Silent Weapons

A plain glass of water on a table split top to bottom by one perfectly straight crack, a young man's silhouette staring at it across the table.

On the fifth day, Artyom broke a glass.

With his gaze. He looked at the glass—ordinary, clear, with water—and the glass cracked. Vertically, top to bottom, in a clean line, as if someone had drawn a diamond cutter across it. Water leaked onto the table. Artyom stared at the wet spot with the expression of a man who pressed the wrong button in an elevator and ended up on the wrong floor.

— Oops, — he said.

First word I’d heard from him unrelated to threat assessment. Progress.

Wei Lin, sitting across from him, looked at the glass. At Artyom. Back at the glass.

— Did you want to break it?

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