The unusually deep waters where the Beagle met the Atlantic affected atmospheric conditions in strange and unpredictable ways. A submarine canyon began where the river ended with minimal gradient, going from a few hundred feet deep at the mouth of the Beagle to a horrifying six thousand at the outermost boundary of the harbor, with mini-fissures branching out from the main channel like roots from a stalk. From above, the sharp contrasts of depths in the bay made it look as if the river was bleeding milky black corruption into the ocean, a lesion on the face of the planet. There was an inherent wrongness to the color of the underwater chasms as if there was more to the darkness than the mere absence of light. Even I, a stalwart defender of the city and all its quirks, had always found the blackness at the center of the bay viscerally disturbing. The beaches were great—the best in New Jersey, I'd say—and the islands that ringed the harbor possessed a stark, haunting beauty, but it did not do to stare too long into the seas beyond.

Something about the interplay between the freshwater outflow, the tides, and the many narrow fissures made for notoriously unknowable currents, so much so that recreational scuba diving was illegal in Black Harbor. There were horror stories of commercial divers being pulled into the canyon suddenly and without explanation, their partners turning around to see them fading into the darkness, buoyancy devices utterly useless before the drag. Tonight, those strange currents from the underwater Beagle Canyon had brought with them a sharp chill to the surface. Since we'd been in the theater, the temperature had dropped precipitously to not-quite-freezing but well below sweater weather, and the salty gusts were downright biting.

For the plebs without Fire-Qi, at least, we three merry travelers were more than fine. I, a living furnace, kept the girls comfortable in their new outfits, cranking my body temperature up and exuding my aura in a dense cloud around us. The moving ten-foot or so radius of intense heat I emitted caused the moisture in the air to condense at its edges into a moderately thick fog, but that, too, was welcomed by the girls – one more barrier between them and prying eyes. Shania wore only her apron dress sans underwear, skin still shiny from sweat, and Aminah's breasts were pushing the buttons of her borrowed blouse to their limits, her too-small tights almost transparent against her slick brown skin. My two dates may have been excited by the idea of exhibitionism, but they were still shy and reserved all things considered. Aminah, in particular, seemed grateful for the supernatural mist; this was the first time since childhood that she was without her hijab in public.

The girls walked just slightly ahead of me, practically skipping with excitement as they shared my cum, taking minuscule sips from the straw to preserve the ambrosia for as long as possible. I was a bit too hot to walk arm in arm with, but they made sure to slow down every once in a while to bump their backs into me, jumping away in mock surprise when I used the opportunity to cop quick feels. Aminah's butt was soft and bouncy, begging to be spanked, and while Shania was petite all over, she had the foundations for a great ass. It just needed some nourishing – once we got her doing some squats and eating right, her Greene DNA would flourish.

The night was young and full of sound, the whipping of wind, the honking of late evening traffic, and the tired but loud chatter of retail and service workers on their way home from jobs in better-paying neighborhoods. Most avoided the alleys, and those that didn't were keeping clear of the rolling, mysterious fog bank, but they could be heard trafficking the busier streets to our sides. The smell of bodega sandwiches and fast-food fryers cut through the salt-rich wind as all the little shops that clustered around subway stops did raucous business.

I had taken the girls into the alleys to avoid the crowds, not to spare them from the embarrassment, but for safety. The narrow quarters of the alleyways benefited my fighting style, and more to the point, I couldn't get jumped if no one knew where I was, or by no one on my level, at least. There was the theoretical issue of The Misery, as the system had named it, to be concerned about. Much like the theater hallway, this was a largely empty, liminal space that had seen its fair share of horrors, but I couldn't see it taking another crack at me tonight. Shania and Aminah were too bright and joyful; misery, capital-M or not, could not exist in their presence. Within our little bubble of warmth, hidden away by brick and fog, the madness of Harbor Hill was a distant and irrelevant memory.

