There’s a saying: you don’t know what you have until you’ve lost it.

If I took most of what I’d been told at face value, was I in danger of losing what I had now?

Then again, what did I have now?

Had I gained anything after winning my fight against the Gun Queen? Just what had I achieved? What had I earned for myself?

I sat back in the booth’s padded seat and quietly regarded my hands now resting on my lap.

But I was thinking matters through.

My mind wasn’t overclocked, so I didn’t have the luxury of the extra time that it afforded me. However, I had enough time to ponder what I learnt and experienced over the past forty odd hours.

What I concluded after a dozen or more seconds of quiet deliberation was depressing.

To some degree I was already boxed.

No matter the choices that I made, I was a captive of the Sanreals and House Novis.

While I was of value to them because of the Angel Fibers, I was also their gladiatrix and slave, and there was no freedom in that. And while there was no going back to my previous existence, going forward would only be on their terms. Thus, my life was not mine to live because my existence belonged to them. However, if I carried on the way I had been, I was in very real danger of losing what little freedom I possessed, and this was the point Straus had been making.

I didn’t know if Straus was acting on her own. Perhaps, this was Erina’s doing. Maybe my former sister had manipulated the situation such that Straus had no choice but to risk intervening so that she could argue some sense into me. However, I also recognized the danger of thinking that Erina was behind everything. It was possible I was giving her credit where credit wasn’t due.

Nonetheless, where did that leave me?

Someone once said, ‘Know the rules so that you can break them like an artist’.

Disregarding my early morning escape, I didn’t believe I’d broken the unwritten rules laid down by the Sanreals, but I had certainly pushed them. In other words, I bent the bars of the cage they’d put me in, however I was still squarely inside the cage.

But what if I played by the rules so that I could make new ones?

What if I could make my cage so big that I wouldn’t know it was there anymore?

What did I have to lose by giving that a try?

The answer was quite possibly my freedom. That is to say, if I made a mistake, I could end up in a much smaller cage with many of my liberties curtailed. However, given that presently I had no way of breaking out, then making the cage bigger was certainly worth trying, though it would require a significant change to how I approached situations…and people.

Nonetheless, having made the decision, I felt empowered.

I took a deep, anxious yet eager breath before I straightened my posture on the comfy seat. Then I regarded Straus with a steady, level gaze. “What do you want me to do?”

Straus appeared to need a moment to catch up, then he cleared his throat, once again amazing me with his lifelike qualities.

“Stop fighting Erina at every turn.”

“Is that so?” I nodded slowly and gently. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you tell Erina that she had better learn to compromise or I’m going to find a way around her.”

A frown flickered on Straus’s forehead, betraying the operator’s uncertainty.

I took advantage of that and smiled thinly. “I’m sure Erina will understand what I mean.”

“Why don’t you tell her that?”

His prompt reply caught me unawares. I sat in stunned silence for a heartbeat before laughing curtly at him. “Are you serious? I can’t have a straight conversation with her without wanting to tear out her throat.”

“I guarantee this time will be different.”

A retort died on my lips as I swiftly realized what Straus was alluding to.

Erina’s butt was in a sling. She was in trouble with the Sanreals and she knew it. With her position threatened, and my freedom at stake, it was possible she was willing to listen and indeed compromise.

While I was mulling that over, Straus gave the interior of The Hardboiled Café a sweeping look.

“Getting crowded in here,” he observed before favoring the cold pancake breakfast on the table with a dry smile. “Want those to go?”

I frowned as I puzzled over what he was up to, again noticing how quickly I’d come to think of Straus in the male pronoun.

“Why?” I asked. “You going somewhere?”

“How about someplace a little quieter. A place with a view. What do you say?”

I gave the café a sweeping look of my own, and inwardly agreed that a change of scene would be welcome as I really wasn’t doing well with crowds. It seemed that I was fine while on the move, such as on a busy sidewalk. However, once I was stationary, I began to feel encroached upon. Sitting in the booth, with the surrounding tables now occupied, I was sensing a faint agoraphobia creeping upon me.

“Sure…,” I muttered. “Why not….”

“Well, I’ll pay for these. Why don’t you freshen up? I’ll wait for you out front.”

Taking the pancakes with him, Straus headed off to the counter at the front of the café, near the foyer.

I gave him a cold look as he walked away, feeling a mite annoyed at being told to freshen up since it was coming from a woman cross-playing as a guy. On the other hand, since Straus was a woman, it may have been good advice. However, what honestly irked me wasn’t being told to freshen up, but instead being treated like a girl that needed to freshen up.

Biting my tongue to refrain from hurling a curse at Straus’s back, I stood up and searched for the restrooms, spotting the signs for them at the far end of the establishment. In the old days, the signs used to feature the outline of a man and woman, with the latter dressed in a skirt. But these days, after the feminist movement of the previous century, the Mars and Venus symbols were employed instead. However, because the latter represented a bronze mirror with a handle, the feminist movement protested its use, claiming that it implied women were vain and spent all their time gazing upon their reflection.

I took a deep breath, steeled my back, then walked toward the restrooms on a route that weaved between numerous tables and seated patrons. I sighed in relief when I arrived without incident at the nondescript door under the maligned Venus symbol, though I noticed my hands were trembling weakly. Vexed, I clenched them tightly for a moment, before pushing the door open.

I had to pass through a small anteroom to get to the room with the toilet stalls. Once inside, I found it to be clean and rather spacious, with numerous stalls for ladies in a hurry to relieve themselves after imbibing a morning tea or coffee.

Since I didn’t need to answer a call of nature, I made use of a washbasin instead.

