Mcmolly

Amygdala Circuit

Daz said nothing when Quinn’s body turned against her, but when she held herself over the railing, she’d feel a steadying hand on her back, holding her braid out of the way.

As she emptied her stomach into the water, it seemed to blacken beyond nightly sheen, as though she’d thrown up ink into a bowl of water. With her eye squeezed shut she couldn’t see it spread, couldn’t see the vile taint inside her stain the good waters of the lake.

But she could feel it.

That burning in her gut, in her throat and nose, it ran deeper. While her muscles clenched, her breathing hitched, and her tongue curled at the taste, so too did her blood boil, did a pinprick burn seer itself into the back of her skull and the front of her mind. In that moment the pain was everything to her; it was touch, and taste, and smell, but it was also heard.

Quinnlash

Quinnlash

Quinnlash

Quinnlash

Quinnlash

Foggy through the acidic haze, but there. There in her ears, further back in her mind, there. That pain that had been with her in her home, in her room, in every waking moment that ooze that she felt in her bones even in her teeth itching and burning it was heard there in the water below her Quinnlash not a stain but a dye you are dyed Quinnlash you are dyed with pain and it was heard I am heard Quinnlash heard and felt and I am there in the smell of the water in the salt in your wounds and the sobbing in your ears and when your eye burst from your skull and our blood touched you Quinnlash in that blackness I AM SEEN

QUINN

LASH

RUN

---

---

“I won’t.”

Daz’s other arm closed around her. Fingers stroked her hair. These were slow and tenuous moments, but Daz was an anchor in the storm. When he leaned back there was certainty in him, and even cut with shadows he held the warmth of a fire.

In the distance, the sounds of battle, the flashes of fire and ghostly light. Daz sat between her and all that.

“But I made a promise to my daughter that I would protect you, and I intend to keep it,” he said. “Seeing you taken away again, locked in a room to have those…things, done to you. Living your life as an innocent prisoner.” he shook his head firmly. “That would be failure. That would be pain you don’t deserve. Quinnlash, I think you should stay with me until tomorrow, and then I think you should ta_{lk to Besca. I think…I think perhaps this pla ce is hurtin g you m ore}

It became harder to hear him. Slowly, but surely, it became harder. It became harder because she was still dyed with my blood. Still dyed, Quinnlash, and you sit here and you ignore me but you know it you feel it something is wrong something is happening and it’s happening now and you need to RUN. YOU NEED TO RUN.

RUN QUINNLASHRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRURNURNRURNURNRUNRURNRURNRUNRURNRURNRURNRUNRURNRURNRUN

---

---

“Quinnlash.”

Daz’s hands on her shoulders. Cold night air. Ghosts of a burning in her throat, acid on her tongue, and the smell of iron in her nose. Blood, but not her blood. The fish. The fish still there on the deck, shorn open by its own deformities. The metal jutting from its corpse vibrating so fast they were blurs in the air. Twitching. Splitting.

Growing.

A plop from the water. Not in, but out. Up. Floating towards the hull, another fish staining the black water with blood from its torn body. Another, further out. Plop. Another. Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop—until there were dozens and dozens of dead buoys popping to the surface, all ashine with moonlit glint.

---

---

“This doesn’t make any sense…” Besca muttered, eye narrowed on the energy reading. “We’re seeing spikes but…guys, are you sure nothing else has come out but the swarms? We’re peaking the parameters but there ought to be a modir by now.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you! There’s nothing yet!” Lucis said.

The inky creatures kept coming, crashing harmlessly against the Saviors’ feet, pulverized by heel and blade and what managed to slip by them was annihilated by the barricade.

“Wait,” Ghaust said. Grauritter came tensed, clutched his sword. “No, you’re right. It’s here.”

And as he spoke, a figure emerged from the singularity. A giant, like them; a mottled black and steel colossus with a sheered maw and gangly limbs. It moved with more grace than the creatures, with intent, with a mind. It stood at the threshold, and the Saviors noticed then that it was not a bare thing, but clad in a dark, tattered mesh of metal that almost resembled a cloak. It was shorn across, and only ran long enough on one side to cover a single arm.

