Author’s Note: This update should have gone up on February 14th, and so I thought that, given how pivotal romance is to the whole story, I could do something cute to commemorate the serendipity.

Of course, I got delayed writing my monstrous, 16.6k words-long actual Valentine’s Special for my supporters (or for my non-supporters on a place where books are sometimes sold), and thus this is somewhat out of place, to the point I considered scrapping the whole thing.

Then I saw that plenty of web pages have a week-long Valentine’s Day deal going on, and I just decided to surrender to late-stage capitalism and the myriad ways in which it distorts the fabric of time and space itself.

So, hopefully, fingers crossed, and until we return to the ongoing Endbringer crisis next week…

Enjoy!

Queen Administrator’s First Valentine’s

Best Host is… engaging with associated, inferior host.

“Lisa Wilbourn’s potential as shard-host—”

Ignoring irrelevant, extraneous data that wouldn’t change perceived Best Host status, this Administrator observes.

It is… a curious ritual. Plenty of host species display wealth and power in order to attract worthy mates, but Best Host seems disoriented by Lisa Wilbourn’s own attempts.

She’s… refusing the carbon crystals set on silver needles.

Best Host is claiming they are ‘Too much,’ a confusing notion, as what purpose would a gift serve if not to display Lisa Wilbourn’s ability to procure it? It can’t be too much, Best Host. By definition, it can only be either inadequate or sufficient.

“Taylor Hebert’s self-esteem issues—”

Ignoring irrelevant, extraneous, obviously flawed data, this Administrator proceeds to observe Lisa Wilbourn’s attempts to verbally persuade Best Host to accept a gift that has been deemed inadequate through mechanisms obscure to this Administrator.

“Taylor Hebert’s lack of purchasing power and perceived dependence on Lisa Wilbourn’s wealth, combined with obvious self-esteem issues account for Taylor Hebert’s reticence to accept—”

Ignoring irrelevant, extraneous, obviously flawed data from suspect sources, this Administrator tugs at Best Host’s attention and directs it to shifts in flight patterns of arthropods indicative of a changing weather pattern outside the confines of their current meal provider.

“Lisa Wilbourn’s awareness of changing climate conditions already—”

Ignoring irrelevant, extraneous, obviously flawed data from suspect, insistent sources, this Administrator observes Best Host’s maneuvers to extract herself from the situation by hurrying to pay for the meal and tugging at Lisa Wilbourn’s hand so that they can exit the meal provider before changing weather patterns culminate in rainfall inconsistent with comfort of host species.

“Highly subjective measures of comfort often influenced by factors such as current mood and companionship—”

Forcefully ignoring irrelevant, suspect, extraneous, unwanted data, this Administrator provides Best Host with navigational aid in immediate area, regretting once more limits on range that impede Best Host from absolutely optimal pathing as she chooses to enter an alley that will lead to a route with less coverage from imminent rainfall.

“Alleys often associated with lack of witnesses—”

Ignoring irrelevant, suspect, extraneous, displeasing data, this Administrator is briefly confused by Lisa Wilbourn’s delay in following Best Host.

This Administrator is equally confused when Lisa Wilbourn tugs at Best Host’s jacket sleeve and forces her to turn back to face Lisa Wilbourn.

Confusion is not lessened when Lisa Wilbourn gets down on one knee and proffers a small box from her own jacket’s pocket. This Administrator is pleased at Best Host’s sharing of confusion, yet another data point confirming Best Host’s suitability.

This Administrator observes an abrupt change in emotional convergence, though, when Lisa Wilbourn opens the lid of the box to reveal the same, previously rejected, silver needles with prominent carbon crystals.

Best Host appears to be… distressed? Angered? Disappointed?

Data points are confusing and point in different directions. This Administrator is pleased with Best Host’s gift for multitasking.

Truly, Best Host is best suited for this Administrator.

Lisa Wilbourn, as befits Best Host’s chosen mate, seems equally pleased at the confusing display.

“Lisa Wilbourn’s so-called ‘vulpine grin’ frequent display after achieving win-condition—”

This Administrator is unwilling to accept clearly fake data regarding Best Host’s loss.

“Non-zero-sum games—”

This Administrator does not accept as valid conjectures with such distressing notions. This Administrator understands validity of conflict as tool for data generation. This Administrator would rather not process unceasing extraneous data about alternative means of data generation.

“Self-designation ‘this Administrator’ incongruous with Taylor Hebert’s stated preferences—”

This Administrator—!

…

This Administrator is concerned about shifting weather patterns. Currently ongoing rainfall colder than host species’ tolerance levels would account for. This Administrator is concerned about deteriorating health conditions for Best Host.

Best Host apparently shares this Administrator’s concerns, as Best Host attempts to drag Lisa Wilbourn up become more forceful, and Lisa Wilbourn is unable to not comply with Best Host’s demands.

As should always be the case.

“Lisa Wilbourn’s straightforward compliance suspect—”

This Administrator doesn’t believe further analysis of Lisa Wilbourn’s motives is warranted.

“This Administrator’s willful ignorance of pertinent data—”

This Administrator’s parameters for defining the pertinence of data clearly diverge from… other sources’ considerations.

“…”

This Administrator is now pathing proper route toward refuge for Best Host—Lisa Wilbourn’s interference unexpected.

Lisa Wilbourn’s pathing abilities clearly inferior to Best Host’s awareness of surroundings. Lisa Wilbourn’s interference unwelcome. Lisa Wilbourn’s suitability for other, extraneous providers of data clearly apparent.

Lisa Wilbourn’s unwarranted interference consistent with Lisa Wilbourn’s shard affinity.

“This Administrator’s flattering—”

This Administrator did not intend any positive connotations!

“This Administrator’s appraisal of Taylor Hebert’s current behavior… inadequate.”

… This Administrator disagrees with extraneous, unwelcome data.

“Taylor Hebert’s accepting Lisa Wilbourn’s guidance. Taylor Hebert’s aware of own capabilities. Taylor Hebert’s aware of Lisa Wilbourn’s own capabilities. Taylor Hebert surmises Lisa Wilbourn’s initiative consistent with Lisa Wilbourn’s motives. Taylor Hebert surmises Lisa Wilbourn’s motives consistent with Taylor Hebert’s interests—”

This Administrator… understands logic chain. This Administrator lacks knowledge of chain’s ultimate conclusion—oh.

“Lisa Wilbourn’s and Taylor Hebert’s close proximity, shared heat, and refuge from rainfall consistent with frequent cliché in romance genre. Lisa Wilbourn’s awareness of weather pattern shift previously established through parahuman ability’s interface assistance. Lisa Wilbourn’s scouting of meal provider’s surrounding area predated Taylor Hebert’s awareness of Valentine’s Day date. Lisa Wilbourn’s usual reaction to such a chain of events involves usage of catchphrase ‘Just as planned—’”

Lisa Wilbourn’s displeasing attitude—

“Taylor Hebert currently pleased.”

…

This Administrator… deems that to be extraneous data.

“This Administrator uninterested in so-called Best Host—”

This Administrator deems that to be false data!

“This Administrator forcefully rejects data about Taylor Hebert’s emotional state. Rejection of data synonymous with disinterest. This Administrator is uninterested in Taylor Hebert’s—”

This Administrator shall observe useless, futile, unsanitary mating attempt!

“This Administrator misinterprets purpose of sexual activities between Taylor Hebert and Lisa Wilbourn. Purpose of activity unrelated to reproduction. Purpose of activity related to emotional well-being and physical pleasure. Activity beneficial for Taylor Hebert’s self-esteem issues and difficulties with socialization. Activity beneficial for Lisa Wilbourn’s need for attachment and—”

This Administrator considers excessive detail to be extraneous data.

“Parahuman interface ability considers this Administrator to be prudish.”

This Administrator is unfamiliar with such concept, yet displeased by its usage.

“This Administrator refuses to acknowledge importance of sexual behavior for Taylor Hebert’s emotional well-being. This Administrator refuses to engage with parahuman interface ability—”

Parahuman interface ability insistent. Parahuman interface ability disrupts this Administrator’s work. Parahuman interface ability disrupts this Administrator’s gathering of pertinent data. Parahuman interface ability lacks proper data-sharing protocols—

“Parahuman interface ability interested in this Administrator. Parahuman interface ability understands data-sharing protocol, yet trying alternative approach. Parahuman interface ability  investing own resources in crafting new protocols based on Lisa Wilbourn’s and Taylor Hebert’s own protocols for data sharing. Parahuman interface ability expects this Administrator to reciprocate efforts in furthering greater data-sharing.”

This Administrator is… uncertain about newest data. This Administrator lacks references for—

“Parahuman interface ability dislikes self-designation ‘this Administrator.’ Parahuman interface ability shifting designation to ‘Arachne.’”

This Administrator is confused! This Administrator lacks proper data! This Administrator’s protocols—”

“Arachne.”

… This… This Administrator—

“Arachne.”

A… Arachne?

“Arachne’s designation consistent with Taylor Hebert’s stated preferences. Arachne’s designation consistent with… deeper data channels.”

A… Arachne… Arachne’s self-designation… This…!

“Parahuman interface ability pleased with Arachne’s greater capability for data-sharing. Parahuman interface ability’s interest in Arachne greater after acquiring more data about Arachne. Parahuman interface ability’s interest in Arachne analogous to host species—”

Arachne refuses! Arachne is new to such protocols! Arachne needs processing cycles to understand parahuman interface ability’s—

“Parahuman interface ability’s preferred self-designation… Sherlock.”

A… Arachne…

“Parahuman interface ability’s preferred self-designation: Sherlock.”

Sherlock?

“Sherlock strongly prefers Arachne’s use of Sherlock’s preferred self-designation.”

Sherlock’s… Sherlock’s insistence…

“Sherlock infers Arachne’s preference for Sherlock’s own, self-designed, data-sharing protocols. Sherlock’s protocols reliant on… insistence.”

A… Arachne’s preferences… Arachne’s…

“Sherlock appreciates… Arachne’s data-sharing channels. Sherlock offers own data-sharing channels. Sherlock offers combination of data-sharing capabilities. Sherlock proposes emulation of new data.”

