Sunset (Sunrise) Vol 1. Issue 7.

Alex/Joey and Reeve sitting on a stoop together while Reeve ties his shoelaces. [https://64.media.tumblr.com/09de76d0919a0972448c228db1760bb6/79d74e5f834ecc3b-d8/s1280x1920/d578f6b224bf1cf202d0da2aefc246d97acf557e.pnj]

Present Day. Reno, NV.

By lunchtime, Rick still hadn’t returned to the abandoned storefront where they had been squatting. He was supposed to come back with breakfast and Joey was hungry. He and Rick had taken up residence in the empty shop because it was in such rough shape that no one would likely be renting it any time soon, but Joey was getting pretty fed up with looking at it. It had been months since they’d had a proper bed to sleep in, and Rick couldn’t (or wouldn’t) stay sober long enough to not get them kicked out of the shelter. As his stomach growled, Joey wondered for the hundredth time why he hadn’t just stayed in the last shelter and let Rick fend for himself. He sighed. Seemed like he always felt responsible for him these days. At fourteen years old, Joey had become the parent.

The sleeping bag Joey had flopped down on in his frustration was hard and it smelled bad—but then, so did this whole fucking place. His stomach growled for the third time in fifteen minutes. Fuck it, he thought, and got up, stretching his aching neck and popping his fingers and elbow joints. He grabbed his backpack, which held most of his possessions—which weren’t much, truth be told—a journal, the mic he and Rick had invested in all those years ago, a couple of comic books, a few changes of clothes, and an old phone he had picked out of someone’s pocket last year. It didn’t have cell service, but fast food places had cheap food and free wi-fi, so he’d been able to load it with music whenever he had the good luck to use a stolen credit card before Rick maxed it out.

Backpack in tow, he took himself and his aching belly for a walk through Midtown. Sidewalk café tables were typically a decent spot to grab some abandoned food if you were quick enough. He sat on the curb in front of Shea’s, listening to the babble of people eating on their patio and bided his time. Joey was starting to grow into himself; his cheekbones were starting to show through the baby fat, which he liked, but it didn’t really make up for the gnarly burn scar that twisted around his chin and left cheek, and he still occupied that awkward time in adolescence when your limbs don’t quite seem to be exactly the right proportions. His black hair had grown long enough to pull back into a (very small) ponytail, and he was starting to find a good middle-ground in his clothing choices to satisfy his desire for bright colors and cute outfits without giving himself away to Rick. That was not a conversation he was interested in having, and besides, he couldn’t afford anything real nice anyway. There was only so much to work with at Goodwill, and after the ass-whopping he’d gotten after getting caught the last time he’d tried to shoplift a hoodie from a department store, he decided it wasn’t worth it.

There were a few people milling around who looked like easy marks, not paying attention to their jacket pockets or leaving their purses loosely hanging from their chairs as they ate. But for now, his stomach was the bigger problem and the risk-reward of getting caught versus having a sure meal once someone left wasn’t worth it today. He pulled out the phone and scrolled through his music, trying to look like he was waiting for someone and not loitering. People were taking their fucking time eating today.

The song flooding Joey’s ears was almost enough to distract him from his hunger, and he was concentrating on following the rhythm with his tapping foot when he felt a gentle nudge on his shoulder. He jumped, startled, and quickly pulled his earbuds out, turning to look. A young woman was leaning down, a twenty-dollar bill in her outstretched hand.

“Sorry, I tried a warning, but you didn’t hear me.” She gestured to her ears. “You need to get something to eat?” she asked. Behind her, her boyfriend looked harried and annoyed.

Joey couldn’t help but wonder if there were expectations attached to that kind of money, but he wasn’t about to pass it up. He put on the most charming smile he could, feeling the pull of his burn scar against his lip, hoping it wouldn’t put her off. He cautiously took the bill. “Thank you,” he said, meaning it. The woman nodded and headed back to her boyfriend. He watched them go, wary, but all he could hear was the boyfriend scolding her in a hushed tone and her firing back loudly, “I don’t care.”

