Teorin stared at the screen hoping that something would click, something would connect. He desperately needed some kind of lead on Kara’s location. Jeron had left this morning, but not before taking another shot at convincing Teorin to stay. Teorin had turned the offer down again, but now he had to live with that decision, and thus far, things were not going well.

  Isi seemed to have fallen off the face of Aralin, and Marcus was even more of a ghost than she was. The ticket Lev had stolen from Sasha’s pocket had confirmed that she’d arrived with someone matching Marcus’ description, but Teorin had already suspected that.

  No one had left the area under the same false name. Sasha probably hadn’t switched identities, so that meant that Kara either wasn’t too far from Kalin Bay or Sasha had gotten on a private plane. Unfortunately, either option was totally possible.

  Lev tapped something on one of the screens, scrolling through a news release. He frowned. then stood and started pacing. Lev was the other stressor. He’d been asleep all of yesterday afternoon and well into this morning, but he was awake now and plenty agitated. The pacing and figeting had been a near constant.

  It was understandable. It was also driving Teorin crazy.

  Teorin tapped though a few more searches, trying to come up with anything else that might help him locate Isi, but he felt like he had gone through almost every possible option at this point. He was monitoring any camera system he could get access to, gossip and chat sites, and government fly lists, plus any contacts he trusted to be discreet. But even with all that, if Isi walked off into the middle of nowhere, there was nothing Teorin could do to find her until she popped up in civilization again.

  Lev finally abandoned his pacing, only to drop into a chair and throw his feet up on the table. Teorin resisted the urge to snap at him. Feet on the table wasn’t totally appropriate, but it was better than the pacing, so Teorin let it stand.

  “Do you think they’ll actually find anything out there?” Lev asked.

  Teorin glanced up at Lev trying to process that question. “What?” Teorin asked.

  “Out on their expedition,” Lev clarified. “Do you think they’ll find anything?”

  Teorin shrugged. He drummed his fingers against two buttons on the console, causing the screen above to flip back and forth between two different maps. “There’s no telling, but I hope so.”

  “Say they do find everything you hope for,” Lev asked. “Statherium, a way off Aralin, what would you do then?”

  Teorin leaned back in his chair. It was a good question. One that he had put far too much thought into, considering he might never leave. “I might stay around for a little while, but I’d want to go. I’d want to explore other places, you know? I’d miss things here. My family mostly, but I think I could convince my brother Delar to go with me if it came to that.”

  And Delar would probably drag Jake along.

  Lev nodded, shifting in his chair as if trying to get comfortable. His fingers pressed briefly against his ribs before dropping. “Kara says about the same thing.”

  “And you?” Teorin asked. “What will you do if we figure this all out?”

  Lev chuckled. “Honestly? Probably not that much different. I’d stay here.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. My life is here. My family is here. Kara would probably leave, so I’d have to deal with that somehow, but honestly? I’m good with how things are. Don’t get me wrong, I get why people like you and Kara want to leave, but… I also don’t think getting off planet is such an important goal we need to devote all resources to it.”

  Teorin frowned. He had expected Lev to be restless, not… content. It threw him off balance.

  Lev chuckled and said, “Not what you expected?”

  “No.”

  Lev sighed, pressing the heel of his hand briefly against his temple before dropping it. “I understand why we push for it as a society. But I also think we have a lot of cultural scar tissue. Sometimes it hinders our perspective.”

  “Cultural scar tissue?” Teorin asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. Getting off planet is like this generationally passed down hope and dream, but it doesn’t mean the same thing as it used to. A century or so ago, I can see why people pushed so hard to find a way back. They had families and friends somewhere out in the rest of the galaxy. The Atalanta being stranded here upended people's lives. I mean I have some great-great-grandfather who had a wife and 3 kids back home on some other planet. He hoped that he could get back for years before finally admitting that it might not happen. He remarried eventually and had another family, but that had to be devastating. And to be forced to admit defeat like that?”

  Teorin had an ancestor with a similar story. Almost everyone did.

  Lev just stared at the wall for a few moments, his focus slipping like he was somewhere else entirely. Then he sneezed suddenly, rubbing at his nose with a quick laugh that didn’t quite land. “Sorry, lost my train of thought. Anyway…” He waved it off, his tone steady again. “I completely understand why they were desperate. I mean that’s basically what I’m doing right now, trying to get Kara back. But I don’t know anyone outside of Aralin. I have distant relatives that are still out there, sure, but now it’s more like an intriguing puzzle to solve with a nice reward at the end versus a desperate effort to reunite with people you love.”

