Chương 28: Our Beloved Daughter

"I told you all you shouldn't let Julietta play Monopoly!" Emily laments.

"I'm gonna get her this time!" Peter insists.

"…I thought Monopoly was all luck," Christine sighs. I frown at her, my eyes flashing over my numerous rows of green houses. That's a hell of a thing to say when you're seven spaces away from Boardwalk.

"It's statistics," I explain.

"And math. You shouldn't have bought the utilities, they almost never pay themselves off to a significant degree. Priority one is always gaining as many monopolies as possible, it's the name of the game."

"I have a monopoly on the utilities!" Christine protests.

"…A monopoly in this case meaning the specific game state that allows you to buy houses," I clarify.

"Not a conceptual monopoly over an aspect of the fictional town the game board supposedly represents."

"Emily, do you have any more crackers?" Anastasia asks.

"No, you ate them all, honey," Emily sighs.

"You and Julietta are going to make me go bankrupt in real life."

"I am a little peckish myself," I admit.

"Then shapeshift food into your stomach with your bullshit powers!" Emily groans, rolling the dice.

"Fuck."

"That's one thousand dollars, please," I report.

"A thousand?"

"Pennsylvania Avenue, three houses, one thousand dollars. You can mortgage some properties if you don't have enough," I remind her.

"No thanks, I've got nothing left, I'm out," Emily sighs.

"Hey, look on the bright side," Peter smiles.

"If you suck at Monopoly, it probably means that it isn't going to kill you." I give him a look. That's why we're playing board games, Peter. Because they don't matter. Doing irrelevant bullshit is the only time Emily gets to be herself. …Though I suppose in retrospect, we probably could have picked a better way for her to be herself than kicking her ass at Monopoly.

"This wouldn't have happened if you didn't trade her so much stuff," Peter says.

"But anytime I ask somebody for something, noooo, don't give properties to Peter."

"You need to offer better deals," I tell him.

"Every single deal you offered was to give yourself another monopoly!" Peter protests.

"Yeah, but it was in exchange for something people actually want," I say.

"The fact that what they wanted was less likely to make them win than what I wanted is just a difference in priorities."

"I got all the railroads!" Ana says happily.

"Yep, you're the princess of trains," I agree solemnly.

"That's pretty awesome."

"Well, I guess I'll actually make dinner since I'm out of the game," Emily sighs.

"Lia's parents should be here in a few hours and I don't think any of us want to deal with that on an empty stomach." I grimace, shapeshifting into and back out of Lia's body as a pointless, paranoid check to remind myself what I'll need to go back to. It's been nice hanging out with everyone the past few days, not needing to keep up appearances.

I'm currently lounging in a smoothed-out mixture of a bunch of different people's bodies, taking the eyes I like from one person, the nose I like from another, and so on, combined with some of my favorite passive additions from nonhuman forms. Since I'm resting, it's suboptimal to go whole ham with maximum strength, maximum speed, and the whole host of other adaptations I would want in a dangerous situation.

Having them active in my body passively consumes resources because that's how bodies work, so my extraneous additions are all just things that make me feel more comfortable. Having octopus tentacles instead of hair is the most obvious and visible one, but the passive ability to quietly fidget in ways that don't bother anyone helps a lot with calming the parts of my mind that continually yearn for change.

Much less visible but much more calming is the alien sensory suite I've finally figured out how to properly hook up to a human brain, constantly reminding me that there are no aliens around us. Any time I feel the need to check, the certainty is there.

"I'm just saying, of course Julietta's going to win when she basically has the rest of you giving her everything she wants," Peter pouts.

"It's a five-player game, Peter," I say.

"The interpersonal element is intrinsically part of the strategy. If that's why you think you're losing, then just get better at it." Peter scowls, but doesn't have a response to that.

"When did you grow a backbone, Jules?" he asks instead.

"My current backbone?" I ask, thinking back.

"About four days ago, why?"

"No dumbass, I mean when did you actually start speaking your mind?" Peter presses.

"Back when we lived together you wouldn't have told me to get good, you would've just laughed it off and said 'I guess I got lucky' or some shit." Oh. Well, yeah, I would have.

"Can you imagine how Max and Andre would have reacted if every time I won I started lecturing them about how I pulled it off?" I ask.

