Sunset Volume 2: High Noon

SolCorp Pharmaceutical’s Kyiv, Ukraine Office.

“Not exactly what you expected, huh?”

Anise raised an eyebrow at Nina, the woman in charge of her Kyiv orientation and, she assumed, her new mentor. “Not exactly.”

Anise del Sol hadn’t known what to expect from the Kyiv Academy pilot program, but to be fair, she hadn’t known what to expect from anything at all. She’d never been outside of LAHQ, and even there, she had been restricted to the Academy wing and Atrium. Nothing in her studies had prepared her for the look of the ground on her first plane ride. The tiny dollhouse structures, the eerie slow motion cars, and heaviness in her chest as they took off and landed.

She had been worried she’d be too afraid of the crowds, the noise, the endless crush of unfamiliar minds, but it felt good. It felt like the challenge she’d been waiting for. Still, she’d figured there would at least be a measure of familiarity, despite the office being less than a quarter of the size of LAHQ. There wasn’t.

Anise had been in Kyiv for eight hours and they’d let her sleep for the first seven of them. It was her first time having jet lag, after all.

She watched Nina sip her tea. They were sitting in the Kyiv cafeteria, which was really just a long room packed with tables and a buffet station at one end—a far cry from the Atrium. She had short, auburn-dyed hair and lipstick to match. Nina was wearing street clothes and Anise couldn’t see a visible badge, which should have been there to verify her identity and display her department.

“So you’ll be my new mentor?” she asked. “They never said.”

“No,” Nina said, setting down her tea. “I guess I should start there. I’m here to get you oriented, and you can always call me if you have trouble or have questions, but you’re not going to have a mentor.”

Anise blinked and set her coffee down. “I’m not?”

“No, as of today you’ve graduated, so congratulations.” She smiled at her.

Anise smiled back, disarmed. “Thanks. Seriously?”

“Yeah, they said you don’t need any more schooling. You just need your Post-Breathe, so why not stick you on the payroll while you do it?”

It was really the last thing she’d expected. “Wow. Okay. Um, Saturn?”

“Yeah, you’ll be with us, in Saturn.”

“Oh thank god,” she breathed.

“Of course. You’re the prodigy, right?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I just want it more than others.” She tried to keep her tone casual, but she was a step closer to what she’d been dreaming about her whole life, and she could have done a dance around the little dining hall. Instead, she swallowed it and tried to stay professionally on task. “So the room they gave me isn’t a dorm?”

“No, it’s just agent housing. We don’t really have dorm space, so students will just be mixed in with everyone.”

“So, when can I start?” She grinned widely. She couldn’t help it.

“Well, I’m going to get you set up to start learning some admin stuff for now. The Post-Breathe process can be long, so we aren’t going to schedule you full-time yet.”

“Alright, but are you gonna kick me out if I’m there full-time anyway?”

Nina laughed and then sombered suddenly, looking over Anise’s shoulder. She turned and saw a man walking toward them. She sat up straighter and then stood when he reached their table, taking her cues from Nina.

The man was tall, in his late forties she guessed, and wore a well-tailored suit. His golden-blonde hair was styled and his light eyes had a spark to them that could stop you in your tracks.

“You must be Anise del Sol,” he said with a friendly smile and extended a hand to her. He spoke with a British accent. “Welcome to Kyiv.”

She shook his hand. “Thank you.” It was then that she realized with a start that the low-grade telepathic buzz she’d been feeling since she arrived was emanating from him. How could a single person create that type of pressure?

“This is Mark,” Nina said, with a thread of nervousness running through her words. She was trying to cover it up, but it was there. “He heads up the Mercury department for this branch, so he runs the show.”

“That I do,” he said, taking the seat next to Nina and looking up at them.

They sat. She flicked a glance at Nina, who gave her nothing, but Anise could feel the gentle inspection of his telepathy around her head. The power behind it could have frozen her lungs in place if he relaxed his boundaries, but he didn’t. She wanted to be like that, to have that. If she were to return the gesture with her telepathy at its full capacity, it would be like getting brushed with a feather in the middle of a hurricane by comparison, and that only fed her frustration and her hunger to be more.

Instead, she inspected him with the rest of her training. His watch read an hour slow, so she guessed he’d been in western Europe recently. From his clothing and gelled hair, she knew he cared for his appearance, and from his well-manicured hands and groomed eyebrows, she concluded that was something he cared enough about to hire professionals over.

