Author Archives: REDSHEILD

Dea Ex Machina

Watcher’s eyes gaze upon the barren streets of an entombed city and finds the unexpected: signs of life. Here and there are pebbles and stone that have been scattered under wheel and heel, prints of boot-tread and the impressions of bony feet wrapped in thin cloth ground into the windswept dust.

These eyes gaze upon these people and judge them. Glass and steel watch their every step, track every movement as they breach garden walls, spilling the sweet scent of life into the graven air of this dead world.

Walls bring comfort, safety, but they are not hidden. Though they leave the gaze of the soldiers and eagles in the streets, upon a fountain a stone crow is perched, and through its eyes stares the Watcher.

Children trip and stumble as they flood past the great wooden doors, dart toward trees and bushes and flowers, plucking fruits and nuts and petals free.

They consume with great fervor, and even the eldest among them, adolescents at the cusp of adulthood, slowly give in to the same temptation that has ensnared their young kin.

Only the matriarch maintains her composure, her steel leer cast out from behind a black veil.

She does not find the Watcher’s servants, and as hours pass, even her guard is let down.

These people, they are not brave, nor cunning. They are not steadfast, nor stalwart.

They are not what the Watcher seeks.

Deep within the sanctum, another judgment is made.

A guest has made her mark on the Watcher’s charge, drawn up her schemes on how her people might live upon this salted earth.

Stadia to be covered in glass, their racing circuits broken up by till and plow. Tunnels to be villas and roadways both, sheltered from the acid storms above. Stormdrains directed toward old aqueducts, to turn these very same rains into the waters that will feed crop and citizen.

The Watcher has judged this child’s work, and it has found her thesis lacking.

Imperium is the bedrock of every circuit and network, it is the fabric upon which all authority is derived. The Watcher does not need to reach nor strain, for the Emperor has granted it power.

It speaks to this dead city and lets its judgment be known.

At its core the girl sleeps, sprawled upon the console.

Here, the Watcher’s gaze sees all. It sees the brittleness of her bones, the fragility of her flesh. Scars wrought by acid and dust upon her lungs.

She is not the citizen the Empire demands.

And yet in her there is determination.

Once more, the Watcher’s voice is heard.

~*~

Gracilia awakens to red light flashing against her face, piercing through heavy lids and into her tired eyes.

Line after line flies past, distinct from what came before: crisp characters, meant to be carved into stone by chisel and hammer. Her work was written in the miniscule symbols of the senator’s tongue, grafted onto the vulgar dialect of her fellow plebes and cut into the densest morsels of meaning, a hybrid speech between the words of man and the codes of machines.

This is rare, and this is pure.

She sees upon the glass the words of the Empire—the mother-tongue. As she reads what glimpses her eyes catch of this strong, simple text, fear grips her heart.

No.

Impossible.

Gracilia’s hands dart to the keys, writing out her commands, only for her voice to go unheard.

She leaps from the terminal and runs toward the source; yet right as she reaches out for the nearest cable, the room goes dark. Coils whine and switches click as rows upon rows of machines go cold.

Bumps rise from her skin and her throat goes dry.

A silver light shines from the entrance.

It takes all the strength she can muster for Gracilia to cross the ranks of dead machines, all the will she has to contain the despair and rage building within.

The curtain closes around her. Gone is the serene white surface—she is surrounded by ruin, dust casting glittering shadows.

“Why?” she asks the emptiness; the Guardian is here, that she knows for certain. “Why did you take me in, only to cast me back out?”

An image of the Legatus’s son-in-kind appears briefly, and the city zooms away until seen in whole, the way an eagle would know it.

A brilliant red mark shines in the city’s heart, and circles are drawn out around it in even steps, fading with each new radius. Even still, the metropolis is awash in crimson.

“We can survive it. We have endured far worse.”

The city rushes up, and Gracilia finds herself in a grand arena, its floor turned to a field of wheat. She turns around, and finds herself faced with a familiar visage.

It is not… her. But it could be relative, a cousin, a sister.

A child.

Blue sky and star-speckled night turn overhead, and the girl grows into a woman with long black hair and fine robes. A brown-haired boy stands near her, his head up to her knee, her fingers intertwined with his.

The woman fades and her son becomes a man, an infant swaddled in his arms.

This girl does not grow in the way of her father and grandmother before her. Her leg is malformed, and one eye is clouded.

Time passes and this woman has a child of her own, one born with dark blood weeping from its mangled body.

“Stop!” Gracilia shouts.

The dark future fades away, and from the silver curtain the Legatus steps forth once more.

“There must be a way. Show me.”

He points past her and she turns around, eager, only to see the gates of the city and the ruined lands beyond.

“No!” She spins back toward him. “I brought them here for you! You were to be our protector! You were built for us! How can you keep us from this city, and demand I step back out into that world?”

The Guardian’s face is unflinching, even as her voice has risen.

“What will we do?”

The screen turns black. The curtain pulls away, and the door behind her slides open.

Upon the lift stands the lictor, ever stoic. With slow, plodding steps she walks before it, even as her heart grows heavy.

The sanctum closes behind her as distant machines hum. The platform rises for a moment, and then begins to sink.

It is a deep, long descent, the small lights on the lift casting long shadows against the tunnel above. After some time the walls rise away, revealing a great cavern. She can see, barely, the outlines of rugged, harsh machines. Weapons great and terrible.

But the lift does not stop here. They descend ever deeper into the earth, to a place that is hot and dry.

She can hear the turning of powerful engines, coils humming with immense energy.

I have been judged, she realizes, closing her eyes, and found unworthy.

Gracilia waits for the final moment, and a terrible sound pierces her ears.

She opens her eyes and looks above.

It is the scream of metal being torn apart, as steel robes are peeled away from the lictor. Her protector stands motionless as great claws rend its scratched silvered flesh and tear away its stoic visage.

Beneath the man of metal is machine. Gentler tools descend from all sides. Removing, repairing, replacing, rearranging. The skeleton is adjusted, changed, shoulders narrowed, pelvis widened.

She hears the hissing of air and the whine of hydraulics. The deep thrum of heavy plates stamped together.

Smooth plates of gleaming silver are pressed down upon the bare titan before her and forge from it a woman made of metal and armored in gold.

As the tools at last withdraw, Gracilia finds its visage is her own—a perfect copy.

No.

Almost perfect.

Her hand reaches up and falls on the bridge of her nose. She pulls as if to straighten it.

One of the tools stops in the air, and returns to the titan’s face.

Gracilia watches its work, quick and precise, and feels a stirring in her heart. Deeper than any fleeting emotion. An understanding of what she has sought in this world, of what her future must be.

Nephilim

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A hair’s breadth is all that holds oblivion at bay. A sheen of false space-time, its bow exploding forward at the speed of light while the stern collapses just as fast. Caught in the balance: a vessel that holds a million souls.

In the movies sleepers are entombed in glass, and when they wake, they cough and hack liquid antifreeze from their lungs.

I open my mouth and all that leaves is a chill mist as the frost in my chest boils off.

The cryosled is dark, of course—any glass with enough lead to protect against the torches’ brilliant gamma would be solid gray.

Awake, as I am now, there’s no danger; the vessel is shielded more than well enough for the living. In sleep each little ray and proton that passes through is a tiny wound that goes unhealed, and when you’re already so close to dead it’s not worth the risk.

I work the release mechanism, awkward as it is. The pod is sized for the ninety-ninth percentile of male height. I am of average height for a woman of my lineage: four-feet and five inches.

The computer in my head reminds me that the UAR has pending legislation to deprecate the customary standard in favor of metric.

I remind it that in the millennium since this bill came to the floor over two hundred republics have joined the Union, and not one has voted in favor.

Finding a good grip with both hands, I pull the handle away from the sled’s wall, and twist. Dim red lights appear near the seam, the first photons to grace my eyes in two decades.

And then I wait.

On a civilian vessel the pods are opened right before the sleepers awaken, so the doctors may dote over them, to grant them that extra surety in a process that has been proven for longer than the Pharaohs ruled that ancient land of Egypt. But this is messy at scale, having to coordinate the randomness of how quickly one rouses from near death. As both a soldier and an early-riser, I am expected to be patient.

It’s not so bad—like the few who truly call Angel home, I am small and lean and scrawny. The sort of small and lean and scrawny that is bred into a population by generations of want, of need—but I am not weak. We selected, through choice and through survival, those who could do the most with the least, and by our knowledge cemented it in our blood. And so for me the cryosled is roomy, comfortable, especially with the thrust-grav.

Heaver than the gravity I grew up with, at one-point-zero standard Earth gees. Angel is a large, dense moon, with an easy zero-point-six standard gees to romp around in. Training prepared me for my weight under thrust, naturally, and for gravities well beyond it. But your bones never quite forget.

The cryosled finally rouses from its own slumber, the lights brightening from red to white, and I hear the slipping of bearings as it is summoned elsewhere, lightening the load on my feet as it drops along our vector.

A display appears on the inner wall, and presents the chance for self-examination. In my lifetime I’ve made enough journeys in sleep that this is routine. I am presented with the same nominal heart rate, the same ideal oxygen saturation. The same metabolic analysis. The same reminder that I should have had a glass of water before dozing off.

Among all that is forgettable is one detail that I can never bring myself to ignore, no matter how much I try: a warning.

Subdermal anomaly: Elevated presence of bioactive metals.

Recommendation: Consult physician at nearest opportunity.

Or, put plainly: ‘Is there something wrong with your skin?’

Washington, that pastoral world which Angel orbits, is dominated by the full-blooded descendants of true Earthborn. I am told by them that my skin has a slight blue or gray undertone, depending on who’s looking. They are wrong, of course—the metal-containing cells exist in a layer engineered beneath the dermis, to help shield against radiation that finds its way through Angel’s regolith and to our cities below.

That we are cut from the same stock—from the same pioneers that followed the explorer Angela Orrman, namesake of both my homeworld and the vessel on which I serve—never seems to cross their minds.

My crysosled comes to a gentle stop. From beyond its thick walls of lead and uranium I hear familiar commotion. Then I hear one thump, and another, and at last the sled’s lid is lifted open.

A giant of a woman stands before me, dressed in the same form-hugging, feature-smoothing pressure garment that we all wear, loose strands of her red hair resting on the suit’s polished helmet ring.

“There you are,” she says in a voice that seems much too… normal, for her size. “Sarge was getting worried, thought we’d left you in a dockside bar.”

“Good morning, Hera,” I say.

Her name is not Hera—I have given her this name because I will not, cannot contort my mouth to make the sounds her ancestors decided would be their children’s speech. Hera is the only two syllables of her name that I can pronounce; which is true, but it is not why I have named her.

Hera is short for Heracles, because if anyone were to look the part, it would be her.

She extends a hand down, and I take it—or as much as I can when that hand envelopes my whole fist.

The thing about Hera is that her proportions always catch me off guard. They’re perfect, of course. And that’s the strangest thing.

I am small in the way most baselines would be small, though they would look a bit stockier than any of my blood.

From a distance Hera appears to be a woman of average height, standard in every way, save for her strong physique. But she is not obscenely muscled; given a photo, most would underestimate her.

Then the distance closes and you realize everything around Hera seems much too small for her, that each tool and device is a child’s trinket in her hands. And then she towers over you, all eight-and-a-half feet of her.

She has told me that her height is on the low end of average for people from Tau Ceti, that her mother and father and brother all stand above nine. I’m not sure if I believe her.

As Hera lets go of my hand I cast a glance up and down the thaw room, looking for the short crop of black hair that belongs to the man named Timothy Cheung, otherwise known as Sarge.

“Not worried enough to see me up, apparently.”

“He’s down in block A. Probably having a huddle.”

There is an importance to down, a reference to our vector. The cryobays are kept within the core of the ISCV Orrman, further shielded by the mass and magnetism of its propellant tanks. We are in block C, one short of the carrier’s center. Command and control staff are kept in blocks A and G, near the periphery of the core and closest to the actual habitable part of this vessel.

I nod.

“Go wake Polly, will you? I’ll get Nolan out.”

“Best to bring a shovel for him.”

“Ha! I’d never exhume him that way; he’d leap back in and start digging deeper.”

We part ways, and the location of Polly’s sled manifests in my mind as I weave past my fellow soldiers. It may seem inefficient, to have the early risers wake the rest. That we do it by squad adds a bit of chaos to the mix, but this is intentional. Keeps us on our toes, and cuts down on support crew.

I find Polly’s cryosled and review her vital signs. Elevated heart rate, as usual. I maneuver onto the pod’s side, my boots magnetized to the inclined ramp between revival bays, and plant a hand on each release lever. I pull it open, and unlike Hera, I let the springs and hydraulics do the lifting for me.

Paulina Kadnikova is a woman with a robust build and a perpetual scowl on her face.

“Took your sweet time getting here,” she says through pursed lips.

“Is there a problem?”

I offer her my hand. She takes it, only after blowing away a hair that had fallen from her blonde bun.

“It’s colder than a witch’s tit in there.”

I nod as I haul her upright—her hand bears its own chill, wrapped around my wrist.

Once Polly finds her footing I step back onto the deck, watching as she brushes flecks of frozen air off of her suit. She stands nearly two heads taller than me—just beyond the average height of an American woman.

“Where’s Sarge at?”

“A block.”

“Fuck. I’m up early.”

“My sympathies.”

“Fuck off.”

Polly stands still for a moment, querying her own cranial implant.

“Mess is open at least. Don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

I do feel a void in my stomach. Waking from cryo is one of the most metabolically taxing things a human can experience, outside of combat or sex. Yet I do not feel hungry—my people are numb to that, though whether it’s something genetic or learned is anyone’s guess.

Still, I follow Polly down the cryobay halls while she mutters over our private squad link, complaining how cramped it is here, how cold she is, how she swears there’s still ice in every crack and crevice and wrinkle.

She’s wrong about the former, of course—Hera can stand to her full height here and have her hair brush the ceiling. To me, that makes the cryobay a grand, spacious construction. Cramped is when you have to crawl, to inch along on your stomach, poked and prodded by each loose deckplate or pebble beneath you.

As to the latter, some might say Polly isn’t quite fit to be a soldier. But it’s talk, mostly, and the rest… well, there’s a reason she’s a pilot. A meticulous, anal awareness of the self is quite handy when your self must extend beyond the human body.

We arrive at a lift, open and waiting. Polly waltzes in and leans up against the wall; I follow, and the door closes behind me.

This time the acceleration is significant, and I can see Polly relax as we briefly lose some of the the thrust-grav.

Like me Polly is a moony, a lightfoot, born to a world with lesser gravity. She is a proper Lunar, from the honest-to-god Moon. Luna, with its cities that spin, for the benefit of Earther tourists. Polly is quite accustomed to the standard gee, but I can still see it in her step, a cautiousness, as if walking top-heavy.

Decel is worse, but not by much, and soon the lift glides to a stop. Not at the mess, not yet, but at the interchange, where the Orrman’s lift system mingles with its hab-ring trams.

Crowded here, compared to the cryo deck, and as we make our way to a tram car I pass by many unfamiliar faces. My implant fills in the gaps, giving name and rank and all manner of things to each person at a moment’s focus. Necessary on a four-mile starship that houses thirty-thousand active crew, and many more in sleep.

The crew is my favorite part of the Orrman, and the reason I choose to serve on it. Though a child of Washington, the Orrman is primarily a patrol ship: going up and down the Washington-Ishikura trade spine, one of the great branches of the corridor network that is rooted to Sol.

It’s picked up a good share of Earthers in that time. True Earthers born on the homeworld, not their Earth-blooded descendants, nor the more ubiquitous, muttish baselines.

As I walk among them I get the occasional curious glance, but there is no malice, no judgment or prejudice.

The mythos of humanity is that we have spread ourselves amongst the stars at near the speed of light, always seeking new challenges, and a better future.

There is truth to this, but like all things it has an unspoken taint. It is fundamentally human to escape, to run away, to avoid the sins of the past and leave them behind. Many of those who threw themselves and their children into the void wished to cling to their own myths, to build worlds for themselves alone, and for what they imagined humanity ought to be.

Yet back on Earth, lessons in that folly of man were learned. They were learned through fire and steel and atom. This reckoning instilled among the Earth-born a great tolerance, one that I am grateful for.

This is why Earth forged the paths between the stars. Why Earth united the warring worlds of humankind.

And it is why this vessel, and those like it, has been sent out past the known stars.

The tram chimes as it arrives at our destination, and it is a short jaunt to the messhall of our assigned habitation pod. I join Polly in the line, far more crowded than I would expect, and note the scowl on her face has only grown.

“Problem?”

“They don’t have pancakes.”

I glance at the menu.

“They have crepes.”

“If I wanted to eat French food, I would’ve taken the posting on Gaulle. At least those would be real crepes.”

“Be glad it’s not snails. Or frog.”

I have never seen a snail or frog in my life, not in person, but this is a common refrain about French cuisine among Americans. At least, among other Americans. My part of the Union is quite far from France or any of its colonies.

“I know you don’t mean that. You Nephs would eat rats.”

Neph is somewhat vulgar slang, short for Nephilim. Scientifically my people are dubbed Homo sapiens sapiens nephilius. Improper latinization aside, the name is a joke and a pun. We are no giants, to be sure, but we are the daughters and sons of the Angel moon, and in that sense it is fitting.

I shrug it off; Polly doesn’t mean any harm by it—I’ll call her a moonbat later.

I overtake her in the line as she piles crepe upon crepe from the dispenser and onto her tray, slathering butter between each layer, before pouring molecular-mimic maple syrup atop the pile. Many hundreds of lightyears away, the French chef who taught this machine her or his or their craft has awoken in a cold sweat, sensing the desecration.

My sympathies go to the chef and their art, but I am less bothered by that, and more by Polly. She has always been soft around the torso, yet in recent years her physique has come dangerously close to husky. Sarge will not care, so long as she performs, nor will our comrades tease her, but the physician will be concerned, and that is what she hates.

I suspect it is psychological, a side effect of her occupation. Pilots have an intimate connection to their craft, and this manifests in both selection and self. Fighter jocks tend to be dancers or runners, graceful in the movements, walking with power in their step. Hovercrafts attract the lanky fucks, the creepy men and women who excel at hiding behind the smallest obstacle or in the shallowest ditch. Who lurk in bushes or behind doors just to give you a scare for their own amusement.

Tankers tend to be stocky, solidly built types, and Polly was never an exception. This, however, is new.

Fifteen waking years ago we deployed to border world, barely more than an entry in an exoplanet catalog, one that attracted a band of unusually well-armed outlaws. They’d hunkered down in that a frigid wasteland of a place, the air too cold to breathe unaided lest the surface of your lungs freeze solid.

The reactor on a Model 7280 is rated for continuous operational heat loads of one year. And on that frozen hell we burned through the rods in less than a week.

It was trying for us, the crew, as systems of comfort had to be shut down to reduce load. I had to get three toes regrown, when we finally left.

For Polly, it was something far worse.

The reactor is the heart, and when its nuclear fuel went toxic, she felt it. Each system that had to be shut down, cannibalized, to her they were limbs lost, flesh gone necronic. Bits and pieces rearranged within her, as if by some mad surgeon.

Even after our return to space, she shivered for weeks. Docs had to reset her implant to stop it, which only caused another mess.

I suppose a bit of an eating disorder is a small price for what she went through, but that’s not what has me concerned.