"Max wouldn't understand a word of it, Andre would think I was insulting him, and our foster parents would probably have solved the issue by never bringing the game board out again."

"What, and you think I'm gonna let people bring the game board out again after this?" Emily asks.

"No, but it won't be because you're insecure and I failed to assuage your ego enough, it'll just be because Monopoly is a bad game." She snorts, rummaging around in the kitchen for cooking supplies. Peter rolls the dice and throws his hands up into the air in frustration, handing me a fat wad of fake money. I make sure to count it carefully. It helps to be clear and obvious about checking for certain signs of cheating so people never get any ideas.

"It's nice to see, though," Emily says.

"Monopoly?" I ask.

"No, you. It's nice to see you saying more on the outside what you think on the inside." Uh. I'm not sure how to respond to that. Honestly, I feel a little insulted? If I've been letting my real thoughts slip out, that's not something I should be complimented about. I'm way too much of an asshole for it to ever be a good thing. Still, that's one of the very thoughts I shouldn't be sharing, so I let it slide. Sooner or later I win the game, and Emily serves a surprising variety of foods to everyone.

Anastasia and I get enormous sandwiches packed with cheese and tofu and some kind of actual real meat. The others get different foods, soups and salads and seemingly arbitrary combinations of fruit all piled together on individual plates. Christine wrinkles her nose a little when Emily brings over her plate, but Emily flicks her in the forehead.

"Eat what I give you," she orders.

"Why is it all so weird?" Christine asks.

"How come they get big meaty sandwiches and I get lettuce?"

"Eat what I give you," Emily repeats. Christine hesitates.

"…That is way more ominous now that we know what your power is." Emily stares at her.

"Good." I myself would much prefer a soup to the chaotic mix of textures and flavors that a sandwich provides, but I force it down without complaint. Anastasia, at least, enjoys her meal, and looking at the differences between her sandwich and mine I can see a lot of high-iron foods added in, whereas mine skews more towards carbs and protein. I guess she can just look at all of the food in her fridge and find out what happens to the likely lifespan to sort of de-facto detect our nutritional needs?

If we're all dying in three years anyway, it seems unlikely that our choice of meal has any impact on our lifespan. … Though she mentioned probabilities, so maybe she's just trying to stack the odds any way she can. I suggest putting something on to watch in order to get everyone's minds off of Emily's power, and before I know it we're having a movie marathon.

Christine has us watch some animated movie about giant robots fighting in space, Emily picks some silly comedy that has us all laughing until our cheeks hurt, and Peter picks some fucked-up horror movie that I'm pretty sure he was trying to scare Anastasia with. Of course, she's the least affected out of all of us, spending most of the movie complaining about the actions of the main characters and the ways she could have totally killed the monster.

But before we know it, the fun and games are over, and there's a knock on the door. I sigh, and shapeshift into a full copy of Lia's body, double-checking to ensure the way my skin crawls isn't literal.

"Remember the plan," Emily says. Anastasia nods seriously, a determined look on her face, whereas Peter gives a lazy thumbs up and Christine just grimaces. I walk over to the door, check the peephole, unlock it, and open up. To my surprise, I'm almost immediately scooped up into a hug.

"Lia!" her mother exclaims, arms wrapping me up and squeezing with surprising force.

"Oh, God, we were so sure we lost you." I very carefully keep my facial expression relaxed as I return the hug. Lia's mother is only slightly shorter than she was, with long, wavy hair and a blue one-piece dress light enough to stave off the heat of the muggy southern weather.

Having been thoroughly spoiled from being surrounded mostly by people in prime physical health, her biological structure is downright disappointing in the way that it's optimized more for a sedentary lifestyle than anything particularly useful to me. Not that I was really expecting revolutionary adaptations from my mom, but… I blink. Lia's mom. Not mine. Oh boy, this is going to be awful.

"Well, you didn't," I lie.

"I made it, thanks to everyone." It's not exactly the most Lia thing in the world to immediately attribute her survival to someone else, but it is the narrative we want to sell here. Lia's parents probably don't care particularly much about saving Emily because she's their daughter's girlfriend, but they're much more likely to show generosity to the person who saved their daughter's life.