Washing my hands, and splashing water on my face, I let it air dry as I studied Mirai’s appearance in the broad mirror mounted on the wall before me.

Mirai’s crimson eyes had returned to Isabel’s grey color, and her dark locks were now blonde.

I found myself asking why she had powered down until I remembered Straus mentioning that I was turning blonde in front of the students snapping photos at me back in the stairwell.

It seemed that my acute anxiety attack had overwhelmed both Mirai and I.

That worried me because it held dire implications, such as what would happen if I lost control again while in a Gun Princess Royale match? Turning blonde before the viewers could probably be explained away since people thought the Gun Princess Royale was virtual. The problem was losing the edge I gained when Mirai powered up.

I suddenly gasped softly, and my blood ran cold as I remembered that the photos of Isabel val Sanreal alighting from the VTOL showed a blonde girl, not a brunette. And yet, I was certain Mirai had not powered down back then, so why was I blonde in those photos? Had the Sanreals and House Novis arranged to have the images altered to hide Dark Mirai from the world?

When I thought about it more deeply, I didn’t recall seeing any photographers on the landing pad or drones in the air, so who had taken those pictures? Was it possible the Sanreals had taken them themselves, and then distributed them to the news agencies and tabloids of their choice? Or perhaps they were A.I. generated.

There more I thought about it, the more questions that surfaced without any answers, and the greater the dread I felt.

Leaning on the washbasin, I took slow, measured breaths, and struggled to remain calm because I felt as though the ground underfoot would open up and swallow me whole at any moment.

I gave Mirai a long look in the mirror.

I can’t keep going this way. I need to find a way to gain control of my life.

Splashing more water on my face, I closed the faucet, then strode over to the air dryer.

Once my hands were dry, I raked my fingers through Mirai’s long hair. The headband I’d purchased earlier this morning was in the canvas bag I’d dropped on the stairwell, so I combed her hair back with my fingers, hoping it would stay out of the way. Then I exited the restroom as it was time to face the world again.

I walked alongside an interior wall, and thus avoided tables, chairs, and patrons as I trekked over to the café’s entrance.

Straus was waiting for me in the foyer, chatting to another pretty waitress, but he quickly excused himself with an endearing grin when he noticed the sour look I was giving him.

“Ready?” he asked, turning that grin into a smile that he directed at me.

I sat on the urge to punch him, yet met his smile with disdain. “Practicing again, were you?”

Straus chuckled, but hurriedly turned toward the café’s exit.

I followed him to the door and was taken aback when he opened it for me.

However instead of feeling grateful, the gesture made me angrier, and I shoved him aside as I stormed past him.

Straus rebounded off the half-wall behind him, regained his footing, then chased after me.

Outside the café, he grabbed me by a shoulder and spun me around to face him.

“What the Hell is your problem?” he yelled at me.

I stepped closer to him until our noses were millimeters apart. “You are my problem. Your whole attitude to this cross-playing, and that fact that you’re deceiving those girls! Does that answer your question—you—you proto-gigolo?”

I was incensed to the point of stuttering.

Straus breathed in deeply, which swelled his manly machine chest, and then glared back at me for a few seconds before thrusting a paper bag against my breasts.

“Here—fresh pancakes,” he said gruffly, then stepped around me on the sidewalk.

I caught the bag before it could fall more than a few inches. Briefly scowling at him, I peeked inside the bag to see a half dozen pancakes in a paper sleeve, along with serviettes and an assortment of jams in small disposable containers with peel-away tops.

Glowering at the mechanical boy’s back, I wondered if I was being overly harsh. However, knowing it was Akane Straus at the controls, it bothered me to be treated with consideration by Severin Straus, while the Cat Princess had been such a bitch toward me.

Feeling frustrated as well as angry, I almost crushed the paper bag in my hands. But I wasn’t one for wasting food, so I held myself back, clutched the bag tightly in one hand, and then reluctantly stomped after Straus.

It seemed that nothing had changed during the time we’d spent inside the café.

The city sidewalks were as busy as ever with people hurrying to work.

I didn’t need a wristwatch to know the time. Mirai’s wetware informed me with a thought pulse that it was now 9:15 am, and since most companies were in business by 9:00 am, I figured a great many people were either going to be late, or they had flexible hours. Yet this was of little consequence to me as I merged with the flowing sidewalk traffic while following Straus down the district block.

After travelling on foot for a couple of blocks, my turbulent emotions had calmed down to a degree such that didn’t adversely distract my thinking. Waiting at an intersection for the light to change in our favor, I reached out and yanked Straus by the arm.

Startled, he blurted out, “What?”

“Where are we going?”

A wary expression settled across his face, and he waved a hand eastward. “You know the botanical gardens by the harbor?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

“Well, I thought you could do with some fresh air and a change of scenery.”

When considering our recent conversation in the café, I couldn’t help wondering what his angle was.

The traffic light changed, and once again we were swept across a wide street by a torrent of pedestrians rushing to work.

Eventually, after a fifteen-minute walk where I lagged behind Straus while weaving between people with my bag of pancakes clutched tightly to my chest, I noticed the sidewalk traffic thin out dramatically the farther we travelled east toward the harbor. With less people around me, I felt less oppressed and found myself relaxing a little more. A short while later, we escaped from the shadows of Ar Telica’s towering megascrapers and left the frantic commuters behind when we crossed a multi-lane avenue to arrive at a strip of sparse parkland running north-to-south along the harbor foreshore.

It was only then that I fully relaxed my grip on my bag of pancakes.

Peeking inside, I was relieved to see that I hadn’t crushed them.

