=== CHUCK ===

"That was a disaster!" Kari exclaimed after we left the restaurant. "Also, did you see how much he left on the tip? Doesn't that feel like a little much?"

  "He probably just felt bad we had disrupted the restaurant so much."

  "Maybe, but I don't think that's it. I think he always tips like that. Trying to raise the servers out of poverty one ridiculous dinner at a time."

  "Kari," I began, chuckling. "Are you really begrudging him for leaving a large tip?"

  "Considering the money's stolen, yeah, kind of," she responded, wrapping her arm around mine. "But we talked. I tried."

  "Yeah. It went better than I thought it would."

  "What did you think was going to happen?" She asked, nuzzling my shoulder. We were around the same height, so it was a struggle for her. I started floating to make it a little easier.

  "Honestly, I thought you two would just start duking it out, leaving me . . . and I guess Cherry to try and stop you. Not that I think we could. I . . . I think she's a better influence on him than I would've guessed."

  "She's a thief who encourages his stealing."

  "I don't know if that is as true as you want it to be. I think it's kind of cyclical, but they'd both still be thieves without the other."

  "Yeah, that's probably true," Kari responded. "What do you want to do next?"

  "I think we should try his idea. Meet with Doc Oak," I said thoughtfully. "Apologize."

  "No, I meant . . . You really think we should?"

  "I don't think we handled that situation correctly."

  "You mean you don't think I handled it correctly."

  "No, I meant what I said. I should've tried harder to de-escalate the situation. I failed. I don't like what you did, but it's just as much my fault."

  "I . . . I'm not just going to help him escape."

  "I'm not asking you to."

  "I don't know if I can apologize."

  "You don't think you handled that wrong? That hitting him like that wasn't wrong."

  "I . . . May have used too much force. I don't know. I saw him choking you . . . and I kind of lost it."

  "Kari, we both know you're too strong to lose it. You have to be more careful."

  "It's not fair," she said, pulling away from me. Irritation boiled off of her violently.

  "What's not fair?"

  "I feel all this pressure to be perfect! To always do the right thing! Everyone expects me to be constantly on top of everything just because I'm strong! Just because I'm fast! It's a lot of pressure."

  I closed my eyes, willing away the unwanted memories of Scott and Blanca. I tried to push the well of pain and anxiety in my chest. Instead of letting it overwhelm me, I closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around her, kissing her cheek. She looked back at me, her hand gripping my arm gently. I whispered in her ear, "I get that, Kari. I really do. I feel the same pressure."

  "You do? But you . . . you always seem on top of everything," she muttered warmly.

  "But I wasn't always. My actions cost me my best friends. I have a lot of power. Not the same as yours, but a lot all the same. Do you know what I could do to people if I stopped holding back?"

  "N-no," she muttered softly. She had never considered it.

  "Neither do I. And I'm scared of it. If I can fuck up like I did with Scott and Blanca with good intentions, just imagine what would happen if I just said 'Fuck it!' and didn't try to exercise any control." She shuddered against me. I didn't need to read the fear and anxiety she was feeling to know them. I knew them because they were a mirror of my own. I could destroy people. I have destroyed people.

  "I . . . It's not like that. I just feel so much stress, and I don't know what to do, Chuck. What do you do to release it all?"

  "I . . ." I considered it for a moment. "I don't do a lot. I read and watch movies to decompress. I see you. I see my friends. I work out. But sometimes that's not enough."

  "What do you do when it's not enough?"

  "Ignore it."

  "Is that your prescription, doc?" Kari asked, smiling softly. Amusement and affection wafted off of her, intermingling with the rest of her emotions.

  "No," I said, trying to laugh it off. "No. I would never recommend it to a patient. But it doesn't take away my responsibility."

  "I know," she muttered before turning around and hugging me. She was so warm. Not feverish, but just so vibrant. I held her back, stealing as much of it as I could. We floated there like that for a moment. She broke the hug first and looked into my eyes. "I'll go with you. I can't guarantee anything. But I'll be there. But we need to find a way to decompress."

