VI

Sally went through one more equipment check at the edge of the entrance to the Red Roamer Transportation Depot, still facing the hustle and bustle of Nirvana’s Great Gate.

The armour the quartermaster had fitted for her was almost comfortable, perhaps a tad more lightweight than Sally would’ve liked, but it also came with two bandoliers and a hard-pocket for essentials. She carried four clips for her rifle—which had been taken in, and now slung over her shoulder with its folding and travel mechanisms engaged—and two for her sidearm, plus one clip of Warlock rounds for each. She’d taken a short blade in addition to a survival knife: both sat secure in their sheaths.

Sally took the fifth deep breath after her fifth equipment check, and at last found the will to turn away from Nirvana, from the Gate she’d spent her entire life behind, and face the vast, empty expanse of Bat Country between her home and its sister-city.

From Red Roamer’s lot, Sally could see the vast lanes of the Great Highway stretched before her, disappearing into the horizon like a great, broad dragon of the most durable materials known to humanity laying its indomitable length over the land. To either side of the stone-scaled dragon lay flat plains, which gave way to rolling hills, which gave way to slopes dotted by lone trees or copses, which in turn thickened into an ocean of dark red canopy. The sun hung low in the sky, casting everything in its dying orange glow, and for a breathtaking moment, Sally’s fear gave way to a wistful sense of wonder. She’d never been struck by the same itch, the same urge to wander beyond Nirvana’s walls and further still, where maps and roads had either failed to catch up or been long abandoned, the horizon-lust that highway crews like Red Roamer and their competitors were positively feverish with.

In that perfect moment, though, she understood it in her core. Perhaps the stirring of that feeling startled Sally so greatly that it was limited to scarcely more than a minute before the wheels of her mind began to turn, and process the fact that the only borders or walls or boundaries left out here were at her back.

The Bat Country that lay around the Great Highway between Nirvana and New Salem was limitless, and terrifying. Sally almost turned around again, reflexively falling into equipment checking, when Amara walked over.

Sally still saw the blood and the spriggan’s spikes impaling her for half a second.

“Hey, chief,” Amara shot Sally a finger-gun by way of salute, her shoulders and torso bulky beneath her jacket as she sauntered away from the transport vehicle.

“Is everything all right, Amara? Is the supplies loaded, engine batteries checked, turret stocked…?” Sally jerked her head in Amara’s direction, running through another list of details, of comfortable protocol to fall back on.

“Yep, yep, and yes.” Amara said. “Is everything all right with you?”

Sally blinked. Her stomach churned. “Why wouldn’t it be? I can’t wait to get out there.”

Amara nodded, her lips raising into an almost-smile. “Alright.” She stood next to Sally, and looked out onto the Great Highway with her.

Everything had been perfect- No, everything was still perfect, running smoothly and as planned. Creeper had relinquished her signature, Henri and Mal had gotten their approval for squad-consolidation and Hotel transfer signed and co-signed by Icepick operatives and the reform board, Ira and Amara had moved their belongings to Epsilon, and they’d spent today at the quartermaster’s. The excitement running through Sally’s veins had only iced over with anxiety when she’d stepped through the Great Gate.

“It really is beautiful out there, you know.” Amara said, cocking her head to one side. “Sure, there’s a bunch of things that’ll try to kill you. But I always find myself wanting to go back.”

Sally looked at the black-haired girl. “You’ve been to Bat Country before?” She’d never been further than Red Roamer, and only thanks to those few sessions at the Academy to prep them for outreach.

The corner of Amara’s mouth curled up. “Four times.”

Four? Sally couldn’t find any words.

“My family moved from New Salem to Nirvana, when I was little. Before they moved to the Core, mom and dad took a few detour hauls off the Highway. There was no one to watch me a few times, so I came along.” Amara’s dark brown eyes seemed to drink in the setting sun.

“That’s… A difficult job.” Sally said.

“A lucrative job, if your convoy makes it.” Amara shrugged. “Now the Maki residence is three stories of prime Core real-estate.”

Sally’s parents could only ever afford an ultraplex condo a few miles outside of Nirvana’s Core district.

“My point is,” Amara continued, “we’ve got more training, better gear, and our assignment’s at a Wayside, anyhow. It’ll be easy, right, chief?”

Sally swallowed, then forced herself to nod. “Right.” She turned to look at Amara—Amara didn’t look away from Sally’s eyes, even met them with casualty. “So  why didn’t you go for better armour?”

Amara rolled her bulked-up shoulders back. “Armour doesn’t really matter to me. Plus, anything with a higher rating wouldn’t fit under my jacket.”

“And style is the top priority, of course.” Sally’s face went deadpan.

“Looking cool’s always important, chief.” Amara flashed Sally some teeth. “Why do you think I joined the Corps?”

Sally resisted the urge to roll her eyes, then started when a horn’s honk tore through the gentle rumble of the Great Highway’s traffic.

“Let’s get this show on the road, Sally!” Henri leaned out the window of the vehicle’s driver-seat. Ira sat on the roof, in a simple t-shirt beneath crossed bandoliers, her eyes closed, the wind running through her hair. Sally almost thought it was blowing in the wrong direction, but started towards the transport instead of dwelling on it.

She opened the door to the passenger seat, ducking her head as she swung in. Sally looked back to check on Mal as Amara slid in beside him. The horned boy sat in a thick brown jacket a size too large, shifting uncomfortably in Corps body armour devoid of insignias or logo.  The quartermaster had found a helmet cut for a pair of horns, but it sat in Mal’s lap. He preferred to keep a hood up.

Sally stopped just shy of pounding on the roof when she caught Ira’s legs hanging through the turret hatch, kicking gently.

“Alright,” she said as she secured her seatbelt, “are we set?”

“All set,” Henri replied, adjusting the mirror.

“Yeah.” Mal said.

Amara gave a thumbs up that Sally caught in the mirror.

“Are we leaving yet?” Ira’s voice drifted down into the rest of the vehicle’s interior.

“I think we’re-”

“Wait.” Henri raised a hand, cutting Sally off. “There’s one more thing.”

Sally looked to her driver, rolling through a dozen lists in her mind, searching for the empty checkbox. Shit, shit, shit…

“Does anyone have any music requests?” Henri looked over her armoured shoulder. “Once we’re on the road, I’m not gonna fiddle around with buttons while people complain.”

Sally let out some air. “No.”

Mal shook his head, while Amara shifted into a reclining position. “Surprise me.”

A smirk streaked across Henri’s face when she faced forward again. “No regrets.”

“I’m going to start regretting letting you behind the wheel if we don’t get going.” Sally sighed.

“Yes, ma’am.” Henri revved the engine, then pulled out of Red Roamer’s vehicle lot, and accelerated towards the transport company’s on-ramp to the Great Highway.

* * *

The transport vehicle sped away from the Red Roamer depot, and further still, past the lots and motor pools of the transport companies who couldn’t afford property so close to Nirvana’s walls. It wasn’t long before Henri descended the entrance ramp to Nirvana’s outskirts, and entered the Great Highway proper.

A few hours of perfectly maintained, unnaturally straight roadway passed, then the vehicle’s interior rumbled as the wheels found a rough patch of pavement, or a pothole—Henri adjusted the lever beside the handle to remove cruise control.

“We’re officially into the woods, folks.” Henri tossed a glance to the back seats with minimal struggle thanks to her heavy armour, grinning Mal’s way.

Sally’s fingertips brushed over her sidearm holster.

The Great Highway began to turn and wind around large landmarks rather than plow through them. The immortal road began to show its age, out here, where maintenance crews were increasingly infrequent the further into Bat Country the Highway stretched. On occasion, Sally spotted off-ramps, or sections of highway that simply ended. Concrete branches of a vast tree laid down by the first generation off the Ark terminated, either collapsed into Deliverance’s earth and turning to roots, or cut off, clipped away to spare the main trunk from blight.

It was typically near these terminals—though there were a few other notable curiosities and ruins along the Highway—where walls sprung up, where electrified fences crackled in the growing darkness. Smoke rose from these encampments, points of refuge still guttering in defiance of the tempest of danger and monster territory each Waystation floated in.

Amara named a few as they drove by.

“There’s Folly. There’s Ten-One. Oh, I didn’t know Spine was still standing.”

Some of the Waystations struck Sally as remarkably large for places where majority of the population were supposed to be travelling to and from Nirvana or New Salem. They could almost be called towns, if towns weren’t an ancient concept long laid to rest—forced into retirement by the hostile territory Sanctum claimed as its nation. Everybody learned about how Bat Country had swallowed every spontaneous settlement attempt whole.

The stars and moons had settled centre-stage in the sky by the time Henri began to slow down, heading for the blinking lights of their destination. Sally rubbed her eyes, and tried to stretch in her seat.

