I was so perplexed and focused on Senator Irenside’s parting words that I was actually a bit distracted from Karu’s driving, which was a mercy.

“Jesus Chris Karu, you don’t…fit…there…!”

“Oh, silence yourself. I am in the lane, am I not?”

“Only because that guy didn’t want the your car becoming a hood ornament for his.”

“I do not see the issue. I knew he would yield, and so he did. Perhaps you should be commending my aptitude rather than criticising it?”

I shook my head at the same bullshit she’d been pulling at the golf course. So absolutely certain of her correctness that any outcome would justify it, it felt like. Until she wound up in a flaming wreck.

Which, with her father, perhaps she already had. But then his last words came back to me and I was lost all over again.

“Why didn’t you even try to meet your dad halfway?” I asked her.

“Because then I would have given up a half-measure for nothing.”

“But what if it wasn’t for nothing? What if he would have met you with the other half?”

“Asking such as that is like asking why I do not sing to birds to have them perch on my finger, Ashton. Or stride atop waves to cross the sea. These things do not happen, and acting in expectation of such makes one delusional.”

“Well yeah, you’re not a fairy-tale princess or a prophet, but you are his daughter.”

“And so I have experience sufficient to determine his depth and meaning.” She paused, and I thought she was done speaking, but it was only to throw both of her hands across the wheel to rip the car sideways across three lanes of oncoming traffic. “I understand it is not a great comfort to you, but my argument is: I have the experience in the situation and you do not. You cannot contest me.”

“I know better because I’ve been there longer, is that all?”

“Indeed.”

“You also have a lot of messed up relations and twisted-up emotions. You don’t think there’s any chance that’s altering your perspective a wee bit?”

“No,” she said. And this time when she paused, it was because she had said all she wanted. The woman was impossible.

“Okay well, for those of us who are obviously idiots in this situation, can you tell me why your vast experience concluded this was a lost cause?”

“That, I might be able to,” she said with a serious nod. “Imagine you are discussing terms of an agreement with an individual. What do you suppose the necessary steps are to a fruitful end for both parties?”

I sat back in my chair — not pressed into it by g-forces at the moment — and thought. “Well, for both parties to walk away happy, they have to each put out there what they want, otherwise the other person wouldn’t know to give it to them. And then they discuss value I guess. I see how much of what you want is worth how much of what I want. And we go back and forth on that point, until we agree. And then we agree. Is that pretty much it?”

“Pretty much, as it were. Now tell me, at which of these steps did negotiation break down on the golf course?”

“Step zero?”

She smiled. “Did it?”

“Yes. You wouldn’t tell him what we wanted either. You even told me off for telling him.”

“So you admit that we, collectively, told him our position and desires.”

I shook my head. “No, crazypants. I told him because you weren’t going to. Because you have this huge beef with him and it’s insane, and neither of you were going to get anywhere, ever.”

“My, how interesting,” she veritably hummed. “The senator was acting in a manner which extracted your sympathies to his cause, and I was acting in a manner which had you handling presentation and negotiation on our behalf. I wonder if perhaps either of those were an accident?”

I would have fell back into my seat, but a sudden burst of acceleration managed it for me. After a minute of thought, I came back with a witty, succinct retort.

“What?”

“Is it possible that everything from bringing you along to arguing to him through you was a calculated maneuver?” she chuckled. “Ashton, you are many things, but predictable is chief among them. It is not hard to account for your actions in my dealings.”

“Wait. So to be clear. You were not telling him what you wanted because you knew I would?”

“Indeed. And by having you do so, I withheld from him what he desired, which was proper interaction with myself. Can you not see what a vulnerable position he held us in? The very act of coming to negotiate was already a victory for him. How would we possibly retain anything to offer after delivering unto him what he already sought?”

My head spun and my headache seemed to compound. Karu’s flippant invitation for me to join her in golfing with her dad seemed so…so…so…multi-layered and nefarious, now. I looked at the psychopath on my left with new reverence and awe.

“So the whole thing, the whole…everything that just happened. That was literally all just a battle by proxy through me?”

“And one we lost badly, I shall have you note. You spent far more time reproaching me than you did attempting to persuade him. His act won you over entirely.”

“How do you even know it was an…oh,” I said, realizing. “Oh.” She smiled broadly at the road while my stupid, inferior, single-dimensional brain worked. “At the end there, after you left, he just kinda…gave up, seemed like a different person. I told him basically he was wrong and he told me basically to shut up.”

“Indeed. I was gone, and the game was over. Your influence was meaningless at that point, so he had no need to propagate the facade.”

