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bladekindeyewear · 4 years

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HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-05-19

Figured an upd8 was coming, it’s felt like enough time has passed for one.

Huh, looking at my last post I’d completely forgotten I was supposed to play through Pesterquest sometime... work is busy and stressing me out a bit, I’m not sure when I’ll have the energy on the side to do that. (Maybe I’ll livetweet it like I did Undertale a while ago, but this time not looking at my twitter replies so I don’t get spoiled by One Guy™?)

Also, including bonus commentary on A Threat Sensed.

Okay, going in completely blind. I’d guessed from context that we’re hopping over to Meat side to get a chapter there before we can come back to actually see Yiffy?

Yep. Okay, what is this about exactly?

(Agh, dammit, I’ve been copying and pasting so much at work remoting into Windows lately that now I’m automatically trying to hit control-C instead of command-C to copy.)

> CHAPTER 9. How Goes The Eulogizing, Dear?

CONTENT NOTE: This chapter contains Child Abuse.

Which one???

Wait

JANE: (Where is he?) JANE: (It's a question I've found myself asking many times in recent days.)

Holy SHIT we get two Candy chapters in a row??? So we might see her right away?? No, it’s gotta just be another tiny glimpse.

(Has two Candy chapters in a row happened before? Future Boots, scroll back up and put this here. FUTURE BOOTS: “I forgot to scroll back up and put that here.” EDIT: Also, not the first time with two in a row, but it IS the first time with THREE in a row, huh.)

So Jane has to be talking about either Tavros or Dave. --Oh, if this was a Candy Side chapter title, I guess Rose or Jade is eulogizing Dave for John?

> (==>)

JANE: (Where now is our merry savior?) JANE: (Where is the horn that was honking?) JANE: (Where is the cape and the codpiece, and the...) JANE: (The...) JANE: (Oh, fiddlesticks.)

What? Is she reading a childrens’ book? --Oh. She’s eulogizing Gamzee. So that gives us a third option, where the rebellion crashes the funeral somehow, probably audiovisually rather than in person. (Which would make sense, given Candy practically began with Gamzee crashing Dirk’s funeral.)

> (==>)

Ah never mind, she’s still writing it.

That sure is a single button drama-remote that’s going to be pressed at some point. Oh, and who the fuck keeps a spork in a pen cup??? --No no, don’t say it’s one of those pens with a spork at the eraser end, either ready-made or rubber-banded to the side. That would make sense. You totally know it isn’t that and is just a spork.

JANE: (Okay, poetry is out.) JANE: (What else?) JANE: (Hrm...) JANE: (I've always been pretty good at crying on cue.) JANE: (Could I try staging an emotional breakdown?) JANE: (That could work; playing to people's humanity.)

Why were you crying in Jake’s arms about his death if you didn’t care that much? Did you just want him to hold you and kinda make him feel in on things again? Or did you just cry yourself out about him?

JANE: (Or whatever is the more inclusive term.)

I bet the rest of Earth C figured out a more inclusive term millenia ago FUCK I accidentally added millennia to my dictionary misspelled instead of correcting it hold on--

...There, killed the entry for it. ...Huh. Take a look at my Chrome dictionary’s custom-added words over the years, apparently:

Caliborn Eridan Kanaya Matriorb Meenah Tavros alchemiter dichotomic nephilim reblogged uncaptchalogues uncaptchaloguing

That’s fun.

Okay back to reading. Millennia. Phew! Where was I.

JANE: (One really good and calculated weep could do it, I think.) JANE: (But then there's the danger that I might get carried away and do it for real.) JANE: (And I can't risk that.)

So still feeling something, just too used to calculating over the past years.

JANE: (What can I say about him that will stir up their emotions?) JANE: (Do I mention the stuff about the milk?) JANE: (Think Crocker, think.)

WHY would you-- how much did Gamzee normalize adult breastfeeding?!

JAKE: Ahoy over there!

Not the best time.

(The thing with the divorce papers from the Epilogue and John implying he was planning with Jake to execute something that sounds like a divorce... is that going to be sprung here? Did her lawyers send the divorce papers way back when she was in a fit of pique, and he just had them available to sign now at the tactical moment? Or... let me pull the exact text...)

JOHN: now, harry anderson, i know that you and tavros haven't always gotten along. JOHN: but i am going to have to ask you to try and look out for him for the time being. JOHN: your uncle jake and i... well, i'll explain later. JOHN: let's just say that gamzee isn't the only family member jane is losing today.

(So is John going to submit the papers? Or did they already go through a while ago and default custody to John or something who’s going to adopt him too or some nonsense? And did he plan this out with Jake NOW, or a while ago, and if only a while ago, is Jake going to KNOW whatever John’s about to pull in that respect is about to happen??)

> (==>)

Butte

Janepalme

> (==>)

JAKE: Er... how goes the eulogizing, dear?

Gah. I completely forgot again that capitalized-first-letter chapter names don’t mean KANAYA is saying them. That probably makes a lot more sense out of my wondering about the chapter title earlier to those of you who didn’t realize I was making that mistake.

JANE: It turns out that it's mighty difficult to find touching things to say about a person, the relationship with whom was predicated on deep-seated mutual loathing.

Hah!

--A loathing you regarded as largely more important to you than Jake ever was, by the way. You asshole.

JANE: I imagine this is one of the reasons no funerary tradition was ever established on Alternia, besides the barbarism of their culture. DIRK: Jesus christ. JANE: Not only did a significant proportion of their interpersonality depend on romance in the form of hatred, but it was a society based on cruelty and violence. JANE: What reason could they have had to provide for the dead? JANE: What kind of last rites could they have even imagined?

I wondered for a moment why (bg!)Dirk of all people would react to a single line of her starting to bring up prejudices, but then I realized that (1) Brain Ghost Dirk is a little more Jakey, and (2) Dirk knew that more ranting would follow the first line.

JANE: I can't think of anything good to write about him because deep down, I hated his guts. JANE: But he was and is beloved of the multitude, so I have to think of something regardless. JAKE: Im not sure i understand. JANE: Don't worry your pretty little head about it. JANE: This is politics, Jakey. JANE: Lying through your two front teeth about people you hate is about as good a definition as it's possible to get. JANE: But, by gum, is it tiring work.

Mm. It’s a position Jane put herself in, but it’s still a legitimate position once you’re there.

JANE: The funeral is tomorrow, after all.

Got it.

DIRK: Dude, the bowl. JAKE: Hm? JAKE: Oh, right. JANE: What is it now, Jake. JAKE: I brought something for our guest as well. JANE: You mean the prisoner. JAKE: Y...es.

Wait, bowl?

Oh god damnit which of you had the idea to feed her with a DOG BOWL. Either of you could have thought of it, and either of you would be horrible for it.

> (==>)

Huh, that outfit on Yiffy looks familiar, like a reference to something. And a black tail? This definitely isn’t quite the look I was expecting from Jade Plus Rose, but I suppose the snazzy tie is a Roseish vibe. Also reminiscent of Jade’s old Dead Shuffle dress. Formal wear and soccer cleats??

JANE: She's over in the corner. JANE: Don't worry, she won't bite. JANE: I've seen to that already.

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN. I don’t see anything over her mouth! Did she stick something in it, or drug her? File her fucking teeth???

I mean I did forget the Child Abuse trigger warning to be fair. Hoping whatever would be on her mouth is just not shown in-panel yet for stylistic reasons.

> (==>)

JAKE: Its only mac and cheese, sorry. JAKE: Its all I know how to make, haha. JAKE: ... JAKE: I um... hope you can safely partake of cheese? JAKE: ... JAKE: Well, JAKE: Bon appetit.

How the fuck did Jake eat on his island then? --Oh right, preserved food cans that Grandma Jade stored up, I think I remember. Why would cheese not be a thing for them, if it’s fine for Jade? I know he’s probably not just worried about lactose intolerance.

Either way, if she’s drugged here, that’ll mean we won’t get a good idea of her for a while, so which is it...

> (==>)

DIRK: Bon appetit. DIRK: Seriously dude? JAKE: (What? Did i pronounce it wrong?) DIRK: Jake. DIRK: You put the food in a fucking dog bowl. JAKE: (It was all there was, ok???) JAKE: (I feel awful enough as it is without you getting on my case about it.)

Ah, missed the bone pun. AND, yeah, Jake, you’re a fucking idiot, you could have put it in a cup or something.

JAKE: (So far ive yet to see anything come of that brilliant plan of yours.) JAKE: (Are you sure sending that message to the others was enough?)

Okay, so he IS coordinating this slightly.

> (==>)

Horrifying image to contemplate, eh Jane?

Or anger-inducing?

> (==>)

Seems about right!

> (==>)

Oh that’s a GREAT exasperated Jane face.

JANE: I hope you're not expecting dessert, young lady.

I like how Jane didn’t notice, comment on, or care about the bowl. How can you hate a kid so much??

> (==>)

Oh I know why I felt like I recognized the outfit style, it’s because it’s ANIME AS FUCK. Feels like some Persona 4 Arena nonsense, and I say that not having played any of those games or even remembering what they looked like. Also, white hair, black fur’d dog parts? Nice change of pace.

YIFFY: GRRRRRRRRR... JANE: Oh no you don't.

Red text? What color exactly... “#D00009”? Huh. That’s nowhere near Alt-Callie’s #FF0000, and darker than Dave’s #E00707. In fact, let me go back and check those spilled color pins the commentary pointed out from an update or two ago... no, the red pin is #E63225, closer to Dave’s color. (Also, is Yiffy blocking the doorway out? That’s a pretty slack chain then.)

Did Jane see to it that she wouldn’t bite with like, a water spray bottle?

(EDIT: Oh my FUCKING GOD, THAT's why it's #D00009...)

> (==>)

FUCK I didn’t notice the shock collar in the Yiffy image! FUCK YOU, Jane.

> (==>)

Keeping someone in line with collars, especially ones that punish whenever one strays out of line, has always been a decent way for her to mix in some Doomy control of others to show how she’s “grown” to balance her main role and her Tiara-controlled-like inverse for more power. Doom in part represents boundaries that you can’t cross without getting hurt or punished.

> (==>)

FUCK, those little buck teeth!? D’:

JANE: That's more like it.

She HAS to have more of a reason for hating her than hating her parents, right? Like, more than that and general racism applying to partdogfolk?

> (==>)

Hey fuck off with that!

> (==>)

This is a pretty cool ima-- are those piercings on her dog ear? I didn’t notice that in the first shot, neat.

JANE: You've been a thorn in my side ever since I agreed to enroll you at the academy, little madam. JANE: Back then, I was doing a favor for two old friends who made a disgusting mistake. JANE: I'm no longer going to play nice with you just because of your parents, however. JANE: That truce is over. JANE: Do I make myself understood?

What the fuck? WHY would you do that? Why does Jane run "Ms. Paint’s Home for Inconvenient Girls”? What did Yiffy do to piss her off so much there, how much trouble could she have caused?

I don’t know if she’s referring to the behind-Kanaya’s-back part as disgusting or she’s just being MORE racist.

> (==>)

JANE: We don't want you passing out during the ceremony, do we?

Oh, just showing the hostage off during the clown funeral, huh? Classy much?

> (==>)

JANE: Now, be a good hostage and get some rest, Yiffany dear. JANE: We've got a big day tomorrow.

