Antigreen

"Is this a bit," Mikey asked, out of sight above the mantle of black hair occupying most of Callie's vision. "I don't get it."

It was of course much more than a bit, and not one for him to get, moreover.

Calliope marked time with her breath, reassuring herself that it still flowed. It did, yes, albeit slowly–between intake and exhale, the world seemed to precipitate into a crystal, where the only inclusions were her supine self upon the floor and the hundred-odd pound weight distributed over her, their pair pressed in an embrace. That impression of order and tranquility was false, however, unlike her girlfriend who had just turned true. The same way the oceans appeared not to move when seen satellaview, but really roiled at the surface, her friends' faces at this distance seemed too static and unchanging, belying the gears turning in their heads–and she couldn't be so certain Ettie hadn't greased them in advance of her arrival. To what conclusion would they come, and could Callie's words sway them to one or the other? A sailboat could in fact tack against the tempest; like heaving a rudder to the side, she pushed Ettie's slight form back a bit to sit up straighter–the better to batter herself and wet her finger in the wind, to navigate the situation.

Annette's gears were the swiftest. "Surprise!" she exclaimed, with a jazzy rhythm in her hands. "It's too early for your birthday, Callie, but, uh–oh, the timing just seemed right."

"What," Calliope said flatly. Her eyes bobbed up and floated down, like a spirit level finding the horizon–the Terror towered over her surveying. Standing up, but still straddling her legs, Ettie composed and casted many shadows: sleeveless, blackened, buttoned blouse, mini skirt below an iron buckle, chequered like a chessboard–if all its squares black had captured and routed white out to the edges–black nylons through which pale skin was apparent, and black suede ankle boots whose laces wrapped the tongues with little bows. It was a rather formal outfit for this latest, basest incarnation of pure evil. But It didn't poke her with a pitchfork, no: after her ogling, Ettie smiled and extended a hand down to help her to her feet. Callie took it and marveled at the strength and speed with which it pulled her off the floor.

"Yeah–what?" Mikey repeated, deferring any further thinking to Annette. She squeezed his hand to answer–and Esther did the same, with hers.

"Oh, I'm sorry hun," Annette said, removing all but a hint of disappointment from her tone. "I would've told you, but you cannot keep a secret, sorry."

"What secret? Who is this… babe?" He flashed Ettie a suspicious–or salacious–look. His free hand twiddled at It, pointing vaguely. "What planet are you from?"

"Venus," It answered him without a beat, in a voice like the thick boiling clouds of that celestial wanderer. Tinnitus swept over Callie's ears: she felt like she was breathing that same sulfur, flailing, bathed in waves of sonic pink that proved–at last–to sound the same outside her mind as within.

"O-oh," Mikey made a calliesque expression, flushing to a freckled, rosy hue. Annette was sharp enough to see it, but not nearly as keen; her brow furrowed to a scowl.

"Babe! Oh my God. She's Callie's!"

"Kidding! Kidding," he kissed her on the cheek to save face. "Uhhh–I guess girls go to Venus, to get more–"

Erika, until then silently adjudicating, cut him off. "Don't finish that, you idiot." She turned to Ettie. "Hi, I'm Erika. It's nice to meet you, er…"

"Esther–Ettie. Charmed," It shook her hand, the action of which drove a hairline fracture of panic into Callie's heart. She squeaked in fear, ready for the moment where recognition would flash onto Erika's brown eyes–but it didn't come. Mercy–there was still mercy to be found in hell. She breathed a sigh of relief when Its hand relinquished Erika's.

Mikey's jaw hemmed and hawed a while, giving (un)voice to his loss for words, before spitting out some that did little to advance anything: "Yeah–sorry. Hi. I'm Mikey. What the fuck is going on?"

"It was a setup the whole time," Callie whispered, incredulous. "You set it up. There was never any way of solving it without you."

Esther turned and took both her hands into Its own. The smile on Its face was true, reaching to Its eyes, but Callie was too wise to take that bait. Instead she sought Its lips; the slimly arching Cupid's bow ensnared her without blood. She watched the pretty mouth of Hell move smoothly, exposing pearly whites: "Well, yeah. I do work here, dummy."

"She does," Annette confirmed. "That was how I–we–could surprise you. As soon as she texted me I was game for it! It was too cute not to do–you have a real romantic for a girlfriend, Cal."

"Girlfriend…" Mikey muttered. "So you guys are–"

"Lesbians." Ettie squeezed her hands. "Or I am, anyway. I prefer to call it callisexual, really."

The cringe broke her labial focus; Callie closed her eyes at once. "Wait–Annette–I don't… I thought you said you tried to schedule this months ago?"

"I did–"

"She did," Ettie interrupted, as if closing a zipper. "My… flight to see you was delayed a while… there were some things I needed to unravel, first. I wanted it to be a surprise! Now I'm here; an escape room seemed a good way to break the news. We don't have these where I'm from."

How to untangle the truth from lies, obvious or otherwise? Calliope stared straight ahead with eyes unfocused: past Ettie, past the wall, past the absent horizon outwards to infinity. Her gaze could not escape Its influence; neither could her hands. From touch alone, she knew they were not being held by something human–she was strapped together with a bomb, the Gadget loosed at Trinity, with its tentacular array of cables. At any moment It might prompt critical and turn her friends to nuclear shadows on the cyan floor. Discernment was the prerequisite to disarmament; she'd stay silent until she was sure speaking wouldn't set it off.

"See? There's that puzzled expression I so love–you're so adorable." Ettie grunted the last word, pulled her in close, and lifted her off of the ground. That prompted an 'eek' as all the air was forced out of Callie's lungs.

Annette and Erika cooed at the display of affection. Mikey, however, hadn't yet disengaged from his lascivious mission.

"Ha-ha, so if not Venus, where are you from, then?" He asked, jaw slacking. Where, and are there more of you, was the subtext.

Calliope certainly hoped not. With the gingerness of replacing a doll upon a shelf, Ettie returned her feet to the floor and hushed her from speaking the thought aloud, with a finger to her lips. It turned Its gaze to Mikey, who couldn't help but recoil at the smirk curling into shape on that pretty, heart-shaped face, whose brows were like black megalithic arches, passing judgment.

"Reigersburg, in Styria," she lied. "A small hamlet with a castle that I doubt you've heard of. But I've done modeling work here and there–in Arizona and now, Boston."

"Waow. I bet you have," he slurred after swallowing his drool; Annette kicked him in the shin. "Ow!"

Calliope felt her cheek pinch between Its fingers; It paid Mikey no further attention. "But none of that is as much fun as making trouble for my dear Calliope." It teased.

Erika's eyes darted from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, putting two and two and two together. "So, you wrote all the poetry, then? Damn. That's impressive."

"I dabble. I do a bit of everything." Its grin grew wider still. Calliope had had enough.

"Okayyy… shouldn't we be getting going?" She called out to the room. "It's getting late, and–ah–mm–"

Ettie's hand rustled her hair like purple leaves. The twinkle in Its eyes brightened–somehow they'd realized a shade close to that impossible pink. Why did no one comment on the strangeness of that?

"Tsk," It tutted. "You're so eager to get another reward later, are you?"

A flash of tangled flesh–her and Ettie–in her mind, and a frisson of delight fleeing down her spine.

"M-my what?" she stuttered, thoughts already treasonously turning to the idea of unbuckling the belt over Ettie's skirt and sliding fabric over hips, every layer equally, wonderfully flared. If Ettie's figure were realized as perfect as It was in dreams, she'd be the one drooling… but for now she was still captain of her thoughts, despite the mutiny. Callie lashed down any lewdness and cleared her throat.

"Oh Callie wants that cookie bad," Annette said under her breath. Calliope wished she hadn't heard–she wouldn't have flushed quite as red, and might have kept some dignity.

"But yes," Ettie saved her from their judgment. "We can probably be going. They need to put the room back in its original arrangement, once we're gone."

