Saint Peter’s Square. Vatican City, Rome.

Hannah wasn’t great at panhandling. Misha kept saying it was something about her expression. Alex tried to give her pointers at first, but they settled on having her keep watch instead, half a block away. They spent long days at it, outside the Vatican walls, moving frequently around the city to stay out of the way of those locals who laid claim to whatever corner they had been working. It was enough to get by. They returned to the Square at night. In the mornings, they used the bathhouse set up for the homeless who lived there. It kept them comfortable enough. Well, comfortable in a relative sense—Hannah was wrung out from hyper-vigilance, had a sharp, burning pain in her shoulders and hips from sleeping on stone, and there was a chill in her bones she hadn’t been able to shake since the tunnels. She could feel the toll taken from a person, from being looked at like you’re trash by hundreds of passersby. She kept her mouth closed on it though. They were all feeling it, so there was no point in talking about it too. It seemed to be wearing on Misha more than the rest of them, probably for the first time since they’d met. Hannah wanted to dig him on that, but didn’t.

All this to say that if she’d been alone, Hannah would absolutely have to rely on theft to get by. Which is what made her suspicious when a tourist approached her as they were bedding down in Saint Paul’s Square. She was tall with blonde hair, cropped short enough to show her ears. Her clothes were normal enough and her chunky necklace caught Hannah’s eye. She held out a bill with something akin to pity on her face.

Misha reached up to take it with a, “Spasiba,” but she snatched her hand back and locked eyes with Hannah, who gave Alex a quick look and extended her hand.

The woman asked, “Where’s Gareth?” and it was as if every cell in Hannah’s body came awake. Hannah felt the others beside her go rigid. She drew her hand back, leaving the money.

“Who?” Misha asked, but the woman didn’t acknowledge him. Her voice was accented. Maybe French.

“I’ve never met him,” she continued, “but Mr. Adler is adamant that they reconnect. I have a gift here for him.” She pulled a zippered bag about the size of a paperback novel out of her coat and held it up.

Hannah swallowed. Her heart felt like the others must have been able to see it banging against her ribs.

The woman sighed. “Come on, Hannah. Is he with this Reeve? He seems to have caused a significant financial headache.”

“I don’t know where he is,” Hannah said finally.

“Really?” She sounded unimpressed.

“Really,” Alex said. “You fuckers made him pretty paranoid. We don’t know where they are.”

Hannah nodded. “So kindly fuck off.” She still had her knife on her belt, which she knew she could get to fast. Her pistol was in her sack and would be harder to fish out, but she gripped her bag tight, just in case.

“That’s fine.” The Entropy agent scanned the square. “They’ll come find us. Mr. Adler is also very interested in your company.”

“You think you can force the three of us out of this square to go be your hostages?” Hannah stood and Alex and Misha stood with her. She could feel the grip of her pistol now inside her pack.

To Hannah’s right, the man who had been curled up under a blanket shot up and stood stock still, watching them. Three more figures—two tourists and another homeless man—turned on a dime and started walking toward them. With a flash of wind, another man teleported in beside the woman from Entropy. They had quickly become outnumbered.

“The three of you? No,” the woman said with a hint of a smile. “We don’t give a shit about the bible thumper, so it’ll only need to be the two of you, and you don’t need to make it there in one piece.”

“Not a damn chance,” Alex growled, shifting beside her, planting his feet. He had his hand inside his pack, too.

Misha grabbed Alex by the wrist with a grip Hannah could see even in the dimming light was painfully tight, and jerked him back. Hannah hesitated, seeing his eyes go glassy with fear.

“If this kicks off,” Hannah argued, stalling, “it’s going to be loud and there’re gonna be cops.”

“Exactly. If you don’t come quietly, this place is going to be swarmed with Gendarmes.”

Hannah whipped her head back and forth. “I just said that.”

“Meaning if you don’t come easy, there are going to be a lot of dead Gendarmes. We don’t care either way.”

Misha raised his arms up, palms out and fingers spread. “You really don’t care about me?”

Hannah’s stomach dropped and she stole a glance to the side to look at him hard. She didn’t think Misha would actually cut his losses and give them up. Never ask someone to die for their beliefs. Her tongue had cemented itself to the roof of her mouth. The three other Entropy agents had nearly reached them. If they were going to make a move, it was going to have to be then.

The Entropy agent rolled her eyes and tossed Misha the pouch. “Leave the backwater alive,” she called to the agents behind her. “Let him tell the others.”

“Lucky me.” Misha bobbed his eyebrows at Hannah and lunged. Hannah had her gun halfway out of her bag before she realized Misha had lunged at her and not the other woman, and, with a leap, had thrown his arms around both her and Alex.

