I feel like an asshole in this tiger fursuit. Alliott is turning purple trying to hold in her laughter. But it's our best shot yet at opening a Way onto Natasha's island fortress. We've booked a conference room on the third floor of the KMZ to go over the heist. The Inside Man hooks up his laptop to the room's projector and opens up his presentation. Alliott tosses him a laser pointer. He tosses it back. "Oh no," he says, pulling a long thin cane from nowhere. "I brought a pointing stick." The projector lights up, displaying a birds-eye view of a heavily-developed mountain. At the center is what looks like a giant black lotus flower stretching offscreen. The Man raps the lotus with the stick. "This… is the Lift. Wraith Enterprises use it to shoot stuff into space and bring down stuff they strip-mine from nearby asteroids and the Moon. Slide!" Alliott rolls her eyes but moves to the next slide, a zoomed-out view of the mountain. The Lift is clearly visible at the peak. A thin grey ring extends around it. The ring is surrounded by a smattering of warehouses, which are themselves surrounded by another thin grey ring running around the island. There's a few roads running from various points around the island's base to the inner ring, but they all congregate at a single road that stretches up to the lotus flower. "The island around it is called Novagrad. It handles the shipping and handling for the Lift — makes sure the spice flows. And it's what we need to raid. Slide!" Alliott reads off the occult scripts of power on the whiteboard. The air in front of me distorts slightly. I walk forward into the newly generated Way and immediately regret all my life choices. There's a sharp crackle as my eyesight is scrambled like a hamster in a microwave. When I regain sensation in my body, I find myself lying in one corner of the metal closet we've been using for our experiments. The Way is gone. The fursuit has been vaporized along with the fake skin on my fingers. God damn I hate magic hacking. The next slide is a GIF, tracking a bird as it flies towards the island. Suddenly, the bird's skeleton becomes visible. Its charred remains fall out of the sky, bouncing off an invisible bubble and becoming progressively more scorched until only ashes plop into the ocean. "First problem!" the Man says. "An an anti-intrusion thaumic net round the island, twice its diameter. Filters out anything with an unapproved thaumic signature… like, say, a portal from another dimension. For all you non-gamers, that means no walking or Ways unless you want to be grilled like peri-peri chicken. Alliott?" He and Alliott switch places, exchanging the pointing stick on the way over. "So here's the thing." Alliott raps the screen. "This is a big fuckin' net. No way in hell it's impermeable. There's all sorts of things they'd have to handle perfectly: refresh rate, access method, routing, signature checking… there's too many variables in this equation for there to NOT be an exploit. And if I've learned anything from the Library, it's that you can pipe a Way into damn near anywhere." Easier said than done. Alliott and I have been cooped up inside a bubble of accelerated time for almost three hundred hours — or twenty-four in realtime— trying to figure out how to defeat the anti-intrusion net around the island. By my count, we've tried a dozen different exploits, including but not limited to sacrificing a cyber-wehraboo, boffing on top of the Way itself, and walking through it in a fursuit. She also made me watch Jaws, which was a nice distraction. Not distracting enough. It's hot, unpleasant, unsexy work, made all the worse by the stuffiness of time-dilated ventilation. I swear I can feel the coolant boiling right out of my innards. So when the fursuit hack fails and I find myself wanting to blow Alliott up for no other reason than frustration, I realize that I need a change of scenery. For me, that change of scenery means hotwiring some dork's bike and doing wheelies in the KMZ parking lot. The Inside Man even found a box of fireworks for me to drive through. It's nice to decompress by blowing shit up with him — or it would be if I could stop thinking about the goddamn hack. I'm even mouthing the bloody activation phrases. And right as the sparklers go off and I drive through the fireworks, I realize exactly how to hack the field. Unlike the other, slower exploits, there's no way to test this gently — because it involves throwing myself through a Way at mach speed and hoping that I'm fast enough to bypass the anti-intrusion field's refresh rate. Either the hack fails and I eat asphalt at 1600 kilometers per hour, or I announce my sneaky infiltration with a sonic boom. So I'd better be really fucking confident in this hack. That, or occasionally prone to suicidal ideation. One out of two ain't bad. To perform the hack, you will need: one self, one incantation to generate a motion-sensitive Way, and one gravispatial locking flechette for each member of your party. For example, if your party consists of one cyborg witch, one Black Queen, and one motorbike, you will need three flechettes. Step 0: Find a nice, open area to perform the hack. The parking lot of your local anarcho-syndicalist fashion boutique will do nicely. Step 0.5: Let your girlfriend snark at you. "If this works, I'll shit myself," Alliott says. "Then why are you doing this?" I say. "Moral support." Step 1: Position yourselves in front of the Way. Step 2: Stab each member of your party with a gravispatial locking flechette. Step 3: Recite the words of power. Immediately activate the flechettes. If performed correctly, you will be flung forward into an opened Way at the speed of the Earth's rotation. Step 4: At the exact moment of passage, deactivate the flechettes. If performed correctly, you will each be decelerated to net zero velocity with respect to the planet you have just teleported onto. If you're a cyborg witch, it'll make your guts feel like an elephant stomped on them. If you're a Black Queen who was smart enough to throw up a kinetic redirector around herself, it won't even sting. Step 5: Shut off your ears — or refer to the aforementioned kinetic redirector — to avoid having them blown out by a sonic boom. Turn them back on right as the island becomes bathed in emergency lighting and wailing alarms. Congratulations! You have successfully broken into the loading dock of an otherwise secure sovereign nation located on an alternate Earth. Next time, try doing it stealthily. On the next slide, a crate bearing the logo of a sliced orange is being carted away by a man with a tiger's head. And claws. And tail. So really, it's a tiger with a man's body. "Problem two!" the Man declares, having taken back his stick. "Far as I can tell, Novagrad's run entirely by androids. Not as weird as actual man-cat hybrids, but it's bladdy close. My guess is Natasha and her skollies don't wanna risk anyone on the island being bribed. Probably all tied to some kind of central computer. Best option, once you've sneaked onto the island, mind you, is to keep sneaking past the vrotten things. Slide!" So much for sneaking. But that's fine. I prefer doing things with a bang. I close one hand around my thumb and yank. My thumb slides back halfway along the arm to the elbow. My fingers splay out along the edge into curved panels. Fins along my arm pop open, and the underside of my arm pushes itself downwards into a stock. A fat silver barrel protrudes from what used to be my palm. I twist the throttle and the motorbike leaps forward. The road climbs upwards from the receiving docks to a checkpoint manned by a pair of androids — one of many against the steel wall that runs the island's circumference. Bullets rain down on me. A single pump from my arm sends an RPG spiraling into the checkpoint, reducing the guards to scrap metal. I flick my wrist back. My entire arm spins at the elbow, feeding another grenade into the chamber. Another pump of the arm blasts a hole in the wall big enough to ride through. The next gate is a kilometer away. I take pot shots at the worker bots as I weave through administrative buildings and warehouses. Within seconds I can see the pearly whites of a sniper taking aim from the battlements. The air snarls. I look overhead as a bolt of lightning splits the sky in two and blows the sniper to bits. "Sneaking around is gonna be bit of a pain in the arse. There's bound to be some magic motion sensors or something, so you'll want someone to make a ruckus. Cause a distraction. Raise hell," the Man says. "Which is where I come in," Alliott says, hefting a large apparatus onto the table. The most obvious thing about it is a pair of twin turbines with a large antenna poking up from between them. A long, thick cable extends from the turbines to a sleek plastic sniper rifle in her hands. It has a fat stock, thin rectangular barrel, and anachronistic bolt action. "This," she says with obvious glee, "is a high-altitude positron rifle. The Poles built it to kill Russian angels. It's a jetpack that uses lightning and a bit of magic to smash atoms together and create a focused gamma-ray laser. Perfect for raising hell." I spare a glance behind me to see Alliott already a kilometer in the air. In one smooth motion, she yanks the bolt action back and retrieves a long glass fuse from somewhere on her back. A scorched black fuse falls from the bolt action into space. Alliott slides the fresh fuse into the newly-empty chamber, rams the bolt action into place, and pulls the trigger. The sky turns grey. A bolt of lightning crashes down on her. The antenna on Alliott's back absorbs the full impact. A split-second later, a flat beam of light emerges from the barrel of the riflel, streaking across the sky and reducing a second sniper to giblets. Two more bolts of harnessed lightning take out the mortar cannons on the battlements. I fire two grenades and obliterate the checkpoint. My artificial eyes don't so much as waver as I careen through the smoke at a hundred kilometers per hour. If I still took breaths, the Lift would have taken them away. Words can hardly do it justice this close up: eight glass towers running the circumference of an enormous black cable, as thick as a hundred redwood trees, ascending into the heavens. Red electricity crackles along its length, the only sign of the deeply occult magicks and esoteric paratechnology helping support its weight. The entire structure resembles a huge black lotus. Just down the hill is the control building for the Lift — a squat concrete block, marred by a single steel password-protected door and guarded by two androids. I floor the throttle on the motorbike and careen towards the door full tilt. A split-second from impact, I backflip off of the bike and hit it with a grenade. The door and its guards are consumed by the fire and fury of a near-full tank of gas. I land on the ground like a cat and dash inside. The slide has returned to the zoomed-in view of the mountain. The Inside Man taps a small grey square next to the lotus. "So this is kind of where my intel starts breaking down," the Man says. "Side note, you'd better fucking appreciate these pics, I had to trade myself a LOT of bladdy favors to get them. I owe me three satellites and a blowjob and I don't even like blowjobs!" He shakes his head rapidly. "Anyways! This has to be the control tower for the Lift. It's not really a tower, more like a bungalow, but what's important is what's inside. My guess is a supercomputer — a really bladdy powerful one, too. It runs the androids and controls the Lift, coordinating with the computers on the counterweight in space. If you can get me access to that computer, I can get you an express to the Lift. Slide!" The first floor is nothing but a straight hallway of security checkpoints and HVAC closets. Fire sprinklers drench the four tiger-droids that fill the hall. As one, they snarl and pop their claws. The khandas come out in response. I put both blades through the first android and flex my elbows as fast as I can. Oil spills everywhere as I split her from the crotch up. Tiger Two slips on the stuff, and I dive forward and slam both elbows into her skull, crumpling it like a beer can. Then I roll off her remains and back onto my feet. As I'm regaining my bearings, Number Three locks her grip around my arms and whips me into the wall. Then she pins my arms to it. I slam my head into hers and see stars. She doesn't so much as blink. From the corner of my eye, I see Four level a gun at me. A few more desperate slams against Three's head only rewards me with a self-induced concussion. Four almost looks amused before her finger closes around the trigger. My ears automatically seal themselves at the crack of the bullet. Which is strange because it means that I'm still alive. Three and I turn our heads simultaneously to look. A split-second later, the remains of Three's head splatter against my faceplate. As her body topples over, I see Alliott sitting against the wall near Four's corpse. Her left pant is rolled up to reveal a horribly mutilated limb: the foot has been split open like a lotus flower, and the barrel of a Barrett XM500 sniper rifle is poking out of the stump. "Where the hell did you come from?" I ask. "Got bored of shooting things and wanted to see what you were up to. Good thing too, huh?" Alliott snaps the rifle barrel out of the stump, folds her foot-flaps back into