There he stood, bare-chested, a river of gore trailing down his immaculate, gray-skinned body. He was a vampire, an elder one, with all limbs where they ought to be. He looked entirely ecstatic as he was holding another elder vampire, this one with various limbs mangled or missing, above his head.

  His victim still had a deathworm in him, and a wooden stake. He had neither.

  With a final effort, he snapped his victim’s spine. Dark blood flowed freely from a hole in his chest, blood which he gulped up greedily. With every sip his skin grew less sallow and pale. With each sip, he went more and more from wrinkled, spotted gray alien to an unnaturally charming young man, somewhere in his late mid to late thirties.

  Yes, charming. I didn’t say handsome. He had a chiseled body that was unachievable in any circumstance outside of dehydrating yourself moments before a strongman tournament. It was the kind you couldn’t take your eyes off of. Perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect jawline, perfect tan.

  And so unnatural. Every inch of his body seemed thirsty, so very thirsty, muscles bulging and condensing, veins wriggling under his skin like a horde of greedy worms.

  With grace, he plucked the vampire’s staked heart from its socket, and only then did he notice me. One lazy side-eye turned in my direction.

  “And what,” he said between taking a bite, “sort of misbirth of Tonacacihuatl are you supposed to be?”

  I swallowed heavily.

  Say something smart.

  “Hopefully not dessert?”

  Dammit, don’t give him ideas!

  He snorted and continued to enjoy his heartfelt snack. Notably, the heart was still beating, even with two chunks missing and impaled on a stake. He was holding it like a candied apple.

  “Apologies. I must have swallowed my manners. I am Coyote, as far as friends are concerned.”

  “Oh, I’m definitely a friend, h-hahah. Friendly spider magic girl person… that’s me!”

  He bared his teeth and laughed. Nervously, I laughed with him. Dammit, why was he here, now, blocking the way. I had a mission to do, dangit. I could appreciate him removing one big threat on my path, as long as he wasn’t here to replace it.

  In an instant he covered the thirty-odd feet between us, appearing in the corner of my eyes, circling me with slow, methodical steps. He traipsed languidly, close enough that I could feel his body heat, while ignoring the illusory doubles in front and behind me. The fizzy fake-Samantha’s face distended and bulged around his body before reforming behind it as he walked right through it.

  “A collage of other influences. An awfully imperfect set of magics, yet straightforward at the seams. If you are an artwork, you must have been made in poor taste and yet… I can appreciate the unrealized potential of the magic knotting in that brain of yours.”

  “I appreciate the compliment mister Coyote vampire sir.” Aaah, please leave! I just want to charge my spells and do magical girl stuff, I don’t have time to entertain some eons-old monster in the middle of a freaking convergence event.

  Somewhere behind him, something beeped. My eyes grew wide. Before I knew what was happening, I had leapt right past him, catching the stupid spider mine before it could blow up in this very dangerous, very undecided elder vampire’s face. It blooped indignantly as it recognized me as a non-target and deactivated.

  “Metal familiars?”

  “... Depends. What counts as a familiar?”

  “Does it listen to your every telepathic command?”

  “It’s more like a Bluetooth connection. Or, err, radio.” No response. “... like a telegraph without wires?”

  One of his eyebrows rose.

  “Wireless telegraphs. Fascinating.”

  We stared each other in the eyes for a few moments; me, lying on the cold factory floor cradling the stupid mine, him, unsure what to do with me. The heart in his hand dripped blood on my cheek.

  “Please don’t eat me.”

  His other eyebrow rose.

  “I can bribe you, I-I,” I coughed. “Name what you want. Anything. I’ll have it here in five minutes.”

  Was he laughing? “Truly? Anything I desire? Then tell me, is that Webster fellow still making dictionaries?”

  “N-noah Webster?”

  “Yes, the Englishman. Conjure for me a dictionary, if you would. And stop quivering. I am not going to eat you. There is no taste nor satisfaction in an act so barbaric.” Languidly, he took another large bite. He looked bemused.

  With sweaty hands, I typed away at my system. I was too panicked to accurately move the cursor with my mind. It took a whole minute to type the order in.

  [Delivery time: 1m, 45s]

  Never in my life did I hate the teleportation-delay as much as today, nor was I as glad to be able to skip the line.

  “I-instant buy.”

