Gara took Andrea as far as the checkpoint and turned to go home to Midge. Andrea hadn't blamed her for that. All of the image had fallen, just as Tanner had warned that it might. That didn't matter so much, either. The busy people of the tunnel did glance at Andrea now and again, but most seemed too preoccupied with the hustle and bustle to pay her any mind.

The crowd swallowed Gara up as the smaller woman made her way home and Andrea felt lost and afraid. This was the first time in her life that she had felt alone. She turned to look at the thick steel door bearing the Colony's insignia.

Andrea felt uneasy being out in the public, but not for the usual reasons. Now when people glanced at her twice, she wondered if there was a big stamp on her forehead reading "screwed up" or "my family is twisted and the only person who ever gave me any value was evil." She hadn't even noticed that a line had formed behind her until she looked back and saw the crowd.

As soon as she put her hand against the cold surface, the door slid back, and she peered into the belly of a new world. It took a minute more for people to realize she wasn't supposed to be standing there; she was just an ass.

Some even grumbled as much as they shoved her aside. Rather than draw more attention to herself, she kept close to the wall and looked around. It took one hour of spinning in the wrong direction before Andrea found herself sitting across from a very busy-looking elderly woman. Despite the lady's sixty-something years, she typed fast on the interface, affording Andrea a glance now and then.

"Miss, are you in any way hard of hearing or mentally impaired?" she asked.

Andrea sat with her hands in her lap. The chair was too small, or rather she was too big, and she hoped the woman wouldn't stare at her because of it.

"N-no, ma'am."

"Then why is it you cannot give me your name?"

Andrea didn't answer; she didn't know why it was now so difficult to utter any name that reminded her of the others in her family before her. She didn't want to be associated with them.

After a while the woman sat up and stopped working. "Very well. Please show me your branding tattoo, and we shall go from there."

A shadow fell over Andrea, and her stomach tightened. Try as she might, she couldn't bring herself to show her bare arms. Ever since her twenty-first birthday, she'd worn not only long-sleeved shirts, but also extra layers if she could.

The woman read her loud and clear. Eyes fixed on the table, Andrea waited, wondering if she'd at least die fast Topside.

"Are you aware of the penalty for living untattooed?" The voice held a note of warning.

Andrea nodded, whispering, "Topside."

"Is that your preference?"

The way the woman said it made Andrea feel like she had a choice.

"What's the alternative?" Andrea asked, picking her head up.

"Well, it is one month in Cerberus, or the top, yes. Unless you were honestly unaware of the rules or there were dire circumstances. Being held against your will, for example. You can argue that."

The woman's voice shook, so Andrea decided to look at her, to see the disgust. Disgust with Andrea's body, her family, with the parasite that was Johann Andreas the Fourth.

When Andrea did look at the woman, sweat rolled down the wrinkled skin. Her hands were also under the desk, and Andrea wrinkled her brow, wondering what the lady was up to.

"Ma'am, what are you doing?"

The door slid back, causing Andrea to jump up out of her seat, and within seconds she found a large cannon before her face.

"ELETE! Hands up."

But Andrea couldn't move; she was frozen to the spot. She managed to rotate her head, however, only to find that the woman also had a gun pointed at her. All Andrea could think was that she had to give her credit because that was a really big gun for such a small woman.

A voice came from behind the cannon. "Topsider, what is your designation?"

Andrea looked around, confused, only to find that she was the one being referred to as a Topsider. Her hands flew up.

"I'm no Topsider!" The cannon didn't lower, and Andrea began to sweat. "I'm not a Topsider. My name is Andrea. Johann Andreas N. the Fourth. I'm from the Belly."

"The Belly?" It took some time for the cannon to lower, but it finally did. "You're from the Bauch section?"

Andrea gasped. "Harris. You're Harris."

The first thing she thought of when Harris stood with the cannon at his side was how Harris surpassed even Tanner in muscle. He didn't surpass the E in height, though. Harris was even shorter than Andrea's own five-foot-eight frame. The ELETE was young, however, in his early twenties. And Andrea knew that just like Tanner, Harris was biracial. Andrea knew everything about Harris.

A moment later the elderly woman let out a held breath and lowered her own gun. "What a way to start the morning. What the hell?" There was a whining sound from the weapon, and Andrea figured it was charging down.

Harris was less than pleased when he turned to the Colony official. "You called ELETE to bust a rich kid?"