It, Annette, and Mikey headed for the door on the green wall–the last of them when needled by the forelast. Apparently Ettie staring daggers where the knob should be was enough to cow the portal into submission: it popped open inwards on its own. After they exited in single file, Calliope was left alone with Erika: the former still in shock, but relieved It paid her roommate no attention, the latter eyeing her like this audience was critical.

"Callie, Callie, Callie," she clucked. "Let me get this straight. Or gay, whatever, ha–how the fuck are you going out with a European model?"

"She's not Euro–" Callie started, then detected a green undertone. "Wait, are you, like, jealous?"

"No!" Erika averted her eyes. "Just–girl, what kind of secret charisma are you hiding? She's hot, smart, dresses nice, writes poetry, doesn't even have much of an accent… her voice is like pink lemonade, I–can you even handle all that? In person? I know y'all met online, right?"

Calliope looked down at her dirty sneakers, flexing one foot to the side. "She can be a lot," she acknowledged. "It's a big surprise, and I don't usually like surprises. But I think I help balance her out? She was already pretty real to me before this, anyway."

Erika brushed past her, towards the door. "Cute," she said, half-lidded. "I support you guys. Totally. She can stay over, I don't care–just don't fuck too loud later, 'kay? I still need sleep."

Calliope turned crimson. "Erika!" She shouted after, but her accuser was already gone. All she could do was hurry after.

Back in the lobby, lit only by blacklight, goth starchild Esther should've been invisible but for her eyes. Their pink glow alone could've guided Callie through any darkness, but on top of that, Ettie's silhouette was darker than any of the others. What exactly was It made of, she wondered; how could ordinary flesh and fabric manage such vantacular feats? She had a hunch that Its new body was like a pumpkin, a would-be jack-o'-lantern, where Its presence was the candle to light the insides of a vegetable shell. By the way Its touch had made her hands begin to sweat, It was definitely warm enough to be an animal version of that Halloween tradition; the imagery of It scooping blood and guts out of Its body to make room for Its spirit was very vivid. Calliope dreaded to learn the truth of it. She focused on the task at hand: getting everybody home intact without smashing any pumpkins.

Though by the time she reached the pair of eyes, the other three had exited. What had Ettie talked to them about? Callie kicked herself for leaving It alone with them for any length of time, especially Erika. Now it was just her, It, and Claudia behind the desk, scrolling on her phone. The only anxiety at large belonged to Callie.

"Oh, and by the way," Ettie began, taking up her hand again. Claudia looked up from her post. The two made eye contact–big mistake. "I quit."

Claudia swooned; as her head collapsed onto the desk, droplets of darkness fled from the corners of her eyes and ears like iron filings to a magnet. In their oily iridescence Calliope discerned distorted images from a couple of hours prior: their group of four when they walked in, their group of four entering the escape room, and much earlier, the arrival of Ettie herself, bright and dark and murmuring some sort of incantation. The fluid flew too quickly to parse anything more; every drop showered upon Ettie, who swallowed them osmotically and licked her lips in satisfaction. Memories–It was taking the memories from her, covering Its tracks.

In a flash Its mouth was clean. The collapsed Claudia released a veisalgial groan–it wouldn't be long before she was up–and that was taken as their cue.

"She'll be fine," Ettie promised. "After an aura and a headache, anyway."

Calliope did not protest; with a firm grip on her hand, Ettie ushered them out into the nighttime air.

To mirror Ettie's new embodied soul, this walk home was livelier than any one before. They lost the rest of the group right away–no doubt Esther's intention–and spurned the subway for a route more scenic and pedestrian. Esther led her through Boston's backstreets and byways, walking backwards in her wonted way and yapping all the while about all sorts of local curiosities, in a slowly shifting stream: which sidewalks were hollow underneath (they'd once been vaults for coal deliveries), which buildings had Cold War-era bomb shelters (fewer and fewer, but still a few downtown), the process of building a thermonuclear warhead (redacted for security), the slight radioactivity of bananas (potassium, potassium), the tendency of Calliope's spironolactone medication to cause hyperkalemia (Ettie promised to redesign her hormone regimen in short order), and on and on as they passed from sepia streetlight to sepia streetlight. Calliope said little more than filler words–she got the sense that Ettie enjoyed hearing herself talk, for real, with vocal cords and the whole deal.

She wasn't exactly loath to terminate those chords, though. Ettie promised to answer her questions later, and Ettie was good at keeping promises. Ettie was great at reshaping Callie's pupils into cardioids, as well: with the way Its eyes sparkled at her and Its bubbly enthusiasm, it was impossible not to be a little lovestruck. Her heart beat heavy for the Horror who–while still a Horror–got such a kick out of pretending to be human. By the time they reached the stairs leading up to her apartment's door, It'd hypnotized her halfway to a trance with an infodump denser than neutronium.

That enchantment seemed to want to stay and incarnate itself further, like Esther herself. Ettie took up residence inside her bedroom; they shared the twin bed and remaining narrow space between them. At her insistence, the space became a bit less narrow: the pile of detritus in the corner was put to order, to make way for a beanbag chair and nightstand to hold her "personal" effects–trinkets, cosmetics, original origami efforts and the like. Calliope was far from tidy, but any chaos she could make was cowed by Ettie's mastery of entropy–the room was no longer just her own. Her closet was divided, her flannels pushed to its right flank, and in the days that followed the left side became decorated with black dresses, skirts and pinafores, along with a growing collection of embarrassing t-shirts she kept folded up on the top shelf. Truly, some of those were so ridiculous that even thinking of them made Callie's eye twitch: the kind of cheap top printed with a graphic of gangster Looney Tunes characters that would peel after a few washes, bathetically out of place when draped over Ettie's figure with no other layers except skin and air.

She knew that It was testing the boundaries of what It could put on and still have her be attracted to It. For fortune or not, the enchantment held: Callie's face grew hot against her will when Ettie wore nothing but an oversized shirt and long wool socks to bed, no matter how stupid the outfit. At least she could claim her new experiences were the learning kind, though. Their first night together was spent that way: in hands-on learning, as she came to know all the intimacies of Ettie's new anatomy. Aside from their sexual compatibility, Calliope came to know a good deal indeed, moreover–Ettie was forthcoming in and out of bed.

Ettie had a heart, now. It beat, it bled–often in time with Callie's own. It had lungs, It drew breath–breath she could make hitch a little, if she were tender with her mouth and ministrations. It didn't sweat, It didn't sleep, It didn't injure easily–or at least she'd never seen It be close to indisposed those ways. It did, however, eat voraciously, the foodstuffs passing harmlessly through Its hourglass form, and other bodily functions were in order, too. In short: It lived, however unnaturally. And It could be nothing but unnatural, no doubt: on a good day, Ettie's fever broke at over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. On a bad day, or when It exercised Its powers, that could spike to a hundred-and-ten or more–high enough that any human grey matter should've been cooked well-done, and the white plastic temperature gun's display redshifted so far it should've turned invisible. That Ettie continued to walk and talk with no issue at all implied that what lay between Its ears was something Worse; it suggested that every heartbeat, every breath, was wrung from nature's grasp by Its indomitable will. The aberration was at last made manifest.

Calliope, in turn, was losing touch with reality. How could she not, when Ettie could lift her in the air with just a heated look, now? It wouldn't tell her how just yet, beyond psychobabble like "neural heat" and "menumbral mazes", but It could move things with Its mind, or brain, or whatever It possessed now for a thinking medium. Not large things (like buildings), not many things (it could juggle plus-or-minus six), and not for long (they'd kissed for several minutes airborne before falling back to bed and there, resuming), but any action at a distance whatsoever was enough to finally shatter her belief that the world might go on as it always had–classically, that is. Esther becoming matter was a revelation unto light being both particle and wave. Calliope tried to reckon with uncertainty, expecting to accept it in time, as she had so much else. There was little precedent for her to draw on: when confronted with the corpse of the clockwork universe which quantum mechanics had so untimely murdered, Einstein had protested that "God does not play dice". No, indeed, She didn't–her game was much more sinister, amorous, and personal than chance.

