Back at home, I’ve got some time to catch my breath before I attend to some more chores. I eat a few handfuls of the only food I’ve got left and hope that’ll be enough. God, I’m exhausted. I probably should have just stayed home after getting back from the Library. It’s not like Littlerock’s hole would have disappeared with the turn of the moon or anything. Ugh, and my guts still itch where they got cinched back together. Left side of my belly burns. And it’ll stay that way for longer than I’m used to, unless I get a decent meal.

Tired. Hungry. Hurt. But there are more important things to be doing than complaining.

For no real reason in particular, my oculars land on the brick of crusty booger thump on my desk, which Deepwell was merciful enough to let me keep, though begrudgingly. If I didn’t weigh 800 pounds and exhale arcane energies, he’d probably have snatched it. Seeing as how it can’t really hurt me, he judged the paperwork not worth the effort. Also, he likes me. It helps to have a cop like you.

I probably shouldn’t have any. Not here, at least. I don’t have anywhere to stow it in case the Brotherhood decides to perform an inspection. They don’t usually care about arcanists with drugs, because an addict mage is more likely to die and every dead mage is a popped fizzwine bottle for the Brotherhood. Different inspectors have different standards, though, and risking it might not be worth it. And there’s a huge steel block in the way of my hidey hole, and I’m lazy.

… I’d stop being lazy with a hit of this, though.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Nah. Not now. I’m not exhausted enough to warrant it. It’d put lightning in my veins, sure, but it would also make good ideas fly past before I can catch them and bad ideas seem like really good ideas. I need control more than I need energy. For the moment.

Let’s start with something easy - scratching a small mental itch.

I go to my data engine and pull up the Registry. Hello, old foe. Lay thy head upon the stone, that I may smash it, and drink of the juices.

I search by electromancer. It’s not what I’d call a rare alignment to have, but not as common as fire or water either. Just like you’d expect, most of these people are readily employed by the city’s maintenance department (at rates that barely fail to count as slavery), because they can handle live wires without fear and act as a living contactor in the event of a blown transfer bus. I’m hoping that…

A-ha. I was right. That mean-looking old fucker I’ve seen a couple times is an electromancer. Let’s have us a little lookie. Give me that sweet sweet data.

NAME: Savaq Ixobrus Splinterway

AGE: 68, 19SUM515

RESIDENCE: Defunct electrical distribution substation A-17, Third Residential Ward, Sector Nineteen

POOL ADDRESS: N/A

CATEGORY: 3, Electromancer

RATING: 9+

THREAT LEVEL: Yellow

PROPERTIES: Electrogeneration, electresis, magnesis

ADVISORY: Do not antagonize.

Hot coffee, this guy’s a nine-plus? That’s the same as…

Wait a second.

Ok. Here’s Electrofuck’s entry in the system. It’s really funny, actually - he’s in the system, they know who he is and everything, but the information is weirdly sparse, because he’s never submitted to an interview and electrocutes every Brotherhood agent that tries to make him. The listing is full of really passive-aggressive justifications and veiled excuses about him, it’s great. His advisory says “Do not approach”, which I think is interesting. They have his real name, but not because he gave it to them. Rumor has it they had to actually perform an investigation to find anyone that knew it.

And it confirms my suspicion.

This Savaq Splinterway guy is Electrofuck’s dad.

That raises all kinds of questions, but I’m not going to get any answers any time soon. A lot of them would have to come from talking to Electro some more, and I… can withstand not doing that for a good long while, I think. Man. They say there’s no definitive proof that arcanism is handed along genetically, but if that’s the case, what are the actual chances that a father and son both end up as nine-plus electromancers? Curious. Very curious.

And completely, totally irrelevant. I should probably be doing literally anything else.

Phone calls. Lots of phone calls to make, now that the sun is up.

I call Em first. Don’t think about that too much, because I’m not going to be.

“Candlelight Orpha-”

“Hi Em.”

