Lying in grass that never grew, Pilar spread her fingers, feeling the scratchy blades between them. Through her blindfold she could sense the clouds floating in front of the rays of light, the vibrancy of the blue fabric ebbing and flowing with each pass.

Summer Day was her favorite room. Interestingly, Winter Night was her second favorite. If not for the dancing lights, she wouldn’t have cared for it at all, but the aurora borealis made every goosebump and numb fingertip worth suffering. She’d heard someone complain once that it was unrealistic; that many people went their entire lives without seeing the Northern Lights–as they were called on Earth. Luckily the swirling greens and purples remained. Sometimes their calming effect was the only thing that helped when she was in a mood. She’d spent nearly all her free hours there for the first few months after Rory.

But she didn’t need them today. Today was a good day. Today, Summer Day was all she needed.

“Okay, you can look now.” The words were accompanied by Twyla’s small fingers pulling up the blindfold.

Pilar blinked away the bright imitation sunlight, simultaneously shielding her eyes as she sat up. She pulled down her shirt, the white cotton fabric having bunched up in the movement to reveal her pale skin for the briefest of moments. The girl didn’t notice. Twyla’s eyes were fixed on the surprise. Only when Pilar gasped did she face her again, a wide grin erupting on her freckled face.

“How did you…?” Pilar’s words trailed off in disbelief as she pushed herself off the ground, taking slow steps toward the creation.

It was a dog. A dog that had not existed moments before. The curly-haired ball of grey and white sat prettily with all the manners of a prized poodle, though its butt wriggled happily with each swish of its tail.

She hesitantly reached a hand out, which was greeted by a sloppy wet tongue. With a giggle, Pilar patted her legs and the dog bounded forward, reaching its front paws up to brace itself on her thighs to better receive its pets.

“Is it real?” she asked the apprentice. She’d never been on friendly enough terms with any of the ship’s hexes to ask such questions before. But with Twyla, a girl who clung to Pilar like a sister since joining the Renicoff, she finally had a chance to learn about the magic that kept the ship running.

Twyla shrugged. “Who’s to say what’s real and what’s not?”

Pilar turned to look at the girl, though she continued scratching the dog’s ears as she did so. “Wise beyond your years, you are,” she teased.

With a snap of the apprentice’s fingers, the dog disappeared.

“I can bring him back anytime. Just let me know when you want some puppy cuddles,” Twyla said as she picked up her maroon robes–the robes of an apprentice hex–and shrugged them on, the deep hood covering her auburn hair, “but I have to go now or I’ll be late.”

“Thanks, Twyla,” the woman said. “Have a good…”

The girl snapped her fingers and she too disappeared before Pilar had even finished her sentence.

“…lesson.”

The woman sighed, tucking a piece of her short black hair behind an ear. She had hours free before she was due at her station. With Twyla busy with hexes and both Florence and Christof working, she was alone. Several times since Rory she’d found herself unable to face the silence of solitude, and posted herself at the mess, gym, library, rec room–anywhere she could find company. But her thoughts didn’t claw at her today, so she remained in Summer Room, passing the time with a leisurely walk through the wildflower fields.

Pilar skimmed her fingertips along the long stalks of colorful buds, following a passing butterfly with her eyes, feeling the warmth of the imitation sun on her cheeks. She had no way of knowing it wasn’t quite the same as on Earth. She was one of the majority of the crew that was born and raised shipbound. Not on the Renicoff, of course, but others just like it. The Renicoff was the sixth ship she’d called home–though there was hardly a difference between them. Six ships in thirty-two years. It was an accomplishment, really. No one else could have gotten kicked off five ships without being banished planetside.

She took a deep breath, inhaling the too-pungent floral scent. The shipbound lifers would be disappointed in the subtlety of the fragrance of Earth flowers. A soft smile tilted her lips. Yes, today was a good day. Not because of anything in particular–perhaps that was exactly why it was a good day. It was slow. Banal. Easy. Nothing to think about. Nothing to worry about.

She looked up, finding herself in a thicket. The arterial-like pattern of interlocking branches of two trees caught her eye.

Well, it had been a good day.

Pilar’s breathing immediately quickened as a memory took hold.

“They’re connected,” Rory said, pointing a gloved hand upward. He and Pilar were in Winter Day, lying upon a bed of snow, looking at the leafless, ice-covered branches of the trees that surrounded them–an oak on the left, a maple on the right. “They love each other.”

Rory rolled over to kiss her cheek before standing and heading toward the exit, the ice crunching under him. He never announced what he was doing, where he was going. He never said goodbye. It was one of the things that irked her to no end.

As he walked away, Pilar remained. She twisted her ring under her glove, staring at the branches as a faint wind rustled them, the melodic sound of the creaking limbs and tingling ice falling on her.

She couldn’t help but think it was the oak’s useless attempt to disentangle itself from the maple.

Pilar looked away, the chill of the memory cutting through the Summer Day heat causing her arms to involuntarily wrap around her. The walk to the exit wasn’t leisurely. She practically sprinted, running through the options in her mind and deciding that the rec room would be the most crowded at this hour.

Yes, joining a game of cards would do nicely to drive out the thoughts of Rory.

And his death.

“Pilar,” a creaking whispered voice called.

Pilar startled awake, her heart thumping, her stomach heaving as if she were falling from a great height.

But she wasn’t. She was in her bed, in her room. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, the soft orange running lights around the floor providing assistance. She vaguely wondered what had woken her. A noise perhaps? In her sleep-muddled state, she couldn’t recall.

The metal floor greeted her bare feet warmly as she climbed out of bed. Outside of the seasonal rooms, nothing on the Renicoff was ever too hot or too cold. The shipbound wouldn’t begin to comprehend what life was like for those planetside; having to wear slippers just to keep your toes from a chilled floor would seem barbaric.

Pilar palmed the button circled in a white light for easy access even in the dark, and her door silently slid open. Sticking her head out–no need to reveal her pajama-clad body–she found the hallway empty.

With a second press of the button, the door closed, and she pressed her back against it.

“Lights on.”

Her fingers curled and uncurled as she scanned the tiny single room she’d been reassigned to after Rory’s death. There was nowhere to hide. The bed, desk, wardrobe, and v-screen were built into the walls, as were the sustenance generator and the refuse deposit. The only free standing object was a chair, and it was much too spindly to provide cover for anything other than an insect–of which there were none on the spaceship.

Still, as the moments passed and clarity pushed out the fog of sleep, she became more and more certain it had been a noise that roused her.

Pilar speared her hand into her black hair, fisting it and tugging. “Get a grip,” she chastised herself before quickly walking back to bed. “Lights off.”

She sat on the edge, her hands gripping the side so hard her fingernails ached from the pressure on the metal. Her leg unconsciously bounced as her head hung low. She took several deep breaths in an attempt to calm her heart that hadn’t stopped racing.

She remained in that position for several minutes. Long enough for the incessant twitch of her leg to slow, then stop. Long enough for her eyelids to fall heavy, each blink lasting longer and longer.

Blink.

The bed was soft and warm under her butt and thighs.

Blink.

Her neck would hurt in the morning, but rearranging herself into a horizontal position was too much work right now.

Blink.

Darkness. Nothingness. Perfection.

“Pilar.” A breathy, drawn out whisper. A whisper, and yet loud. As if the speaker was just in front of her.

Her head snapped upright, eyes widening. “Lights on!”

The room was just as empty as it had been, but that didn’t stop Pilar from pulling on a pair of pants without even bothering to remove her sleep shorts, throwing on a shirt without buttoning it, and racing out of her room with her shoes in her hands. She’d put them on when she was far, far from this room.

===

“I didn’t imagine it,” Pilar insisted for the third time.

Florence and Christof exchanged a look, the former reaching a hand across the mess table to tighten around the other woman’s wrist. “You know you haven’t been sleeping well.” Her voice barely carried over the ambient chatter and dish clinking of the hall. Florence always kept her voice low when speaking of Pilar’s…issues. As if everyone didn’t already know.

Pilar didn’t like that. She liked it even less when Florence shied away from Christof’s affections in front of her. It didn’t feel like support or solidarity. It felt like pity. She pulled her hand away from Florence’s grasp to hide it under the table, vibrating with her bouncing leg.

It was useless to try to convince them when all they saw when they looked at her was a broken widow.

Oh, Pilar, you can’t sleep?

It’s because of Rory. Her leg twitched faster.

You can’t focus?

It’s because of Rory. It twitched even faster.

You’re not hungry?

Rory. Faster.

You’re hearing voices?

Rory.

Rory. Rory. Rory!

Her leg was bouncing hard enough the empty water cup on the table toppled over with a clang that had the adjacent tables eyeing them. Christof quickly collected the remaining dishes without a word and walked away to deposit them.

Mustn’t make another scene, she thought bitterly. She forced her leg to still as she felt Florence’s eyes burn into her, but kept her focus on her hands, picking at her fingers.

But her aggressive attempt at cleaning under her nails stalled as well, her blood turning to ice.

You’re hearing voices? Rory!

“No,” she whispered, needing to convince herself. Rory was dead. The dead can’t speak. “No,” she said more forcefully.

“Pilar? ‘No’ what, honey?” Florence asked softly, so softly. She thought the widow was fragile. Weak.

Pilar blinked, composing herself and forcing a smile before she met her friend’s eyes, just as Christof returned. “You’re right. Of course, you’re both right,” she glanced at the other woman’s husband, “I need sleep. I’m going to take the day off to rest.”

Christof cleared his throat. “Didn’t you take two days off last week?”

She dragged her eyes slowly to the man’s. Blue, just like Rory’s. “I did.”

Her gaze didn’t falter, and he was first to break eye contact, patting Florence on the shoulder. “Ah. Well, as long as you get the work done, I guess,” he said awkwardly.

“Thank you for your permission,” Pilar said with deliberate slowness. Controlling, just like Rory.

Florence reached out again, but her hand paused in midair before returning to her own lap as if she thought better of it. “He didn’t mean it like that, P. He just meant…we’d be distraught if you were to lose your job and be reassigned to another ship.”

“Or worse,” Christof laughed, wiggling his fingers, “planetside.”

The blond woman side-eyed her husband; Pilar could read the unspoken message that she’d be reprimanding him for that comment later.

“I’m not going to be reassigned planetside,” Pilar said quietly, standing. “My work quality is excellent. I wouldn’t take the day off if I couldn’t afford it.”

Her friends would only have to drop one or two well-placed queries to discover that was a lie. She just hoped they trusted her enough not to check.

When Pilar left the mess, she didn’t head toward her room. No, her first order of business was getting a new room assignment. One without a bodiless cohabitant.

“There was a smell?” Twyla asked as she sat upon the bed in Pilar’s new room.

It hadn’t been difficult to get them to allow her to move. The woman in charge of such things had narrowed her eyes when Pilar explained there was something wrong–some kind of leak perhaps–that made the room inhabitable. The coordinator had taken a deep breath, ready to explain that that’s not how it works, when Pilar noticed the woman’s eyes fall upon the wedding ring she still wore, and she paused. The coordinator’s gaze turned from suspicious to pitying, and with a few taps of her manicured nails on the holographic screen in front of her, Pilar was granted a new room.

“A horrible smell. It kept me up at night,” Pilar lied as she sat upon the floor, sorting through her clothes, readying them to fill the new wardrobe.

“I never noticed a–”

“It really only came at night,” she interrupted shortly.

Twyla fingered the blanket, casting a questioning glare with furrowed brows at the woman. “Odd.”

“Isn’t it?” Pilar said, looking away, focusing again on the clothes–though she was only moving them back and forth between the same two piles. “Anyway, shouldn’t be an issue now.”

“You never mentioned it. Maybe I could have tried something…” The girl trailed off as she snapped her fingers, the scent of lilacs filling the air.

Pilar wiped at her nose. “Well, if it happens again, I’ll be sure to.” She offered the girl a smile. “Why don’t you whip up that puppy again?”

“She knows you’re lying.”

The shirt in Pilar’s hands fell into a puddle of fabric on the floor.

So slowly, she turned her attention to the girl. “What did you say?” Each word came out in a slow, deliberate hiss.

