Things change after the first round of War Games is over. For one, any hope of maintaining the fiction that my Gazelle Unit is horribly disorganized is gone. Not much of a loss- the ruse served its purpose for a brief period, but maintaining it for longer than necessary would have been more trouble than it was worth.


    Based on the chatter I catch on the public brainband, between Hark’s performance and my own, people are taking a lot more interest in the lower-year units than they were before. I even get a couple of interview requests, all of which I turn down on principle. The media is a propaganda machine, and I’ve got no interest in participating unless I’m the one operating it. On the prediction markets, our odds of winning the overall competition as a unit this year rise significantly, though we’re still a ways behind the Komodos, whose lead only grew larger after utterly dominating the Peregrines.


    Winning our battle earned us a sizable payout, enough to offset the costs we incurred preparing for the War Games and then some. But there are other, more personal changes too. Specifically, it turns out that the ‘touching’ moment between me and Sofie after I got stabbed was indeed broadcast to the entire Imperium. Including my parents.


    The video call that followed the battle featured more discussion of the way Sofie held me and caressed my cheek after I got stabbed, than the fact that I got stabbed in the first place. Foolishly, I’d thought that watching me get hurt and even killed would be distressing to my parents, to the point that they’d even try to talk me out of participating directly in the War Games- hiding out somewhere safe like Hark did. But no, what they wanted to talk about was whether I’d be giving them grandkids anytime soon.


    Thankfully, I was able to avoid actually introducing them to Sofie, or even mentioning Niko. I suspect they’d be a lot less thrilled to know I’m also dating someone with a past like his, or someone who’s covered in tattoos, for that matter. But I’m on a clock for that stuff now. Not the worst price to pay for winning, but it’s all quite embarrassing nonetheless. And for every one person gushing about how sweet and tender it was, there are ten making memes or telling jokes about it on the brainband, or on comedy shows, or a million other places. We’re pretty insulated from the outside world here at the Citadel, at least to the point that I don’t have to worry about gossip writers following me around, but there are still plenty of eyes on us.


    What really frustrates me about the whole affair is that the discussion of my relationship with Sofie- whether we might have a third and who it could be, if we’ve been intimate or not yet, and other, even more invasive questions -has totally overshadowed any discussion of the battle itself. People who follow the War Games regularly are talking about all that, but for the casual observer, details about my private life is the only thing of note to come out of the entire match.


    At the very least, the people around me mostly keep their mouths shut about it. According to Grant, rumors do circulate briefly within the unit about whether Sofie and Niko got their positions because of our relationship, but he puts a stop to that pretty quickly by pointing out that neither he nor Ada, who have similar positions, are involved with me in that way.


    For the most part, though, my daily routine stays the same. I’ve got all the same classes in the same order, starting with Tactics. And, perhaps because Hark and I have proven ourselves to be competent strategists in the War Games, Professor Brennan has raised the difficulty level of our battle simulations… significantly.


    “Today’s exercise,” he said, in his typical dry tone, “should serve as a reminder that a strategist is rarely afforded favorable conditions under which to operate. The War Games, while challenging, are designed to be fair- a notion which has little place within the calculus of combat.”


    It’s pretty evident from the way he speaks that he puts little stock in the War Games as a method of evaluating our talent. If anything, the real point of this exercise is to remind us that winning against our fellow students is no great achievement. It’s certainly dispelled any illusions I might have been harboring about being a great tactical genius.


    Professor Brennan would never put forth a completely unwinnable simulation just to humble us- because there’d be no reason to feel humble for having failed at a task it’s not possible to succeed at. Instead, he likes to throw us into scenarios that have a clear path to victory, but one that’s just a little bit out of reach. To torment us. To torment me in particular, it feels like.


    This simulation fits that mold perfectly. It’s not a historical reconstruction, but a unique scenario Brennan devised himself. He’s placed us in command of a small battalion tasked with holding a large fortress against a significant enemy force. The fortress itself is pretty defensible, but maintaining those defenses with such limited resources is the real challenge. There are simply too many critical points I need to have covered, and not enough people at my disposal to cover them all at once.


