Kennel Club

The bloated S-Class cruiser Endeavor swallowed up the hangar in its entirety—a lead cloud overhead, forcing everything else against the walls. While Anita heaved another crate of spare parts for the Bulletproof Torque into the cargo hold, she watched mechanics dash past her in clusters, whispering to each other. She was taking a breather when the new girl—Portia‚ she reminded herself—bounded up from around the corner, looking much peppier than she had the other day, after the scrimmage. Certainly more well-rested; the rookies always did bounce back quickly.

"Bishop told me to help you," she said. "Guess she got tired of watching me run laps."

"Mm." Anita grabbed another box and swung it around to gesture at the rest. "Just these ones."

While the pair of them worked in silence, Anita stole glances at the younger pilot; watched her struggle with the crates, lifting with her back instead of her legs (even after she corrected her). She really was just a kid—all soft edges and bright, eager-to-please eyes—probably transitioned young too from the way her skin glowed, like she had absorbed all the sunlight that Mars ever got.

"So," said Portia, "you about ready to shove off?"

"I suppose," said Anita, hardly above a mumble.

"Mhm, I get what you mean. I've never even left greater Mars… Have you been to Ceres?"

"I grew up there."

"Oh shit, really? So you've probably got the best Certian out of any of us. Keira was trying to teach me some this morning, but I think she knows a lot less than she was letting on."

Anita felt her teeth grinding together. So that was where her mechanic had been all morning. "Only what I've taught her," she said.

"That makes sense. Most of it was pretty… confrontational." What did she mean by that? Silence fell between them again, interrupted by the occasional grunt of effort. "You know," Portia continued, "she said you beat Whitlock in record time the other day, too."

"Oh? I wasn't keeping track." Anita felt a twinge of pride despite herself, before Portia's next sentence snuffed it out.

"Guess she might not be the most reliable source." Portia shrugged. "She also said I was statistically the worst pilot she'd ever worked with, which I know can't be true…"

How much time had those two spent together, anyway? Did Portia's frame really need that much work? Keira had already wasted the weeks since the new girl's arrival reworking it. Never mind that the Torque still needed attention. Never mind that she promised she wouldn't shift her priorities. Never mind that—

The thought was interrupted by Portia dropping a box next to her and clearing her throat, eyes locked to the floor. "I also wanted to apologize."

Apologize? What did—oh, god. Anita had almost forgotten about that.

"It's fine," she said, but the girl was barreling ahead:

"I wanted to say something before our off days, but—well, I'm sure you heard, fucking everyone is whispering about it." (Anita had heard, and they were; Dawn was a braggart and the mechanics were serial gossip-spreaders. The story of Portia's—incident—in the showers had reached every single one of them before their shuttle had docked back at 077. Anita had overheard the nickname "golden girl" no fewer than eight times today. Not their best work, but it was catchy.)

"Anyway look," said Portia, leaning in close and speaking in a much lower voice, "I know it's none of my business—" yeah, you've got that right—"but I overheard you and Dawn, in the lockers the other night—" as if you could've been more obvious—"and, well I dunno. I wanted to let you know I've got your back. Girls like us—" oh fucking hell—"I think we should stick together." Right. Like she'd never heard that before.

"You know what," said Anita, dropping the final box into the cargo hold with a THUNK, "you're right—it is none of your business. Thanks for the help."

Space travel was among the most disorienting feelings in the known universe; like an elevator on PEDs, leaving your stomach on the surface while the rest of you rocketed away. It was only an overnight trip to Ceres, and Anita had spent the entire time thus far pacing around her room, putting all of her focus into keeping her nausea at bay. Through her porthole, she watched T4-077 disappear behind Mars, swallowed by rust as the cruiser escaped orbit and began picking up speed—the sight nearly emptied her stomach on the spot. The prospect of returning to her hometown didn't help. She had promised herself she never would, a promise that seemed childish now. She closed the shade on the window and splashed her face with water from the bathroom sink. Maybe a walk would help.

