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to.
    Emily said something unintelligible, her voice muffled and her face still pressed against his damp shirt.
    “What?”
    Emily sat up, rubbing her eyes and then wordlessly accepting the tissue that Vivik offered her, discreetly wiping her eyes and sniffling. Vivik made a conscious effort not to look at the wet patch on his shirt that stuck uncomfortably to his skin.
    “Is that it?” Emily asked him, her eyes wet and trembling, the tissue clutched in her hands.
    “Is what it?”
    “Her chest!” Emily howled miserably, again burying her head in his shirt, this time using the other shoulder. “Is that it? Is that why he’s so obsessed with her?”
    Vivik figured out what they were talking about, and then blushed furiously. He was somewhat glad that Emily was too busy sobbing to notice.
    “Ah. Well, we don’t really talk about that sort of thing,” Vivik lied. “But I don’t think it’s that. Anyway,” he said, hesitating when she looked over suddenly, “Eerie’s not really that… big.”
    “Then, what is wrong with me?” Emily demanded, looking up at him with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. He handed her another tissue automatically, and wished that he could change his shirt. “Why is he being so weird?”
    Vivik weighed his options. He had a strict policy of noninvolvement in cartel affairs, one that had kept him moderately safe until now. Nevertheless, Emily was a friend; moreover, Emily was the girl that he often found himself thinking of right before he fell asleep. He liked Emily, he really did, and he had since the first time they had talked. Vivik wanted her to get what she wanted, and for her to be happy, but he wasn’t sure he wanted that badly enough to help her into Alex’s arms. Besides, Vivik told himself, it wasn’t as if Alex was hurting for attention, feeling increasingly comfortable with the idea. Alex seemed to view Emily as a more of a burden than anything else, much of the time.
    “I’m just his friend. We don’t talk about girls much,” Vivik continued on, a little stunned that lying had suddenly become so easy. “And I honestly don’t know what’s up with him and Eerie. Ever since Alex started the Program, he is barely ever around, and when he is, he spends most of his time sleeping. He doesn’t eat with her, and he doesn’t sit next to her in class. Why are you so worried?”
    Emily sniffled and looked miserable; curling her bare, tanned legs beneath her, stretched across the top of Vivik’s neatly made bed.
    “They know, Vivik,” she said, crumpling the tissue in her hand. “The Hegemony. Chandi Tuesday showed up today and threatened me. They want results, and they know all about Alex and Eerie. Vivik,” she said intensely, seizing his hand in her own, “they are going to kick me out of the Academy. My father will marry me off to some old man, and that will be that.”
    Vivik opened his mouth to protest, and then thought better of it. Emily was right, of course, and that was part of it. The other part was that he did not want her to let go of his hand. The way he saw it, it wasn’t even a betrayal of Alex – after all, he had been frank with Vivik many times as to his uncertainty when it came to Emily. Surely, he was not doing anything wrong by spending time with the girl he liked, regardless of her intentions. Was it even possible, he wondered, for Emily’s obsessive quest for Alex to lead her in his direction?
    You never know, Vivik thought, until you try, reaching as subtly as possible for the box of tissues.

3.
     
    Alex was in the circle, and not at all happy to be there.
    No one seemed inclined to ask his opinion on the subject, however, and Mitsuru Aoki’s crimson eyes were latched on to him, so he tried to keep his head clear, his breathing slow, and his hands up. As Steve was right-handed, and favored a lunging uppercut or a right cross, Alex always moved to his left, exactly as Michael had taught him. It was impossible for him to tell how long they