Vas, Jane, Reyer, and Tennama walked along the empty gray street. Twilight was almost over, and thick clouds had gathered over their heads, blocking out the stars. The two uniform lines of street lamps were the only reason they could read the house numbers.

Reyer noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced over. Jane was wringing her hands. She jumped when Reyer put a hand on her arm.

“You’re nervous,” Reyer observed.

“Yeah.”

Vas was leading the small group. He looked over his shoulder at the two women. “Why are you nervous, Dr. Jane?”

“You said they know me.”

“They’re not our enemies,” Reyer said.

“They’re more like your fan-club,” Vas added.

“Moric Sipos was a fan,” Jane grumbled.

Reyer and Vas both felt the unexpected statement hit like a punch.

In the painful silence that followed, Tennama said from behind them, “You didn’t like Moric Sipos, Doctor?”

It was the first thing he’d said to Jane since their uncomfortable introduction. Most of the time, he wouldn’t even look at her.

Her indignation flared. “What would you care?”

“It’s all right, Jane.” Alix spoke as much to distract her from Tennama as to reassure her. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

The biologist let out a dry laugh. “You’re armed, aren’t you?”

“I prefer to go armed when it’s possible.”

“This is a Supremacy-controlled planet.”

Vas corrected her: “It’s a not-very-well controlled Supremacy planet. Ciro can usually find a few weak points in the security.”

“Yeah. He’s good at that.” Jane flashed one of her rare smiles. “Did you know Cuss likes him?”

“I’m not surprised,” Reyer said. “Everyone likes Ciro.”

“Cuss?” Anthony asked.

“Her cat,” Vas explained.

“You named your cat Cuss?”

Before Jane could respond, the captain said, “It’s a fitting name. That’s what people usually do when they’re talking about her.”

The doctor wanted to argue, but she knew Vas was right. Instead, she said to Tennama. “Are you armed?”

Anthony was startled by the sudden question, so it took him a moment to answer. “No,” he said. “The captain offered, but I don’t like weapons. Most of us don’t.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know.”

“Weren’t most of the xenos’ final bodies trained soldiers?” Reyer asked.

“Yes,” Tennama said.

“Weapons still bothered you?”

“I have three minds that remember training and shooting. Mostly e-weapons. Some old-style metal ammunitions. I remember combat—”

“That wasn’t Anthony Tennama.”

“No, it was before him. When I picked up a weapon, I thought it would feel the same.” He shook his head. “It’s uncomfortable. We can use them, and we do use them when it’s necessary, but we have to force ourselves to pull the trigger. If you haven’t done it in a while, it’s worse.”

Jane tapped her lips with a finger. “It would be unnatural for you. Especially if the creatures you’re attacking need to be alive for you to take them over.” A glance back revealed that Tennama was watching her. She blushed. “I’m only thinking aloud.”

Vas, with his unrelenting military mind, had focused on a different point.

“Who were the exceptions?”

“Pardon?” Anthony said.

“You said most of you didn’t like them. Who were the exceptions?”

“Harlan preferred to have a blade on him at all times. At least a knife.”

“Is it easier?” Jane asked. “Stabbing someone, as opposed to shooting them.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tennama said.

The group came to a halt when Alix stopped walking. She turned to the xeno. “Yes, you would.”

His eyes met hers. “I’ve never stabbed someone with a blade.” He looked away. “The other exception was Carter Levin, but he was exceptional in many ways.”

Jane Bonumomnes felt a sense of discomfort steal into her. She shifted her weight, then said in a deliberately neutral voice, “He was the one that kidnapped me.”

“The assassin,” Vas added.

Jane said to Anthony, “You knew him?”

“He was a friend of mine.”

The biologist shifted her weight around her feet, demonstrating her discomfort through the useless movement. Alix put a hand on her back.

Tennama continued, “Harlan thought he was broken—that taking over the assassin had done something to him.” The xeno shrugged. “I don’t know that he was wrong about that, but Levin had a dark sense of humor I could empathize with, and since we primarily talked through a channel, my status didn’t matter.”

“You called to give him orders?” Adan asked.

“Levin was out of our hands. His only official order was to obey Fable and Kumar.”

The captain started walking again. The others followed. “What about unofficial orders?”

“We told him to play along and call to check in. It didn’t happen regularly, but Kumar’s authority meant he could get access to a protected channel every now and then. There wasn’t anything we could do with him, but he still called. I think he did it to remind himself he wasn’t alone.” Tennama added in a softer voice, “I was always around the other xenos. I had no idea what prolonged isolation would be like.”

