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Content warnings- Very mild body image discussion; Gun violence (come on, it's called Hayloft); Also contains very mild levels of fruit (come on, it's called Hayloft).
This is the 6th part of a series, so if you want to read the rest of them without having to click the arrows at the bottom of the page a ton you, can do that at my author page!

For me, it honestly wasn't that bad to breathe recycled air and pace the same small room every day. This method of travel had certainly improved a lot in my time on Earth. I had a soft bed, entertainment, and company, but my company all but leapt up in excitement when the intercom crackled on to announce that, the big splotch we were coming up on? That was home.
Not his home, mind you, which made it funnier. I was dreading stepping foot onto that planet, but he had been grumbling the whole time about “in all my 600 years” and “I prefer to have my feet on solid ground”. I sympathised with him, and when he started complaining I always sat with him and talked about how soon we were going to be there– but nothing could replace actually physically being on a planet.
Fortunately, as space travel had improved, it had also become insanely faster. What would normally have taken months or years took more like weeks– weeks where I procrastinated on what I was actually going to do when I reached the end.
It wasn't my fault it was more fun to watch human TV shows and curl up in the Doctor's bunk with him. Something about making life-altering decisions (i.e. going to ANOTHER PLANET) together, then being stuck on a vehicle with a ton of uninterrupted time, had made us… do things we hadn't done before.
We weren't exactly anxiety-free with this whole thing, and insomnia was smacking me in the face tenfold. Even the Doctor, who normally appeared– or claimed– to be basically needless, expressed a strong need to have me sleep in his bed so that I could be his pillow, a.k.a. thing he needed to hold in order to fall asleep.
It's not like I minded; if I could, I'd sleep beside him basically every night. I felt frustrated I couldn't fix all of his problems, so I wanted to do what I could, and if that was being a little humanoid pillow, then I would do that to the best of my ability.
That's what I was doing when we got the news. Everyone on the ship had shifts, and it was technically ‘night' for us, which meant that we were tangled up in bedsheets, watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was a great show for us– because of how soft the sci-fi was, I constantly pointed out all the inaccuracies, and how not even advanced Kepler doctors had funny handheld rectangles you could wave over a cut to make it disappear. Because the show sometimes had episodes where the characters went back to the past, the Doctor could tell me all about how Earth most certainly did not look like that in the 19th century– all in all, a wonderful bonding experience. But even though bonding was fun, we wordlessly agreed to pause the show and look out the window.
And what a view it was! I thought the Doctor would have a heart attack from the sight of such vastness. I'd seen my solar system in images, 3d models, even orreries, but never like that. There was obviously a darkening filter on the windows, or our retinas would burn off from the sheer brightness, but it was still amazing to behold.
“This is your home? It's beautiful,” he said from behind me.
“No, it's where I was made.”
“I do not understand.”
“I exist because this place exists, but my home is with you.”
He leaned down to wrap his arms around me. “That is so poetic, isn't it? We stand before a wall separating us from the vacuum of space, looking at your homeworld, but you are more focused on me.” He sighed softly. “You are so sweet.”
Blood shot up to my face; I was so glad the lights in our cabin were off, so that he couldn't see it. Sweet?
“Well… well, I'd rather focus on you than some silly planets.”
“But it is so extravagant. It looks as if a god intricately painted and arranged each element themself.”
“You're better. I like you more,” I countered.
He laughed and rested the side of his head against mine. “I like you more, too.”

Finally, our last day aboard arrived. I kept trying to thank the crew– it's not like it was easy or free to go all the way from Earth to Kepler. They were exoplanets to each other, in completely different systems, only barely visible through long-range imaging. (From what I knew, there were actually many different Kepler-type exoplanets; everyone on Earth just referred to the one I came from as “the” Kepler, because I came from it. Everyone on Kepler just called it “earth”, or at least the word for that in my language, and we called Earth by a numerical designation because it took us a long time to realise it even existed. It was, however, a very well-known numerical designation among us)– But the crew repeatedly shook their heads and said that it was more important to get me where I “needed to be”.
That was actually a milder reaction; some of them called me a “figurehead”, and sometimes, “martyr”. I tried to say I couldn't be a martyr, because I wasn't dead, but even if I was, it's not like anyone would know– but they insisted. It made me uneasy to think that anyone on Kepler would have heard the news of my so-called death; the entire thing was supposed to be discreet, because if it wasn't, everyone involved would end up dead.
But blasting off in a rocket without government permission wasn't exactly discreet, now, was it?
But still, fuck, that wasn't my idea. I was signing up for the part where I gave my body to science, the greater good, and the grim reaper, not the part where everything went wrong and I ended up in the Foundation's walls.
It made me think; if even a small group of people knew about my… disappearance, for a lack of a better word, then I was certain that 4B80 would, as well. It ate at me a little, that I could make it worried, or even sad, or even depressed. A younger me would have brushed it off, saying that I was more trouble than I was worth anyways, and nobody was actually capable of caring about me. But 7CB7 had told me that it felt the exact same things about itself, and… well, that was the catalyst to all of everything in the first place.
I just tried to shake off my worries while I packed up the very few belongings I had. They all fit in a backpack, which was almost comical compared to the difference in the enormous refuelling rockets that humans would send to the ISS to keep the occupants alive. But, when you were in the void of space, it wasn't like you could find a place to get food from.
That was our plan; we would get most of everything we needed once we were actually on the planet. We'd brought only what we needed to survive: sustenance, medicine, and each other.
When it was time to strap in for rapid deceleration and landing, my hearts were racing. Would there be people waiting for us? The crew had reassured us many times that the government trusted them (hah) and was not concerned with what ‘cargo' they unloaded. And I wanted to believe them, but part of me also worried that they were delivering us right into the hands of the very people we were trying to avoid; I wondered if there was a bounty on my head.
But my worries smoothed out when the Doctor sat down in the deceleration seat next to me and started fussing over my straps. “You always set them too loose,” he fussed as he shortened their lengths, “You will get thrown around in your seat and get hurt.”
“These weren't really made for me.” I glanced around the room at the well-synthesised organisms, about a head taller than me and 1.6 times my weight.
“Then that is the fault of the manufacturers. You are perfect and I will not hear otherwise.”
My mouth opened, but I didn't say much other than, “You- the- but,” slouching backwards in my seat and nodding sheepishly at the crewmember– who had effectively secured itself in its seat without aid– raising an eyebrow at us.
Once he was satisfied that I would not get banged up by my own negligence, he sat down beside me and got himself buckled up much faster and more efficiently than I had myself.
The lights dimmed, and the intercom came on again to say that we would be entering the atmosphere in T minus 10 seconds. The Doctor turned to me, and I realised the announcement was in Kepler, so I leaned over to quietly repeat it in English; as soon as I did, a quiet rumbling sound could be heard throughout the ship.
Ah, yes. Only one of the most dangerous things someone could physically do.
Atmospheric reentry– and this was my second time. At least this time, I wasn't unconscious, in a sack of amniotic fluid, and headed into the Foundation's grasp.

As soon as everyone was confirmed to have all their extremities and I'd thanked everyone who would listen, we scrambled as fast as non-humanly possible.
The landing sight was thankfully pretty discreet, and as promised, there was not a single person in sight. Just some crates and vehicles, the latter looking very promising. The crew had already (very, very graciously) offered to let us use one, provided we never revealed any information that could trace it back to them; as in, if we were caught with it, we stole it, no questions asked. It was a fair enough arrangement to me.
I handed the Doctor the slip of paper that someone had written the code to the vehicle's keypad on, and was met with surprise.
“You do not know how to drive?”
“Oh, absolutely not, that's way too scary.”
“Are you old enough to?”
“Yeah, all Twos are registered as adults in the government's database as soon as we wake up for the first time,” I explained as he unlocked the vehicle and we got in.
“That's good.”
“What? Why?”
“Um…” there was a pause. “Do you at least know how to start the car?”
I gave him a look, then shifted across the centre console and turned the ignition. The vehicle rumbled to life around us. “I think the pedals are similar to how it is on Earth.”
“What a strange coincidence.”
“Well, we both have feet, and legs about,” I gestured at my lower body, “that long.”
“Are you trying to say you did not copy the design of Earthen automobiles?” he asked jokingly.
“Hey, who's to say you didn't copy us? Kepler technology is decades, if not more, ahead of Earth's. You haven't even sent humans to Mars yet!” I responded, just as lighthearted.
“I am not the one in charge of space exploration, chéri.”
My facial muscles pulled into a smile. “I like being silly with you.”
“It is going to get much sillier if you go flying through the windshield, so please put your seatbelt on.”
I tried to keep from laughing as I pulled the straps around my shoulders, securing them together over my chest. “What, are you going to crash?”
The Doctor stepped on the gas pedal, then braked, making the car jerk forwards momentarily. I probably would have fallen out of my seat if the harness didn't catch me.
“Okay, okay, point taken. I'll keep my seatbelt on.”
He more gently pushed on the gas, slowly bringing the vehicle off the pavement of the landing site. It was silent for a moment as he pulled onto the road, before he broke the silence.
“I would never crash a car if you were in it.”
“Oh, it's okay, I knew you were playing around.”
“But I could never forgive myself if I did something to hurt you.”
“It's okay,” I reassured him, “You won't.”
“But what if I do?”
“Doc. I trust you. And part of that is that I truly, deeply believe that you won't hurt me.”
“Sometimes I fear that your trust in me is misplaced,” he sighed.
“You know something?” I turned towards him.
“What?” He glanced at me before his eyes returned to the road.
“I worry a lot of the time that my trust in people is misplaced, and like I can only trust them a certain amount, or with certain things. It's… It's not like that with you.”
Another pause, where I assumed he was gathering his thoughts. I was cheering him on in my head: you can do this! You can find the words! You're amazing. You're doing great!
“I am awfully fond of you. Very…” his eyes flitted back to me for a moment, “…very fond.”
My brain went warm. “Yeah.”
Okay, so that was a stupid response. Just absolutely, terminally, stupendously stupid. I poked at the seat's temperature settings.
“…Want to listen to some music?”
“Yes, I would like that.”

