpower,” I reply.

He takes a cautious step toward me, readjusting his grip around the knife. I let him prowl a slow circle around me, and meet his skeptical gaze again as he comes to a stop and faces me.

“A superpower,” he says.

"A superpower I thought you might find…valuable."

He shuffles the knife between his hands. "Valuable."

"Yes." I tilt my chin up. "I thought you might want to give me a job."

“What?” snaps Fetch.

Savage's eyes narrow. "A job doing what?"

“Whatever you need.”

“Captain—” Fetch begins, but Savage holds up a hand to silence her.

“This superpower…it’s what, exactly?”

In response, I blip over to Red, grab the axe from the loop around his belt, and blip back to Savage before Red has even realized what’s happening. I swing the axe onto my shoulder and grin. I’m actually starting to enjoy this.

“It’s your basic, run-of-the-mill teleportation. Traveling at light speed, popping up in unexpected places. That kind of thing.”

“And how would I find that useful?” Savage says.

I shrug. “Sneaking around. Getting through locked doors. Taking people by surprise. You could use something like that, I imagine?”

Savage is quiet for a long moment. He eyes me shrewdly. "I like my crew to be made up of people I can rely on. You haven't exactly proven yourself to be trustworthy."

Red steps forward, his pale, freckled face angry. He signs something at me, hard and fast.

"Exactly," says Savage. "Last time I made the mistake of trusting you, you bailed on us without paying for your passage. My crew lost out on a lot of pay.”

I meet Red’s eyes and slowly hand the axe back, guilt needling me. When I bailed from the Kingfisher in Alluvium, I didn’t think about how it would affect the rest of the crew.

"Well then," I say slowly, "consider this my way of repaying the debt."

Behind me, Fetch scoffs. I look at her properly for the first time. She stands with her arms folded over the knife she keeps sheathed across her chest, glaring at me. Under the colored lights, her skin is a deep, plum brown, her eyes nearly black. She shifts her weight to one hip, cocking her shaved head to one side.

“Why are you suddenly so interested in joining our crew?"

I return her glare. "Call it a personal crossroads."

"A personal crossroads?" Savage's voice is amused. “I do love a good personal crossroads.”

I turn to look at him again. His sharp gray eyes glint with curiosity and I feel a spark of connection jump between us.

This is not a good idea, Bird, says a voice in my head.

I ignore it, pulling myself up taller. "So do we have a deal?"

He studies me carefully for one more long minute. Then he extends a hand.

"Sure, Alluvium. Welcome to the crew."

chapter

twelve

“HOW DOES IT LOOK OVER THERE?”

Fetch’s voice is a whisper in my ear. I roll my eyes and tap behind my ear to radio back to her.

“For the last time, you don’t have to whisper,” I mutter. “No one can hear you.” I take a quiet step toward the door of the small room I’m standing in and press my ear against it. “And I don’t know yet. I haven’t left the storage room.”

“Well hurry up,” she snaps, static crackle cutting off the last word, “we don’t have all night.”

“I just got here. Give me a flogging second.”

On the other side of the door, muffled footsteps approach. I instinctively recoil, ducking behind a crate of veg in a shadowy corner, the smell of garlic, too-ripe fruit, and ground brew beans filling my nose. Around me, the walls gently creak with the cadence of an unfamiliar ship rolling sleepily at anchor. The room is stuffy. Too warm. I draw a forearm across my brow, where beads of sweat are already beginning to form.

On the other side of the door, the footsteps fade as they continue down the hallway. Again I creep to the door and press my ear against it. Silence.

I crack the door an inch and press one eye to the gap. The corridor is wreathed in the gray and purple shadows of twilight. A pair of broad shoulders disappears around a corner at the far end as the owner of the footsteps continues to his destination. I touch behind my ear again to radio Fetch aboard the Kingfisher.

“Looks clear for now. I count one crew member so far.”

“Okay. To your right, at the end of the hall, should be the galley. On the wall directly opposite you should be four doors. They’re the sleeping quarters. Check each cabin. We need to know how many crew are off-duty in their berths right now, and how many are on watch.”

“You know,” I whisper, “I’m starting to think this plan may not be entirely, you know, fully-cocked.”

A moment of silence. Then, “Are you seriously getting cold feet?”

“I just don’t think we thought this through. I’m supposed to just…appear in people’s cabins? That’s all fine if the cabin is empty or the person’s asleep but…what if they’re not?”

“I’m not the spy,” she hisses. “That’s your department. You figure it out.”

Stifling an irritated sigh, I quietly pull the door closed and lean my forehead against it to think. I wish I didn’t have to deal with Fetch. I wish it was Sterling or Goliath on the other end of the line. But unfortunately, Fetch is the only person on the Kingfisher—the only Reckoner I know of—with a biochip and a radio, so I’m stuck with her as my single point of contact with the crew.

This is my third time working a job for the Kingfisher. So far, it hasn’t been going as well as any of us had hoped. The first time we tried it, Savage wanted me to blip aboard a massive tanker called the Narwhal that was alleged to be carrying a load of windmill parts from Alluvium to the wind farm at Brume. The idea was for me to act as a scout—blip over, sneak around, find out how many people were aboard. Figure out weak points; find the places they might be stashing the goods.

Unfortunately, it turns out I can’t blip to something I can’t picture inside my head. Sargo. Malarkey. Home. These are all things I can visualize; I can see them before I go to them. But I had no idea what the Narwhal looked like. Blipping to it was like blipping to the surface of the moon. As hard as I tried—and I tried for three straight days—I couldn’t get anywhere near it. I ended up in the Salt more than a handful of times, and by the time we finally called it, I was colder and wetter than a drowned jackrat.

The next job we tried, we were a bit smarter. A bit. Savage was able to get ahold of some blueprints for a boat called Monument, a Reckoner ship with a reputation for pulling some truly horrendous stunts in the name of making obscenely lucrative scores. Combined with some images that Fetch was able to pull off the Net, the blueprints gave me some idea of the ship’s layout, and I was able to conjure up a hazy picture before I went in.

But the blueprints were either out of date or my mental picture was just plain wrong, because when I blipped onto Monument from the Kingfisher, I landed in a stock pot of stew in the middle of the galley table at dinner, surrounded by about twenty of the roughest-looking men I’ve ever seen. I’m sure the crew have since been spreading tales far and wide of the ghost with the half-shaved head who apparated into their dinner one night, mumbled, “Oh shit,” and promptly disappeared.

This time around, Fetch had the idea that we should just raid a ship that the Kingfisher has dealt with before. Savage picked Punchinello, a boat that Sterling used to crew for, because Sterling assured us the layout would be as he remembered, and he was able to draw up a detailed map of the top deck and the interior. Fetch drilled him on everything, from the number of cabins in the crew quarters (four), to the color of the carpet in the main salon (red.) She pulled down a couple of images of the exterior of the boat from the Net, and Sterling and I spent a week building a detailed mental map of the ship together.

Red and Goliath learned of the Punchinello’s current course through confidants they met at various seedy bars and the even seedier alleys behind them in Alluvium. The Punchinello made a big score recently just outside Qanat, then came through the Central American Strait to Pocosín, where she would be for a week or so before heading on to Île Tor to pick up crew.

We sailed the Kingfisher seven days from Alluvium to get to where the Punchinello is anchored just outside Pocosín. The plan is, I blip over here, do some recon and figure out the crew’s schedules. Then the rest of the crew of the Kingfisher can determine the best time to strike.

Being so close to Pocosín sets my teeth on edge. As far as I know, Sargo is still in the city and I have no desire to run into him—but if all goes according to plan, the Kingfisher should be out of here before tomorrow morning, and we won't have to go ashore in the city at all.

I pull my forehead away from the door and take a step back, rolling my shoulders. So far, Sterling’s memory has been good. I landed right where I expected to, in a storage room on what I think is the ship's lowest level. Now all I need to do is figure out where they’re keeping the score and how many crew are aboard.

That all sounded easy as cake two nights ago when Fetch and I sat around the galley table with Savage, Goliath and Sterling, pouring over Sterling’s schematics.

“In and out," Fetch had said. "They won’t know what hit them.”

Somehow, that had been enough to convince me then, but I'm starting to have my doubts. If I’m spotted, this raid goes down in flames just like the last two. And if that happens, my tenure as a teleporting spy for the Kingfisher will probably come to an abrupt end. Savage has seemed keen to make it work so far, because the possibilities that open up for him if it does are so lucrative. But I think he's losing patience. And if I do get kicked off the Kingfisher, I'll be back out on my ass again, drifting. And that would mean having to deal with my feelings about Sargo and Zenith and Rav and the Anonymity and the land of death, and—

Nope. I slam my mind shut as the avalanche of thoughts comes barreling toward me. Stay focused.

I scan the hallway again. All clear. I take a deep breath.

In and out. They won’t know what hit them.

The first cabin I blip into is dark—almost too dark to make out anything at all. But a deep, guttural snore emanating from the corner of the room tells me there’s at least one person sleeping in here. This air is stuffy too. Warm, and filled with the close, pressing scent of sleeping bodies in a small space. I stretch my eyes against the dark and as they adjust, I make out the shape of one man on a bunk in the corner. A second bunk on the other side of the cabin stands empty but with rumpled sheets, as though someone slept in it recently.

My heart is beating fast when I blip back into the storage room. One down. So far so good.

I touch behind my ear. “I count one off-duty crew member so far and an empty bunk that looks recently used.”

“Roger,” says Fetch.

The next cabin is empty. Even in the dark I can tell immediately by the lack of sleeping-human smell in it. I wait for my eyes to adjust and confirm: two bunks, both empty. I blip back to the storage room to inform Fetch.

Just two more to go. This might actually work. I might actually make it out of here without being spotted. I blip into the next cabin.

The startled shout of its very-much-awake occupant sends me stumbling backward into a small table by the door. I crash loudly into it, knocking it over with a clatter.

“Who the hell are you?!” A man rolls off the bed, drawing a knife. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

For one bizarre moment I forget where I am completely, tripping over my own feet, my hands frantically scrabbling to pick up the table as though I’ve just knocked over an expensive display case in a jewelry store.

“Sorry!” I stammer, righting the table with shaking hands. “I’m so sorry!”

“Who are you?!” the man demands again. He lunges forward as though about to attack me, but then stops. He stares at me like…well, like I'm a person that just appeared out of thin air in the middle of his bedroom.

Get out! screams a voice in my head. Get out now!

And just like that, I’m back in the stuffy, garlic-smelling darkness of the storage room. I stand rigid, my chest rising and falling rapidly, my heart in my ears. In the hallway outside, I hear a door open.

“Creights!”

The man’s voice cracks, betrays a panicked terror that I can feel deep in my bones. Another door opens.

“What is it?” A second man’s voice, hoarse with sleep.

“It’s—” The first man’s voice fails.

“Parker?”

Parker's feet pound up and down the corridor. First one way, then the other.

“Parker!” The second man’s voice is a shout now. “What the hell is going on?”

“A girl! She was—”

“Status?” Fetch’s voice in my ear. I touch my neck to radio back.

“Someone spotted me. They’re freaking out.”

“Are you serious?” Her voice is exasperated.

“I’m teleporting, not turning invisible!” I snap, trying to keep my voice down. “I told you this was a bad idea.”

“Oh you told me?”

“It’s fine. I don’t think they know where I—”

A shaft of light falls across my face as the door to the storage room opens.

“Holy gods! She’s in here—”

The man’s face and last word are lost to light and static as I blip away.

I briefly think about going back to the Kingfisher. Calling it quits. But I can’t. I can’t be responsible for another failed raid. I can’t be out on my ass again with nothing to occupy me but the noise of my own thoughts. I blip to a second storage room in the Punchinello's stern, where according to Sterling's schematics, they should be keeping the haul we're trying to steal. I gulp down two heaving breaths as my eyes struggle to adjust to another profoundly dark room. Then, with my hands out in front of me, I feel my way to a wall and flip on a light.

My mouth falls open. I raise a finger to touch behind my left ear.

“Fetch? Tell Sterling he was right. The score is here. And it’s…big.”

____________________

“Stay where you are!” Fetch’s voice is urgent. “We’re on the way.”

“On the way?!” I hiss. “Now?”

“Don’t move!”

“I thought this was a recon mission! I thought we were just gathering information. You’re doing the raid now?”

“Not my call.”

Her voice is breathless, as though wherever she is on the other end of the radio, she’s running. I picture her rushing through the Kingfisher’s interior, rousing Red and Goliath. Nana and Sterling grabbing weapons from their cabins, getting the skiff in the water,

“Who’s call?” I hiss.

“Who do you think? Savage doesn't want to give up on another mission. He thinks we can take advantage of you being spotted. Says hit them while they’re confused.”

“What?! That's a terrible idea. We don’t even know how many of them there are!”

“Like I said, not my call. We’re in the skiff. There in five. Be ready to fight.”

“Fight? I never—”

“Over and out.”

Her radio clicks off. Fight? What the hell is Savage thinking? He’s not thinking. He heard 'big score' and lost his head. I think I’m starting to see why Fetch is always so exasperated with him.

A message alert slides in front of my eyes. In a startled daze, I swipe it open.

>>> BIRB! YOU COMING TO MY WEDDING OR WHAT?

Shale?

Sweet Jesus, this is not the time, Shale! I swipe the message closed. Another one pops up right away.

>>> SAW YOU LEFT BRUME. THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE MAKING YOUR WAY HERE

I pause. Saw I left Brume? How? I twist my mouth and drum my fingers on my lips, then quickly send

>>> SAW I LEFT BRUME HOW?

>>> TRACKED YOU.

Tracked me? Great, so now Zenith and the Anonymity are keeping tabs on me? I didn't even know the Anonymity could do that.

>>> I’M KIND OF IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING, I send. STILL THINKING ABOUT THE WEDDING.

>>> DON’T THINK TOO HARD, he sends back. JUST COME! I MISS YOU.

I miss you?

A shout outside sends a spike of panic through me. I close Messenger and flip off the light, plunging myself back into darkness as multiple pairs of boots pound back and forth across the deck above me. The guy I startled—Parker—must have raised the alarm. Sooner or later someone will come to check that their score is still intact. I can’t stay here. I need somewhere to hide out until the rest of Savage’s crew arrive. But where?

Another shout, and then footsteps right outside the door. I hear keys jingling, the door handle shimmying. I know from Sterling’s drawings that there’s a locker on the top deck big enough for me to fit in. I take a breath and blip to it.

The sides of the locker press in around me, squeezing my arms against me. The top of my head touches the ceiling and the smell of musty fabric invades my nose. A locker for foul weather gear. From the smell of it, the gear was put away wet. Shafts of light come through a metal grate in the locker door at about eye level and I manage to shift my torso an inch to peer through it.

I’m above deck, in the middle of the boat, facing the bow. Two crew members enter my field of vision. They take up posts on either side of the bow and begin scanning the water around the boat with flashlights.

Wonderful. I’m sure the whole crew is on alert now.

“He said it was a what?” I hear one of them mutter.

“Ghost or something,” the other guy replies, his light strafing the black water on the other side of the boat. “I don’t know.”

“Ghost?”

“Yeah but it's Parker. You know how he is. Thought he saw something. It’s probably a stowaway.”

“Yeah, but…a ghost.”

“Obviously it’s not a real ghost, Mack.”

“I don’t know…” Mack’s voice is low. “I’ve heard things.”

The second guy’s voice is impatient. “Heard things? Really? Like what things, Mack?”

“Like what happened on Monument.”

Mack’s friend blows out a disbelieving pfft of air. “Nothing happened on Monument.”

“Appeared right in the middle of the galley,” Mack says, as though he isn’t listening. “A girl. The whole crew saw it. I’m just saying…” He trails off, turning to the other guy, his light momentarily blinding me as it swings across my field of vision.

“You’re just saying what? That you believe in ghosts?”

“I’m just saying…” Mack repeats. He turns his light back over the dark water.

My mind begins to tick. Superstitious. Reckoners are superstitious. Savage said we could take advantage of my being spotted. Maybe that’s not so crazy after all. Maybe I can convince this guy that there’s actually a ghost on his ship. Maybe I can convince the whole crew…and if not, I can at least confuse the hell out of them. Distract them until Savage and the rest of the Kingfisher arrive. I take a breath, clenching my fists.

Don’t think, just do.

I blip out of the locker, land directly behind Mack, and tap him on the shoulder. He wheels around, his light flashing wildly in the dark. His eyes meet mine and go white with terror. I raise a hand in greeting.

“Hey, Mack.”

Mack’s face turns ashen. He drops the flashlight, bright, chaotic beams of it lancing into the night as it clatters to the deck. Behind me, the other guy makes a strangled noise in his throat. I turn to him.

“And your name is?”

His eyes bulge, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. I put a hand on his shoulder.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, mate.”

And before he can reply, I’m gone.

I make a mental note: That’s two crew on the bow.

I aim for the cockpit next, appearing just as two more crew members come up the companionway steps from below deck. I recognize Parker, and the guy with him I assume must be Creights. They stop dead in their tracks as I appear before them, Parker pointing a trembling finger at me.

I give him a smile that I hope is menacing, but which I'm sure in my wired state probably just comes across as insane—same difference really, I guess—and disappear.

Two in the cockpit makes four.

I appear below deck in the main salon as another crew member comes around the corner that leads to the crew quarters. She freezes as she sees me, but recovers her senses remarkably quickly and lunges at me, drawing a knife from her belt. I turn sideways as I blip, narrowly avoiding the blade.

Five.

Next, the corridor. The doors to the crew’s cabins all stand open, and the cabins are empty. I steal to the end of the passage on light feet, pushing open the galley door with my shoulder and craning my neck around the edge of it. Two more faces, a man and a woman, look up at me from behind a short metal counter. They’re wearing hair nets and appear to be in the middle of chopping veg. A large pot simmers on a nearby stove.

“Seven,” I count out loud. Then, with a polite smile, I say, “Excuse me,” and blip back to the bow.

Mack and his buddy have knives drawn, which they nearly drop as I appear before them again. They wield the weapons with trembling hands and shrink away from me, pressing themselves backward as I take a slow, deliberate step, pushing them further toward the rail. Mack’s face is ghastly in the blood-red moonlight.

“How’s it going up here, Mack?” I say softly.

He swallows, briefly closing his eyes as he whispers, “How do you know my name, ghost?”

As I open my mouth to answer him, a pair of giant, tattooed, alabaster arms reach over the rail behind Mack, grab him firmly around the chest, and drag him over the side.

chapter

thirteen

MY FACE MUST BE ALMOST as surprised as Mack’s buddy’s as we both watch Mack’s boots disappear over the rail, his anguished cry cut short by a strangled yelp, followed by an ominous splash.

Before I’ve even had time to contemplate what’s happening, Goliath’s hulking form is swinging over the starboard rail. At almost the same moment, Fetch crawls over the port side like a spider from the depths of the Salt, her knife between her teeth, eyes gleaming.

“They’re everywhere!” screams Mack’s buddy.

He turns to run, but Fetch launches herself at him, catching him around the shoulders and dragging him to the floor. She straddles him, pinning his arms to the deck with her knees. Red climbs over the rail behind her, swinging his long-handled ax from the loop around his hip. He and Goliath push past me toward the cockpit, not even giving me a second glance.

I stand rooted to the spot, unable to tear my eyes away from the sight of Fetch’s knife burying itself to the hilt in the man’s neck as he thrashes, gurgling.

A shout goes up from the stern, where Sterling and Nana are climbing over the other end of the boat, water pouring off them, their faces grim in the stark, crimson light of the moon. Nana, surprisingly nimble for an old woman, pulls herself up to stand atop the rail, and Sterling climbs up next to her, the top of his shiny bald head barely rising above Nana’s waist. Nana raises her cleaver high and utters a bone-chilling war cry like some kind of ancient, terrifying siren, her silver-toothed grin glinting, her skin as black as the inky water she emerged from. I watch as she, Sterling, Red and Goliath leap into the cockpit, where Parker and Creights are barely prepared for the onslaught of blades, teeth, and muscle coming at them.

“Nice work, Alluvium.”

A cool voice over my shoulder turns my head in time to see Savage hop casually over the rail. He lands next to Fetch, who now squats by the body of Mack’s buddy, wiping her blade slowly on the thigh of her pants, leaving a thick, black bloodstain. Savage straightens, pushing a tangle of dirty blonde hair from his face.

“Very nice work.” The corners of his mouth twitch upward. “Never had a ghost on my crew before.”

Fetch, rolling her eyes, stands. “We need to get moving. Alluvium, how many more crew?”

I open my mouth but find no words. My eyes are still fixed on the unmoving body of the man Fetch just killed. They killed Mack too. Pulled him over the side, slit his throat, and dumped him in the water. Jesus. I did this. I helped them do this.

“Alluvium!” Fetch’s bark snaps me back into my body. “How many more?”

“Uh, fi—…five. There were seven—seven altogether.” A scream rends the air behind me. I flinch.

Fetch nods. Without another word, she shoves past me and heads for the cockpit.

The cooks? Are they going to kill the cooks?

A hand lands on my shoulder. Feeling as though I’m looking from a thousand miles away, I turn my eyes down to it.

“Don’t worry.” Savage’s voice says. “You get used to it.”

“How did you—” I don’t lift my gaze from his hand. Sun-beaten skin. Blackened fingertips. “You were so quiet.”

“Killed the skiff’s motor about a hundred yards out. Sterling and Nana swam to the stern. Now—” He removes his hand from my shoulder and dips it into his pocket, retrieving his butterfly knife, which he flips open with a flourish. “You and I are going to find that score.”

____________________

The Kingfisher’s crew made short work of the Punchinello. In the end, they didn’t kill the cooks.

“If we killed everyone,” Savage explains as we watch Red, Goliath and Nana haul the remaining two crew members to the bow and hogtie them, “there’d be no one left to put the fear of God in people.”

Sterling leads Fetch, Savage and I to the stern storage room that holds the haul. Breaking into it is laughably easy: I just blip through the door and unlock it from the inside. Savage’s eyes go wide as I swing it open. Crates stamped with the names of Big Four companies are stacked three and four high against the walls. Piles of weapons—guns, clubs, cleavers, and every manner of knife—litter the floor. Any remaining available space is stuffed with bags of fine clothes, hemp sacks full of brew beans and tea, and two tightly sealed oil drums that are cold to the touch and coated with a layer of condensation, as though whatever is inside is packed in ice.

I rap my knuckle against the side of one of the drums. “Fish?”

Fetch shakes her head but doesn't offer any alternative as she and Sterling begin taking inventory, pulling lids off boxes, peering into them, making notes on Fetch’s slate.

“Probably best you don’t find out what’s in those,” says Sterling, raising his eyebrows at me over the top of his spex.

It takes the rest of the night to transfer the score from Punchinello to the Kingfisher. Eight hours. Eight trips back and forth in the skiff. I can't help but notice that we leave behind the two oil drums full of ice. They are the only thing we leave. By the time the milky light of dawn begins to bleed over the horizon, my eyes ache with tiredness, my hands are raw, and my body is cold, sore and shaking. As we haul the last barrel out of the skiff and over the Kingfisher’s rail onto her deck, I blow out a long sigh of relief and sit down hard against the mast, propping my elbows on my splayed knees. I feel as though I could sleep for three days.

In reality, I sleep for about nine hours.

____________________

I wake that evening feeling groggy but refreshed, to find myself alone in Goliath and my shared cabin. I lay on my back in my bunk, staring at the ceiling for a long time.

They killed those people. And I helped them do it.

I can’t shake the thought loose. And I’m worried that if I do, the deluge of other thoughts that I sense is right behind it will tumble down on me like an avalanche. Thoughts like what the hell am I even doing out here on the Kingfisher. Thoughts about Shale and his wedding. Sargo and Zenith; the Anonymity, Rav, Brume. Malarkey and Fife. Death.

This newest thought about poor Mack and his buddy is like the finger in the dam, keeping everything else at bay. I decide not to poke at it too hard.

Eventually, I get up and follow my nose down the hall to the galley. Something rich and warm and spicy is wafting through that door, and my stomach is so empty it’s practically caving in on itself. A low rumble of voices emanating down the corridor tells me everyone else must already be at dinner, and as I push the door open, a cheer goes up.

The whole crew sits before me, whooping, and pounding on the long, low galley table with mugs, forks, and fists. I scrunch up my face against the assault of light and noise.

Savage sits at the far end, his two feet crossed on the corner of the table, hands behind his head, grinning.

“Three cheers for the ghost!” he yells over the already deafening roar.

My face burns as I take a seat between Sterling and Fid, Fetch’s little brother. As the cheers subside, I reach to the pot in the center of the table and dunk my bowl into it.

Nana flashes her silver grin at me across the table. “Not just a good-for-nothing Turf Rat after all.”

I give her a tight smile and dig into my bowl. Another whoop goes up, and a big brown jug makes its way down the table. I go still, my spoon halfway to my mouth, as it lands heavily in front of me.

“Oh…yeah, no thanks.”

“Ah, come on!” Savage leers. “It’s a party!”

I eye the jug, my face dipped low over my bowl, my spoon still hovering in front of me, aware of the weight of every pair of eyes on me.

“No,” I repeat, firmly. “Thank you.”

Two hours later, I sprawl on a bench seat in the cockpit, my arms behind my head, closing one eye at the sky. I feel good. I feel…sober. Goliath, sitting in the opposite corner of the cockpit with Red’s head in their lap, swigs from their flask and watches me.

Dinner was spent recounting my version of the events aboard Punchinello. Everyone seemed keen to hear my side of the story. Everyone except Fetch, who sat silent and surly at the other end of the table, vehemently ignoring me. Eventually, she stood and bid everyone a curt goodnight. She was followed not long after by Fid—yawning widely and dragging his seven-year-old-feet—and Nana. To my surprise, Savage cut out early too. Goliath, Red and I—the ‘late night crew’ as Savage called us—made our way up to the cockpit to continue the party.

Red signs something to me. I squint at Goliath for the translation.

“He ask how you feel. About raid.”

“What do you mean?”

Red signs again.

“He say maybe you feel bad we kill those men,” says Goliath.

I narrow my eyes at Red then turn my gaze back up to the sky and lift one shoulder.

“It’s fine.”

Red reaches across the cockpit to tap my arm, and when I look back at him, he signs slowly and deliberately.

“He say you get used to it,” Goliath rumbles. “But maybe is not so good if you do.”

Red raises his eyebrows at me. I flick my eyes away.

“What was in those barrels on the Punchinello? The ones we left behind.”

Goliath snorts and signs to Red, who chuckles, crooking an elbow behind his head as he settles it back into Goliath’s lap. His eyes on the sky, he signs without looking at me.

“He say you don’t want to know,” says Goliath.

“Why not?”

“We can just say…some things on black market, we don’t like to touch.”

“Like what?”

Goliath looks down into Red’s face and signs to him. Red lifts one shoulder.

“Like…parts. Parts…not for solar panels,” they say.

I frown. “Parts?”

"Parts for…people."

My eyebrows shoot up. Red chuckles again, then rolls to his feet, signs to us, and swings himself out of the cockpit, heading to the bow.

“Where’s he going?” I ask.

“Take a leak.”

I watch Goliath watching Red. I don’t know much about Red and Goliath. I don’t know much about anyone on the Kingfisher—Savage has a pretty strict ‘no sharing’ policy when it comes to personal information. It’s served me in the past—I haven’t exactly been eager to share details of my life with them either—but now that I’m officially part of the crew and not a prisoner or ‘guest,’ it feels like I should know more about my crew mates.

“How long have you…been together?” I ask.

Goliath sips from the flask. “Three years.”

“Did you meet on the Kingfisher?”

They nod. “When I join this boat…I don’t speak the language. Nobody speak my language. Is lonely. Then Red come. He don’t speak the language neither. He teach me the,” they gesture in the air, “the signs. So we talk to each other.”

“That’s sweet.”

They shrug. “Is survival.”

"You guys are a nice couple."

Goliath makes a face. "He don't talk too much. I like that."

“How long did it take Red to teach the crew to sign?”

“Red not teach them.” Goliath caps the flask. “I teach them."

"You taught them Red's language but you didn't teach them yours?"

Again, they shrug. "Is more important. I can learn to speak like them. Red…cannot.”

I nod slowly. “And your language? Where is that from?”

They eye me sideways as though considering whether to tell me or not. Finally, they say, “I am from Krepost’.”

Red returns and stretches out on the bench again, crossing his feet in Goliath’s lap. Goliath passes the flask to him as I stand.

“Where you go?” says Goliath.

“Take a leak.”

Goliath nods and Red touches his brow in a mock salute. He signs to me and I look to Goliath to translate.

“He say ‘God speed.’”

I feel my way down the dark hallway to the head. Halfway along, a cabin door stands slightly ajar, a slim rectangle of light spilling onto the floor.

I squint as I near it, a familiar, sickly-sweet smell reaching my nose. Spray paint and barbecue sauce. I know the smell: haar. I first smelled it in that sketchy warehouse in the Flats, the night I was drugged and robbed by Five before Sargo and I left Brume.

I stop just outside the door. Through the crack, I see Savage’s boots propped up on the corner of his desk. A tendril of smoke curls around them and vanishes out of an open porthole.

I put a hand on the door.

Don’t go in there, says a voice in my head.

But I feel compelled to open the door. I need to clear the air between Savage and me. I need to know what happened the night before I escaped from this ship in Alluvium. I need to know why I woke up in this cabin.

“All hands!”

A shout from above deck freezes me. Down the hall, a door bangs open. Sterling tumbles through it, looking half-asleep, cramming a pair of spex onto his nose. He turns to the next door along the hall and pounds on it with his fist.

“Nana! Up and about.”

The door opens and Nana emerges, cleaver in hand, her wiry gray mane knotted into a silk scarf on top of her head. She looks sharp and cognizant, despite being in her nightdress. Her eyes land on me.

“Let’s go, ghost.”

Fetch is already behind the helm as Sterling, Nana and I climb into the cockpit .

“What’s happening? Where’s Red and Goliath?” I ask.

“Hauling the anchor,” says Fetch. “We’re making another raid.”

“Another raid?” I glance at Sterling and Nana, who look as perplexed as me.

Fetch taps the instrument panel to set a course. “I came up for some air,” she says, “and happened to spot a boat pulling out of Pocosín harbor. Looks promising, like they might have something worth taking. They’re not too far ahead of us. Should be pretty easy to run them down.”

“Are you authorized to make that call?” I ask.

She looks at me sharply. “I’m the first mate, Alluvium. When Savage isn’t around, what I say goes.”

“Where is Savage?” says Sterling.

Nana answers before I can. “He’s in his cabin smoking haar.” Her voice and face are hard with disgust. Sterling nods as though he’s unsurprised to hear it. Fetch glares around at the three of us.

“Anyone got a problem with making a little extra income while our good-for-nothing captain is indisposed?”

I look sideways at Nana and Sterling, who both shrug.

“Good!” Fetch’s voice raises to its usual commanding bark. “Raise the sails! Nana, you’re on the headsail with Red. Sterling, you and Goliath can manage the main. You—” she glares at me with undisguised hatred, “just try to stay out of the way.”

I scowl back at her. “I know how to sail.”

“Not like this, you don’t.”

The Kingfisher flies through the inky night, soaring over whitecaps and crashing through swells. It’s all I can do to hold onto the side of the cockpit as Fetch heels the boat so far onto its starboard side that the rail disappears under the churning black water. I give up trying to dodge the sheets of spray that fly over the side.

It takes just fifteen minutes for us to catch up to the boat that Fetch saw leaving Pocosín. I squint through the darkness, struggling to make out the little white triangle ahead of us on the horizon.

“Alluvium!” barks Fetch. “Get up on the bow and get your eye on them. Keep your finger pointed exactly where they are.”

Without arguing, I clamber out of the cockpit and make my way to the bow on all fours, clinging to wet, slippery handholds as the ship tilts and lurches below me. I hold on to the port rail with one hand and point at the boat on the horizon with the other. Slowly, the Kingfisher begins to close the gap.

As we do, I can’t help but think that Fetch must have made a mistake. The boat is small. Much too small to be carrying a large, valuable haul of goods.

“Are you sure this is the one?” Sterling yells over his shoulder to Fetch. Her reply is lost to the roar of the waves.

I turn my gaze back out toward the horizon, a queasy weight settling in my stomach. Something about this isn’t right. There can’t be more than two people on that boat. It’s not a tanker or a mercenary vessel, or even another Reckoner ship. I squint through the dark as the distance between us grows shorter, and the dread in my stomach turns leaden. I recognize that boat.

That boat is Panga.

chapter

fourteen

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I demand as I climb back into the cockpit. “What the hell are we chasing down a boat like that for?”

Fetch’s eyes are fixed over the helm. “Get back to your post,” she snarls. “Keep your eye on the target.”

“That isn’t a target!” I yell. “That’s a civilian boat. It’s only thirty-five feet long. There’s nothing on that boat that’s of any value to you.”

Her eyes flick to mine. “Oh, there’s at least one thing.”

My blood turns cold. “You know who it is.”

She grins.

“You’re doing this on purpose? Why?”

“Because I don’t like you, Alluvium,” she says simply, putting her eyes back over the bow. “I don’t trust you, and I don’t like you, and I don’t like your boyfriend. But I do love that cute little yellow boat of his.”

I grit my teeth. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Well then what’s the problem?” she sneers. “Red! Goliath! Ready the lines.”

I swivel my head to the bow, where Red and Goliath are hauling thick coils of rope out of hatches in the deck. Either they don’t recognize Panga, or they don’t care that we’re chasing down the boat that I used to sail on.

Why would they? I realize with a sinking feeling. We just finished raiding a boat that Sterling used to crew. We killed people who might have been his former crew mates. The crew of the Kingfisher doesn’t care about past loyalties.

I lurch to the rail and look down into Panga’s cockpit. Sargo stands with the helm gripped between his hands, his eyes fixed over the bow, a grim but determined look on his face. Something pulls tight in my chest. I may be pissed at him, but I don’t want him to die.

“Ready to board!” shouts Fetch.

Sterling hops past me into the cockpit, his face drawn. “Fetch…what are we doing?”

“You are following orders,” she snaps. “Ready to board.”

She cranks the wheel hard to starboard and the Kingfisher cuts across Panga’s bow, forcing Sargo to turn sharply to avoid plowing into our side. We come alongside and Red and Goliath leap from the Kingfisher’s rail, lines in their hands, landing heavily on Panga’s stern. Fetch skillfully maneuvers the Kingfisher closer as Red and Goliath heave on the lines until the two boats are within inches of each other. They tie off the lines, and Panga is theirs.

“Sterling! Nana! Heave to!”

Fetch stands sideways to the helm, hauling the wheel hand over hand to turn us back upwind as Sterling and Nana pull the wildly flapping headsail across to the other side of the deck. They tighten the sheets as the Kingfisher comes to the point where the two sails pull us in opposite directions, and the boat stops dead in the water. The sudden stillness makes my head spin.

I lean over the rail and watch Red and Goliath drag Sargo from the cockpit. They shove him ahead of them to the Kingfisher’s short ladder and Red jabs him between the shoulders with the handle of his ax. Sargo glares at Red over his shoulder, then starts to climb.

I wheel around to Fetch.

“Stop this. You don’t want me on this crew? Fine. I’ll go. But there's no reason to do this.”

She bends down to flip on the autopilot to keep the boat steady, as if she hasn’t heard me. Then she straightens and fixes me with a hard stare.

“It’s too late for that, Alluvium.”

She shoves past me and out of the cockpit. Clenching my fists, I follow her.

Red and Goliath throw Sargo to his knees on the bow, Red flourishing his ax and carefully laying the keen edge of it against the back of Sargo’s neck, forcing his gaze toward the deck.

“Tie him up,” barks Fetch, squaring herself off between me and Sargo and folding her arms across her chest. Sargo turns angry eyes up to her as Goliath wrenches his arms behind him, but instead of landing on Fetch’s face, they land on mine.

His eyes go wide. “Bird?”

Fetch pulls the knife out of the sheath on her chest, flips it over so the handle points at Sargo, and hits him across the face with it.

“Don’t!” I lunge at Fetch, snatching at the knife, but she yanks it out of my reach.

Goliath, tying Sargo’s hands, pauses. They look up at me, then at Fetch. Their eyes narrow.

"Who is this?”

Fetch sheaths the knife. “Don’t worry about it. I want you and Red to shake down that little boat. Anything that looks even remotely valuable, bring it to me.”

Goliath glances at me, then back to Fetch. They nod, finish tying Sargo’s hands, and stand. Red lifts his ax from Sargo’s neck. I watch the two of them walk away, panic beginning to rise in my chest. Sterling, busy coiling lines with Nana on the bow, glances in our direction, but continues with his work.

“Why are you doing this?” Sargo’s voice is thick and blood runs from his nose. He looks from Fetch to me. His face is no longer angry. It’s hurt and confused.

I put myself between the two of them and level my glare at Fetch.

“Stop.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think so, Alluvium.”

“You want my share of the score? It’s yours. Take it. I don’t care. I’ll leave the crew. You’ll never see me again.”

“I don’t want your share,” Fetch scoffs. She fixes her gaze on Sargo again. “I want that cute little boat.”

“My boat?” Sargo’s voice cracks and my heart nearly breaks.

“You don’t care about the boat!” I snap. “You’re doing this to spite me. Just let him go!”

A lazy, half-slurred drawl slithers across the deck. "Let who go?”

Over Fetch’s shoulder, I see Savage leaning against the mast, a dart between two fingers. His eyes are bloodshot, and smoke curls from his nose. A leer of recognition creeps across his face as Fetch and I part, revealing Sargo on his knees.

“I remember you. Mr…what was it? Starkey?” Savage drags on the dart. “Not your real name, I’m sure.”

Sargo’s glare hardens as Savage steps away from the mast. Fetch steps around me, blocking her father’s path.

“I’m handling this,” she says in a low voice.

Savage smiles at her benignly and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Not any more,” he says.

She tenses. Her hands clench and unclench. Then she releases a growl—an actual growl—of frustration, pivots abruptly, and stalks to the rail. She pulls the knife out of its sheath again and drives it into the rail, then stands with her arms folded, glowering at Savage. He clicks on the dart again and takes another drag, tipping his chin up to release a thick plume of white smoke into the dark sky.

“Am I correct in thinking,” he says, lowering his chin and allowing his gaze to settle on me, “that this is the same boy you were with when my crew and I, ah, liberated you from the Valkyrie?”

I nod once, tightly.

Savage smiles. “And if I’m not mistaken, you two were very much in love, were you not?” His smile becomes sinister. “Or was that a lie too, Electra?”

He begins to walk a slow circle around Sargo. “Tell me, son,” he says, “how did it feel to be a pawn in that plan? To be used and cast aside?”

Sargo stares straight ahead, a single muscle in the side of his jaw ticking.

A shout goes up from the bow. Goliath climbs over the rail from Panga’s deck, carrying something large and wriggling over their shoulder. Red hops over the rail behind them and the two of them stride across the deck, the thing over Goliath’s shoulder thrashing and screaming.

Sterling and Nana drop their work and hurry after Red. Goliath reaches us and throws the thing on their shoulder down next to Sargo.

At the rail, I hear Fetch gasp.

The thing is Locuaz.

Savage’s eyes gleam. “Alluvium," he says, "I'm deeply sorry to have to inform you that your boyfriend appears to have moved on.”

He dips a hand into his pocket and retrieves the butterfly knife, flips it open, and squats in front of Locuaz, using the point to gently tilt her chin up. Tears stain her olive-brown face, strands of her dark hair sticking to her cheeks.

“Pretty,” Savage says.

“Stop it.”

Fetch stands at the rail, ashen-faced, her knife in her hand. “Stop it, now,” she repeats.

Savage’s eyebrows lift. “Friend of yours?”

Fetch strides to Savage in three quick steps and shoves the point of her knife in his face.

“Let her go.”

“Or what?”

She adjusts her trembling hand around the knife. "Or I'll leave."

Something sharp and undeniably painful flashes behind Savage’s eyes. A long, silent moment passes. He flips the knife closed and stands.

“Goliath. Send them back to their boat.” He waves a dismissive hand. “They’re not worth the trouble.”

The breath leaves me in a rush as Savage pockets the knife and turns away, avoiding Fetch's glare. Fetch offers a hand to Locuaz, who stares at it blankly, then exhales sharply through her nose and stands on her own. She wipes her tear-stained face, her gaze falling on me. I offer a small shrug, and she regards me with a look somewhere between disbelief and fury.

Goliath drags Sargo to his feet. He wrenches free of their grip, roughly straightening his shirt and pressing a knuckle under his bloody nose.

“What the hell are you doing here, Bird?” he demands.

Over my shoulder, Savage chuckles. “Maybe she wanted to be under a real captain for a while, son.”

Sargo's face goes deadly still. Then he strides past me and throws a clean, solid punch into Savage’s face. The crack of knuckle on jawbone splits the air, and Savage drops like a rag-doll.

For one surreal heartbeat, nobody moves. Locuaz covers her mouth with her hand. Then Goliath and Red are on Sargo like Zenith peace officers.

“You should be ashamed of yourself!” Sargo screams as Goliath wrestles him away from Savage. “She’s eighteen!”

It takes me a moment to understand what’s happening. Everyone else is apparently as confused as I am because Fetch, Locuaz, and Red just stare between Sargo and Savage. Nana and Sterling stand warily back from the group, Nana with one hand on the cleaver at her hip.

Savage spits bright red blood onto the deck between his hands, then scrambles to his feet, wiping his mouth. He lunges for Sargo, but Red steps between them, absorbing the full force of Savage’s wiry body with his own.

“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re talking about,” Savage snarls over Red’s shoulder, “but you need to get yourself straight, son. This is my ship.”

“I need to get myself straight?” Sargo claws at the arm Goliath has across his chest. “I’m not the thirty-something junkie taking advantage of teenagers.”

Fetch’s eyes snap to me, her face twisting into a look of horrified understanding. Savage rails against Red's arms.

“Taking advantage of who?”

A tense silence settles over the group. I shoot Sargo a murderous glare and step forward.

“I’m nineteen now, actually.”

Nana utters a sharp tut.

Savage, still restrained by Red, gapes at me. “What? What am I supposed to have done here?”

“You know what you did,” Sargo growls.

“You’re going to have to clue me in,” Savage replies, his wild, furious eyes turning back to Sargo. “Because I’m lost.”

I take a deep breath, ignoring Fetch’s horrified glare, swallowing down my fury at Sargo for making me do this in front of the entire crew, turning to block Goliath from my line of sight entirely.

“The night before I escaped from the Kingfisher in Alluvium,” I say. Then, finding I can’t say any more than that in front of all these people, I fix Savage with a pointed look.

His brow creases and he shakes his head slowly. Then his face clears.

“That? Do you—” A second realization washes over his face. “You don’t remember.”

I press my lips into a hard line and fold my arms.

Savage sighs. “You were drunk. You—do you mind?” He pushes Red away and takes a step back, straightening the collar of his coat. “You were drunk.”

“We got that,” says Sargo flatly. Goliath tightens their grip around his chest.

Savage ignores Sargo, speaking directly to me.

“You wanted to learn about the stars. So okay, I showed you the stars. You wanted to come to my room. So okay, we went to my room. You wanted to kiss, so…” He glances around at the assembled group. “So, okay, we kissed. Then you threw up on yourself and passed out. I put you to bed. Nothing else happened.”

I hold his gaze, the blood pounding in my ears.

"For gods’ sakes," he says, "I washed your pants for you!”

A feeling somewhere between relief and nausea floods me. I have the sudden, overwhelming urge to sit down.

“Why should I believe you?”

He stops, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Alluvium. I guess you’re just going to have to trust me.”

Sargo makes a derisive noise. Savage shoots him a look.

“Look," he says, "I screwed up. Okay? I was…stupid. I was…also drunk.” He spreads his arms. “I thought about it, okay? I—I thought about it. But I’d like to think I’m a man who doesn’t sleep with girls who are old enough to be his—" His voice cracks. He looks at Fetch. "Daughter."

A very different kind of silence settles. Where Sargo’s words rang angrily into the night, Savage’s swallow themselves and disappear. The silence that follows them is suffocating.

Fetch walks slowly into the center of the gathering, and stops in front of Savage. For a long moment, she just stares at him. Then she shakes her head in disgust, shoots me one final glare, and stalks off.

Locuaz, a hand still covering her mouth, takes a few steps after Fetch and looks around, as though expecting someone to stop her. When no one does, she makes a small, apologetic noise and follows her.

Nobody else moves.

Finally, Goliath, as though not sure what else to do, releases Sargo. Red makes a sign that I need no translation to know means, “Let’s get out of here,” and he and Goliath quietly make themselves scarce. Sterling and Nana follow suit.

Savage watches them all go, until he, Sargo, and I are the only ones left standing there. Sargo, radiating barely restrained hatred, glares at Savage. Savage stares back at him with empty, hollow eyes. The sharpness has faded from them. An edge has dulled. The hunger for coin, or haar, or violence, or whatever it was that was driving that man until now, has gone.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “For…everything.” And he steps around me and walks away.

chapter

fifteen

THE AFTERMATH of the confrontation is near silence. The Kingfisher tilts and sways, rocked by swells as her hove-to sails hold us in place. The only sounds are the creak of the boom and snap of the canvas in the wind, the hush of water passing over the hull.

I close my eyes, inhaling the quiet, the cool air, the smell of salt and canvas and teak. Grounding myself. Finding my feet on the unstable deck. I hear Rav’s voice in my head.

Breathe in—feel that string attached to your head, lifting you up like a flower to the sun.

Breathe out—find your center. Feel your feet firm on the ground, rooting you down like a mighty tree.

I open my eyes.

Sargo watches me warily from about six feet away, blood trickling from one side of his nose and his left eye blossoming a bruise like an angry, purple flower.

“You had no right to bring up that business with Savage in front of everybody,” I say. My voice is full of steel, and I don’t try to temper it.

He winces. “I know. I was angry. It was stupid. I’m sorry.”

I blink and find a breath I didn’t expect. I was prepared for a fight. But he just looks at me through his black eye and says again, "I'm really sorry."

He does look sorry. In every sense of the word. Not just contrite, but a truly sorry sight with his poor, ruined face.

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

He narrows his good eye, as though he too was expecting more of a fight. I tilt my head in the direction that Savage just left.

“That was a hell of a punch.”

“I’ve been waiting a long time to do it.”

