Jack returns to the kitchen. Amina is not there.

His mouth ticks downward into a slight frown and he sets about making another cup of tea. A slight hunger comes over him. Even in his mid-40s, his metabolism burns constantly. Or maybe it’s the stress. He rummages for food. As he puts the ingredients on the counter, the surface suggests recipes. Knowing what he wants to make, he suspends the suggestions and the smart-surface reverts to mere unpolished granite.

Amina comes down the stairs fully dressed but for her bare feet.

“That’s one of the things I like about you,” she says.

“What’s that?”

“You can afford to have anyone do anything for you, but you do it yourself.”

He smiles. Amina is not Sabine. “So, you like that I’m a control freak?”

She closes her eyes and bursts a quiet laugh through her nose. Walking up behind him, she puts one hand on his chest and the other on his flat stomach.

“I like that you take charge.” She moves her bottom hand downward.

He forgets his food for the moment. “Three times before noon? You want to stay all day and see what we can do?”

She shakes her head. “I can’t stay. I have a life, you know.”

“I could take care of that for you,” he says, smiling.

Her face becomes serious. She gives him a sharp shake of her head. “I’m not one of your kept women, Jack.”

He flashes her a wan smile and turns back to making his early lunch. “You don’t want to want for nothing?”

She walks around the counter, picks up the peach he left sitting there and throws it in the compost bin. “What fun would that be?” she asks, still serious. “Besides, how many pets do you need?”

He puts down the knife. It rings upon the granite. He looks at her. His face is annoyed, abashed, wistful, and plaintive. “You’re not my pet.”

She closes her eyes and forces a smile. She shakes her head slowly. “I know that—”

“None of them are my pets; I care about them. I love them.”

“People care about their pets, Jack. They love them.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. And you’ve got a lot of love to give. What is it, 22 children? By how many different mothers?”

“Eighteen,” he replies. Unflinching, unabashed.

Amina doesn’t blanch at the number nor his lack of shame. She is simultaneously jealous and aroused. “Eighteen fucking mothers,” she says, breathlessly incredulous.

“I pay for my children, Mina; I’m no deadbeat—”

“I know … ”

“—they all have significant trusts. They’re set for life. And their mothers get generous dispensations, besides. Monthly. I’m on good terms with all of them.”

Amina looks at Jack with a dubious expression. “Money buys a lot of affection.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asks. “Do you really think I’ve bought them? Did I buy you?”

Amina looks up and to the right and rolls her eyes. She shakes her head and sets her jaw.

“Well?” he presses.

“No, Jack. No. You didn’t lavish me with a goddamned thing ‘til I fucked you, remember?”

“It wasn’t like that …” he protests.

“No? I knew who you were. Everyone knows who you are. Sure, you footed the bills, wouldn’t let me pay, but you didn’t take me places to impress me. You didn’t pull out the stops. Everything was just opulent enough to be way above my pay-grade without letting me think I was special. You were just nice enough but cared just little enough that I couldn’t help but want to win you over, so I could finally level up. Prove to you that I was worth it. Worthy of you. It was infuriating.”

“I’m sure you have all the control with any other man. I bet they bend over backward to get into bed with you.”

“So what? Men are pathetic. They’re boring. They have no dignity because all they want is the box. But you … you get all the pussy anyone could stand and you don’t even give a fuck. You put off this attitude like you could take it or leave it … of course because you can … because there will always be someone else who wants to fuck you—”

“That’s true of everyone, Amina. People just don’t realize it.”

“It’s not, but whatever,” Amina replied. “You think all your women love you. And, fuck, they probably do. But they don’t. You know? I bet some of them get so mad when they think of you. When they look at the little brown baby you made, who probably asks her all the time, ‘where’s daddy?’ and they can’t say: ‘I don’t know, sweetie, probably fucking some other beautiful brown woman and putting a baby in her.’”

“Wow. I am an awful person, huh?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Jack scoffs and shakes his head in amazement. “I really think you did.”

Amina sighs unhappily. “Damn it, Jack.”

He looks at her and frowns. “What are you not getting from me that you want?”

She casts him a baleful stare. Damn you. “Nothing,” she says out loud. “I’m not unhappy.”

A staccato, incredulous laugh escapes Jack’s lips. “No? Wow. You really fooled me.”

“Don’t be an ass,” Amina replies. “I just want to check you sometimes; you’re so full of yourself. You make me so … ugh. You … talk about these women and how they all love you and it’s infuriating.”

