7

It's not hard to find the party. I follow the sound of voices to the formal dining room. At the last second I lose my nerve and hover just outside the arched entrance, peering in.

I see my friends first, seated at the dining table, its gleaming surface littered with coffee apparatus. Lars has a steaming coffee cup and a polite little smile under his beard. Beside him, Angela is looking mulish. Carrion Crow is nowhere to be found, and since when have I classified him as friend?

Sitting across from them, radiant in her signature blue and white flight suit—it's Zenith. She has a cup of black coffee at one elbow. At the other is a pale, tough-looking man in rumpled civilian clothes, looking unhappy to be here. He’s vaguely familiar.

Oh shit, is he a cop? Is he here to arrest me? The thought of stewing in a jail cell, with nowhere to run or hide, makes me sweat. Carrion Crow would probably do something about it too, and the thought of him trying to hurt Zenith makes everything so much worse.

They don’t seem to have noticed me. They’re still talking, and I realize it’s about me.

"Now why do you think we know anything about Pax Warkin?" Lars asks easily.

The pale man drawls, "You seem to think we’re stupid. The two of you were seen leaving the scene of a coffee shop shooting with a civilian answering to the description. An employee in uniform, taller than average; light brown skin; curly dyed red hair; tweaked-blue eyes."

I shrink back further into the shadow of the arch. I fully expect Zenith to look at me and go, "Ah-ha!" but she doesn’t turn away from Lars and Angela.

"A few days afterward,” the man continues, “the two of you were seen fleeing the scene of another altercation, with a third individual in tow. And again last night, an eyewitness placed Pax Warkin with you, Mr. Lion. Hanging off your back, they said. They were quite specific about that."

Someone was watching that shit show last night? Who the fuck—? And why didn’t they call for help sooner?

"Did your eyewitness mention a certain overpaid mercenary causing undue mayhem?" Lars asks.

Zenith’s polite expression goes frozen. "The same eyewitness does mention a masked individual interacting with Carrion Crow. Are you suggesting Carrion Crow is involved with our missing person?"

"Now, I didn't say that," says Lars pedantically. "I was not close enough to ascertain what actually happened."

Wow, Lars is really throwing Carrion Crow under the barge here by being cagey like that. On the one hand, he’s shielding me from the repercussions of freeing a wanted criminal. But you can tell that both Zenith and her frowny friend are thinking the worst. And they probably would not be wrong, usually.

But... oh hell. I can’t have ECHO chasing after Carrion Crow while he’s chasing after me. It’s bad enough with the Wheel; I don’t need a coalition of superheroes breathing down my neck too. Why doesn’t Lars just tell them about Carrion Crow’s bodyguarding contract? Or is this one of those you-give-me-something-and-I-give-you-something situations?

I don’t get to ponder that any further, as Frowny happens to glance my way and spots me lurking in the archway. He tenses, reaching for something in his jacket.

Shit. If I try to run away, he might get the wrong idea, so I step foward with my hands raised in the classic “don’t shoot!” attitude. Following Frowny’s gaze, the rest of the party looks my way.

I clear my throat.

"Uh, hey," I say, before my words dry up under the intensity of four pairs of eyes staring at me.

Lars looks equal parts consternated and amused; Angela is giving me her best what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you're-doing-you-braindead-starfish glare; Zenith has a beautiful little wrinkle between her eyebrows, and her sky-blue eyes flick subtly in a way that probably means she's accessing my profile. Littlest gods have mercy, I really hope my profile looks legit enough to fool her. Her pal is doing something similar. He looks like he’s a heartbeat away from shooting me, so do my best frozen squid impression—stiff, harmless, and kind of pathetic. I'd think he was Zenith's bodyguard, except for the fact that she doesn't need one.

Lars is the first to recover. Standing, he smiles and gestures me over. "Well, well, well. This is a surprise. Here, let me move over and you can sit here."

That seems unnecessary, but I say my thanks and sit in his chair with as much grace as I can muster (which is to say, not a lot—I almost knock over Lars’ cup). Zenith is even more stunning up close. I accidentally meet her curious glance and proceed to lose track of any and all thoughts in my head.

"Hello." Zenith's harmonious voice warms me to the core. "I apologize, but I don’t recognize your mask. And your profile is private...?"

I sit there, blinking like I've just been thrust into the sun after months underground. It takes me a moment, and a sharp nudge from Angela's elbow, to realize that I should probably say something.

"I—uh—I—I'm a huge fan," I gush. I’m lucky that's the first coherent thought to make it to my mouth, instead of me just braying out my real identity like a grade-A donkey. "I mean, I’m Switch, a vig—uh, freelancer."

