Luce moves steadily down the dank service hall that ran through Helion Castle. His assignment in the castle was simple; collect trash bags and wheel them to the incinerator. 

It was humbling work but less taxing on his body than his previous assignment moving furniture around the city.

And he was trusted to be alone. 

He’d been in this exact service hall the first time a female Helion had spoken to him. 

“Put this in the trash,” the little Helion girl had ordered him with a surprising amount of disgust.

Luce had been left speechless by the glowing zaftig brunette that came jogging down the service hall looking for the little girl. She was barefoot, the fabric of her white dress clinging to her heaving chest.

Aria Thanatos. The General's wife.

She'd seemed less cold than she did on her brief televised appearances.

“Ruby!  You know better than to run off.” 

“I’m putting this in the trash, I told MY Mommy!,” the girl shouted back.

Aria scooped up the pink headband the girl had thrown at Luce’s feet. “Clytemnestra just made this for you.” 

“It’s ugly!,” Ruby, the girl, spat when Aria offered the headband to her. “I want a real one. I want the headband baby Oona had. It's from the real store.”

“This looks just like baby Oona's headband to me.”

“I wanted that one. Tessa would get it if she asked. She gets everything. I never get anything!”  The incised girl took the headband from Aria, threw it back to the ground  and stepped on it.

Luce watched Aria patiently pick the pink headband off the ground again. There was a faint shoe print on it now. 

She turned to Luce and gestured to his trash bin. “I guess this is trash, then.” 

Luce didn’t dare speak directly to her. On his first day the Helions had scarred his face with hot oil for merely existing in the same space as female Helions. They said he was to handsome.

He decided he would quietly wait for Aria to throw the headband in his trash bin and leave. Then he would dig it out of the refuse and take it home. Sailor loved pink, she always asked for the girly things she saw in magazines and he could rarely find them at the illegal markets.

Instead of throwing the headband in the trash, Aria had held it out to him. “Did you want it ?”

Shit. He must have been staring at it too hard. 

When he didn’t respond ,she'd repeated her question.

“Yes,I–I have a daughter-I–it’s for her. Ma'am.”

Aria smiled a sad smile and put it in his hand. She then whisked the little girl away at the sound of a male Helion shouting for them.

He’d had Alex clean and  wrap the headband for Sailor’s next birthday.

***

“Grace, report for bio waste removal on Sub Level 2.” Luce’s radio crackles now.

He answers the call regretfully. “Yes, sir.” 

Luce despised Sub Level 2. 

It was where the children were imprisoned.

Every few weeks a new sickness went around the confinement rooms in waves. He’d spend entire afternoons cleaning vomit while children sobbed into the arms of the children only a few years older. 

Every visit reminded him why he was keeping Sailor and Nova locked away. He wouldn’t subject them to a life confined by Helions.

An MS officer is waiting for him at the elevators. She was female--which was rare for an MS. Even more so for an officer.

He waits for instruction.

Instead the officer pulls her revolver.

 She shoots directly into the ground. The bullet pings off the cement floor and rattles at his feet.

“Get your hands off my gun!,” the officer shouts into her radio. 

Someone on the radio asks if the officer needs backup and she says no before pushing the barrel of her AK-47 to Luce’s neck. “You’ll regret that, bitch. Walk.”

He doesn’t know what game she is playing. He'd done nothing but stand there but he'd heard rumors the MS had kill quotas. “I’m sorry–”

“Walk.”

He obeys. She walks him down the stairs towards the sewage tunnels

“Officer–”

“No talking.”

 They walk down another set of stairs and through a tunnel that smells like raw sewage. 

Luce does a double take at the sight of a  Helion–curiously with one wing–digging through shit. The Helion barely looks up from his work as they pass.

“Please, ma’am,” Luce starts. Mercy sometimes worked on MS “I don’t know what I did–”

“Shhh. We’re almost there,” she says. They come up to a gate at the end of the tunnel and she presses her fingertip to the rust covered pad before pushing the gate up.

Luce follows the officer up a set of stairs. Up and up and up.

He can hear  the ocean.

