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Chapter Text

The pricking of the needle against her hip brings her to the surface, sucking in air like a man lost in a storm at sea. The dress is soft against her skin, more of a tunic, really. It was the tailor simply making adjustments to the fit around her hips. This dress had to be expensive. A long sleeved, floorless gown made of the most exquisite cloth. It was heavy material, it dragged behind her like streaks of fresh blood. The color was deep, and hid most of her skin from prying eyes. Her hair was as bright as copper, and glinted in the light of the Aireum. Starlight diamonds of the most expensive kind were crushed and littered over her eyelids and lips. The tops of her cheeks were also delicately decorated with slightly larger shards of diamond, like stars on her sun kissed tanned skin, scintillating with every tilt of her head. A hand wrapped around her neck, the fingertips trailing on her collarbones. The metal-tipped manicure left red trails in their wake, the red beading in little flowers, a forbidden necklace, to remind her of her place.

“And what does the Pendulum have for me this evening?” the soft whisper came from her right, spiraling into her ear, branding itself into her brain. It was like every night that she could remember, and yet she was glad that it was this way. The nights before she was bought were full of darkness. The ends of her owner’s hair tickled her shoulder and the Pendulum’s face betrayed nothing as her right eye twinkled in the odd shade of blue that possessed her when she swam into the beyond, when she looked into the future for her owner who hated to lose .

It was not the first time that someone had goaded her to fall into the river of light, to swim through the stream of fate for needs that they needed met. Miriam was no different. A woman bound by gold to a cage so gilded that it almost felt like it was meant to honor her. So she looked to the future, to a possibility that freedom was in her grasp and not in the grasp of her husband’s fist.

“Laurens knows about you and the envoy, he plans to humiliate him tonight…” her mismatched eyes flicker to Miriam’s striking grays, “at the banquet.”

The blonde smiled, sharp like glass. Her fingers played with the strands of the Pendulum’s hair that she had had her servants encrust with diamonds. Like all things in Miriam’s life, she was a treasure that would be foolish to lose and so she was dressed as such. Diamonds, gold, the red, expensive dress. She was worth millions of credits and yet she had no name. 

“Well ultimately he is not the only one, so that is of no consequence.” There’s a tug on her hair, and the Pendulum meets Miriam's eyes through the mirror. 

“ You are my best kept secret after all.” 

And she is. Miriam had bought her from trader’s on Harlan’s World, “bought” being a stretch, the Bancrofts had slaughtered those people without a second thought. The man, Ketti, had found her in a clone pod owned by the Protectorate. Frozen still by a cryosleep for God knows how long. Her cryopod was encrypted, the code holding the secret of her powers, and yet all that could be garnered was that she was a tool to control the future.  A tool of ultimate control. She was brought out of her thoughts by a hand on the small of her back, Miriam’s eyes glinting in the mirror.

“You are awfully distracted tonight, it is a bad habit that you should really keep track of.” 

A veil was placed over her head, the red fabric obscuring the glittering treasure that waited below it. And so, the procession started. Miriam leading, draped in a sheer satin and gold gown, perfect and immaculate as ever. Laurens was fashioned in a white suit of his own, both as opulent as royalty with a crowd of court jesters who looked to them for importance. The Pendulum’s steps had to be deliberate, small, to make it look as though she was floating on thin air. It was a dance that had been once enjoyed by the Russian people of Earth, and now it was to make her look as ethereal as Miriam promised she was. She could not fuck it up, even if she couldn’t see through the veil, it’s shifting material made everything a blur of white and red. The chatter had stopped to honor the host, and the hosts’ treasure that hid behind almost sheer fabric. She was left in an almost podium like position, the center of room, being gawked at though they could see nothing. 

It was the mystery of it all that they could not help. 

To be fair it wasn’t like she was small, able to hide in the crowd of people in white. She was statuesque. She was tall, even the mass of fabrics was not enough to hide her figure. She was a red statue. The Pendulum was used to prying eyes, it was something that happened in the dark and in the waking world, it was no different if she could see them or not. 

And yet there was something, or someone who was making her body feel strange. The hair at the back of her neck tickled, the sensation of this watcher felt like she was being admired. Like someone was impressed with her being there, and then from thin air, a shadow appeared before her. 

Their breath was sweet through the veil. It smelled of cigarettes and mint, their pheromones were appealing even if they were surrounded by the foul stench of inorganic scents. They were leaning in close, as if they were trying to see her . 