I belatedly remember ECHO's anti-vigilantism stance, but Zenith only smiles. She smiles. At me. I'm dazzled all over again. She's gorgeous.

“Switch,” Zenith says with a knowing look. “So you must be the elusive Pax Warkin. I’m pleased to meet you at last.”

“How—what—you know?”

Angela heaves a long sigh. “They suspected. They know now. A for effort, though.”

"Oh." I start to wilt, and sit up again, my battered brain doing its best to keep up. "Wait, so you're not here to arrest me?"

Zenith quirks a perfect bird’s wing eyebrow. "Why in the world would we arrest you?”

I think about Carrion Crow, and the way Zenith went all stiff and cold when he came up in the conversation, and decide not to mention my freeing him.

“You know... the shootings, and stuff,” I say instead, as Grump looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“You're the victim in this instance,” Zenith says. Her voice is warm and kind in contrast, and seems to say that I’m not at all an idiot. “If anything, we ought to be offering you sanctuary, perhaps membership into our witness protection program. But your friends here don’t seem to think that’s necessary."

Basking in her personal regard, I don’t see how ECHO's offer of sanctuary could be a idea, even though they did let my apartment get blown up, and took for-fucking-ever to show up when we needed them last night. I file away the thought for later, as Frowny shifts in his seat.

"If we could get on with our business?" he says, sounding annoyed.

I shoot him a glance. What's his problem? Wait! I finally remember who he is. That's gotta be Wander Kellis, the famous independent journalist. He was on the feeds a while ago for exposing a concubus trafficking ring. A few big politicians were in on it, and it caused a huge scandal. I thought he retired from investigating after that, but I guess not.

"By all means," Lars says. "You were saying, Res. Zenith?"

"Thank you, Mr. Lion. I am truly sorry we didn't take your warnings about the organization known as the Wheel more seriously," Zenith says with attractive contrition. "I wanted to say that we were wrong, and you were right. We are willing to make reparations for the losses you suffered."

"Uh-huh," says Angela. Unlike me, she seems impervious to Zenith's charm. "Cut the shit, Zenith. What are you trying to soften us up for?"

"Always to the point," Zenith says, unruffled. "All right, then. We need your help."

Lars' eyebrows go up. "You came all this way simply to ask for help? You know we're always happy to aid in any effort to destroy the Wheel for good."

"That's not quite what we want," Wander Kellis says. "We want information. We need to know what it is the Wheel want with Pax Warkin, and why."

So wait, he’s working with ECHO too? I wish I could look this up. I cut my eyes to Angela. Her eyes slide past me to her dad. I do the same, but he's focused on Zenith and Kellis. He looks thoughtful.

"I rather thought your team, with all your resources, would have more of an idea than we do."

Zenith tilts her head delicately to one side. "I find it hard to believe that you, with all your personal experience with the Wheel, don’t have some ideas of your own."

I can feel the history between them but I don’t know what any of it means. It’s like I’m watching a fencing match, but I don’t know any of the rules.

"Oh, only the vaguest," Lars says airily. "All we've had to go on are these unsatisfactory rumors. As far as we understand, Pax Warkin is supposed to be some sort of precognitive of unusual caliber. Or, perhaps, they have the potential to become one, and somehow that potential is precisely what the Wheel is after."

"But there are dozens of clairvoyant minds in our star system alone, some quite powerful," Kellis says. "Why this nobody?"

I bristle a bit at that. Yes, I know I’m a nobody, but he doesn't have to say it like that.

"This nobody is sitting right here," I say. Everyone looks at me again. My spine tries to shrink. With effort I fortify it. I’ve sat through my parents’ lectures detailing my failures; I can handle a bit of staring. "Just for the record, I can not tell the future. Okay? It’s gotta be some sort of mix-up."

"You must not forget that the Wheel is made up of obsessive spiritualists," Lars says, putting on his professor voice. "There may be some more esoteric reason for their interest. Perhaps an obscure confluence of the numerology of your birth date, or your blood type in relation to—"

“That's a load of crock," Kellis cuts in. "Spiritualism is just another way to take advantage of gullible people willing to pay for easy answers. There has to be a more concrete reason for them to go after Warkin like this. What’s their angle?"

I have to admit, he’s got a point. Even if I did have precognition in my power set, what’s in it for the Wheel? Why are they investing so much to get at me? I don’t know the going rates for hiring mercenaries, but it can’t be cheap. Even I know that there are plenty of actual espers willing to make a little extra money by predicting stocks or whatever. The Wheel wouldn’t have to work very hard to find a few with enough skill to pull a bigger heist, if that’s what they want.

“Maybe they expect me to predict the next Linkfeed superstar so they can get in early on the ad money,” I joke.