The landing site was so secluded, I wondered if it was on one of the parts of the map that “didn't exist” – in enormous quotes, because of course it existed. We had seen it, stood upon the ground, smelled the crisp air and salty ocean breeze. But, ‘officially', according to the government, it had been destroyed, was unlivable due to toxic flora or chemicals, or simply never existed in the first place.
It was yet another blatant lie that they shoved down our throats. It was so obviously a lie, so easy to disprove, but anyone who tried– or worse, encouraged other people to see for themselves– would be crucified. You just. Didn't. Do. It.
I explained this to the Doctor, and he expressed frustration, but not too much surprise. Apparently Earth had been a bit like that with some different scientific discoveries, like the idea the Earth wasn't the centre of the universe, or the theory of evolution.
We had a nice conversation about it on our drive, with the ocean visible on the foggy horizon, starry night sky twinkling above us.
It was peaceful, quiet; the low hum of the car against the road, the soft light coming in from the window in the star roof. Life was hard, what we were going to have to do was hard, and I just wanted to stay there forever. I wanted to stay with him forever. But eventually I adjusted my seat to go forward enough to reach the GPS, inputting the coordinates to our destination; it would be hard to stay in a car forever.
So we went somewhere I never wanted to go again.
When the Doctor pulled into the driveway, my nonexistent stomach was already sinking. The tires grumbled to a stop against the gravel, and I got out, bringing my backpack, to run to the barn straight ahead. Luckily, nights were pretty bright due to all the light pollution that got trapped under the constant fog blanketing the planet, and I was able to make out the rock that hid what I needed.
I nudged it with my boot, then crouched down and took the shiny piece of metal; I was so relieved at the lack of bugs crawling out under it, like there normally were due to the lack of use the key– and therefore the rock it hid under– had.
The lock that held the barn doors opened after not too much jiggling with the key. They were normally both so rusty that it was a pain in the ass to do, but I tried not to worry about it, pulling aside the doors with a loud creak of the hinges.
I stood to the side so the Doctor could park the car inside the barn, then darted out to replace the key. I positioned the chains to look like the doors were locked, and slid back inside, closing the doors again. It didn't have to be exact, because nobody actually lived here, anyways. This property was just a vacation area, a little getaway from its stressful job. But it's not like it ever got any time off; I had known its schedule by heart, and it was on-call so constantly that its only relief was, well. Taking that stress out on me.
The Doctor got out of the vehicle and shut the door, walking towards where I stood by the stairs leading upwards. I started up the steps, and the Doctor asked behind me, “Will we be staying in the haylofts?”
“Hayloft? Is that the word for it?” The steps were relatively old, but barely made noise when I stepped on them; the Doctor, however, was heavy enough that they creaked relatively loud.
Once I reached the top, I set my backpack down on the lightly hay-dusted surface, accidentally knocking something over. I cringed and slid the bag to the side, object glinting in the subtle moonlight drifting in from overhead.
Oh. It was part of an empty container of intoxicants. Of fucking course it was. After my whole life with it, I couldn't have possibly thought that it would have sobered up, could I?
But as I looked around, there were a lot of them. I shivered; whether it was from the cool night air, or the indescribable memories, I told myself it didn't matter. I wanted to kick the container in a fit of emotions, but that would just make it fall down and land on the car parked below.
I dragged the backpack to a spot much further along, where I didn't see any containers, and better yet, couldn't smell the disgusting, sticky sort of scent. I sat down on the wooden boards and rubbed my eyes with the back of my sleeve; it was late, and I hadn't been sleeping much at all.
Still shivering, I pulled a small pack out of the larger bag. It was significantly harder to move around in this planet's gravity, after my body had more or less gotten used to Earth levels of gravity from the months I'd spent there. Okay, maybe ‘gotten used to' was less accurate than ‘had degraded at the cause of', because that was sort of a huge reason that we came– for me, back– to Kepler in the first place. My body just could not take being on Earth any longer, which was evident as I pulled up my shirt to try to disinfect the catheter I was going to try to get some fluids into.
It was partly the fault of me being a bit of a “preemie”, as Onyx would say, partly the fault of Earth gravity being too low for what my body was built for, and partly the fault of my, uh… intake issues, but I really wasn't looking like the pinnacle of masculinity. My costal cartilage was relatively defined, spaces between each rib concaved like little valleys. The trousers I wore were a standard small size, which would be fine except for the shape of my body was not made for them. My waist was too small, so I could pull the waistband away from my body quite a bit, and they sort of fell down– something that always happened if I didn't wear a belt– only staying up because what amount of body mass I did have was allocated around a low hip flare and sort of heart-shaped thighs. Literally the opposite of what was supposed to be standard for a Two.
My attention was brought away from my shape as the Doctor sat down next to me, taking the pack out of my hand that had been holding it rather limply. He put his hand on the exposed skin of my chest, then slid it up– wrist catching the hem– to get access to the port. His hand was really warm compared to my cold skin, but that wasn't what made me look off to the side so that I wouldn't squirm around with his intent eyes on me.
“You don't have to be so shy,” he said as he wiped the port with an antiseptic cloth. “I've seen your body in plenty of ways already…” He was close enough, and it was cold enough, that I could feel his breath just barely ghosting against my neck. Not. Helping.
“Y-Yeah, well, you know how my culture feels about… um… this.”
“What specifically..?” One of his hands cupped my chest to stabilise my shakiness; I could feel every single millimetre of thread as the other screwed the head of the line adaptor into my port.
I didn't answer, and his fingers brushed against me subtly but intentionally, like he was trying to coax out a response. “I do know that it is considered much more taboo for a One to have an exposed chest, rather than your species. You do not even have mammary glands, much less any external parts relating to such a function.”
I softly grasped his wrist, pulling the more curious of his hands down. Instead of dissolving into a puddle of goo like I wanted to, I mentally kicked myself until I was able to make my mouth move. “I, I don't think you realise- there, um, there are still- I still have, I- all the nerve endings,” I semi-blurted the last part, my other hand coming up to pull the hem of my shirt back down as his hands almost reluctantly left my body.
He sat back, seemingly… satisfied? Smug, almost?– while I was trying to tuck my shirt back into my trousers as fast as possible.
“It is intriguing that they would bioengineer you in such a way.”
“That-! Isn't the point of it! I'm sure they didn't anticipate-” I was cut off by a shiver, more intense than the last. I checked my watch, the temperature sensor reading below-optimal ambient numbers.
“Are you going to be alright?” His tone was still lighthearted, but with a hint of concern.
“I've survived lower. This barn isn't insulated, but you still have AntiPens, right?”
“I do not want to inject you with a syringe of antifreeze proteins…”
“It's not that bad. Besides, the stuff they used for my immune system, it started off as a prototypal modification to help ectos not die from cellular waste buildup due to the cold.”
“But it would be less risky for you to not get cold in the first place.”
“Yeah…”
He inched towards me until we were almost touching, but not quite; I could feel his body heat, flowing from the hotness of his body to the coldness of the air around us. His mouth was so close to my ear, evident from how I could hear him breathing; his voice came out low and clear. “I could warm you up…”
My brain didn't register what that meant, but my body—
Creak…
The moment was cut in half by the sound of rusty hinges, then a cold, metal click. Footsteps made the floorboards groan, a swath of moonlight coming through now-open doors.
We held perfectly still, and my mind sprinted through every possibility of what could be happening right now. Very large fauna, unhoused resident, crook that saw the car and thought nobody would be here to prevent its theft?
But I knew those footsteps. I'd memorised the weight, its distribution, the stride… how they differed when happy, sad, angry.
Creak…
Fuck, the steps were leading upstairs. Up towards us. The Doctor shifted to the side, cold air rushing in to fill the gap again; I barely felt it. It was almost like my body wasn't real, this moment wasn't real, but I followed his movements to stand.
I wobbled on my feet, and his hand reflexively went to my waist. I didn't have time to get worked up about it, though, because I needed to communicate something: “You have to run, please. Run.” It came out quiet, rushed.
“No. Never. I am not leaving you,”
“But it's–”
Creak…
The silhouette was dark, but metal glinted in the light.
A shotgun.
“5a82,” it said flatly, unimpressed– as always. Its regular uniform was absent, standard-sized clothes just a bit baggy on its frame. A deviance it had passed on to me– exacerbated in faulty growth cycles–, even though it would deny that until its voice was hoarse from shouting.
“Dad.”
The Doctor's hand tensed and wrapped around my abdomen, pulling me closer to his body. My own hand reached to my upper thigh, where a gun was holstered by the straps running around it.
“I thought you were dead.” The sort-of-universal translators seemed to be working, as the Doctor muttered something under his breath about the man with a shotgun ending up dead itself soon enough.
“Dad. Put the gun down, please.”
“Take your hand off yours, then.”
“I am taking a safety measure.”
“You never change, daughter, you never change.”
The back of my hand prickled, palm resting on the grip of my handgun. “I have asked you not to call me that. I have asked you many times.”
“Do you forget that I'm your cell donor? Twos can't exist without them, stupid, you should know that by now,” It slurred. Oh yes, because it just had to be drunk as well.
“That is a term that Ones call their offspring. Offspring that they made with their bodies, and more importantly, raised.”
“You mad at me, princess? You randomly decided you hate me again? Is that why you brought this-” its hand left the barrel of the gun, sloppily gesturing at the Doctor- “Man home? Did you want to introduce him to daddy?”
“He- we're- it's not like that,” I stammered.
“It's not like that,” he repeated in a high, mocking voice, like it was somehow my fault for not having the standard largeness of vocal chords. “You say that, but you were just there acting like a couple of–” Now that was a slur the translators didn't know what to do with. “You better get the fuck outta here or I'm gonna find a permanent solution to the p– hic– paperwork I would have to do if the government found out about this.” It let the end of the barrel come a little farther down, a little less towards the ceiling.
“You will not harm him,” The Doctor said with a sort of aggressive firmness. It was moments like these where I very deeply appreciated how commanding his presence was.
However, it had no external effect. “You can't fucking stop me,” the humanoid spat. “Maybe I'll blow your head off first, so you can't protect your little pretty boy.”
I stepped away from the Doctor, and I could immediately tell he didn't like that. But someone needed to be put in harm's way; I was the only valid candidate.
My body had enough muscle memory to– despite how my mind was flailing in every possible direction besides for the ones I needed– pull out my gun and point it at the feet of the person standing in front of me. “Dad, put the gun down. Right now, please.”
“You ever notice how fucking entitled you are? Yooouuu think you can order me around like you're my fuckin' superior?”
“No, I just don't want anyone to get hurt.” My words were strained, and I had to make a serious effort to keep my voice from trembling.
“You're a spoiled little brat, that's what you are. I was relieved when they said you were dead!” It swayed, stumbling forwards, the shotgun's muzzle wavering somewhere around my right shoulder.
“I am sorry for accidentally showing back up here.”
“Huh?” It wasn't a genuine I-didn't-hear-you ‘huh', it was the kind that was just dripping with annoyance.
“I am… sorry I'm not dead,” I tried, forcing a smile on my face despite being able to smell the reek of alcohol from its body.
“I'll fix that for ya.”
The tip of the muzzle touched my forehead, and suddenly I was stumbling backwards, registering a loud impact. The Handler was on its back, trying to struggle back to its feet before the butt of the gun rammed into its diaphragm, knocking the wind out of it.
I didn't even have the time to make sense of the blue fluids splattered on the hay; the Doctor grabbed my free hand, pulling me around the body on the floor and towards the stairs.
“What- what-” He was leading me down, but my body was numb and my brain grossly absent. It felt like running through water, but he helped me along until I was back in the passenger seat with a seatbelt securely over my chest.
By the time he was in the driver's seat, I was hyperventilating despite my best efforts not to, fingernails digging into my palms. By the time the Doctor had backed out and turned onto the road, my hands were pressed over my mouth, trying to muffle the gross cough-choke-sob noises.
But by the time we were well on our way, I'd shoved down my internal collapse and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. I was really glad I didn't have lacrimal puncta that went into my nose, or I'd be sniffling like a sad human.
The cabin was quiet besides for the sound of the road and my roughly 2000 thoughts.
“This is all my fault,” I mumbled finally, eyes unfocused towards the dash.
“No, it is not.”
“I really am just a stupid–”
“No.”
…
“But it's my fault, because–”
“No.”
…
“I'm sorry,” I tried again.
“You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for.”
“But, it's–”
“You never should have been, should never be mistreated like that!” I could tell he was exasperated, but he didn't yell. He never yelled at me, I realised, which made complete sense– he never got angry at me, or treated me badly– but it was still a strange realisation. I'd sort of normalised it to myself.
“But… I deserve it,” I protested quietly.
“No, you do not deserve it. Whoever has told you that is a deluded idiot trying to justify their own abuse.”
“But that, this specifically, I should have known better… I should have just kept better track of its work schedule, or, or, I don't know, but I just- I feel bad, you know, like, I feel like I'm just dragging you into all my issues, I feel like I'm just making everything worse for you…”
“Nonsense. I am here because I… care… about you.”
“Yeah, well, I care about you, too.” I rubbed my eyes again; exhaustion was really setting in. “I just don't want to make anything worse for you. I really, really don't.”
“Every moment with you makes everything better, it makes it so much better. I… am not good at these words… ah, merde… you mean so much to me, and I want the world to be the best it can be, just for you. I want…” The ‘leather' of his gloves made a sound against the synthetic material of the steering wheel as he gripped it tightly. “I want to be there, I want to help, I want to protect you. I wish I could have been there before all of this, so that I could have prevented it…”
“Well, I only graduated from a bunch of cells in a vat to a person that could technically think and behave autonomously when I was…” I tried to scale human ages to One ages to Two ages, but there wasn't a great exchange rate, so I just guessed. “Around like… 6 human years old? So that's kind of as early as you could have saved me from,” I waved my hands at the terrain around us, “this.”
“Then I should have infiltrated the facility they were growing you in, and removed you from that situation… When we were separated, all I could think about was how badly I wished to fix everything for you. One could have said it was my deepest desire.” I looked at him, and in the lighting, with his expression, I realised how old– stressed, sad– he appeared. “It still is,” he added solemnly.
“You fix everything all the time.”
“The world is still a cruel place, there are still cruel people who may be cruel to you…”
“But you make all of it better. All the time. Just by existing. You make my life better, just by existing. So thank you for existing,” I said, a small smile starting to form despite everything.
“You are pretty amazing yourself.”
A comfortable pause ensued, but I still had something on my mind.
“What's going to happen to…”
“Your dad?”
My nose wrinkled. “I don't… it's not… it's not my dad.”
“I am afraid I do not understand.”
“Well, they used its DNA to splice mine, right? But parents, dads, whatever, that's what you call an organism that used their body to make yours. Or, at the very least, raised you like an actual person.”
“What about organisms that can't reproduce?”
“I mean, if we're talking naturally, Twos can't reproduce at all. Twos are sterile.”
“Sterile?” He gave me a look that made me shift and cross my legs.
“Just like, funky gonads and stuff,” I explained quickly, looking out of the nearest window to at least pretend to myself there wasn't a strange sensation in my body. “So, um, so instead they take tissue samples that they can synthesise DNA out of. And they use that DNA to grow more Twos.”
“So the only reason a Two cannot reproduce is because they do not have the gametes to do so?”
“I- guess? What are you trying to- actually, you know what, I shouldn't ask.”
I stared at the passing terrain, the moon already descending from its midnight peak in the sky. Changing topics, I said, “Hey, do you want to like… sleep? I know I'm probably going to be hunted like a dog if my handler… ex-handler is able to convince the government I'm alive. But I am like, two minutes from passing out. I woke up almost a full day ago, fuckin… butt ass tired.”
“I do not need to sleep as much as you do. I also was not up ridiculously early in the morning. I will be fine.”
“No, I'm trying to say, like… do you… nevermind.”
“What are you trying to say?” he asked gently.
“I… I don't want to fall asleep alone.”
“But I will be in the seat right next to you.”
“Yeah, I know… it's not a big deal, sorry…”
“Do you need someone to hold you as you fall asleep?”
If anyone else had asked the question, I would have bristled from embarrassment and shut down completely. But he wasn't anyone else. “Yeah… I think I do… but it's okay… I mean, I've spent basically my entire life getting to sleep by myself, so I can manage, it's really not a big deal, don't worry,” I said as I fumbled for the adjustment levers on my seat.
“Your nightmares are so much worse when you sleep alone.”
My brain went blank as I tried to process the statement. That was… very true, actually. The first time I fell asleep against someone was because I had woken up in the middle of the night with a nightmare-induced panic attack; it was so bad, I didn't even realise how much I was crying until the Doctor was there, trying to get me to calm down and stop scratching myself. He'd stayed with me until I was breathing normally and cleaned the (very small) injuries on my arms, and at that point I was so exhausted from crying that he put his arms around me and told me to just go back to sleep. And I did, and I slept so well that I actually woke up feeling refreshed for one of the first times in my life.
That had become our remedy for bad nights. It has started as a thing he did for me, but soon it was a thing I did for him, as well. Something about making sure I was okay…
“It's supposed to be a mutual thing though, not you bending over backwards to make sure I just don't have any stu… silly bad dreams.”
“It is a mutual thing. Your happiness and well-being causes my happiness and well-being.”
“Okay.” I smiled, looking around at our surroundings again. “We're on the sort-of-highway, if you turn right there-” I pointed at an upcoming exit, “-there's a place you can go keep cars in. We can just stay parked until we want to leave in the morning.”
Once we'd gotten there, I was really fighting to stay awake. I hit the ‘blackout' button on the dash, making all the windows go from tinted to solidly dark. Light still came in, but there was no way anyone could see who was inside the vehicle without rolling down the windows or disabling the function.
“Is that not a little suspicious?” he asked me, reaching into the back area of the car where his luggage– and also my backpack, thankfully he'd remembered it in all the clamour– lay, retrieving the half-opened nutrition pack from before.
“Do people think tinted windows are suspicious on Earth?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“You know, that strikes me as odd, because everyone here really highly values privacy. People aren't going to question you if you always keep your door locked or curtains drawn or something. It's just kind of how it is. Although…” I thought for a moment. “If the government finds out you're doing something wrong, they kind of revoke all of your privacy. It's an extra big punishment that way, I think.”
He hummed in agreement, then undid his seatbelt and reached over to undo mine. “Come over here.”
I obliged, manoeuvring my body over the console and, with his help, getting situated so I was seated in his lap. He turned me so that the catheter side of my body was facing away from him, and took out the line from the pack. Oh, yeah, I still had the adaptor just hanging out in my chest.
“I know you are tired. Just relax, lean against me.” He got the line hooked up to the small pump, as well as the canister of nutritional fluids. I sat there sleepily, knowing that if I said I could do it myself, he would just insist more.
Once the line was full of fluid, he retrieved a syringe full of saline, first pushing it into my catheter and then pulling it back out, presumably until he drew a small amount of blood, but my eyes had closed at that point. The line was then attached to the adaptor, and I heard the pump beep cheerfully as it started to feed me.
“Good job. There we go, now you can sleep,” he said, reclining the seat until it was horizontal enough to be comfortable. I nuzzled my face into the side of his neck, his arms encircling my body, and I finally settled into unconsciousness.