Waystation Two-Ditch was nestled, as it turned out, at the bottom of a collapsed section of one of the Great Highway’s offshoots, sprouting up right at the mouth of an accidental off-ramp. The highway crews who’d founded it had set up steep barriers that forced all traffic through one narrow lane, which included gantries and walkways in case vampire raiding parties—or more human marauders—wanted to try their luck. An electrified fence, maybe six-feet tall, ringed the whole perimeter, reinforced by guard-towers of salvaged plast-iron and corrugated titanium.

Henri only spent a moment radioing in to the Fury Corps outpost before the segmented gate rolled open. They rode down a kind of street, straight towards a cluster of buildings surrounded by solid Guard-standard walls. Roulette Station had its own gate, which opened well before their vehicle approached, though two sizeable turrets remained trained on the road before the gate.

Sally also noticed buildings. Not just mechanic pits, or chop-shops, or taverns, or trading posts, but fortified structures that couldn’t read as anything but paramilitary or residential.

Once they found an empty berth in Roulette Station’s motor pool, Henri hit the brakes, and turned the engine off.

Sally stepped out first, found herself on the verge of yawning, and tried to shake that and the dull ache in her head off by stretching. She was definitely un-used to Highway travel, but she was relieved she didn’t get any vomit-worthy motion-sickness. Taking outreach assignments with that kind of reaction was almost a zero-sum game.

By the time the rest of Stepsister piled out of the transport and began unloading supplies, a short Corps operative with thick hair and dark skin entered the garage.

“You’re Stepsister, in with supplies and on assignment, right?” He was very careful in emphasizing the “supplies” part of the equation.

Sally offered him a handshake. “Callsign Gorgon, yes to both.”

The man’s stern regard melted around the edges. He clasped Sally’s hand with a heavily-sealed mitt. “Best news all week. Welcome to Two-Ditch, and welcome to Roulette. I’m Vise.”

Sally smiled at him, finding no hesitation in his eyes as he met hers. “Great to be here, Corporal.”

Vise released her, then swept both hands—swathed and sealed up to each shoulder—over the garage. “Sorry for the mess. Things haven’t exactly been the most orderly around here, but we’ll get you rooms right away. Once the sun’s up, I’ll give you the sit-rep.”

“That’s not necessary, Corporal,” Sally looked to him, then past him and the door, “we can get a look at the perimeter of the ruins right now.”

“Can’t do.” Vise shook his head. “No one’s allowed near the old town once the sun goes down.”

“I don’t remember settlement curfews being part of the Fury Corps outreach mandate,” Amara straightened up after putting a crate of supplies down. “What if some scavenger or off-road crew get attacked at night?”

“It isn’t, and there aren’t any.” Vise said, and Sally caught the fracture in his left eye—the blackness from his pupil spilled into the amber of his irises, the cracks were small enough that anyone else wouldn’t notice.

Vise held Amara in that quiet, broken gaze. “There’s no one out there that isn’t already dead.”

V

A red flashlight beam from Amara’s scattergun swept across what would become the lobby of the unfinished ultraplex like a murderbird’s eye seeking corpses along the Great Highway.

And what a corpse the lobby was: fixtures for a front desk, numerous cavernous spaces for whichever franchises had paid for shop-space, two still-occupied elevator shafts, all beneath a ceiling six stories high, with a sizeable square in the centre of clear heavy-load plast-iron, so the light from Deliverance’s pallid sun could drift down through the top of the building all the way down to the lobby.

Sally lead with her sidearm as she peered around every corner, her naked eyes comfortable in the gloom so long as Amara’s light didn’t stray too close. Sally checked corner after corner, behind bundles of beams and smaller materials the construction crews had left behind. Dust motes caught in the light from the clear ceiling-space cascaded down in spiralling arcs, collecting on the roughed-out floor tiles.

“How do we know it’s here?” Mal’s whisper drifted over the comm, and Sally winced.

“Only one floor.” Henri said. “It needs to be where people are.”

“…Does it know we’re here…?”

Sally opened her mouth to quiet the chatter, then closed it, and found the breath of paint-dense ultraplex air she’d taken in stolen away when she checked the shape she’d caught behind the reception-area fixtures.

It was a construction golem. The construct lay—no, it was pinned to the ground by sharpened rods of rebar driven through its poly-plastic limbs, one piercing each servo-joint. The golem made the faintest whirring sound. It was still twitching, and Sally could imagine its operator yanking off the pilot headset with a scream as the crude nerve-circuits sent pain which belonged in an ancient Christian art fresco straight to their brain.

The golem’s face-plate only bore crude impressions of a face, but that made the twitch seem all the more excruciating to Sally. A scrap of the operator’s pain would be trapped there forever, because the golem didn’t even have a real mouth.

Sally shook herself back to the present. “Got an impaled construction golem here, behind the desk fixtures.”

“Copy- Huh, there’s another one in the corner of this shop.” Amara responded over the comms.

“There is another inside the service elevator,” Ira chimed in, “it is bleeding. Not a golem, sorry.”

Sally drew another breath in through her teeth. “Fatalities confirmed at one so far. Let’s keep close, everyone—”

Something plummeted from the ceiling and crashed to the lobby floor, sending up a ripple of dust and shards of fractured tile.

“Contact!” Henri bellowed, then raced towards the crash-site.

“Moving in,” Amara raced across the lobby with her scattergun up, and Ira drifted after. Sally broke out into a sprint, adjusting and readjusting her grip on her sidearm as the wreckage grew closer in three steps, four steps, five steps.

Henri’s large frame was silhouetted in the fading light trickling down from the ultraplex’s exposed top. She stood before the rubble, fists raised, and a ripple seemed to move through her that set her shoulders rolling, that sent a twitch down her spine. A series of dull pops filled the lobby in the echo of the impact.

“Henri, wait-” Mal moved directly behind her, one hand outstretched.

Something from the shadows collided into Henri’s left side. She didn’t have time to shout before hurtling across the lobby.

Sally skidded into sidearm range in time to see a shape shudder to its feet, then loom over Mal, now dead still.

Sally gave up trying to follow the way the twisting coils of titanium and plast-iron wove together with aberrant flesh the moment she laid eyes on the spriggan, and instead focused on breaks in the sinuous pattern as it took a step that sent Mal tripping backwards onto his ass.

Sally fired at the spriggan’s uneven shoulder as it raised a thinner, spike-tipped limb over Mal. The shard of metal shredded more metal than sickly flesh—Sally had one clip of Warlock rounds for emergencies only—but the spriggan turned to gnash a misshaped maw of pincers and jagged metal pieces Sally’s way.

Her eyes sought the spriggan’s as it shrieked and thrust another limb Mal’s way, and she found them, tiny pools of emptiness at the centre of a maelstrom of sharp things. The buzzing from the back of her head flooded into Sally’s pupils, then hurtled out in a heartbeat.

The spriggan’s entire body seized up, wracked as Sally worked on crippling whatever the imp-class threat passed off as a nervous system. Its strike struck tile a few inches from Mal’s head, and to his credit, the horned boy rolled away, retreating the second he got to his feet.

The edges of Sally’s field of vision began to blur and shake as she let more and more power into her eyes. Bits of plast-iron and titanium rebar began to fall from the spriggan’s agony-wracked form, coated in dark liquid.

To the monster’s credit, it managed to tear itself from Sally’s gaze, leaping for the walls of the ultraplex still shrouded in shadow.

Sally hissed, tried to call the lethal hum back away from her pupils. When it tugged back at her, she took a knee—smaller target—then forced her arm over her eyes. The goggles would make her low-light vision useless.

“It is melding with the titanium.” Ira said over the comm.

“Engaging,” Amara replied, and the harsh implosion of the air itself searing filled the lobby. Even as Sally’s power still shook her now-blackened vision, the light given off by Warlock-grade weaponry firing was still prominent in her memory.

Something big clattered to the tiles. The spriggan’s shrieks became weaker, and weaker…

And then they redoubled, as what sounded like hundreds of steel pieces scratching and grinding into another metal surface rose above the sear of Amara’s scattergun.

“It’s getting big, again.” Amara’s voice rose in Sally’s ear.

She crammed the hum back into her head, then looked up to watch Amara advance on the spriggan, firing round after burning round into the spriggan’s torso, lining up each shot towards the vortex that sheltered the imp’s head.

The spriggan’s bulk surged forward, and it drove two of its six spiked limbs straight through Amara’s guts, lifting her off the ground.

Amara made a noise like a wet paper bag collapsing. Something wet spilled onto the tiles below her twitching feet.

Sally meant to yell Amara’s name, but the shout became wordless as she rose and squeezed shot after shot into the Spriggan’s form. Again, shards of flesh and inorganic material flew from its form, but more and more rose up in its place.

The rest of the spriggan’s limbs now lurched towards Amara, and Sally could swear the pulp beneath the metal maw was grinning as it turned the short-haired girl to face the rest of the operatives in the lobby. The spriggan held Amara aloft like a sacrificial animal, or a martyr on execution day.

“What is your current emotional state?” Sally heard Ira’s voice murmur over the comms.

