Sunset (Sunrise) Vol 1. Issue 8.

Blonde woman standing beside a seated latinx man. Both are Neptune agents in Neptune branded clothes. [https://64.media.tumblr.com/e971ceac91761119ea07d7df615a3c13/9e4d328015e083a3-a8/s1280x1920/74c2d6a78d1dc3cb2318b51cb165d68656fd27e2.pnj]

LAHQ. Neptune.

As Freddie walked out of her glass-enclosed office in the Reintegration wing, all chatting in the room ceased. That never stopped being satisfying. The front room was packed with nearly her entire staff. All of the reintegration agents, representatives from Icarus containment management, and most of her support admins were gathered in a loose group, filling in all the spaces between the desks.

“Okay,” she began. “You’ve probably heard that we’ve started to locate some of the Venus Twenty-Five and there have been several meetings to establish our role in this. So now I can fill you in. While we’re expecting to have over twenty kids integrating in, I want to allay your fears. They won’t all be in here at once and some may not be in at all.”

There were murmurs at that. That wasn’t the normal process, but the idea of shit like this happening had never been conceived of. While other departments were smoothing over diversions from the norm, Neptune—and Reintegration especially—only functioned when there were protocols, and there was no space for doing anything except following those protocols. So much of Reintegration relied on an agent following a set order or reaction tree, regardless of their emotional response. Asking them to diverge from that would be unsettling.

“Normally, we’d integrate these kids as soon as they were found, but there are too many of them, too packed together, and there simply aren’t enough of us to handle it all, even if all our agents were trained to work on minors. So, we’re going to have to triage this, taking the most dire case first and bringing in others at a later date.”

Mateo, her right-hand man, raised his hand. “I’m assuming some of our agents will be getting crash courses on working on minors?”

She took a breath before answering. “Not all of you.” She hoped that would mitigate some of their anxiety. Re/integration took a certain level of fortitude. On children? There were only so many agents in the pack who could handle it, and she wasn’t willing to burn through the ones who couldn’t by saddling them with it anyway until they flamed out and had to retire early.

“Are we housing them here, ma’am?” It was one of her caretakers in Icarus Containment.

“No. They’ll be in Terre or in temp housing with their foster teams.” If the kids needed containment, she’d be having pretty harsh words with Terre about the foster teams’ efforts.

“How are we triaging?”

“Availability of agents, to start with. Behavioral issues. And knack.”

“Knack?”

“Yes. The big ones with a wider potential to cause damage or exposure. Telepaths, bio-manips, teleporters. We’ve got one empath settling in with their foster now that we’re not worried about, and a psychometrist we don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole after what he’s been through.”

There were more murmurs at that. You didn’t see many psychometrists, even though the knack was quite in demand for Neptune’s Retrieval teams and Saturn in general. A little interdepartmental competition. But psychometrists were notoriously tricky to successfully gen, and the knack had a history of some psychometrists losing their grip on reality, becoming delusional or catatonic. She knew Neptune would be keeping tabs on this one for later.

One of the younger agents, fresh off post-grad, spoke up. She didn’t remember his name. “I’m sorry, ma’am, why not the psychometrist?”

“Because,” she sighed, “our aim is not for anyone to walk out of Integration with an especially clear memory of what transpired in that room. Particularly with kids. A psychometrist will have a perfect, unadulterated window into what happened while they were here, and that might not instill the most confidence in an organization that abandoned them. Understood?”

He looked a little flushed, but he’d get over it. “Yes, ma’am.”

The psychometrist would graduate into Neptune if they had their way, and all Neptune agents went through Integration as part of their post-grad training, anyway. So the psychometrist would end up in that chair eventually. And by then, he’d have had enough time with the company that it wouldn’t be a shocking introduction, so much as just a routine step in his career.

Freddie glanced around the room, taking in their expressions—a mix of exhaustion and nerves, but she also noted a fair amount of determination, which gave her a little glow of pride in her team. “We can’t be sure when they’ll start arriving, but Terre will be conducting initial evaluations for stability, knack control, and mental status. Those evals will be sent directly to me, and I have Mateo in charge of coordinating with the fosters and Academy from there. We’ll just have to roll with things as they come. Any questions?”

When no one answered, she nodded decisively. “Good.”

They’d manage this.

---

Beatty, NV.

Alex sat on the porch steps and threw a small rock at...nothing. There was nothing out there. Nothing to do. No one else to see. Freckles had driven him out so far into the boonies that when he woke up in the morning to see exactly how much nothing there was around them, he was surprised Reeve hadn’t just murdered him immediately. It was the kind of place you took someone to do that. No other houses in sight. No one to hear you scream. And Reeve had even said as much—they’d killed people. The shock of the gravity of his spur-of-the-moment decision to get into this random teenager’s car had really hit him. What the fuck had he been thinking?

