11THOSE LONG HOURS OF LYING on my cot doing nothing are over. I know it as soon as I wake the next day. Instead of that dull heaviness pressing me down into my bed, I feel a new energy pushing me up into the day. Michael’s coming, his searching me out after all I did to evade him, his folding me into his family for those few short hours—they’ve changed me somehow. Not in any way I can pinpoint or explain, but they’ve changed me all the same. The heaviness has been replaced by a restlessness; the will to die by, perhaps, not a true desire to live, but at least by an acceptance that I have.

I see Michael off and on over the next week. School is less formal on the station than it was on Aurora, with students having the option to attend in person or link in either live or after the fact. It explains how Michael was able to come look for me those first few afternoons on the station. However, he still has to attend his classes sometimes—Taylor is too responsible a guardian to let him get behind—and though he doesn’t say it, I know Michael must have a life beyond me. Friends, activities, maybe even a girlfriend for all I know.

Still, I can’t help feeling a little disappointed the first day he links me to say he won’t be coming by. The feeling surprises me. Before, I would have been perfectly content if I never saw him again. Relieved, even. Not anymore. Somehow between our first meeting on Level Seven and that evening in his home on the Upper Habitat Ring, I’ve gotten used to Michael. Started to like him, even, rather than simply tolerating his presence because he was Lia’s friend. Perhaps it’s because, even though I’m not his friend, he’s still mine.

Then again, maybe it’s simple boredom that draws me to him, I muse as I step off the lift onto Level Eight. It’s my tenth day on the station and already boredom has become second nature to me. As a returned POW, I’m not required to attend classes, nor do I have a job or any assigned chores. Aside from sleeping and eating, there isn’t much to do besides walk around the hub—an activity I’ve done a hundred times now. Too bad Michael’s not around. He linked me earlier to say he would be attending classes, so I’m on my own today. As I head for my sleeping quarters, I try to think of something to do. There’s always Taylor’s reader, I remind myself. Though I’ve never been much of one for reading, it’s better than nothing.

I blink as I walk into the bay. Never much of one for reading? Now was that Lia’s preference or my own? Between her hidden memories and my forgotten ones, sometimes it’s hard to tell where I begin and she ends.

Pushing past a group of milling refugees, I make my way to my corner only to stop as I catch sight of my cot. My cot which is no longer unoccupied.

My mouth drops open as I spot the intruder. A girl is lounging on top of the blanket, shoveling the last of the candy Taylor gave me into her mouth as she flips through the reader. Over the last week, I’d been careful to pack all my stuff carefully away into the box and stick it back behind a nearby cargo crate whenever I left the bay. I’d thought it was safe enough, but apparently I was wrong. My eyes zoom in on a glob of chocolate carelessly dropped on my blanket, and a hot flash of anger pulses through me.

Words explode from my mouth, and I rush forward. “Hey! Hey, what are you doing? That’s mine!”

She jerks at my call, jumping to her feet and searching wildly for the source of the voice. She looks about my age, but she’s a lot bigger, topping me by at least six inches and fifty pounds. Her eyes take in my smaller stature with one quick sweep and the nervousness immediately dissolves from her face. She smiles a nasty smile, the sort of mean expression only belonging to the worst of bullies.

Gaze locked on mine, she slides the reader into her jumpsuit. “What’s yours?” she asks innocently.

Calm, calm, don’t draw attention.

The words whisper through my mind, but that chocolate on Taylor’s crisp white blanket stares up at me, overriding everything else. “Give that back!”

“Or what?”

“Or you’ll be sorry!”

“Oh, yeah? Who’s going to make me? ‘Cause it sure in a bloody moon won’t be you.” She gestures at the box and snorts. “Besides, where would a little frag-nosed refugee like you get all this stuff? I bet you stole it.”

“I did not! It was a gift, from friends. Something you probably never had in your life.”

I hit a nerve; I can immediately see it in her eyes. Her nostrils flare, fingers clenching into fists. Her body tenses, and I realize she’s about to charge. So I charge first.

She doesn’t expect it, and my weight hits her like a Class II cruiser, toppling her back onto the cot. A leg snaps with a loud crack! and then we’re rolling across the floor, our arms and hands grappling in each other’s clothes, each trying to gain the advantage. She uses her superior weight to push me underneath her. I buck, trying to jerk free, but she’s too heavy for me to force her off. She smirks, certain she has me where she wants me.

