She Who Knows Tomorrow: a sci-fi novella (displaced shadows #1)

II

Third led her brother to across the street from a restaurant that was that somewhen's equivalent to Greek food. First studied the building a moment, then strode into the street toward the entrance, accepting her choice. Third continued down the sidewalk and crossed the street a block down before circling her way back up. Second—if she hadn't been dead—would've cut across the street a block up, and reached the restaurant before Third did.

Old habits died hard.

Third stepped around a waitress and headed for the back right corner—that would be his first choice, with the two of them, with the back left being first choice when all three of them together, and the front corners only chosen if the back options were taken—and slipped into the seat across from her brother as the waitress took his drink order—waters, for both of them, no ice, with lemon in his and lime in hers. First was thoughtful like that, much like TamLin, who had been their clutch's keeper, before...

She blinked twice, quickly, to interfere with the tear ducts. Tears were dangerous, whether because they interfered with the identification of a threat or because they displayed that she wasn't an automaton. She focused on the table as a distraction. It was plastic, engineered to look like wood, but plastics' bio-identities were easy to recognize.

Third turned in her seat to keep as much of an eye on their surroundings as she could, though First had taken the true corner and thereby set himself as the on-duty sentinel. Firsts didn't always see themselves as responsible for their clutches—some only delegated, as if they were keepers, themselves—so Third appreciated his willingness to give her a break, when he could.

His own limitations—and choices—meant that the worst, longest, and most dangerous jobs had always fallen to Third, often by herself... She didn't need to be psy-positive to know her brother felt guilty about it. He'd been born first, before their mother had realized her children were usually unstable. He could've been Named all along, had their mother wanted that.

Third had never had that option.

First opened his menu. "Where's the chicken?"

She crisply opened her menu to the appropriate page, paused long enough for him to spot it, then checked the veal, herself.

"You have local currency?" First asked blandly. He knew she did—she wouldn't have recommended the restaurant if she couldn't pay for it—and his tone made the question rhetorical.

Janni knew how Third got her money, too, though Third was pretty sure Raleigh didn't. Their spot of town made it easy. She could rob a burglar or mug a pimp or flip a bundle of unlicensed drugs. (The last one could be the most amusing, considering dealers sometimes noticed that she was selling them their own jolt.) She had to vary her targets and processes, too, because people swapped notes, and predictability would get her killed.

But keeping the criminal element mad at her kept her from getting complacent, and it paid well, without her having to take a name. She'd fled her universe because she wasn't suicidal, so she wasn't about to do something that would get her hunted as a Breach.

Living with a Named version of herself did kinda stretch the laws thin, but Janni was Named, so Third wasn't neglecting her duty. If you assumed that Janni let Third protect her from Infested—which didn't exist in their current universe, so the law only applied if you squinted.

Third liked squinting.

But perhaps that was because of TamLin. Even though he'd been their clutch's keeper and responsible for keeping them in line, he had been a sensate, naturally aware of the traces left by displaced time or universes. Gave him cluster headaches, even.