Straus led the way to a deserted picnic area. It was bordered by a thin line of trees to the north and south, and it had an open view of the harbor to the east, and the city to the west. Scattered about were picnic tables with bench seats, all of them unoccupied.

He approached a table that was farthest removed from the others.

“Wait here,” he instructed, then jogged over to a row of vending machines upright against the wall of a public restroom about fifty yards away.

Annoyed at being ordered around, I sat down at the table and then took the time to survey my surroundings.

A few people wandered through the parkland in the vicinity of the clearing. Some of them walked their dogs, while others jogged on a wide, permacrete path that ran alongside a seawall. At waist high, the seawall stood between the harbor water and the grassy foreshore. Overhead, the sun was halfway to midday behind a thick veil of clouds.

I frowned at it for no reason, then remembered the pancakes in the paper bag. Carefully emptying its contents onto the table, I then flattened it into a makeshift placemat. Peeling open a small squarish container filled with strawberry jam, I poured a sizeable helping of the rich red conserve onto a pancake that I then carefully rolled up. I ate it leisurely, relishing its delicious sweetness, while lamenting the lack of something with which to wash it down. However, Straus soon returned with an armload of soda cans that he quickly placed before me on the bench table.

“I didn’t know what you preferred,” he admitted, “so I bought the popular brands on offer.”

I swept my gaze over them, then chose a soda can printed with a swirling green and white livery.

“Thanks…,” I muttered as I popped it open.

Straus sat down opposite me, then watched me eat from across the table.

Doing my damnedest to ignore him, I carefully prepared a second pancake, and then closed my eyes so that I wouldn’t see his face when I devoured it.

We weren’t that far from the hustle and bustle of Ar Telica’s busy streets, thus the sounds of the city were captured clearly by Mirai’s acute sense of hearing. However, those sounds mingled with the cawing of seagulls both near and far, and being out in the open, the warmth of the morning sun made me conscious of Mirai’s skin that was sensitive to the cool ocean breeze skimming over the seawall, impressing upon me that sitting in the park while eating a fattening pancake breakfast was yet another way of experiencing Ar Telica.

I consumed a third pancake, promptly washing it down with a mouthful of soda.

Placing the can down on the bench table, I regarded Straus for a short while.

His intent gaze was beginning to annoy me up, so I decided to break the silence between us.

“Tell me about House Cardinal,” I asked him.

His face hardened but only for a moment, then he quickly gathered himself with a deep breath.

Folding his arms on the table, he leaned toward me and spoke in a confidential manner.

“House Catun Cardinal fought in the war in support of Kateopia. After the war, and before House Novis’ fall from grace, they gained Kateopia’s ear and have since been her closest allies. She rewarded them by elevating them to the noble rank of Bravis. When Kateopia wanted to exile House Novis for their genocidal act of wiping out House Patraeon, it was the newly promoted House Cardinal who swayed her decision.”

“Are they allies of House Novis?”

He snorted rudely. “Hardly.”

“Then what are they?”

“They’re rivals and not the friendly sort. After the war, Taura Hexaria and her sister, Alexia, competed in the Gun Princess Royales held in their universe and ours. They won their respective championships in the same year, earning House Cardinal a generous amount of prestige as well as two wishes granted by the Empress. With those victories, they rose from the rank of Bravis to Alus. Ever since then, they’ve been holding onto that rank by supporting the Empress both publicly and privately.”

While listening to Straus, I slowly reached for my fourth pancake but hesitated when I saw Ghost standing idly behind the mechanical boy. As he’d done with Tabitha back at the dorm apartment, he nodded slowly, lending an air of truth to Straus’s explanation.

I grabbed the pancake and proceeded to lather it with an apple jam from one of the mini plastic containers. “If they’re not friendly with House Novis, why help them out?”

Straus smiled crookedly. “I don’t know. I can only tell you what Clarisol told me, but she suspected it was to demonstrate to the other Noble Houses that House Cardinal was a force to be reckoned with. That they could influence Kateopia’s thinking. If a Noble House had a problem, they could go to House Cardinal for help. That’s how Clarisol explained it.”

“You know a lot about them,” I observed coldly.

“What I know comes from Clarisol and Erina,” he replied easily, shrugging off the frigid look I was giving him. However, a short while later, Straus bluntly changed the subject. “What did you and Hexaria talk about?”

Startled by the question, I grew still with the pancake was almost at my mouth. “If Revenant isn’t talking, why should I tell you?”

“Did she make you an offer?”

For a good second, my heart jumped violently in my chest before settling down, but to my immense relief, my face twisted reflexively into a look of pained confusion that belied my sudden panic.

“What?”

“Did she make you an offer?”

“An offer of what?”

Growing frustrated, Straus persisted by asking, “Did she make you any kind of offer?”

I lowered the pancake away from my mouth. “No, she didn’t make me any offers. What she came for was Mercy’s limited-edition poster that I had framed up on a wall. I told her flatly it wasn’t for sale.”

Stark confusion spread across his face. “A poster?”

I nodded. “I picked it up when I attended Mercy’s handshake event last year. It goes for a lot of money on the online auctions.”

“Why a poster?”

I scowled at him. “How should I know? Does anything she does ever make sense?”

“There’s always a method to her madness.”

“So you say.” I paused before thoughtfully adding, “On the other hand, she did mention it was payment for helping me out when I was being chased through the city.”

I had embellished and twisted the truth, but I didn’t care since I wasn’t going to tell Straus the details of my conversation with Tabitha.

For a few seconds, he squeezed his eyes shut as though grappling with a sudden headache. “Did Hexaria ask you to betray House Novis?”