Despite that, the first twenty-four hours in Beatty had been weird, sure, but not especially bad. The first night had involved some awkward “hellos,” an honest to god shower, and him pretty much passing out from exhaustion. He had his own room. (There was no lock on the door, so he’d wedged a chair against the knob just in case.) The room was filled with a mismatched jumble of stuff, but there was a soft cot (and they said they would get him a real bed soon, which he really had a hard time buying). The sheets and blankets were so new they still had a grid of creases in them. They’d told him all the new clothes in there were his to pick from, but the drawers were filled with such a wide array of clothing sizes and styles that Alex had to assume they’d gone shopping for “a child” and that was about it. There were a couple of things that fit, but Alex almost didn’t put them on. It seemed like there was no way they were really going to let him stay and give him food and clothes for nothing or just for the privilege of teaching him. Yeah, right.

The sliding door that led into the kitchen opened behind him, making Alex tense up.

“Hey, buddy.”

Alex rolled his eyes. It was Hannah, the skinny girl who needed to get her eyes checked, because she talked to him like he was six years old.

“Yeah?” he said, glancing back for a brief moment.

“Are ya hungry?”

“No.” Which was mostly true. Reeve had cooked them the biggest breakfast he’d ever had that morning, huge plates of huevos rancheros with black beans and avocado.

“I’m making grilled cheese.” She drew out the word “cheese” in a sing-song voice.

That made him turn around, finally. “Oh my God, what is wrong with you?”

She jerked her chin back and raised her eyebrows. “Jeez, okay.”

“You’re like three, four years older than me,” he continued, “So you can stop trying to fucking play pattycake.”

“Alright, sorry.”

He studied her scrunched up, grouchy face, and baggy t-shirt that went down to her mid-thighs, and felt his face get hot as he recalled the couple of Stories he’d Read. He looked at her feet. “So what are you?” he asked. “A nudist or something?”

She opened her mouth to respond and held it there silently. Putting one hand on her hip she found her tongue. “Yeah. That a problem?”

He shrugged. “Whatever. It’s weird, but it’s not like that’s the weirdest thing about you, I guess.” She could freaking go invisible, which sounded way more useful than his knack. “And even if it was a problem, it’s already there.” He gestured to the house. Not like she was the only person he’d ever seen naked when he was Reading. “So what am I gonna do about it?”

“You Read it.” She briefly cocked her head to the side in a way that made it look like she was trying to keep from losing her shit. She pointed a finger at him. “Of course you did. And they made me agree to wear clothes for a couple of weeks. I’m an idiot. Excuse me.” She turned around and shut the door behind her. A bellow of, “Reeve,” was audible even from outside.

Alex mouthed, “Wow,” and tossed another pebble.

Hannah was weird. Reeve was so stiff that sometimes Alex was surprised he could bend his elbows at all, and wasn’t convinced he didn't have to plug himself in at night to charge. He was present, but giving Alex space to just dick around, explore the house, and “acclimate.” Gareth, the big guy, was just gone. No one had said anything about it, but Alex had been awake to hear Gareth tell someone, ‘I’ve gotta get the hell out of here before he wakes up,’ from inside his room this morning. Gareth had mostly just stared at Alex the night before, and Alex wasn’t sure how much he needed to worry about that, so he was going to find out. He’d have to come home eventually. He tossed another rock and felt a Story from the porch tug at him. He let it.

Gareth is sitting on a chair on the porch, drinking a beer. The light is different, closer to sundown. Out in the dirt, Hannah and Reeve are circling each other slowly. The sun is beating down and she’s wearing about as much as Alex is used to seeing her wear in the Stories around the house.

“Come on,” Reeve complains, “there have got to be better ways to get to know each other.”

Hannah smiles and feints left before throwing a punch. “That sounds like a pansy-ass telepath thing to say.”

Reeve dodges with plenty of room. “No, it’s a reasonable thing to say. We’re not going to be fighting each other, so what’s the point?”

“Well, neither of you will get proper drunk with me and you’re not exactly chatty so, Jesus Christ, I’m just working my way down my options. Not my fault that you two have such bad social skills that I’m trying to punch friendship out of you.”

She bobs and jabs at his chin with her right fist. Without missing a beat, Reeve catches her hand in both of his own and holds it. “Telepath,” he reminds her blandly. “Seriously, what’s this supposed to—”

Reeve is cut off when Hannah sweeps his legs with shocking force and speed, throwing him onto his back in the dirt. Beside Alex, Gareth crows with surprised laughter as Reeve sits up, coughing. Hannah helps him to his feet and he twists to scowl, not at Hannah, but at the back of his shirt, brushing what he can of the dirt off of it. Pointing to Gareth he sputters, “You’re up,” and climbs up onto the porch to nurse his pride.

The laugh leaves Gareth and sitting so close to him, Alex can feel his nerves. Gareth wants to talk his way out of it, but he knows he can’t. Taking one more swig, he heads down to meet Hannah in the dirt. Alex follows slowly with an effort, holding onto the Story. She puts her fists up and waits for him to do the same.

“I’d rather not,” he says simply.

Hannah smirks. “It wouldn’t be fair if Reeve was the only one doing laundry after this.”

With a sigh, Gareth puts his hands up, but Alex can feel the sick feeling growing in his core.

Hannah begins with a cross that he blocks with a forearm.

