That's not right. (Rhi, Sam)

[Anonymous]

Blue was bored.  He had thought, starting out, that it might be exciting or glamorous to be part of the Initiative.  Listening to those crazy radio broadcasts.  Scavenging for food.  Recruiting undiscovered psychics.  But mostly it was full of the kind of edgy fear that curdled into sour boredom in your stomach.  He couldn't go out much, since Rana and Ryon hadn't finished his psychic training.

He'd learned a lot, though.  Like, a lot.  He had started to learn how to make shields, to keep people out of his thoughts.  He could make things move when he wanted to, though he had not succeeded in exploding anything else.  Rana had explained that psychic ability, like strength, might be magnified by adrenaline in stressful situations.  

And Zero never let him use the terminal for entertainment shows.  Which Blue had to admit made sense, since the thing had been running on its last legs, making funny humming sounds, and, finally, last night, had shut down with a sputter and a shower of sparks.  Zero had gone out to pick up a new one, and left him here.  In the dank hole at the top of the Midhaven.  The other day he'd scrambled to hide while Rana had coolly shot down a creature that looked like a reptilian  buffalo covered in slime.

When he heard a noise at the entrance, Blue jerked upright, grabbing for one of the projectile guns they always kept near at hand.  He tried to scan psychically, but came up with slippery nothing.

"Relax, kidlet."  He heard a muffled grunt, and Zero's disheveled head of red hair poked into the shelter, swiveled, and withdraw.  Then the well-camouflaged door banged all the way open.  Zero emerged carrying an old terminal, sweat gathered over his mustache, puffing audibly, tripping over stacks of bedding and an empty can.  "Don't... help... or... anyth... nk."  He set the terminal down gently on the little makeshift table they'd cobbled together and straightened, groaning.  "Screwballs.  What I wouldn't give for that bastard's telekinesis."

Blue was unsure whether he referred to Ryon or Poet, both of whom could school him with the telekinetics any day.

"Sorry," he said instead, scrambling to his feet and dusting himself off.  "I woulda helped, but--"

Zero waved him off.  "Okiedoke," he muttered to himself, bending over the terminal.  "Let's--"

The little secure-channel telephone at his waist sent off a low hum.  "Shit."  Zero fumbled it open.  "Yeah?"

"Ryon here.  Is all well?"  Blue could hear it only faintly.

"Of course it is."

"We're just about there.  Bringing a friend.  Have you met Elian?"

Someone new.  Thank the Gods.  Blue was going to go crazy if the only people he saw for the next ... however long were Zero, Ryon, and Rana.  And that Poet guy.  Weirdo.

"Nope.  Hey, listen, I got us a new terminal, so I gots to set that thinger up."

"Righto.  Over and out."

Zero slapped the phone shut and shoved it back into its little holster, then bent over the terminal, screwing around with wires.  Blue sort of understood the procedure. He had been taught, however briefly, how to make a terminal untraceable.  At last Zero put away his multitool, grabbed for a wrapped piece of beef jerky, tore off the wrapper with his teeth, and set the half-open snack down beside the terminal.  He spat a bit of plastic wrapping to one side.

His thumb hovered over the power button.

"Three, two.... cheers, kidlet--"

"Uh?"  Blue blinked.

"--and we're in business."  Zero jabbed the button and the terminal buzzed on.  He reeled back, dusting his hands off theatrically, and smiled big.

[Anonymous]

Calliope had been watching the Network carefully since Alesku's contacts had planted the bugged Thanatos terminals.  He had been sitting at his desk, checking his messages, when he heard her intrusion.  She seemed unusually excited, which immediately made his heart rate speed up.  

"Alesku.  We are tracking some interesting activity."

"Where?"

An image flashed into his brain.  The city, drawn in the immensely complex lights and colors of the Network.  It was almost beyond his visual comprehension, but the section on which Calliope focused was not.  

