Chapter 4: Sunset (Sunrise) Vol 1. Issue 4.

Louis and Marek stand back to back in front of a clock while Louis exams a document. Behind them a clock reads one minute to 9:00 [https://64.media.tumblr.com/0c5aca49e2ef56b5ccebe2dcc94f5eaf/a4a71072c06cd900-94/s1280x1920/02fb54d0eb2600040283af8e7fdd4c6b773dc106.pnj]

LAHQ. Saturn Department. Present day.

Louis rubbed at his eyes, trying to stop the words on his monitor from going blurry. Closed, his eyes switched from burning to watering and burning. The sensation made him yawn out of reflex, as though he was tired. He was tired.

He checked the clock: 8:48AM. Normally, he’d still be fresh but he’d been at it since 4:30 in the morning trying to gather any semblance of hope that he could get his ducks in a row before today. Well, it was today. Where the hell were his ducks?

On the far right corner of his desk was a single sheet of paper: the document that made him acting-Saturn for the duration of Mackenzie’s recovery. She’d dropped it off to him last night, with her line already signed. She’d smiled at him. It wasn’t an amused smile but it wasn’t sad either. He knew this was part of the job of being her Second, but he was hoping he’d have a little more time to get used to the station of his own position before he borrowed hers.

Louis used his enhanced senses knack to zoom in on the document, closer and closer, at her dark blue signature. He got down to the chaotic, lumpy weave of the cellulose fibers and focused in on the gaps of white space in her signature where the ink had skipped over the uneven surface. He stared at the spaces where her signature wasn’t, as though he could erase it by enlarging those gaps.

A sound startled him out of his over-tired trance and his vision returned to normal. Marek del Sol was standing in his open doorway, rapping the back of one finger against the doorframe. Louis knew he was overtired then. His enhanced hearing should have picked him up as he approached. He didn’t enjoy being surprised.

The new Uranus Second seemed fine, he supposed. The work was getting done and well, which was an improvement from the previous Second, who should have aged out and retired years before. That said, Marek had a bit of a reputation of being inappropriate, though not in a malicious way. In Sol it was fairly unavoidable to end up sleeping with people both above and below your rank. It was a closed loop, after all. But when your stack of HR relationship declarations got tall enough, eyebrows got raised. And for someone like Marek, who was second in command of Sol’s HR department, those eyebrows got higher.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Louis replied, blinking. “Just been at it a while.”

“I hear ya,” he said grimly, though Louis doubted it.

“Can I help you with something?” Louis asked, maybe a little too pointedly.

Marek shook his head. “No, I’m here to help you. Nancy said she’d normally be here to lend support on days like this, but she can’t get away today, what with everything going on. So she told me to help out with Saturn where I can. Be her eyes and ears.”

“Telling a Saturn agent you’re here to spy on them is not generally the way to go.”

He shrugged. “Better than not telling you and doing it anyway, right?” He strolled into the office uninvited and sat in one of the chairs across from him. “Excited about the promotion?” His voice was flat and Louis was grateful the guy was at least smart enough to know the answer already.

“Not exactly.”

Marek leaned forward and picked up the paper and studied it. Also not a great thing to do in a Saturn office, but he’d lucked out that it was only the transfer of title and not something sensitive. “This is it, huh? You haven’t signed it.”

It was true. There was a line for his signature just under hers and it was blank. Louis had been putting it off. Dreading it would be more accurate. “It becomes official when I sign it.”

Marek cocked his head. “There’s an ‘effective at’ time on here of 9:00AM today.” Marek glanced at the clock on his wall: 8:55AM. “What happens if you don’t sign it by then?”

“It becomes official. There’s no real mechanism for me to decline.”

Marek chuckled softly. “So your consent is a formality?”

“Welcome to being ranked officers in LAHQ.” It wasn’t that bad, really, but the framework they all operated in could be uncompromising on the whole, and more so in LA where there was greater scrutiny.

Marek set the paper back where he’d gotten it. “So what can I do to help?”

His eyes were still burning and he’d forgotten what he was doing before Marek had interrupted him. “You can leave.”

Marek pulled his head back, clearly insulted. “Uh, okay.”

