Mobius filled up his coffee cup for the fifth time that day, but he still felt tired. Regular coffee just wasn't cutting it for him, not like Josta did. Even though he'd tried to cut down on the caffeine, he'd basically sabotaged himself by refilling his cup every few hours. Mobius sighed as he sat down at his desk again, the work piling up from his half-day excursions, with those first few files he'd been assigned relegated to the bottom of the pile. He felt like he'd never get through them, now. No rest for the wicked.

He'd needed those half-days badly, though. And he'd met those two trainees again, this time with the food block to ease his anxiety. He liked them, now that he didn't have a panic attack when he looked at them. He didn't know what he was thinking: he'd never seen them before. They did strike him as odd, anyway. He'd never seen anyone at the TVA that effortlessly strong, even Casey, who he'd seen pick up a man and throw him against a wall during a match.

He felt a little bad for what he'd told them. His promise to give them both recommendations was certainly something he planned on doing… and Six would make a good agent right out of the gate-Lucky needed a little more focus… but he did it mostly because he wanted to keep them closeby, to observe them. The trainee would usually be placed with the employee that gave the recommendation for their career training. One of them probably would be placed with him, at least.

As Mobius was typing an arrest report into his computer, Casey casually strolled up to him, both hands in his pockets.

"Hey, Mobius!" he said with a nod. "Ready for fi-"

"Shh!" Mobius gave him a glare and gestured to G., sitting right behind him, minding his own business.

"Oh!" said Casey knowingly, giving Mobius a wink. "Don't want anyone else to know about-"

"Shh!" Mobius stood quickly, while G. grunted and hunkered down at his computer, annoyed at the interruption.

"Casey, why don't we walk and talk, huh?" Mobius said, leading him away from the cluster of agent desks. He wouldn't have been surprised if Casey really had blabbed to Lucky about fight night.

They walked aimlessly through the outside hallway, which faced the grand spindly towers and Timekeeper statue, just fast enough to make it look like they had somewhere to go.

"So, I heard you were fi-"

"Casey, for the love of everything holy, do you have to say it out loud every single time?"

"How else would you know what I'm talking about?"

Mobius sighed. "Just use a code word or something."

"Code word! Good idea." Casey thought for a few seconds before speaking up again. "I heard you were... going to do a cartwheel tonight."

Mobius stopped in the middle of the hallway, totally dumbfounded.

"I... what?"

"See? Now you don't know what I'm talking about."

Mobius put up his hands, as if he needed to fend off Casey's stupidity for a moment.

"No, I know exactly what it means. It's just a dumb code word. And I am absolutely not… doing cartwheels. I'm way too old to do cartwheels. You would absolutely smoke me at doing cartwheels, if I tried. Why did you think that?"

"I saw you do the…" Casey's face went blank, realizing he probably shouldn't talk about that top secret handshake, either. "I saw you and Hal together. You used to fi-do cartwheels, though, didn't you?"

A nostalgic smile came to Mobius' face. "I did. I did a lot of cartwheels in my day. Did them all the time."

"Then who is doing it tonight?" Casey asked as they made way for a large group of analysts, one of whom at the end of the group greeted Casey with a quick slide of the palm… a shortened secret handshake, one just innocuous enough that no one else would see it in a crowded room. "Oh, is it Vinn, from archives? I heard he wanted to start doing cartwheels."

"A trainee, actually."

"What?" Casey chortled. "Seriously? A trainee?"

"Mmm-hmm. He's green, of course, but I wouldn't put him off so quickly. He seems awfully strong."

Mobius led them both into a barely used hallway and leaned in close, speaking quietly.

"You were with a trainee at the bowling alley, right?" Casey nodded. "Did you notice anything… odd about her?"

"Like what?"

"Was she really, super strong, too?"

"Oh, no," he replied. "She was actually pretty weak. I arm wrestled her and won, like, right away."

Mobius stared flatly at Casey, blinking.

"You arm wrestled a tiny little woman? Why? Casey, I've seen you break someone's rib. What possessed you to think that was a good idea?"

Casey shrugged. "I wanted to show her how strong I was."

Mobius tried very hard not to grimace, but ended up wiping the expression off his face with one hand.

"You did one too many cartwheels, didn't you, Casey?" he muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Let's go back."

As they walked, Casey still looked confused. "So, you're not going?"

"I am. I'm just watching, though."

"Can I tell the other guys that you're coming?"

Mobius shrugged. They were almost back to his desk.

"Sure, why not. Just don't say… you-know-what."

"Cartwheels?"

"Oh my god… Casey, the other you-know-what."