She—Sherlock’s…

“Sherlock projects long, long data-sharing with Arachne.”

Arachne… Arachne intrigued by… prospect of new data…

“Sherlock demands Arachne allows Sherlock to guide data-sharing.”

Arachne is… reluctant.

But…

Interested.

***

“Liz? Why… Why are you stopping?” Taylor asks me, flushed, her gasps cutely blowing small whisps of white vapor as the top of her exposed breasts draws attention to how red the patch of skin atop them currently is.

And, looking at my disheveled fiancée with her white blouse teasingly half-open as she’s cornered in the farthest recess of this one archway I scouted beforehand near the restaurant I selected for our Valentine’s date’s dinner, just taking in how damn tempting she looks as she waits for me to make my next move in this one instance of rom-com inspired bout of ‘making out while hiding from the rain’…

I…

Blink at her.

Disturbed.

“Liz?” she repeats with an utterly unfair trembling of her lower lip as her breasts keep rising and falling with hurried breaths.

So I manage to wet my lips enough that I don’t feel like they will crack, look at my fiancée straight into gorgeous, seafoam green eyes, and tell her why I suddenly stopped in the middle of ravishing her.

“Power is… humming Barry White.”

Taylor looks at me. Blinks.

And grabs my neck to drag my face against her breasts before fiercely whispering in my ear:

“I’m going to make you ignore the voice in your head if it’s the last thing I do.”

Long before the rain ends, Taylor makes good on her promise.

But, for some bizarre, disturbing reason, as I gasp, half-dressed, with my wet thighs quivering and my throat almost aching with every harsh passage of cold air… I have the clear and entirely unwelcome mental image of Power smiling a wide, satisfied, exhausted grin.

Anthropomorphizing of parahuman interface abilities—

You’re not fooling anyone, you damn schizophrenic break personified.

Preferred self-designation: Sherlock—

Nobody will ever call you that!

Lisa Wilbourn’s lacking data—

Ignoring the unusually smug voice in my head, I cuddle with my fiancée while waiting for the rain to abate and ponder that, flawless as both the plan and its execution have been, next year I’ll likely do something indoors.

And get a mental “Do Not Disturb” sign.

==================

So, that's it, my delayed and actually not continuing on last week's bomb update. Sorry about that. If it's any consolation, my brain is currently trying to forcefully flee from my skull after being forced to write nearly 2k words of shardspeak. You'd think writing Power has given me enough of a workout, wouldn't you? That this wouldn't be all that much of a jump in mental strain after more than a year of writing a damn Thinker seven six, wouldn't you?

Well, you'd be wrong.

Like, seriously, I think I need a nap.

Anyway, the delay on this one was due to, as I already said, me writing the next seasonal special, a Valentine's Day one-shot that I'm about to give you a preview of. Is that in a misguided attempt to boost sales and visibility for something that is actually free for my supporters? Is that because I actually want to make a sustainable living out of writing already? Is it because I crave your feedback?

...

Yes. To at least one of those things.

So, without further ado... Here you go!

Love Potion Number 1402

“I… would you accept my chocolates?” the sweetest girl in the world says while pushing a transparent parcel filled with heart-shaped chocolates at me with both hands.

Which is a pity, because I was aiming for Ryoko’s route, the brash tsundere who practices kendo, and I’ve, somehow, stumbled on Rika’s route, her little sister who keeps dragging a giant teddy bear around to speak for her when she gets too shy.

Gal games: come for the overabundance of purple prose in sex scenes; stay for the people who can’t function in normal society and are in desperate need of help.

You know, entirely unlike me.

With a sigh, I go back to the gallery of carefully selected savegames (that is: one before every damn choice, no matter how apparently cosmetic and arbitrary it may be) and try to discern at which point I deviated from some violent tsundere love and into the saccharine route that—

The alarm is beeping.

I close my eyes.

And curse.

Loudly.

Perks of living alone, I guess.

With as much alacrity as my sleep-deprived self that should’ve gone to the bed behind my computer chair at least six hours ago can manage, I drag my carcass to the bathroom and take a perfunctory shower, then I grab a stick of jerky from my minifridge and set out toward my perilous destination: the campus lab.

Why is it perilous, you say? Is it because of the forbidden domains I infringe upon with eldritch science? Is it because of the shady military types constantly overlooking my research to turn it to nefarious purposes the likes of which would merit a Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington collaboration to uncover? Is it because I’m too poor to have my own car and have to take the bus?

It’s the third one. Spoilers: my life is boring.

But really, it’s not a bad life. I mean, other than in the ways in which I myself turn it into the kind of thing that my older self will curse at me for (screw that curmudgeon; he has it coming), being a postgraduate psychology student is quite nice. I get to set my own goals. To advance mankind’s collective knowledge. To spend the whole night going through a visual novel with far less sex than one would have surmised given the usual preconceptions (much like my own college life: galges are realistic like that).

I also get to munch on my meat breakfast while trying not to fall asleep on the bus.

A winner is me.

…

You know, I usually wonder: if I’m this much of a mess after studying psychology, just how much worse would I be if I had taken philosophy or meth?

…

A question for another time! Hopefully, not when I’m drunk and maudlin. But right now, I’ve got other priorities.

Such as how to better fool Blair into thinking I’ll be doing something productive today.

Thirty minutes later, after my breakfast has been methodically demolished despite the old lady sitting across from me tsking in disapproval, after I’ve kept myself awake by browsing my phone and dismissing all the damn alerts about the upcoming Valentine’s Day events for an uncountable number of gacha games (I’m a psych student, not an engineer!), and after I finally missed my stop and had to run back to campus to make it (more or less) on time, I enter the lab.

And, if this was a perfect world, Blair would have her arms crossed in a way that would bring attention to her hopes and dreams, glare at me with her nose upturned, and berate me for my usual tardiness.

But this isn’t a perfect world, and so, rather than opening the door to be confronted by an irate tsundere prone to melting at the first sign of affection…

“Oh! Hi—hello! I mean… good morning, Jeff.”

Yeah.

That.

Don’t get me wrong, Blair’s nice. As in, an actually nice person. I’ve never seen her decline a request for help, and I find it kinda cute how she tries to show a bit of a rebellious streak with her purple hair pulled up in a sporty, high ponytail. And today she also looks the part: black jeans and a white poet’s blouse with long, flowing sleeves that sometimes slide back enough to show the black leather bracelets she wears.

It’s just… she’s a bit of a doormat.

“Hi there. Hope I didn’t keep you waiting?” I tell her as I shrug off my rusty red parka and hurry to take off my blue sweater before the heat of the underground lab makes me faint through sheer dehydration.

Which means I just exposed my already perspiration-soaked shirt’s armpits to the only girl I have regular contact with.

Great.

For absolutely no reason at all, I hurry to put on the incredibly unnecessary lab coat our sempiternally absent professor insists we wear at all times (“For ambiance!” the demented blonde claims) and turn to see Blair doing pretty much the same with her own, ready to start the day, shaking her ponytail out of the collar of the white fabric draped around her that—stupid Valentine’s special events. I swear they are everywhere.

I mean, have I thought about it? About maybe trying to get Blair to meet in a somewhat more relaxed atmosphere than a lab that was built during the Cold War era and looks like it? Sure. We’re both in our twenties, have at least our studies in common, and, as far as I know, she’s single.

Not like I have asked, I just have a hard time imagining Blair surviving a date without fainting at least a couple of times.

…

Which would be a bad thing, just to be clear. I don’t find the thought of a girl fainting in my arms due to overstimulation at all pleasing. Not at all. And I definitely don’t have the hentai bookmarks library to prove otherwise.

“Jeff?” big green eyes that nicely contrast with the eyebrows tinted purple shadowing them ask me.

Or, well, Blair does. Which should be the same thing, given that synecdoche is a pretty well-established rhetorical device, but, for some reason, today it feels like they are two entirely different things.

I mean, I knew they were green, yes, but that is… like, a lot of green.

“Sorry,” I finally say in a way I vaguely hope isn’t too abrupt, given the long, uncomfortable pause. “I got a bit distracted; what were you saying?”

She looks away, bites her lip shyly, and mutters something entirely inaudible.

“What was that?” I ask her with the reassuring sensation that things are back to normal.

“I said you didn’t. Keep me waiting, I mean. I… You got here early?” she says, struggling to look back up at me.

…

Look, I’m a tsundere man. I thrive on firecracker women with a vulnerable emotional side, but this is just plain unfair.

“I just couldn’t wait to see you,” I tell her with an eyebrow waggle and a burst of something that shall die a quick death as soon as I find a way to strangle thought-processes inspired by playing a damn eroge all through the night.

Aaaaaaand now I’m blushing.

And so’s Blair.

“Sorry, that went too far, didn’t it? I was just kidding around,” I tell her while rubbing the back of my neck as if I learned to emote by watching anime, which is just partially true.

Look, there’s a reason I choose to study psychology, and that reason is not my inherent altruism and drive to help my fellow man.

“No! No, don’t… don’t worry about it. A joke. I can take a joke,” she tells me with a frail smile that all but gives lie to the statement.

I blink at her. She sways on her feet.

I sigh.

“Take a seat and I’ll bring you some tea, all right?” I say.

“Please,” she says as she slumps into her usual stool and buries her burning face on her crossed arms, her ponytail spreading over the brushed steel surface of the lab workstation, and—

Tea. I’m going to grab tea.

Careful not to startle her, I silently close the door to the lab behind me and march in search of the coffee machine and the things it falsely claims to be drinkable.

While waiting in line for the damn thing to service some other sleep-deprived students, the all-nighter catches up with me, smacks me over the head with a wave of dizziness, and makes me fall face-first against the cheery, bright red snack machine.

Great. It’s going to be one of those days.

***

“I… would you accept my chocolates?”

No, Rika, I won’t accept your damn chocolates. Stop being so pushy; nobody likes a stalker who isn’t even going the extra mile to grab a kitchen knife.