“Are you real ? Are you human?” The watcher asks, his voice full of curiosity. He was observing her like a child discovering a little animal in the underbrush. 

“Yes.” Her voice was soft, whispered, letting him in on a secret. A secret that no one could know. He didn’t move from his proximity to her still figure. His eyes roamed her shrouded figure with unabashed curiosity. He wasn’t satisfied with what he knew, and so he stayed there. 

“Who are you? Do you have a name?” He continues to pester her, his proximity intoxicating with the way his scent is wrapping around her, as if she could even escape. 

“The Pendulum, no other name.” Her voice was soft to his ears, a whisper against his brain, the softness of new snow. It was untouched, unmarred, schooled into calmness that he knew. The voice of a trained soldier. 

Clink Clink 

The sound of a fork tapping glass brought the attention of everyone back to the hosts, a smirk tilting the lips of the man of the house. 

“It’s time to show off your unique item. An item that no one else owns, or can ever obtain.” 

The drone of the guests felt endless, like a loop of white noise. It scrubbed her brain of any thoughts, sent her into a trance like state in which the knowledge of the future made her eye shine through the veil and the watcher looked on with morbid curiosity. 

And then there was a light, a light so bright that it blinded her through the veil. A spotlight shining upon her veiled face. She was a prize being highlighted, being shown off. And then there were hands. Two hands on her hips, delicate, and yet the tips of Miriam’s nails dug through the material of her dress and into her skin. 

“In my very capable hands, I have the last of her kind. A human from Harlan’s World with extraordinary abilities, secret abilities that are for my eyes and my eyes only. An experiment that only the most extraordinary scientists could pull off. The Pendulum, my guiding star.” The pride in the blonde’s voice was noticeable. Obvious. She was in possession of a medium who could tell her the future. A possible key to undeniable success and promised freedom .

And through the veil, the light made her skin shine. It made her hair glint like fire, and her eyes. Her eyes were mismatched, one dark and one light. She was inexplicably captivating. Takeshi couldn’t help but be entranced momentarily before the light was upon him. The eyes were on him, her eyes were on him. Through the light, blue met two puzzle piece eyes and then he could hear again.

“And this is mine, the Last Envoy, Takeshi Kovacs” 

The man, Takeshi Kovacs , was handsome, even if the sleeve he was in was not his. He had an undeniable air of don’t fuck with me that could not escape the Pendulum’s gaze. He was bristling like an animal caged, poised to attack with any more weight being put on his shoulders. His gaze was tortured and full of rage that could not be held in this form alone. He was like one of the monsters that had roamed the planet before stacks were even something to be considered by the world they now knew. Pendulum's heart was racing in her chest, a flush in her cheeks, she felt lightheaded. Her lips trembled with an unknown emotion, a familiarity so strange that could only be described as an understanding. 

Before she could even react, she was being moved. Two pairs of hands held her by the elbows, lifting her to where her feet didn’t touch the ground. She made an effort not to react, holding herself stiff and still between the men that were escorting her to her wing. As she was being carried up to the stairs, her eyes locked with Takeshi’s again, and before she was carried out of sight, she caught his look of fury . 

Takeshi hadn’t felt this infuriated in so long, at least not on someone else’s behalf. It was surprising how the people of this class were so cruel, so selfish. It was so horrifying to see how the woman was not allowed the decency of dismissing herself. She was herded to her “wing,” it was her prison . It was clear to everyone, to Kristin Ortega who watched with disgust, to Vernon Elliot who watched horrified as the woman of the house smirked at the grandiosity of it all. 

And it would be Vernon Elliot who would give her the first taste of freedom. His quest to get footage to find justice for his daughter, to find punishment for those who had harmed Lizzie with impunity. Ultimately, it was the thought of Lizzie that sent him to lurk through the wings of the Bancroft Estate to help the Pendulum escape, though he was not the only one with her freedom in mind. 

The Pendulum was running through the white marbled walls, her stolen boots making little noise on the slick floor. She was no soldier, but her muscles held memories of combat that she could not remember. A gun in her hand looked as though it was being guided by fate itself. That is where Elliot found her. She was cornered, had run out of ammo, and had not foreseen that more guards would pool themselves into the hallway. She had three guards, backing her up against a wall, and each of those were shot in the stack. Blood littered her face, dotting her nose like freckles made roses. 