The woman pushes through a set of doors and steps back so Luce can step  into clean fresh air.

“Luce Grace,” she smiles. “Welcome back to America. You can call me Genesis.”

***

Contradictory emotions crash over Luce at the new possibilities before him.

Hope.

Exhilaration.

Fear.

There was a way out of New Aeterna. 

In the waning daylight he could see a healthy (human) glow beneath Genisis' pale makeup.

She wasn't MS.

“Why ?,” he finally asks, “why are you showing this to me ?”

“Because I need you to help me bring down General Thanatos and New Aeterna,” Genesis grins with a hungry gaze. “I can explain more in the car. We need to get you to the repatriation center first.”

“I have to catch the train in less than an hour.”

Genesis stares at him quizzically. “Luce…you understand  you don’t have to go back, right  ?”

“I need to–”

She holds up her AK-47 and pulls a small device out of the barrel. “This is a modified Faraday Device. I deactivated your microchip and radioed to dispatch to change your status to execution for gross insubordination…As far as New Aeterna is concerned you’re another dead human–”

“I have to go back, my family is still in the city.”

Genesis’ confident grin falters.  “....There isn't a record for your family–”

“They never registered for citizenship. Their hiding in an illegal basement apartment, they need me–”

“Holy shit. We assumed they died in the Siege. It’s a suicide mission for you to go back without your chip,” she says bluntly. “We’ve never been able to hack the Helion microchip tech. We can only kill the chip.”

“I need you to get my husband and kids out–”

She bites her cheek. “Are they in Helion Castle ?”

He shakes his head.

“Getting people out of New Aeterna isn’t really my specialty,” Genesis explains.  “I risked getting you out because we think you're key to us taking down the General. With your help it could all come down in a matter of weeks and all of us will work to reunite your family. And countless others.”

“Who is us ?”

“The Prince’s Resistance.”

***

At the American repatriation center Luce is issued an American ID card and interviewed by 3 federal agencies about his experiences in New Aeterna. 

He tells his story but his thoughts are elsewhere. The government agents seemed unmoved by his story of where his family is hidden.

Luce figured Alex and the children had a 3 monthly supply of food, maybe 4 since he wouldn’t be around to eat. 

And he’d left money. His husband was resourceful. Nova would help.

They’d find a way.

He hoped. 

He leaves the repatriation center with a good luck from the American government, some vouchers and pamphlets for aid organizations.

 Genesis was waiting for him in her car– a 1998 baby blue Camry with a black passenger door that rattled when she went over 30 miles an hour.

On the way to the repatriation center she’d told him about an alleged Prince and his resistance. Genesis had branched off from the resistance and started Project Nebuchadnezzar, a group of loosely affiliated hackers, using cybersecurity to fight the Regime. 

According to Genesis, Project Nebuchadnezzer was making more progress than the Prince’s mysterious plans–but not enough. 

The Helion’s encryption program was similar to one Luce had written for a client in the early 2000s. Luce had  posted some of the code on an open source website and Genesis had traced it back to him. She'd spent the last 6 months trying to get him out of New Aeterna.

“You can stay at my place for a few nights” Genesis says when he gets back into her car. “It’s nothing fancy. The Resistance isn’t exactly funded so you may have to reach out to your network–”

 Luce scoffs. “Is that what getting me out is really about ? You want my dead brother’s money ?”

“No,” she says quickly. “ I mean...I’m not going to act like it wouldn’t hurt to have more funds but it’s not why I got you out.”

“Show me the encryption. I can break it now.”

“We keep everything in an office space, the landlord doesn’t like us coming in on off hours. You can rest tonight and–”

“I don’t want rest.  I’ll stay for 30 days.  If I can’t solve this you’re taking me back to New Aeterna.”

***

12 days.

It takes Luce Grace 12 days to figure out the encryption Genesis and her team had been working on for over a year.

“You’re a beast!” Dash, a young ex-CIA engineer and hacktivist, exclaims when they run their final test of Luce’s encryption breaking program.

“This is huge. This calls for champagne!” Genesis grins.