For a politician, Jane’s not good at looking at herself in a mirror.

> (==>)

JANE: Night night. JANE: Hoo hoo.

> (Yiffy: Lights out.)

Huh, dream stuff is gonna be relevant out in Candy then? *click*

Okay, dark background all of a sudden. Properly dramatic? You even have to highlight the non-link “>” part of the Next link to see it.

> (==>)

-- thespiansGlamor [TG] began pestering adamantGriftress [AG] --

Well, I don’t know WHY it’s happening, but the white-backed pesterlog suddenly on the dark site framing is certainly evocative. Of like, a mood, or something.

TG: i thought he was pretty quiet down there. TG: we'll make a rebel of him yet! AG: Lol. AG: I think it's more that he can't sleep. AG: I know how he feels. TG: yeah. TG: today was a lot. AG: ... TG: do you wanna talk about it? AG: Ugh, not you as well.

It’s really jarring to transition between Homestuck’s “kids jarringly mentally resistant to freaking out about the end of the world” to HS^2′s more realistic “kids traumatized by their first firefight even though it was an overwhelming victory-escape”.

TG: but seriously, do you? AG: Not really. TG: not even about... you know? TG: her? AG: No. TG: ... are you sure? AG: A8solutely. AG: What are you, my moirail? AG: Just leave it, Harry. TG: ok.

Are they about to have an “I wonder what Yiffy’s like” talk?

> (==>)

Very similar Tav/Vrissy convo to the previous one.

GG: I havent ever shared a bedroom before,,, GG: Not even for a slumber party,,, AG: Tavvy, you are just a8out the saddest person I've ever met.

Well, we have an even better idea how horrible Jane can be with kids, now. From Nanna to THIS is quite jarring. I wonder how the double Nannasprites that must still be around here somewhere feel?

> (==>)

TG: nothing about my dad is cute. TG: what are you even saying. AG: Lmao. TG: seriously! TG: i think he has something against that word, even. he gets super weird about it. AG: He's a strange and funny m8n. TG: yeah. TG: ... TG: i think something bad must have happened.

...um. What? Why would John have some sort of trauma about the word cute or being called it?

Did John dress up as a hint of his buried June ambitions as a kid and Dad lavish him with “SO CUTE” praise in an epic supportiveness backfire that caused him to shelve the idea of wearing non-masc clothes and being happier on the flipside of gender ever again??? Because if that’s how June gets canonized as promised, it’s a little harsher than the back of my mind was hoping. I guess it kind of had to be though from the premise of how it was read into his childhood for the original idea, though. Fuck, I hope this Cute business is about something different from that (like a Terezi reference or such) just to get less John Sads. (But still June. Definitely still want to get June.)

> (==>)

Oh, and now Vrissy is doing nothing but talking about what she said she didn’t want to talk about, of course. (Also I like how JANE’s now being called the Batterwitch.)

AG: And the worst part was they didn't even fight a8out it! AG: That made me madder than 8nything else. AG: It felt like I was the only person who even W8S mad! GG: I dont think thats true,,, AG: What would you know a8out it?! GG: Maybe nothing,,, GG: Sorry,,, GG: Its just,,, GG: To me,,, all the way through the conversation,,, aunt kanaya looked even angrier than you,,, AG: ... AG: Adults are so fucking weird.

Guh, I don’t want to be reminded how hurt a good chunk of the fanbase is by Kanaya getting hurt this badly.

Original Tavros was always SLIGHTLY perceptive of others sometimes, but maybe perceptiveness is being hinted at as a Tavros specialty? We still don’t know his classpect/hero-title or have any firm guesses based on purely him evidence. (Also, frightened kids of abusive households tend to learn to get perceptive pretty fucking quickly I hear.)

> (==>)

TG: dad was sitting in the cafeteria with aunt jade and your moms. TG: it looked like they were discussing something important... they were whispering and stuff.

[etc etc] Alright, the what-happened-to-Dave bit. And I imagine they’re kind of helping John grieve there, since Rose and Jade have talked that out already.

TG: aunt kanaya's was the only face i could see. TG: she was standing next to them, but she wasn't looking at what was going on. TG: almost like she couldn't bear to. AG: I doubt it. Kanaya's got a8out as much Emotivity as a very reclusive stone. TG: ok, i think that is bullshit but whatever. TG: she saw me standing there, but didn't say anything. she just shook her head slightly, and pointed back out into the hallway i came down.

Yep, giving them some space to grieve. Also-- gosh, shouldn’t Vrissy have the same emotive senses that Aranea implied Vriska shared with her? Kanaya isn’t that EXPRESSIVE but she’s certainly full of emotion. Also, I hope part of her not bearing to watch wasn’t lingering anger toward Jade and Rose mixing with that, but there probably was a bit of that too, though Dave being gone is so much harsher than that. --I just realized they might not have broken the news to Karkat yet, either.

AG: I guesadxcxzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz TG: vrissy?

Put to sleep by someone slumping down on your phone keypad, or surprised by something about the other conversation?

Oh shit, “other conversation” reminded me I didn’t look at Tavros’s chumhandle:

glutinousGymnast [GG]

HHHHHhhhhuh. Hm... huh? hhhh. huh? what, but. Why would. ?????

I really don’t understand what that chumhandle or any of its entendres should signify in this context.

Also, this means for our new four kids we have TG, GG, AG, and ??.

> (==>)

GG: I think she might have succumbed to sleep quite suddenly,,, GG: It would explain the,,,,,, interesting messages I've been getting for a while,,, TG: hehe. TG: i guess that tracks. TG: she does that from time to time.

That’s... strange. Homestuck’s taught us to be suspicious of that.

TG: ... TG: tav? GG: Yes,,, harry anderson,,,? TG: what does it feel like to know someone who's died?

Who is Harry referring to? (EDIT: Yes I know Gamzee for Tavros, but I meant Harry talks like he's worried he'll have to feel that way soon?) Is he just kind of inferring that something bad might have happened to Uncle Dave? Got that perceptive “parents are about to tell me about a death in the family” vibe? Or did he overhear more than he let on to Vrissy?

...alright, that’s the last page of this update. Looks like this chapter is going to continue to have a good bunch of grieving, or talk around it.

---

Now for Bonus Commentary for A Threat, Sensed. For some reason I have a dim memory of like... reading this myself without commenting on it? Or skimming it? But I’m pretty sure I didn’t do that. Weird. Must have imagined doing it.

Ah, I think I saw the opening paragraph scrolling Patreon, and my mind kinda filled in the blanks, this is still looking new to me.

Okay, mostly banter and japes in the commentary here. About Dirk “throwing a huge tantrum in his philosophy cave”.

We’ve had quite a bit of speculation on whether this is “really” Andrew. To that, I think we’d say that it doesn’t “really” matter.

Really? That was speculated about? :/

Here we discover that Dirk has not, as some people have speculated, been directly intervening into the Candy timeline, or influencing it in any way. In fact, he has a very hard time seeing anything going on there at all.

Mhmm, and that was a pretty important thing to learn.

A couple of years ago I might have agreed with the take that everything happening in Candy is simply too outlandish to ever happen naturally, without direct, villainous interference, but that was before literally every fucking batshit insane thing that has happened on Real Life Earth started going down, and now I will believe literally anything.

This is a nice bit of distraction from the idea that at least the opening parts of the Candy story were written/narrated by Original, Alive Calliope over on meat side. To refresh your memory of what was pointed out to me:

ROXY: back when jade first got all effed up callie saw somethin and it made them freak out ROXY: it took me weeks to convince them that it was safe to come home ROXY: but now we got the opposite problem and they arent leavin the house at all ROXY: they stay home all day with the blinds drawn paintin some weird ass shit on the walls TEREZI: WH4T? ROXY: its not as bad as it sounds i promise ROXY: some of it is like ROXY: weird and violent?? ROXY: like lotsa nasty purple blood and um ROXY: nudity???? TEREZI: >:? ROXY: yeah yikes ROXY: but MOST of it is cute stuff like... various combos of all of us being happy and gettin married and shit ROXY: anyway thats kept callie kinda busy

Which tracks with the initial out-of-character-seemingness of almost everyone at the start of Candy, and how they kind of tried to railroad things back onto the “Happy??” track after Dirk derailed it with his weird self-accumulation suicide, along with some of the flowery-idyllic descriptions of characters seeing each other bathed in a halo of light and such.

Of course, they’re not going to out-and-out STATE that Calliope was at fault for that narration, helping the Candy story not necessarily fall out the way it did “naturally”, until we finally get a glimpse of her on the heroes’ ship in Meat probably still painting the continuing Candy events, inspiring them into the void of the singularity with her latent powers. Til then, it’s a bit of misdirection whenever the topic is to be brought up. Along with a mix of Roxy’s late-Candy point to John of more or less “why COULDN’T we have done this naturally? you don’t know”.

He might even think that he has more direct power over the narrative than Hussie does himself. Surprise, motherfucker, you are a fictional character.

I’ll quote this next part in full:

There’s been talk of whether or not this bonus was written in the two days between its release and the Yiffy reveal chapter. The answer is--no. It was written over a month ago. But I think the things it addresses were not difficult to suss out. Obviously, Dirk is highlighting the issues that the readership are having with Yiffy, in his typical Dirk fashion. If it seems a little defensive, well...I suppose it is. Yiffy is one of the two hard lines drawn in the sand, and all of us love her, and we’re hoping that everyone else will love her too. But more than that, it focuses on the fact that update culture has a rhythm to it--shock, revulsion, acceptance (or not), and then excitement (or not). Will it follow that pattern this time? Who knows. I guess we’ll find out.

Yeah, given what was going to be dropped on us I expected they would have had exactly this lined up, especially because Andrew specifically mandated Yiffy. --I wonder why they aren’t mentioning that somewhere in the commentary and only on one of their Twitters?

Also quoting this:

There’s something both incredibly “cringe” and self-indulgent, as well as philosophically intriguing, about the author arguing with his villain, especially since he’s writing both halves of the conversation himself. You are, for all intents and purposes, trying to solve a problem that you have created for yourself. You are looking an aspect of your personality in the eye and asking, hey, what the fuck, man?

But in the end, isn’t that what every story is? Trying to untie knots that you put in the rope yourself?

Since it’s part of the central struggle of this story, and kind of the question Andrew’s tried to imply with every Homestuck work about what right we have to keep these characters trapped in a story, and if they’d be better off escaping it.

I’m really trying to avoid quoting so much of this, since the commentary is paid... but I think we can make an exception here? I’ll have only quoted about half of it; just, the really plot-important half. Plus, I left out a LOOOT of japes.

Dirk has a certain idea of how stories are supposed to go. That’s pretty much what the Epilogues is about. The audience also has a certain expectation of how a story is supposed to go. In a way, the Epilogues were also about that. They were taking a story that had reached the traditionally “acceptable” happily ever after, and saying, wait, no. What happens next? Thinking past happily ever after in any story is a terrifying prospect. Once Cinderella marries the prince, what then? Sure, she got what she wanted, but who knows that it will be everything she dreamt it would? What if she changes her mind, if not today, what about ten years from now? What if the prince dies of malaria?

And I’m...

Yeah I don’t have anything else to add here, I’m kind of out of brain juice to think about this tonight. BUSY day I had. Y’all take care!