place, and slides the pieces of the gun back into her cybernetic leg. "Why didn't you tell me you could do that?" I say as I walk over to her. I retract my khandas and then pull her up. She shrugs. "Never came up." Then her eyes widen. "Down!" We drop like rocks. A hail of bullets fills the space overhead. My hands close around Four's corpse; I spin it in front of me and let it take the full brunt of the next volley. The Desert Eagle comes from my holster and I fire four times. Ahead of us, two androids collapse with holes where their eyes used to be. Another bullet knocks the pistol from my hand. I'm already lunging at the shooter. Behind me, I hear Alliott struggling with an eighth android. I have no time to wonder where these new ones came from because I'm already grappling for Seven's gun. Seven fires just as I wrench her arm upwards. The bullet embeds itself into the ceiling. I tear the gun from Seven's hand and pistol-whip her with it. She stumbles back slightly and then bounces back with a series of lightning-quick jabs. The gun goes soaring. Neither of us bother to look at it. Seven is busy trying to punch my head from my neck. I'm busy deflecting and predicting her strikes. She's good… but I'm better. There! I lock Seven's fist against my side and wrench it clean from her socket. Seven gives me an indignant look. I reply with a spin-kick to the side of her head, crushing it against the wall. Then I dive for my Eagle and shoot twice more, coring the android grappling with Alliott. "Christ!" she says as she pushes it off her. "Warn a girl before you shoot that close." She wipes oil off her face. "Ahh, you got robot blood all over - behind you!" I spin around just in time for a ninth android to deliver a series of jabs hard enough to dent my chest. I lurch backwards. The khandas finally come out and I swing upwards. Nine dodges and rips my guts out. I reel, barely remembering to retract my khandas before grabbing at the gash. Words wash over my brain — corrosion to battery casing detected! — and I'm suddenly faced by the possibility that I might meltdown mid-fight. Nine sees the way I totter around like half of a three-legged sack and goes in for the kill. She sweeps my legs and knocks me to the ground, then pounces for my eyes. Desperation gives me inspiration. I kick at her crotch, arresting her dive and pushing her backwards, and swipe at her head with my good hand. Most of my fist slides right by her forehead, but my thumb gets caught on her ear and slides back halfway along the arm to the elbow. In such a tight space, the explosion is deafening. A hole opens up in the ceiling and a server rack falls through, crushing Nine from the waist down. She takes a final feeble swing with what's left of her body and then shuts down with one claw on my chest. I stagger to my feet and probe the wound. My fingers close around a thick cylinder with a rough, bumpy surface. Thankfully, the battery isn't cracked. I'll live to see another day. I look up and see a tenth android pointing her pistol right where my battery is. I wonder if cyborgs can go to hell. Alliott dives in front of me, hands sparking. She shouts an incantation at the same moment Ten pulls the trigger. One bullet bounces off Alliott's arms into the wall. Two more ping off her chest and bite into Ten's. And a fourth spikes neatly off her forehead and drills through Ten's. Both of them collapse. I heard five shots. I drop to my knees and roll Alliott over, pressing two fingers to her neck. There's a pulse there. It's weak, but speeding up. "Alliott? Alliott!" I cry out. "Fuck," she coughs out. I pull her shirt up. There's a half-inch hole through her armored vest. The color is draining from her face. "What the fuck was that?" I say. She coughs again. "Thought that… spell would handle it." I think she's going into shock, the Man says. "Shock? But she's not bleeding!" I say. "Internal," Alliott says. "Fuck… 'm thirsty." "Can't you heal yourself?" I ask. She clenches a fist slowly. It glows briefly, then dims. "Ohh… that's the aorta. Definitely the aorta. Can't heal that myself." "You dumb bitch!" I cry. "Fuck! Fucking fuck goddamnit shit!" Alliott grips my hand tightly. "Hey…" she whispers. "Always have a backup plan, right." My eyes widen. "Well what is it? What do I do?" "We need a ritual circle." "What? What am I supposed to draw one with?" "You're covered… in oil." "What?" I rub my face and my hand comes away covered in grease. "Oh." I hastily draw an oil ritual circle around Alliott. It looks more like an oval and the pentagram inscribed within is hideously asymmetrical. I can only pray that it'll suffice. "Great," Alliott says once I've finished. "Now we need the… energy source. Everhart resonator." She coughs blood onto my lap. "Okay okay do you have one? Where do I get one?" I'm becoming frantic. "Just build one." "What?" I feel like I'm coming apart at the seams. "How?!" "Easy. We have… all the parts." She gestures towards the cybernetic corpses in my wake. I'm already scrambling towards Six. "What do I need?" I shout to her. "Head. Gunn diode." "What the fuck is a Gunn diode?" Microwave diode, the Man says. Used for radio communications. Check their heads. Unbidden, an image of a small metal switchbox with a bundle of multicolored images appear in my mind's eye. I thank the Man briefly and then pluck Six's eyes from her sockets, using the holes as leverage to pry her braincase apart. The diode is near the base of her skull. I rip it out and drop it by Alliott's head. "What else?" "Superconducting magnet." "Where the hell am I supposed to find that?" Battery. See if there's one in their chests. Five's upper body is still intact. I saw into her chest and pry it open, then start digging. My hands close around something so cold that it burns. I jerk back, then cautiously probe the spot. The source of the chill is a small ceramic cylinder wrapped in engraved wire. It's an integrated Maxwell's Demon — the demon inside wraps around the ceramic, eating excess heat and keeping it at superconducting temperature so that it can hold a charge indefinitely. I carefully pluck the magnet from its case. "What else?" "Need a box to keep it in…" I have a box right in front of me. It's just filled with junk. So I disembowel Five until there's nothing left in her chest. "OK, got everything! What do I do with it?" "Get some wire… okay, start with the green wire and tie it around the diode cable." Alliott's voice rapidly wanes to the point that she's practically breathing into my ears, but she's a good teacher. Within minutes, I have a jury-rigged Everhart resonator — an electricity-to-magic convertor — that'll save Alliott's life. "OK, now just touch these two wires to one of those batteries," Alliott says. I dig through robot remains for several panicky seconds and nothing. All the superconducting batteries are dead for no reason. I might have killed these things but I know I left most of them intact. Then I take a closer look and everything falls into place. I did a project on these things in sophomore year. They're far-field wireless power receivers. Something far away was shooting electricity into them, and using the superconductors to maintain efficiency. But that something is stopped. There's nothing left. My girlfriend is about to bleed to death because of a dead battery. Dead battery. My brain finally coughs up an idea. I wrap my hands around the edges of my stab wound and start tearing it open. There's one battery left — the one inside me. If I can get to it, I might be able to use it to charge the resonator. It feels like lava is pouring into my chest. I see stars. But I keep pulling. I'm terrified that if I stop I'll be too afraid to restart. I pull my own guts open for what seems like an eternity, hearing the warping, popping, and tearing of metal as my innards are exposed for the world to see. I really hope that the battery isn't leaking but that's the least of our worries right now. "Give me those," I gasp. I snatch the power cable from Alliott's hands and jam them into my chest. My brain does a hard reboot, going from void black to full stereo ultra-high-def oversaturation. I see Alliott's hands pressed to her body. The pentagram sparkles around her as a bullet slowly worms itself out of the hole in her chest. The color starts returning to her face. She takes a deep, gasping breath and stands up. The Everhart resonator falls to the floor and immediately shatters to bits. "Fuuuuuuuck," she moans. "Jesus, my back is killing me. I think that hit my spine." I stand up and crush Alliott in a bear hug. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my GOD," I babble into her ear. "Fuck! You stupid idiot don't ever do that again! Oh my god I can't believe that worked I thought you were dead -" Alliott interrupts by pressing her lips to my face. "Hey, hey, hey," she says. "I'm okay. I'm okay. It's fine. My back hurts, but that's every thirty-year-old." She presses our foreheads together. "Thank you." Then she pulls away. "Hey," she says. "Look at this!" Alliott examines the results of my impromptu self-surgery. "What did this?" "Had to get to a battery," I say. "What the hell," Alliott says. "Thank you." She presses her hands to the gash in my side. The oil around us begins running up my legs and congealing over the wound. Sparks dance across the grease as it hardens into solid metal. "Whoa," I say as I feel around the seamless surface. "Thanks." There's a soft noise behind us. I spin around and empty the Desert Eagle's clip into Four's corpse as it slides down the wall. Nothing else jumps out at us. The only other sound is the faint hum of the air conditioning. I count sixty seconds before finally lowering the gun. "I think we got them," Alliott says. If my breathing wasn't mechanically regulated, I would be hyperventilating. "Oh my fucking God. You almost died. You almost fucking died! Oh my fucking God!" Alliott grabs me by the shoulders and shakes. "Relax! Key word there is almost!" She draws me into a hug. "Don't you fucking scare me like that again," I say, nestling my head against her neck. "Hhhhh," she wheezes. "You're kinda crushing me." The second floor is a single windowless room with a large cylinder in the center: Novagrad's primary supercomputer. I snap back the first joint on my pointer finger, revealing a small universal jack, and jab it into the first open port on the machine. There's a pregnant pause as the software in my finger fucks the computer. Then: I'm in. I take out my anger on the wall and carve an unnecessarily large hole in it for us to jump through. Alliott and I sidle around the wall and check out the entrance. At a glance, there's at least two dozen androids with their guns trained on it. Perfect. "You'd better get outta here," I say. "What are you, kidding me? After I literally took a bullet for you? Fuck outta here." "Again - you almost just died! There is no way in hell I am letting you fight more of these fucking things," I protest. "Oh no. I let you throw yourself against a Way at sixteen hundred kilometers an hour instead of doing things mine," she counters. "And look where it got us." "I mean," I say weakly, "my Way worked." "We're doing it my way," Alliott says firmly. "Far as I'm concerned, this?" She points to the hole in her belly. "All you." She sees the look in my eyes and backpedals. "Wait, wait, wait, shit, I didn't — I didn't mean it like that. It wasn't your fault, it was Natasha's, it was her robots, not yours, I don't blame you — Look, I'll tell you what. I'll hang out in the air, do some more skeet shooting. No way they'll be able to touch me. You take the Lift up, clear the counterweight. I'll come up in another car once I'm done here." "And you'll be able to ride it?" I ask. "Please, I'm almost as much metal as you." "Alliott, I swear to God, if you die again I'm going to fucking kill you." She gives me a peck on the cheek. The turbines on her back spin up and then she blasts off into the sky. I quietly pull back from the wall and sneak up the hill towards the Lift. Most of the towers are sealed, and there's no way I'm going to cut a hole in one of them. Luckily, I don't need to wait for the Man to hack them. One tower still has an opened entrance hatch. Whatever the cargo is, it must be pretty important to bring up while the island is under attack. There's only three androids that I can see inside, but I don't want to risk damaging the platform with a grenade. I reload the Desert Eagle and wait. Above me, the sky splits in two as Alliott brings down the wrath of God on the militia down the hill. The moment I hear a thunderclap, I pop off three shots that are drowned out by the roar of the sky. I don't waste the opportunity, sprinting forward, vaulting over a crate onto the elevator platform and yelling, "Send me UP!" to the Inside Man. The hatch slams shut. There's a jolt and then several seconds of being crushed against the floor before whatever systems MachineGod installed kick in and I'm able to move without feeling like I'm being squashed under an elephant. I slump to the ground in relief and then notice the three androids staring at me from the far side of the platform. "Shit." The curse comes out of all our mouths at once. "Rukmini?!" Everything falls into place. The furry androids. The centralized intelligence. And the crates — the label on them is an orange with a mohawk. They're full of Shock Top. "Diya?"