    Worse still, the enemy attack commenced almost immediately upon the start of the simulation, meaning I had no time to devise a plan- I’m being forced to devote all my attention to making sure each vulnerable area is defended when it comes under attack. Thankfully, the simulation isn’t quite high-fidelity enough to incorporate the actual feelings of the soldiers I’m ordering around, otherwise at least one of them would probably have collapsed from exhaustion by now.


    There’s no discernible pattern to the attacks, either, so I can’t run things on instinct while devoting most of my attention to coming up with a proper strategy. It almost seems like the enemy is just choosing which spot to strike at random, no method to the madness whatsoever.


    As soon as that thought occurs to me, something clicks in my head. I realize what Brennan is doing. He’s making me fight myself- a completely unpredictable opponent. Sure, I’ve never literally flipped a coin or rolled a die to determine a course of action, but the principle remains the same. Shit, if I was in the position of my simulated opponent, I’d be doing exactly what they are, using a totally random strategy to keep them off-balance and prevent them from striking back.


    I’m not quite arrogant enough to think the professor modeled this enemy AI after my own tactics, but I’m dead certain he modeled it after my Founder, or one of the Nobles before me in my line. Maybe even the Betrayer, whose victories are bitterly recorded in the history books even as his name was expunged entirely.


    The question of why he did this is pushed aside, for the time being. Right now I just need to figure out how to beat myself. And maybe keep an eye on whether anybody around me seems to be having an easy time of it, so I’ll know who to watch out for.


    Perhaps unsurprisingly, figuring out how to outsmart a more competent version of myself isn’t easy, especially not while a significant chunk of my attention is still focused on just keeping the enemy forces at bay. Again, though, something clicks. Almost like deja vu, a thought-pattern that feels familiar even though I know I’ve never actually felt it before.


    This feeling of stress and disorientation created by having to split my attention between so many points is exactly what I would be seeking to create with a strategy like this, if I was on the other side of this conflict. And what I’d be counting on above all else is for the person running defense to be caught inside of a false paradigm that says ‘keeping the enemy from breaching the fortress walls is paramount.’ Sure, that seems obviously true, but in reality, it’s not the main objective. Worse- it’s not even possible.


    The enemy is numerically superior, and sooner or later, I’m going to slip up. When that happens, they’ll breach one of the entry points, and my forces will be so scattered that we won’t be able to mount an effective defense, meaning we’ll be overrun in short order. But that only happens if I continue to try in vain to keep them out entirely.


    Instead, I strategically withdraw my defenses from one point in particular, and wait for the enemy to target it in response. They’re thinking, as I would be in their position, that I’ve finally slipped, and they’re seizing the opportunity. But in reality, I left that position vulnerable because it would serve as the best choke point.


    When the simulated forces of my false-self breach the fortress, my forces converge on it, and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. As they come streaming through, we meet them with withering machine gun fire from strategically positioned gun emplacements, moved from the other critical points in anticipation of this moment. And the kicker- as they realize they walked right into a trap and turn to run, I detonate the explosives I left behind before abandoning that position, collapsing the entrance and trapping them inside with us, while neatly preventing any reinforcements they might have from getting back inside.


    It feels more satisfying than usual to see the simulation freeze and the victory screen appear on my display. Despite that, I don’t take more than a few seconds to bask in the glow. Instead, I start looking around the room, searching for any sign that somebody else might have cracked the same code I did. Because, if my hunch is right, Professor Brennan didn’t do this to mess with me- he did it to give everybody else a leg up. Which is flattering, in one way, because it almost suggests that he thinks I’m dangerous enough to warrant such treatment. But it’s also dangerous, because, well… he’s kind of handing all my rivals the key to beating me.


    …that might be a bit of an exaggeration, the more I think about it. This is the most simplistic version of my strategic ethos, and the solution was a lot more straightforward than it would have been in real life. Which is kind of the thing Brennan was complaining about at the start of class, but who am I to judge? So he’s not quite giving them a how-to guide for who to beat me, but it’s still probably providing some insight, at least to anybody who’s clever enough to catch on.