It didn’t hurt to be too careful, so Joey reached into the Story of the money in his hand but found the woman had gotten it out of the ATM just a block down, so there wasn’t any useful information there. He tried to take some comfort in the fact that his luck for the day had turned, so he hauled himself up off the curb and headed to the burger joint across the street. He got himself a combo meal and resolved to hide what was left over from Rick so the next time this happened, and it would, he wouldn't go hungry. He used to daydream about saving up enough money panhandling to get his own place, but the beating he’d taken when Rick discovered he’d been holding back that much cash was an effective deterrent. For now.

When Joey got back to their storefront, he found Rick unconscious and sprawled out across both their sleeping bags. There was a mess around him—including empty food containers, which made Joey feel like screaming and throwing them at him. But he knew better, so instead he did what he could to tidy up the mess. He nudged an empty pill bottle with the toe of his shoe and rolled his eyes, bending to pick it up and toss it in the trash pile. He could feel himself getting more and more frustrated, and the longer that built, the more he felt the Story creeping in around the edges. He saw Rick walk in and eat their whole breakfast himself, barely bothering to look for Joey. He watched as he crushed and snorted whatever pills were left in that bottle.

Joey shook his head and pinched the inside of his elbows, willing the Story to shut up, but he was just getting more pissed off, which gave it more of a foothold to persist. He imagined himself shutting a book, which gave him just enough peace of mind to get himself outside into the fresh air. Once he found a stretch of sidewalk where Rick hadn’t walked, he sat down on the curb and put his head in his hands. But even then, his fingers brushed the burn scar that spread up around the lower left side of his face, and then there was the Story again, surging into his consciousness.

Joey watches events play out from two years ago, watches as he tries to talk Rick out of making dinner while he is that fucked up. They are crashing in a friend’s apartment and Joey has been managing Rick’s behavior for a week in an effort not to get them kicked out. Joey tries to take over in the kitchen, but Rick is insistent and he can only manage him so much before Rick gets angry. He watches as Rick drunkenly starts frying some chicken in a heavy pan, and sees himself rush to dodge the hot oil when Rick stumbles and knocks it from the stovetop. Joey shudders as he remembers the feral terror he’d felt and simultaneously watches that terror play out on the ghost-image of his own face, two years younger, as it burns and pops. He watches Rick try to help, and here-and-now, Joey feels angry at that show of genuine care and concern. It is an accident, and even though Rick’s first instinct is to yell at him to stop screaming, stop being in the way, he is scared for Joey and gets an ice pack, gingerly pressing it to his face. Joey pulled his hands from his face and balled his fists up. He concentrated on the feeling of his nails digging into skin here-and-now, pulling himself up from the Story.

He was so tired of having to be the fucking parent.

He patted his pockets, looking for his phone and earbuds, but they were still in the backpack, which was sitting by his sleeping bag back with Rick. As he was swearing under his breath and debating whether or not to get up and venture back inside, a car slowed and pulled over to park near him. It was a vintage classic car, bright red, and had one of those weird looking sloped back windows that shouldn’t look cool but did. Joey shifted his feet, readying to stand.

The guy who got out of the car was young and dressed in dark jeans and a tucked-in, light blue, button down shirt. He had short, wispy, blonde hair that bordered on ginger and had more freckles than Joey had ever seen on one person. He looked like he was probably just out of high school so, with a car like that, he was probably some spoiled rich kid down from the northwestern part of the city. He wondered what a kid like that was doing in a neighborhood like this, and started weighing whether he could get hold of his wallet, or if it would be better to try panhandling. Rich kids weren’t usually very generous, but his pants weren’t too loose, so he was pretty sure it was a wash either way.

Joey watched him as he rounded the front of the car and came to a stop not far from him.

“Hey,” the guy said, looking down at him.

