Breakfast is perfunctory—a steaming bowl of rice, a protein bar, water. After the first few times you’ve learned not to skip meals. You get there early; eat alone, chewing fast and swallowing rhythmically; then move back out into the fluorescent white corridor, still alone. (Carol is not in either place. Maybe she eats in her room, or not at all—B team has whispered about how she’s a cryptid who doesn’t need to eat, gastrointestinal tract replaced by a self-sustaining engineered chemosynthetic algal bloom. B team thinks a lot of things about Carol. You’re not B team.)

  Sim comes next. This is a routine you’ve worked out—morning run, breakfast, then sim—and you’ve stuck to it for all of three days, now, good for you. It’s a good way to cool off, let the salt and slick come out into the black chill of the pod; you’ll run it dry, as usual, because you still are not quite used to the tightness of your suit.

  Only when you approach the sim wing, you freeze. The door to the little antechamber—where sparring practice usually happens—is ajar. Past it, you hear the sound of low voices. You’re not alone.

  Fuck, you think. You’d really been hoping you’d have it all to yourself: it’s still before six, and usually you haven’t found anyone in here between the hours of midnight and six thirty, though once you did see Lau sitting by one of the far pods at one in the morning and silently turned back around.

  Bad luck: it’s Lau who’s here this time too. You can hear her, quiet and fast, hissing really, and in the pauses between her words the other pilot answers low and reassuring: definitely a pilot, for who else would be in here, using the sparring room? Certainly not one of the techs, who have been all but invisible to you since that first day you got here.

  You should leave. Instead you draw close to the wall, hold your breath, and listen.

  “It’s not fair,” Lau’s saying. “You know it and I know it. Holly damn well better know it, but maybe she doesn’t, she’s stupid, she’s got a head like a rock, you know that. But I need her to know.”

  “Yes, dear,” says her companion, whom you realize is Enika, her lovely voice pitched low. “I know you’re upset. Look—it isn’t easy for the rest of us either. Have you tried talking to your therapist about it?”

  “Oh yes,” says Lau, “therapy, you’re right, silly me, how could I have missed that? I’ll get one of the psychs to tell me there’s nothing wrong with me, little Shirley’s all straight in the head, and then after they’ll pop down and talk to Meng and get her to fix things and we’ll be all right again, won’t we? Maybe bring back the dead while we’re at it?”

  “Shirley,” says Enika gently, “don’t be a bitch. We’re trying, but this is an ongoing conversation, you know it is. Don’t give up just yet just because the answer is—right now—no.”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” Lau says. “Right now— Fuck off, we don’t have anything but right now. There’s no later. There’s no we’ll see. We all saw the report.”

  “You don’t know that,” says Enika. “We barely know anything yet.”

  (This surely is a lie. She sounds even, calm, but even you are instantly on edge hearing it. In school they’d always taught you Megs are sterile, have been since they crawled out of the thawing hole beneath the Antarctic; something to do with the effects of being frozen so long, or perhaps the devil’s pact with cryobloom algae, or just plain old age. But what do you know? You’re a college dropout. Grimly you press yourself tighter against the wall and listen harder.)

  “Aileen knew,” says Lau. “And you ignored her too. And look how that fucking turned out.”

  “Shirley,” Enika says, so soft you nearly miss it, “that’s not fair.”

  “None of this shit is,” says Lau, not soft at all. “We get robots in our heads for therapists, Venky, that’s how the game is played. But you sitting on your ass makes it even less fair.”

  “Well, Meng wants to give the kid a chance,” says Enika. “And if Holly’s going along with it, I’ll respect her judgment. We all have to, really.”

  “Of course you do.” Tiredly, without venom: “Are you going to keep sucking her off or are you going to be your own person for once?”

  “Your desperation’s showing,” Enika says. “You can do better than that, Shirley, really.”

  “I need you to do something,” says Lau urgently. Out of the corner of your eye you can make out her form in the mirror, bag slung over her shoulder, hoodie over her still-wet suit, tattoos dancing over the back of her neck. “Fuck, Venky, I need you to, I don’t know, twist Holly’s dick, let her sit on your face and get her to agree to your every whim after—poison her food, I don’t care. You have power. You know exactly what I’m fucking talking about. So use it.”

  A pause. Then Enika says, “Haven’t you talked about this with Debs?”

  “What,” says Lau, “so she can give me therapy about it?”

  “No,” says Enika. “It’s just, you know, usually she’s pretty good about telling you when you’re being a bullheaded idiot.”

  “So yes, therapy,” says Lau. “Look, I already told you I’m not going to do that. They’re all quacks and they can’t give me what I need anyway. Unless you know one with a steady supply of citalopram and a key to Meng’s office.” The rustle of her hoisting her bag over her shoulder. “So,” she says, “can or not? Shanghai’s coming soon.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “I don’t see why Shanghai matters,” says Enika.

  “Because I don’t want them seeing us with our pants down,” says Lau. “You think it won’t be embarrassing? Her on the team? Much less this new basket case—? Be serious.” You hear the squeak of a rubber sole turning on tile. “Get back to me.”

  “Oh, Shirley,” says Enika, “you really are so much like her, do you know that? Sometimes you even sound like her. I think she’d be proud.”

  “I don’t care,” says Lau, “shut the fuck up and help me or don’t. If you don’t, don’t come crying later. I won’t listen.”

  You move—too late. Lau comes bursting through the door a moment later, a sudden shock of cold air in her wake, and storms right past you, bag held high. If she sees you she says nothing; you suppose she’s too angry to notice, because you doubt she’d ignore you out of the kindness of her heart.