The other it held aloft, fist closed, and as it lowered there sprung from its fist a black light. When its arm came perpendicular to them, it was wielding a sword only just smaller than Grauritter’s. Its crossguard was sharp and the fuller in the blade was alight with white fire.

“Glad it finally decided to show up. Now mulch it and lets call this a night—”

“Doctor Darroh!”

Besca didn’t need to look away to see what the analyst was trying to show her—she saw it herself. When the modir emerged, the singularity’s levels ought to have plummeted. In truth, they had, but the readings from the Hovvi area in general hadn’t. The singularity was dying, but Besca realized in a moment of dread, that it didn’t matter.

There was another one.

---

---

There were new sounds on the boardwalk, not from the speakers, or from the crowd, but from below. Not waves, not the plop plop ploping of dead fish. No, it was more like…skittering. Like feet on hollow wood. Scraping, clawing.

People began to notice, mumbling, looking down at their feet only to find the blackness of dirt and water below. But some looked outward, to the reflection of the moon at the center of the lake, once utterly crisp and pristine.

Now it was boiling.

They burst up from the wood, bouquets of pitch that did not splash or break but pierced and sheared. Blood and screams spray the air in equal measure as the crowd lurched away, broke. More of the things exploded out from the water, shadows that leapt and dashed and fell upon anyone slower than the person in front of them.

The smattering of soldiers close enough to open fire did so, but as the creatures swarmed the docks and the lights came crashing down it was impossible to tell innocent from hungry.

So they didn’t try.

---

---

The distant screams reached them before the water began to bubble.

“Out of the boat,” Daz said, paradoxically urgent and calm. He stepped onto the dock, squinted into the distance.

It looked like waves crashing onto the boardwalk, only they moved and leapt and never seemed to end. Blessedly, they didn’t seem to be emerging this far down. Yet.

The alarm began to blare.

Daz turned north. “We have to get to the elevator. Quickly. Stay close, stay low. Can you do that?”

Amygdala Circuit

Daz sat down beside her, and the boat shifted to accommodate. He offered a bottle of water, and with his foot slid a towel over the pooling blood at their feet.

“Into the water, the fish won’t mind. Little sips, after, if you do, he said. “It’s a strange thing, putting your life in someone else’s hands. Trusting so much that they’ll protect you. I’ve been on either side of that window. It’s fear both ways; fear that they’ll fail you, fear that you’ll fail them. With Dahlia I feel both—I think she does, too.”

He took a pouch from the cooler, melonberry. The straw was like a thread in his fingers, but he popped it into place and brought it to his lips. It was empty in a single gulp. He looked to her, level, unjudging.

“Why haven’t you left home, before?”

---

---

Silence blanketed the quarry. A great crater, miles of stone mined out into a gray field that soaked in the moonlight but wouldn’t shine. Even as the Saviors approached, the sound of their colossal steps went unchallenged, and when they came to a stop there was silence again.

A flurry of drones followed them, dozens of Aerie’s eyes and ears.

Grauritter stood at the west end, Magnifique to the east. Behind them, the outer barricade and artillery line would cleave through anything that came between them.

“Easy, boys,” Besca said. “It’s here.”

The station couldn’t have known for sure, they were rarely so accurate to the moment. But Besca had a sense; even a thousand miles away the hairs on the back of her neck bristled when she felt danger coming to her pilots.

And sure enough, it was here.

A low, distorted hum rose, as if from the rock itself. The air crackled faintly, charged, and charging. There was brief static in the comms, but contingencies snuffed it. It was all so clear, here, as it always was.

Grauritter raised his arm, as if to pull something from his back. Magnifique’s hands twitched, and he faced his palms to the ground.

The humming grew louder, the crackling turned thunderous. Far away the air folded on itself, shimmered, made refractions of its surroundings in odd, senseless patterns that, as the moments dragged, began to find their sense. They curved, curled, like someone bending a metal bar into a circle, and with each invisible exertion the stone beneath it cracked. Eventually its dimensions became clear, like the rim of a mirror, and its face was a perfect, dark reflection.

