After so many weeks of Rich’s attentions, and Carraway’s cruelty before that, Rafael can’t help finding it strange to be kissing someone smaller than him. Twice, even, in a matter of weeks—although Connor is nothing like Stefan. When Rafael grinds against him, the pale curves of his arms and stomach prove hard as iron beneath their softness; when Rafael bites him, Connor moans out loud, full-throated and unashamed, and all but bucks him off in his eagerness.

  “Down,” Rafael orders him, with unearned authority, and Connor gives him a flashing dagger of a grin from behind his mask and graciously allows himself to be pinned.

  That done… “Sir?” Rafael says, and looks to Carraway, ignoring Connor’s frustrated groan and the rebellious flex of his arms under Rafael’s grip. “How shall I lay him out for you to see, sir, would you like, would—” a rippling wave of heat runs through him, and he reels dizzily, almost losing his sweat-slick grip on Connor’s wrists. Tries again, strained and breathless. “Here, on the couch, shall I take him, or, on the floor before you…?”

  “Mm,” says Carraway, and Rafael wishes he didn’t feel a thrill of something like victory when he sees Carraway watching him intently, yellow eyes turned lazy and heated. Exactly as Rafael hoped, as he knew the man would. “I like the sound of that, sugar.”

  Rafael nods, attempts a graceful dismount and staggers, tugging Connor along with him. Connor crashes into him, already reaching and grabbing, pulling Rafael down to kiss him hungrily—Rafael wrestles with him, finds a wrist, loses his grip again, gets a handful of wet-silk curls and pulls sharply, and Connor gives a delicious, thrilling little whimper, all the fight in his body turning to a hungry shudder.

  “Get on the floor,” Rafael tells him, proud and demanding, and Connor moans as Rafael thought he might. Rafael tugs on his hair again, experimentally, and Connor curses and moans again, letting himself be hauled around, pushed onto his knees, tipped onto his back, pinned down to the carpet.

  “Drink up, sugar,” Carraway says, and Rafael looks up to see Rich watching him, wide-eyed and unnerved, with his mug forgotten in his hands. He twitches at Carraway’s words and buries his nose in his mug obediently, throwing back the last of his cocoa.

  Rafael can’t think of any way to subtly reassure Rich, and turns back to Connor as one job that he can do adequately. He gets Connor’s hands above his head, held down against the carpet, and pins them there under a forearm to take possession of Connor’s eager dick with his free hand, then squeeze and pull in rough, slow strokes until the man writhes under him, swearing brokenly.

  The brutal tease is enjoyable for all of a minute before Rafael finds his hips rocking impatiently, his own dick glancing against Connor’s hip. He can’t wait anymore.

  “Sir,” he says to Carraway as smoothly as he can manage, “I wonder if I could borrow something to ease my way inside?”

  “Oh, I think we can manage that, darlin’,” Carraway says, and digs into his pocket before tossing a little bottle to Rafael.

  “Thank you,” Rafael says, and then has to get the lube on his fingers with one arm occupied pinning Connor down. He ends up spilling some of it on the floor, and makes a silent apology to the cleaning staff, but then he’s pushing a hand between Connor’s pale thighs, pressing one slick finger into him, and another when Connor takes the first easily.

  Connor moans and squirms unhelpfully. “Mmh, fuck, c’mon already!”

  “Quiet, you,” Rafael says, pulling his fingers out to lay a stinging slap on Connor’s thigh, and then regrets it, no matter how nicely Connor moans, when Rich twitches and makes a distressed noise.

  “Settle down, sugar,” Carraway says, stroking his fingers through Rich’s hair again. “The little devil deserves it.”

  Connor moans again, louder, and rocks his hips like he’s half-mad with need. “Fuck yes I do,” he gasps, “deserve a lot worse’n that, c’mon ‘n give it to me!”

  “Here, doll,” Carraway says, and then a rough-padded foot settles down on Connor’s wrists, pinning the man to the carpet and freeing up Rafael’s other hand.

  “How many times do you think he can come, sir?” Rafael says—just planting the idea, steering gently, and he knows the attempt landed when Carraway goes “Hm,” low and hungry. “He’s a hardy one, I imagine he could manage a good number before he’s worn threadbare and begging for your mercy.”

  “You know, darlin’, you might be right about that,” Carraway says with a toothy smile. “No need to give him what he’s lookin’ for right away, though. You go ahead and do what you were doin’, sugar, he can wait a while.”

