Sunset Volume 2: High Noon

Original Version.

Natal, Brazil.

As they approached, Hal saw Jonah raise his hands above his head and he bit his lip on a smile and did the same. The Sol agent was not expecting that at all. He and Jonah did their best to keep the Sol presence in their area down, but it'd been quiet for a while. Not that it was ever too quiet, living with Jonah. He liked being stationed in South America with an Elder for a partner for that reason. Kept his life interesting in his downtime.

But then there's this Sol agent—Neptune, from the look of his bulky uniform and excessive weapons—standing out in the open with this house lit up like a beacon.

Hal kicked at the dirt with one hip cocked out, waiting on Jonah's lead. The Sol agent stepped down onto the trunk, weapon aimed. His face was the absolute picture of confusion and Hal couldn't hold back his grin any longer. He dropped his hands to an apologetic shrug and the agent fired. The impact vibrated through his body as his kinetic absorption powers kicked in. The force and momentum of the bullets ripped through his shirt, stalled against his skin, and then transferred through it, leaving now harmless lumps of lead to drop, inert, onto the ground. That flesh-ripping speed transmitted into his body and raced through his muscles like a tightening guitar string. Hal pulled at the hem of his tattered shirt, shaking loose the spent slugs. The door to the house swung open and banged on its hinges as two more Sol agents burst out. And now it started in earnest.

Jonah's arm shot out and he wrapped one hand around the first agent's calf and squeezed. It made a sound that used to remind Hal of his mom prepping vegetables for Thanksgiving dinner (twisting celery, snapping carrots) but by now, it only reminded him of work. Jonah yanked, and the agent was flung off the trunk of the car with a yell and another sputtering of unaimed gunfire. His leg bent sideways, pinched in like a drinking straw where Jonah was gripping his shin, ankle pressed flush to the side of his knee. He landed hard and stayed put.

The other agents opened fire. In the bright light, Hal watched several bullets rip through his partner, though he healed so quickly, you really had to look closely to see them hit him at all. More hit Hal too, coming to a dead stop before they so much as bruised him. Shaking with borrowed inertia, he started off toward the house. One agent, after pumping a few more rounds into him, adding fuel to the fire, finally realized how pointless that was. He raised an arm and Hal was sent off his feet, high into the air, before being slammed down onto the ground. He absorbed the impact and lay where he landed, taking a few breaths and adjusting to all the kinetic energy he contained.

Jonah was bored with the unconscious agent by the car and turned to the others. He was an old-fashioned guy and liked to go for the women first. As Hal pulled himself to his feet, he watched the telekinetic raise his arm again, but Jonah was fast—impossibly fast. Before the agent could try to lift Jonah's surprising bulk, he had taken an elbow to the stomach with enough force to knock him to his knees, heaving. The woman emptied the last of her clip into Jonah, backing up, but Jonah hardly noticed, reaching for her. Her body lit up with electricity and Jonah threw himself off of her, shaking his arm, surprised. Hal had reached them and he stood over the male agent, watching him as he fought his way to his feet. Jonah's mouth was set in a grim line, but he could see from the gleam in his eye that he was enjoying the play. He doubted the girl could see it, but it didn't actually matter. Jonah backhanded her with a crack that knocked her down. The agent launched himself at Hal, who, with a breathtaking release of tension, shoved his spread palm against the agent's chest with a satisfying crunch, throwing him backward off the ground with all the pent up force of twenty gunshots set loose through Hal's arm. His back hit the side of the house. The sound it made was wet. He flopped to the ground and the girl cried out. Hal looked down at him. The back of his skull was flattened, and his ribcage, where it previously had narrowed by the waist, was spread out like the skinny bodies of roadkill frogs made wide against the pavement.

Jonah grabbed the girl again and she kicked out. The force of her kick reverberated back down her leg. Kicking one of the Elders was like kicking a brick wall (a brick wall that wanted to eat you). He saw her realize what he was, as the muscles in her face froze in fear. She electrocuted him again, making him drop her arm. Jonah punched her in the temple with a closed fist and, with a grunt, she hit the ground hard. Jonah looked at Hal and then at the dead agent.

"Sorry," Hal shrugged. "I forgot the building was brick and not wood. Figured he'd just blow through some boards."

Jonah shrugged back and placed one foot in the center of the girl's chest, pinning her down. He grabbed her left arm and began to rotate it backwards over her head. To the woman's credit, it was only at that point that she started screaming, which Hal found commendable. He had watched men snap from less. Still, she was trying to fight. But Jonah's leg was an immovable force. When she screamed, her voice was higher pitched than he had expected, and he imagined it carrying across the plain, people lying awake in their beds listening. With a grisly pop, Jonah gave her arm one last yank and it slid, detached, out of her sleeve, like snaking lobster meat out of the shell. Jonah dropped it and leaned down to tear her shirt open and expose the red circle of raw meat. An arterial gush spouted to that most human of rhythms from what was left of her shoulder. Her screams were mixed with coughing, now. He lifted her into the air, like you'd lift something feather-light, and pressed his open mouth to the spot where her arm used to be. Her screaming stopped soon after. Not long after that, Jonah started chewing.

Hal heard the first agent wake up. He figured he must be a healer, because he was able to limp on the rubbery new shin bones of his shattered leg.

"Get away from her!" he screamed, leaning on the butt of the semi-auto, blood on his face from his rough landing. Hal strolled over to him, hands in his pockets.

"That's sweet, but she's gone." Hal leaned down closer to the man's level as he hunched over. The anguish on his face was perfect. A yell came out of him as he launched himself at Hal, desperate and pained. Hal wished he could tattoo that sound on his body. He couldn't help but laugh as he took the blows and threw the agent to the ground, getting in a swift kick to one ear.