“Fuck,” Amara breathed, her throat wet. She jerked in the spriggan’s grip, and another spot of wetness bloomed on the front of her jacket. A metal spike burst through her sternum, slick with gore, and Amara spasmed.

Sally kept her power in, though it buzzed in her brain and made the already-risky shot she could take at the spriggan’s leering head impossible. She couldn’t do anything except watch Amara die. The pistol shook in Sally’s hands.

“Helpless,” Mal whispered, “I can’t do anything…”

Amara gurgled on a mouthful of blood into the comm, trying to jerk her scattergun up as another spike punched through her leg.

“PISSED.” Henri’s voice roared above every other noise, snapping the shake right out of Sally’s hands. She leapt to one side of the spriggan, then the other, trying to find a clearer shot, but even as Henri’s footfalls drew closer and closer, Sally still couldn’t-

“I will take it away.” Ira said.

-couldn’t nothing. The ice-cold freeze of inaction fell away. Sally fired at the spriggan’s fifth limb as the spike sat poised above Amara’s neck. The wicked point jerked away, and the spriggan snarled, and shook Amara.

Henri rushed past Sally, two heads bigger than she’d stood before they’d entered, some distorted strength about her limbs there wasn’t time to place.

Amara finished turning the scattergun on herself, shoved the barrel into her sternum, yanked the trigger back.

Even as the spriggan yanked a larger limb out of her body, facing Henri’s oncoming charge with effectively two three-foot pikes, a blast of searing plasma tore through Amara, and lanced into the spriggan’s maw.

It reeled, flinging the punctured girl off its spikes and away, but Henri was already upon it.

Henri’s skin was stretched too tightly over malformed muscles and bone as she punched through plast-iron, through titanium and other scrap besides, as she rent any spike that cut her flesh asunder. The spriggan shook and staggered, trying to get away, but Henri latched on like kill-hound’s jaws over the neck of a wounded pack beast.

The spriggan raised more and more of the metal suffusing its body in arcs to cover its face.

Sally side-stepped and brought her sidearm up, aiming through the buzzing in her head and firing into the exposed flesh of the spriggan’s midsection.

The spriggan howled, its back was almost to the wall, almost ready to meld back into it structure, when Henri let out a roar of her own, and ripped all the metal covering its head clean away.

A lump, an oversized tumor-esque structure crammed with cruel features and too many teeth, screeched in what Sally liked to believe was terror as Henri’s distorted fist came crashing down.

The spriggan’s head popped in a rain of dark fluid and aberrant flesh, and the whole wretched thing came crashing down in a screaming heap of metal.

Henri landed on her feet before the wreckage, streaked in gore, her back still turned to Sally and the others.

Henri hauled it up, then smashed the spriggan’s corpse into the ultraplex wall.

Then she did it again.

“I think it’s down,” came a wet voice over the comm, and Sally turned to see Amara on her feet where she’d once lain in a bloody heap. Her jacket was full of holes, as were the rest of her clothes, and Sally saw—and smelled—a lot of blood, but there were no open wounds to speak of.

She ran over to Amara, who waved Sally off as she leaned on her scattergun for support. “I’m fine.”

Sally was about to insist when a wave of bone-crackles and pops filled the air once more. She turned, and found Henri back to her original size, more or less.

Henri brushed some gore-slick strands of hair that had come loose from her ponytail back, grinning.

“Sound off,” Sally found her voice a moment later. “What’s everyone’s status.”

“Whole.” Ira was almost sing-song.

“I’m…I’m fine.” Mal said.

Amara offered Sally a thumbs up and the barest pretence of a smile. “Un-holed.”

Sally was still tingling with adrenaline, but she did her level best to give Amara a murderous glance and an eye-roll.

“Whole,” Henri wiped her face with the back of her forearm, “and hungry.”

“Right, well.” Sally checked the safety, then holstered her sidearm. She managed it on the second try. “That was…”

“Great teamwork.” Ira said, suddenly beside Sally, who nearly jumped out of her skin.

Ira smiled. The green in her eyes was vibrant, far less faded than it had been in Epsilon Hotel’s courtyard a half-hour ago.

“It was feeding on helplessness,” Ira continued, “that is what it sought to create. If it was not for Mal, I would not have known what to do.”

The serene operative turned her head to look at the horned boy, who was still shaking, and offered him a nod. Sally thought it seemed a little closer to the less-graceful movement she’d seen from Ira in the library, but Mal shied away nonetheless.

He only stilled when Henri strode over to clap a hand on his shoulder, but that only lasted until the gore from her flingers spilled onto his coat.

“Right,” Sally took a deep breath, and found the dregs of giddiness still within her grasp. “Good work, Stepsister. Let’s call clean-up, then go get that clearance signature.”

IV

“Alright, you pack of fresh murderbird guts,” Creeper looked over Sally and the others while leaning on the wall beside the door of Epsilon Hotel’s courtyard, “let’s have a sound-off. I need to know how I’m gonna set this up.”

Sally shot glances from the corner of her eye at the other operatives—her team-mates—assembled beside her while standing at attention.

“Eduardo, Henrietta,” Henri broke the silence before it lived to see another second, “but unless any of you are long-lost relatives, call me Henri. Icepick Hotel, callsign Lycan.”

“You a Shifter category?” Creeper spoke up.

“Dionysian, actually.” A grin creased Henri’s lips.

“Huh. That’s a rare cat.” Creeper gestured for the rest of the group to continue.

“Meran, Ira.” Ira’s voice was mostly wind-chimes as she took a slight step forward. “Alpha Hotel, callsign Preta. Spectre category.” Ira was still in her tank-top. She gave not so much as the slightest sign of discomfort when the chill wind washed over her, ruffling her hair.

Sally watched Creeper nod.

“Uh, Lockheed, Mal.” Mal shuffled forward, the only person present whose shoulders remained slouched. He tugged the loose brown jacket tighter around him. “I’m… I’m not really-”

“Right now, you’re one of us.” Creeper interjected. “You ever had your Abnormality categorized?”

Mal nodded once, twice.

“What’d you roll up?”

He took a step closer to Henri, casting his eyes down. “I don’t think…”

Henri put a hand on his shoulder.

Mal sighed, then folded his arms. “Faust.”

Sally blinked despite herself. Her eyes roved over the modest horns that broke through the skin of Mal’s brow with a new appreciation—which almost became caution, before she quashed it. That wasn’t fair of her, especially considering the looks and whispers she herself attracted.

Creeper whistled, low and long. “Rarer still. You really can pick ‘em, Nolan.”

Sally inclined her head, then tried to offer Mal a smile. His eyes never left the ground.

“Maki, Amara,” said the young woman to Ira’s left. Her black hair was cropped short, and her dark brown eyes struck Sally as almost bored. Amara’s Corps jacket hung open on her shoulders, revealing a stocky frame, and knuckle tape that extended all the way up her forearms. Her right hand was encased in a black glove.

“Alpha Hotel, callsign Grateful. Revenant category.”

“I’m Revenant category, myself,” Creeper gave Amara a thumbs-up, which Amara returned in an instant. Creeper’s mottled face broke out into a smile. “Quick moves, Maki. Rare in a freshie, I like that.”

Out of everyone here, the only person Sally couldn’t say she liked was Amara, probably because Ira’s weird fervour had led to Sally’s only introduction to Amara being this morning, when they’d walked through the doors of Epsilon Hotel.

“Theodora-Nola, Sally.” Sally said, completing the roll-call. “Epsilon Hotel, callsign Gorgon. Hex category.”

“Yeah, yeah, Nolan,” Creeper waved her off, “this is your show, we should all know who you are.”

Sally suppressed a chuckle as Creeper peeled herself off the wall, and began to walk a circuit of the assembled operatives.

Sally, after years of being keenly aware of the reflection in the mirror that others faced when she went out, had no fear or hesitation when it came to meeting Creeper face to face. Her single reservation was that Epsilon’s exceedingly casual veteran’s collage of facial scars, callouses, mottling, and other Abnormality-generated quirks made it incredibly difficult to discern any expressions that weren’t overt or obvious, such as a smile.

Creeper didn’t flash any teeth as she went over Sally’s squad-mates, and the pit of Sally’s stomach began to gnaw at her with baby teeth. Creeper completed one pass, then another, and then a third pass around Sally and company, before coming to a stop with her back turned to the newly graduated Corps operatives.

“So.” Creeper’s armoured jacket-collar obscured the back of her head.

Sally squeezed her thumbs to prevent any nervous cheek-biting.

“Anyone have any squad-name ideas,” Creeper turned on her heels, “or are we going to stick with the official designations?”

Sally barely stifled a whoop. She looked to Henri, who winked at her, then over to Ira, who was absolutely beaming.

“I was thinking Stepsister.” Sally said, as Creeper withdrew a tablet.

“It’s just, in a lot of the stories from Ancient Earth, there’s always a stepsister,” Sally began explaining when Creeper’s calloused brow rose, but her face grew flush with embarrassment. It sounded childish out loud…

To Sally’s surprise, Amara snorted, then offered her a tired smile. “I get it. Good name.”

