Sunset (Sunrise) Vol 1. Issue 12.

Alex wearing a button down shirt and zip up hoodie in front of a giant shirt button background. illustrated in pinks and blues [https://64.media.tumblr.com/76fecb6ce161928d7962d245f03e5503/0980b1ceb470b861-05/s1280x1920/694979285cb295ae14662f63ade68df36d4bf499.jpg]

Los Angeles. Just outside LAHQ.

Alex tugged at the collar of his dress shirt. "I can't believe you're actually making me wear this thing." He was sulking and he knew he was sulking.

“It's not that bad,” Reeve repeated. He’d said it a few times on the long-ass drive from Beatty to Los Angeles that had started out at an ungodly hour in the morning. In addition to the blue shirt, Alex was wearing dark navy slacks with a belt and the most uncomfortable shoes he’d ever worn. Around hour three, Alex had managed to talk his way out of wearing the tie. He had clothes he actually liked in his bag and was still holding out hope he’d win the war. For the time being, he took comfort in the fact that at least he wasn’t wearing khakis and a tie like Reeve.

If nothing else, giving Reeve a relentlessly hard time over the mini-Reeve, dweeb-ass outfit he was making him wear distracted him from his nerves. It was just the two of them and they were on their way to the Sol Headquarters for Alex’s first assessment. His weird social worker, Ollie, had come out to the house a few times to talk to Alex and make sure he was doing okay, and he seemed nice enough, but it was hard for Alex not to feel like he was talking to a cop, or at least someone who would narc on him without blinking. But this would be the first time since Reeve had picked him up 10 months earlier that he was actually going to see Sol.

And the assessment was a big deal. They’d be testing him on all kinds of stuff that would go on his record and determine if Reeve, Hannah, and Gareth were doing a good enough job teaching him, or if they’d need to move him to live with someone else. Alex had never gotten grades before and they seemed stupid as a concept, so he didn’t really care about that, but as nerdy, strange, and twitchy as those three were, the idea of leaving them made his stomach hurt.

Ahead of them on the side of the road, he could see a large stone sign with the solar system logo carved in relief, the same logo he’d seen on Reeve’s laptop over his shoulder. Alex felt a flutter of nerves.

"No one else is going to be dressed like this," he complained as Reeve slowed. “I'm serious, everyone's going to be in jeans and shit and then it's gonna be poindexter-me.”

“I’m dressed like this,” he replied through thin lips.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Oh, big consolation there.”

They turned onto the private road and almost immediately came to a stop at a large gate with two security guards in a tiny guard station with glass walls. They were dressed in plain black t-shirts and pants, unmarked and unnotable, other than the laminated badges and holstered firearms at their belts. One came out of the shelter as Reeve slowed the car to a stop in front of the gate.

“Now what?”

Reeve shifted in his seat to get to his wallet. “Nothing, just wait.”

The guard bent at Reeve’s open window. “ID.” He sounded bored, which was comforting. He scanned Reeve and Alex’s ID cards with some kind of reader and waved them through.

Reeve nodded at them and passed the ID cards to Alex. “Hold these for a sec?”

He held them in his lap as they continued on the private road. It went on longer than he would have thought and a dense row of tall evergreen shrubs rose up on the left hand side of the road, obscuring everything behind it like a hedge. With nothing to look at, Alex studied their IDs.

They’d taken the photo for Alex’s ID the first week he was with them, under a year ago, but his own face looked weirdly foreign. His eyes in the picture looked glassy and sunken. He glanced in the side view mirror to compare. The scarring of his face had been tighter back then, pulling at his lips, but that was before Hannah had lectured him endlessly about how burned skin needed to be moisturized all the time to give it stretch. Alex tried to name the expression on his face, nail down the emotion, but he couldn't. It was simply static. He liked what he saw in the mirror better.

He shuffled his ID behind Reeve’s and smirked. Reeve didn’t look all that much like his ID, either. The photo was drastically paler and his cheeks were softer. Alex’s numbers were better than his letters, so he could read that the issue date on Reeve’s ID hadn’t even been a year before his own. “Lookit your babyface,” he teased.

“Heads up.”

Looking up, he watched the road curve before dead-ending at a second gate, this time with just one man in black at the guardhouse, except he didn’t bother getting up.

He held out the ID cards for Reeve, but he didn’t take them.

“This is a different scan, just—”

But Alex didn’t hear the rest as he jumped at the sudden rush of pressure from telepathy prodding at him. He could recognize it as telepathy by now, but it didn’t feel the same as Reeve’s. It was rougher, but over quickly.

The gate buzzed.

“Jesus,” Alex swore, rubbing his head. “There’s more of you?”

Reeve laughed. “A lot more.”

“Well, next time you’re warning me about something, talk faster.”

“Sorry.”

They drove through the gate and he finally got a view of the building. Or rather, they talked about LAHQ like it was a building. It was not. It was more like a city block. Three immense buildings butted up against each other. The far one on the right was blocky and connected by a skywalk. The center one was tallest, with large panels of steel and glass, like a New York City building from a movie, and the one farthest on the left had a huge glass dome like a greenhouse set into the far side and a rounded facade on the front with a grid of windows above a row of doors.

“Holy shit,” Alex breathed. “That’s motherfucking official-looking.”

Reeve snorted. “Which is why no one’s going to think your clothes are stupid, and why it probably wouldn't hurt to lay off the ‘motherfuckers.’”

Ignoring him, Alex gaped out the window as Reeve navigated the series of sprawling parking lots that separated them from the complex. “You grew up here.”

“Yeah. First time I’ve been back.”

They circled for a few minutes before pulling into a spot. Alex held up the IDs, but Reeve only took his.

“You’re going to need yours,” Reeve said as he got out. No going back now, so Alex got out too.

Reeve was squinting all around them as he dug their bags out of the trunk. Alex would be there overnight to complete the testing, so they were putting Reeve up too.

“What’s wrong?”

Reeve handed him his bag. “Just trying to memorize where we parked.”

“If you’d taken your car, you’d have no problem finding it." Alex ran a finger over the dingy, beige Buick and dusted the grit off his hand on the back of his pants, which made Reeve briefly look like he would die of shame.

“If I’d taken my car, we would have had to stop for gas ten times on the way.”

He was about to make some wisecrack about it not being his fault that Reeve hates the environment, when he felt the sudden, sharp withdrawal of Reeve’s telepathy. Over the months, it had become a thing he’d gotten used to, a presence in the air. It was like when all normal, ambient sounds stop and you suddenly realize you didn’t know what quiet was. Reeve was an ambient feeling and it was gone.

“Why did you…?”

“I’m not allowed to give you any kind of assistance. This is all you.” He settled his duffle onto one shoulder. “Plus I figured you’d appreciate the break.”

Alex shrugged. “Sure. It’s just weird.” Strangely, he never really felt like he didn’t have privacy. He knew Reeve wasn’t reading his thoughts constantly or anything, it was just what it felt like to be around him when he wasn’t balling up his telepathy to hide it away.

Reeve came around to his side of the car and fiddled with Alex’s collar, making him groan. “You’re fucking impossible.”

“You’ll be fine,” Reeve said, giving his collar one final straighten. He sounded calm, but he looked nervous.

“I’ll be fine,” Alex repeated. He felt nervous too. “Are we rooming together?”

“No, you’ll be in the dorms and I’ll be in agents’ quarters, which is there.” He pointed to the building on the right, with the skywalk that connected it to the tall building.

“Where are the dorms?”

Reeve gave him a bland smile and pointed to the ground.

Alex wrinkled up his nose. It wasn’t like Alex wasn’t comfortable being alone. He was fine alone. He could take care of himself. But being alone in such a new, huge place was getting his blood pumping.