No one gives me so much as an eyeroll. I’m not even sure they heard me. I sink in my chair a bit.

Zenith leans forward. "Isn't there anything more you could tell us?"

Lars shakes his head. "If I had anything more concrete, but—"

"Wait," I say, struck by the beginnings of an idea, "what about the beacon?"

Angela narrows her eyes. "What about it?"

At the same time, Zenith asks, "What beacon?"

"The—uh, the one in my head," I say. Just saying it makes me sick, but I soldier on, doing my best to think past the permanent haze in my mind. "Someone apparently stuck one inside my head, and A—Mechanika and Red Lion deactivated it before more Wheelies could find us."

“I don’t recall you mentioning this, Mr. Lion,” Zenith says, her eyes narrowing at us.

Lars shrugs, looking a little sheepish. “Well, we did succeed in deactivating it. Afterwards, it quite slipped my mind, what with one thing and another.”

Wander Kellis, meanwhile, is watching me with an irritated expression. I look for support from either Lars or Angela, but Angela is frowning, and Lars is looking into the middle distance, the picture of grandfatherly abstraction. I guess I'm not doing a very good job of explaining my idea, which seems brilliant to me the longer I think about it.

"Couldn't we, I don't know, reverse engineer the signal somehow and find out who put it there?"

"Okay, I think I see where you’re going with this,” Angela says. “But, we'd have to restart it, and I don't know how we could. We barely managed to keep it from self-destructing as it is; it's probably too damaged to power back on."

"Self-destruct?" My voice gets a little squeaky, and I lose track of my brilliant idea. "And you didn't tell me?"

"When would we have had the chance?" she shoots back. "Besides, you're still here, aren't you?"

I open my mouth a couple of times, but I don't have a comeback for that. Note to self: deduct further points for Angela's nonexistent bedside manner.

"What are you trying to suggest?" Zenith prompts after a moment, the picture of patience, while next to her, Kellis looks like he’s dying for a smoke or something.

"Right." I herd together my scattered thoughts, feeling my face heat up again. "Um. I know it won't help us with the Wheel directly, but if we could figure out who put it there in the first place, maybe it'd give us a clue about why they—I mean the Wheel—are after me?"

And hopefully give myself some piece of mind.

"It's a reach, but a starting point nonetheless," Lars says. "Mechanika is right; it may be too damaged to extract much useable data."

"You just let us worry about that," says Kellis. "We've got just the person for the job."

Lars nods, as if Kellis has just confirmed something. "Ah, so it is Dancer. What did it take for her to finally agree to join ECHO?"

Zenith hides her surprise better than Kellis, who sputters, "How did you—"

“Dancer’s information is classified," Zenith says. Recovering her smile, she adds, "But I am glad that you know each other. I know Dancer thinks very highly of you and would be happy to help."

Angela snorts, as Lars says, "Excuse me, but that is bullshit. Still, I would be glad of her assistance."

"I'm willing to admit that her technomancy is way better than mine,” says Angela. “And I'm pretty great."

"She will, of course, come to us here," Lars continues.

Zenith's smile falters. "I was rather hoping we could return to headquarters, where we can guarantee—"

"No fucking way," says Carrion Crow. "Dancer comes here, or there's no deal."

I jump, and I’m not the only one, judging by the way everyone else leaps out of their seats, ready to fight. Carrion Crow perches on the sill of an open window, where he must have been eavesdropping this entire time. Zenith blazes like the literal sun. I squawk and shield my eyes, just as Kellis the trigger happy journalist shoots Carrion Crow with his odd gun, twice. It makes a funny pop-pop sound.

“Ow,” says the merc, as the holes in his middle start leaking. “That’s not very polite. Or effective.”

I avert my eyes, feeling faint. Kellis looks sour as he aims again, but Zenith steps forward.

"You," says Zenith, and her voice is so cold that I wouldn't be surprised to see frost on her coffee cup. “You little rat. Come to murder yet another innocent?”

“Literally the opposite,” Carrion Crow says, sounding remarkably casual about having a rumored avatar of an ancient sun god staring him down while blood flows down his front. “I’ve actually been contracted to protect said innocent. And anyway, that Crown guy was totally not innocent.”

“It was never about Crown!” Kellis begins, then stops himself with a sound of disgust. I notice that he hasn’t lowered his gun. “Whatever. You’re not in this. I don’t care what your so-called contract says."

"I'm in it to my pretty little eyeballs," Carrion Crow says. "And if you think you can cut me out by moving this party to that glorified prison you call HQ, you've got another thing coming."

"On this I'm afraid I must agree with him," says Lars mildly.

Zenith whirls to face us. "I would not have expected you to throw in with trash like him."

