Rinn smiled. "Met. Oh, thank goodness. He's hurt. Listen—"

"No." Ian squeaked in pain as he struggled to sit up. "Met.... Shit."

Met's pale blue eyes were as cold as his voice. "Evening, Tellman. Busy night?"

Ian groaned, his body shaking.

Rinn rubbed the ailing man's shoulders and said, "Bas, calm down. Please."

If standing, Ian nearly matched Met in height, but now he looked small in the guard's presence. Rinn had a feeling that it wasn't just because he was sedentary.

"N—nope. Not really." Ian looked the little room over. "Just burning the m—midnight oil, as it were."

"It's eight thirty."

Lips puckered, Ian nodded. "Right."

Met gestured behind himself to the door. "Can I talk to you outside?"

Ian's grip on Rinn tightened, forcing her to wince. That strong reaction was all she needed. She looked up to Met with a sense of determination.

"Can you please talk to him another time? He's in so much pain. It's—"

"That pain is why I am here. Because I do not think he will make it through the night."

Rinn's stomach dropped. She stared into Met's cold eyes, waiting for the man to show some sort of emotion...something. It was to no avail, so she scanned the room instead, desperate for an escape route or some sort of life support lying in wait.

"The shower." Rinn caught sight of the closed door on her right and motioned Ian up. "He just needs water."

Picking up Ian felt impossible—especially when the Irishman resisted, making himself into dead weight.

"No," Ian breathed out through clenched teeth. "I'm not leaving you with Met. And I'm sure as fuck not turning me back."

With no other alternative, Rinn sat, impressed but fearful when Ian dragged himself up to sit on his own. Deep down, Rinn wished Met would sit as well—something to put them at eye level—but the top guard afforded them no such courtesy.

Met waited a moment, then said, "Here we are."

Brow dripping with sweat, Ian answered, "Here where?"

"We have a few problems right now." Met forced a smile.

Both hands on Ian's shoulders, Rinn rubbed the tense muscles, hoping to calm him.

"Let's pretend," Met said, his tone bitter. "Let's pretend that you are me."

"Um," said Ian with some difficulty, "m—must I really?"

"Now, you have a situation with two Outsiders: one weak and probably harmless, and the other deadly as sin."

Ian bristled. "I ain't deadly—"

"I wasn't referring to you."

Rinn flinched. She would've argued that statement, but with Ian's condition, she resolved to just be silent instead.

"Not only did one of them refuse to either eat or drink when she was brought to the medical section, but she also refused to allow us to help her drop her image so we could assess her tattoo. Then keep in mind that said Outsider not only got her hands on a razor, which she brandished, threatening medics, but she was found to have twenty-seven Ivy drops on her person. And that is the easiest part of the problem."

When Ian's body went limp, Met seemed satisfied to see that his intentions were read loud and clear.

"Twenty-seven...?" Ian hazarded, his eyes red from fatigue and anguish. "Twenty-seven Ivy tablets?"

"Yes, twenty-seven," Met mused. "Your friend hasn't been awake more than a week, and she's already got her hands on pretty sophisticated drugs. You have to give your woman credit; she is impressive to say the least."

Rinn wondered why Met was talking to Ian as if only the two of them were in the room. Being ignored annoyed Rinn at first until she realized the guard's tactic: Met was trying to keep Ian focused.

"Twenty-seven tablets? You're sure?" Ian asked, his breathing heavy.

"Yes. We are still able to count; despite dwelling below the surface, we haven't turned into total troglodytes just yet. Twenty-seven tablets."

"Those are mine," Ian blurted out. "But I didn't know they were Ivy." Met's right eyebrow rose as Ian confessed. "Every one of those tablets, I got from an official Colony medic. It ain't Ivy, it's medicine for my...my condition."

"I assure you, it is Ivy. All of it is."

"Well...." Ian bit back. "Then the Colony's trafficking."

"Unlikely."

"I got them from my job. They issued them to me."

"Unlikely."

"Stop telling me unlikely! That's what I got. The medic—"

He froze and Met narrowed his eyes. "The medic? The one to rob you?"

"I figured my new boss was legit enough because I could get medicine from the medical section, not some chop shop," Ian said. "That fucking bounty hunter pretended to be a medic. She must have made the switch."

"The recovery and rehabilitation rate of an Ivy addict is so low that to allow a citizen to function, we will issue a very similar medicine to ward off withdrawal but has no buzz. That is the standard. Your friend had pure Ivy. And the idea that anyone could infiltrate Colony files to get Ivy disguised as regular medication issued to you in the first place is, well...."

Met waited for Ian to finish the sentence. "Unlikely."