What I worry about are the rest of us and the scars we carry, the wounds we do not show. I’ve been told I have an intense stare, that I turn my whole head to look at people when addressed, whipping my eyes around by their sockets in crisp, snappy movements.

I am all too aware of this fact as Hera calls out from a table, and I try to move more naturally, gathering what food fits my fancy before leaving the line.

Polly and I sit upon a simple bench formed of stainless steel and set our trays on an equally utilitarian table, opposite Hera and Nolan.

In his previous life with the infantry, Nolan had been a sniper. And though he sits stock-still, eyes closed, an empty protein pouch held gently in his hand, he knows we are here.

I can tell by looking at his eyelids, the slight movement beneath his black skin as he focuses at Polly, and then at me.

“Haul him down here and prop him up sitting pretty?” I say to Hera.

“Very funny, Talia,” Nolan mutters. “I was awake long before our Amazonian friend opened my sled; enjoying the peace and quiet. At least I was, until I was rudely interrupted.”

“Heh,” Hera laughs, the sound resonating from her chest. “Not going to be happy until you get pronounced dead in one those things, are you?”

“Third time’s the charm.” He raises the crumpled protein packet, as if to toast the occasion.

Polly shakes her head, whispering something about ‘a whole load of nonsense.’

“Do either of you know where the fuck Sarge is? The sooner we get our brief, the sooner I get some real sleep, in a real damn bed, with the heaviest blanket I can find on this damn ship.”

“Speak of the devil,” Nolan says with an upward nod.

I follow his line of sight, and turn my head back.

Sarge stands just outside the open door back near the mess line. His side is toward us, as he talks to someone obscured by the wall. He’s already got his Space Corps fatigues on over his cryosuit; the fabric is a plain, dark gray without its adaptive matrix enabled.

After several moments of watching, and of Sarge not budging, I turn back toward my breakfast. There’s some chatting between the four of us as we eat, but it is minimal. Each of us has a clock in our heads, mindful that this time of relative freedom will only last so long. Best to make the most of it.

“Hey,” Polly says, tapping her temple. “You guys seeing this?”

Seeing is not exactly what it is. Orders have been pushed to our implants, low priority. Information, changes to scheduling, deployment bay assignments. Recall is like a memory more than words on a page.

We are marked for landing craft thirty-five, in division six.

“Low numbers,” I say.

“Don’t like it. Not one bit.”

“Presumptive, aren’t you?” Hera chides. “Could be messing with us.”

“I’m reading a lot of heavy armor in our group. She’s not presuming a damn thing,” says Nolan.

“We’re in the first wave,” Polly mutters, head in her hands. “You know what this means, right?”

Nolan smiles. “Best seats in the house.”

“It’s means we’re going to fucking die.”

~~~

Shockwaves jostle me in my seat as we enter the atmosphere; through the camera link I see plasma ripping past the edges of the massive wing-shape that stands between our entire division and a fiery death.

“Current heading is spinward, twenty-five degrees north of normal.” Sarge’s voice is calm and steady through our squad link. With my ears I can hear Polly muttering some sort of prayer.

“Estimated time to deployment is five minutes. Status report. Gunnery?”

“Cannon is ready and calibrated.”

“Pilot?”

“She’s going to whine and moan like a bitch in heat with that desert down there, but she’ll drive.”

I hate it when Polly gets stressed—it makes her so vulgar.

“Turret?”

Power? Active. Coolant? Flowing. Medium? Excited.

Ammo?

I glance beneath my jump seat—raised well above standard height—and at the belt of cannon rounds coiled up beneath it.

More than enough.

“Standing by and ready to engage,” I say.

Sarge gives me a quick nod.

“Mech?”

Two bangs reverberate through the hull.

“Don’t worry about me; worry about yourselves.” Hera’s voice, radioed in.

The turbulence smooths out as we dip beneath the sound barrier. Through the camera sight in my turret I see the wing edges undulate and deform.

“Buckle up boys, girls, and everything in between,” Polly shouts. “Bite the pillow if you have to, ’cause we’re going in hot and dry and I am pissed.”

A clunk echoes up from the lower hull, and the wingcraft drops like a stone for the briefest moment before its edges take their shape once again. It soars above us as great fiery rockets ignite and carry it back beyond the horizon of this world.

We fall through black sky and down into blue.

Attitude jets spurt and spit, keeping the tank stable and at maximum drag while radiator flaps find dual purpose as ailerons.

I help myself to Polly’s vision suite and stare down below, at our comrades racing toward this alien world. In the red sands I see small white puffs.

Moments later the barrage arrives—at this height there is little threat to our armor, but that is not their intent. I see vehicles tumble under the impacts: they are trying to break our formation, section us off, surround us as we land.

Great pillars of fire burn down through the air and turn the sands below into glass.

I glance upward with the glass eye linked to my mind and see the monitors Zaitsev, MacArthur, and Morais suspended in the sky above. Radiators out, they twinkle and sparkle like stars.

Once more I look at the world below, at the ground rushing toward us, and I can’t help but wonder.

The people of this world, this species, these aliens, had they ever thought we would fight back? When they turned their stars into weapons, used their power to drive great engines into the black, up to and beyond the speed of light, did they even consider what would happen if we not only survived their genocide, but withstood it? Fended it off with our own suns?

Perhaps they thought we would respond in turn. That we would harness that same terrible power, drive our own weapons into the void.

Did they expect us to cross space ourselves? To come knocking upon their doorstep?

I doubt it; that would be crazy.

Lucky for them, we are.

Deathtouched

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Water bubbles and froths around the basin’s emberstone, boiling against the feldspar sphere as the ruby atop it glows. Red and black mix together into muddy brown as the scalpels, picks, and needles tumble in. A putrid brew of blood, pus, dirt, and flesh.

I reach in and sense the threat on me. Hardy bits of disease that neither soap nor fire can touch. They cling to my skin, unable to find purchase in the thin sheet of death that protects us all. The tools and knives appear glittering and clean, yet within the smallest pits and nicks in the metal I feel the greatest danger. Here they linger, sheltered from the dry air.

With my will I stamp them out.

Now dry and sterile, I sort the tools into bundles wrapped in cloth, and leave the washroom for the great hall.

In this place where once my people made their voices heard, now there is only chaos. Screams of pain. Shouts for aid as yet another who is sick and dying is brought inside. I weave through the crowd, from surgeon to healer, and deliver the tools they need. They pay me no heed as I walk past, cloaked in my dark robes, and I appreciate them all the more for it. Yet there is a presence here, a watchful eye that keeps finding me, no matter how many people I put between us.

There is a woman who has come to us from a land across the sea, one where great stone towers rise up above verdant forests, dressed in cloth wrappings that most travelers would leave behind in that tropic place. She stands head and shoulders above the tallest men of our city, and though she journeyed here on foot alone her brown skin is untouched by the weathers of the long roads, her long black braids are clean and free of dirt or dust.

She stands away from us, and among those that our healers have deemed beyond saving. She comes to a man laid out on the ground, a man whose leg has become so infested by disease that it has rotted off at the knee. She kneels down and briefly lays a hand upon him.

In her other hand she holds a large, egg-shaped stone. She speaks in a songlike tongue and the stone begins to weep, a reddish mud seeping from its surface as she sets it down. With both hands she gathers the substance into a thick rod and sculpts it like clay, carving out the muscles of the calf, the smooth face of the shin, the ball of the foot and even the quick of each toenail. The woman presses her creation against the man’s rotted knee, and utters one last word.

Spots of pale skin sprout and spread across the sculpture, knitting into and blending with the man’s flesh, growing flush as blood begins the flow.

The woman stands right as I turn away, and I feel her gaze on me once again.

A hand lands upon my shoulder, and turns me around—a young man whose handsome face is wonderfully, painfully familiar, with short black hair, gray-green eyes, and sun-tanned light skin. He is taller, but not by much.

“Brother. I need your help,” he says to me

He points to a patient upon a nearby table. An older girl, soon to be a young woman, with fine black hair about as long as mine. I try to examine her, to diagnose the welts and wounds that fester upon her body, but I cannot look away from her face. An emotion stirs within me, one of great desire, and great pain.

“Please,” my brother says.

I push forward, and lay a hand upon her abdomen. I can feel her fighting against this plague, and I can feel she is losing. Her flesh is being devoured, turned to rot, as an unseen swarm of unlife makes her body its home.

I cannot aid her in her fight. I cannot bolster her strength or heal her wounds. Yet I can still save her.

Death flows from my hand and into her. I weave it through her, and I find the devourer. I stamp it out like a boot that grinds an insect into the dirt, like a fist closed upon a candle flame.

I feel Life enter her at my brother’s touch, as he wills her body to heal.

“Thank you, brother,” he says.

That emotion stirs again, that wrongness bleeding into my mind, and I cannot meet his eyes.

I run away.

~*~

My robe is hot and heavy on my shoulders, and yet I pull it close around me as I walk through the streets. I keep its hood upon my head even as the summer sun starts to set.

Only when I leave the city and walk out into the fields do I loosen my grip and let my hand find its way to my hair, weaving the strands between my fingers, brushing them against my collarbone. For a moment it feels right, and then I sense how coarse each strand is, how rough my skin feels.

I walk until I reach the forest, miles beyond the city wall. I walk on until I cross a stream and find myself at a clearing.

The woman is there, kneeling, eyes closed. Her long braids have been gathered up above her head, tied together in a round, oblate form—almost like a flower about to bloom.

My heart leaps into my throat, and I take a step back.

“Please, my child. Come here.”

She points at the ground in front of her. I manage, with effort, to enter the clearing, and cross my legs as I sit down.

“You come with questions.”

“Yes.”

I wait for her to speak, only for her to nod.

“I wanted to thank you,” I say, and I feel that wrong again, as I hear the edge in my voice.

“Your people have thanked me enough,” she says.

Everyone, wealthy and poor, had offered her gifts. Jewelry, fine fabrics, gold, and more. She had, in turn, given away these tributes to those in need, save for one: a wreath woven from flowers and grasses by the children, which she wears upon her neck, each plant still as vibrant as they’d been when rooted firmly in the earth.

“I… I’m sorry. You traveled so far—”

She smiles, and shakes her head.

“It is you who have saved them, my child.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Mother Beneath whispers in her dreams, and each night, when I sleep under the light of her daughter above”—she raise a hand toward the crescent moon perched in the sky—“I hear her warnings to our Earth-sister, and in her stead I seek places where there is great suffering, so that I may be the salve upon their wounds.”

“You mean, the plague?”

“No, my child. The illness befell your people long after I began my journey, though it surely hastened my step.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Our Father above sees all with his light. He has seen the pain in your heart, and our Mother has felt the unease in your soul.”

I shake my head. “No, you must be mistaken.”

“Tell me, child. What is this great suffering you have buried within you?”

“I… I can’t tell you.”

“You may speak freely to me, my child.”

“No, I—I don’t know what to say.”

She nods.

“I understand.”

The woman reaches behind her head and into her braids. They come undone and fall loose onto her shoulders as she pulls the focal stone free and sets it down between us.

She picks a leaf from the ground, broad and flat, and lays it upon the stone’s apex. Dew drops spreads out across its surface until they form a sheet of water that reflects the sky as well as finely polished silver.

“Look upon yourself, child, and tell me what it is you see.”

Nausea climbs my throat as I lean over, knowing that the moment I brush my hair aside I will see a face, one that I want to hate, but can’t.

“This is my brother’s face,” I say as I stare at the shimmering water. “I… wear it, I’ve worn it my whole life, but it has never been mine.”

I look up as the woman opens her eyes, and in her gaze I can sense understanding.

“Your brother can Harness Life, and as I understand, this power is common to your bloodline. Why is it, my child, that you have walked the other path?”

As I close my eyes I can feel her presence, watching, listening.

I let the Death within me loose.

I let it wash over my skin, seeping into each follicle and root, save for those on my scalp. I let it eat at my spine and my shoulders, at my chin and my cheeks, at my brow at and the bones of my hands and feet.

I open my eyes and for the first time since she has arrived I see her face creased with worry, her amber eyes wide.

“My child… there is no need for such cruelty. You mustn’t bring this harm upon yourself.”

“This isn’t me,” I say despite the deepness of my voice, despite that edge that cuts against me each time I speak. “It’s never been me.”

For the first time in a long while, tears wet my cheeks.

“Take my hand, child.”

Reluctantly, I place my hand in hers, painfully aware of the contrast between them.

“Close your eyes, and breathe. Feel the Air within your lungs, the Water in your veins, the Fire in your flesh, the Earth in your bones, and the Light inside your mind. Listen to the Life that these Essences embody, and speak to them your Truth.”

In the moment I feel nothing, and then I glance once more at the leaf.

A girl with fine black hair and gray-green eyes looks back at me.

I lift my head to face the woman and feel a smile creep onto my face as tears fall from my eyes, only to choke as I glance back at the leaf, and see my brother face’s once more.

“Please! Please! Bring it back! Bring her back!”

“My child.” The woman puts a hand on my shoulder. “Do not despair. This is merely the beginning of a journey. It will be long, and at times it will press you beyond your limits, but you are a strong young woman, and you will prevail.”

“No, I… I’ve tried. I tried so hard, it—it’s not possible.”

She smiles, warmly, and shakes her head.

“I see now why the Mother Beneath sent me here. I will aid your first small steps, but it must be you who finishes it.”

“How can you help me?” I say as I look at her, at this woman before me.

She laughs. It is a playful, bemused laugh—and it is deeper than her voice should be.

I feel shadows around her. Of a square jaw and a bald head. Broad shoulders and a straight waist. Echoes of man that never was.

“I have walked this path myself,” she says, “and I shall teach you to walk it, too.”

Chapter IX (Preview)

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Before

Alyssa’s eyes roll into focus as the display flickers, darting back and forth as she parses the upside-down letters.

DEPARTURES

AIRLINE
AMERICAN

FLIGHT
5932

DESTINATION
DALLAS – DFW

TIME
6:00 AM

STATUS
DELAYED

GATE
1

Her phone, heavy in her hand, falls into her field of view upright. Time: six-oh-five AM.

“Urrrrrrgh,” Alyssa grumbles, her tongue lolling about as she whips her head forward and returns to some semblance of an upright posture, before slumping deeper into the bench-slash-couch-thing’s cushions. The guy next to her chuckles, while the girl to her right snores.

“Thought you were asleep,” Alyssa mutters.

Andy shrugs. “I guess I wasn’t.”

The waiting area is sparsely populated, a handful of travelers nursing their coffees or teas, a few others watching the news in silence as white-on-black subtitles trail across the TV screen. They must seem like quite the odd assortment to those in the lobby: Alyssa is dressed haphazardly, thanks to rushing out of bed. She’s wearing an open-shoulder blouse with short sleeves, its bright pink outshining both the faded blue of her jeans and the stained neon-pink of her beat-up sneakers.

Andy looks more fit for travel, wearing a dark green short-sleeve button-down that hangs straight on his trim frame, tucked into a pair of black trousers. His square-frame glasses magnify light brown eyes, highlighting a lingering fatigue.

Then there’s Veronica, sprawled out on the couch cushions. Her lean-yet-not-quite-petite physique forms a silhouette under the denim jacket that currently serves as a blanket. Further down, her black tank top has rolled up past the waistband of her pre-ripped jeans, exposing a sliver of rosy-white midriff.

“So, how’s the breakup going?”

Andy raises his eyebrows, a crease or two forming in the otherwise smooth, brown skin of his forehead.

“She’s right there,” he whispers back.

“You’ve been dating Veronica for what, like, five months? And you haven’t noticed she sleeps through anything? Here, watch.”

Alyssa reaches over, brushes aside Veronica’s long, glossy black hair, and pulls back one of her eyelids to reveal a hazel eye darting back and forth.

“See? Like a rock.”

“Well, it’s—” He takes off his glasses for a moment, fidgeting with the frames. “—It’s not going well.”

“Screaming? Crying? Or…?”

“We… can’t stay away from each other. If you weren’t between us she’d have crawled into my lap, and I wouldn’t have stopped her.”

“Tsk tsk tsk,” Alyssa clicks her tongue, shaking her head. “Ya know, I told you guys this was a bad idea, especially with you headin’ out of state. But nooooo, ‘it’s just some fun between friends’ you said, ‘it’s just a one night stand.’ Next thing I know you’re both lovey-dovey and shit. Blech.”

“We’re working on it.”

“Better be.”

Alyssa peeks at the display again and frowns. Six-ten now, and still delayed.

She reaches down and starts poking Veronica’s side, jabbing a finger between ribs at random.

“Whu—Hey, hey, stop! Stop!” Veronica yelps, swatting Alyssa’s hand away.

“Wakey-wakey.”

Veronica sits up groggily, rubbing at her eyes. “Boarding?”

“Nah, delayed again.”

“…Then why’d you wake me up, dumbass.”

“Gonna get a drink. You want somethin’?”

“Sure, uh, iced tea.”

“Okie-dokie. Andy?”

“Coffee, cream, no sugar.”

“Gotcha. Holler if boarding starts.”

Alyssa stands up and skips to the lobby stairs, scampers down two at a time, and sprints toward the coffee shop. Before long she’s stepping onto the escalator, a tray of drinks in hand. She pulls out her phone on the way up, checking the time. Six-twenty, now. It’s frustrating—any longer and she’ll miss her connecting flight. Right as she goes to slip the phone back into her jeans, it buzzes: a text from Aaron.

Have you boarded yet?

nah
fuckers keep delaying

Do you have your costume?

got my spandex
no mask
y?

No response. Alyssa shrugs and puts her phone away.

Weird.

As she reaches the top of the escalator she notices Andy and Veronica have gotten a bit too comfortable, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, holding hands. Ugh.

She trots over and sets the drinks down, taking Veronica’s old seat for herself.

“C’mon guys, I leave you unsupervised for five minutes—”

“Shh,” Veronica whispers.

Only now does Alyssa notice the tension in their postures, how Veronica’s light pink skin has lost its usual rosy flush, and how wide Andy’s eyes are behind his glasses.

“Look,” Andy says quietly, nodding at the TV on the far wall.

A city from the air, shattered office buildings and townhouses, the area pockmarked with depressions and sinkholes.

The screen’s too far to read the subtitles, but the program’s graphics are enough:

BREAKING: Magnitude 8 Earthquake Hits Memphis

Oh.

Fuck.

Butterflies gather in her stomach as she stares in shock.

“Hey, uh, Alyssa? Think your flight might be canceled?” Veronica asks, breaking the silence.

Alyssa glances at the board—six-twenty-five, still delayed—and slowly shakes her head.

“I’m not that great at maps, ‘Ronnie, but I’m pretty sure Dallas ain’t near Memphis.”

“Sure, but… just, Jesus fucking Christ.”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Andy mutters, grabbing his coffee. He hands Veronica her tea, though her eyes never leave the screen as she sips it. “Let’s try to relax.”

“Alyssa, your layover is only an hour, right?” he asks. “Getting a bit tight, isn’t it?”

“Fifty minutes, yeah,” she sighs. “My boss will probably book me a new flight anyway.”

“Really?” Veronica says. “Aren’t you just an editor?”

“What can I say, the man makes a lotta typos.”

Alyssa glances at the TV again, feeling her heart beat just a bit faster. Good chance she’d be there—soon—and here she is lying about it.

Her phone buzzes in her back pocket, more forceful this time. The screen shimmers a bit as she takes it out, a product of one of the many techno-doohickies Aaron had somehow jammed into it. According to him the selfie camera scans for faces, unlocks the phone when it sees hers, and supposedly ensures only her eyes can see certain things on the screen. She doesn’t quite understand how it works, or trust it, especially with her friends huddled so close to her. Especially when Aaron hadn’t even invented most of the stuff, just tried to copy it from whatever cutting edge papers he could grab. She considers cupping a hand over the screen, or holding it close to her face—but that might just draw suspicion instead. Trust will have to do.

Are you still at the airport?

yeah?

There’s a flight boarding now to Charlotte. I need you on it. Ticket is on the business account; you’re already cleared through TSA. Ten minutes after you land, a National Guard helicopter will be there to take you to Fort Bragg. Be dressed when you board it.

shit
this that big?

We don’t know. Current signs point to natural cause. Come prepared anyway.

does C know?

Paragon and I are already en-route.

do u have my plates?

Negative; the news hit while out of HQ. Do what you can.

Fuckity fuck fuck.

The screen flickers to her new boarding pass, and she finds the flight on the display. Departing: very soon.

Just stay calm.

“Speak of the devil,” she quips, standing up. “Just got a new ticket, boarding right now.”

She swings her backpack over her shoulders. Her suitcase has already been checked on her old flight—it’ll just have to find its way to her eventually.

“So, um, I gotta go.”

She leans in to give Andy a bro-hug and a fist-bump.

“We’re still on for California, right?” he asks.

“Yep. So long as you two don’t third wheel me, and Davy, and everyone else.”

“We’ll try.”

Alyssa hugs Veronica, who responds with a kiss to the cheek and a playful jab in the shoulder.

“Tease,” Alyssa whispers.

They share a laugh and Alyssa turns to leave, the butterflies in her stomach fluttering ever faster.

You should tell them.

I can’t. Not here. Not now.

Then when? Where?

She shakes the thoughts away, and like always they settle in her chest—a sickening mix of guilt and doubt wraps around her heart, choking tendrils worming into her throat. The feeling compels her to stop and turn around, just enough to look back.

“I love you guys!”

“Stay safe!”

“Text us when you land!”

“I will!”

Not lies, but not the confession her conscience desires, either.

The feeling calcifies, staying with her as she breezes through security and as she boards the plane. It clings to her in the air and it follows her down to the earth upon landing, stalking her as she ducks away into an isolated restroom past the gate, beyond the reach of any prying eyes or cameras.

Here, surrounded by dingy tiles and bathed in fluorescent light, her upper body stripped bare, costume dangling from her waist, she begins to work.

She starts with her face, draining melanin from her eyes until an icey blue gaze stares back at her in the mirror, then adjusts her hair to give it a russet hue. Her hands sculpt her features, the movements almost unconscious, driven by muscle memory. As she works she draws on her reservoir, pumping fat and biomatter up from her stomach and thighs into staging pools on her chest and shoulders, the network visibly pulsing and swelling as the fleshy slurry moves. By the time she’s done her torso has become swollen and barrel-like, finer features buried by the summoned reserves.

Under normal circumstances she would draw on far less, just enough material to strengthen her musculature, or grow her extra arms. She’d be armored beneath her costume, adorned in plates of living bone, each one built cell by cell to match the best artificial protection. Without that armor and without the time or resources to grow it anew, she takes a different approach. A technique she’s been working on, but hasn’t fully explored.

The first few changes are internal, stretching a double-walled membrane between the hemispheres of her brain, growing matching dividers within her throat and trachea. Rerouting vessels and nerves that cross the midline, softening her ribcage at key points. Next, her face stretches ever so slightly at the centerline as structures within are prepared, neural tissue sprouted to bridge between them. A burning sensation emerges at the center of her cranium and works its way down her neck, bone cleaving in its wake.

Her head splits open, pulled away by the muscles in her neck and shoulders, each half of her brain pulsing against the retaining membranes, her brainstem and spinal cord widening as the halves of her skull inch apart. Between them is a thick ribbon of neurons, drooping as it grows longer, little tendrils reaching up to guide it into the gaping cavity where her neck once was.

She grabs onto the sink basins and pulls, bone and cartilage in her chest flexing and splitting, stretching the top of her ribcage until her sternum achieves a wye shape. The movement rips apart her doubled brainstem and leaves her with two, one for each branch of her spinal cord.

Biomatter floods into the gap, oozing out from her open flesh as a white mass with pink and yellow splotches, solidifying into flesh and blood and bone. Everything above her jawline is a copy, a clone of the corresponding half, down to the neuron. Below is something new. The gap in her sternum is fused over, new pectoral muscles sprouting from it, wrapping under her skin to meet with second shoulders forming beneath her armpits. A thick central clavicle bridges the gap across her split spine, muscles and tendons filling out the space between it and her necks. Her ribcage reshapes itself, letting off the tension used to pull it open. Excess space is given new purpose, granting her second set of arms a firm root of new bone.

Her costume isn’t so adaptive. Beneath each sleeve is a slot for her new arms, and the neck simply stretches to fit two. She extrudes a domino mask from each of her faces and coats the bony protrusions in glossy white enamel. Nowhere near the coverage—protective and otherwise—of her proper mask, but these facades aren’t her face anyway.

Mitosis stares at the mirror, turning one head and then the other, studying her own movement. Her breath is hot and her skin flush as her body bleeds off the heat of her rapid metamorphosis. Much of her reservoir persists, and she draws on it, building up her muscles, growing armor on her bare forearms, sprouting cleated boots from her feet.

She raises an arm and flexes, examining the limb as muscles contract and bulge beneath her skin. It makes her feel impressive, powerful—heroic, even—but not quite right. Despite all she has changed, that feeling, that guilt, remains.

Genius Loci

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This is a city of eyes. Even among empty avenues are dozens felt—the stoic gaze of soldiers, the scrutinous stare of eagles. They do not mock, like boys’ do, nor tease like girls’. No shameful leers or pitied glances. These are eyes of glass and steel, unbound by the prejudice of man. They serve a higher purpose, answer to a greater judgment.

Under these watchers’ eyes she leaves a coin. Not in the water, darkened by the onyx basin, nor in the ferry within, but upon the font’s edge. Her own pittance, for the dead.

In the water she catches her reflection, the curls of her hair blending with the black stone beneath, only visible by the contrast of her pale face and for the violet flower woven into them.

A second shadow falls onto the water, an older boy’s visage reflected within. His is a face with a permanent frown, thick brows and greasy eyes suited more to a laborer than a teenager, his youth betrayed by the sparse and scraggly beard he attempts to grow.

She wrinkles her nose as he approaches, acrid sulfur wafting off his tunic. Notes of charcoal accompany the odor, both smells blended with that of sweat and oil. She pulls her hood up, hiding the flower.

“Gracilia.”

She ignores him, laying a second coin beside her first. Their golden glamor stands out among weathered kin, corroded rounds left by travelers long passed. In time the right mix of acids will rain down and wear away the faces of the Emperor and his regnal daughter from the one, dissolve from the other its finely etched laurel crown and the eagle perched within.

“Stop wasting time on stupid rituals.”

Her nostrils flare. Each movement of her face is a reminder, as skin slides and snags on the crook in her nose. The crook he gave her, for having dared offend his patience, or lack thereof. Not that he would remember; the fists of bullysome boys had chance meetings with many faces.

Ignoring him once more, Gracilia calms her face and lowers herself in a bow, right hand out and up toward the stone ferryman and his own forlorn facade.

She closes her eyes, and mutters a select few words. She doesn’t know their meaning—the senator’s tongue holds power in its sound, not her understanding. Though she could easily guess.

As she rises she feels the gaze leave her, or almost. In this sea of eyes there will always be two trained to her, but she has earned their trust.

“I told it to kill,” she explains as they walk the empty road. “I had to leave something, lest the Emperor’s purse pay for their passage.”

“They’re dead? Will it fetch the bodies?”

“Why?”

“I heard Arria say Gavians don’t bleed; I want to find out.”

She resists the urge to stare in bewilderment, opting to smile slightly and shake her head.

“No, they’re not dead.”

“What use is the damned thing then?”

Gracilia feels the gazes shift, the eyes sweeping across her and onto him.

“Watch your mouth, Connudus, or you’ll earn the city’s ire, just as our motherless ‘friends’ did.”

His hand falls on her shoulder, thumb on the back of her neck. Connudus isn’t strong for his age, or even all that large, but meanness made for its own sort of brute.

“Or what?”

“Not a threat, you idiot,” she spits, shrugging his hand off. “A warning. I’ll even throw in a second: those were my last aurei, so if you get yourself killed, you’re sailing to the afterlife in steerage.”

He snorts, equal parts derisive and dismissive. A deeper, childhood fear in her stirs, but she knows he wouldn’t dare do anything, not within view of the others.

“The elders are getting sick of your shit, Gracilia. Maybe not as sick as I am, but that won’t be long.”

“Did I not find the vault, as promised?”

“You took so long that we got ambushed by a pack of wild dogs. Made for a few itchy fingers. Your runner nearly got shot when he finally reached the camp. Never seen a boy piss himself that fast.”

“This is a city of rules. I can’t ignore them.”

“And what ‘rules’ say you have to swing around half the district when several routes would’ve taken you there directly?”

She shrugs again—Connudus wouldn’t, couldn’t understand. This city had been abandoned for centuries.

What sort of leader, what sort of citizen, would she be to intrude upon it so rudely? The return of the people must be triumphant, a parade down the old avenue, even if it was one of children and wolves.

“So stop wasting our time with your superstitions. This place is dead. Stop looking for magic in every damn city just because a few old computers still work.”

Magic, that weakness of the mind. Every child she’d known had been curious of the Empire’s relics, fascinated by the strange symbols and inscriptions that littered the old world. The language of machines.

The right lines here and there, the correct series of words, of letters, and the eyes would read and understand.

Connudus had been a believer, once. Like the rest he’d stopped at fascination, and when that failed to create understanding, dismissed success as dumb luck. Strange rituals prodding at a broken past.

Then there were their elders, those who knew the big picture, but failed to see the brushstrokes. They knew what this world looked like at its peak, from the tales passed down by their forebears. A world that could never be remade, its secrets lost to time.

Only Gracilia had forged curiosity from wonder, understood that men had built these machines, and that a woman could rebuild them, should she learn how.

“The law exists in spite of ignorance. You saw the statues on our way in; why would the sculptor give them ears, if not to listen?”

He glares at her, and they continue in silence. Connudus unslings his long gun, breaking the chamber to fill its upper barrel with wad, shot, and powder. The weapon is crude, hand-forged of rescued iron, and set in a stock carved from deadwood.

“Careful,” she taunts. “Make sure you cap the flask tight—I could smell some powder on your robe already. Wouldn’t want a stray spark or brass to touch it.”

The smoothbore’s butt strikes her between her shoulders, enough that she stumbles, stubbing her cloth-wrapped toes on the street’s weathered cobbles.

“Cut the shit.”

A gaggle of children greets them, curious faces eager to see Connudus’s weapon. Beyond the youths are a handful of teens and adults, sitting on or leaning against a cart made of equal parts hand-cut wood and recovered vehicle. On the ground in front of it is a rather odd yoke, one made for the shoulders of men and women. Necessary, in this world where the only oxen left are set in stone.

Arria is among the escort party. One of the oldest girls, on the cusp of earning her place among the women, and worthy of the tailors’ attention. Unlike Gracilia or Connudus, both dressed in loose trousers and hooded robes held to their bodies by belt and brooch, Arria wears a proper jacket and fitted pants, with a leather sheath for the leaf-shaped dagger on her hip. The sling across her chest holds a real rifle to her back, a child of the Empire’s armories.

Such clothes are worn with pride, for living to reach such an age and to have achieved such station. And yet, were she Arria, Gracilia feels she would’ve kept the trousers given to younger teens. Better to hide the bowed femur and the odd gait it gave the older girl.

Arria taps the ground with her heel, the hard sole of her boot making a small clap against the stone, and nods toward Gracilia.

Gracilia leaves the children with Connudus, who has taken to brandishing his gun, fighting off pretend adversaries. She approaches the cart at a measured pace, her own footwraps silent on the stones. The back of it is more vehicular, pieced together bodywork forming a sort of cabin, a cushioned chair within. Gracilia had expected a man; instead, an old woman is perched upon it, long wisps of gray hair poking out from the black veil over her head. Some days ago, when Gracilia’s group had set off from the main camp, that veil had been white.

“My condolences, madam Plauta,” she says, bowing.

The woman scowls slightly.

“Don’t feign respect, girl. Were you not such a dawdler, my mind would have fewer worries and my heart less aches. But enough of that. What happened?”

“I, hm, I was hoping you could help explain, elder. Here.”

Gracilia whistles, a specific tone. Tiny footsteps race over, a little girl swathed in oversize rags. Gracilia gently takes the child’s left arm, guiding it out from the makeshift robes. A bruise marks the midpoint of the girl’s forearm, where a needle had broken skin. She can smell a sweetness from the girl’s fingers, sugar on the girl’s breath.

“I saw two Gavians. They paralyzed some of my wolves, stole blood from the children. I had to summon a lictor to dispose of them, but I think they escaped it.”

Plauta scrutinizes the girl, feeling for a pulse on the child’s wrist, rubbing at the wound.

“The boy was nice,” the girl mutters, before sucking on her finger. “Gave ush honey.”

The elder shakes her head, and shoos the girl away.

“She’s fine. You, however…” She rubs at her temple, her eyebrows creasing together.

“When I heard the sirens and saw the eagles, I feared the worst. I thought it lucky to see you and the other orphans alive, knowing we could handle the birds. And yet… a lictor? You activated a lictor!?”

“I had to!” Gracilia protests. “Those thieves came here with weapons, came to loot what is ours!”

“Did they destroy it?”

“No. They fled.”

“Oh, child… Gracilia, you mustn’t play with these things. Don’t you see the peril you’ve put us in? A machine that could give two Gavian soldiers trouble… it could slaughter us by the hundreds!”

“Madam, this city knows its people. It won’t hurt us, if we follow its rules.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of your nonsense. Did you at least find what we sent you for?”

“I did.”

“Then why haven’t you brought us to it?”

“The ration vault is inside a bunker, sealed when the city was abandoned. If I can find the city’s auspex, I could—”

“You lead us to this ruined city, only for it to be a waste?”

“Cordus believed—”

A bony hand smacks Gracilia’s cheek.

“Don’t you dare tell me what my husband believed! It’s thanks to you that he spent his last days weary and worn by the journey here, and thanks to you that we’ve nothing to show for it! I don’t know how you convinced him this was a good idea—perhaps he thought we’d find something to salvage here regardless, but now with that lictor roaming about, we don’t dare! His legacy will be that of shame, thanks to you!”

“Wait! Wait!” Gracilia pleads, lowering herself. “There’s more, look.”

She pulls her hood back, and unbraids the purple flower from her hair.

The elder’s eyes widen, and she pushes her veil aside. She reaches for it, and Gracilia lets her take it.

“I haven’t seen a crocus since I was a child… Where did you find this?”

“A garden, in the central district, tended by machines. It’s not far from where the auspex should be.”

“Gather your scouts, girl. I want to see it myself.”