Gareth feints a right hook, not even coming close to touching her, and Alex feels him flinch, flinching with him. Standing beside him, there’s a moment when Hannah’s face is replaced with a young girl with dark brown curls, face bloody, and her nose visibly broken. Gareth shakes his head and the image is gone, but Alex can sense him feeling the sensation of her bones shattering underneath his knuckles and it’s not a bad sensation to Gareth. There’s a part of him that’s finding it satisfying, and Alex takes an instinctual small step away from him.

“Come on,” she says, leveling a kick at his midsection.

Gareth readies himself, bracing to throw another punch, but before he can, Alex hears a shriek followed by the echoing sounds of hands banging on corrugated metal. Startled, Alex looks around, but no one but he and Gareth seem to be hearing it. It’s the type of scream you didn’t want to hear in the middle of the night because you knew there would be cops and yellow tape somewhere around the next morning, or sometimes nothing at all, and that would be worse. Alex stops looking for the voice; he knows she isn’t there.

“Gareth?” Hannah has put her hands down and her voice is pained.

Gareth still has his fist poised but his eyes are squeezed shut.

“I’m sorry,” she continues. “I didn’t mean... Are you okay?”

Gareth opens his eyes, expression gone hard again. “I’m fine.” He marches off toward the house, his shoulder hitting Reeve on his way inside.

The sound of a car door startled Alex out of it. Gareth had just gotten out of the car and was eyeing him grimly. Alex shifted to sit dead-center on the stairs, blocking the way.

“Hey,” he called as Gareth approached.

“Hey.” He came to a stop in front of him. “Can I get by?”

Alex didn’t move. “What’s your problem with me?”

“What?” His brow crinkled.

Alex huffed. “Listen, I know you don’t want me here. None of you do. I got assigned to you. I Read you all talking about it. It’s just like fucking Rick again, but at least they seem like they’re trying. Is this how it’s gonna be with you? Because if it’s gonna cause this kind of static, I’ll just leave. I don’t need this shit.”

Gareth stared at him blankly for a second, then scanned the horizon. “Where are you going to go?”

Alex stared hard at him, ready to hold his eyes if he ever got the balls to look him in the face. “Wherever. I can take care of myself.”

Gareth seemed to flinch at that, but Alex knew it was true. He had run it through a few scenarios in his head since waking up. There was a medicine cabinet in the basement training room with plenty of stuff that he could bring with him to sell, and he’d still have enough room left to pack a bunch of food. It couldn’t be that long of a walk into town where he could hitchhike.

“There’s nowhere you can go where someone’s not going to find you.” Gareth finally met Alex’s eyes. “So why don’t you just go inside.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Need me to ask it slower?” He spaced out the words, “What is your problem?”

Gareth’s nostrils flared. If he lost his temper and tried to smack him, at least Alex would know what it was like here. That it was no different. He wasn’t positive if it was a deal-breaker or not, given the other benefits, but he was ready to say it was. But Gareth didn’t move. “I have to leave sometimes.”

“Where do you go?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Okay,” Alex nodded and stood up. “I’ll go look for myself.” He went to move past Gareth, but felt a hand grab his arm.

“Kid,” he barked sharply, but Alex didn’t hear anything after that as the Story in Gareth’s hand plunged him underwater.

Gareth is walking down a long hallway of identical metal doors and Alex is close beside him. He’s got short hair instead of a shaved head, but otherwise looks mostly the same, so it can’t be that long ago. The long tube-fluorescent lighting is harsh overhead and the floors are concrete. There’s a strange jumble of noises, but they sound like he’s listening from a mile away and Alex can’t tell what they are.

He’s walking with purpose and Alex feels he has somewhere to be, but still, he pauses when a young, barefoot woman bursts out of a door and rushes toward him with a limp, her mouth open and moving with muted shouts. Her clothes are dirty and her pin-straight, dark hair is a mess. Her arm is covered in blood and she’s holding it close to her chest as she moves. The ghost-images are always blue, but somewhere deep in his brain, Alex still has this innate perception of the vivid red color of it staining her skin and shirt.

Gareth stops in the middle of the hallway, removes foam earplugs, and the echoing sound of her voice roars in.

“Please,” the girl is yelling, “He wants to cut my arm off!” As she gets closer, Alex can see that there’s a blue latex tourniquet tied around her right upper arm, which has nasty gashes up and down it. A man with blood on his chest stumbles out of the same door she’d come out of and her pleading grows quieter but more frantic. “Please, you don’t have to do anything, just tell me how to get out of here.”

Alex’s head is spinning and he realizes he’s been holding his breath, so he takes in a gulp of air with an effort. As she gets to them, Alex watches Gareth put his arms out as if to steady her, but when he actually touches her, it isn’t gentle. He spins her around and pins her in a choke hold, making Alex flinch. Alex clenches his fists automatically even though he knows there’s nothing he can do in a Story. Still, he feels helpless as she struggles and fights, but Gareth’s arms are thick and strong, locked around her thin neck.

“Blake,” Gareth bellows to the bloody man down the hall as the woman’s face turns red, “this is why you drug them first.” He’s sounding more annoyed than anything and the cold, sick feeling in Alex grows.

“She’s real fast,” the man says defensively with a southern accent. He’s gripping the handle of a knife that’s stuck in his gut.