A number of days later, though, Calliope fell far enough out of her estherical daze to take a chance on greater agency.

They were always doing what Esther wanted to do: traveling to far-flung corners of Greater Boston to sate her latest food craving, watching horror movies or musicals entangled on the couch, where half the time Callie's eyes were taking in the sculpted curves of her live-in tormentor either above her or below, rather than the film–or else perusing old books, sculptures or paintings in the city's many libraries or museums. It was only fair, she proposed, that they satisfy Callie's interests, too, if they were to be a couple. Ettie was sufficiently entangled with her–both at the idea's inception and in general–to accept.

So within an afternoon's denouement where the last of March's clouds overcast half-shadows over all, they found themselves in one of Callie's former favorite haunts: Bedlam Books & Games in Cambridge, tucked away in a leet a few blocks off Central Square. Calling it a haunt was apt, she thought, because she only went there as an apparition: in-and-out while being seen as little as possible; heard, too, only by the cashier. It was not a place of rest, but a means to nerdy ends and odds: the labyrinth of high shelves stocked with wargaming supplies and paints and other geek paraphernalia was easy to lose oneself in. There, she could avoid the eyes (or ire) of other hobbyists who, while sharing her interest in one aspect, might object to her presence for more pedestrian reasons. It was a world unto its own–a terminal world, like the wood-between where Narnia was just another pool like Earth and where banded guinea pigs roamed free, made capybarish in temperament. Bedlam's other visitors were not always so docile with her, though; like the humans that once visited that wood, Calliope avoided the touristy rodentia and retained a more murine demeanor. Her eyes darted through the gaps in the shelves holding one fantasy world and another, trying to gain warning of anyone approaching. No one so far, today.

Today she had an Outsider to defend her while she delved into the maze. Ettie's presence changed the rationale for her alertness: rather than worry about being seen or accosted, she worried more for the would-be accoster. "Hi, can I help you with anything, sir–" would be a slight slight, maybe even a mistake, one Calliope could overlook–but Esther have mercy upon anyone who slighted her, however little. At best she expected It to spit a biting rejoinder in their direction; at worst she expected to dust up a pile of ash from off the carpet. The shadow of Its wrath followed her everywhere now, clinging to her as she went into the shelves. She'd take care not to let the darkness fall on anyone too darkly.

But Calliope was only human, after all. Her mind was not a polychronic weave of fractals that could focus on a dozen things at once, the way Ettie could consume as many streams of video, all at speeds so high any voices in them became squirrelly. Calliope was prone instead to tunnel-visioned hyperfixation, and after a few minutes of scrutinizing the selection of minifigures on the shelves, she looked beside her to discover Its absence.

"Shit," she whispered, running through her (in)sanity checklist for Its presence in her mind: yes, It was still there, humming away darkly. Phew–or the opposite. "Ettie… where'd you go?"

A box moved just under her eye level upon the shelf, making an opening, like a brick pulled from a wall. A familiar pink eye appeared within it. "Hi," Ettie said, upbeat. "You mentioned needing paints?"

Callie looked both ways, finding no one else, and bent to whisper through the tunnel. "Yeah? I was gonna get the cheap ones, though, they're over here…"

It slid something cylindrical through, fast–her hand moved on Its own to catch it: a little, papillary plastic can, blaringly labeled "Cacophony Pink".

"Don't be silly. I'm buying," Ettie continued, unblinking.

Callie fidgeted with the container; she cracked a smile. "Of course–you would. What other colors did you get?"

"Grotesque green, gunmetal gray, wall of flesh, eigengrau black," It listed off–Callie heard the clink of bottles on the other side. "I'll be right over, puppet."

The eye slid off to the left. Calliope was left to ponder the rows and columns of boxed plastic figurines while waiting. There were so many choices, half a dozen factions, but she was aiming for just one–

Tell me about your choice, then.

Its voice in her head made her jump onto the balls of her feet; she barely suppressed a squeal from launching to the air.

"Uh, so, these guys," she looked at the box in front, with its prominent graphic of a skull-headed android brandishing a staff. Verdant energy forked throughout the scene. "Always liked them. In-universe, they're like, zombie robots… they hibernate a lot… ended up that way because of a bad deal with a star god. I'm… not really serious about army-building, or good at painting, but… it's nice to have something physical to do."

It is. You got the better deal, don't you think?

Callie blushed, the irony not lost on her. "P-probably," she stuttered. "You're not going to put my soul into a zombie robot, right?"

No. Though you would be greener, I prefer you soft. A meatbag, not a bucket of bolts.

She lifted the box, one steady hand on either side. Ettie's banter was strangely soothing to her, now–it was comfortable to hold a conversation no one else could hear. No one else could judge.

"A meatbag, yeah? Says the girl with like no meat on her and a BMI of like eighteen."

It was an exaggeration, a lie, and they both knew it: just last night Callie's fingers were gripping into the soft fat that lined those cordate hipbones. Ettie had some meat to her, despite being quite lean overall. The memory returned with the overpowering scent of Esther's marshmallow perfume, too vivid to dismiss; it took her out of the real world a little, making it a surprise when–

"I'm back," Ettie's real voice came from her left. Calliope actually jumped out of her skin, this time, squeaking like a mouse; the box flew out of her hands and tumbled from above. Again her arm moved on Its own, this time stiff as if electrocuted. Her palm caught the box's corner; for a moment pain stabbed through her skin before dispersing. She winced as It lowered the box to chest level with her hands.

"It's fine, you're not bleeding," It said flatly, as Callie regained use of her arms.

"Jesus…" she muttered, still processing the event.

"Not exactly." Ettie cocked her head. Callie rolled her eyes; she drummed her fingers on the box's sides.

"One of these days, you have to let me startle you back."

"That seems very unlikely." Ettie's smile didn't waver. She readjusted; Calliope became aware of how much It was holding, the layers like tiers of a cake: a themed box of miniatures at bottom, a thinner box labeled "wet palette" above it, and at the top–decorating it like gumdrops–an assortment of paint bottles in the colors she'd mentioned and more, too.

"Ohp–I can take some of that, and help," she offered, as Ettie spun round on her heel.

"Nope, it's fine!" Ettie sang, Its train of shoulder-length hair pitching outwards with Its steps. The labyrinth had been cleared–if not the minotaur, than miniatures, defeated–and Calliope followed in pursuit of Its shadowy muleta. In pursuit of making sense of myth, too, she compared herself to Theseus of old, and wondered whether her present self bore the slightest resemblance to the version of her that entered–into all of this–so many months ago.

At the till, Esther piled high the visit's spoils, arranging the box Callie had chosen in front to cover up Its choice of army for now. The cashier who rung them up–a man nearing his forties with a scraggled brown goatee like eroded, hanging limestone–almost gave the game away: he looked excitedly at their selection, moving his mouth as if to comment; a daggered glare and hushing gesture from Ettie shut him up. It swiped a crimson credit card to pay, the appearance of which took Callie's mind off of the man's and onto mundane things like money. As they exited with his well-wishing, she couldn't help but ask:

"Hey, how'd you get a credit card? Or… anything, really? Do you have a birth certificate?"

It went beside her on the sidewalk, on her left: carrying the boxes like they were nothing; scanning their surroundings for anything that might attack them. Its voice, though, maintained its low serenity:

"Mm, I stole it," It admitted. "I do not have a birth certificate. I wasn't really 'born'."

Callie shuddered at the thought. Her imaginings of an infant Esther–full-headed with black, pre-terminal hair–being birthed into the world without weeping, like some sort of anti-Nativity, were dimmed. How an adult body could've formed otherwise, though, remained a mystery. Had It stolen that, too? Was there a misfortunate goth trapped inside that pretty head, overshadowed by It just because she happened to look similar? Calliope bit the inside of her cheek.