“I mean, I was thinking something more along the lines of ‘Praying Mantis Antichrist,’ or ‘Death-reaper,’ but Stepsister works just fine.” Henri shrugged, and Mal stifled a chuckle halfway behind her.

Ira nodded her own quiet encouragement, though her eyes were glued to the tablet in Creeper’s hands.

“Stepsister it is, then.” Creeper entered the name into the ranking database, and Sally’s brief shame fell away in the face of anxious excitement. Creeper slipped a stylus out from a pocket in the tablet, offering both to Sally.

Sally signed on her profile, now listed under the squad readout entitled “STEPSISTER.”

She passed it to Henri, who signed in a neat hand. Henri gave it to Ira, who marked an ‘X’ over the line, then Amara added her messy scribbles to the rest. Creeper took the tablet, scrawled something below the squad, and slid the stylus back into the tablet’s niche.

When Epsilon’s ranking vet handed it back to Sally, STEPSISTER was a fully signed, formal squad listed in the Fury Corps’ team roster.

“Thank you so much, Corporal.” Sally offered Creeper a salute, which the older woman waved away.

“You kids have fun out there, be safe.” Creeper smiled her snaggle-toothed smile. Sally returned it, then looked down to scroll through the available assignments tab-

“Uh, Corp- Creeper?” Sally slid the stylus out from the niche. “You forgot to sign us for outreach clearance.”

Creeper tapped her chin with one finger. “Mm, nope. I didn’t.”

“There’s no signature here though, ma’am.” Sally blinked.

“There sure isn’t, freshie,” Creeper tapped the edge of the tablet, “you catch on quick.”

The world fell out from beneath Sally’s feet, though she remained upright and still.

“I don’t understand,” she began. Henri was at her side in an instant, as was Ira, whose happy vagueness was now crystal-clear concern. Amara kicked at some loose stones in the courtyard.

Creeper shrugged. “You’re a brand-new team. Can’t throw you to Bat Country when you’ve never worked as a unit before, it’d eat you alive. It’ll do that no matter what, but a cohesive team stands a chance of sticking in its craw, at least.”

“But we’ve all done unit-training at the Academy.” Sally said.

“Corporal, I assure you, I placed eleventh overall in the Academy’s cooperative exercises, while Operative Maki placed twelfth,” Ira’s gaze was steady, her face expressionless. “We are more than capable of performing as a functioning unit.”

“My callsign’s enough, Ira.” Creeper met Sally’s pale green gaze easily. “I know your placement in boot camp. I’ve also read your psych evals, personality profiles, you name it.”

Amara flinched. Sally didn’t see Ira move so much as a hair.

“You’ve never worked as a team in the field, and believe me, you can’t ever replicate the feel of fieldwork at the Academy, no matter how hard they try,” Creeper continued. “You don’t even know what each other’s powers are, or how they fit together.”

“Please, Creeper, I- We really need this. Squads cleared for outreach get preferred over others for big assignments.” And assignments in Bat Country always meant better rankings, but Sally kept that to herself.

Creeper sighed. She rolled her shoulders—drawing a chorus of cracks and pops into the cold air—then stretched her neck from side to side—producing yet more of the same—then pinched the bridge of her nose.

Sally waited for Creeper to look up again, resisting the urge to blink. The buzzing threatened to crawl into the back of her eyes, but she fought that back, too, fingers an inch above the goggles hanging around her neck.

“Aw, freshie,” Creeper groaned, “don’t fix me with those big eyes and think I’ll give in.”

“I’m not, ma’am,” Sally said, as she continued to do just that, “I would never, ma’am.”

“Damnit.” Creeper took the tablet from Sally, then looked around at the other operatives before thumbing the screen. “Fine. You think you’re really ready? Fine. Just one condition, first.”

Creeper handed the tablet back to Sally: an assignment dominated the screen, green and confirmed for STEPSISTER.

“If you can handle this one, as a team, I’ll sign off.” Creeper put her hands up in mock-surrender.

It was Sally’s turn to grin at the corporal as her team clustered around to get a look at the tablet.

* * *

Sally looked up from the sat-view and street-view pics of the construction site displayed on her phone to get a look at the ultraplex in its infancy. Not even into the second month of its construction, and the thing could’ve easily been mistaken for some plast-iron and metal behemoth’s skeleton clawing its way up through the earth.

The Core was still miles away to the south, but Sally still thought this neighbourhood didn’t need another ultraplex. Its fully-formed brothers and sisters loomed in relatively even distances; this would be the first ultraplex to cut those patterned spaces short.

She slipped her phone in her pocket, then started approaching the perimeter Nirvana City Guard had created around the construction site. The N.C.G. officers stood behind their barricade of titan-foam and support vehicles, weapons at the ready—none of them were Warlock-grade guns, so Sally assumed they’d been waiting on the Corps.

Sure enough, the officer in charge waved them through the perimeter without any conflict over jurisdiction or authority, even despite their apparent age. Sally didn’t let the relief that washed over her at having avoided the horror stories and PR nightmares that often arose between N.C.G. and new Corps operatives show, and strode into the ultraplex’s grounds, the rest of Stepsister in tow.

“We’re dealing with a spriggan,” Sally said as she keyed up her earpiece. “Imp class, sixth circle. It’ll use the environment to its advantage, it’ll meld with it if things go sour. If it formed here or somewhere similar, that means it can co-opt plast-iron and titanium.”

“No problem.” Henri cracked her neck.

“It’s after an emotion, so let’s keep this low-to-no contact.” Sally looked for less obvious entrances as her team fanned out. “Quick run-down on our toolbox, ladies and gentleman?”

“I hit. I can break plast-iron and titanium,” Henri spoke into her comm. “so melding won’t save it.”

“I can take however many hits,” Amara piped up, “but I’ll slow down if I take a headshot. I’ll reset if there’s any decapitation.”

Reset? Sally didn’t have time to ask, moments away from an entrance to the building too small for construction-golems—the surveyor’s entrance, then.

“Ira?”

“I am invulnerable for now. If you figure out what emotion it is feeding on, let me know. Then I will become more vulnerable, but the spriggan will likely become easier to eliminate.” Ira’s comm bore the faintest hint of crackle and hiss. Sally tapped at her comm, wondered of Alpha Hotel’s reputation for preparedness if their new operatives didn’t get clean comms.

“Alright. Mal?” Sally hadn’t been sure of Mal accompanying them on this mission, but he’d signed the deputization forms, and Creeper had insisted. Sally chanced a look over her shoulder to find the horned boy sticking close to Henri, as usual.

Silence reigned over the comm channel.

“Mal, what are you bringing to our toolbox?” Sally repeated.

“Come on, it’s okay here, it’s okay with them…” Sally caught Henri’s whisper in the background of Mal’s mic.

“I can see it,” Mal hesitated in the middle of words, stumbling over others, “where things are weak, I mean. I can see where it’s weak.”

“…Okay, good.” Sally said after a moment. That’s all he could do, and he was in Faust category? Sally’s estimation of the Lockheeds’ cruelty and fanaticism grew. “That’s actually really useful.”

Sally stopped before the surveyor’s entrance to the bowels of the unfinished ultraplex, and drew her sidearm.

The rest of Stepsister converged on the entrance behind her, and drew their weaponry.

“I’ll take point. I’m always point-woman.” Amara said, and Sally moved aside to let her pass. Amara carried a scattergun, though Sally didn’t know whether she’d modified it for Warlock rounds, or was content with standard flechettes. An axe-blade hung where a bayonet might be mounted.

“Entry on my mark,” Sally whispered. She could almost feel the air tighten around her as her squad tensed in preparation.

“Three. Two. One.” Sally counted one heartbeat, a second heartbeat, a third heartbeat. “Go.”

Amara plunged into the dim of the ultraplex, and Sally, Henri, Mal, and Ira hurtled in right after.

III

Sally headed for Alpha Hotel, shooting off a text to Henri before stuffing her phone in her pocket. The sentries liked operatives returning to Central at attention or on alert, and Sally wasn’t up to any hard-nosed attention just now.

She passed below the bastion’s—for Outpost Alpha Hotel, what every Corps operative called Central—single-file personal entrance, offering a salute to each of the sentry-cams, then presented her Corps ID badge for clearance. She stood still no more than a moment while the scanner worked, but the barest handful of seconds was still enough to fill Sally with a looming sense of consequence. Of all the outposts, Alpha Hotel was the most fortified, the best-staffed and maintained, the only Hotel with a zero-compromise record in Nirvana. It had to be, since it was within a hundred yards of the Great Gate.

Sally didn’t think she’d ever be able to walk into Central without being overawed, first day on active duty or not.

Alpha Hotel’s personal entrance slid open. Sally approached the security desk—which her history class’s tour through Central had told her was resistant to gunfire and limited explosive impact—and the man with the well-kept short black hair behind it, wearing a more press-friendly version of the standard Fury Corps uniform.

