Covering for Emilia was tiresome in an extremely strange way.

  The thing was, Samina was used to covering for people; every member of The Black Knot was, especially people like herself, who despite everything—her generally chaotic personality, multiple, very visible disabilities and a general inability to keep herself out of situations like, well, this—was pretty unknown.

  Both her and her brother had managed to keep themselves out of the public eye, as strange as that was to many of their relatives. They were people who could go undercover—who worked on such diverse missions that a few well places hacks and visits from the clones and boom! Anonymity. Sure, it might come at the cost of locking memories inside people’s minds, of hacking into security systems and vanishing themselves from scene after scene—not to mention occasionally doctoring recordings to make it look like someone else had done this or that—but it was worth it.

  They were good at their job, and a big part of that job was falling into a new persona, hiding who they were, pretending not to know who people were when they met them. It all came naturally to them, just as it was meant to, because despite how many concerns had been raised over both of their temperaments when they were growing up, they’d still been taught all the secrets of the Baxter branch.

  Both she and her brother knew how to lie with flawless grace, and it had served them well, both in work and in their long lives of being misbehaving shits. During their youth, they had lied for their friends constantly, helping them make up stories on the spot—sneaking information to back up their stories into their friends’ Censors once they’d had those installed.

  Samina was good at lying, but this situation she had found herself in was odd. Odd, because she was lying in between plenty of truth. Odd, because she was both herself and not herself, and as much as she knew Emilia would never expect her to hide the reality of who she was from anyone, she wasn’t exactly sure how to do that while also protecting her childhood friend’s identity.

  Emilia's school friends, especially the one who her notes stated was her roommate, had so many questions for her. They were pushy, but in a way that allowed for Samina to say she wouldn’t be answering that—and she was having to say that a lot.

  It wasn’t that they were asking so many probing questions about Emilia that Samina was constantly having to deflect, rather, it was that they weren’t. Despite her own admission that she was part of D30, no one was asking about that. Despite their clear interest in Emilia’s childhood and family, they were instead asking about her own upbringing, leaving it to Samina to add Emilia into her stories.

  Both of those… well, they tracked, based on what Samina knew about the trio—although the boy, Sil Xu, was really only listening and Samina was pretty sure he’d figured out that Emilia was also a member of D30, not that either of them had done a good job of hiding it.

  Samina definitely shouldn’t have revealed that little fact. She’d gotten too comfortable and fucked up, and now, she was trying her hardest not to fuck up further. Hence, she was now lying and deflecting over the silliest of things, simply because she didn’t want to get stuck effectively admitting something Emilia didn’t want revealed when something ended up being the one question she wouldn’t answer—seriously, if she answered every question honestly and then refused to say whether Emilia had been a part of D30 it was going to be a giant red flag.

  It was annoying. Making up a new identity and sticking to its story was easier than being in this strange place between reality and fiction.

  This was why she didn’t try to make new friends, instead hanging with her brother and cousins and the clones, just like she always had. Simeon, sometimes. Occasionally, she popped in to annoy one member of their unit or another, especially James, because while she was pretty sure the man had never liked her, he needed a friend! Samina… wasn’t sure he would ever consider her a friend, but at least she managed to get some emotion other than depression out of him.

  There was also that. Rafe was really the only one who was in contact with Emilia these days, and other than telling them she was doing okay, he’d never really revealed much about what her life was like, about why she’d left so abruptly. Honestly? Pretty much everyone had figured she was like James: so wrapped up in a trauma she couldn’t escape that she’d devolved into being a recluse, left to struggle against her memories of the war day in and day out.

  Emilia definitely wasn’t doing that.

  These three clearly loved her, refusing to push for answers about her past when they were clearly so curious. They trusted her, despite knowing she was holding things back from them, and even when she’d been sharing the story of the night before—which Samina had been forced to finish, once Emilia had left with the Free Coloniers—they’d mostly been amused, worried for her, teasing.

  No one questioned her, asked if she could be wrong, if what they were doing was sensible, not with any serious intent, anyways. They trusted Emilia in a way that Samina was sure no one trusted James, even those who had known him since the start of the war, when he’d been all sass and annoyance, especially with his twin’s perpetual inability to express his love for Nettie.

  Samina trusted Emilia, something she wasn’t completely sure she would before she’d rolled through the door and seen her friend’s hand, waving from the floor like they were teenagers again, separated from seeing each by hours, not years. Around the corner, there had been her friend, tucked in between two Free Coloniers, smiling and signing and wearing clothing that definitely wasn’t hers.