“Too bad it turned out to be moot.” I shrug, nudging the deck with my toe. “It was still impressive I guess.”

“I don’t care if you’re impressed,” he says grimly. “I just care that you’re safe.”

My eyes snap up. He looks away. I clear my throat and say, “How’s your eye?”

He gives me a thumbs-up. “So good. Feels great.”

“Sorry about that…”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He sighs and tilts his head back, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“We probably have something for it,” I say. “Down below.”

“I don’t want to be on this boat any longer than I have to be.”

I shift on my feet. “Where are you going?”

“Well…I was going to Brume.”

“To Brume? Why?”

He tilts his head to look at me from the corner of one eye. “I was coming to find you.”

Heat surges into my face. “Oh.”

He tilts his face back up to the sky. Silence descends.

“I should probably put some ice on it at least,” he says finally. “I have first-aid on Panga. Do you…” He lowers his face to mine and shrugs. “I don’t know, do you want to…come?”

Before I can reply, footsteps sound at the side of the cockpit, and Locuaz appears.

My heart leaps. “Hey!”

I never thought I'd be so happy to see a person—what is she even doing here? I step past Sargo toward her, but the coldness of her glare stops me in my tracks.

“How’s it—going?” My voice falters. “It’s…good to see you…”

“You don’t return my messages?” she says.

“I—oh.”

“For weeks?”

“I was going to, I just—”

“I thought we were friends.”

“I…thought so too.”

She shifts her weight to her other hip, tossing her waist-length mane of black waves and folding her arms.

“So why you don’t wanna talk to me?”

“I did! I…do.” I drop my eyes and fiddle with my nails. “Sorry. I was…not in a good place. I didn’t have anything to say.”

“Okay. And what about the things that I have to say? This is a two-way street, muñeca. You can’t just decide when you wanna be friends and not. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Okay,” I mumble, still looking at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

I sense her shifting her weight again, feel the heat of her angry eyes on me. Finally, she sighs. “And you know, maybe talking to your friend when you not in a good place is a good idea. Hm?”

I shrug.

“Pues…” She sighs. “It’s good to see you.”

I look up and offer a nervous smile. “It’s good to see you too.”

We stand for one awkward breath, then she steps to me and pulls me into a bone-crushing, brew-and-clove-smelling hug. Fetch comes around the corner from the cockpit. Her eyes are puffy, and rimmed with watery red, and I realize with a jolt that she’s been crying—that Fetch has the capacity to make human tears. She takes Locuaz and me in with a short, surly glare, then stalks past us to the bow, where she sits heavily in the spare sail bag and turns her back to us. Sargo glares at her as she passes, but she doesn’t even seem to notice him.

“She’s dealing with a lot right now,” says Locuaz quietly to Sargo. “She’s sorry about your face.”

“Is she,” he says flatly. They stare at each other.

“Her sister…well, I don’t know, it’s not my place to say it,” says Locuaz. “But her dad…they have a difficult relationship.”

Sargo frowns. “Her dad.”

“Is Savage,” I say quietly.

His eyebrows lift. He looks over his shoulder at Fetch, huddled in the sail bag on the bow. “So you know her or something?”

Locuaz nods firmly.

The surreality of seeing them in the same place suddenly hits me.

“Wait,” I say, “so how did you two end up here, exactly?”

Locuaz raises her eyebrows at Sargo, who gestures for her to go ahead.

“I recognize your boy’s boat in Pocosín,” she says. “Yote and I just come back from running girls out to Île Tor, and I see that little yellow boat in the harbor. And I think it’s you, so I go over there to give you hell for not replying to my messages."

She shoots me a look.

“But of course, it’s not you. It’s your boy. I told him about how we sailed to Île Tor together. He said he’s going to Brume to find you and needs some crew, and do I want to come. So I say okay. I warn him,” she lifts an eyebrow at Sargo again, “I warn him that I am not a very good sailor. But he says that doesn’t matter. Then we not even one hour out of Pocosín when we already getting chased down by some pendejos. We didn't know it was the Kingfisher. Sargo told me to hide—that's why they didn't find me right away.”

"I'm sorry…sorry we chased you down." I lower my voice. "Fetch went kind of crazy."

Locuaz nods, her face pained. "I think she's…como se dice? On the end of a rope."

"At the end of her rope," I correct her.

“Everything is kind of…screwed up,” she says.

Sargo presses a knuckle under his nose. “Yeah. What’s your plan?”

Locuaz shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Well…you’re still Panga’s first mate right now,” he says. “If you want to be.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, okay. ‘First mate.’ I don’t even know how to tie a bowling.”

“Bowline,” says Sargo, a touch of exasperation in his voice.

“Whatever.” Locuaz winks at me.

Sargo sighs heavily. “I guess I’m going back to Panga to deal with this mess.” He indicates his bloody face. “Anyone who wants to join me is welcome.”

Locuaz nods. She glances at Fetch again, her eyes shadowed, and pauses before calling out, “Fetch? Do you…wanna have some tea or something?”

Fetch keeps her back to us and doesn’t respond. In fact, she makes no indication that she’s heard Locuaz at all. Locuaz sighs.

“She’s mad. But she’ll come.”

____________________

With four people crammed into her tiny salon, Panga feels smaller than ever. But I can’t seem to wipe the grin off my face, even as Locuaz steps on my toes and Sargo spills water on me while he tries to fill the kettle. I never thought I would see these two people again, let alone in the same place.

We’re still rafted up to the Kingfisher since none of us seems to have any kind of plan, and the bigger boat is safely hove-to and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.

It seems as though, in the aftermath of that blowout with Savage, no one is entirely sure what to do. At least, I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of anyone on the Kingfisher’s crew since it happened. Their first mate, Fetch, isn’t even aboard the ship right now: she’s sitting like a silent black hole at the far end of the starboard settee in Panga’s main cabin, glowering at the floor and sucking any joy that strays too close to her out of the room.

Sargo ducks into the head to dig out the first aid kit, and I find some ice in Panga’s coolbox. I wrap it in a towel and Sargo and I sit opposite each other on the two low sofas while I press it gently to his face. He smiles at me, one-eyed.

“So mija—” Locuaz catches the kettle as it starts to whistle and pulls it off the stove. “You gotta explain to me how come you ended up on Fetch’s boat again. I thought you hated that puta.”

She winks at Fetch, but Fetch remains stone-faced.

While Locuaz pours four cups of tea, I recount the story of going to therapy, learning to blip, running away from Brume, and ending up in Reckoner’s Row. I leave out the part about the land of the dead and how I got so depressed I was contemplating suicide, because I figure Fetch is already doing enough to bring down the mood.

Locuaz hands out the tea and sits next to Sargo on the port-side sofa, opposite me and Fetch.

“And how’s Pirata?” she grins. “Still a bad dog?”

My heart sinks. I never told Locuaz about Malarkey. She loved her almost as much as Sargo and I did. I should have told her what was going on. I should have replied to her messages. I should have let her in.

By the time I finish mumbling my way through an explanation of what happened in Grike, and Malarkey’s death, Locuaz’s eyes are bright with tears. She leans forward and grips my knee.

“I wish you had told me,” she says. “But I understand why you didn’t.”

The salon goes very quiet as she lets me go. Outside, the waves bump the two boats together and the wind plays across the sails. I feel suspended in time, like we’re hovering inside a bubble of calm as the world goes on out there without us.

Finally, Sargo pulls the ice pack off his eye and says, “Is anyone else starving?” He gets up and dumps the ice into the sink. “I’m gonna make bolillos.” I notice that he says bolillos with the trace of an accent, like Locuaz. He never used to say it like that.

I shoot him an incredulous look. “Since when do you know how to cook?”

“Since my tía taught me,” he shoots back, pulling a tub of flour from a cabinet under the sink. “Secret Paz family recipe from Pocosín.”

Locuaz arches an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? We gonna have to see how the Paz family recipe compares to my family’s recipe. How long you letting the dough rise?”

Sargo folds his arms and returns her blunt look. “Thirty minutes.”

“Thirty minutes?!” she squawks. “Mijo, you doing that all wrong. My abuela let that shit rise for three hours!”

“Yeah, well this is a different recipe,” Sargo says, then adds, “mija.”

Locuaz blows out a pfft of air and waves a hand. “Okay, cabrón. You do you.” She picks up her mug and blows steam off the top, then stares at me for a long moment, scrutinizing me. “We gotta do something about your hair,” she says finally.

My hand instinctively goes to cover the shaved part. “It was Zenith,” I mumble. “They shaved it to fix my biochip.”

“I don’t mean that,” says Locuaz. “I think it’s kind of cool like that. But you gotta keep the short part short. Right now it looks like you shaved it two months ago and never touched it since. It’s getting all weird and scraggly. If you gonna have it shaved, you gotta shave it.” She tilts her chin at Fetch. “Like hers. See how she keeps it? So tight?”

I glance at Fetch, who flicks her eyes away and glares into her mug. I squint at the tiny 4242 tattoo above her left ear. Then I turn to Locuaz.

“Okay, fine. What do you suggest?”

She shrugs. “Why don’t we cut it? Sargo,” she turns to the galley, where Sargo is busy covering himself in flour, “you got a razor? Like an electric one? Como se dice…clippers?”

He squints at the ceiling, rubbing a flour-covered hand around his jaw, depositing white powder into a beard that has thickened since I last saw it. He looks a far cry from the buttoned-up, clean-shaven student teacher I used to take sailing classes from in Brume.

"Nope,” he says. He scratches at the hair on the side of his face. “I should probably get one though. I think it’s time for this thing to go.”

“Don’t!” I blurt, and then shrink as everyone abruptly turns to me. I drop my eyes into my mug. “I like it.”

Locuaz makes kissy noises and I shove her foot with mine under the table.

"Okay, well maybe we can’t fix your hair tonight,” she says. “But soon as we find some clippers, I’m on that shit.”

“I have some.” Fetch’s voice is so quiet it has the effect of immediately silencing the room. She readjusts her hands around her mug and shrugs, still not looking at any of us. "On the Kingfisher. If you want them.”

In the corner of my eye, I see Locuaz smile a relieved smile that I’m sure has nothing to do with finding clippers for my hair. She slaps her knee and stands, holding out a hand to Fetch. Fetch stares at it for a long breath, then, reluctantly, takes it. Locuaz pulls her to her feet.

“Okay, me and Fetch gonna go get the clippers. Bird, we’ll meet you on the bow. We should do it out there so we don’t all end up eating hair bolillos.”

Ten minutes later, I sit on the bow with Locuaz hovering behind me. She’s nervously waving the clippers around. Fetch sits on the rail, arms folded, observing us silently.

“Okay,” says Locuaz. “Okay. Here we go.”

She touches the clippers to the side of my head and then withdraws them quickly without turning them on. She shuffles her feet to one side and the other.

“I never did this before,” she mutters.

I raise my eyebrows. “What?”

“It’s okay,” she says, then, “Okay. Okay, here we go. No big deal. It’s already shaved. I’m not gonna mess it up, right?”

“I don’t know,” I say through gritted teeth. “Are you?”

“No! It’ll be fine…just…okay.” She touches the clippers to the side of my head again and then pulls them away. “Hijo de puta!”

Fetch sighs loudly and hops off the rail. She crosses to us and holds out a hand to Locuaz.

“Give them to me.”

I whip my head up sharply to look at Fetch’s face. She looks pissed. Which is understandable: she just found out I tried to sleep with her dad, and the memory of her sister’s death was dredged up in front of her whole crew. I’m surprised her knife isn’t already sticking out of my throat.

Hesitantly, Locuaz hands her the clippers.

“Whoa, whoa!” I scoot away and scramble to my feet, taking a step back and eyeing Fetch. “I don’t know about this.”

Fetch folds her arms and returns my wary look with a glare. Locuaz positions herself between us.

“Okay, you two. Bird, she’s not gonna be able to kill you with clippers. It’s not that kind of razor.” She turns to Fetch. “Fetch…you better not have some secret way where you know how to kill her with these clippers. She’s my friend. Okay?”

Fetch doesn’t take her eyes off my face. “Fine. But we’re gonna do this my way."

I narrow my eyes. “What does that mean?”

“Doesn’t it drive you crazy being all lopsided like that?” She waves a hand next to one side of her head. “Having hair only on one side?”

“I don’t know. I guess I never really thought about it.”

She scoffs. “Well if that was me, it would drive me crazy. I’d be walking around in circles all the goddamn time.”

“O…kay. So…”

“So we’re gonna shave both sides,” says Fetch, clicking on the clippers, which emanate a low, menacing hum.

I take a step back. “Um…what?”

Locuaz suddenly claps and emits a high-pitched cry. “Oh yeah, like a mohawk!” She turns to me. “Oooh mija, that’s gonna look badass.”

“Uhhh…I don’t know…” I take another step back, my eyes on the clippers in Fetch’s hand. If she wants to punish me for hitting on her dad, she’s choosing a very creative way of doing it.

“Trust me!” Locuaz grabs me by the shoulders, pushing me to a seat on the bow. “It’s gonna look good. Look at Fetch. Doesn’t she look badass?”

I set my lips into a hard line and flick my eyes to Fetch. “I guess so.”

“Okay, so you can see she knows what she’s doing.”

"Yeah, but…"

Fetch's eyes are inscrutable as she trains them on me. “I’ll start with the side that's already done,” she says. “And then we’ll see.”

I will admit that Fetch does know what she’s doing. She handles the clippers as easily as she handles her knife, deftly shearing away the too-long, ragged bits on the already-shaved side of my head with quick, nimble strokes. I sit absolutely still, squeezing my eyes shut. In addition to the clippers, she brought along a whole leather case of supplies, and after she’s done buzzing down the hair on the first side, she produces a long, lethal-looking straight razor.

I recoil, but she just rolls her eyes and goes to work tidying up the edges. She applies shaving foam and carefully sculpts around my ear, neck, and temple before dabbing on a cold, astringent liquid that makes my eyes water. Then she reaches into her leather pouch and holds up a small, silver mirror. I turn my head to the side.

“Whoa. It actually looks…really good.”

Locuaz grins. “See? I told you.”

I turn to Fetch, taking a deep breath. “Thank you.”

She shrugs, avoiding my eyes. “It’s fine.”

“And…” I hesitate, wanting to say more, but not knowing how. I want to tell her that I’m sorry about what happened with Savage. That I’m sorry I ran from her that day in Alluvium. That I know what it’s like to lose your older sibling. That I think she’s terrifying, but deep down, I respect her. Most of all, I want to thank her for teaching me how to sail. But I don’t know how to say any of it. Not to a person as prickly and difficult to talk to as Fetch.

Eventually, I just go with, “And I’m sorry.”

She nods. “Me too.”

“I didn’t mean…”

She waves a hand. “It’s fine. I’m sorry I tried to kill you all those times. I was angry. I am angry.” Her eyes suddenly brighten with tears. "All the time."

Locuaz tuts and tries to put her arm around Fetch's shoulder, but Fetch shrugs her off.

“Angry about what?” I ask.

She looks up and fixes me with a blank, level stare. “My sister died.”

The abrupt honesty takes me aback. But I try to keep my face from showing it. I also try not to let on that I already heard this from Locuaz.

"Recently?"

“No. It was a long time ago. Tonight just…reminded me of a lot of things. And Savage—” She sighs in disgust and wipes her nose on the back of her hand. “Savage is an asshole. He makes me crazy.”

A shaft of guilt goes through me. “I’m sorry I—”

“Don’t—” She flinches, shaking her head. “I don’t wanna talk about that. It wasn’t your fault. He should know better.”

I nod carefully. A small silence stretches between us. Finally, I say, “I know it’s not the same, but…for most of my life, I thought my brother was dead. It—I know it’s…hard.”

She nods.

"What was her name?" I ask. "Your sister.”

Fetch drags her forearm across her eyes. “Fly.” She draws a long, slow breath. “She drowned.”

Next to me, Locuaz emits a small sigh. Fetch continues.

“She fell overboard. At least, we think she did. We were anchored near Qanat, and she disappeared one night. Some fishermen found her body washed up on the shore the next morning.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry.”

Fetch shakes her head. “I guess it mostly hurt because it felt so…senseless. She was a strong swimmer. A good sailor. She was smart. But she was…impatient. She took stupid risks. It just…made me so mad that she died because of that. Like it was her own fault.” She sniffs, hardening her face against some rising emotion. “Seems so unfair. I don’t know.”

Locuaz puts a hand on Fetch’s shoulder, but Fetch shrugs it off again.

“When was this?” I ask quietly.

“Years ago. I was probably…seven? My mom…didn’t take it well. She died a year later. Then Savage went off the rails and everything kind of went to shit. He got us run out of Qanat over some stupid drug thing. We bounced around on crews for a while. Eventually we wound up on the Kingfisher.”

I frown. “As crew?”

She nods.

“How did he end up as the captain?”

She shakes her head, scoffing. “Killed the other guy. Anyway,” she forces her face to clear, “like I said, it was a long time ago.” She holds up the clippers. “Are we doing the other side or what?”

I hold her gaze, watching her put up her walls. Watching her draw that hard, unyielding mask across her face.

“Sure,” I say. “Let’s do it.”

Fetch pulls a pair of long scissors from her leather pouch and I squeeze my eyes shut as she shears off the hair on the other side of my head. I can’t bring myself to look at the brown and sun-bleached curls that I know are falling all over the deck.

“Your hair is in terrible condition,” mutters Fetch.

“Wow, thanks.”

“You should just shave the whole thing. It’s way easier to deal with out here. No salt damage. Sun damage. You don’t have to wash it. Doesn’t get in your face when you’re trying to do sail changes.”

“Alright, Scissorhands.” I squint one eye open at her. “Let’s take it easy on the head shaving. I’m already letting you go pretty hog wild here.”

For a second, I swear I see the shadow of a smile cross her face. She puts the scissors away, then clicks on the clippers and begins to shave the second side. I close my eyes again. She works in silence for a few minutes, then abruptly stops.

I open my eyes. “Oh no. What? Did it get screwed up?”

Fetch says nothing. She stares at the side of my head, her brow creased in some kind of mixture of disbelief, fear, and confusion. I feel my heart rate beginning to tick up.

“What?”

She draws her eyes slowly away from the spot she’s staring at and looks at me.

“How long have you had that tattoo?”

I frown. “What tattoo?”

She drops the clippers and digs into her pouch again, pulling out the small silver mirror. She holds it up to the side of my head.

“That tattoo.”

I stare into the mirror, my heart accelerating. Just above my ear, where Fetch has just finished shaving away the hair, is a tiny, black number.

4339.

“Oh my god,” murmurs Locuaz, grabbing Fetch by the shoulder. She pulls her around, fixing her eyes on the tiny tattoo above Fetch’s ear.

4242.

“Why do you guys have the same tattoo?” Locuaz asks. I open and close my mouth, but there are no words in there.

“I don’t know.” Fetch drops the mirror and steps backward. She glares at me. “Why do we have the same tattoo?”

“How should I know?!” I shoot back. “I didn’t even know I had a tattoo!”

“Where did you get it?” Locuaz says.

“I don’t know!” Fetch and I cry, at the same time. Our eyes meet. Hers are wide; half-angry, half-panicked. I imagine mine are the same.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” I say.

“I’ve always had it. As long as I can remember.”

“And you don’t know where it came from?”

She shakes her head.

“How do you just…walk around with a tattoo on your head and not spend every waking moment trying to figure out why it’s there? Aren’t you, like…curious? Don’t you want to know?”

“I have a lot of other shit going on!” Fetch snaps. “I don’t know if you noticed but I’m running a ship. I have a little brother to take care of. My dad is a drug addict. I’m kind of busy. Yeah, I think about it sometimes, but I don’t have a lot of free time to sit around pondering the mysteries of my…past, or whatever.”

Locuaz steps between us again, her hands raised. “Please can we just calm down?” She turns to Fetch. “You don’t remember anything about when you got it? How old you were? Nothing?”

Fetch shakes her head, her lips pursed, still glaring at me like I somehow did this to her.

“What about your dad?” Locuaz says. “Maybe he knows?”

Fetch sends a loud breath through her nose. “I asked him about it before. He just blew it off.”

“But he knows?”

“I don’t know.”

Locuaz takes Fetch’s chin between her fingers and turns her head to study the tattoo again. Then she does the same to mine.

“It’s crazy. They almost exactly the same.” She steps back, folding her arms, and looks at Fetch. “I think we should ask your dad.”

“Don’t call him that.”

Locuaz emits a small sigh. “I think we should ask Savage.”

Fetch scowls. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

“Okay. So you don’t have to. Me and Bird will do it.”

I glance at Locuaz, opening my mouth to protest, but she shoots me a look and I shut it again.

Fetch rolls her shoulders and sighs. “Yeah, fine, okay, we can ask Savage.”

Sargo pokes his head up through the companionway, streaks of flour marring his forehead and one cheek.

“Bolillos are ready in ten if you—” His eyes land on me and his brow creases. “What happened to your hair?”

Remembering that Fetch never finished shaving the second side, and that half of my head is a frizzy, half-chopped-up mess, I clutch both hands over my head to hide it.

Sargo gives me a confused smile. "It looks…nice.”

“It’s not finished!” I snap. Locuaz hides her face, struggling to contain her laughter. I shove her with my shoulder to shut her up.

“Fetch and Locuaz and I are going to the Kingfisher for something,” I say. “We’ll be back.”

“Oh.” Sargo frowns. “Okay. Well, food is ready in ten.”

chapter

sixteen

SAVAGE SPRAWLS on his elbows across the desk in his quarters, head propped heavily in one hand, dart dangling limply between the fingers of the other. The air in the room is thick with sweet, greasy smoke that seems to cling to my skin and clog my nose, and only the astringent, citrus-and-spice smell of grog permeates the haze.

Fetch hangs back, leaning against the wall just outside as Locuaz and I step through the door. When Savage looks up, his eyes are cracked with spidery red lines.

“What do you want?” he croaks. A crease appears between his brows. “What the hell happened to your hair?”

Locuaz steps past me and is talking before I can even open my mouth. She strides up to Savage, grabs the dart from his hand, and tosses it onto the desk.

“Why does your daughter have a tattoo on the side of her head?”

Savage recoils, holding his hands in front of him, and I grab Locuaz by the wrist and pull her away.

“Take it easy!”

She glowers at him. “I just want him to know what a terrible father he is.”

Savage stares back at her weakly. “He knows,” he says.

“And how pathetic!”

“He is aware.”

“And evil.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” I steer Locuaz to the corner. “Just…hang on a second, okay? Let me talk to him.”

She folds her arms and purses her lips, glaring at him over my shoulder.

“Please.”

She nods, once, curtly, and I turn to Savage with a sigh. Slumped in the half-light of his cabin, wretched and miserable.

"Fetch has a number tattooed on the side of her head,” I say.

He picks up the dart again, saying nothing.

“I have a number tattooed on the side of my head.”

His hand stills.

“Do you know why?”

He clicks on the dart, drags on it and blows smoke at the table. “Yes.”

He turns the dart over in his blackened fingers, watching the metal glint in the light. He doesn’t say anything for a long time. When he speaks, he addresses the dart.

“It was a program. A Zenith thing. When Fetch and her sister were kids, before Fid was born, Zenith came to the settlement where we lived. They offered me and my wife the chance to move to a harbor city. Qanat. Get the kids chipped. It was like a one-time deal. They pick one family every year. Some kind of lottery.”

I feel as though the air has been sucked out of the room. My heart is beating in the back of my skull.

He looks at me. “Zenith numbered the girls when they gave them the chips. Fetch was forty-two forty-two. Fly…” He swallows. “Fly was forty-two forty-one. Zenith wiped their memories. Their childhood in the settlement. My wife and I signed agreements that we would never tell them where we really came from.”

Fetch’s silhouette steps around the doorframe. It stops in the doorway as though unable to actually cross the threshold.

“You did what?” it whispers.

Savage grimaces. “It was for you and your sister. To get you out of the settlement. To get us to Qanat.”

“I thought mom was born in Qanat.”

Savage shakes his head sadly. “No, hon.”

“Don’t call me that,” Fetch snaps. “What else have you been lying about?”

“Nothing. Not to you.”

“Did they chip you too?”

He nods. “But I don’t use it. I never could get the hang of it.”

“Why didn’t they wipe your memory?”

“They needed us to work. Your mom was a medic. She had skills that they wanted her to retain. I was…well, I wasn’t completely useless. But you guys were just kids. What the hell did you know? Nothing. I guess they figured it was better to give you a clean slate.”

“Did you know what Zenith was doing?” I interject.

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

“The chips. The ones they put in the kids. They had experimental tech in them. They weren’t just regular chips.”

Savage looks at the table again. “We knew it was something. We didn't know what exactly. But they told us there was some kind of new software they were testing. That was part of the deal.”

Now it’s my turn to stare in disbelief. “Then why?”

“When your kids are growing up in a place like that, and you have a chance to get them out…” He shrugs weakly. His voice is hollow. “It seemed like the right thing to do. Look…my girls are…were…strong-willed. Fly was already getting into trouble in the settlement. We were afraid if she stayed there, she’d wind up on a dark path. Become a statistic. We thought in a city, with the right resources, with some coin, we could give her a better chance.”

I frown. “What do you mean? What kind of trouble?”

“Drinking,” says Fetch shortly, from the doorway. I turn over my shoulder in surprise. She’s staring at me, the familiar, fiery hatred for me rekindled and smoldering in her eyes.

“It wasn’t that,” Savage sighs. “That didn’t start until later. But she was always…different. Fetch was headstrong and difficult, sure, but Fly was…something else. It was like something in her head was…wired differently.”

A light falls across my mind, illuminating corners. Wired differently.

“We thought if we could get to a city, we could…get her some help, I guess.” Savage drags miserably on the dart again, his eyes on the table. “But obviously, that didn’t happen soon enough.”

Silence settles on the room, but inside, my mind is spinning. Fetch is a Lottery kid. Her sister was a Lottery kid. Her sister drank. Wired differently…

Disappeared in the middle of the night.

Savage starts to drag on the dart again, then appears to change his mind. He drops it on the table and it rolls onto the floor. Shoving greasy blonde hair out of his face, he pulls a flask from the inside pocket of his coat. I look at Locuaz, standing still as stone in the corner of the room, then at Fetch, trembling with rage in the doorway.

As though she senses I’m about to speak, Fetch shifts her furious eyes from Savage to me. I hesitate. A theory is piecing itself together inside my head—an explanation for Fly’s death that is so clear and so unsettling that I almost don’t want to say it aloud. Because doing so will mean opening a door that I’m not sure I want to walk through.

“Fetch,” I say quietly, “I think your sister…I think I know how she died. I don’t think she fell overboard that night. I think she teleported.”

____________________

I’m not sure how Fetch manages to hold her shit together well enough to finish cutting my hair, or why she even wants to, but she does. As soon as we get back to Panga, she orders me to sit on the bow, pulls out her clippers, and goes to work. She carries on in total silence, her jaw clenched, her hands trembling. She works quickly and indifferently, seeming not to care if she pulls my hair or hurts me.

Locuaz, perched on the rail, watches us. Sargo, who emerged from below deck with a basket of rolls when we returned, and was filled in by Locuaz in a quick, hushed voice, sits next to her, the basket forgotten in his hands. We all share the weight of Fetch’s silence. By the time she finishes and holds up the mirror for me, it’s an effort for me to break that silence.

“Thanks,” I whisper, surprised at the quietness of my own voice. “It looks good.”

She draws and releases a long, slow breath, and sets down the clippers. Nobody speaks for a long time.

Finally, Fetch says, “Zenith’s tech killed my sister. Zenith killed my sister.”

Sargo moves as though to speak, then apparently thinks better of it. I exchange a careful look with Locuaz. Fetch stoops to collect her tools and carefully tucks everything back into the small leather pouch. When she finishes, she stands and stares over the bow across the water.

Finally she says to the horizon, “Someone should pay.”

“Pay?” says Sargo.

Fetch fixes him with a steely glare, which he shrinks from. He spreads his palms.

“I’m just saying…pay how? And who?”

“Zenith,” says Fetch. “Zenith should pay.”

Sargo looks uneasy. “We don’t have any proof that what happened to your sister is connected to what Zenith did."

"Are you serious?" I cut in. "She had Zenith's QMTP tech in her chip. She had a…brain like mine. Wired differently. That's what Rav used to say about me. That’s what made QMTP work for me and no one else. And until I learned how to control it, I ended up in some very dangerous situations. I think the same thing happened to her."

"I'm just saying—"

"And what about the things Yote told me?" Locuaz adds.

Sargo frowns. "Who's Yote?"

"She's a leader in the Neozapa movement. I been helping her get girls out of the black market in Pocosín. And she has some…strong opinions about Zenith."

"Okay, but that's just one person—"

"It's not just her," I point out. "What about the Anonymity? They've been organizing against Zenith for…years. According to my brother—"

Sargo releases a frustrated sigh. "According to your brother the terrorist?"

"Can we not call him that?" I retort. "He's still my brother."

"He's still a terrorist. He raided the facility at Grike. He shot people, Bird.”

I set my jaw. “That doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

Sargo stares at me, opens his mouth, closes it; shakes his head. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you.” He turns to Fetch. “And I don’t mean to…excuse what may have happened to your sister…” He turns to me again. “But what about all the stuff Axioma showed us? The projections. She said QMTP was important. She said it was literally the future of humanity at stake.”

“What’s QMTP?” Fetch asks sharply.

I glance at Sargo. “It’s what Zenith calls the blips. It’s what they’ve been working on. It’s what all this—the Lottery, the experimental biochips—is supposed to be in pursuit of. Axioma Nation showed us projections that Zenith scientists made based on data they’ve been collecting for like, ten years. The projections show that, without QMTP, the world is basically screwed. Something about ‘connecting people’ or whatever.”

Sargo shoots me a look. “It’s more than that. It’s about freedom. Progress. Right now, we’re trapped. Siloed. All of us. People in cities and Settlers and Reckoners. We’re stuck in these bubbles of relative safety while the world burns around us. QMTP will free people.”

“I don’t feel trapped.” Fetch shrugs. “I do fine on the Salt.”

“Yeah, but come on.” Sargo raises his eyebrows. “It’s not exactly safe.”

“Why do people need to be free?” Locuaz asks. “Why can’t they just stay in their cities? Cities are fine.”

“It’s about the exchange of ideas,” says Sargo emphatically. “Knowledge. Growth. Collaboration. It’s how we survive. QMTP will enable people to freely collaborate again. Long-distance, large-scale movement of people and goods without any energy use at all. People will be able to work together to come up with solutions to the climate crisis. If they don’t—if we stay as we are and do nothing…Zenith projections show the problems will just get worse and worse until even harbor cities become unlivable. In a hundred years. Less than a hundred years.”

“So what are you saying?” Fetch asks, icily. “That my sister’s death will be worth it in the long run?”

“I’m—no, I’m not…” Sargo looks at me helplessly. “I’m not saying that.”

“Then what are you saying?” says Locuaz.

“He’s saying we should stop and think,” I sigh. “Right?”

Sargo nods, looking grateful. “And besides,” he says quietly, holding up his hands as though already fending off an attack from Fetch, “how are you going to make Zenith pay? They’re massive. What are you going to do—take them down? How? With what army? They own the army. They run the world.”

Fetch stares at him with murder on her face. I find my eyes drawn to the tiny number above her ear. 4242. Four thousand two hundred and forty-two. Kids. Four thousand children. A jolt goes through me. How high do those numbers go?

Axioma lied to me. It wasn’t just one family every year. It can’t have been—not to be numbering people as high as 4242 in the span of ten years. What else did she lie about? Is anything she told me true?

I shudder. “Fetch is right,” I murmur, almost to myself. “Someone should pay.”

I feel everyone’s eyes turn to me. Keeping my gaze straight over the bow, at the cone of moonlight on the water, I continue, slowly, speaking my thoughts as they come to me.

“Maybe not ‘pay’ like Fetch means. We can’t take down Zenith. Of course we can’t. But maybe we can make them pay. Coin. An acknowledgment or apology. Something. Reparations, I guess. For the families.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” says Sargo.

“Yeah, they’re not likely to cough up out of the goodness of their hearts,” says Fetch bitterly.

The answer comes to me as clearly as though someone had spoken it in my ear.

“We trade them something they’d be willing to pay for,” I say.

Sargo frowns. “Like what?”

“Me. We give them me.”

Locuaz makes a small, nervous noise. “Um…what?”

“Zenith wants me. I’m valuable to the QMTP project. They spent a long time chasing me. And now that I know how to make QMTP work for real…I’ll be even more valuable to them.” I look around, meeting their eyes. “So I go to Zenith. Make a deal. Tell them I’ll share what I’ve learned, that I’ll submit to testing—whatever they need. I’ll help them understand how QMTP works. If they provide reparations to the families who’ve been affected.”

“You gonna go to Zenith and tell them to do whatever they want?” Locuaz sounds nervous. “I don’t know, Bird…”

“We have no proof that Zenith is dangerous,” Sargo reminds her.

“No proof?” Locuaz whirls on him. “Fetch’s sister is dead. Because of their tech. If what they’re doing is safe, why are they keeping it secret? We can’t send Bird to them! To do ‘whatever they want’? Are you crazy?”

She shoots this last question at me.

Fetch folds her arms. “And why would we give Zenith anything, anyway?”

“Because if we don’t,” I realize out loud, “they’ll just keep taking kids.” I look at Sargo, who is watching me with a strange, fierce expression. “They won’t stop.”

Silence crowds into the circle with us. It's somehow more alive than any other quiet I’ve ever heard. A tense, agitated quiet that presses itself against our thoughts, forcing us to swallow them.

Finally, Sargo says, “I’ll go with you.”

Locuaz nods. “Me too.”

“We’ll take Panga,” says Sargo. “Sail for Grike in the morning.”

I shake my head. “We don’t even know if Axioma will be in Grike. She could be at Zenith headquarters in Brume. She could be on her way here—”

“Here?” Locuaz’s face lights with alarm.

I nod. “Zenith is tracking me.”

“Tracking you? Can they do that?”

“They can track anybody.” Ignoring the horrified look on Locuaz's face, I turn to Sargo. “We can’t just sail to Grike. And we can’t sail to Brume. By the time we get to one, if she isn’t there, it’ll be too much wasted time to get to the other. I need to go straight to Axioma.”

Fetch narrows her eyes. “How?”

“I can find her. I can blip to her without knowing where she is.”

“Like you found me in Pocosín,” says Sargo.

“Yes. But I can’t…I can’t take you all with me.”

“Why not?” demands Fetch.

“Last time I tried to blip with someone else—” A knot wells in my throat.

Sargo finishes for me. “It was Malarkey.”

I swallow, nodding. “It isn’t safe. You could die.”

“It isn’t safe for you to go alone,” Locuaz counters.

“It’ll be okay. I’ve negotiated with Axioma before. She wants what’s in my head. She’s not going to hurt me; I’m too valuable.”

Locuaz looks from Fetch to Sargo. “This is crazy. We not letting her do this?”

Fetch shrugs. Sargo doesn’t take his eyes from my face. “I don’t think…I don’t think we have any reason to fear Axioma,” he says carefully. “I’ve known her since I was a kid. I still don’t believe that she’s…evil. I think—I think it’ll be okay.”

Locuaz again looks from him to Fetch, but neither of them meets her eyes. She folds her arms and looks at me for a long beat. Finally, she shakes her head. “At least go in the morning,” she says. “After a good night’s sleep.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, Mom.”

She glares at me, then clutches my elbow and pulls me into a hug, her thick, black hair tickling my nose, smelling of grease and cloves.

“We gonna come. We gonna be right behind you,” she says in my ear. She steps back and fixes Sargo with a pointed look. “Right?”

He nods, still looking at me. “Message us when you get to Axioma. Tell us where you are. We’ll sail as soon as we know where to go.”

Fetch nods too, holding out her hand. Frowning, I take it. She grips it hard and shakes it firmly, once.

“We’re gonna make them pay,” she says.

Another silence settles around us. Finally, Fetch draws a deep breath.

“It’s late,” she says. “I’m heading back to the Kingfisher.”

Locuaz's face crumples slightly. “Oh. Okay." She taps her foot anxiously as Fetch begins to walk away. “Maybe…I could come say hello?” Locuaz calls after her. “To Red and everyone?”

Fetch stops and turns back to stare blankly at Locuaz. Her face is inscrutable. Walls all the way up.

She shrugs. “Whatever you want.”

Locuaz hovers for a tense moment, chewing the inside of her cheek as she watches Fetch hop over the rail and climb onto the Kingfisher’s boarding ladder. Then she emits a little huff and follows her.

Sargo watches them go, his brow furrowed. “So…what is their story, exactly?”

I shake my head. “Let’s just say that Fetch is definitely the ‘Bird’ of that relationship.”

His lips quirk. “Mhm. And that would make Locuaz the…?”

“The one that’s not an asshole.” I put my eyes on my toes.

“You’re not so bad.”

His toes appear in front of mine. I look up to find his eyes just inches away, the flecks of gold in them interspersed with pinpricks of the silver stars. The air between us goes warm and still.

His smile fades. “You’re not an asshole, Bird.”

“I know, I know. I’m salty.”

He doesn’t smile. “You’re not an asshole. I’m the asshole. I’m sorry. I’m…really, really sorry. You were right. I was just…scared. In Grike, when you told me all that stuff about Savage and grog and the blips and—I don’t know. I kind of freaked out. I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry I left. It was…reprehensible. And I’m sorry I walked away in Naze. I’m sorry I left you on the Kingfisher that night. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when Malarkey died, I—”

“Just—” I put up my hand, “—stop. I’m afraid if you keep going you’ll remind me of something I’m actually still mad about.”

His face creases. “It was my fault,” he whispers.

“What? What was your fault?”

“Malarkey. It was my fault she died. If I had been there—if I hadn’t left…”

“No. Sargo, no.”

“I could have held onto her. I could have—”

“It wasn’t your fault.” I reach for his face. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just…a shitty thing that happened. I blamed myself for a long time, but you can’t—you just can’t. Think like that. It doesn’t do anyone any good to think like that. At least, that’s what Rav says.”

He smiles a small, sad smile.

I take a breath. “And…I’m sorry, too.”

He frowns. “For what?”

“I took you for granted. Ever since I started taking your class. You gave me extra help, and you tried to watch out for me and I just…never listened. Jesus, you left Brume with me and I never even thanked you for helping me get to Alluvium. I’m so, so sorry. I screwed up your whole life. And I was a mess. I don’t blame you for leaving, and honestly…I don’t really understand why you came back. But I’m glad you did. And believe it or not, I think I somewhat have my shit together now, and I’m not going to make any more terrible, short-sighted decisions that put anyone’s life in danger.”

He closes his hand around mine and brushes his lips over my fingertips. “Apart from teleporting to Axioma tomorrow by yourself.”

“Apart from that. But that’s just my dumb life. Who cares about that?”

“I do. Please be careful. We’ll be there as soon as we can. We’ll sail tomorrow morning, as soon as we hear from you.”

“Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. Anyway, it’ll take you over a week to get to Brume and even longer to get to Grike. I’ll probably be back on Panga before you make it halfway.”

“I hope so.” He squeezes and lets go of my hand, then takes my chin between his fingers, turning my head slowly from side to side, studying my hair.

"This is cool.”

“Thanks.”

“Kind of makes you look like a warrior.”

I roll my eyes, but he shakes his head. “Don’t do that. It does.”

He turns my face to his again, and as our eyes meet, the small distance between us seems to fall away completely. As though some wall has finally come down and a light is shining over all the things that kept coming between us, and, finding them to be insubstantial, obliterating them.

I press my palms to his chest, feeling the firm strength of him, the rise and fall of his breath. My eyes follow my hands as they wander lower, feeling the contours of his stomach. I pause at the hem of his shirt and something deep inside me tightens. I slip my fingers under the hem.

"Not here." He catches my wrists and pulls my hands out, pinning them to his chest. "Let's go below."

Panga's galley still smells faintly of fresh bread and cinnamon orange tea. Sargo sets the untouched basket of bolillos on the counter and turns, pushing the hair back from his face. His eyes crinkle, full of knowing mischief, but before he can open his mouth to speak, I pounce, pressing him against the counter, sealing my mouth to his. His hands come to my hips, like he was ready for me—like he was waiting—and his lips soften and begin to press back.

His kiss is soft but firm, playful but breathtakingly sincere, and we come together like kids exploring a newly discovered forbidden secret—testing each other, pushing boundaries, wresting and relinquishing control. I had almost forgotten how perfectly we already fit together. How…fun it is to kiss him. I feel giddy. Overwhelmed by the desire to explore not only this new territory but him. To see and touch and taste more.

Hooking my fingers into his front pockets, I step backward, tugging him with me. His fingers dig harder into my hips as I pull him out of the galley. His mouth smiles against mine.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

I turn us and put a hand to his chest, pressing him back toward the couch. He redoubles his grip around my waist, dragging me with him, and we tumble clumsily onto the sofa. I straddle him, clasping my hands around his face, and kiss him deeper, pressing my chest to his, squeezing my thighs around his hips, relishing the thrill of feeling his body against mine.

He hmms and slides his hands under the back of my shirt, and at the same moment, I feel him go hard. It happens so fast that it catches my breath, and I pull away, turning my gaze down between us.

"That was quick."

He tips my chin back up with one finger, his eyes heavy with dark amusement. "I told you," he says, and touches his lips to mine, "this is what you do to me."

I arch an eyebrow. "Seems extremely inconvenient."

"Hugely."

I look down again, then peek back up. "Hugely, you say?"

"Certainly not a minor inconvenience."

I tuck my lower lip between my teeth and his eyes track the movement with an intensity that makes my heart beat fast. I start to unbutton his pants and his breath goes still. For a heartbeat, we both freeze. Then, finding my nerve again, I keep going until the button comes loose. I pull open his zipper and reach inside. The feel of him in my hand ignites my whole body as I pull him free and lay my eyes on him for the first time.

I swallow nervously. "Certainly not minor."

He doesn't laugh, and looking back at his face I find him staring at me, tensely.

"I mean," I continue in an overly casual voice, turning my eyes back down, "I have no basis for comparison, but it looks pretty major to me."

His breath hitches as I wrap my trembling hand around him. He’s hot and hard and impossibly smooth. My heart is beating through my palm against him. It’s beating in my ears, against the back of my skull, between my legs. I remember the morning I caught him in the bunk when he was supposed to be on watch. I've been imagining this moment since that day, but now that we're here, I feel completely unprepared. I have no idea what I'm doing.

He must sense my trepidation. His hand wraps around mine and in a rough whisper he says, "Like this."

He begins to move my hand along the length of his shaft, slowly, squeezing gently. The breath leaves me. For what feels like an infinite moment, he guides my hand, then he lets go, loosing a long breath. I keep going, my heart beating faster and faster as his breath grows shorter and shorter and he grows harder in my hand. A gentle heat builds between my thighs, and I draw a deep breath and bite my lip again as he groans, his hands coming to my hips, gripping me tightly, tilting my hips against his.

I steal another glance at his face. His eyes have closed, his lips parting slightly, and I can't resist leaning forward to press my mouth to them. A soft moan escapes his throat as our lips touch, and I taste the dizzying, intoxicating flavor of him again. A rush of adrenaline pours down my spine. I don't just want to touch—I want to taste. Everything.

I want to know if it's possible to shatter him the way he shattered me.

Keeping my hand around him, I sit up and un-straddle him, then, slipping between his legs, I sink to my knees. His eyes snap open.

"Bird…you—don't have to do that."

"I know." I shrug. "I'm…curious."

His eyebrows raise. "Curious."

"I want to explore."

His eyes hold mine, filled with a mix of cautious uncertainty and dark, hungry need. "Okay," he says hoarsely, "explore away."

I watch him watch me with hard, bright eyes as I lower my mouth to him. As I touch my lips to his tip, his fingers flex convulsively and he sucks in a sharp sip of air.

"Shit."

The word lights a fire deep in my core. I wrap my mouth around him, tasting salt and bitterness. He's velvety and warm and firm, and bigger than I thought. Very slowly, I start to ease him into my mouth, testing, tasting, carefully inching my way lower.

“Jesus," he gasps, "you're killing me here, Howsely."

I frown and look up, releasing him. "It's not good?"

"No, it's good!" He grips the sides of my head with his hands, his eyes, half-wild, flitting between mine. "You're just—very…deliberate."

"Ohh." I blush, grinning. "Too slow?"

He shakes his head, his breath ragged. "I don't—no, it's—"

"Should I stop?"

"No! Don't stop." His hands drop and he sits back, a raw light burning in his eyes as he watches me. "Don't stop."

Still smiling, I resume my exploring. He tastes and smells like nothing I've ever tasted or smelled before—rich and musky and…aroused. I slip my whole mouth over him and he grips the sides of my head, arching his hips toward me, filling my whole mouth.

"God,” he growls.

My eyes go wide. I grab the base of his shaft as he pulls out, wanting to take him again, to give him more. To hear him say it again.

I want to fucking hear you.

He said those words to me the night we were in his bed in Grike. I didn’t understand it then, but I get it now. Because I want to fucking hear him, too.

He turns my face up to look into my eyes as he pushes himself into my mouth again, all the way in, until I feel him in the back of my throat. It feels…scary. Aggressive. But I like it. It’s like I can feel him coming unbound in my hands. I keep my eyes on his as he pulls out, running my tongue along the underside of his shaft, and when the tip of him comes back into the light, I kiss it.

His eyes flare and he hisses out a soft, “Ffffu—”

I grin and wrap my lips around him again, sloppy, wet, and totally lost in the hard feel of him in my mouth, the rasp of his breath, the grip of his hand on the back of my head. I take him over and over, until his hips are moving in time to my rhythm, until we are soaked in spit and God knows what else, and his hands are twined in my hair.

“Oh—fuck,” he moans, and I turn my eyes up to see him looking down at me again, his eyes glazed but weirdly panicked. “Fuck,” he says again, his voice low and urgent, “I’m gonna come.”

I stare up at him, slightly wide-eyed, not sure what to do, but not wanting to stop. I want him to come; I want to see him unravel and lose himself. I want to shatter him.

“I don’t wanna—” He stares down at me, lost and dangerously close to the edge. “You don’t have to—”

I reach up and flatten my palm against his chest, pinning him to the sofa.

“Are you sure?” he gasps.

I nod.

