Kaz crossed his arms over his chest, brows furrowed a bit as he listened to Panu. ”Heh, I suppose that does make getting ideas across a little harder. So you can control things like I can control my body, but what are you controlling exactly? Electricity? Molecular bonds?” Kaz walked over to Panu and gently took the can from the boys hands. He tapped the top of it with two fingers a number of times, waited, did it again, and after waiting a few more seconds cracked it open and offered it back to the boy.

Kaz moved back to the kitchen to check on the pizza rolls, they were nearly done. Money couldn't buy happiness, but it could buy fancy expensive things, like ovens and such that cooked food quick. Having to wait for food was annoying when you were hungry. Grabbing a large plate he began emptying the oven onto it. Putting the plate aside to cool off, he moved to the pizzas and pulled them both out. Moving carefully he took the first one and flipped it toppings down onto the second one. Taking a large curving cutting blade he made four quick, precise rocking motions with it and left the pizza sandwich in eight even slices.

Creating a small arm and hand to hold his pop and another can he pulled from the fridge, he walked to the couch again. Kaz set the pizza rolls down on the small end-table next to Panu before taking a seat in a chair facing the boy and setting the wooden cutting board with pizza on the table in front of him. He set both his opened and unopened cans on the end-table next to him before Kaz made the small arm and hand was absorb back into himself. ”It's not physically bright to you is it. I'm going to take a guess that whatever you control you can...sense... somehow. That would make sense at least. How much control do you have, like, how many things at once, how far away, etc.?” Taking a bite of his pizza sandwich Kaz leaned back in the chair to watch the boy.

Panu stayed very still as the man approached. His arms had been crossed and his eyebrows had drawn together, and neither of those was good body language. His voice sounded calm enough, but it was hard to tell through the translator, he could not tell for sure without knowing the words. But all the man did was make his ginger ale not explode, so that was okay.

"Thank you," he said softly, accepting the can back. He sipped it politely. It fizzed on his tongue.

"I control your warehouse." He hoped this answer was okay. "All the things in it? The electric things?"

The blonde boy straightened up as Kaz began working his crazy kitchen devilry. A pizza sandwich, what magic was this? It looked incredible and delicious (and probably very hot and burning). Also pizza rolls, which were also good. The man set that tray next to him. He was not sure if he was allowed to eat it, sometimes people put things by you just to see if you would eat it and then they got angry when you did because you did not have permission, but if you asked for permission they sometimes got angry too. He fidgeted slightly, and clasped his hands together around the can, and did not even look at them (except with his camera eyes, but they did not count).

The man kept talking. Panu did not understand the difference between physically bright and not. Bright was in his head either way, so what difference was there? It did not seem like an important question, though, so he did not say anything.

"I do not know the answers to your questions." It was easier to hide his anxiety in English. He did not even know the right words to emphasize, if he wanted to convey it: he was only repeating the sounds that his translator was playing in his head. "I can do this? Is it good enough?"

All around the warehouse, movement rippled outward from the boy as cameras and weapons gave a side-to-side wiggle before returning to their previous states.

"I can leave now? Your warehouse will be yours again once I go away." It had many broken things now, so it was not as good. He would like to leave before he was broken, too. This man was much harder to understand than Mr. Jaager. Jaager had been violent until Panu was useful, and then he was not: this made sense. Kaz was violent and now he was not, but Panu did not know why.

Kids were difficult to deal with Kaz decided, especially kids who didn't have a fluent grasp on the language you spoke. Kaz knew one language: American English. Sure he picked, and retained, and few words from a few different languages like Japanese and Spanish, but he was nowhere near able to communicate even the simplest ideas in those languages. So while Panu was doing better than he could by magnitudes, it wasn't working very well.

He wasn't sure if it was the language barrier or maybe a cultural one, or maybe something else, but the boy didn't even look at the plate of food though he fidget a bit. Was he waiting for permission? 'There's no way this kid is that polite.' Kaz thought to himself. ”I swear, it seems kids are always hungry, and I'm going to assume you're no different. So eat something.”

Language barriers were difficult to overcome, but Kaz made sure to pay attention when Panu decided to give him a demonstration. Kaz could hear the cameras and mounted weapons in the warehouse move along with the ones he could see in the living room. Kaz's mouth was just slightly agape when everything went back to normal. ”Oh.”

