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There, finally done with this report. Kala sighed with satisfaction and leaned back in her chair to stretch. She still had to look it over again, and double-check all her data and charts, but she could spare half an hour for tea and a treat. Or perhaps a late lunch, she realized wryly, glancing at the clock as she got up and grabbed her purse. Maybe Rajan hadn’t eaten yet either. She could stop by his office and drag him and Wolfgang off for a quick bite to eat.
“Definitely do that,” said Wolfgang, right against her ear.
Wolfgang’s arms wrapped around her, and even if the sensation wasn’t real, exactly, all of Kala’s nerves certainly thought that Wolfgang was really here with her, really embracing her. She sighed and relaxed into the sensation, tilted her head in quiet invitation for a kiss that Wolfgang gladly pressed against her neck.
“Rajan’s been trying to end this meeting for ten minutes now, he needs a rescue,” he continued.
“Well, if he needs a rescue…” murmured Kala, and felt the shape of Wolfgang’s smile along with its echo on her own lips, before he disappeared, his attention returning to his bodyguarding duties.
Kala idly planned out the rest of her workday on the walk to Rajan’s office. She’d go over that report again before she sent it out, then she’d bug Preeti about that requisition that still hadn’t been processed, then she’d catch up on data analysis…
Suddenly, the sheer normalcy of it all stopped Kala in her tracks. A year and a half ago, she and her whole cluster had been fighting for their lives, caught in a war and on the run. Now Kala was back at work, on her way to have lunch with her husband and their lover, and at the end of the day she would go home with them and to them, and they’d probably watch something on Netflix and Kala would call her parents and Rajan would make dinner while trying to teach Wolfgang to cook and then they’d make love, and it would all be so utterly, terrifyingly, wondrously, normal.
Not, perhaps, normal by the standards of most people in terms of the specifics, but in the overarching sense, in the quotidian daily routines of a comfortable life.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” said Sun mildly.
Even Sun’s life had returned to normal, though it was admittedly a new normal for her: she was back at Bak Enterprises, her name cleared and her brother in prison for his crimes. Sun’s joy was a quiet thing, but Kala still felt it often these days, a slow and budding warmth like dawn when Sun spent time with Mun and their dog.
“I suppose so,” said Kala, with less certainty than she’d have liked.
“Normal is overrated,” said a sleepy Nomi through a yawn. “None of us are normal.”
Which was true enough.
“My life does not feel that normal,” was Will’s contribution, his presence suddenly surrounding Kala with thumping club music and hot sunshine, the smell of sweat and sea salt and alcohol filling her/their nose—Riley had a gig in Bali.
And yet the thought didn’t quite leave Kala for the rest of the day, and it grew louder when she was curled up on the couch between Rajan and Wolfgang: was this all? She didn’t miss the danger, of course she didn’t, but—
“Are you bored?” asked Wolfgang.
“Oh, well, the movie is a bit predictable, but it’s fine—”
“I’m not asking about the movie.”
“I—no,” said Kala, drawing the word out. She didn’t need to see Wolfgang’s face to feel his amused disbelief. “Not bored, exactly.”
“Do you want to try that thing with the, ah, toys, and the blindfolds…?” suggested Rajan tentatively.
Kala’s face heated. “No! Well, maybe sometime—”
Wolfgang hummed thoughtfully, and kissed her temple. “Do you want to do crimes?”
“What? No! Why would I want to do crimes?”
Wolfgang shrugged. “Crimes aren’t boring.”
“Are you doing crimes?” asked Rajan.
“No,” said Wolfgang, peaceably enough, before adding, “Nothing serious, anyway.”
“I don’t want to do crimes,” said Kala firmly. “I’m just feeling a bit…restless. Or maybe like I’m waiting for, what’s the saying, for the other shoe to drop.”
“We’re safe now,” Wolfgang assured her, an assurance Rajan echoed.
“We are. You are.”
She didn’t need a sensate bond with Rajan to feel the echo of his fear, the memory of her being shot lingering between all of them.
“I know,” said Kala, and when Wolfgang kissed his way down her neck and breasts, and Rajan went to his knees, pulling her underwear down, she let them convince her and distract her.
But afterwards, not even the afterglow could entirely overcome that lingering restlessness, the persistent feeling of something that wasn’t exactly disquiet.