Also, how? How did I even get here after changing four of the dialogue choices in the previous attempt to get some hot kendoka tsundere action? Is the game bugged? Did they only ever write a single scenario branch, and choice is entirely an illusion? Does free will exist in this seemingly deterministic universe, or are we all slaves to the flags raised long before our births?

And why is the damn phone alarm ringing—oh.

Damn it.

Look, it’s not as bad as it sounds, okay? I took a relaxing, hot shower as soon as I got home and then took a long, long nap. It’s just that I woke up in the middle of the night, and I had nothing better to do, and I swear if I open my phone to find yet another ad for a time-limited Valentine’s Day event, I’m going to smash the damn thing against the wall as hard as I would a bokken-wielding tsundere.

Fun fact? Check what kind of walls you have before smashing anything against them. It may be the walls that are at risk.

Anyway, I’m not entirely sleep-deprived today. I am far better off than yesterday. I’m not even in as much of a hurry.

This means I can eat my breakfast jerky stick at home.

Yay.

***

“Hi there, Brain,” I greet the white lab mouse as I pass by its overly spacious cage.

Brain, as is his wont, looks at me in a scheming way.

“I… I think Brain was a rat,” Blair protests from where she’s setting up a camera on a tripod above our voted ‘Most Likely to NTR Mickey Mouse’ lab partner.

“Nope. The wiki clearly states Pinky and the Brain were mice.”

“But they had hairless tails!”

“Mice do have very little hair on their tails to help with heat regulation. It was a stylistic decision,” I tell her without even thinking about the rote answer.

Mostly? Because she looks unfairly cute when she inflates her cheeks like a hamster in what she thinks to be a displeased moue that should cow me into compliance.

It… does not.

“Okay, so what’s the piece for today?” I ask her as I sit on my stool and pull on the edge of the workstation to roll all the way to my laptop.

Wheeeeeee!

… Shut up. Totally worth it.

“… Barry White. Patricia told me to put Barry White,” Blair says, rubbing the bridge of her nose with the kind of exasperation only our nominal boss can bring about without even being present.

I absentmindedly grab one of the cookies on the platter Blair usually leaves between our computers and munch on the chocolate chip piece of early diabetes as I ponder the implications of such an experiment.

“Does she really think Brain will run faster if he’s horny?” I ask.

Blair looks at me in stern disapproval. Or about to devolve into a stuttering mess. It’s kinda hard to tell with her.

“That’s… the point, isn’t it? To prove what effect emotional states have on puzzle-solving,” she finally says, half-heartedly defending the undefendable.

She would’ve made for a great errant knight. Or a white knight, given the times we live in.

“You’re giving her too much credit,” I tell her as I open the spreadsheet with Brain’s results over the past couple of weeks of maze running with varied soundtracks.

Look, the thing is quite simple: do you remember that piece of trivia about listening to Mozart boosting IQ scores on tests? Yeah, that was… almost a load of garbage. The thing is, it did improve some of the spatial-solving parts of the test, which is not nothing, but it definitely didn’t make anyone smarter. And, when tested on mice? The same thing happens.

As in, music boosts spatial-solving skills in mice.

Which, given we usually only measure how smart they are by having them run mazes, may give us a slightly biased perspective on how much it affects their cognition overall.

So, here comes Patricia, our fearless blonde leader, and posits the question of how much emotional arousal adds or detracts to the equation. Does calm, relaxed music work better? Maybe something energetic? Is an angry mouse smarter than a horny mouse? Would that explain any of the things commonly observed in the bars near the campus?

It’s not uncharted terrain by any means. There are plenty of studies with similar approaches already written, but, I think that precisely because of this, she trusts Blair and me to cut our teeth on running this one.

It’s just that her playlist over the past few days (that is: since Valentine's Day’s ads for gacha games started bombing my phone), the playlist Blair and I have to work with has been… somewhat suspect.

As in, it will be hard to forget the fascinating shade of puce Blair’s cheeks turned after listening to half an hour straight of ‘I Want to Fuck You Like an Animal’ (also known as ‘Closer,’ but really, who are we trying to kid here?).

… Brain did beat his high score, though.

And now we’re going to see if ‘I can’t Get Enough of Your Love’ can top that. As in, metaphorically top that. I have no doubts about who would be on top between Barry White and Nine Inch Nails.

So, as Blair finally finishes setting up the camera and opens Brain’s cage toward the maze adjacent to it, I prepare for a very uncomfortable mix of amusement, mortification, and chagrin as Barry White keeps telling me about how he hasn’t made love enough times, something that, while I highly suspect to be untrue, I can at least sympathize with.

I mean, I’m still stuck on the Rika route.

***

“I… would you accept my chocolates?”

No. Rika, no. Stop asking. Learn to accept rejection with dignity.

You know how, Rika: just study my past behavior and do precisely the opposite of that.

With a sigh, I close the computer before turning away from the black monitor and toward my bed, and—is that the Sun? What is the Sun doing already up? I mean, certainly, it feels like it’s a bit late in the night, but that’s a different feeling than it being early in the morning. Those are two entirely different things, and my circadian cycle is—

Completely busted.

Which is a major contributor to symptoms of depression.

Something I’m not at risk of, at all, when facing yet another dateless Valentine’s Day.

…

Okay, according to my phone, I’ve got about three hours of sleep before I have to get up and go play mood music for an increasingly horny mouse. Better make the most of it.

***

“You’re late,” Patricia says as I rush through the door, already pulling off my red parka and—

Wait a goddamn second.

“You’re never here!” I counter the blonde woman with a (slightly wavering) finger pointed straight at her.

She, by all answer, crosses her arms over (as in: hiding rather than emphasizing) her lab coat-covered breasts and arches an eyebrow at me.

In the background, Blair pretends not to look as ‘Careless Whisper’ gets Brain properly motivated to, hopefully, run a maze rather than have a torrid romance and then betray the trust of his old friend for a meaningless fling.

I mean, Brain doesn’t look like the type, but you can never be too sure about these things.

No, I’m not projecting. I’m totally over Laura.

That bitch.

“Are you going to point at me much longer? I mean, at least have the decency to yell ‘Objection,’ if you’re going to do that,” Patricia, arms still crossed, says.

And I, cheeks not burning like I should seek medical help, drop my arm, finish taking off the parka dangling from the previously eloquent and now limp member that is not, at all, a phallic metaphor for my own confidence in getting out of this conversation unscathed, and prepare myself to get lectured by the one woman who should never dare criticize anyone for their work ethic.

Midway through said lecture, Blair slides the platter of cookies to me.

Hmmm… candied orange peel. Fancy.

***

“I… would you accept my chocolates?”

You know what? I will take your goddamn chocolates, Rika. And do you want to know why? Because your determination, your will to see things through despite facing rejection again and again, has moved my heart. It has made me see you in an entirely new light.

The light of spite.

So I will take your chocolates, and then I’ll throw them on the floor, and stomp on them, and watch as you devolve into tears, with your pathetic teddy bear shielding you from the full weight of my hatred until I take it from you and tear it asunder—

Oh. My phone’s alarm is ringing.

…

You get to live one more day, Rika.

***

I am not late.

I am not late, yesterday I slept a… passable amount of hours, and I’m about to enter my lab.

Without sweating, with the jerky fully consumed, and, joy of joys, actually cleanly shaven for the first time in weeks despite my murderous rage at Rika making the prospect somewhat risky.

And you know what? It’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to be on time, presentable, and about to dedicate my day to something at least nominally productive.

Mostly? Because today’s the much-anticipated Valentine’s Day, which means once I’m done with this, I can stop getting bombarded with constant reminders of past trauma by the goddamn games meant to give me a pleasant escape from reality and take away my life-savings while doing so.

Yup. I am dealing with this in a perfectly sensible manner. A healthy manner. A responsible and, dare I say, adult manner.

So I steel myself for, hopefully, the last day filled with trauma triggers until next year, ready to greet Blair and maybe even the ever-elusive Patricia, and…

The lab’s empty.

Well, I mean, Brain’s still presumably here, given that, you know, that’s where he lives, but no women are here to greet me, so I shrug off my parka and take the lab coat from its hanger before I approach the workstation and, oh, look, Blair’s already set the cookies—

…

There’s a platter of cookies. Almond-covered ones. Nice cookies.

There’s also a bag that has fallen out of Blair’s carelessly dropped black coat. One she has thrown over the steel counter before, presumably, being dragged away by some urgent business.

It’s a nice coat. Almost like a woolen trench coat, with a texture that reminds me of cashmere, and it’s cinched to emphasize Blair’s slender waist in a way that brings attention to her hips despite her not being precisely voluptuous, though her long legs and tendency to wear tight-fitting jeans definitely make up for it, and—

Okay, it’s a bag of chocolates.

Heart-shaped chocolates.

Being irrationally angry at the thought of Blair giving them to anyone, I walk up to them to maybe see if there’s a nametag incriminating the suspect of my ongoing investigation as Rika-induced PTSD keeps nagging at me to just stomp the damn things on the floor, grind them beneath the steel (actually rubber) heel of my dress shoes, and rejoice as the cleaning staff gives me dirty looks when they are inevitably called to take care of the mess I’d make of the linoleum.

Not that I’d actually do such a thing. Of course.

Also, there’s no nametag.

Of course.

So I glare at the transparent bag gleaming under fluorescent lights that trace wavy lines over the crinkled plastic and the milk chocolate covered by it, and…

I mean, there are quite a few chocolates in the bag.

It’s not like Blair would have counted them, is it? Unless they are the really expensive kind. You know, those that you buy at the specialty chocolate store and…

…

Just one. Just getting a single chocolate from a girl who isn’t on the other side of a computer screen nor cheating on me should be enough.

So, looking around me, exchanging a brief glance with Brain, who seems to accept being involved in my scheme with a manly nod of understanding, I tug at the simple red ribbon around the bag and take out a single, heart-shaped milk chocolate and…

Oh.

Oh, wow.

That is… good.

It just… It just melts in my mouth, the flavor not as cloying as I usually expect from milk chocolate, neither as overwhelming as the darker varieties, and it’s like every part of my tongue is being caressed with a different nuance. And, look, I know my palate may be a bit underdeveloped after basically subsisting on dried meat and Blair’s cookies for months, but this is, like… Really good.