To be honest, I'm glad that Diya jumps right to murder. It's a lot less awkward than talking. Six extra arms unfold from her sides and begin inscribing symbols into the air. My subconscious warns me that there's a lot of oxygen building up in the chamber. Diya snaps her fingers and six jets of flame lance towards me. I dive out of the way, cartwheeling behind the beer crates as I struggle to stay ahead of her killer hand thing. I'm hoping she'll accidentally hit the crates and throw up a smokescreen I can use, but nothing happens. The Shock Top must be more satisfying than my death could ever be. This is fine. It gives me time to figure out the best way to kill her. I try to stifle my bloodlust. My trip down memory lane has left me conflicted about my former clique. I honestly kind of feel bad for them. Natasha's devolved from the anarchist I loved to a corporate stooge. And Diya's gone from tankie bitch to Natasha's bitch. I think about Alliott bleeding out in my arms and harden my heart. "Hang on, Amma," someone says. "We'll handle this." I peek over the crates to assess the situation. The space elevator is a mostly barren metal circle, rocketing up through a thick glass tube. There's a bunch of crates lying about. Diya's pyrotechnics shook them loose from their moorings. The only sign that we're exiting Earth's atmosphere is a faint vibration and phantom queasiness in whatever passes for my stomach. On the other side of the elevator, Diya's bodyguards take up a defensive stance. They look nothing like the androids Alliott and I fought through on Earth. These are proper cyborg catgirls — Indian ones at that — with furry ears and spiked tails that cautiously lash back and forth. One of them is dressed in red body armor; the other is clad in blue. They both look vaguely like Diya, but have Natasha's eyes. "Absolutely not," Diya says. Her extra claws are scratching something onto the ground. "This woman is psychotic. She —" "Tried to kill you and Mum, we know, Ma," Red says. "Let us take care of this." Razor-sharp talons pop from Blue's hands. "We're programmed for this. You built us for this." Thank God, they're not actually her kids. Just her androids. But also — who's Mum? Natasha. It's clearly Natasha. God dammit. I push those thoughts out of my head and focus on the products of her hubris. On cue, my subconscious feeds me an acoustic analysis of the catgirls' construction. Their claws are sharp and their reflexes primed. Diya's clearly invested, both financially and emotionally, in her robo-kitties. There's no way she'll be willing to risk blowing a fiery hole through either. As long as I can stay up in their faces, I'll have all the time in the world to beat the kawaii out of them. Diya pinches her forehead. "There is no way in hell—" "Hello!" Red points a metallic claw at me. "My name is Ingrid Montoya. You killed my mother. Prepare to die." "Five outta ten reference, sis," Blue says. In the split-second I take to register the reference, the two of them are in my face. Two pairs of red and blue fists slam into my chest. I stumble back but they close the distance immediately, pounding me into the floor with simultaneous flip-kicks to the head. I taste phantom blood. "Kits!" Diya shouts. Her hands scrabble through the air. As I roll onto my back, the second Desert Eagle comes out. I empty one clip into Red's face and the other into Blue's. The bullets plink off their faces with a harmless rattle. An orange pentagonal aura glimmers around the two catgirls. They pat their faces in confusion, then look towards Diya. One hand is pressed to her forehead. Six others scribble thaumic patterns into the air. The last keeps writing on the floor. "Thanks, Ma!" the catgirls say in unison. Protective visors slide down over their faces and light up, sneering at me with twin >:3's. "Get back here right now!" Diya yells. "Sorry, can't hear you!" Blue says. "Ears are shot!" Red says. The dynamic dumbasses barrel at me again, raining down a flurry of blows that I can barely see, much less dodge. It feels like being smashed between two trucks at once. As I reel back, Blue spins behind me and sweeps out my legs with her tail. Red jumps up and plants both feet in my chest. I skid across the ground at a hundred kilometers per hour and crack my head on a crate of Shock Top. The spider in my brain warns me that it needs to fix my newly acquired TBI. "Vibe check!" my tormentors chant. Goddamnit. Rookie! Alliott thinks. What’s happening in there? You ok? Ow… That's a no. Listen, that's a kinetic redirection field around them. You try to grab 'em, it'll zap you off. Bullets will just feed it. You need to take out whoever's generating the magic! Which reminds me that Diya is still assembling a spell that I know nothing about. "Shoot her!" Diya says. "You have guns! Use them!" "Where's the fun in that?" Blue says, mid axe-kick. I roll to the side to avoid it and come up to parry Red's flurry of blows. Red leaves her neck open, so I chop at it with enough force to topple a redwood. My hand bounces off the same pentagonal aura. It hurts like a bitch. I clutch the hand instinctively and then take red and blue backhands to the face. Owww! "You're not very good at this, are you?" Red says. "Focus!" Diya says. "Don't talk, act!" I don't like my chances with the commando catgirls. I'd rather try my luck on the root cause, who is currently glaring daggers at me. I break and sprint towards Diya. The khanda comes down on her head. "No you don't!" Red comes from behind to parry my blade with a magically-reinforced forearm. Behind her, Blue pulls Diya away. She's still scratching symbols into the ground. Alliott, what's she writing? No clue. Need a better angle. "You trick fucking bitch," Red snarls. Her face switches to >:[."Mom's off limits!" I pull the blade up and stab at her midsection. "Kit, she's not your mom, and this is strictly between us." She parries again. "Wrong us. Zab!" Twin machine pistols appear in Blue's hand and she empties them in my direction. I parry a kick from Red and juke. The bullets rattle off her back like raindrops on a tin roof. "Look," I say, "let's try this again. I'm not going to try to kill your mom, okay? I just want to see Natasha." So I can kill her. Red twitches in Blue's direction and my eyes snap to Blue. This is an error. Red's foot snaps up into my chin and she follows up with a spin kick that lifts me off the ground. I berate myself mentally and prepare to crash down to earth. Instead something electric and sharp bounces me up. The world spins up and down as my brain pieces swirling colors together to form Red: lying on her back, metal claws up, batting me up and down like a ball of yarn. That god damn >:3 is plastered across her faceplate. I go spread-eagle to halt the spinning and aim both swords for her metal belly. Her tail intercepts mine first. RUKU! Alliott's voice rings through my ears. Subconscious diagnostics inform me that Red punctured one of my oil tanks. The pain is excruciating, like a taser wired directly to my liver. My brain bounces around between my ears as Red whips me back and forth. I try to pull myself loose but only manage to shock myself stupid on her force field. The world goes horizontal for a moment. Then Blue plants both feet squarely in my solar plexus. The blow ejects me from Red's tail and tosses me directly into the Shock Top. The crate doesn't survive our collision. "Stop messing around and shoot her!" Diya says. "Zabu, watch where you're kicking!" I let the debris zap me to semi-wakefulness and groggily probe the results of Red's traumatic tail play. It's a perfect cylinder, boring right through me and draining my Castrol blood. My limbs are already starting to feel stiffer and the twin teenage terrors are trailing towards me. Meanwhile, Diya's still putting together a whopper of a spell. I need to patch my wound up and then put the kibosh on her. If Alliott were here, she'd be able to fix this problem in an instant. But she isn't. All I have is bottled courage. Time to do what I do best: improvise. I concentrate and imagine shutting down my own sensory nerves. On cue, my extremities begin to lose feeling. I pluck a bottle from the wreckage and drop it because I can't feel anything and my body is stiffening. I swipe another one, slightly more carefully this time, and jam the bottle into the hole in my gut. Even through the numbness, it feels like being stabbed by frozen rebar. But the patch job does the trick. My nonexistent teeth clamp down on the spider in my skull. It protests vigorously and scrabbles for purchase, but I grab it with my mind's hands and seat it atop my subconscious throne. The spider's legs bite into my head — migraine coming out, clamp it down. Clamp it down and focus! The spider accepts its position and jams itself in. Mind and matter go nuclear under my hood, boiling the cerebromantic fluid pumped through my brain. A twitchy energy floods my nervous system, clashing violently against the grinding gears and slowly seizing servos in my battered bionic body and forces them to spin under its own accord. My mind speeds up. Bottles fall impossibly slowly. The gravity pushing me down lightens and the catgirls become visible as I invade their world of slowed time. Now how do I handle their shields? Red's foot strikes out, but I catch it on hopped-up reflex. The orange pentagons sizzle against the oil coating my hands. Both of us look at it in surprise. My head hurts. "What the fuck?" Red says. I yank Red to the ground and scrabble to my feet. My head hurts and now my chest burns. My entire body is burning; a perversely cold shock runs through me as I realize I'm overheating. The fucking stuff is boiling out of my belly. Need to block it with something… I look around desperately for some kind of fluid replacement. Underfoot: my salvation. Shock Top. Red comes at me again, I duck and let her trip over me. She spins, catches me in the gut. Hit the ground, can crushed under side. New plan: hurt. She kicks me a few more times for good measure — every hit feels like pain — then knocks me into a crate. Pettily throw a can at her. Throw a can at her? I puncture the can, hoping it's still cold, and find the gap in my stab wound where a coolant pipe should be. Red damn near tore it off — that bitch — and I grit my teeth as I slam the can into place. This should stop the leaking. It doesn't, but slows down enough that I don't think I'll boil over before Alliott fixes me. Now. Back to work. Red throws a punch and I catch it. My grip remains steady and the oil covering my hands crackles. She immediately drives a foot into my crotch — thank MachineGod, he already stole it — but the impact rattles my teeth anyways. I roll with the blow and evaluate. The CPU in my brain cranks even faster, connecting the dots I need before I know I need them. Instantly I realize: the oil must be acting as a barrier, like dipping a hand into liquid nitrogen. It won't go through the field… but there's nothing wrong with a little blunt trauma. Red comes at me again, but I backflip away and hastily wipe some coolant on my boots. She hops to her feet, >:[ shining on her face, and charges. The bottle in my bionic belly proves an enticing target, but makes her strikes easy to predict and easier to block. Her tail gets too close to the ground and my left boot slams it home, pinning the tail between the foot and heel. Red yowls and tries to pull away, but I'm planted to the ground. Then I punch her in the face. The blow hurts me more than her, but distracts Red long enough for me to step off her tail and grab it with my hand. I spin her tail around her, pinning her arms to her sides. When I run out of tail, I spin her around so that her back is facing me. I cap off our impromptu swing by bringing one arm around her chest and pinning the end of her tail between them. "You're not very good at this, are you?" I say. Red struggles against me, but I've tied her up with her own tail. "Get off!" "You got it," I say. One hand shoves her away; the other yanks on her tail like a top, spinning her towards her family before she reaches the end of her tether and stops short. I imagine the look on her face as I reel her back in. Red turns around mid-reel and lunges. I sidestep and let her trip over my foot. As she falls, my hand presses itself to the small of her back. With my other hand, I wrap her tail around her arm and dig my fingers into her claws, locking the tail between our hands. I wink at Diya. If she weren't half-machine, she'd be half-eggplant at the sight of me dipping her daughter. Red regains a modicum of composure and slashes at my eyes with her free claw. I release her back and catch her wrist a centimeter from my sockets, then slam it back into her own face. The sound Red's fist makes as it passes through her own protective barrier fills me with frisson. It's like cracking a perfect sixer in cricket or beating a bobby with his own baton. My own hand stops at the barrier, but it's a start. "Gotta be honest with you," I say as we sashay around the elevator. "You're a rubbish dancer." Red hisses at me and I bop her in the face. "Don't worry, this dance is easy. Just follow my lead. Serious question — laser pointers. Do those work on you?" I push her away as she tries to knee me in the stomach, then yank her back in and hit her with a haymaker. "Hey!" I say. "I asked you a question. Blue, what about you? Laser pointers. Yay or nay?" Blue takes a few half-hearted swings, but she's pulling them for her sister's sake. We dance around them easily. "If I had to guess… yay," I say. "Diya's anal about those kinda details." Red's fist bounces off her face again. "What about catnip. That work on you? Do they make cyber-catnip?" I shoot a look at Diya. The veins in her forehead throb. She's using two hands to scribble on the ground. "What's the deal with that anyways, the catgirl thing? Mum's fursona's a wolf, innit?" I'm mouthing off, but the oil on my hands is drying up. I'll have to release Red soon. Worse, Diya seems content to stand where she is and finish her working regardless of how I disrespect her little girl. I need to do something drastic. "Ah, c'mon, talk to me!" I say. "You were hammin' it up less'n a minute ago." Opportunity presents itself with a wink and a plunge dress. The next blow cracks Red's faceplate clean in two, exposing a glare with upsettingly full lashes. I stretch my arms apart as far as they'll go and draw her right up into my personal space. "What else are those lips good for?" Excuse me?! There's no oil on my face, so the barrier jolts me back the instant her lips make contact. A split of a split of a split-second later, a series of laser-thin explosions lance through the air, slicing through the orange pentagrams along Red's neck and damn near blasting both our faces off. In the moment that the pentagrams take to reform, I let go of Red's hand and wedge my own into the gap along her neck. The kinetic barrier seals around it, locking my hand into place around her throat. I force myself to ignore the pins and needles biting into my wrist. "Nobody move!" I shout. "Take another step and I'll put a sword through her pretty little neck!" Diya's eyes are practically bulging out of their sockets. "You break onto my island, hack my elevator, and threaten my kits?" she sneers. "I'm going to fucking kill you." "Mom?" Even Red and Blue seem surprised by the venom in her voice. "Ingrid Model — voice override!" Diya shouts. "Shut down!" The light in Red's eyes dies and the field around her dissipates. I stumble as she ragdolls with my hand around her throat, then look up into a face that will give me nightmares. Diya's eyes are filled with a primal hate that burns through the circuitry in her skull. She pulls her hands from the ground and barks out a string of syllables. The symbols on the ground glow and the world spins around me. Not spinning, crashing. Not crashing, falling. Not falling, spiraling. Fragments of memory wash over me: love, lust, betrayal, cyberneticization. Dimly, I realize that I'm spiraling around inside of someone's grey matter. "You bitch," someone says in my ear. The fragments are cast aside by the very real visage of Diya choking the life out of me. But this isn't right either. I shouldn't even be able to choke. She's human. I'm human. Something has gone very wrong here. "You trick fucking bitch," Diya says. "When I'm done here, I'm going to kill your fucking girlfriend." I headbutt her and roll away into empty space. There's a swirling void above, below, behind, and in front of me. Nothing but purple, crackling darkness — and Diya. This must be the spell she assembled. "Where is this?" I say. "Hell," she says. "Now shut up and die."

