-1-

Kenji and I walk down to the kitchen and through the window I can see Haley and Grayson in the front yard. Grayson has enthusiastically climbed one of the trees and is jumping up and down on the sturdy branches.

The kitchen is ludicrously small but clean. Kenji opens one of the cabinets and takes out a handful of tomatoes, carrots, onions and herbs from a basket.

“You don’t have to cook for me,” I tell him as he chops up the carrots and onions.

“I’m happy to,” he says, putting the vegetables in a pot.

I watch him cook the vegetables and then blend them together with the tomato in an emulsifier. While the tomato soup simmers he takes a thick block of cheese out of the fridge and an irregularly shaped loaf of crusty bread out of a wicker box. Everything he cooks with was either wrapped in paper or stored in glass containers—I hadn’t seen a single label or package.

When Kenji opens the soup pot to stir it , a splash of red lands on his kimono. He just wipes it away, ignoring the stain.

“You wear traditional dress ,” I observe.

He looks down at his outfit and smiles.“ I made my first traditional dress when Father and I  went to a festival in Japan. My parents and I try to live by example and be as self-sustaining as possible. It also sets me apart from the students—I often get mistaken for one by parents and new staff. Baby face. Have you been to Japan ?”

“A few times,” I tell him. “I’m more of a Caribbean girl but the silk baths at the Hoshioya spas are ace.”

“Are they ? I’ve haven't quite gotten to the resorts,” Kenji says slicing the bread into thick slices. "Did you get to visit great-great-great grandfather’s house ?”

“Oh. Yeah, no not really,” I admit, feeling again like a spoiled princess. “My sisters and I were never interested in that kind of thing so Dad did that stuff and we—we…we just kind of hung out at the resorts.”

My voice cracks knowing we’ll never do that again.

“Oh, El. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine the loss you must be feeling,” he says.  “I am so sorry.”

“I don’t think its really hit me yet. I don’t know…I think a part of me thinks they may have gotten out,” I admit.

“My mother is a botanist,” Kenji explains. “She put in a mediation garden  a few years ago with some plants one of her students found to be conducive to releasing serotonin. It’s just on the other side of the property if you ever want to walk around and clear your head.”

I nod even though walking around a garden sounds like the last thing I’d want to do. If I thought about any of this too long I was going to crack up like Grandad had.

Kenji makes a damn good grilled cheese and tomato soup. Over lunch we talk about our lives. I learn he has a master's degree in human psychology and is studying for his PhD in childhood education. He likes working directly with the students and doesn’t want to become headmaster even though everyone thinks he will. He and has family were generous, hardworking and humble. It made me start to think we were the evil side of the family.

***

“You’re doing that wrong,” a cold voice says behind me as I put a spoon on the drying rack.

I turn around to see Isaac Prior standing stock still in his blazer, dress gloves and all.

Of course. 

When we'd finished lunch I figured I should pay Kenji back some way for his hospitality so I'd offered to wash the dishes while he took a plate of food down to Grandma Sara at the lab. I'd never washed a dish before because we had machines for that but I could figure this out.

I'm half way done when Isaac wordlessly steps in front of the  sink, opens the cabinet underneath the sink and pulls out a glass bottle with pink liquid inside.

“You need to use dish soap,” he practically spits.

“Okay, what is your problem with me ?”

He just stares at me like he’s actually thinking about it.

“Because I know how I come off,” I inform him. “I’m not just some stupid little rich girl like the pretentious know-it-all students who go to this crazy school--”

“I’m a student at this crazy school,” he says.

“I—no, Kenji told me you were a security officer--”

“Yes. It is our arrangement. I work security  and in exchange the Washington’s waive my tuition to the university courses and  allow me to live here.”

“Oh…well.”

Isaac pours a drop of soap in the basin and runs the water until the sink is full of bubbles which admittedly looks more right than the plain water I was using. After a moment’s hesitation he removes his dress gloves.

The fingers on both of his hands are gone to the stumps.

 In their place were spindly black cybernetic skeletons that extend from a triangular port embedded in the back of his palm. He starts putting the dishes I’d thought I'd cleaned into the now soapy water.