“Present your identification one more time, please.” He was professional, but pleasant. Sally offered a smile, and he returned it as he scanned her code into the staff log. The second set of security doors hissed open.

“Go right ahead.” The receptionist waved Sally through.

She continued through them and down the main hallway, bringing her phone up, and scrolling through her contacts for a number she’d never thought she’d have to use… But Alpha Hotel was large, it wouldn’t be enough to find the biggest crowd and sift through it—the hallway itself was clustered in knots of operatives bustling to and from different posts and stations. Sally couldn’t help the tinge of envy that creeped up her spine as she caught a few faces she recognized from the Academy. First-time postings at Central only went to the top of the class, which Sally had certainly not qualified for. The sweat and stressed looks on their faces soothed the sting, and helped her distinguish the near-jogging of the freshly-graduated from the quick walk of veterans.

Sally looked for the lines painted on the walls, then followed the green line to the general mess hall. Sally almost started when the doors opened automatically—Epsilon’s left mess door was always a doozy—but recovered her step quickly. She wove through the thick crowd of tray-laden operatives, past the emptier tables, until she reached the most densely pack seating section in the mess. The conversation was too loud and its participants proved too involved to pay Sally much attention once they realized she wasn’t looking for a seat, leaving her free to skirt around the edge of the table freely.

She guessed the crowd had pushed two tables together based on the amount of times it took her to complete one lap before she finally laid eyes on Ira.

“Hey, Ira!” Sally spoke loudly, offering the fourth-most popular girl in her classes back at the Academy a small wave. Ira smiled back, as brightly as she could ever manage. Ira stood as Sally closed the distance, and the moment she did, the temperature plunged a few degrees, despite Alpha Hotel’s air-conditioning being at peak performance.

“Hello, Sally,” Ira’s voice was soft, the sound of hoarse wind chimes in a gentle breeze. Or shards of glass blowing across pavement in a gust. “I haven’t seen you since graduation. How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been alright. I’m posted at Epsilon Hotel, now.”

“Oh, that’s by the North Gate, right?” Ira tilted her head.

“Uh, yeah! It’s no Central, though. It’s way quieter.” Sally let out a nervous laugh. Ira had always bordered on the barest fringe of top-of-the-class, though Sally could never find cause to be annoyed with her beyond the apparent ease with which she handled all the coursework and exercises. Ira was always pleasant to everyone, she’d be there for whoever asked. It made Sally uncomfortable with her petty envy.

“I’ll bet it isn’t anything like Central, no.” Ira said.

Sally opened her mouth, then closed it when Ira flashed a brief smile. There wasn’t any condescension, but Sally could spot the black veins starting to show just beneath Ira’s dark brown skin, clustered around Ira’s mouth, around her too-long wrists, too-long fingers, and green eyes.

“Um, Ira, are you alright?” Sally asked, laying a hand on Ira’s shoulder—the mess was a little cold for a tank top, but Ira’s jacket wasn’t hanging off the back of her seat, or anywhere else in sight.

Ira straightened her neck, fixing Sally with those bright eyes. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“What’re you up to right now? Are you busy?”

“No,” Ira looked over to the chair she’d previously occupied, “just getting some lunch.”

Sally followed her gaze. Almost all the other operatives involved in that tangle had trays laden with cafeteria food, but what would’ve been Ira’s section of the table was spotless, devoid of any tray or evidence that there’d been food there.

The conversation clattering on between the rest of the operatives at the packed table picked up half an octave, bubbling up and growing louder. Expressions grew more intense, hands punctuated gestures with claws (or talons, or pincers, or too many fingers), and the edge of the seats became their most occupied location.

“Maybe we can talk somewhere more quiet, if that’s alright with your friends?” Sally said, tentatively withdrawing her grasp from Ira’s too-cold shoulder. Sally had never seen Ira go anywhere without some small crowd at the Academy.

“Sure.” Sally’s eyebrows raised above her goggles, then she had to remind herself to close her mouth when she met Ira’s—but it couldn’t be relieved—smile. “I’m finished, anyway.”

Sally started to ask where Ira was due next, but the slightly-taller operative just slid right by Sally, and took the lead through the thronging sea of Alpha Hotel’s mess hall. After a parting glance back at the tense table, thankfully  close, it seemed, to de-energizing and de-escalating, Sally followed her.

It was almost as though Ira left a wake in that human (Abnorm, anyway) sea, a trail that everyone was keen to keep empty.

* * *

Ira led Sally to the depths of the library, away from the rows of computer terminals and data-towers, whose fans whirred like agri-stalks in a crosswind. The girl who Sally had never seen divested of a crowd now moved with purpose—almost in a rush—towards the shelves and stacks of books, binders, after-action reports, the hard-copy forest of the Fury Corps and Abnormology’s accumulated knowledge which had plenty of lighting available upon demand, but was seldom ever lit.

Sally sat down at the study table in the far corner where Ira stopped, pushed her goggles up—her eyes weren’t especially reliant on light—and watched as Ira slumped into the chair opposite her, without so much as reaching in the light switch’s direction.

Ira sighed—it was a broken-glass sigh that Sally almost had to rub her eyes to believe.

“So, what is it you want to talk about?” Ira reclined in her chair.

Sally gave her head a shake, then leaned forward and braced her arms on the table.

“I’m putting together a squad, and I was wondering if you’d be interested in signing on with us.”

“Oh,” Ira said immediately, “oh, I am definitely interested, I’m- Will this squad be taking outreach assignments?”

Again, Sally found herself trying to blink away a rather resistant unreality. “Um, yes, actually, those are the ones I’m most interested in, personally, they’ve got the highest risk ratings-”

“And the most wide open spaces,” Ira sighed again, and rolled her head back. Her movements here in the dark were graceless, almost awkward and sprawling.

“Great,” Sally gave a nod after a second, “so you’re in?”

“I-” Ira stilled again, her smooth brows knotting ever so slightly. “How many members will this squad have?”

“I was thinking you, Henri—you remember Henri, from the Academy?—and me would be just fine. Technically, we have a deputized member, too, but I doubt that’ll be permanent.” Sally smiled at Ira.

“Hm. I… I would really like to say yes.” Ira’s leg must’ve twitched, because the table shook beneath Sally’s forearms.

“Then, say yes, if you can,” Sally tried, shifting her words from halting to gentle, “but if you can’t, there’s no pressure. I’m sure you’re very busy here.”

The corner of Ira’s lips twitched. Sally’s tongue stalled, and she could only look at Ira, the best Academy trainee she’d known on a more personal basis, stuck in the chair opposite her, mulling something over.

Then, “May I…Invite a friend?”

“Ah, sure,” Sally nodded again, “so long as you think they’d be up to it.”

“Oh, she will be, I promise.” Ira’s lips parted into what might’ve been a smile.

“Great!” Sally showed some needle-teeth by way of encouragement.

“And she is of course up to any challenge that might present itself, I assure you.” Ira held up a hand, giving the Corps promise.

Sally couldn’t keep the chuckle from her throat. “Ira, I’m sure if she’s someone you’d want with you humping it in the middle of Bat Country, she’ll be more than fine.”

Ira jerked her chin down once, then back up again. “Understood. Shall we meet tomorrow, at Epsilon Hotel?”

Sally took a second to close her mouth again. “Um, I mean, I’ll need to pass this along to Henri, to see if she and Mal are ready, and we’ll need approval for taking outreach assignments-”

“Of course.” Ira folded her fingers into a steeple before her. “You may do so now, I will not interrupt.”

Sally blinked, blinked again, then found her phone in her hands. “Um, sure.”

She tapped out a message to Henri, then peered back up to watch Ira drum the tips of her nails on the study table’s laminate surface. Ira’s head was turned away, and her eyes roved the shadows of the analog-library.

Sally’s phone vibration returned her attention to the screen, which displayed Henri’s message: “Tomorrow, bright and early.”

“Is everything alright?” Sally looked up to see Ira leaning in again.

“Ah, yep, yes! Tomorrow is a go.”

“Excellent.” Ira reclined in her seat once more.

“Wait, what about your friend…?” Sally couldn’t for the life of her recall anyone in particular whom Sally had gravitated towards in the Academy.

“She will be there as well. Is oh-nine-hundred a suitable hour to convene?”

“To. To meet her, right before confirming the squad, you mean.”

“To confirm our placement in the squad, yes.” Ira said.

“Um… Yeah. Sure, I mean, I don’t see why not.” Sally hadn’t thought Ira would be as excited as she was about squadding up.

“Excellent. We shall see you then.” Ira gave Sally another smile, a broader one, and almost reached across the table, but shied just short of Sally’s arms.

“Great to have you on board, Ira.” Sally reached over to pat Ira’s now-extended hands, but Ira retreated as though Sally’s were on fire.

“Oh, sorry.” Ira wrung her fingers, then slipped her hands below the table. “I do not mean to cause offence.”

