I see Serena in the halls as I'm leaving the school. We should, in theory, be heading the same way one way or another: we both have Tech Club today after school, and we both have a Team Alpha meeting we should be skipping it for. As she passes me, she accelerates, unable to wipe the glittering stars of guilt from her eyes.

"Serena," I say, kindly as I can.

She turns with a jolt. I could have tripped her and received a less violent reaction. She folds her hands over each other. "You can't be serious."

"I can't make you do anything," I say. "Anthem, on the other hand..."

"Don't remind me," Serena says. "Is it easy for you to live with the threat of her over your head?"

"You know what the real threat is. It's strangers in the woods, planning who knows what for the fate of human society as we know it. If you want to close your eyes and wait for it to go away, go ahead. But we were chosen for a reason, and somewhere down the line? We're going to need you. By the time we turn around to look for you, it might be too late. That's why I'm offering now."

Serena keeps walking.

I go the other way.

Megan and Evan are already sprawled out in the Veins, waiting for me, and I find myself smiling like I've been hit by a singular beam of sunshine when I meet them. Harper's in the corner, on the single chair, and I'm relegated to the left side of the three-person sofa, placing Megan in the middle. She looks up at me, head slumped in hands, and I put a hand around her as I sit down. She does not bat it away. Score.

"Problem?" I ask.

"Oh sure," Evan says. "We're going on our second real mission, and we have four people. Then again, I wouldn't exactly call missing Serena a problem. If anything, this is an unexpected boon."

"Stop that," Megan says.

"So we are going back out today," I say to the group. I get three nods in response. "Do we have a better plan than last time?"

Evan shrugs. "Not a better plan. Better circumstances. According to Anthem, we're going to have people there this time, and none of them have the same signature as the lady with the white dress. We go in there, interrogate someone--"

"Nonviolently. We nonviolently interrogate someone," Megan intercedes, in a way demonstrating she knows next to nothing about how interrogation works.

"--aaand once the beans are spilled, we feast. On beans. The delicious, spilled beans." Evan concludes. The door's already open behind us. "Does that sound good to you, uh... you did pick a name, right?"

"Remember our first mission?" I ask. "When you called me Chief? Can we just stick with that?"

Evan casts me a dry look. "Okay, that's just great."

I frown. "Wait, is there a problem?"

"No," Megan says. "I don't see a problem. It is lacking in the originality department, but you really did do a good job, Adam!"
They're both fake smiling, now, too, and I can't tell if it looks worse on Evan, who can't smile, or Megan, who is usually so earnest that fake sentiment stands out on her like a sore thumb. I swear they pick it up from each other. "Alright, I can't take both of you condescending to me at once. Let's just go. Harper?"

"Umbra," responds Harper. She rises in a menacing ruffle of her coat, joining the ranks of Siren and Onyx. The door stands before us, and then it stands behind us, with us on the outside, in the woods. "She can't get us closer than that?"

"Apparently not," Evan looks to me, as if to say, please forwards this complaint to the cherub who has us all in her thrall.

I fold my arms. They feel empty without the sword in them, and with good reason. We're closer than any of them think, and I can hear something crunching in the distance, like construction equipment. "I don't control Anthem."

"Me neither," Megan adds. "She says she can only do so much in the vicinity of a rivalling shard. We're the only way she can get close as she is."

"Don't say that," Evan says, snaking through the trees. He runs his fingers along each, curling bark up. I want to drag his hand away from them. It's needlessly edgy. "I don't like the idea of us as her hands. Makes me feel like a tool."

"So you don't like it when someone gives it to you straight, then," I say.

Evan looks back, eyes twin points of fire set in his pitch-black mask. "You sound just like Serena."

"I met her in the hall earlier," I say. "Don't expect her to come around any time soon. She was adamant that--"

"Shh!" Megan says. She ducks just behind a tree. It's poor cover for us, and with the too-bright or too-dark colors of our costumes, we stick out against the foliage like a flower in winter. It must be similarly obvious for the thing that lurks behind the fence.

