Clock’s ticking. I’m sure the others can see my apprehension as I dry in front of Jolie’s fireplace, even if my voice is nothing but confident. My body language would tell them I have a plan. But I’m scrambling on the inside, trying to come to terms with everything Fang said while also grappling over the details of our plan. My head is still swimming. I know I’m taking too long in deliberating when my skin starts to peel in the heat of the fire.

Banish the worries, Mars. Deal with them when you have the time. Tonight, like every time I step up to fight, is all about momentum. Every second counts. We’ve got too many things to do and too few hours to do them in. Time to get moving.

Rain still splatters against the see-through exterior of my sister’s modest house in the capital’s ludicrously expensive Glass district. Shimano Industries’ hubris paid the mortgage in one fell swoop after the two of us graduated from university. While I took my winnings from the minor league and started building a home in the villages with Mori, Jolie, comfortable where she’s always been, simply moved to one of the closest neighborhoods she could find. Her home is a technologically sophisticated space filled with abstract murals of famous fights and bubble theory, tastefully dimmed lamps and abundant stream screens that follow you from room to room. Wide, empty space stretches between pure white furniture and hand-woven tatami rugs. A pair of chopsticks rests on the fireplace mantle beneath Ajax’s ornamental marble katana. Innumerable tiny enhancements for her quality of life lurk just within reach.

Jolie’s home is like a blade, like my fists are to me. It’s an extension of her mind. A manifestation of her personality, for all its ups and downs. Tonight isn’t the first night I’ve wondered how much time she actually spends here. It’s worryingly empty. When I’m not around, do the retro fight replays we always used to keep running still make noise in the kitchen? Or are these rooms as silent as I think they are? The lights off while she sits alone on the couch with her coffee and screens, listening to the rain drip past without ever feeling its chill?

My guilt has become a closer confidant these days, and it only grows stronger when I see the undisturbed, austere box she’s made for herself. For twenty years, we shared every waking moment, every frustration and triumph and tear with each other. I see her so rarely these days. Always at work, always busy. I’m not around to see the other side of her life any more. The one that, once I left, has never found a person to fill the void that remained.

It’s nights like these that whisper why she stays so late at work.

There’s nothing for her to come home to. Not anymore. Just silence and a reminder of a loneliness she knows she could break if she tried, but hasn’t worked up the will for yet. Only two people helped push her out of that box. She watched one of them die. I’m the other. And I need to do better by her. Jolie has watched my back my whole life. Least I could do is be here more when she needs it.

I breathe out through my nose as I look up at Ajax’s blade over the fireplace. I can already feel the whirlpool of the coming unknown drawing me in, stretching me further like so many obligations have. But I will do better. Especially when it comes to family.

The padding of bare feet against real wood announces Jolie’s return to the living room. One press of a holographic key turns the nearest walls opaque as she returns from deeper in the nested rooms with a bundle of tessellated jumpsuits, doling two out to Mori and I. Both have been recolored from their original shade of oil-slick black. Mori’s is eggshell white. Mine a midnight blue as dark as my eyes. The third, a plain and utilitarian grey, remains neatly folded in Jolie’s hands.

“I sent word to the skyscraper’s hangar crew to get the gunship ready while Mars and I were leaving,” she says. “They said they had to bring it up from the basements, something about regular maintenance.”

“A couple of the kids wanted to fool around with the acceleration drivers,” Mori answers.

Jolie’s expression locks in place. “I spent weeks tuning those for fuel efficiency. If they screw something up…”

“Don’t worry, I told ‘em to put everything back where they found it.” Already moving on, Mori makes a growl of approval as she rolls out her jumpsuit. Her fingers squirm through the skintight sleeves, wiggling at the end. “Takes me back to the good old days. Still smells like corpo bastard, too.”

“That’s probably the detergent.”

Mori frowns. “Damn. I was hoping you didn’t wash it.”

“You Venters and your superstition.”

“It’s not superstition! Everyone knows it’s bad luck to wash lucky clothes.”

Jolie sighs. “There were bullet holes in that suit before I patched it, Emilia.”

“From bullets that didn’t kill me, clearly,” Mori scoffs. She hops behind the couch and starts stripping right then and there, dumping her waterlogged clothes into a pile beside the oblong growth pod glowing near the lake-facing windows. Fresh nurturing fluid fills the pod with green-blue light, distorting the outline of the sleeping toddler inside.

Unfazed by the activity, Jolie brushes a lock of crimson hair behind her ears and catches my attention with a dour tilt of her head. “The skyscraper will have the gunship fueled up and ready to go in three hours, essential supplies included. We’ve got until then to round up everyone we need. I already took the liberty of reaching out to Winter…”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“You know me too well,” I chuckle.

“You’re an open book,” she answers, like it’s a simple law of physics. “She’s on her way to SHI-3 now.” She looks glumly at the watered-down couch. “You mentioned someone else, Mori?”

“A guy I know. Good fighter, good shot, easy on the eyes.” I can almost hear her shrug out of sight. “Figured we could use a little more Venter blood on the team.”

Jolie’s glasses shift back to me. “And how are we collecting the plus-one?”