"We're so glad to see you again," Lia's father says, reaching out and squeezing my shoulder. Oh shit, are those cancer cells? There's not a lot of them but I should definitely tell him about those. Get that stuff early. Noooot sure how to bring up my father's testicles in conversation, though. I have unfortunately become somewhat inoculated to the fact that my powers make me uncomfortably aware of everyone's genitals, but I have absolutely no idea how to talk about it with anyone.

"Lia?" Mom asks.

"Huh? Oh, sorry, I got lost in thought a little," I say.

"Remind me to tell you about it later. How have the two of you been?"

"How have we been? How have you been?" my… dang it, Lia's mother insists.

"The damn military has been keeping us in the dark for months!"

"Well, I'm not going to act like it was a pleasant experience, but it certainly could have been worse," I answer.

"Well, don't you worry honey, we're going to have some stern words for whatever idiots think they can keep my daughter working as a common soldier like some simpleton!" Lia's mother rants.

"To think they would just ignore everything we've done for them and treat you like this! Your father and I won't stand for it!" I'm… pretty surprised by the intensity of this reaction. It seems odd to me. I suppose they're rich people, they're probably very used to getting their way, but even they should understand that my enrollment in the military is very much not something they can Karen their way out of. Unless…

"Do you two not know I have powers?" I ask.

"What?" my mother asks. What the hell?

"Did they seriously not tell you!?" I gape.

"Darling, they haven't told us anything!" she insists.

"We didn't even know you were alive until you called!"

"Well then why didn't you say anything?"

"Honey, you know better than to talk about this sort of thing over the phone," she frowns at me, and… what? Sure, okay, fine, I guess I know that.

"…You're right," I say, absolutely not understanding why that is right, "but I never thought they just wouldn't tell you about me! I clearly should have. They've been all kinds of strange. But… I'm sorry, Mom. I got powers during the incursion. I don't think the military is going to let me leave." Lia's mother seems shocked, and her father frowns, but both of them quickly move to a more thoughtful look. Oh boy, I might be dealing with more than I realize here.

"How about you come inside?" I suggest.

"It's not the nicest place, but it's private."

"Is it really…?" my mother asks, squinting into the apartment.

"Yeah, Christine checked," I tell her.

"No bugs, and nobody lives in the adjacent units."

"Christine being…?"

"Ah! Sorry, I should introduce you to everyone," I smile, ushering the family inside and closing the door behind them.

"You know Emily already, of course, but this is Christine and this is Anastasia. Without all three of them, I wouldn't have made it out of the incursion zone alive."

"The feeling is mutual, ma'am," Christine says, only gritting her teeth a little as she holds out a hand to shake.

"I'd be dead without your daughter. I owe her a lot." My mother smiles and nods approvingly, returning the handshake before allowing my father to shake her hand as well.

"It is good to meet you," he says neutrally.

"And this is… do you remember Peter, Mom? I think you may have met once or twice."

"You're one of Emily's brothers, aren't you?" Lia's mom says.

"I remember."

"Lovely to see you again, madam," Peter smiles, leaning forward into a half-bow as he takes her hand.

"Such a polite young man," Lia's mother smiles back at him, and I very carefully say nothing at all. Anastasia walks up behind me and grips the fabric of my pants, peering up at Lia's parents with a shy expression.

"So this little one is Anastasia, then," my mother smiles.

"I assume if she's here with you, then…" Everyone else she could be with is dead, yeah. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I'm taking care of her," I confirm.

"Not that she couldn't take care of herself, but…" My father nods in understanding and what might even be approval. Wow, that's rare. … Is apparently what Lia's brain thinks about the matter. Gosh, this is so much more uncomfortable now that it's at the forefront of my mind, but being able to pass as Lia is kind of essential to this entire plan so I can't exactly stop using her mental and physical habits. I just feel so on edge, more than I ever did pretending to be Lia back at the military compound.

It feels more like I'm back in the incursion zone. Like there's a primal anxiety from my brain insisting that I am in danger.

"It's wonderful to meet you all," Lia's mother says, "and I'm delighted at the chance to get to know you, but if it's not too selfish to ask we would love some time with our daughter alone."

"Of course, Mrs. Morgan," Emily answers immediately, dipping her head.

