Tanner awoke to an empty house—he missed the cylinder. Each step he took, room after room echoed, making the sterile silence unbearable. Today, too, as he hovered his hand over the interface by the kitchen, he debated forfeiting this ELETE lodgings.

Jan was why he hesitated.

Instead of confirming his request, he waved his hand before the screen and a list of his invitations appeared. All were still pending—unread.

Meeting An—Jan at home unannounced would be out of bounds, he concluded. He held out for two days before finally deciding to seek out steady employment. With a diskette from his father listing possible divisions where he might find work in defenses, he went looking for a job.

He wasn't sure which division he'd go into. One area was listed twice, so Tanner purposely avoided it. None of the other divisions he'd tried had kept his interest for long after the trial. This was the last place although it was the first one at the top of the list.

The day he took a tour of the Colony's facilities to get a look, he heard his own name screamed in a manner and at an octave he'd never witnessed in his entire twenty-five years.

"TANNENBAUM!"

Tanner spun around, eyes wide with fear, but there was no one looking at him. Hurried footsteps closed in as he turned to scan the spacious office. He couldn't quite pinpoint where the rapid footfall was coming from in the maze of desks and cubicles. Someone passed by at high speed, nearly knocking him over, before coming to a halt with a hand to her brow, saluting.

"Yes, fearless leader," the guard exclaimed.

The man who shouted wore a badged indicative of an area supervisor. He was a heavy-set man of Indian descent who huffed and puffed, hating every fiber of his blond subordinate's being.

"Stop calling me that," the supervisor demanded.

"Then stop calling me Tannenbaum, sir. My name is Jan."

The very cheek garnered some chuckles from the other guards, but the man wasn't having it.

"Where are the files I asked you for?"

"They're on your desk, sir!"

The utter enthusiasm was met with a wooden glare after the man glanced to his desk, one of the larger ones in the front, and saw it empty.

"There's nothing there, Tannenbaum," the supervisor said.

Jan considered it, still staring straight ahead as she shrugged. "My mistake, fearless leader. I meant to say, it will have been on your desk as of ten minutes from now."

The man's dark eyes widened so far that Tanner half expected them to fall right out of his head. "That's it. I want your ass out of here. Now."

"Sir?" Jan relaxed her stance and allowed her slight belly to sag. "But I'm up for evaluation next week, sir. You can't get rid of me till then."

"There's no way, absolutely no way in hell you're passing to enter the ELETE division, so just shuck off."

Jan's posture wilted, and she considered the words. She pressed her lips into a fine line as she looked the man in the eye.

"With all due respect, sir, there are only three entities who can tell me to shuck off. My mother, my husband, and my Colony. so since you aren't any of those things, how's about you just let nature run its course, and you can laugh from the sidelines as I take the walk of shame the hell outta here next week?" The man ground his teeth while staring her down, but Jan glared back. "I mean, it is shameful, right? If I get rejected from a division that can't even spell its own name. E-L-E-T-E. I know there's no 'I' in team, but hell," she said, "there should be an 'I' in 'elite.'"

The supervisor clenched his fists, seething as he stomped away. When he was gone, Jan relaxed, closed her eyes and tilted her head back.

A tall, fair-skinned man with one arm chuckled as he stopped what he was doing to come by and pat Jan's ass affectionately.

"Good one, Tannenbum." The guard grinned. "Think I could see your walk of shame later?"

Jan glared at him. "Get your gaw-ro hand off me, Louis."

The hand rose in supplication. "I'm only trying to be nice."

With a groan, Jan walked away, never realizing that she ran past the real Tannenbaum, who watched on in awe. Tanner made his decision right then and there as to the division he wanted. He went to the first interface he could find once he'd left that office, and called his father.

Met's face appeared on the screen; he wore a satisfied smile. "How may I help you?"

Tanner shivered from his excitement. "The Vice Squad?"

"It's a division with a lot of potential—and it's the hardest area as well. She's well aware that testing from a different branch would be easier, but has refused."

"I was wondering why this department was on the list twice. You couldn't have just told me?" Tanner asked.

"You two've been through a lot. And I saw no reason to hurry. I put it at the 'top' of the list. It's not my fault you were too stubborn to follow it properly."

