On Mondays, she started with shoutouts. To places she’d visited, things she’d tried. To whoever was sponsoring the video or posts that week. To exceptionally nice followers; those were always slim pickings.

That was how Mondays went, before she killed herself.

Hazel paced up and down the cramped alley, kicking a bottle someone had left behind the night before. Or a night before that. There was still a bit of rancid brown residue in it.

Why had she started doing shoutouts? They probably spawned out of one of the billions of useless little one-liners the psychologists had fed her over the years. Or maybe it was Saph, when she was talking about listicles and journaling. Digging up good things to center the mind around.

Hazel withdrew deeper into the alley as a street cleaner carted by, and felt stupid. Why the guilt? She was only here for the shade. The weather had been disgusting the whole month. Admittedly, the days after she’d woken up in the morgue (or rather, when Fin pulled open the little door over her head) she hadn’t felt it as much. Call it a new outlook, or a side effect of a drug - whatever. That numbness had been temporary and today she was sweating like a pig.

The alley was a little slimy. She couldn’t see what the slippery substance was. The crevice was dark, but wallowing in the dark and dank was better than frying in the sun. Come to think, the slimy stuff was probably just shade-seeking mold.

Feeling moldy, she peered out of the alley. The South Bank in the evening was the hottest place to be, people roaming up and down the sloping hills, packed into buildings full of restaurants and bars and unlabeled massage parlors. Ten-to-twenty storeys high; a hive of bodies. But in the morning it was a ghost town. Just a sour smell and jingles from storefronts nobody was around to look at. Offices and colleges opened back up and sucked away all life.

She actually liked the ghost town better.

She scratched her shaved head and checked the time, looked up to where the Rock Pool’s red backlit logo was glowing like magma, dim under the sun, but defiant.

She slid back into the alley.

She wasn’t scared to go up on her own, she was just being polite and waiting. Nobody could say, after the events of the past two weeks, that she had no self-restraint. She’d stopped herself from breaking out the big reveal so many times now; just making a post all on her own. So many times she thought the others had just let her down and she should just get on with it, by herself. But she’d resisted, and good thing too.

She wasn’t sure what she’d say once she stepped into that freaky little indoor golf course and faced off with that leering bartender who might or might not be a good person (Fin seemed sure; not that he was a great judge of character). But nobody could claim she never planned ahead.

And of course with how the plan played out, they also couldn’t claim she was a wimp.

Someone was coming up the bumpy stone path. Hazel poked her head out of the alley again and squinted against the sun.

“Fin,” she said. “You finally showed up.”

“Thank you for waiting.” He sounded tired in his weird way. Not breathless because he was old or the weather was hot or the walk was steep. A tired-of-living way.

She gave him a head-to-toe inspection. “What happened to you?”

He looked at himself, anxiously. “Did you want to keep the sweatshirt? Sorry, I know who has it, I can get it back-”

“Forget it. It wasn’t even mine, remember?”

Someone had cleaned him up. Both of the huge blisters that had been growing on his neck and face had burst, or been cut open and deflated, and the swelling all over his body had gone down. Then someone had sewn the loose skin together, neatly too. And there was the new, kind of pretentious button-down shirt (one button misaligned) and office-guy pants (a little baggy on him). Was the wardrobe Jasmine or Orchid, maybe? Maya had never wanted to look at, let alone touch him.

He looked almost too normal to be trusted. But close up you could see his face was mangled and sad, which was enough for her.

“I was held up by the doctor. No, I, um, was holding up the doctor. I had some questions…”

Spineless doctor, to be held up by Fin. “Was he the one who gave you those pants?”

Really spineless, because Fin said yes and claimed he’d managed to make the doctor release him, which was to say supply him with his disguise and escort him out the fire escape.

He was so damn embarrassing. And yet, she was relieved that he’d come. Not because he’d be worth much as backup if the crazy suicide helper (guide, was it?) decided to flip on them. The presence of a friend beefed up her determination. Someone was watching her, someone who couldn’t handle themselves if she were not here. Like he was a kid who she needed to impress; no room for failure. She’d fight and fight to keep up appearances if nothing else. Accountability, Sapphire always said, was key.