“Apologize, bitch, and give me your stuff, and maybe I’ll spare your life.”

*00:02:30*

*00:02:29*

*00:02:28*

A spark jumps in my eye and a smile slowly curls over my lips, visions of the two of us going Nova dancing in my head. Quick as lightning, I snake my arms around hers, sinking my fingers into her biceps.

“No, you apologize and maybe I’ll spare your life.”

Her grip on me falters slightly, confusion clear on her face. I’m supposed to be scared of her, frightened and begging for mercy at this point. She can’t figure out why I’m smiling instead. She doesn’t know how to handle prey that fights back.

*00:02:23*

*00:02:22*

*00:02:21*

Two more sparks, so silver they’re blinding.

“All right, that’s it! Break it up!”

A hand grabs the girl’s shoulder and yanks. It takes three jerks before I cool enough to unlock my grip and let the soldier haul her away. Though finally free, I don’t move, heart hammering as I watch the seconds slip away.

*00:02:12*

*00:02:11*

The stretchy feeling is starting in my mind now. Is this it? Is my time finally come? I close my eyes, ready to embrace my duty with all my being . . .

*00:02:11*

 . . .and my clock stops.

I don’t know whether to gnash my teeth in frustration or sigh in relief. For a minute I was so angry, I was ready to blow the station and everyone in it just as long as I could take that girl with me. Shame rolls through me as that strange bout of temper, so sudden and unexpected, cools as quickly as it fired. My job is to further the war effort, not take revenge against one mean-spirited girl. To go Nova like that, rolling around on the floor with some thief, seems wrong somehow. Unworthy. Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t.

Then again, isn’t it better to go Nova in any way I can than to never go Nova at all? My mission seemed so simple once. How did it ever become so confused?

“Hey! You okay, kid?”

I open my eyes to find an officer staring down at me. She offers a hand to help me up. Pausing only long enough to determine there’s no PsyCorp star on her breast, I take it and slowly get to my feet. The big girl is being held by a private a few feet away, the firm hands on her shoulders making it clear she’s not still here by choice. Hatred shoots out of her eyes at me.

The officer looks us over, the large-boned girl with the mean eyes and the small blonde wisp who was trapped beneath her, and it’s immediately obvious whose side she’s on. Still, she scans her tip-pad over both our chits.

“Silverstein, Sharlotte—”

“It’s Shar.”

“—Johansen, Lia. Okay, do either of you ladies want to tell me what happened?”

I open my mouth, ready to explain everything, then close it. While Shar started it all by messing with my stuff, technically I’m the one who started the fistfight by hitting her first. I might get in just as much trouble as Shar, if not more, for losing my temper instead of simply going to the officers for help. And if they decide to punish me, who knows what other secrets of mine they might discover in the process? I’m sure whatever punishment they’d mete out for starting a fight would pale in comparison to what they’d do to me for being an enemy bomb come to blow them all up.

My gaze meets Shar’s, and for once I see we’re in perfect accord. Neither of us wants to tell about the fight. No surprise there. As a bully and a thief, she doesn’t come out looking any better than I do.

“It was just a misunderstanding,” Shar says.

“Yeah,” I back her up. “I thought she was stealing my reader, but she was only looking at it.”

The officer glances between the two of us and raises her eyebrows. Shar reluctantly pulls the reader out of her jumpsuit and hands it back. “Sorry,” she bites out, “for the misunderstanding.”

I take it, easily reading “sorry for the misunderstanding” as “sorry I didn’t pummel you when I had the chance.” “Yeah, me too,” I say, though I mean my apology no more than she does. The officer is still watching us, clearly not fooled by the exchange, so I reluctantly offer my hand.

Shar scowls at it, but mindful of the officer, gives it a quick slap. A burst of white flashes in my head at the touch, a jolt of pure fear jumpstarting my heart.

I gasp and yank my hand back, but Shar doesn’t try to touch me again, the low five more than enough contact for her. I take a shaky breath, trying to regain my equilibrium, but before I can figure out what just happened, the officer speaks.