"A rich kid? She wouldn't answer, and she doesn't have a tattoo. Of course I called ELETE. I mean...." Andrea appreciated that the woman at least used her free hand and not the one with the weapon when she gestured. "Look at her. What was I supposed to do, take a chance that she wouldn't pounce on me or—"

"You know what, may an imp piss on your graves." Andrea barely recognized her own voice. The vitriol in it reminded her of Marian. She was serious though, and she looked between the two people, who stood sheepish despite the fact that they were both heavily armed. "I'm a human being, you impshit bastards. How about you try acting like one and affording me some dignity. I don't point a gun to your head and belittle you. So as far as the 'disgusting human being' meter goes, I'm still a hell of a lot higher up than you two."

They looked at her, and the elderly woman blinked as she stepped back to take Andrea in.

"Wait, so you're actually just fat?"

Andrea didn't answer; instead she stared at the woman in hate, willing the dingbat to die.

With a sigh of relief, the woman sat down. "That's fine. Why didn't you just say so? So no tattoo, then. I'll call the guards."

Harris was still there, and Andrea felt the eyes on her. She glanced to the ELETE now and again, feeling small despite her size. Being picked on by everyone else was one thing; being mentally beaten by someone she respected would sting a lot more. She wasn't sure she could survive being verbally beaten by Harris.

She noticed something, though, as she appraised Harris's body. "Hey, you don't have a tattoo."

After looking down at his own bare arms, Harris regarded Andrea again. "I'm an Assist. We don't get tattooed."

Andrea's jaw dropped. "We don't?"

Harris studied her and shook his head. "Nah, we don't. The DNA sequence of a Colony brand is purely symbolic, but it is left over from the original versions of the tattoo. And any DNA they put in would create a mental bond with E's. One DNA sequence is bad enough, but Colony tattoos hold several. It's hell for E's. It just messes them up."

"But...." Andrea looked at Harris's arms, and to the stern face and the unfriendly scowl there. "But it'd be on us, not on them."

"And they'll have to bond with us, and contend with not only our thoughts but those of the shitload of DNA mucking about. The System scans all citizens who try to take on a Colony brand; if they are discovered to be Assists, they can opt for a business or marriage branding if they really want. Better to have one extra DNA instead of ten. The ideal is to never get a tattoo, period." Harris raised his right hand to flash the silver band on his ring finger. "That's why we get rings."

His hazel eyes zeroed in on Andrea's hands. Making a fist, Andrea covered her right hand with her left. She didn't have a ring. She wouldn't have cared usually, but right now she felt more self-conscious about that than her body.

Harris's brow wrinkled in disgust. "Who the hell taught you? Why don't you know anything?"

"No one," Andrea admitted as she sat. "I wouldn't let anyone."

"Yeah, well, your E's pretty useless if he couldn't even tell you all that."

Andrea couldn't say with certainty where she got off challenging an ELETE guard, but she looked at Harris in all seriousness. "My E is not useless." When Harris offered no rebuttal, Andrea sat back in her chair and grumbled, "He's a great person."

"So great that he hasn't trained you. And he's let you lose muscle and tone."

"He didn't let me do anything. I'm grown. I chose what I wanted, just like I'm choosing to ignore you."

Harris nodded. "Fine. If you intend to remain this big—"

"Intend." Andrea heard the hurt in her own voice. "What do you mean intend? As if I'd planned on it."

"Well, you haven't changed it."

"I can't change it. I've tried."

"Why the heck not? Are you infirm?" Andrea stared ahead, and Harris waited a while before speaking again. "And imps don't shit, by the way."

Andrea looked at the ELETE. "What?"

"They don't shit, and they don't pee. You think I'm giving you this 'drop dead, you rich idiot' look because you're overweight. I don't give a crap about that. I'm heading back to work, but I'll say this before I go. For someone who probably gets a lot of shit based off appearances, you don't seem all that sympathetic to imps. They're people. They talk, they feel, and they have feelings. Using an insult with the word 'imp' in it doesn't make it stronger; it makes you an asshole. So maybe you don't want to change your body, and who cares if you don't. It's yours; do whatever the heck you want with it. But bad-mouthing imps resonates, and it's people like you who make it hard for them to be seen as anything but beasts." Harris grumbled under his breath before opening the door and walking out, "You bigot."

With a soft groan, Andrea rubbed her temples and slouched. "Great. Now I'm a bigot, too."

"Don't mind him." The woman tapped on the interface and sat up. "He's just trying to head that equal opportunity campaign. Asking that we allow imps into the main parts of the Colony to find work." She shuddered. "That would be a cold day in hell. I'll take Topsiders any day."