  "Yeah, we do."

  "You mentioned exercising. Does that help?"

  "It can," I muttered.

  "What if we exercised together?" She asked, tracing a finger down my chest. I raised a brow at her.

  "Oh? What did you have in mind?"

  "You're the telepath. You tell me," Kari said, a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin spreading across her face. I grabbed her hand, and we flew back to my place.

=== CURT ===

We got back to the hotel room, and I flopped on the couch. Cindi wandered over and got some champagne, pouring two glasses. She put one on the table in front of me and sipped her own straddling my waist, carefully moving her dress out of the way. She smiled down at me. I looked up at her, frowning. "That was really stupid and really dangerous."

  "The dinner?" Cin asked innocently. "We need to eat, Essy."

  "We don't need to eat with them," I shot back. She leaned down and put a finger to my lip.

  "You need to learn they're not to be feared, husband. That they are nothing more than obstacles in our way. That we can and already have gone far beyond them."

  "She's strong, Cin. She can kill us if she wants. And given how she's been acting lately, I don't think we can take her lightly," I said softly. She finished her glass and leaned over me to set it to the side. I breathed her in. She wore this perfume; I'd learned the name of it, Bergamot, that I would never associate with anyone else. Warm and sunny, from a faraway beach. I wrapped my arms around her. She didn't resist. She pressed into my chest, snaked her arms around my back, and held me.

  "I know that, Curt. She's tried to kill me twice. She's tried to kill you more than that. But that's all the more reason we need to put her out of our life. We need to focus on building our life together. Being together and living fully. Fighting her, trying to convince that woman of anything, is a waste of time. And I'm trying to prove that to you."

  "And what happens if she attacks again? W-what happens if she . . ." I couldn't finish the sentence. Cin lifted her head just enough to face me.

  "Curt, I have a goddess inside me, and you're the smartest man I've ever met. We'll figure it out. But we can't live in fear. Now. I want to enjoy you, husband. I believe you said you were interested in some dessert?"

The following morning, we woke up on the couch, cuddled together. Cindi was draped across me lazily. Her hair was its typical uncontrolled mess again. I gripped her arm and held her close. She stirred slightly and pressed into my chest more, snoring softly. After about ten minutes, I grabbed my phone and opened Twitter.

  There had been another attack by the Acolytes of Esvanir. This time they had succeeded in leveling the WanEn Research Facility. It was also local to Avalare. There was another video by what seemed to be the same person with the voice changer and the mask. I watched it muted after a second, with the captions on. "The Acolytes of Esvanir will not stand idly by, waiting for justice to be served to the masters of capital! Bion has been arrested, but that trial is a sham! Months and months of nothing! It is time that we, the people, dismantle these systems! Brick by brick!"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Rage boiled inside of me. When I put my phone back down, I noticed Cindi frowning at me, blue eyes focused on my face. "Curt, what are you thinking?"

  "I'm thinking that it's time I got back to work," I said, disentangling from her and sat up on the couch; Cindi also sat up. I could feel her eyes on me. I got up and started walking to the actual bedroom.

  "What are you planning?"

  "I'm going to find them."

  "Then what?" She asked. I froze. It was a simple, honest question. And it had stopped me in my tracks. I considered my words for a moment. But Buck Cherry spoke before I got a chance to, "You're not a murderer, Curt. Not really. If someone was killing in my name, it would upset me, and if I wanted to act against them, I would. No one would ever find out. But you're not like that."

  "Then . . . Maybe I need to take a page out of your book, Cin," I said.

  "I would leave them alone unless they made my life more difficult."

  "They are, though," I muttered softly. "They are taking my name, which I didn't choose, but my name nonetheless, and running it through the mud. They're ruining the chances for real change in the world."

  "What do you mean by that, husband?"

  "I . . . Actually, you should get this, Cin. It's what you were talking about last night." She raised a brow at me. "Your brand. You are the nude thief, Buck Cherry. If you started wearing clothes, you wouldn't be Buck Cherry, right?"

  "No, I wouldn't be. I would just be the greatest thief in the world."