It used to be like that with Wen, before he decided he wanted to be more like dad and went rotten. Hazel wanted to laugh. Fin taking the place of her brother - her little brother, too - while Fin was in his sixties. Or was it fifties? She had Jasmine theorized like a couple of crackheads but Fin never said how old he really was. Hazel had been looking closely at old and middle-aged people lately, even chatting with a few since her ‘escape’, trying to weasel out generational telltales. Those that had heard of Neocam weren’t too old. Otherwise, knowing their favorite movies or singers could filter them out. Fin seemed completely devoid of media tastes, though.

“Before we talk to him, Hazel, I need to warn you,” Fin was saying.

Fin had an endless supply of worries. Let him start venting and they’d be here until the sun burnt them to a crisp. He was trying to back down and take her down with him. Hazel grinned at him

“Tell me in the elevator.” She hit the button so he couldn’t get away. “And make it quick.” Even though it would only tongue-tie him more, she also added, “Glad you got all dolled up for this.”

—

[ Posted 12 Aug | 101k likes | 19k boosts | share | report ]

I know all of you are eager to scroll on past and find someone who will tell you you’re doing just great. You’re beautiful just the way you are; tell it like it is and don’t let anyone control you, honey! Well if you’re listening now, I’m here to tell you the way it really is: they’re all lying to you.

They want you to shut up. They don’t want to hear what’s wrong with them. They just don’t want to hear you complain. Nobody cares.

If you can’t understand this, well, you’ve got a good life. And you really don’t have anything to be sad about - so quit looking for sympathy, huh? Leave at least the shitty lies to those who deserve some comfort.

What are you still doing here? What am I still doing here? I ask myself that last one all the time. Well, not anymore.

I’ve done everything I can. I’m all used up.

Here - a toast to that. Bottoms up.

—

They weren’t sure what to make of her.

She had a slight frame, and looked especially so with her oversize large shirt tented over leggings, her steel wool-texture hair shorn down a fine bristle. Everything she did seemed to be through tight, jerky motions as if she couldn’t stand being in an in-between state. There was a volatility, and a sense she’d mow you down in an instant to get her next refuge. Sao could see why the rest of the group revered and feared her.

“I’m here to ask your help,” Hazel said gravely. “I’m alone.”

Hazel’s dark-rimmed eyes (dark even without liner) regarded them as if they were a pair of traffic lights. One flicker and she’d let loose.

“I need to know if you can protect Fin. And others, if you have to.”

And Rai seemed happy to wave her on. “Thanks for coming by personally, but I’m suspended. Taken off the case. If I try to push more cops around, they’ll throw me in a cell.”

She balled her hands into fists and stood up from the bench. “You can’t help then? Fine, I thought so.”

Sao brought them a tray of tea. When he’d asked her ‘tea or coffee’, that had been her choice. He was happy they had that in common.

“I hate black tea,” she said as soon as she saw him.

“I don’t think you want police protection anyway,” Rai interrupted. “They’ll detain you for monitoring. You’re not really turning yourself in, and there’s no way you expected me to be able to give VIP treatment - so what were you planning? Is this related to the reveal?”

“The what?”

“The reveal. Telling the public you’re alive, and about the drug. And Fin, I guess.”

“If you’re not going to help, you don’t need to know. I can tell when someone can’t keep secrets.” She turned to Sao. “People like you just tattle. Oh, you think you’re helping. You think ‘getting it all out’ will cure everything. It’s that or you want me to fuck up, and tell me how stupid I was. My family’s the same. They call the cops on me for the tiniest little bit of noise or resistance, and then make me crawl back so they can do it again. I try to get help on my own and they laugh and say they can screw it up, get me locked up, whenever they want.”

“We talked to them,” Rai said.

“I can’t get better, I can’t finish the work I manage to find, what can I do? Sometimes suffering in silence is the only way.”

“Not the only or right way. But it becomes a ‘likely’ way.” Rai folded forward in his chair. “Because it’s hard to attain the perfect conditions required to find a better road.”