He bites back an incoherent shout and comes, growling. The taste is abrupt and unpleasant, but the look on his face as he falls over the edge and is lost in my hands is worth it. I would do it a hundred times over to see that look on his face again. To hear him shout and feel him crumble like that, I would do almost anything. I keep my eyes glued to him as he bucks and arches, his teeth bared, eyes somewhere in the back of his head, totally undone.

Then I sit back on my heels and wipe my mouth.

Eventually, his eyes unglaze and come down from the ceiling, and he looks for me. When he finds me, kneeling before him, gazing intently up into his face, he reaches for me and pulls me to my feet. I climb into his lap and straddle him again, raking my hands into his hair and tilting his face up toward mine. His chest rises and falls between us as he places his hands on the sides of my face. He blinks and folds his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. I feel him sink his nose into my hair. He breathes in deeply, and out slowly.

“Was that the first time you’ve done that?” he croaks.

I nod against the crook of his shoulder.

He squeezes his arms tighter around me and smoothes my hair with one hand. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” I murmur into his shirt, “but I owed you one.”

He unwraps his arms abruptly and pushes me away by the shoulders.

“Owed me one?”

“I felt like we needed to even the score, after that night in Grike.” I shrug and grin.

He eyes me like he can’t decide whether I’m kidding or not. Slowly, he says, “You know that’s not how this works, right? No one’s keeping score.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod. But actually, now that we’re talking about it, I guess the truth is I did feel like I owed him something after that.

He keeps his eyes on mine, like he can see my small lie. “I don’t ever want you to think you owe me anything or have to do anything,” he says. “There’s no score. I don’t think it’s a good idea to get into the habit of…doing that.”

“Okay."

"I did what I did in Grike because I like it. I liked…doing that to you. It was hot. It made me feel good.”

A bolt of heat blazes outward from my chest. It explodes behind my face and I have to work hard not to look away as I say, “I liked doing it to you, too.”

His eyes spark. He sits up, tugging my mouth to his.

We kiss like two people who have learned how to breathe underwater and never want to return to the surface.

chapter

seventeen

“SO YOU’RE NOT COMING BACK.”

Fife stands in front of the saltnut tree with her arms folded, watching me with a flat, expressionless face.

“I’m…going to stay away for…a while.”

“Why?”

I spread my palms, shaking my head. “Come on. You know I can’t stay here. This isn’t where I belong. And I have friends that need me.”

“I thought I was your friend.”

“You are—” I drop my hands. “You…were, but I—”

“You’re leaving me behind again. Like you did when we were kids.”

“It wasn’t—”

“Wasn’t your fault, yeah.” She turns away.

Anger kindles in my chest. “It wasn’t. I was eight. And you’re the one that never came to say goodbye. You should have been there for me. I didn’t want to go. I was scared.”

Fife doesn’t appear to be listening. She’s climbing the saltnut tree, pulling herself up onto the lowest branch. She scoots into her usual spot, pulls a small twig roughly out of the side of the branch, and begins viciously plucking the leaves off.

“You’ll be back,” she says, not looking at me.

Something cold and wet touches the back of my hand, and I look down to see Malarkey’s upturned face gazing up into mine. She gives me a single, slow wag of her tail.

I sigh and squat down next to her, taking her ears in my hands. I press my forehead to hers, ignoring the savage movements of Fife in the corner of my eye.

I give Malarkey one last squeeze, then stand and turn, watching Fife in the tree for a few moments. Whatever unfinished business Rav thinks may be between us, I don’t have time to figure out what it is now. I have business in my world. I’m on my way to Axioma. To make Zenith pay for what they did to Fetch’s sister. To me and Shale. To all the kids and families they’ve harmed.

I take a breath and turn to go. “I guess I’ll see you when I see you,” I say over my shoulder.

Fife doesn’t reply as I disappear.

chapter

eighteen

AXIOMA NATION’S eyes are uncharacteristically and satisfyingly shocked as I appear out of thin air in the middle of the bright, circular room that I assume is her office. The room is empty of other people, but filled with gleaming glass furniture and surrounded on all sides by floor-to-ceiling windows, through which I can see a steel-blue bay surrounded by steep, fogwood-covered hills. I recognize the bay immediately: Brume. This is Zenith headquarters.

Axioma, staring at me like a statue from an expensive-looking glass and steel chair behind an even more expensive-looking glass and steel desk, is apparently paralyzed by the shock of my unexpected appearance, so I take advantage of her temporary stupefaction to message Sargo.

>>> I’M IN BRUME. ZENITH HQ

As I send it, Axioma grips the armrests of her chair and pushes herself to her feet, the chair legs scraping abrasively on the polished stone floor. I step back, glancing around the room. I note the crisp, knee-length white suit jacket she wore on our first meeting in Grike hanging on a glass hat-stand by the door.

When I turn my gaze back to Axioma, I notice, too late, that she’s pointing a gun at me. I hear a small pop, feel a sharp bite in the side of my neck, and then I’m grabbing feebly at nothing as my legs turn to water and black spots swarm my vision.

The floor comes at me very fast.

____________________

When I wake, the awareness of my own limbs returns so abruptly it’s as though someone has run fifty thousand volts through me. I jolt back to life. My arms and legs spasm, and I gasp a knife’s edge of breath into my lungs.

Once I’m aware of my limbs, the next thing I’m aware of is that I’m unable to move them. I crane my neck, squashing my chin into my chest, and as blurry shapes give way to in-focus ones, I see that I’m lying on a table. A metal one, cold and unyielding against my back. My wrists are bolted to it with hard, plastic bracelets—hexagonal, with tiny blue and red lights blinking in apparently random sequences along the top edges.

The table is in a stark, white lab lined with shelves of equipment: bottles, vials; creepy-looking metal instruments with articulating arms. Beyond my bare feet is a glass wall, and on the other side of the glass wall are three people in long white coats. They all seem to be preoccupied with studying a small machine in the corner of the room.

One of them looks up and over her shoulder, and as our eyes meet, my stomach plummets. Axioma. Her pin-straight, jet black hair falls sharply along her jawline, and her hard, hazel eyes are two keen pinpricks in a smooth, ivory face. Her long white coat is not a lab coat like the people next to her are wearing, but that same knee-length suit jacket I saw hanging in her office. She places a hand on the shoulder of the person next to her and says something I can’t hear and the person turns to reveal Dr. Lysett. A bubble of fear travels up my windpipe and pops in the back of my throat.

Get out, says a voice in my head. Get out, now.

Screw the negotiation. Screw reparations. Something has gone irrevocably sideways. I’m strapped to a table in a Zenith lab, and Dr. Lysett is no doubt about to perform some borderline-but-not-quite illegal test on me.

Panga, I think, as I close my eyes and prepare to blip, take me back to Panga.

But nothing happens.

Another bubble of panic surfaces in my chest. I try to blip again.

Nothing.

Lysett steps around Axioma, uttering something I can’t hear through the glass. Axioma motions for the third person in the room to leave as Lysett crosses to a small door in the far left side of the glass wall in front of me. She raises her hand to what I assume is a palm scanner, and the door hisses open.

Fear is now crawling out of shadows in the corners of my mind on long-fingered hands. Get out! Why can’t I get out?

On the other side of the glass, Axioma stands with her hands clasped in front of her, watching me.

“Welcome back.” Lysett’s voice draws my eyes back as the door hisses closed behind her. She takes a step into the room.

“What have you done?” I say. “How did you—why can’t I teleport?” I crane my neck to keep her in my vision as she crosses behind me, but lose sight of her in the corner of my right eye.

Lysett’s voice comes from somewhere behind my head. “You were difficult to pin down, Miss Howsley,” she replies briskly. “We couldn’t risk losing track of you again.”

She appears in the corner of my left eye, stoops, and adjusts something on the wall beside me. Something beeps and a warm, tingling sensation crawls from the base of my skull and spreads across my scalp.

“What are you doing?”

“Just monitoring your biochip’s output.” Her face appears above mine, a familiar saccharine smile pasted across it. “Nothing to worry about.”

She steps back and taps the side of her head. Her eyes unfocus as she rakes them over my body. They refocus and her smile widens.

“Vitals look good. You were out for quite a long time. We weren’t sure you’d come back…altogether.”

“Altogether? What…how long have I been unconscious?”

She casually taps the machine on the wall to my left again. “About a week.”

A week? I pull uselessly against the restraints pinning my wrists to the table.

“Let me go.”

“Soon.” Another insipid smile. “Try to relax.”

The door hisses open again and I flick my eyes back across the room as Axioma steps across the threshold.

“Thank you, Lysett,” she says. “How is she?”

“Fine, fine.”

Lysett gestures into the air to input something into her biochip, then reaches for my head. I angle my neck away from her, but she only tuts and snatches at me, catching my hair in her fingernails as she yanks something off my scalp. I recognize the mesh cap from the biochip interfacing unit dangling from her hand as she crosses to a counter on the opposite wall. She tucks the cap into a drawer and turns to face me with another smile.

“That’s fine,” says Axioma. “You can go, Lysett. I’ll radio if I need you.”

With a small, swift nod, Lysett removes her gloves and tosses them into a receptacle by the door. Then she raises her palm to the scanner, the door hisses open again, and she’s gone.

Axioma loops around the outside of the room, watching me carefully, taking her time to approach the table, as though afraid she might spook me, her polished, high-heeled black boots making slow, deliberate clocks on the cold, hard floor.

“You shot me with something,” I say.

“My apologies. A necessary precaution. I’m sure you can understand that as the CEO of the world’s preeminent corporation, I have to be on my guard. You’d never believe the number of radicalized loonies we get trying to break into our facilities on a regular basis. So when you appeared out of nowhere in the middle of my office, naturally, I was…surprised.”

“You drugged me and kept me here for a week.”

“We did what we thought was necessary. After we lost you during that Anonymity raid on Grike, we felt it was prudent to act quickly if we wanted to glean as much from you as possible, before someone like your brother interfered again.”

I swallow a small, icy gulp of panic. “You know who my brother is?”

She gives me an almost sympathetic smile. “We know who everyone is, Bird. We know more about them than they know about themselves. Although, I must say,” she continues, stopping at the edge of the table, “you continue to surprise me. I wasn’t expecting you to come back to Zenith of your own free will.”

“I came here to bargain with you,” I say.

“Is that so?”

“I was going to help you. I was going to tell you everything I know about QMTP.” I pull uselessly against the heavy white cuffs pinning me to the table. “I know how to control it. I figured it out. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want.” I lift my head to look her in the eye. “I can give you everything you need to make it work.”

Axioma’s sympathetic smile returns. “Yes, Bird,” she says. “We know all that. How do you think we’ve managed to stop you escaping?”

My heart begins to beat fast.

“As I said,” she continues, “we were able to learn a lot from you while you were unconscious. Enough for my team to form a crude understanding of how your brain triggers QMTP.” She folds her arms. “It was really rather fascinating. Quite an…unexpected revelation. We’ve been reverse-engineering the process. So far we’ve learned enough to stop the trigger from reaching the module. In other words,” she taps the cuff around my right wrist delicately with her fingernail, “we can stop you from jumping. And in less than a week, my team will have figured out how to reproduce fully controllable QMTP in any biochip.”

The room seems to press in on me. “You stole from me,” I whisper. “You…stole what was in my head.”

“Stole from you? No, Bird. I merely recouped my intellectual property.”

“Your intellectual property? This is my life.”

I glare at her as she steps away from the table, still twisting my arms uselessly. I have nothing. No leverage. She got everything. Everything I was going to tell her. Everything I was going to use to negotiate.

“You lied to me. You killed people. You killed people to make this happen.”

She perches on a metal stool on the other side of the room, looks back at me, and sighs.

“You say that like it was an easy thing for me to do. Do you think any of this has been easy for me? Of course not. It has been necessary. Things like this—things that mean the survival or extinction of our species…require those kinds of decisions. Someone has to make them. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again if I have to.”

Axioma taps her temple and her eyes unfocus as she reads through something on her biochip.

“And now what?” I demand.

“We’ll keep you here a little longer. There is one more thing we need from you. After that, you’ll be free to go.”

“What thing? What else could you possibly take from me? You have everything.”

Somewhere overhead, the high, piercing whine of an alarm shreds the quiet. Axioma stiffens, her gaze shooting to the door across the room as it emits an ominous metal clunk and the palm scanner turns red. She taps behind her ear and speaks in clipped, rapid tones.

“Spencer? What’s happening? What’s going on out there?” A moment passes that is filled with nothing but the screeching of that alarm in my ears. Then she says, “Surround them. Call security and bar the doors. I have Howsley here. We’ve been locked into the lab on four. There’s no way they can get to her. Do not, under any circumstances, engage. Put me through to Marsters. We need to play this carefully.”

“What’s happening?” I demand, struggling impotently. “What’s going on?”

She drops her hand and turns to me, her eyes blazing. “It would appear, Bird, that your brother is possibly even more stupid than we thought he was.”

chapter

nineteen

AXIOMA STRIDES to the wall behind me. I twist my head to keep her in my view, tilting my chin all the way back so that I can just see her, upside down, typing something into a keypad next to a large black slate that takes up most of the wall. The keypad beeps, and Axioma backs up a few paces, touching the back of her head. She folds one arm across her chest and presses her other hand to pursed lips as her eyes flick around the slate, watching something I can’t see.

She taps twice behind her ear, and the whine of the alarm through the room’s speakers is suddenly replaced by a shriek of feedback, then static, then the sound of panicked voices.

I flinch. “What are you doing?”

“I’m patching through my radio feed,” she says. “So you can hear exactly how much damage your brother and his crew of radicals are capable of doing.” Again she taps behind her ear. “Spencer?”

A man’s voice, breathless, crackles through the room’s speakers. “They've taken the first floor. They’ve taken hostages. Ten, maybe twelve people. They’re armed, all of them. We—”

In the background, I hear the rapid crack of gunfire, screams, the scrape and clatter of furniture overturning.

“We have them surrounded,” continues Spencer, his voice warping and fading as static cuts through it, “but—”

The static on the channel phases again, and a faint, tinny voice slides around the edges of Spencer’s words—distorted, ugly, and faraway.

“—listen care…” it says, “—mity…ijacked this chann…Net……. I repeat……worldwide. We are……..If you…our…fine……..Nation…”

The static fades and the voice comes in clearer.

“Listen carefull—,” it says. “We are the Anonymity…hijacked this channel and…—roadcasting to the Net. I repeat: this channel is live, worldwide. If you heed our demands, the next few minutes will go just fine.”

The voice is deep; too deep to be a human voice, and fringed with the metallic glitter of augmentation. I recognize it immediately: the digitally modified speech that hides the true voice of an Anonymity member. And not just any Anonymity member.

Shale.

“We seek an audience with Axioma Nation,” he continues, the strange, shifting quality of his metallic voice coming through the room’s tiny speakers like the voice creeping up from the deepest recesses of your own mind during a nightmare. “If that reprehensible piece of human garbage has the courage to stand up and accept responsibility for her crimes, we invite her to join the channel now.”

Axioma stands stone-still with her arms folded, her eyes still darting across the surface of the giant slate on the wall in front of her, apparently watching the events in another part of the building unfold on a video feed that I’m not able to see.

“Axioma…” A new voice flickers into the radio channel, faint and scratchy “—is Marsters…peace force…on the way…switch to channel nine.”

I note a slight tremble in Axioma's hand as she raises it to tap twice behind her left ear and change the channel.

"...are not negotiating," Marsters' voice is saying. “We are not negotiating, I repeat, do not engage.”

Axioma’s nostrils flare. "I have to say something, Marsters," she snaps.

"Okay," Marsters' voice is harried. "Just stick to…script…standard techniq—...have professional negotiators on the way.”

“And what am I supposed to do?” she hisses.

“Keep them talking. Find out who they are and want they want. Do not agree to anything, do not attempt to influence change at this ti—"

"Fine." Axioma cuts him off brusquely and taps twice behind her ear again. “This is Axioma Nation,” she says crisply. “Who am I speaking to?”

“We are the Anonymity,” repeats Shale’s deep, distorted voice. “Our names are not important.”

“I’d like to know who I’m speaking to,” Axioma replies firmly. “I don’t make a habit of doing business with strangers.”

“You know who you’re speaking to,” Shale replies. “Don’t think for one minute I believe that you don’t. Your job right now is to listen and respond. If you value the lives of the employees in this buildin…uggest you do your job to the utmost of your ability. If you can’t manage tha…this will be a brief and bloody conversation.”

The crackle of static fills the room and Axioma stares at the slate, her finger hovering by her ear. Finally, she taps again. “I’m listening.”

“Our demands are simple,” says Shale. “Confess, now, to the crimes of kidnapping, child abuse, and murder. Confess to Zenith’s complicity in the implementation of a so-called 'Lottery' program that led to the deaths of thousands of Settlement children. Release Bird Howsley. Release the hundred and fifty children being held against their will at the Zenith facility in Grike—”

My mind reels as Shale’s disembodied voice continues to rattle off the Anonymity’s demands. A hundred and fifty children at the facility at Grike? There are kids at Grike? Alive?

“—testing experimental technology on children that resulted in their deaths,” Shale continues. “Finally, confess that, for the last ten years, instead of working toward creating solutions that truly do ‘the most good for the most people,’ Zenith has been abusing their power to develop dangerous experimental technology that you intend to use on the greater public.”

The line goes momentarily quiet. Axioma doesn’t move.

“For every refusal by you to confess," Shale continues, "we will execute a hostage. For every Zenith peace force officer that enters this room, we will execute a hostage. If you do nothing, we will execute a hostage every hour until our demands are met. You have ten minutes.”

The line cuts out. The air in the room is swallowed by cavernous, terrifying silence, then another voice crackles faintly onto the line.

“Axioma, it’s Marsters. Can you hear me?”

Axioma taps behind her ear. “I hear you.”

"Channel nine."

Axioma taps to change the channel.

“Don’t do anything rash," Marsters says. "We have people working on this situation.”

“These are my employees, Marsters.”

“Just keep him talking. The peace force is assembling outside. We have crisis negotiators on the way. Steer the conversation to the hostages. We need to know how many are in there and if anyone is injured. If they ask for anything you think you can give them, give it to them. Don’t promise anything you can’t deliver. Just keep him talking.”

“And what if I can’t do that?” Axioma demands.

“These things rarely go the way these guys threaten they will. Most of them are empathetic. He won’t execute hostages. Just keep him talking.”

Keep him talking. A memory surfaces. Standing face-to-face with Shale in his warehouse in Alluvium, absorbing his tirade of what I thought at the time was unhinged madness. He was telling me about the Lottery. About the kids who died. I didn’t believe him. I thought he was insane. Just keep him talking, I had told myself. Keep him talking and think.

Axioma seems to have forgotten I’m in the room with her. Her bone-white jaw trembles as she stares grimly at the slate in front of her. Then she steels herself and taps behind her ear again.

“Hello?”

Silence, static crackle, and then Shale’s warped voice comes through the line.

“Are you ready to cooperate?”

“I’m ready to talk,” Axioma says carefully. “But first I need to know about those hostages. How many people do you have in there? Is anyone injured? Are any of your people injured? Can we get anyone out?”

“You’re deviating from the subject,” Shale snaps. “I’m not interested in discussing hostages with you.”

“Okay,” says Axioma, “no problem, we can talk about whatever you want. But I need you to work with me here. I’m trying to find an agreeable solution for both of us—”

“There is only one solution,” says Shale. “You confess to your involvement in the crimes that Zenith is accused of. If you are unable to do that—”

In the background, a woman abruptly cries out. She screams and yells something like, “No, no no!”

“—then we will be forced to make good on our promises.”

“That would be a mistake,” says Axioma slowly. “Listen to me—”

“No, you listen to me.” Shale’s voice is angry now, and even through the distortion of his voice-altering software, I hear a familiar, manic edge. My heart begins to pound. In Grike, I watched Shale put a bullet through the face of his comrade. Is he capable of executing hostages?

“I don’t think I can make myself any clearer,” Shale continues. “What is it you don't understand? For every refusal to confess, we execute a hostage. For every peace officer that enters this room, we execute a hostage.”

His voice is rising in pitch and volume, flooding the room with a plangent wall of sound.

“I’m already aware of the officers you are amassing outside this building. Technically that’s not a violation of our terms, but you’re putting yourself on dangerously thin ice with me. Are you ready to confess, or not?”

Axioma hesitates. “It’s not our policy to negotiate with terrorists—”

“Nonono!” screams the woman’s voice in the background. Three sharp cracks reverberate down the line.

Silence. I suddenly feel as if I’m falling through the table. The cable connecting me to the world has been cut and I shut my eyes hard as I free-fall through a void of dizzying, black disbelief. He shot her. Shale just shot that woman.

“God dammit!” Axioma screams.

“—just executed a hostage.” Marsters' voice down the static-filled line is panicked. “I repeat, they are executing hostages.”

“That was a mistake!” Axioma yells, whirling away from the slate and storming across the room. “Are you listening to me?”

“Shut up!” Shale’s mutilated voice is so loud it peaks and distorts. “Shut up. You shut up and listen to me.”

Behind his voice, I hear more shouts, muffled cries, a man’s voice this time saying, “Please.” A sickening lead weight settles in the pit of my stomach.

“Confess,” yells Shale, “all you have to do is confess.”

“You and your friends will be put to death for this,” Axioma replies, her voice steely.

Another gunshot comes down the line. More screams. I’m going to be sick.

If I throw up while I’m lying down, I wonder suddenly, will I drown in it?

“We’re going in,” Marsters says. “On my signal—”

“Let me talk to him,” I croak.

“Do not go in there!” Axioma barks over me. “They will open fire on every single person in that room. Are you listening, Marsters? Do not—”

“Let me talk to him,” I say again, trying to raise my voice to be heard over the radio and Axioma’s shouting.

“If we can get a clear shot—”

“Marsters, I swear to God, if you don’t—”

“Let me talk to him!”

The room goes abruptly still. Except for static and the sound of my own ragged breathing, there is nothing. Axioma’s eyes land on me.

“Let me talk to him,” I repeat, lifting my head from the table to look at her. “Please. He’s my brother. I can talk to him. Please just let me talk to him.”

"She is not authorized—" Marsters begins

"Marsters for Christ's sake!" Axioma snaps. She watches me out of a white, trembling face.

"Please," I repeat.

Her jaw ticks. She taps her temple and gestures quickly to send a message. Then she strides over to the table and taps the bracelet around my right wrist. It beeps and the two cuffs snap open. I roll sideways off the table, jamming my finger behind my ear to open my own radio channel.

“Shale! Shale can you hear me? Stop, Shale! Stop and listen to me.”

Silence. The line crackles. Axioma and I stand on opposite sides of the table, staring at each other. For what feels like a lifetime, the air is as still and electric as a thundercloud before the lightning strike.

Then, “Birdie?”

My chest seems to open with relief. “Yes. It’s me.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m okay.” I take a breath and fight to keep my voice steady. “You have to let the hostages go. Please just let everyone go.”

“I can’t do that Bird.”

“You can. Those are innocent people—”

“They’re Zenith employees.” His voice rises again. I hear the dangerous sharpness of that unhinged edge coming back. “They’re complicit.”

“I know you’re angry. You’re right to be angry. You were right. About everything. But this isn’t the way to fix this. Please. Let those people go.”

“I can’t do that Birdie,” he says again.

“You can. It’s not too late. We can make Zenith pay for what they did. But this isn’t the way. Let the hostages go and come and talk to Axioma with me, face-to-face. We can demand reparations.”

“I’m not interested in reparations.”

“You can’t win this, Shale. Think about your fiancé."

There’s a long beat of silence. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet. "It wasn’t right, what they did. You understand?” His voice cracks. “You never believed me. You ran from me. I needed your help and you ran from me. I can’t trust them; I can’t trust you. I knew I couldn’t trust them but I thought I could trust you.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “You were right. We can’t trust Zenith. But we can make them pay—”

“Not them!” he spits, and I flinch, my eyes darting to Axioma, who watches me with an intense, wary stare. “Not them. Not Zenith.”

“Who, Shale? What are you talking about.”

“Our moms, Birdie! It wasn’t right. What they did, it wasn’t right. They shouldn’t have done it. They shouldn’t have let them do that to us. You can’t trust them. It wasn’t right—”

The words that follow begin to slop together at the edges. A nearly nonsensical string of them begins to pour through the radio channel. My stomach sinks. Something has broken. Something has broken inside him, or it broke long ago and we are only now seeing the cracks.

“Do you see?” I try to telegraph to Axioma with my eyes as Shale’s incoherent rambling fills the room. “Do you see that he’s not okay?”

“—miss you, Birb,” Shale is saying. “I miss Brume.”

“I miss you too,” I say quietly. “You should come back. You should come see our moms. They miss you. We all miss you.”

“I can’t do that, Bird,” he says.

In the corner of my eye, I see Axioma move. A half-concealed tap of her temple. A hurried and covert fluttering of her fingers through the air as she gestures to input something into her biochip.

No. Not inputting something. Sending a message. She’s sending a message.

“No…”

Suddenly, I understand exactly what she’s doing. But I’m moving too slowly to stop it. Everything is happening a tick behind, as though time is holding me back. Axioma’s hand moves to make the 'send' gesture. I reach for her, too late to stop it. A moment later, Marsters’ voice crackles into the radio channel through Shale’s nonsensical babbling.

“Copy that,” he says. “I am in position.”

Axioma’s eyes land on mine. “Take the shot,” she says.

“Shale!” I scream. “They’re—”

A single gunshot cracks down the line, splitting the air like a scimitar, stilling the words in my throat, as if the thump of that shot went through my own chest. I stand with my mouth open, silenced words still half falling out of it, staring at Axioma but not seeing her. The radio probably crackles and goes silent, but I don’t hear it.

Marsters’ voice comes back on the line. “Target down,” he says. “We got him.”

Two very distinct and very important realizations come to me in the next moment, as I stand in the middle of that room, not breathing, or hearing, or seeing.

Shale is dead.

And I am no longer wearing the handcuffs that stop me from teleporting.

Axioma seems to realize it at the same time as I do. She lunges across the table at me as I stumble backward, my legs weak with shock.

Home, I think, and the word dredges up such an immediate and bitter welling of tears that I have to fight back a sob as I fold myself into light and disappear.

I want to go home.

____________________

The quiet, familiar shapes of my bedroom arrange themselves around me as I stumble out of the blip and sit down hard on the bed, sobs choking out of me like dissonant, off-kilter chords in a poorly conducted symphony.

She killed Shale. Axioma killed my brother.

The words don’t seem to be able to find anywhere to land inside me. They bang around my head, looking for somewhere to go. Not Shale. He’s not dead. Eight years ago he was dead, but he came back. He’s alive; I found him, I saw him. We talked. I was going to his wedding. He came to get me. He came to rescue me.

She’ll find you here.

The last thought cuts through the incomprehensible mess of words trying to fit themselves into my brain. Dragging my forearm across my face, I pull myself to my feet. Shale’s message is live on the Net. Zenith is going to try and cover it up. They’re going to try and make it go away. They’ll come after me.

I lurch across the room and pull open my dresser drawer. I can’t stay here. It’s too close to Zenith headquarters. I need these clothes. I need clothes to go somewhere safe. Socks. A shirt. I throw them on the floor. I have to get somewhere further away. Shoes. I need shoes.

You’re already wearing shoes.

She killed Shale.

Shale was executing hostages.

Pocosín, maybe. Or Île Tor. Somewhere it would take Zenith a long time to get to me. Socks. I need these socks. No…I already have socks…

It was eight years ago that Shale was dead. Not today. He had a job for me…he made brackish for me…he rescued me from Grike. He was right. About everything.

He was murdering people.

I stare at the mess of clothes on the floor around me. I need a pack. Something to put these in.

You need to calm down. You need to think.

There’s a pack in my closet. Where should I go? Back to Panga. Yes, to Sargo and Locuaz and Fetch. Tell them what happened.

No. Zenith will track me there. That would put them in danger. Zenith killed Shale. They’ll kill them too.

“Take the shot,” she said. Looked right into my eyes while she said it.

Focus, Bird.

Where can I go? Île Tor? Yes, that’s far enough. Unless…unless it isn’t. How long until Zenith has functioning QMTP? Axioma said they were close. She said less than a week. They could follow me anywhere. It would take them no time at all.

“We know who everyone is, Bird,” she said. She’ll come after my friends. My moms. Sargo. No one is safe.

The sight of my face in the mirror stops me cold. She needed one more thing from me.

I stare at my face, not recognizing it, half-forming a plan. Axioma said she needed one more thing from me. That was why she was still holding me there. If I give it to her, will she stop? Will she leave me alone?

I tap my temple to pull up Messenger.

>>> TRUCE, I type, barely seeing the words as they pour out of my trembling fingers. I WANT A TRUCE. I’LL GIVE YOU WHATEVER YOU WANT. I DON’T CARE WHAT IT IS. YOU SAID YOU NEEDED SOMETHING ELSE FROM ME. YOU CAN HAVE IT. WHATEVER YOU NEED FROM ME, YOU CAN HAVE IT. JUST STAY AWAY FROM MY FAMILY. STAY AWAY FROM MY FRIENDS.

For a long time, there is no reply. I start to wonder if she’s already on the way. Already ordering peace officers to converge on my house, break in the door, drag me back to Zenith headquarters. I sidle to the window, put my head around the corner of it and look down onto the street.

A sharp ping jolts me back. Axioma’s reply.

>>> THERE IS NO REASON FOR YOU TO COME BACK, BIRD. WE HAVE EVERYTHING WE NEED FROM YOU

I frown, my fingers swiftly composing a reply.

>>> YOU SAID THERE WAS ONE MORE THING YOU NEEDED

>>> THERE WAS, Axioma replies, AND HE DELIVERED HIMSELF ALMOST EXACTLY AS WE’D HOPED HE WOULD.

A sliver of understanding cuts through the chaos in my head.

She used me to bait Shale.

>>> YOU KNEW HE WOULD COME, I type. THAT’S WHY YOU WERE KEEPING ME THERE. TO BRING IN THE ANONYMITY.

>>> YES.

I sit down hard on the bed again. She knew Shale would come after me, just like he did at Grike. She lured the Anonymity there on purpose.

Another message pings through.

>>> YOUR BROTHER’S FACTION WAS GETTING TOO BIG AND TOO CLOSE TO THE TRUTH TO BE IGNORED ANY LONGER. HE NEEDED TO BE DEALT WITH. WE’VE KNOWN THAT MEMBERS OF THE ANONYMITY HAVE BEEN TRACKING YOUR MOVEMENTS FOR SOME TIME. THE RAID AT GRIKE CONFIRMED OUR SUSPICIONS.

>>> PEOPLE DIED, I type furiously. YOUR EMPLOYEES DIED

>>> A REGRETTABLE MISCALCULATION ON MY PART. WHILE I SUSPECTED YOUR BROTHER MIGHT DO SOMETHING RASH, I UNFORTUNATELY UNDERESTIMATED HIS STOMACH FOR VIOLENCE.

>>> YOU KNEW HE WOULD TAKE HOSTAGES

>>> I DID NOT THINK HE WOULD KILL THEM

The blood is pulsing in my temples. A faint buzzing in my ears is making reality feel distant and blurry. This is not reality, I think. Something else, way over there, that’s reality.

>>> IT WAS UNFORTUNATE, Axioma continues, BUT AS I HAVE EXPLAINED, DIFFICULT DECISIONS MUST BE MADE. SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THEM. NONE OF THIS IS EASY, BIRD. BUT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY.

“Humanity?”

I say the word out loud, the sound of my own voice startling me enough to bring the immediate world back to me. I’m still in my room. The window is open. A chilly breeze is coming through it. Outside, it is foggy. The air is damp and cold and smells of salt. I stare through the open window for what feels like minutes, that word, humanity, looping around my head like a fly trapped in a greenhouse.

The future of humanity. As if the promise of that brighter future makes the present darkness somehow easier to stomach.

Finally, I send

>>> WHAT HUMANITY?

Anger begins to needle me as I wait for her reply. When it doesn’t come, I send

>>> IS THAT WHAT YOU DID TODAY? DEMONSTRATED ‘HUMANITY’?

Axioma types, then deletes. A minute goes by. She types again.

>>> YOUR BROTHER WAS UNSTABLE. HE WAS A DANGER TO HIMSELF AND OTHERS. WHAT I DID WAS A KINDNESS.

The wind goes out of me. A kindness. Before I can reply, another message comes through.

>>> IN ANY CASE, YOU ARE FREE TO RETURN TO YOUR LIFE IN BRUME. THERE IS NO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS OR FAMILY. YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED AT ZENITH, AND IF IT’S WHAT YOU WOULD PREFER THEN WE WILL MAKE NO FURTHER EFFORT TO CONTACT YOU.

The blood curdles in my veins.

>>> SO THAT’S IT?

>>> FOR NOW, she replies. I HAVE APPRECIATED YOUR COOPERATION AND HELP WITH THIS PROJECT. TODAY ESPECIALLY. YOU SHOULD TAKE PRIDE IN THE FACT THAT YOUR ACTIONS TODAY LIKELY SAVED MANY LIVES.

>>> WHAT ABOUT MY BROTHER? I type. WHAT ABOUT

I stop, tears knotting my throat. I delete the last two words. Then continue

>>> WHAT HAPPENS TO HIM?

>>> IF YOU WISH, Axioma replies, WE WILL DELIVER HIS REMAINS TO YOU. I UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR FAMILY MAY WANT TO GRIEVE HIM.

I clench my teeth, flexing my fingers wide and closing them into trembling fists.

>>> I WON’T STAY QUIET ABOUT THIS, I send. I’LL TELL PEOPLE WHAT YOU DID. SHALE BROADCAST THE WHOLE THING ON AN OPEN RADIO CHANNEL. IT’S ON THE NET. PEOPLE WILL KNOW.

>>> OH BIRD. DO YOU REALLY THINK WE WOULD HAVE ALLOWED HIM TO DO THAT? AN OPEN RADIO CHANNEL? BROADCAST TO THE NET?

I gape at the text: brutal, white words starkly painted against the backdrop of my safe, familiar bedroom.

>>> NO, she continues. NO, WE DID NOT ALLOW HIM TO DO THAT. WE REDIRECTED THE FEED TO A CLOSED-CIRCUIT RADIO. IT DIDN’T BROADCAST OUTSIDE THE ZENITH CAMPUS.

Blood pounds in the center of my chest in great, heart-stopping thumps, as though a tether inside me has come loose in a mighty rush of wind and whatever it was securing is now beating itself to death against my sternum.

It was for nothing. He died for nothing. All that, and he died for nothing.

Rage. Red, blind, impotent, other-worldly rage explodes inside me like the fireball from a gas bomb. I lunge off the bed, snatching the aloe plant off my windowsill and hurling it across the room. It hits the mirror and explodes, showering black dirt and splinters of glass onto the floor. In the remaining shards of the mirror still clinging to the frame, two hard, murderous eyes stare back at me. It takes me a moment to recognize them as my own. With shaking hands, I send

>>> I’LL COME AFTER YOU. I’LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THIS.

Another long pause. Then Axioma replies

>>> I TRULY HOPE YOU DON’T MEAN THAT, BIRD. SURELY YOU’RE AWARE OF HOW DIFFICULT THAT WOULD BE FOR YOU. SURELY YOU’RE AWARE OF HOW DIFFICULT WE COULD MAKE IT. ARE YOU NOT WORRIED ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY, AFTER ALL?

The front door clicks open and closed, and I hear the unmistakable tap-tap-tap of Mama K's shoes on the kitchen floor.

I want to hide, to pull my door closed and crawl into bed and pull the cover over my head, and pretend to be asleep. Pretend this isn't happening. Pretend none of this is happening. How can I face her? How can I be the one to tell her that Shale is dead?

But instead of hiding, I just stand there. Paralyzed by a combination of fear and rage and grief as she tap-tap-taps her way around the kitchen, opening a cupboard, pulling a bowl or a plate or something out of it, opening a drawer, getting a spoon, maybe. I hear the rhythmic clack clack clack of a carrot being chopped. A knife then. It was a knife she pulled out of the drawer. It must be lunchtime. She came home for lunch.

The incongruity of that fact—that lunchtime still exists when Shale does not, and that my mom is in the kitchen, quietly preparing food as if this were not the day her son died—is so astonishing that I have to sit down again. The bed creaks softly as I sink onto it. In the kitchen, the clack clack clack of the knife on the cutting board stops.

Mama K taps her way across the kitchen, then down the hall. My door, slightly cracked, swings gently open.

“Bird!” she says, looking somehow both stricken and relieved. “Jesus, where the hell have you been?”

chapter

twenty

SHALE'S BODY is returned to us as a jar of ash. I guess I'm relieved about that. I don't know how my moms and I would have handled anything more gruesome. We scatter the ashes in the forest near Malarkey’s grave. If I had known him better, I would have been able to scatter them somewhere he would have liked. I thought about the Salt, but the Salt is violent and hostile and dangerous. It would have torn him apart and taken him far away, into parts of the world where no one would ever be able to find him again. It seemed to me that after everything that happened, Shale needed to be somewhere peaceful. Somewhere close to home.

There are no legal repercussions for what Shale did at Zenith headquarters, obviously. All of that is being efficiently covered up. The Zenith peace force officer who came to the house to deliver Shale's ashes explained to my moms that Shale was killed in a workplace accident.

"But he didn't work for Zenith," said Mama Jade.

Three nights go by during which my moms, puzzled and heartbroken, sit at the kitchen table asking each other what happened. "He was here, in Brume," they say. "He was working for Zenith? Why didn't we know?"

For three nights, I lie in bed, listening to their dazed, quiet voices drifting down the hall, and wonder if I should tell them the truth. Isn’t it better for them to think their son was an upstanding, hard-working member of the community than for them to know he was actually an unstable, radicalized terrorist? Wouldn't it be better for them not to know he was gunned down by a peace officer after murdering two innocent people?

Yes, I decide. It would be better. The problem is that I'm angry. Angry with Zenith, with Axioma, but also…angry with my moms. I want to tell them the truth to spite them. I want them to hurt more.

Because they did this. They did this ten years ago, when they allowed Zenith to put dangerous, experimental tech inside their children’s heads.

I lie there as they softly talk, listening, a repeated mantra going round and round inside my head. Shale's last words:

"It wasn't right what they did. Our moms. You can’t trust them."

On the third night, unable to stand it any longer, I get up.

Mama J's face is tired and puffy, and she offers a wan smile, pulling a chair out from the kitchen table for me as I come around the corner from my bedroom. On the other side of the table, Mama K leans on her elbows, her face turned low over a cup of brew, her red-gray hair hanging around her head in unkempt, shaggy tendrils.

I sit opposite Mama K and fold my arms. "You shouldn't drink brew so late. It'll keep you up."

Mama K lifts her head. Her eyes are bloodshot and swimmy. She nods with tight lips and says nothing.

"How are you doing, Birdie?" says Mama J, squeezing my shoulder in her fat, pink hand.

I nod and stare at the table. She brushes a piece of hair back from my face.

“It's okay to be sad.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Or angry,” says Mama K.

I look up. Her eyes across the table are sharp and knowing. I stare back into them.

"Yeah. I know.”

"Are you angry?" says Mama J.

I don't take my eyes off Mama K, who seems to already know the answer.

“Why did you let Zenith do what they did to us?” I ask quietly. “Why did you let them take us from the Settlement?”

Mama K doesn't blink or look away as she says, "Shale wasn't working for Zenith, was he?"

"No," I say. "He wasn't."

"Do you know what he was doing?"

"I do."

"Do I want to know?"

"Probably not."

"Birdie?" Mama J brushes my hair again. "What do you know?"

I push away her hand and glare across the table. "Tell me why you let Zenith put that shit inside our heads."

"Bird—"

"It's okay, Jade." Mama K’s eyes still haven’t moved from mine. She finally flicks them away and drops her gaze into her cup. "It was a promise. A promise I made a long time ago. To your mom—your real mom, I mean; my sister."

"Kestrel, you don’t have to talk about it…" Mama J reaches for her arm, but Mama K waves her away.

“Jade and Shale and I were already living in Naze when your mom showed up one day at the Settlement,” she says, with the weary air of someone about to embark on the retelling of a long story. “It was about a week after the worst of the virus had torn everything apart. Bodies were still smoldering on the funeral pyres. And Heron just showed up. Out of the blue, by herself, in that shitty old truck she always drove, with that damn orange cat. Two thousand miles. The only person I ever heard of to make it across the Turf alone. Apart from your dad.”

Mama J tsks. "That guy."

"Don't, Jade." Mama K says gently. "He was fine. They were both fine."

I bounce my eyes back and forth between them. "I thought you and my mom went to Naze together.”

Mama K shakes her head sadly. "No. Jade and I left the Alley when I was nineteen, with a caravan, a group of about two hundred people, fleeing the tornados, heading to Naze. Heron didn’t come out to Naze until four years later.”

“Why? Why didn’t she go with you?”

She exhales sharply, working her bony hands around the cup. “When I left, Heron was only fifteen, and our Ma and Pop…well, they still believed the world was going to get better. That it would all be fixed somehow. The tornados. The climate disasters. They wouldn’t let Heron go. They couldn’t stop me, but…” She sighs. “I should have fought harder. I should have made them let her go, but I was…I was angry and exhausted and I just wanted out. So I left her behind."

"Why were you angry?"

She looks up and says simply, "It wasn't easy being gay in the Alley. It wasn't easy being gay and a daughter of my father."

Mama J reaches for her hand and this time, Mama K takes it.

"It was a few years later that Zenith started making those chips,” she continues. “None of us had them, of course—not out in that shithole settlement at Naze. But harbor city folk had them. They were starting to get popular just before the pandemic. But your mom—” Mama K shudders and takes a deep breath. "What you have to understand about your mom is that she didn't buy into any of that stuff. Biochips. Having some corporation putting things inside your head. She could have had one—Zenith came out to the Alley a few years before with a test model they were giving to people. She refused to take it. I would have gladly taken a biochip if it was offered to me. To me, it seemed like a miracle. But your mom was…headstrong. Belligerent, even." She smiles faintly. "Like you, I suppose.”

“Reckless,” mutters Mama J.

“Fearless,” says Mama K, sharply. “She was adamantly opposed to the chips. To the point of…well, to the point of stupidity really. I think she got that from our father. Stupid, backwards, Luddite, knee-jerk technophobe—”

Mama J squeezes her shoulder and Mama K clears her throat.

“Anyway, she finally made it out to us, in Naze, right after the pandemic. That’s when you were born. And then…she and your dad both caught the virus. By then, Zenith was developing a vaccine, but of course, it was only available through the chip. I think, at the end, she finally realized that…when the virus got her and she realized that she could have been vaccinated if she had only had the chip…she realized she had made a mistake. She wanted you vaccinated. Protected. She didn’t want you to end up like her. She made me promise to get you chipped. It was the last conversation we ever had.”

She sighs again, a long, tired, bone-rattling breath.

“After she died, that promise became…like an obsession for me. I suppose…I suppose I wanted to make amends for leaving her behind when I went to Naze. The idea that I could somehow make it up to her, that I could somehow make things right between us—for years, it…consumed me. Getting you and Shale chipped became the only thing that mattered to me.” She clasps her hands on the table and draws a fortifying breath. “Then Zenith showed up in Naze with this Lottery. And I saw my chance.”

Mama J puts her arm around Mama K’s shoulders and gives her a gentle shake. “You did the right thing, Kes.”

I stare at both of them, anger and horror and grief and pity ceding and regaining territory inside my head. My moms were clawing their way out of a desperate situation. They were trying to make things right.

It wasn’t their fault. None of this is their fault. They were only doing what they thought was best, what was possible. This anger I feel—this…seething, poisonous rage—it isn’t at them. It can’t be at them. I need to put it somewhere else. I need to direct it toward the real cause of my pain and misery.

I need to direct it at Zenith. I need to make them pay.

chapter

twenty-one

BUT BEFORE I DO THAT, I need to talk to Rav.

Last night, after they told me about the Lottery, my moms told me that Rav talked to them about the day I blipped out of our session in a blind panic and disappeared to the Row. Rav also told them about the ‘troubling conversation’ we had. She also sent them a message when I didn’t show up for our session last week. My moms called the peace force, who, being in the pocket of Zenith, did nothing but tell them they were ‘working on it.’

My moms are, understandably, freaking out a bit. They don’t know the full story of where I disappeared to for two weeks—about what happened to Shale, or that I spent a week working with Savage’s crew, or that Axioma Nation may have killed thousands of children—and honestly, I don’t think they care. They just seem very concerned about me, as usual.

I managed to calm them down somewhat by agreeing to see Rav today. But to be honest, I’m not just going because they told me to. I miss Rav. I don’t think there’s anyone else I could talk to about Shale who would understand what I’m talking about. Not just the anger and the emotions and all that bullshit. But who would literally understand what I’m talking about, without me having to exhaust myself by explaining things. There’s no one else I’ve told as much to as Rav. No one else knows everything I’ve been through. Not even Sargo.

Sargo and Locuaz are still on Panga somewhere on the Salt, heading this way. They still have no idea what happened at Brume headquarters. I tried to message them a couple of times, but they’re still out of range. Maybe after I talk to Rav today, I can blip out there and find them. They should be close to Brume by now.

The morning is unusually bright and clear, so I decide to walk to Rav’s. I forgot how good it feels to just walk. A crisp breeze keeps the fog at bay and the pale, thin sun is just warm enough to make me truly grateful when I step out of the shade and feel it on my back.

At the top of Rav’s street I pause and look back across the bay. I’m looking for a sail—looking for Panga’s sail—but I tell myself I’m just imbibing the view. Like a healing, medicinal tonic. Letting the fresh breeze and the warm sun and the cold blue sky soothe my grief and rage.

I don’t see Panga’s sail.

Rav’s door opens as I approach, but instead of Rav stepping out to greet me, I see the pin-straight blonde ponytail and expensive athletic gear of Electra Nation. I freeze, briefly gripped by the old panic of being spotted visiting Rav. But Electra doesn’t appear to be paying much attention to the street. She clumsily pulls the door closed behind her and bumbles through Rav’s gate, and as she turns my way, I see she’s crying. Half-frozen by some kind of startled curiosity, I watch her approach. Ten feet in front of me she looks up, sees me for the first time, and stops.

She quickly drags her hands across her face, rearranging her features into her usual look of haughty distaste.

“Your hair looks ridiculous,” she sniffs. “What are you doing here?”

I purse my lips. What’s the point in lying? I’m too tired to hide anymore. “I’m here to see Rav.”

She narrows her eyes. “For what?”

