The old adage states that you should never look back in anger, but in my expert opinion, I’m not sure you should ever look back at all.

So what if I decided not to? I don’t own a time machine, I don’t have a magic eraser. I can’t go back and make something what it’s not. Even if it was something I could try and make amends for in the present, I wasn’t sure it was worth the trouble. Look at Ava, look at what she said. Look at that and tell me there were any words I could conjure to make her feel something other than what she’d pre-decided to feel. The parade was already in motion—I could watch, I could throw popcorn at it, but nothing would change the procession. It’d started before I even knew it was on the calendar.

I sat there in stunned silence for a few moments, but it was a few shorter than I thought I would. An older version of Erika might’ve sat there for longer—but with the way I was then, I was more prepared to let that go.

Ava couldn’t kill me, anyway. No matter how much she might’ve wanted to. Cygnus and Bell had my back. She’d just have to deal with it.

After a few short moments, I gathered myself and took the three-quarters-empty bottle. All the glasses were clean and re-hung. All the ingredients for mixed drinks put away. There wasn’t a soul around but me, and it was too late at night now to wait for more. I was closing shop; anyone dropping by for a late-night hit would have to self-serve. Alone in that cavernous basement room surrounded by the empty crates and forgotten machinery and fragments of a previous existence none of us knew.

The bar’s faucet had developed a small leak since I’d last been here. It dripped—the only sound in a lifeless world.

I left the bar. Shutting off the lights as I went. I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore.

That much, at least, was progress for sure.

0 0 0

I’d figured we were going to roll out right after that night, but Loybol kept us back for a little longer. That previously hadn’t done us much good, but I was hardly in a position to criticize, so I didn’t. Her explanation fell along the lines of “there’s more to weasel out of Misha,” but I wasn’t so sure about that, either. Somehow I didn’t feel like she actually knew all that much. She may have been a high ranking officer, or lackey, or associate or whatever her position was called in Neville’s organizational structure, but her information seemed strictly structural. She knew where things were and who was in what spot, but didn’t know a ton about what they were up to, or what Neville’s actual plans were. Loybol’s approach to getting info out of her was a fairly slow one. She decided, sometime at the end of the first meeting, that threatening Misha was a waste of time—she could simply make Misha talk at any point, so it’s not like there was any hurdle to overcome. Loybol spent a decent amount of time just walking around the grounds with her, taking her out to some restaurants in town, talking about anything other than the war.

I couldn’t blame them, really, for wanting to think about something else. God only knew I tried to.

After a week and a half of that, Misha was considerably less standoffish. She’d taken to wandering around the facility by herself, making small talk with anyone who stood still long enough to be noticed. There was some amount of long-term recovery to assimilation, apparently, especially for people who retained some sense of autonomy, so a lot of her movements felt like the rehabilitation process of someone who’d undergone serious surgery. In a way, I guess, she had, given that most of everything under her skin was replaced with black sludge that did everything for her.

Seeing what went on under the hood of Loybol’s standees made Cygnus very uncomfortable, and he and Ava shared an opinion on that, but Bell and I did not. Personally, I just thought it was neat, and Bell’s stance on it was well known. There was a point where Bell and I were planning to go out to get some coffee and Misha was outside on the grounds, poking at some flowers in the field nearby. They were growing in front of her, so that answered the standing question about her key—and once she saw us going by, she waved and came over, opened her mouth, and simply could not speak.

She’d stood there with her mouth open and her throat stressing trying to make sounds for a bit and simply could not do it. After a second, she stopped trying, face scrunched up in confusion, and turned around to go back to the flowers. It was equally confusing to Bell and I—although considerably less scary—but a thought struck me and I turned to Bell. “Can you go inside for a second?”

“Why?”

“I’m curious about something,” I said. “Just—go over there somewhere, far away.”

Bell caught the thread. “Do you really think so?”

“I mean, it’d make sense, right?”

Misha looked up at us, silent.

“We’re trying something,” I replied, gesturing at Bell again, who nodded and headed off back toward the factory doors.

