Rue walked back to their table with two hot chocolates and an espresso. Ceecee, sat opposite from Remy in their corner booth, happily took hers and blew on it. Their empty plates still had some crumbs on them. Remy smiled at her encouragingly. Her anxiety rolled off of her in waves. 

 

“What’s on your mind, Cee?” 

 

Not even Rue called her that, she realized. She sighed and took a sip, burning her tongue. She barely noticed.

 

“It’s a lot, Remy. It’s so much.”

 

Rue sat down next to Ceecee as Remy carefully touched the back of the woman’s hand. They scooted until Ceecee was between them. 

 

“It’s just…” she took a deep breath. And another one.

 

“Hey. It’s okay. Take your time.”

 

“Just… this. Us. That was already hard. Dealing with the jealousy and the envy. And now LIT’s gone public, and it’s all so difficult to… get a grasp on.”

 

Rue kissed the side of her head. 

 

“I know, Baby Brown. But we’ll figure it out.” She paused. “All of it. We’re all in uncharted territory when it comes to Maxine’s plans. And about us... “ She gently took Ceecee’s hand in her own, entangling their fingers. 

 

“We take our time, yeah? We love you. Keep expressing what you need, and trust that what we want is for you to be happy.”

 

“Yeah. I’m sorry. Thank you, for being patient.”

 

“You have nothing to apologize for, Cee,” Remy interjected. “You didn’t, aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re scared, and have every right to be. And patience is something Rue and I have in spades.” 

 

Ceecee took another breath and another sip. 

 

“I can do this.”

 

The girls on both her sides nudged her softly;

 

“We can do this.”

 

“So…I think we do need to talk about Lit, right? Like, stuff is different now?”

 

Rue nodded her head. 

 

“Yeah, we can’t go back to sneaky landings in hidden airports. We’re a real organisation now. Shit, we’re international news.”

 

They’d picked the booth furthest from the doors, from the windows, for a reason. People had been speculating about their identity since their reveal. “Maxine Powers” didn’t exist on any official documentation, her name change had never been legally approved, and considering how she’d been treated by the system, she’d never bothered. She knew who she was. Lit Inc. was beyond borders and, Maxine had told them once, that meant that she didn’t give a rat’s ass about official ID either. So the internet had exploded with the little imagery of them they’d had. Ceecee had been hidden for the most part, and her wearing a suit and glasses should make her difficult to compare to her days as an activist. 

 

So everyone was wondering who they were. There were paparazzo sneaking around Reykjavík, though Remy was usually good at sensing them from half a block away, homing in on their anxiety for a good scoop. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. 

 

“We always knew this was where we were going,” Remy said, gently dabbing at some crumbs with her fingertip. “But that doesn’t make it easy. It was a good decision not to expose Ceecee.”

 

Rue cocked her head. 

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Remy drank her coffee. Caffeine helped her mute the incoming emotions. She had patches but a light roast was her preferred method of intake.

 

“On the surface, Rue is the most powerful member of Lit Inc, right? We haven’t really found an upward limit to what she can do.”

 

Rue smiled proudly.

 

“But Ceecee would probably be the scariest member of Lit Inc. to global markets. Imagine how wall street would react if they knew there was someone out there who could create platinum at several tons per minute. Someone who can create diamonds the size of beach balls. Ceecee could, on her own, completely destabilize the global economy.”

 

That took a second to sink in.

 

“Holy shit.”

 

“Holy shit is right,” Remy agreed. “We need to keep Cee a secret. If people found out what she can do, she’d be assassinated in a heartbeat.”

 

“I’d be what.”

 

“I mean, between Russia, China and the US, do you think there’s a global superpower that would let someone like you live? Someone who could hypothetically bring an end to global scarcity - once we figure out how?”

 

“Fuck.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Ceecee’s anxiety doubled. Remy felt it, of course. 

 

“Hey. We’ll keep you safe, Cee.”

 

Rue emphasized her point by squeezing her hand.

 

“Nobody knows you exist. Everything is going to be fine. Besides,” Rue smirked, “being a threat to capitalism and governments everywhere is something younger you would be very proud of.”