    Looking around, though, it doesn’t seem like many people have solved the puzzle that this simulation presents, or at least not quite as decisively as I did. Some people have had their defenses breached by mistake, but managed to parlay that into success by scrambling to stop the attack, or getting lucky by having people in the area and repelling the invaders. The two people I’m most concerned about, Anton and Lucia, however, are positioned so that their screens aren’t visible to me. And neither of them is emotive enough to give me any sign in their expression or body language to indicate one way or another if they’ve figured out what’s going on with the sim.


    About twenty minutes pass before everybody else is done with the sim. Hark finishes second after me, which is usually how it goes- either she or I finishes first, and the other follows shortly after. She’s finished first more often than me, but I tend to finish first on the harder sims. That might seem strange to anybody else keeping score, but I think I understand why. Lucia is absurdly driven, and gives her best effort every time, while a straightforward task tends to bore me, so I only kick into high gear when something genuinely challenges me. Whether that means I’d always finish first if I tried as hard as she does, I’m not sure- but it’s a flattering idea, so I choose to believe it.


    This week, Brennan saved the sim for the last half of class, so once everybody’s done, people pack up their things and leave. Usually, I’m one of the first among them, but today, I hang back, waiting until the only other person left in the room is the professor. He remains seated behind his desk, presumably waiting for his next class, but that can’t possibly be for another few hours. The Citadel has more than enough lecture halls for nobody to have to share, so I suppose he probably treats this room like his office when he’s not teaching.


    “Is there something I can help you with, Izanami?” he asks, a look of quiet amusement on his sharp, narrow features.


    “The enemy AI for today’s simulation- it was based on my Founder, right?”


    “How astute,” he says by way of answer, not even looking up from his desk’s holo-screen, which seems to be displaying the metrics of this class’s performance in the simulated battle.


    “Is there any particular reason why?”


    Brennan rolls his eyes.


    “Every year, leading up to the midterms for this class, I challenge my students with a series of simulations based on the tactics of each of the Nine Titans. This year, I chose to feature your Founder’s simulation first. Ms. Hark’s will come soon enough, rest assured.”


    Oh. So it had literally nothing to do with me at all. Just a coincidence that I happened to be here at the Citadel and taking this class. Suddenly, I find myself feeling extraordinarily foolish.


    “I would appreciate it,” Brennan continues, still not looking up at me, “if you refrained from sharing this information with anybody. I will reveal it in due time, but past experience has taught me that knowing you’re facing a simulation of one of the Titans, even a highly simplified one, tends to negatively impact morale for the participants.”


    “Uh… yeah, sure. Okay. I’ll, uh, see you next week, Professor.”


    “Indeed you shall.”


    <hr>


    Suitably chastened by that horribly embarrassing experience, I pick up some lunch and head back to the Hyperion Building to eat alone. Halfway there, though, I get a brainband connection request from Niko, and accept without hesitating.


    Hey. Can we… talk? In person, preferably.


    It’s unusual for him to be so circumspect in his speech, but I decide not to comment on it, the way I might if I was talking to Sofie. If something’s got him spooked, it’s probably serious.


    Course, so long as you don’t mind me eating at the same time.


    That’s no problem, he says with a silent chuckle, and sends me a location. It’s not too far, but I take a little longer to get there than I otherwise might, because I go out of my way to avoid being followed.


    When I do get to Niko’s chosen meeting point, my burger is lukewarm, which is slightly disappointing, but being around him makes up for it. We haven’t been apart by any means, but I’ve been cognizant of the fact that people are probably searching for any evidence that there might be a third involved in my relationship with Sofie, so they can sell that information to some wretched gossip rag. That means avoiding any blatant public displays of affection with Niko- which, luckily, he wasn’t too big on in the first place.


    Here, though, in a secluded garden spot in the public part of the Subterrane, accessed not through a waterfall, but a simple flight of stairs leading into one of the many caverns beneath the Citadel streets, we don’t have to worry about any of that. Immediately upon seeing him, I can’t help but smile, and when I sit down, I do so right next to him, enjoying the warmth of his body next to mine.


    “Thanks for coming,” he says, businesslike, even though he’s pressing against me just as much as I am to him. As always, he smells faintly of sweat and gunmetal.


    “No prob,” I reply, unwrapping the burger and digging in immediately, before it gets any colder. With my mouth occupied, I switch seamlessly to the brainband. What’d you wanna talk about?