The earth tipped. A flash of light so bright it made a mockery of the color white forced her eyes shut. An unending wave of nausea was building inside of her and the queer smell of ozone hung in the air. She opened her blind eyes and threw Misha’s arm off of her. She reeled, unmoored, and doubled over with her hands on her knees.

The world came into focus. It was darker, unlit in the evening light, and they were in a back alley cluttered with dumpsters. She worked her jaw, spitting the saliva and bile that was flooding her mouth.

Beside her, Alex had dropped to a crouch, gasping.

Misha calmly picked up their bags where they’d dropped them.

Alex looked up at him. “The teleporter.”

Misha nodded. “One more time,” he said in a voice that was meant to be comforting. Hannah found herself a little surprised he could manage the tone. She shook her head absently, but he grabbed them both and the force rocked through them again. Hannah squeezed her eyes tight, wrapped her arms around Alex, and held on. It scrambled her insides and she choked on her gorge rising. For a moment, she felt her boots sink down into dead leaves with a crunch, and then the world ripped in half again.

When she came to rest on a hardwood floor, that was all she knew about where they were. It didn’t matter. She bent in half and wretched. To say she vomited wouldn’t be accurate. That would have made it sound like an action she took, whereas this was more violent, a thing that happened to her, something that clawed out of her while she fought in the small gaps of space in between to take choked, whooping breaths.

When she had been emptied, Hannah stumbled backwards and looked up. There were spots in her vision and she blinked to try to clear them. Even with her eyes closed, the flash of the teleport still had her eyes burning. The air was heavy with ozone, a cloying smell like sugared bleach.

Beside her, Alex was recovering by his own pile of heavings. She recognized the room. Standing unsteadily, she glanced around. Munich. They were back in the apartment where they’d first met Misha.

“You said one more time!” Alex shouted raggedly before coughing more.

“I lied,” Misha said simply. He was standing up straight, as though the travel hadn’t affected him.

Hannah wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and made her way to the futon to sit and glare at him.

“Back here?”

“It was the safest place I could think of,” he shrugged. “The sickness won’t last, but maybe don’t eat anything for a few hours.”

“Not gonna be a problem,” Alex called, sitting on the floor and scooching to lean his back against Hannah’s legs. She put a limp hand on his shoulder. “How are you okay?” Alex asked, looking up with an effort.

Misha waved him off and walked to the kitchen, making sure to step over where they’d been sick. “When I mimic, I can use their knack at the same level of mastery as they have.” He came back with a couple bottles of water and handed them to Hannah and Alex. She sipped one tentatively to cool her raw throat.

“Should we call Reeve?” Alex croaked.

“It’s early, but yeah. I’ve got this knack for a little while longer. If we can get through to them, I can get us there fast.” He rummaged through his bag.

Hannah groaned at the thought of going again. She tilted her head back, watching him dial.

Misha dropped his arm. “They’re not picking up.”

Hannah sighed. “Try it again.”

He did.

“Are you dialing it right?” Alex asked.

Misha screwed up his face but handed the phone to Alex, who keyed in their number.

“It’s just ringing.”

It finally started to register. “They’re probably busy,” she gulped. “Traveling or dealing with Church business or they don’t have a signal. No need to panic yet. I’m sure they’re okay. We know Entropy hasn’t found them yet, at least.”

Misha swore. “Yeah, but we should use this transport while I have it. You know these idiots, where would they have gone?”

Hannah threw her hands up. “I don’t know.”

Misha sat down across from them and looked at Alex. “East or West?”

“East,” Alex said quietly. “We stopped in France to refuel. He’s not going to want to retrace his steps and that’s Entropy country. Plus Alyosha’s going to have a better lay of the land going East.”

“You think he’s stupid enough to take one step closer to Sol’s Kyiv Office?”

“He’s absolutely that stupid,” Hannah crowed.

“Okay, I doubt they could get very far just the three of them. This will save us half a week of travel.” He picked up his bag again. “One more time.”

Alex pointed a finger at him. “I swear to god—”

“One last time,” Misha confirmed slowly.

“Jesus Christ,” Hannah moaned, standing up. “At least I couldn’t possibly puke anymore.”

Misha cocked an eyebrow at her and she didn’t like what that might be implying.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

---

Entropy Residential Building. Paris, France.

Anise was just finishing getting dressed when loud knocking caught her attention. It was too quiet to be at her door so she ignored it. But it went on for a second and then a third round, so she gave up on taking the time to dry her shower-wet hair and went to see what was going on.

She opened the door to see a man, maybe ten years older than her, with short dark hair and wearing a sweatshirt, knocking on Wyatt’s door.