The trouble with being a sensate was bound up in the joy of it: Kala was no longer just Kala, she was stretched across seven other beloved people all over the world, and that meant she didn’t always know who was feeling what. They all had good enough control by now that they weren’t inadvertently sharing as much as they had in the early days, but their respective edges were permeable enough that things seeped through. Kala could recognize it usually, was accustomed to Riley’s sadness creeping in like a mist, or Wolfgang’s anger flaring hot, or Capheus’s joy warming her day.
So maybe this restlessness, this vague dissatisfaction wasn’t her own.
She was fairly certain it wasn’t from Capheus, as busy and fulfilled as he was with his new career in politics. As stressed he could get these days, his sense of purpose burned brightly in him. Nomi was still in her honeymoon phase with Amanita, Sun was increasingly happy with the new balance of her life, Riley had her music and Will, and Lito…
Well, Lito’s new normal was very glamorous indeed, with his Hollywood career taking off.
Wryly, Kala considered that perhaps she just needed to visit with him more often. When sleep eluded her that night, she let herself slip under Lito’s skin. He welcomed her with a pulse of affection, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her, his attention focused on the director, a wild-haired, round little man who seemed to practically vibrate with enthusiasm.
“—this scene must convey both the terror of divinity, its violence, and the wonder of it, and so you must portray the, you know, the agony! The ecstasy! The fear, and also the horniness!”
“Yes, yes, of course,” said Lito, nodding. “The angelic revelation is a kind of penetration, a little death that becomes a new life—! So I will—”
Kala tried to remember which of Lito’s projects this was. She knew he’d recently wrapped that war movie he had a supporting role in, but was this movie now the heist movie Wolfgang was excited for, or the strange movie about saints and angels—?
Kala spotted another actor being strapped into an absolutely enormous pair of silvery wings that appeared to be at least partially held up by wiring that was attached to some kind of rigging. She slipped out of Lito to get a closer look, and realized—
“Oh! That’s Jude Law!”
Who did not seem all that pleased about the wings. “Guillermo, are we sure we can’t just add these wings in post—”
The director—Guillermo—wheeled around towards him. “No! Absolutely not! The practical effects are crucial—!”
He bustled off, and Lito sighed, then turned his attention to Kala. Kala blinked in surprise at the sight of his mostly bare chest, the shirt torn to reveal bloody puncture marks all over his skin. Make up, of course, but somewhat alarming nonetheless.
“If this isn’t a good time, I can go—? I was just—”
Lito squinted at her, then nodded decisively.
“You are bored,” he diagnosed, much like Wolfgang had. “Not with Rajan and Wolfgang, I hope!”
“No, of course not!” said Kala. “And I don’t think I’m bored, exactly. How could I be, when I can come see you doing a big Hollywood movie, then visit Riley DJing, or Sun kickboxing…”
Kala had so much life to choose from now. Surely she couldn’t be bored.
“Capheus’s meetings, not so much,” said Lito, with a tilt of his head, grinning.
“Yes, maybe not Capheus’s meetings,” conceded Kala, smiling back, before she sighed. “I think maybe I just need to get used to this new normal, now that things seem to be staying stable.”
It was just that her new normal seemed to be the most, well, normal, of all of them. Lito frowned thoughtfully at her, but before he could say anything, the director, currently gesticulating wildly at Jude Law in his wings, turned back towards Lito.
“On your mark, Lito!” he called out, and Lito rushed to hit his mark a few meters from the winged Jude Law.
“Try a hobby!” Lito suggested, just before the camera started rolling.
He pushed a few memories of Dani and Hernando’s latest hobby of taking dance classes to her, and then someone shouted, “Action!” and suddenly, Lito was not Lito any more: he was a man on the verge of becoming a saint, bloodied and battered, full of awe and terror and longing for the angel before him, even as its divinity pierced and scoured him.
Lito’s acting borrowed from all of them sometimes, their skills and their emotions. Today, Kala freely shared the way she felt in temples sometimes, when she talked to Ganesha, and Lito took it, transformed it into something bigger. In this moment, none of the cameras or equipment or crew existed for him: only the angel did in all its wonder and awfulness. They filmed the scene over and over again, with each time a little bit different, and Kala was rapt the whole time.