His mental image telescoped in on a blank spot.  Beyond Haviah Lower City.  Now lit up with an outside link to the Network, a lone terminal.  

"One of their exits to the Undercity."

"Right."  Alesku nodded and frowned as Calliope sent some of the information they had intercepted from the terminal to his screen.  Thanatos Inc. fiscal transfer record?  Why would they--could they know about Neel's transport?  Why would they know, if his brother were not in fact guilty?  He had few options, Alesku realized suddenly, none of them good.  Traitors among the Pilots, possibly the upper echelons, or some further complication around his brother.  He shook his head and refocused on the problem at hand.  

"Forward this information to the other Seekers," he said tersely.  "And who's on patrol in the Lower City?  Who's closest?"  He could check the record himself, but it would take some time, and Calliope's access was immediate.

"Sulo and Tierney."

Alesku bit his lip.  Both had been tried in basic ground combat.  Tierney he thought quite capable, if a little personally overexuberant.  Sulo... had been a problem lately.  Alesku still blamed himself for letting him slip through.  There was little he could do about it now.  Anyway, they were what he had out there.  

"I'll tell their Dragons to send them to the D1007 location," Calliope said.

He gave her a mental flicker of agreement--unnecessary but reassuring--and then she slipped off to do as he'd asked.


[center:37lus663]****************[/center:37lus663]
--Somewhat earlier.--

Liv woke up with the nagging feeling he had forgotten something he ought to feel terrible about.  He'd also burned his hand in his sleep, which hadn't happened for awhile.  Fucker.  If only he could go and bang on Loki's door, he'd fix it up and--

Oh.  Right.  That was what he felt bad about.  And it wasn't the trace of a bad dream.  No.  No, Sulo, you have actually, royally fucked things up this time.  Fucked things up with Loki.  Fucked things up with Blaine, who'd told him in no uncertain terms what he thought of someone who did what Liv had done.  He still didn't see, immediately or on his own, exactly what had been wrong with what he'd done to Nika, but Blaine's point had been good, and made him ashamed of himself.  Nika was a Candidate.  He was a Pilot.  He'd abused his power.  He'd done something wantonly sadistic.  Sure, maybe Nika should never become a Pilot.  Maybe he ought to be TRIMed for fucking with Vaughan's mind the way he did.  Sociopathic bastard.  

Maybe he should be TRIMed?  What the fuck, Sulo.  What had he been thinking?

Liv sat up and rubbed the heels of his hands over his eyes viciously, ignoring the tender blister stretched across the skin of one palm.  He should've tried to talk to the kid.  No--Liv knew that wouldn't have done much good, he was broken in the head, fucked up beyond repair.  Still.  He shouldn't have listened to the little voice that said 'show him the side of the world that's about power, control, and pain.'  That little voice was fucked up.  Gods.  He shouldn't have done that, but it had felt good to both sides of him, the side that wanted to do the right thing and the side that wanted to hurt someone.  Until the side of himself that thought rationally about what the right thing actually was came up and made him feel sick as hell.

He thought about going to Connect, but... no.  He would avoid that.  It ate little pieces of his identity and spat him out with strange old memories clinging to him.  Falstaff was, Liv had come to realize, strange even among Dragons.  He didn't want to blame things on the Dragon, obviously.  He didn't want to blame anyone but himself.  Right.

"Indeed not, Sulo," Falstaff said, his intrusion sudden, "Now you see what I've had to cope with.  Bits of old Pilots.  It isn't like I really want bits of human in my brain."

"Yeah, well."

The Dragon sounded amused.  "It'll give you a little slice of immortality, boyo," he suggested, his mental voice a parody of Hasdrubal's, which was really very cute, thank you.

"Not now, thanks."  At least he could echo a little bit of Loki's cool composure in the brushoff.  Even if he didn't particularly want to think about Loki.