“Hey,” the man called in American-accented English. “You in there?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt answered, muffled through the door, after a moment. “Just a second.”

“Everything okay?” she asked, making the man jump.

He put his hand on his chest in exaggerated surprise. “I didn’t realize that apartment was occupied.” He walked toward her and held out his hand. She was in joggers and a t-shirt, but he still found a way to leer at her briefly. Men were like that.

“I’m Jack.”

“Anise.” She left off her last name like she’d be told to.

“That’s a new one,” he smiled. “Always happy to meet another expat. I’m from New York.”

“California.”

“So what do you do, Anise, that got you up on the top floor?”

“Undercover stuff.” It was the easiest answer.

His smile broadened. “No kidding, me too.”

She cocked her head. “Really?”

“Yeah, I’m a shadow.”

She shook her head and looked up at him with doe-wide eyes. He’d talk more if it seemed like she was interested. “Sorry, I’ve only been here a few months.”

He leaned against the wall by her door. “Oh, I check in on all our sleeper agents. Most agents don’t live at one of our bases. That’s what makes us so much more efficient than, say, SolCorp. We don’t have to pay to house or feed the majority of our agents and they get a small stipend to supplement their income, but still, if we say jump, they jump.”

“And your job is to drop in for coffee and make sure they’re doing their jobs?”

He shook his head. “No, they never know I’m there watching them. I go eat at the restaurant they work in, drive their cab to work, be that chatty stranger on the subway. Hell, I’ve even purposefully gotten into a fender bender with one. They all know someone from Entropy will be checking up on them, but they never know when or who, so any interaction could be an Entropy shadow looking in on them. It keeps people in line.”

Anise nodded. “Oh, okay. Panoptics.”

“Pan what?”

“Nothing. If you could be watched at any time, you’re being watched all the time.”

The smile returned. “Yeah.”

Wyatt came out of his room with sleep rumpled hair and pillow marks pressed into the side of his face.

“Hey,” Wyatt said, stepping into the hallway. “What’s going on?”

Jack smiled. “Your new neighbor is quite charming.”

Wyatt smiled thinly. “Yeah.” She was well aware that it wasn’t the word he would have chosen.

“Anyway,” Jack continued, “I just picked up someone newly assigned to Paris from the train station and I wanted her to meet you.”

Wyatt looked around the hall, empty but for the three of them. “Are you sure?”

He gave him a look. “I left her in my place downstairs. I wanted to make sure Mr. Adler wasn’t up here first. I’ve already warned her about him.”

Anise lifted an eyebrow at that, then forced it down. She watched Wyatt flush and look at everything in the hallway that wasn’t her.

“Jack,” he said softly and shook his head. It wasn’t the most delicately handled thing in the world. His panic was silly. She wasn’t naive. And did he really think that Adler didn’t know what everyone in the building thought of him?

She watched Jack comprehend and play it off with much more skill.

“That he’s in charge and to do anything he says. Not get in his way.”

“Right.”

“I’ll go get her.” He turned and left.

With no good excuse not to, Wyatt turned to Anise in awkward silence.

“Is he trying to set you two up or something?” she asked blandly, to break the ice.

“No,” he chuckled, relaxing. “Sometimes if someone new seems—” he trailed off, trying to find the right word. “Thin-skinned? He’ll take pity on them. I like him for that. My dad needs him to be subtle, not like some of our other people. He’s kind. Anyway, he’ll bring them around to meet me because Jack’s away most of the time, so there’ll be another person they know who won’t bowl them over with the same sort of the Lord of the Flies shit that can go on here.”

She could ignore that he’d just called her unkind. She knew he thought she was cold and unfeeling. That didn’t bother her. But as much as she could admit she felt exceptional among her peers, there were some judgements that irked her.

Anise fixed him with a look. “And you don’t stoop to any of that.”

Wyatt flinched, remembering something. “I try not to.”

“Because you don't have to.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m sorry?”

“You don’t have to jump into the pit and fight dirty for your scrap of territory. Look who you live next to.”

She watched his face harden. She’d hit a nerve.

“Easy,” she said, eyebrows high on her face. “I’m not saying you live a charmed life. I’m just saying that before you start passing out morality awards, we need to remember that you don’t know what you would do to survive in their situation.”

“Oh and you do,” he snapped. “Look who you live across from.”

“You’re not listening. No one knows what they’ll do to live, if they’d hold onto their moral code, or sacrifice someone else’s life for their own. That includes me.” She let herself smile a little bit. “But I was trained to be an intelligence agent who can get close to a person and then put a knife in their ribs when I’ve gotten what I need, so I think I’ll be okay.”

