The human captain in charge of the assessment questioned us for what felt like hours, demanding to know why we were there and what we’d done while the cameras were offline. He even showed us before and after clips to trip us up when he walked us through the third time. But, for some strange reason, none of us felt the need to mention A’s exploding and healing chest, and that clip showed the lot of us taking a massive pratfall when blood fountained out of Twenty-one’s mouth. 

Who were we to argue with facts?

Once the DAs released us, Dia took Twenty-one back to the medbay, with Twenty in tow to get his head examined.

I was certain it wouldn’t help, but that wasn’t my call.

Avon limped down the hall, not waiting for me, and I trailed after, knowing I’d fucked up more than usual and uncertain how to fix it. However, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut when Avon entered the showers closest to Twenty-one’s dorm rather than going to the one near ours.

Inside, the quiet pad of our boots broke the silence, echoing off the grey-tiled walls, floors, and ceiling. Individual shower-heads dropped from the low ceiling along both sides of the narrow room, with half-walls dividing them to provide an illusion of privacy and a bench down the middle to destroy it. 

Who wanted an audience while bathing? 

Folded grey towels and fatigues waited on shelves near the door, and chutes next to the shelves dropped laundry into the cleaning system. It had the same layout as any of the dorm showers and, though less than half of them functioned, by unspoken rule mages and shifters didn’t mingle there. The showers were safe. Still, despite the exhaustion dragging at my bones and the dizzying spangles surrounding the lights, the hair prickled on the back of my neck. Something about the room was off, but I couldn’t pinpoint what. 

Avon perched on the far end of the bench next to a plaid bag, frowning into the last stall. When I approached, his glare stopped me from saying anything, from begging his forgiveness. Forgiveness I didn’t deserve, but needed anyway. So I checked out the shower stall.

Pink-tinged suds covered A from the top of her head to her ankles, and she scrubbed with a fury, leaving darker trails behind with each stroke of the grey washcloth. After scrubbing her toes, she turned on the water just long enough to rinse the soap and reveal pale, matted hair and skin rubbed raw. Her shoulder blades were just a bit pink, but her skin darkened to a deep, abraded red on the foot she’d scrubbed last.

She raised her forearm to her nose, inhaling deeply, then releasing the pent-up air in a harsh, choked-off sob. Without turning, she flung the wet cloth into a pile I hadn’t noticed next to the bench and grabbed a fresh washcloth from a stack on the half-wall. A little water and a squirt of soap lathered into white froth. Then she began scrubbing again, starting with her hair and face. 

The bubbles on the cloth were pink before she reached her shoulders.

A pained sound escaped Avon’s clenched lips, and I waited for him to leave the bench. It’s what he did — he couldn’t help reaching out when the dumb-asses around us fucked up.

But he didn’t. His knuckles went white where he clutched the moisture-swollen wood, and he doubled over to rest on his knees. And when I reached out again, trying to… I don’t know… 

He cringed away from me.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch the monotonous grey tiles. I wanted to kill the fucker who’d messed us up.

But I couldn’t, because I’d promised a long time ago I wouldn’t leave my brother alone.

Instead, I laced my fingers through my short-cropped hair, letting the pain as I tugged the emerald strands ground me, and breathed. In and out. Tension leached from my flesh until my hands fell limp and I could step into the shower. 

A scoured the smooth flesh on the back of her right thigh — it showed no trace of the gash inflicted by the devil just four days ago — and froze when I took the cloth away.

“What the fuck? That’s making it worse.” I stifled a cringe, knowing I sucked at this and A confirmed it.

“Sorry, sir.” Her lips barely moved, and I opened my mouth, drawing breath to try again when it clicked.

The harsh chemical scent of the cleaners used to keep mold at bay in unventilated showers wasn’t. I don’t mean it was buried under some nasty floral crap off the black market — how could anyone stand to rub that all over themselves? Nope. And the tang of blood that had no doubt accompanied A into the room hadn’t overpowered the cleaner — that smell was gone, too. Even the metallic bite of the water itself was missing. 

The shower smelled of nothing. 

“Huh.” I grabbed the soap bottle. “What’s in this stuff?”

“Water, sodium laur—”

“No, that’s not—” Breath puffed from my lips and I threw the cloth into the pile. “Fuck.” I huffed again. “Look, stop scrubbing your skin off.” I hit the button to cycle the water and watched the suds sluice off again, careless of the spray that soaked my fatigues and beaded up on my boots.