 

Ceecee smiled at that. 

 

“That’s true. I just…”

 

“I know.”

 

“Do you really think I could end scarcity?” 

 

Remy nodded. 

 

“The problem is that, on any kind of reasonable scale, the most efficient way for you to use your abilities is on extremely rare minerals and materials. That doesn’t feed people. And we don’t want to lock you and Rue in a factory to make chipsets all day for free.”

 

Rue winced at the idea. They’d discussed the idea before, that Rue could technically run an entire factory on her own, all day. But it would exhaust her, mentally and physically, and she’d burn out fast. Even worse, they also realized that technically, Ceecee could be used as a human battery. A government who got a hold of her would have her locked up in some basement and probably make her create nuclear material until the radiation killed her. 

 

“So what we’re doing is hiding our real abilities, and build infrastructure first.”

 

Ceecee agreed, and finished her drink.

 

“What comes after?”

 

“Do you want to go ask V and Max? I’m sure they’ll happily tell you.”

 

“Could we?”

 

“Yeah, they’re on the Lilypad.”

 

The three of them finished their drinks in quiet and got up to leave for the harbour, their parkas zipped up so they could move through the streets in relative anonymity. 

 

---

 

They were a dark shadow in the water, moving too fast for something of that size. Malice felt good hunting, but the feeling was diminished. For one thing, they needed Melanie awake sometimes. While mostly useless - her memory of global geography was less than stellar - they could use the knowledge floating in the periphery of her mind. Things she’d been told as a child, about the stars, maps she’d seen, and it was enough to go off of. She had stopped screaming for a while now. She’d grown used to the horror and the feeling coming off of her was one of disdain, resentment. Hatred. She cursed and spat at them at every opportunity, only being cooperative whenever they threatened her with her transformed body. But it was an exhausting and unpleasant exchange each time.

 

Beyond that grievance, Malice was just not enjoying seafood. The wildlife and humans they’d been eating on land was much richer in flavour, much more pleasant to eat, to hunt. Fish just swam around. The chase was just a matter of speed. And there were no webs down here. They were bored, bored of the food, bored of the salt water needing to be filtered just to get some oxygen deeper down, bored of the empty nothing all around them. 

 

Except for the three times they’d been attacked by the local wildlife. A predator, a Great White Shark, Melanie was certain, had bulleted upwards towards Malice, who had welcomed the change of pace. They wrapped themselves around the animal and suffocated it. The encounter was over too quickly, but it was the little bit of excitement they’d needed. The next two sharks to attempt to take a bit out of them took a lot longer to die, and Malice enjoyed a game of catch and release, letting the animal get away before catching up to it. Hunting these larger predators offered more… sport, than the smaller fish did.

 

They swam for days, not really bothering with rest. Melanie actually fell asleep on her own for a few times, rather than Malice needing to turn her off. That was unexpected, and they woke her up a few times to make sure she wasn’t broken. Her hateful yelling quickly taught them to stop doing this. It was dawn when Malice woke her again.

 

“This had better be important you bi--”

 

Malice shut her up by swimming up to the surface, focusing its dead, white eyes on the horizon. Floating gently on the currents, a boat was visible, not too far off.

 

“Oh… Oh no… Please don’t!”

 

It was too late, of course. Melanie knew she couldn’t talk Malice out of anything. But it hurt her more not to try. The people on the vessel had no idea what was coming. It was their only reprieve.

 

---

 

Zoe looked out the plane window. The reflection was vague. Almost impossible to see. Just barely there. Two eyes. A hint of a beard. It was like a stab to the gut, right underneath her sternum. All her life, something had sat there, hurting her in quiet and insidious ways, and now that she knew what it was, where it came from, she could fight it, but it held such power to cause her pain now. 

 

She turned away from it in disgust. Her body felt… ill-fitting, like clothes that were simultaneously too big and too tight. The hair on her body was thick and coarse. It reminded her of close-up pictures she’d seen of insects, of tarantulas, and it was taking every bit of her self-control not to pull at it. She traced the edge of her facial hair, where it met her neck, and she felt like… if she could just find the edge of the mask, of whatever tape kept this grotesquerie stuck to her face, she could peel it off like they might in a bad action movie. 

