The Frisbee did not return and they did not return to the Frisbee. Inside the Balcony Cliffs, they sprawled across the same worn bed. Falling into another type of exploration and of play. The sense of completeness that was being overwhelmed, of being held tight and surrounded by Moss. Of how Chen rose like a mountain no matter what he did. How Grayson’s sharpness reduced under her clothes to a softness, a vulnerability, and she allowed herself to relax in their embrace.

“What would you have done if not for this?” Moss asked Grayson. If the Earth had not been so wounded. If the Company hadn’t destroyed so much.

“I would have come searching for you at the tidal pools.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t know to. You wouldn’t know me. You wouldn’t stumble on me by chance.”

“Somehow, I would have.”

The three knew they were disposable and finite and vulnerable. But they also knew they were rare and precious. Had never appeared at the outskirts of the City and strode across the desert sands to meet their doubles, stare into their eyes as if into a mirror, and see, naked there, a similar intent.

“And you, Moss?” asked Chen.

“I would have lived out my days by the sea. I would have been alone in my thoughts. I would have cut myself off from everyone or anyone.”

Grayson was glad, for she knew that if she ever died, Moss might go back to her tidal pools.

“And you, Chen?” Grayson asked.

“It doesn’t matter what I would have done. Only what I did,” Chen said. But they knew he didn’t mean it, just that Chen did not want to have a future that did not include Grayson, Moss, their purpose.

Limbs that couldn’t be separated, didn’t want to be separated, were not always human but more right because of it. How Moss’s kisses came from everywhere. How Chen became so giddy and silly. How Grayson’s urgency became their urgency. Held by so many and so much and never being alone, separate again, and the loss in the withdrawal of the tide, and how they would long for the next time, and how it made a mockery of the communion mind-to-mind that they always shared. How you could never trade the physical for the intimacy of thought. How this might be the last time.

Moss would tell them in the morning, would explain in the morning. As they stood outside, looking down at the Company building.

Maybe they would understand.

Somewhere, in another City, a Frisbee had clattered on rock, come to soft scrunch on sand. Somewhere, a child’s ball, kicked, had disappeared in midair.

The child changed forever. Believing in spirits or miracles or in loss or transformation. Or maybe believing in nothing at all.

Then the door closed and Moss was just in one place, one time, again. Sprawled there on the bed.