She considered the odd way he’d approached. The way he’d taken his seat was played off as casual by his tone, but it had been aggressive and quick. And he’d observed the two of them as though it had been a test. He’d wanted to see if they’d get flustered, and that told her he valued boldness more than decorum, confidence more than obeisance. She could meet that.

Nina cleared her throat. “I was just explaining to Anise that she’s going to be starting work right away instead of taking more boring math classes.”

“Good,” he replied, barely listening. He was studying her and she did her best not to shrink under his gaze. “I’ve gone over your file," he continued, giving her a curious look. "I know I’m not in Saturn, but I’d like to be involved with your telepathy training. I think between the Post-Breathe and I, we can get you far past your goal score. What do you say?”

She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes slightly, letting her mouth take on a confused twist. “You already know what I say.” With telepathic pressure like that, how could he not? He probably knew what she was going to say before she did, herself. She wanted that too.

“Good,” he repeated. His smile was smaller this time, truer. “You just got yourself a new mentor, after all. I’ll find you.” Pressing his palms flat on the table, he stood abruptly and left.

Nina awkwardly stood to see him off, but Anise remained seated as she watched him walk away. After a moment, Nina sat down again.

“That’s a big deal, huh?” Anise commented quietly.

“Yeah, it is.” She picked up her tea, but didn’t drink it. “Just proceed with caution, okay? Getting his attention is… He’s not someone you want to fuck around with. This isn’t LA.”

“I can take care of myself.” Anise squared her shoulders. It was true, he was intimidating. But he had taken an interest in her. Maybe she wouldn’t be destined for mediocrity. “But do I—Do I call him Mark or Mr…?”

"We all call him Mark."

As much as he appeared to be testing their daring, that didn't quite match up with the impression of him she'd been able to glean. He didn’t seem casual.

"What's his surname? Is he a gen?"

Nina’s eyes just barely flicked left and right before she wrestled her expression back to neutral. It was the briefest of seconds, but Anise had drilled those observation skills deep. Nina was uncomfortable.

“Yes,” she said, after a pause. “He’s a del Sol,” she clarified.

It was an odd thing to be on edge about. She racked her brain to remember if he had been wearing his ID badge, but didn’t recall him wearing one. The sea of telepathic pressure they were all swimming in shifted and her mind felt momentarily fuzzy. What had she been thinking? Badges.

Anise shook herself out of it and turned back to Nina. “When can I get a Saturn ID badge with my name on it?”

She chuckled at that and shook her head. “Now’s as good a time as any.”

Kyiv was different from LA, but maybe it could be better.

---

Sol LAHQ. Company Housing.

Logan made his way through the hallway on his way to Rafe and Mackenzie’s quarters, trying his best to make it look completely natural. He knew it was wasted effort—his vibrant blue and yellow skin kind of negated any chance of getting by unnoticed. He paused at the door, leaning close to see if he could tell if anyone was home, then dug out his key.

The door opened just as he’d unlocked the door, making him jump. Louis cocked an eyebrow and waited for him to disentangle the key before opening the door the rest of the way.

“I could hear your heart pounding from the other room.”

“Oh?” Logan smiled nervously as he stepped into the apartment. He hadn’t counted on Louis’ enhanced senses catching him.

“Who is it?” Mackenzie called.

“It’s Logan,” Louis responded. Mackenzie strolled in to stand next to Louis. They were both dressed in smart suits, standard fare for the Saturn offices.

“Sorry to bother you,” Logan began. “Rafe forgot his coffee thing. Uh, tumbler.” He gestured to the kitchen where he could see a black thermos on the counter.

Mackenzie smiled warmly. “The travel mug—one of a set of two—that he puts together for the both of us every morning, and has for the past nine years? And never forgotten once?”

Logan locked his face in what he hoped was a casual smile. “Yes?”

“So he sent his Second and trusted friend, who has much more important things to do, to go fetch his coffee, and not one of the dozen administrative assistants in his office?”

Logan shrugged. Why did I ever agree to this?

Mackenzie laughed, more amused than annoyed and rested her head on Louis’ shoulder while she chuckled.

Louis flashed him a You’re in for it now look, which didn’t help bring his heart rate down.

Mackenzie straightened. “You have to tell him to stop trying to be covert with me. It’s absurd that he thinks he can. He can’t.”