"Let's go on a walk, guys." Immediately I feel my anxiety ratchet up a few notches. Geez, was Lia's relationship with her parents really this bad? Anastasia looks up at me and I give her a small nod. She nods back and allows herself to be ushered out of the apartment by Emily, everyone else following suit. When the door closes behind them, the three of us wait as the sound of footsteps slowly fades away into the distance. Somehow I just know that there won't be any conversation until we are truly alone.

"…So, what can you do?" Lia's father asks bluntly.

"I can analyze biological material and shapeshift my body accordingly," I report.

"You actually have the beginnings of what will eventually turn into cancer in your, uh." I circle my hand around my crotch area.

"…You know. So you probably want to get that checked out." He tenses up a bit, but his stony face doesn't change expression in the slightest.

"And the others?" he asks.

"Christine can separate objects into their component parts, Peter can render himself functionally invulnerable, and Ana has autohemokinesis," I answer. I'm not liking the vibes here.

"And Emily?" he presses.

"…Powerless," I answer, but I know I hesitated just a little too long. This weird interrogation is not going to plan. I'm getting the distinct impression that Lia's family was up to a lot more shit than I expected. My father raises a stern eyebrow, and I feel my muscles clench.

"If you are attempting to cover for her, young woman, then you will find—""Father," I interrupt him, despite countless instincts screaming for me not to.

"She's powerless." I stress the word with as much emphasis as I'm able, looking him in the eyes as I do. I have absolutely no idea if this is the right play, but I have to clean up after my hesitation somehow and since Emily left this to me, I assume I can trust my gut. My metaphorical gut, not Lia's actual one. Some amount of deviation from her normal reactions is only natural, given what she's supposedly lived through.

Initially, my father reacts to the interruption with clear displeasure, gearing up to verbally thrash me, but Lia's mother cuts him off, holding up a hand.

"This is her apartment?" my mother asks.

"Yes," I say.

"So she wasn't being held by the government like the rest of you," my mother continues.

"Correct."

"Is there anything else you want to say?" she asks.

"If she had powers that I thought were safe to tell you about, I would," I tell them. Jesus Christmas Christ I'm in it now. What the hell is the matter with this family? Unless they're using Emily's method of hiding it, neither of them have powers, but they are clearly very interested in powers. A lot moreso than they are interested in ensuring that their daughter is mentally and physically okay. And like, I didn't exactly expect them to be lovey-dovey, but these vibes are rancid. So what am I thinking here?

Mob bosses? Secret supervillains? Mob bosses who sponsor secret supervillains? Whatever they are, I'm so deep in the forest of bad news bears that I can't see the sun through the canopy.

"…We can probably smuggle you out," Lia's mother says, and yep there it is.

"I don't think the military will be willing to let me go," I say honestly and also because I really don't want to go anywhere with these people.

"I've already killed an Angel."

"What?" my mother asks, and even my father looks surprised. And maybe a little bit impressed? God, it's really sad how badly Lia's brain wants that to be true.

"I can survive being impaled, melted, shot, and pretty much anything else you can think of," I say frankly.

"I kind of had to. I ended up introducing myself to the military by killing an Angel in front of Agnus Dei."

"…That explains the unusual scrutiny," my father hums.

"We've had to walk lightly with our operations these past couple of months. I never thought they would be investigating us because of you."

"Sorry for the hassle, Pops," I mutter. It just kind of slips out of me without much thought, along with a heaping helping of secondhand bitterness. Note to self: avoid using someone's brain when I am around people who traumatized them whenever possible.

"What about your other friends?" my mother asks. I mean Lia's mother, god damnit!

"Are they under similar scrutiny?"

"Not to my knowledge, but I don't think Christine or Anastasia would be interested," I say. I have no idea what I'm claiming they wouldn't be interested in, exactly, but I am nonetheless fairly confident that I am speaking accurately.

"Peter, though… he would probably do a lot for a chance at extraction." Why the hell did I say that? God, he probably would, but I shouldn't be encouraging him!

"And Emily?" Lia's father asks. I sigh to buy myself time to think. I have strongly implied that Emily has a power that people are better off not knowing, and while that's far from what we really want it might be enough for what we need.