Sally shrugged. “It’s fine, people have comfort zones with contact, and all.”

“I just have not had quite my fill.” Ira’s voice dropped to a murmur, and a distance clouded her eyes.

“Well, don’t let me hold you back from lunch.” Sally pushed her chair back and stood. “We have to keep you fed for tomorrow!”

All expression drained from Ira’s face fast enough to warrant a vacancy sign’s illumination. “I suppose you are right.”

Sally offered one last smile before taking her leave of the library, leaving Ira in the dark just as she rose from the study table.

She almost thought she’d caught a hint of mourning in Ira’s voice.

II

Sally strode through the hallways of Outpost Icepick Hotel, admiring the almost-pristine facilities on her way to the recreational center. For a Fury Corps outpost relatively far from any gate, Icepick Hotel was remarkably well-kept. Epsilon Hotel only approached this level of cleanliness during inspection days…

As Sally passed through the doors to the rec-center, she scanned the crowd of Corps operatives using the exercise equipment, or playing basketball on the half-court, she estimated no less than half the operatives present were probationary-members. Every day was probably inspection day, down here, and the updated security measures likely could keep as much in as they kept out.

Sally skirted around the edges of the other operatives where she could, but found no animosity when she came too close. Some of them smiled at her; a boy with pincers protruding from his mouth even asked her if she wanted to play ball, which Sally politely declined.

They were almost too friendly to be delinquents.

Sally finally found who she’d came here for in one of the furthest corners of the rec-center, doing deadlifts in weight increments Sally would struggle with on her best day.

“Henri?” She called out.

Henrietta Eduardo finished another lift, then lowered the bar to the floor before she turned to face Sally. A thick sheen of sweat covered her skin—light brown, far lighter than Sally’s—and she pushed a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail out of her brown eyes.

“Hey, Sally!” Henri grinned. Before Sally had a chance to so much as breathe, Henri wrapped her big arms tight around Sally, arms and all, and squeezed the leaner girl into a sweaty hug.

“Henri, air,” Sally managed to choke the words out.

“Crap, I’m all gross, sorry.” Henri released Sally, who put her hands on her knees and waited for her lungs to restart.

“Are hugs always an invitation to crush someone’s ribcage with you, or am I just special?” Sally smiled back at Henri, whose cheeks started to redden.

“I-I missed you, is all! It’s been forever.”

“You saw me at graduation, silly.”

“Yeah, but unlike some law-abiding citizens,” Henri rolled her eyes, “I wound up billeted here right after, instead. I didn’t get two weeks to celebrate.”

“Oh. How much longer is your probation going to be?” Sally had never figured out what Henri had escaped serving time for by the grace of the Department of Abnormal Cooperation’s intervention policy for underage Abnorms. Every time anyone had asked at the Academy, Henri had withdrawn, so Sally let it lie.

“Another year.” Henri grimaced. “Six months, if I’m really good. I’m even cleared for squad assignment, so long as at least two other members don’t have probationary status.”

“Which is what I came to ask about, actually.” Sally wiped some of Henri’s sweat off her face.

Henri’s expression became dead serious, then a cautious smile started to wind its way back across her lips. “For real? With a convict?”

“You’re the first person who came to mind, actually.” Sally’s stomach did a strange fluttering thing; nerves, probably.

Henri’s smile softened. “Aw, Sally. That’s…”

“Sweet? Great? You’re ready to move out, right away?” Sally had to wrestle to re-coordinate her brain and her mouth’s stopping valve.

Henri stepped a little closer to Sally. The air rose two full degrees—Sally was sensitive to temperature fluctuations, and Henri’s Abnormality insured she was always running hot, running a body-temperature for almost two people.

“I absolutely want to say yes,” Henri spoke slowly, “but I have one condition, and you should hear me out first first. It’s… Not exactly small potatoes.”

“Alright.” Sally said.

“It’s non-negotiable.” Sally watched Henri’s eyes search for hers through the tinted goggle lenses.

“I’m sure we can make it work.”

* * *

After Henri showered off, got into uniform, and signed out, she took Sally on a long walk from Icepick Hotel deeper into the city, headed in the direction of Nirvana’s downtown core, miles and miles away. The neighbourhoods they passed began to show little signs of decay and disrepair the further from any outposts or gates they went, where teams of maintenance-golems and their handlers weren’t always on hand out of necessity.

Fury Corps patrols didn’t grace these neighbourhoods as often, either. Nirvana City Guard was the more common variety of law enforcement here, and Sally couldn’t help but notice the red screaming face on her jacket drew stares that were bordering on fearful.

“We’re here,” Henri said, and Sally came to a stop before a small, single-story house at the far end of a cul-de-sac. It was in need of a re-shingling, and perhaps a new paint job.

“What’s his callsign, again?” Sally had never heard of a Fury Corps operative living so far from any outpost or base, let alone one still living with their relatives.

Henri slowly met her eyes again, and the look in them was hard. “He doesn’t have one.”

Sally blinked. “I thought we were signing on another squadmate.”

“We are, technically,” Henri said, “he’s just not in the Corps.”

The pieces clicked into place in Sally’s head. “Henri,” she kept her voice soft, “if you wanted me to deputize someone, all you had to do was ask.” Probationary Corps operatives didn’t have the authority to deputize Abnorms of their own volition.

Henri let go of a breath Sally hadn’t seen her take, and some of the tension fled the taller girl’s broad shoulders. “It’s a bit different, here… I’ve made the request before, but nobody’s ever consented.”

“He can’t be too terrible if he’s here and not in lock-up, right?” Sally smiled, and waved her hand at the dreary cul-de-sac.

Henri didn’t return it. “He’s not terrible. Not at all.”

Sally couldn’t help the tinge of nervous energy that wove its way into her guts. A washout, then…?

“He’ll be fine in the field, too, he’ll listen and won’t get in the way,” Henri said quickly, as though she could read Sally’s thoughts. “I promise.”

Sally nodded. “Alright. This should be simple.” She walked up to the front door of the dingy house, Henri a half-step behind, and knocked on the wood of the front door just above the peephole.

“Who did you say he lived with, again?”

“Parents.” Henri growled the word out under her breath, and Sally almost asked her why, but then the door opened.

A man and a woman stood in the doorway, pleasant smiles at the ready—both white, both middle-aged, both unable to keep a bright note of something decidedly unfriendly out of their eyes.

“Can we help you, ladies?” The woman said, chipper and honey-sweet.

“We’re with the Fury Corps, ma’am, sir,” Sally inclined her head to the couple, “is this the Lockheed residence?”

“It sure is,” the man spoke up, “Michael Lockheed, at your service.”

“I’m Sarah, it’s nice to meet you.” The woman offered her hand.

Sally shook it. “We’re here to see your son, ma’am.”

“Oh, he’s not home at the moment. Just out with some of his friends, like always,” Sarah Lockheed laughed a little automated laugh.

“Where is he.” Henri said, and Sally noticed that neither Lockheed had spared so much as a glance in Henri’s direction since they’d opened the door.

“He’s not here, officer, if there’s a problem, maybe the Guard should be notified.” Michael Lockheed was smiling, too, though his eyes were far more strained than his wife’s.

“Actually, Mr. and Mrs. Lockheed, the Fury Corps holds jurisdiction over all matters involving Abnorms, second to the Department of Abnormal Cooperation, subject only to special circumstances pending review.” Sally drew herself up to her full height, rolling the slouch where her rifle usually sat out of her shoulders. “I’m afraid calling the Guard is an irrelevant waste of Nirvana’s finest’s time.” She spoke the words with authority too new for her to be used to, but she tried her best to fill those boots.

“Where are you keeping him?” Henri growled openly and loudly.

Michael Lockheed frowned, while Sarah Lockheed’s smile twitched.

“May we come inside, please?” Sally took a step forward. She set her hands on her hips.

“Mal!” Henri raised one hand to cup her mouth. “It’s Henri, you can come out!”

“No, no, I don’t think-” Mrs. Lockheed raised a hand, but Henri shouldered past her, and that honey-sweet smile soured in a second.

Sally sighed, but moved through the gap Henri had left in her wake.

“Mal?” Henri moved through a quaint living room, spartan enough and well-kept where the exterior was lacking. The lighting wasn’t the greatest, prompting Sally to start to loosen her goggles as Henri peered in through a doorway to what could’ve been a kitchen, a cross perched over the threshold.

“Whoah, whoah, excuse me, I’m pretty sure trespassing is still a crime!” Mr. Lockheed said, and Sally side-stepped to keep both the Lockheeds in one peripheral and Henri as she continued to search.

“Again, Mr. Lockheed, we have full jurisdiction over Abnormal matters, which includes performing a search of your premises if a subject in question is taking refuge here.”

Henri laughed. The sound was so thoroughly unkind that it curdled whatever retort was forming on Mr. Lockheed’s tongue. “Oh, no, it’s better than that. You don’t think I know what you’re doing here?”

