The familiar smell of ozone and burning dust. The soft, almost imperceptible whine of hard drives being accessed. The blinking green lights lining every server rack. The Solstice Archives were a place of peace, a retreat from the screws and from the less tolerable of her fellow inmates. Free from her drunken supervisor’s interference as he slept off another night of wallowing in his perceived failure (a mere billionaire, marooned by his family at the far end of space), she made good use of the free time. Scattered on the desk in front of her were a dozen electronic components, stripped from “failed” servers and cobbled together in a new shape.

What are you building? The voice, which part of Cass distantly recognized as belonging to Polyphylla, seemed to emerge from the air itself.

“It’s a signal repeater,” she muttered as she soldered a circuit. “I’m going to hand it off to a comrade, and he’ll install it on the radio tower at Twin Creeks Station. Then we can talk to Elysium without corporate snooping.”

I see. This must be the Archives where you used to work, isn’t it? What year is it?

What a stupid question, Cass thought. “It’s 2544,” she answered.

Alright, that gives us a baseline. Let’s apply some light stimulus to get things moving. Cass, listen to my voice: Someone is knocking at the door. Who is it?

Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door, as if someone had banged on it a single time. She froze, sweeping the electronics into a knapsack and folding it shut. Another single bang on the door came shortly thereafter.

“I’m coming!” she said. “It should be open!” She crossed the room to the emergency door and pushed it open, and only just ducked out of the way at the snapcrack of the gauss pistol in her face — at this range, it was still ferociously loud, leaving her ears ringing as she snapped the ziptie and seized the dead man’s arm. They spun around, the pistol discharging three more times before Cass managed to tear it from his grasp. She lost her purchase on it, and it spun off into the grass.

“Fine, we just bleed you then!” he snarled, pulling a knife from his belt and lunging at Cass. She dodged the first slash, then the second, but the third caught her in the shoulder, digging in like a white-hot poker. She gritted her teeth and took the opportunity, locking the dead man’s arm and getting a foot behind his, slinging them both to the ground. They tumbled down the hill, kicking, scratching, fighting over the knife, until they slammed up against a stump at the dead man let out a soft grunt. Cass disentangled herself from him, and saw the knife plunged into his chest — he was still alive, but dazed, feebly reaching up to paw at the handle.

“Don’t,” she hissed. “If you pull that out, you’ll die.” She got unsteadily to her feet, stumbling up the hill and snatching up the pistol, raising it and searching for the other dead man. It took her a moment to pick him out in the red-stained gloom, sprawled out with his brains spattered, black and thick in the dark, across the grass. He must have caught one of the stray rounds, she thought, clamping down on the sour taste in her mouth. Poor bastard.

The dead man at the bottom of the hill was still grasping at the knife when Cass got back to him. He tried to gurgle something, but only a trickle of blood and foam escaped the corner of his mouth. Fuck. He’s dead already, she thought. “Listen,” she said, grabbing one of the dead man’s hands. “This is a lethal wound. I’m sorry. You’re either going to bleed out, or drown in your own blood. Maybe slightly faster if you pull this out. Or I can make it quick,” she added, holding up the pistol. His eyes focused on it and, after a heart-stopping minute, he nodded. Cass took aim, her stomach churning, and whispered, “I’m sorry,” again, and pulled the trigger.

“Kill,” Carver announced, muttering under his breath as Cass worked the action on her rifle, ejecting the spent shell. She heard it tumble against the cement floor, ringing softly, as she chambered the next round. In the distance, perhaps a third of a kilometer away through the broken basement window, she could see a man in body armor tumbling to the ground, a lowest-bidder helmet having failed to stop her bullet. “Good shot. Why’d you pick that one?”

“The others treated him like an officer. Screws don’t salute, but it’s still obvious.” She watched the team of guards scrambling to take cover. The shot would have pinned them down fairly effectively anyway, but the disarray of a dead leader was a good bonus. She forced her gut to stillness. It was a practiced response; there would be time enough to be sick at what she’d just done later. Revolutions were never bloodless. “We should move.”

What’s going on? Another voice — Tsuga? What was she doing here? She wasn’t going to get to Solstice for years yet. She pushed the thought aside; no time to woolgather in a combat zone.

She’s free-associating, connecting one memory to another. We can expect to jump around a bit chronologically, but mnemonic pathways tend to have a single thread connecting them all. This one seems to be associated with inflicting violence. Some interesting biofeedback, there. Let’s keep going.

“We’re not going to find a better position,” Carver argued, lowering the binoculars and leaning away from the window. He scratched his thin, scraggly trench beard. “You can pick off another couple, easy.”

“And if they aren’t running audio vectoring software, another shot will let their brains do the zeroing in for them anyway,” Cass replied, sliding off the top of the washing machine and landing on the floor as quietly as she could. “We’re moving. Come on.”

“Alright, you’re the big revolutionary,” he said, shrugging and following her as she turned and marched up the metal stairs. Dust swirled in the rudely carved shelter as she emerged onto the hillside, sheltered under a broad sheet of muslin stitched over with local plant life — such as it was, anyway. The shoreline wasn’t far off, but Bandirma was still a dry and miserable place to be. At least it only rarely flirted with the wet-bulb danger zone, and at night it was almost livable.