  [Soulcoins: 30->25]

  A dictionary fell on my head. It hurt. Thanks system, very cool.

  The vampire finished his meal, sucking at each and every finger. With relaxed slowness, he kicked the book into the air and caught it, rifling through page after page. His hand left sticky red imprints that glued the pages together.

  “2039. I have made many an enemy in my lifetime. Yet, here I stand, two hundred years later, and they are dust. We are time’s subject’s, and time bids ‘be gone’. Amusing.”

  Wait, I know that quote!

  “No legacy is so rich as honesty,” I shot back.

  “A purveyor of the fine arts?” A smile crept up on his features. “You, I like you. Many thanks for the book, for serving my rival Juan on a platter before me, and the fact that you’ve shown yourself to be at least mildly cultured. Shakespeare, in this day and age.” He shook his head disbelievingly.

  And people said theatre studies were a waste of time.

  “So that’s it? You’re here for revenge?”

  “Revenge I have promised, and revenge has been taken. Whatever follows—” he mimed a shrug, “— well, it is to be seen. My, this is good quality paper. And what words. Tea-low-phone. I feel inclined to return the favor of this monumentous gift.”

  Oh no. There’s usually only one kind of gift vampires like giving.

  He’s dangerous for sure. Addy and I helped let him loose on the world, and now I’m educating him.

  Is he on our side? Is he on his own side?

  Wait. He mentioned a favor. I could use a favor right about now. There’s a lot on the line; it can’t be anything selfish.

  Could I ask him to kill the Ur-mimic?

  “You have hesitated for ten whole seconds now,” he intoned blithely, tip-tap-tapping his book. “Am I that abhorrent?”

  His body had settled into a toned-down body type, evoking more warrior king than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  “Frankly, I think you’re terrifying. But you have a nice jawline. Very photogenic.”

  “Photo… photo…” He flipped through the dictionary, “I will have to study this tome in greater detail, it seems. Until then, may I start by conveying my good intentions?”

  “Sure. I kind of need a lot of pink critters dead. All of them, really. You can start anytime.”

  He smiled generously. “An amusing idea. But no. This is not my battle and I am quite tired after sleeping for so long. Ironic, isn’t it? A better idea, then.”

  The dictionary turned red, then disappeared in a splash of blood which he sucked in through a prick in his fingertip, together with all the other gore covering him. In the same breath he produced a vial — no, two vials as short as a thumb, filled with barely a thimble of wine-red liquid each.

  [Greater Vampiric Essence - of Nezahualcóyotl]

  Tier 2

  Rarity: Rare

  Growth: +3 Soul

  Choice: [2] Abilities

  I sucked in a deep breath of air.

  That’s two abilities now, superspeed and blood summoning… magic stuff. Vampires get one every five hundred years. He’s at least a thousand years old.

  Would I get both if I drink his blood?

  That essence is kinda perfect. Three Soul growth would put me at the ECC efficiency of the average baseline Custodian… which is still really depressing to think about, but it’s what I need to get [Body Double], [Arms & Arms proficiency], and [More Spider Eyes] running as much as I’d like them to.

  Maybe I’ll get hollow teeth for sucking blood. Like a vampire. Or like a real spider.

  That would be kinda cool.

  “First off, I believe Addy deserves this more than I do.”

  “If that is what you wish. The little were-coyote certainly deserves some reward. These are for you both, as a thanks for unearthing me, and as an apology as well. I believe I took part in killing your twin sister, if unwillingly.”

  I blinked, playing back every interaction I’d ever had with this man. Right, he'd been the one choking me out when the Ur-mimic tried to envelop me a second time. “Oh. No, that was me.”

  He blinked back at me, genuinely surprised for the second time in the evening. “I find your statement difficult to believe.”

  “You're not the only person who can come back from the dead.” Disregarding the fact that I was completely out of lives. Don’t mind me, I’m just casually bluffing in front of a guy who eats elder vampire hearts for breakfast.

  The vampire cupped his chin in thought. “An immortal spider. Terrifying.”

  “Before I do anything, I’m not going to be mind controlled into doing your bidding if I drink this, right?” I asked him, but directed the question at the system as well. Two sources were better than one.