“Baulric! Uh.” Here, the subject takes a brief silence to stomp on her surprise and relief, to reassume her air of controlled indifference. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon.”

“Yeah, I got out on good behavior.”

“Are you alright? Still in one piece?”

“I’m okay. But boy have I seen some things.”

“Hang on a second.” She cuts the line to tell her secretary to hold people off. “Okay. Before you spill, I think we should bring Dad on.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s the one that told you to go down there in the first place, right? You’re just going to have to tell him the story anyway. Might as well do both.”

“Okay, patch him in.”

Voldzet comes online, and has a bit of a leonine scoff at how I managed to get in but also out as quickly as I did.

I fill them both in on everything, from top to bottom. There’s a sufficient amount of ooh-ing and ahh-ing at my detailed descriptions of the Library and the things I got out of it. Em thinks it’s funny and a little odd that I ran into Stonecutter, and Voldzet is very interested to hear the historical bits I got from a guy who was there. He asks questions about Karchax’s diary, but I can’t answer, because I can’t read an ancient several-hundred page tome in a few hours.

I tell them what Deepwell told me about the case, and the possibility of an inquest. Emaphra sounds stony and a bit scared at this, even though she probably doesn’t have a lot to worry about even in the worst-case scenario. Voldzet, who is extremely, amazingly wanted for a list of crimes as long as my small intestine, laughs it off like it’s not that threatening, even though all three of us know it is.

We talk strategy. Voldzet says he and his spooks have managed to pry some interesting data out of a Brotherhood junction node, but it doesn’t mean much outside of being unusual. I provide my theory and the information I got from my very large confidential informant (which they are miffed about but let slide), and we conclude that the data is probably related, but we can’t know how until Voldzet and his team can get it completely decrypted. Voldzet says in the light of the news, he’s going to have rotating patrols of Surgeons watching key people, Em and myself included. I say I’m fine with being watched - I’m under so much surveillance it wouldn’t surprise me to see my stupid face on the front page within the week.

After a while, we hang up. Well, Voldzet hangs up first, probably because he respects that his daughter and I probably want to say some things alone. We do, but it’s not what he thinks, or would prefer. Not what any of us would prefer, I guess. But it’s something. Friends is better than nothing at all.

Before I call Tennima, I have to think. Do I let her know that I ran into Strake yesterday?

… No. I don’t think I need to. Not yet, anyway. We’ll see if that becomes a problem.

She picks up fast. I hear TV in the background. Tennima’s an engineer first, but she harbors a deep-running passion for film. She says it’s something about how all the different people and jobs and actions all come together to make a single visual story experience. She’s always got a movie on.

“Earthboon.” She’s eating something.

“Hi Ten.”

A swallow. “Baulric? Hey, I was gonna call you, actually. I’ve got a match in a couple days if you want to come.”

“Yeah? When.”

“First of Winter, they put me on the Storm Bowl ticket this year. Not the headliner or anything, but it’s something. Crunch got entered into the Octo-Brawl on the second day, it’s gonna be a fucking bloodbath. Lot of sponsors looking. I’m gonna get so fuckin’ rich. Tenny get paid.”

“... Arrite, I’ll go and cheer you on. How many tickets you got?”

“One for you, unless you’re thinking about a plus one.”

“I might invite Em.”

“... You might.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that a I definitely want to invite my ex-fiancee to a major sporting event or a I still haven’t decided whether I want to invite my ex-fiancee to a major sporting event? I kind of need to know, these tickets aren’t cheap.”

I’d throw this girl into a trash incinerator if I didn’t care about her so much.

“... The second one.”

“Okay, let me know when you make a damn choice, you’ve got… nine days. But enough about me, what’s up?”

I tell her what’s up. The whole falafel.

At one point she’s quiet for a minute. I can hear her narrowing her eyes.

“So you think the Brotherhood has taken these semi-arcane runes and used them to make an automech that can do magic. And they’re using it to kill people.”

“... Mhm, that’s pretty much the long and short. Our society is doomed.”