“Good, there you are,” Ashtî said, waving Cass over. She was almost invisible in the shadows, just a dark shape. “I just got the signal. See, there?” She pointed at a light, waving gently back and forth from a rooftop in the old city — the part that hadn’t been flooded out long ago, anyway. Beyond that, the lights of the Marama Logistics Complex sparkled on the horizon. “They’ve pulled everyone out, just like you said they would.”

“There’s been enough sabotage over the years,” Cass said, shrugging. “Stands to reason they’d assume this was no different, and clear out the ‘suspects’ to prevent them from doing anything else.”

What language is that?

Let me pull up the translator. This happens sometimes with multilingual subjects.

“So, we’re looking at what, EOD, maybe a couple OCNI ghouls if we’re lucky?” She nodded. “I can live with that. Are you ready? The sooner we go, the more likely this is to work.”

“I know,” Cass said, trying her best to sound determined, but there was a lump in her stomach, rolling back and forth like a ship at sea. She hadn’t eaten anything all day and she still felt like she was going to vomit. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Layla,” Ashtî said, offering Cass a hand. She took it, hesitantly, feeling the older woman’s rough skin on her own. “I was going to ask if you wanted to do the honors, but maybe I should–“

“No, let me,” Cass said, steeling herself. “For Mother.”

Ashtî watched her for a long moment in silence. Cass glanced over at her, and their eyes met. The old eyes, hatched with crows’ feet, the eyes that had seen too much, had a bright spark in them. “For Shirîn,” she whispered. “We’ll do it together, then.”

This is a much earlier memory, I think. Cass, is this Terra?

“Of course it’s Terra,” she muttered, squinting at the horizon as Ashtî held out a remote switch. Cass nodded, reaching out with her own hand, flipping up the safety and putting her thumb on the button. Ashtî did likewise. “On three? One…two…three.” They both pushed together, and Cass felt the little click as the contacts met.

There was a terrible moment when nothing happened, when she thought something might have gone wrong — then, on the horizon, there was a light amidst all the others that flared brightly before it was joined by others, and more and more until the entire thing was a massive fireball of fusion remass lighting up the sky above the Sea of Marmara. It took thirty seconds for the rumbling, thunderous sound of the explosion to reach them, a hot slap of wind Cass could feel on her skin. The heat became a tingle, which became a burning on her arms, and the light faded far quicker than it should have. The night reconquered Cass’s sight in record time, as if she were flashblind, and still the burning grew sharper and sharper until she could no longer hold back the screams.

“Stop, stop! Whatever you’re doing, stop it!” Tsuga cried as she held Cass’s thrashing body down. The little terran’s voice was one long, crackling scream, her back arched up off the desk, and though the visor on the apparatus strapped to her head hid her eyes, Tsuga was sure she hadn’t blinked once since she’d entered this state. Above her, the screens were a wild jumble of visual noise.

“We’ve hit a major trauma,” Polyphylla said, vines tapping away at a control panel. “She’s getting lost in it instead of processing it. I’m giving her a microdose of Class-B to break her loose, and we’ll walk back from there and reapproach after I stabilize her.” As she said it, Cass slacked in Tsuga’s arms, though she still gasped for breath, whimpering something under her breath in a language she didn’t understand. “Cass, listen to my voice: Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand–“

“And Eternity in an hour,” Cass muttered back as she went absolutely limp.

<Good, the conditioning is still holding,> Polyphylla said, nodding and tapping in a few more notes.

<You want to keep going?> Tsuga stared at her, vines twisting into knots inside her. <After that?!>

<It’s not ideal, of course, but she’s out of that memory now,> Polyphylla said. <And I have a good idea of where to plot it on her psyche map. Once we sketch out more of it, isolate it, we should be able to find a way to approach it in a safer fashion, or skirt it if need be.>

<And if not?> Tsusa rumbled, one hand gently cradling Cass’s head. <What then?>

Polyphylla reached out and coiled a comforting vine around Tsuga. <It’s already in her head. It has to be dealt with, one way or another, sooner or later. We both know that.>

<I don’t want to see her like that again,> Tsuga said. She watched as Cass’s breathing slowed to the same, easy rhythm from before. At least it was over for now.

<I’ve seen Leah like that more times than I can count.> Polyphylla said quietly, <She doesn’t scream quite like that, but no two traumas are identical. In any case, I feel the same way you do now every time — but it’s necessary to keep her balanced and healthy. This may hurt to watch, but it’s part of the process of helping Cass, both to pursue her goal of remaining independent and also to treat these very traumas we’re running headlong into.>

<I know that,> Tsuga murmured. <I know that.>

<She’ll be alright. I promise.> Tsuga looked up, meeting Polyphylla’s eyes, and saw at once the intensity of her look — she meant every word.

<…alright,> Tsuga said. This is for Cass, she told herself. She wants to be independent, and this is how she gets there. <Keep going.>

Polyphylla nodded, turning back to the controls. “Now Cass, listen to my voice…”

Cass couldn’t move, couldn’t see. She felt as if she’d been lying down for hours, even days, strapped to a table or a board or something, her mind wheeling as she re-emerged from…from nowhere, a hole in her memory and her sense of place. Where am I? she thought, and immediately she knew the answer. A klaxon cut through the silence, and red lights flickered at the corner of her vision. A loud voice, flanged by the feedback from a speaker, intoned “Cargo, prepare for transfer to the surface,” in the most bored voice imaginable. The lights came up, white and painful, crawling up the long axis of the ship, revealing row after row of cells, eight by three feet, stacked one on top of each other on three of four surfaces — each with a prisoner strapped down, plugged into half a dozen medical devices. Part of Cass’s brain rebelled each time she saw it, her inner ear never quite growing accustomed to the impossible view, but at least she’d stopped throwing up every morning by the third day out from Terra.

