The moment I met Dr. Dura, I could see that she was different from the rest of us. As she breezed her way into the house it suddenly seemed as if everything there belonged to her. She stood there in the living room, dressed in a tailored suit with a paisley cravat, makeup sharper than Anise’s, hair smoother than a cartoon character’s, while the rest of us floated around her like planets caught in her gravitational pull.

“This house is a mess,” she said. “Who’d you get it from again? Meteor? Nightfall? Surely not Acorn.”

“Nightfall,” Bliss replied. “She used it as a backup hideout, until Normalcy caught her.”

“And you just kept it.” Dura swept towards the kitchen and I scrambled to get out of her way while everyone else followed on her heels. “You’re a clever little scavenger, aren’t you? Root beer?”

Bliss hurried to the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle which she offered to Dura. The scientist placed the neck of the bottle against the counter and, with a slap of her hand, removed the cap.

After taking a swig she said “So we should start by taking stock of our current resources. I assume you have a nice little nest somewhere, magpie?”

Bliss grinned. “Yes! Right over here.” Gesturing, she led Dura—and the rest of us caught in her wake—down to the basement.

The basement was unfinished, a single huge room filled with a disorganized collection of strange, mismatched scientific equipment. I had been down here before, but I was afraid to touch anything, since so much of it looked delicate and potentially dangerous.

Dura wandered around the basement picking up objects, pushing buttons, even tapping on a few things.

“Pretty limited. It’s not a bad collection but if we’re going to do anything really impressive, we’re basically starting from scratch.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Dura,” Bliss said hastily.

“It’s no matter. Besides, who knows? When we figure out how to approach this, we might find that some of this junk has more use than we realize.” She pulled a sheet off a workbench revealing a half-assembled mechanical leg. A panel on the side was open, revealing a complicated mass of wires.

“Ah, you’re working on a new leg,” Dura said.

“I’ve been working on it for like a year,” Bliss replied. “With my job and everything, it’s hard to find the time.”

Dura continued to explore, picking up a metal sphere which was plugged into the wall with a thick cable.

“Oh, careful with that,” Bliss said nervously, reaching for but not quite touching the sphere. “According to Dr. Acorn, the predictive mutation system will take another five years to remove the virus’ deadlier effects.”

Dura blinked. “There’s a virus in here?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it supposed to do when it’s no longer deadly?”

Bliss’ face began to turn red. “Well, it was a gift from Dr. Acorn, it’s not designed to be infectious or anything…”

Dura gave Bliss a sly look. “Yes, and what does it do?”

“It converts testosterone into estrogen. And causes breast growth. And causes some behavioral alterations.” Her voice grew very quiet. “Like occasional meowing.”

Dura burst out laughing. “Of course you’d get Acorn to make something like that.”

Bliss grinned behind her blush.

“Of course, that’s not as bad as when we first met. Back when you were with Dreamskimmer. What did you call that? Your bimbo phase?”

Bliss turned to face the rest of us, hands up protectively. “It’s not as misogynistic as it sounds. Dr. Dreamskimmer wanted to develop humanity’s latent telekinetic abilities. I was her first test subject. It was technically successful, but the technique she originally used made me a little, ah, easily confused.” She paused. “As for the term ‘bimbo,’ that’s just a bit of a joke because in certain circles—”

“You don’t need to explain that,” said a giggling Celeste. “I’m trans too, you know.”

Dura had moved on to a device that resembled an old-fashioned PDA, or perhaps a graphing calculator. A large screen and a series of buttons. Her face turned serious.

“You managed to save one of the interfaces,” she said softly.

“Yeah.”

“You could have used it yourself. Changed everything.”

“You’re supposed to be the one to use it.”

Dura grinned. “You’re too loyal for your own good. Anyway, you told me a little about your roommates. Do you mind if I run some tests on them?”

“They’re just normal humans,” Bliss replied.

“Normal humans who have come into contact with supernatural creatures,” Dura corrected. “Who knows what they picked up along the way. You have a bio scanner?”

Bliss gestured to an ancient-looking computer with a device that resembled a tuning fork attached with a cable and sitting in a holster on the side of the monitor. Dura booted up the computer and, after a few minutes of waiting ran the tuning fork over first Celeste, then Anise. I had expected Anise to object, but it seemed that she, too, was fascinated by Dr. Dura. Or perhaps just curious about the results. After each of them, Dura examined the rows of green text that appeared on the screen and muttered to Bliss.

Then came my turn. I nearly shivered as she ran the device over my body, always close but never quite touching it. She then looked at the screen again.

“Ah, here’s something. Aside from the normal array of symbiotic organisms found in the human body, the scanner is reading an unknown form of bacteria.”

“Bacteria?” I asked. “Does that mean I’m sick?”

Dura looked at me thoughtfully. “If you were going to, I’m sure you would have by now. But about these aliens, you were afraid of them at first, right?”

I nodded.

“And then you weren’t?”

“Yeah, I mean, it eventually became clear that they didn’t mean me any harm. And when I figured out how to communicate with them, I realized that they were friendly.”

Dura continued to stare at me. I hoped I was giving her enough information.

“Were there other humans there?” she asked.

“Just me and the animals.”

“Animals?”

“My Queen loves Earth’s animals,” I explained.

“Were the animals afraid of the aliens?”

“At first. They were afraid of me, too.”

“And then they weren’t?”

“They got used to them.”

Dura turned to address Bliss.

“You know toxoplasmosis? The bacteria that makes it so mice aren’t afraid of cats. I wonder if it’s something like that. A bacteria present in the aliens that infects animals they encounter and changes the body’s chemical reactions. Makes the infected fall in love with something they should fear.”

Bliss grinned with excitement. “If we’d had something like that before, it would have made all of our plans so much easier.”

Dura shrugged. “It’s just a guess, really. It’s probably not infectious, or Normalcy wouldn’t have let him out into the wild. Wouldn’t it be something if they missed it, though?” She turned to address me again. “Just think, Ross, your shit could be changing the nature of humanity.”

I tuned out the rest of her conversation with Bliss. I paid little attention as she took us out to dinner, and teased Anise and Celeste until they were giggling excitedly every time her attention turned to them.

I kept thinking about the bacteria infecting me. Was it really the reason I loved my Queen? It seemed impossible. She was more beautiful than any human. Her thoughts were more soothing than any voice. How could I not love her? But I couldn’t help but remember that Normalcy agent, horrified by my words of love for my Queen.

“Look at this monster. How could you touch it? How could you let it touch you? It’s disgusting.”