Midnight paced the apartment on light feet, keeping quiet. The problem was that she had nothing to do. She didn't want to just start playing with the computer equipment, and her phone was dead, so that ruled out mobile games or browsing. There were all kinds of books in the computer room, most of them a little beyond her, none of them really light reading. There wasn't enough space for her to do her dance exercises there or anywhere else in the apartment that she had access to, and she didn't want to go poking in Spin's room without permission.

She picked up the cans that she and Idle had left behind the night before, took them to the kitchen, and rinsed them out. Looking around, she spotted a couple dishes sitting around and a spoon on the floor, and took them to the sink. A couple shoes looked out of place near the front door, so she straightened them. She then found a broom in the closet and swept up the front entrance and the kitchen, humming a little tune.

"See a mess, clean it up," she sung under her breath. She knew the tune, she'd sung it a hundred times to herself since meeting Spin online. Her apartment used to be a disaster area, but for the last two months it had been spotless, and she had no doubt at all that it had been Spin's influence. Influence only, of course; she had come to enjoy a clean space more than a messy one. That didn't mean that she had to clean, only that she felt good cleaning.

And this apartment wasn't a mess, not even close. Spin and Idle kept it in good order. Midnight wasn't taking a messy space and making it livable; she was taking a clean space and making it immaculate. It wasn't even anything of consequence, it was just action born from boredom. A couple dishes moved to the sink, the shoes straightened up, a pass or two with a broom... All stuff that Idle probably would have taken care of if she wasn't so broken up. Or Spin, if they were there. Or maybe neither of them, for a while, but it's not like Midnight or anyone else would have even noticed, except that, again, Midnight was bored.

"See a mess, clean it up." She dumped the dustpan in the garbage and put it and the broom back in the closet, then headed to the bathroom to wash her hands. And straighten the shower curtain. And replace the toilet paper roll. She laughed at herself in the mirror, pink hair disheveled from lying down with Idle, a little sweat glistening on her brow, naked down to the waist.

Anything to keep from thinking about Spin.

"Nope." Midnight walked out to the living room again. "Idle needs me to be strong." She stopped by the door. "I think."

She's known you less than twenty-four hours. You've been a fan of hers for over a year. You're doing that weird parasocial thing you laughed at your high-school friends for.

She wished that Spin was there to ask. Idle had told Katherine that they couldn't prove anything, but that they thought that Spin was, as she'd said, 'playing cupid'; Midnight was a little more than certain. Why else would Midnight have the courage to approach a total stranger who didn't look or sound anything like she did on stream? Why else would Idle jump at the opportunity to indulge a fan so much? To indulge her, more to the point? Midnight hardly seemed... worthwhile, at least to herself. Idle wasn't a huge name in the Brainhacking world or in Alteration in general, but Midnight wasn't her only fan by any stretch. Hell, Midnight was a member of two groups on the boards and a livechat network dedicated to IRG, and Spin was present in those and certainly others. Surely there was someone among them who would be a more likely match than a struggling chorus line dancer almost a decade younger than the Brainhacker.

But only Spin had the answers to those questions, at least at the moment. Midnight sat down at the kitchen table, unconsciously straightening the salt and pepper shakers. And Spin wasn't here.

Maybe it's just best to enjoy it?

But this really wasn't the time to enjoy something. Spin was missing, Idle was distraught. Midnight put her head in her hands. She had gone to Abley's the night before to finally meet Spin in person and watch the Fives tournament, and now she was right in the middle of a weird disappearance story.

On the other hand... last night was the best night of my life, for more than one reason.

Midnight got to her feet and padded to the bedroom door to look in on Idle. She hadn't moved, and was definitely asleep, lying on her side, covered with blankets. Midnight wished she could join her, she was quite tired, but she was also agitated, confused, just plain antsy. "See a mess, clean it up," she said to herself with a little smile. This was a mess. It needed cleaning.

Midnight went looking for a pen and paper, and managed to scrounge up a blank yellow pad and a black pencil crayon. Close enough. She sat back down at the kitchen table.

"Okay, okay. Let's see." She nibbled on the top of the pencil. "What do I know?"

Spin had been Altering her for a few months, mostly for fun. The two of them had become good friends online, bonding over a mutual love of weird old movies, especially ones that included hypnosis or First Wave Alteration.

"Mostly for fun," she said, writing 'Spin' at the top of the paper. "But also..." She wrote down the word 'Neatness.' "I asked them for that. I remember that conversation."

