And he was now in the custody of Crock o’ Shit. Fidelis. A heroine who had abandoned or lost everything good about herself. She had gone after a crime boss as a hero, lost her heroism along the way. By the end of that particular journey, she found him, ate a third of him, starting at the genitals and ending at the throat, and then left the mangled body on the floor for the first twenty-four hours she conducted business thereafter, taking over his position.

She had been arrested a few years after, then went to the Birdcage, which was probably the worst place for her. Placed under Black Kaze, if he remembered right.

The worst place for her. Any prisoner picked up bad traits and habits, defensiveness and a loss of faith in the system from their time inside. She was particularly vulnerable, with the way she absorbed dishonesty and ugliness, making it manifest in the form she wore.

He felt for his phone in his pocket, and he wanted to find an excuse to reach out. Instead, he could only hope it worked when he needed it to, if he had a free moment.

And there were no guarantees.

“What are you getting out of this?”

“Out of what? Walking you to a prison cell?”

He looked back over his shoulder at her, and saw her smile, toothy.

“Working under a boy pretending to be an adult and a healer. Living in a strange world. Doing menial errands.”

“They let me eat the leftovers when they fuck up a healing or experiment.”

“Leftovers? They—”

“A joke,” she said, with no humor. “They experiment on dolls. Brainless human bodies made to supply organs and tissue. I’m their dog, drooling and wagging its shitty tail, eating off the floor when they make a mess.”

“Why refer to yourself like that?”

“Because I don’t care,” she told him. “I have servants and drugs, booze…”

“That’s not a life.”

“It’s my life,” she retorted.

“Aren’t you better than that? You had status as a Protectorate hero. People fought to have you on their teams. Watchdog wanted you.”

“Status isn’t important to me.”

“Crock o’ Shit. Fidelis—”

“You sound desperate,” she told him, laying a hand on his shoulder. When he looked, he could see the fingers were wider apart and longer than they should be, the knuckles pronounced. She leaned in close, whispering, “I know why. They tipped you off. It doesn’t matter.”

They reached an intersection as she finished talking, and she gave him a shove on one shoulder.

There were PRT directors who came from the army. There were ones who came from the FBI. Some were ex-CIA, others politicians, and still others graduated from squaddie to captain and kept gaining ranks until they ran a department.

Some of those, many of those, they could have fended for themselves here, found a way to get a gun and use it.