“Could you please point me in the direction of the Police Headquarters Museum?” Brett asks.

“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend?”

“She’s my sister-in-law. And she hasn’t been home for a while. We were going to download a map, but she insisted that things couldn’t have changed that much.”

If I didn’t have to be discreet...

They knowingly nod. “In-laws are always a pain, right? Well, just take the next left and keep going until you see the signposts.”

“Thanks.” Brett saunters back to me with a smirk. “Told you we should’ve just asked.”

“You don’t ask for directions in the city you grew up in. That’s just, just wrong,” I grumble. “Plus, we weren’t lost. They said it was nearby, right? I would’ve gotten us there eventually.”

Brett rolls his eyes. “Sure.”

“Remember to keep your eyes forward and don’t attract much attention.”

“There are thousands of Torl tourists and tens of thousands of residents in this city alone. I’m sure that I won’t stand out. A human that refuses to speak to her own kind though, that’s a beacon.”

“Maybe I should’ve gone with the born off-world story.”

“You’re the one who suggested that we stay as close to the truth as possible. What if someone you know overheard you lying? It’d be instantly suspicious.”

“If someone I knew recognised me, I’d have to leave the system.”

“That’s dramatic, even for you.”

I stop walking. “No, it’s an understatement. Nobody on this rock would ever be happy to see me.”

“Maybe they’ve forgotten by now.”

“Like Torline did?”

He opens and closes his mouth. “Good point.”

I’ll say one good thing about Brett, he is certainly smart enough not to ask me that one question he’s been circling for a week. Yana took three years to pry it out of me. I spent eight months of intensive hacking to erase it from TIE’s records. Let me tell you, deleting information and copying it are nothing alike when it comes to those servers. But if I see D-. O can’t delete it from people’s memories. It took me nine years of part-time research to confirm that.

*

“I still don’t think that we should be here,” I whisper, eyeing off the old tasers and badges suspended over tables.

Brett sighs. “Do you ever agree with your own plans?”

“Not really, no.”

“How are you still alive?”

“Yana made the plans. I gave her the intel.”

The guide raises his voice. “We actually have a special guest joining us. He comes from a long, long line of enforcers right back to the police officers of Pre-Galactic Earth.”

“We’ve got to go,” I whisper urgently, grabbing Brett’s arm and ducking my head.

“But you said this tour was bound to have intel we need.”

I yank him away from the group. “Now.”

“I’m pleased to present,” the guide says, “our very own Head Enforcer, Finnegan Mayes.”

The group cheers. I run. Brett swears as he follows me.

“Thank you! Thank you! It’s an honour to be here today. I think it’s of the upmost importance to respect our law enforcement and...”

I don’t hear the rest. I don’t need to. It’s the same speech he uses at The Academy.

I stop in an empty corridor to catch my breath. Brett turns on me. “What was that about?”

“I know right,” I force a laugh. “Who names their son Finnegan?”

“Who is he?”

“Probably someone with a weird mother.”

“His last name is Mayes,” Brett says. “Sound familiar?”

“Might be different on Torline, but here, having the same last name doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’re right. Who names their kid Finnegan? Maybe someone who names their grandkid Valentina.”

“We’re not family,” I say. “But he would’ve instantly recognised me. And I don’t feel like being another one of that bastard’s arrests.”

“You’ve kind of got the same hair colour. I’m guessing the eyes are from your mother’s side.”

I grab a fistful of his shirt and yank him down. “Do not ever mention my mother again. Theorise all you want, but keep it to yourself.” I let him go. “And I was born with brown eyes.”

“Yana told me the orange wasn’t a modifier.”

“It’s not.”

“This another, ask about and get hit kind of thing?” he asks.

“Yep.”

“So what are we going to do now? You said the tour was our final option.”

“The slave operation has a bakery front today,” I say.

“Care to tell me how you know?”

I lead Brett out of the museum. “If they brought him on for the tour then that means he’s in charge of criminal-enforcer relations for the day. It’s a code that they never bother changing. He always used to get a pie before coming to one of these, because he claimed that public speaking made him nervous and when he’s nervous he’s hungry. I just needed to know which enforcer they brought on today for that segment. If you go to the wrong front on the wrong day, then you get blacklisted.”

“For the woman who couldn’t navigate the city, you sure know a lot about criminal-enforcer relations.”

“Perks of the same last name,” I mutter.

*

It takes all of five minutes to secure us a meeting with a hirer at the bakery for next week. Brett stays mostly silent until we walk out. His jaw is set and he keeps flapping his hands about, like he’s about to say something, but can’t find the right words. I think I might’ve made him grumpy by not telling him the plan.

“You only get to know what you need to,” I remind him. “It’s for your safety.”

“But joining up? You want us to join with those, those… That’s something I needed to know.”

“But then you wouldn’t have focussed on what needed to be done. The only way we’re going to eradicate every last trace of them is if we infiltrate them from the inside. I tried the careful planning liberation approach on Vimos Station. But an entire planet, that doesn’t even know that slavery is still a thing? That takes a higher level of commitment. If you want to back out now, I’d understand. Just find your own way offworld. I’ll need my ship for a quick exit.”

“If we pull this off, you have to tell me all about your past,” he demands.

What’s the harm? Not like he’ll be anywhere near here when it all goes down. “Fine. You’ve got a deal.”