“That’s fucking crazy.”

“I know! That’s what I said. Anyway, I think your sponsor might be funneling Mr. Crunch’s design data to the Brotherhood and that’s how they were able to crack their way into this nut.”

“... What.”

“Yeah. I’m not quite sure you’re as subtle as you think. I think someone put two and two together while looking at Mr. Crunch, credit readouts lit up in their eyes, and they saw a contracting opportunity. Then the Brotherhood either made a deal with them or bullied them into collaborating on this project.”

“This project being the robot murder wizard.”

“Yes.”

“Baulric, Halfmoon Systems is a computer company. They do networking and servers and whatnot. They don’t make or sell or deal in automechs, at all.”

“But they’re a computer company. That gives them a leg up on building the most important part of the automech, if they decided they wanted to get into the game. If they thought they could scrape enough know-how off of your own machine. They tempt you with a sponsorship, put you where they can watch you, and reverse engineer Mr. Crunch.”

“By looking at him.”

“Or hacking into his charging station.”

“My charging station doesn’t have worms, Baulric. I check my side of the network every damn day. I would have noticed if someone inserted something. You know I’m an electromechanical genius, right? And suitably paranoid?”

“What about your apartment.”

“What about it?”

“Have you checked it for bugs?”

“Yes. I found three.”

“Ha!”

“But they’re obviously going to spy on me. They’re a corporate sponsor letting me live in an expensive apartment for free. I’d spy on me too. I don’t really care if Halfmoon wants to listen to me take a shit every morning. And if any of the guys in their surveillance room are trying to peek at my tits, well, biology kind of headed them off at the pass on that one.”

“Those might’ve been the decoys. Put you into a false sense of security.”

“I don’t even bring my work home with me, Baulric. I carry no files and Crunch sleeps back at the garage. I admire your investigative enthusiasm here, but I think you’re grasping at wisps.”

“There could be something you missed.”

“Or you’re just desperate to find things that support your theory. You’re starting to exhaust me, Baulric. If you don’t think I’ve done my due fucking diligence, you can come over here and scan my whole goddamn life if you want. See if I care.”

“Why would I invade your privacy when I can invade theirs? I’m gonna ask the Surgeons to hack into Halfmoon’s databases and see if there’s anything… smelly.”

“If you get my sponsor taken away from me, I’m going to have Mr. Crunch tear your arms off. I like this apartment.”

“If I’m right, Mr. Crunch will have an entire field of human-shaped daisies to pluck. That will probably be very enriching for him.”

She snorts. “Yes. Probably. Have fun wading through the Swamp of If, Baulric. Let me know if you need anything.”

She hangs up. That was basically pointless. It was just a shot in the dark anyway.

I call Voldzet back and ask him to check out Halfmoon. He says they’ve boosted data from them before and it won’t take long to get to browsing depth again.

Okay.

… Now what do I do.

Deepwell won’t have anything for me until tomorrow. Voldzet needs time to get his guys out there. I don’t go back underground for two days. My brain feels like it’s full of cotton for some reason. Foggy. I should get the blood pumping. Grind this body to speed.

I go over to my weights rack. Hmm. How am I feeling today. Begin with… benchpresses, that’ll be fine. A comfortable weight, nothing audacious. There’s no audience to impress and I’m not in the mood to push it to the limit. Just enough to set the strings a-hummin’. Let’s start with three hundred and go from there.

Set it all up, scramble under the bar. Feel the thick pads conform under my back. Yeah, I lift without a spotter. I don’t have a roommate and no gym in Wellspring City is secure enough in its masculinity to give me a membership. If I slip I’ll just die. It’s fine. If the Gods of Bodybuilding decide I’m not sufficiently buff of heart, I don’t belong on this mortal sphere regardless.

Hands go up. Palms press into the knurled metal of the bar before me. Fingers around. One breath. Push.

And push.

I can feel the meat in my chest and arms fire up like a diesel engine. The skeins slide over one another, tighten through, like the rigging of a ship. Heat builds under the skin.

