The bottom half of the window turned to video at ‘7/2:25,’ leaving Lenith in another stunned silence. The video feed had enhanced fidelity, as real as being in the crowd.

When she lifted up in her seat, Lenith saw the windows across the street all had the same exact video projecting in at the residents, and out at the street.

Dozens—perhaps hundreds—of heads lined the bottom of the shot, waiting outside in front of a domed, oblong stage. Six splendid chairs flanked a central dais.

In the background, the Hub stood tall. A ticker in the corner called it the Podium Concourse. Whispers filtered into the apartment through inlaid speakers.

A brigade of Ilius officers lined in front of the stage. Additional armor pads buffed their shoulders, chest, and stomach, accented by orange rings around their arms and orange framing around their faceplates. The sight of levelins sheathed in their service belts made Lenith nauseous.

Four Enieyu officers were at the edges of the platform with hefty, black machine-operated rifles in-hand. Lenith thought only one might have been a woman. Their helmets adorned heavy, spiraling horns. Members of Enieyu’s upper strata.

The camera panned to the left side of the platform and zoomed in. A hush felled the crowd. Three figures strode onstage. Names appeared below them. First, a man named Wellix cantered over. Dressed in a dapper black suit that fit his toned physique, he arrested attention with elegance and poise. His right hand filtered through blond hair. Once at the podium, he surveyed over the heads.

Torigen Felan—next in line—was a parody of Wellix’s qualified dress. Ruffles and swirled blue patches spoiled his tattered, black suit. Oily black hair plumed out of control over his shoulders. Wrist cuffs fixed at his multicolored, tattooed elbows, he waved to the people without looking at them. He seemed fixated on the camera alone and, through proxy, on Lenith and Pelinda. Something anxious hid in his eyes and bubbled to the surface when he flashed a crooked smile. Audible gasps sprung up from the silence.

Even Pelinda hummed in repose of the sight.

“He is so handsome, in bad ways. If I want to roll in dirt, I want him.”

“He’s—uh…” Lenith considered her options. “He’s not my type.”

Something about Felan’s smile licked the back of Lenith’s neck. Secrets hid behind those pristine, white teeth and pink gums—dark, deep secrets. He flaunted them and no one minded. They were too busy being aroused. He knew things. He wanted people to know he did.

Settling on the closest armchair, Felan crossed his legs in a lazy, mangled way.

Somehow, the next person stole his spotlight.

Wellix, clutching the dais, turned away from the crowd as Gusty Adler entered.

The third, morose Torigen traversed the stage like a fallen leaf, moving without certainty, wilting under the lights. Silver blond hair cascaded over one-half of an ambiguous, diamond-shaped face that ended with a medical apparatus that hid everything below the nose. Many obsidian black parts came together to form the mechanism, locked into place like a puzzle, jutting where lips should have been and tapering down under a snug sweater. Its rigidity stripped any hint of gender. This darkness contrasted the exposed quarter of Gusty’s face.

Not once did the epicene Torigen look to the camera or the people, opting to quietly take the second seat to the left of the dais, far from Felan. Black-gloved hands overlapped over a concave stomach.

Wellix nodded to Gusty. Gusty briskly nodded back. A respectful, reassuring gesture.

“Six Torigens. All are on their own, you know, to lead the city and the nation,” Pelinda informed. “But Gusty is with Wellix at all times and at speeches. It whispers in Wellix’s ear to talk. Marlic says to me it has beautiful mind but must stay quiet. It is strange thing.”

“They don’t look like an ‘it’ to me.”

Pelinda shrugged. “No one knows.”

Wellix settled over the podium and focused his sights on the crowd. His voice boomed through the speakers. His voice traveled across all of Sudbina; perhaps all of Korvilene.

 “My people, the Chimayri nation is a little safer tonight. Through the tireless diligence of the upper limbs, and your continued belief in our system, the monstrosity Herielt Thaymen has been found and executed.”

Hushed gasps. Bottom-feeding heads turned to look at each other in the crowd.

A sunken, unstoppable pain spread through Lenith’s chest. Tightened screws. Fed on itself. A despondent breath shot out her nostrils.

“Right in time, too. Documents obtained from his fortified domain in the western Gray told of horrific schemes of genocide—the outright desire to enact a mass killing of all Sudbina. Rest your troubled heads tonight, all of Sudbina, knowing he who wanted you dead is slain.”

Pelinda stayed silent, hands clasped, head bobbing in relief. Lenith wanted to see disappointment in her new roommate. Instead, Pelinda was smiling, feeling safe like Wellix told her.

Did she know who Lenith was? Who she had been? Did she care? Lenith bunched her fists against her chest and fought back the desire to cry. She all at once felt very, painfully alone.

“Monstrosities like Herielt want to see Korvilene torn apart, calling themselves Graymen or Armada as if it means anything. They only want for fifteen smoldering holes in place of fifteen united cities. Those are the monstrosities—” Wellix dabbed his lips with a svelte, cerise cloth. “I worry about the ones trapped outside our walls most of all. The ones held hostage by these creatures who share our features. It is our duty to save these hostages and welcome them back to civility with open but guarded arms.”

Lenith bolted upright. She kicked the foot table in a panic. Her stomach was lurching. The world spun. She did not know how she made it, but she spewed into the toilet all the lovely meal Pelinda made for her. She did not care. She did not care. She did not care.

Ξ

Lenith had tried to imagine shapes and faces on the smooth ceiling, a game entitled ‘Ceiling Clouds.’ It had proved impossible to do without Rejund’s infantile imagination. She listened to Pelinda snoring behind the cracked bedroom door. Comfort had left the couch’s fat, cool cushions. Her body was grateful. Her mind was not.

She kept rolling onto her side, expecting to see her brother across the room, on a checkout counter bed, his blue pillow tucked under his head and another held in his arms. Instead, she saw purple spots, as if they were inside her eye—as if she had stared at the suns.

The seconds melted away on the window clock. It was far too late. Sleep escaped her.

With eyes shut tight, Lenith remembered arriving at Rugerbin Mall. It was half a year after fleeing from Hidden Ash as its eponymous Knowledge Bank burned to the ground. She remembered the mud weighing down her eighteen-year-old, deteriorating body. Usvild had been at the entrance (Mind the blood!) to greet them with open, unguarded arms and hot food. It had been the first shelter Lenith had arrived at, without Eby Belinger or Rejund, in twelve years.

Why now did her mind drift so strongly to that girl? As convenient as this might sound, I lack the depravity to tell of other denizens, Marlic had said. Maybe he’d tell her once she proved to be a good denizen. In little over a cycle. What was forty-one days compared to four and a half years? Her thoughts returned to moving the couch and foot table under the window. She pushed it over on her own in the quiet of the night. She reset the window to normal. The time vanished. The sky was clear. The many stars were out. She fell asleep under their sentry.