  “Ah, so you know how our kind works. Splendid. That saves us much explanation.” He clapped his hands together. “I do not keep thralls. I do not keep slaves. I do not keep anything, not servants, not tenants, not even a pet dog. You will be as free as you have ever been. I do not believe in capturing the minds of people without capturing their hearts, unlike some of my fellows. Connections are an extension of yourself. You are as great as the loyalty you inspire in others. And if all you inspire is fear and anger, you are a very poor fellow indeed. ‘Tis why I let myself be entombed, willingly.”

  System, is that true?

  [Vampiric bonds bind the soul of donor and recipient together on differing levels. Levels include being able to sense each other's relative position and distance, sending subliminal or liminal telepathic signals, the ability to compel certain actions and emotions, etc.]

  [The legacy of Nezahualcóyotl is among the least intrusive bindings. All descendents of this line claim only the slightest sense of each other's location while focusing inwards.]

  [Warning: Repeated ingestion of vampiric essence may multiply bond effects.]

  I gave him a side-eye. “Let yourself be entombed?"

  “As a favor, to a friend.” He tilted his head. “Do you perhaps think me a fool?”

  “I am not in a position to comprehend nor understand the actions of an ancient vampire.” I eyed the vial. “But I can appreciate selfless gestures.”

  And I need the power to do the right thing. To that end, I could have a little vampirism. As a treat.

  I popped the vial open and let the essence flow down my throat. It tasted like cripplingly sweet red wine. Which I, uh, didn’t know how that tasted because I was a chaste, honest, and pure maiden who didn’t drink alcohol before the age of twenty-one. Totally.

  “I thank you for your present, mister, er, Ne-za-hu-al—”

  “Coyote. For friends, just Coyote.” He rested a finger on his hip. “I see you have other company waiting for their turn. I shall not intrude for much longer. May you live well, oh immortal insect.”

  “Spiders aren’t insects—”

  He blipped out of existence. Just like that he was gone. Maybe he was a wizard in addition to being a vampire. If a vampire could be a magical girl, why not a wizard too?

  I licked my lips. The change of the essence was flowing through me with a languid care and slowness. Maybe the system was taking its time digesting the sheer power? Even then, I felt it, like a physical pressure pushing against the inside of my ribcage, expanding the concept of what I, Samantha Rubens, was, am, and was meant to be. As my soul grew I became the thoughts in my brain, the air around my skin, the ground I was standing on, the front half of the manufacturing floor—

  Then, as if hitting a wall, it stopped, before rebounding back towards me. It was as if I’d opened my eyes and now someone was putting me in a blindfold plus straightjacket.

  No! Stop! I’m a factory! I’m a pebble, steel beam, a rusty pipe wrench! ! I’m not supposed to be this fleshy, moving, weird person-thing. Pebbles have it easy. Magical girling is hard!

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  [Soul: 116]

  I came to, kneeling on the floor, staring with many eyes at the damn stupid floor. I was Samantha again. Honestly, the thought terrified me, because Samantha was just another hopelessly lucky girl trying to wiggle her way into a crack in the wall of life that fit her more than the others. The concept of ‘Samantha’ was constantly in flux, never allowed to rest and simply be.

  And that was fine. Nobody remained who they were for too long. It would be a sad thing indeed if people didn’t change. With eyes like my favorite arachnids and arms filled with proficiency and a glow of joy, I was farther than ever from the Samantha that was, and yet one step closer to happiness.

  I licked across my teeth. Two canines stood out, elongated and eager to pierce supple flesh and suck. Looking down, my skin was a pale gray, inhuman down to the pigments and slightly reflective, as if covered in miniscule iron shavings. When I stared at myself through a drone camera — evidently not all vampires had no reflections, which made me wonder if system-vampires were somehow different altogether than pre-system vampires — I was still recognizably me, though perhaps in parts with sharper angles, in parts a bit more… handsome?

  A new me. I suppose this makes it final. Magical Girl Samantha: Gray Recluse form. Hiya!

  No theme music accompanied my change, only the slight pressure in the back of my mind where two abilities stood ready to be inspected

  [Vampirism I - Blood of Nezahualcóyotl] - Passive

  Minor cosmetic changes. Your body gains a (minor) resistance to wounds and pain. You gain a (minor) desire to drink blood and a (minor) sensitivity to bright lights. Your blood becomes highly magical, increasing bloodline potency.