After the little show Panu asked if he could leave. Part of Kaz wanted to say yes, another very small part kind of wanted to throw the boy off the building so he couldn't take control of his stuff ever again, but the winning part of him said, ”Nope, you get to sit here for a bit.” Kaz ate some more before continuing. ”You're a kid, a mutant kid at that, so this is...I don't like this situation. You're dangerous Panu, it's a risk to let you leave. If you really can control all of the electronics here, it's possible you could get into my computer or let someone else in. So you can't leave until I've decided what to do with you.” There was no malice or maliciousness in Kaz's tone, mannerisms, or body language. ”If you run or try to escape, I'll have no choice but to kill you. Please don't make me do that.” The look he gave Panu as he said that was almost pleading.

The silver-haired man said very many words that turned into permission to eat. Eat something. Panu really really wanted to try the amazingness what was a pizza sandwich, but probably something meant the pizza bites the man had put by him, so that is what he reached for. He put his pop on the table, and slid two into his palm.

The man seemed impressed by Panu's power, but it was the wrong kind of impressed. The you-are-dangerous kind. Which was completely unfair, because it was such a small show of power, he hadn't even done anything that had taken more than a second of thought. A subroutine should not have gotten him in trouble. The Fin hunched his shoulders, and blew on the food in his hand. He did not try to meet the man's eyes. The man had only tried forcing him once, when he had lifted Panu's chin earlier; he did not seem to care now. The blonde boy kept his gaze down, and pretended that he was looking at his food.

"I will not run. I will stay on couch." He promised softly. He did not try to argue: he was dangerous. He could get into Kaz' computer (he was already in it, he just had not tried reading anything yet, adults always thought their computers were more interesting than they really were).

"Thank you for food," Panu continued in his melodic voice, "and for not letting your cat eat me."

In his hoodie pocket, hidden by the pillow hugged to his chest, a message typed itself into his phone.

Being held captive a little. Do not need help, he said he does not want to kill me. Please tell Mr Jaager I will probably miss dinner but am getting food here.

This reassuring message was sent to Ms. Brass' phone. Ambrose's secretary. Panu had promised himself not to use Jaager's number unless it was really really important. He was not bleeding yet or even a little in pain, so this was not important enough to disturb his new employer.

“I will not run. I will stay on couch.”

With Panu's acceptance of the situation and his word that he wouldn't run Kaz felt something inside of him relax a bit. Kaz hadn't realized until then that he had felt like a wire under high tension. He knew of course that Panu could be lying to him, but Kaz didn't get that impression. He genuinely seemed like a decent kid, if he were older Kaz might believe him capable of that sort of deception, of making the conscious effort to appear and act the way he did. Kaz admitted to himself it was still a possibility, but so remote as to be thrown away.

“Thank you for food,”

Kaz nodded slightly in a 'your welcome' sort of way while he moved a hand in a slightly dismissive gesture before snorting loudly at Panu's next words. The short quickly turned into a laugh, a short belly laugh. Smiling broadly at the boy, ”You..you really thought she was going to eat you?” He took a sip of pop before putting it down, ”You don't know cats do you? She wanted you to pet her.” A short pause, ”Probably.” Kalli might have wanted to play fetch or something.

He turned a bit in the chair to look back toward the kitchen, his ears already knew the answer he sought as he looked for Kalli. The big Savannah always devoured canned food quickly, as if she thought it would be taken away before she could finish. “Wonder where she went...” He said under his breath before reaching for his tablet to check the cameras, realizing part way through the movement that it was inside the busted Hummer. “Probably in her room.” His hearing might be supernaturally sharp, but cats were natural ninjas, able to be nearly perfectly silent when they felt like it.

”Where were you going by yourself kid? You can't be older than 10. Where are your parents?” Kaz had a thought that he didn't like, but one that wouldn't be unlikely for one reason or another. ”Do you have parents?”

The man laughed very long and very hard, until Panu was forced to admit that Kaz did not think his cat would eat someone. So she was not an intentional trap. But the man was very tall. Probably the cat did not think she could eat Kaz. But she was the same size as Panu--bigger!--so eight year old Fins were probably not people to her, they were large cat toys. Panu had not seen her try to tackle Kaz to the ground and smother him.