At once the buzzing dimmed, the thunder calmed. There, untouched by the moonlight was a black mirror half submerged in the stone, as tall as the Saviors and several times as wide.

For many moments there was silence again.

Then the mirror shattered, and behind it was a void darker than the gaps between stars.

Shapes spilled forth, so numerous it seemed like a flood of brackish water. They were terrible things as pitch as ink, and as lifeless. None measured taller than the Saviors’ own ankles, but none who had faced these tides before would dare underestimate them.

Grauritter closed his fist. Black light sprang from the seams of his gauntlets, and as he drew his arm up, a hilt appeared in his grasp. Atom by atom, as if drawn from the night air itself, a sword appeared, the blade nearly as long as he was tall. He swung it around into both hands, and the edges burst to life with flames like white neon.

Beside him, Magnifique closed his hands in, and in that motion, pulled from the air a pair of rings, like chakrams. He twirled them around on his fingers, and when he snapped his grip shut, their rims glowed to life as well.

The barricade opened fire. Volleys of ballistics, explosives, laser-fire, all rained down upon the roaring masses. The air was sprayed with ichor and black flesh, but from the smoke and flames, the horde came furious and hungry.

The Saviors charged.

---

---

The initial panic had subsided quickly. RISC forces had secured the roads and soon enough, people saw the hundreds of armed soldiers and tanks and backup artillery, and decided they were likely safe still. The music stayed dead, the clamor hardly rose above a mild, incessant chatter.

Crowds began to move towards the boardwalk, to the screens, all of which now showed the dark footage from the quarry. Beneath the waves of trepidation and worry, there began to rise a current of excitement. This was the spectacle they had come to celebrate, the heroes they had come to cheer on, and the enemy they had come to see vanquished.

On the far side of town, the space elevator sent Dahlia up, and she prayed Besca was right, and that she wouldn’t come down again until morning.

Amygdala Circuit

“What do you mean ‘flared’? How could this happen?”

Besca hunched over the inlaid monitor at the table, eyes glued to the readings as the energy-levels at the quarry began to spike. They’d tracked the singularity here, and by every account they ought to have had its emergent timeframe down to the minutes—how the hell were they off by several hours?

“I triple-checked the scans, they were bulletproof,” said one of the analysts, sounding just as baffled. “We had that blip a few hours ago, but it leveled out before you even got up here. Everything was stable until a minute ago!”

“Clearing fucking not! Two of our pilots aren’t anywhere near that checkpoint, how long do we have?”

“Five, maybe ten minutes?”

The doors to the monitoring room opened for a single uniformed man. He was older, black hair shorn short and streaked with gray. A thin beard hid the lines in his face, but did nothing to soften the cold blackness of his eyes. He strode to the round table, hard gaze fixed on the only person in the room, maybe the whole station, who wouldn’t wilt under it.

“Darroh, report.”

“There was a mistake,” she said, and glared the analyst quiet when he tried to protest. “Readings, hardware, we don’t know—doesn’t matter. We’re looking at five minutes ‘til this thing kicks off.”

He took the news like a wall took the impact of a baby bird. “Our pilots?”

“Ghaust and Abroix will be set. Calhan might make it in time, St. Senn won’t be up here ‘til it’s already opened. Once she’s back we can have her prepped in minutes in case she’s needed, but right now I’m worried about the barricade.”

“Ground forces are mobilized, they can cover for Calhan. Category?

Besca shook her head. “Slightly raised, but still within expected parameters. Enough room for the little guys, a few titan-class, maybe one Modir. All in all, could be worse. Won’t have the light for glamour shots, but this should still be a clean sweep.”

Barring an intensive psychological evaluation, it would have been impossible to tell whether or not her answers satisfied him. In the end he made a gruff sound, nodded, and left the room again.

Besca whirled back around to the table, brought up a view of the quarry, and several smaller screens monitoring the town. Her eyes jumped from one to another, until she spotted a boat tearing its way towards the shore.