I made a show of gaping at him. “Betray? Are you serious? How the frek would I betray House Novis?”

“I think you know how,” he rejoined.

“No, I don’t know how. So why don’t you tell me.”

He sat back with arms folded across his chest. “During the arguments this morning, I heard someone say they suspected House Cardinal may want to recruit you.”

“Someone? Who?”

He seemed to search his memory for a moment. “I think it was Simon val Sanreal….”

“And?”

“And he suspected that Hexaria was there to make you an offer to join House Cardinal.”

“How am I supposed to do that if I’m Isabel val Sanreal?”

“You could compete for them in the Gun Princess Royale.”

I pondered just how much Straus had pieced together by listening to Erina and other people argue over me. And if Straus had reasoned this much on her own, how much more had Erina deduced by now? But what deeply worried me was that one of the Sanreals had correctly guessed the reason for Tabitha’s visit.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I hid my unease from Straus by wolfing down the pancake in my hands.

However, as I finished eating it, he once again jumped the conversation onto a new track.

“Are you angry about the way she shouted at you?”

For a long while, I stared dumbfounded at him, then swallowed the last morsel of pancake in my mouth. “Huh?”

He continued in a measured tone. “On the balcony, after Erina came running out of the apartment, she yelled at you to stay away from me. Do you remember that?”

I absently licked the apple sauce off my fingertips. “Oh yeah, she did yell at me.”

“Are you still angry about that?”

I nodded firmly. “Oh, I’m definitely not going to forgive or forget that she shouted at me.” I rolled up the fifth and final pancake after moistening it liberally with apricot jam from the last unopened container. “But I haven’t decided how I’m going to pay her back for treating me like dirt—”

“She was protecting me.”

He said it so smoothly, so matter-of-factly, that it stopped me cold and I almost dropped the pancake in my hands. “What?”

“She was protecting me, Isabel.”

Puzzled, I lowered the pancake down to the makeshift placemat. “Protecting you from whom?”

“From you.”

A dark frown furrowed my brow. “Why? I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

Straus slowly shook his head. “She was afraid of how the Angel Fibers in my body would react to you.”

Perplexed, I forgot about the pancake in my hands until I felt the apricot jam trickle onto my fingers. I had little choice but to hurriedly eat the last of my breakfast, wipe my hands dry on a paper serviette, and then clear my throat by gulping down a mouthful of soda. Setting the can down on the table, I asked Straus, “Care to explain?”

He started to reply but then glanced away in the direction of the city.

Standing behind him, Ghost did the same and a grave look spread across his face. “Princess, I would advise you to remain calm.”

Confused and concerned by both their reactions, I somewhat reluctantly turned my head westward to follow their line of sight.

Waiting beside the door of a sleek, low slung sports car, was my former sister.

Wearing casual black slacks, white high heels, and a white blouse with ruffled sleeves and a sweetheart neckline, Erina looked like she’d stepped out of a fashion magazine, or a gossip rag that earned its money by stalking Ar Telica’s rich and famous. Indeed, Erina was a part of that exclusive circle of high society because her fiancé was none other than Simon val Sanreal, eldest son of the extravagantly rich Sanreal Family. Even from a distance, I could see her engagement ring sparkle in the morning sunlight.

When our eyes met, she pushed herself away from the matt silver sports car and began walking toward us.

At that moment, I heard Straus curse softly under his breath.

Yet again, I found that quite impressive for a remote operated machine.

Rising from the bench seat, he bade me, “Wait here,” then hurried to intercept Erina long before she could arrive at our picnic table.

I was out of pancakes, so I sipped the remaining soda in the can while watching Erina and Straus engage in a terse conversation about a hundred feet away. Before long, Erina folded her arms unhappily under her breasts while Straus faced her with arms akimbo.

I stared at them over the can’s rim. “Ghost, why didn’t you tell them about Tabitha’s offer?”

“Because I believe that is something for you to reveal when the time is right.”

I glanced at him as he rested his backside against the edge of the picnic table. “Is that so?”

Ghost sighed wearily. “Eventually, the nature of that conversation will come to light.”

“Yeah, I know.” Feeling uneasy, I nodded weakly as I glanced at Erina and Straus squaring off in the near distance. “But it sounds like they mostly figured it out.”

For a short while, I watched them argue stiffly.

However, while keeping an eye on them, I regarded Ghost sidelong for a moment, then hesitantly asked, “What did the Sanreals threaten you with?”

“Nothing you need to be concerned about, Princess.”

“You said you weren’t going to keep secrets from me.” After a pause, I bluntly pressed him for an answer. “Was it about Clarisol?”

For an Artificial Awareness, and regardless of its origins, Ghost reacted with a pained expression that was remarkably human.

At sight of it, I felt immense regret wash through me. “I’m sorry. Because of me, you lost access to Clarisol.”

He was silent and still for a while before looking sideways at me with a roguish smile that I wasn’t expecting.

“Do you know how Harry Houdini walked through a brick wall?”

“Who’s Harry Houdini?”

“A famous magician of the early twentieth century.”

Amazed, I blurted out, “They had magic back then? Wow.”

Ghost looked dismayed. “No, he was…allow me to rephrase that. Houdini was an illusionist and escape artist.”

“He was? Meaning what?”

“Hundreds of years ago, he walked through a brick wall in front of a shocked audience.”

My eyes widened as I quickly grasped the significance of this. “He translocated….”

Ghost’s expression fell. “No, Princess. It was an illusion.”

“Oh….” I gave him a suspicious look. “Really?”

“Yes, Princess….”