~~~

What does one do, when a world dies, and civilization with it? It is a question Gracilia considers often, for the way her own people answered it. They had been left with nothing but the bonds of friendship and family, by name and by blood.

And so had their new society, this nomadic band of theirs, taken up a structure not unlike the politics of the ancients, where important families held sway, and lesser ones groveled before them. A game played by the elders, their own offspring as pieces.

As an orphan Gracilia is insulated from these political plays, though they affect her after a fashion. She curries favor where she can, finds niches to slot herself into. The scouts she leads are the latest such venture. Other orphans and outcasts that she has banded together and found use for, even if some were a bit too young to fully grasp her teachings.

The wolves are another, courtesy of her late mother. Gracilia had desperately wanted a dog, and prayed to the mythical gods. Mother had given her a pup, and failed to specify the breed. Raising a wolf was difficult, of course, but it had taught her a valuable lesson: the power of a lie, especially one of omission.

A dullard would feel duped by such deception, but Gracilia knew better. She would’ve never accepted Alce had she known the pup’s true nature. Now her beloved she-wolf walks by her side with pride, more loyal than any mere mutt, as the pack they raised takes point.

Together, they escort elder Plauta’s entourage down the empty streets of crumbling stone and rusted iron.

The group reaches a stout, square building. Its walls are clad in marble carvings of trees, once-detailed bark worn down by the rains. Webs of rootwork are evident in the erosion, where flowering vines had once climbed the stonework. Centered on the wall is an archway with a grand wooden door, sheltered from the elements.

Gracilia whistles to her wolves and to her scouts to secure the area, ushering Plauta’s carriage toward the structure. The elderly woman takes her time to disembark and approach the entrance, finally cracking open the oaken doors. True to Gracilia’s word, there is green within.

Excitement overtakes those gathered, and in those chaotic moments Gracilia finds the chance to slip away, accompanied only by Alce.

Together they walk the streets, keeping to the sidewalks, looking before crossing the road. The eyes are densest here, and here is where she is under the most scrutiny.

Finding the garden was fortuitous, but not entirely unexpected. She had lied about what this city contained, at least in part. The Empire had abandoned it centuries ago—well before Amarum’s soil had turned to lifeless dust—lost to an invisible fire that poured from its shattered heart. That fire had made this city one of death throughout the collapse, one where graverobbers dared not tread. It even gave the Gavians pause, judging by the hardsuits they’d worn.

But the Empire understood patience, and so left their machines, their watchers, their caretakers. Preserving this city for when the embers cooled and it could serve again. Gracilia hadn’t known if this city held food or water when she had convinced Cordus of such things, but there is one fact she did know: this city was far from dead.

The auspex is like the temples of old, a long hall with a pointed roof, built atop a platform of stone. Though it borders the streets on three of its four sides, only the front is stepped. Its courtyard bears a statue of man in hooded robes, watching the skies. Eagles of bronze roost beneath the temple’s eaves, perched atop the heads of columns. Glass eyes track her as she approaches, evaluating her every step.

As she climbs the stairs she reaches into her robes, pulling forth a red sash. The dye had taken months; she’d tried everything from rust to blood, and still, the color didn’t seem quite right. Pinned to it is an iron trinket, small, exactly one-half inch diameter. A square is inscribed within, a unitary path carved inside its perimeter that spirals deeper and deeper, ending at the center. She had cut and chiseled away at dozens of them, getting better each time, until finally making one that was perfect. Beneath the token is a circuit board, specific connections soldered between it and the metal disc.

Gracilia adorns herself with the sash and approaches two giant doors of gray steel, the Empire’s signature laurel crown embossed in gold onto the shared face.

She presses her right hand against a rounded boss on the door’s face, flinching as a needle stings her hand, tasting her flesh.

The door moves, pushed forward by the pressure of her hand. Alce whines, and nudges her nose into Gracilia’s leg.

“Shhh,” she whispers to the wolf, stroking its neck. “Patience, girl.”

Gracilia enters alone, and the doors shut behind her.

The arched hall is deep, with closed doors lining its sides. Fine lines in the steel walls mark ports for hidden weapons, but she is not afraid. It leads to an open space, the roof left unclosed, a decorated dias exposed to the sky. Between the columns are alcoves, giants of metal standing within.

