"I'm afraid, my child, I have no more influence over the situation than you do," Patriarch Kvaltash said, spreading his hands and smiling beneficently. He wasn't really in Veda's pod, but the holographic illusion made it look as though he were.

She had not left the pod since her trial. Now she was glad that her personal system was able to adjust her appearance on the fly. She hadn't taken a shower in two days, hadn't brushed her hair in longer than that. She was wearing shapeless sleepwear. But to the Patriarch, and to Proxima's leader, Dreamwarden, in a few minutes, she presented the picture of a put-together woman of the galaxy.

"My contractees are out of communication. I am concerned that their rights may be being violated," she said. "Our best information says they are in the hands of Major Waters, who has done them harm in the past."

"I simply do not have any jurisdiction here," the Patriarch said. "The rule set for this particular phase three is very broad. Now that restrictions on attacking outposts have been lifted, it's a perfectly valid strategy, one your own team was using. It sounds to me as though you have been outflanked and are bitter about it. Have they attempted to retake by force?”

“With hundreds of their own as hostages?"

"Hostages to the rules that they themselves put into place," the Patriarch pointed out. "The so-called hostages will not be permanently killed. They will respawn. The only reason your people do not wish to take this risk is because of the fines they will incur, is that not so?"

"I thought you were interested in seeing what this reality engine does," Veda said, her temper rising.

"I am," said the Patriarch. "And this seems like a fascinating scenario to observe. There's been absolutely nothing like it in any reality engine exploit in history. The theological treatise I see myself writing when this exploit is concluded will be one for the ages. I dare say it may become an ecumenical classic. I am already consulting a colleague from the Church of the Void about co-authoring with me."

"Thank you for your time, Patriarch," Veda said.

"Of course, my daughter." He smiled and disappeared again.

Veda threw her head back and screamed. She followed up with a string of swear words that would have made her mother's eyebrows disappear entirely into her hairline.

She understood now why it was Shad always seemed so impetuous. Sometimes when you felt so helpless and angry, all you wanted to do was reach out and hurt someone. If the people responsible for a little bit of the situation had been in the room with her, she might have throttled them.

Veda made herself get up and perform a two-minute sequence of relaxing stretches, focusing her mind. Then she made herself a pot of hot D’nege and poured it before settling back in front of her desk. As the video call chimed, announcing Dreamwarden, she fixed a smile on her face and chose the false background and filter to be applied to her during this call.

"Answer," she told her system, and prepared herself to do battle once more.

The missive from Juana popped up in the middle of a flurry of other messages, and I almost missed it. Then, not believing my eyes, I maximized it, tuning out all the distractions around me.

Shad, Waters wants me to send words to you. Don't trust anything he says. He's got 173 of us tied up here at headquarters. He says I can give you the whole list of names, so here it is.

She followed up with a list with herself, Grandpa, Mama Grace, Arjun, Kirin, Dwight, most of our other headquarters staff at the top, and then names, one after the other. Some I knew, most I didn't. A lot of them were crafters or farmers, people who had thrown their lot in with us because they believed we could make a better life.

I don't know what he's planning to do to us, Juana continued. But don't trust him, Shad. He can't kill us, and he knows that, but it doesn't upset him. Says there's worse things he can do. He's got some way of keeping us locked down. None of us can use any of our abilities or access our inventory. I couldn't use my chat until —

Her message cut off. I screamed aloud in sheer rage and frustration, sent a reply back.

Juana, are you all right? Juana?

And then I did what Waters was probably expecting. I unblocked him and sent him a message.

You fucking son of a bitch. I'm going to take you apart one piece at a time, and I'm going to enjoy it.

Watch your language, Sergeant, Waters sent back.

I didn't rise to the bait. He knew I was a captain now, and he was just trying to get me angry. That was stupid, because I was already angry. So angry I could scream. I wanted to crawl up through our portal and force my way in, tear things to pieces with my bare hands.

I've got them all here nice and safe, Waters said. Your grandfather, your girlfriend, her mom, everyone who's been making my life miserable, except for you and your brat sister. Now here's how it's going to go. We're going to work out a retreat strategy to give Proxima what they need. They're going to finish up here, and they're going to leave. It's much better than any of the alternatives.