He waited (very patiently) for the man to stop laughing. Then he waited a little more for his cheeks to be less red. Then he answered the man's question. "I have pet three cats. They did not act like your cat. Also they were smaller."

The man's probably acknowledged that probably the large animal had a hidden blood lust and probably there were the bones of many eight year olds hidden where her owner could not see.

>> "Probably in her room."

"She is," the boy confirmed. "She ate and then she licked her teeth and claws and then she went to the other room. She looked at us before she left. Now she is on a shelf and one of her legs is over the side and her eyes are closed." Maybe she was asleep. Possibly that was what she wanted him to think. He would set alerts on her camera feeds so that any movement from the shelf drew them back to his main attention.

The silver-haired man had more questions for him. Panu quickly swallowed a pizza bite, and made sure to answer very well.

"I am eight. I was not going anywhere, I was only riding the bus." He hesitated for a moment, adjusting his headphones so they were settled straight and his over-large hoodie sleeves so they pooled comfortably around his wrists  and the pillow so it was a shield (he knew it was not a good shield at all, but it felt good to have it.) "I do not want to talk about my parents."

"Why do you have a place that has so many weapons but is so easy to come inside of?" The boy drew in his shoulders, and trailed off belatedly. He was not the one who was asking questions. He should let the man talk, and not answer. Also that question might be rude. But the man seemed so angry about Panu coming in but it had been so easy to do, it was like he wanted technopaths to come in.

Even though Kaz hadn't directed the words at Panu, or asked him about Kalli's whereabouts, he gave Kaz the answer rather quickly and a very detailed answer at that. Kaz looked at Panu, eyes narrowed marginally. He knew the only way Panu could have that information was if he could see Kalli at that moment, and the only way to do that would be through the cameras. Kaz felt a little slow when he realized what that meant. The kid wasn't just controlling the electronics, he was interfacing with them, directly connected to them. Which made sense he supposed, it meant that nothing digital was safe from the kid, how far his control went, what information he could get, and all that was still unknown. Kaz had the impression that Panu hadn't gone through his security, he had just completely bypasses them. Since the boy wasn't physically touching or connected to any of Kaz's systems, it meant that anything within his range was subject to his command, so even if there was a physical barrier between him and the system, he could still access it without having to go through or around the physical barrier. Panu was a walking, talking, thinking security breach.

All of that also told Kaz that Panu was paranoid enough about Kalli to have been watching her the entire time, and that he could do many things at once. 'I wonder how many different tasks he can do at one time..'

Panu answered Kaz's questions easily enough, but seemed to fidget and straighten himself and his clothes when it came to his parents. 'So parents are a sensitive topic...' Sighing, ”Want to or not, if I'm to figure out what to do with you Panu, I need to know. If your parents aren't in the picture, then a guardian or caretaker.”

Kaz was a bit surprised when Panu asked a question of his own, a fairly good one Kaz had to admit. Letting out a grunt of a sigh, ”Most people never notice the place in the first place. Those that do and try to get in can't. Only one person has made it inside before you and they did not come out of it whole, left a whole bunch of metal bits inside their guts after being electrocuted quite badly.” Kaz shrugged at Panu. ”But to be honest, you're the first person I've met that can do what you can do, and electronic security securing the physical barriers has always worked better than just having a key to a door.” Eating another slice of pizza sandwich, ”If I let you live, and leave here, I'll have to change that.”

The blonde boy fidgeted extra when it seemed that Kaz would press the topic of parents. His socked feet squirmed and he tucked them under himself. But it was not parents that Kaz cared about: 'guardian' or 'caretaker' would be okay, too.

"I have adult," the Fin hurried to inform the other mutant, relieved. "Very responsible adult. So it is okay if you let me leave, I will go away and not come back, because Responsible Adult would be angry that I am here." Probably. Panu did not actually want to test this theory, but it was too late, he had already sent the message to Ms. Brass. He would have to explain it. Hopefully Jaager was not at all responsible, and just played his fruit ninja game while Ms Brass yelled at both of them. That would be okay.

It seemed that asking questions was all right, and Kaz would not be angry if he did. But he might not like the answer. He isolated a phrase, and replayed it, translating it on its own so he could be more sure of the meaning.

>> ”If I let you live, and leave here, I'll have to change that.”

He went through word-by-word just to be sure.

'If' was not a nice word, and he did not like it. But maybe he could use it, too?