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots #spoiler #spoilers #Homestuck Commentary

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blooblooded · 5 years

Text

BG story part 2

Yes this sucks. Last 30 pages, the first half was definitely better. Cynthia is good for like 3 lines at the end though.

I wondered why I was so fixated on BG trying to make excuses for Lady even though he knows exactly what she does. Then I figured it out lol.

BG vs Empathy

Fucked up events were now snowballing. Destructive blood magic groups were becoming more organized. Terrorists were all over the place. The creatures that Dot was related to teemed beneath the Colony in the sewers and Lower levels. Social unrest grew as factions like the Prospases, Voorsts, and Agapamas gained more power and control. It seemed like some new awful thing happened in the Colony every day, and there weren't enough secret police agents to take care of them.

Up until that point, the unrest only happened outside of the secret police.

One event put an end to that. And of course it did. The individual at the center brought nothing but chaos and unrest in life, why would he be anything different in death?

He and Lady relaxed on the couch of the common room on their floor. Some kind of commotion had been going on earlier in the day, but for once they weren't a part of it. It felt good just to chill. So many agents had been killed recently that everyone was overworked. There was no better remedy for stress than laying around and doing nothing.

Lady was falling asleep. She curled up on the couch with her head resting on one of BG's legs. From time to time she would drift off and BG would feel stabs of neural pain until he shook her awake again. It wasn't her fault. She was just so exhausted. He liked to have her close to him like that because he felt like he could keep a better eye on her. With every day that passed he could feel her drifting farther away from him and closer to whatever black hole had opened up inside of her on B-Day.

He tried to keep her awake. "Hey. Want to hear a joke about a piece of paper?"

"Hm?"

"Never mind…it's tear-able."

"Ugh." She yawned and stretched her long thin legs. She was wearing BG's clothes and was practically swimming in them. What was with the squad and stealing his clothes? At least he never had to worry about Bizo, since she burned right through anything that wasn't made specifically for her. While Echo liked to wear other people's' clothes out of comfort and familiarity, BG was almost positive that Lady did so because her brain was so rotted she had forgotten who owned what. "You're very very bad at jokes. You're not funny."

BG scratched Lady's head. She had just shaved it again and the black stubble was soft. "I'm funnier than you are."

"I don't really need to be funny, do I." She exhaled heavily and closed her eyes. BG tapped her on the shoulder to keep her from falling asleep. "Quit poking me, I'm awake! I'm just bored! Where is everyone?"

Boredom and Lady were a dangerous combination. BG heard someone scuttling past the common room in the hallway and he whistled to get their attention so that Lady could have someone else to entertain her. When the person didn't stop, he teleported out into the hall so that he could stop them. BG was also deathly bored. He had not interacted with anyone but Lady since breakfast; Echo and Bizo were out on a mission together.

The person who was scuttling past was one of the worst agents to teleport in front of, on account of her jumpiness and violent temper. However, when BG suddenly appeared in front of Creedo, she barely flinched. Creedo was a tiny woman with narrow eyes and patches of discoloration across her black skin. Always yelling. Always fighting. As a telekinetic, she often levitated several inches off the ground in order to appear more threatening than she really was. Whenever she and Smiles had their spats she always levitated at eye level with him before attacking. At that moment however, Creedo was still and quiet. She regarded BG blankly, with her mouth slightly open as if she was in shock.

"Uh," said BG, staring down at Creedo. "You good?"

"What?" said Creedo, as if seeing him for the first time. She had patches of angry looking blisters on her dominant hand, the one that she used to direct her abilities.

"Are you ok?" asked BG. For some reason he felt anxious. He gestured at her hand.

Creedo touched the blisters and then winced. She swallowed. "Oh. I'm on my way to the Infirmary. It's not that bad. I just--I had to-- I don't know."

Behind her, Lady crept out of the common room doorway. She tiptoed when she walked, like she always did. Luckily, Creedo did not turn around, because Lady was not a pleasant sight to behold. With clothes hanging off of her bony frame, green shadows blooming beneath her eyes, and skin that had almost gone white, she looked more dead than alive. She cocked her head to one side, watching Creedo.

Something was wrong. Creedo wasn't talking. It was abnormal. BG's heart beat faster.

"Uh," said the little telekinetic at last. She licked her lips. She cradled her injured hand. "Have you heard anything?"

"About what?"

Then, Lady's terrible eyes went very large and black. She stood up straight, suddenly filled with strange energy. "About Smiles," she said in her high-pitched voice. Creedo startled when hearing it and turned around, but did not react violently like she normally would. Instead she drew back half a step and watched Lady dumbly. "What do you know about Smiles?"

Creedo took another half step back. "I don't know anything," she said. She turned to look at BG again, since he was the one she interacted with the most, but for good reason kept glancing back at Lady. "I don't feel too good, I mean if he-- I don't know. People are saying he got Retired this morning. I had to take Pete to solitary before she-- before she realized what was happening. She knew though." She took a deep breath that should have been calming but it sounded like she was about to hyperventilate. "I don't think I ever seen her cry before. It's got to be real."

Time seemed to stop.

It was impossible. His nemesis, dead? Smiles, the guy who had been in the organization forever? No, no, no, no.

"Ha!" said Lady, loudly.

BG shook his head. It wasn't happening. They would never Retire Smiles. If Smiles was gone that meant anyone could be gone. They couldn't just get rid of a squad leader like that without setting up the next steps for his squad. That would be like-- well, it would be like getting rid of him and leaving his squad to fall apart. It was cruelty. It was impossible.

He was only vaguely aware of how fast his heart was beating and how dizzy he felt. His mouth was completely dry and when he swallowed he just became more parched. Did Creedo feel the same way? She looked lost. Of course she did. She was 27, almost as old as Smiles. It was only a matter of time.

He needed proof.

"I have to go," BG mumbled. He inhaled and teleported away, leaving the girls to do whatever it was they did when he wasn't around. He re-appeared outside of Smiles' dorm room. For a second, everything seemed normal. The door was open like it always was. There were scuff marks on the floor outside from Smiles stomping around in his precious boots. It was easy to imagine that everything was like it was before and that BG would bust in to find Smiles ready to bubble him. Except it was too quiet. The only sounds from inside was a woman's low talking.

He paused for a long time outside that door. He wondered if he would be happy if it was true. If it was something to be happy about then why did he feel sick inside?

BG walked into Smiles' dorm without knocking. And why should he? If Smiles was truly Retired and if Pete was in solitary, then what did he have to worry about? He could do whatever he wanted to Smiles' room and Smiles' things and Smiles' team without facing any repercussions. Thinking about that did not make him happy either and he knew it meant that there was something wrong with him. He'd known he was going soft for a while now. The feelings in his gut only confirmed it.

Inside the dorm, it was just as Creedo said; devoid of A-Class agents. Nickels and Johnny were sitting on one of the lower bunks, the bunk that BG knew was Smiles's. They did not notice BG come into the room. He watched them like some kind of voyeur of grief. Nickels talked quietly and rapidly, pausing every now and then to sniffle and wipe her nose with the back of her hand. Johnny sat cross-legged and perfectly still without making a peep.

“We’re OK,” Nickels was saying. “We knew this was gonna happen one day, right? He always told us how to survive this. I’m OK and Pete’s OK and you’re OK too.”

BG cleared his throat. Nickels whirled around to face him and jumped out of Smiles’s bunk to stand defensively. BG always thought that Nickels was pretty. She was soft and fat and had a round, expressive face. Somehow she remained bright and had avoided the haggard, exhausted look most psychics developed from overwork. Now however, she was not pretty. Her skin was red and blotchy; hey eyelids were swollen from what he assumed was crying.

“Get out of here,” said Nickels harshly. “Out.” She pointed at the door. As a B-Class psychic, it was abnormal for her to be giving him orders like that.

BG didn’t move. All he could do was look at her and know that what Creedo said about Smiles getting Retired was true. His heart had not stopped beating fast and he didn’t know why. “I, uh, heard that something happened. To Smiles.”

Nickels clenched her hands into fists. It was disturbing that she favored physical fighting over her psychic abilities. That was all Smiles’ doing: he didn’t like psychics. Every time BG ever saw the guy training with Nickels, he was forcing her to fight him physically. As powerful as Lady was, if she had to face Nickels without the benefit of her abilities, Nickels would snap her in half like a glowstick. Hell, Nickels could probably beat him in a fight if it came down to it. She was scary.

He didn’t know why he said what he did next. The only explanation he had was that he was getting weak and soft. He cared about people who hated him because his brain was trying to get him killed. After everything he had been through lately, it was impossible to exist with the same casual cruelty that some of the other agents did. Some of the things he saw Lady doing lately disgusted him and he knew he didn’t want to be like her, as much as he loved her. He didn’t want to hurt people who were weaker than him. He didn’t want people to get Retired. All he ever thought about now was how Echo had told him how much they hated this place and wanted to leave before it was too late. At this point in his life, BG was starting to feel the same way.

Looking at Nickels in her state of grief was terrible when he knew what she really was like. He felt bad for her and didn’t know what to do. “Are you OK?”

It looked like she wanted to attack him. She brought her fists up in front of her chest, realized what she was doing, and put them down again. “No!” she said, loud enough for anyone in the rooms next door to hear. “Would you be OK if you were me? Get the fuck out of here!”

Over on Smiles's bunk, Johnny looked over at BG like he was just recognizing that he had come in the room. He wasn't moving or reacting; usually he was all over the place and friendly to a degree that provoked irritation. His eyes were so wide that the whites showed all the way around. Apart from that, his expression was completely flat. He had his arms crossed tight across his chest like he was hugging himself for comfort.

After the time that Johnny flipped out and bit him, BG had maintained his distance. He watched Johnny cautiously, since something like Smiles getting shot in the head could easily precipitate an episode. But judging from his movement and his expression, he wasn't all there.

"What's wrong with him? Are you doing that to him?" BG asked Nickels. It's what he would have done if he was her.

Nickels turned red. She moved her chunky body so that she blocked BG's line of vision to Johnny. "You think I'm like Lady? You think I just fuck with people?" she asked savagely. The anger and grief inside of her was not being contained properly and it showed in her wet black eyes. She roughly wiped at her face with her sleeve. "Smiles told me not to get in peoples' heads without asking, especially not people I care about."

"Oh." Smiles and his whole asking for permission thing. Recently BG had considered bringing psychic consent up with Lady-- at least as it applied to Echo and Bizo. It would go completely over her head and she would end up ignoring him. What was the point.

It made him feel like he was not as good as fucking Smiles.

"Did you need something?" asked Nickels from behind clenched teeth. She sniffed and tried to turn it into something tough. "Are you gonna leave us alone anytime soon?"

"I--I wanted to see if you were OK," he said helplessly. He missed the days when his conscience was quiet. "I kind of try to do that now, you know."

Nickels turned away from him and stomped back to Smiles's bunk. What used to be Smiles's bunk. She sat down and got as close as she could to Johnny without touching him. "What a saint," she said, and sniffled again. "You know what's going to happen to us with Smiles fucking dead and Pete in perma-timeout? Everyone hates us because of him and now he's gone." She pried Johnny's arms down from the hug he was giving himself and forced his hands down into his lap. The physical contact did not jar him from his unsettling trance. When she let go of his hands, he put his arms around himself again and did not move. Nickels slumped her shoulders. It was clear that she was doing her best not to cry.