Twyla’s hand was poised ready to snap her fingers, but it stilled, and she tilted her head. “I said, Let’s try a cat this time. But if you really want the dog again, I can do it.”

The girl didn’t move, waiting for Pilar’s request. But the woman only stared.

“That’s not what you said.”

The girl’s hand dropped into her lap. “It is. But really, I can do the dog again. I didn’t know you didn’t like cats.” She didn’t wait for a response this time, snapping her fingers and producing the same curly-haired dog as yesterday.

Pilar watched as the dog bounded toward her. In her sitting position, the dog didn’t have to stretch to place its paws upon her legs. It simply hopped into her lap. Today, she didn’t offer the mutt enthusiastic pets as she had yesterday, and it whimpered slightly, prodding her with its snout.

“It remembers me. How can something that’s not real remember me?”

The apprentice hex unfolded her legs and jumped off the bed only to join the woman on the floor. Reaching over, she began providing the scratches Pilar refused to. “I still don’t get what you mean by real.”

Accepting Pilar’s disinterest, the puppy flopped itself into the girl’s lap instead. The woman followed it with her eyes. “But you created it. It wasn’t born, it’s not alive. It didn’t exist. And then it did. And then it didn’t again. How can it have a memory?”

Twyla didn’t answer, too busy fighting off an assault of puppy tongue. Her giggles drowned out the woman’s words anyway.

“Real. Alive. Exist.” Each word floated around as if coming from everywhere at once, loud yet breathy. Pilar instinctively thrust her palms over her ears, curling her spine until her head was practically in her lap.

It only took her a moment to realize what she’d done, and she quickly straightened. Looking at the apprentice, she knew it was too late. Twyla’s mouth stood ajar, her hands slack, ignoring the puppy’s requests for attention.

“What happened?” the girl breathed.

Pilar rubbed her temple, sighing. “Headache. It just came out of nowhere.”

Twyla snapped her fingers and the puppy vanished. “It’s time for my lesson but I don’t want to leave you if you’re…sick.”

The girl’s face was limned with worry.

Or was that…

Fear?

“She knows.”

Pilar had been studying the girl’s face when the words came that time. If she’d had any doubt at all, it would have been erased in that moment. Twyla’s lips didn’t move.

“I’m fine,” she said too loudly. Clearing her throat, she added more softly, “Really, I’m fine. Thanks, though.” She forced a smile that didn’t ease the uncertainty in the girl’s eyes. Still, the apprentice nodded and snapped her fingers, and she too was gone.

The room was silent outside of Pilar’s ragged breathing.

“Who are you?”

The silence remained.

“Who,” Pilar asked again, raising her voice, “are you?”

A noise caught her attention, forcing her neck to twist so quickly it hurt.

A single ice cube fell into the receptacle of the sustenance generator.

Pilar breathed a laugh. “Funny,” she said aloud. “Hilarious.”

It was only mid-afternoon, but she began to consider a deep sleep may just be what she needed. She pushed herself off the floor, leaving the piles of clothes as they were, and approached the generator.

She eyed the ice cube, then gingerly picked it up and placed it in the palm of her hand. Feeling the sting of the cold, she watched as it began to lazily drift in the slickness its melting created upon her flesh. After several moments, she squeezed it, the sharp edges uncomfortable as they dug into her fingers, hastening its voyage from existing to…not.

The water dripped from her fingertips as she tapped the console, ordering a sleeping pill.

“Lights off.”

Pilar stared at the ceiling as she lay in bed. The pill was taking longer than usual to take effect. She turned on her side, facing the v-screen.

“Current view.”

The screen blinked to life, revealing an inky blackness with a smattering of pinpricks of light that would mimic what she would see if it were an actual window. As she looked at them, her vision becoming hazy, she wondered if stars could speak. And if they could, would they be friend or foe?

The voice had said the girl knew Pilar lied.

A foe, sowing seeds of suspicion and malcontent?

A friend, offering a warning?

“What do you want?” she said, more of a mumble as sleep overtook her.

Her eyelids became too heavy to open, even as she wished she could look at the stars for just a few minutes more.

“Dreams,” the voice whispered, the last bit of reality she perceived before unconsciousness claimed her wholly.

Before

Pilar left her mouth ajar, allowing water to continuously fill it before dribbling down her chin. It was easier to breathe that way. Her eyes were closed, though it made little difference. She’d left the lights off.

Her arms wrapped around her legs, pulling them into her chest. Small. She wanted to be small. Needed to be.

The sound of the water drowned out her sobs. The falling droplets covered her tears.

Not that she was hiding her sadness; they already knew. They all knew. But some things are best left unsaid.

The water beating down on her was cleansing. As it turned from scalding to icy with an intentional pass of her hand over the controls, she could easily imagine being somewhere else.

It could be rain. She could be on the boulevard in Spring Night, streetlights reflecting on puddles disturbed by the heavy downpour.

She could be with friends.

She could be with another man.

Or she could be alone. Preferable, really.

If she were alone, no one would be there to tell her everything she did wrong. No one would be there to tell her she’s awful. No one would be there to yell.

Or ignore her. Or harass her. Funny how one could do both.

But she wasn’t in Spring Night. She was in the shower, and had been for far too long.

Rory will comment on it.

She scrubbed the cold water over her face, masking the skin made red and blotchy from her weeping.

She turned the water off, wrapped a towel around her, and pressed the button to open the door.

“Ah,” she said with a smile. “Refreshing!” Maybe that would be enough to stave off his questions.

Steam billowed out around her as she stepped into the suite she and Rory shared, the door sliding shut with an electrical hiss behind her.

Rory sat upon a loveseat—the family suites were practically mansions compared to the individual rooms—his feet propped up on a metal box with his ankles crossed. A holoscreen displayed before him, one hand lazily swiping through whatever document he was skimming, the other perched behind his head.

“You were in there a while,” he casually murmured without pausing his methodical scrolling.

At least he didn’t ask what she was doing or why she was taking a shower this time. If she had to say Because I was dirty or justify it by tracking how long it’d been since her last shower again, she might have killed him. But a comment she could ignore. So she did.

Her eyes focused on the metal box. “What is that?”

“Hmm?” Rory said, finally looking up and seeing what had grabbed her attention. “Oh, Nicola brought it by while you were showering. She said this was the case you requested and thought you’d want it here to make sure no one used it before your next shift.”

Expelling a burst of air, Pilar rushed to him, picking the box up, Rory’s feet crashing to the floor, her towel slipping in the process. “Do you have any idea what this is?” she asked, her exasperation more noticeable than her anger.

Rory’s gaze focused on the bit of skin revealed from her displaced towel. “Well, hello,” he teased.

With another sigh, Pilar gingerly placed the box on the nearby dining table and resecured her covering. “Those are dangerous chemicals, Rory. Please be careful with them.” As she headed toward the bedroom to get dressed, she added over her shoulder, “In fact, please just don’t touch it at all.”

Rory’s retort floated in the open doorway, Pilar having not bothered to close it behind her. “Right. I haven’t gone through that super thorough two-week training regime, so I can’t be trusted to touch the hyper-fortified box with the sealed formula inside that couldn’t spill even if the A.G. failed.” He laughed after, and she rolled her eyes.

“It was thorough,” she insisted in a tone that was not nearly as light as his had been when she returned to the living space fully dressed.

Rory slowly lifted his head to look at her, the holoscreen blinking out as he did so. “Hey,” he said softly, reaching a hand out. “I know it was. I was just joking.”

Pilar ignored his offered touch of affection, instead bypassing him to stand in front of the generator. “Ice water,” she said, keeping her eyes on the receptacle as first a cup, then ice, then water was deposited from the opening. She heard the creak of the loveseat as Rory removed his weight from it, his footfalls approaching. She pressed her eyes closed as his hands wrapped around her arms, squeezing. It was the only response she’d allow herself; ripping away from his grasp like she wanted to would just cause more strife.

“Hey,” he said again, beginning to rub his palms up and down her upper arms, “I’m very proud of you. I was just joking. I know you worked hard to get that certification.”

“It was a six-month course and you know it.”

Rory laughed softly. “I know. It was a joke, Pi.”

She placed her hands on the wall on either side of the generator, feeling the cool metal. Flexing her fingers and taking a deep breath, she slowly turned around to face him.

“Belittling me and my work is not a joke. It’s not funny.”

Rory threw his hands up. “That’s not what I said,” he said, his voice gaining an edge. “You’re mincing my words.”

She scoffed. “That’s exactly what you said.”

“You do this every time,” he said, his voice growing louder. “Every time. I’m not being mean!”

She turned back to collect her water, then sidestepped her husband, heading back to their bedroom, hoping he wouldn’t follow.

“Don’t you walk away from me.” His voice was no longer loud, but it made her wince all the same. She stopped, but didn’t turn around. He wouldn’t hurt her, but it would certainly prolong the yelling if she continued fleeing. “I love you,” he said, his voice rising once again. “I love you. All I want to do is make you happy. So if you think I said something that was belittling or mean, can you please just stop and realize there’s no way that that’s the case?”

It was just like Rory to pass the blame for his hurtful comments to her misinterpreting them. But it was easier to agree than to fight. A long moment passed before she swallowed audibly and nodded once. She continued her trek toward the solitude of their room, when he offered another outburst, his voice loud and desperate.

“I love you, Pilar! When are you going to get that through your head?”

Crossing the threshold into their room, she turned to face him.

His brows were furrowed, his face pale.

“Why don’t you yell at me some more about how much you love me? Maybe that will make me believe it.”

His expression dropped even more as she pressed the button, the door sliding into place, shielding her from having to look at him for a moment longer.

Pilar carefully loaded the vials into the minus-seventy freezer and closed the door. A feminine, monotone voice emitted from the screen on the front. “Slots B3, B4, and B5 filled. Please state contents and authorized user identification.”

“Pilar Armada, user gamma six nine two. B3 content DNA, specimen eighteen, sample three. B4 content DNA, specimen eighteen, sample four. B5 content DNA, specimen eighteen, sample five.” She stood in front of the retinal scanner, eyes wide, as the light passed over. Blinking away the brightness, she heard the freezer door seal and lock and sighed with relief. She’d made it through another shift.

The lab was empty aside from her. She’d had to work over to make up for missing the day before. It was worth it, though. With the help of that sleeping pill–and a second one she’d taken in the middle of the night–she’d slept nearly sixteen hours straight. The dreamless sleep made way for waking hours that were likewise unplagued with any improbable voices.

She avoided looking at the flammable cabinets as she made her way to the exit, the click-clacking of her shoes on the smooth floor echoing in the silent room.

She avoided looking. And yet…

Movement caught her eye.

She stopped in the middle of the lab, the bright overhead lights illuminating the sea of chrome equipment. She pressed her lips together, her breath catching. She turned toward the movement to see the metal door on the furthest flammable cabinet sliding open and not-quite-closed, over and over again.

Pilar swallowed. She hadn’t gone near the flammable cabinets today. Maybe Nicola had earlier. Maybe the door had been malfunctioning the entire time she’d been in here alone, too focused on her work to notice.

Yes, that must be it.

She laughed internally at her jumpiness and turned to walk back toward the cabinet. As she got closer, the sound of the electronic hiss of the door flitted into her ears along with the slight ting of metal kissing glass.

A vial had made its way onto the track of the door, blocking it from closing and catalyzing the never-ending cycle of the door’s unsuccessful attempt to seal the cabinet shut. Pilar crouched down to pluck the vial from its path, allowing the door to finally fit into place.

“Hello there, friend,” she said, passing her thumb over the label that read Control . “What were you doing in the flammable cabinet?”

She lazily set the vial of water in a nearby rack, leaving it for someone else to deal with, and made for the exit again.

“What were you doing in the flammable cabinet?”

As the voice surrounded her, Pilar stumbled, gripping a nearby counter. She frantically searched the lab with her eyes, but her efforts revealed the disturbing truth she knew they would: she was alone.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice barely more than a croak.

Pilar’s fingertips pressed into the metal as she clung to the counter, not daring to make the slightest movement or sound as she waited for a response.

But none came.