Luce stares dead eyed at the computer screen. The dark circles under his eyes accentuated the deep creases at their corners.

He'd gotten a hotel room with the government vouchers from the repatriation center but Genesis isn’t sure he’d slept in the 11 nights he’d been back in America.

“I want to introduce this to the Helion system now,” Luce says.

“We can't. Green23 hasn’t broken the Helion City  firewall yet,” Dash tells him matter-of-factly. “But, hey, do you think you can help me with the–”

Luce’s glare finds Genesis and her prideful grin drops.  “What the fuck have I been doing this for if you can’t get past the Helion City firewall–”

“I…I didn’t think you’d break the system encryption so fast,” she explains quickly. “Green23–you haven’t met them–well, none of us have really but they are the best! They are  this close to accessing the Helion City intranet. The Prince has Green23 on some side mission but once they come back–”

“Let me see Green23’s work.”

***

Luce worked methodically through every one of Green23’s attempts at backdooring into Helion City’s intranet. 

Each access point was  password protected in an obscure dialect of Chinese.

He’d had to build a program to run the passwords brute force. But before that he’d had to build a program that used the grammar conventions of the Chinese dialect. Each time the program broke he had to build something to fix it. He wasted weeks creating programs just so he could run other programs.

When he’d run out of server space, he’d taken a cab to the nearest electronic supply outlet. The bank had re-issued him his debit card and his shared account with Haley was almost exactly as they’d left it 7 years ago--with two of Haley’s paychecks added.

He’d sensed someone following him around the computer store and turned to find Colette Santoro, his sister’s partner, staring at him.

She’d come to New Jersey alone for a motorcycle rally and stopped in the electronic store for a phone charger.

In the computer store parking lot, they stood by her motorcycle and he’d explained as much as he could, softening the ugly parts. 

She’d told him the family had never given up on them. They’d hired lawyers, lobbyist and even a few reconnaissance specialists who turned out to be scammers. His mother had burned through all the money she'd inherited from Rias and sold their condo in Las Vegas to developers to keeping funding rescue attempts

“Come back to Long Island with me,” Colette finally said. “Your mom is there, she'd want to see you.”

Luce shook his head. “I can’t…I can’t face her right now. Not when I left her grandkids back there.” 

Colette nodded. She’d never been one to argue. He’d always liked that about her.

“Do you have a picture….of Sailor ?” Colette hadn't seen her since she was two weeks old. She was 7 years old now.

Luce shakes his head.

They had taken lots of pictures of her. But they were on his phone back in New Aeterna. 

“She has this strawberry blonde hair that’s almost red. Like Twyla’s. We told her about all of you.” he tells her through a painful smile. “I want her to have the world…I don’t trust this Prince’s Resistance but I think it’s my best shot at getting them out.”

“I’m just glad to hear someone is still fighting,” she scoffs. “Most of the country has just moved on.”

They part and he promises to call . 

From the computer store he takes a cab to  a medical supply store and purchases a surgical kit.  

When he gets back to his hotel room, he cuts the Helion microchip out of his neck. 

Then he takes it apart.

***

Three days later, Genesis finds him  passed out on the hotel room floor.

***

“Damien! At least leave me the Fireball!” 

“Hell no.”

Luce opens his eyes to see Genesis and a man he doesn’t know rifling through his hotel room’s minbar. Genesis pockets two bags of M&Ms while the man continues to browse the tiny liquor bottles.

“Hey,” Luce calls from the bed. It comes out as a croak from his raw throat. He felt hungover. “Hey! What did you do to  me ?”

“See ? Told you he wasn’t dead,” the man, Damien, smirks at Genesis. As Luce’s vision clears, he sees that there is something Helion in Damien.

Genesis perches  on the very edge of the bed. “I got worried when you didn’t show up to the office. The hotel manager opened your door for me and we found you passed out. I called Damien…He’s a doctor.”

Damien twists open the small bottle of vodka and chugs it. “I know thinking isn't encouraged in New Aeterna but you do remember the whole eating, sleeping, drinking water thing, right ?”