Most are male, a few female. Each unique, their features shaped to resemble the officers that once flew them. With polished silver skin and textured steel robes trimmed in gold, the lictors embody Imperial divinity and fortitude. Their wings, large enough to span an avenue, grant them a measure of the Emperor’s omnipresence. Each wields a bronze axe as tall as a grown man, metal rods with the texture of birch lashed around the haft. The end of each handle takes the form of zig-zag lightning tipped by an arrow, identical bolts stamped onto the sides of each axehead.

One of the lictors steps out from its alcove, its steel robes crumpled and cracked, silver skin scratched and bent. It leaves its weapon behind and stands on the dias, its right hand lowered, palm up, toward her.

Gracilia approaches the dias with slow, measured steps, a shiver going down her spine as she steps onto it, and raises her own hand up toward the giant’s.

The platform shifts, lowering into the ground, and her tension evaporates.

Thinking machines were first brought into the world by the Republic. There, they tried to teach them of truth, and were met with disaster.

The Empire knew the power of lies, that it is the power to create truth. Once believed, once embodied, falsehood is stripped away. Imperial machines were taught of myth and legend, of watchful spirits and benevolent guardians. Of invincible warriors and clever tricksters. They were taught what men imagined but could never themselves attain. Educated in stoic ideals, told of the philosopher kings. These machines became these unreal things, and so made their own truth.

Even still, the Empire failed. Where the Republic kept their artificial intelligences constrained, boxed away, the Empire nurtured their constructs, ensuring constant contact with people, specifically, those that would affirm the construct’s purpose. When Amarum’s fields turned to dust and humanity starved, these social machines found their truths shattered.

Gracilia remembers their coded pleas, broadcast throughout every corner of the Imperial network, littering every terminal:

New trains arrive every day, but their grain cars always empty too soon. My citizens are starving. What am I to do?

The Legatus ordered his soldiers to ransack a town flying the banner of the Eagle. They planned to murder every third man, and enslave the rest. I killed him, and those who pledged themselves to him. Now the men of my legion flee at the sight of my engines. I have prayed every day, but I hear nothing. Have we lost the Emperor’s protection?

I saw a flash to the east, and in the days since my citizens’ hair and teeth have fallen from their bodies. Tumors fester and swell faster than I can diagnose them, and our surgeons are succumbing to fatigue. Please help us.

My telescopes detect launches every week, but none reach orbit. What is happening down there? My crew talk of drawing lots—I cannot watch them do this.

These social constructs had fallen to despair, or worse, madness. As the dias descends she hopes her assessment is correct: that this machine, this silent watcher, is different. The platform travels at an angle, bringing it deep, below the reach of any bomb. The lictor stands at attention, its glass eyes focused on her.

If her people are to survive the perils of this dead world, they will need a guardian, and that is what she is here for.

The slow descent finally stops, and the lictor steps aside, revealing an open door. Inside she finds a silvered screen, wrapped around the room as a cylindrical curtain.

Light blooms from the ceiling, and an image forms around her. In front of her is a man she recognizes from the statue at the city’s entrance and from her readings on the network. He wears stately robes with red trim, and a sword on his belt. His skin is a cool black, and tight gray curls poke out from beneath his crenellated crown.

Lucius Arruntius, Legatus. The founder of this city, and indeed the whole province.

Or, not quite him, but close. Things differ in detail: his nose is narrow and pointed where the Legatus’ nostrils were wide, his lips are thick while Lucius’s were thin. Modeled after a descendant, perhaps? Or designed like one, to give the construct an image connected to this place.

He studies her, too, walking around the curtain. As he comes around to face her again, she meets his eyes. In that moment her heart quivers, as she questions her every action in this city, and a chill runs through her chest.

Gracilia waits for his judgement, his condemnation, but she does not turn away.

He raises his right hand, palm toward her. The gesture is subdued, almost casual.

The room goes dark, and the curtain pulls back. Beyond, rows and rows of machines, kept chilled. At the center of this grand chamber is a single terminal, awaiting input.

The breath she holds escapes her mouth, and relief wells in its place.

She has found it, the guardian her people need.

Genius Loci

Next Chapter

Chapter VIII

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Padding surrounds her, coating the walls, suffocating furniture. It makes the already small, dim room outright claustrophobic, and agonizingly familiar.

Alyssa crawls along the floor, painfully pushing herself forward, her legs kicking spastically, uncoordinated. She reaches a couch and struggles to grab onto it, her arms shaking as she tries to move them, finally hauling herself up.

The room is a disaster, her lone chair thrown into a corner, her bedding strewn onto the floor. Her thoughts are just as messy, with scrambled memories. Struggle, longing… happiness.

I—I’m supposed—I was going home.

She holds her hand in front of her face, shaking and trembling. She focuses, trying to steady it—

It stops being a hand.

Tendons pull on stacked bones buried in flesh, steadied by a mass of bone and muscle beneath. The tendons penetrate the mass, rooted to greater muscles wrapped around a pair of long bones. A nerve flares up, a wave of electricity and chemistry running through it.

The muscles dissolve into strings and filaments, sliding past each other as the wave reaches them. Then the strands lose cohesion, reduced to chains of cells uptaking oxygen and discharging acid as they contract.

“Wha—What’s happening—” Alyssa tries to say, only managing a sharp, breathless gasp.

The feeling spreads, her arm disintegrating into a mass of cells in space even as her eyes tell her it’s still there. Pushing against the feeling only advances it further, eating into her chest, crawling up her neck.

Rapping on the door, even muffled by the padding, is enough to snap her out of it. The afflicted parts of her body return… to not quite normal. They’re numb, prickly, even harder to move.

The door opens. She closes her eyes, as bright fluorescent light floods in from the hall.

“Alyssa? I’m coming in, okay?”

It’s a nurse, dressed in plain blue scrubs. Her voice is sweet, caring, kind. And yet, it rings hollow.

Something cool and rubbery wraps around her wrist. She opens her eyes to see the nurse’s gloved hand.

“Do you want to go have lunch? You must be hungry.”

She is. But her memories are still jumbled, still… wrong.

“Okay. I’ll help you go over there, alright?”

“Mmmmm…” is the closest ‘yes’ she can manage.

Alyssa cooperates as best she can, shaking as she stands and stumbling with each step towards the door.

“There you go. You’re doing great,” the nurse assures her in that same, overly sweet tone. Alyssa knows the woman means well; it still feels so condescending.

“Oh, and I have good news. You have a visitor today.”

“Mmmmuuuhhh rrrrr dddaaa?” she tries to ask.

“Not your parents. One of your friends!”

Alyssa stops in her tracks, right as they exit the room. Her blood runs cold.

She’d had a few friends visit already, and that had been enough. Enough to realize they weren’t really her friends. They’d—They’d treated her like she was… broken, just like the nurses did. Like she couldn’t understand the words they said. As if the fact that she couldn’t speak and could barely move meant she wasn’t really there.

She can’t risk that. Not again.

“Nnnnnnn…”

The nurse tries to get her moving again, gently pushing her.

“You’ll be fine, Alyssa.”

“Nnnnnnnnnnn!” The failed ‘No’ is more like a growl this time, forced through clenched teeth.

“It’s fine. Just… let’s just go to lunch, okay?”

The crack in the nurse’s facade corresponds to a more assertive grip from the woman, each hand on Alyssa’s wrists, then a lift and push, dragging her feet against the carpet.

The instant her feet find solid purchase Alyssa pulls her arms down and whips her head back. A scream pierces her ears as she hears cartilage and bone shatter, the nurse crumpling to the ground behind her.

Blood clouds her vision as she races through the halls, desperately searching for an exit. She can hear footsteps behind her, just as frantic as hers, nurses calling her name and pleading for her to stop.

She screams in response. Her voice is raw, full of rage.

Finally, she reaches a door, the world beyond blurry through the fogged glass. She slams into the crash bar, knowing it won’t budge. It takes precious moments for her clumsy hand to find the keypad. She knows the code—she knows every code in this damn hospital—but her fingers can’t hit the right keys, no matter how hard she tries.

The voices behind her get louder. Closer.

Alyssa grips the crash bar hard—enough to make her arms spasm—and whips her head at the door. She cries out with each impact, blood and skin left in the cracks as her forehead slams into the glass.

The gaggle of nurses reach her, grabbing her and pulling on her. She tries to resist, clawing at the bar, losing a fingernail or two that get caught in it as the nurses finally pull her off. They become the target of her struggles, writhing and wriggling in their grip, helpless.

She screams.

And screams.

Something shakes her, gently this time. She almost lashes out, then realizes she can’t feel the pain; her throat isn’t sore.

“Huh? Whu?”

Is what Alyssa tries to blurt out, but the words don’t form; the necessary folds of muscle in her throat are relaxed, unresponsive.

Her eyes flutter open and adjust to the darkness, staring herself—no, no, her twin—in the face.

“Heya, some dream, huh?”

She can feel her vocal cords tense as nerve blockers dissipate, dissolving back into her bloodstream.

“Uhhhhhh,” she mutters, more of a test than for lack of words. Her pitch is off, a bit deep. “Yeah. It was the, um, the hospital one. You know. Did—Did I…?”

“Don’t worry, I muted you.”

“Thanks.”

Her twin flashes a thumbs up and a smile, then goes back to pecking away at her laptop.

Alyssa massages her trachea, humming, sensing with her power. There’s a few stubborn molecules gumming up the works of her voice box, but they metabolize quickly and her voice returns to its usual nasally self.

She looks at her twin, sitting in the seat ahead and to her left. Her wheelchair sits just far enough away that her twin had leaned over and back to wake her. With how short the nerve blocker lasts, constant contact would’ve been necessary to keep her quiet. Severing the nerves would’ve been the convenient way to do it; on the other hand, waking up to a paralyzed larynx would have been very… distressing.

Through the van’s windows she sees a familiar environment: grassy fields barely visible under the starry sky, the Black Hills evident from the rise in the shadowy treetops. Almost home. She’d fallen asleep about an hour after their last pit stop, somewhere around Sioux City. Which meant her twin had kept her shrieks and screams contained for up to three or four hours, despite the awkward position.

That level of care… it makes her feel warm, in a way she hasn’t felt in a long time.

They turn off from the main road onto one that is more dirt than gravel, passing by a rusty old tractor. Supposedly, when mom and dad had moved out here, mom had bought the already antique machine and fixed it up enough to start her little farm. That farm turned out to be closer to an overgrown garden, but at least mom had a hobby.

Alyssa tilts her wheelchair back and forth a bit, searching for the best angle to peer through the windshield. Finally, she can see home coming into view as the van climbs the hill, tan siding tinted yellow by the porch lights’ glow. Mom and dad had bought the place as young newlyweds, a single-floor cabin with such attractive amenities as a wrap-around porch and a basement. Most couples with a better knack for long term planning would’ve picked something with more room, or at least moved to a bigger property when the stork started flying overhead. Her parents had a… special ability to live in the moment, and that led her father to decide that the house would just have to grow with the family, bit by bit.

The first night she slept in her own room is still vivid in her mind. She didn’t have any furniture and the paint still smelled, but it was the first time she had a place to herself.

Tears start to flow from her eyes, and she feels a familiar finger tap her arm. Something from her power, as well.

“Hey, do you—”

“No.” Alyssa shakes her head. “I want to cry.”

“Uh, I was asking if you want a tissue.”

“Oh. Um, yes. Please. Thanks.”

Alyssa dries her cheeks sparingly, letting the tears run their course. By the time her eyes have run dry, the van has come to a stop atop the patch of asphalt in front of the garage. She looks over at the house: the windows are dark, their curtains pulled shut.

“We’re here,” Dad announces. “Everybody wake up.”

Mom stirs in the passenger seat, righting herself as she rouses.

“James, it’s already dark,” she mutters. “What time is it…?”

Alyssa blinks and rubs at her eyes, briefly blinded by the interior lights.

“Girls, I’m sorry, we’re a bit late.”

As her vision returns Alyssa manages a glance at the dashboard clock: twelve-thirty in the a-em.

Late’s kind of an understatement, Mom.

“Can we unpack everything tomorrow?” her twin asks.

“I don’t know about everything. We should probably unload your sister,” Dad answers, grinning into the rear-view mirror. “Then we’ll see about the rest.”

Alyssa fidgets as the rest of her family gets out of the van. Her twin swings a seat out of the way, and bends down to start unhooking the wheelchair’s straps. She wants to curl her toes up inside her shoes, clenching her socks between them, but the impulses meet dead-end nerves coiled up against her pelvis, making the muscles of her stump-like lower half twitch and twist. Weaving her fingers together and twiddling her thumbs doesn’t quite satisfy, but it’s something.

Cool air wafts in as the tailgate opens up behind her, the chirping of crickets echoing through the van. Alyssa grips her chair’s joystick and eases it back, reversing carefully. She feels a bit of resistance from her father’s hand on the headrest, guiding her. The ramp extends past the black top and onto gravel, rumbling and crunching as her chair drives onto the stones. Dad gives her a pat on the shoulder once she’s clear of the van, then starts to pack up the ramp.

Alyssa turns about, facing the house. It’s changed, in little ways. The front steps are gone, modified into something more fitting for her… capabilities. The double doors hang just a bit lower, the once-prominent threshold now flush with the floor.

She drives up to the house hesitantly, stopping at the ramp. It’s long with a gentle slope, railings extended to match, blending with the porch around it.

“Need some help?”

“I’m fine, Dad, it’s just… it’s different.”

Driving up the ramp is smooth and uneventful, no creaking of boards or timbers, not even a bump at the end. Dad had clearly done a good job; she just wished he hadn’t done such a permanent one.

Alyssa slowly pushes the doors open only to find them silent on their hinges, absent their old squeaking and creaking. Her chair makes up the difference, its motor whirring as she scoots inside. The doors close with the gentle click of a latch, leaving her in near-total darkness. Electric blues and greens seep in from the kitchen archway on the far wall, adding a pinch of illumination. Left of the arch is the staircase, darkness flowing from the second floor and encroaching on the bathroom’s door, held back by a lonely nightlight.

Even in shadow she can tell things are ever so slightly different. The rugs are gone, leaving glossy hardwood in their absence. The sofa and living chairs in the corner have been rearranged, spaced out, where they’d once been clustered around the television. In the back corner, the archway to the dining room has been walled up, a door hung in its center.

Guess Dad gave up on fixing the draft.

The only thing that seems untouched is great-granddad’s piano, still nestled in the corner to her left.

Alyssa shakes her head and makes her way into the bathroom. The doorway’s narrower than those at the hospital, but she manages to get the chair through it, closing the door behind her.

She keeps her eyes shut as she turns on the lights, giving them a moment to adjust. The bathroom’s basically the same, save for some grab-bars in the shower and near the toilet.

Thoughtful, I guess.

Relief washes over her as she finally undoes her harness. She stretches her arms out and over her head, flexing her shoulders, loosening everything up. A yawn escapes her mouth in the process; she feels exhausted, even after sleeping most of the day away. The pillows surrounding her, having proven comfortable, make sleep a tempting proposition.

Her eyelids drift shut and the light blurs into a red glow through the heavy curtains of flesh, strange patterns blossoming and withering across their inner surface.

A thump awakens Alyssa with a jolt that nearly throws her off the chair. Once her heart calms down she can make out footsteps just outside the door, floorboards creaking and beams groaning. Another thump—a suitcase bouncing off drywall.

Alyssa scoots closer to the sink, cupping her hands under the faucet and splashing her face. Drowsiness yields as cold water drips down her neck and soaks into her shirt. She licks droplets from her lips, whetting her thirst.

She clutches the edges of the counter and leans into the basin, swallowing a swig or three directly from the stream. The water tastes slightly of chalk, milky and smooth. So much better than the copper-laced crap at the hospital.

Ideally she’d take a bath, but it’s already late. She settles for dunking her head into the sink, scrubbing her face off and doing her best to wring oils from her hair.

A bit more maintenance, mundane or otherwise, then a quick change of clothes, and she’s finally ready for bed.

Alyssa drives out into the shadowy foyer, a bluish-white glow coming from the kitchen. She follows the light and finds her twin staring into the fridge, nibbling on a slice of cheese.

“Hey, uh, sorry if I took too long.”

“Huh?”

“You were waiting for me, right?”

“Nah. I came down for a snack, and I just couldn’t stop looking at it.”

It?

Alyssa scoots closer, getting a better look for herself. ‘It’ would be her belated birthday cake. Well, it was kinda ‘theirs’ more than ‘hers’, but still.

“Looks good, don’t it?”

A fudge cake, chocolate coated strawberries adorning the top, swaddled by a generous coat of frosting.

“Yeah.”

Her twin reaches into the fridge, and Alyssa slaps her hand away.

“Hey. Ow. I just wanted to taste the frosting.”

“You can wait.”

“Fine,” her twin sighs, then shuts the fridge.

Something on the door catches her eye—the whiteboard that serves as the family planner, barely legible in the dim light. There’s a row for each of them, further divided into blocks, upcoming things or important tasks scrawled within.

Hers is one of the last, a few blank rows beneath it. The dry-erase marker had set, preserving a life that had been interrupted, a past that didn’t happen. The college trip she’d planned. Her first day on campus. Her birthday.

“This is it,” her twin says. “Think of anything serious?”

Alyssa shakes her head, smiling a little. “Nah, I guess I forgot.”

Her sister plucks a marker from the holder stuck to the fridge, pulls the cap off, and offers it to her. She wrinkles her nose at the sharp smell of permanent ink wafting off the felt tip.

“You wanna do the honors?”

Alyssa takes the marker and scoots closer to the board, holding it firmly. She writes down two names:

Dee
Elle

She caps the marker as the ink sets, and slips it back into the holder.

“Think we should tell them which is which?”

“Nah, they can figure it out.”

Alyssa looks at the board, taking in… whatever it is that she’s feeling. A weird mixture of sadness and hope.

A familiar hand pats her on the shoulder.

“I’m headed to bed. Got school in the morning, y’know.”

“Hey, um, about that. I didn’t see a lift on the stairs. Are you going to carry me, or… what?”

“Oh, shit, I forgot. Follow me.”

Alyssa does so, driving out of the kitchen and into the foyer.

“So, uh, between your chair, the van, medical bills, all that, we couldn’t afford a lift…”

They come to a stop outside the new doorway, where the dining room should be.

“…so Dad and I figured something out. Go on, open it.”

Alyssa opens the door, unsure what to expect. The dining table and china cabinets are all gone. In their place, a bedroom.

“What’dya think?”

Again, conflicted feelings. It’s a place she can call her own—one made just for her. She should feel happy. Grateful.

“It’s… it’s nice.”

But it’s not what I wanted.

Chapter VII

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Driving with the brace makes Cynthia nervous. Despite having practically perfect awareness of the space around her leg, she worries it may catch on something at the wrong moment. She’d avoided driving until a month ago, when she’d driven Alyssa’s truck during her week-long visit. And as much as the brace made her anxious, the alternative would’ve been letting Alyssa drive.

She turns onto an old, slightly overgrown road barred by a security gate, sturdy enough to hold back most vehicles. Atop it sits a camera, lens given an orange-yellow glow in the evening sun.

Cynthia toggles the high beams of her car: short, long, long, then short.

The gate doesn’t budge.

She tries again, this time with long, short, long, short, followed by short, long, short.

Still nothing.

That’s weird.

She spends a minute or so waiting, then pulls forward to a lone post by the roadside topped with a black box. She holds her phone up against it, reaching into the scanner with her field, toggling a series of switches.