“So, I won’t see you until after it’s all done?”

“Probably not.”

Alex bit his cheek. The ungroundedness of the eerie lack of Reeve’s telepathy made him ask something impulsive. “Then can I hold onto your lucky button until then?”

“My what?” His voice sounded completely untuned with shock.

“Your button?” Alex cocked his head with all the attitude he could muster (which was quite a bit.) “Dude, you live with a psychometrist. I know you keep a button in a drawer and you take it out sometimes for missions. It looks like it’s from an old shirt or something? You wouldn’t carry it around if it wasn’t lucky.” He smiled at Reeve’s aghast expression. “The Story of it is all over your room. Bit of a taste of your own medicine, huh?”

Reeve stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out a small white button with a grid of four holes in the center, and grimaced. “It’s old. You’ll get distracted.”

Alex rolled his eyes but he was feeling self-conscious, so he snapped back, “Reeve, you’re like thirteen years old or something. How old could it be?”

He watched Reeve’s nostrils flare. “Alex.”

Feeling his face flush, Alex threw up his hands. “Fine, whatever. Keep your damn button.” He turned to look at the buildings, done with Reeve’s pitying look.

“You can have it if you tuck your shirt in,” Reeve said. “Neatly.”

Got him.

Alex glanced back with a wicked grin. “You’ll give it to me even if I don’t tuck my shirt in.”

“I will?”

“Yeah. Because you like me and you’re nicer than you want people to think.”

Reeve raised an eyebrow and deflated. With a sigh, Reeve dug out his wallet and pulled out a dollar bill. “I’ll wrap it up so you won’t have to touch it.”

“Right, because money isn’t distracting at all for a psychometrist.”

Reeve sighed again and ignored him. He started to fold the dollar around the button like a little package on the top of the trunk.

Alex watched him, feeling awkward for some reason. "Did you do something really cool in that shirt or something?”

No,” he laughed and then cleared his throat when it caught. “I’ve just had it longer than anything else.”

It was funny how Reeve was, in some ways, just as stuck up as he'd first thought when they'd met, but when push came to shove, he (and Hannah and Gareth) really gave a shit about Alex in a way he wasn't used to. Enough to give him some little trinket even though he didn't want to. Trusting him with something precious. It made the pressure to perform well and not be separated from them strike all the harder.

Reeve sealed the dollar tighter, pressing the seams with the back of his thumbnail, and offered him the folded up little green square. “When we get home, I’m going to figuratively throttle you.”

Alex took the little square with its stiff creases and sharp corners. It was warm from Reeve’s hand and the sun-warmed metal of the car. “Promise?”

Reeve smiled belatedly and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Let’s go.”

They made the long walk to the entryway at the front of the building with the big glass dome, where their IDs were checked, yet again, by more people in black. As Reeve paused to get his bearings, Alex looked around the lobby.

The ceilings were high, with one wide staircase in the center that led up to a mezzanine. It was bright with curved, stark white walls, lit by narrow strips of recessed lighting where they met the ceiling. It gave the impression of a waterfall or rays of sunlight breaking through clouds. The golden-brown hardwood floor gave off a warm glow and only caused the white steps of the staircase to stand out even more. There was a large semi-circle reception desk with a young man behind it at a computer. A line of three flat screen displays were above his head, silently displaying ads featuring their medications and happy, air-brushed models.

The Story swirled around and tugged at the edges of him, threatening to erase the borders where Alex ended and the past began. The quiet of Beatty had become familiar to him and the jumble of Story made him remember just how much harder he’d had to work his whole life in Reno to stay grounded. He could manage it.

The lobby wasn’t packed or anything, but there were three sets of two agents in black, (two for each door), probably a dozen people either on their way in or out, and another dozen milling around on the mezzanine.

“All these people have knacks like us?” he asked, feeling his eyebrows rise.

“Yup.” Reeve gave him a coy smile. “Everyone in the building is like us. You were made below our feet and I was, too.”

Alex tried to shake it off and not appear too overwhelmed. “Well, that’s freaky. Can we go see?”

“No, we don’t have clearance for that. Okay, it’s this way.” Reeve walked them past the stairs. There were several modern-looking chairs, tables, and a loveseat in a small sitting area set into the nook underneath the staircase. A young woman sitting at one table with a laptop looked up and watched them go by.

“This is the public-facing half of the building,” Reeve explained, leading him down a wide hallway. “It houses all the SolPharma offices and labs. Civilians still can’t walk in for no reason, but when they have conferences or investors in, this is where they go.”

Alex glanced side to side as they walked, taking in the endless line of office doors. The people were uniformly in office-casual or in plainer clothes with a lab coat over it. They all looked like normal people to Alex. He wouldn’t give them a second glance on the street, but it was the same with Reeve and the others, too.

After what seemed like forever, the end of the hallway came into sight and it was floor to ceiling glass that looked into a huge open space, warmly lit by sunlight.

“Whoa.”

“Yeah, that’s the Atrium. It’s about to start looking a lot less like a pharmaceutical office.”

Reeve scanned his ID at the large glass door, and they went inside. The blue sky spread out above them, as the impossibly large glass dome rose up. The dome was surrounded on three sides by a single story of the building, so the glass started at around the top of the first level. There were a series of walls forming an octagon that ran the perimeter and kept them from looking out into the parking lot—or kept the parking lot from looking into the dome. Probably both. The walls that ran along the left half of the dome were lined with storefronts and chain franchise restaurants. Closest to them was a string of shops that were a little dinky compared to what a normal mall would have, but they were all there: clothing store, drug store, mini-mart, and even a sit-down restaurant. It reminded Alex of airport stores and restaurants that he’d seen in movies. Beyond that was a line of fast food stalls that wouldn’t be out of place in any mall food court, with clusters of round tables full of people eating. Just beyond that, at the far end, was a long buffet line with more tables that looked like a school cafeteria line.

The right side of the dome had been turned into an indoor park, complete with stretches of grass, stone pathways, benches, flowerbeds, bushes, and even trees upwards of twenty feet tall. There was one section of open field with soccer goals. The wall that ran along the right side was blank and painted a desaturated green, probably meant to blend in with the grassy area. The one door on the side that was close to where they were standing had an inground pool, just visible through the glass door. There was something impressive and sad about it all at the same time. On one hand, it was a huge-ass greenhouse with a mall in it, which was cool enough for what it was, but Alex also knew that this was as close to the outside world as students here got until they graduated. And in that light, it was a small, inadequate replacement. It was a mall. A mall wasn’t the world.

Compared to the Venus building they’d just walked through, this place was packed and the noise was a loud and constant murmur. There were people milling around in stores, eating at tables, waiting in line in the food court, or relaxing in the park. And some of them were kids, little kids, kicking around a ball in the park or sitting in a circle, listening to an adult read to them. The Story was as loud and busy as any crowded city street he’d been on.

Reeve tugged on Alex’s arm and pulled him off to the side as he realized, belatedly, that he’d been standing in the way of foot traffic, taking it all in.

“Sorry,” he said, shuffling out of the doorway.

Reeve put a hand on his back to steady his Psychometry more than anything, and it helped. “S’okay. It’s weird. It looks so much smaller now.” He gave Alex’s back a pat and checked his watch. “Come on, we don’t want to be late. The elevators are on the far side.”

“Elevators?” Alex called as he followed Reeve, who beat a path through the center of the Atrium.

“The Terre floors are beneath us.”

When they got closer to the back wall, Alex spotted a line of elevators as well as an arched doorway with another ID scanner that appeared to lead to another hallway. It was where most of the people were walking in and out of.

“What’s down there?” he asked while they waited for an elevator.

“That goes to the central building and agent living quarters.”