Each flashback in part 2 needs to be foreshadowed by part of the convo in part 1. maybe an inverse build? first convo -> last flashback sort of deal What if Diya genuinely doesn't know what Rukmini's doing? She doesn't know where Natasha got the heart from. Flashback: natasha explains her final plan to diya, how she's going to get the revolution going. it all comes back to the way rukmini damaged her and her obsession with her as a result. Flashback: natasha and diya building androids. suggesting that natasha still misses rukmini and uses diya to cope. Flashback: natasha watching rukmini drink. drives tracy away. natasha takes advantage of diya's affections for her to indulge her affections for rukmini. PART 1 Opening remains the same. Diya and Rukmini fight through Rukmini's brain. Realize that Diya can't kill Rukmini in her own dream. Convo flow:

diya pauses. meditates. enters her happy place and calms herself. diya: what the hell are you even doing here?

rukmini: whaddya think? i'm taking my heart back.

diya: your heart — that's what that is??

rukmini: duh. what, did natasha not tell you?

rukmini: what're you even using the stupid thing for?

diya: none of your business!

rukmini: it's definitely my business, it's my heart.

diya: make a new one, you psycho!

rukmini: are you kidding me? it's mine, i'm not leaving it behind.

diya: you had no problem ditching us.

rukmini: that's different. i'm sorry about that.

diya: fuck you. i'm getting out of here and killing you before you wake up. Diya attempts to leave but triggers a happy flashback between rukmini and natasha. This sets off a mine in Rukmini's subconscious and forces them to go through Diya's brain. PART 2 Diya chases Rukmini through Diya's brain.

FLASHBACK: Natasha and Tracy have a falling out. natasha's reached her nadir: a fat, depressed wino being enabled by diya.

rukmini snarks that natasha should have seen a therapist. diya gets pissed, notes that natasha doesn't and couldn't trust them. only person she could trust for years was diya. diya was her rock, her shoulder, her sponge. she absorbed all natasha's pain and carried it for her because she loves her. she absorbed the pain of natasha's heartbreak for her.

FLASHBACK: natasha works on the androids to get out of her slump. diya helps natasha complete the androids. natasha and diya share a moment — broken when natasha remarks that she wishes rukmini was there to celebrate.

rukmini tries to apologize again. tells diya that she was afraid to come back. didn't think natasha or diya would accept her back. diya's even more incensed. it shouldn't have been about acceptance at all! it should have been about owning up to her mistakes. hell, they still /would/ have accepted her back. they waited for rukmini for years, but she gave up on them immediately.

FLASHBACK: Natasha explains her final plan to Diya: the revolution will never happen. individual action and organization never seem to work, bureaucracy degrades into totalitarianism, and the few socialist societies that do exist will be perpetually shoved under by magicapitalism. people just can't be trusted to do the right thing. only natasha can. so she's going to enact a global spell to put everybody under her control for one year. she enacts global socialism, people realize they like living this way, the revolution wins.

rukmini points out that everything natasha does ultimately comes back to her. clearly she's still obsessed with rukmini and doesn't really care about diya. so why would diya follow her?

diya breaks down. she knows that Natasha still loves Rukmini and doesn't understand because it's the same way she loves natasha. she's desperate to make Natasha love her more through sheer commitment to the cause — oh. now she understands. natasha loves rukmini the same way diya loves natasha.

diya is about to kill rukmini when natasha plucks her from diya's brain. natasha's transformed into… something. she greets rukmini like a long-lost lover. END