Damien  holds out his palm to Genesis. She rolls her eyes and begrudgingly takes a mini bottle of Crown Royal out of her pocket. The not entirely human doctor pockets it as he leaves. 

“He a real doctor ?”

She shrugs. “So I’m told. He said you passed out from exhaustion. I was worried because I know you were in a car accident a few years–”

“I’ve haven't passed out like that since grad school. I get so focused--”

“I’m sorry if I put that kind of pressure on you–”

“It’s not you. I can’t help the Resistance anymore. I have to get my family out first. I’m re-creating the Helion microchip and once it’s active you’re going to take me back into the city.”

“You can build a microchip ?”

“Not yet. I’m going to learn. I ordered parts from a supplier.”

“I can’t make you do anything,” she says. “But helping the Resistance will help your family. We are so close  to creating a reality where your family can walk out of New Aeterna. ” 

“Breaking their firewall could take years. My family only has months before they run out of food.”

“Listen, I have a…close-ish relationship with Resistance leadership…. Damien is really high up, actually. I promise I’ll do everything I can to help your family. Just... stick with me.”

***

“Holy shit, you won’t believe this,” Dash calls to Genesis six months later when they are working late in the office.

Genesis’ attention stays firmly on the U.N. Humanitarian Fund grant application with a submission deadline in 45 minutes.

Dash continues anyway. “That new intern kid just finished indexing the last batch of NACS files.”

With no way to hack into the New Aeterna Citizenship System, they’d devised a system where a  New Aeterna based defector took photos of their computers screen with a phone, put the phone in a protective bag and then attached it to a magnetic cable line under the river.

An intern then entered the information from the photos into a database. 

It was a crude system. They lost more information than they gained but the system had helped them identify Luce.

“There’s a new NACS record for Luce’s husband.”

Genesis’ attention snaps away from the UN application. She switches windows and looks over the latest upload.

“Shit. Do the kids have one too ?”

“Nothing so far.”

Genesis bites her lip. “Thanks, Dash. Can we keep this between us ?”

Dash frowns. “Why ?”

Because she’d fucked up. 

This was bad. 

Very bad.

Project Nebuchadnezzar been stuck in a holding pattern and when it seemed like Luce was going to go rogue again she’d lied and told him an informant spotted Alex Haley bringing groceries into the hidden apartment. 

Her lie had buoyed Luce.

He’d called his family in Long Island with the news,  thrown himself into Resistance work and was even teaching Genesis a few things. They hadn’t cracked the firewall but they’d managed to hack other pieces of Helion tech.

If Luce saw what had really happened to his husband he'd spiral. She’d lose him and all the progress they were making together.

Genesis looks over the newly created NACS file on Alex Haley and deletes the entry.

She gave herself 30 seconds to feel guilty.

This was for the good of the Prince’s Resistance.

***

Genesis had only a few strings in America that she could pull and she’d used one of them  to get Dash a job with a well funded social action group.

She couldn’t risk her little white lie blowing up in her face. 

But it did anyway. 

***

A few days before Thanksgiving, Damien and Callum burst into the crappy long term hotel suite Genesis called home in America. She’d been  getting ready for bed when the two Demons tossed a liquor soaked Luce Grace on to the grimy hotel room carpet.

Callum spoke first. “Crazy motherfucker stormed into the bar with a loaded gun making demands.”

“I’m done,” Luce roared. He staggered drunkenly to his feet and swayed in the Demons' general direction before supporting himself on the wall. “Give me my fucking gun back. Now."

Callum shrugs smugly and heads for the door. “My bad. It accidentally fell in the river.” 

“Luce, what happened ?,” Genesis asks. “I thought you were going to Long Island for the holiday.”

 He’d said he was going to see his family for the first since she’d freed him over a year ago.

“You promised we’d bring down New Aeterna–”

“We will, we are so close” she assures him. The same way  she did every few weeks when it looked like he was going off the deep end. “I was just running that brilliant malware code last night and I can taste it–”

“No. No more almosts. I’ve given you a year of my life. Done everything you asked and you and your fucking resistance have given me nothing. I see the shit that goes on. They get people out. I want my family out too.”