“So it really was all just an act? The whole…loving father wanting his daughter back thing? Wait, but that doesn’t make sense.” The car skidded to a halt, tires squealing, lined up exactly on a curb outside the rental car place. Here already? It was supposed to be a fifteen minute drive. I popped my door and took a few jogging steps to catch up to Karu. “If it was all just a farce, then having you talk to him wasn’t what he really wanted.”

She shrugged. “The two are not wholly incompatible. The man is looking for any opportunity to have me rejoin his camp, that much is true with certainty, and having an open ear is the first step towards that victory. But you are likely correct that such was not even his true motive.”

“Then what did he want? What was the point of that whole thing?”

She smiled again, the smile I was beginning to realize was that of a mastermind whose plans were falling into lockstep. “Remember what I asked you? About the steps of negotiation?”

“Yeah…so…we, or I, or…you, through me…” I said, shaking my head “presented our position. And yet we still don’t know his.”

“Correct. Which means that before he was willing to divulge even that, he wanted to know our angle. We gave it to him, and still he remained on step zero. What does that mean to you?”

She watched me with intense scrutiny as she tapped through a series of forms on a holo and then dropped they keys into a slot, as though she’d done it a thousand times. Then, still studying me, she turned on her heel and steered the two of us towards the white obelisk on the horizon, the Washington Monument, and the D.C. Mall we’d already visited together so long ago.

“It means…I guess…if he never even got to step one, then…he never expected the deal to go through at all? He expected it to fail the whole time. Or wanted it to?”

“Indeed. And had we come to him with something he would willingly provide, this would all have gone differently. Do you know what that means?”

I might have been able to puzzle through it like the rest of the logic she was leading me through, but at this point, it felt like I was hammering nails with my forehead, so I just said no.

“It means, he values his business with IkaCo and their secrets and relationship more than he values anything we could give him. Anything at all. To the point where negotiation was not even a consideration.”

“Anything at all?”

“Having you sing and dance for his patrons’ amusement, having me return to his right hand, having eyes and ears within the XPCA or Hunter’s Association, or even pressuring me to rejoin his career path of choice, none of this was of value compared to IkaCo.”

“That’s just not possible.”

She smiled again as we pressed past yet another group of slow-moving tourists and approached the monument itself. Sullen, pearl-white, contrasted brilliantly against the blue sky above it, I’d always been a fan of the simplicity of the Washington Monument. Even if Lincoln was probably a bigger badass, willing to throw down and do what he had to, going to war with half his own country to keep them from tearing apart, and ending slavery too of course, Washington still won out on monumental coolness.

There at the base, Rito perked up at our approach, standing and stuffing her mobile away from where she sat in the long shadow. “Ready to go?” she asked.

I nodded. “Handy that you went on field trips to so many places when you were in school.”

“Mom didn’t have the money to send me, really,” she said, suddenly the demeanor of a sea slug. “But she did anyway.”

“Fascinating history lesson,” Karu intoned. “We will probably need to go inside or travel several blocks to escape prying eyes.”

As we walked the final few blocks for Rito to send us all back, my mind just kept spinning on what Karu had said. He valued his relations and secrets with IkaCo more than anything she or I had to offer.

Anything.

On paper, that sounded insane. We just wanted to talk to talk to some people on the inside there. Now, we knew that we were actually looking to conduct a little corporate espionage, but he didn’t know that. And I hoped he didn’t even suspect that. But assuming he didn’t, that meant that having his own daughter back, having me in his court and pocket, none of that was worth whatever precarious relations he had with them, which were so fragile he couldn’t ask the smallest of favors.

Karu was on her mobile, her face as focused as mine felt, just drifting along after Rito without much attention.

“What are you looking up?” I asked her.

“Hm? Oh. I am checking to see if he has any public relations with IkaCo. They are not listed sponsors of any of his programs nor his election funds. From what I discern, on the surface of it, they have nothing to do with one another.”

“But you’ve met…Moon’s dad, whatever his name is.”

“Ichiro Ikeda, yes. From the outside, that is meaningless. Father invites many people based on nothing but their influence and the hope of securing more concrete relations. Many of them accept for no reason but to mingle with others of power, even if not Father himself. Or for the hors d’oeuvres.”

“So it means…nothing.”

She smiled again as she slipped her mobile away. “At first blush, yes, as it were. However, you and I recently attained knowledge that there exists a relationship there, one which he would not dare threaten.”

“Because he wasn’t willing to even try to contact them to do us a favor.”

“To have us indebted to him, you mean. And yes. Now, what kind of relationship do you supposed there may exist which is not publicly known, and which runs so secretive that you would not even be willing to establish even the smallest of public links between yourselves?”

“You’re saying…your dad is…taking bribes or something from them?”

“‘Or something’, indeed. Mere bribes could be easily dressed as campaign contributions which are on public record.”