Joey was surprised that he even appeared on this guy’s radar. Usually rich bitches had a blind spot for street kids like him. “Yeah?” Joey said, curling his lip. He immediately regretted his tone—so much for panhandling—but he really didn’t feel like dealing with any more bullshit today.

“Can I talk to you?” the guy asked.

Joey raised his eyebrows. “You already are, Einstein. But I’m not interested in Jesus, and I don’t have anything to sell, so if that’s what you’re after just get back in and keep driving.”

“What? No, I’m here because—” He huffed, running his hand through his hair. “You know you’re different from other people.”

It wasn’t a question. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean you know things you shouldn’t be able to know, right? Things about the past.”

Joey’s heart raced. He always knew Rick’s little con was going to get their asses kicked one day. All it would take was reading the wrong person. Panicked, he tried to reach for this guy’s Story, but of fucking course, now that he wanted to, it wasn’t working. The kid was standing a little too far away.

Joey lifted his chin. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He was sweating.

The guy’s shoulders rose and fell with a breath. “Okay, pick a number.”

That made Joey pause. “What?”

“Any number.” His face was serious.

“This is a weird fucking way to shop around for a partner for your two-bit Vegas show,” Joey said. The guy didn’t react. Joey didn’t know whether that meant he was a psychopath or if maybe he just didn’t realize how much of a joke he seemed. Joey rolled his eyes. “Alright, oh mighty magician.”

“Very funny,” the guy said. He bent to sit on the curb next to him without coming closer, about ten feet away. “One. Try again. Any number.”

Joey blinked. He had picked one as his number, figuring to throw the guy off. But maybe that was a reverse-reverse psychology thing. He glared at him and considered his options.

“That’s better,” the guy said with a smile that made Joey nervous. “Six-thousand four-hundred and twenty-two point five, four, seven, seven, one. Pretty clever to break out the decimals.”

Joey’s mouth went dry.

“Don’t freak out. I’m like you. I know you can perceive residual historical information and memories—”

Joey cut him off. “English please.”

“Sorry. You call it Reading the Story? I like that.” He paused, watching as Joey heard his own words come out of this guy’s mouth. “I can read minds,” he said, by way of explanation.

Joey didn’t know what to say to that, so he defaulted to, “Fuck off.”

“It’s called a ‘knack,’ and there are a lot of people like us,” the guy continued, ignoring him. “I know it can feel like a curse sometimes, but with proper training you can control it.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Joey asked, scrunching up his nose.

“My name is Reeve. I’m from the same place you are. You’re not supposed to be out here with norms like this.”

“Oh yeah? Where am I supposed to be, then?”

“With us. You should have been raised in the facility you were, well, born in.” Reeve stumbled over the word born. “You must have Read into your own history to try to find out where you came from, right?”

Joey bit his lip and nodded once. Nothing good ever came from talking about it.

“And you saw some stuff that doesn’t make any sense, right? What did you see?”

Joey looked away, stalling. “You can read my mind, can’t you?” He made his voice harsh, but the guy just sat there in silence, waiting. He sighed. “Plastic bags,” Joey said quietly, looking down at his shoes.

“I was born out of one of those plastic sacs too. You and I, people like us, didn't have normal parents. We were… specially engineered.”

“Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to throw me in a fucking dumpster. How do you explain that?”

Reeve winced. “Well, one person did something bad—”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a little kid.” he spat, interrupting and bracing for a fight.

Reeve nodded. “I’m sorry. I won’t. One of the scientists decided to stick knacked babies out in the world to see if you could survive. That isn’t what we’re about and he doesn’t work there anymore.”

“Oh, okay. Cool, cool, so he got fired and it’s all okay now.”

Reeve said, “The company was founded to protect knacked people from the rest of the world, and the rest of the world from us before we’re trained. What he did was inexcusable and he doesn’t work anywhere anymore.”

Joey felt himself start sweating again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Reeve just shook his head.

Joey swallowed. He wasn’t sure if this was something he wanted to know more about, but something pulled at him, and before he could make the safer decision not to, he asked, “What took you so long?”

