Sol LAHQ. Company Housing.

Marek dug out his copy of the key to Emmett’s flat and let himself in. Emmett’s current foster dog—a big, brown, box-headed pitbull (with a killer excited-wiggle) and his foster-fail (a tiny, elderly, wiry-haired, bug-eyed thing with a flat face that Emmett had fallen hard for)—ran to greet him at the door, snuffling. The big one nosed at his hand for pets and he gave him a scratch by the collar.

“Hey,” he called. It smelled great in the apartment. “Oh, man, did you make your garlic parmesan popcorn?”

“Yes, he did,” replied a voice that wasn’t Emmett from somewhere around the corner in the living room.

Marek lowered his brow. “Okay.”

He stepped into view of the living room where Emmett and Penn were sitting together on the couch, a bowl of popcorn between them. Emmett was rubbing his eyes in a gesture of frustration that reminded him of every mentor Marek ever had, and Penn had reclined back in complete resignation. He was the smart one.

“Good evening, Penn-tagram,” he grinned.

“What’s wrong, Marek?” Emmett asked.

“Did you like that? It was on theme.” Marek kept his eyes on Penn, whose expression didn’t shift. “You know, because Halloween is coming up.”

Emmett gave Penn his sweetest smile, signaling Marek’s imminent demise, and walked out into the kitchen with Marek.

“Okay, sorry.” Marek found his composure. “You emailed me that you wanted to talk about student allocation.”

“Yeah, on Monday.”

He made an embarrassed face. “I misread your tone.” He jerked his head in the direction of the living room. “And I didn’t realize this was, like, a regular thing.”

“Not all of us have a stack of relationship declaration forms in our bedside table.”

He shrugged. “I’m the head of Human Resources. I’m doing quality control.”

Emmett’s jaw dropped slightly and he realized too late how that sounded.

“Quality control of the forms, oh my god.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, I’m surprised you have time for movie night with the Halloween party coming up.”

Emmett shrugged. “Everything’s in order and I can’t start decorating the space until the 26th. And my costume just needs finishing touches.”

“What’s your costume this year?” he asked as casually as could be.

Emmett gave him the stink-eye. “Nice try.”

Back in Chicago, Emmett was known for going distinctly overboard on his surprise costume builds, and Marek was looking forward to LA getting the Emmett Halloween experience.

Penn’s voice sounded from the other room. “God-fucking-damnit.”

Emmett’s head dropped back with a sigh. “I guess we’re talking students after all. Three, two—”

The lockdown siren sounded.

“Oh.”

“Infrastructure?” Emmett shouted.

“No, you’re set,” Penn told him as he rushed to the door and shoved his feet into his boots. “I have to literally run,” he said hastily. “Gage is in Kyiv on assignment and my backup teleporter isn’t answering.”

Emmett pointed at him. “Can Marek just bring you?”

Both Marek and Penn turned to him. “What?”

Penn knotted his laces. “Not a good idea.”

“He’ll be there for two seconds, tops.”

Now Marek was speechless. Penn looked divided, but was clearly considering it. The blaring siren made it very difficult to think and only heightened the urgency of the situation.

“Alright,” Marek relented. “Where is it?”

Penn hesitated as he stood, then dug out his phone to show him the photo he’d been sent. It showed a hallway in what looked like the Mars wing, with the back of a Neptune agent in frame. Penn looked him in the eye, deadly serious. “Drop me, then bounce.”

He nodded. “Ready?” Marek flashed Emmett a look, put his hands on Penn’s shoulders, and jumped.

One would think it was the sound of gunshots that made Marek freeze up, but even before that, the immediate scent of gunpowder made every synapse in Marek’s brain come to a screeching halt. The smell fully overpowered the cloak of ozone produced by teleportation and reached squarely into the instinct center of his brain.

Seconds passed, but Marek couldn’t say how many. It wasn’t until he felt hands shoving him to the ground that he began to see again. Penn was shaking him, voice loud in his ear, saying, “Get out of here.”