"If you let me live, I could help you make this place better. So it is not a place like a star to people like me." Worse. The word he wanted was 'worse,' not 'better.' This place was wonderful (even if the front door was broken and had a car parked through it). But he could help Kaz mangle its beauty until it was dull gray like the rest of the neighborhood, if it would make the crazy man happy.

The blonde boy sat up very straight and made sure not to fidget anymore, so that he would not look nervous. Nervous was weak and weak could be made to do things and then could be killed anyway, once it was done being useful. He stuck his hands in his hoodie like he was very very confident, and raised his head to meet the man's eyes, because that is what confident people did. With all of the cameras, he was pretty sure he got the angle right. Mostly.

Panu's reactions to the subject of his parents, his squirming, straitening his clothes, and trying to make himself smaller only reinforced Kaz's idea that something had happened to the boy that involved his parents. He was sure that the parents were not just temporarily out of the picture, but they were completely gone. Either they deserted the boy, died, or possibly tried to kill him. Those were options that Kaz thought of. Of course he knew those weren't the only possibilities, but they seemed like obvious ones.

The 'Responsible Adult' Panu mentioned had Kaz looking at the boy sideways. There was no way Kaz was just going to let the boy go to this 'adult' that may or may not exist, Kaz was leaning toward not existing. He sat back in his chair, eating, thinking, and watched the boy. Did he really expect Kaz to just let him go to this 'adult' just like that? Heck, did he think Kaz would let him go alone? 'It's like he doesn't know about big cities at all, didn't even consider what could happen to a kid like him.' Kaz looked the small child over again: Young, fair skin, blonde, blue eyes, cute, a good catch for those people that were into human trafficking, when they found out he was a mutant and what he could do... Kaz shook his head almost imperceptibly. 'Seriously kid, you're a headache.'

”If I let you help make this place better you'd still be able to come in, which would defeat the purpose of security.” Kaz watched Panu's posture change, like someone lifting themselves up, steeling themselves, as he met Kaz's eyes. Mostly. It could be simply that the boy didn't like to make eye contact, there were plenty of people like that, or it could be something else entirely.

Looking at the clock Kaz figured it would be a bad idea to make a decision about the boy right away. ”Panu. I'm not going to let you go out into the city all by yourself to this mysterious 'Responsible Adult'. I'll want to meet them, but it can wait until tomorrow.” Kaz pointed in the direction of the guest rooms. ”Pick whichever one you want, you'll stay here for the night. Play games, watch a few movies, whatever. Just don't cause me problems or trouble. Don't leave.” Kaz gave the boy a very stern look before grabbing more food.

Kaz was not happy with his offer, Kaz did not even want his offer. Panu was not useful to this man, and not useful was dangerous. The boy's hands tightened inside his hoodie pouch, but he made sure he stayed sitting still and straight and maybe making eye contact. Probably.

His voice was a little quieter, though. "I do not need to do the coding, you can hire someone else. You have not met anyone like me, you said this, so how do you know what can stop us? I do not need to be enemy. I can help, I am useful."

The opposite of useful was dead, and the man's 'if' still hung in the air over Panu.

And now he was being sent to bed which was unfair, he did not do anything wrong and it was still way too early to sleep and he was blind movies and games were boring when you are blind. He could play them in his head, but then he was not really watching, he was reading the files, and it did not take long and was not very fun and he was going to be so bored.

"Yes, Mr. Kaz." The Fin obediently slid off the couch. He picked up his shoes but did not slide them on, because then he would probably stomp off, and the man might be angry. Socked feet could stomp without sounding like they were. It was not as satisfying but it was smarter.

Panu picked a room towards the end of the hall, very far from the cat's room. He shut the door to be safe. He did not lock it, because he did not think the cat could use a door knob, and he knew the man could break a much sturdier door than this. But he did turn to the cameras in the room.

"<Go play games, watch a few movies, whatever.>" he told them in Finnish. It was a much better language than English. "<Just go to your room and stay there and make a graph of your brain as it melts from boredom.>" He turned the cameras so they were facing the ceiling. He had his phone, and he had all the cameras in the rest of the building, he did not need these eyes. Not when the man could use them to watch him. The bed was big and comfy and he flopped on it and pulled up his hood and nestled into the pillows until he was just a blob of fabric. Bored fabric. Bored, twitchy fabric.