“Fine. They don’t all love me. Some of them really dislike me. Better? But some people just can’t be pleased.”

“Like you?” Amina says.

Jack rolls his eyes. “You know I can be pleased.”

Amina flashes that closed-mouth, unamused smile again. “But never satisfied.”

The knife chimes again against the countertop. “Who is ever satisfied?” he asks, growing indignant.

He tries to tamp down his feelings. Where Dorance could not incite him, a lover is a different story. Jack cares for Amina. He doesn’t want to fight with her. But he hates being judged by her. He thinks she should know him well enough to not want to cast aspersion.

“Am I the only man in your life?”

“Not always,” Amina replied. “But usually.”

Jack shrugs and throws up his right hand as if to say: There you have it.

The smart-sleeve on his forearm blinks to life at the gesture. He ignores it. He goes back to slicing up the avocado.

“But you would be,” she adds, “if I knew I was the only woman in your life. But you’re stuck on Sabine even though she—”

Jack shoots Amina a look that causes her sentence to die a sudden death. For a moment, she’s afraid. She’s never seen such tacit rancor on his face. The toast pops and he turns his attention to it. Amina’s fear subsides. He pulls the four pieces from the machine, buttering them before smearing them with mashed avocado. He adds some apricot preserves and a sprinkle of black pepper. He brings the plate to the counter and puts it between them.

Amina can see him wrestling with his emotions. His face has softened into a sadness with a thin, angry veneer. She wants to say something, but words fail her. She looks instead at the toast and offers a genuine smile.

“You made some for me,” she says. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know you like it,” he says, unable to look at her. His voice is flat. “I’d never have made it just for me.”

She takes a bite and closes her eyes in pleasure at the combination of flavors.

“Butter and avocado? You’re trying to fatten me up,” she says. “I know you like curvy girls.”

He musters the resolve to look at her. At the burning sensation in his eyes, he immediately regrets meeting her gaze, but he masters himself. He doesn’t cry.

“Stop it, OK?” he says in the same dull, flat tone. “Just stop.”

Amina frowns. She comes around the counter to him. Normally, he would turn to her, be open to her, willingly accept her into his arms and she would feel the wealth of warmth she’s always known him to exude. Instead, he doesn’t move. His palms are flat upon the counter. He’s tense. He clenches his teeth and stares, unfocused, at a point on the countertop and miles beyond.

She puts her small, delicate hand on his right forearm and gently squeezes. He doesn’t slough her off, so she tugs at his arm, pulling him with barely any pressure toward her. After a few tugs, he relents. She steps into him and wraps her arms around his waist, nestling her head against his chest. Jack rests his face atop her locs, breathing in the intoxicating smell of her. He wraps his forearms around her slight shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Her mouth is right on top of his heart.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” he says. “It’s not your fault Sabine doesn’t love me.”

Amina has never heard such defeat in Jack’s voice. In the year she’s known him, she’s never seen him be vulnerable. Vociferously angry, yes. But he’s never let her past the anger to the sadness beneath. He makes no noise, but Amina feels a tear fall onto her scalp. She squeezes him before relinquishing the embrace and looking up at his damp face.

He says nothing. He wipes each eye with the back of each hand. No further tears follow.

“It’s OK,” Amina says.

Jack frowns at her. “It’s not OK,” he replies. “This is not attractive.”

“You don’t need to hide from me anymore, Jack. I’m past the point of needing to see the ‘perfect’ you. I want to see the real you. I want you to feel safe enough with me that you can express feelings without being ashamed.”

Jack laughs without any humor and steps back from her. “I’m supposed to feel safe with you, Mina? After you drag me over the coals for my personal life because you feel like I need to be knocked down a peg? That’s not inspiring.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, but her hackles go up. “How am I supposed to feel when I’m just another woman in your harem?”

“When have I made you feel like you were ‘just another woman’? When have I ever treated you like you weren’t special?”

“That’s not the point …”

“No? Then what is the point? Tell me. If showing you that you matter to me and that I care about you and that you’re special aren’t enough, what would be?”

“How am I ‘special’? How am I special to you when you’re always pining for the return of a woman who doesn’t even like to be touched?”

“That’s not fair,” he protests.

“Not fair? So you know how it feels, then. How is this fair to me?”

“I’ve told you the truth at every turn. I haven’t hidden anything from you. I gave you everything you need to make a sober decision about me, and you’ve stayed. You are special to me, Amina. No one else is you. No one could be. I am grateful for you.”

