“What do you think, Mr. Maros?” The lead technician assembled the tripod sensors on either side of Kol. “Do you think you’ll perform a third deflection today?” The sensors emitted a low hum as they came alive, their spindly probing-arms reaching over his head.

Kol did not respond. He never performed a third deflection. Only two, the first strong, the second hesitant – that ended his testing quickly. Two deflections each day, then blood work, then back to the cell.

Kol gave them nothing new, nothing more than his newfound consistency, just enough to save Max from further torture.

“I don’t know.” That’s what Kol always said – if he said anything, on those occasions when the science team addressed his Shaping. It was another part of the role he played, another routine.

Like the two deflection limit, it was a lie, his daily lie. And for a week, for seven days of testing, it had satisfied the scientists.

“I think today we’ll push for a third.” Sir Geber joined them that day, following the team of technicians, quietly observing, until that moment. “Won’t we, Mr. Maros? You’ve performed greater feats for me. You’ll stretch yourself for my visit. You’ve learned a great deal, but you’ll learn more now that I can finally attend to you myself.”

“I will do what I can.” Kol inclined his head. As usual, he allowed the lab team to restrain him against the wall without any sign of resistance.

“Deference.” Geber smiled. “Good. I’m happy you’re starting to realize how much worse your captivity could be. But despite your betrayal, we are nothing but humane with you. We are just, even to traitors. You see that, don’t you, Mr. Maros?”

“I’m grateful,” Kol said. “With work, I will meet the expectations of this testing.”

Geber placed his helmet on his head. Immediately, its antennas began to move, swiveling in small, independent circles.

“Begin,” Geber said.

The first projectile launched, without warning from Geber or the science team. Kol’s shield was ready. He’d expected faster testing with the knight present. The blue wall repelled the projectile and sent it tumbling back to the floor.

Kol lowered his shield. He watched the scientists raise their notepads and datapads and begin typing or writing their notes.

Another projectile fired at Kol.

If he hadn’t learned the subtle sounds and clicks from the launcher, the metal cylinder would have taken him in the collarbone, too fast to react.

But Kol reflexively raised his shield again, only a foot from his face, intercepting the projectile, just in time. Kol left the shield up without any thought for his usual performance in the testing room.

Three more projectiles struck the shield at random, without rhythm. Only when Kol heard new typing and the scratching of pen on paper did he lower the shield.

“See,” Geber said. “Motivation. In the same way that adrenaline draws new strength from the body’s muscles, so does proper motivation draw new strength from the mind.” Some of the technicians nodded in response.

“I believe our Mr. Maros has become a good deal stronger than he knows,” Geber continued. “Or perhaps stronger than he’s showing us. Is that right, Mr. Maros? Are you hiding your true capabilities? Are you going back to your cell each night, with energy to spare, taking advantage of our hospitality?”

“You caught me by surprise,” Kol said. “I’ll feel it tomorrow.”

“I hope not,” Geber said. “Tomorrow we’ll be paying a visit to the Czar’s own research project. I have a hunch that seeing brother Maxwell will offer the greatest motivation of all.”

* * *

Enoa crouched in the snow. She wore her boots and her cloak, but her hands were bare, and she buried them to her wrists in the crusted remains of the snowfall.

The temperature rose each day, enough to turn ice to slush – slush that froze overnight. Enoa found training in nature’s transmutation. She reversed the melting, resisted the heat from the sun, worked to keep a single patch of ice a solid mass.

Enoa took a break to warm her hands. She fully melted an area of slush behind her, holding her hands above the steaming transformation.

Then she forced the air to refreeze, made new snow to flutter back toward the ground. She molded it, melted it, broke it down and refroze it. She tried to capture the exact texture of the icy crust, expand the mass she’d protected for hours, working to freeze everything around her.

From air to water to ice, finding the right consistency meant using her physical sense of touch, incorporating her real, waking senses into the mental sense she’d honed in her earlier Shaping training.

The reformed snow fluttered back the ground. It was perfect, fresh powder, soft and fluffy, nothing like the half-ice mass.

Enoa tried again to solidify it, tried to congeal it all into that single icy block. But in another plume of steam, she found herself crouching on the ground in a puddle, all solidity gone.

