The engine room was small but Amber didn’t need much space to work.

The engine itself took up something like two-thirds of the room and Amber was more or less content to make do with what she had. Of the Termite’s crew, she was definitely the least concerned about the size of the ship. Having grown up poor in a series of shoebox apartments in east Los Angeles, this small ship that could take them all over the universe in the blink of an eye was kind of like paradise to her.

She had the engine which, for the most part, performed beautifully. She had a whole case of tools and gadgets to help her do her job. She had a stack of sketchbooks next to a slightly out-of-date desktop computer. She had a cool handheld gaming system that helped her pass the time on long flights. She even had a mattress on the floor.

Part of her felt bad about the bed. The other three girls hated sharing that tiny dorm and she had a place where she could sneak away and have some peace and quiet. But it was practical. Amber had always been a night owl and this way, after a spending three-hours tinkering with the engine during one of her famous “midnight sessions” that everyone hated, she could crash out without waking her friends.

It was so nice to have some semblance of privacy that she didn’t even mind the itchy blanket or squeaking springs. In a world of constant compromise, this was entirely and unashamedly hers and that meant everything to Amber.

She didn’t mind the cramped quarters but she did mind the heat. The engine room cooked her like an oven and she couldn’t exactly open a window and enjoy the autumn breeze. The heating-and-cooling systems were controlled by Hwasa who had direct access to them from her seat in the cockpit. Amber used her tablet to send Hwasa a quick message (with four emojis) begging for a little AC.

She breathed a deep sigh of relief when she heard three clicks and the smooth whoosh of cold air from the vents. It wouldn’t take too long for it to cool off now.

Near the chest of tools was the scratched up wall mirror from her college dorm room and she dared a peek, unsurprised to see the grease on her face and in her blonde hair. She always had grease on her somewhere – under her nails, on her pants, even behind her ears. It was all part of the job. Anyone who’d ever spent any extended time on a ship knew that there was always one crew member that would spend 98.7% of the time coated in grime and so nobody gave her a hard time about it.

Except…

“Why are you always so filthy?” Krystal asked, her short nails chipping the paint from the doorway. “Do you actually work on the engine or do you just roll around in the mess that it makes?”

Amber ignored her for a second, running her (mostly clean) fingers through her hair in an attempt to get it looking how she wanted.

“You think I look hot like this,” she said easily.

Krystal’s brow furrowed like she was annoyed but even now, she was staring at the way Amber’s tank top showed off muscles, tattoos and the few scars she bore from when engineering went wrong.

“What are you doing?” she asked, leaving the doorway so that she could poke around Amber’s desk.

“My job,” Amber counter when she was pleased with her hair. “What are you doing?”

“Killing time,” Krystal said absently. Amber stepped carefully around the girl so that she could take her seat but Krystal didn’t seem to mind or even notice, opening one of Amber’s notebooks and eyeing a diagram like she had any idea what it was. “My shift doesn’t start for another hour and I’ve watched all the good movies loaded on the TV.”

Amber cocked an eyebrow.

“And you’re in my room because...?”

Tracing the diagram with her finger, Krystal looked over her shoulder, her eyes dragging deliberately down Amber’s body.

“Like I said,” she replied, “I have an hour to kill.”

She closed the notebook, her heel and approached Amber’s computer chair, moving slowly. She got close enough to touch Amber’s thighs with her fingertips and then straddled her lap, not waiting for any sort of response or confirmation.

Amber swallowed hard.

“Is that all I’m good for?” she teased, her hands falling to rest on Krystal’s hips. “Killing time?”

Krystal shook her head.

“You’re good at keeping the engine from combusting, I guess,” she shrugged. “You’re also pretty okay at basketball.” Amber laughed and Krystal reached up to play with her hair, completely undoing all of Amber’s previous progress. “But, yeah, above all, you’re really good with your tongue and I don’t have to be at my desk for another fifty-seven minutes.” She looked back at the mattress in the corner and shrugged. “I’m even open to doing it on your weird floor-bed.”

“It’s not weird,” Amber said, feeling strangely defensive. “It’s cozy.”