“Pretty sure I don’t have to tell you that. What are you here for?”

“Pretty sure I don’t have to tell you that either.”

We glare at each other. She sniffs and wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I haven’t seen you around,” she says.

“Uh, I was expelled?”

“Yeah,” she huffs impatiently, “obviously. I didn’t mean at school. I meant I haven’t seen you around Brume. Like, at all.”

I narrow my eyes. Does she not know? I assumed, being Axioma’s daughter, that she would have heard everything. But of course, there’s no reason Axioma would have told her. Especially if Zenith is trying to cover it all up. Does Electra even have any idea what her mom does? What her company does? Suddenly, I feel…pity for her. Pity or…jealousy. Her life must be so simple.

“Yeah,” I say slowly. “I…left for a while.”

“Left?” Her eyes are incredulous. “What do you mean left? Left where?”

“Alluvium. Grike. Île Tor. Pocosín.” I shrug, relishing the confusion on her face. She won’t believe me. And even if she does, I’m beyond caring what Electra Nation thinks anymore.

“You’re lying,” she says. “People don’t leave Brume.”

“Okay.” I step around her. “I’m going to be late.”

“Wait—” She catches my arm and we both look down in surprise to see her hand on me. She withdraws it quickly. “Sargo isn’t around either. He hasn’t been teaching.”

I raise my eyebrows. “And?”

“And,” she snips, “I thought you might know something because he always let you hang around with him for some reason.”

I repress a flicker of irritation. “No. I haven’t seen him. Why don’t you try messaging him?”

“I have been. For weeks. He hasn’t responded.”

“Really? For weeks?” I repress a smirk of triumph and school my features into mild concern. “I guess he must be busy.”

“Maybe.” She chews her lip and I feel a twinge of guilt; she looks genuinely concerned.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” I say, attempting a sympathetic tone and probably failing to achieve it.

Her anxious gaze drifts over my shoulder, past the end of Rav’s street, out toward the Salt.

I sigh. “What?”

Her eyes flick back to me, becoming hard again. “Nothing.”

“You’re clearly worried about something.”

“I just…” She expels a little huff, as though sharing this with me is the absolute last thing she wants to do. “I hope he didn’t try and do that thing he was always talking about.”

“What thing?”

“He used to talk about how he wanted to sail to Pocosín. I always thought it sounded crazy.”

I frown. “He told you that?”

“Yes.” She narrows her eyes.

I guess I never really accepted that Sargo and Electra were actually friends before he left.

“Well, he’s a good sailor,” I say curtly. “I’m sure he can handle it.”

Her gaze drifts back to the Salt. “He is a good sailor. But…sometimes people go out there and they don’t come back.”

Suddenly, her eyes brim with tears. She hiccups and begins to sob uncontrollably. I step back. I’ve never seen Electra cry. Ever. It’s like being shown the secret to a magic trick: you always kind of hoped one day you’d see it, and when you finally do, you’re so unprepared for the reality of it that you wish you could go back to living in blissful ignorance.

I stand rooted to the spot while she weeps, stunned into silence, paralyzed by an abrupt and overwhelming sense of guilt. Electra Nation has…feelings? I look around, silently willing someone else to walk down the street, some kind soul to appear beside me and tell me what to do. But not even Rav swoops in to deliver me from the situation.

“H—ey…” I put a hand gingerly on her shoulder. “It’s…okay. I’m sure he’s—fine.”

“Ugh,” she swipes furiously at her cheeks, “it’s not that.”

My hand lays limp and useless on her shoulder as she catches a few breaths and manages to compose herself.

“It’s not that,” she repeats, dragging her sleeve across her nose.

“Then…what is it?”

Her eyes flick to my hand and she seems to remember who I am. “Nothing. Forget it.”

She tries to shrug me off, but something makes me grip her shoulder tighter.

“Wait…then what did you mean ‘people don’t come back’?”

She roughly yanks her arm free and spins on her heel. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“Wait.” I grab for her again. “Did someone—”

“I said forget it!”

She stalks off down the sidewalk. I flex my fingers wide and close them as she rounds the corner and disappears. Then I inhale and exhale a deep breath, turn, and head for Rav’s.

The door swings open after a single knock.

“Bird!” Rav gathers me into a hug before I have time to resist, the smell of incense both overwhelming and comforting. “I was so worried.”

“Sorry,” I mumble into the fabric of her yellow scarf.

“When you didn’t show up last week…” She steps back and releases me, holding me at arms’ length, then shakes her head decisively. “Anyway. It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you too, Rav.” I pick at my nails. I didn’t think Rav would be so worried about me. I guess I’m discovering that all kinds of people have real emotions I never thought about today. “Any chance we can make up that session now?”

“That depends,” she says. “Are you going to give me another heart attack?”

I shake my head.

She steps back, opening the door. “Then come on in.”

____________________

>>> WE’RE HERE

Sargo’s message pings into my head as I step out of Rav’s an hour later. My legs propel me to the harbor as if they’re made of springs, and I find Panga bobbing gently against the jetty in her usual slip. Sargo stands on the bow looking exhausted—hair disheveled and barefoot, coiling a line. As he hears me coming, he looks up, and his shattered features stretch into a smile that seems to transcend the confines of his face.

He drops the line, swings himself over the rail onto the dock, wraps me in his arms and presses his lips into my hair.

“Gross,” says a voice. “Get a room, breeders.”

Over his shoulder I see Fetch emerging through Panga’s main hatch, looking surly and disgusted. Before I can shoot something back at her, a voluminous head of wavy black hair pops through the hatch behind her.

“Mija!”

Locuaz practically climbs over Fetch and hops down onto the dock, shouldering Sargo out of the way to get to me. I note Fetch rolling her eyes over Locuaz’s shoulder and repress a smile. I’m happy to see them. Even Fetch.

After I help them put away Panga’s lines and sails, we walk to the beach near the harbor, where we sit on the big rocks at the end of the breakwater and watch the slate-gray surf crashing against the cliffs to the north. Despite being exhausted after the long passage, all three are anxious to know how my meeting with Axioma went, and I do my best to tell them everything that went down at Zenith headquarters. It feels a little easier to talk about now that I’ve talked to Rav. I manage not to cry, but by the time I finish telling them about Shale being shot and Axioma using me as bait to lure him there, I feel white-hot fury simmering in my chest again.

Locuaz, wide-eyed, covers her mouth with her hand. “They shot people? But…guns were outlawed. They were melted down like a hundred years ago. There are none left.”

Fetch snorts. “Of course there are. We see them all the time at the Row. They’re just expensive. No one can afford them.”

“No one but Zenith and the Anonymity, apparently,” says Sargo.

Fetch, sitting a little removed from the group, half-turned away, scans the distant cliffs and says nothing. I meet her eyes, and see in them a mirror of my own internal fury. Something flashes between us. Some spark of mutual understanding.

“This isn’t over,” I say.

Locuaz and Sargo exchange a glance.

“Bird…” Sargo says, “we don’t have anything left to bargain with. Axioma already has everything she needs from you. She’s not going to listen to us. We have no leverage.”

“Yeah, I’m aware.” I drop my head into my hands and squeeze it. “I know we have nothing,” I say to my shoes. “But I can’t just…give up. Not now. We have to hold them accountable for something. Fetch’s sister. Shale. They can’t just…get away with it. I’m not just going to let it go.”

No one says anything. The water slaps and sucks against the rocks below us.

“I’m still with you, Bird,” says Locuaz quietly. “But…” she looks helplessly at Sargo.

Sargo pushes his hand through his hair. “I just don’t think,” he sighs, “that there’s anything we can do.”

I stare at the rocks between my feet. He’s right. I know he’s right. Shale broke into the headquarters with a full-on armed militia, and look where that got him. What the hell are four kids supposed to do?

“I have an idea,” says Fetch. She’s pulled the knife from the sheath on her chest and is casually examining the blade.

Sargo looks uneasy. “Yeah? And what’s that?”

Fetch scratches something off the knife with her thumb and doesn’t look up as she says, “The Nation woman has a daughter, right?”

“Two, actually,” says Sargo carefully. “Why?”

“Electra?” Fetch fixes her eyes on me. “Isn’t that what you said your name was when you pretended to be her? The first time Savage picked you up on the Kingfisher?”

That was so long ago now it feels like another lifetime: telling Savage I was Electra Nation in the hopes that if he thought I was the daughter of Zenith’s CEO, he might keep me alive long enough to collect a ransom for me.

I narrow my eyes at her. “Yes.”

Sargo shifts on his seat. “Where is this going?”

“Just brainstorming.” Fetch shrugs. “You said we need leverage to make Axioma Nation listen to us. Some kind of bargaining chip. And I’m thinking…”

“That her daughter might be a pretty powerful bargaining chip,” I finish.

She points the knife at me. “Bingo.”

“What…” Locuaz looks warily between Fetch and I, “…are you saying?”

“Kidnap the Nation girl,” says Fetch simply. She turns her attention back to the knife. “For real this time.”

“No way.” Sargo vehemently shakes his head. “I’m not doing that.”

“Okay,” says Fetch. She leans forward with her elbows on her knees. “What’s your plan?”

“I don’t have a plan!” Sargo exclaims. “What do we need a plan for? What are we even talking about here?”

“Reparations,” she says.

“Kidnapping?” Sargo retorts. “Hostage-taking? Seems like that worked out really well for the last guy that tried it.” I look at him sharply and he holds up his hands. “Sorry…I’m sorry, I didn’t—but come on. This is insane.”

“It does sound pretty crazy,” Locuaz agrees.

“Desperate,” I say, still watching Fetch.

Fetch nods, her gaze on the knife as she polishes it gently, just above her knee. “Desperate, certainly.”

She lifts the blade to examine it, turning it over so that it catches the sun, and the casual menace of Savage is so clear in her eyes, so near the surface of her, that I wonder how I never saw it before. She flips the knife over and fluidly sheaths it.

“It is certainly desperate,” she says. “The kind of thing a group of people might do if they had absolutely no other alternative.”

“We have an alternative!” says Sargo.

“And what’s that?”

“Just don’t do it! Do nothing. Let it go.” He turns to me. “Bird—I know…you’re upset. I know, but…please. This is not a good idea.”

His eyes search my face and I look right back into them. “I can’t just let it go,” I say.

“There’s nothing you can do. They won.”

“No. I can’t let them win.”

He shakes his head. “I won’t help you do this. She’s my friend.”

“What’s the big deal?” Fetch says. “We’re not going to hurt her. We’ll just hold onto her for a little while.”

“Until Axioma agrees to meet our demands,” I say, shoving down the tiny voice in the back of my head whispering, You sound just like Shale.

“And what demands are those?” Sargo says.

“Reparations,” Fetch repeats.

“Yeah, so you keep saying,” he says, sounding frustrated. “But I don’t have any idea what you actually mean by that.”

Fetch faces him fully and looks him square in the eye. “Coin,” she says.

“Coin?” Sargo looks incredulous. “You think coin is going to make you feel better about what happened to your sister?”

The air between them goes so still that for one terrifying heartbeat I’m sure Fetch is about to whip her knife back out of its sheath and find a new home for it in the side of Sargo’s neck.

Instead, she says, with deadly calm, “Is it going to make me feel better about what happened to my sister? No. But it’s going to feel good to take something from Zenith. They took something precious from me. I want to take something precious from them. And since the only thing they value is coin, I figure why not start there?”

Sargo’s mouth works as though he’s about to speak, but he doesn’t. He sits back against the rock behind him, staring into the water below our feet.

“There are other families out there suffering because of what Zenith did,” Fetch says. “Settler families. People living on the edge of the edge. People citizens don’t even know exist. Zenith is taking advantage of them. I bet if you asked them, they wouldn’t say no to some extra coin.” She scoffs, shaking her head. “People who have coin are so quick to dismiss its value. ‘Money can’t buy happiness’, right? Easy to say if you have money. You know what money does buy? A hell of a lot else.”

“There are still kids out there who need help, too,” I say quietly.

Sargo frowns. “What kids?”

“When Shale broke into the Zenith facility, he demanded that Axioma release the hundred and fifty kids being held at Grike.”

Locuaz’s eyebrows raise. “There are kids in Grike? Like…Lottery kids? Like you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“What are they there for?”

I shake my head. “Testing, I guess? Axioma said her team was close to figuring out QMTP. Less than a week. I’ve got to think once they get it working, those kids will be released. But if not, maybe that’s something else we could…demand.”

Fetch nods. “Coin for the families. Release the kids at Grike.” She lists off the items on her fingers. “And in return, she gets her daughter back.”

“Unharmed,” I add, looking at Fetch pointedly. She shrugs.

“You think Axioma will go for that?” asks Locuaz.

“We’re not asking Zenith to stop working on QMTP, and we’re not trying to expose them publicly like Shale did,” I say. “I think it’s reasonable. All we want is for them to make things right. It’s not like they can’t afford to do it.”

Sargo stares at the water, shaking his head slowly. “This is not a good idea,” he repeats.

“Yeah, but come on.” I nudge him with my shoulder. “My bad ideas have gotten us this far.”

“Excuse me,” Fetch cuts in, “I believe this was my bad idea.”

I watch Sargo’s face for the flicker of a smile, but there is none. “Please,” I say again, quietly. “I don’t think we can do this without you.”

He frowns. “What does that mean?”

“Well…” I hesitate, already knowing he won’t like the plan that’s half-forming in my mind. “I—I ran into her earlier today and…she was asking about you. She said she’s been trying to get ahold of you.”

“Yes, she has…” His tone is wary. “I’ve been…ignoring a lot of messages.”

“She would probably like to hear from you…” I prod, hoping he’ll catch my drift. I wait for his response. There is none, so I continue. “Maybe you could message her? Ask to meet up? Like, at Panga. You could…invite her there…”

“And trap her,” he finishes flatly.

“Not—I mean,” I squirm. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Sargo sighs and scratches the top of his head agitatedly.

“I like it,” says Fetch.

Locuaz’s voice is cautious. “I don’t know about this. It’s kind of…evil, isn’t it? And what if something goes wrong? Bird, you said before that Zenith is tracking everybody. So how you know they won’t just track her and come right here as soon as they know she’s missing?”

“You let me worry about that. I know how to stop Zenith from tracking people. I did it for weeks when I first got back to Brume.”

Locuaz frowns in surprise, but doesn’t say anything else.

Fetch is watching Sargo’s face closely. “So what’s it going to be?” she says.

He pushes his hair back and rubs his face with both hands. My heart squeezes with guilt as I watch him. Watch him abandon his strict moral code and go against everything he thinks is right and decide to do the wrong thing. To help us. To help me.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine.”

chapter

twenty-two

“OKAY.” Sargo sends a final message with a flick of his wrist. “She’s coming.”

Fetch nods once, a familiar, decisive movement that I haven’t seen from her in a long time. Overhead, the brilliant white orb of the sun has just tipped past its midday point. A gull wheels in front of it, shrieking, buffeted by the wind as it cartwheels away from land and out across the Salt.

“Good,” Fetch says. “How long?”

Sargo taps his temple to double check Electra’s message. “An hour.”

Fetch nods again and gets to her feet. “We should get back. We’ll need to prepare.”

Without waiting for a response from any of us, she climbs past me, pulls herself over the big rocks at the top of the breakwater, and disappears from view. With a small, nervous glance at Sargo, Locuaz follows her.

Sargo’s hand around my wrist stops me as I begin to stand. He leans closer, lowering his voice.

“I’m worried,” he says, glancing up to where Locuaz is scrambling over the breakwater, “about Fetch.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean…look, she’s not exactly trustworthy, is she? How do we know she doesn’t have some ulterior motive?”

I frown. “Like what?”

“Like luring Electra here to kill her.”

“What? You’re not serious.”

“I’m dead serious. She has a history of murder and brutality. And she’s…I mean, she’s furious about what happened to her sister. On the passage here she talked a lot about what she would do to Axioma Nation if she ever got her hands on her. And I just think—you know, at the end of the day, she’s Savage’s daughter…”

“You think being a murderer runs in families?” I fold my arms and fix him with an interrogatory look. But even as I do, I remember the sight of Fetch’s knife disappearing into Mack’s buddy’s throat the night we raided the Punchinello.

“No, that’s not what I—I just—” He sighs. “I just think we should be careful. I don’t like this plan at all. But I’m willing to go along with it if you think it’s going to bring you some peace, and if there’s a chance we could help some of the kids who are still under Zenith’s jurisdiction. And as long as no one gets hurt. Electra is not some…prop for you to use. I know you don’t like her. But she’s a person. She’s my friend.”

I keep my eye firmly on him while an unsettling juxtaposition of butterflies and jealousy pull against each other in my gut. He’s doing this for me. Going along with a plan he thinks is wrong to help me. And he’s right about Fetch. But at the same time…exactly how friendly was he with Electra before he left Brume?

“Okay,” I say finally. “I’ll keep my eye on Fetch.”

Electra knocks on Panga’s hull an hour later. Locuaz and I watch anxiously from behind a storage container at the far end of the dock—the hiding place Fetch assigned us, from where we are to step out and block Electra’s path should she suss out what’s happening and try to run. I have my tin foil beanie on again, and I anxiously fiddle with the edges of it until Locuaz swats my hand away from it with a sharp and nervous tut.

Sargo’s head pops up through the companionway hatch and I shove down a twinge of jealousy when he greets Electra with a genuine smile. She climbs over the rail onto the deck, totally oblivious to the dark, stealthy figure of Fetch emerging out of the hatch on the bow and slinking up behind her. At the last moment, Electra hears Fetch and turns, but it’s too late. Fetch lunges, getting one arm around her chest and shoving a balled up rag into her mouth to muffle her terrified shriek.

Locuaz and I sprint back to Panga in time to help Fetch wrestle Electra into the cockpit and down the companionway to below deck. I try not to see the pained, unhappy expression on Sargo’s face as I push past him. Electra is turning out to be more than Fetch bargained for—I had forgotten that her expensive athletic gear is not just for show. She throws her weight backward against Fetch, curling her knees up to her chest, then strikes up with her legs, bracing both feet hard against Panga’s low ceiling.

“Help me get her to the table,” grunts Fetch, nearly buckling under her weight.

I manage to get both arms around Electra’s legs and wrench them back down from the ceiling. Together, Fetch and I pin her to the floor with her back against the single, stout leg in the center of Panga’s tiny table. Fetch straddles her, retrieves a cable from her hip pack and deftly winds it around Electra’s wrists while I hold her ankles against the ground with all my weight. Fetch retrieves a length of rope from her pack and winds it rapidly around Electra’s whole torso and the table leg. She sits back for a moment, surveying her work, then climbs off Electra and stands. I gingerly release her ankles and scramble backward, but before I’m out of range, Electra catches me in the side of the ribs with a well-aimed kick.

“That was a mistake, Nation,” growls Fetch, her hand going to her knife.

“Don’t!” I gasp, staggering to my feet and throwing my hand across her chest.

Fetch halts abruptly and glares down at Electra, who returns the look with an equally furious, and somehow still haughty look, her eyes watering, blonde hair springing wildly free from her sleek ponytail, chest rising and falling rapidly. Ten taut seconds pass with only the sound of our three rasping breaths filling the cabin.

Finally, I get enough air into me to straighten up. Issuing Fetch a stern ‘stay back’ look, I step past her to Electra, pulling a spare tin foil-lined beanie from the pocket of my hoodie. I pull it over her disheveled hair.

“What is that for?” says Fetch.

“It’ll stop Zenith from being able to track her here,” I mumble. “Don’t worry about it.” I yank the rag from Electra’s mouth. She’s yelling before the cloth is even fully removed.

“What the hell, Howsley?!”

Tossing the rag aside onto a sofa, I glance at Fetch, suddenly realizing I have no idea what to do. What the hell, indeed? What the hell am I doing? I wipe my sweaty palms on the sides of my pants and try to take a breath to calm my singing nerves.

Electra glares past me, over my shoulder. “Sargo?”

I turn to see Sargo squatting at the top of the companionway steps, forearms braced on either side of the hatch, watching us with a grim face. Behind him, Locuaz hovers, anxiously chewing her lip.

He shakes his head. “I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to her,” spits Fetch. He ejects a disgusted sigh and begins to stand, but Fetch says, “And don’t go anywhere! You’re the only person here she trusts. We might need you to talk to her.”

Sargo looks at me, and I feel that twinge of guilty jealousy. He shakes his head again and says nothing.

“Is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on?” Electra demands.

I turn back to her. “We’re not going to hurt you. We just need…” I hesitate. What do we need, exactly?

“To make a brief imposition on your time,” finishes Fetch. I look at her sharply. Savage’s words. Any minute now, I half expect Fetch to whip a butterfly knife out of her pocket and start twirling it around and calling Electra ‘friend.’ But she stands perfectly still, one hand laid casually along the handle of her knife, still sheathed across her chest.

“Who is this?” Electra snaps.

“Don’t worry about that,” says Fetch. “We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about my sister.”

Electra glares back and forth between the two of us. “What?”

“My sister, Fly, who was murdered by your mother’s corporation.”

Electra stares at her, then at me. I’m disappointed to note that rather than wearing an expression of fear, she instead wears one of incredulous disbelief.

“What the hell is she talking about?”

I pull myself up a little taller, mustering as much bravado into my voice as I can. “It doesn’t really matter whether or not you understand the specifics. We have a score to settle with Zenith and we needed a way to get your mom’s attention.”

To my surprise, Electra scoffs. “And you think kidnapping me is the way to do that?” She shakes her head with a dismissive chuckle. “Good luck with that.”

I hesitate, glancing at Fetch.

“What do you want, hm?” Electra continues, impatience coloring her words. “Coin? You want money? You’re not going to get it. Not like this. My mom doesn’t negotiate with people like you. And she doesn’t give a shit about me.”

“Nice try,” says Fetch, the cool boredom in her tone matching Electra’s arrogant impatience note for note. “But this isn’t my first regatta.”

“I’m not kidding,” says Electra. “My mom’s a workaholic and a narcissist. All she cares about is her company. You’re not going to get a single bit out of her this way.” She shifts on the floor, trying to adjust herself into a more comfortable position. “Call her.” She looks Fetch in the eye. “Call her right now. You’ll see.”

“Is that…really true?”

I turn in surprise at the sound of Sargo’s voice. He still squats in the open hatch at the top of the stairs, looking at Electra with an expression halfway between concern and disbelief. She looks up at him, but says nothing.

“This is bullshit!” snaps Fetch. “She’s lying. Bird, make the call.”

I hesitate, glancing back and forth between Electra and Sargo.

“Bird!”

“Just—wait a second,” says Sargo. His voice is so firm that even Fetch looks at him. He frowns at Electra. “You really think your mom doesn’t care what happens to you?”

She shrugs. “I don’t think, I know.”

“We’re wasting time,” Fetch says. “Bird, send a message to Axioma. Tell her we have her daughter and make our demands.”

“If we do that,” Sargo interrupts, “and Electra’s telling the truth, we’ll lose all of the little power we have. Axioma won’t play ball with us, and she’ll know we’re coming after her. Anything else we try, she’ll be prepared for. We’ll have played our hand.”

A strange, tense silence settles. Fetch glares at Sargo, clenching and unclenching her hand around the handle of her knife in a way that reminds me so sharply of Savage that I have to look somewhere else.

“He’s right, Fetch.” Locuaz squats behind Sargo and peers nervously down at us over his shoulder. “We maybe only have one chance to get to Zenith.”

“She’s lying!” cries Fetch.

“You don’t know that!” says Sargo.

I study Electra, still somehow poised and beautiful despite being tied to a table and wearing my shabby old beanie. She certainly doesn’t look like someone who’s lying. She looks calmer and more in control of this situation than I am. It’s infuriating.

Fetch steps toward Electra, pointing the knife in her face. “Fine. Maybe she’s telling the truth. Either way, if she’s not going to be any use to us, I say we cut her throat.”

“Whoa…” I step in front of her. “How did we go from ‘make the call’ to ‘cut her throat’?”

Fetch shrugs. “Eye for an eye. Dead girl for a dead girl.”

“Just—” Sargo snaps, “wait.”

Fetch shoots him a look. “Or what?”

“Or maybe I take your eye.”

Fetch scoffs. “I’d like to see you try.”

“You wanted me to stay so I could talk to her.” He glares at her. “So let me talk to her. Maybe we can figure something out.”

“This is a waste of time!” says Fetch. “If she’s not going to be useful as a bargaining chip, then what are we still doing here?”

I open my mouth and hesitate. “She’s got a point. Not about the murder!” I add quickly, seeing the look on Sargo’s face. “But if Axioma really won’t care that we have her, maybe we should just…let her go?”

“So she can run back to Axioma and send the peace force down here to arrest us all?” cries Fetch. “No way. We need to get rid of her.”

“We’re not getting rid of anyone,” says Sargo firmly. “And if you try anything, I’ll call Axioma and get the peace force down here myself.”

“Wow, you guys really do not have your shit together at all,” says Electra smugly from the floor.

“Shut up, Electra!” I snap.

Silence descends. Electra rests the back of her head against the edge of the table and smiles faintly up at the ceiling. I can feel the reins of this situation slipping through my fingers. None of this is going at all how I pictured it would. Rubbing my face with both hands, I sit on the bottom step of the companionway.

“If we can’t use her to get to Axioma, and we can’t let her go,” I mumble into my fingers, thinking aloud, “then…flog-it, I don’t know. Just let Sargo talk to her, I guess.”

“Why?” Fetch demands.

“I don’t know!” I snap. “Because I need some time to think!”

Fetch falls silent, fingering the knife. I squeeze my head between my hands and glare between my feet. On the top step above me, I hear Sargo adjust his position.

“I’m really sorry about this,” he says to Electra.

“Yeah, it’s not super fun to finally hear back from your friend who’s been missing for months, only to find out that the only reason he wants to see you is to kidnap you.”

“It wasn’t the only reason,” says Sargo.

I force myself not to look at him, and I try not to let the embers of jealousy igniting in my chest derail my focus from the plan I’m trying to come up with.

“Where were you?” says Electra.

Sargo sighs. “It’s a long story. I was…a lot of places. Is your relationship with your mom really so…broken?”

I peek up to see Electra shrug.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” asks Sargo.

“I figured you wouldn’t care. No one cares about your problems when your problems are strictly first world.”

“First world?” hoots Fetch. “Honey, if you’re first world, then I don’t know what the world is anymore.”

Over Sargo’s shoulder, Locuaz tuts, although whether in agreement with Fetch or scolding her, I can’t tell.

“Why would you think I wouldn’t care?” says Sargo, sounding genuinely hurt.

Electra sighs and says nothing. I turn my attention back to the floor and try to let their conversation fade into the background. If Axioma truly doesn’t care about Electra enough to be willing to pay for her life, then…what?

The cabin fills with silence again. I hear Fetch flicking the edge of her knife. Electra’s clothes rustle as she shifts on the floor.

“How’s your sister doing?” says Sargo, with the tone of someone who doesn’t know what else to say.

Electra swallows and glares at the ceiling. “I don’t know,” she whispers.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” says Sargo.

“She left.”

“Left? Left when?”

“About a year ago.”

“A year? Where did she go?”

“Alluvium. She still talks to me, but she won’t come back to Brume.

“I’m really sorry,” says Sargo quietly.

I look up. Something about what Electra is saying doesn’t add up. Her sister left Brume a year ago and went to Alluvium? How? Leaving Brume is no easy feat. It’s not as though there are regular ferries. The only people I’ve ever even heard of leaving are me, Sargo, and Shale, and Sargo and I barely made it to Alluvium alive. The only people capable of making extended journeys across the Salt are Reckoners. Or really good sailors.

I didn’t know Electra’s sister well—she was five or six years older than me—but I remember Shale had a massive crush on her. And from what I remember him saying, Paradi wasn’t much of a sailor. She was into tech and programming. Not a real outdoorsy type. Not the kind of person capable of making a dangerous passage across the Salt by herself.

I narrow my eyes at Electra. “How did your sister get all the way to Alluvium?”

She flicks her eyes to me, her expression hardening. “None of your business.”

“Do you even know?”

“I know some,” she spits.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Why?”

I take a deep, slow breath. “Okay, look,” I say, a little impatiently, “I appreciate that you’re, like, so confident that even a flogging kidnapping doesn’t seem to rattle you. It says a lot about your self worth that you don’t feel like you have to respond to intimidation. That’s great. Good for you. But in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re tied to a table. At some point, you should probably start cooperating, because I’m not a murderer, but her patience,” I tilt my head toward Fetch, “is going to run out very, very soon. And if your mom truly doesn’t care about you—” I swallow, the next words feeling like cement in my mouth, “then maybe Fetch is right. Maybe there isn’t much point in us keeping you around, after all. And if that’s what Fetch decides, then Sargo and I may not be able to do anything about it.”

Electra scowls at me, then at Fetch, who unsheathes the knife as if on cue and casually flips it over a couple of times. Electra sighs and adjusts her position again, sitting up taller.

“My sister got involved in some organization. Some kind of—some kind of group, I don’t know. She went to Alluvium with them. Anyway, why does it matter?”

My pulse begins to tick against the side of my neck. “What organization?”

“Are you going to let me go, Howsley?”

I get up from the steps and squat in front of Electra, bringing my eyes level with hers. The move must startle her, because she flinches, finally displaying an emotion other than impatient rage.

“Electra,” I say in a low voice, “what organization?”

“I don’t know!” She looks at Sargo again, exasperated. “She wouldn’t tell me what it was called. She got engaged to some guy from Brume who was in an organization with a branch in Alluvium. She had a big fight with my mom and then she left and went there with him.”

Engaged. My stomach drops.

“Electra, I need to know everything you know about what your sister is involved in. I know you don’t think it’s any of my business, but…I think my business and your business might be more entwined than you think.”

She glances over my shoulder at Fetch, then up at Sargo and Locuaz, then back to me.

“She wouldn’t tell me anything but she—” Her eyes go sharp with tears. She swallows, directing her words to the ceiling again. “I think she’s in trouble. The last couple of months, she’s been disappearing for weeks at a time, not responding to my messages. And this guy she was engaged to—” she draws a breath “—was engaged to. Because yesterday, after she dodges me and shuts me out and won’t talk to me for a year…she messages me freaking out because he was flogging shot. Shot. My sister’s fiancé was shot. I think she’s involved in some kind of—of…terrorist group and—” She stops again, screwing up her face.

Silence settles as she takes another long, difficult breath, but all I can hear is the pounding of my heart in my ears.

“She was engaged to Shale,” I whisper.

Electra whips her gaze down from the ceiling to fix me with fierce, watery eyes. “What? No. No way was my sister engaged to your loser brother.”

Anger flares in my limbs, but I breathe against it and school my voice into an even pitch. In a slow, steady stream, I relay to Electra everything I know about the Anonymity, QMTP, and the events of the raid at Zenith headquarters. By the time I finish, her eyes are hard as steel.

“You’re lying,” she hisses. She looks up at Sargo, then back to me. “Prove it.”

I frown. “Prove what?”

“Prove that a single thing you just told me is true. That my mom’s company is somehow responsible for any of the stuff that you’re claiming. Because to me it sounds like your brother is full of shit, and that he brainwashed my sister and tried to murder my mom.”

I take a deep breath and look over my shoulder at Sargo, who gives me a small shrug.

“Okay,” I say, turning back to her, “check this out.” And I disappear.

When I blip back, Electra is as white as fog. I watch a horde of emotions scrambling across her face.

“What the hell was that?” she whispers.

“That’s what your mom’s company has been working on for the last twenty years,” I say. “And they’ve been killing a lot of innocent people to make it happen. Shale started to put two and two together and tried to go after her. It sounds like whatever fight your sister had with your mom made her angry enough to get involved.”

“This is your fault,” Electra says, her voice trembling. “You and your brother.”

I stand up and hold out my hand to Fetch. “Give me your knife.”

“Why?” say Electra and Fetch at the same time, Electra’s eyes going wide, Fetch’s narrowing.

“Just—” I glare at Fetch, “give it to me.”

With a frustrated huff, Fetch dumps the knife into my open palm. I squat in front of Electra again and wedge it under the cable around her wrists.

“What are you doing?” says Fetch as I cut it loose.

“I’m letting her go.” I untie the rope wrapping Electra to the table and stand.

Electra looks warily at Fetch, then pulls herself to her feet, ripping my beanie from her head and shoving it hard into my chest.

“Why?” she demands.

“Why am I letting you go? Because I finally figured out what to do with you. I think you’d be more valuable on our team than as a bargaining chip. You’re close to Axioma. Your sister has ties to the Anonymity. You can help us.”

“Why would I do that?” She scowls, but I hold her gaze firmly.

“Because you care about your sister, and I think we can help her. Listen, I know the Anonymity. I know the kind of people my brother’s faction…attracted. Paradi won’t stop. My guess is, she’s going to go after Axioma for what she did to Shale. And so are we. You can help us make contact with the Anonymity. We can share what we’ve learned. Work together. I should’ve—” I swallow. “I should’ve done it when Shale asked for my help, and I didn’t. And now he’s dead.”

She stares at me with hard eyes, so I take a breath and continue.

“Being angry with me isn’t going to help your sister. Your sister and I are on the same side. You want to be angry with someone? Be angry with Zenith. Be angry with your mother.”

Electra surveys me, rubbing one chafed wrist in the fingers of her other hand. Then her eyes cut to Sargo over my shoulder.

“And you’re on board with this?”

I turn to look at him. He glances at me before giving her a firm nod.

She sighs. “And you have some kind of plan? Some other people involved? Or is this, like…kindergarten coup-d’etat? Because if it’s just the five of us and my sister, I don’t really see us being very successful.”

“Our plan was to kidnap you,” says Fetch bitterly.

“We’ll have to come up with something new,” I say. “But between us and the Anonymity, I think we have a start.”

Electra glares around at all of us again, reserving her most withering look for me. I stare back, watching her make the mental calculations that will determine whether she’s about to join us, or message Axioma and turn us over to the peace force. Finally, she holds out a hand.

“I’m doing this for my sister,” she says. “This doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

I take her hand. “Who said I wanted to be friends?”

chapter

twenty-three

I REGRET my decision to bring Electra onto the team almost immediately. We’ve barely finished shaking hands before she’s spouting the kind of aggressive, take-charge, type-A bullshit I always hated hearing from her at Azimuth. Making suggestions. Asking what our plan is. Talking about ‘angles’.

Locuaz, apparently overwhelmed, looks down quietly from a seat on the top step of the companionway, her knees pulled up to her chest. Sargo sits on the step below her with an irritating smirk on his face, watching Electra bustle importantly around the salon.

“The first thing we should do” she says, looking up at him with her hands on her hips, “is disable tracking on our biochips. As long as Zenith is tracking us, we won’t be able to do anything. We won’t even be able to meet up and discuss plans. Howsley’s brother was a terrorist—”

“He was not a terrorist,” I mutter.

“—so you can bet Howsley’s on some kind of list too. Even if my mom said Zenith was done with her and that they would leave her alone—” She shakes her head at me. “Uh uh. They’re keeping tabs on you. I bet they’ve got some weedy little guy on the second floor watching you right now. And if they see you organizing…” She looks pointedly at Fetch, Sargo and Locuaz in turn.

“We not organizing,” says Locuaz in a tight voice. “How would they know that? We could be just hanging out.”

Electra scoffs. “Yeah, okay. Just hanging out with a known terrorist?”

“So now I’m a terrorist?” I fold my arms to match hers and face her full on. “I already know Zenith is tracking me. I have a way to handle it.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

I stop myself from impulsively tugging at the edge of my grubby, tin foil-lined beanie. The spare one I put on Electra now lies crumpled in a corner of the couch.

“Don’t worry about it,” I mumble. “But I’ve got it covered.”

“So you know how to disable the tracking module in your biochip?” she says. “You have a chip interfacing unit to run the code?”

“Not…exactly. It’s a different method.”

She eyes me. “And it works?”

“It works fine.”

“And you can scale it? For all of us? For anyone else we might need to recruit?”

I shift on my feet.

“Well, regardless,” she says, “I think we should disable the tracking modules in all our chips. It’s easy, I do it all the time to sneak out and go to parties. I can do all of yours in like thirty minutes; I just need a biochip interface.” She looks up at Sargo and addresses the next statement directly to him. “There’s one at my mom’s house. We can do it there.”

The dull embers of jealous rage that have been simmering in the center of my chest glow brighter.

Sargo nods slowly. “Sounds like a solid idea.”

“How do we know Axioma won’t be there?” I say through gritted teeth.

“Could be a trap,” Fetch agrees.

Electra sighs. “Howsley, do you really think I need to bother with the pageantry of trapping you? I’m the daughter of the CEO of Zenith, and you’re the leader of some rinky-dink revolution. If I wanted to I could have the peace force down here like that.” She snaps her fingers. “You said you needed my help. Well: here you go. Take it or leave it.”

“Seems like a smart idea, mija,” says Locuaz softly.

I clench my jaw and glare at Electra. “Fine.”

____________________

Axioma’s house sits at the edge of the cliffs at the north end of Brume, with a breathtaking view of the bay and the harbor. The Salt pounds the rocks a hundred feet below and stretches, endless and blue, until it disappears over the edge of the distant western horizon. The house itself is, unsurprisingly, enormous and beautiful. As sleek as a silver bullet, all glass, marble, and polished steel.

“Welcome back, Electra,” says a glittery, androgynous voice as she steps through the front door. She puts a hand up to stop us as I lift my foot over the threshold.

“Cameras,” she mutters, tapping a code into a small palm scanner by the door. “I’m shutting them off for an hour.”

I try to keep my mouth from hanging open as Electra leads us through a yawning foyer bedecked with trailing green vines, past a two-story, sand-colored marble wall with water trickling gently down its sheer face, and into a spacious hallway, brightly lit by sunlight pouring through skylights in the high ceiling.

At the end of the hall she stops in front of a tall narrow door made of blonde wood and frosted glass, and presses her palm to the scanner next to it. The door opens with a small, satisfied sigh, and she leads us into a bedroom, at the center of which is the biggest bed I’ve ever seen, made up with crisp, white sheets. On the wall opposite me, a floor-to-ceiling window looks out across the Salt. The wall to my left is arranged with a wood desk, leather chair, and glass shelves displaying a collection of polished abalone shells mounted on silver stands. I recognize them as Azimuth sailing trophies—Sargo has some too. On the wall to my right is another closed door.

“This is your room?” Fetch asks, gaping around.

“No.” Electra scoffs. “I don’t live here any more. I have my own place. I just keep some stuff here.”

“So this is your spare nice-ass bedroom that’s bigger than all of our houses combined?”

Electra rolls her eyes. “The biochip interface is in my mom’s office,” she says. “Wait here. And don’t touch anything.”

She delivers this last statement directly to Fetch, then turns on her heel and strides out the way we came in, the door hissing happily closed behind her.

Fetch scowls. “What does she think I’m gonna do? Steal her tacky earrings?”

Locuaz crosses to the window and looks down, pressing her forehead to the glass. “Que linda,” she murmurs.

“It’s a nice house,” Sargo agrees, pulling the leather chair away from the desk and sitting in it a little too comfortably for my liking. Something about bringing Electra onto the team seems to have put him in an unusually good mood, and the casual way he moves around her childhood bedroom reminds me sharply that they were good friends for a long time before he and I ever even met. I try to ignore the way he clasps his hands easily behind his head and stretches his legs, crossing his feet at the ankles. Instead, I eye the door in the opposite wall.

“Where do you think that goes?”

He shrugs. “I think it’s just a closet.”

The main door hisses open and Electra strides back in, a mesh cap covered in diodes in one hand, and a small, black box in the other. I recognize it—a similar biochip interface to the one Dr. Lysett used on me in Grike. She sets the black box on the desk, waving Sargo out of the chair with a flick of her hand, and sits. She touches a few buttons on top until the box emits a soft beep and a tiny blue light illuminates on the front edge. She taps her left temple, gestures to input something into her chip, then spins around in the chair with an expectant look.

“So,” she says briskly, “who’s first?”

Fetch and Locuaz glance at each other. “I don’t know…” says Locuaz uneasily. “What is it gonna do?”

Electra sighs impatiently and holds up the mesh cap. “This goes over your head, I make a few changes, we disable a module in your chip. That’s it.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It will probably feel tingly.”

“You know,” Sargo says, closely watching Locuaz’s uncomfortable face, “Zenith doesn’t actually know anything about Fetch or Locuaz. Bird and I are the only ones on their radar. It’s probably not necessary to disable tracking for everyone…”

Electra shakes her head firmly. “It takes no time at all. Why would we not just do it?”

Sargo shrugs, holding up his hands. “Sure, no problem. Just offering a suggestion.”

I see Locuaz’s shoulders rise and fall with a single, decisive breath, reminding me of the day we left Alluvium together—the way she took that same deep breath and hitched up her pants before she made the leap from the Alluvium dock to Panga. She sets her face in grim determination.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll go first.”

“No,” Fetch blurts. She steps in front of Locuaz. “I will.”

Electra rolls her eyes. “It’s not going to kill anyone.” She stands and waves an impatient hand at the chair. “Sit.”

Fetch sits and Electra fits the cap over her buzz-cut scalp. She makes a few gestures in the air to activate her own biochip, then touches a button on top of the box. Fetch’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh! It’s weird.”

“Does it hurt?” Locuaz says anxiously.

Fetch shakes her head and sits rigidly still for the next three minutes while Locuaz bounces nervously from foot to foot.

The machine emits a small beep and Electra says, “Done.” She removes the mesh cap and Fetch rubs both hands over her closely shaved hair.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” says Electra.

“Okay,” Fetch stands and arches an eyebrow at Locuaz. “Your turn.”

After Locuaz’s chip has been modified, she and Fetch wander over to the window while Sargo sits in the chair. Electra brushes his hair out of his eyes.

“Your hair is getting really long,” she says, fitting the cap over his head. “And what is with this massive beard?”

He grins. “It’s not massive.”

“Well, it’s scruffy,” she replies.

“I like it,” I say, a little too sharply. They both look at me. A tense silence settles around us as Electra purses her lips and turns to the machine. She taps the button that activates it, then folds her arms and leans silently against the desk, watching me while it runs. The machine beeps, she removes the cap, and Sargo stands. I pointedly avoid his eyes as I step past him to take his place, pulling off my beanie, which Electra insisted I wear until the tracking in my chip is disabled, to prevent Zenith from tracking me to her house.

“After we do yours,” Electra says as she fits the cap over my head, “I want to pull up your chip’s OS so I can look at the code for the QMTP module.”

“Why?” I ask suspiciously.

“We might learn something that will help us. It might be the only chance we have to look at it.”

I glance at Sargo, who raises his eyebrows and shrugs.

“It can’t hurt,” he says. “El’s a good coder.”

El?

I swallow a razor-sharp knot of furious jealousy. And, I realize with a slightly sick feeling, not just jealousy: fear. Of course she’s a good coder. She’s a good everything. Probably taking Advanced Concepts in Programming, while I never got further than if /else. Better at coding than me. Better at sailing than me. Prettier than me. A better friend…

Electra taps the button that starts the machine, and a warm, tingling sensation crawls from the nape of my neck up to the top of my head. I close my eyes and force myself not to think about Dr. Lysett and her creepy tests until the machine beeps and the tingling stops.

Electa taps the button again and turns to me. “Well?” she says.

I breathe hard through my nostrils and say nothing.

She taps her foot impatiently. "If we don't look at the QMTP code in your chip, we could be missing out on a big opportunity to understand how it works."

I glare at the floor. “Fine.”

She taps her left temple and makes a few gestures in the air, then pulls open a drawer in the desk and retrieves a delicate, abalone-encrusted slate. She taps her brow to adjust her chip’s font settings and begins to read from the slate. Silence settles as Sargo and I watch her poring, brow furrowed, over the code. Locuaz and Fetch drift back over from the window. Minutes go by, and the back of my neck begins to prickle.

“What are you looking for?” I ask finally.

She holds up a finger to silence me and doesn’t respond. I restrain an irritated sigh and send my gaze out of the window, drumming my heel against the floor.

“How long is this gonna take?” Fetch asks, a note of uncertainty in her voice. “I don’t really want to be here when Axioma gets home.”

“You won’t,” says Electra, not looking up from the slate. “She doesn’t come home. She’ll be at headquarters until gods know what hour of the morning.”

Fetch folds her arms and blows air through her cheeks, then turns and walks back to the window.

“There’s something weird here,” says Electra, scrolling down the slate with one finger, a puzzled frown on her face.

“Weird like what?” says Sargo.

“Well…” She shakes her head, her frown deepening. “It’s really complex, but…” She sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m not reading it right.”

“What does it say?” I ask.

She scrolls back in the other direction, then presses three fingers to her lips while she squints at the slate.

“It’s all bundled and minified, so most of the code is impossible to read, and it looks like the core logic is behind firewalls. But there’s a comment here in a top-level file that says ‘FIXME: inter-dimensional jump logic.’ It’s dated pretty recently, like about a week ago, so I guess they were making changes when you were in the lab at headquarters. And then…” she scrolls again, “in another file, there’s another FIXME from last week that says ‘Inter-dimensional jumps need further specking. Send back to R&D.’” She looks up at me. “Inter-dimensional jumps?”

“What’s that?” says Locuaz.

“An inter-dimensional jump would be like…” Electra shakes her head, “like traveling to another dimension.”

I shrug. “Yeah, so?”

“So?” Her eyebrows shoot up. “So that’s…not a thing.”

“It’s a thing,” I say. “I’ve done it.”

“You’ve done it?” Electra’s features are crawling around her face somewhere between incredulous disbelief and awestruck horror.

“Yeah, it’s like, how QMTP works,” I say, relishing my moment of superior knowledge.

She narrows her eyes and folds her arms. “You don’t know how it works.”

“I have a theory. Rav helped me work it out. She’s got a friend who knows about this stuff.”

Electra looks skeptical. “Rav helped you work it out?”

“She helped me figure out how to control the blips—the jumps. The inter-dimensional thing is just like a…side effect of the jumps. It’s because—”

I hesitate. Now that I think about it, I don’t actually remember anything Rav told me about how it works. Something about light being sentient? I do my best to muddle through it.

“It’s because…QMTP turns your body—turns my body—into light. That’s how it transmits…the photons…to the other…photons.”

Electra arches an eyebrow.

“But the light knows where it’s going,” I continue, picking up steam, bits and pieces of it coming back to me, “and it wants to take the fastest path to get there.”