A still didn’t move, and the soap from her chin-length hair trailed over her reddened flesh, lingering. I reached up, paused, and when she didn’t react, scrubbed the pads of my fingers through the tangled strands. Even against my callouses, it felt harsh and dry — stripped of any semblance of health — and tufts broke off to wash down the drain.

“Damn it!” I yanked my hands free and spun away. Accusing onyx eyes halted my retreat, and I balled my fists at my side. ”Sorry,” I muttered, unsure who I was apologizing to. I stared at the floor as if it held the answers.

“For what?”

The question whipped my head around, and I searched pale green eyes while I tried to remember if A had ever asked one before. I glanced at Avon — his expression had lightened and he shook his head a bit — then back at A, who had turned but remained under the pelting water.

“Well, your hair…” Looking down, I pulled a broken piece of hair off my fingers before letting it fall. “And your…” It wasn’t my idea — I swear — but my eyes traced over A’s flat chest and hairless groin. The skin was pink, but rapidly going white under the cool water. A thin scar traced her breastbone. Cheeks on fire, I faced Avon, wordlessly begging. His lips tightened and he looked away.

“The hair, sir?” A sounded baffled.

“Ugh.” I scrubbed my face. “Don’t call me sir.”

“Yes, milord.” She plastered herself against the wall, squeezing past me in the narrow stall without touching, and strode to the plaid bag. 

“Not milord, either,“ I said, distracted by the hair that grew down to her shoulders in the five steps it took to reach the bench. “Just… Nova, if you need to.” With a clear demarcation between matted and new, all of the hair was pale — which was strange, since it’d been dark since day one. Hadn’t it? “How are you doing that?”

“The hair?” Dripping, A pulled a metal comb from the bag, pulled a chunk of her hair taut, and drew the comb across the strands just above the growth line. It sheared off as if the comb were a knife, leaving a blackened line behind. “It’s as easy to grow as anything.” She repeated the process, working around her head until smooth, black-tipped hair fell at chin length. 

Avon and I both watched, fascinated, but when she began combing the strands, they darkened and a familiar, stomach-turning smell filled my nose.

“Stop it! What are you… how are you burning yourself?” I snatched the comb away, twisting it around — it was just metal, barely warm to the touch. 

“It’s just a reaction.” A waved a hand as if she’d planned to hold it out and thought better. She flinched when Avon grabbed it and peeled back the fingers.

Blisters lined her palm and fingers, tracing the path where the comb had lain.

“Damn!” The comb clattered on the tile. “Can you breathe without hurting yourself?”

“Life hurts.” A bent to grab the comb with her free hand, but Avon pulled her arm, unbalancing her so she fell onto the bench. 

“Sit.” I collected the comb and held it out of reach. My glance at Avon wasn’t returned as he diligently helped A take a seat, and I knew that was deliberate. A’s hair looked bizarre — a mix of pale new growth and burnt strands. “Fuck it.” I stepped over the bench, wobbling a bit as the stabbing pain in my head threatened my balance, and started combing. At least I could fix something. “Someone needs to write an instruction manual for assholes like you.”

A twitched and Avon, who’d been side-eyeing me, refocused.

“Some fucker already wrote one?” My teeth bared in a snarl and my fingers clenched around the comb.

Flinching away from my harsh tone, A started up from the bench. She froze as I whispered another curse and resettled as I forced my hand to resume combing.

“I mean, if there was one, you should send it to me.” My lips twitched in a painful half-smile, then fell open as my comp pinged. Instead of a message from command or a general alert, the pop-up showed an unknown sender — something the base’s systems shouldn’t allow. 

There’s no way it was that easy. 

My hands shook as I opened the message in projection mode. It contained a plain text doc with bookmarks on the side with labels like ‘Getting Started’, ‘Feeding Schedule’, ‘Basic Maintenance’, and ‘Troubleshooting’. I scrolled down; the offset header had ‘Variation 12 Subject A’ and a page number.

“Could you, uh…” I licked my lips. “Send this to Avon, too?” I closed the file and resumed combing, careful to keep the burn even.

“Of course.” Avon’s comp pinged. “Do you… want the others?”

Avon whimpered, and that’s when I caught on. I took a minute before I could force the next question past the tightness in my throat.

“You mean Twenty’s manual? And… Twenty-one’s?” My eyes burned and, when our comps pinged again, I threw the comb down and launched into restless motion, back and forth along the bench. My teeth clenched to hold back the curses, or the screams, or… something.

