The walk down the hallway is depressingly long. Her key sticks in the lock, and Thalia rattles it furiously for a few minutes before losing her patience and ripping the handle off.

The door swings open with a mournful creak, and there's someone sitting in her apartment, her face obscured behind a mask. Thalia's impatience and exhaustion are gone beneath a crashing wave of adrenaline and fear. Her blood thickens. Her heart flutters like a bird with a broken wing, but she keeps a mask of cool serenity in place, even as her left hand swings forward, palm-up and ready to blast away.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. She doesn't ask who the woman is. She's seen her before, and beside that, anyone who wears a motorcycle helmet for house calls doesn't go around saying who they are.

physis

She reaches out for the letter with the same hand she was prepared to blast the woman away with, and scans through it quickly. It's a complicated document, but the gist becomes clear enough. 

"You understand correctly, but I have pink hair," Thalia says. "I know how to keep my mouth shut, but they don't use me for undercover work for a reason."

She looks at the letter again, as if drawn with a magnet. It's crumpled a little in her hand. Her grip has tightened without her realizing. She smooths it back out with precise care.

"Why did you come to me?" she asks, because she wants to hear it out loud.

physis

Her expression is smooth and unruffled. Her face is the quiet, still face of the ocean, ready to drag you down and drown you in uncharted depths, where your bones will turn to dust on in dark trenches that no living man has ever visited.

She doesn't know if the other woman means for her words to bite like a steel-tipped whip, but they do. She doesn't know if she means them as an insult, a scourge, but they are. 

Thalia knows exactly the weight of failure, and the price of it, and the burden of its keeping. 

And for something like this, a failure of this magnitude, she has no choice but to trust the messenger. She has no choice but to not care if the words are meant to bite and rend with shining, bloody claws. Because she has no choice but to fix this, with or without the woman.

"I'm going to need something to call you," she says. "On the mission."

physis

She lets herself smile. It's crooked. That's how you know it isn't real.

"I'd introduce myself, but it seems pointless." 

She listens intently, though. As far as plans go she's heard better, but she's also heard a lot worse, and while Physis isn't holding all the cards, she's certainly got most of them. And she trusted (?) Thalia with this. She'll let her take the lead, for now. 

No guarantees. She isn't a knife for just anyone to pick up.

"I can get us there two ways," she says. "Official Initiative transport or just me. You'll be easier to hide on the transport, but it might take longer to acquire."

physis

...

There's already a downside to a secret mission off the record with a known vigilante. How surprising.

"As long as you leave the car with me when we're done," she says firmly. The Initiative can make amends--and smooth ruffled feathers--over a car being stolen to potentially save the world better than some girl in a motorcycle helmet who stole it in the first place. "We're much better suited to uh, assuage the owner's feelings."

And then she suppresses a sigh. Physis will probably want to drive as well. 

Thalia wishes they were flying in one of the Initiative's cars and they haven't even stolen anything yet.

physis

Thalia drives with the reckless entitlement of a woman who knows that if anyone pulls her over, nothing is happening. She speeds. She speeds a lot. She considers going ten over the speed limit to be slowing down. She takes turns on two wheels, but it's even better if she can take them on one. 

She likes things that go very fast, and things that explode, and best of all are things that can do both. It's why she loves the flying cars so much. But a regular car will suffice.

When they arrive at the penitentiary, she's in a great mood.

physis

She puts on the headset that Physis tosses her and puts on her own mask as well; invisible, maybe, to anyone who isn't looking for it, but it's there and real nonetheless: a carefully fixed smile, the tilt of her head, the aggressive way she nearly bowls the poor guard over as she approaches him and reels him into conversation.

By the time she and the unfortunate man have parted ways, Thalia has signed two autographs for his children, obtained one visitor's pass for herself, albeit a visitor's pass with slightly more clearance than normal, and Physis has had ample amount of time to disappear without a trace.

"Was there someone else with you?" The guard asks, still looking a little dazed, and Thalia shakes her head, laughing a little: "Oh no, I don't have a sidekick!"

physis