They got in and Reeve pressed one of the many buttons—so many buttons that hinted at way more levels than Alex felt comfortable with being underground. Alex tried not to think about it as the elevator lurched, bringing them under. He noticed Reeve was watching him, his mouth tight. “You’re thinking about fixing my shirt, aren’t you?”

That got him a smile. “Yes.”

The elevator came to a stop and opened. “Oops, too late.”

Alex may have never been in a real school, but he’d see them on TV, and that’s exactly what it looked like as they stepped out of the elevator. It was a school hallway: metal lockers, harsh overhead lights, hideous linoleum floors, and posters on the walls with encouraging bubble-letter phrases.

Reeve pointed to the office directly across from the elevator. It was labeled, Vice Principal.

“You ready?”

Alex wiped his sweaty palms on the sides of his pants and nodded. They went in.

Inside was a reception area with a desk, a small sitting area, and a hallway that led down past the desk to more offices. A middle-aged woman with black hair smiled at them. “Can I help you?”

“We’re here for my foster’s assessment. Alexander del Sol?”

Alex made a face at the formal name.

She nodded. “Yup, I see you now. Here’s a packet for Alexander and a duplicate copy of his schedule for you. Have a seat and Logan will be out in a minute.”

“Thanks.”

Alex flashed her an awkward smile and Reeve handed him the red folder. Unsure of what else to do, he headed over to grab a couple of seats with Reeve. There were two other people in the sitting area. One was a boy a couple years older than Alex and much taller, with a curly mop of aggressively orange hair and green eyes. He was holding the same red folder. Beside him sat a guy in his thirties with short, spiky brown hair, reading a magazine with a relaxed expression. Neither of them were in a suit.

Alex turned his head slowly to give Reeve the dagger-est look he could.

Don’t start, came Reeve’s voice in his mind. Out loud, Reeve asked, “Are you here for foster assessment too?”

“Yeah,” the man said, closing the magazine and leaning forward to shake Reeve’s hand. “I’m Cliff and this is Quaid.” The boy nodded an awkward smile at them.

Reeve shook their hands. “Reeve.”

And Alex followed suit. “Alex.”

“Do they do these assessments in pairs?” Reeve inquired.

Quaid bobbed his head. “Yup.”

“Oh cool,” Alex commented, keeping his voice light to temper the sarcasm, “so they can compare us.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Logan.”

Alex looked over as a man with skin patterned in bright blue, pink, and orange walked over to them. The dude was aqua and it really seemed like the kind of thing you give a person some warning for. He was wearing a suit, which was probably for the best, because otherwise Alex would have assumed he was on his way to a rave in full body paint and definitely not the vice principal. The rest stood and Alex followed after a beat. He was trying not to stare. He didn’t think it was working.

“Alex, welcome to LAHQA for the first time,” Logan smiled. “I can’t say how glad we are to have you here.”

His tone was warm and sincere but Alex was still staring, a little dumbfounded. “Thanks,” he stammered. “Me too.” He realized too late that he was gaping and looked at the floor.

“It’s okay,” Logan said. “You’re brand new to this. Not everyone’s knack is as invisible as yours. Sol gives us a place to live safely.”

Alex looked back up. Underneath the blue skin and pink-red patterning around his eyes, the man’s face looked kind. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he repeated. “It’s really good to meet you.” He checked his watch. “Alright, let’s try to keep you on schedule. You’ve got classes to get to and meetings with your advocates, Oliver and Darwin, if I’m remembering right. This is as far as our foster teams go, I’m afraid.”

Alex looked at Reeve, feeling a spike of panic, not knowing how to express what he was feeling without a slew of cuss words in front of these people.

Reeve squeezed his shoulder. “You’ll be okay. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

He nodded, hand in his pocket on the folded up dollar. “Yeah, okay.”

---

Reeve took a breath as he watched Alex leave with Terre’s Second. He’d done all he could do. Alex was tough. Mostly, he just hoped Alex wouldn't be too tough, but there was a nervousness in his stomach that had nothing to do with that. His pulse had been too fast ever since they’d gotten into the elevator. It was uncomfortable to be back and even more so after the jolt he’d felt through his entire body when he heard the name Darwin.

“I’m gonna go grab a coffee in the Atrium. You want to come with? We’ve got time to kill.” Cliff, the other student’s foster, asked him.

Reeve was getting a bit of a flirting vibe from him and shook his head. “Thanks, but I grew up here, so I’m going to meet up with an old friend.”

He gave an I-had-to-try smile. “Alright, I’ll see you around.”

Reeve watched him leave and stood, looking over Alex’s schedule. He didn’t recognize most of the teacher names, but there were a few he remembered from his time in the Academy. Julia was still teaching math. She must have been a hundred years old, in his mind. Reading on, he found what he was looking for: Alex’s social worker’s office was two floors down and he could guess that Darwin was on the same level. Folding the schedule and tucking it in his pocket, he crossed the hall and pressed the down button.

It had been something like five, six years since he’d seen Darwin, and as much as his memories of his schooling were fuzzy, he did know they hadn’t been close friends. Reeve hadn’t been close friends with really anyone. He’d been a bit of a nerd and that was easy to admit, since it was also impossible to hide. Darwin had been a nerd too, but in contrast to Reeve’s introverted, seemingly innate sense of superiority that made him distance himself from fellow students, Darwin had been a sweet, chubby kid who assumed the best of everyone.

At least that’s what he thought he remembered. Reeve didn’t so much want to see him to reconnect, as to find out if seeing him would help clear anything up in his mind.

The doors opened and he got in with a couple of teachers Reeve didn’t recognize, thankfully. He wasn’t up for any sort of conversation with old teachers. He selected a floor, thinking about how student care was a good choice for Darwin. He remembered him being caring, if naïve and a little gullible. He thought.

It struck him that Darwin would have gone through a similar Reintegration process to Reeve, and his memory would be as out of sorts as his own. Worse probably. Telepathy had given Reeve an advantage and he’d had rigorous training in protecting his thoughts, far more than the curriculum suggested. Darwin was terrible at combat. Darwin liked fruit. Or maybe it was salad. Fruit salad?

Reeve closed his eyes and tried to pull himself together. The teachers got off on the floor before his, and Reeve found himself alone in the elevator. One more floor to go. The elevator dipped and he listened to the near silent hush of the mechanics. Would Darwin even remember him? As the student closest to the center of everything that had gone down, his mentor’s star pupil, they’d pulled Reeve from classes and stuck him in post-grad housing to finish out high school, where they could keep a closer eye on him. He couldn’t even go to the Atrium, so he’d never seen his “friends” again after Reintegration. Was it as though he’d disappeared to the rest of his class? Or had he never existed?

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. There was a blast of warm, stuffy air and Reeve stared out into the empty hall. What if Darwin had taken to the Reintegration like it was intended—a temporary discomfort that had faded from his memory, and now there was nothing about his past that bothered him? No tightness in his chest when he thought about high school. No fog obscuring his memories. No nightmares. And then here comes Reeve to say hello, just to see if it jogged anything in his own brain.

This is a mistake.

Reeve let the elevator doors close and rubbed at his eyes. He’d go to Uranus instead, to get his temp housing assignment so he could hide out in his room and avoid running into anyone. It felt as though his heartbeat finally began to slow at the decision and he frowned. Reeve really hadn’t changed much.

---

Logan motioned for Alex and this Quaid kid to follow him out into the hallway. “Now, Quaid’s been through this a few times, so he can help, but we always assign you a student guide who makes sure you get where you need to go without getting lost.”

“Cool, I’ll try to keep up.” Alex replied and flashed Quaid an exaggerated grimace. It pulled at his scar and he regretted it with a swell of embarrassment that wasn’t for show.