"It would be best if she never enters military service," I say. My mother and father share a look, the kind I've never been able to decipher. …Except, no, I can actually make a few reasonable guesses as to what they're communicating with each other. Quit deifying your own parents, Liabrain. They're evil, but they're not special.

"Alright, we'll keep that in mind," Lia's mother says.

"It's too early to establish any concrete plans in any case. I believe that should be all the business we have to take care of?" My father grunts, sharing another look with my mother.

"Good," my mother concludes.

"We shall go out to dinner then. As a family. It's been dreadfully long since we've seen our beloved daughter, after all."

"That sounds wonderful," I say, not quite able to make it sound perfectly convincing. Maybe I should just have the Raptor brain pretend to be Lia. … No, that would be stupid. Lia's parents take me out and buy me a new outfit—one that all three of us entirely expect I will wear once and then never again—before locating the closest thing this city has to a fancy restaurant and going there for no reason other than the fact that it is fancy.

The food is too intense for me, but I carefully watch the other people in the restaurant eat and make good use of Lia's instincts to not breach any etiquette. The entire experience takes about two hours and is unrelentingly stressful from beginning to end. I feel sick by the time we leave, and I'm pretty sure it's physically impossible for me to actually be sick. And then… they just leave.

Lia's parents just up and leave, dropping me back off at Emily's apartment and driving back to the airport in the car they rented for precisely the past five hours. It's a surreal experience, somehow exactly what I thought meeting Lia's parents would be like and also entirely unexpected in every way.

"So, how'd it go?" Emily asks me.

"I should be asking you that," I answer, "because I have absolutely no idea. I'm pretty sure Lia's parents are mob bosses or something?"

"Or something," Emily nods.

"And yeah, I think you did pretty well. Not the best it could have gone, but I'm not getting the death dates that usually pop up when joining the military seems likely, so good job!"

"Cool," I say.

"I sort of had to imply that you do have powers." Emily shrugs.

"I only want people not to know if I'm more likely to die when they do know. Whatever you told them worked out, so it's not a problem."

"Right," I frown.

"So… what the heck is their deal?"

"Eh, they work with the Defenders of Nothing, probably," Emily answers.

"I'm pretty sure In-Joke is the reason I started dating Lia."

"What!? Seriously? Why?" Emily gives me the biggest, most absolutely confused shrug I have ever seen. Her whole face flattens out into a defeated expression as her shoulders lift, her palms upward as if hoping the answers would drop out of the heavens.

"I have absolutely no fucking idea," she says.

"I don't even know if it's true. The terrifying feelings of certain death just kind of popped up at around the same time and I'm pretty sure I never would have even met Lia if not because of them. I don't necessarily think they wanted me to date her, but I'm definitely not going to rule it out. Maybe they just wanted to watch us have sex."

"…I really don't want to think about that," I grimace.

"That's just… fuck, Emily."

"Yeah I mean that's basically what happened."

"That is not what I—ugh. Look, there's like a dozen different things wrong with that so I'm going to do us both a favor and just move this conversation along, okay? Lia's parents are clearly not fans of the government. They actively offered to smuggle me out of the military, and when I told them I didn't think that would work they asked me about everyone else. So if any of you start getting weird offers from suspicious people, my bad."

"Don't worry about it Jules, I like weird offers from suspicious people," Peter grins.

"I'm sure Lia's hot mom and I will have a grand old time." I wince.

"Please never say that again," I ask, knowing it's probably foolish to do so.

"And especially don't do it while I'm using Lia's brain."

"I don't really get it," Ana says.

"Lia's mom and dad are bad, right? That's what we learned? Why don't we just tell someone?" Oh, shoot. There's a bunch of reasons, like how if they are working with the Defenders of Nothing it could be really dangerous to piss them off, but I think Anastasia would be pretty gung-ho about not capitulating to threats from evil. The real issue is that we have no way to know if it's a good solution, but how am I gonna explain to the nine-year-old about systemic corruption and the intrinsic danger of whistleblowing?

"Remember what happened to Team Avatar when they tried to warn the Earth Kingdom?" Christine asks.

"Oooooh!" Anastasia gapes.

"There could be bad people in the military! The bad people might already control the military!"