“It's hard to get people out who aren't in Helion City. I can’t–”

“Can’t or won’t ? I’ll tell you what I told them.” He makes a vague gesture towards Damien, who had stayed behind and appeared mildly entertained by Luce’s drunken rage. “I’m going to find a way back into New Aeterna. And if I have to sell out your Resistance and Prince to the first Helion I see I will.”

Genesis looks to Damien, who offers her nothing. They hadn’t had to kill a Resistance member (so far  as she knew, anyway) but Luce Grace couldn’t walk away alive after a threat like that.

“There is a safehouse,” Genesis blurts out. “It’s in New Aeterna but your family will be safe there. I promise.”

Damien chuckles softly.

Luce’s wild gaze locks in on Genesis. “You bullshiting me ?”

“No…it will cost you about $1,000 USD cash…maybe $1500 to be safe. The Resistance doesn’t work in bribes. But I do.”

“I’ll have Ma wire me $2,000 tonight. We do this now. I want my daughter to be safe for her birthday.” 

“You might want to wait a day or two–”

“No.”

“I just meant…your family will probably want proof that they can trust us. We should do a video but you probably don't want to be...”

Genesis isn’t sure he’ll like being called drunk and decides not to finish her sentence.

“I can sober myself up. You just get your people ready.”

Luce slams the door as he leaves. Once his footsteps have disappeared Damien fixes Genesis with a curious eyebrow raise. “Exactly how many lies are you telling these new recruits, Brittany ?”

She cuts the Demon a harsh look. “Why are you even still here ?”

“To make sure that poor bastard didn’t kill you.” Damien’s tone, which was usually playfully flirty with her, turns serious. “I  get that you like to play Matrix but this is real shit to most of us–”

“Don’t condescend to me, Damien,” Genesis snaps.“I know it's real shit. We’ve all lost things–”

“You haven’t.” His sudden bluntness bruises her. “I take it he doesn't know you have dual citizenship ?”

“It’s too hard to explain to the defectors. You know how they get.”

Her freedom to travel across the borders had been her main selling point to the Resistance. 

If Luce knew he’d ask her to break the precious balance she’d been able to maintain in the two worlds for nearly a decade.

Besides, she couldn’t smuggle people out if she wanted to. 

Her  New Aeterna-assigned  Mercedes  was equipped with live monitoring software that recorded her every move. She stashed it at her parents house when she came into America and drove the beat up Camry to do Resistance business. 

“What New Aeterna safehouse are you talking about ? We barely have a safehouse here.” Damien reminds her.

“I know. But Ophelia kind of has one and she kind of owes me a favor–”

Damien scoffs mockingly. “Not one that big.”

“I’ll make it worth her time….Fuck, Damien…I don’t even know if Luce’s kids are still alive. They would have run out of food in that basement a while ago. ”

“I thought you saw  the husband with supplies on CCTV ?”

She shakes her head. “I made that up.”

“This is fucked up Genesis–”

“I know. But Luce Grace is a godsend to this project. We've saved so many because of him. He’s the only reason we can mimic the high level security cards. This isn't my fault. Why the fuck didn't his family just register from the start ?”

Damien shakes his head. “Shit like that is how  I know you have no idea. They won’t let you use Resistance resources for him after the way he came into Sweet Sights demanding shit. He was pointing that gun at the girls. You know that place is sacred to Ser–”

“I know…I’ll do it myself,” Genesis decides.

***

-2-

23-year-old computer engineering student Brittany Edwards  had the (mis?)fortune of nannying for an narcissistic single father who sat on the Goldman Sachs Board of Directors.

He also happened to be a conspirator of General Helios Thantos.

During The Siege, she was whisked away to a lavish bomb shelter and told the good news; she’d be among the chosen elite in a new world order. 

When New Aeterna rose, so did the The Ascended–  human traitors who lead New Aeterna while kneeling at the General’s feet.

The Ascended took care of those they saw as valuable. She was given her choice of  apartments, a cushy administrative job she never went to but still got a check from , a luxury car and, after a year of proving her loyalty, elevated dual citizenship that allowed her to cross the borders.