All things had to come to an end, though, and if there was one thing worth returning to the material world and all its unfortunate realities for, it was a hot slice of pizza.

We dipped out of the alleys onto a major avenue as we neared our destination, a '$2 Dollar Pizza' not too far from my home. It was my favorite style of restaurant, just a hole in the wall with a limited menu, in this case with only two options: slice and whole. No toppings were offered; as far as the owners were concerned, we should be grateful that they kept a cooler with drinks. I loved a business with open disdain for its customers; it was very Black Harbor.

I paused in the glow of bright white fluorescents and neon reds to put my hands on my hips and tut up at the sign. "Two Dollar Dollar Pizza," I said, reading it as it was literally written. "I remember when it was a One Dollar Dollar Pizza, you know."

A nearby middle-aged man eating a slice off a paper plate raised his eyebrow. "Ain't no way. You woulda been a damn baby then."

"Used to be able to get a bowl of soup for a nickel," added another older man in a heavy, battered-looking coat, joining in on the banter. He stepped in and got the door for us, smiling good-naturedly as he did. A lot of homeless guys liked to act as volunteer doormen when panhandling. "Here, my brother, let me get that for you."

I'd have riffed back, but my Alan half was in the middle of a minor existential crisis. In a few seconds, he had rejected the assertion that it had been that long since there were Dollar Pizzas, realized he hadn't been to one in over fifteen years, felt very old and out of touch, remembered that he was twenty-two now, and was in the middle of considering if he was allowed to still feel old or not anymore. I settled for handing the old man a few rolled-up twenties and ushered the girls inside. Alan could ponder all he wanted, but I needed to eat something substantial after the candy and popcorn binge. Movie theater popcorn was oddly satiating, but never in an entirely pleasant way.

Shania and Aminah stiffened at the sight of two goth e-girls eating at one of the standing counters inside. The goths, however, made no indication that they recognized either of my dates, leading me to believe that they must have gone to the same school but hadn't met before.

I'd intended to take a pie to go, but this was a good opportunity to break the girls out of their shells and see Social Lubricant in action. The 2 extra Dice in Charisma and Empathy would hopefully be enough to get them through an awkward introduction.

I slung my arms over their shoulders and gently pushed them to the same side as the goths while gesturing with my head, rolling a Deception to influence their choice while masking my intentions. "Save us some counter space," I said, walking away to make the request seem more like an order.

The system never told me the opposing results to Social rolls, but by the way both girls fast-walked towards the corner with the e-girls, I assumed I'd been successful. Love's Deceiver, the Rake-Archetype Feat I'd gotten for kissing Shania and Marianne on the same day, came in handy, adding a few Dice to trick my lovers. How appropriate.

Counterintuitively, the lines at $2 Dollar Pizzas were the shortest during the busier hours. Without a need for toppings and a steady stream of reliable customers, the turnaround on slices was close to immediate, and they could move whole pizzas in single-digit minutes. The kitchen pumped out pies as fast as they could, confident that people would buy them before they could get cold – so I was alarmed to receive a delivery only seconds after I'd given my order.

Someone bopped me lightly on the head, and a familiar voice from behind said, "What's good, Chinatown? Guess who just broke his speed record?"

I turned around to see Tips, one of my fellow freerunning deliverymen, a tall, skinny man with an almost coal-black skin tone and tight braids.

"Tips?"

He shoved a fat, yellow envelope into my hands and snapped a picture of me holding it as confirmation for the Runr app. "Boom, minute-nine, baby. Know you've never beaten that."

I blinked down at the envelope; the bulge in it had the shape of cash, but that would have had to be a lot of money if it was in anything but singles. "Minute-nine?" I repeated, more to myself than him. How long had I been in the store? Someone had called in a Runr order, got Tips the package, and had it delivered within two or three minutes at the most? That was a message, to be sure. "How?"

Tips stepped around me and ordered himself a slice and a coke. "I'm godlike is how."