Jonah was on his way over. Halfway there, he dropped the girl. She crumpled stiffly. He'd eaten his way to expose the white line of her collar bone. Hal stepped back. Always best to stay out of the space between him and what he wanted. The agent, shaking, pulled himself to his feet in front of Jonah, a long boot knife in his hand. With gritted, bared teeth, the Sol agent pushed it deep into Jonah's chest. Hal was sure he had slipped it expertly between the ribs and set it squarely in his heart. They were well trained in Neptune, but that didn't change the fact that Jonah's heart no longer had a purpose.

Jonah's skin knit and healed around the knife. The man tried to pull it out in a panic, but it was stuck fast. Jonah gripped him by the throat and hip and lifted him, horizontal, digging his mouth into a gap in his black armor by the belly. The cries lasted longer this time.

Hal thought about monsters in movies. The pointed fingernails, the long canine fangs. The identifiable markers that were supposedly necessary to prey on humans, that separated humans from monsters. None of it was true. Jonah didn't have sharp fangs or claws. Sure, he was pale, but in these times of skin cancer paranoia, even that was rarely worth a second glance anymore.

All Jonah had was brute strength and need. The catalyst to the first act of human violence: one hungry man wielding a rock. Strength and need. A natural combination that had been gifted to a blessed few in great, inhuman capacity.

Hal dusted sand off his pants. As much fun as the back country was, he missed civilization. Hands back in his pockets, he made his way to the still lit house. He hoped there was something interesting to do inside. Jonah was going to be at it for a while.

---

SolCorp Pharmaceutical's Kyiv Office. Dining Hall.

Anise sat at an empty table in the dining hall and tried to calm the nerves that jangled around in her chest. She'd had butterflies since getting a note that she'd be having lunch with Mark, the head of Kyiv's Mercury division. He was both the highest ranked person she'd ever met and the strongest telepath she'd ever met, so if she was going to get anywhere close to her goals in the company, it was important she stayed in good standing. She'd chosen to wear a navy blue, Saturn-branded, long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans, resisting the urge to dress up for his station.

"You're early," came Mark's voice from behind her, making her jump. Unlike other telepaths she'd known, she couldn't feel the presence of his telepathy approaching her. She couldn't sense the edges of it because it seemed to encompass the entire building.

Anise glanced at the clock as she turned. "So are you." She didn't stand to address him, and the tension in the corners of his mouth told her that he liked that she hadn't. Anise liked that he didn't subconsciously leer at her the way most men did, no matter their age. As a telepath whose minimal strength lay in detecting thoughts, she was more than a little sick of the things that happened in men's minds when she was simply trying to have a conversation with them. She supposed with the strength of his telepathy, he could be hiding it, but that wasn't the impression she got.

"Let's go," he said instead of sitting.

She stood, then. "I thought we were getting lunch."

"We are. Out."

Anise raised her eyebrows and followed him to the front doors. She kept forgetting that as an agent in post-grad training, she could leave the building whenever she wanted.

"I didn't bring my wallet or anything," she told him as they got to the doors.

He grinned at her, eyes a little wicked. "Me neither."

A car was waiting for them out front and it drove them to a cafe across town. He was silent in the car so she followed his lead, taking the time to watch the city and all its people fly past them.

When they finally sat at a little table in the restaurant, Mark began. "You don't have to be nervous. I'm invested in you doing well here."

She held his eyes, barely having glanced at the menu. (She knew she'd be ordering the second thing on the menu, no matter what it was—a trick they'd taught her to free up attention when engaging in Saturn work in such settings.) "Why?"

Mark brushed off her eye contact and flipped through the menu. "You have amazing potential. Once we get your knack up to snuff, you could be the perfect Saturn agent."

It should have made her glow, but she was, so far, an incomplete package. She'd detected no change in her telepathy after her first calibration—there wasn't supposed to be, but she'd been hoping anyway. "Can I ask what a Mercury officer knows about being an intelligence agent without overstepping?"

"Possibly, but it won't be easy," Mark replied without looking up.

Anise bit her lip and opened her mouth to reply, trying to choose her words wisely, but Mark held up a hand to stop her.

"I'm kidding. A thing I hope you learn about me quickly is that I have no tolerance for bullshit." He looked at her finally. "I'm not going to tell you to trust me because I don't believe in it. But I will tell you that I know what I'm looking for, and you have everything except for power. And that, we can fix."

She nodded, feeling out of her depth. The fix could kill her, they'd said. It didn't matter. And she did trust him, for some reason. "I'll do what I need to, sir."

"Drop the 'sir.' I don't want that from you."

She flinched at his harsh tone, but then the server arrived and they ordered. Her Ukrainian was rough and she had to substitute a couple of words for Russian, but she made herself understood.

"So," Mark said, sitting back. "How are you feeling after your first calibration?"

She shrugged. "Achey. A little off, but it will be worth it."

"There's something you want to ask me."

She looked away for a moment. She hadn't intended to let that leak through, but there was no hiding anything in this telepathic field. "Where are the other students? I heard there was one before me."

"You heard wrong."

Anise was surprised by how little he was trying to hide the tone in his voice marking this statement as a lie. As much as he seemed to value nerve, there was nothing about his voice that made her think he was someone to push. She went a different, more direct route. "What is the Academy Pilot Program? It can't be to graduate all your students and stick them into their departments."

"No, you're a special case." Mark examined the nails on one hand. "Anise, what are the benefits of being gen'ed into Sol?"

