Beatty, NV.

Alex, Hannah, and Reeve were eating breakfast when the sound of a car pulling up ground all conversation to a halt. That, Alex could understand, but what he didn’t get was the look of confusion that crossed their faces.

“Did Gareth go somewhere this morning?” Hannah asked, dropping her toast.

“He’s downstairs,” Reeve frowned.

She got up from the table. “Then who the fuck—”

Alex squinted at them. “Do you people just not have friends?”

Hannah set her fists on her hips—which were naked like the rest of her. “I would have thought that was obvious,” she laughed.

“It’s fine.” Reeve stood and motioned for her to relax as he went to peer out the glass sliding door. “Just sit down. It’s probably the social worker coming to check on Alex.”

“Social worker?” Alex and Hannah said together.

Reeve pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, actually, Hannah—”

“Clothes, I’m on it,” she groaned, getting back up and making a beeline for the basement door.

“Hey,” Alex said loudly. “Is anyone going to talk to me directly?” He had never heard a single story involving social workers that didn’t have a shitty ending. Social workers took people away and while he was under a permanent roof, it wasn’t exactly a normal household, so in what world did Reeve think this was okay?

Reeve looked at him. “It’s not a state social worker. It’s the Sol equivalent. They understand the situation. They just want to make sure you’re okay. Just be honest and answer his questions.”

There was a knock at the door and Alex got to his feet, just in case. The man behind the door when Reeve opened it was young, in his early twenties, in bland office clothes, and was holding an actual briefcase. He had brown hair and a pretty forgettable face. His smile was cheerful and made him look a little bit like a lawyer showing up for his first case.

“Hi, again,” the man said as Reeve shook his hand.

“Come on in,” Reeve smiled, his back unnaturally straight. “Alex, this is Oliver del Sol.”

God, they really do all have the same name.

“Hi, Alex,” said Oliver. “I’m really glad to finally meet you.”

Finally? “Uh, yeah, okay.” He flashed a look at Reeve that said, ‘Who is this motherfucker?’

Reeve cleared his throat to cover a laugh. The whole telepathy thing was freaky, but Reeve hearing the hilarious shit Alex couldn't say out loud was one perk.

“Oliver’s here to check up on you,” Reeve said evenly and turned to Oliver. “You work for the Academy?”

“Yeah, sorry I couldn’t tell you what it was about when I did your home eval. But yes, I’m on the Student Care team.”

Gareth and Hannah (dressed) chose that moment to spill out of the basement door. “Hi,” she said awkwardly.

Oliver nodded to seemingly everyone in the room and then looked at Reeve. “Can I talk to Alex one-on-one?”

Reeve looked to Alex. “That okay?”

He hadn’t been expecting to have any kind of say in the matter. “Sure, whatever.” He pointed behind him toward the living room and raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t the vibe he was getting, but Alex still wasn’t stupid enough to be like, ‘Sure, strange dude, let’s you and me go back to my bedroom alone.’

“Great,” Oliver replied and started toward the living room.

“We’ll just be downstairs,” Reeve told them. “If you need anything, just shout.”

Suddenly, Alex found himself sitting across from a social worker, literally pulling out a clipboard. How had his week landed him here?

“So,” Oliver began. “It’s my job to make sure you’re safe and being treated well. You can tell me anything and you won’t get in trouble.”

That was never something that was said unless you were absolutely going to get in some form of trouble. Already, Alex found himself in talking-to-a-cop mode. “Okay.”

“I’m basically a guidance counselor,” Oliver continued.

“That means nothing to me,” he replied flatly.

“Okay,” Oliver smiled. “I’m going to make sure your foster team is a good fit and giving you the education you deserve.”

Alex cocked his head. “What happens if they aren't?”

Oliver put his pen down. “We’ll transfer you to a team that will, or to the Academy. Is that what you want to happen?”

Alex shrugged. “I’m just trying to get the lay of the fucking land here.”

Oliver blinked and went back to his paperwork. “So, you’ve been here for three days. How are you doing? Do you feel safe?”

“Those are two very different questions.”

“Alright, let’s start with, do you feel safe?”

Alex looked around at the beat-up but comfy couch, opening to the food-filled kitchen, and hallway that led to a bedroom of his own. “I don’t feel less safe than a week ago, when you average it out, I guess. Which kind of says a lot about how bad it was before, because it’s freaky as hell with all you super-powered people that kill for a living.”