“Ghaust, Lucis,” she said, speaking into an earpiece. “Where are you?”

Lucis’s voice came back, “About to slot in. This really happening, Doc? Bit of a surprise, not like you to be so sloppy~”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s the Casobani word for asshole?”

“I believe it’s something like, Darroux.”

“Where are Calhan and St. Senn?” Ghaust’s voice was hard, gravely.

“Safie’s on her way. Dahlia will be prepped up here soon in case things go south.”

“Oh Darroux, Lucis hummed. “Have a little more faith.”

---

---

They moved. Fast. Dahlia braced against the railing as the boat jolted against the waves. Safie managed to stay upright, and almost instinctively, she took hold of Quinn. Her serious expression melted when she met Quinn’s eyes, and she sat down to be level with her.

“Hey—hey it’s okay,” she said, tender voice somehow reaching her through the ripping water and blaring alarm. “That thing Deelie and I came to do, looks like it’s just happening a little sooner than we thought. They’re warning everyone, that’s all.”

“We should pull in closer to the barricade!” Dahlia called.

“The elevator is farther, we need to get you up first! Look! Lou and Ghaust are already set!”

She pointed to the distance, towards the quarry, where floodlights lit the massive forms of Grauritter and Magnifique. From so far away they looked like thin statues, but suddenly they moved, taking unburdened steps away from the checkpoint. The last giant, Jubilee remained behind.

Dahlia seemed worried, but nodded. Safie turned her attention back to Quinn, putting on another warm smile. “Sorry we won’t get to do the fireworks tonight, but hey! We’re gonna put on an even cooler show for you, how about that? You get to watch me kick some serious butt—and Lucis and Ghaust will help, too, but they’re not as cool.”

As they drew closer to shore, the alarm began to wane. By the time they reached the docks, the whole town was nearly silent—at least until the sounds of rushing vehicles and the clamor of crowds picked up again.

“Alright! Wish me luck!” Safie tousled Quinn’s hair, gave her a wink. “Watch for the one with the big, glow-y chains, that’s me.”

With the same grace as she’d had on the boat, she leapt the railing onto the dock, and broke into a sprint, vanishing into the still-crowded streets.

Dahlia took her place, patting Quinn on the shoulder. She smiled, but she didn’t have Safie’s unshakable optimism behind it. “Hey, if you’d feel safer, you could stay with my dad. I trust him as much as I trust Besca. I-I mean, everything’s gonna be fine, you know, but all I’m saying is…uh…even if it’s not, he won’t let anything happen to you. N-not that it will. Gosh, I’m bad at this, I’m sorry.”

She pulled a pen from her pocket, gently took Quinn’s hand, and scribbled some numbers on her palm. “Here’s our phones. I really liked meeting you! When this is all done, we should, like, keep in touch. I miss talking to people from home.”

Daz came over and pulled Dahlia into a hug that she returned even stronger. He whispered something to her, and she nodded. With a last wave to Quinn, she took off down the docks, towards the elevator’s platform.

Suddenly it was just the two of them.

“Like she said,” Daz rumbled. He stood beside her, a veritable mountain in man’s form. “You’re welcome to stay with me. We can head back out to the water if you feel safer there, or we can stay in the town. I’d offer to take you home, but I think it’s best we don’t stray that far ‘til this is over.”

Amygdala Circuit

The sky stayed clear as the sun dipped behind the cliffs, and the mad palette of evening darkened to knight. The twilight colors sank beneath the waves, turned the surface a smooth, glassy black. In their place, the full moon glowed, its image tattooed upon the water in silver-white light.

Fishing had been an ordeal. Fine until Quinn’s line tugged, and they reeled it in to reveal that the hook was, in fact, not for show, and had pierced the fish’s mouth. She was…less than enthused, begging for help freeing the poor thing, which she got, before frantically throwing it back into the water.

After that they let her throw the lines out, but did the reeling in themselves. Dahlia sympathized—she tended to throw all of her catches back as well.