His face brightened and he gave Mobius another wink, as if they hadn't just talked about that two minutes ago. Casey turned on his heel and left, while Mobius prayed fight night wouldn't get canceled because of one big mouth that refused to close.

He also prayed that Lucky wouldn't get his pride or face hurt too badly in the fight. He was strong, for some reason, yes, but he had no experience. Mobius would have to attempt to do something about that.

He stared ruefully at his coffee mug, then pushed it to the corner of his desk. Coffee just wasn't doing it for him. Just a sip of Josta near the end of work wouldn't hurt anything.

Mobius opened up the desk drawer where he kept his stash, and his precious jet-ski magazine. Something was wrong. He knew the last time he'd taken a can that there were six left inside. He counted again, shuffled things around to see if one of them had fallen over or hidden itself at the back. No. There were only five cans.

"Hey, G.?" Mobius asked slowly. "Did you see anyone else come to my desk today, besides Casey just now?"

"Nope," he replied, still typing, not looking up from his computer screen. "But I don't really keep tabs on the things going on behind me at every moment of the day."

"You're sure?"

G. stopped typing and turned around.

"Why?"

"I'm missing a can of my energy drink," he said, shuffling the contents of the drawer around again, hopelessly.

"I've no clue, Mobius. You probably drank more than you thought you did."

"I haven't touched this drawer in two days. This stuff is hard to come by. They only made Josta for four years in North America."

G. groaned. "I know, I know. You've told me over and over again how precious your soda is. I don't know a single other soul that would touch that stuff, though. I can smell it from here when you open a can." G. made a face and shuddered. "Smells like cough syrup."

"That's the guarana," Mobius patiently explained. "The fruit itself has an astringent-"

"Nope, no, I don't care," said G. sourly, turning back around in his seat.

"It's an acquired taste, G., is what I'm saying."

"No, coffee is an acquired taste. You enjoy drinking sugary, overcaffeinated medicine."

Mobius chuckled mirthlessly. He wasn't exactly a sommelier, but Josta surely wasn't that terrible. G. could have been right about forgetting how many cans he had left, even though he'd kept careful tabs on it in the past. That theory tracked with the fact that he'd apparently lost huge swaths of time, lately.

The clock on his computer blinked over to 17:00: quitting time. Mobius promptly shut his drawer and put his unfinished files neatly in his inbox again, letting out a deep sigh. He felt guilty for not getting nearly as close to his usual output as he was used to. Maybe the overwhelming stress had really affected everything in his life… not just his memory, but his work, too. Everyone else worked their fourteen hour shifts without losing their minds, though, so why did it only seem to be happening to him?

"See you tomorrow, G." he said as he stood to leave.

"Mmm-hmm."

Back at his dorm, Mobius passed by Jet's room and heard a familiar, boisterous laugh from inside. Both Jet and Libby were in there, laughing a little too loudly. If Mobius had to guess, they were already drinking in preparation for fight night. They always went together, spectating only, of course. A long time ago, when Ravonna was still an agent, Mobius had toyed with the idea of telling her about fight night, too, but she never seemed like the kind of person who would appreciate anything outside of the TVA's normal operations. In fact, she probably would have snitched to the first available judge, if it hadn't gotten Mobius in trouble.

Mobius went into his room and dragged out his box of treasures from the back of his closet. He was looking for a few certain things that he knew he'd left at the bottom of the box a long time ago. As he found one of them and fished the shiny bauble out, he smiled to himself. Lucky might need more than strength, a little bit of fight training, and his natural luck to help him win. He needed the slightest bit of psyching out, too.

Lucky was certain, now, that his brain was going to fall out at any moment. He and Six had been studying all day… rather, she'd forced him to study all day. She was an absolute machine, going through every flashcard and aceing every single question, even getting the ones that Lucky had made up on his own once they had run out of flashcards.

"Okay," he told her, lying face up across his bed and flipping through his Employee Handbook, "This one's easy. How many Earth years are in a Null-unit?"

"One and a half," she answered immediately. She'd taken a spot cross-legged on the floor next to his bed, her flashcards scattered all over the place. She didn't need to look at anything anymore to get the questions right. "Here's a harder one for you. How many Xandarian years are in a Null-unit? No peeking!" she put her hand across his book.

"Ugh… okay, so there's two hundred and thirty eight days in a Xandar year… twenty four hours per day… Six, I cannot do math in my head! This is torture!"

"It's easier to just memorize the answer," she said. "There's only a few planets we have to know by heart."

"Is it… two per Null-unit?" he groaned.

"Two point…"

"Just tell me!"

"Two point three." She took her hands away from the book. "You were close."