I woke up to the soft sound of a pen scratching on paper. In the process of sleeping, I had quite fully smushed my face into his neck, my arms laying against his chest and shoulders. One of his hands was absently tracing patterns into the small of my back, the other pinning a leather journal between the top of his thigh and the pen he was using to write in it. It was at an angle that I could see that much from how my head was turned, but my own thighs were around his hips, and I couldn't see what words he was writing over the curve of my body.
I made some waking up noises and rubbed my eyes. “Good morning, sweetheart,” He said quietly, hand moving up to comb his fingers through my hair. “How are you?”
“Sleepy,” I responded, feeling rather like I didn't want to get up and have to actually do real-world stuff, like face big issues. “What are you writing?”
“Just some notes. Did you know you have a roughly 80% decrease of apneic episodes if someone is keeping you warm? I think this has to do something with the combination of lowering stress by physical touch, and promoting healthy body temperatures. You have a harder time breathing when you are cold.”
“You take notes on me when I sleep?” Why wasn't I surprised?
“Yes, I've been doing that since I treated your acid wounds.” Literally our first interaction with me being asleep. Why wasn't I surprised.
“Mm, well, stop writing, I want to hold your hand.”
He obliged, setting the journal aside and lacing his fingers through mine. It gave me a kind of satisfaction that we could do that, that he could touch me and hold my hand without hurting me. His hand with the extra gloves he always used to wear was still his hand, but it meant more to me knowing he could feel things without a barrier. We could touch without a barrier; we could exist together without a barrier.
I turned our hands and moved them so that I could give the back of his hand a light, brief kiss. I didn't really have that much of a thought process behind it, still mentally being asleep– I hadn't gone through my 20 minutes of becoming ‘human', as humans said– and the rest of my body parts still needed to come online. But his thumb stroked the pad of mine in return, a small show of reciprocative affection telling me that it was appreciated. Then his hand unwound from mine and started to palpate my lower cheek.
“How are your teeth doing? I have always wondered whether or not your saliva would break down food like most organisms' does. Does it ever wear down your tooth enamel? Because I assume you've never used fluoride. Although, your teeth seem to be quite strong…”
I pushed my upper body a little off of him, holding myself there so that my head was over his. I hoped I didn't look silly with my hair falling into my face. “You don't have to worry about me, I'm fine. And I still have all my chompers.”
“But I do worry about you. In general, but over specific things as well. It is how I show that I care about you. I want to make sure you're alright.” His yellow eyes looked so unnatural with their deep black scleras, so unlike anything I'd otherwise seen. Eyes on my planet were almost always some shade of blue, with my species having the copper rings outside the iris that they called ‘Kayser-Fleisher's on Earth. But I loved them; as much as I disliked eye contact, I loved his eyes, and I risked looking at them even if there was the chance he would be looking back at mine– because he did that a lot. He seemed to like my eyes, as well.
“Well… I know you care about me… and… it's not like I mind your fussing…” All my bravado dissipated when the mushy feely truth started coming out. “I just, I don't want you to think you have to do it, or feel obligated to, or something…”
“It is what my heart tells me to do.” He touched the slightly left side of his chest, then the middle of mine. “Or, more accurately, what chemicals and electrons in my brain tell me to do. But it is what I want to do, that is what I am trying to say.”
“Oh, man.” I wanted to climb out the car window and jump up and down from the aforementioned mushy feely truth. If I was alone, I probably would have waved my hands all over the place. But I didn't want to move around and make him think he'd done something wrong, so I just dropped my head and then lowered the rest of my body, lightly kicking my feet into the air to try to alleviate my intense wiggly feeling. He was really quite comfortable to lay on– he was very solidly built, and the slight convex of his abdomen fit against the slight concave of mine like we were made to do that; his chest and arms were like a firm pillow.
Also: warm. Just, warm.
“Mmh. I have two hearts, though. So that means I get told to do things extra hard.”
“Would you like me to palpate your chest to determine the approximate combined volume of your hearts? I am relatively certain the total volume is still smaller than mine.” His voice was laced with amusement, fingers already brushing over the arteries in my neck.
I made a noise of defeat. “Alas, we have bigger fish to fry.” I very slowly and reluctantly pushed myself up into a sitting position, and he adjusted the seat to be back upright.
I started getting off of him, to return to the passenger seat, but he pulled a section of the IV line where it came out of my shirt, and I sat back down.
“I wish we could stay here forever. Why does the world have to be so hard?” he sighed.
“The fact that the world is hard is why we're together in the first place.”
…
“Not, like, together or anything-! I didn't mean-! Don't look at me like that!”