Krystal rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, dusty floor-furniture is always super cozy,” she said, her fingers dropping from Amber’s hair so that they could grip her jaw instead. “Now stop talking and kiss me.”

Amber did as she was told.

She still didn’t know how any of this had happened. Because she and Krystal? They were opposites. Polar opposites. Night and day. Left and right. Fire and ice. Oil and water.

Krystal was a princess, a brat. She expected people to do what she said and pouted when she didn’t get her way. She was sarcastic, demanding, quick-to-anger and always needed to have the last word. Amber was humble, generous, awkward when she spoke and thankful for everything she had that she usually felt she didn’t deserve it. She was funny, but in an accidental sort of way, and she was very content to be alone, covered in grease and grime, working with her hands and singing along to the radio.

But you know what they say about opposites attracting.

Amber had ignored her feelings for three years. She’d completely accepted the fact that she could never be romantically involved with a co-worker, especially if that co-worker was the cold, brash techie who slept in the bunk above her.

But as cold as she was, Krystal was blisteringly hot and Amber spent so much of her time at the of Krstyal’s jokes that she actually started to enjoy the teasing. Eventually, though, it got old. Good-natured ribbing became irritating conflict and that soon elevated to full-on verbal assaults, and all because they wanted to each other.

Then, one day, they did.

Amber couldn’t really remember how or why or when, just that a poorly-timed joke turned into a screaming match and a screaming match turned into a kiss and a kiss somehow turned into Amber ing Krystal against the wall until she was screaming.

And now life was confusing.

Amber and Krystal weren’t good at middle grounds and grey areas. If they weren’t screaming at each other and breaking things, they were having loud in the galaxy’s smallest on-board shower. They either hated each other’s guts or couldn’t keep their hands off each other. They didn’t know how to split the difference and they really didn’t know how to exist outside of those two extremes.

And they definitely, definitely weren’t a couple.

If they were, they’d be the most dysfunctional couple in the ‘verse.

Did they have feelings for each other? Maybe. Amber wasn’t sure. It was hard to tell when the only time they had together was spent fighting or ing. Maybe if they actually sat down and had a conversation. Or perhaps watched a movie together without getting . Even if they just played a board game or something.

But that didn’t seem likely.

Their interactions were almost always just like this one, with Krystal sitting on her lap and biting her neck and burning her up inside. Amber cursed and fumbled with the zipper on Krystal’s stupid, purple skinny jeans, wondering if they should stay in the chair or actually take it to her weird, dusty floor-bed.

“Don’t leave a mark,” Amber said, swatting at Krystal’s hand when she started pulling at the neck of her tank top. “We’re not teenagers.” Krystal made a face like Amber had just said something incredibly stupid and then her fingers locked tightly in blonde hair. She pulled Amber’s head back, a little rougher than she needed to, and latched onto her neck, hard and guaranteeing a bruise. Amber sighed, grunted and rolled her eyes. “You irritate the hell out of me. Do you know that?”

Krystal smirked. She reached down, grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and pulled it over her head, tossing it towards the bed on the floor. She was wearing the black, lacy bra that always made Amber’s knees weak and the older girl couldn’t even pretend that she was angry.

“Yeah,” she said, “but you’ll get over it.”   

Krystal shifted her weight so that she was only straddling one of Amber’s thighs and leaned down to steal a kiss. All the times they’d done this, Amber couldn’t remember any kisses or touches that were sweet or tender. She figured that that was what happened when all of your ual encounters came off the cusp of a violent confrontation.

Everything was rough and rushed, all teeth and nails and swearing. But Amber didn’t mind. She liked this. She liked what they were, whatever they were, and there was something incredibly y about the intense way they coexisted. Maybe it wasn’t the healthiest “relationship” in the world but it certainly was a good time-killer while they were in the air.

As much as Amber loved to draw diagrams and take things apart, this was a lot more fun.

Amber reached around and cupped Krystal’s , pulling her forward to grind against her thigh. Krystal groaned but covered it with a laugh but before she could give her usual quick remark, Taeyeon’s voice came over the comm.

