《Omnipotents [A Multi-POV Progression "Tournament Arc"]》


 Act I, Chapter 0: Prologue

    At precisely 10:45 PM on May 9th, 2024, a hole appeared, a gouge in reality, ripping itself into being somewhere within the Saint Paul, Minnesota metro area. By 11 PM, the energy guttering from the hole had suffused most of the Twin Cities, bathing roughly 3,500 square miles and over 4 million people in energy, powerful and mutative and undetectable by any known mechanical instrument but tangible to thousands of particularly gifted individuals across the globe. By the stroke of midnight many of those Sensitives had felt this explosion of power, their subconscious antennae pricking at the smell of it, their hearts hopelessly magnetized to the pole at its epicenter.


    Within a few hours the rent had closed, but the energy remained, soaked irrevocably into trees and concrete and flesh and dreams and space. By the morning of May 10th, all over the world, warlords were convening emergency meetings, opportunists were flocking to the Midwest, mercenaries were boarding private flights. A waterlogged saint was shuffling out of the Indian Ocean. A dead woman was blinking awake in the fuming heart of a nuclear reactor. A demigod was rousing somewhere in low earth orbit.


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    The chain of events sprawled from there, bloody and inevitable. Very few of those involved can be truly blamed for the devastation that followed. The vast majority of the players in the course of the bloody and final game, even those that seem almost obviously evil and power-mad, were, ultimately, nothing more than human beings. They were people, warped by forces far beyond their comprehension, let alone their control. The effort that many of these people made to save themselves, their loved ones, and the unwitting strangers in their crossfire was admirable. Heroic, even.


    And, of course, totally in vain.


    At precisely 10:45 PM on May 9th, 2024, the end of the world began.

 Act I, Chapter 1: The Mop

    Pietro almost glided down the sidewalk, everything about him neat and dark, a two-dimensional cutout of a man quickstepping past mailboxes and lawn ornaments. He drew stares, but not as many as you¡¯d expect. He made noise, but not as much as he could¡¯ve. He shouldered a huge black duffel, carried it more effortlessly than made any sense to a reasonable onlooker. He was making good time.


    It used to be that clients would have him dropped right outside of a worksite, but with the advent of all those fancy, WiFi-enabled doorbell cameras, his handlers had decided it was safer for them to drop him off a few blocks away and have him walk the remaining distance. Any cameras at the worksite are sure to have been disabled by the time he arrives, but the Movers couldn¡¯t be expected to do the same for every house on the street, and it was best practice not to have their transport vans be too easily associated with their workforce.


    He was a block away from the client when a group of schoolchildren shouldered past him on the sidewalk. He smiled politely at them, stepped aside, and turned to continue on his way.


    ¡°Bald!¡±


    Pietro paused, his smile widening a fraction, and swiveled to face the little girl who¡¯d called out to him. The rest of her friends were up ahead, heedless. She was the only one of the group who¡¯d clocked him.


    ¡°Pardon me?¡± His voice was soft and gentle. He liked talking to children. It was rare that he got the chance to talk to anyone.


    ¡°You¡¯re so bald. Why?¡±


    Pietro ran one gloved hand across his perfectly hairless scalp, then tapped the bare patch of flesh where his right eyebrow should¡¯ve been. ¡°You¡¯ve got a good eye. I am more bald than most people.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t even have eyelashes. Are you sick?¡±


    ¡°Very good! I don¡¯t. Most people don¡¯t even notice that part.¡± Pietro re-shouldered his bag. As much as he was enjoying the dialogue, he knew he was burning valuable time. ¡°I¡¯m not sick, thank you for asking. It¡¯s just for my job.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re bald¡­ for your job.¡± The girl screwed her mouth up at this, processing. ¡°Why?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a cleaner. An almost perfect one, really. And I wouldn¡¯t be leaving things perfectly clean if I was dropping hairs and eyelashes all over the place, now would I?¡±


    The girl took a second to consider this, then nodded sagely. ¡°That makes sense.¡±


    ¡°Your friends are waiting for you.¡± Pietro nodded up at the group of children, now nearly a block up ahead. When the girl turned to look after them he hurried away, hustling off with his strange, soundless, frictionless gait.


    He paused at the stoop of the Mark¡¯s house and pressed his ear against the door, listening. After a precise mental 30 count he sniffed: good, no obvious stink yet, that¡¯d buy him some breathing room. He added another rough twenty minutes to his predicted work window, and tested the latch. The door swung open, unlocked, and he stepped through the front of the townhome and into something resembling a slaughterhouse.


    The body was gone, of course. Movers usually took care of that, or the Muscle, well before he or any other Mop would arrive, right before leaving the door unlocked for him. But the human body is more than just its frame: it contained, as Pietro was well aware at this point in his career, gallons and gallons of extra bits, many of which were smeared around this anonymous Mark¡¯s conjoined kitchen-living room.


    Not their neatest work, Pietro thought to himself as he opened his duffel. He unrolled the massive bag and it folded flat onto the carpet, displaying neatly arrayed rows of specialty equipment: his babies.


    He slipped on a ventilator, retrieved a collapsible, high-powered steam cleaner that cost about as much as a new car, and got to work.


    The gore never bothered Pietro. It hadn¡¯t, not really, in his entire living memory. If he¡¯d ever been allowed to talk to another Mop he¡¯d have been quite interested to hear if this was true for them as well, or if he just had a particularly steady constitution.


    The blood was already pretty much dried, and easy enough to scrape and steam off of the carpet and appliances and, aww, fridge magnets. The Mark had a family: one of the magnets featured the man, burly and grey, presenting trout to the camera, flanked on either side by two younger, yet equally huge, men, all with the same thick hair, the same heavy brow.


    Pietro was unmoved by this, of course. Most Marks had families. Plus, it¡¯s not like he¡¯d been the one who¡¯d--huh, look at that--popped the poor man¡¯s ear off and somehow flung it behind the coffee maker.


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    The scorch marks were harder to handle, and were more numerous than usual at this site. In nearly twenty years of this work, Pietro had never actually seen a Murder before, and was just as baffled as always as to what the hell all the burns were about. Blood makes sense: guns, knives, clubs, whatever they were killing these people with, that¡¯d make plenty of blood. The burn marks, though, the big black streaks of ash and the scorched furniture, they were too sparse to be the product of, what would it even be, a flamethrower? That¡¯d just burn the house down, surely. And that¡¯s not even touching on the weirder remnants he sometimes came across: patches of frost caked on walls, wide impact craters on concrete floors. Once, in a previous Mark¡¯s garage, he¡¯d mopped blood up from beneath a VW Bug that had somehow been flipped completely upside down and crushed like a can.


    Compared to that, this would be a pretty straightforward clean. Already done with steaming out most of the more visible stains on the carpet, Pietro retrieved his wetmop and returned to the kitchen to focus on the floors. He was only a few strokes in when the front door swung open.


    ¡°Hey, ok, listen, I know the game¡¯s at five, but Bekah needed a lift to her hair thing at three, and that¡¯s just down the street, so-¡± the huge figure sidling in through the front door stammered to a stop as his eyes met Pietro¡¯s. They both froze.


    ¡°The fuck are you?¡± The man, one arm weighed down by a bag of groceries, kicked the door shut behind him, hard. His jaw was set. He looked immediately, violently suspicious.


    ¡°Cleaning service!¡± Pietro responded, voice as level and chipper as he could manage. He set his mop down and stepped toward the intruder, soft and steady. ¡°Just here to tidy up. Did your father not mention I was coming by today?¡±


    ¡°How d¡¯you know-¡±


    ¡°Oh, I just assumed. Your photo¡¯s up on the fridge.¡±


    The man blinked, reeling a bit. He set the bag down and glowered at Pietro. ¡°This doesn¡¯t make any sense. He wouldn¡¯t¡­ Dad?¡±


    Pietro took a few steps closer, wincing at the sound of the man yelling. He hoped no neighbors could hear.


    ¡°Dad?! Where is he? Why isn¡¯t he home? Who the fuck are-¡± The man¡¯s gaze flicked from Pietro for just a moment, landed directly on the discarded mop, the clear bloodstains. Over the course of a moment he paled a shade, then reached for his waistband.


    Pietro winced as pain lanced through his head, a sudden, obliterating migraine like a harpoon through his eye socket. His vision swam with odd, smudged colors, obscuring all but the figure of the man before him, whose motion suddenly accelerated, jerky and unnaturally fast.


    He watched as the man whipped a sidearm out, yelled something unintelligible, and then, his vision inexplicably sliding back, like a camera panning up and out to capture the whole of the room, Pietro saw himself get shot in the face. He watched the man walk up to his body and unload, over and over, into his corpse. He witnessed his own last breath.


    All of this sped up, too fast, played out before his eyes in much less than a second. Instinctively, Pietro ducked, stumbled forward, and reached out, triggering a spring-loaded mechanism on his forearm.


    It took a moment for him to realize that he hadn¡¯t, in fact, been shot and killed, as his vision returned to normal and the agony in his head was shunted away, sucked out in an instant. He blinked to see that the man hadn¡¯t even managed to wrangle his gun out of his jeans. He was too busy staring down, goggle-eyed, at the hypodermic needle sticking from his forearm, at the thin wire and spring connecting it to Pietro¡¯s wrist.


    ¡°What-¡± the man swallowed. ¡°What¡¯s in that?¡±


    Pietro somehow found the strength to keep his voice steady, reassuring. ¡°It¡¯s just a sedative.¡±


    ¡°You killed him?¡± The man stumbled to one knee, eyes already losing focus. A fleck of froth formed on his lips. ¡°You gonna- You killing me?¡±


    ¡°No, no. No. To both. No.¡± Pietro guided the man down to the floor, helped him prop himself against the wall. He reached up and slid his ventilator off his face, to show the man his smile. ¡°It¡¯s just a tranquilizer. Sorry, company policy for unexpected intruders, that¡¯s all. You¡¯ll wake up with a nasty headache, but nothing worse.¡±


    The man¡¯s head lolled. ¡°Nnh. Kild him. Always said theyd- theyd gettim.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t hurt yourself, please. Just relax.¡±


    ¡°Trank¡­quilizer?¡± The man looked at him pleadingly. A thin trickle of blood was creeping down out of one of his nostrils.


    ¡°Yes, of course. Just a tranquilizer. Promise.¡±


    ¡°Who¡­ are you? Wgh- w¡­why?¡±


    Pietro¡¯s smile flickered. ¡°Nobody. And it¡¯s my job.¡±


    Within a few seconds, the man was limp, and the house was quiet again.


    Pietro gathered himself up, reflexively brushing off the knees of his pants. He stood still for a moment, took a deep, shuddering breath, and then produced a nondescript flip phone from his pocket and dialed a single number.


    ¡°Hello,¡± he said, after a single ring. ¡°Yes, Mop 9. Terribly sorry, but we¡¯ve got-¡±


    He stole another glance at the man, suppressed another shudder.


    ¡°I¡¯m compromised. No, I¡¯m¡­ No. I¡¯m safe. But we¡¯ll need another Mover back here. Yes. An additional fatality. I¡¯ll handle the extra cleanup, shouldn¡¯t affect our window. Yes. Right. Thank you.¡±


    Pietro closed his phone. He allowed himself a few more seconds, to lean against the front door and breathe. An odd sound escaped his lips, something between a sob and a hiccup. Then he pulled his ventilator back on and went back to work.

 Act I, Chapter 2: The Miracle

    The blister that had been forming on Madison''s hand finally burst, coating the tread of her wheelchair in a thin ooze of blood, making it even harder to push. Her arms had started burning an hour ago, and by now had settled into something more like a constant, screaming ache. She was numb to it. Her thoughts were on the road ahead of her.


    14 miles. That was the distance Gramma''s almanac had said. She''d triple-checked, with a ruler and everything. 14 miles, give or take a little, from Gramma''s house to the Roseville police station, the closest thing to a safe target that she could think to aim for. Sure, she could''ve gone to some random house, dragged herself onto strangers'' stoops and rang doorbells until someone took her in, but what if the people in that house were dangerous? If they were¨Cwhat was the word Gramma used¨Chooligans? Criminals? They might try to hurt her.


    Or they might turn her back to Gramma. Which would be worse.


    No. The police. It had to be the police.


    So there she was, wheelchair screeching its way down the shoulder of the highway in the middle of the night, making painfully slow progress. She had no way of knowing how far she''d already made it. Six miles? Hopefully?


    The moon hung low in the sky. She had very little time before daybreak, before Gramma woke up, before she became all too visible. Gramma had retired at her usual hour today, and if she kept to her standard weekday schedule she¡¯d be up and watering the plants at 5 AM. Earlier, maybe, if she slept poorly. Which she often did.


    She¡¯d made it out of the house without waking her, though, of that she was almost certain. She¡¯d hovered outside the house, by Gramma¡¯s room, ears straining against the background hum of crickets and AC units, breathlessly waiting to hear footsteps or floorboards, anything to indicate she¡¯d made enough noise to wake Gramma up. Opening the combination lock on the closet door (a combination it had taken her nearly half a year of nightly attempts to brute-force), heaving her chair out, unfolding it from her awkward angle on the kitchen floor, she¡¯d done it all as soundlessly as she could have. But it had been impossible not to make some noise, especially when she¡¯d wheeled herself out the back door and around the garden.


    She cursed the chair, and everything it represented, even if it was the only thing that was keeping her plan alive, the only reason she was able to make it this far at all. If she hadn''t failed six years ago, if she''d just thought the plan through a little more, she could''ve left on foot, and this all would''ve been so much simpler. It had taken eighteen straight months of cajoling, of best behavior, to get this, this rickety secondhand piece of equipment, to convince Gramma that she was harmless enough to be trusted with even a little autonomy.


    If she caught her now, she knew, she''d never get the chair, or anything like it, ever again. And still, she hated it. She hated the lumbering, tiresome motions it took to propel, she hated its creaking joints and squeaking wheels, she hated the lump in the seat that, even through the growing cloud of numbness enveloping her lower half, she could feel digging into her tailbone.


    She hated how it must make her look, now: panting and sweating, hunched, head craning to check over her shoulder every few minutes, to gawk at each rare set of headlights that passed her, terrified they might belong to that silver pickup. It burned her in the tender internal spot Gramma knew to target with her pinpoint backhanded accuracy, the part of her that loathed being perceived as helpless.


    And yet, here she was. A couple miles away from home, and Gramma none the wiser. Hopefully. Please, God, hopefully.


    The thought of being discovered by her, now, was too much to bear, so she put it out of her mind. Just as she¡¯d put out the pain in her arms and hands, the nagging, childish fear of the dark trees down the gulch off the shoulder, of whatever monsters and hooligans could be watching her flee in the night. She focused instead on an image:


    Lions at the Como Zoo. She¡¯d been there once, back when she was really little, before Mama passed and Gramma really stopped letting her leave the house. Before the bed and the hunger and the wheelchair. She¡¯d heard of lions, before seeing them, but had only really thought of them in the absent sort of way she thought about dragons, or robots, or other things that she compartmentalized as being ¡°from TV.¡±


    Seeing them in real life, watching a real, actual 400-pound supercat pace its enclosure, feeling one¡¯s roar in her bones, it was a glimpse into the real size of the world. Somewhere, so much farther than she could picture, these things weren¡¯t confined to zoos. They just lived. Out and about. The feeling was vertiginous, nauseating, but immensely hopeful. She¡¯d thought about the lions a lot lately. They¡¯d become a talisman for her, a reminder of all the things she could see if she just managed to get out of the damn house one day.


    And now here she was, bleeding all over Highway 51. Maybe 5 miles away from the house. Still 8,000 or so miles away from Tanzania. It was all so big.


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    More headlights. She kept her head down, focused on moving forward. They brightened at her back, followed by the roar of an engine, louder and angrier than the few cars that had passed her so far.


    A silver truck shot past her, squealing as it braked, fishtailing across the road. Suddenly the lights were in her face, and the voice she¡¯d dreaded hearing was on the wind:


    ¡°Madison?! Oh Lord, Madison, what are you doing out here?¡±


    Heartbeat in her ears, Madison redoubled her efforts, willing her chair to accelerate, as fast as she could. One of her fingernails tore from its bed in her fervor, and she barely felt it.


    The truck was heading back to her now, Gramma¡¯s head barely visible poking out of the window, washed out by the headlights. It would be seconds before she was beside her. It was over before it had even begun.


    ¡°Madison, girl, hold on! Hold on, I¡¯m coming. Gramma¡¯s coming.¡±


    ¡°No!¡± she yelled, voice chalky with underuse and exertion. Her hand slipped, too wet with blood, and she shuddered to a stop, chest heaving. ¡°No.¡±


    A wave of apathy seized her. No use fighting now. Another failed escape. She¡¯d survived the last ones. She hung her head and waited, tears falling soundlessly onto her lap, waited for Gramma to come seize the handles of her chair and lug her back into the truck, back to the house, the basement.


    She remembered the basement window. Thought of how many years of good behavior it had taken to get even that slight glimpse of sunlight back into her life.


    The idea that she might take that away again sprung into her mind, and as Gramma stepped out of the idling truck and approached, her heart lurched back into action.


    ¡°Baby, you¡¯re bleeding. What in the world-¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t let you!¡± Madison screeched. ¡°I won¡¯t! I won¡¯t!¡±


    Madison wrenched her body sideways and drove her chair, with two great heaves of the wheels, off the road and onto the grass by the shoulder. With another great lurch forward she pitched down the gulch and was speeding down the slope, toward the treeline below. She heard Gramma shriek, barely audible behind the whipping of wind in her ears.


    She wasn¡¯t halfway down the hill before the wheelchair caught a rock and flipped, catapulting her out and down. She landed hard, tumbling end over end, shoulder and head and hips hammering into the ground.


    When she finally came to a stop at the base of the hill, a few feet deep into the woods, the world was a churning, reddened miasma. She heard more calls from her grandmother, distant and muted by the ringing in her ears, but growing louder, closer already.


    The pain had yet to set in, still backseat to panic and despair. Madeline squinted through the curtain of blood seeping from a fresh gash on her brow and pistoned her hands into the ground ahead of her. She crawled forward, one armful of dewy grass after another, at an inchworm¡¯s pace.


    ¡°Madison! -----God, what did----- fell! Where---- coming! I¡¯m coming!¡±


    ¡°No.¡± She sputtered, too quiet for even her to hear. She willed herself forward, away. She shut her eyes against the blood and pushed. Faster. Go faster.


    Footsteps were audibly crunching through undergrowth just behind her now, maybe thirty yards back. Too close. Whatever hope she¡¯d had of being hidden by the brush dissolved as those steps grew closer.


    ¡°No!¡± she rasped. ¡°I¡¯m leaving! I¡¯m leaving!¡±


    She moved faster. Somehow, she was going faster. The footsteps hadn¡¯t made it to her yet. Madison didn¡¯t spare any thought as to how this could be possible, her brain held no room for that. Her thoughts, drenched in blood and drowned in the roar of a migraine, centered more on a concept that any words or images: forward. Away. Move. Go.


    ¡°Come back! Baby, Madison, come back!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m leaving! I¡¯m leaving! I¡¯m leaving I¡¯m leaving leave I¡¯ming I am I¡¯m leav-ing!¡±


    Her hands were at her sides now, yet she was still moving. Her head was no longer on the ground. Through the cloudy screen of blood obscuring her one good eye she saw the forest bob ahead of her, bob in the once-familiar rhythm of footfalls.


    ¡°Madison! Madison, how are you-¡± the voice, now, distant and tiny. Tremulous. Shocked?


    ¡°I. AM-¡± Branches whipped her face and arms as she fled. There was a tangible wind, now, whispering in her ears, playing on her skin. The ground was blurring.


    Her grandmother screamed something again, too distant to decipher.


    The bobbing stopped, but her forward acceleration only grew. The wind howled.


    ¡°LEAVING!¡±


    The forest floor dropped away. The canopy stooped down to meet her. Her legs pistoned in the empty air, her hands groped the space ahead. The night sky was before her, now, underneath her.


    The sheer speed wicked the blood from her eyes, and for a second, as her panic finally subsided enough to let some confusion in, she was able to focus enough to really absorb what was happening.


    The treetops blurred beneath her feet. Lights twinkled ahead, in the city. The wind flowed around her, bearing her up and away. Dozens of stories, up, into the sky.


    In the instant that Madison realized she was flying, her momentum disappeared, and she began to plummet back to earth. The ground charged up to meet her, and in her dreamy incomprehension she mustered just enough foresight to brace for impact.

 Act I, Chapter 3: The Chessmaster

    Simon watched the woman across from him fiddle with her bishop. She gave a flustered little look to her shot clock, eyes darting across the board one more time, then shrugged, smiled, and tracked it across the board to take his knight.


    It was all he could take not to vomit.


    His expression never wavered. He was nearly 99% confident that nobody in the room with him had the slightest idea that he was feeling anything other than polite interest. But inside, Simon was melting down. The rage boiling in the back of his throat was acrid enough to make him nauseous. He made a noncommittal, panicked defensive play with his rook, nodded politely at the ninth of his twelve opponents, and shuffled on down the line.


    Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid god fucking damn dog brained stupid goddamn ASSHOLE I¡¯m gonna lose. I¡¯m gonna lose I¡¯m gonna lose I am GOING to LOSE.


    The next competitor down the line, one of a dozen selected to face him simultaneously at the University of Minnesota¡¯s annual chess club exhibition match, had already made his move, a textbook moronic feint with a pawn that Simon would¡¯ve seen from a mile away, blindfolded and in a coma. He smiled at the kid, one of those cute-as-a-button nine year old chess ¡°prodigies¡± that always wormed their way into these events, made a devastating counter, and moved on, his brain whirring away, still stuck in space three feet back.


    Gave her too much god damn TIME is what I did. Left center totally open. Fucking STUPID god damn- Father always says not to take these for granted, not to let my guard down. God, there are photographers here, they¡¯re going to see, everyone¡¯s going to watch me LOSE-


    In the time it had taken to formulate those few thoughts Simon had already parried two more competitors¡¯ feeble misplays, and was enjoying the brief ten seconds of respite he got as he walked back to Board One.


    He took three staccato breaths, touched the tips of his fingers to his thumbs in a quick polyrhythm, and tried to clear his mind.


    It¡¯s not over. It¡¯s not totally over.


    He mentally summoned an image of Board Nine, pored over his options.


    If she pushes forward, if she gets too cocky too fast, I win. She might. She probably will.


    Checkmate at Board Three. Knight takes rook on Board Four. Board Five¡¯s check in two.


    Right. I probably have 1,000 ELO on her. She¡¯s going to get nervous. She¡¯ll realize the scope of what she¡¯s trying to do and the vertigo will throw her.


    Board Six checkmate, Board Seven mate in two, Board Eight check.


    I don¡¯t have center, but I have solid positioning otherwise. Her queen¡¯s already gone. Just as long as she pushes forward, just as long as she doesn¡¯t-


    He was at Board Nine, and the woman had already made her move. His second knight was threatened. She¡¯d maintained her position and was holding back, trying to force him out.


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    He beamed his polite smile down at her. The urge to smash the board was suddenly, nauseatingly overwhelming. His heart pounded in his ears, his tongue glued itself in place, his vision was just barely starting to swim. He needed to get out of here.


    He made a quick, rash advance with a pawn and almost jogged away to the next table.


    She has mate in three. She has mate in three. Don¡¯t look over your shoulder. Don¡¯t check if he¡¯s here.


    Somewhere, a camera¡¯s flash went off. Was the audience catching on? Simon vomited into his closed mouth and swallowed it instantly, his smile a clammy mask.


    Don¡¯t check. Don¡¯t look to see if he¡¯s here.


    Board Ten mate in two, Board Eleven check.


    This can¡¯t be happening. Don¡¯t look.


    Board Twelve¡¯s queen taken. Ten second walk back. He couldn¡¯t help it, he looked.


    Father was standing amongst the meager crowd, looming over them, impassive eyes scanning Board Nine. Simon passed a fire alarm on the wall as he walked back, felt a sudden, idiot urge to pull it, to scream, to launch himself out the window, to turn around and tackle the lucky moron at Nine, to rip the board away and wipe that look of dawning hope from her face.


    This shouldn¡¯t be happening. I¡¯m supposed to be better.


    He was barely paying attention to the other boards now, making moves on autopilot. On board five his hand was shaking, and on six he accidentally fumbled a rook, had to make a frenzied little self-effacing chuckle and pick it from the carpet. His eyes kept darting back to Nine.


    Moron. Lucky idiot. Amateur. What are you even doing here? You¡¯re probably in your twenties. There¡¯s no room for you to go anywhere. What, you think you¡¯re going to be a GM someday? Gonna go party with Magnus, gonna play some TV matches in Dubai when you¡¯re FIFTY?


    A thin, burbling laugh slithered from Simon¡¯s lips. His competitor at Board Eight looked slightly offended.


    You¡¯re a one-trick pony, is what you are. Probably some basement dwelling bot grinder. Chess twenty hours a day. That¡¯s not real intelligence. That¡¯s not G. If you were- Oh, you¡¯re smart enough to dodge check but you¡¯re not smart enough to go pick up some Accutane?


    The woman scratched absently at a blemish on her cheek as she studied the board, as if she¡¯d sensed his thoughts. She grinned, and Simon¡¯s heart broke.


    God, please, someone save me.


    His vision was blurry now, colors all smudged, glowing starbursts exploding in his field of view. He had a massive migraine, right behind his eyes. The outline of his body tingled all over, as if his skin, his silhouette had turned to a mass of needles.


    God, you¡¯re not real, but save me. Blow the building up. Send in a bomb threat. Active shooter. Tornado. Nuke. Meteor. Something. Kill me, kill her. Anyone.


    Simon¡¯s hand had been hovering over his piece on Board Nine for ten seconds now. He felt the eyes on his back, felt the cameras coming up. His entire arm was visibly trembling. A single tear, unbidden and hated, escaped one eye and fell glittering to the floor.


    The woman noticed. She looked from the board to her competitor, saw the grief finally cracking his facade, and had the gall to look worried. To show concern.


    The roar in his ears was deafening now. His skin was pins, knives. Something was punching, rhythmically, in his chest, too strong to be his heart, an alien parasite breaking out of his rib cage. The woman said something but he could not hear, the pain was too great, the migraine blinding. From somewhere Simon registered a whiff of burning meat, of acrid smoke.


    God, please, save me. Kill me.


    The woman was still talking, insistent, then confused, then terrified. She had just enough time to lunge out of range before Simon, the table, the board, and about sixteen square feet of carpet around him burst into flames.

 Act I, Chapter 4: The Prodigy

    ¡°Nah, center of mass, man. Like you¡¯re trying to put it through me.¡±


    Ben socked his mitt for emphasis. He crouched over the meal tray they were using as a makeshift home base, punched his glove again. Behind him, the girls chatted while Kendall made her rounds, tugging on the doors of the Raising Cane¡¯s, making sure they were locked for the night.


    ¡°Seems, I dunno, a little too intense.¡± Ali rolled the baseball in his hands, traced the stitching absently with his thumb. ¡°Like I said, it¡¯s gonna be, like, six year olds. Little, little league.¡±


    ¡°You gotta learn to throw fast before you can throw slow. If you wanna pitch strikes at least. Gotta learn to run before you can walk, feel me?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s super not how that saying goes,¡± said Kendall, from somewhere behind a cloud of vape smoke. She and Jenny were waiting now, leaning against the wall by the dumpsters, watching.


    ¡°Don¡¯t catchers need knee pads?¡± Jenny added. ¡°What if he hits your knee?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s not gonna.¡± Ben rocked back, already uncomfortable in his squat.


    ¡°What if he does? Ben, we¡¯re not going to the ER for you again-¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t have to-¡±


    ¡°It was so fucking embarrassing last time. They¡¯re gonna remember us and the receptionist is gonna laugh at me again.¡±


    ¡°She only laughed at you last time because you threw up into your Stanley or whatever. And it wasn¡¯t even a laugh it was, like, Ali, back me up, it was like a gasp.¡±


    ¡°It was kind of a laugh,¡± Ali kicked at the asphalt under his feet, drew up, and launched the ball, hard as he could, at Ben¡¯s waiting glove. It sailed three feet over target, and Ben had to lunge awkwardly, froglike, after it.


    ¡°I only threw up,¡± Jenny said, watching, unimpressed, as Ben hustled  after the rolling ball. ¡°Because you had a dart sticking three inches into your cheek and you kept doing that thing where you¡¯d open your mouth and you could see it from the inside-¡±


    Ben was belly laughing now, as he jogged back across the parking lot with the ball. Kendall and Ali joined him, giggling while Jenny faux-pouted.


    ¡°He was only doing that because your reaction was so great the first time.¡± Ali caught the ball, tried to get back into position.


    ¡°I¡¯m always saying, you gotta stop giving him material,¡± Kendall added.


    ¡°Why is it on me? Huh? It¡¯s always ¡®Jenny, stop encouraging him¡¯ and never ¡®Ben, stop being such a fucking freak.¡¯¡±


    Ben laughed harder at that, then punched his glove again. ¡°Ok, down the middle! I hit legs yesterday, I don¡¯t have more of those chases left in me.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m trying, man.¡± Ali reared back and threw again, sending the ball skidding into the ground a foot early. Ben caught it as it bounced up, tutting, and tossed it back.


    ¡°Why¡¯re you putting yourself through all this?¡± Kendall said, handing her vape over to Jenny, who was wordlessly groping for it. ¡°I can get you a gig at Cane¡¯s, it¡¯ll be easy. Paul is literally obsessed with me, he¡¯ll put you on the schedule if I ask.¡±


    ¡°Join usssss,¡± Jenny hissed. ¡°Slang some chicken.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t put ¡®chicken slanger¡¯ on college apps.¡± Another pitch, far outside. ¡°¡®Little league coach¡¯ has a sorta community-builder angle to it. It¡¯s athletics-adjacent. Right?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t ask me, man,¡± Ben tossed the ball back. ¡°I just sign where the counselor tells me to sign.¡±


    ¡°Easy for you to say, you¡¯re gonna get the full ride.¡± Ali groaned as the ball slipped past him. Kendall shuffled over and put out a foot, stopping it from rolling into the street.


    ¡°You¡¯re gonna do fine, bro. State schools take whatever.¡±


    ¡°State schools don¡¯t take whatever. You need a 2.0 to get into the U, I¡¯m pretty sure.¡± Ali nodded his thanks and stepped back onto his imaginary pitcher¡¯s mound, wincing against yet another headache starting to seep in behind his eyes. He squinted through the pain, trying to picture an 8-year-old-sized strike zone.


    ¡°It¡¯s gonna be senior year,¡± Kendall said. ¡°Just take fluff classes or something. Last year my sister took ceramics twice. GPA doesn¡¯t care where the Bs come from.¡±


    ¡°Or just, like, don¡¯t. Who gives a shit.¡± Jenny said. ¡°Do community college. Universities are super obviously a scam at this point. You¡¯re not trying to be a lawyer or something.¡±


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    Ali scowled and pitched again, whipping the ball hard and high. Ben whooped as he lunged to catch it.


    ¡°What?¡± Jenny turned to Kendall, imploring. ¡°He¡¯s not trying to be a lawyer, right? Ali? Swear I wasn¡¯t trying to be mean.¡±


    ¡°Nah, he¡¯s just got a complex.¡± Kendall said, fishing out her keys. ¡°You guys get five more throws and we¡¯re out. It smells like Texas Toast and bus fumes out here.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not a complex, it¡¯s just me being realistic,¡± Ali said, shuffling to catch another lob. ¡°Trying to prep for the end of everything next year, make it as painless as I can.¡±


    ¡°Man, why¡¯s pain gotta enter into it? Just be psyched to graduate like a normal person,¡± Ben said.


    ¡°Cuz he¡¯s got a Neverland complex about this shit,¡± Kendall smirked. ¡°Already decided he peaked in high school.¡±


    ¡°I probably have!¡± Ali dropped from his pitcher¡¯s stance, cocked his head toward the girls. His head throbbed again. ¡°Just saying. I have things pretty good right now, and I don¡¯t have anything lined up to keep things good.¡±


    ¡°You do?¡±


    ¡°What, you don¡¯t like this?¡± Ali gestured vaguely around. ¡°I think this is pretty great.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re standing like nine feet from a dumpster right now.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t mean- Not literally this parking lot.¡± Ali shrugged, drew himself up to pitch again. ¡°This, generally. Us hanging out all the time.¡±


    ¡°Awwww,¡± Jenny cooed.


    ¡°It¡¯s gonna go away in a year. You don¡¯t think about that? Ken, you¡¯re gonna go to school out of state-¡±


    ¡°Somewhere warm, please, God.¡±


    ¡°And Jenny¡¯s gonna go be with her mom in NC, and Ben¡¯s going with whatever team gives him the best deal, probably, and it¡¯s not gonna be the Gophers.¡±


    Ben nodded. ¡°Unfortunately, yeah, they are kinda ass.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s gonna be me, alone, in a year, and I want to make that as comfortable as I can. So yeah, I¡¯m gonna keep almost nailing Ben with baseballs so I can get the little league job so I can maybe trick the U into taking me, because maybe at an actual college I can scrounge together something half as good as what I¡¯ve got now.¡±


    For a moment they were quiet, just distant traffic and crickets and a ball hitting leather.


    ¡°See, that would be sweet if it wasn¡¯t crazy and harsh and negative,¡± Kendall said.


    ¡°Yeah, you just have depression, my guy,¡± Jenny added.


    ¡°I do not! I do not.¡± Ali fired off another pitch.


    ¡°You sure sound like you do.¡±


    ¡°Even if I do, tell me I¡¯m wrong.¡±


    ¡°Ok, you¡¯re wrong,¡± Kendall crossed her arms.


    ¡°What, you¡¯re gonna stay here? We¡¯ll all go to the same school? We¡¯ll buy a van and solve mysteries together?¡±


    ¡°No, I mean your approach is wrong. You¡¯re deciding everything¡¯s gonna suck ahead of time, but you¡¯re insisting you¡¯re trying to make sure things don¡¯t suck. Can¡¯t have both at once.¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t decided shit. It¡¯s just how it is.¡± Ben tossed the ball back, and Ali winced as he hopped up to catch it, his headache making his vision swim briefly. ¡°Everyone in my family, as soon as they hit my age, their life went to shit.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, for reasons that don¡¯t really apply to you. They¡¯re avoidable.¡±


    Another pitch. ¡°I¡¯m sure my dad would¡¯ve loved to avoid getting his leg blown off.¡±


    ¡°Avoidable. Don¡¯t join the army.¡±


    ¡°Hah!¡± Ben barked as he lobbed the ball back. ¡°Ali in the army. Not happening.¡±


    ¡°My brother, his whole- He went completely broke. Lived out of his car.¡± Pitch.


    ¡°Don¡¯t spend all of your money on magic mushrooms and Dogecoin.¡±


    ¡°Besides, didn¡¯t Reggie¡¯s bum ass get fired from Subway day one anyway? That¡¯s not a you problem.¡± Jenny shivered. ¡°Come on, let¡¯s goooo.¡±


    ¡°Jenny you can¡¯t possibly be cold right now,¡± Ben said. ¡°Ali, two more! Give me some fire.¡±


    ¡°Ok, those specific things aren¡¯t happening to me, but I could have my own version of an IED or Subway firing coming down the pipe.¡± Raise up, kick, pitch. ¡°It¡¯s a little patronizing to act like that¡¯s not possible.¡±


    ¡°Come the fuck on, man,¡± Kendall huffed. ¡°I¡¯m not patronizing you, I¡¯m just not enabling your little death spiral.¡± Ali¡¯s pitch went low again, skidding to a stop at Ben¡¯s shoes.


    ¡°It¡¯s not a death spiral, it¡¯s reality.¡±


    Ben scooped the ball from the ground, tossed it back. ¡°Harder, man. You¡¯re coming up short because you¡¯re not giving it enough gas.¡±


    ¡°Oh, it¡¯s reality now?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re gonna do fine, Ali. I believe in you!¡±


    ¡°Thanks Jenny, but you also believe in mermaids.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be a dick to Jenny.¡±


    ¡°Hey, I know what I saw!¡±


    ¡°One more, man. Down the middle!¡±


    Wince. Another wave of pain. Ali straightened. ¡°I¡¯m not trying to be a dick.¡±


    ¡°Well you¡¯re coming off like one. Or, just, more like a know-it-all.¡±


    Draw up, rear back. ¡°Know-it-all?¡±


    ¡°Like you know the future. You¡¯ve got a bad gut feeling, fine.¡±


    ¡°Right here, man!¡± Breathe, aim.


    ¡°I fuckin, I saw something on that cruise.¡±


    ¡°But how could you possibly know how things are going to turn out?¡± Wince. Stumble. ¡°How do you know for sure it¡¯s gonna be so bad?¡±


    ¡°I just DO!¡± Pitch. A thunderclap.


    More silence. Engines and crickets again.


    Ali¡¯s vision was gone, replaced by a kaleidoscope haze of shifting auras. His ears rang, muffling the sound of Jenny¡¯s surprised yelp, Kendall¡¯s gasp.


    It took a few seconds for Ali¡¯s vision to clear, for him to regain his footing. He¡¯d fallen? He didn¡¯t remember falling.


    Up ahead of him, still clouded somewhat by the shifting blur in his eyes, he could make out Kendall rushing over to Ben, who was slumping to the ground, still on his knees.  A finger of smoke trickled upward from his shirt, dissipating in lazy twists. Blood pooled on the asphalt ahead of him, spurting out from a hole in Ben¡¯s gut.


    A hole the exact size and shape of a baseball.

 Act I, Chapter 5: The Unseen

    Gloria knew she wasn¡¯t allowed to make eye contact with the birds, not intentionally, anyway, but it was so hard to resist.


    The bloated baby cardinal, wreathed in its toilet-paper-and-crochet nest on the table in front of her, had just finished wolfing down its fourth serving of crickets this hour, and had stopped its constant begging just long enough to goggle back up at her. These moments of quiet recognition were rare in the songbird nursery, especially ones as long as these, and she hoped nobody would hold it against her for enjoying them for a few seconds more.


    She set her forceps down, back into its own individually-labeled tray, and gently deposited the bird¡¯s nest box back into the incubator, where it sat nestled against five more, each packed with more birds jockeying for a premature round of seconds. She shut the incubator and scooted back to glance up at the clock.


    6:20. Well after the end of her scheduled shift. She glanced over at the next volunteer, fiddling with dishes in the far corner, waiting for Gloria to give her spot up, and she sighed. She couldn¡¯t get away with prolonging it much more.


    She got up and found the manager for the night, a perpetually frazzled college girl who had to be less than half Gloria¡¯s age. She found her out at the admit station, brow furrowed in concentration, trying to guide a needleful of fluid into a squirming finch¡¯s leg.


    She waited patiently for the manager to finish up, then cleared her throat to announce her presence. It was a habit that had become second nature to her, advertising her presence before speaking. She had a tendency to startle people.


    ¡°Excuse me, Gina. Just letting you know I¡¯m heading out for the night.¡±


    Gina¡¯s eyes flickered over Gloria for a half-second before flitting right back to the station, where three more birds peeped for her attention. ¡°Got it, thanks for the help today, Julia. Have a good night!¡±


    Gloria didn¡¯t flinch. It wasn¡¯t the first time she¡¯d been misnamed, and it wouldn¡¯t be the last. ¡°You too, honey.¡±


    She was still thinking about the cardinal as she rode the bus home, sandwiched between a young couple, talking animatedly past her. She wondered if a bird as small as that had the ability to remember faces, to associate them with some internal index of people. And if, were that to be the case, the bird would even be able to remember her into adulthood.


    She figured probably not. She felt a little silly for hoping.


    She¡¯d put the matter out of her mind by the time she¡¯d reached her apartment. A step down, space-wise, from the townhome she¡¯d lived in before, but now that she was retired, some cost-cutting had been necessary, and she never could justify having a whole house to herself anyway. The one bedroom was more than enough space. Especially now.


    She found herself frozen at the entryway, foot poised in the air, halfway through the front door. Nothing in particular had startled her. The interior of her room was tidy and dark, the evening sun only barely peeking in around the curtains. Her coffee table was clean, her neat Goodwill landscapes arranged politely on the walls, frames freshly dusted. Nothing was out of place.


    Yet her heart seized with dread at the idea of stepping inside. Once she did, she¡¯d be resigned to the cozy dark, the wordless nothing, until her next volunteer shift, five days from now. The week of isolation would begin, as it had begun every week for the past two years, the moment she stepped in and shut the door behind her. And it would begin again, over and over, until she had a heart attack or slipped in her shower or got hit by a bus.


    Most days she could handle the thought. Not today. She shut the door, turned on her heels, and left. She walked briskly down to the lobby, out the front door, and hustled, away, with no particular destination in mind.


    She found herself at the mall, for reasons she could only guess at. Maybe her instinct was that the bustle of people would make her feel less alone. She should¡¯ve known better.


    She poked around in shops for a while, blankly inspecting cardigans and sniffing candles. She bought herself a pretzel. She wandered up to the third level and stood, a little transfixed, at the railing, looking down into the busy concourse 30 feet below.


    Teenagers and families and employees flowed around her, river water coursing past a stone, as she stared. Minutes passed.


    She thought of jumping. Not in any real way. She didn¡¯t necessarily want to die. Dying would be scary, and it wasn¡¯t the point of the fantasy. The image that interested her, were she to jump, would be the moment that everyone realized what she was doing. When the first person noticed the strange older woman clambering up onto the railing, when the crowds gathered around to watch her plummet. She¡¯d turn into a nightly news story, maybe. A few dozen eyewitnesses would have a new anecdote. People would talk about her, sure, in morbid, voyeuristic tones, but they¡¯d talk about her, make conjectures about her motive, jokes about her appearance, judgments about her actions.


    It¡¯d be nice, to be the topic of conversation like that. The idea that strangers at home could be talking about her made her mental image of her dark apartment feel a fraction less impenetrable.


    So she clung to the image, reinforced it, knowing the mall would be closed soon and that she couldn¡¯t escape home much longer. She focused on the image so intently, in fact, that she failed to really register the sounds of the first gunshots. It wasn¡¯t until the screaming began that she shook herself out of her stupor.


    That same river of people that had been trickling past quickly became a torrent, a flood that battered Gloria back away from the railing, knocked her over. Her head cracked against the floor as she landed hard, accompanied by a starburst of agony as her migraine worsened. Her glasses, delicate little half-moons she''d kept in pristine condition for years, went skittering across the ground. Almost out of instinct, she crawled after them.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    More gunshots, a scream, more screams, a curse. A boot belonging to some unseen stranger crashed down on Gloria''s hand just as she retrieved her glasses. She yelped in pain and scooted back, retreating against the far wall as she fumbled her now-cracked spectacles onto her face.


    Just as suddenly as the crowd had arrived, it was gone. She was alone in the hallway now, shivering against the wall. Alone but for a distant figure, a willowy man in ill-fitting tactical gear, toting some sort of gun. Gloria didn''t know firearms all that well, but she knew enough to be able to tell that it was an enthusiast''s weapon. Long, jagged, decked out with odd attachments. The man raised the rifle to his shoulder and let out a stream of shots, clipping a man that had tried to make a run for it from inside a photo booth down the hall.


    Such a fancy looking gun, Gloria thought, but he couldn''t afford to buy a vest that fits? As the man stalked closer she got a better sense of his build, could tell that his boots were too big, his Kevlar chest piece way too small. The gunman was a skinny little thing, and hadn''t thought to bring a belt with him, so he was constantly reaching down to yank his pants up. Gloria was shocked to hear a giggle burble out from behind her lips.


    The man didn''t take any notice. He peeked around into the Lids maybe twenty yards away from her, let loose another hail of bullets, discarded his clip, and yanked his pants back up. Gloria giggled again.


    She realized, absently, that she''d missed her chance to run. She''d been sitting there, dazed and dreamy, awash in the unreality of the situation, and had forgotten to actually escape. She wondered, detached, if maybe she was suicidal after all. If some deeper part of her knew this, and had made the call, if that part lacked the sheer force to get her to fling herself off a railing, but had been just persuasive enough to get her to freeze in place for a few seconds too long.


    The man- the boy, more likely, he really was scrawny- turned away from the store and continued down the hall, toward Gloria. He was just steps away, and she was the only person around, the obvious target.


    She decided against her instinct to close her eyes and wait. She decided she owed it to herself to look her assailant in the eyes. She figured she should focus on something to mourn, some experience to be sad to miss out on, or maybe some nice memory to hold onto in her last moment, something poignant. While she tried and failed to conjure one up, the boy approached, gun shouldered, and soon was just an arm''s length away.


    The boy looked briefly in her direction. His bloodshot eyes scanned over her, once, then twice. He coughed, tugged his pants, and continued on his way.


    To Gloria''s surprise, a wave of bitter rage welled in her, acidic and immediate.


    I''m not even worth HIS attention. She thought, aghast. This lowlife, this bottomfeeder, maniac asshole, the worst of the worst, even HE doesn''t want to look me in the eyes.


    She barked another laugh. It echoed down the hall, a cartoon witch''s cackle. The boy started, whipped around, gun drawn. He waved his weapon to one side, then the other, then, shaking from nerves, had the gall to ignore her again.


    Gloria found herself sprinting at him, flinging her hands at the boy before she registered what it is she was doing. She brought her fists down, hard as she could muster, rained blows on his neck, where a rectangle of pink flesh poked out of his Kevlar.


