Natal, Brazil.

It was late into the night when they touched down in Natal and by then it was becoming very clear to Gareth that if he reached his hand over and tried to feel Hannah’s forehead to check for fever one more time, she would bite it off. Reeve had spent the last few hours of the flight up in the cockpit while Alex and Hannah played cards at one of the tables. The city outside the windows was lit up as a gradient—darker inland, getting lighter toward the coast, until it was bright enough to see the silent, crashing ocean waves against the beach. Hannah pressed her face to the window.

“You’re kidding. Please say we can live here.”

“It’s not exactly like you need to work on your tan,” Gareth pointed out.

“It’s the ocean, dipshit. Everyone loves the ocean.”

Alyosha put them down just inland on a small landing strip, which was really no more than a long, clear pathway set into sandy dunes with a few outbuildings and space for parking other aircraft. Reeve stepped back into the cabin as they slowed to a stop.

“Just grab what you’ll need for the night. And put some clothes on,” he added to Hannah, picking up his messenger bag. “We shouldn’t be here very long.”

The humidity slammed them in the face the moment they left the plane. Alex coughed and made a disgusted face.

“Oh, yuck. That’s awful.”

Gareth walked down the stairs onto the sand. There were a few small ultralight planes and single engines parked to the side of the runway, but nothing nearly the size of Alyosha’s Cessna.

“I don’t like this,” he called to Reeve. “We’re really standing out.”

“Nothing for it right now. We’ll be out of here soon.”

“Reeve!” Alex whined drawing his name out for a long time. He set his bag down and rubbed at his shoulder. “Why are we on the equator where the air is only water and I am dying?”

“We’re not on the equator,” he replied.

“They made the globe wrong.”

In the ambient light, Gareth could see someone get out of a car parked on the edge of the strip.

“Is that a problem?” he asked, pointing.

“No, that’s Dr. Jonathan Mabry, our ride. He’ll wait for us while Alyosha does whatever it is you do to park a plane for the night.”

Hannah spread her toes wide into the sand. “So what did this one do that we were supposed to kill him for?”

“He was marked as a security risk. A Sol agent was shot in the street while pursuing a target. Dr. Mabry was passing by and treated him, maybe saved his life. But the agent’s knack was misfiring from the injury and the attempt to wipe that from Jonathan’s mind didn’t take. That can happen.”

“So they were gonna kill him?” Hannah asked, brows drawn together.

“Technically, we were.”

“That’s so paranoid,” Alex muttered.

“That’s what the Corp was established to do. Keep knacked folks safe by keeping the public in the dark.”

Alyosha finished locking up the plane and joined them. He looked run down, and Gareth put his hand out to carry his bag from him. He accepted with a tired smile. They were all a mess, Gareth noticed for the first time. Reeve, usually clean-shaven in his stupid proper button-downs, was bruised and scruffy, and his own face, not to mention his head, was covered in stubble. Reeve led them across the dunes to the dark sedan. A man in his late-thirties was leaning against the hood. He was tall, of mixed-race, and wearing the cleanest clothes Gareth could remember seeing, but it had been a long few days. The doctor gave Reeve a quizzical smile and spread his arms out.

“What’s all this?”

Reeve rubbed at his head. “Long story?” He extended his right hand to Reeve, shaking his head. When he took his hand to shake it, the man pulled him in for a shoulder thumping hug. Reeve chuckled a little, relaxing.

“It’s good to see you.” He moved to hold Reeve by the shoulders out at arm’s length. “But someone’s been knocking you around. Most of you.” He looked around at them, eyes hovering over Alex and Hannah. “You can tell me on the way. How big do you think my car is, anyway?”

“We can squeeze.”

They did. They stuck Alex with laying across three of their laps in the back seat because he weighed about seven pounds, as far as Gareth was concerned. Reeve filled Jonathan in on what had happened and introduced them all. Gareth was a little relieved at this, since he much preferred it when strangers didn’t know the intimate details of his life.

Jonathan drove them through the city. As late as it was, the streets were still bustling. Loads of street vendors, some in crazy costumes, hocked their wares to drunk tourists. The main strip was lined with towering resort hotels lit with colorful lights, and shaggy-headed palms along the beach. Jonathan lived in a twenty-odd story apartment building in a wealthy looking neighborhood not far from the main throughway. He pulled into a blocky parking garage.