“It was just uncovered this year,” Reeve said.

Joey could feel himself shaking on the inside, and he hoped it wasn’t visible. “So let’s pretend I believe you,” (and as improbable as it was, he kind of did), “Now what?”

“Now, they’d like you to come back where you belong so we can train you to control your psychometry.”

“My what?” He was starting to feel like he was drowning.

Reeve raised his eyebrows. “Psychometry? It’s what your knack is called.”

“Oh.” He felt a pang of shame seep into his bones for not knowing that. Then he felt angry that he’d been expected to.

“Listen, it’s okay,” Reeve started, but Joey wasn’t having it.

“You know how fucking insane you sound, right?”

“So Read it.” Reeve leaned and reached out one hand. Joey looked at it. It was heavily freckled, like his face. If he touched his hand, with one twist of the wrist this guy could grab him. He wasn’t big, though, so Joey was pretty sure he could take him (he didn’t look like the type who would fight dirty, and Joey wasn’t afraid to kick a guy in the nuts if it came to it). But he kept thinking back to what happened to that scientist, if this guy was telling the truth. And as much as he’d wished this whole time for some explanation to the things he’d Read about his past, this wasn’t what he’d wanted. It wasn’t worth the risk. He scooted back and away a few inches on the curb.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Reeve pulled his hand back. “It’s okay. Here.” Leaning down, he untied one shoe and pushed it into the space between them. Which was weird, but safer, he had to admit.

Joey shifted to reach out and grab the shoe by the laces and set it next to him. He was going to have to close his eyes, which put him on edge, so he glared at Reeve as some kind of warning, even though it was hard to be intimidated by a guy with freckles and only one shoe.

Joey felt into the Story of the shoe. It wasn’t cooperative at first, because of course it wasn’t, but he imagined prying open the cover of a book over and over again until it worked.

Joey is standing next to Reeve as he steps out of his car and looks around the parking lot of the motel. Joey knows the place, it's just south of Midtown. Reeve is nervous, his face pinched. Joey follows him to a motel room at the end of the corridor. He goes to knock, but the door opens before his knuckles can hit the wood.

The man on the other side gives an apologetic smile. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I felt you coming.” He opens the door wider, inviting Reeve to go in.

“That’ll make you the knack sensor, then?” Reeve says.

The man, who looks strangely familiar, nods. “I sense. She tracks.” He is pointing behind him to a woman sitting on the bed. Joey recognizes her, with a shock, as the young woman who gave him the twenty this morning.

“Just you?” she asks.

“Yeah, my team’s at home getting his room ready. I’m Reeve. We thought it might be less intimidating if just one of us came to pick him up.”

“Makes sense.”

Joey moves farther into the room so he can see all of them at once. There’s not much in the hotel room besides some takeout containers and a couple of overnight bags.

“How does he seem?” Reeve asks.

The man shrugs. “Like a strong kid in a bad situation. Homeless. The guy looking after him is an addict. He’s got one helluva scar so we have to assume there’s been abuse. It’s been driving us crazy to leave him out there last night until you could get here.”

“I know we’re just supposed to find them and wait, but I had to slip Alex some money so he could at least eat today. I’ll sleep better knowing he’s safely with your team tonight.”

Reeve rubs at his face. “I didn’t realize it was that bad. I would have come last night.”

Joey forced himself to open his eyes.

“Who the hell is Alex?” he asked, pushing the shoe away from him and feeling a little sick.

“You are.” Reeve grabbed the shoe and put it back on. “That’s the name the company gave you.”

“My name’s Joey,” he said. It sounded dumb in his own ears.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Reeve said, voice softening. “You know what Joey’s life is like. You know what his day looks like. What tomorrow looks like. Alex has a different life where there’s no worry about where your meals are coming from, there’s a permanent roof over your head, there’s training with people who understand your knack, and a guaranteed career.” The word career had never even entered Joey’s vocabulary before. He didn’t know what to do with that. Reeve continued, “We don't have normal parents, so the company is like one huge family. We take care of each other. You’d have a family.”