    The boy yelped and whipped around, loosed a frantic shot that missed Gloria entirely. The shot would''ve deafened her, if the dull roar of her blood and fury wasn''t already all she could hear.


    She grabbed at the gun, yanked it. The boy let out another scream, a high-pitched, tremulous noise, more surprised than angry. He yanked back on the weapon, but Gloria had clamped down, was pulling with all of her might. She didn''t know what she''d do with the gun when she got it. She didn''t know if she''d turn it on him, or on herself, or if she''d throw it over the railing. She didn''t know if the boy would attack her unarmed, or if he had some other weapon hidden that he''d finish her off with.


    All she knew was that she''d been briefly prepared to die. She''d lived a long life, a dull life, but a safe one, one that could''ve conceivably continued decades still into the future. She knew that she was a full person, with a rich inner existence, an intelligent and opinionated and educated woman who, yes, had never married, and no, had no real close friendships, and sure, had been so completely isolated that she''d decided to spend her 66th birthday alone at the mall, contemplating a public suicide. She''d briefly, for reasons that were already starting to baffle her, somehow accepted that even knowing all that, she had been about to let this gawky moron, this nothing man, this late night talk show punch line, erase all of that. That this loser who couldn''t even pick out pants that fit had felt himself qualified to overwrite her past, terrorize her present, revoke her future.


    The idea that she''d been even momentarily resigned to that fate filled her with a disgust more overwhelming than any emotion she''d ever felt. It burned behind her eyes, waxed and waned in concert with the waves of pain from her growing migraine. She made a noise with the effort of it, a sharp, animalistic grunt.


    Then the boy''s head, feet from hers, exploded.


    Gloria thought, numbly: Wait. Did I do that?


    No. She glanced down the hall and saw a security guard standing nearby, handgun held in front of him, shouting something indistinct into a shoulder-mounted radio.


    Huh. I didn''t know mall cops even carried guns.


    Two more guards rounded the corner, weapons drawn, and hurried toward the body, then froze. Their eyes were fixed on the gun, which was now in Gloria''s hands.


    Gloria realized, distantly, that she should probably put the gun on the ground, that the guards were doubtless about to order her to do that. She decided against dropping it, in case it went off, and glanced down to find somewhere to place it.


    The gun, she realized, wasn''t in her hands at all. It was floating, unsupported, in midair.


    No, wait. What? That doesn''t make any sense. I can feel the gun in my hands.


    Suspended above the gun were a few flat droplets of blood, stains on the air, rotating in sync with the slight sway of Gloria''s torso.


    Gloria glanced up, looked to the glass of the store display across the hall from her. She felt silly checking, but she looked for her reflection.


    It wasn''t there. Just a gun suspended in the air, held by nobody.

 Act II, Chapter 1: The Harbinger

    Ida itched her leg with the barrel of her handgun before pointing it back in the general direction of her hostages. She watched the line of SWAT officers on the other side of the hotel¡¯s huge windows, saw how they tensed and shifted with each of her movements. It amused her, absently, in the way someone running a mean-spirited but ultimately harmless prank might be amused.


    These cops weren¡¯t in on the ¡°prank.¡± Half of them were probably sure they were about to see a few innocent tourists get executed, right in front of them, on the job. She¡¯d felt a tinge of guilt about that, when she¡¯d planned this, but it evaporated when she remembered that the other half would probably be itching to execute her, the moment they got the word.


    ¡°Can you repeat your list?¡± garbled the walkie-talkie clipped to her belt. An officer outside had his head cocked toward his own device, a counterpart to the one they¡¯d tossed into the building for her. ¡°Clearly and slowly.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t already have it?¡± Ida said. ¡°Listen, it¡¯s important you follow through quick, here, I don¡¯t want this dragging on any more than you do-¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re working on it, we just want to be a hundred percent clear about your demands. We want them on record.¡±


    Ida sighed, tried to recall her half-memorized list. ¡°I want an agent of the federal government, preferably somebody high-up, from one of the big 4 intelligence agencies, to have a prolonged talk with. When you¡¯re sending word out for your agent, tell them that I mentioned Tunguska, Phoenix Above, Singapore, and the Saint Louis Stalker. I only want to speak to someone with a high enough clearance to know what I mean by that list. If they get here, and they can¡¯t communicate to me that they understand what I¡¯m talking about, then I start shooting.¡±


    The elderly man she was aiming at quailed softly at that, and she shielded her mouth with a hand to whisper to him. ¡°Not really. The gun¡¯s fake, look, it¡¯s plastic. I just have to say this shit or they¡¯re gonna take all day to-¡±


    Across the lobby, one of the windows near the ceiling shattered. Ida perked up, genuinely surprised by the noise, then scanned the floor. She sighed when she spotted the bullet laying on the carpet, flattened and scorched.


    ¡°Did you just shoot me?¡± She turned back toward the line of cops, lips pursed. They all stiffened now, several raised their own weapons. ¡°Cut that shit out! You¡¯re gonna get someone hurt!¡±


    She heard another shot, a shrill whistle arcing through the now open window. She saw it this time, watched the bullet come to a stop half an inch from her right eye and hover for a moment as all of its momentum and force was absorbed by her aura. The bullet dropped to her feet and sizzled harmlessly.


    ¡°Seriously!¡± she barked into the walkie-talkie. ¡°Tell your sniper to cool off. He might hit a bystander.¡±


    She paced the line of hostages, felt her first pang of actual worry today. She¡¯d resigned herself to having to kill a cop, maybe, if they tried gassing her and she had to make a run for it, but she hadn¡¯t considered that a hostage might actually die. Whatever conscience Ida still had, she knew that the death of a perfectly innocent stranger would probably rest pretty badly on it.


    ¡°Okay, new plan, new plan, everyone up,¡± she poked her gun toward the ceiling and nodded toward the check-in desk. ¡°You can take your hands off your heads for this. Everybody behind the desk. Quick but orderly. Anyone tries to-¡±


    One of her hostages let out a strangled yelp and sprinted past her, down the hall, and after a moment of frenzied indecision, fled into a bathroom. Ida watched this impassively, a little bemused.


    ¡°Anyone else tries to make a break for it, I shoot. Don¡¯t make this harder than it has to be, nobody has to die here today, blah blah blah.¡±


    ¡°Why are you doing this?¡± whispered the old man as she led the group, single-file, through the lobby. ¡°You don¡¯t seem the type.¡±


    She ushered them behind the makeshift cover of the desk, a little doubtful that it¡¯d stop another high-caliber bullet. ¡°If I¡¯m not too late, and the feds listen to me, you¡¯ll never have any idea. If not, give it about two weeks.¡±


    ¡°Two weeks until what?¡±


    ¡°If it happens, you¡¯ll know. You¡¯ll see it on the news and remember this moment and think ¡®oh, yeah, I can see why that nice lady was trying to stop all this.¡¯¡± Her hostages safely stowed, Ida shuffled to the side, where a corner could jut protectively between her and the broken window. She wasn¡¯t all that worried about getting shot, they could walk that sniper guy in here and let him unload his whole clip point-blank for all the damage it¡¯d do to her, but she figured it couldn¡¯t hurt the situation to dissuade more gunfire.


    A huge black SUV roared into view outside and screeched to a halt. After a pause, a young man climbed out, flanked by two more armored officers. He walked briskly over to the negotiator and took the walkie from him.


    ¡°Good afternoon. Ida Miller, my name is Liam Hatcher. I work for the FBI.¡± The voice crackling from her walkie was even, smooth, almost friendly. Outside, the man produced a badge and flashed it her way. The gesture was a little silly; Ida could see the badge in the utmost detail, even from this distance and through the lobby¡¯s tinted glass, but he probably didn¡¯t know she could do that. ¡°I heard you wanted to talk to someone like me?¡±


    ¡°Just FBI? Couldn¡¯t get anything better?¡±


    The man smiled. Even at this distance, Ida could tell his teeth were dazzlingly white. ¡°If you wanted quick access to someone like that, maybe you should¡¯ve pulled this stunt in DC.¡±


    ¡°No, it needed to be Minneapolis. Do you know what I was talking about, with my list? If you can signal to me that you know what those four things had in common, I¡¯ll come out, I¡¯ll surrender.¡±


    ¡°Right, the common thread connecting meteor impacts, a mid-sized doomsday cult, and an urban boogeyman. It¡¯s- I hope you¡¯ll pardon me for using what¡¯s probably an obscure term our agencies use internally, but it¡¯s Fields. Or, I guess, Field Manipulators.¡±


    Ida nodded. He knew the magic word. She had also been prepared to accept: Auras, Shrouds, Qi, Cloaks, or, gag, ¡°Blessings,¡± depending on where they¡¯d sourced their info. She might¡¯ve been okay taking ¡°superpowers¡± or ¡°magic,¡± but she was relieved to hear the government wasn¡¯t THAT clueless.


    ¡°Did I guess right? Full marks for Agent Hatcher?¡± The man outside grinned wider, a look Ida had been hoping for: the smile of somebody in on the prank.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    ¡°Ding ding. Time to collect your prize.¡±


    Ida stepped out from behind the corner, offered her gun up, and set it on the ground. She paced forward, hands held palms-out, careful not to move too quickly. She spared a few glances toward the broken window, but no more shots rang out.


    The moment she stepped past the hotel¡¯s doors, a SWAT officer concealed around a corner sprang toward her and launched himself at her midriff in a full-bore tackle. He crumpled into her, smashed short and hard, as if he¡¯d thrown himself against a concrete pole. Even without making an effort to enhance her senses, Ida heard a bone break at the impact, and the man lowered himself to the ground, groaning.


    She suppressed a grin, remembered one of Mom¡¯s go-to lectures: ¡°I know it feels nice to be so strong, but that doesn¡¯t make you better than anyone. Hurting people who don¡¯t know what you¡¯re capable of isn¡¯t impressive, it just makes you a cheat.¡±


    Liam whistled: one low, impressed note. The officers around him bristled, guns raised, bewildered.


    ¡°Sorry, sorry,¡± Ida said. ¡°That¡¯s my bad, I should¡¯ve- Look, here, I¡¯ll put cuffs on. Someone come cuff me?¡±


    Ida held her hands out. Despite herself, she felt another self-satisfied thrill when nobody from the Kevlar-mottled mass of men volunteered to step out and take her into custody.


    ¡°I¡¯ll do the honors, then,¡± Liam said. He slipped a pair of cuffs from the belt of the officer at his side and strode over, grin unwavering. Ida narrowed her hearing to listen to the man¡¯s heart. It was steady, even, the heartbeat of a man reading a book or enjoying a walk in the park.


    She held her wrists out and he clapped the cuffs onto them.


    An officer held the backseat door for her but hesitated short of pushing her in, drawing his hand back as if he expected her skin to burn him. She sidled past him and clambered into the seat. Soon the officer and the agent were in the front, and the SUV was speeding off down the road, sirens on.


    Ida glanced out the windows at the growing crowd waiting outside the cordon line and spotted a mass of news vans already parked at corners. Busy news week, she thought, not a little pleased with herself. First the mall shooting, and now this. She wondered if this would be enough for the local stations to take some time off of the meteor coverage.


    She wanted to hope that this would be as eventful as things got in the Twin Cities in these coming weeks, but even at her most optimistic she knew that just wouldn¡¯t be true. Forces were already in motion.


    Ida watched the line of cop cars following them as they merged onto the freeway. ¡°You¡¯re not just taking me to a regular prison, are you? Or a police station?¡±


    ¡°You just threatened to shoot up a hotel,¡± Liam said, eyes smiling at her through the rearview. ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t we be taking you into custody?


    ¡°No, that¡¯s- That won¡¯t work, it¡¯s not secure enough.¡± Ida straightened, nervous now. ¡°Nobody knows I¡¯m doing this, but they might find out, and people like me, they kinda frown on, you know, full transparency with the government. I¡¯m going to be spilling things that some powerful people won¡¯t want you knowing.¡±


    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sure. Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll be safe with us.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t be fully safe unless I¡¯m deep underground. They might be able to find me otherwise.¡±


    ¡°Hmm.¡±


    ¡°No, don¡¯t ¡®hmm¡¯ me. You should know that breaking into a prison would be child¡¯s play for an Aura- for a ¡®Field Manipulator,¡¯ even half as good as me. Hell, I could just walk out myself, but that would defeat the whole point of what I¡¯m doing.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d walk out of a maximum security prison?¡± Liam said, tone innocently curious.


    ¡°What- Yes. Of course. Do you-¡± Ida sighed, took a second to reconfigure. ¡°That I could do that should be obvious. How much do you actually know?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid our driver here hasn¡¯t the clearance for-¡±


    ¡°He can¡¯t hear us.¡±


    Liam¡¯s smile tweaked at the edge as he shot a glance to the man driving the car, seated just feet from him. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure-¡±


    ¡°Try yelling. He won¡¯t hear.¡± Ida said, barely exerting herself. Muffling sound at this distance would be a little annoying, but not impossible. ¡°Go ahead, come on.¡±


    Liam cleared his throat and barked a little half-shout. The driver didn¡¯t visibly react, but his eyes, darting between the rearview and the passenger seat, showed that he was clearly bemused by his passengers¡¯ apparent game of silent charades.


    Liam yelled again, louder. ¡°Officer! Officer, say something, if you hear me. Anything.¡±


    The cop¡¯s eyes were back on the road. Liam beamed back at her, thrilled, then inspected his own hands, as if he expected to see some sort of magical residue around him, a forcefield. ¡°Energy. Sound is energy. Right,¡± he muttered to himself.


    ¡°How much do you even know? Sound muffling is a pretty entry level trick.¡±


    Liam held his hands up in a you-got-me gesture. ¡°To be completely frank, I got a very limited briefing on the situation, er,¡± he checked his watch, ¡°a little over 90 minutes ago.¡±


    ¡°How limited?¡± Ida grumbled. This was shaping up to be a massive waste of time.


    ¡°The documents I saw were mostly black marker. Heavily redacted. Something something ¡®energy manipulation,¡¯ something something ¡®small percentage of the population¡¯ something something ¡®medical braindeath¡¯ something something ¡®highly resistant to cooperating with federal agents.¡¯ Sorry, like I said, the Cities are a little too small-fry to have someone with the kind of stratospheric clearance you¡¯d need to know this material within hostage-negotiation-range today.¡±


    ¡°So you don¡¯t actually know anything about Phoenix Above, or Singapore, or-¡±


    ¡°Me, no,¡± Liam said. ¡°I had the answer to that fed to me by an actual expert on the subject while I got rushed down here. He¡¯s flying in now, you¡¯ll see him tonight.¡±


    Ida felt a glimmer of hope at that. ¡°He¡¯s meeting us at the station?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I¡¯ll let him know that you objected, and if he agrees with your assessment we¡¯ll get you somewhere more secure. But you¡¯ll have to hang with us, just for the night.¡± Liam drummed his fingers on his armrest, watched the driver, amused at how oblivious the man remained. ¡°I¡¯d appreciate knowing what it is you actually want from us, though, before he arrives. Don¡¯t want to look clueless in front of the brass.¡±


    Ida frowned out her window at the buildings blurring past. ¡°I don¡¯t have the time or energy to give you a total rundown.¡±


    ¡°Then don¡¯t. Give me the jist. What was so important that you, Ida Miller, a semi-pro distance cyclist with a pristine criminal record and a new mortgage, decided to commit terrorism to get the word to us about it?¡±


    ¡°Something is happening, here, in the Cities, that¡¯s drawing other Field Manipulators over. When a few of us are in the same place at the same time, things tend to get violent. And this is shaping up to involve more than just a few of us.¡±


    ¡°Oh, that¡¯s quite noble. I presume you¡¯re not doing all of this out of civic Minnesotan pride? It¡¯s about Bailey, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Ida stiffened. She¡¯d expected him to be knowledgeable about her, he was a federal agent, but she hadn¡¯t been expecting her daughter to be mentioned by name so quickly. ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°Why not just get her out of town? I¡¯m sure her father would-¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s not the type to listen to me. And besides, if things get as bad as I¡¯m expecting them to, taking a weekend trip to Chicago won¡¯t save anybody.¡±


    Liam whistled again. His eyes met hers in the rearview and glinted, cold and steely, even as he smiled. ¡°Ominous. And you¡¯re willing to just, what, surrender yourself to the big bad government to stop this? You¡¯re not worried we might feel inclined to lock you up in a bunker and cut you open to see how you work?¡±


    ¡°No, I¡¯m not worried.¡±


    ¡°Because you trust Uncle Sam?¡±


    ¡°Because if you try that, I¡¯ll kill you.¡± Ida said it matter-of-factly, because it was, on a very elemental and basic level, a matter of fact.


    Liam¡¯s heartbeat fluttered for the first time since she¡¯d started listening to it, but, to his credit, it didn¡¯t show on his face. He opened his mouth to ask another question, reconsidered, then settled back into his seat.


    ¡°Well, Ida, I¡¯ve got to say, thank you for involving us. This is shaping up to be far more interesting than my usual caseload.¡±

 Act II, Chapter 2: The Outlaw

    Siobhan¡¯s eyes locked with Sylvia¡¯s, and despite nearly a year together now, she still felt a slight shiver of excitement at the look of them. The intensity. Brr. Like being on the other end of a bright green foglight, the kind they put on ships, powerful enough to obliterate a half mile of haze. ¡°Ok, repeat after me: in and out, two bagfuls, limited banter.¡±


    ¡°In and out. Two bagfuls. Some banter.¡±


    ¡°Syl-¡±


    ¡°What¡¯s the point of doing this if there¡¯s no banter? Come on, look, there¡¯s just one guy in there. The diamonds are temporary but the memory of the look on this guy¡¯s face is gonna last forever.¡±


    ¡°Isn¡¯t being ¡®forever¡¯ kind of a diamond¡¯s whole deal?¡± Shiv smirked, relenting a little as they pushed their way into the jewelry store. The door chimed as they entered, and a tidy older man behind the desk glanced up from his work.


    ¡°Welcome! Sorry to say it¡¯s near closing time, so I don¡¯t know how much I can show you around-¡±


    Sylvia held up a hand, smiling politely. ¡°That¡¯s okay, thank you so much. This is gonna be quick.¡±


    Heart thrumming with excitement--God, this is never not fun--Sylvia approached the glass display desk, several yards long and stocked to the brim with jewelry. She steepled all ten of her fingertips onto the glass and focused, went into what Sylvia was fond of calling ¡°the Vibrazone.¡± Shiv insisted this name was stupid as hell, which was precisely why she insisted on using the label as much as possible.


    A tactile world of resonances and densities unfurled in front of her, an unseen tableau of information, instantly and thoroughly processed in that special corner of her brain. Within moments she had a more complete mental image of the jewelry display than the employee in front of her probably ever did.


    ¡°This place, Shane¡¯s, you¡¯re the guys from the ads?¡± Sylvia asked, friendly. The employee half-smiled, used to this.


    ¡°Now you¡¯ve got a friend in the diamond business,¡± he croaked, an oldish man¡¯s impression of an even older man. ¡°Yeah, we get that a lot.¡±


    ¡°Those things are all over the radio waves around these parts. A little excessive, if you ask me.¡± Sylvia breathed deep, her analysis complete. She lowered her palms, flat on the glass, and tensed. ¡°So, just out of curiosity, friend-to-friend, you guys have insurance on all this stuff, right?¡±


    ¡°Excuse me?¡±


    ¡°Hey,¡± Shiv warned. ¡°We already went over this.¡±


    The employee¡¯s eyes flicked between the two of them, noting the backpacks each of the woman wore, really seeing them for the first time. He swallowed. ¡°You mean, liability insurance? On our products?¡±


    ¡°Yeah. Like, some people steal from you, you go out, cry about it to some other company, they foot the bill. Right?¡±


    ¡°Kind of. It¡¯s a little more complicated than that-¡±


    ¡°See, I told you they had a system,¡± Shiv said.


    ¡°Hey, I believed you, I just wanted to check.¡± Sylvia jutted her chin at the employee. ¡°Sir, you might wanna step back quick. Sorry in advance.¡±


    ¡°Pardon? Sorry for-¡±


    Sylvia released the tension she¡¯d been holding, with no more physical exertion than an almost inaudible grunt. To say that the glass display case shattered would be an overstatement. There was no explosion, no flying fragments of debris, just a loud, crystalline ping. The case vibrated for a fraction of a second, then dissimulated, sighing gently apart and slumping to the ground, a glittering flow of millions of equally miniscule glass flakes.


    Shiv was already pacing the line, yanking rings and necklaces from their displays and dropping them in her bag, by the time the employee had gathered his thoughts enough to make a noise.


    ¡°How did- Excuse me, you can¡¯t-¡±


    ¡°It¡¯d take too long to explain how, let¡¯s just settle on ¡®I¡¯m a very special lady.¡¯ And I definitely can, because watch:¡± Sylvia plucked a wedding ring from the counter and slid it onto her own finger. ¡°Shiv, what do you think about this one on me?¡±


    ¡°Bleh. The rock¡¯s too big. Tacky.¡± Shiv zipped her backpack shut, already mostly full, and swung it over her shoulder. ¡°Come on, hustle. Two bagfuls, remember.¡±


    ¡°Right. Sorry, got caught up in the moment.¡± Sylvia started sidling down the line, scooping whatever she could grab into her pack.


    ¡°I- You- I¡¯m going to¡­ call the police?¡± stammered the employee. He reached for a wall-mounted landline, still too confused to be terrified.


    ¡°Is that a question?¡± Sylvia cocked her head. ¡°I mean, you can, but what¡¯re you gonna tell them? How do you explain this?¡±


    The man looked down at the loose piles of glittering dust lining where the bulletproof glass display used to sit. ¡°I¡¯ll be honest, I¡¯m not sure.¡±


    ¡°Feel free to file a report, but I¡¯ve got a feeling the police here are about to be pretty swamped, the next few weeks. Might not get back to you for a while.¡± Sylvia zipped her pack and hurried over to the front door, where Shiv stood waiting. ¡°Sorry about the mess. Quick tip: when you¡¯re sweeping this stuff up, wear a mask or something, it¡¯s really fine and you do not want silicosis, believe me.¡±


    ¡°Oh. Thank you.¡± The man nodded, blinking hard, as if he was trying to rouse himself out of a dream.


    ¡°Ok, come on. Banter limit exceeded.¡±


    ¡°Right.¡± Sylvia blew the employee a kiss, winked. ¡°Sorry again!¡±


    She hurried after Shiv, hopped into the Range Rover they¡¯d requisitioned and left parked outside.


    ¡°Maybe don¡¯t use my real name directly in front of the people we¡¯re robbing next time,¡± Shiv said, hovering her palm over the car¡¯s empty ignition. With a quick, sharp retort and a whiff of ozone the engine roared to life.


    ¡°Oh who cares, the cops aren¡¯t gonna have the resources to sniff out random jewel thieves here, not now. With what Benny was saying, maybe never again.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk like that,¡± Shiv, so unshakeable, so fluent at playing things cool, visibly tensed. ¡°It¡¯s not gonna be the Aurapocalypse. Ok? People are gonna convene, fight it out a bit, we¡¯ll snap up some scraps, then a top dog¡¯s gonna emerge and everyone else will scramble. Then things will go back to normal.¡±


    ¡°Well, mostly. There¡¯ll be a new Demigod wandering around, probs.¡±


    ¡°Or, more likely, one of the ones we¡¯ve already got just gets a little fatter.¡± Shiv took a deep breath, fingers drumming the wheel. ¡°Please, for me, cool it on the ¡®end of the world¡¯ talk. Okay? It¡¯s getting to me.¡±


    Sylvia¡¯s brow creased. She reached across the console, touched Shiv¡¯s elbow. ¡°Sorry, I didn¡¯t mean- You¡¯re not having a- Should we pull over?¡±


    ¡°Nah, no.¡± Shiv pounded her chest once, hard, cleared her throat. ¡°No, not an episode, just kinda flagging a bit. I¡¯ll be fine. Let¡¯s focus, gimme directions, I don¡¯t know where I¡¯m supposed to turn off.¡±


    Shiv punched the address they¡¯d been given into her phone, a park just a few minutes away, nestled against one of the Cities¡¯ million little lakes. She frowned, extended her hearing a bit, listened for Shiv¡¯s heart.


    Muffled, fast, but rhythmic. Not spasming.


    Marco was already waiting for them by the time they arrived, sitting at the edge of a dock full of swan boats, legs in the water. He was in one of his suits, despite the heat, despite the locale, pants and shoes that probably cost a month of rent soaking in lake scum. He waved at them as they approached, without turning his head, his attention locked on the pair of ducks he was tossing kibble to.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    ¡°They let you feed the ducks here,¡± he said as they approached, grinning. ¡°25 cents for a cup of this, like, dog food. That¡¯s nice. I can¡¯t remember the last time I paid a quarter for something.¡±


    Sylvia crouched to grab a handful of food from him when Shiv tensed, let out a harmless wave of force that rippled the water and sent the birds scrambling.


    ¡°No fair, I wanted a turn.¡± Sylvia faux-pouted and slung her backpack off, set it next to Marco. He hefted it, listened to the jewelry jingle inside, and whistled appreciatively.


    ¡°Let¡¯s keep this brief.¡± Shiv crossed her arms, frowning down at the man. ¡°You¡¯ve got your loot. Now spill.¡±


    Marco kicked lazily in the water. A minnow chased the tip of one of his loafers. ¡°Always so quick to business. You¡¯d think you Make-A-Wish types would learn to appreciate the moment a little more.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t get to talk,¡± Sylvia teased. ¡°Between the three of us, you were the one who was medically deadest.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but I wrapped my Lincoln around a traffic light, that¡¯s different, that¡¯s troubled bad boy shit. I get extra points for being so centered.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll have an easier time appreciating the moment once you tell me what the hell¡¯s going on.¡± Shiv dangled her pack above him. ¡°I¡¯m happy to take my blood money and leave.¡±


    ¡°Oh come on, we both know you didn¡¯t kill anyone for that.¡± Marco leaned back and took a deep breath, sighed appreciatively. ¡°You feel it too, right? The buzz in the air. God, it¡¯s nice.¡±


    Sylvia nodded. It¡¯d started as a vague, invigorating feeling, budding in her around the time they¡¯d crossed state lines into Minnesota, and had only intensified as they¡¯d approached the cities. Sitting, now, in the epicenter of it all, she thrummed with energy. Her Aura was stronger than it had ever been, more responsive, more powerful. She felt like she could throw a car, sprint a marathon. It was intoxicating, and more than a little worrying.


    ¡°What is it?¡± Shiv prodded.


    ¡°No idea.¡± Marco giggled and shielded his pack as Shiv snatched at it. ¡°Hey, no backsies. Nobody knows what¡¯s going on, not a single person in my network has any clue. The ¡®why¡¯ and ¡®how¡¯ of it all is a total black box. The only certainty is the ¡®what:¡¯ all of us are stronger, here, in this random mid-sized metropolitan area. Our senses are better, our Knacks more pronounced, we¡¯re more efficient, have better output. Most importantly, that sense we all got, every one of us at the same time, a few days ago? That this was out there, just waiting, and all of us knowing exactly how to get here? It¡¯s global. We¡¯ve got Sensitives in China, Australia, Argentina flocking our way as we speak.¡±


    ¡°Okay, well, that leads me to one of my first questions,¡± Shiv said, tossing her pack over to Marco and lowering herself to join Sylvia on the dock. ¡°How many Demis, do you think, are on their way over? And how long before they get here?¡±


    ¡°I mean, I can only tell so much, with those guys.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re supposed to be the one with all the answers.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not omniscient, Shiv. I¡¯m just well-connected. Half of the Demis are completely off the grid at all times. One of them lives at the bottom of the goddamn ocean, another¡¯s been cooking herself in a nuclear reactor since the Cold War. Whatever the hell the thing is that dropped the rock on Singapore, if it even is a Demigod, I didn¡¯t know it existed until everyone else found out the hard way last week. These aren¡¯t people you can pop in and check up on.¡±


    ¡°Give us a ballpark then.¡± Sylvia snatched the cup of duck food from Marco as one of the birds came paddling back.


    Marco tapped his chin, watching the duck. ¡°One at minimum. Rai and her goons are already on their way. Once she starts culling, there¡¯ll be blood in the water and others are going to follow. Could be up to six, worst case scenario. That¡¯s just my gut, though.¡±


    Shiv looked queasy. Sylvia checked in on her heart: quicker, but still regular. "Any chance we could just stick around for a few days, soak up whatever spooky energy is coming out of the cities, and bounce before the Demis start throwing buildings around?"


    "It''s a nice thought, Sylvia, but I doubt it. Whatever it is that''s in the air here, it leaks out of my Aura just as fast as anything else does." Marco pulled his legs from the water and flicked his hand downward. A cloud of steam formed as the water burned off of his clothes, leaving him perfectly dry. "No, sorry, if you want to get strong enough to keep babygirl''s ticker pumping long-term, you''re gonna need to eat someone."


    "Ew, don''t call her ''babygirl,''" Sylvia said.


    "And don''t call it ''eating someone,'' that makes it sound like I''m a cannibal."


    "Fine, you''ll need to dominate and absorb someone''s dying essence. Word police."


    Shiv sat for a moment, rubbed at her collar absently. "It needs to be me, right?"


    "If you want to relieve your girlfriend of her human pacemaker duties, yes. Benny thinks the boost you''d get would be more than enough to give you the sensory chops to manipulate your own heart safely. Or, you know, as safe as DIY defibrillation gets."


    "Hmm." Shiv frowned. "What''re my options, here? For targets."


    "Couple avenues you could take," Marco said. "Easiest one would be to jump a newbie. There''s a fresh crop."


    Sylvia made a little noise of surprise at that. "No! Here, now? What shit luck. How big''s the group?"


    "Not luck, at least I don''t think so. Feels too perfect. My gut says whatever it is that happened to the city to supercharge things also shunted a few people awake, without, you know, killing them for a bit like usual." Marco scrolled through a file on his phone. "So far, I''ve felt buzzes from five. Had eyes on three. I could give you their names, addresses, but they''re mostly regular people, so I doubt you''d feel okay with pouncing on them."


    "No, you''re right," Shiv said. "That doesn''t feel fair."


    "Plus, I have dibs on one already."


    "What does that mean?" Sylvia asked.


    "Oh, man, one of the crop, this kid, he''s at a hospital right now. Threw a baseball threw his buddy." Marco grinned like a proud father. "Totally raw, seconds after awakening. Where he got the energy, I have absolutely no idea, because it''s not like anybody explained how that works to him. Figure I''m gonna approach him, make him a deal, show him the ropes."


    "You''re extorting a kid?" Sylvia stuck her tongue out, unsettled.


    "Not extorting! Investing. He''s a natural, figure I should get in with him early, is all."


    "You''re buying a weapon. Fine, whatever." Sylvia said. "What about, you know, bad guys?"


    "Bad guys?"


    "Like, I don''t know," Shiv reddened a shade. "Sensitives with nasty pasts. Someone I could feel ok about taking off the street, you know?"


    Marco scratched his jaw, thinking. "Well, there''ll be a good amount of M corp muscle, with Rai coming over. Plenty of those guys are psychos, though a lot of them are just run-of-the-mill human mercenaries, and you don''t quite have the eye for talent I do. You might off someone and find out there''s nothing there to eat. Or, sorry, absorb."


    "What if you just keep an eye out for any shady types coming into the city?" Sylvia offered. "Give us a ring when someone nasty enough starts to draw some attention?"


    "It''d cost you, but sure, I''d be fine with that." Marco fingered the strap of one of the backpacks. "I''d give you the usual friends-and-family discount."


    "You''re too kind," Shiv grumbled, hand still massaging her collar. "Okay. Keep us posted then. We''ll scrounge something up for you once the whole thing''s finished."


    Shiv stood up to leave, hoisted Sylvia to her feet with her. Marco stood, too, a flash of doubt flitting across his usual grin. "Listen, before you go. I feel like I''d be remiss if I didn''t tell you-"


    Something about his tone set Sylvia''s teeth on edge. Dread welled in her. "Hey, maybe don''t-"


    "No, this is important." Marco leveled his gaze right at Shiv, serious now. "Phoenix is coming. He''s back aboveground and on the move, this way."


    Sylvia groaned, reflexively honing in on the rapidly accelerating flutter of Shiv''s heart.


    "No shit," Shiv breathed, visibly paling. "I was hoping he''d-"


    "Died? Me too," Marco barked a laugh. "He''s strong, but with that psycho after him I''d thought, maybe, his shit would finally catch up to him. But no, he''s been sighted, alive and kicking. And, listen, I know this is hard-"


    "No, come on," Sylvia breathed. She readied a charge, felt it dance across her fingertips.


    "Peter''s with him."


    Shiv nodded, breathed, rubbed her chest. She opened her mouth to speak, faltered, then fell to one knee with a grunt.


    Sylvia was at her side in an instant, fingers steepled against Shiv''s sternum, a practiced and precise gesture. She surrendered herself to her sense of touch, saw Shiv''s body splayed out, layer upon layer of it, mazes of capillaries and churning hormones and surging ion channels. She zeroed in on her heart, now shaking wildly out of sync and rhythm, focused her mind on the phosphorescent ribbons of electrical charge fluctuating around it. She aligned herself with those charges, grabbed a hold of the energy like reins, and manhandled them back into a stable timing with a single, forceful zap.


    "I''ve got you, you''re good, baby, I''ve got you. Talk to me," Sylvia urged.


    "I''m okay, I''m okay," Shiv was panting.


    Marco shuffled in place, uncomfortable. "Is she- Should I get someone?"


    Shiv tried to respond, groaned, and clutched her chest again. Sylvia grabbed her shoulders, held her close. "You okay? Baby, talk to me, did it work?"


    An agonizing pause. A dozen strangled heartbeats.


    "I''m okay," Shiv breathed. "It worked. I''m good. Thank you."


    Sylvia kissed her, allowed herself a relieved laugh. "The Vibrazone wins again."


    "If one of these days I die and ''Vibrazone'' is the last thing I hear you say, I''m haunting your ass." Shiv chuckled weakly, then darkened. "Marco, you''re 100% sure Peter''s with him?"


    "I wouldn''t have mentioned it if I wasn''t."


    "Do you think, if I fought him, I could kill Phoenix?"


    "No shot," Marco said, instantly. "You''re tough, Shiv, one of the toughest I''ve personally met. But all three of us together wouldn''t have a chance. He''s not a Demi but he''s damn close."


    "That''s what I thought. Then," Shiv climbed to her feet, steadied herself. "If I¡­ ''''ate'' Peter. His energy. Would it free him, you think?"


    "It''d kill him."


    More silence. Ducks quacking, people chatting, birds singing. The quaint soundtrack of a world blissfully unaware of what was coming. Shiv climbed to her feet, stared a hole through the ground as she considered her next words.


    "Would you rather be dead, or stuck¡­" Shiv looked up at Marco, imploring. "Stuck the way he is now?"


    Marco didn''t need to give the question any thought. "Dead."


    "Well, that¡¯s that moral dilemma solved." Sylvia felt queasy again. "Shiv can just eat her brother."

 Act II, Chapter 3: The Survivor

    It is good to be alive.


    This is the line that tethers Peter to the moment. The life preserver, the only mooring his consciousness has to his life. When the line surfaces in his mind, it tugs his subjective experience up to the surface with it, briefly, to periscope around at his new surroundings, only to submerge again a second, a minute, an hour later. The memories, the context briefly preceding that line, they stick with him sometimes. It¡¯s the closest he comes to a consistent internal timeline these days. These days being the only days, really. Everything before ¡°these days¡± is just yawning emptiness, a void that feeble half-images sometimes drift from.


    He surfaces briefly, at dawn. He is driving a car. The sunrise on the road ahead is beautiful. He has a drink from the gas station, a diet soda, and it is cold and refreshing. A nice song is on the radio. Somewhere behind him, muffled by a bulletproof partition, one of the other Apostles is humming.


    It is good to be alive, he thinks, then, and sips, and goes back under.


    He thinks it again, later, watching Blessed Above heal another sick man. The man, Peter doesn¡¯t know what¡¯s wrong with him, he wasn¡¯t present for that part, it had slicked away from his memory like nearly everything does these days, but the man is wretched and sad on the floor. Blessed Above, his Santa-Claus (who?) face alight with one of his brilliant smiles, touches the man on the head. The man pauses, lurches, gulps. The cloudiness in the man¡¯s eyes lifts. He pulls himself to his feet, stares down at his legs in disbelief. The man¡¯s sister (wife, probably? why assume sister?) bursts into sobs, embraces the man. Blessed Above laughs, hearty.


    It is good to be alive, he thinks, eyes dewy.


    He sits across a long table from Bouchard. Other Apostles sit around the table with him, some paying attention, others clearly submerged in their own fogs. Bouchard, he¡¯s a hard man, a drill instructor (mental fumble over the word drill, picturing a power tool, knowing that makes no sense). He scowls as he talks about the Girl, and whoever this girl is, she¡¯s an enemy, and Bouchard acts strong but he¡¯s scared of her. He mentions something about eyewitness sightings, about casualties, about driving only at night from now on.


    He explains that Blessed Above needs his Apostles to be stronger. He explains that they came here, to this city, because something about it makes people like the Apostles stronger. He explains that they need to eat (cartoon mental image of a big pot, a snarky rabbit relaxing inside while cannibals dice vegetables into the water) heretics, that taking their energy for Blessed Above will make them stronger. Will make their abilities better.


    This is exciting. Like a scavenger hunt (¡°this is the best birthday ever, Pete¡±). He likes using his gifts, likes the thrilling fights with the heretics, even if sometimes he doesn¡¯t win, and they get away, or they shock or burn or punch him.


    It is good to be alive, he thinks, raring to get started.


    A ray of green light scythes through the Apostle¡¯s face, as he cowers next to him, behind the dumpster. It makes Peter afraid. Before the Apostle (don¡¯t know his name, wasn¡¯t present for when he must have learned it) slumps over, Peter glimpses the inside of the Apostle¡¯s brain. His head has been sliced cleanly in two, and the insides: sinuses and tongue and grey matter, glitter greenly in the night before falling out of view.


    Peter draws energy from the huge battery strapped to his back, muscle memory so much less foggy than his actual memory, draws the lightning inside, transforms it into force, puts the force in his feet, throws himself away. He catapults through the night air, and briefly, below, he catches a glimpse: green light and red liquid and screams. A small, feral form, clad in all black, darts from Apostle to Apostle, footsoldier to footsoldier, only pausing for just a moment at each in the dizzy melee (slo-mo footage on a tv in a classroom, a hornet, systematically executing honeybees).


    He lands. The woman (the Girl?) puts her hand through another Apostle¡¯s midsection, punches through her torso, effortless, waving guts and bone away like she was dismissing a puff of smoke. The Apostle screams, a woman he knows he knows but does not know. The Girl (it must be, Bouchard, he was scared of her), glances up at Peter. Her face is missing. No. She is wearing a black hood, and beneath it, some sort of mask covers her entire face. There are no eye holes, no mouth, just a featureless green slab of fabric.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Peter knows he needs to get stronger, for Blessed. He wants to run but that is not allowed. His limbs move on their own (not muscle memory--something much worse) and he¡¯s hurtling toward her. More energy from the battery, turned into heat this time, thrown out in a jet toward her. So hot, he did well, he converted efficiently. The asphalt where the Girl had been standing a moment ago is blasted, scorched, almost glassed with the intensity of it.


    The Girl is far away. She dodged before he¡¯d even begun thinking of attacking. She¡¯s across the highway, now, tearing a door from one of their downed cars, sending it shrieking through the night, wrenching an approaching SUV in half. Men spill out from the car, start lobbing gas grenades. Bouchard is with them, masked, crouched on the pavement with his hand raised, glowing with the nauseating gold light only he knows how to make. The Girl steps back, hisses (¡°be gentle, Peter, you can¡¯t tug her tail like that¡±), flings herself into the woods.


    A few moments pass, and the force compelling him to pursue her drops away. He has control of his own body again. His heart slams in his ears. She could have turned and killed him, but she didn¡¯t.


    It is good to be alive, Peter reminds himself, trying to memorize the smell of the air, the lights on the road. Reminding himself, always, to be grateful.


    He goes dark, awakens again: he¡¯s bursting out of the back gate, sprinting into the garden. His legs pump beneath him, burning, his chest heaves. He reaches the fence and is about to spring over it, about to use the little eddies of energy still lingering in his depleted Aura to jump, when he locks up. His body freezes mid-stride, and he lands, hard, on his face. The grass is cool and dewy.


    Minutes pass. Tears flow from his unblinking eyes, itching his cheeks. He is unsure why exactly he¡¯s crying. He grows short of breath, unable to inhale.


    Footsteps approach from behind, soft, slow. A fatherly voice speaks.


    ¡°Where were you off to, just then?¡±


    Peter can¡¯t answer.


    ¡°Oh, of course, how silly of me.¡±


    Peter is released, from the neck up. He gulps in breath, so sharp and hard that his throat catches (¡°it¡¯s okay, Pete, we¡¯ll get through this. I got through it. It¡¯s not a death sentence.¡±) and he feels ashamed.


    ¡°I was- I was running, Blessed Above,¡± Peter croaks.


    ¡°Well that¡¯s obvious enough,¡± Phoenix chuckles. ¡°But where were you running to? I don¡¯t expect you have pressing business in Saint Paul all of a sudden?¡±


    ¡°No.¡± Peter struggles to remember. The reason for his flight is hidden, obscured by the black void in between vignettes. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°Why are you crying, son?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t remember.¡±


    ¡°Are you unhappy here?¡±


    ¡°No, Blessed,¡± Peter lies.


    A hand plucks him from the floor, sets him on his feet. The invisible hold on his limbs is released. Phoenix Above wraps him in a tight hug, hard enough to make his ribs creak. It is deeply uncomfortable.


    ¡°Tell me what¡¯s wrong, son. Or I¡¯ll start to feel cross.¡±


    ¡°I think,¡± Peter¡¯s voice catches. ¡°I think I miss someone?¡±


    ¡°Who would that be?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Peter sobs. It¡¯s a sound of defeat. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°Hey. There, there.¡± Phoenix¡¯s hand is a mallet on Peter¡¯s back. ¡°You have nothing to despair for, anymore. All of the pain, that¡¯s in the past, and I¡¯ve taken that away.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± he blubbers. ¡°You¡¯re right.¡±


    ¡°Remember always to be grateful. What is it I tell you to say?¡±


    Peter, for once, remembers something effortlessly. ¡°It is good to be alive.¡±


    Phoenix pulls away, grabs Peter by the shoulders, stares him in the eye. Peter notes, absently, that Phoenix¡¯s eyes are bloodshot (¡°wow, pull another all-nighter, hun?¡±).


    ¡°And why, son, are you alive?¡±


    ¡°Because of you,¡± Peter says. Gratitude, unbidden, wells in him. ¡°Because you willed it.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± Phoenix smiles, a doting grandfather, a preening conqueror. ¡°You will forget so much more, my boy, but never forget that.¡±


    Peter isn¡¯t sure he could even if he tried.

 Act II, Chapter 4: The Family

    ¡°Hazel, the sign¡¯s coming up,¡± Victor said, smiling up at his daughter in the rearview. ¡°Got your phone ready?¡±


    ¡°I see it! I see it.¡± Hazel squinted at her screen, angled her phone¡¯s camera out of her window. A pause, then a flurry of shutter clicks as they passed it: the big, K-shaped ¡°Welcome to Minnesota!¡± sign marking the border from Wisconsin.


    ¡°You get it?¡± Flo asked from the passenger seat.


    Dylan peered over her shoulder and grinned. ¡°It¡¯s blurry.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re looking at a bad one! Look, this one¡¯s fine.¡±


    ¡°I tried to slow down for you, kiddo,¡± Victor said.


    ¡°No, it¡¯s okay, I got one, I got a good one.¡± Hazel swiped at her screen, deleting bad takes, adding the most legible one to a personal album. ¡°That¡¯s 46! Just North Dakota and Montana left.¡±


    ¡°And Hawaii and Alaska,¡± Dylan added.


    ¡°Well, yeah, but those don¡¯t count. Why would we ever be there?¡±


    ¡°I dunno, maybe dad¡¯s friends want to have another conference but, like, on a beach. Maybe there¡¯s an evil polar bear with too big of a Field who needs to be taken off the streets.¡±


    ¡°A bear Sensitive,¡± Victor chuckled. ¡°No thanks. I¡¯d leave that one to its own devices, I think.¡±


    Flo looked up from the book she¡¯d been skimming, eyes focused in the middle distance, as if she were trying to remember something. She took a deep breath, paused. Took another.


    Victor spared Flo a quick glance before returning his attention to the road. ¡°You feel it?¡±


    ¡°Yeah,¡± Hazel said, from behind him. She had her eyes closed, was swaying slightly in her seat. ¡°I thought it was, like, a sneeze coming or something. But no, it¡¯s like the air¡¯s different.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s been building for the last few miles, but it¡¯s ramping up now for sure,¡± Flo said. ¡°Your buddies from the forum were right again.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, totally,¡± Dylan added. He massaged his temples like a cartoon telepath, frowned sagely. ¡°The vibes are craaaazy. It¡¯s like¡­ We¡¯re driving through a rainbow cloud¡­ of pure power. All of these gas stations and Verizon stores are covered in a magical presence.¡±


    ¡°You can¡¯t feel a thing, can you?¡± Hazel asked.