I don’t stare at his cybernetics  because I know how much Luce hates that and just join in,  following Isaac’s rhythm; rinsing the dishes as he gives them to me and setting them back on the rack. Most of the cyborgs I’d seen had synthetic skin or used enhancements that made their cybernetics look more realistic. His cybernetics were exposed and raw but they move dexterously, each of the cybernetic fingers is articulated with robotic knuckles and joints.

“I was a soldier,” he tells me without looking up.

“I wasn’t going to ask,” I tell him even though I was probably going to get to it.

Still, it only left me with more questions. As far as I knew the United Auxiliary Forces soldiers didn’t get those kind of injuries. There hadn’t been a war for years in the Federation.

 “You’re right. I do have a problem with you,” he says when all the dishes are done. “I know about all the money, corruption and cartels in the Sprawl. I know how it rots the world. How it spreads.”

“Well, I’m not here to rot anything,” I tell him. “We just want to figure out what the hell is going on, find what is left of my family and go back home.”

I bend down to put the soap back under the sink  when I suddenly  feel a weight on my back. I realize way too late Isaac is attacking me.

He tackles me to the ground and pins me to the floor on my stomach. The air is knocked out of me and  I can’t move. I scream but he is cutting off my windpipe.

Isaac lifts up my shirt and  pulls out the gun I had poorly concealed in my waistband. A gushot rings out from behind me and flies right past Isaac’s ear.

“GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF HER!,” Luce shouts.

I crane my neck and see Luce rolling towards us with the barrel of his gun pointed right at Isaac’s head.

He shoots again and  something in the kitchen shatters.

“Let her go or the next one goes in your head--”

“She had a gun! You were told not to bring weapons on this campus,” Isaac snaps but he puts his head down and throws his empty  hands above his head.

“We weren’t coming in unarmed unless we knew you all weren’t apart of this-,” Luce fires back.

“And how do we know you aren’t apart of what’s been  happening here ?”

“What is that suppose to mean-"

“Headmaster’s sudden illness,” Issac spits. “ And right before you show up we start getting mysterious empty packages.”

“Packages--”

 “Maybe this is all the same thing,” I say standing up  “Whoever is doing this…this Not-Kenji person. Maybe he is fucking with all of us. Once we figure out who he is we can put a stop to it. But we can’t do that if we’re fighting.”

I don't know what comes over me. I sound really fucking mature.

Luce rolls closer to Isaac and he does a double take as he notices the open cybernetic enhancements on Isaac’s hands.

Luce slowly  lowers his weapon and the tension in the room seems to break.

“What percent ?,” Luce asks his eyes flicking to Isaac’s cybernetics.

“I’m a Class 1A --,”

“Those Federation designations don’t mean shit to me. What percent ?”

“17 percent. You ?,”

“82 percent. 63 before the chair”

Luce’s sharp gaze switches to me.

“He took you down way to easily. You need to learn to block.”

“He's way bigger than me” I remind him.

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got a target on your back. You need to learn how to defend yourself better. Let’s go outside.”

-2-

It looks like he is talking to both of us so both Isaac and I  follow him through the large glass door of the Tudor house to the sprawling backyard. There are a bunch of little gardens growing against the house and the whole yard smells like my favorite boutique shampoo.

Luce turns his chair around and his assessing gaze goes from me to Isaac.

“Come at me, kid,” Luce barks in Isaac’s direction.

“I’m not doing that,” Isaac responds.

“Don’t worry, You won’t be able to,” Luce tells him. “But I want you to try. Knock my ass out of this chair. Put me on my back like you did El.”

Isaac starts to repeat himself but Luce rolls up quickly on him.

Luce snatches Isaac’s wrist and in the next half second twists Isaac’s arm behind his back. With Isaac momentarily shocked, Luce reaches back around and pulls the shiny gold Arkham Academy pin off his blazer.

“Did Hotako give this to you ?,” Luce asks holding up the pin. “I wonder how fast it will take for it to sink to the bottom of the lake--”

“Don’t--”

“You want it back ? Come get it from me.”

They stare at each other and I’m surprised Isaac takes the bait. He shakes his body out, takes a step back and shrugs out of his blazer and shirt. Through the fabric of his gray undershirt I glimpse a metallic looking cybernetic vertebra attached to his  scar covered back.