“Thank you, you saved my life, I don’t know how to repay you-” He held up his gun to stop her speech, wiping his sweat from his brow. He was a gentle looking man, and yet had an undercurrent of protective energy that bolted out of him like lightning. 

“I know, you don’t have to, but listen,” He brings her in close, his hands on her shoulders, holding her still so he could look her square in the eye. Vernon had seen enough of the girls broken by people like the Bancrofts, and he wanted to put a stop to it in any way he could. “You should never allow anyone to own you like that, no one can put a price on your life when you haven’t even lived it.” 

A gentle shove in the direction of the door made her stumble, and the cold steel of keys to a vehicle granted her an escape. Her hair whipped behind her like fire as she took off down the hallway toward the garage. The key to the caterers’ truck, and she climbed in, hiding behind trays and carts full of steel and washed dishes. She ducked down behind food warmers and hot lockers until she felt the stable ground of Earth below her. She escaped, darting through the streets until she reached the edge of the Nightingale slum. The rain felt like peace on her skin, the air was damp and her hair stuck to her forehead. This felt like life, like there was nothing she could not experience. 

“The Pendulum, you didn’t get very far, all things considered.” 

The voice stopped her in her tracks as she turned to find Curtis. Suntouch House’s Head of Security standing in front of her in the rain. In the back of his car was Naomi wearing her mother’s sleeve. 

“Mummy will be sad to hear that her pet tried to run off. She treats you so nicely after all.” And before she could even try to resist, the world around her went dark.

Chapter Text

Takeshi returned to the Raven Hotel after his “visit” to the Wei Clinic with fire in his veins. A virtual torture chamber? How could humans take something meant to show them the stars and the wonders of the world and turn it into something so ugly ? He was almost surprised to see Miriam in his room, had he not sensed her hunger for him in each step he took to get closer to his room. Her hunger coated the hallways,the floor, and with every step he took, her scent became stronger and stronger. It was in his room that he found her, the most powerful Meth’s wife, naked on his bed and waiting. He felt the disgust ripple his skin like the scales on a snake. His body begged him to recoil, to return to the bar downstairs with Elliot and Poe and forget he ever saw her here; before he could even move to decline, however, she was on him. Her fingers pressing to his lips, the wet and warm of the nectar from between Miriam’s leg had enveloped his senses and he was lost to a lust that was not his.

It wasn’t long until the elixir wore off and she was lying spent in his arms. Her eyes and smile reminded him of the cats he had seen as a child, her gray eyes were blown wide. A lazy sadistic smirk curving the edges of her lips. 

“I would ask what made you smile like that but I doubt I want to know.” The flicker of flame lit the end of his cigarette and illuminated his face in the rain soaked darkness of his room. The flicker of moonlight and holo ads streamed across his room like the endless trails of rockets humanity had left behind. The neon yellows and blues drifted over his face like clouds over the moon, and his cigarette was a star in the dark.

Miriam’s body shifted at his side as she settled on his chest. Her skin was no longer slick with the drug that made Takeshi lose control of all of his motor functions. He met her eyes once more as her smile became more and more off putting .

“One of my favorite little toys tried to run away today. Cost me quite a bit of money and some security detail, actually. If it wasn’t because she incapacitated most of them instead of killing them would I have thought it was you who tried to help her, Takeshi- san .” Miriam’s silver tipped fingers drew mindless patterns over the scar tissue, and the plains of his chest. 

“I have no reason to poke around your things Miriam, you should probably keep a tighter lock on your clones, though.” He takes a long drag from his cigarette, looking at her intently, his eyes searching her face for a hint of fear or maybe regret, there was none. 

“Oh I’ve solved that problem already, Naomi can be an obedient little thing if I keep her desires sated. If I keep her little plaything employed. she is kept happy and fucked, it doesn’t take a scientist to solve that equation. She keeps Laurens off my back and I can come see you.” She taps his nose with what could be considered affection, yet Takeshi doesn’t delude himself into thinking that she cares about him. 

“And how is Naomi doing that for you?” His voice could be described as polite interest, his lungs filling with the smoke that made his head spin. However, when she spoke, his blood ran cold. A vision of the woman bathed in red, up in her ivory castle. There was something curling itself around his heart, and he wasn’t entirely sure what, but he knew that he couldn’t lay next to Miriam any longer. 

