Page 27 of Flickerstate

“I’ll step in,” I repeat, “but not for free. I’m proposing a trade.”

“Oh,” he says softly, as if trading never occurred to him, as if I’ve flung open a door he mistook for an ornamented section of wall. “For what?”

“You’re my mentor, and you refused to mentor me. That hurt my feelings. Still, I’m giving you a second chance. Tutor me in regular nav, and I’ll do this for you. Deal?”

I sense conflicting impulses at war behind his blank face. He doesn’t want to help a competitor, but he’sreallycurious to try this experiment.

Curiosity wins.

“Deal,” he says. “Mornings, five a.m., in the woods past the basketball courts.”

We exchange numbers. Then he leaves, which is good, because I’m reeling. Even as I worked my angle, I wasn’t sure I could pull that off. Now the best siphoner at the Academy is going to tutor me in the skills I need to survive the trials.

Candace and Bree, plates in hand, pass me on their way back to our table.

“What were you guys talking about?” Bree asks brightly.

“Wheeling and dealing,” I say. “I’m going to go get food.”

***

Over dinner, I try to cement my team’s shaky rapport by askingCandace and Bree what they want to do with their nav.

Well, I askpartlyto cement our rapport. But also…

What jobs navigators take depend on whether the navigators are nerds, bleeding hearts, or money sharks. The nerds research applied navigation at academic centers, exploring how nav could revolutionize everything from theoretical physics to climate change mitigation. The bleeding hearts go into flickerbeast emergency response, using their nav to banish beasts that have phased into reality looking for their next meal. And the money sharks do glorified bodyguard work, pulling seven-figure salaries to protect politicians, financiers, and billionaire celebrities from beasts and interference both.

Because navigation is such a rare talent, the demand for navigator bodyguards among the ultra-wealthy has caused a serious brain and talent drain for researchandemergency response. We’re decades behind where we should be in academic understanding of nav, and emergency responders reach a sad fraction of beast manifestations in time to prevent bites.

I’m curious what Bree and Candace think about all this. Whether, like Spider-Man, they believe that with great power comes great responsibility. Or whether they think, hey, take the money and run.

Bree is Team Nerd. When I ask about future plans, she bursts into a rundown of new psychological studies suggesting that therapists can use nav to help patients make good choices under lab conditions: phobic people withstanding their phobias, people withanorexia or bulimia keeping down healthy meals.

Candace forks up bites of salad and chews thoughtfully, watching Bree with new interest. When Bree pauses, Candace says, “Interference is illegal. These researchers are using nav to change patients’ behavior. How’s that different?”

“There’s, like, a superrigorous informed consent process,” Bree says happily, waving her slapdash hands around. “And the labs always have two navigators. The first one navigates, and the second monitors flickerstate, making sure the nav is exactly what the patient consented to.”

“Hmm,” Candace says.

“But what’s really fascinating is what comes after the nav. Because nav can’t change the possible futures available. It only changes the probability that a future comes true. If a therapist navs a patient with arachnophobia to not panic while a tarantula crawls up his arm, the patient already had the potential to do it himself. So, the hypothesis is, once nav has proved to the patient that he cannotpanic, it empowers him to do it without nav the next time!”

Candace asks more questions that show she’s paying close attention. I’m hoping this is a good sign for her and Bree’s future teamwork. Bree reciprocates by asking Candace aboutherplans.

“My scheme is simplicity itself,” Candace says. “I’ll go to Yale and get my MRS from an econ major who looks like Zendaya. After graduation, she’ll work at Goldman Sachs and keep me in the style to which I am accustomed.”

Bree frowns. “Goldman Sachs? Isn’t that kind of establishment?”

“Exactly,” Candace says with relish.

Bree looks so genuinely worried that Candace laughs.

“Sarcasm, Bree,” Candace explains. “I don’t actually aspire to be the first gay tradwife. It’s a shtick I developed to push my mom’s buttons. She’s an ex–starving artist, and the stepdad is an obscenely wealthy finance bro. It embarrasses her that she married rich and doesn’t need to make any real money on her avant-garde sculptures. I’m a bad daughter who likes messing with her.”

“Oh.” Bree smiles, but she still looks worried. “You get away with it? If I trolled my mom she would murder me and hide the body. My sister gives her enough to deal with.”

Candace waves a hand. “My mother is a gentle soul. Not the murderous type. How about you, Norah?”

“I killed seventeen men before breakfast,” I say.