  Vampirism. The minor resistance and pain stuff was going to come in handy, as was the magical blood. Clem was going to love that last part. She probably never made a potion with vampiric spider-person blood. No idea what that bloodline stuff was about. Probably something that would come into play if I ever consumed more than one vampire essence.

  [One Moment] - Joy

  Charge: 0/1

  Cost: Major

  Briefly increase or decrease the speed at which you perceive the world. Duration scales with Mind, intensity scales with Sense. Does not require a chant.

  This was big. It was another joy-spell for one. And otherwise, it just sounded awesome.

  This was probably the nascent version of whatever magic Coyote used to move at ludicrous speeds without even disrupting the air around him. Maybe once I could upgrade an essence at level 30, I could try to turn this from speed-perception into a flatout speed-increase ability. The cost was prohibitive, but ticking up readily; I was filled with giddiness, and my spell charging efficiency was four times as fast as before.

  [Spell charged: 45%]

  [Spell charged: 56%]

  [Spell charged: 69%]

  My ears perked up. One of my spider mines went off, then another. There was chittering in the dark coming from all around. Metal sheets grew legs, pipes branched out with pink tendrils, polyps opened like lilies ready to bloom.

  I was surrounded. Thanks to the drone buzzing overhead, marking them on a secondary screen on my HUD, I could tell exactly how many there were.

  137. I count 137 mimics of varying sizes. No Hunstmen, no blast-monkeys, no spider-mooses. Just 137 little guys in an ideal position to swarm me.

  Carefully, I wiped some sweat threatening to enter my upper pair of eyes from my brows.

  Welp. Better chances than facing an elder vampire.

  +++

  Nobody told Kazinsky what to do because she always knew best. Aside from Medusahead, whose Mind was magically jacked to ridiculous levels, she was the smartest person on the crew, her expert associate program directly sponsored by The Academy on Madagascar. And Paul knew better than to interrupt her when she was this focused.

  He was sitting in the car, feeling mildly useless. He tapped the steering wheel and checked to make sure the engine hadn’t gone off in case they needed to make a quick getaway — a habit he’d picked up during a convergence event near Gettysburg.

  Kazinsky continued kicking the back of his seat.

  For all her faults, she was dedicated when it came down to it. When Medusahead was busy she sometimes entrusted control over one of her overwatch drones to the girl with neon hair. They were nearly worth a hundred soulcoins each — a fortune for an associate, and for a fledgling Custodian too. It implied a lot of trust.

  A lot.

  There were a couple tablets being used as extra displays scattered around the hummer, allowing everyone to see what she did.

  “Vampire’s gone,” she said and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. “But she’s surrounded by mimics. And there she goes, skittering like a cockroach. Wow, that girl can run. What level did you say she was again?”

  “Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? I’m guessing at this point; she could’ve leveled up by now.”

  “That’s a lot. Or isn’t it?” The Custodian’s friend, a witch by the name of Clementine, asked. She was biting her nails out of nervousness. “She’s… not gonna die, is she?”

  “Maybe. Prolly not. Never seen a twenty-something move like this before. Usually they’re all floaty and timid and blowing things up from afar like a tank with wings,” Kazinsky muttered. “Oop, one of them got her back — and phased through. Nevermind. She can use illusions too. Makes her real hard to catch, I’d imagine.”

  The smaller girl’s buff boyfriend leaned forward between the seats.

  “The whole place is crawling with those pink assholes. She needs help. You’ve got guns, right?”

  “Boy,” Paul said, “That’s a suicidal idea. I’ve got a submachine gun, you’ve got a single laser pistol. On top of that we’re baselines, you and I. You’re a bit more durable maybe, but who knows for how long.”

  “It could wear off at any moment —the potion shouldn’t have lasted this long in the first place,” Clementine muttered. “Aaargh, why did I give her all those good potions right at the start? Now all I can do is sit in this stupid car, and watch, and feel useless. It’s frustrating.” There were tears in her eyes.

  You and me both, girl.

  You have good friends, Samantha. C’mon. Don’t break their hearts.

  “Drone #2 just fell out of the sky. I think one of the small ones jumped into its rotors. Damn crafty Mind mimics.” Suddenly, Kazinksy’s head flicked left. “Hold on, got something on the infrared. Odd mimic structures, high heat signatures. Some sort of office chamber filled with giant eggs… shit. Those’re people.”