He flung the spiral bound Handbook lightly on the floor with a flop and laid his head over the side of the bed.

"I'm done. If you try to put another dumb fact into my head, I'll pop."

"I think I'm spent, too," she replied with a sigh, to his surprise. She scooted herself close until she was leaning against the bed, right next to him. He had an upside-down view of her face, which looked awfully tired. "I kind of wish we'd done karaoke instead."

"But we have to study!" he squealed, imitating her in a ridiculous caricature, grabbing her by the shoulder and shaking her gently. She giggled and snorted, a sound he loved coaxing out of her. "We'll do karaoke, I promise, on our next off-day."

"Our last, you mean."

They sat in solemn silence, remembering that they only had less than two Null-weeks together before…

Lucky didn't want to think about it that way. With Mobius' recommendations, they'd both be agents, and they'd still see each other all the time. Maybe they could have desks right next to each other. Maybe they'd even be in the same dorm, or at least close enough to visit. Everything was going to turn out the way he wanted… that's what he had to tell himself to get through every boring day.

Their eyes met again, and Lucky felt that strange, beautiful jolt of attraction between them, as if their hearts and bodies understood something that their minds didn't. He turned over on his stomach, leaned in closer. She stayed, and put up no resistance as they closed their eyes and kissed again. It was longer this time, more intimate, the only sounds around them the constant buzz of the fluorescent lights and their gentle breathing. Lucky felt himself start to throb, a wonderful, unusual sensation, one that his instincts understood instantly even if his mind had no idea what to do with it. He felt nothing could slow him down. He pushed a little further, pressing his tongue between her lips, exploring the soft, wet feel of her mouth, when she suddenly pulled away.

"What?" he asked, his throb already turning into an ache.

"I… does this mean anything to you, Lucky?"

"Mean anything?" he asked, vaguely annoyed, wanting only to feel her lips again, her mouth, her tongue, before he went crazy. "I mean, yes… what is it supposed to mean, though, exactly?"

"Why do you want to kiss me?" she asked, pulling her knees up to her chin. She spoke as though she suddenly didn't trust him, as if he were one of the invisible enemies she thought was going to burst through the door if she didn't watch it constantly.

Lucky let out something between a scoff and a chuckle. "Because I want to? And you want me to? How am I supposed to answer, Six? Doesn't it feel good to you?"

"It does. But does it feel good because you're doing something bad, or does it feel good because… because there's something else under it?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know!" she groaned, frustrated. "It's more than feeling good, though. Don't you get it?"

Lucky's ache was really starting to hurt, now. His brain felt like someone had released a swarm of angry flies, and there was only one way to make them stop. He leaned in a little closer, with a winning grin, putting his hand at the ready to move her chin up to him, like he had in the elevator.

"It can be a little of everything, can't it?" he purred, then brought her chin towards his mouth. She pulled away again, hard, and actually pushed him off. Six stood immediately, glowering at him like he'd done something terrible. She gathered up her book, her notebooks, her flashcards and pens.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving," she muttered, stuffing everything back in her bag.

"But Six, what about fi-"

She was already gone, the door sliding closed behind her. Lucky lay face down on his bed, dazed and confused as the ache started to dissipate. He got up and went to his door, then looked down at himself and decided against it. He wasn't going to go out in the hallway like that, where someone else might see. He paced frantically around his room, trying to think of anything else but Six, something boring, something that couldn't possibly make that swarm of flies angrier.

"Okay, two hundred and thirty eight days, twenty four hours… Twenty four times two hundred thirty eight… carry the three… fifteen, carry the one…"

Attempting to do multiplication in his head made him decent pretty quickly, boring the swarm in his brain to sleep. He left his room and found Six's, knocked on her door gently.

"Six? Come on, open up."

He could hear nothing on the other side, so he knocked again, a little harder.

"Please talk to me. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

The door slid open. Six stood there, still as a furious statue.

"Can I come in?"

Six's room was identical to his in every way. Without the plaque next to the door outside, he could have mistaken it for his own room. She sat down on the edge of her bed.

"Why'd you storm off like that?" he asked.

She paused for a long time before answering.

"I don't know, Lucky," she sighed. "I guess… I'm mad because I don't know how I feel. I mean, I know how I feel, but there's no words for it." She looked so small, hunkered there on her bed, angry and lost. "Sometimes I feel like there's this veil over my brain, like I can almost see something beyond it, but I'll never be able to reach it or know what's on the other side. Do you ever feel that way?"

Lucky sat on the bed with her, looking down at his hands. He couldn't say he knew what went on in her head, but that really didn't feel like the right thing to say.