“No one’s expecting either of you to not get lost,” Logan reassured them as they got back onto the elevator, going down a few more levels. “You’ll be shadowing some classes and having some individual meetings. The people you’re meeting with will always come find you or you’ll be escorted, so don’t stress too much about getting lost.”

The elevator dropped them in a quieter hallway. There was a desk set up across from the elevator with a young man sitting there who simply nodded his head once to them and went back to reading his paperback.

“These are the high school dorms. If you need anything, there’s always someone at the RA desk here to help.”

They walked down the hall, then took a left down a longer hallway. Each door had printouts or hand drawn signs with names on them. “Lee & Anise.” “Morgan & Rose.” They finally come to a stop in front of a blank door.

He opened the door and gestured for them to go inside. “This is where you’ll be staying tonight, so you can drop your things off and your guide should be here any second now.”

Inside, the room had two of everything, mirroring each other: narrow bed (with plain bedding), bedside table, desk and computer chair, mini fridge, wardrobe full of empty hangers, and a chest of drawers. Each desk had a stack of notebooks on it, a small metallic office lamp, and a welcome gift bag with pens, granola bars, and chocolates. The walls were bare and there were no windows.

There was Story coming off of everything like heat waves on pavement and he tried to do the exercises Reeve had taught him to ignore it.

“I hope I’m not late,” came a girl’s voice, making him turn.

At the door, Logan made a startled sound and made room for the girl. “Right on time. Alex, Quaid, I’m going to leave you in the extremely capable hands of Casey, here, to take you the rest of the way. Anyone can point you in the direction of my office if you need anything at all. I’ve got to get back.”

He left, leaving a short girl standing in the doorway, looking at them. She was around five-feet tall, had a head of wavy, dirty-blonde hair thrown up in a messy ponytail, and a cute nose. Her legs were thick and muscular under black skinny jeans and most of her top half was obscured by a big red hoodie.

“Hey,” she grinned at Quaid.

“Hey,” he returned.

She fixed Alex with a smile. “I’m Casey.”

“Uh, Alex,” he said, glancing at Quaid.

He shrugged at Alex. “I’ve been here before.”

She came into the room and adjusted the backpack on her shoulder. “This is your first time in LA?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah.”

“You’re gonna love it. The LA Academy is the best Academy in all of Sol. Best facilities, best teachers, plus we have the Atrium. So what’s your knack?”

“Psychometry?” He wasn’t sure why he said it like a question, but her excitement was a little intimidating.

Casey’s eyes got a little wide. “You don’t see much of that. You’ve got to tell me what it’s like.”

“Uh, sure. Kinda sucks a lot of the time. What about you guys?”

“I’m a teleporter,” she said proudly. “Which is basically the best thing ever.”

Quaid dropped his bag on one of the beds and sat down. “Optic projector.”

“Optic what?” Alex scrunched up his face.

“I can change what you see.”

“It’s telepath-adjacent,” Casey enthused. “It’s really cool, he can intercept your visual input and change it to whatever he wants.”

“Actually, I’m using they/them pronouns now,” Quaid added awkwardly.

“Oh,” Casey piped. “Cool, okay.”

“I’m still really bad at my knack though,” Quaid went on while Alex tried to catch up. “If I don’t do well this time, I think I might get transferred here.”

Casey pursed her lips. “Well, if that’s what you need, this is the place to be. And I’ll be around for another year, so we could be classmates.”

“Wait,” Alex broke in, poking through the pile of candy. “Only another year? How old are you?”

“Sixteen. I’m the second youngest senior in Academy history. The new Neptune was the youngest. He’s my idol, or one of them.”

“Wow.” He really didn’t know what else to say to that sentence.

“What year are you?” she asked.

“I don’t even fucking know,” he laughed. “This is the first ‘school’ I’ve been in. My foster team or whatever is homeschooling me, but it hasn’t even been a year, so, what, first grade or something?”

“Wait, are you one of the Venus Twenty-Five?”

“The what?”

She looked nervous. “You know, the gens they had to go out and track down.”

“Oh. Yeah, but I call it the Dumpster Gens. Mostly because Reeve hates it.”

She cocked her head. “Who’s Reeve?”

“My team’s lead guy. He’s a telepath.”

Quaid rolled their eyes empathetically. “Mine is too.”

Casey bit her lip and tensed her brow. “Is it rude to ask what happened to your face?”

Alex shrugged to offset the tightening in his core. “I don’t know, probably, but whatever. It was a cooking accident.” Which was true.

She nodded. “Pluto might be able to bio-manip it for you. They can fix lots of stuff.”

That wasn’t something he’d ever thought of. Defensively, he raised his chin. “It’s my face. It doesn’t need to be fixed.” He wanted badly to feel the way he sounded.

She nodded again, solemnly, then held out her hand. “Can I see your schedules?”

They handed her their red folders and she plopped them on a desk to look through them. She pulled out a small notebook from her back pocket and started taking notes. “No track for Alex yet, but Quaid, we’re both on a Neptune track still.” She sounded excited.

“Don’t remind me,” Quaid muttered.

“Track?” Alex wracked his brain. It sounded familiar.

“Which department they think you’ll end up in.” She turned to Quaid, speaking fast and gesturing excitedly. “And Neptune is hands-down the best department. I’ve wanted to be in Neptune since I...Since I knew what Neptune was. It’s the final line of protection. They keep knacked people safe. They keep our secrets safe from the outside world. And they rescue Sol agents who’ve lost their way. Who wouldn’t want to be in Neptune?”

Alex gave her the side-eye. “Who wouldn’t want to be a cop? Anyone with half a brain.”

Casey looked truly astonished by his reaction. “No, no, you don’t understand. Neptune aren’t the cops. They protect knacked people in every way there is. Cleanup is there if we mess up out in the world, Investigation makes sure our internal systems are just and fair, Retrieval saves confused agents and brings Icarus home, and Reintegration reforms them. They do everything.”

He gave Quaid a dubious look and they seemed to be bracing for impact. That wasn’t going to stop Alex. “Yeah, that all sounds like white-washed cop stuff.”

Huffing, Casey shook her head and puffed up her chest. “You’ll see.”

But Alex wasn’t done. “Where do these Icaruses—Icarusi? Icari?”

Casey stopped his struggling. “The plural is just Icarus. Like fish.”

“Whatever. Where do these—”

She looked off to the side. “Actually fish is kind of a dark comparison, because Icarus fell into the sea and drowned when his wings melted.”

“Uh.” Alex jutted out his lower teeth, awkwardly, and locked eyes with Quaid while still talking to Casey. “Where do these Icarus come from anyway? If this place is supposed to be one big family.”

Casey sputtered a little. “It is one big family here, not just supposed to be. But even the closest families have falling-outs or interpersonal disputes.”

Alex felt his eyes start to bug out a little. “Interpersonal disputes? That is so not how real people talk. It sounds like a line from a brochure.” It made him think of the language Reeve had used to describe his knack the first time they met and he rolled his eyes inadvertently.

Casey just bowled onwards, as though she hadn’t heard him. “Sometimes disagreements happen, or people get confused about what’s really best for them or for knacked people. You know, someone abuses the power their knack gives them for their own benefit out in the world, or gets too tangled up with civilians. It can get muddy. But that’s why Neptune exists! When things are too muddy, Neptune comes in to clear things up and help people get back on track. It’s the opposite of cops– it’s not punitive, it’s rehabilitative. You just have a colored vision of things because you’ve lived out in the world where things aren’t as fair and compassionate.”