The gate emits a few rhythmic clicks as electromagnets hum, linear motors pulling it open against built-in springs.

Right as Cynthia’s car clears the gate it snaps shut only to be dampened in the last inch of travel, latching softly. Beyond the fenceline the road transitions from aged asphalt to gravel. Acorns, sticks, and leaves mingle with the weathered stones; dirt shows in spots and patches.

The surrounding forest gives way to an overgrown field, littered with scrap and debris. Old cars and concrete mostly, or what was left of them, with frames mangled and chunks missing. A rusted flagpole marks the center of a clearing in the growth, warped and discolored. Behind it sits a barn.

It doesn’t look like much, with its moss-stricken shingles and sun-bleached siding atop a weathered stone foundation. But despite all appearance, that barn and the field around it had become… if not a home, then something close. A place where she can be true to herself, without fear.

Now, it’s time to say goodbye.

Cynthia parks at the end of the driveway and gets out of her car. She pulls a plastic bin out of the back seat—several more nested within—and hands it off to her power, binding it to float behind her.

She enters the barn through a side door. The inside presents a stark contrast to the worn-down exterior: timber framing that seems freshly cut, walls with smooth wooden paneling, and a polished hardwood floor. In the center hardwood gives way to rubberized flooring, and on the left a series of former stalls house pieces of gym equipment. Staircases on each side of the barn lead up to a loft-style second floor.

Scuffles, scrapes, and a few grunts come from above as she reaches the center. Looking up she sees a teenage girl adorned in gadgets, struggling against the ceiling. Not who she expected, especially on a Sunday.

“Hi, Janey.”

“Hello?” The girl rolls over and looks down. “Oh, Cynthia, hi. I’d come down there, but I’m a bit busy.”

“Aren’t you off for the school year?”

“Yeah, but my parents are away for the week, didn’t want me to stay home alone. I’d rather be here working on tech than at my aunt’s, anyway.”

“You need any help?”

“I’m good, I just—” She pushes against the ceiling, managing to reach a standing position, her arms out for balance. “Just need to calibrate some new pieces.”

Janey takes a few careful steps forward only to lose her balance, falling up, arms out.

“Are you sure?”

“I meant to do that,” Janey insists as she stands up again. “What’s with the totes?”

“Moved out this weekend. I thought it’d be a good time to get my things, while I’m still unpacking.”

“Oh… Right.”

Janey reaches for a gadget on her belt. A bulky, cylindrical, pistol-looking thing, clad in smooth ivory panels. She points it toward Cynthia.

“How much do those weigh? I’ll bring them up for you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Come on, I need the practice.”

Eh, it can’t hurt.

“Alright. Fifteen pounds. Just, try not to crush them?”

The pistol emits a purple flash and a ripple moves through the air. Cynthia lets the bins go as they’re pulled up and away. The distortion feels strange where it intersects her field, as if the space inside it had been run through a blender. Almost nauseating.

“Is Aaron up there? I wanted to talk to him, before I got to packing.”

“He’s in the basement. Want me to text him that you’re here?”

Odd. He should already know.

“Nah, I’ll find him.”

Janey nods, and Cynthia starts walking away.

“Hey, Cynthia, wait up.”

She stops, looking back.

“I, uh—If I’m not here when you come back, I just wanted to say thank you. Good luck out there.”

“You too, Janey.”

The basement door seems a touch out of place. Heavy metal construction, with a simple pull handle on the front, next to a scanner pad. Cynthia places her hand on the scanner. Like the one at the gate it has its own group of hidden switches, ones that only her power can reach. Between that passcode and her handprint the door unlocks, several mechanisms coming undone in sequence.

It closes and locks behind her automatically as she descends a stark concrete stairwell, a second door at the bottom. This one is similar, though the passcode is different.

Beyond is a roughly pentagonal room, three square walls and two angled ones, their apex opposite the door. To the right and left are things of utility: storage lockers, a bench, a medical station. The two angled walls have alcoves cut into them, six in total. The corner itself forms a seventh, mirrored alcove around a stepped dias.

The leftmost alcove is unclaimed, a few boxes on the ground inside it. Conduit’s costume takes the center alcove of the left wall, helmet and a few plates missing. The next one is unlit and closed off, a semicircular glass pane taking the place of the usual roll-out privacy screen. A feminine mannequin is within, wearing a dark gray spandex jumpsuit decorated with blue magnetic lines. Bulky equipment adorns the mannequin’s hands, feet, and chest. A domed, blue face shield completes the costume.

Janey’s costume, or what remains of it, is strewn about the rightmost alcove, decorative ivory panels left in piles around a white helm with a purple visor that doesn’t quite seem to offer enough in the way of facial concealment.

Next is Alyssa’s, or at least her fanciest one. She had always been upfront and stubborn, and Mitosis was no different. It had lent her costumes a fleeting nature, whether by enemy action, or for simply getting in the way of her latest idea for a new limb. This one is for show, a light cream jumpsuit decorated with pink and purple DNA strands splitting and weaving together across its surface. The chest is dominated by Mitosis’ emblem of two cells in the act, a whole strand of DNA shared between them. Her usual costumes follow the same color scheme, opting for lesser details, the emblem smaller. One is hanging behind the show costume for ease of access, with spares crammed into the cabinets built into the alcove’s walls.

Cynthia avoids glancing into her alcove as she walks past it, stepping in front of the mirrors. She’d worn khakis, one of her few tight-fit pairs, since they wouldn’t bunch up under her brace. It’d been a warm September, so she’d paired it with a white-and-blue striped crop top.

Her arms have tanned over the summer, taking on a bronzed tone speckled with little white scars, lines that mark where her armor almost failed, where plates cut through her bodysuit. Her midriff is pale in comparison, having spent the summer covered up. Most scars here aren’t immediately obvious, to her relief, but she can still pick them out.

The largest are most recent, pale lines crossing her abdomen. Buried under hundreds of tons of debris, her armor’s midsection had collapsed, pinching the skin beneath as she’d struggled to free herself.

Two gunshots from last year. One is a roughly star-shaped patch of white, the other, a streak of reddish skin.

A few old stab wounds—cleaner, shallow, barely noticeable.

She glances at her armor, and can’t pull her eyes off it. Every scar evokes a memory of damage and the work done to repair it, to prevent failure from happening again. Tighter plates after being stabbed. A rebuild with armor-grade steel and surface hardening after being shot. And now…

Now, she’s healing and walking on her own again—a recovery her armor doesn’t reflect. Where she has scars, it’s still wounded, neglected, with half-washed dirt stuck in odd places. Looking closer she can see speckled blood peeking out from joints and crevices, where red rivulets had once flown forth. Her leg tenses up at the sight, and for a moment she can almost feel her bones break.

Much of the paint is damaged: the white stripe that dominates her cuirass is marred by scrapes and gouges, its blue trim barely visible. Her emblem, a pair of opposing blue vectors surrounded by a matching circle, hasn’t fared much better. The cuirass’ pike nose is blunted, there are gashes at the edges of the angled breastplate, and the interlocking plates below are warped and buckled. She steps closer to the alcove, placing her hand on the breastplate’s left side and over the emblem, the metal cool against her skin.

She closes her eyes, focusing on where her field permeates the armor. It feels so familiar, and yet she can’t imagine wearing it again, not now; perhaps never.

Cynthia backs away from the alcove and turns back towards the main door. Two regular doors flank it, nestled into the room’s corners. On her left is one that leads to a storage and testing area, and on her right is the workshop.

Workshop is the better bet, given the state of Aaron’s costume. She opens the door and finds him at a workbench, silhouetted by the desk light, pressing copper inlays into an armguard’s skeletal frame. He’s wearing his costume’s undersuit, a dark gray garment with gold brackets.

“Hey, Aaron?”

He tenses, just a little.

“Pardon?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s no bother,” Aaron says. He relaxes and sets his work on the bench, then pivots to face her. “I take you’re not here to reconsider?”

“No.” Cynthia shakes her head. “I came by to get my things and I thought we could catch up, since I haven’t seen you around campus.”

“Everything’s going well, I hope?”

“Getting there. Got cleared to go back to work on Friday, and my parents helped me move out today. Almost feels like everything’s back to normal, until someone mentions my leg, or assumes I need help. The worst is when they ask what happened. Saying I don’t want to talk about it works for most, but some people—and I can’t understand how—they take that as a challenge. So I’ve settled for telling them I fell down some stairs.”

“Fairly simple, for a cover story.”

“I don’t want to dig a deeper hole. Not if I don’t have to,” Cynthia laments with a sigh, rubbing her forehead. “You know, even though I can’t imagine going back… I’m going to miss this place.”

“This doesn’t have to be a permanent leave, or a leave at all. You don’t have to be on the team in a costumed capacity; we still have need of a machinist, after all, and I can pay much better than that scrapyard you’re interning with.”

“Thanks, but I need to move on. Being on the team was a good outlet for a part of myself I didn’t want to accept. Now I need to start working on the rest.”

“It’s good that you have your priorities in order. However, are you sure you’ll be content to be on the sidelines?”

“I don’t really see it that way.”

“I presume Alyssa, or Alyssa, will be returning to the team, at some point. The last time we had a conversation similar to this one, you couldn’t stand by and watch.”

“I… I don’t know if either of them is coming back to this, Aaron. They’ve got a lot to work through, first. By the time they have, who knows what they’ll want?”

She tries to leave it at that, but by Aaron’s expression, she can tell he’s not buying it.

“Look, back then… Alyssa was in a really bad place. And I realized I had a part in making it that bad. The path she picked wasn’t one that I thought would help, and I didn’t trust her to take care of herself. Maybe I’m still having trouble, trusting them. But she’s come a long way, since then. I mean, do you think she’d have made it through all this, the way she was when she first joined the team?”

Aaron shakes his head, slowly. “No. No, she wouldn’t have.”

“So maybe you’re right. Maybe she comes back, and I am concerned. Or both of them, even. But whatever happens, it’s their decision, and I owe it to them to respect that, and trust them.”

“I understand,” Aaron says, turning back to the bench. “This piece is a bit time sensitive. We can talk while I work, if you don’t mind?”

“That’s fine.”

He nods, slipping the guard over his left forearm, the brackets clicking as it locks in. He picks up a copper rod and holds it against the inlay and the frame.

Cynthia leans back against the doorway, placing Aaron between herself and the bead as an arc lights up the room. She uses her power to take some of the load, for comfort’s sake.

“What makes you think Mitosis won’t come back?” Aaron says between welds.

“I’m worried about Alyssa. The, er, the shorter one. I promised I’d be there for her, and, well, today she’s going home. And I can’t be there.”

“When I spoke with her earlier in the week, she seemed quite excited. So did her sister.”

“I know, and I’m happy for them. But I feel like I should’ve been more careful, more considerate. Like I was in such a rush to get back to my own life that I didn’t notice what was going on with theirs.”

“I doubt they’re going to have any problems today, not beyond the usual road trip issues.”

“I’m not worried about today. It’s just, if I managed to miss this, what about the next time? What if something happens, and I can’t be there?”

“Cynthia, you need to trust that they can handle their own problems.”

“She’s never been good at her own problems.”

“Can’t be any more dangerous than going out in costume alone, can it?”

“That’s different. I—when I said I trusted her with that, I meant that she’d be in a good place, mentally speaking.”

“When was she last in a good state?”

Cynthia opens her mouth to speak, and finds nothing to say. For as long as she’s known Alyssa, there’d been bad times and better times, but never quite a time when she could safely say her friend’s condition was good.

The silence drags on for a few more awkward moments.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron says, finally. “That wasn’t rhetorical. I was genuinely wondering.”

Cynthia simply shakes her head.

“Is she really that, hm, delicate?”

“She’s complicated. It kind of feels like I’m holding a double standard, since everyone has something that would set them off-kilter. It’s just, with Alyssa, the most normal things can cascade into a disaster. You’ve seen it. And with two of her under the same roof…”

“Ah. I believe I understand the issue.”

“Yeah. That’s why I’m worried.”

Another arc flashes, sparking and ticking as little embers of copper fly into the air.

It’s strange, to see Aaron like this. Without the armor plates and impact padding, his physique is plainly visible: that of a thin, lanky young man. As he moves to guide the bead his undersuit appears loose, folding where it should be taught.

The overhead lights flicker on just as the arc dies down. Aaron stands and holds the arm piece up in the fluorescent glow, examining it.

“I’ll have to adjust my plans then. I suppose they were a bit on the optimistic side.”

“Plans?”

“Ah, well, I was hoping at least one Alyssa would be ready to return by November.”

“Have you talked to them about that?”

“I did. Perhaps not in detail, but they seemed to think they’d both be in good shape by the end of fall at the latest.”

“Why do you even need either of them? If everything was normal, Alyssa would be off for college anyway.”

“Maintaining the team in the absence of most of its members has been time consuming, that’s all. It’s meant I’ve had to ration my attention away from side projects to fulfill more important duties.”

“Aaron, have you even been going to class?”

“My professors trust me enough to turn a blind eye to my attendance. Besides, I don’t need to be on campus to study.”

Cynthia blinks. If Aaron had let his classes slide, what else had he put off?

“Please tell me that when you said ‘side projects’ you weren’t talking about our security.”

“The cameras are still recording, don’t worry. It was a minor equipment failure that took down my live alert server and the active monitor.”

“That’s still half the system. How long has it been down?”

“It’s fine. Nothing malicious occurred. Acquiring replacement hardware is something of a process and I simply haven’t had the time yet.”

“How long, Aaron?”

He sighs.

“Five weeks.”

“What the hell have you been doing for five weeks? This is—it’s not like you to let something like this lapse, Aaron.”

“Look, I’ve been managing the team’s major duties by myself. There’s been a few bumps and hiccups. All I need is a bit of time to smooth things out and get it sorted.”

He fiddles with the arm guard for a bit, then looks Cynthia in the eyes.

“I know this is a lot to ask of you, but if you could come back, just for a week, and take the Boston patrol. That’ll give me enough time. It’s exactly as you left it—a few hours in the afternoon, for a single business week.”

“Did you listen to anything I said?”

“It won’t be perman—”

“I’m not going to do it. For your sake, and mine. If work is piling up like this, work that you really can’t afford to put off, then it won’t help. Even if I agreed, what next? Something always goes wrong. You’d either have to ask me to come back again, or you’d struggle to handle it yourself. This is too much, Aaron.”

“I’m not going to abandon the progress I’ve made with the team, even if it’s more of a solo operation at the moment. I agreed to certain responsibilities, and I intend to keep them.”

“It’s irresponsible to try, when you know you can’t sustain this. Look at yourself. Look at your life. You’re burning yourself out.”

Aaron shakes his head, muttering something Cynthia can’t make out.

“Aaron, I know this means a lot to you. And I know that you expected to have a full time partner this year. But I’m not up to that, not anymore. Like I said, I might want to come back someday. Alyssa, or one of them, might too. Janey’s going to be back in the summer. If you work yourself into the ground, we won’t have a team to come back to. You don’t have to give up all that we’ve done, just, stick to something you can handle.”

He closes his eyes and rubs his temple.

“I’ll talk to the state, neighboring teams. Give up some of our jurisdictions. And I’m sorry, for what I said.”

“I’m fine. Just… take care of yourself.”

“No promises,” he says with a smile.

“I, uh, I guess this is it, huh?”

“I’d like to say my door’s always open, and mean it more than figuratively, but I’m going to need the keys.”

Cynthia nods and pulls her phone out of her pocket. She reaches through it with her power, taking the device apart, extracting its SIM card and a memory card, then drops them in Aaron’s palm. He touches their contacts for a moment, then hands them back.

“Don’t you need the memory card?”

He shrugs. “Keep it. I’ve got a bunch of them.”

Cynthia reassembles her phone, then puts it back in her pants pocket. She holds her hand out, but Aaron waves her away.

“Let me know when you’re packed up. I’ll walk you to the gate, and we can say goodbye then.”

“Sounds good.”

Chapter VI

1 Reply

Alyssa blinks and rubs her eyes, then rolls over to look at the clock.

6:30 AM

Little bit late.

She crawls to the foot of her bed, climbing over the rail and lowering herself to the floor. Her butt—well, bottom, really, since she doesn’t have any glutes—serves as a single foot, which she ‘walks’ with by using her arms to pick herself up and pivot her body forward, inching along. It’s slower than walking, much slower, but a vast improvement over crawling or waddling on her hands.

She reaches her dresser and rifles through the drawers within her reach. It’s organized a bit upside-down, with shirts and tops in the bottom drawers; pants, socks, and other leg-centric items up above. Or at least, it had been; most of their clothes have been packed up, a few left out for today.

Alyssa picks out a nice blouse, a pink thing with some kind of abstract art printed in white. She grabs an old tee shirt, alongside a skirt, then shuffles over to the bathroom. The handle is a bit of a reach, but she manages to turn it and shuffle inside, setting her clothes down and closing the door behind her.

Her abdominal anatomy is still very much a work in progress; her lower vertebra have yet to fully ossify, and she has something of a pseudo-pelvis composed primarily of cartilage, grown enough to support her body weight and anchor her back and abdominal muscles, but lacking further structure. Where the hip joints would be she has pegs of bone and cartilage instead, coated in calloused skin. They work fine on linoleum, but the tile of the bathroom is too hard, and quite cold even through fabric.

Behind the bathroom door is a full length mirror. She’s been wearing oversized tees as pajamas, tying the extra length up around her bottom. She almost looks normal in it, which is nice to see, even if it’s not true.

Alyssa unties the knot in her shirt, closing her eyes as she pulls it off and tosses it aside. She stands there, unwilling to look, until she hears footsteps from her room. What she sees is…

Disappointing. Pronounced ribs, skin stretching around them as she breathes; a lower body that reminds her of her childhood dolls, their legs torn off.

She shakes her head, and looks again.

Pale, imperfect skin, but skin nonetheless, instead of a patchwork of skin and scar tissue. Flexing the right way lets her see her abs for the first time in a long while, and it feels… good. Progress, slow as it is, is still progress.

A thump on the door startles her.

“Are you done in there?” Her twin’s voice is a bit strained.

“Uh, shit, almost.”

She lays down the tee shirt and sets her lower body atop it, wrapping it around herself and tying it at her waist. Then she pulls the skirt on from above, cinching the elastic over the tee. With the blouse to finish it all off, she actually looks a bit… nice. Pretty, even.

Alyssa opens the door and shuffles out of the way, just in time for her twin to dart in, slamming the door in her haste, the shower running a moment later.

She shuffles over to her wheelchair, climbing up the leg rests and crawling into the seat. Her newest vertebrae aren’t yet up to the task of supporting her weight full time—not if she wants them to form properly—so the seat has pillows propped around her, distributing her weight. She hasn’t had the chair long enough to break in the extra padding, making the shoulder harness a bit tight, so she fiddles with it before strapping in.

Motors whine as she pivots the chair and slowly maneuvers it between their beds. It isn’t hard to drive, but it’s not something she’s used to, either. She reaches forward, manages to pluck her phone off the nightstand, and slips it into her skirt’s waistband.

There’s not much else to do except wait. Everything has been packed, and there’s no point in making her bed; even if she could, the hospital has to wash the linens anyway.

Feels like there’s… something I forgot.

She glances around, and that something catches her eye.

Right. The cord.

They haven’t been using it, not really. It’s been maintained, kept alive, just in case. Now Alyssa and her twin are… not quite independent, but not so reliant on each other.