It was the largest spacecraft Anita had ever flown on by a wide margin, a fact which wasn't especially reassuring to her. She wandered from pilots' quarters on the upper decks to the labyrinth below, trying her best not to notice the wobbling beneath her; the way the hallway yawned outward, a mirage of hospitality that warbled with every step; how the air out of the re-cyc vents tasted in her throat, iron and nickel and zinc; the creaking that emanated from every corner.

Her thoughts turned to Keira—was she working on the Torque yet? And where the hell were the hangars, anyway? There was no signage anywhere—just cramped halls snaking around the cruiser in circuitous paths, lifts that brought her between identical floors, rooms upon rooms upon rooms—all seemingly empty, judging from the lack of activity on these floors. It was like flying inside a hotel, one which had fallen from the height of luxury in dramatic fashion. In fact, Anita was fairly positive the ship was an old vacation cruiser that Renwick acquired at a discount and had refurbished: plush red carpet lined the floors, ornate but rusted sconces were affixed between each cabin, and she eventually stumbled upon a grand staircase (one of those overzealous ones that widened dramatically as it approached the floor) leading down to the cafeteria.

It was the first part of the ship that seemed alive in any capacity: abuzz with support staff digging into food that, at first blush, looked appetizing—gleaming stacks of bread rolls, knives gliding through steaks—but the illusion was shattered when anyone took a bite. Sets of teeth sank through meat as if it wasn't there at all, revealing a colorless sludge underneath the sheen. She scanned the room for any faces she recognized, and only found a handful. Members of the Torque's mechanic crew, most of whom she was only passing acquaintances with, crowded around a table; Dot commanding the group's attention, likely regaling them with one of her dirtier jokes, from the range of expressions in the audience; everything from disgust to elation.

No sign of Keira, though. Anita wound her way back through the halls to the nearest lift and took it down as far as it would go. The doors opened on the first area she'd seen that looked like any other space vessel—steel walls, stained black and orange in places, reaching ever upward; dense tangles of catwalks, electrical wiring, ventilation, and rubber fuel tubing; harsh overhead lights, instead of the warmth of the upper hallways; all surrounding the three metal beasts at the center.

Bulletproof Torque had changed tremendously in the years since Anita scrabbled it together on Ceres, when she was working in that god-forsaken mining operation. They had mirrored the changes in each other: like Anita, it had been carved away by those who controlled its fate, sculpted into something lean and efficient. Like Torque, she had shed her autonomy for survival, and still had to fight for every last scrap. They both carried too many regrets to count—scars of a previous life; reminders of every sin they had committed together.

She scaled the ladder to the catwalk—cursing Keira under her breath—and almost fell to the floor when she opened the hatch and there she was, standing behind the pilot's seat and tinkering inside one of the access panels.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Oh relax," said Keira, not looking away from her work, "I've got things under control."

"Not what I asked, Keira."

The mechanic huffed. "I have been working on the rookie's rig. Happy?"

"Not especially. I hear you're teaching her Certian, too."

"So you did know. Anita, listen—" pivoting to face her, brandishing a gloved finger—"if it was up to me, I'd have been working on Torque since well before we shipped off, but you know how it is with Renwick—"

"I don't care about the repairs," said Anita.

"Well you should," said Keira, returning to the open panel. "Something's definitely fucky in here. I was just about to start diagnostics…" She trailed off into indecipherable mumbles, gloved hands poking delicately through the wiring—tugging each cable out, inspecting it, returning it to its place.

Anita swallowed her frustration, distracted by her mechanic's dexterity with the electronics. Dimples underneath her shoulder-blades, popping in and out as she moved. The faded dog collar around her neck, typically hidden under her jumpsuit. The irregular curve of her spine, interrupted by her sports bra and tied-off coveralls. Arms held steady and strong.