Andrea considered the words, and although she would have cringed on any normal day—hell, she would have cringed two minutes ago—now she felt sad about that stance.

"But some Topsiders eat other humans. And imps eat humans. How are they different exactly? I would imagine that either would be unpleasant. Because that was your worry, right? When you thought I was from the top. That I had eaten someone before I got here?"

"What?" The woman sighed. "Not everything is about your weight, ma'am. My worry was that you were holding an image, and that excess on you was either weaponry or narcotics."

"But wouldn't an image make me look smaller if I was hiding something?"

She laughed. "Sure. But if you look like you're sixty kilos yet you weigh eighty if you're ever at a checkpoint like this one here, people'll realize right away that you're hiding weapons or drugs. The safest thing is to be big from the start."

Andrea sat up, stunned that Tanner had been right. She'd always thought people looked at her, disgusted by her lack of self-control—and it was true, a lot had— but she'd never allowed herself to believe that someone could be afraid of her. Her, meek and weak Andrea.

Something else caught her attention; the official had called her "ma'am." The woman also tried to fix her hair back up and put it into a bun.

"Now, let's see about getting you a job of sorts. I'm very sorry that we can't take your lineage into account. It's terribly unfair."

Terribly unfair? Who talks like that?

"But I'm having a really good year. You're the second noblewoman I've had the pleasure of assigning." Her slender face lit up. "The first one was Lydia Garran herself. Sitting right there in your very seat. She was taller than I thought she would be, and oh, oh, the charm."

She gushed some more as she motioned her hands forward and the interface before Andrea came to life.

"Now, don't mind the ELETE with his nonsense. Quite a number of nobles leave their names behind. Well, I've heard, but I've only met the two since working here. You don't have to do any backbreaking work. Any talent you might have for the arts would be greatly appreciated. In fact, you could easily secure a job at training as a teacher. Do you perform? Like singing, or...." She paused and smiled.

Andrea realized that her expression must have given her away.

"I knew it. You sing. I've got some great openings—"

"No." Andrea spoke up, finally. "I don't sing. I don't do anything." And then Andrea saw it: that eager smile withered up, and the woman sat back as if she'd stumbled upon impshi—stumbled upon dung instead of the treasure she'd thought. Andrea waited for her to say something, but instead the official frowned, resentful for having used her "proper" manners for the likes of Andrea. "What did Gara...Ms. Garran decide on?"

With that the woman's features softened and she eased forward. "Sadly, all that talent wasted. She entered as a guard. But you don't need that, ma'am. We can find you something else—"

"Why couldn't I do it?" Andrea stared her down, challenging her to say what she thought. "Why couldn't I be a guard, too? Why couldn't I even be ELETE?" At the sudden snorted laugh, Andrea asked, "What?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Pardon me, ma'am. I will see if there are any desk jobs. Some offices might do well with your prestige. If anything, the languages you can—"

"Mark me as a gaw-ro guard."

She'd said it so sternly that the woman lost all color. A shaky three minutes later, Andrea snatched a diskette handed to her. She stood and marched out of that room, not even knowing where she was supposed to go.

***

One hour later, she regretted her brash decision.

"Get on the scale," the guttural voice said.

Andrea felt cold as she looked down at herself. When she had been instructed to strip, she'd refused, but finally she'd been allowed to keep her underclothes. But now this, the injustice of having to weigh herself in front of her peers.

She wouldn't budge, so her supervisor, a graying fifty-something man with a slight beer gut, growled, "You either get on it, or I'm personally going to put you on it."

Deep down Andrea did want to move. She'd told her feet again and again to move. She'd meant to, but she couldn't. Of course standing there like that meant she was drawing even more attention.

"Fine. Reprimand. Get outta the line."

Andrea picked up her clothes as well as her dignity from the floor and began to dress. She stepped out of line to do so, and she was surprised to catch sight of something she'd never seen before. One of the men—naked as the rest of them—had one arm.

The discovery was startling, and Andrea looked around to see if anyone else thought it was strange. Never in her life had she seen someone with a missing limb.

She'd known her grandfather was responsible for Gulliver's severed tongue. There was no other explanation as to why her mother, who was always protective of Gulliver, didn't just offer to have an E with medical knowledge come in. Just like Queen had healed Andrea's burn, a skilled and powerful E could probably fix it without touching the man, without the trade-off. And if that didn't work, the Colony could repair it themselves. But never, not even once, had Marian offered. At the time Andrea had seen it as more proof that her mother was cruel, but now she could admit the truth. It had been her grandfather's decree, and there would have been no way to defy him and get away with it. Andrea might have been able to, but Marian couldn't. Who knew if they could afford the correction now, with the family name being reduced to nothing.