“You’re so close to getting it. It’s not about toughing it out. After 60 therapists, I can tell. The chance of threading the needle, hitting that exact combination you need to get better, it’s practically zero. It’s not worth considering; you’ll die wasting your time.”

“It was 78 for me. Though I’m a little older than you, if I remember.”

Hazel puffed her chest up a little as Sao felt his own clench. “That’s kind of impressive,” Hazel said. “You must have some real problems. I’m surprised they let you work with the police.”

“I’m not much of a cop. I get paper- and legwork but no gun, no arrests. I have to call the real cops for those. Which is why I can’t be your personal security.”

Hazel had him in a beseeching stare, mouthing something that wasn’t meant to be heard but certainly made her look enthralled. Sao hoped it wasn’t that therapist bodycount. Rai really had a way with these girls.

He reminded himself that this fact troubled Rai as much as it did himself.

“How much did you hurt yourself, to get forced back to shrink so many times?” Hazel asked.

“I don’t have anything to show for it; take that as you will.”

Hazel turned her arms up as if in surrender. There were the white lines rimmed in sore red, crossing each other like scattered toothpicks on - or inside - the skin. “I was caught between the family and everyone else. That’s the trouble with being online. Everyone thinks they’re an expert and there’s no way you can really shut them up. Once you bend to them on things like ‘be grateful’ or ‘think of others who have it worse’ or ‘get therapy’, it becomes ‘you must be doing it wrong’. If you can’t be happy, at least just shut up and fake it. Then they can rip at you for being fake.” She turned her arms back down. “‘Stop whining and do something. Stop pretending you have problems.’ Leaving the marks was more for me to see that there was physical proof I was listening. Keep track of every time I chose to nick myself and not punch them in the nose instead, you know? I think some people mistook the scratches for just plain ‘getting upset’. Well if they hadn’t kept insisting...”

A monstrous they.

“And I hadn’t kept on listening… maybe I’d have fewer problems. Of course, when I was cutting, I wasn’t trying to die of it. That took a lot more pushing. Talk about luck. If Saph hadn’t died and I hadn’t had a bad enough day to want to pick up Fin, and then wanted to die myself, I wouldn’t have been saved. I wouldn’t have found a reason to get back up.”

“Things started with Sapphire, then?”

“She was an inspiration. I’ll give her credit when the time comes. It wasn’t just that she took her own life, though, I wouldn’t encourage people to do that for no reason...”

“Were you really moved by her words and her jump, or was it the fact that her last post got double the normal views and somehow pulled over a thousand new followers?”

Hazel looked flatly at Rai, and let out a curt little laugh. “Of course I saw the numbers. Neocam was basically my life. Isn’t it crazy that a person can make themself into a saint? Once you die, that’s the proof of all your woes. Sure you get some people calling you selfish, but those people care more about looks than anything. It looks better - it’s easy - to say a person is right and good when they’re dead, because they’re not going to get back up and prove you wrong. Not usually. But being impressed at numbers doesn’t make me crazy. I wanted the views, but I didn’t want to die for them. What’s the point if I don’t get to see the number go up?”

“If you survived the attempt, you would get to see it,” Rai said.

They looked out the window. It was an eerily cloudless day and while the temperature was high, it wasn’t hellish. The sky was even blue.

“Okay. But if you know you’re planning to live, it’s not suicide. When you pull your punches on something like that, people can tell. Fake journal, fake friends - anyone can get away with those. But fake death? They’re fucking bloodthirsty; they’ll know. And I’ll know. I’m good at knowing, when the person behind the screen is a liar, and shit at forgiving.” Hazel paused. “I wasn’t thinking about any of that when I took the poison to kill myself. That was for me only, I didn’t care about numbers that day. Fin gave me the drug. He sensed I was going to do it that night. He got me to try the pills before anything else. Either I was totally braindead, or he can actually be tricky if he tries. I never thought ODing was reliable. They say that’s why so many women survive their suicides. They use pills, and it’s not good enough.”