Diya's claws hook through my windpipe as the void shatters under us and we spin into free fall. I can hear her anger lashing through my mind, hjacking my phonological loop. KILL YOU KILL YOU KILL KILL KILL YOU It's worse than hell — it's our minds, VIP access courtesy of magic. For now there's no pain, just the half-baked haze of being brutally murdered in a dream. The moment we land in her subsconscious? Say goodnight. We splash into a purple sludge streaked through with orange. I push myself to my feet and meet Diya's gaze: twin vertical slits against murky yellow irises, backed by pointy ears and bared incisors. But something's off. My windpipe is untouched. Whose brain is this anyways? One problem at a time. Start with the very angry witch with the very sharp fangs. We settle into fighting stances: hers, tigress on the prowl; mine, street fighter wishing for a pistol. Feet tense. Mouths dry. Fists clench. Diya springs at me. Act! A palm to the chin knocks her onto her back. She spits up a Spinal Tap guitar riff and then the tip of her tongue. Finish her off quick — axe stomp! — but there's a tail around my ankle that pulls me into the sludge. Where the hell did that come from? Spit up sludge and then breathe. Nope, should've done that in reverse, there's a tail around my throat. What's our safe word again? Diya rolls to her feet and pads towards me; the furry choke chain tightens with every step. And yet? I'm still breathing. I'll take the collar over the Carradine any day, but I've zero experience pretending to choke. Diya sees my face retain its color and her tail unwinds so fast it leaves a friction burn. A pair of feline jaws clamp around my throat. There's a pause. I strain my eyes down at my would-be killer. Her face is half-buried in my neck, literally, sunken into the dream-flesh all the way up to her nose. The lack of blood flow to my brain is less opened carotid artery and more catgirl hickey. I don't even feel a bruise. We blink at each other. My critical thinking skills are at a nadir right now. A sound escapes from my mouth. "Huh?" Diya leaps back like she's seen a ghost. I try to get up but my feet punch through the purple sludge. Diya emits a harsh laugh — then the sludge gives way under her and we plummet into the void. It's impossible to tell which direction we're falling. Diya's upside down — or maybe I am. The void offers no frame of reference. "Why. Won't. You. Die?" Diya says. I shrug and fumble into a cross-legged position. "Iunno. You fuck up the spell?" Diya drops her face and turns away. "I hate you. I hate you I hate you I hate you I —" "Oh shut up," I say. "I hate you too but you don't see me constantly screeching about it." She spins back around. "Say another word and I swear to God I will —" "Give me another hickey?" I ask. "Shut up! For God's sake, shut the fuck up and die!" Diya's hands rake down her face; too bad her claws aren't popped. I roll my eyes and rest my chin on my hands. Upside-down? It's harder than it looks. A claw pops from Diya's hand, scrawling thaumic runes into empty space. She mutters occult phrases as she works. "Whatcha doing?" I ask. She responds with a death glare. I roll my eyes and look around. We're stuck inside a dark purple void intermittently cut through by lightning bolts. Thick white bulbs dot the distance, connected by thin, pulsing strands. I wonder if they're neurons. Check in on Diya — she's standing inside the outline of a massive psychic football. With each slash of her claws, a symbol sparkles into existence on one of its thirty-two faces. Her chanting builds into full-on stream of spiritual slurs that whips the blasphemous ball into a blur. She crows, "Uṅkaḷ kuṭalai cāmpalāka māṟṟavum!" Her hands move so fast it's like she has eight extras: Kali, speed-painting my demise. The football freezes in place, then folds in on itself to become a glowing pentagram outlined by the blur of her arms. She turns. The pentagram blasts outwards. Engulfing me in all the magical malice Diya can muster. Breathe. Continue breathing. Status check. Brain? Still thinking. Heart? Still pumping. Bowels? Still, thank God. "Wow," I say. "A magic football. Very cool." Diya screams and beats her arms into space. I start counting the seconds. Being stuck with Diya forever? That's the only hell I'm scared of. At one hundred seconds, a miracle occurs. Diya stops screaming and closes her eyes. Her hands come together in a triangle, which she pushes down with a deep exhalation. "Happy place," she says. "Mexico Beach, there's sand on my toes. I can smell the sea." Metallic particles coalesce from the void, coating her skin in a polished brown sheen. A grilled facemask slides over her fangs. Human digits replace feline talons and ossify into burnished metal. "The kits are playing in the surf… happy place, happy place… Natasha brought a picnic lunch." Two perfectly radial black pupils stare me down, inlaid against perfectly symmetrical red irises. "I'm calm now," she announces. Then: "What… the hell… are you doing here?" I think I'd rather stare down a reactor core: she's not the devil's cigarette lighter, she's his aerosol flamethrower. Rukmini, steel thyself. You're a hundred kilos of the best cybernetics the black market can steal. What's Diya? Probably a hundred kilos of the best cybernetics late-stage capitalism can afford. Fuck. "Whaddya think?" I say. "I'm taking my heart back." "Your heart?" Diya squints harder. "What the hell are you talking about?" "Oh, I dunno. About fist-sized, bright red, Natasha ripped it out of my chest —" Her eyes shoot open. "That's where she got it?" "What, did she not tell you?" Diya starts to say something, then catches herself. "First off, shut up. Second off, she must've… thought I would freak out. That's okay. I understand that, and I'm not freaking out. In fact, I'm perfectly calm right now. I'm still in my happy place. It's delicious." I roll my eyes. "What do you even need the sodding thing for?" "None of your business!" "It's definitely my business, it's my heart. You can give it back or I'll take it back." "You blew up my — you almost killed Ingrid for that?" Diya seethes. "Just make a new one, you psychopath! Leave us alone!" "I'm not making a new one," I say. "It's mine. I'm not gonna leave it behind." "Why not? You had no problem leaving us behind." "That's different," I say. "I was… a pillock. Absolute muppet." "And?" "And… I'm sorry. I really am. I'm sorry I hurt you and I'm sorry I hurt Natasha." I exhale, touch two fingers to my forehead, then hold out my palms in what I hope is a gesture of neutral will. "Look," I say, "I don't want to hurt Ingrid. I don't wanna hurt any of you. I just want what's mine and then I'll leave you alone forever." "Wow," Diya says. She mulls over my words. "Fuck you." Diya stands up and starts walking on sunshine. As she scales the air, her feet alight on stairs that aren't there. I give chase — my feet find only empty space in their place. "I can't believe you keep finding ways to become more despicable." She glances back at me. "I'm leaving and killing you now." Then Diya's foot sinks into something and my brain explodes. Eyes open. The sun is close to setting; the trees are various shades of red and yellow. I'm in High Park, enjoying a nice evening walk with Natasha. Except it's not Natasha. One hand is in my jacket pocket and the other is holding Diya's. We share a look of surprise and confusion but continue walking on memory autopilot. "Did I tell you about my latest group project fiasco?" Natasha's voice is coming out of the mouth, but the eyes betray Diya's shock. "It's like there's a forcefield keeping them from listening to me. Every time one of these boobs says something someone else just says — just pipes up and says they have no idea what to do. I have an idea what to do! And I could tell you if you'd just shut up and let me talk!" "I'm lucky," I say. "I don't have any group projects this semester. I mean I did. But now my group's gone so it's just me." "Awh, that sucks!" Natasha-slash-Diya says. "Aw man, now I feel bad, ell-emm-ow. Least I can wrangle these dopes into doing their jobs, you gotta do it for them." "Oh it's nothing," I say, waving it off. "I'm more worried about you saying ell-emm-ow unironically." "That's because it drives you and Tracy nuts," she says. "Much more fun than saying it ironically." We walk over a stone bridge. I spy a goose waddling up the riverbank. "Seriously though," Natasha/Diya says. "Is there any way we can help?" I pretend to consider it. "Hmm, you have any experience overflowing chakra channels?" Natasha pretends, equally seriously, to think about it. "I can make a bong from a Gatorade bottle. Does that count?" The goose honks at me and I startle. Natasha laughs, a slightly high-pitched belly laugh that ends in a coughing fit. I'd forgotten how much I missed that laugh. I could almost get used to this. I look into her eyes and see Diya's instead. My brain promptly explodes. My consciousness reasserts itself resentfully. Everything throbs. It's the worst fever, brain freeze, and hangover I've ever had at the same time; a lesser alcoholic would be killed outright. Only one word comes to mind. "Fuck!" "What the hell was that?" Diya asks. She floats above me on her belly, eyes screwed up tight and body curled up on itself. The Inside Man's voice cuts in. "A psychotronic mine! Lucky break too; never would've found you otherwise." "The what — the mine?" I say. "Why are there mines in my brain?" "It's Oneiroi's mind-wipe tech," he says. "You trigger an 'erased memory' and the charge blows and eliminates the conscious connection." Diya's face is ashen. "You booby-trapped your own brain?" "No!" I say. "I just… used Oneiroi's mind-wipes a few times is all. Bastards." A thought occurs. "Wait, what about MachineGod?" I say. "That entire fucking trip down memory lane? Shouldn't he have set those off?" "It's a psychic mine, dommkop," the Man says. "Triggered by people thoughts. MachineGod's a really smart toaster." "Can you pull me out?" "No can do. Brain's full of the rotten things." I look over at Diya. "What about hers? Can we get through hers?" "Maybe?" the Man says. "Hard enough peeping on you from another universe. Can't see anything between her ears." Diya looks me dead in the eye. "I'd rather kill myself than let you into my brain." "Firstly, ouch. Secondly, think of it this way," I say. "In your brain, you'll be able to kill me." Diya's eyebrows shoot up. She opens her mouth, then pauses. "Give me five minutes." Diya manages to kneel in space. Her metal fingernails carve bright white shapes into my brain. It feels like she's scooping chunks right out of my gray matter. "Whatcha drawing?" I say through clenched teeth. "Laying out the path of magic to go from your brain to mine. Now shut up," she says. "If I botch this spell I might blow up both our heads by mistake." It's impossible to roll my eyes any harder but I talk a little quieter. "Dutch? Any advice?" "Go up. Brainspace is like… a swimming pool in realspace? Not really, but look, I'm the psychic here. Keep going up. You'll break the surface at some point." "Thanks. Tell Alliott I'm okay. I'll be taking a detour." "Gotcha." He pauses. "She says to give her hell." "Get over here," Diya says, standing over what looks like a Way. "Stand on this circle, across from me. Don't move." I paddle towards her and get nowhere. She reaches out with a grunt, grabbing my arm and standing me upright on the circle. Gravity kicks in and anchors my feet onto the surface proper. "Put some clothes on," she says. "Or is skankiness just your default state of mind?" "I can wear clothes in here?" I say. "What the hell?" "Just think about it, moron." Comfort fashion comes to mind: combat boots, KMFDM tee, and jeans. On instinct, my fingers tighten the straps of the fingerless gloves that I'm suddenly wearing. The chafing reminds me to think about clean underwear and socks. "Eṉ mūḷaiyil iruntu uṅkaḷuṭaiyatu!" Diya chants. The bright ring around our feet contracts and pauses at our feet, then starts moving up our legs. It follows the contours of our bodies perfectly. As it reaches our faces, we make eye contact. Survival instinct tells me to duck. Several sharp blades slice through the space where my neck used to be. Yeah, kinda saw that coming.