  Paul clenched the wheel.

  Just like in Gettysburg.

  “She lost her earpiece.” Kazinsky swore under her breath before twisting around and pointing at Clementine. “You, witch-girl. You’re telepathically connected, no? Nudge her in a different direction.”

  “I… what? But I can’t do that? It’s a telepathy spell, not mind control.”

  Kazinksy’s blank visor-faced stare lingered on her for a moment. “There is no such thing as a pure ‘telepathy’ spell. Some are more effective at coercion, some at connection, but any hammer can be used to bash a nail. Once you’ve breached the proverbial firewall of the mind, the only things keeping you from using a telepathy spell to induce suggestions are either your morals or your lack of skill. ”

  “B-but it didn’t say that in my tome. It’s one of our family heirloom spells. My parents—” The young girl went white. “I can’t remember their faces. Oh no. Oh no oh no…”

  “Girl. Focus. She needs to take out the Ur-mimic, then we can blow this place sky-high. Everything else is secondary. Boy, do what you need to to make her feel better. We’re in the middle of an operation and the stakes just got higher. She can’t go AWOL just to save a dozen people when we could be saving thousands. It’s an obvious trap, a time sink, to fix her in a disadvantageous position. We’re associates; we help smooth a Custodian’s mission along. And right now, she cannot afford distractions.”

  +++

  The mimics were all over. They crawled on the annealing lines. They hung from connective pipes once filled with chemicals and dripped down tanks that were hopefully empty of industrial-grade pickling acid.

  A pair of mimics crept out from under a pile of fallen bits of ceiling. They ate a laser for breakfast. They were distractions. The coordination was frightening.

  Give me One Moment.

  Time slowed down from a sprint through air to a heavy trudge through molasses. The spreading pink and black gore of the mimic was still exploding outwards as I checked all around me with not two, not three, but four pairs of eyes: Two main eyes looking forward, two secondaries on my forehead, two on the back of my neck, and two at the far end of my cheeks. My hair was getting in the way — definitely gonna cut that — as I observed the perfectly executed ambush coming at me from all sides.

  I ducked under a mimic, barely threw myself back from a pink spear boring up through the ground, and then a lanky one tried to lasso me from above. I dodged to the side and it ate a facefull of lead in the same moment as I kicked the one sneaking up on my back towards a spider mine and opened up on the rest. Lasers cracked and mundane mooseshot perforated two more mimics.

  Then the spell was over. Two seconds. That was the time I had until [One Moment] ran its course.

  But they were everywhere, and they were still coming. The only thing I could do was run. And oh boy was I putting the ‘run’ in ‘run-and-gun’.

  Right. Left. Right again.

  GO RIGHT.

  I went right. It was an instinctual decision. What seemed like a stupid move at the moment proved prescient. I barreled through three mimics, gaining scratches in exchange for breaking into the open space right behind them.

  No pink boyos here. Breathe. You bought yourself a few seconds.

  Leg hurts. Been running around all day. Lactic acid buildup critical. Hey, Clem gave me a potion for that.

  I’d barely gotten the potion past my lips when a pair of booms alerted me that they were coming again. Swiveling on my toes, I twisted around and blasted the little shitsticks turning to get me with a Toothpick and a Prickler, turning them into so much pink mist.

  And still, more came.

  UP LEFT.

  Sure, why not? I can’t see any mimics over there.

  QUICKLY.

  I guess I could sprint. But I need to conserve my strength, y’know? My muscles only have so much creatine phosphate stored at once; once that runs out going fast becomes difficult.

  Wait, why am I arguing with myself over this? Clem, is that you?

  UUUH… NO?

  I snorted and took the stairway up, just like Clem suggested. It was a metal thing, rickety and rusty and a bit too steep to climb up securely.

  I leapt the thing in three big steps and then I was up on the roof of some sort of overseer room. It was centrally placed and elevated, granting a view of the surrounding facilities like the center of a panopticon. Getting up here proved easy, what with my Body, long legs, extra arms, and [Elasticity]. The mimics with their short, stabby limbs were taking much more time.

  I took out my bazooka and blasted the two largest groups, following up with some lasers. That was enough to scatter those who weren’t dead. In the end, if I gained the high ground I could rain hellfire and destruction on a few mimics easy peasy. And so, after the course of minutes, all the mimics that dared to move in my field of vision were dead. No more were forthcoming. They’d finally run out of trash to toss at me. They must’ve spent all their big hitters on the assault on the evac zone.