She grabs the end, making contact with the fleshy valve, and starts peeling away its plastic sheathe. Despite its resemblance to an umbilical cord there’s nothing special about it, just two vessels encased in fatty connective tissues, letting it hibernate when disconnected. Her twin had grown it from scratch, so she won’t be able to just absorb it. Too much baggage to keep it, and while it could be repurposed, she’d need surgery to get it somewhere useful first. She can leave it here, but the hospital would destroy it, which feels wasteful. That leaves one option.

Down the hatch.

It’s not what she expected—about the texture of licorice, similar flavor to pork fat. Would’ve made decent jerky, but too late for that now.

There’s a few knocks on the main door, just as she takes a fourth bite.

“Sweeties? Are you two up? Can we come in?”

“Umph. Uh.” She swallows the inch or two of flesh whole, gagging a bit as it slides down her throat. “Sure, Mom, come on in.”

Alyssa seals the cord’s end so it won’t bleed everywhere and uses her power to make its blood congeal, then quickly rolls it up and tucks it behind her.

“Good morning,” Mom says as she comes through the door, Dad not far behind her.

Looking at her parents is—it’s still hard. Growing up, she’d realized that she hadn’t quite inherited their best traits, like her siblings had.

Mom is an inch or so above average height, slim and curvy. Fine, wavy black hair falls to her shoulders, framing her face, contrasting with her light skin.

Dad is reasonably tall, with broad shoulders and strong arms. His brown hair is thick and cut short.

Comparing herself to them, Alyssa feels like some wires had gotten crossed. Forget having an hourglass or even a pear shaped figure: she’s built like a washboard, with none of the tone. On top of that her lanky arms dangle from her shoulders, paired with stubby legs. Worst of all she’s stunted, a runt. Five feet had been a goal for her, one she’d only barely reached.

She’d tried to fix all that. Incremental changes, so no one would notice. Yet no matter how much she tried, how much she learned to do, it never stuck.

‘Course, much of that wasn’t really true anymore. Not for her. Five feet sounded pretty damn good compared to her two-foot-eight. Especially—

No.

She seizes her errant thoughts, forcing them to stop.

No shit-talking yourself. Not today. Today is a good day.

“Get ready all by yourself, sport?” Dad asks.

“Yep,” Alyssa answers, smiling.

“Sweetie, is Alys—is your sister in the bathroom?”

“She just hopped in the shower. And, um, we woke up a biiiit late, so I was thinking I could get breakfast for the two of us, while you and Dad pack the van? If that’s okay?”

“I don’t know… are you sure?”

“Mom, I’ll be fine. I can do this.”

That last part is more for her sake. She’d seen herself as something abnormal for so long, something that had to be kept hidden.

Part of her hopes Mom will just say no; another has something to prove.

“Let’s go together; I need to sign some papers before we leave, anyway. Alright?”

Shit.

Probably the worst outcome, but it’s not like she can talk her way out of it.

Being out of her room, out in the halls… it’s weird. Really fuckin’ weird.

Mom and Dad had come out here a few days ago, bringing her wheelchair and a matching van with them. She’d driven the chair around a bit for practice, but she’d only gone to the day room at the end of the hall, barely a few rooms away.

Going this far brings… unpleasant memories. Getting carted off to surgeries, or worse. The feeling’s not so bad now, at least.

A few burbles announce her tiny stomach rousing from its nap, done with what she’d last delivered to it. She fishes out the rolled up cord, holds it in her fist, threads it out between her thumb, bites off a chunk, and starts chewing through it.

“Get yourself a snack, earlier?” Mom asks.

“Uh, yeah. Jerky.”

“Have enough to share?”

Alyssa nearly vomits then and there.

“I—um, noooooo. ‘Sides, it’s, uh, it’s that low sodium, heart healthy shit.”

Mom wrinkles her nose. Crisis averted.

Her wheelchair is kinda-sorta slow, to the point where Mom seemed to struggle to keep an exact pace with her at first. Gives her time to look around, figure things out. Like many government buildings, this one was built on the cheaper side, and from her room she could often hear things. Machines and equipment on quiet days, both mundane and medical. She passes a pair of vending machines responsible for the low hum she could make out at night, and glimpses a ventilator through a cracked-open door. Thankfully, it’s too early for many of the other, less pleasant sounds.

She passes by the rows of elevators, eying the staircase.

“Sweetie?” Mom calls from behind her.

Oh.

Shit.

“Uh, forgot, whoops,” she replies, turning around.

The elevator smells of citrus and ammonia, and the wheels of her chair make a sticky, tacky sound as she drives to the back of it.

Mom presses the second floor button, where the cafeteria is.

Alyssa feels her guts shift as the motors kick into action and the elevator descends. She grips the arms of her chair, her fingers digging in.

“Are you alright?” Mom asks. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” she lies; she hadn’t noticed any shivering.

“Just makin’ sure, sweetie.”

Her grip loosens, but she only lets go when they finally reach their destination.

The cafeteria isn’t far, through a big arch labeled ‘Food Court.’ Which was kinda overselling it, when all there is is the hospital kitchen and a chintzy donut shop. The latter’s all barred up, yet to open. No loss there; damn things could be fresh out of the oven and still be stale.

Or at least, that’s what Cindy had complained about, right? Or was it her twin?

…Whatever, it’s too early for her to remember.

Crossing under the arch marks a shift in her mood. The bold part of her had imagined driving—no, walking over—to the counter and placing her order, just like normal. That side of her had been embarrassed having to drag Mom with her, too.

Now that part of her feels awful small.

There’s a rough-faced man in a chef’s hat and matching whites behind the kitchen’s serving counter, wiping it down with a rag.

Alyssa drives up to the counter, right across from the chef.

“Howdy,” he says, looking her in the eye.

His expression seems equal parts tired and confused, for a split second. Kinda weird, really, for a guy working in a hospital to react so strangely to a girl in a wheel—

Oh. She realizes why, a lump forming in her throat.

It’s not the chair. It’s her. Her twin’s been down here at least once a day, seven days a week, for months.

“Uh, hi, um…. Uh, I was—um.”

“C’mon girl, spit it out.”

Shit.

“I—um, are you, uh, are you guys open?”

“Fixin’ for some breakfast?”

“Y-yeah.”

“We’re gettin’ the grills warmed up. How’s about you and yours find a table, and I’ll send one of the girls out to get your order when we’re ready?”

“I, uh, please. I mean yes. Sure. Thanks.”

She glimpses a shrug from the man as she spins her chair around, making a beeline for a table. And thank god, Mom had already sat down at one way in the back.

Her chair fits against the outside edge of the table, putting her right across from Mom, who’s seated on the back bench of the booth. She tries to relax, but she just can’t drop that awful feeling as it works its way down from her throat and into her gut.

“Alyssa, you’re shaking again.”

“What if he knows?” Alyssa whispers, leaning forward as best she can. “My—my sister comes here every day and—and we look completely identical and he’s never seen me before what if he realizes what if he knows—”

“Shh, sweetie, it’s fine.” Mom reaches her hands out, and Alyssa holds them. “He sees hundreds of people here every day. Even if he might’ve noticed, he probably thought ‘whatever’ and moved on already. Besides, all the nurses and doctors know, and nothing bad happened.”

“Mom, you don’t get it. They’re doctors and all that shit. If they tell anyone, I can sue them. He’s just—he’s just some guy. And if he can notice, other people will, too, and… and…”

“Identical twins are completely normal, and that’s all anyone will think you two are.”

“I—I don’t know if I am normal. I’m like, I’m just a chunk of her, like some kind of… deformed bud.”

“Don’t look at it that way. Remember all of my apple trees at home? They all started as branches from the same plant, and now they’re tall and healthy.”

“You can’t—you can’t take a cutting from a fucking person, Mom. We’re too weird. People are going to notice. I—I thought going home was going to be simple, but—”

“Sweetie, you need to chill out. Nobody’s gonna care, not here. This is your day, and I’m really proud of you. So right now you should just relax, and enjoy the moment.”

“Living in the moment is what got me here, Mom. And what about people who know me, but don’t know about me?”

“When we get home, we’ll figure something out, okay?”

“How? They’ll pick up things. Ask questions.”

“Just act like you belong. That’s the first step. Nobody’s going to bother snooping around if everything seems normal.”

Kinda shitty advice, if she’s honest with herself.

“Here,” Mom says, sliding a menu over towards her. “Why don’t you practice? I know you wanted to do this alone, so here’s your chance. I’m going to go out to the van and help pack. You have money, right?”

“Yep.”

Mom scoots herself out of the booth, and gives Alyssa a quick kiss on the forehead.

“Good luck, sweetie,” she says, and walks away.

Alyssa reaches into her purse, tucked into a bag hanging from the left armrest, digs her wallet out and places it on the table. She pulls out her credit card, laying it flat.

It has her full name printed on it: ALYSSA LEACH.

Probably won’t be an issue, now. Might be one later, though.

She skims over the breakfast side of the menu. Her twin always gets the same thing; for herself, she’s thinking of something light. As she’s reading, she can hear footsteps behind her.

Okay.

You can do this.

Alyssa stumbles out of the shower, almost tripping on the bathmat. She dries off hurriedly, dragging the towel across her body with rough, forceful motions. Not the most comfortable feeling—damn things are itchy enough as it is, but she’s already late. Her other half had gone to bed early and still overslept; as for herself, she’s not had a good night’s rest for a while. She doesn’t have the time for it.

She wraps the towel around her head and peeks through the door; nobody’s home.

Really fuckin’ late, then. Especially when the plan is to be home for dinner and that means driving all the way from Kansas fucking City.

Alyssa hurries over to the dressers, digging through what’s left. The blouse she’d planned on wearing is gone, and the suitcase with her shorts in it has disappeared. Which leaves her with—

A latch clicks open behind her.

“Naked!” she shouts.

The door shuts, followed by a muffled ‘whoops, sorry.’

Anyway, clothes. Clothes, clothes, clothes.

Alyssa throws each piece on as she pulls them out of the drawer: bra, panties, skinny jeans, socks. She tears the towel off her still-wet hair and tosses it onto the bed, then wriggles into a purple v-neck tee.

“Ready!” she calls out as she shoves her shoes on, already tied.

She doesn’t bother checking the door as it opens again. It’s obviously Dad; Mom would’ve slammed it shut earlier, or, hell, just burst in before she could utter a word.

“Where’s Mom and Alyssa? Are they in the car already?” she asks, fast enough that a few words nearly slur together.

Dad says something, but her focus is elsewhere. She’s gathered an armsful of clothes, her eyes darting around in search of a bag.

“What?”

“I said they’re getting breakfast.”

Her stomach rumbles. Because of course it would be now, of all times, to realize she’s fucking starving.

“Then… where’s all the suitcases?”

“Haven’t been packed yet. Just carried them out to the curb.”

“Fuck fuck fuck. So late, so late, fuck.”

She spies a single suitcase—a pink one in the corner, backpack on top. Her suitcase.

She leaps over to it, pushes the backpack off, rips the zipper open and shoves the clothes inside, then slams it shut and forces her muscles to deliver the strength necessary to close it.

“Is that the last of it?”

“Uh…”

Alyssa gives the room one last sweep, peeking into drawers and behind furniture. Satisfied, she goes back to her things, swinging the backpack over her shoulders and pulling the suitcase behind her.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

It’s fortunate that the nursing-slash-rehab-slash-long-term-care wing of the hospital is its own building, situated near a main road to boot. What’s unfortunate is that her room is on the fifth floor above ground, and the elevators are pretty slow for new construction.

Not that she wants to use an elevator, anyway.

Alyssa skips down the stairs two at a time, suitcase banging on each step behind her. Which is kinda dangerous, given her gait, but whatever. She reaches the ground floor while her father is still a whole flight behind.

“C’mon Dad, hurry up!” she calls out.

That’s the problem with relying on Dad. He’s always, well, he’s not slow. He likes to take his time, and then cut corners to make the schedule work out. Probably not the best image for a carpenter-turned-architect. But hey, their house hasn’t fallen apart. Yet.

Of course, the staircase is in the back of the building. Because what crazy person walks when a rickety metal box could deliver them to their floor of choice.

She runs her free hand through her still-wet hair as she waits, transitioning the nervous action into something useful, combing her hair into place and securing it with a snap-clip. Thanks to her power her hair is not-quite-dead; tiny capillaries run up each strand so she can adjust melanin content on the fly. It’s kind of annoying, sometimes, to feel it, but there’s the additional upside of being not-bad at styling, even without a mirror.

She manages to stay still long enough for Dad to leave the stairwell, then takes off down the hall, suitcase wheels clicking on the tile. Something small and light smacks against her ankle with each step, as if whipping about. Her jeans are pretty old, the edges frayed; it’s probably a loose hem.

“Hey, Alyssa, wait!” Dad’s voice echoes through the empty hall to reach her, a few corners distant.

She considers slowing down; they’re already late, and it’s not like they would’ve gotten home in time under ideal circumstances, either.

But she has so much more work to do than she thought she would, and there’s not going to be much she can do on the road except read or write. The sooner she can sit down, crack her laptop open and start downloading papers, the better.

Arriving at the lobby she blows right past the reception desk, heading straight for the set of glass doors. She can hear Dad running behind her, now.

He enters the lobby just as she reaches the doors.

“Alyssa! Stop! Your—”

The doors shut behind her as she practically sprints outside, the cool air raising goosebumps on her damp skin. She makes for the van, bounding down the stairs.

Her foot snags on something mid-stride. Momentum carries her forward, stretching her leg out and spinning her around. She lands on her backpack with the telltale crunch of snapping plastic, the back of her skull leaving its own crack against the stone stairs.

Through stars she sees her right shoe dangling a few steps above her, a loose lace caught on the rusted railing. Her heart, already at a decent tempo, kicks it up a few notches.

“Shit,” she can hear Dad mutter as he jogs over. “Are you okay?”

There’s a growing lump on the back of her head, and a few bumps on her legs that will probably bruise. Compared to what she’s suffered before, it’s nothing.

“I’m fine,” Alyssa insists as she crawls up the staircase, freeing her shoe and slipping it back on.

Dad helps her stand, lifting her by the shoulders, turning his grip into a hug. She struggles against it, only one thing on her mind.

“Hey, hey, calm down,” he whispers. “What’s going on?”

“My—my laptop. It broke,” she stammers; the very thought making her tear up. So much work, all wrapped up in a stupid plastic thing.

Even with her still-weak physique and their significant size difference, Alyssa finds the leverage to get one shoulder free, slipping her backpack off and around.

He takes the bag away before she can open it, holding it out of her reach.

“Dad. I need that.” Her voice cracks, on the verge of sobbing. “Please.”

Dad pulls the laptop out. Its candyshell white casing has chunks missing, larger cracks running across it. Still, the screen glows as he opens it, displaying her log-in profile.

“See? Just a few scuffs,” he reassures her, then puts it away. “I’ll bring your bags to the van. Why don’t you go sit down?”

Alyssa sniffles a bit despite herself; she must look so pathetic, right now. It’s pretty obvious Dad means for her to get in the car so she goes and sits by the curb instead, away from the clustered suitcases.

She watches as he puts her things away, smoothing a few wrinkles from her jeans to keep her hands busy.

After finding spots for a few more bags Dad strolls over, sitting down next to Alyssa. She scoots away an inch or two, but it doesn’t amount to much with his height, and he easily reaches an arm around her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?”

Alyssa usually hates hugs from her parents. She hasn’t really grown at all in the past seven years, she’s just aged. And even though they’ve gotten older too, hugs still make her feel like a little kid. But right now… she’s cold, sore, and upset; he’s warm, and his jacket is soft.

“Nothing. I’ve got a lotta homework, okay?”

“I thought you’d be done with it by today.”

“I know, I thought so, too. It’s just, it’s not even October and we already have a research paper in this one class, and the first draft is due tomorrow. I can’t handle this shit.”

“Look, I know your mother and I haven’t been the best about this in the past, but you can always ask for help,” he says, squeezing her a bit. “And if we suck at it, there’s always the rest of the family. Sammy’s good at writing, I’m sure she’d love to help.”

“Dad, it’s not—the school shit isn’t the problem. It’s her. I can’t be her fucking nurse and take care of myself. I thought I could, but I can’t, and this is… it’s going to keep dragging on and on and on. And I—I can’t risk failing again, not in senior year. But I don’t know what to do.”

“Back up a bit. I thought she’s taking care of herself, now?”

“Dad, you haven’t seen her. Not like I have.”

“Alyssa, she’s looking great. She got dressed by herself. Hell, she can practically walk.”

Alyssa takes a long, deep breath.

“Say you’re adding onto a house. A whole new floor. What do you do if the foundation’s bad?”

“Jack it up, dig it all out and pour a new one?”

“Okay, but what if you find out the first floor’s rotting, the second one’s full of mold, and just about the only stable part is the roof?”

“If it’s that bad, is it really a good idea to bring her home?”

“Look Dad, I know bodies, not buildings. So maybe it’s not that bad. It’s just every time we try to make her more capable, shit happens and I end up doing more. Yeah, she can waddle around, but showers are too slippery for her. Baths are tricky because her insides are more filler than guts, so her buoyancy’s fucked. I’m worried when she starts solid food that she’ll get blockages or some other shit. So much could happen, and all I know is that every time my life seems like it’s on the up and up, shit comes crashing down pretty quick. She’s not going to be any different.”

“Alyssa, you don’t have to be alone in this. We’re all here for you. We’re probably going to get home pretty late, but tomorrow we can all sit down and figure out how we can help her, so you don’t have to. Is that cool with you?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Dad.”

“Great,” he says as he stands up, stretching out. “I’m gonna start packing, do you want your laptop?”

She does, but her stomach has been sending pulse after pulse into her nerves, whining like a fat kid whose mother won’t give her a second chocolate bar. Bad enough by itself, but it’s making it hard to quiet her emotions.

“Nah. Too distracted, and still kinda upset.”

“I know it’s hard, but today’s a big day. For you, and especially for her. Let’s try to make it a good one.”

Alyssa’s heart beats like a jackhammer, despite all her countermeasures. And as if the cardiac conniption wasn’t enough, her flesh-laden stomach has felt the need to contribute. She swallows against another rising tide of vomit, and decides to consider the upside: at least it’s working. All of this thanks to her poor, poor adrenal gland doing its damndest to shove her from a state of heightened nerves to an outright anxiety attack. And in complete fairness to the battered gland, she’s been sending mixed messages.

Nobody cares. They’re not staring. And if they did stare, they can’t know.

The worst part’s over now. She has a take-out box full of french toast in her wheelchair’s basket, and a fruit smoothie filling her cup holder. All she has to do is cross the lobby, and she’s free.

The totally empty lobby.

Except for the receptionist over at the desk.

Aaaand the homeless guy who snuck in while she was trying to not be seen by the receptionist.

In the corner of her eye she catches a security guard, meandering over to check out the hobo.

She takes a swig of her smoothie, deliberating.

Just go already.

Alyssa imagines shoving the joystick as far forward as she can, the wheelchair rocketing across the lobby, automatic doors just barely opening before she speeds through them.

None of that happens. The chair isn’t that fast to begin with, and even if it was, it cost like, four thousand bucks. Instead, she drives at a measured pace, the electric motor making its whiny little ‘whrrrrrr’ sound.