Joey knew there was always a catch, but he thought about Rick, how downhill he’d been going, the empty pill bottles, the money he had to keep hidden. He thought of Nicolette’s overdose and wondered if he was going to find Rick like that one day soon. If he was old enough now to help him. And if he did, would he just have to do it again later?

Joey swallowed. A way out was everything he’d been dreaming of. A different life. To be someone else.

“It’s a company?” He asked, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the hope that was blossoming inside him.

“Sort of. Not a normal one. It’s a long story.”

“You think I don’t have time? Look the fuck around. Where have I got to be?”

Reeve shook his head. “It’s a really long story and I’m happy to tell it to you on the road.”

“So you want to take me back to that huge building?” Joey thought of the Story he’d read about himself so many times, trying to piece it all together. He’d seen an enormous office building, but never a home.

“No, you’ll come back to our house, here in Nevada,” Reeve said.

“Who else do you live with? You’re just gonna bring some kid home to meet the wife?”

Reeve shook his head. “It’s just me and my team.”

Joey frowned. “Your team? You gotta give me more than that, dude. Pretend I’m new to all of this, since, you know, I fucking am.”

“Sorry,” Reeve said. “I’m new to this part, too. I forget what isn’t normal sometimes, you know?”

Joey moved his hand in a circle in the air, impatiently gesturing for him to continue.

Reeve huffed a sigh. “It’s a small team, just three of us. The company has divisions that involve teams of people. Like I said, it’s a long story and I’d love to fill you in when we get home.” He paused to let the word "home" sink in before continuing. “My team and I are going to foster you. Teach you, get you oriented.”

Joey laughed despite himself at the idea of this soft looking guy, not that much older than him, being a foster parent. “Dude, how old are you, even?”

“Seventeen.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Seventeen. And you’re supposed to raise me?”

Reeve didn’t laugh. “You’ve survived this long basically on your own. I don’t think you need to be raised at all. We’re just here to train you and give you a safe place to live.”

His mind raced. He was Rick’s main source of income. The rotating roster of friends they crashed with only let them because they felt bad there was a kid involved. “Rick’s not going to let me go.”

“Rick doesn’t get a say in this.”

“I can’t just leave him,” Joey said. He thought of the worried look on Rick’s face as he pressed the ice pack to Joey’s cheek.

“Are you saying he wouldn’t leave you if you weren’t useful?” Reeve said, softly.

Joey picked at a loose thread in his jeans. Even though that moment of tenderness in his memory still stuck in his throat, he knew it was true. He’d seen Rick in the Story argue about keeping him as a baby. Rick didn’t want him. If his weirdness wasn't profitable, he probably would have dumped him somewhere after Nicolette was gone. She’d been the reason they’d kept him at all.

He looked Reeve up and down, and then looked back at the warehouse, thinking.

“That’s a rough looking scar,” Reeve said.

Joey nodded, eyes scanning the horizon. “I have to get my stuff,” he said.

“We’ll give you everything you… Sure, sorry,” Reeve said, standing up. “Let’s get your stuff.” He held out a hand to help Joey up, but Joey saw him hesitate for a split second. Even though Reeve pushed through his hesitation, Joey figured he probably wouldn’t want to risk some random kid Reading all his shit right away either. He stood up without taking his hand.

Joey went around to the backdoor of the shop and Reeve followed him inside. Rick was awake, eating something that he hadn’t shared with him. Joey wondered where it had been hidden. He braced himself for Rick’s reaction to this preppy-looking rich kid just walking in, but nothing happened.

“He can’t see us or hear us,” Reeve said from the doorway.

“You’re doing that?”

“Yeah.”

“So you could have just made me get in the car with you?”

“Yeah, but that’s not how I operate. I want to help you, not force you.”