    Niko sighs, the sigh of someone resigned to discussing an uncomfortable topic. For a moment, I wonder if he’s about to break things off with me, but then I realize he probably wouldn’t have his arm wrapped around my waist if that was the case.


    “It’s my Regalia.”


    That… was about the last thing I was expecting him to say, I’ve gotta admit.


    What about it?


    “You know my line has a bad reputation,” he begins cautiously. “Lot of us have fallen in with organized crime, because that reputation means nobody in the bureaucracy trusts us. Thing is, not everybody is particularly good at that sort of thing. One guy, he had a gambling problem. A serious one. Managed to graduate the Citadel, got his hands on the Regalia, held down a position in the army, but he was in deep with the Triads on the side.”


    The direction this story is headed is pretty obvious, but I don’t interrupt him, just continue with my burger.


    “Stupid bastard gambles away everything of value in his life. Eventually, the only thing he’s got left to raise with is the Regalia. So he does, thinking he’ll win big next time and get it back. Only he doesn’t. He loses, bad. Bad enough to get truekilled. And then the Regalia just… disappears. Everybody assumes it’s sitting on the wall of some triad boss’s office, but nobody’s sure who or where. Eventually, they just… stop looking.”


    A story like this is almost unheard of. Not the part about somebody losing so bad at cards they get truekilled- that’s regrettably common, though not as much among Nobles. But a Regalia completely disappearing like that… I can only think of one other example, and even that doesn’t fully apply. After all, everybody knows exactly where the thing is, we just can’t get our hands on it.


    If a Regalia went missing tomorrow, the entire Imperium would get turned upside-down to find it. They aren’t just special, they’re irreplaceable. Unique weapons keyed to the cognitive patterns of certain Founders, only able to be wielded by Nobles of their line. And not just that, they all possess certain distinct qualities, powered by technology that’s never been replicated since their creation.


    The first one that comes to mind is called Voracity, which is associated with Armel, the Peregrine Unit member whose mouth is unusually large and full of rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth. His line’s Regalia was designed to embody the insatiable hunger of his cannibal Foundre, by firing nanotech bullets that ‘eat’ all matter they come into contact with, consuming it in a matter of seconds. You could be hiding behind a foot of solid concrete and he’d have a dozen holes in it the size of trash can lids in seconds.


    Moreover, the Regalia all share one important quality beyond their uniqueness- they exist in a fixed quantum state, meaning they seemingly can’t be permanently destroyed. So the only way that the chain of succession from a Founder to their Nobles can be broken, is if the Regalia is somehow lost. And allowing that to happen would be a huge sign of weakness from the Imperium, which is why they try so hard to find them if they ever go missing. Honestly, I’m shocked I hadn’t heard about the Stormwolf’s Regalia disappearing before now. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    “Let me guess,” I respond out loud, after swallowing the last morsel of cold burger. “It turned up?”


    “Yeah,” he responds flatly, sounding a lot less thrilled than I’d expect. Nobles only receive their Regalia after they graduate from the Citadel and take their position in the Imperial bureaucracy, so if it’s back in Imperium hands, he still won’t be seeing it for a while- but knowing that he’d be seeing it at all would be cause for celebration, if that was indeed the case.


    “And… it wasn’t returned to its rightful owner by a concerned citizen?”


    “No. It wasn’t.”


    Niko doesn’t seem to want to elaborate immediately, and though I’m now intensely curious what the story is, I force myself to wait. Finally, after several long seconds, he continues.


    “There’s a private collector on Liese who got his hands on it somehow. But he’s run into some money trouble- apparently he’s auctioning it off in five days’ time. That’s the only reason I even know he’s got it. One of my contacts got their hands on the auction inventory and let me know.”


    In other words, he’s now got a five day window before the unique weapon only he can use, his by right of Nobility, disappears again, maybe forever, to be a conversation piece in some rich fuck’s house.


    “You’ve got a plan to take it back, right?”


    It goes without saying that he’s not gonna try to buy it. Even though it’s useless to anybody but Niko, a Regalia will still go for tens of millions, especially in an illegal auction for the ultra-rich.