"No," It answered, reading her. "I've told you: it's only me in here, and no one else."

They were rounding the corner onto Massachusetts Avenue, where the quiet of the side street was fated to give away. In previous excursions, Callie had to keep her wits about her there, near the descending entrance to the Red Line subway stop, since loiterers abounded; now she had Ettie to protect her.

"Okay, okay," she said. "But you can see why I'd think you stole that too, right? I mean, you literally said you did with the credit card. That's someone else's money."

"All money is someone else's. You didn't complain when I was stealing from the blockchain."

Callie went ahead down narrow steps. Behind them, somebody wolf-whistled; by the shouting of male voices that followed, she guessed Ettie flipped them off.

"Yeah, but that's different, I dunno," she protested. The stairs opened onto a stuffy landing with barely enough room for two turnstiles. "You're not stealing from a person. You're stealing from like, math, or–"

"–the world, the universe. Yeah," Ettie finished. Calliope's MISC ID opened the path–for a discounted student fare, no less–and let her through onto the platform. The klaxon that followed told her Ettie hadn't paid the fare, and just squeaked by before the shutters shut. Callie sighed–It'd committed theft right in front of her, even if it was only a few dollars from the MBTA.

"Really, there's no difference, though," Ettie launched into an explanation, once they found an alcove in the white tiled wall in which to sit. "The money that I mined was stolen from some future person, or people–there's a diminishing supply of Bitcoin. It's artificial scarcity."

"So you're saying that it's good, though? That maybe some criminal won't be able to buy drugs online, or order a hit off of the dark web, then–are those actually for real, you know? Different kind of hit, I guess."

"No–they're all government honeypots. But yes, I'm saying that my mockery of human cryptography is ultimately good. See these," It held the Bedlam bag aloft. "These are some ultimate goods."

In this scenario, Its seriousness amused her; to avoid smiling, Callie hit her head back on the tile so it smarted.

"Yeah, right–but that doesn't make the credit card okay! It's not like Bitcoin, where you can only use it to buy estrogen, or NFTs, or shady shit. Someone could be going hungry."

"The very first real-world Bitcoin transaction was in exchange for pizza. The miner paid ten thousand for two boxes."

"Oof," Callie acknowledged, nearly as deflated. Above them, an announcement blared:

"The next train to Ashmont will arrive in: one, minute."

She stood up and rounded on her girlfriend: still seated with legs crossed, the perfect image of politeness. It looked up at her with wide, innocent eyes. The mask was unconvincing.

"Ettie. C'mon, don't dance around it. You can't just go stealing shit that's not yours forever."

"I work for my rewards," It sang, with a smile to one side. "That is how it works, right? You're rewarded for your labor, or supposed to be. Bitcoin is based on proof-of-work–an easy job for me. But acquiring the card took a Herculean labor or a few. Blood, sweat and tears were spilled. Since those last two are clear, it just fits well that the card is bloody red, right? Crimson, like Harvard, or darker, like MISC…"

At that moment, the train roared into the station a dozen feet past Callie's back. She saw it come slowly to a stop, indirectly: the thick red line painted along each cab reflected in the glassy shine of Ettie's eyes, like an unrelenting slash from horizon to horizon. No sword–not of meteoric iron nor Damascus steel–had any hope of bisecting It so cleanly as that.

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It stood up, unharmed, and moved to take her hand. "Besides: you're mine, forever, no? I've stolen you from death. What's a little credit card fraud to someone like Me?"

It closed Its eyes and stuck out Its tongue at her, giggling like mad.

"Yeah," Calliope answered, blushing. "I guess you're smart enough not to get caught. I hope." She let It steal her hand as well–or was it truly theft, if it was willing? Shopping bags in tow, they crossed the platform's yellow line to board the red one. That seemed rather apt: Esther was a God of boundaries and testing them; what more fitting place for her avatar than a subway car, rattling through tunnels and over Longfellow Bridge? As the train left Central, Kendall, onwards, Ettie plastered her gaze unto the window, kneeling backwards in the seat to catch the sunset: real this time but no less colorful. Callie saw the brilliant hues of Earth and Sol flash across the ever-exposed film of Its eyes and wondered if maybe It were right: what was a little crime, for a black hole to see the sights without devouring?

She wondered, also, for how long the finite form It took could contain Its singularity–something that was infinite.

Back home, they cleared the coffee table for the un-occasion. Old editions of her alma mater's newspaper–the Miskatonic Querier–sufficed to line the elliptical surface for their impending dirty work. Paints and palettes were strewn out, boxes were cut open and squashed flat, and Calliope donned an ancient t-shirt from an ill-fated student council outreach event in high school–it was best not to wear clothes one cared about when painting. Esther, for her part, changed into black satin pajamas, but not before pointedly ogling Callie's chest for the few seconds it was exposed in-between shirt-changes. No doubt It would do more than ogle, later, whenever they ended up in the bedroom.

The present was a more Puritan pursuit, however. Calliope started with the largest figure first, the one featured prominently on the box: the robot revenant with a technostaff, standing nine feet tall in canon, but barely three inches in her hand. Something about that discrepancy was quite familiar; out of the corner of her eye, Ettie began unboxing her mystery brigade of minifigures, and the way the satin rode up a little to expose the inlets of her waist, told Callie what it was. Ettie's body was just a macro-mini-figure for Its true self to paint and puppet. No wonder It agreed to do this with her, when there was such irony involved. Dolls on dolls on dolls, they'd minify themselves without even trying: Calliope planned to paint her robot green, after all.

"So, what army did you get?" She asked, looking leftwards along the couch to Ettie, who wouldn't allow her eyes to rest upon the box It opened. "If I guess, will you tell me?"

"Not much point without a counter-bet," Ettie teased, arranging censored figures on the newspaper. "But yes. I will."

Calliope strained her eyes, but couldn't resolve the models to anything more than a blob of basic gray. She grunted; the corner of Its mouth twitched. No cheating was allowed.

"Chaotic aberrations," Calliope proclaimed–she already knew. "A bunch of demon-Etties, with tentacles and teeth and shit. You're, uh, predictable sometimes."

"Demon-Etties… yeah, I do like that. You're right. Good job, puppet."

It lifted the veil from her eyes, and Calliope saw just what she'd described: monstrous minifigurines in a default matte gray, with tongues and appendages in places both had no business being.

"I think I'll paint them a yummy, fleshy pink," It continued. A dainty hand dipped a brush into the palette. "Or would that be too boring for you?"

"I didn't say boring." Calliope reached for the dull green paint decanter, herself; she held off on asking what she'd won for her correctness. "Just–predictable."

"Mm. Like everything else. From the very beginning, if you know all the parameters."

"What, you don't believe in free will?" The first gob of green touched down on her figure's skeletal face. "Or does possessing people kind of kill the idea, for you?"

"I dabble in a form of fatalism, where all of existence is a deterministic system subject to the ultimate will of the stars–or a certain, hidden star, at center." Ettie smiled. The skull was now hued evergreen; Callie fetched the darkest paint present from the table. Beside her, Ettie finished mixing tertiary colors and was just starting to detail the bicornuate head of a figure with a fine brush.

"Fuck, you're arrogant. I took philosophy of mind… it's not super original if your answer to every question is just 'you'." Calliope painted a black cloak and armor in broad strokes, watching Ettie's adorable fixated expression out of the corner of her eye.

"You did–in freshman year. It's academic negligence that they didn't teach you about Me. Just one lecture would've been nice, with lots of haunting images."

It turned to face her, sitting cross-legged, continuing to hold aloft the demon queen in one hand and paint her armor with Its left.

"Words don't get my good side, most of the time," It said. "But you're half-right, again. So: what're your questions that can't be answered with just 'Me'?"