Better for you, I retorted, because you're getting a cushy job as the quisling governor of Earth's system out of it. The rest of us get herded onto reservations and have to hope the government handouts aren't too rotten and moldy.

Now, Shad, Waters said. I could practically hear the condescension dripping in his voice, even through text. You have to remember, these are enlightened people. They've had millennia more to work with each other and come to an understanding of the value of every human life.

That's exactly the problem. They can put a value on it down to the last soul coin. I don't want any part of this, Waters. If you were any kind of patriot, you'd be standing with us, helping make a better deal for our homeworld.

This is pointless, Waters snapped. I'm about to block you again, Shad, if you don't shut up and listen. Think about what I'll be doing in the meantime. Right now, your people are still full of bravado. They think you'll come up with some sort of a plan. I don't know how. I've made sure we have all of the actual brains locked up here. You might start asking yourself who on your team it is that gave us the information we need. How did I know that pretty much all your decision makers would be in this one spot at this time? Operation Trojan Horse has always been a triple cross, Shad.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I started to retort and forced myself to take a deep breath. Anger was good. I needed my anger. I could use my anger. But I needed it to be cold fury, not white-hot rage. I needed to be able to think, to plan, to be Juana and Grandpa and Dwight and Arjun all at the same time. The one thing I couldn't afford to be right now was Shad.

So what's your offer? I asked.

I thought you'd see reason. First of all, I want to remind you that while killing these people doesn't get me anything, there's a lot I can do short of killing. Right now, my men and I are the only ones whose skills work. We've got everyone here tied up and locked down. Your Grandpa put up quite a fight, by the way. He's nursing a pair of broken arms, and I hope he doesn't have to go to the bathroom any time soon, because I don't think anyone here is going to help him.

I closed my eyes. Cold fury. Cold fury. Control yourself.

We have a number of demands, Waters said. First, call off all attacks. Then we'll know that you're serious about wanting to talk. Go ahead and message me back when that's done.

I hesitated. I needed time, and I needed to sow doubt in Waters' mind while I tried to figure out how he was two steps ahead of us.

I'm going to need to check with our patron.

The Tvedra woman? She's out of this. She'll be spending the next two lifetimes as an indentured serf right next to you, slogging away in the soul coin mines.

Not her, I said. You think that worthless bitch was ever really in charge of anything? You think Ames would let someone like her call the shots?

Waters didn't answer right away. I tried to picture his face, that great, ruddy, red and white mass of flesh with eyebrows like dead caterpillars. I pictured his sneer twisting into a confused scowl as he thought.

What do you mean? he asked at last.

I mean Proxima's not the only player here. I also mean these chat messages aren't as secure as you think. We need to talk, Waters. Man to man.

Not a chance. This is a trap.

All right then. Tell you what. I'll call off some of my attack dogs as a show of good faith while I make some calls. I think you should do the same.

I put the block back on. I wanted him to stew for a while and just hoped he wouldn't take it out on my people.

I sent messages ordering some of our teams to pull back and regroup, others to reinforce. I doubled down on Proxima.

I want teams on every single one of Proxima's bases even if we're not actually making a dent. I need them to know that we're here and we have numbers, I ordered.

Frank had been deputizing some of the other miners into an ad hoc command structure. They passed the message along.

"We've got about 5,000 willing to work with us on the communications channels," Frank told me. "You tell me what you want done and I'll do it."

"Good," I said. "How are our people?"

"I don't know. Waters makes it sound rough. We won't know until we rescue them."

I thought about what else he'd said, that they had someone on the inside who'd been feeding them information. Damn, I wasn't good at this kind of double think. I hated the idea that someone I trusted could have turned on us, given away information. It was like when Warren Black had helped betray us back in phase one. Made my stomach turn just at the thought. Most likely, whoever it was, was pretending to be a hostage right now. But it was possible they were right here, listening in on everything.

A horrible thought crossed my mind. It couldn't be Frank, could it? He'd been with us from the beginning. Sure, his attitude had changed a lot in the last year. He'd gone from complaining and whining about fights to being eager to jump in and help. But that was understandable. He had adjusted to life here, come to terms with the fact that his family was back on Earth, and accepted that, in a way, he was fighting to protect them even now.

