The sun had set hours ago by the time Adam returned to the apartment after his nightly energy-release session by the sea. The first thing he did was head to the bathroom to take off the charred bandages wrapped around the index finger of his left hand. He cleaned his finger, adjusted the splint holding it in place, and rewrapped it with fresh bandages. It didn’t hurt to move it anymore, only a slight discomfort remained.

  He pulled off his shirt in front of the mirror, revealing the bruise spreading across his ribs.

  “See what happens when you try to please everyone, little Adam?” he muttered to himself.

  “I’ll do it for Juzo,” he’d promised Vicky when he agreed to the training she’d suggested.

  They’d tried earlier that week, heading out to a desert plain on the city’s outskirts where he could use his powers without fear of being seen—or of accidentally setting trees on fire.

  It had all come to a halt that very day when, while practicing his flight, he lost control and crashed to the ground from several feet up, hitting his side and dislocating his finger. A small price to pay for a fall that could’ve been a lot worse.

  He hadn’t broken his promise but had put it on hold. He’d do it for Juzo—just not yet.

  Entering the bedroom he’d chosen to sleep in during his stay, Adam flopped onto the bed without bothering to take off his pants or shoes—yet another sign this place didn’t feel like home.

  It was the third night staring up at that ceiling, and it still felt unfamiliar.

  His phone buzzed. A message from someone named Grace. Who the hell was Grace?

  I heard what happened to your loft. How horrible! My friend Tiffany says that…

  Ah, Grace. He remembered now—the girl he’d woken up next to that Friday morning. He didn’t even finish reading the message.

  That’s when he noticed his inbox was full of unread texts, all from the last few days. When had so many come in? How had he missed them? Five from the Mint and Strawberry sisters. One from a ‘Carol.’ Two more from Grace, and even one from her friend Tiffany. Two from the B-Crush guys. One from Rubén Blue. Three from his assistant, Rita Okinawa.

  None from Trevor.

  He thought about replying to Rita—the only one who truly deserved his attention—but decided to put it off. There were more pressing matters to attend to with his phone, like looking up news about recent strange phenomena in the city, something he’d been doing every night.

  He dreaded finding footage of the fire at his loft, taken by some neighbor, showing him flying out with Vicky in his arms. He feared there might be recordings of him firing bursts of flame into the sea or the pond in the reserve. He always took precautions before starting his routine, but what if someone had managed to evade his notice?

  For now, he found nothing online that could expose him—just a few shaky videos taken from an avenue where a car accident had occurred. The clips showed blurry silhouettes flying through the night sky. Luckily, none of the footage was sharp enough to identify those figures. But Adam knew who they were: Juzo and him, fleeing the A60 that Friday before being ambushed at Liberty Park.

  The real surprise was not finding any security camera footage from the avenue where he’d stopped the car that night when the A60 appeared. Strange street events usually leaked all the time—how was there no video of him and Juzo blasting into the sky with their thrusters to escape the android?

  Then, Trevor’s words came back to him: something about avoiding international issues with the Markabian authorities.

  Adam pulled out his phone and typed:

  

  The security cameras on 15th Avenue. Was that you?

  After a while, Trevor replied:

  

  Yes.

  Adam answered back:

  

  Thanks. I owe you big time.

  With a mix of gratitude, shame, and pain over Trevor’s actions—those that helped him and those that widened the gap between them—Adam set the phone aside, grabbed the TV remote, and turned on an action movie at random. He watched for a while, but the weight of exhaustion pulled his eyelids shut, and he fell into a deep sleep.

  Nothingness.

  Until it felt like needles stabbing into his eyes: someone had opened the window, flooding the room with sunlight.

  “Rise and shine!” Vicky chirped, gripping the cord of the blinds.

  Her. Again.

  Vicky had arrived from another continent—not by plane or boat like a normal person. She couldn’t. Her fugitive status didn’t allow for such luxury. She had to use the Auriga, the very ones she’d stolen from Simon that night in the alley.

  Crossing from her country to this one wasn’t pleasant and could even cause serious strain on her heart. But she did it for the promise she’d made to Juzo. She’d vowed to look after Adam, though it was clear he wasn’t too eager to help her keep that promise.