“By punishing my naughty little toy that ran away.”

The foyer of the Bancroft manner was lively for the time of night. It wasn’t odd for parties to go far into the night, but the Head of Suntouch House wasn’t home. The rest of the wings were empty, the silence causing moans to echo through the house.Said foyer was alight with soft fire light, the warmth emanating from the fireplace spread to every corner of the room. The ivory walls were tinged red, the gloss glinting in the light. The Pendulum was on her knees, arms tied out in front of her. She was nearly naked, save for her underwear, kneeling before Curtis and Naomi, who was still occupying her mother’s sleeve. The sadism that radiated from her would have fooled the Pendulum into thinking that she was facing Miriam herself; she had overheard, however, that Miriam was with the Envoy and that in trade for not putting her on ice, Naomi had promised to help keep Laurens at bay, should he come back. 

She was also tasked with finding a suitable punishment for the Pendulum, and punishment was Naomi’s middle name. There was a bed of nails under the Pendulum’s legs, forcing her to balance her weight so she wouldn’t impale her knees. This was only something trained professionals could do, and the Pendulum was not. The fear that coursed through the Pendulum’s veins was like a fog that filled the room, and Naomi was delighted. She loved to watch helpless creatures gnaw their own legs off to escape. 

“It was only your bad luck and your foolishness, really, that you didn’t get dear old mummy’s punishments but instead you got mine.” Naomi panted out between moans of pleasure. Curtis was behind her, pounding into Naomi like there was no tomorrow to wake up to. He was under her toxic spell, it was obvious. The sweat dripped down his forehead, sliding down the side of his face; a scene which the Pendulum was forced to watch. It was uncomfortable, the air was thick with fear and sex, it smelled like tears and sweat; the Pendulum was in agony. The nails had begun to prick her skin, the blood dripping down the metal points and onto the floor below. As Naomi got fucked, she couldn’t help but smile in unabashed glee.

“Well, well, well, is this what the mice do when the cat's away?” the voice of their god put fear in their souls. Laurens was back! Naomi struggled to her feet, Curtis shying away from the scene, or at least he tried. Laurens Bancroft was everything people said about him, but he was not unobservant. A look from his eyes, a simple peek of his controlled fury, made Curtis stop moving. His cock still hanging out of his pants, he seemed sweatier than before, slick with it almost. 

Naomi went to speak, and she, too, was silenced with a simple raise of a finger. It was the first time that the Pendulum had seen fear flash across Miriam’s fair face, though it was not her wearing it. Laurens leant down, a knife in his hand, and cut the rope binding the Pendulum’s wrists. As if he wasn’t the richest man in the world, and she wasn’t a piece of property to his family, he lifted her up and out of the bed of nails. 

“It seems like everyone is misbehaving and trying to point fingers at someone else,” He smiles serenely at the Pendulum, as if she hadn't just been tortured by one of his offspring. His face is calm, save for his eyes, the darkness of them was deeper than she had ever seen them. Instead of pupils, there were embers, smoldering and charring. “You and I, my dear, have business to attend to. I will be with you in a second, go clean yourself up, gather any items you find meaningful from your cell , and meet me in my study.” 

It was the first time her wing had been called what it was, and the Pendulum felt like an abandoned orphan left on the side of the road. What had stopped him before from mentioning that she was truly a prisoner ? The Pendulum averted her eyes, instead she focused on her feet as she hurried to do as Laurens asked. Laurens never asked for anything in the time that she had lived with his family, he had always demanded that everything be bent to his will. If a supernova was due to explode, and it didn’t wait for him, he would manipulate time for it to work in his favor. This was a nicety she was not sure she would ever experience again. 

She gathered nothing from her room, afraid that if she did, Miriam would find a way to find her. The wounds on her legs were still bleeding, and they stung when she cleaned the punctures with water from the sink. With her wounds taken care of, she painfully slid herself into her stolen pair of pants, shirt, and jacket she had gotten from the guards the previous night. Her walk to study was more of a shuffle, nothing compared to the run that she had done through these very same hallways. The doors to the study were wide open, a haunting tune playing from inside. “God” was there, waiting for her, his fingers steepled over his lips. He looked lost in thought, and yet he met her eyes as soon as she walked in. 