Transportation: a euphemistic term for two solid weeks of torture as the Osborne-Clark freighter jumped repeatedly for the far rim of the Accord, beyond the Radcliffe Wave, to a little slice of hell called Solstice. One hour of carefully monitored and incredibly strenuous physical activity a day, all mandated by O-C suits who wanted prisoners ready to work on the far end, followed by twenty-three hours strapped in your pod, half-sedated — guards, and the things needed to keep them alive, represented mass, and every iota of mass that wasn’t a prisoner being shipped out for indentured labor was wasted profit. Cass had been counting faces, and she was sure there were no more than six aboard the ship. There was no way they could hold the ship against them if she could just get herself free.

Unfortunately, the guards knew that too, and so were meticulous in checking every strap, every feed, each and every time they brought Cass out for exercise or put her back. This time was no different — they came, unhooked her, manacled her hands and feet, and maneuvered her down the central axis of the ship to the shuttle, where they strapped her in again, this time upright at least, alongside another convict. He was about Cass’s height, a bit older, his shaved head coming in dark-haired, with two weeks of scraggly beard growth — Thank God I got the electrolysis done before this, she thought. He glanced over her at once the guards were gone, and asked, “So…what’d they throw you in for?”

At least, that’s what she thought he said. Cass had studied Standard English with her father, read plenty of books in English, and plenty of television was in English — more than there was in Standard Arabic, that was for sure — but while she could read it just fine, she hadn’t had much occasion to speak the language until she’d been ground through the gears of the Accord’s legal system. Something dark and terrible yawned behind her, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end like something with hot, stinking breath had just exhaled, hot and wet, behind her. Don’t think about it, don’t think about, don’t think about it, she told herself. Fight back. Fight back. Fight! Back! “Marama,” she said, swallowing against a dry throat. She’d scarcely said ten words the entire trip out — conversations between inmates were practically impossible when you as doped-up as they left you. “The Marama Logistics Complex.”

He was silent for a moment, staring at her. “You blew up the Marama Logistics Complex? Holy shit, I heard about that! They said it was communist radicals.”

“Anarcho-communist,” she replied, staring across the interior of the shuttle at the empty racks on the far side, still awaiting their prisoners.

“Ho-lee shit,” he repeated. “Well, fuck, you got me beat. I just conned the wrong rich asshole. Name’s Carver. Burt Carver. You?”

“Layla Al-Tabari.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Layla,” he said, angling his head to peer down towards the airlock. “And based on how long it took you to get here after me, I’d say we’ve got about five more minutes to talk before the screws get back, so: communism, huh? Never thought I’d meet an actual communist, I gotta say. Kinda curious what makes you tick!”

She shrugged, as much as she was able. “Would that Capital had but one neck,” she paraphrased, smiling a bit at the irony of quoting Caligula for such a purpose. When he saw that Carver clearly had no idea what she meant, she added, “If you really want to know, it’s going to take a lot more than five minutes.”

He laughed. “Lady, we have plenty of time.”

And they did. Between visits from the guards, she gave him a brief overview of anarchist thought, starting simple and drawing mainly on Berkman. A few of the other prisoners were listening intently by the time the shuttle undocked, a gentle lurch that ran through Cass’s entire world.

Interesting. She’s never mentioned this Carver person before, but this is the second time he’s come up. I’m going to mark that as a subject to revisit, but let’s give this a gentle nudge. Cass, listen to my voice: what happened next?

Freezing cold, the burning, stinging chemicals pelted Cass from every direction as she walked through the narrow, blue-lit corridor. She wanted to scream, wanted to cover her face, but the guards had made it entirely clear that if she lowered her arms at any point, there would be Consequences. At some point, the chemicals became water, and then jets of uncomfortably hot air. She’d already had her hair shaved off before the trip, or whatever was in those chemicals would surely have ruined it. Her eyes still stung as another pair of guards, brandishing stun batons, directed her to pick up a jumpsuit.

“Shit, look at that,” one of them, the younger, said, staring at Cass’s naked body. “Which line do we send …it down?”

“Fuck if I know,” the older one muttered. “Or care. Hey, freak, which line?”

Cass glared at him as she pulled on the jumpsuit. “I’m a woman,” she said, and followed it with a muttered, “shit-smelling son of a dog,” in Arabic.

“Don’t you give me a look like that or I’ll crack your fuckin’ skull,” he said, gesturing with his baton. “Right side door, hands on head, line up with the others.”

Your time will come, Cass though, still glaring as she zipped up the jumpsuit, put her hands on her head, and marched off down the right-side hallway. She emerged into a courtyard where half a dozen women and about twenty men were lined up on opposite sides. She didn’t stand there for long; only a few more filtered in after her. On a catwalk above, half a dozen guards with automatic rifles patrolled back and forth. She spotted Carver on the far side, and they exchanged glances as a burly guard walked into the courtyard, immediately launching into what had to a speech he’d given a hundred times, judging by the cadence.