It wasn't something she'd ever really considered before. She looked up into a middle space as she answered. "Well, we never want for shelter, food, community, purpose, money, medical care, or protection. There's no promise of that for civilians."

"And what would you say are the injustices?" He said it lightly, giving it an informal air.

Anise balked and her stomach turned. "Hypothetically?"

"Sure." His lips quirked.

She took a moment to think, letting the sounds of the people around her sharpen her mind. She looked at them and compared her life to theirs.

"Choice," she settled on, finally. "No one chooses to be born, but ignoring certain levels of socioeconomic restrictions, civilians can choose what they want to do with their lives. They can choose to move wherever they want. Marry. Have kids. And even if they hate their careers, they had a hand in shaping it and they have the choice to leave it. When you're in Sol, you do what Sol orders. You can make requests, but they're just requests. We can't leave Sol." She swallowed. It felt wrong to say.

Mark nodded. "What if there was a middle ground? The Pilot Program isn't really for the Academy, though it's part of it. What if agents could have more normal lives, if that's what they wanted? It would give them more control and save Sol an unbelievable amount of money."

"How does that possibly save Sol money?"

"It costs an unfathomable amount of money to keep Sol running as it is now. Take Moon agents. They have one, maybe two assignments per month. The rest of the time, they need to be housed and fed and paid for just a couple of days' work. What if instead, agents lived out in the world, wherever they wanted, doing whatever they wanted, and supported themselves. Sol would supplement their income, of course, but at a fraction of what they'd normally pay. Then a couple times a month, as needed, they'd be flown in for a job."

Unable to fight the impulse, she glanced around the restaurant to see if they were being watched. "Isn't that an exposure nightmare?"

"Saturn agents do it all the time, don't they? There are thousands of Saturn agents living among humans and holding down jobs all across the globe at any given moment."

That was an angle she that had never crossed her mind for some reason. She had been training her whole life to live undetected among civilians. Anise shifted in her seat, fighting an urge to excuse herself. "It still sounds a little crazy."

"It certainly wouldn't work for all agents," he admitted, "but that's why we're piloting it on a very small scale."

It was hard to argue that. "Well, part time is not what I want."

"Good, that's not why you're here. And anyway, that's the core of it, isn't it? Choice."

They ate while exchanging small talk. He kept the subject on her, which she didn't fail to notice but also didn't push. She spoke about LAHQ Academy, about being out in the world, about being impatient to get into the field.

When they were done, Mark dropped his napkin onto the table. "Now," he said with a smirk. "Make our waitress think our bill's been paid."

She tried to hold back a nervous laugh. "I can't."

"Try."

So she did. Anise spotted their server in the cafe and pinpointed her mind with an effort. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, Anise pushed, trying to insert the new narrative. All the while, she could feel the cold glare of Mark's observance and it made her sweat. Her temples began to pound and bursts of color were going off behind her eyes as she strained. Relenting, she opened her eyes to see his expression. To her surprise his face showed kindness along with disappointment, when she was only expecting the latter.

"You're holding back. You're worried you'll blow your cover or hurt her."

She swallowed. "Yeah."

"You won't. She isn't one of your teachers. Civilians can't recognize what telepaths feel like, so don't worry about stealth. She'll never notice you and you don't have the power to hurt her anyway. Let loose."

Shaking herself off and a little stung, Anise tried again. Closing her eyes, she narrowed her entire focus to their server and threw all her covert tactics out the window. But still, nothing about the woman's head seemed to change. Mark's mind suddenly spilled over into Anise's head, filling it to the brim in a dizzying rush of pressure.

Let loose, he thought to her and did something that upended her internal bearings. She felt as if he'd canceled her own internal gravity and her telepathy flowed out of her in a way she couldn't stop. The only thing she could do was try to shape it, focusing on their server and the image of a stack of cash laid on top of their bill. Something clicked and she opened her eyes.

As if called, the server walked to their table and picked up their untouched bill. She thanked them and walked away.

Whatever Mark had done, he undid it, and her runaway telepathy went back to normal, quieting to a whisper.

"Better," Mark said, standing up.

"What did you do?" she asked, breathless.

"Got you out of your own way. I'll show you how later. Come on, I have a meeting."

She scrambled to catch up with him and found him standing by the car, holding the door open for her. She got in and he went around the other side to join her. "Thank you," she said simply.

He had a smug look on his face. "After your Post Breathe, you're going to be a force of nature."

---

Natal, Brazil.

Hannah practically needed Gareth to hold her back, making all of them wait several minutes after the Entropy agents had walked back down the driveway and after they watched the headlights of their car wind away into the night. Next to her, Reeve still had his hands cupped and sealed around his nose and mouth, forcing himself not to hyperventilate. Gareth's face was blank and distant. She couldn't sense their energies. She realized she couldn't sense her own. Everything was a little numb and the silence was much too loud. She let herself become visible, as if that might help.

Finally after what felt like an hour, Gareth let out a long breath through his nose and said, "Okay." His voice at normal volume was jarring.

"Can I let him know it's over?" Reeve asked him, tapping a finger to his forehead and pointing toward the car. Gareth looked around, trying to see through trees and hills, and nodded. They stood up stiffly and pushed their way through tangled weeds and low palms.

Growing up in training for Sol's Mars Department, Hannah had seen some things. Nothing like this, but she knew death. As they came out into the clearing, there was this sweet smell that hung over the whole area. It was almost greasy as it hit the throat, but the closer they got, the more that smell was covered up by the scent of spilled bowel. It stopped them in their tracks for a moment. The dead agents by the house were between them and the car.