    ¡°Nope,¡± Dylan dropped his hands. ¡°Got no clue what you¡¯re all talking about.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll get there, sooner than later, I bet,¡± Victor said. ¡°Now, Hazel, pop quiz--and it¡¯s no big deal if you don¡¯t get this one--but how close, and in what direction, would you say the nearest active Sensitive to us is?¡±


    Hazel grinned, thrilled to have a challenge, then shut her eyes tight. She swayed for nearly a full minute, mouth screwed up in concentration. Dylan held his hands up in an X and made an ¡°incorrect¡± buzzer noise at the instant she opened her eyes.


    ¡°To our right, kinda, and ahead,¡± Hazel said. She blinked at her father¡¯s reflection in the rearview. ¡°I don¡¯t know how far, really, I¡¯m not good with that stuff. Miles, though. Farther than you can usually see with your eyes.¡±


    ¡°She¡¯s right,¡± Victor said, pleased. ¡°In general, at least.¡±


    ¡°Wow,¡± Flo reached back and tapped her sister on the knee. ¡°Look at you. I can¡¯t feel a thing at this distance.¡±


    Hazel beamed. Beside her, Dylan squinted out the window, in the direction she¡¯d indicated, concentrating hard. After a few seconds he let out the breath he¡¯d been holding and nodded, impressed. ¡°Yeah, the geek squad¡¯s probably right about you being a walking radar.¡±


    ¡°With training,¡± Victor amended, ¡°you¡¯ll have a bigger range than your old man. That¡¯s for sure.¡±


    ¡°How long is that gonna take?¡± Hazel asked.


    ¡°If you¡¯re slow about it? Maybe a decade. If we get more field trips like this, though, who knows. Speaking of which,¡± Victor turned to Flo. ¡°I want you taking point, on this first one.¡±


    Flo stiffened slightly. ¡°Right. Ok. Sure.¡±


    ¡°Is that too scary?¡±


    ¡°No, it¡¯s just- I wasn¡¯t expecting- You said this was going to be dangerous.¡±


    Victor nodded. ¡°It is. Not deadly, I don¡¯t think, not with me around to keep an eye on you. But there¡¯s risk to this stuff. If at any point you don¡¯t feel like the risk is worth it, let me know, and I can get you a ride right back to camp.¡±


    Flo frowned, fidgeted with the coil of rings on her middle finger. ¡°No. I¡¯m in it. I believe in the mission.¡±


    ¡°Speaking of blind dedication to dad,¡± Dylan said. ¡°I want to take point on this first one, too. Put me in, coach.¡±


    ¡°Hazel, get him,¡± Victor said. Hazel giggled and discharged a little electricity Dylan¡¯s way, zapping his arm.


    ¡°Wait, don¡¯t- AH, God, I mean, gosh, damn-dang it. Haze! Dad!¡± Dylan pouted and kneaded his tricep.


    ¡°Your defense isn¡¯t up to par yet,¡± Victor chided. ¡°Electricity¡¯s what you¡¯re best with, too. You¡¯ll never hear me say your output is anything short of phenomenal, Dylan. But your conversions are too slow and your efficiency isn¡¯t enough to stop a concerted attack by a more experienced Sensitive.¡±


    ¡°I- Buh-¡± Dylan sputtered. ¡°Then what am I even here for?¡±


    ¡°The only way to learn from the best is to see them work up close,¡± Hazel said, in imitation of her father¡¯s stuffy baritone. ¡°It¡¯s okay, he doesn¡¯t let me do the fun stuff either.¡±


    Victor had already turned back to Flo. ¡°When we get in there, once it starts, come in with your Field already primed against kinetics. Nine times out of ten, when you catch someone off guard, they go for blunt force first.¡±


    ¡°Right, right.¡± Flo frowned. ¡°Okay, so, even when I¡¯m practicing alone, it still takes me, like, two to three seconds to get a Field up big enough to trap someone inside. What if they don¡¯t sit still?¡±


    ¡°Oh, if they¡¯re any good they won¡¯t. Don¡¯t worry about that. I¡¯m having you jump in first just so you get your feet wet, so you get used to a 1-on-1 scenario, but once you have them off-guard I¡¯ll join, and I¡¯ll knock them down. Daze them enough that you¡¯ll have plenty of time.¡± Victor reached out, found Flo¡¯s hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze. ¡°Whoever it is we¡¯re after right now, they¡¯re a small fry. You don¡¯t have anything to worry about.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, speaking of,¡± Hazel said, eyes closed again. ¡°This person, it feels like they¡¯ve just been using their Field, like, full-blast, this entire time. Is that normal?¡±


    Victor frowned, thoughtful. ¡°You know, good point. No. That is odd. I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll find out what they¡¯re up to soon.¡±


    Victor pulled off the freeway, onto a highway, then a side street, then an unpaved dirt road. He worried their car around a tight corner, ignoring a ¡°No Trespassing - Private Property¡± sign, before eventually, after some silent concentration, coming to a stop in a seemingly random stretch of road. Trees bracketed the path, huge and swaying, their shadows casting a long, shifting carpet in dimming evening light.


    Dylan hopped out of the car, stretched. ¡°I can feel it now. Like the air¡¯s thicker.¡± He did a few jumping jacks, flexed. ¡°Feels great.¡±


    Victor and Flo moved to the rear of the car and popped the trunk. They retrieved two oversized, modified backpacks: leather harnesses with huge truck batteries sticking out, thick metal balls sewn into the straps, dangling from the packs like bead curtains.


    ¡°These are a little overfull,¡± Victor said, hefting his. ¡°Dylan, could you-¡±


    ¡°On it, boss,¡± Dylan said, hurrying over to place a hand on each of the packs. The air around him shimmered slightly, crackled with stray energy, as he siphoned some charge out and absorbed it.


    ¡°Do some retention exercises with that while we¡¯re working,¡± Victor said. ¡°When we¡¯re done here, if you¡¯re still holding enough charge in your Field to turn on a lightbulb I¡¯ll buy you a Blizzard.¡±


    ¡°Score!¡±


    ¡°Uh, guys?¡± Hazel called back to them, from several yards up the path. ¡°Something¡¯s off.¡±


    Victor waved the others after him and hurried over to Hazel. ¡°What¡¯re you feeling?¡±


    ¡°So, they¡¯re there, right?¡± Hazel pointed into the opaque mass of trees to her left. ¡°Maybe, like, I don¡¯t know, a football field or two away?¡±


    ¡°A quarter mile, I¡¯d say. Why?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re not moving.¡± Hazel shifted on her feet, anxious. ¡°Just sitting there, bleeding energy. They¡¯re not converting it, I don¡¯t think, not using it to move around or hit stuff. Just standing still and shining bright, like they¡¯re trying to get someone to notice them.¡±


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Victor nodded. ¡°I thought the same thing. But, from what I¡¯m feeling, whoever this is, they¡¯re too weak for us to need to worry. If they¡¯re setting a trap for us, then it¡¯s about to backfire on them.¡±


    ¡°But what if it¡¯s an ambush?¡± Hazel said. ¡°I just read in this book about coyotes, how they do a thing where they send one of their own out to lure a dog over, to chase it, and then they lead it back to where their whole family¡¯s waiting, and they all pounce.¡±


    ¡°Well, feel it out harder. Do you sense anyone else?¡±


    Hazel screwed her eyes closed, grimaced in concentration. It was nearly a minute before she spoke again. ¡°No. I don¡¯t. Well-¡± She opened her eyes, glanced up the path, head tilted, as if she was listening hard. She shook her head. ¡°I thought- For a second I thought someone was coming. From far off. But no. I don¡¯t feel anyone else.¡±


    Victor smiled, clapped his hand on her shoulder. ¡°I trust you, then.¡±


    Hazel shivered. ¡°Thanks, Dad. If we get coyote¡¯d, it¡¯s on me, then. No pressure.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant. Have some confidence.¡± Victor waved sharply into the underbrush, then Flo was at his elbow, and they were jogging into the woods.


    Hazel dropped back, found Dylan, nudged him as they ran. ¡°You¡¯re not even a little freaked out?¡±


    Dylan grinned. ¡°No, Haze, I¡¯m psyched. This is what alllll that homework¡¯s been leading up to. Game day, baby.¡± He glanced over, saw the genuine worry on his sister¡¯s face, and sighed. ¡°Ok. Ok. Sure. I¡¯m not, like, not a little nervy. All the ¡®ambush¡¯ talk was a bit spooky.¡±


    ¡°It feels wrong,¡± Hazel insisted. ¡°Something¡¯s up.¡±


    ¡°How far out are we?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re-¡± Hazel paused, glanced over her shoulder. Dylan looked too.


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Nothing. It¡¯s- I just thought, for a second, I felt¡­ No. Nothing.¡±


    ¡°Ok, now you¡¯re trying to freak me out.¡±


    Victor held up a fist, and the group came to an immediate, silent halt. He crouched, crept forward, head cocked, sensing. His arm rose, swiveling out like a dowsing rod, following some unseen stimulus. It straightened, pointing toward their target, obscured by brush forward and to their right. Then one quick gesture to Flo and she shot off, darting through the woods, weaving around trees, quick and quiet as a ghost.


    ¡°Stay here,¡± Victor breathed, then bolted, here and then gone, an afterimage.


    Hazel stood, shifting from one foot to another, straining to listen to the painfully quiet susurrus of leaves and bugs. She closed her eyes again, held her own hands out, fingers groping for currents, energies. A second passed, and she let out a little gasp.


    ¡°What?¡± Dylan hissed. ¡°Ambush?¡±


    ¡°No. No, I figured it out. Wait here.¡±


    ¡°What? Hell no.¡±


    Hazel wasn¡¯t carrying a battery, didn¡¯t have enough energy to speed away like her sister had. ¡°Wait! Flo, Dad, time out!¡±


    She raced through the woods, Dylan close behind her, and crested a little hillock to see that she hadn¡¯t needed to warn them after all. Victor and Flo were standing at the bottom, crouched over something unseen.


    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± Dylan asked. ¡°Is that- Oh, man.¡±


    Hazel scrambled down the hill to join them. She pushed her way to Flo¡¯s side, looked down at the girl laying crumpled at her feet, bloody and thin. Energy radiated off of the unconscious body, a blazing beacon, a leaking faucet.


    ¡°Well, you were right about something being off,¡± Victor said.


    ¡°Flo, Jesus.¡± Dylan began. ¡°You really beat the shit out of her, huh.¡±


    ¡°Dylan, language,¡± Victor chided.


    Flo shook her head. ¡°Not me. We found her like this.¡±


    Victor knelt at the woman¡¯s side, steepled his fingers on her arm, eyes closed. ¡°No broken bones, maybe a sprained wrist. Almost definitely concussed. And¡­ Hm.¡± Victor opened his eyes, frowned down at the girl¡¯s legs. They were shockingly thin. Hazel felt as if she could¡¯ve reached around her entire calf with one hand.


    Victor plucked some pine needles, crusted in sap, from the girl¡¯s arms. He looked up, toward the canopy of trees swaying above them, visibly confused. ¡°Now this one¡¯s a thinker.¡±


    ¡°Should we¡­¡± Dylan shuffled back and forth, as if unsure which direction he should be moving. ¡°We¡¯re gonna take her to a hospital, right?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s the only option, as far as I¡¯m concerned. The poor kid¡¯s in no condition to make any sort of donation right now.¡± Victor nodded toward Flo. ¡°Do you think you could make a thin, horizontal barrier for her to rest on? A stretcher? I¡¯d prefer not to sling her over my shoulder.¡±


    ¡°Sure. It¡¯d be pretty slow going, moving it with her on it, but I think I could manage.¡±


    ¡°How long would it take to get her back to the car?¡±


    ¡°Maybe twenty minutes?¡±


    Victor weighed the option, then shook his head. ¡°Thank you, but it¡¯s probably just best if we-¡± he paused, stiffened.


    Hazel noticed it a second later: the feeling of an approaching Field, from behind them, maybe two hundred yards away, closing fast and hot. No, wait: two Fields. Close together. Hazel gasped softly, a reflex, disoriented by how suddenly they¡¯d appeared, how quickly they were coming.


    Victor stood, facing the presence, jutted a thumb upwards. ¡°Dylan, Hazel. In the trees. As high as you can, hide. Now.¡± He reached a hand out, deposited some energy from within his battery into their Auras.


    ¡°But what if-¡± Dylan started. Hazel grabbed him by the arm, yanked. She augmented her movements with the donated energy, and tossed Dylan five feet up into the nearest tree. He yelped, surprised, but caught a branch and swung upright in the same motion.


    ¡°Go!¡± she hissed. Dylan nodded and sprang, blurring, up the trunk, a crackle of loose electricity fizzling in his wake. Hazel leapt after him, climbed as high as she could manage, until the trunk began to feel perilously skinny. She and Dylan flattened themselves behind a bough thick with needles. Hazel peeked down at the scene unfolding below, extending her hearing to listen.


    ¡°Dad, should I-¡± Flo began.


    ¡°Stay here, keep the girl and yourself behind a barrier. In case there¡¯s shrapnel.¡±


    Hazel blinked. Shrapnel?


    Flo nodded, and had just crouched over the unconscious girl when the rogue Field users arrived. She could barely make them out, half-obscured by vegetation. A man and a woman, with their own battery packs on their backs, strapped on top of combat vests. Something was off about them, it took Hazel a moment to place it: their Fields flickered like flames, ebbing and flowing, little plumes and fingers flowing from their boundaries, pointed back behind them, as if being sucked gently towards some distant, unseen vacuum.


    ¡°The cult,¡± Dylan whispered. ¡°They¡¯re cult guys.¡±


    Hazel¡¯s heart dropped.


    ¡°Hi there!¡± Victor called. The two cultists paused at the top of the hillock, heads swiveled in Victor¡¯s direction, totally motionless. There was a glassiness to their eyes, an absent, clumsy animality to their motions that troubled Hazel. ¡°Listen! There are children around. The energy source you¡¯re tracking isn¡¯t worth the trouble, I promise. Barely anything here to absorb.¡±


    The male cultist nodded to the female one, and she slunk back into the brush. Her Aura disappeared from Hazel¡¯s senses immediately, so quickly that it jarred her. As if a solid object in front of her eyes had ceased to be in an instant, leaving a vacuum in its wake.


    ¡°No, don¡¯t-¡± Victor sighed, not-angry-just-disappointed. ¡°Don¡¯t try to flank us. Come on, buddy, I¡¯m sure your boss is riding you pretty hard, but I promise there¡¯s nothing here for you.¡±


    The male cultist drew himself up, gaze sliding from Victor to where Flo sat, crouched, over the girl. He tensed, his Aura fluctuating as he gathered power.


    ¡°Welp, okay. I was hoping we could talk it out, but maybe all you culty types understand is big dog, pecking order stuff. Fine.¡± Victor rolled his neck, exhaled once, forcefully. His Field suddenly exploded, tripling, quadrupling its volume in a fraction of a second. The shockwave of this expansion blew branches off some of the nearby trees, startled birds into the air for a hundred yards around. The male cultist, way at the top of the hill, was bowled back a step by the force of it, and Hazel had to cling hard to the now swaying trunk she was hiding on.


    ¡°Listen, buddy, I¡¯m saying this for your sake,¡± Victor boomed. He was amplifying his own voice, doubling its volume. His Field¡¯s sheer size warped the sound further, deepening the waves, echoing them as they traveled through it. The thin patch of hair on his head billowed as if trapped in some powerful updraft. Leaves and pebbles danced at his feet, caught in tiny gyres. The actual ground shook. Hazel had seen her father flex his power a few times, but never anything like this. Her mouth fell open. ¡°I hate roughhousing as much as the next honest guy, really. But if you or your partner take a step closer to me or this poor girl, I¡¯ll squash you like a bug.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not up to me,¡± breathed the man from the hilltop. He was swaying, eyes glazed, blinking hard, like he was trying to wake up from a dream. Somewhere, off to Hazel¡¯s left, she felt the faint flutter of his partner¡¯s Aura as she slipped up, failed to hide herself for a split second. She turned, but couldn¡¯t see her in the brush.


    ¡°Your boss, Phoenix, he¡¯s pulling your strings, isn¡¯t he? Controlling you?¡± Victor¡¯s voice, still booming, had a tinge of sympathy to it. ¡°Buddy, here, let¡¯s make a deal. I have a special Knack. Lets me absorb people¡¯s, uh, Auras. Or- Blessings. Without killing them. So long as they give it voluntarily.¡± He widened his arms, open and amiable. ¡°It¡¯s how I got as strong as I have. Now, I¡¯m not sure, but I¡¯d be willing to bet that if you came down here and gave me your energy, all of it, he wouldn¡¯t be able to control you anymore. You¡¯d be free.¡±


    The man on the hill paused, stumbled. Hazel couldn¡¯t quite tell, but the way his shoulders hitched, the man might have sobbed. A moment passed, and the man slowly straightened, a look of pain on his face. ¡°He won¡¯t¡­ He isn¡¯t letting me.¡± The man¡¯s arms flared out, he crouched, as if each of his limbs had been wrenched into a clumsy fighting stance. ¡°I¡¯m sorry!¡±


    Victor sighed, then took a step forward. The cultist woman¡¯s Aura flared again as she launched herself toward Victor, the man on the hill flung himself down to meet them, and the woods exploded.


    Ears ringing, eyes swimming, the tree beneath her swinging wildly in the aftermath, it took Hazel a moment to collect herself enough to decipher what she was looking at below her. Several trees had been bowled over in the clearing below, two of which smoldered with ropes of dying flames. Flo stayed crouched in place, untouched, safe beneath her barrier with the girl.


    It took her another few seconds to find Victor, standing maybe fifty yards from where he¡¯d been a moment ago. He was pinning the woman up to a tree trunk with one arm, holding the slumped form of the man by the collar with his other. The woman gnashed at him, kicking, each blow accompanied by crackles of electricity, sound, light. Her battery pack was crushed like a soda can, discarded on the ground behind her, and each of her feeble attacks withered as the last of her energy leached from her Field.


    ¡°It¡¯s easy,¡± Victor said, voice reassuring, no longer amplified. ¡°Just picture yourself letting go of your Field, letting it slide from you like a coat. I¡¯ll pick it up. Then you¡¯ll be free, you can rest.¡±


    The woman gnashed at him, crying. She barked odd syllables, but every time she came close to forming a word, her mouth spasmed, and it died in her throat. Victor waited a few moments, then shook his head sadly. He lifted her with his one free arm, then, pistonlike, slammed her against the tree. The woman gasped and crumpled.


    Victor laid her next to her partner, gently, on the forest floor. ¡°Kids? All clear.¡±


    ¡°Ho-o-o-ly shit, Hazel,¡± Dylan breathed as they clambered down. ¡°See what I mean? Game day.¡±


    They joined their father as he reached Flo.


    ¡°The girl okay?¡± Victor¡¯s voice sounded oddly thin.


    ¡°Just fine,¡± Flo nodded. ¡°You weren¡¯t kidding about the shrapnel.¡±


    ¡°Dad, that was, just, I mean, that was the most badass thing I¡¯ve ever-¡± Dylan trailed off as he registered the look on his father¡¯s face. ¡°Oh. Dad, are you okay?¡±


    Victor nodded, his face downcast, shaded. He sniffed, and Hazel realized he was crying.


    ¡°They¡¯re not¡­¡± Hazel began. ¡°You didn¡¯t kill them.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± Victor said, voice thin and soft in a way that made her uneasy. He crouched down, scooped the skinny girl from the ground, perfectly gentle.  ¡°No, couldn¡¯t bring myself to, sweetheart. Maybe I should¡¯ve. But they¡¯re just unconscious.¡±


    ¡°Are you gonna be okay?¡± Hazel asked. She didn¡¯t know if she should reach for his hand or not.


    ¡°You know, I was excited to bring you all out of camp, into the ¡®real world,¡¯ for this trip. There¡¯s nothing like the real world, really, when it comes to learning fast. It¡¯s useful, it¡¯s fascinating, and it¡¯s important you kids learn how it works.¡± Victor sniffed, blinked the last of his tears away. The skeletal thing in his arms stirred a little, made a childish, weak noise. ¡°I¡¯m okay, thank you. Sometimes the real world just hurts my heart.¡±

 Act II, Chapter 5: The Expert

    Benny¡¯s Chevy shook like it was threatening to throw itself apart as he raced down the dirt roads leading back to Camp Cottonwood. His foot was flat on the accelerator, his hands strangling the bouncing steering wheel, the radio off. He slammed the car around another hairpin turn, absently worried that he might roll the old junker.


    Stupid. He berated himself. Stupid stupid stupid. Fell for the oldest trick in the book.


    He was glad, at least, that his mother was fine. That the call from the police insisting that she¡¯d been killed in a car crash, the request for him to come identify the body, had been fake. It had been a relief to rush to the station, only to be met by confused looks from the officers, before rushing, slightly less hastily, to his mother¡¯s home, where he¡¯d found her eating lunch, perfectly un-murdered.


    That relief had lasted exactly half a second before he processed why someone might want to trick him into leaving camp.


    He¡¯d made it months without abandoning his post. Weeks of minimal, staggered sleep, of constant perimeter checks, pen tests, of doubling and redoubling his online security. He had the camp wired up to the gills with FLIR cameras, remote alarms, new fencing.


    And all it¡¯d taken to bring his castle toppling over had been a single spoof call. Stupid.


    He skidded to a stop just outside camp, threw the car into park, launched out, huffing already, sprinting for his little shack on the camp¡¯s perimeter. His stomach dropped at the sight of its door hanging ajar, of the thin remnants of the gas grenades he¡¯d rigged the shack with creeping out of the doorway in an oozing carpet.


    He covered his mouth with the collar of his shirt, not taking a moment to consider that whoever had broken in might be waiting around a corner to kill him the instant he entered, and charged inside.


    The woman sitting at his desk chair didn¡¯t even glance his way as he crashed into the room. What looked like a very high-tech gas mask hid the bottom half of her face, but her hair and eyes were uncovered. She waved at him, cordial, eyes darting from one monitor to the other as she devoured information from several of his personal documents.


    ¡°Hello, Benjamin,¡± the woman said. She had a rich, refined, comforting sort of voice, the kind you¡¯d expect to hear explaining the side effects of a cancer drug or giving an audio tour at the museum. ¡°Sorry about the text.¡±


    ¡°How-¡± Benny wheezed. A dozen questions flitted through his brain, several probably more pertinent than the one he ended up landing on. ¡°Those¡¯re password protected. How¡¯d you-¡±


    The woman held up a manicured hand and, surprising himself, Benny fell quiet. She swiveled in his chair to face him. He felt suddenly naked, too known, as if in that one glance the woman had managed to deduce some dark secret of his. ¡°Oh, I know all your passwords. You¡¯ve done an admirable job at security, Benjamin, especially for a layman. Really, far better than could have been expected of you. Unfortunately, when you¡¯re going up against the full might of the modern surveillance apparatus, that¡¯s never going to be close to enough.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re with the government?¡±


    The woman pressed a button on the rear of her mask, and it popped off with a neat pneumatic hiss. Her mouth was tweaked in a thin, amused smile. ¡°The government¡¯s with us. Please, sit, I promise this will be quick.¡±


    Again, Benny found himself following her instructions before he realized it. He lowered himself onto the footstool he kept by his desk. ¡°You¡¯re gonna kill me, aren¡¯t you?¡±


    The woman frowned. ¡°Do you think I¡¯d be here in person if we wanted you dead?¡±


    ¡°I have no idea who you are.¡±


    ¡°Do I look like a hitman?¡±


    ¡°Well, shit, no.¡± Benny reddened a shade. ¡°But your kind tend to be nastier than you look.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not wrong there,¡± the woman said. ¡°I assure you though, while I am, technically, a contractor for Ms. Rai, I am in no way one of her Murderers.¡±


    Benny slumped. This was worse than the government. ¡°You¡¯re with M Corp?¡±


    The woman waved her hand, yes-and-no. ¡°Again, independent contractor. My name is Gabriela Maldonado. You¡¯ve probably heard of me before.¡±


    Benny nodded, the name rang a bell. It took him a second to place it: Marco had name-dropped her on the forum a few times, one of his many ¡°connections¡± he liked to crow about. She tended to be invoked, like an academic source, when Marco threw out a prediction or theory about Fields, or, more recently, the Aurapocalypse. ¡°You¡¯re Marco¡¯s number-cruncher friend. One of ¡®em, at least.¡±


    Maldonado smiled. ¡°You know, I¡¯m something of an admirer of yours, actually. I¡¯ve been keeping an eye on your forum for a while now. You and Victor and the rest of your cadre have collected some very enlightening experimental data.¡±


    ¡°So y¡¯all know about the forum,¡± Benny said, hands tapping a nervous tattoo on the side of the footstool.


    Maldonado laughed, melodic and rich. ¡°Oh, Benjamin, of course. It¡¯s an online forum. Sure, you went through the trouble of keeping it on the dark web, but those waters have been well and truly charted for years now. No, I, my employer, and several nations¡¯ intelligence agencies have been lurking on your little grassroots Sensitive support group for a long time.¡±


    Benny shrugged. ¡°You know, I kinda figured. Web stuff¡¯s never really been my strong suit. I worked in-¡±


    ¡°Private security, I know. Please, going forward, just assume that if you want to mention a personal detail more public than, let¡¯s say, your childhood memories, that it¡¯s something I already know.¡±


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    ¡°So, if we¡¯re such an open book and all, why aren¡¯t Victor and the kids all strapped up to generators in Area 51 or whatever? Why aren¡¯t I dead or in prison?¡±


    Maldonado shrugged. ¡°Honestly? I¡¯m not sure myself. I¡¯m connected, but not so connected that the Pentagon¡¯s sending me their Zoom invites. My hunches are that there are a very small handful of people on the planet with the clearance to know about your site, an even smaller number who have any sort of decision-making authority, and those people are too tied up with tracking the Demigods and stomping out national security threats to worry about a comparatively harmless band of Rocky Mountain hippies doing DIY science and homeschooling dead children.¡±


    Despite himself, Benny let out a chortle. ¡°When you put it like that, it does make us seem kinda small-fry.¡±


    ¡°Now that Victor¡¯s bringing his little found family out into Ground Zero, though, I have a feeling they¡¯re going to be bumped up a few steps in the government¡¯s estimations,¡± Maldonado said. ¡°They¡¯re aware, by the way. About the Twin Cities, the gathering that¡¯s happening. And they intend to stamp it out, with prejudice if required. Victor¡¯s putting those children in danger.¡±


    Benny hardened a little. ¡°Victor knows what he¡¯s doing.¡±


    Maldonado crooked an eyebrow. ¡°You know, I always found your group¡¯s rabid sort of loyalty to Victor quite-¡±


    ¡°¡®Naive?¡¯ I¡¯ve heard that plenty.¡±


    ¡°I was going to say ¡®refreshingly unamerican.¡± Maldonado said. ¡°His odds aren¡¯t as great as you think. Ms. Rai is already en route. I¡¯m sure Victor¡¯s highly competent, and his motivations are undeniably altruistic, but all the good intentions in the world won¡¯t stop a Demi from squashing him like a bug.¡±


    ¡°The gap between him and your boss isn¡¯t as wide as y¡¯all think,¡± Victor muttered.


    ¡°Well, no actually. In fact, that¡¯s what I¡¯m here about.¡± With a deft keystroke, Maldonado pulled a folder up on Benny¡¯s main monitor: several .txt files of notes and a small compilation of videos and images, all under the filename ¡°Demi_Spont_Regen_Theory.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯re here for?¡± Benny frowned. ¡°That¡¯s nothing. A few empty leads. Barely made any headway on it.¡±


    ¡°Unfortunately for you, it was enough.¡± Maldonado¡¯s eyes were on the screen. She opened one of his saved videos, a hazy security camera rip of the fight in Singapore, taken moments before the calamity struck: a tall man in ragged makeshift armor, standing in a ruined city street. The man was looking at his hands, heaving with breath, leaking blood from a massive wound in his stomach that was steadily, inexplicably, knitting itself closed. ¡°I¡¯m impressed. I¡¯ve no idea how you got your hands on this before Rai¡¯s techs wiped it from the internet.¡±


    ¡°One of my web trawlers got lucky, I guess.¡±


    Maldonado tapped the screen. ¡°There are, by my estimations, a couple thousand active Sensitives on the planet, and maybe a hundred more non-Sensitives that understand the fundamentals of how Fields work. But only about a dozen people on the planet can explain what¡¯s going on here, in this video.¡±


    ¡°Hope you¡¯re not fixin¡¯ to count me in that group, because I¡¯m stumped,¡± Benny said. He pointed at the man on the screen. ¡°I know that is, or, uh, was, Imran Bhatt, and I know most folks with an opinion worth hearing considered him a Demi. There¡¯s documentation here and there of Demis seeming to break the rules, pullin¡¯ energy outta nowhere. But I¡¯ve never seen them¡­ Well. Grow a new liver in a couple seconds. Doesn¡¯t seem like the kinda thing a Field usually lets you do.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re right. Coordinated cellular regeneration is a hell of a lot more intricate than the energy in, energy out, pseudo-scientific tricks Field users usually pull.¡±


    ¡°Is it a Knack?¡±


    ¡°Benjamin,¡± Maldonado said, her voice a little stern, warning. ¡°I¡¯m here because Rai, because all the modern Demis still interested in interacting with mere mortals, consider the kind of knowledge you¡¯re after to be their sole property. She wanted to have you killed, because you¡¯d even begun to look into it.¡±


    Benny¡¯s blood chilled. I¡¯m getting too used to talking to these types, he chided himself. Getting too relaxed, too quickly.


    ¡°I talked her out of it,¡± Maldonado assured. ¡°It wasn¡¯t easy, but I have more pull with her than the average crony. I was able to convince her you¡¯d be useful.¡±


    ¡°Why?¡±


    Maldonado blinked, faux-offended. ¡°It couldn¡¯t have just been my good deed for the day?¡±


    ¡°Ma¡¯am,¡± Benny said, ¡°you¡¯ve been awful polite this whole time, and you¡¯re real charming, but I can tell by lookin¡¯ that you¡¯d kill me without thinkin¡¯ twice if you felt for a second that it¡¯d make your life easier.¡±


    Maldonado¡¯s wry grin widened into something more genuine, almost sharkish. ¡°My, you do spend a lot of time around Sensitives.¡±


    ¡°Most of you get that way, one point or another. Hell, if I could throw a minivan around like a beach ball I¡¯d probably start feelin¡¯ a little blas¨¦ about regular people too.¡± Benny shrugged. ¡°The Victor types, the ones that still care about normal folk, I think they¡¯re actually the weird ones, probably. Not that I don¡¯t appreciate it.¡±


    Maldonado pointed at him, nodding. ¡°That, Benjamin, is why I argued to keep you around. You¡¯re not the most educated or connected, as far as Fields go, but you¡¯ve got a knack for insight. Sure, you have a habit of flipping stones best left unturned, but, personally,¡± she reached forward to pat his knee, ¡°there¡¯s nothing I respect more in a person than curiosity.¡±


    ¡°So, I reckon now¡¯s when you tell me what I owe ya.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m prepared to offer you a choice.¡± Maldonado held up three fingers. ¡°A: I kill you now and the Mop I¡¯ve got waiting on my all-clear comes, scrubs any evidence that I was here, and makes it look like a suicide.¡±


    ¡°Victor wouldn¡¯t buy it, but I¡¯ll pass anyway.¡±


    ¡°B: you stay here. We keep an even closer eye on you, and if we see any indication at all that you¡¯ve told anyone about this visit, or, worse, decided to poke around about Demis again, we revert to A. Otherwise we call in a favor whenever we feel like you can help with intel, and you get to stay in camp.¡±


    ¡°Okay. Nice relaxing life in the panopticon, forever.¡±


    ¡°Or C: you come with us, meet my employer. Spend a few weeks in the Cities, in the eye of the storm, help us out with some research for the days or weeks that the proceedings will require, and then we drop you back here with a tidy reward, never to call on you again.¡±


    ¡°Now why the hell would I trust that?¡± Benny asked. ¡°Way I see it, y¡¯all got no reason not to just off me before whatever bogus hush money check you send even has the chance to bounce.¡±


    Maldonado shrugged. ¡°I try not to break my promises, but I understand the skepticism. You¡¯re wrong about the reward, though. It wouldn¡¯t be money.¡±


    ¡°What, a job? No thanks. I like my current gig fine.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯d be a Field.¡± Maldonado¡¯s eyes twinkled. ¡°We¡¯d make you into a Sensitive, Benny.¡±


    Benjamin¡¯s initial instinct was to laugh, then to sneer, then to explain that he wasn¡¯t some gullible hick. But the way the woman was staring at him, the way she¡¯d sounded when she¡¯d promised the impossible, it gave him pause.


    He sat for a full minute, thinking.


    ¡°What, exactly, are we doing this research on?¡±


    ¡°Not a what. A who.¡± Maldonado leaned back, tapped his keyboard a few more times, brought up a new file, clicked on an image. A satellite photo opened, full-screen, on the monitor: a huge mass of concrete, surrounded by thin, dying woodland. Even at this odd angle, the gaping mouth of a nuclear cooling tower was immediately recognizable. She leaned forward, hands steepled together. ¡°What do you know about Yelena Kovalenko?¡±

 Act III, Chapter 1: The Revenant

    Sergey paused at the doorway to his home, hunting rifle in hand, to see that he''d had his first visitor in months. The stranger sat at his kitchen table, chatting amiably with his wife, a cup of something steaming in her hands. She looked up at him as he entered and smiled as if she''d known him all her life.


    "Hello, Sergey," she said. The woman looked to be in her mid-thirties, but her voice had an odd, stilted quality to it. Something about it put Sergey off, but he couldn''t put words to the feeling. "Your wife has been telling me all about you."


    Sergey stepped inside, propping his gun against a wall. "Dear, who is this?"


    "My name is Yelena," the woman said. "How do you do."


    Mila looked up at her husband, only slightly less bewildered than he was. "She got lost in the woods. She knocked on our door looking for directions to Tomsk. The poor thing looked like she needed some warming up, so I invited her in."


    Sergey frowned, bemused. The woman sitting in front of him was dressed in nothing more than what looked like some sort of sundress. It was long and flowing, its sunflower-yellow hem dusted with soil. It was far from the coldest part of the season, but it was late in the day, and the woods were chilly already. "I mean no offense, but how¡¯d you wind up out here without knowing the way to Tomsk? Where were you heading from?"


    "The power plant," Yelena said. She smiled, as if that answer made any sense.


    Mila widened her eyes at Sergey, as if to privately tell him that she also thought this woman might be a little crazy. He made a note to tease her about letting a madwoman in for tea, later.


    "The¡­ the power plant? Twenty kilometers north of here?"


    "Exactly right," she nodded. "That''s where I was coming from. Thank you again for the tea, all this walking is thirsty work."


    Sergey finally placed what had been bothering him about her voice. Her Russian was perfect; there wasn''t anything wrong with her vocabulary, her grammar. But her accent was wrong. Not foreign. Old. The kind of affectation he''d only ever heard in old movies, dubbed films from the Soviet era.


    "Your wife tells me you''re a man of science?" Yelena smiled up at him.


    "That might be an exaggeration," Sergey said.


    "He''s helping research the tigers," Mila said.


    "There are actual scientists doing the real research," he said. "I''m more like a tracker. A game warden."


    "To follow on the trail of something so ferocious," the woman said, nodding, "it must be quite exciting. Do you ever worry one might attack you? It would be an awful way to die, I''m sure."


    Sergey frowned. He was an atheist, ostensibly, but he had a superstitious streak, and talking about the tigers like this out loud put him on edge. "They don''t bother you if you don''t bother them."


    "Then why the rifle?" The woman nodded toward his gun.


    "I wasn''t working just now. I was looking for boar. Just for recreation." Sergey shrugged, uncomfortable. "Besides, that gun wouldn''t stop a tiger."


    The woman laughed, a paper-thin sound, dead leaves on the wind. "They are fickle things, guns. Fine for killing squirrels and soldiers, but useless against anything actually worth fearing."


    Sergey half-nodded, a little lost. A quiet, awkward moment passed. Sergey half-noticed that he, oddly, couldn''t hear any birds singing outside. Mila coughed, brought her cup up to her mouth to take a sip, too quickly. She clinked the rim against her teeth and gasped.


    Yelena frowned. ¡°Are you quite alright? You seem hurt.¡±


    Mila hissed, massaging her mouth. ¡°It¡¯s fine, thank you. I¡¯ve had a nasty toothache.¡±


    ¡°How long has this afflicted you?¡±


    Mila shrugged. ¡°Maybe a year now, but I¡¯ve had them all my life. They come and go.¡±


    ¡°And there is no¡­ no barber? No doctor around to remedy this?¡±


    Sergey chuckled. ¡°Not unless one of the boars decides to get his degree. This isn¡¯t exactly Moscow.¡±


    ¡°We make do.¡±


    There was a sudden banging sound from the kitchen and Mila jumped. ¡°Dear, the window.¡±


    Sergey cursed. ¡°I could¡¯ve sworn I fixed it this last time. Excuse me, ladies.¡±


    Sergey walked around the corner, a little relieved to be hidden out from under the strange woman¡¯s attention. He shivered at the sudden draft wafting in from behind the now-ajar wooden hatch carved into the wall. It was less a window and more a shoulder-height, hinged door that Mila had cobbled together, something to throw open to get fresh air and let out smoke. The hinge had been giving out suddenly on windy days, and it hung open now, creaking slowly in the breeze. Sergey fetched a screwdriver from a low cupboard, half-listening to the women in the other room.


    ¡°Thank you again, for the tea. It was a great kindness.¡± Yelena said.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    ¡°It was nothing. I¡¯m the only one in the house that drinks any, so we always have plenty.¡±


    ¡°No. Not plenty. To give to a stranger, when you yourself have so little, it is a mark of high character.¡±


    Sergey worked the screwdriver into the already very stripped screw holding the hinge together, tried not to feel irked by the woman. She probably meant well, but he¡¯d had a long day, and wasn¡¯t in the mood to be pitied, much less by some vagrant.


    ¡°We aren¡¯t rich, no, but it could be worse.¡±


    ¡°It could also be better. It could be much, much better.¡±


    ¡°Well.¡± By the clumsy pause that followed, Sergey could tell his wife felt much the same as he did. He hoped she¡¯d find an excuse to send the stranger on her way soon. ¡°Sure. Things could always be improved. That¡¯s easier said than done, though.¡±


    ¡°Not so,¡± the woman said. There was a queer brightness to her voice. The draft coming from the window intensified, making Sergey shiver. Without the normal accompaniment of birdsong and insects outside, the growing wind had a ghostly quality. ¡°You are in pain, dear, and you and your lovely husband so cramped in this tiny, lonely house. Don¡¯t feel judged, that is not what I intend. I was once much like you. But I found a way to make things better. Better to a degree that most people can scarcely comprehend without experiencing it firsthand.¡±


    Sergey finished tightening the hinge and forced the window closed, cutting off the distant wail of the wind. In the quiet of the house, he heard a chair scrape backward. He tensed, suddenly afraid to turn the corner.


    ¡°Sorry, I don¡¯t quite know what you mean.¡±


    ¡°It is probably best to just show you.¡±


    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t- we don¡¯t need any gifts.¡±


    A deathly, nameless dread settled on Sergey, the kind he¡¯s only experienced in nightmares. The knowledge that something awful was happening, inevitable, without the first clue as to what this awfulness actually was. A sinking sensation that a monster lurked around a corner, behind a door that one was going to be forced to open anyway. His breath quickened, and he felt himself rooted to the floor.


    ¡°No, that will not do. Not after the hospitality I¡¯ve been shown. Stay still, dear, please, it will only take me a moment to bestow.¡±


    ¡°Bestow? I don¡¯t think I-¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ll understand soon. You¡¯ll see how much better things can be.¡±


    There was a shuffle, a silence. Sergey¡¯s breath hitched. Something had happened. The air had shifted.


    In the living room, there was a shifting, sliding noise. Then a dull thud.


    The idea of waiting for the woman¡¯s face to peer around the corner became suddenly intolerable. In a flash of adrenaline, Sergey forced himself into the living room.


    Mila had fallen out of her chair and was lying on the ground, limp.


    Yelena was standing. He stumbled back a step, surprised. The woman was probably a head taller than he was.


    Sergey paced over to the wall, eyes flitting between the crumpled form of his wife and the woman towering over him. More of that nightmare-certainty had settled into his chest, a bleak conviction, completely inexplicable but totally believed: that his wife was dead and this woman had killed her.


    The woman¡¯s smile wilted a little, weary. ¡°I know that it¡¯s a cliche, to say that your wife is in a better place. But she really is.¡±


    Sergey reached the far wall. He began to feel very distant, as if he were spectating the scene from somewhere far and above. His hands were numb, the woman¡¯s voice muffled in his ears.


    ¡°I¡¯m not speaking of some sunday school heaven full of clouds and harps,¡± the woman continued. ¡°She¡¯s not with God, or Allah, or any of the others. It¡¯s far, far better than those old stories ever hinted at. I know this, Sergey, because I was just there. I was wrapped in such comfort, filled with such infinite joy, for so long, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to leave it behind. It was the hardest thing I¡¯ve ever done, and I have been made to do some very hard things.¡± The woman¡¯s voice quavered, and tears were spilling down her pale cheeks now.


    ¡°You¡¯re insane,¡± Sergey croaked.


    ¡°Yes, I suppose I probably am,¡± the woman chuckled, still crying. ¡°The delights I¡¯m describing, as wonderful as they are, probably aren¡¯t bound to make anybody more sane. But they¡¯re wonderful nonetheless. Your wife, she¡¯s discovering this as we speak. She¡¯s-¡±


    The woman¡¯s rambling was cut short by the thunderclap of Sergey¡¯s rifle. He¡¯d swung it up from the wall and fired, scarcely aiming, and hit the woman directly in the face. Her head snapped back, flecks of skull and brain and blood dusting the wall behind her. She swayed for a moment, hands grasping at nothing, and collapsed to the ground.


    Sergey stood for a moment, swaying in the eerie quiet, half-expecting to wake up. He blinked, hard, over and over again, trying to clear the scene, trying to wipe it away.


    When that failed, he finally tottered over to his wife and dropped to his knees at her side. He touched her wrist gingerly: it was cold.


    He turned her over. She was unblemished, not clearly wounded, but very obviously dead. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open in a small circle, her face a frozen mask of mild surprise.


    Sergey held her to his chest and shivered violently, racked by trembling, too choked and dazed to produce any tears. He rocked back and forth, blinking hard all the while, waiting to wake up. His blood roared in his ears, drowning out the quiet, sucking noises that were now coming from somewhere just behind him.


    ¡°I go to the trouble of explaining how much I struggled to leave the dead,¡± Yelena¡¯s voice chided. ¡°And you go and send me right back? Anyone would find that a bit rude.¡±


    Sergey¡¯s shivering stopped, banished by a wave of adrenaline. He turned, glanced over his shoulder, as if his face had been guided, as if he had no say in the matter, and he looked.


    The woman was back on her feet. She was smiling, still, her patient, weary expression marred by streaks of drying blood stemming from a ragged hole gaping on her forehead. The hole was making an odd hissing sound, and Sergey watched as, before his eyes, its edges shuddered and jumped, growing inward. Within a few seconds it had knitted itself entirely shut, leaving only a fresh-looking patch of pink skin behind.


    Another, louder hissing was still issuing from somewhere behind the woman¡¯s head, where the exit wound¡¯s messy regeneration was muffled by hair. Yelena reached up and brushed the fresh skin on her forehead with a fingertip.


    ¡°I have too many gifts yet to give, Sergey,¡± she explained. ¡°I can¡¯t go back yet.¡±


    Sergey nodded as if this made any sense. Then, driven by an impulse so sudden that he scarcely even felt it, he lunged for his rifle again. Yelena tutted and snatched it from his hands effortlessly, throwing him to the ground. She snapped the rifle in half in a single halfhearted motion and tossed the two parts behind her.


    ¡°I told myself,¡± she continued, ¡°that I wouldn¡¯t get distracted, that if I paused to help usher every stranger I met to their good fortune, I¡¯d scarcely make it halfway through my travels before it grew too late. But your wife¡¯s kindness moved me, and I¡¯ve no money to pay you all back, and I am not the kind to suffer a debt left unpaid.¡±


    She reached down and picked Sergey up from the floor by his shoulders, stood him on his feet, brushed some dust from his shirt. She cupped his face with one hand, her fingers too smooth, too cool, more like silk than skin. ¡°Sergey, don¡¯t despair, and don¡¯t fear. You¡¯ll thank me.¡±


    ¡°Please,¡± Sergey pleaded. ¡°Don¡¯t-¡±


    ¡°It won¡¯t hurt, my poor, misled child.¡± Yelena promised, tears welling back into her eyes. ¡°You won¡¯t feel a thing.¡±


    And she was right. He didn¡¯t.

 Act III, Chapter 2: The Saint

    The line of passengers shuffled sleepily toward the gate, a quiet procession punctuated by the occasional trill of the ticket scanner.