“That’s nice, Jack. That sounds really sweet … until I think about how you’ll never be mine.”

“So, that’s what this is about. You’re jealous. Why do you have to monopolize me? When have I demanded that you belong only to me?”

“You don’t have to! I already do!”

“You just said I’m not the only man in your life,” Jack retorts.

“I haven’t fucked anyone in months! I’ve slept with three people other than you in the past year … and I doubt I would have if I had any faith that you could be satisfied with just me.”

Jack has a retort, but not the energy to further escalate the argument. He keeps his mouth shut.

“Fuck,” Amina says, wiping away a tear, refusing to yield her composure. “I love you. You fucking idiot.”

She walks around the counter to put an obstacle between them.

“You are so blind,” she says. “It drives me crazy that you waste your time, your energy … your heart … on Sabine when she treats you like shit … and here I am, stupid me, trying to give you everything I know you don’t get from her and it still isn’t enough.”

“I never said it wasn’t enough,” he says. “I love what we have.”

“I just want you to like me,” she says, wiping away another tear. “God, that sounds so pathetic.”

He comes around the counter and grasps her shoulders. He presses himself against her. She tilts her head forward and her locs fall away, exposing her nape. He kisses the back of her neck. She wears no makeup, no perfume. He loves the way she smells. The way she looks.

“I do like you, Amina. I love you.”

She bucks him away with her backside and sneaks away. She picks up her toast and walks away from the counter. At the table, she sits and eats. Neither of them speak. When she finishes the food, she looks at him.

Jack offers a sheepish smile and raises his eyebrows.

She rises and gathers her things. “Bye, Jack,” she says without looking at him.

“Amina,” he says.

She stops and looks at him. She frowns and sighs. “I need to go.”

“OK,” he replies, frowning. “Bye …”

Out the back of the kitchen is a terrace. He walks onto it and looks far across the bay, seeing only water on the horizon. The bay is vast. It is a sea. And he is reminded that he is just a man. A speck among specks upon a speck in the universe. He feels a touch of his old nihilism, exacerbated by the argument. He feels, at his core, barely different now than decades ago. Empty.

His arm beeps at him and he blinks away his dark thoughts. He looks at the sleeve. It’s Pietro. Jack makes a pinching gesture at the sleeve and pulls the call in front of him, opening his hand to answer and project the man’s face in front of him.

“Hey, Rocky,” says Jack.

“Jack,” Pietro replies.

He hates the nickname, but Jack will not relent. Pietro hated ‘Piet,’ ‘Pete,’ and ‘Peter,’ too, and Jack insists on calling him something besides ‘Pietro.’ He settled on ‘Rocky.’ Pietro just has to deal with it.

“You need to check out our entries for the exhibit.”

“I’ll jump in the holosuite,” Jack says, turning on his heel.

“No, Jack. In person. You need to see this stuff with your own eyes, touch it with your own hands. You can’t hide in your house forever.”

Jack frowns. “I’m not hiding.”

Pietro rolls his eyes. “Who are you kidding?”

“Fine,” says Jack, annoyed. “I’ll be there in person. When?”

“This afternoon would be ideal. Fourteen-hundred.”

“Sure thing, Rock. I’ll see you there.”

Jack waves the call away with a backhand flick from his left hand. He thinks about how long it’s been since he left his house and realizes it’s been days.

The one thing he lets other people do for him is deliver his groceries, but he chooses the items in real-time as someone shops for him, acting as his avatar. The process doesn’t even require the person to think, nor for him to dictate a list to them as they walk; they rent their body to him and he drives it from his holosuite, manipulating the person’s nervous system to make them walk and to grab items and place them in the basket. The practice gives him some ethical pause, but not enough abandon it. The participants do it willingly. Or, more accurately, they require remuneration enough to allow the arrangement.

Jack takes the deliveries at the front door, wearing a different disguise for each delivery person. No one knows to whom they’re really delivering the goods. Guillaume Derouard, Abdullah al-Sayid, Grigori Markov. He has aliases and according holographic faces for each recurring courier. He invents another for anyone new. The service lets him avoid the outside world, but he knows how unhealthy it is to stay cooped up for too long. He tries to force himself outside at periodic intervals.

