“How many more of you are there?”

“Four,” Tony said. “There’s Tayla, Sam Richards, and Justin and Justine Cho. They’re twins.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“They’re all good folks, promise,” Tony said. “Can you swing ’round tonight to meet them?”

“Ah, no,” I said. “I have a family thing tonight. It’s my second day on the job. I’m supposed to go home for the official ‘hooray, our kid is employed’ dinner.”

“Well, you can’t miss that,” Tony said. “When do you think you’ll wrap up?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably nine thirty, ten at the latest.”

“Here.” Tony pinged me over the common channel with an invite. “Tuesdays are our group night in the Agora. We hang out and usually frag each other’s brains out in an FPS. Pop in. You can meet the crew and take a head shot or two.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Great. I’ll send over the room application and we can do it up formally. We’ll need first month and a deposit.”

“I can do that.”

“Even better,” Tony said. “Presuming you get the signoff from everyone tonight, you can move in as soon as your payment arrives.”

“You’re not going to want a background check?” I joked.

“I think your entire life has been a background check, Chris,” Tony said.

Chapter Six

“OH, FUCK ME,” I said, the minute I saw the valet at the door to my house.

The painkillers from my oral extraction at four o’clock had started wearing off as I headed home, and that made me grumpy to begin with. But the valet meant one thing: donor dinner. Most cars could self-park but there were still people who demanded that they had to be behind the wheel, and took great pride in their dumb cars. A bunch of them were the sort of cranky old people who might support my dad’s bid for senator. That made me crankier than the tooth extraction.

My mother had obviously guessed my mood as I stomped up to her, because she held out her hands placatingly. “Don’t blame me, Chris,” she said. “I thought it was just going to be a family dinner. I had no idea your father was going to turn it into a fund-raiser.”

“I’m skeptical,” I said.

“I don’t blame you,” she said. “But it’s the truth.” Behind her, catering staff laid out place settings in the formal dining room, directed by Lisle, our house supervisor. I counted out the settings.

“Sixteen settings, Mother,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “Sorry.”

“Where are they all?”

“They’re not all here yet,” she said. “The ones that are, are down in the vet’s office.”

“Mom,” I warned.

“I know, I’m not supposed to say that out loud,” she said. “I’ll amend. They’re in the trophy room.”

“So it’s not just the usual gang of idiots,” I said.

“You know your father,” Mom said. “Dazzle the new money with the hardware. It would be vulgar except for the fact that it works.”

“Actually, it’s still vulgar,” I said.

“Yes, it is,” Mom agreed. “And it still works.”

“Dad doesn’t need their money to run for senator,” I pointed out.

“Your father needs them to believe he’s invested in their interests,” Mom said. “That’s why he takes their money.”

“Yeah, that’s not Machiavellian at all.”

“Yes, well,” she said. “The things we do to get your father elected.” She reached out and touched my shoulder. “And how was your day?”

“Interesting,” I said. “I’m working on a murder case. And I think I may have found an apartment.”

“I still don’t know why you think you need an apartment,” my mother said, crossly.

“Mom, you’re the only person in the world who would have chosen my apartment hunting over a murder case as a topic of conversation.”

“I notice you didn’t address my point,” Mom said.

I sighed and held up a hand to tick off points. “One, because commuting into the District from Potomac Falls every day would be a pain in the ass, and you know it. Two, because I’m twenty-seven and it’s embarrassing to still live with my parents. Three, because my tolerance for being a prop for Dad’s political ambitions is getting lower by the day.”

“That’s not fair, Chris,” Mom said.

“Come on, Mom,” I said. “You know he’s going to do it tonight. I’m not the five-year-old he can trot out for congressional hearings and Haden fund-raisers. I’m a federal agent now, for God’s sake. I don’t think it’s even legal to trot me around anymore.” I had a twinge as the painkillers stepped down another notch, and held up a hand to my jaw.

She caught it. “Your molar,” she said.

“Lack of molar, actually.” I put my hand down, fully aware of the irony of indicating jaw pain on my threep. “I’m going to go check in on myself,” I said, and turned to go to my room.

“When you move, you’re not going to move your body, are you?” Mom asked. There was a thread of anxiousness in her voice.

“I’m not planning to right now,” I said, turning back a little to look at her. “Let’s see how it works. I didn’t notice any lag today, and as long as I don’t there’s no reason to move.”

“All right,” Mom said, still unhappy.

I went over and gave her a hug. “Relax, Mom,” I said. “It’s not a thing. I’ll have the spare threep here. I’ll visit. A lot. You’ll start to wonder if I’ve actually left.”

She smiled at that and patted my cheek. “Normally I’d call you on patronizing me, but this one time I’ll take it,” she said. “Now go check in on yourself. Don’t take too long. Your father wants you to make an appearance before we all sit down to dinner.”

“Of course he does,” I said. I squeezed Mom’s arm as I left.

Jerry Riggs, my new evening nurse, waved to me as I walked into my room. He was reading a hardcover book. “How you doing, Chris?”

“I’m in a little bit of pain, actually,” I said.

Jerry nodded. “The bedsore?” he asked.

“The molar extraction,” I said.

“Right.” Jerry set down his book and walked over to my cradle, which had conformed to let me rest on my left side, because my current bedsore was on my right hip. He started rummaging through the bedside cabinet.

“I have some Tylenol with codeine,” Jerry said. “Your dentist left it for you.”

“I have to be able to function this evening,” I said. “There’s nothing more dangerous than a stoned threep at a political fund-raiser.”

“All right,” Jerry said. “Let me see what else we have here.”

I nodded and went over to my body—to me. I looked as I always did, like someone sleeping. My body was neat and clean, which was not always a guarantee with a Haden. Some Hadens didn’t bother with having their hair cut or trimmed because, honestly, what did it matter? My mother had quite the opposite opinion on the subject, however. As I got older I adopted her position for my own.

The cleanliness was a different and more complex issue, as it would be with a body whose various holes and systems were tubed, bagged, and catheterized. My mother was concerned about me moving out not just because she would miss me. She was also worried that, left to my own devices and schedule, I would let myself wallow in my own filth for days on end. This was an unwarranted concern on her part, I thought.

I bent over to look at my bedsore. True to advertisement, it was a nasty red welt across my hip. I touched it, and felt the dull ache of it at the same time I felt my threep hand moving across it.

I felt that sensation unique to Hadens, the vertigo that comes from perceptually being in two places at once. It’s much more noticeable when your body and your threep are in the same room at the same time. The technical term for it is “polyproprioception.” Humans, who generally have only one body to deal with, aren’t naturally designed for it. It literally changes your brain. You can see the difference between a Haden brain and an unaffected brain on an MRI.

The vertigo happens when your brain remembers it’s not supposed to be getting input from two separate bodies. The simple solution when it happens is just to look somewhere else.