Callie's hand slipped, losing a dime-sized drop of black paint onto her shirt. Oh well. "Do we have to do this now?" She asked.

"That one can't be answered with just 'Me'–good job, you're on a roll," Ettie giggled, like a dark fountain. "And no. But I am… curious."

Calliope breathed in deeply, then out. "When are you not? Okay, I guess. How do your powers work? How did you get to be… this? Shit, how did I get to be this? Why am I the way I am? There's probably a ton of better Callies out there for you to be haunting, right? Why me? Why, why me?"

The words spilled out of her, the same way that the paint had. Anxiety, on-and-off suppressed since the day It burst into her life–in the escape room, in a bathroom, in the armchair, out of door or out of mirror, out of mind–gripped at Callie's heart. She lost all focus on her painting and froze, her thoughts fractured: what if the truth of all existence was an awful one? What if somewhere on the way to twenty-three she'd make an irrevocable mistake and never known it until now? Was it when she came out to her parents? When she accepted acid from Dev for the first time? When she'd been born, umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and hadn't had the foresight to press it further in her throat? Who, or what, could say?

Esther could. Esther could unravel her mind and lay it bare if It so chose. Calliope knew she'd absolutely hate to see herself so naked. Hate, hate, hate; she hated herself, yes, but without reason. In her folly, she'd asked for It to give her a good smattering of reasons why.

Ettie stared at her intently, as calm as Calliope was panicked, those bright eyes piercing to the core of her mind but revealing no answers, yet. Then, It deposited the demon figure on the table, picked up a patch of newsprint, and prepared the brush. Callie braced herself for her undoing.

"Consider: the metastable nuclear isomer of tantalum," It said.

"Oh. My. G–" Calliope tried, before It playfully bit her own lip at the end. She felt a little lighter.

"I am serious," It said. The minute brushstrokes It made on the paper were out-of-order, incomplete, but–leaning forward–Calliope could already see the resemblance to an atom.

"Like any element, tantalum has both natural and anthropic history. There's synchronicity in everything, puppet. In Greek myth, Tantalus was a figure famous for his punishment: forever kept so, so close to what he wants, only for the water to recede from him before he can ever quench his thirst. A metastable state, maintained irresolution. The isomer is much the same."

Atop the outdated newsprint, Ettie had painted a complex atomic structure, and subitized each dot by proxy, so that Callie knew them: seventy-three protons and one-hundred-and-seven neutrons.

"Tantalum-180m is one of the only nuclear isomers more stable than its ground state. It wants very badly to decay to that state, but the transition is forbidden by the large difference in spin; its yrast form has a half-life longer than the age of the universe. By stimulated emission, however, the nucleons can be induced to drop to a lower energy level, which releases gamma radiation, which creates a positive feedback loop–the same principle as a laser."

"That's uh–tantalizing, Ettie," Callie said, keeping up okay. Her voice broke: "WhAt does this have to do with my existential crisis, though?"

"Tantalus' punishment is like a lasing medium. Again and again, he tries to reach the water, or the grapes–stimulated emission. Again and again, they pull away, and the desire and desperation is amplified."

"Are you torturing this poor guy in your head, or something, and that's how you lift stuff with your mind? I don't get it."

"You will," Ettie promised. Rewetting the brush with black, It started sketching a suspiciously self-like stick figure.

"There are high-power physical lasers. There are high-power mental ones, too. The mind can be a lasing medium. Or, call it MASES: menumbral amplification by stimulated emission of sentiment." She completed the drawing: herself in monochrome, a 2-D miniature, cross-sectioned, with a cavity where her brain should be, and the eyeballs detached but present.

"The neural tissue in my head is densely folded, like a Hilbert curve. The neurons are in a metastable state on the edge of thought; by inducing a resonant idea, they decay and release and snap back, and the idea is made manifest. The fever is a side effect."

Calliope considered it a moment. "That's it? But that sounds so simple!" She protested. "So you literally, just–"

"Mhm. I think real hard about it. And it happens," Ettie finished. The hairs raised on Callie's arms; It let go of the brush, but the brush hovered in the air, and painted a smiley face on the newsprint for good measure. The rush of heat dispersed, allowing it to clatter down–and spatter out ink-dark paint–onto the paper.

"Why can't I do that," Callie said, dismayed. She felt smaller than the figure in her hand. "You don't even need me anymore, for anything."

Ettie placed both hands on either side of Callie's skull and turned it, sharply, but not enough to hurt, or snap her neck. Its scowling face so close made her want to backtrack: "Nonono, wait, sorry! Ettie, I didn't mean–"

"But I do, need you. You have an ordinary–or just over–human brain, incapable of amplifying your desires to a measurable level without serious injury. This body has a higher limit by design, but there's still a limit–for now."

She tried to see past those perfect, hexing eyes, inside the skull that housed what amounted to a pink lasagna for It to stick Its tendrils in and muck about. She mulled over three specific words:

"What do you mean, you need me?" She whispered.

"You asked about why you are the way you are."

Callie tore her eyes away, to the television's dark expanse. "For a long time, I wasn't worrying about it. I figured, like, I'd never know why I'm trans, and not some other flavor of freak, right? I'd never know what's wrong with me. But you can, like, dive in, analyze something to death, and not let it die… it's fucking scary, knowing that I could actually know… and I kind of want to? But also really, really, really don't."

"One of the possible decay modes for Tantalum-180m is by electron capture." Ettie droned; the pink light of her eyes was fuzzily reflected in the screen.

"Holy shit, I don't care about fucking tantalum!" Callie exclaimed.

"You're familiar with electron orbitals. Electrons don't revolve around the nucleus, like celestial bodies do. Instead, they exist indistinctly, as probability clouds. There is always a vanishing chance of finding one arbitrarily far from the nucleus, but for the most part, they stay close. You're much the same."

"Yeah? Am I?" She looked down at the green skull, with its hollow eye sockets. Its blindness was enviable.

"But to be less classical… yes. You are an electron. I'm the strange nucleus around which you 'revolve', or that puppets you in circles. There's no one simple you; there's a blurrier you, a kaleidoscope of possibilities expanding outwards, from subtle changes to your hair to shifts that would make you unable to recognize yourself. You've all been revolving around me for as long as you've existed, with the potential to make contact always nonzero, but forbidden and suppressed."

"So I'm not special. I knew that, okay? I'm not upset about it."

"But you are. Electron capture for Tantalum-180m has never been observed. Such a rare decay mode would be an astronomically special moment. The electron is captured by the nucleus by chance, converting a proton to a neutron and an escaping neutrino."

One recurring metaphor for Callie was to imagine Ettie as a black hole: something colossal, remorseless, with an insatiable hunger, in whose accretion she was but a speck of dust. The prospect of particles, however, suggested something smaller: the nuclear chaos of a heavy atom, electrons swirling around, herself as one of them. She was still small and insignificant, but if Ettie's tantalizing words were true: there was something rare in the infalling. She was lucky–or unlucky, to be captured. She let her eyes ping upwards, finding Ettie's face inches from her own.

"It's only by existing in exactly the way in which you have that we were able to meet, by chance. Move a hair to the left, and things would have been different. 'Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all.' That is the kind of determinism I believe in and why you are special, precious, priceless to me. Of your Calli-cloud, only you were captured, and changed us both. Forever."

Calliope was stunned. Her lips parted, slightly; Ettie took the chance to plant a kiss upon her. She gripped the figure tighter in her hand.

That's why you are, the way you are. Call it an anthropic–or a theophanic–principle. It could not be otherwise and be like this. I could not love you otherwise. You are so tantalizing, and I will not be kept from you.

Ettie pulled back from the kiss, leaving Callie reeling. Those accursed lips had dashed her doubt to pieces. Dazed, she murmured a weak "thanks", coming down from anxiety's heights.