“That’s not everyone in Sol. This,” he pointed to the two of them, “is what I do for a living.”

“Okay, but you don’t live here.”

“That’s true,” he admitted, “but I do have a knack. I’m a telekinetic. I can move stuff without touching it.”

“Everyone knows what telekinetic means.”

“Right, sorry. So you wouldn’t say you feel safe here?”

Alex rolled his eyes. Oliver looked like a guy who had never felt unsafe in his life. “Listen, they’re feeding me, I’ve got new clothes even if they’re dumb-looking, and no one’s tried to hit me or traffic me yet, so it’s already way better than I expected. But if you think three whole days off the street and being told I’m going to work for some supernatural pharmaceutical company who made me in a test tube then chucked me in the gutter is gonna make me sleep like a baby, then get a new fucking job.”

“That’s fair,” Oliver replied, making a note on his paper, which was not anything like a normal response to what he had said, but before Alex could say anything, he went on. “You said earlier that they were two different questions, so how are you doing?”

Alex looked him dead-ass in the eye and said, “Fine.”

“Alright. Are you in any physical pain?”

Alex thought briefly about the bruise on his hip and the idea of explaining to someone with a clipboard that he’d 'fallen down the stairs.’

“Nope.”

“That’s good. Tell me about your foster team.”

“Are you saying you don’t know these fucking people?”

He laughed. “No, I evaluated them before you were placed, but I want to know your opinion. Tell me about Reeve.”

“He’s a clueless nerd? I don’t know. The telepathy’s weird, but he’s not really a dick or anything I guess.”

“Hannah?”

“She still kind of treats me like I’m six, but she’s trying. She’s weirder than Reeve, but she lets me play her video game system.”

“And Gareth?”

Alex bit the inside of his cheek. Part of him wanted to scream and another part insisted that Alex wasn’t a snitch. He compromised. “He’s got a scary past.”

“He told you about it?”

“Well, I Read it, so he explained a little. I can do that whole know the past thing,” he added in his most condescending tone.

“You’re scared of him?”

Alex didn’t answer.

“How about this,” Oliver countered. “If someone with your knack looked at your past three days, would they see anything that would make them worry about him, or anyone else, hurting you?”

Alex hadn’t thought about it like that. He looked back at their conversation, their awkward interactions afterward. “No, nothing like that,” he admitted. “He makes me nervous, but you all do a little—I’m not stupid—but I’m gonna see what happens.”

“That’s all we can ask for right now. Anything else I should know today?”

He looked back and forth between Oliver and the doorway. “No? That’s it?”

“For now. I’ll see you again soon and if you need anything before then, I’m going to leave you my number. You can call me for any reason, any time.”

"Alright," he muttered. It didn't seem like a thing he would do in a million years.

"I'm just going to ask your team a few questions and then I'm out of your hair"

Alex snorted. "What, are you going to ask them if they're hitting me?"

Oliver stuck his clipboard under one arm and smirked. At least he had enough sense to know Alex was joking. "No, but it has to be a good fit both ways."

That stung Alex in a way he hadn't expected. When he'd seen in the Story that they had been assigned to care for him, he'd hadn't thought they'd be able to say no or kick him out. That had given him a shred of stability he hadn't had with Rick in a long time.

It must have been showing on his face, because when he looked back up, Oliver hadn't moved. "I wouldn't worry," he told Alex. "Their reports have been positive so far."

Alex put on his sweetest smile and nodded. Apparently, his foster team weren't snitches either.

---

LAHQ. Neptune Department.

“Sir?”

Penn looked up from his desk, raising his eyebrows at the agent poking her head into his office door. Sherry, he thought her name was. Penn was Neptune’s Fifth—in charge of Cleanup, the division of Neptune responsible for keeping Sol’s secrets. He raked his hands through his dark hair, cut short and neatly parted on the side. He was in his early 30s, and classically handsome with high cheekbones. This was sometimes a little overshadowed by the circles under his eyes and constant five o’clock shadow—he had a bit more piled onto his professional plate than most.

“Can I help you?” He asked, nonplussed.

“We have a problem. A big one.”

Not Penn’s favorite thing to hear. In Cleanup, problems were the whole point of showing up. So when one got described as “big,” it usually meant some kind of catastrophe.

