I left the meeting with The Undersiders not long after I had distilled down my angle for the meeting tonight. I had a meeting with Faultline I didn’t want to miss, and time was catching up to me after everything that had happened that morning.

  I knew where I needed to go. I thought about changing, but my clothing was destroyed, and I was short on time. It was probably better to go as Apex anyway. Brian unchained the massive bay doors on one side of the base at my request. They were stiff from disuse, but with a little persuasion from someone big and blue, they groaned back into service. I had to meet them back at their base later in advance of the meeting anyway. I’d taken off in the empty street outside their base and headed for my destination.

  What a wild morning. Accidental almost-assassination. Quadruple unmasking, tension so thick you could chew it. I wish I could tell my friends. I wish I had that luxury.

  There were unspoken rules to cape life. There was no comprehensive list, more like a shared language. Variations across cities, factions, and teams. But the general goal? Don’t burn the entire house down when you’re trying to settle a fight in the kitchen.

  Don’t kill without cause. Don’t drag the family into it. Respect secret identities. Have some decency with cape minors. Don’t be filthy. Don’t cross those lines nobody can walk back from. Some applied more to villains than they did to heroes, as I understood it. Things like not involving the masses outside deliberate public displays, and not being a rat.

  There were exceptions, of course. Usually with footnotes. Pages of them. And if someone decided to try and burn or rewrite the book?

  You better hope you’re scarier than all the people who wrote it.

  On some level, the whole Heroes and Villains thing? It was a business. A big one at that. Mass-casualty events, genocides, serial killers? They were bad for everyone’s bottom line.

  Then there was the biggest unwritten rule of them all: You respected the truce during Endbringer events. Breaking it? Might as well write out your own death sentence.

  I didn’t want to think about Endbringers right now. The landmass-wrecking, city-leveling nightmares with no known origin and no known way to kill. The best you could do was minimize their damage with giant teams of capes of any and all persuasions. Thus the truce. The alternatives? You were on your own. You faced death incarnate, ran without backup, or joined the wave of mass migration in their wake.

  My psyche had been through the dryer on high heat and full tumble this morning, but honestly? I wasn’t in a terrible mood.

  Nobody died. We learned things. I walked away with weird relationships I didn’t expect, different from the ones I went in looking for.

  Plus I made that green-eyed bitch eat her hat in front of her friends. That really helped.

  I was nearing my destination, flying low and slow. High enough to buffer most of the downwash, low enough to avoid sounding like an evil helicopter. I wasn’t here to terrorize a city already gripped by fear and raw nerves from tinkertech bombings. The city was eerily quiet for an early Saturday afternoon. Cars still moved. People still walked. But everything felt a bit off. Lighter than it should be, like a festival that had gotten rained out halfway through.

  Cars were stopped at one intersection, a military checkpoint set up scanning vehicles for obvious gang activity or transporting suspicious-looking tinker things. Faces hidden behind gasmasks, full combat gear strapped tight, the soldiers tracked me as I passed overhead. Fingers pointed. Radios clicked. No guns came up, and I was genuinely grateful for that. Say what you want about the military, when they’re deployed like this, they’re professional.

  A marked PRT SUV with a sensor package on the roof rack tracked my flight past with a motorized camera. Kids pointed. Teens and adults pointed mobile phones at me. There were a couple of screams, but not many. Most people who got spooked ducked into a doorway or under an overhang. Between the sound of my flight and the unique shadow I was casting, my traveling around the city was anything but low-key.

  There it is. Not open, maybe too early, maybe due to the state of the city. No lines. No thudding bass. But even without neon and noise, nightclubs are hard to mistake.

  My many eyes scanned the building and the perimeter. Looked quiet. I circled around lazily, scoping out entrances. I could probably fit through the front doors without an issue and without looking clownish.

  There.

  A loading dock with roller doors on the back of the building. Perfect for all your nightclub supplies, band gear, and traveling mercenary needs.