    Fourteen meters away, a young man¡¯s knee bounces as he pretends to read a paperback. His nascent Qi flutters and flips, tinged a cascade of nervous yellows and queasy greens. A deeper look: hindbrain aflame, body flush with stale adrenaline. Deeper: synaptic fireworks outline frantically re-examined short term memories, coalesce into digestible images: the text confirming that the feds were raiding the house, his hazy recollection of the wall safe, his present insecurity (did he lock it? Did he remember? Did he hide it well enough?). His glance darts from the page to the open concourse, his imagination conjuring up flashes of approaching authorities, phantom SWAT teams.


    The line plodded ahead. A woman apologized as she struggled to locate the boarding pass in her bag.


    Another quick look, two meters ahead: the pass is folded in the bottom-left corner, trapped beneath her wallet and a pair of tampons. The woman¡¯s hands brush old receipts and straw wrappers. Inside the bag, free-floating, is a miniature polaroid of a cat.


    Attention jerked away, four meters up and five meters to the right: a sparrow hops through the rafters. The sparrow has a minor fracture in one of its right phalanges, is locomoting via little jumps to avoid painful flight. A peek into the bird¡¯s memories: much of what would be expected. Dim recollections of predator and safety, revolving around the centerpiece of this bird¡¯s former world: a birdfeeder dangling from a 2nd story apartment. Curious digging reveals why the bird came to be here, in the Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport. Ah. Chased by a territorial blue magpie, the bird had ducked through an open door and become immediately confused by the maze of terminals and unending fluorescent daytime.


    The line had dwindled to its very end, and only one person remained, a man with a far-away look to his eyes, who swayed gently before the increasingly bemused gate attendant.


    Thirty-four meters back, twenty-eight meters to the right, deep down, on an exponentially smaller scale, a rare parasite lays eggs within the upper colon of a businessman. The parasite, a mid-sized tapeworm, was more adapted to live in asian carp, and would normally have been dissolved at its larval stage by a mammalian immune system, but a mutation to a gene on its second chromosome seems to have rendered it hardy enough to weather these assaults and grow to reproductive age. It lays its microscopic eggs in a spiraling fractal pattern, disgorging them with the neat efficiency of a frosting piper. At a glance, 76% of these eggs contain the same mutation. The worm¡¯s exertions dislodge a pocket of gas, and the man burps.


    ¡°Sir?¡± prodded the gate agent. ¡°Sir, your boarding pass?¡±


    Sixty meters away, twenty-eight meters to the left, at the edges of awareness, a man fidgets with his wedding ring. It¡¯s new. A dive into his hippocampus reveals just how new: one week. A further dive, why not, to explain the oxytocin flooding his system: his memory of the proposal, at the boardwalk. The fireflies. How his growing despair that she might decline immediately solidified into relief, joy, bashfulness at his worries. Folded within these memories were dimmer, more distant ones, wrapped up by association. The jeers from the boys at school. The distance from his father, the cruel implications of his mother, the defiant support of his sisters. The woman, the wife now, the first date, the first night, the first fight. The band, a basic gold alloy, slides beneath his fingers as he rotates it. He wonders if-


    ¡°Sir? Please, your boarding pass?¡± The woman paused, shot her coworker a nervous look, only to see that he had left to usher things along in the bridge. She turned back to the near-catatonic man and sighed as she realized she¡¯d have to handle this herself. The man didn¡¯t look threatening: he was clean, on the smaller side, with a shaved head and the beginnings of smile lines garlanding each eye. But he was clearly in some sort of trance, and that freaked her out. She stepped forward and, after a second of deliberation, gently touched the man¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Sir?¡±


    Pema snapped from his observations and came to, self-consciousness returning in a flush of sensations and emotions that even after so many years of practice had a tendency to stun him a bit. ¡°Oh, oh my, my apologies, dear. Was I¡­¡± Pema waved his fingers in front of his face, made an expression of exaggerated, comic vacancy.


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    ¡°Uh,¡± chuckled the woman, already a little relieved that this seemed to be resolving itself, ¡°yes, sir, I think so.¡±


    ¡°Ah. So sorry, that can be troubling to witness, I know. I have a condition.¡± Pema smiled, amused by the woman¡¯s concern.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry to hear that.¡± A moment of befuddled silence. ¡°Your boarding pass?¡±


    Pema nodded sagely, knowing full well that he didn¡¯t have a boarding pass and had no real means to acquire one. After spending the better part of the last decade suspended, semi-catatonic, above a hydrothermal vent thousands of feet below the surface of the Indian Ocean, the man wasn¡¯t exactly flush with cash.


    Which was of no concern to him. He¡¯d always resented money, and luckily he had been blessed with plenty of ways to procure goods and services without resorting to anything so painfully boring as notes and coins. He took a quick peek into the woman¡¯s limbic system, then her long-term memory, rooted through hundreds of vignettes in the time it took to blink, and settled on one he felt he could make use of. He enhanced the memory, replayed it for himself, used a knack for deduction sharpened by billions of second-hand experiences. Before the woman had time to worry that he¡¯d lapsed into another trance, he¡¯d solved one of her life¡¯s greatest riddles.


    ¡°The car accident, back in 2015, it really wasn¡¯t your fault.¡±


    The woman blinked. ¡°Excuse me?¡± The tangent was such a jarring, sudden swing, that she hadn¡¯t managed to understand what he¡¯d said.


    ¡°When you hit the little boy? You¡¯d only been driving a year, so you thought it was your doing, that you weren¡¯t a good enough driver and you¡¯d killed someone because of it. Well, good news, it really wasn¡¯t your fault.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t¡­¡± The words were beginning to register to her. She made a little gulping noise and took a reflexive step back, suddenly afraid of the smiling little man again.


    ¡°He ran onto the road, and the time that elapsed between the moment you saw him and the moment you moved to hit the brakes was barely over three tenths of a second, which is about as quickly as anybody can be expected to react to anything, let alone at night, as a child, in a stressful situation. And the brakes! Do you remember how, right before the impact, the car shook? A sort of, brrrr, a shudder?¡±


    The woman was hyperventilating now, and nodded, rendered childishly compliant by her shock. Pema felt a pang of guilt for putting her through this, but he knew the absolution to come would make the agony of reliving the memory worth it.


    ¡°Your brother¡¯s car, it had warped brake rotors. Now, I don¡¯t blame the boy, he was scarcely older than you, and these issues don¡¯t make themselves very obvious, but he hadn¡¯t properly cared for the brakes, and that worsened their efficiency.¡± Pema stepped forward and grabbed the woman¡¯s shaking right hand, clasped it in both of his. ¡°There was nothing you could¡¯ve done differently. And, besides, I don¡¯t think the boy died.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t-¡± the woman hiccuped. ¡°How could you possibly-¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know that one for sure, I wouldn¡¯t be able to tell unless he was here with us, and, well, if he was here with us it wouldn¡¯t need telling, I guess,¡± Pema chuckled. ¡°But I¡¯ve seen plenty of head injuries, even in children, and from the angle he hit the ground at, at the speed you were going, I doubt he suffered much worse than a concussion. Now, his mother had every reason to be upset, and I¡¯m sure she would¡¯ve contacted you to tell you if she¡¯d been able, but, alas, it was a scary situation, and it follows that neither of you took the time to exchange information before she rushed her child to the hospital.¡±


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe-¡± the woman was blubbering a little now, eyes swimming and unfocused. ¡°You really think-¡±


    ¡°I know,¡± Pema rubbed the woman¡¯s arm, tried to look reassuring. ¡°You can let go of the shame, dear. It was never yours to begin with.¡±


    The woman collapsed into sobs. Pema stayed with her for a moment, rubbed her back, and then proceeded onto the plane.


    He took a quick inventory of the plane¡¯s occupants and zeroed in on a seat on the back that would almost doubtless remain vacant for the rest of the flight. He settled in quickly, as he had no baggage.


    Around him, light and sound and Qi and knowledge buzzed. Little scenes beckoned, jostled for his witness. Pema took a few meditative breaths, and focused instead on the distant, goliath pull of the Qi leakage emanating from across the globe, nestled somewhere in America¡¯s heartland.


    He knew why it was pulling on him. He knew who else would heed its call. He knew the risks he was undertaking by venturing into such an obvious honey trap.


    He also knew what he could stand to gain, if he could just wait the rest of the competition out. His vision, already so perfectly granular, could be made to expand, maybe encompassing a country, a continent, the globe. Every square foot of the planet, Pema knew better than anyone, was a canvas painted with the pigment of dozens of brilliant, perfect little narratives. Pema was hopelessly addicted to the constant drama, and he craved more, more, always more.


    In the interim, there was plenty to keep his attention even within his roughly 40-meter radius. Pema sifted through potential points of interest near him now: a woman gestating triplets three rows ahead, a rare snake being transported in the cargo bay, a luggage carrier outside who was halfway through a mild hallucinogenic trip. It would be a long flight, first to Los Angeles and then another to Minneapolis, but luckily it appeared he would have plenty of entertainment. He could still sense the sobs of the poor, aggrieved gate attendant, and figured it would be best for the other passengers if he kept his findings to himself for the duration, this time.


    He made it nearly thirty minutes before he turned to the man sitting behind him and informed him that the mole on his ankle was indeed cancerous, and that he should get it checked by a doctor.

 Act III, Chapter 3: The Warlord (1)

    Cyril Dyantyi finished reading the morning¡¯s report and smiled. He took a few extra seconds to double-check the basic details in case Rai asked for specifics: multiple confirmed spontaneous awakenings, twelve Phoenix acolytes massacred by some rogue element, police reports of what had to be a Sensitive initiating a hostage situation, confirmed Demigod presence in the continental US.


    All of these details painted a clear picture of the early moments preceding some real conflict. The field was clearly being set not for a quick scuffle, but for a prolonged, protracted war. This was exactly what his employer wanted, and precisely what Dyantyi had been craving.


    He turned off his tablet just as his car arrived at the tarmac. Ms. Rai was waiting with Lennox, the other half of her ¡°security¡± detail, at the stairway to the private jet they were about to board. She nodded her acknowledgement as he approached, her attention buried in some business on her phone. Dyantyi stepped to her side and leaned over to whisper.


    ¡°Everything¡¯s kicking off ahead of schedule,¡± Dyantyi said. ¡°We should be free to take the training wheels off, if that¡¯s still what you want.¡±


    Rai nodded curtly, eyes still glued to her phone. ¡°Fantastic. I was worried I¡¯d spend the whole flight bored to tears.¡±


    Lennox grunted, which was usually about as articulate as the huge man got, and they ushered their employer onto the jet. They took their places at the door to the plush main cabin, empty but for a few other guards and their own charges, Rai¡¯s co-passengers for the evening. Seated at an ornate in-flight table already set with two courses of dinner was a pair of some of the most powerful men in the Western world.


    On the far end, looking impassively out the window, a forkful of lobster forgotten in his hand, sat John Darrow. He was the scion of one of the country¡¯s most insidious Pentagon dynasties, the acting head of several obscure-yet-dominant 3-letter agencies, and operated at the highest possible clearance in the country¡¯s weapons R&D apparatus.


    On the other side of the table, smirking over his shoulder at Rai as she entered, was Aldo Hatch: SatCom billionaire, tech oligarch to the stars, huge piece of shit. Anyone who knew enough about the man to recognize him would be able to name at least three major controversies surrounding him off of the top of their heads, and Diyanti himself was privy to several that he suspected even Hatch wasn¡¯t aware anyone else knew about.


    Dyantyi felt another surge of excitement. If Rai really was eager to escalate, he was confident he¡¯d get to see Hatch¡¯s smirk wiped off his face, maybe permanently, before the night was over. He made a mental note to remember to make a copy of the video, if his lapel security camera happened to catch the moment on tape.


    ¡°ETA?¡± Rai whispered as she paused in the entryway, frowning at the table¡¯s one empty seat.


    ¡°We¡¯re all refueled, and I convinced the pilot to step on it. Two hours max before we¡¯re in Minnesotan airspace.¡±


    ¡°There she is!¡± Hatch crowed. He popped a shrimp into his mouth. ¡°Making us wait for her on the runway. Really, Rai, I expected more subtlety from you, that move¡¯s so MBA.¡±


    Rai grumbled. ¡°I¡¯ll try not to fling myself out the emergency exit until then.¡± Dyantyi chuckled sympathetically and stepped aside, closing the door to the private cabin after Rai stepped through.


    He and Lennox stationed themselves just outside the cabin door and settled in. Dyantyi listened in on the meeting through the near-invisible pocket mic Rai was feeding him audio with. Lennox was listening too, without a bug, somehow. Some sort of Field trick, doubtless.


    Dyantyi wasn¡¯t a Sensitive, but he was firmly a member of the exclusive club of people who knew most of how they worked. He wasn¡¯t quite as knowledgeable as Maldonado, that walking security risk Rai was letting skulk around for some God-forsaken reason, but he knew more than enough to do his job. He¡¯d fought them before, he could step in if it somehow came to it, but that wasn¡¯t his purview anymore.


    Dyantyi was dressed like private security, a look he took to readily, with his combat athlete¡¯s frame and scar-pocked face. Really, though, Rai didn¡¯t need that kind of protection. There were a small handful of people on the planet capable of hurting her, and Dyantyi knew that if any of them were to show their ugly faces unannounced, he¡¯d probably be killed before he even had the chance to panic. Lennox fought for her, sometimes, but mostly as a convenience. From what he¡¯d seen, Lennox was among the nastiest Sensitives on the planet right now, and Rai could flatten him with a thought.


    No, Dyantyi¡¯s real role was R&D. He had a knack for fighting dirty, for toppling titans with cheap tricks and underhanded tactics. He¡¯d cut his teeth in guerrilla warfare, by 35 he¡¯d had a hand in enough coups, high-profile assassinations, and sabotage campaigns to make himself something of an expert in the field of putting sand in a giant¡¯s eye. When he managed to successfully off his first Sensitive (a bitch of a contract; fighting those things without any intel is a crapshoot, and he only pulled it off because he¡¯d been immensely lucky), he tripped into Rai¡¯s radar and got poached.


    Rai loathed to give up a secret, but she¡¯d given him a mostly-uncensored rundown of what was unfolding in Minnesota now, and what her plans for it were. She¡¯d already sent an advance force of Murderers and Mops ahead of them, and by all accounts they¡¯d wasted no time sniffing out other Sensitives to eat up and hide away. It promised to be a bloodbath, one that he¡¯d get a front-row seat for, and he intended to make the most of it. Data on Sensitives in combat situations was frustratingly sparse, even for someone with Rai¡¯s network, and he was hungry to collect more.


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    The meeting droned on, just as dully as Rai had predicted. Hatch filled most of the dead air himself, dancing around any attempt to do the business Rai had loaned her jet out for in favor of gushing about his new Dubai properties, about his football club, about the election he insisted he was helping to buy. He went on a minutes-long tangent about some sort of sex tourism jaunt he¡¯d had in New Delhi years back, obviously in an attempt to get some sort of rise out of Rai. She didn¡¯t take the bait, both because she knew better, and because she¡¯d read the same files Dyantyi had and was aware that Hatch was completely impotent following a botched experimental surgery.


    Darrow, to his credit, kept mostly quiet. He tried to nudge the conversation over to business a few times, trying to secure the Air Force some satellite contract from Hatch¡¯s telecom company, but kept politely quiet every time Hatch swerved onto a tangent or tossed out some vulgar non-sequitur. Dyantyi didn¡¯t know if he felt more respect for this man¡¯s restraint or suspicion at his silence. In his experience, the quieter oligarchs were usually the ones with actual power, the ones with private death squads and the requisite sociopathy to make use of them.


    He reminded himself to relax. It was Rai he was working for, here. The guy could have half of Mossad tucked away in his Loro Piana and he¡¯d pose about as much of a threat as the flight attendant refreshing their mango dip.


    Ninety minutes in, Lennox stiffened.


    ¡°You hear something?¡± Dyantyi asked.


    Lennox shook his head, brows furrowed, looking more puzzled than worried. ¡°No. Air¡¯s weird.¡±


    ¡°Air¡¯s weird?¡± Dynati sniffed. ¡°What, like a gas leak?¡±


    ¡°Not gas. It¡¯s a Field thing.¡±


    Dyantyi shrugged. ¡®It¡¯s a Field thing¡¯ was Lennox for ¡®shut up, normie¡¯ He tuned back into the meeting, cracked the door a fraction to peek in. Rai had straightened, too. She had her eyes closed, her face upturned, like she was basking in a sunbeam. She had a thin, almost imperceptible smile on her face, despite Hatch¡¯s continued rambling about his Q2.


    ¡°We¡¯ve quite nearly arrived,¡± Rai interjected. ¡°We should get to business.¡±


    ¡°Yeah?¡± Hatch said, around a mouthful of wine. ¡°What, you didn¡¯t suggest the rideshare because of my sparkling personality? We¡¯re not carpooling to save the planet?¡±


    ¡°I want to buy satellite time.¡±


    ¡°Always about the satellites,¡± Hatch groaned. ¡°Nobody ever wants to talk about the AR Raybans or the chatbot or the delivery drones.¡±


    ¡°I need at-will high-res aerial tracking. 24 hour access, overlapping orbits so my eyes aren¡¯t stuck over Kazakhstan when I need to see something going on in the US.¡±


    ¡°Sounds pretty sinister, lady. Usually when a twisted plutocrat begs me for satellite time they at least try and sling some bullshit about funding a Maps competitor or something. What, tracking an ex? Stalking your celebrity crush from orbit?¡±


    ¡°M¡¯s expanding operations, and we have key security risks we need keeping a leash on.¡±


    ¡°Mmm. At least when the feds say that,¡± Hatch jabbed a thumb toward Darrow, who was back to politely looking out the window, ¡°you can pretend they¡¯re using it to stop 9/11 2.0 or whatever. You know, if I still had a conscience, I¡¯d feel a little queasy about handing some Blackwater wannabe this kinda power.¡±


    ¡°Well good for you, you¡¯re not handing it over, you¡¯re selling it.¡±


    Hatch grinned. ¡°Fuckin¡¯ right. Ok, let¡¯s skip the haggling. We¡¯ll pretend you said 300 milly, I act offended, talk you up to 350, you chase me back down to 325, we shake on it, I get back to my shrimp.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m prepared to offer 75.¡±


    Even Darrow had turned to watch now, one eyebrow cocked. Hatch¡¯s grin widened, shocked and amused. ¡°Right. Well, okay, that¡¯s another way to speed things up. Now I can just hit you with a ¡®fuck no.¡¯¡±


    ¡°I¡¯d advise against that.¡±


    ¡°Well, yeah, in the same way my wife advised against the hookers. It¡¯s not up to you, babe. 75 million is what you pay for your third house, not 24/7 spy satellite priority.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s better than nothing.¡±


    ¡°Sure¡­¡± Hatch¡¯s eyes darted across Rai¡¯s placid face, like he was trying to work out the punchline to a joke he wasn¡¯t in on. ¡°But you¡¯re not getting shit for less than 300. Not from me, not from Musk, not from whatever Shenzhen nepo baby you¡¯ve got in your pocket. You have to know that.¡±


    Rai shrugged, swirled her untouched glass of wine, watched the ripples. ¡°Normally I¡¯d agree. Circumstances are changing in my favor, though. I¡¯ll offer you the 75 million one more time.¡±


    ¡°Or what?¡± Hatch leaned across the table, plucked the glass from her hand, snapped his fingers in her face. ¡°Hey, Bollywood. Eyes up here. Or what? What the fuck do you have to threaten me with?¡±


    ¡°Aldo, hey,¡± Darrow said. He looked the slightest bit perturbed, as if he could sense what was coming, and was trying to prevent it. Dyantyi felt another blip of admiration for the man: if anything, he had good instincts. ¡°Don¡¯t let her get such a rise out of you-¡±


    ¡°It is a threat,¡± Rai said, matter-of-factly. ¡°I¡¯m threatening you.¡±


    ¡°With what?¡± Hatch barked a laugh. ¡°Oh, what, blackmail? You got your script kiddies to pull my dick pics from the cloud? Listen, the media already hates my ass, a printout of my search history isn¡¯t changing shit.¡±


    ¡°No, you¡¯re right, that wouldn¡¯t accomplish much,¡± Rai began. Dyantyi heard something as she said this, an audible thunk and a whine from somewhere out by the wings. The metal of the plane¡¯s chassis started to rattle and groan. He glanced over to Lennox, who was glancing around almost frantically, beady eyes wide with shock.


    Something was happening to the plane.

 Act III, Chapter 3: The Warlord (2)

    Something was happening to the plane.


    Darrow straightened, one hand on his armrest. Hatch didn¡¯t seem to notice. ¡°What is it, then, corporate espionage? You get someone to skim some of my patents? I get a whiff of that and I can bury you in lawyers. You¡¯ve done okay for yourself, but I¡¯m fuckin- I¡¯m a whale. I¡¯m huge. I¡¯m the one with actual power here.¡±


    ¡°Are you sure about that?¡± Rai asked. There was another bang, and Dyantyi was thrown against the wall of the cabin. Lennox had braced himself in time, he¡¯d seen something Dyantyi couldn¡¯t have, but Darrow and Hatch had been tossed to the floor.


    The metal around them now was screaming, groaning, threatening to split. Dyantyi heard surprised shouts from the cockpit, hurried instructions. Then, quickly, the roaring came to a standstill. Other than the muffled scurrying of panicked flight staff, things were silent.


    Completely silent. Diaynti realized he couldn¡¯t hear the engines.


    Lennox was gawking at the air around him, squinting like he was about to cry. ¡°Holy shit,¡± the huge man muttered. ¡°Holy fucking shit. She¡¯s big.¡±


    Dyantyi knew better than to ask what the hell his coworker was talking about. His eyes locked on something over Lennox¡¯s shoulder, though: the clouds, outside, visible through a window. They weren¡¯t moving.


    ¡°Did we hit something?¡± Hatch barked as he shakily drew himself up. ¡°Did we crash?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re eight miles up, there¡¯s nothing to hit,¡± Darrow muttered, back to staring out his window. His mouth was drawn into a tight line, his face pale as he studied the motionless sky outside.


    ¡°The fuck- What does that-¡± Hatch wheeled to face Rai. ¡°The fuck did you do?¡±


    ¡°I stopped the plane,¡± Rai explained.


    ¡°That doesn¡¯t make any sense. You can¡¯t just park a plane midair, we¡¯re not in a fucking blimp.¡± Hatch growled, then yanked Darrow away from the window. He made a few feeble, blustering noises as he stared out, then whipped back around to Rai. ¡°This is a trick. You faked this.¡±


    ¡°Please, explain how I¡¯d do that.¡±


    ¡°You- I don¡¯t know. This is a soundstage. We¡¯re still on the tarmac. The crew¡¯s in on it, and the sky outside-¡±


    The emergency exit crashed open, seemingly of its own accord. There was an ear-popping roar as the pressure in the plane violently equalized itself, but the sucking gale went away as quickly as it appeared. Wind wailed around the plane outside as Rai paced over to Hatch and snagged his collar.


    She plucked him easily from his feet and walked to the open door.


    ¡°What are you- Get your hands-¡± Hatch¡¯s protestations were cut short when Rai lifted him, one handed, and dangled him out of the plane. Hatch decided to use his increasingly limited oxygen supply to scream and kick his legs in the open air.


    Tranquil clouds puttered around under his feet. Miles beneath, countryside yawned, roads snaked. A ¡°V¡± of birds flew below, distant dots. The airplane behind him creaked and groaned as it maintained its impossible, frozen position in midair.


    ¡°This would have to be quite the soundstage.¡± Rai said.


    ¡°Put me back!¡± Hatch pleaded, face reddening, voice thin and hoarse. ¡°Please, God, put me back in the plane!¡±


    Rai shrugged. She tossed Hatch back into the cabin and shut the exit behind her, maneuvering the huge metal hatch with the ease one usually reserves for a screen door. Hatch fumbled around on the floor, grasping at his throat, taking huge, greedy gulps of air as the plane began to repressurize.


    ¡°You¡¯ll give me the satellites for free, now,¡± Rai explained, her voice like a patient professor¡¯s, laying out the weekend¡¯s homework. ¡°We¡¯ll dress up the contract so it doesn¡¯t look like a handout, make some sort of implication that I¡¯d traded other services for it, but it¡¯ll be free.¡±


    ¡°Why-¡± Hatch coughed. ¡°Why would-¡±


    ¡°Because if you don¡¯t, I¡¯ll hurt you, Hatch. I¡¯ll pluck your penthouse from its foundations and hurl it into the sky. I¡¯ll crush your Maybach like a soda can while you¡¯re in it. I¡¯ll break every one of your bones at the exact same time.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re¡­ Is this¡­¡± Darrow interjected, eyes still glued to the window, fingers tapping as if he was doing some complicated mental math. ¡°China? Russia? Where¡¯d you get the tech to do this?¡±


    Rai sighed. ¡°If Russia had the ability to freeze planes in the air at will, do you think the world, geopolitically, would look like it does right now? If Putin could ground the world¡¯s nukes whenever he wanted?¡±


    Darrow turned and studied Rai¡¯s face, and comprehension began to dawn on him. ¡°Oh Christ. Oh, you¡¯re one of them.¡±


    Rai brightened a shade, pleasantly surprised. ¡°Oh good, I was hoping you of all people wouldn¡¯t be completely in the dark.¡±


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    ¡°You¡¯re really coming right out, aren¡¯t you? Showing your true face, to two very influential people.¡± Darrow was making some kind of mental calculations, and the dread of his conclusion showed on his face. ¡°You don¡¯t think it¡¯ll matter. Is the world ending? What do you know that I don¡¯t?¡±


    Rai ignored the question. ¡°How much have you been briefed on Sensitives? Or, what term do you use, Field Manipulators?¡±


    Darrow took a moment to sift through his own memory. ¡°Not much.¡±


    ¡°Do your best. I¡¯m curious.¡±


    ¡°S-Something to do with energy manipulation. I know it¡¯s very rare for people to be able to do. So rare, that I know we tried to make our own, and shit the bed.¡± Darrow chuckled darkly. ¡°And I know China are apparently in the process of shitting their own bed right about now.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°Listen, even at my level, we keep things pretty compartmentalized. I¡¯m sure there¡¯s a number of top brass out there who¡¯ve got the full picture, but if that number is any bigger than, say, three, then someone¡¯s ignoring policy.¡± Darrow shivered. ¡°Jesus, can we get the plane moving again, please? You made your point.¡±


    ¡°To Hatch, sure, but I have a demand of you, too,¡± Rai said.


    ¡°She¡¯s crazy, man. She¡¯s-¡± Hatch began.


    ¡°Aldo,¡± Rai chided. ¡°Shut the fuck up for a moment, please.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± Darrow sighed. ¡°What, you want executive access to some sort of database, and if I don¡¯t hand it over, you¡¯ll blow up my kids¡¯ pets with your mind?¡±


    ¡°Nothing so transactional,¡± Rai shook her head, curt. ¡°I need you to carry a message as high up your ladder as possible. I don¡¯t know if your access reaches the president, or stops at some general or secretary, but I need you to make the following as clear as you can, to as influential a figure as you can: do not intervene in Minnesota.¡±


    ¡°Minnesota?¡± Darrow said. ¡°I was wondering why you were stoping in such a flyover. What¡¯s supposed to happen in Minnesota?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll put it in terms you¡¯ll understand: someone, somehow, struck oil. Not real oil, obviously. A power source, a rare one, that people like me are desperate for.¡±


    ¡°Right. And I¡¯ll wager a guess that it¡¯s, uh, pretty limited? And something you can take by force?¡±


    ¡°It can really only be taken by force.¡±


    ¡°Hmm. Okay.¡± Darrow looked back out his window. He was silent for a few seconds, lost in thought. ¡°It sounds like a lot of American citizens are going to die.¡±


    ¡°Most likely,¡± Rai nodded. Diyanti noticed what seemed to be a genuine tone of regret to her voice there. ¡°Despite efforts I plan to make to the contrary, that¡¯s how it¡¯ll probably go. Don¡¯t pretend that you¡¯re drawing some sort of moral line at collateral damage, Darrow. You make drones.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not. I¡¯m just thinking about how the US military industrial leadership loves to cite civilian casualties as a reason to give themselves carte-blanche to intervene in whatever they please. Almost as much as they love oil.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not real oil.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m aware.¡± Darrow took off his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose. ¡°You just want us out of the way?¡±


    ¡°For your sake, not mine. The military is physically and technologically incapable of hurting me in any real way. But personally, I¡¯d rather not have a bunch of 19-year-old National Guard lackeys shouldering their way into my line of fire.¡±


    ¡°The Ray Kroc of discount wetwork is worried about sleeping at night?¡± Hatch chuckled, throat still a little mangled. ¡°Fuckin¡¯ classic. You¡¯re a monster.¡±


    Rai leveled her gaze on the man, who, despite himself, succumbed to an animal instinct to shrink and look away. She paced over to him, lip finally curling into an honest expression of disgust. ¡°Do you have any idea how lucky you are, Aldo, that I¡¯m the one with this kind of power? That it¡¯s me, and not Putin, or the Pentagon, or the free market, or the pope, or, fucking, you?¡±


    Aldo muttered something and Rai snapped her fingers in his face. An unseen force jarred Hatch¡¯s head over toward Rai, and he yelped at the suddenness of it.


    ¡°If someone like you could do what I can do, the world would be a smoldering heap. Humanity would be an endangered species scrounging around a levelled wasteland. Do you know why?¡±


    Aldo ground his teeth, keeping his eyes averted. The unseen force jostled his head and he gasped again.


    ¡°Go on, guess. I would like to hear you guess.¡±


    ¡°Because you think we¡¯re stupid,¡± Aldo spat.


    Rai shook her head. ¡°Because I know myself, my motivations, and you don¡¯t. Oh, you all pretend to be about something. Darrow probably thinks he¡¯s motivated by his legacy, or his family, or, maybe, if he¡¯s feeling misty-eyed, some kind of twisted patriotism. You say you¡¯re motivated by money, or pussy, or sadism, because you¡¯re the kind of person who likes to get ahead of criticism by just spewing it yourself first, but you don¡¯t get any points for that, because you don¡¯t actually believe it. You think you do what you do because you¡¯re somehow superior, and that every quarter in the green, every hike in stock price, every predatory acquisition is a way for you to rub that in the face of the people who dare to tut at you when you act like a spoiled child.¡±


    Rai backed off a step, and the invisible force relinquished Aldo¡¯s head. He snapped away, flailed, tripped back onto the ground. She paid him no mind, turning her attention back to the motionless sky outside.


    ¡°No. You, Darrow, the president, all the oligarchs and prophets and generals, you dress it up in your own way, but you¡¯re all motivated by mortal fear. You know what everyone knows, deep in your gut and certain as the sunrise, that you¡¯re going to have to die someday. And everything you do, all the kids you pop out and all the net worth you accrue and all the statues you have commissioned, it¡¯s all a useless attempt to cheat the thing you know is uncheatable. And it makes you irrational.¡±


    ¡°Unlike you?¡± Darrow challenged, part intrigued, part impetuous.


    Diyanti felt a surge of loyalty, something he¡¯d only ever begun to feel for anyone once he started working with Rai. He knew what she was going to say next, and hearing her say it never failed to make him feel oddly reassured, even though he knew it didn¡¯t apply to him.


    ¡°Unlike me.¡± Rai said, her polite smile returned. ¡°I¡¯m free of that.¡±


    ¡°Because you think you know better?¡±


    ¡°Because I¡¯m never going to die.¡±

 Act III, Chapter 4: The Experiment (1)

    Jun¡¯s knuckles were bleeding. He¡¯d been battering the same bag for the better part of an hour now, not taking his breaks, not re-applying his wraps. He was mauling the bag, thrashing it, and now the rough cloth of the bag was slick with his blood.


    It was an awful habit of his, and if his coach were here he¡¯d be getting an earful about pacing and responsible training, but it was the only outlet he had for the incandescent rage strobing within him.


    He¡¯d been humiliated this last match. That Wuxi rich kid bastard had got him on the floor, the one thing he knew he shouldn¡¯t have let him do, and he¡¯d been choked out in front of 40,000 people. Fully unconscious. In the video, he¡¯d swallowed his own tongue and snored like a baby.


    He¡¯d have his revenge. They already had a rematch in the books, just ahead of the qualifiers, this time with twice the coverage. He¡¯d knock that smirking asshole¡¯s lights out before he had the chance to slither into another one of those cowardly fucking rear chokes. Every time he hit the bag, he hit it with the force he thought he¡¯d need to burst the nepo leech¡¯s liver, crack his rib, jostle his brain against his skull.


    The sound of blows echoed around the empty gym. It was late--Jun had long lost track of the hour--and he practiced in near-darkness, with just one dangling ceiling light to illuminate the sparring floor. Shadows draped the rest of the building in inky dark, which is exactly what Jun preferred. Less to distract him from his work, less to detract from the purifying flame of anger welling in his chest.


    ¡°Jun? Ha! Found ya.¡±


    Jun jerked his fist back, the sudden pause in momentum nearly bowling him over. He turned to see the silhouette of a slight, almost skeletal man watching him from across the gym.


    ¡°Excuse me?¡± Jun wheezed. He pumped his lungs, tried to get his breathing under control. His temper flared again; the other reason he came to the gym after close was so that he wouldn¡¯t have to pause his workout for every delusional fan who wandered past.


    ¡°Yu Jun,¡± the intruder repeated. His voice was thin and raspy. The few swaths of his skin visible in the slanted light were obviously pallid. Shit, was this guy sick? Jun couldn¡¯t afford to catch a bug, not right now. ¡°Do you remember me?¡±


    ¡°Fraid not. Does Li know you? His gym¡¯s supposed to be closed to everyone but me after 9.¡±


    The young man waved, nonchalant. His arms were shockingly thin, and the strange, monocolor jumpsuit he wore looked baggy and ill-fitting. ¡°I let myself in. You reeeeally don¡¯t remember me?¡±


    ¡°If you¡¯re a fan, I meet a lot-¡°


    ¡°Oh!¡± The kid slapped himself on the forehead. Maybe it was the acoustics of the empty gym, maybe it was Jun¡¯s growing unease, but the noise of the slap startled him. It echoed like a gunshot. ¡°Duh. I¡¯m old now. Wait, ok, look at my face, but picture it young. Real young, five years old.¡±


    The kid stepped forward, bringing himself further into the light. His hair was greasy and long, his teeth discolored. He grinned, propping his face on his hands. When this failed to jog Jun¡¯s memory, the kid frowned.


    ¡°Hmm. Nothing?¡±


    ¡°Do you need something from me?¡±


    ¡°Oh! I know.¡± He reeled back, then with a sudden violence that took Jun, a man very well acquainted with sudden violence, deeply aback, the kid slammed his fist into his own face. There was another gunshot retort, this time accompanied by a clattering sound as a few hard objects were sent skittering across the floor.


    The kid wiped a handful of blood from his face and smiled, his grin now featuring several obvious gaps. ¡°I was still losing baby teeth back then. Remember me now? Huh? Little Qiang, the runt?¡±


    Jun took an involuntary step back, his stomach churning. ¡°Listen, man, I don¡¯t know what you want from me, but if you could just calm down-¡±


    ¡°You¡¯ve gotta remember!¡± Qiang yelped. ¡°Think waaaaay back, back in your Pidu days, before you took off.¡±


    Jun felt a flash of recognition, just tangible above his mounting disgust. ¡°You¡¯re the little Gao kid.¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± Qiang threw his hands up in a cheer. ¡°Yes! You remember.¡±


    The bloodied young man hustled toward Jun, who stumbled another step back. He bumped against the punching bag, halting his retreat. Qiang scampered up to him now, leaned in close enough that Jun could smell his stale breath. Absently, he noticed a tiny glimmer of white, peeking through the gaps in the gums where his teeth had been knocked out.


    ¡°You used to-¡± Qiang giggled, cutting himself off, before quickly regaining his composure. ¡°You used to beat the shit out of me.¡±


    Jun felt a pang, not of guilt, or fear, but more of something like mild dismay. He did vaguely remember roughing up a kid named Qiang, back in his school days. This had been before he¡¯d been scouted, before the gyms, before he¡¯d found a safe outlet for his temper. He thought briefly about explaining his change of heart to the kid. The weird little Gao boy had grown into a visibly insane man, and probably couldn¡¯t be reasoned with. Still, he figured, it was worth a shot.


    ¡°Listen, I¡¯m sorry about that, but-¡±


    ¡°I always thought you were the fucking coolest, man.¡±


    Jun found himself caught off guard. ¡°Oh. Okay. That¡¯s-¡±


    ¡°You were the strongest kid in town, I was sure, I knew it. I mean, you sure hit like you were. Like a truck!¡± The young man collapsed into another fit of giggles. ¡°And look at you, proving me right, all along. A real fighter! A pro! With his own special gym time and promos with ladies and maybe even going all the way to the US to fight. Isn¡¯t that right? Los Angeles?¡±


    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    ¡°Well, it¡¯s just an exhibition-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m going to the US too!¡± Qiang jabbed a thumb at his own chest. ¡°Also to fight! But not- I¡¯m not a pro like you.¡±


    ¡°Good for you,¡± Jun breathed. There was a volatile, violent energy radiating off of Qiang, despite his effusiveness. His eyes darted over Qiang¡¯s hands, the waistline of his jumpsuit, looking for a weapon. He¡¯d been in plenty of fights, but he¡¯d never had to wrestle a gun from anyone. He felt a sudden, claustrophobic desire to be far away from this guy. ¡°How did you find me?¡±


    ¡°I sniffed you out. It¡¯s a thing I can do now.¡±


    Okay, so no sane answers on that front. Jun decided to try something simpler. ¡°What do you want?¡±


    ¡°I want you to hit me,¡± Qiang said, matter-of-factly. ¡°One time, as hard as you can.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡±


    ¡°And then, I get to hit you. Just one time. As hard. As I can.¡± Qiang¡¯s smile returned. There were visible points, now, of teeth pushing in through his gums, filling the spaces his old teeth had occupied. That was patently impossible, but Jun didn¡¯t want to think too hard about that right now.


    At least the thing this lunatic wanted from him was straightforward. Jun could hit this guy. He could hit him hard, once, and then break for it. He was confident he could outrun him, and that was only if he didn¡¯t lay the guy out completely. He felt a little bad about the idea, but only a little; the kid was literally asking for it, after all.


    ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± Jun confirmed.


    ¡°Yep!¡± Qiang nodded. ¡°It¡¯s no rush, though. I¡¯d love to stay and chat, catch up on how you got here, all the way from Pidu. I bet it¡¯s a great story. You, the farm kid, beating the snot out of everyone in your way, getting scouted, getting coaches. Having real money, moving to the city. I bet-¡±


    The young man stammered to a sudden stop, a glazed look settling over him. Jun paused, stuck between the impulse to prod the kid or book it for the exit, when Qiang suddenly shuddered. He whipped his body forward and hacked, loudly, as a torrent of gore slopped from his mouth and onto the floor, spattering Jun¡¯s shoes. Jun made a strangled noise of surprise and hopped backward, past the punching bag, to get away from the blood.


    The volume of it was staggering. Maybe half a gallon of viscera had exploded from the kid¡¯s mouth. Qiang looked up, expression more embarrassed than afraid, and held up a finger before letting loose another torrent of blood.


    He stood straight, then, thumped his own chest, as if he¡¯d cleared a particularly stubborn loogie and not disgorged enough blood to fill a milk jug. ¡°Sorry. So sorry about that. I- Oop-¡±


    One of Qiang¡¯s eyes fell out, plopping to the floor. He laughed crazily and stooped to retrieve it, dusting it off on his shirt before inserting it back into his skull. The eye, impossibly, shuddered and jumped for a second, before returning to seemingly normal function, swiveling and blinking in concert with his other one.


    This was finally too much for Jun. He wasn¡¯t much one to interrogate reality; this could be a nightmare, or some sort of hallucination brought on by overwork. It didn¡¯t matter to him, really, he¡¯d sort it out later. The athlete¡¯s guts roiled with disgust and pure, intuitive horror, and he had no thoughts now other than escape.


    Jun juked around Qiang and tensed to sprint, to run past him, around the boxing ring, and to the single exit. He¡¯d only made it two strides before a hand clamped on his shoulder and halted all of his momentum, a cast-iron hook digging inexorably into his deltoid.


    ¡°Sorry! So sorry. That was so rude of me,¡± Qiang explained, somehow holding the much larger man effortlessly in place with a single arm. Jun, frenzied, slammed his fist down against Qiang¡¯s arm, pried at it. He may as well have been hitting a piece of furniture.


    ¡°I¡¯m still getting the hang of growing all my shit back all the time,¡± Qiang said. ¡°I got real hurt, a bit ago, and I¡¯m still healing, so sometimes I puke. Sorry, I should have explained.¡±


    ¡°Please let me go,¡± Jun hissed, ashamed, despite his fear, to hear himself tremble. He hadn¡¯t heard that pathetic note in his own voice in decades.


    ¡°Oh! I should¡¯ve explained, too, how I got hurt, and why I¡¯m like this,¡± Qiang gestured to the blood on his chest, the jumpsuit he wore. ¡°I bet you¡¯re real confused. My bad, man. I guess the gist of it is- Hmm. You know the government?¡±


    ¡°Y-yeah,¡± Jun was surprised to hear himself answer.


    ¡°Yeah, those guys. Uh, when I was a little kid, they kinda scooped me up, because I¡¯d killed a guy. And since I didn¡¯t have a good family, nobody missed me when they took me. So they could kinda do whatever they wanted to me, and what they wanted, apparently, was to kill me and bring me back over and over. Not sure why, but whenever they did that, I¡¯d get a little bit stronger, and better at using my energy, and THEN, one time, when they killed me in a real nasty way, and I came back, I got SO good at energy that I learned how to make a lot more, and how to use it to heal myself, instead of waiting for their doctors and Mr. Zhao. That freaked ¡¯em out, I think, so they put me to sleep, but this huge tasty explosion in the US woke me up a little bit ago, and they tried to kill me again, and that made me mad, so I, like, I busted myself out.¡±


    ¡°Uh-huh,¡± Jun said, feet scrabbling against the floor in his attempts to pull away. Qiang didn¡¯t seem to notice.


    ¡°Turns out, they were keeping me real deep underground. AND under the ocean, which I didn¡¯t even know you could do. And they had this whole system there, apparently, that if I started to break out, that let them just flood the whole place all at once.¡± Qiang giggled again. ¡°Now, I¡¯m used to getting hurt, man, but THAT. That hurt. Think about it, a whole ocean of water, pushed through tiny tunnels, hitting you all at once. BOOSH!¡±


    Qiang shook his arms for emphasis, and Jun was lifted bodily from the ground, jostled in the air. Jun made a choking noise as the collar of his shirt tightened around his neck.


    ¡°It took everything I had to pull myself together from that one, and then to punch my way up through all the ground and swim through all the water. Long story short, my guy, my man, they squished me real bad, and my insides are still kinda getting un-squished.¡±


    Jun, now struggling to breathe, tried to throw a punch at Qiang¡¯s head. Being held as awkwardly as he was, being actively jerked around, the blow landed just glancingly, bouncing off the side of the young man¡¯s temple. Qiang puzzled up at him.


    ¡°Is that your free hit? Really? I don¡¯t think that should count. That wasn¡¯t nearly as hard as you can go, I¡¯m sure-¡± Qiang stopped. He cocked his head, listening, and turned to glance back toward the entrance. ¡°Huh. They already found me.¡±


    ¡°Wh-¡± Jun gurgled. ¡°Who-¡±


    ¡°The government,¡± Qiang rolled his eyes. ¡°Keep up. I thought you said you knew them.¡±

 Act III, Chapter 4: The Experiment (2)

    Qiang released Jun, leaving him to fall several feet to the floor, where he gathered himself to his knees, gasping for breath. The young man¡¯s attention stayed fixed, eyes trained on the seemingly unremarkable sight of the dark entrance to the gym.


    ¡°That was fast. Wonder if they¡¯ve got a chip in me or something. I¡¯ll have to dig that- Oh! Oh, nice!¡± Qiang clapped, chuckling. ¡°They¡¯re bringing helicopters.¡±


    ¡°Are you going to kill me?¡± Jun rasped. Qiang waved the question away just as Jun began to pick out the distant drone of approaching aircraft. Lights were strobing now, too, through the windows, growing brighter and busier. Somewhere, faintly, he heard a walkie-talkie chirp.


    ¡°You should probably hide somewhere. If this is anything like the last few times, they¡¯re gonna be shooting pretty much wherever they want. They¡¯re not very careful with people. You should- Oh! You should hide in the bathroom.¡±


    The world blurred and lurched suddenly, and Jun found himself bowled directly into the unisex bathroom, a room that had, until a fraction of a second ago, been one story up, by the running track encircling the gym. Qiang tossed him casually into the room and half-closed the door.


    ¡°Here. You¡¯ll probably be safe.¡± Qiang fiddled with the door, trying to leave a slight gap. ¡°You should watch through here, though! Believe me, fighter to fighter, you won¡¯t want to miss it. You¡¯ll definitely-¡±


    Qiang was cut off by a sudden clamor from below, a shatter-boom of windows and doors explosively caving in. Qiang looked lazily over his shoulder at the gas grenades and black-clad strike team streaming through the entrances, and as he turned back to continue his lunatic commentary, a parcel of his face the size of Jun¡¯s fist exploded, misting him with blood.