She groaned and stood. Then she released everything, all the remaining ice and slush, returning it all to nature’s control. She stretched and found Orson and Teddy watching her, halfway between her and the earthship. They saw her notice them and started toward her.

“I’m telling you, man,” Teddy said, as they came within earshot. The baker was bundled in a heavy coat, open to reveal his usual flannel. “This time would be different. The market wasn’t right for your memoir then, but this is more, uh, flexible.”

“I don’t know if I have it in me to do that again, now,” Orson said. “Sorry Ted. It’s nothing against anybody, I just…”

“Hear me out,” Teddy said. “I have two words for you, ‘web serial’. It’ll have time to gather an audience on the New Net, the exploits of a real, living adventurer and his crew! It’ll be awesome, man.”

“I appreciate…” Orson said. “I appreciate the pitch. I’ll think about it.” He nodded to Enoa. “How’s the training going?”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I guess it’s harder learning to do your own moves. I’ve only done my own techniques a couple times. The things I’m learning from Aunt Su’s films are going a lot better. Even the staff training is pretty good. I trained for three hours this morning, before my arms were too tired to hold the staff.”

“I heard you out there hitting your training stuff in the garage,” Teddy said. “You’re pretty consistent with it. You don’t even take breaks! April’s a night owl, so I’m used to being the only one awake.”

“I’m sorry if I bothered anyone!” Enoa said. “I thought the thick door into the rest of the house probably hid the sound.”

“It’s okay,” Teddy said. “I have strong ears! And you only start training after Orson’s already finished his stuff.”

“After?” Enoa asked. “Why don’t I ever see you?”

“I’m up usually five or six,” Orson said. “I do enough to tire myself out, and I’m done by seven, before I hear you moving around.”

“You’re still awake at seven in the morning?” Enoa asked.

“No,” Orson said. “I just don’t sleep well anymore. Oh, we heard from Eloise. That’s why I came out here. She thinks Helmont’s probe will be back in Littlefield today.”

“Is she still going after it with her brothers?” Enoa followed them back toward the earthship.

“She is, from the sound of it,” Orson said. “She said something about keeping its head and sending the rest to Pops.”

“That’s freaky,” Teddy said. “I wouldn’t want a robot head. I’d be afraid it was peeking at me, man. I don’t like being watched. I don’t even trust your helmet thing or your keys, after the times we had with them.”

“With what Thunderworks did,” Orson said. “I’m okay with that automaton seeing the guy who lopped it apart.”

“That’s messed up, man,” Teddy said.

“Wait, the Aesir’s keys?” Enoa asked. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing,” Orson said. “But the body is from a prosthetic eye. This guy had lots of robot eyes, and he could see out of all of them.”

“He was like the beast with a thousand eyes!” Teddy said.

“He used to spy on us,” Orson said. “He stalked us for the better part of a year. I eventually caught and mostly destroyed that one and used its body for my key ring.”

“He got it with the shoe-hand technique,” Teddy said. “Now it’s part of his keys.”

“You’re making this up.” Enoa slipped on the ice. Orson reached out to her, but she found her footing. “Thanks. My legs are weaker than I thought. I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” Orson stopped walked.

“Yeah.” Her legs wobbled like they didn’t want to hold her, like they used to when she was new to Shaping and could only maintain limited exertions. But she forced herself to walk. “I was out here most of the day.” The sun had begun to fall toward the horizon, the flat distance. “Yeah, I’m okay. Let’s go.”

“Alright.” Orson waited for her to walk ahead and followed after her. “The shoe-hand technique is Teddy’s name for it. It’s when you put a shoe on your hand to kill a dangerous bug or something. You have a wasp in your house…”

“Then you give it a smack with the shoe-hand technique,” Teddy finished.

“I usually just catch the wasp,” Enoa said. “And put it outside.”

“Well, now I feel like a real jerk.” Teddy held the earthship door open for them. She and Orson stepped inside, drying their feet on the mat. “But I have a phobia of being stabbed, and it makes me really mean.”

Enoa let Orson and Teddy walk ahead while she stretched her legs. Then she walked from the entryway down the long passage into the earth. Jaleel, Dr. Stan, and April were already in the living room, gathered around the spare laptop, with the Shoshone transmission box connected.