“We’re landing in ten minutes,” she announced, “and stopping for dinner. Get yourselves all cleaned up. I want barbeque.”

“Barbeque?” Hwasa’s voice chimed in. In the very back of her mind, Amber wondered where Hwasa had gone if she was no longer in the cockpit. “That’s boring.”

“Just put on nice pants and get ready to eat,” Taeyeon said.

When the comm was quiet again, Krystal sighed.

“The ‘verse’s biggest s,” she said, shaking her head as she climbed off of Amber’s laugh. “The both of them.”

Amber shook her head, fixing her hair while she caught her breath.

“Technically,” she said, “can it really be considered a ?” She stood up, angling her body towards the door so that she could head to the dorms to get changed into something less greasy. She didn’t think she had time to shower but there were baby wipes in the bathroom she could use to clean her face and arms. “I mean, if you really think about it –” Krystal grabbed her arm and tugged hard, pulling her back towards the desk and shoving her in the direction of the bed. “What are you doing?”

“We’ve got ten minutes,” she said, shrugging. She used Amber’s confusion against her, taking that half-second of hesitation to push her down onto the mattress. Amber pouted like she always did when she didn’t know what was going on and if Krystal was more willing to be vulnerable and affectionate, she would’ve bitten her bottom lip.

“So?”

Krystal rolled her eyes again, reaching around her back to unhook her bra. She let it drop to the floor and watched Amber’s eyes follow it down before staring back up at her with wide, wanting eyes.

But Jugeo was out of the way. It was the very first planet that you reached when you were coming in from the Banseong System and the Termite just never really went down that way. Their comings-and-goings were usually at the other end of the solar system, the Geum Haneul end, where they went through the Jesamgi System.

Their home solar system – the system ruled by the Cosmos government, the people so desperately seeking Kwon Jiyong – was a cluster of thirteen planets (and a handful of unregulated outlier rocks) aptly dubbed the Cosmos System. That included Geum Haneul, Cheoeum and an incredibly secure planet called Jeongbu that existed solely to serve as Cosmos headquarters.

Jeongbu was home to all government officials, no matter their rank or salary. If you were fortune enough to employed by the Cosmos, you relocated to Jeongbu. Beyond apartments and condominiums, Jeongbu also hosted all of the solar system’s major government buildings – courthouses, ambassadorial residences, the system’s treasury, and even four prisons.

Really, the only significant building not located on Jeongbu was the super-max prison from which Jiyong had escaped. That was on an outlier rock that most Cosmos System residents referred to as the Confines.

Jeongbu’s high concentration of important buildings, though, didn’t mean that smaller, local governments had been completely eradicated. The Cosmos System was ruled by something like a democracy. The truly powerful lived on and operated from Jeongbu but planets like Cheoeum and Geum Haneul had their own small-time leaders and, subsequently, buildings that were used as town halls and petty holding cells.

But Jeongbu was the center of everything.

Naturally, it was defended like a fortress. There was an entire planet – Byeongsa – dedicated to training police and military forces but more than half of the system’s law enforcement was stationed on Jeongbu.

Taeyeon thought it was ironic. The Cosmos had placed the super-max prison on an outlier rock because they thought that it would’ve made it completely impenetrable. Had they actually kept Jiyong on Jeongbu, he never would’ve been able to get off the planet.

Jeongbu wasn’t actually the centermost planet in the system but it was close enough. Besides, its position as main planet had more to do with its power and significance than its actual astronomical location.

The Cosmos’ power, though, was hardly contained to one system. Cosmos sheriffs had been known to lurk and patrol systems in every direction, upholding their pledge to try and keep peace in the universe. Because the Cosmos System was so big and so strong, other systems accepted the help, some graciously and some reluctantly. A lot of these solar systems were fairly close together and the smaller ones, the ones with less manpower and less authority, were quietly grateful for the Cosmos. They were the older brothers who kept the little ones from getting knocked around by bullies on the playground.

But, like it had always been throughout history, sometimes the older brothers proved themselves to be the biggest bullies of all.