"Exactly," Christine nods.

"Can you imagine? Bad people in the military?"

"All sorts of horrible things could happen!" Anastasia says, her hands over her mouth.

"So we've gotta be really careful, don't we?" Christine says.

"Or we might be captured by an evil fire princess!" Anastasia concludes.

"Sure, yeah, something like that," Christine nods. Wow. Good job, Christine. I really need to watch that show Anastasia is obsessed with, don't I?

"Do you think the aliens could be controlling the government?" Anastasia squeaks.

"Slow down, conspiracy theorist," Emily says.

"It's possible that there's some fucked-up Angel at the top of this pyramid, but I think it's a lot more likely that it's just humans being humans. You know how it is. Even with an existential threat forcing us to fight together or face extinction, there's plenty of people who are still only in it for themselves. Like Peter!"

"I feel like I should protest, but I don't think any of you would buy it," Peter grins.

"She's right, kiddo. Why do you think supervillains exist? Heck, Emily here technically is a supervillain."

"Hey, it's not my fault that me joining up with the military somehow ends the world," Emily scowls.

"Maybe that's just what you want us to think," Peter smirks.

"I mean, I do want you to think that, yes. Feel free to not trust me if you decide it's worth the risk."

"Bah, you're no fun."

"Yeah, Peter, I know," Emily sighs.

"Anyway, as far as I can tell, it would be best to just forget about Lia's parents for now. If you guys get assigned to take down supervillains that turn out to be working for them or whatever, then that's the breaks I guess, but I don't think there's any point getting too involved in a mundane criminal organization while the apocalypse looms. If that changes, I'll do my best to let you know."

"Speaking of the apocalypse," I say, "I know we don't really know anything, but is there some way we could look into it? Some hint your powers can give us about the right things to investigate?"

"I would have told you already if I knew," Emily shrugs.

"The best I can say is to keep your eyes out for possibilities. Anything you can find out about what the military knows would be great."

"…You're not just turning us into spies for your supervillain organization, are you?" Christine asks.

"Honestly?" Emily grimaces.

"I might be. But if I am, it's not on purpose."

"Figuring out a way to remove you from their clutches is a priority, I think," I say.

"With a name like 'Defenders of Nothing' they're not exactly giving me confidence about their intent to cooperate towards a greater good. Your powers have their issues, but none of us would be alive if they weren't effective."

"I would be," Peter points out. I ignore him.

"My point is that we need you safe," I say.

"And more than that, I want you safe." Emily blushes slightly, looking away.

"Please don't say stuff like that while you're wearing my ex-girlfriend's body," she mutters.

"You're gonna make me miss her."

"Oh!" I say, quickly changing into something more comfortable.

"Sorry. I thought you… no, never mind."

"I could have saved her, you know," Emily says.

"I could have. Her odds weren't that much worse than the rest of us. But when the Behemoth came, I… I just wasn't even thinking about it. I wasn't paying attention to any time other than mine." The rest of us are silent. Even as the only person who was there, I'm not sure what I could say to her. I remember her pushing me directly into the Behemoth's blade. It was so sudden, so forceful. That might have been the exact moment Lia let go. I can't imagine the guilt that must come with making a decision like that.

And yet in the back of my mind, the same question rings: is it optimal for her to tell us this?

"Maybe that's how I fucked up," Emily says.

"I sure as hell know that I can't save the world. Maybe I'll never find the right questions to keep myself alive unless I focus on everyone else instead. Maybe I have to pull off something risky and survive it in order to get the best odds of all. But the problem is that I can never know what the right risk is! I'm not a computer, I can't ask my power about every possible action I could ever take, I can't even get remotely close!

I just have to take the best option I think of in the moment without even knowing why it's best, and then I fuck it all up anyway because I can't figure out the right question to ask two moves later. I don't know what I have to do. I just know that this isn't working." I hesitate, not quite knowing what to do at first, but after a few seconds I step forward and put my arm around my sister's shoulders.

"I forgive you," I say.

"For the mistakes you made, and for the times you put yourself above us."

"I should have listened to you more," she mutters.

"I mean for fuck's sake, I tried to get you to leave Christine!"

"Well, it's up to her whether or not to forgive you for that," I say.