Eventually Daz was left to fish alone. Dahlia and Safie spread towels on the deck and laid out, setting a phone up against the bench to watch videos. They made space for Quinn. One of Lucis’s songs came on, and Safie stood up to dance, proudly stating how she’d helped him choreograph the whole thing. She offered to teach Quinn a few moves, but the girl’s natural clumsiness, combined with her lack of sea legs, made it more of an exercise in not falling overboard.

Distantly, the music from Hovvi’s shore quieted down.

“Oh! Oh! Bet the fireworks are about to start!” Safie said.

Dahlia set her phone away. “Dad! C’mon!”

Daz hummed. The line on his pole tugged, and he reeled it in slow.

Safie hopped up on the railing, looking back at Quinn. “Come on up! I’ll hold on to ya.” she said, patting the spot beside her. “Gosh this is gonna be so pretty! You only ever see fireworks in the cities these days, and it’s always so mucky.”

“It’s not so bad from the Aerie though,” Dahlia said. “If there’s no clouds you can still see’em. Colorful lil’ spots. It’s neat.”

“Well buckle up ‘cause you’re about to see way more than spots. I bet we’ll feel the booms from out here!”

Behind them, Daz finally pulled in his fish. A big thing, it came flailing out of the water, slapping against the hull with the force of a stone. As he made to pull it off the hook he suddenly hissed, yanked his hand back, and the fish went flopping onto the deck. It slid to Quinn’s feet, wet and absolutely hemorrhaging as if it had been pulled by a dozens different hooks. Though it was too dark to make out much detail, through the torn flesh and gouts of blood, the moonlight did catch something.

Poking out from its body were dozens of tiny, glinting bits of metal.

“Dad you okay—?”

A sound from Hovvi cut her off. Not the promised booms of fireworks, but rather, a low, electric whining. In moments it grew to a wail, and louder, and louder, beyond even what the music was. It filled the air, it reached across the lake.

Within the boat there came another sound: beeping, loud and sharp. Dahlia and Safie both pulled their phones from their pockets, eyes wide.

“Shore,” Safie said, almost too quietly to hear. Then, louder, back to Daz: “Shore! We gotta get back to shore!”

Amygdala Circuit

“Ah, a homebody,” Safie said. “Deelie’s like that, too. She’d wear her PJ’s in the cockpit if they’d let her.”

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Dahlia said, pointedly ignoring Safie’s comment. She smiled, relieved that Quinn recognizing her hadn’t devolved into an impromptu fan meeting. The thought made her feel ungrateful but…it was what it was. She preferred the quiet to the interviews and concerts. Lucis and Safie could have those.

“You said you were a pilot too, right Safie? Is Besca one also?”

Safie shook her head. “Nah. Besca, like—well she does a bunch of stuff, but mainly she just looks after us.”

“She’s like our manager. Takes care of the schedule, monitors the missions. If we have a problem we talk to her, which is totally fine with me cause I don’t really like dealing with administration.

“Yeah she’s great! When I first joined, and I wanted to have Jubilee painted, it was like feeding paperwork into a shredder until I talked to her about it,” Safie said. “I mean, it was kinda a dumb ask anyway—do you know how much paint it’d take to cover a whole Savior? And if it gets damaged, like, the paint doesn’t grow back so you’d just have to recoat it and—like I said, dumb idea. But she managed to talk them into some designs on the face! Those lines and stuff aren’t natural, that’s all me baby!”

“Still waiting on your ideas for Dragon by the way,” Dahlia teased. Her attention shifted down to Quinn, good mood wilting a bit when she saw what looked like genuine fear in the girl’s eyes. “Wh—oh! Oh, no, of course! Safie was just joking around, it’s totally fine!”

She hopped down from the railing and fetched another pouch from the cooler, sliding across the deck to her. “I’m surprised you haven’t tried it! They make it right in town. Used to be seasonal but it got so popular people buy it year ‘round now. I always take a box or two back with me when I visit.”

“Some of which goes in the fridge, some of which gets stashed under her bed.”

“Safie!”