“What is it?” Penn asked, shutting his laptop and giving her his full attention. He preferred not to use his telepathy to find things out when his agents were perfectly capable of telling him. He had to use it enough around here that adding extra telepathic strain just wasn’t worth it.

“You might want to open that back up,” Sherry said, gesturing to the laptop. “I sent you a link to the news on Channel 12.”

Penn’s fingertips went cold as he pulled up the news clip. It was never a good thing when the news was involved. It was his job to keep things off the news. He peered at the screen, shaking his head as he watched the news story unfold, complete with several cell phone videos of the incident. He fucking hated cell phones.

He watched as the overly made-up newscaster spoke, “...Reports came in today from several sources cropping up across social media as the recordings went viral in a matter of minutes. A strange, ear-piercing sound emitting from a local Catholic school in Phoenix has shattered windows, mirrors, and even dishware in surrounding homes within a two block radius this morning. Several of the people who posted videos reported severe pain at the sound, and concerns have been raised about possible mass hearing damage to affected residents. One man told our reporters that he initially thought it might have been a child crying, but was soon overcome with ear-shattering pain. The sound lasted for about a minute before falling silent again, leaving residents wondering: what could be the cause of this strange phenomenon? We have Julianne on the scene now…”

Penn rubbed at his forehead and, without taking his eyes off the screen, said, “Okay, what do we know? How long did it take for us to pick this up?”

“We’re forty-five minutes behind the story. We have three teams by the west exit, geared up and ready to head out there now, as soon as you give the go-ahead. Best guess, based on initial analysis of the videos, is it’s a young sonic screamer whose knack is just awakening. Wasn’t picked up by a Comet, but there’s one headed to the town now to verify that it’s knack-related.” She took a breath and blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. “We caught it early enough that the rumor mill is still in the initial shocked phase of things, but we expect to see speculation starting to crop up online within a few hours at most.”

Penn nodded. “Well, get those teams out there ASAP. If you don’t have a teleporter, get one, and pack some anti-nausea meds for the folks who aren’t used to that mode of travel. I’m going to start getting our people spinning conspiracy theories to try and be the first to post, control the narrative. Then I’ll be right behind you and meet you all there.”

“Yes sir,” she said, before hurrying off.

He quickly sent out an urgent email to the entire Cleanup division, outlining the ideas for seeds of the rumor mill to get them started. Government experiments, cult activity, meth lab explosion, mass hallucination, performance art, terrorism. In cases like this, when the scale was too big to just send in some telepaths to wipe the people involved, it usually worked to throw enough darts at the right platforms, and the public would do their work for them. The more theories the better. Easier to hide in a mess.

They’d still have to wipe the immediate neighborhood and people affected directly, and substitute whatever narrative Sol’s people came up with, but when something this large-scale happened, they had to work fast to disseminate their damage control as quickly as possible. Cleanup experts would be quick to optimize their messaging for search engines, and techno-manips would give the project a boost as well. He put his phone on speaker to call a few key agents with instructions as he geared up in his Neptune Blacks. He hastily sent a voice-to-text message to Fredericka. “Put on channel 12 news, I’m heading to Phoenix now. Can you please let Terre know? And prep an integration team for a possible incoming kid. I cc’d you to the email with more details.”

He dug out some antacids from a dedicated pocket on his MOLLE vest and choked them down. He’d gotten in the habit of carrying them because no matter how much practice with teleporting you got, you could cut down on the nausea but you couldn’t completely get rid of it. Non-teleporters’ bodies were just not made for that kind of travel. And, loathe as he was to admit it, he was fairly susceptible to queasiness. Teleporters played far too prominent a role in Penn’s life, as far as he was concerned.

Gage knocked on his open door. Speak of the devil. “Sir?” He was a fairly new transfer to Cleanup but seemed like a fine agent who was sympathetic to the sisyphean nature of the job.

“The other teams?” Penn double-checked his gear and his email one last time.

“Already there, sir.”

“Then let’s get this over with.”

Gage put an arm around him and Penn had the all too familiar feeling of every cell in his body convulsing at once. His gorge rose and he pressed his fist to his mouth, willing his lunch down. With a grunt, he cleared his throat and opened his eyes. He’d been brought into a small area of landscaped hedge dense enough to conceal two people popping into existence.

“Stick around,” he managed, and set off in search of the rest of his agents.

It was not hard to find where he was going. There was a line of news vans just down the road. He could see the agents in black taking care of that. They would have hit that first, erasing memories and hard drives alike. The press would drive away soon, content that they had all the useful footage they needed for a story that was, in the end, a little boring.