Not good enough, not bad enough, bounced around in Sao’s head.

“This was before he told us about E342 thing… I didn’t even believe in zombies then. If I knew I was going to live, I would have made a bigger splash. Like Orchid. Heck, compared to Jasmine, it’s not even clear to most people that I died.”

“It was in the news,” Rai said.

“Like paper-and-TV news? Who reads that? But the followers... Yeah, I felt great seeing my cheesy-ass goodbye do numbers, and everyone crying and apologizing to me in the comments. They set up a memorial tag and everything. Call me shallow. But I’ve had highs before. Viral posts and donation runs - they don’t last. Saph had even higher highs and look what good it did her.” Hazel slouched to inspect the cranberry-colored liquid in her waiting teacup. “If we’re able to rack up these numbers, they should go toward something important. Something real.”

Was your suicide not real enough, Sao wanted to ask. But it wasn’t right. Hazel saw her attempt as unreal now, and to tell her to go back and make good on it - as if that was better than being alive - he didn’t want that either.

“How did you come across Fin?” Rai asked. At least someone was treading above water today.

“Just kinda happened. Before one of our Rock Pool meetups, after Sapphire died. I was feeling shitty that day and I was surprised to find someone doing even shittier. He was lying in a dumpster. He was awake, but totally still, like someone put him there so he had to stay there. I told him I’d buy him a piece of pizza or something.” She shrugged at this, as if disappointed at the innocence of her own tale. Then, sharply, “Saph was found in a dumpster too. Her body fell in one when she went off the edge.”

They were quiet. In the distance, a siren.

“So, I kept him. Couldn’t take him to my parents’ house, but I gave him some cash and clothes, and a prepaid phone so we could keep meeting up. He was homeless and hungry and sad. I tried to help Jas too, you know. But she wasn’t the poor oppressed lamb she pretended to be online. Spoiled bitch. Lucky all her life and she knows it. Bet she made it sound like she reached out to me. Whatever - I don’t meet people for my ego.”

“Jasmine actually said that you contacted her first, to support her art,” Sao said.

Hazel set her eyes on him like she hadn’t expected him to stay. “You shouldn’t talk like you know us. Do you know what it’s like to want to kill yourself?”

He shook his head and smiled. She was more direct than Rai, than her cohorts. This was less awkward - or there was less time for awkwardness to sink in.

“You must have had a good life then,” she said.

Somehow, he couldn’t let this one go. “I have my fair share of problems. But I’ve also found my own ways to manage”

“Such as the makeup?” She stood. “Yeah, I can see it, clear as day. Fin said your face is all fucked up underneath.” A hand reached out. He thought her nails were dirty, but it was chipped black polish. “Are you afraid of women? That one of your problems?” When he snapped back, she laughed. “That’s so unoriginal.”

“Hey.” Rai said. He wasn’t even looking at them, but at his phone. “He has a medical issue. Touch aversion and a skin condition. I know it’s not especially obvious; he’s just too polite to say it. So…” He fanned a hand, gesturing everyone to settle down.

Hazel sat, feigned some sulking. “I heard that from Fin too but it seems kind of bullshit. How does a person get away living like that? Were you born with it?”

Sao straightened his collar. “Perhaps we should refocus.”

“Do you know how privileged you sound? How much therapy have you tried?”

Neither of them were enjoying this now, why was she continuing? “None.”

“Figures. So you don't understand anything. You probably think you’re doing so well, so brave, suffering and making everyone else deal with it. That, or you like being sick.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot.” Sao closed his eyes. Refocused himself, even if she didn’t want to follow. “I know you and your friends aren’t fond of me, but I didn’t think it was so affecting.”

She paused, and out of nowhere, went for the teacup. He thought for a moment she might splash him with it, but instead she drank, robotically, without much enjoyment. Shoulders hunched to add extra discomfort. “They don’t hate you,” she said with her lips against the ceramic edge. “I guess you remind us of Saph.”

“You mean to say I’m doomed somehow?” He was able to smile at that.

