36 - TYSE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

T he sun is just starting to set when I make my way back up the tower steps with bags of fried meat and rice. It was a boring day and I'm glad this job is over tomorrow. I'd quit already, but I don't like breaking my word to Stayn. Or anyone, actually. It's kind of a thing with me.

This thought leads directly to the woman currently living in my room. I made that promise to get her home because I was embarrassed that she saw my discharge spectra and all that entails. I thought for sure she'd want to take me up on that offer of a hotel room in the city.

But this morning's bad mood is an indication that she's less than enthusiastic about my promise to get her home.

She does like me.

I smile up the last flight of stairs and then make my way to my door. But I pause here because I hear laughter inside.

When I open it up I find Anneeta and Clara sitting on the floor with a coffee table between them—a table that was not here this morning—hovering over a game of HoloHops.

Anneeta sees me first. "Tyse! You're home!" She jumps up, beaming a wide smile at me. "Look at what Clara can do!" She points to the HoloHops board where the little game pieces—which normally take batteries, and which also normally do not work here in the tower for more than a few minutes—are projecting pictures of animals a couple of inches up into the air.

But that's not the amazing thing Anneeta is going crazy about. At least, not the only one. The crazy thing is that Clara Birch is lit up with blue spark from her fingertips to her shoulders and little patterns of shapes, or letters, or something are dancing across her skin.

I look over my shoulder just to make sure no one is passing by in the hallway, then kick the door closed with my foot. "Holy fuck, Clara! What are you doing? Put that shit away!"

The smile on Clara's face drops and immediately the light disappears, her skin back to normal. "Sorry."

All the holo pics of animals that were projecting above the game board also disappear and this makes Anneeta whine. "Why did you do that? I like HoloHops! And I was winning!"

I'm furious, also wondering how many times today Clara did this, so my tone is less than friendly when I start peppering her with questions. "Did you do that anywhere else but here in the room? Did anyone see it?"

Clara stands up, wiping her hands on her pants like she's nervous. And these aren't the pants I bought her, nor are they a pair of mine. "No! I only just did it now because we can't use batteries here."

"Where did you get those pants? Where did this table come from?" And as I look round, I realize that there are quite a few things in this room that weren't here this morning. A yellow rug, which I am standing on. A small wooden chest of drawers. Some curtains hung up over the rusty louvers—also yellow. And four throw pillows on my bed with birds embroidered on them. "What have you done to my room?"

When I look at Clara, she wrings her hands a little, then shrugs up one shoulder. "We went shopping at the lost and found. All of this for just nine coins! Can you believe it!"

Anneeta squeals out her contribution to the day's events. "And we had a tea party!"

But I'm looking at Clara when these words come out and she makes one of those quirky, slanted smiles that indicate things with the tea party might have gone awry.

I laugh just picturing it. And this laugh cools me down a little, even though I am still worried that Clara was displaying her… power , or whatever, when I came in. If anyone finds out what she can do, the government will get involved. And that's the last thing we need. "Clara, it's not a good idea to show anyone that light of yours."

"Did you bring food?" Anneeta rushes over and relieves me of the paper bags. "I'm starving. I can stay, right?"

I say, "Yeah, you can stay." But Clara and I are still looking at each other.

Clara shakes her head. "I won't. I promise. I won't do it again. And no one saw. We only just got back a little while ago, and I only used it to power the game. I swear."

"She swears." Anneeta is digging her fingers into a container of fried meat and stuffing it into her mouth. "She won't do it again."

"Who taught you to eat?" I grab the container and the bags from Anneeta and point to the sink. "Wash your filthy hands, at least. And get forks for everyone."

Clara hurriedly cleans up the table, putting the HoloHops game away, then shoves the box under the bed. "See?" She points to the table. "Now we have somewhere to eat."

I plop the bags down on the new table and then take off my jacket and hang it up. By this time, Anneeta is back with freshly washed hands and she's pulling soda cans out of the bag with excitement.

Her mouth makes a big o-shape. "Soda! The meal people don't like to give me soda. They say it makes me hyper. There's six here, so that means I get two, right?"

I grab the soda, pull one off, and offer it to her. "One."

"One? But there's six! That means we each get two."

"Well, I'm gonna drink three, so you only get one."

"That's not fair!"

I pull the can back just as she's reaching for it. "Your share can be nothin' if ya want."

She tsks her tongue at me. But makes her face sweet. "Please, may I have one soda? I promise to be content with one soda."

I let her grab it this time, then sigh.