Penn let his mind drift outward laying a blanket around him to start pulling information. He heard the sound from their perspectives. If it wasn’t a sonic screamer, he’d give up antacids.

He could pick out the church now, on the right. It was a low, long stucco building that took up half the block on its own. Part of the roof was pitched for a chapel. The thirty-foot cross was a dead giveaway too.

One agent broke away from the group as he approached, the mask pulled down below her chin. She was a technopath he’d worked with before, and a team lead.

“News from the comet?”

She nodded. “It’s knack-related. They are waiting nearby in case we want them to take over custody.”

“Have we entered the building yet?” he asked.

“No, sir, but we have it contained. No one in or out, and telepaths to keep that from worrying anyone.”

He nodded. “Alright, I want you with me when I go in. Even nuns have phones.”

When the news vans drove off, the group of agents followed him to the front door.

One agent read aloud the name on the sign. “Saint Ivo School and Children’s Home. Who the hell’s ever heard of Saint Ivo?”

“I’ve-Only heard of like five saints,” another quipped. There was a mix of laughs and discouraging murmurs.

Penn pitched his voice to carry. “He’s the patron saint of abandoned children.” That shut the jokers up. A fair number of people knew that Sol wasn’t the first collective of knacked people that Penn had worked with, but not all of them. When his knack had appeared overnight, he’d initially found The Children of God (The Church for short)--a disorganized, rag-tag group of hyper-religious, knacked militants who believed themselves charged with ridding the world of Phagi. Sol preferred to ignore The Church right up until their perpetual exposures became Cleanup’s problem. Once Penn had learned enough hearsay about Sol, he decided he’d rather give the devil he didn’t know a shot. He’d only been with The Church two years, but it had left a mark.

The telepath at the door nodded to them and let them in. There was a gathering of people not far from the door—adults and children. They were confused but docile, thanks to the telepaths. The agents around him spread out quickly, working to neutralize anything that could cause trouble and feed them the story they were going with—a plumbing issue had caused an unusually loud, high-pitched squealing. It wasn’t hard to find out who the sonic screamer was, because over a dozen people had watched it happen. That unlucky group was likely going to have to live with some temporary hearing damage, making the story harder to contain. If it was possible, the bio manips Penn had brought with them would repair their damage, but it generally wasn’t as simple as all that.

Penn walked down the hall, taking a couple of turns, having learned the layouts from looking in the teachers’ minds. These were the calls Penn preferred. No one was grievously harmed or dead. No call is easy, but if they were all like this, he would sleep easier.

When he came to a door at the end of a hallway, he paused to put in a pair of ear plugs. He could still hear, but it would afford him some protection. The door was locked from the outside. He unlocked it.

As an afterthought, picturing the image of the boy in the teacher’s minds, Penn quickly stripped off his tactical vest and face covering until he was down to his black long-sleeve shirt before opening the door. He had expected it to be a classroom, but it was a storage closet. Against the wall sat a young boy, probably aged thirteen to fifteen, with his knees drawn up to his chest. His short hair was wheat blonde and he had a painfully cute upturned nose. It was clear he’d been crying and his eyes got big when he saw Penn standing above him.

Penn crouched. “Hi,” he said. “Weird day, huh?”

The boy’s eyebrows came down low over his blue eyes. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Penn. I’m here to help you.”

He sullenly worked his lips to one side, then frowned. “I’m not possessed.”

Penn didn’t bother hiding his surprise. “I never thought you were.” He didn’t want to use his telepathy, in case the boy was somehow able to feel it and it set him off again. “What’s your name?”

“Phillip. I hate it. The sisters didn’t call you? They say I’m possessed.”

“No.” Penn shifted to sit more comfortably on the floor. “And you’re not possessed.”

“I know.”

He liked the kid's conviction. “Did something bad happen today?”

He looked everywhere but at Penn. “Sister Clara wouldn’t let me not sing. In the choir. It always happens when I sing. The thing.”

“So you sang?”

“No,” he insisted. “It always happens when I sing.”

Penn nodded. “She punished you.”

“It’s not a big deal. But then it happened anyway.”

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re going to come with me and my friends now, and be with people who are like you.”

“No,” he shouted. “They said someone was going to come take me away.”