  "True, but you wouldn't be you," I responded, thinking it through. I finally understand. "My brand is being an annoying, fedora-tipping communist online and stealing things to make that a little more feasible. These guys are out there ruining my brand."

  "Curtis, my love, you can't control the actions of other people. I thought you learned that with all of the porn of us online," Cherry said, smiling at me softly.

  "I can't control them. But I can stop this. I can stop people from dying in my name."

=== KARI ===

I woke up in Chuck's bed. He wasn't there with me. The bed felt weirdly big and cold without him. I guess he's not the only one falling, I thought. I knew he was in the kitchen, cooking. I could hear him. But somehow, I still felt lonely without him. The last couple of days have been tough. I'd tried to avoid him. I didn't want to be judged. But the only reason I care is because . . . My heart skipped a beat when he walked back into the room carrying a tray of food. This beautiful, mostly naked man had brought me sausage and pancakes. Okay, fine, I admitted to myself. I love him. He set down the tray over my lap, and I looked into his brown eyes. His hair wasn't styled in the careful, slicked-back manner it usually was. It was hanging limply, freshly showered. He smelled like fresh soap. I grabbed his neck and pulled him into a soft kiss, unable to not smile during it. He broke it and smiled back. "What's that about?"

  "Nothing," I said before dousing my pancakes in syrup. Chuck brought in his own plate, and we ate side-by-side, comfortably naked. My mind shifted back to Curt and Buck Cherry. I'll never understand how she could be comfortable being out there . . . the whole world to see, I thought. I chewed on some sausage, then nodded to myself, turning to Chuck. "Let's visit Doc Oak today. I . . . I won't make any guarantees, but I can take responsibility for being too hard."

  "Being hard can be a good thing, sometimes," Chuck said. I raised my eyebrows suggestively at him, grinning. "I . . . I deserve that. But I'm glad you're going to try."

A few hours later, we arrived at Bellemere Meta Prison and Sanitarium. It was well outside the city. It was raining by the time we got there. Which didn't help the atmosphere at all. It was an old building, crumbling in some places, retrofitted in others. It was made of cold, gray stone, which the overcast sky only made gloomier. The thick bars on the windows gave the impression that the building was glaring at me. "This is where we sent him?"

  "This is where we send all meta-criminals. Three states' worth," Chuck said, frowning at the building.

  "What about trials?"

  "They don't get trials, Kar. Have you ever been asked to testify?" Chuck responded, his words more clipped than usual. "The government considers them domestic terrorists and thus threats to national security. So they just skip that. Not that many jurors would let them slide anyway."

  "I . . . I never thought about it," I said, guilt spreading out in my stomach. We walked forward in full costume. The lighting was harsh and fluorescent inside the building, casting harsh shadows. My footsteps echoed down the hall. We were let in, but they checked us for weapons and anything else. We weren't allowed to take our cell phones in, either. "Why can't we have our phones?"

  "Privacy concerns. There's a lot of proprietary technology and research done here," the guard with a name-tag that read Jenkins said. I got the sense those weren't the only reasons. But I didn't mention it. We were guided down more halls. The cells were weird, each having large reinforced glass doors instead of the typical bars. More Silence of the Lambs than the Shawshank Redemption, I thought. The guard spoke up. "Ballistic glass. Reinforced to withstand anything short of a missile. Not that it's necessary. Not with the inhibitors."

  He had gestured to the thick collars they put on the inmates. All of them looked lethargic and a little sickly. I glanced over to Chuck. He also looked a little green. "Are you okay, PM?"

  "Yeah," he lied, standing a little straighter. "Just can sense what they're going through. It's. . . Not pleasant."

  "Should've thought about that before they decided to terrorize us, huh?" The guard replied coldly, picking up his pace again. I recognized some of the people that had been put away here. I had helped. They stared out of their cells, eyes following us, but nothing else. I don't think they can get up.

  "What do the collars do?"