    ¡°Gah. Dey ahway go fo da mouf.¡± Qiang rolled his eyes. The flesh hanging from his destroyed jaw was twitching in the air, tendrils of muscle reaching for each other and joining, reminding Jun of footage he¡¯d seen in a nature doc once, time-lapses of plants and anemones growing. ¡°Hewe we go!¡±


    Qiang was gone, leaving Jun to scramble away from the bathroom door, narrowly missed by another spray of bullets. He slammed the door shut, chest heaving. Outside, muffled, the running ambience of gunfire was punctuated by titanic impacts and muffled cries of agony.


    Jun felt dreamily absent from himself now. He traced his finger in the blood spattering his chest. He rubbed the gristle between his fingers, and the texture of it woke him up a little.


    He backed away from the door and the hellish cacophony streaming in from just behind it, until he bumped into the back wall and - oh! - a window. The bathroom had a window.


    His mind cleared further. A plan, nascent and simple but leagues better than ¡°wait here to die,¡± formed in his brain. Jun fiddled with the latch, fingers slippery, and threw the window open. More screams and blasts filtered in from outside, as well as a bracing waft of night air. Jun peered down at the alley six meters below, and tried to make out any route he could use to climb down.


    There was another thunderclap, a brief roar, and then the door to the bathroom exploded, the entire wall buckling inward to reveal the flaming remains of an armored truck that had been somehow propelled through the gym and up onto the second floor.


    Jun decided then to just jump.


    He dangled from the window, fell, fast and hard, and felt something crackle and implode in his ankle on impact. He gasped, winded from the pain, but the screams were so loud and close now, the gunfire so deafening, that he found the strength to limp, then jog, then run.


    He made it a block. Then, descending like a whirring, roaring meteor, a helicopter crashed into the street before him and erupted into a fireball. Jun was thrown backward, face blast-burned by a wave of hot air. His head swam for a moment, and by the time his vision cleared he was able to make out a figure lurching in the blazing inferno before him.


    Qiang tore his arms free from the front of the downed chopper, where he¡¯d embedded both of them elbow-deep into the engine block. He hopped down from the hunk of groaning metal, pausing when a soldier came crawling, half-burned, from the wreckage. Qiang cackled, wound back, and kicked the man in the torso, sending him screaming into the air and through the side of a building, four stories up.


    The young man was covered in burns and gaping wounds, yawning patches of viscera and dead flesh that pulsated and radiated and puckered as they grew together, knitting neatly back into shape. Flames licked at his skin, danced in his hair. His jumpsuit was now almost entirely gone, reduced to dangling ribbons.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    His eyes, one clear, the other punctured through by a dagger of shrapnel, swiveled and landed on Jun.


    ¡°How¡¯d you end up out here?¡± Qiang called, yelling to be heard over the roar of flames and crumbling architecture. ¡°Don¡¯t tell me you got yourself hurt.¡±


    Jun found himself unable to talk. Looking at the shambling, burning cadaver smiling down at him, he decided resolutely that he was probably having a nightmare.


    Qiang frowned, then darted to his side, materializing instantly, accompanied shortly after by a whiff of dead and burning flesh that made Jun¡¯s stomach lurch.


    ¡°Ooh, yeah, landed bad on your leg.¡± Qiang said, studying him. ¡°Well, that¡¯s okay. That shouldn¡¯t affect your end of the deal.¡±


    Jun looked over his shoulder, waiting to be shot from behind or clipped by another explosion. Qiang followed his gaze. ¡°Oh, don¡¯t worry, they¡¯re all dead. Just you and me now, bro.¡±


    He hoisted Jun to his feet, steadied him.


    ¡°You remember the deal?¡± Qiang thumbed at Jun¡¯s face, wiping a smear of dust from his cheek. ¡°From a minute ago?¡±


    ¡°I¡­ You want¡­¡± Jun was well beyond making conversation now. He watched as the force of Qiang¡¯s quickly regenerating eyeball shunted the shard of metal from his eye socket. It ejected from his face with an audible pop and clanged to the ground.


    ¡°You still need to hit me.¡± Qiang said. ¡°As hard as you can. One time.¡±


    Jun nodded, uncomprehending.


    ¡°Hey, Jun, buddy, you still with me? You understand?¡±


    ¡°Hit you,¡± Jun breathed. ¡°Want me to hit you.¡±


    ¡°Yeah.¡± Qiang tilted his head, offering his chin as a target. Then he spasmed, stepped back. ¡°Wait, I forgot to say. Do you know why I want you to hit me?¡±


    ¡°Strong. You think I¡¯m strong, you said.¡±


    Qiang waved his words away, like they were a cloud of gnats. ¡°Yeah, phh, yeah, I said that. That¡¯s only half of it though.¡±


    Qiang closed the distance again. The shriveled young man loomed over the cringing, musclebound athlete, face darkening. ¡°I know you don¡¯t remember me. It¡¯s okay, don¡¯t be embarrassed, but you don¡¯t. That¡¯s fine. But I remember you. I remember I loved you. Not- Ha! Not in a weird way. But I was so obsessed with you. How strong you were, when you¡¯d crack my head against the wall and take my shit. Bow! And you, only a little bigger than me! I¡¯d think to myself, you must be the strongest guy in the world. You ever think that?¡±


    This was just a nightmare, Jun reminded himself. ¡°Sometimes.¡±


    ¡°Well, I did. And, man, I loved you, but I was so scared of you.¡± Qiang¡¯s pupil shivered and danced as his eye finished healing. There was blood on his breath. Had he bitten someone? ¡°Did you know, even when the government was doing their worst, most evil monster tests on me, my bad dreams were still mostly about you? I¡¯d have nightmares that you were under my cot.¡±


    Jun just nodded. ¡°That¡¯s sad.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s weird. It doesn¡¯t make sense. So this, you hitting me, it¡¯s part of my big master plan, to make it make sense.¡± Qiang straightened. ¡°I was so scared, for my whole life. And then the craziest thing: all those things I was scared of? They happened to me. And I lived. Every time. And when that happens enough, it¡¯s like, your brain goes, ¡®all done! Don¡¯t need to be afraid of that anymore. The government, the White Room, the dark water, Mr. Zhao, the needles. All done with those.¡¯ But, the thing is, I can¡¯t just work that out myself. Those things, they have to try to hurt me, for real, and fail, for my dumb little brain to get the picture. So that¡¯s why-¡±


    Spurred by a sudden, desperate impulse, Jun lunged forward and threw his punch. Decades of muscle memory, pounds of honed muscle, and a flood of adrenaline coalesced into what had to have been one of the most beautiful, explosive haymakers the athlete had ever thrown. Jun put everything he had into the blow, and he felt its rightness with a honed instinct, felt it so strongly that a small part of him glimmered with hope, with the faint expectation that it would work, that the force of this perfect punch would kill the shambling nightmare whispering blood-stink into his face.


    It didn¡¯t. Two bones in Jun¡¯s fist shattered on impact, and he fell backward, against the wall of the alley, breathless and blind with pain.


    Qiang smiled, a wide, relaxed, relieved grin, upturned and grateful. He breathed deeply for a few moments, leaving Jun to gasp and whimper.


    ¡°Thank you, Jun,¡± Qiang said. ¡°I really needed that. I needed to see for myself that you weren¡¯t anything to be afraid of.¡±


    The rotting man paced closer to Jun, a few errant flames still gnawing on his orange jumpsuit, hanging from his hair, which shuddered and jumped as it grew back and wormed its way through his scalp.


    ¡°My turn now, you beautiful piece of shit.¡±


    When Qiang¡¯s fist made contact with Jun¡¯s head, the resulting shockwave broke every window for two miles around.

 Act III, Chapter 5: The Knights (1)

    Matthieu paused at the hidden entrance to his home to look out on the desert yawning behind him. It was well into midmorning, and the night chill had been thoroughly banished, replaced by the scouring sun, one that always seemed so aggressive, so puissant compared to the cloud-shy sun of his homeland. He''d had centuries to weigh the two, and he''d decided that he preferred the Egyptian one over the French. It was more honest.


    It helped that the heat didn''t affect him. He''d learned how to siphon just enough energy off of the rays shining from above and radiating from below, had become expert in it. All the air in his Shroud was kept at the kind of pleasant chill one would normally expect from a well-ventilated cellar, or a rainy autumn evening.


    A vulture circled overhead. Matthieu smiled up at it, pleased to see the ghastly thing. Last time he''d awoken he''d read that most local birds of prey seemed to be trending towards extinction. Maybe some of this current generation of people would be the ones to figure out how to hold off a bit on the all-consuming depravity for once.


    He remembered the newspaper tucked in his pack, how the cover story centered around some wicked contraption called a "land mine," and reminded himself not to get too optimistic.


    Matthieu ducked through the chiseled slat in the rock that served as a doorway, through a hanging rug serviceably dyed to match the color of the mountain''s face, and into the candlelit dark of his home.


    Fitz was sitting in the main room, candles lit around him in a loose ring, dressed in just trousers and his sleep shirt. His sword, of course, was with him, draped across his crossed legs as he either prayed, meditated, or half-slept sitting up.


    He walked into the "kitchen," one of four chambers cut with perfect precision from the rock, decorated sparsely with some of Fitz''s furniture, antiques now, from back when he had been in one of his woodcrafting phases. At the sound of him setting his pack on the dining table, Fitz stirred.


    "You went out?" Fitz''s bass rumbled, echoing pleasingly in the chamber. That had been an intentional touch of Matthieu''s, back when he''d first carved the rooms, an attempt to mimic slightly the acoustics of the cathedral back in Chartres. Hearing Fitz''s voice in that churchy register always made him a little nostalgic.


    "Alas. Couldn''t sleep." Matthieu dug a pastry from his bag and tossed it to Fitz, who caught it without opening his eyes. "Seems I wasn''t the only insomniac."


    "What is this?" Fitz cracked an eye, sniffed at the food, crinkled its wrapping.


    "Something for your sweet tooth. There''s a little waystation, about a league south, they were selling the things by the bushel. Throw the clear bit away, though, that''s-"


    "I know what wrapping is," Fitz chuckled. He tore through the covering, poked the pastry inside. "It''s moist. Like a little cake. Chocolate?"


    "I presume."


    Fitz made a little grunt of appreciation. "Chocolate. For my money, one of the best things to come out of the New World."


    "I''m partial to rubber, myself. And corn. Try it, I''m curious now."


    Fitz took a bite, paused, then coughed into his fist. He hacked, stood up, and rushed to the kitchen where Matthieu was laughing, already holding up a bin for him to spit it into.


    "Too sweet?"


    "Lord, yes, ugh," Fitz spluttered. "Like all the sugar of a score of cakes, boiled down and crammed into one. Too much."


    "These people must be desensitized," Matthieu laughed. "That wasn''t even the worst specimen. Next to it, on the shelf, they had the same variety, but jelly-filled."


    "I don''t envy the poor things. They''d be bored senseless by your pies."


    "All fine by me. More for us." Matthieu sat down, started rifling through the spoils of his trip: newspaper, paperback, magazine, a little handheld trinket on a chain that produced a thin light when a switch was pressed, multitool. When he looked to see if any of this had grabbed Fitz''s interest, he saw the man was staring intently, as if he was looking through the rock of the far wall. "Distracting, isn''t it?"


    "Like a blazing fire in my peripheral vision. I can''t ignore it. Definitely can''t sleep."


    "What do you think it is?"


    Fitz stared for a while more before speaking. "A call to arms."


    "How do you mean?"


    "Whatever it is that''s burning this bright, whatever energy source is fueling this¡­ beacon. Every Consecrated man, woman, and child on God''s earth is probably just as drawn to it as we are." Fitz shrugged. "I''d wager they''ll flock to it."


    "And we all know what happens when a Consecrated meets their own."


    "They run away together and travel the world for a thousand years?" Fitz glanced back at Matthieu, stony features lightened just a shade, the closest the man''s face ever came to playful.


    "Still only a little over six hundred," Matthieu laughed. "And we''ve always been exceptions. No, I expect you''re right. It''ll be a bloodbath."


    "Like some sort of great, terrible tourney."


    Something in Matthieu''s chest twinged at that. Fitz was being careful not to show it, was always careful to couch any mentions of combat or fighting in appropriately disparaging terms, but Matthieu knew the man better, he supposed, than any man had ever known any other. Fitz missed fighting.


    Fitz¡¯s eyes remained locked on that distant, invisible point. ¡°How was it out there?¡±


    ¡°Still barren for a few leagues around Sinai. A few more roads, even more of those motor vehicles than last time,¡± Matthieu pulled away, glanced back at the books and papers strewn on the table in the other room. ¡°Their photographs are better, their electricity more ubiquitous. More cheap trinkets for sale and more outposts to sell them at. Same as usual. I really only had a brief glimpse, though, I didn¡¯t bother going down into a city. Could be an interesting outing, if you find yourself so inclined.¡±


    ¡°I still don¡¯t speak the language.¡±


    ¡°Arabic? I know enough to make do for both of us. Or we could travel farther, get to somewhere that still speaks the King¡¯s.¡±


    ¡°You want to make a trip of it?¡± Fitz crooked an eyebrow. ¡°You¡¯re usually the homebody between us.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m allowed to feel the occasional spark of wanderlust,¡± Matthieu said. ¡°We could go back to Paris. London.¡±


    ¡°Gah, not London. I feel like I¡¯m still coughing up dregs from the fumes I breathed in last time.¡±


    ¡°That was well over a century ago, dearest. I imagine they will have figured out a way to clean up the air a little since.¡±


    ¡°I would think we¡¯d have both learned not to get our hopes up too high about the rabble by now.¡±


    ¡°Coming up with fancy solutions to problems caused by their previous fancy solutions seems to be the one thing they¡¯re getting good at. Fine, though, no London. Venice, maybe? Jerusalem?¡±


    ¡°How long has it been since we last visited America?¡±


    Matthieu¡¯s stomach sank a little lower. ¡°A little over a hundred and forty years, by my reckoning. That¡¯s quite a voyage, though.¡±


    ¡°For us?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s halfway around the world.¡±


    ¡°I could make that in a night. You could probably do it in less.¡±


    ¡°That might draw some attention.¡±


    ¡°From who? A watchman posted in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?¡±


    ¡°They have sensors, now. Telescopes in the sky.¡±


    ¡°Well, then let them notice. It¡¯s not as if they pose any threat to us.¡±


    Matthieu shrugged. ¡°They might. By now.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll believe that when I see it.¡± Fitz finally tore his gaze from the far wall, looked down at Matthieu quizzically. ¡°You don¡¯t actually want to travel.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m the one who suggested it.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯s what you want.¡± Fitz folded his arms, studied his partner. ¡°No. What you¡¯d rather do, now, is what you¡¯d always rather do. You¡¯d be more than happy to pop down to the nearest hamlet big enough for a bookstore, spend a day or two gathering a little hoard, and then coming back to read through it until sleep takes us both again.¡±


    ¡°Maybe I want to broaden my horizons a bit.¡±


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    ¡°We¡¯re old men, Matthieu. We already broadened our horizons to their bloody limits half a millennium ago.¡± Fitz squinted. ¡°No. You¡¯re trying to placate me. This is a diversion.¡±


    ¡°Dearest, a diversion from what?¡± Matthieu waved a hand at their quiet, motionless hideaway.


    ¡°Don¡¯t feign ignorance with me.¡± Fitz leveled a finger at the far wall. ¡°There¡¯s a screaming beacon of bloodthirst and power shining in our eyes right now like a second sun, and you¡¯re running yourself ragged trying to change the subject from it.¡±


    Matthieu tensed. He¡¯d guessed this conversation¡¯s end five minutes ago, but he knew now that it was unavoidable. ¡°Say what you want to say about it, then.¡±


    ¡°I suggest we do take a trip. I suggest we heed this mysterious call.¡±


    ¡°Oh, so it¡¯s a call now? It was a ¡®screaming beacon of bloodthirst¡¯ five seconds ago.¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t you accuse me of having a hidden motive. You¡¯re the one scrambling to pretend you¡¯re not afraid of engaging with anything new.¡±


    Matthieu sighed and massaged his forehead. ¡°I¡¯m afraid of very little anymore. I¡¯m tired. There¡¯s a significant difference.¡±


    ¡°I cannot conceive of how someone who spends decades at a stretch asleep could possibly describe themselves as tired.¡± Fitz was standing now, pacing, his fingers flexing, like they itched for a hilt. ¡°I personally am a hair¡¯s breadth from jumping out of my own skin, Matthieu. I need to do something.¡±


    ¡°I suggested we do something!¡± Matthieu stood too, loomed over Fitz. ¡°We have the entire world to travel, we have decades of history to be surprised by. There is so much-¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to go on another blasted vacation!¡± Fitz snarled. He took a breath, made an effort to sound more measured. ¡°That is not to say that I disdain our time spent together on our travels. We made many fine memories. At pain of death, no one could ever compel me to claim otherwise. But I am travelled out. I have had my fill of polite pilgrimages. What I want, now, more than anything, is-¡±


    ¡°To fight,¡± Matthieu said. ¡°You want to fight and kill people.¡±


    Fitz crossed his arms, defensive. ¡°I don¡¯t relish killing.¡±


    ¡°And yet you love to fight. You always have.¡±


    ¡°You say this as if you¡¯re accusing me of some sin, to want what I was, from the time I was a boy, trained and made to want. I know it¡¯s been a long time, but I cannot believe that you forget that I am a soldier. That you are a soldier!¡±


    ¡°And I cannot believe that you forget Agincourt.¡±


    Fitz closed the distance, jabbed one finger in Matthieu¡¯s face. ¡°I will never forget Agincourt. That was not a fight. That was a mud-splattered folly, orchestrated by weak men.¡±


    ¡°Unlike your tourneys.¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± Fitz backed up, barked a laugh. ¡°Yes, Matthieu, unlike my tourneys. Sure, I concede that they were far from the most Christlike pastime, they were often skewed and unfair, they were bloody and mean, but they were real. Men enter a field, agree to shared rules, and leave the field duly sorted, strongest to weakest. To end up in that former camp, time and time again, was one of the great joys of my life.¡±


    ¡°The very greatest, I presume,¡± Matthieu deadpanned.


    ¡°No. No, of course not, don¡¯t try and trap me like that. You know damn well that that honor forever belongs to you, to our time together.¡± Fitz softened. ¡°But, and please do not take this quite so personally as I know you will, I have had centuries of you. Hundreds of years of nothing but you. It¡¯s to your credit that I still find you endlessly lovely, Matthieu, but I need something new or I fear I will go mad. A man cannot subsist on cake alone, sweet tooth or no.¡±


    "And this ''something new'' you so desperately crave, it would consist of, what," Matthieu found himself growing heated now, a layer of frustration congealing atop the growing pit of despair in his chest, "us flying across the ocean to cut swathes through whatever Consecrated men, women, and children have already flocked to this beacon? We crush a few strangers we''ve never met and have no reason to disdain, and you add a few shiny new tools to your armory, and then what? Random bloodshed to what end?"


    "Power!" Fitz replied, exasperated. "Power, obviously, Matthieu. We''ve seen just how much more able we become when we best another Consecrated in combat, when we take of their sacrament. I imagine we''ll have the pick of the world''s best, here, to sup on to our content. The world''s power, concentrated in us? We''d be gods."


    "Why the hell would I ever, would we ever even begin to want that?"


    "Because every time we wake up, we play through the same blasted farce, and I''m growing sick of doing nothing to avert it."


    "If you''re really so tired of visiting-"


    "We awaken and venture out, we see the state of the world and its people. We find immediate evidence that they are just as low and cruel and heathen as they''ve ever been. We despair that man continues to languish so, that they can''t seem to help themselves, and then we, like a pair of hapless fools, shrug our shoulders and go back to bed."


    "They might be turning it around now. I would need to do some more reading, but the last few times we awoke, I got the impression that war, as we knew it, was going extinct. That sanitation, and- and literacy-"


    "Why wait?" Fitz was excited now, eager. He grabbed Matthieu''s hand. "Why damn a billion men to squalor while the species at large bungles through another hundred years of trial and error? When we could end that all now-"


    "That isn''t how it would work, and you know that." Matthieu pulled away. "God, Fitz, I thought by now you''d know better-"


    "Explain to me how near omnipotence wouldn''t-"


    "We''d get the power and it would corrupt us!" Matthieu''s voice was high and reedy with fervor now. "Because that''s what absolute power does to every. single. person who ever brushes up against it! Do you not remember the endless parade of kings and crusaders we personally-"


    "That''s not absolute power!" Fitz was yelling too, now. "Titles and land, levies, congregations, these are imitations of power that boys conjure to convince themselves they''re gods. Godliness, actual godliness, is the station of men like us, and us alone. We who bear the Shrouds."


    "Which is exactly what the kings say about their nations, what the barons say about their riches. Fitz, you''re just reciting every despot''s favorite talking points but replacing ''god and country'' with ''Shroud and Consecration.''"


    "The difference being that King Charles was a typhus-ridden invalid and we are men who can level mountains with a gesture."


    "That means nothing anymore. These modern men, their leaders, they have access to weapons that can do the very same, and can unleash them at the thousands, at will."


    "Look me in the eyes and tell me that, were one of these bombs to detonate right here in my hands, it would even begin to injure either of us."


    Matthieu studied Fitz''s face, slightly rosy with zeal, and tried to conjure up the few factoids he''d read about man''s new Bomb to End All Bombs. He looked away. "I would have to do more reading on it. But you''re forgetting, too, all the other Consecrated. There very well could be some stronger than us, by now."


    "Bah. I''d like to see that."


    "You look at me and tell me you''re sure."


    It was Fitz''s turn to balk. "Maybe stronger than me or you alone. But both of us? Together?"


    "What if there''s one as strong as five of us? Ten? We show up raring for a duel, and run into some monster like that, then what?"


    "Then it kills us and we die," Fitz spat. "I don''t know why you protest so. That''s what you want anyway."


    Matthieu darkened, his mounting despair finally solidifying into a black certainty. He stared resolutely at the floor, fists clenched, and resolved not to speak again until Fitz did. He only had to wait a few moments.


    "You cling to your version of our old faith. That is fine. Admirable, even. It gives you strength and direction, and I would never deny you something that brings you such comfort." Fitz''s voice was soft, understanding, and full of certainty. "But the God you continue to worship, he would cast you into the pit, were you to kill yourself. He would damn you, and the thought stays your hand."


    "I don''t want to kill myself."


    "But you want to die."


    "I do not."


    Fitz groaned, glanced around their quarters as if looking for help, then softened his voice again. "Every time we wake up, you wish to return to sleep sooner than before. Last time, we were only awake for, what, two weeks? Matthieu, it wasn''t so long ago that we would remain awake for years. Decades. Remember Istanbul, when we-"


    "You never object to us returning to bed."


    "I don''t object because I feel the same growing malaise you do." Fitz gestured to the far wall. "But we have an answer to this malaise, now. A purpose has been delivered to us, and your reaction to it is to shove it away and withdraw even further. You don''t eat, you barely touch me, you do little else but skim your books and wait to slumber again. This pattern, when followed to its end, naturally concludes in you deciding to die."


    "You take me for a weaker man than I am."


    "It''s not weakness!" Fitz threw up his hands. "It is not sin. Matthieu, we have been alive so long. So much longer than anyone man ever has, I imagine. Would it be all that surprising if it turns out man just isn''t meant to keep his passions up for hundreds of years? I mean, God, it''s a miracle you still care about-"


    "It is a sin. The gospels condemn-"


    "Oh, the bible condemns murder, which you have already done." Fitz began tallying on the fingers of one hand. "It condemns theft. It condemns disloyalty to one''s lawful sovereign. It condemns treason. It condemns buggery, which-"


    Matthieu slapped Fitz across the face. The fact that the blow connected with the man''s cheek means that Fitz had manually dropped his Shroud and allowed the slap to pass through. Fitz took the blow wordlessly, silenced himself.


    "Do not throw the gospel in my face!" Matthieu hissed. "I know the Word. This is not a matter of doctrine, this is a matter of what I know, from fucking incessant study and prayer, to be right and to be wrong. Those men we killed, we killed for the right reasons. The theft has been repented for. The disloyalty was warranted. Every minute I''ve spent with you, that was right. But to remake myself in God''s image so that we can play King of the World, or to snuff my own life short, just because I''m bored?! That would be wrong."


    Fitz''s jaw clenched, his eyes bore holes in the floor. "I might not remember my Psalms so well as you, but I have a moral compass too. It seems to me that passing more centuries in sleep and idle pleasure while our fellow man suffers is also wrong."


    "You don''t care about that." Matthieu''s guts roiled with rage, and with shame for having been so easily deciphered. "You just want to fight. You just want to be nineteen again. You want to relive your tourney days, innocents be damned, your fellow man be-"


    "Innocents? Save for you, every Consecrated I''ve ever met was a feral, vicious bastard. You''re painting this as a moral failing because you''re afraid to admit that-"


    "You just want to fight!" They were both shouting again, voices echoing in the stone chamber. A few tears welled in Matthieu''s eyes as a plan materialized, one that he knew he would be helpless to keep himself from enacting. He crossed the room in a blink, threw open Fitz''s bedside chest, and began hauling out items: pauldrons, mail, greaves, dirk.


    "Matthieu, what are you doing?"


    "I''m granting your wish." Matthieu stepped aside, jabbed a finger at the armor and weapons strewn at his feet. "Gird yourself."

 Act III, Chapter 5: The Knights (2)

    "I''m granting your wish." Matthieu stepped aside, jabbed a finger at the armor and weapons strewn at his feet. "Gird yourself."


    Fitz sighed. "You can''t possibly mean-"


    "You''re romanticizing violence because you haven''t had to engage in it for years. I''m going to disabuse you of this. We''ll fight, now-"


    "It''s the middle of the day-"


    "It''s a sun-blasted desert. There''s nothing around.¡±


    "I don''t want to fight you-"


    "We''ll fight. If you win, we go over to the beacon and I humor your wishes and we murder a few Consecrated for sport. If I win, we stay here."


    Fitz shook his head, ran a hand over his face. Matthieu paced over to the exit.


    ¡°If you¡¯re not outside in five minutes, I¡¯ll come after you myself. Please don¡¯t make me do that. I¡¯d prefer not to demolish our quarters.¡±


    ¡°This is infantile, Matthieu.¡±


    ¡°Five minutes.¡±


    Matthieu stepped out into the sunlight and, flexing his Shroud, propelled himself down the face of Mount Sinai, alighting in a flat expanse of desert at its base. He glanced around: barren, empty. No witnesses or bystanders to dance around.


    Fitz emerged two minutes later, clad in what looked like half of his full armor: helmet, mail, pauldrons, and boots, but no greaves, and no plate. He had his sword, naturally, and his dirk hung at his side, but his bow, lance, and mace were nowhere to be seen. His bulky, metallic silhouette glittered in the sun as he leapt from their hideaway¡¯s exit and, vaulting hundreds of feet through the air, landed before Matthieu, silent and weightless.


    Fitz narrowed his eyes, the visor to his helmet still raised. He waggled his sword noncommittally at Matthieu. ¡°I feel ridiculous. You¡¯re totally unarmed.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d prefer I fetch a spear or something to waggle around? You know that¡¯d just slow me down.¡±


    ¡°I know, but it feels wrong. You¡¯re in your favorite shirt.¡±


    ¡°If you want to concede, and end this without a fight, you can do it now. So long as you promise to give up on this ridiculous plan of yours.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to fight you.¡± Fitz groaned. ¡°But I stand by what I said. We can¡¯t just-¡±


    ¡°So be it.¡±


    Matthieu darted forward and, flexing and warping his Shroud, let loose a flurry of explosions of superheated air. Fitz was caught just a fraction of a second off-guard, and while he was more than quick enough to absorb and redirect the heat, he was just a moment too slow to prevent Matthieu¡¯s follow-up blow, a kick that sent him spiraling head over heels, streaking through the air. He hit the side of the mountain with a thunderclap, a small explosion of dust blooming around where he landed.


    ¡°I take it that means we¡¯re starting,¡± Fitz¡¯s voice rang from somewhere in the midst of the cloud, amplified and deepened by his Shroud.


    ¡°En garde,¡± Matthieu replied.


    A shockwave rocketed out from where Fitz was, obscured still by the dust, cutting a neat gouge through the ground as it approached. A boulder that had been sitting behind Matthieu was cleaved in half by it, the cross-section left behind flat as glass. Matthieu himself was already high in the air, never close to getting hit.


    He rained explosions down on the base of the mountain, letting the blowback from his attacks send him hurtling higher into the sky. Between the explosions he laced electrical discharges like oversized bolts of lightning and sonic waves loud enough to seem to physically pound the earth, pulverizing and flattening the top inch of arid topsoil beneath.


    ¡°You¡¯re rusty.¡±


    Matthieu whirled to see Fitz floating, as if standing on air, just above him, a grin starting to creep across his face. He reached out with one mailed fist and clenched his fingers. Matthieu felt an invisible vice clamp around his arms. Before he could flex his own Shroud around the imposing pressure, Fitz whipped his arm and sent Matthieu crashing down, fast enough that the air whistled as it whipped around his form.


    Matthieu left a crater the size of a small lake where he landed, and more dust choked the valley, a growing fog of sandy debris dark enough to block the sun. More slicing shockwaves rained down, cutting perfect x-shapes into the desert, but Matthieu weaved around them, speeding up now, remembering what it was not just to move but to fly, to cross from point A to B at the speed of thought, to ignore gravity and orientation, to be weightless.


    He was behind Fitz, hundreds of meters up, in a fraction of a second. Fitz whipped around, sword raised, but, blinded by another fusillade of small explosions, missed entirely.


    ¡°I¡¯m not the only one out of practice,¡± Matthieu said, snatching Fitz by the arm. He felt Fitz¡¯s Shroud bend and buckle beneath his own, thinning out under the pressure he was exerting. With a thought, he aimed another explosion, concentrated and flattened, at Fitz¡¯s elbow, blowing his arm cleanly in two.


    Fitz frowned as his gauntlet, disembodied hand still inside, dropped through the sky beneath them. ¡°Rude. I was using that.¡±


    Fitz moved to swing his sword one-handed and Matthieu, expecting that, shot away, off and downward. The swing had been a feint, however, and Fitz pre-empted his evasion, cut him off halfway through his trajectory, and drove his stump arm into Matthieu¡¯s gut. Again, Matthieu streaked from the sky like a meteor, and again the impact of his landing left a yawning crater in the desert.


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    Head swimming--he hadn¡¯t expected to hit the ground quite so hard, and a small fraction of the energy of impact had leaked through his Shroud, rattling his bones--Matthieu clapped his hands against the earth beneath him, scattering particles of his Shroud around him in a huge circle. The particles accumulated chunks of rock and dust and then rained upwards at screaming velocities, a razor-sharp hailstorm in reverse, before detonating, a huge, thermobaric dust bomb that seemed to blot out a chunk of the sky.


    It was Fitz¡¯s turn to fall from the sky, his armor glittering and smoking as it hurtled back to Earth. Matthieu rushed over to where he¡¯d landed, a small cloud of supercharged plasma arcing around his hand in preparation for another attack. He hesitated at the last second, as his target came into clearer view: Fitz¡¯s armor was empty, just the plate and helmet, tied together by the plate¡¯s straps, a decoy.


    Matthieu had only half managed to turn around when Fitz¡¯s next, and strongest, sword blow rocked the earth, cutting a ravine into the ground meters deep and taking both of Matthieu¡¯s legs at the knee. In an instant Fitz¡¯s boot was on his chest, pinning him down, his sword leveled at Matthieu¡¯s throat.


    ¡°I think that¡¯s game,¡± panted Fitz, grinning wildly. Matthieu was surprised how much the look of that smile lifted his spirits, despite his loss, his bewilderment, and his newly absent lower half.


    ¡°Ouch.¡± Matthieu craned his neck to look at the ragged stumps where his legs once were, the wounds spewing bright, arterial blood into the dust. ¡°You really went straight for amputation.¡±


    ¡°You started it,¡± Fitz said, rolling his shoulder as his arm, newborn-pink and jutting from a jagged hole in his mail, finished its regeneration. ¡°Go on. Best start healing yourself.¡±


    Over the centuries, Matthieu¡¯s pain response had dulled to something vestigial. Even now, with a good portion of his body physically destroyed, with bones and muscles cleaved through, he was easily able to compartmentalize the agony, to stow it in a corner of his brain and pay it almost no heed. Conversely, over that same length of time, his relationship to fatigue had deepened, and he was feeling this now, as his blood evacuated his body and pooled around him in the desert. An enticing lethargy was settling around him. His eyes began to unfocus, and he felt a powerful inertia, a reluctance to do much of anything but go to sleep.


    ¡°Matthieu,¡± the voice of his beloved cut through his growing numbness just enough to stir him. ¡°Heal yourself. Now, please.¡±


    He took a breath and craned his head up, let the sky fill his vision. The vulture was back, circling.


    ¡°Matthieu!¡± He felt, distantly, a mailed hand clasp his shoulder. Energy flooded into his Shroud, donated from Fitz, who could give as much of his energy as he liked, but who, like all Consecrated knowledgeable enough to regenerate, was still helpless to heal anyone but himself.


    Matthieu heard the growing edge of concern in Fitz¡¯s voice, and that was enough to dislodge him from his paralysis. He chuckled up at the vulture. The poor bird would be disappointed.


    ¡°Yes, yes, sorry,¡± Matthieu croaked. He reached for that well of vital energy, locked away but always available, and set it loose in its raw state, let it work its magic on his ruined legs and shattered ribs and flayed skin. He heard Fitz take a single, sharp breath and retreat.


    Within a minute, he was whole again, and that insidious fatigue had retreated, a tide that he knew could ebb but never fully retreat.


    ¡°No need to startle me so,¡± Fitz chided.


    ¡°Yes, sorry, I was distracted.¡± Matthieu stood, brushed sand from his clothes. He stretched and exhaled. ¡°Well, fair is fair. Let me collect my things. We can set off-¡±


    ¡°Maybe¡­¡± Fitz began, then trailed off. Matthieu crooked an eyebrow, waited for the man to collect his thoughts. ¡°Maybe there¡¯s a compromise to be struck here.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m a man of my word.¡±


    ¡°I know, of course. But you¡¯re clearly averse to the idea of going. It¡¯s written plain across your face. And I don¡¯t want to make you do something so clearly contrary to your nature.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not making me-¡±


    ¡°What if I went alone?¡±


    The question hung in the air for a few moments. Matthieu was surprised to find himself struck a little dumb by the simplicity of it. He¡¯d truly not considered that option, somehow.


    ¡°I could leave on my own, go fight, and then collect you to join me when the dust clears,¡± Fitz offered. ¡°I doubt it would take too long. You could stay and entertain yourself, do your reading, and fill me in on all the history and literature you please when I return, and I could relay you tales of the fighting. It could be nice.¡±


    There was that dread again, pooling in Matthieu¡¯s gut. ¡°You¡¯d return different, wouldn¡¯t you? If you really did achieve this godly power you seek.¡±


    Fitz shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m far more powerful now than I was when we met. Is that man-at-arms you ran away with really all that unrecognizable today?¡±


    Matthieu pursed his lips. ¡°No. You¡¯re still Fitz.¡±


    ¡°You worry.¡±


    ¡°Of course. I¡¯m still Matthieu.¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t die.¡±


    ¡°You might.¡±


    Fitz snorted. ¡°I won¡¯t. Let them drop their bombs.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s not the rabble I¡¯m worried about. What if the Consecrated of today are more powerful than we assume?¡±


    ¡°Oh I¡¯d hope so. It¡¯d be a pity to travel all that way and find no sport in it.¡± Fitz grinned, then, seeing Matthieu¡¯s consternation, softened. ¡°I won¡¯t die.¡±


    Matthieu didn¡¯t think he would. His mounting dread centered around something different entirely. ¡°We haven¡¯t been apart in so long.¡±


    Fitz nodded, thoughtful. ¡°Yes. That will be uncomfortable and strange. But it might be an opportunity for growth. I worry that, if we¡¯re not careful, men as long-lived as ourselves tend to grow stagnant. The only antidote for that is small doses of discomfort once and a while.¡±


    Fitz was right, Matthieu was troubled to realize. This was a good idea. So why did he feel so awful?


    Fitz took his hand, mail cold against his bare skin. ¡°You¡¯ll still be able to feel me. And I you. The world¡¯s too small for us not to.¡±


    This comforted him, but not enough for him to soften completely. Matthieu¡¯s eyes darted as he thought, worried, ran through contingencies and possibilities. The two men stood together in the ruins of their spontaneous battlefield, Fitz waiting patiently for his calculations to cease.


    ¡°Please?¡± Fitz finally offered. ¡°A quick sojourn. It¡¯s all I ask.¡±


    There was another minute of silent, tense consideration. The vulture circling above peeled off finally, leaving them alone.


    ¡°Fine. Yes, you can go.¡± Matthieu relented. ¡°As loath as I am to admit it, it¡¯s a good idea.¡±


    As he watched Fitz¡¯s face brighten, Matthieu wished he believed what he was saying.

 Act III, Chapter 6: The Deity (1)

    ¡°Play the whole thing,¡± the Voice on the Phone said in its authoritative, tinny voice.


    ¡°There¡¯s a lot here that won¡¯t make sense without context-¡± Steiner began.


    ¡°I¡¯ve been briefed on the basics.¡±


    ¡°With all due respect, this situation is far from basic.¡±


    Silence on the line.


    Steiner was not a man well accompanied with anxiety. He was a titan, had been for decades, one of America¡¯s select few men allowed to wield real power, unfettered by bureaucracy or electorate. He had made decisions, in board rooms and aboard trans-Atlantic flights, that had killed hundreds. He had overseen transfers of funds at the scale of the GDPs of small nations. He had toyed with geopolitics.


    He was anxious, now. The Voice on the Phone made him anxious. Its fuming, faceless silence even more so.


    ¡°Apologies,¡± Steiner cleared his throat. ¡°Of course. I¡¯ll start it now.¡±


    Steiner hovered over the ¡°play¡± icon on a multimedia presentation he¡¯d cobbled together himself. Normally this kind of drudgery would be the purview of an underling, but the footage contained within was not the kind a communications aide could be allowed even conditional access to.


    A red dot blinked at the top corner of his screen. One viewer. Dead air crackled over the phone.


    Steiner hit ¡°play.¡±


    An overlay displays some basic details: Person of Interest. Initial Sighting. Time To Impact minus fourteen years, six months, five days.


    A blurry, glimmering ball, barely visible against a starry backdrop, hangs in low-Earth orbit. The surface of the ball is reflective, shimmers with secondhand sunlight glinting off of the Pacific. The resolution is low, the object indistinct, just a background artifact caught during otherwise unrelated satellite operation.


    Person of Interest. Initial imaging attempt. Time To Impact minus fourteen years, five months, twelve days.


    A clearer image of the ball, no longer an inanimate object, but a fetal, cloaked form. A green coat that appears to be woven of shining scales, composed of something like jade or emerald. Barely visible beneath the cloak, facing the planet, a shadowed human form. A hand is visible, gripping the cloak as if to pull it close against a frigid wind.


    Another angle. The Earth fills the frame. Before it, the ball hangs placidly, a lump of overlapping, metallic petals.


    Another angle, from the opposite side, later still. A sliver of sunlight illuminates the front of the ball. Somewhat visible, behind two edges of the scaled cloak, pulled tight: tan skin, thin hands, legs pulled against a narrow chest. The bottom half of a face, cloaked in shadow. The top half sunlit, visible. Two eyes closed in easy, pleasant sleep.


    LEO Sat-Repair Probe Orpheus II, following initial recovery attempt of POI. Time To Impact minus eleven years, one month, one day.


    A waterlogged satellite, dangling from the side of one of NASA¡¯s craft recovery boats. Next to it, for comparison¡¯s sake, an image of the satellite in operational condition, three days before its confidential launch.


    The ruined probe resembles the functional one, but crumpled in on itself, smashed inward like a soda can. Whereas the full probe measured twelve feet to a side, the recovered one spans maybe three. It¡¯s as if an immense force has crushed the machine from every direction, all at once.


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    Emblazoned across its front is a scorch mark in the shape of a small human hand.


    ¡°So, we¡¯ve been aware of the thing since about 2010,¡± Steiner said. ¡°Had no idea what it was capable of, where it came from, what the hell it was, so the motivation to engage was there, but not urgently so. The first attempt to make contact went, clearly, poorly, and those probes are so expensive, and the material here so classified, that any attempt at a follow-up always got tangled in red tape. Which is why we hadn¡¯t-¡±


    ¡°Spare me the apologetics, Mr. Steiner,¡± the Voice on the Phone garbled. ¡°This is not some sort of audit. Please don¡¯t interrupt again unless I ask.¡±


    Steiner cleared his throat and hit ¡°unpause.¡±


    Images from continued surveillance show no activity. Time To Impact minus eleven years to minus one day.


    Several images of the ball, in increasingly detailed resolution and color, flicker by. In all, the object remains essentially identical: an androgynous, largely hidden human figure, curled in on itself, huddling beneath a shining green cloak of scales, backlit or frontlit by the planet¡¯s oceans and continents passing beneath it.


    First observed activity. Time To Impact minus one day, six hours, five minutes.


    The ball has elongated, flattened. The cloak of scales is hanging lengthwise now, dangling from the neck of a thin human figure clothed in what looks like a shawl and knee-length dress made of rough textile, dyed cloth or wool. The figure¡¯s face is hidden, shadowed, but pointed directly at the landmass turning beneath it and to the right: the center of the continental United States.


    It -- she -- has short, black hair, hanging in a rough halo, unburdened by the limited gravity. Her hands are held out, her palms facing the planet as if it were a warm hearth.


    Shortly before leaving orbit. Time To Impact minus one day, six hours, two minutes.


    The figure has turned its face to the camera watching it. Her face is still shrouded, but something in its cocked angle indicates curiosity. Or indignation. Or rage.


    Last recorded frames before sudden and total structural failure of surveillance satellite. Time To Impact minus one day, six hours, two minutes.


    The figure¡¯s hand is now reaching for the camera, an object that, due to its telescopic zoom, would have been at least a mile away.


    The next frame: the figure unchanged. Dots and splotches of color paint the dark background: camera artifacts caused by sudden pressure.


    The final frame: the figure has closed her fist.


    POI sighted by Australian observatory telescope during re-entry. Time To Impact minus one hour, five minutes, twelve seconds.


    A twinkling light in the sky above the Australian Outback. Magnified one hundred times, what any observer would have assumed to be a meteorite is revealed to be the green-cloaked woman. Her form is largely obscured by the poor resolution and the bright fireball of ignited atmosphere cloaking her as she, inexplicably, manages to hurtle to the planet without being instantly cooked alive.


    POI seen gathering material for Impact Event. Time To Impact minus fifty-eight minutes, forty-two seconds.


    Spy satellite footage of the woman, who at this scale appears as little more than a speck hovering above a barren, red desert. There¡¯s a moment of pause, the ground seeming to swivel as the satellite flies by on its orbit. Then, gradually, a rumple appears in the face of the terrain. A gathering, swirling depression, tens of miles in diameter. Blackness encroaches on its edges as what was once an entire mesa rolls in on itself and lifts from the ground.


    ¡°What am I looking at here?¡± The Voice on the Phone demands.


    ¡°It¡¯s hard to tell from the angle, sorry, it¡¯s the only real-time documentation we have. From what we can tell, about an hour before the Impact Event, the Person of Interest,¡± Steiner paused the video, cleared his throat. ¡°Well, we believe she stole a mountain. From Australia.¡±


    A moment of simmering silence from the Phone. ¡°She stole a mountain.¡±


    ¡°Lifted it from the ground and brought it back up into orbit with her.¡±


    To illustrate, Steiner let the video resume.


    Timelapse footage shows a crater yawning in the desert, a sinkhole the size of a small town. The increasingly spherical mass of rock and soil that was once a mountain quickly exits frame as it is lifted up and out, back into the edge of space.


    More thoughtful silence.


    ¡°I was led to believe the Impact was caused by a meteorite.¡±


    ¡°That was the general consensus, until we discovered otherwise,¡± Steiner said. ¡°To be fair, as explanations go, ¡®it was a meteor¡¯ was an intuitive one. Compared to¡­ this.¡±


    The Voice on the Phone grunted. ¡°Continue.¡±


    ¡°The subject of the footage is going to change, briefly, for context. We believe this is what attracted her to Singapore initially.¡±

 Act III, Chapter 6: The Deity (2)

    ¡°The subject of the footage is going to change, briefly, for context. We believe this is what attracted her to Singapore initially.¡±


    Impact Site. Field Manipulator ¡°Lawrence Yong,¡± directly before Major FM Conflict Event. Time To Impact minus nine minutes, thirteen seconds.


    Fisheye security camera footage of a business meeting in an upper-story Singapore office. The city sprawls in the background, visible through a series of large windows bracketing Yong, who sits, talking into a desk phone, several aides and other employees scattered around the table with him.


    ¡°This is-¡±


    ¡°Lawrence Yong, CEO of Luckybank and a Demigod-Class Field Manipulator,¡± the Voice on the Phone said. ¡°About to be ambushed by Imran Bhatt, near-Demigod-Class, ex-Pakistani Navy. Both die in the Impact. I said I¡¯d been briefed.¡±


    Steiner cleared his throat again, fidgeted with his tie, and resumed the footage.


    Lawrence Yong visibly stiffens mid-sentence. He sits straight, head cocked as if listening for something. He startles, standing from the chair and whirling around, drawing confused looks from his underlings.