She opened the first set, didn’t open the second, and presumably just stood in the gap between them. Once the first door’d finished slowly closing, I waved at Misha again and said, “Hey—try it now.”

“I don’t—”

She blinked. “What the fuck?”

“Have you not talked to Bell at all yet?” I asked her.

She paused, looking down. “I’ve talked to a lot of the staff, and I talked to Cygnus and Ava a lot, and you a decent amount, and I was unconscious for a few days in the middle somewhere there, so…”

After a shrug, she added, “Weird. I think this is the first time.”

“In five days?”

“Somehow, yeah. That’s really weird.”

“I think Loybol locked you out of talking to her,” I said.

“Like—a hard, physical lock?”

“Yep.”

“That’d explain why I never really wanted to,” Misha said, looking out toward the factory’s doors. “I’ve definitely seen her, and I’ve definitely seen her alone, but—every time, I just walked right past her. It’s like—I know she exists, but for some reason I’m not allowed to remember—God, that’s fucked.”

I shrugged. “Loybol doesn’t draw a lot of hard lines, but she’s got a few.”

“I get that Bell’s fuck-you strong, but so are you, so what gives?”

“She’s really interested in the umbroids. Really wants to know how they work. Loybol won’t tell her, and I guess now that you’re here, she’s got to extend that to you, too.”

“Wild,” Misha said. “I mean, Bell can just tell you her question and then you tell me, right?”

“We can try that,” I said, absently. Vaguely turned toward the doors as well.

“You don’t think that’s gonna work, do you.”

“Loybol’s pretty thorough. She’s probably got this mostly figured out. And either way, if you get around it, she’ll just knock you down a few autonomy levels. And then you’ll be sweeping.”

“I’m curious now, though,” she said. “Go ask Bell what she wants.”

It wasn’t any skin off my back, and admittedly I was curious too, so I shrugged and said, “Sure.”

Bell was still between the factory doors when I arrived, leaning up against the wall cross-armed like a dying tree. I relayed what Misha’d told me and Bell grimaced at the prospect. “I mean, I’m impressed, but—yeah, let’s roll with it. Ask Misha how the recovery process feels.”

“Got it,” I said, heading back out.

Playing messenger’s not too hard, turns out.

I went back to Misha and asked the question—and she just stared at me, confused. “Did you say something?”

“Yeah. I asked you how the recovery process feels.”

“How the recovery process feels?”

“Exactly that. Bell told me to tell you—”

“You’re doing it again,” Misha cut me off. “Your mouth’s moving but nothing’s coming out.”

Despite myself, I snickered. It really wasn’t all that funny—I could only imagine how terrifying it would be if it was happening to me—but it wasn’t, and Misha didn’t seem shaken up by it, so I didn’t feel bad.

I mean, she wasn’t scared by it because she wasn’t allowed to be scared, but that was neither here nor there.

“It just straight-up censors any sentence with Bell’s name in it that’s said to me?” Misha asked.

“What if I—” I trailed off, and then said: “The woman over there wants to know how the recovery process feels.”

Misha shrugged. “Nothing. It recognizes context, too, I guess.”

“Seems like it.”

She scratched her cheek. “Well, I guess we could probably work around this if I really wanted to, but it’s not like I can actually hide anything from Loybol, and if she finds out I’m doing this she’ll actually knock me down a peg, and I’m really not all that interested in that when we’ve got a pretty good thing going, so…whatever. Let’s leave it.”

“Kind of weird, though,” I said.

“I mean, sure,” Misha said, shrugging. “But it’s in her wheelhouse to do that.”

I figured it was time for a subject change. The fact that she wasn’t freaked out about having a nonconsensual censor stapled to her brain was starting to freak me out. She wasn’t allowed to question the way things were—or, actually, it was even worse: she was allowed to question, but not allowed to feel anything about it.

“Have you two been getting along?” I asked her.