A disembodied hand sticks above the couch, waving for attention while Mori kicks her legs into the skinsuit. “Still talking here. Can we… roll it back… a second?” She pops up a moment later to finish zipping. Her JOY floats over her right shoulder, rebraiding and restyling her hair automatically. A starburst of red-orange color reforms around her head, trailing down in a small braid on one side. A flick of a wrist seals the suit from navel to neck. Then her eyes dart up to meet mine, flashing with reflected firelight. “I like that we’re all gung-ho on going to save the Sections, but you’ve been tiptoeing around the elephant in the room this whole night, Mars.”

Still running my fingers through the jumpsuit, cataloging the sheer number of stitched holes through touch, I take my time in answering, choosing my words with care.

“Someone has to stay and take care of him,” I say, sparing a glance for the growth pod.

Didn’t take long enough, apparently. Mori cocks her head at Jolie. “I need a minute. Alone.”

My sister is already heading back to her bedroom to change, waving two fingers in a good-luck salute. The ceramic door slides sideways into place with a tiny hydraulic gasp. One note of snorting laughter escapes before it closes. And Mori vaults the couch in a single hop, stalking right up to me.

“Who did you think was going to stay behind? You?” She laughs as she swings her tattered, single-shoulder cape into place. Her Sixer follows next, strapped to her right leg. “You thought I was gonna wait at home, mom it up, and let the boys have all the fun?”

The callous attitude is just a cover. She’s hurt, and not just because she was kept from the meeting at the M. Not angry. Just deflated. Her voice sinks to a murmur. Honest, green eyes searching mine. “You didn’t even ask me about this before you agreed to it, Mars.”

My lips make a hard line as I look away. “That message could change all our lives forever. If someone tries to make themselves a king on Olympus, I can’t just stand by and watch it happen, Em. Voss, the major league… Fang is right about them. They’re afraid to do the right thing. They’re afraid to be the only one calling the shots. The one who decides what the future will look like.” I run a frustrated hand through my hair and squeeze a clump of it, still not meeting her gaze. “You would have seen it too. I want our future to be better. They just want it to be the same.”

She waits patiently, knowing my moods. We talk about it all the time. Our world is beautiful and good, but it could be even better. For all the wonders of the JOYs, all the mythic technology we’re blessed with, there’s so much more we could be doing. This city has problems. Inequality in the Vents. Stagnation in its leaders. Division between the light and dark halves of the city. So little empathy, so little heart, so few people who care to make a difference in the lives of those around them.

I’ve tried my damndest to fix what I can. Promotion tours, talk shows, exhibitions in the Vents. Mori does even more for her people. But I can only be one place at a time, and not even I can fix everything. Despite coming so far, I feel just as far from being able to change what needs to be changed. Even if I were the champion, as Jolie tells me so often, it’d be naïve to think I could snap my fingers and make the world right.

That’s why I lead by example. I can’t be everywhere, but everyone can be me. This city can heal itself. All it needs is a big enough reason to start.

“Fang is too old, and someone needs to hold the reins here,” I mutter, letting my hand drop to the side. My shoulders sag. “I’m the only one who can do what needs to be done. It’s not something I could refuse.”

“And I wouldn’t have told you to refuse it,” Mori quietly answers. She stands on tiptoes, fingers trailing up to my collar. “I know how big your heart is, flyboy. I am your wife. You are my husband. Where you go, I go. But you can’t make that kind of decision solo. We need to talk about these things. We have a son now. And fuck, man. He’s about to wake up for the first time.”

Her arms make a welcome noose around my neck as her chest presses into mine.

“I know you want to be a hero to everyone. To be someone the whole city can believe in. But you can’t forget to be that for your family, too.” She flashes a crooked smirk and slaps a hand against my hip. A slight tug drags close together. “Right?”

She drags a reluctant smile out of me. “Right.”

“We can leave the kid at the skyscraper. I have someone I trust to watch him.” Her tone shifts to a growl, anger finding an older, more familiar target than me. “I’m not letting some overcity mook in a lab coat be the first thing my son wakes up to, either. We’re back here by the day he wakes up, or we’re not back at all. Got it?”

She’s always been possessive about family, doubly so when it’s one of her own. I saw it for the first time when she first opened up and took us to her verdant hideaway in the undercity, years ago. The hard gunslinger is just one half of her upbringing, the product of our city’s scorn. It’s the survival mechanism, the adaptation that protected her until she became the vivacious woman I met in the middle of a gang war.

The other half, the fiery mother who would fight to the death for her children, is the product of the hawk who mothered her. From what little Mori has told me of the woman who raised her, they’re more alike than even she cares to admit. Combat might be her calling, but it’s always been a means to an end. My wife has a dreamer’s heart. When I see it up close like this, I can’t help but fall for it all over again.

“You’re sure you want to leave him?” I ask, trusting in whatever her answer may be.

“One hundred percent.” Her forehead playfully taps against mine. “We’re the hottest couple in the Section, baby. Any plan we make together is a good one.”

Jolie finishes faster than either of us thought she would. Mori peels away, one reluctant finger trailing down my chest. She runs a hand through her hair and cockily shifts her hips to one side, baring her holstered revolver to the fireplace light. “And about that plus-one Jojo mentioned… are you two absolutely sure about this? We’re talking about Pandora’s box here.”

Ignoring the sudden flip my heart does behind my ribs, I get to shrugging out of my still-soaked clothes, mentally puzzling out the best way to put the skinsuit on. “Fang warned me there would be threats we can’t even imagine waiting on Olympus,” I say. “I want to bring one we can.”