"I did miss watching you work," she said, stepping into the cockpit—knees on the chair, leaning over the back, placing a hand on Keira's bare shoulder. Her neck tensed then relaxed.

"Obviously," said Keira. "Who wouldn't?"

Anita snapped her fingers—with the cockpit open, the sound reverberated through the empty hangar, lending it immense weight—and likewise, Keira snapped to attention, her hands at her sides.

"Turn around, please," said Anita, "and report."

Keira obeyed, spinning on her heel and speaking rapid-fire: "Buncha little things acting up, not sure about the root cause—ran down my usual list and didn't notice anything—thought maybe a motherboard connection was fried but they all look fine so far. Diagnostics will help narrow it down."

"Any other theories?"

Keira kicked her leg back and tapped the floor with her toe. "One, but it's unlikely."

"How unlikely?"

"Pretty unlikely," she said, after a long pause, and returned to the panel.

"Keira, I didn't dismiss—"

"Hang on, I'm almost done in here."

"Keiraaaaa…" Anita swiveled the chair around to get closer, and traced her hands down Keira's arms—lingering on her biceps, leaving a little squeeze—to the knot securing her jumpsuit around her waist.

Keira gasped, faux-incredulous. "Anita, you pervert! The cockpit's still open!"

"Shhh," said Anita, untying the sleeves and sliding the garment down Keira's legs. Her mechanic had such a wonderful body—she traced over the stretch marks adorning her ass, reverent. Familiar scars on her abdomen, topographic maps to her past. Was that a new bruise? She pressed a thumb into it and grinned at the pornographic gasp that Keira exhaled.

"Hhhey, that still—"

"Shhh," she repeated, and snapped her fingers again. "Step out of these."

Keira complied, kicking the coveralls off; Anita snatched them up and stole a deep inhale, savoring the scent of machine oil and sweat, before tossing them to the hangar floor and shutting the hatch. "Alright," she said, "you can keep working."

"Ughhhh, you fucking tease. What'll it take to get you to hurt me again, huh? I mean really hurt me."

"Presumably the same thing it'll take for you to listen without complaining. C'mon. Back to work."

Keira grumbled something under her breath and resumed her task: spotting a stripped segment of wire, surgically slicing it out with her knife, unspooling a fresh length and slotting it in, then (gloves held in her teeth, god she was so hot) slathering on a helping of liquid insulation.

What would it take for her to hurt Keira? She had always preferred wielding gentler methods of control over her mechanic—filing her down through suggestion; conditioning her to bare her teeth rather than bite. If all she wanted was to be brutalized, there were any number of girls on the Endeavor who were more than willing to play that part. What Anita had with her was different.

"I think I've ruled out motherboard connections," said Keira, dropping into Anita's lap. Her eyes widened in want. "May I access the computer for diagnostics?"

Anita pretended to ponder the question, keeping eye contact with Keira—deep brown irises that absorbed every speck of light inside the cockpit, distorted by the gravity of her pupils—then said: "No." She snatched the spool of spare electrical wire from the floor and sliced off a length with Keira's knife. "Turn around." Keira obeyed and Anita got to work, her hands moving with precision that rivaled her mechanic's: making a bight in the center of the cord, securing it around Keira's torso; wrapping it over her shoulder, between her breasts, feeding it through and back again; around her chest, just by the collarbone; twisting it behind her neck (fingers slipping under her collar, leaving a few affectionate scratches) and securing it at the small of her back. The resulting harness was more than a little sloppy—the rubber coating didn't quite cooperate, bunching on itself as she tugged the final knot secure—but it was good enough.

"How's that feeling? Not too tight?"

Keira mumbled something incomprehensible; Anita grabbed the loop on her collar and tugged until she turned her head. "Use your words, puppy."

"No," she grumbled, "it's not too tight."

"Good girl." Anita ruffled her mechanic's tight crop of hair (eliciting a growl) and went back to work—unspooling another length of cable and looping it over the girl's wrists and forearms, locking them folded behind her back.