  Some vehicles were parked around the back of the club and the dock. I was pretty confident in my landing skills, but not confident enough that I wanted to risk damaging anything or pissing them off. I did another pass around, this time coming to a hover a bit further out in the parking lot where it was clear and empty. The property was very well-maintained, and the blast of wind as I came in for a landing only sent some cigarette butts, scraps of paper, and dust flying.

  I dropped the last ten feet onto the asphalt, my wings folding, tucking, and lowering behind me. I took a step back, looked down, and clicked my tongue. I’d left pawprint imprints in the parking lot. They were relatively shallow, but it was still a mix of unfortunate and embarrassing.

  Nothing says this ass got mass like stamping your pawprints into the pavement. Subtlety: not on the menu today.

  I straightened up to my full height and let my gaze sweep across the back of the building. The wind died, lingering dust settling. My tail swayed behind me, ready and waiting. A heavy steel service door opened and thumped against a rubber stopper. A woman stepped out, descended the stairs with purpose, and briskly walked over to a very expensive-looking murder vehicle: an all-black SUV.

  She was tall, over six feet, if I had to guess. Built like a brick wall. Solid muscle, easily over two hundred pounds, and not an ounce of it wasted. She had on a charcoal jumpsuit, red trim on the cuffs and lapels paired with mean-looking black tactical boots.

  Her hair was dark brown and ear-length, parted hard to one side, with the other side shaved. Not what I’d call conventionally attractive, but she moved like a pro fighter, and that was its own kind of striking. Hopping into the driver’s seat of the SUV, it roared to life and pulled out slowly. She never seemed to even blink at my presence. Strange. A white decal on the back quarter panel caught my eye: a triangle with a vertical sword and a band of flames across the middle. Beneath it, the letters: “RSI.” I filed it away.

  The door on the club clicked shut behind her. No handle.

  I stuck to the plan and walked over to the loading dock. I wasn’t surprised they knew I was here; rooftop cameras dotted the building like sentries. What did surprise me was the roller doors lurching into motion just as I arrived.

  Newter was waiting for me on the other side, leaning against the wall beside the door controls. I recognized him from the photos on his Wiki page. He was barefoot, wearing stylish jeans and a half-buttoned, breezy white shirt. He had a tattoo on his chest of a symbol I didn’t recognize. He was, honestly, rather handsome. Neon-orange skin, bright red dye-job hair, and sky blue eyes–all of the eye, like mine–but with odd, animalistic pupils.

  I glanced around the interior. It was exactly what you’d expect a nightclub loading bay to look like. Empty kegs awaiting return, shelves with food and drink supplies, tons of room to move around freight. I dropped onto all fours, flexing my fingers backward so I didn’t gouge the floor, and half-slinked, half-climbed up and through the doorway. My tail followed me like a mighty serpent, and I made sure to draw it away from the door when I was inside, so Newter could see I was through.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re really quite large?” Newter asked me with a cheeky grin.

  “I have heard it a time or two,” I said as dryly as ash.

  He laughed. “Damn. I’d give you a high-five for your sense of style. Let’s hear it for team walking-on-all-fours!”

  I knew my helmet was unsettling. I’d studied it enough, Apex’s face, its expressionless geometry. Monolithic. Alien. Menacing in geometry, material, and arrangement. No expression. Hard armor and lidless eyes: black and glossy, like globes of pitch. The beaked helm curved forward, with my jaw tucked in beneath, made of interlocking plates that clicked and shifted like insect mandibles when I spoke.

  My mouth didn’t move like a human’s. When it did–eating, yawning, or for effect–the nightmare came out. Rows of teeth. The suggestion of something wrong.

  I turned my head fully to face him.

  What I saw wasn’t revision or disgust. It was wonder. Curiosity.

  Is this what inhuman camaraderie feels like?

  “Puny humanoid,” I said flatly. “Proud of four limbs in the face of the overwhelming superiority of thirteen.”

  I didn’t let a hint of amusement leak into my voice.

  He didn’t break eye contact, reaching a clawed hand back and grabbing his tail, giving it a shake.