The bar rises into the sky, toward the great electric sun. Shit, that’s actually looking dim. I need to find room in the budget for a light bulb.

And back down. Slow. The weight comes to rest, gingerly and massively, like a landing aerostat.

I thought about light bulbs, so I know my meditation is far from over. The goal is to press all thoughts from the mind, with the hot steam iron of exercise. Think nothing. Press the metal. Reciprocate.

Up. And up. To the top. Then, down. And down. To rest at the bottom.

And again. Breath in, breath out. Weight up, weight down. Easing into the life of a simple machine. What do you do? I lift this. Then what? I put it back down again.

And again, and again. Skin begins to shine with sweat. Heart rate climb. Warmer and warmer. Down into the rhythm of steel and flesh.

Up…

Down.

Up…

Down.

…

…

…

…

And exhale. Let the wind catch up.

I wriggle out from under the bar and sit up, huffing a bit. Not bad. I went into the Quiet Zone for a little, and I feel better.

Feels good. Arms and chest hot, expressing power. This, here, is one of life’s joyous moments. The Isle of Strength. No thought. No news, no coffee, no streets. Just the stone of me, and the waves of my breath.

The skin under my arms glows green and gold, very slightly.

Hmm… The Stonecutter woman enters my head for a moment. Experiences. I think I understand what she really meant. Lifting weights, keeping my dumb huge body in line, is how I first discovered how to consciously channel my vitae, to augment my muscles and make them more powerful. I was doing a set, still getting used to my new body, and clumsy. I slipped. Caught the bar on my neck. It could have ended badly, but I remember more than fear, more than self-hatred, more than anything else… it all collapsed on me, in that moment. Pinned under a great weight. Pinned under all the shit that had happened to me, that put me on my back in the first place.

I snapped.

Not in rage. Not in hatred. It was close, but I knew even then, choking and desperate, that neither of those things would have helped me.

I just felt like standing up for myself for once. I chose not to die. I chose to determine myself.

And the magic came.

It didn’t come because it was sorry for me. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. It was me. Is me. I wasn’t getting a wish granted or being spared an unfortunate fate. I just… became.

I shined, and pushed out from under the weight like it had never been there. And from that point on, I knew how to do it when I needed to. How to stomp my foot and say no when death scratches at my door.

I need to think about those kinds of things more. I need to do some of those things more. If I’m going to borrow the power of life itself, I need to make some of my own first.

… Probably. Your guess is as good as mine, I’m operating on pure instinct here. But maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Ting ting ting, ting-ting.

You’ve got to be fucking joking. Really? Right when I’m talking about death scratching on my door? That’s really incredible. Why am I the only dumb fucker out here improvising when apparently everyone else got a copy of the fucking script?

I stand up and allow myself a moment to think, even though it won’t do me any good. That’s Corundum come back calling. I don’t know anyone else with that little clawtip knock. Might be here to kill me. Might not be, though… he is knocking, after all. And I think he knows I know that I’m too wrapped up in all this shit to just disappear. Not just yet.

I’m not betting my life on it, though. I draw my vitae to just under the surface. My heart pants, and I grab my sword. I might get to test it sooner than I thought.

Ting ting ting, ting-ting.

Right up next to the hatch, sword out to the site, I lean forward and ask aloud, “Who’s that?”

“Neutralizer NH3-588 Corundum Vengeant.”

It was stupid of me to stay at my apartment. I should have just gone homeless for a little while, or asked to stay at someone else’s place for a bit. I’ve lived worse. If he is here to kill me, we’re away from any prying eyes. They’ll disappear my body and it’ll be days before anyone starts to suspect anything. And by then, who knows what will have happened.

Fuck it. Let’s fight, then, if that’s what you want.

I throw the door open. There’s Corundum, standing there in his death armor, helmet plates folded back. I caught him in the middle of smoothing back his hair. That’s… preening behavior. Really something you don’t see with these guys.