Walking over to the kitchen table, he punches up what Amina was reading: a series of local and international newspapers. It’s long since news was printed on paper, but the epithet has survived all advances in technology. Amina knows not to rely upon one source for information, instead piecing together a semblance of the truth from the slant and bias of many different sources. Each paper, though, prominently features the same story: another abduction of an attractive young woman.

It is mid-October and the women have been disappearing at an average of three per day since March. Seven-hundred-ninety-five and counting.

Jack frowns. Amina is young and beautiful. Sabine is older but also lovely, and they both fall into the range of the abductees, aged 18 to 32. He is afraid for them, especially Sabine, because he doesn’t know where she is and she rarely replies to his messages.

She’s like a cat that comes for affection when she wants it, but not when called. She disappears at her whimsy to redistribute wealth, often looting museums for imperialist spoils and returning them to the colony from which they were taken. She’s an international mystery that has never been solved. Jack takes special pride in keeping her a secret, but her secretive life makes him fear that she, especially, might one day leave and never return. And that it will not have been her decision.

To his slight relief, the abducted women are predominantly white. He feels no guilt for his feelings as he is no great fan of them. But he regrets the negativity. He wants to dispel all malignancy. It has pervaded his entire life and, lately, it feels especially cancerous, as if literally eating him from the inside. He recognizes his emotional damage, his resentment of light-complected women, and he tries to parse the roots of ugliness he would rather not feel, but cannot let go. He would prefer nothing to malice, but he can’t imagine feeling positive toward pale females and neutrality remains out of his reach. So the negativity persists.

He descends to the parlor floor and grabs a pair of shoes from the rack near the front door. He pauses, looking at the tall, frosted metalliglass panes framed in graphene-and-titanium-reinforced mahogany. His smart-sleeve emits a near-field signal that interacts with the unobtrusive technology throughout his enormous home. The lock clicks open in response to his proximity.

The townhouse’s antique details are intact, though the edifice itself is barely a hundred years old. It was built, like most residential buildings in Klippeborg, from late 21st century materials to mimic old, circa 19th century Continental dwellings. He married its faux-Second Empire opulence with minimalist décor and furnishings. He enjoys the richly detailed architecture, but prefers simple artwork and functional, stark-yet-comfortable furniture.

Marine notices he hasn’t moved, she sounds her dulcet chime and speaks French in her mellifluous, perfectly human voice.

« Have you forgotten something, Jack? »

« Non, Marine, » he replies. « I’m just scared. »

« You have nothing to be afraid of. The world admires and adores you. It depends upon you. It requires your influence. »

« D’accord, » he replies, unconvinced. « Let’s believe that. »

He grabs from a hook near the door a navy-blue trilby that matches his dress shirt. He looks at his smart-sleeve.

“Marine, show me some faces I could wear,” he requests in English. His French is passable but, by no means, perfect. He practices so that he can speak to Sabine in her native language, instead of forcing her to speak to him in his.

A male face appears on his display and he swipes it away with his left hand. Too ugly. He swipes away the next few before stopping on a clean-shaven face with a sharp, aquiline nose, black eyes and a mop of stylishly shaggy black hair. Handsome enough to satisfy Jack’s ego; he doesn’t want to masquerade as an unattractive person, and its different enough from his own visage to feel like a good disguise.

He makes a pinching motion with his left hand and drags the image of the face toward his own. The circular holographic generator embedded in the diameter of his hat brim projects the disguise over his face and around his head. He steps outside.

No one will notice him. No one has seen Jack Mason enter or leave the house, although an observant person might wonder who are all of the different men who come and go, and all of the different women with them. He chuckles to himself that they might think his home is a whorehouse. It is little concern to him; prostitution is legal. Klippeborg is a progressive city.

It’s five kilometers from his home to the Artel Building, downtown. Jack doesn’t own a bicycle. He owns one car and one motorcycle, both antiques retrofitted to hydrogen-cell power and a Maisey Engine, but he never drives the car in the city. He rarely takes the motorcycle. He doesn’t take the metro, nor does he ride the bus. He’ll only take cabs if he has company. Instead, he does what he prefers always to do. He walks.

The adaptive-rubber soles of his black leather shoes soften automatically to accommodate his long-distance gait. His hat keeps the sun from scorching his bald head, though the air is a comfortable 12 degrees centigrade. Jack knows he’ll work up some body heat as he moves. He wishes it were colder.

He passes from his low-rise neighborhood of townhouses into one of stately apartment buildings built to resemble those in Copenhagen, Hamburg, and other European cities. Klippeborg was built by a European consortium led by the Danish, which included the Netherlands, Germany, and a handful of former Eastern Block countries.