Where the hell had this boy come from ?

Isaac steps back a few more paces and  makes a running start for Luce, his hands go to Luce’s shoulder  but Luce reaches around before he can even make contact to take Issac into a choke hold. He flips Isaac over  like he weighs nothing.  Luce pulls the stun gun from Isaac’s belt before his back even touches the ground.

Isaac jumps back up quickly and they grapple for a few seconds but Isaac can’t seem to get a one up on Luce who barely moves an inch in his chair.

When they are both breathless, Luce shows me how to do the same thing--how to use my own weight and strength to disarm and flip a guy twice my weight. It’s hard and I’m sweating a disgusting amount but it’s kind of fun to put the high and mighty ex-soldier cyborg on his back a few times. I even get a few good jobs and smiles out of my  grumpy uncle.

Luce is showing me a trick on how to stealthy steal a non-concealed weapon and take the magazine out when Haley wanders outside. He and Grayson had gone upstairs  after lunch to get some rest but Haley looks like he’s just seen a ghost

“Lex ?,” Luce says softly, abandoning what he was showing me to roll over to him.

 “I have to go back to the Sprawl,” Haley blurts out, his voice panicky.

“You’re safest here. Just give me a few days to--”

“I was checking up on things at work--”

“Why--”

“I have to,” Haley snaps. “I was putting in my longterm leave and I saw that someone put in for Maxwell to get an upgraded assistive tech system for his bed. They’re installing it tomorrow morning...it won’t have the block on it. He’ll be able to say whatever he wants.”

“Who the fuck decided Maxwell suddenly needed a new system ?,” Luce asks.

And there goes my small pocket of good will with Luce.

“I…did...I mean I put the request in…I,”  I admit and they both turn sharply to me. “You…you said it was glitchy that day I missed my shift and I saw you never put the request in and I know how busy you get—I thought I was helping,”

“It’s okay. Fuck.” Haley says and it’s so weird to hear him curse. “It’s okay. I have 12 hours before they install it. Grayson and I just need to get back so I can go to the hospital and install the block on his new system.”

“I don’t want you leaving. Twyla should be in the city now, let’s get her to handle it,” Luce tells him.

“They won’t let her in if she’s not on his visitation list and there isn’t enough time to get her approved,” Haley says quickly. “Besides she doesn’t know how to install the block. I need to do it.”

Luce seems to be thinking. I know I’ve done something stupid by putting in that order in but I can’t figure out what it is. The head nurse had to approve all equipment upgrades so if I made a mistake she wouldn’t have let it go through.

“What's the train schedule?,” Luce asks Isaac.

Isaac nods hesitantly. “Twice daily. We’re doing events for prospective families so the train is running twice just for us. I can give you a ride to the station if you need it.”

“Good. Give us a minute.” 

Isaac nods before walking back into the house.

“You need to get on that train,” Luce instructs Haley once Isaac is out of earshot. “But don’t put the block back on Maxwell's interface. End this. Kill him.”

“I’m not--”

“You’ve toyed with him long enough,” Luce says. “This can’t happen again. We don’t know where we’ll be if something like this happens again. We'd all go down if he can suddenly communicate. Sky and Lansing included. Kill him. It’s time.”

Haley’s eyes dim but he nods.

I am even more confused. I knew Sky was Haley’s ridiculously gorgeous but kinda shy godson who was a grad student on the Atlas Star. I’d met him over a syn connection when I was talking to different people about college options. I was pretty sure Lansing was his Dad but I’m not sure what they have to do with any of this.

“Where’s Grayson ?,” Luce asks.

“Taking a nap if you can believe it,” Haley says with a nervous laugh. “He hasn’t done that in years, I think he tired himself out--”

“You need to go now. Before he wakes up.”

“I need to tell him--”

Luce takes Haley’s hand.

“No. Go now. If he knows you’re leaving he’ll freak out and if he’s upset  you won’t leave--”

“I’m not just going to leave without saying anything.”

“Yes you are. If you miss that train you’re going to make everything more complicated. Ma is here and so is El. He’ll be taken care of.”

