Special Agent Odessa Grant thought that the elevator she was currently inside of was, arguably, the slowest in the known world. She glanced, for the fifth time in the last two minutes, at her wireless. She scrolled through her recent messages, mostly just a mess of exclamation points, as a low buzz alerted her to her inbox’s latest addition. She checked the message and saw it was from Duke, the agent she was closest to in her department.

they just pulled up out front!!!

She cursed under her breath, heedless of the three other agents sharing the elevator with her.

The elevator dinged and its polished, silver doors slid open. Odessa glanced up at the readout above the doors; they were on the 11th floor. She cursed again as one of the agents left the elevator and was replaced by two more. The doors slid shut, achingly, excruciatingly slowly, and the small metal box continued its slothful journey toward the ground floor.

Not knowing what else to do with herself, she replied to Duke’s message.

How many?

The elevator chugged along, and Odessa wondered why she hadn’t just taken the stairs.

The elevator dinged again and a few of the agents departed. Odessa looked at the readout again (9th floor) just as Duke buzzed her.

not sure, 2 but think ones just a guy

There were supposed to be 2 of them

yeah but one of thems a local idk whats up yet

Ding. 5th floor. Odessa heard a flat, repetitive sound and realized she’d begun to tap her foot. She felt the agents around her jostle and assumed someone had either gotten on or gotten off, but she was too invested in Duke’s latest update to give them much of her attention.

second dude’s def a local, first one looks like the real deal tho

What do you mean?

fuckin wait till you see this guy

Ding. 3rd floor. Odessa simply couldn’t bear it any longer; she tucked her wireless away and exited the elevator, moving as quickly as she could without running toward the stairs leading to the lobby. She was technically supposed to report to the meeting room on the 5th floor, as Director Lo had instructed, but, like the rest of her department, she was determined to see the outsider with her own eyes if she could.

She took the steps two at a time, the slap of her polished shoes echoing in her wake. She, finally, reached the ground floor and threw open the stairwell, only to be faced with a solid wall made of dark, clean suits. The lobby was filled to capacity with agents from every department in the BID, and each and every one of them had come here for the same reason she had.

“Where are they?” Odessa asked the nearest suit. The agent turned and Odessa saw it was Gray, a prodigy of the psychology department.

“Just missed ‘em,” Gray said, bringing one of her fingers to her mouth so she could gnaw on a cuticle. “They’re being processed now.”

Shit.

Odessa thanked Gray, begrudgingly, and returned to the stairwell. She pulled out her wireless and looked at the time; it was over five minutes past the time Lo had ordered them to be in the conference room. Odessa had expected to be late, but she was hoping she’d at least have an excuse. She considered riding the elevator back up to the 5th floor, but decided against it; the thing probably hadn’t even reached the lobby yet.

She took a few breaths and began her trek up the five flights between her and the conference room, all the while doing her best to come up with some excuse for Director Lo.

⁂

As it turned out, she needn’t have wracked her brain as thoroughly as she had for a viable excuse; by the time she finally burst through the conference room doors, hardly anyone took notice of her and Director Lo wasn’t anywhere in sight.

Odessa’s department was one of the BID’s smallest, comprised of only, not counting Lo and herself, four agents. One of these agents, Clarke, was seated at the long, horseshoe-shaped conference table inspecting a large, portable screen, while the three others studied it intently over his shoulder. Finally one of them, Duke, glanced up and saw her.

“Dessa, come here!” Duke hissed. The other agents looked up as she spoke and they all began waving her toward Clarke’s screen.

Needing no further encouragement, Odessa made her way around the table until she stood at Duke’s side.

“What –?” She began to ask, but her question turned into a gasp as she saw what was on Clarke’s screen.

It’s him. It has to be.

“I know, right?” Duke asked, taking in Odessa’s wide eyes and gaping mouth.

“What…? Where…?” Was all Odessa could manage.

“Right now we don’t have a fuckin’ clue, my dude.” Duke said with a shake of her head. Odessa could tell how excited Duke was about this latest development (her swearing always got at least three times worse when she was excited), and she couldn’t blame her friend.

“It’s Roundtown, it’s gotta be,” one of the agents said. Some part of Odessa told her the speaker was Ross, but in her current state of mind she wouldn’t have bet on it.

“We don’t know that,” a different agent (Arch, Odessa’s brain told her) cautioned.