Between the time the initial agent had sent the alert photo and the time Marek had teleported in, the action had moved. Right beside them, an agent in fatigues was in the air, being lifted by telekinesis and held against the wall, but he still managed to continue pulling the trigger of the gun in his hand. He was ranting, but the blood was singing in Marek’s ears and he couldn’t make anything out. A Neptune agent near them was laying on his side, coughing and wheezing, likely having taken a hit to his bulletproof vest. A vest Penn was not wearing, unlike the on-call Cleanup team. Down the hall from them, he could see one Mars agent prone on the floor. A Neptune agent and another Mars agent were working on him and there was blood on their hands. Marek took all this in in an instant while Penn was getting him low to the floor.

Penn must have been the first telepath on the scene, because as soon as Penn stood up, there was silence. The gun and magazine, separate, dropped to the ground with a clang.

Penn simply said, “Zoey,” and the Mars agent slowly slid to the floor, unconscious, and the agents were on him like black ants swarming a dropped bit of food. There were more agents than before, flooding down the hallway.

His mouth was dry and he couldn’t remember the last time his heart had ever beat this fast. It made it feel like his whole body had a visible, grotesque pulse to it. The feeling wasn’t something Marek could believe was survivable, and he began to feel sure he was about to have an aneurysm or something.

“Marek.” Penn crouched in front of him. His voice was calm and quiet. “Give me the gun.”

Marek scrunched up his face and looked down. The gun was in his hand, pointed at the Mars agent. When did I pick that up? Why would I have picked it up? It had been over ten years since he’d touched one. It felt the same. Warm, heavy.

He tilted it slightly to see if he’d put the magazine back in it, a terrifying thought, but he hadn’t. It was empty and harmless. He was almost shaking too much, but he loosened his grip. Penn took the gun gently and stuck it in his belt.

“You’re okay,” he said, holding his eyes.

Marek nodded and worried more about what Penn would go through if Marek’s heart gave out right in front of him.

“Jesus Christ,” a man exclaimed above him. “What is he...?” It was Gerrit, looking down at him, true fear on his face. “I was in Canada when I—”

“My teleporter is unconscious,” Penn broke in, talking fast. “Can you please bring the injured to Pluto. Then Marek too. I'm gonna stay with him until you can.”

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Gerrit nodded and was off, heading for the bleeding agent down the hall.

“I’m not hurt,” he argued between breaths. He didn’t realize just how fast he was breathing until he tried to use his throat to do anything else.

Penn gripped his arm with one hand and held his hand with the other. Marek was confused when he didn’t exclaim at the inhuman throbbing.

“I’m sorry,” he told Marek. “I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it would be this bad. Just breathe.”

With a flash, Gerrit appeared next to them, and with one final worried look, Penn left to attend to whatever it was he attended to.

Then Gerrit was getting an arm under him and trying to coax him to his feet, and Marek startled.

“Can you stand? We can do this sitting, I guess.”

He couldn’t answer. He didn’t know and his vision was swimming, black at the edges.

Gerrit raised his voice. “I need to move you, sir.”

He swallowed, squeezing his eyes until he could see shapes against the blackness. “Just Marek.”

“There he is.” It sounded like he was smiling. He opened his eyes to check and he wasn’t.

“I’m alright,” he got out. “I can get myself home.” He didn’t know why he was saying these things. He needed to be in Pluto.

Gerrit shook his head. “If you try to teleport to your quarters like this, you’re gonna end up in New Jersey.”

“Then I’ll get bagels.”

“Ready? Here we go.”

It had been a long time since Marek had been teleported by someone else. When he thought about it, it was probably the exact amount of time it had been since he’d held a gun. The flash and tear felt different as a passenger. Less of a satisfying release and more like having duct tape ripped off the length of your vagus nerve.

When his eyes adjusted to the light again, he was sitting on the cold, hard floor of Pluto’s trauma bay. People were rushing in all directions, and this time, Gerrit did pull him to his feet to get him out of the way.

“Go do what you’ve got to do,” came a familiar voice. “I’ve got him.”

“Thank you,” Gerrit said with audible relief. “I have to get back.” With a gust of ozone, he was gone.

Simon came around the side to slip his arm under Marek. He was almost comically too slight to hold Marek’s weight, but he was stronger than he looked.