  Samina trusted Emilia, and despite the conversations members of their unit and The Black Knot occasionally had, wondering over what they would do if they ran into one of their less talkative or outright missing members, especially in the middle of a job or emergency, she was sure that the moment any of them ran into Emilia, they’d feel the same. It wouldn’t matter how many of them had grumbled about feeling betrayed by her disappearance. It wouldn’t matter that, clearly, her knots weren’t quite right. None of that would matter: Emilia was Emilia, and Emilia had always been trustworthy. Perhaps not always sensible, more than a few of her plans over their decades of knowing each other not fully formed and leading them into disasters, but trustworthy—there was a difference between knowing someone would never endanger you, even through stupid decisions and plans, and knowing someone would never purposefully hurt you, but that didn’t mean one was more trustworthy than the other… the latter just needed more supervision, was all.

  Still… that didn’t stop Samina from messaging Olivier, asking about how the echo fight from the night before had gone—what his interpretation of the Emilia he had met had been—as Sil kicked them out of his house so he could pack. Technically, she didn’t have to leave—her go bag was always ready to go, she just had to get it—but she had a feeling the man was… overwhelmed. Emilia had sent her a quick message, after she left, confirming her suspicion that Sil might have figured out Emilia was also a member of D30, and yeah, Samina could understand how that could be overwhelming, but something told her it was more than that, especially given the way his eyes were flickering as messages came through.

  What sort of person, who clearly cared about his friends—everything in the man’s records indicated he had a penchant for defending his friends in whatever way he deemed necessary—sat in a room, hearing long kept secrets about one of those friends, yet asked no questions, and instead spent the whole time messaging someone else?

  Someone who was getting information from someone else, most likely. Overwhelming information. Information that was probably coming from whoever had told him how much money Emilia owed Olivier—someone who likely knew far more about her than Emilia wanted her friend to know.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Great. That meant that regardless of her own efforts, there was a good chance the guy knew more about Emilia—more about Samina herself, potentially—than they’d intended.

  Annoying. Samina didn’t like it when things didn’t go according to plan—she rarely made plans, okay? Sure, she loved spontaneity and improvising, but when she actually bothered making a plan and putting effort into it, she expected it to be followed!

  “Yours or mine first?” Pria asked as they exited Sil’s building. Beth opened her mouth to say something, only for Emilia’s roommate to cut her off, saying that the girl might still be there. “Better to give her a bit longer to vacate.”

  “I thought you were supposed to tell her to get her knots checked,” Beth noted, although according to Samina’s map of important places on campus—at least for her current job—she did begin leading them towards her room.

  “I’ll… uh…”

  “Why don’t you check the cameras? See if she’s still there?” Samina asked. All of the dorm rooms had security cameras, which should be accessible by their occupants.

  “Uh… it doesn’t work.”

  “What? Why?”

  Pria shrugged, looking guilty.

  “They work fine,” Beth told her, ignoring her friend’s indignant squawk. “Pria is just terrible with her Censor. If she tried to activate the cameras, she’d probably start the ice machine instead.”

  “Hey now! I can use all that stuff just fine… as long as I’m inside the room.” Her eyes flicked towards Samina, awkward and so totally hiding the truth.

  Said truth congealed before Samina’s eyes as they slowly made their way through campus. More people were out and about now, but nearly everyone looked like they’d partied a bit too hard the night before.

  Lightweights. They used to bathe in the pink tide, drinking in the pure essence of it, not whatever weird shit someone had figured out how to bottle up. It was too bad the pink tide had been on this side of the Penns—a bunch of them had been planning to head to The Strats during the next one. Oh well, it would have to wait until the next roll in now. Maybe, by then, Emilia would be more comfortable around everyone and come. Her friends, too—although… Samina eyed up Pria and decided the girl would definitely be happier on the beach. Party at the beach house—or maybe the treehouse?—and climbing The Strats while high as the sky.

  Busy making plans as she was—not to mention actually reading the additional information her Censor supplied her with about how Pria Braybun likely, because her family patently refused to allow their genetics to be released into government records due to ex-100, genetic experimentation trauma, had a hereditary irregular deviation that was similar to the ECC Dyad deviation, one which potentially interfered with long-distance Censor usage without adaptations—Samina didn’t particularly retain the short trip to Beth’s room, the other girls arguing about Pria’s obligation to let her hook up know about the potentially spiked drugs. It wasn’t until they were exiting the elevator, Beth pulling up short and grumbling, that Samina pulled herself back into the present.

  “What are they doing here?” Pria hissed, and although it was plenty quiet, a few people in the group standing a little ways down the hall turned in their direction. “Fuck.”

  Samina didn’t have to ask who they were. The Black Knot’s Censor System gave her basic details about everyone she came across, although she’d already known who a few of these assholes were: Emilia’s ex and a bunch of his scummy roommates. Not all of the roommates—another few records slid through her mind, indicating that after another Black Knot agent had grabbed the dipshit who attempted to assault Beth, a few of them had gotten into an argument about whether he had gone too far or not.

  The fact that this Elijah dude had mostly just stayed quiet, neither saying his roommate had overstepped nor defending him…

  “Emmie definitely needs a panel to decide who she should date next. This is just embarrassing.”

  “Agreed,” Beth and Pria said in unison as the rest of the group turned their way.