"Ugh, my room is such a mess... I don't suppose Alteration could fix that?"

She smiled at the recollection. She hadn't been expecting Spin to agree—or that her tiny little off-the-shelf home unit would be so effective, even in Spin's hands.

Midnight drew a little arrow from 'Neatness' to a spot a little further down the page and wrote 'Observation.' Since she'd learned how to enjoy a clean space and how much fun it was cleaning one, Midnight had noticed that she was better able to spot things that were out of place or unusual; she had figured that it was just being more aware of things she might want to clean up.

Or maybe Spin had something to do with it directly. Midnight drew another line from Spin, a separate line, and wrote down 'Forgetting?' She looked at it and shifted in her seat. Hearing Tailor and Idle talk so much about forgetfulness in their match last night had been a powerful experience, almost as much as the way Spin and Idle had played with her right after.

But is there something about all this that I've forgotten? Something about Spin?

She put an arrow on the paper from 'Forgetting?' back to Spin's name, and another to the next word: 'Idle.' If Spin had been matchmaking, Midnight sure couldn't remember it. She drew a bracket between the two roommates' names for good measure and wrote down 'Matchmaking,' just to be sure it was there.

"Right, so if Spin wanted me to hook up with Idle... why?" Midnight looked at the little chart. "What do they get from it? Do they get anything from it?"

What would I get from it, if I were Spin?

Midnight shook off that thought, at least for the moment. Definitely worth considering, but it was just too speculative while she was trying to assemble the information.

So what of Idle? If Spin was trying to get the fangirl in bed with the object of her obsession, then they had to be working on Idle as well. Otherwise the whole first meeting could have been a disaster, and Midnight didn't think that Spin would leave that much up chance. So, an arrow off Idle, with a question mark on it, entirely for guesswork.

"If I were going to make sure that Idle would be at least open to a hookup, what would I do?" Midnight wasn't an Alterist, but she did love the art, and learned about it however she could. "And wait, Idle had a game yesterday, so she couldn't have a session within twenty-four hours of the match, so..."

Spin's been planning this for some time. They had to be. There are times when Idle can't be Altered, so Idle has to be... what's the technical term? Idle's expressing an Alter program, I think.

"But why?" she asked herself, already knowing the answer.

Idle messes with Spin, Spin messes with Idle. It's just a thing when Alterists share living space. Especially when they're friends.

"And Spin is Idle's coach, too," Midnight added. "Her roommate, her friend, her coach... so if Spin thought that Idle needed to get laid..."

You were convenient.

"Sure, but that doesn't have to be the only reason." Midnight looked at her paper. Spin, Neatness, Observation, Forgetting, Idle, Matchmaking. She underlined 'Matchmaking,' and then wrote, 'Why me?' beside it.

I already told you. You were convenient.

Midnight nodded. "Also, I'm a good Alter subject, I'm in good shape, I'm fun, I'm cute..."

And pretty compatible with Idle, clearly.

"Yeah. Yeah! I am!" She wrote that down under her question. 'Compatible.' Spin could see that they would get along well, being in both their heads regularly. So Spin pushed the two of them together. Easy. "And if getting me into Idle's life is good for Idle, then it's good for the two of them as a team." She put 'Team' beside 'Compatible,' and circled it.

Now we're starting to make sense. To expand a duo into a team. To play the third part. Player, coach, and cheerleader. She could be emotional support, pump her up before a game, to comfort her after a loss, to celebrate with her after a win. Spin wanted someone who would give her unequivocal support.

"And that's what I did, isn't it? I went with to the station, and back to Abley's, and I held her hand and got her into bed, and now I'm working on finding her roommate."

Is there anything you wouldn't do for her?

Midnight thought hard about the question. "I mean, I don't think I would kill someone if she asked..." She giggled.

Hopeless fangirl, her internal voice laughed back.

"So what? How many girls my age get to meet their obsession?" No one she knew had ever met anyone in their favourite holo-band or netshow. Chrissy Fellows had never even shaken hands with anyone on Alter / Control / Delete; Midnight Rose had made love to IRG. She wasn't about to go bragging, but if word got around on the boards there would be some good-natured jealousy, at least.

Hmm. The forums. Maybe there was someone there who might know something. Which meant that she needed a computer, since her phone battery was presently very dead.