“I’m fine,” he told Simon as he began walking him down a hallway.

“Marek, your clothes feel like you fell in the pool.”

He switched tactics and told the truth. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“Just try to breathe slowly. You’re having an episode of PTSD symptoms,” Simon told him, voice gentle, as he settled him into a hospital bed.

Dakota was his doctor, but he was sure Simon knew his medical records. Marek had been medically desked two years into his career as a field agent. For most, it was a physical injury that took them out, but for Marek it had been PTSD.

He shook his head while Simon bent over some small rolling cart and keyed in a password to unlock it. “No, I’m not,” he argued. “I don’t have that anymore.”

Simon came back with a small cup of pills. “That’s not how it works. The best thing for you right now is to rest. Take these and it’ll help you sleep it off.”

“Don’t you want to check my heart?”

Simon gave him a patient, kind smile and set the cup down. “Okay. But I need you to take slow, deep breaths now so I can hear anything.” He got his stethoscope on and had Marek laid down. “I got the story from the first agents in,” Simon explained while he listened to Marek’s heart. “Someone shooting their teammates. Don’t you think it makes sense that would hit close to home?”

Marek’s brow pinched. It was embarrassing how obvious it was now. One of Marek’s teammates had turned on them. He’d never know why. Marek didn’t think she would do it and he couldn’t bring himself shoot her, so when he hesitated, she shot their other teammate, killing him. Marek did shoot then, when she turned the gun on him. It was only him left now. After that, he couldn’t even be around guns without breaking into a sweat. Budget disputes were his maximum level of conflict now.

Simon slipped his stethoscope around his neck and picked the pills back up. “You’re slightly tachycardic but your heart is fine.”

Marek took the pills and swallowed them. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Dakota will follow up with you in the morning.” He pulled out a set of loose hospital pajamas from a drawer for him to change into.

“Thank you.” He smashed his face into the pillow. “You’re a Bio-manip. You knew I wasn’t having a heart attack the moment you saw me.”

“Get some rest.”

Worried he might become teary, he stayed face down until Simon had left. He didn’t bother changing, just pulled the blankets up to his chin and prayed for dreamless sleep. The pills delivered.

---

Sanctuary. Prague, Czech Republic.

Reeve felt it in his telepathy as a faint itch, a tiny flutter of color trickling down the dun canvas of his surveillance web to prick at the back of his throat. He was holding so much of his telepathy back, he nearly missed it. There’s a startle when you feel an insect on your leg, but this wasn’t like that. This was more like after you’d checked and you’d seen that there’s nothing there—then you look away and feel it again. A distinct tickle that raises goosebumps on your arms. You tell yourself it’s nothing, you just looked, that it’s just the breeze moving your leg hair and not a spider slowly climbing its way up your calf. That’s what it was like. Except when he looked again, it wasn’t nothing. Reeve stopped what he was doing and focused on the flickering colors, strengthening his telepathy just enough for the edges to become sharp and defined.

Reeve immediately locked his telepathy down. He stood up and headed into the front room, shouting, “We have a problem.”

Alyosha came into the room at a jog. Gareth was already there, levering himself up from the couch.

“Adler?” he asked. Reeve could see the bloody tinge at the corners of Gareth’s eyes. He’d slept about as much as Reeve had, and he was glad his telepathy was shut down so he didn’t have to feel that fear. Seeing it was enough.

Reeve shook his head. “Neptune.”

Gareth didn’t react. Alyosha shut his eyes and exhaled. Even without his telepathy, he couldn’t miss the I-told-you-so there.

“What’s going on?” Thomas called from down the hall. He was just out of the shower and must have dressed in a hurry hearing him, because his light blue shirt was dark in patches where his skin was still wet.

“Neptune,” Gareth said numbly.

Thomas nodded. “Okay, so lay low and maybe they’ll pass right by.”

“No,” Reeve sighed. There was annoyance in his voice but it was all inward, so he stamped it out. “They’re inbound, I felt it. They weren’t combing the city for us—they had direction. They’re coming here. They must have a specialist.”

“Shit. Specialist?”