“Yeah. To be clear, we didn’t have any beef anyway.” Misha looked away from me, out at the town. “Loybol’s totally fine. She’s here because she’s helping out a buddy, whatever, I can’t really hold that against her. It’s Prochazka that Nev doesn’t like. Nev and Loybol are fine. They’ve always been fairly civil.”

I paused. “Didn’t this war start because of a prison break on Loybol’s turf?”

“We needed some more guys to fight y’all,” Misha said. “It was a bit unfortunate that the prison was on Loybol’s land, but sometimes you’ve just gotta do stuff to get by.”

“I guess.”

We were quiet for a bit. “You know, it kind of sucks that you’re all going to get dropkicked into the sun the second you go into the city.”

“You really think so?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she replied. “The plan for taking out Ava’s already half-done and Cygnus isn’t going to be much of a challenge. Bell’s going to abandon you as soon as the going gets tough, and then it’s you alone, and we can handle that.”

I tried not to feel anything. That was always the plan, right?

God forbid I showed any weakness at any time, even in front of someone who’d been completely neutered.

“You don’t know what Nev’s master plan is at all?” I asked her. I realized right after that we hadn’t actually changed the subject to that yet, but Misha just went along. “Nope,” she said. “I know that he wants to get you alone and alive. After that, he hasn’t told anyone else diddly-shit.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah,” Misha said, taking a seat in the grass. She leaned back on her palms and just laid there in the sun—after a moment, she took hold of the grass behind her and grew it out, widening the blades and weaving them together, puffing them out into a pillow, and then she laid down all the way. I sat down on my knees but didn’t get any lower.

“I mean, I trust the man with my life,” she said. “I literally killed myself for him, didn’t I?”

She said this while lying there, the warmth and glory of late July on everything the eye could tough—bathed in a light I could only recall as the purest gold.

“I—I guess so,” I said.

“Dude is brilliant,” she said. “NYC runs like clockwork. You probably don’t know because you’ve never been, but nothing gets by Nev. People literally say that, like it’s a slogan. Nothing gets by Nev. Because they’re right. We’re talking about some fifteen million people packed together in a city where shit you wouldn’t believe happens every hour on the hour, and we’ve managed to keep knowledge of magic under wraps for this long. Loybol’s system is great for a smaller city that’s a bit sleepier, but in NYC that goody-two-shoes shit doesn’t fly. You can’t bring a duster to a sword-fight. You’ve gotta bring a gun, you know?”

I didn’t reply. I had been to the city, once, when I was young. My father took me to a few places on a vacation—one of the two we ever took before I abandoned him. We went to an art museum, saw the Statue of Liberty, all those things. Someone must have told him that’s what fathers do, occasionally, when they have some spare money, so he up and did it and then we never spoke of it again. Something to check off his list of fatherly duties.

Again, I found myself wondering if he was still alive. What he was doing, if anything.

If anything but slowly decomposing in a coffin, I mean.

Misha returned to the previous subject. “Do you really think you’re going to win this war?”

“We do,” I said. “Loybol does, Prochazka does.”

“Okay, but you didn’t answer my question. I’m not talking about the management. I’m talking about you. Erika Hanover. Not Unit 6 collectively.”

I frowned. Didn’t reply.

“Since I’ve been here, it’s been weird,” she said. “I’ve gotten to see you all just bumming around, acting like you would on any other day, and—I feel bad, you know? It’s like watching a comedy from the fifties. It’s funny and all, but you can’t help but see the faces of everyone on screen and see corpses. They’re all dead, but there they are—laughing and carrying on and all that. I mean—I put in place a mission to kill you all, and it’s working. It’s going to work. It’s practically already done—but here I am, shooting the shit with you, not allowed to feel anything too strongly about it. I can remark on it without a care just like I’m doing now. I was talking to Cygnus yesterday, and we were talking about metal—the music, not his key—and the whole time I was just standing there thinking, I know exactly how you’re going to die. I’ve already killed you. But dammit—I kinda like the guy. He’s got spunk. Bit of a weirdo but who’s got a key and isn’t? And…I feel that way about pretty much everyone I’ve talked to here. Even you.”