Jugeo wasn’t the Termite’s next real stop in finding Jiyong but Taeyeon’s stomach was growling and they didn’t have very much onboard in the ways of dinner. She figured they’d land, hit a restaurant, go grocery shopping and then call it a night. They were having a hard time finding real, reputable leads and Taeyeon was sure that once they’d eaten and gotten a good night’s sleep, they’d be able to go about it with fresh eyes and a clear mind.

They were the best of the best. They’d found people that nobody ever dreamed would be seen again. How hard would it be to find one guy? He couldn’t have gotten very far on his own. He’d had to have had serious help to bust out of the Confines and where there is help, there is a trail.

They’d find the trail and follow it right to Jiyong and then they’d have money to burn on the ship that they deserved.

But first? Barbeque.

As it tended to be on the more formal planets, landing took longer than Taeyeon would’ve liked. On small, rural planets, you could usually just pick a clear spot and float on down but with planets like these where there were heavy rules and regulations, there was a procedure that needed to be followed.

First you needed to notify the landing port that you were approaching. Once you were cleared, you needed to wait for a spot to open up on the runway. When you landed, you were met with notoriously high-strung employees who wanted to know who you were and why you’d landed on their planet.

As soon as they were confident that you weren’t a terrorist or a jerk who was going to try and steal from their landing port, they asked you more useful questions. Did you need fuel? Did your ship need maintenance? Did you need to park in the port overnight or were you just visiting for a few hours? Did you need hotel accommodations? Did you need any information about the planet’s tourist stops?

Taeyeon explained that they’d only be there for the night and she was waved through security and sent to Hangar 45-B, reserved for those parking for twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

“You sure I can’t talk you out of barbeque?” Amber said, wrapping her arm around Taeyeon’s slight shoulders as they departed from the port.

Taeyeon rolled her eyes. Amber smelled like sweat and her hair was messier than it had been before. Krystal was actually smiling and had yet to make any snide comment about the accommodations. It didn’t actually take a rocket science to piece that one together.

Shrugging off Amber’s arm, Taeyeon asked, “Why? What do you want?”

“Chinese,” Amber said.

“Burgers,” Krystal interjected.

“I’m sure they have burgers at the barbeque place,” Hwasa said. As was custom, she was a good two-paces ahead of them. For a girl with such short legs, she walked awfully fast. “And we just had Chinese last week.” She nodded her chin to Taeyeon. “Captain’s choice tonight.”

Taeyeon smirked.

Hwasa always kept the peace.

Maybe she was destined to be a Cosmos sheriff.

The restaurant was called Crater’s Critters and though Taeyeon found all the pelts and animal skeletons on the walls to be a little crude, it had all five-star ratings online.

It wasn’t wildly busy and they were seated immediately at a table set for six. Unsurprisingly, Amber and Krystal sat together on one side of the table while Taeyeon and Hwasa sat on the other, judging them. This was how it always was, unless, of course, the girls went out to eat while Amber and Krystal were fighting. Then Krystal was glued to Taeyeon’s side like a kid while Amber preferred to cling to Hwasa.

“You were right, unnie,” Krystal said once her dark eyes were inside a laminated menu with a smiling cow on the cover. “They do have burgers here. I think I’ll get one.” She smiled and flipped the pages to the dessert section and Taeyeon thought she might’ve heard the younger girl humming to herself.

Hwasa snorted and rolled her head so that she could shoot Taeyeon a look.

“Hear that?” she teased quietly. “I was right.”

Taeyeon rolled her eyes again.

Nothing like a recent to make Krystal agreeable and pleasant. (Actually, now that Taeyeon thought about it, it was probably the only thing in the ‘verse that made Krystal agreeable and pleasant.)

Taeyeon had just gotten through the list the appetizers when someone at the bar shouted something and broke her attention. She looked up to see who it was and why they were yelling but her gaze landed on one of the TV screens instead.

It was a news broadcast about Jiyong.

For a split second, Taeyeon’s heart stopped, misunderstanding the report for news that some other crew had already found him and turned him in. When she realized that it was just a normal bulletin, she breathed a sigh of relief, but the knot of panic in her gut would take a minute or two to untangle.