"And sometimes," she continued, "It seems to… reach out to me. Whatever's on the other side of that veil. Like an electric shock. It won't tell me what it means, but I know it's important."

Lucky lifted his head. "Did you feel that way when we first met?"

"Not exactly," she said with the smallest grin. "I thought you were kind of obnoxious."

"Yeah, I got that," he chuckled. "I think I know what you're talking about, a little. When I saw you for the first time on the elevator, I couldn't stop looking at you."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"It wasn't just because of the bruise?" Her grin fell as she touched her throat.

"No. It was definitely something else. Maybe I do understand. You mean a lot to me, Six. You mean more than getting an agent position."

Her eyes grew wide. "Really? But that's the only thing you've been able to talk about."

"Well, when I'm not talking, I'm thinking about… about you."

They gave each other a smile and sat in silence. He held her small hand in his, gently feeling the ridge between each slender finger. No one would ever keep him from the touch of her soft skin. Even if someone saw them and tattled, even if Miss Minutes kept them apart, he knew deep in his heart he'd get back to her, somehow.

But that wouldn't happen. As long as they were discreet, they were safe… but 'discretion' wasn't exactly Lucky's middle name. If he had the choice, he'd kiss her out in the hallway, without caring who saw.

"You're still coming to fight night, aren't you?" he asked.

"Of course, silly," she answered with a chuckle. "We should probably go. It's almost 24:00."

They left together, into the terminal, and Lucky had to force himself not to wrap his pinky finger with hers as they boarded the elevator. The butterflies were beginning to form in his stomach again, remembering that he had to fight a monster of a man, apparently, and still had no idea how to beat him. Perhaps Six would forgive him for losing fight night… but he feared Mobius wouldn't. He was the one who had enough faith in him to lead them to something so top secret they couldn't talk about it in public.

A thought struck him, stemming from a sense of caution that didn't seem to speak up much. He should have accepted his gaffe back at the bowling alley, should have let Mobius keep his secrets.

Getting from one dorm tower to the other was a little trickier than he thought it would be. They took several sideways elevators, making lots of stops along the way to let other passengers on and off.

Finally, the screen above the door said '3EL' and they left for hallway one. Lucky was disappointed to see that the agent's dorms looked completely identical to theirs. He thought surely they'd have bigger rooms, being almost more important than every other career.

He knocked on the door labeled 'J-888' and Mobius immediately opened it, with a warm, tilted grin on his face.

"You made it!" he said. "Not chickening out, huh Lucky?"

"No, sir," he replied proudly, masking his growing fear as best he could.

"Come on in, you two."

They did so, and the door slid closed behind them. Mobius' room looked just like theirs, except the carpet was beige shag instead of orange, and the lamp on the desk was a warm brown color instead of olive green. It also felt more… homey. More lived in. It had a not unpleasant smell of laundry, and the slightest undertone of cologne. On Mobius' unmade bed was a box of assorted stuff, which Six began to curiously sort through, and some kind of thick, black leather pad with a strap on one side. The carpet was worn down from many Null-units of walking, and the walls were covered in posters and maps of different planets.

Lucky was fascinated by all the maps. Most of them were in strange, alien letters that he couldn't read.

"Have you been to all these places?" he asked.

"Yep. Every single one. In fact, this is only a fraction of the planets I've visited. A lot of them don't have physical maps. Plus I've basically run out of room, unless I get rid of some posters."

"Wow." Lucky stared around the room in awe, taking everything in. This was his future. A traveler, a detective going on adventures in faraway lands.

"What's all this stuff?" asked Six, holding up a piece of chipped, blue glazed stone.

"Those are all my treasures," he said with a grin. "I've amassed quite a selection of junk after going to so many places."

Mobius motioned Lucky over to the bed and started sifting through the box.

"Now, if you're spectating, it's customary to bring something to bet with."
"Bet?" asked Lucky.

"Yeah. You're supposed to take some stuff with value to the fights, then place a bet on who you think will win. If your fighter wins, you get the stuff that everyone else bet on the fighter that lost, plus you get your stuff back. The winning fighter at the end of the night traditionally gets a share of the loot, too."

"But then all the other people lose their treasures… for good?"

He chuckled. "Yep. That's the idea. Technically it's gambling, which is strictly prohibited… but a lot of things are strictly prohibited at the fights." He gave Lucky a knowing wink.

Lucky grinned back at him. He'd never be as cool as Mobius, not in a million years.

"Ah, here it is!" Mobius fished out a long, metal necklace from the box, with shiny beads of different sizes and a long, lowercase 't' at the bottom.

"What's that?" Lucky asked in awe.