And there was a computer, just in the other room. But she didn't know the setup. She didn't know the passwords to get in. That would have to wait until Idle got up. Plus, Midnight didn't know how Idle would react. If Midnight just decided to break the news, that would also reveal that she knew something about Idle and Spin's personal life, which might have given away her connection to Idle, which... Well, it wasn't being a very good emotional support to just blurt out to the whole world that she had slept with Idle. Especially right now.

Relationship status can be updated once we find Spin.

"You got it." Midnight nodded, looking back at her paper. She had written a few more words down while she was thinking. She murmured to herself, tracing the lines and letters with her finger. "Spin, Neatness, Observation, Forgetting, Idle, Matchmaking, Why me? — Team, Compatible, Connected, Sympathetic, Hypnotic, Altered..." She took a deep breath and blinked. Why had she written that? When had she...

Well, you're thinking about Spin, and Katherine's theories, and you're trying to solve the problem. What else did you write?

"... uh, Altered, Couch, Phone, Message, Cleaning, ..." with an arrow back to, "... neatness, observation, forgetting..." Midnight blinked. There was something she was missing. "compatible... connected..."

Sympathetic. Hypnotic. Altered.

"C-couch..." she muttered. Spin was sitting on the couch with their, "... phone..." and they had been reading a, "... m-message..." when they had been...

Hypnotized.

Midnight sat up with a jerk of sudden realization. She was typing. A moment ago she'd been writing, but now...

She was sitting in a familiar chair, typing. She stopped. A jumble of letters sat on the screen, twelve letters, crystal clear. No mistaking them. They weren't dancing or shifting about or changing, they were obvious, and they jumped out.

This isn't real, she said to herself. It can't be. It felt like a memory, like a fantasy, only a very, very real one.

She reached her hand up to the screen, touched it. Cool glass. It felt real. She looked down at the keyboard, it looked like a normal keyboard. Her keyboard. Nothing else in the room seemed to be turned on. She looked back to the monitor, and the letters.

omfpvytomsyr

"Om-fip-vitomssir?" Midnight looked at the word quizzically. She tried looking at it the other way. "Rismotty-vipuffmo?" That made even less sense, and at any rate, felt wrong. She knew, somehow, that the letters were meant to be read the way they had first met her attention.

And that was exactly how she wrote them on the paper. She looked around, catching her breath, surprised, sitting at the table. There was her messy little map, outlining everything she had thought of, with those twelve letters written in clean, bold strokes at the bottom. But she would swear that she had just been in her own apartment.

"Alterists." She shook her head. "What the heck am I getting into?"

Not like you can back out now.

"I could so." Midnight looked over at the door. Her shoes were there. Nothing keeping her from just walking out. She might have wanted her top back, but she could still take a Popcar home just as she was if she didn't want to risk disturbing Idle. It wasn't common for someone to be out in public topless, but it wasn't illegal. "But that wouldn't make me a good cheerleader."

She tore the top page off the pad and rewrote the series of letters on a fresh page, being very careful to get them in the right order. 'omfpvytomsyr—Any clues?'

She stared at the letters. Tried to mentally flip them around, which wasn't too much of a challenge, with the way they danced when she looked at them. The headache was coming on too quickly for her to keep reading.

Midnight stood up from the table and stretched, looking around. She had come up with something, at least, and that felt pretty good. She'd have to ask Katherine and Idle if the jumble of letters meant anything to them. Meanwhile, she could be that emotional support for Idle that she figured Spin wanted her to be. Idle was easy to support. She crossed her arms in a hug across her chest and sighed, squeezing her body with a little shiver. There was no question that Spin had put all this in her head in these last few months, especially the dreamlike state where she came up with that strange collection of a dozen letters.

And like with the missing time from the night before, Midnight loved it.

A noise made her turn. Idle stood in the hallway, still half-naked, looking at her. Midnight moved before thinking, dashing over and wrapping Idle in her arms.

"Oof!" Idle let out a breath as she reflexively pulled the charging girl into a hug. "Hey, nice to see you too." She sounded tired, but she was smiling.

Midnight gave a squeeze as Idle rested her head on Midnight's shoulder. "I'm worried about everything."

"Yeah, I know. Me too." Idle sighed heavily as she stepped back. "I don't know what to do."

"Wait for Katherine to call, I guess?" Midnight suggested. "Maybe I can make some dinner?"

Idle shook her head. "Not hungry. How long was I out?"

Midnight shrugged again. "I dunno, my phone's been dead for a while."

Idle looked back into her room, presumably at the alarm clock on the bedside table. "Three hours? Tailor's going to be calling any moment!"