Louis dropped his head in his hands. He felt like he had said it as matter-of-fact as possible, but he could admit that his lack of sleep and current level of stress may have added a bit of unnecessary bite to it.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Nancy didn’t mean to send you here. I don’t need your support, I just need to shoulder a bunch of shit way above my paygrade and try to do it with at least half of Mackenzie’s grace. Nancy was telling you to go be there for Rafe.”

“Terre?”

He heard Marek’s heartbeat speed up, which amused him. “You’re almost offensively casual about your own department but suddenly too nervous about Rafe to use his name? The one who started out as a kindergarten teacher?”

“Cut me some slack.” Marek stood, but nothing about him seemed annoyed anymore. “So Rafe, huh? Hell of a name, right? Rafe.”

It felt a little like he was stalling for some reason, but he took the bait anyway. Louis raised his eyebrows. “Okay, Marek.”

“Listen, Louis,” Marek turned and pointed his finger at him with a grin. He’d pronounced it Lou-iss, which Louis hated. He must have heard that from someone. “Just because you had parents that didn’t have to go through a database to pick a name that no one in Sol had had going back to its founding in the nineteen-freaking-thirties.” He raised his voice with mock anger but couldn’t suppress the grin. “Because god forbid we made use of the actual ID numbers we all already had to differentiate people with the same name.”

It made Louis laugh and he hadn’t realized how much he’d needed that right now. “Yeah,” he agreed, tapping his pen on the side of his desk. “I’m glad they ended that policy. They probably ran out of even the more obscure names.”

“Ended it a few years too late if you ask Marek del Sol.”

“Do you hate it?” Louis was curious. He always felt just the slightest bit out of place not having the company’s “family name.”

“No, it’s a good name,” he replied, lighthearted but genuine. “It’s just funny because it was such a stupid protocol.” Marek squared his shoulders and faced him. “So,” he continued with a smirk, “Rafe. What was I supposed to know to do with Rafe?”

“Well, Rafe will be in Pluto with Mackenzie. I need to be here to hold down the fort, and Rafe’s Second is holding down his own fort so Rafe can be out. Nancy would normally go keep him company, except shit has really hit the fan this time. But you, it turns out, actually know how to delegate so you’re free to go provide some emotional support. Nancy is probably anxious because she won’t be there and wants someone to update her on how things are going.”

Marek nodded. “Really would have been cool if Nancy had said that outright.”

“Cut them some slack right now. You’ll get the hang of how they work.”

“Alright, I’m off then. Thanks, and sorry for bothering you.”

“No worries.”

“Hey.” He bobbed his head to the wall. “It’s 9:01.”

Louis looked at the clock. It was official. He deflated. “Yup.”

Marek wagged his eyebrows at him.

“Don’t say it.” Louis tried to put as much sharpness in it as he could, but the stress and desperation had him on the edge of laughing.

Marek smiled. “Sa—” but he broke off as he teleported away before finishing the full word, leaving only empty space and the smell of ozone. He did laugh then. Marek might be a little bit of a dick, but Louis was a little more at ease than he had been. And he’d kept Louis distracted enough that he’d avoided the anxiety of watching those last few minutes tick down. Now he was in it and there was nothing to do but not fuck it up.

---

Four months ago. Henderson, NV.

Reeve felt an uncomfortable flutter in his stomach as Gareth parked at the end of a driveway. It was a brilliant white two-story home, rare in this neighborhood of fairly cookie-cutter ranch-style houses. The yard was carefully manicured with beds of stones and canary palms. A three-car garage was featured prominently.

“You want me to come with?” Gareth asked, one eyebrow raised. “You haven’t exactly done this before.”

Reeve kept his voice mild. “And you have?” Gareth rolled his eyes at him as Reeve got out of the car. He leaned down for a final, “I’ll be fine,” then turned to face the house.

The sun beating down on the pavement made the air feel all the hotter. In the distance, he could see the mountain range clouded in a white haze on the horizon. He took a moment to feel the minds of the neighborhood and become accustomed to the chorus of voices, domestic, young, and idle. That was fine. Reeve needed a moment to himself to get his nerve up.

It started when Reeve was pumping gas a couple weeks before while Gareth ran into the gas station to get a couple of things, namely beer, and this metallic blue car pulled up to the pump next to them. It wasn’t the car that drew Reeve’s attention right away. It was the driver’s mind.