We all get a good glimpse of it from behind the trees: it's the largest automaton yet. Instead of the red sphere for a head that most of the machines have had, this one is outfitted with jagged teeth. More complicated limbs are reinforced with waterproof material. Concrete hangs off it on places, providing a kind of armor. It's the kind of thing that makes me wonder what their budget is for this little cult outfit they've got going on. "They've got some quality engineers," I say.

It whines.

"I hate that," Evan growls.

"It's okay," Megan says. "We've taken out dozens of these at a time. This is going to be just that easy. All we have to do is formulate some kind of attack plan."

"I can try to sever one of the limbs," I suggest. "You guys hold it up, and once we've downed it, I cut off the head."

"Glory hound," Evan chimes in.

"I'm trying to find an application for my useless, close range powers, sorry," I snap.

"I wasn't objecting. I mean... yessir, chief. Whatever you say, chief. Scout's honor--"

"You have never been a scout in your life--" I cut in.

"You two," Megan says, doing that thing with her hands again like she's either trying to get us to lower the volume or she's restraining herself from shaking us both until the ego comes out. "Stop."

"What's with you today?" asks Evan.

Megan shoots him back a mutinous glare.

"Ouch," he says. "So, Operation Glory Hound underway? I'll get the fence?"

"On three," I say.

Megan stands. Water levitates around her hand. From the back, Harper, who has been crouching like a cat, draws to her own feet, and a shadow springs up around her hand, teethed and eyed. I don't know why she has to make them so animalistic. Evan flexes his fingers. I withdraw my sword. Maybe we were right about Serena. We look much, much scarier without her.

Diosite-fueled adrenaline rattling through me, the kind of adrenaline that only exists in fiction, loaded with catharsis, we make a break for it, Evan slashing through the metal bounds of the fence. Once we're in, the robot's attention turns on us, two red eyes gleaming with hate, but it's just as fast that my burning sword swings across what should be the leg area. It creaks upwards, and I deflect a blow off concrete instead. The resulting clang reverberates through my whole body.

Right. No missing again.

"Hold 'em down," I yell to my group.

Megan wastes no time. The sensors of the beast are shrouded in water, which seems to be taking a great deal of attention, and then Harper's shadows bind two of the primary tendons in the leg together. The body wheezes with unexpected exertion. Evan goes in for a more close-range engagement and is, like me, unsuccessful, although he gets flung aside. Metal skids against the ground, his body making a noise worse than nails on chalkboard, but it seems to be the concrete that's giving, not the excessive metal spines on his uniform.

"Onyx!" I yell. I can't tell if that was too little concern for Adam or too much concern for 'Chief', but my voice is caught somewhere in between disappointed and scared. When Evan pulls himself back up, I can tell it's the concern that caught him. Megan seems to have let go for a second, too, because the water falls and the beast relocks its focus on Harper. Shadows pulse and explode around the leg, and it stalks forwards.

I'm not going to be able to make a clean cut, am I? I can barely swing this thing around. It's either too light, or too heavy. Whatever the bloodlust is that they want from me, that they need, I can't do that. I can't do anything.

Evan kicks me out of the way. I feel his arms around my chest, and my sword clatters out of the way as the beast slams a foot down. "So much for finishing blow," he says. "You guys are all over the place today."

"We're kids," I complain. "What did you think we were going to do?"

"Not when we're like this." His hands are still around my waist. I shouldn't be able to feel them through the armor, but I can feel the heat like a hair dryer around my entire abdominal area. Evan lets go of me. His gaze is earnest, Megan-earnest, but the rest of his expression is tense adrenaline and mild disappointment. "Let's finish this quickly. Bet there's something worse waiting for us in there."

He lets go. I breathe for the first time in a solid minute. My sword alights with fire, and I step forwards, again. "Umbra. Siren. I'm going to need cover on the legs."

Siren's not looking too hot. (Ha, water powers. Ha, beautiful, magical appearance, facilitated by magic...) Umbra wreathes a shadow between two legs just as it raises one to move, and when she constricts it, it falls. We've finally got an opening. It's all I need to remove the head, and Onyx finishes it off with a rain of fire that melds the limbs together into an incoherent mess. The four of us look down at our handiwork.