"Legs now," said Anita, patting Keira on the cheek. "Swap with me."

"Fuck offfff, I do have work to do, you know." Despite her gripes, Keira again complied without hesitation, taking Anita's place on the pilot seat and lifting up a leg. Anita cracked a smile.

"You're such a good listener," she said, grabbing the leg and bending it, wrapping the wire around at the knee, looping together a series of hitches to force Keira into a kneel. "I tend to forget, since you're such a miserable bitch all the time."

"Uh-huh, like you have room to call anyone a 'miserable bitch.'"

Anita bit her tongue and continued her tie. She could really use some proper rope—the wiring was convenient, but it looked improvised; the knots came out bulky, and it was prone to twisting.

Keira—as always—took Anita's silence as a suggestion to keep talking. "I mean you're kinda the Queen Bitch of Miserable Bitches, aren't you? Dot was telling me she's never been able to make you laugh."

"Maybe she should get better material. Test that."

Keira tensed her leg, giving a cursory struggle. The cable held fast. Good. At least it got the job done.

"She's kinda got a point," Keira continued, as Anita began securing her other leg, "When is the last time you laughed?"

Anita kept quiet, focus locked on the series of knots she was weaving along Keira's calf. When she finished, she shoved Keira's legs away, tumbling her sidelong to the floor. The cockpit was already a tight fit for Anita alone, and—despite both of them erring on the small side—it was cramped, and rapidly heating up inside.

With a grunt, Keira attempted to right herself, and promptly collapsed back onto her side.

"Aww, c'mon, you can do it, puppy!" Anita's voice hitched up an octave, goading Keira into a snarl that was just precious—nose all bunched up, incisors peeking through the sneer. "You're almost there! Need my help?"

Keira cursed Anita, using a Certian word that had taken on a meaning entirely tied to their relationship, to the point of eclipsing its actual translation. A way of saying to each other, in less explicit terms: You Stupid Fucking Dyke, I Should Rip Out Your Throat.

"If you're going to talk like that," Anita replied, in Certian, "You should keep your thoughts to yourself." Keira, attempting to parse the sentence for words she knew, sucked in her bottom lip. "You're so cute when you try to understand," Anita sighed, lacing her fingers through Keira's hair and jostling her head around, "you get all pouty." It was a shame she had never found the time to properly teach the language—always one of those things she kept putting off, content to feed her individual phrases and snippets of grammar until she could dedicate the time it deserved—time that never arrived. Without warning, it was too late; they were at Ceres's door.

"Do not call me cute," said Keira—slow and uncertain, which only made Anita start cackling. At least the piecemeal approach made their scenes more fun.

"Hey, you can reset your Anita laugh clock." She pat Keira on the head. "You stay put. I'm gonna get back to work." With that, she knotted her braids in a hasty bun, collapsed into the pilot's chair, and tugged the boxy terminal screen out from its recess in the console.

Sweat trickled down Anita's forehead, rolling through the creases that were only deepening the longer she scrolled down the never-ending list of error codes and unfamiliar jargon. 885-20: LDE in feedback loop. C719: LD mis-aligned with core frequency. 24252: RD modulation dump. On and on and on, each one more esoteric than the last. This wasn't getting her anywhere. She pushed the screen aside, swiveled her chair to face to the still-open maintenance panel, and plunged a hand inside.

Keira yelped. "Wrong—that's not… correct, um—" she fidgeted—still struggling to get upright—her limited Certain vocabulary failing her.

"What's that, pup?"

Keira growled again and said, in Common, "I told you, I didn't find anything in there!"

"Certian, please," said Anita, singsong.

"Fuck off, bitch!" One of the phrases Keira actually did know. Maybe Portia had a point about her knowledge of the language leaning a tad antagonistic.

"Better. Good girl."Anita closed the panel and flipped a switch beside it; with a hiss, an unfamiliar cylindrical column slid out from the wall. She looked to Keira for approval.