"Well." Clara is still nervous, because she wipes her hands on her pants again. "How was your day?"

"Boring. But yours wasn't. I thought I told you to stay inside?"

Clara sits back down on the floor and starts doling out food. "I needed clothes. And the lost and found?" Her eyes go wide as she stares at me. "Oh, my god!"

"It's a fucking treasure trove." Anneeta laughs. "She said that like two million times when we were shopping."

"Mouth, kid."

"Sorry, Tyse." But she's not sorry because she snickers these words out.

"Anyway." Clara sighs. "It was a pretty good day. How about you? Tell me what you did."

I shrug. "Same old day."

"Are you gonna sit?" Clara is still doling out food and she puts a container in a space that I think is meant for me.

"Sure." The coffee table is positioned between the end of the bed and the wall, so it's a small space to begin with. It's also low to the ground and getting my legs underneath it to sit on the floor is a chore. But I manage because I'm intrigued by this little scenario that's playing out in my room.

I spend quite a few unoccupied minutes thinking about last night. The overlay, the veil, Anneeta and Clara. And the spectra she found. I'm trying to figure out where this might be heading, because clearly it is heading somewhere.

Anneeta has always been a mystery. There's just something about her that doesn't add up. I just can't put my finger on it. And Clara, well, where to start? She claims to come from another dimension. And since I have not only seen this place, but have also witnessed the way she can store up spark in her body, I've got no choice but to believe her.

"Tyse? Are you listening?"

I look over at Anneeta. "What?"

"Did you bring dessert? I'm already done."

"No. Sorry." I lean over, trying to see into her container because she can't have eaten that fast. But nope. It's empty. "Were you starving?"

She smiles and nods. Then gets to her feet. "I'm gonna have second dinner downstairs. Do you want me to bring you guys back anything?"

"No," I tell her. "That's cool. See ya tomorrow."

"Yep." Anneeta looks at Clara. "Tomorrow. Tea party at nine. My place. Don't be late."

Clara points to her. "You're on."

"Bye!" Anneeta waves and then slips through the door, closing it behind her.

Clara and I both sigh and look at each other. I'm not sure where to start, but it doesn't matter. Her mouth opens and words just start spilling out.

"Oh, my god. The tea party?" Clara's eyes are wide. Like she still can't believe she got sucked into that.

"I should've warned ya. I meant to, but I forgot."

"She fed me some kind of boiled mud and little pieces of grass."

I nod, laughing. "Yep. I fell for it once, too. Ya should not have promised to go again. She'll be expectin' ya."

"Oh, no. I will not be going. But anyway. What do you think of the new decorations?" Clara does a little thing here. Something very girlish and flirty. She looks over her shoulder and tilts herself in my direction as she tucks her chin. Her smile a little bit shy, her eyes a little bit mischievous. "It brightens the place up, don't you think?"

I look down at the rug—which I am not sitting on—then up at the curtains. "Yeah, it's fine."

"It's fine? It's better than fine. And for nine coins! Can you believe it?"

"Where'd ya get nine coins, anyway?"

"Oh, Rodge. He paid me a groat for yesterday."

"What? What'd ya do down there, a striptease?"

She laughs. "No. Just… helped fill orders, then I came up here to clean your place. He overpaid me, didn't he?"

"Way overpaid you."

"He gave me a dress too."

"What?"

"A dress. Like the one Prisha was wearing yesterday."

"Well." I lean back against the end of the bed. "He likes you. That's handy."

"Yeah. So a groat is worth fifty of those coins in your jar."

"Yep."

"So." She shrugs. "I bought all this stuff, plus a whole new wardrobe."

"So that's where those pants came from."

She stands up, modeling them by turning around and giving me a nice view of her ass. "They're OK, right? I mean, I know they're ripped. But Anneeta says it's fashionable."

She's wearing a pair of faded denim jeans that are least one size too big for her. They've got all strategically fashionable rips in all the right places. Knees, thighs, and a small one on her hip. "They look good."

My opinion makes her smile. "They do, huh? I don't know what this magic fabric is, but it's soft and these pants are comfortable."

"What else did ya get? Fancy a fashion show?" I wink at her and she blushes.

"Oh, a whole bunch of stuff. But I gave it to Rodge to wash in his machines."

"Well, there goes all your coin, right? It was nice while it lasted."

"What do you mean? He didn't charge me."

"What?" Now I'm just confused. But also suspicious. "Why not?"

"Why do you say it like that?"