  “Pardon me. I stand corrected.” I stuck a foot of tongue out at him.

  The grin returned, and he said: “C’mon. The big guy’s waiting to bring you to the boss. He was posted out front, but you probably made the smarter call coming in through the back.”

  He led me through well-lit and broad corridors into the heart of the club.

  I’d never gone clubbing before. Melody and I were underage for the boozer scene, and the laws were murky. Not that it really mattered, the past year of my life had offered exactly zero time for that kind of thing. Ward life wasn’t exactly light on the obligations, especially if you were keeping your grades above the minimum and still trying to pull your weight in costume.

  Faultline, who I assumed owned and operated the place, clearly had standards. The club was clean, welcoming, and–at least outside business hours–pleasantly bright. No sticky floors. No stale beer stink. Just polished floors and quiet music playing: probably one of the employee’s playlists.

  An expansive dance floor stretched out in front of me. DJ booth and stage on one side, an impressive bar on another, cozy booths and low tables tucked into the periphery. Staff were already prepping for an evening shift. The kitchen was running, and the smells wafting about were… really good.

  That’s when I saw him: the man walking towards us from the front of the building.

  Gregor the Snail.

  He was a very large man. He had a severe, haunting presence. Morbidly obese, but not fat in the usual way. More… rotund. His skin was ghostly: shockingly pale and partially translucent. I could see the faint shapes of bones and organs beneath it, his eyelids barely masking his eyes and giving him a ghoulish Halloween-mask look. He wore the kind of clothing you wind up with nothing else fits. Heavily elasticized, functional but shapeless. Deeply unflattering.

  A few weeks ago, I would have called him profoundly ugly.

  But that was before.

  Before watching my own flesh melt, twist, stretch, and contort into something unrecognizable. Before the blood, the bone, and the meat detonating out of shape. Before I became something different and wrong.

  Huh. I’ve changed. Grown.

  I glanced at myself.

  I didn’t feel wrong.

  Not anymore.

  And maybe that was the scariest part.

  Gregor came to a stop before us. “Greetings, Apex,” nodding to me, then: “Newter.” I immediately liked the sound of his accent. Nordic, maybe?

  “Alright, I’m heading upstairs if you need me,” Newter said with a wave, peeling off toward a nearby staircase.

  Gregor looked at me. “Our meeting is upstairs. Please follow me.”

  I cleared my throat and said: “I’m… very heavy. Several tons, most likely. I have some concerns about going anywhere above-ground that wasn’t built for industrial loads.” I moved my head around as if I were looking around the club floor. “This is a nice place. I would not want to damage it.”

  Gregor nodded, his expression shifting to one of quiet consideration. “Do you know your exact weight?”

  “Not really. I’ve never stepped on a scale.” I hesitated, then added, “Probably need a zoo scale. Or maybe a truck weigh station.”

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “And that presents its own challenges.” He moved behind the bar, picked up a telephone, and dialed. A short and efficient conversation followed. When he returned, he gave a small nod.

  “She will come down,” he gestured. “This way.”

  I followed him back into the wide corridor, and we entered a well-furnished lounge. The room was spacious, with plush chairs, mood lighting, and a broad table dominating the center. Gregor pulled out a pair of chairs on one side of the table and set them off to the side.

  “Thank you,” I said, and he moved a stout chair from the corner into place opposite and slightly to the side of me. He settled his bulk into it with careful precision, his movements slow and deliberate. I noted that he kept his hands on his lap.

  I took a lying position on the carpeted floor carefully, resting with my forearms positioned crosswise under the table so my head and shoulders stuck up from the table. I was still at eye level with him, in an increasingly familiar position.

  Gregor broke the near silence of the room, saying: “You move like someone trying not to break anything. But there’s more to it than just that. There is a rhythm in how you flow through space, never contacting anything.” He paused a moment, tilting his head slightly. “That speaks of great awareness. That is not how many of us move.”

  I studied him for a moment. The composed way he held his hands in his lap. The way he settled his weight into the chair, deliberate, careful, dignified, even if his body defied every conventional metric of grace.

