The transport hummed under Elias's feet while Geras waited for him to answer.
Elias looked at the black reflection of himself in the monitor glass. Hospital bruising still marked his face. The cut near his cheek had reopened during the apartment fight. The cuffs made him look guilty in a way facts did not correct.
"Why are you helping me now?" he asked. "If this is because of my father, say the full reason. Do not hide a debt inside a recruitment pitch."
Geras's expression shifted, only a little.
"Dorian Kael carried me off a training range after a live charge failed. He took the blast across his back and joked that I owed his future child birthday money. Later, before Cradle went quiet, I promised him I would see that you were not swallowed by paperwork if the worst happened. I did a poor job of that promise for ten years."
Elias did not know where to put that.
The creature on his shoulder covered its face with both tiny hands.
"You humans have terrible timing with emotional information," it said.
Elias kept his eyes on Geras. "After testing, do I go back to work?"
"I cannot promise normal, because the shard changed your body and may have changed more than that. If it reacts badly, you become dangerous; if it reacts well, people will want to own the result."
"That answer is not comforting at all."
"Comforting answers are usually expensive lies," Geras said as the transport slowed.
Geras leaned closer to the camera. "You have until morning, and if you come, pack light and bring anything tied to the event, including your father's watch. Tell no one on public channels. If Commander Cross contacts you, use your judgment, because she is capable but already inside the machine."
Elias thought of Elara standing in the restaurant alley, asking permission before touching his chest.
"She is my friend, not a shield."
"Then treat her like a friend, not a shield," Geras said before the monitor went dark.
The rear doors opened. Two PCA officers waited outside the transport near his building entrance. The robber was gone, already taken somewhere else. The first officer removed Elias's cuffs and handed him a receipt for property damage as if that made the night normal.
"Senior Officer Rodrigo says you are cleared to return upstairs," the officer said. "A representative will contact your building about repairs."
Elias looked at the blank transport monitor. "Of course he wants me cleared."
The officer either missed the sarcasm or was paid to ignore it.
Inside his apartment, the broken cabinet door hung open. Lemons still lay across the floor. The revolver was gone, but the mark where it had scraped under the table remained.
Elias locked the door, checked the lock twice, then leaned back against it.
"If this is a dream, it needs a better editor."
The creature floated upside down near the ceiling. "What is a dream supposed to feel like?"
"A dream is supposed to feel less expensive," Elias said, and it blinked at him.
Elias pushed off the door and walked to the kitchen. He picked up the lemons because leaving them there felt like surrender. The creature followed, drifting with its little arms folded.
"You said you were an Ikona," he said. "Is that your species, your job, or just the only word you remember?"
The creature turned upright, then upside down again as if the angle helped memory.
"I remember a man with a beard. He smelled like medicine, metal, and old fear. He said, please find the one, my Ikonas. I think he meant me and others like me. After that, there was pain and a box and then your blood on the street."
Elias set the lemons in a bowl. "That clears up almost nothing useful."
"It clears up that I am not a ladybug," Dot said.
"I never said ladybug out loud," Elias said, and Dot answered, "You thought the ladybug part loudly."
He closed his eyes. "We need rules about thought privacy."
"You need quieter thoughts around me."
That should not have helped. It did anyway.
Elias went to the couch and sat with care. His side still pulled when he moved wrong. The creature hovered over the coffee table, staring at the apartment like every object might teach it something.
"The doctor infused us into metal," it said. "A shard, maybe more than a shard. I woke when you were dying, and the bond formed through the watch. That is why you do not have a crystal showing like Elara. Your shard is inside the connection, not sitting under the skin."
Elias took the watch from his pocket. The pale mark across the glass brightened when the creature drifted closer.
"So if I break the watch, do I die?"
The creature recoiled. "Please do not test that theory."
"I was not planning to test it, because I just like knowing which objects in my life are load bearing."
It hovered lower, its blue eyes fixed on the watch.
"Maybe the watch is not the only anchor, because you are part of it too. I used your soul energy to close the wounds, and the bond is messy now."
"That is another horrible sentence from you."
"I am new at not being horrifying."
Elias leaned back and stared at the ceiling crack above the couch. He had work tomorrow, assuming his boss did not see the latest police report and chain him to a chair for recovery. He also had Geras's offer, Elara's warning, a living shard creature, and a government that seemed one bad meeting away from taking him apart.
"Ikona is going to get confusing if there are more of you," he said.
The creature lowered closer. "Do you want to name me?"
"I want to sleep for twelve hours and wake up before the cube, but naming you seems more realistic."
It waited with embarrassing seriousness.
Elias looked at the black spots on its red shell.
"I am calling you Dot for now," he said. "Temporary name until your memory does better."
Dot held still for one full second, then nodded like a tiny judge approving a legal document.
"Dot is acceptable as a temporary name."