"But that proves the odds aren't everything, right?"

"Just because you can get a good run at gambling doesn't make it a good idea," Emily scowls.

"Life's a casino and the house always wins in the end."

"I'm just saying that you know that the deaths you predict are far from set in stone. I'm not telling you to risk your life every day, but given what we're up against you will need to risk your life. The only question is who or what you risk your life for. What makes tomorrow worth living until?"

"I don't need an answer to that," Emily snaps.

"I don't need a reason to want to stay alive."

"No, but I feel like you'd be a lot happier if you had one." She takes a deep breath, letting out a long exhale and leaning into me.

"…I'm trying, Julietta," she says softly.

"I'm trying." We stand like that for a while until she finally reaches her arm around me and gives me a brief squeeze before pushing me away.

"You all should head to the meeting spot the military told you to wait for them at," she says.

"We still have like an hour," Christine protests.

"It's probably worth getting there early," I say, just so Emily doesn't have to justify chasing us out. Either she thinks it's important for us to go or she just wants to be left alone, and I'm okay with either.

"Thanks for letting us stay these past few days."

"Of course," she says.

"Anytime you guys are free, let me know and we'll find a way to meet up. Until then, I guess I'll be here."

"Yeah, hopefully I can at least give you a call after boot camp," I tell her.

"Good luck, Emily."

"I'll need it," she answers.

"Peter."

"What's up?" he asks.

"Don't make a break for it. Not today." He frowns.

"…Well, shit."

"Yeah," Emily says.

"Goodbye, everyone. Stay safe."

"Bye Emily!" Anastasia says.

"You stay safe too!" Emily rolls her eyes and scruffs up Anastasia's hair.

"I will, Ana. If nothing else, I'll definitely do that." We head out from Emily's apartment and start walking south back to where the military dropped us off. As usual, we're all on edge, and as usual, no aliens jump out from the alleyways to attack us. No supervillains do either, thankfully, though I suspect it's only a matter of time. It's not a terribly long walk from Emily's apartment to our destination, and when we get there we're the first people I recognize to have arrived.

Our meeting place is just a big abandoned parking lot, already occupied by the trucks and soldiers that are presumably here to pick us up. Ana and I instinctively case them with our domains as we pass by, which mostly just ends up with me getting a lot of new templates since all but one of them don't have powers. I'm not actually sure which one of them does have powers, though, because once we get close we can feel their domain covering most of the lot.

It feels like a shadow, a darkness burned into the ground by the heat of the sun, representing the outline of things yet in the distance. The domain immediately pulls away the moment we touch it with ours, but after a little while it expands back to its previous size, engulfing us as we approach. We let it, keeping our power close to our bodies. This other power doesn't feel like it's trying to do anything to us, but there's no sense in being reckless.

A few soldiers ask our names and tell us where to stand, so we do as instructed. As the hour passes, more people from our intake show up and stand beside us. Eventually, one of the guys from our power training group shows up alongside a soldier, which is a little weird. I quickly realize what's going on, however, when I see that the two of them are walking in perfect synchronicity. Not just every step, but every blink, every breath. Even their eyes flick in the same direction to look at the same things.

Only after the two of them reach the other soldiers, enter the radius of the domain surrounding us, and allow a few guns to be raised to point at the young man from my intake is he finally allowed to move on his own. His first act of freedom is to hyperventilate and nearly vomit. A couple more people show up that way. Commander arrives with two of my peers, both of them stumbling after her with glassy-eyed stares.

Slowly but surely, every single member of our training course either arrives under their own power or someone else's. Those that had to be escorted are placed in a different line. Commander gives me a wink when she passes, heading for the back of one of the trucks.

"Never doubted ya," she grins, and then the rest of us are loaded up. Coincidentally or otherwise, I'm put in the same truck that she entered. Which I suppose potentially saves me a whole lot of internal catastrophizing since I can just ask.

"So, were you guys watching us all weekend…?" I ask.

"Nah," Commander answers.

"Not you, anyway."

"Why not me?"

"Because we knew you'd show up on time," she answers.

"Weren't you aware? Some people have powers that can see the future." I decide not to say anything else for the rest of the drive. I'm sure I'll get the chance to jog off some of this paranoia at boot camp.