He expected her to be happy for her new life. She’d joined the Resistance the first chance she could. She became Genesis.

She’d always been told she was too ambitious. 

Too singularly focused. 

Not nice enough. 

The one time she’d met the charming Demon Prince he’d seemed to like all that in her.

Not that he’d ever wanted to listen to  her ideas about cyberwafare. 

But she’d show them all. 

***

With Luce’s $2000 dollars in her pocket, Genesis switches out the  Camry for the gleaming black Mercedes EQ the Regime had assigned her.

She makes her usual stop at the wholesale store for wine and candy. She meets the local McDonald’s shift supervisor at the highway exit and he passes her an unopened boxes of frozen fries in exchange for $1000.

Her last stop is Starbucks.

Then she heads for The Border.

The American guards simply nod at her. They’d stopped trying to talk her out of going back to New Aeterna years ago.

On the New Aeterna side, Aerial Forces circled the skies, watching for disturbances. Standing at the gate are two Helion guards she knew well–Konstantin and Heracles.

“Out of the car,” Konstantin barks.

Heracles inspects the car while Konstatin pats her down and begins to ask the mandatory allegiance questions.

“Can we hurry this up a little ?,” she asks once they have stepped away from her car’s monitoring cameras.  “I have a decaf Starbucks mocha that's getting cold…is your wife still craving American chocolate ?”

Over the years Genesis had learned all the Helion border guards guilty pleasures and  the things they needed to coax their wives. She’d curried small favors by providing.

The guards wouldn't let her do anything against The General’s rule of law, but they turned the other cheek at  contraband American snacks and liquor.

So long as they got their share.

When she is allowed back in her vehicle, the Starbucks drinks are gone. Heracles had also taken some of her wine and candy bars.

She’d never been able to drive in the city when it was New York City, but with so few cars  in New Aeterna, she could cross Manhattan in minutes.

Genesis pulls into a space right in front of the non-descript prewar building she called home. The building's doorman and housekeeper--a former copyright lawyer--greets her.

“Please bring my new garments in, I want them washed. Tonight. Extra starch,” she says to the doorman.

He nods quietly. 

That was their code for the contraband.  

He’d distribute her contraband items to one of the sellers at the human night markets in exchange for Helion money. Luce had given her $2000 USD, which would easily become over $20,000 in Helion currency.

If Luce’s children weren’t rotting corpses in that basement,  she would need a big bribe to convince Ophelia to take them in. 

***

"Where is our other Dad ?”

To Genesis' relief the Haley-Grace children had not been corpses.

They were thin and sallow skinned and but very much alive. The little girl was content as long as she could watch the video message Luce had recorded telling them to trust the resistance.

The teenage son was less trustful. He'd been glaring at her suspiciously from the passenger seat of the Mercedes.

“You knew my Dad wasn’t with us. You only called out for me and Sailor. Where is my Dad ?,” the boy, Nova, asks. 

Genesis had seen Alex Haley's NACS files. She knew where he was but decides it's easier to lie. “I don’t know.”

She'd done the good thing.

She'd gotten them out of the decrepit basement.

Now she just needed to offload them and get back to her more important work of bringing down New Aeterna.

Genesis pushed the speedometer to 150.  She had less than 10 minutes before someone noticed she’d jammed the car’s surveillance system.

Nova's interrogation continues. “How many people are at this safehouse ?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know ?”

“I know the Regime won’t touch you there. Get ready to get out.” 

Nova glances over his shoulder to look at his sister  in the backseat. She was still happily replaying the video message. It had taken a few tries but Genesis had gotten Luce sobered up enough to not look completely shitfaced.

Genesis turns abruptly off 5th avenue and  on to a rocky path between overgrown trees. They fly past the Do Not Enter sign and deeper into the area of the city that was once Central Park. 

She slows down just enough to  swipe a key card at the rickety iron gate and speeds through. They come up on a double wide trailer and she parks right at the door.

Just beyond the double wide are a pair of graffiti covered Amtrak train cars. Farther in the distance are large white tents and countless greenhouses.

