Helvia stood outside the interrogation room, watching the detainee within attempt to sit casually at the table. But there was a closed ceiling, and four complete walls, so even though Anaïs Lavreplesthar appeared to be studying her fingernails without a care in the world, Helvia knew she was quietly panicking.
          To the munifex next to her, Helvia asked, “Why isn’t she in the open interrogation room?”
          The munifex was young and new—probably only just past tironis—and he answered too fast with too little: “Ma’am. I don’t know.”
          “Who brought her in?”
          “Ma’am. Erucius Iberius booked her.”
          Helvia restrained herself, kept the sneer inside. Iberius should have known better. He did know better.
          The munifex shifted from one foot to the other. “We can’t hold her any longer.”
          “I know.” Helvia’s fist tightened. They especially couldn’t hold her any longer in this room.
          The munifex nodded, hesitated, and said, “Um. I’ll go get the paperwork started.”
          Helvia just grunted as the munifex sped away. She kept staring, frowning, and then she pressed the button to slide the door open. She stepped into the room, and the Mariner looked up at her with a smile that startled Helvia. Her lip was swollen and bleeding.
          As Helvia tried to understand the bleeding, Anaïs’s smile changed. Brightened, but with an edge to it. And she said, “Well, look at that! Here I was, thinking I wouldn’t see you this time around.”
          “They shouldn’t have put you in this room,” Helvia said, keeping her tone as neutral as possible.
          Anaïs said, “Oh, yeah? You think?”
          “A mistake,” Helvia said.
          “Sure,” Anaïs said, tongue flicking across her swollen lip. “Lots of mistakes today.” She leaned back in the chair and studied Helvia with searching eyes. “But you’re here, right? To save me.” She lifted her still shackled hands upward. “The Saints have breathed a blessing my way.”
          Helvia endured the sarcasm. “I’m tired of seeing you here, Anaïs.”
          “Are you, though?” Anaïs kept the shit-eating, bloody grin on her face. Her sandy blonde hair sat in an unkempt braid down the back of her head. Aquitani didn’t have hair in their native forms, and Helvia had noticed in her dealings with them that they largely didn’t bother learning how to manage the hair their conformer units equipped them with. Anaïs was no different. That braid looked like it had been plaited weeks ago. Probably around the last time Helvia had arrested Anaïs.
          “Yes.”
          “If you were tired of seeing me, you’d stop arresting me,” Anaïs said.
          Helvia hadn’t been involved in Anaïs’s arrest that day, but she didn’t point that out. Anaïs already knew that. “I’ll stop arresting you as soon as you stop breaking the law.”
          Anaïs gasped. “I. Would. Never. Break Caesar’s laws, may he live forever.” The way she said the last part made Helvia grind her molars.
          “At least not in any way we can prove,” Helvia said. “Right?”
          Anaïs touched her teeth carefully to her swollen bottom lip as she watched Helvia with her swallowing blue eyes, and then she said, “You look different. You got a promotion since I saw you last. Congratulations.”
          Helvia didn’t know what was more frustrating: that she’d been chasing Anaïs around this damn system for so long the pirate tracked her rank, or that her belly tickled at the idea that Anaïs cared enough to track her rank.
          No, Helvia corrected herself. She doesn’t care. She’s smart. She knows her enemies.
          Anaïs tapped a finger idly to her lip and checked it for new bleeding, and Helvia sighed.
          “My intentions here aren’t just to chase you around until the end of time,” Helvia said. “The Imperia has options for people like you.”
          “People like me,” Anaïs mused.
          Helvia pushed through the interruption. “If you’re doing unlawful things for money, we have programs. If it’s because you owe someone something, we can intervene.”
          Anaïs said, “I already said I’m not doing anything unlawful, though.”
          Helvia leaned forward over the table. “We both know that’s bullshit, Anaïs.”
          “And,” Anaïs said, “I’m not a person.”
          “You know what I meant.”
          “I know you like to call us people when it suits you,” Anaïs said. “I know what you do to the people you stop calling people.” She let that comment hang in the air for a moment. “And I know I don’t want or need the Imperia’s help.”
          Before Helvia could say anything, the munifex stepped in with paperwork. “Pardon, ma’am,” he said to Helvia.
          She sighed long and hard out of her nose, and Anaïs beamed. 
