Lauria walked down the ramp out of the ship that had delivered her from orbit to the roof of the Venturi Industries building. Together, she and Jules had decided that they would act like nothing was wrong. Jules would stay on the ship, do nothing, and they would go back to the Creator together and work this out.

Despite the circumstances of Jules’ deception, return, and apparent psychosis she smiled as she emerged from the little ship that had brought her back to Earth. Fuck, I hadn’t even realized that I missed the sky.

It was a clear day, with the sort of depthless blue that made her think of a movie. She was above the city’s normal haze, and the unmistakable skyline of New York city pulled her eyes as she approached a row of pallets covered in boxes.

To her relief she recognized some of the boxes at a glance. One pallet was covered with sealed boxes of soap. The branding on the sides of the boxes made her roll her eyes, but she knew the nature of the Governance competition meant that someone had probably negotiated to make those labels so visible. Another pallet had a few dozen boxes of women’s sanitary products, another shampoo brands that were unmistakable. She was able to verify all but one of the pallets at a glance, but still pulled out her manifest and did her due diligence, checking items off her list one at a time. “These look good.” She said, nodding to two burly men waiting with jacks that they used to begin loading the goods.

She approached the final pallet. It wasn’t wrapped like the others, and a very well-dressed man and a beautiful woman were standing next to it. The woman held a clipboard and gestured her over. She looks vaguely familiar, Lauria thought idly, but most of her attention was focused on the boxes. These are the medicines that will keep our ship healthy for the next few months.

Confirming the contents of each individual box took her about a half an hour. She wasn’t feeling sociable on account of her worry over Jules, so she ignored the two people guarding her haul. By the time she crossed the final item off her list, she was sweaty, annoyed, and relieved that she wouldn’t have to requisition any additional materials. The Creator’s orbit had already been slowed to allow her some extra time on the surface, but if she missed her deadline she would have to wait longer than she could afford to get back to her patients.

Plus, the longer we are on the ground the better chance that Jules will be discovered.

“All right. Wrap this up and get it on the fucking ship.”

Finally, she looked up at the pair that had been shadowing her since she landed. “Thanks for getting this here. Turns out it’s hard to plan for the medical needs of a thousand people, especially if you are a couple of know-it-alls with more marketing researchers on staff than doctors.”

Letting some of her real anger seep into her comment improved her mood just a bit. Fucking Jules and Callisto thinking just because they are billionaires they can plan a year-long bottle episode. She continued, “It’s nice to work with someone competent.” She managed a real smile at the two.

Both returned the smile, though the woman’s was a bit strained. The man replied, “We are glad to help.” That voice is fucking beautiful. “We are as captivated by the drama taking place on that ship as the rest of the world is. My little cousins will be badgering me non-stop for the story of what happened here today.”

He paused, and Lauria remembered what was to come next. “Well, let’s give ‘em a little more to talk about.”

She turned back to the vessel that would shortly be returning her to space. Approaching the ramp, she walked a few steps up and pulled a lever that released a rotating arm. At the end of that arm was a screen that she turned on with a touch. It revealed a view of herself, the platform, and the city skyline.

“Fuck’s sake.” She grumbled at her somewhat disheveled appearance. Focusing on fixing her hair let her ignore the lost look in her eyes. When her gaze swung to dripping lines of black mascara she couldn’t ignore the realization that was growing in her. Julius Paine is no longer my boyfriend, he’s my patient.

Shaking her head gently to clear that unwelcome thought, she seized on the last thing she had been thinking, “Why the fuck am I worring about smudged make-up?” She complained. That didn’t stop her from rubbing her fingers over the worst of the marks on her face, smoothing them into relative order.

Seeing the pair behind her on the screen she called out to them. “Listen, I’ve got to make a little speech here. If you don’t want to be broadcast to a fuckload of people you better clear the shot.”

The gentleman (when had I started thinking of him like that?) practically fled out of the camera’s frame. The woman followed suit without the same sense of urgency.

“Aight Grace, give me the speech and let’s do the damn thing.”

Lauria saw a countdown superimpose itself over her own image. When it fell to one she began reading the words streaming off the makeshift teleprompter they had worked out for today’s speech.

Not really following what she was reading, Lauria informed the world about the Governance project’s investment into research and containment of a novel virus that was surging down the Alaskan coastline. She urged North Asian governments to be on the lookout for cases of the disease and to plan for quarantines and treatment centers. She called attention to the WHO’s response team that had deployed to the region earlier that week and offered them her gratitude. Before she knew it the speech was done. Thank Christ for that.

Grateful her personal hell was over, she turned and waved farewell to those she saw on the roof. She walked up the ramp and heard it clattering shut behind her. The hiss of the vacuum seal engaging reassured her as she hurried to strap herself in to the vessel’s copilot chair.

Grace’s voice informed her, “Time to go.”