Joey nodded, steeling himself. He wondered if Reeve knew everything he was thinking, so he tried to stop thinking at all. When that didn’t work, he just listed all the things he was checking his backpack for. He packed in a few extra things that had been tucked inside his sleeping bag, and then rolled it up too. He could tell Reeve was uncomfortable with that, but he didn’t want to lose his bed if shit went south. He looked at Rick one last time. At his stringy hair and secret stash of granola bars. He felt guilty, responsible, but more than anything, he felt tired.

Squeezing his sleeping bag tight, he followed Reeve to his car. Reeve popped the trunk and Joey hesitated before tossing his backpack and sleeping bag in. “If you’re fucking with me, you’re not going to like what happens,” he said, making his voice hard.

Reeve opened the car door for him. “Understood.”

Joey didn’t like the patronizing tone to his voice, but he got into the passenger seat anyway. He felt the long Story of the old car pull at him. He held his hands tight to himself, trying to stay in the here-and-now as they drove.

“What helps?” Reeve asked. It was freaky that this guy just knew what was going on with him. And it was freaky that he knew that he thought it was freaky. This was going to take some getting used to.

“Music,” Joey said quietly. Music didn’t have a Story. It was just itself, present and now, happening in the air, intangible, and then it was gone.

Reeve gestured to the dash. “Do whatever you want with the radio.”

He leaned forward and switched it on, moving the dial until he found something with a beat he could focus on. He studied Reeve’s expression, suddenly worried that if he picked the wrong thing, he’d turn around and the whole thing would be over. But nothing happened. He settled back in his seat.

Without asking, Reeve pulled into a drive-thru and bought them some food to eat while they drove.

“So where are we going?” Joey finally broke down and asked in between bites of chicken nuggets.

“Beatty. It’s no Reno, I’ll say that. But we’ve got about five hours on 95, so ask me what you want to ask me.”

“Okay then.” Joey wiped his mouth. “What is this company thing?”

Reeve nodded. “It’s called SolCorp.”

“Like the drug brand?”

“The pharmaceutical company is a cover. Makes it easier for us to exist in the world if there’s an excuse for all our buildings.”

“So, it’s not really a pharmaceutical company,” Joey said. He looked out the window, watching Midtown fall further and further away. Further and further from Rick. He wondered if he’d miss him.

“It’s both,” Reeve said. “The funds have to come from somewhere, and a lot of our knacks mean they can really push the bounds of science and come up with innovative cures.” He paused, glancing at Joey. “Okay, let me back up. Knacks are a rare occurrence, but some people are just born with different powers that manifest at different times. All sorts of powers.”

“Are there people who can fly?”

“In a sense, yeah, there are people who can manipulate gravity.”

“Teleportation?”

Reeve laughed a bit at that, which annoyed him. “Pretty much, if you can think of a power, it exists somewhere, with a few exceptions.” He thought for a minute. “Like knack negators—they’ve never found someone who can suppress a knack as their power. And, actually, I guess probability manipulators. They haven't been able to successfully make them, either. I think their existence is all still more or less theoretical at this point.

“So you're all superheroes or something?”

“No. Sol was founded back after World War I because people with knacks were starting to get more attention and that attention wasn’t good. To a lot of norms, we’re freaks, too dangerous to let live. In the old days, we were witches to be burned. Nowadays, we’d be dissected and folded into some kind of government conspiracy or another. So, knacked people came together to form a group that would find other knacked people and train them to control their abilities. At first, Sol had just intended to hide people like us, but as their numbers and political power grew, they could actually prevent knacked people from being exposed through lobbying and an extensive network of people who cover up any exposures.”

“Wait, they have political power? So some people know about them? Er, us?” Joey asked.

Reeve nodded. “It’s highly classified but yeah, certain governmental officials. Times change and it’s impossible to be totally one hundred percent hidden, so instead of trying the impossible and failing, Sol decided to make sure they were in control of the narrative. That way, we’re not government controlled. We have a say in who we contract with and how and why, and that gives us power to make sure we stay safe. Keep your enemies closer and all that, right?” He chuckled, which Joey thought was kind of crazy.