    The window behind him shatters as a city bus, hurled hundreds of feet up from the street below, crashes through the room. The camera cuts out.


    Conflict Event in progress. Time To Impact minus eight minutes, twelve seconds.


    A lanky man stands in a quickly emptying city street, a crater in the asphalt at his feet, his head craned up to look at, presumably, the building he¡¯d just launched a bus at. He¡¯s dressed in what looks like a homemade suit of armor, bulky to the point of seeming immobility. Studded all over his torso, jutting out like blocky tumors and festooned with wires, are batteries.


    He shifts his weight from foot to foot, shades his eyes, trying to get a visual. He tenses, braces as Yong¡¯s conference room table slams into him, blisteringly quickly, an improvised artillery shell.


    The dust clears and the tall man, Imran Bhatt, stands untouched, the table cleaved in two, each half seated in its own crater behind him. He crackles with energy, bolts of lightning dance across his form and lick the ground. He holds his arms out as if in welcome, and, a blur from above and out of frame, Yong impacts him harder than the table had. The two go flying through the wall of a restaurant behind them.


    A series of angles from different CCTV and Ring cameras tracks the progress of the two men as they hurl each other across the city. Customers flee the restaurant as the two blur around it, a whirlwind rendered silent by the video-only footage. Bhatt¡¯s blows are slow and dancelike, easily evaded by Yong, who wields a parking meter like a club. His hits connect, but don¡¯t seem to so much as stagger the taller man, who only glows brighter and crackles with more lightning as each one connects.


    Bhatt feints and, as Yong dips behind him and aims a blow at the back of his knees, suddenly whips his arms apart, palms out. A wave of energy rips through him, blowing Yong and every object not bolted to the ground flying away, crackling with electricity.


    From a street camera outside: the building that the restaurant had been at the first floor of shudders and begins to fall, its walls buckling outward. Yong tumbles out into the street, seizing, singed. He pants, struggles to stand, his arms and legs shuddering and shaking. He collapses, appearing dead.


    Bhatt approaches from the dust and ruin in his wake, careful but confident. Seeing Yong¡¯s prone form, he wrenches a stop sign from the sidewalk, hefts it like a makeshift spear, and darts over to finish his quarry.


    Yong tumbles over, mouth open in a soundless roar, and whips the manhole cover he¡¯d been laying atop like a discus, the few stray bolts of electricity dancing across his skin dissipating in an instant as he does so, disappearing into his skin a moment before the throw.


    The velocity of the manhole cover creates a sonic boom that shatters car windows. It nearly bisects Bhatt, who only half dodges in time, cleaves a neat gouge through his armor and stomach, an inch-thick line thick enough for sunlight to shine through.


    Bhatt glows with newfound energy and stumbles backward, a grimace painted on his face. He barks something that could have been a taunt, or a laugh, or a curse. He raises his stop sign like a staff, slams it on the asphalt.


    The street shudders and erupts, a bamboo forest of lightning sprouting from beneath it and arcing into the sky. Trash cans and benches and sedans and Yong are tossed dozens of feet into the air, all wrapped in a shimmering, jagged swath of electricity.


    In a blink, Bhatt is above Yong, cutting his trajectory short with a brutal downward swat of his stop sign. Yong careens back to the ground and shatters, his body disintegrating and burning at once. The businessman is reduced in an instant to a tumbling, charred circle of viscera.


    Bhatt plummets to the ground, stumbles on his landing, nearly falls. He stands over Yong¡¯s remains, shoulders heaving, blood flooding from his gaping midsection. His breathing deepens, and he reaches one hand out toward something unseen, in the air just before him.


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    He reacts suddenly, arcing his body in a seizure, still maintaining his footing. The batteries on his suit detonate one at a time, eggs in a microwave, splattering wiring and sparks across the ruined pavement. His face is hard to make out in the footage, and without audio it is difficult to discern if he is screaming or laughing.


    The flow of blood from his stomach begins to staunch. His wound begins to knit itself together. Bhatt looks down at his hands, flexes them, breathes deeply. He moves to remove his armor.


    Then he pauses, stiffening much in the same way Yong had a minute ago, before he¡¯d been struck with that airborne bus. He turns his head, slowly, unsure, upward, toward the sky. He cranes backward to look at something in the distance, directly above him.


    His face wilts, going from triumph, to bewilderment, to terror.


    Cell Phone footage of Person of Interest, shortly after second re-entry. Time To Impact minus two minutes, fifty seconds.


    Shaky handheld iPhone video shows, through the smudged acrylic of a passenger plane¡¯s window, a shimmering green triangle, hovering above the Singaporean skyline. The plane, well into its descent to the runway, is only briefly low enough to offer an angle clear enough to see the woman¡¯s head, her hands, her face.


    She¡¯s staring down at a growing plume of smoke at her feet. She¡¯s smiling. She holds her arms out to her sides, as if going for an embrace. She waves toward herself, inviting. Challenging.


    Bhatt engages POI in combat. Time To Impact minus one minute, thirty-eight seconds.


    Bhatt scrambles down the street, blisteringly quick, pausing every second or so to grab a piece of debris and hurl it at something well above him. He flings streetlights and mopeds up like supersonic javelins, fast enough that the camera doesn¡¯t capture their movement, making them appear to disappear from his hands over the course of a frame.


    If his targets find their mark, they are ineffective. He sees something in the sky that frightens him and he bolts, ducking beneath the protruding glass facade of one of the city¡¯s massive skyscrapers.


    A green bolt from the sky cleaves through the overhang, and the skyscraper with it, sending Bhatt caroming down the street and off frame, just ahead of a shockwave and a cloud of black smoke.


    Another angle from a camera several streets down shows Bhatt ricochet off a parked bus, nearly breaking the vehicle in two, and into a brick wall. He slides down, his body impossibly intact, but his face and arms stippled with burns. His skin smokes as he climbs to his feet and rubs himself, as if trying to clear the burns away like stains. It seems to gradually work.


    A figure emerges from the growing cloud of dust and paper and fleeing pedestrians. Her coat, rendered dimmer by the low-res CCTV, still manages to dazzle, to cast dancing reflections on the street around her. She¡¯s small, maybe five feet tall, but she seems to loom over the cringing, frantic man down the road.


    Her cloak is pulled up over her head now, a hood of some sort, a golden tip at its apex plunging in a sharp arc over her face, like an eagle¡¯s beak, hiding her eyes from view. She holds her hand out to the man, miming, beckoning.


    Bhatt glances around, desperate for an angle of egress. He darts, trying to pounce off a building above her and away, but she turns and points downward, and he drops from the air, his momentum suddenly and violently arrested as if unseen chains had yanked him back to earth.


    The woman paces over to him casually, stops a few feet away, and cocks her head. She gestures for him to stand, to dust himself off. He does so, trembling.


    She holds her arms out in that embrace again, waves toward herself, inviting. He stares, uncomprehending. She huffs, mimes a fighting stance, then points to herself again.


    The man shakes his head, begins to back away. In a flash, she¡¯s at his side, one leg propped against his torso for leverage, and in another instant, she¡¯s pulled his arm off at the shoulder and tossed it aside. The man¡¯s mouth gapes in a silent scream and she walks back to where she stood before, arms crossed.


    She waits patiently as his arm regrows, going from a gaping wound to a bulging mass to a fetal stump to a pink, fresh limb. She gestures at herself again.


    The man¡¯s chest rises and falls for a moment. He refastens a strap on his armor with shaking hands, then lowers to a crouch.


    When he lunges at the woman, the force of the shockwave his movement generates destroys the camera instantly.


    ¡°We lose track of them here for a bit. Given that, shortly before impact, one of the Supertrees on the city¡¯s edge was cut cleanly in half, and that most of the grove surrounding it was essentially glassed, we can assume their fighting took them briefly near the bay. This last shot is, chronologically, the last thing we¡¯ve been able to capture of the Person of Interest.¡±


    Bhatt is killed. Time To Impact minus forty-three seconds.


    The tall man stands in tatters, scrap remnants of his armor dangling from his burned frame as he braces against a ruined wall. The background is a haze of smoke and dust and distant flames, rendering the geography of the city unrecognizable.


    He crouches, both arms reduced to smoking stumps that shudder and pulse as they regenerate. His head darts, desperately scanning his surroundings. He flinches a split-second before the woman streaks from somewhere above and craters him into the street.


    He kicks out from beneath her, rebounds off of the remains of a palm tree, and fires a quick succession of attacks: a blast wave, a jet of flame, a pulse of electricity, a kick. The woman barely moves as she avoids and absorbs them in quick succession. She effortlessly snags his leg as his kick goes wide. She dips beneath another desperate haymaker, one that cleaves a car behind her in half, and rips the man¡¯s leg off at the knee with a bored sort of nonchalance.


    Bhatt is beyond screaming. His face is blank, his movements robotic. He doesn¡¯t seem to feel it when she tosses him back to the wall and begins hammering him with blows of her own. He manages to pull himself fetal under the onslaught of thrown debris and beams of heat pummeling him.


    Eventually the woman steps back, hands on her hips. Bhatt is a livid ball of pulsing scar tissue. He shudders with every breath as his burned body regrows, reforms. The woman tilts her head, curious, and hits him with another barrage.


    He emerges again, still barely recognizable as human, but alive, regrowing. The woman appears to bark a laugh. She points a finger at the man, and he¡¯s hurtled into the air by some unseen force, then back into the ground. Brutally, over and over, slammed again and again, hard enough to dig a trench a meter deep into the concrete.


    He doesn¡¯t die. The woman applauds. She steps up to him, bends down, whispers something in his ear, and appears to rub the lump of livid flesh that may have once been his back, placating.


    Then she motions for him to look up.


    Bhatt raises his ruined head to the sky, and his face, barely recognizable now, contorts in fear and then awe.


    The woman raises one finger to the heavens, and the sky is cast in a brief, apocalyptic red as a mountain drops from space and crashes into Singapore.

 Act IV Chapter 1: The Woman in the Woods

    Pietro jostled in his seat as the van rumbled and shook down the narrowing dirt road. The world outside was black, a starless night cloaked further by a thick curtain of trees. Pietro wasn''t one to be easily spooked, but he''d been feeling a growing, claustrophobic sort of dread for the entire hour-long drive, and found himself unable to suppress his nervous energy any further. He decided to speak.


    "Excuse me," Pietro coughed, cleared the cobwebs from his voice, and spoke again, clearer, directing his comments to the mostly unseen driver ahead of him. "Pardon. Do you know how much farther the drive will be?"


    A tired pair of eyes flicked his way in the rearview mirror. The driver paused for a few moments before replying. "Fifteen more minutes. Maybe a little more."


    "Thank you. That''s all." Pietro nodded, eager and compliant, before realizing with some regret that that wasn''t, in fact, all, and that the burning disquiet in his gut had yet to be settled. "Sorry. To keep talking. But, I just, I wonder¡­ Do you know if management is angry with me?"


    The eyes in the mirror narrowed. "How the hell would I know? I''m a Mover."


    "Right, yes, of course, but I only assume- I was under the assumption that Movers took direct orders from management, that you were usually in contact directly preceding a Move. My- our manager, how did he seem? Temperament-wise?"


    "Shit, man. I don''t know."


    "Did he allude to the complication I ran into on my last job?"


    "We didn''t talk about you. Water cooler gossip isn''t really a perk of this gig."


    "Of course. I should have assumed. Thank you."


    Pietro managed another two minutes of silence before, almost uncontrollably, he found himself talking again. "I only ask because it feels as if I might be being punished?"


    "Is that a question?"


    "It''s just- Have you ever been assigned anything like this before?" Pietro gestured at the black woods trundling past. "An outdoor Mop job, in the middle of the night? I never have."


    "Not my business when and where they want things cleaned up," the Mover replied.


    "Yes. Sorry. Of course." Pietro wilted. "I''ll be quiet now."


    The Mover made a pained sort of grunt, the sound of a meager helping of sympathy leaking out of someone uncomfortable with the emotion. "I''ll say, and this is just a gut feeling, guy, but if our bosses were really mad at you, you''d be a stain on a wall somewhere. You''d be a job for our coworkers. M Corp wants someone punished, I don''t think they need to go this far out of their way to do it. I think chances are they just had a runner, and they nabbed him farther from town than they would''ve liked, and now they need the scene clear before hikers or hunters or whatever the hell trip over the mess."


    Pietro bobbed his head, fidgeting, feeling himself calm a fraction. He knew all of this intuitively, too, but it was comforting to hear it said out loud. "That follows. Thank you. I think you''re probably right."


    "I will say, though, and I don''t know what you did to fuck up last time, but if I were you?" The eyes in the mirror darted back from the road to meet his. "If you''re already feeling this jumpy about it, there''s probably a good reason. I''d be extra sure not to fuck up again."


    Pietro''s mouth felt dry. "Yes. Yes, I was thinking the same thing."


    The Mover dropped him off at a seemingly random point in the road a few minutes later, and handed him a sealed enveloped with directions to the worksite. By the time Pietro had hoisted his duffel and clicked his headlamp on, the van was already halfway out of sight, leaving him in a rapidly darkening pocket of silent woodland.


    Extremely silent. Pietro spent very little time outside of urban areas, so he couldn''t be sure, but he flagged the silence as unusual. He felt he should be hearing frogs, or the nocturnal chirping of insects, but all he could make out was the faintest whisper of leaves in a weak breeze. He set off down the road, light from his headlamp a will-o-the-wisp bobbing ahead in his vision, the crunch of his usually silent footfalls deafening.


    He followed the directions, detailed down to the approximate number of paces, and found himself delivered to a small clearing, the remnants of what might have once been a campsite. He scanned his lamp over the grass and saw the night''s work laid out for him.


    Blood spattered the ground in the center of the clearing, dappled on grass and soil. Bits of debris littered the radius of the campsite, chunks of metal and plastic that, on a cursory inspection, seemed to be the remnants of a car battery, or several car batteries. This didn''t strike Pietro as unusual; he''d been cleaning up inexplicable shards of batteries for most of his career now, and had long since learned not to question their presence. There were rags of fabric, too, remnants of clothing. Different than the usual denim or cloth, though, much of this fabric was a uniform scarlet, and thick, maybe woolen.


    He took stock of the mess and made a practiced mental calculation before retrieving a satellite phone from his duffel. He punched in a message: "expected job time: 2.5-3 hours."


    He got an immediate text in reply: "Pickup time scheduled for 5:15 AM. Please meet your Mover at the agreed-upon coordinates."


    Pietro stowed the phone and masked up, retrieving a collapsible rake and roll of bags. He''d collect most of the spattered vegetation and debris in trash bags before going about disinfecting and cleaning the blood from the trees and rocks. He was half an hour into this process when he first began to feel that he was being watched.


    Pietro dismissed the sensation as idle paranoia at first, a remnant of his queasy car ride, but the feeling congealed into something more present and pressing and real every time he turned from the treeline and back to his work. He found himself losing valuable time, interrupting his bagging and raking to suddenly dart his light toward the woods around him.


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    Until he saw her.


    On maybe the tenth glance over his shoulder in as many minutes, Pietro spotted a woman leaning out from behind a tree, smiling at him. He yelped and tripped backwards, dropping his bag, only to scramble to his feet and find the space the woman had occupied empty.


    His chest heaved as he caught his breath, eyes darting at every shifting shadow in their periphery. The woman was gone. There had never been a woman.


    He forced himself to check, knowing that if he didn''t get a hold of himself now, he''d miss his pickup window, and he''d have to arrange a way back without blowing his cover, a task that filled him with dread. He made himself hustle over to the tree he''d seen the woman by and inspected the ground, found them free of prints. He let out a tentative, quiet "hello," that was swallowed by the gaping silence of the woods the instant it left his lips. He sent out another, louder, and heard no response.


    Pietro calmed a fraction and returned to his work, threw himself into it doubletime to make up for his foolish lapse. He''d filled only one more bag with debris with another feeling, even weightier and more awful than before, settled on his heart with a grave certainty.


    Somehow, he knew, that if he turned and looked behind him, the woman would be back.


    Pietro suppressed this feeling with a shudder and kept his head down, focused on raking the bloody grass and dirt into the trash bag.


    The feeling doubled, tripled in weight. It clamped on his mind. The woman was there. He knew it as certainly as he knew his own name. She was standing in the dark, watching him, waiting for him to turn around.


    Pietro straightened, eyes still cast downward, breath coming in ragged gulps. He felt seized by a sort of nightmare logic. A speedily weakinging logical voice insisted that he was just scared, spooked by the woods and the silence and the blood, and that he was only slowing himself down.


    A deeper, older, more certain voice assured him that the woman was waiting for him to turn around and meet her black gaze. It told him that he would do so, in mere moments, and that he was helpless not to.


    The older voice was right.


    The woman was tall. Almost impossibly tall. The kind of height that, while not technically superhuman, makes the mind stutter and double-take at the sight of it. Close to seven feet.


    She stood silent, eyes hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat, body cloaked in a long, flowing sundress that moldered where its hem brushed the ground. Her skin was so pale that it seemed to glow. Her body was so rigid and motionless that the breezy woods flowed and shifted around her, like gentle waves breaking against a pier. The vegetation around her feet was dead.


    Pietro was suddenly, irrationally sure that the woman was the source of the woods'' silence. That the crickets and frogs were holding their tongues so as not to alert her to their presences. He envied them.


    Protocol should have demanded that he pretend to be a park ranger in order to get the woman to leave, and that, if she resisted or appeared dubious, he should notify Management and intervene. Again. The memory of the young man at the previous job, his lips flecked with froth as he breathed his last breath, briefly surfaced above his simmering terror with a wave of shame.


    He knew that he wouldn''t be able to follow protocol here. The primeval part of his brain dedicated to recognizing a predator told him that any attempt he made to exert any force over this woman would be met with fatal and savage violence.


    Pietro had never been so afraid.


    "Hello," the woman finally spoke. Her voice was paper-thin, flutelike. "Did you see me? Before?"


    Pietro''s throat had closed. He wouldn''t have been able to respond if he''d tried. He couldn''t move. The woman tilted her head, smiling wide, amused. She lurched forward, walking with a loping, stiltlike gait that covered maybe five feet in a stride. She moved soundlessly, silent in a way that even Pietro could never have hoped to be.


    Where her bare feet met the vegetation, she left behind black footprints of dead grass.


    Soon she was looming over him. Pietro trembled, consumed by twin urges to flee and collapse into the fetal position, urges that cancelled themselves out.


    "You saw me," the woman cooed. "You saw me before you saw me. Isn''t that right?"


    Pietro gazed past the woman, at the road snaking away into the darkness, through the woods. He wondered how easily she''d be able to outrun him, if he could outpace her superior stride with sheer panic. The woman followed his gaze and tutted, placed an ice-cold hand on his cheek, to redirect his gaze to her black eyes.


    "You don''t need to be afraid. I just need an answer to that question. A few minutes ago, you thought you saw me, by the tree. That''s why you walked over to it and looked around, right?"


    The hand on his chin was as solid as a vice, an iron clamp that could be applied but hadn''t yet. Pietro had no choice but to speak. "I did. I thought I made it up at first."


    The woman laughed delightedly. It was a fractured, crystalline sound, like some sort of unearthly birdsong. "That''s the wonderful thing. You did. Because I hadn''t gone there, not yet. You saw it early. You peeked!"


    The woman released his face and patted his shoulder. "You peeked through a veil. I know the feeling well. Oh, what fun, to talk with someone similarly inclined. How gratifying. I''m so glad I found you here, Pietro."


    It felt completely natural that this apparition would know his name. "Are you¡­" Pietro croaked. "Are you going to kill me?"


    The woman cocked her head again. He hated when she did that, how the gesture went just a few degrees too far to seem natural. "Why do you ask? Are you scared? Does that idea scare you?"


    Pietro nodded miserably, a chided schoolboy. There was that beautiful, awful laugh again, and the woman had bent down to meet him, face-to-face. Her breath was floral, with a faint, funereal undertone of rot.


    "You shouldn''t be afraid to die, my child."


    The words hung in the air, and Pietro felt a curious, dreamy sort of resignation. He felt sure that he would soon be dead.


    "But the time for that is not tonight, I''m sorry to say. You''ll have to go without your reward longer than most." The woman straightened, then finally, mercifully, looked elsewhere, back at the road. "I wanted to get a glimpse of you tonight, that''s all. I wanted to confirm what I already knew, about your gifts. And mine. And I wanted to introduce myself, because that''s only polite."


    The woman clasped his hand in hers, her palm dwarfing his own, her fingers slender and pointed. "My name is Yelena, and I am so pleased to finally meet you, Pietro."


    Pietro nodded along with her, dazed and still convinced of his imminent death.


    "I should leave you to your work. But know that this won''t be the last you see of me," the woman beamed down at him. "I''ll be back for you soon. I have great plans for you."


    The woman turned and walked back into the forest, leaving a trail of dead flora in her wake.


    Pietro was left shivering in place for a good five minutes, before he finally turned and vomited. He managed to get up, to finish his work in time for his pickup, but only through a force of effort so immense that he passed out almost instantly upon climbing back into the retrieval van.


    When he slept, he dreamed of the woman''s face, empty and porcelain as a doll''s, staring up at him from beneath a sea of rot.

 Act IV, Chapter 2: The Menu

    Madison shifted in her hospital bed, aching body both grateful for the rest and anxious at the too-familiar feeling of sheets and a mattress. She¡¯d spent a lifetime¡¯s worth of time in bed, and being trapped in one, again, made her restless, even if the circumstances this time around were less desperate.


    She had woken up here earlier in the afternoon, and had spent the day dealing with a constant cavalcade of prodding adults: a social worker, nurses, a pediatrician that was stunned to realize that she was, in fact, nearly an adult, and not the emaciated twelve-year-old she¡¯d been assumed to be. Each of these people had barraged her with questions, had asked for information that she couldn¡¯t or wouldn¡¯t give. Her name (she¡¯d told them her first but was reluctant to offer her last), her social security number (she didn¡¯t know), what had happened to her (she didn¡¯t want to share about her runaway attempt, and what had transpired afterward she wasn¡¯t quite sure about herself), who the man had been that had dropped her off (she didn¡¯t remember any man). The staff had met her stonewalling with a mix of pity and tight-lipped frustration, and the constant social contact was draining her.


    Now she was sitting quietly, rubbing at the bandages on her hands, while the hospital¡¯s dietician prattled on about nutrition. She let the words wash over her, catching only the odd noun, ¡°meals¡­ emaciated ¡­ eat at home? ¡­ concerned ¡­ growing girl,¡± while her eyes were drawn magnetically to the door, where she tortured herself with mental images of Gramma wheeling around the corner and stomping into the room to claim her again.


    The dietician was repeating herself now, asking a question.


    ¡°Maddy? Do you think we can go ahead and get you some dinner?¡± The woman¡¯s eyes smiled, her face hidden behind a mask.


    ¡°Uh, I don¡¯t-¡± Madison¡¯s pulse quickened a bit. She desperately wanted to avoid making the dietician angry, but didn¡¯t know how. ¡°I don¡¯t have any money. I¡¯m sorry.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t need money, sweetie,¡± the dietician moved to pat her arm, but the sight of her bandages stayed her hand.


    ¡°I don¡¯t want to make trouble.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s no trouble. We¡¯ve got a whole kitchen making meals constantly, for the whole hospital. That¡¯s what they¡¯re here for.¡±


    Madison picked at the edge of a bandage. ¡°I¡¯m okay.¡±


    ¡°Well, sure, but you could be better. Your body¡¯s doing its best to heal itself, but it needs energy to do that. We need to get some food in you.¡±


    ¡°Okay! Okay,¡± Madison acquiesced instantly, buckling under the pressure. ¡°Sure. I¡¯ll eat. Or, I¡¯ll try.¡±


    The dietician studied her for a moment. ¡°Nobody¡¯s mad at you, dear. And don¡¯t worry if you can¡¯t keep much down. We also have some other options for liquid meals, if you¡¯d rather not-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll eat! I¡¯ll eat. Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± Madison tried to flash a reassuring smile, but she could tell the dietician didn¡¯t buy it. The woman nodded, slow and gradual, like she was trying not to spook a cornered animal, and produced a little laminated rectangle.


    ¡°Here¡¯s a menu. Feel free to browse, pick whatever you¡¯d like, as much as you¡¯d like.¡±


    Madison squinted at the paper, eyes struggling to focus on the glossy font. She recognized some of the offerings: soup, turkey, fruit. She looked from the page to the dietician, wary of some sort of unspoken trap.


    ¡°Everything okay?¡±


    Madison looked back down at her paper and reddened a little. ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± She pointed to an illustration of a colorful stack of ingredients, meat layered on top of some vegetables and bread.


    The dietician glanced from the page to the girl, an almost imperceptible double-take. ¡°What¡¯s what, dear?¡±


    ¡°This. This¡­ food item.¡±


    ¡°A hamburger.¡±


    Madison realized a second too late that she probably should have feigned some sort of bashful recognition. The chance passed her by, and the dietician¡¯s eyes crinkled in concern.


    ¡°Have you never seen one of those before?¡±


    Madison, caught between an impulse to lie, an impulse to confess, and an impulse to beg this woman not to let anyone who said she was her grandmother into her room, froze. The dietician, realizing an answer wasn¡¯t forthcoming, stood from her bedside and stepped to the door.


    ¡°You take some time to look over the menu and I¡¯ll be back in a bit. Do you remember Julia, the nice woman who talked to you this morning? She¡¯s not in the building right now, but I think she¡¯ll be back tomorrow with some more questions about what¡¯s going on for you, at home.¡± The dietician smiled at her with her eyes again. ¡°I know this is all probably very frightening, but please, try and be brave and tell her the truth. We all want to help you.¡±


    With that, the woman left her alone.


    Madison held the menu gingerly, like it might try to bite her, and struggled to make a choice. The idea of choosing what her dinner would be, demanding that a specific food be made and brought to her, filled her with pre-emptive shame. Wouldn¡¯t the kitchen people be mad? That she made them go out of their way?


    She was so hungry, though. More so than usual, a stabbing sort of need that permeated the usual general fog of ambient hunger she¡¯d learned to live with.


    She had been puzzling over the dilemma of how to select a meal without somehow incurring the wrath of the kitchen workers when she heard a knocking at her window and turned to see the man perched on the other side of it.


    Madison startled in her bed and let out a little yelp. She reflexively drew the covers up to her chin, before a wave of shame at the childish gesture made her freeze.


    The man on the other side of the window grinned sheepishly and waved, a curt, awkward gesture that she had no idea how to interpret. Madison was stuck somewhere between fear and total bewilderment.


    On the one hand, this was an almost perfectly unthreatening looking man. The kind of figure that would have been casted to play the dad in an old sitcom, the kind she¡¯d been briefly allowed to watch years and years ago. He was dark-skinned, a little paunchy, with a thinning thatch of wild black hair flattened over his scalp. His smile was sheepish and crooked and, maybe deceptively, kind.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    On the other hand, he was somehow perched on the thin ledge outside her window, which stood maybe eighty feet above the ground. He was doing something with his hand now, pressing it flat against the glass, and suddenly the child-safe mechanism keeping the window locked in place was snapping open of its own accord, and he was sliding the glass pane to the side and clambering in.


    Madison¡¯s arm darted for the ¡°call nurse¡± button and the man made a pained noise.


    ¡°Wait!¡± he whispered. ¡°Wait, please, I swear I¡¯m not here to hurt you.¡±


    Madison paused for a moment, then went to press the button. The man covered the distance between the two of them in a blink, so fast that she didn¡¯t even really see him move. He restrained her hand, gently but firmly, and she started screaming.


    ¡°Help! Help me!¡± Madison shrieked. ¡°There¡¯s a man in here! There¡¯s- Someone!¡±


    ¡°Hey, shh shh shh,¡± the man cooed. It wasn¡¯t the urgent kind of shushing he¡¯d used a second earlier, more the kind of noise you¡¯d use to quiet an angry toddler.


    ¡°Help! There¡¯s a- There¡¯s a hooligan! Heeeeeelp!¡±


    ¡°A hooligan?¡± the man chuckled, bemused. ¡°Hey, don¡¯t hurt yourself. They can¡¯t hear you.¡±


    Madison thrashed, screamed more. After one minute, two minutes passed without anyone ducking in to check on her, she considered what he¡¯d actually said.


    ¡°Why can¡¯t they hear me?¡±


    The man did another one of those nauseatingly quick sprints, popping over to the door to lock it, before reappearing at her side. ¡°I was muffling the sound of your voice. It¡¯s hard to explain how. But I can sort of catch sounds, pluck them out of the air if they come from something close enough to me. So stop screaming, you¡¯ll hurt your voice.¡±


    Madison acquiesced, snapping her mouth shut. She receded within herself, averted her eyes and froze again.


    ¡°I get that me just appearing here was probably scary. Sorry. They wouldn¡¯t let me come up the normal way.¡± The man smoothed his wispy hair and cleared his voice. ¡°But I wanted to make sure you were okay.¡±


    Madison kept quiet. She figured that if the man wasn¡¯t supposed to be here, she could get in trouble for talking to him.


    ¡°Okay, okay, you¡¯re the strong-but-silent type. I can respect that.¡± The man flashed another of his wonky grins. ¡°But I¡¯m going to need a few answers from you. For your own safety.¡±


    Madison stiffened, and the man flapped his hands, shook his head.


    ¡°Not from me! Not from me. From-¡±


    An awful realization dawned on Madison, shook her from her silence. ¡°You know Gramma? Is that who you¡¯re talking about? Is she coming?¡±


    ¡°Your grandma? No. Why, is she your guardian? Does she know where you are? I could get someone to call her, if-¡±


    The man read the naked terror on the girl¡¯s face, digested it, and then nodded knowingly, his eyes flicking to her sunken cheeks, her impossibly small wrists. ¡°Right. Never mind. No, I don¡¯t know your grandma, and I won¡¯t go asking around for her. Promise.¡±


    A sliver of Madison¡¯s panic subsided, and she sunk back into her bed.


    ¡°What¡¯s your name? I¡¯m Victor.¡±


    ¡°Madison,¡± she responded, before she remembered her plan to keep quiet. She felt a flare of anger at the man, as if he¡¯d tricked her.


    ¡°Hey, that¡¯s a nice name. That¡¯s my sister¡¯s name.¡±


    The man paused, waited for some response from her, and when none was forthcoming he cleared his throat and plowed on. ¡°My kids and I found you passed out in the woods. And from what we could tell, you¡¯d been there for a long time. And what¡¯s stranger, is it looked like¡­ Like you¡¯d fallen from quite a height. What happened?¡±


    Madison hardly knew herself. She had a clear enough memory of that night, of the unbearable tension of her long, slow trip down the highway, the terror of Gramma¡¯s car appearing, the pain of falling down the hill. Everything after that was a blur. She had snatches of images and sensations: dirt in her mouth, the smell of blood, the prickles of leaves and branches snapping against her skin at speed, the sight of city lights and treetops inexplicably beneath her, the chill of a swift wind. Then nothing.


    ¡°Madison, I think I have reason to believe that you might be special. And by that, I mean really special. Capable of doing some very amazing things.¡± The man glanced back at the window. ¡°Like me. I¡¯m sure it¡¯s not every day you meet a guy who can hop across a room in the blink of an eye.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know what you mean.¡±


    ¡°Explaining it all would take me a lot longer than would probably be smart. I¡¯m not supposed to be here, after all.¡± He winked at her like they were sharing some harmless secret. ¡°Listen, obviously stay here as long as you can, as long as you need, to rest up. You look like you need it.¡±


    He¡¯d been maybe the tenth adult that day to comment on her body like that. At this point, the remarks bounced off of Madison, and she kept her eyes lowered, kept picking her bandages.


    ¡°You should be safe here,¡± the man said, more like he was trying to convince himself than her. He studied the room. ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s a kid¡¯s hospital. They¡¯d have to be- They¡¯re not that desperate. But, once you get out, Madison, hey, can you look at me please? I need to know that you¡¯re hearing what I¡¯m saying.


    Hesitantly, she lifted her eyes to meet his. Victor¡¯s brows were furrowed with concern.


    ¡°Once you¡¯re out of here, you¡¯ll be in danger.¡±


    Madison nodded knowingly. ¡°Gramma¡¯s going to-¡±


    ¡°Not from Gramma. Other people. People who are much scarier.¡±


    Madison, dubious, crossed her arms. ¡°I don¡¯t know any other people.¡±


    ¡°And they don¡¯t know you, not really, but they know about you.¡± Victor twiddled his fingers, like he was wrestling with his words. ¡°The thing, the very complicated thing that makes you and I special, it¡­ It draws certain people to you. And these people are not like me, they¡¯re not gentle. They want to take something from you, and use it for their own ends, and they want it very badly.¡±


    ¡°Then they can just have it. I don¡¯t care.¡±


    ¡°You should,¡± Victor said. ¡°The only way they can take it from you is by killing you.¡±


    Madison felt a chill. She was used to being the target of ire, and cruelty, and punishment, but she¡¯d never had to worry about someone wanting to kill her. ¡°They want to- Why? What did I do wrong?¡±


    ¡°Oh, kiddo, nothing. It¡¯s very unfair.¡± Victor seemed torn between an urge to pat her arm and leave her alone. He, mercifully, picked the latter, and drew a slip of paper from his pocket, which he left on her bedside table. ¡°That¡¯s my phone number. Once you¡¯re out of here, if you don¡¯t want to go back to your Gramma, give me a call. I¡¯ve got a couple other kids your age, in a very similar situation, and they¡¯d love to meet you. I can explain everything then, and I can keep you tucked away somewhere safe for a while if need be.¡±


    Madison picked up the slip, studied it, still skeptical. ¡°You want me to live with you? I just met you.¡±


    Victor held his hands up, palms out, placating. ¡°Of course, no pressure. If there¡¯s someone you think you¡¯d be safest with, stay with them. Still, though, you should at least call. There¡¯s a lot you¡¯ll need explained, and not a lot of people are as qualified as I am to teach you. Until then, hang tight here, try and rest, eat up. And if you see anything, or anyone here that seems suspicious, make sure you call a nurse as fast as you can.¡±


    ¡°Right,¡± she deadpanned. ¡°Like I tried to when you showed up, five minutes ago.¡±


    Victor laughed nervously at that, eyes flicking from the ¡°call nurse¡± button to the door. ¡°Good point. Well. If anyone¡¯s crazy enough to show up here, they¡¯re probably not going to be as fast as me.¡±


    The man seemed to be stressing himself out as he talked. He heard something inaudible, out in the hallway, and he popped back over to the window, sliding it open in one quick motion. He hesitated, scanning her room again, as if checking for hidden intruders, before flashing her one more smile. ¡°Remember. You can call me any time. Hang in there, kiddo.¡±


    And then the balding, portly man launched himself from the eight story window and zipped away, leaving her alone. Something new was gnawing at Madison¡¯s gut now, competing with her ravenous hunger.


    The feeling was fresh, urgent fear, laced with something like hope.

 Act IV, Chapter 3: The First Spark

    Simon¡¯s fingers were chafing where they pinched the match. He was holding his breath in his concentration, trembling a little, as he stared at the phosphorus-dusted head of the matchstick and tried with all his might to set it on fire.


    After a minute he released the breath he was holding and, sputtering, stuffed the match back into his breast pocket. He huffed and rubbed his forehead, nursing another migraine, before turning back to scrutinize the video playing on his computer.


    Grainy, low-res security footage played and replayed the most traumatic ten seconds of his life in a loop. It showed him, short and prim and flustered, stumbling before the chess table like he was about to faint, before erupting into a full-body fireball that sent a plume of evil-looking smoke guttering against the ceiling. On the periphery, other contestants and spectators scrambled, as surprised by this explosion as he was.


    Simon picked at the bandages on his neck. A gas leak, is what he¡¯d been told by the stammering, incompetent nurses at the trauma center. Some sort of small, contained gas explosion probably sparked by unlucky friction.


    That absurd excuse hadn¡¯t felt sufficient when he first heard it, and he¡¯d been completely blasted on morphine at the time. With a day¡¯s afterthought, Simon had come to the conclusion that no conventional explanations were satisfactory, and had made the logical leap that his spontaneous combustion had some sort of correlation with the feverish, almost hallucinogenic state of panic he¡¯d experienced in the moments preceding. Whether this relationship was correlative or causative was what he intended to find out.


    And so, here he was, curled in on himself in his computer chair, careful not to let the livid surface of his burned skin come into contact with more than it had to, trying to light matches on fire with his mind. He¡¯d felt briefly foolish, but he reminded himself that he was just eliminating possibilities. This was an objective, scientific endeavor, and not something to be ashamed of.


    Besides, there was nobody here to judge him. His cavernous Eagan home was empty, the cleaning staff done for the day. To fear the recrimination of someone who wasn¡¯t even there was counterintuitive. Simon reminded himself, as he often did, not to let his growing fear of Father rule him internally, not to let it conquer-


    His phone rang, and the contact on the screen flashed: Father. Simon started as if he¡¯d been kicked, reached for the phone, hesitated, cursed, and then picked it up.


    ¡°Hello,¡± he said, voice cracking a little with disuse. Simon felt a pang of embarrassment.


    ¡°You¡¯re up.¡± Father¡¯s voice was an opaque, cool monotone.


    ¡°The sedatives have mostly worn off.¡±


    ¡°The doctor prescribed you rest.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not exerting myself unduly, Father.¡±


    A silence on the line. A whimpering, childish part of Simon hoped that Father would ask how he was feeling. Then the executive part of his brain stamped on that impulse with as much prejudice as it could manage.


    Father was waiting for Simon to speak again. A favorite tactic of his.


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    ¡°What, er- Did you mean to call me about something?¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t be inane.¡±


    Simon felt too exhausted to be aggravated. He relented immediately. ¡°Father, what is it? Are you displeased about something?¡±


    ¡°You know quite well what I¡¯m displeased about.¡±


    Simon¡¯s mind raced as fast as his heart. What had he done so wrong? Father can¡¯t possibly be blaming him for the explosion? The hospital bill, that can¡¯t have been outside of Father¡¯s means. Maybe the interruption had derailed some of Father¡¯s work? Maybe-


    Oh.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t technically lose the chess match.¡±


    ¡°Only due to freak luck.¡±


    Luck! Simon repressed the urge to laugh bitterly. The skin on his shoulders stretched and cracked and burned. ¡°Father, I had to go to the hospital.¡±


    ¡°And you should count yourself fortunate. Had that woman,¡± Father said the last word with uncharacteristic venom, ¡°been allowed to play her next three moves, you¡¯d have lost.¡±


    ¡°I had escape routes. Her rook-¡±


    ¡°You were floundering. Any half-blind moron could¡¯ve seen that. She had you, Simon. You were about to lose.¡±


    Simon leaned back into his chair, ignoring the white-hot protestations of his skin, and stared holes in the ceiling. A fury brewed in his gut, tempered by his fear. He couldn¡¯t believe that this was the conversation he was having.


    ¡°Nobody knows this. My record- Our record is still spotless. My ELO¡¯s intact.¡±


    ¡°Damn the ELO, it¡¯s not about that. This isn¡¯t about the chess. This is about the mountain of resources that has been invested in you, Simon, and your recalcitrance, your juvenile disregard for the privileges that have been given and given and given again, a colossal effort being burned for a child who refuses to meet his potential.¡±


    Refuses? Refuses? Simon felt like slumping out of his chair and muttering the word over and over like a madman. Simon spent every waking minute of every day trying with all his might. Refuses?


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry that you¡¯re disappointed,¡± Simon said, voice tight. ¡°I¡¯ll do my best not to let it-¡±


    ¡°Your best is flagging. You¡¯ve plateaued. Your growth rates in every metric but plasticity and retention are failing to meet predicted targets. You¡¯re failing, and I, by extension, am being made into a failure.¡±


    Simon felt a tear leak from his eye. He slammed the heel of his hand into his head to dislodge it, bit his finger to keep from crying. He took a mental five count before responding, voice mercifully even. ¡°I¡¯m only fifteen. I still have three years to meet-¡±


    ¡°Don¡¯t expect me home until this weekend. I¡¯ve made an executive decision to invest more time with Sabine.¡±


    The name fueled a flare of hatred in him. He hated his half-sister, resented her mewling childishness, her pretensions of musical genius, the unthinking way the media fawned over her, and how eagerly she lapped that adoration up. The fact that she was only four years old was no excuse. He had known better at that age.


    ¡°I plan to do my best to justify all your hard work, Father,¡± Simon said. He left a silence of his own there, for Father to finally relent, to ask how his son, who was nursing several square feet of burns, how the fuck he was doing.


    As the silence drew on, Simon felt something in his stomach give way. A pit was opening, swallowing him, and at the bottom of that pit a flame was being fanned. He felt a fever of anger grip and overtake and consume him. He clenched the phone with whitening fingers, grit his teeth, squeezed more loathful tears from his eyes as his Father breathed easily on the other line.


    Say it, he mentally demanded. Say it. Ask me how I am. Ask me if I¡¯m hurting.


    Silence. Breathing.


    Say it, you fucker. You ghoul. You charlatan quack asshole douche fucker dad say it, say it, SAY IT.


    His father hung up.


    The fury in Simon¡¯s chest hit a fever pitch, and the match stowed in his shirt pocket burst into flames.

 Act IV, Chapter 4: The Pitch

    Ali burst out of the hospital''s doors, dropped to his knees, and yelled, startling a flock of pigeons from the parking lot. It was more of a war cry than a scream, a roar of relief. Ben was going to make it.


    The doctor had just informed him, Kendall and Jenny waiting anxiously in tow, that Ben had sustained major damage to a kidney and part of his lower intestine, but that with a transplant and some surgery he would be expected to make a full recovery.


    This was undeniably awful, and Ali expected to be racked with guilt over the incident for years to come, but he hadn''t murdered his best friend. Ben would live. Yelling was the only tool he had to express an emotion as huge as the one that accompanied that news.


    Kendall stumbled out after him, stopped short, bemused.


    "Ali, wait, are- Oh, God. Okay. Let it out."


    "Who''s yelling?" Jenny crashed into Ali as she sprinted through the doors. "Oh."


    Ali, breathless, flopped onto his back, too overjoyed to register any disgust at the mystery puddle of parking lot liquid seeping into his shirt. "I didn''t kill him."


    "Even if you had, you wouldn''t have. Hadn''t. I-" Kendall massaged her baggy eyes. They''d all spent the last night sleepless and confused. She was still in her work uniform.


    A pause hung between them. They hadn''t broached the subject of what the hell had even occurred yet. The drive to the ER had been too panicked, and the bustling interior of the hospital hadn''t seemed like the best place to toss around theories. Kendall, thinking quickly, had told the ER nurse that Ben had been messing around with homemade fireworks, and that cover story seemed to have held enough water for now.


    "What the fuck even happened?" Jenny was the first to break the ice.


    "I don''t know," Ali said. "I don''t know."


    "You threw a baseball through Ben."


    "I know. I don''t know."


    "How did you do that?"


    "I don''t-"


    "We''re not getting anywhere." Kendall walked over and grabbed Ali''s hand, helped him to his feet. "I wasn''t even looking when it happened. Maybe I can ask Keith if the security camera captured anything. We could-"


    Jenny pressed a can of LaCroix into Ali''s hand. "Throw this."


    "What?"


    "Hey, that was mine," Kendall protested.


    Jenny jabbed a finger at the nearest dumpster. "Pretend the trash is Ben and throw the can. See if we can replicate it."


    "Jenny, this is stupid."


    "If Ali has super powers we need to know!"


    "Ali doesn''t have super powers."


    Ali wound up and hurled the can. It went wide, clunking harmlessly off the corner of the dumpster. The three stood in silence and processed this.


    "Okay, so, see? No powers."


    "Or he doesn''t have control over them yet." Jenny hustled over to a Kia parked in a handicapped spot. "Ali, Ali, come try to lift this car."


    Ali turned away, fishing out the keys to his mom''s hulking minivan. "Jenny, I respect the effort, but I''m too damn tired for this right now."


    "Yeah, let''s bounce," Kendall agreed, walking after him.


    He unlocked the driver''s side door and climbed in, Kendall hopping in shotgun. Jenny stamped her foot, pouted, and then relented, sidling into the van''s middle row of seats.


    "I''m just saying, and I know you didn''t mean to, but Ben got really hurt. What if you slip up again? Shouldn''t we get to the bottom of this, like, first thing?"


    "We''ll figure it all out," Ali promised. "But we''re going to be useless until we get some sleep. We''ll meet up tomorrow."


    "There might not be time! What if, you, like, rip the steering wheel out on the drive home? Or, like, cave Lucky''s head in when he runs up for pets when we get back!"


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    "Morbid," Kendall said.


    "The girl''s got a point," added a strange voice from the back of the van.


    The three teenagers all yelped in various pitches. Ali flailed in his surprise, accidentally honking the car''s horn, which caused Kendall to scream again. Jenny fumbled with the van''s handle and tumbled out into the parking lot.


    In the back seat, eyebrows raised, hands held open and empty, sat a well-dressed stranger. The man, maybe ten years older than Ali, cleared his throat.


    "Sorry, sorry, Jesus, sorry. Waiting in the car was a dumb move. I didn''t know your friends would be coming along."


    "Who the fuck are you?" Kendall was the first to gather herself.


    "How did you get in my car?" Ali quickly joined her.


    "Ali! There''s a guy!" Jenny added from outside, not quite helpfully.


