There was magic thrumming in the air. Somehow Dr. Garbuglio found the perfect incantation, an unlikely combination of words that convinced Samantha Gregulus and Lynn Harris to let Freya and Dan stay together. He’d even convinced Lynn to let them attend Krav Maga class. For a moment they wished for Unity with the doctor, if only to know how he’d done it and to thank him.

They emerged from the session and through Freya’s eyes Dan could see the years lifting from his mother’s face as they embraced. Watching, Freya was struck by how much strain Samantha had been under, she could feel her lie like a bitter stone in Dan’s stomach. Freya radiated assurance that it was temporary. There was a sea change coming. All their deceptions would be swept away, and when the tide receded they would be left on the shore, naked and new.

The shimmer of her vision ran through him, and for a moment he shut his eyes, sailing on the image. Freya resisted the urge to join him. For a while longer they had to bottle their joy and pretend they weren’t in ecstasy. Samantha and Lynn were settling the logistics, and Freya could understand at least a part of why Garbulio had succeeded. There had been a big pile up on the 201, the hospital badly needed Samantha back.

Maybe it would all be ok. Maybe Lassa could work something out, figure out some sort of explanation for all of this. They were together, and nothing else mattered.

* * *

“You’re so quiet back there,” Lynn remarked.

Freya and Dan hadn’t said a word the whole way over, though they had been in deep conversation the whole time. Speaking aloud seemed impossibly sparse now. People talked in outlines, pencil sketches of what they really meant. Unity was a perfect photograph, where nothing could be mistaken. Dan didn’t want to respond to Lynn, she would let the comment pass by, and anything they said would mean so little.

Freya disagreed. She directed Dan’s attention to the tight grip Lynn had on the wheel, the tension in her voice. She was on the edge, they didn’t need to weird her out further.

“Sorry. It was a tough session,” Freya said. “Thank you for driving us, I really appreciate it.”

“I’m going to wait out here and keep an eye out. If I see any trouble I’m going to lay on the horn OK?”

Freya frowned at that, she hadn’t expected Lynn to play bodyguard. Apparently Lynn Harris intended to stake out the strip mall parking lot with a gun Freya wasn’t even sure she could shoot. Randall’s gun was in the center console. Dan had been unaware of the pistol until Freya thought about it. He began to radiate discomfort, Freya insisted it was necessary.

“We could…” Dan was struggling to balance Unity and human speech. “You don’t have to wait on us. We’ll be ok.”

“This will the first time I’ve been able to sit still in days. I plan to enjoy it,” Lynn waved him away, and with a last glance around the lot they headed into class.

Vitko was standing by the door, sweeping his eyes around the parking lot. His face was grim, but when he caught their eyes, he smiled and held the door open for them.

“So! Young Daniel. I hear you are having car troubles.”

“You could say that,” Dan said, and she could feel the smile spreading through him, she couldn’t help but be caught in it. She caught Dan about to drop the Toyotalled pun on Vitko and he stopped short, feeling the beginning of her groan.

You don’t have to suppress yourself, she thought.

It’s lazy to keep telling the same joke over and over, he returned, and she thought that it wasn’t really a joke at all and then she grimaced, the thought came across harder than she intended. Vitko misinterpreted their hesitation.

“Are you all right Gregulus?”

“Yes! Just a little shaken up is all. It’s so stupid,” Dan said. “Want to see the pictures?”

As Dan showed Vitko pictures of the savaged Toyota, they struggled to appear normal. It was so natural for Dan to talk with people and to be at ease with them, and now he was struggling to conceal this new weirdness inside of him. Here, Freya had much to teach him. She was a master of hiding herself.

Vitko’s heavy eyebrows inclined with anger as he flicked through the pictures. Again the jovial mask vanished, the cords of his neck twitched. Vitko was frightening when he didn’t smile. There was an energy he carried, a subtle violence in his movements that warned swift and terrible action was just an instant away. It reminded Freya of Lassa.

Freya and Dan were caught in a bog of awe and attraction, co-mingled with fear and inadequacy. At the edge of it all there was the question that had begun to creep into every interaction they had. What would it be like if they were United with this person?

Freya’s eyes traced the line of the deep scar on Vitko’s neck, a tributary to the river of trauma running through him. What a price they would pay to know him! Vitko was visibly exerting will to swallow his anger.

“Is there insurance?” he asked, completely unaware of the drama raging between them.

Dan shook his head, too muddled to speak.

“That’s our lawyer outside, Lynn Harris,” Freya said. Vitko followed her eyes to the cream and gold Mercedes. “When she gets through with Malcolm, his life will be wrecked ten times worse than the Toyota.”

Vitko jutted his lip and gave a sharp nod of approval.

“Good! There are many kinds of fighters, many kinds of fights. Ok! Too much talking, not enough running. Laps!”