  “You move like someone…” I paused, chewing on the thought. “...someone who isn’t quite at home in their own body. Or maybe someone who used to be a fighter?” I tilted my head the other way. “There’s certainty in how you move, but also a distance.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He went to respond, but the door opened. The energy in the room shifted, ever-so-slightly.

  Faultline stepped in.

  She was shorter than Gregor, but carried herself like a blade. Sharp, precise, measured. She had a black jacket over a fitted white blouse. She wore tactical pants, matte black, pocketed, synthetic fibers that moved well despite apparent durability. Boots quietly thumping on the ornate carpet.

  She didn’t strut or swagger. She didn’t need to.

  Her eyes scanned over me without hesitation. Calculating but not unkind. She had the sort of face that didn’t seem like it would ever fully relax, resting neutrality a few degrees away from suspicion.

  “Apex,” she said, offering a nod, then glanced at Gregor. “Thank you for welcoming them.”

  He dipped his head.

  She took a seat next to Gregor, directly opposite me. “Welcome to the Palanquin. I understand you had a busy morning.”

  Just a passing comment, but also a subtle power play. She’d known I’d been at the Undersider’s base. Did she know more? About my other forms?

  Where Gregor’s voice carried an undertone of stillness, hers instead carried steel.

  What path do I take? What plays do I make? Who do I present, or in what ratio?

  I’d tried open and casual earlier. Maybe it was time to be guarded.

  What was it Lisa and Taylor had been saying? Less is more, or something along those lines?

  “Thank you.” The bass of my voice momentarily filled the space. The room was well insulated.

  She didn’t address my lack of response to her comment. “I invited you over here to discuss several topics. Let’s start with you.”

  I nodded, and she continued: “Do you know what a Case Fifty-Three parahuman is?”

  “I do. I do not believe I am one.” I replied.

  Gregor leaned forward in his chair. “Will you explain your reasoning?”

  “I was not always like this. I was the same as any other human, and through some quirk of my power, became what you see now. I have not lost any of my memories.”

  Gregor leaned back a bit and asked a follow-up question: “Are you like this by choice?”

  I hesitated in answering.

  No. No? I suppose, in a way? I could have come as my other self. That is a… surprisingly deep question, the more I think of it. How do I answer that?

  “I didn’t choose this at the start,” I said slowly. “But I keep choosing it now.”

  Gregor tilted his head, listening.

  “I could have come here wearing a different skin. Human, and familiar. Easier to look at.” I shifted slightly. “But that would have been dishonest. I don’t want to lie to you or myself.”

  My tail slid restlessly on top of the carpet. “This form… it’s power. It’s survival. It’s some part of me, not the entirety. But not a mask, either.”

  I shifted my head slightly from pointing toward Gregor to Faultline. “So no, I wasn’t always like this, but I think, deep down, I’ve been this for a long time.”

  Gregor glanced upwards and brought a plump hand up to stroke his chin.

  Faultline simply said: “I see.”

  A moment later, she shifted back in her chair. “I’m hungry and will be having something from the kitchen.” She looked between Gregor and me, then asked: “What will you be having?” The phrasing was pushy, and I got the sense that it wasn’t entirely aimed at me.

  Gregor grunted and made a face, and she gave him a flat look. His reluctance was evident: “Whatever you have, Faultline.”

  Her gaze turned to me next. I was a bit off guard, but I was hungry. I hadn’t really eaten yet today. My tentacles rustled on my shoulders. “I have food back at home, I eat… quite a lot.”

  Her brow raised. “You would refuse my hospitality in my club?”

  I’m having a hell of a time telling if she’s really just ripping power plays out left and right, or if she’s fucking with me, and this is a long-form bit. You know what? Fine, two can play whatever game this is.

  I shrugged slightly and said: “Five of your biggest steaks, a handful of heads of lettuce or cabbage, some other whole bulk fruits or veggies. I’m not terribly picky.”

  For her part, she didn’t visibly react. “Cut and cook? And dressing for the salad?”