“They had these all along.” Surrounded by three projected text files, Avon’s non-question was like a siren call leading back toward normalcy, but I couldn’t follow. “All the instructions, and still…” 

Avon drummed his fingers on the bench.

“The red injections — those are Twenty’s, right? Were the green ones yours or Twenty-one’s?” Avon scrolled through the text. “Those had to have been Twenty-one’s. He—” Avon cleared his throat. “Twenty said the dose was wrong, and so did you.”

“The dose was correct, sir.”

What.

The.

Fuck.

I stopped pacing and glared at A. Avon’s raised eyebrows lowered as he tilted his head, and his focus wasn’t on the shower room. For once, I kept my mouth shut and let him think.

“You follow directions,” he said after a too-long pause. “Before you were told the dose was right, what would you have said?”

“It was the wrong dose.” A’s whisper was too loud in the silence. “Under ‘Feeding Schedule’, you can see the details. Twenty-one should get 15 milliliters once a day. Twenty needs 145 for maintenance, plus 50 units of his current antipsychotic.”

Suspicion clawed up my back, and I pulled up the first file again and hit the second bookmark.

“Fuck. 10 mil a week? Plus 5 mils of an ‘additive’?” I scowled harder when A shrunk in on herself. “Fuckity-fucking damn it.”

Avon closed his eyes and rubbed his face, once again avoiding me.

With a few taps on my comp, I sent an open-channel request to Dia; it timed out before he picked up. I input the command again. On the third try, he accepted, audio-only.

“I’m a little busy here, so this better be imp—” 

“Do you have the manuals?” I yanked on my hair because so much rode on Dia’s answer and I needed something to help me focus through the spiking pain in my head.

“Manuals?”

Avon rose from the bench and padded across the tiles.

“For the officers’ new toys — do you have their manuals?”

“No, I don’t have any damn—” Dia cut himself off this time, and I waited until he continued. “I think you and Avon need an exam after the incident this morning.” He paused again. “Is A with you?”

After Avon nodded, I answered, “Yes.”

“Bring… him. Just to be safe.” The channel closed with a brisk beep-beep. 

Our comps pinged with an official notice to report to medbay.

Still, I waited and, eventually, Avon threw me a line.

“He knows A’s a girl, and that it may not be common knowledge, and he didn’t want to talk online.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t mean he’s on our side — the humans can use the cameras in medbay as easily as they can find something in the com logs.”

“So…?” I searched his face.

“We go, but for fuck’s sake…” Avon looked away. “Keep your temper.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, swallowing hard. “I can do that.” I hoped. “Do you think—”

Metal scraped on tile, and I jerked around. A stuffed the comb she’d collected back into the bag and shook a butt-print from a grey towel before scooping the sopping washcloths into a bundle. She rose and approached, head tilted down to avoid looking at us.

“Apologies, but if this one could get past?”

I realized a couple of things, aside from the minor detail that Avon and I completely blocked the walkway. 

One: A had drip-dried while we’d interrogated her. 

Two: she was still naked.

“Fuck.” I stumbled back, then crossed to the door and grabbed a shirt and pants from the stack waiting there. “Put some clothes on!”

And she froze again, eyes wide and not breathing.

“Stop. Breathe.” Avon pulled her chin up. “What’s the conflict?”

“Conflict?” I echoed, staring at them.

Avon huffed and took his own advice; three breaths passed before he angled a furious look toward me.

“She can’t handle getting new instructions that conflict with previous instructions.” He shook his head. “Maybe if the new instructions came from the same source, but…”

“This one is to report to medbay.” A clenched a hand around the pack’s strap. “Nothing was said about clothes.”

With shame brightening my cheeks again, I glanced at her bare wrists. She didn’t have a comp. Was she responding to Dia’s verbal order? Fair enough. I frowned.

But then how did she send the manuals? 

“No one wants you naked in the halls.” Avon took the fatigues from me and handed them to A. “It’s always appropriate to dress before responding.”

“Oh.” A set aside the backpack and pulled them on. “Nudity taboos. Yessir.” The shirt hung off her torso, and the pants left her ankles exposed until she pulled on a pair of calf-high boots she extracted from the bag.

“Nud—” I backed away. “No. Just—”

“Nova.” Avon glared at me again. “Your clothes are wet. Change.”

A dozen responses crossed my mind. My shoulders slumped under the weight of Avon’s ire, and only one escaped.

“Yessir.”