  Let’s not get complacent just yet.

  I stowed my big bazooka and jumped down onto a catwalk below. “So, you found the Ur-mimic or something or…”

  Behind me, I noticed scraps of cloth stuck in between the heavy overseer’s door. Some blood too. Slowly, I readied my Pricklers and Toothpicks — nimbler weapons for close quarters — and prodded the door open, heading into the overseer’s room.

  The air was hot and wet. Pink pustules pulsed like man-sized egg sacs, bulging out of every corner. The eggs were a pinkish purple, almost half see-through. This was a mimic production facility of some sort. This room alone was as large as a deathworm nest.

  Stepping forward, I poked one of them with the tip of my boot. It wobbled like jelly. Nothing attacked me, so I stepped even closer, wiping away some condensation from the see-through section and, and… there was a face.

  A young boy. Teenager. No older than fourteen. No older than my little sister.

  I staggered back, realizing now how many eggs there were. Ten, twenty, thirty or more.

  “Crap. Shit. No, no, no…” I knew where all the missing people had gone. Some were dead, most likely. But these weren’t. At least, I hoped they weren’t. If they were, then why did Clem lead me here?

  “System, what the hell is this?”

  [Would you like to purchase the info—]

  “Yes!

  [Soulcoins: 74->44]

  [Lesser Ur-mimic gestation pods: A gestation pod tinged with the essence of the first mimic.]

  [Gestation pods are the method by which mimics create new baseline bodyplans to be used in future convergence events. Native creatures are abducted and their bodies slowly dissolved, replaced with pieces of nascent mimic matter. Then, once the process is complete, the soul is flayed from its host*, blended with the essence of the Coral Planet, and reinjected to create a new mimic lifeform.]

  [*Custodians are recommended to avoid this fate at all costs. Custodians must not be captured alive.]

  Ah. Right. This was bad news.

  Well, the good news was that there were probably not enough mimics left in this compound to actually put me in one of these. The bad news was that, well, there were other people in there. And time was ticking.

  I took out my knife and cut the one with the kid open. The outer layer was rubbery and smelled like an old tire. I had to saw through it more than cut it.

  Three-quarters of the way the embryonal fluid flushed out the boy’s body. I leaned over him, checking his pulse (weak, but stabilizing) and his breathing (coughing). He was burning up, eyes half-lidded as he vomited up a bucketful of amniotic liquids and black stuff.

  “Hey, hey, you’ll be alright.” I tried to inject some confidence in my voice. “Are you hurting anywhere?”

  He coughed and looked up at me, eyes going wide. He tried to scramble back, but he was still too weak.

  “M-mimic,” he choked out.

  Ah, right. I’m not entirely human looking at the moment.

  I twirled my guns and blew the tip of one for theatrical effect. “I’m on your side, pardner. Don’t worry. If I was a mimic, why would I give myself four arms and four eyes? Those are pretty obvious giveaways."

  That gave him pause. I offered him some dogwater. He drank the stuff greedily, calming down as seconds ticked by. I smiled before noticing that his left arm was turning into a pile of pink goop.

  “Um. You’re uh… dripping.”

  The boy looked down. Then he saw his arm. He had another freakout, trying to brush the pink mimic stuff off. It was coarse and cut into his skin with every touch, but it didn’t go away. It was rooted firmly into his shoulder.

  “I think that’s your arm,” I said, poking it. He flinched. “See? You felt that, didn’t you?”

  “What the fuck,” he muttered. “I’m… what the fuck.”

  His arm was like a mimic, near-liquid, malleable, and pink. The more he stared at it, the more it started to resemble a human arm. Even the skin seemed to smooth out and slowly but surely change color.

  He let out a breath and the arm turned flat and noodly again.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said, this time with a bit less confidence as I patted him on the back with two out of four arms. “I hear now’s a good time to be armed. It doesn’t seem h-arm-ful.”

  He snorted. “At least yours are normal. Mine is like, a fuckin’, limp-ass dick. Why does it have to be pink!?”

  I chuckled. “If that’s what you’re bothered by, you’ll definitely be fine.”