Rinn continued rubbing Ian's muscular arms in hopes it would help soothe him. She didn't like how this was going—especially when Ian asked what she herself had been thinking.

"Then how did Rinn get them?"

"You'll have to ask her." Met shifted his gaze to Rinn.

As soon as he did, Ian shot to his feet and his body jerked; he'd been electrocuted.

To Rinn's surprise, Met only looked at her. She shook her head and said, "I'm sorry. I don't remember any tablets. I woke up in the medical section, and I walked out into the tunnels. That's all I know. And I wouldn't even touch Ivy much less carry it in the Colony. I'm not stupid."

Met narrowed his brow and Rinn wondered if the man wanted to ask her something directly. Instead, Met relented and turned his attention to Ian once more. Ian calmed.

"And since I cannot risk your friend roaming around unchecked," Met continued, "I am looking to you to resolve this, Tellman. In fact," Met raised his bare wrist, pretending to examine a non-existent watch, "if she is not calm and cooperative and ready to drop that image soon, she'll have me to contend with."

Ian didn't react. Rinn eased closer, hoping to make her presence better felt.

"When I heard that she was here with Red, I found it strange," Met said. "What's even stranger is that she hasn't been scanned or turned over to the medical section once more due to Red's insistence. But Red's not a guard or a medic, and the only authority she'd have for a request like that would be over E's. So I want to know what you're both doing here and what five other E's are doing here, observing and guarding your friend like she's the missing link."

Eyes watering, Ian stifled a shriek but managed to answer. "Then why don't you ask them, Met? That's sort of your thing—scaring information out of people."

Met gave Ian a hard look; Rinn almost mistook it for sympathy.

"And here's my other problem—" Met began.

"Met." Ian shook his head. "Met, man, please...." He trembled. "Please."

Met said, "The fact that you are taking any sort of medication without telling anyone, since you've been forced to, means you've misplaced your guns."

Rinn repeated the sentence back to herself, but the string of words still failed to convey a meaning she could comprehend.

"Because now I know why you can't get those receptors back under control: there's nothing to siphon the charges."

Met waited, and Rinn knew the man expected to hear something, be it a denial or defense, but Ian had nothing to offer.

Rinn spoke up instead. "Wait—what exactly are you saying? Are you saying you can take the receptors out?" Rinn hoped to catch Met's eye, but the man wouldn't look at her. "Can you turn them off?"

Met, still staring at Ian, answered, "Receptors cannot be removed. They are a liquid metal that seeps through the skin's pores. They are given to allow a prisoner to get his or her affairs in order before death. Nearly everybody runs once they've got them, but we never chase because they don't get far. The pain reacts—"

"To adrenaline and anxiety, I know. The faster they run, the faster the charges come. I'm not asking about that." Rinn hurried, desperate for any silver lining. If Met wanted Ian dead, the man would've tried to provoke Ian and let the Irishman's own body do the work for him. Met hadn't attacked, though, so Rinn took it as a good sign. "Help us. Please. Please help him."

A silence lulled over them for a moment and Met said, "Convicts with receptors don't last more than a few months. Tellman's had them in now for three years."

Rinn swallowed hard, afraid of where this was going.

In time, Met lost patience and spoke to Ian directly. "I warned Red. On anyone else, having the System tune your receptors to react to your weaponry in an effort to stave off the pain would have been clever. In your case however, Tellman, it was rather imbecilic. The fact that she never worried about what would happen to you if you were ever separated from your weapons for any extended length of time is a testament to how trusting she is. Because that was like giving a senile diabetic with a sweet tooth an external heart attached to him by red rope licorice."

Ian stifled a mewl and drooped. "I wasn't s'pose to lose 'em. It was a sure thing."

"In other words, you gambled, and lost."

"Gambled?" Anger spiked through Rinn, but she forced it back in an effort to keep focused on Met's monotone voice.

"Now you've had to get outside medication from a new employer who's on the guard's radar," said Met. "So for the benefit of argument, imagine you are me. Imagine you've got a pest; a tall, stubborn, weak-willed pest with a knack for bad deals that he never honors, who keeps harping on the same rhetoric. A pest who spent the better part of a decade searching to escape the hell he's created for himself.

"And worse yet, this pest has managed to situate himself comfortably into your family to the point that you know if he suddenly trips in the shower and breaks his neck, your wife might look at you as if you had somehow been the one to push him. And it's gotten so bad now that you find yourself having to save him instead. Imagine all that, and then imagine that you've got a job, that you've got shit to get done today. What would you do to solve this problem?"

Ian only watched the floor, shamefaced.