          “Looks like it’s time for me to get on going,” Anaïs said.
          The munifex glanced down at the name printed at the top of the paperwork. He said slowly, “An . . . Anaïseseia . . . um, Lavrep—”
          “Phew.” Anaïs blew out a breath. “You’re just terrible at this.”
          The munifex flushed and his eyebrows met. “Lavreplesthar.”
          “First time ever learning an Aquitani’s name?” Anaïs slapped her open palms against the tabletop. “Just put them here, buddy, I know where to sign.”
          The munifex slid the stack of papers to Anaïs with a frown and she started to flip through, signing and initialing as Helvia watched. She completed her signatures and slid the papers back to the munifex. He took the papers and Anaïs stood, holding her shackled wrists toward Helvia.
          “Set me free,” Anaïs said. “Please.”
          Helvia considered not, but the implant in her head buzzed deep down, reminding her about her duty, pricking at her with that unpleasant throb that happened when she considered going against the implant’s programming. She’d been programmed to obey the law, and in this case, the law said Anaïs was free to go. Also, Anaïs shouldn’t have been shackled in the first place. Aquitani weren’t supposed to be detained any more than was absolutely necessary. It was considered cruelty to do so. So Helvia unlocked the shackles.
          When Helvia pulled the shackles away from Anaïs’s wrists, she noticed the Aquitani’s hands trembling slightly.
          “Thanks,” Anaïs said, almost conspiratorial, giving not one iota of her anxiety away. She moved to walk past, paused, and looked up at Helvia. “I’ll see you around.”
          Helvia grabbed Anaïs by the arm to hold her in place.
          Anaïs pierced Helvia with furious, stormy, panicking eyes and snapped, “Get your hand off—”
          “Who hit you?” Helvia asked.
          Anaïs yanked her arm out of Helvia’s grip and said nothing. She just followed the munifex out and away, going to collect her things that had been seized and searched.

Helvia watched Anaïs depart the station with her things, and then she returned to the bullpen. The other legionnaires sat at desks, tapping out reports, or stood in small huddles laughing and talking. The beneficiarii assigned to the station were in their offices, doing something very important, Helvia was sure. Like finding ways to search for pornography around the precinct’s content filters.
          Helvia plopped at her tiny desk, stacked high with paperwork and folders, and sighed. Across the bullpen, the legionnaire who had brought Anaïs in, Mettius Erucius Iberius, was standing in one of the laughter huddles. Was it Helvia’s imagination, or was he painstakingly avoiding making eye contact with her?
          She stared at him until he looked at her. He lifted his eyebrows and nodded at her. She did the same back to him.
          Then he excused himself from the group and left the bullpen.
          Perfect.
          Helvia followed him.
          He was almost at the other end of the hall by the time Helvia caught up with him. She grabbed his uniform at the shoulder, jerking him back and slamming him against the wall. She was taller than he was, and she used that advantage right then to glare down at him with the meanest look she could conjure.
          “What the fuck, Terrasidia?” Erucius likely meant to sound intimidating but he just sounded like a whiner.
          She replied not with words, but with whip-quick knuckles to the front of his mouth, snapping her wrist to slam his lips against his teeth. He howled with surprise and pain, twisting away from her to grab at his bleeding mouth. She let him, using his downward momentum to grab him by the back of his uniform collar, tightening the garment around his neck and shoving him down into an awkward crouch.
          “I could have you removed from your station here,” she said, soft and dangerous into his ear. “We have open air interrogation rooms and cells for a reason, you jackass. You put her in a closed room. You put her in chains.”
          Choking against the collar, Erucius managed to spit out, “She was . . . being difficult—”
          “I know she’s a pain in the ass,” Helvia said, tightening her fist to pull the collar tighter. “Infuriating. Smarmy. An asshole. But none of that gives you the right to torture her. To put an Aquitani into bondage. To hit her. Especially while she’s shackled. That’s barbarian behavior. Unbecoming of a legionnaire.”
          She held him there while he gagged against his uniform compressing his windpipe. Then she shoved him down further, letting him go in time for him to catch himself from hitting the floor with his bleeding mouth.
          Helvia didn’t wait for him to respond. She just walked away, cracking her knuckles while she did.
          Anaïs was a shithead.
          But even shitheads deserved humane treatment.