  What Adam didn’t know was that staying too long in Proxima could have dire consequences for her. Beyond her enemies, there were other threats to watch out for—or, as Adam had put it, ‘other vultures circling nearby.’

  But her promise outweighed any vulture or the electric whiplashes she endured crossing through the Kappa Points in space-time. She was determined to be the thorn in Adam’s side until he learned to control his powers.

  Her ‘student,’ however, had indefinitely postponed their training after the mishap during his flight practice.

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  Vicky hadn’t stopped pestering him and, for some reason, held onto the illusion that this time things would be different—that Adam would agree to resume their exercises. ‘Hope with longing, and you’ll find only mirages,’ her father used to say. And when her father was right, her father was right.

  When she walked into the room—olive-green tactical backpack on her back—and found Adam sprawled out on the bed, TV screen still on, looking like a college kid who’d partied so hard he didn’t even have time to take off his clothes before crashing, she realized she had survived countless dangerous experiences, risking her life, only to end up as the nanny of a stubborn kid.

  She took a step, and something crunched under her foot: the card from a holographic magazine. She nudged it with her boot, and it activated. The cover image projected in front of her, and she recognized it—she had seen it before. She picked it up; it was the latest issue of Loud. There was Adam, half-naked, younger, posing on the cover. ‘The Best Models of the Decade,’ the magazine proclaimed.

  Vicky took a deep breath and dropped it back on the floor.

  How foolish she’d been to think Adam would abandon his lifestyle so easily. Some people tripped over the same stone again and again until the day they died.

  ‘Hope with longing, and you’ll find only mirages.’

  Why did Adam’s behavior still surprise her? Had she really expected him to be as intense and dedicated to a cause as Juzo had been?

  Vicky glanced at the holo-magazine on the floor, then at Adam. What was sprawled on that bed wasn’t anything more than a product of his environment—just as she was a product of hers.

  Maybe Adam wasn’t the only one in that room tripping over the same stone.

  Still, Juzo had died so his brother could inherit some kind of supernatural power. And instead of honoring the fallen, that brother was letting the days slip by—sleeping, wandering around like a sleepwalker. No real effort to train, just burning off his extra energy now and then, wasting the time his brother had bought for him with blood.

  Enough was enough.

  She dropped her backpack on the floor, grabbed the cord for the blinds, and pulled them open. Morning light flooded the room.

  Groggy, Adam shielded his eyes with his hand.

  “You again,” he muttered. “I thought Continental was a universal language, even for Markabians.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” she shot back.

  “Well, if you speak Continental, how come you didn’t understand the ‘leave me alone’ I told you yesterday?”

  “That was the day before yesterday.”

  “Yeah, whatever…”

  Adam sat up on the bed, his hair sticking up as if he’d yanked at it in his sleep. He glanced at Vicky, standing there with her arms crossed like a disapproving warden scolding a troublesome inmate. His gaze drifted to her outfit: beige shirt, blue pants… and the black boots.

  “Well, at least you traded black for beige.”

  On the floor, next to her, was an olive-green tactical backpack with a metal tag pinned to the center. ‘Lieutenant Alioth,’ read the engraving on the small plaque.

  “I see you’re still stealing property from your government,” he remarked. “What’s in there? A black shirt, just in case?”

  Vicky opened the bag and revealed one of those small chrome rectangles—a foldable jetpack.

  “Hah, so you really are still stealing property from your government!”

  “It’s for training your flight,” she replied.

  Adam slouched, holding up his bandaged finger. “We’ll do it when I can move this without it hurting. Deal?”

  She said nothing.

  Adam grabbed his phone: ten in the morning. He’d slept almost twelve hours straight. Great. He rubbed his face, trying to wake up, and stepped into the bathroom attached to the bedroom. She started to follow, but he waved her off. Vicky stepped aside, and he slammed the door shut.

  Her hands clenched into fists, her lips tightening as she swallowed a stream of insults.

  The door opened again. Adam, now in boxers, retrieved a change of clothes from the closet and returned to the bathroom.

  “You know where the door is,” he said over his shoulder before slamming it shut again.