Once Andrea came back from her thoughts, her clothes still held out before her, she looked around her and confirmed her suspicions. It was strange. It was stranger than strange because others stopped to nod to it or point. Despite the whispers, the man stepped up on the scale, keeping his head high.

Andrea watched as the redhead took back his designated diskette and went to the next appointed area.

To her own shock, Andrea found herself hurrying to the front of the line.

"Hey, get back in queue, tubby," someone called.

She wasn't sure who had said it, and she thought to back down, but when her supervisor saw her and smiled, she changed her mind. The man looked...proud. Andrea pushed her way to the front, then took a deep breath and stepped on.

Despite the taunts behind her, the middle-aged man gave her a satisfied smile and handed the diskette over.

"Welcome to the guards." His smile faded after a moment. "Now get your fat imp ass to the other line. We don't got all day."

The admonishment didn't sting as much as it usually did, but Andrea paused before following orders.

"Sir, I'll get my fat ass over there just fine. No need to bring the poor imps into this."

She garnered a chuckle as she padded over to the next line.

Three hours later she was sitting in front of another desk. The guard across from her was of Asian descent; that much she could tell. She recognized the old Australian accent, too.

"Right then, what can you do?"

Andrea had felt good when she had arrived there, but in time her posture drooped.

"Um...n-nothing really."

"Nothing." The man looked at her as if she'd come in there in a clown costume. "We can all do something."

"Not me. You have your work cut out for you because I can't do anything."

The guard's dark eyes appraised her. "Well, do you have two arms?" Andrea wondered if it was a dig on the cadet she'd seen, but she nodded. "And do your bloody fingers work?" She nodded again, harder, and the man handed her diskette back to her. "Then bloody hell, you can do something. Here. You're on garbage detail. Register for some classes, no less than five, and go."

***

A month later Andrea was back in that same compound, in that same weight line, but with a prouder smile and a slimmer frame. It wasn't a huge contrast to how she was the month before, but she had lost a considerable amount of weight.

When she stepped on the scale and didn't hear her colleagues whispering, she felt good. But when she saw her middle-aged supervisor's grim frown, she was surprised.

"What?"

The man looked pale. "You've lost nearly ten kilos."

Andrea pushed out her chest with a smile. "I know. It's good, right?"

"In one month."

The words were said so flatly that Andrea shuddered. "You say it like it's a bad thing."

"You've lost nearly ten kilos in one month and you don't find that strange?" She didn't, but she waited to see where the man was going with this. "What are you eating exactly?"

"Eating? Well, I eat the Basic Starvation Rations. One tray keeps me for the week," Andrea beamed. "Isn't that how it goes?"

"One...one tray?" The man's eyes widened. "One tray of BSR is supposed to keep you for the day, you—you jackass. Why the hell are you starving yourself?"

The line was getting restless now, but Andrea didn't dare step down. "But...but that's how it is in the Colony. Like—like people starve to death every day. That's what my mother always told me. So...so I kinda figured I'd make it last."

"And you weren't hungry?"

"Of course I was hungry. But I've gone a week without food before when I was trying to lose weight before courting, so it wasn't so bad. It was hard the first few days back then, but Mother just sat there watching me, more like guarding me. This time around was easier even though she wasn't there. Besides, I thought this was how poor people lived."

The man was about to respond, but he paused and backtracked to something else. "And what the hell do you mean people starve every day? Are you mad? Why in imp's name would we starve our citizens? What would a place called the Colony have to gain from that? Do you even know how inconvenient a corpse is?"

They would have gone on like that if not for someone pushing Andrea down in order to be weighed.

With the line moving, Andrea kept her head hung as she pulled her clothes on, her supervisor scolding her as he led her to a new desk.

"If you want to throw your life away, do it on your own gaw-ro time. But if you think I'm going home to tell my wife that some rich kid dropped dead on my watch, you've got another think coming. And what do I tell my son when that's attached to my file? If he comes to me one day and says, 'Daddy, why didn't you realize that jackass was a danger to herself?' Should I respond by saying 'er-er-sorry'? And again, do you even know how hard it is to get rid of a body? By the looks of it, your own parents don't care about you, and if you think I'm going to feel sorry for you and use my own funds to bury you without a fight, think again."