"You're welcome. So: we continue, then? With the minifigures?" Ettie laughed to see her flustered. Calliope loosened her fist and face and smiled.

"Yeah, let's get them painted."

﹡﹡﹡

Diana Shadrin was used to disappointment, though the disaster that befell her now was entirely of novel nature: she hadn't merely failed–she'd succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

The work was complete, or nigh-complete; the dozenth attempt lay raggedy-ann-style on the metal gurney in the middle of the room. It had passed all tests, exceeded all expectations, and yet as she sat huddled under the aluminium table up against a cabinet, she wasn't happy. Something was terribly, terribly off about the final set of instructions, and she couldn't suss out why.

She was supposed to be good at finishing things. As a child, her mother had told her to work hard and leave nothing undone, and the wide-eyed, red-headed girl had taken those accented words to heart. America was the bountiful land of opportunity, one she was fortunate enough to be born into–her family reminded her–and its classrooms an embedding of that opportunity, arranged to let her better grasp its fruit. She did not have time for friends or fun, only academics, and with that mindset, Diana thrived. Incubating her mind in the reddened kiln of the Southwest until it shone like glass was a far cry from the meadows of Udmurtia her parents knew, but she was always more red than green, anyway: with exertion, with effort, with passion, with fire. Never, ever green with envy, because she worked hard and finished what she started. She distinguished herself; her white coat symbolized that nicely, she thought: it was white, clean, pure, to better let the redness of her hair blaze out. It admitted no distractions, nor did she. She was a medical doctor and researcher working to better the world, and there could be no higher cause.

She now suspected that the ultimate cause of her most recent work was much higher–or lower–than she had anticipated. Somewhere, there must be a misalignment, between her and It. Nothing made sense otherwise.

"Perfect," the email read from Peridot. "You've done perfectly. Stand-by until I can see you in person, please. I've attached a series of inductions to close this out; you'll want to present them to the subject's eyes."

The eyes, the eyes–those damned eyes. Damn them! She'd analyzed enough of the genetic template to understand how they could be unnaturally pink–something similar to localized albinism, a condition called Alexandria's Genesis–but never enough to understand why. It seemed so arbitrary, when the body on the gurney was supposed to be for research. Even as she cowered below the desk, the deciduous limbs she'd severed in testing regrew themselves in vats of brine atop its surface a few feet above. As a source of grafts and organs for those in need, it would more than suffice. Lacking antigens in both blood and tissue, it could be a truly universal donor; with its accelerated healing factor it could rebound from any injury short of an IED to the face, so long as it stayed fed with the high-nutrient slop that flowed down from the IV. Diana had half a mind to rip the line out and let it die, knowing it lacked the neural capacity to resist or even be aware–or did it? Therein lay the source of her uncertainty and unhappiness: why would someone grant her so much money for a mannequin so pretty and specific, if they didn't have some darker purpose? If Peridot had been a man, she would've questioned the motives sooner, but gender didn't preclude malice. What would become of the project, now that it was finished–or so close to finished?

Peridot was coming, she proclaimed–that was hours ago. Diana didn't know how or by what means she would arrive, but was of majority of mind to prevent it. The question was: how? She'd been holed up in the lab for so long, the outside all but ceased to exist. There was nary a soul visible in the hallway visible through the entrance's porthole window. Nobody knew where she was, or nobody cared, or something would have happened by now. Had her superiors forgotten about her? Had something happened to her parents, for them to not file a missing person's report, or at least contact her workplace? ALMA did have a reception desk, closer to the surface and the light of day–if the position hadn't yet been felled by budget cuts. And she knew how things would look if she reached out to less technical authorities: a lone researcher, surrounded by a dozen naked corpses, at least one of them breathing comatose connected to IV… it would not be well-received. No, she was stuck, with no idea of what to do, for one of the first times in her career.

One thing she would not do, at least: the email came attached with a collection of weird images that hurt to look at, with instructions to print them onto paper at a certain resolution and present them to the body. Fuck that, to hell and back; she was not going to play nanny to the Thing lying on the gurney, as if she were reading a picture book to a drooling toddler. That was all the body was, or less: a brainless homunculus that clung to life's coattails with unmatched voracity. She was disgusted by how rotten the fruits of her labor had proved, and would sooner see it finished, as in terminated. But, thinking on that… she couldn't kill it with a surgical saw, not when it swelled with hours of essential fluid it would just burn as fuel to heal; she would require use of the incinerator.

One last thing to do, then: watch it burn. She could tell Peridot that the latest attempt had turned to failure, and with the knowledge she'd gained, attempt a better one in private–one that needn't take the shape of some stranger with a heart-shaped face and daunting eyes and sleek, dark hair like the shadow in her nightmare. One last thing to do, and then the next, and so on, since Diana Shadrin was nothing without a path to follow.

The incinerator was just down the hall. With luck, or lack of any staff, she'd make it there without being seen, and the project would be just a footnote in her long and promising career–an unelaborated asterisk. She emerged from her hiding place and typed out her apologies, intent on keeping up appearances.

"Sorry, 'Dot'," she began. "This one's a failure as well. It couldn't maintain homeostasis, and another iteration might be required. So close, though! But there's no need for you to visit in person–was this ever established as a term of our arrangement? -Diana."

She hit "send" and was soon startled: the email's packet had barely left the intranet before the laboratory was flooded with red light and the grating sound of a klaxon. The alarm was unlike those sparked by fire she'd heard before, and came with no announcement. She gave the gurney a nervous glance; the body was still there, unmoved. Of course it was–she kicked herself.

Before she could take stock of things, there was a reply at the top of her inbox; she opened it.

"For your sake, I'm ecstatic that you're lying. ﹡See attached."

"What?" She mouthed, clicking into it. The attachment was a simple image, white with rendered black sans-serif text, reading: "Compromised–more ways than one. Dial ﹡611."

A colossal bang rang out, several floors above her; it shook the corners of the lab and freed dust from the ceiling panels, which floated down as ruby sparkles in the light. Diana's eyes darted to the email, her phone and back. With tremendous reservation, she dialed out the number. It rang, once, then picked up.

"Hello," she said insistently. "Would you mind, please: what the fuck is going on?"

"You have incredible timing, Dia," the lemony voice of Peridot Delapore spoke. "They're already on their way to persecute you for your achievement."

"'They'? Who the hell is 'they'?" she spat, failing to hide the tremor in her voice. As she collapsed back into the swivel chair, the HVAC's steady cycling shuddered to a stop, leaving the sharp tones of the alarm as the sole sound. Peridot's tones–sharper, still–cut through it effortlessly.

"Mungo Girima," she babbled out; at the same moment, an email appeared in Diana's inbox. "PLEASE READ!! STOP!!" was its subject line.

"Don't click that," the voice continued. "Look." A window popped open on her screen, covering the bulk of it. Split into six equally gray panes, it showed a multitude of grainy surveillance footage.

"Wait–how the hell are you… what? Oh no…" she started, before words failed. The top left feed showed reception, or what remained of it: a chunk of the semicircular desk was taken out as if bitten by some megafauna, and charcoal debris was strewn about the scene. Turns out, the position was not felled by budget cuts, but by something else. A bomb had gone off in reception, evidently; she saw the severed half of a receptionist's leg, stiletto still welded to the heel. Heavy, humanoid shadows played at the picture's edges, rushing off somewhere. It was mercy that the images were monochrome.

"Oh my god…" she gasped, nauseous.

"Yeah," the voice acknowledged, before assuming a stern tone. "Listen carefully, Diana. Your security won't be able to repel this threat. Mungo Girima is a far-right paramilitary group that traffics in conspiracies. This cell is a dozen strong, and they believe ALMA is harvesting adrenochrome to institute a new world order."

"What are you– that's ridiculous," she spat. "Nihilistic bullshit, by nutjobs who don't believe in science. I'm, I'm calling the police." Her hand began pulling the phone from her ear.