The two of them made a seriously sad picture together. BG could not stop feeling anxious. Was this even real? It was like something playing out in front of him on a screen. Any moment now Smiles was going to pop in and kick his ass.

It was real. Creedo knew it was real and knew it was going to happen to her one day. And BG? Well, Silas assured him and assured him that he was special. She revealed that sometimes she allowed the agents she thought were special to re-enter society as civilians. They didn't get Retired, not ever. They were able to live out their lives and have families and be normal and shit. Doc was one of the special ones, she had said. The first day she met him she had known that she could never kill him. She said that she felt the same thing about BG.

The thing was, that Doc might have been out of the agency, but he wasn't truly Free. Why did he come back and work in the Infirmary 3 days a week? Was that it for him, forever?

BG could not trust Silas anymore and it killed him. Not after how cold she had been about Echo.

“I want to help,” he said. He wondered if he was overstepping boundaries. “I’ve been thinking about how all of us need to start sticking together.”

Nickels didn’t answer him. BG wasn’t sure what he wanted her to say. Would he be able to keep her from being forced to work Upstairs and torture people in the same way Smiles had? Probably not. Would he be able to protect Johnny from his own choices and toxic desires? Another no. Would be be able to advocate for Pete? He did not even know where he would start.

"Will you just get out of here and leave us alone?" Nickels said at last. She still did not look at him. "We just need to be alone."

"Ok," he said. "I'm sorry about what happened." He left. What else was there to do?

Smiles was dead.

Smiles was dead. They'd roll his body into an incinerator and that would be the end of that. Maybe they'd take Pete out of Solitary if she behaved, maybe they wouldn't. It all depended on whether or not her value to the organization outweighed the possibility that she would try to burn it to the ground. Nickels would get treated like a real psychic without Smiles to protect her all the time. They'd assign her work Upstairs and force her to hurt people and eventually her brain would turn to mush. Johnny no longer had Smiles to reign in his behavior; he was going to cross a line and then he would get Retired as well. It was the end for Smiles' squad and all it had taken was the death of one person.

Was that what would happen when he was no longer there for his squad?

Intermission II

Every night he had dreams that his left arm began to operate outside of his control and in those dreams it squeezed the life out of him.

BG vs The Worst Thing that Ever Happened to Him

The day that BG's life went down a path he could not turn away from was more dreamlike than any of his dreams. It was more nightmare like than any of his nightmares.

It was only a few months after Smiles was Retired. He could never have seen it coming.

Bizo, Dot, and himself all had been exercising in a rec-room for several hours that morning. It was something nice they did together. BG sometimes felt like he neglected Bizo. He was impossibly close to Lady because of what they went through together, and Echo was his best friend so there was no competing with them. Every week he tried to put a little extra time into his relationship with Bizo because of this. She needed to know how important she was to him and how valuable she was to the squad. She spent so much time by herself already.

Spending time with Bizo meant spending time with Dot. The two came as a pair. Dot was an ugly little creature but since the time Bizo found her, her intelligence had increased exponentially. Even though she was a sentient hairy ball of black slime that was usually only about as big as a cat, Dot called herself a girl. Most of the time she had 12 legs, dozens of eyes, and mouths all over her body. Her prickly black shed all over the place and was hard to explain. She could change her size; sometimes she was small enough to fit into a boot and other times she was large enough to cover Zoey like a blanket of pudding. Dot could talk a little bit, but mostly she mimicked Bizo's breathy snorting laughter.

One of the primary jobs secret police agents had was to hunt down and exterminate the creatures like Dot that infested the Colony. Only people with abilities could see them, but they latched onto civilians and brought misery into their lives. It was strange that Dot was so different. She had latched onto Bizo, but the relationship between the two of them was like a friendship. For some reason, Dot was intelligent, friendly, and not interested in hurting humans. For that reason, BG and his squad protected her like she was an important secret.

Protected by the closed doors of the rec-room, Bizo was able to scoop Dot up in her arms and hold her like a baby. She had her greasy brown hair tied up in a pony-tail to keep it out of her face (BG had told her time and time again that shaving her head and following hygiene regulations would make her life easier but she just would not listen.) Bizo's ugliness was charming. She had a dumpy body and tan oily skin covered in freckles; these qualities made her seem froglike. BG and Bizo used the open space of the rec-room to goof off in.

"Wicker was acting weird today," said Zoey, referring to one of the Elite psychics. She talked about everyone as if they were all her friends, even though 99% of the secret police avoided her like the plague because of her behavior and the nature of her abilities. Nobody could touch her physically without risking chemical burns; it was one of the reason she loved to hold Dot so much. "He looked funny at breakfast, like they fried him or something."

This wasn't a huge surprise to BG, since Wicker had parts of his brain cut out and only ever interacted with other psychics. That was an agency recipe for creating someone with all the rebellion potential of a boiled shoe. He nodded anyway as he sat on the floor doing butterfly stretches to keep himself limber. It was important to him to encourage Bizo when she talked, no matter how dumb it seemed.

"He had glue stuck on him."

"Lady has glue stuck to her all the time." It was from where they stuck the electrodes to their temples when psychics had to monitor their brain patterns during high intensity work. Lady complained about it constantly because it made her delicate skin break out.

"I guess. I still think we should do something nice for him because it looked like he felt bad."

This was what was wrong with Bizo: being trapped in Isolation for 6 years had stunted her so badly that talking to her was like talking to a 9 year old when in reality she was Creedo's age. She was nice. She was thoughtful. She didn't like hurting people, even when they had hurt her.

This was what was wrong with BG: he was starting to think she was the only sane one in the agency and he wished that he was more like her.

Dot crawled up Zoey's chubby arm and nestled beneath her chin. "Felt bad!" she said, in a voice that was scratchy and small. "He felt bad." Bizo tickled her and she changed her shape, expanding with happiness.

Someone knocked on the rec-room door and all three of them jumped in surprise. Dot shrank herself and slithered into Bizo's clothing like an eel. "We still have 90 minutes in here," BG shouted crossly. Probably a dumb C-Class rookie who didn't understand the rules. You had to sign up for time slots and Elite agents got first pick.

The knock came again. Bizo laughed. BG sighed and got to his feet. He had barely done any stretching. Usually when he hung out with Bizo he was able to get several lengthy yoga flows in. He touched his toes, reached his arms up towards the ceiling, then went over and punched in his ID number to open the door.

Of all people to be standing there, it was Nickels. When he saw her, BG felt his stomach drop to his feet and he didn't know why.

In the months since Smiles' Retirement, Nickels had been forced to work Upstairs with the other psychics. She had probably lost 10 pounds and she no longer had the funny, expressive face she used to have. She looked tired and unhappy; instead of the comfortable sweats she usually lived in she wore the heavy black pants, long sleeved black shirt, and rubber gloves that all psychics wore when they were on duty Upstairs. This uniform differentiated them from field agents. While field agents dressed in helmets and protective uniforms for the benefit of civilians, agents who worked within the Capitol building only needed to be clean and effective. When the doors opened, Nickels made a face like she didn't want to be there.

"Hey," she mumbled, not making eye contact. Whatever they were doing to her to re-train her up there was destroying her social skills. "I'm working but I really needed to talk to you."

"To me?" BG's voice sounded high in his ears.

(Alone,) she said telepathically. BG flinched. The voice in his mind sounded exactly like Nickels, while most psychics who spoke telepathically sounded like they had static over their voices. She was talented, a more talented telepath than Lady could ever hope to be. So she had given up on asking for consent before going into people's' minds. How long had that taken? (I'll intercept your thoughts, you don't need to talk. It'll just freak her out.)

(What's going on?) He felt panic.

Nickels looked at her feet. They had taken her boots away and given her the same kind of little black flats Lady always wore. (I'm sorry. I shouldn't be here but you were nice to us when Smiles was Retired. I wanted to repay that. You need to get Upstairs right now.)

"What?" BG almost shouted it. Adrenaline surged through his body as he realized what Nickels was talking about. His legs began to shake as if he had just run a long distance. There was no reason for anyone on his squad to get Retired. They were all hard workers, efficient agents. Unless one of them had committed an act that was unforgivable."Lady?" His eyes stung at the unthinkable.

Nickels shook her head no. (I just thought you'd want to see their body. For closure. Nobody gets that here.)

For a second, BG saw red. His blood was hot, he could feel every heartbeat. He could not move. He could not think. He could not breathe.

Behind him, Zoey took a few shuffling steps forward. "BG?" she asked, extending a hand out to nearly touch him, as she did when she was nervous. "What's wrong?" In that moment BG was so scared and reactive that he shoved her away from him with his right hand. His skin met hers and it instantly blistered. The pain brought him back to the issue before him and he clutched his hand over his heart.

Usually he could spring into action without hesitation. BG opened his mouth but no words came out. It was like he was a fish dying on the shore. He tried to focus enough to teleport but nothing happened. It took three more attempts before he was able to do so. He left Bizo alone and didn't even care. Didn't even take her feelings into consideration. All that mattered to him was getting to Echo.

The jump was not-- for lack of a better phrase-- well executed. He knew the Upstairs layout perfectly. He knew where the small concrete room with the grate in its floor was. He knew how to navigate the sterile halls above the dormitories, with all the twists and turns, the laboratories and confinement rooms. Instead of appearing right in front of the room where Retirements happened, BG crashed into a desk in a laboratory. A couple of white coated scientists jumped back in surprise. BG stumbled, then teleported again. If he was not careful he was going to lose his other arm or worse.

He appeared in front of the Retirement room but didn't stick the landing. BG tripped and almost fell to his knees. In front of him, directly in front of the door, leaned Crossfire, the agent in charge of executions. When he saw him, he jumped to his feet.

Crossfire regarded him with his heavy-lidded, half-open eyes. He put the communication device he was tapping on back in one of his pockets. Like Nickels, he was dressed in the simple black pants and black shirt that all agents who worked Upstairs wore. Unlike Nickels, he had a firearm strapped to his belt. "Woah there friend," he said. He was so universally hated that he had to sleep on a bed in one of the labs so that nobody shanked him in his sleep. It came with being in charge of Retirements. "This isn’t ideal."

BG seized him by the arm and shoved him away from the door. He flung it open without considering the consequences. What was worse, seeing your closest friend’s body or never seeing it at all? That philosophical question did not exist in BG’s mind. There was only the mission: get to Echo. Find Echo. See Echo. Be with Echo.

Did he love them? There wasn’t any doubt.

There was nothing inside of the room. No body. Only a wet little puddle of blood on the floor that was slowly draining into the grate. It seemed too small to be the only thing left of them.

All he could do was stand there and tremble. He could not process organized thoughts. The world was not moving around him. This was a dream. This was a nightmare like the ones he had every night except it was worse.

Crossfire leaned against the doorframe behind him. “Your teammate was nasty, you know,” he said. BG slowly turned to face him. His blonde lashes and eyebrows made him look hairless and repulsive: a monster. He had a hand lightly on his firearm. “Their ability. They didn’t look the same after they died. ”

BG’s left hand clenched into a fist.

Did you want to see them?" The executioner curled his upper lip. "I wouldn't. You know what a bullet does to a head. Messy." The way he said it made BG gaze down at the blood on the floor again. It was very red. Had he ever seen Echo bleed before? They were so careful and avoided injury. Images of skulls being obliterated by bullets filled his mind and he hated himself for knowing what it looked like.

Had they been scared?