  Clearly, they’d been waiting for them, the question was why. Her Censor raced, pulling up reasons—revenge, questions, apologies—before landing on the two members of the group who weren’t students: Victor LinKai’s parents. They were the reason the group was here, probably come to ask—or threaten—Beth into contacting The Black Knot, so she could ask that their son be released.

  Yeah, right. Most people didn’t realize that while SecOps would sometimes release criminals, if the victim asked and the crime was minor enough, The Black Knot did not. When they took people, their crimes were serious enough that unless the organization deemed them to no longer be a threat—or occasionally flipped them, in the case of organized crime—they wouldn’t be getting out, not without some serious limits on their Censors, anyways.

  Attacking someone with the full intention of maiming them had immediately triggered the OIC to contact them, someone sparking in to grab the man. That said, Beth was lucky the syn had shown up. If they hadn’t… well, the girl might have been in emergency surgery at the moment. The Black Knot was only so fast. The fact that that guy had also assaulted Emilia’s friend? Yeah, dude was looking down the wrath of half the organization.

  “You…” Victor’s mother growled, and apparently they weren’t even going to try to ask nicely, the bitch was going straight to threats. “You’re the little fucker who got my baby boy arrested!” Straight to threats and trying to deflect blame onto the victim. Awesome.

  Pria’s hands clenched as Samina pulled her chair in front of the two—in front of Emilia’s friends, and maybe her one-day friends. “Your son was arrested because he activated a potentially deadly skill in a public space and aimed it at someone.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A friend of Emilia’s,” she replied, cheeks pulling tight as a not-so-nice smile spread over her face. “Go away.”

  “Another friend of that little silverstrain slut,” Victor’s father spit out, coming to stand beside his wife. He was every bit the veteran his file had told her he would be. Too bad he was a piece of shit—his service record was actually pretty impressive. The man’s eyes skimmed over her, disgusted—most veterans assumed people without prosthetics had refused them in order to avoid military service, selectively forgetting that there had never been a draft.

  “Listen here, you freak,” the woman began to say, turning her sneer back on Beth, and at the very least, a few of Victor’s roommates did look uncomfortable now. Considering they said nothing, didn’t even try to get between their asshole roommate’s parents and a group of three woman—including one they didn’t know and was visibly disabled, even if her lack of legs had never been much of a problem for Samina—said even more about them, however.

  Victor’s mother opened her mouth to say more, but Samina cut her off—not with her own voice, but with a skill, the sort of skill that wasn’t in the public domain. Her eyes bulged, hands flying to her throat like an over dramatic queen. It wasn’t like she’d die from being shut up for a bit.

  “You will not speak to Beth like that,” she said, voice ice and death and authority. “Your son has been taken by The Black Knot. You will not be seeing him for a while… for a long while, given what the clones have been finding inside his mind.”

  A dozen eyes snapped to her, widening and—

  “Nope, you don’t get to spark off~” Samina laughed, locking down the hallway. “Don’t you know, you can’t spark away from a member of The Black Knot unless they let you? You’ve annoyed me, so you definitely aren't allowed to run away~”

  “You…” the terrible man’s father began. Did he know how terrible his son was? Something told Samina he might very well, and for a moment, she contemplated activating her willbrand and standing—forcing her way into his mind to find out exactly how much he knew.

  But no, there was no point in that. Plus, they’d be meeting with the clones soon enough—people did not meet her like this and expect to escape with the ability to speak of what they’d seen. Indeed, a second later, a collection of the clones had sparked in, their nearly identical faces, only distinguished by age and scars, glaring coldly at the collected group. One of the roommates wet himself. Victor’s mother outright fainted.

  “Consequences,” Samina said as she leaned back and smiled up at the group. “If you had been nicer, maybe I wouldn’t have had to reveal myself, and you wouldn’t have gotten to meet the clones. Too bad you didn’t ask nicely—not that it would have done you any good. As I said, that boy isn’t getting out for a while. Don’t worry too much, though. The clones are just going to lock your brains up a bit. It won’t even hurt.”

  “Itches a bit,” one of the clones laughed, the rest joining in in a chorus of cruelty—not that they’d do anything extra to the group… expect maybe Emilia’s ex, who looked… shocked. Not at the clones, at her, because as far as he knew, Samina was the only Black Knot member Emilia knew. If only he knew the truth.

  Oh, to be inside his head, facing down the reality that he hadn’t known his girlfriend well enough to know she was friends with a member of The Black Knot. Ah~ how she hoped she could be there when he found it all out—when he found out what sort of person he had let slip through his fingers, had pissed off so badly that no member of their unit or The Black Knot would ever look on him with anything other than disgust.

  “Goodbye,” she cheered as the clones grabbed their target and sparked away. They wouldn’t be gone long, just enough for the clones to lock up their memories of this moment and make sure none of them harboured the same darkness inside them as their lost roommate.