  There were still more egg sacks around. I got to cutting all of them open, quickly, carefully, like a series of lightning-speed operations. The people inside were in various stages of transformation. Some were missing feet and hands, other entire legs and arms. One poor sucker had both his arms turned into mimic-goo up to his shoulders. After an initial bout of panic he asked someone to wrap them around him like a belt so they wouldn’t drag behind.

  “Anything at all you can tell me about these things, system?” I asked.

  [Lack of energy slowed down gestation. Subjects are still 80% human physically and 99% spiritually.]

  “More human than a banana at least.”

  It took an uncomfortably long time to save them all. By the time I’d reached the 29th and last pod, my hand hurt from how hard I was clenching the knife. The overseer’s cabin was filled ankle-high with a gooey mess.

  I paused.

  What if this was the Ur-mimics plan? Protect the prisoners with paltry assets, let them be rescued, then teleport them out to insert them into wider society. They would likely be monitored for years one way or the other due to their mimic parts. But what if there was some sort of sleeper code, an activation phrase, or a specific molecule that completed the transformation?

  Some sicknesses could remain dormant for decades before flaring up. And if that was what these were, then the only reasonable action would be to put them down right here, right now.

  “Hey, miss?” The boy asked. I didn’t even know his name. He’d helped calm down those people who weren’t convinced by my explanation. “Hey, magic-girl.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  I shook those thoughts from my head. “We’re heading outside.”

  “Out?” A woman cried. “To those little rat-bastards?”

  “Yes.” I cleared my throat before addressing the room. “I’ve cleared the lot of them, but there may be more. You’ll need to keep up a quick pace. Carry those who can’t. There are cars waiting two hundred yards that way.”

  “This plan feels a little haphazard and… undirected,” someone said.

  I pointed behind me.

  “Just follow the signs.” I paused. “On second thought, I’ll lead you all.”

  I readied my gear, walked over to the door and kicked it open. Something tried to jump my face. I blasted it out of the air.

  The foot of the stairwell was plastered with yellow signs. ‘Wet flour’ one read; ‘sloopery’ read another.

  Are they stupid?

  No, wait, this is an obvious bait. It’s a trap. It has to be. The Ur-mimic’s still out there controlling them. It wouldn’t throw away a bunch of its mimics for no gain.

  I cast [Body double] and let hologram-Samantha take the plunge. She looked at the mimics, undid one of her toothpick batteries, then vaulted over them, leaving the overheating magazine to ‘explode’ right behind her.

  The illusory explosion was as harmful to the mimics as a wet fart. They died via laser as they attempted to scatter. And that… was it.

  “Clem, any mimics nearby?”

  NOPE NONE. IF THEY’RE HIDING, I CAN’T SEE THEM.

  Fair. How many spider mines did I have left? Eleven, or so the system claimed. I arrayed them in a covering formation before turning back to the gathered people behind me.

  “Alright, go go go.”

  We took ten steps before everything went south.

  The air rippled as a tiny pink star above us grew outwards into an umbrella-shape. I recognized the hue and chunky consistency from the mall dome. A mimic barrier.

  “Faster people, faster!” I yelled, but no matter how much I urged them on, physics was a bitch.

  Not everyone was going to make it. A woman in her late twenties, who had been abducted seemingly halfway through a haircut, tripped and fell. She had two good legs. Then again, the scattered rubble was enough to make anyone trip.

  I doubled back for her, even as she tried and failed to get up.

  “I’m sorry,” she blubbered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I—EEE!”

  I grabbed her, took a running start, and pumped my legs as hard as they would go. It was still not enough. The edge of the barrier thumped down just as the tail end of the group up ahead outran it.

  Shooting the damn thing didn’t work. Kicking didn’t either. But the most curious thing happened. The woman’s heel phased through the barrier as if it didn’t exist.

  “Any pain?” I asked as I watched her foot come back, entirely unharmed.

  “N-no.”

  “Arm,” I ordered. One experiment later and I confirmed what I’d been dreading. The barrier let her through.

  Only I couldn’t pass.

  I put her down. “Listen. Run straight ahead. Make it to my friends outside. They’re awesome, and they have guns. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Without listening to her response I pushed her through. Now it was only me in here, me and whatever was charging the barrier dome.

  I stood up and turned around.

  There, in the darkness congealing around the annealing line, stood another Samantha.