“You just come across… unattached. Fake. Fake happy. Which usually means you actually have some huge reason to be upset.” The cup tapped down. “But you can’t handle it and don’t think anyone else can either.”

“Sapphire was overwhelmed like that?” Rai asked.

“I don’t know. When it’s the real shit, you never know until it’s too late. Saph went alone to the edge without us, intentionally, where we couldn’t reach her. When I took my own life, later, that’s when I realized how she felt. She didn’t exclude us out of spite. We just couldn’t help. Even if we changed ourselves, even if a friend does some good, they’re just a drop in an endless ocean of bullshit. She wanted a way out of everything.”

Hazel caught herself and sniffed, violently.

“And fuck all the people going on about some fantasy world where ‘she didn’t have to’ and prattle on about how she could have remade a whole life with new friends and a perfect shrink and, I dunno, been a billionaire. That kind of smug ass probably drove her to it; made her think she’d never match up to these geniuses who claim changing a life around is as easy as letting down your hair. They always cry the hardest afterwards, too. Like ‘boo hoo I couldn’t play hero’. Or, even ‘actually you traumatized me.’ Trying to squeeze clout from the people they drove to death.”

She stopped, watching them. There was no shame in her face; she was seeing if they’d accuse her of the same.

“What matters is that she found a road to peace, for herself. She isn’t suffering anymore - that’s what she wanted and she got it.” Hazel ran a hand over her roughly cropped hair. “I don’t believe there’s anything after death. Cruel as fuck to bring it up when life is punishment enough already. Just give me nothingness.

“So now think of Fin, who can’t leave this life, even if he wants too. Even if he tries harder than any of us. He doesn’t even have death as an escape. Can you imagine?”

Rai watched back; his eyes stony. Sao was surprised he didn’t reply.

Rai may well have imagined an undying existence, though he wouldn’t say as much. Life Fountains were described as ‘effectively’ immortal, or ‘semi-immortal’. Rai himself lacked any of that immortality, so all the more likely he’d have thought about it. No, Sao was sure. He’d seen how Rai looked at Trae, bragged bitterly of Cadmus’s age, spoke of his two hundred year old mother like he wasn’t sure if he was talking about a child or otherworldly elder.

Sao was momentarily struck that he himself had no idea how one would properly talk of their mother in the first place. He’d never known his.

“Fin had to feel like the world was against him.” Hazel had continued. “He had names of people who tested the drug with him, who were in his unit in the army base. But they were impossible to track, it was like they never existed. A zombie drug - you’d think even the rumor if it would spawn a movie, but it all got swept under the rug. To avoid being swept up too, he had to pretend he was never part of it. Wasn’t himself. So people didn’t look at him anymore; when they did it was like he was inhuman. He lost his sense of pain and smell and time and it started to feel like nothing - like really wasn’t human, or ever was.”

“The drug trial participants may have been chosen for their lack of support network. Did he tell you about that?”

“He doesn’t talk like that. But… I got as much out of him as I could.” Hazel gulped tea, then air. “I’m not a doctor or magician or scientist. I don’t know anything about the army. I can’t cure him. He knows that. But I grab people’s eyes and attention for a living. I’ve been online since I was seven. The internet has a memory too strong and angry for its own good. So I thought: we can make sure everyone knows he’s human and what happened, and to make sure he can’t be wiped out, even if he’s caught. Movies and interviews, online record and lots and lots of talk. Even if Central clamps down, the North and the Independents will latch onto a story big enough. The fact that there was a past scandal makes it even easier. These days, a scandal is the only way someone like me - like us - can resist the army.”

Rai rocked back in his chair, slowly. “Your project’s been held up a while. ‘Lost buzz’, I think you told Jasmine? You’re planning a reveal, and you need to do it soon. What would you want us to do?”

“‘What do you want from me’,” Hazel parroted nasally (which, perhaps uncharitably, brought to mind the bleating of Sapphire's mother). “I’m always hearing that. Someone else fucks up and I have to baby them? I already asked you to protect Fin; he should have been getting protection from the start and you still said no. You know so much about the experiment, but you’re not burning down the nearest army base or even speaking up. So you’ve already proven yourself useless.”

