Chapter 18: 18 Edge Cases, Part Three

Three months after impact

Jin warily eyed everyone that passed. Was it that guy, or that guy?

He wasn't worried for himself but anyone who could take down Tsuyoshi wouldn't have any trouble with Sophie. Who was poking at his arm right that moment.

"I think Jin should stop staring at everyone. It seems a little creepy, you know?" she said.

"Like he's sizing people up for nefarious purposes," Josephine added.

"Right!" Sophie said.

"I'm sizing people up to check if they have nefarious purposes," he said.

Sophie crossed her arms and hunched a little, until she'd made herself look at least ten percent smaller than she actually was. "If I think about that it's too scary. I need to think people here are mostly good so I can go on with things without getting depressed."

"Don't walk around alone," he said.

"It's not like anyone gives me the option," Sophie said. "I'm not a baby. I can take care of myself."

He didn't know what to do with girls who got scared and defensive. Freya was never like this. She got angry and sad in the right situation, but she was enhanced like him. He'd never had to worry about her or try to pretend he thought she was stronger than she was. Things were simple with Freya. Clear.

Things on this side of the barrier without her were messy, complicated, annoying. He crossed his own arms and tried not to huff and puff.

"Ah, then you should take care of me," Josephine said. "Who will rescue me from loneliness if I don't have Sophie to keep me company?"

"Ah, we should have a party! Then everyone can rescue everyone from loneliness together. Wouldn't that make everything feel less scary?" Sophie said, and clapped her hands.

Jin couldn't think of anything he wanted less. "I need to shoot something."

*

He'd set up a makeshift shooting range in one of the unused sheds. Before setting everything up he spent all night cleaning the dust out first so the air in the enclosed space wasn't too uncomfortable to breathe. He wasn't ready to let anyone else know about it, yet, wanted to enjoy the quiet of it all while he could.

He lined himself up and took the shot, tearing a hole in the butcher's paper he'd found in what he assumed was a craft room. His skills were still sharp.

Should he go again or would that waste ammunition he wasn't sure they wouldn't run out of? He lowered his hands and stood still for a moment, staring at the wall. Let the quiet soak into his brain. No noise but the sound of his breathing, nothing to interrupt his thoughts.

Would he let Tabitha in here with her gold plated weapon to practise her aim? She was just as likely to try to kill him either way. That loser Zelko could keep aiming at paint tins for all Jin cared, and he suspected the colonel had already figured out his own arrangements.

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No, he knew who he would let in before he let the world know what he'd made.

*

How was it that as soon as he went looking for someone who was usually constantly in his space they magically became impossible to find? Frustrating.

He looked in what he considered the usual places – he couldn't find her in the mess hall, but he did find Neo struggling to eat an orange with heavily bandaged hands (and thought, that's what you get for trying to have knife fights, dumbass). If she was in the hospital she'd turned invisible and mute for all he could tell. And when he did a full circuit of as close as he dared to get to the edge of the barrier he didn't see the slightest hint of her. Or anyone on his side of the line, other than some random guy he hadn't seen before, whose body jerked like his limbs weren't working right but stepped away whenever Jin got close.

But he did see Freya. Eventually.

He'd been staring off into her side of this tedious prison camp for a few minutes, wondering at the different quality of light that seemed to emanate from her dome, when she strolled up smiling her faint smile, expression making itself known more through the crinkle of her eyes than the faint upturn of her lips.

He didn't even have anything to say. He just wanted to look at her. And she looked back.

She took two fingers and formed the symbol of a heart, low in front of her chest so it would be blocked from view of anyone that might be standing behind her. He couldn't do it back just in case one of their superiors walked out from a building just in time to see, but he felt it, catching him in his chest like she'd drawn it right on his skin.

By the time he walked away, half an hour later, he'd completely forgotten what he'd gone out there to do.

He felt relaxed, renewed. Fully ready to recommit himself to figuring out the barrier and getting out of there.

He turned a corner and nearly bumped into Sophie as she ran, screaming, her hands covered in blood.

He snapped to attention, and grabbed her by the shoulder so she wouldn't careen around the corner and bump into someone else. "What happened?"

"There's blood in the taps. I don't understand where it came from." Her face was messy with tears.

"What?" It made no sense. But it smelled like blood, fresh and warm. "Get a towel. Wipe it off!"

"Who did the blood come from, Jin?"

Tabitha came around the corner like a vulture. "I knew I heard your voice. This is my side of things."

"I don't have time for this," he snapped. "You take care of Sophie."

He shoved Sophie and her bloody hands at a startled Tabitha and stumbled away.

They had to get out.

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