“What’s going on?” Louis asked, holding his eyes. It was an uncomfortable, intimidating stare—Logan was sure it was part of standard Saturn training.

He deflated. “He’s worried about you,” he told Mackenzie.

She rolled her eyes. “What else is new?”

“Sure.” Logan shook his head. “But this time you lied and said you’ve been in your office all week, so now he’s roped me into checking to see if you were where he thinks you were.”

“Which is where?”

“Your study. With everything.”

Mackenzie nodded for him to follow her into the study.

Louis brought up the rear. “At least he didn’t think you were having an affair,” he offered.

Mackenzie scoffed. “He knows better than that.”

The study wasn’t torn apart the way it gets after she’d used her knack, but it was clear that it wasn’t all put away. There were papers split into stacks all across the floor and a tub of memory sticks next to a voice recorder.

“So yes,” she continued. “You can tell him that I’m looking.”

“Why didn't you just say that? Is something wrong?”

Mackenzie bit her lip. “I don’t know. I think so.” She scanned the room with its tables, piles of papers, writing desk, and wall of filing cabinets. “I’ve forgotten something important, but I don’t know what it is.” She fixed her eyes on him and her voice lost a shade of its normal warmth. “You know that feeling when you know you’ve forgotten something but can’t place what? It’s like that, but so much worse. There’s something in here, I hope, that can fill in what I’m missing. It’s important. I know it.”

Logan swallowed and nodded. “Can I help?”

She smiled and shook her head. “You don’t have the clearance for this. Keep Rafe sane for me while I figure this out and I’m in your debt forever.”

“I can try, ma'am.”

“Louis, walk him back to his office. And don’t forget the coffee.”

Louis gestured, and out they went. They were silent for a good while until Logan couldn’t stand his nonjudgmental quiet.

“I’m not sure how I got talked into this.”

Louis shrugged. “You care about him. It’s the same with me.”

Logan turned his head. “Yeah, actually, isn’t her research through all that stuff normally solo? That’s like one of her rules.”

His brow lowered. “I’m mostly sorting because there’s so much to go through. Just weeding the moments of a teen spilling soda on his shirt out from moments like a politician resigning suddenly.”

Logan made a small sound of understanding. He really didn’t have anything close to that kind of clearance.

“I normally wouldn't,” he continued, “I’m not comfortable with it, but when she asked, she seemed scared. Like, proper scared, but trying to hide it. I think that’s why she was keeping it from Rafe until she knows more.”

“I feel like I’m not going to pass that along.”

“Yeah, keep that between us.” He gave Logan a hopeless shrug. “We’ll get the two of them through it. Just keep Rafe calm.”

“And knock off the spy stuff.”

“And knock off the spy stuff,” Louis agreed with a smile.

---

Las Vegas, NV.

Gareth clenched his fists, stretched his fingers, consciously willed his hands to relax, and then repeated the process. He felt too far away and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the plan either, though he knew it made sense. But the other two were injured, isolated. Alex was goddamn bait.

The thought crept in that the moments in which he could not count himself as a fucking fugitive were melting away. No going back. And to do it for a fucking telepath? He knew a younger version of himself would have been furious. He was more than a little furious, too, but he couldn’t understand what was going on, and beyond his need to make sure Hannah and Alex were safe, Reeve was the devil he knew.

Stop, he told himself. He needed to get his mind under control if this was going to work. He looked toward the rooftop where Hannah said she would be, and in the direction Alex had headed off to. Then he turned away. Settling on the apartment building the next street over, Gareth let his vision go soft and blurry.

With as much as Reeve often made him want to hole himself away, Gareth hadn’t used the tricks he learned in Entropy to avoid Marcus Adler’s telepathy much since leaving. They really only worked when someone didn’t know you were around. It wasn’t going to do jack shit with Reeve in the room. It was more a method of camouflage, to hope the tiger passed by without noticing you.

He pictured the borders of his mind stretching and thinning, the edges filtering out until they began to blend into air around him. He slowed his breathing and started quietly finding small images around him to hold in his mind like a photograph. There was a crack in the sidewalk under his feet that looked like a spiderweb. He studied it for a second and then tried to hold the visual in his mind with as much detail as possible. He held onto the mottling of the concrete and branching lines of the cracks, but soon the shape of the cracks started to degrade and look more and more artificial as his mind filled in the gaps. It was too complex of an image. He picked something else: a short tuft of grass growing in between the red-brown landscaping gravel. The rocks blurred after a moment, but he could keep the shape and color of those three blades of grass and move forward.