Wyatt wasn’t going to like her any time soon, so she might as well be herself.

Jack rounded the corner accompanied by a woman in her early thirties with fair coloring and long hair. The only luggage she had with her was a large crossbody bag with a mandala embroidered on it. She bobbed her head at them. Anise could see what Wyatt meant. She looked shy, submissive even. Not the type who would thrive in a place where, if you didn’t hold your own, you lost what was yours.

“This is Wyatt,” Jack told her slowly. “He’s nice.” He gestured positively to Wyatt with a forced grin then turned to them. “This is Klara. Her English is very bad and her French is worse. Decent telekinetic, though. I’ve got a soft spot for fellow telekinetics.”

“I’ll explain it to her,” Anise offered.

Jack lowered his brow. “You speak Finnish?”

“Telepath,” Wyatt sighed, sullenly.

Using her telepathy, it was simple to impress upon the woman a sense of understanding—who they were and what Jack wanted her to know about Wyatt, that he was a safe person. Anise felt her nervousness at all the new people, at not knowing the language, and at being in this building at all.

“So she’s new here,” Anise said out loud. “Doesn’t that mean she’s supposed to go straight to the Spa and not to the top level of this building?”

Jack didn’t seem concerned. “Sure, but no one has to know about this little detour. Once she’s there, it’ll be lock and key.” He gave her a pitiful look. “And she’s new.”

She understood. Her life would only get harder from here and she’d either sink or swim. “Let’s walk her there.”

“What?”

“Technically, you’re still taking her directly to the Spa, but it’ll give her another hour of sunlight.”

Wyatt stared at her. It was a level of kindness he hadn’t expected out of someone like her. “I like it,” Jack smiled.

“You two coming?”

“Let me get my shoes,” she said.

The walk was pleasant. The sun was out and Anise used her knack to convey to Klara what they were doing and the gist of their conversations. Jack bought them all breakfast from a food truck and they ate as they walked. Jack liked to talk, so it was easy to let him. Anise was quiet except to try to direct conversation when Jack strayed into talking about work. Klara looked enamored of all the life bustling around her and tried in stammering English to tell them about her family back home. Family she’d had to leave because of her knack. It was a pain, despite feeling it through her link with Klara, that Anise couldn’t understand. It was simply so far from her experience of everything.

When they got to the storage facility, Adler was waiting for them. He was standing behind the reception desk, looking at something on the computer while the person working reception that day sat to the side, stock still, eyes downcast. The group of them stopped just inside the door. Normally she should have been able to feel his telepathy as a warning, but he must have hid it from her. Wyatt’s entire posture immediately took on the look of someone who was ten years old and caught out being someplace he shouldn’t have been.

“Mr. Adler,” Jack began, “I hope you weren’t waiting for me.” At the mention of the name, Klara shrunk in on herself and took a step to the side to try to hide behind Jack.

“Not specifically,” Adler replied coldly, standing up straight. “But I was curious what you all were about when I felt the group of you coming down the street together.” He paused to walk around to the front of the desk, nothing between them and him. “I hope you don’t have some problem with the way we run things here, Jack.”

“Of course not, sir.” Jack’s voice was a little ragged. She knew the sound. Adler was in his head. She hoped she wasn’t about to watch this man drop dead.

“That’s good,” Adler smiled. “I wouldn’t want us to have to part ways.” He held out a hand and curled one finger.

Klara stepped out from behind Jack, head held high, and walked over to stand beside him. She looped her arm around his and smiled up at him coyly, a completely different person than the one they’d spent the morning with.

“I’ll handle her personally from here, since you’ve taken such an interest.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jack stammered, eyes on the ground.

Adler reached over and slipped Klara’s bag from her shoulder and held it out to Jack. Anise felt Jack and Wyatt react to this, as though the gears in their chests had ground to a halt.

Jack took the purse from him and tucked it under his arm.

Adler’s smile faded. “Jack, do me a favor and go let Henri know I’m going to be a little late.”

“Of course, sir.” Jack left without looking at either of them. He went down the opposite hallway toward the stairwell.

Adler turned to Anise. “Be at my office at noon?” His voice was cool but neutral. She didn’t like him looking at her that way.

She nodded.

Adler looked at Wyatt without saying a word, then turned and walked down the hall to the elevators. Klara was moving in-step with him, arm in arm, a glowing look of admiration spreading as she gazed up at him. Anise couldn’t deny that she felt sick.

The two of them stood in silence until they heard the elevator doors open and close.

“What just happened?” Anise asked.

Wyatt scoffed at her. “Which part didn’t you follow?”