She stood, abruptly, and slammed her shin into the table. She unleashed a cavalcade of cursing.

Sao stood to pull the table back but she kicked it again, harder, and shoved past. “Hazel,” he said, “You think Fin needs protection. What about you?”

“This isn’t about me.”

Frowning, Sao tailed her to the door. “Before you go. There’s a man involved… tall, muscular, dark hair. Purple eyes, and a big scar on his right cheek. He’s the one who put Fin’s friend, and one of the city’s last E34 protestors Aquila, in a coma. You know him?”

“Yeah. He’s helped the campaign more than you have.”

Sao felt he’d been punched. “Helped? What do you mean?”

“What I said. He and Fin both told me to come to you. But if you’re going to just try to lock me up somewhere, if that’s all police protection’s worth, I’m not interested anymore. I have things to do.”

Rai joined them in the foyer. “Is Fin with that man now? That’s… not great. He’s the fake guide we were after. He implied that he’s been trying to lure out the distributor of the drug by attacking your friends and Aquila. I put out a request to detain him this morning.”

“Alright. You want to help? Recall the email, or something.”

“Hazel, he’s not a follower of yours!” Sao shouted so loudly that she actually turned. She couldn’t think of a snipe, so she just hit him with a vile look. Rai started to say something, but bit his tongue as Sao hurtled on.

“The man you met is named Freenet. Some know him as Cas. You can’t trust him; he’s a mercenary aligned with some powerful people who want the drug, and who knows what else. He recently finished a military contract, so he has ties there, too. Rai caught him at an intimate meeting with several army associates just last year.” Sao resisted looking at Rai. “And me, I’ve known him personally since I was young. He can be very manipulative and when that doesn’t get a particular reaction, he can become violent. I’ve had a bad feeling since he said he was after Fin.”

“Fin could be in trouble,” Rai tacked on. Had the suspension really turned him so reserved?

But what mattered was that Hazel was listening to him, not Sao. Considering how she aligned herself so strongly to the likes of Fin, Sao started to understand why she was drawn to Rai in the moment. It was his reluctance. She could leap in and prove a shaky speaker wrong. This was a woman who, knowing or not, honed in on weakness. To tend with advice and correction, or to tear open and devour; she seemed to do both.

Biting at the nails of one hand, she considered. “If you’re so worried, we can go see them. You tell Fin and Cas… Freenet, whatever, what you think.” She walked out, but turned back to see if they were following. “I know what I’m talking about. You’ll see.”

—

Only Freenet was available for a ‘telling.’ Sao was sorely surprised he was even there to meet them.

“Of course I’m here. I’ve been waiting for a response from the cops.”

“These two are supposedly not cops,” Hazel said. “What did you do to Fin?”

“I think I’d better wait for the cops, then,” Free said, no more urgent than if he were waiting for a delivery of straws or napkins.

“I left him here, to talk. Fin said it would be alright…” Hazel said. Having had enough of Free’s invulnerable smirk, she turned on Rai and Sao. “This guy must have done something to him. Fin was right here, he said-”

“He didn’t say he’d wait.”

“What did he say then, huh?”

Feeding this man opportunities for comebacks was a miserable idea. “Free,” Sao interrupted. “Where is Fin?”

“I don’t know. He left of his own free will. Right after telling me he was the one who killed the old spy, Aquila.”

Sao, Rai and Hazel were so dumbfounded they didn’t move when a cook came from the back to slap a tray down on the bar, and Free took the two servings of fries to the lunchroom. He came back and washed his hands. Rai recovered first.

“Bullshit,” Rai said.

“How so?”

“You’re the one who knows the story, so you tell us.”

“I already told the police, and so did he. Confessed over the phone to a very confused responder. Do you think they just took it as a prank?” Free shrugged. “He thought Aquila was the one who made a mess of Orchid’s suicide.”