 

But there was no outline, no edge. The short, coarse hair was back, irritant to the touch. It wasn’t for long, she’d been telling herself, but that didn’t make it easy. She figured it would have been, to go back to being this for a moment. She’d been him for decades, she could be that for a few hours. Especially for someone who had done as much for her as Penumbra had. But it turned out that this easily made promise was not easily kept, and she was grateful for Penumbra’s presence. Without them, she would probably have been writhing in her seat right now. As it stood she was only on the edge of it - both the seat and, she felt, her sanity. 

 

She looked at her hands, calloused, an almost grey skin tone, thick hair eeking out from her sleeves onto the back of her hands, fingers that seemed to be designed for… what? Hard labour? Fighting? They weren’t gentle hands. They were the hands of twelfth century woodsman. 

 

For a second, a terrifying thought wormed its way from that dark place where thoughts like these usually come from, a dank and unforgiving twist of the mind. 

 

“What if,” it said, whispering like a sniveling advisor to a terrified king, “none of this was real? What if this was a fantasy, and you never looked like a girl? What if you just had a hallucination, a breakdown, an episode, and you got on a plane because a voice in your head said so? Even if that voice told you right now it was real, that wouldn’t be proof, right?”

 

Penumbra heard this, of course, and wasn’t amused.

 

Okay, first of all, they started with annoyance, I am not a hallucination, so jot that down.

 

Zoe blinked with a start. “But what if you’re just my unconscious?”

 

In this hypothetical, where none of the past few days happened, and it was all a hallucination, then you still feel miserable in your skin and you still got to be a woman and you still immediately found a name for yourself and you still get to be Zoe. That doesn’t hinge on whether or not I’m real. What you’re feeling is still real, still a very solid and important reality.

 

Zoe reflected on this for a while. That was true. Whether or not Penumbra was her subconscious or not, they’d always been there for her, and had always given advice that had only her mental health in mind. If they were her subconscious, she mused, they’d still be the part of her that wished her happiness and health. And it wouldn’t make sense, she logicked, for that part of her to imagine so vividly that she was a woman only to take it away. 

 

I know that, right now, I can’t prove to you that I’m real, but I promise you that, once we land, once we meet with Maxine, you’ll look like Zoe again, and Maxine will see that.

 

She took a deep breath. Trying not to feel like you were losing your mind in a situation as absurd as this was not an easy task on any day, and it had been a hell of a couple of them. She was on a plane to iceland, for goodness’ sakes. 

 

Maybe this will help.

 

There was a slight tingling in her windowside hand, hidden from the other passengers. Looking at it, she saw, for just a moment, the coarse hair retreating, the hand regaining its lighter tone. The fingers slender again, beautiful and feminine. They took a slight breath, trying not to think too much, enjoying the feeling. It felt real. It felt good. It felt right.

 

“Thank you,” she whispered under her breath.

 

It’s my pleasure.

 

She looked out of the window. There wasn’t much to see out there except endless ocean, but she managed to ignore the reflection this time. 

 

--- 

 

The seas were calm. The moon was waning, illuminating the deck in a gentle white light. It had been a long day and he should really be sleeping, but the last cigarette of the day was a ritual he never broke with. The smoke filled his lungs and throat, and it was good. He looked over the calm seas, a dark mirror reflecting the moonlight. Nothing stirred. 

 

He heard footsteps behind him, and he turned around lazily. He wanted to say something, mentioning that his crewmate should be asleep, or at least in their bunk, but on looking, the deck behind him was empty. That was odd. He had pretty good hearing, otherwise. 

 

He flicked the butt of the cigarette into the ocean, and went below decks to see if any of his crew were maybe having a laugh. They were usually a very dependable crew so he was wondering what might possess them to behave so… inappropriately. His crew didn’t play pranks.

 

The crew quarters were empty. He called out, but there was no response. Mild confusion took a step back, made way for genuine concern, and he went back up to the main deck. Nobody. The helm was unmanned, now. 