"Sorry, should I have got you up earlier?"

Idle shook her head. "No, no, sorry, it's fine, I was just surprised. And..." She sighed heavily. "Midnight, uh, I understand if you want to just ... just go, you know? You've been great but this is heavy stuff to deal with."

Midnight gave a genuine, gentle smile. "Hey, Spin's my friend, too, Idle. And I adore you, you know? Even if I'm just a kinda dopey fangirl. Last night was a dream come true. And if there's anything I can do to help, I will. I mean, if you really want me to go—"

"No! I don't!" Idle said, sounding extremely relieved. "I want you to stay, Midnight!"

"And I want to stay!" Midnight felt her smile growing into a grin. "Oh! And I—"

Midnight was cut off by Idle's ringtone. "Hold that thought." Idle slipped back into her room. Midnight heard her talking softly, before stepping back out. "Tailor's on her way. Uh, we should maybe think about shirts?"

Midnight looked down at herself. "What's wrong with this?" she joked.

Idle actually laughed, sounding both genuinely joyful and exhausted.

Midnight smirked. "You know... it's not a terrible idea... You know, as a way to signal devotion..."

"We can talk about that another time. Let's not mess with Tailor too much on our first day, alright?" Idle tousled Midnight's pink hair, sending little shockwaves of pleasure through the slender dancer. "Although maybe you could wait until she knocks before getting dressed."

"I could be less dressed..." Midnight played with the button on her jeans.

"Simmer down, girl!" This time Idle's laugh was loud and boisterous. "There'll be time for that later, I bet."

Midnight smiled, letting her hands drop. Idle is easy to support, she thought. "Can I help you get ready?"

"Nah, I'm good, thanks." Idle sighed, her mood falling quickly. "I guess we have about ten minutes, huh."

Midnight nodded. "D'you want a sandwich or something?"

"No I..." Idle paused. "Actually, yeah, you convinced me, that'd be great. There's some peanut butter up in the cupboard."

Midnight gave a military salute "Yes ma'am! Anything else with it?"

Idle smiled again for a moment. "Jam in the fridge, I guess? I don't really want anything to drink, just something to nibble."

"Got it!" Midnight spun on her heel and headed back into the kitchen. Finding what she needed took a bit, because she wasn't familiar with the layout of the cupboards, but eventually she gathered everything and put a sandwich together just as Idle came up behind her and wrapped her in a hug. Midnight felt the soft fabric of Idle's shirt against her back.

"I wasn't kidding," she said lightly in Midnight's ear. "This is a lot to put on you not even a day after we met. If you want to run now, I won't hold it against you, and I will absolutely call you once it's all resolved."

"I know," Midnight replied, pressing back into the older Alterist. "I don't want to leave."

"Okay," Idle kissed the back of her neck, reached around her, and took the plate, letting her go. "Did you want something?"

Midnight shook her head. "No, I'm still full from that great big salad, thanks." She turned around as Idle walked to the table. "I think I kinda figured some things out. Or at least I think I got to see something Spin put in my head or something."

"Hm?"

Midnight pointed to the paper on the table. "That, uh, word, I guess? That mean anything to you?"

Idle swallowed looked over at Midnight's scratch pad. "Which word? Neither of them do."

"Huh?" Midnight slipped over to the table. "Oh, that one." She pointed at the word from her vision. "The other bit is my little note about it."

Idle frowned. "'Omf-Pivvy-Tom-Sir'? Never heard of it at all."

"Yeah, me neither," Midnight shook her head. "But that's what I got from... uh... it's hard to explain."

"Spin was involved. It's going to be hard to explain."

"Uh huh." Midnight wandered back to the counter, put the peanut butter back in the cupboard and the strawberry jam in the fridge. "Maybe I should wait until Katherine gets here, so I just have to explain it once," she said as she ran a little hot water.

"Yeah, not a bad idea," Idle agreed. "What are you doing?"

"The dishes?"

"How did you just say that like it's the most natural fucking thing in the world?"

Midnight blinked. "See a mess, clean it up, that's all."

"A mess? It's like three glasses, a plate, and a knife."

"Two plates, when you're done with that one."

"Huh?" Idle looked down. "Yeah, I guess?"

"Just lemme wash it," Midnight said, laughing as she put a little dish soap in the sink. "Spin's been working with me for a few weeks to get me to clean up my apartment, because I never really had the motivation, you know? But this just feels good."