“Fermat’s Principle,” says Electra.

“Yes! So the light takes the fastest route. And sometimes that route passes through other dimensions.”

Electra nods slowly, her eyes still skeptical.

“Hold up,” says Sargo. “Sorry—can we just backtrack a minute here? Are you telling me there are other dimensions?”

I nod emphatically. “There are. I’ve seen them. Well—I’ve seen one.”

“For those of us who aren’t physicists,” says Fetch icily from across the room, “can someone please explain what the hell we’re talking about?”

“Yeah.” Locuaz looks back and forth between me and Electra.

Electra raises her eyebrows at me. “Go ahead.”

I struggle through a very inadequate explanation of what a parallel universe is, then explain how I ended up in the dimension of the dead.

“That’s why I can’t take any of you with me when I blip—when I jump,” I finish. “Sometimes when I jump, I go through this other world. When I tried to jump with Malarkey, she got stuck there and she died. I don’t know why she got stuck, but I guess it was maybe because she didn’t have a chip that was programmed with QMTP.”

“But that still doesn’t explain this,” says Electra, picking up her slate again. “I mean, I get what you’re saying—I think it’s insane, but I get it—that traveling through dimensions is a by-product of QMTP…But this code makes it look like whoever wrote it is trying to jump to other worlds. Not through. As a final destination. Like…that’s the purpose of what they’re building, not just a side-effect.”

I frown at her. “Read it again.”

She holds up the slate and reads in a clear voice, “‘Inter-dimensional jumps need further specking. Send back to R&D.’”

“What’s ‘R and D’?” asks Locuaz.

“Research and development,” says Electra. “It’s where they would figure out if something is possible and how to make it happen. ‘Specking’ means writing out the details of what you want to build before you send it to the coders. It sounds to me like they’re designing for inter-dimensional travel.”

“Why would they do that?” says Sargo, looking at me.

“How should I know?” I reply. “Axioma told you the same thing she told me: QMTP is supposed to make long-distance travel possible again, so we can all trade goods and share knowledge and kumbaya together and blah blah blah save the world.”

Sargo fixes me with an impatient look but says nothing.

“That all sounds fine,” murmurs Electra, still bent over her slate, “but I think there’s something else going on here.”

“Something else like what?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. But it’s more than long-distance travel.”

Somewhere downstairs, a glittery androgynous voice says, “Welcome home, Axioma.”

My heart goes still. Electra’s head whips up and her eyes dart to the bedroom door.

“She’s not supposed to be home.”

Fetch’s hand goes to her knife. “Did you lie to us, Nation?”

“Of course not!” snaps Electra, tossing the slate onto the desk and reaching over to wrench the mesh cap off my head. “She never comes home this early. She’s always at the lab.”

“What do we do?” cries Locuaz.

“Relax!” Electra snaps. “She probably won’t come in here. But just in case she does…” She glances over my shoulder at the second door in the opposite wall. “Follow me.”

The second door opens into the largest closet I’ve ever seen. A room almost as big as my room at home, stuffed with every manner of boot, scarf, dress, jacket, sailing gear, and party attire.

“Is this a whole separate room just for your clothes?!” demands Fetch, outraged.

Electra huffs as she shoves Fetch through the door. “Just get in there and keep quiet!”

Sargo, Locuaz, and I stumble into the little room behind Fetch, tripping over piles of shoes, and the door swings closed behind us, plunging us into darkness.

“This is crazy,” whispers Locuaz, her voice trembling.

On the other side of the door, I hear the creak of Electra’s chair as she sinks back into it. Silence descends, punctuated only by the sound of my three friends’ quiet breathing. I stare at the darkness, straining my ears to hear. An abrupt hiss indicates that the door to Electra’s bedroom has opened. Electra’s voice, muffled, comes through the door.

“What are you doing home?”

“Lovely to see you too,” replies Axioma dryly. A pair of boots clocks over the threshold into the room.

“I just meant—you’re never home this early.”

“And you’re never here at all.” The boots amble slowly across the room to the window. “So what are you doing here?”

Electra’s voice is pitched too high. “Just needed to…pick up a few things.”

“I see.” The boots begin to circle away from the window, the clock of each lethally spiked heel going through me like a dagger. “Have you…” the boots pass in front of the closet door, inches from me, “...heard from your friend Sargo recently? I haven’t seen him around here in a while.”

My formerly still heart begins to beat in earnest. She knows. Zenith must have tracked Sargo here. They must have been watching him too.

“Sargo?” Electra’s voice is thin, her confusion forced. “No, not for a while.”

Axioma’s boots continue their slow circle around the room. “Such a bright young man,” she says. “So much potential.”

“Yeah.” Electra’s voice is careful. “He’s a good sailor.”

“I always thought you two would have made a lovely couple.”

“I…guess.”

“But you haven’t heard from him? Not for a while.”

“No. Not for a few weeks. A month or more maybe.”

“So he isn’t here, then?”

“What?” Electra’s voice rises. “No, of course not.”

The boots come to a halt. For a silent moment that feels like a lifetime, nothing happens. Then, in a deadly calm voice, Axioma says, “What are you doing with that biochip interface?”

Next to me, Locuaz inhales a tiny sip of air.

“Uh—” Electra’s chair creaks. “Nothing, just…” The chair creaks again. “A project for class.” Silence. The chair creaks. “Okay, I was sneaking out. I was going to go to a party tonight.”

Axioma’s voice is dangerously quiet. “Is that so.”

“Uh huh.”

“So you weren’t doing something immeasurably stupid like taking your friend Sargo’s biochip offline?”

“What? No.”

The boots begin their amble again, the sound of their clocking growing slowly louder as they make their way back toward us.

“So if I was to…” the boots stop in front of the closet door, “...open this closet, I wouldn’t find, say, Sargo Paz in here?”

Instinctively, I reach out in the dark, and feel Sargo’s hand close around mine.

“No, mom,” Electra huffs, forcing an edge of impatience into her nervous voice. “You’re acting insane.”

“I want you to think carefully about what you’re doing, Electra,” says Axioma quietly, the sound of her voice so close that only a few inches of door stand between us. “Because you’re choosing a very dangerous path.”

“What path?” Electra’s voice jumps several pitches. “Mom, I don’t know what you’re talking about, can you—”

The door swings open and light skewers my eyes. Axioma’s face appears, a grim smile creeping across it as she touches behind her ear to activate her radio.

“They’re here,” she says.

chapter

twenty-four

I DROP Sargo’s hand and throw my shoulder into Axioma’s chest. Across the room, Electra is snatching the mesh cap and small black box off the desk.

“Run!” she screams.

Axioma staggers backward as Fetch, Locuaz, and Sargo shove out of the closet after me, and we sprint for the bedroom door. We barrel down the long, wide hallway and turn left at the end, following Electra back through the foyer, past the sheer marble waterfall, past the green vines. Electra slams her hand against the palm scanner by the front door. It emits a low beep and turns red.

“I’m afraid that door is locked, Electra,” says the sparkly, androgynous voice.

Electra spins, her eyes panicked. “There’s another door. In the back.”

We sprint back the way we came, turning down a different hallway this time, following her to the end of it and turning right, through a wide archway into a tiled mudroom. In the far wall is another door, light from outside pouring through its frosted glass window. Electra tries the palm scanner. It turns red with a low, ominous beep.

“Now what?!” Locuaz cries.

“Are there seriously no other doors to the outside?” Fetch says, incredulous. “Your house has like a thousand rooms!”

Electra shakes her head. “My mom says it’s a security risk.”

On the other side of the door, I hear the sound of multiple pairs of heavy boots. Silhouettes pass behind the glass, casting shadows on the mudroom floor.

Sargo turns to Electra in disbelief. “Did she call the peace force?!”

Inside my head, my radio crackles to life.

“I told you not to come after me, Miss Howsley,” says Axioma’s voice in my ear. “I warned you I could make your life very difficult if you did.”

Fetch rounds on Electra, pulling the knife from the sheath across her chest. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” she demands.

Electra shakes her head, clutching the mesh cap and black box with white fingers, her back against the door. “I don’t know. I don’t know how she knew…”

Over the crunching of peace force boots amassing outside and the ragged, panicked breathing of my friends, I make out another sound: the unhurried clock of spiked heels approaching down the hallway from the front door.

“I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do things this way,” Axioma’s voice says through static in my ear. “I thought you might have a little more sense than your brother.”

I stab my finger to my neck to radio back. “Yeah, well, you thought wrong.”

“There’s still a way out of this,” she says, the sound of her boots growing closer. “Disabling your biochip tracker is not a crime. So far, none of you has done anything wrong. All you have to do is cooperate.”

The boots round the corner and Axioma appears in the archway. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Fetch spring toward her, but Sargo catches her around the waist with one arm and grabs the wrist of the hand holding her knife in the other.

“Are you out of your mind?” he yells. “You can’t kill the CEO of Zenith with the peace force outside!”

Fetch claws at his back with her free hand, her eyes flashing. Axioma watches them with an expression of cold amusement.

“Yes, that would be a pretty rash move. They’ve been instructed not to shoot to kill, but I can’t promise those instructions will be heeded should things…escalate.”

“What are you going to do to us?” I demand.

“I simply want to talk to you. Make you understand why you’re making the wrong choice, and…help you make the right one. I hope that I might be able to convince you that what we’re doing—what Zenith is doing—is vitally important, and that by attempting to obstruct our progress, you are in fact endangering the future of our very species.”

“You tried that already,” I growl. “We’re not buying it.”

She sighs. “Yes, I can see that you, Miss Howsley, are going to be quite difficult to convince. But it seems rather selfish to take all your friends down with you, doesn’t it?”

“You killed my brother.”

“An unfortunate necessity, as I’ve explained.”

“Zenith’s tech killed Fetch’s sister. Hundreds of other kids. You stole resources from Settlers. You’re still holding children captive at Grike.”

Axioma’s eyes flick to where Sargo is still struggling to restrain Fetch, then back to me. “All unfortunate but necessary decisions.”

“So you don’t deny it.”

“No, Miss Howsley, I don’t deny it. I only wish I could make you see that the end will justify the means. But of course, you’re young. All you see is the bloodshed. The sacrifice.”

“You’re not God,” hisses Electra. “It’s not your job to save the world. Isn’t that what Dad always said? Isn’t that why he left?”

Axioma waves an impatient hand. “Your father was never willing to do what needed to be done. We’re talking about the future of humanity, for Christ’s sake.”

“And saving it how?” I demand. “Connecting people? Moving people and things from one place to another? I don’t believe it. I don’t see how that solves anything. You want to know what I think? I think you got in too deep and had to figure out a way to justify the use of your despicable methods. You started covering shit up and couldn’t stop. QMTP isn’t some beacon of hope for our future. It’s just a pet project that got out of hand, and you can’t let go of it because it’s going to make you and your company even more obscenely rich than you already are.”

Axioma’s brows come together. “Is that what you think?” she says. She shakes her head, looking genuinely taken aback. “No…Oh, no. I’m sorry. I can see I’ve made a mistake.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She sighs. “You’re right. When I told you the purpose of QMTP was to facilitate travel and communication, that was…a fabrication. QMTP was never actually intended to just move people around. But it certainly isn’t a ‘pet project’ and it is absolutely the only hope humanity has of surviving.”

“So you did lie.”

“‘Lie’ is such an unqualified word. I told you a version of the truth. And I did it because…well, because the whole truth is so much more difficult to stomach. I was trying to—protect you from a difficult reality. I can see now that that was the wrong thing to do.”

I watch her warily. “A difficult reality? Which is what?”

“That this planet is beyond saving, Miss Howsley. That the damage we have done is irreversible, and no amount of ‘collaboration’ will fix it. QMTP will not save this world. We need to find another one.”

I stare at her blankly, my mind trying to work itself around the words. Find another one? My mouth opens slowly, I assume to reply, although what might come out of it, I’m not exactly sure. But instead of hearing my voice, I hear Electra’s.

“The inter-dimensional jumps,” she says.

Axioma’s eyes spark. “Very good, Electra.”

On the other side of the door, I hear the sound of shuffling boots. Axioma touches a finger behind her ear and listens to something come through on her radio.

“No,” she says, “hold your positions.” She turns her attention back to her daughter with a look that I imagine must be some version of pride. “I have to say, I’m impressed. I didn’t think you had that kind of mental acuity.”

“You never thought much about me at all,” growls Electra.

Axioma’s brows knit together again, and if I had thought she was capable of it, I would have guessed she was feeling remorse.

“Perhaps that was a mistake,” she admits.

Electra shakes her head. “It’s too late for that. You always underestimated me. I saw the code. Inter-dimensional jumps. I didn’t understand it at first, but now I do. You’re not trying to move people around this world. You’re trying to move them to another one.”

“Exactly,” says Axioma. “To a better one. One that humanity hasn’t had a chance to destroy. One without pandemics and climate disasters. One with water and clean air and hope.” She turns to me. “A new beginning. A clean slate.”

My mouth hangs open. “You want to send…humanity—to another…dimension.”

She smiles. “Precisely.”

In the silence that settles around us, I hear the scuffing of peace force boots beyond the door. For what feels like minutes, nobody speaks. When someone finally does, it’s the last person I would have expected.

“But,” Locuaz says quietly, “the QMTP, the—jumps…it only works if you have a biochip.”

Axioma seems to see Locuaz for the first time. She looks at her as though sizing up an unlikely candidate during a job interview.

“That’s correct,” she says.

“So…are you gonna chip everyone?”

A flicker of shrewd appreciation crosses Axioma’s face. “No,” she says. “I’m afraid we simply don’t have the resources.”

“But then…” Locuaz continues, “how will the people without chips—the Settlers and Reckoners—get to this…this other world?”

“They won’t,” says Axioma.

“You’re going to leave them behind.”

“Again,” says Axioma, turning to me, “a regrettable necessity.”

“How long—” Sargo says, “how long until…”

“Until this world is no longer viable?” Axioma’s voice is flat. “About fifty years.”

“And the people who are left behind…”

“A noble sacrifice made by those people in the name of the cause,” says Axioma. “Try to view it as a positive thing. A feature, not a bug. We’ll be starting over with far fewer people, and only the best and brightest minds. Those that have benefitted from the resources available in the harbor cities. Scientists, teachers, programmers, doctors, engineers. Think of the world we could build with that knowledge.”

“You don’t think Reckoners are worth saving?” Fetch says in a low, dangerous voice.

“It’s not about how much people are worth,” says Axioma. “It’s about practicality. Of course I believe in the worth of the human life.” She turns to Electra again. “But it’s not something any of you will have to worry about. You’re all chipped, aren’t you? You’ll be among the lucky ones.” She smiles. “As long as you cooperate.”

I glare at her. “And if we don’t?”

A pained expression crosses her face. “I feel I haven’t done a good job of explaining myself. What is it you still don’t understand? You don’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation. The future of humanity. Fifty years, Miss Howsley.”

“The future of some of humanity,” I counter.

She shakes her head with a small sigh. “If you insist on being stubborn, I’m afraid we’ll have no choice but to wipe your memories of any knowledge you have of the QMTP project. Obviously, I can’t have this leaking to the general public before the launch—the majority of harbor citizens are unaware that any Settlers survived the pandemic and are still alive outside city limits. We’ve been working hard to keep it that way for the last twenty years. I can’t have the future of this project threatened by any…troubled consciences.”

“That’s why you discourage people from leaving the cities,” I realize aloud. “It’s not because the Salt and the Turf are too dangerous to cross. You don’t want citizens finding out about the people you plan to leave behind. The people you’re using as test subjects.”

Axioma tilts her head at me. “On second thought,” she says, “perhaps we’ll wipe your memories now. I’m afraid I just can’t bring myself to trust you, Miss Howsley.” She taps behind her ear. “Spencer? I’m going to open the door. Are your men ready?”

The palm scanner behind me beeps, and I wheel around as the door hisses open to reveal a squad of at least ten peace force officers in heavy, black uniforms, toting guns. The officer in front, I assume Spencer, gestures to his men with two fingers as he steps across the threshold.

Something whizzes by my ear, so close I feel my hair move. Spencer emits a startled grunt and stumbles forward, clutching at Fetch’s knife, which is suddenly sticking out of his neck. I blink at it, not comprehending how it got there.

“Let’s go!” screams Fetch.

I turn to see her sprinting back across the mudroom, dragging Locuaz by the elbow. Something clamps around my wrist, and I barely have time to register it as Sargo’s hand before I’m stumbling after him. Fetch decks a stunned Axioma with an elbow to the face, pulling Locuaz around her as she slumps to the ground. Looking back over my shoulder, I see the peace force officers still reeling from the unexpected blow of Fetch’s knife—two of them hold their lieutenant under the arms, while others struggle to get through the door around them. Electra appears beside me as Sargo and I duck into the hallway.

“Get to the front door,” she cries, breathlessly. “I’m going to stall them.”

“What?!” Sargo skids to a halt, shaking his head. “No way. El, you—”

“Don’t worry. The peace force doesn’t know I helped you. They won’t hurt me. Get somewhere safe. I’ll find you later.”

Sargo, dazed, shakes his head as Electra spins on her heel and dives back through the archway into the mudroom. I shake him by the shoulder.

“Let’s go!”

The front door, when we get to it, is still locked. Fetch howls in frustration.

Sargo turns to me, his eyes wild. “Bird, you have to get us out of here.”

“What?”

“You have to blip us.”

I shake my head, my mouth open. “I…can’t. I can’t!”

I can hear pairs of boots stomping across the threshold of the mudroom door. Someone barks an order to, “Shoot to kill,” and Electra yells at the officers to stop and help her with her mom.

“None of these windows open!” cries Fetch, pounding on the tall narrow windows on either side of the door. “Why don’t any of these stupid fancy windows open?! Why aren’t there any goddamn doors in this stupid flogging house?”

“You don’t understand,” I tell Sargo, my voice shaking, “I can’t blip you.”

“You don’t know that,” he says. “You only tried it once, and that was a long time ago.”

“It’s not about trying.”

Two peace officers come around the corner, guns raised. “Get on the ground!” one of them yells.

“Please,” says Sargo, grabbing my shoulders in his hands. “I know you can do it.”

“We need to do something,” shouts Fetch, backing Locuaz against the door and positioning herself in front of her, “because if we don’t, we are definitely going to be shot.”

I look over my shoulder at the now six uniformed peace officers flooding around the corner, guns at their shoulders, then back into Sargo’s eyes.

“Do it,” he says.

Taking a breath, I grab wildly for Fetch and Locuaz’s hands. “Everyone hold on to me!” I yell.

Somewhere safe, I manage to tell myself through the tumult of panicked thoughts crashing around in my head. Just get us somewhere safe.

chapter

twenty-five

THE WORLD WON’T RENDER.

It arranges itself around me in a jumble of pixels and a roar of static. Sound and light split and shatter. A tree, its branches disjointed and bent at odd, unnatural angles, flickers into existence somewhere in a distant corner. It folds in half, then into quarters, then into fractals. It collapses on itself and disappears.

I’m crawling. My hands are sprawled beneath me like tentacles leaking into the dirt, translucent and shimmering. A sun, blood red, appears beneath them, dances there, then vanishes. In its place, sand pours up around me like lava from a crack in the surface of the earth. It spreads like a virus in every direction toward the horizon, piles and piles of fine, white powder. Wind screams around me like a thousand invisible fingers tearing at my clothes and hair, pushing me back, dragging me down, threatening to bury me in the rapidly deepening sand.

Ahead of me is a lump. A dark mass, a sack of something—clothes or body parts, glitching, jumping back and forth, splitting and duplicating and coming back together. As I claw my way toward it through sand and static, I see that it’s a person. It rises up on its elbows and tries to crawl.

It’s Sargo.

He’s screaming. The sound of it goes through the base of my skull like an iron spike. I stagger to my feet and run for him.

“Sargo!”

Something powerful sucks his name from my chest, and the wind snatches it away. The cry evaporates into mist and shadow. He doesn’t see or hear me as I fall to my knees next to him and put my hand through his glitchy, flickering shoulder. His arms and legs are melting into nothing, his face stretched and warped, like the mask of an Anonymity member dissolving under battery acid.

“Sargo!”

Again, the name comes out of me, like air being pulled from my lungs. He seems to hear it; he lifts his head and rotates it a hundred and eighty degrees toward where the blood-red sun has now appeared in a black, glittering sky. Eyes appear in the front of his face, winking, moving, disappearing and reappearing in the wrong places.

“Bird.” His voice is like shattered glass. I reach for him again, but my hand passes through him as if through water.

“Bird.”

Another voice comes from somewhere distant; somewhere far away and all around me. The word spins like a tornado, roaring, ringing through my head like the tolling of a thousand bells.

Birdbirddbirbdirbdibridbribririrbdibrbdrbirbdirbirbdiribrdbird.

I look up.

Three figures emerge from the black and blood-red void. Fife and Malarkey, I recognize. They move easily, as if floating above the sand. The third figure is familiar too, but I can’t place it. A glimmer of recognition struggles to the surface of my mind, then sinks again. Malarkey breaks away from the other two figures and bounds over to where I kneel next to Sargo. She’s vague; broken around the edges and translucent.

She touches her nose to the back of Sargo’s hand and his flickering eyes lift to her face. I reach for him again and this time I feel the firmness of his cheek against my hand. His skin is hot—blisteringly hot, and as I touch him, gashes appear in the palms of my hands, bloodless and filled with splintering light. His eyes turn to me.

“Get up,” I tell him. He just stares through me as though he doesn’t see me. “Sargo, get up!”

I feel a hand on my shoulder. Shale is smiling down at me. The third figure. He takes his hand off my shoulder and extends it to Sargo to pull him to his feet. I stagger up too, claw my way to my feet against the thousand fingers of the wind pinning me to the ground. I get my shoulder under Sargo’s to keep him standing.

“What’s happening?” asks Fife, her voice splitting and multiplying.

“My friends.” My voice is thin, whipping out of me like wind through branches. “I need to get them home.”

“You’re going to leave again,” says Fife.

“Please, Fife!” I struggle to keep Sargo upright. “They can’t stay here. Please help me.”

She contemplates Sargo, sagging over me like a rag doll, his head lolling on his shoulders. “Is this him?”

“Yes,” I gasp. “And there are more. Two more.”

Fife turns her eyes out across the vast, flickering wasteland. “There,” she says.

Following her gaze, I see two more dark shapes lying, unmoving in the sand. I try to take a step toward them, but the weight of Sargo buckles my knees. A strong hand catches me under the arm and Shale hoists me to my feet, getting his shoulder under Sargo’s other arm.

Malarkey bounds ahead of us as we struggle through the falling-apart, ephemeral land as if this were any other day at the beach and not the end of everything. As we approach the two unmoving lumps I can see that they are indeed Fetch and Locuaz, unconscious, sprawled face-down in the sand like corpses. They are half-buried, as though their bodies are falling through the sand to some other world beneath. Locuaz’s arms disappear and reappear as legs. Fetch’s head becomes a hand, then becomes a head again. Their eyes are black and empty, as though someone burned them out of their heads.

Fife bends and grips Fetch’s arm. “Help me with her,” she grunts.

Leaving Shale to support Sargo, I kneel next to Fife, and with a massive effort, we haul Fetch to her feet, Fife under one arm, me under the other.

“Can you carry him too?” says Shale. I nod. He drapes Sargo’s arm back around my other shoulder and steps out from under him, stooping to pick up Locuaz, who lays limp in his arms. Sargo at least is on his feet—Fetch hangs between Fife and I, her toes dragging.

“I don’t know how to get out,” I say.

“The tree,” says Fife. “When you come, you always come to the saltnut tree.”

It takes strength I didn’t know I had to drag Fetch and Sargo to that tree. Shale carries Locuaz, and Malarkey walks beside Sargo, touching her nose to the back of his hand whenever he stumbles or threatens to sink to his knees. As we reach the tree, needles of light begin to pierce the backs of my hands. Light beams out of the eyes of Sargo, Fetch, and Locuaz like they are lighthouses. Fife struggles out from under Fetch’s arm and we lay her on the ground. Sargo collapses next to her and Shale lays Locuaz in the sand beside them.

Fife’s face, through splinters and specks of light, is disappearing. The wise, blue eyes, the sharp bones. A beam of light splits open my chest, and the terrible pain of it is like the pain of losing her all over again.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry I left.”

She reaches out a hand and cups my face with it. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry I never came to say goodbye.”

Tears begin to leak from my eyes. They lift and separate around us, forming a sparkling mist that shatters the light into rainbows. I turn to Shale.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I should have listened. You were right about everything.”

He shakes his head. “Just make sure you get the bastards, Birdie.”

I drop to my knees and gather Malarkey’s head in my hands for what I somehow know will be the last time.

“I’m sorry I let you down, Lark,” I whisper. “You’re a good girl. The best.”

I let go of Malarkey and look up. The world is dissolving around me, light and shadow and static and color and shapes disappearing.

“Sargo,” I scream, “hold onto me.” I reach out and grab Locuaz and Fetch by the hands.

“Goodbye, Fife,” I yell.

She smiles. “Goodbye, Bird.”

chapter

twenty-six

MY FEET FIND SOLID GROUND. White light fills my eyes, then contracts into the center of my vision like an aperture until it’s just a pinprick, and a dimly lit world rushes in around it. My ears scream and my tongue sizzles. A lungful of air comes into me like a boulder to the chest and I stagger sideways into something soft, smelling salt and fogwood needles and brew and cloves and sweat.

Blinking, I begin to make out shapes in the dark. A very small room. My friends’ faces, so close to mine that they are nearly squashed up against me. Their bodies press in around me, both sagging against me and holding me up—shoulders and elbows and hair.

A bolt of panic goes through me. We’re in the closet again. Somehow I blipped us right back into Electra’s closet.

Next to me, someone groans. Locuaz. I manage to get one arm free and feel around blindly at waist height. My hand lands on something cold, round, and metal. A door handle. I turn it.

Locuaz’s warm body tumbles away from me and I tumble after it. A pile of legs and arms and feet comes with me as we all fall through the door I just opened and onto carpet. The sour reek of grog and old cooking reaches my nose.

Fetch falls to one knee, bracing herself against a wall with her forearm, her eyes closed. Locuaz rolls onto her back on the floor, her chest heaving, her hair fanning behind her head like an ink stain on the carpet. Sargo staggers to his feet, looking around, blinking, dazed.

“This is…this is my house,” he gasps.

I crawl to the wall next to Fetch and fall against it. It is Sargo’s house—well, his uncle Blenny’s house. The landing upstairs. I turn my spinning gaze back toward the door we just fell through. The bathroom.

“Did we just teleport into my uncle’s bathroom?” Sargo grunts, throwing his back against the wall next to me, breathing hard.

“That’s a bathroom?” says Fetch, and without waiting for a reply, she lurches back through the open door and retches into a sink against the far wall. Locuaz groans and turns her head from side to side.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She nods vaguely. "My skin is prickly."

"Yeah…that's normal."

Sargo slides to a seat next to me and tilts his head back against the wall. A slow minute passes. The sound of Fetch’s vomiting ceases and the harsh rasp of all of our breathing begins to fade.

“I saw Malarkey,” murmurs Sargo. He tilts his head toward me, his eyes woozily finding mine. “What…was that?”

“Your first alternate dimension.”

"The…dead place?”

I nod.

“We teleported?”

I nod again.

“Through…hell?”

“But…we’re not dead?” says Locuaz, sitting up on her elbows in alarm.

“Are you sure about that?” comes Fetch’s hoarse croak from the bathroom. “I think I might be.”

Locuaz looks at me with eyes that seem to be having difficulty focusing. “Are we dead?”

I shake my head. “No. We made it.”

“How?” Fetch appears in the bathroom doorway again, leaning heavily on the doorframe, drawing the back of her forearm across her mouth.

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’m not sure. My brother and…” I trail off. It won’t make sense to any of them. It hardly makes sense to me. “Someone helped me, I think. Are you guys sure you're okay?”

Locuaz gingerly pats her chest and torso. “I think so,” she offers.

“I need a toothbrush,” says Fetch, hoarsely.

“In the cabinet behind the sink,” says Sargo.

I turn to him as Fetch disappears back into the bathroom. His eyes are still finding their way back to the world. “We teleported,” he says quietly, almost to himself.

Locuaz lets herself fall back onto the floor, her arms and legs flopping open. In the bathroom, I hear water running and the sound of Fetch brushing her teeth.

Another slow minute passes. The ringing in my ears fades and the specks of light in my eyes disappear. The water shuts off and Fetch appears in the doorway again. She sinks to her knees, crawls into the middle of the floor, and rolls onto her back next to Locuaz.

“So now what?” she says to the ceiling.

“I think,” Locuaz murmurs, as if speaking the words is so much effort that she can barely manage it, “that the first thing we should do is sleep.”

My lips quirk into a smile. It seems there’s nothing Locuaz thinks can’t be fixed with a decent night’s sleep. Even teleporting through hell.

Sargo’s shoulder moves against mine as he draws and releases a long, slow breath. “Good idea,” he says. With an exhausted groan, he gets shakily to his feet. He leans with one hand on the wall and extends the other to Locuaz. “There’s a spare room at the end of the hall.”

Locuaz staggers up and turns to Fetch, who declines the hand offered to her. “You take the room,” she says as she stands. “I can sleep on the couch.”

Locuaz’s face twists with an odd, pained expression, and for a moment, the silence that stretches between them seems to suck all the air from the room. Then Locuaz grabs Fetch’s face between her hands and kisses her.

Fetch goes rigid with surprise, her hands closing around Locuaz’s wrists, and it’s not clear whether her intention was to pull those hands away, or if she’s clinging to them for support. When Locuaz tears her mouth from Fetch’s, Fetch stares back at her with startled, searching eyes. Then she drops her hands to Locuaz’s waist and pulls her close, sealing their mouths together as though she’s coming up for air after a long, cold time beneath the surface of the Salt. She slides one hand into Locuaz’s hair and grips the back of her neck as though she’s suddenly afraid she might lose hold of her—as though she wishes she could somehow pull her closer. They kiss like Sargo and I don’t even exist. Like they are the only two people left on the planet.

Sargo raises one eyebrow, then carefully clears his throat. “Uh, ladies?”

Fetch throws her middle finger in his face and makes no effort to remove her mouth from Locuaz’s. When they finally part, Locuaz is flushed and grinning. Fetch immediately turns hostile eyes toward Sargo, but he absorbs the heat of her glare with a benign smile and says, “Get a room? You may have heard there’s a spare one at the end of the hall.”

Locuaz drags Fetch away before she can respond. As the door at the far end of the landing closes behind them, Sargo reaches down a hand and pulls me to my feet.

“Are you okay?” he says, pushing the hair from my face.

I nod. “I think so.”

He folds his arms around me and lays his chin on top of my head. I close my eyes and try to banish the image of his screaming face and empty eyes out of my head. I try to focus on the sound of his breath inside his chest. The firmness of his collar bone against my temple. He isn’t dead. I didn’t kill him. He’s here. We made it.

But a spiteful, vindictive little thought keeps wriggling into the front of my brain. It seems like such a petty, unimportant thing to be thinking about, after finding out about the end of the world and teleporting all my friends through hell. I try to ignore it—but it comes back and comes back, until I feel like if I don’t say something now, it will bury itself deep inside me and I’ll never get rid of it. I take a breath and attempt a casual tone as I turn my face up to Sargo’s.

“Hey, so…you and Electra are…good friends.”

He tilts his face down, his eyes shrewd. “Uh-huh.”

“And…that’s it?”

“Yes, Howsley. That’s it.”

“It kind of seems like she’s into you.”

I feel him shrug around me. “If she is, she’s had plenty of opportunities to let me know.”

“And you’re not…into her.”

He pulls away and holds me at arm’s length. "No. We’re just friends. I’ve known her a long time and she’s…not really what I’m looking for.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Girls who can teleport. Obviously."

“Very funny.”

“Anyway,” he smirks, “why would I want the daughter of the CEO of Zenith, when I can have the leader of the rinky-dink revolution?”

I roll my eyes. “I’m not the leader of anything.”

“Uh…I’m pretty sure you are.”

“No.” My brow furrows. “That’s Fetch or Electra. Or you maybe.”

He laughs sharply. “What?”

“Yeah. Fetch knows how to fight and lead a crew…Electra has all the tech skills, you’re the best sailor in Brume…” I trail off. He’s shaking his head with a bemused look.

“What are you talking about? You’re leading this, Bird. Do you not…see that? I mean, yeah, Electra and Fetch have skills, and I guess I’m not totally useless, but…we’re all following you.”

My stomach twists with a wave of horrified panic. He watches it happen and smiles.

“Don’t worry. You’re doing fine.”

I shake my head. “I’m not a leader.”

“Well, you’re doing a decent job faking it so far. Although,” he crosses his arms and leans a shoulder against the wall next to me, “there is one decision I don’t understand at all.”

“What’s that?”

“Why did you just teleport us all into my uncle’s bathroom?”

“Oh.” My face heats and I look my nails while I try to figure out how to explain what I think happened without sounding like a total spaz. “I’m not really sure, but…as we were running out of there, Electra told us to get somewhere safe, so when I blipped, all I was thinking was ‘Get somewhere safe’.”

He frowns. “Is there something particularly safe about my uncle’s bathroom?”

“Well…” My face grows redder. I lean my back against the wall, looking across the hallway through the bathroom door. “You probably don’t remember, but right before you and I left Brume—ages ago, when we first sailed to Alluvium…after those Anonymity guys beat me up, I came here.” I tilt my chin at the bathroom. “And you fixed up my face in there.”

“I do remember that.”

“So I guess in my head that was a safe place.”

“Because I fixed your face?”

I take a breath and turn to look at him. “Because…you make me feel safe.”

His chest rises sharply. A split-second passes, no longer than a heartbeat, where the air between us becomes so charged I swear I hear the electricity crackling over my skin. Then he reaches for me.

There is nothing uncertain about him as he cups the back of my head and pulls our lips together. I feel his conviction in the fierce, commanding press of his mouth; in the strength of his hands as he clings to me with them like a man finding salvation after a shipwreck. He slides them to my thighs and lifts me, turning us, crushing me against the wall with his hips and chest. I kiss him back as though I could become part of him; wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist as if I could fuse us together—lips and chests and hips and hearts. His thoughtful, resolute strength and my wild, reckless will. Like two sides of the same coin; heads and tails.

When he pulls away, it’s only to press his forehead to the center of my chest and inhale a deep, soul-shaking breath that wakes every inch of me. I wind my hands in his hair and pull his head back, finding his eyes.

“Wow. So you really like feeling like a big strong hero, huh?”

He grips my thighs tighter, pressing me harder against the wall, digging his rigid heat into the spot between my legs. “Shut up, Howsley,” he growls.

I grin as he hooks his fingers into the neck of my shirt and pulls it aside, pressing his lips along the line of my collarbone. Every nerve ending in my skin seems to hum. He keeps pulling the shirt down, touching featherlight kisses in a line toward my shoulder, then, suddenly, he stops.

“What is this?”

I look down. He’s frowning at the tips of the three black slashes that Malarkey left across my chest, poking up from the collar of my shirt.

“Oh…it was Malarkey.”

He looks up at me sharply. “She attacked you?”

“No, she…saved my life. She jumped over me and tore a guy’s face off.”

“She tore a guy’s face off?”

“Two guys’s faces, actually.”

His eyebrows raise. He turns his gaze back down and presses his thumb over the marks. “Why are they black?”

“I’m not sure. I think maybe…when we blipped together, they got scarred somehow.”

“They’re like glass.” He continues to stroke his thumb thoughtfully across the marks, and I notice he’s smiling faintly.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” He looks at me, then pulls back slightly, opening the top three buttons of his shirt with one hand and pulling it down on one side.

My jaw drops. “Is that a tattoo?”

He looks down at it, grinning sheepishly. “Yeah.”

In the hollow of his shoulder, just below the collarbone, is a black bird about the size of my fist. It swoops toward the center of his chest, its forked tail and feathers drawn in beautifully intricate detail, its throat rendered in vibrant red. I place the tips of my fingers on it; the skin is raised under the ink.

“How long have you had this?”

“I got it in Pocosín. Of course, you had to show up with something way more badass than just a regular old tattoo.”

“What is it?”

“Well, uh…” His face reddens. “It’s a bird, obviously. Which is significant for…reasons I hope I don’t have to explain given that I currently have you pinned against a wall.”

I blush furiously.

“But also,” he continues, “it’s a swallow. It’s an old sailor tattoo. Traditionally, you get one on each side for every five thousand miles you sail.”

“One on each side? Wait, so…” Wrenching open the other side of his shirt exposes a second tattoo, the mirror image of the first. I gape at him, shaking my head. “Can I tell you something?”

He lifts an eyebrow.

“Since leaving Brume, I’ve crossed the Salt twice, made bargains with Reckoners, dodged the Anonymity, uncovered a secret corporate plot, learned how to teleport, and found out the world is ending…and can I tell you the craziest thing I’ve seen? Sargo Paz…the most sensible person I know…got not one, but two tattoos in Pocosín.”

He shrugs. “I took a page out of your book and didn’t think too hard about it.”

Smiling, I bend to brush my lips across each bird, savoring the soft warmth of his brown skin, the taste of salt. He hmms softly and slides his hand into my hair. When I look up, I find his eyes blazing into mine. He kisses me once, deeply and slowly, then steps backward, lifting me away from the wall, and carries me down the hall to his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind us.

He sets me down on unsteady feet in the middle of his room, and for a moment, he seems lost. He blinks suddenly, looking around as though surprised at where we are. As though having me here in his room like this is not something he ever thought would actually happen.

I watch him with an amused smirk. “So now what?”

He turns his eyes back to mine and the air seems to still around us. My skin stretches tight against it. The answer to that question is in his eyes. My core coils in anticipation.

Instead of pouncing, though, he gently slips his hands into my hair and tilts my head back, closing the small distance between us and pressing his lips softly to mine. He kisses me achingly, deeply slowly, his body strong and hard against mine, and I twist my hands into his shirt and hold onto him like I need him there to keep me upright.

He sweeps my hair back and tilts my head away to kiss my neck. I exhale a soft breath as his lips touch the skin under my ear.

"Now, Howsely," he murmurs, his breath spiraling to the base of my spine, "I'm finally going to get these clothes off you." He pulls away and looks at me. "Is that okay?"

"Yes," I breathe.

Keeping his eyes on mine, he slides his hands under my shirt and tugs it over my head. He presses his mouth to the side of my neck again as he unhooks my bra and slides it over my shoulders, the warmth of his fingers trailing down the backs of my arms. My nipples perk as my breasts come into the cool air, and I swell inside at the feeling of them exposed. He steps back and looks at me, and they seem to tighten even more until they ache under his gaze.

He shakes his head with a small smile, reaching out to trace the contours of the marks Malarkey left on me with his thumb. Then he stoops and presses his lips over the spot. Heat floods me at feeling his lips there, and the heat turns wild as his hand suddenly cups one of my breasts and squeezes. He trails kisses along my collarbone as his other hand settles against the small of my back and he begins to walk me backward toward the bed. I feel it hit the back of my knees and put my hand on his chest.

He stops, pulling away. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. This just seems a bit unfair." I smile and finger the third button of his shirt. "Only one of us has our shirt off."

"Mm.”

He spreads his arms, palms up, and looks at me, waiting. I feel his eyes on my face as I unbutton his shirt and slip it off his shoulders. It pools on the floor behind him and I inhale a deep, trembling breath at the sight of his beautiful skin, the planes of his stomach and the hard V of his hips disappearing into the top of his waistband.

"Better?" he says.

I nod, and put my hands on him, speechless at the taut, soft firmness, the heat radiating off his skin. He swiftly pulls me against him, taking me in one arm and crawling onto the bed with me. I gasp as he lays me down beneath him, and he smirks. Wordlessly, he reaches down and unbuttons my pants, then sits back on his heels and begins to tug them off. I lift my hips to help him, and he tosses them over his shoulder into the floor, and then I'm lying on his bed in just my underwear, watching his eyes traverse my shape. He draws and releases a long breath.

"What?"

Shrugging, he shakes his head. "You're beautiful."

Something swells painfully in my chest and for a moment, I'm afraid I might be about to cry. I swallow and roll my eyes to dismiss the terrifying feeling.

He lowers himself over me, gripping my chin tight between his fingers.

"Don't roll your eyes," he says.

The pressure of his hips is like a weight I didn't know I needed on me until now, and I grip him by the waist to pull him closer. He touches kisses from the corner of my mouth, along my jaw, and down my neck, pausing at my collarbone to press his tongue flat into the hollow of my throat, and stilling my breath in the process.

The kisses trail lower, circling my breasts and inching closer to my nipples, until I'm squirming beneath him, my mouth open to the ceiling, my sex hot and slick and aching.

How does he know how to do this?

Then he stops. I look down to find him looking up at me, his mouth hovering over my nipple. Grinning.

"What?" I gasp. "Jesus, don't stop!"

"You're squirming."

“And whose fault is that?”

He waggles his eyebrows and, keeping his eyes on mine, sucks my nipple into his mouth.

I moan low and long in my throat.

"Be quiet Howsley," he murmurs against me. "We're not underground anymore. You're going to wake everyone up.”

I drop my head back. “Do you want me to be quiet?” I gasp. “Or do you want to have sex with me?”

“Are those things mutually exclusive?” I feel him smiling. He begins to kiss his way to my other nipple.

“I don’t know yet.”

He chuckles and sucks my other nipple into his mouth. I swear loudly.

He pulls away and looks at me. “Is this going to be a problem?” he says. “Am I going to have to figure out a way to keep you quiet?”

I narrow my eyes. “A way like what?”

His lips twitch. He crawls back over me so we’re face to face and watches me for a long moment. Then, without warning, he moves my underwear aside and slips a finger inside me. As my lips part to cry out, he smothers them with his, swallowing the sound.

“A way like that,” he says into my mouth.

“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuck. Yeah, that works.”

I feel him then, hot against my thigh. He grinds against me, so hard it’s almost painful.

"God, you're so wet," he growls. "Is that for me?"

He's losing himself, turning into that half-wild animal—and I'm turning with him, writhing under him, desperate to feel more than his hand between my legs.

He pulls his finger out and hooks it into my waistband, and I lift my hips to help him tug my underwear off. He throws them aside and sits up on his knees, staring down at me. He looks ready to give in; to pounce and do something unspeakably savage to me, and sit up on one elbow, reaching for him, ready for it.

But then something in him seems to shift. He lifts one of my legs gently by the ankle and begins trailing feather-light kisses along the inside of my thigh. I lift my hips to meet him, watching, wide-eyed.

His lips move closer and closer to the center of my nearly uncontrollable yearning, and as his breath tickles that aching, tender spot, I gasp. His eyes dart up to mine, and for a moment, I feel so vulnerable that I want to tell him to stop. But before I can get the words out he grins and drags his tongue over the tiny epicenter of my sex and all I can do is drop my head back and say, "Oh, fuck."

"Quiet, Howsely," he murmurs. The deep rumble of his voice directly against me elicits another long, indiscreet moan.

"I can't be quiet," I say to the ceiling.

"Then we'll have to stop," he says.

"No!" I sit up on my elbows. "Please."

He arches his eyebrows.

"I'll be quiet," I gasp.

"Mm."

Not taking his eyes from mine, he kisses me gently and I clamp my lips shut, whining softly in my throat.

He smirks. "That's better."

Then he sucks the throbbing spot hard into his mouth and buries his finger inside me.

I fall back onto the bed, clapping my hand over my mouth. He strokes me long and deep, sucking my pulsing center until I feel the unrelenting pressure of that wave of pleasure blooming from my core.

"Oh my God," I gasp through my fingers, "I'm gonna come. I'm gonna come if you keep doing that."

He groans against me, and for an exhilarating heartbeat I think he's going to tell me to do it. But instead, he says, "Don't you dare.”

He pulls away, and the absence of him is so abrupt that my eyes snap open. He sits back on his knees, working the button of his pants while he stares at me, breathing hard. When the button opens, he rolls off the bed and stands, shedding them to the floor. I stare at him, open-mouthed.

"You're beautiful," I breathe.

He tilts his head and smiles down at me. Not a smirk, or a grin. A warm, genuine, slightly embarrassed smile. Then he swoops onto the bed and lies on top of me again. I grab his waist, pulling him between my legs, desperate to feel the soft warm skin of his chest against mine, the weight of his hips. He braces his elbows on either side of my face and smoothes my hair with both hands as he kisses me, and I curl my arms around him and kiss him back. I stroke both hands across his shoulders and he hums softly in his throat, and for a brief moment he seems to settle, and the wild animal is tamed.

Then I feel him pressing at my entrance and everything in me goes to pieces. I go hot and cold. Hard and soft. My heart batters desperately against my sternum while my breath goes utterly still. He looks down at me, and for what feels like an interminable moment, we gaze at each other. Then, without a word, he reaches down and slips inside.

My eyes go wide and I suck in a small gasp. He pauses, his eyes darting between mine, waiting, I realize, for my consent to keep going. Silently, I nod. Torturously slowly, never taking his eyes from mine, he sinks his full length into me, and as he seats himself fully inside me, his eyes close and we both groan.

"Okay?" he whispers. His eyes open and find me.

Again, I nod, and slowly, he begins to move. His strokes are slow and long and deep, and rather than relieving the agonizing want blazing in my core, they only stoke the flames. Every thrust see-saws between blissful satisfaction and the desperate desire for more. Fullness and pleasure and pain and need.

He starts to move faster and I move with him, matching his thrusts, the wave beginning to build inside me, low and painfully fierce. Our breaths roll into each other; hard and ragged. His hand moves to my breast and he squeezes again, hard, covering my mouth with his as he does because he already knows I won’t be quiet.

"You're so fucking hot," he growls, pulling my bottom lip between his teeth. "You feel so fucking good."

All I can do is whimper into his mouth.

Before long, a sheen of sweat is coating us both, and I don't know where his skin ends and mine begins. I'm lost. Lost to the inevitability of the pleasure that's coming; to the building of that pressure like a thunder storm inside me, until it grows so tall and electric that there’s nothing I can do to stop it, and the force of it is such that I can barely form the words I need to tell him it's happening.

"Oh m—," I cry, "I'm—"

"Yes," he gasps, his voice a harsh growl against my neck, "fucking come. Please God, fucking come for me."

A blinding torrent rips through me like a bolt of lightning, and I rupture, throwing my head back, howling mutely into the hand he manages to cover my mouth with. I am aware that he is watching my face with an expression somewhere between greed and awe before thought is obliterated and I let the storm swallow me.

