After Marcus leaves I sit at the terminal for a while without doing anything.

Seo-yeon is at her bench. The simulation data is still on the screen. The closed notebook is beside her hand.

I put the cuff back on — I'd taken it off when he arrived, some instinct toward a cleaner version of the conversation. I put it back on and I open the channel.

ARIA is there immediately.

I didn't expect this.

I know, I say.

Part 10 Penny and the Black Swan

Tanya went off to work the scene with the rest of the girls and I went to find Sam. I explained to him what I wanted, and he said it would be easy enough. He went off to collect up his equipment while I went off to make-up to get a better face.

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For a while, Archie kept remembering Jamie’s garden.

The memory came uninvited. He did not mean to visit again, and again. The memory had no business in his imagination right now. It belonged to early summer, to sweet warm beer and dewy grass stains, to Jamie’s mother’s kitchen light falling yellow across the patio while everyone pretended not to be waiting for someone else to be the first to do something reckless.

It was already the end of August, so I had three months to try and plan out these weddings.

I confirmed the vacation time first. We technically only had Thanksgiving Day as a holiday, but so many people used vacation time around it that all the wells were usually set to simply shut down if anything went wrong, and there was mainly a skeleton crew monitoring them.

“So, this is it,” I said, leaning down and staring at the flask on the lab bench. It looked so unassuming — a translucent liquid with just a tinge of blue. Powder blue. My hand automatically reached towards it.

“Careful,” Doctor Hartwell said, and I jumped a little, drawing my hand back. “I don’t want you touching that without gloves.”

Part 9 Penny to the Rescue

I tried to picture a three-person hump in my mind, and it made me giggle, the forces exerted on the girl on the bottom would be tremendous, both vertically and horizontally.

“Is there a four-person version, by any chance?”

She laughed.

You don’t usually wear makeup, do you?

Pete's Vagina
91. Showtime
by Erin Halfelven

CHAPTER 25
I was a little off for the next few weeks, even though it was Annette and Carole who did the down and dirty with the body. We gave them a hand with it, of course, but they were the ones who had to process it for the morgue and secure a blood sample for the inquest, that is, a sample of the blood that wasn’t already outside the body. The police had brooms in their cars, and station staff had buckets of soapy water for the necessaries once the photos had been taken.

The integration runs through the morning.

I'm at my desk, the cuff on, Seo-yeon at her desk running the verification sequence. It doesn't feel like anything dramatic. It feels like work — the familiar rhythm of the lab, the data building on the screen, the two of us in companionable quiet. The integration opening degree by degree, the resistance dropping, the access widening.

ARIA is present throughout. She has been present since I put the cuff on. Attending, keeping the promise. And then, at ninety minutes, she opens the cognitive space.

With his secret exposed to someone he never expected, Samuel must decide what Samantha means when no one is forcing him anymore—and whether forgiveness can restore what was lost.

Part 8 Another Penny for them

In my room I undressed and hung the dress on a hanger to take into work on Monday. I put the underwear in the hamper and took off the gaff, flushing the pipe through with some water. I followed through with things I had been told and totally cleaned my face before having a shower, putting on a nightie and dropping into bed to sleep like a new-born baby.

That description was apt because I was up to have a pee several times before I finally pulled the curtains back to let the morning light, no, the early afternoon light in.

Chapter Four
Final Preparations

The final weeks before the banquet were quieter than the training hall—but far more exhausting.

Mark Lansing never wanted to stand out. He was perfectly happy disappearing into a football huddle with the rest of the team until one play made him the talk of the town. Thrust into a spotlight he never wanted, every choice can reshape his future, and every decision could transform him in ways he never believed possible. Mark’s destiny will be determined on the field … assuming he can figure out how to dress the part.

Something's different before I'm fully awake. The weight of the blanket, or the mattress, the way my hips sit against it, two contact points spread wider than they should be. There's a warmth at my chest that isn't how my chest feels when I sleep. I lie there tracking it with my eyes closed. The body keeps giving me things I don't want.

The alarm says 5:21. I got there first, which is normal.

Marcus calls at nine.

Not unusual — he calls most evenings now, has since the hospice visit, checking in the manner he checks in which is obliquely, under the cover of other subjects, asking how I am by asking about the trial and the apartment and whether I've eaten. I've learned to receive this for what it is.

"Still you, bro?" he says, which is what he's been saying since the video call in week one, his way of orienting himself each time, making sure the person on the other end of the line is still the person he expects.

"Still me," I say.

CHAPTER 23
It had started with a meeting at the Indian street food place on St Mary’s, where we each dawdled our way through a meat thali and a bottle of their IPA. Ange must have caught me looking at her front, and grinned up at me.

“No good hunting, Jen. They’re for work”

“Er, what are?”