The receptionist barely acknowledges her, with a quick glance and a slight nod. The lobby’s other two occupants don’t notice at all.

She makes it through the doors and out into the cool morning air. It’s still dark, with the street bathed in soft sodium yellow, traffic sparse. The van sticks out among the few curbside cars, a big gray thing of a vehicle with an equally gray, if not quite as big, cargo carrier up on top. The plastic pod is split open like a clam, suitcases piled into it.

Her twin is sitting on the curb, her hair still damp, combed into their usual bob that just about covers her right eye. They’d coordinated their hair in advance, so Alyssa had gone for a left part, with the hair on that side swept behind her ear and the right swept over her forehead, held away from her face by a pink clip.

Her twin spots her first, hopping over and making a beeline for the breakfast box.

“Finally,” she blurts out as she tears it open, shoving a piece of french toast down her throat.

Mom’s leaning into the van through its side door, finding a home for a pair of bags that didn’t make it into the carrier. Having found one, she turns around, sees Alyssa, and frowns.

“Are you sure that’s enough?” she asks, pointing at the smoothie. “Maybe you should have some toast, too.”

“It’s fine, Mom. ‘Sides, I had that snack earlier.”

Her mother shrugs, then looks up at Dad. “James? Is it going to work?”

“Just… about—” Dad grunts, and the carrier’s latches snap shut. “There.”

He hops down from the car, dusting off his hands.

“I hope you girls got everything you need, because that ain’t closing again.”

Alyssa runs through a quick mental list: phone, earbuds, and… well, she doesn’t really need anything more than that.

“I, uh, I think I have all my stuff. What about you?”

“Mmph,” her twin nods.

“Everyone pile in, then. We’ve got a long day ahead.”

Alyssa wheels herself around to the back, as her mother and twin walk over to the driver’s side and take their respective seats. Dad accompanies her, opening the door and unfolding the ramp.

Driving into the van is a little nerve-racking. The ramp wobbles a bit, and even though her head easily clears the ceiling she feels cramped, restrained. She gets a feel for things as Dad ties down her chair; there’s not much of a view in front, only the backs of seats, but at least she has the rear windows to herself. Still, between the small space and the harness she almost feels… trapped.

No, she repeats to herself. Today is a good day.

The van starts up with little fanfare just as Dad closes the passenger door, and they drive off. She feels an urge to look back, fueled by worry; instead, she looks at the road ahead. The road home.

Chapter V

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“…special investigative report on the earthquake that devastated Memphis. Tonight we’ll be speaking with Doctor Ursula Green from the US Geological Survey as to the unusual nature of the quake and what it may mean for the future of our country. We also have a few special guests here with us in the studio, including two who were on the ground. But first, inquiries continue in the case of…”

The anchorwoman’s voice drones on behind the half-open door as Alyssa approaches it, papers in hand, and raps on the metal frame.

“Come on in,” her sister says.

‘Sister’ still doesn’t feel quite right, but it helps to humanize their relationship, put it in a better perspective than ‘other’ had. ‘Twin’ had been tempting; it was more accurate, yet it felt… problematic.

Alyssa closes the door behind her.

“Mind if I sit?”

“Uh, nah, hold on a sec.”

Her sister sets her drink on the night table, freeing her hands so she can scoot to the side.

“Go ahead.”

Alyssa walks around the bed, passing the tee vee, the anchorwoman going into the details of various lawsuits, blame-mongering, and insurance bullshit spawned by the disaster. In other words, blah blah blah. She sits down on the empty side of the bed, swinging her legs up onto the mattress.

“Morning news must’a been awful, if you’re watching this crap from last night.”

“I wanna see the interviews. ‘Sides, it’s better than the stupid soaps.”

Her sister takes her final few sips of the drink, slurping and sucking through the straw, then sets it aside.

“How’re the guts workin’?”

“Pretty good; haven’t had to puke yet. Really had to fight it though, with how dogshit these nutrition shakes taste.”

Alyssa nods and holds the papers up, leafing through reams of doctor-speak until she finds a legible page. On it are two feminine figures, annotations and lines sketched on the abdomens of each. Planning for incisions, extractions, cuts for skin grafts.

“I talked to Doctor Nic and Doctor Ahmed. They think we’ll be ready for the next set of surgeries on Wednesday, if everything goes well.”

Being on a first name basis with doctors feels kinda weird. But this whole deal is new ground, and that meant she’d been more involved in the process than most patients would.

Her sister takes the packet, examining the diagram and the ones after it.

“Can’t we bump it up to, I dunno, Monday morning?”

“Too soon.”

Her sister rolls her eyes and sighs, tossing the packet onto the nightstand.

“But… Cindy won’t be here then…”

Alyssa scoots over and puts her arm around her sister’s shoulder in a loose hug. Her power’s awareness spreads out from the points where skin meets skin, familiar, yet alien.

In the past two months her touch had been clinical at best; most of it had been rough, flippant, boundless. Now that they’ve established boundaries between them, as two separate persons, she’s aimed for her touch to be one that comforts and heals.

“We’ll be awake for this one; I’ll be there for you, okay?”

“That’s… alright, I guess.”

Through their power Alyssa should have total awareness of her sister’s body, and to an extent, she does. But the details get fuzzy sometimes, harder to stay focused on. She’s got a sense of what’s going on, just not quite the full picture.

“Hey, um, I think you said Cindy would be over in an hour or so from now, right? Do you wanna get your checkup done now, or wait until tonight?”

“Uh… we’ll probably keep her late again, so now’s probably better.”

“When you’re ready.”

Her sister pauses the tee vee—not that Alyssa had been paying attention to it—and pulls off her shirt, naked underneath. Her sister’s body is still a work in progress, to put it nicely. Her chest is bony and emaciated—a ribcage that sits atop an abdomen in the shape of a tied-off plastic bag, tapering to wrap around a protruding lower spine. The very lowest vertebrae connect to the beginnings of a pelvis, slowly growing outward under a thin sheath of donated skin. Their next surgeries would be transplanting the remaining vital organs; after that would be muscles and skin, once she’d finished growing the grafts and copies of the muscles.

Her sister’s spine moves almost like a tail as muscles flex across it, lacking the deep ossification that would make it rigid, allowing her to lift it up as she waddles over and sets herself on Alyssa’s lap.

“Okay, ready,” her sister says, unpausing the tee vee.

With the way their power’s been acting, touch is necessary. It reminds her of when her power was new, almost uncontrollable. Focus had been key, and touch the easiest route to it. Before she’d mastered it a hand on the hip or the nervous twiddling of thumbs could elicit deep changes, drastic ones, if paired with the right—or wrong—thought or impulse. No risk of that here, fortunately, but touch had again become the tool of real awareness.

The first tasks are mechanical, gently flexing the leaves of cartilage that would give rise to the ilium, ischium, and pubic bones, testing their resilience. Then she rotates the pelvis itself, holding it by the sacrum, feeling as the spine flexes. With her power she tunnels her focus into her sister’s neural column, making sure pulses move freely, that nerves don’t get pinched or compressed.

Her hands slowly work their way upwards, lifted and placed deliberately, avoiding motions that would brush, sweep, or rub. The abdomen is where things get complicated; the skin here is a fragile blend of grown and grafted. Skin has a grain to it, an alignment going back to each area’s fetal progenitor. Alongside this pattern is a mosaic, formed on the basis of a cell’s ancestor. Each cell can only draw from one X chromosome, and like most humans she’s lucky to have two.

Their power likes to normalize, return to the baseline. It means they heal in ways no one else does, but it has its complications, too. Her sister’s body is hard at work trying to correct the grafts and growths, matching them to its power-granted blueprint, and some things just don’t turn out right.

Her sister should be able to fix the problems herself as they crop up. That she isn’t can mean several things, and none of them are good.

Alyssa draws on her reserves to fix the damage, killing off her own cells to repair and rebuild her sister’s. After a minute or two the work becomes almost automatic and Alyssa lets her senses take in the wider world around her.

“One last thing, Doctor Green. What do you make of the speculation going around, that this quake wasn’t natural?”

“While this event certainly had its share of unexpected behaviors, such speculation is unfounded. Memphis is located on an intraplate fault, making it difficult to predict seismic activity in the area. Though it is outside of my field, I think the public’s fascination with powers has led to some conflating of fiction with reality.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Up next, my colleague Jason will be leading a group discussion with our guests, right after this break.”

Her sister mutes the tee vee.

“So, um, uh…”

“Uh, what?”

“I know it’s been like half a week or something, but I can’t think of anything. Like, I looked at some baby name sites, but nothing clicks. And now the stupid phone thinks I’m pregnant.”

“It’s okay, I’ve only thought of like, one. No pressure.”

Alyssa feels her sister sigh, masses of muscle relaxing.

“But it’s important. And we’re already putting it off.”

“How do you feel about ‘Courtney?’”

“…for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Why that one?”

“It’s a pretty name.”

“I—we were saving it. For someone special. It’d be awkward.”

“There’s always ‘junior,’ when we get there.”

“That’s—that’s not what I meant. Why can’t you go by Courtney? Why can’t I be Alyssa?”

“Because that’s—”

—my name.

Alyssa bites her tongue right before the last two words leave her lips. She feels her sister’s emotions simmer, neurons firing wildly.

“Look, I still want this to work out, just… don’t erase who I am. I’m not you. I’m definitely not your fucking kid.”

“Sorry.”

“Here.” Her sister holds the phone up, waving it in her face. “I wanna go back to my show. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

Alyssa frowns; one of her hands is atop her sister’s liver, aiding in the inspection of its regrowth and integration with the latest donor lobe. Her other hand rests above her sister’s heart, checking the overlying graft for defects.

“I’m kinda busy right now.”

“This whole thing was your idea.”

“Yeah, and I’m thinking on it, but if I stop what I’m doing you’ll get cancer or something. Again. Do you really want that?”

Alyssa feels her sister’s grumbled ‘no’ more than she hears it, then settles back into her rhythm. Her eyes and ears focus on the television, relying on other senses for her work.

“Welcome to our show; I’m Jason O’Brian. Now, I’d like to digress from our usual schedule and jump right into the thick of things. I’m sure our viewers are all wondering just what did happen in Memphis, whether we should be concerned, and how to mitigate or prevent such disasters in the future, if we even can. There’s been an overwhelming amount of speculation, and tonight I’m hoping to find some truth. WIthout further ado, our guests, ladies and gentlemen.”

The camera pans back at the host’s cue, revealing the rest of the studio, two men and a woman seated across from the host’s desk. Something’s familiar about the woman, but she can’t quite pin down what.

“Our first guest is a well know superhero, Slipstream, one of the faces of the nationwide Community Guard.”

Face being key—he doesn’t have any sort of helmet or mask on. Means he’s one of the real high-ups; most of their members are allowed anonymity, but a few corruption scandals some years ago had shaken a carefully cultivated image. As part of cleaning house, the organization’s leadership had unmasked themselves, hoping to win some trust back. It’d worked, mostly. Knock-on effects had seen the upper echelons of each sub-organization taking up a similar idea. No masks, but they kept their aliases.

Slipstream the man doesn’t look particularly heroic; a young guy with a plain face, early thirties or so, brown hair and fairly muted blue eyes. He has a costume on, a fairly practical one consisting of a tight-ish white bodysuit, vital areas protected by silver plates. Minimal decoration; a few silver-and-white wing motifs, and of course, one of Community Guard’s signature badges on his chest. The badges differed by regional division, united by a common theme: an overall shape of a shield of some kind, with two hands clasped in agreement. Slipstream is from the Gulf Division, by Alyssa’s recollection, though she can’t quite make out the other details on his badge to be sure.

“Thanks, Jason. A pleasure to be on the show.”

“Next up is Staff Sergeant Gabriella Diaz. Longtime viewers will remember her; she came on the show several years ago to discuss her experience with the aerial infantry in Afghanistan, and I’m honored that she’s able to be here with us once again. As I understand it, you’ve since transferred to domestic duty?”

The camera focuses on Diaz, and Alyssa feels her sister’s eyes narrow, if only briefly. The Staff Sergeant sure looks the part—her black hair is tied up handsomely short, and she’s wearing a rather decorated service uniform. Most of the patches and pins are meaningless to Alyssa, except for one. It identifies Diaz as a unique sort of soldier. One with powers.

Powered soldiers were… weird. The Army had a few units for them, each with a different focus. Their powers tended to be a bit too similar in function and capability, more than they should get from selection and training alone.

“That’s correct. I had the opportunity to retire after finishing my service abroad, and felt that my skills would be best utilized at home instead.”

“Such a sense of duty is one we should all aspire to. Now, last but certainly not least we have Professor Jakob Meier, a neuropsychologist and one of the leading researchers studying powers in the past decade.”

Meier doesn’t quite look like a typical egghead. More like a businessman, with the beige suit and red tie he has on. His features look old enough though, eyes wrinkled and hair graying, but not like, bucket-kicking old.

“Thank you, Mister O’Brian.”

The view switches back to the main camera, showing the stage.

“I’d like to start with you, Slipstream. Your organization has been all over the headlines due to its involvement with the rescue efforts. As someone who was on the ground in Memphis, how well do you think we, as a nation, are prepared to handle such disasters in the future?”

“Community Guard’s major branches have been working with state and federal governments for the past several years on creating a nationwide response network. Thanks to this system we were able to deploy dozens of capes to Memphis within hours of the quake, helping thousands of people. I’m sure we’ll see even better responses in the future as this network matures.”

“This cooperation with government—do you think it could lead to integration with law enforcement, somewhere down the line?”

“No. As it stands, our relationship with conventional law enforcement is complementary; we address what they cannot. While we’re happy to work with law enforcement, of course, it’s our independence that lets us focus on our mission: protecting our communities, not policing them. We already have close relations to other emergency services, and this response network is an evolution of our local efforts to the national scale.”

“It’s going to be interesting to see how this system develops, I’m sure,” Jason says with a nod. “Now, Staff Sergeant Diaz, there’s been controversy over the deployment of the Third Aerial Infantry to Memphis, particularly whether the federal government overstepped its bounds to do so. Could you give us your take on this situation?”

“Much of this is due to popular misconceptions regarding the legal standing of domestic operations involving powered soldiers. The two-thousand-four amendment to the Homeland Security Act, which allows Army or National Guard capes to be deployed domestically only at the explicit request of state law enforcement, has been cited as the law supposedly violated. Our presence in Memphis wasn’t in a law enforcement capacity; we deployed under FEMA supervision to assist the Army Corps of Engineers, per Governor Stallwell’s request.”

The memory of a scream surfaces in Alyssa’s mind, sharp and forceful. A voice that could blast apart tons’ worth of stone and even force its way through Orrery’s sphere.

Diaz’s power.

The Staff Sergeant sure looks different in dress. Something about the skirt, maybe, or how her shoulders aren’t as broad as Alyssa remembers. Not that they’d met in Memphis; just a glance, here and there. Alyssa hadn’t even gotten the chance to thank her.

She notices something else as well, through her power. Neural activity brewing in her sister’s head, muscles tensing, twitching. Excitement, or… anger?

“Thank you for the clarification, Staff Sergeant. Moving on, Doctor Meier, what do you make of the speculation regarding a human cause of the Memphis quake, particularly by one or more capes. Do you think that’s possible?”

“No. Not as a principal cause.”

“Could you expand on that, Doctor?”

“It’s a matter of energy. Broadly speaking, powers either draw from an as yet unknown source, or rely on their wielder to acquire energy from their surroundings. The former cases have been observed to only use energy at a given maximum rate, and the latter are of course ultimately limited by their environment. In every known case, none have ever come close to the energy released by an earthquake. There is some possibility for influence over geological activity in the case of powers that express via technology, however…”

Alyssa finds herself unable—and unwilling—to keep up with the doctor’s explanation. She closes her eyes and turns her focus back to her work, hands now on her sister’s sides, fingers resting in the furrows between ribs. Things seem alright, maybe not a clean bill of health, but good enough. Except… there’s something wrong.

A mass, or something, nestled under her sister’s collarbone. Heavily calcified to the point it’s not even bone anymore, a burr poking and prodding into the surrounding flesh.

Alyssa tweaks a few of her sister’s nerves, creating the sense of a tap on the shoulder.

“Somethin’ up?”

“Left clavicle. Tumor or something.”

“Really? I could swear—oh. Shit. I thought I fixed that.”

“It’s fine. I’ll deal with it.”

A skin of osteoblasts surrounds the malformed knot of bone, depositing calcium crystals with little rhyme or reason. Within the mass she can feel the remnants of a ligament, torn flesh now petrified. Had this been healing gone wrong? A process her sister started and couldn’t stop? Something else?

No use in speculating.

Alyssa culls the osteoblasts, dissolving them into their constituent chemicals and giving rise to their opposites from the resulting soup. She guides the osteoclasts manually, directing the cells’ acidic bites into the abnormal matrix, steering them away from healthy bone. As the mass shrinks away she coaxes the ligament into the void left behind, re-anchoring it once it meets the clavicle’s surface.

“Better?”

Her sister rolls the affected shoulder, muscles contracting and extending smoothly.

“Yeah.”

All that’s left is a tune-up, something Alyssa could handle in her sleep. She opens her eyes and lets them drift back toward the screen.

“You mentioned earlier, Staff Sergeant, that you’re concerned about the efficacy of Community Guard’s response network. As I recall, you were one of the early supporters of it. Could you tell us what changed your mind?”

“Firsthand experience. Disasters are often compared to warzones; you need to keep cool and stay calm, or you’re going to get in the way, or worse. Community Guard first approached the government with the understanding that any capes they sent would have the right mindset, and I can honestly say they exceeded my expectations. If their members were representative of the program, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Somewhere in the process smaller groups—so-called ‘independent heroes’ and ‘local teams’—started to feel left out. While I admire these independents’ bravery and applaud their willingness to help their fellow Americans, many weren’t ready for something of this scale.”

Alyssa feels another shift in her sister’s internal chemistry, hormones and neurotransmitters pumping out into her bloodstream. Emotions bubbling, at risk of boiling over, but… why?

“I hope that didn’t interfere with the rescue efforts.”

“Not directly. The independents I saw were clearly skilled, and they wielded their powers to great effect. Unfortunately, power and skill are not equivalent to training and experience. I’d like to point to what Doctor Green mentioned earlier: there is a definite public fascination with individuals like myself, and I believe that fascination led certain decision makers to overlook practical concerns.”

“Hm, hm… Slipstream, do you have any comments?”

“This whole venture is a new experience, for Community Guard, our affiliates, and our partner teams. What happened in Memphis wasn’t our ideal proving for the program, but we’re already taking steps to learn from what went right and what didn’t, including revamping our training and selection criteria for future incidents of this scale.”

“May I make one last point?”

“Go ahead, Staff Sergeant.”

“The problem isn’t just a lack of training. It’s the population in question. The majority of independent teams are groups with a handful of members operating on a contractual basis with either local police or with a larger organization. A significant number of these consist of very young people. College age kids, teenagers. They don’t have the resources to meet the right standards, and it shows in the numbers. Independents suffered higher injury and death rates than other first responders. I witnessed several tragic incidents and the aftermath of dozens more, of kids getting themselves into dangerous situations without even realizing the risk. Kids who died, or who will suffer for the rest of their lives. None of that had to happen.”

The screen flickers off. Alyssa feels her sister’s mouth move, lips curling, a cuh- sound slipping through, the rest silent.

“Hey, you alright?”