She’d always been a nervous person. Hwasa had a clear head and a steady hand, two more things that made her the perfect co-pilot. Where Taeyeon could get all wrapped up in her own head and her own feelings, Hwasa lived soundly in reality and made decisions that were logical, no matter what emotional, extenuating circumstances might have been in place.

Onscreen, a woman in a grey suit was speaking. Beside her was a picture that Taeyeon knew well – Jiyong’s mugshot.

He wasn’t an unattractive man. Though it wasn’t much of a glamor shot, Taeyeon could make out nice lips and high cheekbones. His hair was orange but it looked faded and rusty like it was in need of a touch-up. She’d looked at this photo a lot, trying to memorize his face, and every time, she swore he was smirking. His expression wasn’t fearful nor was it one full of regret.

If anything, he looked smug. Proud.

Whatever he’d done (what the hell was considered to be treason in this day and age anyway?), he wasn’t ashamed of it.

Taeyeon couldn’t hear the TV over the hustle and bustle of the restaurant but she could read the subtitles. The woman was speculating, trying to ballpark how many people could be looking for Jiyong at any given time. She called him the most wanted man in the ‘verse and then said that the number of freelancers actively seeking him could be anywhere from fifteen-hundred to fifteen-thousand.

Beside her, Hwasa laughed. Taeyeon hadn’t even noticed that Hwasa had been watching the screen.

“Fifteen-hundred to fifteen-thousand?” she said and then ran a careless hand through her blonde hair, ruffling it. “Seems a bit vague, no?”

“It’s hard to narrow it down,” Taeyeon said, her eyes still scanning the closed captioning as the words scrolled across the bottom of the picture. “There’s no real way to know. They’re just trying to make it seem more dramatic than it is.”

Hwasa shrugged.

“Such is journalism,” she said. Her fingers traced a photo of something on the menu and she shouted to Amber, “Hey, if I order the sandwich that comes with macaroni and cheese, can I have some of your fries?” Amber didn’t respond. She and Krystal were in deep, giggly conversation behind Krystal’s menu. Hwasa rolled her eyes. “Amber, don’t ignore your elders.” Still, no response came. She rolled her eyes and flipped Amber off with both hands, though the younger girl didn’t notice or care. “Kids in love,” she said. “How gross.”

“Isn’t it crazy?” Taeyeon asked, her mind elsewhere.

She had been referring to something the reporter had said about this being the very first ‘verse-wide manhunt that history had ever seen. At the bar, a few men were watching the screen, talking and jeering as the reporter spoke. People at other tables were watching, too, and Taeyeon thought that a lot of them looked like crews. They were probably doing the exact same thing that they were – stopping to grab a bite before setting to the skies to try and getting back to trying to find Jiyong.

As far as she knew, everyone patron in the restaurant could’ve been on their way to follow up on some leads that they hoped would take them to the universe’s number one fugitive.

“Isn’t what crazy?” Hwasa asked. She ripped one side of her straw’s wrapper before blowing into the other, sending the paper flying into the back of Krystal’s menu. Then she stuck the straw inside her glass and took a long sip of iced tea.

“Can you ever remembering the Cosmos System being this united?” she continued thoughtfully. “In your entire lifetime, can you ever remember seeing so many planets on the same page like this?”

Hwasa shrugged.

“One could argue that the Cosmos System, and the ‘verse, have never been more alienated,” she countered. “We’re all competing, right? We’re all looking for Jiyong so that we can be the first to claim that sweet bounty? Not to mention all the that’s been going on regarding the Berm. Everyone has an opinion on that.” She closed her menu and set it aside, crumpling up her discarded straw wrapper and placing it on top of her napkin. “Personally, I think we’re a galaxy divided.”

Taeyeon hadn’t considered that.