  Lev tapped his fingers against the console, the rhythm a little too fast. He turned back to look at Teorin and continued, “But somehow a lot of people still treat it like it’s completely necessary for our survival. The why has shifted, but we still place it as some sort of all-important goal. It’s like we inherited the desperation and hope, but not the reasons, and so it’s this weird cultural mismatch. Does that make sense at all?”

  It did actually. More than Teorin expected. Lev had clearly put a lot of thought into the matter. Teorin had always thought of leaving as a necessity, a step forward, but for Lev, it was just another option, not an answer.

  “I still think there is a lot of value in getting off planet,” Teorin said. “Trade, knowledge, the list goes on, but I get where you're coming from. Although I admit, I didn’t expect you to be so philosophical.”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Lev gave him an amused look. “Because I’m an athlete?”

  “Well…yeah,” Teorin said with a sheepish nod.

  “Well, I try to avoid philosophy in general, but I also grew up with Kara, so you know, plenty of exposure at a young age to all sorts of academic arguments. Plus, my mom’s whole side of the family is mostly Memorans, so family parties are always interesting. They tend to feature plenty of debates.”

  “You and Kara were always close then?” Teorin asked. They seemed like an odd pair. With how different they were, Teorin would have expected them to drift apart at some point.

  Lev hesitated just a fraction too long, shoulders tightening oddly like he was bracing against something unseen, before forcing a small smile. “We don’t always get along. Who always gets along with any sibling?”

  Lev gave a sad sort of smile. “But most of the time we do. And there aren’t really that many Memorans. Sometimes it’s nice to talk to someone who mostly understands you.”

  Teorin nodded. There were way more Pulsers than Memorans, but the vast majority of people were still Luminars, so he understood what Lev was getting at. Sometimes you just wanted to talk to someone like you.

  “I get that,” Teorin said. “Though I can’t say I always got along so well with some of my brothers. I had more siblings to choose from, though. So, I could afford to be annoyed with some of them at any given time.”

  Lev smiled. “You didn’t have regular philosophical discussions with them?”

  “No, definitely not.” Was that what living with Kara was like? Lev didn’t seem to mind. Maybe he should go into philosophy.

  Wait…could he be studying philosophy? Lev was in college. Philosophy seemed like an odd choice, but it’s not like he could major in sports. Could he? “What are you even studying anyway?” Teorin asked.

  Lev grinned. “Medical Sciences.”

  With the grin, Teorin couldn't tell if it was a joke. “You’re serious?”

  “As the grave.”

  Teorin squinted. “You, a doctor? I thought you’d go into sports forever.”

  Lev laughed. “They literally threaten to kick me out of sports like every year. You didn’t think I’d have a back-up plan?”

  Was Lev’s goal in life just to constantly blindside him in ways that made complete sense?

  “Why’d you choose that?”

  Lev had handled being injured with surprising gravitas, but being a doctor was so… unglamorous.

  Lev shrugged. “It’s interesting, and it goes along with my other skills pretty well. You learn all about the body and all that stuff. And I like working with people, most of the time anyway.”

  For someone so competitive, Lev had picked a career where winning wasn’t the goal. Helping was. Teorin exhaled. Just how many times was he going to misjudge this guy? He’d figured Lev had layers, but this was a whole new one.

  Lev was gazing off at the far wall now, seemingly lost in thought, but not in the normal way. His breath caught as his eyes pinched shut for half a second before he forced them open again. A grimace appeared for just a moment, then Lev’s features twitched like a mask falling into place and suddenly he was fine.

  Teorin kept his eyes on him, but Lev’s expression stayed bored. Had he just imagined that?

  Teorin returned his focus to the console in front of him. The thing was, there wasn’t much more he could do at this point. He’d searched every database that he could think of, sent out feelers in lots of different directions. Now he just had to wait for something to bite.

  He glanced at Lev who was obviously bored. His lost-in-thought look had vanished, and he was spinning back and forth in his chair. He stopped when he noticed Teorin’s gaze. “So, what now?” Lev asked.

  Teorin raised an eyebrow. “Now we wait. I’ll set a comm band to notify me, and we go do something else useful because your spinning and pacing is driving me crazy.”

  Lev frowned but nodded after considering for a minute. “What sort of useful thing?”

  “I don’t know,” Teorin said with a shrug. “Moving boxes?”

