Epilogue (Rough)

Some loose ends are tied up. Others, not so much.

A few days had passed since the Mystery of the Rat's Nest concluded. I was back in Academy mode, eagerly waiting for the end of the semester so I could go straight into summer induction training.

Going to school in Uptown's Skyline district was wholly different than the life I had lived in Midtown or the Quarry. The Academy buildings were neatly arranged on Midtown's highest level, where the uptown Skyline loomed over the destitute vibrancy of expansive sea of skyscrapers in the city occupying the quarry, unobserved of space conscientious society. The Academy, highly restrictive, built like series of white marble chateaus, angular, with a penchant for putting triangles where they didn't belong. They were spaced graciously apart, thanks to the greenery of the park plaza and the compound's surrounding kinetic field palisade, setup several meters off of the landscaped perimeter of the Academy.

I still found myself being drawn to the cramped paths between buildings, which reminded me of the cramped streets and alleys of the Quarry.

It was past midnight, and I had been doing overtime at the shooting range. After checking the Carbex into my gun locker, I ducked out through a side door, and into the curiously positioned space between the gun range and library.

The rain was heavy. Heavier than the rainfall a few nights ago -- from that night where it all began in the alley outside of Kringle's. I maintained a brisk walk, trudging with hood up through the torrential downpour, but something tugged at the back of my head. Not a literal tug, but that tugging feeling you get when someone is looking at you from behind.

I turned, and a tall man in a hooded trench coat approached, hands crammed deep into side pockets that didn't normally have the space for large hands.

He slowed as he approached, a few feet away.

"New hand?" I nodded to his right side.

He shrugged, pulling arm out of pocket and flexing a crude, and obviously mechanically synth hand before me. "Best I could get funding for on short notice."

I tilted my head curiously, "I thought you had operational funding?"

He shrugged again, as if replaying his shrug moments earlier in a neurotic loop. "Blew my funding paying Finnic and Tsang. Nothing to show for it. Under review."

We stood in silence for what seemed like at least a minute, before I spoke again. "What do you want?"

"Look, I just wanted to say," Hadley threw his hood off, exposing his crew cut brown hair to the rain. "About Erk…."

I rolled my eyes and turned halfway, "I don't have time for this."

I started to complete the action of tossing my shoulder at him, when he drew the Longarm in his singular biological hand. It had the effect of rewinding me so that I was facing him with arms held up.

"I'm not gonna shoot you, I just need you to listen."

I sidestepped by degrees, turning into his elbow with a twist of his wrist, pinching his grip. The Longarm wrestled from his grip, I stepped back to level it with his chest.

He held his arms up momentarily, before dropping them to the side with a singular chortle. "That's really impressive, but you're supposed to plug someone when y--"

I pulled the trigger and he flinched instinctively but did not seem surprised when nothing ripped through him from the barrel. The gun wasn't loaded.

"I just don't want to talk about Erk right now. Everything is always about Erk."

"Ouch," he frowned. "Lover's spat?"

"What!" I recoiled. "Erk and I aren't…. He's basically my brother."

"Basically. How come I feel like that basically means a world of difference?"

Rolling my eyes again, I produced a spitting sound as I clicked my tongue impatiently. "Look, it just isn't that way, okay?"

"Noted…" he nodded. "Well, I just wanted to say, I'm gonna lay off your brother." He paused to gauge my reaction, which was stone cold. "That is to say, my boss… err partner, is still interested in him. But I convinced her to take it easy."

He continued trying to read me. I didn't react for sometime, finally shrugging, and putting the Longarm safely on my mat belt before turning my shoulder again.

"Wait, my gun," the tall man reached out to grab me by the shoulder.

Without thinking I turned back into him, kissing him on the lips, and I could feel the shock explode off of his skin. The synth hand and human hand grabbed me around the waist, and pulled me closer. We didn't stop.





I stopped going to school after I read the message from the Academy. Application denied, were among the phrases that still stung.

Jade and I also never had that talk. And I didn't tell her about her brother.