Jane said, “They’re social creatures—”

“Like us,” Reyer said.

The finality of her words put an end to Jane’s speculation.

Vas stopped. “We’re here.”

The building was indistinguishable from the ones crowded around it. A copy of the whole neighborhood could be found on almost every temperate, settled planet. The houses were small and boring to look at, but they were affordable.

Jane leaned close to Reyer. “Ten coin says he still lives with his mother.”

“Ten coin says his mother kicked him out so he’d have to get a job.”

“You two are charitable, aren’t you?” Vas said.

“Did you live with your mother, Captain?” Jane asked.

“You better believe it. If I’d tried to move out, she would’ve followed me, and she would’ve yelled at me about wasting money the whole time she was packing her boxes.”

Reyer raised an eyebrow. “Different planet—”

“—different people,” Jane finished.

The four of them went up the short walk to the front door. Alix stepped up beside Vas as he pressed the bell.

The door opened immediately. Blaze stood there, smiling his lopsided smile.

“You’re right on time.”

He moved aside and gestured for them to enter.

Tennama was the last one to cross the threshold. When he came into the entryway, the door slammed shut behind him.

The xeno whirled around. A man was there. Tall, with a grim face. He had an e-pistol out and pointed at them.

At the first sign of trouble, Vas had put his arm across Reyer, stalling her instinct to fight, but her eyes scanned the scene, trying to gauge the threat.

Blaze had pulled his own e-pistol. There were two other people aside from the man at the door: one male, one female. Both had their own weapons. Same model as the rest.

But they were both young. And Reyer could see the muzzle of the girl’s gun was shaking.

“I thought you said they weren’t our enemies!” Jane cried.

“I…I don’t think they are.” Alix slowly moved her hand off her concealed weapon.

“This is one hell of a welcome, Blaze,” Vas said. “Do you treat all your guests like this?”

“We need to ask you guys some questions.” The boy’s statement rang with forced brazenness.

“And if we don’t answer, you’ll shoot us?”

“Maybe we will!”

The brief verbal bout was interrupted by a small squeak from the young woman.

She had a round, sweet face framed by short hair that was dyed an outrageous shade of blue. Her already wide eyes widened further, giving her an ethereal pixie look.

She was staring at the figure behind Reyer.

“Oh my god! You’re Jane!” She lowered her weapon. “You’re Jane Bonumomnes!”

“What?” Blaze snapped.

The girl started hyperventilating. “Oh my god, oh my god! She’s Jane Bonumomnes!”

“Jane Bonumomnes is dead,” the man at the door insisted.

The blue-haired girl motioned to the biologist. “Look at her!” There wasn’t much distance between them, but she still managed to skip over to Jane. “I’m Lucy—”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Not your real name,” Blaze moaned.

“Uh-huh. I’m still Lucy.”

Lucy put out her hand, but before Jane could move, the man by the door grabbed Lucy and yanked her back.

“Jane Bonumomnes is dead,” he said.

“I think Lucy might be right, Michael.”

The man who said that wore exaggeratedly large glasses to frame a trim face that seemed made for smiling. He wasn’t smiling now.

Lucy jerked her arm free. “I told you she wasn’t dead.”

“I suppose she could have been captured by the Supremacy,” Glasses said.

“She could be a xeno,” Michael said.

Blaze and Glasses trained their wavering guns on Jane with new purpose. Only Lucy kept her weapon at her side.

Blaze said, “Randy.”

The man with glasses lowered his pistol, walked over to the edge of the room, and pulled out a box from a mess of other gear sitting on a crowded table. After donning a set of gloves, he took out a disposable blood-drawing kit.

Jane stepped back as he approached her. “What are you doing?”

“Are you Dr. Jane Bonumomnes?” Randy asked.

“Yes!”

“Then you should know what I’m doing.”

“You’re doing the blood test.”

“Your arm please, Doctor.”

“I’m not a xeno!”

“You want us to take your word for it?” Michael asked.

“I want you to use a bot!” Jane said. “I don’t like amateurs stabbing me with a needle.”

“My name is Randy McCallion, Doctor. I’m a phlebotomist employed by the Supremacy to run DNA checks for IDs.” He pushed his glasses up his long nose and smiled. “I'm not an amateur.”

Jane put out her arm.

“Could you step back, sir?” Randy muttered.

Tennama, with his hands buried in his jacket pockets, took a large step closer to Reyer and further from the needle. Had any of their would-be captors been paying attention to him, they might have seen his profound relief.