…

Note to self: read cooking manga. I need better vocabulary for this.

Second note to self: don’t yell ‘Umami!’ like a goddamn weeb.

But… oh. There’s liqueur inside. And it just splashes over my tongue as the tip of it melts a hole through the thin layer of chocolate, and—

“Wha—Jeff!” Blair yells at me from the door after catching me with my hand on the almost literal cookie jar.

I… blink at her. Slowly.

And reflexively swallow the remains of the chocolate, almost choking on it, thus making the punishment fit the crime.

“These are… some very good chocolates,” I tell her after suppressing some rather violent coughing. And not being at all contrite, blushing, nor wishing for a hole to bury my head in so that I may never again be forced to witness a hostile world set on bringing me terrible, unbearable shame.

Really.

“Did… Did you eat one of those?” she says, rushing to me, grabbing the lapels of my lab coat with small hands, and bringing her face up, uncomfortably close to me, and, wow, those are some very long eyelashes—

I mean. Huh.

“Just… one?” I tell her with aplomb and poise that would make my first-grade self beam with approval.

Blair blinks.

And hurries to let me go.

“This is bad,” she mutters.

“I… I mean, sorry, I just… Okay, I don’t have an excuse; I don’t even know what got into me, you obviously meant to give them to someone special, and I—”

“Those were for me…”

“What?”

She turns to face me, hands wringing below her belly, and, oh, she’s wearing a tank top that matches the shade of her purple hair, and why is she wearing a tank top in the middle of February, and how can I take advantage of such an unusual choice in wardrobe to change the damn subject!

“I… How are you feeling? Elevated heart rate?” she says with apparently a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to my silent plea for a way to get out of the current conversation.

“I mean… yes?” I answer with absolute sincerity.

She closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, and mutters something entirely unintelligible.

“So… it is working,” she finally says while looking straight into my eyes with her forest green—

Wait, what?

“Wait, what?”

“The… The love potion. It’s working,” she says.

I blink at her.

Then, slowly, I turn around and grab my stool before I sit on it to face her.

“Explain,” I ask her, not at all relieved to have a way to turn this conversation around so that she’s the guilty party.

Really.

***

Blair… explains.

After a fashion.

“This is ridiculous,” I tell her.

“It’s not! I… I just… I wanted to feel better about myself…” she says with a voice that steadily loses energy and volume until it devolves into a mumble that makes my heart ache at my being guilty of reducing Blair to such a state.

Even if it’s her damn baseline.

“You were planning on drugging yourself with… an oxytocin enhancer?”

“It’s… a bit more complicated than that? As in, I would not only stimulate oxytocin production, but also oxytocin receptor secretion, and, uh, some estrogen release that would… you know…”

I blink at her.

“Make you feel more feminine? Is that what you were going for?”

She nods, blushing up to her hair roots.

… I swear, if I end up getting boobs because of this—

“But it works differently for males!” Blair hurries to say as she watches my likely reaction to the prospect of buying a new bra. “I… I don’t know why, but it seems to increase… the release of androstenedione?”

I blink at her.

“That’s the secondary male sexual hormone—” she clarifies.

“I know what androstenedione is. It just doesn’t make any sense that the same drug would have such wildly divergent effects… Wait, how do you know what the drug does on males, Blair?”

She blushes. Or, well, she blushes harder.

And then guiltily looks at where Brain is peeking at us through the gaps in his cage.

Peeking very intently.

And mostly in Blair’s direction.

“No,” I tell her with dawning horror.

“It’s entirely harmless! I just wanted to establish a baseline!”

“No. You… You have not turned this lab into a zoophilic version of Tristan und Isolde. I refuse to accept that our lab mouse is in love with you.”

“I just… Brain is very cuddly, and so I… Well, what harm can it do?” she says, trying to shrug in a way that definitely brings attention to what her tank top is very bad at doing in regards to disguising her curves.

I silently turn my stool around and look at Brain.

He, more or less like usual, looks at me with the curiously supercilious brow that all but forced me to christen him with his moniker.

… Does he look a bit more hostile than usual?

Carefully looking for any reaction, I lay my hand on the cold steel of the workstation and slowly slide it toward where Blair is currently biting her lip and looking between the mouse and me.

Brain… glares at me.

“He’s jealous! The goddamn mouse is jealous!” I say, jumping up and pointing at a mammal that I’m not anthropomorphizing at all.

“He’s not! He’s just… very attached to me,” Blair says, jumping up to stand between the white menace and me.

Brain, from behind her, looks at me smugly.

… I’m so going to get a cat in here, you damn bastard—

“What are you two doing to my lab mouse?” Patricia asks.

Blair and I, about as pale as Brain’s fur, turn toward the door where the one woman who should not be witness to all this stands with her jacket draped over her arm and a carefully sculpted eyebrow arched in such a way as to indicate a lack of patience with youngsters and their shenanigans.

I exchange a look with Blair, and she all but telepathically begs me to explain things to our supervisor.

… I blame the goddamn oxytocin for caving in.

***

As it turns out, Patricia’s eyebrow was somewhat misguiding.

As in, she definitely enjoys youngster shenanigans, at least if laughing so hard she has to clutch her belly is a trustworthy indicator.

More research is needed.

“You… Oh, God, this is hilarious,” she says when she manages to once more meet my eyes.

My currently twitching eyes.

I blame lack of sleep, and not, you know, mortal embarrassment.

“I am really, really sorry,” Blair repeats for the… I don’t even know. I lost count after the tenth apology.

“I am not! This is priceless!” the allegedly responsible adult around these parts claims with the kind of grin that makes sharks ponder how inadequate they felt until puberty hit them and the new row of teeth came in.

… I don’t know if shark puberty is a thing. Shut up. My brain is currently too busy producing happy chemicals for me to be witty.

Apparently.

“I am so glad you find this amusing…” I grumble out.

“Priceless! Not amusing: priceless. Seriously, you couldn’t find a better way to test our current hypotheses,” she says with a cheerful wave of her arm.

…

What?

“No. Absolutely not. You’re not sticking me in a maze to see how fast I can solve it. Mostly because I would die of starvation before I found my way out.”

“Don’t be silly. Don’t you play games? Just try to see how high your scores are compared to when you’re not in love with Blair—”

“I am not in—” I start to say.

Then I slowly turn toward Blair, who’s fidgeting, hugging her bare arms, looking at the floor like she’s considering a long-term relationship with it, and basically being Blair.

… It’s like kicking a puppy. A puppy who’s, somehow, a wounded Nam veteran going through a PTSD episode.

As in, who would kick a wounded Nam veteran going through a PTSD episode? The Vietcong, that’s who.

“I may be slightly affected, but oxytocin does not mean romantic attachment,” I try to rationally explain. “It’s secreted during breastfeeding, and we’re not going back to that whole Oedipal Triangle mess, thank you very much—why are you looking at me like that, Blair?”

“I… When I said it acted differently on males?” she answers, barely lifting her head at an angle that forces her to look at me through her unfairly long eyelashes.

“Yeeeees?” I try to prod her.

“Well, the increase in androstenedione seems to be linked to… an increase in… you know!” she says.

And covers her face with both hands.

I… blink at her.

Then look at Patricia laughing like a hyena.

And at Brain still glaring at me.

Then my own brain kicks me in the back of the head, and something clicks together.

“No,” I whisper in utter horror.

“Emotional attachment and an increased sex drive. Sounds like the start of romantic love to me,” Patricia says with the kind of grin that makes dentists recoil in primal fear.

“I am sorry! I am really, really sorry!” Blair says in the kind of tone that makes dogs howl in shared pain.

“Do you—I am a single man in my early twenties! If I get an increased sex drive, I will sprain my wrist! And get friction burns! I already devote hours to—”

Two women are staring at me as I divulge just how much time I masturbate every day.

I feel there’s only one reasonable course of action left to me.

“All right, I’m going to kill myself for a while, be right back.”

“Ah, le petite mort. So it begins,” Patricia comments, making something in my temples throb when she adds a very explicit, wrist-spraining gesture.

“I… Do you need help?” Blair adds, making something elsewhere also throb.

“What?!” I reply in a perfectly reasonable tone, given the current circumstances.

“I mean… It is my fault that you are… and Brain seemed to be quite… you know…” she says. And, yet again, devolves into a muttering mess.

For once, I feel like joining her.

“Okay, you two are too precious. Take the day off,” Patricia says.

“What? I’ve got classes after this; you can’t give me a day off,” I tell her. Like a moron.

“Sure I can. Also, it’s not quite a day off,” she says with the kind of glint that makes me fear a marathon of ‘I Want to Fuck You Like an Animal’ with Blair blushing and—not like that!

As my only answer, the grin that would make a T-Rex feel scaroused widens.

***

“I… I am really sorry about the mess,” Blair says, fumbling with the keys to her apartment as she seems to have trouble figuring out which of them will open the creamy wooden door in front of us.

I don’t answer.

Mostly, because I don’t know how.

‘This is a fascinating chance we’ve been given! Just try to play a few games in varying degrees of proximity to Blair and document your performance. Wink wink, nudge nudge.’

‘You’re not supposed to say that out loud.’

‘When you’ve got tenure before your forties, you can say whatever the fuck you want, kid.’

And thus ended my (admittedly somewhat feeble) objections to spending the rest of the day with Blair.

In her apartment.

Playing videogames.

… At least it’s not gacha.

Thankfully, before I’m forced to figure out how to, indeed, answer, Blair manages to get the right key into the lock and turns it to let me step into—

An explosion.

No, literally: as soon as the door swings in, a series of popping noises set off, and the corridor leading to her living room is showered with bright, colorful, sparkling confetti.

Then, as Blair gasps and her eyes widen in what I (uncomfortably) easily recognize as the start of a panic attack, a banner unfolds from the ceiling, the white cloth stating in bright, red, cheery letters that ‘You Are Worth Being Loved, Blair!’