“Um, we’re here,” Rito said. “Sorry that like, took so long.”

I looked around and realized, yeah, somehow we were back home at my little apartment near campus. AEGIS was still sitting there, starting from her work at the sound of Rito’s voice. Lia’s head popped out of her bedroom, followed by the rest of her, and Moon gave us exactly one glance from her book on the couch, where she still sat wrapped in bandages.

“How’d it go?” AEGIS asked.

“Well, I thought it was a monumental failure, but my brain only works in one dimension apparently. Karu’s been picking apart everything we saw or heard or didn’t see or hear, and she’d got me convinced there’s a whole Illuminati conspiracy thing going on here.”

“I can run you through the logic later, if you wish,” Karu said with a stretch that popped her shoulders and…enhanced some parts of her that already stuck out quite a bit. I turned away and found Lia giving me a stink-eye for my efforts.

“Why does it not surprise me that Athan’s just lost the second there isn’t something in front of him to hit?” she asked, thankfully not bringing up my stray gaze.

“Because he is an idiot,” Moon contributed from behind her book.

“I thought you were reading?” I asked her.

“I can multitask.”

“I’ll remember that next time you tell me to stop distracting you from your book.”

She lowered it for a moment and joined Lia in glaring at me. Sheesh, these girls.

“Well, I’m just glad nothing blew up or nobody caught on fire, or there wasn’t a random Exhuman waiting in secret,” AEGIS said, taking hold of my arm a little too intimately. “I’ve been reviewing all the things that I’ve missed out on in other lifetimes and…boy, Athan, do you get into a lot of random trouble.”

“It’s not my fault!”

“Except most of the time, when it really absolutely is,” she said seriously. “But not today, and that’s what matters. I think if we take what Karu’s concluded and–“

She paused. The rest of us paused with her. I had a terrified moment of thinking she was crashing, that we hadn’t rolled back far enough and the virus was in her, but then I saw her blink.

“Um, someone’s coming,” she said. “Several someones. Perhaps I spoke too soon.”

“Who?”

“If you’ll excuse the cliche, I believe they’re men in black suits. Sunglasses even indoors. Brisk movement, they obviously know where they’re going, and that is obviously here.”

“Like, hired goons?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. They’ll be here…”

Someone knocked on the door. AEGIS swallowed and nodded.

“Right about now.”

I went to the door and peeked through the hole. Four men at least, just as AEGIS described them. Black suits, sunglasses, cropped hair, not a hint of personality on their faces. I reached out with my powers and felt earpieces in their ears, blindingly bright, so much so that I couldn’t tell anything else they had on them.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Open up,” the front man instructed in a neutral tone. His voice had a hint of an accent I couldn’t place, but only a hint.

“I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“Open up or we will break down the door. This is your final warning.”

I stopped and frowned at the door. I could kill them, of course, but that wasn’t very…sustainable. I was sure they were serious about breaking the door down, so the question was, did I want to accost them, or accost them and also have to pay to replace the door?

I barely had the door open when the four of them pushed inside, shoving me aside despite my efforts to push them back. They were strong. One stood with me while the other three filtered further inside, taking positions through the living room.

Karu and AEGIS looked nonplussed and ready for anything, and Rito looked like she might piss herself again, trembling and doing her best to make herself small. Lia flopped on her back onto the couch next to Moon, who never even looked up.

“So. What’s your issue?” I asked the man in front of me.

He didn’t answer, but another of them did, speaking to Moon where she sat ignoring them. He spoke to her in Japanese, and all I got out of it was Ikeda-san. Which was her, I guessed?

“No. I’m staying here,” she replied in English. “I have made my position to Otousan perfectly clear.”

“We were not asking,” the man growled back.

She snapped her book shut with irritation. “Yes you were. You asked me to please come with you. You should improve your specificity and say only what you mean.”

He moved towards her, and the second he started, I started towards him. The man on me was already reacting though, somehow a shock prod in his hand which he jammed into my stomach.

The electricity pouring off of it tickled as it wrapped around my body instead of passing through it. I gave him one moment of a smug smirk before I sent all the current right back up his arm where he jolted and seized, his muscles locked around the handle of the device which was now jolting him instead.

Moon gave a surprised yelp as the man who’d addressed her threw her easily over his shoulders, but no sooner than he did, he grunted and dropped to one knee as Karu took his calf out from under him. Her second strike to his temple downed him completely, and sent Moon tumbling right back onto the couch where she’d been sitting.

The other two men charged in, and AEGIS threw two kicks in less than a second, snapping forward and then back, like a ballerina in fast-forward. Their faces made awful cracking sounds as her metal feet made contact, and both fell to the ground holding their heads, stemming the blood from their new injuries.