“A tracker.” Reeve was thinking in too many directions to explain well, so he gesticulated as if that might help. “Knack detection, mappers, enhanced sensory tracking, psychometrists—”

“Run or fight?” was all Gareth asked.

“They’re too close to run. My protections are light on purpose right now.”

“No,” Thomas interrupted. “Go get your things and come back here.” They looked at him. “Now!”

They went. Reeve ran upstairs to the small bedroom he’d been using. It made sense. He didn’t actually know what a Neptune team might do to Children who were found harboring Icarus. He assumed that with their willingness to take them in, the danger couldn’t have been huge, but he couldn’t say for certain. After all, putting themselves in danger for their faith was what the Church did, and they might be crazy enough not to care about Neptune’s punishment in theory. In practice, Thomas had every right to want them out. He shoved his things in his packs as fast as he could, stuck his pistol in his belt, and ran back down stairs, just behind Alyosha.

When he came back into the front room, pulling on his coat, Thomas was standing by an open doorway by the kitchen table. There wasn’t a door in the kitchen, last he’d checked. It was shaped like a doorway, but the proportions were a little off, not quite narrow enough for its height. There was no way to close it in sight, only an opening, and the inside was dark—not dark like some mythic void, which is what he’d expected, just dark in that there were clearly no lights or windows.

“Get in,” Thomas urged.

Gareth was looking at it sideways. “Is it safe?”

“Compared to what?” he asked, exasperated.

“They’ll find us,” Reeve argued, pulling his eyes away from the doorway.

“Maybe. So fight now or maybe fight later. Just get in.”

Reeve looked at the others. Shvedov shrugged hesitantly, and they walked in. The walls inside were a perfect replica of the walls of the home. The same faded green wallpaper lined the sides, the ceiling, and the floor. It was less like Thomas had opened a door to a new room, and more like Thomas had pushed his thumb into a wall made of clay, stretching and extending it in this one spot.

“I won’t be able to hear you,” Thomas told them, speaking quickly, “but try not to run around in there. The movement makes it harder for me to maintain the space. This isn’t going to feel great.” And with that, the opening zipped shut, plunging them into a darkness normally reserved for the unconscious. A sharp pain spiked through Reeve’s skull and he reflexively clenched his eyes shut and worked his jaw to try to get his ears to pop. Alyosha made a pained noise somewhere in the black beside him.

As his ears relaxed to a dull ache, Reeve asked, “Alright?”

Gareth’s voice came from behind him, “What the fuck was that?”

“Not sure.” Reeve looked around, but the dark was thicker than paint. “I can’t imagine what happens to the air pressure in a thing like this, but I’m guessing it’s something.” Reeve set his packs down and, bending, felt blindly for their phone, trying not to think about how long the oxygen would last.

“I hate this,” Alyosha announced quietly.

Reeve turned the screen of his phone on and immediately regretted not looking away as it did. The dim light lit up like a sun in the dark. When he opened his eyes again, the others were shielding theirs. The uniform green wallpaper on all six surfaces looked wrong in this light.

“Now what?” Reeve asked while Gareth and Shvedov put their bags down.

Alyosha had his pistol out, waiting. “We see how good of a liar Thomas is.”

The phone screen went dark, throwing them into blindness for a second before Reeve could mash at the button.

Gareth knelt and began checking the magazines in his guns. “What are the odds that someone like this doesn’t just sell us out to save his ass?”

Reeve hated that he had been wondering something similar. “I don’t know. It must be a possibility, but not so common that the Church gets a rep for not being safe for Icarus.” He leaned his head forward, trying to remember exactly where on the wall the opening had been—he wanted to be ready to run if he had to. It was hard to tell.

“How would they? It’s not like Icarus who get picked up get to put out a newsletter. And this is exactly how I’d do it.”

Reeve turned back to look at Gareth.

“How I’d turn over a group of Icarus. Isolate them, get distance—”

“Is this helping?” Shvedov interrupted.

“He’s right,” Reeve said as the light flicked off again.

“Who?” Gareth asked, squinting when the light came back on. “Me or him? I can’t see.”

Reeve huffed. “Both. I don’t know. Let’s just shut up and be ready and hope we don’t have to kill Thomas.”

***