She had never seen bodies like that: the sort of thing you'd expect from a body preyed on by a pack of wild dogs. She could see bones lined with shredded strips of gristle. (She couldn't think of it as ligaments. Humans had ligaments. Meat had gristle. Meat was easier to walk by.) The woman's chest cavity was open and empty, and there was nothing left of her face but red and teeth in the floodlight's glare. The man hadn't been touched. His body was not quite the right shape anymore from blunt force, but he still looked like a person. Hannah held her breath and locked the muscles in her throat closed to keep from vomiting. Reeve was pale.

"He's picky," Gareth said, sounding taken aback. The last thing Hannah wanted to do was open her mouth to speak. He pointed to the woman's arm, torn off, sitting in the dirt uneaten. "Look." There was a bloody strip of bandage tied around her bicep. "He won't eat damaged flesh."

Shaking his head, Reeve turned to walk around the gore and Hannah quickly turned to follow him. Her own body had forgotten that it could possibly move until seeing him break away. The two of them moved at a run.

"Alex, it's us!" she shouted. There was thumping coming from inside the trunk when they got there. Another agent was slit open on the ground to the right of the car. A portion of his face and one eye was left, but his legs were gnawed down to his femurs and there was a pile of discarded intestines. Hannah caught this at a glance while running to the driver's side to pop the trunk. She would process that later.

"Hannah!" His voice, muffled from the trunk, felt like a fist squeezing her heart.

"One more second!" Reeve yelled back, tapping the top of the hood. She hit the release and ran to the back of the car as Reeve was throwing the lid up. Alex whooped a deep breath and hooked his tied hands over the side of the trunk, hauling himself over the edge. Reeve caught him by the shoulders and carefully set his bound feet on the ground. Alex's cuffed hands were folded and crushed up against his chest and he buried his face into whatever part of Reeve he could find. Hannah got her arms around the both of them. He didn't seem to be hurt too badly, from what she could tell. At some point, Gareth had managed to get past the other bodies, putting a hand on top of Alex's head and another around Hannah's shoulders. Alex was crying, but so was Hannah, so that was all right.

Against her chest, Hannah could feel Alex's muscles tense. He sniffed and made a sound.

"Oh god, what the fuck is that?" He lifted his forehead to look around, but Reeve shook his head quickly and brought up a hand to shield Alex's eyes.

"Maybe don't," Reeve blurted. "You don't want to." Hannah moved back to give Alex space—she could feel him getting more wound up.

"Stop it," he said. He batted at Reeve's hand, his face tense and pinched. Relenting, Reeve stepped away and locked eyes with Hannah, not sure what else to do. She heard instead of saw Alex register the agent beside the car. There was a pause and a deep guttural squelch. Hannah leaned forward to catch Alex's hair as he pitched over, sick and heaving onto the dirt. She held his hair up and rubbed the spot between his shoulder blades while he wretched. When there was a break and Alex was just hung over at the waist, spitting, Reeve ushered him away out of sight of the body.

"Come on, let's sit in the car for a second." They helped him keep his balance as Alex obediently shuffled his hobbled feet over to the front of the car and plopped down on the edge of the driver's seat.

He looked up at them and in a quiet voice said, "Jonathan." His palms and fingers were scratched up, probably from beating on the inside of the trunk, and the metal restraints had worn his wrists raw. He kept twisting at them absentmindedly, trying to work his hands out.

"I know," Reeve said softly and turned to Hannah. "Can you check the car for something we can pick these cuffs with?" She nodded. Reeve squatted down in front of Alex, one thumb moving back and forth on Alex's shin. She got in on the other side to rummage through the glove box.

"Who did that?" Alex croaked.

"Not us," Reeve answered hurriedly. "It was Entropy." He hesitated.

"I heard screaming," he said simply, staring at his shoes.

"You did great keeping quiet. You really did."

Alex squirmed and she could hear the clanking of metal. "Can we please get these off?" Alex shouted, panicking.

There wasn't anything useful in the glovebox. "I'll check the house," she told Reeve. Hannah got out again and walked around the front of the car, steeling herself to go past the other agents.

Gareth, standing a bit away from the group, called out, "One of them has the keys." That hadn't even occurred to her. No one moved or answered. Gareth made his way to the body next to the car. She didn't look and no one spoke. She thought she would get used to the smell here. People acclimate to so many things until they barely notice them. This wasn't like that. It was as if, somewhere deep in the primal branch of her brainstem, it was encoded to panic at the scent of human insides. A base impulse to get away, to run.

Gareth came back, but didn't come too close. His hands were dark in the harsh light as he held something up and nodded to her. He tossed the key ring and she bent to catch it. The keys were tacky but she didn't have any clothes to wipe them off on, so she handed them to Reeve as they were. Gareth knelt down, rubbing sand over his hands, scouring off the blood and mire.

"Easy," Reeve said, trying to fit the right key in the lock as Alex fidgeted. He uncuffed his hands and then his legs. Suddenly free, Alex curled even farther into himself, holding his bad arm with the other. He was sweating and his teeth were chattering.

"Can we get out of here?" Alex's voice was raised and sharp. "I want to go."

"Yeah," Reeve said, chafing his shoulders as if he were cold. "Gareth, think it's safe to walk back along the road?"

Gareth turned to look to where they had come from, past the house and the other agents on the ground and then to the street, looking for headlights, probably. Hannah could see every muscle in his body was fighting him. "Sure," he said, finally. It wasn't what he wanted to say.

"Alyosha!" Alex said, eyes wide and red-rimmed.

"He'll be okay," she said quickly. "Let's go see him, huh?"

Alex nodded mutely and let the two of them stand him up and lead him toward the road. He was limping and swallowing tears.

"Close your eyes," Reeve told him as they neared the Neptune agent by the car.

