The bedroom on the Earth side was exactly as I had left it, except the bed had been remade and there were two folded shirts on the chair that Mira had apparently brought up at some point.

My phone said four in the morning, local time.

I had hours.

I fell back onto the bed and slept properly.

...

When I woke up the second time, the sun was full through the windows and Mira was at the foot of the bed, fully dressed, putting earrings on with the small efficient motions of a woman with somewhere to be.

I made a small noise that was probably supposed to be her name.

"Morning, baby." She glanced over without turning. "You slept like the dead. I almost climbed back in. Then I remembered I had things to do."

"What time is it?" My voice came out gravel.

"Almost ten. I’ve been up since seven. You needed it." She finished with the second earring and turned to look at me properly, hands on her hips.

The outfit was different from yesterday. Cream pants, fitted dark blazer, hair pinned up in the business way. She looked like someone who could buy a building before lunch.

"I’m leaving for the office. Tied up the rest of the day. Possibly tomorrow morning too."

"...Damnation."

"I know. Sweetheart, the lithium battery samples, I’m taking them with me."

That woke me up. I sat up properly. "You’re..."

She nodded. "To the research center, yes. Don’t look at me like that. It’s the one I own. The team there has signed every NDA in three jurisdictions and they know better than to be curious about where their assignments come from. I’ll have a preliminary chemistry profile by tonight, a full structural breakdown by tomorrow. If these batteries are what we think they are, sweetheart, we are going to have a very interesting Q4."

"You have a research center." I sighed.

"I have several." She gave me a small amused look. "I told you this on our small date. You were distracted by the cleavage. Pay attention next time."

"...To be fair, that was a sexy blouse."

"Mm. I know."

She crossed the room, leaned down, kissed my forehead.

The perfume she was wearing today was sharper than yesterday’s — work-perfume, I realized. Different one for the office. The woman had a system.

’My girlfriend is a calibrated weapon. I am dating a missile. Filing for the novel.’

"Be good," she said, straightening up. "Lia probably wants to see you today. Be good to her, too."

"How did you —"

"She’s in a sugar arrangement with a man four years older than her, sweetheart. Of course she wants to see you today. The first morning after is the most important one. If you don’t reach out, she’ll think you regret it. Don’t make her think that." Mira tucked a stray hair back into the pin. "Also, the dark Vellanti is downstairs. Take it wherever you go today, the Auriga is with me."

"...Yes ma’am."

"Good boy."

She left.

The house went quiet behind her in the way only her absence made it.

I lay there for a minute listening to it, and then I got up and made coffee, and then I sat down at the desk in the study and wrote.

...

The writing came again the way it had been coming, too easy, too smooth, the brain still running on whatever the gene primer had done to it.

I made it through three Chapters of the slow-burn fantasy before I noticed the time, and then I looked up and the clock said two-fifty-seven and a small sub-alarm in my head went off that said something is supposed to happen at three.

The phone buzzed.

LIA.

I picked it up.

"Hi, sugar daddy." Her voice on the other end had the kind of sleepy-warm quality of someone who had been awake for maybe two hours and had spent most of them not putting much effort into being awake. "Are you free?"

I leaned back. "Sleep okay?"

"...Sore. In the good way, hehe. Now tell me, are you free?"

"What’s the proposal?"

"Come to campus. Hang out after my class lets out. There’s a coffee place I want to take you to that has the worst coffee in the city and I want you to suffer with me. Then we can do whatever after. Including but not limited to...whatever. I’m flexible on the whatever."

"...You are not shy on the phone."

"You broke me, daddy. Take responsibility." She gave a small laugh. "Four thirty? Class ends at four."

"Four thirty. Where do I park?"

"East lot. By the engineering building. You’ll know it. There are like twelve trees and one sad fountain."

"That is genuinely a campus landmark, you’re right."

"I’ll text you the spot. See you, daddy."

"See you."

She hung up.

I sat there grinning at the ceiling for a second.

’Lia in a sugar arrangement, day two, already calling me daddy on the phone like it’s normal. The reader will love this. I should add it to Chapter fourteen of the new novel. Renamed character of course. Plagiarism of myself is allowed.’

The grin froze for a second when I realized which campus she had just named.

My campus.

My old university.

I had not been on that property in roughly two years and I had not had any urgent reason to think about it in roughly two years.

The fountain Lia was talking about was the one I’d sat next to during the first week of grad-application stress, eating a vending-machine sandwich and looking at the squirrels for moral support.

’Closing the loop. Time circles back. Welcome home, hermit boy. Filed for novel use.’

I went upstairs to change.

Halfway through pulling on a clean shirt, my phone pinged a notification from the bank.

Incoming wire: $500,000.00 USD.

I stood there with the shirt over my head for a second.

’...There it is. Renner is fast. That’s the first bar cleared. I should call him later today. Send him another one. Maybe two. He’ll like the volume signal.’

I finished pulling on the shirt. Put on the watch. Pocketed the keys to the dark Vellanti.

Counted, briefly, my net liquid worth, one bar sold at eight hundred thousand, against forty-two more bars still in inventory, against, somehow, a quietly growing pile of credits in another world that had a different economy entirely, and realized I was, by approximately every reasonable measure, rich.

’Damned hermit boy, you made it.’

I went downstairs.