It was late. Late enough that most of the common areas would be empty, or nearly so. Still, she would try. First the mess, then the gym, then the rec. And if there was really no one–no one she could _see–_to keep her company, she would swallow three of those sleeping pills to make sure this someone didn’t disturb her again.

She pushed herself off the counter, the liquids in the vial rack gently shifting with the force.

“You are not real,” she said as she took a step. “You are not real.” She took another, the distance between her and the door shrinking. “You are not real.” Another. She repeated the mantra with each step until she made it to the door and simultaneously lined her eye up to the retinal scanner as she pressed her palm on the button to open it.

The door slid open and Pilar took a step into the hall, expecting to hear the monotone feminine voice as she always did when leaving. But she didn’t hear the usual Thank you for your service, user gamma six nine two. Instead, she heard the whispered voice again.

“Real.”

=

There had been a table of three in the mess. Pilar knew the name of only one of them, and only knew that because she’d overheard it once. Still, she sidled up and asked if she could join. The three men exchanged glances, their boisterous smiles falling a bit, but they’d acquiesced. Each had a glass of brown liquor in front of them, and when one drained his a few minutes later, he rose to get a refill. Upon his return, he placed a full glass in front of Pilar as well.

As she drank, thoughts of the voice were pushed to the back of her mind. Instead, she focused on the jokes the men told, the way they laughed and patted one another’s backs, how the youngest squealed when he laughed a bit too hard after taking a sip and the burning liquid trickled out of his nose. It was enough to have her smiling along. What she didn’t notice was the nosy woman who passed by, eyeing the foursome, nor did she notice when the woman tapped something on the comm device wrapped around her wrist.

But she certainly noticed the result of that sent message.

“You’re…drinking?” Florence seemed to arrive by magic, Pilar’s attention too focused on the oldest man’s story about seeing an honest to gods alien when he was a boy, much to the middle one’s insistence that aliens don’t exist.

Pilar looked up at her friend, then glanced at her half-full glass–her third one, though Florence needn’t know that–and swirled the contents around with the flick of her wrist. “I worked late and didn’t want to go back to my room yet.”

“But you’re drinking.” Florence’s voice cracked, her eyes glued to the glass in Pilar’s hand. “I thought you’d never touch the stuff after–”

“I wasn’t ready to go back to my room,” Pilar interrupted. “I needed to decompress after work.”

The blond woman raised an eyebrow at her, and the widow looked away. The three men she’d found to keep her company had all stopped speaking. The two older gentlemen kept their eyes down, one clearing his throat. The youngest watched the confrontation, a slight smile gracing his lips.

“She knows you’re lying.”

This time the voice didn’t seem to surround her, but whispered directly in her ear. Pilar nearly thought she could feel the warmth of breath caress her neck. Her head instinctively twisted around to see who was so close to her. But of course, no one was there.

“Pilar,” Florence said, her voice sharp and commanding, forcing the widow to slowly turn her attention back to her. “Would you like to go to your room now? I’ll go with you?” Her voice was much gentler now, the way Pilar’s mother had spoken to her grandmother near the end.

Pilar stood, nodding to the men. “Thank you for the drinks and the laughs,” she said with a smile, rapping her knuckles across the table.

As the two women left, Pilar heard the men continue their joviality as if nothing had disturbed them at all. She glanced at Florence out of the corner of her eye. Seeing the grim expression on the blond woman, she regretted leaving them for her. Still, she continued down the hall with her friend, their elbows linked.

“Are you okay?” Florence asked when they approached Pilar’s new room, the widow having to lead the way. “Drinking after what happened to Rory,” she shook her head, “missing work, not sleeping…”

“I slept plenty last night and I worked extra today,” Pilar corrected, careful to leave her voice emotionless as she’d learned to do over the years to avoid more confrontation. She pulled Florence into her, laying her head on the woman’s shoulder for a moment before using the eye scanner to unlock her door. “I’m fine.”

Florence followed her in, looking over the piles of clothes still strewn across the floor. “Mmhmm.”

“She knows you’re lying.”

For the first time, Pilar didn’t react to the voice. Whether because of the alcohol or that she was simply getting used to it, she didn’t know. But she didn’t flinch and she didn’t question it. She simply ignored it.

“Sorry, I haven’t finished settling in,” she said, pushing the clothes out of the way.

Florence’s mouth moved, but try as she might, Pilar couldn’t hear her speak. Instead, the voice filled her head.

“She knows, Pilar. What are you going to do about it?”

Pilar finished another day at the lab, ignoring the phantom whispers that had become a regular occurrence. But when she put all the vials she’d been working with away, cleaned her station, and began heading toward the exit, the voice came again.

“They all know, Pilar. You could remedy the situation.”

She stood alone again in the silent lab, the bright lights reflecting off the equipment. Her eyes involuntarily roved over the flammables cabinets, but she quickly shook her head, readjusting her focus. She’d already decided tonight was going to be another night of sleeping pills and the sweet darkness they elicited. Ignoring the voice yet again, she continued her path to the exit.

Until the hiss of a door opening caught her attention.

She turned to see wisps of cold vapor pouring out of the freezer that had opened of its own accord. Or the accord of some unseen force.

Pilar took a deep breath, steadying herself, then slowly walked to the minus-twenty freezer. She disregarded the contents as she pressed the button to close the door, and turned back toward the exit. She only made it two paces before she heard the door open again.

“You know what to do.”

Once again ignoring the voice, she spun around and closed the freezer for the second time. It took four paces this time, but the door once again opened.

“Quit it!” she called into the empty lab, turning back to the freezer. This time, when she approached, she didn’t immediately close the door. Instead, she pulled out a bottle of a reddish-brown substance, half liquid, half gas.

She twisted the flask in her palm, watching the deadly substance within swirl around. It would be so easy to plant it in a room while the occupants were sleeping, especially Florence’s room. She’d programmed Pilar’s biometric data to unlock the door.

But Florence was her best friend.

Pilar shook her head again, replacing the flask and locking the freezer again.

“If she talks, you’ll be banished planetside. Or worse.”

The freezer door opened again.

Pilar looked over the flask just within her reach. Florence had said nothing menacing during their chat the night before. And yet…

Her slim fingers wrapped around the flask. Once extracted, the freezer door closed and locked on its own.

“Good girl. You know what to do.”

She didn’t acknowledge the voice, only slipped the flask into the pocket of her lab coat and swiftly made for the exit.

Pilar walked slowly toward her room, her feet feeling like lead blocks with each step. When she approached the hall that split the individual rooms and the family rooms–her room and Florence’s room–the voice came again.

“You know what to do.”

She paused, her eyes flicking between the two hallways. They looked identical. Each shades of silver and grey lit by bright lights on the top and bottom of the walls. Each with door after door leading to the private rooms of the crewmembers.

But one path led to sleep and another monotonous day that could lead to her banishment.

And one path led to silencing someone who could hasten that banishment, though the cost would be steep.

“You know what to do.”

Pilar took a step into the family-rooms hall.

Her heart pounded with each step she took, her mind screaming at her to turn around. But the voice was ever present. She knows. You must remedy the situation. You know what to do. It was loud enough to drown out her own internal protests.

A few moments later, she stood in front of Florence and Christof’s door. She’d worked late again. They should be asleep. She didn’t bother knocking or otherwise announcing herself. Instead she lined up her eye and pressed the button, the door opening due to her friends’ implicit trust in her.

Christof was on the loveseat, his head lolled to the side in sleep as the v-screen played some television show from Earth, a laugh track covering the slight noise of Pilar’s entrance. She took light steps, allowing only the balls of her feet and toes to support her weight as she crossed the room to the bedroom doorway. It stood open, thankfully, and Pilar easily slipped inside.

Florence’s metered, sleepy breaths filled the air, her blond hair spread across the pillow, her arms splayed on either side of her head.

Pilar slipped on a mask she’d grabbed from the lab, then pulled the flask of fatal gas from her pocket.

Looking down at her friend, though, she found it difficult to continue her plot.

“She knows!” The voice wasn’t the breathy, lazy whisper it usually was. Instead it was an insistent hiss, as if it had lost its patience.

Pilar pulled down the mask and brushed a kiss upon Florence’s brow. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You left me no choice.”

After resecuring the mask, she unplugged the flask and waved it in front of Florence’s face. The gas was toxic enough it would only take a few minutes to take effect. Despite the mask, Pilar held her opposite forearm against her face as she waited for a sign.

Florence’s chest heaved. She coughed. A strangled noise issued from her chest. But, thankfully, her eyes did not open. Pilar wasn’t sure she could take it if she had to witness the life drain from them. Another twitch, and Florence’s body went still. Silent.

Pilar corked the flask again and slipped it back into her pocket; she’d return it to the lab when she reported for her next shift. She stroked Florence’s hair. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“It was necessary.”

Pilar ignored the voice as she crept out of their room and made her way back to her own. She focused on steadying her breathing; she didn’t allow any tears.

“Pilar!” The voice woke her again. It sounded harsher, angrier than it ever had before and was accompanied by a loud banging. “Pilar, open up!” The voice cracked.

It wasn’t the voice at all. It was a voice. Christof’s, to be exact.

“Pilar!”

As she stumbled from bed, her feet dragging toward the door, the voice whispered in her ear. “Admit nothing.” She shrugged it away. As if she would.

The door slid open with the press of the button revealing the man she knew it would, though he looked to be a shell of himself. His eyes were sunken, his hair a mess. Christof didn’t wait for an invitation before lurching into her room and gripping her shoulders.

“What did you do?” His eyes searched hers frantically, his fingers digging into her skin.

“You’re hurting me,” she said, attempting to squirm away from his grip, but he only held on tighter.

“The logs, Pilar. I know you came to our room last night,” he said through clenched teeth.

She furrowed her brow, fighting against the pain. She’d have his fingerprints written upon her flesh for a week. “What are you talking about? Of course I came to your room last night. You waved to me when I left.”

The man blinked, and his grip loosened. “What?”

Pilar was able to step away from him, his hands falling to his sides. “I came by after my shift. Florence and I talked for a bit then she said she was tired and going to bed. You were dozing on the couch, but you waved goodbye when I left. Don’t you remember?”

Christof stared at her, though his eyes were unfocused. “No,” he breathed. “So she was…she was alive when you left?”

Pilar let out a laugh. “Alive? Of course she was alive. What’s gotten into you?” She turned to fetch herself a robe, covering the scant pajamas she was wearing, avoiding the lab coat hanging next to it, the damning flask still in its pocket. She kept her movements measured and light, the small smile upon her lips. She only let it fall when she turned back and saw Christof’s silent tears.

“What’s going on, Christof?” she asked quietly, taking slow steps toward him and resting her hand upon his forearm. “Why are you here? Where is…wait, what did you mean by alive?”

The man slowly brought his eyes up to meet hers. “Pilar, Florence is dead.” Each word took a moment to get out, the effort of speaking them aloud apparent.

The woman dropped her hand, taking a step back. “Don’t be ridiculous, I just saw her,” she glanced at the time display, “not even eight hours ago.”

He didn’t respond, only cast his gaze back to the floor.

“Ridiculous,” she muttered again, pushing past him. Her intentional steps turned into a run as she followed the hallway to her friends’ room. The door was open, and she didn’t slow until she crossed inside and to the bedroom, but no one was there.

“You did well,” the voice said, surrounding her.

She ignored it, calling Florence’s name instead. For a moment, she actually believed it hadn’t happened. She imagined Florence stepping out of the bathroom, laughing at the misunderstanding.

Watching her friend’s chest rise and fall for the last time could have been the false narrative. But as Christof’s slow, heavy footsteps joined her, she knew.

Killing Florence, that was real.

Pilar whirled around to face him. “Where is she?” She didn’t have to feign the pain, confusion, hysterics. When he didn’t answer, she left him again.

Her robe billowed behind her, her bare feet slapping the metal floor as she ran. She knew the way. It was burned into her brain after the agonizing trek there when Rory died. But when she reached the morgue, the doors were closed.

“I want to see her!” she called, pounding the door with her open palm. “Let me see her!”

The door slid open, a man dressed in white with thin lips looked down on her, blocking her way. “Mrs. Armada,” he drawled, “surely you remember the protocol.”