Gareth sees this and, with a grimace, adjusts his grip so that she quickly goes limp. He lets her drop to the floor and walks forward. Alex crouches to look at the girl. She’s breathing. He didn’t kill her.

“I’m sorry,” Blake squeaks and Alex turns around to watch Gareth put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I couldn’t get my hand to cut.”

“It’s alright,” Gareth says evenly. Alex is unprepared to see Gareth pull the knife out of his belly and plant it just under Blake’s jaw on one side. There’s a spray when he removes it and Alex shuts his eyes. In the dark, he hears a stomach-turning gurgle as the man crumbles, punctuated by the metallic clatter of the dropped knife.

The sound of Gareth’s footsteps come toward him and Alex begins to shake. He opens his eyes, ready to defend himself, and watches him walk past, not seeing Alex at all.

Several other doors in the hallway have opened by now with an array of people watching. A bearded man with thin ropey arms asks, “What’s going on?”

Gareth doesn’t answer and instead drapes the unconscious girl over his shoulder and starts walking again, going past the door she came out of.

An older woman with a bucket full of cleaning supplies calls, “Where are you taking her?”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“To see Adler and get her head sorted.”

“Why?”

“I’m making a swap for Blake. You—” He points back to the man with the beard and then to Blake’s body on the floor. “Cut him up.”

Alex came out of it with a sharp gasp as Gareth ripped his hand away from Alex’s arm, suddenly enough that Alex was thrown off balance and he tumbled down the couple of stairs leading to the dirt, where he made a rough landing on his side. Looking up, he saw Gareth’s silhouette backlit on the porch and Alex did the only logical thing his brain could think of: run.

After a blind dash past the car, Alex stopped and found himself on the other side of the garage. His chest was heaving, the muscles in his thighs twitched, urging him to run, but he needed to think. There was nothing in every direction he could see, except for the little ranch. Flat desert or a rocky incline. Those were his options. And the sun was hot.

What the fuck had he gotten himself into? Reeve had said Sol killed people, but in his head, Alex had been assuming he meant assassinations, CIA-level shit, the kind of thing you’d wear dweeby button-down shirts for. Not hacking a body into little pieces in a hallway and killing the people who work with you like it’s nothing.

Carefully, Alex peered around the corner of the garage in time to see Gareth go inside the house, leaving him alone. He took the opportunity to slip into the garage as quietly as he could, lifting the door just high enough that he could squeeze under. It was full of tools, car shit, and Reeve’s fancy red car. In the dim light, he ran his hands over the different tools and odd bits hoping to find something of value, but nothing looked in good shape. He turned back to the car. No one had ever taught Alex to drive but how hard could it be? He ripped the dust-cover off and climbed into the driver's side. No keys. Of course. He tried to think but he was panicking.

The garage door opened, flooding the small space with light. Before even registering who was there, Alex vaulted out of the car, grabbed the longest screwdriver he could from the pegboard on the wall, and whipped around to hold it out in front of him.

It was Gareth. He had one of his hands out to the side and another holding some kind of white rectangle the size of a small paperback. He was trapped in a garage with a mountain of a man, a killer, between him and the door.

“Kid,” Gareth began, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“I’m not a fucking kid,” Alex snarled, ready to spit if Gareth came any closer.

Gareth didn't move and his voice was calm. “You are a little bit, though. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Alex curled his lip. “Fuck you.”

“Fine, just take this.” Gareth shrugged and took a step forward, holding out the white rectangle. “It's an ice pack,” he explained when Alex stiffened. “It looked like a bad fall.”

His side had been complaining, but it wasn’t what Alex gave a shit about just then. On a whim, he raised a hand and Gareth tossed it to him. He looked at it awkwardly and it brought back memories of Rick and the hot oil, but it was different. Such a smaller scale. He’d have a bruise—so what? Alex shook it off.

“A friggin’ ice pack doesn’t change the fact that you Sol people are crazed, sociopath butchers and that is not the shit I signed up for.”

There was a longer pause than Alex felt good about. Gareth’s voice was tight when he spoke. “What you saw wasn’t Sol.”

“How do you know what I saw?”

“Reeve told me.”

“How does Reeve—Oh.” The whole mind-reading thing. “I don’t like that.”

Gareth nudged a box out of the corner with one foot. “Yeah, me neither.” He sat on the box, facing Alex, his forearms on his knees. “I hate it. And you do kind of the same thing, and that’s why I left this morning.”

Alex’s eyebrows rose. He’d figured the guy didn’t want him around for all sorts of reasons, but being freaked out by what he could do hadn’t been a possibility he’d considered. “You didn’t want me to Read you?” Normally no one but Rick ever knew about his weird ability, and he didn't like the idea of making people feel like Reeve was making him feel.

“What you saw scared you, right?” Gareth looked at him but Alex felt like the screwdriver in his hand answered for him. Gareth nodded. “It scares me too.”

That took him aback. He half thought Gareth looked too big to be scared of anything. “You didn’t seem that scared.”