Of course they had been fucking scared. There had been no warning. No preamble. They just got dragged Upstairs and shot. He'd seen Retirements happen before. They made you stand with your hands raised, your face to the wall. A Handler, a psychic, and the person who took the shot were always present. Sometimes others if backup was needed, if it was expected that the soon-to-be terminated person would put up a fight. A lot of people tried to fight. Allegedly Smiles had bubbled himself for nearly a day before they got to him. In the end that's what always happened. No one escaped.

He held the image of Echo's face in his memories. The last time he talked to them had been when they parted that morning after showering. Echo had been so upset about a single zit that had sprung up near their nose. BG had laughed until Echo tried to get him in a chokehold so he had flipped them over and didn't let them get up. It had been so funny because they were so mad. What a stupid final memory. That was it, forever. No more jokes, no more wrestling around. No more missions. No more waking them up in the morning. No more Echo.

They had been taken away from him.

BG couldn't look into Crossfire's eyes. He wanted to kill him; this creature that existed only to take the lives of others. That's what they all were, really. Their function was to kill and destroy. Echo had been right to want to get out of this place and now they never would.

"Who authorized it?" he said in a voice that he did not recognize. It came from far away. "Do you know?"

Crossfire shrugged lazily. "I just follow orders." He scratched his nose with his non dominant hand. The other never strayed far from his firearm. "I'll tell you though. For a price."

"What do you want?" He stared at his gun, unable to look away from it. He imagined the way he had held it before firing.

Crossfire smiled. It was not so much an expression of happiness or smugness as it was an act of him moving the corners of his mouth up to mimic normal human behavior. "The name of whoever went down and leaked confidential information to you."

If BG told him that Nickels had told him about Echo's termination, Nickels would be subject to swift and severe punishment. Everyone who worked Upstairs operated on a different level than the rest of them. Not too long ago, BG would not have cared what happened to Nickels. When Smiles was still alive, he would have relished the idea of landing her in the kind of trouble that left her in pain just because it would have pissed Smiles off. Now the idea of hurting other agents made him sick. He couldn't do that to her.

"Lady," he lied. Nobody could touch Lady. As far as he knew, she had never faced repercussions for anything she had done. She had killed 3 agents accidentally over the years while working on them in the re-education rooms and got away with it. She hurt people just for the hell of it. She was childish and incompetent in the field because of how rapidly her mind was failing her. Why should she care? Lady was Elite and nobody could touch her. There was not a single agent who was not terrified of her, himself included. "She intercepted what was happening by accident."

"Aw." The smiles that Crossfire was aping faded away like he was disappointed that he was not going to get to hunt some poor sucker down and hurt them. "OK. The termination order came straight from the Executive Director. It wasn't proposed by a Handler or nothing. Guess your pal personally upset her, I dunno."

Silas.

Statue-like, unreadable Silas. Silas, who he had loved for so long and had only just recently started to fear and resent. Smiles had been right about her. Of course he had been. Smiles had been right about everything.

BG wanted to throw up. He wanted to die because that would be easier. Of course it came back to Silas. She had never liked his connection to Echo. She had never liked how much he talked about them, and now they were dead. All he could do was stand there helplessly. His metal fist began to rise. The rest of his body was frozen in place. It was like he was already dead.

Crossfire noticed his aggressive stance and clenched fist. He did not change his, as if he was confident that BG would not dare to attack him. He was one of the oldest agents there; as old as Smiles had been. Silas had told BG once that it was hard to keep agents in that position because they became so hated. Soon he would be executed by someone else's hand. "What's the problem, man?" he asked mockingly. "You angry at me because I terminated your little girlfriend? That's so cute. Wanna hear something funny? They refused to turn around and face the wall so I shot them in the face. Let me show you. You snuck up here to see them, right?" He manhandled BG out of the Retirement room and down the hall. They were evenly matched strength wise, but BG felt as weak as a kitten. He let himself be pulled down the Upstairs corridors because he couldn't come up with anything else to do.

They passed by more researchers, who inhabited the many laboratories Upstairs. BG took no notice of them. They all wore white coats and detached expressions. Dr. Y-- or Yancey Atwood-- passed by with a canned energy drink. He did not recognize BG. Dr. Y was an unremarkable man with a wide, smiling mouth and sneakers that did not match the usual uniform of a scientist. It was hard to picture what he looked like away from his presence but as he passed, but BG tried to commit his bland face to memory. He did not look sad. He did not look interested in anything at all. A man who had...worked with Echo for nearly 10 years, and he didn't even appear to care about their death.

For most people, this was just work. They got to go home to their loved ones and forget all about what they had done. It wasn’t fair.

Crossfire pushed him into another room. It was small, windowless, and more than 10 degrees colder than the rest of the Upstairs. The only thing inside was a stainless steel table in the center with a connected shelf and bright lights overtop of it. Like a Re-education room, only more sterile. One wall had several small square metal doors. BG had never been inside but he knew it was where they kept the bodies before they tossed them into the incinerators. If an agent was not Retired-- that is to say, if they died of natural causes or were unlawfully murdered-- then this was where autopsies were carried out. Agents who were Retired were not further mutilated after their deaths. Everyone knew how they died. That was a blessing at least. Echo would not have wanted to be cut up.

BG supported himself by leaning on the metal table. He was dizzy, he was not grounded. He was watching himself from outside of his body.

"I'm so tired of you people sneaking up here to try and see the bodies. I keep saying nobody wants to see that shit, but no," Crossfire was saying. He wrenched one of the little metal doors on the far wall open. It opened with little difficulty and a smaller metal slab rolled out. The thing that had been inside and laying on top of the slab was not even covered. BG was quick to look away. He didn't want to see. Did he? "All your little friendships and connections-- who does that really serve? Nobody. And then a few months back, when that girl Pete was fighting her way out of containment because she thought she could get to Smiles, who did that serve? Nobody. She screwed herself because of her connection to the guy. Now here you are, so intent on seeing your partner after their brains have been blown out because they were on your squad. All this does is make you people feel like shit. Is it really worth it? Go on, I've taken you this far. Look!"

Against every instinct in him, BG looked at Echo's body lying there. Their expression would have been peaceful, had it not been for the wound which had taken their life. The left eye socket and cheekbone were entirely caved in into red nothingness. Totally obliterated. Gory. He stared at the bulletwound for a long time. This was where people were supposed to cry and wail and tear at their clothes out of grief. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with him? He had seen other people go into paroxysms of grief when their teammates were taken from them. BG was numb. He kept staring at what was left of Echo's face, and from far away he thought about how much they would have hated it if he saw them like that. He looked away and his eyes were unable to move from the gun at Crossfire's hip.

He raised his fist like it did not belong to him. "Hey man," he said from around a tongue that had gone thick and useless.

The executioner looked up from his handiwork. His lazy, uninterested expression did not change because he was like Lady in his arrogance; so far gone that he did not view anyone as a threat, even if they were right in front of him ready to do harm. "What?"

"Thanks."

"For what?"

Without answering, BG started hitting him in the face with all his strength. He used his metal arm with its terrible capacity for violence. He did not stop. It was easier than he imagined it would be, but at close quarters Crossfire's ability was useless. After two good hits, BG had him on the tile floor. After four, he had crushed the cartilage in his nose and the blood began to spurt in heavy bursts, splattering across BG's face and getting into his eyes. Crossfire's skull felt like a wet melon under his fist. He was aware that he sustained a couple of blows, but did not feel them. He was aware that the other agent was yelling for help, but did not hear it. In the moment, his body was a beastly automaton with a singular desire: to kill.

He saw Crossfire's eyes roll back in his head and he still didn't stop.

He wasn't even mad at him for shooting Echo. He wasn't the one to blame-- just following orders, after all. But he was the only person close enough to punish.

The yelling attracted people. It must have. BG felt himself pulled up and physically restrained. It didn't hurt, not yet, although he knew that someone had tased him because he saw himself convulse. He kept fighting back without thinking about how futile it was. All he wanted to do was cause harm to anyone who played a part in doing this to Echo, and for all it mattered, everyone had played a part in that. It did not occur to him that he could teleport to Silas' quarters and end it all for good. Not yet.

They got him on the floor and tased him again. Two Handlers: October and someone else, he couldn't quite see them. A gaggle of researchers had gathered behind them, observing in their frightened-rat way. BG thrashed and rammed his shoulder into the legs of the Handler he couldn't see, sending them crashing to the ground. October kicked BG viciously, then stomped down on his elbow.

"Aw shit," said October. "I guess it was only a matter of time before this one lost it. Yikes. Hey can one of ya'll check if he killed that other guy? Jesus, what a mess."

BG tried to free his arm and October tased him a third time, not letting up until BG lost control of his bladder. He was sadistic, even for staff. The other Handler got up (upon closer inspection, she was the one known as Wednesday) and once she was clear, October stomped down on BG again even though he lay still. "Yeah, have fun laying in a puddle of piss, smart guy, because you're gonna be in Solitary for a week."

One of the researchers stepped over the urine and the blood with his sneakers to stand over Crossfire's body. BG was so far removed from what was going on, he could only recognize the white coat. The researcher bent down to check the pulse. "Unconscious," he said in an unremarkable voice. Still mostly obscured from view, BG saw this researcher pause by the open metal slab that held what was left of Echo. He gently rolled it back into the opening which held it and closed the door so that Echo and their ruined face could no longer be seen. A small act of kindness. An unheard of action. "No real harm. I'm sure whatever this young man's punishment is, it needn't be so drastic. He's upset about his friend."

October snorted. "No offense, but you have no idea how to treat these kids. If you aren’t harsh they’ll rip you to shreds."

The researcher leaned down over BG and smiled at him. Black hair, black eyes, completely and utterly bland. It was evident that he recognized him. Yancey Atwood. If BG had not been so incapacitated, he would have....well, he would have done something. "You're the professional," said Yancey pleasantly. He gave BG a cheeky little wink, which he interpreted as mockingly malevolent. "I just think this big fella is upset about his poor friend with the big hole in their grey matter over there. I know that I sure am."

Things were much worse than BG could have ever imagined.

Interlude III

Later, he thought about how he could easily teleport to Silas and kill her, but even in his anger he would not dare. There were parts of him that still loved her.

BG VS Lady

Months passed. Life became tiresome. Day in and day out, it all boiled down to the same thing: violence. They all perpetrated violence. Out in the real world, they perpetrated violence against civilians. Inside the dorms, they perpetrated violence against each other. It did not end. It would never end. It was not only the secret police who were engaged in violence. A strange and horrible Outsider came to Eden and brought with him his appetite for blood. The terrorists who had fled the Colony a year and a half ago were back and causing trouble. More Outsiders came, and Silas executed their leader herself. Cyberterrorism got worse by the day, which led to riots. There were lots of riots. There were even reports of a family of cannibals, which was actually kind of weird, even for Eden.

BG was sick of it. He woke up every morning feeling nauseous and haunted by every bad thing he had ever done. And yes he had done bad things, he had liked doing bad things. He had taken kids away from their families who loved them. He had chased innocent people down and killed them. He had liked it all, because his convictions in the agency were so strong. It wasn't just about being ordered to do bad things. Anyways, it wasn't a good enough excuse. When Smiles was ordered to do anything that crossed the boundaries of his moral fortitude, he refused until they really forced him.

