At the bottom of the stairs, Lily is sitting with Ben’s mother and brothers, laughing, perfectly poised, like she’s always belonged with them. And maybe she has.
The laughter screeches to a halt as soon as Ben and I reach the landing.
Lily shoots me a look, quick and sharp—an unfiltered flash of distaste.
It’s almost a relief. Finally, cold, hard proof that I’m not imagining things. That I’m not just jealous.
They’re plotting his demise in broad daylight, slicing up his lab like they’re sharing a meal, guessing at the value of each invention, trading theories on what to repurpose, what to scrap, and what to lock away so no one else can get their hands on it.
The precision of their conversation, the cold efficiency, the way they calculate the worth of his life’s work down to decimals—it hits me like a gut punch of inadequacy.
I think I have a mind for strategy. But this?
This is control on another level.
“Ben,” I whisper, my voice barely holding steady, “what if we can’t pull this off?”
He shakes his head immediately. “Illogical.”
We’re out in a flash—speed walking, then running, just in time to watch a rush of birds lift into the sky as we reach the sidewalk.
He laughs—a high, rusty sound. Cyborg joy.
We pass towering buildings with mirrored surfaces reflecting the sky in fractured blue, like the city’s trying to hold the heavens captive.
People glance our way, eyes sliding over us like we’re too strange to register, too fast to catch.
Eventually, we reach a large domed building flanked by massive columns. Above us, flickering holographic banners announce the latest advancements in digital archives and information discs.
It’s a library—the centralized IS hub of the aboveground.
“Ah, Dr. Iku! Always a pleasure to see you mingling with us peasants in the stacks!” Calls a librarian from behind the desk. He’s a Gold, clearly someone Ben knows.
He hands Ben three digital volumes. I read the titles greedily before Ben slides them into his bag:Tactile Resonance: The Neurobiology of Skin-to-Skin Contact and Its Role in Emotional Healing. Dermal Dynamics: The Intersection of Skin Contact and Cellular Regeneration. The Human Interface: Psychosomatic Responses to Extended Physical Contact in Post-Human Bodies.
“Falcons lost that game the other night; I think I’ll be a peasant soon,” Ben says, deadpan.
“What do you owe me now?” The Gold teases.
“Uncountable,” Ben sighs dramatically.
“Why do you still put credits on the birds?” One of the younger librarians—an Aluminum—asks, raising a skeptical brow.
“Once I find a team, I mate for life,” Ben says, placing a hand over his chest. It’s meant to be funny, but something about the gesture feels too sincere.
The librarians are startled, unsure how to react, then burst into a collective, if awkward, laugh.
“Dr. Iku, was that a joke?” One asks, half disbelieving.
“It was an attempt,” Ben says, ducking his head, seeming shy and proud at once.
Then he gestures toward me. “This is the woman I told you about.”
His voice drops—soft, reverent—like he’s stumbled upon something sacred. “Fawl?—”
“Oh, we know,” another librarian—bespectacled, mostly machine—interrupts, their eyes lighting up with a kind of reverence that makes me feel like some kind of local legend. “Fawl here is one of the youngest Diamonds in the IS.”
I grin. “I didn’t realize our rating system was universal.”