It’s a straight shot down Arnauerstraße to downtown and Jack goes into a near trance while he walks. He tunes out the everyday. He is oblivious to everything but sudden movement. His clothes are reinforced with armored threads. Both his shirt and pants can stop a bullet from one meter or beyond, and significantly impede a projectile even at point-blank range. The material can’t be penetrated by a knife and perfectly protects against slashing. Any loose fabric would yield to a stab but remain intact. He could be injured to the point where the slack ended, but Jack wears his shirts nearly skin tight.

He knows the likelihood that someone might attack him is negligible because Klippeborg is one of the safest places in the world, but he still fears it. Once the naïve bubble of presumed safety has been punctured, it can never be restored.

Jack had thought he was invincible before he was stabbed in the gut and shot in the head in broad daylight on London’s Strand, four years prior. His assailants were never caught. He never learned who was behind it. He imagines it was Pietro, but it could just as easily have been anyone.

Jack trusts no man and trusts his women only so far.

He wishes to never be vulnerable again.

*

Jack steps off the lift in the Artel Building to find Pietro waiting for him in the elevator bank. They walk in silence to the laboratory.

As Jack peruses the exhibition pieces, he comes to a pulse rifle and stops. “You think we’ll ever get past the need for this?”

“Is that a real question?” Pietro replies.

Jack smiles, but without humor. “I don’t enjoy manufacturing weapons,” he says.

“What about the sex bots?” Pietro asks.

“You know that doesn’t bother me.”

“Then why do we hide that arm of the operation under a different company banner from which we’re both completely insulated, while we openly manufacture arms?”

“You know the answer to that,” Jack replies.

“Yeah. We finally extract ourselves from the last, stupid vestige of Christian bullshit in our everyday lives, but even without the calendar there are more zealots now than before and they’ve got no problem with violence but they clutch their pearls over cum and cooze. What the fuck is wrong with people? Why do they hate fun?”

“I don’t know, Rock. Probably no one is secure enough to tolerate open competition, because they expect to lose.”

“Fucking idiots. That’s why we make guns. To kill these fools.”

“I’d really rather we just educate people to be more in touch with their feelings … ”

“Ha! Feelings? You are such a fucking hippie. Humans are fucking dumb, Jack. They’re not like me, or even you. You can’t go imposing the fruits of genius on idiots who can’t comprehend basic fucking arithmetic. Self-awareness is a curse. I envy the sheep for lacking it. And I cherish the thought of our guns snuffing out their meaningless lives.”

“You’re a sick person, Pete.”

“Psssh,” Pietro replies, waving away the remark. “Think of it like this, Jackie. Business will be a lot less lucrative if we stop selling guns. And then where will you get the money to subsidize all the world’s unfortunates? Or to pay for your ridiculous brood?”

Jack’s face curdles at the tart barb, but he doesn’t reply. He would like a world where his company needn’t manufacture weapons, but it isn’t the world on which he lives. Nor could he see it becoming that way. As far as some humans have come, he knows that so many more inhibit progress like a giant, useless, meat anchor. It pains him to think that he holds the same worldview as Pietro, albeit softer and less contemptuous.

Jack puts his disquiet about world affairs aside and concentrates on the wares. “I like the exo-suits,” he says, looking at an array of light-to-heavy mechanical armor. “Testing them was fun.”

“I know you’re still against permanent body mods, but we’ll make the biggest splash with cybernetic enhancement and replacement parts.”

Jack looks at Pietro and at his right forearm. It’s covered in real flesh, but the muscle and bone have been replaced with mechanical components. “You’d know.”

Pietro smiles, but he knows it’s a dig. Jack doesn’t believe in ceding any portion of his body to inorganic parts except in cases of dire need. He is an organicist curmudgeon surrounded by young roboticists, like Pietro, who eagerly upgrade themselves with, in their minds, better, artificial replacements.

“So, when everyone has artificial limbs and superhuman strength, you’ll still want to be your same, old, regular self.” Pietro says. “If we arm wrestled, I’d rip your fucking limb off.”

“I’m left-handed,” Jack replies. “Try me with your real arm. Or we could just take out our dicks and measure them. Which bit of childish bullshit would you prefer?”

“Whatever,” Pietro says. “You’re grooming yourself for obsolescence. I’m thinking about the future.”