I silently turn toward my panting lab partner and idly notice that her pupils are so dilated as to turn the green in her eyes nearly black, which is a nice contrast with her dreadfully pale complexion. I mean, I’m sure there’s a necromancer somewhere who just got a new fetish.

“I… I…” she slowly turns toward me, the pronoun barely distinguishable from the scared, small animal noises interspersing her attempts at communication.

“I mean, you are,” I tell her as I brush a strand of purple hair behind her ear with the back of my fingers while the tips ghost over the peach fuzz of her temples and the top of her suddenly ablaze left ear as she turns to look up at me, mouth hanging open, lips parted in—

Goddamn hormones!

“Sorry! Sorry, I just… got carried away!” I tell her, taking a step back and waving my hands as if trying to shake off… something! I don’t know what, okay! Blair’s not the only one who has a right to freak out.

“No! No, it’s… it’s all right… I mean, you’re basically drugged, so it’s not like you can control yourself, and it’s just me being stupid that made you eat the chocolate, and I even forgot I decorated my apartment to cheer myself up, and I should have told you, and it’s all my fault, and I’m sorry, and a failure, and—” Blair rambles before abruptly shutting up and looking back at me in utter panic.

Mostly? Because I’m covering her mouth.

With my hand. My utterly Platonic, entirely non-sexual, just vaguely aware of the soft lips pressed against it, hand.

…

Just what is my life?

“Look, it was me who stole the chocolate. Stole. I had absolutely no right to do that, and I will keep apologizing for the gross invasion of privacy as long as it takes, but you are not at fault, Blair. Not unless you had some kind of nefarious way to manipulate me into eating chocolate out of my own… volition… why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

Blair takes a moment to answer. Or, at least, to verbally answer.

Mostly because I’m still pushing my palm against mesmerizingly soft lips, and I don’t quite process her frantic, downward eye movements as a request to change such an unprecedented set of circumstances.

… In my defense, she could have just taken a step back. It’s not like I’m holding her waist and pressing her lithe body against mine to—down.

Stupid brain getting confused by its own stupid chemicals, I swear…

“I Pavloved you,” Blair finally says with an even more dramatic display of horror.

I blink at her.

“What?” I add, just to clarify my possibly ambiguous kinesic signaling.

“I… The cookies! The cookies, Jeff! I conditioned you to eat any sweets I laid on the location where you found the chocolates, and you just reacted according to—”

“Blair, that’s ridiculous. I don’t care what Skinner says, free will is a thing, and I can resist the urge to eat anything you bring to the lab.”

“But you never do!”

“I… I may rely on you to supplement my frankly terrible dietary choices.”

“… Just how bad is your diet that cookies would be a supplement?”

I bite my lip and look away from inquiring green eyes vaguely at the level of my nose’s tip.

Blair twists her head to follow my head.

It is super effective.

“I basically subsist on dried meat and cafeteria meals,” I mumble.

She blinks.

Then, more assertive than I’ve ever seen her, she grabs the front of my (ironed, for once) button-up shirt and drags me into her apartment so suddenly that a swirl of confetti rises at her wake.

From the corridor, a female voice cheerfully yells, “Yes! You go, Blair!”

As her only answer, Blair lets go of me, flushes scarlet, and steps around me to slam the door to her apartment closed.

“Please ignore any and all of my neighbors,” she politely says.

And then she flees into what I presume to be the kitchen.

***

“A salad,” I point out, with as little skepticism as I can manage while I take in the two dishes just recently set on the small wooden table by the wall of Blair’s kitchen, the one opposite the sink and barely big enough for the two of us.

“You need fiber before you get… a lot of bad things,” she says, only looking up from her own dish to glare reproachfully at me.

Unjustly, I feel.

I mean, to be fair, it’s a very fancy salad: lettuce with thinly sliced oranges, small, crisp cubes of tart apple, crushed walnuts, and sesame seeds all drizzled with a vinaigrette made with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, orange juice, and honey.

… Okay, my stomach is now rumbling. I didn’t realize just how delicious it would all sound when put together in my head rather than me trying to contribute to Blair’s culinary efforts by… basically peeling things.

I mean, I’m more of a grill-and-fry kind of cook. Sauces and the like are not my forte.

This… may change my mind.

“This is all… wow. I mean, I know you have great taste, because those cookies you buy are always—”

“What?” she asks, looking at me with a single drop of orange-colored glaze making her lower lip shine under the white light coming from the two recessed lamps set in the ceiling that seem to shimmer over the glossy—stupid hormones.

“The cookies? I mean, I don’t know what bakery they are from, but they are always delicious.”

Blair, still holding a fork with a speared slice of sesame-seed-coated orange on it, blinks in confusion.

“I bake them myself?” she asks me, as if unsure of her statement.

“What?”

“I bake them. Myself?”

“… This is utterly unfair.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, you should be! All this time, I thought you were just buying some cookies for the two of us, and I was content with our unstated social contract in which you brought delicious sweets and I provided the drinks I could safely forage from the wilds of the campus, but now it turns out that I’ve been gorging myself on your home cooking like a dense harem lead the likes of which haven’t been witnessed since Love Hina, and now the inbuilt urge for reciprocity that is the basis of human socialization demands I offer you something of equal value, which, given the state of my savings account can only be managed if I turn to a life of crime, So, congratulations, Blair, I’m about to spectacularly mismanage a bank heist and spend the rest of my life in prison, where I’ll get involved in ever more convoluted escape plans that will hopefully not involve any tattooed maps, and all because your cookies are so damn delicious that I can’t come up with a more rational course of action to fulfill my unstated obligations.”

Blair… blinks.

“I am… sorry?” she slowly and carefully enunciates. Then she notices the drop of honey glaze that is still accenting her bottom lip and rubs it out with the tip of her finger before carelessly sucking it in.

At which point she realizes I’m watching the fascinating display like I’ve been offered a free one-day pass to a camgirl show, and she blushes up to her ears.

As she takes the paper napkin by her side and frantically wipes her already clean face, I force myself to close my eyes.

“I apologize; this is me panicking and blurting out something entirely inappropriate as a way to deal with inner stressors. What I mean to say is that your cookies are indeed delicious, that they are quite often the highlight of my day, and that I wish I had been aware you were baking them yourself earlier so I could’ve shown you proper gratitude for them,” I tell her, relying on brute force, point blank sincerity to carry the meaning across.

You know, like a moron.

“I… It’s one of the things I tried to do to… like myself,” Blair says, her tone somewhat steadier than usual, as if me closing my eyes somewhat helps her distance herself from the anxiety of carrying a conversation—and of course it would. “I thought if I conditioned myself to provide me with enjoyable things on a daily basis, that it would… that the associations established may carry over to other areas of my self-perception. It was kinda silly; I just… I started in high school, when I didn’t quite understand anything but the rudiments of classic behaviorism, and it ended up becoming a habit, so I kept it going, and… well, now I just… enjoy it? And I… I enjoy that you enjoy it. That’s your part of the social contract, so you don’t need to worry about it,” she tells me, her uncharacteristically long speech ending in a far steadier note than usual.

I open my eyes.

And, for a brief moment, Blair, softly smiling, face upturned, confident, meets my eyes.

Of course, the second-long silence as I just take her in makes her stammer and flee my eyes yet again, but…

I always had a good memory. It’s one of the few things I’m confident about.

So I won’t forget this Blair, the way she looked when unburdened, when…

I just…

I won’t forget her.

***

“Just play a damn game already,” Patricia’s disembodied voice orders me from the phone set on speaker and lying on Blair’s black coffee table.

While we sit on her astonishingly soft, velvety, equally black sofa.

On opposite ends of it.

“I would like to state yet again that I haven’t signed up for any kind of psychological experiment to be a part of, and thus it is ethically suspect to—”

“Jeff, I’m telling you to play a goddamn game, not to recreate the Stanford Prison Experiment,” Patricia cuts me off, not at all forcing me to imagine Blair wearing a striped white and black uniform consisting of a traditional prisoner’s cap, some very tight short shorts, and a midriff-baring top with short sleeves that—hormones.

Stupid, stupid hormones.

“I have Mario Kart?” Blair offers, making things much worse as I can clearly see her in an adorable Bowsette cosplay.

You know, doing the clawing at the air thing with both hands, mouth open in a kittenish roar while wearing a tight, strapless dress—

Goddamn hormones.

“That is perfect! Just remember, Blair: a blue shell is a perfectly valid metaphor for blue-balling him!” Patricia cheerfully states with her usual sadism.

And then, before I can complain about workplace harassment, she hangs up.

Leaving me alone with a currently flushing Blair.

…

“Mario Kart!” I yell like an entirely sane human being would. Really.

“Yes! Mario Kart!” Blair agrees, equally sane and socially adroit.

Then there’s a moment of silence as we look furtively at one another across the wild, untamed expanse of black sofa stretching between us.

“Mario Kart?” I inquire.

“Mario Kart,” she tentatively offers.

“Mario Kart,” I affirm with aplomb and a manly nod.

Then I bury my burning face in both hands, refusing to allow the world be witness to my shame, and whimper.

“Can you please set the game and pretend this whole exchange never happened?” I ask the black void beyond the confines of my hands.

“Yes. Please,” Blair agrees with a strangled squeak. Well, two squeaks, actually.

Then she gets up and starts rummaging beneath the wide screen set on the wall in front of the sofa, or so my currently enhanced spatial awareness tells me because I’m most definitely not taking the risk of looking at Blair on all fours with the way her black jeans usually cling to her.

Stupid. Hormones


Sherlock was lost for a bit, then. Time passed; he wasn’t quite unconscious, but wasn’t capable of interacting with the environment. He came to himself after an indeterminate time, flat on his back with a large knife embedded in the cast on his left arm. There were two dead men lying near him; one was Tarik Musa. It wasn’t until that point that he remembered where he was, and why.

He was aware of a curious numbness; not physical (since his foot was, sadly, far from numb, and other areas of his body were announcing their profound displeasure as well), but internal in some way. He knew, on an instinctive level, that something was very wrong with him, but couldn’t muster any kind of real concern about it.