She bore his disdain as if she hadn’t noticed. “The bag. I felt the two of you react.”

Wyatt looked off to the side and took a breath before fixing her with a glare. “It means she’s not going to need it anymore. He wanted to make sure we knew.”

Anise’s heart sank. Klara had been so nervous. She closed that line of thinking. Looking at Wyatt, she could see that every inch of his posture was screaming that he blamed her. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

“Get out of my head,” he snapped.

“I’m not,” she said, forcing herself to say it calmly. “My telepathy is just very receptive, and even if it wasn’t, the way you’re looking at me is pretty clear.”

“Go be receptive somewhere else. No, I’m leaving. Do whatever the fuck you want.” He left, taking the defensive tangle of his mind with him.

Wyatt broke her heart a little. If she’d met him in the Academy, she would have laid any money she had on him being given a desk job far from the action. Something admin or maybe some sort of caregiving role. But that was not in the cards for him. He kept up as best he could, but it was like watching a pigeon swim—it could do it for a short while to keep from drowning, but it wasn’t pretty.

Then it was just her and the receptionist, who didn’t dare look at her. She had hours, but she started walking to the game office building, mulling it all over in her head.

She’d been in Paris for a week. In that time, she’d seen things—grisly things in the halls that she didn’t like to name. And other, more subtle things like this that chilled her. Some of these things were easier to rationalize than others. Entropy didn’t have a branch like Neptune. They had a panopticon: surveillance and swift punishment. Order had to be kept with fear and enforced sharply when people trespassed, or else the system fell apart. Honestly, if she peeled back the years of teachings that Sol was head, shoulders, and body above Entropy in all their practices, Neptune occupied a similar role in creating a sense of fear and repercussions that kept people in line. Why else did they dress the way they did? Why else would they take your name?

Other things were harder not to keep her up at night. The Spa and its bloody floors. The squalid way the workers that were kept there lived.

But she also knew that the conditions that caused those things would go away if they were able to pull off the sweeping reformation of Sol, and so she understood why Adler was willing to risk everything to make it work. As much as Wyatt saw it as a culture of cruelty and laid all of that on his father, Entropy had been operating like this since before Adler was born. A reformation of Sol would be a reformation of Entropy. There would be money for better housing and, most importantly, the Elders would have a way to control their third night (if they had one at all). Plus a humane food source—and with that, the hard, traumatic labor required by the system needed to keep the Elders contained would disappear. It would all be worth it.

She killed time at a cafe, but was still twenty minutes early to her meeting with Adler. The game building was everything the Spa wasn’t. It was clean, civilized, bougie almost, with large, well-tended potted plants, interesting wall art, and young developers who were maybe less than trendy but didn’t care. It was more like Sol than not.

Anise opted to sit in a small, barely used lounge area on the top floor of the office. Anise made an effort not to think of where Adler was. What he’d been doing. If he’d had to shower before coming here. Ever since her first assignment in Manchester, she’d been able to shut those thoughts down, label them as unhelpful, unnecessary to making her an effective agent. Learned to relegate them away. It sounded easier said than done, but after her first mission, it came as natural to her as breathing.

When she saw Adler walk into his office down the hall, she waited until noon to approach him, even though he’d undoubtedly known she was there. Taking a breath and setting her shoulders back, she knocked on his door.

“Come in.”

She did. The office was stately, with an imposing desk of dark wood, a grand bookcase built into the wall, and a sitting area with sleek leather chairs. She waited in front of his desk and he didn’t look up from the papers in front of him.

“Do you have a problem with what happened this morning?”

“I understand why you did it,” she answered honestly.

He looked at her over his glasses and she stood firm, refusing to wilt at his inspection. She understood what he wanted in a student.

“I understand why you did as well.” He sighed and sat back. “I have you on a plane back to Kyiv tomorrow.”

It hit her harder than she would have expected. “Is that why you want me to leave?”

“No,” he replied, “but you’re wasted here. The flat stays yours for when you’re in town. I want you to keep taking assignments out of Kyiv for now, until I have a way to use you properly.”

“I can do that.”

He looked back down at his papers. “I’m there often enough to keep up your lessons.”

She nodded, touched that he’d considered it. She let herself smile. “Going away dinner tonight? Your treat?”

He gave a soundless laugh and stood up to come around the desk to her. “A ‘see you soon’ dinner,” he corrected and then rested his hand on her shoulder with gentle pressure. The iciness was gone from his face and the telepathy that he’d kept wound up tight flooded in, familiar, harsh, but caring too. “Go pack,” he told her, giving her shoulder a squeeze before heading back to his desk. “And pick a restaurant.”

She headed back to the apartment. Her mind felt clear.

***