  Not a complete victory, but he didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand, and Rafael will take what he may. “Yes, sir,” he says, and goes back to fingering Connor so he writhes and whines. Rafael waits as long as he can before looking up again at Carraway, silently inquiring, and does his best to look grateful but not overly relieved when the man nods finally.

  Wiping his slick fingers off on Connor’s thigh, Rafael grabs a couple of throw pillows off the couch and smacks Connor again with the careless force of a man driving along a reluctant animal.

  “Hips up,” he commands, and Connor arches his hips up so Rafael can shove the pillows under him, prop him up. Then Rafael can push into him, a slick, glorious slide he could happily rhapsodize about, in better circumstances.

  “Aw, fuck,” Connor gasps, shuddering under him. “Yeah, Raf, c’mon already!”

  “You’re in no position to be making demands,” Rafael says coolly, and brings one hand down in a sharp slap against the side of Connor’s ass, playing his part as best he can and dearly hoping Rich doesn’t hold any of this against him.

  “That’s right, shadow,” Carraway says, sounding amused. “You keep him in his place.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir,” Rafael says, and lets himself start moving. He used to like this, sometimes, he recalls—to be in charge, to take command and have his partner enjoy it. It didn’t happen often then, and it certainly hasn’t happened often in the years since Carraway took him, but Connor’s eager responses are thrilling after so long as another man’s plaything.

  Connor may be rebellious, but he isn’t stupid, not by any stretch of imagination—when his breathing begins to shake and the rocking of his hips becomes unsteady, he takes a sharp breath and forces himself still, blinking hazy blue eyes at nothing.

  “Sir?” he says, and Carraway growls again and presses down slightly harder on his wrists. Connor shudders again. “Sir, c’mon, please? Please, I’ll be real good…”

  “Better,” Carraway says, and nods to Rafael. “…But I don’t believe that for a second. Slowly, doll. Make him sweat for it.”

  “Fuck,” Connor whispers, threadbare, and Rafael is watching closely enough to see that before his head falls back in pleasure his jaw is tense for a moment, his lip curling back from his teeth in the briefest flash of helpless rage. The momentary glimpse of something buried and true, behind the playful, bright-eyed charm.

  Rafael puts his newly-regained stamina to the test for what feels like liquid hours, as Carraway watches and sips his drink and toys gently with Rich. It’s hard to determine how much time has passed in the haze of pleasure and the struggle to focus, but time must pass because he can hear Carraway offer another drink, another, drowning Rich in sugar and brandy, until the man is slumped unsteadily against the side of his chair and panting faintly. Rafael can see him, when he spares brief glances that way; Rich doesn’t look as distressed anymore, but he doesn’t look… present, either. Connor goads more smacks and shoves, or twists and squirms until Rafael has to hold him still by his hair, and Rich just sways and drinks and shivers, restlessly unhappy.

  Connor has come three times, streaked with sweat and bright pink from the fire, whimpering as Rafael teases and fucks and fingers him, when Carraway finally says, “You look about ready for bed, darlin’.”

  “Mh,” Rich mumbles, and blinks dazedly. He’s as flushed as Connor, his cup hanging limply like a child’s toy in one huge hand. “‘Ssir?”

  “Bed,” repeats Carraway, and hooks a couple fingers in the back of Rich’s collar.

  “Sir?” Rafael says, uncertain. “Should we come along…?”

  “Oh, bless your heart, no,” Carraway says absently, like he barely remembered Rafael was there. “You two can keep yourselves entertained right here, I expect.”

  It sits badly with Rafael, but there’s nothing he can do in the face of so direct a dismissal—just watch as Carraway draws Rich away, a proprietary hand on the back of his neck as he stumbles.

  “Fuckin’—finally,” Connor gasps, and bucks sharply into Rafael’s touch, reaching out with his newly-freed hands to grab both of Rafael’s shoulders and pull him in. Startled, Rafael gasps as he’s kissed, and Connor makes a hungry noise and kisses him harder. By the time Connor pulls away he’s panting anew, propped up on one elbow and lit up in a way he never was when Carraway was watching.

  “Give it to me,” he says, half pleading, half demanding. “Ain’t nobody here but us, you know what’s up, and Big Red’s not gonna get upset if he doesn’t hafta watch, come on!”

  “Oh,” says Rafael, surprised to hear it laid out so bluntly. “Oh, well.”