Jane saw it. Either that, or she resented the irony of the situation. She glared at the xeno while Randy drew her blood.

“Blaze,” Vas said.

The kid looked at him.

“How long is it going to take for this test to prove she isn't a xeno?”

Randy walked back toward the crowded table. “At least twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes?!” Jane exclaimed.

“I don't have enough computer power to do it here,” Blaze explained. “We have to tap into a computer grid and bury the path so people can't figure out it's us.”

“Are you going to hold your guns on us the whole time your computer is working?” Adan asked.

“What if I am?”

The captain shrugged. “You might want to get comfortable. Even e-weapons feel heavy after a while.”

“And I think you should know that only Michael”—Reyer jerked her head to indicate the large man behind her—“remember to take his safety off,”

While Blaze checked the side of his weapon, Lucy groaned and put hers down on the nearby console table.

“Hey!”

“Stanley, this is stupid!” Lucy whined. “We aren’t soldiers!”

Blaze, né Stanley, bristled when he saw Adan’s half smile. “You think my name’s funny?”

“No, I think Stanley’s a fine name. I think it’s funny you’d rather be called Blaze.”

There was a grunt of laughter from behind them. Apparently, Michael wasn’t always serious.

He said to Blaze, “If it’s going to be twenty minutes—”

“I said at least twenty minutes,” Randy called from over by the machines. “It’ll take me longer to look up her ID code.”

“Don’t—” Vas moved toward him.

Michael instinctively raised his gun, but his wrists crashed into Reyer’s descending elbow. She turned, scooped up both his hands with hers, and twisted the weapon out of his grip. Less than a second later, she stepped back; the gun was in her possession, and it was pointed at Michael. The safety was still off.

Vas took another step toward the phlebotomist. “I can’t let you do that. Run her blood to look for the code if you must, but don’t raise her Supremacy ID.”

“Why?”

“Because then they’ll know she’s alive.”

It took Reyer a moment to realize the noise she was hearing was coming from Lucy.

“Oooooohhhhhh. This is so exciting. This is just like one of our stories!”

Randy dropped his forehead into his hand with an audible clap noise. Blaze let out a moan. Michael’s face twitched with annoyance, but his attention was still focused on the e-pistol pointing at his chest.

Vas’s face also twitched, but in his case, he was trying not to laugh. “Look, we don’t want to fight you, we don’t want to hurt you, and we aren’t some secret agents for the Supremacy—”

“Then why are you trying to find Tate?” Blaze demanded.

The captain was impressed by the kid’s passion. He wasn’t a soldier—hell, there was a chance he’d never even seen a real fight. Vas had no respect for him as an enemy, but he respected Blaze’s determination. The kid was doing what he could to protect his friend.

It was a shame he was so bad at it.

“He’s my assistant, isn’t he?” Jane said.

The room fell silent.

She went on, “You think I don’t care? You think I wouldn’t try to find him?”

“But Doctor,” Blaze said, “Tate was here trying to find out who killed you.”

Lucy whispered, “What happened to you guys?”

With a gun in her hand and an enemy at the other end of it, Reyer couldn’t give Jane a warning look or even close her eyes to offer a prayer to whatever god might listen to sometimes-desperate atheists. She had to trust her friend.

“Please,” Jane said. “Please, can we sit down? I’m tired. It’s been a hard night.”

Blaze, Vas, and Alix all tried to figure out who was in charge of the situation: the host, the captain, or the only person holding an active weapon.

They were still puzzling over it when Lucy said, “Of course you can!”

She tugged Jane over to the small couch, where they sat down together. Blaze moved closer and leaned against the wall. When Reyer saw Vas nod to her, she lowered the weapon, clicked on the safety, and went to stand behind the couch. Michael came up beside her.

“Can I have my e-pistol back?” he said, extending his hand.

“Are you going to point it at my friends?” Reyer asked.

“…No.”

“That was a long hesitation.”

“Well! I don’t know!” He pointed at Jane. “She might be a xeno!”

“Tell you what—if Randy says she’s a xeno, I’ll give you your gun back.”

Alix returned her attention to the main conversation while Michael debated trying to take it by force. He remembered how easily she’d managed to snatch it from him and decided not to press the issue.

“Someone blew up my lab.” Jane’s voice was convincingly heavy with grief.

Lucy put a hand on her leg. “We know. We’re so sorry. Your home!”

The girl’s face was so open and innocent, Vas felt an unfamiliar stab of guilt for all the lies that were about to be told.