No, she wasn’t bored. How could she be, when her cluster mates lived lives like this?
But after Lito wrapped for the day, she still went to the temple, and asked Ganesha for guidance.
Unlike in Lito’s film, no divine revelation was forthcoming. There was only the familiar comfort of unburdening herself, almost but not quite enough to banish whatever restlessness still plagued her.
Of all of them, Kala worried that Will was the one set most adrift, now that the threat of BPO was eliminated and Whispers was gone. The rest of them had been able to return to some semblance of their old lives and homes, or to improved circumstances; Will had left behind his job and his home, and had lost his father too.
“I do miss being a cop,” he told her, understanding her worry without and beyond words, as she took a sideways step through the mycelium and joined him on his morning jog.
Kala herself despised running, but she could borrow Will and Sun’s satisfaction with it for now. It helped that she wasn’t actually jogging with Will; by now they’d all gotten the hang of visiting without moving their bodies. Kala and her physical body could luxuriate in her bath while Will was on his morning run, Kala’s spirit or soul or echo or whatever it was that traveled the mycelium between them ran at his side.
“But I don’t miss how hard it was to be a good cop,” said Will with a grimace. “Turns out changing the system from the inside is, uh, pretty hard.”
“Indeed it is,” chimed in a tired Capheus, and suddenly both Kala and Will were with him in his office, papers spread all over his desk. Tired or not, his smile was as bright as ever, and Kala and Will couldn’t help but smile back. “But worth it, I hope.”
“Still, aren’t you…bored?” ventured Kala, once Capheus was pulled back to his work, and she and Will had returned to their run in the park.
Will certainly seemed perfectly content with staying at Riley’s side as she traveled from gig to gig. Riley was too, her presence in the mycelium warm and bright with a shy and quiet joy that still seemed to surprise her.
“I think I’d be bored if all I was doing was tagging along with Riley,” said Will between steady breaths. “But traveling is giving us the chance to meet up with other sensates, build up the Archipelago some more, let people know they’re safe now that BPO’s gone.”
“How many of us are there, do you think?” asked Kala, and Will shrugged.
“No clue,” he said. “But now that most of us aren’t hiding from each other, I think there are going to be a lot more of us. The mycelium’s getting stronger.”
Kala felt the tentative hope in Will and the flicker of fear in Riley.
“Are you and Riley…?”
“No! We’re not pregnant! That’s not how you, uh, make new sensates anyway. I think we could make a new cluster though. The way Angelica did with us.”
“Oh!” said Kala, startled.
“Not anytime soon,” Will rushed to reassure her, and maybe all of them. “But…eventually.”
“Well, at least any cluster we make will have an easier time of it than we did.”
Will laughed, breathless. “That’s for sure.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “You kinda miss all the danger and excitement, don’t you.”
It was pointless to lie to someone who was part of her, and yet she found herself trying anyway. “No!”
Then Wolfgang appeared. “Bullshit.”
“Well—yes, maybe, but not like that!”
Will slowed to a walk, laughing again. “Yeah, no, I kinda miss it too,” he admitted.
“I don’t,” said Wolfgang. He grinned, sharp and broad, and threw his arms wide. “This is the good life!”
Kala shared a guilty glance with Will. It was easy for Kala to miss some of that danger and excitement when her life before awakening as a sensate had been, for the most part, comfortable and safe. And while Will’s job as a police officer had been dangerous at times, it had also involved a lot of tedium. Wolfgang’s life had been precarious and dangerous for far longer.
“I know,” she said. “I don’t think it is the danger I miss, just—”
She shrugged and sighed, still unable to put a name to the feeling.
“Having kinky sex will help,” Wolfgang told her, his voice solemn but his eyes sparkling. “I’ve been thinking: quickie threesome in Rajan’s office?”
“Wolfgang!” Kala chided, her cheeks going hotter than even her bath could account for.
The possibilities flickered through her mind, and she didn’t know if they came from Wolfgang’s imagination, or her own: Rajan bent over his desk, Wolfgang fucking him while Rajan fucked her; her on Rajan’s desk, legs spread for Wolfgang to pleasure her with his mouth while Rajan fingered him—
“It’s worth a try,” said Will, laughing, his cheeks flushing even darker.