  “Sick of gettin’ treated like some pretty little useless porcelain bullshit he can play dress-up with,” Connor is muttering, feverish, and his hips rock again, reminding Rafael abruptly that he is still fairly intimately joined and should either free his fingers or give the man what he wants. He opts for the latter, thrusting harder and faster, intentionally rough, and is gratified to see Connor spasm and gasp a startled half-laugh.

  “Is that what you’re angry about?” Rafael says, and Connor starts to grin and then catches Rafael’s eyes and can’t quite manage it, eyes falling away again.

  Rafael considers, then hazards, “You weren’t meant to be kept and pampered and teased at a rich man’s leisure, were you? Hard use, by rough men—”

  “Come on!” Connor rasps, frustration tight in every line of his body, and Rafael pulls his hand away and replaces it with his dick, slamming in hard and fast enough it must be a strain, starting a merciless rhythm with no time to breathe. Connor gives a rough shout, grabbing for him, and Rafael slaps his face hard and shoves him back down and is nearly startled into throwing his damn back out as Connor whimpers a broken “Oh, fuck—” and comes in a wrenching spasm.

  Rafael has never been one for wanton cruelty—authority, perhaps, haughty arrogance even, but playing the tyrant has never done it for him. But if such tyrannical treatment does, for Connor, then no wonder he’s seethed and struggled and pushed the limits so often, here. As cruel as Carraway may be, it’s never to his victim’s satisfaction, only ever to his own.

  “Well, that was easy,” Rafael says archly, and Connor writhes and shudders in an aftershock. “What do you—”

  “Make me pay for it,” Connor demands—pleads, already trying to press closer. “More, I want—Give it to me hard, tell me I’m a, a filthy—fuckin’—make me sorry—”

  “Not here,” Rafael says with an effort, and makes himself pull away, staring around the parlor. Grabs a towel, drops it on Connor’s chest and then wraps his own around his waist. “The house staff—”

  “Let ‘em see,” Connor says, and now that he’s sitting up and untouched Rafael can see more than ever the wild intoxication in his eyes and the frantic clumsiness of all his limbs. “Let ‘em help, chrissakes, like I give a damn! He gave me permission, can’t tell me he din’t—y’think the guys in the barracks would wanna—”

  “No,” says Rafael with as much authority as he can manage, hard and sharp to hide the shock of horror that went through him at the thought. “We’ll go to my room. Up, now. We’re going.”

  –

  Scene 7: Mansion halls.

  The dimness of twilight has set in by the time Connor’s worked the majority of the drug out of his system. Whatever of Carraway’s many intoxicants was in the hot chocolate, it rendered the man restless, horny, and entirely incapable of not talking. Now that he’s opened the floodgates he spends the entire time chattering hoarsely about the things he misses from the road, the farmer’s sons he’s slept with, the farmers themselves he’s coaxed into roughly manhandling him behind barns, in stables and truckbeds and over fences. How much he misses his car, how much he misses his knife and gun, and occasionally how much he still thinks it would be a good idea for him to run down to the barracks and see who wanted a piece of him.

  Rafael is sweaty and sore and exasperated by the time Connor finally comes and doesn’t immediately start squirming for more. He’s been informed several times that he’s doing a good job but he’s too skinny and not pushy enough, and Connor would really be just as happy going and seeing what kind of beef they’re serving in the soldiers’ gym. Rafael certainly got his own fair share of orgasms out of the entire thing, but he’s more than ready to be finished.

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  “I wasn’t actually gonna go on down to the barracks,” Connor says, after a silence while they both catch their breath. His voice is hoarse with talking and cursing and moaning, and his cheeks and thighs and ass are all flushed bright, vivid pink from the number of times Rafael has slapped him tonight. He sounds perfectly cheerful again, though, as he lies blatantly to Rafael’s face.

  “As you say,” Rafael returns diplomatically, and pushes himself off Rich’s giant bed, grimacing at the smell of himself as much as the soreness, and leads the way wordlessly to the shower.

  He’s becoming accustomed to the occasional evening without Rich, although it still wears on him like a constant drip of water, worrying where Rich might be or how cruelly Carraway might treat him without Rafael there to distract or redirect or reassure Rich through his cruel games. But the show must go on. Rafael and Connor wander down to the dining room for dinner and then, still too restless to want to retire for the evening, roam the halls together in silent, worn-thin companionship.

  At least, it remains silent until they encounter Sol, who’s once more immaculately groomed and carefully attired, and who looks at them with the taut caution of a man unsure of his welcome, but with no intention to beg anyone's pardon.