"Sounds like my roommate." Idle brought the empty plate over. "I feel like I should be doing those."

"Like an urge in the pit of the stomach?" Midnight asked.

"Yeah." Idle put the plate in the sink. "Are... are we bonding? Is that what this is?"

Midnight giggled. "Yeah, kinda. Bonding over Spin in our heads."

Idle leaned in and kissed Midnight on the cheek. Midnight felt herself grow warm. "I don't know what the fuck's going on, but I'm glad you're hanging around."

Midnight grinned. "Yeah, you know, me too. If I left, I don't think Spin would quit haunting me."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew they were the wrong ones. The mood in the room crashed instantly, nearly audibly.

"I didn't mean haunting," Midnight said into the awkward silence.

"I know. You meant... It doesn't matter. Don't worry about it."

Idle didn't move. Midnight kept washing clean dishes.

"Slip of the tongue," Idle continued. "I won't hold it against you."

Midnight nodded, wiping the last crumbs off of Idle's sandwich plate. She didn't stop wiping that dish. If she stopped, she'd have to deal with the mood.

Idle let a sigh out. "Okay. I'm okay. Are you okay?"

Midnight nodded again, putting the plate on the tea towel she'd set out for the few dishes she'd cleaned. "Yeah. I'm okay. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be." Idle gave her another kiss on the cheek, one with a lot less heat in it. "But I appreciate it." Idle's phone called out from the other room. "I bet that's Tailor," she said as she went to retrieve it.

Midnight let out a shaky breath. Dumb thing to say, she thought as Idle headed out into the hallway to let Katherine in the main doors. She was about to grab another towel when she realized that she was still only half-dressed, so she pushed the idea about seeing a mess aside and went to get her shirt on.

Ben took a long, slow breath, finally having a chance to consider everything. It was all going to plan, almost too well. The only glitch was an inability to reach his insider, but that wouldn't take long to remedy. All it meant was that he was running without direct information, but he could infer from the lack of reports on the forums, legitimate and dark, as well as the lack of police activity, that at least his escape had gone right.

Eventually, he knew, he would have his source of information available again. Eventually word would get around, too, in the community. There might have even been a formal investigation. By then, though, every detail would be sorted and settled, every track would be covered, every trace would be erased.

He held his hands still, deliberately. They wanted to shake.

Just a few days more.

He opened a box of equipment. He had work to do. He wanted the computer set up before the delivery of the Alteration chair on Monday. The network was already perfect, but everything had to be properly hooked in before Wednesday's match.

Katherine nodded to Idle as the door opened. "How are you doing?"

"Not good, but surviving." Idle guided Katherine up the stairs towards her apartment. "Could be a lot better."

"I get it," Katherine replied, and she did understand. "Do you need anything?"

"Nah. Just my roommate back."

Katherine nodded. "If I could give them back to you, I would."

Idle smiled back as she opened the apartment door. "I know. Let's see what we can do about that."

Katherine stepped inside at Idle's invitation, and slipped out of her shoes, arranging them neatly next to the other pairs on the mat. She glanced around the apartment, taking it in. To her left was clean kitchen with small round table with two chairs seated at it and a pen and pad of paper sitting on it next to the salt and pepper shakers. The kitchen ran easily into the living room with large south-facing windows, mismatched furnishings, and a fair-sized television. A hallway headed off to her right, presumably to the bedrooms and bathroom.

"Lovely place," Katherine commented as she walked in.

"Thanks," Idle replied. "I bet you'll like the computer room."

"I like this space," Katherine replied, walking into the kitchen. "It's a good space." She took a deep breath, looking around. A small handful of recently-washed dishes sat on a tea towel beside the sink, on a faux-granate laminate countertop. The grey metal cabinets lent a strange comfort and warmth to the room, despite their individual coldness, with the way they reflected the overhead light. It was a good space.

Idle looked at her curiously as she moved slowly through the kitchen. Katherine couldn't help but grin. "I've been told I look like one of those television psychics, talking about the energy of the room."

"Sure, I could see that," Idle said. "What are you doing, anyway?"

"Not a lot," Katherine admitted. "I just like to see how other people live. Call it a curiosity."

"Get inside people's heads. Makes you a good analyst." Idle chuckled. "Good thing I played for luck and not for skill."

Katherine shrugged. "Hey, you win some, you lose some. We'll see how we do in the playoff stages." She ran a hand over the surface of the raised table, noted some writing on the pad of paper. "Your note?"