“Compassionate?” Alex heard the incredulity in his own voice as Quaid shifted from foot to foot beside him. He glanced at Quaid with something of an apology in his eyes before pressing on with what was almost assuredly not the thing to say to this absolute kool-aid drinker. “Isn’t calling them Icarus a little bit… um. Fucked up? Like, the whole flew-too-close-to-the-sun thing feels a bit on the nose, doesn’t it? Not exactly a warm welcome home vibe.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Casey huffed and said simply, “That’s just how it’s always been. What it’s called has no bearing on–”

“And the whole no-name thing? Isn’t that a little cult-y?” Alex cut her off.

Quaid tensed beside him and coughed loudly. “ANYWAY, I hope we didn’t pull you out of one of your favorite classes to come get us settled, Casey.”

“No,” she said, coming more back down to baseline and shooting Alex one last dubious look. “Just Cultural Integrations. You guys don’t need to shadow that class, so it was a good one to skip.”

“What’s that?” Alex asked.

“Oh, it’s wild,” Quaid chuckled. “Tell him.”

She lowered her brow. “What? It’s just a class to help us learn how to fit in with the outside world.”

“There’s a class on that?” Alex laughed.

“Yeah, every semester.”

“What was today’s lesson on?” Quaid asked, suppressing a laugh.

“Grandparents.”

Quaid lost it and Alex nearly did too. “Wait, a class on what grandparents are?” It was a wonder Reeve wasn’t more fucked up than he was.

Casey did not get what was funny. “Yeah, and what it’s like to have them. Don’t worry about it, I’ll get the notes from someone else.”

“The notes about grandparents. We have to go,” Alex insisted. “Can we please go shadow?” It’s not like Alex had grandparents either, but a class on what it was like—he had to see this.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, because it sounds hilarious? And kinda pointless? Like how hard would it be to just say, ‘My grandparents died before I was born,’ and move on instead of there being a whole class on how to fake it?”

They were interrupted by the sound of a school bell. “That’s class. We should go. Just grab a notebook.”

Alex pouted briefly at the missed opportunity, but picked up a notebook and a pen and followed them out the door.

"One sec," he called, as a thought hit him. He ducked back into the room and pulled off his dress shirt, replacing it with the first graphic tee he could find in his bag. He didn't have time to mess with the pants, but this would do for now, so Alex rushed back out to the others.

Without missing a beat, Casey jumped right into tour-guide mode. Alex was catching on that her enthusiasm was pretty constant. “That’s the bathrooms and showers.” She pointed as they passed. “Each wing has their own, but it’s not restricted or anything. Ours is the cleanest anyway, though.”

Alex glanced back at the single doorway with dark blue showerhead and toilet symbols on it.

Quaid leaned over to him. “It’s unisex,” he explained. “Everything is here. Even housing.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. Maybe living with Hannah would be an asset for getting through the next day without coming across as the weird one. “Hey, do we need keys for our room back there?”

She gave him a pitying look as they got into the elevator. “Why would you need to lock it? We’re all family here and if you fuck around, you risk your career track and marring your permanent record. I guess some care less about that than me, but still. I mean, the doors do lock, but only on the outside for lockdowns.”

“Lockdowns?”

“Like active shooter drills,” Quaid offered, trying to be helpful.

Alex took a breath. Half of him wanted to retort that where he'd come from, there were no drills when someone had a gun, but the other half wanted to avoid being seen as such an outsider. He kept his mouth shut.

Casey shook her head at them. “No. No, not like that. That doesn't happen here. This is like if someone’s knack goes dangerously haywire or there’s some kind of security breach, the whole building goes into lockdown to keep everyone safe while Neptune deals with it. It happens, but it’s fine. Either you just stay in class or you get stuck in your room for a bit and you get caught up on homework.”

The elevator opened and what had been an empty hallway before was now crammed with a sea of students all moving one way or the other. Casey waded in, careful to look over her shoulder to make sure they were still with her.

Alex kept up, but stared at all the kids walking by, many of which were also glancing over at them with interest as they passed, some staring at his face. They looked normal. Like kids who’d have walked by him sometimes when he was panhandling, with their clean clothes and heavy backpacks.

Casey led them into a classroom full of chairs with attached desks that were quickly filling up with kids around Alex’s age. “This is you,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll come pick you up when class is done. See ya.”

Then, she was gone. She’d just winked out of existence and Alex froze in the doorway, staring at the spot where she had been. Taking a deep breath to gather himself, he wrinkled his nose at a strange ozone smell that filled the air.

“Come on,” Quaid said.

“Yeah,” Alex replied, trying to sound more sure of himself than he was.

He and Quaid took desks next to each other, off to the side. Quaid took out their red folder and were looking over the schedule, so Alex did the same thing, even though he couldn’t make sense of most of it. The other kids in the room were giving them sideways looks, but mostly kept their heads inside their books.

“What class is this?” he hissed to Quaid finally.

“World History I think.”

Alex deflated. He’d been expecting these classes to be something exceptional. Something like he’d never heard of. Cryptography. Anything. After all, it was a literally-underground, super-soldier school for super-powered, genetically engineered kids run by a secret organization that maybe covertly ran the world or something. History class? Way to disappoint.

An adult entered the room– a tall, slim woman with pale skin and long, straight, chocolate brown hair. She was wearing a light grey skirt, which showed she had one jet-black prosthetic leg.

“Alright, settle down,” she said as she walked to her desk, a bag over one shoulder. She scanned the room and her eyes stopped as she spotted him and Quaid. She made her way over to them.

“Hi, I’m Chelsea,” she began with a smile. “You must be Alexander and Quaid,” she said, pointing to each of them.

They nodded.

“I’ll get you some textbooks so you can follow along. Feel free to jump into the discussion if you want or just watch. Shout if you have questions.”

Chelsea fetched them some books and he awkwardly opened his, as Chelsea began to give a lecture on whatever politics stuff was going on leading to WWI. Alex’s attention wandered pretty quickly. It was all dates and royal names with numbers in them that he was never going to hold in his head anyway. It had all happened before anyone in the room had been born. From what he had gathered from watching Reeve, Hannah, and Gareth, it seemed completely useless for their jobs.

He had been zoning out when he heard Chelsea say louder, “Okay, books closed for the quiz,” and a bolt of fear ran through him. He looked around in a panic as the students put their books away. Quaid looked about as unhappy as he did. Stretching up in his seat, Alex fought to catch the teacher’s eye, sure she would say she obviously hadn’t meant them, too.

When she saw him, she gave an understanding smile, but still came to their desks and handed them some papers stapled together.

“Just do the best you can. Don’t stress about it.”

She left Alex sitting in shock, mouth hanging slightly open. Beside him, Quaid sighed heavily and rolled their eyes before picking up their pen.

Alex's skin was starting to feel cold– except for his cheeks, which were burning and uncomfortable. Reeve had been working with him every single goddamned day on his reading, which was bad enough, but even worse, he wasn't exactly taking to it like a fish to water. And that was with Reeve using his telepathy to help him remember letter shapes and sounds and shit.

He looked around the room at all the hands writing away on the paper. Alex gazed at the quiz. There were questions with blank spots for answers on one, and the second page had a blank map of Europe with lines for them to label each country.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Alex sat and tapped his pen for a while, poking at the inside of his cheek with his tongue, but the longer he didn’t write anything, the worse he felt. At some point, the embarrassment turned into a different feeling. They had his file, didn’t they? They should know what they were asking him to do. What a shitty thing to do to a kid in front of a bunch of people he didn’t know.

He started writing some of the few words he was confident in spelling into the blanks. They weren’t words Reeve had taught him and they definitely weren’t “school appropriate.” When he ran out of those, he began drawing. He wasn’t a great artist, but he had time and spite on his side. Before long, his paper was full of little hands flipping the bird, intermingled with squiggles and cubes and stick figures.

