Mikkel

We didn't go out gambling that night. I needed to be home and sober the next morning for when the workers would come help out at the house. Besides, Nate and I were running out of places to play without being accused of cheating and thrown out. I had started to work on a plan to solve that problem, but it'd take more money and man-power.

In all honesty, I was starting to feel bad about taking money from the townies. It was the Serpents and Jaggars that I really wanted to rob, but I couldn't afford starting another war this soon. Once war broke out between the Serpents and the Jaggars, I would be ready to snatch all I could carry without consequence. But before I could even think about that, I had to make sure that the war was set in our favor and that Cory would be safe.

Chances were, the snapping point for Miles would be the loss of Cory. And years of pacifism under pressure would probably make the worst kind of savage in the end—especially considering his family's predisposition to insanity.

Miles

"Predisposition to insanity?" I'm not predisposed to anything you ass-wipe! It was one man, three generations ago. That is not a predisposition, that's an isolated case!

Mikkel

Write your own story, Miles.

I spent the morning training with Cory.

She was surprised when I poked her awake at 7am. Miles was even more surprised that I had found my way past their locked bedroom door. "How the hell did you get in here?" He said as he sat up in bed, dressed in an undershirt and boxers. His eyes darted, not to the door, but to the closet across from their attached bathroom.

"I picked the lock," I said. "These old locks are easy to bypass." I walked over to the closet as Cory rolled away from Miles and crawled out of bed. I was actually a little surprised that they had spent the night in the same bed. "So, you found the secret passage ways, huh?" I opened the closet and started looking around for signs of the hidden door.

Behind me, I could hear Miles groan and slouch in bed. "I don't know what you're talking about." It was too early for him to lie effectively.

Cory walked up behind me. "Can you leave while I get dressed? I'll meet you downstairs in a bit. I'll need breakfast before we start."

"You look dressed to me," I said, looking her up and down.

"Get out!" Miles said.

"Sure thing," I said, "Let me just find the door."

"No!" Miles stood up and started coming toward me. "Get out!" He grabbed my shirt and yanked me toward the door. Now that surprised me more than anything. To have him come that close to touching my skin and to use such force against someone was something I had never seen in him before. I was too stunned to do anything but follow his shove. Before I could say another word, he slammed the door in my face.

That's when I learned that Miles was, in no way, a morning person.

Nate was having breakfast in the kitchen with Anna. He was smiling like a monkey, and had just about as much to say. Poor guy. He was desperate to move this relationship forward, but had no idea how. So the two of them stayed in this awkward state of childish flirting, just as Cory and Miles were stuck in a perpetual state of awkwardness. It gave me a headache.

Cory came down quickly, dressed in a tank top and shorts. She was barefoot, which meant she was ready to climb the walls. But today, I wanted her grounded. In the southern fields, where she was going to be fighting next, there were no walls to climb. Her tactics were going to have to change.

"You're going to need shoes," I told her. "We're going outside to train."

Miles

There was no part of that morning that I wanted to be a part of. I didn't care to be around for the house full of townies that were fixing things up and I didn't care to be around to watch Mikkel duel Cory in the back yard. So I waved goodbye to them at breakfast and walked down to Gore's clinic on the Fault.

I went in through the back door, which was right next to the lab. Piper was the first person I saw. He was working all by himself, packing up equipment and labeling everything in the room.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Dr. Gore is getting ready to move the clinic," He said without looking up.

"Are you moving with him? Or are you going back home?" I asked, looking around for something I could help with.

"I'm here for another six months," he said. "I took the semester off from school."

"Why did you do that?" I asked.

He only shrugged. "I think Dr. Gore needs some help packing up the exam rooms," he said, "if you're looking for something to do."

"I found a place near the river," Dr. Gore said as I walked into the exam room he was working in.

"North or south side of the river?" I asked.

"South," he said, standing up straight to look at me. "Are you worried?"