I'm trapped inside Diya's subconscious, but I'm optimistic. Her mind isn't booby-trapped like mine. It's a lot more solid, actually; feels like I'm standing on a sponge. Light comes from everywhere and nowhere, filling the cramped orange foam-core labyrinth. Then I see the faces. Every square centimeter of the place is a face: mine, Natasha's, Zabutom's, Tracy Tzu's, Red's, Blue's, even Holo from Spice and Wolf. Their mouths are open, their eyes lack pupils, and they wail at me silently. I look down to see that I'm standing on my own orange foam face. My abrupt recoil of horror saves my life: I fall ass-first onto another face as Diya slashes at my chest, then scramble to my feet and run. It's worse than brain bombs. It's a monstrous orange bounce house lesbian obsession nightmare. Thank God I'm wearing boots or I'd fall flat on my face. The ground sinks and crystallizes with a bizarre shrill squeak at every step. It's all I can do to keep my footing and there's so much orange I can barely see where the walls meet the floor. Glance over the shoulder too see Diya's swapped out bipedalism for bared fangs and paws. She's not just a cat-girl — she's a damn cheetah-woman breathing down my neck. I take one too many glances and slam into a wall of foam-Natashas that harden into glass and knock me on my ass. Before Diya's teeth close around my jugular, I wonder what the real Natasha's doing right now. My brain explodes again, transporting me from my impending demise to a couch on the Moon. A memory replayed from… Natasha's perspective. Sort of. I - she - we take in more details. We're on Natasha's favorite couch in the coven living room. Our feet are propped up on the coffee table, with a quarter-full bottle of red wine and coffee mug on their left. In our hands is a plate full of pierogi, slathered in sour cream and pork bits and hot sauce. Diya quietly chants from the couch on our left. There are bags under her eyes, her hair is a rat's nest, and she's still in her waffle-pattern pajamas. Her hands are outstretched and wobbly. The TV in front of us is showing me — the real me. Rukmini. Diya must be scrying me through the television. I'm sitting in a bar, nursing a copper mug. Behind me, a clock on the wall displays 11:30. AM. "What the hell are you doing?" a voice says. We languidly look left to see Tracy Tzu standing in the kitchen, hands on her hips. She's wearing a red floral print sundress and that fancy lipstick she keeps saving for a special occasion. Even did her hair up in a bun. Through the wine haze, we recall she has a lunch date today. Some sports reporter from Three Ports. Wonder if they wear jorts. "Lookiter," we say. "Can you believe her? It's not even noon and she's drinking." "What about you?" Tracy asks. "Diya, you promised you'd take the wine home!" "I did!" Diya says. "I must've missed one and then while I was in the shower she went and opened it!" "So you just let her keep drinking?" Tracy says. "I'm sorry! She's been so sad I didn't have the heart to take it away." "God dammit. Turn off the scrying and pour it out." "No!" we shout. "Diya, don't even think about it. Keep that screen on or so help me God I'll throw that bottle in your face." We spear a handful of pierogi with a fork and stuff it into our mouth, then wash it down with wine. Diya looks pleadingly to Tracy. She sighs and walks over to the couch. "Tasha, you gotta stop torturing yourself like this," she says, sitting down next to us. Her hand goes for a pierogi but we slap it away. "Come on," she says. "You know this isn't good for you. Don't wait for her. You're better than that." "No'm not," we say through a mouthful of pierogi. "I wanner back." Tracy pushes the mug away with two fingers. As if in response, the pierogi-wine cocktail in our stomach comes to a chemical climax. There's a moment, right as our cheeks puff up, where Tracy's eyes widen in horrified recognition. Then she's soaked in a stew of starches, sauces, and stomach acid. "God dammit. God dammit," she says. "This was my favorite sundress. God damn it, Natasha. Pull your shit together!" "Hey!" Diya says. "Don't talk to her like that!" "Diya, for the love of God, don't enable her!" Tracy says. "She can't keep fucking doing this! It's been six goddamn months, being sad is one thing but she's been a wino for five of them! I can only regenerate her liver so many times before it stops being a liver and starts being a tumor. She won't see a therapist, she won't go to rehab, and she won't stop watching Rukmini if you keep on showing her! "Hey!" we say. "Don't… don't talk to 'er that way. At least Diya wants me to be happy!" "Natasha, please!" Tracy says. She wipes her hands on her sundress and takes hold of ours. "I lost Rukmini, I lost Zabu. I don't wanna lose you too. I want you to be happy. I do. But you have to meet me halfway!" We pull away and sulk. "Don't you have a date to be on?" "Not anymore," Tracy says. "My sundress is ruined and I need a shower." "I'm sorry about the dress. Okay?" Tracy rolls her eyes. "Tasha, this isn't about the dress," she says. "This? I can fix it easy." She stands up and clears a space around herself. "Kaṭikārattai mīṇṭum cuḻaṟṟuṅkaḷ!" The vomit on Tracy's being extricates itself from her. Time rewinds itself around us as the puke reconstitutes inside our mouth and works its way down our esophagus. It's deja vu and jamais vu and sleepwalking and sleep paralysis all at once and we can't move and — "AAAAAAAAA!" Our scream only dies when we run out of air and the choking fit reboots our mind. We're lying on the couch in Diya's arms. Tracy looms behind her nervously and starts babbling the moment our eyes come into focus. "Oh crap, oh shit, oh fuck I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry about that!" she says. "I didn't think about where the puke would go —" Panic subsides into resentment and curdles into anger. "Of course you didn't think," we say. "You were just thinking about your stupid dress and that stupid date! You never think. That's how you got Zabutom killed!" Tracy's jaw tightens. "That's not fair," Diya says. "Zabu's death was an accident…" "It was an accident because she got in a standoff with MC&D," we say. "It was an accident she got stuck in the vault cause she didn't have enough narcos to get back out cause Tracy took too many and killed her!" Tracy slaps me. The humiliation hurts more than the sting. There's nothing more humbling than a palm to the face. "Hey!" Diya says. "Shut up," Tracy says. "Natasha… fuck you. Don't you dare hang her memory around my neck! We've done nothing this whole time but support you! Get your fucking act together or so help me God I'll quit." "Oh, quit!" we say. "Quit when the going gets tough, yeah, quit when I need you most. Quit because you can't handle the pressure. Ditch us like you ditched Zabu, you cunt!" We regret our choice of words immediately. Tracy's eyes harden. She stands up and stalks towards the kitchen, then pauses in the threshold. "I hope you get better, Natasha, I really do," she says. "Diya? Spines are in these days. You should get one." We know instinctively that if she vanishes into the kitchen, we'll never see her again. She'll pack her stuff up and go back home — unless we call out to her. Apologize and beg for her forgiveness. She's looking at us. Waiting for us to salvage our friendship. Diya looks between us helplessly. Our jaw sets. We have nothing to apologize for. The love of our life betrayed us! Tried to kill us. Crippled us. Ruined our dreams. What else is there to do besides mourn? Tracy should have understood that. But she doesn't. There's no room in our life for people like that. "Diya? Keep scrying." We reach for the coffee mug as Tracy walks out of our life. The memory ends, leaving me feeling like hell and Diya looking it. Her face is flushed, her eyes are bloodshot, and she's sprawled back, panting heavily. She staggers to her feet as I flee deeper into the bounce house of death. Each turn I take is random; I can only pray the next one won't be a dead end, but my luck only holds out so long. I crash into the end of a one-way corridor and turn around in time to face Diya again — half-cat, half girl, all anger. I need to distract her and figure a way out. "That's what happened to Tracy?" I say. "You drove her off?" "She left by herself!" Diya says. "She didn't care about Natasha. I did. I stuck with her. I helped her get over you!" "Did you ever look into… I dunno, therapy?" I say. Diya's claws gain an extra inch. "Therapy?" she hisses. "Oh yeah. Hi therapist, I'm an unregistered witch who needs professional help! Don't you have any brains at all?" "What, does patient confidentiality not exist?" I say. Chunks of face around us ossify and disintegrate with every word. Each one makes me want to scream until my lungs burst. "For an unlicensed witch who looks exactly like a professional revolutionary? The second time she went there'd be a platoon of pigs inside. She'd never see the light of the day again." "Laying it on a bit thick, aren't ya?" "Go to hell," Diya says. "I'm the only one she could trust. Every tear, every sob, every time she woke up screaming? Because of what you did?" I wince. She jabs her chest with a sharpened thumb. "I was there for her," she says. "I'll always be there for her. I'll be her rock until I die because I love her!" "I can tell," I say. Diya snarls. I dive a split-second before she pounces and crashes through the wall of faces. A half-dozen Zabutoms shriek in fear before shattering before my eyes. The first shrink I see is going to make a killing. I sprint through the newly-formed hole in the wall into a jungle-gym from hell. Above me, the ceiling of an enormous orange dome stretches upwards to freedom. Huge chains of orange faces, large enough to stand on, criss-cross walls of frozen terror. Something that might be a tunnel entrance gleams high up in the dome wall. The Inside Man's reminder rings in my ears. I hook a hand into a mouth that promptly closes around my fingers and sucks on them. Its tongue feels like a condom full of Styrofoam. Please, God, don't let that be me. No such luck. Can't even pretend it's just Diya projecting. Instead I fixate a phrase into my phonological loop: none of this is real. None of this is real — each probing mouth of mine serves as a handhold. None of this is real — Diya sinks her claws into the face-chains and swarms towards me. None of this is real — crawl up the chains of doom to freedom, working my fingers into Natasha's eyes and Holo's nostrils and Ingrid's throats made of brain-foam. None of this is real. Sure as hell feels real. A soft crackling fills the air: the sound of face after face petrifying as our touch pollutes Diya's mind. I'm not even sure where I'm climbing. Up, mainly. I forgot how I was scared of heights. That's okay. None of this is real. As long as I don't look down or think about the extremely nettled catgirl stalking me through her own mind, I'll be fine. Just gotta keep climbing aaaaand I've reached the ceiling. DO NOT LOOK DOWN. I look around instead and see zero tunnels. Just the all-pervading light bouncing off these god-damn faces that stopped being traumatizing about fifty meters down. "Oh shut up already," I tell foam-me. To my surprise, it shuts its mouth. I hold my breath and look for Diya right as she clamps her claw around my leg. I lock a hand into foam-me's face and hold there, gritting my teeth and reminding myself that the aggressively sharp claws biting into my thigh are not real. Then Diya's actual teeth bite into my thigh. They sure as hell feel real. I scream and let go, falling awkwardly and toppling backwards onto her. We both go ass-over-end, shouting and yowling and bouncing the long way down. Need purchase — something, anything — gouge out Holo's foam-core eyes and arrest our fall into a spin that's even worse — and then there's a chain between my spine and the ground. Folding is more or less the absolute last verb you'd want to connect with spine, making chain the absolute last noun I want to connect with mine. They meet so fast it feels like a shotgun wedding to the back. The only benefit of explosively separating all of my vertebrae is that I can't feel my collision with the ground. Aren't those damn things supposed to be foam? Knowing my luck it saw me coming and turned to glass. As has the ground, which promptly implodes under our weight and sinks me into yet another flashback. I'm — Natasha? She? We? — are lying face down on a blanket, shades over eyes and shade overhead. Our toes dig into the sand. The beach is packed full of people today, but it's free. Free is nice. What beach is this? Mexico Beach… Florida? What kind of name is that? We're not even near Mexico. Rukmini would've thought that was funny. We hastily focus on the thrill of wiggling our toes and our indignation at Mexico Beach's stupid name. A pair of lotion-covered, slightly chilly hands massage sunscreen on our back — Diya's. We roll over for her to apply it on our stomach. Her hands are running up our chest when some prick storming by kicks a ton of sand in our face. We can't cough hard enough to get it all out of our lungs. "Hey!" Diya says. She stands up and yells, "Hey! You. Apologize to my girlfriend." The man glances over his shoulder, throws us the bird, and keeps walking. "You son of a b-blockhead!" Diya yells. "Blockhead?" we say. Diya shrugs. "It's Ingrid and Zabu. Didn't want them to pick up any bad habits." We hear a scuffle ahead of us. It's the blockhead. Looks like Red — like Ingrid just kicked him between the legs before sprinting away. "I didn't teach her that," we say. Diya sighs. "Those two…" We lounge comfortably for a few minutes. "I've been thinking," we say. "About?" Diya says. "People. The future." "Oh yeah? What're you thinking?" We roll onto our side and prop ourselves up on an arm to face Diya. "How do you start a revolution if you can't even trust the people besides you?" Diya looks taken aback. "You don't trust me?" "No, you've been good to me. You love me. That's the problem. It's not enough." "What? Why not?" "Love isn't enough. Motivation isn't enough. People just wanna walk through life asleep to all the problems in the world. Especially when all the cracks can be papered over by money and magic." "…Right." "So why waste time trying to wake people up?" we say." I'm thinking a spell, Diya. A huge spell." We throw our free arm out for emphasis. "Covering the entire globe, that embeds a compulsion in everyone's minds, that forces them to rise up. Just overnight, like that. And then compels them to organize communes and dismantle global hierarchies and live the way they need to. By the time it fades away, they'll love it. We'll never go back." "Huh," Diya says. "That's… that seems kinda wrong though. Shouldn't people choose to do it from the start?" We look her in the eye. "Rukmini tried to kill me." She pulls back. "Natasha —" "No, listen to me. The moment she had a taste of power she went fucking bonkers and tried to kill you. She tried to kill me! Me! If that can happen, how can I trust some… some dickhead that kicks sand on the beach? Face it, Diya. The revolution's only going to happen if we can turn the rabble into Rakhmetovs." "Yeah, but —" "No buts! Are you with me or not?" "Of course I am!" Diya says. "I just… shouldn't you think this through a bit? Maybe sleep on it? How are we even going to power the spell?" "I'll figure something out," we say. "I've made up my mind. I'm done waiting for people. Are you with me?" We hold our hand out. Diya grips it firmly. "Of course I am." I wake up and see orange. Who am I… who am I… I'm Rukmini. I'm trapped inside a monument to Diya's gay neuroses. She's trying to make it my tomb. And… I'm paralyzed. Underneath her. Diya shakes her head slowly, taking stock of the situation the way I would after a hangover. She spots me underneath her and springs up, then leans in closer. "Are you paralyzed?" she asks. "…No." "You are!" She laughs, hesitantly and then rapidly. "You're paralyzed!" Under pretty much any other circumstances, I'd appreciate being underneath a giddy catgirl. Too bad Diya's my worst enemy. Need to stall her until I can come up with something. "That's Natasha's plan?" I say. "Brainwash the planet? That's what she's doing with my heart?" "It's already fucking brainwashed!" Diya says. "Natasha's going to save this shitty rock from itself. She's the only person who cares enough to try." "Let's destroy all global power structures by using magic to force people to behave exactly as we want them to. Pot, meet kettle." "How are you this god… damn… irritating?" she spits. "How the hell did we not kill you before this?" "Between you and me? Natasha likes me more." "Fuck you! That's the best you can come up with it?" "Are you kidding?" I say. "This isn't about her goddamn ideals anymore. She literally said she's doing it because of me!" "Yeah," Diya says. "Because you're such a shitty fucking person that you shattered her faith in… in…" "See?" I say. "She can't stop thinking about me." Diya's practically hyperventilating at this point. Then she stops. Looks down at me. Cracks a smile. Steps on my stomach. Hard. An involuntary gasp escapes me as she intensifies the pressure. "Awww, poor baby," Diya croons. "I hope that hurts." Errors have been made. I think I hear some ribs crack. I definitely feel them. "Would it help — hhh —," I wheeze, "if I said I was sorry? Because I really - guh — I really am." "Sorry?" Diya's smile dissipates. "You had your chance to apologize. You could've apologized five years ago and Natty would've forgiven you. I might've forgiven you." "I was… I was scared," I say between gasps. My voice is rapidly dwindling. "I didn't know how to apologize. I didn't think she'd forgive me." Diya's eyes widen and her hands tremble. "That! That! That right there!" She waves her hands back and forth. "That right there. That's what I hate about you. You had so little faith in Natasha that you just ran away! She waited for you for a whole year!" She presses harder and scoffs as a chew-toy squeak escapes my mouth. "We all waited," Diya says. "You ran away and left us to pick up the pieces of our life. There's no place for you in our new world." "Untrue," I croak. "Natasha's gonna save me." Diya pauses and inadvertently lets up her foot. "What?" "She's been spying on me for years, Diya," I blurt out. "When I robbed Oneiroi. She tried to brainwash me into her — " "You robbed Oneiroi? Oh. Oh oh oh oh. You almost got me." Diya waggles her finger. "You almost got me. You almost had me for a moment, you fucking liar! I love Natasha. She loves me. We're engaged! Hear me?" She pulls back and raises up, looming over me like a fortune teller holding a crystal ball. "She still loves me!" I say frantically. "She wants me back and she'll do anything to have me!" "No she doesn't," Diya says. "Not after everything you did to her, after everything I did for her! She's going to be my wife and you're going to be in hell!" Her maw fills my view — and then a pale white hand tears her off me. A second one plucks me from the ground. Deus Ex Natasha. "You see?" I shout, dangling limply by my KMFDM tee. "She won't let me die, Diya. She loves me!" Diya's wail envelops me in one final memory. The air smells of disinfectant, the sounds are of a hospital, and the eyes I'm behind are Natasha's. There's a bed in front of us, across from which are our cybernetic daughters, Ingrid and Zabutom. The three of us watch the thing on the bed intently: a catgirl-shaped mass of bandages, plastic molds, and metal casts. A pair of bright red eyes open up and the mass speaks through a grilled faceplate. "Mrrrr…uhhh?" We perk up. "Diya?" "Mom!" our daughters cheer. "Natasha? Kits? Whuzzgoinon?" the mass says. "You were in an accident," we say. "One of the cables at the site collapsed. You were crushed under it." "Hwuh?" "You were maimed, you were going to die! I couldn't let that happen. I had you borged." "What?!" The mass shakes slightly. Ingrid and Zabutom take a half-step forward. "Don't move!" we say as we press the bedside pager. The paralysis spell inside the bedframe triggers, locking Diya into place. The fingers close in as the palms squeeze around us and the ringing grows louder. "Mom, you gotta stay still!" Ingrid says. "You need to let the implants calibrate and the blood welds settle," Zabutom says. "Blood welds…?" "You lost a lot of blood," we say. "I couldn't lose you, Diya. I love you." "I'll… I love you too." Diya settles back slowly, then tries to sit back up. "Natasha? What's on my head?" "Cat ears!" we say. The ringing is loud enough to burst our eardrums but we can still hear everything else. "What?!" "You always talk about how you want to be a cat girl, right? I thought if this had to happen, why not try to make you happy along the way?" "Natasha…" "Wolf girl, cat girl, what's the difference? Both good. Catgirls," we say, pointing to Ingrid and Zabutom, "better. You trust me, right?" We lean forward, wrapping our hands around one of her tractioned claws, and kiss her on her chrome forehead. Our lips are cold for a moment and then rapidly heat up. "I trust you," Diya says. The ringing in our ears reaches its apex and becomes a scream that shatters the memory. I blink into the bright orange present and see Diya, shaking as Natasha's hand grips the scruff of her neck. "I know!" she screams. "I know." Her scream peters out into sobs as she struggles to wipe away tears. "I'm not stupid… I've seen how she looks at you…" "And you've known for…?" I say. "Five years," Diya says. "Five fucking years and you're still the one she… You left her, everyone left her. Not me! I was there. I fixed Zabu and Ingrid, I founded Wraith Enterprises for her, I designed the plagio spell. And then you walked back into her life! Why couldn't you just stay gone? " "Diya… she came after me." "I know that," she hiccups. "I've done… I've done everything for her. I — I gave her everything I had. Why does she still want you?" Wish I could shrug. "How the fuck should I know?" "Why does she love you more?" Diya glares at me through watery red eyes. "What do I have to do to make her love me? Do I need to look like you too? I'll do it." "God dammit, Diya." I don't even have a clue. "What the fuck does she have to do to make you hate her? Kill you?" Above us, the lighting grows stronger. "I can't help it," Diya says dumbly. "I love her." The hand pulls up and then releases. I fall through space and then slam my head and wake up. I'm heavy metal again. Cyborg half-cat-girl. My limbs have been torn off — for real this time — and I'm chained to something soft and rubbery suspending me from the ceiling. The collar around my neck keeps my field of view firmly at sixty degrees. Least I can feel my limbs. They hurt like hell but it's better than carrying over dream paralysis. Now where the hell am I? My surroundings: a metal cavern. The floor: inscribed with black concentric circles, made of an unpleasantly pulsating ooze. In the center: a massive tentacle, hanging down from the ceiling like a swing. Bet I'm chained to an identical copy. There's two people perched on the tentacle's trunk. One of them is Diya. The other? Mostly Russian, with a splash of something that might be German. She has on a pretty pink crop-top, sequined long skirt, high-top Converse, and tentacle in place of an arm. "Rukmini?" Her voice is mellow. There's a glass of wine in her hand and bottle of Chambord wrapped in her tentacle. It's not hard to guess her identity — even without context, I'd recognize those emerald eyes anywhere. The thing that used to be Natasha Tokyopop speaks to me. "It is so-o-o-o good to see you! We have so much to catch up on!"