I kept myself from scoffing. My speed record was fifty-eight seconds, but that wasn't the issue at hand.

"No, I mean, I just got here. How did you know where to find me? And isn't this mad late for you to be working?"

The freerunner opened his mouth to quip, but paused at my expression. I must have been considerably less playful than he was expecting. "Shit, bro, you're in high demand, I guess. I've got push notifications for Diamond Runs set-up. Saw the price, hopped out my window, picked up the package a block away and didn't think twice."

Tips notably didn't mention who had sent me the package, nor did I think he would. He was already eyeing the door uncomfortably. We were friendly, but we were far from friends. As two of the only Certified Diamond Runners working Harbor Hill, Tips and I were in direct competition for the highest-paying tier of jobs. That wasn't something that normally got in the way of my other friendships, but it had been a sticking point between us in the past.

You had to have a certain number of completed deliveries to hit Diamond, and maintain a pretty vicious average delivery time to stay in the tier. Tips had dipped under the threshold for a month because of a rusty ladder snapping off its brackets under a lache, injuring himself and damaging the package, and accused me in his anger of sabotaging it. I'd brushed it off as completely ridiculous; we didn't train together, I didn't know his routes, and it would have been beneath me to begin with. He 'dropped it' but didn't let it go, so after a few weeks of putting up with passive-aggressive jabs, I assured him that if I ever had a problem with him, I would just break his legs like a man instead of conniving or whining like a child. Not my finest moment—sometimes I forgot how non-martial artists treated threats—but that had been prior to Alan's influence. I had a young man's pride back then.

Tips had ordered a single slice so got served first while I was still waiting on my whole pizza, contemplating how I wanted to play this. I didn't want to make a scene, but this might be the last time I'd get to ask him questions. He could tell he'd fucked up. It wasn't exactly cool to surprise one of your boys with a gang delivery; there could be literally anything in this envelope.

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"Aight, Chinatown, I got to gamble this Diamond money away, you feel me, so—"

He tried to play it smooth, pivoting on his heel to start walking away. I bumped my loafer against the side of his sneaker and extended my force pythons up his legs, squeezing painfully against his knee. He wisely stopped moving.

"Hold up, bro." My tone was friendly, and my demeanor shifted from serious and confused to relaxed and easygoing. "Don't you want to know what I got?"

"Not really. I never do."

That followed. I avoided the sketchier work, sticking with business-to-business deliveries or hospital jobs, mostly going to and from labs. Private Runs, especially in Harbor Hill, were too likely to be either guns or drugs – those I left to Tips and others who were only concerned with price and not what they might be facilitating. Ignorance was a virtue in his field.

"Mm," I said, unconcerned, tightening my telekinetic hold on him. I slid a finger underneath the seal on the envelope, opening it in full view of Tips, and whistled softly. That was a lot of money, maybe fifty grand or so in a mix of bank-fresh hundred-dollar bills and loose, non-sequential twenties.

Tips only grew more anxious with the confirmation that he was in way over his head. "Shit, looks like I'm motherfucking Santa Claus—"

I sent another python up and hung it around his neck, not tightly, but to send the message. There was a note in here as well.

'My friend,' it read, 'your neighbor has been given a basket to hold for you, but I thought it was best to send this separately. He is a reliable man, but money makes beasts out of the best of men. The basket was packed in such a way as to be obvious should there be any jars missing. Please inform me if such a thing occurs. We will be in touch. – RM'

I smiled and patted Tips on the back, retracting the pythons. "Your lucky night, Tips."

He chuckled nervously. "Hey, uh, yours too, my man."

Ah, that was right. I kept forgetting how hard it was to communicate threats subtly with the Happy Idiot up. I rolled an Intimidation. "No, Tips," I said slowly and condescendingly, "it's your lucky night because this was from a friend. You get to go to bed with your knees bent the right way."