    For a moment, I wonder whether it might be possible to just alert the proper authorities to the fact that this guy has the Regalia, and get a Myrmidon team to reclaim it. But doing that would have to reveal how Niko got the information, compromising his contacts, and considering he’s held onto the weapon illegally for a while, this guy probably has a secure spot where he could hide it, if somebody showed up at his door unexpectedly looking for it.


    “Yeah.”


    “And you want, what, my permission to take some time off and get it? Permission granted. We’ll cover for you.”


    Niko shakes his head.


    “I… was hoping you’d come with me.”


    Huh. Second time today I’ve been blindsided by something that feels like it should have been completely obvious.


    “My contacts will be able to help, but none of them have any idea how to actually plan a break-in like this. The collector’s place is heavily guarded, top of the line security system, the works. You’re the only person I know who’s got even half a chance of pulling it off.”


    Concerns immediately spring to mind. How could we possibly cover up both of our absences for so long, when we’re not even allowed to leave the Citadel for a single day to see our families, much less an extended leave to go commit burglary? How are we even going to get off of this moon, when the teleportal network is so heavily restricted? But I put all of those worries out of my mind. If I asked Niko for help, he wouldn’t hesitate, he’d just act. So that’s what I do too.


    “I’m in. When do we leave?”


    <hr>


    Leaving the Citadel is significantly more difficult than arriving. Or, to be more precise, leaving Akademos, the moon on which the Citadel is located, is what’s difficult. I can walk straight out of the Citadel walls any time I want, and when I get eaten by the local wildlife, I’ll be resurrected right back inside. But getting off this moon, that’s a challenge.


    Ostensibly for our security, the teleportal network here is highly restricted. The truth is, it’s more meant to keep us in, than keep other people out. It’s embarrassing to the Imperium when a Noble dies, particularly at the Citadel, but there’ll always be more of us. What’s really embarrassing is when one of us tries to flee. Assassinations can be blamed on the Meritocracy, or internal dissidents, but there’s no real way to spin the story of a Noble deciding they don’t want the fate they’ve been handed.


    Now, Niko and I aren’t planning on leaving permanently. But unscheduled trips aren’t allowed either, for obvious reasons. So really, we’ve got two problems. The first is to actually get off the moon, and the second is to prevent anybody from noticing we’re gone.


    In order to figure out how we’re gonna do that, I call an emergency session of the War Council. The others need to be looped in on this, even if they’re not coming along, because their participation will be vital to pulling this off.


    We meet in the evening, as early as possible, because ideally, we’ll be leaving tomorrow. The five-day window available for us to retrieve Niko’s Regalia is narrow, and I don’t intend to waste any of it. That puts us on a clock just for getting off Akademos, but much like with the simulations in Professor Brennan’s class, I do my best work when I’m being challenged.


    “Covering up the fact that you’re gone shouldn’t be too hard,” Sofie says, splaying her arms out as she lays on the carpeted floor of my apartment. She likes to make herself at home whenever she’s up here, which is fairly often. I’m stretched out on the couch, laying on my stomach with my feet in the air, kicking idly as I contemplate the problem at hand. “We’ll just pull the same trick we did when we were having our secret training sesh in the cave.”


    In other words, we’d use holo-projectors to have a member of our copyclan impersonate us while we’re off-world. Since the copies are, well, copies, they won’t behave strangely in a way that might alert anybody to the fact that they aren’t ;really’ us. Problem is, they’ll still only be holograms, meaning they won’t be able to so much as open a door on their own. That… might present a bit of a problem.


    “Maintaining that deception for a protracted period poses some issues,” Grant points out diplomatically. He’s sitting in one of my armchairs, a mug of hot tea in his hands. “Those of us remaining behind would have to keep close to the copies, in order to disguise their true nature.”


    “For sure,” Sofie responds. “Sandman can watch out for Izzy, and I’ll cover Nicky.”


    Standing in the corner with his arms folded, Sander says nothing. He doesn’t seem thrilled that I’ll be off-world for five days without his protection, but covering up two absences will be hard enough- adding in a third would be next to impossible. Besides, I’ll probably be in less danger once I leave the Citadel, since nobody outside of this room will know I’m gone, and all of the people who want me dead will be targeting me here, not on the other side of the Imperium.