She pushed her elbow into the crack between the man’s side and the doorframe. “Let…me…see…her.” Each word was punctuated with her efforts to squeeze through, though she was unsuccessful.

The man stared her down as he pressed the button to close the door. “This door does not have a safety block, so if you don’t want your arm chopped off, I suggest you remove it from its path.” The door began to slide shut and she pulled back. “Have a good day, Mrs. Armada,” he added just before the door sealed shut.

“It’s Miss!” she called, ripping her wedding band from her finger and throwing at the closed door, the metal-on-metal ting barely audible over her ragged breathing.

===

Three days passed and Pilar had heard nothing about Florence’s death. She hadn’t attempted to speak to Christof, and he hadn’t attempted to speak to her. She hadn’t even heard the voice. She kept her head down, spending all her time in her room or the lab. She’d even taken to working nights so she wouldn’t have to be around Nicola or any of the other techs.

“Abnormality detected,” the monotone feminine voice announced alongside a high-pitched ding. “Abnormality detected.”

The alarm continued as Pilar looked up from the sample she was prepping, pulling off her goggles and wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. She carefully placed the vial in the rack and walked across the room to the holoscreen that displayed the automatized program she ran each day, removing and tossing her gloves in a wastebin on her way. The program caught an abnormality in the sample DNA nearly once a month, but it was never anything of note. Usually something that could be explained away as a unique feature of that particular specimen. Still, she had to do her due diligence.

Pilar stood in front of the holoscreen, one hand on her hip, the other zooming and scrolling the screen. It was no wonder the alarm was triggered; this particular section of gene twenty on the X chromosome displayed multiple anomalies. She pulled up another sample and scrolled to the location, expecting to find the current sample’s mutation to be a one-off.

But there it was.

Pilar checked the identification. Specimen thirteen. The current sample was from specimen eleven. Curious. She pulled up another sample, this one specimen fourteen. The same mutation.

Her heart pounding, she opened a file for each specimen, thirty-two in all. Each one had the same mutation on the same section of gene twenty of the X chromosome. They weren’t as obvious as the one that had triggered the alarm–none had nearly as many anomalies, which is likely why she hadn’t noticed it before–but they were there.

She breathed out a laugh. “That’s it,” she whispered. “That’s it.”

She didn’t bother cleaning up or closing out as she turned on her heel and jogged toward the door, intending to pull Nicola from her bed to see for herself. She lined her eye up to the retinal scanner and pressed the button, and the door began to slide open.

Then stopped.

And slid shut.

Confused, Pilar pressed the button again. And again.

“Think.”

Pilar let out a frustrated growl. “You’re locking me in here? I’ve done it . Do you realize what this means?”

“More than you, it seems.”

Pilar thrust her palm on the button over and over in rapid succession, but the door remained shut.

“She’ll take the credit.”

“Well, she is the P.I.” Her palm continued its assault on the button.

“But you did the work.”

Her hand stilled.

“You could do so much more with that information. It would take years, decades, centuries to put it to good use. But you, Pilar, you could use it now.”

A cabinet door next to the mainframe opened, revealing canisters of glass and metal, all hooked up with wires connected to the computer. And the syringes they fit into.

Pilar stared, knowing what the voice was suggesting. She stared, then took slow steps toward the computer.

And began coding.

“How did you know you were a hex?” Pilar asked the girl as they walked through a wooded path of Spring Day, sunlight and leafy shadows dappling the dirt, the scent of wildflowers hanging on the soft breeze.

“I was too young to remember,” Twyla said, skimming the back of her fingers along the bird she had conjured that flitted around just within her reach. “But my mother says I turned my serving of broccoli into ice cream.”

Pilar laughed, holding her finger out for the bird to perch upon, which it gladly did. “So your power, it was always intuitive?”

Twyla nodded, digging her hands in the pockets of her maroon robes, though she’d left the hood down, and the sun highlighted her wild auburn strands. “Yeah, pretty much.”

The duo strolled silently for a few moments, then the girl whistled a tune and the bird took off to circle her again, repeating the melody. She looked at Pilar out of the corner of her eye, hesitating.

“What is it?”

“You seem happy today,” the apprentice hex said cautiously.

Pilar laughed again. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

“Not bad…just…” The girl twisted her mouth in thought. “I just wasn’t expecting it so soon after…I mean when Rory died it was a long time…” The grimace on her face revealed her regret in bringing the subject up at all.

That wouldn’t do.

Pilar wrapped her arm around Twyla’s shoulders, pulling her close. “You’ll learn one day, unfortunately, that pain comes and goes. But those moments you’re gifted after a loss–moments when the pain isn’t crushing and clouding and all-consuming–it’s okay to embrace them. It’s okay to enjoy them. Don’t worry, that pain will be back.” She squeezed her grip on the girl’s shoulder consolingly. “Plus, happiness does not negate grief. You can always find beauty, even when in despair.”

Twyla didn’t say anything, but kept her head down and feet moving. Then she stopped walking all together, and turned to face Pilar wholly, who returned the razor-sharp focus.

“Questions?”

“Pilar,” the girl began, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, “no offense, but you sound like one of those Your Changing Body and You programs.” As she dissolved into a fit of giggles, Pilar joined her, playfully pushing her away.

“Okay, then, little missy. Tell me more about your lessons,” she said, restarting their lazy stroll. “What’s the point of them if your power is innate?”

“Well,” the hex said, snapping her fingers to create a new trio of birds, “this stuff is easy. Hexes don’t need any kind of training for simple stuff like that.” She snapped her fingers again and all four birds disappeared. “But this,” she spread her arms wide, gesturing to the entire imitation Spring Day world that surrounded them, “this is more complex. Running the ship, providing sustenance, creating spaces like this…it takes multiple hexes working together. My lessons teach me how to do that.”

Pilar made a noise of contemplation. “How?”

The girl gathered her hair. “Remember when you taught me how to braid?” she said as she began separating and twining the strands. “It’s kind of like that. I have to learn how to thread my power with everyone else’s. But there’s like a million parts, not just three.” With that, she finished her braid and flung it behind her back, not bothering to tie it, and it immediately began to separate.

“So, without a horde of hexes, the ship would–”

Twyla cut off the question with a flamboyant display of her hands expanding and a low rumble from her throat, both denoting an explosion.

“Ah,” Pilar said, running her fingers through the girl's hair to untangle the last bits of the falling braid. “Good thing we have so many, then. And a new mega superstar on her way to becoming a fully fledged one!” She tousled the girl’s hair one last time before withdrawing, offering a large smile of encouragement.

Pilar sat across from Christof in the mess, her fingers soaking in the warmth of the mug of tea they were wrapped around, her eyes scanning her companion. His shoulders were hunched, his hands hidden beneath the table, his focus on the untouched plate of food before him. From the hollowness of his cheeks, Pilar estimated he’d lost at least fifteen pounds in the weeks since Florence’s death–a death that had since been attributed to an undiagnosed heart condition.

He suddenly swivelled his head around, taking in the busy mess full of people talking, then met her gaze. “We look like a support group.”

“No,” she said quietly, reaching across the table to push his plate closer to him. “We look like friends who just happen to both be widows. But we’ve always been friends, Christof. Hell, we were friends before I ever even met Florence.”

His body heaved. “We were friends before Florence,” his body heaved again, “and… after .” The word came out as if wrung from his very soul.

Pilar clenched her jaw, stretching so far her body disconnected from her seat so she could touch him, gliding her palm over his arm. “I know it’s hard, but I promise you it will get easier.”

He pushed himself up, thrusting the back of his hand across his running nose. “I don’t want it to. The pain is the only way I can feel her now.”

He stormed out, necks twisting to watch his heated exit. As the onlookers slowly turned their attention to Pilar, she pursed her lips and collected his uneaten meal for refuse, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

Back in her room, she rolled the canister of nanobots she’d programmed but had yet to use between her palms. There was a risk, there was always a risk. But at this moment, after speaking with Christof, she’d decided she didn’t really care if she lived or died.

The click of the canister in the syringe echoed in her room, and she’d plunged the needle into her thigh before it stopped reverberating in her ears. Gritting her teeth, she pushed down. She didn’t feel the nanobots flooding her system. It would likely take weeks for them to alter the DNA of her every cell.

Or kill her. Either way.

“ Excellent. You’re going to do great things, Pilar.”

Pilar slipped from the lab at another ungodly hour, strolling through the hallways without passing anyone, though fairly certain she’d find some company in the mess. She was in one of her moods that craved interaction, a distraction from herself. Though not to drown out her self-hatred and pity. Not this time.

As time distanced her from the heinous act she committed, it became easier to push it to the back of her mind. It became easier to pretend that she hadn’t killed her friend. It became easier to pretend that Florence had never existed at all. So Pilar had moved back to working her normal shifts alongside her colleagues, taking her meals in the mess, and working out during the gym’s most active hours.

She’d only stopped by the lab for a few minutes to complete her new nightly routine.

The entire catalogue of specimen eleven with its glaring mutation had been destroyed and replaced with an older specimen from a defunct study. She trusted the anomalies of the other samples that had already been tested would remain unnoticed, but there was always a chance some new specimen would be as obvious as eleven. Knowing where to look, it only took a few moments to check gene twenty of the X chromosome on each of the samples that were slated to be worked on the following day. So far, they’d all had the anomaly, but in the same nearly invisible way of the others.

“Pilar!” a jovial voice called as she stepped into the mess, accompanied by the waving arm of a young man. He sat alone at a table, the two older gentlemen that normally flanked him absent. Only one other table in the room was occupied, a couple sitting close together and necking more than eating or drinking.

Pilar smiled as she sat down, a drink already sitting upon the table for her, condensation pooling at its base. “Hey Marsh. Where are Letzl and Horace?”

It was quiet enough that she could hear the clink of the ice as she lifted her glass, shifting it in her grasp just enough to continue the satisfying sound. She made a mental note to visit Winter Night soon. It’d been too long since she’d been surrounded by the sounds of ice and snow and the visions of the aurora borealis.

“You’re late. They’ve already called it.” Marsh lifted his glass as she did, though there were only a few dregs left.

Pilar glanced at the time display, making a noise of confusion. “I guess I didn’t realize.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and knocked her knee into the man’s. “What’re you still doing here, then?”

Marsh glanced at her glass and shrugged with a half-smile playing on his face. “Supposed I just wanted to make sure you got your drink.”

Pilar swirled it, more interested in the ice than his words. “I don’t drink every night.”

“No,” he said, sliding a bit closer to her, “but I wait for you every night.”

Pilar studied the man’s hopeful, bashful expression, his sandy hair long enough to brush over his eyebrows. At least he had brown eyes. Rory had ruined blue ones for her. She took a sip of the liquor, her first and only. “Goodnight, Marsh.”

She squeezed his shoulder with a smile, not wanting him to think of her rejection as an insult, and got halfway to the exit before he called after her. “Wait!” She turned back to face him. “I’m sorry. Please don’t leave.”

She licked her lips, considering all the possible outcomes of both leaving and staying. Leave, and she might ruin the comfortable dynamic she’d come to look forward to when sharing some late-night conversation and laughs with the trio of men. Stay, and she might give him the wrong impression. Or worse, bow to the pleasure of validation and give him the right impression.

“You always did have a way of wrapping men around your finger.”

“You don’t know me,” she hissed.

Marsh’s lips trembled, searching for words. “I didn’t mean–”

“No!” she said, rushing to him. “I didn’t mean you!” She sat back down next to him, folding her hands in her lap, apology written on her face.

But his expression did not change. “Then who?”

“I, um,” she laughed, fumbling over her words, shaking her head. “I’ve had a long day, actually.”

“Ah,” he said, finally returning to his happy-go-lucky smile. “Then forget about it; get some rest. Maybe we can talk tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, looking him in the eyes. “I’d like that.”

The man hesitantly leaned forward, and Pilar instinctively turned her head, his lips connecting with her cheek.

“Goodnight for real this time,” she said brightly, standing again.

“Night, Pilar,” he said without a hint of disappointment in missing her lips. Thankfully. Marsh seemed nice. She could do far worse. Maybe they would have that talk tomorrow.