"You are… not very—" screwing up her face in search of a complete thought—"you are stupid."

"Well I'm ready to hear whatever advice you have, provided you can say it in the right language."

"You are stupid," Keira repeated.

"And you are impossible," said Anita, pushing the column back in place. She lifted Keira into a kneel, moved the terminal so she could read it, and snapped her fingers. (With the hatch now closed, the sound died on arrival—Keira hardly reacted.) "Report," she said.

The mechanic scanned her eyes back and forth across the screen before repeating, with a smug tilt of her head: "You are stupid."

Anita rolled her eyes. "In Common."

Evidently pleased with herself, Keira squeezed her eyes shut and stuck out her tongue, then answered in the same brisk clip as before: "Most of these are symptoms of the same issue—something in the left disruptor got knocked outta place, but one of them… could you scroll up a little? Yeah that one, fifty-four-thirty dash K, that's pretty fucked. I'm gonna have to replace that part. Do you remember packing the spare away?"

Anita read the line she had indicated: Gravitational Anchor status - critical.

"Gravitational Anchor… that's the little—the stupid-shaped one that's really heavy?"

"Yeah that fuckin' greebly thing with all the pins… Did you seriously tie me up just to get my help with repairs?"

"Ideally I wouldn't have needed your help. I wanted to make you watch."

"Awww—" she giggled, then suddenly her eyebrows dropped into a glare—"I woulda called red if you kept digging around in her like that. No gloves or anything, I mean, what if—"

"I know, I know." Anita scrolled again through the list of errors—hand on the back of her neck, slick with sweat; tracing her middle finger over the circular ridge embedded under the skin, where her head met her spine—then groaned and pushed the monitor back into the console. "Unfortunately," she said, "most of this is way over my head. You're gonna have to take care of it. I cannot believe you put Dot in charge again, the error log was not this bad even after the scrimmage."

"Ah, just one of those compounding issues—it's really not her fault," Keira added, in response to Anita's disbelieving scoff. Yeah, right—that girl had it out for her. It wouldn't have been the first time Dot had weaponized her incompetence instead of deferring to Keira. She still remembered the fiasco during last season's ERC.

"I really wish you two got along," the mechanic mused. "I know she can be… intense, but she's not so bad once you get to know her."

"I really don't have time to waste getting to know more of your—flings," said Anita flatly.

"Come on, that's not fair."

Right. Of course it wasn't.

"I mean, are you jealous or something?" Keira shuffled closer to the chair and placed her chin in Anita's lap. Looked up at her with those dark, pleading eyes. "Cuz Dot and me, it's totally different—"

"I'm not jealous," Anita lied. "Can we not talk about this right this moment?" Sweat everywhere on her face; ears hot. "I just wanted to have a scene."

"What's stopping you?"

Anita's hand—resting on her thigh—tightened, nails digging into her skin. "Your attitude, mostly."

"Oh, yeah," said Keira, "my attitude."

"You're not exactly disproving my point," said Anita, pushing Keira's head away.

"You never answered my question, by the way—what'll it take for you to hurt me again?"

"We've been over this Keira. And isn't that why you've been seeing Dot?"

"It's not the sameee," she whined, "but at least Dot actually seems to enjoy herself."

"See, it's shit like that—I know you think this is all some big joke, like you can say whatever and it's fine if it's part of the scene—"

"I'm dead fucking serious. You wonder why everyone is so prickly around you? Why I'm the only one who actually seems to like you?"

"Keira—"

"No! Listen to me. You're a bitter load of shit most of the time. You think everyone's out to get you. Yes," she said, louder, when Anita tried to interrupt, "you do! You're paranoid—would it really kill you to be civil with Dot?"

Pain rippling out from her thigh. Too hot in here. "It might."

"Oh, please."

"And it's not just about Dot, either—" standing up, vision swimming, sweat everywhere—"you're getting awfully chummy with the new girl."