So he spent a few minutes working on his phone, modifying a microphone program. And then a few minutes more to interface it with the man's intercom. There: now if a cat was suffocating him, he could use the intercom even from across the room.

Now he was bored again. And 'if'. The man had still not taken away that 'if' from 'let you live.' Panu did not like him nearly as much as Mr. Jaager, but if he had to work for Kaz to live, he would, but Kaz did not even want him.

Also his new program needed testing. So this was multitasking. Which was something he was good at, even if Kaz did not care about anything he was good at. He propped himself up on his elbows, and set the phone on the pillow in front of him. Then he opened the line to Kaz's intercoms.

Back in the living room, the com crackled a little as he worked out a last bug. Then the boy's melodic voice came through loud and clear. Probably louder now than it had been before, because he was not afraid to talk loud when he was alone in a room with his own phone.

"You could space--stagger?--the systems. So that the perimeter is on but it is only running the same amount of electronics as a normal building. If someone is too close or comes inside, then everything else turns on. But in resting-state the building would not be like a star. Then people like me will not notice it."

There. A very helpful suggestion. Very useful.

Less than a minute later, the intercom came on again. It did not crackle this time, because now his code worked very well.

"Also you have too many eyes, they cover everything, and always on. It is like having a million guns pointed at a squirrel, there are too many for you to use. It is more useful for me than for you. Be more normal, have less or have some off until they are needed. Off-things I cannot touch. Unless you wire them so that I can turn them on remotely. Do not do that, that is stupid."

The man's weapons systems were wired like that. It was stupid.

Another minute passed.

"You could put in non-electronic traps. Like Indiana Jones? I cannot stop non-electronic, I do not even know they are there."

Maybe thirty seconds.

"I left food and ginger ale out by couch. Is it okay if I come out to get them? I am hungry. I will go back to room afterwards. I will not cause you problems or trouble while I am out."

He had been in the room for less than twenty minutes. He knew this because his internal clock was moving. so. slowly. The boy flopped face first on the pillow as he waited for Kaz' answer.

'What's with the useful thing?' Kaz pursed his lips as Panu spoke. ' Whether he's useful or not doesn't matter if I can't control him. It's hard enough just to communicate with him as it is let alone learn how to get him to do what I tell him to do without, something, going wrong.'

As Panu got up and walked away, stomped actually, shoes or not, it was still loud to Kaz's ears, ”Egh. Just 'Kaz', or if you have to, Mr. Corydon.” Kaz tilted his head a little and looked at the boy from the corner of his eyes, ”Sounds like a horse stomping around in here.”

If Panu were older Kaz might have considered paying the kid to behave, or something, but Panu was a child and children never really seemed to have a grasp of money. Threats could and most likely would backfire when used on a kid, they were naturally contrary to commands and punishments. Kaz just did not know how Panu could be anything but a risk. The only way Kaz could think to keep Panu in check, besides death, was to lock him up like a dog in a room where he couldn't access anything...which might require one of those infernal collars, and that wasn't an option in Kaz's head. If this adult he spoke of wasn't able to reassure Kaz that Panu could be controlled or at least handled...

Kaz's stomach threatened to revolt at the idea.

”Maybe some sort of telepath could...Fuck, I dunno, tweak his head or something.” But even as he said it Kaz hated the thought. He hated anyone being inside his head, what they could do there, and he had no defense against it. He couldn't willingly subject the boy to that...could he? Without hating himself for it? No. Kaz wished he could get drunk. Drunk people always seemed like they could drown their brains for a while. That seemed like a nice thing from time to time.

Kaz turned to look at the hall where they boy had gone. Why he'd gone straight to the room Kaz had no idea, he said he could do whatever as long as he didn't cause trouble or leave. As Kaz was getting up to make himself a drink the intercom crackled loudly into life. The crackling caused a shiver to run down Kaz's spine. It was not a fun or pleasant sound. Panu's voice, a little louder than it was while he was on the couch, maybe it was because of the intercom, but Kaz thought it might be due to him talking through it, feeling more confident using it as a medium.

The boy's suggestion made sense and Kaz thought it was kind of stupid not to have thought about it before. It was an old warehouse after all, so higher power usage wouldn't be that out of the ordinary to the average Joe. Though the sound came from the whole room, Kaz found himself looking toward the couch where the boy had been sitting. He found himself frowning as he took a drink.

