“Ivy, go to interrogation room 11.” Mara’s voice rings through the canteen the same moment I take my first bite of slop.

  Great. I’m not about to let that stop me from eating lunch though. I pick up my tray and try my best to choke it down along the way.

  The interrogation cells are connected to the prisons, just one floor above. I’m sure that’s so the sounds can be easily piped into the cells. Sorry Vince, for whatever you’re about to hear.

  I step inside just as I take the st bite of food. A man is strapped to his chair, with his hands forcefully spread on a metal table in front of him. His eyes, god his eyes, so young and full of fear.

  The man tries to plead, for me to let him out, to not do what we both know is coming next. It’s easier to not pay attention to his words. I’m certain they’ll repy in my nightmares anyway.

  A small ptop sits beside the door, a file already opened up. It doesn’t bother to expin why the man is here, only what answers Mara needs, and instructions to leave the body where it is when I’m done. A text to speech program also sits open, at least I won’t have to write out every question I have.

  “There are only two certainties here.” The man quiets down at the voice coming from the computer. “You will tell us what we want to know, and then you will die. All that you can decide is how much you want to suffer before then.”

  The man’s pleading redoubles, ciming there’s some mistake, that he’s not who we think he is, that he knows nothing. Even if all of that is true, it doesn’t change what Mara wants.

  “What is your name?” I type in, and the ptop belts out.

  “James!” A thousand capilries beneath his skin contract and a dozen tiny muscles in his face twitch at his desperate lie. I don’t even need my eye to tell me if he’s telling the truth or not, but of course it does anyway.

  Lying.

  I brush the hair out of my face, letting him take a long look at my eye.

  “You’re lying.” I type again. “You will not get a second chance.”

  “Really! That’s my name!”

  Lying.

  I pick up a hammer off the table. His fingers are spread out for a reason.

  A pounding knock on the door thankfully rips me out of my nightmare. I throw off my thin sheet, drenched in sweat, and throw on some pants and a jacket quickly. I don’t even bother fixing my hair before opening the door.

  My neighbor, Grace, stands on the other side. She’s one of the few people in the trench that I wouldn’t actively celebrate if they died.

  “I heard what sounded like banging, just wanted to make sure you were alright. Was it another nightmare?” She says.

  Ok. thanks. I even taught her a few signs. If she wants to treat me like a person, I at least want to be able to thank her for it.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” She tries to hand me a tablet we’ve used to communicate a few times.

  No. Job. Ok. I brush her off. The st thing I want to do is share stories with her. She’s in this gang by choice, doing horrible things comes with the territory. I’d like to continue to pretend she’s innocent for as long as I can.

  “Alright, you know where to find me if you change your mind.”

  I give a nod and close the door. I’m up earlier than I meant to, but that’s fine. I have a lot to prepare for today.

  I start with my hair, slowly transforming it from an unkempt mess to something that looks normal. That’s the key here, normal. I’m not doing anything fancy with it, no braids, nothing, just the same straight long hair I wear every day.

  My clothes are the same. I put on a fresh set of clothes I always wear at home, as clean as I can get them here.

  Next is my backpack, and I need a lot in there. I empty it out completely, even going so far as shaking it upside down at the camera in the corner, just to make sure Mara knows I’m not hiding anything. I do the same with everything I put back in, shaking out towels, opening and showing the contents of bottles. I’m not going to let her ruin this.

  I’ve made some money from gambling with the people here, but it’s hard to get paid when they know I can’t do anything if they don’t pay up. The little bit I did receive has gone almost entirely towards today, buying towels and cleaning supplies for me to take care of Vince. I even got my hands on a few sweets that I know he’ll appreciate.

  The backpack is full to bursting when I finally stuff inside everything I need. I scoop up the bag in one hand and hold it close to my chest. If I just put it on my back, I’d give myself maybe a 40% chance of not getting robbed. Any other day I’d be happy to let them try, I am allowed to fight in self defense. Not today though.

  I carry my rifle in my other hand. I’ve already seen more than a few people eyeing her, and I am not losing another part of me.

  It’s still too early for most people to be awake. My only company are strung out addicts, shivering in alleyways or wandering lifelessly along the barren streets. A small group are lying deep inside one of the many hidden crevices of the city, only one is still breathing. It’s a scene that feels far too familiar.

  I keep walking.

  The food here is as disgusting as ever, but I grab enough for two and head down for the prison. I’m an hour early, but Mara opens the entrance regardless. I sit down in front of Vince’s door and do my best to finish my breakfast.

  The door moves without a word exactly at the start of my twenty minutes. I’m on my feet before it even finishes opening.

  Vince looks worse than ever, but that doesn’t matter.