    “Okay, fine,” Niko says, pacing back and forth around my living room. Impatient, he taps his fingernails against the counter of my little kitchen area, which I almost never actually use. “We’ve still got no idea how to actually get out of here.”


    If we didn’t care about not getting noticed or coming back, this would be a lot easier. There’s no shortage of people willing to risk incurring the wrath of the Imperium for a big payday, and if we offered enough money, they’d have no problem bringing down a ship to extract us. The issue is, that wouldn’t go unnoticed, and even if it did, there’s little chance we could get to where we need to go within the five day deadline. Plus, we don’t actually have the necessary resources- even if we had a way to convert the Gazelle Unit’s funds into proper currency, it wouldn’t be enough to hire anybody except the bottom-dollar of foolhardy smugglers.


    Using the teleportals is our best bet, if we can find a way to bypass the restrictions on the local network. And of course, there’s the issue of getting back, which could end up being even harder, because the access codes for the Citadel are tightly controlled, and change on a daily basis. But if we figure out a way to access them now, we could just have Sofie access them again when we’re ready to come back. Which brings us right back around to the main question- how are we gonna get that access in the first place?


    “If I’m not mistaken, the staff has their own teleportal hub,” Grant says, before raising the mug to his lips and taking a ginger sip of his still-steaming tea. “It should be less heavily-monitored than the one we all used to get here. For the most part, they don’t leave, but they’re not strictly forbidden from doing so like we are.”


    “So getting those codes should be a bit easier,” Sofie nods. “Huh. Good thinking.”


    “Thanks,” Grant replies with a wry smile, suggesting that he didn’t really need to be told it was a good thought.


    “Doesn’t actually get us any closer to leaving,” Niko says sharply. Clearly, the stress of this whole situation is getting to him, and it’s making him difficult to be around right now. Hopefully he’ll mellow out a little once we’ve left the moon, otherwise our little impromptu vacation is going to be unbearable. “Not like we can ask a professor or a member of the staff to give us the codes.”


    “Ehh, I dunno about that. We could bribe someone on staff… but then they’d have dirt on us, which I’d rather avoid. Sof, you don’t happen to have any blackmail on hand that we could use?”


    “Fresh out, sorry.”


    With a sigh, I roll onto my back and fold my hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling.


    “And there’s no professors you guys think would be willing to keep a secret like this?”


    Grant blows gently on the surface of his mug before replying.


    “None I’d trust without reservation. Though perhaps if we spun a story about needing to leave to visit a family member nearing retirement, or something of that nature, it might be an easier sell.”


    All four of us muse on that in silence for a few moments, before Niko draws breath to speak, his voice a little less tight than before.


    “There… might be somebody who’d do it. Not if we lied, she’d see right through that, but if I explained the real reason why we need to leave. You remember— I told you about Professor Kore, right?”


    “The Crane Unit’s advisor? Close with the Heir?”


    “Yeah. She teaches my Fireteam Tactics class. I don’t know if I could even put my finger on why, but I feel like I could trust her with this. Even if she refused to help, I don’t think she’s report us.”


    That’s not exactly the most concrete, or encouraging, sales pitch. But I trust Niko, and if he says we can trust this woman, I believe him.


    “Okay, so what’s the verdict?” I ask, sitting upright and facing the others. Niko stops pacing, and Sofie gets to her feet, before plopping down on the couch next to me. “We find someone gullible and tell a tall tale, or we put our faith in Niko’s teacher-crush and hope she doesn’t rat on us?”


    Honestly, I’m not sure what the punishment for trying to leave the Citadel would be. Maybe we’d just get a fine and have security tightened for a few weeks- or maybe we’d be sent to an early retirement. The latter seems unlikely, considering we’re not planning on fleeing forever, but I’d still rather not have to find out.


    “Teacher-crush,” Sofie says.


    “Sob story,” counters Grant.


    Niko and I share a look. There’s no tie to be broken here, but the final decision does ultimately fall to me, assuming the normal chain of command still applies.


    “We’ll go with Professor Kore,” I conclude. “Sof, see if you can find out where she lives- I wanna talk to her tonight. If she decides to rat us out and we’ve gotta kill her, it’ll be easier to do while it’s dark out.”