Her smile remained until she turned into the hallway, when the voice assaulted her again.

“Another victim.”

She didn’t bother telling it to shut up. It had no mouth to shut, after all.

===

Pilar bumped Nicola with her hip as she passed the P.I. to deposit a new set of vials into the minus-seventy.

“Watch it,” her boss laughed, gripping the flask in front of her to steady it from the impulsive jolt, though not a strand of her tightly pulled back salt-and-pepper hair moved.

Pilar propped her chin on the woman’s shoulder. “I know that’s just water,” she whispered teasingly before pecking her cheek and moving on to the freezer.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Nicola said, shifting from the worktable to the nearby computer. But by the time Pilar finished inserting and identifying the vials and sealing the freezer back, she turned to find her boss looking at her.

She squinted an eye, tilting her head. “Hi?”

The P.I.’s expression was unreadable, but Pilar supposed it wasn’t anything too important that had caught her attention, seeing as there were another three techs in the lab who were going about their work, paying no attention to them. Still, she glanced toward the holoscreen, trying to make out what Nicola had just been looking at, without success.

“I’d like you to come with me.”

Her heart immediately began to beat wildly, but she smiled–unlike Nicola. “Of course.”

Pilar wasn’t sure if the voice’s absence was a good or bad thing as she followed the woman toward her private office.

Nicola was a highly valued and respected member of the Renicoff. If anyone had their doubts, one look at her office would have assuaged them. Only someone of extremely high status would have been granted the use of so much unnecessary space. Her desk–made of mahogany, no less–was situated out in the open rather than built into the wall, a cushy chair on one side, two standard chairs on the other. Furthermore, it was clear aside from four small metallic rectangles, making the entire wooden monstrosity fairly pointless.

The principal investigator gestured toward one of the standard chairs as she claimed the large one, passing her fingers across two of the rectangles. Two corresponding holoscreens erupted between the women, and Pilar lowered herself onto the edge of a seat, eyes scanning the backwards words and diagrams.

One showed a log of her comings and goings.

One showed data from the study.

If ever there was a time for the voice to claim She knows, as it was wont to do, now would be it. And yet, it remained silent. So Pilar squeezed her fingers, her leg bouncing, but kept her head high, feigning confidence. And innocence.

“You’ve picked up hours lately,” Nicola said, scrolling the log screen but looking through it to the tech.

“Yes. I know I was slacking a bit there for a while–”

“Don’t,” the P.I. cut her off, waving her hand in dismissal. “I never said anything about that. I know you always try your best, Pilar. If that was your best with what you were going through, then that was your best.”

Hot, embarrassing tears stung Pilar’s eyes at the offer of such compassion and understanding. She tried to blink them away before her boss noticed. “Thank you, but I just thought I had some time to make up.”

“Don’t think I don’t know why you switched to nights,” Nicola murmured, almost off-handedly. Pilar considered asking her to explain, but decided not to encourage the woman to dwell on it. The P.I. had already turned her attention to the other holoscreen, again swiping at the air, the figures slowly ascending before disappearing, new lines of text taking their place. “You are always so meticulous with your work.”

Pilar continued to wring her fingers, twisting her grip in her lap where her boss’s vision was obscured by the desk, though she’d forced herself to still her vibrating leg. “Thank you.”

The P.I. closed out the screens, leaving nothing to separate them, her eyes piercing.

Pilar’s head swam with the effort to keep still and slow her breathing, to convince herself her heartbeat wasn’t as audible as it seemed.

Nicola’s intense gaze faltered, and she barked a laugh. “Why do you look like you’re about to shit yourself?”

All the tension flooded out of her body, and Pilar breathed a sigh of relief. “Jesus, Nic, don’t scare me like that,” she laughed. “Don’t you think it’s a wee bit ominous to pull me into your office out of nowhere in the middle of a shift.” She fell back into her seat, running her hands through her hair and pressing her eyes closed, but smiling.

Nicola laughed again. “Why would you ever think a meeting like this could be a bad thing? You are the perfect tech! And, if you’re interested, I think you would make one incredible P.I.”

Pilar’s eyes popped back open as she straightened in her seat. A new holoscreen rotated to face her properly manifested, detailing a new study. She skimmed it as the older woman continued.

“Just got the approval to begin a new study last week. I want to stay focused on Project Trims, so I’ve decided to appoint someone else as the principal investigator of this new project.” Nicola walked around the table and sat on the edge of her desk, propping herself up with one foot still on the floor, folding her hands over a leg. “And I would like that someone to be you.”

Pilar dragged her eyes from the holoscreen to her boss. She said nothing, knowing the wide, disbelieving grin on her face was answer enough. Jumping up and throwing her arms around Nicola’s neck while squealing only confirmed her acceptance.

“Can I still moonlight on Trims?” she asked as she pulled back.

Nicola threw her head back, groaning in amusement. “Pilar, you won’t have time! You’re in charge of everything on this new project–starting with naming it and hiring the techs.”

The women spent hours discussing the logistics of sharing techs and lab space, where to look for the candidates for the two additional tech roles she’d need to fill, and goals, timelines, and expectations.

Just as they were wrapping up and Pilar was about to leave, Nicola knocked her knuckles on the table and pulled a tablet out of her desk drawer.

“Naming a new project is always the funnest part of getting started,” she said, placing the tablet across the table in front of the new P.I. “Any ideas?”

She tossed a stylus to Pilar, who held it between her fingers, but stared at the tablet blankly. “How’d you come up with Trims?”

The older woman pulled up a new holoscreen, and with a series of swipes and points, a scientific paper displayed. “Centuries ago, there was a widespread fatal disease on Earth. You likely wouldn’t have heard of it due to its fairly swift eradication; it was prevalent for less than a hundred years. But the cure came from a mutation of the TRIM5 gene of a test monkey that just happened to be in that exact research study that was searching for a cure. It was fate, really. Anyway, as we’re looking for a beneficial mutation, I named it after a beneficial mutation that was discovered and used to save an untold number of lives.”

Pilar continued reading the paper even after Nicola finished her explanation, then looked at her mentor. “If we ever find it,” she began, licking her lips, “do you think it’ll save lives?”

Nicola shrugged. “As with any great discovery or advancement, it all depends on what we do with it.”

Pilar laid the stylus on the desk. “I’ll have to think about it. I want it to have meaning just like yours.”

The women said their goodbyes, but as Pilar approached the door, Nicola stopped her.

“One more thing,” she said, looking down and shaking her finger. “I reached out to Twyla, and she agreed to participate. I thought you might want to be the one to do it. It can be your last act as tech on Project Trims.”

The younger woman smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Okay, open as wide as you can and say Ahhh,” Pilar instructed.

Twyla sat upon a work table in the lab, her face level with the woman’s, her maroon robes swirled around her on the metal surface. Another tech wandered by with a case of microscope slides. Pilar rolled her eyes as the glass clanked with each step; the other tech had improperly packed them. She’d deal with that later, but for now, the girl did as she was told, so Pilar carefully extracted the long cotton bud from the labelled tube she’d prepared. With gloved hands, she held the girl’s chin as she swabbed the inside of her cheeks.

“All done!” she said as she sealed the bud inside the tube, placed it in a nearby rack, and peeled off her gloves.

The apprentice hex jumped off the table. “That was easy.”

“Well,” the woman said, pulling open a nearby drawer and extracting a scalpel, “I can always take your blood instead if you prefer?” She made a few fake jabs toward Twyla, eliciting a string of giggles from the girl.

“I’m good,” Twyla said, playfully dodging the strikes. “Want to get lunch?”

Pilar twisted her lips, running through the myriad of items on her to-do list, before deciding she’d just eat at her desk. She wasn’t given a private office like Nicola, but she was assigned a specific desk in the lab that was just hers. It was nice being able to leave her lab coat thrown over the back of her chair, her tablet abandoned on the surface, and know they would still be there the next day. It was also a convenient cover to be in the lab at night to do her secret analysis of new samples; Nicola would just assume she was working on the new project.

“Not today,” she said, rubbing the girl’s arm. “Eat something extra yummy for me.”

Twyla’s face fell. “But I was going to see if you wanted to dine in the hex hall.”

That mile-long to-do list suddenly felt much less pressing.

“I thought only hexes could go into your wing?”

A mischievous grin spread upon the girl’s face. “Technically, as long as you’re accompanied by a hex, you’re welcome. It’s just most of them are so focused on our work and culture, none of them really have any friends,” she said, whispering the last bit as if it was scandalous to point out her kinsfolk’s social shortcomings.

With a slap of her hand on the counter, Pilar nodded. “You know what, let’s do it. My work will be here when I get back.”

The girl didn’t snap her fingers as she normally did when returning to the hex wing, but rather extended her arm as if to say After you. Pilar used the eye scanner to lead them out of the lab and through the maze of hallways that would deposit them where the magic-makers spent nearly all their time. The hex wing.

Pilar had passed by it before. She’d always thought it was a bit over the top. The cool silver and grey metal hallways branched throughout the ship, each intersection looking nearly identical, all except for this one. When one passed by this opening, there was no metal in sight. There was no grey. The only silver–if it could be called that–was the twinkling lights among the inky blackness that would be mistaken for stars if one didn’t know better.

The two stood in the middle of the rounded opening, looking into what appeared to be endless space. Pilar knew it wasn’t; it was just an illusion. And yet, she hesitated in taking that step. She, logically, knew her foot would make contact with a surface that felt the exact same as the metal flooring she was perched upon now. But her eyes told her if she took that step, she’d be falling into a void. Destined to float aimlessly until succumbing to death.

“Is that…fear I sense?”

Pilar pressed her eyes closed, shaking her head.

Twyla was looking at her with glee. “Come on!” Without warning, the girl gripped Pilar’s hand and bounded into the darkness.

The woman sucked in a breath–terrified, though she’d never admit it to the voice, or anyone else for that matter–and lurched forward, her arm pulled taut in the girl’s embrace.

The darkness enveloped her, and for half a heartbeat, she really believed she was lost to the void.

Then her feet crashed into the floor, her knees buckling, her sense of stability off. Twyla still held her hand, and tugged her upright.

“You know it’s just a hall like any other, right? It just looks different?” The girl laughed.

Pilar snatched her hand away. “Of course I know that. You just pulled me too hard; I lost my balance.”

Her short tone did nothing to the girl’s smile, and she continued a few steps before disappearing.

Pilar blinked, her anger dissolving into confusion. “Twyla?”

She took a slow step toward where the girl had last been corporeal, seeing nothing but vast, empty space around her.

“You are scared,” the voice said, almost laughing.

Swearing to herself, she closed her eyes, the darkness of her eyelids preferable to the darkness outside them. She continued her slow steps until the thin skin blazed red with light, and she thrust them open.

The hex wing was nothing like she imagined. Much like the seasonal rooms, it seemed to be much too large to fit on the ship, and completely out of place. The room seemed to be made entirely of a deep-colored wood, accented with red carpets and wallpaper. It extended straight ahead, farther than Pilar could see, but there were also twin curved staircases that led to an identical hall on a second level. There were no bright lights, but rather soft, flickering firelight seemed to bathe the space–though Pilar saw no candles or fire of any kind.

Her lips involuntarily parted as her eyes roved over the sight in awe.

When Pilar noticed Twyla was watching her, amused at her reaction, she pinched the girl teasingly. “Why have you never told me the hexes live in a seventeenth century Earth chateau aboard the ship?”

“Cozy, huh?” the girl said with a wink. Her smile faded as the increasingly louder echojyhu of several footsteps taken in sync filled the room. She turned around, her attention on the area between the two staircases.

Pilar followed her gaze as a hooded figure in black robes emerged out of the shadowed hallway. Followed by two more, side by side. Then three. Several rows of hexes followed, forming a triangle. Each obscured by their hooded robes. Each step completely synchronized.

As one, the women spoke. “You are not welcome here.”

Twyla stood before Pilar, her arms out as if protecting her. “She is my guest.”

The hex in front broke apart from the rest, approaching the girl who stood with her chin up, defiance in her eyes. When the hex spoke, it was a single voice. “You are not yet a hex.”

