Up on the higher floors of the VogelCorp tower, the feeling of normalcy struck Warner as alarming. Here, in the waiting room of the medical office suite on 64th, there were potted orchids everywhere, and screens played commercials thinly disguised as human-interest stories set to mellow, relaxing music. Quinn made an awkward attempt to get up from the low-to-the-ground white couch along the wall. His arm hung in a sling Warner had just given him. Seeing that Warner continued to pace without so much as pausing to look at him, Quinn lowered himself back onto the couch.

  “This is all very unfortunate,” Warner said. If he couldn’t make himself stop pacing, he thought he should at least say something.

  “It’s fine,” Quinn reassured him. “I get it.”

  “No, it’s not fine. The way I acted was completely unacceptable. I’m terribly sorry about all of this.”

  Quinn made a crooked attempt at a grin.

  “Adverbs.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Adverbs. The liar’s signature.”

  Warner had to give him credit, he hadn’t taken Quinn for a grammarian. He supposed sometimes people did have hidden depths.

  “The arm should be fine in a couple of days,” Quinn added with generosity Warner didn’t feel he deserved. “Thanks for fixing it, by the way.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “It was my fault to begin with,” Quinn said. “I should have known you’d react like that. I mean—I already suspected what you were capable of doing.”

  Now that made Warner raise his eyebrows.

  Quinn grimaced. “Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re thinking. My job might be behind a desk most of the time nowadays, but I did my military service as required, so I do remember my combat training. And part of it is recognizing when someone isn’t as harmless as they wish to seem.”

  He didn’t know how to take that. Thankfully, Quinn went on talking.

  “It’s all in the movement. People who can stand up for themselves, let’s say they have a way of telegraphing it.”

  “Interesting.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Quinn gave him a significant look. “Between you and me—if I know, it means so do other people. Including—”

  Including her.

  “Well, now that I’ve trounced a guy twice my size in front of them, they know one way or another,” Warner said. “No offense.”

  “Absolutely none taken.”

  Finally, Warner found it in him to grin.

  “Adverb.”

  * * *

  Whatever badass cred he might have earned himself didn’t last. He spent the next forty-five minutes being upbraided by Lyssa. For someone who had been his legal guardian for less than a year, Lyssa sure seemed to get in touch with her protective side all of a sudden. She can’t see our faces, she’d bellowed at him while everyone else hovered in the background, unsure what to do. Especially you! And you waltz in there and casually introduce yourself? What the fuck were you thinking?

  Of course, it was too late and pointless to tell her, but he almost told her anyway: Freya already knew his face. And his name. And a lot more than that.

  However he might feel about it, it changed the game.

  You’re not going anywhere near that thing again, Lyssa capped off her verbal attack. To which he’d politely but nonnegotiably replied that it was too late, and he was staying on the project no matter what.

  The next time he saw Freya, he decided things were going to be different. He took an hour to duck into the gym to shower and shave his stubble, something he’d been doing every day for years—his hair might have turned white after Nero, but his beard still grew in in its original dark blonde color, which he found grotesque. Next, he changed into clothes that were his own, fit him, and didn’t have any suspicious stains. Quinn’s cheap shirt went straight into the trash disposal, where, with a gentle whir, the machine shredded it into confetti and incinerated it into a tiny pile of ashes. He made a mental note to send Quinn a replacement. Something made of natural fibers, something a government salary could scarcely afford. He had to admit he felt guilty. About the shoulder, of course, but also for what he was about to do. For his own safety, Quinn from Psyops had to be removed from the project and taken somewhere as far from Freya as possible. He also knew Quinn would think it was personal and would loathe him. Oh well. He wouldn’t be the first. Or the last.

  He’d throw in a nice bottle of pre-Split scotch along with the shirt.

  All that would have to wait until later, though. Since it was now bright and early on a workday and he knew everyone was already at their desks, he had no choice but to waste more time and go up to his lab. Any rumors had to be quashed in the bud.

  All his instincts called to him to just disappear behind the opaque glass of his office. Instead, he forced himself to keep smiling. “Everyone, as I’m sure you’ve heard, I’m taking part in an exclusive government-commissioned project, and I’m pleased to tell you we’ve just had a very exciting break-through.” He winced inwardly, noting the adverb. Ever since that conversation with Quinn, he kept noticing them everywhere, including in his own work-mandated platitudes. “I regretfully can’t tell you more—just yet—but, since I’ll be busy with that for the better part of the day, my other projects will be put on pause. Which means all of you can take the day off.”

  He looked over the crowd of uncertain faces. “Paid, of course.”

  The uncertainty gave way to cheering. One by one, his subordinates filed past him with nods, grins, and the occasional thanks, boss. Just like that, from boss from hell to universally beloved, he thought.

  And it took so little.