Amos’s eyes went wide, what does she mean by reward? He watched her slip on the glove and his eyes flicked up to her face. She rounded on him and cracked one of those a-bit-too-wide smiles she had. He never saw them when she made her public appearances, never when she was talking as Sonya. He hadn’t had a word for the face he’d seen when she’d brought him into the fold initially. He hadn’t had a name for the person who stood before him right now. Now he did, though, this wasn’t Sonya stalking towards him. This is Ishtar.

  Her eyes glowed brighter, he could hear the tig, faintly, like it was just at the back of his mind.

  Tick tick tick tick tick.

  He felt a chill run up his spine, “Reward?” He chuckled nervously, “L-look, boss, I think I’m plenty young enough, yeah? I think I’m good on the whole age thing,” He said as her hand stretched out to him. He looked down at her hand, in those leather gloves that creaked slightly as her fingers curled. “Besides, you pay me, right? I’m just doing my job.”

  She squi him, tilting her head as if she didn’t quite uand what he was saying. She stood up a bit straighter and regarded him, “Do I scare you, Amos?” She asked, looking a little disappointed.

  “Uh, isn’t that the whole point of being a vilin?” He asked, not even b to hide his disfort as he took aep babsp;

  She hesitated and looked down at her fingers, stretg and flexing them in the gloves. She pursed her lips and regarded him for a moment. “I see,” She said stiffly, “Guess I got a little too into character after admiring your work,” She said a out a breath, reag up and pying with her hair for a moment. She turned and looked at the equipment in the room as if searg for something.

  Her ba, she spoke again, “Amos, how do your powers feel? you tell the differeween how you were before and how you are now?”

  He blinked, surprised by the question, “Uh…” He looked down at his hands for a moment and thought, it was odd, to be sure. It felt like his brain was always overclocked, like could feel the heat inside his head on occasion when he was really focused on his work. That was really the only difference, most ideas came so naturally he barely noticed he even had been touched by the light of Pandora’s Box. Even so, there was ohiried not to think too hard about. He turned and pced his hand on the puter s o him. He took a deep breath, she was obviously trying not to intimidate him, so he’d give her the be of the doubt.

  “Have you ever felt like… you know someoimately, but they won’t talk to you?” He asked, “Like they’re giving you the cold shoulder and you just don’t know why?”

  She gnced back at him, her glowing eyes b into his. “Yes, I have. Why?”

  He looked up at her and then back at the puter, breaking eye tact, “It’s crazy, but I feel like I should… know my equipment. Like. Hear it. But I ’t.” He tried to articute the words. He was a genius, but only as far as his work went. He’d already figured out that the polified only things that were natural talents of the holder. He hadn’t gotten aer at painting no matter how hard he tried. “I feel inplete.”

  She turo face him, “I figured.”

  He frowned, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I told you that I see owers someone has when we shake hands,” I said, “All of them, awakened or not.”

  His eyes narrowed, “All? As in more than one?”

  “Yes,” Sonya said and looked down at her gloved hand, she flicked her eyes up at him.

  He felt a thrill rise up his spihat sank into a lead in his gut, “You… you knew! You knew and weren’t going to tell me until I, what, ear?” He demanded, “You know my powers are inplete?” He asked, bewildered. “Are you serious?”

  She frowned, “And how was I supposed to broach the topic? Ask you like I did just now? Before we got fortable with one another? Would you holy have believed a word I had to say?” She snorted and shook her head, “My power works with deals, Amos. It’s a give and take, I’ve ried to give something away for nothing. Who knows what could happen?”

  “So what, you waited until you had a reason to reward me? Just to be safe? I’m supposed to believe that?” He barked, “How do I know you’re not lying right now?”

  She hesitated and the out a sigh, there was a sudden wearihat came over her that startled him. She walked over to the table where the equipment he’d sved over for her y. She rest her hands on it and hung her head, “I ’t,” She said quietly.

  He blinked, “What do you mean you ’t? ’t what? Lie?”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, “Every power has rules, limits,” She said quietly, “I choke on them. Lies.”

  It made sense, in a twisted way, she was a dealmaker. Every detail of the deal had to be agreed upon, she couldn’t lie about the facts of the deal otherwise it wouldn’t be an even exge. Still, it beggared disbelief, how did he know she wasn’t lying about it? How could he test it. He needed evidence, something he could see, verify. She turo face him with a weary, almost vulnerable look on her face. His gut twisted, but he didn’t hold back.

  “Say you’re a dinosaur,” He said.

  She frow him, but sighed and opened her mouth. He watched her carefully, there, tension ihroat. She could have forced it, though, “Say your name is John Smith,” He insisted, again, that tension. He pressed again, and again, and again, she tried and tried to open her mouth to speak. He was so furious that for a moment he didn’t notice, her skin was already so pale, whearted to stumble a little. She was literally choking! “Damn it, Sonya!” He gasped, horrified, running to her side. He caught her as she fell to a knee, somethireaming down her cheek.