Maybe it was because he had been stuck riding with Gareth’s scrambled mess of thoughts and defenses, but this mind, so quiet and streamlined, fascinated him. Reeve looked the driver over. He was tall with thick, short, silver hair crowning a heavily tanned and lined face. There was a beautiful stillness to him. He felt content in a way that had nothing to do with being satisfied with the balance of responsibilities and pleasures of his life—all of that all fell away, leaving only his singular experience of being on the road.

Reeve knew Gareth went for long drives when his past got too loud inside his own head, but it never seemed to calm him down any. Best case, he came back too weary for his thoughts to wind him up anymore. Reeve had more experience with real cars than Academy kids were supposed to; he didn’t talk about that, though. It made his stomach knot up. He liked cars just fine, but had never quite grasped the cultural appeal they seemed to have.

Reeve had drifted into the man’s head to explore. There was a true purity of thought that chased everything else away as he drove, as well as a measure of confidence and pride that Reeve only attempted with a great deal of effort. He wanted suddenly and keenly to feel like that. Simple, focused, empty.

Plus, Hannah was always nagging him to get a hobby to occupy him in their downtime, as if he really had any. This was as good as any and they could use a second car.

He’d spent the next week looking at cars online, going strictly by looks. He knew from being in his head that the man from the gas station drove a 1970 Chevelle SS, and he liked the look of that, but it wasn’t quite right. It was a little big and Reeve wasn’t exactly a large guy, something that was accentuated by standing next to Gareth. He looked over some forums where users spoke in definitive tones with concrete answers Reeve didn’t understand. He could learn. That finally led him to Nevada car listings and the house he was standing in front of.

Feeling Gareth’s impatient gaze, Reeve went to the front door and rang the bell. The man who answered the door was in his fifties with prominent brows and a deeply cleft chin. It was immediately clear from the look up and down that he was not what this man had been expecting.

“I’m Reeve,” he said with an attempt at a casual tone. “We spoke on the phone.”

The man extended a hand, his mouth shifting into a forced smile. “Rob. It’s through here.”

Reeve followed him to the garage, past two other covered cars to the one at the end. Rob pulled back the light grey cover.

He paced around the side, resisting the urge to run his hand along the polished chrome. The two-door ‘68 Nova was a bold matador red with a rounded nose and that iconic shallow slope to its rear windshield.

“It’s like the listing said. Runs decently, nothing special yet, but plenty of potential if you’re gonna tinker.”

“Why are you selling?” he inquired. He’d read it was a good question to ask.

Rob shrugged. “I just don’t have time for another project car right now. Here.”

He popped the hood and Reeve moved to stand beside him to stare into the heart of it. Reeve’s eyes moved over the raised round disc that looked like some sort of air filter in the center, the tangle of black wires at the back, and thick hoses coming out of the front. He leaned down, taking in the deep smell, and touched one hose connection, hoping to look as though he knew what it did. As he peered at the mysterious puzzle of it, Reeve felt a whisper of that calmness. The engine didn’t have thoughts or motives or judgements. It would function in a set way or it wouldn’t. He straightened and nodded a mute approval.

“You want it?” Rob asked with a look that bordered somewhere between amused and fatherly. Still Reeve could feel the doubt pouring from Rob’s thoughts at the sight of this young, freckled kid with hands that were too clean and uncalloused.

Reeve kept his eyes on the car. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”

“You got that kind of cash on you? No offense, but I’m not about to take a personal check and I’m not the type to haggle.”

Reeve did turn then, and couldn’t keep his lips from curling to one side in a smile. “I can be surprisingly persuasive.”

---

LAHQ. Pluto Department. Present day.

Marek stepped into the main entrance to the Pluto Department, not quite sure what he was doing. He went up to the front desk where a younger man was typing at a computer, and bent to lean his elbows on the tall counter.

“Hey, I’m here to see Saturn?” It sounded as ridiculous out loud as it had in his head.

The receptionist’s head jerked to the side a fraction. “Oh. Um.”

“They may or may not be expecting me. It’s a whole thing,” he explained.

“I have to call back and get her consent, so if you’ll take a seat, sir?”

“Just Marek’s fine.”

He didn’t respond, so Marek pushed himself up and took a seat by the door. He checked his phone, expecting fifty messages but only found one. He listened to it. It was Whitney saying that they had finished their first culling and dropped the files they had ruled out in his office. After their second cull, they’d have to start making visits. That was good news, in that they were making progress and not taking their time. Bad news, in that refiling those would take him the better part of an afternoon.