“What, do you think someone from Pal’nalik grew gills and decided to swim here?” Ross shot back. He had a point; Pal’nalik had sunk over a century ago and the Canyon had been a ghost town since before the Resurgence. Roundtown was the only other independent settlement on this continent that had ever been encountered, though until now it had been assumed that it, too, had gone under.

“He might be from somewhere we’ve never heard of before, or he might just be from the Wastes,” Arch reminded her colleagues. “We can’t assume anything right now.”

Duke, Ross and Clarke groaned, but Odessa was silent; Arch was right, no matter how annoying her pedantisms could be at times. They couldn’t get ahead of themselves, even if this was, quite possibly, the most exciting thing any of them had ever been a part of.

But Odessa didn’t speak up for her teammate; she didn’t say a word. She couldn’t take her eyes off Clarke’s screen.

The door swung open and a very harried-looking Director Lo entered the room.

“Director!” Clarke called in surprise. He quickly killed his screen; he probably wasn’t even supposed to have the man’s picture yet, but Clarke had more connections than Odessa could conceive of. “What’s the –”

“The situation is a clusterfuck at the moment, Shale, thank you for asking.” Lo said tartly. She was the only director Odessa had ever met who preferred to address her agents by their first names, and this was one of the many qualities they loved about her. Lo tapped a few keys on her wireless and Odessa heard the room’s projection system hum to life. Lo dragged her finger across the wireless’ screen and the room’s overhead lights dimmed. “Alright, kids, gather ‘round.”

The agents dutifully took their seats around the horseshoe. Once the lights had dimmed sufficiently, the projectors kicked on and the horseshoe was filled with a 1/1 scale reproduction of the man from Clarke’s screen. The agents, Odessa included, did their best to react in a way which would suggest to their director that they’d never seen the man before.

“This,” Lo said, jabbing a thin finger toward the projection. “Is Aedus Belle. Or, if you’re asking him, he’s Aedus, fifth of his name, of the old Belle blood. As you might have guessed, he’s not from our neighborhood.”

“Where did they find him?” Arch asked, her eyes moving up and down the projection as she studied as much of the man as she could.

“He was picked up about half an hour ago near the stacks.”

“I thought they already tore through that part of the City?” Ross asked.

“They did, but apparently there was a bit of a situation in one of the shantytowns in the area earlier and it slowed them down. Anyway, he was picked up after a few people saw him do this.”

Lo tapped a different key and the projection of the man was replaced by a scene out of a nightmare.

“Way-Maker guide us,” Odessa said under her breath. She blushed; she didn’t like to reveal how deeply and securely her parents had instilled their faith in her.

The horseshoe was filled by slowly shuffling pictures of a bloodied alleyway. At first the bodies were far enough away that Odessa could ignore them, but the photographer got closer with each picture before ultimately giving each of the victims a close-up. Two were women; one disemboweled, later shown draped with a sheet, the other cut to the bone across her chest. Three were men; two had their throats slit, both were later shown under their own sheets, the last was seen clutching a stump which was, Odessa assumed, all that was left of his hand.

“The victims were goldfiends, so it’s not hard to give him a self-defense pass on that.” Lo admitted, studying the gore before her with practiced detachment.

“Wait,” Odessa blurted out. “Where’s the other one?”

Odessa had studied the records from Watchtower 11 under her eyes had practically gone crossed. The sensors had picked up two, not one, heat signatures.

“Very good, Odessa,” Lo said with a nod in her direction. Duke gently smacked her lips together to create a subtle kissing sound; she knew Odessa hated it when the other agents called her director’s pet. “We’re still not clear on that. We know two entities came through the Wall last night, but at the moment our new friend here,” Lo tapped her wireless again and, thankfully, the pictures from the alleyway were gone. In their place, again, stood the man. “Is all we’ve got.”

“What about the other guy?” Duke asked. “The other one they brought in, I mean.”

“Glad to see you’re keeping that nose firmly where it doesn’t belong, Sara.” Lo chided. “The other guy in question in a Mr. Hugo Brooke.”

The ragged, tattooed man was replaced by a shorter, stouter man with shorter hair and unadorned flesh. Odessa couldn’t help but notice the look of panic in his eyes.

“I take it he didn’t come from the Wastes?” Ross quipped, taking in the man’s soft exterior.