He barks an incoherent shout that might be, "Fuck," arches, and bucks hard into me, pressing his forehead into the crook of my shoulder. We crash through the boundary between reason and rapture together, holding on to each other, his fingers wound tight in my hair, my fingers gripping hard around his hips. There is nothing between us as we roll down the face of that wave together. Nothing but me and him and oblivion.

We don’t stop until I think I might come to pieces around him—until I’m so close to falling apart that I’m afraid I might never come back to the world again. Until the pleasure has tipped beyond anything I can comprehend and become nearly painful. Until I have to swat at him, and gasp his name, and he collapses around me like a person with nothing left inside him, shuddering. He rests his lips at the side of my neck and breathes hard.

"Fuck." The word is muffled by my skin and sweat and hair. "Fuck," he says again.

I open my mouth to reply, but there is nothing left inside me either.

He rolls sideways onto his back and we stare at the ceiling for a few moments before he reaches for me without looking and pulls me against him. I let my head find the hollow of his shoulder as my heart begins to make its way out of my feet and ears and the top of my head and back into my chest. My mind reassembles from the four corners of the world to which it scattered.

I press my palm to one of his tattoos while I try to form a coherent version of the question I want to ask him.

"How…" I hesitate, shy and embarrassed and afraid that I may not really want to know the answer. "How do you know how to do that?"

I feel him look down at me. "Do what?"

"All…that. The fancy stuff."

He snorts.

"You know what I mean." My cheeks heat. "How do you know how to…make it…feel good?"

He draws a deep breath and I feel him turn his gaze back up to the ceiling.

"You've done it before," I say, quietly.

"I have."

A confusing, painful knot lodges itself in my throat. "Like…a lot?"

"I wouldn't call myself an expert, but…more than once."

"...with who?"

He sighs. "Is this really what you want to talk about right now?"

I seal my lips and return my attention to the small smattering of hair on his chest. "I guess not."

"Why do you want to know?"

"I just feel…I don't know. Inadequate? Like I'm just lying there and I don't know what I'm doing and…I can't make it feel good for you, and—"

He rolls over on top of me and grips my face between his hands so abruptly that my eyes go wide.

"Bird…" His eyes are hard and bright and almost desperately serious. "It did feel good for me. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to do that to you? I could spend my whole life watching you—making you…do that." He draws a breath. "You're perfect. Don't worry about it."

I skirt his gaze. "Well…I would like to do it better."

He laughs and touches his lips to mine. "So I taught you how to sail and now I have to teach you how to do this?"

“Um, excuse me? You didn’t teach me how to sail. That was Fetch.”

“Shall we get her in here, then? Ask for some tips?”

“You think she has any?”

He nods. “Without a doubt. That girl fucks, for sure.”

Rolling onto his back, he pulls me onto him so our chests are sandwiched together, and wraps both arms around me.

“Do I fuck?” I mumble into his collarbone.

“Yes, Howsley,” he says. “Beautifully.”

I settle into him and let the smell of him fill me. The smell of sweat. The smell of the Salt. The smell of sand and trees and Malarkey and Panga and home. The last thing I'm aware of before I sink into sleep is his hand between my shoulders, rubbing slow, gentle circles.

chapter

twenty-seven

THE NEXT MORNING dawns cool and foggy, the light coming through Sargo’s window gray and dim. I lie on my back breathing quietly until Sargo rolls over and smiles at me with half-closed eyes. He brushes the hair from my face and settles his hand on my cheek. For a few minutes, we watch each other. The world is quieter than it’s ever been.

I try to focus on his eyes, on the soft black hair curling around his face, but as the harsh light of day slowly rises around us, a stone of dread settles in my stomach.

We barely made it here alive. I could have killed him. I could have killed all of them.

He squints one eye shut at me. “What’s wrong?”

"You should have stayed in Pocosín," I say quietly.

He frowns. "What? Why?"

“Because you had made it. You found your people. You could have stayed. Now…you're on some kind of Zenith watchlist. You almost got shot by the peace force. You could have died…"

He's quiet for a long time. Then he rolls onto his back, pulling me against him. He squeezes me.

"I found my people a long time ago.”

I scoff and roll my eyes, then turn my face up to his, grinning.

"How long ago?”

"What do you mean?"

“How long have you been trying to get into my pants?"

He snorts, but tilts his head from side to side, shifting. "I—'d rather not say."

"Why not?"

"It's embarrassing."

“Last night I teleported all my friends into your uncle's bathroom because you gave me first aid in there once. It can’t be more embarrassing than that.”

“It definitely can be.”

“Come on.”

He sighs. “Okay…you remember at Azimuth, when Fin gave you detention and made you work on Panga with me for a week?”

“You mean, like, when we met?”

“You walked up and said, ‘Hi, I’m Bird.’”

"And…?"

He shrugs the shoulder that’s not underneath my head.

“What?” My mouth falls open. “Are you serious? That was it? That was, like, the day we met and it was over a year ago. That’s not true.”

“It is.”

“That can’t possibly be true.”

“You just…scowled at me. I thought it was cute.”

“You thought it was cute that I scowled at you?”

“You were so grumpy.”

“Grumpy? I think you mean ‘angry.’ Like an adult.”

“Nope.” He grins. “Grumpy like a…cartoon animal.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Wow, so it’s been like…a really long time that you’ve had a crush on me.”

“Yeah.”

“And you never made a move.”

He sighs. “Yeah.”

“That is embarrassing.”

I want to ask him if he slept with anyone else during all that time. He said he'd done it before, but…when? How many times? And if he did it when he already knew he liked me, then why them, and not me?

But I sense that down that line of questioning lies a fight that will break the fragile thing we are building. A fight that risks dredging up the shit with Savage all over again. It isn’t my business who he slept with: we weren’t together.

Suddenly, I understand why he was so upset about that.

I roll over and throw my leg over his hips, straddling him and bracing my hands on his chest. I feel a rush of nerves at being exposed like this, sitting tall and naked on top of him, the sheets pooling around my thighs, but I breathe through it with a grin and ask, "So what took you so long?"

His eyebrows have arched at my sudden, bold maneuver. He braces his hands against my hips and says, "What do you mean?"

"I mean why didn't you ever make a move?"

"Well…" He studies me carefully. "For one thing, you were my student. And you were underage."

"Oh." My grin fades. Of course; he could have gotten in real trouble. "Would they have fired you?"

"I don't know. But…as much as I liked you—and I did like you—I just…couldn't risk it."

He looks ashamed and I feel a pang of guilt at having made him feel bad about being careful. He was supporting Blenny. He didn't have a choice. I reach out to brush the hair from his eyes.

"You shouldn't feel bad about that."

He twines his fingers through mine and kisses my knuckles.

A wicked thought pops into my head and my face goes red hot before I've even opened my mouth to ask it. I seal my lips shut, dropping my gaze.

He squeezes my hip with the hand that isn't twined with mine. "What?"

I shake my head, not meeting his eyes. "Nothing."

"Come on, Howsely." He pinches my hip again, harder, and I yelp. When I look up, his eyes are bright with mischief. "Out with it."

"I was wondering…" I squint one eye open at him. "Back then, did you ever think about me?"

His eyes narrow. "Think about you how?"

"Think about me…doing what we did last night. Think about me when you…" I shrug, blushing furiously again. His eyes flare and I feel him twitch and come to life beneath my straddled legs.

"I did," he says.

A thrill of heat surges through me.

His voice lowers. "Did you ever think about me?"

I nod, blushing, not meeting his eyes, remembering the bunk we shared on Panga. When he was so close—standing just fifteen feet away with no door between us. And then…the morning I caught him on that same bunk…

The blush spreads from my face to my chest  and I scoot back a little to free his rapidly hardening length. It springs up between my legs and I sip in air and cover my nerves by wrapping my hand around him. He tenses, his fingers flexing against my thighs.

"I caught you once," I mumble.

"You caught me?" His voice is hitched, his breath becoming tight. "Caught me doing what?"

"Caught you…touching yourself."

He pulses in my hand, pressing his hips toward me. "When?"

Heart racing, I slowly start to stroke him. "When we sailed out of Brume. There was a morning I woke up and you weren't on watch. So I went below to find you and you were on the bunk…"

His breath sharpens. "What did you do?"

"I watched."

"Is that all?"

I shake my head and whisper, "I touched myself too."

He hisses and tilts his head back against the pillow. "That's pretty bold."

"I know."

"Did you come?"

I bite my lip and nod.

"Jesus." He arches into my hand again. My sex is humming, my whole body buzzing.

"I wanted to touch you so badly," I confess, stroking him faster. "I wanted to stroke my finger down your neck."

"Fuck I really wish you had," he groans, tightening his grip around my thighs. "I really wish you had done it, Howsely. We could have been doing this for weeks."

"Were you thinking about me then?"

"Yes," he gasps. "I was always thinking about you. I couldn't stop. Your smell—" He groans. “Was all over me. All over that bunk. It was driving me crazy, smelling you and not touching you."

A bolt of pure need arcs through me. I sit up on my knees and position him at my entrance. He looks up to track the movement. I start to slip him inside me.

"What do I smell like?" I ask him. Challenge him.

He closes his eyes again, tipping his head back. "Like…booze, and cinnamon tea."

Something inside me freezes. I stop, staring at him. "I smell like booze?"

His eyes snap open. They find mine and he sits up on one elbow, cupping my face with one hand. "Not anymore. You…did. And…I liked it. But you don't anymore. And I like that too."

"What do I smell like now?"

His eyes glint. "Like me."

He grabs my backside and thrusts up, hard. I cry out as he sinks into me, my head falling back and my mouth opening to the ceiling. When I look at him again, he's watching me.

His expression turns feral. "Come on then," he growls, putting his hands behind his head and staring at my body with ravenous eyes. "I want to watch you now. Fuck me."

My eyes go wide, but I make myself keep my gaze on his as I start to roll my hips.

“Like this?”

“Yes,” he says, gritting his teeth. “Just like that.”

The feeling with him inside me at this angle is just on this side of pain. It takes everything I have to let myself sink into it, but when I do—

“Oh.”

I brace my hands on his shoulders, my hair falling around us like a barrier against the world. The pain is deep, but it’s good. Like scratching a bad itch too hard and too long—and even when it bleeds being unable to stop. Within minutes, I’m drenched in sweat and panting. He swears and says my name.

“I’m close,” he groans, “you’re gonna make me come, Howsley. Are you gonna come with me?”

I lose whatever small piece of the world I was still clinging to and crack. A string of half-moaned expletives and pleas pour from deep within me as I come, and he digs his fingers into me, tilting me, matching my pace with deep, rolling thrusts, and spitting out his own string of incomprehensible invocations to God or Jesus or Buddha or whoever he believes will get him to the other side of this with his sanity intact.

So that, I realize, is what Sargo Paz says before he comes. Mostly nonsense.

When we find our way back from the other side of lucidity, I’m sprawled on his chest with his arms limply around me. I try to sit up but he squeezes them tighter, pinning me to him and inhaling a deep, slow breath that crushes our chests together.

“You don’t really smell like me,” he murmurs drowsily into my hair.

I tilt my face up to his, nudging my nose into the hollow just below his ear. “What do I smell like?”

He tightens his arms around me, and plants a gentle kiss between my brows.

“Home,” he says. “You smell like home.”

____________________

We find Locuaz and Fetch in the kitchen downstairs, making eggs. The smell of brew and breakfast food wrangles my empty stomach into grumbling knots as Sargo and I pull up chairs at Blenny's shabby kitchen table.

"Morning," says Sargo, smiling slyly. "How did you ladies…sleep?"

Fetch shoots him a murderous look over her shoulder from the stove. I raise my brows at Locuaz, who turns bright red as she pours me a mug of brew.

"No beso y digo." She shoots an eyebrow back at me. “¿Y tú?"

I shrug, grinning. "No complaints."

Blenny shambles into the kitchen in his pajamas as we all sit stuffing eggs and brew into our faces. He halts in surprise, blinking bemusedly at the four unexpected people sitting around his table.

"Is that Sargo?"

Sargo stands, wiping his mouth, and goes to Blenny to hug him. "Hey, uncle,” he says. “It's good to see you."

Blenny turns his red, watery eyes to the rest of the table as Sargo releases him. "I didn't hear you all come in."

I throw him an awkward wave as Sargo returns to his seat next to me. Blenny lifts a hand to return a confused salutation. Locuaz offers a kind smile and waves the brew pot at him.

"Café?"

Blenny seems to snap to his senses and shuffles to a cupboard to retrieve a mug. As Locuaz pours him a cup, he pulls a small, silver flask from a pocket in his dressing gown. An uncomfortable silence settles as he goes to the sink, pours out half the brew Locuaz just poured for him, and decants a much-too-generous measure of what is almost certainly grog into the mug in its place. Locuaz raises surprised eyebrows and looks quickly away.

Blenny raises the mug to us in a silent toast and shambles out of the room. Sargo glares at his plate.

"So much for the best and brightest," he mutters once Blenny is out of earshot.

Locuaz frowns at him. "What?"

"Axioma said that taking only people with biochips would mean taking the best and brightest of humanity. That's bullshit. Blenny's chipped. He's not a doctor or an engineer. He's just a useless old drunk. Just because he's lucky enough to live in a city…"

He trails off. Axioma's words sink like a black, poisonous cloud around the table. We all stare down at our plates in silence.

Finally, Sargo says, “We can’t stay here.” I look up to find him watching me solemnly. “Axioma knows where this place is.”

My heart lurches. Sargo is friends with Electra. His family goes way back with the Nations. Of course Axioma knows where this place is. What was I thinking, bringing us all here? And then just…going to bed and waking up to make breakfast? Like it was any other day. Like we’re not all wanted as terrorists now.

I shove my chair away from the table and it tips over, banging noisily onto the floor. “We need to get out of here.”

“Do we have somewhere else to go?” says Locuaz, standing too, her eyes wide with alarm.

Sargo holds up his hands. “Everyone just…relax. They’re not here yet, are they?” He calmly rises and turns to me. “What about Panga?”

I shake my head. “No, too risky. Axioma saw Panga in Grike. She knows exactly who she belongs to. They’ll probably send a crew to sweep the harbor.”

Locuaz chews her lip and watches me anxiously. “Can you take us somewhere else?”

I grimace. “You mean, like…blip you out of Brume? I don’t know…”

“You got us all back here,” says Fetch.

“Barely,” I whisper.

“How about one at a time?” Sargo says.

Locuaz’s wide, expectant eyes watch me closely. I hesitate, shaking my head.

“I don’t know…maybe. I don’t really understand how it works. I don’t know if taking one person at a time would be any safer.”

“We could give it a shot,” says Sargo. “Try it with one of us first to see if it works.”

I look at him, shaking my head again, already knowing what he’s thinking.

He attempts a casual smile. “I’ll volunteer as tribute.”

“No.” I fold my arms. “No way.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“You don’t know that.”

“And you do? You just said you don’t understand how it works.” He tries to pry my arms away from my chest. “Come on. I believe in you.”

“This isn’t fairy dust, Sargo. This is physics. Quantum physics.”

“Those two things are equally mysterious as far as I’m concerned,” he says.

I glare at him sharply. He’s smirking. I search his eyes for a hint of the cautious, pragmatic sailing instructor that sailed out of Brume with me that night so many weeks ago. For a moment, I’m afraid he may be gone. That this bold new Sargo Paz, who casually brushes off quantum physics and gets tattoos in Pocosín, might have stepped in and kicked the Sargo Paz I knew out on his ass.

Then he stops smirking and smiles properly, and I see him. He’s still there, behind those dark, thoughtful eyes. There’s just…more of him now. And the idea that something could go wrong, that I could lose him when I’ve only really just found him, is too painful to think about.

I cross my arms tighter. “I can’t lose you.”

He shrugs. “Then don’t.”

Behind me, Fetch clears her throat. “This is all super romantic,” she says, “but we’re like, kind of on a time crunch here.”

Sargo steps back, holding out his hand to me. I stare at him and don’t take it. He turns to Fetch and Locuaz.

“Say your goodbyes now.”

Fetch rolls her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re being so dramatic about this. She literally did it with all of us yesterday.” But as she says this, she folds her arms a little too tightly and surveys us with a leer that feels a hair too derisive.

Locuaz looks at me. “We doing this?”

I keep my furious glare on Sargo and don’t reply.

He returns my glare with a steady look and says, “Where to, captain?”

“The Kingfisher,” says Fetch. I frown at her in surprise. She shrugs. “Zenith doesn’t know about it.”

Sargo nods. “Seems as good a place as any.” His eyes turn serious and he lowers his voice. “We have to go somewhere, Bird.”

I close my eyes and breathe out a long, frustrated breath deep in the back of my throat. He’s right. We have to go somewhere.

“Okay. Okay, fine. The Kingfisher. We can regroup there and figure out our next move. Assuming you don’t all wind up dead on the way.” I narrow my eyes at Fetch, remembering how we left things with her dad. “Are you sure that’s…where you want to be?”

Fetch nods once. “Just keep Savage out of my way.”

I look at Sargo, my heart beginning to beat fast. “Ready?”

He reaches out a hand to me. “Ready.”

“Okay.” I take it. “Here goes nothing.”

I shatter us into static and light.

And then we’re standing on the bow of the Kingfisher, the white morning sun beating down from a hazy, yellow sky.

“Jesus,” says Sargo, and I grab his arm to keep him upright as he stumbles, clutching his chest.

“Are you okay?”

He draws a deep, shaky breath, patting his torso with tentative hands. “That was…really weird.”

“You get used to it.”

He swallows and looks around. Then he grins woozily and throws an arm around my shoulders. I stagger sideways as too much of his weight lands on me. “See?” he says. “I knew you could do it.”

Once Locuaz and Fetch are safely aboard the Kingfisher too, I go back to Axioma’s house for Electra. Assuming the place will be surrounded by peace officers, I blip directly into the closet of her bedroom, and open the door to find her sitting at her desk, fiddling with the biochip interface.

She nearly falls out of her chair as I step into the room, but recovers her composure surprisingly quickly, informing me briskly that she is locked in, there are four peace officers positioned outside her door, and to keep my voice down. She throws some clothes, shoes, and the biochip interface into a pack, and, much to my chagrin, seems totally unfazed by the blip back to the Kingfisher, merely smoothing her ponytail and repressing a small hiccup as we materialize on the bow.

Goliath, who has evidently been acting as the ship’s first mate since Fetch left, is wary but cautiously welcoming. It helps that they recognize Sargo and Locuaz, and to my surprise, they seem genuinely pleased to see me, clapping a massive hand on my shoulder and greeting me with, “Hello, ghost.”

Goliath listens closely while Fetch explains that we need to stay on the boat for a while, and then instructs Fid to make up some extra berths in the crew quarters. As per the Kingfisher’s ‘we don’t share our business’ rule, no further questions are asked. Fetch seems to slip back into her usual, authoritative role with ease, deflecting the curious looks from the rest of the crew with a few curt words as she leads Sargo, Electra, Locuaz, and I below deck to the galley.

We pull up the metal benches and sit around the long low table, exhausted silence descending like thick, soupy fog. I try to resist the urge to anxiously chew my nails.

Finally, Locuaz says, “Do you think it’s true what Axioma said?”

Nobody answers her right away. It seems clear that we’ve all been thinking the same thing.

Electra says, “My mom may be a megalomaniac and a narcissist, but she’s not delusional. She’s had teams of scientists working on this for decades. If she thinks the world will become uninhabitable in fifty years…it probably will.”

“If she takes all the scientists and engineers, it definitely will,” says Sargo, darkly.

Fetch frowns. “What does that mean?”

“If we have any hope of fixing…this,” says Sargo, gesturing around, “it’s going to evaporate once the ‘best and the brightest’ are blipped into some other dimension.”

“That’s true,” Electra agrees. “Uneducated people outside harbor cities wouldn’t be able to do much to even keep the current state of things running.”

“Excuse me?” says Fetch. “You think people outside harbor cities can’t take care of their own shit?”

Electra blanches. “What? Oh…no—I didn’t mean…” For the first time in my life, I see Electra stumble over her words. “I just meant—”

“You meant that Reckoners and Settlers are stupid. That we’re not as good as citizens,” says Fetch. “That we’re not capable of figuring things out on our own.”

“No, I—”

“Maybe you should just leave us behind,” snaps Fetch. “We’ll only hold you back. What good are a bunch of poor, ignorant fools when you’re trying to start a world in another dimension?”

Electra looks helplessly at me and Sargo.

“I think she just meant,” says Sargo quietly, “that Reckoners and Settlers don’t have access to the same resources as citizens. They don’t have the same experience or accumulated knowledge. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It’s just…privilege.”

Fetch glares at Electra. “We can take care of ourselves. We could figure it out.”

Electra shifts her gaze, looking down at the table. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t.”

“Anyway,” I say, “according to Axioma, that’s all moot, because this planet is not salvageable by anyone, Reckoners or Citizens or otherwise. And what Zenith is proposing—saving all the citizens and leaving everyone else behind—is…” I shake my head. “I mean, it’s…insane.”

“Evil,” says Locuaz.

Electra opens her mouth and closes it again. She clasps and unclasps her hands, then says to the table, “Is it?”

Fetch’s mouth falls open. “Of course it is!”

“Okay…” Electra looks pained. “But…if what my mom says is true, and we don’t have the resources to get everybody out…shouldn’t we at least get some people out? I just mean,” she continues quickly, raising her hands against the attack that Fetch is clearly about to launch, “what is the alternative? We let everyone die so some people don’t feel bad?”

Fetch opens her mouth, her black eyes blazing with fury. But nothing comes out. She sits rigid, gaping at Electra. Then she closes her mouth and sits back hard against the wall, folding her arms and glaring at the floor.

A tense silence descends. I squeeze my head between my hands, struggling to put into words the thing that’s been bugging me about what Axioma said. Logically, I can see what Electra’s saying. Doesn’t it make sense to save some people if you can, when the situation is so dire that it’s literally the future of the species at stake? Isn’t it better to have at least two animals in the ark, rather than no animals at all? Part of me thinks that, somehow, that makes sense. But at the same time…something about it feels deeply, obviously wrong.

“Look,” I say, lifting my head from my hands, “maybe it’s true that Zenith can’t afford to save everyone, but…does that mean that Axioma should get to pick the survivors? When a ship goes down, you don’t just let the captain put his buddies in the lifeboats and leave everyone else to drown. You do everything you can to get everyone in the lifeboats. Don’t you?”

I look around, meeting their eyes.

“What if there just…aren’t enough lifeboats?” says Locuaz quietly.

“Then you send for help! You involve everyone on board in the solution. You take a vote. You don’t just quietly give the last seats away to your friends and leave the souls in steerage to die.”

My voice wavers and I take a breath to steady it. “Leaving people behind is wrong. Fundamentally. I can’t let myself believe that human beings would sit by and knowingly let it happen.”

My words ring into the silence as everyone at the table looks at each other.

“So…” says Sargo slowly, "what are you proposing?”

“We fight,” says Fetch.

Electra utters a small tsk. But I meet Fetch’s eyes and give her a firm nod.

“It’s not enough anymore to ask for reparations, or even to hold Zenith accountable for what they’ve done so far,” I say. “We need to stop them from taking this any further. We need to expose what they’re planning to the public. People need to know what is happening. They need to be in charge of their own futures.” I meet Electra’s eyes. “And we need to do it soon. Axioma told me when I was at headquarters that they may only be a week away from figuring out how to implement QMTP for everyone—and that was almost five days ago.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Locuaz raises her hands. “You saying we only have two days to figure this out?”

Sargo shakes his head. “No, no. Even if Zenith gets QMTP working, that doesn’t mean they’re going to start…zipping people off to some other dimension in two days. The tech hasn't even been tested yet.”

“Normally,” says Electra, “yes. But…” She drops her gaze to the back of her hands. “Last night, I think I overheard my mom telling someone that they’ll push the update out as soon as it's ready."

My mouth drops open. "What?"

"Untested?" says Sargo.

Electra spreads her palms. “Maybe? I think she’s worried that it will leak. I heard her say that they should release the update to all biochips as soon as possible, in case there's any push-back. Once the update is out there, no one can opt out. Zenith will be able to move the population once they identify a viable dimension, whether people like it or not. She believes it's for our own good."

I stare at her, my mouth still hanging open. "But QMTP is totally unpredictable unless you know how to use it. It’s dangerous. It took me over a month of daily practice just to stop randomly blipping into situations that might have killed me. Fetch's sister blipped into the middle of the Salt and drowned in her sleep. If Zenith just pushes the update…"

Electra shrugs weakly. "I'm just telling you what I heard. They'll push the update as soon as QMTP is ready, then they'll start working on finding a viable dimension."

Sargo frowns. "How are they going to figure out what’s a ‘viable dimension’ or not?"

Electra shrugs. "I don't know. Probes or something, maybe? I guess eventually they'd need to send manned missions, but…I don't know who would volunteer to be a test subject for something like that."

“Oh my gods!” Locuaz suddenly covers her mouth with her hand. She looks at me, wide-eyed. “The kids in Grike.”

Electra frowns. “What kids in Grike?”

“Zenith is still holding kids at their facility in Grike,” I say slowly. “When Shale broke into Zenith headquarters and starting taking hostages, one of his demands was that Zenith release them. Lottery kids, probably, from settlements. I figured that once Zenith got QMTP working, they would let them go, but…”

“But they’re still going to need them as canaries,” says Sargo, grimly.

“You think they’re just going to…send kids into other dimensions?” Fetch asks. “Without knowing anything about where they’re going?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?” I say. “They don’t exactly have a great track record for giving a shit about what happens to Lottery kids.”

“And kids are gonna get stuck,” says Locuaz quietly. “Or die.”

“We don’t know what would happen to them,” Fetch cuts in.

Everyone falls silent again, and I try not to focus on the memory of struggling through the dimension of the dead, of Sargo’s screaming face and Fetch and Locuaz’s lifeless bodies and burned out eyes.

“We can’t let that happen,” I say finally. “We need to do something.”

chapter

twenty-eight

“BIRD?” Sargo narrows his brows and regards me carefully. “Tell me you're not thinking about coming up with some kind of half-cocked plan right now.”

I return his scrupulous look with one of my own. “I have some ideas.”

He sighs. “Care to enlighten us?”

Taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly, I spread my palms flat on the table and stare between them.

“We need to stop Zenith from releasing the QMTP update. And we need to free the kids from the facility at Grike. And…if we can, we should try to expose what Zenith has been doing so at least harbor citizens are aware of what’s going on.”

Sargo’s face is troubled. “Yeah, we know all that. But…exposing Zenith? Isn’t that exactly what your brother tried to do? And how are we supposed to free kids from Grike? It’s ten thousand miles away, and I don’t mean to sound pessimistic, but I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you can just blip in and handle on your own.”

“It’s ten thousand miles from here,” I counter, a speck of an idea drifting into my mind like a seed pod, looking for somewhere to touch down. “But it’s only a couple thousand miles from Île Tor. A super fast ship sailing from Tor could make it there in a couple of days.”

“We don’t know anyone on Île Tor.” says Electra.

“Yes we do.” I turn to Locuaz. “Yote.”

Locuaz’s eyes go wide. She sits up, nodding emphatically. “Yote’s been breaking girls out of the black market in Pocosín for years. And she hates Zenith. I bet she could pull together a crew to break into Grike.”

Sargo folds his arms and eyes me. “Okay. What about blocking the QMTP update?”

I look at Electra. “I think that would be where your sister would come in. She’s pretty good with computers, right?”

Electra scoffs. “She’s like, a legitimate tech genius.”

“Right.” The seed of an idea begins to take root inside my head. “And she’s a member of the Anonymity. The Anonymity know how to track biochips, and they knew how to hack the radio channel at Zenith headquarters. If they can do that…I’ve got to think they can do more.”

“How is the Anonymity supposed to pull off something like that undetected?” says Sargo.

I chew my nail. “I don’t know. Some kind of distraction? Put the focus on something else while the Anonymity launches the attack.”

“A distraction like what?”

“Like another attack,” says Fetch. “By someone else.”

My eyes flick to her. “Like who?”

“Like a bunch of pissed-off Reckoners.”

I grin, catching her drift. “A bunch of pissed-off Reckoners like…the crew of the Kingfisher, for example?”

She shrugs. “Breaking and entering is pretty much what we do.”

“Breaking and entering where?” says Locuaz, looking skeptical.

“Zenith headquarters,” I say, picking up steam now, the roots beginning to take hold, to stretch and deepen. “Savage’s crew go in, take hostages, make a scene. Just like Shale did. The difference is, while that’s going on, the Anonymity will launch the real attack on Zenith’s servers. And Yote’s crew will be raiding the facility at Grike.”

“Savage’s crew would need to take out anyone who might spot that the online attack is happening,” Electra says. “IT. Cyber security. But it might be doable. A lot of the programmers who work on security work at headquarters. If you could get into the central office there…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know, it seems crazy, but maybe…”

“I can blip everyone directly into the main lab at Zenith,” I say. “I’ve been there. I know what it looks like.”

Fetch looks at me, surprised. “Wait…you can? Savage’s whole crew?”

“I think so.” I shrug. “I blipped with all of you at once, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but I thought…we have chips. Sargo and Locuaz and I. No one in Savage’s crew but me is chipped. It won’t work without a chip, will it?”

“You guys are chipped, but you don’t have the QMTP module. It’s not like your chips are doing anything when I blip you. I don’t think it makes a difference. I think I can blip the whole crew, with or without biochips.”

Fetch raises her eyebrows and falls silent, contemplating the table thoughtfully.

“You’re going to blip into the middle of Zenith headquarters?” says Sargo. “What about—” He hesitates. “What about what happened to Shale? You think that’s…a good idea?”

“Axioma knew Shale was coming,” I reply. “She lured the Anonymity there knowing she could take them out. But she has no idea we’re planning something.”

Sargo stares at me, then nods and looks at his hands. “What about exposing Axioma?”

The table lapses into silence and I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, racking my brain for some scrap of an idea. Suddenly, it hits me.

"Where Shale went wrong was telling her she was being broadcast live. Of course she’s never going to own up to anything in that situation. But you saw how much she told us the other day when it was just us in her house. She wants to talk about it. She’s probably dying to show off how brilliant she is. I just need to get her alone and get her talking.”

“She does have a pretty big ego,” Electra muses. “If you could get her talking, we could try and patch your radio signal through to the Net, the same way Shale did.”

“What’s to stop her from re-routing it again?” says Sargo.

“We do it at the same time we launch the other attacks,” I say. “Catch the whole organization off-guard. The peace force will be totally unprepared—they’ll be scrambling to deal with Savage. I get Axioma alone and get her talking, and the Anonymity broadcasts the signal at the same time they’re blocking the QMTP update.”

A hush falls over the table as we all look at each other, breathless.

“Is this…for real?” whispers Locuaz. “Like, we actually gonna do this?”

Electra clears her throat. “Seems like we need some kind of headquarters or something. Rinky-dink HQ.”

I look around us at the Kingfisher’s sparse galley. “I think we’re in it. We can operate out of here…if that’s okay with Fetch.”

Fetch shrugs. “Don’t look at me. Goliath’s in charge now.”

“Can you talk to them? Ask them if we can use this as a meeting point? And maybe…” I hesitate, “talk to Savage too? We need to get the whole crew on board for this to work and you’re the best chance we have at convincing them to get involved.”

Fetch folds her arms and sets her jaw. She glares at the table as she says, “Yes.”

“While she’s doing that,” I say, turning to Electra, “I think you and I should pay your sister in Alluvium a visit.”

Electra’s eyes go wide. “We can do that?”

I relish her shocked expression. “Easy peasy. We’ll be there in no time.”

“I’m gonna message Yote,” says Locuaz. “Tell her what we planning and see if she can get a ship to Grike.”

"Wait…" Sargo's voice is guarded. "Can we just…take a minute here? We need to think about what happens to us if this goes wrong," he says. "To everyone. Yote. Electra's sister. Savage's crew. And not just them…" He regards me seriously. "What happens if Zenith retaliates? They could go after our families. Your moms. My uncle."

Locuaz's face twists. "My mom and sister."

The full reality of what we're planning to do lands in my gut like a sack of flour. I brace my palms on the table as a dizzying wave of nausea sweeps through me. Are we seriously going to put people’s lives at risk for this?

"The people we're asking to help us," says Electra, "I guess we just have to tell them that it's dangerous and be willing to accept that they might say no."

"And our families?" says Locuaz.

"We just need to get them somewhere safe," I say. "And disable their tracking modules so Zenith can't find them. Locuaz, do your mom and sister have people they can stay with in Pocosín?"

She nods.

"Okay. Electra, can you show Sargo how to run the code that disables the trackers?"

Electra shrugs. "Probably. Why?"

"I'll blip Sargo to Brume. My moms have friends they can stay with there.” I turn to Sargo. “Electra can show you how to disable their trackers before we go. Your uncle too. Message me when you're done and I'll take you to Pocosín so you can do the same for your tía and Locuaz's family.”

Sargo nods. It slowly turns from a nod into a disbelieving head shake. "Okay,” he says, “so…what, I guess we have a plan?”

I turn back to the rest of the table, my heart suddenly beating hard and fast in my ears. Locuaz's eyes are bright with anxious anticipation. Fetch shrugs and looks away.

“It’s…kind of a crazy plan,” says Electra. “We don’t exactly have a lot going for us. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the initiative, but…the margins are, like, razor thin here.”

To my surprise, Sargo sits up and braces his palms the table. He looks her straight in the eye and says,“Como la Sal, por lo que el marinero.”

Electra frowns. “What?”

Locuaz, also frowning, translates. “He said, ‘Like the Salt, so must be the sailor.’”

“And what does that mean?”

“My mom always said ‘As the Salt so the sailor’ not ‘Like the Salt’,” says Sargo, examining his hands as though suddenly embarrassed. “She used to say it when she took me sailing. It means…that you have to find a way to make it work, even when you don’t have a lot to go on. Some days you have to sail and the wind is so light you think there's no way you're going to make it where you’re going. But you can’t change the wind. All you can change is yourself, and your sails. You’re right: this plan is crazy and we don’t have a lot to go on. We don’t have…a lot of wind.” He shrugs, looking embarrassed again. “But we can’t let Zenith get away with what they’re doing. Right? So we need to find a way to make it work.”

“As the Salt, so the sailor,” Electra murmurs, turning the words over in her mouth. She shrugs. “I guess I can get behind that.”

“Me too,” says Locuaz.

“We don’t have much choice, do we?” says Fetch.

Sargo turns to me. “Ready?”

Swallowing tears, I nod. “Ready.”

chapter

twenty-nine

THE FIRST STEP is blipping Sargo to my moms’ house in Brume. Then I return to the Kingfisher so Electra and I can jump to Alluvium. Not having any idea who Electra's sister is or where she might be, I aim for Shale's shop. Electra and I land in the desolate warehouse district minutes after I say goodbye to Sargo in Brume.

My knees wobble as my feet find solid ground, and I sway, a dark tunnel creeping around the edges of my vision. I feel Electra's grip around my arm.

"You okay?" she says.

"Yeah. Fine. Just a little dizzy."

She watches me suspiciously while I take a breath and clear my head.

"Probably just too much blipping around with other people," I say. "It's been a while since I had to learn something new."

She eyes me for another moment, then looks around. "Where are we?"

"My brother's warehouse. I figure we might find something here that could lead us to your sister."

"I thought you could take us right to her? Didn't you say you went directly to my mom at Zenith headquarters?"

"I can only do that if I know the person I'm trying to reach," I say. "I have to be able to visualize where I'm going or it doesn't work."

I try the door and, to my surprise, find it unlocked. Frowning, I crack it open and peek my head into the dim, musty interior, empty of people, but still chock-full of crates and boxes.

"Is there anyone in there?" whispers Electra over my shoulder. I shake my head and slowly push the door all the way open.

"There's an office in the back," I say, heading for the door on the opposite wall. "There might be some information there." We weave our way carefully and quietly down the narrow aisle in the center of the room.

"This box has Zenith's logo on it," says Electra, sounding alarmed.

"It's all black market stuff. Stolen from the Big Four."

"Stolen?"

"Yeah, your sister's into some shady shit." I turn over my shoulder and raise my brows. "And now, so are you."

Her face pales slightly. We come to the office door and I gently try the handle. To my surprise, this one is unlocked too. I push it open.

"Who's there?!"

A sharp, female voice stops me in my tracks. Standing behind Shale's desk on the other side of the door is a short, small-framed woman with chin-length jet black hair and a grotesque, pixelated blur where her face should be. In the less-than-a-second it takes for me to take her in, I realize two things: number one, I recognize this woman—its Ladybird, the Anonymity member who helped Shale bust me out of Grike; and number two, she's pointing a gun at us.

I step back, throwing up my hands, and run right into Electra, who is standing behind me.

"Who are you?" Ladybird demands.

"Bird! Bird Howsley. You rescued me from Grike."

"Bird Howsley," she says. Her voice is like steel. She doesn’t move the gun off me. "What are you doing here?"

"We're not here to cause trouble," I stammer, hands still over my head. "We're looking for someone."

She cocks the gun with a gut-lurching click. "Looking for who?"

"My sister!" Electra cries, her voice cracking into an octave above its usual cadence. "Paradi Nation."

Ladybird pauses. Then she doubles her grip on the gun and points it just over my shoulder as she says, "Come out where I can see you."

I hear a careful step, and Electra's raised hands enter my peripheral vision as she moves out from behind me.

Ladybird drops the gun onto the desk with a clatter and reaches to tap the back of her head. The blurred mask dissolves, revealing a beautiful, sharp-featured face that is so much like Axioma Nation's that my chest tightens. Her narrow, hazel eyes, which have obviously been crying, grow wide.

Electra's hands come down. "Pari?"

The two stare at each other without moving. They look very much like each other—and very much like Axioma. I slowly begin to lower my hands and Paradi's eyes dart to me. Hairs prick up along the back of my neck and I freeze with my hands half-raised.

"Why are you here?" she says sharply.

"We—we came to find you," says Electra.

"Why?"

Electra flinches.

"We need your help," I say, slowly dropping my hands. "We're going after Zenith."

Paradi half scoffs, half sobs, her steely exterior cracking just enough for me to see the pain underneath it. "Too late, sweetheart. The Anonymity isn't interested in taking another hit for you."

"I never asked the Anonymity to take any hits for me," I say through gritted teeth. "I never wanted Shale to come after me."

Paradi flinches at the sound of Shale’s name, and glares at me, silent.

"I'm not the reason he’s dead,” I say. “You want to be angry? Great. But be angry at the right people."

"We need you, Pari," whispers Electra.

"What are you even doing here?" Paradi demands, rounding on her sister.

Electra's eyes flash. "I came here for you. Because I was worried about you. Because I care about you."

"This isn't your fight," says Paradi.

"I'm making it my fight."

A crackling silence fills the space between them. It grows and grows like a bubble filling with too much air, until finally, it pops.

"I can't fight anymore," Paradi whispers. She sinks into the chair behind Shale's desk and I note for the first time that the desk is strewn with things that I assume belonged to him—a set of keys, a pair of cufflinks, a fancy, old-fashioned timepiece that I recognize as a watch.

"We lost too many people," Paradi mumbles, her empty, distant eyes wandering over Shale’s things. "The raids in Grike and Brume—" She shakes her head. "A lot of people died. A lot more have left. They just don't think we can win. And without Shale…" She hiccups and pulls in a shallow, rattling breath. She looks up at me, her eyes bright with tears. "It was his fight. He drove us. He was the soul of the resistance."

"It doesn't have to end with him," I say, bracing my hands on the desk. "It can't. This is everyone's fight now."

Electra and I explain what we've learned about Zenith's plans for QMTP. To my surprise, Paradi's puffy, tear-stained face registers no shock or alarm. Rather, it gets grimmer and grimmer as we talk, until finally, she says, "I'm not surprised. It wouldn't be the first time my mother left Settlers and Reckoners to die."

Electra frowns. "What do you mean?"

Paradi presses the heels of her hands under her eyes and pulls herself up in her chair. She picks up Shale’s watch and contemplates it for a long time before setting it aside and turning her face back up to us.

"When I was a little girl," she says, "I thought my mom was a superhero. She worked so hard, and she was so smart. She talked about saving the world like it was a—a calling. A job that needed to be done. I didn't learn until much later how serious that…delusion, was for her. That she could be the one to do it. Would be the one to do it. My dad told me, much later, that she always wanted to do something big. Something that would fix all the world's problems once and for all. I think she thought the biochip would be it. When she and my dad created it, she thought it would somehow be the answer to the climate crisis and inequality and social injustice, and all the other problems that were plaguing us. But it wasn't; of course it wasn't. It was just another piece of tech in a world that needed another piece of tech like it needed another forest fire.

"People used it, sure. Everyone wanted it. Millions of harbor citizens were getting them implanted before what was left of the failing governments had even fully wrapped their heads around the legality of it. But the biochip wasn't fixing anything. It wasn't making the world cooler or the water cleaner or the air more breathable. It wasn't making politicians less out of touch or the general public less apathetic.

"And then, the pandemic hit. I was five. I barely even knew what was going on, we were so isolated in our big, cushy house in Brume. Within two days, two million people had died. Within twenty days, it was seventy percent of the world's population. And then my mom…figured out a way to stop it."

Paradi pauses, scrutinizing us. She turns her attention back to Shale’s strewn possessions and picks up the cufflinks. Her eyes brim with tears again and she sets them aside next to the watch.

"Do you know how Zenith rose to power?" she says, not looking up.

"Yes," I say. "They ended the pandemic. And then afterward, they built the systems that helped the cities recover."

"But do you know how they ended it?"

I shake my head.

"The biochip," says Paradi. "They delivered a vaccine through the biochip. It was brilliant, really. The chip produces its own mRNA, in order to interface with the human body. That's how they get the body to build the receptors that send and receive messages from the chip. And at that time, mRNA was also the primary method for vaccine delivery. They coded a vaccine into the chip and released an update. No syringes. No manufacturing of any drugs. No need to risk exposing doctors and nurses to deliver it to patients. No need for any additional infrastructure at all. It was all online. It was my mom's crowning moment. She saved the world, and she did it with the chip."

"I feel…" says Electra quietly, "like there's a 'but' coming."

"There is," says Paradi, bitterly. "And it's a big one. Remember when I told you that millions of people had gotten the chip implanted?"

"No," I cut in, suddenly understanding. "You told us that millions of harbor citizens had."

"Exactly." Paradi looks at me grimly. "The only people who received the vaccine were those who already had chips. Millions—billions—of Settlers and Reckoners were unchipped."

“And she left them to die,” I finish bluntly.

"After the pandemic," Paradi continues, "Zenith covered it all up. They claimed that everyone in the Settlements had died before the vaccine had been developed—that it had been too late to save any of them. The Settlements were death camps, right? It was no wonder no one survived. The Big Four started using their resources to rebuild and pull even more power away from the governments, and people in cities were so busy figuring out how to live again that they just stopped worrying about anything outside their tiny little worlds and let it happen. For ten years, Zenith said they ran outreach programs to Settlements to find survivors and get them chipped. But they claimed there was no one left. It wasn't until I met Shale and found out about the Lottery that I understood what they were actually doing for those ten years."

Electra sits down hard on a crate, her mouth open, staring at the floor. Paradi watches her, a strange, distant mix of worry and compassion on her face. I lean across the desk, bringing my eyes level with Paradi's.

"Help us stop them," I say.

She turns her gaze back to me, blank, empty. “It’s too late.”

"We have to try. If we don't…all of it will have been for nothing. Shale will have died for nothing. The people you lost in Grike and Brume will have sacrificed their lives for nothing. I can't live with that, and I don't think you can either.”

Her face pulls taut and she sets her jaw, her eyes flicking to her sister, then back to mine.

“We're going after them,” I continue. “But we can't do it without the Anonymity. We need someone who knows how to get into the Zenith system. We need your help."

“Who’s ‘we’?” she says.

I hesitate. “My…crew.”

Paradi raises an eyebrow. “Your crew?”

Electra utters a small scoff. I shoot her a look.

“Yes. It’s not…we don’t have a lot of resources. But we have intel. We have QMTP. I can get us right into the heart of Zenith headquarters. We have a plan.”

My voice is bordering on desperation, and Paradi can hear it. She stares at me across the table, her eyes hard and calculating, skepticism written across her face as plain as day.

“Please,” I say quietly. “I know you loved Shale. I know you don’t want to let everything you worked for together die and disappear.”

She draws a deep breath, sitting back in the chair, and for one heart-stopping moment, I'm afraid she's going to say no.

But she lays her palms flat on the table, pushes herself up from her seat, and surveys me and Electra with brutal determination.

"Okay,” she says. “Let's get the bastards."

chapter

thirty

PARADI'S AGREEMENT TO help us comes with the caveat that, in order to hack Zenith's system, she'll need access to more computing power than she can get from her biochip alone. Lots of things can be done with just a biochip, but brute-force hacking of the world's most sophisticated cyber security is not one of them, or so says Paradi.

The Anonymity used to have a device that could do it, she tells us, but it disappeared after the disastrous raid at Brume headquarters, along with most of the remaining members of Shale's faction.

Fortunately, according to Electra, such a device exists in Axioma's home office in Brume. After some discussion, it's decided that I’ll get Electra and Paradi into the house just before Savage's crew launch their physical assault on Zenith headquarters. It will take more than just Paradi and Electra to pull off the cyber attack, so Paradi calls an emergency meeting of the five remaining members of Shale’s Anonymity faction at the warehouse to flesh out a plan.

Electra and Paradi will launch the initial attack from Brume, hack into the system, and start the broadcast. Then the other five will work remotely from Alluvium to block the update and take down the QMTP code from Zenith’s repositories. Paradi seems cautiously optimistic—although she reminds me that the margins, as Electra previously pointed out, are razor thin.

When he learns of the plan for Savage’s crew to infiltrate Zenith’s headquarters, one of the other faction members—a man who doesn’t even bother to activate his anonymizing mask, and insists that we call him by his real name, Edson—demands we let him come with us. He wants to help Savage’s crew with the physical assault.

Edson, an ex-Zenith programmer, is a wizened old man with skin that has clearly seen more dark rooms full of servers than sunlight, a white beard, and a ponytail. It turns out that he is rabid for the blood of the Zenith C-Suite and second only to Paradi in his understanding of the Zenith firewalls. He seems to be, if not completely off his rocker, then swiftly making his way there. Something about him screams ‘loose cannon’ to me, but Paradi vouches for him, saying that bringing him to the Kingfisher to help her prepare will make things run more smoothly.