The ship took off and she breathed a sigh of relief. Stress she hadn’t known she was holding leaked from between her shoulders.

“Okay Jules. We made it. Come on out, and we can figure out what the hell to do with your sorry ass.”

She didn’t hear a response and felt the stirring of fear. “Not funny sweetie. Get out here now. I’m not laughing.” She said again, hoping, but in her heart she knew. He was no longer on the ship.

He fucking abandoned me again.

****

Julius Paine was not comfortable.

Given that he was crammed into a cabinet, he thought that was understandable. How do I get myself into these situations?

He also wasn’t happy. Despite his agitation he had seen the way Lauria looked at him change. It was subtle, a tightening in her eyes and her body pulling away-- no, not even pulling away, her Companion training was too good for that. If they hadn’t been lovers for nearly a year he wouldn’t have noticed it all.

She was afraid of me.

That thought made Julius Paine profoundly unhappy. It made him feel guilty and ashamed. Yet, I can’t deny the logic that brought me here. I am being manipulated by targeted media. If they control what ideas I am exposed to, they can control the possible outcomes of my thoughts.

I had to get away. I have to get away. I can’t let the Valuestream be under their control.

Gods above, maybe I am crazy.

The sounds of Lauria’s feet walking down the gangplank had faded what felt to Jules like a long time ago. The only illumination was a thin rectangle bordering the doors of his little hidey-hole. He couldn’t see much, but he could certainly hear footsteps the instant they hit the gangplank. In his little cavern they sounded like shotgun shots, amplified by the confined space. Soon after he heard the heavy clattering of wheels.

They must be loading the supplies. He didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary as the first pair of pallets were loaded. The noise from the men diminished into silence, and Jules concluded they were off the ship. He breathed a deep sigh of release. We are still on schedule.

Soon, however, the men returned. In the confined space, Jules held his breath. To his hyper-sensitive ears, the men drew closer this time. He breathed again, when they withdrew for what Lauria had told him would be nearly the last time. The tenor of their exit was different from their entrance, evidenced by ever-so-slightly higher pitch to the wheels. They make a different noise when they are loaded with supplies.

In the darkness of the cabinet he noticed that one of the lines of light had dimmed slightly, occluded by the parcels that were the purpose of Lauria’s trip to the surface. These details filled his mind while he waited for the men to return. Something in his subconscious told him this was the trip that would bring them closest to him. I am not going to stop trusting that today.

He settled back into the cabinet, relaxing his body and taking a few deep breaths. As soon as he heard the men returning, he inhaled and let the breath sit in his chest. His gut had been right, his light around him dimmed further as more of the light from outside the cabinet was blocked.

“Hey man, you go on and grab that last pallet. I’m gonna sit here and enjoy the shade for a moment.” Jules heard a muffled voice say.

Shit.

The man banging his way off the ship followed a grunted response. As gently as he could he exhaled, hoping against hope that the sound would be blocked as one of the men descended back to the roof. Jules noticed that he was sweating; the summer day’s heat had finally spread up the open door into his little shelter.

Listening as the man settled onto the pallet nearest him, Jules took the shallowest breaths of his life. They were tiny things that would eventually see him gasping, but by then he hoped the man would be gone.

Instead, his heart dropped as he heard the man humming to himself. The sound got louder and louder until the door to his little cabinet opened. The brightness of the day startled him and left him blinking light spots from his vision. As they cleared, the very first thing he saw was a hand, outstretched towards him: an offer to help him up. The next was a gun held in the other hand: making it clear the offer was not one he could refuse.

“Found you.” The man said.

“How?” Jules answered, hoping to delay whatever was coming.

He saw the gun descending towards his forehead and then blinding pain as he learned how it felt to be pistol whipped. “That isn’t how this works. You obey. I hurt you less.”

Groaning, he took the man’s hand and rolled out of the little cabinet. All I have to do is -- his thoughts were interrupted as his vision flicked from another blow, this time to the back of his head. “That’s quite enough thinking for you. You are going to stand up and walk down this ramp with me. We are going to walk around the ship and into the stairwell. Nod if you understand.”

Mentally scrambling, Jules felt the third impact, softer than the first two but still enough to interrupt his stream of thought. He nodded. The sharp pain in his forehead dulled into a wet ache, made somewhat less intense by the deep bruising radiating into the right side of his skull from the last blow.

Feeling the man’s arms lifting him up, Jules considered letting the man support his whole weight, but before he had more than the thought, he was standing on his own two feet with the barrel of the gun pressing hard up into the right side of his spine. The man’s left hand gripped his shoulder tightly, one finger pressed so tightly into his collarbone he feared the bone would break. He found himself obeying, taking step after step until he emerged into the painfully brilliant day.