“Welcome to Solstice, Scum!” he said, his voice loud and gravelly. The capital letter on “Scum” was easily audible. “Your mothers may have given you names when were regrettably born, but all that has been washed away with the rest of the filth you tracked in here! You are Scum now, and Scum belongs to the Company! Scum works for the Company, which means you work for me, which means you will work hard and you will behave. Now then,” he added — and this was clearly a departure from prepared remarks. “We have a celebrity among us today. You there!” He gestured to Cass with his chin. “Step forward!”

Hesitantly, Cass did so. “Come on, come on,” he said. “Out in the middle where everyone can see you. This, Scum, is the communist filth that cost our Cosmic Navy trillions in damages, possibly quadrillions, with a single, stupid, pointless act of sabotage, all in the name of, if you can believe it, the cause of Rinan Independence.” He laughed, a sick and cruel sound that hunkered down somewhere deep in his chest. “That’s right! All that for a bunch of fucking furballs who can scarce weld two bits of pipe together without blowing themselves to Kingdom Come! Well, never say we here at Solstice don’t appreciate effort, sister! Take a bow!” Cass felt certain this was a setup for some kind of trick, and furthermore, wasn’t entirely sure what a few of the words the man had used even meant, so she remained still. She felt the swish-crack of the baton striking her left knee, and she collapsed and fell almost instantly — “I said, take a bow!” — and then, the tip of the baton stabbed in, arcing through the jumpsuit to her skin and making every muscle in her body snap painfully taut. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t struggle, she couldn’t even breathe. The man was talking again, but she could only catch snatches of words through the pain — “This is what happens to saboteurs on my planet,” seemed to be the refrain, each statement punctuated with another long, searing jab with the baton. Behind her eyes, as the red crept in, there was a darkness growing, and even though she couldn’t be, she heard herself screaming clear as day.

Polyphylla, it’s happening again!

I know! Give me a moment, I’ll redirect. Pushing Class-B. Cass, listen to my voice: Hold infinity in the palm of your hand–

“And Eternity in a hour,” she muttered as the pain slipped away, along with the courtyard, along with everything. Relief flooded her, and she felt herself crying, the hot tears on her cheeks running sideways as if she were lying down. But why was she crying? It didn’t seem so important anymore — if she couldn’t remember it, it probably wasn’t.

Cass, we’re going somewhere else now, alright? Tell me about Ashtî, Cass. Who is Ashtî?

“Mother’s friend,” she mumbled, wiping the sweat from her brow. Even though the fabric stretched overhead, the souk was horribly hot, all of Zerqamîsh settled into the midday rest, when it became too hot to work — all save for her. The hijab itched, too, loose as she wore it, the ends of her still-too-short hair hanging around her chin. She still wasn’t used to the sensation of the fabric when it brushed against her neck. It did nothing for the heat, either; even the breeze blowing down the souk was like staring into an oven. As quickly as she could, she made her way to the turning, slipped down a side alley underneath a wider building, and found the door she knew led to Ashtî’s home. She rapped on the door and waited, huddled against the wall of the entryway. Eventually, it slid out of the way.

“… Layla? What are you doing out at this time of day?” There stood Ashtî, wearing little more than a t-shirt and a pair of light trousers, her hijab hurried thrown on over her short hair. “Come in before you give yourself heatstroke!” She put an arm around Cass’s shoulder and pulled her inside, tapping the control to seal the door. The air exchangers began to work, and the inner door opened a moment later, a blessedly cool rush of air greeting Cass. “Sit down, I’ll get you some electrolyte water,” she said as she pulled the hijab off and tossed it over a chair by the entryway. Her home wasn’t large — just the common room, a kitchenette, and a bedroom and bathroom tucked away down a short hall — but it was comfy, and felt very lived-in. Cass always liked it here.

“Sorry, Auntie,” she mumbled, rubbing her shoulder to wipe away the sensation of uncomfortable touch. She took a seat on a low sofa and undid her own hijab, more to remind herself that nothing was amiss. She still had the miserable reflex inside her that said there was something wrong with her seeing a woman outside the family without something covering her hair. There are no men here, she reminded herself as Ashtî pressed a cool glass of something lemon-scented into her hands.

“Don’t you apologize to me,” she said softly. “I told you, you’re welcome in my home anytime. We may not be family, but…well, we’re as close as you can get otherwise.”

“Mother always said you were family,” Cass said, taking a sip of the drink and relishing in the feel of it slipping, cold and wet, down her throat.

“…yeah,” Ashtî said, looking away. “I bet she did.”

Cass said nothing for a moment, staring, until she realized what she’d said. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled again.

“Stop it,” Ashtî said, looking back at her. She reached out and put a hand on her leg. “What happened wasn’t your fault. Okay?”

“But it was,” Cass whispered, her eyes brimming over. It had been like this every since her mother had died, tears every day for two weeks. Papa said it was natural for a daughter to mourn her mother, but there was still that part of her that insisted it was wrong to cry for so long, that it showed weakness rather than grief. “I didn’t go with her. I could have done something, I could have done anything, but I didn’t!”

“Hey, hey! No. None of that,” she said, sliding over and embracing Cass as she began to weep into Ashtî’s shoulder. “Your mother was a clever, brilliant woman, and she made a choice knowing what the consequences might be, and much as we might wish we could change what’s happened, we can’t. I miss her too, baby, I miss her so much.” She squeezed Cass tightly. “But she would not want you to blame yourself for her decision.”

“I know, but–“ Cass sniffled and shook her head. “But I should have been there, I should have–“ She sniffled again, the sobs making any words impossible.