The man went on and on, and Andrea felt conflicted. She wasn't sure if her supervisor was being nice or being mean; it was probably a bit of both. Either way, she felt awful. Andrea's spirits sank when her diskette was shoved into her hands.

"The vice squad?" She looked at her supervisor as if she'd been stabbed. "I'm on the vice squad? What's my vice, food?"

"No. You have an eating disorder, and until you remedy that, you'll have a reprimand. It takes too many resources for us to waste time on making sure our guards will be able to perform properly. Respect your damn body. If you think I'm going to contend with your corpse, you're dreaming. And you've got a friend you wanna visit in jail. What the hell would happen if you just disappeared because your gaw-ro kidneys gave out and you dropped gaw-ro dead? Don't you think he'd care? If you really want to get time to visit your friend like you requested, I suggest you shape up. And I don't mean that literally."

***

Being assigned to the vice squad meant Andrea was also assigned a sponsor. As well as a strict schedule. She had been resentful at first, but the first day in Vice had changed that. The schedule included food, so she was forced to eat in the division rather than at home.

With her full lunch tray in hand, Andrea looked around the large cafeteria and the flood of people. The Colony didn't have a uniform in her size and had refused to custom tailor one or allow her to buy something similar. Andrea was forced to wear black overalls, with buckles and all. They were clothes left over from an era when people kept imps as pets. Because imps could change shape and size at will, the fabric was made specifically for them. It was flexible, like the uniform of the E's.

All cadets in training were in gray from head to toe, while guards had black shirts tucked into their gray pants, and Andrea wore overalls. The overalls of imps.

"Better than being naked," she muttered. She tried to find an empty table where she could sit and eat by herself.

"Andrea!"

Andrea set her face in a frown. She wasn't sure who was calling her or where the voice was coming from, but it had to happen sooner or later. Someone was looking to make an impression by picking on the big outcast.

"Whatever." Andrea sighed. To her dismay, all tables seemed occupied. She heard her name again but ignored it.

"Get your fat imp ass over here, Dummy!" shouted another man.

Out of the corner of her eye, Andrea saw the men waving to her. If not for the one-armed cadet, she might not have given the group a second glance.

Her supervisor, Baker, was there as well. To her surprise, so was Harris. Andrea hesitated to approach, and when she did, she noticed why they were in the same area. Under the right eye each man wore a blue strip indicative of their preference of traditional religious and class pairings.

At first Andrea looked around, unsure if she wanted to be seen with outcasts. She'd never eaten with bigots before. I shouldn't say 'bigots,' should I? Is that derogatory? Sure, they were probably nice enough people. And there was nothing wrong with their archaic and narrow-minded ways, but Andrea was still new and didn't want to get a reputation for being around them.

Lefty, as Andrea had come to name the man who had no right arm, didn't have a trad strip, so Andrea approached.

Baker, the man who made Andrea cry often—usually out of appreciation—stood and offered her a seat.

"This is Luis. Luis, this is Johann—Johann Andrea."

"Yeah." Lefty gave Andrea a sly grin from beneath his tousled red hair. "She's famous. She flooded two rooms last week alone." He sat back and offered his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet someone more talked about than me."

Andrea put her tray down but floundered. Should she use her right hand or left or...in the end, Lefty grabbed hold of Andrea's left hand and shook it.

In an instant Andrea pulled back, and Lefty scowled.

"Hey, it's not contagious or nothing," he chided.

The defensiveness in his voice left Andrea smiling. She had a feeling they could get along well. "No. it's not that. You shook my hand bare. Nobody does that down here unless they plan to steal either your energy or your thoughts." Andrea sat. "So you're a Topsider, then?" The three men at the table were stunned, but Andrea continued, "And you use double negatives. That's also a big tell. It's from a Topsider dialect, isn't it?"

Lefty stared at her and then smiled. "Well, hell. Aren't you a smart one?"

"Smart, perceptive, or paranoid? Whatever works."

"Enough of that," Baker said as he retrieved a diskette from behind his back. "Before we start, here is your first bimonthly stipend."

"We get money?" Lefty looked at his diskette. Andrea had her own in her lower pant leg, and she followed suit. Harris was the only one who didn't seem interested.

"All right, wait for it," Baker teased. "Wait for it...and now." He tapped finally, and Lefty groaned.

"What the hell? This is nothing. It's like what... two days of credits. I can't even buy a meal with that."