“Sir?”

Marek sighed. LA was going to be hard to break in. “Yeah?”

“You can come on back. I’ll show you.”

“Thanks.”

He followed the young man through a set of double doors and walked down to an elevator. They went up to the hospital wing, then down a maze of sterile-looking white hallways until they got to a set of secure doors. The receptionist scanned his ID and opened the door for him.

“Straight ahead on your right. Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” he repeated. Marek had no idea what in the hell he was walking into that he couldn’t miss it. The doors and most of the walls down this hall were glass with a full view of the patient rooms, all of which so far were empty. Ah. Okay, that made sense now.

The first occupied room he passed was packed with medical staff. A few were hard at work, hovering around complicated machinery he’d never seen before. The rest were standing in a group listening to one woman, standing at the front with her back to Marek as she spoke to them, clipboard in hand. He was so distracted looking into the room that he nearly missed Rafe stepping out of the next room down to greet him.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

His face looked a little low on sleep, but he’d shaved and was a little more himself. Marek extended a hand and he shook it.

“It was sweet of Nancy to send you.”

“She couldn’t have you be here on your own,” he responded casually, as if he hadn’t almost completely bungled the whole damn morning.

Rafe turned back the door and Marek glanced inside, where Saturn was sitting up in a bed in a patterned hospital gown. “They’re running a little late as usual,” Rafe said as he opened the door.

Marek followed, pretending that it was completely natural for him to be in the hospital room with two of the nine most powerful people in Sol. Sure.

Mackenzie looked well and her strong presence almost made her look out of place, as though they’d accidentally stuck her in a children’s bed and clothes.

“Hi, Marek,” she said with a smile that heavily lined her face. “Tell Nan’ I’m fine.”

“I will.” He returned the smile and pointed to the door. “Do please tell me to get out if I’m imposing.”

“Stay,” she said warmly.

Her relaxed posture next to Rafe’s rigid shoulders as he sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her hand made it pretty clear who Marek was here for. He nodded and took a seat by the door. It gave the two of them enough privacy that if they spoke quietly, he wouldn’t hear.

“How is the foster team hunt going?” she asked, which took him aback.

“Mackenzie,” Rafe scolded mildly, “Now?”

She twisted her mouth to the side. “It’s not like what I’m doing isn’t on the clock, working toward the same project.”

He gave her a look but only shook his head.

Marek cleared his throat. “It’s going well so far. We’ve got a hardworking team and they’re making progress. We’ll make our deadline.”

“That’s good then. So will I. It’s a helluva first crisis to cut your teeth on,” she mused.

“Yeah I—” he trailed off as Dakota del Sol, the woman who held the title of Pluto, came into the room. She was a trans woman, tall, with wavy blonde hair and dark roots just peeking through. She had pronounced, impeccable eyebrows and wide shoulders, dressed in a floral blouse and pencil skirt underneath her doctor’s coat. She spared him half a glance, then gave Mackenzie her full attention.

“We’re about ready for you,” she said, bending over with a syringe of clear fluid. “I just need to flush your IV and we can get you set up. Are you ready for us?”

“I’m ready,” she said firmly.

Dakota finished and gave her shoulder a squeeze before heading back out. She beckoned Marek to follow as she walked by. He wasn’t about to say no, mostly because she was Pluto, but also because Dakota was even cuter than her ID photo on the employee database.

She stopped just outside and set her back to the closed door. He followed suit with one final glance into the room, where Rafe had pressed his forehead to hers as she wrapped the arm without the IV around him. What they were saying, he couldn’t hear.

“Let’s just give them a sec,” she said.

“Sure. I think I’m today’s Nancy, so is there anything I should know?”

She looked askance at him before understanding. “Well, he hates this nearly as much as she does. It’s dangerous and it’s not over once it’s done. I’ve got her. You just need to be a solid presence for him.”

“I can do that.”

She faced forward again. “You were in the field right? You’ve been in combat situations.”

Marek was beginning to feel like he’d never be able to keep his footing in these conversations today. “Yeah,” he said with a swallow. “I was team lead on a Moon for two years before I was desked.”

“That’s good,” she started, then dropped off as Simon, her Second, approached. He knew Simon from the regular Seconds’ meetings and Marek liked him. He was a handsome guy, well-made and put-together. He had a cute, slightly upturned nose and big eyes—the kind of face that made you want to take care of him. He just seemed like a sweet guy with a big heart, and he also happened to look real nice in scrubs. Pluto was doing well for itself.

