Rinn's heart fluttered. "Oh my..." She balled her hands into fists to resist the urge to charge. "H—H...Harris. You're Harris!"

The man in question took a step back, looking between Rinn then Val, dumbfounded.

In his hands, he held several dresses, most of them black. As his famous profile indicated, he was short—even shorter than Rinn herself.

By Harris's side, a blond woman, carrying more clothes, raised an eyebrow.

It was a direct response to Rinn's fat grin. Rinn didn't quite know where this excitement stemmed from but didn't care.

"Could—could I get an autograph?" She patted her person then asked Val, "Do you have a free diskette?"

Face scowled in disgust, Val muttered, "Certainly. We can use the dead skin from that image you're wearing."

She'd be no help, so Rinn asked the blond woman. Surely, she'd understand how major this meeting was.

The woman shook her head. "He's my colleague so I won't even dignify that with an answer."

Feeling small, Rinn said, "Oh."

It took everything in her to close her gaping mouth and keep quiet.

Her mind still raced as she struggled to think of how she'd get an autograph. It was only then that she really took in the weird robe she'd been wearing. She pulled the collar and peered down to find nothing beneath.

When the hell did that happen?

All thoughts rushed to Ian but Val grabbed her arm, holding her in a vice grip before she could leave.

"You," the E said, "are coming with me."

Harris looked between them. "We have business to conduct. Let her go."

Val stared Harris down for sometime.

This E was literally one of the top defense officials but no one would have guessed with how timid she appeared upon obeying Harris's orders.

Rinn puzzled over that then gasp. "Oh my gosh. It is true then." She pointed from Val to Harris then back. "You and...he?"

Val's face colored. This was no longer the gaze of a proud and fearsome Colony official, but a helpless woman.

The woeful expression tinged with embarrassment was why Rinn didn't immediately scurry away.

Harris and Val's rumor was wide spread through the Colony. And why wouldn't it be? With how famous Harris himself was, anyone associated with him got dragged along.

He was a top cage fighter long before he turned ELETE. At his small size, he'd turned heads from an early age. Then he tested into the division, the youngest ELETE ever, and there was no escaping his admirers. His staunch Traditionalist beliefs kept others at arm's length, however.

It also kept him and Val from ever being more than friends to one another. Traditionalists were Yules who did not believe E's were a natural treasure, but rather...an anomaly. As such, to marry or otherwise fornicate with one was more than a sin, it was a crime against everything they stood for.

Still, Traditionalist were strict with their women and as Harris had no other, he'd entered into some strange limbo with Valentina apparently.

All this, Rinn knew, and she no longer cared how.

"Hi," the blond said, leaning to the left to try and catch Val's attention. "I'm here to help out as a favor."

Val's grip on Rinn's arm returned. "I don't need clothes."

She watched the blond but Harris watched her.

Harris told his colleague, "Jan, go in and set them out. She'll like them."

Jan, the blond, entered and did as instructed, affixing several dresses to an empty wall.

Despite their actions, Val made no motion to follow. Rinn wondered if she now felt anything like Rinn had mere minutes ago with the prospect of being ushered into that room against her will.

Harris wasn't the only one watching Val, Rinn found herself doing the same.

Rinn had never met Valentina before. Even her distant memories knew of the name by a ranking and nothing more. But as someone from a family of girls, mostly tomboys, Rinn knew what it meant to work hard to garner respect.

For Val, Harris easily erased that. First, because of what he was to the division, and secondly, because of what he was to her.

"Hey," Rinn said, breaking Val's hold and taking her by the shoulder instead, careful to avoid touching any bare flesh as the E was sleeveless, "hey, let's go together."

Val's body trembled. "I do not want anything and I'm not going."

Harris sighed and took a step into the room. Without looking back, he raised his right hand and waved forward.

Rinn took the shift in Val's height for her imagination but looked down to find the E's feet floating off the ground.

"No." Val landed once but floated again. Her eyes held helplessness as she glided into the room.

Rinn watched her get pulled by an invisible force that ended with Harris pointing to a spot by the wall.

Val landed just there. She hung her head and said nothing further.

Everything in Rinn said to leave. She needed to be away from his E, Val was a threat. The woman in Rinn said not to leave another girl someplace she didn't want to be.

Rinn stepped in and the door whooshed closed.

It was the weirdest setup. Gadgets lined every area of the walls. Harris knew his way around because he opened the closet panel and peered in. There weren't many uniforms.

Jan looked between them. She held a diskette and wouldn't meet Val's eyes as she muttered, "By the Colony, as you are a Colony sanctioned E and have allowed yourself to be marked as a dependent to this Traditionalist, he has the right to ask for your conformity."

Rinn went as close as she'd dared.

The bizarre scene to unfold was...sad.

It was sad for Jan, who didn't want to be there. It was sad for Val who'd given her trust to a Traditionalist, something no E in their right mind would do, but it was also sad for Harris.

Rinn chalked it up to intuition but she could see that this man, someone versed in all methods of fighting in both the regular Colony areas and the division, bred from an early age to disarm opponents and take orders, had no idea what to do with a woman.

And so, he treated her like an assignment.

Val saw his oppression as oppression but Rinn saw it as someone utterly uneducated in how to approach affection, something an orphan fighter like Harris, must have seen little of in his life.

Each time Harris waited for Jan to hold a dress before Valentina, his expression hardened or softened depending on how pleased he was.

Rinn saw the genuine infatuation there. Val, still with her head bowed, never witnessed it.

"But these ones are more expensive," Harris argued once Jan presented him with two she thought were a good fit.

Jan tried to approach Val but didn't have the nerve. Finally, she told Harris, "Yes, but, girls don't really care about price. Yeah? She didn't really tense up at these two. I think she might be okay with them."