Andrea watched her own diskette. The chatter around her picked up, with Baker teasing Lefty, asking him what he planned on doing with his big pay. They went back and forth for some time, but Andrea couldn't take her eyes off her diskette.

Something happened when she scrolled through the list of assignments she'd taken on. The list of completed tasks was much smaller than that of the incomplete ones, but she was still happy to see them all the same. She felt good. She felt...proud.

"Eh, you've got this one here crying," she heard Harris say.

Andrea touched her eyes to find them wet; she was quick to brush them off. She'd earned her first real paycheck, and she felt good about it. She was sure she was a sight, her nose no doubt red, but she smiled. She was proud.

Lefty leaned closer to Andrea and said, "Sorry about the hand thing. It's a sore point."

Andrea went rigid. When Lefty winked, she laughed. "You ass."

"Guilty. Speaking of which, you do have a couple of pretty hefty tail muscles there."

"I'd thank you to keep your hand and eyes off my tail muscles, thank you very much." Andrea squinted.

"Gonna be kinda hard," Lefty replied, his brown eyes narrowing. "Since I'm your sponsor. It's a pleasure."

Andrea tried not to stare at the bare arm in question. Lefty's left sleeve was folded and tucked up, button to the shoulder of his uniform. She felt sorry for him but when their eyes met, he didn't look as concerned.

"It really bothers you lot down here, don't it?" Lefty turned to bring the folded sleeve for display. "Funny, where I come from, it's shameful to be missing a limb, but down here...I walk proud."

"Shameful?" Andrea asked, "More people...I mean, it's not uncommon?"

The man shook his head. "Sadly, no. But with the hell I went through and to finally arrive here, and not even with both of them. Most people who try to escape the surface with two don't even make it. I left that hell with just the one. So what does that say 'bout me? 'Eh?"

This time when their eyes met, Andrea felt small—and not for any shame or embarrassment. She couldn't say what it was but she feared her shallow first impression had once again missed the mark. Lefty didn't need her sympathy—nor did he want it. She was grateful he decided to clear that up before she could put her foot in her mouth.

Baker and Harris were still going strong in their spirited conversation, but Andrea was taken aback when her supervisor looked to her for guidance.

"Johann, what'll happen if you add the D-fiber with the link-span on a gyro?"

The words confused her at first, but then they made sense and she groaned. "It'll blow up."

Harris gasped. "No way."

Baker slapped his hands in triumph. "I told you. She did that two days ago. I never even knew the thing could blow up."

"But...." Harris blinked. He turned to Andrea and said, "But it's plastic. All those bits are plastic. How the hell do they just blow up?"

Andrea shrugged. "A talent."

"Are you sure it's not an actual talent, though? You're not sapping any of your E's power by mistake, are you?"

"I dunno. I only touch him when I gotta give him energy. That's all."

Harris considered it. "Well, make sure and go into the neutralizer before you come to work from now on. You might be taking some of his power without knowing."

"Ah, that reminds me," Baker said as he snatched Andrea's diskette and typed on it. "I'm doubling your assignment allotment. If you can't get them complete before the week is out, you can't visit your friend in jail."

"Hey!" Andrea came up out of her chair. "That's not funny." She tried to mask her hurt, but she was rarely good at it anymore. "Sir, I—this is one thing I take seriously. You've said it yourself: he doesn't have anyone else. So I really—"

"You wanna know why I work hard, Johann Andrea?" Baker asked. "It's because I have a dependent; I have family. Working hard for yourself doesn't feel as good as doing it for something bigger than you. I've got a feeling this guy means a lot to you."

Andrea nodded and confessed, "He does. So—"

"So shape up or you won't see him."

A hapless cadet bumped into Baker, spilling his drink.

Baker cried out, "Damn you, Johann. What the hell is wrong with you?" Once he'd realized what he'd said, Baker gave the real Andrea a frown. "Sorry, kid. Slip of the tongue. I say your name so much, it's basically a swear word around here."

There was laughter all around, even from a few adjacent tables. For the first time ever, Andrea didn't mind. She smiled and found herself laughing as well.

"Yeah. I'm trying to change. It's a slow process though."

"Change?" Baker laughed. "You can't change who you are. You should know that." He smiled. "You just gotta grow, that's all. That's what I tell my son. You gotta own your flaws first, and then you grow."

When things calmed, Lefty leaned in close and asked, "Whoa. You're hardcore. Your friend's in jail? Is that your boyfriend or something?"

Andrea stared into his eyes and found herself nodding. "He's the love of my life."