Before Kaz sat down again the intercom started up again, this time without the crackling, thankfully. A small, brief smile came over Kaz for that little mercy. Kaz listened to another of Panu's bits of advice, though this one wasn't as helpful. If Kaz didn't know the intruder was a technomancer like Panu, and turned any of them on, it would be too late, they'd have control of them. If he did know though, he could keep them off and deal with them the old fashioned way.

Kaz had to laugh as the boy spoke again for the third time. ”Indiana Jones, heh.” At least the kid had good taste. He thought a moment about how and what sort of traps he could employ. ”If I was going to do that, I might as well move into a castle, it would fit.” The liquor glass stopped as it touched Kaz's lip as he considered actually having a castle. How gaudy would that be! At the same time, it had some appeal.

Panu's request to come out and get his food and drink had Kaz looking at the clock. 'It hasn't even been half an hour since he put himself in the room, at this rate the kid will probably start to...build some sort of crazy robot or something.' What the kid would do alone, in the room, bored out of his mind kind of worried Kaz. As he headed toward his room, ”Yeah, come and get them.” In the room Kaz went to his closet and searched. At first he avoided Nicki's things, but seeing as all of his clothes would drown the kid in fabric, he finally relented. Nicki hadn't had a ton of clothes there, but there were still quite a few. He found a pair of her shorts that she had worn over her bathing suit. They'd have to be cinched tight since Panu was quite a bit smaller than Nicki had been, but they would work.

Kaz changed into a pair of his own swim trunks before heading back to the living room. ”Change into this, then come up to the roof.” He said as he held out the shorts to the boy. Kaz snagged a couple towels before heading up to the roof and uncovering the pool. The shallow end didn't go more than 15ft into the pool, but it did go along the width of it. While uncovering the pool he had also raised everything else, including the seats and bar. Kaz sat at one of the seats while waiting for Panu. When the boy showed up, ”Can you swim?”

Panu was very careful not to stomp as he came out of the room. He did not want to sound like a horse, he wanted to sound like a cat. He tried very hard to make each socked step quieter than the last as he voyaged back down the hallway. The cat was still in her own room (though one of her eyes was open and staring at a camera), and Mr Corydon had gone into another room. Probably he hated Panu so much that he did not want to be in the same place as him again.

The boy took a sip of ginger ale, and nibbled on pizza rolls. In Kaz' room, the man was dismantling his closet. On the table in this room, the remains of Corydon's pizza sandwich sat unguarded. The Fin inched closer (like a mouse, not a cat) and closer (a feather, not a mouse). He slid a piece off the plate and into his hands. It was greasy and warm, but cooling now, so that the cheese was a solid glob of goo trailing from its sides. He took a bite and it was delicious (and almost too big for his mouth, and some of the filling started squishing out the sides). He ate it extremely quickly, as quick as he could, because now the man was coming out--

Panu froze, half a slice still in his hands. Kaz had changed into swim trunks, and was carrying girl shorts. Panu tried to look only half as guilty as he felt.

"Yes, Mr. Corydon," the Fin quietly agreed. He took the girl shorts and his ginger ale and the half-slice, and dashed back to his room. He was much quieter when he ran than when he stomped, like a rabbit instead of a horse.

He finished the slice there. It was still delicious, but somehow less so.

The boy knew what waited for him on the roof. He could see Kaz getting the pool ready. Also seats and a bar. The man had built these into the roof so that they could be raised out, which was maybe just a way of telling guests that he had a lot of money. It could not be because he was worried about people seeing the warehouse from above and thinking it was strange, because then he would not have a pool on his roof.

Panu changed into the girl shorts, which were probably meant to be his swim suit. He left the rest of his clothes folded neatly on a corner of the bed, with his shoes on the floor below them. Except for his hoodie. Wearing just swim trunks felt too light and too bare and too cold, so he wiggled back inside of his hoodie, and drowned himself in gray fabric from shoulders to knees. That was better.

He took the stairs instead of the elevator, so that it would take him longer to reach the roof. The man had spent time digging out a swim suit for him, and getting the pool ready. That meant he wanted Panu to swim.

The blond presented himself to the man like a corporal before a general. A corporal expecting a suicide mission deep behind enemy lines.