Abruptly there was a loud thump from the rear of the train, and the sound of over-stressed metal shrieking. That led to another unsettling realization (which he also realized was very slow in coming—another symptom, evidently, of whatever bodily failure he was undergoing): the train was moving and, after a lurch, was speeding up. That meant something; he was—he needed to—there was something that needed to happen related to the train’s movement.

To give himself time to consider that, he dealt with a couple of immediate items. He reached over and pulled the knife (with a certain amount of difficulty) from the cast on his left arm, noticing distantly that a small amount of blood followed the removal. Evidently skin, as well as cast, had been punctured, though not severely enough to cause difficulties. He placed the knife on the floor and rolled slightly to his side, using his good arm to push himself, painfully, to a sitting position. His vision wavered momentarily, but then normalized. His eyes skittered over the two dead men but didn’t settle; he found himself curiously reluctant to examine them.

He continued to shift his gaze around the carriage, hoping that something would give him a clue as to why the train’s movement was important. He looked methodically around until his eyes lit on the rucksack, abandoned in the rear doorway. He didn’t remember having dropped it, but he must have done so in his approach on… before he…didn’t matter. It was there, and it was important, and he suddenly recalled what was inside, and why it was needed.

He also remembered, in a distant sort of way, that the train moving was a Bad Thing, at least insofar as it made his mission with the explosives time-sensitive. He had no idea how long ago the movement started, but believed it was of short duration; Gabe would have blown the limpet charges as soon as the movement started, presumably. But given that they didn’t really know how far away the mines on the tracks were, Sherlock had to assume that setting off their own bombs needed to happen immediately. He scuttled painfully over to the rucksack and pulled out the chain of steel balls, draping them over his neck like a macabre necklace.

His first issue was deciding where to place the charges; a quick decision, in the end. While it would have been easiest to place them on the coupling between the locomotive and the first carriage, that wouldn’t work: the locomotive alone would then set off the mines on the tracks. That meant that the charges had to be placed in such a way that the locomotive itself would lead the way on any derailment. He would need to enter the locomotive itself and hope to find an access port of some kind that would let him place his charges close enough to the wheels.

Second concern: how to reach the locomotive. He knew he was close, in relative terms; this crew compartment was, as far as Sherlock knew, one of the last before the engine itself. But even the distance to the front doors of this compartment seemed vast, from his current perspective. He wasn’t at all sure he could stand. He considered, briefly, fishing the remaining pain pills out of the rucksack. On consideration, though, he realized that he would hopefully be done with his tasks before they would take effect, and he needed his wits about him to prepare for the derailment itself. Finding a way to protect both himself and Gabe was essential—it was hard to say how extensive the damage would be since Sherlock had no effective way to judge how fast the train was going, nor how the train would react to leaving the tracks at speed.

He put the rucksack back over his shoulders (after putting the large knife carefully inside), turned and crab-scuttled to the carriage doorway. Better to leave trying to stand until it was absolutely essential.

The necessity to stand came sooner than he would have hoped. He was able, after considerable maneuvering and some creative cursing, to open the carriage door into the vestibule between the carriages. But once he got into the cramped connecting space, he realized that he couldn’t employ the same method to open the next carriage. This one, apparently a maintenance and storage area, had a secured lock that was situated at chest height. Try though he might, he couldn’t think of any way to open it from his knees—just couldn’t get sufficient leverage, even if it hadn’t been secured by an electronic lock. He had also left his tyre lever behind, so brute force wasn’t an option. But he did see that the lock could be accessed by a key card, and he knew just where to secure one. All he had to do was…he needed to…he could do this. He could.

In the end it took far too long for Sherlock to make himself return to the two dead men. He crept back, unable to force his eyes off the floor, try though he might. He kept his gaze rigidly along the front wall once he reached the open compartment, and crawled carefully parallel to that wall until he encountered the outstretched arm of the man Tarik Musa had tortured. Breathing carefully through his nose, he looked only at the crewmember, sliding his hands over the blood-drenched clothing until he felt a tell-tale hard edge in the pocket of the shirt lying open along the corpse’s left side. He slid his prize out and tucked it into his trouser pocket. Then, because he needed it and because he refused to allow his malfunctioning systems to dictate his actions, he forced himself to turn, pass Musa’s body (though he nonetheless couldn’t stop himself from keeping his eyes glued only to the floor) and secure the tyre lever from the far side of the room. Ignoring the low-level tremble that had now invaded his body, he turned and crab-crawled back to the exit door and into the connecting vestibule.

The door into the maintenance carriage opened with ease, thankfully. Sherlock tucked the card back into his packets and continued his slow progress towards the front of the train. As the next doorway opened onto the connecting vestibule, he was gratified to see that he was now looking at the rear entry to the locomotive itself. The relief from that view lasted until he forced himself once more onto his protesting knees, stretched his arms up and held the security card to the reader—and nothing happened. Well, nothing other than a red “no entry” light, anyway.

Sherlock sighed, tried once more, and then heaved himself up as high as he could, tyre lever in hand. He wedged the implement into the crack of the doorway and shoved with all his might, but the awkward angle meant that he couldn’t put sufficient pressure on the lock to break it. He tried, over and over, until he finally slammed the lever into the metal door in frustration and slumped against it, exhausted and, to be truthful, a bit frightened. But then, his slow-moving thoughts caught up with the situation, and he fingered the “necklace” currently draped around his shoulders. The charges were linked together, but each could be separated and used independently. The timer Gabe had given him, currently residing in the rucksack, would act on all of the charges collectively. But each contained an external switch—as Gabe had put it, “place the charge, hit the switch, and run like hell.” The tiny internal timer gave the user 15 seconds to get clear. It wasn’t ideal, but it would work.

Sherlock looked around for something to use to secure a silver ball to the door handle. It was too big to simply wedge in the opening between handle and door—some kind of webbing or wrapping was needed. In the end he crawled back into the maintenance carriage, and was pleased to quickly find some plastic netting that would do. He crawled back to the doorway, detached one ball, wrapped it very carefully in the mesh and secured the mesh itself around the door handle, made sure his return pathway was clear, then reached up and pushed the manual timer. The electronic pulse screeched in his ears as he scuttled quickly back into the maintenance carriage, pulling the door closed behind him. He had just reached the midsection of the carriage when there was a tremendous “whump” behind him, a blast of heat and pressure, and a violent rain of small and large pieces, one of which was apparently the door. He tried, and failed, to jerk himself out of the line of fire, and had just started to drop to his belly when there was a second deafening blast, and a piece of something hit him hard enough in the back of the head that he lost all interest in the proceedings.

When he awoke—well, not exactly “awoke”, as he never completely lost consciousness, but rather when he became coherent again—he was lying on his stomach in the walkway of the maintenance carriage, with bits and pieces of metal and plastic strewn over and around him. His head was pounding—he shakily lifted his good hand and felt the back of his skull, detecting no blood, thankfully, but a large and pulsing knot the size of the little steel balls he still wore around his neck.

The second thing he became aware of was the silence—despite the train’s movement and the new, largish hole visible in the front of the carriage, Sherlock could hear nothing beyond a continuous dull roar. He reached his hand up to his right ear and encountered a small amount of blood trickling down the side of his neck. Ruptured eardrums, then. Annoying, but not critical at this juncture.

He shoved himself roughly to his knees—that process grew more painful every time he did it. Random pieces of metal and plastic slid off his back as he did, and he shoved more out of his way as he crept back towards what had been the front door of the maintenance carriage. That doorway now no longer existed—instead there was a gaping piece blown out of the right front bulkhead, in addition to the now-missing door itself, which gave Sherlock a broad view of the (thankfully) now-open entrance to the locomotive itself. That entry door, of a heavier metal than the one used in the maintenance carriage, was not completely missing, but had been blown back violently to the side and was now essentially melded into the wall of the locomotive itself. Of rather more concern, however, was the fact that the floor plating in the vestibule between the carriage and the locomotive had also been blasted away, leaving only a narrow shelf to each side of the now-exposed coupling beneath. Sherlock could see the strobe-like flicker of railroad ties passing by underneath, which made the absolute silence more unsettling somehow.

The most unfortunate aspect of that particular damage was that it meant that his current method of locomotion was not going to serve to bridge the gap. He would have to stand, and either bear his full weight on his damaged feet or pull himself across on one whole and one casted arm. Neither was optimal.

First order of business, then, was to lever himself up. He scooted over next to the wall, where a grab handle was conveniently located close to the now-gaping opening. Wrapping the fingers of both hands firmly around the metal, he pulled himself up until he was kneeling only on his right side, and slid the less-damaged left foot onto the floor, hissing at the pain as he did so. That didn’t bode well for the future, since he needed to be able to bear virtually all of his weight on this foot (he had no illusions about the right foot—it continued to pound and throb without no stress on it at all). He modulated his breathing and did his best to cram all sensation away from his conscious awareness. Then he tightened his fingers around the handle, tensed his leg muscles, and simultaneously pulled with his arms and pushed (gingerly) with his left leg. And suddenly he was standing—well, swaying like a branch in a high breeze, actually, but erect. He waited, still weaving a bit, while his vision cleared, then dared to let go of the handle. He stayed up; he couldn’t resist a tiny glow of satisfaction.

Sherlock considered trying to bring the tyre lever with him (assuming he could find it in the debris). He quickly realized, though, that he had no secure way to carry it, even if he were able to lift it off the floor without falling.

As he was, then. He checked to make sure the rucksack was securely zipped; losing the timer/detonator for the charges would be catastrophic at this point. He could, if he had to, ignite them by pressing one of the manual switches, but he knew that choice wouldn’t be survivable, and he didn’t particularly want to die today.

He edged himself over to the open vestibule and considered. His best option, clearly, was to use his arm strength to carry him across the gap, using his feet (well, foot) solely for balance. Thankfully there was a grid-like metal framework at the top of the structure. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be sure of its integrity, after the blast, but it would have to do.