“But you told me–” Sao clamped his mouth shut. Free had told him how he’d theoretically make a noose, like the one in the video. He hadn’t mentioned the video or Orchid in his theory. And even if he made some sort of claim, only Sao had been there to hear his little mental exercise.

Rai was giving him a look. Sao shook his head.

Free looked from face to face, as if he were browsing an art gallery. “It’s the same reason he came after me. He’s protective. These girls, and you of course, Hazel, are his world. I’m not going to deny I went after Jasmine and Maya. You already know that was me, and about the interest certain parties have in the drug. I’m not for it myself, if you’re wondering.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Hazel slid onto one of the barstools to look him in the eye. He still loomed nearly a foot over her. “You got our info from the spy lady. That’s how you found Jas and Maya, otherwise-”

“That would have been a good idea, now that you bring it up. But I’ve never been a great detective. That’s why I just followed these two, after they came crawling in with a lead for me and my mission.” He snapped a finger at Rai, then Sao. “Fin said that he injected some of the drug for Aquila when he realized what he’d done. Trying to save her with a dose straight to the bloodstream? I don’t think I could have thought of that. God forbid anyone needs any kind of science or medical care done while I’m around.”

“You’re trying to say Fin really did all that? Idiot,” Hazel snarled. “And you’re going to jail.”

“I don’t doubt that I’ll need to be taken in for a couple of questions. But the attack on Aquila ain’t it. I never tried to kill anyone, I was just trying to find who was passing these pills around. I had to attract the right kind of attention - you understand that yourself, I would say.”

Hazel lunged out to slap him. Free slipped backward and dodged.

“I understand you a little, Miss Hazel. I felt bad for him even after what he said. Seeing you all in trouble was clearly eating him up and he didn’t want to make his confession in front of you. So I let him go. Although I wondered if that was some orchestration of his too.”

“What do you mean?” Sao asked. He could have slapped himself (or taken a slap from Hazel) for that. He didn’t really want to hear more of Free’s stories.

“An old man with no fear of death, who suddenly has access to four young ladies who will do anything for him out of the goodness of their hearts? Please, do you think he’s an idiot?”

Someone across the dining room was hollering for waitstaff. A twitch of irritation passed over Free’s face and he rapped on the kitchen door behind him. A serious waitress materialized and was off.

This was the first real sign of frustration they’d been able to glean from Free that day. Sao felt a little sick.

Settling on a chair behind the bar, Free resumed his musing. “I’m not saying he lied about everything. I don’t doubt he was part of that experiment he talks about, and the army was definitely up to something fishy there. He’s also definitely not in the best place mentally or physically. You must have really helped him, for him to have the wherewithal, even during a breakdown, to want to guard you from seeing him at his worst.”

Hazel had given up on Free. Sao was happy to see she didn’t give him the sordid satisfaction with a defeated look or a hurried escape to the elevator. It was more like she was ready to cast him aside as trash. She had absorbed herself on her phone right in front of him. Nothing more came from her but an unimpressed ‘mm-hmm.’

“I’m not about to resist arrest for my own crimes, though,” Free said, filling a glass of water and setting it before Hazel.

“Fin hasn’t resisted anything yet.” Rai glanced back at him. “And I can’t arrest you. You know that.”

“Right. How could I forget.”

“Did you get the drug in the end? Are you done with your involvement here?” Sao said, quietly.

Fin poured himself a small glass from the faucet too. He drank it down and made them wait until he’d swallowed. “Old Fin didn’t have any left on him. He said it was gone; so I guess he’d used up the last of it, or turned it in when he was at the hospital. The latter’s bad for me because there’s no way I’m getting the drug if it’s in the hospital vaults. The former, well, I’m still not getting it. But maybe it’s better that nobody ever touches the stuff again.”

He turned as if ashamed, but was really just browsing the shelves for the whiskey he’d sampled the night before.

“After all that time and effort, it just ran out.”

Having reached the end of her frayed patience, Hazel slammed her hands on the counter and pushed herself off her stool. (She hadn’t drunk the water, Sao noted, again with unreasonable pride.) “Get someone to arrest him later for whatever. I’m not hanging around for this.”