“We’re set,” Simon told her. He was giving Marek a slightly strange look, which to be fair, is exactly what Marek would be doing if their roles were reversed.

“Alright, let’s do this,” she said. Simon went back into the procedure room and Dakota went back in to see Mackenzie, leaving Marek in the hallway alone. He really wanted to ask her why the hell she’d brought his field work up, but the parade of Pluto agents filing past him into the room told him he was definitely not going to get the chance to do that. He stepped away and pressed himself against the opposite wall to give them space. The team buzzed around the bed and then began to wheel it out the door.

Mackenzie was laying down now, but held her chin high. She spared him a glance on her way by and Marek understood what Louis had meant when he spoke of her grace. Rafe gave her fingertips one more kiss as they pushed the bed into the room next door and closed the door.

Rafe set his back against the wall across from the second room so he could watch them work. Marek moved to join him.

There must have been six nurses and doctors in there, in addition Pluto and her Second, all working to get Mackenzie set up.

“How often does she do this?” Marek asked quietly. It seemed like a real to-do.

“Not often. Once a year maybe? Only when it’s really, really necessary.”

Marek was slightly relieved to know that it was somewhat of a normal occurrence. Simon slid a white curtain to cover their view into the room and he figured that was that.

Rafe crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “They have to cath her so they can easily keep her hydrated.” He explained in a monotone.

Marek’s eyelids fluttered. Those were intimate details he was not prepared for, and he was having a hard time figuring out what to do with his mind besides actively not thinking about that while he stood outside that room. More than ever, he felt like an intrusion.

When they pulled the curtain back open, Dakota was pulling leads from the machine and holding them in place on Mackenzie’s scalp while Simon bent over to help. They weren’t the typical sticky- type leads you’d see in an EEG, these looked more like long, narrow strips.

“Those will allow them to monitor her brainwaves,” Rafe explained. “It was built specifically for Mackenzie so they could get as many points of contact as possible. They stitch each one on for the procedure, to ensure they don't shift out of position.”

“Ouch,” Marek replied, unsure of what else to say. “You don’t have to narrate all this. If you’d rather, I’m happy to distract you with other shit.”

He shook his head. “No, I need to be with her through this. And you should know how this works. Not many people know what she actually goes through for us, and they should.”

Once that was done, they gave her a clear hinged mouthguard to slip into her mouth and Mackenzie nodded that she was ready. Dakota nodded back and then looked up and nodded at Rafe. “Here we go,” he said through his teeth.

Half of the staff in the room set their backs to the wall, on standby, to give the others room to work while they pulled in trays of instruments and monitored the output of the machine. Dakota injected something into her IV and Mackenzie started taking deep, nearly hyperventilating breaths.

It hit her like a lightning strike and her body contracted and shook as though in a seizure. Beside him, Rafe let out a small sound before putting a hand over his mouth and going quiet again. Beyond Dakota holding her on her side, no one in the room was moving which seemed wrong.

Rafe cleared his throat. “She’s in it now. She’s Knowing.”

Marek nodded. “What did they give her?” It didn’t look properly medical to administer something that would do this to a person.

“It hasn’t taken effect yet, that will be in a minute or two. This is just her triggering her knack.”

“Oh.”

“The puzzle is that right now—” He heard Rafe swallow. “Right now, she’s not breathing. So that’s a pretty important time limit on how long she can use her knack. But the longer she’s under, the more clear her memory of what she learned will be, and if she’s going to do this, she figures it might as well deliver something useful.”

Marek raised his eyebrows. A knack that made it so you can’t breathe was a damn nightmare. He knew Mackenzie was natural born and he felt a small amount of relief knowing that Sol wasn’t generating people with this knack. No one should be forced to live through this.

“So, to give her more time and prevent neurological damage from her brain firing at this capacity for a prolonged period,” Rafe continued, as Mackenzie shook and no one in the room was doing anything, “they administer the antiepileptic. It will bring down the intensity so she can stay under longer and allow them to get some oxygen into her. But she needs to be clear-headed to trigger her knack first, so the drug has to be given at the right time so that she can start off the trance, but have it kick in before she’s gone too long without...”