Penn’s ears were ringing. It wasn’t a full scream but it was enough that Penn could feel the wave of it through his chest, and the protest from all the other minds in the building. Penn didn’t have the time to risk any more.

“They weren’t talking about us,” he told the boy, and as he spoke, he wove in a sense of calm and trust. The black uniforms wouldn’t be as scary and he wouldn’t yell anymore. “We’re gonna help, but we have to go now, okay?”

The boy nodded. He didn’t like doing it this way, but they needed to get him away from the public.

Standing up, he led the kid down the hall and out of the school, his Neptune gear under one arm. The comet was waiting, so Penn handed him off. They were more trained for this kind of thing than he was.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he dug out his phone to let Terre and Freddie know that they’d be bringing in a boy, but what stopped him was eight missed calls from Marek. That was unusual to say the least. As he was deciding to ignore them, Marek called again.

Penn shook his head and answered the phone. “I’m in the field, Marek.”

“Penjamin!”

Penn cringed. It wasn’t his favorite nickname. He did not have a favorite, but no one tended to call him any except Marek. “Now’s really not a good time.”

“Listen, before you hang up, are you in front of a church right now?”

That made him stop. “Kind of, yeah.”

“With, like, a comically tall cross?”

That made him pause. “Yes.”

“And is there a kid with you?”

“I swear to god, if you don’t start—”

“Louis just sent me a scan of one of Saturn’s drawings, ‘cause Uranus is doing the whole finding the kids thing, and it’s of a grouchy looking man in black, which I can only assume is you, standing in front of a church with palm trees and a huge-ass cross. There’s a boy with you, along with a file number. And we just happened to have the news on here in the office this morning—”

Penn went still and looked over. “He’s one of the kids?” The comet was chatting with the kid in the parking lot.

“Yeah, so don’t fucking lose him. File says he’s supposed to be a force field creator, which doesn’t jive with the news, but there have been a couple of knack conversions with these twenty-five kids—”

Penn interrupted him. “Wait—what’s his name on file?”

“Uhh, lemme see.” There was a pause. “It’s Scott. Scott del Sol. And they want you to walk him in here personally. I’d come get him myself, but teleporting’s a pretty rude introduction to Sol.”

“Yeah, okay.” His heart fluttered despite himself. “I’ll bring him in.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite, Penjamin.”

“I hate that you technically outrank me.” He hung up and stretched his neck up until it popped. It was going to be a helluva long drive back to LA that he hadn’t planned for in the least. He headed over to break it to the comet that they were giving Penn their car. At least he could give Phillip the good news that his name was really Scott.

---

Beatty, NV.

“Are you actually serious with this?” Alex walked into the kitchen where Hannah was sitting at the table eating apple slices with peanut butter.

She looked up at him and chipmunked a bite to one cheek so she could talk. “What?” She was naked, which was weird, but with how casual and matter-of-fact she played it, he was getting used to it. Although, he was still a little wary of chair surfaces.

Alex motioned to the t-shirt he was wearing: ill-fitting and white, it had a graphic of a banana with stick-figure arms and legs on it, surrounded by block letters that read, “Beyond Cool.” There had been something surreal about looking at a dresser drawer packed full of half a dozen grinning bananas in half a dozen different sizes.

“What?” she repeated, swallowing.

“I know this is your fault.” He did too. He’d Read into it just to see who deserved his outrage.

Hannah cocked her head. “Are you saying you’re not beyond cool?”

He pulled out the chair and sat down opposite of her, glaring daggers.

“Dude,” she exploded, “I didn’t know. Give me a break.” She brought her volume back down. “You want some different clothes?”

“Yeah,” he answered, but suddenly became nervous he was walking into some kind of trap where he’d be called ungrateful or something.

“Alright, let’s go.” She shoved the last bite of apple in her mouth and got up.

“Now?” he balked. Alex knew that he was supposed to be having some kind of class with her today on the history of Sol and then some kind of practical training stuff before his painfully boring reading lessons. But he wasn’t about to remind her about the schedule Reeve had made up for them.

“Now,” she repeated, heading for the basement door. “Your education can survive a day and, fuck it, skipping class is an essential high school experience. Go get your shoes on, Beyond Cool.”

Alex wrinkled his nose at that and ran back to his room to change. “Beyond Cool Banana” may have been one of the only shirts left clean, but if they thought he was above digging through his hamper to find a shirt that was dirty but tolerable, they really weren’t that smart.