“They’re back,” Dr. Stan said. “Go ahead, Eloise.”

“We’re doing this.” Eloise spoke from the laptop. “The Liberty Corps probe always comes through Littlefield when they do their sweeps of Route Sixty-six. It flew over Halfpoint ten minutes ago, and it should be here some time in the next three hours.”

“If the Alliance hasn’t shot at it,” Orson said. “Maybe it isn’t the best idea to pick a fight with it.”

Enoa stepped into view of the camera and waved.

“Orson, you sound like Pops.” Eloise waved back. “You’re both such hypocrites. No one takes more risks than the two of you, but when someone else does anything, then it’s ‘well, you need to be safe, this might not be a good idea’.”

“Pops is like that sometimes,” Orson said. “But this is different. I know what it’s like to have the Liberty Corps gunning for you all the time. Putting a bounty on me. You don’t want that. You’re getting married in six or seven months.”

“And they won’t be gunning for me already if they take over?” Eloise asked. “No, I have to do this. If I’m right, and that thing comes by, Alec and I will teach them a lesson.”

* * *

“Won’t it be good to see brother Maxwell again?” Sir Geber personally escorted Kol back through the testing level. They walked, giving Kol a rare look at the other experiments being performed. Kol snuck glances through testing room windows at other subjects. He saw a woman vomiting indigo liquid that burst into flame on contact with the floor. He saw two young children floating, limbs flailing as if attempting to swim through the air, their eyes wide. He saw a man, mouth agape, his wails silenced by the soundproof walls. The man clutched the top of his head, a crown of pale white growths visible between his fingers.

“Keep moving!” The sergeant who led Kol’s usual quartet of guards raised his electrified lance. The other guards stood at the ready.

“His curiosity is useful for us.” Geber no longer wore his armor, only his white dress uniform – no gloves. He reached for Kol’s shoulder, moving enough to expose the Racz family watch on his wrist. “Yes, I am looking forward to tomorrow’s visit. Maxwell is such a well-spoken man.” His grip wasn’t tight, and Kol did not resist.

“And it is a notable opportunity in other ways,” Geber continued. “The Czar’s team are not typically inclined to share their subjects. It is a great favor to me and to the Baron’s operation that this is happening. The Lost Park team thinks it’s a high-risk operation, but I know better. We will learn more from you together than apart. And you won’t try anything, not with his well-being in danger, will you, Mr. Maros?”

“I will not endanger him,” Kol said. Geber watched him, locked gazes with him, like he could see the contents of Kol’s mind written there.

“You won’t.” Geber tightened his grip. Kol felt numbness spread, released from the knight’s touch, race from his bicep down to the tips of his fingers. “Too much is at stake.” Geber released him and warmth spread down his arm.

“You can take him the rest of the way, Sergeant.” Geber pulled his arm back, again drawing Kol’s eye to Duncan’s watch. Then the knight turned and walked back down the passage.

The guards were rougher with Kol, two seizing him, one with his lance at the small of Kol’s back. The sergeant barked commands and stopped only to open Kol’s cell door.

Kol tried to hide his relief. When they finally reached his cell, it came time for the last part of his daily Shaping routine. It was his research, his training, his final secret from Geber and from Helmont.

After the guards took him to his cell, but before the door closed, Kol found the door’s lock in his mind.

He made another energy field, but this projection was not a shield. This was not meant to protect him. He made this new field to fit against the door, to move with it, to fit between the door and its locking mechanism.

When the door slid shut, Kol kept his eyes on the red light above the door lock. Kol bent the energy field with his will, moving it, altering it.

One day, Kol believed, in his unfounded hope, he would find the lock’s sweet spot. He would find a place where he could fit his Shaping projection between door and lock, but the door would not know. The door lock’s light would show green, would think itself sealed, and it would be wrong.

On that day, Kol could leave his cell.

But not yet. The door lock’s light glowed softly red. Kol could not risk the discovery of his mental doorjamb. He gave up on his Shaping and let the projection fade away.

The door locked. Its light turned green.

Kol spent the remainder of his night staring at the green light, trying not to think about his brother.