"Should I be?" I looked over the boxes he had labeled to see if I could help with anything. In all honesty, I was. But there was no point in worrying. It was going to happen. My choice was to work with it or abandon everyone.

He shrugged. "Nurse Anderson quit when she heard it," he said, "But I think we'll be okay. Just don't go taking your shirt off in my clinic and there shouldn't be any cause for alarm."

"You think so?" I asked. "You don't think anyone will recognize me?"

"Why would they?"

"Well, for starters, my twin brother just declared himself king of the city and plastered his face on every television. ...Granted, there are only about five in the city, but still..."

Dr. Gore gave a strange smile while he looked me up and down. After a moment's pause, he started to nod his head slowly. "Yeah, I guess I can see the resemblance," he said. "You have the same hair and eyes. But I don't think anyone will notice. Just drop the adelige accent, and you'll be just fine."

Cory

Nate left after breakfast to pick up a group of five men to help with clearing the yard. They had stopped at a store on the way and bought an arsenal of tools. In two hours they had cleared away a huge section of the back yard, uncovering an overgrown hedge maze and a broken fountain that had been completely engulfed in plant life.

While they worked in the back, Mikkel had me doing what he called "psycho training" in the great room in the front of the house. We sat on cushions on the floor and I worked on calming my nerves and making psycho-physio connections with him and sometimes Nate or Anna or whoever would let me. By the end of the two hours, I was mentally exhausted and sick of sitting still. So we took a break and then went outside to spar.

"There's no walls in the southern fields," Mikkel said as we stood in the back yard. "How do you think you're going to handle that?"

I looked over my short blade sword he had handed me. It was a trainer, cut from wood and laced with that red chalk we used on all our training weapons. The real thing was under my bed. I had never had to use it before, but all the Underground soldiers carried them. Bullets were too expensive to use exclusively. I guessed that was why he told me to leave my paint gun pistol inside. "Well," I said, "I was going to say, 'shoot and dodge,' but it looks like you don't want me to do that either."

"Shooting might work," he said, "And you have excellent aim. But I wouldn't fire a gun too quickly." He twirled his short blade trainer in his hands. "Just remember a few things: number one, you have shorter reach than most people; two, you are inherently weaker than most; and three, if you let anyone get a firm grip on you, you're screwed."

"Do you really think I'm going to end up sword fighting with some Jaggar down in the fields?" I asked.

"No," he said without hesitation, "But the principles still apply. I'll be fighting with the sword to lead by example. But to help prepare you for the situations you might face, we're going to play a little game."

"Game?"

"I'll give you a minute get-away. You must stay in the yard, and stay off of any building structure, but other than that, it's free range. Try to take me by surprise."

Impossible, I thought. Mikkel could feel me coming.

"Starting now," Mikkel said, glancing at his watch.

I ran around the side of the house toward the front yard. If I knew Mikkel at all, he wouldn't give me a full minute. He probably wasn't timing me at all. I had to think of a strategy quickly before he came looking for me. I dropped down to crouch near some overgrown bushes while I figured out a better plan.

"What are you doing?" someone asked from the driveway.

"I'm training," I said without turning around to see who it was. "Don't talk to me, I have to be sneaky." I glanced his way to see if he was going to ruin my chances in Mikkel's game. "Steven?" I said, standing up. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk a little more about this position you guys are offering."

From somewhere in the yard, I heard the sound of barking dogs. It made my skin crawl. "What's that?" I asked.

"Dogs," Steven said.

"Well, of course, but why?"

"Why what?"

At that moment, a massive, black dog came running from the backyard, following the same path I had run. It was shaggy and mean looking. It's skin hung loose on its body to obscure how much of its size was muscle and how much was just skin and fur. The beast slowed down enough to take in the front yard. It sniffed the air and then came bounding at me, barking viscously as it ran.