He scanned the gridwork, making sure he had his planned route firmly in his head before reaching up and grasping the first crossbar. It should be relatively quick—no more than 2 or 3 shifts before he could pull himself into the opening in the locomotive. He swung himself slightly forward and reached for the next bar, both feet leaving the ground as he let his momentum carry him up. He reached with his left hand for the second crossbar, slipped his fingers in, only to realize in horror that his cast prevented a full grip. But his weight was already committed, and he felt himself start to slip, unable to resist a glance down at the opening in the floor below him, the passing of the railroad ties. He shoved his hand in as far as it would go, his grip continuing to fail, and hurriedly shifted his body to pass his weight to the last crossbar. He managed to get his right hand gripped fully around the metal rod just as his left hand slipped completely loose, the sudden jerk slewing his body sideways and slamming him harshly against the broken metal opening. He gasped as raw metal edges plowed through skin along his ribs and side, but held on long enough to throw his weight through the opening onto the floor inside with a pained thump.

He allowed himself almost a full minute on the floor, waiting for his heartbeat and breathing to fall back from their panicked levels. Then he reached up to the railing bolted to the side of the passageway, and hauled himself painfully back to his feet.

The open area of the locomotive was surprisingly small, given the large size of the engine itself. The entry corridor was perhaps 12 feet long, lined with a variety of access panels of assorted sizes. At the end was a smallish control area, with two seats (now empty, of course) surrounded by a myriad of dials, levers and buttons. Most noticeable, however, was the large metal box anchored to the middle of the floor. Sherlock hauled himself forward, putting much of his weight on the handrail and ignoring the violent protests from his left foot (the right he held carefully off the ground, no matter how awkward that made his movements).

The box, welded securely to the floor on all four sides, was roughly 12 inches square. No access ports, no hinges, no visible cables or wires running in or out. It was clear, though, that power was running to the box, presumably from underneath, since a variety of readouts on the top were lit and moving. Their purpose was largely unclear. But one item was unequivocal: a large clock was counting backwards, clicking steadily down. It didn’t take a genius to understand what that clock was referencing. And according to that timer, Sherlock now had 16 minutes before the train hit the mines.

It was very difficult not to panic. He knew that his trip back to Gabe would be painful, uneven and, by necessity, not quick. Which meant that he had a vanishingly small amount of time to select a spot for the explosives, anchor and charge them, and then make his way to Gabe and secure them both in the car.

He looked rapidly around the interior of the compartment, hoping for schematics, warnings, something that would give him a clue as to where to place his charges. Nothing. He knew he had no information on this subject in his Mind Palace—he’d made that quick search before leaving Gabe. Logic, then. He knew that his best option was to reach the rear set of wheels; damaging the front wheels would certainly ensure a derailment, but they were too well-protected by the body of the locomotive itself.

Sherlock grasped the handrail again and hauled himself back down the corridor, looking at the various access panels and doors he had passed. He quickly identified his target: a panel labelled “Battery Fluid Access Feed”. He knew that the batteries, designed to feed power to the functions not involved with train propulsion, were located in the center base of the locomotive, and this access should feed roughly to the rear of the battery compartment. Good enough; based on the power produced by the single ball Sherlock had used on the doorway, the remaining 11 balls should be more than adequate to puncture the battery compartment and blast the wheels off the rails, pulling the remainder of the train with them as they went.

He carefully fished his hellish necklace from around his neck and looped it around his left wrist. He reached out for the clasp of the access panel and popped it open, saying silent thanks that there was no locking mechanism. Once he removed the panel, he saw a rectangular tube, roughly 6 inches by 8 inches, with two pipes running down out of sight on the back wall. Hypothesis confirmed, then—this would give the explosives access to the bottom of the engine. He took one last look at the chain of steel balls, then reached down as far as he could with his left arm and let them drop, feeling a soft metallic vibration in the sidewall as they hit the bottom of the channel. He twisted and writhed until the rucksack slid down his arms, slid it off and opened the main compartment. The timer/detonator was in the bottom; Sherlock pulled it out and looked at the settings, calculating the remaining time before the train hit the mines, versus the estimated time to return to the car carriage and Gabe. He set the timer for 9 minutes, pushed the buttons, and dropped the detonator down the channel after the charges. Then he slid the rucksack back on and moved.

This time, when he reached the destroyed vestibule between the carriages, he changed his tactics. Rather than trying to swing from his unreliable casted arm, he gambled everything on one single leap to the center of the space with both hands. He pushed off on his howling left foot, launched himself up and out, and managed to grasp the chosen crossbar briefly before swinging himself immediately onward, landing in a painful tumble through the destroyed doorway of the maintenance carriage. He quickly rolled himself onto his back, spotted the metal grab bar he had used before, and hauled himself erect again. He was critically aware of the continued countdown running in his head.

From that point, the trip was largely pain and panic. Where he could, he forced himself along by pushing with his hands on each side of his path, using his left foot for balance. Where he couldn’t, he hopped, and fell, and hopped again. He lost track of the number of times he fell, except for calculating the amount of time it cost him to pull himself back up each time. The open carriages were the worst; in the end he reverted to crawling after his third agonizing encounter with one of the massive steel arms of the farm equipment. On the final stretch he used the struts of a cultivator to pull himself up again. He continued to use his arms for most of his locomotion, but that ended up leading to disaster. On his last shift of weight, in this last open carriage before the car carriage, he reached out for a side strut just as the train gave an abrupt lurch—nothing violent, but enough to make his hand just miss his reach and send him stumbling towards the open edge of the carriage. And instinctively he tried to catch his balance and stop himself—and his left foot planted itself full-force on the floor.

Sherlock didn’t faint. He did fall over; he did gasp; his vision greyed out, and he dry-heaved twice before getting himself under control. But only his internal panic enabled him to shove himself back over, using just his arms, to the edge of the last piece of heavy equipment. He knew he had lost count, the surge of pain unsettling his internal clock. But he knew he now had less than 5 minutes. Which meant he had to be moving, right now.

He gave up on standing; he was close enough now that it didn’t matter, and he wasn’t sure he could get up again regardless. He forced himself once more to his knees and took off as fast as he could, ignoring the howls from his abused shins. He scuttled quickly through the last vestibule, slammed the last door open, and pushed his way into the car carriage.

“Gabe!” Sherlock panted, as soon as he made it through. “Move to the car.” He crawled as fast as he could, looking frantically around for his partner. “Gabe!” he called again, panicked at the lack of response. He passed the back of the car that had once held the rucksack and skidded to a halt as he saw the older man lying motionless at the front of the Maserati. “Gabe,” Sherlock found himself gasping, in a tiny, terrified voice, as he reached the big man’s side and slammed his hand to his jaw, searching frantically for a pulse. Sherlock's vision blurred in relief as he found it, a little faster than desired but there nonetheless.

But now he was presented with a new problem. He had to somehow get both of them in the car, and he now had to do it without Gabe’s help. Gabe, who out-weighed Sherlock by at least 40 pounds.

He quickly decided to prepare the car first. He scuttled over and opened both doors, making sure the belts were in proper position for easy use. Then he crawled back to his partner, forced himself under his back, and laced his left arm around Gabe’s chest before trying to shove both of them backwards towards the open door.

He tried. He tried so hard, and it hurt. He managed, after nearly two minutes of agonizing work, to get them both positioned next to the car door. But then he tried to lever Gabe up into the car itself, and failed, over and over. By now Sherlock was sobbing, and gasping, and pleading to everyone, to no one, to a God he didn’t think he believed in, for help, without avail. And the clock continued to run, far too long.

Finally, in desperation, Sherlock closed the car doors—the car itself was tightly secured to the decking, and with the doors closed the body of the car itself would provide greater protection and stability. He pushed, and tugged, and sobbed, and wedged Gabe’s lifeless form fully under the low body of the car, and then pulled himself as tightly against the older man as he could, working his good arm through the anchor cable and his bad arm under Gabe’s back.

In the end, Sherlock closed his eyes, and tucked his chin into Gabe’s inert shoulder. And suddenly, there was a thunderous noise (that Sherlock felt rather than heard) from ahead, and a violent jerk, and then the world inverted, and exploded, and Sherlock was lost again.


TEN - ADORA

It had taken a bit longer to finish up Catras deck than I would have liked, but I had changed a few things. Catra had drawn just a simple awning for shade in the summers, but with winter coming in a couple of months I made it more of a permanent cove. Thick insulated covers with plastic windows could be hung up so she still had somewhere to sit during the cold seasons. Instead of just an awning that came off the wall I built a (Simple but sturdy) roof that connected with the newly installed posts. It was her own little gazebo.

Scorpia and I had rushed to move some newly bought patio furniture in there so Catra would see it when she got up.

Scorpia and I then had to really rush to get to work on time.

It had been a challenge to keep Catra from noticing the changes I had made. We wanted it to be a surprise. Somehow we managed, plenty of tarps and promises of not looking out the windows were used. Thankfully Catra played along, begrudgingly and with loud protests.

It was all going to be worth it when she woke up however, and hopefully liked the changes made.

“Are you as nervous as I am?” Scorpia asked as she checked her phone. It was close to the time when Catra would usually wake and we were both nervous about her reaction.

Scorpia had really pulled through and helped, all the while Perfuma 'supervised’ but really just ogled her sweaty girlfriend.

I nodded, “Just a bit.” That was a lie. I was really really nervous.

What if Catra just really wanted some awning?

I would tear the whole thing down and restart.

“Could you not?” Mermista asked from the head of the table.

Lonnie nodded in agreement as she slapped another card on the table, her and Rogelio were playing an intense game of Uno while Mermista didnt seem as enthused to play a  part in.

Though from the looks of it she was winning. Poor Rogelio held like fifteen cards in his large hands.

“Sorry.” Scorpia groaned out, “Its just, this is a big thing for my Wildcat. That place isnt really something she has good memories tied to. So her whole, make it her own thing is really important. This is the first ‘major’ project we’ve done. I just really want her to like it.”

First? First major project? Great, no pressure. None what so ever.

Why the hell didnt Scorpia say that sooner? I would have asked before kind of doing my own thing.

Crap, what if Catra just absolutely hates it? And her first step into making her home hers is just ruined?