It all seemed to wash away when we read the letter together. To summarize, not only was I denied fast tracking, I was basically never going to get into the Academy, and to add insult to injury, they recommended me for an infantry position during my two year mandate.

I guess school didn't really seem to matter anymore if I wasn't going anywhere anyway.

And, to make matters worse, the Peacekeepers had brought me in to talk to Chandra at her liaison office. And so, the extortion was set to begin.

I walked through the door, and she spun around in the chair behind her desk, gesturing me to take a seat in the flex chair across from her. I planted my rear, and the flex mould shifted comfortably to my proportions. Not too bad, actually, I nodded with the approval of comfort.

I locked onto the amber eyed woman in the chair across from me, who steepled her fingers over the desk. "So…" the woman started.

I sighed. "So…."

She contemplated her next words for a good minute while I just stared back at her doing my best impression of an unreadable proto-card player's face.

"Hadley," she began with another pause. "Has told me he doesn't think you're a dog anymore." The air was tense, as our eyes focused in on each other in silence. "I can't let you go completely, but I've decided to compromise. Throw the dog a bone so to speak."

I tapped my fingers on the arm of the chair and shrugged.

"It's my understanding that the Academy won't be accepting you." She paused -- a trick that was already getting old. "I've pulled some connections and had the city guard look over your application. They agree that you aren't suited for a military officer role."

"Nice bone," I stirred, preparing to get out of my seat and walk out. She lifted a hand, which somehow commanded me to stay.

"They said more," she dropped her hand back on the desk. "They said your record, and your proficiencies would make you well suited for a role in the guard. As a field operative."

I blinked. "And?" laconic sentences were bordering on habitual, when I was confronted with Unitans.

"And they'll fast track you. But you have to do basic during summer." She snickered and turned in her chair, swiveling by a quarter turn so that she was no longer facing me. "And complete school. You can juggle school with deputy training in the fall."

I held back acceptance, knowing there had to be a catch. "What do you want from me, though?"

She shrugged, easing back further in the chair as she crossed her legs, "Pretty interesting what Hadley told me." She swiveled the chair so that the back was facing me. "About how you could interface with all that NeoTech."

"Yeah," I rolled my eyes apathetically. "Spence said it was all reversed engineered from lost Kavalli technology."

"We're not gonna extort you," she said out of nowhere. "But we need someone on the inside who can work with us. And it's a goal of mutual concern." She turned the chair back to face me. "We want to find Grant Vance… the man you know as Virgil Spence."

Reviews

[Wathanya.5KY3]

Interesting twist there. Didn't see that last paragraph from Jade's perspective coming. I didn't think such passionate romance could emerge from one night plus a few days at the Academy. Also, I thought Jade was the age of a high school freshman (at most) while Hadley was in his 30s...? Or at least your writing gave me that impression.

While I'm sad that Erk didn't get accepted into the Academy, it was a great pathway to the conversation with Sadistic Blackmailing Lady. Her offer was an amazing teaser for the second book (and you got every aspect of dialogue punctuation on spot in that whole last paragraph). Definitely keep it that way. Or, in case people forget who Virgil is, you can also throw in a "Jade's dad..." from Erk, in speech or in inner monologue.

[JT Godin]

Yeah, there's some weirdness going on with the age thing here, and I think it has to do with Erk and Jade seeming to be similar in age. Erk is 14 and Jade is 19 (which I realize I might have to hammer down a bit more to avoid confusion), but Kaval age quicker than humans. it's really a strange experience for Erk because he is high school freshman age, but outpaces other students in every way. Jade being in the Academy would be similar to someone from our world going to an officer's college in the military.

Hadley's age I'll have to rework. I started off thinking he would be in his 30s, but decided quite late in writing that I want Jade and Hadley to be a thing, so I'm going to shorten the age gap pretty drastically.

All of this post story stuff is going to play out — I hope — in unexpexted, interesting ways in the next book.

[Wathanya.5KY3]

Definitely hammer down Jade’s age. I was totally convinced they were both 14-15, especially when they were talking about height in the early chapters.

I think it will play out well. Sequels tend to show a spurt of growth from the author.