  “Whatever is big in terms of cook, blue, or rare. And sure, surprise me.”

  She slipped a phone from her pocket and placed the order with the kitchen, then turned back to me. “Let’s talk about your status.”

  “You want to know where I land on the board. Hero or villain?"

  “That’s one way of putting it,” she said.

  “Independent.” I hoped I wasn’t sabotaging something by saying it. Too late to pull it back now. Belatedly, I wondered if she and her crew were headed to the same big-bad meeting.

  “Difficult. Often far messier than people expect, if they haven’t learned otherwise.” Gregor answered this time.

  She said, “I’ll echo the messy part. But more importantly, the PRT won’t like it. You’ll get squeezed.”

  “I don’t care what the PRT thinks,” I said, too quickly to be completely convincing.

  She steepled her fingers, her eyes pinning me in place. “I don’t believe you. And regardless of what you do or don’t feel about them, it doesn’t change the facts of the matter.”

  “And those are?” I asked, calm and level.

  Her reply was equally cool: “The PRT doesn’t like what it can’t control. Independent capes operating in their jurisdictions are a threat to their operations and the public’s perception of them. Your existence undermines their authority, and the severity of that undermining is directly correlated to your success.”

  She tapped her index fingers together, her brows drawing closer to one another. “Have you never questioned the number of ‘villains’ doing petty, small-time crime? People who barely deserve the label? Or the policies that persist, draconian ones, that let the PRT hand out villain status however they please?”

  I felt a flicker of irritation at the line of questioning. I couldn’t tell if it was because it challenged things I still held onto, or because it implied that I hadn’t already thought about them.

  “What is it that you’re trying to say, exactly?” I asked. “Is this a pitch? Pick a side, wear the right colors?”

  “May I ask how old you are?” Gregor’s tone was gentle. “Only so I might better understand your perspective.”

  I didn’t like the implication. That my age made me naive and incapable of understanding. But... I said I’d humble myself in ways no hero would. This is the dry run before tonight.

  “I am eighteen.”

  Gregor nodded. No judgment from either of them.

  They weren’t patronizing me, just trying to understand. That felt rare, somehow.

  “May I appeal to you, Apex?” Gregor again. I dipped my head to him.

  “Please consider this: we gain nothing by earning your ire.” He glanced over at Faultline as if checking the temperature of the room, and they made eye contact briefly before he continued: “Faultline and I have many years of experience between us. Is it not possible that we, at one point, stood in your shoes and walked along the path you are on currently?”

  “Certainly.”

  “So if our guidance feels uncomfortable, imagine how it feels for us. To see someone younger walking the same knife’s edge, risking the same mistakes. Would you not wish to reach out and speak with them yourself?” He asked, his speech a bit formal, but his tone and pose cordial.

  I nodded firmly.

  “You have a choice before you, Apex,” Faultline said. “If you’re content to stay on the sidelines, low-impact and unobtrusive, the PRT will tolerate a rogue or independent status.”

  She tapped her index fingers together once again and leaned forward. “But I don’t think that’s who you want to be. The way you carry yourself. The company you keep, the nature of your form. They make you a threat, whether you want to be one or not.”

  She laid her hands flat on the table. “It is my opinion that you will be forced to choose between a career with the PRT or the status of villain. I do not think independence is viable, not for long.”

  She leaned into the backrest of her chair. “Can I ask you something?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I agreed.

  “Let’s say you leave here today. Undecided. You keep doing what you’re doing: independent hero, no backing.” She gestured toward the door. “How exactly do you plan to fund your operations?”

  If my mask had eyebrows, they’d be furrowed. I had a bit saved up, but even living cheap, my expenses were draining it fast.

  “Humor me, perhaps we have different ideas of what expenses mean.”

  She crossed her arms. “Let’s start with the basics. You’ve got property: rented, owned, whatever. Utilities: electric, water, sewer, maybe gas. Internet. Comms setup. Then there’s food, which I’m guessing isn’t cheap for someone your size.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding.