“Shhh. You had exams to study for, right?” Ashtî let go of Cass and leaned back. “And I know how important that was to her — that you do well in university, and you take over your father’s chair in the faculty.” Cass nodded. That was exactly what her Mother had said when she left that day — that she needed to do twice as well in the exams as she would have had to before in order to stand out, and that she was absolutely capable of it. So she had stayed home and studied with her father, and her mother had never come home.

“I should have been there,” she repeated in a strained whisper.

“No, baby, no,” Ashtî said, her own voice growing pained. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to see that.” She had been there, had seen it happen, had nearly suffered the same fate herself.

“I’m sorry,” Cass whimpered, trying to stand up, but Ashtî held onto her. “I shouldn’t be here, I should go, I’m sorry!”

“Sit down,” Ashtî said, in a very good emulation of her mother’s I Mean Business voice. She sat, instantly. “Layla, my darling, you are always welcome here, no matter what,” she said. “Look at me. I know you don’t like that, but look.” She waited until Cass forced herself to meet Ashtî’s eyes — they, like hers, had done no small amount of crying over the last two weeks. “I loved your mother,” she said, softly as she could. “And while we never spoke of it, I know she’d want me to be here for you. And, well, I’m sure she’d want you to be here for me, too,” she added. She closed her eyes (much to Cass’s relief) and sighed. “When you’re feeling a bit stronger, who knows. Maybe I’ll cry on you.”

Cass sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Mother always said she was the one who kept you from doing anything crazy.”

Ashtî laughed. “That sounds like Shirîn, alright,” she said, a wistfulness in her voice. “And she did. That protest was her idea; me, I wanted something with a little more…a little more bang, you know? Fireworks always get attention.”

It was manifestly clear that Ashtî was not talking about actual fireworks. Even Cass could tell that. So she swallowed, cleared her throat, and said, “Me too.”

Ashtî stared back. “No. Absolutely not.”

“If you don’t let me help, I’ll do it myself. Alone,” Cass said, meeting Ashtî’s stare unflinchingly. It was the only way she’d know how seriously she meant what she said.

“No,” Ashtî repeated. “I’m not– look, first of all, we don’t talk about that sort of thing here. Not in the city at all.”

“Then we go somewhere else to talk about it.”

“This isn’t what your mother would have wanted for you!” Ashtî protested. “It’s… it’s on my mind, yes, but Layla, sweetie…”

“She asked nicely,” Cass whispered, “and they murdered her for it. I don’t intend to ask nicely.”

The two women stared into each others’ eyes, and it burned and ached but Cass refused to be the first to look away. “Layla… this thing will eat your life if you let it,” Ashtî said softly, reaching out to put one hand on Cass’s. “She wasn’t lying when she said she kept me from doing crazy things. She was my anchor. She gave me a reason to want a life outside of it.”

“She gave me my life in the first place,” Cass replied, “and she gave her own life for the cause. What kind of a daughter would I be if I was afraid to follow her into the fight?”

“…God, you get that same look in your eye,” she said, shaking her head and smiling, letting her eyes slip shut. “You look so much like her, you know that? Even before, you took after her, but now…God, if I put you next to her at your age, I’d swear you were sisters.”

Cass’s cheeks flushed. It was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her, and it made her heart turn a little flip inside her. “Really?” she whispered, her eyes threatening to tear up again.

Ashtî nodded and grinned. “Trust me, I spent a lot of time looking at your mother’s face.” She paused. “Hey, how’s your pop holding up? I know he’s just as gutted as we are, but…even if he was okay with me and your mom, I still feel a little weird just turning up over there. He’s a good man, and Shirîn loved him. I worry.”

“He’s…he’s okay,” Cass said. “He’s quiet. More than before, I mean. And he’s been cooking a lot.”

“Yeah, he does that,” she said, nodding. “He was the same way when his folks went, I remember. Will you say hi for me? And tell him that I’m here if he needs help?” Cass nodded. It would probably be a good thing for someone else to be keeping an eye on him — he wasn’t a young man anymore, and he never got enough sleep. “You should probably be getting home, anyway,” Ashtî added. “I wouldn’t want him to worry about you.’

“Okay,” Cass said. She finished her drink in one long pull, and set the glass down. “Thank you for listening,” she said as she donned her hijab again and stood.

“Always, kiddo,” she replied. “Always.”

“…and we’ll talk about the rest?”

Ashtî was silent for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll talk. I’ll let you know. In the meantime, you keep your head down, understand?”

“I will, Auntie,” Cass said. And she would. Cass wasn’t Auntie Ashtî, who needed a moderating influence to keep her cool — she was a slow-burning ember that would ignite a conflagration at just the right moment. Ideas were already spinning in her head, ways she could hurt the Accord, hurt its jackbooted thugs in the Cosmic Navy, hurt the Capital that buoyed it. As she keyed the door open, she there was only a single thought in her head. I’ll fight back. I’ll get those fuckers for what they did, and I’ll make sure they never do it again. I’ll get those fuckers. Those fuckers. Those fuckers! “Those fuckers!” she screamed as she kicked the door open and stalked into the hallway outside the conference rooms where the Landfall Revolutionary Council was being held. “Fucking statist shitbags, fucking reactionary dogshit!”

“Cass, wait up!” Carver was jogging after her. “Cass, you can’t just walk out.”