"Is it?" The voice insisted; she froze. "Do you believe the typical member of their ranks, an ex-Army grunt incapable of scoring above average on the ASVAB, will understand the nuance of your work? Adrenochrome is a deep, violet-red; in this light the infusion won't seem any different. They will execute you. The local police will never arrive in time to save you."

In the topmost, middle pane, she saw a shape clad in a tactical vest move down a hall. A muzzle flash blew out the camera, then cleared to show the aftermath: a figure in a lab coat, crumpled to the floor, with a pool of black liquid spreading from its head. Diana swiveled away, towards the gurney, and choked down vomit. She harsh-whispered into the receiver:

"You did this. You did, didn't you? Oh, god, I knew this was all wrong and fucked-up… Do you even work for the government, Dot? Who the fuck are you?"

Silence; static. Diana's heartrate rose to concerning levels; the alarm of her smartwatch began beeping out-of-time with the facility alarm, trying to alert her to a health emergency.

"You know me–or you will. Or you'll die. Those are your options. I didn't order the attack on this facility."

"Then who the fuck did?" she shouted, holding the phone in front of her face. There, her rage was tempered by surprise: the caller–or callee–was not who she expected. Beneath the grey default profile image was the name of Esther Kadigan–a complete and total stranger.

"Dr. Peridot Delapore did," the voice sighed, as if it should be obvious. "We don't have time to quibble over questions. You need to finish what you started."

The printer in the corner whirred to life. Sheet by sheet, it began printing the same strange patterns from the email, in colors so vivid Diana hadn't known ink could produce them.

"No," she protested. "No, no, no…"

"Don't you want to see Thimble again? Snoozy boy… don't you want to see your parents again? They're worried about you. Accept the crown of your achievement–or be gunned down like a hog just like your colleagues."

Tears formed in Diana's eyes, flowing out of disused ducts. It was all too much to take in. An attack, a bomb–not just a threat, but actual exploded ordinance–and the immense, suffocating pressure of limited time. Now that the f-choice was presented to her, would she choose to fight or flee or something else? Fight, of course, like she'd done all her career. When under pressure, she knew but one response, the instinct she'd ingrained into herself: not to falter, but to press on–press back. That was useless for a problem like this, one that couldn't be solved with wits. She could envision no solution.

"I'm scared," she admitted, clenching her left hand to a fist over her lap. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what's going on. You–you used me! You're leaving me to die."

"Mm. Maybe. But do you want to die a failure, or not?" The voice held no emotion–the final syllable seemed synthesized. Diana's fear spiked higher, the final scrap of knowledge taken from her: knowledge at least of her malefactor's voice. The one behind those cruel and dulcet tones… could It be human? The possibility of being nerd-sniped by a babbling AI agent was nonzero, now. She suppressed a desperate sob.

"Anyway, it's your choice. Au revoir." And then a click as the line went dead. The final page was printed, after; Diana was left alone with the alarm.

In the sixth and final camera view, she saw the elevator that would lead them to her: a group of balaclava'd men in black poured into it, armed to the teeth. She couldn't make out which button they'd pressed in the array, but knew the cab's vibration to mean movement; she began to hyperventilate.

The phone fell out of her hand and to the floor. She had but minutes if they came for her first. Mechanically, like a robot with hand tremors, she pulled the leaves of paper from the printer without inspecting further. There was no time to bind them, nor any indicator that the order mattered. This was no time for rationality.

In the center of the room, beside the metal gurney, she tried to hold the pages over the eyes of the horror that she'd wrought. The angle was too awkward and the sheets too large, unwieldy. A series of bangs from the distant hallway drove her to still more desperate measures: she clambered up onto the trolley, straddling the pinched waist of the Thing, hunched over It like some Quasimodo–half-alive, with one foot in the door of death, while below her was the Thing half-living, with one little foot in life's portal. She showed the pages to those pinkling eyes like she was presenting flashcards, tossing each sheet to the floor in turn.

There was motion behind her, at the door. There were no more sheets to show, and still nothing came to save her. What had she expected? The Thing stared upwards, blank as ever, with Its pretty, pointed face. Diana screamed, red rage exploding out of her at once: her fingers wrapped around Its narrow, pale, limp neck, and dug in deeply. If this was to be her end, two hundred meters underground, she'd at least take her work with her. Better now to do so and skip the pursuit of her creation to the ends of the world or under it, like some bidden Byronic heroine.

But as she exerted herself, choking the life out of her work, those loathsome eyes moved an arcsecond or two. First they flicked down, past her torso, to view the door through the gap between her legs. Then: upwards, scanning her, absorbing her, for when they made eye contact she saw they possessed a terrifying and inchoate depth that wasn't there before. The look It gave her was so piercing and uncanny that the grip strength of her fingers faltered. Diana felt tremendous pressure at the outskirts of her mind. She panted, unable to gulp enough air into her lungs to handle it, while the body below her breathed just once, and slowly. Slowly, too, It brought Its left hand to her cheek, running the backs of fingers over the contours of her jaw.

"Thanks, mom," It sneered, in the licorish voice that wasn't Dr. Delapore's. It licked Its lips, tasting them for the first time. A wicked grin was Its inaugural expression, after. What was occurring was impossible. Diana was frozen, above, as below the brainless body moved Its mouth remotely–a shadow directed it from somewhere far unseen.

"A reddened idol-on an altar," It directed still more nonsense. "Not red enough, I think. But then, we haven't done the maize-y vivisection. Sorry to be so corny… but life is a joke that's best begun."

"What the fuck are you talking about–" Diana sputtered out, before red sputtered through her in a dozen leaded channels.

It was a confounding experience, watching one's own bullet-ridden body tumble to the floor like a ballistic dummy, without registering any pain. Whatever the cause of Diana's disassociation, the agony she expected failed to arrive, so there was nothing for her to wince at–not that she could, now, from her new vantage point in the back corner of the room. Her head, limbs and body all felt much too heavy to move; she blinked, proving she still could do that, at least, but the effort did nothing to expand her view of the scene: a thin sliver from nadir to zenith formed by the door to the room where she'd deposited the other bodies, left ajar. There was a terrible ringing in her left ear–the one not pressed upon the floor–and a wafting of formaldehyde in the air around her. She'd traveled a dozen meters in an instant–or had she? Who was she, anyway? Surely she couldn't be the same fiery-haired woman choking on her own blood in the center of the room, who went silent in short order. No–that one was deader than a doornail. Diana Shadrin, in shock, knew little else besides being alive.

So too was the Thing, though. It sat up on the gurney, shimmying to the foot until It sat over the edge, dangling bare feet en pointe, as six armed figures in black and camouflage poured in through what had been the door, blown off its hinges and peppered with as many rounds as the ginger corpse upon the floor. Its form was pristine and free of all such blemishes: the unbroken hourglass contours of It tapered at the waist and widened just a little to make shoulders and thin arms, whose palms It spread behind. Diana realized with a flash of red–impotent, now–that she'd served It as a human shield. She'd paid for Its life with her own, like a good mother should… the implication made her want to scream. But she could not scream. The Horror turned Its head a hair, revealing a thin arc of one bright eye, and pressure such as she'd never felt weighed down on her. It wouldn't let her move; It wouldn't let her make a peep.

The grunts of Mungo Girima seemed not to know what to make of this appearance, either. They fanned out around It in a semicircle, pointing barrels at beakers and checking corners, before settling to target It, a potential nuclear threat. The green lines of their laser sights all converged on a ventral point Diana couldn't see; one man, burly and with tawny air held captive by a patriotic headband, she caught staring at Its breasts.

"Have you been trafficked?" he asked gruffly, voice muffled by a black bandana. "Are they harvesting your blood?"

The man to his right, thinner and with darker hair, elbowed him. "She's just a kid, man. And it's not blood, it's adrenaline. Look–they're pulling it right out of her veins… fucked up."