« Jailbreak | Hayloft | Fear & Delight »


« Become Like God
The four Aristocrats of the House of Hapsburg crouched in the dark. They were cold, hungry and afraid, not that any of them would admit it. The barn they were currently staying in was hardly fit for the descendants of Emperors. But at least they were alive.
It had been a close call. Peasants had invaded their private underground chambers, armed with loud weapons and armored like knights. The nobles had fought valiantly, throwing themselves at the invaders with blades and fists and teeth. But one by one, they had died, from the youngest infant to the Prince himself, noble blood pooling on cold stone.
The most important thing was the continuation of the bloodline. The four of them had realised that quickly, and had slipped out of a tunnel that had been overlooked by the peasantry. It had been a close call. There had been seven when they started, but three had been felled by bullets. Only four of them had gotten away, moving by night along roads and through rivers to ensure their tracks were not followed.
It was now too close to dawn to search for somewhere else to stay, and they could hear what sounded like a dog outside, sniffing them out. Although they could hear heavy footsteps, it didn't sound like more than one person. Their spirits were lifted by the prospect of a good meal.
The door of the barn was pushed open, and a tall figure walked in, shining a bright torch at them, the light glinting off their reflective eyes. They leapt forward, but hesitated when they saw her the size.
"Stop!" she ordered in French, and they stopped.
They could tell she was not one of them. But the pistol pointed at their leader was very persuasive.
She lowered it slightly. "I want to talk," she said in French. She stood more than two metres tall, and the spotted hyena that followed at her heels seemed small beside her bulk. She was old, with grey hair and and a tanned face scarred by violence.
The Aristocrats were smaller, but if she had been alone, they might have relied on their superior numbers. However, behind the giantess stood a young woman with leopard ears on her head, pointing an assault rifle at them. The Aristocrats knew from painful experience that they ignored that at their peril.
The smallest of them, a hunchback with a bullet hole in his left arm, bowed low and gestured at the one the giantess had been aiming at. In French, he said, "This is the Margrave Leopold, of the House of Hapsburg." The Margrave was tall, hairless, and had a particularly large head. He smiled at Rahab, exposing multiple rows of teeth.
Next were "His sister and consort, the Countess Eliza," and "Our aunt, the Baroness Marie". Both women were thin, pale, and hungry looking. The younger one stood out because she had a full head of dark hair, while the older one was bald and had a particularly long nose. Finally, the announcer muttered that he was "Rudolf", seeming eager to be forgotten.
Once they were finished, the giantess responded with "Rahab the Amalekite, Last of the Nephilim." She was relieved that they all seemed to speak French.
"We have not heard of that house," replied the Countess Eliza, who had made genealogy a hobby.
"It is the oldest." Rahab's tone invited no arguement. The hyena laughed briefly.
"Very well," said the Margrave apologetically. "Lady Rahab, we apologise for being unable to offer proper hospitality."
Rudolf added, "We only recently arrived here."
"You ran," said Rahab. "Everyone else died, and you're what's left. This was the first place you found to lie low."
The Baroness Marie cackled. "I like this one. She tells it as it is."
The Margrave glared at her, wordlessly threatening violence. She went silent.
"This is a temporary setback." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "We shall soon -"
Rahab interrupted. "You'll be hunted." Her words brought back memories of peasants with guns, approaching from all directions. She was right, and they knew it.
The Margrave insisted, somewhat weakly, "Next time, we shall be the ones hunting -"
"Shut up." Rahab silenced him, the pistol in her hand giving the words extra emphasis. She turned to the hyena. "Any advice?"
It snarled back at her, making noises no animal should be capable of. She nodded.
"Kabili says I should just give you the offer. Safe passage, with conditions. If you don't accept it, we'll just leave." She lowered her pistol again.
The Aristocrats decided it was worth hearing her out, despite her disrespect. If she'd found them, others would soon.
"It's simple, " said Rahab. "Strength is in numbers. If there are enough of them, they'll win. You know that. So join with us."
The Margrave smiled. "Ah, you wish for my leadership?"
"No." He stopped smiling. "You follow me."
"And what gives you the right to -"
"Shut. Up." Again, the large pistol, pointed directly at him. "I wasn't finished. I can take you to a place where they will not find you. But it depends on whether you can be useful to me. If you come with me, you hunt only with my permission."
"We are nobility!" replied the outraged Margrave. "Those terms are beneath our dignity!"
"Are they?" She looked past him, at the three others. "I leave that decision to you."
The Margrave turned to address them. "She is not one of us. She has not proved herself. She comes with false promises and empty threats -"
"Empty threats?" Rahab looked down at the Margrave. "Do you doubt me?"
It was clear to the Margrave that this would not be a fight he could win. Even without the pistol, she looked strong enough to tear him apart with her bare hands.
Rahab shrugged. "But if you come with me, you come because we have something to offer each other. No other reason."
"We do not barter like merchants!" insisted the Margrave.
Rahab turned to leave. "Agreed. I'm leaving. Follow if you choose. But if he tries to stop you, I will break his teeth."
After some hesitation and whispered discussion in an archaic dialect of German, the three lesser nobles followed her out into the pre-dawn twilight, hoping it would not be far. Loudly protesting, the Margrave watched them go, then ran to catch up, glaring at Rahab the entire time.
Rahab began leading them across a recently ploughed field towards a road. Her heavy boots sank into the soft earth.
Kabili the hyena looked up at her, and said in Swahili, "Like old times."
Rahab looked back over her shoulder, and replied, "You weren't even there."
Kabilli proudly said, "Grandmother told me."
Lea, the cyborg catgirl, asked in the same language, "I assume you're talking about Leopard Commando?" While Rahab was never talkative, Kabilli loved to pass on old war stories he'd heard from his grandmother. Most of them strained credibility, but it was clear she'd worked with Rahab at some point, and killed a lot of people.
Rahab glanced at her. Lea's sudden fluency in Swahili still unsettled her. Rahab thought of languages as something that took years to learn, not as something to just download into a brain implant. "This is very different."
Kabilli, glanced back at the Aristocrats, who were watching their conversation with curiosity. "New monsters." He looked up at Rahab again. "Same leader."
"Different goals." Rahab looked at the road ahead, and spoke in French, so that her new allies could understand her. "We no longer sell ourselves to humans. There's no future in that. We fight for our own side now."
Lea looked at Rahab skeptically, her leopard ears twisted back nervously. She asked quietly, "Do you really believe that?"
Rahab looked back at her, and smiled. "I've always fought for my own side."
A white van pulled up on the road. The driver, a pale man dressed in black, wound down the window. The four aristocrats began salivating.
Rahab sternly turned to face them. "No. He's with me. He's useful." They looked disappointed, but backed away.
White Crow called out in English to Rahab. "Can we use them?"
Rahab glanced back at them. Three were followers, but the Margrave glared back at her with bitter hatred. He'd be trouble.
"With training, perfect for night ops. They'll terrify the enemy."
Rahab directed the Aristocrats to get into the back of the van. The four of them reluctantly obliged when she told them there was raw meat in a cooler. Kabilli leapt in after them, as Lea climbed into the passenger seat next to White Crow. Rahab remained standing outside, and leaned closer to him.
"I don't trust one of them. Only a matter of time before I kill him or he kills me."
White Crow looked thoughtful. "Three would be enough. Wait until we're in the Library. Then provoke him."
Rahab paused. "Is that allowed?"
"You can say anything. Just don't retaliate, let the Librarians handle it. Show the rest of them why even you follow the rules there."
Rahab was already thinking of ways to undermine the Margrave's authority as she walked over to the back of the van, and took some pleasure in the thought of antagonising him until he snapped. She looked back over her shoulder, and said with admiration, "You're a cruel man."
White Crow grinned back at her. "And you're a useful monster."