"No," he said quietly, his jaw clenched and shaking, but he kept looking straight ahead. Hannah couldn't. She took another look at him as they passed, and then at Gareth. He was looking straight ahead too.

***

Censored Version.

Natal, Brazil.

As they approached, Hal saw Jonah raise his hands above his head and he bit his lip on a smile and did the same. The Sol agent was not expecting that at all. He and Jonah did their best to keep the Sol presence in their area down, but it’d been quiet for a while. Not that it was ever too quiet, living with Jonah. He liked being stationed in South America with an Elder for a partner for that reason. Kept his life interesting in his downtime.

But then there’s this Sol agent—Neptune, from the look of his bulky uniform and excessive weapons—standing out in the open with this house lit up like a beacon.

Hal kicked at the dirt with one hip cocked out, waiting on Jonah’s lead. The Sol agent stepped down onto the trunk, weapon aimed. His face was the absolute picture of confusion and Hal couldn’t hold back his grin any longer. He dropped his hands to an apologetic shrug and the agent fired. The impact vibrated through his body as his kinetic absorption powers kicked in. The force and momentum of the bullets ripped through his shirt, stalled against his skin, and then transferred through it, leaving now harmless lumps of lead to drop, inert, onto the ground. That flesh-ripping speed transmitted into his body and raced through his muscles like a tightening guitar string. Hal pulled at the hem of his tattered shirt, shaking loose the spent slugs. The door to the house swung open and banged on its hinges as two more Sol agents burst out. And now it started in earnest.

Jonah’s arm shot out and he wrapped one hand around the first agent’s calf and squeezed. It made a sound that used to turn Hal’s stomach, but now, it only reminded him of work. Jonah yanked, and the agent was flung off the trunk of the car with a yell and another sputtering of unaimed gunfire. His leg bent sideways, pinched in like a drinking straw where Jonah was gripping his shin, ankle pressed flush to the side of his knee. He landed hard and stayed put.

The other agents opened fire. In the bright light, Hal watched several bullets rip through his partner, though he healed so quickly, you really had to look closely to see them hit him at all. More hit Hal too, coming to a dead stop before they so much as bruised him. Shaking with borrowed inertia, he started off toward the house. One agent, after pumping a few more rounds into him, adding fuel to the fire, finally realized how pointless that was. He raised an arm and Hal was sent off his feet, high into the air, before being slammed down onto the ground. He absorbed the impact and lay where he landed, taking a few breaths and adjusting to all the kinetic energy he contained.

Jonah was bored with the unconscious agent by the car and turned to the others. He was an old-fashioned guy and liked to go for the women first. As Hal pulled himself to his feet, he watched the telekinetic raise his arm again, but Jonah was fast—impossibly fast. Before the agent could try to lift Jonah’s surprising bulk, he had taken an elbow to the stomach with enough force to knock him to his knees, heaving. The woman emptied the last of her clip into Jonah, backing up, but Jonah hardly noticed, reaching for her. Her body lit up with electricity and Jonah threw himself off of her, shaking his arm, surprised. Hal had reached them and he stood over the male agent, watching him as he fought his way to his feet. Jonah’s mouth was set in a grim line, but he could see from the gleam in his eye that he was enjoying the play. He doubted the girl could see it, but it didn’t actually matter. Jonah backhanded her with a crack that knocked her down. The agent launched himself at Hal, who, with a breathtaking release of tension, shoved his spread palm against the agent’s chest with a satisfying crunch, throwing him backward off the ground with all the pent up force of twenty gunshots set loose through Hal’s arm. His back hit the side of the house. He flopped to the ground and the girl cried out. Hal looked down at him. His body was broken, spread out like the skinny bodies of roadkill frogs made wide against the pavement.

Jonah grabbed the girl again and she kicked out. The force of her kick reverberated back down her leg. Kicking one of the Elders was like kicking a brick wall (a brick wall that wanted to eat you). He saw her realize what he was, as the muscles in her face froze in fear. She electrocuted him again, making him drop her arm. Jonah punched her in the temple with a closed fist and, with a grunt, she hit the ground hard. Jonah looked at Hal and then at the dead agent.

“Sorry,” Hal shrugged. “I forgot the building was brick and not wood. Figured he’d just blow through some boards.”

Jonah shrugged back and placed one foot in the center of the girl’s chest, pinning her down. He grabbed her left arm and began to rotate it backwards over her head. To the woman’s credit, it was only at that point that she started screaming, which Hal found commendable. He had watched men snap from less. Still, she was trying to fight. But Jonah’s leg was an immovable force. When she screamed, her voice was higher pitched than he had expected, and he imagined it carrying across the plain, people lying awake in their beds listening. With a yank, Jonah ripped her arm off, dropped it, and leaned down to expose her bleeding shoulder. Her screams were mixed with coughing, now. He lifted her into the air, like you’d lift something feather-light, and pressed his open mouth to the spot where her arm used to be. Her screaming stopped soon after. Not long after that, Jonah started chewing.

Hal heard the first agent wake up. He figured he must be a healer, because he was able to limp on the rubbery new shin bones of his shattered leg.

“Get away from her!” he screamed, leaning on the butt of the semi-auto, blood on his face from his rough landing. Hal strolled over to him, hands in his pockets.

“That’s sweet, but she’s gone.” Hal leaned down closer to the man’s level as he hunched over. The anguish on his face was perfect. A yell came out of him as he launched himself at Hal, desperate and pained. Hal wished he could tattoo that sound on his body. He couldn’t help but laugh as he took the blows and threw the agent to the ground, getting in a swift kick to one ear.