“I don’t think you people know a damn thing!” Mrs. Lockheed picked up her husband’s slack with face-reddening ardor. “I think you’re trampling over our God-given rights with some flimsy excuse, this is a blatant abuse of power!”

Henri rounded, and took two increasingly heavy steps in Mrs. Lockheed’s direction, and Sally couldn’t tell whether her face shifted because Henri’s jaw clenched, or whether the bones themselves were realigning. She pulled her goggles down, unsure where she’d have to turn her gaze first if Henri really flexed her Abnormality.

“Abuse?” Henri let the word out carefully, as though it might break under the pressure mounting in the air of the Lockheeds’ living room. “Abuse?”

Mr. and Mrs. Lockheed quailed, still attempting to look indignant and outraged, but they gave Henri ground…

And Henri stopped moving. Sally almost exhaled too loudly to hear it too.

“The basement.” Sally said, and Henri tore away from the Lockheeds like a shot, throwing doors open until she disappeared through one.

“Damnit.” Mr. Lockheed muttered under his breath.

“You have no right, you, you damn-” Mrs. Lockheed started to talk again, and Sally didn’t want to hear it.

“Damn what,” she said, and turned her naked eyes on the Lockheeds for the first time, “monster?”

The couple froze, white skin finding even paler tones to turn in the face of Sally’s eyes. Mirrored in those expressions, Sally wanted to squirm, though she kept as still as though she were firing her rifle: she of course had studied her eyes hundreds of times, slitted and bloodshot as they were, but the reflective plastic above the bathroom sink on its own never made Sally feel like a monster until she understood what others saw in it.

“You don’t have any grounds, nor any right to do this. It’s not natural, none of it.” Mrs. Lockheed broke the silence.

“I mean, Deliverance is crawling with all kinds of things that Ancient Earth wouldn’t consider ‘natural’, but they’re here.” And I keep them all from eating you alive. “Technically, we humans are the unnatural things, going back eight generations.” Sally shrugged as she stated the standard information packet her Public Relations course at the Academy had taught. She didn’t add the part about Abnormalities being a result of those original Earthlings’ attempt at colonizing a new planet, or that the Fury Corps Research Division’s conclusion that Abnormalities were too unique and scientifically uncanny to produce a proper scientific field-

“There is absolutely nothing human about you, miss.” Mrs. Lockheed’s eyes still retained the fire that her skin had lost. “Not one bit.”

Sally stopped rattling through facts in her head, and smiled with her lips parted, revealing her rows of needle-like fangs. “There are a few, actually. But I think you’re more interested in the parts that aren’t, right?”

Sally leaned forward ever so slightly, and the Lockheeds bristled. “Do you want to know what they’ve done to you, now that you’ve spent so long in their presence?”

The thump of footsteps up creaky steps drew the Lockheeds’ increasingly vitriolic attention away from Sally, who followed their line of sight to the door Henri had came down.

She stepped back out into the living room with a young man, thin and sickly, clinging to her arm like a pale leech on shaky legs.

“Mal Lockheed, don’t you listen to these devils, now!” Mrs. Lockheed called.

The boy almost turned his head to face his mother, and that’s when Sally spotted the horns sprouting from his brow, just short of a tangle of brown hair.

Henri turned and gently relocated the youngest Lockheed, Mal, behind her. He still leaned on her for support, but Henri’s broad shoulders bore him as easily as a sack of feathers.

“Keep them back,” Henri called, but Sally was already moving. She slipped around the Lockheeds, who immediately whirled to face her. Mr. Lockheed’s fingers clenched into fists.

“Mal, you will not leave this house! Do you hear me?” Mrs. Lockheed called again.

“You’re not taking him.” Mr. Lockheed barked.

“You mean your son?” Sally tilted her head, slowly. “This is a legal and official proceeding. I could arrest you right now, if what I think is going on is really going on.”

Mr. Lockheed bristled. “And how would that look, hm? You demons are always so concerned about the media, how’s the Web going to react to you arresting two upstanding citizens and seizing a boy?”

“I took pictures and video, idiot.” Henri drew a small black phone with the same surety and tension as a sidearm. The Lockheeds shrank as though they were faced with one as well. “In two seconds, the Web’s going to know about all the messed up shit in your torture dungeon. How’s everyone going to react to two parents who tortured a young man?”

“Your young man,” Sally raised a finger, wagging it back and forth.

“He is not theirs.” Henri spat, and Sally swore she could see Mal Lockheed flinch.

“Sir, ma’am, barring us from leaving will constitute interfering with law enforcement.” Sally raised her other fingers to hold up an open hand to Mr. and Mrs. Lockheed.

“We don’t recognize the Fury Corps as any kind of law enforcement.” Mrs. Lockheed’s sneer carried a fleck of spit that fell just short of Sally.

“As well as assaulting an officer, in addition to the numerous rights violations you’ve already committed,” Sally continued. “I’m sure your lawyer would recommend you make this easier on yourselves.”

There was a moment when Sally could almost see the blood in the air already, when both Lockheeds tensed, and Henri’s shoulders rose and fell as she took in a deep, deep breath. Their lives almost flashed before Sally’s eyes, as did the inevitable clean-up effort, and Henri getting jailed, and Sally being put on probation as an accessory…

But the Lockheeds stood aside. Sally and Henri didn’t waste a second in bringing Mal past them and out the front door. Perhaps the worst part was the genuine outrage the Lockheeds struggled to restrain; Sally couldn’t believe they thought they had a right to outrage.

The open air of Nirvana might not have been the cleanest, but it was too big for the Lockheeds to choke it with their hate. Sally grimaced, rubbed an arm and tossed her tongue around in her mouth. She misliked the taste of what those abominable people had brought out in her, of what she’d become to deal with them.

“Here, this’ll help,” Sally returned to reality as she watched Henri drape a large towel over Mal Lockheed’s shoulders, and caught a glimpse at scarred flesh on the boy’s back—no, not a boy, he was around Sally’s age.

“Hi, I’m Sally. You’re safe, now.” She offered Mal her hand. He didn’t take it, nor could he meet Sally’s eyes, but she didn’t any fear there. Not every Abnorm joined the Corps, but Sally was willing to bet Mal would’ve preferred it to his parents’ house, if he’d only had the chance.

Henri met Sally’s gaze instead, un-goggled and all. “Thank you, Sally. I’m with you all the way, to the end of the line.”

Sally looked into Henri’s eyes, and something in her chest fluttered when she found she believed her.

One- Well, two down, two more to go.

I

Sally Theodora-Nolan ran up North Gate Street, pounding her combat treads as hard and fast as she could into the sidewalk, a collision course charted for the city of Nirvana’s side-road entrance. She almost chanced the road, but any road leading out of Nirvana’s walls was crowded with traffic, never mind that the North Gate wasn’t connected to the Great Highway. The only pedestrians Sally had to dodge were those who hadn’t seen her uniform yet—the standard-issue black jacket of the Fury Corps, with the organization’s screaming logo emblazoned on the right side in red.

Her eyes, or the fangs that filled her mouth in place of regular teeth, might’ve also done the trick, but Sally’s goggles were down, and she’d secured a bandana around her mouth. Even though Abnorms like her were using their powers to protect Nirvana from the monsters crawling all over the vast space between the nation of Sanctum’s Sister Cities, Sally wasn’t quite willing to risk any panic en-route to assignment.

A startled white woman nearly dropped her groceries as Sally practically leapt around her, and Sally couldn’t help but smile as she considered how wide the woman’s eyes could’ve really gotten. The Department of Abnormal Cooperation still had some work to do.

By the time Sally reached the looming grey door of the Gate itself, she’d already unslung the rifle from her shoulders. She looked up to the guard post controlling the gate, and raised a hand to her mouth.

“I’m here for the two-three, Callsign Gorgon!” A tiny rush crept up Sally’s spine as she yelled her callsign for the first time, hard-earned after two years of training for the corps.

She almost staggered back when the tremendous clatter of the North Gate opening rang through the entrance square, followed shortly by the howling of klaxons: the Great Gate opened to the Great Highway almost every week. North’s compromise meant alarms and warnings.

That said, the colossal slab stopped as soon as there was enough space for Sally to duck beneath, though the sirens continued wailing. She took a deep breath, a step back, then slid beneath, and out into the wide world of Sanctum beyond the city’s doorstep.

When Sally rose again, from the rubble of fracturing pavement that maintenance-golems had long since abandoned, she pulled her goggles down to hang around her neck. The world was always twice as bright out here, or whenever she could be free of the thick lenses. Sally took a few seconds to acclimate to the freedom outside Nirvana—gods, even the air was cleaner, free of the grit and grime of the super-dense megacity—then went to work.

She set up between two upturned chunks of concrete large enough to serve as cover should she need to duck and cover, took a knee, then settled her rifle’s butt into the crook of her arm. Sally’s fingertips settled over the grip, then closed one eye to peer through the scope she’d spent many a long hour in the Corps workshop modifying to suit her eyes best.

