Zig showed up the next morning with a cell phone still in the box, a pair of drugstore sunglasses, and a hundred questions ready to go before he’d even finished closing the door.

He’d been like that since they were kids. 

Loud, and nosy, and curious. The type to attract and take in strays, even (maybe especially) the hopeless ones. He thought they were fun. They didn't turn up their nose the way the other kids did.

Zig wasn’t subtle about caring, either. Not like Atlas would have been — skittish and nervous to display weakness.

Zig did what he liked, and he took credit for it. 

Atlas knew Zig had a habit of throwing out his cigarettes and slipping food into his fridge while Atlas was on shift. He paid his electric when Atlas forgot, and helped him fish more than one pair of keys out of the grate beneath the stairs.

Maybe even a phone or two out of the river.

Zig was thoughtful. Empathetic.

But he wasn’t…tactful.

So Atlas wasn’t a surprised when Zig spiked the new plastic sunglasses at his head and sat on the edge of the mattress instead of trying to flip it this time.

“So, you’re like, an actual hunter now?”

Atlas took a long, slow breath and kept his eyes shut as he pinched his temples. He didn’t want to see the look on Zig’s face. Not yet. He couldn't handle finding out what he really thought right when he woke up.

“Zig, what did I literally just tell you about the spare key the last time you were here?”

Atlas heard him hum, something vague and non-committal. “Does it really matter? You’re moving out today, that key will be useless now. The argument is moot.”

At that, Atlas’ eyes shot open. Zig’s face was much less cheerful than his voice. He shoved the box at him with a pointed look. “I know, Atlas. But Izar’s worried things are going to leak sooner rather than later. The strike team was huge, and things got weird. You know how this goes.”

He did know how this went. He wished he didn’t.

Atlas took the phone out of the box with a sigh and booted it up. It was something standard. Sturdy. He pulled his SIM card out of the drawer beside his bed. 

He had been angry, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew, sooner or later, he’d regret pitching another fit (and cell phone) and wish he had his contacts back.

He’d sunk enough phones into that river to know better.

Atlas pressed his lips together sourly. “Did he say anything else to you?”

“No. He didn’t say much. I don’t think he wanted to tell us anything he couldn’t take back.”

Atlas resisted the urge to engage the information panels he knew he had full control over now. Izar had been hiding his true Class, what about his brother?

In the end, it was overstepping, and Atlas had done enough of that for one lifetime when he was young and eager to make friends. He’d learned the hard way to mind his own business. 

It was one thing to learn about it accidentally. It was another thing entirely to betray the only friend he had left because he was a mistrustful, cynical loner who didn’t have boundaries.

He sighed again and nudged Phi awake on the blanket beside him. 

“Are they making me stay in the penthouse?” 

“Cute cat.” Zig scratched the top of Phi’s head with his pinky. She rumbled, pleased and bleary eyed. “Yeah. They have people clearing out the rooms now. Ace is still laid up, but Senka will be around to let you in.”

“I can’t believe I have to go back there.”

Zig slanted him a looked, then glanced at the fat envelope on his table. “Is that your contract? They had you sign that before you could leave?”

“She literally came up to my hospital bed. It wasn’t exactly optional.”

Zig rolled his eyes. “She never changes. Who’s this cat?”

“Phi.” Atlas said. It felt like he’d known her for an eternity, not a few dozen hours. She was much less ethereal and otherworldly like this. No pixels, or numbers racing across her eyes. Just something small, and soft, and quiet. “I don’t get it, fully, but she’s like…some sort of avatar for my Skill. She’s been sleepy since we left the portal.”

“What about —”

“Move, Zig.” Atlas stumbled from his bed and stretched out the creaking, aching joints in his back and shoulders. He skimmed his fingertips across the top of his popcorn ceiling for one last time. “I need a cigarette or I’m going to deck you.”

“I bring you a cell phone and this is the thanks I get,” Zig muttered.

“You can join me.”

Zig wrinkled his nose. “No thanks. Those are terrible for you, you know.

Atlas shoved his fleece on and pried a carton from his pockets. “They are. So is being an orphan. Figured I might as well go for a set.”

___

Though he’d probably never say it out loud, Atlas was grateful for Zig dropping off those ugly sunglasses, because by the time he’d packed up his meager belongings, the news had leaked.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. His name was still unconfirmed, and the details were sketchy.

But it was enough that some of the older hunters, the ones who had retired or been released from service because of injury, started talking. And they were all too happy to speculate on news shows and social media that maybe Atlas had finally awakened.

S-Classes are so rare. They told the hosts with wide, earnest smiles. Atlas had only been able to stomach a minute or two before he wanted to spike his cigarettes directly in the center of their foreheads. He didn’t own the TV, though, and he be damned if he was going to lose his deposit because he damaged the shitty furniture his last day here. 

With Phi in his hoodie pocket, and two enormous suitcases trailing behind him, Atlas slammed his way out of the apartment and called a rideshare.

If the driver looked at him sideways, it was probably just because he was tall, and sullen, and carrying a cat in his sweatshirt pocket. But that didn’t stop him from being paranoid enough to fold the sunglasses over his eyes and sink deeper into the seat.

Atlas had him drop him off a block from Portal Group, and he pulled his hood up over his hat and kept his face angled low. He slid his phone from his sweatpants’ pocket.

Izar was waiting by the time Atlas got there. He threw cautious looks to the passersby, and ushered him — and his two suspiciously large bags — into the lobby.

“You could’ve had us pick you up.”

Atlas scowled. “I’d really rather not. I left my keys in the balcony light. I’ll leave it to you to explain to my landlord, and my bosses, why I’ve disappeared overnight.”

“How are you feeling?”

The rest of the lobby watched them closely as they passed. People were clearly much more well-informed here. The receptionists who’d ignored him entirely just the other day were staring, rapt and curious, as he boarded the elevator to the penthouse.

“I feel awful, Izar, what did you think I’d say?” Atlas leaned up against the side of the elevator and crossed his arms over his chest. “Phi’s been asleep since we left the portal, so I have absolutely no answers, and my entire life is one cosmic punchline after the next.”

Izar had the decency to look abashed. “I know that. I don’t take pride in it.”

“Whatever.”

“We’ll do testing. Figure out if there are things we can do to make things easier for you. I know you were in a lot of pain in the portal. It’s possible that there’s something we can do for that."

Atlas didn’t answer. It was a long, silent ride. Izar’s phone chimed near the end, and he perused it with a small frown.

“Senka will meet you up there. I need to go deal with some of the debriefings for the remaining hunters.” Izar hit the button for his floor, then glanced at Atlas. “Are you going to be okay? I can push the meeting.”

“Do whatever you want, Iz.”

It stung. It always had. But Atlas was used to being the lowest priority. The charity case. People would come and see him. At least for awhile. But when things got hard, or choices had to be made, Atlas never made the list.

He was the first and easiest thing to dispose of.

Always.

Izar knew better. But he didn’t press. He just frowned, deeper than before, and disembarked from the elevator with a melancholic look over his shoulder.

Atlas shifted his hands around the handles of his suitcases as the doors drifted shut, and left him — exhausted and alone — to enter his new life as a member of Team Last Bastion.

For real, this time.