"Because washing machines require jumps to power them. And a single jump costs four groats. You can make it cheaper by putting your clothes in with someone else's, but it's still gonna be at least thirty coins."

"He said don't worry about it."

This is when it hits me. He's billing me. He's not giving her any of this for free, he's just putting it on my tab. I chuckle, because it figures. "Anyway." I change the subject. Let her think she's his favorite person in the whole world. What do I care if it makes her happy? "What else did you guys do all day?"

"Anneeta took me to her place."

I'm taking a sip of soda when she says this, and I nearly spit it out. "What?"

"Yeah. She showed me where she lives."

"Where? What does it look like? It is a room?"

"Well, it is a room. But not one with a door like this. I'm not sure I could find it again because first we had to go through something called an access panel. She could walk, but I had to crawl. Then, after I had a good crook in my back, we ended up in some kind of… water room?"

"Water room?"

"I don't know what to call it. Anneeta called it the cooling cell. It was just like… a lake of water, only inside. There was a little walkway around it with a mostly functioning railing, and we followed that to the opposite side of the lake and on the other side of that wall was her place."

"What did it look like?"

"Small, cozy, cool. The water made like a mist in the air. So even though it was hot as hell outside, it was pleasant."

"Where does she sleep?"

"Oh, she's got a bed. It's actually a really nice room."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It was all decorated. I mean, I'd sleep there if I was here. There were even rugs. Nice furry ones."

" Really ?"

"Really. And a fireplace."

"Shut up."

"I swear. It was something right out of an up-city house, in my opinion. There was no window—not a real one—but she had something that looked like a window, but it was really a painting. She got new curtains too."

"Speaking of… I wasn't aware they had matching décor sets in the tower lost and found. What's up with this stuff? It looks new."

"Oh, it is new. I found it in Anneeta's personal shop."

I squint at Clara. "Her what?"

"Yeah. Down in the lost and found, there's a whole room down there filled with things specifically for Anneeta. Everything has her name on it. She said I could buy this set because she's so over yellow."

"Huh. Well, it's nice to know that the charities are taking care of her. Sometimes I worry, ya know?"

"Oh, it's not charity. It's the city. She's even got her own personal shopper."

I squint "Like a runner?"

"Yeah."

"Where does she get the coin for this?"

Clara shrugs. "I don't actually think they charge her for anything. She just takes what she wants."

"That must be how she gets those clothes."

"They're cute, right? She's got a very well-developed sense of fashion."

"But why? That's what doesn't add up here. Why does the city pay for this? And why didn't I know about it?"

"I dunno. Maybe you never asked."

It's true what she says, I never had asked anyone about Anneeta. But it's weird to me that everything is free for her. I mean, it's good. It's nice. It's generous.

But cities aren't known for being good, and nice, and generous.

"Did she do anything weird?" I ask Clara.

"Define weird."

"Anything."

"Well, she calls herself a spark baby."

"Yep. She was born in this tower."

"So I think she's like me, Tyse."

A chill runs up my spine. "What makes ya say that?"

"Because she did something and I don't think it was conscious. She was walking along that railing in the lake room and she was dragging her fingertip along the wall. And it left a trace of cyan-blue light behind."

I picture this and a sick feeling creeps into my stomach.

Suddenly, Clara's hand lights up. And she points a finger into the air. I watch, stunned, as she draws a heart. But the cool—or maybe disturbing—thing is, the heart lights up blue. Like she's using a digital marker on a tablet instead of her finger in the air.

She draws some more things. Clouds, and arrows, and spirals. Then she smiles at me. "This was my display in the Choosing. No one had drawn things in the air like this before, so even though it's a stupid trick, it was unexpected and people liked it. Back then, when I was eighteen, it could only last a few seconds, then the light would fade. But as I got older, I could make the light stay all night if I wanted. It was fun, for a while. Until my Extraction turned into a living nightmare and all my friends started disappearing through the tower door. Then I just forgot about the spark. It stopped being important, I guess. But here, Tyse, here , in this version of Tau City, I discovered I can do this. "

She touches me and before I pull away, my entire arm lights up blue with light and a shock shoots through my system. So powerful, I jump up, breaking contact, extinguishing the light, and spilling soda cans all over the table.

I get to my feet—Clara as well—and we stare at each other with just the small coffee table between us.

"Sorry. Did that hurt? I did it to Anneeta and she said it felt good."

I'm still trying to figure out what happened, so I don't answer.

She, of course, interprets this negatively. "Oh, my god. I'm so sorry. I fucked up. I should've never done that."