    "My name is Marco," the man said, placating. "I''m good at opening locks. And I''m not here to hurt anyone or do anything nefarious, but I wanted to talk with Ali, quick, privately."


    "Oh my God, are we getting trafficked?" Jenny said. "Is this what trafficking is?"


    "This is about Ben?" Kendall jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, toward the hospital.


    "Your friend with the newly-installed gut window? Yeah. About him and Ali."


    "Not funny," Ali warned.


    "Sorry, just- I want to keep the mood light." Marco shot a smile in Jenny''s direction. "Nobody''s getting trafficked."


    "What are you, cops? Government?" Kendall asked.


    "Neither. I¡­" Marco took a second to formulate his next few words. "Your friend Ali is undergoing a serious change right now, and as somebody who has also experienced this change, I wanted to reach out to him to show him the ropes, to make sure he doesn''t get anyone else hurt."


    "A change?" Ali said.


    "Oh my God, does he have super powers? Do you?" Jenny added.


    Marco cocked his head, thinking. He was a handsome man, tan, with arched black eyebrows that lent him an impish quality. "That''s a simplification, but yeah, kind of."


    "Fucking called it," Jenny pumped her fist.


    "Prove it," Kendall said.


    Marco shrugged, glanced around the car, as if looking for some sort of prop. Then, with another shrug, he exploded. Or, no, his entire body began glowing and emitting a wave of percussive sound so violent and sudden that for a moment it had seemed that he''d exploded. Spots danced in Ali''s vision as he squinted at Marco through his fingers, a man who ten seconds ago had been a seemingly normal person in a suit and was now a human-shaped mass of roiling plasma.


    Then, just as violently as it had started, it stopped, and Marco was back to normal.


    "That proof enough?"


    The three teenagers shared a shellshocked look.


    "Listen," Ali said, rubbing his face. "This is... a lot. I''ve been awake for 36 hours straight. You''re a stranger that just showed up in my car. I need to get home, and-"


    "Oh, sure, sure, sure," Marco waved a hand. "This is all too complicated a conversation to have in the back of a Honda Odyssey anyway." He clambered over into the middle row of seats, slipped a card onto the central console. "That''s my card. First thing when you wake up, you''re gonna want to call me. We have a lot to go over."


    "Am I good to drive in the meantime?" Ali asked. "I''m not going to, like, make the engine explode with my mind?"


    Marco barked a laugh. "No, no, something like that should be way out of your league. To be honest, I''m not quite sure how you pulled off that fastball of yours in the first place."


    "That''s not comforting," Kendall groused.


    "You should be fine until tomorrow." Marco moved to leave the van, then paused. "Though, on second thought-"


    "Jesus Christ, guy," Kendall said.


    "You should know¡­" Marco fiddled idly with the ornate watch on his wrist. "There is a non-zero chance that some¡­ people might come after you."


    "Fucking what?" Ali said.


    "How did you almost forget about that?" Jenny added.


    "It''s a low chance!" Marco said. "Low. Vanishingly slim. But- Well. The why of it is complicated, like everything, it''s a conversation for another day, but if any strange men or women appear out of nowhere and try to interact with you, first, absolutely flee, and second, call me immediately." Marco tapped the card on the console for emphasis.


    "So I should, for instance, look out for random men I''ve never seen before in my life breaking into my car?" Ali frowned.


    "The vibe will be different with these people," Marco said. "They won''t pause to try and disarm you with banter. They''ll probably be too busy bum-rushing you for that. And they''ll almost definitely be wearing robes, or, like, masks, or a whole bunch of car batteries strapped onto their backs."


    "This is the single weirdest day I''ve ever had," Jenny said. "Including the time Kendall and I did mushrooms at Joann Fabrics."


    "It''s a lot to take in," Marco apologized. "But please, for the sake of yourself and your friends, do not forget to call me. There''s a shitload you need to know, kid, and very little time."


    Ali nodded, taking this in. "Got it. Noted. Please get out of my car."


    "Right." Marco sidled out, stepping awkwardly around Jenny as she climbed back in. He glanced around, as if checking for bystanders. "Remember. Call. Me. Tomorrow."


    And then, with a puff of dust and wind, the suited man disappeared. The three teenagers recoiled at the sudden motion, then settled into an uneasy silence. Jenny shut the door, and Ali started the van. They remained wordlessly stunned as he pulled out of the lot, paid the exorbitant overnight parking fee, and set off for home.


    "Okay, maybe this is tone-deaf," Jenny finally piped up as they idled at a stoplight. "But hot take: this is the coolest shit that''s ever happened to anybody."


    Ali drummed a nervous tattoo on the steering wheel. He wasn''t sure how much he agreed.

 Act IV, Chapter 5: The Joyride

    Gloria had come to the conclusion that she was a ghost. That she¡¯d been killed during the shooting seemed, to her, to be the most logical explanation for her current situation.


    Nobody could see or hear her. She could walk right up to a stranger at random, wave her hands in their face, shout in their ear, and elicit no reaction at all. She learned pretty quickly that people could feel her, if she touched them, but she stopped those experiments early after realizing how distressed it seemed to make people to be jostled around by an unseen woman.


    People could see objects she manipulated. She¡¯d tried to take a sandwich from the grocery store, hours after the massacre, once she¡¯d collected herself enough to realize how hungry she was, and the sight of a floating hoagie had caused a mild panic in the deli aisle until she¡¯d dropped it and fled.


    Now, one sleepless night later, she was wandering around a park in downtown Minneapolis, surrounded by joggers and picnics. She felt a growing, maddening sense of immateriality.


    She¡¯d made attempts to get herself some help, but those had proven fruitless. She¡¯d had a plan to write down her situation on a notepad and show it to the front desk at the Emergency Room, but halfway into writing her note (¡°Hi, sorry for the scare, but I seem to be invisible. I don¡¯t know how to turn myself back. Can you help?¡±) she¡¯d become convinced that the idea was silly and that of course the doctors wouldn¡¯t know what to do. Then she¡¯d tried to call poison control, for delirious reasons that even now she couldn¡¯t quite parse, and they¡¯d hung up on her once it became clear that they couldn¡¯t hear anything she was saying.


    At first she had tried using her condition to, relatively harmlessly, break a few rules. She¡¯d walked right into a movie theater and enjoyed half of a rom-com for free before her restlessness had driven her back into the lobby. She¡¯d driven -- she assumed driving was fine, her vision wasn¡¯t impaired any -- to the capitol building and wandered around in the back rooms usually barred to visitors, but realized pretty quickly that there wasn¡¯t much of interest to be found there.


    She was crossing the park, on her way to her next plan, which was to go slip into the art museum, fare-free, when the growing itch in her expanded, solidified into a wilder urge.


    Over the course of a few moments, Gloria went from an addled semi-acceptance of her current state to the total conviction that if she didn¡¯t manage to make herself seen and heard as soon as possible that she would go insane. She needed attention, and she needed it now.


    And this impulse happened to coincide with her walking past a pair of police officers, listening with folded arms to a woman reporting some sort of burglary. Her eyes landed, magnetically, on the holster of the nearest cop, and she briefly entertained the idea of snagging the gun from his belt and firing into the air, into the ground, anything to get a rise out of the passerby.


    But then the sounds of the gunfire at the mall echoed in her ears and she felt instantly nauseous, and her hand jerked at the last second, finding purchase on, instead, a lanyard poking out from the cop¡¯s pocket. She jerked it out, revealing a key on the other side.


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Gloria had never wanted to be a police officer, but since she was young she¡¯d occasionally fantasized about driving one of their cars, sirens on, cutting through the traffic she¡¯d always been forced to languish in like everybody else.


    She spotted the car, parked a block away, and was over and fiddling with the lock to its door within a minute. A wave of dread stopped her in her tracks.


    What the hell am I doing? She thought. I could go to prison for this.


    Then: they¡¯d have to notice me to arrest me.


    And she was back to the lock, fiddling with the strange car key, putting it in wrong, upside-down, readjusting when she was startled out of her feverish efforts by a voice.


    ¡°What are you doing?¡±


    Gloria was so accustomed to being unseen that, at first, she ignored the voice.


    ¡°Gloria? What¡¯re you doing?¡±


    The sound of her own name jostled her out of her fugue, and she turned to see a total stranger looking at her.


    ¡°You¡¯re stealing a police car?¡± the man asked, jovial. He was only a little taller than her, much older, bald and weathered and grinning. Deep, well-worn laugh lines framed each eye, dark and sparkling. ¡°That seems out of character for you.¡±


    ¡°Do you-¡± Gloria began. ¡°You can see me?¡±


    The man¡¯s smile widened. ¡°Seeing things is my specialty, dear.¡±


    ¡°How do you know my name?¡±


    The man stepped past her and laid a hand on the car¡¯s door. ¡°That¡¯d take some explaining. We¡¯ll do it while we drive.¡±


    There was an audible click and the door creaked open. The man swept a hand toward the interior, bushy eyebrows waggling. ¡°Ladies first.¡±


    Gloria, even more shellshocked than she¡¯d already been feeling, slipped wordlessly into the car. The man hustled around to the other side and joined her in the passenger seat.


    Numbly, she reached her key for the ignition. The man stopped her gently, shook his head.


    ¡°You grabbed the wrong key, the one in your hand is for a cruiser down the block. No matter, though.¡± He tapped the ignition with his finger and the engine roared to life. Gloria felt a little thrill as she rubbed the steering wheel, tested the gas with her foot. Off in the distance, she heard a shout, saw the pair of cops rushing across the park toward her.


    She looked over to the man sitting across from her and he nodded, beaming. ¡°Go on. I¡¯ve been awfully bored all morning and this¡¯ll be good fun.¡±


    ¡°Is this real?¡± Gloria asked.


    The man considered the question. ¡°Yes, in the sense that it¡¯s happening in physical reality. No in the sense that there will be any actual consequences. The world¡¯s about to change pretty fast, Gloria. Now take us away before those police ruin the fun.¡±


    Gloria, in a state of distant disbelief at her actions, revved the engine and squealed out into the road, nearly sideswiping a passing city bus on her way out. The cop car was responsive and agile in a way her series of hand-me-down and secondhand cars had never been. The speed was thrilling.


    The man flicked a hand and the stoplight ahead of them glitched from red to green. She sped through, narrowly missing a pickup that almost failed to brake in time.


    Gloria turned again to goggle at her passenger. ¡°This is going to sound silly, but are you an angel?¡±


    The man laughed at that, hearty and from the gut. ¡°You know, that¡¯s not the first time I¡¯ve been asked that? No, I¡¯m but an old man. My name is Pema. Would you like to accompany me on some business?¡±

 Act IV, Chapter 6: The Interrogation

    Ida frowned at the footage on the tablet.


    "There," said Agent Steiner, the absolute cinderblock of a government official who Ida had spent the last hour or so in private conference with. He jabbed a sausage finger at the man on the screen. "The regeneration he''s doing. How does that work?"


    Ida shook her head. The man on the screen, Imran Bhatt, was frozen in time, face turned skyward, stomach wound pulsating. She''d known of him, he''d been one of the most visible Demigods in the world up until the Singapore fiasco. She hadn''t known he was capable of this. "I don''t know. I sure as hell can''t do it."


    "If someone were to cut you, the cut would heal at a standard human rate?" the agent said.


    "Sure." Ida paused. "That''s not an invitation. But sure. Same goes for bruises, burns, sprains. I''ve had Covid twice and it knocked me out both times."


    The man folded his arms, suit straining at the seams along his elbows, and glowered down at the tablet with her. "We haven''t recorded any instances of this before, in any Field Manipulators. Only this man, here, and the woman-" he fiddled with the trackbar, scrubbed to later. Here, a woman in a dazzling green cloak of scales only narrowly dodges a projectile from Bhatts, a tossed fire hydrant that, even just by glancing her, carried two of the fingers on her right hand away with it. Over the course of six seconds, the fingers grew back, first bone, then veins, then muscle, then skin and nail. "The woman, right here."


    Ida leaned back and sucked her lower lip. "You''re sure these are Sensitives? Or, Field Manipulators?"


    "They fit every other diagnostic criteria. What else could they possibly be?"


    Ida shrugged. "Weird, weird world. See, Field stuff, it''s magical. I''m not going to pretend it''s not. But unless someone has a specifically wonky Knack, Fields usually follow a strict set of rules." She held up three fingers. "Energy in is energy out. You can manipulate matter and energy within a Field but you can''t create or destroy anything. And Fields themselves have a set volume that can be stretched but not magnified or duplicated."


    "Sounds like Newton."


    "Yeah, Fields seem to follow physics until they don''t. Every once in a while you''ll meet a Sensitive who can put out more electricity than he absorbs, or who can shoot little bits of Field out and have them self-sustain for a few minutes, making their own energy, and that''s where Newton has to pack up and go home. But this-" Ida waved her hand at the screen. "These two are breaking all the rules. Just trampling them. I know they''re ostensibly Demigods but I''ve never seen anyone do anything like this."


    "So, what, you''re saying they''re superheroes? Wizards?"


    "Hey, you''re the one with secret microphones in everyone''s pockets, you tell me." Ida fidgeted in her chair. She''d been in this single interrogation room for five hours now, and while the MPD been kind enough not to chain her to the table and shine a spotlight in her eyes, they hadn''t exactly furnished her with a La-Z-Boy to sit in. "Could be they are. Listen, when I was nine years old I was medically dead for six minutes, and then three weeks later I threw my first car. We don''t live in a sensical, rational world. Internalize that."


    Agent Steiner rubbed a hand across his greying stubble and grunted. "Every other indication points to these two being Manipulators."


    "Well, if you''re thinking of asking me how the shiny one managed to lug a mountain into space, don''t bother, because I have absolutely no idea how a Field would physically manage that."


    Steiner nodded, implacable. He drummed his fingers on the table for a few moments. "Let''s move on, then. Let''s talk about the gathering."


    "Thank God," Ida breathed. "I was worried you wouldn''t let me get to that."


    "Ballpark, how many Manipulators do you think-"


    "You need to evacuate the city."


    Steiner arched his eyebrows at that. "That so?"


    "You seem to be pretty aware of the fundamentals here." Ida cupped her hands together. "Somehow, and I have no clue how, a wellspring of energy opened up here, one that Sensitives all over are, well, sensitive to. Drawn to. It''s making us stronger and it''s feeding us. And Sensitives, they''re cannibalistic. If one kills another and sticks around for a few seconds, they''ll get to absorb the essence of their dead rival, and they''ll grow proportionately more powerful as a result."


    Steiner nodded knowingly. "I had the energy well described to me as a ''dinner bell ringing nonstop over Minneapolis.''"


    "Basically. It''s a recipe for the biggest gathering of Sensitives probably in recorded history." Ida leaned forward, recalled the routine she''d been mentally running herself through for days. It was crucial that she be as clear and persuasive as possible here. "At first that''ll just translate into a few shootouts between little fish, street brawls but with more explosions than usual. Civilians will die, but the rates will be dozens, low hundreds. But once the big fish get here-"


    "Evacuating everyone in the third largest metropolitan area in the Midwest isn''t physically possible."


    Ida pushed on. "Once the big fish get here, they''ll start snapping the little ones up, and then they''ll turn their sights on eachother." She widened her cupped hands, mimicking a swelling, growing snowball. "The power will accumulate in fewer and fewer people, and these people will be even more equipped and motivated to find and throw everything they have at each other. At a certain point, the damage resulting from a fight like that would be comparable, if not worse, than that of a nuclear bomb."


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    Steiner huffed. "I don''t know if you understand just how nasty a nuke is."


    Ida stabbed her finger at the tablet. "You just showed me a video of a Sensitive dropping a mountain on a city."


    "So now she is a Field Manipulator."


    Ida scooted back in her chair, took a calming breath, focused. She knew she''d never forgive herself if she didn''t communicate the severity of the situation as clearly as she could. "Please, you want me as an advisor, then listen to my advice, if not anywhere else but here: there is no benefit to keeping any normal humans in this city right now. Not economic, not political, not scientific, and definitely not ethical. The Twin Cities are essentially dead in the water, and if nobody figures out a way to dissuade Demigods from entering the city, then most of the Midwest is toast, too. Chicago, Toronto, Detroit. Some of the more pessimistic models suggest that if more than five Demigods get involved, it could very well result in continent- or planet-wide dieoff of normal people. I''m talking about an extinction event."


    "Your concern is noted." Steiner said, gaze steely.


    Ida could feel her chance slipping away. She studied the man, saw clearly on his face how little he seemed to care about what she was saying. She reached out with her Field to listen to his heart, his breathing. It wasn''t a foolproof lie detector, but it helped. His biometrics were completely normal, relaxed. "You don''t believe me?"


    "I''m just as aware of this risk as you are."


    No change, no jump in pulse, no rush of blood to the skin. "You don''t care? You should care. You won''t have a job if the fucking world ends."


    "The last thing I want is needless carnage."


    The man was ice cold. Ida, baffled, took a moment to realize why. "You think you can capitalize on this somehow. You think you figured out a way to kill them."


    Steiner cocked his head, as if the idea had never occurred to him. "If these people really are the loose, walking nuclear warheads you claim, then that''d definitely constitute a grave national security risk. We''d be wise to clear that up in one fell swoop, if the occasion presented itself."


    Ida felt like laughing in his face. "I promise, whatever method you think you''ve cooked up to kill a Demigod, it won''t work. You''re a guppy taking aim at a battleship."


    "With all due respect, only one of us is qualified to make any sort of claims about the United States'' weapons capabilities."


    "And only one of us knows what the hell a Sensitive is actually capable of." Ida stood from the chair, nearly knocking it over. "If you''re not going to commit to even attempting an evacuation, then I''m leaving. I need to get as far away from this city as physically possible."


    Steiner held one of his bearpaw hands up, as if he had any power to stop her whatsoever. "Please, Ms. Miller, sit back down. Remember that you''re still technically under arrest."


    Ida couldn''t hold back a derisive laugh anymore. "You can''t arrest me. You could sic every cop in the precinct on me right now and you wouldn''t be able to so much as mess up my hair, let alone hurt me."


    "Maybe," Steiner said, voice chillingly even. "Or maybe you underestimate us. Maybe the room''s been surreptitiously filled with a colorless, odorless neurotoxin that will shut down your brainstem without an antidote delivered in the next hour."


    Ida felt a chill. She glanced toward the door, entertained the idea of speeding out, breaking down the wall if she had to. She thought about cuffing the smug G-man''s carotid on the way out, snuffing him out as a petulant parting fuck-you.


    Indecision kept her rooted to the spot. She felt the early mistings of a headache coming on.


    "Or maybe," he continued, "we put a remotely-armable artificial virus in your complimentary cup of water. Fields can stop bullets, but can they stop super-smallpox?" He smiled at her, a lipless grimace. He was enjoying this. "Or maybe I pull up my phone and show you a fatal infohazard I have saved on my camera roll. A special pattern of lights and colors developed by the boys in the black sites, one that makes the human brain eat itself the instant it sees it."


    Ida squinted, eyes darting from the man to the door. It was very rare for her to feel as cornered as she did right now. It wasn''t a welcome experience.


    "Or maybe all that shit I just said is made up, and we really can''t stop you." Steiner said. He shrugged. "The point is, you don''t know. You''re a welcome expert in an extremely niche field, but your grand diagnoses about the all-powerful, unkillable nature of your so-called "Demigods" are prognostications made from a point of total fucking ignorance about the might and smarts of the greatest military industrial apparatus the world has ever seen. You don''t know what we''re capable of."


    Steiner crossed the room toward her, fearless. "You don''t know what I''m capable of."


    "Coming here was a mistake," Ida snarled.


    "Hey, maybe." Steiner shrugged again. He looked at something on his phone. "1148 Montpelier Drive."


    Ida blinked. "What''s that?"


    "The address where your daughter Bailey is staying, right now." Steiner''s blue eyes met hers. There was nothing behind them. "She''s having a sleepover. She and her friends are watching Shrek 2 and eating Takis. She''s almost entirely visible from the house''s northwesternmost window, a window paned with decidedly un-bulletproof glass."


    Ida felt as if the blood in her body had been replaced with a cold, hateful slurry. She was rooted to the spot. Steiner smiled down at her, almost sympathetically.


    "You Manipulators think that because you''re bulletproof you can''t be hurt. Ida, Ms. Miller, you should know that one thing I''ve learned in my long and storied history serving our great nation is that bullets are among the least efficient ways to hurt people." He held his hands out. "If it''s creative enough, and well-connected enough, the guppy can and will find a way to sink the battleship. It happens over and over and over again. And it only happens because the battleship thinks itself invincible."


    He rested his hand on her shoulder, hard and firm. Ida tilted her head to glare up at him. She burned with a sudden, desperate hatred.


    "We''re going to need your help in the coming days, Ida. Your insights are going to prove invaluable. I know it feels unfair, but you turning yourself in will be remembered as a great and patriotic sacrifice, one that will help save many American lives." Steiner stepped back and stowed his hands in his pockets. "But you are still under arrest. Please sit down."


    Ida considered blowing the room up then, with both of them in it. She imagined leaping across the table and scything her hand through the ghoul''s brain, pumping him with a fatal voltage of electricity, siphoned from the walls and floor, reaching her Field into his chest and bisecting his heart with a thought.


    Then she remembered her daughter, and Ida sat down.

 Act IV, Chapter 7: The Ambush

    ¡°Fuck,¡± Sylvia spat, wiping a trickle of blood from her ear. ¡°Shiv, he¡¯s headed your way.¡±


    The cultist they¡¯d been chasing, a man specifically recommended to them by Marco, who¡¯d assured them that he was ¡°one of M''s more sociopathic hired sociopaths¡± and ¡°a real piece of work,¡± catapulted himself away from her and darted into the trees. Each of his explosive movements was accompanied by an ear-splitting shriek, some sort of sonic defense he was employing to confuse them. It was working.


    ¡°God, is that noise him?¡± Shiv buzzed in her ear. They were communicating with a makeshift walkie-talkie system mostly facilitated by their phones and a pair of Airpods. ¡°God, sound-based Knacks suck ass.¡±


    ¡°Whatever he''s doing, I think it knocked one of my fillings loose.¡± Sylvia stood and bounded after him, streaking as fast as she could manage through the sparse woodland. It was nearly sundown now, and even with her sight enhanced it was nerve-wracking trying to avoid branches and stumps while moving at top speed.


    ¡°This is gonna be a massive pain,¡± Shiv said.


    ¡°Yeah, well, getting you a functioning heart out of the deal will take some of the sting out. He in sight on your end?¡±


    ¡°No, not- Wait. Yep. Moving in.¡±


    Sylvia heard the muffled sounds of a struggle rasp through her earpiece, the telltale explosions of their quarry mixed with the roar-and-snap of some sort of electrical attack from Shiv.


    ¡°Dammit,¡± Shiv hissed. ¡°Missed him.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s slippery.¡± Sylvia drew as much power as she could from the quickly dwindling supply in the pair of car batteries strapped to her back and sent herself rocketing several stories up. In the early twilight she managed to make out the distant shape of tree branches swaying, a wake in the canopy that culminated in the robed form of the man as he burst out from cover and darted into one of the warehouses that dotted this part of the riverside.


    ¡°We lose him?¡±


    ¡°I got a glimpse,¡± Sylvia said. She landed, moved slower, looking to conserve the last of her fuel. She bent to the ground and felt the soil, navigated her private world of vibrations and resonances, locating Shiv about a hundred yards up ahead, standing in a tree. She hurried over, made contact with her partner.


    ¡°Where¡¯d he go?¡± Shiv dropped from her branch.


    ¡°Warehouse, or grain mill, or something, up ahead. Seemed empty. I think he¡¯s hiding, probably out of juice.¡±


    ¡°Well, that¡¯d make two of us.¡± Shiv re-shouldered her own pack, twice the size of Sylvia¡¯s, four batteries joined with leather studded in ceramic beads. ¡°You empty?¡±


    ¡°Close to it.¡±


    They broke through the treeline and Sylvia could see the warehouse clearly now. It looked dark, abandoned, with several broken windows and a few winding tattoos of graffiti around its base. They paused for a breather by a streetlight, each of them taking turns sticking their Auras through its metal exterior to siphon fresh energy from the power grid within.


    ¡°I don¡¯t hear any of those god-awful sonic booms,¡± Shiv said, squinting at the building. ¡°Either he left on foot or he¡¯s still in there.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t hear much more of anything on my left side.¡± Sylvia shook her head as if to clear water from her ear, then knelt to feel the concrete. She took a moment to study, then stood, quizzical.


    ¡°What¡¯s up?¡±


    ¡°Building feels weird. Like, muffled, inside, but to touch. Fuzzy. Can¡¯t really see in.¡±


    Shiv shrugged. ¡°He was already doing weird shit with sound. Maybe his whole thing¡¯s, like, screwing with vibrations? If anything that¡¯s a good sign, means he¡¯s cornered and close to empty. We¡¯ve got him.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s true.¡± Sylvia over to squeeze her partner¡¯s hand. ¡°You ready? You feel okay?¡±


    Shiv nodded, grimly determined. ¡°I read Marco''s notes. I¡¯m ready to eat the fucker.¡±


    ¡°You take front, I take back? Try and hit him with one of our electric crossups?¡±


    Shiv grinned. ¡°Sounds like a plan. God, I hope we finally get to land one of those.¡±


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    Sylvia laughed and bolted off, batteries fresh and topped up. She arced over the warehouse itself, shooting multiple stories in the air and curving back down to an outcropping next to one of the building¡¯s shattered topmost windows. She settled and touched her Airpod. ¡°You set?¡±


    ¡°Roger roger,¡± Shiv crackled in her ear. ¡°On the count of three, hop in. At this distance, he won¡¯t be able to hide his Aura from both of us. The first person to feel it beelines, the other follows their lead. Ready?¡±


    ¡°Ready.¡± Sylvia did a mental three count, held her breath, and dropped into the building.


    Immediately upon landing on the concrete three stories below, she realized her mistake, as a dim Aura manifested, hidden behind a crate to her right, and a much, much more powerful one bloomed directly behind her.


    ¡°They''re here!¡± their quarry yelled from his hiding place.


    Shiv turned just in time to see a hulking man in white robes, face scarified by some sort of burn, roar and let loose with a wave of force. She took the attack square in the chest. The blow was so powerful that even though she¡¯d been primed against kinetic energy, the attack quickly overwhelmed her defenses, a portion of the force overflowing the limits of her Aura and colliding with her body unobstructed. She gasped as the wind was driven out of her, and felt a rib snap as she caromed off a concrete support pillar.


    Her ears rang, and when she heard the sound of Shiv roaring, both nearby and in her earbud, it sounded distant, thin. Shiv darted over her and let loose with a flurry of explosions, too late, only managing to destroy part of the wall the man had been standing in front of.


    ¡°Apostle,¡± Sylvia rasped, trying to raise herself to her feet. ¡°He¡¯s an Apostle.¡±


    Shiv met the man on the ground and hit him, twice, a kick to the leg and then the chest. The man easily absorbed these, but, too complacent, he let Shiv¡¯s third attack connect with his face, expecting it to bounce off.


    A spiderweb of razor-thin cuts bloomed on the man¡¯s neck and jaw, and he roared again, lashing out with another wave of force, darting back. Sylvia was up and ready for him now, charging a roiling ball of lightning, the energy pulling at her like an eager dog on a leash.


    ¡°Shiv!¡±


    Shiv let her own pocket of energy bloom, a positively-charged vacuum of sorts, right behind the man. The lightning arced toward Sylvia, drawn to the target she¡¯d drawn, and it collided with the Apostle¡¯s midsection, potent enough that the man''s skin became briefly translucent, his insides lit with an eerie blue glow.


    The man screamed another curse and convulsed briefly, before slashing the air with a fist, discharging the overabundance of energy, too much for him to absorb at once.


    The waste electricity danced away, colliding with the man they¡¯d been chasing, just as he¡¯d ventured out from his hiding place, knocking him unconscious. Sylvia would¡¯ve laughed at his awful luck if her ribs hadn¡¯t been in such agony.


    The Apostle came to his senses just as Shiv reached him again, rained down two more blows, cutting bloody gouges into his upraised forearm. He punched at her, missing, and Sylvia was behind him now, raining blows into his back, his liver, his kidney, each blow penetrating his retreating Aura more and more, each impact imparting more energy through his defenses and into his fragile, human body.


    The Apostle roared and wheeled, blood spurting from his scalp as Shiv cut him again and again. He was strong, but too slow, and disoriented, a moose fending off a pack of wolves, losing steam.


    Sylvia felt a surge of excitement as she danced around his desperate attacks, landing increasingly weighty blows, knocking back his defenses more each time. They¡¯d come to get Shiv to absorb a relative nobody, some low-ranking cultist goon, but they might end up with an entire Apostle¡¯s worth of juice, now. If there was any doubt that Shiv would be strong enough to fix herself after this, it was banished. They had him on the ropes. The man was faltering, losing, bleeding. Just a few more-


    A third Aura blossomed from a hiding spot on the periphery of the warehouse and streaked over to them, faster than Shiv or Sylvia could react. A thinner, more severe-looking man kicked the Apostle away and stood between the two of them, one hand held aloft. At the tip of his finger, a nauseating golden light ignited.


    The sight of the queasy yellow energy immediately made Sylvia¡¯s brain lurch. She moved to kneecap the man and slipped, her limbs suddenly foreign, less like parts of her body and more like distant, remotely-operated machinery. She felt her awareness of her Aura slacken, she felt the sudden, jarring weight of the batteries on her back, now, she felt her constant awareness of the world of tremors and textures shrink away.


    Across from her, Shiv stumbled and fell to her knees, vomiting. The thin man chuckled and booted her in the stomach, sending her careening into a far wall. He turned and pressed his foot against Sylvia¡¯s back, pinning her down.


    ¡°Toby, you still alive?¡± the man called.


    ¡°Barely,¡± the Apostle responded, somewhere past the edges of Sylvia¡¯s swimming vision. ¡°Mike wasn¡¯t so lucky.¡±


    ¡°Well, sometimes the fish eats the bait.¡± The man ground his heel into Sylvia¡¯s back, making her ribs flare with fresh pain. ¡°Looks like we got a two-for-one. How¡¯s about we split it? You take the-¡±


    He was interrupted by the trill of a phone and grumbled. Sylvia heard him retrieve the device, flip it open. ¡°Hello? Right. You found the knight? Engaged him? Fantastic. How¡¯d it go?¡±


    There was a moment of silence. The afterimage of that awful yellow light was beginning to fade from the inside of Sylvia¡¯s eyelids, and she was feeling her strength begin to return, when the man slammed his heel against her back again.


    ¡°We gave you a detachment of thirteen Apostles,¡± the man growled into the phone. ¡°Thirteen!¡±


    Another pause. Cracking her eyes open, Sylvia caught a glimpse of Shiv rising to one knee, face slack and pale, her eyes averted from the man.


    ¡°None of them?¡± the man hissed. ¡°The fuck do you mean none of them survived?¡±

 Act IV, Chapter 8: The Dennys

    It is good to be alive.


    Peter surfaces again. He feels the familiar weight of his combat suit, studded with batteries and beads, draped over his usual robes. He stands with maybe the largest single grouping of Apostles he can remember seeing in one place.


    He reminds himself that he remembers very little.


    Some of the Apostles are familiar to him, their faces conjure names from the shadowy, boxed-out corner of his mind keeping subconscious tallies. Armand, the towering man with the unbreakable Blessing, Leslie with her crooked grimace and missing tooth, Annie (in the audience for some school play, songs and dances about orphans) with her arms wreathed in tattoos.


    A few of the others are less familiar. Some are outright strangers. He vaguely recalls something about increased Converts swelling the ranks lately. Recollections of their plan hang in his mind like a fog: a large-scale offensive, to combat the Girl and prepare the coming war, the unexpected appearance of a high priority target, one whose consumption would elevate even an Apostle to heights second only to Phoenix himself.


    And he understands why he is where he is, now, standing with this small battalion in the dark parking lot of the Denny¡¯s (¡°slow down, Pete, nobody¡¯s trying to take your Grand Slamwich¡±), preparing and steeling themselves for something major.


    "Divisions," Armand barks, cutting their massed crowd of 13 into three groups with sweeps of his hand. "Concentrate fire on the signal. Division one, kinetic. Two, heat. Three, electricity. It has to be simultaneous. This is not some M-corp musclehead. This is not some hothead mercenary with a cute Knack. This man is, as far as we can tell, a real fucking monster. Maybe he can take everything you can throw at him. Maybe he can''t. Phoenix is confident that 13 Apostles'' worth of energy, spread across three different forms, should be enough to confuse even his Blessing''s best defenses. Anything short of that is not guaranteed. We need our first strike to be our last strike. Understood?


    Peter joins the murmured chorus of assent. Armand glances around at his gathered army, nods, and swivels to the entrance. Peter and the others fall in behind him.


    Inside, the restaurant is largely empty, save for a very startled-looking old man sipping coffee in a distant booth, and their target, posted up at the counter by the kitchen.


    The power radiating off of this man, without any visible exertions on his part, without any swellings or fluctuations in his Blessing, is staggering (a dizzy cloud of moths, bumping against grandpa¡¯s bug zapper, lining up to fry themselves).


    The man is short, broad-shouldered, his dark hair unkempt, his face dotted with stubble. His clothing is odd; his shirt is more like some sort of rough-spun tunic, his pants maybe leather? He¡¯s wearing something bulky beneath his shirt, he has a knife strapped to his belt. Peter startles when he notices the honest-to-goodness longsword leaning against the counter next to the man, who is busy tucking into an immense plate of scrambled eggs and making conversation with a rattled-looking waitress.


    ¡°-too sweet, especially with that syrup you put on them, but these, God in heaven, please give your cooks my highest regards for these. And those potato chunks, the salted ones, what did you call those again?¡±


    ¡°Hash browns.¡± The waitress¡¯s smile is thin and tight. Her eyes dart up as Peter and the other Apostles enter, and he sees her wilt a little at the prospect of an already strange shift growing stranger. ¡°G¡¯morning. Table for¡­ like, fourteen?¡±


    ¡°Won¡¯t be needing a table,¡± Armand gravels. The man at the counter wipes his mouth with a napkin and stretches, swivels on his stool to greet them. The man¡¯s dark eyes rake over each one of the Apostles, drinking them in. If he¡¯s troubled by them, he doesn¡¯t show it.


    ¡°Here we are. The vanguard. Er-¡± the man glances over his shoulder at the waitress¡¯s nametag. ¡°Kelsey. So sorry about this, but you and your comrades might want to evacuate the building. Try and put a few hundred paces between you and the property if you can.¡±


    The waitress seems bothered. ¡°These friends of yours, Fizz?¡±


    ¡°Fitz. And no. No, they¡¯re going to try to kill me in a minute. Again, best for you to be scampering now.¡±


    The waitress turns her attention back to Armand. ¡°No fighting in the building. If you-¡±


    ¡°Kelsey!¡± the man amplifies his voice with his Blessing, deepening and broadening it. The effect is immediate, and the woman stiffens. The old man in the corner hustles out a back exit. ¡°ime is of the essence!¡±


    Kelsey doesn¡¯t need to be told twice.


    The man stands from the counter, rolls his neck, scoops his sword up. All around Peter he feels the flashbulb twinkling of other Blessings revving up.


    The man studies them. ¡°Thirteen Consecrated in one spot, and not one trying to eat the man next to him? I¡¯ve got to commend you for your discipline.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ve got a dozen men on you,¡± Armand says. ¡°We can make this quick, or we can draw this out.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t come all this way to dodge the first bit of sport.¡± The man cranes his neck to watch Kelsey clamber into her car in the parking lot and drive off. He nods, turns back to face them. ¡°Now. Show me your Shrouds.¡±


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    There¡¯s a moment of confused silence.


    ¡°Fine. I¡¯ll lead the way.¡± The man straightens, and his Blessing erupts from him. The volume of it is unbelievable, swollen, its upmost reaches touching the ceiling, its outer boundary maybe as wide around as a small room. The force of its expansion blows out most of the glass in the building, sends a small hurricane of menus and napkins fluttering in the air. Peter is driven back a step.


    ¡°Show me,¡± the man demands again, voice laced with power.


    Gradually, all around Peter, his fellow Apostles expand their own Blessings to their fullest. None of them, not even Annie, can make anything even a third as large as the man¡¯s, and the display feels a little pathetic, but Peter joins in, fear buttressed slightly by the reminder of their numbers.


    The man grins. ¡°There we go. Well. En Garde.¡±


    It is good to be alive.


    Peter comes to again, to the sound of roaring wind in his ears.


    It takes him a moment to place where exactly he is: hundreds of feet in the air, falling fast (skydivers flipping in patterns, their faces rippled by wind, rock music in the background). He has no idea how he ended up here. Far below, the Denny¡¯s has been reduced to a flaming waste, its highlighter-yellow sign laying lengthwise across a blasted crater.


    There¡¯s screaming coming from above him. Peter flips around just in time to see Armand hurtling down toward him, pale and terrified, his mouth frozen open in a shocked ¡°O.¡±


    Armand¡¯s legs are missing. No, wait, there they are, fluttering several dozen feet above them. Armand screams something unintelligible to Peter, and then an invisible cleaver chops his head in two, cleanly bisecting between his eyes.


    Charging through the remains of his leader, sword in hand, the man from the restaurant hurtles down through the air. He''s laughing.


    Peter braces himself.


    It is good to be alive.


    Peter coughs up blood, feels the quake and rattle of something deep in his chest, fractured or broken. He glances around: he¡¯s in the parking lot, now, his body half-embedded in the asphalt.


    He¡¯d been thrown down at incredible speed. The kind of impact only he would be able to survive. Scattered around him are the remains of his fellow Apostles, who hadn¡¯t been blessed with the Knack for absorbing massive impacts that Peter had.


    Annie¡¯s crumpled form lands beside him, her shirt licked with flames, her eyes vacant, dead. Peter feels as if this should elicit some emotion in him, but he can¡¯t recall enough about Annie to feel the grief he feels he should.


    With a crunch, the man lands behind Peter, flecking him with chips of asphalt and dirt. Peter is too embedded to turn and watch as his opponent approaches, can only listen to the gravel crunch of his footsteps.


    The tip of a sword edges into his vision, pointed down at his chest.


    ¡°Yield,¡± says the man. ¡°Yield and I¡¯ll leave you be. None of you are fit for my armory, anyway.¡±


    Peter has no idea what this means. Unbidden by him, his hand reaches up and grabs at the blade of the sword, the cushioning of his Blessing keeping it from cutting him. ¡°Sorry,¡± he coughs. ¡°He won¡¯t let me.¡±


    Peter¡¯s hand wrenches weakly at the blade. The man steps into view, pulling his weapon away with something like pity. ¡°Who won¡¯t let you? What does that mean?¡±


    ¡°Blessed Above,¡± Peter says.


    ¡°He some sort of leader? The head of your, uh, merry band?¡±


    Peter does the best approximation of a shrug he can, half-stuck into the ground. His arms are scrabbling against the asphalt now, trying to pull him out, to launch him at his enemy. Peter watches their efforts with a hollow dread. To get back up and fight is the last thing he wants now.


    ¡°Is he¡­ controlling you?¡± the man asks, dark features screwed up, quizzical.


    ¡°Something like that. He can-¡± Peter¡¯s jaw clamps shut of its own accord, and he quickly gives up on trying to talk. He¡¯s halfway out now, his arms working to yank his legs free. The knight steps forward and pins him with his boot. The weight behind his foot is immense, and his frenzied, disembodied thrashings are helpless against it.


    The knight squints, studying him, then looks off to the south, where even now Peter can feel the distant presence of Phoenix, watching, pulling. ¡°Your Shroud isn¡¯t your own. It¡¯s¡­ rented?¡±


    Peter would laugh if he was allowed. The knight shakes his head, disgusted.


    ¡°What a way to put a damper on a fine melee. This is not sporting. Not sporting at all.¡±


    The knight kneels down, retrieving the knife from his side. He flashes it in front of Peter¡¯s face.


    ¡°I have an idea, young man. I know he won¡¯t let you speak, so you¡¯ll have to blink twice if you consent to it.¡± The knight pulls Peter¡¯s head up by the hair, and he can feel the weapon''s cold tip somewhere at the base of his skull. ¡°This dirk of mine, it¡¯s more than just a sidearm. It can cleave Shrouds at their fundamental level, can ignore them and their effects entirely. It¡¯s scarcely bright enough to see, it''s why I didn''t notice it before, but there¡¯s the faintest sliver of Shroud connecting you to your master, stretching from you off into the distance, where I assume he¡¯s sitting now, fuming at me. Now, were I to sever this thread with my dirk, I imagine one of two things might happen. First: the shock instantly kills you. Second: it severs your connection to your master, freeing you.¡±


    The knight¡¯s head hovers back into Peter¡¯s field of view, one eyebrow cocked. ¡°Would you like me to try?¡±


    Peter tries to decide if he¡¯s afraid to die. He feels as if the part of himself that wants to live ("I''ll always be here. You just need to remember.¡±) is still there, somewhere, but it¡¯s bound and gagged, stowed in a cupboard. He feels the shape of its absence more than its presence.


    He glances around at the mangled, burned remains of his comrades. He senses the fury of Phoenix as he watches, feels it in the thrashing of his body against the knight¡¯s overwhelming strength.


    He half-remembers a day, long distant, when he died before. He doesn¡¯t remember it hurting very much at all. If anything, the experience had enough of a pleasant aftertaste to lodge itself in his brain, even now. It was nothing to be afraid of.


    He looks at the knight and blinks twice.

 Act IV, Chapter 9: The Pivot

    Dyantyi shouldered his way into Rai''s penthouse suite, their makeshift base of operations. He''d objected at centering their activity somewhere so visible, but Rai had shrugged off his concerns with her usual impunity and hunkered down there. It had been three days and her bed still looked entirely untouched, feeding Dyantyi''s pet theory that the woman didn''t sleep.


    "You''re twelve minutes late," she said, hidden from Dyantyi as he ducked into the bathroom to wash the still-oozing wound on his arm.


    "I got held up." He was out a minute later, applying fresh gauze to the gouge on his shoulder. He stumbled to a stop at the sight of Maldonado, and some fidgety minion of hers, seated at the conference table Rai had set up in the suite''s living room.


    "Hello," Maldonado chirped, prim and polite as always. She was dressed impeccably, a senior executive wearing a thousand-dollar haircut and a shark''s smile. The man at her side was close to the opposite: visibly out of shape, in a flannel and cargo shorts, eyes baggy and nailbeds picked raw.


    Rai sat across from them, statuesque, one eyebrow crooked in amusement at Ditantyi''s wound. "Busy night?"


    "Why''s she here?" Dyantyi nodded toward Maldonado, whose grin widened.


    "Thrilled to see you too," Maldonado cooed.


    "She''s promoted. Senior strategy analyst. Meet your coworker." Rai said this casually, as if remarking on the weather, but Dyantyi knew she was all too aware how rankled he''d be by this news. He resolved not to let it show too much.


    "Isn''t her whole specialty intel? What happened to compartmentalization?"


    "Well, when you threaten a major government official and a famously indiscrete billionaire with death via your brian powers, some of your security hygiene has already gone out the window," Maldonado said.


    "She''s speaking for you now?"


    "I know you don''t trust her. Frankly, neither do I," Rai said, directly to Maldonado''s face. To her credit, the woman seemed to take this in stride. "But she''s proven herself to be a one-in-a-billion analytical talent and it would be a misstep not to implement her on the ground while her allegiances still align with ours."


    "And her friend?"


    "Field expert," Maldonado said, before the man beside her could think to speak. "Working mostly under me. No need for formal introductions."


    Dyantyi made a mental note to dig into the guy''s identity when he had a second. He turned his attention back to Rai. "Got good news and bad news."


    "Don''t patronize me," Rai warned. "Bad news first."


    Dyantyi rolled his shoulder, felt his wound protest at the motion. "We''re losing Murderers faster than initially predicted. I still think that singling out Phoenix''s operation, since they''re our most widespread, unified competition here, was the right call. And his base-level grunts are the pushovers we expected them to be. But we undershot how strong his Apostles are."


    "Losses?" Rai said. "Don''t be vague. Quantify."


    "Sixteen today. Thirty-eight since day one."


    Maldonado let out a low whistle, as if she wasn''t already intimately aware of this. Dyantyi glared at her.


    Rai''s composure was unwavering. "That is quite bad news."


    "It''s a sixty-six percent reduction in your offense," Maldonado added.


    "Well, if you''re just counting bodies, sure," Dyantyi fired back. "But these aren''t normal soldiers. Our survivors and winners often eat and absorb the losses, and their firepower grows proportionate to that."


    "I know. I took that into account." Maldonado said, slow and even, like she was explaining the times tables to a particularly slow first grader. "It''s over eighty percent if you''re counting personnel." The woman''s assistant glanced from her to Dyantyi like a kid stuck between a pair of quarreling parents.


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    "How''d this happen?" Rai asked.


    "Like I said, we underestimated the Apostles." Dyantyi fought the urge to look away, to show any sort of weakness here. "Once we instructed active Murderers to go for regular acolytes instead of the big dogs, Phoenix''s men started setting up bait traps, using their lower-ranked combatants to lure fighters in toward ambushes with Apostles lying in wait. It was effective, briefly, before we caught on. If-"


    "How many of those losses come from our elite corps?" Rai cut in.