  “Good evening,” Rafael says, equally cautious. He took no real part in the teasing that seemed to infuriate Sol so, but… still. “Have you fared well?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Sol says tensely. “What happened?”

  “Three guesses,” Connor says, and Rafael elbows him.

  “Carraway,” Rafael supplies, and Sol gives a minutely guilty wince. “It seems he found our attempts at diversion charming.”

  “Ah,” Sol says, but offers neither apology nor condolences. “So, I guess Rich...?”

  “I believe they’re presently occupied with one another. We were left to our own devices, after a time. Would you care to join us? It’s early still for bed.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Sol says, and falls in beside them, on the other side of Rafael from Connor.

  After a few moments, he says, “I heard we were going to have a Halloween party. You know much about those, Caro? I’ve… never done one, especially not like how they have them around here.”

  “All Hallows is actually one of the more enjoyable celebrations,” Rafael says. “Last week was merely a networking dinner, but for two grand holiday soirées a year, spring and fall, he invites all his business associates’ families in; there are costumes, games, hunts for the children, and even his most grasping of allies must make some imitation of propriety.”

  “They’d better,” Sol says grimly. “I swear I just got over my hangover from the last one.”

  “I got pulled with all y’all for the big one on Easter,” Connor says, and wrinkles his nose. “Hadta come out special for the Christmas party right after he got me, too, for all I don’t remember more’n twenty minutes all together. He had me dressed up like Ol’ Saint Nick and doped all to hell before I even got brought out…”

  “Ah,” Rafael says, with distaste. He’d all but forgotten that bit of mockery. “Yes. Well, the lord of the manor could hardly dress himself as patron of sin and excess, however well the role might fit, so that fortune falls on whatever poor soul among his prisoners is least beaten to compliance.”

  “Ha,” says Connor, with bitter humor.

  “The costumes will be better, at least, for Halloween,” Rafael says. “The last I recall we were fairies. Holographic wings, flower crowns…” At the time he had been quietly, furiously jealous of the costume. He played enough cheap and cobbled-together Oberons in his time, he would have loved a pair of shimmering, semi-translucent wings.

  “I don’t know how he’s got any money left when he parties like he pisses wine and craps pure silver,” Sol growls. “When I looked his budget over for him I assumed most of the unmarked shipments were at least weapons, something useful. But he really does spend it all on dress-up games and toys and drugs.”

  “For all his flaws and failings,” Rafael says, “I’m afraid the man does know how to network. And his den of lesser monsters return to him for his good graces and indulgences as much as his accomplishment as a mercenary.”

  Sol gives a derisive, spitting exclamation of a sound, fine features twisting in disdain. “Indulgence is the damn word,” he says, and glares at an ornate side table as though he’d like nothing better than to crush it against a wall. “Just buying this load of over-decorated chintzy crap must’ve cost a fortune, even awful tasteless pre-fab mansions don’t come cheap—”

  “He didn’t buy it,” Rafael says, because this he does have an answer for. “He was hired as a head of security for its previous owner; he decided he liked the location, the business in the area, and that he was tired of being a foot-soldier, so he killed the man.” Carraway told him the story once, years ago, with a glass of whiskey in one hand and Rafael shaking in his lap, looking out over the compound’s wide, green lanes in the late afternoon light. Rafael still shudders to remember how casually he said it, as his claws traced the line of Rafael’s spine—I always was the type of man to take what I wanted, doll.

  “He commissioned the fountain to commemorate the occasion,” Rafael goes on, “the one in the courtyard, Lady Victory And The Wolf. But the rest he just… took.”

  “Stole, you mean,” Sol says, with a nasty twist to his smile. “Ha. Of course he did.”

  “I can’t imagine most of this was all that expensive in the first place,” Rafael points out, and traces a hand along the wall, from painting to painting, looking for the one he knows is there. “The books were all but useless, most of the furniture is terrible, and… ah, there she is.” He pauses at one of the portraits, tapping a finger against the ornate frame. “Sam called her Dog Hat Mary.”

  “What?” says Sol, and then he looks at the painting—actually looks at it, as so few people do, and snorts a startled laugh. “What in Christ’s name is that?”

  “Sam said it was a machine painting,” Rafael says, and gestures to the woman’s flawlessly-painted face and the lacy tumble of her dress—and the vague blur of her hat’s extravagant feather plume, which resolves itself at the tip into a small but distinct fluffy white cocker spaniel.