Jane continued, “I was lucky I wasn’t there at the time. I thought whoever did it might try to get me next, so I decided the safest thing to do would be to disappear.”

“How did you do it?” Lucy asked.

“It was mostly computer work. If you convince the right computers that someone’s dead, the programs and administration do the rest.”

Vas shivered.

It was mostly computer work—but the Rising had a gruesome tradition of always preserving a few bodies because the people who needed to disappear were usually important enough someone would fly across the galaxy to confirm they were dead. The captain closed his eyes long enough to banish the memory of the body bag’s icy zipper stinging his hand.

“You didn’t tell Tate?” Lucy asked.

“I thought it’d be safer if he didn’t know. I had no idea he’d do something like this! I want to find him before he gets hurt. How did he get here? What was he doing here?”

Good girl, Reyer thought.

Lucy glared at Blaze until he rolled his eyes and muttered, “He was asking about the scientists.”

Reyer felt Tennama, who was standing beside her, tense.

This time there was no acting called for; Jane’s confusion was authentic. “What…scientists?”

“The Supremacy scientists.”

“The ones who worked on the xenos,” Lucy clarified.

“I thought you would’ve known about them,” Michael said.

Jane turned to give him a dirty look. “I knew about them, and you know that because I referenced them on my site. I didn’t know who they were.” She turned back to the others. “How did he learn their names?”

Ciro and I compiled the list from Fable’s files, Reyer thought. Vas handed him the nan-card.

Jane didn’t know about that. Maybe it was for the best.

“Probably the same way we learned their names,” Blaze said. “From hunting the obituaries.”

Reyer and Vas both froze.

Jane muttered, “What?”

“They’re all dead.” Michael’s flat statement seemed to creep over the biologist’s shoulders. “You were right to be worried, Dr. Jane.”

“All of them?” Vas asked.

“All of them,” Blaze said. “Seven high-level Supremacy military scientists were all killed in the same four-week period.”

“You know this for certain?”

“Tate helped prove it,” Lucy said. She blushed when Jane looked at her. “Dr. Jane, I’m such a huge admirer. You have no idea.”

“Are you a biologist?”

“I’m an organic chemistry major, but I followed your site every day. When you stopped posting, I knew something was wrong. I brought it to these guys, and they helped me track down the report from Gaoyun—”

“That’s how we learned about your lab,” Michael said.

“Then a few weeks later, you were dead!” Lucy sounded distressed despite the fact she was talking to the deceased. “That’s when we started combing the obituaries for anything else that looked suspicious.”

Randy stood up from the stool he’d been perched on. “No, Lucy. First her site was taken out. That’s when we started watching. She was pronounced dead two weeks after that.”

Lucy nodded to admit the correction, then turned back to Jane. “We’d found four by the time we met Tate. He brought us the other three names. He was asking about that one…Roy-Silvers—”

“One of the suicides.” Blaze included exaggerated air-quotes in case any of them had missed his sarcasm.

“After we collected all the notices, we realized they all died around the time your site went down.”

“But how do you know the scientists are actually dead?” Vas asked. He motioned to Jane with an open hand.

“Tate went planet hopping to check,” Blaze said. “Then he’d come back and tell us what he found.”

“Which was what?” Reyer asked.

“Seven dead bodies and not much else.”

“Then what happened?” Jane asked.

“We don’t know,” Lucy said. “He just left one day. He didn’t tell us where he was going.”

The doctor turned to Blaze. “But you have something right?”

He squirmed. “Why are you asking me?”

Reyer stared at him. “Because back at the café you said you had something that might help us find him.”

He squirmed more. “Ahhhh. Yeah. About that. Um, I lied to you.”

“You lied…to us,” Vas said.

At least the guilt was gone.

“I wanted to get you here so we could—”

“So you could hold us at gunpoint to get information from us?”

Blaze nodded.

There was a long silence.

“Miss Bellerose,” Vas said, “how are your painkillers holding up?”

“I haven’t shot him yet, Banderas.”

“You don’t know anything?” Jane demanded.

Blaze raised his hands. “Look! Tate was like that! Half the time I had no idea he’d left until I got home and my house was empty. We only knew where he’d been because he’d come back and tell us, but when I didn’t hear from him after a month, I figured he got caught.”

“By who?”

“The Supremacy.” The kid’s face screwed up in confusion. “Who did you think blew up your lab?”

Jane knew who’d blown up her lab. It had been Tate.

“I wasn’t sure,” she lied.