Like handholds to carry him over an expanse, he grabbed small mundane snapshots, a bottle cap, a splotch of pigeon shit, a crumpled cigarette filter, and made his way within twenty feet of the apartment. There, Gareth waited and repeated the exercise, willing his heart to stop pounding.

The front door swung open and three figures walked out. They were still in their over-dramatic black gear, so clearly designed with intimidation and function in equal measures. He hoped to hell that one of them was the telepath, because otherwise they were already hosed.

Despite the heat, he felt goosebumps watching them walk away from the house, bracing for the shots. It began with him pleading silently, Not yet, not yet, worrying Hannah would lose her patience early and leave him with too little time to get in there. Or what if she simply had no choice, given the range of the guns she had to work with? But slowly, the thought turned into, Jesus Christ, Hannah, as time went on and on. The agents were still walking and Gareth was becoming more and more sure that her gun had jammed or the telepath had noticed her and pulped her brain, so now two Neptune agents were grabbing Alex while Gareth crouched in the bushes twiddling his fucking thumbs. The terror-sick feeling was taking over when the shots finally rang out, three in quick succession and then silence.

Gareth took off running for the garden door in the back of the small rental. He hated being unarmed like this but there was nothing else to be done. The door gave way easily under his shoulder and he burst through into a compact bedroom space. Reeve, still in the same bloody clothes, was facedown on the bed with his hands and ankles cuffed together at his back, knees bent, ankles crossed, and arms pulled out straight. An agent with a small nose and wavy hair had been leaving the room, but turned at the sound of the breaking door.

He would have loved to have a damn weapon to make quick work of this, or at least have enough space and freedom to properly psych himself up for the type of work that needed doing.

The first bullet hit him square in the chest, left side, perfectly aimed to put his whole system into a dizzying arrhythmia as his knack healed up the muscles of his heart. Off to a bad start, honestly. It had been too much to hope that the agent would stop there. They would have read up on the rest of the team when reading Reeve’s file. They knew who he was and what he was.

Gareth rushed forward as the agent kept firing. It had been a while since he’d had to do any real hand-to-hand shit beyond what he’d been teaching Alex, and his body fell back into their lessons. He grabbed hold of the agent’s arms and pivoted to flip him, but this wasn’t Alex. He felt the man’s balance shift instantaneously, faster than thought. One forearm slid under Gareth’s left arm and another gripped the back of his shirt. It wouldn’t be pretty, but Gareth figured his bulk could carry him. But the arm under his arm lifted, preventing him from bending for the throw, and the agent took a large step back, yanking Gareth’s shirt and tipping him flat onto his back. His eyes shut on the impact and when he opened them again, there was a gun in his face.

“Just don’t,” the man panted, setting his boot on Gareth’s chest. “I’m sorry about your friend, but a team should have been waiting at the site to brief you.”

Brief us? As if this was simply a matter of confusion and not a sudden hole in their family. Fucking Sol. Gareth made to kick out the man’s knee, and the agent fired.

His ears rang. It took him a second to recover from the pain and, frankly, the crunch of the bullet punching through his cheekbone. He laid still. His mouth filled with blood pouring out from the wound through his right cheek. If he swallowed, it would choke him, so he pushed the mouthful out, letting it drench his face.

He turned his head to one side, hoping to keep the blood from draining back into his mouth and saw Reeve’s boots, tied together by their laces, on the floor near the foot of the bed. The Neptune agent bent and checked his pulse. Gareth felt a pang of guilt he hadn’t expected, but he shoved it down. The moment for that kind of feeling had passed when he’d reset Alex’s shoulder with a stomach churning crunch, and when he’d pulled out a shard of glass from Hannah’s side that kept going and going. The idea of the length of it still wrenched at his guts.

Gareth grabbed the agent’s arm with his opposite hand and slammed his other forearm into the outside of the agent’s elbow, snapping it. He fell as Gareth rolled, sweeping Reeve’s boots up with one hand. Gareth tried not to be where he was when he beat the guy over the head with the boot heel until he stopped fighting, but there was nowhere else to really be.

A woman’s voice coming from the other room pulled him out of the dark space behind his eyes.

“Fitz! We’ve gotta go. Go out the back—”

She trailed off as Gareth ran into the room. It would be the strongman. He’d hoped Hannah would have gotten this one.

