The Atlas Six

Content Warning: This section includes mentions of past domestic abuse and sexual assault and a depiction of suicide.

Libby

After going home to her Manhattan apartment, Libby has an encounter with a member of the Forum seeking to recruit her. Libby angrily rejects the woman’s offer when she implies that, had Libby had access to more knowledge, she might have been able to save her sister (Katherine died from a degenerative disease when Libby was 13). She fights with Ezra, who says he is worried about her safety. She likes her independence and resents his protectiveness. She leaves in a rush and goes back to the house, where she stumbles upon Tristan and Parisa having a conversation and drinking by the fire. Both were accosted by members of the Forum and refused their invitations. The three of them start discussing Parisa’s past, with Libby questioning her use of her power to have sex with strangers and Parisa arguing that she knows how to get what she wants with no strings attached. To make her point, she successfully convinces Libby to let go of her inhibitions and have a threesome with Tristan and herself.

Callum

When Callum comes home, he runs into a very hungover Tristan who appears uncomfortable around Libby. Callum informs Tristan that, through a conversation with a member of the Forum, he learned that one of the initiates must die. He becomes angry when he realizes that Tristan already knew about it and did not tell him. Frustrated, he then goes to Parisa’s room to ask her what happened between Tristan and Libby. When she tells him what she persuaded them into doing, Callum draws a comparison between himself and Parisa. Denying that they are similar, Parisa suggests they have a competition to test their respective specialties. Callum agrees and they meet in the reading room the next day with Dalton and the other four initiates. They have an hour to demonstrate their abilities, and they agree to stay out of astral planes to make it more interesting. Parisa begins by asking Callum an innocuous question, then asks Nico to weigh in when Callum mocks her weak opening. Callum then quickly takes over, digging into Parisa’s past and magically painting her memories on the walls. He mercilessly uncovers her secrets, exposing her brother’s incestuous possessiveness as the trigger that made her start using men’s desire against them. As they talk, they walk out to the terrace, where Callum eventually convinces Parisa to take ownership of her choices and jump off the railing. When she does, leaving the others in shock, Callum briefly feels victorious until he notices Parisa standing behind them. She snaps her fingers, bringing them back to reality in the reading room, which they never left. She constructed the whole scenario in Nico’s head, letting Callum believe he was in control. She then declares Callum the winner, because he succeeded in destroying her, but Callum senses the others’ disgust with his actions and realizes his victory is hollow.

Tristan

Tristan can’t stop thinking about Libby after their tryst. The next morning, he asks Libby if she could kill someone. He frames his question as a hypothetical “trolley problem,” knowing she would not react well if he told her the truth about the elimination process directly. (The trolley problem is a thought experiment formulated by English philosopher Philippa Foot in 1967. A runaway trolley is about to hit and kill five people standing on the track, but someone can divert the trolley to a second track where it would kill only one person. Is it more ethical to intervene, or not?) He is surprised when she responds that she would not kill him because he has too much untapped potential, but she does not really answer the question and makes him leave so she can talk to Ezra. Weeks later, Callum approaches Tristan to strategize, sharing information about his family to make himself seem more personable. Callum then claims that their medeian powers balance one another, arguing that each person develops an ability that suits the other’s needs and weaknesses exactly. In the following days, Tristan reflects on Callum’s and Libby’s theories and spends time practicing his abilities. One night, as he meditates his way into another plane, he meets another friendly metaphysical traveler who introduces himself as Ezra, but Tristan does not recognize him as Libby’s boyfriend. Intrigued and elated by his success, Tristan goes back to the house. He considers waking Libby to tell her about his findings but decides against it and goes to Callum’s bedroom instead, where it is implied they sleep together.

Nico

Nico and Reina are practicing fighting, but Nico isn’t focused; he is reminiscing about a conversation he had with Parisa earlier. She sensed that he was troubled and invited him to open up, and he told her he felt responsible for what happened between her and Callum because it happened in his head. Parisa told him not to worry, explaining that she chose him because he is “the least capable of guile” (254), and she will not have sex with him because she does not want to ruin him. Parisa then inquired about Gideon, whom she had seen in Nico’s thoughts. Nico asked her for insights about the intersection between dreams and thought, and Parisa advised him to carry a talisman so he will always know whether he is in reality or a dream. She then told him about the elimination, which is what Nico is distracted by as he fights with Reina. When he asks her if she would kill for this life, Reina easily responds that she would.