“Hardly,” Lo said. “Mr. Brooke is the son of a lawyer.”

“Wait, Brooke?” Duke asked, her eyebrows shooting up. “As in Friday Brooke? From the commercials?”

“Oh, god, I hate those jingles,” Clarke said with a roll of his eyes. The agents around him nodded in agreement; everyone had been annoyed at least once by Friday Brooke: Best Lawyer in Babylon.

“Focus, kids, focus,” Lo said gently. “Mr. Brooke is being interviewed as we speak, but Mr. Belle is the one we’re interested in. We know he came out of the Wastes, and, judging by his lack of obvious mutations we can safely assume he came from a settlement of some kind.”

“It’s Roundtown, isn’t it?” Ross asked, his eyes bright.

“We can’t assume that, but, for the moment, it does seem like the most likely explanation. If he did come from Roundtown it would be the first sign of civilized life in the Wastes since we lost contact with the Canyon. But, the question becomes, what is someone from Roundtown doing here? Why show up now, after over four hundred years?” Lo paused, letting her questions hang heavy in the room. Finally, with a sly smile, she added: “Let’s go find out.”

She waved them toward her and headed out the conference room. The agents paused, exchanged some glances and then practically tripped over each other as they rushed to follow their director.

⁂

“They’ve got to have some religious significance,” Duke posited.

“No, look at his neck,” Ross pointed out. “That’s a horse. They’ve probably set up some sort of agrarian symbiosis with their animals.”

“That doesn’t rule out a religious aspect,” Arch reminded him. “They used to worship pigs back in the Canyon, remember?”

Odessa was silent. She simply allowed herself a moment to bask in the intricacies (and sheer quantitiy) of the man’s tattoos; they crept along his skin like vines, intertwining as they went so that it was almost impossible to locate distinct shapes or faces without serious scrutinization. The colors were what fascinated her most of all; Odessa saw some bits of black used as accents, but for the most part the man’s skin was a mosaic of bold reds, deep blues and vibrant greens.

“Hey, look at this,” Clarke suddenly exclaimed, drawing his fellow agents’ attention away from the two-way mirror they’d been studying the man through. He held up his screen and they saw a picture of an old, curved knife of some kind. The blade was coated in dried blood.

“Is that what he used on the fiends?” Arch asked, her eyes wide.

“Yeah, they’re processing it now,” Clarke confirmed. He had a note of wonder in his voice; Odessa hadn’t seen him this excited since they’d gotten to examine the old swords a maintenance worker had found in a tunnel under Beijing. “Apperantly it’s called a boline. It’s supposed to be used for cutting herbs.”

“Herbs?” Duke snorted. “Like rosemary?”

“That’s what they’re saying,” Clarke said, only slightly defensively.

“Well, that’s a point for Shale’s agrarian theory. Maybe this guy is a farmer or something, he likes to use tools he’s familiar with…” Arch said more to herself than her fellow agents.

“Careful, Wan, you’re starting to make assumptions.” Ross said as he nudged Arch’s side with his elbow. He snickered as she scowled at him.

“Why do you think he refused treatment?” Odessa asked, only tangentially aware of her colleagues’ back-and-forth. The man had been cleaned up a bit by the decontamination process, but blood-stained bandages still wrapped tight around him beneath his tattered vest.

“Probably a pride thing,” Ross assumed. Arch opened her mouth to contest this, but Ross plowed ahead before she had the chance. “What did the scans pull up?”

“He’s pretty beat up.” Clarke answered, his eyes back on his screen. “The quarantine scanners aren’t nearly as thorough as a proper medical scan, but they still showed substantial damage. Cuts, scrapes, bullet-holes, you name it.”

“The interception team reported they hit him a few times,” Odessa said, reviewing the reports she, by now, knew by heart. “And Thomlin Birb said he clipped him as he was leaving the Wall.”

“How is Birb? And the girl?” Duke asked. “What was her name?”

“McFash.” Odessa answered before Clarke had a chance to look it up. “Hollow McFash. They’re still being checked out.”

“I still don’t understand how he could have gotten them to open up the door like that,” Duke said, shaking her head. “Birb’s been a Watchtower guard for over a decade, right?”

“Right,” Clarke cut in. “McFash’s only been at Watchtower 11 a few months, but both of them have squeaky-clean records.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Odessa said.