“All right, you’re both free to go.” She makes a notation on her tip-pad. “But if there’s any more fighting from either of you, you’ll both end up down at PsyCorp explaining yourselves. Got it?”

PsyCorp! Visions of being brain-drained dance in my head, and I quickly nod lest she change her mind about sending us down to verify our stories. The officer signals to the private, and he lets Shar go. With a final glare, she slips around him and disappears into the crowd.

The private leaves too, dispersing the onlookers as he goes—“Nothing more to see, folks! Go back to your cots!”—and I try to pick up the wreckage of my stuff. The cot’s a loss, with its broken leg, but maybe I can get the chocolate out of my blanket. I look around for something to wipe it off with.

“You sure you’re going to be sat?”

It’s the officer—Ensign Dern I see from her uniform. She bends down and helps retrieve my things, frowning at the broken cot and linking a quick message through her chit.

“I’m fine,” I answer. “I can take care of myself.”

She gives me an assessing look and slowly nods. “I’m sure you can. Where did you get all this stuff, anyway?” I tense under her scrutiny, but her tone is curious rather than accusatory.

“Turns out I have an old friend on the station. We used to live next door to each other on Aurora, before his family moved away. Michael.” His name slips out, though I didn’t mean to say it.

Ensign Dern smiles. “This Michael sounds like a stellar guy. Here, grab your stuff and come with me.”

We load my things into the box, and I follow her between some cargo containers and down along the wall. She stops at a small cargo locker and waves her chit in front of the lock panel. The drawer pops open. “Give me your hand.”

I do, and she programs the access code into my chit. She shuts the drawer and signals to me to try. I wave my hand in front of the panel and the drawer pops open.

She nods. “Good. Keep your extra stuff in there when you aren’t using it. Even the best of people can get tempted when they have so little and they see someone else with so much. Got it?”

I nod, and with a pat on the shoulder and the promise of a new cot before nightfall, the ensign moves off. Shoving the last of my stuff into the locker, I shut the door and lock it, glad I won’t have to deal with the likes of Shar now that I have a safe place for my things. Or so I think, until I emerge back into the main bay area to find her leaning against a barrel, gaze fixed on me, hatred shooting from her eyes.

I shiver slightly, courage fading without my anger to back it up, and suddenly know that whatever happened between us, it’s not over.

I sit on my new cot later that evening, combing out my hair and thinking about the fight. About the way my clock lost seconds during my tussle with Shar. The first time I lost seconds, it was on the SlipStream when I was afraid. The second time, it was during the fight when I was angry. Is it possible strong emotion restarts my clock? If so, could I go Nova simply by generating enough emotion?

It never occurred to me that I might be able to complete my mission out of sheer willpower, but if there’s a possibility I can do it, I have to at least try.

Don’t I?

I start to close my eyes, then stop. It is just after the main dinner hour, and most of the refugees are still up, scattered around the bay amusing themselves as best as they can. There should be no outward signs of my going Nova as far as I know, not until it’s too late anyway. Still, I hesitate. Going Nova seems somehow like a private event; far too private for such a public place. Maybe I should wait until everyone settles down to sleep.

Glancing down, I catch myself rubbing my forearm. It still hurts, a distant aching deep down in my arm though the surface of my skin is unmarred. I force myself to stop. I’m being a coward.

This time when I close my eyes, I keep them closed. I recall the fight, remember the sight of Shar reclining on my cot, eating my candy and dropping chocolate on my blanket.

Nothing.

I push harder, envisioning the mean look on her face when she slid the reader into her jumpsuit, the way it felt to slam into her, to roll across the floor wanting nothing more than to rip her heart out.

Now something comes, but it is nothing more than a mild indignation, remnants of a fire long gone. I grit my teeth, fists clenching and face scrunching as I reach deep down for that fury I felt earlier.

My breath pours out in an exhale and my eyes open. It’s no use. I just don’t have anything to be truly angry about anymore. I can no more manufacture it now than I could stifle it earlier. I laugh softly. Maybe I should go seek out Shar. I’m sure five minutes with her would be more than enough to get me good and pissed off. I shake my head, a snort escaping me at the thought of going to her for anything.

Instead, I just lie back on my cot and tell myself that the emotion coursing through me right at this moment isn’t relief.