« Your Eyes Shall Be Opened
Circe Galanis pulled the motorbike to a halt, kicking up a cloud of dust. She'd arrived.
The mountainside of the Isle of Lemnos offered a stunning view of the Mediterranean. But she wasn't here for that. She was here to find the archaeologists.
Circe pulled off her motorcycle helmet. Her dark hair, the tips died electric blue, had been neatly tied up in a ponytail.
"Hey, you! Are you lost? This is private property!" A middle-aged Greek man with greying hair approached, gesturing wildly.
"I'm here to see Doctor Anders."
He looked suspicious. "Doctor Anders has not told us to expect any visitors today."
"You wouldn't be expecting them. But tell him visitors are coming anyway. Tell him I'm from the Church."
The Greek man nodded. "Wait here."
He returned with a old man, his head bald and his skin deeply tanned from many years under the sun. Under the gaze of her left eye, Circe could tell he had a lower limb prosthetic below his right knee, and a pacemaker in his chest.
"Well, this is unexpected. Now, you've met Lucas Iraklidis - he's an old friend of mine. I'm Doctor Anders, but you can call me Max!" He held out a hand. Circe took one look at the sweat and dirt on it and decided not to shake it.
"I'm Circe Galanis. Call me Circe."
Max Anders had noted immediately that her blue left eye didn't match her brown right eye, but upon closer inspection, her entire face unsettled him. Her skin was just a little too perfect to be natural.
He realised he was staring. "I don't think we've met before, Circe? Are you a local?"
"No. I've come from California. Originally." The name had thrown him off, but he recognised the accent.
He dropped his voice, as if worried about someone overhearing. "Then… you have an particular interest in archaeology?"
"The Hand of God?" She said it casually.
"Well, that's… our best theory. You see, this has been a sacred site since ancient times…"
Circe interrupted. "I'm here because you're in terrible danger. You need to flee."
"What?" Anders and Iraklidis both looked startled. It was a difficult statement to casually work into conversation.
She repeated it, slower and with more emphasis. "Terrible danger. Need to flee."
They now looked back at her with concern.
"It's the Horizon Initiative. The Fanatics. They've worked out what you're looking for, and they'd rather it stayed in the ground. I believe they plan to put you in the ground as well." She said this in a calm tone, but sounded so serious that Anders couldn't doubt her.
"How long do we have?"
"No idea. l think the Greeks were on the island already, but they were waiting for the Turks to come over. They'll probably be on Lemnos today. We probably have until tomorrow."
Anders looked concerned. "If this is true -"
"It is. My friends in the Serpent's Hand intercepted their communications. They haven't let me down yet."
"Then… Come with me. We need to discuss this."
Anders went over to the cluster of tents. Some were for shelter or storage, but the largest covered the dig site. This deep pit had been carefully carved into the dry earth to expose a mass of tarnished bronze. Three researchers climbed out, covered in dust and sweat, and assembled around Circe.
The Broken Church did not believe in augmentation, not for the rank and file. Even Anders, with his many years of service, had not been deemed worthy to receive God's Ichor. That had its own advantages, it meant he could blend in as just another archaeologist with an interest in Mycenaean Greece.
From the way the members of the Broken Church were looking at her with suspicion, Circe was pretty sure that they'd worked out that she had a very different attitude to self-augmentation. It was probably the eye, it had a glassy look even when it was moving. Still, they listened as she told them what she'd told Anders.
He turned to her as she finished. "So, Sister, what would you council?"
There was a murmuring of discontent, something about heresy. Anders silenced them with one look. "She has no reason to lie. The Church may have been Broken, but that is no excuse for causing further division."
Circe thought that Anders seemed like a sensible man. "The safest thing to do would be to leave. Abandon the dig. There are other pieces of God that could be found, even on this island. Staying here will gain you nothing."
"I understand," said Max Anders, his mind made up. "If you could lead my friends and followers to safety, I would be grateful. I shall remain. I may be able to persuade them not to destroy this Fragment of God, if only for its historical significance."
There was a burst of noise from the others. Loud. Incoherent. Insistent. Circe closed her eyes and waited for the argument to end.
Anders tried to remain calm, but ended by shouting. "I'm an old man! I can't have much longer left! To abandon the very Hand of God to the ignorant and unbelieving, with which the ancient Mekhanites shook the Earth… But I will not let you join me in my madness!"
There was a moment of silence.
"I wasn't finished," said Circe. "That just the safest option. There is another that is far more dangerous."
"Well?" asked Iraklidis, the old Greek getting excited. "What is it?"
Circe smiled. "We move the Hand of God."

Her plan had taken a while to explain. While she tried to dumb it down to the level of an ICSUT "Introduction to Applied Thaumatology" lecture, that was apparently still too advanced for archaeologists. She revised her explanation.
"OK, so this is an Everhart resonator - it makes magic from electricity." It had barely fit onto the back of her motorbike, and she was glad she had the others to carry it into position. "If we plug it into the generator and connect as many car batteries as possible, I should have just enough power for an apportation - that's when you move to your destination without going through the space in-between."
"Why didn't you just say you were going to teleport?" asked the youngest of the archaeologists, a young man with a mess of brown hair and a German accent. He was called Alex, while the middle-aged woman from the USA was called Cameron.
Circe ignored him, and held up a roll of fibre optic cable. "This is a ritual circle."
That required further elaboration. "We do not have the time to draw out the usual runes or sigils. Fortunately, they're just data. I have digitised and synchronised the information, so if we loop this around the dig site, everything within the circle will be transported to the destination. Well, obviously it'll be a bounded cylinder, I'll need to factor in the z-axis."
They all looked sceptical, or possibly just confused, but they still helped her to set it up around the edge of their dig site. As Circe connected the Everheart resonator to the various cables and began charging it, she made some last minute adjustments to the code, then plugged the cables into her mobile phone, which had more processing power than most desktop computers. It took her a few minutes, but she had most of the calculations worked out when she was interrupted.
"Ms Galanis!" called out Iraklidis. "Are you ready to go?"
"No!" she yelled back. The generator was running, in addition to every engine that could charge a battery, and she struggled to make herself heard over the noise. "I need a few more minutes!"
"They are here already!" Iraklidis sounded panicked.
From outside, Anders voice was calm. "I'll stall them. If I don't get back in time…" He hesitated, then made up his mind. "Leave without me."