“I’ll do whatever,” I chime in. “I’m sorry for whatever I did.”

Haley looks over at me with a smile.

“I’m leaving a note,” he tells Luce and runs back to the house.

When Haley comes back out a minute later Isaac is with him and he has a backpack on his shoulder. He gives Luce an Arkham Academy postcard with a note written in carefully looping handwritten script I can barely read.

“Give that to Grayson when he wakes up,” Haley says to Luce. “ Please be gentle with him--”

“You need to go,” Luce cuts him off. “Be careful.”

Haley nods and leans forward to kiss Luce but Luce backs away sharply

“Stop being fucking dramatic,” Luce says and then gently reaches his hand up to Haley’s chin. “You’ll get this kiss when you come back tomorrow.”

Haley rolls his eyes but follows Isaac back to one of the carts.

Luce turns back to me.“If you need to disassemble a sniper rifle you need to find the--”

“Are you seriously not going to tell me what the hell was that was about ?”

He sighs heavily.

“You know the shortest term Federation president-elect ?”

 “Um...No.”

“Well, his name is Kenneth Maxwell. He’s a patient at Bright Seas because of a car accident. Only it wasn’t a car accident--I ripped out part of his spine with a crowbar.”

My stomach turns and I think my tomato soup and grilled cheese is about to make a reappearance

“Why ?”

“I told you Lex was sex trafficked during the war. He’s the abusive fuck responsible for it. His interface at Bright Seas has a block installed so he can’t ask for help or tell anyone the truth about what happened to him.”

I think back to the day I’d met Mr. Maxwell. His machine had been trying to spell help before it stopped and changed it to hello. I still couldn’t get the way he was staring at me out of my head. He’d probably thought I was going to save him that day.

“He just seemed like a helpless old man.”

“He is now. But the fact that he’s lived this long is a mercy he doesn’t deserve.

***

-3-

When Grandma Sara comes back from the labs later in the afternoon she’s empty handed---she wasn’t able to build Luce a server and tells us no one at the school recognized Not Kenji. She’s upset that Haley had to leave but she's pretty impressed with the fact that I can now disassemble and put together my pistol.

I’m just putting the pistol back together on Hotako’s kitchen table when Grayson wanders down the stairs from his nap. He stands at the bottom of the staircase, staring at us.  Neither Grandma Sara or Luce acknowledge him.

 “You should go talk to him,” Luce tells Grandma Sara.

“No,” she says. “I’m not parenting your son--”

“He’s not my son--"

“Give me a fucking break, Luce.” Grandma Sara says hitting his shoulder. “Go be a father.”

“He doesn’t like me. I’m not pushing it.”

“You didn’t like me for the first 20 years or so. Hell, when you were Ellie’s age you reminded me every day you hated me. But I loved you. And I know you love him. That’s all that matters.”

Grandma Sara goes upstairs, patting Grayson on the head as she goes up. Once her footsteps fade away Luce turns to me.

“I’m not a monster but I can’t deal with that meltdown right now.”

“Sorry, but I’m more scared of Grandma Sara than I am of you.”

Luce shifts his chair to look where Grayson is staring at us from the staircase. He looks so lost.

“Come here, kid,” Luce calls.

Grayson cautiously walks over to stand in front of Luce, but he won’t meet his eyes and he’s so nervous he’s shaking

“Where’s Daddy ?,” Grayson asks the floor in a trembling voice.

“He had to go to work to finish something but he’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. He left this.” Luce says giving him the postcard Haley wrote. “You can do whatever you want, just don’t get in anyone’s way, okay ?”

I steel myself for Grayson to start crying or go into full on tantrum but he goes totally calm. He carefully reads the postcard and then slowly looks up.

“Can I play outside ?,” he asks, still not making direct exact eye contact with Luce.

I’d never seen them this close to each other before. Their striking bluish-green eye color is nearly identical. I knew it was pretty common in some places for parents having babies in labs to pick eye color. I wonder if Haley had chosen it.

“Fine,” Luce grumbles.

Grayson goes out the front door and  skips over to the big tree in the front yard and starts playing by himself. Luce and I exchange a look because that was almost too easy.