"Midnight's," Idle replied. "I can't read it."

"I can," Midnight said, popping out into the hallway from one of the bedrooms, "but I don't know what it means. Hi Katherine!"

The blonde's smile was genuine. "Hello again, Midnight, it's good to see you."

"Good to see you too." Midnight walked toward the kitchen. She seemed a bit disheveled, and her long bright hair was in disarray, half in and half out of her collar, as if she'd just pulled her shirt over her head. "Sorry, my handwriting's a mess."

"No worries," Katherine said, looking down at the paper. "So what's the story with this?"

"Well, uh, I was trying to figure out just..." Midnight looked at her bare feet. "Just why I'm here, you know?"

"In the deep, philosophical sense?" Idle asked, hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter.

Midnight shook her head, still not looking up. "No, why it is that you—a-and that Spin—want me around."

"So what do these letters mean?" Katherine asked, curious. "Some kind of code for yourself?"

"Well, that's the story," Midnight said. "I started to working through what Spin would want with me, right? We know they were messing with us," she indicated herself and Idle, "so I wanted to work out why they wanted to fix me up with their roommate."

Katherine nodded and took a seat on one of the chairs at the table, motioning to Midnight to continue. Midnight looked over to Idle, who also nodded.

"So, I sat there, right where you are, and I started taking notes, and..." She seemed a bit embarrassed. "And somehow I hypnotized myself, I think?"

Idle stopped kicking her feet out and listened, eyes wide. Katherine leaned in. "You hypnotized yourself?" she asked.

Midnight shrank back just a bit. "Uh... I think so? I started reading over some of the things I wrote and then..." she shook her head. "I was back home, or at least it felt like home, but I couldn't really tell, and I was at a computer, and a weird colourful screen, and these letters. They jumped out at me, so I wrote them down. Uh, actually, I wrote them down without knowing, while I was still having my... I dunno, vision, I guess?" She shrugged, finally starting to look a little more comfortable. "That's probably why they're clear."

"Alright, then, what does the other word say?" Katherine held up the notepad and pointed to the apparent scribble beneath the twelve clear letters.

Midnight stepped closer. "Huh? Oh, it's just my little note. It says 'Any clues?'"

Katherine turned the pad around, then looked at Midnight. Something clicked almost audibly in her head.

Idle hopped down to the floor. "So... do you have any?"

"I have one," Katherine said. "Maybe more."

"You're being mysterious again," Idle said, in a tone that said that she didn't like it.

"Sorry. I don't like making important statements if I don't have things all sorted," Katherine apologized with a wry smile. "Hazard of the job. If I just roll with my instincts without checking things, I might just put something on the record that's not indicated."

"But if you had to guess?"

"I'd say that Midnight's dyslexic."

Idle stopped in shock. Midnight gaped. "How did you..."

"I had to guess," Katherine said with a shrug. "I would bet that's why you threw out your first page, right? So we wouldn't see it?"

Midnight swallowed and looked down again. "Uh huh, s-sorry..." her voice shook.

Idle took three steps across the kitchen and wrapped Midnight in her arms. "Nothing wrong with that." She shot an angry look at Katherine.

Katherine got to her feet as well. "No need to apologize, Midnight. We're friends here. I only mentioned it because I think it's important."

"Important?" Midnight's head emerged out of Idle's hug. "What do you mean?" Her voice was still shaky, but she wasn't crying.

"Still piecing that together. It's why I didn't want to say anything," Katherine replied kindly. "Spin's something of an Alteration genius, yes?"

"They're the best," Idle replied, letting Midnight go. "No question."

"And they were working with Midnight for a while, yeah?"

Midnight nodded. "Uh huh, um it's hard to keep track but I think at least four months. They actually said that I was, uh, 'a fun challenge.'"

"Mhmm, because dyslexia makes things go weird in the timing circuits in your brain." Katherine smiled. "Comparatively weird, anyway. A lot of conventional equipment will compensate somewhat for it, and most pros will have programming to deal with it. But I'll bet..." Her smile went a bit cold. This was too much speculation. Still, she had begun, and Idle and Midnight were looking at her expectantly. "I'll bet that you bought low-level off-the-shelf equipment, possibly secondhand, and you've got a fairly low-powered computer that it's all hooked into, and Spin's probably the only person who's managed to get decent work done with you, yes?"

Midnight nodded again. "Yeah, that's all right."