Two pickup trucks pulled up in front of a pile of stones and rubble that had been piled up on the road leading to the dig site. Men climbed out of the back, then pulled out concealed weaponry. The Horizon Initiative had no uniform, and so the Wolves of Project Malleus resembled armed insurgents or common criminals, with their civilian clothes, wide variety of firearms, and grim expressions.
For now, they kept their distance, as two men from the Shephard Corps climbed out of the vehicles. They'd been given the dignity of the passenger seats.
One was an elderly Greek Orthodox chaplain dressed in black. The other was a younger Turkish cleric in white. Neither of them were carrying weapons, but considering their company, neither of them needed to.
Max Anders smiled as warmly as he could manage while facing armed gunmen. He stood alone between them and the tent that covered their dig site, the rocks they'd piled up on the access road forcing them to stop a good distance from it. He called out nervously. "So, Matthiou! Has it really come to this?"
Matthiou Andrianakis, Shepherd of the Horizon Initiative, called back at him, loud but calm. "Max. There's no need for any bloodshed today."
Max Anders called back, "Your friends may disagree!" While the Wolves were not currently pointing guns at him, they held their rifles in a way that suggested they would soon be taking aim.
"Başar insisted we bring them." He gestured to the Turkish man beside him, who was looking over at the dig site with great interest. "Max, if you agree to leave, they mean you no harm. That goes for you, and all your companions."
"And leave a Fragment of God at their mercy?"
Matthiou Andrianakis frowned, sadly. "The time for debating theology has passed, Max. Now is a time for action. Don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."
Başar Sadik called out "What are they doing in that tent?" There was no answer from Anders. "Look, they have something wired up! This man is stalling for time!"
As the Wolves raised their weapons and began to approach, Anders quickly crouched behind a rock. "If you come closer, I will shoot!"
Sadik almost laughed. "He's bluffing!" The Wolves seemed much less confident, and began looking for cover.
Anders held up a pistol, then quickly lowered his arm back behind the rock. "I'm not!"
Andrianakis said sternly, "This is unbecoming of you, Anders. Please, see reason."
Sadik grabbed Andrianakis's sleeve and pulled him to the side, getting them out of the Wolves' line of fire. "I think they can handle one old man." He spoke up in Turkish. "Give him one last chance to surrender, before -"
"Anders!" called out a loud voice, with a slight note of feedback from electronic amplification. "If the plan was to threaten them, you should have told me."
Circe Galanis walked out the tent, unconcerned by the fact that all guns were now pointed at her. Her left eye shone with a brilliant light, and floating in front of her upraised right arm was a circular shield of translucent blue energy, darker regions depicting three lightning bolts bursting out from a circle, Circe's personal sigil.
The Horizon Initiative was not entirely lacking its own thaumatologists - they had plenty of kabbalists, miracle-workers and mystics. But they rarely saw anything like this.
"Mágissa!" someone called out in Greek, and was not wrong.
"Perhaps Anders was stalling for time. I am not. You come closer, you find out what a Maxwellian witch can do."
Anders looked at her, eyes wide, shaking his head. He clearly thought she should focus on apporting out of here, rather than on saving him. But she'd come to do both.
There was a long moment of hesitation, then one of the Wolves pulled the trigger of his automatic rifle. Circe's thaumaturgic shield blocked his bullets in a shower of sparks, thaumaturgy dispersing the impact of the bullet so that it harmlessly fell to the ground. Other men also opened fire, assuming the barrier wouldn't hold for long, while others began to circle around to the sides, noticing that it only covered her front.
It would protect her long enough. Circe lifted the plasma projector she held in her left hand, a blocky relic of Soviet paratech. She carefully calculated the trajectory with the aid of a camera mounted on the barrel and sending feed to her left eye, took aim with artificially precise muscle movements, pushed the paraweapon out through her own shield, and pulled the trigger.
There was a thunderous crack as a bolt of plasma fired directly at the truck on the left, heating metal until it melted.
When you wanted someone dead, conventional weapons were reliable enough. But when you wanted to set things on fire, there was nothing better than plasma. Under the gaze of her left eye, Circe could clearly see that the Horizon Initiative had brought explosives with them, intending to leave nothing but a smoking crater when they left. They were so predictable.
Their premature detonation created a huge fireball, obliterating the first truck and turning the second into a burning wreck. Circe was far enough away to feel the force of the shockwave but remain standing, but those closest to the blast were killed instantly, and those a little further away were maimed by shards of metal and showered with droplets of burning fuel.
Circe, with the calm clarity that came from consciously controlling your own autonomic nervous system, felt only the satisfaction of a plan coming together.
Anders had been behind cover, and seemed to be physically fine as she walked towards him. He got up and met her half way, babbling something about how she shouldn't have come to get him, still clutching the weathered pistol he'd been brandishing to buy time. He lacked the integrated ear-protection and sound system she'd placed in her own ears, so the explosion had probably deafened him. Circe didn't bother trying to explain that her consciousness was still within the apportation circle, and that his presence or absence was a key variable for her to factor into the calculations she was making.
Several members of the Horizon Initiative had been moving to flank her as she blew up their vehicles, and so had survived the blast relatively unharmed. As she approached the tent covering the dig site, Circe spotted one approaching to her right, and spun around to face him with her shield, just in time to block the bullets he fired directly at her. Before he could take cover, she fired her plasma projector again, hitting him in the shoulder with explosive force. He collapsed, an agonised scream quickly trailing off.
Suddenly, Anders was raising his gun and firing behind her. Circe spun, and saw one of the Wolves of Project Malleus dropping as Anders shot him in the chest. He had approached while she was distracted, taking aim at her exposed back. Circe turned to face him just as another man that had been behind him opened fire, a spray of bullets striking her shield. With a crack from the plasma projector, his chest became a scorched crater, and he too fell to the ground.
Circe glanced over her shoulder to see that Anders had been hit by the gunman before she could take him out. Scanning the battlefield with her left eye, she saw another man crouching behind a boulder to her left, and she fired at him. She didn't hit him, but she sent shards of scorched rock flying into the air. She hoped that would convince him to stay behind cover.
Anders was clutching at his chest, but Circe had no time for that now. Keeping her shield up to protect her back, she bent down and placed her shoulder under Ander's arm. She'd been suppressing her adrenal response to ensure clear thought and steady aim, but now she let it loose, and with a sudden surge of panicked strength she carried a stumbling Anders towards the dig site. Iraklidis ran out to meet her, taking Ander's other arm to carry him down the ramp and into the apportation circle.
The canvas above them was now on fire, but since the Everhart resonator was fully charged, that didn't seem to be a particularly pressing problem. She passed Anders over to Iraklidis, and with the help of the two other members of the Broken Church, they found somewhere to lay Anders down within the circle. Ignoring their panicked questions, Circe picked up her mobile phone, where part of her consciousness had been running the necessary calculations for their apportation. Circe did not want to end up off target. With a slight error, she could very well end up embedded halfway through a wall.
Suddenly, bullets cut through the air above them, and they all crouched low. The pit that had been dug to unearth the Mekanite artifact provided them with just enough cover to protect them. This did not make Circe want to stay any longer, but fortunately she didn't have to.
"apport.spl".
As she spoke the word, she glimpsed the face of Başar Sadik, entering the tent and taking aim just in time to see her go. His face and clothing were burnt, and he now held an assault rifle in his hands, with two other gunmen close behind him. Circe had never before seen anyone who looked quite as angry as he did in that moment. Then she was gone, leaving nothing but a burning tent, a hole in the ground, and severed jump leads connected to car batteries.
——
Circe and the four members of the Broken Church still lay on Greek soil, but the dirt and the tarnished bronze buried within it had been transported into the offices of a small software company in Bulgaria, where an identical circle of fibre optic cable had been set up. The room had no windows, but the door was open. Around the edge of the room stood six members of the Church of Maxwellism, very glad to see her arrive in one piece.
Circe stood up, then regretted it as she nearly fell over. Even with the accumulated energy in the Everhart resonator, that apportation had still taken a lot out of her. But a celebratory energy drink would have to wait.
Anders had been hit.
"Wounded!" she yelled, and while she'd hoped not to need it, the stretcher that she'd requested was rushed in. "Multiple gunshots, in the torso." Anders had been placed on his back, and it was clear he'd been hit three times, twice in the gut and once in the chest. He was bleeding profusely and gasping for breath, not dead yet but clearly on his way out.
Iraklidis approached his old friend, and held his hand tightly. He looked at Circe with compassion. "Don't blame yourself." He let go as Anders was carefully lifted on the stretcher. "I think he knew it would end like this."
"He was wrong." said Circe. "It's not going to end like this." Iraklidis looked surprised by her confidence, so Circe explained. "We can keep his blood oxygenated and pump it artificially. It actually isn't very difficult."
Cameron looked up at her, shocked. "That's not our way!" Alex got to his feet and began to move towards the door, but Anders was already gone, whisked away to the best cybernetic surgeon in Eastern Europe.
Circe didn't understand the fuss. Tired, she sat back down on the ground. "At this point, it's just medicine. Like his leg."
She couldn't quite hear everything they said since they were both talking at once, but it seemed to be some sort of tirade about the theological difference between the two.
Circe interrupted. "Besides, we still need him." She gestured at the bronze machinery on the ground in front of them. "He's probably the only person who can work out how this thing fitted together."
"Ms Gallanis, your sect of the Church is… forgive me… not known for taking an interest in antiquity." Iraklidis hesitated, then asked with a tone of reverence, "What exactly are your plans for this Fragment of God?"
"This is an ancient Mekhanite weapon. For shaking the earth and levelling cities, at least according to historical accounts."
Iraklidis frowned. "Well, I wouldn't put it in such crude terms…"
"You want to know my intentions?" Circe smiled. "I want it reverse engineered, ideally miniaturised. If all goes to plan, I'll implant it in my arm and use it to destroy our enemies."
As they reacted to her irreverence with horror, she added, "I think that's what the ancient Mekhanites would have wanted."

Knowing Good And Evil »


« You Shall Not Die
Tracy Campbell first met the White Crow at the age of ten, the day her old life ended.
She heard him through the thin walls of the trailer, talking loudly to her mother. It was night, so she knew not to come out of her room while a stranger was at the doorway. She listened instead.
She didn't recognise his accent, but he didn't sound like he was from around here. "Ms Campbell, we need to talk about your daughter."
"Who are you?" There was indignation in her mother's voice, at being called on this late in the evening.
"They call me White Crow -"
"Oh, it is way too late for this. You come back in the morning. Or, you know, don't." There was a thud.
"My foot!" He carried on talking as if nothing had happened. "Ms Campbell, I do not have much time to explain. They know about your daughter, and they're coming for her."
"I don't know what you're talking about," lied her mother. Tracy instantly knew what they were talking about.
"Ms Campbell, her secret is out. I have to insist that you -"
Her mother was getting angry now. "I'm the one who's going to insist - "
Another voice spoke up, soft and feminine. "Maybe I should explain?"
"Jesus Christ. Did that -"
"Yes, I speak. Apologies for my associate. He's new to this."
"Thanks, Midnight." He didn't sound like he meant it.
"You scared her, Crow. Strange man like you showing up in the middle of the night, what was she going to think?"
"Why did your cat talk?" Tracy's mother sounded confused.
"I'm not his cat." The female voice sounded indignant.
"She is definitely not my cat." The male voice sounded embarrassed.
Tracy's curiosity got the better of her. She peeked out of her bedroom into the living area of the trailer they shared, opening it just a crack and hoping nobody noticed the light.
She saw her mother, facing towards the doorway. She saw a white man with brown hair standing, his foot in the doorway, preventing it from closing. And she saw a black cat leaning in, paws resting on his shoe.
The cat spoke. "It's a little hard to explain, but we're here because you're not safe. It would be easier if your daughter came out to join us."
Tracy had spent her whole life thinking she was the strangest thing in the world. Her eyes widened with wonder as she gazed on something even more unusual.
The cat looked directly at her with golden eyes. "She has already seen me."
Tracy backed away from the doorway, but it was too late. She'd been spotted. Her mother walked over to her bedroom door protectively, leaving the door to their trailer on the chain. "Tracy. I knew you were listening. Stay in your room."
The cat leaned into the trailer through the doorway, the chain attached and pulled tight. "Tracy, my name is Midnight. I can talk. I believe that you have your own kind of magic?"
In the darkness of her room, Tracy's dark skin glowed with an inner light. The red glow was like a torch shining through her flesh - too dim to see in daylight, but very noticeable as soon as the sun went down.
The man spoke up. "Yes, we know she can glow. Can we move on? A tree across the road is not going to delay them for long."
"How did you find out?" asked her mother. She had been keeping the truth about Tracy hidden ever since her child had been born. As far back as she could remember, Tracy had always known she was different to her mother, different to everyone else in the world, and that she had to keep that quiet.
"Intercepted some communications. You haven't been as careful as you thought." There was no judgement in White Crow's voice, merely a calm statement of the facts. "There have been rumours of a glowing child, they're coming to look into it."
"And who are they?" asked her mother.
White Crow looked directly at Tracy, still peeking out of her bedroom. "Men that lock away anything they don't understand."
Midnight added, "They'll be here soon. We bought some time, but you both need to come with us."
The man smiled. "You think I'm insistent? Jailors never take no for an answer."