Once Jiyong’s picture was gone, his story over, the reporter had moved right into a piece about Berm preservation. Three farmers from Cheoeum had been arrested six months ago for killing a colony of Berm and their trial was set to begin on Jeongbu later that week. Even on Geungyo, the planet that she technically called home, a plot to blow up a nearby rock full of Berm had been thwarted by Cosmos sheriffs investigating what was considered to be domestic terrorism.

On the flipside, wherever Taeyeon went, there were people protesting. Space dwellers young and old circulated information in the form of pamphlets and lectures about why protecting the Berm should have been the galaxy’s number one priority. She had seen rallies and marches firsthand, people so passionate about protecting the ‘verse’s second species that they were willing to face criticism, abuse and sometimes even arrest.

There were dozens of other social issues that plagued the Cosmos System, everything from fuel prices to landing port security to on-ship hardware regulations. Everyone in the galaxy was opinionated, everyone fired up about something and Taeyeon wondered if she was naïve for thinking that this manhunt for Jiyong was bringing people together.

“Maybe we are,” she said absently. She’d had another question for Hwasa, something about the morality surrounding fifteen-thousand people searching tirelessly for a man who wasn’t even a violent criminal, but her tablet vibrated in her bag.

“What’s that?” Hwasa asked.

Taeyeon plucked the tablet from her backpack and when she saw the screen, she sighed.

“Video call from Heechul,” she said. “What a delight.” She considered rejecting it but changed her mind almost immediately. She then considered answering it right there in the restaurant but, once again, second-guessed. Beyond the inherent rudeness of taking a call in crowded room, she’d literally just assessed the other diners as potential competition. If she needed to give her new boss an update on the Termite’s progress, she’d need to do so someplace where the walls didn’t have such good ears. “I’ll take it outside.”

“Wait, order something,” Hwasa said, snatching up Taeyeon’s menu and forcing it at her. “Don’t skip dinner, you dummy. This was your night to choose.”

Faintly, Taeyeon smiled.

She pointed to the pulled-pork sandwich she’d been craving and then added, “You can have my cornbread.” Hwasa smiled, Taeyeon gave her shoulder a light shove and then disappeared out the front door, looking for somewhere safe to take the call.

That ended up being the ramshackle bathroom of a nearby mini-mart.

“Is this a bad time?” Heechul asked when he noticed the dingy tile and peeling wallpaper.

“For two-hundred million dollars,” Taeyeon said, “any time is a good time.”

Heechul smirked.

His shirt wasn’t so ugly this time. It was a simple red tee with absolutely no distinguishing features or obnoxious patterns. His hair was combed more neatly, too, making him look a lot less senile than their initial meeting. She wondered how long that would last.

“Already counting the money?” he cooed, that malevolent glint in his eye sparkling like a cluster of stars. “I take it, then, that things are going well.”

Taeyeon shrugged, her teeth pinching at the inside of her cheek.

“We’re working on our next lead,” she said, trying to keep her tone confident and professional so that Heechul couldn’t figure out that they had no ing idea what they were doing. “Once we pinpoint where we need to be, we will set out.”

That malevolent glint turned into a fully wicked twinkle and Taeyeon swallowed hard.

“You don’t know where to go from here, do you?” he asked, the singsong tone of voice making the knot in Taeyeon’s stomach tighten fiercely.

At least he didn’t sound angry. Taeyeon had expected him to sound angry. He seemed really desperate to find this guy and if the people he was paying to do the job couldn’t tell their asses from anti-matter, he was going to be mad. If anything, though, he sounded amused, almost charmed like he’d expected the conversation to go exactly this way.

“We are working on our next lead,” she repeated. “There’s a lot of information to sift through and a lot of it isn’t any good. You wouldn’t want us jumping the gun, now, would you?”

Heechul’s smile remained, his lips twisted into something that was meant to look happy but really just came across as thinly-veiled malice.

“Absolutely not,” he said, “which is why today, I come bearing gifts.”

Taeyeon eyebrow cocked. She was one-hundred percent sure that she would never understand this man.

“Gifts?”

“A lead,” he said cheerfully, clapping his hands. “A hint. A clue. A piece of the puzzle.” When Taeyeon stared back at him, wondering idly if he was a real person or a villain that had escaped from a children’s cartoon, he added, very clearly, “I’m going to save you some trouble and tell you where to go next, Captain Kim.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “You know where we need to go next?”