  He tells them, “Rich would know better the exact process, I’m sure, but all I know is what Sam heard from some other boy, an artist or an art historian, years back. There are painting robots that are fed thousands and thousands of images, until they know how to paint, and then they sit in a factory somewhere and turn out unique, authentic paintings by the truckload… but they get things wrong, sometimes, they mistake feathers for fur, or hair for ruffles. According to Sam’s artist, for a while it was very fashionable to go around collecting the wrong ones on purpose, like four-leafed clovers, or blue lobsters, so the programmers of the painting robots adjusted them to turn out wrong paintings more and more often, until, after another generation, it was cheap again… Sogni di Silicio, machine dreams, that’s what the term was. Have you not noticed that there are dozens of paintings of women playing with dogs in the same pose, and half the time something’s wrong with the dog, or the dress, or the woman? Or the landscapes that have nonsense houses in them, or the mothers and babies with the same faces?”

  “No?” says Connor, looking delighted. “Why’d I bother looking at his fake old paintings unless I knew they were worth lookin’ at? So you’re saying there’s more fucked up ones around?”

  “Almost all of them are fucked up, is what I’m saying. Come, look, the Maze Horse is right around the corner.”

  Rafael can’t do the tour justice, not the way Sam used to, but he does his best with the scraps he remembers, falling into a fond imitation of Sam’s flourishing carnival barker routine. Step right up, folks, and see the sights! Have we got a show for you, one night only, not excepting tomorrow and the rest of forever, see ‘em loud and see ‘em proud!

  The Centaurtaurs, a group of horses and riders where the robot must have gotten confused about where horses stopped and humans started; Grandpa Fancy, with a beard composed of a huge puffy lace cravat; Baby Jesus Extravaganza, a baroque annunciation scene where every single figure, from the angels to the virgin madonna herself, has a baby’s face. Lost At Sea: a man kneels beseechingly before a woman in an enormous blue satin dress whose ruffles fill the lower third of the painting, absolutely swamping him. Free Puppies: what looks like a pretty victorian maiden in a fluffy white dress turns out to be entirely made of overlapping dogs, except for the contents of her basket, which is a woman’s head. The Potato Pantheon: a kaleidoscopic mess of muscular romanesque gods bestriding the firmament, but the longer you look the more you realize none of the bunching muscles on display actually map to any known human anatomy, so the total effect is that of a cascade of potatoes thrown at some curtains.

  On and on… Rafael knows he’s making a fool of himself, but he’s always been a fool for the attention of pretty men. Connor has a ready smile and easy laugh, but he’s restless and impatient, easily bored, and it’s a heady challenge to keep him focused; Sol is sharp and thoughtful, as keenly attentive as a hunting cat but difficult to really delight, and it’s a genuine triumph to win a real laugh from him. But they’re both delighted by the contortions of Circus Boyfriend, a man reaching dramatically to a woman’s balcony, bent into such a dramatic contrapposto he’s grotesque to see.

  “Think you could bend like that, Shakespeare?” Sol says, and Rafael forgoes the remains of his dignity to make the attempt, and enjoys the shameless indulgent thrill when Sol laughs and Connor whistles.

  “There are even more, all throughout,” Rafael admits as they begin to walk again. “But it’s been a very long while, I… I’m afraid I’m at the end of what little of the tour I remember. I wish you could have heard it the way Sam gave it, it was a masterpiece. He had all these brilliant little routines… he could have you in stitches by the time you finished saying good morning.”

  “Mm.” Connor shakes his head, and gives Rafael’s back a solid thump. “Damn shame we missed him. God knows I could use a laugh, and around here you might as well dig for diamonds under the outhouse. Your Sam sounds like he was a real gem.”

  “Yeah, well, you hold on to what you can around here,” Sol says brusquely. “Before this place ruins it.”

  There’s not much to say to that. They walk silently for a while, Connor’s hand still lingering on Rafael’s back, while Rafael remembers—allows himself to remember, painfully—Sam comforting him when he would fall apart, when he was new and lost and mourning the life Carraway took from him. Coaxing stories out of him about his brother and sister, helping him with his hair, making him laugh even when it hurt.

  “I loved him,” Rafael says finally, softly. His next breath shakes badly, and he holds the one after that, until the spasm of grief subsides into something he can manage again. “I never said so, before. Everyone loved Sam. It didn’t need to be put to words. After Sandgren ruined him, I thought—for him, for everyone’s favorite, for Sam we’d all rise up, finally—but no one quite dared.”

  Sol blows out a sharp breath through his teeth. “Well, damn,” he says bitterly. “And here I was hoping to get a coup for Christmas.”

