Five months after impact

Seventeen. That was an important age, right? Not that this was how Angharad had imagined she would celebrate it. She'd imagined being surrounded by more robots, and her father ordering someone to buy a cake from the supermarket, not being stuck in a weirdly high tech prison camp in who knows where, surrounded by new friends she wasn't entirely sure she could trust.

Well, some of them she could trust. Like Sophie, who'd wished her a happy birthday that morning in a croaking voice, then rolled back over to stay in bed.

Angharad had staked out the crafts room as a place to have a small party. So far the only person who'd shown up was Josephine, who stood outside the building with Angharad to wait for everyone else to arrive, while Eleanor did whatever it was she was doing inside. Angharad wasn't going to ask.

"You look nice," Angharad said, looking Josephine over. And she did – plain white shirt, straight leg jeans, bright red denim jacket that seemed clean and well cared for. "But not, like, too nice. Your clothes are communicating the appropriate level of nice."

Josephine looked puzzled. "Are my clothes speaking to you?"

"Well, clothing's like a language, see. Okay, examples. I mean, when you see Jin in his uniform it communicates the organisation he belongs to, right? But then the sloppiness of how he wears it communicates how bad he is at following rules and being in an organisation and all that stuff. And, like, the way Dr Yeoh dresses communicates that she's a professional and pay attention to her, right? But all her outfits are exactly the same, so together they all say that she figured out how she wanted to dress once and stuck to it so she doesn't have to make too many extra decisions."

Josephine put on her oh-so-cute deep thinking face. "I guess that does make sense. What would Mac's outfit say about her as a person?" She pointed to Mac who was slowly crossing the gravel between buildings, never actually looking in their direction.

Angharad looked Mac over from a distance. "Black paper-bag waist shorts with a sparkly pink halter-neck top and navy business-style pinstripe blazer, on top of orange tights with grey suede peep-toes? All Mac's outfit says is that she's very confused. And, I mean, we knew that already. Though I guess a lot of the things outfits communicate about who we are is way more important with strangers. It's more like, okay, telling the people you already know if you put effort in or are capable of deciphering social cues and stuff."

"And what does your dress say?"

Angharad smirked and shifted in her lavender mini-dress and knee-high boots. "That I'm shallow."

"Angharad, I put it to you that your outfits lie."

"Yeah, but they're so cute I'm sure you can forgive them."

Angharad got distracted by the sight of Tabitha propelling herself out of the hospital. Now that outfit – jagged aggressive edges, tone on tone, stopping the eye with the red of a traffic light and the red of an open wound – that was not a message Angharad found remotely hard to decipher. She was fluent in Tabitha's language already.

Tabitha reached where they stood, faster than Angharad could understand, and grabbed at Angharad's sleeves. Her grip on Angharad's upper arms was too hard and tight.

"Look at you, so healthy and strong. Happy birthday, Miss Seventeen! As you grow stronger I grow weak," Tabitha said. And then she laughed, an uncomfortable jagged noise cutting through the cool air of the night that slowly sank on to them.

"Well, it's not like that's on purpose," Angharad said.

"Come inside with me and Eleanor," Josephine said, and used her strength to pull Tabitha's grasping fingers away from Angharad's arms.

"Eleanor and I do not get along," Tabitha said, each word as sharp as an accusation.

"That's because you keep saying you think her clothes are ugly," Josephine said.

"Well, they are! I won't be silent about it." Tabitha pressed a hand to her own head, then pushed a finger, hard, against her temple.

Even after more people arrived, Angharad kept noticing Tabitha glaring at everything and everyone. Glaring at Freya as she pretended to flirt with Angharad, which made Angharad feel itchy all over. Glaring at Jin as he sat in a corner like a sullen five year old.

Only Tsuyoshi grabbing Angharad by the arm and pulling her into a chair next to him distracted her from watching Tabitha. Because it was then that she realised there weren't nearly as many chairs in the crafts room as there were people. Sitting, if it happened, would mostly have to happen on the floor. Her forward planning had been insufficient.

Zelko slumped against a wall, face long and grey, but even that much distraction was too much for Tsuyoshi who redirected her face to look only at him.

"Pay attention to me," Tsuyoshi said.

"You're so pushy and so needy," she said. "You're just like Tabitha."

"Only taller and better looking," he said, voice low with amusement, "but Queen Bitch and I do have a lot in common."

"You're both grabby," Angharad said.

"Didn't you know, Angharad? Everyone wants to grab you. Tonight you're the star."

She laughed. "Dealing with corpses all day has sent you a little loopy, I think."