  “I’m not leaving until we start training, Adam.”

  “Fine, then I’ll leave.”

  “And where exactly are you planning to go?”

  “Someplace you’re not.”

  Vicky paced outside the bathroom, her ears picking up the sound of running water and the thick foam of soap and shampoo washing down the drain. Her eyes landed on the Loud magazine on the floor again, still projecting its holographic cover. She kicked it aside.

  I’ll bring out the best in you, you jerk—even if it means sticking to you like glue day and night, she thought. We’ll see how happy you are with me as your new roommate.

  She took a deep breath, her voice calm now.

  “By the way,” she called out, loud enough for him to hear, “the wound on my shoulder is healing thanks to some pills I got in Markabia. If you want, I could—”

  “Are you still here?” Adam barked.

  “I was thinking of sharing them for your finger, but you can go to hell,” she snapped back.

  Adam said something, but she didn’t catch it.

  “What?”

  “I said I can’t hear you!” he yelled.

  After a while, the bathroom door opened, releasing a cloud of steam. Adam emerged barefoot, shirtless, but wearing pants.

  “Wow, you actually got dressed behind a closed door,” she noted. “Didn’t think you were the modest type.”

  “I need you to leave, Vicky, okay? Please… I need to be alone.”

  “Sorry, but I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure you can defend yourself.”

  “Defend myself? What are you even talking about? I’m the one who took down Simon, remember? I know how to fire my Fotias, Vicky. I don’t need you.”

  “Adam, listen. Just because you can drive a car doesn’t make you a rally driver, and driving a truck doesn’t make you a professional trucker.”

  “See, Vicky? That’s exactly what you don’t get. I never claimed to be the rally driver or trucker you’re talking about—that’s an idea you’ve cooked up all on your own.”

  “It’s not an idea, Adam. We’re talking about your safety—your life! The life you still have thanks to Juzo’s sacrifice!”

  “And you think this is easy for me?” Adam snapped, storming out onto the balcony. He took a breath, his eyes scanning the wall of skyscrapers around them before stepping back inside. “You can’t expect me to come to terms with all these changes overnight.”

  “Come to terms with these changes?” she shot back. “You make it sound like you switched jobs or changed your wardrobe. In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t something you can take back for a refund.”

  “Vicky, your analogies suck, you know that? Of course there are no returns here! I’m reminded of that every time I shave or look in the mirror, in case I ever forget. I know I’m way past the point of no return—that with every passing second, I’m drifting further and further from shore. That doesn’t mean I have to accept your presence. And you know whose presence I definitely don’t have to accept? Juzo’s! Juzo, who’s in here, inside my head, like some pesky chip I can’t take out. I didn’t ask for you two to show up here and tell me about the plans of a bunch of lunatics—or to bring a damn android right to my front door. Hell, I almost died!”

  “You selfish bastard!” she yelled, eyes glassy with tears. “Almost died, you say?! Well, someone did die!”

  “I know!” he shouted back, his eyes just as red as hers. “You don’t have to remind me!”

  “Then stop acting like the goddamn drama queen, Adam, and realize this isn’t just about you! You’ve got immense power now, and guys like Simon aren’t gonna stop knocking on your damn door just because you decided to lock yourself in your room with the music blasting, playing your best impression of a doomed teenager!”

  Vicky let out a sharp huff, signaling the end of the argument.

  The plan was to shake him, dear—not let him shake you, she told herself as she stepped out onto the balcony, seeking calm. The air out there was cool and gentle—just what they both needed.

  “A pesky chip you can’t take out of your head…” she repeated his line, calmer now, and a soft smile cracked her expression. “I’ll admit, that was a good analogy.”

  “Way better than yours,” Adam muttered. “A trucker? Seriously?”

  He joined her, leaning on the railing and taking a deep breath, his tone more at peace.

  “Look, Vicky,” he said, his voice softer now. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me—coming to protect me, keeping the promise you made to my brother with such devotion. But from now on, I’m releasing you from that burden. You can go home and rest easy.”

  Vicky shook her head. “Sorry, dear. Frequent use of the Auriga isn’t exactly heart-friendly, so you’d better get used to setting two places at the table—because I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”