In all honesty, Tanner thought he should be annoyed to some degree but that wasn't the emotion coursing through him. He smiled, unable to speak—nothing could convey is actual appreciation. "Thank you."

"See?" Met shrugged. "Once in a while, when I tell you to do something, it is for your own good."

Tanner chuckled. "Choose whatever position, whatever title and ranking you want me to aspire for, just so long as I'm close to this very same department."

"Done."

The next day, Tanner entered the large office and was greeted by a shy, almost uncertain response. "Guardsman Tannenbaum?"

A soft groan preceded a voice. "Hey, asshole, putting the 'guardsman' on it doesn't make it any better."

Jan came from around her desk but screeched to halt.

Tanner caught her eye but said to the supervisor, "Just Tanner, please."

"Tanner. Right." The man's voice rumbled as he looked around. "Well, let's find you a desk."

"With all due respect," said Tanner as he pointed to the desk beside Jan's designated area, "I want that one."

"But that's Louis's."

Tanner turned cold. "Then I definitely want that one." Before the man could argue, Tanner held up a diskette. "Due to my status and scoring, I was told I would be given permission for certain things."

The supervisor didn't look at the diskette; instead he stared at Tanner and thought, Another pain-in-my-ass Tannenbaum. What are the odds?

"The odds are pretty good, in fact." Tanner grinned as the man lost all color. "She's my wife."

Wife? The word pounded in Jan's head.

It took several blinks before the supervisor could respond. "What? She's married? Not just a handler but officially married? Someone married that hapless jackass?"

Tanner's body stiffened; he resisted the urge to slap the man.

"She's my Assist. I'm an E. Hence the reason I can read your thoughts. If you look at that diskette, you will see that I have a right to be in her proximity if I so choose. As well as mandatory breaks for us to channel."

The man read the diskette finally, muttering, "Channel? It says here you guys channel by having sex?"

It was more of a question than a statement, and Tanner smiled. "That is one way for us to channel, yes. But we wouldn't do that in the office."

"Please don't."

Several people nearby laughed. Louis caught sight of Jan's shocked face and grinned. "Hey, not all of us would mind seeing that."

Jan made her way to her desk, her head hung. She tried to look busy, brushing off her black uniform even though there was nothing on it. When Tanner took a seat next to her, Jan ignored him and tapped on the top of the desk for the black square of the interface to come into view. They worked in silence for some time, but then finally she snapped.

"Royce..." Jan whispered.

Body warming by that very voice, Tanner fought back his smile. "You usually blush when you call me by name."

Instead of sharing the sentiment or meeting his gaze, however, Jan trembled. The wave of emotions coming off her was hard to make sense of.

"Wh—what are you doing here?"

"I thought you'd be happy. We can work together."

Those blue eyes closed as Jan took a deep breath. "I'll make more time for us—I promise I'll make more time for us. I planned to answer each and every one of your invites, I swear. I just...."

She'd seen the invitations. Tanner tried to make sense of everything. "Well, this way you won't have to."

He reached down, catching hold of Jan's right hand and interlocking their fingers."

"Are you out of your gaw-ro mind?" Jan turned to face him, more hurt than angry. "We're sitting side by side like we're back at the school."

Tanner opened and closed his mouth, struggling for words. "N-no. Of course not. I was entering the division, anyway, so when I saw you, I thought...."

His voice trailed off, and Jan asked, in awe, "You thought what? That we could be lark buddies? Thought that you can come here and watch me get beat down every day so you can have a good laugh?" At the silence, she twisted from his grip, confessing, "This isn't the side of me I want you to see."

Though they argued in a hushed whisper, some people stopped working and took note of them. Jan, always aware of eyes directed at her, turned back to her task.

"Just.... What's done is done. Just let me keep to my work."

Tanner sat in a daze. He hadn't expected a warm and cuddly reunion, but he hadn't thought it would be like this, either. He couldn't have known how she would react. He hadn't even cared how Jan would react; he was just so focused on being around her again.

This hot and cold is exhausting. Part of me feels like you're doing it on purpose. Why am I even going nuts over you, anyway? Tanner asked himself. He turned back to his interface.

"That's a good question," Jan answered aloud.