Liv got up, shaking off the Dragon, brushed his teeth, and changed, for the first time in awhile, into plain jeans and a black t-shirt.  Grimacing at himself in the mirror, he tied a dark bandana over his hair, tucking it out of the way.  Patrol duty today.  At least he would get out of the Citadel.  The CU18 unit had gone through a lull in the past few days, after the Libran code they'd cracked last week.  Rilke knew enough to give his cryptographers a bit of a break lest they burn out.  So Liv got to visit the Lower City.

Who was his partner today?  Obviously they wouldn't be stupid enough to give him Sabela again.  Gods, not Sabela.  The only more awkward option he could think of was Loki, but they wouldn't--

Bandana firmly fastened at the nape of his neck, he leaned down over his terminal and checked the assignment readout.

Pilot Echo Gabriel Tierney.

His stomach flipped over.  Before he'd really thought it over, he'd figured Gabe might actually be glad someone had done something to Nika.  But after days of consideration and that awkward... damn... talk with Blaine... he'd decided his clear-headed friend would not.  No.  This was going to suck.  

Well.  It was still just another day of Pilotry.  Business as usual.  Liv glanced at himself in the mirror, though he didn't linger as long as he usually did, straightened the collar of his shirt, and set off for the exit where they were to meet up.  On his way, he made sure the blasters in holsters at his waist were set to stun.  He arrived a little early, though in general Liv was not early, and grabbed a cup of coffee from one of the nearby machines.  He hovered in the corridor and juggled it nervously between his fingertips, stomach clenched too tightly to consume anything, and waited for Gabe.

The hell was he going to say to him?

Briefly, Liv entertained the even more frightening thought that Gabe might beg off patrol with him.  He certainly hadn't seemed to want to talk to Liv in the interim--not that Liv hadn't avoided his friends in turn.  No.  Stop.  Enough.  Ugh, this is not about you, Liv-o, for fuck's sake.  His mouth pulled down at the corners and his shoulders crept up toward his ears.  He ought to feel bad about Nika, fix things, but he couldn't figure out how, nor could he make himself want to.  He couldn't fix things anyway.

He had just turned to chuck the coffee, which had started to go cold, when he caught the glimpse of a familiar head of blond hair.  He opened his mouth to say hello, then shut it.

[Rhi-Rhi]

"Rise and shine, Gabeykins," came a deep and gravelly sing-song voice inside the Pilot's head--which just sounded bizarre and disturbing when it came from a dragon. Gabriel hugged his pillow tighter and nestled his face into it stubbornly. "Gaaabriel. It's time to work. You've already hit the alarm clock three times. Gabriel...GABRIEL!"

"Whaaaat?" It came out a muffled groan, him too tired to think about using his 'inside voice'. He switched over when when he spoke again and it came out a garbled mess. "Geez, thanks, I was having a good dream."

"Really? Too bad. You have patrol duty, remember? You're going to be late." No response. Siren gave a mental sigh. "Get up, get dressed, eat something. You need your energy today."

"You sound like my mom." Yawning, Gabriel rolled over onto his back, gave one big stretch, and draped an arm over his eyes. Eugh, sunlight. "How many minutes do I have?" he asked, wanting to see how long he could draw out his bed time and guesstimating how long it would take him to wolf down a small meal, shower, and dress in the shortest amount of time without being late. He was just patrolling the lower city for a few hours. Didn't have to look good or anything, and damned if he hadn't stayed up way too late level-grinding on WoW...

"Twenty minutes."

"Wake me in ten...I can make it."

It was at that moment that every light, radio, and TV in his apartment switched on and roared to life, and Gabriel bolted upright with a startled yelp and flailed blindly until he managed to hit the off button on his bedside radio, which was blasting death metal. "Holy SHIT, Siren! Alright, alright! Just joshin'! I'm up!" he said, squinting as his eyes adjusted. Then with a sigh he rolled out of bed and hurried through his morning rituals--starting with turning off everything Siren had turned on.

It didn't take long to get ready, and he rushed out the door with an apple and a half-eaten protein bar, hair still damp and dressed in old street clothes--the ones he reserved for patrols, the ones he didn't care about destroying. He'd never believed in going on patrols in uniform where the whole point was blending in.