Gareth shook his head. “I was, even when I didn’t know I was. So yeah, I don’t hate you or anything. I don’t want you to leave, but I don’t want anyone to see that shit either. I don’t want to see that shit, but it’s worse when someone else sees it. It makes it real.”

Alex shifted his weight between his feet. “What was it, if it wasn’t Sol?”

“Reeve told you about Entropy?”

“The big bad board game company?”

“Get past the game thing. They’re… They picked me up when I was a little younger than you and out living on my own in San Francisco. They said they could help me with my knack, so I worked for them for a few years before I was able to find a way out. That’s what it was. It’s not stuff I’m okay talking about.”

Alex leaned forward and bobbed the screwdriver in his hand. “Alright but I’m gonna need you to suck it up and talk to me about it anyway, because this is all brand fucking new to me, and you can’t expect me to just up and swallow the things I saw like it’s nothing.”

Gareth took a deep breath and glanced behind him at the house. “Okay. Ask.”

Alex leaned against the bench, a little surprised. “What happened to the girl?”

“She ended up working for Entropy with us. Adler made her think she wanted to, like he did with me.”

“Who’s Adler?”

“My old boss. A telepath. Way worse than Reeve.”

“Is she still there?”

“Adler killed her eventually.”

“Why were they cutting people’s arms off?”

“No, there are some things—Entropy taught me that there are actually some times when it’s better not knowing. Sol’s nothing like Entropy. Sol’s all paperwork and proper procedure. They’re not saints but they aren’t cruel, and it seems like that's the best people like us can get.”

Alex bit his lip. He wasn’t sure he believed that, but the hardness of his tone told him Gareth wasn’t going to budge on it. He moved on. “Reeve talked about Sol’s big thing. What does Entropy do?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“They never told me.”

Alex gave him his least impressed look. “They never told you.”

Gareth’s face tensed up. “You got a look at what it’s like there. Would you piss those people off by pestering them with questions?”

“You obviously don’t know me yet, because hell yes I would.” He pointed the screwdriver at him. “ I’m pestering you, aren’t I?”

Gareth cringed and he broke eye contact with Alex to stare at the ground. Alex hadn’t said it to hurt him on purpose.

“Listen, kid, I’m scared of your knack and now you're scared of me. We still have to work together. Think we can try to figure out a way to trust each other?”

Alex made a face and side-stepped. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

Gareth rubbed his head with one hand. “Because I thought you might want to ease into being called ‘Alex.’” He gestured back to the house. “These guys, if the Corp rolled up and said, ‘Hey, this is your new name,’ they’d be like, ‘Yes, sir, no problem, where do I sign?’ If you didn’t think I was a cold-blooded killer, I’d say that you and I are gonna have to stick together because these born and raised Sol people don’t realize how weird they really are. They knew their whole life growing up that this is what they were going to be doing. They had classes on it. They don’t get what it’s like to get plunged into water that’s way too deep for you.”

Alex shrugged. It should have been weirder to think of himself as Alex, but his whole life he had been wishing to know who he really was, and some guy had just rolled up and told him. “Did they drop you in a dumpster too?”

“No, I’m natural-born, but my knack didn’t show up until I was thirteen—so if you’re gonna Read or whatever you call it, go as far back as you can. It’s safer.”

“Wait, your knack was just there one day? Jesus.”

Gareth made a grunt of agreement. “I had what Sol calls an ‘initiating event.’”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Dude, don’t make me ask.”

Gareth worked his lips around his mouth, thinking. “We’re never gonna talk like this again, okay? My mom and I were in a car wreck. My side took the worst of it, but it threw us off the road down a ravine. It fucked up my arm really bad and I should have bled out. But then I didn’t. It healed instead, just grew back together.” He held out his arm and ran a hand over a ropey, raised scar. “That’s the last time my skin’s ever scarred.” Gareth sat up and let out a breath. “My mom was hurt and just barely hanging on, talking to me, calling me, ‘baby,’ but then she saw it happen to me and went limp. So I climbed out of the car, walked off into the woods, and kept going until I found a city. I couldn’t go home and tell my dad I killed her from the shock of seeing how much of a freak I was.” His voice was strained and it took Alex a second to realize it was because Gareth was fighting back tears. “I was a stupid kid,” he continued with a forced smile. “By the time I got the guts to look up the news story on us and found out she was still alive, realized she’d just fainted, Entropy already had me. And that was it.”

Alex’s gaze moved around the room. “That’s really fucked up.”

“Yeah. We’re dropping it now,” he snapped.

Alex looked at the screwdriver in his hand and felt a layer of protection fall out from under him. He held it up. “So this would do nothing to you, huh?”

“Not nothing,” Gareth shrugged. “It would hurt like hell, but I’d just heal it.”

“Even if I stuck it in your head?” He tried to make the question sound purely intellectual.

“Yup.”

“How do you know?”

Gareth replied heavily, “Because I know,” making it clear that was the end of the discussion.

He let the screwdriver fall limp in his hand and reluctantly set the ice pack against his sore hip. “So you could squash me like a bug and I couldn’t do anything about it. Reeve could have made me think all of this is fine instead of you having this talk with me. And Hannah’s the tits-out poster girl for not grasping that not all people younger than her are toddlers.”