"Because in the amateur world," Katherine continued, "the knowledge isn't always there for how to handle these sorts of neurological variations, especially one so severe as yours. You can get hypnotized, sure, but with a low-powered machine there's going to be a strong reliance on text, which is harder for you to parse when you're conscious and almost impossible when your mind's on something else. It's why you like going to Abley's, I bet, because they have better equipment than you do that will more-or-less automatically deal with dyslexia."

"Where's this going, Tailor?" Idle asked, impatient.

Katherine shook her head. "I'm not sure yet. I kinda want to get a look inside your heads and see just what Spin's been up to in there, but I'm not sure if this is the right time."

"If it gets me my coach back, I'd give you a scalpel so you can look at my neurons directly."

Midnight giggled and made a face. "Gross."

Katherine and Idle caught each other's glances and grinned. "All that to one side," Katherine continued, "I'm going to bet that the letters you saw on the colourful screen were perfectly clear and easy to read, right?"

Midnight nodded.

"Then I don't know about you," Katherine said, "but I kind of want to know just what else was on that screen. And that probably means doing some work on you, Midnight."

Both of the other women nodded. "What about me?" Idle asked.

"You, too, of course." Katherine chuckled a bit. "I'd love a chance to take a peek inside the head of a master Brainhacker."

"'Master' is a bit of a stretch," Idle said, but the pride was evident in her voice. "And I sure won't get there without someone like Spin to help me along."

Katherine nodded. "When's your next match?"

"Wednesday afternoon, against, uh... some hot new guy." Idle shook her head. "Another up-and-comer. Not a streamer. No one knows much about him. Hell, look at me, I can't even come up with his fuckin' name."

"Right, let's see if we can track Spin down before that." Three full days, and she only had to work the last of them. And she might have access to police resources, if she played her cards right.

"Sounds great," Idle said, her tone betraying her doubt.

"But first," Katherine said, "there's an even more important matter to consider."

"What's that?" Midnight asked, curious.

"Dinner. On me. You two are having a rough enough go of things right now, let me get you some food."

"You don't have to," Idle replied.

"I want to. Besides, I didn't get my Indian cuisine at lunch." The sandwich and apple in her purse would wait until she got home later. "I'm invading your home, and I'm going to work on your brains, least I can do is buy you dinner first."

That got a giggle from the other women. Katherine smiled. "I'll put in the order, they deliver," she continued, "and then we can talk about whatever 'Omf-piv-itto-miseer' is and what's going on in your heads."

Idle gave a resigned sigh. "Yeah, alright. Anything that helps. Even if it goes fucking nowhere, it's still better than sitting around doing nothing." She headed into the living room with Midnight in tow.

Katherine opened the app for the delivery service and started tapping in her order. She caught herself humming a bit, and realized that she was actually enjoying herself. Strange, that. Maybe it was a natural inclination towards figuring things out. Maybe it was a side-effect of the Alterations in her head that pushed her towards sorting and analyzing data. Maybe both. She paid, closed the app and followed the other two into the living room.

"About half an hour," she said, taking a chair opposite where Midnight and Idle sat on a large couch. "No one's allergic to anything?"

Midnight shook her head, and Idle said "Shellfish."

"Good, we're safe then. Okay." Katherine took a deep breath. "This is a ridiculously comfortable chair." She realized that she hadn't really had a break all day, other than the few minutes she'd had over lunch to discuss matters with the other two. She let out another deep breath.

"Long day?" Idle asked.

"I imagine it's nothing compared to yours, but yeah. Can't really talk about the interrogations after lunch, but they were not easy." She couldn't really talk about them in part because AlterLogic guaranteed the confidentiality of its analysts by having their own memories block significant details about a lot of the work they did. Still, she could remember enough to know that she had talked almost nonstop during her last hour of work, which meant that there was a lot to observe, which probably meant someone either on drugs or heavily Altered—or both—and under stressful interrogation. Or maybe that had been her employer checking in on her with a deliberately challenging subject, she would never know. Regardless, it was a difficult way to end her work-week.

"Don't you have plans tonight?" Midnight asked. "You told Mr. Abley that you couldn't come to the Fives tournament because you were busy."

Katherine shrugged. "I lied. Besides, I have plans now, don't I?"

Idle gave a mirthless smirk. "I guess we all do."

"Am I intruding?"

Idle shook her head. "No, like I said, this is better than what I would be doing, which is worrying, beating my head against a table, and generally making Midnight concerned."

"More concerned," Midnight corrected softly, wrapping her arm around Idle's and resting her head on Idle's shoulder.