Twyla stumbled back as the woman placed her palm upon the girl’s forehead. Then vanished.

“Twyla!” Pilar shrieked, looking around frantically before focusing on the head hex. “What did you do to her?”

The woman didn’t answer, only placed her palm upon Pilar’s forehead.

Her vision tunnelled then went completely black, and she felt nothing at all.

Still, she could hear the voice.

“They’ll pay for that, won’t they, Pilar?”

The first sensation that returned was the sense of brightness. Not vision, not really, just knowing there was light around her. Then came the aches. Her neck, her back, her elbows for some reason, and a pounding headache. Then she became aware of her body in a more precise way. She was slumped over on her desk in her room, the chair that was hardly more than a frame providing just as little support as the desk itself.

Pilar adjusted herself to sitting, her movements slow and purposeful in an attempt to not anger her stiff muscles any more than they already were. Still, pitiful gasps of pain spewed out. But she was upright. Only then did she open her eyes, her vision finally returned.

She chastised herself for falling asleep at her desk. She was getting too old to be doing things like that. The only reprieve she imagined would come from a scalding shower; and so, with another whimper, she pulled herself up using the desk as leverage.

As she shuffled toward the bathroom, her feet connected to the floor far more often than they were in motion, thoughts and memories flitted through her mind like the birds on the beach of Summer Day when breadcrumbs were sprinkled about. It took much longer than it should have for her to realize she didn’t recall falling asleep at her desk, or working at it at all for that matter. She didn’t recall coming back to her room. She didn’t recall completing the several tasks she had scheduled. She only recalled the lab. And Twyla. And…

“Twyla,” she breathed, her hand to her chest, clutching the fabric of her shirt. The incident in the hex wing came flooding back, and the sweet embrace of falling water was forgotten. She ignored her protesting muscles, too, as she snapped her fingers and bounded out the door.

The hallways seemed to blur as she ran at full speed toward the forbidden wing. When she reached the intersection where light was swallowed, she didn’t hesitate as she had yesterday.

A mistake.

No floor greeted her feet. The black void consumed her, the twinkling lights only pinpricks that did nothing to assist in her spatial awareness. She couldn’t locate the hallway she’d just abandoned only a moment ago. She couldn’t even tell which way was up. As she began to hyperventilate, the voice came.

“It’s not real, Pilar.”

She knew. If she were really in space, she wouldn’t be able to breathe. “How stupid do you think I am?” she spat, despite the terror still coursing through her.

“Always the bad guy,” it said, almost forlornly.

Her stomach dropped, and she came crashing down, landing in a folded pile of flesh and bone in the metal hallway adjacent to the void.

She barked a scream of frustration and pain, but didn’t dare enter the hex wing hall again. Instead, remained crumpled upon the floor for several minutes, undisturbed. Until the voice came again.

“Do you think they killed her?”

“Shut. Up!” she said, pressing her hands over her ears.

“A waste, but I could see it happening. And it would have been your fault.”

Listening to the voice was worse than the pain, so she forced herself up. She could no longer run, but was able to limp through the hallways. Passersby gave her looks, but she never met their gaze as she made her way purposefully toward the lab.

Nicola was nowhere to be seen, though the several techs in there stared at Pilar with concern, asking questions she neither heard nor responded to.

She spoke over them all. “Where is she?”

A couple exchanged confused glances, but another spoke up. “Nicola’s in her office.”

Pilar stormed to the private room, ignoring a request to look over a data point from one of the techs. The eye scanner at the door identified her, announcing her presence. A muffled command to open came next, followed by the door sliding into its pocket to reveal the salt-and-pepper haired woman at her enormous mahogany desk.

She sucked her cheeks in, gesturing for the new arrival to take a seat.

Pilar remained standing.

With a slight sigh and shake of her head, Nicola massaged the bridge of her nose. “They said I shouldn’t expect you back for a few days.” She threw her hands up. “But of course you’re here mere hours later, before I’ve even decided what to do with you.”

“You spoke to the hexes?” Pilar asked, taking aggressive steps forward and bracing her hands on the desk.

“They requested I take you off Project Trims. It was easy enough to appease them, given you’re already technically off it. I just didn’t mention you were now leading Project…has it got a name yet?”

“Is Twyla okay?” Her voice came out cold as ice, yet raspy from the pain.

Nicola laughed. “Oh yes, that little stun trick doesn’t do much to hexes. I’m sure she’s up and about as we speak. Though they did mention she’d be confined to the hex wing for a bit. They seem to find her recreational time spent in,” she looked the other woman up and down, pressing her fingertips together, “less than beneficial ways.”

Relief washed over her, and yet the accused felt the sting of rejection. She finally pulled back a chair, dropping into it roughly. “What did I do!?”

“I don’t agree with them, mind you. I know things got a little,” she waffled her hand back and forth, “again after Florence, but–”

“Who?” Pilar interrupted, her mind racing at the injustice of being the target of the hexes’ disapproval.

The head P.I. blinked. “After you lost Florence. So soon after losing Rory.”

“Florence,” Pilar repeated, reminding herself. “Florence was my friend.”

“And a liability.”

“I know…” Nicola said, her brows furrowed in concern. A long silence stretched between them, only the sound of Pilar’s bouncing leg filling it. Finally, the older woman sighed. “But I think you’re a wonderful mentor to Twyla. I’m not sure why they’ve got their magically mutated panties in a bunch.”

“We were just going to have lunch,” Pilar said softly, her eyes unfocused.

Her mentor walked around the desk to crouch before her, gripping her shoulders. “You’re fine, Pilar. It’s not a big deal. They’re just being dramatic, everyone knows that. They’ll get over it and Twyla will be released from her confinement soon, I’m sure of it.” With another squeeze, she added, “Take today and tomorrow off to rest. Really, they said you’d be knocked out for at least forty-eight hours. It’s fine. I promise.”

Nicola pulled the younger woman to her feet, and Pilar let her.

“And Twyla is fine, you’re sure?”

“I promise,” she laughed, pushing Pilar toward the door.

Satisfied, Pilar agreed to the time off. Her body certainly needed it.

She’d only taken one step out of the office before the voice began its assault upon her peace of mind.

“She’s lying.”

Pilar paced in her small room. She’d left to do her nightly tests of new samples to ensure the mutation wasn’t discovered by any of her colleagues. She’d spent time in the mess with the trio of men she’d befriended–though Marsh had made no further attempts to move their relationship beyond friendship, and she hadn’t had a drop to drink. Other than that, she spent most of the three days following the failed trip to the hex wing in her room, resting. Her body was no longer sore. But her mind still reeled.

She had no way of knowing if Twyla was really okay or not. Nicola said she was fine. But the voice had said it was a lie. It whispered in her ears all day and all night. Kind words, comforting words. And explanations. Reasons why the hexes were so adamant about keeping her out. Reasons why they would harm Twyla. Reasons why Nicola would bow to their will, keeping their secrets.

They knew. They knew she had discovered their secret. And they knew she intended to use it for herself.

That’s what the voice said, anyway.

So she paced, putting off her return to the lab. Then she stopped, throwing her hands up. “What does it matter? It didn’t work. I tried when I remembered what happened to Twyla.”

“Their stun didn’t affect you as harshly as it should have.”

“So?” she said, shaking her head, gripping her hair and pulling in an attempt to ground herself.

“Try again.”

“I’ve been trying!” But to placate it, she snapped her fingers, imagining the puppy Twyla had created.

The soft clicking of paws on metal had her whirling around to find the familiar mop of curly grey and white fur, panting and yipping, bounding toward her.

She squeaked a breath of disbelief, staring a moment before falling to her knees, the dog bouncing upon her folded thighs and licking the hands she brought up to greet it. As she provided copious pets to the grateful, nuzzling pup, a ridiculous laugh burbled up. It began slow, breathy, then turned into deep belly laughs that had her falling forward, tears in her eyes, the dog scrambling out of the way.

“Now the fun begins.”

=

“Project Crispy.”

Nicola looked up from the holoscreen she was pointing at, showing one of the techs which sample needed to be redone and why. “Hmm?”

“I’ve named my study. Project Crispy,” Pilar repeated with a huge grin.

Nicola murmured further instruction to the tech, who tapped the air in front of him, adding notes, then turned to grab Pilar by the elbow, guiding her toward her office. “Don’t tell me. I want to guess.”

The women took their usual seats, though Pilar leaned far back in hers, propping her heel upon the desk and crossing her ankles with her hands behind her head.

Nicola laughed. “That rest got you feeling too good, I think.” The other woman only winked. “Anyway, Crispy. Let’s see…you were hungry when you decided? Your love of fried chicken clouding your judgement?”

“Nope.”

“Okay…” She pressed her fingertips together, tilting her head down with her eyes closed. After a moment, she popped up. “You just completely copied off of me, didn’t you?”

Pilar laughed. “I prefer to think of it as emulating you.”

Nicola nodded, smiling. “Project Trims named after TRIM5 because it attempts to discover the beneficial mutation that gives hexes their powers. Project Crispy named after CRISPR because it attempts to correct harmful mutations?”

Pilar tapped her nose. “It’s almost like they put you in charge because you’re brilliant and good at what you do,” she teased.

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” the older woman said, motioning as if flipping back her hair, though it was pulled back into a tight bun as always.

The women shared a laugh, then began more logistics talk that was cut short by the amount of work that had piled up while Pilar was taking her leave.

In fact, she remained in the lab until the wee hours of the morning, focusing on Project Crispy but taking time out to do her usual conspiratorial work related to Trims. When she was satisfied she’d caught up enough to call it a night, the mainframe connected to the nanobot canisters whirred to life.

“Do you not think it fate that you were reassigned to a study on correcting mutations just as you discovered what gives hexes their powers and that you now have those same mutations within your DNA?”

Pilar licked her lips, eyes on the mainframe. Then her attention flicked toward the flammables cabinet. Then to the freezer where the deadly gas that snuffed out Florence’s life was kept. “So I can remove it? Go back to normal?”

“So you can remove it, yes. But not on you, Pilar.”

She swallowed, taking slow steps toward the mainframe. She lifted her hands slowly, poised to begin coding, then hesitated.

And turned the machine off.

“I’m going to sleep.”

“Crispy is not named only for CRISPR, is it, Pilar?”

Rolling her eyes, she ran her tongue between her teeth and lip. “What else would it be for?”

“Crispy, like the bodies of those who get in your way. Crispy, like the hexes will be for falling within the path of your fiery wrath.”

She shook her head, walking toward the exit.

“Twyla would have sent something by now to alleviate your worry.”

She stopped.

“If she had the breath or body to do so.”

Pilar thought for a long moment, then snapped her fingers, imagining the girl. Nothing happened.

Then she imagined her room, and snapped them again, only to find herself next to her bed.

“You see? Your powers are not the issue.”

As much as she wanted to believe otherwise, it had a point. But she was exhausted.

“I’m going to sleep,” she repeated, slipping in the bathroom to ready herself for bed.

The voice didn’t protest, but as she lay awake, tossing and turning, she knew something must be done. She couldn’t live like this.

Ripping off her covers, she snapped her fingers to find herself back in the lab. The mainframe was already pulled up to the program she needed, the screen bright. Her fingers silently flew across the holoscreen, writing a new code. Not one to create the hex mutation, but one to destroy it.

“I swear it was this big,” Horace wheezed, throwing his hands as far to the side as he could.

Pilar and the other two men laughed, though Letzl shook his head. “Ain’t no way you caught a fish that big. Why would they even have fish that big in the koi pond?”

Pilar ran her fingertips down the condensation beading on her soda water. “The hexes do strange things sometimes,” she answered quietly, her amusement snuffed out at the thought. She could feel the men’s eyes on her, but kept her focus on her glass.

Marsh cleared his throat. “I believe you, Horace. I think I’ve seen some even bigger than that swimming around in Spring Day. Though I think it was in the creek, not the koi pond.”

The men continued their playful argument, but Pilar’s mind wandered, and she didn’t attend to it. So when Marsh’s hand slid onto her thigh, she jumped, and he quickly withdrew.