Gareth snorted at the last part. “Yeah, basically.”

“And you want me to trust you?” he asked sarcastically.

His mouth tightened. “I said that, didn’t I?” Gareth squinted. “I don’t know if I trust them yet. Well, I trust Hannah, but I don’t know if I’ll ever trust a telepath, so I shouldn’t ask you to. Maybe just give them a chance. Don’t hold me against them. They’re weird, but they mean well, and they’d probably look at me the same way you are if they knew all the fucked up shit I had to do in Entropy.”

“They don’t know?” Was this something Alex was suddenly responsible for reporting?

Gareth shook his head. “Hannah knows a little because she’s fucking pushy and emotionally manipulative in a weirdly loving way. You’ll learn that. And Reeve’s been good about staying out of my head, other than what he just saw because he felt you panic.” It must have shown on Alex’s face that none of that was comforting to him, because he went on. “Don’t worry, Sol knows all of it. They put me through the wringer before they trusted me enough to send me out with their people.”

Alex nodded and didn’t know what else to say.

Gareth stood up. “Just give them a shot. Give it two weeks to see that they’re not going to do anything bad to you. I won’t either, but I’d get it if you never trusted me after all that shit. If you decide after two weeks that you want out, I’ll pack you a bag and drop you off wherever you want to go, myself.”

Alex swallowed. It sounded like a trick. “I thought you said there isn’t anywhere I could go that Sol wouldn’t find me.”

“There isn’t. But if you want to try, I’m not gonna keep you from giving it a shot.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?”

“If it’s my fault you don’t trust Sol then so be it, I guess. Come on,” he said, turning for the door. “It’s hot as balls out here. Let’s go inside.”

Alex didn’t move, suddenly frozen.

Gareth looked at him, expression sad. “Keep the screwdriver, if it will help you feel better. I promise no one’s going to give you a reason to use it.”

Alex squeezed the grip of it, wondering if it was a ploy to get him to act all macho like, ‘Nah, I don’t need this.’ Fuck that. He did. He nodded to Gareth. “Okay. Two weeks.”

---

LAHQ. Neptune Department.

Fredericka could feel her face flush red, which made her even angrier. She held her breath and hoped she was schooling her face well; she wasn’t used to losing her cool. She focused on smoothing her brow, turning up the corners of her mouth, and most of all, making eye contact. The words Rich was saying to her had faded to the background more and more the longer she stood there. He was explaining his reasoning, saying something about what a good job she does overseeing Reintegration, how indispensable she was, blah blah blah. Freddie didn’t care. She had caught the important bits. He was retiring as Neptune, and she was not going to be taking over for him. After nearly five years of relentlessly hard work as Neptune’s Second, she was being rewarded with an extended stay and—lucky her—a 2.5% raise as a consolation prize. Even better, the position that should have been hers was going to a young male agent (fucking glass ceiling) who hadn’t even been in the field as long as Freddie had ranked within the department’s top 10. It was infuriating.

Rich’s voice faded back into her awareness. “I hope you can understand.” He paused. “Why don’t you head out early today, grab a drink and cool off.”

Freddie just barely managed not to roll her eyes. They had been working together for a long time—he knew when she was upset. She thought about taking him up on his offer, but her pride got in the way. She shook her head. “No, that’s fine. There’s a lot I’ll need to do to get ready for him. How long do we have to prepare?”

Rich’s warm smile irked her even more. He said, “I’ll officially be a retired old man exactly one month from today, but if all goes well, he’ll be arriving in LA next week.”

“What’s his name again?” Freddie asked, again biting back her tone of voice. If nothing else, she was a professional.

“Sage,” Rich said, running one hand through his silvering hair. “His name is Sage del Sol.” He paused, hesitating before continuing. “And he doesn’t know he’ll be taking over the position yet.”

Freddie felt the heat rising again. “Excuse me?” She heard her voice raise a decibel and cursed herself inwardly.

Rich shook his head. “Seriously, take the rest of the afternoon off—we can’t afford to replace the furniture you’re about to flip over.” He chuckled.

Freddie made a face. She felt it happen and she hated every second of it. Rich made an effort to straighten his face and somber his tone, but amusement still laced his voice. He continued, “I’ll be flying out to Chicago to meet with him tonight. I really do hope you can forgive me. I hope you know it’s not that you couldn’t do the job. It’s that you’re too good at what you do now and we can’t afford to lose you. Especially with these new kids all being brought in after Venus’ fuck up. It’s going to be a long, hard process and no one really knows what demands Integration is going to have to meet in order to get them situated and acclimated. There’s literally no one else I would trust.”

“Then why not wait to retire until this is all cleaned up?” She couldn’t mask the frustration in her voice.

Rich gave her one of his looks. She hated that. “You think I hadn’t considered it?” he said. “It’s kept me up every night since we found out. But I’m old, I’m tired, and I would be doing those kids a disservice if I tried to pretend otherwise. Let’s face it—I’m not as sharp as I used to be and this investigation process, Integration process, placement for kids who are going to be so far behind in their studies that…” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, a nervous gesture. “You get the idea. We have our hands full.”