  “Next, transportation and gear. You’ve got some bases covered, flight is a big one. But say you’re injured, grounded, or need to stay unseen. At your size? You’ll need a cargo vehicle. Expensive to buy. More expensive to run.”

  “Fair. I’ve thought about most of that. I’ve got solutions to some, at least.”

  “Good. Now for the things you probably haven’t thought about. Medical costs. Maybe not a factor if you regenerate, but still worth remembering. You’ll need a lawyer. Or a law firm. Legal trouble is inevitable in cape life. And taxes– not the federal kind. I mean local power players. Gang taxes. Protection fees. Territory bribes.”

  I clicked my tongue. “They’d have their hands full if they tried.”

  That earned a lean forward. Her forearms settled on the table again, voice just a notch sharper. “I believe it. If I can be blunt, you look like you could turn a warehouse full of armed gangsters into meat chunks in seconds. You look made for violence. We’ll circle back to that. But organized crime? They don’t usually fight head-on. It’s not worth the cost. Too messy.”

  “No. They’ll pay someone off. A neighbor. A city worker. Someone who’s seen you come and go. Then, one day while you’re out? They toss a five-dollar Molotov through a window. And everything you own? Gone.”

  Fuck. She’s right. I could build a legend, wrap myself in fear, make people think twice, but isn’t that the opposite of what I want? Of who I’m trying to be?

  I held my tongue. She continued: “Let’s say you’re on Team Good Guys. But you’re solo. Independent. You’re out fighting a battle against a bad guy. You wind up duking out in public spaces, despite your best intentions.”

  “Okay…” I tilted my head slightly.

  “You get thrown through a wall. Maybe it’s someone’s home. Maybe there were three people inside. Now they’re dead. Maybe you win against Bobby Bad Guy. PRT comes, and he goes to jail. Guess who gets stuck with the bill? Property damage. Wrongful death. Civil suits. If you’re PRT? Big Brother picks up the tab. But you?” She tilted her head, just slightly. “How do you pay for it?”

  This is making me deeply uncomfortable. But maybe that’s the point. Or maybe it’s what Gregor said. Lived experience, passed down like a warning flare.

  “That last one, did it happen to someone you know?” I asked.

  Faultline leaned back, arms crossing again. “That’s something you’d have to ask them. If they’re willing to talk about it.”

  “But here’s something I can tell you, Apex, and I know it’s an ironclad truth: A huge number of villains? They didn’t choose it. They ended up here because of accidents. Collateral damage. Things they didn’t mean to do. It’s one of the most common villain origin stories out there.”

  A knock at the door was followed by the delivery of food. I welcomed the arrival. This conversation was a lot.

  Sure enough, five monster steaks. I had to swallow a mouthful of spit just to keep from drooling as I leaned in for a bite. I was a good guest. I waited for the boss to tuck in first. The wait staff had brought me a giant serving fork, which cracked me up. The three of us were eating pretty much the same things, if in very different arrangements. My ‘salad’ was in a baking mixing bowl or something. Heads of lettuce and cabbage had been quartered and drizzled in a dark vinaigrette along with whole tomatoes, carrots, and cucumbers.

  I celebrated a small success in shaking the two stone-cold mercs across the table from me when I grabbed the big fork in a tentacle and started eating my salad. I watched them both notice and gape. After crunching and swallowing half a cabbage, I held the fork out in the most polite manner I could manage and asked them: “What? Don’t you eat with your hair?”

  The food was excellent. I completely cleaned the salad bowl and the platter of steaks. Mostly bone-in. Crunch, crunch. Growing cryptids need their calcium.

  “Thank you, that was very delicious,” I told Faultline when we’d finished. I had beaten them both by a decent margin in the race to finish our meals. Huge steaks or not, they were still basically like oversized finger food. It was easier to avoid making a mess or a scene by just stuffing the entire thing in and crunching it.

  She wiped her mouth with a napkin and placed it on her plate. “I hope it was at least as good as what you had planned on eating back home.”

  “Do you want the polite answer or the real answer?” I asked her.