She isn’t burning as bright anymore, but I can feel the heat of her anger, penetrating down to my bones. It’d feel nice, if it wasn’t so fucking scary.

"I assure you, it was not by choice," Lars says. He's really playing up his fusty old wizard persona now. “I would never willingly associate with the likes of him.”

"I'll say," Carrion Crow adds. "They nearly killed me, kinda."

Lars shoots him a look as he continues, "I abhor bloodshed."

"Coulda fooled me," Kellis snarls. "You know the total body count from last night's party? It was eleven. Eleven people died because of you."

"Oy, don't steal my kills," says Carrion Crow.

Angela stiffens beside me.

"You're seriously trying to blame us for what Carrion Crow did?" she says incredulously. "We were only acting in self-defense. Those Wheelie asswipes have destroyed two of our safe houses now. They're out and out gunning for us, and you know it."

"Of course we do," Zenith says, calming herself with visible effort. She puts a hand on Kellis' gun and pushes it down. "We're all a little tense right now."

No kidding.

“We are on your territory,” she continues. “We will do our best to abide by your rules, for the sake of our friendship and our mutual goal. However, I will not tolerate him!”

She blazes up again, scorching the ceiling. I flinch. Carrion Crow yelps and pats out a smoldering portion of his suit, right above his heart.

“All right, all right, I get the picture,” he says. “No need to burn the house down. Call if you need me, Paxy.”

Paxy? I open my mouth, but he’s gone, leaving only a trace of blood on the windowsill to show he was ever there. Kellis rushes over and stares out, before slamming the window shut.

“Why is he with you?” he demands.

“In short?” Lars shrugs. “We don’t wish to antagonize him.”

“You ever try to get between him and his contracts?” Angela laughs without humor. “Oh, that’s right. You did, and half of Cebelius was leveled.”

What the what now? That’s not how I remember the news feeds telling it. Zenith turns into a statue, and Kellis goes even paler and swears under his breath. He doesn’t even try to argue. I wish to all the gods, even the big ones, that I could Link up right now, even if it's just for five minutes.

"What happened in Cebelius?" I ask, and everyone looks at me.

No one says, “Look it up, dipshit,” but I hear it loud and clear anyway. I sigh and open my mouth to ‘fess up about my Linking problem, but Zenith speaks first.

“All right, you’ve made your point,” she says, as her corona of fire dissipates. “I don’t like it, but I understand. If what he says about his contract is true—and for all that’s irredeemable about him, he never lies about his contracts—at least we can count on Pax remaining safe.”

“Safe being a relative term,” Kellis mutters. He still looks like he wants to shoot someone.

“When do you want Dancer here to do her technomancy?" Zenith asks.

"As soon as is convenient," Lars says.

“How about now? She's already on standby to bring us back."

"By all means," says Lars. "I'll make some waffles, and we can breakfast together."

“That sounds lovely but we really can’t stay,” Zenith says. “You know how it is.”

“Oh sure,” Angela says. “Incidence reports to file, people to placate, cameras to smile at. You can count on us to do the real work.”

Zenith smile goes a little stiff around the edges. “Please keep us informed. After all, we’re in this together.”

“Even if we don’t, Dancer will,” Angela says, more quietly this time.

I’m getting the impression that I’m the only one without a personal grudge against Zenith, or ECHO. I puzzle over this as we all follow Zenith out to the cool predawn air. There’s a glittery, swirly portal the front garden, framed by two palm trees, like something right out of a vid. Looking at it brings back my headache. As it stabilizes, the whirlpool center clears to show a room full of holodesks, with ECHO personnel staring out at us.

At its threshold, Zenith turns to me and holds out her hand. I take it, hyper aware of my clammy palms. She is so beautiful the growing light that it almost hurts.

“Remember that ECHO is here for you. If there’s anything you need, please, ask us.”

"Can I have your autograph?" I blurt.

Angela looks at me in disbelief. My face gets so hot, it feels like it's glowing. But Zenith smiles her dazzling smile and taps Kellis on the elbow. With a long-suffering sigh, he produces a pen and a postcard with an image of Zenith flying across an impossible blue sky. Details picked out in gold glimmer in the early light. She signs it with a flourish and hands it to me.

“I mean what I said, Switch. If you ever need help, you know where to reach me. Take care.”

Speechless, I look at the postcard. To Switch the Freelancer, it says in beautiful handwriting, reach for the heavens and never give up. Love, Zenith.

Angela, who's looking over my shoulder, makes a quiet gagging noise. I pay her no mind. One of the Heroes of Emerald, the leader of the Big Four, shook my hand and told me I could ask for her help.

I'm never letting go of this card. Ever.

***