Or mostly blending in. The holster-and-gun at his hip kind of killed it.

"So who's my partner this time?" he asked as he climbed in the elevator and braced himself as it started down. He prayed it was someone he could stand. Just because he'd take a bullet for his partner, whoever it was, didn't mean he had to like them or want to work with them.

"Livos Sulo."

...Oh crap.

The bell chimed and the elevator doors slid open. Gabriel shoved the last bite of protein bar in his mouth and dropped the wrapper in a trash bin as he passed it. Liv...oh jeez...

When he had first heard the news about the Nika kid, he hadn't really been happy. He didn't like Nika, not for what he'd done to Vaughan and what he continued to do--but that didn't mean he thought he deserved it, and sure he'd entertained the thought of punching him in the face...but that was different from smashing someone's head until their eye popped out and their skull crunched. One was controlled anger, the other was sick violence, violence that could kill--and then it was even worse when he actually met Nika.

He'd pictured another Raley, but that kid was no Raley. He'd seen inside his head, and he hadn't done what he had out of cruelty or sadism. It didn't make it right, but in his case he really didn't understand. He didn't have the capacity to.

He wasn't right in the head--and he shouldn't have wound up in the system.

It wasn't fair to anyone. He was a victim, too.

And what Liv had done...

Gabriel took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and kept walking. Act like nothing happened? Act like it had? It wasn't like Gabriel was innocent--he'd done some horrible things in the name of Aedolis, but it hadn't been gratuitous. Had it? He did what he had to do. That was it...right? But this hadn't had a lesson or a reason behind it.

Was he being hypocritical judging Liv?

Ugh, just don't think about it. Act natural. Act normal. Act--

He came around a corner and into the designated meeting area and his eyes landed on Liv, who was looking at him, and he nearly stopped dead before he remembered he was supposed to be acting natural. As a result he missed a step and stumbled, but he recovered fast and flashed an awkward grin. Hopefully Liv would register it as a "whoops, clumsy!" grin and not a "oh snap it's you" grin.

"Oh, uh...hey." So much for acting natural. "Heh...so, looks like we're partners, huh?"

[Anonymous]

Liv wasn't psychologically astute, but he'd always been sensitive.  Subconsciously, he sensed the unease caught in the angles of Gabe's face and body.  It made him feel twitchy and uncertain and angry.  And sad.  

"Yeah," he said, tossing his untouched coffee into the nearby trash bin; it landed cleanly, with a thump.  Liv turned back to Gabe and scratched at the skin on one forearm, then hooked his thumbs over his belt, a nonchalant pose that didn't reflect at all how he felt.  He didn't want to be here, he didn't want to be here.  "I guess all the other violent sociopaths were busy."

[Rhi-Rhi]

Alright, so he failed the whole 'act natural' thing. Damn, he never had learned how to not wear his emotions, and it didn't make it any easier to 'act natural' when the other person wasn't trying to. Seriously, who said that?

...Well, Pilots. But he said it so casually. This was the guy that smashed a kid's head in the door until his eye came out, for no good reason. And now he got to work with him today and trust him to watch his back.

Agh, that's horrible... Gabriel took a bite of the apple to buy himself some time and keep himself from wincing. He couldn't believe he thought that--that he'd doubted him. This was Liv for gods' sakes.

He had to have a good reason...right?

Gabriel swallowed the apple bite, but even stalling hadn't let him think up anything better. "You shouldn't joke like that..." he said. "It's not funny."

[Anonymous]

Liv wasn't sure what response he'd expected, but he wilted a little at the one he'd gotten, shoulders caving in.  It was Gabe.  Weren't most things funny to Gabe?  Apparently not face-smashing.  Apparently not the idea that Liv was violently unhinged.  