 

There was a weak gurgling noise from the aft, a sound his brain was quite desperately trying not to hear, the kind that made 200 million years of evolution collectively pull the the covers over their heads and try to pretend the monster couldn’t see you if you couldn’t see it. But because he was human, the only species to have ever evolved the ability to ignore instinct out of sheer curiosity, he turned around.

 

On the plus side, he found his crew.

 

The rest was a little harder to swallow. For him, at least. Malice was having an easy time of it. 

 

---

 

He finally stopped screaming. Malice was content with that. They had expelled some of their mass into a sticky substance, clogged the man’s screaming-hole with it, while not suffocating him. With the man webbed up against the cabin of the ship, Malice had been pacing back and forth for a minute now, their once-again hardened carapace making a rhythmic clattering noise on the steel deck. They were considering how to use the opportunity. This was their first interaction with a human being since they “met” Melanie that wasn’t just a stimulation to the taste-buds. 

 

They remembered tearing memories out of Melanie. She had been compatible, a good host. But perhaps a transfer wasn’t necessary. They scuttled over to the captain, towering over him, mandibles clicking. His eyes rolled in his head, trying to look anywhere but at Malice’s horrifying form; not an easy task, considering their considerable bulk.

 

Malice reached out with a single razor-sharp talon, and removed the webbing on the captain’s face, absorbing it back into their core. He instantly screamed again, but stopped when Malice pressed the tip of their talon between his eyes. He just quivered after that.

 

Malice extended themself, trying something both new and familiar, shoving a second talon into the captain, curling themself around his brain, around his entire identity, and digging through it with no real regard for the person holding it all together. It merely sought memories, information. 

 

It wasn’t long before they found the memories, the knowledge the captain had about the ocean, its currents, but also about their current location, how to read the stars, how to get to their destination from where they currently were. They considered for a second just how useless Melanie was by comparison, aside from being a good host. 

 

“Fuck you too, Mal.” Melanie tried to sound aggressive, but Malice knew she was shaken. They could feel her pain at their callous violation of the captain’s mind and body. It was delicious. 

 

They dug out and stored all that was needed in their own memories, and released their captive. He was largely catatonic. Malice had been looking directly for the memories after all, any damage to the limbic system was inconsequential. The captain probably couldn’t speak anymore, let alone remember their own name. 

 

Malice looked up at the sky, and it didn’t take them very long to figure out which way was East. They leapt overboard with a grace that should have been impossible for a monstrosity of their size, and slid into the water with barely a ripple. 

 

Not far now.

 

---

 

“We did it, babe.”

 

Maxine leaned on the railing and looked out over the sea, and looked behind her at Victoria. V was sat cross-legged in the center of the room, the first room on the Lilypad to have been furnished. It had been for photo-ops, of course. To show what the view was like from a room on the floating island. But the room itself was still, well, theirs. It looked a little bit like V’s old apartment, where they’d first lived together. A lot of the same furniture. A lot of books. A lot of cozy places to sit and/or snuggle. Victoria looked up from her tablet at Maxine, and smiled.

 

“Step one is complete, Max. We’re actually doing this. The Transatlantic Project is actually going to happen!”

 

She hopped off the table and sauntered over to her wife, who was basking in ocean breeze and evening sun. She’d never seen something so beautiful but, then again, she was very gay. She wrapped her arms around Maxine and gave her a slight kiss. 

 

“Are you excited?”

 

Max nodded. 

 

“The next couple of Lilypads will show this wasn’t a fluke, of course. People need to believe. But considering the people that’ve already agreed to see us? I think we’ve got a good chance of seeing all of phase two through.”

 

“And this one?”

 

Max booped V’s nose with her own. 

 

“I like it. Maybe we can stay here a while, after we’re done with phase two.”

 

V untangled their arms, but kept one hand on one of Maxine’s, and leaned against the railing too. Who got to say here had been a difficult thing to decide. They had decided from the get-go to avoid what they referred to as a Rapture-Situation. This wasn’t going to be a place for the kind of people who thought eugenics was a neat idea or that Atlas Shrugged was a good book. The solution had been an obvious one, of course. Already, people had been bidding to live on the Reykjavík Lilypad. There were more applicants than Maxine had been able to count. And while future arcologies might need to find ways to have selection processes that were truly devoid of bias, this one was a little more stringent. 