He started helping people whenever he could because he could no longer stand the violence. When weaker or lower-level agents got bullied, he stepped in. When he saw people breaking the rules, he looked the other way. He stopped being complicit. He gave advice. People like Pills and Nickels, girls who had once hated his guts and attacked him, grew friendly with him. The solidarity between him and others strengthened.

But BG still couldn't sleep well. His dreams upset him too much. He would wake up in the night beneath an empty bunk. At some point he would have to find someone to take Echo's place. Recruitment wasn't for another 5 months, and he did not think he could stomach choosing some freshly tortured 14 year old. He wanted to petition to put Nickels on the Squad, since hers had been dissolved the second Smiles kicked the bucket. Lady would never go for that. Staff would never go for that either; what was the point of having a Squad with two psychics?

He hadn't stopped thinking about Echo. Sometimes he talked to Nickels about it, since she could understand what it felt like to lose a teammate. Hell, Nickels had essentially lost 3 teammates: Smiles got a bullet in his brain, Pete was locked up Upstairs having unimaginable things done to her, and Johnny was so still so hurt and angry that he had started hanging out with people who treated him poorly. Nickels said that she just missed the way things used to be, and she screwed her plump face up but was unable to cry. It made BG feel even worse.

BG contemplated these things as he slowly walked back to the dorm after an exhausting mission where he had done nothing but try to hunt down the little terrorist group that had come back. They really did not want to be found. Good for them.

The door to his room was closed, but he didn't think anything of it. It was mid-afternoon and the girls often liked to take naps when they weren't working. BG swung the door open and stepped inside. "Hey, I'm ba--" That was all he was capable of getting out before he looked about the room and froze.

Lady sat cross legged on the floor, her posture and focus as rigid as a dancer's. Beside her, Bizo lay on her back, unmoving. This tableau could have been normal, but BG knew what was happening immediately. He knew because there was blood at the corners of Bizo's mouth like she had bitten her tongue. He knew because Lady did not move or react when he entered the room since she was so focused on what she was doing. And he knew because Dot had congealed into a still black puddle on the floor nearby. Every few seconds, Lady's beautiful hands twitched like she was directing her psychic ability, and more blood came out of Bizo's mouth. Lady was smiling.

"Hey!" BG shouted. No reaction. His instincts kicked in and he crossed the room to seize Lady by the shoulder. Her skin was cold to the touch. Her big eyes were so black he could barely see any whites in them. When he grabbed her, she still did not leave her sadistic trance. Her terrible mouth kept smiling and smiling. On the floor, Bizo's expression was frozen in one of terror. She had gone so pale that the freckles on her face looked like they had been painted on. She was so trapped by whatever psychic horror show Lady was inflicting on her that could not even blink.

"Lady!" BG said loudly, shaking her. "Stop it!"

She did not stop, and she wouldn't be able to unless he jarred her from the way she was locked in. A while ago, he would have hesitated or tried to wait it out. He would have made excuses for Lady, like he always did. Oh, she had brain problems. Oh, she had good reason for doing what she was doing. Oh, he couldn't criticize her because she had saved his life. Oh, he loved her. Excuses, excuses. Now, BG could only think about one thing: he was going to be sick if he stood around and watched as she hurt even one more person.

The Lady problem was something that he should have addressed a long time ago. He would always feel guilt over the way that he knew she treated Echo and that he hadn't stopped any of it. He would always feel guilt over the way she treated everyone except him, for that matter. But it was better late than never.

BG slapped her across the face with the open palm of his right hand. He did not use much strength in the slap, because he didn't want to actually hurt her-- she was so fragile. When his hand connected with her head, Lady made a noise that was in between a gasp and a growl. For a split second, before she lost focus, she lashed out at him with her mind.

In all his years as an agent, BG had never been psychically assaulted. He was too privileged, too important. Not even during these last couple of months of acting out had anyone dared to confront him. The last time a psychic got into his head was B-Day, and she had ripped his potential out from where it hid deep down inside of him. Now, Lady pulled out other things that he had shoved away. Her specialty was trauma memories and luckily BG did not have too many of those floating around. For those few fleeting moments, he re-lived the pain of losing his arm, and had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out. The heat and the blood seemed unbearably real. He tasted copper. The air, however, did not smell of smoke and fear like it had on that day. It smelled soapy and clean, just like Echo used to. That was what really got to him. The psychic pain merged with the pleasant memory of his friend and became something unbearable.

His eyes grew wet.

Then it ended. BG steadied himself and shook his head to clear it. He looked at Lady, who clutched one hand to her face. A red mark bloomed across her pasty skin. Her expression was one of shock and betrayal. On the ground, Bizo started to wheeze and cough. She rolled over to her belly and spat out a mouthful of blood. "Oh no," she whimpered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" BG knelt to try and help her up, but her skin glistened with corrosive oils. She cried in the way that a little kid cries. Beside her, Dot began to solidify into her usual form. The little monster also made terrible noises as if she was also crying. Dot oozed over to Bizo and let herself be clutched.

"You hit me," Lady said in disbelief. Her lower lip quivered.

BG ignored her for the time being. "Are you OK, Zoey?" he asked Bizo. He wanted to hug her so badly.

Bizo shook her head as she buried her face in Dot. The creature was slowly growing back the prickly black hair she liked so much, and which had been lost when she had been...puddle-ified….He had not known that Lady could affect the alien creatures. Maybe it was only due to Dot being smarter than the rest of her kind.

"You hit me!" Lady said again. Her fine black eyebrows furrowed to contort her face.

"I'll smack you again the next time I catch you hurting Bizo!" BG said fiercely. Lady shrunk back from his anger, but her expression darkened. "That goes for anyone else here too, but especially for her! What the hell is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? She is our teammate!"

Lady's gaze slid over to Bizo, who kept crying and crying. Her curled lip revealed her belief that Bizo was something less than human-- a belief that many agents shared due to Bizo's disability. Once, BG had believed that Bizo made it out of all those years she spent in Solitary without being damaged. Spending years alone in the dark made her wilt. She was not intelligent, she was not emotionally mature. It showed in her naïve, trusting eyes. It showed in the way her mouth gaped open at all times. They'd slammed her into a dark little room when she was only 8, when her mind was still plastic and learning new things. It damaged her irreparably. Maybe if she was not in this place then she would have a chance to heal. Healing was a luxury no agent was privileged enough to get.

Dot's hair bristled and moved like the legs of countless spiders. She was back to her usual size, just a little bit bigger than a housecat. 5 narrow yellow eyes popped up in various places on her body and they all stared at BG. One mouth filled with sharp triangular teeth opened in her middle, close to Bizo's face. "Hurt!" The teeth gnashed in anger but the voice was scared and quiet. "She--she made me see the home that is beyond the stars! She made me remember we can never go back!" She grew several short legs with appendages that were not quite hands but not quite paws. Even smaller mouths opened in the center of these hand-paws, with tiny tongues that Dot used to gently lap up Bizo's tears.

"Talk to me, Zoey," said BG pleadingly.

Bizo kept shaking her head and holding the little monster close. She never opened up to him. Just like Echo. Never opening up, never actually saying the thing that was the problem. Never putting a name to the problem. In this case, BG knew the name. Lady.

Of course they hadn't felt safe talking to him about her. He always took her side. He defended her. BG felt nauseous and it wasn't just the sight of the blood at Bizo's mouth.

"I'm sorry," he told her and he knew that his words were cheap, that only his actions could start to make up for it all. He looked at Lady, who still sat on the ground but whose expression had changed to confused rage. It was not yet clear who that rage was directed towards. If it was at him, well, he didn't let himself care. "Lady," he said, keeping his voice calm even though he wanted to yell at her some more. Even though he wanted to shake her. "Why did you do that?"

"What?"

"Really? What do you think?"

Lady gingerly put a hand to where he had slapped her and winced. It made his heart twinge but he no longer let himself feel bad for her. There was no more room for that in his heart, not after he had been filling it with things like trust and collaboration with other agents. He looked at her and saw how sick she was. The culmination of nearly a decade of being used to torture others-- to torture kids-- had made her into a monster. She was not beautiful like he used to see her; she had grown unspeakably ugly. Every inch of spare flesh had withered from her body, her olive skin had turned colorless. Even her teeth had become translucent and gray. She was probably dying slowly. Her brain hadn't worked in years, and her body would soon follow.

"Are you mad at me?" Lady asked him. She slowly got to her feet and her knees popped. On her feet were the little flat slippers that they gave out to agents who worked inside of the building, and she padded a few steps away from him as if she anticipated that he would strike her again. "I do this all the time. I just get bored, I can't stand being bored. You know how it is, some people can just be so annoying!"

He tried to stay calm and tried to not clench his hands into fists. "You can't do that. Zoey and Dot are our friends."

"Bizo is retarded and we kill stuff like her pet literally every week," Lady said dismissively. She sniffed. "And I was thinking that like, now Echo's gone it would be easier for us to downgrade to Partners instead of having to get a new teammate. Then it would just be me and you, and wouldn't that be totally so much nicer? Just me and you, just like back on B-Day."

BG felt icy horror fill his body. Lady was smiling at him like she had come up with something novel. The implication alone made him want to do something drastic.

"What do you think?" she asked him.

He stared at her and knew that the girl who had brought him back from the brink of death on B-Day was dead, and the person who lived in her body now was a stranger to him. He had closed his eyes and ears and ignored the way that she had changed because it was easier for him to pretend like she was the same as she was. He knew that she loved him in her own twisted way but he wished she didn't. He loved her too, even then. He loved her more than he could even explain and knowing what she really was made him want to rip his hair out.

How was it possible for someone to be bad, even though he loved them? BG did not want to reconcile with something like that. It would be so much easier if everything was black and white, like it used to be. A couple of years ago, he knew for a fact that Smiles and his Squad were his enemies. Now he pitied Smiles for dying in such a humiliating way, and had grown close to Nickels. A couple of years ago he knew for a fact that the agency was always just. Now he thought it might rip him apart.

Bizo kept crying her snuffling tears. She was so vulnerable.

At length, BG said, "I think you need to walk away because I'm so angry right now I don't know what I'll do if I keep talking to you, and because I love you I really don't want to hurt you. Get the Partners thing out of your head forever, I mean it. I love Bizo too." When he said that, Bizo finally stopped mashing her face down into her alien friend so that she could look at him in a way that was so shocked it almost broke his heart. Of course she believed that he loved her less. Why wouldn't she? He had to make up for that somehow. He had to let her know that he loved her entire greasy awkward being, that he would kill and die for her. Echo would have done anything for her too, back when they were alive. Bizo was wonderful and kind and she was loved so much.

Lady cocked her head like that helped her better comprehend what he said to her. Like she couldn't read his body language. She probably couldn't. She blinked stupidly and did not stop smiling. "Ok, I'll take a walk, only because you asked," she said. She turned to soundlessly go for the door. Without looking back, she said, "Remember what I said about the two of us though. Just me and you."

She closed the door without making a noise and left.

He knew that it was too late for Lady and that he would never be able to help her. She was too far gone.

BG VS THE FINAL SHOWDOWN

There was nothing BG used to like to do more than chase people down.

Now it depressed and repulsed him.