They were eager to run. Their classmates began to arrive, Tate began puffing alongside them. When Cameron showed up he pretended he was trying to edge out the door, and Vitko called him out.

“I see you there, Kowalski!” Vitko barked, and Cameron joined the pack with a grin. Soon the whole class had arrived, they set their things down and they all circled the gym like a school of sardines. They ran for longer than normal, and Freya and Dan felt a pang of disappointment the stop was called. The class gathered in a circle, and Vitko made eye contact with each of them, anticipation building.

“Very hard class today. See if you can make it to the end without stopping. If you have to throw up, throw up there.” Vitko pointed to the trash can.

Looks were exchanged, a few boys laughed, thinking it was a joke. Vitko walked over to the stereo, plugged his phone in and began a playlist. A warbling synthesizer scream became a pounding psytrance baseline, and then Vitko began shouting out exercises, louder than the speakers. Lunges, crunches, sprints, one after the other, with barely a moment to breathe between sets.

Vitko was doing each exercise with them, driving a brutal pace while the speakers pounded from the corners of the room. Everyone was taken by surprise, they had no wind to protest, no time to think.

As they were doing pushups, Freya kept forgetting she didn’t have Dan’s upper body strength and feeling like she ought to be keeping up. She felt Dan radiating caution, pain was different in Unity. Something that hurt only one of them seemed less significant, and it would be easy to lose track of being Freya and sprain something.

“Is he trying to kill us?” Cam hissed to Dan during a lull in the music.

“STEP IT UP KOWALSKI!” Vitko boomed at him, and Cam shook his head in assent, Freya watched the beads of sweat dislodge from his eyebrows, falling on the mats below. Whenever someone began to flag, Vitko would urge them on, calling him out by name. He never had to call out Dan or Freya. The harder he drove them, the stronger they felt. Vitko’s eyes fell on them often, and Freya realized he was trying to run the fear out of them, and that it was working.

We could all be this. We could all be so much more, Dan thought, and she was carried forward by the force of his dream. The two of them were riding above it all, higher than the physical world and she could feel them expanding, reaching out to touch the others. She could see a twinge of discomfort rising through the room, everyone getting a weird kind of contact high. A few of the other students were staring.

We have to dial it back, Freya thought. Dan wanted to go forward, to chase the feeling, but her fear was stronger than his desire and he conceded. The moment they slowed, the limitless feeling receded and they slammed into a wall of exhaustion. Freya fought to keep from being the first to puke in Vikto’s garbage can, and the class wasn’t over. For five agonizing minutes they kept going, dragging hard like everyone else.

Finally it was planks, and Vitko had them hold them until one by one their arms gave out. Dan was the last student to hit the mat. With his face beet red, Vitko walked to his phone and ended the playlist.

When the music cut off, Freya and Dan could feel their pulses pounding in their ears, in perfect sync. Freya saw Tate uneasily eying the trash can, he too was fighting to hold on.

“OK! Good! Very good. Did you enjoy our light workout?” a chorus of groans met him, and Vitko grinned, there were lines of sweat running down his face.

“What do you think, was the class tough?” Vitko asked and a ragged murmur of agreement met him. Some of the boys were still panting too hard to answer.

“But all of you were tougher. No one dropped out. I am proud of you all.”

Everything was spent, so hollowed out that the note of pride echoed on and on inside of them.

“Any problem you have, this is the answer. You just keep going. Maybe you will make it there first, maybe you will be the last. As long as you keep fighting, you will get to the other side.”

Vividly, Freya remembered the night the Starball fell, thrashing in the water, every nerve shrieking out that she wanted to be alive. The memory rippled through Dan and it was just like the first time, river water in her mouth, her shoulders caving in from the cold as she shivered on the bank. Dan’s eyes were on hers. All around the room, glances were turned inward, everyone was considering their own struggle. Vitko’s words had only skimmed the surface of Freya, but they’d sunk deep in Dan. He was resonating with determination.

“OK! Class is over! Good job! Next week, more fighting I promise.” Vitko boomed. Everyone was spilling out of the class, dazed looks on their faces, most were headed for Bella Reña Pizza. Freya and Dan were the last ones left.

“Thank you,” they said. The class was exactly what they’d needed.

Vitko gave them a sideways look, they’d said it in unison.

“Jinx” Dan joked, and Freya covered her mouth, pretending to be surprised. Vitko smiled, and they were free.

They burst out of the swampy gym air into the welcome cold. Vitko had worked them all so hard, the windows were fogged up all the way to chest level. Cameron was looking out the window of Bella Reña, when he saw Dan and Freya he beckoned with an exaggerated sweep of his arm and pantomimed eating. Dan shrugged in apology, pointing to the car waiting for them, and Cameron turned his knuckle at the corner of his eye, fake-bawling. Freya couldn’t help but laugh. Cam was so good at that.

