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it.”
    Tiago pressed the sliver between his thumb and forefinger. It clicked, and softly glowed. He clicked it again and the bluish glow faded.
    “If June isn’t in the prison van, you’ll go the center. Meal times are open. Tag him then.”
    Kay cocked her head. “I think it’s time for me to go meet the van.” She walked away and grabbed her poncho and gas mask.
    “All this, just to talk to a boy,” Tiago muttered.
    “The fate of empires has sometimes depended on less,” Nashara said. She slipped into the space that Kay left vacant.
    Tiago waited for Kay to close the door behind her. She was outside now. Out of earshot. “Poor bastard,” Tiago said, looking down. June was a clean-cut boy, not much older than Tiago. There were no rain scars on his cheeks, his hair was carefully tailored, and he wore off-world clothes. Machine-made. “Can you imagine that face walking into Dekkan?”
    “Hopefully it doesn’t get that far,” Nashara said. “I would prefer you not end up there either.”
    She sounded genuine. Which meant nothing, really, if she had the same capabilities as Kay, Tiago realized.
    “You know you’re in danger, too,” Tiago said. “You know she wants something from you. And she’ll do anything to get it.”
    “She already has what she truly, deeply wanted. As a down payment. Now I’m giving her extras,” Nashara said. “It’s a risk, but she knows where she stands with me.”
    Maybe, thought Tiago. Nashara was super-human. Who was he to question her judgment?
    Still. It was Kay.
    “I did bring a great deal of backup with me,” Nashara said, noticing Tiago’s dubiousness. “I came with a gunboat modified for the area, crew, very expensive shielded equipment, and lots of toys. Pepper didn’t come with support, that’s his style, not mine. If you ever want to visit, we’re aboard the Streuner . Dock seventeen, the furthest slip on the end.”
    A strange vision of sitting on the back of a gunboat with Nashara, enjoying tea and little sandwiches flashed into Tiago’s mind. He snorted.
    Nashara shrugged. “We’ll take June back aboard, see what he knows, and then get him back to where he belongs.”
    Tiago looked at her. “You’re not leaving him with Kay afterwards?”
    “That wouldn’t be good for June, would it?” Nashara said. “And as you said, June seems … a bit removed from this sort of world. No, after we acquire him and chat, we’ll cut him loose somewhere nice.”
    Acquire him. There was a strange turn of a word, Tiago thought. She really was a kindred soul to Kay. Someone who wove the fate of everyone around them. People were things to ‘acquire’ and direct. Kay got people jailed falsely just so she could keep them around as ‘assets.’
    They were both scary.
    “Are you going to help Kay take over Placa del Fuego?” Tiago asked. “Help her run the entire island?”
    “Now you’re being over dramatic,” Nashara said, as if talking to a child. “No. I won’t. Besides, she’s not yet capable of it.”
    Not yet? “What do you mean?”
    “She needs to stop depending on all those Nesaru genetic modifications in her,” Nashara said softly.
    “You know about that?”
    “There are Ox-men here, and Runners, and more. What the Nesaru did in just three or so generations was dramatic. Reshaping human bodies for all the niches they needed to run their world. It was beyond anything we’d even realized was happening. It stood to reason that some Overseers survived. Though Kay’s the first we’ve known of.”
    “She can control your mind,” Tiago said earnestly.
    “Not quite. It’s more like you’re an open book to her. She can hold your strings in some ways, but not as much as you might think. More of a mind reader than a mind controller, Tiago. And only when she’s standing right in front of you. That’s why she’s not going to own Placa del Fuego anytime soon. She still has to learn other ways to get people to do her bidding, and her teachers have