He nodded.

“I know many things, Taeyeon,” he said.

“If you know,” she began uneasily, “why don’t you go? Aren’t you paying us to do all the digging?”

He shook his head, that eerie smile sticking to his face like it had been glued there.

“I’m paying you to do the dirty work,” he said. “I can do some of my own digging. Look, do you want this tip or not?”

Shrugging, Taeyeon gestured with her free hand.

“By all means,” she said.

“There is a file in a government building,” he began.

“A computer file?”

“No,” he said. “Physical. Old school. This is a paper file. Manilla envelope, double spaced, black ink, the whole nine. The Cosmos wouldn’t risk putting this information online. It’s tangible and it’s in a retro, metal file cabinet on Jeongbu.”

Taeyeon stared back at him for at least ten seconds, completely silent, blinking as she processed this.

“You want us to go to Jeongbu?” she said.

He nodded.

“There’s a leak in the Cosmos,” he said. “Not a very big one. It’s not someone that’s got his hands on crucial, groundbreaking information. He’s not giving out nuclear secrets or anything like that but he does know where a document like this would be kept. I contacted him, worked my magic, and got the information.”

“You want us to go to Jeongbu?” Taeyeon repeated, barely listening.

Heechul ignored her.

“You find this building, you find this file cabinet, you find this file. Inside this folder, you will find crucial information about two men – Lee Seungri and Kang Daesung. They are two people who have worked incredibly closely with Jiyong and if you can find them, you will find yourself significantly closer to finding the man of the hour. You understand?”

Taeyeon was so quiet that she could hear a customer inside the mini-mart asking the employee if they stocked cherry LifeForce.

“You want us to go to Jeongbu,” she said, “the most heavily guarded planet in the entire universe and try to steal a file?”

Heechul nodded.

“It won’t be as hard as it sounds,” he said. “My source, the leak, he’ll help you. His name is Taeyong. He’s not much, just a disloyal paper-pusher with medium-level security clearance. I emailed you his information.” He cocked his head to the side and his lips, looking downright entertained by Taeyeon’s reaction. “For a crew as talented a yours, little one, it’ll be a piece of cake.” He gave her a wink that made her body feel tense. “Sound like a plan?”

Taeyeon had never been one to grind her teeth but she was thinking now might be a good time to start.

“I’ll call you when we’ve got Jeongbu in our sights,” she said tersely. “Shouldn’t take more than a day to get there.”

Heechul clapped his hands again, pleased.

“Fantastic, baby,” he said. “I look forward to speaking with you soon.”

The call disconnected and Taeyeon sighed so loudly that the people shopping heard her.

By the time she got back to Crater’s Critters, the food was on the table. Hwasa was already several bites into her meal but Krystal and Amber were nowhere to be seen.

“Where are the kids?” she asked.

With a mouthful of mac and cheese, Hwasa said, “In the bathroom, finishing what they started.” Immediately, Taeyeon realized that had been a stupid question. Hwasa nodded her chin at the tablet. “What did Heechul want?”

Taeyeon took the seat beside her friend, the sweet, tangy scent of barbeque sauce tickling her nose and settling with a deep rumble in her stomach.

“He wanted to give us some assistance,” she said. “He wanted to tell us where we should go next, actually.”

“What?” said Hwasa. “Seriously?”

Taeyeon just nodded.

She’d have to explain everything, not to mention open Heechul’s email, but first, she wanted to eat.

She lifted the sandwich to her lips and took a big bite. It was just as delicious as the internet promised and made her taste buds sing. She chewed slowly and carefully and once she swallowed, she dabbed at her cheeks with the corner of her napkin, wiping away the excess sauce.

Hwasa stared back at her impatiently and expectantly, and Taeyeon reached for her drink. She took a sip, suddenly wishing she’d ordered actual lemonade instead of just lemon water. She put her glass back down on the table and then asked, very simply, “Ever been to Jeongbu?”