Before him, I’m an eight hundred pound, shirtless, sweaty hulk with a gigantic great sword in one hand and a lack of patience in the other, looking mean and about to come down from on high. He just kind of looks up at me and smiles, his ice water vitae gently drifting back and forth in a calm wind. I see him snatch a glance at the blade, but his eyes are back on mine in a flash. I saw the intravitreous targeting system in his eyeball move. Like metal veins constricting.

“Greetings, Mr. Featherlight. May I come in?”

I set the end of the scabbard down onto the ground with a boom. You will not get through me. Well. Okay you might, but I’m going to at least make you work for it.

“Considering the circumstances, I think it’s best if you don’t.”

He affects a regretful expression. “You did refuse our deal. A decision that I am still trying to understand.”

“It’s not hard. You belong to an organization predicated entirely on murder and oppression. Taking money from you would be the ruination of my soul and the debasement of everything I stand for. You and your kind are nothing but contemptible bullies and I’m embarrassed to know that you and I technically belong to the same species. That’s why I didn’t take your deal. I can solve my problems without filing for moral bankruptcy at the law offices of Technocracy and Genocide. Thanks, though.”

It’s like the words fly out of me without my permission. I’m gonna fucking die. They arrest people for saying shit like this. And I’m saying it while brandishing magical contraband.

Corundum’s reply is to look at me for a moment. The guy’s a lamppost, I’m getting nothing from him whatsoever. But I’m ready to swing if he so much as twitches. I might be able to catch his lash, but only if I react within a fragment of a secon-

“Perhaps.”

I narrow my shutters at him.

“You are surprised. I am not a propagandist or a proselytizer, Mr. Featherlight. I am but one molecule of one finger of one hand of the Rectifier. A holy avenger. A killer. I have been taught to look at the world as it is.

“I will not play defense attorney for my Brotherhood. That is not for me to do. I know the work we do is good and necessary, because I have seen and done it myself. I have seen the sick cured, the innocent defended, the bestial punished. That you would be ignorant of these things is expected. Your ignorance is our responsibility.”

He doesn’t look overjoyed to be saying this. He looks hard-edged and grim, all the chipper cheer from before buried under… something else. His gaze had wandered to somewhere in the middle distance, but it snaps back to mine like a targeting reticle.

“Can you guess why I am here?”

Yeah. I can. But I’m not going to.

“Why don’t you tell me, so we can get this over with.”

“I have been sent here to kill you.”

Finally. I see no reason to waste any time, then.

Vitae flare. Time slows down. Rippling green-gold light splatters across the walls like reflections off a pool. My body sings with might and speed. I will not die here. Not yet.

Wind back, flip grip on sword. No time to unsheathe. Just smash him. Up and over my head. For Corundum, and myself, it all comes crashing down. At the last instant, I come out of myself enough to see he hasn’t reacted to my movements. That’s-

CLANG.

Instead of smashing down into his left shoulder and driving his entire toy soldier corpse into the concrete, he… how do I put this.

He caught it.

His arm is raised up above his head, and the rounded edge of my gigantic bloodstone butterknife is resting in the palm of his hand, at a dead stop. Vapor hisses from ports in his forearm, shoulder, hip, knee, and ankle, letting the pressure out of all the shock compensators.

Corundum’s face isn’t even different. It’s just that same, grim look, like his boss told him he’s going to have to come into work on Octiday.

“But I am not going to.”

He dismisses my sword from his hand, and it falls to the concrete. A few chips fly up at the impact. I wasn’t even pushing.

All my vitae drains away, back down to where it sleeps. I’m forced to sheepishly pull my sword back while holding eye contact, setting it on my shoulder. Just in case.

“... Sorry.”

“I should have spoken faster. No harm done.” He looks left and right briefly, as if to see if anyone is watching him. There’s a little electronic wisp in his eyes for a moment. Then he pulls out his smokes. He offers me one. I take it, because… well, I don’t fucking know, alright? I’m going with the flow here. You should try it.