  Lev made a face. “Moving boxes? Really?”

  “What exactly do you want to do?” Teorin asked.

  “I did see a basketball hoop,” Lev said with a grin.

  Teorin rolled his eyes, and said sarcastically, “Yes, because I was really looking forward to getting absolutely demolished in a one-on-one basketball game.”

  Lev shrugged. “I’ll try not to use my abilities.”

  “How does that even work?” Teorin asked, giving Lev an incredulous look. “How do you not use your muscle memory?”

  Lev cocked his head, thinking. “It’s sort of complicated. I can’t turn it all the way off, just sort of. The muscle memory no, but the muscle memories are associated with other memories. Does that make sense at all?”

  Teroin shook his head. “Not really, no.”

  “It’s like…” Lev frowned, apparently struggling to come up with the appropriate comparison. “Well, you know what to do in a certain situation, right? Like if I were at a certain place on the court, I would make a different kind of shot. Or I make certain adjustments for wind on an archery range.”

  “Okay. I get that. How does that relate to turning off your memory?”

  “Well, each situation is associated with certain sets of muscle memory. Each location on a basketball court requires different power, aim, all that jazz.”

  “Wait,” Teorin said, holding up a hand. “Are you saying you memorize a different set of movements for every single location that you could shoot a basketball from?”

  Lev blinked. “Sort of. Not quite so actively. It’s more like associating small adjustments with each location. The form is mostly the same, but the power or angle varies. Moving two inches over isn’t really a radical change.”

  “But you still memorize all the positions basically.”

  “Yes,” Lev said.

  Teorin shook his head. That was massive amounts of information. “How do you remember all of that?”

  “I’m a Memoran, remember?” Lev said with a grin. “My normal memory is still way better than most people’s. Same with Kara, just switched around. She actually does have better kinetic memory—kinaesthetic technically, but that’s a mouthful—than the average person. She just doesn’t use it that much. She’s not really into sports, but you should see her dance.”

  That sort of made sense. Kara had basically said as much when Teorin asked her about the bench in the dark alleyway, but still…for Lev to memorize all those positions and not just for basketball, for every sport that he played…that was sort of crazy. And how did this apply to turning off his abilities? “So, you’re saying that you’ll what?” Teorin asked. “Ignore all that positional information? Just go on instinct?”

  Lev grinned. “Exactly.”

  Teorin shook his head. “Lev, I play basketball occasionally with my brothers or coworkers. That’s about it. You’ll destroy me either way.”

  “You never know,” Lev said with a shrug.

  Teorin rolled his eyes. “I’m not yet crazy enough to think that I could beat a Kinetic Memoran at any type of sport.”

  “Fine,” Lev said dismissively. He let out a sudden whimper.

  Teorin’s head snapped to him. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just stretched weird. Still recovering, and all that.” Lev’s fingers dug into his arms, knuckles white. Something was wrong here, but Lev just said, “Let’s do something else then. Show me how your glidesuit works. You do have one, I’m assuming, and probably an extra somewhere around here.”

  Teorin pursed his lips. “Why?” His glidesuit was in Jeron’s car still, but he did technically have access to it. It still had a bullet embedded in the back somewhere. It would be good to fix that.

  Lev traced a finger across the bottom of the console. “I need to focus on something else and not just loading boxes. Something that requires my full concentration because otherwise I am going to go crazy worrying. You’re getting tired of watching me worry? Well, I am tired of worrying. I need something else to focus on.”

  Oh. That’s what this was about. And basketball would take more concentration? Teorin was pretty sure Lev could beat him with his eyes closed. Maybe it was the ignoring positional information thing that took concentration.

  Wait. If he was still hurting from the burns, why would he want to play basketball?

  Teorin studied him, but Lev just gave him an almost puppy dog-eyed begging look.

  Teorin huffed. He didn’t understand Lev. At all.

  Teorin wasn’t going to play basketball with him, but if showing Lev his glidesuit would help… well, that he could do. He needed to get that bullet out anyway. “Fine. I’ll show you the glidesuit, but you are not flying with one, because if you break your leg right after getting treated for severe burns, then Heidi will kill me.”

  Lev looked amused but nodded his acceptance. “Fine, no flying. But that doesn’t mean I won’t ask a hundred questions.”

  Teorin chuckled. “Well, if there is something that I actually like talking about, it’s flying, so I’ll take it.”

  Teorin grabbed his comm band, and they went to find the glidesuit.

  [Lev] Voilà. Triple rent paid.