“Is there a point to this?”

“My point is that there are ways to get inside the virtual prison that the Empress does not know about. There are ways of fooling her into thinking it is secure.”

“Oh….” I pouted sullenly. “Why not say that in the first place?”

Ghost pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, of course, Princess. My bad….”

I was still pouting when I noticed Erina and Straus walking toward me.

Wisely, Erina chose to stop several feet away from me, while Straus assumed a position that would allow him to step between us at the drop of a hat.

As for me, I decided to remain seated on the bench seat.

Erina studied my appearance me with an unreadable expression, but I had no doubt the wheels were churning madly in her head as she played out various opening exchanges between us.

In contrast, I decided not to strategize.

I would wait for her opening move, and then I’d play the rest by ear and gut intuition.

Wetting her lips, Erina broke her silence, speaking in a gentle voice with an undertone of pride that immediately had me lifting my guard.

“You look good in that uniform.”

Warily, I swallowed twice before replying, “Thanks. Tabitha said it was tailor made.”

A boldfaced lie, but Tabitha had revealed she knew my three sizes so picking out a uniform for me to wear wasn’t a stretch for her.

Erina’s face grew rigid for a fleeting heartbeat.

I had deliberately mentioned Tabitha’s name to gauge her reaction to the girl. Had I not been watching her closely, I would have missed it.

I see. Straus was right. There’s no love between House Novis and House Cardinal.

However, that implied that Erina saw herself as a member of House Novis or the Sanreal Family, thus I quickly considered another reason why mentioning Tabitha irked her.

She’s pissed because someone else gave me this uniform.

Erina saw me as her property so for me to wear a uniform someone else had provided was a sore point for her. Perhaps that’s why she studied me again, and soon regarded the uniform with disapproval.

“Isn’t your skirt a little short?”

It was less a question and more a statement of fact.

I snorted under my breath, then turned to straddle the bench seat.

My un-lady like posture was met with another disapproving look, however, Erina chose to hold her tongue though I was convinced that she would have spanked me if she could.

I smirked inwardly at the thought. “Are you here to take me back?”

“I am.”

I held my hands out to her. “No handcuffs?”

Straus threw me a warning look and mouthed, Isabel, but I ignored him.

“Well?” I asked Erina.

She shook her head, her shoulder length hair swishing gently about her face. “Before we go back, there are some things I must explain to you.”

I sneered at her. “Are you going to explain or shout at me?”

Her expression hardened but relaxed quickly. “It’s important, Isabel.”

While continuing to straddle the bench seat, I leaned back and supported myself on my arms. “I’m listening, but if you shout at me, I’m walking.”

Erina held onto the silence that followed, undoubtedly affixing a firm grip on her emotions, before addressing me in a lecturing tone.

“You are aware that Akane’s body contains the Angel Fibers.”

“Yeah, she told me she was your first guinea pig.”

A slight wince flickered across Erina’s face before she swallowed and continued. “I don’t know how your presence will affect the Angel Fibers inside of her.”

“My presence?” I recalled what happened out on the apartment’s balcony. “You mean when I’m close to her?”

“Correct. You told me that the Angel Fibers in the ampules reacted to your presence—to your intentions.”

I nodded but was pained at the memory of those tiny, glittering particles swimming in a silvery liquid. Mat and Shirohime had died when the library collapsed. In desperation, I’d injected their bodies with the Angel Fibers in those ampules, hoping it would revive them, but it wasn’t to be.

Erina sounded cautious as she continued. “I reacted out of fear…fear of not knowing what would happen to her. For that, I’m sorry.”

My eyebrows rose sharply toward my hairline. “Are you apologizing? To me? Seriously?”

Once again, Erina wet her lips. “Akane is a dear friend. I wanted to save her. But instead, I almost killed her.”

I was puzzled.

Was Erina apologizing to me or not?

Granted, she did say she was sorry, but it sounded like she was rationalizing why she’d yelled at me. It sounded a lot like she was blaming me for that incident.

“I got ahead of myself,” Erina continued. “I was reckless, overconfident, desperate, and I made a mistake…one that almost killed her. And now she lives with the consequences of my mistake.”

In my peripheral vision, I noticed Straus flinch faintly. For a moment, I thought he would break his silence but instead he pressed his lips together and said nothing. However, it made me wonder if Straus disagreed with Erina blaming herself.

“Akane told me you saved her.”

“Saved her?” Erina grew still before glancing at Straus. “I didn’t save her. Her condition no longer deteriorates, but neither does it improve. And you’ve seen how the Angel Fibers have disfigured her.”

I heard regret in her voice, and it distracted me a little because it irked me to believe she would care more about someone who wasn’t family – that she would care more about Straus than about me. Then again, I wasn’t family to her. I was her creation, but didn’t that also make me her child, or was I just the monster to her Victor Frankenstein?

I sighed loudly. “Yeah…breaks my heart….”

And there it was, a flicker of anger in Erina’s eyes, and I had my answer.

It was the answer I had expected, yet heartache made my chest tighten. In response, I clenched my hands on the bench seat, and bit down hard on the inside of my mouth. The pain distracted me from the emotional anguish that came from knowing that Akane Straus mattered more to Erina than I did.

I was stupid to have thought otherwise.

In my defense, I’d been misled by our conversation with Erina before disembarking from the Sanreal Crest. It was more accurate to say, that I’d mistaken the nature of my importance to her. Now, little by little, I was beginning to understand why I was important to Erina. I also understood that if Erina truly wanted to save humanity, it was secondary to saving Akane Straus and Ronin Kassius.