I stand to one side to usher him into my room. “I guess you might as well come in, as long as you’re taking it easy on the murder.”

He enters, saying, “Thank you.”

I put the chair between us and set the ashtray on it.

I’ll start. “You’ve been ordered to kill me.”

Corundum nods, looking a little more miserable. “Yes. But I am not complying.”

“... Why.”

He exhales a smoky sigh.

“I am a killer, Mr. Featherlight. I am a soldier. A soldier is one whose primary purpose is to slay others. And so I have done. I have killed men and women who have borne weapons against me, and against others, to advance their agendas. Small people, violent people. In battle. To restore order, and only when absolutely necessary. I am proud to have done it. The Rectifier speaks through the Prime Controller, and I am the hand that follows the voice.

“We bring electricity, medicine, safety, civilization. And they spit in our faces. There are those in this world that hate us so much, they are willing to put children at knifepoint to compel us to obey them. It was done to me. These… animals, would endanger their own young to have a chance at defying us. It did not work. I split that man’s head and rescued that child. Not a day goes by that I think about what may have happened if I missed.”

He drags again, and looks at me.

“You are just a man, Mr. Featherlight. An aberration, yes. A mutant, yes. But I have read your record. I have read the surveillance. I have read everything there is to know about you. You are only… trying to get by. As are most of us. More than that, even - you have worked for the betterment of our society at large.

“Yet I have been ordered to eliminate you. I do not know why. What I do know is that whatever it is you have done, it is not enough for the authorizations to be official. Under the terms of the Charter, an extrajudicial Neutralization must be countersigned by the High Marshal or one of his representatives in cases where time permits. I was given no such writ. And as you are at home and not eating people in the streets, it seems that time does permit.”

I can’t help but smile at the poor kid.

“They’ve already tried to bag me once, buddy.”

“What?”

I tell him about Seagraves’s try on me.

His brows knit a little. “I was not made aware of this.”

Shrug. “I’m not surprised. Their pet mercenary couldn’t do the job, so they sent one of their in-house guys. Someone pretty low-ranking that hopefully won’t ask too many questions. This has been a black op since the start, friend. And you’re part of it. Let me guess - whoever’s pulling your strings told you under pain of grave punishment that your task was secret, and if you breathed a word of it to anyone else in the Brotherhood, you’d get it bad, right?”

He can’t come up with words. He just nods.

“This isn’t on the books, bub. They just tried to scare you into keeping mum.”

Corundum shakes his head slowly. “Things will become… difficult, for me. Now that I have chosen insubordination.”

I have to chuckle at that.

“They don’t teach you guys office politics in your little hatcheries, do they. Why do you think they came down on you so hard, Dumdum? Because they know they can’t do shit to you if you disobey. Because none of this is on the record. You could walk back to the shop, give Copper Dawn the finger over this, and nothing would be different. How can they punish you when their reason for doing it doesn’t officially exist?”

He’s silent for a moment. “There could be other repercussions. Copper Dawn is… he has influence. If he is moving…” he chokes on this one a little, “extralegally, then there could be clandestine reprisals.”

“Yeah. So keep in public. And watch your back. You’re in the game now, friend. Welcome to paranoia. Coffee and donuts in back, and keep those goddamn hands where we can see them.”

The kid’s clearly having a hard time with some of these realizations. This isn’t the world he knows. He’s scared. The rug’s being yanked out from under him. Below his feet, it’s all earthquake.

I can’t believe I feel sorry for him, but I do. A little.

“Sorry, Dumdum. This is probably rough for you. I’m not unsympathetic, despite my position.”

He sniffs once, and nods. “Thank you. It is all… very confusing. I only wish I knew what… what is going on. What reason there is for this sneaking about, these lies.”

Oh he’s good. If he’s not being genuine, that is. If he’s performing, and I’m not sure that he’s not, this is where he tricks me into spilling what I know. Fat chance. Even if you’re not my enemy, you’re not my fucking friend, Dumdum.