Murmurs went around the group. The arc parted in the middle, allowing another man through–evidently a commander of sorts. He was tall and dark, with neater facial hair than the rest, and wore no mask, only dark goggles.

"Shit. This is the heart of darkness, then. Get this girl some clothes; we'll take her with us. Check doors and corners, light Molotovs on the way out. Burn this shit hole to the ground. Need I remind y'all that Marxist pigs were already called? We gotta bug out, stat, and bring back proof."

His underlings moved, disordered, spreading out into the room. The tawny-headed man approached the Thing and produced a thick, camo jacket from his pack. It sat there limp and allowed him to manually emplace Its arm into the sleeve; when he saw the infusion line entering Its cubital fossa, he paused.

"Hey wait, y'all, it looks like this one is going in–" he started.

"Do I look like a child to you?" It said, suddenly.

The man recoiled back; all other heads turned towards the exchange. "No, miss–ma'am. Sorry. Jesus, they're doing this shit to adults, too? Is that better or worse?"

"Mungo Girima," It chewed over the words, stretching the syllables. "So much conviction for such little understanding."

A dozen or more men took in breath; trained their weapons at It; poised to strike.

"How do you know that name?" the leader asked. "Answer slow, and clear, or you'll end up like your friend." He flicked the rifle's barrel to the body.

"It's simple–you're simple," It began. "Mungo, a mongoose. It's an Aryan creature… but Girima was a goddess of snakes and incantation, so you've introduced some dissonance. It's an oxymoronic name. I don't expect consistency from fascists."

At the word, his finger twitched over the trigger; unkempt eyebrows scowled at It. The tension was palpable, and punctuated only by the ongoing alarm.

"Who. Are. You. Answer quick," he said through gritted teeth.

"She's a fucking plant, man, she's one of them!" The tawny man exclaimed, followed by much murmuring.

It moved with lightning speed to grip the muzzle with one hand, bringing it so close that Its head and hair blocked Diana's view of it; the bore must've kissed Its forehead. The bearer of the weapon was too shocked to fire.

"Not Girima, that's for sure. Nothing that a mongoose dreams of killing. If someday–"

He got over it and fired. The sound of the shot filled the confined space, drowning out the alarm in its reverberation. The Thing's head snapped back, as blood splattered at an angle onto the gurney below… but less far than Diana expected. It remained sitting upright, and to the horror of every other soul present in the room, the head righted itself, slowly. It coughed, once, twice, spraying blood Diana couldn't see, but could hear hit the man in front. Pale feet touched down onto the floor; the leader stood still over a head taller, but was minuscule before Its aura: the temperature in the room rose, and the hair on every arm stood up in trepidation.

"I've got a date real soon, and you've went and botched my face," It sang. "I'm sure you'll not be missed."

His head exploded. How, it was unclear, but the who and what and why were obvious: one instant he was looking at It with a mix of horror and perplexity, and the next, his expression made considerably simpler by the lacking of eyes, ears, mouth, nose and head. The bulk of it was turned to a fine pink mist which drifted almost straight down, but the rest came out in uneven chunks of raw, bone-in (or bone-out) meat–the buckshot of a man. Newly christened Dullahan, his body fell, but before it hit the floor, chaos unfolded itself further: the rest of the squad converged on It, fighting with fire the only way they knew. Hot lead spread from all directions as they tried to unleash hell onto something more infernal than the worst damnation they could think of.

Diana had eyes only for the Thing–her unwanted 'daughter'. Stuck motionless, all she could do was watch, but even with her acuter-than-average vision she caught little more than flashes. The tawny man caught a knee to the chest and fell over on his back; his blue eyes met with Its thumbs and were scooped out like berries. The thin man's gun ran empty and so he reached for a long knife, finding success in embedding it in the Thing's palm… until It ran the blade through the other side, grabbed the handle from him in reverse, and slashed him across the throat back-handed. One unlucky soul was garroted with the intravenous line while his squadmate emptied his magazine into Its torso; a flicker of frantic realization passed over his face when It glared in his direction, before his head tore open in a rush of heat. The Thing was swift, relentless, and impossible to counter, like every move was planned beforehand. The thugs of Mungo Girima never stood a chance against a woman-shaped blur willing and able to bite out a man's throat and spit the muscle to the side. The variegated ways It massacred them was evil beyond what humanity could fathom.

At some point the alarm fell silent, but the lab stayed no less red. The last man, a scrawny twenty-something in gear too big for him, tried his best to flee; It gunned him down before he cleared the doorway, firing a rifle from the hip. Diana knew, from an academic point of view, how much blood a human body held within. But reality was so, so different, especially the reality of so many human bodies: blood had touched on every surface, from walls to floor to ceiling. The lab was turned into an atrium, or ventricle, for how much gore it held. When the Thing turned her way–and she failed to look away, because It wouldn't let her look away–she saw that It was no exception. Red covered It from head to toe, so much that it could've passed at a distance for a skin-tight, garnet jumpsuit. In parts, the skin gave way to sinew; bullets had stripped It to down to bloody bone elsewhere. Several wounds should've been more than mortal. Ignoring them–defying them–It approached her hiding place with little more than a limp.

"Hi, mom," It smiled down at her, sliding the door open. Still forcibly ragdolled, Diana flopped onto her back, her head lolling the ceiling. "Thanks for delivering me. I'm going to take a shower now–chemical, not sponge–to wash off this 'afterbirth'. You don't mind, right? It's all covered by your funding."

The pressure lifted all at once. Air flooded to Diana's lungs; before, her breathing had been done for her, too shallow, and now that she controlled it she could make up for lost breath.

"You–you–you… what are you…" she croaked, finding she could move. The Thing went outside of her vision, towards the booth that held the shower. Its voice was clear and calm and sharp as ever.

"Me, me, me," It repeated. "Me has a date–many, many dates. The entire calendar, in time. So I don't have any left for you, dear Dia. Don't you know that the police were called? I highly advise you 'bug out' of here, stat… this is Me, sparing you."

"What." Diana said, in a voice that could've been Its twin. Fear–like ice, filled her heart as the word left her too-thin lips. She rolled over, to prop herself up using her palms; as she did, wavelets of hair much-too-dark fell around her shoulders. What? No. No. She was reborn in the eleventh body of the Monster–like mother, like daughter.

"It makes for a problematic family tree, sure, but at least you're alive, right? Capable, too. It's best for both of us to leave the nest, now."

Diana's eyes–faintly luminous, placing a soft glow onto her unwanted button nose–fled across the room, to where the glazed door of the shower stall hid Its silhouette. Despite her inability to see Its face, she knew It was looking at her.

"Oh! Hot, yay!" The sound of a shower raining down, and the warbling tones of Its accursed singing, filled the air.

"Everything is a source of fun," It sang. Diana stumbled to her feet, head pounding all the while. She stared in horror at the ten other near-identical shapes that littered the room with her.

"Nobody's safe, for we care for none!" It sang. Diana's eyes swept over the scene. All the fight had spilled out of her when her body was turned into a sieve by bullets, but she had plenty of flight left. What to take and run with, before It reemerged? Her laptop… her slate gray jacket, pilfered from her own corpse and coathooks… a spare, sealed intravenous bag… the headless leader's sidearm, maybe. She was grateful that the body she'd known all her life had landed face-down, so that her final expression stayed unknown.

"Life is a joke that's just begun!" It laughed. Diana bolted for the door. She'd worked in the facility for over half a decade; she might find a way out that could evade the cameras and authorities and get her out into the desert air. What she'd do then, she hadn't decided… but she needed nothing more than the next step. The bare soles of a body that did not belong to her smacked as she escaped, and the sound of Its singing in the shower lingered far too far away from her old lab:

"From three little maids take one away,"

"Two little maids remain, and they–"

"Won't have to wait very long, they say–"

"Wed in a day, or two… Bye, mom!"