“Is it going to be a problem that we look like we got into a prize fight?”

“It’s a resort town and I’m a doctor. Shouldn’t be.” It didn’t sound like much comfort to Gareth. They grabbed their bags and took the elevator up. They didn’t end up passing many people in the hallways, but Reeve motioned for them to stay quiet anyway until they had all gotten inside. The apartment was richly furnished and he wondered if Alyosha was pissed he had gotten stuck with a place in Beatty. Gareth knew he would be.

“Shower,” Alex breathed. He pulled his hair out of the messy ponytail it had been piled up in, but it stayed vaguely in the same shape. “Do you have one?”

“Do I need to check that arm first?” he asked, glancing at Reeve.

“It can wait an hour,” Alex said, picking his bag back up. “I’m gross. You don’t want anything to do with this whole area yet.”

“Through there,” Jonathan smiled politely. Alex shuffled off sluggishly.

Jonathan watched him. “Your student?”

“Jon,” Reeve let out a long, heavy breath.

He put up a hand to stop him. “Let me see the damage.”

Both Gareth and Reeve pointed to Hannah right off. She hopped up on the table without complaining, which worried Gareth all on its own. He and Alyosha settled their things into the guest room while Jonathan unpacked his medical bag. Gareth came back into the room in time to hear him hiss through his teeth, seeing the state of Hannah’s wound. He examined it for a moment then looked up at Reeve.

“Is anyone else hiding anything this bad?”

Reeve shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Good, because you’re going to have to wait.”

Hannah sighed and pulled her t-shirt all the way off and laid down with it bunched up under her head like a pillow. The bruises under her eyes were new and tired. Gareth pulled a chair to sit by Hannah’s head and brushed hair out of her face. “You’re a jerk,” she smiled, grimacing as the doctor washed out the cut.

“What the hell did I do?”

“Eh, you’re just you.”

“You’re not going to like it,” the doctor said without stopping his work, “but I need to pack this.”

Gareth could see Hannah swallow. “If that’s what it sounds like, can there be meds involved?”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yes, of course.” He went into his bag and pulled out a couple bottles, waffling between two before deciding on the left. “Antibiotics, of course, and I think a fair number of you will be wanting these painkillers as well for the night.” He dropped the pills into Hannah’s hand and held out two more to Reeve. He jerked his head to the side.

“No,” he said. “I don’t—telepaths can’t tolerate sedatives.”

“That’s inconvenient.” He took his time preparing his tools, keeping an eye on Hannah as her eyes slowly went glassy. He raised an eyebrow, looking at the thick ring of scar tissue on Gareth’s arm. “That must have hurt,” he commented dryly.

“Yeah,” was all he offered, shooting Reeve a look. To his credit Jonathan didn’t say anything further about it. He didn’t seem like a bad guy or anything, but for people who had been fairly isolated for so many years it was uncomfortable to see strangers consider Reeve a friend. He caught Reeve looking at him, probably hearing all of this, and scowled. Gareth watched the doctor work as he carefully prodded lengths of wet gauze with a swab, disappearing under angry red skin.

“Distract me here, doc,” Hannah said, slurring a little. “This doesn’t feel great and it’s just plain freaky.” She gestured with her hand and Gareth caught at it, holding it gently to keep her from accidentally smacking the doctor or her wound. “How long ago did Reeve kidnap you?”

“He didn’t kidnap me.” He laughed a little under his breath. “He was much more pleasant than the other telepaths from your company. It was about two years ago. My options were pretty lousy and doctors are badly needed in this part of the world. Plus I’m not sure if you noticed, but this has got to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.”

“I did notice,” she said sincerely. Alex chose then to wander out of the bathroom, rubbing at his head with a towel, his right arm out of its grimy sling and tucked gingerly close to his side. He stopped dead, seeing the doctor inserting gauze into Hannah.

“Holy hell-fuck!” His head snapped back and forth looking at Hannah and Reeve. “Should he be doing that? That doesn’t seem like a doctor thing to do!”

“I’m fine,” Hannah drawled. “It’s to get rid of the gross.”