“Must be something to do with that case. The killings. What else makes sense?”

“Yes. There is something there. Something strange. You refused the order, and continued to investigate. Did you find anything? Were you able to approach a conclusion, find evidence?”

“Nothing conclusive. It’s got to be some rogue mages, but they didn’t leave much trace. Outside the magic, there’s not a lot to go on. They’re probably Lowlifes with a bone to pick, just some nobodies. Nobodies are hard to find.”

The soldier nods. “No plan?”

I shrug again. “I would have had, but I got kicked off the case this morning anyway.”

His eyebrows collapse at me. “Why?”

“Because it’s too hot now. Lord Rediron wants reprisal. His son is dead. He’ll fan the flames and the city will cry for blood. They don’t want a fucking mage on this. Captain of Precinct Ten has it now and he doesn’t want me anywhere near it. You can go down there and check the records yourself.”

He’s quiet, thinking for a moment.

“So you are no longer involved.”

“No offense, but if there’s gonna be an inquest, I need to start thinking of ways to keep you and your pals off of me. I’m not getting thrown in the locker for something I didn’t do.”

“Perhaps it will not come to that. Perhaps the Watch will uncover the culprit. They have proven resourceful in the past.”

“Perhaps.”

I’m scanning his face, trying to get the impression of a lie, or anything I can use. But there’s not much, aside from that kicked-puppy confused sadness. Y'know, it's funny. He's not an idiot. I'm only forty percent idiot by volume. He probably knows this about me and I know this about him. But I think he thinks I think he's something he's not. We're all monsters here. What's the show for? Just be yourself! Don't you think that I think that you think you ought to know better? C'mon. Hiding only makes me want to see the circuitry more. His vitae is steady too. Spires of ice, floating in a dark sea. No storm troubles these waters. If there’s turbulence, it’s way, way down, where I can’t see.

After a bit, it looks like something congeals in him. He has some realization or another. The most important one, now, is that he has no reason whatsoever to be here. Not anymore. He never really had one to begin with. But where’s he gonna go? Where’s a young Neutralizer to go? Home? What’s home? For Corundum, home is where the liars live, now. Strife and uncertainty are waiting for him to come to dinner. He doesn’t have any friends he can talk to about stuff like this. Who can he trust? He can’t go to a fucking bar. If he asked for a drink people would see it as the dumbest attempt at entrapment ever.

And I don’t fucking want him here. Because I don’t trust him. And the ozone coming off his reactor vents is starting to fuck with my head. I’m sorry, I’m not pitiless necessarily, I just have bigger things to worry about. If he wants to have a crisis of faith he can go have it somewhere that isn’t my apartment. I cough once to break the silence.

“You don’t know where to go, do you.”

“No. I do not think I do.”

I sigh. “Here’s my advice, bub. Go back to… I dunno, wherever you people congregate and sleep. Act normal. Report for your duties. Don’t wind up alone in a room with your boss. If Copper Dawn shoves you, tell him he doesn’t have shit and if he keeps it up, you’ll report him. Keep an autorecorder on you. I never go anywhere without one.” I tap my eye. “If you’re lucky, Copper Dawn will come to the conclusion that you’re both not useful and not a threat, and he’ll leave you be. And you can get on with your life.”

He soaks up all my words like I’m the melted butter to his toast. “Yes. That makes sense.”

“And don’t come back here. I don’t need to be mixed up in Brotherhood shit any more than I already am by being alive. It’s not that I don’t like you, Dumdum, it’s just that your crew have killed an awful lot of people and I don’t trust you as far as an ant’s somersault.” I put out the end of my cigarette. “Thanks for the smoke. There’s the door.”

I point at it.

He puts out his cigarette too, then wordlessly approaches the way out. Before he leaves, he turns his head back to me.

“Have a super fantastic day, Mr. Featherlight.”

And he’s gone.

Hopefully, for good.