  He dropped to a knee and held her head upright, “Breathe slow-” He flinched, blood was leaking from the spot where the metal of her prosthetic eyes met her eye socket. “Holy shit, are you, I mean, fuck!” He looked her over, “Why did you let me do that to you?” He demanded, “Are you crazy? You could have died right there!”

  She forced a smile, “You needed empirical evidence, right?” She wheezed, “Data.”

  His heart sank, “Damn it,” He sat back from her and shook his head, “You’re crazy.”

  He hung his head, he’d been so upset, so blinded by his a her for hiding that truth that he hadn’t sidered he might actually press her into killing herself. She had really tried to py his game, tried to say everythiold her to say, and she’d- she’d been telling the truth. If she couldn’t lie, then at worst her words were half truths, but ft statements couldn’t be lies. She could misdired mislead, but she couldn’t bend the truth at all. “And you want to live a double life, you’re out of your damn mind, Sonya,” He muttered.

  She chuckled, “It’s the only way to save the world from itself,” She said weakly, resting her head against the table behind her.

  He looked up at her, “That’s what you want to do? That’s the big pn? Save the world by being a vilin?”

  “Yes,” Sonya said with a shrug.

  “You know more than you’re telling me,” He said.

  “Yes.” She said again.

  “And you ’t tell me because it’s dangerous information or something I couldn’t possibly accept,” He cluded, his mind beginning to heat up, trying to figure it all out.

  “Yes.”

  He looked down at his hands again, “What am I to you, Sonya? Am I just a tool in this bigger scheme? Just a hen like that bastard Shark?”

  “I want you to be my ally, my friend if possible, if you bring yourself to trust someone willing to kill a few to save many,” Sonya said bluntly, drawing her knees up to her chest, she rest her arms on them and looked at him from behind her arms. So even Ishtar could be fragile. “I want your powers to plete, I want to see what you’re capable of,” She whispered, “But you weren’t ready.”

  He let out a breath and hung his head, “You took me in, gave me a pce to work, let me do my own projects, and I repaid you like this. I’m sorry, Sonya,” He said, guilt eating at his chest. He wao go hide in a box, disappear, something. He’d forced his beor to do such a thing, someone who could say things like that even when an otherworldly force would strangle her if she uttered a lie. His shoulders fell, “I’m ashamed.”

  “You had every right to be angry, Amos,” Sonya said aended a hand to him, “That’s why I’m making it up to you now.”

  Tears welled in his eyes, “I will never, ever let you down, Boss,” He croaked and took her hand.

  She smiled, “It’s a deal, Amos.”

  Light flooded from her hand and he felt it wash over him, that strange oddly pale light that he’d seen on that fateful day. Pandora’s Light. His breath caught as a warmth rushed up his arm and through his body, spreading and then rising up, up, and up until he felt it settle inside of his brain. He felt the warmth spread out, ging to every nerve ending and sense, he felt his world expand. His vision was clear. He felt… whole. More than that, he felt…

  He g the terminal he’d been lingerio and it turned on with a thought. His eyes widened and he looked back at her.

  “Your hidden ability was Teopathy,” Sonya said with that ckadaisical grin of hers.

  He got to his feet and stepped bato the ter of the room, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting instinct guide him. New instincts burned into his very geic code rose to the surface as if they’d always been there, waiting for him to draw them out. He could feel every puter in the room, no, the whole building. He could feel every piece of equipment with a circuit, every cellphone, every camera. It was like his body had grown to the size of a castle. He could see in a hundred different dires at once.

  How is my brain handling all of this infor- oh. Of course! My main ability. They’re a pair!

  His minds eye swept over the entire building, he saw every door, every b, every employee that he’d hired to support his projects. He could see the data they were entering into the puters as it happened, he uood it, it was exhirating and terrifying. A painful thought struck him i and he pulled all his senses back to his body, looking down at Sonya as she sat there against the dispy table.

  “I wasn’t ready,” He breathed, “No way could I have hahis as messed up as I was when we first met, as desperate as I was. It would have driven me crazy.”

  She just nodded.

  She saw right through me, right from the start.

  “Do you think this will help you?” Sonya asked after a long silence, “With your projects?”

  He looked up at her a like a bad son who had told off his mother only to be fiven as a matter of course. He wanted her to be mad at him, to shout at him, to give him a look of disappoi. As she got to her feet he felt smaller than he ever had in his entire life, tiny, like a mote in front of a mountai all she did was give him a look that screamed of high expectations, and a smile that made him want to weep.

  I’ll make you rule the damn world, boss. He swore and nodded, f himself to grin at her, “Our timetables just moved way, .”