“That’s what we’re here for, kids,” Director Lo said from behind them. They jumped in unison; none of them had heard her enter the observation room. “Someone’s going to have to go in and talk to this guy.”

They all held their breaths. It had to be one of them, or she wouldn’t have brought it up like this.

“Odessa, come with me,” Lo said, looking her straight in the eye. She then turned and left the room.

“Fuckin’ of course,” Duke said, scorn evident in her voice as she slapped Odessa’s back.

“Director’s pet strikes again,” Ross said with a roll of his eyes. He, too, slapped her back and whispered, “Knock ‘em dead, Dessy-Girl.”

She felt herself blush as the rest of the team begrudgingly and sincerely congratulated her; she’d asked Ross not to call her that in front of the rest of the team.

Would it be vain of her to admit she’d known she was the one Lo would pick? That she deserved to be the one Lo picked? Would she seem pompous if she pointed out that this wasn’t favoritism so much as it was hard-earned remuneration?

Yes, she decided, it would. Let them think her a pet, let them think whatever they pleased, so long as she got to be the one sitting in that room.

She thanked her colleagues for their barbed felicitations and followed Lo out the door.

She found herself chest-to-face with a short, round-ish man who was 100 if he was a day old. Odessa’s heart caught in her throat; this was Executive Director Kissinger, the most powerful man in the BID.

“Ah,” the squat, pale man exclaimed as he looked her up and down. His gaze crushed her like a boulder; she felt her skin crawl beneath its weight. “This must be Special Agent Grant.”

“It is indeed,” Lo said with a tight nod. “She’s just about to head in.”

“Think you’re ready for this, Grant?” Kissinger asked, a playful smile on his lips. Odessa knew better than to trust that smile. She’d heard too many stories about the ED to be taken in by his grandfatherly air. “We’re talking about the big leagues now.”

She took a breath, but her mouth wouldn’t seem to open. Not knowing what else to do, she nodded enthusiastically.

“All of my agents are well-versed in the latest interviewing techniques, Executive Director.” Lo assured him. Odessa caught the note of tension in her director’s voice.

“Of course, of course,” Kissinger said with a shake of his mostly-hairless head. “Forgive me, Grant, all this excitement’s a bit for a man my age.”

Odessa had no idea how old the ED was, but she wouldn’t have turned her back on him even if she’d found out he actually was a decagenarian.

“Good luck in there, Grant,” Kissinger said with an encouraging wink. “We’ll be watching.”

Odessa barely suppressed a shudder.

“Come along, Grant,” Lo put a hand on her shoulder and steered her away from the ED. Odessa didn’t enjoy having the man in her line of sight, but knowing he was there and not being able to see him was, astonishingly, even worse.

“Sorry about that,” Lo whispered to her as they reached the door leading to the interrogation room currently housing the man. “I wasn’t expecting him to make a personal appearance.”

“It’s fine, he didn’t bother me,” Odessa lied.

Lo gave her a probing look, but finally nodded. “You ready?”

Odessa marveled at how differently the same question could sound coming from someone who didn’t give her the creeps. She nodded.

“Just get him going,” Lo advised. “Most people are desperate for someone to listen to their story; you’ve just got to open the door.”

“I understand.” Odessa assured her. Lo nodded again and gestured toward the door.

Set yer sights straight, Dessy-Girl, she heard her father say.

She reached for the handle and opened the door.

The man glared at her but made no move as she stood in the doorway.

“Is it alright if I come in?” Odessa asked, remembering her training; being polite was one of the easiest ways to get people on your side.

The man was silent.

Odessa waited a moment and then entered the room. At least she could say she’d asked beforehand.

“My name is Special Agent Odessa Grant. What’s yours?”

Again, the man was silent. Odessa was prepared to move on when he licked his lips and said in a deep, course voice, “Belle. Aedus Belle.”

She had her foothold, now she just had to keep it.

“Would you prefer me to call you Aedus or Mr. Belle?”

The man shrugged.

“Alright, we’ll stick with Mr. Belle for now. Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Belle?”

“I’m told your people run this place.”

“Oh, who told you that?”

Silence.

“Was it your friend Hugo?”

The man glanced at her sharply before looking away again. “Say true.”

“How long have you known Mr. Brooke?”

“Since last night.”

“Since you arrived here in Babylon?”

The man shook his head. “After.”