>> ”Can you swim?”

The boy shook his head mutely in response, his eyes on the ground. His hands were shoved in his hoodie pocket and he had not even thought to take off his headphones, they were just a part of his head. (Sometimes he did not even take them off when he slept, but then his ears hurt in the morning.)

He could not swim, and he did not want to swim. The cameras up here were different--they still covered everything, but it was from a wider angle, more distant, not the right angles for seeing things in good detail. And there were no cameras in the pool, and he could not bring his phone in, and he was going to be blind and wet and drowning soon.

He sent a text to Ms. Brass, so that they would know when his body was found.

If I am dead and drowned it was Kaz Corydon who made me swim.

Kaz honestly didn't mind that Panu had taken a slice of his pizza sandwich, but the boy could have asked. Reminding himself that Panu was still a child, he shook his head slightly and smirked a little as the boy went to change, taking his pop and the slice of pizza with him. He didn't know if Panu was listening to him through the intercoms or not, but he spoke just in case. ”Ya know, if you wanted a slice, all you had to do was ask Panu. The worst I'd say is 'No', so you'd have a 50-50 chance of a 'Yes'.” He took the rest of the pizza and pizza rolls up to the roof with him and set them on the bar table once it was raised.

When Panu finally came up onto the roof Kaz quirked a brow at him. It wasn't that cool of a night to need a hoodie, and the boy still wore his headphones. Kaz began to wonder if he ever took the things off. There was no way the boy didn't guess what Kaz had intended. ”Why don't you put your hoodie and headphones and whatnot over here on the chair.” Kaz got up and moved to the chest off to the side the roof. Opening it he pulled out a small wake board, big enough to rest the upper part of his chest on, but small enough for a child to hold onto while swimming, a couple pool noodles, and a pair of inflatable arm floats.

He chucked the noodles and board into the shallow end of the pool and stepped over to Panu as he inflated the floats. Taking a breath through his nose, he spoke, ”Since you don't stink,” It wasn't true, everyone stunk to Kaz, but it was a normal stink that all people had. It was those people that were filthy that made his nose wrinkle, that any any worse is what he considered 'stinking'. ”I take it you won't like short out in water. Hop in.” He was going to have the boy put the floats on first, but decided against it. He'd wait until the boy was good and wet, then he'd put them on and have him float on his back to start out.

Kaz put action to his words and dove into the water at an shallow angle, barely making a splash, skimmed the bottom of the shallow end, then pulled a 180 and ended his movement a few feet from the side of the pool. ”You're not afraid of the water are you?” He smiled, hair plastered to his head. ”Don't worry kid, I'm not going to drown you, or let you drown. I'll put the floats on ya once I see that you won't freak out in the water.”

Back in his room, with pizza grease still fresh on his fingers, Panu jumped at the voice on the intercom. What Kaz said was not true at all. 50-50 was like a coin. Random. Wanting something that belonged to someone else was not random, the person was going to say no or yes and it was a set thing inside their head where only psychics could see, and sometimes they said no just because you asked, and if they said no and then he took it anyway that was when they had to punish him for taking it and for taking it when they had said no. If he just took it, there was either no punishment because they did not care, or only punishment for taking.

Asking permission always, always made things worse unless you already knew the answer was yes.

...Maybe this was why he was on a rooftop about to drown. Kaz' security systems had said no and he had taken them anyway, and now he would die a watery chlorinated death. He started to google what it was like to die drowning, but he stopped himself. Soon he would know very well. He did not need to know earlier.

Still. He did not apologize about the pizza sandwich, because the apology would be a lie, and he did not know if Kaz' mutation let him sense lies. The Fin regretted nothing about his Last Meal.

>> ”Why don't you put your hoodie and headphones and whatnot over here on the chair.”

It began.

Panu was not very familiar with pools and their torture implements, so he image searched each new foamy device that the man pulled out. All of them seemed capable of providing flotation even if maybe you did not know how to swim at all. The blonde boy reluctantly moved to the chair. He wiggled out of his sweatshirt first, and took time to fold it carefully before setting it on the chair's edge. His headphones were not connected to anything--they never were, always he could channel the sounds into his head directly, but he liked their weight. He took them off and coiled the cord around them so it would not tangle, and set it on top of his sweatshirt.