"What, doing my job? Fuck off—this is exactly what I mean! You. Are. Paranoid."

"Keira I—yellow!" Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. Palms digging into her eyes until she saw nothing but patterns swirling behind her eyelids. "Red! Please, just—"

"You can't safeword your way out of a fight, Anita."

"I'm not—can I please just untie you?"

They reached Ceres in the middle of the cruiser's night cycle, after hours spent in sleeplessness. Anita peered out the porthole and tried to control her breathing. In and out, steady. It didn't help. Ceres looked exactly how she remembered, down to the smudge of haze that constituted its atmosphere and the UEF checkpoints bursting forth from the surface to surround each landing zone. The planet itself was puny—a grey and brown patched rock hovering amidst the dust—and further dwarfed by the cavalcade of MCS team cruisers and broadcasting vessels surrounding it; scavengers preparing to feast. (Venus Vipers! Knights of Northern Mars! MSBN! SBC Channel Two! ABBN!) Anita's stomach roiled and ached. When was the last time she ate anything?

She found the cafeteria again, this time with minimal wrong turns. Breakfast already—the exhaustion was catching up to her, so she swallowed three cups of tasteless coffee before looking at any of the food—and she piled her plate high with pancakes, since they inspired the least nausea in her out of anything at the buffet. There was no way she was touching the fabricated scrambled eggs.

"Up bright and early, eh, Sabates?" Coach Bishop's gravel voice, rumbling from behind her, made Anita instinctively straighten her spine.

"Morning, coach."

"At ease," said Bishop, taking the seat across her and setting down a plate of everything that Anita had purposely avoided—eggs, sausage, hash browns, toast, and grits, swimming a puddle of grease. "The hell are you eating? Here." She nudged the plate Anita's way.

"Eugh, no thanks."

Bishop pushed her thin, rectangular glasses up her nose and knit her eyebrows together, examining her. "You sleep at all, Sabates?"

"Not really." Why. Why? This was torture. This was actual torture. Everyone always thinking they knew what was best for her, always pretending to have her interests in mind. As if anyone could know that. As if anyone cared one iota for her well-being outside of how they could benefit from it—most of all Bishop.

"You listening to me?" Bishop snapped her fingers. "You need some proper food in you. Match in twelve hours."

"Right. Sorry." She picked at bits of sausage and hash browns, avoiding the eggs like they were radioactive. With Renwick running things, there was a good chance they were. Not that the rest of the meal was appetizing, exactly—it tasted like someone with the palette of a child had described the concept of food to a computer, and poorly at that. She would have to find a chance to slip away once they shuttled planetside; the one thing she missed about Ceres was the food. She yearned for the parade of vendors who used to park just outside of work—shawarma, dozens of curries, all varieties of soups and stews and gumbos—anything at all with real protein and real carbs and some goddamn salt. The arena was in the entertainment district… would Ryoko's spot still be around? She really should've done better about staying in touch with that girl. She glanced up from her plate and found Bishop looking at her expectantly.

"Sorry." She straightened her spine.

"What's your issue today, Sabates?"

"Sorry, I—" scraping her fork across the plate, digging for any remaining scraps of sausage, making a horrid screech—"it's been a long couple days."

Coach Bishop took a long look at her—eyes scanning up and down, crooked nose twitching, glasses slipping down it—then grunted an affirmative sound. "Forgot how much these travel days take outta you. Look," she added, taking the plate away again, "get some rest while we go through processing. Probably another few hours 'til we bring everything down."

From behind the UEF checkpoint, the Ceresian capital of Messor appeared not to have aged a day. It was still cold as the empty expanse above, and still choked with the sulphur stench rolling down from Ahuna Mons. The mountain cast everything in shadow; wiry structures snaked up its surface, plunging themselves inside and churning up whatever could still be found down there. Stone-bricked low-rise housing peppered the streets leading up toward the customs booth, interspersed with restaurants and storefronts in varying states of vacancy.