 

The Reykjavík Lilypad was going to be the launching platform for phase three, the Transatlantic Project. The selection criterion for this one was straight-forward: engineers. It wasn’t equal-opportunity, and they regretted it, but with only room for fifty-thousand people, this was a choice that would have to be made. So the call had gone out. Engineers wanted. Residence at the arcology would be fairly cheap, and there would be room for spouses and children. Self-sustaining, if the automated greenhouses did their thing right. A lot of people would have to get used to eating vegetarian, or pay for some really expensive pizza delivery. 

 

Lilypad 01. The first Floating City, not counting Venice. The Reykjavík Arcology. Already people were giving it names all over. The whole world had been talking about it. The Icelandic had been very good about keeping the press out of their airspace. 

 

“You’re still okay with this?”

 

“What part?”

 

“Ceecee.”

 

“Oh.”

 

The rub. Over the years they’d all known each other, there had been a playful contest between them, who had been the strongest. Maxine was no longer in the running, but when she’d been part of Spite, there was nothing they couldn’t shrug off. Sam was extremely durable, and hit like a truck. But the real contest, it seemed, was between the other three. Rue was the obvious contender. Nothing, she’d argued, could really compete with someone who could summon a skyscraper-sized godzilla. Except, Billy had argued, someone who could simply slow down time to such a degree that you literally can’t dodge them. 

 

The two of them had spent evenings that had turned into nights discussing possible ways they would be able to take each other on, but neither was able to conceive of a winning strategy the other couldn’t circumvent. 

 

Until someone had pointed out that, out of all of them, Ceecee was probably the most powerful.

 

“What if,” Remy had suggested, “Cee just grabs a handful of diamonds and makes, say, a couple million? Let’s say, about a ton. She’d crash the diamond market overnight. What about a ton of gold? Or how about she wears a hazmat suit and just makes a bunch of uranium? If she played it smart, she could become the richest person in the world in a matter of days.”

 

People had been quiet after that. 

 

The Ceecee dilemma. Was it ethical, was it right, to ask Ceecee to use her powers to make them rich enough to pay the engineers they’d need. The security. Government bribes. Everyone at Lit Inc had been okay with living modestly. They’d never had money, only accepting what they needed to keep their operation going. It’s not that they’d never considered it, it would have been easy, but it wouldn’t have been right. The ability to give everyone in the world a gold bar was, on the surface, neat, but practically speaking that would never solve the cause of inequality. So they’d helped where they could and sat on their consciences and pondered how they could do better. Enter the Transatlantic Project. Not quite the solution to the Ceecee dilemma, but a step in the right direction. Truly universal free public transportation. 

 

“I think,” Maxine said, “I am. I think we’re doing the right thing. If we could make more of Ceecee, or if complex structures were an option, I think I would’ve said no b--”

 

She didn’t get any further. Victoria’s mouth fell open in a silent scream. Over the years, with Lit Inc, she’d seen many horrifying things. Only once, in Afghanistan, had she seen something that had put her into a state of fight-or-flight as acutely as what rose out of the water behind Maxine. 

 

Something that was at once an octopus with a dozen or more tentacles and a spider, their black and green skin, like a sick oil spill, hardening into an exoskeleton rose up claws digging into the synthetic walls of the arcology. Something that had unmistakably been a human face, filled with teeth and mandibles, dripping green venom and slime, brought itself close to her face.

 

Victoria, in all her years, had never been so scared.

 

A voice like shards of glass in a blender whispered from their throat.

 

“Where is the seedling?”

 

Maxine, having been in more situations like this one, didn’t hesitate. She wasn’t Spite, but she was far from weak. She spun around punched them in the face. They made a sound like gravel being kicked up, and it took her a second to realize they were laughing at her. 

 

“I like that you do not scream. Where is the seedling?”