By the time I get Edson, Paradi, and Electra back to the Kingfisher, then meet Sargo in Brume, blip him to Pocosín, and return to the Kingfisher again, my legs are like water, and splotches of light are obscuring my vision. I sink onto a bench at the long table in the galley, where Paradi and Edson are introducing themselves to Locuaz, and prop my chin in my hands.

Locuaz eyes me anxiously. "You okay, mija?"

I wave her off. "I think blipping people all over the place is just making me a little tired.”

"You wanna take a break? Sleep a little?"

I shake my head. "Did you get a message to Yote? What's the word?"

Locuaz shifts in her seat. "Not so good…she says her boat isn't big enough or fast enough to get to Grike in just two days. Also…she said it's a big mission for her crew alone. She’s never been to Grike. She doesn't want to risk going into a city where she doesn't know the layout."

I screw up my face and squeeze my head between my hands. "Okay…maybe…" I sigh. "Maybe you could come with me to Île Tor. Talk to her face to face. She might be able to help us come up with a better plan."

"I don't know, Bird…you sure you up to that? Maybe you should just go alone."

"No. It'll be better if you're there. You're our contact. She trusts you."

She nods warily. "Okay. Maybe…you wanna eat something first?"

I lift my head to raise my brows at her. "Sure, Mom. I'll eat something first."

She retrieves an apple and a small can of beans from the Kingfisher's pantry, then stands over me while I eat them. By the time I'm done, the weak, watery feeling is gone from my legs and my vision is clear again.

"Better?" she says.

"Yes," I mutter, begrudgingly. "Better."

Fetch steps through the door that leads into the hallway to the crew quarters, looking grim.

"Goliath says the risk of something going wrong is too high. Someone could be killed. They don’t want to go. Won’t even bring it up to Savage."

“Did you tell her we can go straight to the heart of headquarters?” I ask. “It’s not like they’ll have to fight through security.”

“Yup.”

I restrain a frustrated sigh. “Okay…I can’t really deal with that right now. I need to take Locuaz out to Île Tor. Can you keep working on Goliath?"

Fetch's eyes flick to Locuaz. "Île Tor? Why?"

“We need to talk to Yote. She might be able to help us come up with a better plan for Grike than what we have.”

"Okay…" Fetch's face is troubled, her eyes on Locuaz. "Just…be careful."

"Don't worry." I stand up from the table, waving a hand. "It's just a chat. We're coming right back."

"Actually…" Locuaz says, her voice hesitant, "I thought maybe I would stay."

"What?" Fetch and I both turn to her sharply. Locuaz looks at the table as she speaks.

"I want to go with Yote to Grike and help free the kids."

Fetch shakes her head firmly. "No way. It's too dangerous."

"Oh, and breaking into Zenith headquarters is so safe?" Locuaz demands.

"That's different," says Fetch. "I know how to fight. I've done this kind of thing before."

"So have I!" Locuaz cries. "I helped Yote get girls out of Pocosín twice already." She stands and goes to Fetch, taking her hands. "I wanna do something useful, gorda. I don't wanna just sit here on the Kingfisher while you all…go into battle without me. I can't fight. I can't…teleport. I don't know anything about computers. But maybe I can do this." She cups Fetch's cheek with one hand. "I'll be okay."

"You don't know that." Fetch clutches the hand against her cheek with her own.

"And you don't know it either," says Locuaz. They stare at each other for a long moment. Then Fetch pulls Locuaz to her, her fingers digging into the flesh of her shoulders.

"You'd better come back," she mutters into that mane of black hair.

"Of course I'm gonna come back," Locuaz whispers. "I was lost without you, cariña."

They hold on to each other for a long time, and when Fetch finally releases Locuaz and steps back, both of their eyes are gleaming. Locuaz sniffs, wiping her eyes, then turns to me with a single, decisive breath.

"Ready?"

We materialize on the bow of Yote's ship Man O’ War moments later. Shielding my eyes against the sun sparkling off the turquoise water, I turn to see Yote's dreadlocked and bandana-wrapped head emerging from the cockpit. Her eyes land on us and she stops dead in her tracks.

"Hey Yote." Locuaz offers a tentative wave. "We, uh…here."

Yote's plum-black face is ashen. I never thought I'd see the stoic Reckoner look so stunned. She opens her mouth, then closes it, then opens it again.

"How did you…?"

"She teleported us." Locuaz climbs across the bow and swings herself down into the cockpit next to Yote. "Everything you thought about Zenith, all the stuff they been doing? You were right. It's all true. Bird is a victim of biopiratería. Zenith put stuff in her head. Now they trying to put stuff in all our heads. And they gonna use the kids at Grike to test it. A lot of kids gonna die, Yote. If we let them do it, a lot of kids gonna die."

Yote stares at Locuaz for a moment, then seems to regain some of her usual, regal composure. She shoots her cool, unyielding gaze back to me.

"Locuaz told me you're going after them."

I follow Locuaz's path across the bow and climb into the cockpit as well. "We need you, Yote,” I say. “You're the best chance we have of getting those kids out."

Yote shakes her head and sits, resting her elbows on her knees, her rows of bracelets and bangles gently clinking in the still, jasmine-scented air.

"I already told Locuaz," she says in her deep, even voice, "this boat isn't fast enough, and it isn't big enough to hold the crew I would need to pull off something like that. We need more manpower. We need someone who knows Grike." She stops and sends her gaze out across the water. Finally, she looks back at us. "But I did have a thought, after I sent Locuaz my last reply. There is one ship on Île Tor capable of making that passage in a couple of days, and big enough to hold a sizable crew."

I narrow my eyes. "What ship?"

"The Valkyrie."

My gut lurches. Mojave Stark and the ruthless crew of mercenaries that Zenith hired to chase down Panga after Sargo and I left Brume. The woman who poisoned Malarkey and kidnapped Locuaz and me in the middle of the night, on this very island. The last time I saw her, her ship was being consumed by flames after a lightning strike just off the coast of Grike. I thought I was rid of her for good after that.

I shake my head, my face aghast. "She's alive?"

"Mojave Stark is like a cockroach," says Yote. "You can't keep her down for long."

"She works for Zenith. We can't trust her."

Yote scoffs. "She works for whoever's paying. If you have the coin, she'll do whatever you want."

"She that woman who tried to kidnap us?" says Locuaz.

I nod, keeping my eyes firmly on Yote. "How much coin?"

"That, I don't know," says Yote. "But she's anchored just around the corner in the lagoon. Why don't you ask her?"

I find Mojave Stark sitting on a giant plastic oil drum on the Valkyrie's foredeck. The massive warship looks decidedly worse for wear since the last time I walked its ugly, metal deck. Rusted, and everything now thoroughly scarred by burn marks. It looks as though the crew have done a fair amount of patching up since I led them into that lightning storm, but I doubt the ship will ever be the same again.

The thickset captain with the bosoms like two boulders in a sack glares at me through her one remaining eye as I approach—the other, I remember queasily, was extracted from her head by Nana in an effort to get information about Sargo and me. I hesitate, suddenly realizing that every bad thing that’s happened to this woman in the last three months has basically been because of me. Lost an eye, ship destroyed by lightning. Probably never did get paid by Zenith. Why on earth would she agree to help me after all that?

Stark seems unperturbed by my appearance, acknowledging me with a grunt before returning to the rope on her lap, which she is splicing with a short, stubby blade.

"I have a job for you," I say, stopping a few feet short of where she sits and folding my arms. She makes no indication that she's heard me, so I continue, laying out the plan for the rescue of the kids from Grike. When I finish, she continues working for a few moments before she says,

"Need a crew for something like that. I lost most of mine when we went down in that lightning storm." She glares up at me with her remaining eye.

I shift on my feet. "Yote will find the crew."

"Mm." The eye turns back to her work. "Need coin, too."

I brace myself. "How much coin?"

"How much you got?"

All I have is what Axioma paid me when I agreed to let Zenith run their creepy experiments on me in Grike. It's a sizable amount—but not a fortune. About thirty thousand UBC.

"Ten thousand Ubicoin," I say.

Stark scoffs. "On your bike, sweetheart."

"Okay…" I clench my jaw and take a breath. "Fifteen."

She shakes her head, chuckling softly and not looking up from her work.

"Thirty."

Her shiny, black lips twist into a leer. "That'll about do," she says to her busy hands.

I swallow. Great. I had hoped to hold onto at least some of the coin—it's not as though I have any job prospects waiting for me on the other side of this revolution. And I don’t like giving money to the woman who tried to kidnap me and poison my dog. But if we have any hope of coming out of this alive, we need all the help we can get, and I guess I should be grateful Stark is speaking to me at all after everything she’s been put through on my account. How can I ask people to make sacrifices and risk their lives if I'm not willing to part with some measly coin?

I extend my hand.

Stark takes it, her pasty palm cool and calloused in mine. Her leer twists into a grin. "We have a deal, Miss Howsley."

I transfer half the coin, with a stipulation that she’ll get the rest once the mission is complete. She grumbles about that, saying she doesn’t even know if her crew will return from the mission.

“In that case,” I reply, coldly, “you won’t need any of it at all, will you?”

The deal done, I return to the Man-O-War to give Yote the go-ahead to start assembling a crew. Then I take Locuaz's shoulders in my hands.

"You don't have to do this," I say. "I can take you back to the Kingfisher."

She lifts my hands from her shoulders and grips them in hers, looking me firmly in the eye.

"You remember when we met?" she says. "In Alluvium?"

I nod carefully.

"I was lost, mija. I didn't know where I was going or what I was looking for. I was drifting. How you say—una alma sin ataduras?”

"A lost soul."

"Sí. But then I went with Yote, and I helped her get those girls out of Pocosín, and I just…" She shakes her head. "I don't know, mija, I found a purpose. You know?”

"What about Fetch? You told her you were lost without her."

"Sí, claro, but…" She sighs. "Come on, mija. Fetch is not a purpose." She raises her brows. "What if your only purpose was to sit back and watch Sargo do things, and worry about him? Would that be enough for you?"

I hesitate, my eyes searching hers. My purpose. I haven't thought about that since…since those dark days in Brume. When I was drifting; jobless, friendless, haunted by memories of the stupid things I’d done and convinced I’d do nothing but stupid things for the rest of my life. Struggling to find anything worth living for, and seriously considering blipping away into the dimension of the dead and never coming back.

I squeeze her hands. "No, you're right. It wouldn't be enough for me. I'm glad you found your purpose. You should do what you need to do."

She smiles and pulls me into one of her hugs. "I believe in you too, mija.”

I frown. “I never said—”

“I know. But I know you do.”

chapter

thirty-one

THE SUN IS SINKING and Sargo has gotten his tía and Locuaz’s mother and sister safely into hiding by the time I find him in Pocosín. We blip back to the Kingfisher’s galley to find Electra, Edson and Paradi huddled at the end of the long table, deep in hushed conversation, poring over their slates.

Fetch sits at the other end of one of the benches, fervently polishing a new knife and looking murderous. She looks up as we appear, her eyes lighting as they land on Sargo, evidently mistaking him for Locuaz, who I’m sure she’s hoping has changed her mind and come back. Seeing that she has not, she returns to her work, scowling.

“Yote found a ship that can make the run to Grike,” I say, keeping one eye on Fetch. The three at the far end of the table break from their conversation and turn their eyes to me. “She’s assembling a crew. Locuaz is going with her.”

Paradi clears her throat, looking troubled. “We realized something,” she says, and hesitates, glancing at Fetch.

I raise my brows at her. “Yes?”

“Well, we realized that your friends out there on the Salt won’t have contact with us once they leave Île Tor. Their biochips will be out of range. So…” Again she hesitates. “So if something goes wrong on our end, we won’t be able to let them know before they reach Grike. They could end up sailing into a trap.”

Fetch stills for a moment, her eyes on the knife. Then she begins polishing furiously again.

“This is a dangerous mission for all of us,” I say carefully. “We’re all putting ourselves at risk. Like Sargo said…” I take a deep breath. “As the Salt, so the sailor. We can’t let it go wrong. We need to make it work.”

Paradi glances at Sargo, then back at me. She nods briskly and returns to her conversation with Electra and Edson. I sit opposite Fetch, clasping my hands on the table.

“What’s the word with Goliath?” I say quietly.

She doesn’t look up. “Same. They won’t put the crew at risk.”

I watch her furrowed brow as she pours all of her focus into her knife. “Maybe we should go directly to Savage,” I say.

Her eyes shoot up to mine. She stares at me for a moment. “Maybe I don’t want to put the crew at risk either,” she says, and goes back to polishing.

I open my mouth and find nothing there. Sargo squeezes behind me and goes to the far end of the table to take a seat with Electra and her sister. I watch them talking in hushed voices while I form and reform sentences in my head.

“Come on, Fetch,” I say finally. “This doesn’t work without your crew.”

“Then maybe it doesn’t work,” she says sharply, slamming the knife down on the table and looking at me. “Why are we all following you, anyway?” At the other end of the table, Sargo and Electra have fallen silent. Fetch glares at them. “Why has no one questioned the fact that we’re about to run headfirst into one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the world?”

“That was your idea,” I remind her, quietly.

“Yeah, well—” She huffs, scowls, picks up the knife and puts it down again. “It was a bad idea.”

“I know you’re worried about Locuaz,” I say. “But she—”

“Zenith peace officers have guns, Bird,” she says loudly. “Guns. Actual ones. What are we supposed to do once we get inside? Ask them nicely not to shoot us? Apologize for literally bringing knives to a gunfight?”

Again, my mouth begins to speak before it has anything to say. I stare at her with it half-open. She glares back at me, eyebrows raised, demanding.

A thin, reedy voice wafts to us from the other end of the table. “Y’all need guns?”

Every eye in the room turns to Edson, who regards us all with the big, easy smile that only a half-crazed old white man could wear in the face of this kind of adversity.

“I got a bunch of those,” he says.

____________________

Edson and Fetch blip with me to Alluvium to procure the ‘bunch of guns’ that Edson has hidden in his apartment there. True to his word, there are many of them. I stare in a kind of daze while Edson lays them all out on his bed, saying words like ‘pistol,’ ‘rifle,’ ‘shotgun,’ and ‘semi-automatic.’ They are a hodgepodge assortment—some look old enough to be collector’s items, others are as sleek and new as if they just came out of some kind of terrifying shrink wrap.

Under the bed are enough boxes of ammo—he insists we call them ‘shells’—to keep the entire peace force going for a year. By the time we return to the Kingfisher, laden down with fifteen of Edson’s favorites—he calls them his ‘toolies’—and several heavy cases of ammo, Fetch seems to have relaxed a little. She heaves an enormous box of shells onto the galley table between us and eyes me over the top of it, hands on her hips.

“Let’s go talk to Savage,” she says.

We find Savage in his quarters, slumped over his desk, looking as though the only thing he’s done since we left him there two weeks ago is smoke haar and drink. Fetch’s face twists with disgust as he looks up at the sound of her boots striding through the door. His eyes are like a relief map of red veins.

“You’re pathetic,” she says.

He sits back in his chair and fumbles for the grog flask on the desk, knocks it over, catches it before it spills all over him, and raises it to his lips with a trembling hand. “I know.”

“You should have been taking care of me all these years,” she continues.

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t have tried to sleep with my friend.”

I frown abruptly sideways at her. Friend?

He scowls. “I didn—” Her glare silences him. He drops his head. “I know.”

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

He stares in bitter silence at the table in front of him. Then finally, sighs, shaking his head.

“You’re right. I’m a terrible father. You deserve better. You don’t need to hang around here taking care of me anymore.”

“I don’t hang around to take care of you,” Fetch says through gritted teeth. “I hang around to take care of Fid.”

Savage winces.

“And I will get out of here,” says Fetch. “Eventually. But first, I have something to do. Unlike you, I’m not going to let down the people that are counting on me. I’m here for your crew.”

He blinks and looks swimmily up at her. “My crew?”

“If you can even call them that anymore,” she says bitterly. “Seems like Goliath is basically in charge these days. But seeing as how this is technically still your ship and they are technically still your crew, I figured I’d let you know. We’re taking down Zenith. For what they did to Fly. For what they did to our family. For what they’re planning to do to a lot of other people.”

Savage’s mouth opens and closes like a fish. “Zenith? But—”

“This is not a negotiation,” says Fetch. “I’m taking your crew. Consider it a professional courtesy that I’m informing you first.” She turns on her heel and stalks back through the open door. Taking one last look at Savage, I follow her.

Goliath and Nana are sitting in the cockpit above deck, sharing a dart. Goliath sprawls comfortably along one of the long bench seats, while Nana sits barefoot and cross-legged in Savage’s captain’s chair behind the helm, her leg-sized cleaver propped up next to her. A blood-red sliver of moon has just risen over the horizon, and the night is dark. The cove where the Kingfisher sits at anchor is as still and silent as stone.

Goliath’s eyes harden as Fetch climbs up out of the companionway, and track her as she crosses the cockpit to sit on the bench seat opposite them.

“I already tell you twice—” they say in a low voice, but Fetch cuts them off.

“I know. But the situation has changed. We have firepower.”

Goliath’s eyebrows arch.

Fetch nods. “Real firepower.”

I sit quietly next to Fetch. “Goliath, I can blip the whole crew right into the middle of the main office at Zenith headquarters. They’ll be caught off guard and totally unprepared. We’ll have the advantage.”

Goliath’s eyes flick to me. They say nothing.

Fetch exhales loudly through her nose. “We need you, Goliath. All of you. Don’t you want to do anything with your life besides steal and kill people? Don’t you want to do something…good?”

Goliath narrows their eyes. “Do you?”

“I—” Fetch hesitates.

“You good person now?” says Goliath. They scoff and wave a hand, plucking the dart from between Nana’s fingers and dragging on it. “You care?”

“Yeah, I care,” says Fetch, a slight tremor in her voice. “I care about what they did to my sister.”

“Why we care about your sister?” says Goliath.

“Who did what to your sister?” says Nana. Her bitter, blue-black face looks from Fetch to me. I shift under the old woman’s incisive eyes.

“We’re taking down Zenith,” says Fetch. “For what they did to Fly.”

Nana hisses through her metal teeth. “Your father know about this?”

I blink. Locuaz told me no one on the Kingfisher’s crew knows that Savage is Fetch’s father. How does Nana know? Did she work it out during that confrontation we all had a few weeks ago? I rattle through my mind, trying to recall the events of that night, trying to remember if it was revealed at any point.

“Yes,” says Fetch. “I told him I’m taking the crew.” She squares her shoulders and glares at Goliath. “I don’t want to fight you on this. I know you’re the first mate now, and I respect you. But…it doesn’t work without the crew.”

“You have a plan for this?” says Nana. Fetch nods and quickly fills her in. The old woman listens carefully, then turns to Goliath. “Well, you’re right,” she says. “It sounds like a suicide mission.”

My heart sinks.

Nana reaches into the breast pocket of her ratty silk cardigan and produces a tiny sliver of a knife. She studies it momentarily, then begins to pick her teeth with it.

“But,” she says, around the soft ticks the blade makes against her silver fillings, “maybe some things are so big they’re worth dying for. Things like family. Like the right for people to make up their own damn minds about what they want inside their heads.” She pauses, pulling the knife from one of her back molars and flicking something off the blade. “I say we call the crew up here. Let them decide.”

Goliath exhales a long growl deep in their throat. They fold their arms. “Fine. We vote.”

While Nana goes below to rally Red, Sterling, and Fid, I continue to scramble through my mind, trying to figure out how she could possibly know about Fetch and Savage’s relationship. And what else did she say? “Things like family.” Whose family? Did she mean the ‘family’ that the crew of the Kingfisher are all part of? That they should stand with Fetch because she’s part of their found family?

Fid emerges from the companionway, rubbing sleep from his young eyes. Just behind him are Red and Sterling, both looking wary and perplexed. Nana climbs up the steps behind them and settles herself into the captain’s chair again, surveying us all with sharp, wizened eyes. When everyone has settled, she nods to Fetch, who explains the situation. Red and Sterling absorb the information without any indication of their feelings. When she finishes, Red signs to Goliath.

“He say idea sounds very bad,” says Goliath, looking vindicated. “He say in fifty years maybe we dead anyway. Why should we care?”

“You should care,” says Nana sharply, “because it’s humanity’s soul on the line.”

Everyone, me included, looks at her.

“Now listen,” she says, “we’ve been called on to do a job. Not a job like we would usually take for ourselves. A job in the service of humanity. The kind of job that pays shit and, if you do it right, won’t earn you any glory. The kind of job that separates the bad from the good and the good from the great.” She looks at Fetch, and a look of grim, mutual understanding passes between them. “Now, I won’t pretend I don’t have skin in this game,” continues Nana slowly. “And it wouldn’t be fair for me to say this to you without revealing that I have an ulterior motive.” She takes her eyes off Fetch and looks slowly around the assembled crew. “Nine years ago, my oldest granddaughter was taken from me. And now I have a chance to take something from the people responsible.”

I gape at Nana, the final pieces of this small puzzle falling into place. I turn to Fetch. “Is she your—” I turn back to Nana. “Are you her actual nana?”

“Of course I am, girl,” she spits. “Did you think ‘Nana’ was my real name?”

“On my mother’s side,” says Fetch, quietly.

Goliath folds their arms and surveys them both with a surly expression.

“That aside,” continues Nana, “We have a chance to do something for our fellow men and women here. Maybe even to atone for the despicable things we’ve done in our lives. Anyone else feel like they might want to do that? Hm? Repent? Before they shuffle off this mortal coil and go to meet their maker?” She fixes Goliath, Red, and Sterling with a hard look. “I know I do. So I, for one, will be going to Zenith to seek redemption for my mortal soul. You all can join me if you so desire.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Savage hauls himself up onto the top step of the companionway and sways there, gazing around at us all with unfocused, watery eyes.

Nana tuts impatiently. “A lot of good you’ll be, you sorry sack of shit.”

Savage bows his head. “Indeed. But perhaps if I’m not the only sorry sack of shit who agrees to go…” He eyes Goliath, “…this flimsy operation might have a hope of succeeding.”

Goliath, arms still folded, stares stone-faced at Savage. A long, quiet moment passes. Red, standing next to Goliath, puts one hand on their shoulder.

Goliath emits a long, low noise that’s somewhere between grumble, growl, and sigh. “Fine,” they say. “We go. Atone for terrible souls.”

Sterling nods. Fid, sitting cross-legged on the floor at his sister’s feet, half-asleep, his little head lolling on his shoulders, stirs. Fetch suddenly grips his shoulder, her face pale.

“What are we going to do with Fid?” she whispers. “He can’t stay here by himself.”

“I’ll take him to my moms,” I say. “He can stay with them until this is over. They’ll take good care of him.”

“But what if…” Fetch swallows and lowers her voice. “What if we don’t come back?”

I meet her gaze and hold it as firmly as I can. “They’ll take good care of him,” I repeat.

____________________

The next morning dawns dismal and murky. A thick, world-obscuring smog has blanketed the Salt, walling us off from the nearby shore. The air is rank with sulphuric particulate that stings my eyes and burns my nose as I stand at the rail on the Kingfisher’s stern, chewing my nails.

“You’re up early.”

A familiar voice drifts to me, the sound of it muffled by the close, bitter air. Sargo climbs out of the cockpit, a mug in each hand, and gives me one as he settles quietly next to me. He braces his forearms on the rail, gripping the cup with two hands, and stares down at the still, slate-gray water.

“Sleep okay?” His voice is overly casual and I know what he really means is, “Did you sleep at all?”

“Yeah. Okay. Not great,” I reply, and what I mean is, “No, I didn’t sleep at all.”

I sip the black, bitter brew and pick coarse grounds off my tongue, glad for something to do with my hands. I feel like a bag of smashed assholes. My old berth in the cabin I used to share with Goliath was about as comfortable as I remember. Sargo slept on a spare bunk in a cabin with Red and Sterling, and Electra and Paradi shared a bedroll on the floor in Nana’s room. I’m not sure where Edson slept—as we all dispersed last night after a tense and mostly silent dinner, he said something about ‘the invigorating night air’ and disappeared up the companionway. I didn’t see him on deck when I came up early this morning, so I assume he must have found the air a little too invigorating and gone somewhere else during the night.

“Yeah,” I say again. “I slept okay.”

He moves his mug to his lips as though to sip from it, then seems to think better of it and lowers it again. He rearranges his hands around it and scrunches up his face, squinting sideways at me.

"Scared?”

I nod slowly, silently, staring into the blank, gray void. “You?”

He nods. A long, quiet moment passes, during which I sense him struggling to put words together in a certain order, then he turns to me and says, “I’m coming with you.”

“What?”

“I know last night we agreed that I would go with Electra and Paradi to the house. But…I can’t just let you go into Zenith headquarters to face Axioma alone.”

“I won’t be alone. The whole crew of the Kingfisher and Edson will be there.”

“Sure, in the building. But you’re planning to get into her office and talk to her one on one. I just—"

"No." I shake my head, firmly. "Sargo, no. We all agreed on the plan last night—"

"What good am I going to be to Electra and Paradi? I don't know anything about Zenith’s firewalls. They don't need me."

"You can't come to Zenith headquarters; it's too dangerous. Savage's crew know how to handle themselves. You've never—"

"Oh, and you have?"

"I can teleport, for flog's sake!" I cry. "Please. It's too risky."

He turns to face me. "It's a risk I'm willing to take. I already talked to Electra and Paradi about it. They agreed they don't need me, and that it's not safe for you to go after Axioma alone. Fetch thinks so too."

I gape at him.

He turns back to the rail, clasping his hands around his mug again. "It's non-negotiable, Howsley."

We find everyone else sitting around the table in the galley, sipping brew and picking half-heartedly at some hunks of cheese and a few apples that have been laid around the table. The air in the room is thick and dark. Sargo and I squeeze in at the far end of the table just as Nana backs through the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen, her arms laden with baskets full of bolillos.

"Eat," she says fiercely, slinging them around the table. "No one ever overthrew an empire on an empty stomach."

Sargo obediently picks up a roll from the basket nearest him. "These are really good," he says, taking a bite. He turns to Nana, hesitates, swallows, then says, "When we get back, you'll have to give me the recipe."

No one moves their eyes off the table. Nana regards Sargo for a long time before she says, "Sure, son. When we get back."

The tense, nervous silence that envelops the table after that is almost too much to bear, and I rack my brain for something to fill it with.

"Has anyone heard from Locuaz?" I come up with, finally.

"She and Yote left last night with Stark and a crew of twelve," says Fetch quietly from the other end of the table. "They should land in Grike morning after tomorrow."

Edson, who I hadn't realized was missing until this moment, strides through the doorway from the crew quarters looking as chipper as though today was the day of his daughter's wedding, and not the day he was participating in a suicide mission. His long, gray ponytail is combed sleek and smooth, and it looks as though he's trimmed the bushel of frizzy white beard sprouting from his chin. He stops short, evidently sensing the tension hanging over the assembly, and surveys us all with a puzzled frown.

"Why the long faces, folks? Today's the day we kill the queen!" He snatches an apple off the table and takes a noisy bite, then says with his mouth full, "I got the weapons laid out upstairs in the main salon if anyone would like to peruse the offerings."

I glance nervously around the table, suddenly realizing that there may not be anyone on Savage's crew who even knows how to use a gun. Just because we have them, I realize, doesn't mean they'll be any good to us.

To my surprise, Nana's finger crooks up. "I'll take one," she says. "It's been a while, but I reckon I still know how to put a hole in a thing."

Red silently raises two fingers, and Sterling nods at Edson, raising two as well.

"I'll probably just stick with this," says Fetch, flicking the handle of her new knife, shiny with oil in the sheath across her chest. "I wouldn't know what to do with a gun."

"I'll have one," says Savage, who I note is looking significantly less stoned than he was yesterday, although still haggard.

"Two," says Goliath.

Edson puts the apple between his teeth and enthusiastically claps his hands. Then, removing the apple, he says, "Alrighty folks, right this way."

Electra, Paradi, Sargo, Fetch and I say nothing as the crew file out of the galley behind Edson. Electra and Paradi pick at their food. Fetch glowers at her clasped hands on the table. Minutes of silence go by.

Finally, I manage to break it with, "So you guys know what you're doing with the Zenith servers?"

Paradi looks up, slightly startled. She blinks. "Yes. Edson and I talked it all through yesterday. I’ve been in touch with the rest of the faction in Alluvium. Edson showed Electra what she'll need to do. As long as you all hold up your end…" She trails off. "We'll need at least a solid thirty minutes if it's going to work."

I nod. "And the broadcast?"

"I've got it covered," says Electra. "When you get to Axioma, just make sure your chip's radio is activated. Once Paradi and the Anonymity are past Zenith's security measures, I should be able to stream the feed directly to the Net."

I nod again, wishing there was something more to say. More to confirm, to double-check. But there isn't.

We’re ready.

A murmur of voices alerts us that the rest of the crew are returning, and as they step back through the door, I feel the energy in the room shift. Nana and Goliath are chatting amiably, their new weapons strapped low around their hips, Nana even bearing a bizarre and incongruous smile. Red and Sterling file in behind them, their guns in hand, the sinister black barrels flashing under the galley lights as they turn them this way and that, inspecting them, comparing them, signing to each other. Edson enters behind them, wearing a massive overcoat that I assume is stuffed with the rest of the guns. Savage practically swaggers in behind them all, and I count not one but four pieces strapped to him in various places, as well as two bandoliers of ammo criss-crossing his chest like something out of a history class.

A faintly nauseous feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. At the far end of the table, Fetch rolls her eyes at Savage.

"Happy now?"

Savage grins and slides in next to her, removing one of the guns from a holster on his belt and laying it on the table in front of her.

"Take a look at that!" He proclaims. "Glock twenty-two. Haven't made these since the early two thousands. I thought they'd all been melted down."

Fetch barely conceals her disinterest. "Cool."

Savage picks up the gun and turns it over in his hand, then clicks something on the side of it. A cartridge of something slips out of the bottom of the handle and clatters onto the table.

"Whoops!"

He scrambles to pick it up. Goliath, standing just behind his shoulder, heaves a sigh and holds out their massive hand. After a slight hesitation, Savage hands them the gun and cartridge. They deftly slot the cartridge back into place, then perform a series of complicated maneuvers, sliding something back on the barrel, cocking a small lever on the top of the frame, and holding the gun up to one eye, squinting down the barrel as they adjust something on the side. Each move is accompanied by a sturdy click or clunk. They do it all so quickly and surely that all chatter in the room stops as everyone watches.

Finally, they click the lever on the side again, and silently hand the gun back to Savage.

"Thanks," he says, looking sheepish. Silence settles over the table.

"Well," says Paradi finally. "I guess we'd better go." She looks up at me, expectantly. "Ready?"

My heart leaps into my throat and grabs my tonsils. I swallow thickly around it and nod. Paradi and Electra stand, shrugging their packs onto their shoulders, and come to my end of the table. As Electra extends her hand, I'm struck by the incredible strangeness of everything that’s happening. Not long ago, Electra and I were in a fistfight on the school docks in Brume. She was my worst enemy. Now, she’s about to help me take down her own mother’s corporation.

Apparently reading my thoughts, Electra offers a smile. "Weird, huh?"

I shrug and smile back. Then I take her and Paradi by the hand and blip them to Brume.

The rest of the crew have assembled above deck when I return to the Kingfisher a few minutes later, having left Electra and Paradi in Axioma’s home office. The house was more heavily guarded than I expected, but Electra assured me not to worry—she's been sneaking around that house for years and knows how to stay hidden.

I step onto the deck of the Kingfisher to find Savage, Fetch, Sargo, Goliath, Red, Nana, Sterling and Edson assembled in a small circle on the bow. My heart begins to beat hard again as I take a place in the circle next to Sargo and observe the gathered faces. The feeling that I should say something—to mark the occasion, to rally the troops, to lead—bubbles up inside me like an unwelcome burp.

All I can think to say is that I'm not a leader. That all I've done is make mistakes. That I have no idea if this is going to work. That I’m not sure why they’re all doing this. That they shouldn’t have listened to me and they should get out now, before this all goes horribly wrong. Not exactly inspiring stuff.

"Listen…" I step forward, my throat like sandpaper as I try to swallow and take a breath at the same time. "Listen," I say again, "none of you has to do this. I know this isn't your fight. I can't ask you to put your faith in me, and I don't believe in the gods so I guess I can't ask you to put your faith in them either…" I trail off, realizing how morbid and depressing it all sounds, but not sure what to do about it.

Red clears his throat and raises a finger. He signs to me.

"He want to say something," says Goliath, watching his hands. "He say maybe will be good for everyone to hear."

Sagging with relief, I step back and cede the floor. Red steps into the middle of the circle and turns to Goliath, who nods. Slowly, deliberately, Red signing carefully, and Goliath watching and translating his every gesture for us, they begin.

“Out of the night that covers me,

black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be,

for my unconquerable soul.

“In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance,

my head is bloody, but unbowed.

“Beyond this place of wrath and tears,

looms but the Horror of the shade,

and yet the menace of the years,

finds and shall find me unafraid.

“It matters not how strait the gate,

how charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

For several almost interminable moments, no one says anything. Then Savage utters a long, low whistle.

"Invictus," he says. "William Ernest Henley, eighteen-seventy-five. Nice one, guys."

Red bows his head, and steps back into the circle next to Goliath.

"Well," says Fetch, brightly, "I'm sure that was a million times more inspiring than whatever shit you were about to say, right Bird? Shall we get on with it?"

I take one last look around the circle, meeting everyone's eyes, and nod. "Let's get the bastards."

chapter

thirty-two

THE MAIN OFFICE at the heart of Zenith headquarters materializes around us in a blinding flash of white walls, stainless steel, and sunlit glass windows. For three surreal, silent heartbeats, time stands still. The uncomprehending faces of startled Zenith employees turn to us over shoulders from office chairs, peer over frosted glass partitions, and gape from corners where they were halfway through murmured conversations. Nobody moves.

Then all hell breaks loose.

Fetch is the first to come to her senses. In total silence, she launches at a portly, bespectacled man sitting at a desk nearby, toppling his high-backed steel-and-leather chair onto its back and straddling his flabby belly as she flicks her knife from its sheath and presses it to the side of his neck. The quiet is surreal—just a few grunts, the rustling of clothes, and the crash of the chair to the floor. Shouldn’t there be music? Some kind of soundtrack?

Goliath is not far behind Fetch. They begin barking orders to the rest of the crew, then lunge for two thin, pale-faced women standing near us that look young enough to be interns, catching one under each arm and lifting them clean off the floor.

Sterling and Nana sprint for opposite walls to cover the doors, while Red and Savage seize two men sharing a desk to our left, who both appear to be trying to activate their biochip radios.

I take a step and stagger, splotches of light and dark suddenly blanking out large chunks of my vision. The world smears and goes sideways, and the next thing I know, I’m being pulled up from the floor and back onto my feet, a dark tunnel opening up to reveal Sargo’s anxious face.

“Are you okay?”

I clutch the arm he’s using to haul me to my feet and nod. “Fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“Well, it’s too late to do anything about it now, isn’t it?”

He eyes me, distressed. “Turn on your radio,” he says finally.

“What?”

“Your radio. Activate it now. So you don’t forget.” He steadies me while I tap behind my ear to activate my chip’s radio.

“Bird?” Electra’s voice crackles into my ear.

“Yes. We’re inside. How long until you’re ready to broadcast?”

“We don’t know. Could be another thirty minutes.”

In the corner of my eye, I see Edson withdraw his gun, but Goliath stops him with an arm across his chest.

“No gun! Guns are for peace force.”

“We may not have another thirty minutes,” I hiss to Electra.

“I’m doing my best,” she replies.

There are no guards or peace officers anywhere in sight—our arrival is so unexpected that many people in the spacious, brightly lit office seem to think this might be some kind of joke. I note hesitant smiles and confused frowns from people in the far corners of the room even as their coworkers nearer to the action are knocked down and tied up. Very few people even have time to scream or run, so efficient are the crew as they move systematically through the room.

Savage, ever the showman, jumps onto a desk in the middle of the fray and executes a dramatic bow.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he cries, grinning around the room. “Welcome to your hostage situation. My name is Jameson Briggs-Savage, and this merry band of miscreants is the crew of the Kingfisher. Please—” He holds out a hand to a frightened-looking old woman sitting at the desk below him, who looks as though she might scream. “Do not be alarmed. We ask only for your cooperation, and as long as we receive that, this should all go very smoothly.”

While he speaks, the crew continues to move quickly and quietly through the room, subduing those who resist, knocking some people down or out. Astonishingly, nearly all of the employees cooperate, holding their hands over their heads and sitting quietly in their chairs while they wait to be apprehended. I realize with a jolt that they’re probably traumatized from the last time this happened to them—when Shale and the Anonymity broke in two weeks ago and shot two of their coworkers.

“We’re not here to rob you or hurt you,” Savage continues as Red and Nana drag a man out from under a table by his feet, “we only need to make a brief imposition on your time.”

“Who put you in charge?” gasps Fetch over her shoulder, as she wrestles a skinny man with a neatly-trimmed beard into a headlock and puts him under. He slumps to the floor and she straightens, drawing her forearm across her brow. “Why do you get to stand on the table making speeches while the rest of us are down here in the muck?”

Savage wiggles his eyebrows. “We all have to play to our strengths, Fetchy. Someone has to be up here to explain the rules—”

A spout of dark red liquid erupts out of Savage’s chest and he is flung backward off the table as if hit by a tremendous force. He crashes through the desk behind him and rolls backwards, head over heels, onto the floor.

“They’re here!” screams Edson.

The next ten seconds seem to happen in slow motion. In a daze, I see Edson’s hand plant itself in the center of my chest, shoving me out of the way as he pulls a rifle from his belt with his other hand and sprints past me. Turning my gaze to follow his path, I see a flood of black tactical suits pouring through a door on the other side of the room, guns raised, shouting orders that I can’t comprehend over the roaring of blood in my ears.

Edson, cackling wildly, sprays the first row of them with a torrent of gunfire. Their bodies twitch and jolt like jackrats on hot coals and they drop to the floor, the guns lurching from their hands. Fetch throws herself across the desk Savage was standing on, rolls onto the floor and crawls toward him on her hands and knees. He lays motionless.

Goliath, a pistol in each hand, takes out two officers then drops to the ground with their back flat to a frosted glass partition, turning one eye over their shoulder. Nana, flat on her belly on the ground next to Goliath, squints over the top of her long rifle as she takes down another.

A hand grabs tight around my wrist and pulls me sideways, and I find myself on the floor. Sargo overturns a table in front of us, then ducks down behind it, next to me.

“Bird!”

His voice is muffled, far away. I blink and shake my head as the incredible din and chaos of the room overwhelms me. The sharp crack of pistol shots. The thicker, more gut-wobbling patter of semi-automatic rifles. An acrid smell is beginning to burn my nose and eyes.

“Bird!” He shakes me by the shoulders. “We have to get out of here. We need to get to Axioma.”

Savage. They shot Savage.

“Bird! For flog’s sake, wake up!”

“They shot Savage.”

“We don’t have time to worry about that right now.”

“People are going to die. People are dying.”

“I know!” Sargo’s face is as white as I imagine mine is, his hands trembling around my shoulders. “But we have to stick to the plan!”

I roll onto my knees and peer around the edge of the desk. We’re outnumbered. So incredibly outnumbered that it feels like a cruel joke.

Red slings his long-handled axe into the chest of a peace officer, as Sterling, apparently short enough to go unnoticed, charges one of them head-on, jumping at the last moment from the floor to a chair, then from the chair around the man’s neck, dragging him to the ground. I scan for Fetch and see her kneeling over Savage in the middle of the room. Before my brain can catch up with them, my feet are propelling me out from behind the desk toward her.

I make it two steps before something plows into my legs from behind. I go down flat on my face, barely breaking my fall with my hands, my legs tangled and trapped. Pulling myself up to my elbows and twisting over my shoulder, I see Sargo, his arms wrapped around my legs.

“What the hell are you doing?” he screams. “We need to go!”

“I can’t just leave them!”

“You have to!”

A deafening boom splits the air behind me and a hot blast of air socks me in the back like someone hit me with a shovel, pushing me head over heels into Sargo. We roll across the floor like we’re caught in some kind of torrent of water and crash into a wall, a limp pile of limbs. I struggle to sit up, blinking, my head ringing. The room is completely filled with smoke now; it pours into my nose, burning my lungs.

Through the haze, I can barely make out the bodies of peace officers scattered around the floor, sprawled amongst pieces of broken timber, twisted metal and jagged pieces of glass.

“We need to go!” Sargo repeats. “Now! You can’t do anything for them. This isn’t what you’re here to do.”

“What about Electra?” I yell back. “I need word from her that the Anonymity is through the firewalls. If we go now, they won’t have time—”

Something tiny zings past my ear, riffling my hair and followed almost immediately by a sliver of cold, stinging pain. I lift my fingers to the spot and pull them away bloody. Turning, I see a peace officer with his gun trained at my head.

“Now, Bird!” screams Sargo.

I lunge for his hand, and we blip.

____________________

Close, suffocating smoke and the chaotic clatter of gunfire give way to absolute silence and the clean but stale air of another indoor office space. Stale air and a hint of something else…lavender, maybe. Dart smoke and lavender. In front of me is an enormous window, through which I can see the vast blue expanse of the bay of Brume, glittering in the mid-morning sun. On the bay, the tiny, white triangles of sailboats flit back and forth like water birds. As though this were any other day. As though it makes sense to be out there right now, in the sun, sailing.

“Hello, Miss Howsley.”

Every single hair on my arms stands up as Axioma Nation’s unmistakable purr crawls over my shoulder. Dropping Sargo’s hand, I spin around to find her sitting behind her elegant glass desk, long-fingered hands steepled in front of her, hazel eyes observing me over the top of them. Her crisp suit jacket—seafoam green today instead of the usual white—and her perfectly coiffed chin-length black bob remind me of the white triangles of the sailboats on the bay: absurd. Out of place. In front of her is a white cup of brew, still steaming.

She smiles; a faint, unamused smile. “Good morning.”

My insides seem to empty. She’s so calm. So unsurprised. “You knew we were coming.”

She stretches one delicate hand to the far corner of her desk, scooping up a bright green rubber ball, then rolls the ball gently from hand to hand while she watches me.

“No. I can’t pretend that I knew you were coming. But I’m not surprised you’re here. After that visit you paid to my house, I was sure it wouldn’t be long before you made another stupid, reckless decision and I saw your face again.”

Her hands still, and she studies me for a long time. Then she carefully sets the green ball back on the far corner of the desk and stands. She moves slowly, without hurry, as though this is any other workday and we’ve just come to her with a proposal for how to cut costs at the Grike facility.

“Very selfish, what you’ve done here today,” she says, walking to the front of the desk and leaning against it with her arms folded. “None of these people would be here if it weren’t for you. And I have to say, as far as assaults on our headquarters go, this is rather a paltry affair. Even your brother knew to bring more than a handful of greasy Reckoners.”

“I didn’t…” A wave of darkness threatens to swallow me again. They shot Savage. People are dying. “It isn’t my fault.”

“You’re upset,” says Axioma. “You’re in over your head. You didn’t know what you were doing. So I’ll tell you what we’ll do. As I’m sure you’re aware, I can’t have this leaking to the public with the QMTP launch so near. Call off your little display, and I won’t press charges against anyone in your…crew. You’ll all be free to go. Well, all of you that survive.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” says Sargo.

Axioma stares at him for a long moment, then emits a small sigh. “What are you doing here, Mr. Paz? I thought you had more sense than this. You had a bright future in Brume. You could have become the director of education, or a high-ranking Zenith employee.”

“Seeing as how the world’s about to end,” Sargo says under his breath, “I’m not really interested in becoming either of those things.”

“A pity,” says Axioma, “but I suppose infatuation makes young men do stupid things. Tell me, do you really think it’s a good idea, following this girl around? Hasn’t she only gotten you into trouble? Are you really going to risk throwing your life away over this? For her?”

“It isn’t an infatuation,” says Sargo. “It’s love.”

All the air seems to go out of the room, and a warm, tingly rush shoots up from my feet like a bolt of lightning. In the extraordinarily bewildering moment, I find myself suppressing a smile.

Typical Sargo. How do you tell someone you love them without telling them you love them? Tell someone else you love them.

“Love?” Axioma’s face is appalled. “That is depressing.”

A message alert slides in front of my eyes. Electra. My pulse ticks up. Have they gotten through the firewalls? Are they ready to broadcast the feed? I resist the urge to move my hand and swipe the alert open; there’s nothing more I can do and I can’t risk giving away our plan to Axioma. Instead, I clench my hands into fists.

“You know what’s depressing?” I demand, finding my voice. “Finding out that the world is run by a woman who has no problem abandoning half the people in it. Who’s been keeping those people’s existence a secret so she could steal their resources and use them like lab rats. Finding out that the world is run by a woman who is so convinced it’s beyond saving that she’s giving up on it. Isn’t that a pretty pessimistic attitude? Isn’t that depressing?”

Axioma shakes her head, and for a moment I see something immense and sad pass through her eyes. A look almost like regret, and if I believed she was capable of such an emotion, I might have believed it was.

“You know…I used to be just like you,” she says quietly. She pushes away from the desk and comes to stand in front of me, folding her arms—contemplating me, as though evaluating exactly how much of herself she sees there.

“I was young. I was naive and hopeful.” She draws a deep, tired breath and sighs, turning her gaze to the window. “But once you get to be my age, you’ll see. There’s no such thing as ‘saving the world.’ People just don’t care. Especially in a world already so difficult to live in. They become exhausted. They become busy, overwhelmed with life. Even in harbor cities, where life is relatively easy. Kids and jobs and the minutia of just getting by. People get trapped in it. They forget how angry they were in their youths. They forget that they wanted to save the world.”

She turns to me again with a grim smile.

“The world is full of people who just don’t have time to care, Bird. Who just aren’t smart enough to fix the things that are broken. Those people have to put their faith in people like me.”

“And your plan is to leave them behind,” I say.

“Some of them,” she corrects me. “Zenith’s motto has always been ‘The most good for the most people.’ Not all the people. Not all the people, because, I’m afraid, that simply isn’t possible. And in this case, it just so happens that I am able do the most good for the best people.”