However, was she saving Straus simply to right a wrong?

Judging from the flash of anger in her eyes, I didn’t think so.

Within Erina, there was genuine concern for Akane Straus, and that concern felt like a knife to the chest…although I’d never been stabbed before. Yet, feeling deeply wounded, I leaned forward on the bench seat and icily suggested to Erina, “If that’s an apology then you need to work on it.”

She watched me carefully, perhaps even cautiously as I swung a leg over the seat, and then stood up.

I faced her with arms akimbo, much like Straus had done earlier, and kept my tone frigid to the max. “Now, tell me why you’re really here because I don’t believe for a frekking heartbeat that you came to apologize. Why? Because you have no frekking idea how to apologize. So spit out. Why are you here?”

Erina took a step closer but there was still five feet of distance between us, and then replied in a low voice that I believed only Mirai and Straus could hear. “You’ve been making waves and that’s made some people unhappy with you…and with me.”

I scoffed at her. “Your Sanreal masters?”

“They’re your masters, too.”

She said it easily, and I bristled at her, but then I saw worry in her eyes – real worry – and it trapped my retort somewhere in my throat.

They will box you.

Perhaps Erina guessed what I was thinking because she subtly nodded as though in silent agreement. “The Sanreal Family isn’t happy with your lack of co-operation.”

“You have a hand in that,” I told her.

Again, she gave me a subtle nod. “Agreed. Managing you has been unexpectedly difficult.”

I gave Straus a meaningful look that cried out, do see what I mean?

In response, Straus rubbed his forehead and shook his head in apparent disappointment.

Turning back to Erina, I smiled coldly at her. “Managing me? Is that what you said?”

“I am your Guardian.”

“Managing me?” I repeated, twisting my lips into a rictus grin.

She paused and then took a deep breath. “He wants to speak with you.”

I dropped my smile. “Who?”

“The head of the Sanreal Family and House Novis.” She took a quick breath. “Phelan Sanreal Erz Novis.”

My eyes widened in response to the sudden anxious pang I felt in my chest. “Clarisol’s father….”

Erina gave me a subdued nod, her expression grim. “Isabel, I came here to pick you up. To take you to him.”

Straus suddenly stepped between Erina and I. “In that case, why are they here?”

His was looking westward toward the city, back where Erina had parked her car in a narrow laneway that detoured through the parkland.

Erina first glanced at Straus before swiftly turning to follow his line of sight.

I did the same and saw a trio of black suburban vehicles with big tires and darkly tinted windows quickly surround Erina’s sleek sportscar. They gave off the impression they were both heavy and armored, and within moments, a dozen men and women in black business suits alighted from the vehicles. They had all the hallmarks of a private security team arriving for a pickup and that sincerely worried me.

“Damn it,” Erina hissed, then spun around to sharply point at me. “Don’t even think about running away! Not this time. You stay right there!”

My emotions boiled in a split second and I snarled at her. “You’re yelling at me again?”

“This is for your own good, Isabel. I am not joking around. You run away now—you make a single wrong move—and this will not end well for you or me! I mean it!”

I waved a hand at the park surrounding us. “Why? Are they going to try something out here? In a public place? With all these people around?”

“What people?”

True. The few people that had been around had left the picnic clearing, and there was no one walking the path along the sea wall.

Wonderful, I muttered in my head.

Erina edged closer to me. “Public or not, it won’t make a difference. Trust me on this!”

“Why the Hell should I?”

Erina surprised me by suddenly reducing the distance between us to zero. “Listen to me, Isabel. If you only ever listen to me once—do it this one time!”

I stared at her with conflicted emotions that both burned and chilled my innards.

I wasn’t stupid. Erina’s warning was getting through to me, but it was mixed in with the anger and irritation I felt toward her.

“Fine,” I grated out through clenched teeth.

“Don’t. Go. Anywhere,” Erina instructed with a period punctuating each word, then briskly strode off in the direction of the private security personnel waiting at the western edge of the grassy grounds.

Surprisingly, Straus chose to wait behind with an anxious expression directed at the sinister newcomers.

Ghost stepped into my peripheral vision. “Princess, I strongly urge you to heed her advice.”

“Why?” I asked softly, barely even a whisper.

“I fear you are being watched from above.”

“…what…?” I looked up but could see nothing but an overcast morning sky. “…what are you talking about…?”

“Princess, you are aware that I am able to infiltrate photronic systems within your vicinity.”

I muttered a whispered reply that even I barely heard. “Yeah, you’ve mentioned that before…a lot.”

“I have also mentioned employing the wetware in your head as a node point. From there, I can connect to the surrounding grid.”

I narrowed my eyes sharply. “You’re using me like a part of a network.”

“Correct. I am tethering myself to you from within the Sarcophagus.”

“You’re using me like a smartphone?”

“Indeed. Through you, I am able to establish a connection to the grid around you.”

I closed my eyes as I took a deep breath. “You can’t do it directly from the Sarcophagus?”

“No, I am not that omnipotent. However, since I am streaming through you, the vast bulk of my processing power is within the Sarcophagus. This minimizes whatever load my tethering places upon your wetware.”

“How considerate of you,” I whispered as I folded my arms under Mirai’s bust. “So why are you telling me this?”

“By using the parkland’s surveillance grid, I have been able to redirect a handful of the cameras to observe the buildings across the street.”

“And…?”

“And I have noticed someone who is little more than an optical distortion in the eyes of the surveillance cameras.”

“An optical…?” My whisper faded away as I understood what he meant. “A thermoptic camouflage.”

“Indeed, Princess.”

My lips twisted into a grimace while my gut sank. “Renew….”