“I’m a fucking anarchist, Burt,” she snapped, not looking back. “I can do whatever the fuck I want!”

Alright, looks like we’re back to free-associating. Let’s see… Carver again?

“Cass, come on,” he said, finally catching up. “You didn’t seriously think they were gonna go for that, did you?”

“The Pan-Elysian Anarchist Confederation has the broadest support in the Elysium Valley and they’ve historically refused to be subordinated to any proposed central government, so yes, I did in fact expect them to continue to respect our autonomy!”

“Our autonomy? Cass, you’ve spent probably 95 percent of the last twenty years here in Landfall.”

“Well, according to those assholes, territorial claims are without merit, so who fucking cares!” she shouted, punching the elevator button hard enough that her fist ached after. “They’re my people,” she hissed, slowly swallowing her anger. “They trust me to represent them here, and to make it clear they have no interest in any kind of state oversight or control in the Valley, only solidarity and cooperation in mutual defense of the Revolution.”

“And how exactly is that gonna happen without a government?” Carver replied. “Come on, Cass, it’s a nice dream, but this reality! You can’t expect us to just let a third of the settled part of the planet go off and do its own thing!”

“This is supposed to be a Revolution,” Cass growled as the elevator doors opened, “not a fucking changing of the guard and more bullshit central rule from Landfall.” She stomped into the elevator and punched the button for the ground floor. Carver followed her in.

“Cass, come on, be reasonable,” he said. “Look, just…just take five minutes and breathe, okay? Then go back in there and hammer out a compromise.”

“There’s no compromise with statists,” she muttered, staring into the corner. Looking Carver in the eye would be more stress than she could cope with right now. “I’m not about to let down my guard and allow a reenactment of the Red Army against Makhno.”

“…who the fuck is–“

“Nestor fucking Makhno! He was a Ukrainian anarchist and the Bolsheviks betrayed him!” she shouted. “I know I’ve talked about him before!” Fight back, the thought came bubbling up again, like it had in the Council meeting. Fight back. Fight! Back!

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Carver said. “No one wants to betray anyone, Cass, you know that. I mean, hell, I’m a statist by your definition,” he added. “Am I not to be trusted?”

“It’s not about personal trust. It doesn’t matter what anyone involved in a state wants,” Cass hissed. “States are all the same. They’re a cancer, they grow and grow and grow and kill anything that tries to stop them growing. They take on a life of their own, they metastasize, and they all eventually turn into the Accord or something like it.” The elevator chimed, and she marched out into the lobby of the admin building. “I’m going back to Elysium. At least there, people haven’t completely lost track of the entire fucking point of what we’re doing here!”

“Cass, let me come with you,” Carver said as she pushed over the door and stepped out into the hot Landfall summer. The sky was clear, and the slightly-too-white sun was glaring down on blacktop, buildings, and a throng of jubilant former inmates and revolutionaries still celebrating in the streets. Even months after the suits had finally pulled up stakes and abandoned the planet, every afternoon was like this — the minute work was over, the streets were packed, drinks were shared, and the Internationale was in the air.

Cass couldn’t help but smile. It was, perhaps, the one undeniably good thing left about the Revolution, seeing how happy everyone was. “What are you going to do if you come with me?” she said as she headed for the airfield — still close by to the admin sector, a legacy of O-C’s early colonial days. “I’m not going back to convince them, Burt, I’m going back to fucking retire. I’m done playing this stupid statist game.”

“You don’t mean that,” he said. “Come on, Cass, you practically made this Revolution happen. What’s it going to look like if you just quit?”

“Hopefully, an accurate sign that I no longer have faith in the Revolutionary Council to uphold its promises to the people,” she said. “If I can’t stop this nonsense, maybe the People can.” She stopped at the airfield gate and turned to face Carver. He looked tired, but then, she probably did too. They weren’t the dumb young twenty-somethings who had been shipped out here two decades back. “Burt, you are my friend, and I respect you. We’ve been through a lot of shit together. You can’t come with me because I need you here. Please push this from your end. I don’t want this all to fall apart, but I can’t let us make the same mistakes all over again. I can’t let us overthrow evil only to create our own brand of it.”

“You’re dead set on this?” he said, that same awkward quirk of his eyebrow that Cass had long ago marked as a clear sign that he was thinking “Stars, why is this woman so fucking stubborn?”

“I can only pound my head against a brick wall for so long,” Cass said, shrugging.

“Alright, fine,” he said, shaking his head, the ghost of a smile turning the corner of his mouth. “You fly safe, okay?”

“And you,” she said, stepping in and hugging him, her arms trapping his lest he get any ideas. “Don’t you let the bastards grind you down.”

“I won’t,” he said. “Here’s hoping, eh?”

“Here’s hoping.” She let him go, and turned, and never saw him again. Preflight passed like a dream, and soon the little turboprop puddlejumper was in the air and Landfall, the little outbuildings and the tall admin and hab centers, was behind her. She climbed high as the mountains loomed ahead, and the angle of her ascent was the only thing that saved her eyes. Dread filled her heart as the world around her went white, and though she squeezed her eyes shut against it the light still pushed its way in. It was silent, horribly silent for far too long, and when the sound arrived it was like God Himself had torn the sky open like a sheet of paper.

