If you see one near

STEER CLEAR OF THE SPHERE!

Dancer grinned. “I especially like the last part. Nice rhyme.”

Jada was far from pleased with the paper. “They ‘appear to be round black spheres’? How much more redundant could that be? A sphere is round.”

“Some folks don’t think like that, Jada. You know you have to spoon-feed when conveying information to the masses. Keep it simple, stupid.”

She shot him a cool look.

“I’m not saying you’re stupid. Christ, Mega. We both know your brain weighs more than your whole head.”

“A logistical impossibility.”

“Not with you. Your brain probably exists in a higher dimension than your body. I think the paper’s perfect. It communicates exactly what we want to get across in the simplest possible terms. Now freeze-frame me around like you used to so we can slap these things up. It’ll be like old times.” He arched a brow. “A month ago for me.”

Old times. It was difficult for her to wrap her brain around the fact that she’d lived so much life while he’d lived so little.

“I’ll put them up and be back soon.”

“Don’t do that to me,” Dancer said coolly. “Once, you deposited me on the sidelines at the abbey, the night we battled the HFK. Then you got deposited. You know how it feels. We’re a team. Even if I’m only fucking human, I’ve proved useful many times.”

She looked at him sharply. There was someone much older than a seventeen-year-old in his eyes. “You’re…less indestructible than I am. We need your mind on the black hole problem.”

“So, you want to park me somewhere to guarantee free access to my brain? Get a clue: ‘only fucking humans’ have been going to war for this world since the dawn of time. You’re not the only one that can make a difference. Your attitude invalidates the efforts of every military man and woman on this planet.”

“You could die. Exposing you to risk is illogical.”

“We all can. Any time, Mega. Shit happens.” He looked at her levelly, with those brilliant aqua eyes. “Bugger it, my whole family’s gone and we both know it. You think you’re the only one left with something to prove, something worth putting your life on the line for? If we don’t work together, I work alone. But I work.” He gave her a faintly bitter smile. “With or without you. Look at it this way, if you keep me close, you have a better chance of keeping me alive. If you don’t, who knows what danger I could get myself into?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Life isn’t.”

“You sound just like him.”

“Not necessarily a bad thing all the time,” Dancer said, intuiting exactly who she meant: Ryodan.

“Trying to rope me—”

“Bloody hell, Jada, I’m not trying to rope you. I’m trying to work with you. Leave it to you to decide someone helping is a hindrance or a cage.”

She went still. This wasn’t Dancer. Not the Dancer she knew, the one who always went along with her decisions. Never gave her guff. Well, except for once. “You never used to talk to me like this before,” she said coolly.

He snorted. “I was never willing to risk it. You ran at the drop of a hat. My every move was designed to keep the magnificent Mega from dashing off. One wrong phrase, one hint of emotion or expectation, and she vanished into the night. I watched every bloody word. I lived with the constant awareness that if I cared about you and you figured it out, you’d leave. Then you left. Again. For another month. Didn’t even tell me you were back. Then I heard you told Ryodan’s men you weren’t even willing to work with me. Was I dead to you? You shut me out completely and now only spend time with me because you have a mission you need me for. I’m sorry if you don’t like what I have to say but I’m not walking on eggshells around you anymore. If you want to avail yourself of my many splendid qualities—and they are pretty stupendous,” he flashed her a smile, “accord me the courtesy I give you. Take me as I am. A real person, with desires and boundaries of my own.”

Jada spun on her heel and began to walk away.

“Great. And there you go. Fine. I’ll be fine alone. I’m always fine alone,” he shouted after her. “It’s just that you’re the only person I ever feel completely alive with. You’re the only girl that ever gets half of what I say. Do I really have to come up with some fucking superpower just to hang out with you?”

She stopped. Completely alive. She remembered feeling that once. Running the streets of her town with him, laughing and planning and fighting, amazed and thrilled that she got to be alive in such an exciting time. She remembered, too, the unique feeling of being so easily understood by him. They’d had an effortless rapport.

“Run away,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s what you do best.”

Killing was what she did best. She didn’t run anymore. She never ran. She knew the price. She never reacted. Merely divined the logical, efficient action most likely to yield intended results and pursued it.

Was she running?

She went still, sought that cold clear place inside herself, tacked the emotions and elements of their interaction on a truth table of sorts, analyzing her responses. She pinned his words here, overlaid the subtext, her words there, interpreting the subtext. Then in the middle of the whole thing she taped up the question: What harm if I let Dancer help me hang the papers?

Absolutely none.

In fact, there was more potential for something to go wrong if she left him behind.

There was an unacceptable amount of “reaction” evident in her actions. She knew better. She who controlled herself, survived.

She turned around. “You may come with me.”

“Why do I feel like I just won the battle but lost the war?” he said softly.

—

The slipstream was beautiful, trailing past them like a starry tunnel. It took thirty minutes to plaster papers around Dublin proper. Hours to return for more at the old Bartlett Building, then dash around the outlying districts, distributing them far and wide, knocking on doors, hanging them on houses with lights on inside when no one answered.

It felt good to be back out, taking care of her city again. Along the way they tore down every Dublin Daily they saw, as they’d been written in a way that imparted no useful news and incited fear. For the dozenth time she wondered who was crafting the slanted things. All they’d done was turn the entire city on her and Mac.