  “Real. Don’t feel like you need to avoid offending me, and I prefer the information without filters. If you do offend me, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “Well, I have a five-gallon bucket full of beef offal in my fridge at home. That was going to be lunch and dinner. My sense of taste is a little different now, I think. More sensitive, but maybe broader too? Nice things certainly taste better. Things that would have turned my stomach before really aren’t too bad. I eat that, and some pretty questionable stuff as well. Really helps keep those costs down.”

  “Hm. Where are you getting it from?” She asked me.

  “Talking to grocers, asking for trimmings, waste, expired products, stuff like that.”

  “I’d have to make some phone calls, but I’m willing to bet you can halve that cost if you were to get it directly from a slaughterhouse or meat-packing facility.”

  “I–” I hesitated a moment. “That would be nice of you, but what’s the angle?”

  She shifted in her seat and glanced over at Gregor, who returned the look.

  “Having contacts is good. I think there are many things we could potentially offer each other, in terms of goods, services, and favors.”

  There was one thing I’d been thinking about after the overwhelming onslaught of information she’d hit me with earlier.

  “You, Faultline’s Crew, are considered villains.”

  “Correct,” her answer was short and to the point.

  I offered a concession: “On the gray side of villains, as I understand it. Business-oriented. Mercenaries.” I paused a moment, then asked: “Is that an offensive term?”

  “Mercenary?” She asked, and I nodded.

  She cleared her throat and said, “depends on who you ask. Personally? I don’t think so. But the context matters, too. It’s a broad label, and there are certainly many groups under that label I wouldn’t associate with.”

  Hm. That woman who left as I was coming in. She has a similar bearing to Faultline. Similar posture.

  “And some that you would associate with?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Like RSI?” I asked, deliberately casual. Watching her closely.

  I was taking a stab in the dark. I had no real idea who or what they were. But the woman, the vehicle, the symbol. It meant something. I could feel it.

  Her eyes narrowed, and she licked her teeth. “Perhaps,” she said after a pause.

  Dangerous waters.

  “A word of advice, Apex.” She waited for a beat, letting the silence stretch. “Be very careful doing that. It’s like juggling while blindfolded, except you don’t know what it is you’re juggling. Maybe it’s a bowling pin, a ball, a knife, or a hand grenade.”

  My jaw clicked as I went to speak, and she held up an index finger. I closed my mouth.

  “I am telling you the same thing I told that girl. Trust me: those games will blow up in your face sooner or later.”

  Girl? What?

  “I am listening to you, Faultline. But I’m not connecting that last part of what you said,” I admitted.

  “That is precisely the problem. There is ambiguity, assumptions are made to fill gaps in communication, and eventually, you’re going to randomly punch in the proper code to trigger an explosive.” She let that sink in a moment, then clarified: “I am speaking about Tattletale, who plays guessing games and fishes for information. As much of an asset as she can be to her team and friends, she is also a lurking liability.”

  So that’s what this is. Not a warning shot. A caution sign. She’s not posturing, this is her way of trying to keep me alive.

  There was no love lost between them, it was stark and apparent. But I think I was getting exactly what Faultline was trying to tell me. After all, I’d had a weighty realization strike me in the head this morning based on those very assumptions.

  “There’s one thing I’m curious about,” I said, returning to the previous topic. “Do you consider yourselves villains?”

  “Does it matter what we consider ourselves?” Gregor asked. At first, I thought he meant it literally. On second thought, I realized it was rhetorical.

  I thought a moment. “I think it does, provided you are self-aware. And aren’t lying to yourself.”

  He nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer.

  “You’ll be judged by everything you do,” Faultline said. “And most of the time, you don’t get to pick the labels other people apply. But, to answer your question: yes, we are villains. We do illegal things—of varying severity. We have standards, our own ethics. But our business is doing the jobs no one else wants to do. Or can’t do.”

  She leaned back slightly. “Most of it’s dirty. Ugly. The kind of thing the public doesn’t want to know about, and the PRT is happy to let them remain in the dark.”