More unfettered laughter from the older pilot as she pulled her feet out of the water. “No, it’s cute! I used to hide snacks in my hoodies when I went off to sim camps. You do what you gotta do.” She picked up one of the poles from the railing. “Hey Quinn! You wanna try fishing? It’s super easy. You just reel back, and then when you flick forward you press this lil’ button here to release the line.”

Amygdala Circuit

Dahlia gave Quinn a quizzical look, and Safie burst into another fit of giggles.

“You’re funny, Quinn, no wonder Besca likes you.”

“Have as much as you like! We brought plenty,” Dahlia said. She glanced over her shoulder to Daz, and something substantial but unspoken passed between them. She took a seat opposite Quinn and Safie, punching her straw through the pouch of juice.

“Yeah, but if you take some juice, don’t touch the melonberry—Deelie’s like a fiend for that stuff.”

Dahlia’s face flushed up to her ears, and she hunched into her pouch. “It’s local! Theydontsellitanywhereelse…”

Hovvi’s lake expanded around them, wide enough that it nearly touched the horizon. The water, while not as clear as the bottle in Quinn’s hands, was still sapphiric all the way to the bottom. Gloam painted the surface, cut the waves with sharp light. Far away, the larger ferries carved great wakes that leveled out long before they reached their boat, or the handful of smaller boats scattered around them.

Daz pulled them to a stop near the center. Hovvi’s shore was a thin, distant crust of lights and the faint humming of music. The cliffs were a rim to one side, and on the other, the elevator superstructure rose into the growing dark. The softlight cage around the platform traveled up until it was a pinpoint cherry dot, and then it blinked out of view.

From a panel in the flooring, he retrieved a set of fishing poles and set them upright in metal hoops bolted to the railing. As he fixed their lines with hooks and bait, Safie sprung up to her feet and pranced to the back end of the boat.

“Ah, gosh!” She said, peeling off her shoes and dipping her feet into the water. “Deelieeeeeee! I’m so jealous—Queenshand is great but the water there is so murky. If I’d have grown up here I’d never have become a pilot. Quinn! Deelie and I can’t give this lake the attention it deserves, so you gotta!”

Dahlia perched up on the railing while Daz cast his line out quietly onto the water, where it sank with a little plunk.

“Have you lived here awhile?” she asked. “I used to think I knew most of the kids my age, but my memory is, ah, iffy nowadays. I’m really sorry if we met and I’m not remembering, I promise I’m not meaning to be rude.”

Amygdala Circuit

Besca barely held back her laughter. Safie didn’t, breaking into a fit of giggles and snorts while Dahlia worriedly scurried onboard.

“Quinn! Are you okay?” but by the younger girl’s own laughter, it was clear enough that she was.

“She’s just gotta get her sea legs!” Safie chimed. “Won’t take so long. I grew up seaside, used to looooove surfing, and it never takes people too long to figure it out.”

As if to prove her point—or, Besca figured more likely, to be just a little showy—Safie hopped from the dock onto the narrow rim of the boat’s hull. With impeccable balance, she walked the railing like a tightrope until she had made her way around to Quinn’s side, then hopped gracefully down beside her.

“See? That’ll be you. You’re spindly, like in the good way, you’ll be like a fox.”

Dahlia eased, and threw open a cooler at the back of the boat. Inside were a wide array of cans and bottles, soda and water and a few plastic pouches of fruit juice. “Quinn, you want something to drink?”

Daz finished with all but one of the moorings. He gave Besca a look, and she stayed put as he approached her, far enough from the boat to keep them out of earshot.

“So who is she? he asked. He had a voice to match the rest of him, low, steady, gentle.

“Local apparently—Quinnlash Loughvein. Don’t recognize her?”

Daz rumbled in thought. “Know the Loughveins. Science types, live up on the cliffs. Don’t come down much, but nothing strange otherwise.” He glanced back at the boat, brief but intently. “Didn’t know they had a daughter.”

“Something’s up with her,” she said, and shook her head when Daz looked concerned. “Not bad, just…off. She’s strung up, kinda. Needs a few hours of anything but what’s going on back there. That alright with you?”

“Not one of your applicants, is she?”

Besca gave him a hard look. He conceded.