Jonah was on his way over. Halfway there, he dropped the girl. She crumpled stiffly. He’d eaten his way to expose the white line of her collar bone. Hal stepped back. Always best to stay out of the space between him and what he wanted. The agent, shaking, pulled himself to his feet in front of Jonah, a long boot knife in his hand. With gritted, bared teeth, the Sol agent pushed it deep into Jonah’s chest. Hal was sure he had slipped it expertly between the ribs and set it squarely in his heart. They were well trained in Neptune, but that didn’t change the fact that Jonah’s heart no longer had a purpose.

Jonah’s skin knit and healed around the knife. The man tried to pull it out in a panic, but it was stuck fast. Jonah gripped him by the throat and hip and lifted him, horizontal, digging his mouth into a gap in his black armor by the belly. The cries lasted longer this time.

Hal thought about monsters in movies. The pointed fingernails, the long canine fangs. The identifiable markers that were supposedly necessary to prey on humans, that separated humans from monsters. None of it was true. Jonah didn’t have sharp fangs or claws. Sure, he was pale, but in these times of skin cancer paranoia, even that was rarely worth a second glance anymore.

All Jonah had was brute strength and need. The catalyst to the first act of human violence: one hungry man wielding a rock. Strength and need. A natural combination that had been gifted to a blessed few in great, inhuman capacity.

Hal dusted sand off his pants. As much fun as the back country was, he missed civilization. Hands back in his pockets, he made his way to the still lit house. He hoped there was something interesting to do inside. Jonah was going to be at it for a while.

---

SolCorp Pharmaceutical’s Kyiv Office. Dining Hall.

Anise sat at an empty table in the dining hall and tried to calm the nerves that jangled around in her chest. She’d had butterflies since getting a note that she’d be having lunch with Mark, the head of Kyiv’s Mercury division. He was both the highest ranked person she’d ever met and the strongest telepath she’d ever met, so if she was going to get anywhere close to her goals in the company, it was important she stayed in good standing. She’d chosen to wear a navy blue, Saturn-branded, long-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans, resisting the urge to dress up for his station.

“You're early,” came Mark’s voice from behind her, making her jump. Unlike other telepaths she’d known, she couldn’t feel the presence of his telepathy approaching her. She couldn't sense the edges of it because it seemed to encompass the entire building.

Anise glanced at the clock as she turned. “So are you.” She didn’t stand to address him, and the tension in the corners of his mouth told her that he liked that she hadn’t. Anise liked that he didn’t subconsciously leer at her the way most men did, no matter their age. As a telepath whose minimal strength lay in detecting thoughts, she was more than a little sick of the things that happened in men’s minds when she was simply trying to have a conversation with them. She supposed with the strength of his telepathy, he could be hiding it, but that wasn’t the impression she got.

“Let’s go,” he said instead of sitting.

She stood, then. “I thought we were getting lunch.”

“We are. Out.”

Anise raised her eyebrows and followed him to the front doors. She kept forgetting that as an agent in post-grad training, she could leave the building whenever she wanted.

“I didn’t bring my wallet or anything,” she told him as they got to the doors.

He grinned at her, eyes a little wicked. “Me neither.”

A car was waiting for them out front and it drove them to a cafe across town. He was silent in the car so she followed his lead, taking the time to watch the city and all its people fly past them.

When they finally sat at a little table in the restaurant, Mark began. “You don't have to be nervous. I’m invested in you doing well here.”

She held his eyes, barely having glanced at the menu. (She knew she’d be ordering the second thing on the menu, no matter what it was—a trick they’d taught her to free up attention when engaging in Saturn work in such settings.) “Why?”

Mark brushed off her eye contact and flipped through the menu. “You have amazing potential. Once we get your knack up to snuff, you could be the perfect Saturn agent.”

It should have made her glow, but she was, so far, an incomplete package. She’d detected no change in her telepathy after her first calibration—there wasn’t supposed to be, but she’d been hoping anyway. “Can I ask what a Mercury officer knows about being an intelligence agent without overstepping?”

“Possibly, but it won’t be easy,” Mark replied without looking up.

Anise bit her lip and opened her mouth to reply, trying to choose her words wisely, but Mark held up a hand to stop her.

“I’m kidding. A thing I hope you learn about me quickly is that I have no tolerance for bullshit.” He looked at her finally. “I’m not going to tell you to trust me because I don’t believe in it. But I will tell you that I know what I’m looking for, and you have everything except for power. And that, we can fix.”

She nodded, feeling out of her depth. The fix could kill her, they’d said. It didn’t matter. And she did trust him, for some reason. “I’ll do what I need to, sir.”

“Drop the ‘sir.’ I don’t want that from you.”

She flinched at his harsh tone, but then the server arrived and they ordered. Her Ukrainian was rough and she had to substitute a couple of words for Russian, but she made herself understood.

“So,” Mark said, sitting back. “How are you feeling after your first calibration?”

She shrugged. “Achey. A little off, but it will be worth it.”

“There’s something you want to ask me.”

She looked away for a moment. She hadn’t intended to let that leak through, but there was no hiding anything in this telepathic field. “Where are the other students? I heard there was one before me.”

“You heard wrong.”

Anise was surprised by how little he was trying to hide the tone in his voice marking this statement as a lie. As much as he seemed to value nerve, there was nothing about his voice that made her think he was someone to push. She went a different, more direct route. “What is the Academy Pilot Program? It can’t be to graduate all your students and stick them into their departments.”

“No, you’re a special case.” Mark examined the nails on one hand. “Anise, what are the benefits of being gen’ed into Sol?”

It wasn’t something she’d ever really considered before. She looked up into a middle space as she answered. “Well, we never want for shelter, food, community, purpose, money, medical care, or protection. There’s no promise of that for civilians.”