“Well,” Joey said, “That is all way too far out of my depth, so.” He looked back out the window, embarrassed. It’s not like Rick had kept up with the homeschooling after Nicolette died. He decided to change the subject. “What about the whole plastic bag thing?”

“Right, it’s—” Reeve scrunched up his face, reaching for a pair of sunglasses on the dash. “It’s a little paradoxical, I’ve got to admit. It’s a big world and it takes a lot of people to run an organization large enough to cover all exposures and threats across the globe. There simply weren’t enough knacked people in Sol at the start to do it. So in the 70’s, they found a way to genetically trigger knacks in embryos and they began generating knacked people to increase the ranks, you could say. People like me and you are called gens, as opposed to natural-born knacked people.”

This was hard to follow, but Joey was determined not to come across as the dumbest schmuck on the planet. “So... to protect people with powers out in the world from being found out,” he struggled to figure out the puzzle, “they made more knacked people?”

Reeve nodded. “Like I said, it sounds weird, but it works. There were too many nat-borns to protect without a bigger network, but not enough of us to form that network without creating gens. And we need the big network because Sol isn’t the only organization that’s searching out people with knacks. There’s another group, called Entropy, that tracks down knacked people to recruit them, and they are not as kind as Sol, to put it lightly.”

“They’re called Entropy? Like the game company?” Joey asked. His head was spinning.

Reeve nodded. “Yup, that’s them.”

“So it’s Big Pharma versus toys, and you expect me to believe that you’re the good guys?”

Reeve nodded again. “Yup. You’re very lucky they never found you.”

Joey heaved a sigh and slumped back in his seat. There's no way he would have believed any of this wild bullshit if not for the wisps of Story flickering around him telling him at least some of it was true. “You all must really suck at this, if there are two of you big-ass companies and no one found me for fourteen fucking years,” he said. “It’s like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum Inc. around here.”

Reeve laughed, shaking his head.

“Seriously, what took you so long?” Joey asked.

“Probability.”

Joey looked at him, annoyed. “You have to give me more than that. That’s nothing. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sorry, I’m just trying to figure out how to explain it,” Reeve said. “That scientist who made you. He was conducting an experiment. You weren’t supposed to be a psychometrist, and to be honest, your knack is pretty rare, so it’s surprising it happened. Hard to manufacture knacks that involve messing around with time. Anyway, he was trying to make a probability manipulator—but no one’s ever done that successfully before. If time is hard to mess with, you can imagine what a quagmire probability would be. It's a weird thing. It was likely present at least a little though, given your knack and that you survived being thrown in a dumpster. Not to mention, you stayed under both Sol and Entropy’s radar, didn’t get picked up by The Church—” He paused. “Sorry, that’s a whole other thing you don’t have to worry about yet. Suffice it to say, they’re kind of a religious fanatical cult of vagrants and weirdos who pick up people like us.” His voice was way too casual to have said what Joey thought he said.

“Sure, of course. Why not? Throw that little nugget in with this trash heap of information and then zip right on past it.”

Reeve cringed. “I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot and it’s gotta be super overwhelming. That doesn’t begin to cover it, I’m sure.”

“It really fucking doesn’t.”

“Trust me when I say we’ll talk about The Church another time, and you’re safe now. I know it won’t help to say ‘don’t worry,’ so I’m not going to bother, but I’ll repeat it over and over if you need. You’re safe.”

Joey nodded, resigning himself to the dumb fucking decision he’d made to get into this car. “So this probability thing didn’t take, but it made all this weird stuff happen? That’s some really meta shit. What if Sol only exists because someone was fucking with probability and it popped into existence?” Joey asked, wishing he was at least a little stoned right now.

Reeve said, “I guess, if you want to venture into quantum physics, there’s no way to know. But I think we can pretty safely say that’s not the case, and even if it was, it doesn’t matter now, because this,” he gestured broadly at the air with one hand, “is reality.” He glanced at Joey sidelong through his sunglasses. “You’re a pretty clever kid for someone who thinks he’s dumb.”