“That’s actually accurate,” Jonathan said without looking up.

Alex hesitated, then hopped onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar. “If I’m ever that gross, just shoot me.”

“Okay,” Hannah exhaled, closing her eyes.

Jonathan smiled thinly, concentrating. “How long were you planning to be here?”

Gareth watched Reeve turn to look at Alyosha on the couch. He’d fallen asleep with his chin cradled in his hand.

“We were hoping to be out of your hair tomorrow night, once Shvedov had gotten some rest.”

“It might be longer than that, depending on how this thing looks in the morning.”

“I figured.”

“Beach!” Alex all but shouted.

“No,” Reeve said flatly.

“Well, if we’re just sitting here.”

“We’re in hiding. And it’s not as if you don’t stand out…” he trailed off blankly, thinking. “We need to dye your hair back to black.”

“What?”

“You’re too recognizable.”

Alex scrunched up his face. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. It’s not like there isn’t anything else about me that stands out.” He angled his chin up, gesturing to his burn scars.

“We need to be careful,” Reeve said, voice creeping into that condescending place he seemed to default to far too often.

Alex took a breath as if to argue back, but Alyosha spoke up from the couch, his voice low from sleepiness. “Let’s figure it out in the morning. Nothing is happening tonight.”

They stood in silence for a long moment. Alex sighed and mumbled, “Fine.”

The doctor finished taping on a bandage and turned, taking off his gloves. “Let’s take a look at that shoulder,” he murmured gently.

Gareth and Reeve moved a sleeping Hannah to the other side of the couch. Dr. Mabry examined Alex and told him to keep the arm in a sling for at least a week. He cleared Reeve of any critical injury—some fractured ribs and bone bruises, but nothing he could really help with without dosing him with narcotics. Gareth left the two of them talking softly to shower and hopefully shave. They seemed safe for now.

---

SolCorp LAHQ. Neptune Department.

“Where are we?” Gerrit projected as he walked into the Retrieval office. Scott’s spine straightened instantly, sitting him up in his seat at the front Retrieval desk.

After two days, Scott was feeling hollow. He had just started his internship and nothing about his orientation had prepared him for this level of activity. He was under the impression he was going to be observing and doing gofer tasks, but the sudden crisis mode had shoved him into a more active, high-pressure role. Right now, he was on duty monitoring incoming reports from the search.

“Nothing yet, sir.” His new (extra new) boss looked even more tired than he did. He knew Gerrit had been teleporting agents all over the place to expedite the search and that took a lot out of you. Gerrit didn’t say anything else and Scott realized he was probably there to get a more detailed update than, ‘no.’ It was just him in the room. “Cindy needed to step out to take a thirty-minute nap, sir,” he stammered. “I can call her in. She’d want me to.”

“Let her sleep,” Gerrit told him. “You’ve all really stepped up and I’m grateful to every one of you.” Scott flushed at the praise, unsure of what to say, but he went on. “You know if the satellite photos I pulled of the Beatty airstrip were sent out, to give folks a sense of what we might be looking for?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright.” Gerrit took a breath and braced himself. “What have we got for numbers?”

“Uh,” he hummed, pulling up the latest reports. He suddenly worried he would sweat through his shirt. He was an intern, too low-ranked to be interacting with an officer. “It looks like we’ve cleared fifty-six airports so far.”

Gerrit sat on the edge of the desk. “That feels low for the number of teams we’ve pulled in.”

Scott had no context. He only had the numbers on the screen. “Cindy keeps saying that people have to sleep, sir. And at that rate, they’ll still have searched every airport in South America by the end of the week.”

“How many airports do you think there are in South America?” he asked, cocking his head.

Scott squinted and looked toward the ceiling. He’d looked it up at the beginning of his shift. “Four hundred something?”

Gerrit blew out a breath through pursed lips. “Commercial airports, sure, but these guys aren’t going to be flying into LaGuardia. I’m talking local airstrips, little straight-away pieces of land just big enough for hobbyists and folks who take tourists for a spin.”

His stomach dropped. “I’m not sure, sir.”

He grimaced showing his teeth in a way that made Scott feel less like he was being scrutinized and more like Gerrit was in this with them. “It’s closer to 10,000. We need to be hustling and that fifty-six number feels slower than it ought to be. Any idea what the hold up is?”