I screamed and ran toward the front gate at the end of the drive, but the dog was fast and came up right behind me. Another one came from the east side of the house and ran toward me without hesitation. I dropped my training sword and jumped at the stone pillar at the gate. My shoes didn't climb as easily as bare feet, but with my momentum, I was able to run up the pillar just enough to grab the top and pull myself up.

Mikkel walked out of the front door, scanned the scene and shook his head. Then he walked casually over to where I was stranded by the dogs, nodding a greeting to Steven as he went. "You failed," He said when he reached the dogs. They were sniffing the sword and barking at me from the ground.

"Failed what?" I asked. "I thought I was supposed to sneak up on you!"

"Well, you failed that too, now, didn't you."

"You didn't say anything about dogs."

"Your enemies aren't going to tell you what they have on their side. What you do know is that there's no walls in the southern fields. So get off the pillar and come deal with your foe."

"How?" I asked.

"Looks like you need to figure that out," he said, pulling a paint ball pistol from his waist. "Better do it before I kill you."

"You didn't let me bring my paint ball gun!"

"So what are you going to do?" He asked. "You're stuck in the southern fields without a weapon, with dogs after you and a gunman pointing his gun right at you." He only gave me a few seconds to think it over before he started squeezing the trigger.

I let myself roll off the back of the pillar, using it to shield me from the round and the dogs.

"You're cheating," he said. "You can't use walls for cover."

"How can you say that when you're the one that broke the game?" I said. The dogs heard me and started running my way, but I jumped back up the pillar and down the other side to run toward the house.

Mikkel fired off two shots at me, hitting both my shoulders. Using a dog whistle, he called the dogs to him. I fell to the ground in defeat and sat down on the drive near Steven.

"Cory," Mikkel said, snapping a leash on the dogs, "you have to understand that when you invade another person's territory, you're walking into their game. They make the rules; they form the field; they get to pull all the stops on you. That fact is why the Underground went undefeated for so long. But this next war isn't going to be so easy. When we go south this afternoon to scout out the southern fields, we have to look at how their game is played. And chances are, we won't figure it all out."

"We're going south this afternoon?" I asked, feeling preemptively exhausted.

"Isn't that what you've been assigned to do?"

"Well, yes, but... you're coming with me, right?"

"Didn't I say 'we?'" Mikkel walked over to Steven and handed him the leash that branched to both dogs. "Thanks for letting me use the canines," he said, "Do you think the police will let me borrow them again sometime? Cory needs to get over her fear of dogs."

"You were in on this?" I turned to Steven.

Steven backed away, with a timid look. "He called me this morning and said he needed to use some police dogs. That's all."

"We have a phone now?" I turned back to Mikkel.

"Nah," Mikkel said, "I had to go all the way down to the gas station at the bottom of the hill. We do need to get a phone, though."

"How early were you up this morning?" I asked.

"Early enough to wake me up," Steven said.

Mikkel smiled. "This is what happens when I can't stay out all night. Thanks again for the dogs, Steven, do you need a ride home? I can have Nate drive you."

"Actually, I was wanting to talk with you about this liaison thing."

"It's going to have to wait. Cory needs some lunch and then we need to start packing for Jaggar territory." His words made me shiver. "But why don't you come by the waterfront later this evening. There's an old bar there that used to be called The Water Lounge. The neon letters are still there. You know it?"

"I don't usually hang out at the waterfront," Steven said. "Gambling and drinking isn't really my thing."

"Ah, well, you should come down this evening. Some guys and I are going to check out The Water Lounge. I'm thinking of procuring it for myself. I'll call it, The House of Cards. You like that?" He looked at both of us for a response.

I gave him a dubious look. "Since when was this a plan?" I asked.

"Since Nate and I got kicked out of Red and Black the other night. If we're going to keep making enough money to live on, we're going to have to step up our game. And running our own rings is how we're going to do it."

Steven sucked in an audible breath. "I really need to talk to you about this liaison job," he said. "Remind me how it benefits anyone beside yourself."

"Come down to The Water Lounge tonight, Steven. We'll talk it all over then."