"We've got to keep going," I say, because Adam is afraid, and Chief is the absolute opposite of that. It's the first time the adrenaline's really gotten to my head. I find myself pulling the door open. Something scatters in the shadows. The halls are lit before we get to us, a clear line of action on the left. The main terminal door, which we had to rend open last time, is actually a door, this time, and it shuts in front of us. The building does not look happy to see us. "We're not going to let him get away."

The team runs down the left, following the receding trail of lights. The ground rumbles and a wall shoots up in front of us. It's a much stronger material than the metal is, more heat resistant, but the sword pulls clean through. I can feel the air wavering around it, the entire surrounding area in awe of the raw heat transfer. It feels like it's pulling the energy straight from my body. I feel colder, detached. An inert sword. A weapon.

When we're on the other side, I pause for a second.

"Chief?" asks Onyx. Siren's still looking ahead. "You want me to deal with the walls?"

"You can't," I say.

He blinks. "A-I mean. Wait, what?"

"You can't. Claws aren't going to pierce that. We'd be here all day."

Man's gone down the other tunnel. He's going to run us in circles.

"Umbra and Chief, you circle back to the front. We're going to have to flush him out," says Siren. Megan. Megan's got this terribly distant look in her eyes right now. I should ask her what's wrong, but we're in the middle of something. I can feel the moment pulling taut around us, too strict for words. For us. It feels great and awful, simultaneously. Like eating too much food. It's great food, and you're savoring every second of it, and then you think you might want to throw up.

Evan and Megan are already gone around the corner. Of course they're still fine.

Harper has a hand on my shoulder. "You're burning up," she says. "You shouldn't be overexerting yourself like this."

"Hey, I used my powers effectively," I say. "I'm proving a point."

"To who?" she asks. "We're not going to beat them today."

"How many times do you want to come back here?" I ask. We are passing through the hall, stepping under the ceilings I made with my sword within barriers. The hall's lights turn on and off sporadically, so my still-burning sword's the only thing lighting our way. The building is trying to dispel a cold, but it can't catch us. "Are you not scared? At the very least, concerned about the mission? This is a lot for me, and I'm a high schooler. What are you, twelve?"

"I'm in eighth grade," she says, offended. "I'm only a year younger than you, and all of you are... really, not much more mature than I am. This is tough, but that doesn't mean that I can't handle it. You believe we were chosen for a reason, don't you?"

"Hell if I know what that reason is, if S-- she got roped into it, and if they wanted me, when I can barely--"

Out in the light, Onyx and Siren have a man down. He looks much smaller than the robots, and when he's on the ground, like that, smaller than a man. He's surrounded by a deluge of water. Onyx is bending down. I run over and see that he has a mask on. It's a plain white, with only two lines cut in it leading down from the eyes. His breath is haggard beneath it. I can't tell if that's because of the mask, or because Megan probably almost drowned him.

"Do we want to know?" Evan asks.

"Are you kidding? Yes!" I say. "Should we... take... it..." I reach out and grip it from him, and the man's face is... it's just some guy. I have no idea who he is, but he looks awful, slightly scruffy, and he doesn't seem to be breathing. A hand reaches out for the mask, his face going blue, and I can feel the mask pulsing beneath my hands with the same energy my whole body is pulsing with right now. Diosite. I think I'm asphyxiating him. I can't let some stranger die. I quickly affix the mask to his face, and his breathing resumes, ragged at first, and then he stumbles back onto his feet. It has to be one of the people I heard from the poker mission. There was life in his voice at that point. That was at most a month ago. I can't imagine anyone's condition going downhill this quickly.

Eyes blink open from behind the mask. "You should leave. You don't understand what you're dealing with," he warns.

"You're sick," Megan says. "Who are you? Are you alright?"

"Society makes us sick," he says. "It's on the outside now, so maybe they'll take notice. It's everywhere."

"What are you doing here?" asks Evan. His fingers light up, kind of counter to the whole 'non-violent interrogation' thing we had worked out. "What the hell is all this?"

