“What’s your name?” River asked, even though she had already plucked it from his mind. No point in making them even more scared of her.

“G ... Georgiou,” he stammered.

She glanced at him as she led the way up the damp, musty staircase, lit sporadically by dim light panels. There was enough illumination to see his normally swarthy skin, dark curly hair and full lips. “Daedalus.”

He looked surprised. “How did you know?”

She shrugged. “Lucky guess.” In fact she could see his entire life spread out in his mind – his childhood in a small town on the shore of an inland sea (too far from anything fun or cosmopolitan), his parents who worked in one of the local factories (old-fashioned and dull), his education (pointless, except for the calculus classes), his girlfriend (with black hair long enough to sit on, or wrap her lover in under the stars to the sound of waves breaking on shingle) ... at least until the day he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and all of it was taken away from him.

“Will we ...” He swallowed. “Can we go home?”

She didn’t answer, just held up her hand, first to her lips then to stop them, then vanished around the corner. Georgiou strained to hear something, almost stepping back as there was a scream, then a gunshot, a second, a scuffling sound ... and silence.

Georgiou gripped the rifle tighter, his finger almost spasming on the trigger as River reappeared, holding out another pair of guns.

“Do not shoot me,” she warned, handing the weapons to an older man and a young woman.

“Are they ... did you ...”

“Yes. If you don’t want to see, close your eyes.” She led the way forward.

Georgiou, feeling as if his life was hanging by a thread, swore softly under his breath and followed her.

---

Pederson watched these strangers, less than a handful of men and women, take his crew apart. Even the guns he’d hired locally weren’t standing a chance.

It wasn’t that he was a coward – he’d killed more than his share of men in what he considered fair fights