"The fuck is the holdup?" Dawn muttered from behind her. "There's seriously no separate line for competitors?"

"Stars above," said Portia, "do you ever stop complaining? We're almost there."

Dawn continued as if she didn't hear. "I still don't understand why I had to disembark at all. I don't fight in CQ events."

"Ever heard of team spirit?"

Dawn, determined not to acknowledge Portia whatsoever, nudged Anita's shoulder with her own. "You're from here, right? Does it usually take this long?"

"Wouldn't know. I haven't visited."

"Damn, really? Guess I don't blame you. If I lived here I probably would've killed myself."

Once the trio of pilots made it through customs (after Anita and Portia were both subject to invasive pat-downs, masked security guards groping around their thighs), it was only a short tram ride to the hotel—a crumbling, festering shack on the outskirts of the entertainment district, a part of the city that was bordering on unrecognizable to Anita as the train zipped through it. The city's first-ever MCS arena had attracted an explosion of commerce: new structures littered the area, including a glittering tower of a hotel which Dawn couldn't shut up about. ("We could be staying there? What a cheapskate!")

Anita dropped her bags in their shared suite ("That fucking liar, she told us separate rooms!") and checked the time: just over two hours before she was due to the locker room.

"Oh, are you going straight to the stadium?" Portia asked, just as Anita was opening the door to leave. "I wanted to do a little sightseeing."

"Well—" she considered refusing, but Portia's stupid doe eyes and Dawn's prior history with the girl alone in a room made her continue—"there's not much to see, but I know a good place to eat."

And so the two of them bundled up, in bulky leather coats and filter-scarves, and stalked through the streets of Messor's entertainment district—a place with which Anita had only been passingly familiar—searching for a restaurant she wasn't sure existed anymore. The more streets they turned down, the more she realized the city had warped to accommodate the arena and its consequences. Signage in Certian, with translations to Common below: Merchandise/Gift Shop—Hot Food/Fast Food—Merchandise/Souvenirs—Pizza/Messor-Style Pizza by the Slice—"Mmm, that smells good! Anita?"—where was Ryoko? couldn't be gone—turning another corner, bracing against the wind—more of the same, nothing the same—bricks and ash, blurring into a perpetual fog—alleyways sprouting forth before her; impossible geography—then abruptly, a street she recognized—and there, on the corner where it used to be: nothing. An empty building.

Anita stood frozen, stunned into silence by the anticlimax. She never even said goodbye. Her mind raced with worst-case scenarios—Ryoko, hounded off-world by debt collectors; shipped to Earth on bullshit permit charges; or—god forbid—killed by one of the UEF ghouls.

"You okay?" Portia's voice floated to her from far away. "Look, we're running outta time, maybe we should just—" placing her hands on Anita's shoulders, guiding her away from the empty restaurant—"how about pizza?"

After forcing down a couple slices of "Messor-style" pizza (her appetite sapped by regret and self-loathing), and watching Portia attempt to hold a conversation in Certian with the man behind the counter (vapid stuff—exchanging names and hometowns, and a well-rehearsed response from Portia about their future plans: "We travel to Venus next, then Mercury!"), Anita led the pair lurching once more into the cold.

As they trudged toward the arena, Portia thankfully silent for once, Anita's thoughts oscillated between Keira and Ryoko. After all these years, she was still only good at making herself scarce. Always easier to lay low, take out her frustrations in the ring, ignore the building animosity until it flooded her nerves and ruined everything, again. Maybe Keira was right to call her—what was it? Queen Miserable Bitch?—it was a self-fulfilling prophecy: form a bond with someone, fear for its integrity, push them away, let the cynicism win. Repeat ad nauseam. Ryoko was only the first. Remember Iza? Evette? It was only a matter of time before Keira reached the same realization as everyone else: that she was dead weight. Better left to rot in the minors while everyone else moved on. Why should she have expected anything different?