 

She kicked them. Nothing. They grabbed her by the ankle and flung her at the wall. Despite her weakened state, the wall was still the first to give, and she found herself bouncing off the glass-and-plastic flooring of the central platform of the arcology. A few broken bones were already knitting themselves together as she unsteadily got back on her feet. Victoria ran towards her as the thing approached her at an almost leisurely pace, their many legs clattering on the floor. 

 

“Max!”

 

“Babe you should--” she coughed. Her lung was un-collapsing itself, but slowly. Too slowly. “You should really go. Get… get the others.”

 

They were almost upon them, and Victoria’s tortured expression spoke volumes. But she was, as she always was, a pragmatist, and broke into a sprint. The creature didn’t even look at her, their many eyes fixed on Maxine. Their mistake.

 

Sam slammed into Malice with all the speed, elegance and self-control of a rhinoceros on steroids. 

 

---

 

Something is wrong. 

 

“What do you mean?”

 

I can’t… Something is wrong.

 

“Can… can I do anything?”

 

Zoe felt Penny’s agitation as if it was her own. A feeling of directional wrongness. As certain as she was of the direction of ‘down’, she was certain of the Wrong that was coming from below. 

 

I think… Maxine… We’re close

 

“Wait, isn’t that a good thing?”

 

Not if she’s in trouble.

 

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

 

You don’t know her like I do. She’s the kind of person who can get into trouble while she’s sleeping. 

 

“Then what do we…”

 

We have to go. She needs our help.

 

“We’re on an airplane, Penny, I don’t…”

 

We’ve fallen from higher. You’ll be fine. 

 

“You can’t just…”

 

The cabin doors are sealed but the cargo door can open.

 

“How do I…”

 

Please, Zoe!

 

“I… fine.”

 

She got up. The crew was going to need some convincing. She felt Penumbra stirring inside here. She was sure they could think of something if they put their heads together. 

 

---

 

Sam stood in front of Maxine, still dripping water. She’d been out swimming when Malice had attacked. She was lucky she’d been above surface when Max had crashed through the wall, a sound that had echoed well over the calm waters. Her custom diving gear shone pink and blue in the evening light. Max stood next to her and narrowed her eyes.

 

“Who’s this fucker?” Sam asked.

 

“No clue. It says it’s looking for a seed or something.”

 

Sam and Max both took up fighting stances. In Sam’s case, she’d found that, with Victoria’s training, she was a formidable opponent. Whatever Penumbra’s healing had done to her had made her inhumanly strong, and twice as fast. Training with V over the past few months had given her enough of a background in martial arts to allow her to do some real damage to, say, an n-legged spider-monstrosity. In Maxine’s case, the pose was mostly there to hype her up. She wasn’t as strong or as fast as Sam, and while she could make her skin harder, a bit sharper, perhaps, she probably couldn’t damage the thing. But she could slow it down, and she wasn’t going to get blindsided twice. 

 

Malice got back up. They were furious and their legs moved in a flurry as they circled the two women.

 

“Give me the Seedling!” Their bellow echoed over the arcology, bouncing off its walls. 

 

“I don’t know what the fuck a seedling is!” Maxine yelled back.

 

Malice slowed down, and skittered back and forth, pacing, almost hypnotically as they seemed to size her up.

 

“You bear its mark, human. You are host.”

 

“Oh fuck,” Sam and Max said at the same time.

 

“You know!” Malice screamed. “Give me the seedling!” They charged.

 

Maxine dove to the right as several of Malice’s spiked claws crashed into the ground where she’d been standing a moment earlier. Sam leapt up, and kicked Malice in the head. The sound of the impact was loud, like concrete hitting metal at terminal velocity. Malice flew backwards and rolled over, but Sam too hit the ground with a crash. She got back up, but Max saw her limping. She hurried over.

 

“You alright?”

 

“Yeah, but that thing is… dense. I don’t heal like you do, sis.”

 

“Fuck.”

 

“Fuck is right.”

 

“Ideas?”

 

“You’re the idea girl.”

 

“Bitch, same brain.”

 

“I got nothing.”

 

“Me neither.”

 

They looked at Malice getting back on their feet, shrugging off the impact of the blow and turning towards them again. 