“And what would you say are the injustices?” He said it lightly, giving it an informal air.

Anise balked and her stomach turned. “Hypothetically?”

“Sure.” His lips quirked.

She took a moment to think, letting the sounds of the people around her sharpen her mind. She looked at them and compared her life to theirs.

“Choice,” she settled on, finally. “No one chooses to be born, but ignoring certain levels of socioeconomic restrictions, civilians can choose what they want to do with their lives. They can choose to move wherever they want. Marry. Have kids. And even if they hate their careers, they had a hand in shaping it and they have the choice to leave it. When you’re in Sol, you do what Sol orders. You can make requests, but they’re just requests. We can’t leave Sol.” She swallowed. It felt wrong to say.

Mark nodded. “What if there was a middle ground? The Pilot Program isn’t really for the Academy, though it’s part of it. What if agents could have more normal lives, if that’s what they wanted? It would give them more control and save Sol an unbelievable amount of money.”

“How does that possibly save Sol money?”

“It costs an unfathomable amount of money to keep Sol running as it is now. Take Moon agents. They have one, maybe two assignments per month. The rest of the time, they need to be housed and fed and paid for just a couple of days' work. What if instead, agents lived out in the world, wherever they wanted, doing whatever they wanted, and supported themselves. Sol would supplement their income, of course, but at a fraction of what they’d normally pay. Then a couple times a month, as needed, they’d be flown in for a job.”

Unable to fight the impulse, she glanced around the restaurant to see if they were being watched. “Isn’t that an exposure nightmare?”

“Saturn agents do it all the time, don’t they? There are thousands of Saturn agents living among humans and holding down jobs all across the globe at any given moment.”

That was an angle she that had never crossed her mind for some reason. She had been training her whole life to live undetected among civilians. Anise shifted in her seat, fighting an urge to excuse herself. “It still sounds a little crazy.”

“It certainly wouldn’t work for all agents,” he admitted, “but that’s why we’re piloting it on a very small scale.”

It was hard to argue that. “Well, part time is not what I want.”

“Good, that’s not why you’re here. And anyway, that’s the core of it, isn’t it? Choice.”

They ate while exchanging small talk. He kept the subject on her, which she didn’t fail to notice but also didn’t push. She spoke about LAHQ Academy, about being out in the world, about being impatient to get into the field.

When they were done, Mark dropped his napkin onto the table. “Now,” he said with a smirk. “Make our waitress think our bill’s been paid.”

She tried to hold back a nervous laugh. “I can’t.”

“Try.”

So she did. Anise spotted their server in the cafe and pinpointed her mind with an effort. Squeezing her eyes shut tight, Anise pushed, trying to insert the new narrative. All the while, she could feel the cold glare of Mark’s observance and it made her sweat. Her temples began to pound and bursts of color were going off behind her eyes as she strained. Relenting, she opened her eyes to see his expression. To her surprise his face showed kindness along with disappointment, when she was only expecting the latter.

“You’re holding back. You’re worried you’ll blow your cover or hurt her.”

She swallowed. “Yeah.”

“You won’t. She isn’t one of your teachers. Civilians can’t recognize what telepaths feel like, so don’t worry about stealth. She’ll never notice you and you don’t have the power to hurt her anyway. Let loose.”

Shaking herself off and a little stung, Anise tried again. Closing her eyes, she narrowed her entire focus to their server and threw all her covert tactics out the window. But still, nothing about the woman’s head seemed to change. Mark’s mind suddenly spilled over into Anise’s head, filling it to the brim in a dizzying rush of pressure.

Let loose, he thought to her and did something that upended her internal bearings. She felt as if he’d canceled her own internal gravity and her telepathy flowed out of her in a way she couldn’t stop. The only thing she could do was try to shape it, focusing on their server and the image of a stack of cash laid on top of their bill. Something clicked and she opened her eyes.

As if called, the server walked to their table and picked up their untouched bill. She thanked them and walked away.

Whatever Mark had done, he undid it, and her runaway telepathy went back to normal, quieting to a whisper.

“Better,” Mark said, standing up.

“What did you do?” she asked, breathless.

“Got you out of your own way. I’ll show you how later. Come on, I have a meeting.”

She scrambled to catch up with him and found him standing by the car, holding the door open for her. She got in and he went around the other side to join her. “Thank you,” she said simply.

He had a smug look on his face. “After your Post Breathe, you’re going to be a force of nature.”

---

Natal, Brazil.

Hannah practically needed Gareth to hold her back, making all of them wait several minutes after the Entropy agents had walked back down the driveway and after they watched the headlights of their car wind away into the night. Next to her, Reeve still had his hands cupped and sealed around his nose and mouth, forcing himself not to hyperventilate. Gareth’s face was blank and distant. She couldn’t sense their energies. She realized she couldn’t sense her own. Everything was a little numb and the silence was much too loud. She let herself become visible, as if that might help.

Finally after what felt like an hour, Gareth let out a long breath through his nose and said, “Okay.” His voice at normal volume was jarring.

“Can I let him know it’s over?” Reeve asked him, tapping a finger to his forehead and pointing toward the car. Gareth looked around, trying to see through trees and hills, and nodded. They stood up stiffly and pushed their way through tangled weeds and low palms.

Growing up in training for Sol’s Mars Department, Hannah had seen some things. Nothing like this, but she knew death. As they came out into the clearing, there was this sweet-awful smell that hung over the whole area, and the closer they got, the worse it smelled. It stopped them in their tracks for a moment. The dead agents by the house were between them and the car.