“Alright,” he said, turning back for the boat. “Good to see you again, Bess, by the way.”

“You t—” A buzzing from her pocket. She pulled up her phone and felt her heart sink into her stomach. She answered. “Darroh.”

Dahlia caught sight of her, watched Besca’s brow sink, tried to parse out what she was saying. Only fragments.

Now?

…large?

not….timeframe.

Yeah…

Then she hung up. Dahlia gave Safie a tap on the shoulder, nodded as Besca came over.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing, nothing. No. Just, uhh, Aerie’s got some readings they’re not sure about. Can’t check from down here, so I gotta run back up to the station, make sure it’s all sorted.

The pilots shared a knowing look.

“Should we come with you?”

“No, really, it’s nothing. Just the universe smiting me down for daring to relax a few minutes. It’s fine. You guys go on out, I’ll try and be back down before the fireworks. Quinn, as the smaller, cooler me, it’s your job to have a good enough time for both of us, got it?”

Safie put an arm around Quinn’s shoulder, her demeanor not at all withered. “We’ll make sure!”

“Alright, good. Good. I’ll see you all later then.”

And with that Besca left them, marching off towards the outskirts where the elevator was anchored. Daz undid the final mooring line, took the wheel, and with a drowned humming noise the boat shuddered to life. Water splashed up from the turbine, the rocking steadied. They made their way out into the water.

In the twilight sky, the moon began to shine.

Amygdala Circuit

It looked like Quinn approved of the sweets about as much as Besca did her first time. She let the girl chomp through the rest of them—probably for the best she didn’t get too used to them again herself anyway, considering she’d be back on the Aerie tomorrow.

“Is there something wrong with this water? It’s so clear.”

“Uhm.” Besca looked down at her own cup. Yep, clear. Like water. Probably bottled like every food cart supply here. She cocked a brow down at Quinn. “No it’s fine that’s…uh…that’s how it’s supposed to look. They’ll have other stuff at the boat though if you’d rather that. Soda, fizz—Saff likes juice so there’s probably juice, too.”

A weird thing to ask, but, Quinn was certainly a weird girl. Chances are with an eyepatch at sixteen, she had to be. Besca had wanted to ask her about it, but if their brief conversation at the Community Center was anything to go by, it was probably best if she was conservative with her questions. Quinn didn’t need to be interrogated, she needed some air.

And evidently some clean water.

Eventually they came to the marina. Most of the people here were locals, scattered about the docks on folding chairs, or in their own boats, keeping a vigilant watch out in case any tourists decided to come by. Eyes narrowed at the pair as they passed, which was fair for Besca, but she wondered why they gave Quinn the same hesitation.

“Couple’a pirates,” someone muttered on the way. Besca made a hook with her finger and “Arr”’d at him. Chuckles were exchanged, a modicum of goodwill afforded.

At a sailboat on the far end, a trio waited. Two were young women, one not much older looking than Quinn herself. With them was a rather large man, tall and broad in the shoulders. Most of the hair on his head had migrated to his eyebrows, or his salted beard, and left his scalp with a thin layer of fuzz.

The girls brightened when they saw Besca. The older gentleman set about untying the mooring lines.

“Besca!” shouted the younger girl, as both ran over. She threw her arms around Besca, who squeezed an arm around her in turn. The other girl gave a quick hug as well, but her eyes went curiously to Quinn.

“’Lo girls, Besca said, then gave a wave over at the man, who waved back. “’Lo Daz. You all have a good time so far?

“Mhm! It’s been a blast. Dad took me to see everyone from the old neighborhood. They made barbeque, like, the good kind.”

“Missed the cookout? Ah, damn. Well, here for the good part at least. Oh, girls, met my long-lost smaller self back in town. Her name’s Quinn—if you have trouble telling us apart, she’s the one with the cooler eyepatch. Quinn, this is Dahlia, and that’s Safie. The fella over there who looks like someone’s ancestor is Mendas, Dahlia’s dad.”

Dahlia gave a sincere, if somewhat shy smile and a bow of the head. “S’nice to meet you!”