“Sorry,” he said, the word rushed. “But you do, don’t you?”

“Hmm?”

Marsh cleared his throat again, shifting in his seat and flicking his eyes to the older men as if asking for help. “You know one of the hexes? The apprentice?”

“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, Twyla. Sweet girl.”

“Ask her then!” Horace barked, nudging Letzl’s shoulder. “This old cod would have to believe it if it came from the source itself.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling, though she wasn’t sure what the question was. “I’ll ask her.”

As the men began again, she stood up. “Night,” she said, saluting the trio of men without giving them enough time to attempt to convince her to stay.

It had been another long day in the lab and an hour of socialization. It had taken a few days, but she’d finally caught up on the duties she’d missed and had trained the new techs enough to lighten her workload. Still, she had a lot to do, and a newfound respect for Nicola and all the woman was able to accomplish. Of course, Nicola didn’t also have a secret project to work on.

Pilar had finished the code to destroy the hex mutation. Given she would only have one shot at it–one nanobot canister missing had gone unnoticed so far, but the three dozen needed to inject all the hexes on board…well, she could only do that once. And hope no one happened to look in the cabinet and find it nearly empty. Her only solace was that they weren’t needed for any of the current studies, and as a Principle Investigator, she had the authority to lock access to the cabinet, which she did. Only Nicola would be able to override it.

Unlike the first code that she blindly tested upon herself, she inserted a single nanobot into a sample from the Trims study, and watched through the microscope as it cut and rebuilt the DNA, working flawlessly to remove the abnormality on gene twenty of the X chromosome. She had no doubts of its effectiveness, even more so when the voice offered praise and declarations of her brilliance. It had instructed her to program the three dozen canisters needed, and she’d done it. Still, they remained in the cabinet. But it gave her comfort knowing they were there. She was a viper, ready to strike.

“You won’t ask her,” the voice said as she walked back to her room. She’d avoided using her new powers, unsure how the hivemind-like cult worked and afraid of what might happen if the hexes were to be able to sense it.

“I might,” she said, though she had a feeling it knew she hadn’t the faintest idea what she was supposed to ask. “She’ll be released soon. Nicola said so.”

“You know that’s not true.”

Pilar didn’t know what was true anymore. Florence didn’t feel real. Her role in the woman’s death certainly didn’t feel real. Pilar still had moments when she felt her friend was still alive. And moments when she felt Florence had never existed at all. Just as she had moments when she was certain the hexes and Nicola were covering up Twyla’s death. And moments when she was certain she would run into Twyla anytime, the girl complaining about being grounded, but pleased to return to their stolen time in the seasonal rooms.

But the voice, it seemed to know the truth. And was very insistent on it. Pilar didn’t trust herself to know what was real and what was right. But she didn’t trust the voice either, though its constant presence and the comforting words it whispered to her was often successful at tearing down her walls.

And tonight was one of those times.

“You really think they killed her?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

Pilar stopped, squeezing her arms tightly around her chest. Then did an about face and headed toward the lab.

Once inside, she thought of the girl and snapped her fingers. Again, nothing happened.

“See?”

She bit her lip, twisting her mouth around in trepidation.

“Do it, Pilar. Crispy, remember?”

She nodded decisively and unlocked the cabinet, carefully packing the nanobot canisters and corresponding syringes in a pack, along with an extra syringe she filled with something else. She clutched the case of revenge in her hands, awkwardly moving her wrist up to hold it so she could snap her fingers, imagining the hex wing.

The entranceway to the Victorian chateau sprung up around her, completely empty. Firelight danced upon the dark wood and crimson fabrics of the space. She didn’t know how the hexes had known she entered their wing when she arrived with Twyla, so she moved swiftly toward the hall ensconced with shadows, determined to get in and out as quickly as possible.

“No,” the voice said as she neared it. “Upstairs.”

She corrected her course and climbed one of the curved staircases two steps at a time to enter the darkened hallway of the upper level. As she jogged through, the firelight seemed to cling to her; the space she inhabited was always well-lit, but the areas ahead and behind remained hidden in shadows, making it impossible to navigate or tell how long the hall was. No doors appeared, only blank wooden walls surrounding the crimson carpet accented with golden filigree. “Help?” she whispered.

“Continue.”

She did, though she felt as though she was on a treadmill, nothing changing. Finally, the voice instructed her to stop.

Her surroundings hadn’t changed; there was still no door or new hall in sight. “What?” she panted, catching her breath.

“Place your hand upon the wall.”

She did so, and the wall shimmered away, revealing a lavish bedroom in the same archaic style. Quiet snores slipped from a woman tucked into a thick duvet, false moonlight washing over her delicate face. She looked younger than Pilar, and that gave the vengeful woman pause.

“Do it, Pilar. Taking her power is far more merciful than what she did to Twyla.”

Swallowing her hesitation, she took silent steps into the room. The click of the canister into the syringe seemed loud enough to alert the entire ship of her unscrupulous deed, and Pilar winced. But the hex remained sleeping.

Make it painless, she thought, snapping her fingers, hoping her powers would take care of the rest. Then she pressed the injection into the woman’s bare arm folded peacefully over her blanket.

The hex didn’t stir.

Pilar released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and returned to the enchanted hall.

“One down.”

The voice guided her to each room of the three dozen hexes aboard the Renicoff, and Pilar repeated her task in each one.

Until she got to the last room. The room of the head hex who had struck down both her and Twyla, and had undoubtedly ordered the girl’s death.

Pilar stood at the side of her bed, looking down upon the woman. Her face was weathered with grey curls framing dark skin. In sleep, she looked peaceful. Kind. But Pilar knew better than to trust that assessment.

She extracted a syringe, but not one of nanobots. She repeated the command to her power, ensuring the needle’s prick wouldn’t wake the woman, nor would she feel the fiery pain that would accompany the toxin.

Then she waited, watching, as the potassium chloride coursed through the hex’s veins. The woman convulsed. Then stilled. Pilar snapped her fingers, and the corpse vanished.

“It was deserved,” the voice said, the comforting whispers circling Pilar as if in a phantom cyclone.

With two snaps of her fingers, Pilar returned the case and used syringes to the lab, then herself to her room.

“I’m proud of you, Pilar,” the voice whispered as she fell asleep, providing the validation for which she so desperately longed.

Pilar smiled.

Pilar was helping one of the new techs navigate a roadblock when Nicola pulled her away, shaking two containers of salad. “Lunch time, lady,” the older woman said, nodding her head toward her private office.

The two settled in, Nicola not bothering to shield her desk from the food, and Pilar winced as a dressing-drenched bit of arugula splattered on the wood. “I can’t believe they let you have such nice stuff when you abuse it so,” she said, using a napkin to clean it up.

The mentor emitted a fake laugh dripping in sarcasm, then went back to eating. “Speaking of,” she said between chews, “have I got something to tell you. Wait…have you spoken to Twyla lately?”

Pilar nearly choked on the bite in her mouth. “Why does abuse make you think of Twyla?”

Nicola shook her fork around in time with her head. “No, no, no. The nice stuff comment made me think about the person onboard who gets the nicest stuff. I asked about Twyla in case you’d already talked to her this morning and she told you.”

The younger woman gently placed her fork in the container, careful not to make a mess as her mentor had. She smoothed the fabric of her pants, her eyes cast downward. “I haven’t heard from Twyla at all since that day we tried to go to the hex wing.”

“Those drama queens, I swear,” Nicola said, rolling her eyes. “Well, anyway, the head hex is gone.”

Pilar snapped her eyes up. “What?”

“Right?” the mentor said, not bothering to hide her amusement. “You know how they are; I’m sure there’s much more to the story, but we’ll never hear it.”

The crunching of the leaves between the older woman’s teeth was barely audible over Pilar’s pounding heart. She’d lost her appetite; her stomach heaved. But she forced herself to smile and continue eating.

“When you do speak to Twyla next, see if you can find out anything more, yeah?”

Pilar nodded, though she knew that day would never come. “Yeah.”

The women ate in silence until Nicola finished. Pilar closed her container, hoping her mentor hadn’t noticed how much was left untouched.

“Anyway, I’ll let you know who the new head is when I find out. I’m assuming they’ll promote from those already onboard, but they could always bring a seasoned one in from another ship; the Renicoff is quite the beast to control. Either way they’ll probably bring on a new hex–head or otherwise. Probably not anytime soon; I don’t think we’re scheduled to connect with another ship for months.” Though Nicola spoke the words aloud, they came as a stream of consciousness, more for herself than for Pilar.

Still, the younger woman nodded and murmured her acknowledgement of the information, her eyes unfocused. Then a slap on the desk brought her attention back.

“Actually, I’ll have you speak to Twyla today. Her DNA sample got contaminated somehow; I’d like you to swab her again. With the head gone, I’m sure I can get her released from her confinement early; at least for this.”

“This should be interesting.”

Pilar swallowed the urge to tell the voice to be quiet as she watched the woman tap on the communicator wrapped around her wrist.

“She didn’t know,” she breathed. “She really didn’t know they hurt Twyla.”

Nicola continued tapping the communicator, her eyes glued to it. “What’s that?” she said when she finished, finally looking up. “Did you say something?”

“No.” Pilar gripped her chair, staring at the woman, who cocked her head to the side in response.

“Are you–” The words were cut short as Nicola turned her attention to her wrist. “Ah, she’ll be here in just a few. Now,” she said, clapping her hands and smiling at Pilar, “make sure you get her to tell you all the juicy gossip about the hex highjinx. I have to go yell at Lena again.”

Nicola guided Pilar out of the office and back into the lab. The older woman did indeed make a beeline for the tech who seemed to always fumble even the simplest tasks. Pilar, however, stood pressed against the wall, her arms folded into a tight hug. She scanned the lab, the several techs working diligently on both Trims and Crispy, the flammables cabinet, the minus-seventy freezer, the nanobots cabinet, and finally, the door.

Twyla could appear right here, right in the middle of the lab, but she wouldn’t. She always followed the rules. She’d use her powers to deposit herself in the hallway, and use her biometric data to log her entrance. She was the best of us , Pilar thought, sucking her lips in an attempt to hold back her tears.

The door slid open.

And there stood Twyla.

It was a good thing Pilar was standing against the wall; even with its support, she nearly fell over. “Twyla?” she stammered, pushing herself off, gripping a counter as she made slow steps toward the girl.

A grin blossomed upon the girl’s face, her eyes squinting. “I’ve been in that freaking candlelight too long,” she laughed. “It’s too bright in here now! Pilar, is that you?” she teased, waving her hands about as if testing for an impediment.

Pilar released a strangled noise somewhere between a sob and laugh and lurched toward the girl, wrapping her in a tight embrace.

“I…can’t…breathe,” Twyla gasped.

“Sorry!” Pilar barked, releasing the girl only to grip her head instead, feeling the soft auburn locks, knowing she was really here, really alive. “Are you okay?”

She hadn’t noticed Nicola’s approach, but it was the woman who answered. “I told you she was okay, you dodo. Since when do you not trust me?” Her words were light; she didn’t mean anything by them. And yet, the pierced Pilar’s heart.

She glanced between the girl and her mentor. The girl who was perfectly fine. The mentor who had not lied to her.

And she had killed the head hex because she had believed otherwise.

No.

Because she had been told otherwise.

“Florence?” she whispered, realizing for the first time the darkness that had corrupted her from within. She knew then that she had killed her friend without cause, too.

Nicola looked at her questioningly, but Twyla looked concerned. “Twyla,” the girl said, patting her own chest. The two exchanged glances, and Pilar knew what was coming.

More questions.

More concerns.

“I have to go,” she said, pushing past them. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As she ran toward her room, knowing they were watching her go, the voice followed.

“You never did have a mind of your own, Pilar. So easily influenced. So easily manipulated.”

Pilar paced her room, pulling her hair, flexing her fingers, screaming into a pillow. Then she swallowed three sleeping pills, determined to forget what she had done.

When she arrived at the lab the next day, thoughts of all those she’d wronged pushed to the back of her mind, she kept quiet and to herself. She completed her work, only speaking to the techs when absolutely necessary. Luckily, Nicola wasn’t working–at least not in the lab–giving Pilar a break from the watchful eye of the woman who knew her well enough to see through her defenses.