Now he was very small and wearing nothing but girl shorts. This was maybe not how he thought he would die. He had some hope that the flotation devices were to help him, but Kaz had thrown them all in the pool, so they were probably part of a terrible game of survival that he would lose.

Kaz came over and smelled him. Panu saw him lean down in the cameras, but the Fin did not know he was being smelled until he heard the intake of air. Then he cringed back because being smelled never ended well.

>> ”You're not afraid of the water are you? Don't worry kid, I'm not going to drown you, or let you drown. I'll put the floats on ya once I see that you won't freak out in the water.”

The man disappeared under the water for a moment. Panu thought very very hard about running back towards the roof doors and maybe holing up again with all of Kaz' weapons pointed at him. But it was very hard to see in the cameras where the man had gone, and he had surfaced again before Panu could do more than take one hesitant step backwards.

The blonde boy approached the pool. He went to the shallow end not because he knew it was shallow, but because it was the farthest end from Kaz. Also it had a railing leading in, and maybe than meant stairs. This seemed a better way to get in the water than simply hurling himself in.

With slow, careful steps, the boy descended to his watery fate. He kept one hand on the stainless steel railing the whole way, and carefully probed out with his foot when he reached the last step to make sure it really was the last step.

He could stand here, the water not yet over his shoulders. That was not so bad. Probably soon tentacles would drag him under water, but the pool itself was not so bad. Like a lukewarm bathtub. The boy groped towards the edge of the pool. It was closer than the camera made it look, so he basically walked into it, but it was better for it to be close than far.

As long as he stayed anchored to the wall, he probably would not drown. Not on accident, anyway.

"I am in the pool," he said, facing the wall and not Kaz. "I can get out now?"

There was a pool noodle floating behind him, but it looked far away, too far to get while still touching the edge.

The kid wasn't dying or freaking out, though he didn't seem to like being in the pool. Kaz really didn't understand why, there was nothing, that he could see, intimidating or uncomfortable about pools. ”No, not yet. I'm gonna teach you how to swim, or at least try.” Holding up the arm floats, ”Come over here, I'll put these on ya.”

When Panu reached him, he slid one of the floats onto each of the boy's arms, all the way to the middle of his upper arm. ”Watch what I do any then try it, those things will keep you afloat by themselves, so don't worry about drowning.” Kaz stepped a few feet away from Panu, turned, lifted his legs and let his body rotate in the water until he was laying in the water. His arms were held out away from his body a bit, legs straight up, both mostly stiff. Kaz took an extra large breath and his upper body rose noticeably in the water, ”The more air in your lungs the higher your chest and head will be.” Turning his head a little to look at Panu from the corner of his eye, ”The less air...” Kaz said as he expelled most of the air from his lungs, his body sinking lower and lower until he began to sink, and had to work to stay afloat. Breathing normally again he balanced out in the water, floating easily on the surface. ”See? Pretty easy.”

Relaxing his legs he stood up once again moved behind Panu. ”Your turn.” Kaz put a hand behind the boy's back, ”I'll make sure you don't go under completely until you get the hang of it.” Kaz remembered when he first learned to swim, floating seemed pointless to him, it also took him a bit to get the hang of it. After he did, he was given a foam board to hold onto, as he kicked his feet in the water. At first he did almost nothing but slap the water with his feet and barely moved. Once that was over and he was able to propel himself with some efficiency, he laid his chest on the board and they put another board under his legs so all he could do is use his arms to move himself forward. Kaz didn't have another board to use for Panu, but that's what the smaller noodles were for.

Kaz was three or four when he learned to swim, and it had taken him a while, same as everyone else in the class. He knew Panu wasn't going to 'get it' all in one day, might not even be able to really learn, but he was quite a few years older than Kaz had been, so Kaz figured he would learn faster. He knew it would probably take a while, but there was no concern that Panu would get cold, the pool was heated. Kaz also figured that as long as the kid was doing this, even if he disliked it, he wouldn't be sitting in the room being bored or getting into some sort of mischief, and hopefully it would tired the boy out enough to sleep without Kaz having to be too on guard.

If he let the kid live past tomorrow, knowing how to swim, even badly, was something everyone should know, it could literally save your life. So Kaz showed, taught and helped the boy until the kid was tired and so pruned up he looked like an old man. ”Why don't you go take a shower before going to bed.”