Rafe trailed off. Mackenzie’s face was going a little blue and Marek worked hard to keep his expression schooled so he didn’t seem more panicked than Rafe.

Finally, the convulsions seemed to lighten up slightly and the tech at the monitor signaled with his hand. The team around the bed lept into action.

Rafe let out a long breath. “The medication has kicked in so now they can intubate.”

“Intubate?” Marek repeated. He didn’t let it come out as a squeak, though it very well could have.

“It’s dangerous to do it while she’s shaking that much, so they have to wait for the meds to take the edge off.” The folks from Pluto were placing their whole body weight on her while Dakota fought to fit a scope between the mouth guard to slip the tube down her throat. Mackenzie appeared to be fighting them, but it was only the blind seizure. It was hard to watch and Marek understood why Dakota had asked him if he’d done work in the field. He had; Nancy had. Mackenzie had. Rafe hadn’t. He was a Terre lifer. A teacher.

They got the tube set and it wasn’t too long before Mackenzie’s normal color returned. A set of them were still bracing her and Dakota and Simon went back to studying the monitors.

Rafe blew out a long breath. “Okay,” he said, a little limp. “Now, they just need to keep her stable until they bring her up. Too much of the medication will knock her out, and not enough—well, it’ll go back to what you just saw and her body could reject the intubation, or worse. That monitor is highly sensitive and calibrated to her mind so they can ensure she has the right dose at all times.”

“How long will she stay like this?” Marek leaned and crossed one ankle over the other.

“She won’t tell me,” he said with a hint of amusement. “She knows I’ll try to talk her down because, somehow, I haven’t learned who I’m married to yet. She’ll have told Dakota how long she feels like she needs and once they hit that time, they’ll pull her out. If they can’t keep her stable below the threshold for safety, I know Dakota will end it sooner.”

“Ballpark?”

“Could be minutes, could be hours. Finding twenty-one children, we’re probably looking at at least three hours.”

“Not to be rude,” Marek hazarded, “but, Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So what do we do for now?”

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I’ll just be here. She’ll stay over in Pluto for a few nights afterward, but I like to be there when she wakes up to help ground her.”

“I’ll stay,” he said quickly. There wasn’t a question. This was a damn hard thing to watch any human do. Someone you were partnered to? Hell no. “Just let me call Nancy and let her know Mackenzie’s over the initial hump and holding steady.” That would give him a two minute break to fortify.

---

4 Years Ago. Reno, NV.

Joey had always been strange. For one thing, he didn’t really have a last name, and he didn’t go to school. Back when Nicolette was alive (she liked it when he called her “Mom,” but he knew she wasn’t, not really—for one thing, she wasn’t Asian like him), she and Rick would sometimes try and teach him things, but mostly, they spent their time arguing or partying. Joey didn’t doubt that Nicolette had loved him, but neither she nor Rick were particularly good at parenting. When people asked him his last name, he gave them Nicolette’s. Joey Grace. He liked the sound of it, but since the overdose, it made him sad to say it. He was there when it happened, but Rick had been passed out and Joey was only seven years old. He hadn’t known what to do.

Since then, Joey had learned to live with the ghost-images of that day rising around him when he wasn’t paying attention to something else. Sure they kept him up at night, but he was ten now, going on eleven, which was almost twelve. He had to be brave.

Before the overdose, the Stories would come and go without any real pattern. They’d always been a part of his life, ever since he could remember. He could see and hear History, like reaching through time, wherever he was. It happened when he touched things—the floor of a room, a shirt at the store, even his own skin. Suddenly there he would be, standing in the middle of it, the Story sprawling out around him—buildings, cars, and people all in translucent hues of blue. The ghost-images. Those were the real reason Joey was strange.

It took him a long time to figure out that the Stories were real history and not just his imagination, but he still sometimes got confused which was which. Rick said it didn’t really matter as long as it kept making them money.

On this particular afternoon, the Story playing out around him was coming from the jacket Rick’s client had so casually thrown on the couch. It wasn’t their apartment—they didn’t have one—but Rick had convinced a friend to let them crash a few nights while he rustled up enough cash to put together a deposit on a place. Joey knew that wasn’t going to happen—Rick went through this every few months and it never panned out. After a few days, Rick would give in and spend the money on booze and pills or heroin and maybe meth. At least for now they had a couch.