I let out a breath. "It's fine. You just… surprised me. I've never used a jolt or a jump, so I'm not sure what it feels like. But I think that's what you just did to me."

She pouts. "I didn't mean to. Anneeta?—"

"Yeah, well. Anneeta isn't exactly normal, is she?"

This is when it occurs to me that Anneeta shares a lot more characteristics with Clara—and Clara with her—than either of them do with me.

And I've been neurologically altered, so I'm less, or maybe the right word is more , than human.

Which means both Anneeta and Clara have even less in common with the general public than they do me. And by general public I mean… humans .

Again, my silence makes her nervous. "I'll clean up." She drops some napkins on the spilled soda and starts shoving takeaway containers into bags.

"Hey." I grab her arm, making her stop. I note that it's not me touching her that starts the spark reaction, but her touching me. "It's fine. It is. You just surprised me, that's all."

She doesn't say anything for a moment. But then she lets out a breath and gives it a try. "I think I'm… like her." I nod. "I think I was a… spark baby." I nod again. "I think I'm not like you."

I force a smile. "Thank god, you're nothing like me. I'm ruined. Like this tower. But you, Clara Birch, you're a very bright and shiny thing indeed."

She manages a small smile. "I scared you."

I want to deny it, but she knows she did. So instead, I joke. "Yeah. And that makes you one of the most badass people in this whole city. Because I'm a pretty scary guy myself."

Finally, I get a real chuckle. "I was just very excited. I mean, about meeting her and realizing that I'm not some freak, ya know?"

"Oh, I know."

She studies me for a moment. Then nods. "Yeah. You're pretty freaky too with those eyes of yours. Did you see anything when you got shocked?"

I shake my head. "No. But I think it needs to be all three of us in order to activate the augments."

She's about to say something, but before she can open her mouth there's a knock at the door. I stare at it, my hand already on my Versi, ready to pull it out.

"Oh. That's my laundry." Clara smiles at me, then pushes her way past to answer the door. Sure enough, it's a runner from Rodge with several packages wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, plus another, smaller bag, with the name of a boutique printed on the side. She thanks the runner and pulls a coin out of her pocket to tip.

Then she takes the packages and the bag, and closes the door with a kick of her foot. When she turns to me, it's like she's forgotten everything that just happened because her smile is wide and real. She brings all the packages over to the bed and drops them, making them tumble across the mattress. Then she starts untying the twine and unpacking her new-to-her clean clothes.

But it's the little boutique bag that I pick up. "The Cheeky Goddess?" Despite all the weird shit that just happened, I smile. "You ordered underwear from the Cheeky Goddess?"

"Well, look. I am not against second-hand clothes, once laundered. But second-hand underwear is a hard limit for me."

"But… the Cheeky Goddess?"

She shrugs. "So? I don't know what that means."

I snicker, then peek inside the bag. "Oh, I'm dead. These are amazing."

"Shut up. What is the problem? And why are you so fascinated with my underwear?" She snatches the bag from me and looks inside. "Oh."

I snicker again. "Fancy a fashion show? Because I'm up for it."

"Just forget you ever saw it. I'll return it tomorrow and get something more practical."

" Forget …? Clara, I'm gonna be dreaming about that underwear all night. And you will not return it. You can't just flaunt Cheeky Goddess underwear in front of a man and think you can return it. The damage is done."

She blushes, but it comes with a smile. "I'm taking a shower." Then she grabs a couple of things off the bed—plus the bag of underwear—and disappears behind the bathroom curtain.

I stand there, looking around the room, wondering how, in the span of three days, my life has turned into something that has throw pillows. Not to mention a bed covered in freshly laundered women's clothes and the woman they belong to sleeps next to me at night.

It makes almost no sense. A change this dramatic shouldn't be possible.

Yet here we are.

When I come back from throwing the trash down the chute Clara is freshly showered and putting all her clothes away in the small chest of drawers she bought. She has also moved the coffee table to a dark corner, so there's more room now.

She looks at me when I enter. "You're not mad, right?"

"What could I possibly have to be mad about?" I mean, she's wearing a fucking nightgown. White. Cotton. Trimmed in satin lace. And it's not entirely opaque when the light is shining behind her. I can actually see that fuckin' underwear. Also, she's not wearing a bra. She doesn't even need to be backlit for me to figure that out.

Clara straightens up and starts to look nervous, because I've been staring. This is when I notice there's steam wafting out from the kitchen area. "Was the water hot?"

"Oh, yeah. It was amazing."

