Sprinting over to a biocode-locked safe in the corner which I’d initially taken for a closet, Grayman leant out a moment later with two plasma rifles. He held the weapons out to me, and I accepted them with extended tentacles. He ducked back in and emerged with more guns in his hands and others tucked into holsters attached to the harness he’d put on. 

The activity upstairs had intensified, and with it—the volume of the shouting and crashing. I discerned the source of the disturbance before we’d reached the top of the basement stairs. And sure enough, just as it came into view, one of the sources appeared at the doorway. 

The drones of Shore House are fairly standard models, albeit with a few only semi-legal upgrades. With their legs extended in four parts—as they often were when saving energy—they almost resembled the dogs humans frequently referred to them as, though composed on the exterior of a matte gray and glossy black armor. But this one was hovering, its back legs tucked up into its body and its forward ones deployed with muzzles exposed. 

The humans had assured me that the drones’ recent improvements were unassailable. But humans, unfortunately, cannot always be trusted in the assessment of their own competence or that of their technology. It’s possible, even, that the time spent upgrading them exposed them to further interference. 

Spreading my arms and some of my tentacles to shield Grayman, I caught the plasma bolts as the drone shot them rapid-fire down at us. Though I growled in pain as they splattered and sizzled across parts of me that had only just healed, they were little more than a nuisance. 

At this range I could have deactivated the thing on a whim. But the humans could not be allowed to know that. Instead I whipped three of my tentacles forward as I climbed the last few stairs, grasped the drone’s body in two of them as I bound it up in hypersilk with the third. 

For a moment, I was still, assessing the situation in thought and sense alike. 

There were four house drones in total. One was in the downstairs living room…where Marah, Indri, and the babies were located. One was just outside of Lore’s room, though it seemed to be making no attempts at ingress. And one of them…one of them was upstairs. Entering Rin’s quarters. 

“Grayman,” I said. “One of the drones is attacking your wives and children in the downstairs living room.” 

And then I ran past him, as fast as my human-like legs could carry me. Upstairs. Up all of the stairs. Nearly skidding past her door as I reached it, I caught my tentacles around the edges of the open entryway and hurled myself through it. 

The house drone was framed in the violet light of early evening that shone in through the balcony doors, poised and hovering with its weapons leveled at Rin. And beyond her, beyond the balcony itself and shielded from view of street and neighbors alike by the positioning of the room and the high trees that surrounded it, was a woman. Dressed all in black and gray, save boots and bracers which were shining, silver, and bulbously oversized. She levitated several times her own height above the ground. 

But in that moment my attention was mostly upon the drone as I seized it, bound it and cast it aside. Surging forward and out onto the balcony, I attempted to position myself between Rin and the other human. But Rin was leaning against the railing and wouldn’t move. In her left hand she held a plasma pistol, but her arm was rigid at her side, the barrel pointed directly downward. With the right appendage she gripped the balcony rail. Her eyes were fixed on the stranger, her lips slightly parted. As the wind drafted a fresh gust of her chemical excretions our way, I understood why. 

Pheromones. Pheromones that were just like his. 

Luckily, I had been in the process of building up my defenses against such manipulations since first encountering them. 

I growled. For some reason, this action was becoming quite natural to me. 

“Rin, you should step back from her,” I advised. “You are under a chemical influence.” 

She neither moved nor acknowledged me.

The strange woman’s blue eyes pointed to me, and her smile deepened, revealing a set of dimples (small indentations in the cheeks which humans frequently find endearing). Her hair fell to just above her shoulders in waves of dark brown, and a smattering of brown spots—freckles—decorated her cheeks and nose.  

In her right hand, she raised a weapon about the length of her forearm and pointed it upward. Its barrel extended, and she flicked it briefly on. Flames flared from the muzzle and went out. 

“I’d suggest you keep your distance…Zyr, was it?” 

I squeezed the triggers of both my plasma rifles at once. The bolts fizzled away before they could make contact with their target. Evaporating against an invisible force.

Personal Projectile shielding. An exceedingly rare and expensive technology on Elysian as it was in many places.

But I refused to give her the satisfaction of perceiving my frustration.

“I suggest you leave and never return,” I replied. 

She almost laughed, a small huff through her nose. But she made no response, turning her eyes instead back to the other human. 

“You’re going to order your people to free Jonathan and call them off. Now.” 

“Those hover-boots look…really fucking stupid,” grated out Rin, though in truth she watched the woman as though she might be a particularly exceptional chocolate croissant. 

The stranger really did laugh at that, raising herself yet higher and coming forward as if she meant to join us on the balcony. But the instant my tentacles twitched forward, her flame-thrower came up. 

“Don’t,” she warned. 

But I did, lashing out with nearly all of my tentacles at once. Fast, but not so fast that her shielding would block them. Yet the stranger shot backward and powered up her weapon, the surge of fire searing my tentacle-tips. I roared with pain, only just managing to knock the despicable thing from her grip before she flew out of reach.

Rin took a step back and raised her gun. Distance and a shift in the wind had reduced the potency of the stanger’s pheromones. Careless of the shield, the captain began to shoot. I joined her. Together we could burn it out, with time.

Footsteps sounded from just inside the house. Within seconds, Grayman and Marah had joined us—a gun in every hand. The dark-haired stranger, rightly assessing her chances, whirled on the spot and swept off, through the trees and toward the water.

At once, Rin turned to shove past the others. 

“The kids are fine,” called Marah after her. “Indri’s scraped up but ok, too. And the drones are all down.”

“Oh thank Lutra,” breathed Rin. 

“I mean, yes, but also the house is kind of defenseless right now.” said Marah. “Aside from all the guns.”

“And Zyr,” corrected Grayman. 

“Right,” said Marah, eyeing me up and down, gaze lingering in particular on my charred tentacles. “But it’s not just the drones that are down. They fried our whole system.” 

Grayman pointed his eyes at Rin, his expression…sympathetic, I think. But she looked decidedly away from him, toward the spot in the trees so recently disturbed by the stranger’s passage. 

“I think it’s time we consider taking Indri’s family up on their offer,” said Grayman. “We need to keep the kids safe.” 

 Rin scowled.

“I promised Lore I wouldn’t make her leave the planet. And I’m not leaving Lore until I can be sure she’ll be ok.” 

Marah, giving one of the guns she held back to Grayman, put a hand to Rin’s shoulder and squeezed. 

“You promised you wouldn’t make her. That doesn’t mean we can’t convince her.” 

“Rin,” I queried. “How many more siblings does Jonathan have?” 

“What?” She twisted her head to look from the others to me, brow furrowed. “He doesn’t have any.” 

I frowned, or attempted to. I had absorbed some of the dark-haired woman’s DNA through shed skin cells, and the pseudo-brain I’d tasked with the matter had only just completed its assessment. 

“Who was that human, then?”

“No idea,” said Rin. “One of Jonathan’s minions. And knowing him, the kind with benefits.” 

Running her use of the term “benefits” through Fools, I wondered what bearing the woman’s health insurance had on the matter. Humans do seem to dwell on seemingly irrelevant details. 

“Ah. I had assumed they were gene-altered clone siblings. I have now analyized both of their DNA, and it is practically identical aside from their chromosomal configurations.” 

“What?” hissed Rin. 

Marah’s hands clenched around the grips of the weapons she still held. 

“There’s two of them?” 

“At least,” I replied.