Jack flashes him a tight-lipped, disingenuous smile. “By then, I’ll be wearing something that evens the odds … something I can remove and won’t need to be stuck with every day for the rest of my life. What ever happened to your real arm, anyway?”

“I had the tissue incinerated. Turned the carbon into diamonds.”

“What for? Have you started dating?”

Pietro makes a face that says: Dick.

“Fuck no. You think I’m going to waste my time or money trying to win the affection of women who should be falling over themselves to win mine? Besides, who the fuck has time for dating?”

Jack raises his eyebrows.

“Besides you. If you can call it that. How many kids you up to? You do know that contraception is nearly 100% effective.”

“Some of us delight in procreation,” says Jack.

“Apparently.” Pietro’s expression indicates his distaste. “The rocks have plenty of industrial uses, you know. Way better than putting it on some bitch’s finger. And,” he flexes his cybernetic appendage, “I’ve got a much better arm.”

“You don’t worry about ripping your dick off when you masturbate?”

Peitro shakes his head in dismissal. He doesn’t deign to reply.

Jack shrugs. He remembers, when a child, that he wanted superhuman powers or robotic limbs, any and every augmentation, but he came to realize that the yearning derived from deep inadequacy and dissatisfaction with himself. His father had often told him that good enough was never good enough, that there was always better, and that a man should settle for nothing less than perfection.

It was horrible advice. It made Jack into a miserable perfectionist until he decided that, at least sometimes, good enough was quite good enough. He learned that better is the enemy of good. All of the years striving for perfection had yielded him nothing but self-loathing the result of his many failures. When he learned to accept what was good, and to improve not for the sake of unattainable perfection but for self-improvement itself, success found him.

“You know,” Pietro says, “if you don’t care for robotics, why even bother?”

Jack looks at him. “Who said I don’t care for it? I don’t want to be a robot. It doesn’t mean I detest the field. I’m invested in the consciousness transfer, but I’m not monomaniacal. I like what you do, Rock. R&D is important. Diversification is important.”

Pietro shrugs and gestures at the display of products. “Dorance is putting up some similar things, so the consciousness transfer will be our ace in the hole. If it ever works.”

“It’s tough finding volunteers,” says Jack.

“Yeah, no shit. Most people aren’t interested in potentially dying, or being rendered from a figurative moron into a literal one. Why do you think all the fools we’ve gotten have been such dregs?”

Jack frowns at Pietro, whose disdain for everyone—even Jack—is unvarnished. Jack tolerates it because Pietro is brilliant. And Pietro knows it.

“He thinks we outright stole from him,” Pietro says of Dorance.

“I know,” Jack replies. “Amadou and I …” he pauses, “well, more just him and the other lawyers have been dealing with it. But I talked to Mike this morning.”

“How is that insufferable fuck?”

“Insufferable,” Jack smiles. “I denied everything. Amadou gave them our rebuttal. But … I have to know … have we stolen from him?”

Pietro curls his upper lip. “I haven’t stolen from anybody. I don’t need to. You think I can’t come up with this shit on my own?”

“Don’t start,” Jack replies. “This isn’t an attack on you. And you’re not a one-man team, Rock. Of course you have great ideas, but they don’t happen in a vacuum. Collaboration yields better results.”

“So you say.”

“Yes,” says Jack. “And what I say goes.”

Pietro quietly sucks his teeth in response. “Well, boss, you satisfied? Got any feedback?”

“I know you do good work. Don’t act like I don’t appreciate you.”

“Don’t you have some babies to kiss, or some water to purify?”

“Probably,” Jack answers. “You know, you should think of throwing some of your sizable compensation into charitable acts, too. People might mistake you for a human being.”

“Being human is so overrated,” Pietro replies.

Jack smiles despite himself. “I doubt it’s for the same reasons, but I agree with you.”

“OK, then,” Pietro says clapping his hands together and rubbing them. “Why not trade in some useless bit of flesh for something better?”

“Because I’m OK with my useless bits of flesh,” Jack answers. “You to take the leaps; you’re better suited for them.”

He turns and walks towards the exit.

“It’s your move, you know,” Pietro calls after him.

Jack stops and checks his arm. He pulls up the chess app and considers the board. It’s a defensive game, as usual. The middle of the board is jammed with pieces. Jack sees no clear advantage. Neither side has yet taken a piece. He takes Pietro’s white bishop, thus offering the knight to the waiting pawn.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3