“After you arrived in the City? That’s interesting, can you tell me a bit about how you two met?”

The man took a moment to organize his thoughts. “My dog was sick with dragon’s breath. I sought out a healer and found Micki. Hugo was there.”

“Dog? You brought a dog here with you?”

The man nodded. That would explain the second heat signature the Wall’s sensors had picked up.

“Where’s your dog now?”

“With Micki.”

“Micki is a veterinarian?”

The man shrugged. “She’s a healer.”

“I see.” Odessa felt her wireless buzz. As inconspicuously as she could, she removed it from her pocket and read her latest message.

local vet, runs a clinic. theyve already got units en route

Odessa retuned the wireless to her pocket.

“And how is your dog doing?”

“She’ll live.”

“And how about yourself?”

“I’ll live.”

“That’s good to hear. I know one of our doctors offered to take a look at you earlier, and I’m sure –”

“Micki’s done enough for now.” The man’s tone invited little argument.

“Alright, Mr. Belle,” Odessa said, trying her best to sound warm and inviting. “We don’t have to discuss your health right now, anyway. I do have some questions I have to ask, though; is that alright?”

The man nodded, but his dark eyes seemed suddenly guarded to Odessa.

“Can you tell me where you come from?”

“I am of Roundtown.”

Odessa could almost hear her colleagues cheering on the other side of the two-way mirror. She felt her heart thud in her chest; she was in the same room with a genuine relic, someone straight out of one of the BID’s histories.

“Roundtown?” She asked, trying to sound neutrally curious. “Can you tell me a little about it?”

“Have you heard of the town?” The man asked, looking at her keenly. She felt a twinge at the back of her neck; she urged herself to calm down and focus.

“Yes, Mr. Belle, we’ve heard of it, but before now we’ve never met anyone who claimed to be from there.”

The man nodded. Was it her imagination, or did he look vaguely relived? It was so hard to tell beneath the colors of his tattoos and the pale scars cutting through them.

“So, can you tell me about your town?”

“It’s…” the man struggled. “It’s the town.”

“I see. Things are well back home, though?”

“Say true.”

“That’s good to hear. So, what made you decide to visit Babylon?”

“I didn’t come for Babylon,” the man said, something between scorn and disappointment in his voice. “I came for the land of the people of the shore.”

“The people of the…?”

“That’s what we call your people.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize. Why’s that?”

The man looked incredulous. “When your people came to the town they’d just left their land by the sea.”

“Ah,” was all Odessa could manage. She never would have guessed the man would know so much of the City founders’ history; it was true that Father Hassan had led the pilgrims from the uninhabitable settlement they’d built on the coast, but no one without a keen interest in history bothered to know that anymore. “Of course. So, what got you interested in coming here?”

The man considered this. Odessa felt another twinge at the back of her neck and cursed her body’s timing; it would pick now to send a headache her way. Finally, the man spoke again. “We were curious about you.”

“Curious?”

“Say true. The people of the shore didn’t share our land for long, but we grew fond of them. We’d hoped you’d find your green land and wanted to know if you had.”

“It’s been a long time since any of our people were on your land,” Odessa pointed out. “What got you so curious now?”

“We had things to attend to.”

“What sort of things?”

Silence.

“Okay, you were busy. We’re thrilled you made time to visit us; we’ve wondered about your people, too. We’ve even tried to find Roundtown again, but we’ve never had any luck.”

The man’s brows rose at this.

“I do have to ask about how you arrived here, though. Can you tell me about what happened?”

“Your people sent assassins to cut me down in the ruins.” The man said flatly.

“We sent an interception unit to investigate an unknown entity, but we had no idea it was you.”

“No one bothered to ask if it was me.”

He had a point. The Wall had a strict shoot-first policy when it came to things crawling out of the Wastes.

“That was our mistake, and I apologize for it. Can you tell me how you arrived at the Wall?”

The pain shot up her neck and she felt it stabbed deep into her brain. She wasn’t sure if she’d winced or not, but the man continued as if he hadn’t noticed anything. “I struck one of them down and stole his mount. Then your people tried to burn me.”

That would be the turret system.

“Again, Mr. Belle, we apologize. Please, continue.”

“I got inside your Wall and made my way through.”

“But how did you get out the other side?” Odessa asked. This was, by far, the question everyone was most interested in. Why hadn’t McFash and Birb stopped him? Odessa felt her eyes shut on their own as the pain cut through her head.