Voice icy and unfeeling, Met said, "You leave him to clean up his own mess." In disappointment, Met said, "What a waste."

"Just let me leave." Ian looked him in the eye, finally. "You know that's all I care about. That's all I've ever cared about. And you have the ability—"

Met waited for their eyes to meet before he folded his arms. "You want me to risk opening a security loophole for a nobody?"

Ian let out a bitter snort. "Nobody's looking for Shangri-fucking-La no more. There's no danger."

"So you know the names?" Met turned cold. "Names are so important. All we had to do to stop Outsiders from coming here and cutting up baby E's as if they were the fabled Golden Goose was to simply give this place no name."

Ian's body wobbled as he fought to sit up on his own. "You're talking about fairy tales at a time like this?"

"You are very much like those first E's, because they spent their entire lives trying to escape this place to no avail. That's why Red's generation was a problem for us. They did the opposite. In a matter of years, they took this Colony apart. They always looked for the fight. I thought Red taught you that."

Ian closed his eyes and hunched over, and Rinn rubbed his back.

"Everything changed for the better once we were shut off from the Outside. And do you know why people would want to come here?" Met asked.

"Immortality," Ian whispered.

"Immortality. Stealing the youth of E's, one after another. So you have thought about it?" Met mocked. "I was born into that—into the research center. And I worked for this Colony when Elementals were wild. You'd catch one and take whatever supernatural wish you wanted. And you left them hollowed out and dead. I was here when the E's rebelled and started toying with the humans, making them explode for fun. And I am here now when things are calm."

Met crossed the room and crouched down until they were at eye level.

"So why would I risk bringing all that back for you? I follow the law. I've been the bad guy and the good guy, and now I'm a husband and a father. And you are trying my patience."

"I just want to go home." Ian closed his eyes. "That's all I want. I wouldn't tell nobody about this place. You know I bloody well wouldn't."

"Oh, but I think you would. You are a walking map. I think if you go back and you have no money, no home, and someone aware of us, who is looking for the fountain of youth, asks to take a memory from you so they can come here, I think you might just give it. You might offer anything to be comfortable. The same way you are willing to risk my children's lives just to get transport home."

"I just want to leave. I don't want to hurt no one!"

"Life has a balance. For everything they give, Elementals have to take something else. You have fifteen corpses under your belt, so which of my children do you want to take on that memory by mistake?" Met said, "To make a portal, an E needs to have been there before or take the memory from someone who has. For each positive they give, they must claim a negative. And let's not forget your scam."

Ian tensed as Met continued. "I know of your scam to poach an E of its power. I think your boss selected you for the job because you brag about knowing E's. And I think what you know is dangerous. Last week, an E-and-Assist couple took down a Topsider who attacked them at a poker game. They said some black-haired gui-ren was there with the man. So I'm just going to pretend that I didn't notice your location that night after I checked your receptors' status. I'm going to pretend that you didn't get drag through the System when you're not supposed to be able to travel it. Instead, I'm going to let you fend for yourself."

Ian watched the floor as he ran his hands through his hair. "It's not like that."

"You are a thirsty man looking at countless fountains, a starving man in front of a buffet. A poor man looking at every lost treasure known to man. You are a desperate man wanting to leave, looking at walking and breathing portals, and you need only decide which one you'll poach for what you want."

"No." Ian unfolded, his posture challenging. "I'm a good person. Your E's found me. They gravitate to every bleeding heart, and I'm a good person. I just want to be free. That's all I want. I don't want to hurt nobody."

Met stood. "You've had more than enough chances to make your life here good, Tellman. And you don't want it. You've involved my family in your nonsense, and that's not something I will soon forgive. As of this moment, I've simply resolved to let you unravel. And whatever happens to you happens."

He turned to walk toward the door and Ian called out. "Met.... I didn't try to poach no E. I left the job part way when I realized it. We were just there to rob them. Met!"

Ian sighed with relief when the blond man paused in his stride. When he caught sight of that stone expression again, his breath hitched.

"I didn't know we were going after E's," Ian said through chattering teeth. "And I left as soon as I realized it. That's why I ain't got my guns. I couldn't win them back. And that's why I'm on every shitlist in the Colony right now—because I left that job. Please don't draw a line in the sand and tell me there's no wriggle room."

"Lesser life forms wriggle; I'm affording you the courtesy of treating you like a human being. You say it was only a robbery, as if that makes it better. Choose your side now, Tellman. Are you a part of my Colony, or are you against it?" Though Ian opened and closed his mouth, he didn't answer, and Met turned and put his hand on the door to open it. "Very well. I will be back for your remains in the morning."