Tracy and her mother had gone with them, taking almost nothing with them and fleeing. Midnight had lead them down the road, then across farmer's fields. Tracy, bundled up in many layers of clothing and stumbling through the dark, had quickly gotten tired, so the man who called himself White Crow picked her up and carried her on his back. He said they were a group called the Serpent's Hand, and that they looked out for people like her. Midnight had told him to stop talking, or the Jailors would hear them, and they'd all end up in a cell. He stopped talking.
Midnight eventually lead them to a library, unlocking the door with a word and a gesture from her paw, and then they'd entered The Library.
At first, Tracy had been very shy. She'd spent her whole life hiding, making sure nobody saw her in the dark. But she quickly realised she was far from the strangest person there.
There were people made from metal, animals that talked, colors with personalities. After a while, she even got used to the silent presence of the Librarians, and the long scuttling body of the Rounderpede stopped frightening her. She learned to navigate the shelves, and spent her days reading books and hearing tales from Wanderers.
Tracy often asked her mother if they could visit some of the places she'd heard about. Tracy had never left Alabama in her entire life before coming to the Wanderer's Library, so she wasn't too fussy. Algeria sounded just as exciting as Alagada. But her mother always said it wouldn't be safe.
She next met White Crow by chance, the two of them walking between tall stacks of shelves in opposite directions. He looked paler than he had last time, with his hair now blond, and Tracy was startled to see a black tattoo of a serpent moving on his right arm.
"Miss Campbell!" He greeted her warmly. "It's been a while! How are you doing?"
She shrugged, staring at the snake on his arm as it turned its head around to face her. "OK."
"That's not an answer."
He was right. She looked him in the face. "l guess I like it. But being here all the time, it gets a bit…"
He laughed. "I know what you mean. The Library will always be home, but I wouldn't want to spend all my time here."
Tracy didn't know anyone else who called the Library home, but was too distracted by the tattoo that was coiling its way up his arm to say anything. Like many things in the Library, it was both beautiful and disturbing.
"Oh, this?" He pointed at the blank ink with his finger. "Found him at an art auction, trapped on a bit of flayed skin. I felt sorry for the little guy, and he hopped over to me."
"Did it hurt?" asked Tracy. That was the kind of thing you were expected to ask people with tattoos, and this was a very large one. With its head at his shoulder, the tail reached past his elbow.
"Still does," said Crow, shrugging. "But you get used to it. Well, I did."
Tracy finally worked up the courage to ask him. "You go out and help people quite often, don't you?" He nodded. "Do you think I could help you?"
His pale face suddenly seemed like a mask, empty of expression. "Miss Campbell, you don't owe me anything."
"But… what if I want to help?"
He looked at her with pale blue eyes. "I don't think you can help me."

It took her a few weeks to work out how to respond to that, but the Library was vast, and she couldn't find him. They next met by accident, as Tracy tried to avoid the man who kept asking her mother if he could use some of Tracy's blood. He didn't seem dangerous, but he was very creepy.
White Crow was in a reading room, lined with racks of scrolls, sitting in an armchair with his sleeve rolled up. A tall figure covered in red-brown fur was stitching up a cut on his arm with a needle and thread. He looked even paler than last time, although his hair was now dyed a deep black.
White Crow was chatting to his surgeon casually, but occasionally winced as the needle went in or as the thread pulled tight. "I'm thinking I need to get myself one of those black suits. Maybe wouldn't end up here quite so often. Although they don't protect the face." He gestured to an already stitched cut on his lip. "And that's my best feature." The surgeon remained silent until he finished, cutting off the thread with scissors delicately held in large hands, then glanced up at Tracy.
The Children of the Night were not particularly common in the Wanderer's Library, but Tracy had seen enough of them to be able to tell them apart from gorillas, which were even less common. There was something about their posture and facial features that looked more humanoid, more adapted to walking upright and talking. Once you got past how large and hairy they were, you could even work out how they were feeling.
Tracy identified this as a stern look. This was an adult telling her to stop bothering him. But if she went away now, it might be months before she saw White Crow again.
"Mister Crow! I was hoping… you could teach me…" Crow and the Yeren (or Bigfoot, but that sounded silly) both stared at her, dark brown eyes and pale blue eyes fixed on her. In the dim light of the room, her dark skin shone faintly with a red glow.
The Yeren spoke softly, in a deep voice. "You should stay away from him."
"That's what Midnight said! But I thought… I thought he could teach me how to help people? Like he does?"
White Crow looked at her, not unkindly. "Miss Campbell, everyone's unique. I can't teach you to be me, any more than you can teach me to be you."
"But all I can do is glow!" Tracy was agitated, and in the dim light. Her red light became a little brighter, contrasting against her black hair and brown eyes.
White Crow looked thoughtful. "All you can do… for now…"
He was about to say something more, when the Yeren interrupted. "You are not dragging her into this."
White Crow smiled back at him. "Etrir, The Jailors dragged her into this."
"He's not dragging me into anything!"
Etrir walked towards her, moving slowly in order to not frighten her. "Child, you will regret learning anything from him."
"I said nothing about learning from me!" White Crow sounded indignant. "You know I'd be a terrible teacher."
Etrir held out a large hand for Tracy to take. "We should go and find your mother, child."
White Crow ignored him. "Miss Campbell, did you ever ask why you're so different to your mother?"
Tracy shrugged. "No idea. Maybe my father? But she never wanted to talk about him."
Etrir scowled at Crow. "Has that answered your question?"
"No. I already asked about her father. Her mother wouldn't tell me either. But it's clear Miss Campbell has an innate connection to light."
Etrir signed deeply. "Which means?"
White Crow stood up. "It means, I think I know a place." He walked towards Tracy. "She'll love it. Her mother too. They'll be safe there."
Etrir looked at Crow, and bared his teeth for the first time. "I don't trust you."
"The Library is no place for a child to grow up. We both know that."
"You will discuss this with her mother."
White Crow smiled. "Goes without saying." He walked over to Tracy. "Miss Campbell, I once read about a place where they wield the light of the sun. Let's go and find that book again, and see what your mother thinks. I think you might like it there."
White Crow sounded very confident. Tracy asked "Are you sure you can find the book again?" Finding books in a place the size of the Wanderer's Library was always a challenge.
"Miss Campbell, I used to be a Librarian. If there's one thing I know, it's how to find books."

He had found it in the end, navigating miles of shelves before eventually locating a document on the Dragons of Tlaneyanco. Her mother was hesitant, but White Crow was persistent.
It had taken him a while, but he'd eventually found some residents of the Kingdom of Tlaneyanco, and they'd persuaded her mother to visit. They'd insisted that Tracy would be completely safe there, that there'd be no need to hide her away. The visit was extended, until one day Tracy's mother told her she'd decided to stay.
It had taken a while to settle in, but an underground island beneath an artificial sun felt ordinary compared to the Wanderer's Library. Over time it became home. It was nice to have a house again, rather than just sleeping in a quiet corner of the Library. It was nice to be somewhere predictable, where you could count on seeing the same people every day. It was nice to have a teacher, not to learn from an eclectic collection of encyclopaedias and textbooks, none of which exactly described her own Earth.
At first, she'd been an oddity, by day because she was a foreigner and by night because of the light within her, but her friends and neighbours quickly got used to it. Tracy learned Spanish fairly quickly, but had never quite gotten the hang of Nahuatl. She was far more interested in the other things that had to teach her in Tlaneyanco.
They called it tlanextlitetl, tlanex for short. At first, she wasn't sure how the things they could do were connected to light - they could create, and transform, and destroy, but that wasn't any different to the other forms of magic Tracy had seen. She wanted to learn, to be able to do something useful and feel like she really did belong there, but it just didn't make any sense to her.
An old man called Raúl told her to think about where the light within her came from.
Tracy told him it was an anomaly, and he laughed. Raúl told her that was a fool's reply, that she lacked curiosity and would remain in the dark until she understood the answer.
Tracy was upset by his blunt words, but he'd made her curious. She started wondering if her light came from the food she ate, or the water she drank, or maybe she took it in by day and released it by night. She tried to work it out, measuring it as best as she could at different times and under different circumstances. She sat in the dark, hungry and thirsty, and tried to see if it got any dimmer. It didn't. But as Tracy read more about tlanex, she realised she had too narrow a focus. It wasn't about exactly where her own light came from. All energy was starlight. All matter was stardust. One night, unsure if she was dreaming, Tracy saw the red eye of a great dragon, and she understood that fire and ruin could come as naturally to her as the light did.
That was the easy part. Controlling it was far harder. Raúl had been very concerned for her safety when he realised she'd accessed the destructive aspect of tlanex, and Tracy quickly realised why. It was far too easy to burn out, to unleash fire and corrosion until she passed out from the heat. Tracy had started late and was far behind everyone else her own age, and had to work harder at it than anything she'd ever tried to catch up. She eventually gained a measure of control, but didn't really think about what would come next until she was sixteen.
Sitting around the embers of a campfire with friends, their conversation turned to the future.
"Radiosol? You sure about that, José?" asked Marco. "Never saw you as a businessman."
José shrugged. "It's not about the money. It's about seeing the world!" José had always been fascinated by the world outside Tlaneyanco. That was probably why he'd been Tracy's first friend here.
Marco was far more practical. "The only thing you'll see is a factory production line."
"Marco, they're getting out there! Tlaneyanco's showing the world what we can do, for the first time since… I don't even know how long! Don't you want to be part of that?" Tracy recognised the excitement in his voice. He had the same tone in their many conversations about the Wanderer's Library.
Marco shrugged. "Never saw the appeal. It sounds dangerous. Did you know that the murder rate in-"
Alejandra interrupted. "You're forgetting we have an expert with us." She pointed at Tracy, who was sitting a little further away from the fading campfire. None of her friends found it at all strange that she glowed in the dim light, and that was comforting. "Tracy, you're the one who's actually been out there! What are you planning on doing?"
"I don't know." Her three friends all looked at her, expecting a bit more than that. "I'm not sure I want to go back. I… I don't want to hide again."
Alejandra looked puzzled. "What do you mean, Tracy?"
Tracy always felt a little awkward talking about the outside world. She was expected to be some sort of expert, but she'd basically never seen more than her small hometown in Alabama, then the Wanderer's Library. "Well… it's a different world. You can't use tlanex out there."
José shrugged. "I could keep it hidden."
Marco laughed. "The master of stealth and subtlety."
Tracy pointed to her skin. It glowed like the embers of the fire they were sitting around. "He can do that. I can't."
There was an awkward silence.
Alejandra filled it. "Still, there's plenty to do here! I was thinking about going into medicine. I'd like to help people."
Marco nodded. "I was thinking about going into construction. I guess for the same reason?"
José looked unimpressed. "So predictable." He turned to Tracy. "This was before you got here, when we were all children. Alejandro would make us pretend to be sick, so that she could pretend to take care of us. Marco would always prefer to be stacking up blocks to build his own little houses."
Alejandro looked embarrassed, but Marco looked indignant. "As if having a plan is a bad thing!"
"He said that then too!" He started laughing. "The exact same words!"
When he'd stopped giggling, Tracy said, thoughtfully, "I think it's easier for them. Alejandro, you have the orange flame, so you change thing to make people better. Marco, you have the ruby flame, so you can create anything you need." She turned to José. "We have the amber flame. We destroy things."
Alejandro looked upset. "You can't just define people like that, Tracy!"
José agreed. "Yeah, there's loads of things we can do. Just not always with tlanex."
Tracy paused, but they were all looking at her, so she said it. "I guess I feel I have this for a reason. I want to find a way to use it."
Marco looked thoughtful. "I get that. I guess you could… go into the military? Or the police?"
José looked doubtful. "Nothing ever happens here! They don't do anything!" He turned to Tracy, apologetically. "Sorry. I got carried away. It's fine if you want to stay here."
"That's not what I meant." Tracy stood up, and willed the fire back into life, the sudden roar of it startling her three friends. Lit by the flickering flame, she said to them, "When I think about the future I want, I think of things that need to be destroyed first."