  "Pump them full of a powerful sedative. Keeps them from getting too uppity," Jenkins responded. He glared at one of the prisoners. It was the man made of concrete I'd taken down on my first day in Avalare. "Sometimes, they start to resist it, and we ge- have to knock them back down, then up their dose."

  I frowned at the man, and he grinned back at me. We went down a few more halls until we pulled in front of a larger cell. A green-skinned man was sitting on his bed, barely able to move. I could see vents pumping in air, and I frowned. The other cells used the same duct system, but this one was separate. "Why is his cell so different?"

  "Have to make sure that no plant matter gets near. Had to get this one a special diet too. Just meat and pills. Most expensive prisoner we have here," the man said, disgust coloring his tone. "You should've hit him harder. Would have saved us a hell of a lot of trouble."

  "I'm not in the practice of murdering people," I shot back. The guard laughed at that.

  "Not yet. You know the way out. Enjoy your conversation," he said, laughing as he walked away. I reeled on him but stopped. Chuck was staring at the man in the cell. His green skin had become sallow, and the mild muscle definition he had was quickly fading. There were intercoms on the door frame. I walked up and pressed the [Talk Button].

  "Doctor Oakley?" I asked hesitantly. He didn't so much as stir. Chuck joined me, leaning over and pressing the button again.

  "Doc Oak?" He asked, waiting for a response. The man was barely breathing.

  "This is torture," I said, gesturing to the door. "He's dying."

  "I think that was what Curt wanted you to see."

  "Did you know about this?"

  "I'd. . . never seen it first hand. I heard stories."

  "Is there anything we can do? They're still people. They don't deserve this," I cried, my voice cracking. My feelings only darkened further when a thought bubbled up from the back of my mind. This could've been Harold. He was literally seconds away from this being his entire future. Picturing my happy, smiling friend, lethargic, unable to move at all, broke my heart.

  "You heard the guard. Even if we could give him resistance to the drug, he would just be given a harsher dose."

  "But you could do it, right."

  "I-I could, probably," Chuck said, hesitating. "It's safer than what I did with Scott and Blanca. But . . ."

  He trailed off, and I gripped his shoulder. "Th-this is where they'd be, isn't it?"

  "Who?" I asked.

  "Scott and Blanca. After their . . . After what I did. Normal facilities couldn't handle them. I . . ." I pulled him into a tight hug.

  "God, Chuck. I'm sorry. I didn't even think about that." I patted his back.

  "Kari, I don't think I can be here right now."

  "Me neither. I-I don't think we'd get much out of him anywhere." I leaned over and pressed the [Talk Button] again. "Oakley, I'm sorry. For everything. I'm going to see what I can do to make this right. I . . ."

  My voice trailed off. I didn't have the words. I didn't even know what could be done.

=== DON ===

I received a text from one of the members of Curatio. It was Jenkins. I frowned. He's not supposed to contact me like this. I tapped on the message, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but I stopped. He'd sent a picture of Smash Gal and Professor Mind. He was typing something. I waited for the message to come through.

< Jenkins

[Attachment 88.jpg]

13:41pm

Sir, I’m sorry to contact you like this. I know it’s against protocol. But I thought you should know that these freaks were at Bellemere. They were here visiting that one that controls plants. I couldn’t stick around to listen to their conversation.

13:43

This is good work, Jenkins. Valuable information for the cause. I’ll take it from here.

13:45

I considered what this meant. Why would Smash Gal and Professor Mind be at Bellemere? Visiting Doc Oak, I asked myself. One of the few good things that monster did was almost kill that hippie bastard. Couldn't finish the job. Probably couldn't stand to harm one of her own kind that much. I sighed. I couldn't think of what this meant for the future. I also wasn't aware that Jenkins worked at Bellemere. Now that does open up some possibilities for the future. A grin spread across my face. I called Alexander.

  "Hello?"

  "Alexander, you know how you wanted some test subjects? I think we found some for you. How much of the Cure can you prepare?"

  "Oh. Probably enough for ten subjects. Anything less than that, and we couldn't be sure of its efficaciousness, Don."

  "Get it ready. It's time to move to the next stage."