It couldn't be Frank. I hoped. That's why I was no good at this shit. I'd never find the mole. What I really needed was insider information. Black had failed to get in, now I had no leads.

Any changes? I asked Smith.

We're watching remotely. I've asked the team if there's anyone who's got an ability that might help us out here. Supposedly, somebody has a friend of a friend who has a long-distance eavesdrop, trying to arrange to have them come in and aid us, but they're not responding.

Keep me posted. I stood up.

"Where are you going?" Frank asked, looking worried.

"To get some air," I said. "I'm doing nothing but answering chats, anyway. I can do that anywhere. At least if I'm walking, I'll feel like I'm doing something."

"All right. Don't do anything reckless without consulting the rest of us, okay?"

"I won't. I'm all right," I assured him.

I walked the bustling streets of Threshold, not so bustling now. A pall seemed to have fallen over them, even though there were still plenty of people about. They moved about, keeping their heads down. Some of them had probably heard what was going on with Misfits. Others were worried about the lawsuit and the fate of everyone with contracts from Alabaster Sky.

My feet led me to Mama Grace's restaurant. I went in. A few people were sitting at tables. They looked up, then looked away. Rosa, Juana's sister, came out of the kitchen.

"I'm so sorry. We're not serving— Oh, sorry, Shad. It's you. Come in." She ushered me to the table closest to the kitchen door. "You want something to eat?"

I didn't, but I nodded. "Yeah, thanks. Sure."

Rosa looked terrible, her face pale and drawn.

"Get yourself something too, and we'll talk," I said impulsively.

She nodded, disappeared back into the kitchen, and then emerged again a moment later, carrying a tray full of food and a pitcher of sweet tea. She set it down, grabbed some clean glasses from the station by the door, and poured for us.

The food was simple, just sandwich fixings and a fresh loaf of bread. I stared at it. The scent hit my nose, my stomach rumbled, and suddenly I was starving. I grabbed a slice of bread, piled it high with meat, cheese, toasted veggies, put another slice of bread on top, and bit into it. It was delicious. I took another three bites and swallowed it all down with some sweet tea before wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

"We're going to get them back," I told Rosa.

"Are they all right?" she asked. She picked up her cup of sweet tea and held it between both hands, not sipping it.

"I don't know," I said. "Waters said that my grandfather's been injured, but he didn't mention your mother or your sister. Just that they're there. I got a message from Juana but she couldn’t say much.”

Tears sparkled in Rosa’s eyes. “There's no need to keep Mama. She doesn't know anything. She's not any good at this fighting nonsense."

"I need to know what's in there," I said in frustration. "What he's doing to them. But we can't get in. He's got some sort of device shutting down everyone's skills. Juana could only send me the message he permitted."

Rosa's eyes narrowed.

"Whatever device he's using has to work with the system to deny people's system-based skills and abilities, right?"

"Sure. I don't see where you're going with this."

"My abilities aren't very interesting. I've scarcely used any of them since I got them. I'm a seamstress. It isn’t glamorous like Juana's skills."

I snorted. "I'm going to tell her you said hers were glamorous when we're done here."

"No, really. Juana's always been the organized one. Mama's the one who likes to keep everyone happy and fed. I just like to make sure everyone talks to each other, you know? That was always a problem in our family growing up. People talked all the time. Nobody ever talked to each other. They never listened.”

I could hear the pain in her voice and wondered. Juana had never told me anything about her childhood. I’d assumed with Mama Grace around it was pretty great. But someone who saw Sage and me with Grandpa might think our life had been easy, too. Takes more than one good parent to make an idyllic childhood.

“Anyway. I’ve got this skill. I always thought it was silly for a seamstress. It sounded more like a bartender kind of ability, and maybe I earned it because of all the work I’ve done here? It's called [Let Me Pour the Tea]. I can communicate with anyone I've ever served tea to no matter where they are."

I nearly leapt up from my place. "Right now? You can talk to Juana or your mom?"

She turned pink. "Apparently, I've never actually served my mother a drink. But I brought Juana lunch at your headquarters plenty of times, and that counts." She spread her hands. “So what is it you want me to tell her?"