Genesis jumps out of the car, leaving the engine running. “Come on!” 

Nova grabs the suitcase from the backseat and holds his hand out to his sister. She stares blankly at his open palm. “Take my hand.”

“I don’t want to stay here–”

“Come on.”  When Sailor doesn’t move he grabs her hand and jogs to catch up to Genesis, who was already opening the trailer door. 

A scowling women in her late 30’s sat behind a cramped desk covered in brown leather notebooks and radios.  Her faded brown hair was woven in a thin braid that draped down her shoulder. A light colored Stetson rested tightly on her head. 

Her white tank top revealed scarred, sun leathered skin. 

And a pair of wings braced to her back.

 At the sight of the wings Nova tightens his grip on Sailor’s hand and turns to make a run for  the car Genesis had left running. He’d never driven a car but he’d figure it out. “Run.”

Genesis blocks their path. “It’s okay. She’s with us. With the Resistance.”

The Helion woman behind the desk stands and approaches them. She towered over the space at well over 6 feet and Nova wished he was strong enough to fight back. The Helion woman—

Helion. Woman. Helion woman ?

Luce had always said Helion women didn’t have wings and weren't allowed out of Helion City.

The Helion woman steps closer to them. She had the letters SGI branded in her thick bicep. Her wings were encased by a fine white gold cage that appeared to welded into her skin. Crusted over red scars puckered from where the bars pierced the tanned skin of her back.

“You bought humans here ?,” the Helion woman growls at Genesis. “ I’m not risking this place for humans–”

“Ophelia, you owe me–I mean you owe the Resistance,” Genesis says quickly. ”They’re not registered. They have more to lose than anyone here. Their father is key to our operation. The Resistance needs you to keep them safe.”

“I am not in your resistance. Your little Demon club is of no concern to me.”

“Look, I have to go before the Regime sees I’m here… For the trouble.” Genesis sets five banded stacks of Helion currency on the desk along with several mini bottles of Fireball whisky. 

Ophelia picks up the stacks and counts the mini whisky bottle. “I want more next time I see you.”

“I’ll do my best–”

“No. You’ll just do it.”

 “Of course,” Genesis smiles weakly.

Genesis plucks her phone from Sailor’s hand and turns the lens towards the siblings. 

“Smile.”

Neither Nova or Sailor have time to change their expression as she swiftly takes a  picture and then runs for her car without a look back. 

Sailor pulls her hand away from Nova’s and begins to use the sign into it. I want to go back home and wait for Daddy to come get us. I told you Daddy was coming back. 

“What did that little girl just say to you ?” Ophelia demands. “Can she not speak ?”

“She can speak,” Nova responds. “She's scared. We’re not use to…we…we’ve been taught to fear Helion–”

“Don’t use that fucking word around here,” she snaps. She purses her lips and rolls her eyes to the side. “They like to be called angels. And none of that sign language. You won’t be treated special here, do you understand ? You will work if you want a bed and meals.”

Nova nods. “Yes, I can work. Anything.”

“You both work. This is a farming operations, there is always work to be done,” she explains. “Every piece of fresh produce and meat in New Aeterna comes from here.  As long as Helios gets his deliveries on time he leaves me alone. I d–”

One of the radios on Ophelia’s cluttered desk crackles to life. “Cora to Ophelia. This is Cora to Ophelia.”

Ophelia snatches the radio and presses down on a button. “This is Ophelia.”

“The carrot shipment is packed. Mikayla is read for her lesson. Do you copy?”

“Copy. On my way. We have some new guests. Clear.”

“Sorry. What was that last part ?”

“Nothing. Be there in a minute. Clear”

She straps the radio to her chest. “Follow me.”

---

A/N

Yes, yes, Opehlia is kind of a re-treading of a transgender character I had in Vice who was also the only female member of an all male organization. I wrote this so long ago I honestly can't remember why or how I came up with her but I just needed to create "safe places" for the characters to go.

Also, IDK why, but I don't see myself writing any actual LiLe MCs, so I just kind of dance around them.