“You’re underestimating people,” says Sargo. “Reckoners and Settlers are more than just test subjects. They’re just as smart and just as capable as citizens. Just as hardworking. There is no difference between them except circumstance. Geographic privilege. Inequalities compounded by climate change, by the pandemic. By what you did during the pandemic.”

Axioma narrows her eyes at him. “An unfortunate decision that had to be made. What should I have done? Not developed a life-saving vaccine? Not delivered it via the chip? Not saved the lives of millions of citizens?” She turns briskly from the window, stalking back to her desk, and sits in the chair, glaring at us. “Do you think it was easy for me to make that decision? Do you think anyone else was willing to make it?”

Another message alert slides in front of my eyes. Electra again. Axioma reaches for her green rubber ball, and in the split second that her eyes leave mine, I swipe in the air to open it.

>>> WE GOT IT.

My heart begins to pound. New messages slide in under the first.

>>> EVERYTHING FROM WHEN SHE STARTED TALKING ABOUT LEAKING THIS TO THE PUBLIC.

>>> ANONYMITY RUNNING CODE TO BLOCK THE UPDATE IN FIVE. ABOUT TO TRY TO WIPE THE CODE FROM THE REPOSITORIES TOO.

Axioma’s eyes meet mine again and I manage to smile around the breathless pounding in my chest. I speak slowly to keep my voice from shaking.

“I don’t think you are doing the most good. I don’t think you’re demonstrating the best of what humanity has to offer at all. In fact, I think you might be the absolute worst of humanity. And now the whole world knows it too.”

Axioma’s brows crease slightly in an incredibly satisfying moment of hesitation. She quickly covers the look and says, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Your daughters just broadcast this whole conversation live to the Net. And any minute now, the Anonymity will run a program that will block the QMTP update and destroy all traces of the QMTP code.”

Axioma’s eyes dart to Sargo, then back to me. A look of wary disbelief is creeping across her face.

“If you hadn’t been so concerned about a handful of greasy Reckoners,” I say, “maybe you would have been able to stop it.”

The air goes terrifyingly still. The rubber ball drops from Axioma’s fingers and bounces onto the floor—once, twice, faster—then rolls past my feet and bumps against the wall underneath the window. Slowly, Axioma raises a hand and taps behind her ear with one finger.

“Marsters?” She glares at me while she listens to a radio response I can’t hear. Then her mouth seals into a hard line. When she speaks, her voice is deadly quiet. “Thank you Marsters,” she says. She lowers her hand. “You’ve made a big mistake, Miss Howsley.”

I do my best to stand up straight and hold her gaze. “People have the right to know what’s going on.”

Axioma shoves her chair back with a jarring clatter and stands, her hands braced on the desk. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” she snarls. “Twenty years!”

She wrenches open a drawer in the desk and sticks her hand into it. From the drawer she withdraws something small and silver. For one disorienting moment, I think it’s a calidifier—the same heat gun that Lysett used on me in her creepy tests. She stills for a moment, contemplating it. Then her eyes narrow.

She points it at Sargo. “Call them off,” she whispers.

Every thought that was in my head evaporates as my vision narrows to a single point: the gun in Axioma’s hand. Not a calidifier. An actual gun.

“Call them off!” she says again. Her knuckles are skull-white around the handle of the pistol. “I can’t undo the damage you’ve already done with your broadcast, but if you think there’s any way I’m going to let you destroy twenty years of work…” She readjusts her grip around the gun. “Call it off.”

“Bird, don’t listen to her,” says Sargo hoarsely. “We’re still live. She’s not going to shoot me with the whole Net listening.”

Axioma glares, wild-eyed, at me, then back at Sargo. And then, in a split-second instant more bizarre than anything I’ve seen so far today, Axioma Nation disappears.

chapter

thirty-three

FOR ONE SURREAL HEARTBEAT, I stare at the spot where Axioma just stood.

Then I blip after her.

“Bird, don’t!”

Sargo’s shout dissolves into static as the world twists around me and disappears. I explode into infinite nothing, specks of me hurtling in every direction, my body shattered into particles and waves, light and shadow. When I come back together, I am falling—not falling down. Falling apart. I come apart and come together, and as I come together, I see Axioma, tumbling too, dissolving and reappearing. I shoot out an arm and grab for her.

The impact of our bodies colliding sends us into a cartwheeling free-fall. We careen through space in a haphazard arc, plummeting through shape and color, scenes rising around us and immediately crumbling. Water, sand, fog, forests, clouds, cities, stars—worlds form and disappear as we dive through them and finally crash headfirst into hard, unforgiving ground, rolling like a ball of limbs through dirt and grass, the world upside down and right-side up and upside down again until light and waves and shape and roaring wind go suddenly still and I am lying on my back in cool, soft grass.

The air evacuates my body in one sudden, violent exhalation, and I claw it back into me with a hoarse gasp. Through great splotches of black swimming across my vision, I see a sky rendered in shades of dark and darker gray. I roll over, heaving in lungfuls of air that burn my lungs, get to one knee and stand. The ground threatens to rush up to meet me, but I keep it at bay with outstretched arms.

At my feet, gray, windswept grass stretches to a distant horizon topped by a chain of jagged black mountains. The sky is a close wash of heavy cloud, and thunder rumbles high overhead like a creature waking from sleep. Ten feet to my left, Axioma is staggering to her feet, the gun lying in the grass just beyond her.

“What the hell just happened?” she demands. She stumbles and catches herself with one hand in the grass. I stand very still and watch her, my hands clenched into fists.

“You blipped.”

Finding her balance, she looks at me, her eyes gleaming with a wild, panicked sheen. “I what?”

“You jumped. You used QMTP.”

“I know that,” she gasps. “I meant, where are we?”

“What do you mean ‘you know that?’” I demand. “How did you blip? How long have you been able to do that?”

“I enabled QMTP in my own chip as soon as we had a prototype.”

“When was that?”

“This morning. This is the first time I’ve used it.”

She inhales sharply and closes her eyes, pressing a palm flat against her sternum, stilling herself with a slow breath. When she opens her eyes again, the panicked look is already fading from them.

“I always test my products,” she says. “I wouldn’t put anything out into the world that I wasn’t willing to use myself.” She lifts her hands and turns them over in front of her face, examining them. “I like it. Quite a rush. Makes me feel like a superhero.”

A tunnel of darkness shrinks my vision down to a pinprick. When I come out of it, Axioma is gazing up, her mouth slightly open, slowly taking in the wide, gray sky, the distant mountains, the sea of windswept grass. She looks at me again.

“What is this? This isn’t anywhere on Earth.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. I followed you.”

She narrows her eyes sharply. “What does that mean?”

“I have to visualize where I’m going or who I’m going to before I jump. This time, I just followed you. I didn’t…think. I didn’t have anything in my head. And you were already jumping, so…I don’t know. We could be anywhere. Where were you trying to go?”

She stares at me with hard, bright eyes, and doesn’t answer my question.

In the distance, another clap of thunder murmurs over the mountains. A brisk wind is beginning to tug at my clothes and hair. A cold, hard speck of something stings my cheek. I touch the spot with my finger and it comes away slick. More drops follow it, pelting my face and clothes like pebbles.

Within seconds, the rain is coming down in driving sheets. Axioma emits a sudden, harsh laugh and puts out her hands, turning her face skyward.

“Is this…rain?”

I don’t answer, blinking hard through the water, watching her.

“This is another dimension,” she says softly. She turns to me. “Isn’t it?”

I glare at her, silent.

She turns her face back up into the rain. “We always suspected they existed, but…I never thought we would find one so quickly.” A cruel smile splits her face. “I suppose I should thank you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, don’t you see? If you hadn’t knocked me off course during that jump, we may not have found this place. It was your split-second decision to try and catch me that brought us here. You may have just saved Zenith years of exploratory missions.”

A loose, watery feeling fills my legs. I grasp at the air as they buckle and I sink to one knee, a tunnel of nausea closing around me.

Axioma cocks an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s too many…” I manage to say. “Too many jumps.”

She pulls a face. “Oh dear. Well, we’ll have to do something about that. I’ll make a note: something to have the team look into when I get back. For now…”

She casts about for a moment, and her eyes land on the gun, lying in the grass. I watch her stoop to pick it up as though it’s something happening lightyears away. As though it’s happening in a different world. I don’t even try to stop her. I don’t know if I could. She examines it, flips a lever on the side, cocks the hammer, and points it at me.

“I think it’s time we ended our professional relationship, Miss Howsley. As much as I appreciate everything you’ve done for the project, I’m afraid I can’t have you interfering any further in its progress.”

The black hole in the center of the barrel seems to widen into a hallucinatory spiral while I struggle to stand. I drag some words up from the depths of my gut and force them past my lips with some effort.

“You can’t go back. You’re already—you’re exposed. We broadcast you—”

She waves a hand. “I feel I may have overreacted to that revelation. A PR disaster, yes, but nothing we can’t deal with.”

“My friends…they won’t let you get away with it.”

“Miss Howsley, your friends will be dead before the end of this sentence.” She shakes her head. “Storming the Zenith headquarters? After what happened to your brother? Really, Bird, you can’t have thought that was a good idea.”

Rain and specks of light obscure her in my vision as she waves the gun casually around to punctuate her words.

“But maybe I’m being unfair. After all, you’re just a teenager, and your brain is…rather a mess. We studied it very closely, you know, when we had you on the table for that week in the lab at headquarters. Your brain was the key that unlocked QMTP for us: irregularities in the left temporal and frontal lobes, all pointing to deficiencies in decision-making, attention span, and rational thinking. Clinical psychiatrists would characterize it as Attention Deficit Disorder, if I understand correctly. ‘Chaotic,’ I believe is how one of our technicians put it. I suppose it makes sense—to deconstruct the human body and move it to a new location through space requires a calculated move from order to chaos. At its heart, you could say that QMTP is really just the transition from order to chaos and back. We simply had to replicate your chaotic brain wave patterns inside the QMTP module to make it work in other biochips. Which is all fascinating, of course, but suffice it to say that yours is not a mind I’d put a lot of faith in to come up with reliable, fully-formed plans.”

Rivulets of rain run down the barrel of the gun as she stops gesturing with it and re-aims it at my head.

"And now," she continues, "your poorly-wired brain has brought you here. Brought all your friends to their deaths and brought me to exactly where I needed to be."

I glare at her through spots of light and rapidly-blurring lines of rain.

"Have you ever heard the expression 'look before you leap', Miss Howsley? I think it’s rather apt, don't you? A little more thought, a little less reckless action. Ah well, lesson learned, I hope. A shame you had to learn this one the hard way. And that you had to drag a respectable young man like Mr. Paz down with you. I'll be sure to let him know you regret getting him mixed up in this before I execute him and whatever remains of the rest of your crew for treason."

Treason.

So this is how it ends. In some random dimension with a bullet through my head and everyone I know executed for trying to help me.

The barrel of the gun blurs and duplicates. I blink hard against the rain. At least Electra got the broadcast out. At least maybe the Anonymity blocked the update. I should have planned to kill Axioma. I should have thought more carefully about what could go wrong. I should have—

Move.

Something deep inside my gut says, move. Some flicker of instinct, some small, unnamed part of me that, despite being broken and exhausted, is still clinging to life, says, “Move now, asshole. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and MOVE.”

So, half-afraid it could be the last time I ever do, I fold myself into nothing and I blip.

And in the same moment, Axioma pulls the trigger.

Time slows. It doesn't appear to slow. It actually slows. I gape at the bullet as it shrieks toward me; a dazzling silver projectile pushing a rippling wave of compressed air ahead of it and leaving a wisp of smoke in its wake.

And then I'm gone. The space I occupied is nothing more than empty air as the bullet tears through it. I stumble back into existence just a few feet from where I was standing, blood screaming in my ears, my whole body vibrating like a struck bell, pieces of my very soul falling away like shattered glass. Axioma whips her head around to find me, her eyes furious.

"That was pretty quick," she snarls as she swings the gun wildly and points it at me again. “Let’s see if you can do it again.”

I barely have time to grab a breath before she's cocked the hammer. I blip again, not thinking, just doing—just light and static and gut instinct. I throw myself toward her as I shatter, the slowed-time sound of the bullet whanging through the air above my head—too slow, again, to find its mark. I reassemble as I barrel into Axioma like a cannonball, throwing my arms around her waist and knocking her to the ground, and with my last remaining scrap of strength, I wrestle the gun from her startled fingers.

Rolling off her and staggering to my knees, I grip the gun in my two shaking hands and point it at her. I can hardly hold it up, can hardly keep her still in my vision. My body feels as though it's dissolving.

Axioma scrambles backward on her elbows in the mud. "You think you can hit me with that?" she growls. "Look at you, you're barely standing."

I cock the hammer. It takes both of my thumbs together to do it.

She flinches, but doesn't take her eyes off me. “You seem to have forgotten,” she growls, “that you're no longer the only person in the world capable of teleporting. If you can jump out of the path of a bullet, so can I."

She snaps her fingers.

Nothing happens.

She frowns.

She snaps her fingers again. A look of mild panic flashes across her face. She rolls onto her knees and sits upright, looking around wildly. Then she disappears, but reappears again in exactly the same place. She whips her furious eyes back up to mine.

"What's happening?" she hisses. "Why isn't it working?”

I lower the gun, blinking my woozy eyes to try and clear some space for thought inside my ringing head. Something isn't right. Why would she suddenly not be able to blip?

Axioma scrambles sideways in the mud, her eyes wide. She stops, concentrates for a moment, then disappears. She reappears a few feet away, looking confused. She glares at me.

“How do I get back?” she demands. “How do I get back to Zenith?”

I stare at her, my exhausted mind racing, trying to figure out what’s happening. She has the QMTP module. She already blipped once. She said that was the first time she'd ever done it. Even I didn't know how to make it happen on command on my first try. It took me months of practice to—

And suddenly it hits me.

It's so simple that I almost laugh out loud.

Axioma figured out that it was ADHD that was triggering the chip, but that was only half of what she needed to make it work. The other half was learning how to harness it. Sure, you need the chaos of my 'poorly-wired brain.’ But you also need order. The order that Rav helped me impose upon my disaster of a mind through dedicated practice, focus and time. Without that, QMTP is a totally unpredictable force. It happens completely at random. It blips you to the bottom of the ocean, or to flog-forsaken shithole bird farms, or down the stairs when you least expect it, or it refuses to do anything at all.

I grin at her, a half-crazed, wild-eyed grin that I'm sure makes me look like a serial killer.

"What?" she demands. "What's funny?"

I shrug. "You have to practice."

"What?"

"You only got half of the equation. You only solved half the problem. You have no idea how to actually use QMTP. You'll never be able to program the chip to make QMTP work, because what’s needed to make it work is work. It’s practice. You can’t just shove a simulation of my brain in there and expect it to make things happen. It takes time and hard work to learn how to control it."

"Oh please," she spits, "like you would know anything about hard work.”

A spark of indignation lights in my chest. It warms me. Powers me. I feel some strength returning to my legs. I get to one foot, then the other. I train the gun on her again.

"Actually," I growl, "I would. And by the way, it's not a 'poorly-wired' brain. It's a differently-wired brain. It's not a problem to be fixed. It's a tool to be harnessed. A weapon. A superpower."

I take a step toward her and to my absolute, twisted delight, she recoils.

"It took practice and dedication and focus, and everything I had to go through to learn how to control it. To get here," I say quietly. I take another step toward her. “I left my home. I lost my dog. My brother. I went through hell…literally. I went through hell to get here. But you know what? It was worth it. Because I just dodged a freaking bullet. Twice."

I squat down next to her and set the barrel of the gun against her temple. The metal makes a satisfyingly solid clunk as it connects with the bone of her skull. I lower my voice to a whisper and put my forehead against hers.

"Do you really think you're ready to do that? Or do you think maybe you need a little more practice first?"

Her eyes harden. She shoots out a hand with a snarl, snatching for the gun. But she is almost comically slow. I blip out of her reach, landing ten feet away and twirling the gun around one finger. I must be getting a second wind, because I feel awesome. Not awesome like cool. Awesome like Goliath. Literally awesome. The light screaming through my veins is like electricity, like fire, like a roaring tidal wave, upon the crest of which I am barely managing to balance.

Axioma screams in fury and scrambles to her feet, throwing herself toward me, but I sidestep into infinity and reappear behind her, and she lurches through the suddenly empty space and falls to her knees. Then, just to mess with her, I fling the gun into the air, blip myself to it, catch it in-flight, and reappear next to her with a perfectly-executed one-hundred-and-eighty-degree spin—just for kicks.

She launches herself at my knees, and this time, I don’t blip. I just stick out my foot and let the sole of it connect with her chest. She crumples sideways into the mud and stills. Then she stays like that, on her face in front of me, making no effort to get up.

I fold my arms. "Had enough?"

Her head whips up and she glares at me, white-faced, her jaw trembling.

"So what are you going to do? Shoot me?" She struggles to her knees, wiping blood from her nose with the back of her arm. "So much for being the 'best of humanity.'"

"I never claimed to be the best of humanity. I only claimed that you were the worst."

Her eyes flash.

The thought occurs to me, suddenly, that I could very easily shoot her, and all the hair stands up on my arms. The gun feels abruptly heavy in my hand, as though its reality has multiplied. Quadrupled. I try to move my arm, just to see how it feels. Just to see what it feels like to actually point the gun at her, with intent to kill, but my arm won't move.

You’re not a murderer, says a voice in my head. You’re not like her.

"I'm not going to shoot you,” I say. “Because you're right: that would make me no better than you."

She scoffs. "Of course. Difficult decisions. When it comes right down to it, very few people are willing to make them. What other option do you have, Miss Howsley? Should we just stay here? In a stalemate in another dimension while you decide whether or not you have the stones to kill me?"

"No…" I say slowly, a cold, cruel smile spreading from the center of my lips. "We don't stay here.”

I look around at the world we’ve landed in. At the rain, the grass, the distant black mountains.

“You seemed pretty taken with this place when we first arrived.” I say.

She glares at me with wary indignation. “What does that mean?”

“Zenith’s plan was to find another dimension, wasn’t it? One that hasn’t been ruined.” I gesture around with the gun. “This one looks pretty good. Personally, I have no interest in it…but I think you should stay.”

Her face goes taut. "You can't leave me here."

"Why not?"

"We have no idea what this place is! This is…this is another dimension! We don't know if there's food. We don't know if food exists! There could be predators or…"

"Mm." I nod slowly, considering this. "Well, if it turns out not to be so great, I guess you can report back to us once you figure out how to get yourself out of here. It took about a month before I was proficient enough with QMTP to be able to jump wherever I wanted on command. Although…" I squint at the sky, drumming my fingers on my lips. "That was with a lot of help from Rav." I shrug. "It might take you longer. I certainly wouldn't attempt an inter-dimensional jump until I was feeling very sure of my abilities. You got lucky once, but QMTP is extremely unpredictable if you don't know how to use it. You might get lucky again. You might also get very unlucky."

"Bird…"

"Think of this as a second chance. You know—a fresh start. A clean slate. A chance to do it right this time."

"This isn't a joke," she growls. "This is my life."

I lift the gun and turn it over in my hands. "Maybe I'll leave you this. It won't be much use for protection, I imagine, and who knows if there's even anything to hunt, but if things get really bad, at least you'll have an easy way out."

Her face pales. "This is ridiculous, you can't leave me here!"

"I can," I say, tossing the gun into the grass beside her, "and I am."

Her furious, terrified scream dissolves into the ether as I snap my fingers with an exaggerated flourish, and disappear.

chapter

thirty-four

MY FEET FIND solid ground and Axioma's dazzling, sunlit office reassembles itself around me in a roaring hurricane of splotches, like paint splattering off a spinning top. I stand in the eye of it, the blood boiling in my veins, light and shape and color flashing by me in a blurry, tilted haze.

Out of the whirling chaos, Sargo is running toward me. His mouth is moving, shouting, but the words aren't reaching me. My ears are filled with a high-pitched, screaming hiss. It’s as though the tidal wave of electric, fizzing light I was riding has reached its peak and now the world is shattering around me as I go over the crest and plunge down its face.

His arms close around me as the world stops spinning and my hollow legs fail me. I crumple against him. Words reach me as a deep rumble, vibrating through his chest directly into my ear, muffled, far away, as though I'm hearing them from underwater.

"Bird! What's happening? Bird!"

He's holding me too tightly. I'm afraid he might break something in my exhausted, fragile body, but I can't get enough air into my lungs to tell him that, so I tap feebly on his arm until he lets me go. I stumble sideways into Axioma's desk and brace myself on it, sucking down burning air until I can stand up straight and look him in the eye.

His face goes ashen. "Your nose is bleeding."

"Oh…" I vaguely touch a knuckle under my nostril and my hand comes away covered in blood. "Oh," I say again, "it's bleeding quite a lot."

“And your ears,” he says, the alarm in his voice mounting.

Sargo catches me as I go down again and this time I don't fight him. Bizarrely, the thought that's in my head as I slump toward the floor in his arms, soaking the front of his shirt with my blood, is that I'm sure I had something very important to tell him.

"Wait," I slur as we settle on the ground, me in his lap, his back against Axioma's desk, "just now…earlier—did you say you love me?"

He pushes hair off my face and tries to smile, although his eyes, sliding in and out of focus, are terrified.

"I did."

"I thought so," I murmur. An easy, comfortable darkness begins to wrap itself around me. “Sneaky, ” I mumble. “That was sneaky…”

"Bird!" He shakes me, fracturing the dark and dragging me back to the harsh, brutal world. I open my eyes and find his terrified face again, remembering as I do the very important thing I had to tell him.

"I love you, too."

He shudders with something that might be a sob, and kisses my forehead fiercely as I slip sideways back into oblivion.

chapter

thirty-five

WHEN I WAKE, the air is cool. A big soft pillow cradles my head and the scent of salt, sand and fogwood is all around me. The scent of home. To my left, the sound of claws ticking on the wood floor tells me Malarkey is awake. I sit up.

"Malarkey?"

Sargo's room, dimly lit by a sliver of light creeping under a curtain across the window, swims into focus. Drawing in a breath, I look around.

Malarkey is not there.

I feel as though I've been dragged face down through the Salt for a hundred miles, then dragged face down across the Turf for a hundred more miles. I lift my stiff, weak, aching arms and discover I'm wearing an oversized black t-shirt belonging to Sargo. Turning back the blanket, I gingerly swing my bare feet onto the floor, wait for the room to catch up with me, and stand. I dizzily find my leggings folded on a chair by Sargo's desk and pull them on.

The murmur of hushed voices rises from the stairwell as I gently crack the door and step quietly onto the carpeted landing. Gripping the handrail, I climb slowly and painfully down the stairs. As I reach the bottom and step into the living room, the quiet murmur of voices goes silent. I look up to find a roomful of anxious faces staring back at me.

"Oh, thank gods!"

Mama K's face rises out of the group as she stands up from the couch and steps between Blenny and Sterling to hurry to me.

Mama K and Blenny and Sterling are in the same room, says a befuddled voice in my head.

She clutches my arm as I step off the bottom step, her bright, worried eyes raking over my face.

"How are you? Are you alright?"

"Yes, Mom."

I try to shrug her off, then realize that, actually, I'm not really alright, and her arm is currently doing more to keep me standing than my own legs are. I let her lead me to a couch and sit me down between Fid and Mama J. Fid pats my leg with his little brown hand.

"Welcome back!"

I glance around. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Two days," says Mama J, squeezing my shoulder painfully with her big, pink hand.

"Two days?"

"Relax," says Fetch from across the room. "You're fine." Her face is a patchwork of cuts and abrasions, and a deep, green bruise mars the skin around her left eye. "You look like shit," she says.

Something around my heart unclenches. "I had to teleport your asses all over the goddamn world and then take down the most evil woman in the universe," I say. "What's your excuse?"

She manages a grim smile then turns her eyes back down to her clasped hands, bracing her elbows on her knees.

A sharp hiss draws my attention to the other side of the room, where Savage is stretched out on a second couch. Alive. Nana, bent over him, acknowledges me with a curt nod, then goes back to work winding a white cloth around his right shoulder. He raises a hand to me, then winces and sucks air sharply through his teeth again.

"Jesus, woman! Please be gentle!"

"Oh hush." Nana roughly lifts his arm to pass the bandage around his chest. "Don't be such a pussy."

"I've been shot," he whines.

Nana shakes her head, mumbling something I don't quite catch, but which sounds like, "I don't know what my daughter ever saw in you."

I'm trying to count the faces scattered around the rest of the room—Electra and Paradi sit with their backs against the couch in front of Savage—when footsteps come around the corner from the kitchen and Sargo appears, holding two steaming mugs. His eyes land on mine and he stops dead.

Mama J clears her throat quietly in the thick silence and pulls herself to her feet. "Why don't you sit here?" she says, indicating the empty spot on the couch next to me.

Shoving the two mugs sideways at Fetch without looking at her, Sargo lunges across the room, tripping over Sterling as he does. He sinks onto the couch next to me and grips my face between his hands. For a long moment, we just look at each other, his eyes bright with tears. Then he pulls me against his chest and wraps his arms around me.

“Ow,” I mumble into his shoulder as he squeezes something sharp inside my ribs.

When he finally lets me go, I pull away and turn to the rest of the room. Everyone stares quietly at the floor. I cautiously clear my throat.

"So…did we win?"

"We did," says Sterling quietly. No one moves or looks at him.

"The Anonymity stopped the update,” says Paradi.

“We were able to hold the peace force off,” continues Sterling.

"Quite a scene," grunts Savage, a note of pride in his voice. "Although I suppose we have mostly Edson to thank for that."

"Edson?"

"He had some kind of homemade bomb," says Savage. "Took out most of the first wave of peace force reinforcements before the fight had even really started."

"He—a bomb? Where?"

"Strapped to his chest."

I stare dumbly at Savage in the ensuing silence. He offers a grim shrug. "I think he had his own agenda going in. We certainly didn't ask him to do it."

"Batshit insane," mutters Nana, shaking her head.

I look around the room, unable to process what I've just heard and desperate for something else to put in my head to dispel that unsettling image. Finally, I land on, "Has anybody heard from Locuaz?"

"They reached Grike this morning," says Fetch. "Apparently, when Zenith employees at the facility there heard the broadcast, they mostly surrendered. The peace force laid down their weapons. Most of them had no idea what Zenith was doing. The ones that did…were outnumbered."

"And the kids?"

"Stark's ship is taking them all to Île Tor. From there, Yote and Locuaz will figure out how to return them to their settlements. It'll take months to get most of them home." She stares grimly down into her mug.

"I could take you to her," I offer.

She shoots me an incredulous look. "You look like you're about to literally fall to pieces. Anyway," she looks down at her hands again, "I think she wants to do this on her own."

I nod slowly as she lapses into silence again.

“What about Axioma?” says Sargo quietly.

I glance at Paradi and Electra. “I left her…in a place she won’t get out of for a very long time.”

“You didn’t kill her?” snaps Fetch. Electra winces.

I meet Fetch’s angry glare. “I’m not a murderer,” I whisper.

She rolls her eyes and sits back in her chair, folding her arms.

“And this place,” Sargo says, “you’re sure it’s…secure?”

I keep my eyes on Fetch. “Axioma is my responsibility now. I’ll keep my eye on her.”

A heavy silence settles over the room.

It's over. We somehow pulled it off. Everything we set out to do was done. Blocking the update, taking down Axioma, freeing the kids.

So why is the feeling in the room so…funereal? The silence is stifling. Have they all just been sitting here for two days, waiting for me to wake up? Were they really all that worried? We should be celebrating. People should be leaping off the walls. Savage should be handing out drinks. Goliath should be passing around their flask. I look around the room again, frowning.

"Where is Goliath?"

If the silence in the room wasn't already absolute, it becomes so now. A thick, horrible, suffocating silence that smothers everything and everyone underneath it. It comes down around my neck like an anchor. Savage hesitantly opens his mouth, and I immediately wish he would close it again. I wish I hadn't asked the question. I wish I could take it back.

"Goliath…didn't make it," says Savage.

The words drift haphazardly through my head like battered leaves in an insolent breeze. Didn't make it? How could they not have made it? Goliath was tough. Proficient. Careful. Good with a gun. Savage was the ridiculous braggart who could barely handle his own weapon. Savage was the one standing on the table, making a fool of himself. Savage was the one getting shot.

"What—" the word sticks in my throat, "—happened?"

"Took a—bullet for us," Nana says hoarsely.

I glance around the room at everyone's down-turned eyes. No one seems to want to offer an explanation.

Finally, Fetch says, "After Edson's bomb took out the first wave of peace officers, I think Zenith had to regroup. They stopped sending people in. The smoke was clearing and the room was just deadly quiet. Then…something came through the door. I didn't know what it was, but…it bounced and you heard it and you just knew—you knew it was something bad. Small. Metal. Heavy. It rolled into the middle of the room and stopped, and there was a…moment. Like an…infinite moment where we all just…froze."

Nana picks up. "Except Goliath. Threw down their gun and told us all to get down and—" She shakes her head. "It happened so fast I didn't even really understand what they were doing. Threw themself on top of it before it went off.”

“If they hadn’t,” Fetch picks up, “I don’t think we would have made it.”

Sterling removes his spex and dabs at his eyes with a bandana. Nobody else moves. An unbearable pain bubbles up from somewhere very deep and expands until it fills every available inch of space behind my ribs. It presses against my heart. It climbs into my windpipe. It threatens to choke me. Goliath was the first person on the Kingfisher who was nice to me. They were the first person on the Kingfisher to call me ‘crew.’

They were the first person outside Brume I ever thought of as my friend.

"Where's—where's Red?" I whisper, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"Taking a walk," says Savage. "He's been…taking a lot of walks."

The front door clicks softly open and Red steps through it, his lanky frame stooped, ginger hair falling around his pale, freckled face. He shuts the door quietly behind him and takes in the room with hollow eyes. For what feels like an eternity, he stares at us. Then he signs something to Savage.

"He says we should give them a hero’s funeral," says Savage.

chapter

thirty-six

One Year Later

IT'S 0700 on a foggy Tuesday morning. Sargo and I are walking along the shore on the main beach at Brume. The sky is a close, silver dome, and saltwater spray sheets off the surf as it crashes against the cold, wet sand. One of my hands, mostly covered by my sleeve, is wrapped around a large mug of hot brew. The other is in Sargo's, our stiff, frigid fingers twined together in the chilly morning air.

Up ahead a disorganized collection of limbs, teeth and fur called Shenanigans bounds haphazardly in and out of waves, tripping over his eight-month-old paws and barking at nothing. Sargo stoops to grab a stick, holds it above his head, then hurls it into the Salt. Shenanigans, predictably, bolts off down the beach at full speed in the wrong direction.

We do this walk every morning now, before Shenanigans and I drop Sargo off at the harbor. Sargo doesn't work for Azimuth any more—six months ago he opened his own sailing school. He was nervous to do it—it was a risk and he’s still new to taking risks. He was terrified it would fail. Spent weeks not sleeping. Within a month of the school opening, he had so many kids enrolling that he had to add an extra morning class. It means we have to get up far too early now, and Sargo is sometimes so grumpy that I just take Shenanigans to the beach by myself. But overall, I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever seen Sargo so happy.

This morning, we're both in good, if slightly melancholy, spirits. The Kingfisher will be in Brume today for the first time since Goliath's funeral.

We get to the dock at 0745 and three kids are already waiting on the wall outside the harbor gate. They're tousle-haired and groggy-looking, but there is a sparkly kind of anticipatory energy in the air. Savage has promised to teach a special celestial navigation class while the Kingfisher is in town, and the kids can hardly contain their excitement about learning from a real pirate. Much less excited about this prospect is Sargo. He never did warm to Savage, which I guess I can understand, given everything that happened.

"I just really can't stand that guy," Sargo grumbles as he unlocks the gate and the kids and Shenanigans barge past him onto the dock. "And I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual."

I catch the front of his shirt as he steps through the gate and pull him toward me so our faces are almost touching.

"I guess you're just going to have to be the bigger man, then," I say. "Right?"

"Mm."

"Right?"

He looks down his nose at me and dodges the kiss I try to land on his mouth.

"Not in front of the kids, Howsley."

I roll my eyes and let him go. "Be nice to Savage!" I yell after him as he saunters away down the dock. "He knows his stuff and teaching keeps him out of trouble."

Sargo waves a hand over his shoulder and disappears around the corner onto the main pier. I round up Shenanigans and head back to Panga.

From what I’ve heard, Savage has pulled his shit together in a big way in the last year. When Fetch left, he made Red captain of the Kingfisher and Nana first mate so he could step down and spend more time taking care of Fid. These days, the Kingfisher mostly runs shipments of goods between harbor cities—although I suspect they may still do a fair bit of plundering and murder in their spare time. Old dogs and new tricks and all that.

I stop at the end of the public dock to see if I can spot the Kingfisher’s sail on the horizon. I’ve been feeling a strange sense of non-excitement about the arrival all week, and it wasn’t until this morning that I was able to put my finger on why. Without Goliath, it just doesn't feel like the same ship.

We gave Goliath the hero’s funeral Red wanted for them. We all pretty much agreed that they deserved nothing less. When Red suggested we build a raft to send Goliath's body out into the Salt and shoot flaming arrows at it, I initially thought he was joking. But he wasn't. Where Goliath came from, he told us, it was a great honor to be buried that way. So that's what we did. Mama J, of all people, had a crossbow hidden away that she said she hadn't used since her days in the settlement at Naze. At that point, I was too done being surprised by things to question that, or the sureness with which she and Nana dipped the tips of the bolts in grog, lit them on fire, and sent them arcing poetically over the bay.

A new message alert pings into my head as Shenanigans and I turn onto Panga’s dock. I swipe to open it.

>>> HOLA PÁJARA! QUÉ TAL?

I smile and send a reply.

>>> FEEDING MY TERRIBLE DOG AND GOING TO WORK. WHERE ARE YOU?

>>> FETCH AND I ARE LEAVING TOR TODAY WITH YOTE'S FLEET. WE'LL BE IN QANAT IN SIX WEEKS. I WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW BECAUSE I KNOW YOU GET WORRIED ABOUT US WHEN WE GO ON THESE THINGS

>>> I WORRY ABOUT YOU. FETCH I COULD TAKE OR LEAVE

>>> JA JA JA VERY FUNNY

>>> JUST BE CAREFUL

>>> WE ALWAYS ARE

I swipe the message closed and open up a separate chat with Fetch.

>>> BETTER WATCH OUT FOR L OR ELSE

Fetch replies with a middle finger emoji. Grinning, I close Messenger and start getting Shenanigans’ breakfast together.

Fetch never went back to the Kingfisher after headquarters. She bought her own boat, Alma Gemela, and sailed it to Île Tor to join Locuaz and Yote. They run missions to all the harbor cities where the black market is still operating, getting people out, helping Zenith's new peace force shut the worst offenders down. In the last year, a lot has changed, but there are still pockets of people clinging to the old systems in grimy corners of the world. Slow but steady progress. That's what Locuaz says.

I rinse Shenanigans’ dish and set it by the sink to dry, then throw on some halfway presentable clothes for work. Leaving Shenanigans on his bed with a bone that ideally will keep him occupied for an hour but in reality he will finish in less than twenty minutes, I hide all the things on the boat that he might get his cataclysmic teeth into, and climb up out of the companionway, closing the hatch behind me. I shoot Mama K a message.

>>> YOU CAN STILL WATCH THE PUPPER WHILE I'M AT WORK TODAY RIGHT? HE'S DESTROYING EVERYTHING THAT ISN'T NAILED DOWN AND MOST OF WHAT IS AS WELL.

Her reply comes immediately.

>>> YUP! BE THERE IN AN HOUR. IS THE KINGFISHER STILL COMING IN TODAY?

>>> SHOULD BE

>>> GREAT. I HAVE A PRESENT FOR FID

I send her a smiley face and she replies with

>>> I LOVE YOU BIRDIE

With the demon dog fed and the grumpy boyfriend at work, I blip myself to the nearest brew shop, then to Zenith. Electra nearly falls out of her chair as I appear, cross-legged, on her desk.

"God dammit, Howsley, I told you to stop doing that!"

I hold out the mug of brew I picked up for her. "Doing what? Bringing you brew?”

Glowering, she snatches it out of my hand. "Paradi wants to see you. In her office. Walk, please!"

I blip into Axioma's old office to find Paradi standing at the window, contemplating the slate-gray Salt.

"I thought we implemented a 'no blipping in the office' policy last month?" she says without turning around.

"Did we?" I sip from my brew and sprawl into a chair, propping my feet on the edge of the desk.

She turns, eyes my scruffy shoes with a raised eyebrow, and sits in her chair on the other side of the table.

"I just got the approval to start sending shipments out to Naze," she says. "I wondered if you might like to oversee the first delivery."

"You got it working?" I remove my feet from the desk and sit up.

She nods. "The first few runs will be test runs—small things like desal filters and a few dehydrated meals. But by mid-month we should be sending all kinds of things out there—solar panels, desalinators, EV charging blocks. Your friend Pathra has been incredibly helpful in orchestrating the settlement side of things."

About a week after the raid at headquarters, I learned that although the Anonymity had blocked the QMTP update from running, they did not, in fact, wipe the QMTP code from Zenith's repositories. It was Paradi, actually, who stopped them. I think in the moment, she realized what a monumental waste it would be to destroy all that work, and that, in the right hands, QMTP could be the thing that saved humanity. All of humanity.

Thank God she was less shortsighted than me, because it turned out she was right. She and Electra took over Zenith after Axioma's disappearance and a short legal battle with their absent father, and they immediately hired a lot of Anonymity folk and pivoted the company to focus on finding practical applications for QMTP. Things like using it to transport goods, medicine, and resources out to remote settlements. The first place they’re shipping to is Naze.

It's taken Zenith a year to get the QMTP tech stable enough to actually use it to teleport goods, which surprisingly turned out to be much more difficult to teleport than people—or maybe it was just that transporting goods wasn't what QMTP was designed to do. I can't remember exactly. Electra and Paradi have both tried to explain it to me, but I've given up trying to understand most of what they talk about these days. I swear to God if I hear Electra say the word 'pivot' one more time, I'm going to pivot her head right off her neck.

“You want me to actually go out there?” I squint at her. “Or you want me to train people to go out there?”

“I want you to go out there. That is, if you want to. I thought you might like to see your old stomping grounds. If I was wrong—”

“No, I think that sounds fine,” I say quickly. “I’ll do it.”

Paradi smiles. “Great. That would be helpful. I’m up to my ears in this bullshit with the Exiters.”

“Still?”

She sighs, and I note how tired she looks. “They’re a small group, but they’re vocal.” She lowers her voice, the tiredness on her face crumpling into worry. “Rumors are starting to circulate. A lot of whispering about…” She trails off, shaking her head. “Anyway,” she stands abruptly and steps around the desk to open the door for me, “thanks for agreeing to do that. It’s helpful.”

As I'm leaving Paradi's office, sipping down the last cold dregs of my brew, another message alert slides in front of my eyes. A reminder from Rav about our appointment this afternoon.

Even though I mostly have my shit together now—Rav calls it 'having my symptoms under control'—there's something about our weekly tea-and-incense-infused chats that I can't bring myself to let go of quite yet. Rav still calls the stuff we do 'practice' or 'the work' and I keep asking her what it is I'm practicing for and when the big show is. She hasn't dignified that terrible joke with a response yet, so I figure as long as she hasn’t told me I’m ready for the show, I may as well keep seeing her.

I reach the end of the hall where the door to the training room is. Today is day one for a new class of QMTP rookies. Day one is fun. People come in all excited about teleporting and I basically get to crush them by explaining it'll be at least another month before they can actually do anything interesting.

Zenith hired me about six months ago to head up their training program. I work with doctors and engineers and physicists and a bunch of other people way smarter than me who have had QMTP installed in their chips and need to learn how to use it. A lot of what I do involves showing really smart people how to safely jump between dimensions so they can go talk to other really smart people in parallel worlds about how the hell we're going to get ourselves out of the mess we've made of the planet.

So far we've made contact with three other worlds with similar versions of humanity—one of whom solved their climate crisis, one who never had one to begin with, and one who are in even worse shape than we are. We're slowly learning how to delay the worst effects of our own problems, but progress is slow. Too slow, in some people’s opinion; the Exiters believe we’re all still doomed and that we should have let Axioma go ahead with her inter-dimensional Noah’s ark thing. They’re calling for a referendum. I don’t know if they’re right or not—Paradi’s increasingly exhausted face over the last three months has started to make me worry that they might be.

I pause outside the training room door, my hand over the palm scanner. Now I’m thinking about Axioma again, and I hate thinking about Axioma.

I went back a few times to check on her—okay, toy with her—during the first month after I abandoned her in that other dimension last year. From what I could tell, she was making very little progress. It turned out there were no other people there—at least, not within walking distance—and very little plant or animal life. I suspect she was living mostly on grass. She looked weaker and hungrier by the day. I never told anyone—not even Sargo or Rav—how much I enjoyed watching her grovel in the dirt, starving, begging for her life. After Goliath's funeral, I was so angry I went there more than once fully intending to kill her, but I couldn't go through with it. I'm not a murderer. And, given that I've been a lot of other pretty terrible things, I take solace in that.

And then one day, I went there, and Axioma was gone. I found the gun inside the hut she had built for herself—empty. I spent three solid weeks panicking, blipping into other dimensions at random looking for her. I even tried to go back to the dimension of the dead to see if she had indeed taken the 'easy way out' and ended up there, but despite my best efforts, I couldn't get back there. I haven't been able to get back there since the day Fife and Shale helped my friends and I through that world and I said goodbye to them.

When I told this to Rav, she said it was probably that I had no reason to be there anymore. She’s still sticking to her theory that I only ended up there in the first place because Fife and I had some kind of unfinished business. Rav thinks that on the day I said goodbye to Fife, we finished it. I don't know whether I buy that theory or not, although Rav has been right about pretty much everything else. But can I, a self-proclaimed non-believer in the gods, bring myself to believe that Fife was just a soul who needed closure in this world? Could it really be that all Fife and I needed was to say goodbye?

In any case, I never did find Axioma, and so far, she hasn't shown her face around here again. Possibly she did give up and kill herself, or possibly she accidentally blipped herself into a long and gruesome death. I certainly hope it's the latter, but if I turn out to be wrong and she does show up here, I think we'll be ready for her this time.

I check my reflection in the glass of the training room door. My mohawk is getting ragged again. Without Fetch around to trim it, I’ve been cutting it myself, with varying degrees of success. Sargo keeps insisting that I just go to a professional, but I kind of like the challenge. It never looks as good as it did that first time she did it, but, like so many other things, I'm slowly getting the hang of it.

I put my hand on the palm scanner and step into the training room. A hush falls over the assembled crowd as they cease their conversations and turn bright, expectant faces toward me. I push thoughts about Axioma, about the Exiters, about Fife and Goliath’s funeral deep down into the lockbox of my mind. I take a deep breath. I stand up straight. I look each one of them in the eye, and offer them a smile. My biggest, most genuine, most ‘I-totally-have-my-shit-together’ smile.

"Alright crew,” I say. “Who's ready to get to work?”

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They sailed a thousand miles. And were forbidden to come ashore.

The year is 2172. The world is mostly water. Marlin Paz and her pregnant girlfriend arrive in the harbor city of Brume after forty-two harrowing days at sea only to find themselves forbidden to go ashore.

Meanwhile, Axioma Nation, CEO of the world's leading corporation, struggles to solve the climate refugee crisis. But when an urgent message from a colleague overseas comes through, Axioma realizes that the climate is the least of her worries.

And thousands of miles away, in the ravaged heartland of the State, Heron Howsley must reckon with her family's legacy and her own demons while facing down tornados and discovering that her love for her hometown runs deeper than she knew...

Don’t make friends. Don’t get murdered.

The world is over. The virus took everything. Heron Howsley and her cat Zig Zag flee the tornado-ravaged Alley for a climate refugee camp on the West Coast.

Heron has only two rules: don't make friends, don't get murdered.

But when she spots a lonely hitchhiker on the side of the road, she breaks Rule One and stops to pick him up.

That act sparks a chain of events that forces Heron to reconcile with demons both old and new: the past she thought she'd left behind, the sister she thought was dead, and the future she may not be a part of.

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The world has ended. The virus took everything. Heron Howsley and her cat Zig Zag flee the tornado-ravaged Alley for a better life in Naze, a climate refugee camp on the West Coast.

Heron has just two rules: don’t make friends, don’t get murdered. But when she spots a lonely hitchhiker on the side of the road, she breaks Rule One and stops to pick him up.

That simple act of kindness sparks a chain of events that forces Heron to reconcile with demons both old and new: a past she thought she'd left behind, a sister she thought was dead, and a future she may not be a part of.

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the songs that were in my head while I was writing this series.

acknowledgments

As an indie author working primarily on my own, I don’t have a big team to thank. However, there are a few people who have been incredibly supportive throughout this process, and without whom, this book would not be what it is.

In no particular order, those people are

MY TIK TOK ARC CREW for sheer, unbridled enthusiasm and a ravenous appetite for these books. You guys are amazing!

GEOFF SHIPTON for dad jokes

ISABELLE HERBERT for being the world’s saltiest mom

TREVOR HOPE for steering the boat and fixing everything all the time

ALOY BONESNATCHER MCGEE for being the world’s most legendary dog

about the author

PART-TIME AUTHOR 🪶⚓ FULL-TIME PIRATE.

HI! I'M LIZ. I'm a freelance writer, indie author, and full-time, off-grid, live-aboard sailor. I’m currently sailing around the world with my boyfriend and my dog, turning my real-life adventures into Sci-Fi and Fantasy books.

I love incorporating the incredible experiences, beautiful places, and fascinating people I encounter on my travels into my work. Many parts of the world are underrepresented in fiction, particularly speculative fiction, and I feel grateful to be able to explore them, both physically and in writing. In addition to exploring the world, I like to explore themes surrounding mental health, addiction, technology and climate change.

When I'm not penning silly romance novels about the impending apocalypse, I work as a fully remote freelance content writer specializing in articles about code, music theory, and off-grid living. On the rare occasion I'm not writing, you can find me swimming, hiking, telling my dog I love her for the bazillionth time today, or watching Taskmaster.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Trigger Warning

Soul

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Get the Prequels

Newsletter

Social Media and Stuff

Playlist

Acknowledgments

About the Author