“Most likely, Princess.”

My gut sank a little lower. “So, where is she?”

Ghost pointed at a building across the street that was directly west of me. “There, Princess, on that garden balcony on the seventeenth floor.”

The buildings on the far side of the multilane street running parallel to the parkland stood between thirty and forty stories high. They were lower than the towering structures of permaglass and kronosteel standing behind them. Here and there, balconies blended into their exterior façades offering its occupants a picturesque view of the harbor and its foreshore.

I squinted a little as I looked in the direction Ghost was pointing, while wondering why he wasn’t projecting a bullseye on the target building as it would have made things a lot easier for me.

Staring at the building in question, I noticed the permaglass was coated with a material that prevented the sun from reflecting harshly off its surface. Even then, I had trouble seeing any sort of distortion over each of the handful of garden balconies facing east. And with Mirai powered down, I lacked the ability to see a person’s lifeforce aura, making it nigh on impossible for me to spot Renew – if indeed Renew was out there on that balcony.

“…wonderful…,” I breathed out softly in frustration, then noticed Straus giving me an askance look. “What?”

“You’ve been mumbling to yourself for a while.”

I huffed haughtily. “Yeah, so what?”

“It’s not normal.”

I huffed again. “I wasn’t mumbling. I was throwing curses at Erina.”

Straus’s expression became distressed. “Do you really have to do that?”

Taking a deep breath, I jerked my chin in the direction of the men and women dressed in black. “Did you know about this?”

“Changing the subject?”

“Yes, I am. So, tell me the truth. Did you know about this?”

Straus looked troubled before shaking his head stiffly. “No. But when I took you aside so that we could talk in private, that may have played a hand in Sanreal’s decision to send out his hunting dogs.”

“Hunting dogs?”

“Guard dogs.”

“Oh?” I stared at him sidelong. “Then you thought this might happen?”

Straus paused to take a breath, something I regarded as uncanny for a machine avatar. “I did.”

“Forgot to tell Erina, did you?”

“I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Besides”—Straus looked at me—“she’s an Alpha. I’m sure she thought of this eventuality herself.”

I noticed I was grinning and hurriedly wiped it away.

“Yeah, she’s a damned Alpha,” I grumbled bitterly while struggling to keep the grin off my face.

It was an odd moment.

As Straus and I locked gazes, it felt like we’d found someone in common to complain about, namely Erina.

Who would have thought that? I mused.

Clearing my throat loudly, I eyed the men and women standing guard around the oversized suburbans. “Do you know them—those hunting dogs? Is there an alpha male?”

Straus looked uncomfortable as though he’d swallowed a bug. “They belong to Telos Corporation security. That bunch is part of the Spartan Division.” He threw me a glance. “And yes, there is an alpha male.”

“Really?” I swept my gaze over them. “Which one?”

Again, Straus looked uncomfortable or was it disgust that visibly twisted his features?

Either way, he certainly sounded reluctant as he pointed at one man out of many. “Him. The one arguing with Erina. He’s the alpha male.”

Erina was having a terse discussion with a tall young man – probably aged in his mid-to-late twenties – with sandy blonde hair. Unlike the other security personnel, he was wearing a dark mahogany trench coat over a business suit of the same color.

What an oddball, I thought to myself. Why would anyone wear that outfit in summer?

The perplexing young man bantered lightly with Erina who was clearly unamused with him. Yet behind the dark sunglasses he wore, I had the impression that he was somehow watching both Erina and I.

“Hey, Straus.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think they came for me…or Erina?”

My question was met with silence that lingered for a long while – long enough for me to cast a wary glance at him. The gentle furrow of his brow was evidence enough that he was giving the question a great deal of thought.

I nudged him by asking, “Hey, you there?”

Straus shifted on his feet as though bothered by what he was thinking. “Yes, I’m here.”

“Well, what do you think? Did they come for me or her?”

He looked uncomfortable when he replied, “It’s possible they came for your sister. But I believe they’re really here for you.”

I held back a frown.

Would they really come for Erina? Does that mean they suspect her just like Tabitha told me? That said—

“Does that mean they came for Isabel val Sanreal, or for Mirai?”

He shook his head stiffly. “I don’t know.”

“Then let’s find out,” I casually suggested.

Straus’s eyes widened and he swiftly faced me. “Nope. No way. We wait here.”

I snickered at him. “Come on. Show a little backbone.”

“Courage is not the problem.”

“Then what’s the problem? Is it the sniper aiming at me from the building across the street?”

Straus’s eyes widened so much I could see the whites surrounding the irises. “What?”

With Mirai powered down, I couldn’t see them, but if Ghost said there was someone there then that was good enough for me. And if it was Renew on that balcony, then given her history of sniping at me from the air, I was certain she had a rifle aimed squarely in my direction.

I widened my smile and pointed at the building where the suspected sniper was stationed. “They’re over there. Seventeenth floor. Garden balcony. They’re hiding behind a thermoptic camo-field.”

As Straus turned to look where I was pointing, I snuck away and quickly strode toward Erina and the executive security people.

While traversing the wide strip of parkland, I waved at whoever was watching me from the garden balcony. But the gesture lacked oomph, so I pointed at my eyes and then at the balcony, and silently mouthed the words, I can see you…Renew.

Turning away, I continued walking with measured strides toward Erina and the alpha male wearing the trench coat in summer.

Ghost fell into step beside me. “Princess, I presume you know what you are doing?”

“More or less,” I replied with false confidence.

“I see. Then you are improvising on the go.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Ghost, do you think so little of me—?”