He opened his mouth then hesitated. On one hand, he wasn’t sure what information he was authorized to spill. On the other hand, his division head was directly asking.

Gerrit got off the desk and went around to sit at a chair beside him. “I need your help here. I know this is a shitty situation, but it’s what we’ve got. This isn’t ego, this is about the student. He’s your age, right?”

He had been desperately trying not to think about it. And when he ultimately failed at that, trying to train his mind to redact his name. Forget it entirely, like he was supposed to. It was Scott’s first Icarus-related assignment and he just happened to know one of their names. They’d never met, but Anise used to tell Scott that the three of them should get together when they’d graduated. They were the three with the unexplained knack deviations. Lee used to say Al—45C was just as up for breaking rules as he was, which made Scott cringe, thinking about what it would be like to be in a room with both of them at once. The rule-breaking comment had been funny then. Less so, now.

Scott nodded. “We were both part of the Venus Twenty-five.”

His eyebrows rose. “I didn’t realize.” He waited silently for Scott to return to the original question.

Scott bit his lip. “Will spent a lot of his career in South America, so most of the teams down there that we’ve activated were mentored by him.”

“Sure.”

He looked to the side thinking of the wording of the reports, the tone when he’d taken calls. “Well, they’re…having trouble adjusting.”

The pain on Gerrit’s face was palpable. Scott hadn’t been in the office long enough or had any direct interactions with Will to form any sort of allegiance that could be bruised by his ousting. That wasn’t the case with most agents.

“Politics,” he sighed. “What should I expect?” he asked, softer. “Complaints to Neptune? Dragging their feet? Straight up refusals?”

Scott balked at the idea of a Neptune agent refusing to follow an order, but his foster team had always told him that he could be naive, expecting everyone to act in accordance with what was right. He lowered his brow. “I’d like to think they won’t let it adversely affect the mission.”

Gerrit nodded. “But?

In his mind, he matched the voices that carried resentment in their tones with the missing slots on the spreadsheets. Scott grimaced at his computer screen. “But there are half a dozen teams who haven’t been reporting since yesterday.”

He braced himself for an outburst, but he recognized Gerrit was taking calming breaths. His foster team had taught him some for his own moments when he’d like nothing more than to yell—but replacing windows was expensive, so self-control was a big one for sonic screamers.

“Are they still working?”

He bit his tongue on an, ‘I don’t know.’ He needed to do better than that. Fast as he could, he pulled up the historical data of the GPS vehicle tags for the teams who’d gone quiet. There was still movement comparable to the others.

“It appears so, sir.”

Rubbing at his face, Gerrit composed himself. “You’ve been reading their reports? Listening to what’s said on the radio? What’s going to do the least damage? Reaching out to these teams to let them know how much I respect Will? Or give them space?”

“I don’t think I’m qualified to answer that, sir. I’m just an intern.” Scott did his best to pull his eyebrows down to the neutral mission expression.

Gerrit regarded him. “You’ve been at this desk for what? Six? Eight hours? I haven’t. I’m just asking your opinion.”

Scott hadn’t expected to feel so nauseous starting his internship. He pushed through the urge to hesitate or stutter. “There was chatter that they don’t want you so involved. Probably giving them a bit of space is less likely to breed more resentment? But I just got here. You should probably ask Cindy.”

“I will. Okay. They’ve got five days until I step in. Can you put out a notice that stresses the need to check small, local airstrips?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Cocking his head, he asked, “What do you want from your career? Do you want to work admin or do you want to be on a team?”

He thought of his foster team and each time he did, it made him miss them. “I want to be on a team, sir. I’ve been shadowing.”

“I thought so. You have that look to you. When you’re in the field, just remember, we’re all on the same side.”

Scott held his eyes, pride burning in his chest. “Yes, sir.”

With a kind smile, he started out the door, calling behind him. “Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate all this. I’ll man the desk tonight so you and Cindy can get some rest. We’re behind the eight ball here, but we can still make this shot.”

The head of Retrieval remembered his name. Scott blinked at that. But more importantly, Scott believed him. They could do it. Of course, they could. They were Neptune. They’d bring 45C home safe.

***