"Where's my heart?" I ask, hoping I sound calmer than I feel. I already know where it is. It's screaming at me, somewhere below my feet. Tightness in a metal chest, shortness of artificial breath, anticipation flooding every inch of my rubber veins — all my withdrawal symptoms are cranked up to eleven. I'm this close to regaining myself, my true, unfettered, unhinged self, the part of me this bitch literally ripped out and all I have to do is wring her neck — The chains flex, driving me forward until I'm suspended an inch from Natasha's face. Her lips meet mine, but atavistic lust is tainted by my surroundings and the aches where my limbs should be. Then a pair of perfectly manicured, rainbow-colored nails cup my chin and I strain forward to reciprocate by reflex; she's somehow gotten better at pushing my buttons. "Where's my heart, where's my heart," Natasha says. "Always you and your heart. Slow down! I wanna catch up!" She giggles. "I like the new you — but didn't you want me to wear the cat ears?" I strain against the chains and earn a sharp stabbing pain in the midsection for my troubles. Oh right. Red stabbed me. "Fuck!" I shout. "Fuck shit cunt bitch fuck motherfucking… shit!" Weak ending but it feels good to pollute the space with my words. It feels good to mess up Natasha's perfect little slipstream fascist space. Thought I was conflicted about being a right bitch to her. Thought wrong. "Buhhh…" Natasha holds her wineglass out it, lets Diya hastily grab it, then presses her free hand to her temple. "Inside voices." "Are you drunk?" I say. "Of course I'm drunk," she says, petulantly. "How else are we going to be honest with each other?" "In case you hadn't noticed, I can't drink." "Oh I had," she says. Her voice sharpens. "You're still going to be honest with me. Or I'll space your girlfriend." Feels like there's a kango hammering against my kidneys — why can this body even feel that?! Deep breaths. "Space her? You have Alliot?" Natasha feigns surprise. "Oh did — I'm sorry did you not already talk to her? Didn't even think about her till now?" She prods my nose. "That's bloody typical of you, innit?"" "Screw you!" I say. "I'm not the supervillain with a fucking moon base. I'm not the wino been running a dumb, lovesick puppy ragged pretending to love her. I saved her life. She saved mine. That's love, you daft bitch." Natasha contemplates this, then giggles and breaks out into laughter. Diya looks at me like an abused puppy, but I don't have it in me to feign sympathy. "You don't know what love is." Natasha's hand clamps around my chin. She stalks towards one facet of the chamber, dragging me behind her. A pane of moon rock melts into black ooze that rapidly becomes translucent. Behind it is the Earth. We look out across a few hundred thousand kilometers, gazes spanning the void of space: a huge, turquoise orb, stained by green life and streaked through by white light. "You know what that is?" Natasha says, pointing out the window. She drinks straight from the Chambord bottle this time. "A dump?" "A fucking dump!" She wipes her mouth with her tentadcle. "A shitty smoldering heap of a world that could solve every single one of its damn problems if we'd all just… cooperate. But we have better ideas than that. No, we either look at it and run or look at it and fight." She pokes my nose. "You ran. I don't blame you for that. You need a fire in you to run, to look for something better. You've got fire in spades! Always moving forward… never being satisfied with what you have — but you won't fight for it either. You'll always run." Natasha throws her hands up and steps back, frowning as liquour splashes onto her hands. A flurry of tiny black vines shoot out from the floor, blotting each droplet on her digits, then disappear just as quick. "Everyone down there?" She squeezes a fist. "They're fighting. Most of them are just fighting to stay alive. But some of them are fighting to restrict magic that could literally turn air into food." Natasha leans against the glass and looks out at the planet. "I hate those people. I hate those people that let the rest of us die in the streets and kill our parents and laugh at us for not having them. I want to burn their ivory towers down and split their bellies open for the rest of us. But I won't." She looks at me. "I know I should. I wish I could. But I can't. Maybe I'm too forgiving or just a dumb blond… but I don't want them to die. I want them to be better. I'll make them better because that proves we can be better. You and me." "I'd be perfect," I say through digitally gritted teeth, "if you'd give me my heart back." "Are you kidding? Ruku, you're an emotional dumpster inferno. "Love is my fire. It's my burn to know others inside and out. To be known inside and out. To become something greater than the sum of your parts… and to experience that together. That's what love is. I don't think you've ever experienced that." She sits back on a tentacle that emerges to support her. "You've never opened yourself up to anyone. Never done a thing for someone sincerely. You don't want to be known and wish you didn't need to." "Sod off!" I say. "You literally met my parents. You helped me come out to them!" "You wanted them to disown you so I'd feel bad for you and ignore Diya." An inarticulate series of artificial scoffs exit my throat. "You wanna see what you did?" Natasha says. "You wanna see what part of this is yours? I'll show you." Before I can blink, there's a black, Natasha-shaped pile of ooze in front of me that splashes to the floor and seeps into the circular grooves. The floor rumbles as the concentric circles fall away from us, leaving me dangling over a pit full of the sick sludge. The chains around me slacken and release me into the radioactive black pudding. The ooze gives way and then immediately seals itself over me. It's so thick I can barely wiggle, let alone swim. I really hope I don't need to breathe. What feels like a million tiny, slimy hands clamp down on every inch of my artificial skin, dragging me into an acid-house hell cored out of the moon. I sink past massive, burning plastic arteries string together organs made of neon brimstone. Scarlet lightning arcs across impossibly huge electrodes sewn from something that looks too much like human muscle. The shrill sound of industry clashes against a low, organic bass to form the grisliest EDM mix I've ever heard. There's a buzzing feeling in my head, pinching my frontal lobe and making me dizzy from withdrawal. My heart, seat of my soul. It's so goddamn close… Need to distract myself. As if on cue, a cold, slimy sensation worms its way into my guts. A flickering alarm pops up in my eye, warning me that a foreign toxin is contaminating me. Goddamn it. "Gorgeous, huh?" Natasha Tokyopop — or her silhouette — materializes in front of me. "Couldn't have done it without you." "How did I do any of this? How did you do any of this?" The ooze swallows up my voice. "I'll tell you how." Natasha clasps my face with black pudding hands. "I put every little bit of myself into it. Every waking moment of every day for the past five years. Every waking movement of every day as many times over as I could. Because I finally understood what it was like to be you." What the fuck. "Surprised you haven't killed yourself yet," I say. "It's been a real fucking challenge!" Natasha says. "Or it used to be. Some days I still want to just… walk onto the moon and die. The last thing I'd see before asphyxiating quietly would be Earth. That would be a nice way to go. But I don't because I've never been so fulfilled." "What the hell do you have to feel empty about?" "What do I have to feel empty about? What do I — did you somehow miss all this while we were dating? Didn't even pick up on it a little?" "Look, I try not to think about how I feel most of the time." I immediately think about the buzzing sensation and feel ready to puke. "Why do you think I'm trying so god damn hard to bootstrap socialist immanence?" the ooze shouts. "Why I 'sold out', why I didn't kill myself, why I kept going after you tore my heart out and left me to die?" "What the hell do you want me to say?" I feel sick. "Babe, I don't want you to say anything!" Natasha's tone shifts from sour to sweet. "I just want to talk! I want you to know that nothing you say or do could ever be worse than I know I deserve." The ooze settles back as I beat down the feeling of bile in my brain. "I'm a terrible person who will never do enough good to make up for it. I've known that since I was a little girl. And until I met you I didn't think… I didn't think I could be better." "I think I'm literally the worst person to have ever been on the moon." "You are." I can practically feel Natasha rolling her eyes. "But you have something about you — that lets you be a complete and utter bitch and still come out gold. The way you bear down on a problem, the way you commit yourself to it. That's your greatest strength, you know that?" "Heard once that was a symptom of bipolar —" "When I met you, when I heard all the things you were juggling, when I talked to you after we saw Lucy, after I saw the way you rolled on the mat? I knew if I had that kind of focus I could do anything. I might not be you — but I could have you." Honestly, if I'd known Natasha would be this much of a headcase when I first met her? I'd probably still have fallen for her. "When we were together… I was happy. I was happy and for once I thought I was earning it." She touches our foreheads together. "That little bit of you that wants to be good. I thought I could grow it. Use it to make the world a better place. You a better person. I thought I could do that and… and then you took that from me. My magic, my love, everything I had. You stole it and never came back. You ruined the one dream I thought I deserved." "Natasha—" "I fucking hated you, you know that?" she says. "I couldn't even go to sleep some nights thinking about how much I missed you or wanted to kill you or kill myself. Head empty, no thoughts except how I could get back at you. Until I realized what you'd given me." "A real head case?" "Your focus! It was like a switch tripped in my head. For the first time in my life, I could actually focus on a problem. Fixate on it. Do everything in my power to tackle it and never once feel the need to shift away from it." The glow reveals itself to be a sphere. A bright green orb, in the center of this weird hell. My heart-shaped void throbs. I feel lightheaded from anticipation. The buzzing in my head builds to a fever pitch. I'm almost there — "It's like a little bug, right?" Natasha says. The buzzing stops dead. "…Yeah." "It's a bug. You can't tame it — so bottle it." There's something inside the sphere. A silhouette of a woman, somehow an even sharper green against the sphere's painful lime itself. Some external force shoves me against the bubble, straining to break its membrane. I look the silhouette dead in her eyes. "When I pulled it out of you, it spoke to me," Natasha says. "Begging me to use it, to succumb to my id. And I listened! I was on a bender for a week, tearing a hole in every city from New York to the Chugoku Cellar. Had the money to cover up my destruction, ironically. I woke up, wanted to kill myself for being torn away like that. Stupid, stupid, stupid, selfish, selfish, selfish of me to get carried away like that, so selfish and miserable and wretched — and then I realized it had done that to you." The bubble lets me in. I float in front of the silhouette. It's Natasha — her oversoul, her true self, whatever you want to call it, it's her. She holds me by the shoulders. "That was what happened. It turned you into a walking id machine, something that played on your deepest fear. The whole time, you were so desperate for my affection, so worried I would leave you, so pent up over the slightest hint of my disapproval that it didn't even need to push you. The bug gave you exactly what you wanted — an excuse to disappoint me." She pulls me into a hug. "God that was so much more cathartic than I thought it would be. Rukmini, you're the biggest disaster I've ever met in my life — but I could never stop loving you. Not when you still keep finding ways to help me out." Oof. "You still have that seed of goodness," she says in my ear. "I'm going to grow it. Fix you. Strip away your selfishness. Peel away your impulsiveness. Burn off your self-destructiveness. You. Me. Diya. Queens of a new world." I swallow. "What do you say?"