When the bell rang, Chelsea had them all turn in their quizzes face down on her desk. He didn’t bother to put his name on his. He was pretty sure she’d figure it out.

Without waiting for Quaid, he followed the other students out into the hallways, hoping his hot face wasn’t as red as it felt. Casey was waiting at the door, but he kept walking. He was done with this bullshit. They might as well send him back to Reno right then, since he was clearly not going to cut it in Sol.

“Hey,” she called. “Alex!”

He didn’t look back. When he’d worked his way out of the main flow of students, she teleported in front of him, causing him to pull up short.

She looked baffled and nervous. “We have class.”

“Maybe you do, but I don’t.” He moved to push past her but she stood firm, unfazed.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but just come to class.”

“Look, are you going to physically drag me?” he snapped.

Her mouth set into a straight line. “No, but—”

“Okay.” He moved around her and kept walking down the hall. She didn’t follow him.

The hallway began to empty as quickly as it had filled up and he dug out his Sol ID. When he did, his hand brushed the folded up dollar and he hesitated. They really thought he belonged with them. And he wanted to, but wanting had never made anything true. Alex got into the elevator and flashed his ID at the console. It took a couple of tries, but it finally beeped. He pressed the top button, assuming that would get him to the Atrium. He knew the way out from there. The elevator doors closed and he tried to figure out what happened after that. He could wait by Reeve’s car. When he went missing, they’d alert him probably, and eventually Reeve would think to check his car. Or he could ask the front desk to contact Reeve somehow. It didn’t really matter. Sol had thrown him in the trash and maybe there had been a reason for that.

The elevator only went up one level before the doors opened and a man in jeans, an officey shirt, and a tie stepped in. He had short, wheat-tan hair and a short beard of scruff. He gave Alex a quick, confused look but quickly nodded politely.

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yeah." Alex didn't try to sugar his tone, which generally kept strangers off his back when he wanted to be alone, and the man didn’t attempt any other small talk. He pressed the top button and the elevator began to move again. When he stepped back from the buttons, he stood uncomfortably close to Alex, but against the wall, he didn't have much place to retreat to. It put him on edge, ready to lash out.

Just before the man’s stop, he reached out and pressed the emergency stop button, bringing the elevator to a staggering halt.

Alex automatically turned to keep his back to the wall and bared his teeth. If this guy was going to be a creep, he’d have hell to pay. Alex wasn’t armed, but he felt confident that, with what Gareth had taught him, he could do some serious damage to this guy’s knee, given half a chance.

The guy put his hands up. “Easy. It’s okay, I’m a teacher.”

Alex looked at him like he was as crazy as he sounded. As if being a teacher meant anything.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I Read you, and I get why you don’t want to go to class, but it’ll be better for you if you do. Book learning isn’t your thing yet, and that’s fine. They’ll understand that.”

“More telepaths?” he groaned, without taking his eyes off the man. He was still trapped.

“No, I’m a mimic. I’m using your psychometry.”

Alex flinched. He hadn’t known that was possible. “Fuck you,” he spat.

His face didn’t harden at that. “Listen, you’re one of the twenty-five, right? Certain people here did you wrong and Sol’s going to bend over backward to make it up to you. Give us a chance.” When Alex didn’t respond right away, he went on. “My name’s Hill. Can I take you to class?”

Alex glanced at the controls. “You weren’t going that way.”

“It doesn’t matter. What class do you have next?”

“I don’t fucking know,” he raged louder than he’d meant to, frustration pricking at his eyes.

“Can I see your folder?” Hill asked gently.

Alex rolled his eyes and he held the big red thing tucked under his arm out to him.

A crackled voice came from the console. “This is the Uranus desk, is everything okay there?”

Hill pressed the speak button. “Yup, we’re good. Sorry about that.” He hit the emergency stop button again, waving apologetically at the security camera in the corner and looked at Alex’s schedule as the elevator lurched to life.

“What do you say?” Hill asked when the elevator stopped at the Atrium level and the doors opened. “Your ID can’t get you out of the building, and someone will come get you either way when you don’t show up.”

“Fine.” Alex gritted his teeth and let the elevator doors close again without getting out. He put his hand in his pocket and touched the dollar, not Reading, but thinking of Reeve folding it.

Hill reached forward and pressed another button.

“So where am I going?” he grumbled, face hot again for the hundredth time.

“Non-Knacked Combat. And it sounds like you’ve got some aggression to get out, so good timing. And thanks for not kicking my ass back there.”

“It wasn’t a favor.”

Hill dropped Alex off at the empty locker room across the hall from the practice room where class was being held and said he’d go smooth things over with the teacher, say Alex had gotten lost, so Alex wouldn’t have to explain. Still, he took his time changing into the LAHQA-branded sweats that had been left out for him by a notecard with his full name. They were a little big, but they would do. He stalled as long as he reasonably could, his belly in knots at the thought of having to show his face again, then headed across the hall.

The room was covered in thick, red, padded mats on the floor, and all the students had padded headgear and gloves. Two sets of two were sparring and the rest were sitting with their backs to the wall. The teacher, a man in his forties, with medium brown skin, tattooed arms, and deep staggered scars from his shirt collar to his hairline, waved as he came in. Hannah had told him that Mars were typically the only agents to get tattoos, so he must be ex-military.

“Hey, Alex,” the instructor called casually with no sign of reproach. “Grab some gear and take a seat by the wall.”

Swallowing, he picked up some gloves, padding, and a bright orange mouthguard in a plastic wrapper from a colorful pile on the table by the door. Quaid scooched to make space for him, so he went to sit by them. By the time he’d gotten all his gear settled, the instructor called for Alex to take a turn at sparring. He was up against a cocky-looking student named Lee, who had a warm middle-eastern cast with thick eyebrows and a goofy grin that showed off his bright blue mouthguard.

They circled each other for a moment and he thought back to Gareth’s endless scolding for being defensive. He looked Lee up and down, reminding himself that the kid was smaller than Gareth, so why hesitate?

After Alex's first punch landed, muscle memory took over. He was blocking and dodging, and with the kid’s longer reach, he took his fair share of hits, but Alex was fast and he was small. And Hannah had been teaching him how to make that work for him. The first time he ducked, grappled, and threw Lee to the mat, Lee sprang back up for another go at him. The second time Alex locked his elbow up under Lee’s arm and curled low, propelling him over his shoulder to land flat on his back, Alex blinked and Lee was gone. He was staring at an empty mat.

“Uncle!” came Lee’s voice through the muffling of the mouthguard. He was across the room, rubbing tenderly at the back of his head. The rest of the class seemed to be looking at Alex and he stood, dumbstruck and vaguely embarrassed.

“Lee, I will tell you again,” the teacher chided, “Non-Knacked Combat means not using your damn knack.”

Lee pulled his mouthguard out, grinning and unconcerned by the reprimand. “Sorry, coach.” He jogged back toward the center of the room near Alex. “I panicked.”

The instructor shook his head. “That was good,” he said to Alex, instead. “Okay, next group.”

Alex, also out of breath and on the sore side, slid down to sit by the wall. Lee sat next to him.

“What the hell was that?” he asked.

“Dude,” Lee laughed, “what the hell was that? You’re new and like fifty pounds.”

He smiled, thinking of Hannah throwing Reeve. “My teacher’s like forty pounds.”

“Jeez.”

“I’m serious,” Alex kept on it. “I’m new, so what the fuck just happened? Are you really fast?”

He laughed again, started to answer, the laughed again. “Sorry my knack makes me a little giggly. I’m a time manip. I wasn’t really fast—I made time around you really slow. Neat, right?”

Alex raised his eyebrows. “Y-yeah. Wait, what do you mean your thing makes you giggly?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, probably because it’s fun, I guess.”