"Yeah…" Tips swallowed, mouth dry. "Thanks, I'ma," he trailed off, flicking his eyes to the door, asking permission to leave.

I nodded. "Yeah. I'll see you around, Tips."

"Ha, yeah." He started taking slow steps toward the door. "I was actually thinking about ditching my lease and heading to Miami for the winter."

Truthfully, I had nothing against the man. Even if there had been a bomb, a threatening letter, or poison in the package, I wouldn't have taken it personally – I'd have beat his ass to learn who'd sent it, but it wouldn't be personal. Diamond Runs could make your week if not month, and it wasn't like we were close. Was it annoying that he took an obviously shady, gang-related delivery and hadn't spent a second to give me any information at all? Of course, but Karma had a way of paying back that sort of behavior. Tips didn't have the money or power to alienate his acquaintances like this. Shit would turn for him sooner or later without me having to do anything.

"Smart." I turned my back to him; to the man's credit, he kept himself from outright sprinting away.

I put Tips out of mind and the envelope into my pocket, running my Black Card over the money to send it to the Producer's extradimensional bank vault. I'd been close with my estimate; the real figure was $52,380. Mugisha either cleaned out a stache for me or had stuffed the envelope with all the twenties it could feasibly hold and still be sealed closed.

Shania and Aminah were busy chatting away with the e-girls when I got our pizza, steaming hot and straight from the oven. I slowed down and spent a moment dawdling, grabbing some napkins and paper plates so the girls could enjoy their conversation uninterrupted for a few more seconds. All in all, setting aside that I'd learned we were being surveilled, things were going great. I'd gotten a surprise fifty thousand dollars, the girls were being social while dressed as they were, and I had a box of perfectly acceptable pizza. Even the surveillance had given me a fun idea I'd otherwise have avoided.

I slipped in next to the girls, my excitement for the night freshly renewed. "Yo. We're all set. Who're your friends?"

Shania beamed at me and gestured to the goths. "James! This is Miyo and Hime. It's so funny – we've been in a ton of classes together but never actually talked before!"

I looked at the two extremely pale white girls and appended 'weebs' onto the goth e-girl description I'd given them. "James Li. Nice to meet you."

"We know," said Miyo.

"We were just showing Shania and Aminah a fancam of you," added Hime, holding up her phone. There was an old clip of me dancing in the rafters above a Gorillaz concert playing. My friends and I would sneak into the arena for shows all the time before they finally fixed our go-to hatch on the roof.

"Holy shit. Where did they find that clip? I can't be older than sixteen there."

"You've got shooters online," said Hime. "They're rabid. Worse than K-pop stans."

"That's impossible," I said, not missing a beat.

"Fair. As bad then."

"We get it, though," said Miyo, giving me bedroom eyes.

"Mhm. I'll be joining the Discord when I get home for sure."

I sighed. Annie and I were influencers now; the lunatics would be sure to follow. There was nothing to be done about that. "Well, let me know if they start planning to chain me to a radiator."

"Sure." Hime smirked. "We could help you practice escaping too."

"I've got a radiator in my room and chains to spare," added her friend.

Aminah cleared her throat, blushing pink. "So, who was that guy you were talking to? He seemed kind of…scared when he was leaving."

"Just a fellow roof rat. Speaking of, we're going to need to eat this here before we head out. You two mind helping out?"

"Happily."

"It's illegal to turn down free pizza."

"Morally reprehensible at the very least." I held the box for the girls to serve themselves. There wasn't enough room on the narrow counter to rest the full pizza, something which may have been a deliberate move by the owners. "What were you guys talking about, by the way?"

Aminah perked up. "League of Legends!"

"Oh God," I said before I could stop myself.

No, no, James, don't disparage their hobby.

I cleared my throat. "Sorry, I meant, Oh, good. League of Legends." Hm, that sounded ruder somehow.