] "I don't care," I say. "Take over the fuckin' world. Make your communist utopia. Just give me my powers back." "That's it?" Natasha is beside herself with apoplexy. "You don't care that I'm trying to make our world a better place?" "It's not my world anymore," I say. "I'm sorry, Natasha. I'm sorry for taking your powers and for running away and for never coming back. I'm sorry I hurt you like that and I'm sorry that it took me five years to apologize. But that's all you'll get from me." "Rukmini -" "Stop it," I say. "I'm not your Rukmini anymore. I burned that bridge five years ago. Finish your ritual, then give me my heart back and I'm gone." Natasha seethes. Her skeletal fingers flex and curl over and over, the way I crack mine when I'm trying to burn off a burst of homicidal rage. Then they freeze. "That's okay," she says. The skull never moves, but the green flame in the sockets blazes even brighter. "You're not gone. The Ruku I fell in love with is still there. I just need to free her." I have just enough time to realize what's happening before being dunked into the bubbling morass that is God-Empress Natasha. Concentrated love and affection blanket me in a narcotic haze; a billion tiny hands tear at my exoskeleton, shaving away my physicality. Part of me wonders frantically what'll happen when they hit my nuclear battery. The rest of me is too far entangled in a shibari of the soul to care. Enough current runs through my brain to watch a nuke float out of my chest and dissolve into an aborted star. It's the last thing I see before my vision shuts down. Not a bad way to go, but then death has always gotten my engine running. The dull overbearing warmth of Natasha's love is shattered by the metaphysical agony of my soul being torn apart. It's an instinctual recognition, a defense mechanism to warn me that I am being killed — utterly and eternally. I can't see or hear or even feel anymore, but I can still burn. The God-Empress peels me apart, wrenching metaphorical fingers into the pieces of my soul and trying to rip them off. This isn't me. I won't let it. Giving my choices over to someone else is cowardice, and I'm no coward. Who am I? I'm Rukmini motherfucking Mahakali. My choices are mine. My failures are mine. My destiny is mine. If I'm going to hell then it's going to be with a gun in my hand. Focus! Bear down on the core of my soul: vice, tenacity, focus, killer instinct. Tear away the falsehoods foisted upon me by Natasha Tokyopop. Topple her empire. Take back my heart. Force of will puts the soul in solar fusion. Scattered, disparate memories congregate around the gravity of my self-actualization as I explode into a star that burns at the heart of God-Empress Natasha. My inner fire burns through her core of protective eternity, into the center of her own private Hell. I break through the morass into a hollow space and splashdown. My fist is monochrome red, glowing like hell and illuminating a crushed bone beneath. "NO!" My voice is so loud it surprises even me. My mind shovels memories into the solar furnace powering the machine, illuminating the night. Alliott pauses inside me; my fist halts over Natasha's head. "I won't… Back down, both of you, or I'll put my body and soul into this machine. I'll burn myself out of existence to blow us up if I have to. Alliott. Safeties on. Natasha… my heart. Half of it. You're smart, you only need half." Memories of my birthday fuel the fire of my soul. What