Katherine sighed and settled into the chair. "Okay, good. Let me know if there's anything more I can do or any way I can help or... I don't know, anything at all. This isn't actually something I'm used to, either."

Idle chuckled acerbically. "They don't teach you about kidnapping in corporate school, huh."

"Actually..."

Midnight's eyes widened. "They teach you about kidnapping?"

"Sure," Katherine replied. "Mostly how to avoid doing it accidentally, but yes, how to do it, what to do if we suspect that someone's acting in diminished capacity—"

"Back up a step," Idle said, sitting up straighter. "You get taught how to kidnap someone with Alteration?"

"It's more how we can use Alteration, manipulation, and maybe medication to change patterns of thought so that someone will do something they're not really inclined to do."

Midnight lifted her head, looking worried. "But you're not supposed to be able to do that, right? You can't make someone do something they don't want to by Altering them, right?"

"Well," Katherine waved a hand towards Idle, "ask a Brainhacker."

Idle blinked. "I don't know how to answer that. I mean, we agree to allow our opponents' suggestions to affect us, even if we don't really want to."

Katherine pointed and sat back triumphantly. "That's just it. You agree to something, even if you don't want to. You have to, or no one would ever lose, right?"

"Well, some people lose when they break that agreement, but yeah, that's right, matches would just go on forever, with two Alterists flailing uselessly," Idle confirmed. "But there's also a mechanism in the programming to erase any lasting suggestions."

"Sure, it's part of what helps you make that agreement, that you know that it's safe, or at least relatively safe, but people still find ways around it, right?"

Idle nodded. "That's what made Spin leave the game." Her voice took on vitriolic tone. "There was a whole school of thought that said that even if you can't win, you can still cause damage. After all, if someone senses that you're hurting them, they might just forfeit out. Fortunately, it's basically a fucking dead strat. Too easy to push back against, puts all the hacker's focus in one place."

"Mhmm, the same goes for Fives. Some people used to play to scare volunteers away from their opponent's choice instead of nudging them towards their own—fear is a powerful motivator—but that strategy died out quick; it's too easy to counter. And if it happens too much then it's hard to get volunteers."

"Okay, but... what's your point?" Midnight asked. "So if people agree to it you can get them to do things that they agree to? So how can you kidnap someone?"

"Well," Katherine said, "How do you kidnap someone without Altering them? Threats or force, right?"

"Sure," Idle said with a shrug. Midnight nodded.

Katherine took a breath. "Assuming that actual force is off the table, that leaves a threat. 'Come with me or I'll hurt you or someone you love,' you follow? But philosophically, they're still making a choice to go with you, all you've done is make that choice better than the alternative."

Midnight looked confused. "I think I get it."

Idle, meanwhile, frowned, seemingly skeptical.

"It's not a free choice," Katherine clarified, "but it's still them making a choice. Once you add Alteration into the mix... well, basically, I can't make you do something you don't want, but I can make you want something you wouldn't otherwise want. Especially with time, pressure, and..." she shrugged. "Drugs."

Idle frowned. "So you think someone drugged Spin?"

Katherine shook her head. "Not really, just that it's a possibility. And if they did, they probably didn't just drug them last night, they would have shown signs of it. This has been someone's plan for a while."

"Well, that's comforting as shit," Idle growled. "My roommate's been in some sick fuck's crosshairs for, what, weeks?"

"Months, probably. I don't know." Katherine shrugged. "And I might be wrong, that's just how I'd do it."

"Greeeat," Idle laughed darkly. "So I've got a potential kidnapper in my living room now."

Katherine and Midnight both laughed with her. "So hey," Midnight asked, tapping Idle's thigh. "What does that make you?"

Idle leaned over and kissed her hand. "Obviously I'm the villain of your story."

Midnight giggled again. "Oh no, I've been kidnapped-ed!" She fell over into Idle's lap.

Katherine rolled her eyes at the display, but smiled all the same, just as her phone rang with the notice that the food had arrived. "That'll be dinner."

"I'll go get it," Idle offered, straightening Midnight up. "Less worry about being locked out."

"Thanks, uh, Midnight and I can get dishes and such," Katherine offered.

"Yeah, I think I know where things are!" Midnight said, jumping to her feet.

Idle raised an eyebrow as she got to her feet. "Should I be worried about that?" she asked as she crossed the floor, but before either Midnight or Katherine could answer, she was out the door and heading downstairs.