Freddie narrowed her eyes. She wanted to point out that if Rich wasn’t feeling so sharp, maybe his choice of successors should be called into question, but she knew his telepathy would have picked up that thought already and she was grateful that he didn’t comment on it.

“Trust me,” Rich said. “I thought about it. I talked with Mercury at length. I thought some more. It’s the right call.”

Freddie nodded. She forced a professional smile and in her most professional voice she said the most professional thing she could force out of her very professional mouth: “If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of paperwork to do.” Her voice was icy.

Rich said, “Okay then. I thought you might say that, so I put his file in your encrypted inbox. I’ll fill you in on how it goes when I get back. Please don’t let anyone else know yet. Right now it’s just you, me, and Mercury who are in the loop. I’ll be making a department-wide announcement later this week, and then it’ll go out to the rest of the company. Transitions like this are just a delicate thing to manage, and even more so in our department, and even more so with everything else that’s been going on.”

“Understood,” Freddie said.

Rich nodded. “Well then, I guess I’m off to pack. I should be back by tomorrow night.”

“Travel safe,” She said, before turning around and walking to her office next door. She waited until the door was closed behind her before she muttered, “Fucker.”

She sat down at her desk, took a few deep breaths, and logged into her computer. She downloaded and opened Sage del Sol’s file and started skimming. He was a young sublimator, only twenty-six years old—a bit of a wunderkind, which was annoying. He’d graduated early from the Chicago Academy at age sixteen and was already active and established in the field as a team leader by age nineteen, having zipped through his post-grad work. She rolled her eyes reading through his painfully high exam scores and glowing performance reviews. The reports he’d filled out for his team when they were stationed in London were ridiculously detailed and meticulous, and he had not one, not two, but four commendations from Neptune himself for difficult, top-tier missions expertly executed. He was only twenty-two when he was promoted to rank 7 in the whole department, transferred to the Chicago offices and assigned as a team leader within the department’s top 10s. By now, his file supported a record that could put him in competition with Freddie herself. She was surprised they hadn’t crossed paths. She found herself occasionally nodding at what she read, feeling mildly impressed, and she hated it. Until now, she’d thought reaching the role of Second by the time she was thirty was impressive, but he was putting her to shame. She had to figure out how to get over it, but it didn’t have to be tonight.

---

SolCorp’s Chicago Office.

Sage was walking back from the Chicago Offices’ gym with his teammates when he got the phone call. They had been teasing him, laughing and joking about just how much sweat was pouring off his warm brown skin and sublimating into the air when he wasn’t paying attention. It was gross and he felt embarrassed, but he knew they joked with fondness. He had been working with this team for almost four years now, but he had never quite shaken the feeling that he was something of an outsider. His impostor syndrome game was strong.

Sage was short and slight of frame, and had a sweetness to his face that belied his efficiency in the field and the seriousness with which he took his job. His movements were usually fluid and maybe even a little feminine, but right now, he was plodding down the hall, tired after his workout.

When he answered his phone, he was careful not to press it too closely to his damp cheek, and because of this somewhat precarious grip, he nearly dropped it when he heard Jean’s voice on the other end. Jean was the head of the Chicago Offices’ Neptune division. He wasn’t expecting her to be calling him, let alone on his personal cell. He stopped in his tracks, his teammates taking a beat to slow their steps and turn to look at him as he stuttered out, “Hello, ma’am. How can I help you?”

“You’re needed in my office, Sage,” said the stern voice on the other end. “Now.”

Sage felt his heart skip a few beats in his chest. He willed it to slow down—now did not seem like the time to take a nosedive into his familiar panic palpitations. “I’m just leaving the gym now. Give me 15 minutes to take a quick shower and I’ll be right there.” He glanced up at his teammates as they gave him curious looks. He shrugged at them, trying not to look worried.

“When I said now, I meant now. Neptune is here and he wants to meet with you. His time is more precious than his sense of smell—we’ll all survive your post-workout glow.” Despite her words, there was no humor in her voice. She was not a soft woman.

Sage felt every muscle in his body tense and his chest tighten. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right there.” He started walking again as he spoke, his teammates silently falling into step behind him. “Can I ask what this is about?”

“You can ask, but I don’t have an answer for you. He hasn’t told me—just that he needs to meet with you immediately. It seems he flew out here just for this meeting, so make it quick.” She hung up.

It took Sage a moment to collect himself, though he didn’t break his stride as he veered right towards Jean’s office rather than left towards their quarters. He called over his shoulder, “Jean needs to see me ASAP. You guys go on home—I’ll meet you there when we’re done.”

“What’s it about?”

“Don’t know yet,” Sage said as he picked up his pace. His chest was tight, his heart was racing, and he felt dizzy. He was still sweating, but by now it had nothing to do with any workout. His black Sol Corp Neptune branded t-shirt clung to his back uncomfortably, and he tugged at it as he walked. He was grateful that he had this built-in excuse for the sweating, at least. It would make it easier to hide his panic. He took a few deep breaths and focused on naming the colors in the hallways as he walked, like his therapist taught him. Ivory tiles, light grey walls, white ceiling, green chairs lined along a white-framed window. It wasn’t until he walked through the Neptune department’s doors that his panic attack started to feel under control. He was going to sleep deeply tonight. He willed himself to stay alert without picking up his heart rate all over again. By the time he reached Jean’s door, he had almost stopped shaking. He clenched his fists once or twice to steady his hands, like he did to quell a panic attack descending upon him in the field. Then, he knocked on the door.