Joey fiddled with the jacket sleeve, small fingers teasing at a loose thread and listening to Rick and his client talking in the other room. Rick was stalling while Joey waded through the Story. It was hard today, though. He kept thinking about Nicolette, which muddied things up.

Rick’s voice fades as Joey watches people filter in and out of the living room at high speed, like watching a movie quickly rewind. He is careful not to let his hands rest anywhere on himself because when they do, he sees Nicolette laying in front of him and he doesn’t want to see the foam at her lips again. He grinds his fingers into the weave of the jacket’s fabric and the Story shifts like mist. The man who owns the jacket—Ron—is walking through the door to this apartment, then he is in a grocery store aisle looking at health food, then the jacket is on a store rack being tried on by someone else, and then Joey finally pinpoints the funeral. Ron is crying and saying goodbye to his uncle Nathan. This is what Joey focuses on.

After a few minutes, Joey pulled himself out of the Story and shook his head like he was clearing a fog. He knew he had to be quick, and it had taken him a little longer than normal today. Rick would be pissed. He cleared his throat and picked up the small microphone he kept in his pocket. It was connected to Rick’s ear piece. They’d invested in it a few months ago, when Rick had his ah-ha moment and decided to use Joey’s strangeness to become a psychic. He’d said, at the time, that the investment would pay for itself. Joey thought it was dumb, since he could just be the psychic himself and save them the money on the mic, but Rick said no one would listen to a kid. He had to reluctantly admit, Rick was right on both counts.

Joey whispered into the mic, “His uncle just died—his name was Nathan. He was an accountant.” Joey paused and thought back to the Story he’d read, thinking hard. There was no way that would be enough for Rick to really sell the seance. He added, “Ron was worried about cholesterol at the grocery store once. Maybe something about his health?” He didn’t think Rick would like that—it wasn’t too dramatic.

Joey took a deep breath and heaved a sigh. He was pretty sure today was his birthday, but then again, he was also pretty sure he came out of a weird plastic bag and not a person. That was one Story he didn’t really talk about, because when he brought it up to Nicolette one time, she told him he was crazy and Rick had hit him pretty hard across the cheek. So he told himself that part might have been his imagination, which almost worked, except that it frustrated him not to know who his real parents were or even which of the racial slurs that Rick occasionally used actually applied to him. He could find out the origin of most things, but he couldn’t find out the origin of himself, other than that dumb plastic bag. And anyway, Rick didn’t give a fuck about his birthday.

Nicolette’s eyes are staring blankly ahead and Joey watches himself shake her shoulders. He grinds his fingers deeper into the jacket, feeling the zipper bite into his skin. It doesn’t quite work and Joey’s hands bump against each other, and then he is watching himself as a baby. Nicolette carries his swaddled form into the warehouse where she and Rick are squatting. She says, “Someone left him in a dumpster, can you believe it?” Rick isn’t paying attention. Nicolette says, “Can we keep him?” She has been trying to have a baby for so long but she can’t. They can’t afford to adopt. Joey knows this Story well. He runs his thumbnail up the zipper, feeling the texture and hoping the jacket will take over.

There. Finally. Ron is wearing the jacket as he proposes to a woman, who turns him down. Joey perks up at this, and jolts out of the Story.

Into the mic, Joey said, “She said no!” It was almost too loud and he cringed, hoping they couldn’t hear him in the other room. But no one came barging out so it was probably okay. “He proposed to a girl and she said no. That’s some shit you can work with, right?” There weren’t a lot of benefits to being Rick’s kid, but swearing was one that Joey appreciated. Rick might have been a piece of shit, but he did know how to have fun.

After a few minutes, Joey gave up on finding anything else interesting in the Story, and figured romance was enough to give the seance some oomf. Rick always said, “Sex sells, so look for the sexy stuff.” He shrugged and got up off the couch to root through the kitchen. He wouldn’t know if it was enough until afterwards. Rick would either be in a good mood or he wouldn’t. He dug out a box of cookies and tried to ignore the Story of the factory where they were made.

He figured he had a few more days’ worth of time in this apartment before they got themselves kicked out again. Then they’d be back to doing cold-reads on the street corner, Joey reaching for interesting factoids about passers by so Rick could pull the con. It’s why Rick kept him around even after Nicolette was gone. He was strange but, as Rick liked to say, strange was useful.

---

One month ago. Beatty, NV.