She could feel the puddlejumper’s controls rocking angrily in her hands as she fought to maintain control, could see the horizon bleaching under whiter light than she’d ever seen before, could hear the shriek of a dozen alarms filling the cockpit with unholy clamor, the digital voice calmly demanding that she PULL UP, PULL UP, PULL UP. But it was the heat that occupied her mind the most, the burning heat crawling into the cockpit, like her arms were on fire. Her arms were on fire, her arms were on fire, her arms were on fire and she couldn’t move, they’d strapped her down under the machine and gagged her and switch it on and her arms were on fire.

“It’s really something, isn’t it?” the clean-shaven man said as he paced around the table, seemingly deaf to Cass’s muted screams. “Same principle as an electromagnetic pulse. You know about those, right?” There was something almost cheerful in his voice as he explained the way his horrible machine worked. “A high-energy electromagnetic wave interacts with a length of conductive material, and induces an electrical current — shorts out circuits, bam, just like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis. “The longer the conductive material, the greater the effect. The Carrington Event in 1859 cooked telegraph wires and even set some telegraph offices on fire! Oh, you’re not listening, are you? Dial it back to zero, let her breathe. Don’t want to stop her heart. Yet.”

The burning stopped instantly, the thrumming of the machine dying back, but the echo of the pain was still there, Cass’s mind fixed on it as she wept and gasped for air. “Did you know that there’s nearly a hundred thousand kilometers of nervous tissue in the human body?” the man went on, leaning over her. She could smell his breath, see the little hairs inside his nose, see the individual threads of his OCNI uniform. “Really, the only trick was finding the exact electromagnetic frequency to only affect nervous tissue. The whole human body is conductive, you know, and the entire point of this little affair is to not leave a mark on you. No physiological harm beyond that you cause yourself through stress responses. No way around that in this business,” he added with a laugh. “Sort of the point of it really. Now, that little tickle you just experienced? That was level one. We have ten defined levels, but really, we can dial it up much higher, though at that point, well, it’d be like a Carrington Event for your nervous system. And we hardly want that.” He straightened up, and his voice became hard and cold. “So tell me who else was involved in the Marama incident. Everyone, however tangential their involvement.”

Cass closed her eyes. I can endure this, she told herself. I’m stronger than him, and my cause is just. She felt herself sliding back into a dark hole in her mind, away from her body, away from the sound of the clean-shaven man’s voice as he said, “No? Alright then, give her level three.” The agony was overwhelming, but it was only a thing of the flesh. I can endure this, she told herself. I won’t betray them. I won’t betray her memory. Fight back. Fight back! Fight! Back!

But everyone breaks eventually. Even in that dark place in her mind, she could feel the tears streaming down her cheeks, could feel the ache deep inside, could feel herself giving up. She hugged herself and wished, wished, wished that she’d never been born, that she didn’t have to be here, that she didn’t have to do this.

“Hey, hey, hey,” a soft, familiar voice said. “Why are you crying?”

She shook her head. Words were beyond her right now. She felt a gentle touch on her knee. “Layla? Breathe with me, okay?” Cass could hear the soft intake of breath, a gentle squeeze on her knee, and she sucked down a gasping breath and tried to hold it. The pressure released, the sound of exhaling, and she let her breath out in a burst. In and out, squeeze and release, until the tears stopped and she could breathe calmly once again. She rubbed at her eyes and opened them.

Her mother was crouching there, next to her, the same vivid green eyes and dark hair just beginning to go grey at the temples. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Cass’s heart ached — in her mother she could see herself as she was years ago. She was already older than her mother ever got to be. “Why are you crying, dear heart?”

Cass sniffled and shook her head. “I don’t want to go back. I can’t. I’ll study remote, the university allows that, I just–“ She broke off, shaking her head. “I hate it when they stare!”

“Ohhh,” she said, nodding. “I see. Hey, can I sit with you?” Cass nodded, and her mother hunkered down next to her, back against the wall. This represented most of the open floor space in Cass’s room, between the bed and the desk — even on a university salary, their apartment wasn’t exactly luxurious, and this space had never been meant to be a bedroom, but more of a utility closet. Still, it was hers, and it was home, and she loved it. “Layla, my love, who is staring at you?”

“Everyone! Men mostly,” she mumbled, burying her face in her knees. “They can tell, I know they can.”

“I think it’s more that you’re a very pretty girl,” her mother said, smiling and putting an arm around Cass’s shoulders. “I always said so, didn’t I? That your face was far too cute to be hidden under a mustache or a beard or something like that?”

Cass mumbled something noncommittal. She did like not having hair on her face anymore. She’d hated that from the moment it first came in.

“You are a lovely girl, and you’re growing up into a lovely woman,” she went on. “And I am so, so proud of you for standing up and saying ‘this is me.’ It tells me you’ve been listening to me all these years,” she added with a laugh. “You will, unfortunately, get this kind of attention from men. It’s wrong, and you shouldn’t feel shy about saying so, but alas, my daughter, my generation has failed to vanquish patriarchy. Maybe yours will. So fight back. Always fight back.”

“…okay,” she muttered. It did feel good to hear her mother say that. “Are you and Auntie Ashtî still going to go out to the protest tonight?” There’d been an argument about it earlier, but Cass hadn’t overheard much of it — she’d been too buried in her own frustrations and dysphoria.

“Yes,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “I know, I know, the curfew announcement. But my love, as you pay more and more attention to the world around you, you’ll find that when power takes steps like these, it means that power is afraid. And that’s precisely when we must never give in. Wickedness triumphs only when the good-hearted look on and do nothing.”