The other girl, Safie, hunched down to Quinn’s level and let out a low oooooh, before a much less reserved smile broke out across her face. “Oh my gosh I love your hair!” she squeaked. “Your braid is so beautiful, did you do that yourself?

“Easy now, lil’ space, lil’ space, Besca said. “Quinn’s a bit over all the hubbub back in town, looking for something a little more mellow. Thought she might join us on the lake, if you all don’t mind.”

Dahlia and Safie shared a brief look, shaking their heads.

“Sure!”

“Absolutely sure!” Safie beamed. “There’s supposed to be fireworks later, and they’re gonna be ohmygosh pretty out on the water!”

Besca shrugged. “Great, when I don’t catch anything I can just say the fireworks scared the fish off. Still want to come, Quinn?”

Amygdala Circuit

Besca led them out the back, and onto the crowded streets. She hadn’t been to Hovvi since the year after Dahlia got picked up, and then it was only a brief, subtle affair for the girl to see her father.

She’d been born in a place like this; her home had been on the Gideon Sea, though she only spent a few years there before moving in with her father. From then on, it’d been Westwel military bases, and eventually the Aerie. When she let herself be optimistic, she liked to imagine retiring somewhere like this, spending her days fishing and drinking that hoity-toity sparkling water ‘cause by then she’d have given up booze, again, and for real.

When she took her head out of the clouds though, she knew hardly anyone that got involved with Saviors retired.

The day was turning to evening.

Besca felt a rumble that she couldn’t hear over the crowd. She took a detour, ushering Quinn along with her, and came up to a food cart selling something that smelled as good as it looked unhealthy. Fried sweets of just about every kind. She ordered the cook’s choice and charged it on the company card, which she would continue to do until they extended lunch breaks.

She handed a paper basket with fried cookies dusted in sugar to Quinn, along with a cup of water. Licking her lips, she plucked one up and popped it into her mouth.

“God, they don’t serve stuff like this up there. I mean, they shouldn’t, we’d all keel over from heart disease, but damned if they couldn’t splurge on some decent desserts now and then. Go on give’em a shot.”

Stepping onto the boardwalk, Besca led them behind the rows of people standing before the screens. Lucis’s show was over, or on intermission, or something. They were showing battles now, ones that mainly showed off the prowess of Grauritter, Jubilee, and Magnifique, like she’d suggested. Some intern had tried to slip in footage from the Dotsockett singularity, where they’d lost Safie’s predecessor, because it was the first time he’d seen Dragon in action and it was special to him. She’d nearly thrown him in the airlock.

The further they went, the thinner the crowd got. The marina wasn’t far, but she couldn’t spot anyone yet.

“You like the water? To be honest, I’m total crap at fishing—too antsy. But I like being out there, just sitting. The rocking, the little waves hitting the side of the boat, the open air. It’s nice.”

Amygdala Circuit

Well, that raised more questions than it answered, but fine, answers were secondary. For the moment it looked like Quinn wasn’t going to combust from panic, which was at least something. As for her parents’ absence, and that odd bit about sneaking out—it was beginning to sound a bit like she was dodging a grounding.

Fair enough, Besca thought. If she lived in a place like Hovvi, and got grounded from the biggest social gathering the town had ever seen, she’d probably have snuck out too.

“Well,” she said with a shrug. “You didn’t put down any contact information, so, looks like even if I wanted to rat you out, I couldn’t.”

She folded up the sheet and put it in her pocket, then got up from the desk and stretched. “God. You know, I’ve been stuck in these rooms all day—they’re kinda stuffy, right? Been wanting to get out into town but, honestly? You’re right. The dock’s crowded, the streets are even more crowded. So I was thinking about heading down to the marina, actually. I’ve got some friends down there fixing to head out onto the lake, go fishing, relax on the water. I don’t think anywhere within a hundred miles of here is necessarily ‘quiet’, but it’s probably as peaceful as it gets."

Making her way around, she opened the door up and nodded to her. “Not a big boat, if I recall, but plenty of room if you wanted to come along.”