About two or so city blocks made themselves available to Althea. Considering the hiding holes while she covered her eyes and fled, Althea chose the first place she could find far enough away that she thought Boris would not hear her.

  Pontikos appeared in her view.

  “This psychological trauma is related to your Persona shift. You need to release this Persona configuration and resume baseline.”

  Althea tried to squeezed Pontikos out of her mind. Pontikos floated toward Althea in AR.

  “You will have a hard time hiding from me. And I am concerned about your mental wellbeing.”

  “Go away.”

  Pontikos sighed and stood up straighter.

  “Mistress, your ability to reason is in question. It would be better for you if you chose to reset to base. But if the only way to help you requires…”

  Althea did not let the AI finish her threat. As much as Althea wanted to erase the assistant right then, at the end of reason, Pontikos was right. Althea deactivated her Persona modifications and felt introspective guilt crash down on her.

  Screams turned to hoarse shouting, then to mewling. Fifteen or sixteen years old and Althea saw his face everywhere. In her periphery, she could feel someone shorter than her help her up. Each and every head she saw had the teenager’s face. Althea felt vague pangs of regret over killing the old man near Steve’s apartment. But even subconsciously she had tried to avoid hurting anyone.

  But that teenager.

  Rather than a step by step recounting of stalking him, she caught snippets of her recollections. One hovering moment at a corner and she sniffed the air for him. Hunger and rage drove her forward. And desire for the weapon he fired at her.

  Pontikos spoke to Althea as red flashes popped open in her interface. Ignoring them was easier than turning away from the face of the boy. A second set of arms lifted her bodily and carried her into a dark, tumbling room. At the time it felt more like a womb, warm and dark.

  When the lights resumed she lay in a bed. When she looked up at the person who carried her in, she saw Boris’s face rather than the unnamed boy.

  He rubbed the back of his head and looked down at the foot of her bed.

  “Erie did not mention the other stuff. I overstepped my bounds, and I am sorry for it. If you feel like talking…”

  He turned away from her and Althea yelped,

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  “Wait!”

  When Boris turned, Althea spotted Erie standing next to her.

  “Will I ever stop seeing his face?”

  Boris’s expression melted. The corners of his eyes drooped and his cheeks and jaw followed suit. Althea could almost see him mouth, “aww.” Then he clenched his jaw and nodded with a tiny gesture, as if reminding himself of some vast duty.

  He glanced at Erie, who seemed to ask a question in response to which Boris shook his head. Erie nodded back and walked out of the room with a smile directed to Althea.

  Althea felt trapped as the door closed, reminded now that this was Boris’s territory through and through. He had already demonstrated he could defeat her. What if this was him finally revealing his true character?

  She crawled away from him on the bed, suddenly forgetting her sorrow as her whole mind started to reorient to flight.

  Boris made the fear drift away by raising his hands up and sitting down slowly on the far bunk. He made a motion and the door to her room opened back up.

  He said,

  “No. You will never stop seeing his face. Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

  Althea felt the panic try to reassert itself. Temptation rose in her heart, urged her to switch out her Persona traits so she could tell the story like she was someone else. Boris’s question had already set the fractured, poorly edited film in her head rolling.

  But the urgency of the images, the pressure of her beast cut off any attempt to change her mind.

  “He wasn’t the first person I… I killed.”

  Boris nodded and said nothing.

  “I spotted him before he shot at me…”

  She let the whole episode spill out. As she spoke, Althea could feel her memory reengage, pieces she thought she forgot reassembled themselves about her narration. Haltingly, and finally with tears in her eyes, she described smashing the young man’s body into a concrete slab, crushing the life from him.

  Althea ended with her face in her hands, sobbing.

  Boris came no closer and said,

  “Well, I am glad you lived, Althea. You should be too.”

  “I could have let him run, he wasn’t going to hurt me!”

  Boris shook his head and said,

  “Wasn’t he? Do you think Erie’s skull is thick enough to stop a 7.62 round? How would you feel if you let your comrade down?”

  Althea stilled.

  “I feel like I kind of did, like I ran off chasing someone when I should have stayed with her.”

  Boris shook his head, eyes shining as he said,

  “That girl is good support, but what you’re describing says she took point and you removed the only threat on the field that could have gotten to her.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It might be only medium range, and nothing like our modern rifles in terms of accuracy, but that SKS will still kill. I could be wrong, I wasn’t there, but it sounds like you made an acceptable tactical choice.”

  “I left my teammate.”

  With a strange sense of clarity, Althea’s own words echoed against her mind. The self recrimination did not fade, but rather sharpened. Her sense of guilt remained, but the young boy’s face faded just a notch, as if Althea could see through it and to the real reason she beat herself up.

  Boris nodded with her as he said,

  “And if you were in my squad, I would bust your ass. You would be back on a training schedule so fast, your tits would melt from the friction. And when your squad mates took turns kicking your ass for it, only then would I let you back into the field.”

  Boris waved the whole question away as if it were smoke.

  “Expecting good combat response from a civie is fucking stupid though. How about instead of tearing yourself up about it, we try training you and see how that works?”

  “You’re serious, you want to help me?”

  Boris looked her in the eyes and said,

  “Considering what your future holds, I would be an irresponsible jackass if I didn’t try.”

  Althea sat up and nodded.

  “Okay. I’ll try. Do you mind talking to me a little longer?”