Cass nodded. It was a frequent refrain from her mother. “I want to come.”

“No, sweetheart,” she said. “You stay here and study. If you go, and you get arrested, you’re going to spend at least a few days in lockup, and then you’d miss your exams. Your father pulled a lot of strings to get you that spot at the university, and you’re going to ace those exams and show everyone that you’re even smarter than he is. And then you’re going to go back in there, and you’re going to rub it right in the noses of all those dogshits who think they can just stare at my little girl. That’s your fight for right now, alright?”

Cass leaned into her mother. “Alright. Be safe, okay?”

“Don’t worry,” she said, hugging Cass close. “I will.”

Cass jerked awake, gasping for air, arms and legs flailing. Her eyes ached, her arms ached, everything ached…and something was clinging to her torso, holding her down. She let out a wordless cry as she tried to pull herself free, only for the vines around her to tighten. “Shhh, shhh, I’m here, I’m here,” Tsuga whispered, her voice and the thrumming from within her soothing and gentle.

“…Tsuga?” Cass said, her voice catching and stinging. She felt hoarse, like she’d been shouting at the top of her lungs all day long. “Where–“ She looked around the dimly lit forest, her mind spinning as she tried to place it.

“We’re in Polyphylla’s hab,” Tsuga said, “and you’re safe. Nothing will hurt you.” The vines squeezed gently in a full-body hug that nearly broke Cass’s heart, but her eyes were swollen and dry and had no tears left to shed. “You spent several hours in mnemonic regression, and it was…very rough,” she went on. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how hard it would be on you, or I would never have vouched for it. Your records didn’t point to even half of the things we saw.”

“We… we did it?” Cass said. “But I don’t– I don’t remember,” she said, fear clutching at her, cold and sharp. Something was there, like a word on the tip of her tongue that she just couldn’t recall.

“Polyphylla put a hypnomnemonic lock on the session. It’s still there, not erased, your mind just knows not to go there. We can lift it later, but for now, she thinks, and I agree, that it’s best for you to leave it alone and simply rest.” One of her vines lifted a bottle of water, opening the top. “Here, drink this.”

Cass took it and pounded half of it at once. “I still feel terrible,” she croaked.

“I’m not surprised,” Tsuga said, scooping Cass up and cuddling her close, her vines still wrapped around her. She was careful, Cass noticed, to keep them as still as possible, and avoided brushing them against her skin, and her arms were entirely bare. At least one of them can learn, she thought, leaning into Tsuga’s chest and listening to the soft sounds from within. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“I don’t know,” Cass mumbled. “I feel so… keyed-up. Anxious. And I don’t even know why. I mean, I know why, just–“ She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Tsuga was silent for a minute, simply holding Cass tightly. “I could, if you want, make you relax.”

“No drugs,” Cass said, shaking her head.

“Not with xenodrugs,” Tsuga said. “I’d simply lightly entrance you again, like I did accidentally before. No digging, no memories, just some gentle relaxation and feelings of safety. Is that acceptable to you?”

Cass shivered. She’d just been hypnotized, and it left her feeling like this. But Tsuga said it wouldn’t be the same, so… “Maybe?” she said. “Just the trance, nothing else?”

“And some light feelings of safety and comfort,” Tsuga said. “To help ease you out of all this tension.”

“Are you going to use the Blake quote?” she whispered. Her stomach fluttered, almost as if she was anticipating it, her body ready to plunge back down into the depths again.

“No, I don’t want you that deep. It wouldn’t work as well without the Class-H xenodrugs in your system, anyway. Here,” she said, lifting Cass’s chin with her finger and guiding her to look up into her eyes, a warm, striated blue flecked with gold. Cass tried to follow the little flecks around, and immediately got lost in how utterly immense her eyes were, how they seemed to fill up the room, how the thrumming from Tsuga grew and grew and grew. “There you go,” she said, her voice caressing Cass’s mind. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

Feel? Cass thought, reaching for the meaning of the word. Feel. The way her body felt. The way her heart felt. “…better?” she breathed, unable to look away from Tsuga. She was so beautiful, like a work of art that moved, that talked, that held her in its arms. She felt small and delicate next to Tsuga’s immensity, against the sheer power of her presence.

“Good girl,” Tsuga whispered, and the words rolled through her like a line of distant storm clouds, heavy and numinous with thunder. Distantly, she felt a vine take the water bottle from her hand before she could drop it. “I’ve got you, right here.” The vines tightened around her, compressing her, compacting her down into a tiny, Cass-shaped lump. “Can you feel me all around you?”

Only dimly aware of anything beyond Tsuga, Cass nodded, her half-lidded eyes still locked onto Tsuga’s own as they flared brighter and brighter. Somehow, all that light never hurt, no matter how intense it grew — it was comforting, gentle, all-embracing.

“You are here, in my vines,” Tsuga whispered. “Are you comfortable?” Cass nodded. If Tsuga said it, it must be true. “And are you safe?” Another nod; Tsuga would never let anything bad happen to her. She’d fought for her so many times, and out of everyone on the ship, Cass knew she could be trusted. She was safe here. “Good girl,” she whispered again, leaving Cass a shivering mess, limp in her arms. “Rest now, little petal. You are here, and you are safe.” And then, after a moment’s hesitation, she added one last statement:

“And you are loved.”