The sun shot lances of pain through his eyes into his skull and he would have fallen down the ramp but for the man’s grip on him. He felt the gun pressing up into his back, supporting some of his flagging weight. When he was able to lift his head, his aching eyes were drawn to an impeccably dressed man holding his suit open to reveal a gun which his tired brain only registered as big. As quickly as he saw it the man let his jacket swing shut to reveal Lauria kneeling over an open box facing away from him.

As quickly as that, the man in the suit blocked his view of Lauria, and Jules was behind the ship, out of view of his Companion and whatever tenuous aid she represented. The last thing he saw before he was ushered into a shaded stairwell was the shocked face of Altria Converez looking from him to the gun at his back.

****

Altria’s heart was still beating hard from the near-horizontal landing the helicopter’s clearly totally insane pilot had made into the private port near the peak of the new Venturi Industries building.

She had visited the architectural wonder before, both as a tourist on one of her days off and in her professional capacity to entreat Julius Paine not to rock the boat. She had never seen it from the perspective of nearly colliding with it.

She had never imagined slipping into a tiny gap built to house the smallest of propeller planes, but she would never forget it. As she gave herself a moment to let her shaking limbs settle, she remembered that Callisto Venturi had been censured for illegally landing on the same berth.

Not quite able to calm her nerves, she was filled with one particular vision of the chopper’s landing. She was looking out the window at the dangerously close building when she made the unforgettable decision to glance down along the building’s facade. The mirrored windows of the VI building stabbed into the ocean’s surface through the shimmering rainbow of light that made the VI building unique. The building itself reflected the whole view back up at her: a dizzying mirage of doubled perspective. Inch by inch, the helicopter’s motion replaced the sight with the blessedly stationary floor of the landing bay.

When she was finally able to look up from her reverie, her boss Castelain was grinning like a demon with his hands gripping the straps slung across his chest. He wasn’t shaking like she was, but the tendons and veins in his hands stood out with every ounce of strength dedicated to holding them in place.

I guess he’s human after all. She thought. This might honestly be the least composed I’ve seen him. She leaned over and put her hand on the tip of his knee. “Let’s never do that again.”

He released the straps, and she saw blood flow return to his hands in a rush of color. He gulped once, nodded, and looked away. When he looked back at her his composure was mostly restored. “Agreed. Although I will have to remember to pay the pilot a rather significant bonus. I did say we needed to be here as fast as possible.” He intoned.

He drew in rather more air than Altria thought he strictly needed. “Though perhaps I shall ask that he be reassigned to another client.” He practically shoved the indrawn air out of his lungs, but when he spoke again it was with the twinkle to which she was accustomed. “I am not sure I will be able to look at him the same way knowing he is capable of such a thing.”

“Actually sir,” she replied, “I think that is exactly the sort of person I would want working for me.” Castelain’s eyes met hers approvingly, “Quite right, Agent Converez, quite right.”

Feeling better, they disembarked the chopper.

Castelain checked his watch. “Two minutes to get up the stairs and in position.” He glanced at her. “Walk with me. It wouldn’t do to appear too out of breath.” They moved towards the marked stairway and Castelain began giving her instructions.

“We will be assisting Ms. Linodel as she collects the supplies the ship requisitioned. You will take point on working with her.”

He pressed a badge to a security checkpoint, and a door opened up into a well-lit metal stairwell. Castelain strode through first and continued, “The men on the roof are ours, so if things get hairy they have our backs.”

“Copy that.” She replied, wondering how he expected things to get hairy.

“That ship gets back to space with the supplies it needs.”

“Copy that.” She confirmed. They are making everyone so much money, she thought to herself, nobody benefits from bringing them down. She herself had funded a few projects on the vessel that had doubled in value.

They emerged into the sky. The first thing she noticed was the vessel descending, slowly, along a line of fire shooting out of the roof of the building. Every time we think we have a handle on their technical capacity, Paine and Venturi come out with something new. This one, she had read, was laser-assisted descent. The ship was still far enough away to seem distant, but getting closer by the second. The next thing she noticed was a message from Calli on her phone. After reading it’s contents she immediately spoke. “Sir, my team thinks Paine is on that ship.”

Castellain froze. “How?”

“They compared the descent speeds with and without him on board. Monty- my analyst accessed the ‘Stream files that are shared on the ship and the weight matches.”

“You’re sure?” He asked, looking upwards at the approaching craft.

“All this effort, and I will finally get you because you refused to keep a secret. How fitting,” Spoken so quietly she was sure she wasn’t intended to hear, the words put a chill down Altria’s spine.

“Agent Converez, you are going to witness something today that will change the world. Remember after that what we are doing is good, and it is right, and most of all it is necessary.”

She shivered in the warm air.

“I have one final order for you.” He turned to her, eyes blazing. “Do nothing. Do not interfere. Do not speak. If you do this, our future, and yours, is assured.”