“My people have knowledge of development and employment of nerve agents which leave the victim extremely open to suggestion. We’ve used them in the past as a means of defense; I brought a bit with me just in case. I used them on the guard and the woman and made them let me through.”

Odessa’s jaw practically dropped as her heart began to thud again. This was more than she could have dreamed for; in the initial assessment she’d submitted to Lo this morning she’s specifically suggested some sort of gaseous agent as the most likely explanation to how McFash and Birb had acted. She’d kept her guess from her coworkers, fearing hubris should she end up being wrong, but Lo would know she’d been right.

“We found no trace of any outside agent in either person’s system.” Odessa cautioned, praying the man had an explanation for this so she could continue to be right. “And the environmental scanners in the Wall didn’t pick of anything.”

“No,” the man said with a slightly smug nod. “I’m sure they didn’t.”

If there hadn’t been a substantial chance he might bite her face off Odessa could have kissed him.

“Can you explain how this nerve agent works? What it’s comprised of?”

“No,” the man said, looking away from her. “I don’t make it myself.”

“Will there be any lasting effects on the guard or the woman?”

“No,” the man said again, turning to face her again. “I wouldn’t harm them without cause.”

“But if they’d given you cause?”

The man was silent.

“Can you tell me what happened after you made it into the City?”

“I searched for a healer. I was told where I could find Micki by a man I passed on my way.”

This was a surprise; the Bureau had received hundreds of alleged sightings of the man since last night, but none of them had claimed to have given him directions. “Do you remember the man’s name?”

“I never knew it.”

“Alright, and then you made your way to Micki’s clinic?”

“Say true.”

“And she was able to treat your dog?”

“And myself. We would have fallen if not for Micki.”

Odessa made a note to thank the Way-Maker for Micki, whoever the hell she was, as she lit her candle tonight. “I’m glad she was able to help you. But now I need to know how this ended up happening.”

She found the pictures Lo had shown the team earlier in her wireless and pulled one up to show the man. She noticed he did not look away from the sight.

“Hugo left Micki’s to do some work for her. I must repay my debt to her, and I thought I could do that by helping Hugo. I followed him and the –” he waved his hand toward the picture “– came for us. I cut them down.”

“Yes, you certainly did that.” Odessa said, unsure of what else to say. He spoke as calmly as her father used to when he would describe the events of his latest hunting trip. “Have you had to… defend yourself against anyone else since you’ve been here?”

The man shook his head.

“That’s good to know.” This was an understatement. “I want to thank you for being so honest and open with me, Mr. Belle, and I’m sorry that your first day in Babylon has been such a negative experience.”

The man looked away again.

“But now we need to decide what happens next. What were you hoping to find or learn here?”

“I don’t know.” The man met her eyes again and for the first time she noticed how bloodshot they were. Were they that red when she’d first come in?

“That’s –” she cut off as the worst pain yet dug deep into her brain. She knew the man had seen her wince that time. “I’m sorry, Mr. Belle, I –”

“I want to see how your people live.” The man continued. “I want to know what it is to be of the land… of Babylon. I want to know how much of your longfathers still lives in you.”

“Long–?”

“Your ancestors.”

“Ah,” Odessa nodded. “Well, that’s something that –”

This time it was the man who caused her to cut off instead of her headache. The man leaned forward and began to rub his eyes. Odessa took note of how his shoulders slumped.

“Are you alright, Mr. Belle?”

“I’m tired.”

“That’s understandable, we can –”

“I want Hugo,” the man said with sudden authority.

“Oh, Mr. Brooke isn’t –”

“I’ll have Hugo or I won’t give you another word.” The man’s colorful face could have been chiseled from granite.

“Alright, Mr. Belle, give me a minute and I’ll see what I can do.” With that she stood and made her way to the door. As she rose she was pleasantly surprised to notice her headache had vanished as quickly and unexpectedly as it had arrived. She glanced toward the man with her hand on the door’s handle; she hoped he wouldn’t vanish, too.

She had barely closed the door behind her when Duke wrapped her in a fierce hug. Arch, Clarke and Ross were there as well, each waiting for their turn to give her a hug. It was hard for her to make out exactly what they were saying as they laughed and clapped, but she caught the gist of it:

She’d actually done it.

Next Chapter: The Specialist