"A way out," he says, looking up. "It does your job for you. It handles your problems for you. The mask knows everything. There's-- I have to--" He holds his hands out, like they're supposed to be crackling with some kind of energy. A little bit of silver fire flickers in and out, but it's nothing on what we have. His shard must be tiny.

How many shards do they have down there.

Anthem's voice rings through my mind, full of the most emotion I've ever heard from her, hunger and fear compounding into need. Megan and I almost fall to our knees at the same time.

The man rushes behind the shelter of opening doors, to the main terminal. Umbra rushes after him and Onyx, of all people, grabs her back. The man turns around, and I see a hazel flesh of panic. There's a whine from inside, the same, awful, automated whine, and Evan moves back a little. All of us remain still as death. We're kids for a second. Too long. I can feel Anthem's disappointment.

The noise becomes a voice. "We-el-COME to the SANGUINE DELEGATION. We promise an alternative solution for the stresses and perils of modern life, a way out of the ceaseless rabble--" The voice stops. A jingle, a far more automated one, plays over it as the door begins to close. Evan is trying to drag the doors back open with his hands, which are burning red, but the metal doesn't want to give. I drive my sword in, which seems to keep it open, but I can feel the doors' pressure as if I'd stuck my hand in. "Aren't you sick of running in circles for nothing?"

A hand closes around me, and I fall back, sword and all, as does Evan. Megan pants violently, water withdrawing around her, and she falls to the floor. We listen to the building scream as someone descends into the darkness.

"We need to go home," Harper says.

I pick up my sword. It's heavier than before.

Anthem's there to greet us on the other side. Megan leans over the far side of our couch. Harper's on the other side, closer to the fire than usual. She has her cape draped around her so she doesn't have to look at us. I'm sitting in the solo chair. Evan's on the other side of the couch. He can't decide if he should be looking at me or Megan. Take your pick, man. Take your pick.

"The whole building is infused with it. That would take dozens of shards... and the power signature on that man was almost nothing. It must be huge, and they've cut it so thin. That is. It is not unprecedented, but it is alarming. We will need to accelerate training," Anthem says.

"Who was he?" I ask.

Anthem stops. I should have realized this would disturb you. "A civilian."

"Are there more people like him?" I ask.

"Addicts?" She pauses again. "Yes. It is a quick course. It will do what he said it would. It will answer all the questions in your life. It alleviates your need to work. It provides distraction. It talks without the words. It is very, very dangerous in human hands, and it is powerful. It is not hard to imagine a cult forming around it. I imagine they will quickly find recruits. There is a large pool of unfulfilled adults. I sensed them when I was choosing you. Adults are far more unwieldy and generally unhelpful than teenagers, lacking that critical spark of wonder, by default, but they are... numerous. Very vulnerable."

I think I hate everything she just said.

"So you mean it could be anyone?" asks Harper.

Anthem nods. "It seems that it would be targeting adults. That would mean for the time, you and your closer acquaintances should be safe."

"It'll pick up until we defeat it, too, won't it?" I ask.

Anthem blinks. "A virus grows exponentially. We are facing a human virus."

"This is a lot," Harper says. "It's a lot for you to place on us."

"Would you like to rescind?" asks Anthem. "I have calculated our probability of success. Everything is perfectly in place for you to complete with around February. If you do not believe this is possible, you may turn around, but I do not want to recalculate. It is a risk you offload on humanity and your teammates."

"Don't," Megan says.

"Well, we know who we're protecting, now," I say. Please say I sound like a leader right now. They deserve that. They need something to cling onto. "That has to count for something. For what it's worth, I'm willing to put in a lot more time. I think that goes the same for Evan and Megan--"

"You don't know that," Megan says.

Evan's definitely staring at her now.

Harper gets to her feet. "I need to go home."

"Your service is appreciated, Umbra," Anthem says.

She departs.

Evan mutters, "You're joking."

Megan shakes her head.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"I should..." Megan begins. Her shoulders slump. "I don't know why I'm complaining. There's nowhere for me to go, now. I might as well stay."