—

“I’m going to the hospital,” she said when they were toasting on the ground level, in the morning sun. “Even if the plan’s dead and Fin’s gone, I want to see the others.”

“I was actually going to try to make you go,” Rai admitted. “But now I’m not sure. Fin got away from the doctor watching the room, somehow.”

“Because he’s a manipulative monster, like that shithead said?”

“Doctor Cole’s had a rough time, Rai,” Sao said. “He hasn’t gotten a lot of support and he certainly looked tired last night. There could have been accidental opportunities for Fin to slip out.”

“Well, nobody’s going to fucking run while I’m there,” Hazel said. On pain of actual death, her tone implied.

She had complained, nonstop and bug-eyed about the ride over. The backseat of Rai’s car was a heady experience - even for her. When Rai muttered a dry joke along those lines, she came back screaming that drinking poison was a world away from getting all your limbs ripped off in a crash and catching fire after being thrown by an engine explosion. Rai lightened his weight the gas pedal after that.

He arranged for her to take a taxi to the hospital.

“I have to say it again, make sure you don’t leave there until the doctor says you can. We’ll keep you updated but don’t make a move until you’re in the clear.” Rai looked at her seriously. She stared right back. “Even if Free’s really done with the E34 thing, there’s still the army to look out for. The ones who made and managed to hide the whole problem in the first place. They’ll have their eyes on you.”

“I know, I know. The coverup is what all this has been about.”

“Hazel,” Sao said as gently as he could. “We spoke to Fin, saw how he is. The whole drug trial was a tragic affair, and I know you haven’t had it easy, either, even before the project - I just mean to say we’re on your side. Your convictions won’t go to waste.”

She looked at him as though he were something hard to discern, just a dirty shape burnt up by the sun. Rai was giving him the same disbelieving look.

Hazel said, “I kinda trust Free more than I trust you.”

—

Sao told Rai to head back to the office before him.

Rai agreed on the condition that Sao call him if he took more than half an hour to be on his way back. “Stay safe.”

Sao smiled at him and in the glare of the sun, he couldn’t quite see the expression Rai pulled in return. But it took him a long time to turn around and leave.

Rai was worried, still worried, and he had the right to be. After all Sao had done to clear Free’s not-exactly-good name, Free had smeared himself again. Well, it was alright. Sao wasn’t going to talk to Free. He went back into the building, and took the elevator up to the freshly-painted fifth floor.

He stepped into the whitewashed vestibule and looked up and down the hall, listening and squinting into the blue-gray shadows. There didn’t seem to be any workers, nor had there been any progress since he’d last come here with Free and Rai. Maybe nobody could think of what to do with the place now that it was ready for actual decoration.

The floor was very large; same square footage as the Rock Pool, but completely flat and empty save for the plastic sheets, a few lights, and a little block of lockers in the room furthest to the back. On the floor above, this would be a closet behind the Rock Pool’s secret room. He’d only seen that place in the distant past, and in his memories. Here, he was seeing a shadow of a shadow.

Behind a layer of plastic was something dark. Too small and odorless to be anything too awful. He pulled aside the plastic sheet and found a flat zippered pouch, like one that might be used to hold art or sewing supplies. Or cosmetics.

He knew that wasn’t what was in it. He unzipped the case and took a look.

It wasn’t what he was hoping for, either.

Sao checked for secret compartments, though it didn’t seem like there was anywhere but the main pouch that could store even half a blister pack-sheet of pills. The thing was more complicated than he expected, though. It had a few extra straps on either side, like a very small backpack.

On the spot where the case had been lying there was a strange, flat object. He thought it might be a glass disc, of but when he tried to pick it up, he realized it was a ring of thin, metal wire.

He looked from the case to the wire.

It was all too obvious, but at the same time, he hadn’t found he wanted. This suggested Free didn’t have the pills after all.

Why had Free left this case here? It could be a trap. But Sao didn’t care at the moment. He was upset - and he was afraid.

Sao took the wire, and put it in the pouch. Then he shoved the pouch into the large inner pocket of his jacket and left the building.