  On instinct you look away (surely if you cannot see her then she cannot see you), and then instantly you hate yourself for shrinking—but you keep looking away, you remain pressed to the wall, and you count, up to ten, the sound of her footsteps receding behind you. Then, when the staccato has died off, you peel yourself upright. You take a deep breath. Easy, Emma, nothing to hide, no judgment for eavesdropping, not your fault you overheard it anyway—and even if it is, you have work to do.

  There’s Enika alone on a bench by the window that looks out into the sim room. Behind her the many dark pods gleam like nothing so much as a mass of eggs, frog or fish, and she is dwarfed by them, the first time you’ve seen her look small. Still formidable, though, her hair a glorious unbound waterfall around and over her shoulders, stark contrast to the white of her tee, under which you see the fitted legs of her suit—no curve left to the imagination—saltwater still clinging to it—a modern-day siren.

  Her eyes are shut. At first you think you might get away without being perceived. Perhaps if you step very quietly—

  “Hello, Emma,” she says, not opening her eyes. “Come for some girl time?”

  You startle. Your cheeks flush. “Uh,” you say. “No. Sorry. Do you—”

  “Oh, no,” says Enika, putting up a hand, “sorry, I’m being sarcastic. Headache. Please, don’t talk to me. But I do really hope you enjoy yourself in there.” She adds—eyes still shut—“You’re doing great, you know. Considering the circumstances.”

  Does she know that you’ve just heard everything between her and Lau? Surely. (Yes, yes, pun intended; go fuck yourself.) But if she knows, she doesn’t say so, and she really does sound genuine and apologetic, which is the strangest thing of all to you.

  “Sure,” you say, and, awkwardly, because you never have known how to take a compliment, “Thanks.” She doesn’t move. It occurs to you that you have Advil in your bag; you nearly open your mouth to offer it, but she has turned away already, her body like a seawall, and so you say nothing and simply go on into the sim room.

  You are long used to the setup by now, not so different from days at the academy: cuffs on, corset on, wait for the magnets in the walls to hum awake and bear you aloft. (No suit this run; you don’t feel like braving the dressing room right now, much less coming back out wet.) You have thoughtfully brought with you athletic tape this time to wrap around your wrists and ankles, the better to keep the cuffs from chafing; fading red circles there mark where you have learned this lesson the hard way.

  GOOD MORNING, I greet you from the inner curve of your helmet. You don’t answer.

  Which makes sense, because I did pretty much rip you apart from the inside out last time we spoke. I can’t blame you.

  Ten milliseconds pass, a hundred, five hundred. I count all the way to three thousand. Then you say, “Helm, bring up Shanghai, ninety-six. Target 1092C elimination. Put me in Xu’s position.”

  ACKNOWLEDGED, I say, LOADING REQUESTED SCENARIO. Then your HUD fills with water, and you shiver involuntarily despite that of course there is no matching stimulus; on visual you see the wall behind which stands the Yangtze estuary, and around you the open ocean. Your system floods with readings: saline and turbidity and sonar. You’re submerged.

  Xu was Shanghai’s frontline shield at this time, paired off with Lai, who pilot Xuanwu and Baihu respectively. Xu’s Titan is massive, one of the biggest ever made, a veritable mountain of shadow-green titanium hull; she and Lai spearheaded the efforts against Pan Gu the Earthshaker, you recall, the biggest Meg before the one that killed your sister—the very first Class E. I myself am perhaps three quarters Xuanwu’s mass.

  The moon pool and Shanghai Base are behind you. The open ocean (no minefields or protected outer bays here) lies in front of you. Two seconds pass, three, and when you say nothing, do nothing, I begin to worry.

  WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE AN INPUT? I ask you.

  “No,” you say. “Yes.” A long pause. “Fuck it—summarize the mission for me, Helm. Please.” Another pause. “Give me the rundown.”

  I’M SORRY, I say, RUNDOWN?

  “Your overview of the situation,” you say brusquely, “tactical insight.”

  I know what you mean; I’m in your head, after all; I’m just surprised. ONE TARGET, I say, CARCINATE, ESTIMATED 24,000 TONS MASS, ESTIMATED 320 FEET ALONG MAJOR LENGTH. SUBJECT IS NOTABLY RESISTANT TO SONIC DISORIENTATION AND HEAVILY ARMORED. ADVISE CAUTION IF APPROACHING SOLO.

  “Acknowledged,” you say. “Recommended approach?”

  THE USUAL, I say. AVOID GETTING HIT. PUNCH TILL DEAD. And, because I’m feeling generous, TARGET THE JOINTS.

  “Well,” you say. “No shit. What insight do you have?”

  QUITE FRANKLY, I say, THIS IS THE BEST I CAN DO GIVEN HOW LITTLE DATA I HAVE REGARDING YOUR COMBAT PERFORMANCE.

  Which, of course, is because you have no records of combat performance, because to date you have been on all of one sortie in your life.

  “Okay,” you say, “fine. But you have combat data in your system.”

  Your sister’s. YES.

  “What would you advise based on those data?”

  YOU ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY EXPERIENCED TO MAKE ADEQUATE USE OF THE ADVICE I WOULD OFFER YOU IN THAT CASE.

  For a long moment you are silent. I know what you’re thinking about; I know that what you overheard right before this was perhaps the worst possible thing you could have overheard, for these purposes, or perhaps the best, depending on your view of the situation. I know part of you is still underwater, out there, on your first and only patrol, and I know how you feel, still, about what I’ve said. I choose not to listen in on the gory details. I busy myself with other subroutines while you figure yourself out. Consider it a mercy.

  Finally you say, “Alright. Punch till it’s dead. Noted.” And, spooling your engines up, you tell me: “Let me know when we start hitting system limits.”

  I always do. It’s one of my most fundamental precepts. You are saying things just to say them. Another mercy: I remain silent and do not tell you this. You already know, anyway.