Wolfgang waggled his eyebrows, and Kala bit at her lower lip.
“I suppose it is worth a try,” she said slowly. “For science.”
“Yep. For science.”
It was definitely a worthy experiment, even if it turned out to be almost but not quite the missing thing Kala’s heart was seeking. Still, perhaps Kala only needed more data. She wouldn’t mind that particular data collection process.
“You all need enrichment,” was Amanita’s diagnosis.
Today, both Nomi and Kala were afflicted with restless dissatisfaction, which Nomi was choosing to express with what she called floor time, which as far as Kala could tell consisted of laying down on the floor on her back, with her arms flung out. How this helped with the ennui that came when Nomi was between projects and suffering from some mild writer’s block, Kala did not know.
It did feel kind of nice though.
“I’m not a zoo animal, Neets,” protested Nomi. She sighed deeply. “We’re too young for a midlife crisis, Kala.”
“It’s not a midlife crisis!”
“Enrichment,” said Amanita firmly.
“What does that even mean,” moaned Nomi. She took her glasses off, and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
“It means that now that y’all have jet setted around the world fighting evil, the daily grind is not cutting it.”
Nomi lowered her hands and squinted up at the ceiling, her frown a mirror of Kala’s. “So, what, we should be in mortal peril more often? Because I do not miss being in mortal peril.”
Amanita walked over to them, hands on her hips, and looked down at Nomi, fond and amused.
“You—and maybe Kala and the others—miss doing cool, heroic shit. So do more of it. Between the eight of you, and your very skilled significant others and loved ones, you’ve practically got a whole damn superhero team. Use it!”
“To do what?” wondered Kala, and Nomi relayed the question.
Nomi added, “BPO’s not a problem any more, Sun’s sorted out the thing with her brother, Wolfgang and Felix are safe from the mob, Dani is safe from her ex, Capheus is handling the whole being an elected official thing pretty well…I mean, I’d love to overthrow the kyriarchy, but I think that’s way above our pay grade.”
Amanita shrugged. “Yeah, I dunno,” she said. “Big world-changing stuff aside, all of you are pretty much overkill for anything I can think of, but—”
Riley joined them for floor time and said, thoughtfully, “I could ask around.”
“The Archipelago might have some ideas,” said Will.
“Why make it complicated?” asked Wolfgang. “We can do good crimes. You know, steal from the rich, give to the poor or whatever.”
“You just want to do crimes, period,” said Sun, smiling, and Wolfgang grinned and shrugged, winking at Kala.
“The poor could definitely use it,” said Capheus. “Obviously I will be the getaway driver. Though I may have to do it by sharing, not in person.”
“Are we doing a heist?” asked Lito, plopping down between Will and Wolfgang. “I better be the one doing the grifting.”
“You’re a famous actor now, I’m not sure you should be doing any crimes at all,” said Will wryly, and Lito waved a dismissive hand.
“I can wear a disguise! It would be good for my acting skills!”
“You know, I do know a guy in Portland who does this kinda thing,” said Nomi slowly. “Do we really wanna do this?”
“I still like my job and my life, I don’t actually want to turn to a life of crime, even if it is for a good cause,” said Kala. “But maybe…maybe we could do this kind of thing once a year or so?”
The swell of agreement and joy from her cluster mates practically lifted Kala up, and suddenly they were all grinning at each other.
“Alright, now what are you all up to?” Amanita asked.
She held her hands out for Nomi to take them, and pulled her up off the floor.
“I think we’re gonna be gay and do crimes,” said Nomi very solemnly.
She flung her arms around Amanita, grinning wildly, and the whole cluster engulfed Nomi in a hug too. Kala felt like her heart and her self were expanding outwards, encompassing her cluster of course, but rippling out further and wider too, until Kala could scarcely even conceive of ever feeling bored or restless. How could she, when she could be so much?
Her life could be normal, and often was, but Kala’s life wasn’t only her own now. She shared it with seven other people—eight, including her husband—and the people she shared her life with shared theirs with others too. Even if they didn’t jet across the globe to do various good crimes and/or acts of heroism, the tapestry of their lives was far from boring, or average.
Still, Kala could admit to herself—herselves—that she still wanted the occasional adventure. Lucky for her that she had seven cluster mates and a husband who were more than happy to give her one.