    <hr>


    The professors’ quarters at the Citadel are surprisingly lavish. A long avenue located some distance away from our dormitory building contains a row of mid-sized townhouses, most of which still have the lights on, even at this hour. A lot of professors have their families here, but according to Sofie, Professor Kore lives alone.


    Niko, Sander and I head to her home alone, leaving Grant and Sofie back at my apartment, ready to spring into action for crisis response if this goes badly. Despite my misgivings, I trust Niko’s instincts on this, and he seems quite confident that Kore won’t screw us over, even if he can’t exactly explain why he feels that way.


    The native trees of Akademos, with their iridescent purple leaves glittering in the light of another moon, line this street, making it feel more like a typical suburban neighborhood than it really is. Which makes our presence here, late at night, feel rather strange. Especially since we came prepared for violence.


    Obviously truekilling her is off the table- we lack the means for that, and it would be immoral to boot. But if need be, we can stun her, drug her, take her somewhere secluded, disable her suicide button, and ‘convince’ her to keep her mouth shut about our plans. Plus we could get the teleportal codes out of her in the process. Would that be immoral too? Assuredly. But less so than killing her permanently, which is the highest crime under Imperium law, for obvious reasons. All wounds heal with time, medicine, and judicious memory-editing to erase trauma. But ending a life irreversibly is beyond the pale.


    Naturally, I hope it doesn’t come to that. But hope doesn’t get you very far in this world, which is why Sander is carrying a bag full of some very unsavory equipment with him right now.


    “Okay, this should be her place,” Niko says, suddenly back to being nervous. Not that he’s exactly quaking in his boots. The casual observer would probably have no idea he was any less confident than usual, but I’ve gotten to know him well enough by now that I can tell he’s a bit intimidated by the prospect of showing up at his professor’s door unannounced like this. It’s in the slight hunch of his shoulders, the way his lips tighten as he speaks.


    Without saying anything, I sidestep him and walk straight up to the door, drawing my finger back dramatically before pressing it against the doorbell. Giving Niko a playful wink, I step back and let him take the lead again.


    About a minute later, the door swings open, and Professor Kore greets us. She’s a younger-looking woman, but with a more modest frame, the kind that tells me she’s not an old woman trying to recapture her lost youth with a new body. Our hair is a similar shade, but hers is long where mine is short, and straight where mine is curly. The outfit she’s wearing seems way too stylish for eveningwear, even if it’s just a pair of black tights and a tight purple shirt with an embroidered floral pattern.


    “Niko,” she says coolly. “This is a surprise.”


    “Evening, Professor,” he responds, clearly perturbed by the fact that she’s just pretending Sander and I aren’t here. “This is—”


    “I know who they are.”


    Kore cuts him off smoothly, and her gaze shifts from Niko to me. Meeting her eyes makes me shiver slightly, though I do my best to hide it.


    “A fine performance the other week. I’d offer you some pointers, but something tells me you’re not here just looking for advice.”


    As she speaks, her lips twitch like she’s suppressing laughter, though exactly what she finds funny about this situation escapes me.


    “Thanks. And yeah, you’re not wrong. But it’s Niko’s story, not mine.”


    Raising an eyebrow, she looks back to him, leaning slightly against the doorframe, her head cocked curiously.


    “In that case, you’d better come in.”


    Hip-length hair swaying behind her as she walks, Kore leads us into her home, and Sander closes the door behind him as he enters last. The minute it’s shut, I can see him scanning the area, looking for any hidden dangers, plotting an alternate exit route, trying to figure out where the obvious ambush points are. Sometimes I wonder if it’s exhausting for him to be thinking like that constantly. I do something similar when I look at battlefield maps and the like, but to have it happen automatically whenever I enter a new place would be overwhelming for me.


    Niko follows close behind his professor, Sander and I trailing him, to take seats in her drawing room. It’s well put-together, with wood paneling, a soft black and gold carpet, and a handful of neo-post-classical paintings on the walls. Still, something about the decor seems a little off, like it’s not really been lived in properly.


    All three of us sit down on the same couch, not much distance between us, while Kore lowers herself into an armchair, folding her legs and tenting her fingers.


    “Tell your story, then. And don’t worry about taking too long, I’m hardly eager to return to grading papers.”