  “It is difficult,” Gregor added, “to walk the line between legality and morality. What is legal may not be just. What is just may be illegal.” He tilted his head. “Look up the Bad Canary case, if you haven’t already. Most reporting on it was propaganda. Do your homework.”

  Faultline checked a message on her phone, then looked up. “We’ll have to wrap this up shortly. Before you go, tell me, are you aware of an important meeting happening tonight?”

  I let out a slow sigh. “Yeah. I am.”

  “And you have an invitation to it?” She asked.

  I shook my head. “Not directly. I’ve been asked along as a very large plus one. Something, something, shared interests. I am planning on attending.”

  One brow lifted. She gave a short, almost imperceptible nod. “I can imagine what those interests are. It’s not hard, given the state of things in the Bay.” A pause. “If that falls through, you may attend with us.”

  She stood up, and Gregor followed suit.

  “Truthfully, I’m not sure whether to thank you for that or not,” I admitted. “My presence will cause drama, probably controversy. And I’m worried the cost might outweigh the benefit.”

  There was a flicker in her eyes then: intensity, calculation, something sharp behind the cool expression. “Then why attend at all?” She held up a hand before I could answer. “The real reason. No filters.”

  I opened my jaw, closed it, and opened it again.

  “Someone who’s probably smarter than I am asked me if I would be okay letting Empire Eighty-Eight run around, stopping innocent, mostly Asian people.”

  A low, involuntary growl crept into my voice. “ I am not.”

  Gregor said: “A very good point on their part, and an honorable sentiment on yours.”

  “Is that why you’re attending?” I asked them.

  Faultline stopped on her way to the door, Gregor and I just behind her. She spoke without turning around: “No. We are seeking business. And if our fees are paid, we will participate to our full ability.”

  Brutal.

  Her words hit me hard, settling in my gut like a stone.

  She turned then, meeting my eyes. Her face was impassive. “We do not hand out invitations lightly, and make no mistake, this isn’t one. But should you find yourself without a place to stay, you could do worse than here. In the meantime, keep in touch. There are mutually beneficial things we could be doing for one another. Jobs, favors, information.”

  “All voluntary, of course.”

  I nodded.

  “Gregor will show you to the exit. I hope to see you tonight.” With that, she left.

  Gregor walked me into the hallway, and when passing a staircase, asked me: “Will you wait here a moment before you leave?”

  “Sure,” I said, a little absently.

  He left up the stairs and was gone for a couple of minutes before returning with a sturdy canvas satchel.

  “Right this way.”

  We made our way back to the loading bay, retracing our steps. Gregor keyed the motor, and the rolling door began to rise with a groan.

  “Please take this,” he said, extending a canvas satchel toward me. “A personal gift.”

  I was a bit taken aback, but I lowered my head for him like I was in a knighting ceremony, and he looped the strap around my broad neck. I adjusted it some with my tentacles so everything was both comfortable and secure, tightening it up around my neck so it was more like a collar. With the way it hung, I could tell it was pretty heavy.

  “Thank you, Gregor. Today’s conversations have been difficult… but I appreciated them.” I paused, then asked, “What’s in the bag?”

  He smiled faintly. “Often, the most worthwhile conversations are the hardest to have. Inside, you’ll find a few books I believe are worth reading. Perhaps some of the answers you seek will be found in their pages.”

  He looked up at me. “But I will warn you. The material, like today, may not come easily. Don’t feel discouraged if you struggle. That’s expected.”

  My curiosity sparked, but I had things to do before I headed back to Redmond Welding.

  “Until later, then,” I said and made my way out.

  Just before I stepped out into the sunlight, Gregor spoke again.

  “A sellsword may carry their own convictions, Apex… but convictions can be bad for business.”

  I turned my head slightly, listening.

  “They drive you to act outside the bounds of a contract, and that takes food from your table. Understand: a mercenary who works for free is no mercenary at all. And in our world, reputation is everything.”

  The shutters squeaked and the chain rattled as the door lowered. The view inside narrowed, then vanished.