Alex did his best not to give him a you’re-crazy look. “Okay, then. I’m a psychometrist."

"Cool," Lee nodded, so casually that it took Alex by surprise. This really was just their normal, around here. Lee made a face. "You must hate toilets."

He laughed, doing his best to keep the volume down. "You have no idea."

---

After class, Alex opted to keep the sweatpants on, and if no one managed to return his uncomfortable, ugly slacks to him before he left, oh well. (He was careful to transfer over everything in his pockets before abandoning the dress pants.)

It was lunchtime. Casey met them in the hall with a look of pure relief that Alex was there and she walked with the rest of the combat class to take the elevator up to the Atrium. They assured him the cafeteria buffet-style line was free, so he loaded up a tray with pizza, fries, chicken fingers, and a brownie. She explained that only the restaurants and shops cost money, but they get an allowance (of course they did) and could get part time jobs, like working in the restaurants, for extra cash.

Casey stuck close to him, quietly, probably nervous he’d make another run for it. He was worried she’d bring it up, but as soon as they sat down with the others, it all got swept up in the rest of the group talking about music, some funny thing that had happened in Home Ec that morning, how no one had started some paper due in a few days, and that they should all hang out that night and definitely not start that paper. Quaid insisted Casey join them and she reluctantly agreed, saying she had already finished the paper, so why not—which caused a wave of groans.

The two next classes, Espionage and Tactics, were less boring and didn’t require him to take a pop-fucking-quiz. He had a physical, which was weird, and he met with Oliver, which was the same awkwardness it always was, but this time in a stuffy little office with “Think positive!” type artwork on the walls. They ended the day with Marksmanship on a lower floor than the rest of the classes, where a group of them were given real firearms and ear protection, then assigned a lane at a large gun range. It was a lot less supervision with a gun than he was used to back in Beatty, but the rest of the kids were treating it like it was no big deal, loading their ammo and playing with their yellow tinted goggles, so he kept his thoughts to himself and focused on hitting the target, which he did some of the time. Looking at the other targets, he wasn’t the worst in the room and that’s all he cared about.

After class, Alex followed the crowded current of students back to the dorms. He dropped his doodle-filled notebook on the desk and stood there wondering what to do. The day had been a whirlwind and he was tired from keeping his knack under control in such a loud place. He wished he could crawl into his own bed with its familiar Story and sleep.

Quaid came into the room and flung their notebook onto the bed. “Come on, we’re all gonna hang out in Lee’s room.”

“Okay.” Alex hadn’t had a lot of friends his age growing up, let alone a group of kids he could be out around, and it was a surprisingly good feeling to have them want him there.

“Just need to grab Casey. She’s not going to want to come.”

“Why? What’s her deal?”

“She’s the soul of the Neptune department incarnate and deeply excited about it.” Quaid had said it with a weirdly formal tone and Alex stared at them as they stood outside Casey’s door. They shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m just repeating what Anise says.”

“Who the fuck is Anise?”

“She’s Lee’s roommate. You’ll meet her in a second.” Quaid knocked. “Plus, she shouldn’t talk. She’s Saturn incarnate.”

“That’s still a helluva thing to say.”

“She’s a telepath. They’re all like that.” They knocked again.

Alex raised his eyebrows. “Jesus, if they’re all like that, you’d think they’d learn to not cook up so many.”

Quaid laughed at that and, giving up on waiting, went into Casey’s room.

Casey was sitting cross legged on her bed next to an open laptop, scribbling in her little notebook. For how much of a teacher’s pet she seemed, her room wasn’t bare like he’d expected. It was covered in band posters and comic book posters depicting bloody cowgirls and enormous horses. She took off her large headphones when she noticed them come in.

“Come on,” Quaid called. “Socialize like a normal person.”

Casey looked up. She pointed to the laptop. “They just uploaded the newest edition of the handbook, so I need to compare it to the last version and note the changes.”

Alex and Quaid exchanged a look—which was good, because if Quaid hadn’t also thought that was the most square, weird-ass thing to say (and do), Alex was going to walk out right then and never look back.

Quaid sputtered. “Really?”

Sighing, Alex put a hand on one hip. “That’ll be there tomorrow night and we won’t. Come be our student guide.”

Tightening her lips into a straight line, she did.

Lee’s room was just across the hall, and when the girl he assumed was Anise answered the door, she went back to her seat at her desk, leaving the door open for them to come in. She looked a tiny bit older than Alex, with bright blue eyes, carefully manicured eyebrows, and a wavy, layered bob of brown hair. The room was a portrait of order and chaos. One side was tidy and sleek. The other, a true mess with piles of clothes, jumbled up textbooks, and a stack of fast food drink cups half as tall as Alex. It was pretty easy to guess the messy side was Lee’s.

Quaid shook their head in wonder. “How do you not kill him living like this?”

“It would go on my permanent record,” she replied coolly, then turned her head to him. “I’m Anise.”

“Alex.”

They all took seats on the floor (Anise joining them), careful to maneuver around Lee’s clutter.

“He’s one of the twenty-five,” Casey chimed in.

“Is that really a thing you have to announce to everybody?” Alex snapped. He still hadn’t worked out whether the whole lost-and-found gen thing was good or bad for his reputation.

“No, no—Anise is too,” she added quickly.

“Oh.” Alex switched his gaze back to Anise. “Hi.” Maybe this was someone who he could finally relate to.

She shook her head at him. “No, I barely count. A Sol comet team sensed me out as a baby Jane Doe. I’ve been here my whole life.” Alex blinked and she gave him an apologetic smile, pointing to her head. “Sorry, I’m really bad at not hearing everything floating around. I’m practicing, but my telepathy is my weakest area.”

Alex did his best to look casual, but it was freaky. And then he felt a moment of panic, knowing that she probably knew that.

“Don’t worry, I’ve heard it all.” She cocked her head at him. “Did they take a scary amount of blood from you in your exam? Cheek swabs and stuff for Venus?”

Alex was becoming increasingly uncomfortable and glanced sideways at Quaid. “I figured it was normal doctor stuff.”

“They did with me too,” she told him, shrugging one shoulder casually. “Probably trying to figure us out. I heard there are three out of the 25 who have knacks that don’t match up with what we were generated to have. A telepath, a sonic screamer, and a psychometrist.”

Reeve had told him that he had been intended to be a telepath (which, thank fuck, didn’t happen), but that hadn’t ever made him feel the type of dread he felt now.

Alex shook his head and rolled his eyes, trying to play it off. “I was supposed to be a telepath, so maybe Mister Mad Scientist just mixed us up and wrote it down wrong. Were you supposed to be a psychometrist?”

“Healer.”

Alex shrugged, defeated. “Well, he fucked everything else up, why not that too?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Anise held his eyes with a strange intensity.

“Who’s the screamer? Whatever that is.”

“His name is Scott. He was in for his eval last month. He was supposed to be able to make energy force fields. He’s fostering with a Neptune team.”

Alex curled his lip. “Ew.”

He heard Casey draw a breath, but just then, Lee walked in the door holding a large pizza box. He set the box down on top of a bunch of notebooks on his desk and took his book bag off.

Instead of joining them on the floor, he held the backpack aloft above his head like it was a trophy and yelled, “Let’s get fucked up,” tipping the backpack upside down and dumping its contents onto the floor. A hoard of junk food showered down in a colorful haze, landing with a shocking mix of sounds.

“Oh my god,” Anise exclaimed into the stunned silence that followed. She reached into the pile. “There are soda cans in here.” Alex could also spot candy, chocolate bars, chip bags, and packets of cookies.

“Yeah,” Lee nodded with a huge grin, “so be real careful opening those, I guess.”