When he went back out, she was waiting in the kitchen, standing by the door and twirling the car keys around one finger, dressed in a beer logo t-shirt that was two sizes too big for her. A couple of denim strings hinted at jean cut offs somewhere hidden underneath the shirt. It was kind of a miracle his clothes selection wasn’t worse, actually.

“Wow, you really don’t care at all, huh?”

Her eyes bugged out. “Jesus, what? About clothes? No, not really.”

He pointed to his room. “Do you want Cool Banana? It would probably fit you better.”

She flipped him off, which was actually a step up from the little kid baby talk, in his opinion. “Let’s go.”

Alex followed her out to the car and got into the passenger seat. “So where are we going?”

“I dunno,” she muttered as she adjusted the seat. “Clothes.” She’d started up the car and switched on the radio just as Reeve stuck his head out of the garage where he was working on his car.

“Hey, everything okay?” Reeve called, squinting at them.

Hannah rolled down the window as if to talk to Reeve, but then simply turned to Alex with a smirk and said, “Wave.” She cranked the radio and peeled out, waving through the window at Reeve. With a cackle, Alex waved as they flew past Reeve and bounced up the rutted dirt driveway.

The wind whipped up as they drove and Alex smiled at the feeling and the encompassing sound. He hadn’t gotten a chance to look at the town on their way in, and it was so tiny that it was over almost before it began. It was basically a trailer park with a gas station, but the music had a good beat, and they were dancing in their seats, and that could make any place feel homier.

“Is he going to kill you later?” Alex shouted to Hannah, as they got out into the flat, empty desert.

“Nah.” Hannah turned the volume down just enough that they wouldn’t need to scream. “As far as I can tell, Reeve’s never taken a risk in his life but he’s not always so square. He’ll shake his head disapprovingly at me and then make me food.”

Alex shook his own head in disbelief. “Yeah? You haven’t known each other that long.”

“Nope, but we’re figuring it out.”

“Do they creep on you for being naked all the time?”

“Reeve, never. And Gareth doesn’t creep on me, but he tried to hit on me a couple times.”

“Does he freak you out too?”

“No,” Hannah laughed. “Gareth’s a big teddy bear. He had to do some fucked up stuff to survive, but he’s a huge softy. But I’ve got zero interest in sex, so he and I aren’t exactly compatible.”

“Really?”

“Yup, just not my thing.”

“Huh.” He wasn’t sure what to make of that, but there was a lot about Hannah that wasn’t typical.

They drove down the highway for a while and Alex watched the scrub and red-brown mountains scroll past him.

“So where are we going?” Alex asked.

“I don’t really know.”

“Seriously?”

She shrugged. “I know if you stay on this road long enough it drops you in Las Vegas.”

“Wait,” Alex sat up and turned to face her, “can we go to Vegas?”

“Yeah, fuck it. They’ve gotta have clothes, right?”

Alex couldn’t help but laugh at the statement that Las Vegas must have clothing stores, but she laughed right along with him.

The road dragged on and they considered turning back when they’d passed the hour mark, but Hannah was committed. Eventually, the highway widened from two lanes to four, and the struggling shrubs on the roadside were replaced with tall, skinny palm trees. They’d made it.

They got lost a few times making their way to the Strip, but they got there in the end. The boulevard’s central median was lined with palm trees and ahead of them were gleaming skyscrapers and a huge observation tower that loomed higher than everything else. There seemed to be twice as many signs and billboards as actual buildings, and they passed by advertisements for churches, strip clubs, tattoos, booze, shows, slots, and Elvis souvenirs all shoved together.

Hannah pulled into a huge shopping mall just off the Strip that had a scary-big silver disc suspended between two poles over it, like a massive hovering UFO ready to abduct shoppers. Everything was flashy and extra and looked like it was designed more for a brochure or photo than actual function.

“It's fucking huge,” she said, pulling into a parking spot.

It was. There were signs for a few full-size restaurants and over 200 stores. The multistory building could have fit several iterations of the one-level mall they'd had in Reno.

Hannah got out and he followed.

"Are we seriously here just to buy me clothes?"

"Yeah," she replied with a confused look, then smiled. "The high fashion stuff Gareth and I meticulously picked out was always going to be temporary, because we didn't know who the hell was showing up with just twenty-four hours notice."