    "Only one. So far keeping them bound together in one unit has rendered them close to unstoppable. Lennox alone has claimed two Apostles for himself."


    "If they''re so effective, why are you limiting their reach by clumping them up?" Maldonado asked.


    "All due respect," Dyantyi said, voice dripping with disrespect, "the fuck do you know about conducting an urban guerilla warfare campaign?"


    "Not as much as you." Maldonado shrugged. "But I''m a quick learner."


    "Regardless," Rai said. "It sounds like a change in strategy is in order."


    "Maybe not." Dyantyi cleared his throat. "I still have the good news. Phoenix is losing manpower much quicker than we are. Basic estimation I''ve got is that he''s lost fifty, maybe sixty since day one. A third of those were Apostles. Our mole thinks he lost thirteen in one night, somehow."


    "The knight," Maldonado said, nodding sagely. "They tried to corner a Demigod too early in the game. A lucky misplay for us."


    Dyantyi squinted at her. "If she already knows everything, why am I here?"


    "You both have your roles," Rai assured. "You''re the premiere expert on Phoenix and our operations on the ground. Maldonado''s using her connections and our new sat data to track Demigods and lone actors. I need eyes in both arenas."


    "Speaking of lone actors, I vote that we focus our remaining forces on picking those off, and leave Phoenix to keep shooting himself in the foot," Maldonado said, inspecting one perfectly manicured nail.


    Dyantyi barked a laugh. "You can''t be serious. They''re losing men but they''re still a massive threat, one that can generate fresh manpower constantly. Phoenix needs to be nipped in the bud now. We don''t even know if the one-offs have any interest in fighting."


    "They will, once they figure out what''s at stake. And unlike Phoenix, these lone wolf types aren''t operating in groups, they''re vulnerable. Some of them don''t know how to use their Fields in the first place."


    Dyantyi''s stomach churned a little at that. "You want to waste time picking off small fry?"


    "They''re an easy way to strengthen our Murderers. Like you said, our fighting force is one that gets stronger with each win, so logically the move would be to maximize the quantity of wins, instead of making judgements about quality."


    "I don''t like the idea of targeting innocents."


    "They''re not innocents. They''re Field Manipulators in a city that''s about to become an active warzone. At best they''re already dead, and at worst they''re potential future threats."


    "That''s a pretty fucking bloodthirsty way to-"


    Rai tapped a knuckle on her desk and the two fell silent. She took a moment to look out the window at the Minneapolis skyline, took a few meditative breaths before responding. "Maldonado''s right. Keep the elites on the war effort, instruct all remaining Murderers to target isolated Sensitives, prioritizing the newly awakened. Budget for a commensurate bonus to pay following each confirmed kill, if the power boost they''ll get from absorption isn''t enough of a motivator already."


    "This is reckless, Ms. Rai," Dyantyi urged. "I don''t have tabs on all of the newly-awakened, but they''re bound to be in public. Hell, one of them''s probably still in the hospital now. We''ll draw attention."


    "That''s what the Mops are for."


    "Mops can''t un-fuck a pediatric ward."


    "Well, then we''ll have cops on us too. That''s fine. The feds already know I''m here, they''ve agreed to stay out of the way."


    "You can''t possibly believe they''ll-"


    Another rap on the table cut him off. Dyantyi chided himself. Rai didn¡¯t make a habit of offering third strikes. "Of course they won''t. But they''re not sufficiently mobilized to step in yet. We have a window. And a little undue attention isn''t going to hurt us. We''re days or weeks from the social order beginning to break down."


    "Like I said, you already blew your cover on the plane," Maldonado added. "Intentionally, of course."


    "You''re prepared to do this?" Rai asked, leveling her steely gaze at Dyantyi. "If you aren''t, I have others who would gladly take the reins."


    Dyantyi could have sworn Maldonado''s eyes twinkled at that. He frowned. "I can do it. We''ll mobilize first thing in the morning. If you have any intel about numbers and whereabouts-"


    "Maldonado has plenty, and I''m sure she''d be happy to assist."


    "As a clam," the woman said, her smile perfect and diplomatic and infuriating.


    "Great." Dyantyi flexed his shoulder again, felt the wound, a cut he received two hours ago while helping two top Murderers chase down a pair of acolytes. He''d caught a bit of shrapnel, flung out by the last surviving quarry of the pair, a teenage boy who flailed and screamed as he fought, as his attempt to run away had been cut short by his master. He had been puppeted back into their line of fire. The boy had cried the whole time they''d fought. He felt a twinge from his conscience at that, that old, calcified organ of his. It was uncomfortable, but not intolerable. He''d lowered his head in respect but now he refused to look back up, sure that Maldonado was staring at him.


    "We''ll start hunting at sunup."

 Act V, Chapter 1: The Alley

    Pietro paced back and forth in the tight confines of the alleyway that had been designated as the night¡¯s pickup spot. His van was over thirty minutes late. This had never happened before. Alarm bells were sounding in his head, dread was roiling in his gut. Something was wrong.


    He hadn¡¯t bungled the job, despite the frankly insane amount of work he¡¯d been expected to do in his allotted window. The church basement had been near-ruined; it was a miracle he¡¯d been able to salvage most of the original carpet, a sign of his experience that he¡¯d artfully covered up the burn marks streaking the walls. More battery fragments weighed down the trash bag he left slumped against his duffel on the ground, as well as what appeared to be the source of the crimson scraps he¡¯d been seeing at more and more job sites: he¡¯d collected a nearly intact red cloak of some kind, spattered in gore, at the scene.


    The Mover had confirmed the time when he¡¯d called to report back. He was at the correct coordinates, he¡¯d quadruple-checked this. Where were they?


    He thought he was in the clear. He assumed he¡¯d been forgiven.


    A vehicle rolled to a stop at the far end of the alley, idled there. It wasn¡¯t one of the Mover¡¯s usual vans or SUVs; it resembled a police car, without the sirens or insignia.


    The man who stepped from the car was lithe and muscular, clothed in all black, wearing a mask and, oddly, dark glasses, despite the lateness of the hour. He nodded toward Pietro, gestured for him to approach.


    ¡°I¡¯m your pickup tonight,¡± the man said. He was resting his hand on the car¡¯s hood, for some reason, stood as if reluctant to break contact with it.


    Pietro hesitated for a moment, then, not seeing much in the way of alternatives, gathered his bags and hurried toward the car.


    When he was maybe ten paces away, his vision swam in a way that was sickeningly familiar. What started as a sort of double-image over reality coalesced into something more solid. Time around him seemed to slow as this double-image played its course in real-time:


    The man, one hand still on the hood, raised his other hand up lightning-fast, index and thumb arranged in a finger-gun. A thin bolt of lightning, actual, visible lightning, arced from the tip of his finger, toward him.


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    Pietro¡¯s vision lurched backwards, away from his own body, and he watched himself be struck in the chest by this strange projectile, spectated from above as he collapsed backward to the ground, striking his head hard on the concrete, spasming and steaming as the electricity coursed through him and cooked him from inside out.


    Then, as his vision had on the day he¡¯d killed a man on the job, as his vision had before his meeting with the ghoulish woman in the woods, this scene quickly reversed and he was shunted back into real-time.


    Pietro jerked out of instinct, falling backward, just as the man raised his arm, exactly how he¡¯d foreseen. The bolt of lightning that was meant to kill him arced away, drawn to the metal of a fire escape a few feet to Pietro¡¯s left.


    Pietro heard the man curse, and before he had time to stand, before another vision could play out and warn him of his next course of action, the man was at his side, as if he¡¯d popped into existence there.


    Pietro was lifted bodily from the ground and slammed into a wall. He didn¡¯t know if it was his imagination, but the impact seemed to shudder the entire building behind him on its foundations. Another vision began to play out in front of Pietro, another half-image forming to show him just how the man would pummel him to death with fists too fast to see.


    Unfortunately, this time, the advance warning was no use. Pietro, held off his feet and out of his mind with panic, was in no state to dodge anything.


    The man reared back to strike him, and Pietro noticed an odd shimmer around his person. A viscous, miniature atmosphere that shifted and shined, an inch or so from the surface of his skin, all over. The haze glowed and surged brightly around the man¡¯s right fist as he threw his first blow.


    The man only had to hit Pietro once before it all went black.


    Quiet, and then warmth.


    Pietro is in a world that is less a space and more an all-encompassing glow. The glow is aware of him and overjoyed that he is within it. The glow is composed of other minds like his. The minds are eager to meet him, to discuss and debrief.


    Pietro is briefly stunned by the scalding heat of direct attention, but that gives way to relief, to recognition that he¡¯s ready to accept what they¡¯re offering.


    Before the conversation can begin, before he can really be seen, the glow recedes, too fast for Pietro to even begin to object.

 Act V, Chapter 2: The Lion Is Out

    Madison woke without opening her eyes, and for a moment she thought she was back at Gramma¡¯s. The sensation of being in bed was so overfamiliar to her now, so inextricably tied with the concept of being trapped, that the weight of the sheets had become synonymous with confinement to her. The soft plush of the mattress a sapping, degenerative force, a vacuum that kept her in place and ate away at her muscles, worried her skin into sores.


    When she opened her eyes and was greeted by the dim interior of the hospital room, she was hit with a wave of disorientation that she took a few nauseous seconds to ride out. Ripples of panic, and then relief, and then quiet unease worked their way through her.


    She was alone, accompanied only by the gentle beeping of some medical instrument and the distant, scuffing sound of some nurse walking the halls in the night. She¡¯d awoken facing the far window, and she watched the distant lights of cars on the highway through it while her brain defogged, shedding the cobwebs of sleep. She yawned, shuffled, and turned over.


    Her door was open. Just a crack.


    A man was peering through it, at her.


    She stiffened, startled but not terrified. The man had the look of some sort of employee. He was in all black, with a cloth mask and a baseball cap and dark glasses.


    This last detail troubled her, on second thought. Why would someone wear dark glasses indoors? And he wasn¡¯t a nurse, clearly, he wasn¡¯t in scrubs, so why was he looking at her?


    The man had clearly seen her shift to face him, and, after a second, drew himself up and walked into her room. He closed the door behind him, quietly, hand held up to his face in a ¡°shh¡± motion. What was he, some sort of technician?


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    It was then that she noticed the shimmer of something odd around the man¡¯s skin. Like an almost imperceptible cloud of color, shifting and refracting in the dim light, somehow visible despite the darkness.


    The man slowly raised his hand, as if offering something up to her, from across the room. He was holding what looked like a metal ball bearing, perched between his middle finger and thumb. Like he was about to flick it in her direction.


    The shimmer surrounding the man shuddered and jumped. Madison noticed a spark, or, it wasn¡¯t a visible spark, more like the feeling of a spark, arc up from some point in the backpack the man was wearing and dance along his arm, toward his outstretched hand.


    ¡°Excuse me,¡± she said, deeply uneasy now. ¡°Are you with the-¡±


    There was a bang, and Madison felt a queer, cool pain lance through her forehead as the man propelled the ball bearing at the speed of a bullet, directly through her brain.


    Quiet, and then an explosion. All five senses engaged at once, more being layered on every second.


    A feeling of confinement, brief and detested, then discarded. Cage broken. The lion is out.


    Flying, hurtling, screaming through a roaring sky. Shapes and colors blur around her, and she leaves them behind, outpaces sound, outstrips light. Nothing, no person or being or concept can touch her now. Nothing can hold her in place.


    This new and incomparable exhilaration lasts less than a second and more than forever, and then, as quickly as it appeared, it is gone.

 Act 5, Chapter 3: The Revenge Plan

    Simon couldn¡¯t sleep. His mind was racing. A plan for revenge had been coalescing for hours now, and was complete enough for him to act on it.


    Full of purpose and far from tired, Simon rolled out of bed and began pulling on his outfit for the day: khakis, dress shirt, a half-zip sweater in case the night was chilly. He didn¡¯t have the patience for a full shower, so he doused his blond quaff in the sink and teased it into order, freezing it in place with a handful of pomade.


    Sufficiently groomed, he set into motion. He had a pack ready in five minutes, having already made a mental inventory of exactly what he¡¯d need during his restless, fuming planning. He expected to want to be able to live out of the bag for a week at least, to minimize opportunities for Father to follow his movements by tracking card charges. He¡¯d take a few hundred in cash for food and gas.


    He was leaving. If Father really wanted to ¡°re-prioritize¡± his little sister so much, then he should be prepared to deal with the consequences of that decision. When the help returned tomorrow morning and found the house abandoned, when they phoned Father to inform him that his failed experiment had flown the coop, Simon anticipated that the man would strike a different tone. He estimated that there was well over a 90% chance that Father would drop everything an attempt to find him.


    He represented well over sixteen years of work, after all. Any clinical trial running half that long would be a disastrous resource to squander. Father would make an effort.


    He¡¯d be furious if he found Simon, and the boy was too analytical to allow himself the folly of hoping that the odds of that were low. There were factors working against him, not the least of which being his total unfamiliarity with navigating the world without the help of chauffers or chaperones or tutors to handle the busywork.


    Still, Simon thought he had a fighting chance to see his own plan out to the end.


    He¡¯d spent most of the last day lighting matches. After hours of sweaty, migraine-inducing concentration, he¡¯d managed to get his technique consistent enough that he could usually get a match lit within a window of five to eight minutes. He managed to light six in a row this way before feeling too spent to continue.


    If he could put enough distance between him and home to buy him time, he was sure he could use some of the phone numbers he¡¯d lifted from Father¡¯s (almost disappointingly amateurishly) encrypted contact list to put himself in contact with a reputable enough media outlet or academic institution to arrange a meeting to prove his abilities.


    If he could replicate this feat of spontaneous combustion, in a controlled environment, he could make a name for himself. He¡¯d suddenly stop becoming Professor Lindberg¡¯s generational attempt at instrumentalizing his model theory of child psychology for maximizing IQ, and become Simon, the first ever documented superhuman. A feat not only essentially unparalleled in modern science, but, more importantly, one that Father couldn¡¯t realistically claim any credit for.


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    Sure, he could try and argue that his newfound pyrokinesis was a knock-on result of his intensive intellectual training, but he had nothing empirical to prove this, no claim with any rigor to it. He hoped Father would try. With any luck, the resulting academic backlash would paint him to be a quack, instead of just irrelevant.


    He finished packing and trundled his suitcase down to the garage, tossed it into the trunk of his Father¡¯s second car, an electric SUV he¡¯d acquired from some colleague in the energy industry. Simon climbed into the driver¡¯s seat and rifled through the glove compartment, found the car¡¯s manual. He had never driven before. Father had considered a driver¡¯s license a needless distraction.


    But a quick browse of the manual, coupled with the basics he¡¯d absorbed from the few films he¡¯d been allowed to watch, would be more than sufficient, Simon was sure. He¡¯d figure it out on the road.


    He punched the door to open the garage, body thrumming with energy. He¡¯d never done anything nearly this disobedient before. He¡¯d never so much as committed a misdemeanor before, and here he was, starting off his great rebellious journey with some light grand theft auto. He was proud of himself, distantly, and also sick-to-his-stomach terrified. He put the car into reverse, started backing out. He wondered what Father¡¯s face would look like when-


    Simon yelped and hit the brakes. He¡¯d nearly hit a man.


    A man. Standing in his driveway, in a gated community. At five in the morning.


    Wearing all black, hair and face concealed by a hat and dark glasses. He was holding something, pointing it his way, difficult to make out in the dark and glare of the rearview mirror.


    Simon deduced that he was about to be shot at remarkably quickly for someone who had never even considered being put in that position before. Unfortunately for him, this deduction came just a fraction of a second before a bullet, oddly divorced from any audible gunshot, pierced the rear window and crashed through his priceless brain, spattering some of it on the windshield on the way out.


    Quiet, and then adulation.


    Simon was being buoyed up by a seething crowd of arms and hands. The limbs were grasping, fawning, desperate for even a glancing touch, tossing him like an angry sea.


    The limbs, and their owners, were dirty and feeble, but where they touched, a sheen of brilliance leached onto their surface, sloughing off of his own flawless form. Every one of the faceless horde that made contact with him was brought to screeching euphoria by the purification the grazing touch afforded them.


    All around him, voices chanted in varied, unknowable but totally comprehensible non-language. They sang songs of his superiority, professed their testimony of his great mind.


    Simon laughed and cheered, overwhelmed by a great sense of relief. He¡¯d made it. The world had recognized him for what he was. He¡¯d finally been delivered into a place that felt Right. That felt Correct.


    He was able to enjoy his proper place, as the object of an oceanic volume of worship, for less than a moment and more than a universe¡¯s many lifespans, before it left him as soon as it had found him.

 Act V, Chapter 4: The Walk

    ¡°I mean, the guy said he¡¯d train you to be a superhero,¡± Ben said, mouth half-full of jello. ¡°You gotta call him.¡±


    ¡°He definitely didn¡¯t say that,¡± Ali laughed. His cheeks hurt a little from smiling. Ben was up and about today, only a little drugged-up, and in good spirits. His surgery had gone close to flawlessly, and other than a shortened colon and a spontaneous appendectomy, he was on track to recover fine.


    ¡°He said you had super powers. He said he¡¯d train you.¡±


    ¡°He said I was ''special.'' And, more importantly, he said someone was gonna try and kill me.¡±


    ¡°I mean, that tracks. That¡¯s standard superhero shit.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not fighting crime.¡±


    Ben laughed, tossed away his snack, leaned back in his hospital bed. ¡°Right. Not a lot of supervillains in Minneapolis. It¡¯d probably be overboard to throw a fastball through a guy¡¯s head because he¡¯s jacking someone¡¯s Honda.¡±


    Ali choked, caught between laughter and stifled unease, which only made Ben laugh harder. ¡°Again, man, I¡¯m so fucking sorry-¡±


    ¡°Save it, dude. Nothing to apologize for.¡±


    ¡°I blew half your guts out onto the Cane¡¯s parking lot.¡±


    ¡°Oh my God, did someone clean that up?¡± Ben giggled, clearly still enjoying the knock-on effects of his painkillers. ¡°I bet some poor janitor had to mop my colon juice.¡±


    ¡°Seriously, man. If you¡¯re pissed, it¡¯s totally-¡±


    ¡°You didn¡¯t mean it. You couldn¡¯t have meant it! It was the freakiest freak accident in history. I¡¯m close to back to normal already, and I got a cool story out of it.¡± Ben shrugged.


    ¡°Well-¡± Ali hesitated, kept his voice low. ¡°You might wanna hold off on telling it. You know, in case-¡±


    ¡°Right, in case mystery van man wasn¡¯t lying about there being people out there to get you.¡± Ben sobered up a little. ¡°Shit, yeah. Yeah, that¡¯s a little freaky.¡±


    ¡°That, or, like, what if the government wants to cut me open or something? I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m supposed to do here.¡± Ali made a little distraught noise, at a loss. ¡°Like, do I call the guy?¡±


    ¡°Definitely call the guy.¡±


    ¡°After that, what? Do I shut up about it? Do I just go about getting a summer job like nothing happened? If I¡¯m too loose talking about it, and, like, my mom¡¯s smart fridge or Siri or whatever is snooping on me and tells the government, do they scoop me up in the night and take me to Area 51, or do they not know anything at all?¡± Ali frowned, wrung his hands. ¡°Like, there¡¯s no manual here. I¡¯ve got no idea what my next step¡¯s supposed to be.¡±


    ¡°Well.¡± Ben leaned forward, scratched his chin, affected introspection in a way that suited his heavy, intense features. ¡°You were saying, you know, right before you rocked my shit, that everything was about to change anyway, and there wasn¡¯t anything you could do about it. So maybe just, like, put your head down and charge into it? The uncertainty. If everything¡¯s gonna be chaos anyway, at least now you get to go into it with badass baseball powers.¡±


    ¡°That was¡­ surprisingly nuanced, man.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not just a pretty face.¡±


    Ali let himself laugh a little, but the tension winding itself around his gut had only loosened a fraction. He looked around the room, aimless, then stood.


    ¡°Cool if I take a quick walk? I¡¯m feeling a little cooped up.¡±


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    ¡°That a good idea? What if one of the Bad Guys jumps you?¡±


    ¡°Better he do that out in the open, I guess.¡± Ali was surprised by how little of his current anxiety was centered on the maybe-fact that he was the subject of a manhunt. It didn¡¯t feel real to him. There were several more pressing matters weighing on his mind right now, and the specter of semi-possible random violence didn¡¯t strike him as solid enough to care about. ¡°If I get shot at in here, he might clip a rando.¡±


    ¡°Worrying about collateral damage, striking out on his own for the good of the civilians,¡± Ben nodded knowingly. ¡°Superhero shit, man. Go take your walk.¡±


    Ali laughed again. Lots of laughing tonight. God, it was a relief that Ben would be okay.


    He was out into the chill of the late night -- or, no early morning -- a few moments later, headed off down the sidewalk. He pulled his hood up, half to keep his ears warm, half for the feeling of anonymity, and walked.


    Ali liked to walk, and he knew the area well. He was the brooding type, prone to constant, incessant thinking, the kind that can only really be dislodged and straightened out with physical movement. He¡¯d tried getting into running, but found that the fatigue of it, the slamming footfalls and heavy breaths, disrupted his mental rhythm too much to be meditative.


    So he walked. He¡¯d covered most of this part of town plenty of times; the hospital was only about a mile from home. He knew the cross-streets well. He took a sort of native pride in this, how familiar the topography of his home was, how intimately acquainted with the city¡¯s character he¡¯d become.


    He liked Minneapolis. He liked the hilly, winding streets. He liked all the random bullshit millennial-core cafes. He liked the river, with its dead mills and cross-lacing of bridges. He like the drunk-kid byways that bordered the university campus, the rows of frat houses and student lodges slumped in their foundations and scattered with constantly-changing decor as new crops of students cycled in and out.


    He liked the trees. How blindingly, overwhelmingly green, like hedges more than anything, they got in the spring. He liked the seasons, how they marked the time. Even winter, which he¡¯d admit went on maybe two months too long, only made the eventual explosion in to spring all the more cathartic.


    He passed the squat, detached building where he¡¯d gone to daycare from ages five to ten. The graffiti-spattered stairway the skaters liked to grind down. The Thai place that sold Pad See Ew so amazing that Jenny had repeatedly insisted she¡¯d marry it if it were legal to ¡°wed a noodle.¡± The marshy park where he¡¯d been bitten by a goose once as a kid.


    Sure, there was a darkness to the city, too. But the darkness wasn¡¯t that complicated or scary, when you got a glimpse of it. Carjackings and drugs, alleged kidnappings, asshole soldier-cops. These things were there, but also, really, not there, not like people who¡¯d never stepped foot in the Twin Cities said they were. Ali wasn¡¯t scared to walk the streets at night. He wasn¡¯t afraid of the alleys, didn¡¯t think twice about leaving his mom¡¯s van parked by the curb. There wasn¡¯t anything especially evil about Minneapolis, and there were plenty of things that were especially nice.


    Or maybe he was biased, because it was home. Maybe he was blind to its faults because it¡¯s where he¡¯d learned to ride a bike and drive a car and become a man, a home his grandparents had staked out for their own, one that his parents had already been fully nativized to before he¡¯d been born. It didn¡¯t feel like something that would hurt him. It didn¡¯t make him nervous.


    What did make him nervous was the future. And his newfound, and apparently impossible to replicate, ability to throw baseballs through torsos. And the sudden appearance of the well-dressed van intruder. And-


    And the woman who had stepped out from behind a streetlamp and grabbed his arm.


    Ali jolted, let a stupid, surprised cough escape his lips. The woman who¡¯d grabbed him was in all black, wearing a hat and sunglasses for some reason. He opened his mouth to cry out, to ask the lady what her deal was, to plead with her not to do this. He had barely managed to inhale before the woman, subtly shimmering with an odd, dancing half-light, shoved her arm through Ali¡¯s chest and severed his spine.


    Quiet, and then recognition.


    Ali was lying down, in repose, relaxed. All around him, non-voices chattered. They were familiar voices, with overtones of his mother, his childhood best friend, Sylvia, his grandma, his pet cat. There was a sense of being in a happy, waiting crowd, like a group killing time before a concert, standing in line for an amusement park ride.


    After a pause, Ali joined the throng, added his voice to the pleasant susurrus. The manifold conversationalists delighted at this and made room for him in the indescribably wide circle, and he was talking with all of them. Reminiscing.


    The more he talked about them, the more solid his memories of the Good Times became. The chorus of voices affirmed his every detail, ratified his every happy recollection, and he felt these memories solidify, wrap him in their comfort.


    He basked in the glow of a cherished time fully remembered, enjoyed it for the blink of an eye and the span of a million lives, and then it was gone.

 Act V, Chapter 5: The Last Trip Home

    ¡°Oh, this is fetching,¡± the old man tottered, smiling up at the Light Rail car. ¡°Like a real train, but in miniature.¡±


    Gloria followed Pema onto the train. She had to weave around the thin crowd of midday commuters; she¡¯d rather not upset anyone by jostling them with her invisible body. Pema, however, seemed oblivious to the crosswise stares he was attracting: an old man dressed in odd clothing seemingly chattering to himself at full volume.


    ¡°I love trains. The ultimate mode of transportation for window-watchers like myself. The view from an airplane is more spectacular, obviously, but it¡¯s too distant, you lose all the fine detail. And, I¡¯ve learned the hard way, driving a car isn¡¯t always wise when you¡¯re as distraction-prone as I am. I- Ooh! Feel free to stare, you¡¯re invisible: the woman sitting at the end, on the right, has heterochromia. Beautiful. Waardenburg syndrome, it looks like. Her PAX3 gene is just gorgeous, so singular. You can¡¯t see that of course-¡±


    Gloria let the man¡¯s chatter roll over her, allowed the white noise of it to calm her. She kept glancing over her shoulder in the direction of the parking lot they¡¯d abandoned the cop car at, ten minutes ago. She expected at any moment for sirens to blare, for the train to stop, for police officers to swarm on and arrest her.


    Then she¡¯d catch her non-reflection in the window, see the empty space where she knew she was standing, and remember that they couldn¡¯t even if they tried. She wrestled with a mix of exultation and anxiety. This was all so dreamlike.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry so much about the police,¡± Pema assured, zeroing in on her thoughts with the eerily invasive affect he had. Was he just a good guesser? Gloria half-remembered a documentary on mentalists she¡¯d watched the previous month. It was the only explanation that she could come up with for his inhuman insight. ¡°They won¡¯t find you.¡±


    But then again, she¡¯d been invisible for the last two days. Clearly forces were in play that she didn¡¯t understand.


    ¡°If the police can¡¯t find me, why did we have to hurry away from the car?¡±


    Pema drew his lips tight, seemed to puzzle over some phrasing. He reached over and patted Gloria¡¯s hand. ¡°Gloria, you¡¯re going to find this a little troubling, but I guess it would be patronizing of me to try to spare you much longer. You were being followed, back at the park. It¡¯s why I made contact with you in the first place, why I was so, er, supportive of your desire to steal a car.¡±


    Gloria frowned. ¡°How? Nobody can see me.¡±


    ¡°Well, I can.¡± Pema grinned briefly. ¡°A handful of other people can too, though not quite so well as I. Or- to be more accurate, they can see a sort of outline around you. The space where you¡¯re not.¡±


    ¡°Huh.¡± Gloria didn¡¯t understand. ¡°What did the person following me want?¡±


    ¡°To kill you, dear.¡±


    Gloria¡¯s hand fluttered to her mouth. ¡°What? What did I ever do?¡±


    ¡°Oh, nothing, nothing. It¡¯s no fault of yours; just a bit of nasty sport.¡±


    ¡°Sport?¡± Gloria was scanning the train car again, looking to see if any of the passengers were casting her a glance, pretending not to notice her. She¡¯d never been followed before.


    ¡°People like you and I are worth far more dead than alive, unfortunately,¡± Pema tutted. ¡°For reasons that are too complex and morbid to bother our fellow passengers with at the moment.¡±


    ¡°So where are we going?¡±


    The train came to a stop. It was one Gloria knew well, as it was only two blocks from her home. Pema nodded toward the doors, and she followed him out onto the street. The open space frightened her a little, made her feel suddenly naked in light of the revelation that she was prey.


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    ¡°Don¡¯t quail so, dear. You¡¯re perfectly safe with me.¡±


    ¡°Are we going to- You¡¯re taking me home?¡±


    Pema nodded. ¡°Briefly. Just so you can collect your things. I¡¯m dreadfully sorry, but your home will cease to be very safe soon. You¡¯ll be better off grabbing some essentials and making yourself scarce.¡±


    ¡°Wait,¡± Gloria planted herself in the sidewalk, raised her hands to her face, shook her head. ¡°Wait, wait, wait. I can¡¯t go home anymore?¡±


    Pema cocked his head, stared at her, through her, too-perceptive, invasive. ¡°It¡¯s a shame, yes. But, on the bright side, you hate your home.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°Just the sight of it fills you with dread. It might be good to take a little sojourn.¡±


    Gloria gawked at the old man. ¡°How do you know all this? It¡¯s spooky, Pema.¡±


    Pema gestured around him, at the street, the trees, the cars passing. ¡°I can know anything about everything that¡¯s within a few dozen meters of me. It¡¯s my gift. It comes from the same place that yours does, your newfound invisibility.¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t feel like a gift.¡± Gloria looked down at the space where her hands should be. ¡°What did I do to deserve this?¡±


    ¡°Well, the full answer is complicated and hardly understood, even by me. The simple answer is that you died, just briefly, and came back,¡± Pema explained. ¡°The vast majority of people who die, you know, stay dead. Then there¡¯s a small population who get help in time, are resuscitated medically, and remain normal. For a very small sliver of that population, though, after they¡¯re lucky enough to dodge their brush with the bardo, they come back a little changed. People like you, and I.¡±


    Gloria frowned. ¡°I¡¯ve never died. I don¡¯t think.¡±


    ¡°It may have been ever so brief that you didn¡¯t notice it,¡± he was staring at her again, piercing his skull with his eyes. Halfway through the sentence, a flash of uncertainty rumpled his face. ¡°Oh.¡±


    ¡°What?¡±


    Pema puzzled with himself for a moment, then turned, continued walking in the direction of Gloria¡¯s home. Gloria huffed and hustled after him.


    ¡°What? You don¡¯t believe me?¡±


    Pema¡¯s eyes were darting around, pinballs bouncing in his sockets. His fingers twitched like he was doing some sort of calculation. After a few seconds, he glanced back up at her. ¡°You¡¯re right. Fascinating. You haven¡¯t died yet.¡±


    ¡°Did you just¡­ check? How does that work?¡±


    ¡°It makes absolutely no sense. You¡¯re positively awash in Qi. Your Knack is in full swing. But you¡¯ve never-¡± Pema grew silent again, troubled. Her apartment was up ahead now, the building visible at the end of the block. He waved her on. ¡°You go. I won¡¯t be much of a conversationalist for a bit. Lots to think on.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s safe?¡± Gloria glanced back over her shoulder. ¡°What about whoever was following me?¡±


    Pema waved his hand, already distracted. ¡°You¡¯re fine, dear. If anything happens, I¡¯ll intervene. Go pack and meet me back here.¡±


    Gloria nodded, uncertain, but continued on. Things were so dreamlike, now, the last few days so violently different than what she had come to accept as Real Life, over the course of the last six and a half decades, that she found herself acting without thinking, doing without planning. This was almost as alien to her as her invisibility.


    She walked up the stairs to her apartment, and thought about what Pema had said. She did hate her home. Normally, at this point on the stairs, the dread of the dark quiet within her apartment would be mounting, growing in the back of her throat, bile-bitter. Now all she felt was a distant paranoia, a swirling confusion, and something like a thrill. Things were happening. She wouldn¡¯t be wasting away in her home all week. She¡¯d be on the run with a mysterious old man she had by now decided was some sort of wizard.


    As she produced her keys and went to open her door, she thought about how this might be the last time she¡¯d do so, if not for ever, then for quite a while. She was just starting to realize that she felt excited about the prospect, when she heard the click of something just on the other side of the door, smelled an odd, chemical tang in the air.


    Then her apartment exploded.


    Quiet, then wings.


    A flurry of birds, more a mass of feathers and song than any discernible crowd of individuals, bore her up. She was surrounded by a song of gratitude, of acknowledgement. Beady eyes saw her, perceived her, and rejoiced in the witness.


    Somewhere else, below her, faded figures watched her ascent with pride and wonder. They had never expected such beauty of Gloria, such victory. They cheered, thrilled for her good fortune, sheepish that they¡¯d all collective underestimated her so.


    She laughed, exultant. The birds remembered her, they assured her. They all remembered.


    Then, in between wingbeats and after an eon, it all went away.

 Act V, Chapter 6: Bad News

    Dyantyi¡¯s leg bounced against the booth he was sitting in. Grainy black coffee sat untouched before him, long since lukewarm. Outside the diner, Lennox was still asleep in the car, completely drained after their latest operation: an Apostle that had flatly refused to die, an ambush job that should have taken five minutes but had stretched into an hours-long onslaught that had cost them one of their own elite.


    He stared at the phone before him like it was a bomb. Dyantyi had been this close to actual bombs before, had been in situations where his death or torture were more than just scant possibilities, but his nerves hadn¡¯t been this shot in years.


    He had news to deliver. Bad news.


    God, he hoped Maldonado wasn¡¯t there when Rai called him. Hopefully she was out and busy wiretapping retirees or stalking teenagers or whatever it was she was always up to. God, even just the thought of her insufferable smirk as he delivered maybe the most humiliating field report he¡¯d ever been unfortunate enough to give, it made him want to-


    The phone buzzed. He answered after the first chime.


    ¡°Morning,¡± Rai said, flat voice flattened further by the burner phone¡¯s cheap speakers. ¡°How many did we get?¡±


    Dyantyi¡¯s answer caught in his throat. He wrestled with angles, ways to portray the news without coming across as totally incompetent.


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    ¡°Dyantyi,¡± she warned. ¡°Out with it. Your men miss a few?¡±


    ¡°We got none.¡±


    A silence like a stab in the gut.


    ¡°Explain.¡±


    ¡°None of our operatives were successful. Not totally-¡±


    ¡°Meaning?¡±


    Dyantyi rubbed his face. He hadn¡¯t slept in well over 24 hours. ¡°Maldonado¡¯s intel was good. We couldn¡¯t quite track down the invisible one, but we found her house. We had locations and angles all ready by five AM. All four direct assaults happened between five and eight, with the bomb we set going off around noon.¡±


    ¡°But none of your Murderers pulled it off?¡±


    ¡°No, they did.¡± Dyantyi fiddled with a salt shaker. His hands were shaking. With rage or anxiety, he couldn¡¯t quite tell. ¡°They did. They killed all five.¡±


    ¡°Then what¡¯s the issue?¡±


    Dyantyi looked back out the window, toward the truck Lennox was visibly snoring in the passenger seat of. There was a dent on the front bumper, where Dyantyi had run down and pinned an Apostle to a wall. Lennox had finished the quarry off by throwing a parking meter through the man¡¯s head.


    The world he was living in was insane. He felt unmoored.


    ¡°Dyantyi? Answer me.¡±


    ¡°They died. All five,¡± he said. ¡°But they didn¡¯t stay dead.¡±

 Act V, Chapter 6: The Mop鈥檚 Second Chance

    Darkness, and then light.


    Pietro could feel asphalt on his face. His head throbbed, his ears rang. Distantly, he could hear a male voice barking something indistinct, talking to nobody.


    Hesitantly, half expecting it to hurt, he cracked open his eyes.


    He was still in the alley. He was lying at the base of the wall that, a moment and an eternity ago, he''d been pinned to by his attacker, who was now pacing back and forth a few feet away from him, growling into a cell phone.


    "-didn''t fucking show up. Nothing happened. Swear to Christ, if you want me offing random civvies then just say so. You promised me a boost."


    The man paused, listened to an illegible voice on the other line.


    Pietro winced as a feverish pulse of migraine flared behind his eyes. Briefly, in the time between two blinks, he saw the woman from the woods again, standing at the end of the alley, watching. She was there for a fraction of a moment, and then gone.


    "No, I- Yeah. Yeah, I confirmed. No, he did, he had a Field, I saw- But it didn''t fucking show up. I offed him, I waited, but that little, like, glowy lump thing that usually comes out when one of us bites it, it just didn''t show. He died like any other regular nobody. No. Yeah, I- Exactly! I didn''t eat anything."


    The woman was back. She crept around the far corner, half shrouded in the shadow still cast by the pre-dawn twilight. She crept up, unseen by Pietro''s assailant, and assumed the exact position he''d seen her in, seconds ago. Another wave of pain, and she was closer by, another wave, she was back, another wave she was an arm''s length away, holding the man in black up by his neck, then she was over him, talking, then she was back at the end of the alley.


    It was too much. Too many different versions of the present were all jockeying for Pietro''s attention, and each new image came with its own spike of agony. He found himself longing for wherever he''d been before he''d woken up, a place that his memory was increasingly failing to conjure up.


    A pleasant dream. Somewhere warm. Had he been dead?


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    "-fucking dare suggest I failed. This isn''t some cover story, I- No! No. Matter of fact, I''ll prove it. I''ll-" The man turned suddenly, raised his phone to take a photo of Pietro''s body, and the two men locked eyes.


    There was a moment of wordless, almost slackjawed shock from the man before he thumbed a button and flicked his phone back into his pocket. He crouched, slowly, preparing to pounce.


    "Well, that explains it," he breathed to himself. Pietro thought he heard relief in his voice. "Let''s hope second time''s the char-"


    The man''s words caught in his throat as he was lifted from his feet by Yelena, the woman from the woods, the figure from Pietro''s recent spate of nightmares back and very much in the flesh. Her hand was clamped around the man''s throat from behind, and she levered him up to hold his head at her eye level, leaving the man''s legs to kick and dangle in the empty air.


    There was a profusion of sparks and heat as the man seemed to explode. A jet of flame raked Yelena''s face, a bolt of electricity snaked down her arm and skittered over her torso. She seemed unfazed.


    "Welcome back, pet," the woman cooed in her rustling, paper voice. Her face was burned, but the flesh around the burn was pinkening, ripening, and already the black char of dead skin was falling off to reveal a healthy layer underneath.


    "Are- How-" Pietro groaned as another profusion of images played over his eyes, the environment around him changing with each snapshot: the alley, his temporary home, the inside of a van, the woods again, a starless sky, a blasted crater.


    "Don''t try to speak. Emerging from paradise is hard on the body, and harder still on the soul," Yelena said. The man threw a clumsy fist backward and his hand connected with her face with a sound like a gunshot. Yelena might as well have been brushed by a gentle breeze.  "Excuse me a moment."


    She closed her hand, and the man''s throat popped like a balloon. His head toppled to the ground and rolled, coming to a stop just before Pietro. His dark glasses goggled up at him, the compound eyes of a dead fly.


    Pietro paused, inhaled to speak, and promptly vomited.


    He felt Yelena''s huge, cold hand on his back. She rubbed him between the shoulders, gently, as he threw up. "Shh, shh."


    She sang something softly, lullaby-like, in a language that Pietro both couldn''t place and immediately recognized. Russian, maybe? Something about it was familiar.


    "This is all so much for you. I apologize. Your illness will wane soon, but the following days will not be without their discomforts." Pietro''s stomach lurched as the woman scooped him from the ground and held him, cradled him. If it wasn''t for the atomic explosion of a headache wreaking havoc within his skull, if it wasn''t for the maddening kaleidoscope of scenes jostling for primacy in his eyes, he would''ve felt terrified.


    "There will be more pain after this," Yelena promised. "So much more pain. But the wonderful news is that there is no such thing as a pain that does not end."


    She was rocking him. Pietro wondered, absently, if he was going mad.


    "Rejoice, my child. Know that one day you will be allowed to die again, and that time, it will last forever."

 Act V, Chapter 7: The Getaway

    Dark, and then light.


    In the bed again. Always a bed.


    On the ceiling, a cartoon lion smiled down at Madison. She stared back up at it, as tired as she''d ever been in her life. She wanted to go back.


    Back to what? She was quickly forgetting. Sleep? Had she been asleep?


    Someone was yelling. Two men were loudly arguing. She crooked her head up, and the hair on the back of her head made a sucking noise as it decoupled stickily from her sheets.


    A nurse was trying to push into her room. He was a larger man, much larger than the dark-clad figure holding him back with one arm, but he was making no progress.


    "-give me shit about visitor hours. You''re no visitor. The fuck did you do to that girl?"


    "Sir, I need you to calm down. I''m as confused as you."


    "Like fuck you are. Coming in here dressed like a fucking hitman, dead girl on the bed. The cops are coming, buddy. You better believe the cops-"


    There was a dull crack, and the nurse stopped talking. He stumbled backward, hand going to his throat, as if he''d been struck, but Madison hadn''t seen the man in black move.


    The nurse stumbled back and coughed up a mouthful of blood. He turned his head, looking toward someone at the end of the hall, and moved to yell, to get their attention. Before he could make a noise, his head popped like a balloon.


    That time Madison had barely been able to notice it: the man in black''s right hand had blurred through the air just before. He''d punched him. A single, blisteringly fast punch that had, in the space of a thought, reduced the nurse''s skull to mush.


    Madison felt a strange sort of force pulling her backward, a lateral gravity. She dug her fingers into the bed and tried her best to be quiet, to keep from sobbing. The man in black was looking away from her, still. He peered down the hallway, cursed, and then stepped out of view


    Somewhere, unseen, somebody cried out and was silenced with another one of those awful, dull thwacks.


    The man would be back soon. Madison had to do something.


    She leaned forward to grope at her bedside table, fumbled around until she had the card of the man who had visited earlier. The motion was oddly taxing; it was like something was pulling on her, like her body was being magnetically repelled by that side of the room. It was all she could do not to collapse back into bed once she had the - huh, blood-stained - card in her hand.


    The blood was coming from her, she realized now. She could see spatters of it on her sheets, a thin layer caked on her right hand. A crusty, dry feeling on her scalp indicated that most of the mass of blood was coming from there. She reached up, ready to wince at a fresh wound, but the skin beneath was perfectly unharmed.


    She moved to slink out of the bed, to make for the closet, maybe, or sprint out into the hall, but the pulling feeling was getting worse. She clawed at her blankets, struggled to get upright, failed. She was on her back on the bed now, sliding, somehow, laterally off of it.


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    When her weak grip finally failed her, she went flying across the room and slammed into the window. She felt a groaning, vibrating tension behind her as whatever force was yanking her tried to pull her through the glass.


    The man was back, standing in the doorway, his gloves caked in fresh blood. He cocked his head at the sight of her, stumbled back a step. Madison couldn''t see his face behind the mask and glasses, but she could tell he was nearly as surprised as she was.


    Then, almost with a shrug, the man fished a ball bearing out of his pocket and raised it up to her, and Madison remembered where all the blood had come from.


    "Please," she croaked, lungs struggling against the mammoth force crushing her against the window. She could feel tears being sucked out of her eyes as fast as she could produce them.


    The man paused, hesitated for just a moment, and then the window behind Madison exploded.


    A wall of wind battered her, obliterating all sight and sound for a moment, and it took Madison a few seconds to realize that she was hurtling, free, through the sky. The lights of the city were dropping precipitously away from her, getting smaller and smaller, as she ripped through the air like a comet.


    She was moving so fast. So much faster than she''d ever imagined something could move. If it hadn''t been completely insane, she''d have been exhilarated.


    Whatever force had been pulling her out of the hospital room was now flinging her headlong through the night, taking her up and away. Madison didn''t have the air in her lungs to scream, and so she tumbled wordlessly, head over heels, in the dark and the wind. Soon, her fear of the man had been replaced by a new, vivid terror: that she''d drop out of the sky again and surely die. At this speed she couldn''t imagine a plane surviving a crash, let alone a person.


    As her fear of the man ebbed from her thoughts, her lateral speed began to diminish, being replaced instead by a nauseating vertical climb, accelerating faster the more she worried about hitting the ground.


    Then, as that worry began to be superseded by the idea of being flung into the cold of space, she was flying downward, a meteor now instead of a rising firework, and the dark farms and woodland beneath climbed up to meet her.


    Madison held her arms out, a connection forming in her mind. She spread her body, as if she was bracing herself, trying to slow her rotation, to control her descent.


    She thought as hard as she could about her fear of her speed, about going too fast, and almost immediately she was shedding velocity. Within a minute, she was hanging close to motionless in the air, hundreds of feet above the earth.


    The rising sun winked in the distance as it peeked over the hills. It was a cool, wet morning, and a carpet of fog was making the ground glitter. All around her the world was wide and yawning, impossibly huge, so big and clear that she could see the curve of it, could see, for the first time in her life, the actual enormity of the planet she''d spent so much time cooped away from.


    Madison twirled in the air, rotating in a lazy front-flip, and watched the wide sky and the rolling earth take turns trading places. She felt a pang of immense relief, and an insane giggle burbled to her lips.


    The giggle soon tumbled into a full-bellied laugh. Madison laughed until she cried, dangling there in the silver dawn, her hair splaying out in a thatch around her, tears squeezing out in floating droplets.


    She was free. The man was far away. She''d escaped. She''d been too fast for him, too fast for Gramma, too fast for anyone. She was flying.


    Her laughter rolled to a stop, and she spent a few moments watching the sun rise. Soon her smile faded, wilted into a hesitant frown.


    She was flying, but she wasn''t quite sure how to stop.