Distracted, I was caught off guard by Straus who hurriedly blocked my path while I was still some fifty feet shy of Erina and the bodyguards.

“Just want do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

Ghost muttered in agreement, “That, Princess, is a very good question,”

I came to a stop and innocently looked up at Straus. “I told you. I’m going to find out if they came for me.”

He shook his head, obviously thinking that was a bad idea. “You can find that out soon enough. Let Erina handle this.”

“Are you worried about the sniper?”

“Yeah, I’m worried.” He stepped closer to me. “And how the Hell did you know there’s a sniper out there?”

At first, his question perplexed me but then it stunned me.

Why? Because it revealed something quite significant about Straus’s machine avatar.

“You saw them?” I asked him. “You saw through the optical camouflage?”

“No, I can’t see through their camouflage. But I was able to see their camo-field. I can see it distorting the light.”

Oddly, I felt relieved to hear that.

If Straus’s machine eyes could see through a camo-field that would have been scary.

Nonetheless, I decided not to underestimate a machine avatar’s eyes. After all, he’d been able to locate the cloaked sniper as easily as Ghost had.

Straus leaned a little toward me. “How did you know they were there? Can your eyes see a camouflage field?”

Yes, they could but only when Mirai was in Dark Mirai Mode. However, I wasn’t going to admit that to him. Instead, I swallowed hard, and stated with complete honesty, “My invisible friend told me.”

“Your what?” Straus made no effort to hide his confusion.

I sighed, then mockingly asked, “Don’t you have one too?”

“I most certainly do not.”

I sighed again. “Straus, I know you’re worried. But trust me. I’m not going to make any sudden moves.”

“You don’t need to go over there. Period.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why? Give me one good reason.”

Straus was growing increasingly frustrated with me.

In contrast, I was mildly surprised by how calm I sounded, and it appeared to frustrate him further.

“Because I’ve been doing this too often,” I replied.

“Doing what? Misbehaving?”

“No,” I shook my head gently. “Running away.”

“Meaning what?”

I gave myself a moment by inhaling deeply. “Straus, I ran away from Erina when I should have faced her out on the balcony. Then I ran away from the Twisted Sisters when I should have dealt with them inside the apartment.” I shrugged at him. “And then I ran away from the students in the stairwell.”

“You didn’t run away. I pulled you out of there.”

“But I wasn’t able to face my anxiety attack. I cracked. I froze.”

“That wasn’t your fault. That was Hexaria’s doing. She knows you too well.”

I started to shrug but then thought better of it. “Either way, I’ve been running away a lot from people and situations. I need to stop doing that. I need to start facing people…and my fears.”

Straus looked deeply uncertain. “You can do that well enough by staying put.”

I shook my head gently. “That’s not the message I want to send the Sanreals.”

“Then what do you want to say to them?”

“If Daddy Dearest wants to meet me, then I accept his invitation.” I smile whimsically. “As the saying goes, take me to your leader.”

“I don’t think you’re using it in the right context.”

“Well, whatever. You get what I mean, don’t you?”

“Yeah…I do.”

I gave him a lopsided grin. “So…are you going to be a good boy and escort me over there?”

A conflict of emotions broke out over Straus’s face.

I knew what he was struggling with, thus I glanced meaningfully at the building with the camouflaged sniper. “Like I said, I won’t make any sudden moves, not with that sniper covering me.”

Holding onto his misgivings, Straus half turned and studiously regarded the building as well. A short while later, he turned his attention upon Erina and company. Then, after a long, thoughtful moment, he faced me again.

“No sudden moves, right?” he asked.

“No sudden moves,” I reiterated, then tossed my hair like I’d seen some of the girls of Telos Academy do. “Well, let’s go meet the family.”

Straus looked disappointed at my effort. “You need a lot more practice.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “Care to teach me?”

He looked puzzled. “Truthfully, I’m surprised to hear you say that. It’s not something I expected you to ask.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Because a girl usually tosses her hair when she’s attracted to someone.” He grinned at me. “Does that mean you like me—oof!”

I punched him in the gut.

Surprisingly, he doubled over like a real boy as I buried my fist into his belly.

That said, I put a lot of Mirai’s strength into that punch.

If I was to believe Tabitha’s assessment of Mirai’s physical power, then it was a real piledriving blow, the kind of punch that could crater a permacrete wall.

And it certainly felt like I’d punched concrete.

There was a firm outer layer to Straus’s midriff, but then something much, much harder underneath. Hitting that was what made my hand scream at me in agony, and I choked when that scream lodged itself painfully in my throat. However, soon the pain began to fade away as Mirai’s body repaired itself at a preternatural rate, and when I pulled my hand back, I was both relieved and disturbed by what I saw.

My hand was bruised but not bloody.

It ached hotly when I wiggled and flexed my fingers, but there were no broken bones.

Clenching it into a temporary fist, I winced at the fleeting pain, but that was the extent of my discomfort.

Within moments, the discolored flesh had returned to normal.

Thank the Angel Fibers, I whispered inwardly, while simultaneously feeling uneasy.

Focusing my attention on Straus, I glared at him for a couple of heartbeats, before leaving him clutching at his midriff as I stormed around him. But he caught up to me sooner than I’d expected, though now he walked beside me well out of arms reach.

“Why the Hell did you punch me?” he complained through clenched teeth.

“Because you deserved it,” I hissed back at him. “There is no way in Hell that I could ever like someone—something—like you.”

Straus rubbed his wounded belly. “So much for no sudden moves….”

I snarled at him sidelong but blanched when I noticed the grin he was trying to hide.

And it almost earned him another punch.