He scoffed and looked away. "It's disgusting. There's a refrigerated room on the other side that contained frozen food that we had to empty out, so we could put the dead in there. We can't fit them all in the morgue. It almost makes me thankful for Ibrahim. That guy doesn't complain about anything. He just does the work and looks off into the middle distance."

"Well, I mean. He's a nice guy."

Mac finally stumbled through the door. What could have taken her so long? Angharad tried to tell herself she didn't care. She tried to stand up to meet Mac, and Tsuyoshi dragged her back down into her chair. Mac looked over at Angharad, at Tsuyoshi's hand possessive on her shoulder, and went to talk to Eleanor instead. Eleanor let go of Josephine's hand to hug Mac and Josephine stepped back, bumped straight into Tabitha.

And then Tabitha cleared her throat and said, in a voice loud enough that it rose above all the awkward non-talk in the room, "Well, if everyone's finally here, except that cow Gemma. So, as I assume Jin said when he set fire to my house and watched my father burn to death, let's get this party started."

Jin shot up. "You shut your mouth."

Tabitha focused on Jin. "What's that? You don't like hearing that you're a killer? How many thousands of people did you knock off just that week?"

"You're not so innocent. Do you think I didn't hear about some things you did?" Jin asked.

"I didn't know the North's guns were allowed to think," Tabitha said.

"What I think is you should leave," Jin said.

Angharad wrenched herself upright. "You can both leave. This is my birthday. What is wrong with you? And that's rhetorical so don't answer with you think is wrong with each other."

"But—" Jin said, turning to her.

"No. Just go," Angharad said.

Tabitha sneered at Jin's back as he stomped out.

"I'll take her back to the hospital," Zelko said, voice so tired he sounded way older than 22.

"I appreciate a man with manners," Tabitha said, as she stepped forward at the gentle shove Zelko gave her, but her face was still sharp and mean and Angharad felt tired all over.

She slumped back into her seat, and right back into Tsuyoshi's waiting arm, then leaned her heavy head on his shoulder.

"I do not want to repeat this experience," Angharad said.

"You're not going to miss Jin's complete lack of wit and charm?" When Tsuyoshi spoke like that he really did remind her of her father.

"No. You're the only boy for me." She sighed and curled further into him. "Last year, for my sixteenth birthday, daddy and I went out wearing silly wigs and had red bean paste buns and then gave fake names at a coffee store that had really good vegetarian toasted sandwiches. That was better than this."

Tsuyoshi sighed and stroked his hands across her hair. "When I turned 19 my uncle Tim let me invite some friends over and then he spent the whole night listening to music my parents liked and crying. That was also better than this."

The other people in the room collected into small groups around the edges, like that awkward space in the middle where Tabitha and Jin had fought wasn't allowed to be filled.

"What's up with you and Josephine?" Tsuyoshi asked, out of nowhere.

Angharad shrugged. "Nothing. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing, really? Oh, that's smooth. You're good at lying, Angharad. I am genuinely impressed. But everyone else you know has too honest a face."

Angharad looked at Josephine, whose eyes flicked away immediately, like she was embarrassed to be caught.

"Maybe she just feels bad that my birthday got weird."

"No, she was doing that sadly pining face before that. And that is the face of someone who knows what she's missing. I can always tell."

She shoved him with her elbow. "Whatever, dork face. Let's sit on the floor and if we make everyone else do it it will make things less weird."

"With Mac and Eleanor here? Are you serious?"

She grinned at him. "You can do it. I believe in you!"

*

Every breath Tabitha took was fire. The only things in her world that existed were the pain burning through her skull and the barrier sizzling far above them.

Zelko said, "Here you are, duchess, at the hospital and home," from somewhere behind her, and she remembered he existed, too.

Then the pain burnt through her again and he became nothing more than a distant memory.

The doctor was unimpressed with Tabitha's demand for more pain killers, all, "I don't appreciate this drug seeking behaviour."

"I am in pain!" Tabitha yelled. "Just give me the fucking drugs so I can sleep. I don't even care if they take me out completely. It would be quicker."

"I have no desire to let you use everything we have, when we don't know what accidents will happen here in the future. We don't know if supplies will ever be replenished," Dr Yeoh said.

"Fuck your hypothetical future patients." Tabitha felt herself starting to drool, and wiped her too hot face. "I'm in pain now."

"You're a legal adult. I can't stop you from taking a bottle of vodka instead. But if you take anything else, I will stop you." After that statement, it was like the doctor faded back into whatever shadowy hell she came from.

Zelko's offer to drink with Tabitha made her want to laugh, so she did. "No wonder your boyfriend is so worried about you being alone with women. Oh, Tabitha, let's have a drink while you're sad and vulnerable!"

"It's not like that."

She grabbed the bottle of vodka and made for her hospital room. "Only you believe that."