“I’m sure you are surprised to be talking to me alone, however, this is a conversation that I am going to be having only once.” He motions for her to sit, and she does, more so out of fear than obedience. Though she guesses there was not much of a difference between either. “I am setting you free. What happens to you I don’t care about, frankly, I just want you out of my house.”

“Lady Bancroft will track me again.” Her voice is cautious, though the fact is obvious. Laurens didn’t shy away from tracking his children, so he had to know that her skin had the same biotracker that the Protectorate used on their soldiers. He had to be aware of that. 

“Which is why I am giving you a new sleeve.” He states it as though it is an obvious fact. As if he hadn’t thrown people out onto the ground and left them to fend for themselves with no resources. He was pretending that he was a benevolent god, and yet, to the Pendulum, it seemed like he was more of a child with an ant farm. “Not only that, you have a lifetime of credits, and a new identity when you get to the ground. I want you out of my house. My wife pretends she can play god, yet she forgets that I am here forever, and so is she.”

The Pendulum continued to look at him, her confusion was plain on her face, and that is when he laughed. Her heart sank, of course it was a joke, she thought to herself. There was no way that she would be set free so easily. 

“This is the most emotion I’ve seen on your face in the years you have lived with us, child,” he clears his throat, “my driver will take you to Psychasech and from then to Bridgetown. You will be no one on the streets, I will make sure that we can never find you, though I suspect you will take care of that yourself. Say you understand so I know Naomi hasn’t truly damaged you.”

“I understand, Lord Bancroft.” 

When she awoke in her new life, her body didn’t feel any different other than the pain of her torture no longer existed on her skin. The doctors fussed about her for a second, and then she was being hoisted to her feet. There was a small mirror in the room she was given. Like a baby deer, she makes her way to the small sink. Her hands clenching around the edge, as she met her eyes through the mirror. 

Her world tilted as she met her eyes in the body of someone else. This new sleeve had dark brown hair in loose curls falling to her shoulders, her skin was like the sun was within her. She was no longer as tall as she had once been, but her head still cleared the small vanity. There was a leanness to her, muscles still present in her arms, but she could not deny there was a softness to her body. Her eyes had stayed the same, though, and that calmed her in the slightest. 

 The people at Psychasech let her bathe, giving her a room and a timer, telling her she was on borrowed time. She emerged clothed in military cargo pants, a long sleeve black shirt, and a long leather coat with a hood attached. It was the only clothes that she had been given by Laurens’s people. The hood would hide her face, yet everything was becoming a price that she did not know how she would end up paying. 

The entrance to the Nightingale slums of Bridgetown were covered in some sort of red flower. It was beautiful, growing up and down the gates that walled the small compound she had only briefly seen the other night. She was distracted, the ONI in her eye made different ads appear where there were previously none. It was overwhelming, her senses were being overtaken by the smell of the night air, the rain, the flowers, the ads, the sound of life moving at its natural pace. She was so distracted by the newness of the night that she didn’t notice the shadow approaching her from behind. A hand wrapped around her throat, fingers pressing into her windpipe, attempting to cut off her airways. Her eyes widened, spine straightening as someone’s lips brushed against her ear.

“What’s a sweet thing like you doing on the streets? You should be in Lick Town, sweetheart.” She could feel exactly what Lick Town insinuated against the swell of her ass. The rage and disgust tossed and turned within her like tidal waves against a shore. Her muscles acted before her mind guided the sinews of her arms. She sent her elbow into his ribs with all of her strength, hearing a shuddering crack within his chest. His grip on her throat loosened as he went to shelter his ribs, but it was too late. Her hands gripped his skull and with a kick she sent him flying into the flowers. Her chest was heaving with realization of what had just occurred, the flowers began to wrap themselves around the man’s throat, wrists and torso, they shackled him to the ground. At first glance, it seemed like he was just writhing in the flowers, smelling them and such, it was only when the Pendulum looked closer that she realized they were eating him. His eyes had filled with blood as vines found their way through his nose. It was a morbidly beautiful sight, his blood was watering the flowers, their vines becoming thicker with every second. 

“You’re lucky you didn’t get caught in that, lady.” The Pendulum’s head whipped around so fast that she almost fell over, startled. The voice had seemingly come from nowhere, and yet just a few paces away was the first child that the Pendulum had in contact with in this life. The child had a shaved head with a stack hanging from each of his ears. Like all things around this part of the city, as the Pendulum noticed, the child was built to survive. It was easy to see the many scars that littered his arms and legs, and so the Pendulum was unsure of what to do.