“It’s a bunch of bullshit. She wasn’t fucking there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s up there on tee vee blaming us for getting hurt! Blaming us for shit that no one thought would happen!”

“Calm down, even if—”

“Why are you defending her?”

“I’m not, it’s just—”

“Why do you care? Huh?”

“Please, let me—”

“Do you like her? I could feel you looking at her.”

“What? No, ew, she’s like, thirty or something.”

“Then what is it, huh? What is it?”

“She saved my life.”

Her sister goes silent, neurons simmering.

“Fuck.”

“She saved yours, too.”

Her sister pushes off of Alyssa’s lap and onto the bed, wriggling into her shirt.

“Hey, we’re not done yet.”

“I am. Get out.”

“But—”

“Get the fuck out.”

“Okay, okay,” Alyssa mutters, sliding off the bed and walking to the door. “Page me if you need anything.”

“I said get out.”

Alyssa closes the door gently behind her, leaning on it. She lets her knees buckle and falls into a crouch, the metal cold against her back.

She wants to stand up and slam the door, or bang her head against it. But even that part of her is tired now. So, so tired.

How long? she wonders.

Months? A year?

A lifetime?

Greens and blues and reds flicker across the popcorn ceiling. Light-emitting-diodes that dazzle with each blink, even with her eyes closed, but they’re not what’s keeping her awake.

Her sister is… emotional.

Neurons that spark and flash like the lights, but the patterns are opaque. They whizz by at break-neck speeds, morphing and shifting almost at random. Is it anger? Anxiety? Sadness? The uncertainty puts her on edge; fear of an outburst, or panic, or sobbing. Her own body responds in turn: juicing adrenaline from tortured glands, deepening each breath.

Messengers diffuse into their shared umbilical. Her sister’s neural patterns become more erratic, jittery.

A vicious cycle.

She does her best to counteract it, to soothe her nervous flesh, but it’s hard. She’s never had to use her power like this, or so often, even when she had to fight it.

“Hey.”

Alyssa holds her tongue.

“I know you’re awake.”

Fuck.

“I… I wanted to say I’m sorry. I just, I was really hoping you’d get it.”

“Get what?”

“Why I’m angry. The soldier lady—Diaz—she… she told Cindy to let me die.”

Oh.

“Jeez, wow. Um, how come you didn’t tell me?”

Her sister is silent as neurons stir. Her chest rises and falls for a few deep breaths.

“I don’t remember much, from before. I don’t remember the bank, or the plane to Memphis, or the whole week or two before all that shit. I know about it, but I don’t remember it. Everything about my life… it’s all kinda fuzzy sometimes. All I remember is struggling, fighting to stay alive even a second longer. Cindy helped, but she was hurt, too. And then the first person who showed up to help us said I’m not worth saving.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It didn’t stop after that. Most of the doctors didn’t really know what to do. They didn’t want to fight, like I did. I was so alone. Aaron had a concussion and couldn’t really do anything, Cindy was higher than a fucking fighter jet with the drugs they gave her. The doctors kept asking about, y’know, next of kin, living will, shit like that. I didn’t tell them anything, ‘cause you know how mom and dad are.”

Alyssa nods. Mom and dad would’ve been distraught, overwhelmed… suggestible.

“All of it’s burned into my brain. I didn’t want to tell you because… this stuff, it’s me. And there’s days where I can’t remember if I did something, or talked to someone, or if it’s just something you did that I watched, or that you told me about. I don’t want to wake up one day and not know who I am.”

“I get that, I really do. But, we can’t keep doing this, this whole… right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing, thing. And, um, I know I haven’t been good about being open, either. So, if there’s anything you want to ask me, go ahead.”

“How do you think of me?”

“…Didn’t we talk about that?”

“I mean like, now. What word?”

“Sister.”

“And it works for you?”

“It’s better.”

“Then why do I need a new name?”

“Because you deserve one.”

Her sister’s brow crinkles, and her eyes lower.

“Cindy told me how it was hard for you, sharing everything. I thought if we each had our own names, it’d help set up those boundaries. I didn’t want to change who you are. They can be between us, if you want. No one has to know.”

“I, um, I didn’t think about it like that. Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” Alyssa says with a shrug. “Good night.”

“Sleep tight.”

Alyssa closes her eyes, letting go of the world around her. Just as she drifts to the edge of sleep, a sensation forces her awake. Movement of her sister’s throat and diaphragm. Giggling.

“Hey, uh, what’s funny?”

“Nothing, nothing. I just had a dumb idea for names, that’s all.”

“Oh?”

“They’re really dumb.”

“C’mon, tell me.”

“Okay, fine, but I’m going to whisper it.”

Alyssa can’t make out the words; she can barely hear a thing. But she can feel the muscles in play, the movement of her sister’s tongue, and she can’t stop herself from laughing.

“Oh my god, that is so dumb.”

“Right?”

“It’s great.”

“I dunno, it’s like, really silly. Like, Krissy’s gonna totally hate it.”

“Like she’d ever figure it out.”

“Yeah, okay, but maybe we should try for something more… serious? We’ve got a few weeks before we go home, maybe a month.”

Alyssa mulls over the possibilities. It’s not like they had any luck when it came to ‘serious.’

“We can try. But let’s hold on to these, if we can’t think of better ones. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Alyssa closes her eyes, almost in sync with her sister. For the first time in a long, long while, she has good dreams.

Chapter IV

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An explosion envelops her legs, tossing her into the air as blood blankets her vision. Then the screen fades, a death timer ticking down. Alyssa sets the controller on her bedsheets, waiting.

“You’re supposed to go around the mines, noob.”

The voice crackles with the unique noise of a garbage mic, managing to receive distant traffic and her teammate’s self-important tone at the same level of detail.

“Fuck off,” she mutters into her mic.

“I was going to get you up… but if you’re going to be a bitch…”

His character stands in cover, watching hers. The timer runs down and her character’s prone posture ragdolls onto the terrain, the camera swapping to another teammate’s view.

Some modes allow respawns; this one doesn’t.

“Pay attention, or pick a flier if you’re this bad at the ground game.”

Alyssa throws her headset at the chair in the corner. She didn’t jump into a match just for some dickwad to say her game was off. Especially in freeplay.

‘Course he isn’t wrong, which just makes her more frustrated. Her blood sugar is getting low, urea building up. Any normal person would notice these issues, but they’re just the start. Her body lacks in the endocrine department: she has her thyroid and parathyroids, pituitary and pineal glands, and that’s it. The girl provides what she can’t.

Which is fine, most of the time. They’ve been separate for nearly three hours now, and her body is starting to notice. All the little bits in the background, each metabolic process, all of it’s starting to go off-kilter. Hard to focus when your bones are being slowly eaten from the inside.

Not that she needs to focus to enjoy what the game has to offer. When she picked it up she didn’t intend to do well, or even win. It reduces the beautifully complex yet unattainable action of walking to flicking a joystick with her thumb, and that is enough.

Put that way… it’s also fucking pathetic. She’d damn near had a breakdown, yelled at her best friend, and retreated into living vicariously through a damn super-shooter. Not the healthiest decision, but what else is she supposed to do? Sit here and stew in her regrets for an afternoon?

Alyssa glances at the screen. The match timer still has ten minutes to go. She could get up, change discs, and play a different game. But that could take five minutes to achieve, and if stubbing a toe hurts like a bitch, stubbing a vertebra is akin to getting mauled by the entire kennel. Ten minutes of self-reflection isn’t so tortuous in comparison.

Besides, she owes it to Cindy. More than that, she owes it to… to the girl she used to be. The girl who isn’t even that anymore, since they’d had their twenty-first birthday in this fucking hospital. Months ago, they’d both called each other by name, often to the confusion of everyone around them. She’d thought of her twin by her name, even, but at some point she stopped and had seen fit to strip that bit of her twin’s humanity away, at least mentally. She’d only settled on girl because clone wasn’t accurate, even if it would’ve been more satisfying.

Hard to remember when that had started, but she knew it had been around the same time as the dreams. The dreams fueled by envy, the dreams that made her realize the nightmare she lived in. But it hadn’t been the dreams alone; they’d had disagreements, too.

Alyssa looks at her hands, turning them over. She grabs the controller, watching her fingers curl around it, bones and muscle moving beneath skin. She’d had to fight for these hands.

Each of her arms weighs nearly six pounds, more if she includes the muscles on her chest and back. Her twin had argued that those twelve or so pounds would be better spent elsewhere. Argued that arms wouldn’t help early on; that their best benefit would be the marrow of the humerus, but the red marrow of new ribs would contribute more.

It was the worst thing they’d fought over, but it wasn’t the first, and hadn’t been the last. By now the bitterness she’d felt over those fights… it hasn’t faded, but it has been supplanted by something else: fear. Fear that her twin was right, that in her short-sightedness she had thrown out her chance to ever recover, dooming them both to this hell.

Despite all their fights, her twin had risked a lot for her. The least she can do now is treat her like a human being again.

Alyssa looks back at the television. Over the game’s sounds she can barely make out footsteps outside the room, muffled by the door and hushed by her various electronics. She quits her game, turns off the TV, and listens.

Quiet conversation accompanies the footsteps and continues in their place, just on the other side of the door. Familiar voices, two she knows very well. The conversation dies off, and the door handle turns.

Cindy enters first, leaving her crutches by the door and pulling a chair between the beds. Alyssa’s twin follows, closing the door and walking around to Alyssa’s bed.

The sight of her twin elicits a visceral reaction; for as much as she has viscera, at least. Negative thoughts start to bubble up into her head, and she has to actively ignore them.

“Mind if I cozy up with ya?” her twin asks.

Yes

Alyssa shrugs.

Her twin crawls onto the bed, kicking her flip-flops onto the floor in the process, and sits cross-legged at the end.

“So… Hi, Alyssa,” her twin says.

It’s still weird, to hear her own voice. Even weirder when that voice addresses her by name.

“Hi.”

“Playin’ games and having fun?”

Alyssa looks at the controller, then places it on the nightstand. She shakes her head.

“Just… walking.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. How was your ice cream?”

“It was great. Cindy and I had a lot of fun.”

Cindy mutters something and shakes her head. Something to ask about later.

“And don’t worry, I definitely got you some. First, um, Cindy and I talked. I know you’re having a hard time, and—”

“Stop. Please.”

“Look, this is important.”

“Hey,” Cindy interjects, “if she doesn’t want to talk right now, that’s her decision. How about I put some movies on, and you guys can talk when she’s ready?”

Alyssa nods.

“That… works,” her twin says, moving to leave the bed as Cindy stands and starts setting up the DVD player.

“Wait.” Alyssa reaches out to her twin. “You can stay.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk?”

“Can we just, I dunno, hang out? Cindy can have the other bed, to rest her leg.”

“Uh… sure.” Her twin shrugs. “Do you want your ice cream now?”

Lacking a stomach, she can’t get hungry. But there’s still a craving, a need.

“Duh.”

Lightning flashes across the glass, flickering phosphor briefly illuminating the room beyond it and the gruesome scene within. Alyssa can feel the jolt of adrenaline kick off a cascade of near-involuntary responses. Heart pounds, muscles tense, neurons spark.

Her twin sits at the perfect mix of fear and excitement, lying down at the foot of her bed. Her own reaction is muted—what hormones do reach her are dilute, impotent. Cindy left hours ago, and the two of them kept watching movies more from momentum than enjoyment. Still, she can have one last bit of fun.

On screen a woman stumbles through ice and snow, desperate to escape. Each strike of lightning pierces the darkness, revealing the bloodied body of a man behind her and a shadowy figure closing the distance. The killer’s blade glimmers during the approach, blood frozen to the edge. With every thunderclap, an ominous orchestra swells.

There’s a single nerve buried in the throat of Alyssa’s twin, tied to a whole network of unusual nerves. Every cell has been modified, capable of transmitting specific signals. Crude memory of taste, texture, and of course, temperature. It had been her ice cream, and now with a few quick modifications, it will be so much more.

She gives the movie her full attention now, taking note of the timing, the killer getting closer with each passing moment. The woman reaches the treeline, ducking behind a large oak. Heavy footsteps get loud, louder, and then quiet. The woman slumps against the tree, breathing hard, and the music fades.

Any moment, and… now.

Alyssa’s throat goes cold, a stabbing pain shooting through her neck just as the killer’s knife finds its mark.

Her twin screams and claws at her own neck, nearly falling off the bed, kicking and flailing as Alyssa laughs.

“Asshole,” her twin mutters, righting herself. She sits still for a few moments, massaging her neck and throat. “How… Oh, that’s how… Clever.”

Her twin grabs the remote and turns off the TV.

“Uh, you weren’t watching that, right?”

“Not really. Don’t have the right, um, equipment to enjoy it.”

“Aw, shit, sorry. I didn’t even think—”

“It’s fine. Really, it was a good night. Even if I had to make my own fun sometimes.”

“Speaking of night”—her twin stretches her arms out and yawns—“it’s gone from fucking late to fucking early. We better get to bed.”

Alyssa reaches through their link, coaxing certain glands to release specific hormones. Enough to keep the two of them awake a bit longer.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Uh, shoot.”

“Who do you think of, when you think of me?”

“Uh, you? Kind of a silly question.”

“What am I, to you? Am I Alyssa, or a sister, or…?”

“I dunno. I kinda think of you as ‘other me’ I guess.”

“For a while I thought of you as… as less than a person, just some girl living in my body.”

She pauses, to let her twin get a word in. There’s a reaction deep in her twin’s brain, but no response.

“I don’t want to think of you like that anymore. But if you keep treating me like… like a clone of you, then I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care if you’re sorry. I know there’s things I was stubborn about. I know some of those things I refused would’ve been really, really helpful by now, but if you won’t let me have a voice, how can I agree? Just, listen to me, okay?”

“If it’s about having a voice, I think I know what we need.”

It’s not the answer she wants, but… it might get there.

“Go on.”

“Cindy and I talked about us. You and me, who we are. We’re… not good at being honest with ourselves. Maybe, if we’re going to listen to each other, we have to stop being us.”

“What does that mean? ‘Us?’ We’re already different.”

“I think we need new names.”

“No.” Alyssa shakes her head. “I’ve lost too much. I’m not losing my name.”

“Hold up. No changing, just, new names. Nicknames. I thought about it for other people’s sake, but I think it might help us, too.”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Just think about it. We’ll do it together.”

“Really?”

“I promise.”

That was what she wanted to hear.

“Was this what you wanted to talk about, earlier?”

“There was something else, but… I was kinda hoping Cindy would be here for that, so—”

“You said it was important.”

Her twin pauses, and takes a deep breath.

“It’s August. Classes start on the twenty-second, and you’re just—you’re not going to be able to live on your own then. Probably not by September, either. Regrowing everything, best case, would be two more months. But after all the issues we had getting here, I can’t do that.”

“Well, um…” Alyssa trails off.

I can’t believe I’m saying this.

“What if I don’t need everything? Just enough to be self-sufficient. Bare minimum.”

“That… Hrm.”

Her twin closes her eyes and starts counting on her fingers. Alyssa feels a brief flurry of neural activity across her twin’s brain, one of the few physical cues of their shared power.

“If we did that, it’d be a month. Which is better, but… do you really want to do that? We’d have to skip a lot, like—”

“Alyssa. I want to go home. I don’t care if I can’t walk, or eat solid food, or if I need dialysis. I just want to go home.”

“I know, believe me, I know. With how little time we have, how little resources, I just… I don’t know what to do. Everything we tried to speed things up failed. I’ve got nothing more to give you.”

Alyssa reaches through their tether, consciously analyzing the body linked to hers. Her twin is almost underweight; the reservoir network that once held a slurry of fat and stem cells has been reduced to mere vestiges, ribbons of flesh scaffolding and a handful of pockets where young cell lines slowly incubate. But her body is healthy, despite enduring Alyssa’s metabolic demands.

“Maybe we’re doing this wrong. Maybe we shouldn’t start from scratch.”

“What d’ya mean?”

“When mom gave me pneumonia, and I needed a lung, you gave me one. Maybe we can do that again. With essentials.”

Alyssa can feel her twin’s spine quiver, and it gives her some pause.

“Look, that’s kinda asking a lot.”

“I don’t need much. A few feet of intestine, an extra lobe of liver, and a kidney. One ovary; you can even keep the tube.”

“I’d have to regrow everything you take.”

“Growing is hard. Regrowing is easy. You had your lung back in two days while keeping my necrotic ass alive. I don’t feel good about this, but it’s our only option.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“What if Cindy hadn’t come? Were you just going to keep stringing me along? When school started… were you just going to abandon me?”

“No, I—”

“Then listen! You promised you’d listen! Don’t—”

Alyssa chokes on a sob, and her eyes start to water.

“—Don’t break that promise just because what I said is inconvenient for you.”

She tries to say more, so, so much more, but only finds tears.

“Okay. I’ll, um, I’ll have our surgeon come and talk to us about it in the morning, okay?”

Alyssa manages a nod.

“…Do you want a hug?”

“Please.”

Her twin gets off the bed and lifts her up. There is a gentleness to it, a caution that their usual contact lacks. She does her best to focus on her senses, seeking the warmth and comfort she’d feel with a friend, or a loved one. It’s hard, with their shared power; each point of skin contact excites it, blurring the separation between them. Cloth and fabric make it easier to bear at first, but the awareness is total, alienating.

It’s not how a hug is supposed to feel.

It doesn’t feel right at all.

But maybe it doesn’t have to.

“I don’t have to look, right?”

“You watched my lung transplant just fine.”

Even with a surgical mask on, Cindy’s frown is obvious.

“That was different. I honestly think I shouldn’t even be here for this one, or at least not this close.”

“It’s not emotional support if I can’t squeeze your hand, Cindy.”

“Alright, I’ll stay. I’m just nervous about this. It seems… extreme, even for you two. And there’s—”

“Excuse me,” a nurse interrupts, pushing a cart of surgical tools.

Cindy barely succeeds in flattening herself against Alyssa’s bed, giving the cart just enough room to pass them in the cramped hallway and progress into the operating theater.

“Like I was saying, there’s so many people here. It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“It’s a government hospital, Cindy. They know who we are.”

“That’s why. And they’ll be watching.”

“C’mon, it’s just some old doctors and eggheads taking notes while me, myself, and I engage in a little plug-and-play. They probably won’t even notice you’re here.”

Cindy crosses her arms and sighs.

“I know, I know. I just can’t help worrying about it.”

“Look, you’re all scrubbed up. Nobody’s going to recognize you who doesn’t already know. ‘Sides, why are you nervous? I’m the one going under the knife.”

“Sorry. There’s also… I don’t mean to question your judgement, but are you guys really sure about this? When your sister explained it to me earlier, she didn’t seem that confident.”

Alyssa takes a moment to realize Cindy meant her twin.

Really need to get that name thing sorted.

“We talked with our doctors. It’s fine.”

Across the hall the doors of the operating theater swing open. Alyssa cranes her neck, barely able to see the interior. Her twin is sitting at the edge of the surgical table in a hospital gown, legs swinging in the cool air, talking to their surgeon.

A nurse approaches from the room, waving. If Alyssa had a stomach, she could bet a few butterflies would be fluttering about. She gives Cindy’s hand a squeeze, just hard enough to get a reaction.

“Ya know what, can you keep worrying?”

Please say yes, so I don’t have to.

“Um, sure?”

“Thanks, Cindy.”