Tracy had occasionally returned to the Library, her mother going with her at first, then later letting her go alone. Her mother had been spending a lot of time with an older man in Tlaneyanco, a widower, and Tracy figured they'd appreciate the time together without her. But it had been years since she last saw White Crow.
As she walked up behind him Tracy wondered if he'd even recognise her.
"Mister Crow?" He turned to face her.
He looked paler and more tired, and his hair was now white, although his face didn't seem much older. He still met her with the same smile. "Miss Campbell! It's been a long time!"
"I've been busy."
He looked intently at the top of her head, which was about level with his eyes. "Anything besides growing?"
Tracy glanced to the left, then to the right, then held up her right hand and conjured up a small amber flame in the palm. "Learned to do this." She quickly extinguished it before the Librarians noticed.
"Very impressive." White Crow did not sound impressed.
Tracy was indignant. "I can do more than that. But the Librarians wouldn't appreciate me setting the place on fire."
"We definitely would not. So, what do you intend to do with it instead?"
Tracy looked directly into his pale blue eyes, and spoke with conviction. "I intend to help people."
He laughed. "Good answer. If a little vague."
There was a long silence before Tracy spoke again. "You told me once that you couldn't think of any way for me to help you. And then you changed your mind."
He shrugged, and smiled innocently. "Miss Campbell, I found you a safe place to live."
"There are other safe places."
"If I only wanted you to be safe, I'd have let the Jailors take you. I sent you there so that you could be free."
She'd asked plenty of people about White Crow over the years. The one thing they all agreed on was that he never did anything without expecting something in return. "You didn't think about whether I'd come back with something you could use?"
"Miss Campbell, I was hoping you'd gain something you could use. For whatever you wanted to. Whether or not you came back here was entirely up to you."
That was true. "But I have come back."
"You want me to apologise? For setting you on this path?" Tracy felt like he was making an offer.
"No." She was making her own bargain. "I want you to help me."
He smiled, and asked her, "Now, what with?"
"I want to be there, for people like me. Like you were for me."
"You're playing with fire, Miss Campbell. And it's not the kind you can hold in your hand."
"I'll do it without you." She spoke with conviction. She didn't need him. But she was still asking for help.
After a long silence, he spoke. "You'll get yourself killed."
"You sound like my mother. That's a risk I'm willing to take."
He looked thoughtful for a long time, and Tracy began thinking about other people who she could ask. Finally, he said, "I'm not going to be taking a child along with me."
"I'm not a child." Embarrassed, Tracy turned to walk away. He wasn't the only member of the Serpent's Hand. She didn't need him.
"Miss Campbell, you still have so much to learn." He didn't sound angry. He held out his right arm, the black head of his serpent tattoo stretched out across the back of his hand. "But I can show you how we do things."
Tracy Campbell turned around again, and walked back towards him. She eventually took his hand and shook it. The tip of the black serpent's tongue flickered out across Crow's skin and touched her palm. She winced at a sudden pain like a stabbing needle, but maintained a tight grip.
"If that doesn't put you off, nothing will."

Become Like God »


October 31, 2022, Around 11:00 PM
Screams, that's all that could be heard. Screams. How could it have come to this? How could such a tragedy occur? How could this be? Monsters aren't real! Or are they…
Wanna know what happened? Well for that we have to go back in time…
October 29, 2022, Around 9:00 AM
It was an early Saturday morning, just a few days before Halloween, you would think a teenage boy would be overly excited about Halloween, but no, you would be wrong. James Born was dreading every second the clock got closer to October 31. But why?
Well, on Halloween, his best friend would be throwing a party. And as you may know, parties for teenagers usually end horribly. James was the kind of guy who just liked to play pranks on Halloween, nothing more.
James was laying on his couch, he was home alone, his parents were away on a business trip, and his sister studying at MIT.
BUZZ BUZZ
James's phone was ringing, his best friend was calling him. James picked up annoyed. "You excited about the party?'", Liam asked, buzzing with energy. "NO! I DREAD IT! Something bad will happen! What if the cops come!?! James said, clearly distressed. "Woah, calm down. It's just a party, nothing bad will happen", Liam responded, clearly sounding irritated. "You are not going to like this but we have to hold the party at your house."
"WHAT!?!", James responded with the fury of a hurricane. "My parents will be home on Halloween, and your parents won't be coming back till a week after Halloween, so it will be perfect, the party will be held at your house whether you like it or not, we need to meet at the Starbucks near the school at 5:00 PM. See you then."
As Liam hung up the call James was left in a rage, clearly worried about what would happen if his parent's happened. Poor James had no choice but to go through with it because if he didn't, he and Liam would probably have an awful fight, and James did care about his best friend.
October 29, 2022, Around 5:00 PM
James and Liam were sitting at a table in the aforementioned Starbucks near the school. It turns out Liam just wanted to discuss the decorations for the party, he specified that there needs to be a giant skeleton mascot as the party's main attraction. James literally had no idea what to say to that.
October 30, 2022
This day wasn't really that important, it was just Liam forcing James to decorate the entire house. It took hours and I mean hours to finish the decorations, at around 9:00 PM they set up the party's main attraction, an amazing skeleton Liam named Lord Bobathon Lee Skelington III.
Didn't expect humour in a so-called "scary story" did ya?
October 31, 2022, Around 10:30 AM
"Wow! These decorations look amazing, me and Liam certainly did a good job", James said to himself. Why do people talk to themselves anyway?
BUZZ BUZZ
Another phone call, from Liam of course, this time James just straight-out declined the call, and as soon as he did that, he heard a sound… A very unsettling sound…
TIK TOK
TIK TOK
TIK TOK
It was like a clock, but rougher, could you guess what SCP James has come across?
James startled by the sound decided to call Liam. Upon calling Liam, who accepted, he apologised for declining the call and they chatted for a bit, Liam told him the party started at 2:00 PM and ends at 2:00 AM, what kind of timing is that!?!?
James of course was dreading the party, and he was getting increasingly agitated, and it certainly didn't help that the sound of the clock was still ringing in his ear..
TIK TOK
TIK TOK
TIK TOK
James proceeded to tell Liam about the noises but Liam casually dismissed them, informing James that he would arrive at his house by 1:00 PM, before hanging up.
October 31, 2022, Around 5:00 PM
The party had started a while ago, lots of people were there, Liam was chatting with the others, while some weirdos were gazing at the Lord Bobathon Lee Skelington III, still can't get over that name… But what about James?
Well, James was locked up in a bathroom, he had gone hysterical long ago, that sound still ringing in his ear…
TIK TOK
TIK TOK
TIK TOK
October 31, 2022, Around 9:00 PM
Around this time, loud music was blasting as everybody including Liam was dancing to a rocking beat, except James of course…
By this point, James had begun sobbing, terrified of the sound…
TIK TOK
TIK TOK
TIK TOK
Until it stopped…
James felt a wave of relief for just a moment before he was ripped to shreds, his guts spilling out, blood covering the bathroom floor… It's a shame his time was up.
It's a shame the music drowned out his bloodcurdling screams.
October 31, Around 10:30 PM
By this point, the music had stopped and everybody was just chilling, what does that even mean?
Also, Liam had finally realised his best friend's absence. He went out to investigate, and of course, couldn't find the body.
DRIP
DRIP
DRIP
Liam heard a sound, like water slowly dripping coming from nearby, he discovered a door and opened it, he then proceeded to let out a scream as he found his best friend's mangled corpse.
The others rushed towards him. But then… Out of the corner of his eye, through the bathroom window, he saw a bird-like creature, moving away from the house, taking very slow steps.
This caused him to panic even further just as the other arrived, they saw the body and began screaming as well, but then… An urge overcame them all…
October 31, 2022, Around 11:00 PM
Now we have finally arrived here once again, how wonderful! Nothing but screams could be heard coming from the house and people were gathering around, someone was about the dial 911 when suddenly the screaming stopped, and everybody waited for another 5 minutes before returning to their own homes.
But what exactly had happened?
Well, they screamed for like another hour and an urge kept spreading through their minds, what was that urge? Well, it was the urge to commit suicide and at around 11:00 PM they all did just that…
They would be discovered a few days later when the parents got back, by this point police were also searching for the missing people, and I don't want to go into the details of what happened after they were discovered so let's just call this a sad ever after if there is even such a thing.