“Are you an Avox? I heard their tongues got removed and they eat the insides of bad kids. That’s what my mom used to tell me, anyway.” The kid had come closer instead, looking down at the quickly disappearing body of the man that the Pendulum had fought. 

“No, I can talk, I just haven’t been around very many people in my life.” Pendulum squatted down to look closer at the flowers while maintaining a slight distance from the kid.

“Yeah me neither, my parents passed away when I was six,” the child did a slight cartwheel away from where they had been looking at the plants eating flesh. He turned back to look at her with a thoughtful look on his face. “You wanna pretend to be siblings?”

Chapter Text

“Siblings? You would trust someone you just met that much?” Pendulum’s eyes narrow, taking in his earnest face. She hadn’t met many real people in her current life, and had little memories of the life before the cryopod. There would be moments where it felt like she was possessed, pains bloomed where no wounds had ever been. Combat was in her blood, coursing through her veins though she had no scars. 

“Yeah, you don’t seem to be knowledgeable about where you are, so there’s like… not much you could ever pull over me.” He grins, as if he hadn’t just kind of insulted her intelligence, and extends his hand out to her like they are in a business meeting. “My name is Nobody, but the ladies call me Bod.”

With an arched brow, and slight disbelief, the Pendulum shook Nobody’s hand. She was a head taller than him, and it was funny how seriously he was taking this proposition. He didn’t seem any older than twelve, and yet his eyes spoke of a wisdom that ran deeper than the surface. 

“What ladies exactly?” Her eyebrow remained raised as he sputtered for a second, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. He looked at her in unadulterated disbelief before he smoothed his orange shirt with his hands. 

“You’ve got the job, can you fill the position of older sister immediately?” 

Laughter escaped both of them, feelings of joy filling the space between them. It was the first time that she was allowed joy, and she didn’t want the feeling to disappear. Bod led her to his small shack, there were gadgets and other robotics littering the table. There were models of hands and arms propped on mannequins. Robotic eyes in jars were displayed on the shelves, blinking as Bod walked past. The workshop was a cluttered mess, and Pendulum had to step over crawling hands and twitching legs until they got to the upstairs.

The stairs were rickety and obviously hadn’t been kept since Bod’s parents had died, or that is what she assumed. The door to the upstairs was nothing but a ship door that had been repurposed. The floor was covered in rugs of different patterns, which differed from the walls that were a solid gray. There was a couch with a patchwork cover over it. The inside was lit by soft little yellow lights. There were books strewn across the room, and in the kitchen a pile of dishes in the sink. 

“Don’t look at that!” Bod threw his hands out in front of her face and another laugh left her lips as she covered her eyes with her hands. She let Bod lead her down a hallway until they stopped. 

“This was my friend Horacio’s sister’s room. She died before he was born, so you can stay here. I’ll be in Horacio’s old room down the hall.” He pointed at a wooden door with flowers engraved into the wood. There seemed to be a name engraved there once, but it was scratched away to be illegible. The Pendulum lingered by the door, her hand on the door to her new room, before pushing it open slowly. 

The walls were covered in posters of lands and animals that she had never seen before, the walls covered in a thick layer of dust from being unoccupied; dust had settled on the bed as well, making the purple bedspread look dull. The Pendulum got to work cleaning, gathering the items that were deemed unusable into a corner, stripping the bed, and checking out the drawers and boxes all over the floor. It had seemed that whoever Horacio’s sister was, she had passed away around the Pendulum’s age. The woman’s  clothes fit well on the Pendulum’s body. 

“What’s your name anyway?” Bod’s voice came through the door, she could tell he was sitting on the floor across from the door. She had noticed, when they stepped through the threshold, that her senses had gotten sharper. It was eerie the way that the layout of the shack enveloped all of her senses. She could sense the people walking past the door, the tinkling of the leaking faucet in the kitchen, and sounds of the different bots that skittered around the shop. 

“What is the name of the flowers we saw outside?” She slid her fingers along the material of what seemed to be a raincoat. The slick, black material was comforting to her for some reason, taking it off of the hook. She held it in her hands before sliding it on. It slid on like a second skin, before the material blended into the scenery behind her. 