Eyes wide, Tanner turned to her. "You can hear my thoughts?"

"No." Jan shifted in her seat until her back was to Tanner. "Not always. Only when you're upset or feel insecure." She didn't wait for a response that time. "Just...just leave me alone. Please."

Tanner didn't need to worry about the evaluation the following week so he just kept to his job and kept busy. He would often see Andrea—Jan—studying, so he endeavored to do the same. Unless his studies had to do with numbers or coding, Tanner was pretty average. Seeing Jan's dedication, he found it hard to not follow her example.

The evaluation day came, and many people received a diskette facedown that morning. Tanner took the time out to check his. He was satisfied that he'd made an impression in only a week; he had scored high on the few tests he was able to take. Ultimately, they were useless as he wasn't looking to test out, but that didn't matter.

Over the past week, he hadn't said much to Jan. Tanner felt awkward about asking the woman to share such a private thing as the results with him. If Jan passed, she would be an official ELETE soldier, something that Tanner wasn't at all sure she was cut out for. For whatever reason, Jan had opted to find out her score privately—not in the main hall or even in the office.

The diskette remained facedown the entire day. Tanner glanced at it time and time again, but it hadn't moved. Even Louis, a young man who always took pleasure in taking a jab at Jan, didn't touch it.

When everyone left and Jan still lingered, Tanner waited, too. He watched as Jan cleaned out her desk. That cinched it for Tanner; he was sure of the good news. Good things came when you least expected them, right?

"It wasn't always like this here." Jan sat, eyes on the diskette. "The Tannenbaum name got stuck on my files when I took that care package. So I'm lucky we worked out, right? When you hit Baker, the other area supervisors didn't take kindly to it." She cut Tanner off before he could interrupt. "And I appreciate the dashing and daring." Her short glance came with a smile. "But Baker's on leave and I just...I wanna get outta here. And I've been doing better. I just want to keep focused."

Tanner had nothing to say. He didn't want to miss the joyous occasion, so he sat there, staring at the diskette as well, and waited. Finally, it happened, Jan looked at the results. Her blue eyes stared steadily at the diskette for some time. When she returned it to the desk facedown once more, her fingers trembled. Tanner took hold of the unsteady hand, genuinely happy for her, but Jan slipped from his grip.

A moment later, Jan's entire body shook, and Tanner picked the diskette up. The words Unsuccessful-Score, accompanied by a smiley face that winked with the caption 'bye-bye,' stared back at them.

Without thinking, Tanner reached out to run his fingers through Jan's short blond hair.

"I'm sorry," Tanner said.

Jan slapped the hand away so strongly that the sound of the impact echoed.

When she stood and kicked the chair hard enough that it went flying, Tanner stood with her, at a loss as to what to do. Tanner let Jan pace back and forth, uncertain what to say. He was fairly sure that Jan picking the fallen chair back up and sitting down was a strange course of action. Tanner was still standing, however, and he watched the shaken woman.

Jan wore a look of determination as she typed along the interface. After a moment, she winced and pulled her hand back. The next surge of electricity was stronger and it rattled her visibly, making those blue eyes cross. By the time Tanner caught on to what Jan was doing, the woman suffered a fourth shock.

The System's voice echoed. "One more time and you'll be spending the next two weeks in jail."

Even as the voice chimed out, Jan continued, but Tanner caught her hand before she could press the send button.

"Stop." Jan wouldn't look at him, so he sat down and eased closer. "An—Jan, you have to stop. These aren't like the files at training. These are files for defenses, and there's no way in hell you can hack them. Even if you could, the System is reactionary. It's already learned from your method of doing things; you won't manage it."

Jan attempted to pull away—hell-bent on trying again—but Tanner's grip was firm. So was his voice.

"Stop. You're not going to be able to do it."

"You think I can't do it?" Jan demanded, eyes red and raw.

"No," Tanner soothed. "I think you can. I think you eventually will, and the System will notice it, and you'll get arrested. I'll opt to trade your sentence, and be back under lockup for two weeks straight, and I can't handle that right now."

Jan's eyes shimmered with the onset of tears, and Tanner swallowed hard.

"Your score wasn't bad. Try a different route. Let's try to get this Vice Squad status off. Without it, you would have passed already."