There he was, in the middle of the School District. Not on top of the buildings, or creeping through the alleys at night, but inside of the actual high school. Like a civilian. For this mission he was even dressed like a civilian. The armory had doled out jeans, red sneakers, and a t shirt that said "peach time", whatever that meant. He was supposed to blend in, but even with his youthful face he could never pass as a high school student. He was too old. And he stood like a soldier. The act of dressing up anyway made him feel uncomfortable.

The mission itself was uncomfortable. Abnormal. 3 days of surveillance on the target, concluding with her extraction. The target was some 16 year old girl named Cynthia Tariq, who was a low-grade psychic. Normally she would be yoinked out of her bed while she slept, but for some reason that had been deemed an impossibility. She was special in some way so Silas wanted her to be monitored before bringing her in. This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that the suspicious Infirmary nurse Doc was her father, and her other father was part of the terrorist cell that had been causing so much grief lately. BG hadn't even blinked when he learned that snippet of information. Nothing could surprise him anymore, it was all too fucked up.

The Colony was going to hell.

The Colony was going to hell and BG was wasting his time, standing around in a high school wearing red sneakers.

He and Lady were co-leading the mission. They were unable to really interact with any of the school kids because they obviously didn't belong. Lady looked especially horrific in civilian clothes; he had never seen her wear colors other than black, grey, and white, so the orange shirt she had on looked ghastly. When staff briefed them, they had been assured that all the kids would think the two of them were college aged, or teachers. It was worse. All the kids thought they were cops, which was not far off from the truth.

While he and Lady co-lead the op from the background, four C and B Class agents did all the real grunt work. They were chosen because of their actual ability to pass as high schoolers, as well as their high levels of friendliness and charisma which were supposed to put the Tariq girl at ease so she didn't call her father before she got nabbed. Bex, Shorty, Flash, and Johnny. That last one didn't feel too good. BG and Lady had been given orders to make it look like he got killed on accident during the mission. Really, Silas just wanted him executed like vermin so that Nickels and the freshly re-integrated Smokey Pete would stay in line. BG really didn't want to put Johnny down on account of his closeness to Nickels, but it would be up to him to do it since Lady couldn't kill using her mind, and they all had to leave their weapons behind to 'fit in'.

BG sat in an empty classroom as he contemplated this. He had a piece of taffy in one of his pockets but wasn't interested in eating it. He wanted to take a nap. Anything bad that could have happened had happened during the last couple of months. That wasn't including the day he walked in on Lady torturing Bizo and Dot. Silas was one step away from declaring martial law, she couldn't control anyone. Even Commissioner Nguyen was defying her and was seen openly interacting with West Agapama. He hadn't had a full 8 hours of rest in....well, he couldn't remember when.

He was aware of a fire alarm going off on another floor because he could hear it faintly. Probably the one where the cafeteria was located, since Cynthia Tariq was at lunch that that was where the 4 dummies were supposed to nab her. BG put a finger to the side of his face, then remembered that he wasn't wearing a helmet and had to use a normal communication device on his wrist. He pressed the button that activated it and would connect him to the agent he had appointed Squad leader. "Bex," he said. "What's the situation?"

No answer. Probably because civie communication devices were inefficient and awkward to use. Bex probably didn't even know he was hailing her. BG sighed and thought about teleporting down into the cafeteria, but knew that would cause mass panic if anyone happened to see him. Which they would, crowded cafeteria and all. He decided to wait until someone contacted him for once.

10 minutes later, Lady skidded into the room. She had actually been jogging-- he knew because she panted for breath and had high points of color in her cheekbones. BG immediately popped up and teleported across the room to support her. She appeared to be shocked and amused.

"What's going on?" BG asked her, flabbergasted that she had exerted herself physically instead of just talking to him telepathically. "Is everything ok?"

"No!" Lady exclaimed, but she didn't sound too upset. There was laughter hidden behind her voice. "This is just too crazy. That girl just wiped the floor with our goons. She's terrifying, she can't possibly just be a psychic. I see why she's so special, why they wanted us to watch her. I couldn't get into her head at all from that distance, and when I tried she ran for it!" Lady really did laugh, like she didn't believe what was happening.

"She got away?" BG said, alarmed. "What's so funny about that? Locate her right now so I can jump over and grab her, what the fuck is wrong with you Lady, an untrained civilian shouldn't be able to take out four of us at once!"

"Three," said Lady, brightly, like it was the funniest thing in the world.

"Three?"

"Three. It's too good. That Artificial who bit you last year helped her, he turned on us. They ran away together-- don't worry I can feel their minds, even from here. Hiding while the girl tries to reach her dad to come save her before it's too late. It's all fear fear fear, I don't think I can stop laughing about it."

BG had to keep himself from reacting. It wasn't funny. It was awful. So Johnny had known that he was going to die on this mission. He must have known for days, must have been waiting for it. There wasn't much worse than the anticipation of one's own death. It was the reaction of a cow going to slaughter and trying uselessly to turn back. Of course Lady sensed fear. Johnny knew he was going to die and had tried to save a civilian girl anyway. And now they were both going to be hunted down easily, Johnny would die, and Cynthia Tariq would be taken away from her dads and tortured and brainwashed until she was nothing but a soldier.

He felt numb and hated himself for being a part of this.

"Where are they hiding?" he asked. He wanted to go home. He couldn't go home. He'd never had one.

"Two floors down, close to the left wing," Lady told him. She put her arms around his waist in preparation for teleportation. She was featherlight and he wanted to push her away. "Closet. Isn't it always a closet that they choose to burrow into?"

BG nodded without feeling anything but dread, and made the jump.

Two floors down, the firearm still rung. It blared in the background, impossible to ignore. The hallway was empty, all the students and faculty having scampered away to safety after seeing the fight and hearing the alarms. Since all emergency alert systems were wired into the agency, the single technopath always prevented emergency services from even receiving alerts if secret police were involved. None of them wanted the added difficulty of dealing with the cops, fire-control, or EMTs. These delays had resulted in dozens of civilian deaths, but the missions always went smoothly.

As he stuck the landing, BG noticed the red sneakers he wore. They looked ridiculous on him after all the years of wearing heavy boots, but he kind of liked them. He zoned out for a second to exist in a fantasy where he could wear what he wanted and didn't have to kill anyone, until Lady grasped his metal shoulder. Teleporting didn't make her sick anymore, since she no longer ate and no longer adhered to the same physical laws the rest of them did. She patted him a few times in excitement.

Lady loved to hunt people down just like he once had. For her it was not the thrill of the chase. It was the slow process of it all; the understanding of her prey's terrified anticipation of her arrival.

She pointed at a closed door several meters down the hall. BG followed the path with his eyes. He swallowed. "You sure?" he asked, his mouth dry, knowing the answer.

"Mhm." Lady's eyes had gone black again, deep pools of water framed by impossibly long lashes. She did not look human. She cocked her head for better focus the way that she always did when she listened in telepathically; she had no skill for it, unlike Nickels. For all her power, she failed to even be half the telepath of Smiles' B-Class psychic. "So sad. He's giving the girl advice on how to survive in the agency because he knows they're about to be caught. He’s thinking about all the bad things that ever happened to him."

BG's heart pounded. The frayed nerves in his shoulder burned as if his body was turning against him, as if it was urging him to stop participating in what he knew was wrong. If he was brave he would listen. But he was not brave. He would kill Johnny with his bare hands since he had no weapon. He would restrain a little girl and drag her out of her hiding place so that she could begin a short lifetime of participating in the same wretched things. The cycle repeated itself.

Just go, he thought to himself, unmoving. Just run away. He couldn't. He stared at the closet where the target hid. Boiler closet? Maybe. It would be so easy to stomp over there and get it over with. He had done this dozens of times before, both with Lady and without her. He could not will himself to do so.

"Now would be a good time to surprise them," said Lady. She un-cocked her head and stretched her arms to limber up. The bones in her shoulders and back popped gruesomely. "Really reaching a whaddya call it, a crescendo of feelings in there." She laughed her girlish, high-pitched laughed. The fire-alarm had not stopped. When BG did not move, she took the initiative. She covered the short distance to the door as quietly and gracefully as a dancer. BG reluctantly followed behind her and flexed his left arm in preparation for the kill.

How many people had he killed with that arm?

The closet door was one of the flimsy ones that slid open and shut, painted the same color as the wall so that it was perfectly camouflaged. There was no handle, no lock, only a small indentation where one could insert their fingers to slide it open. Lady hooked two fingers into it and pulled; BG loomed behind her like a menacing shadow.

Boiler closet. Of course it was. Like all boiler closets it was dark and cramped, with only just enough room for the mechanical beast that provided heated water and steam for the left wing of the school. Two people could not fit inside comfortably, but fit they did. Johnny stood closest to the door. He was in a fighting stance, ready to lunge. The t-shirt and jeans he wore to be undercover made him almost look like a normal kid, but that was the end of it. His face was wild and afraid; his sharp teeth were bared in a snarl but his eyes were big and wet like two runny fried eggs. The girl, Cynthia Tariq was pushed uncomfortably behind him like he was trying to protect her. She held something in her arms and gazed at the intruders in the way that civilians who have never seen Elite secret police agents always do. She had dark skin, bright eyes, and box braids that were in disarray, probably due to her recent fight. Someone must have hit her before she escaped the cafeteria, because a bruise was forming on one of her cheeks. She looked frightened, but not nearly as frightened as she should have been.

When Johnny saw Lady, that's when he must have known it was all over because he started to breathe rapidly; BG could see his chest rising and falling. But Cynthia was worse, it was like she knew Lady's true nature just by looking at her. She squeezed the thing in her arms tight and it squeaked. As mashed as she was up against the boiler, she tried to correct her stance instead of cringing back. It wasn't that Cynthia was not afraid-- she was very afraid, judging by the way she looked at Lady like she was some hideous spider. It was that she had the strength of will in to push past the fear.

She looked so young. 16 was older than a lot of recruits were when they got pulled away into the agency. For some reason, Cynthia seemed younger. It was because she where she was supposed to be. She was supposed to be in school, doing whatever it was teenagers were supposed to do in school. BG never had that privilege. He could see ink stains on the sleeve of her pink sweatshirt and that made him feel worse than anything, though he could not place why.

"I'm surprised you guys got as far as you did," said Lady, like she was some kind of villain from a movie. BG wished she wouldn't talk so they could get this horrible ordeal over with. She didn't twitch a muscle, but was already using her monstrous ability. Johnny shook all over like a dog as she pulled things from the recesses of his memory. It could have been anything; he had suffered enough over the years. Cynthia did not seem to be affected but she grew more alarmed when she saw that..

Cynthia dropped the thing she had been holding so that she could clumsily put up her fists. BG was roused from his discomfort and self-loathing when he realized that it was one of the alien creatures, like Dot except larger. It stretched itself up into a dripping bipedal form all covered in eyes and mouths, aping a human-like shape. It wrapped several long black tendrils around Cynthia's legs and her waist. When Lady saw it, she hopped back in disgust.

"Get away from us," said Cynthia. Her voice quavered a bit but she spoke like she was making a threat. She maintained eye contact with Lady, something that most people could not do. "I'm not kidding, I know how to fight."

"Me too," said the creature. It formed what could almost be called a human face, exactly where a face should be.