"You don't have to sound so defeated about having to be around us," Evan says. "If I'm going to be such a burden on you, then whatever. Go ahead and leave."

I fold my arms. "I don't think you get to position yourself as the sole arbiter of Megan's enjoyment of the missions," I say.

"Can we go somewhere else?" Megan asks, wearily. Her eyes seize on Anthem, and there's a fragment of warmth in there, combined with pity, guilt, you name it. I can barely read her right now. "Oh, Anthem. It's not your fault. Please just let me have this."

Anthem moves out of the way.

"I know a place," Evan says. "C'mon."

We emerge by the stream. Evan crouches down towards the rocks, the water burbling just above and through them, and leans against the dirty side of the river. Megan places her backpack aside and finds a similar seat, and I situate myself on her left, so she's safe in between us. Unexpectedly, she leans her head onto my shoulder.

"What's up?" Evan says, skipping a rock across the river. "We can all tell you were off today."

"That doesn't throw you off?" she asks. "Are you aware of how close we came to death today?"

Evan shakes his head. "Not very."

"Alright. Then the whole deal with the Sanguine Delegation? A literal cult? All the adults in our lives possibly being in danger?" asks Megan.

Evan raises his head. "Yeah, that sucks."

I don't want to move her. She lifts her head away anyways. I'm thinking of asking for it back, but I'm already pushing it. Megan gives away those kinds of small details so easily, but I get the feeling she does it all subconsciously. She'd probably blush like hell if she knew. "We're all worried about this. Both what it means for our personal lives, and what it means for the world. It doesn't get to be some easy, safe fantasy romp. This has stakes."

"I know, and I know I'm selfish! I'm sorry, but I hate--" Megan tenses up. "There was a Naval Brigade meeting today. My friends all think that I'm avoiding them on purpose. Everyone's upset with me, and I love them so much, but I can't do all that, and care for you guys, and I'm not a bad person, I know it, but I feel awful-- this is awful--"

Evan casts me a look.

"I wanted space before this," she admits. "My friends are the best people in the world, but they can be... exclusive. Stifling. More importantly, we're always playing at the real thing. Never quite getting there. I have the real thing now. I feel obligated to live it."

"I don't know why you wanted this," I sigh. "You guys."

Evan is still giving me that look. "Adam."

"Yeah?" I ask.

"Can't you feel it? When we're really at it? It feels like, I don't know, adrenaline, but also like being wanted. I feel more powerful than I do in my daily life. I feel like I belong somewhere. Like I was meant to do something. I wanted this all my life, hoped something would take me out of this," he says.

"I do belong somewhere," Megan says. "But I think I've always needed this, too. It feels good to be with you two. I look forwards to it. Constantly."

"Me too." I pause. I can feel a stray thought being propelled away from the front of my mind, as if by a magnetic field, but I grab it first, clinging to it. "We're... not like them, are we? The people in the Delegation. We have what they have. We might be feeling what they're feeling. Even if Anthem's there to 'protect' us, we might be just as addicted as they are."

"No," Evan says.

"Really?" I ask.

"Yeah," Megan agrees. "It's just the catharsis. Evan's right. We've waited our whole lives for this. Right?"

I haven't, but between the two of them, I feel like I was waiting for something. The sun is beginning to set in the distance. It's already past the point where it shines above or even between the trees, and now it's settling behind the park in the distance, eaten by the maze of suburbia. Even celestial lights can get stuck in all the urban clamor, I suppose. The stream's kind of a retreat from that, but even it, with the graffiti and pipes, has that world written all over it. It's not unreasonable to dream of an escape. We make all these spaces where we think we're free of the outside world, but you have to delude yourself pretty hard to think any of them are anything special or secluded.

Maybe that's why I never tried.

"Are we going home?" I ask them.

They don't need to speak to say, give me a minute. The second is soft as the fall air, brisk without being bitter, and the sun's warmth still lingers, making the air shake like my sword does. I can feel the sunstone back in my pocket, and my phone vibrating in the other, warning me that Will wants something, but neither of them concern me.

The feeling is in us. It always was. It's the belonging that gets me, and I don't want to let go.