Aminah rolled her eyes at my distaste but was smiling graciously. "It's okay, James, Shanny feels the same way. But Miyo and Hime are degens like me! It's so nice to finally have people to complain about patches with!"

Shania bit her lip – a few hours ago, that might have been the end of it, but she actually managed to summon the courage to say what was on her mind. "We were talking about dressing up for LANime Con. It's the weekend after next in the suburbs, do you—or would you be free…"

"Ah, sorry. Black Harbor Fashion Week will be in full swing. I'll either be making deliveries or, hopefully, doing some modeling work. Nothing's booked for the latter, but if GLB can't get me a job during Fashion Week, literally what are they good for? All my fucked up scars are below the neck; there's got to be something for me out there."

Miyo jumped in. "What if we dressed Shania up as Jinx and Aminah as Nidalee?"

My slice of pizza froze midway to my mouth. The thought of Shania dressed up as Jinx was arrestingly tempting, but I did have to be responsible. Not only would I be working, it was also my best bet at finding whoever Davis ended up as – I had to assume that their model character would be somewhere amidst the chaos of Fashion Week. I had to kindly decline.

"Let me see a picture of Nidalee," I said instead. Stupid horny brain. Stupid Happy Idiot.

Hime was quick, pulling up an image of a brown-skinned huntress wearing what amounted to a fur bikini and body paint. "We could definitely put the costume together in two weeks. Jinx, too; I already have the wig for that one."

I hummed, imagining the two shy girls side by side in slutty cosplay, on their knees before me. Surely there was a compromise I could strike here, some middle ground between responsibility and hedonism.

No, come on, fashion shows can take the entire day. When would we have time?

I shook my head sadly. It just wasn't happening; I'd have to deal with that. "What are you two going as?" I asked – you know, to be friendly, a good conversationalist. Any moment now, and I was sure to decline the offer.

"I'll be Miss Fortune," she said, quickly finding me an image of a redheaded pirate in tight leather pants and the world's most ambitious pushup bra. "And – I'm calling an audible here, Miyo."

Her friend nodded sagely. "I understand completely."

"Great. And Miyo's going as Janna now." She showed me what looked like an Emma Frost costume with elf ears and a tiara.

Goddamn it.

"I could maybe make time before the con, have some fun at my place—"

"Deal," said Hime immediately.

James.

"Well, hang on, let me finish. It might end up being really early, like four in the morning early…" Good save, no teenager was going to be thrilled about waking up hours before sunrise.

"Yes, anything. I would gouge out my eyes—"

Miyo elbowed her friend. "Be normal, bitch. We're fine with whenever, James."

Ah, fuck. I looked to Shania and Aminah for support. Clearly, I was incapable of stopping this myself, but the two wallflowers would surely—

"Yes," said Shania firmly, a manic gleam in her eyes.

"We want a smoothie to go, though," added Aminah quickly. She was almost purple with embarrassment, but powered through. "Each."

"Each?" I swallowed. My mouth was suddenly dry, recalling the brutal milking Maki had subjected me to. "I don't know, that's a…hell of a way to start out my day."

Aminah clasped her hands together and gave me her best puppy dog eyes. "Pleeeease."

"Agh! Okay, okay, just stop making that face. Jesus, you're good at that."

She pumped her fist and then, in one clean motion, turned to Shania and buried her face in the crook of her neck as she realized what she had just agreed to. Shania giggled and stroked her friend's long, black hair. Her face froze in a rictus seconds later, though, and her eyes focused on some point in the middle distance.

Well, mission accomplished on getting the two of them to be bolder, I suppose. In a way, this was a brilliant stroke of genius.

Remember this when you're filling up the fourth water bottle for them, dumbass.

Hey, it's the weekend, baby, cut me some slack.

Miyo and Hime high-fived. See, these two goth e-girl weeb League of Legends players had the right idea…Christ, just thinking that sentence was like getting hit in the head with a hammer.

Ah, well, you had to roll with the punches, especially the self-inflicted ones.