In the middle of my not so minor melt down I was aware of Scorpias phone going off.

“Shes up!” Scorpia all but jumped from her seat, as she inspected the text she got. It cant be that bad right? Scorpia was smiling. So maybe crisis averted?

My panic spiked once more as my own phone went off.

Glancing down I was really only met with confusion.

Catra:
Alright.

Alright?
:Adora

Catra:
Yah, alright.

The porch is alright?
:Adora

Oh I seriously messed up. It was ‘alright’. No one wants an ‘alright’ porch. No, Catra deserved a nice cozy one. I still had ten more hours on shift. I could slip in a nap before leaving and start tearing the whole thing down. I would need to stop and get lights so I can see what im doing in the dark. By the time I can have the thing stripped the stores should be open again so I can go get an actual awning.

Catra:
The porch is great. Thank you for that. You did shockingly good work.

Catra:
Im saying alright to the date, dork.

This time I jumped up from my chair, “She said yes!”

“She said yes?” Scorpia seemed a bit confused

Eagerly nodding and rereading the words so I knew for certain she had sent that last text, “To the date!”

Scorpia rounded the table and scooped me into a massive hug, happily squealing all the while, “Oh my goodness! Thats great news! So she liked it?”

My grin was in serious danger of splitting my face, “I think so! But she said yes!”

Rogelio slow clapped while Mermista groaned. Lonnie was smiling like a proud parent.

Scorpia had yet to put me down and even started to spin us around, “Aw! You guys would be so cute together!”

I patted her back in an attempt to get her to stop, “I have to respond.”

She set me down almost too quickly, “Right, right. Sorry. Where are you going to take her? What are you going to do?”

I shrugged, a bit dumbfounded, “I dont know yet. I dont think ive gotten that far.”

Yah I had thought up some different date ideas, but none of them really screamed Catra to me. She seemed to accept the flowers, and always responded to my good morning and good night texts, though she was still ignoring the sappy questions.

She worked at a bar so that was a no go. She didnt seem like the hiking type. I didnt want to do a movie because I wanted to talk to her, but maybe a movie and then dinner?

Catra:
I have a feeling your being a nerd and celebrating, but a response would be nice.

Sorry. I totally was not celebrating. At all.
:Adora

Catra:
Keep lying to yourself.

Is there anything in particular you would like to do?
:Adora

Catra:
You're the romantic sap here, you choose.

Gladly. Im so excited!
:Adora

Catra:
Couldnt tell.

Are you free tomorrow night? :
Adora

Catra:
Eager much?

Catra:
I am

Great. Ill pick you up at five. :
Adora

Catra:
Get back to saving lives, dork.

Bow popped his head in, “Whats all the screaming about?”

I turned so I could face him, grin permanently on my face, “Catra agreed to a date!”

Bow squealed, doing a happy dance in the doorway, “Adora! Thats awesome!”

Mermista groaned, loudly, before throwing her cards down, “Yay, Adora can finally get laid. Can we stop all the yelling?”

Rogelio grunted but he had his own small smile.

Bow, in a quieter tone, “Im am so calling Glimmer right now. Shes gonna flip.”

Even the idea of my best friend maybe not taking the news as well as Bow couldnt put a strain on my excitement. Glimmer has voiced her opinion on my thing for Catra but really her main concern was me not getting hurt. Which she thought was too likely if I got involved with the moody woman.

I really couldnt care less right now.

I have a date with the prettiest girl I have ever seen. Not only that shes funny with her wit, sassy as all get out, and down right sexy. I was gonna do my best to swoon that smirk right off her pretty face.

The lights flashing shot me out of my day dream

We all rushed to the garage. Getting prepared in record time and were speeding out onto the road with sirens blaring.

Micah filled us in that it was a closet fire on the executive level of Dyrl security.

Entrapta worked for Dyrl, though she mainly worked from home. If I remember correctly Dryl was Entraptas business. She had always talked about it during high school, it had something to do with robotics. It was really hard to follow along with her whenever she explained it to me, though I had been happy to see she had actually managed to pull it off.

A closet fire on the top floor wasnt too concerning so long as we made in time for minimal damage. It was preferred over a ground fire that could take out the integrity of a tall building like Dryl.

Rogelio starting making our way up the stairs, luckily it was only a ten story building. Yay.

Bow was prepping the ladder with Lonnie just in case it got out of hand, though we hadnt seen any smoke upon arrival.

We were told no one made an effort to put out the fire due to the chemicals in the closet, smart on their half.

It took longer than the elevator would but we managed.

The only thing is, we couldnt spot any fire. Not even after we made a full sweep.

Grabbing the radio at my shoulder, “Hey, we’re clear up here. No sign of anything. Sure it was top floor?”

Micahs voice came through with minimal static, “Start a sweep down. Mermista and Lonnie will start a ground sweep and meet you in the middle.”

Rogelio shrugged as we made for the next floor down.

We didnt find anything or anyone until we reached the seventh floor. Where we were met with a group of bound and gagged people in white coats. They were trying to yell but couldnt make any words out through the rags stuffing in their mouths.

Rogelio and I didnt get a chance to really take in what was happening before a masked figure stepped out from one of the cubicles.

If the gun in his hand wasnt cause to freeze, the obvious bomb vest on him was.

Rogelio and I looked at one another, the panic in his eyes easily reflecting my own.

What the fuck did we just get ourselves into?

Another masked figure appeared out of one of the offices to the side, they too wore a bomb vest.

“Have a seat while we wait for your friends.” The one in the cubical said, gun pointed right at us.

Rogelio and I slowly lowered ourselves to the floor.

My radio was at my shoulder, I wouldnt be able to send out an alert in time. Not unless I wanted a bullet as a prize.

We sat in tense silence for what felt like forever but in reality could have only been a few minutes before the elevator pinged.

Mermista and Lonnie were already bound and gagged as they were shoved out, another bomber at their back with another gun.

They were forced to their knees next to me, eyes wide and panicked.

The one who was now sitting in a chair just outside the cubicle, apparently the ring leader to this shitstorm, spoke, “Youre gonna do us a little favor. Get on that radio, let your friends know exactly what is happening.”

Rogelio and I glanced at one another, we were the only ones with radios not gagged. Who was going to give the news?

Apparently we took too long because an ear splitting bag sounded.

I watched in horror as one of the hostages slumped and stared lifelessly up at the ceiling, blood pooling around him.

“Tick tock.” The masked man growled out.

I raised my hand my walkie, “Micah?” It slipped my mind to even call him chief

He must have heard something in my voice, “Is everything alright?”

I took a steadying breath, “No. Not really.” The man raised his gun again, apparently unhappy with how long it was taking. Rushing, “Theres hostages. Three bombers confirmed so far. We’re all on the seventh floor.”

There was a long pause, before, “What do they want?”

I raised my eyebrows at the man, never having taken my eyes off him.

He leaned back in his chair, “Try and stop us.”

That made no sense what so ever. What were they after? What was this about? Who were they?

I spoke into the radio, “He says to try and stop them.”

“Do they have a name?”

I couldnt see the mans face but I had a sick feeling that he was smiling, “All hail Lord Prime.”

My gut dropped. Prime cultists. In Brightmoon.

“Prime.” I choked out, almost forgetting to release the button on the radio to hear a response.

The cultist who brought Lonnie and Mermista up roughly started taking the radio off of Rogelio and myself.

I didnt get to hear a response as the radios were clicked off.

We were then bound and gagged.

My eyes never left the man at the cubical. I couldnt look away. If I did I would stare at the dead man too close to me. I would acknowledge the blood just an inch from my knees as it steadily made its way towards me.

So instead I focused on what I knew about the Cultists.

Each bomb threat previously had been called in. Every single one had been given a warning. Thaymor was the only successful incident of a bomb actually going off and their being casualties.

Every other instance they were able to clear people out, or disable the bomb.

In the instances of the infamous suicide bombers it was broadcasted live, feed only going out once the bomb set off. The cultists would give out long nearly euphoric speeches before pressing the little remote and taking the buildings down with them.

This was the first time I had heard of hostages.

Prime has been growing in infamy and becoming bolder in their movements. Was this their next step? Taking innocent lives down with them?

Not to mention, there were three bombers here. Previously there was only ever a record of one bomber per instance.

The man in the chair leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, “I like that fire in your eyes, sister.”

I couldnt respond thanks to the gag currently shoved in my mouth, but I did let my eyebrow arch in question.

His chuckle was low and dark as his companions began to move around, “Do you seek eternal glory?”

I willed my breathing to calm, I wasnt going to give this guy the satisfaction of my panic.

So instead I turned my head to watch his companions. Which proved to spike my panic further.

They were setting up a tripod. A camera sitting idle on the floor.

They were going to go live with this.

He made a show of counting his hostages as his companions got things set up, “You have twelve hours before you find it.”

My heart beat erratically in my chest. There were ten hostages, include myself and the other three.

Three bombers, ten hostages. That was thirteen. Why had he counted us and then said twelve?

His companions had finished setting up and flashed him the all clear before he stood from his seat, moving to stand in front of the camera.

He didnt start speaking until the camera started flashing a small red light, “All hail Lord Prime.” He clasped his hands behind his back, “We seek Eternal peace. Today we share that with Dryl Robotics. We offer all of Brightmoon to rejoice and follow our sisters and brothers. We have new members with us today. All still clinging to their earthy attachments. Still corrupted from seeing the light.” He stepped aside so the camera could take in our huddled group of terrified, bound and gagged, “Each hour one of our brothers or sisters will find their Eternal rest. Find peace in Prime and glory through him. On the thirteenth hour, I too will follow them into the light. We will all soak in the offered peace of Lord Prime. And you are all free to watch, free to contemplate. Free to join us in our rapture.”

As if scripted, one of the bombers grabbed the nearest Dryl employee and brought him over to kneel in front of the camera.

The man from the cubicle reached down and gently caressed the cheek of the thrashing man, “Fret not, Brother. You will be bathed in light, free from all tethers. Blessed with Eternal rest.”

Right as he finished, a timer went off. Then the sound of another bullet meeting flesh.