"Huh. Well, I might take advantage of that." I take my shirt off and toss into the empty corner where I normally let the dirty clothes pile up. Except now it's not an empty corner. It's a wicker basket.

I just shake my head and unbuckle my battle belt as I walk into the kitchen. I drape the belt over the chair, then reach in and start the water. "Fuck. It's freezing. Not even lukewarm."

"No?" Clara comes over, and then, when she's standing next to me, it turns hot as it runs over my hand. "Well, it sure is steamy."

"You did this?"

"I did what?"

"You're making it hot."

"I am?" She points to herself.

"Do me a favor. It's been years since I had a hot shower in this place. Just stay right here. I won't take long."

She narrows her eyes at me. "You want me to stand here on the other side of the curtain, mere inches away from your naked body, while you get clean?"

"Yeah." Then I drop my pants and walk into the shower. The water starts to go cold again, so I know she's walked away. "Come on, Clara. Be nice to me. I brought dinner home. I saved you. I literally carried your ass up?—"

"A million levels of stairs," she calls back. "I know, I know. You won't stop talking about it."

"Come on. If you spark me up a hot shower, I promise to make it worth it."

She does come back because the water goes hot again. "Make it worth it how?"

"Whatever you want."

"No. That's a lazy promise. You have to come up with the reward. It was your idea."

"OK." I grin, because I can think of a lot of very nice ways to reward her for this. "But… I don't know the limits."

"What do you mean?"

"Loverboy. Your man who gave you to the god. You're infatuated with him. Which is fine. I respect that. But how can I give you something really nice and satisfying if you're just gonna misinterpret it?"

"Did you just offer me sex in exchange for hot water?"

"See? I did not. But you interpreted it that way."

"You did so."

"Well, do you want sex in exchange for hot water? Because that's a done deal as far as I'm concerned."

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

"How about a foot massage?"

She hesitates. "Foot massage?"

"Yep." I can barely contain my snicker.

"I can't tell if this is sexual or not."

I pull the curtain aside and look out at her, grinning. "Do ya want it to be sexual?"

"No."

I shrug, withdrawing back into the shower. "OK. Then no. It's not."

"But is it normally?"

"Your man never gave you a foot massage?"

"No. We didn't spend time together like that."

"Like what?"

"Like… you know. We didn't linger with each other. We didn't share a space. Or a bed."

I pull the curtain aside again. "So this is a first for ya? Living with a man?"

She cocks a hip, folds her arms, and narrows her eyes at me. I withdraw back into the shower once again, grinning.

"Don't get excited, Tyse. I'm a grown-up. I can be in the same room with a man without sleeping with him. Trust me, I've gone on hundreds of dates with gentlemen while I was in service to the god. Nothing happened."

"Yeah, but… I'm not a gentleman." The water goes cold and I laugh. "Hey! Come back!"

She doesn't answer. She doesn't come back either, so I'm drenched in cold water. But it was worth it.

I like up-city Clara Birch. She's serious, and smart, and strong.

But tower-ruin Clara Birch is positively delightful. And that's who she is right now. A woman high on her own spark, and matching yellow décor, and a boutique bag filled with very sexy underwear that I'm a hundred-percent certain she bought by mistake.

I'm still grinning when I get out of the shower with a towel around my waist and take my dripping wet and nearly-naked self over to the chair, where I plop down.

She's still putting her clothes away and she does her best to ignore me, but I'm kinda hard to ignore. "Oh, my god. Why must you walk around wet?"

"I like to air-dry."

She wants to be mad, but she smiles despite herself. Though she does turn her back to me a little, so I can't watch her too closely.

"Hey."

She doesn't look at me. "What?" She just continues to fold her clothes and put them neatly away in her new chest of drawers.

"It's nice to come home to you."

She stops what she's doing, going still for a moment. Then she looks over her shoulder at me. "Yeah. It's nice to be here when you get home."

"Your man?—"

"Finn."

"Right. That guy. What's he look like?"

She snickers a little. "Picture the opposite of you. That's an easy enough way to describe him."

"Short, fat?"

"No." But she smiles. "You're a little bit taller, but not by that much. But you've got way more muscles. His hair is blond. Kinda shoulder length. And he's got blue eyes."

"We're nearly a perfect match."

"Yeah. But no. People in up-city don't get tattoos."

"So you're slummin' it with me?"

"No. I'm just saying. He's very up-city. He wears tailored clothes and his manners are impeccable. His father was the Extraction Master."

"Which is?"

"The person in charge of sending Maidens into the tower."