Reeve was lousy at being sick. Gareth thought it might have been because he hadn’t had a cold, himself, since before his knack had appeared and found it hard to empathize—but Hannah had confirmed that no, it’s just that he sucked at being sick. Reeve didn’t catch colds often but when he did, they hit him hard. He tried to be stoic about it but was wracked with shivering fevers. Hannah had gotten over the virus already and was walking back and forth between the living room and kitchen arguing with Reeve, while Gareth did dishes.

“Hannah, I don’t want tea,” Reeve called hoarsely from his place on the couch under two or three blankets. Who could keep count.

“Okay,” she called back, turning the burner on under the kettle. Gareth smiled without looking up. “But you’re staying home. Gareth and I can handle the mission ourselves.”

Gareth heard her rummaging in a cupboard behind him, small sounds of things being knocked over. He turned around to see her bent in half, deep inside their pantry. He blinked, eyebrows raised in a moment of shock. The nudist thing still caught him off guard from time to time, depending on what she was doing. He cleared his throat then hissed, “What the hell do you need?”

She craned her head around, hair in her face. “Tissues.”

“It’s not,” Reeve yelled to them between coughs, “that I think you can’t do it. I just want to handle this one.”

Gareth gave his head a small shake and she stretched her eyes wide in agreement. “Under the sink,” he told her, moving aside so she could squeeze into the cabinet while he kept his wet, soapy hands over the basin.

He heard her march back in the living room. “Why are you—” she started, pausing to not talk over his coughing fit, “Why are you so set on this guy? You got a grudge or something?”

“Of course not. You’re being an ass.”

“I’m being an ass,” she repeated blandly in disbelief.

“I’m fine.” He sniffed. “I’ll be fine. I’ll rest a bit but I’m good to go. He’s most accessible in public and I can do this discreetly.”

The kettle started to go off with a high-pitched scream that grated on Gareth’s nerves. He shut off the tap and gave his hands one swift shake to get most of the water off.

“Hannah,” Reeve moaned, “I really don’t want tea.”

She came into the kitchen, the swapped out empty tissue box in hand, just as he’d turned the burner off. Hannah tossed the box, grabbed a fresh dish towel from the drawer, and a large bowl before coming to get the water. He stayed standing in front of the stove, waiting for her. She mouthed, “I got it,” and he went back to the sink with a sigh. Gareth stretched his wrinkled hands before turning the water back on.

“Reeve,” Hannah lectured loudly on her way back into the living room, “you’re so out of it you can’t even read my mind enough to know I’m not making you fucking tea.”

Gareth heard her set the bowl down a little harder than necessary on the coffee table. “Stick your head over this, towel over your head, and just breathe the steam and shut up.”

“I just,” he mumbled, “I just don’t have the information I need.”

“We’ve read the file. It’ll be fine.”

Reeve’s voice got all muffled as though he had planted his face into the couch. “Not the stuff in the file. I’m just not sure about him, so I want it to be me that does it.”

She raised her voice. “What other info besides the file are you talking about?” There was a tense silence. “Reeve,” she demanded.

“It’s fine,” Reeve said, voice clear again and resigned. “Forget it.”

Hannah let out a sigh. “Breathe the steam, sickie. Or I will make you tea.” She could turn anything into a threat.

They left Reeve at home that night. He’d been unhappy, but in the end, he was too tired to fight them. The target was easy enough. He went to the same restaurant every Thursday night. Gareth dropped off Hannah at her vantage point and then parked on the street to loiter near the door in case something went wrong. It wasn’t a stretch for him to blend in with the crowd that ducked for cover and scattered when her sniper rifle fired off at the target leaving the restaurant. She fired off a half a dozen shots, but made sure only one landed.

“You okay?” he asked her after he’d driven back to pick her up.

“Sure, why?” she asked, sounding honestly bewildered, as she rummaged around on the floor for her clothes.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He really didn’t know why he’d asked. “So, what do you think Reeve meant when he said he wanted to be the one to do it tonight?”

“Huh?” She pulled her tee-shirt over her head, lifting her hips to settle it down.

“On the couch this morning. When he was talking about not having the information or something.”

She was silent for a beat. “I don’t remember that.”

“You don’t?”

Hannah tightened her lips, thinking, then shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve been sleeping badly.”

“Okay.”

She cocked her head at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He squinted, feeling uneasy. “I’m not sleeping that well either. Don’t worry about it.”

***