“Come in.” It was a man’s voice. Neptune. They had met in person once before, on a mission (which Sage recalled as terrifying as well as a great honor) and he’d received correspondence delivering commendations, but had never met with him one-on-one. Sage took a deep breath, straightened his shirt, wished desperately that he’d had a chance to shower, and went inside.

Neptune was seated behind Jean’s desk, and Jean was nowhere to be seen. It was clear he’d taken over the use of her office for the time being. Sage was sure she was privately steaming about it in the office next door—she did not do well with anything that threatened her ego, even if it was coming from Neptune, himself.

“Have a seat,” Neptune said, gesturing to one of the chairs. Sage cautiously sat and said, “Thank you, sir.” He silently cursed his shaking voice and tried to steady it. “I apologize for my appearance—Jean said you were in a rush.” Neptune’s crisp suit was a stark contrast to his ratty workout clothes.

Neptune waved him off. “It’s not a problem. Looks like you had a good workout.”

Sage felt his face flush. “Yes, sir. What can I help you with?” He felt his long hair brush against his neck and shoulders from his falling ponytail, lanky and damp. He felt like he was on sensory overload. Every sensation, sound, smell was amplified a hundred times over. He worked hard to keep himself from sublimating at the edges.

Neptune straightened in his chair and fixed his gaze on Sage. He had a business-like intensity to him that Sage found intimidating, but there was a warmth behind it as well. His eyes crinkled at the edges with lines etched from years and years of smiling. It was reassuring. He said, “I’ll get right to the point. This stays between you and me until I give you the okay. There are only two other people who know what I’m about to tell you, and one of them is Mercury. The other is Fredericka. Do you understand?”

Sage’s pulse sped up and his heart jumped in his chest. He nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Neptune said. “I’m going to be retiring next month. And you’re going to be taking my place.” He paused to watch Sage take this information in. If Sage had been anyone but the subject of that sentence, he would have noticed the look of amusement on Neptune’s face, but as it was, he found himself lost in waves of realization and absolute, utter fear.

He gawked. “I’m sorry, sir, I think I may have misheard you.”

Neptune said, “You haven’t. I’ll need you in LAHQ in no more than two weeks. Can you do that? I know it’s short notice, but this transition will be delicate and I want to get you oriented there as soon as possible.”

Sage closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. He felt his heart start to pound again in earnest and his throat caught. He reminded himself, you can’t force a panic attack away once it starts. It will pass. Just like his therapist taught him.

It wasn’t working.

He tried to speak but he couldn’t make his voice sound. This realization only made his heart pound faster. His chest ached with a deep, sharp pain. All he could do was gulp air and blink back the early hints of tears as he tried to gesture an apology for his weakness.

“It’s okay. Take your time.” Neptune’s voice was gentle and warm. “I know it’s a lot.”

Sage nodded and ran a trembling hand through his hair.

“What would help? Do you want me to give you a moment alone? Would you prefer I stayed?”

It was embarrassing to hear Neptune—Neptune!!—having to manage his ridiculous panic. Sage shook his head and managed to utter, “I’m okay. I’m sorry.” He held his breath for a moment before taking two slow, deep breaths. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s okay,” Neptune repeated in his same patient voice. He waited and watched.

Sage felt miserable, but after a few moments longer, he was able to straighten his posture and speak through the difficulty breathing. “I think you may have made a mistake, sir,” he said, gesturing to himself in frustration.

Neptune shook his head. “I know your file well. I read through it thoroughly and many times before making this decision, I assure you. And I chose you anyway.” He smiled. “I know you can handle yourself well. You’ve managed to shine in the field even with your panic attacks, which is better than I think I could do in your position. I chose you.”

Sage looked down at his hands, picking at his nails.

Neptune said, “So will you be accepting the position? You’re more than qualified. We have a fantastic Pluto mental healthcare team in LA. You’re the one I want.”

Sage nodded, but couldn’t meet his eyes. As much as he might want to, how could he say no?

“Good. I don’t want you to feel rushed, so take your time coming down from that. I’d stay longer, but I need to notify Jean that you’ll be transferring and then I have a plane to catch. I’ll leave it to you to tell your team. Don’t mention your promotion, only that you’re being transferred to LA for an important assignment that you can’t disclose. We’ll be making the announcement in a week or so. I’ll talk to Jean on the ride to the airport, so take as long as you need in here.” He stood and extended a hand. Sage took it shakily, wishing his palms were about two-hundred percent less clammy. Neptune said, “I’m really glad to know I’ll be leaving the department in good hands.”

Sage said, “Thank you sir. I’ll do my best.” He sounded to himself like a child.

“You can call me Rich. And if you do even half your best, we’ll be in great shape.” And with that, Rich excused himself, quietly calling over his shoulder as he walked through the door, “I’ll see you soon, Neptune.”

***