“Of course it was the Supremacy!” Michael said. “Seven high-level scientists, who’d all been stationed at the same classified base, all manage to die in the same four-week period? Not likely.”

In an offhand tone, Randy added, “Don’t forget the site.” He wandered back to the table where the test results were still pending. “They tore it down and launched a seek-and-destroy code to find as many people who’d been to it as possible. They crippled systems across the entire galaxy. Don’t tell me that could’ve been done by some random hacker.”

“But why would the Supremacy kill their own scientists?” Jane asked.

“To keep them quiet,” Blaze said. “They don’t want people knowing there are dangerous S.A.L.s—”

“The xenos aren’t dangerous,” Lucy said.

Blaze rolled his eyes.

Reyer was the only one close enough to hear the quiet choking noise that escaped Tennama when he heard the girl’s assertion.

“I’m sorry,” Tennama said. “You don’t think the xenos are dangerous?”

“It’s our first encounter with sentient alien life, so it’s understandable we’d be nervous. Our own species is still in its violent and immature infancy, but the xenos are probably much older and wiser than we are. The things they could teach us!”

Jane was as appalled as Tennama. “They’re goop.”

“Only at first! Imagine being able to switch bodies, seeing everything in the galaxy through different eyes, knowing, first-hand, the real variety of existence! Even you said there was a possibility they were effectively immortal. They’d have lifetimes to gain knowledge. Go ahead and tell me that’s not wisdom.”

Tennama, still enduring some painful internal struggle, spoke haltingly: “You think the xenos are wiser than humans?”

“She thinks the only reason they haven’t led us to enlightenment is because the Supremacy is suppressing knowledge of their existence,” Blaze grumbled.

“If the xenos are so benevolent, why would the Supremacy try to hide their existence?” Vas asked.

“They need us to be this way, don’t they?” Lucy said. “If we had peace and enlightenment, we wouldn’t need all these government structures. They’re doing it to protect their own existence. Some people would rather be rich than happy.”

You had to marvel at Lucy’s vision of reality. Its bizarreness lured you in, like some kind of incomprehensible art piece you wanted to keep staring at.

Tennama mumbled into Alix’s ear, “Should…should I tell her?”

“I’m not sure she’d believe you,” she whispered back.

Lucy continued, “Look, I don’t actually know for sure, but it drives me mad how these paranoids all assume the worst!”

“Paranoids?” Jane asked.

“We think they’re monsters,” Michael said. “The Supremacy is keeping them secret because they think we’ll panic.”

Randy called out, “Or because they’ve already taken over major people in the government.”

“You think that’s possible?” Vas asked.

“I work with the DNA codes, remember? I know how often we get hacked.”

Tennama looked distinctly uncomfortable. Vas’s gaze rose to the ceiling as he tried to calculate how many of those instances were directly caused by Ciro and how many were under his orders.

Reyer rubbed her temples, then let her hand drop. “Blaze, may I look around?”

“Uhhh, no.”

Alix managed to ungrit her teeth enough to say, “Why not, Blaze?”

With patronizing care, he enunciated, “I don’t know you.”

“Then what are you doing to find Tate? What are any of you doing to find him?”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Michael said.

“There’s something we can do,” Reyer said, “and we’re trying to do it! Blaze, please, may I look around?”

“What do you think you’re going to find?”

“I don’t know. Something! Anything that might give us a clue as to where he went.”

Stanley’s scowl was tinged with unease. When Lucy saw it, she stood up and took him aside. Everyone else waited. There was the susurration of a conversation conducted in whispers, then they both returned to the group.

Stanley said, “Lucy has pointed out that if you were Supremacy, then you probably wouldn’t be asking nicely, and if you aren’t Supremacy, then you’re probably who you say you are.”

“Is that a yes?” Reyer asked.

Blaze motioned with his hand. “Come on, I’ll show you his room.”

The crew left an hour later. It had rained, but the clouds were still thick over their heads. The light from the street lamps shone off the wet pavement.

Reyer stood on the stoop, closed her eyes, and breathed in the smell. When she felt a hand on her elbow, she didn’t bother looking around to confirm it was Vas.

“It was a long shot anyway,” Alix said.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t find Joseph,” Jane said.

“Tate can look after himself.” Reyer left the tiny portico and led them out into the street.

“Then what did we go there for?” Tennama asked.

“When someone goes missing while they’re looking for information, I always feel it’s safe to assume they found something important. If we’d been able to learn what he was doing, we might have found your queen.” Reyer clicked her tongue with annoyance. “But no luck there. We’ll have to find some other thread to follow.”