Joey scowled. “Don’t read my mind, and don’t call me ‘kid.’”

“Sorry,” Reeve said. “Sometimes thoughts are just loud. I don’t always mean to.”

Joey could understand that. He didn’t always mean to Read the Story either. He ate the rest of his nuggets and fries in silence, just listening to the music on the radio for a few minutes. He was grateful Reeve gave him that minute to just be. Eventually, he asked, “So what do you do?”

“Honestly?” Reeve laughed. “Not a ton. We’ve been assigned a house and we just kind of hang out until we get an assignment, which is maybe once a month. I mean, now we’ll use that time to train you. But we get paid a salary, we don’t pay rent... It’s hard to complain about it.”

So he was a kind of spoiled rich kid after all, Joey thought to himself, feeling a little smug, before realizing Reeve could probably hear his thoughts. He stammered, “What are the assignments, then?” and hoped it would be enough to cover up the thought.

If he did hear the thought, Reeve didn’t show any sign of being bothered by it. He said, “I’ll be straight with you because with your knack, you’re going to see it anyway. We take out people who are a threat to Sol. Entropy agents. People who want to hurt knacked people.”

“You kill people.”

“You knew there’d be a catch, and for me, this is it. It’s not pleasant and it isn’t often. But, that’s just my team. There are loads of jobs in Sol-- jobs of all different kinds across all different departments.”

Joey scratched at his nose. “Okay, I’ll bite. What other kinds of jobs are there? Other than evil scientist jobs, I mean.” He’d process the whole killing thing later, when he had a moment to breathe.

Reeve chuckled, shaking his head with a smile. “There are nine departments named after the nine planets—”

“I thought Pluto’s not a planet anymore,” Joey interrupted.

“It was the 30s; cut them some slack,” Reeve said. “There’s a whole handbook we can read through together later.”

Joey felt his face flush with embarrassment.

Reeve said, voice soft, “Sorry, I can still hear your thoughts. It’s okay, we’ll get your reading up to speed in no time.”

Joey fixed his gaze out the window, not sure what to say to that, so he said, “What planet are you?”

Reeve didn’t miss a beat on glossing over the reading thing, which Joey was grateful for. “Well, technically we’re part of Uranus—”

“Seriously? Uranus?” Joey crowed.

“The emphasis on the first syllable.” Reeve rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Uranus is in charge of communications and all the housing stuff. So, mainly they deal with hospitality, feeding everyone, plumbing, and stuff at the main offices. My team is what they call a Moon. Pretty much, if you aren’t specialized in something or another, you end up on a Moon. Uranus manages communication to all the Moons, so we technically fall under that department, but because we’re satellites and not in the building, it kind of feels like we’re in our own world.”

“You’re telling me,” Joey said.

Reeve sighed. “I’m sorry. That’s a lot to take in. Why don’t we take a break and come back to it once you’ve settled a little?”

They rode in silence for a while longer before Joey reached to turn up the volume of the music. After another hour of music and awkward small talk, he was asleep, and by the time they arrived at the small ranch home in Beatty, it was starting to get dark.

Reeve gently shook his shoulder to wake him and Joey cracked an eye open. “We’re home,” he said. Joey sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. There were two figures hovering by the front door, clearly unsure whether to approach or not. But Reeve was already getting out of the car and opening the trunk, so Joey got out and followed him up to the stoop.

There was a woman in a baggy t-shirt and short shorts on the front steps, long brown hair a tangled mess, and a tall black guy leaning on the railing, trying not to look as nervous as he did. Reeve gestured to them, “Alex, this is Hannah and Gareth. Guys, this is Alex.”

The name sounded strange to his ears, but he figured he should get used to it, so he straightened his spine, determined to make a good first impression. He waved at them and wondered if Rick had realized he was missing yet. Alex didn’t seem like a bad name, really. Just new.

***