She had never seen bodies like that: the sort of thing you’d expect from a body preyed on by a pack of wild dogs. Hannah held her breath and locked the muscles in her throat closed to keep from vomiting. Reeve was pale.

“He’s picky,” Gareth said, sounding taken aback. The last thing Hannah wanted to do was open her mouth to speak. He pointed to the woman’s arm, torn off, sitting in the dirt uneaten. “Look.” There was a bloody strip of bandage tied around her bicep. “He won’t eat damaged flesh.”

Shaking his head, Reeve turned to walk around the gore and Hannah quickly turned to follow him. Her own body had forgotten that it could possibly move until seeing him break away. The two of them moved at a run.

“Alex, it’s us!” she shouted. There was thumping coming from inside the trunk when they got there. Another agent was slit open on the ground to the right of the car. A portion of his face was left, but his legs were gnawed down to his femurs. Hannah caught this at a glance while running to the driver’s side to pop the trunk. She would process that later.

“Hannah!” His voice, muffled from the trunk, felt like a fist squeezing her heart.

“One more second!” Reeve yelled back, tapping the top of the hood. She hit the release and ran to the back of the car as Reeve was throwing the lid up. Alex whooped a deep breath and hooked his tied hands over the side of the trunk, hauling himself over the edge. Reeve caught him by the shoulders and carefully set his bound feet on the ground. Alex’s cuffed hands were folded and crushed up against his chest and he buried his face into whatever part of Reeve he could find. Hannah got her arms around the both of them. He didn’t seem to be hurt too badly, from what she could tell. At some point, Gareth had managed to get past the other bodies, putting a hand on top of Alex’s head and another around Hannah’s shoulders. Alex was crying, but so was Hannah, so that was all right.

Against her chest, Hannah could feel Alex’s muscles tense. He sniffed and made a sound.

“Oh god, what the fuck is that?” He lifted his forehead to look around, but Reeve shook his head quickly and brought up a hand to shield Alex’s eyes.

“Maybe don’t,” Reeve blurted. “You don’t want to.” Hannah moved back to give Alex space—she could feel him getting more wound up.

“Stop it,” he said. He batted at Reeve’s hand, his face tense and pinched. Relenting, Reeve stepped away and locked eyes with Hannah, not sure what else to do. She heard instead of saw Alex register the agent beside the car. There was a pause and a deep guttural squelch. Hannah leaned forward to catch Alex’s hair as he pitched over, sick and heaving onto the dirt. She held his hair up and rubbed the spot between his shoulder blades while he wretched. When there was a break and Alex was just hung over at the waist, spitting, Reeve ushered him away out of sight of the body.

“Come on, let’s sit in the car for a second.” They helped him keep his balance as Alex obediently shuffled his hobbled feet over to the front of the car and plopped down on the edge of the driver’s seat.

He looked up at them and in a quiet voice said, “Jonathan.” His palms and fingers were scratched up, probably from beating on the inside of the trunk, and the metal restraints had worn his wrists raw. He kept twisting at them absentmindedly, trying to work his hands out.

“I know,” Reeve said softly and turned to Hannah. “Can you check the car for something we can pick these cuffs with?” She nodded. Reeve squatted down in front of Alex, one thumb moving back and forth on Alex’s shin. She got in on the other side to rummage through the glove box.

“Who did that?” Alex croaked.

“Not us,” Reeve answered hurriedly. “It was Entropy.” He hesitated.

“I heard screaming,” he said simply, staring at his shoes.

“You did great keeping quiet. You really did.”

Alex squirmed and she could hear the clanking of metal. “Can we please get these off?” Alex shouted, panicking.

There wasn’t anything useful in the glovebox. “I’ll check the house,” she told Reeve. Hannah got out again and walked around the front of the car, steeling herself to go past the other agents.

Gareth, standing a bit away from the group, called out, “One of them has the keys.” That hadn’t even occurred to her. No one moved or answered. Gareth made his way to the body next to the car. She didn’t look and no one spoke. She thought she would get used to the smell here. People acclimate to so many things until they barely notice them. This wasn’t like that. It was as if, somewhere deep in the primal branch of her brainstem, it was encoded to panic at the scent of human insides. A base impulse to get away, to run.

Gareth came back, but didn’t come too close. His hands were dark in the harsh light as he held something up and nodded to her. He tossed the key ring and she bent to catch it. The keys were tacky but she didn’t have any clothes to wipe them off on, so she handed them to Reeve as they were. Gareth knelt down, rubbing sand over his hands, scouring off the blood and mire.

“Easy,” Reeve said, trying to fit the right key in the lock as Alex fidgeted. He uncuffed his hands and then his legs. Suddenly free, Alex curled even farther into himself, holding his bad arm with the other. He was sweating and his teeth were chattering.

“Can we get out of here?” Alex’s voice was raised and sharp. “I want to go.”

“Yeah,” Reeve said, chafing his shoulders as if he were cold. “Gareth, think it’s safe to walk back along the road?”

Gareth turned to look to where they had come from, past the house and the other agents on the ground and then to the street, looking for headlights, probably. Hannah could see every muscle in his body was fighting him. “Sure,” he said, finally. It wasn’t what he wanted to say.

“Alyosha!” Alex said, eyes wide and red-rimmed.

“He’ll be okay,” she said quickly. “Let’s go see him, huh?”

Alex nodded mutely and let the two of them stand him up and lead him toward the road. He was limping and swallowing tears.

“Close your eyes,” Reeve told him as they neared the Neptune agent by the car.

“No,” he said quietly, his jaw clenched and shaking, but he kept looking straight ahead. Hannah couldn’t. She took another look at him as they passed, and then at Gareth. He was looking straight ahead too.

***