“Hey, how come I didn’t know you and Haley were married ?,” I ask him.

“Because it’s none of your damn business,” he tells me, stiffening up.

“Yeah, but I mean...it means Grayson is like my…what ?  My step-cousin ? I think it’s cool that you’re married and you like, don’t make it a thing--”

“We got married so we couldn’t  be forced testify against each other if we ever got pulled into in court. And because when Alex decided to get on that satellite I wanted to make it  easier on the insurance company if that fucking satellite ever fell out of the sky--”

“Is that how you proposed ?,” I teased him.

“Yes, actually."

My first instinct is to laugh but I think he’s serious.

“And because I love him obviously,” Luce adds quickly. “This stepfather thing is…not exactly what I signed up for.”

For a moment my hard as nails uncle looks a little too vulnerable. I can practically see him putting his walls back up. Before I can say anything he goes back to gruffly correcting what I did wrong disassembling the gun.

After a few minutes a beeping comes from Luce chair and he has to go upstairs to take his medicine.

I decide to take the moment to check in on Grayson.

I walk over to the front yard where he is crawling around by the big tree on his hands and knees. His normally pristine clothes are wrinkled and stained green.

“Hey, what are—WHAT THE MOTHERFUCKING HELL!,” I shriek as I come up on what he is doing.

Sitting in the grass is the compostable bowl he’d eaten his lunch out of  and the bowl is filled with some of the biggest, ugliest, creepiest insects I’d ever seen. I do an involuntary full body shudder.

Grayson laughs at my freak out.

“Where did you get those !”

“I found them,” he explains, holding out his hand to show a delicate lady bug crawling across his palm.

I watch him use his finger as a bridge for the ladybug to crawl into the bowl with the other bugs.

“Are you doing okay ?,” I ask him.

He patiently watches the ladybug and once it is inside the bow he turns back to the tree and starts picking bright green leaves off the low hanging branches.

“Your parents are dead now, right ? I heard that,” he tells me.

“We don’t really know,” I say. “I’m choosing to keep positive.”

“Is Daddy dead too ? Or…Did I make him mad ?,” he asks, shredding up his stack of leaves.

“No,” I say quickly. “He really did leave for work. He wanted to tell you. I was there.”

“Okay,” Grayson says, pulling the white part of some dandelions he’d picked from somewhere. “Do you want to play too ?”

“What exactly are you playing ?” 

“I’m making the bugs a restaurant,” he explains. “And then I’m letting them go  back home because Daddy said they don’t like living inside.”

“What’s the name of the restaurant ?”

“I don’t know. You can pick.”

“Hmmm…let me think,” I say peering  into the bowl of creepy crawlies. “Um, you better be quick with the appetizers. I think some of them are literally having each other for dinner,”

Grayson drops the leaves he is rolling up and runs over to  look in the bowl as a mantis looking thing finishes eviscerating a caterpillar and is washing it down with the ladybug. It’s morbid and kind of fascinating but Grayson just stares at the bug carnage, his cheeks and ears staining pink.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I say. “You didn’t know. Here, we’ll just get rid of it--,”

I swallow my own fear and toss the hell mantis out of the bowl but Grayson's start anyway. His face scrunches up in that way only super upset little kids faces do.

I’d never seen him like this. He throws his back against the tree and just starts open mouth sobbing. Loudly.

Fuck.

“It’s okay,” I say, scrambling over  to hug him but he pushes me away. “Grayson. What’s wrong ?”

He falls over in the grass, curling into himself as he cries.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” I say, trying to take his hand but he jerks it away.

“I don’t w-w-w-ant Daddy to die,” he sobs. “I don’t like it here. I wanna go home now!”

“I know, believe me so do I.”

I sit with him until his tears stop and after an hour I finally convince  him to come inside with the  promise that we’ll ride to the train station and meet Haley when he gets off the train this time tomorrow.

Except it’s a bad promise.

Yes, Isaac lets us tag along on the shuttle he drives to the train station the next day.

But when they train empties out Haley isn’t on it.

A/N

I promise I wrote the scene with Kenji making the grilled cheese sandwich well before I read the scene in GWOSM with grilled cheese