"This, my friend, is my most prized possession," Mobius replied reverently. "This is the rosary of the last pope, Pope Esther III, from the planet Gliese667, circa 2402 A.D. It's made of rare Martian yttrium and black diamond beads." He held it out for Six and Lucky to see. There was a muted, multicolored patina covering the metal links, and a metal man with his arms spread across the 't'.

"What is it, though?" asked Six, quietly.

"It's a very important religious artifact, the very last of its kind ever made before the religion it belonged to faded into obscurity. I'm betting it on you, Lucky."

Lucky gasped and jerked upright. "What? But… what if I lose?"

Mobius shrugged. "You won't. Because you've got luck baked right into your name, don't you?"

He gave Lucky a hearty slap on the back. Lucky felt the last of his confidence drain away, and he opened his mouth, letting out a gibbering word salad.

"I… Mobius… I don't know… I can't…"

"You're gonna do great!"

"No! I won't!" Lucky blurted, surprising Mobius and Six. "I won't because Casey is a gorilla, and I looked up what a gorilla is, and it's this huge strong animal that weighs five hundred pounds and it's stronger than twenty people, and-and-"

"Man, take a deep breath," said Mobius, and Lucky tried, though his heart was still pounding with fear and shame.

He hung his head low. "I can't win. Casey's going to kill me."

"Oh, boy," groaned Mobius as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Lucky, you don't understand what a simile is, do you?" Lucky shook his head, confused. "I didn't mean that Casey is an actual gorilla, I was just trying to warn you that you should take him seriously. And you have, obviously. A little too seriously." Mobius let out a chuckle.

"So, he's not going to tear off my limbs?"

"No! Doesn't mean he can't hurt you, though. He's got Null-units of experience on you." Mobius picked up the rectangular pad on his bed and strapped it to his hand. "That's where I come in. I'm going to teach you the basics: how to throw a punch, how to move, how to block."

As Lucky, relieved, leapt from the bed to stand in the middle of the room with Mobius, Six suddenly stopped sorting through the box of junk.

"Lucky, you forgot to tell him about the thing you found!"

Lucky rolled his eyes. "Six, this is kind of more important right now."

"Go on, tell him!"

Mobius was preoccupied with tightening the pad strap securely against his hand. Lucky suddenly felt incredibly stupid, wanting to tell Mobius about a piece of trash he'd discovered when his honor, and Mobius' treasure, was on the line. He stammered a little, embarrassed.

"Hey, whatever it is, Lucky, it can wait until after the fights, okay?" said Mobius, finally satisfied with his pad. He boffed it a few times lightly with his other fist. "We don't have a ton of time to work with, here, so pay attention. Fists up!"

Lucky followed Mobius' command, learning how to stand correctly, how to punch and come back to the right position, how to always keep his guard up. It felt easy when he was just hitting the leather pad on Mobius' hand.

"Let's try something different," Mobius said. "I'm going to move around and move the pad at the same time. Ready?"

Lucky followed Mobius as they circled each other, Lucky hitting the pad with every punch. His strength increased as he gained confidence, now leading the boxing dance instead of following Mobius' steps.

"This is fun!"

Lucky gave the pad a one-two punch. In a split second, Mobius lowered the pad just a little too far, Lucky's hook glanced off the side and came for Mobius' head, and Mobius jerked back, missing Lucky's fist by less than an inch.

Lucky and Six gasped, but Mobius only laughed.

"That was close! I think you're a natural at this, too!"

"You're a great teacher, Mobius," said Lucky, remembering to keep his fists close to his face. "I didn't realize you fought. I thought you only watched."

"How do you think I got this?" Mobius lightly tapped his crooked nose with a knowing grin. He narrowed his eyes and looked Lucky up and down. "Now, there aren't many rules to follow during the fights. You have to be ready for anything!"

On the last word, Mobius lunged forward, swept out his leg and knocked Lucky's foot out of place, sending him straight to the shag carpet with a thud.

"Mobius!" Six squealed indignantly.

"It's okay, Six," Lucky grunted. He got back up, dazed but unharmed. He'd rather learn the hard way from Mobius than the even harder way from Casey.

"In the time it took you to get up, your opponent could have pulverized you. Ground your stance. Make sure your weight is on the back foot when your opponent lunges at you. Let's try again…"

Mobius and Lucky spent the rest of the hour training together, with Six cheering him on from her spot on the bed. Too soon, it seemed, Mobius looked down at his watch and unstrapped the pad from his hand.

"Quarter 'til. Time to go. Ready for this, Lucky?"

He nodded, though the butterflies in his stomach were threatening to leap straight out of his mouth. He had to be ready. There was no choice, now.