“I don’t mind waiting if you two want to get pizza with your friends,” Lynn offered as they climbed into the car, she’d observed the exchange.

“Oh, uh. I don’t really feel like pizza,” Dan said, and silently Freya teased him that that was a shocking lie.

“Is it always that intense?” Lynn asked and they were stunned by the question. It took them a moment to realize she meant Krav Maga class, not Unity.

“A little less, but not much. Vitko is crazy,” Dan said.

“I think he just saw we were shaken up by last night. He was trying to run it out of us,” Freya said.

“Did it work?”

“I do feel better,” Dan said. He was answering Lynn, but internally there was a double meaning for them. Unity was strong and they would succeed. Freya beamed at him, and reached out her left hand to hold his. With her right she clutched the Starball, so glad they were back.

As the car pulled out of the parking lot, Freya couldn’t help but turn around to scan through the rear windshield, feeling a scopaesthesia twinge in her neck. Her mind flashed to the gun in the center console and Dan squeezed her hand, projecting that it would be ok. She tried to let go.

“That was me for the last hour, Lynn said. You have no idea how many black SUVs there are on the road.”

“Did you see anything?” Freya asked, knowing she hadn’t but wanting to be reassured.

“I observed an unusually large individual picking up two extra large pizzas. From his furtive demeanor as he exited the establishment I was able to conclude both were for him. He departed without further incident,” Lynn rolled off the narrative in a perfect cop voice. Dan burst out laughing.

“That’s so good!” Dan encouraged, and but Freya could only manage a smile, she was still on edge. They were driving through town and Lynn suddenly pulled off into the parking lot of Mercury Credit Union.

“What happened?” Freya asked.

“I thought I saw a black Tahoe,” Lynn said. She was squinting into the dark behind them and they swiveled around to look, it was suddenly very quiet in the car.

“I might have been my imagination, I’m sorry,” Lynn said.

“Totally ok, I’ll keep an eye out,” Dan offered. Freya hoped the Starball would warn them.

Lynn didn’t say much after that, her eyes often flicked to the rear view mirror. The motel was half an hour away, and they were riding on a wave of Dan’s optimism. With Garbuglio and Lassa’s help, they would figure out the Starball. They would add more and more people to the Unity, and with the help of that gestalt, they could defeat the investigation. How far did it go? She felt Dan's hopes spiraling upward. Could ten people be United? A hundred? A hundred thousand? Even a cabal of ten could change the world.

Since that snowy night at the Rabbit Hill Inn, their conversation with the Waltzes had been turning over and over in Dan’s head.

It’s our only chance for survival as a species, Jeremias had told them so gravely. He’d had no idea of the secret Freya and Dan shared, he’d never suspected they might be the ones. The idea was burning bright in Dan’s mind, darting forward with manic speed. He felt Freya’s apprehension at his frantic thoughts, she was reminded of Lassa’s idea that the Starball was sent to eradicate them.

She never felt Unity. This isn’t our destruction. It’s our salvation. This is the key to the universe.

They were Dan’s convictions. His confidence was absolute, his ideas boomed larger than her fears. For a moment he was afraid that he was overwriting her thoughts the way he had at the ski lodge, but this was different. Freya was trying as hard as she could to believe Dan, and she couldn’t quite get there.

They’d come to a stretch of the road where they were the only car on either side, and the stars were bright above them. Freya gazed upward and recognized Pollux.

That’s Gemini, she explained to Dan, who knew nothing of the stars he aspired to join. On his own he could barely pick out the big dipper. Freya smiled as he looked out through her eyes, seeing so many things for the first time. Sirius, Canopus, and Rigel, the three brightest. Algol the Demon Star in Perseus, which was really three stars that regularly occluded each other.

Dan was absorbing not only her knowledge but the things that informed it. Moonlight on Randall’s face as he gazed upward, the smell of his cigar in the night air, never again. With that memory came her lonely comprehension of distance, the impossible gulfs of nothing between everything. It was as if Dan had been wading and he’d taken a step and slipped in over his head.

The root of all of his optimism was ignorance. Everything he knew came from stories, impossible warp drives and ridiculous space marines. But they were just the meager efforts of hacks trying to put a human face on the unknowable. Tiny grains broken off of infinity, small enough for a mortal to digest. Freya knew the truth. Against the universe, Earth was not even an atom. Sol was the atom, the earth was an electron, and they were less than nothing.

She could feel Dan’s mind darting away from the understanding, it hurt him to try and hold the idea. Freya shut her eyes and the stars blinked away, leaving only afterburn. She wished she hadn’t thought that, she was bringing them down.

I’m sorry, she thought.

I just wasn’t ready, Dan answered.

She squeezed his hand harder and Lynn was turning off the road. This was their exit.