Whatever, Liv thought it was sort of funny.  Right?  No, actually.  He ground his teeth together to keep them from chattering--gods knew why they wanted to do that--and turned to start walking, lifting one shoulder in a shrug.  He didn't want to look at the other Pilot, whose eyes, over the apple he'd begun munching, seemed to reflect far too much sane judgment.  

He stopped after a few steps and turned back.  "Yeah, that was in poor taste," he agreed, but he couldn't help going on.  "Next time I smash someone's face I'll think of a better joke."  

Liv twisted his mouth, forcing himself out of this insanely stupid downward spiral.  This was not the time for jokes.  Maybe he should try honesty.  Maybe he should try explanation.  He did have an explanation, didn't he?  

"--Fuck, Gabe, what do you want me to say?" he said finally, staring down at the floor.  It reflected his wobbly frown back up at him.  "You know what he did, right?  Not that it matters, I know I shouldn't have... fuck.  I didn't--I can say I didn't mean to take it that far, but... fuck excuses, right, I..."  

Right, honesty.  "I don't.  Know."

[Rhi-Rhi]

Silently chewing on his apple, Gabriel followed after Liv and listened as he just dug his hole deeper, and with each awkward word Gabriel could feel a strange sort of anger building in his chest, tightening it. He swallowed another bite of apple, focused on chewing. Just keep your mouth shut. This is four hours you gotta spend together, don't make things awkward before the job...

That's what he told himself even though it was too late to avoid awkward.

Didn't stop him from finally snapping.

"What he did?" Gabriel blurted, walking faster to catch up and pull even with Liv. "What Nika did? To Vaughan?" He laughed, bitterly. He couldn't even fake it anymore, wasn't gonna try. "Oh geez, look man, when I found out what happened, I wanted to beat the bloody shit out him, okay? But I didn't. Thought about it, but didn't. Why? Because the same shit happens everyday to every other candidate!" He tossed the half-eaten apple away as they passed another trash bin, then skirted around Liv and stopped in front of him, forcing him to stop too unless he decided to slip by.

"What about them, huh? Why aren't you hunting down them, too, if it's that much about 'what he did'? I mean...shit, just...just stop, alright? Stop. It's only different with them because we know them--do you even know Vaughan? And Nika! Nika's fucked in the head and as much a victim as any candidate. He's mental! He's not right. So you bash his head in?" He shook his head. "You're not doing either of them any favors."

[Anonymous]

He was angry.  Even as he felt his chest clench tight he realized that wasn't the proper response, and then he realized that it wasn't really anger, either.  He'd come to a stop only a half-step from Gabe, fingers fluttering in and out of his pockets.  From here he could smell the other Pilot, and it made him feel... it made him realize how much distance there was between them.  It made him feel lonely and incredibly fucked up.  

Loneliness, boyo, it'll get ya every time.  Everything you do, just for the one reason.  Weak.  

He took a deep breath and tried not to respond out of weakness.  Because.  It would be so much more fucked up to try to play Gabe to get some affection or sympathy.  This was about Vaughan, this was about Nika.  He wanted to spit; his mouth tasted foul.  Why had he picked Nika?  

"Fuuck," he said.  It came out a groan.  He swayed back from Gabe a little, getting up the courage to look him in the eye.  At last he raised his chin.  

"Because I was scared of him, okay?  You say he's 'mental' or 'not right' but that's you, that's what you see, some broken kid.  I've seen people like that before, people who think they can do whatever--anything to other people just for fun--it's not okay.  So I dealt with it the way he--the way I thought was best, okay?  And yeah, I'm fucked up too.  And I've realized that was wrong, okay, but not because he didn't deserve it.  We all fucking deserve it.  But part of me fucking enjoyed it and that was fucking sick.  And I won't do it again because it means I'm just as fucking bad and what the fuck am I supposed to do about that--okay?"

He was shouting, but he wasn't angry.  He felt sick and he was breathing fast.  His hands were doubled into painful fists in his pockets and he leaned away from Gabe, back tense.