The techs had long since called it a day, and Pilar continued analyzing the latest data set from her Crispy study. She was just about to pull out tonight’s sample from the Trims study she needed to evaluate, when the electronic hiss of the door opening stopped her. She glanced up to find Nicola in the doorway, announcing some command to the electronic system Pilar couldn’t hear.

Her heart pounded thinking that if Nicola had arrived only a few minutes later, she would have been caught red-handed, though she supposed she could have passed it off as long as the P.I. didn’t notice the abnormalities.

Pilar forced a smile. “Hey, Nic. Sorry about yesterday. Something just knocked me off my feet all of a sudden; must have been something I ate.” A nervous chuckle followed.

The P.I. had a pained look on her face. “Yeah,” she said, walking slowly toward her favored mentee. “Sorry to hear that.”

Pilar dropped her head back to the data she had been reading, though the figures now blurred in her vision. She hoped if she looked busy, Nicola would leave.

But she didn’t. “Pilar, can I talk to you a minute in my office?”

As terrified as Pilar had been the first time Nicola randomly asked for a private conversation, that feeling could almost pass as relief when compared to the sinking dread that coursed through her body now, weighing her down.

“I was actually just about to head out,” she said, running her fingers through her hair and tucking the strands behind an ear. “Been here all day.” She still didn’t look up.

Nicola took a few steps closer, close enough for the guilty woman to see the tips of her boss’s shoes as she pretended to keep her focus on the holoscreen in front of her.

“I think we need to talk now, Pilar.”

Pilar reluctantly followed the woman to her private office and took a seat, her leg bouncing and fingers twisting. “Another promotion so soon?” Another nervous giggle.

She saw Nicola’s face clearly now. Her soft wrinkles suddenly harsh, a few strands of grey and chestnut hair uncharacteristically loose from her bun, her mouth set in a thin line. And her eyes…her eyes made Pilar’s leg still and stomach drop. They were filled with a sadness so deep, a sadness Pilar knew too well.

“Nicola?” she breathed.

The older woman said nothing, only pursed her lips in disappointment as she slid a finger across one of the metallic boxes on her desk, a holoscreen of Pilar’s comings and goings projecting into the space between them.

“There are records of you entering the lab, but never leaving. Or vice versa. Care to explain?”

Pilar stared at the log, looking for an answer. “I…I don’t know.”

Silence stretched, Nicola refusing to accept that.

“I guess I must have walked in or out with someone and forgot to scan in?”

Nicola kept her eye locked on Pilar’s as she swiped the air, then nodded to the new information. “Then how do you explain this? You were working in the lab. The equipment logged you as a user long after the last person left.”

Again, Pilar scanned the log, buying herself time. “Okay. You caught me. There have been a few times when I’ve worked myself to sleep and stay here overnight. I’m sorry, Nicola. It won’t happen again.”

The older woman’s lips curved into a hopeless frown. She sighed. “I expected more from you.” Another swipe projected a new image.

Gene twenty of the X chromosome. Zoomed in on the anomalies.

“I know about the nanobots, too. And a few other random chemicals and supplies that have gone missing.” Nicola pressed her fingertips together, resting her elbows on the desk. “What were you thinking?”

“I–”

“Pilar, you wasted millions of dollars worth of equipment. And for what? What happened to all the failed test subjects? Fuck, Pilar, who were the test subjects?”

“I–” Pilar stopped herself this time, Nicola’s words hitting her like a smack to the head. She didn’t know about the hexes. “I only tested it on myself.”

Nicola continued shaking her head, though she gestured for the guilty party to continue her explanation.

“I found the anomaly. And I knew it would be considered dangerous and unethical and we would never get the opportunity to test it, but I knew it was possible and just had to try it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I knew you wouldn’t have let me.”

The older woman stared a moment, shocked into silence. “And by it, you mean…”

“Adding the abnormality to unmutated DNA.”

A sigh. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say.” She dropped her head, rubbing her temples. “Pilar, I don’t even know how to fix this. The grant…when they find out half our nanobot inventory has disappeared…” Her head snapped up. “The logs.”

Pilar licked her lips. “Yes.”

“That’s how?”

“Yes.”

“It…worked?”

Pilar snapped her fingers, a bouquet of flowers appearing on the desk. “You tell me.”

Nicola’s eyes were glued to the fragrant peonies. “It…worked.”

“Took several tries,” Pilar lied. “Sorry for using so many nanobots, but I was certain I was close each time. And look,” she snapped her fingers again, a box of chocolate appearing, “eventually I was right.”

The older woman’s face remained a blank slate for a few beats more, then her mouth curved up. “If you think flowers and chocolates are going to get you out of this, you’re wrong. But,” she pushed herself up, rounding the desk and pulling Pilar to her feet, gripping her shoulders, “making the single most important discovery that will impact the entire future of the human race? That I can forgive.”

The head P.I. shrieked in joy, encasing Pilar in a tight embrace that the younger woman was more a victim of than a participant to.

Pilar was too busy reeling from the low of being discovered and the high of being praised to share in the woman’s joy. But relief, sweet relief, that no one knew her dark secrets made her feel as if she were floating.

Or maybe that was Nicola lifting her off her feet.

“Okay, Nic,” Pilar laughed, wriggling free.

The head P.I. explained that they had a lot of work to do to somehow turn this into something they could present to the board without getting in trouble, but agreed that it was late and they’d brainstorm a proposal tomorrow.

As she returned to her room–walking, not using her powers–Pilar felt lighter than she had in days, weeks, months. She had one less secret to conceal; and with this one out in the open, it felt as though the others would remain hidden. Not only that, but the voice hadn’t visited her once all day.

But that feeling was fleeting.

The door to her room slid open, revealing a hooded figure in black standing perfectly still just inches in front of her. Pilar had no time to react as her forehead was assaulted by the hex’s palm.

The world went dark.

Pilar awoke in an unfamiliar room, though one look around the bare space, and she knew where she was. The silver walls were adorned with only four things: a sealed door, a doorway leading to a tiny bathroom, a sustenance generator, and a bed–if it could be labelled as such–that was nothing but a metal slab built into the wall. No mattress or pillow or blanket. No v-screen. No closet or change of clothes. Nothing.

She was in a brig cell.

Cursing the hexes, she pounded on the door, calling for someone–anyone. That lasted only a moment or two before she decided to take matters into her own hands, and snapped her fingers, intending to return to her room.

Nothing happened.

She tried a few more times, imagining her room forming around her as it had every other time she’d attempted this, but without success. She snapped her fingers imagining flowers, chocolates, the dog–anything she’d done before with ease. But each time, the only profit of her effort was the soft echo of the impact of her thumb and middle finger.

“They drugged you.”

Pilar dropped to the floor, her back pressed against the door.

“The effects would wear off, but they plan on giving you a new dose every twelve hours, so I wouldn’t count on it.”

“What kind of drug?” she hissed between clenched teeth.

“What did you think they did to unruly hexes? The only thing that could be done when the mutations first sprouted was kill them. But we’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we?”

“What. Kind. Of. Drug.”

“Patience, Pilar. You have all the time in the world now that everyone knows. You won’t be leaving this cell.”

She grunted in frustration, standing and facing the door again to bang on it with both fists.

“It only blocks your powers.”

The sides of her fists sore and her ears ringing, Pilar realized her attempt to garner attention was doing more harm than good. She sat on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands. “Why would I believe you after everything you’ve done?”

The door slid open, and Pilar scrambled to her feet, trying to figure out how she could protect herself from the hexes.

But it wasn’t a hex. Not fully.

“Who are you talking to?” Twyla asked, stepping into the room without hesitation, though two guards stood behind her, blocking the doorway.

Pilar breathed a sigh of relief. “Twyla,” she stood, closing the distance between them and taking the girl’s hands, “what is happening?”

The girl flinched at her touch, and Pilar released her hands, taking a step back, not bothering to hide the hurt on her face.

“I’m here as a kind of emissary,” the apprentice began. “I want you to tell me the truth.”

“You don’t even know what the truth is, do you, Pilar?”

“Of course,” she answered, ignoring the voice. “What do you want to know?”

“How have you hidden your powers for so long?”

Pilar considered lying, but Nicola already knew, and she was determined to prove the voice wrong anyway. “I only recently developed them.” She explained her discovery and subsequent experimentation.

If the news was shocking to the girl, she didn’t let on. She only listened attentively, as if she were memorizing the words to report back to the others.

“And, did you…” She looked down, fiddling with her thumbs before slowly bringing her attention back to Pilar. “Did you have anything to do with the Head’s disappearance?”

“No.” Pilar looked the girl in the eyes and allowed no hesitation, no room for doubt.

Twyla nodded once, and turned swiftly back toward the door, her maroon robes swirling around her.

“You’re leaving?” Pilar called, heartbroken.

The girl kept her back toward the prisoner. “As a hex without proper training, you are considered a danger to yourself and others. I don’t know how long they want you confined. Until we meet again.”

===

It didn’t take long for Pilar to lose track of time. The injections came every twelve hours, as promised, but she wasn’t sure if she’d had ten or a hundred of them. Another constant was her meals–the generator was on an automatic setting; she didn’t even have the option to choose her food. But the monotony of the rest of the time made it impossible to count the days; the hours simply ran together.

Most of the time, she laid on the bed. But she also spent hours each day in the shower, letting the water wash over her, hoping she would step out into a different circumstance–just as she had in the past, when stepping out meant suffering Rory.

No matter what she was doing, she was always in a constant battle with herself and the voice. Half the time, she tried to ignore it, begging it to leave her alone. The other half, she tried to encourage it, begging it for company.

She was lonely, after all.

Nicola had visited once, near the beginning. But neither the drinking trio nor Christof showed, nor did Twyla ever return. Guards spoke to her every now and then; mostly just to make sure she was still alive. But the voice–the voice was always just a thought away.

It was simultaneously comforting yet made her want to rip her skin off.

The door slid open without a knock or any other courtesy.

It was yet another insult to the prisoner, the worst of which was the flickering power. The lights of the brig didn’t work quite right, the standard twenty-four setting seemingly malfunctioning. There were times when she woke to a chill on the metal. Or the generator delayed giving her water by several minutes. Or the scalding water of the shower faded into a cold stream without instruction to do so.

Pilar remained laying on the bed, her hands folded over her stomach, her eyes locked onto a speck of dust on the ceiling. Only when a masculine throat cleared did she sit up, eyeing the intruder.

He didn’t wear a guard uniform, but something more akin to an officer’s suit–though it was a charcoal grey rather than the deep blue of those. She said nothing as he took methodical steps into the center of the room to face her fully, his hands behind his back.

“Pilar Armada?” he asked, his voice much softer than she would have expected. When she nodded, he continued. “We have concluded our investigation of your crimes.”

“Crimes?” she whispered, interrupting what she was sure was a practiced speech. “What crimes?”

The man twitched his neck. “The entire list will be read at your tribunal. But the most egregious of those that you are being tried for are the murders of Rory Ackerman, Florence Josiah, and Head Morgana.”

Blood rushed Pilar’s ears, drowning out the man’s continued words, her world spiraling, the air crushing. For everything she was unsure of, everything she overthought, everything she doubted, she knew one thing: this couldn’t be happening.

She popped off the metal slab, and the man had a stunner pulled and aimed at her in half a heartbeat. “This is you, isn’t it? You’ve moved on to hallucinations?” she called, spinning around, speaking to the empty space.

“This is you, Pilar. This is the consequence of your actions.”

“They were your actions! You told me to do those things.”

The man kept the stunner aimed at Pilar, though had taken a few steps back, watching the woman with horrified interest.

“You must have misinterpreted.”

Pilar stopped, her chest heaving. Then she dropped to her knees, screaming, pulling at her hair. “This is all your fault!”

The man took an investigating step toward her. “Whose fault, Mrs. Armada?”

“And who am I?”

Two questions; one answer. She wanted to tell them. But the cold truth was that she didn’t know.

Pilar slumped over on the floor. The man came another step closer. She barely felt the sting of the stunner.