I blinked. That was the one thing she’d said I couldn’t shove away into the closet. “Me?”

“You’re not that weird,” Misha said. “You’re a kid. So what?”

“I—I don’t freak you out at all?”

She stopped looking up at me and turned her attention to the distance—the top of the brick buildings on the other side of the street, past the factory’s big courtyard. “Erika, do you know how many executions I’ve ordered?”

“A lot, I guess.”

Misha rolled her eyes. “God, so many. I’ve ordered the executions of all your friends. I had Benji killed. I ordered the old guy in the building in White Plains to put the bombs upstairs. There was a third one, by the way, that we didn’t need. I called the hit on Bell. I’ve had so many dissidents put to death that I couldn’t even tell you how many digits the number has. And now I’m sitting here, chatting with you, because I agreed to throw my life away for the cause—just like y’all are supposed to—and because I know that what’s in store is ironclad. It can’t be stopped. None of you can be saved. You might think you can, but that’s wishful bullshit. Trust me—I’d know, wouldn’t I?”

Cold in the July sun.

“So I’m gonna turn your question around, Erika,” Misha said. “Do you really think you’re as fucked up as me?”

In the past, I’d have had no response to that. In the present, I figured that maybe I should have kept my mouth shut—and here in the future I know with certainty that what I did was right. Even if I doubted it at the time—and even if it made my face go red to do it.

I had to make a stand, just to make all the times I didn’t worth something.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I do. I dehydrated four people in the basement of White Plains because Loybol told me to make a scene for you and it worked. I saw the look in your eyes. Well—I didn’t see it, really, because I’m—because I’m blind, but I felt it. I know you were scared. I know you saw something inhuman out there. I know that you’re afraid of me, too. Don’t act tough just because Loybol’s stopping you from feeling anything. You’ve got no idea what Neville wants with me and that freaks you out a little bit, even if you don’t—if you don’t want to admit it to me.”

I sucked in another breath. It was too late to stop now—the sentiment had existed within me for so long that I couldn’t begin to date it. From somewhere in my heart I found its home. Next to the closet stuffed to bursting with all the things I’d pushed away there was another place, one I rarely ever visited in fear of what I’d find. A chained-up chest in a remote room in a locked building staffed by nobody.

I went there now—opening the doors, going down to the room, severing the chains—and I found it again. Anger. Burning. A visceral hell that, justified or not, I kept tied up so tightly that I wasn’t even sure if I was allowed to access it, even though it was mine—even though it was my heart. Like my own feelings were off-limits. As if anyone would ever have the nerve—the absolute fucking gall—to tell me I wasn’t allowed to feel something.

Only I could make that call. Only I was allowed to deny myself that right.

I said to her, in a slow even tone to keep myself steady, and to give myself time to plan ahead: “Deep down, you know that if I’m still alive and conscious when that first snowfall hits, you’re all dead. All your best laid plans are worthless. I will find every single person that had a hand in killing my friends and I will rip them apart alive. You’ve already seen what I can do when I don’t have an opinion one way or another. Wait until you see what I can do when I do.”

Misha, to her credit, did not wither. “I believe it,” she said. “And if it comes to that, I’ll accept it. I didn’t get this far by being a sore loser. Just know this, for reference—Loybol’s keeping me around to be her head of operations. She’s going to need someone like me when all of this falls apart and we have to go on clean-up duty for a few years while the world re-calibrates. So when you go on your crusade, keep that in mind.”

I said something then that I did not plan. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

Misha cracked a smile at that. “You know, Erika, I’d always pegged you as sort of listless. Glad to see that’s not true. There’s something in there, you know. You should let it out more often.”

That, however, I didn’t have a response to.

She slowly got to her feet. “Go get food with Bell or whatever,” she said. “I’m melting out here so I’m going back in. Have fun, and if we ever come to that future—well, I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Noted,” I replied.

I did not look back at her as she left. For a moment, I was alone. She gestured at the door—presumably for Bell’s benefit—and when it opened I heard the footsteps coming toward me.

I heard them, but still—I was alone.