  “Maybe if we’re real good boys,” Connor says.

  Rafael lets the moment go. He doesn’t know what else to do with the grief but put it away, push it back down. It’s so inconvenient being aware again, alive, having to feel every unbearable pain all over again as soon as he’s warmed enough to reach out for a little pleasure. He lets Sol and Connor steer him back to Sol’s room, and wake up Andy, and break out the cards.

  His new friends would have loved Sam; Sam would have loved them; Sam is dead and gone, and Rafael is still here, but he’s got friends again, he’s remembering how to love again. It’s something.

  –

  LOG: VISITOR BERTHS, BEAKER VILLA, HARTFORD, LATE OCTOBER

  Watching Madam Beaker’s security team scramble reminds Basil, in a strange, heartsick way, of the organized chaos of Fleet ships being docked for an incoming superstorm.

  If this was storm docking, he’d have a place in it, and he’d know what to do. As it is, all he can really do is stay out of the way and let the grim-faced baseline soldiers and hungrily anticipatory Hastings do their jobs. Even Cygnus ditches him in the excitement: guarding a home base doesn't usually provide bored and fidgety Hastings all that many opportunities for what they're all calling a Field Trip, and the man is as eager as a kid half his age to get picked for the outing. For the war.

  Alone, Basil does his best to stoically avoid rereading Rich’s letter, to keep his mind focused on work and not think about the piece of paper somewhere on the Fleet that Rich touched and wrote on with his own two hands and sent out into the world like a message in a bottle, hoping it would wash up against somebody’s hull. Which is why it takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize that Commander Bane’s message had another image file attached.

  In a looping hand that’s obviously at ease with longform writing, the second letter is about as far from Rich’s matter-of-fact repair ticket as it can be, and there’s absolutely nothing actionable about it. But halfway down the page, as Basil skims it with increasing confusion, he sees a familiar name. Rich would make no paltry strong man…

  “‘Impeccable gentleness in every circumstance,’” quotes Thena, when Basil shows her, and wrinkles her nose. She’s retreated to his guest room with him today, and without the eyes of other Hastings or landsiders on her she’s shamelessly stolen one of Madam Beaker’s silk sheets, tying it in a defiantly feminine mode. When Basil asked, clarifying parameters, she assigned the feminine standard mode to “Thena” and the masculine or neutral to “Lee,” and then demanded to see what he was looking at.

  It might be a coincidence that she’s decided she’s comfortable changing presentations, at least in private, the day after she commandeered a pair of clippers from some Hastings quartermaster and carved her hair down to a crisp crop even shorter than Rich’s. It doesn’t make much difference, so Basil hasn’t asked, just told her it looks good and moved on to the work at hand.

  She’s just as swamped in data as Basil is, but instead of his ever-growing matrix of screens, her swamp is of real paper maps, collected from dozens of freelance cryptocartographers. Although Rich said in his letter the compound was antimemetic, all the coding and concealment in the world can’t prevent someone from roaming the countryside around a place and drawing out every detail of where they’ve been. There’s a lot of ground to cover, and a steep learning curve, but it turns out Thena’s just as capable of packing information away as her brother is, given the right circumstances.

  “Well-skilled in the care and keeping of an artist…” Thena reads, and raises her eyebrows. “So. Rich definitely—”

  “Reeled this guy in?” Basil says. “No, yeah, absolutely.”

  Thena snorts and screws her face up. “He would,” she says, with the delighted disgust of a judgmental younger sibling. “Rafael, huh?” She flips her data screen over to the other letter, scrolling down to the end of it and running a finger over the list of names Rich put in the post-script. “Rafael Caro, Bread and Roses traveling theater… So whoever he wanted to get this letter to, they’re not in the Fleet.”

  “Well, it’s not like we can get out to do anything today,” Basil says, and zooms in determinedly on the list of prisoners. There’s something about that last paragraph, I miss you both dearly, I love you very much… There have been so many days and weeks of reading the numbers, seeing landside people shrug it off, that the horror of people being stolen and locked away and used up has almost numbed. But Basil’s not a landsider, and this guy’s letter never made it to his family.

  “We’ve got a name. Let’s see what we can find.”

  Smashwords as well as your (but not Amazon yet except for After the Storm), under the series title, Stories From The Michigan Fleet. The early access ebook of Run Aground is only! The final, polished version of the ebook will come out November 2026, when the webnovel finishes posting. If you missed book one, After the Storm, you can . And check out our !