 

“Do you think this thing is like Penny?” Sam asked.

 

“Maybe? I don’t like to think about it.”

 

“Do you think it has a host?”

 

“Oh shit.”

 

“Maybe we can stop it if we can get to the host somehow.”

 

“Fuck, I hope they’re not conscious in there.”

 

Their conversation was interrupted as Malice approached them in a gallop again. And then slammed into a translucent blue wall. Rue, with Remy and Ceecee in tow, ran up to stand next to them. 

 

“What did you two get yourselves into now.”

 

“This thing is looking for Penumbra.”

 

“What the fuck?”

 

“That’s what I was thinking.”

 

“Tried talking?”

 

“Not very talkative.”

 

“Anything else?”

 

“We think,” Max said, “it has a host. Maybe if we can get through to them, somehow? Or disconnect them like you did to me once.”

 

“I don’t think I can. I still believed I was summoning deities back then.”

 

“Rue this is not the time for self-doubt, just stop the big spider thing from eating me.”

 

“Okay fair, I’ll see what I can do.”

 

Several dozen translucent, mechanized soldiers materialized around the creature as they raised themself up on several of their hind legs. The robots opened fire. Malice responded in a flash, a flurry of movement as they moved with unnatural speed, decapitating the constructs with ease as their construct weaponry had no noticeable effect. But they noticed Rue, and moved towards her, hacking away at the translucent barrier between them. Their carapace grew spikes, some kind of quills. 

 

“Rue! Hurry up!” Sam started to move herself between the creature and her friends. 

 

“I’m… trying…” Rue had an expression of pure focus on her face. She was clearly straining to do… something.

 

“Whatever it is, do it f--...” is as far as she got. Malice slammed their forehead into the glass barrier, and it shattered. Rue looked up, panicked. 

 

“I almost have it!”

 

The quills ejected from the creature. Sam stepped in front of Rue. Max stepped in front of Sam. 

 

The three of them hit the floor with sickening thuds.

 

The translucent blue of Rue’s wall dissipated.

 

Maxine coughed as her body squeezed out the quills and it started to heal itself. She rolled over as she heard, faintly, that disgusting sound Malice made that was unmistakably a laugh. She saw Sam, squirming, two of the quills, each half a foot long, protruding from her shoulder. She wasn’t making much of a sound, but the expression on her face told Max she wasn’t getting up, but she wasn’t dying either. What really made Max’s heart skip a beat was the wet gurgle coming from behind her. 

 

She crawled over to Rue, pushing herself forward on her elbows, over to her friend who was finding it very hard to breathe. The quill that had gotten to her still stuck out the back of Sam’s shoulder. It had stopped halfway through, but got through just far enough spear Rue in the throat. She was grasping at it frantically, panicked, as her airways filled up with blood. 

 

Max felt the terrifying creep of panic make its way to her throat but she pushed it back. She wasn’t going to lose Rue, not now, not ever. The woman was like a little sister to her. 

 

“Rue, Rue, lis--... listen to me. Can you hear me?”

 

Rue’s eyes, panicked, like a rabbit in a trap, looking around anywhere for a way out of an impossible situation, locked with hers, and her expression became pleading. She couldn’t speak but her hands, covered in blood, grabbed at Maxine with heartbreaking desperation. Maxine tried to breathe, tried to stay calm, but her friend was dying and she didn’t have a lot of time.

 

“R-- Rue… I know it’s hard, but t--... try to create a… a construct… Focus… In your throat… A… A tube… you can breathe through, a--... and something to… stop the bleeding…Please…”

 

Rue clearly tried to stay calm, but anyone who has ever had to fight to breathe knows it is almost impossible to keep your head when you’re suffocating. The clattering of a thousand feet like knives on a plate grew closer but Maxine didn’t care, maybe she could save this one person, this one loved one, and that would be enough, but she wasn’t going to give up without trying at least that. She saw the tell-tale blue glow forming around Rue’s throat. Max smiled, softly, when she heard her friend inhale deeply. 

 

It was enough, she thought, as five razor-sharp talons speared through her chest and pinned her to the deck of Lilypad 01, and everything went black.