Gareth snatched up the agent’s dropped gun and fired. Nothing but a dead click. Goddamnit. He dropped the gun and stood, preparing to grapple with her. She drew her gun and he tensed, ready for the pain, but she was aiming it beyond him at Reeve. Gareth froze.

At a sudden loss, he put his hands out to the side, breathing hard. The bones in his face were knitting, moving, and it hurt.

Her mask had been pulled down and he could see the pain and fury in her face. “Fuck,” she hurled into the dead air and he could tell it wasn’t even at him. “Turn around,” she shouted, though her voice cracked.

He did. What other option did he have? He could plainly see her shaking hands pointing a gun at Reeve’s head, her finger on the trigger. His mind raced as he put his hands behind his back.

Shots rang out. He searched his body for pain and didn’t find it. Reeve just beside him hadn't been touched, so he turned around. Alex was at the far end of the room with a Neptune side arm in his right hand. He was firing low, and while his aim was rough, he hit the strongwoman in the legs at least twice. It was enough to bring her down. Gareth saw her aim her gun at Alex in desperation and that was it. Gareth gave her a swift kick in the back, ripped the gun from her, and ended it.

For a moment, Alex and Gareth just stood there, looking at each other.

“Is he okay?” Alex asked in a small voice, walking over to the bed, careful to avoid the dead agents.

“He’s breathing,” Gareth managed. They didn’t have time to recover the way he wanted to. “Are you okay?” He nodded to his arm.

“I’m fine. Hannah’s getting the car.”

He stuck her pistol in his belt. “Let’s go then.” He started inspecting Reeve’s restraints. The hogtie was stiff nylon with thick straps, built for long-wear and security.

Alex handed him one of Hannah’s razors. “Had it just in case.”

Gareth took it without comment and cut through his bonds. Reeve’s eyelids fluttered as he rolled him onto his back.

“Grab his boots,” he told Alex as Gareth gingerly lifted him over his shoulder. This son of a bitch.

He followed Alex out of the apartment and stood there for a heart-pounding couple of moments before Hannah pulled up.

“What took you?” Alex called.

“I wanted to hide the bodies. Can you drive?” she asked Gareth. “I want to check him over.”

He didn’t bother answering, just helped Alex lay Reeve down in the backseat and walked over to the driver’s side. Hannah got in the passenger seat, but was craned through the center and bent halfway into the backseat.

Whatever she was doing made Reeve groan. “He’s drugged,” she called. “And banged to shit, but who the fuck isn’t.”

Gareth started driving. Without a telepath to clean up the sound of the guns from everyone in the area, they couldn’t stay where they were one minute longer.

“Where the hell am I going?” he yelled.

“I have no idea,” Hannah responded.

Alex started to pipe up but stopped at the sound of Reeve mumbling. “What’s he saying?” Gareth asked. He was too far away to hear.

“He’s saying to go back to Beatty.”

“Fuck no, are you kidding?” Hannah yelled. “We just got you out and you want to just waltz on back home like that’s not going to be a problem?”

“Please,” Reeve slurred. “Trust me.” There was a flutter on the edge of Gareth’s head, as though Reeve was trying to reach out to him but couldn’t get through.

“Please,” he repeated, then trailed off into something Gareth couldn’t hear.

“It’s numbers,” Alex called, sounding as confused as Gareth felt.

“Like an address?”

“More like coordinates,” Hannah commented. She pulled out her phone to write them down.

“No, that’s it,” Alex blurted. “It’s a phone number.”

“Yeah, he’s nodding at that,” Hannah said as she keyed it in.

“Text it.” Reeve’s sounded faint, but urgent.

“Text what?” Alex pressed with a gentleness that Gareth couldn’t have summoned in that moment for anything. He couldn’t hear Reeve after that but he could see Alex bent over, ear near his lips, in the rearview.

“What the hell is he saying?”

He saw Alex look up at him in the mirror. “He’s saying, ‘cormorant.’ I have no idea what that means.”

“Fuck it. I don’t know how to spell it but I’m texting it. Not like we have another plan.” Hannah turned back around in her seat and buckled in, mindful of the bruising on her chest.

“Are we seriously driving back to the house?” Gareth asked one more time.

He felt it stronger now. It was definitely him. A desperate press of Reeve’s mind, pleading.

“Yeah okay,” Gareth responded out loud. “We’re going but if you get us killed, I will fucking murder you.”

***