“They’re called Blood Pitchers, but my sister once told me that the scientific name is Drosera Anglica. They once only ate little bugs but because of the mess that they put in the water and the ground, they developed a taste for human flesh, and now they’re as big as a little kid.” His voice was so matter of fact, like he was reciting a speech he had heard millions of times. 

“Then my name is Drosera.” She opened the door to face Bod, he gave her a thumbs up. The stacks hanging from his ears tinkling with every nod. He pretended to think for a second.

“Since you’re my sister, can I call you Sera?” A warmth bloomed in her chest, she couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips. 

“Sure.”

They walked through the crowded streets of Bay City, the smells of the city invading her nose. It was crowded, raining, and the neon signs shone in her eyes. This city was bustling with life, vehicles flying above them. Bod’s pinky wrapped around hers as they walked in effort to keep track of her as she wandered as if she was blind. 

Kristin Ortega was having a hard time looking at Kovac’s face. She still was not used to seeing Ryker, smelling him, hearing him speak, and have it not be him. The feelings that filled her chest were not forgotten, and though this was definitely not her Ryker, she would pretend. Kristin would live in the delusion that it was him standing next to her, investigating like all the times they had before. His tall frame looming behind her through the ever present rain. 

They waded through the throngs of people, his presence a comfort to her, until it’s suddenly gone. Her lips smack against her teeth as she turns on her heel, her eyes searching the masses for Ry- Kovacs. She finally spots him frozen, his eyes trained on something she could not see.Then , like the stories of Moses that she had heard as a kid, the waves of people seemed to split, revealing what Kovacs had been looking at. 

Sera was enamored by the city. There was very little that wouldn’t excite her after a year of confinement above the clouds. Anything would be a freedom to a bird locked in a cage. Her eyes traced every crevice, every crook, every cranny. 

Takeshi was frozen, the woman before him bore no resemblance to the one he had seen in the clutches of Miriam Bancroft. She was no longer his height, only a few inches shorter that he could see. Her red hair was gone, replaced with hair so dark it was almost black. Her hair fell in loose curls that reached her chin, the left side was now shaved. A tattoo of a snake coiled to strike refracted the lights of the city softly. Her eyes met his, magnetized by his stature in the river of bodies that bent around them. Her eyes were the same as when he had first seen her. One brown and one green, the memory of running through the forest played in his mind's eye, those colors blurring around him now made the city blur around her. 

There was no way it was her… but her eyes shone with recognition he could not miss. He was diving forward, splitting through people with the grace of a swimmer. She was frozen in place, Bod’s fingers now wrapping around her wrist, pulling her behind him, though she cleared the top of his head easily. Bod glared at the approaching stranger, his eyes fierce as he took him in. 

“Whaddaya want?” Bod spoke first, trying to make his voice deeper though he barely cleared Takeshi’s shoulder. The boy looked up at Takeshi with eyes that were unwavering, and he was almost impressed at his commitment to protecting the woman behind him. 

“I was wondering if I could borrow your friend here for a chat,” his voice was nonchalant, even as he felt Ortega’s eyes drilling holes into the back of his head. The boy looked at the Pendulum, as Takeshi had come to know her, almost as if checking that it was okay. Takeshi watched them, the way she rubbed the top of his head comfortingly. The way the kid didn’t even go far, just stood back to back with her. It reminded him of himself and Reileen. 

“Not to second Bod here, but what do you want?” Her voice was different too, deeper than it had been before, a slight rasp decorating the edges of the words she said. He shrugged, lighting a cigarette, trying to keep his eyes from lingering on her face for too long. 

“Just wanted to know if it was actually you, I had heard that Naomi had you like the cat playing with a canary. Didn’t know people usually made it out of that scot free.” His eyes gazed down at hers again. She shrugged, the rigidness confirming that she did not make it out unscathed. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice was hard, and he saw the dark eyes of Bod peering around her side, menacingly. He shrugged again, this shrug was less casual. Sera glared up at him, his eyes appearing a soft gold under the many colored lights. 

“I dunno, I knew a girl who had eyes strangely like yours, and then she disappeared all of a sudden,” He leaned in, smoke curling around the corner of his lips. “I think you miiight be her.” 

Their eyes met on equal planes, and then suddenly he pulled back. He shook his head, a smirk curling like the smoke around him. He turned his back, walking back to a very obviously pissed Ortega. He waved at the Pendulum briefly, not even turning to face her all the way. 

“I’ll see you later, not that girl.”