She almost immediately zoned in on the ruckus roiling down the disused road, a glinting circle of metal amidst a crop of dust. There, a small horde of figures you could probably mistake for human rested atop rugged motorcycles, clad head-to-toe in leathers and metal, arraigned in a semi-circle before the largest, most tricked-out bike, atop which balanced a figure with a long red plume dangling out from the back of their helmet. Bones dangled from braids and knots worked in.

Sally let her sights graze over the fist-pumping and presumably inspiring speech-giving the leader was in the middle of, and settled on a banner mounted on the rear of another bike. It was black, a red murderbird shrieking as the cloth fluttered in the breeze. Of all the marauding vampire clans roaming and raiding throughout Sanctum, the Shrikes were closest to the Night Queen who claimed sovereignty over all her blood-drinking kin.

Sally struggled to restrain her glee: stopping a vampire horde from sieging Nirvana’s walls, and a Shrike horde to boot? That would probably send her ranking skyrocketing, she might receive an honour, or maybe get to meet Captain Hast…

Sally forced herself back into the moment, held her breath, then squeezed the trigger.

One. The back of the war-leader’s helmet exploded, and they toppled from their bike.

Two. The vampire closest to the war-leader’s bike went down the second they staggered back from their freshly-fallen commander.

Three. The vampire who raised their arm found it suddenly detached from the elbow, sending a spray of blood into the weak overcast afternoon light.

Four, five. The vampire on the banner-bike clutched their chest and found a hole, then the banner fell to the dust as the flagpole buckled beneath a bullet.

Six. Vampires could shrug off many wounds a few seconds after they’d suffered them, and their morale was no different on their best days; a few had mounted their bikes again, and were gunning straight ahead. Sally took the wheel out from the lead bike while it was close enough to collide with the others. The column of exhaust and dust rising behind the riders was riddled with sparks, the screech-and-clash of metal on metal.

Sally took another look down her scope to get a rough estimate on how close the bike still on-course was, then stood. She could reload, but vampires didn’t respect “daylighters” for such tactics, and that included Abnorms. They needed more direct shows of power.

Sally waited until she could smell a hint of the fumes of the bike, until the roar of the engine started to make her throat hum. She stared down the rider, and re-slung her rifle.

The gravel and debris rose behind the vampire, who withdrew a wicked-looking war-pick from somewhere on the bike—Sally was focusing, but the front of her skull still wasn’t buzzing, which meant-

And it came, all at once, from the top of her head, down to her forehead, from the base of her spine, and most importantly, from behind her eyes: that buzzing pulse that told Sally that her Abnormal gaze had found a living thing within three hundred meters.

Sally forced her eyes as wide as they’d go, and the edges of her vision shook as the buzz flowed from her brain and into her pupils.

Though she was still far too far away to hear much of anything over the roar of the oncoming bike, Sally felt more than heard a dull snap. A hint of metal bloomed on her tongue.

The motorcycle veered off course, and crashed end over end as its rider toppled from the seat.

Sally willed the buzzing back, but kept her eyes wide as the cloud behind the bike dispersed.

There were no riders in its wake. A new upheaval of dust bloomed on the distant horizon, which Sally confirmed through her scope as the Shrike vampires in retreat.

“Oh, yes,” Sally breathed. The buzzing lessened after a steady countdown from ten. The dead vampire twitched on the broken blacktop, and any victory dance was postponed by the metal in Sally’s mouth that she couldn’t dismiss quite so easily, but… She’d saved Nirvana from marauders, hadn’t she? The jump in rankings would be huge! She’d finally done something great with her Abnormality, and on her first day to boot.

Sally turned, then forced herself to walk as the retrieval team streamed out of Nirvana’s North Gate, guns and retrieval jeeps at the ready. To the guard’s credit—and again, to the Department of Abnormal Cooperation’s, no doubt—none of them pointed their weapons Sally’s way, even when she pulled her bandana down and smiled her sharp smile. She was already guessing how long it would take to walk back to the Fury Corps outpost from North Gate.

* * *

“…This can’t be right.” Sally mumbled to no-one in particular as her heart sank to her stomach. She tapped the refresh icon on Outpost Epsilon Hotel’s directory tablet, but her rank remained where it had been since she’d arrived: seven-hundred sixty-sixth. She’d only jumped four spots, more of a hop than anything.

Sally tapped it again and again and her eyes almost watered behind her stupid goggles, which was even more stupid, and the stupid directory scrolled up to the top five by accident, and then it was almost as though Captain Hast’s regal stitched face was regarding Sally’s insignificance with disdain.

“Something the matter, freshie?” Sally looked up—reluctantly grateful that at least the tint of the lenses meant no one could see her eyes watering—and found the mottled face of Creeper, a five-year veteran at Epsilon Hotel, looming before her.

It was a face that promised more understanding.

“I saved the city, today.” Sally said. “I stopped a Shrike raiding party before it ever reached the walls, an early-warning assignment.”

Creeper nodded. “Yep, good work.”

“I…” I killed. I killed vampires to do it. “Shouldn’t—”

“Thing is,” the older woman continued, “city got saved two days back, and the day before that, and the week before that.”

“Oh.” Some of the tension leaked out of Sally, but the emptiness was cold. Her shoulders sagged.

“That’s just the norm for the Corps, freshie.” Creeper shrugged. “Deliverance is a world full of monsters and city-destroyers, and living in one of two megacities mean the whole pack is gonna come knocking pretty often.”

Sally nodded, but her eyes couldn’t help but fall on Captain Hast at the very top of the rankings board.

Creeper clapped a hand on Sally’s shoulder. “Come on, it’s your first day. Let’s see if we can pick you a better mission, yeah? Maybe near a different outpost.”

Sally handed Creeper the tablet, then moved beside the veteran to share the screen. “Oh, um, a stink-imp infestation near the agri-district-”

“Already taken,” Creeper chimed in as the green box turned red, “for the best, too, stink-imps are the worst imps.”

“I thought they were circle one, and spriggans are circle six-”

“The smell, freshie,” Creeper sighed. “It takes a year to leave you.”

“Oh. What about this, a ghast-tangle forming in the Clank area.”

That box turned red in a half-second. “Small fry.”

“Um, a behemoth is supposed to reach the southern gate in a few hours, there’s still a few slots!” Sally’s finger hovered just above the box.

“Won’t boost you much.” Creeper said.

“Really?”

“Yup. Been done before.”

“What, like stopping a Shrike horde has been done before?”

“Yup.”

“What about this one, a lab breach-”

“Yup.”

“If everything’s been done before, and getting ahead means doing something new, then how am I ever going to accomplish anything?” Sally almost ground her teeth—which had torn up her mouth for five years since needle fangs had replaced all flat teeth—before she settled on squeezing her thumb as hard as she could. Doing something worthwhile, something good with her Abnormality, was it all just a rigged game? The ghost of a buzz stung the back of Sally’s skull.

“Hey now, who said that?” Creeper raised a calloused brow. “If rankings relied on new, nobody would be anywhere. It doesn’t matter that this is all the same shit.”

“So how do I move up?” Sally said. She had to move up. She had to, or a thousand worried whispers, concerned glances, and cloth blindfolds would be right.

“Everyone winds up doing the same shit,” Creeper swiped through the different mission search-filters, “what matters is doing the same shit in an interesting way.”

She stopped at the mission postings tagged, “squad mandatory.”

It was Sally’s turn to be taken aback. “Teams are interesting?”

“All their jobs are worth more to rankings than solo outings, since they’re usually tougher,” Creeper replied. “Personally, I think the Academy pushes that rankings-matter celebrity status shit way too hard. It’s rough on you freshies, and it doesn’t matter.”

Sally couldn’t understand for a second why; Abnorms within the top-three-hundred bracket were celebrities, they were usually liked by normal people, hell, some had fan clubs. They were the ones everyone knew it was safe to approach and look in the eye.

“But, squad missions happen to benefit both our agendas,” Creeper continued, “and you’re a smart freshie. You’re even likeable!”

Sally mulled it over. She’d made some friends at the Academy during training, but she’d always kept to herself, even in group exercises. Sally’s problems weren’t problems she could expect other people to understand, and unlike some issues, in the end, they all fell on her.

But if a squad meant that boost up the rankings board…

“Wait, what’s your agenda, Creeper?” Sally returned her focus to Epsilon Hotel’s resident friendly veteran.

“To show you that a bunch of numbers in a list don’t matter half as much as having people there to support you when shit goes sour.” Creeper tapped Sally’s right goggle with one finger as she seized the tablet. “So get out there, grab some of your cadet friends, and dive into the trenches.”

Sally adjusted her goggle-strap with minimal grumbling. Even as she did, a few names and faces came to mind. People Sally had more than tolerated, but even gotten along with on a level deeper than amicable teamwork. She’d even talked to at least one, recently…

“I think I know where to start.”