The fight lasted about two seconds. These guys had picked the wrong fucking house to mess with, that was for damn sure.

Lia stepped to the one who had picked up Moon, the only one knocked senseless, and began going through his pockets. When one of the others spoke up, Karu dropped an elbow on his face and his protests kinda stopped there. With threat of systemic destruction in place, my sis went from thug to thug, taking all their belongings she could find, while they sat quiet, avoiding eye contact.

“Nothing here, really,” Lia said. “Wallets without IDs. Keys. Chits. Want ’em, Rito?”

“Um. I don’t want to get in trouble,” Rito said. “Or involved.”

“Fair enough. A few weapons, shock prods, oof, brass knuckles. Come on guys, how tasteless is this?” she asked, waving the knuckles in the direction of the guy she’d pulled them off of. He didn’t respond, just sat still and silent, staring at the floor. “Are you supposed to be mobsters from the prohibition, or what?”

“I don’t think they’re going to talk,” AEGIS frowned. “And don’t spill blood on my carpet,” she warned the nearest one. “If I have to pay to replace it, I’m going to get my money’s worth. So if you don’t want your face kicked in harder, keep it on your damn fancy suits.”

“We already know who they are and what they want,” Moon said, already back behind her book with the disinterest of one who was notjust assaulted by thugs. “They were sent by my father to reclaim me. They are men of no importance.”

“So what, we just spank them and send them home crying?” I asked.

Karu grabbed the nearest guy and his hands had time only to meet her arms around his throat before there was a sickening crack, and he went limp.

“Oh what the fuck. You did not,” I told her.

“It sends a message,” she shrugged. “Do not commit any resources you are not willing to lose.”

“You just fucking straight-up snapped a dude’s neck. Karu, do you remember what I fucking said about killing people?”

“They would return if we do not. Next time, with lethal intent.” She moved towards the next closest guy, but AEGIS popped up in her way.

I held the door open. “Run, assholes! Get the fuck out if you want to live!” I shouted at them. They didn’t need telling twice and all three very nearly tripped over beating an escape. Karu was smiling at me like again, I’d just done exactly as she’d hoped.

“What the fuck–” I slammed the door and turned on her.

“Oh, he was done for anyway,” she said, of the body. “My strike to his temple shattered the skull and induced internal hemorrhaging. Even if he were put back together, he would never be the same.”

I just gaped at her. Were we still paying her game? Even with dead bodies on the floor? Had this all been done with her knowing I’d send the other three packing? Did this help us? Hurt us? Was letting Mr. Ikeda know we were killers a good thing, or would it scare him off?

I had no fucking clue. My head hurt, and there was a dead guy in my living room. Lia was already making tutting noises and calling someone, and the rest of us just sorta milled around like this was a normal occurrence.

Not for the first time in my life, I thought about just how fucked up it all was. I’d always said the scariest part of being an Exhuman was how easily one could kill, and any situation could change from normal to lethal in an instant. But even if Karu wasn’t Exhuman, she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them, stood up to and stared them down regularly. She was a product of this life as much as I was, and this life was so, so messed up.

I didn’t have anything left but to sit down and hold my head. Just a freaking disaster. From Chinese assassins to political intrigue to corporate thugs. Lia was right, I did best when there was a target right in front of me I could just fight.

AEGIS nudged me and when I looked up, I saw her standing there with a soft smile and a glass of water and an aspirin. I took them gladly and thanked her before turning back to the killer in the room.

“Last warning, Karu. No more dead bodies.”

She smiled at me, the same smile I’d grown sick of over the course of the day. “Empty threat, Ashton. I will kill precisely as many and the right people as is required to get things done.”

“You’re a sociopath. Like legit psycho. Why is it so hard to just not kill people?”

“Because, Ashton, sometimes there are people whose lives serve no purpose, but in ending.”

I started to argue but Lia and AEGIS pulled me aside, putting me down in my bed for me to rest and recover, to sort ot ut my headache and tiredness and to not say or do something to Karu we’d regret.

Which was bullshit. Because I was right here and I knew it. I hated that thug, for what he chose to be and what he was trying to do, but he didn’t need to die. Sending a message didn’t mean we had to murder people.

…

Or so I believed. But as I rolled over in the dark, my thoughts tumbling at the motion like a thousand interconnected delicate towers, all balanced on facts I didn’t know and beliefs I held without substance, thinking about just how fucking smart Karu could be, how easily she could predict and play me…and by extension, I hoped, others…

Well, part of me just stubbornly hoped she was wrong. But the other part of me, the logical half, the part I was trying to use to steer me, to steer all of us in an intelligent direction, that part had to admit, Karu had a point.

And I hated myself for thinking it, but at the same time, I didn’t know if I could afford not to.