They dissolved into hooting laughter. Alex leaned forward along with the rest of them to claim a chocolate bar and bag of chips. These people were strange, but the whole thing was fucking strange.

“Is this really your equivalent to getting fucked up?” Alex laughed. “Because, no offense, I’ll eat ‘em, but they’re chips. How hard can you actually party in this place?”

“This is kinda it,” Anise pouted. “So much for the authentic teenage experience, huh?”

Authentic anything experience, as far as Alex was concerned. Alex tried to imagine what he might have been like if he had grown up here, and he couldn’t.

“Actually, it depends a lot on your advisor,” Lee said, sitting in the circle with the rest of them. He picked up a soda can, making everyone tense up, but he didn’t open it. “Like, I got transferred to LA because I partied too much at my foster teams’, so now my advisor is riding my ass constantly. But like, Casey here, is a golden child and her advisor just trusts her, so she could probably get away with anything.”

“Not anything,” Casey argued.

“Dude, didn’t your advisor sign off on your class registration picks without even reading it?” He gestured with the can and they flinched.

“Well, yeah, but—”

“So you could totally pop into the atrium store and pop back here in two seconds.”

She cocked her head as though calculating. “I could.”

“And if you grabbed some beer while you were there, no one would notice. And if you did get caught, you could tell them you were studying it for some Neptuney thing and they’d believe you.”

Her spine straightened with an outrage that didn’t fit inside her tiny frame. “I’m not going to do that. First of all, that’s stealing—”

Anise put her arm around her and patted Casey’s shoulder. “Okay, alright.”

“See?” Lee grinned at Alex. “Academy kids.” He popped the tab open and shoved his entire mouth around the top of the can as it erupted with foam. He promptly choked, coughing as soda dripped down his chin while they all cracked up again, as Anise loudly despaired over the state of their floor.

They stayed, laughing and talking and listening to music until the RA called lights out, and they reluctantly went off to their separate rooms. He and Quaid climbed into their respective beds and lay in the dark. As tired as he was, Alex couldn’t sleep. His mind was reeling at life in the Academy and thinking about a childhood where your biggest worry was a math test, and the tensest conflicts were over some silly “is Neptune more elite than Saturn?” rivalry.

Alex reached over to pick up the folded dollar bill from Reeve and wondered how he was doing wherever he was. Somewhere not in an underground bunker, the lucky asshole. He ran his fingers over the sharp corners that had bent slightly after spending a day in Alex’s pocket. Reeve was probably worried about him. It was strange to think about. He had people who cared where he was, what he was doing, and how he was doing, and not just because there was a monetary pay off for them. And there was the weird understanding that Reeve had lived here. One of these rooms had been his. He tried to imagine Reeve laughing with friends and tossing candy at each other late into the night and couldn’t. He had to have been too much of a dweeb for that.

Any moment Alex began to think he was getting tired, the undertow of the Story around him would begin to pull him under and he’d have to wake himself up to shake it off. There was so much here that it would be so easy for him to get caught inside, dragged from the present, and unable to find his way back. Reeve wasn’t here to reset him with this telepathy. Hannah and Gareth weren’t here to give him something familiar to focus on.

Alex reached for the button and carefully began to unfold the bill, hoping it wouldn’t be too hard to refold. The button dropped out into his hand and he rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger, feeling the ridges of the tiny holes. He was pretty sure Reeve had wrapped it up because he didn’t want Alex Reading it, but, realistically, he’d met Alex. He knew there was no chance Alex wouldn’t Read it—and if he didn’t, well, that was on him. Alex let his mind slip away.

Reeve is standing in his bedroom in the Beatty house holding the button between two fingers the same exact way Alex is. Even from the back, he can tell Reeve is dressed for a mission with a shoulder holster, boots, and looser pants. As Alex walks around the side to get closer to him, he’s amazed at how he still manages to look like a dweeb, somehow. His face is solemn with worry lines forming in the space between his eyebrows. He’s not quite looking at the button and it’s clear his mind is elsewhere, but Alex can’t quite tap into that.

“Yo,” Hannah yells from down the hall. “Let’s go.”

“I’m coming,” he calls and slips the button back into the drawer before walking away. Alex steps back to keep Reeve's figure from passing through him. The button sits silently in the drawer.

Alex considered staying there in that Story. Staring at a chest of drawers in a dark, empty room would be easy to fall asleep to, but he decided he could always come back to that if he wanted to. He reached back, targeting the way Reeve had taught him to.

Alex is standing in a brightly lit room beside Reeve. He’s younger than Alex, maybe thirteen, and much softer and rounder than Alex has ever been. He can tell that Reeve’s hair is redder than it is now, making him look even younger. He’s in a patterned hospital gown and his face is pink. The exam room has a long counter with a stainless steel sink and cabinets. There’s a table covered in that crinkly roll out paper Alex remembers from visits to a free clinic. Reeve is standing barefoot beside the table, looking down at a simple chair that has a little pile of clothes sitting on it in a heap.

Reeve scans the room slowly as Alex gets closer, in a way that always makes Alex think he’s about to be seen. There’s something innately sad in the way that Reeve picks up the first article from the pile of clothes and folds it, laying it neatly onto the exam table. A pair of jeans, white socks, a band t-shirt that Alex has a hard time ever imagining Reeve wearing. He picks up a blue plaid button-down, but the sleeve catches on the metal chair arm, popping off a button that bounces with a click onto the floor. Reeve picks it up just as the door opens, making him freeze.

Two women, one younger and one older, step inside, both in doctor-type scrubs. Reeve tosses the shirt onto the pile with the rest of the clothes and Alex sees him palm the button in one hand.

“Hi, Reeve,” the woman says. “I’m Doctor June.”

Reeve doesn’t look at her. He’s watching the younger woman scoop up Reeves' clothes and leave the room.

“Why are you taking my clothes?” he demands. The idea of Reeve talking like that to an authority figure is so startling that Alex nearly coughs.

The doctor looks sad for a moment. “Everything has to go to Investigation.” She pats the exam table.

After a pause, Reeve obediently climbs up to sit on the table as the doctor washes her hands in the sink.

While her back is turned, Reeve looks down at the button hidden in his hand and touches it with his thumb. In the present, Alex moves his own fingers, feeling the warmed plastic and raised lip of the edge.

“Are you taking all of Misha’s things too? Darwin’s?”

“Don’t worry about that stuff right now.” She turns the sink water off, and Reeve swiftly hides the button again.

“I understand Adam broke the rules,“ Reeve says, calmly, “but he didn’t do anything actually wrong.” He doesn’t sound like he looks. He looks small and harmless, but his tone is much more like Alex would have expected—like a forty-year-old man in a child’s body. But Alex can’t be amused by that, because his mind is racing to catch up with what he is seeing. Alex is almost breathless. He doesn’t know what it all means, but obviously none of it is good.

“You’re a smart boy. You must know that’s not true. And that you shouldn’t use his name.”

Alex sees a quivering in Reeve’s chin, though the rest of his body is deathly still. “Did they kill him?”

“Hey, can you sleep?” Quaid’s voice in the dark shocked Alex back into his body and the Story faded away.

He worked to find his voice. “Not really.”

“I can never sleep here,” they complained. “It’s just kinda weird.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. There was a quiet shaking inside his body somewhere that made him feel like he was no longer on solid ground. The button felt smaller in his hand for some reason, and he gripped it tighter. Alex wanted to go back in, understand more, but with his mind racing, he began to lose control of his knack again, and the Story all around him drifted in, all these memories compounding on each other. He couldn’t even focus in on the button.

Tomorrow, he told himself. Using a visualization, Alex turned it all down to a more manageable level. Still loud, still overwhelming, but enough that he knew where he was. It was something Reeve had taught him.

***