Passing through the glass doors, Alex worked to keep up as he glanced all around. The high ceiling had a curved, black and white pattern and white pillars running down either side. The upper level walkway and fancy colorful lights hung suspended above them. The Story was loud, but he fought to maintain focus and keep his eye on mall security, sure they were about to be thrown out. If Hannah and Reeve were as sheltered as Gareth said, she might not realize how out of place they looked.

"But this place seems really expensive."

She pulled him off to the side. "Don't stress. Sol gave us money for this."

"And you're going to actually spend it on me?"

She put her hands on his shoulders gently, looking him in the eye. "Yes." She glanced at the directory sign. “Do you have stores you want to go to or do you just want to wander?”

Alex could recognize a few of the brand logos, but most of it was indecipherable. He felt his face flush. “Let’s just wander.”

Her eyebrows drew together. “Shit, sorry. Let’s just see what we find.”

They went into the first clothing shop, but seeing the price tags, Alex was too nervous to pull anything off the rack. The whole thing seemed like some kind of trap he wasn’t about to walk into. Meanwhile Hannah was holding up everything she touched asking if he liked it.

“Dude,” she said finally after he’d turned down a third blazer. (Seriously? A blazer?) “What’s stressing you about this?”

He shook his head, mindful of the shoppers around him, the dirty shirt he’d pulled out of the hamper, the security cameras, and the people working there that Hannah hadn’t realized didn’t actually care if they “needed help with anything,” despite how many times they asked.

“Well, one, this place is way too fancy for us, and two, I don’t get this whole shopping spree thing. Nothing’s free.”

Hannah’s brow lowered. “Okay, couple of things. It’d be real nice to tell you all this was no strings attached, but it’s not. This isn’t charity. You’re going to be working for Sol eventually. They’re investing in you with a practically blank check to get you on your feet. So spend it.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest and scanned the store with her eyes. “And as far as not fitting in goes, fuck it. You get to start a whole new chapter of your life right now. You get to decide how fancy Alex is. Not these people. And not me. If anyone doesn’t like it, fuck ‘em. They can live your life the way they think it ought to be lived the day they’re you, and until then they can get bent.” She wrinkled her nose. “Did that make any sense?”

He laughed. “I think so. You’re bizarre.”

She shrugged. “As long as I’m me. Want to try a different store?”

She let him pick this time and they went into a store that was less job interview and more fun. She stopped handing him stuff and just wandered around with him, demanding to hold anything he picked up so he could try them on. She had an armful of shirts that were a big step up from Beyond Cool Banana and a pair of jeans that he was sure she’d tell him to put back when she saw the price. He was looking at some brightly colored zip up hoodies when an even more colorful display across on the opposite wall caught his eye. He turned around to focus on the hoodies. They were bright too. That would work. He picked out a bright orange one and held it out tentatively to Hannah.

She took it and draped it over her arm, practically without looking at it, and stared him dead in the eye. “What’s going on?”

Alex made a face. “Nothing, jeez. I’m picking stuff out, I thought you’d be happy.” He moved to a different rack full of boring sweaters, but he pretended to look through them anyway.

“I am. Keep going. You need more than one pair of pants, but there’s an energy going on here.”

“No, there isn’t.” He rolled his eyes and awkwardly tried to navigate shopping while avoiding looking in a certain direction, while not obviously avoiding a certain direction, while she trailed him.

“Dressing room?” she asked with an eyebrow cock, when her arms were full enough. He nodded and followed her out to the center aisle to get to the dressing room area and he focused on keeping his eyes on the back of her shirt. She came to a sudden halt right in front of the display, causing Alex’s heart to skip.

“Okay,” she began, spinning around. “What the fuck is going on.”

“Don’t Read me,” he snapped and tried to keep walking.

“You Read us all the time,” she threw back. And then she noticed the rack of gay pride shirts right beside them. “Oh,” she said, adjusting her grip on the mound of clothes in her arms. Her voice softened. “Do you want one?”

Alex felt glued to the floor, tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. He briefly considered running. He wasn’t trapped in the desert anymore. He could try to make his way in Vegas on his own.

Hannah’s eyes fluttered. “Oh my god, it’s fine.” Looking around in a panic, she finally stepped off to the side and dropped the clothes she was holding into a pile on the ground. “Did you think I’d freak out?” she hissed.

Alex licked his dry lips and swallowed. “Well, yeah.” His voice cracked and he felt his face get hot again.