"Ah. A bloodline thing. Poor guy."

She stares at me for a moment. Then lets out a breath. "Yeah. It actually is unfortunate. I can't imagine what he's feeling right now. I can't imagine what's going on back home, either. Chaos?" She shrugs. "Or… did they just forget about me, like they've forgotten about all the others? Did Gemna get called in? And if so, are they just relieved that all ten of us are gone and it's over now?" She shrugs again. "I just don't know."

Here's where things get interesting. She places the last of her clothes inside the drawer, closes it, then takes a seat on the bed, facing me. Like we're about to have a very serious talk.

But she must not know where to start, because she just looks down at her feet for a moment.

"You're allowed to be mad at him, ya know."

She looks up. "I know. Trust me, I was."

"You were . But you're not now. Because you're OK. Nothing bad has happened to ya. So you think… I should be grateful. I should let it go. I should forgive. Because that's the grown-up thing to do. That's the mature thing to do. But you know what, Clara?"

"What?" Her voice is very small all of a sudden.

"It's fine to forgive him. Because that's forward momentum on your part. But you don't ever want to forget that. Ever . Because when you get home?—"

"How do you know I'll get home?"

I laugh. "Because… well, if I say I'll get ya home, then you're just going home. Somehow, some way, we'll get it done. And when you get there, and you see him, it's totally fine to love him again. But Clara, you can't ever trust him again. Not after what he did. He failed, mate. He failed . And he didn't do it honestly, ya know? Like ya said, he didn't hatch some harebrained scheme to save you that would never, ever work. He just… gave up."

Her eyes have been locked with mine this whole time and this is how they stay when she speaks. "You wouldn't give up, would you?"

"Well"—I smile here—"I've fucked up my life plenty, you saw it all on my discharge spectra. But I do my best, at least. I tried to save them. And when I couldn't, I did the right thing. Even if everyone else says it was wrong."

"Can I ask you questions about that?"

I blow out a breath. I really don't want to talk about that day. But if I don't, she'll just wonder about it. And this wondering will fester and turn into resentment, which will pop up at the most inopportune time. That's always how it happens. So I might as well just say yes.

I lean back into the chair cushions and shrug. "Sure. Ask away."

"What were they infected with?"

"Code."

"What's code?"

"It's like… a neurological virus made specifically for augments. It doesn't affect humans. If you were there, it couldn't get inside you because you're not wired like me."

"Even if your stuff doesn't work anymore, it can still infect you?"

"I don't know, actually. I had a whole team of cyberneurologists look at me afterward and half of them thought I wasn't affected because my augments had already failed."

"What did the other half think?"

I chuckle. "The other half thought I was a traitor. That I had found something there on the other side of the veil. Something that protected me, but that I was keeping secret. And that I set the whole thing up to kill my own people."

Her face goes very crooked as she thinks this through. "How in the world could they come to two completely different conclusions like that?"

"How? Well, that's just simple human nature right there, Clara Birch. The nature of the whole universe, I think. There always has to be an enemy. Ya can't ever have peace. It's one against the other."

"We had peace. I mean, in my Tau City, there were no conflicts."

"I doubt that. But maybe it's true. It's just far more likely that ya never saw the conflicts. Ya see, it's just the way of things. There's always two sides. And both sides lie. That's the whole problem with choosin', ya know? You're never on the right side because they're both nothing but a bunch of liars."

"So that enemy you were fighting when your team got infected?"

"What about it?"

"Who were they?"

"Who?" I think about this for a moment. "Well, they weren't exactly a ‘who,' but more like a ‘where.' Ya see, in the Omega Outlands the veil is thin, but also heavy. It can poke through."

She squints her eyes at me, trying to figure out what I mean. I let her, because she's smart, and I like watching her brain fit things together. "It's like the overlay here. My world and this world kinda… colliding."

"That's exactly what it is."

"But what are these places? The future, the past?"

"Maybe. No one is certain because while we can be pulled through, no one has ever come back."

"Then why do you think I can go back?"

"Because wherever you're from, Clara, it's not the Omega Outlands. Trust me. That place doesn't have people. There are no people there. Especially people like you."

"But—"

I put up a hand to stop her, because she really doesn't need to know any more about the Outlands. "Ya know, it's kind of a heavy topic. How about we just get back to talkin' about fun things like foot massages and smutty underwear?"

She smiles. Then laughs. Then agrees with me. Not directly. But she does turn and crawl up the bed, aiming for the open covers. "You better get dressed, because you're not coming to bed wet and naked."