The words lingered for some time as Tanner struggled with something more to say.

"No. I'm in the Vice Squad. I earned that fair, and it's a fair label. If I can't test out, that's my own fault. It's not right that I cry over something as stupid as this. It's not like someone died; it's not like someone's childhood was stolen. It's wrong. This is a selfish thing to go crazy over." She shrugged Tanner's hand away from her shoulder. "It's useless." Jan whispered, "I'm useless."

"No, you just need some time. It's fine."

"I'm useless."

Tanner risked putting his fingers on the small of Jan's back. If he didn't feel her trembling, he wouldn't have known the woman was crying at all; she was so quiet.

"It's karma. And I'm trying to pay it all back. I couldn't accept your invites.... Not now—not yet. It's because of me. It's because of me you were even caught in the first place. And I loved him. I loved my grandfather, loved the person that hurt you. That bastard, that absolute bastard, was evil, and I loved him like he was some god. All this time I never knew. I never let myself know how awful he was because he was nice to me. Lars died because I invited Kobal to dinner, then Dom died because no one was there to look after him, and now my mom's going to die alone and poor because I married you and left her behind. This is what I deserve. I deserve to flunk out of every damn thing I try. This is what I deserve. And I'm trying to pay it back. But maybe I can't."

Tanner stood, but Jan turned with her back to him.

"I went down to the Lower Levels, to apologize to the guy who killed my brother. Who does that?" Jan looked back at him finally. "Who goes down there to check on the guy who killed your own blood?"

"You do. Only you. You're the only one I can think of who would because you've got a good heart."

"Shuck that." Jan snorted. "He nearly killed me. He wanted to literally put that so called 'good heart' on display for the world. Not that I blame him. So now I'm here, flunking out of the division, and then what?"

"You won't flunk out," Tanner said. "Once you've come this far, there's no real way to flunk out of the division. You just take on a lower ranking for a while and work your way back up again." He hesitated but confessed, "But it's okay to give it a rest and...and just be a guard."

Jan didn't look back at him. She tense and needed a moment to breathe again.

"Please leave." Her voice trembled as she stood and walked around, picking up various poorly-replicated papers from the floor. "I have to study. This is a distraction."

Tanner watched Jan's sluggish movements. She was plump still, but she'd taken on some muscle in the time since they'd seen each other in jail.

He wanted to offer to stay, to maybe help on those studies. Each second that ticked by made being there all the more unbearable. Without another word, Tanner grabbed his jacket and turned to leave. He didn't bother going to his new lodgings. Instead, he headed down to a race.

Cart after cart zipped by and a part of him longed to be down there, too, risking his life for nothing.

What was he supposed to do? He was stuck in that division. ELETE guard status didn't go from place to place; it went top to bottom. The only way to get out of that office would be to take on a lower ranking or test out.

Knowing how much Jan struggled with said tests meant a lot. She might opt to go lower just to get away from the current area. Testing up was hard, and even though Tanner knew it might feel like he was rubbing his abilities in her face, it at least meant they'd never work together again.

He'd test higher as soon as he could; that would give Jan space. He'd give up the new flat, too. All of it was just a bad reminder, anyway.

By the time he stood to leave, it was well past midnight. He was happy to return home to his little cylinder. It was only a week but it felt like ages. The cold air of the passageway was lovely and when the door opened to reveal his room, he felt at home.

This wasn't a fairytale, and no amount of wishing would turn it into one. He flopped down on the slab of metal in the center and closed his eyes.

"Hey."

Tanner looked up and around. He couldn't find the source of the voice. When he focused on the long-abandoned sofa by the door, his breath hitched.

Jan dragged the blanket down as she sat up.

They stared each other down until she cleared her throat.

"I went to apologize, but you gave up the room."

She waited but Tanner had nothing to say.

"I get now why you wanted to do everything on your own back then when everyone was trying to help. You weren't trying to prove anything to others; you were trying to prove it to yourself. I get that now. So I know how annoyed you must be with me. You said run to you." Jan shrugged. "Here I am. I'm not giving up and I don't want any help.... But I could do with a good morale sponsor."

Tanner eased off the metal and made his way to her. Letting out a sigh, he flopped down on top of her with his face in her lap.