    At that, Niko starts to speak. He tells her the same story that he told me, only a little more confident, and without breaking eye contact with her the entire time. I’ve heard the whole thing already, so I start out trying to study her reactions, hoping to gain some insight into whether she’ll be sympathetic to our cause or not. As it turns out, though, she’s not easy to read- her expression stays perfectly neutral the entire time, the only time she so much as moves is to nod along when Niko pauses to make sure she’s following. So instead, I watch him.


    Maybe it’s ridiculous, maybe I’m just going crazy because this is my first real romantic relationship, but I can’t help but envy the way he’s clearly under her spell. Even the minute details of how he speaks are clearly carefully chosen to impress her, with his diction and pronunciation more refined and formal than I’ve ever seen before. Most of the time, he puts on this aura of being the street-smart bad-boy type, which I’ll admit is half the reason I’m into him. But talking to her, he becomes an entirely different kind of person. And, as stupid as it might be, I wish I had that kind of effect on him.


    By the time he’s done talking, I’ve managed to rein in my own emotions, for the most part. She’s never laid a finger on him, and I’ve done significantly more than that, so the way he looks at her doesn’t matter. But still, I’m glad when he stops talking and waits for her to respond.


    “You’ve certainly found yourselves in a dilemma,” she says, with a smug look on her face that makes me irrationally upset. We’re putting a lot of trust in her, coming to her with this, and she can’t just give us a straight yes or no answer to the question Niko posed?


    “Yeah, no shit,” I shoot back, and Niko gives me a look that screams ‘shut up.’


    “Ordinarily,” she continues, as if I hadn’t spoken at all, “I’d ask if you had some proof of this whole auction business, so I could be confident that you weren’t spinning some story to get my teleportal access codes and flee the Citadel entirely. But that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you would do, does it, Niko?”


    He shakes his head obediently, and I get the sudden urge to shake him by his shoulders to try and break whatever trance he’s in. Even worse is the fact that she’s right- Niko wants more than almost anything to disprove his line’s reputation as untrustworthy. He’d never run away from this place, because in his mind, that would be validating every smug look or disapproving sigh he’s ever gotten when he’s told somebody what Noble line he’s from.


    “No, it’s you I’m concerned about,” she says, looking right at me. This time I don’t shiver. Instead, my blood boils, and I clench a fist, but she keeps talking, looking amused by my reaction. “After all, your line has a reputation for defection, does it not? And the Meritocracy must seem a more welcoming place than this, where Nobles of your line have met more mysterious ends than have graduated.”


    Again, the worst part is that she’s right. Any sane person in my position would be trying as hard as possible to get off this moon, and once they were off, they’d never look back. Unfortunately for me, I’ve got more ambition than common sense, so I’m willing to risk permanent death for a chance to achieve my ultimate goals. But telling that to somebody will make me sound like I’m insane, or like I’m a liar.


    “However,” Kore continues, smirking, “I’m going to trust you. Because I trust Niko, and if he says that you’re on the level, I believe him.”


    Niko breathes a sigh of relief, but I only get angrier. What keeps me from snapping and wiping that smug look off her face, consequences be damned, is Sander of all people, putting a hand on my shoulder. Sighing, I force the tension to drain from my body, and just nod, accepting her ‘gracious’ offer.


    “Thank you, Professor,” Niko says politely, not looking anywhere near me. She blinks twice, transferring the codes to him, and smiles.


    “The best time to access the portal hub will be about four in the morning, so I suggest you all get some rest before then.” Kore pauses, then chuckles. “Oh, and if you get the chance, do bring me back something nice from this collection you’ll be raiding. Nothing too extravagant, just something to properly demonstrate your gratitude.”


    “Of course, Professor.”


    Standing up, Niko heads for the door, and I follow right behind him, not giving the professor a second glance. Behind me, she laughs.


    “Have a good night, you three.”


    Once we’re outside, Niko turns to face me, looking annoyed. The light refracted through the purple leaves casts odd shadows on his face, his jagged metal horns drawing long streaks across his eyes.


    “What the fuck was that?”


    Casting my mind back, I try to find something concrete I can point to, that might justify my behavior. Predictably, I come up short, and sigh.


    “I have no idea. Let’s just do what she said and get some sleep.”