  “Ivy.” His relief weighs on me physically.

  I hold my finger up to shush him, no words need to be shared. I grab the small connection at the base of my skull and pull out a length of nearly invisible wire. There’s no point in hiding it from Mara, I gave up a lot to make sure his port remains functional.

  I sit down and pull him into my p, sliding the jack into the base of his skull.

  Our minds connect, flowing across the wire, entwining together. I open my mind, letting Vince slide inside, encompassing him fully. He’s safe, in a world free from pain, free from worry, free from reality.

  I negotiated for twenty minutes a week with him, but when we’re connected? Time stretches out, the world slowly ticking by. These twenty minutes will stretch out into close to a full day of peace.

  Vince’s mind wiggles, offering up an emotion to me. I gdly accept, experiencing his overwhelming relief.

  I offer a memory of my own, absolute proof that Blue, Cassie, and Corax survived. Proof they’re still fighting to get back to us.

  Pure happiness spreads through Vince’s mind, bouncing against my own, amplifying the emotion every time it passes between us.

  Emotional resonance is a serious danger when two humans meld. I do my best to control the emotion, trying to prevent it from overwhelming both of us.

  Vince can feel me dampening the emotion, stealing away a high better than any drug. It’s a dangerous thing to do. The natural response from a mind is to reject what I’m doing, to desperately hold onto the overwhelming pleasure. If he had anything less than complete trust in me, it would throw both our minds into disarray, desyncing the connection, and doing enough damage it wouldn’t be safe to reconnect today.

  It’s a good thing we trust each other absolutely.

  I get the emotional resonance under control, leaving it at an amplified level that may not technically be safe, but he deserves far more than I can give him.

  In the physical world I begin to clean. My movements are slow, fingers fighting to move through thick air. I ended up hurting myself the first time we did this, trying to move my muscles at a normal speed despite the time dition, instead of just riding out the slow movements. I’m not sure if there’s a single muscle in my body that I didn’t pull.

  I pass the memory to Vince, only to feel his entire mind shake with ughter.

  He passes back the memory of our second meld, where I did the exact same thing. I forgot about that, and send back my appreciation.

  A stray thought forms in my mind. I wonder if this is how Blue experiences life, stuck in a world that’s far too slow for her? I offer the question to Vince, who sends back his hope to the contrary.

  At least she has Cassie and Corax to keep her distracted, the both of them are more than a handful by themselves.

  I focus first on cleaning Vince, wiping away as much grime and filth as I can with a dry towel and then using the small amount of pure water I could get my hands on for a more thorough clean. Him touching me is getting my clothes dirty, but that’s fine. That’s just less crap he has to live with.

  Once he’s completely clean, I y down another clean bnket, shift him onto it, and fold it over him. Even when I stand up to start cleaning the rest of his small cell, I make sure not to disturb our connection.

  Vince passes his appreciation and relief, and I echo back my own, careful to not create another feedback loop.

  Our subjective twenty hours of rexation, twenty minutes in reality, pass by far too quickly. We pass memories back and forth, living in our past and making each other ugh. We’ve only been together for five years, but it feels so much longer.

  Vince doesn’t offer up the memories of his st week, and I don’t go poking for them. Simirly, I don’t offer my memories either. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and am not going to let him feel bad about it.

  The door opens, and it feels far too soon, but in reality is correct down to the millisecond. I move to disconnect myself from him, but offer a single more emotion to him.

  My love.

  He sends his in return, and I let it wash over the entirety of me.

  His mind retracts from mine just a moment before I disconnect us. The world speeds up, moving far too quickly. My body is heavy, clumsy, and I nearly fall on him.

  I find my footing, grab my backpack and towels, and step through the open door.

  Seven days. I sign to him through the closing door.

  “Seven days.” He repeats, and the door sms shut.

  Despite the impossibility, my mind still reaches out for him. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to ignore the growing pit in my stomach.

  “Report to medical.” Mara’s cruel voice echoes down the barren hallway.

  Fucking great.

  I grab my rifle and turn towards the door.

  It turns out the addicts that died in the alleyway had cybernetics I had to recover. I’m sure Mara loved watching me hack up a few corpses.

  I’m too exhausted to care about doing anything well, and when the cybernetics are free, I just leave the bloody steel on the table and leave. The final sight is a little too close to the cannibal’s basement in Denver for me to be comfortable with.

  I stumble back to my room and toss both my backpack and rifle to the side. I’m too exhausted to even clean the blood off my hands, it’s all I can do to drop my clothes into a small pile and fall into bed.

  My head hits the mattress, and in front of me lies a single syringe full of a familiar liquid.

  JanePtinum