She leaned in close. “Dude, it’s fine. You’ve got nothing to stress about here. Can I ask? Are you gay? Bisexual? Trans?”

“Gay,” he stuttered, more to get her to stop talking than anything, and feeling like he was about to cry despite himself.

“Cool,” she smiled. “That’s awesome. Let’s get you some fucking rainbows then.” Ignoring the pile of clothes on the floor, she started pulling rainbow shirts off the rack.

Still unable to move, Alex could only watch. “I’ve never told anyone that before.” He didn’t know how to explain that her reaction made no sense, when he couldn’t have told her the type of reaction he wanted.

She stopped and looked at him. “Oh, man. Well, we’re all good. For pretty obvious reasons, Sol is super anti-discrimination so like, we know that the rest of the world isn’t like this, but bigotry? That shit isn’t tolerated.”

“Obvious reasons?”

“Knacks?” she said, lowering her voice. “We’re pretty significant deviations from the so-called ‘norm’ and people would, for sure, not be into us having rights if they knew. The whole reason Sol exists is to protect us from that.”

Alex glanced at the shirts again with their rainbow letters. “Yeah, by hiding.”

She nodded, mouth grim. “Yeah, by hiding. So if you’ve got something you can be loud and proud about, do it.”

He shifted out of the way of a group of other shoppers walking by and fought the urge to distance himself from the whole display. “What about the others?”

“Well, I’ve never actually asked Reeve, but he’s from Sol, and when you raise people in an environment that normalizes this shit, most people turn out some kind of bi. Plus, I mean, he’s a telepath. He probably already knows, so it’s not like he’s gonna treat you any different.”

“Wait,” he put up a hand. “Sailing past the fact that you think Mister I Wear Nerd Khakis on Purpose is queer, are you saying I was out of the closet and didn’t know it?”

Hannah grimaced, showing her lower teeth. “Probably.”

“Well, that’s fucking rude.”

“Right? But to be fair, you saw my tits before I showed you them.” An older couple walking by turned their heads at that and Hannah, hands full of gay pride shirts, just smiled awkwardly.

“That’s different,” he argued when the couple had gone by. “That’s not what’s in your head.”

“Yeah, true.”

“What about Gareth?” Even ignoring the whole murdering people like it’s nothing thing, he was a big guy who looked like he lived at the gym.

She sighed. “Seriously, I know you don’t know him, but he’s a softy. He’s got a ton of baggage from what he went through being controlled by a sadistic telepath, but I can’t imagine him being hateful to anyone. Well, besides telepaths.”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t even know what to do with you people.”

“What to do? Pick a shirt!” she exclaimed, waving them in his face.

Alex quirked his mouth to one side and cocked his hip in a way that he normally would have tempered. It felt scary, but good. He reached past her to the rack and grabbed the shirt he’d been eyeing. It had a simple rainbow stripe on it and was in a girl’s cut with shorter cap sleeves.

“Okay,” she smiled and snatched it out of his hands to drop onto the heap of clothes on the floor.

She didn’t ask him about it, but the need to justify snuck its way out of his lips. “I think I might have cute shoulders.”

Her grin got wider. “I bet you do.” She bent low to gather up the clothes. “Let’s go try this shit on, buy everything you like, and then do it again.”

He laughed. “Okay.”

“And then let’s get way too much food. I’m starving.”

Alex took half the pile out of her arms to carry. “Let’s do it.”

They got home late that night, feet hurting, throats raw from singing to the car radio, and with a backseat piled with bags. He’d even managed to talk Hannah into getting a couple of new shirts, even though she’d still gotten them too big. He’d changed into his new clothes in the car, cute gay pride shirt and all. His shoulders did look cute, and he resolved to practice the way Hannah seemed not to even notice any weird looks they got at the gas station on the way back.

Alex had been expecting Reeve to come out and lecture them when they pulled up, but it was Gareth who was waiting for them.

“Will you help us carry all that stuff in?” Hannah called.

“Yeah, sure," he said, walking over.

Alex got out of the car, suddenly self conscious. He watched Gareth register his shirt with just the slightest raise of an eyebrow, which was then fully raised at the sight of the absurd pile of bags in the back.

“So,” Gareth said, moving on, and stacking bags on his arm. “Tomorrow’s two weeks. Should I go out and buy a bigger suitcase?”

“Huh?” Hannah gaped as she headed for the house.

Alex shook his head. “No, I think I’m good.”

***