Harris shook his head. "The other ones are twice as much. We'll choose those."

Silence filled the room. Jan opened her mouth to argue then shut up again.

Nothing happened for some time and Rinn watched on with sick fascination.

"Go on," Harris ordered.

Jan stared at him for a moment then cleared her throat and whispered, "This—"

"Go on. What did I bring you for otherwise?"

"Right." Jan let out a deep breath then turned to Val. "We will replace four of your uniforms."

Val's hair still hung before her as she refused to regard them.

Jan touched her shoulder once and got her hand slapped away as payment.

Harris sighed through his nose then said to Jan, "I told you. It's a waste. Better if I just dock the hours—"

"You are not seriously considering putting a woman on house arrest because she won't accept your gifts, you psychopath."

Now it was a showdown not just between Harris and Val, but Harris and Jan.

Rinn had no business interfering but she inched before Val and held out her hands.

"I'm in need of some clothes myself. If I can have the ones she doesn't want, I'll be more than happy to get her into these."

Her presence was a nuisance at first but Harris calmed in time. "Wait...now? You can do it now?"

Rinn's eyes widened. She...hadn't planned on now.

Still, her smile was automatic. "Oh yes. Just point us to the bathroom."

Jan hurried to open the door for them and Rinn, no longer sure if she knew what she was doing, stepped behind Val and leaned in close to whisper, "Get into that room before you embarrass yourself."

Val's body was stiff but she allowed Rinn to guide her. Once Jan put the dresses down on a shelf, the door closed.

Rinn waited. Sure enough, Val brushed her hand against her nose. It was a casual action but Rinn knew better; Val did it to stave off her upset.

They stood there for sometime before Rinn felt confident enough to say, "First time I got forced to drive a car, I bawled. And not because I didn't want to learn, but because my father didn't know how to talk to us beyond barking commands. It's just a car, right? This is just a dress but is the lack of control that's making it awful."

Val shook her head. "Shut up."

Rinn decided to wait until the woman calmed.

They were in there a good ten minutes—they couldn't stay forever—before Rinn tried again.

"But you must know how Traditionalists think. Hell, some even try to get their wives buried with them upon their death, regardless of her being alive."

It was a scoff, maybe out of anger or self-pity but Val said, "You know so much about us, but you don't know anything."

Rinn was nearly in tears herself. "So explain it then. I'll respect your authority and let you check my face or whatever."

Val chewed her bottom lip then muttered, "He's bonded with me. It happened by mistake. And we can't undo it. No E alive has ever succeeded."

Bonded?

Rinn leaned back against the wall. "He's the only person you can literally touch without pain?"

She didn't answer and that made Rinn sigh.

"But he won't...."

"Because I'm an E and we'd make E children, something his views say never to do." Val picked her head up. "So are you satisfied?"

Rinn watched her in sympathy. "What I waited for you to say was, because I don't want him."

At her silence, Rinn felt worse.

Harris wasn't the only one unaware of how to remedy their situation. This was bad. Better if Val truly hated him. But with their current situation, she knew, the more he got away with regarding exertion of control, the harder it was for her to find comfort in the thought of him.

When the curtain of red hair hung yet again, Rinn dipped low and said, "I don't think he can do any better."

Val whispered, "I know he can't."

But he hadn't tried. Instead of coming with a nice gift, he came with demands. And he'd done it because she was on his records. If any one of his kind saw a loose or 'untamed' E bearing Harris's name, it was a shame he couldn't live with.

Rinn reached out to trace the buttons on the dress. The man had good taste at least.

"The cheap ones are enough," Rinn said, "so think about why he cares if you get the expensive ones. Look at his own clothes. That's about as basic a uniform as you get."

She stepped close and took one expensive dress and three of the cheap ones.

"As someone also married to a psychopath," Rinn said with a smile, "sometimes we just have to do the best we can. So, you're going to choose these three and you're also going to spite him by giving me the most expensive one. Deal?"

Val said nothing to indicate agreement but allowed Rinn to shed the robe and slip into the frock. One thing about Traditionalists, they still used corsets built into the dresses themselves. Rinn was thankful for the support. She'd have to do something about underwear later.

"Right. It's done. And you won't be able to wear it now with my DNA already mucking around."

It wasn't a smile Val wore, but it was a look of peace.

"But if I keep bending," Val said, shaking her head, "where will it stop?"

Rinn considered those words for a long time then told her, "You're an E who can touch only one person, and that person isn't dragging you into a room and doing whatever he wants while literally willing you to stay silent."

Val's look of terror broke Rinn's heart.

"He's a fighter. I know enough from his highlight segments to know that he's done nothing but since he was ten. I don't...I don't think he knows how to woo you. But despite his life of violence, he doesn't use that against you. And I really do believe he brought that woman, Jan, to help."

"That doesn't excuse it."

"No. But it does tell you that it could be far worse. My mind goes to a dark place when I think of a man who can literally use your own abilities against you. Right?"

Five minutes later, Val sighed in defeat and exited the bathroom in a new uniform with Rinn by her side.

Harris's breath caught. His smile was automatic but fell when he focused on Rinn and saw the pricier dress fitting perfectly.

Though ready to protest at first, Harris calmed then cleared his throat.

Jan sighed with relief. "Oh good. Because he's literally confiscated half of your old uniforms."

Val groaned. "I would have worn these. You don't have to force me to."

Harris's face took on some color.

Rinn looked between them then asked Val, "So...I guess it's time for my checkup, huh?"

"Now?' Harris said, "I—I'd thought you'd be free for dinner."

Val watched him out of the corner of her eye but didn't otherwise speak.

Jan wore a fat grin as she grabbed Rinn by the arm and hurried to the door.

Harris turned to watch them go. "Wait. You can't leave a man and a woman alone in a room together!"