This display shocked Lady so intensely that she must have let go of her psychic connection to Johnny, because he refocused and he stopped shaking. It shocked BG too. He was not aware that there were other creatures that could talk like Dot could. He was not aware that there were others that could make connections to humans. In that moment, Cynthia Tariq was more familiar to him than Lady was. She was a girl that loved a slimy little alien, just like Bizo. Someone who was like that saw the good parts of things, not the bad. This girl cared about a creature that wasn't even from her own dimension, something that deserved to creep around in the sewers eating vermin. She was not disgusted by it the way that all other people who could see Things were. She had made friends with Johnny in less than 3 days-- Johnny, a person who was harmful, empty, and unlikable. BG didn't need to talk to her to know what she was like: Cynthia Tariq was good.

He was about to take her to a place that would squash all the good right out of her.

Lady regarded Cynthia and the creature. "Ew," she said to BG. She wrinkled her nose and suddenly the creature made the kind of noise a cat makes when it is being slowly flattened beneath a wheel. The oily black surface of its flesh bubbled like it was being boiled. Its dozens of eyes rolled wildly before being sucked back into its body. As it shrieked, Cynthia grabbed at it in sudden terror, the same way one grabs at a family member. But her fingers slipped through its body as it dissolved into gelatinous black jelly and melted into a quivering puddle by her feet.

The only way Lady could affect something was if it had complex feelings. BG looked at the puddle. He thought about Dot.

"Billy?!" Cynthia exclaimed, but she did not waste time on grief. She tried to lunge at Lady. Johnny, standing in front of her, held her back. He had that unnatural freak strength Artificials sometimes had, but even then he appeared to strain against her. What was this girl? The dossier he had read said that she was nothing but a low-grade psychic, but then how was she that physically strong? She was not an Artificial, but then why did she have strange blue eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth? She seemed to be reading Johnny's thoughts, because she looked at him and then stopped fighting. The message was clear: it was futile to fight two Elites. But Cynthia was not resigned; every inch of her body was tense and ready to move.

"Don't hurt her," Johnny said to BG. It was the first words he had said to him since that night he had sunk his teeth into his neck. All the fear seemed to have gone out of him now to be replaced by acceptance. Who could possibly get past both Lady and BG? Nobody could evade such hunters."I know you gotta kill me, I get it, but don't hurt her. You don't know what it's really like in there."

"I'm sorry," said BG, completely pathetic. He pictured what he would have to do, what he did not want to do. If he was lucky they wouldn't fight back.

He was not lucky.

Cynthia lunged for a second time and shoved past Johnny with a strength that should not have been possible. It was clear that she was untrained, but someone in her life had shown her how to throw a punch. She moved with the ferocity of a person who does not find it acceptable to quit. Her fist connected with Lady's face, dead center. It could have been a crippling blow, had Lady not recognized the danger she was in and lashed out psychically against it. Still, Cynthia's punch hit Lady square in the nose and shattered it with a loud crunch, sending Lady reeling back against BG. But the moment that Cynthia's skin touched Lady's, she crumpled to her knees, her body twisting in pain.

Suddenly motivated, Johnny also sprung forward to attack Lady, who he recognized as the greater threat. He moved to sweep her legs out from under her. Johnny was fast but BG was faster. He took one step into the boiler room and intercepted him, using his left arm to slam him against the wall hard so that he couldn't move. What Johnny’s Ability came down to was luckiness. Most of the time he was impossibly lucky. Other times, like this time, he screwed himself over so badly that it seemed like he had no luck at all. BG pressed his forearm across Johnny's throat and applied enough pressure to start incapacitating him-- knowing that with enough intensity, his job would be done.

He was farther from the door now, though only a pace separated him from Lady. By his feet, Cynthia Tariq's body convulsed and she cried for her mother. BG could see Lady out of the corner of his eye. Cynthia's punch had broken Lady's delicate nose; it was smashed and flattened. Blood poured out of both nostrils, down her chin, neck, and chest. The blood made BG sick to see and he steeled himself against becoming faint. Lady froze like she did not know what had happened to her. In nearly a decade, no target had ever laid a hand on her. She put a hand to her nose and then shuddered with pain and rage.

"You good?" BG asked her. Johnny struggled to free himself but grew weak from the lack of oxygen. BG tried not to look at him. He knew he had to end it, that it would be kinder to do it fast. He didn't have it in him to press down.

Lady gazed down on Cynthia, who went into another convulsion. In nearly 10 years, BG had never seen her so inhuman. Her eyes were completely black, no longer deep pools of water, but like holes in her skull. The entire lower part of her face was red and the blood dripped down onto the floor. Her trembling lips pulled back into an obscene smile. The blood was in her mouth and it stained her teeth. She crouched down to get closer to Cynthia and dropped whatever psychic torture program she was running in the girl's brain.

"Change of plans," said Lady, speaking more to Cynthia than to BG. "Looks like we failed our mission and couldn't take the girl in. Unavoidable accident." Cynthia breathed heavily and tried to get back up, but the things that Lady had made her experience had not given up their influence. All the girl could do was glare back at Lady without blinking, frozen.

Her words sent a chill through his body, like his own blood had turned to ice-water. Without knowing what she was talking about, he understood that this was it. This was the place where she really went off the deep end. Where their two paths separated forever. He had been waiting for it since the day he caught her hurting Bizo. Waiting for the moment she finally went where he couldn't follow.

Waiting for the moment where he would have to make a choice he didn't want to make.

"You can't mean that" he said, from a place that was far away and outside of his body. He forced himself to look at Johnny, who looked back in the way that people who know they're going to die do, little blood vessels in his eyes already bright and red from not being able to breathe. He didn't hate Johnny, didn't want to hurt him despite all of the things he had done. BG understood. And he wanted him to be free in a place where nobody could hurt him anymore.

BG wanted all of them to be free in a place where nobody could hurt them anymore.

"I mean it," said Lady. When she breathed, bubbles of mucus and blood came out of her ruined nostrils. She put one of her hands on Cynthia's head, gently rolled one of her braids between two fingers. "We have time. I want to slice her apart. You can do whatever you want to that guy. I know you must want to after what he did to you."

He knew one thing for sure and that was that he would not be able to live with himself if he allowed Lady to torture and kill this girl. BG used to think he was a good person, but had lost that sense of himself back when he realized that he was just a tool in the hands of someone evil. He had never been a good person. He looked the other way when people got hurt. He hurt people himself. He let people die and he let people get punished. He could not do that for even one more minute unless he wanted to blow his own brains out.

BG stopped pressing his arm against Johnny's windpipe so that he could breathe. Johnny wheezed and sucked air into his lungs, looking at BG warily, intelligent enough to know that he was being shown mercy but too stupid to understand why. When he was sure that Johnny was not going to react, BG released his hold on him entirely. He shook his head once to try to communicate the importance of not interfering.

On her knees in front of the girl, Lady was not paying attention to anything but the harm she intended to dole out. She was humming to herself, the way that she did when she was getting into 'torture mode'.

"Lady," said BG. He stepped to stand beside Cynthia and extended his left hand to his teammate. She took his hand without hesitation and allowed him to help her to her feet. Totally trusting, totally unaware. And why shouldn't she be? Over the years, BG had never given a reason to believe that he would harm her. Cynthia was frozen, and in Lady’s mind someone like Johnny was lower than dirt. Maybe she believed that he was showing her affection, maybe she believed that he wanted to tell her something important. It was impossible to say.

She was a monster and he loved her so much but it was all...wrong.

"Yes?" When she looked at him she was not really looking at him. Her terrible, beautiful, blood covered face was completely open. The cruelty and insectile anger on it faded away the moment that he spoke to her. BG had never wished to be a psychic before, but he did in that moment. What was she thinking? How was she feeling? She had no premonition of what he was about to do to her because she trusted him completely. He had watched her back for so many years. He had turned his back on what she did to others for so many years.

He cupped her face in his hands. When she brought him back after he lost his arm and he was bleeding helplessly as the bombs went off around them, she had cupped his face in her hands just like that. That was the day that he found her, but that was the day he had started to lose her as well. There was no going back to the girl she was before, the girl who he had been friends with, because that girl had been dead for a long time. The thing that was left was something that should not be. BG wanted to do the girl that Lady used to be just one act of kindness.

He should have said something. He should have said 'I love you', or, 'I'm sorry', but he didn't.

With one fast, simple, practiced movement, BG jerked Lady's head hard to one side and broke her neck. She died instantly. Painlessly. It was more than she could say for anyone who had died at her hands. One second she was there and the next second she was gone. Nothing changed. Lady looked the same as she ever did, she just wasn't...alive. She could have been sleeping. It wasn't like Echo, whose death had been concrete and violent and left half their skull blown off. BG carefully lowered her body to the floor and wondered why he didn't feel anything.

The second that Lady died, Cynthia Tariq regained control of her body. "What the fuck!" she said, gasping in pain but popping up to push past BG and Johnny in order to get to the black puddle. It was reforming itself too, the way that Dot had once. "Billy?! Are you OK?!"

Johnny did not look like he understood what was going on, like he expected the other shoe to drop and land him into an even worse situation. He had one hand on his neck and was still trying to position himself between BG and Cynthia.

The severity of what BG had done was starting to hit, but he still did not feel panic or grief. The numbness did not leave him. The fire alarm droned on and on as it had that entire time, and he thought about his next steps. He couldn't run. Running would make it worse. If all three of them ran then there would be nobody left to cover it all up. He knew what he had to do.

He would never be able to make up for all the bad things he had done. But he could start.

He would help Cynthia and Johnny escape the school District. He would go back to the Capitol building and as time passed he would do everything in his power to help as many people get out as he could. Until they caught him-- and they would catch him. It would be worth it.

BG looked at Lady one last time. He took a deep breath. “OK,” he said. For the first time in a long time, his voice felt like his own again. He felt like he was his own again. Maybe that was a start. “You two have to listen to me very carefully and do exactly what I tell you to do. I’m getting you out of here.”

EPILOGUE: MEANWHILE

When Yancey Atwood heard the fire-alarm go off from the safety of the classroom he was lounging in, he knew that the secret police kids were going after his protege Cynthia. Not that he was worried about her safety. Scrappy kid could fight! Not only had he been teaching her his technique, but the sad old lady cop and the rich mob guy had been sharing their skills as well. He had total confidence in her ability to survive, just as long as the A-Class agents didn’t involve themselves-- especially the psychic. Cynthia was a bright girl. She reminded him of himself.

No, now was not the time to worry about Cynthia. Now was the time to get the Teleporter without raising Silas’s suspicions. The chaos would make it easy to look like he had run away.

Yancey sipped on his 3rd energy drink of the day. “Hey Harper,” he said to his companion. “Let’s get this show on the road, bud. Time to grab your chubby boyfriend and blow this popsicle stand.” He wondered if he was mixing metaphors but didn’t care enough to correct himself.

Harper Malena, who was known as “Echo” to their little secret police pals until Yancey had brilliantly orchestrated their escape, didn’t say anything. So quiet. They didn’t have much going on upstairs, it showed in their blank and glazed over face. Sometimes he wasn’t sure why he had bothered with them as long as he had, but they were useful in their own way. And he knew for sure that they cared about the Teleporter known as ‘Bubblegum’ (stupid name) more than they cared about their own life.

Out of habit, they raised their hands to start signing, but then put them back down. Yancey couldn’t read sign language and always forced them to speak if they had something to say. Looked like whatever it was wasn’t that important.

Yancey smiled and sipped on his drink. He couldn’t help but laugh.

That Bubblegum guy was about to get the shock of his life.

#writing

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