All Hail the New Command
Date: 2023-09-01T04:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Plot Device Publishing

In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy

Book 25: All Hail the New Command

Liam Gibbs

IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWRY book 25: ALL HAIL THE NEW COMMAND
Copyright (c) 2023 Liam Gibbs
All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

As awesome as this book is, it's a work of fiction. I know, I know. We were all hoping, but it just ain't gonna be. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's freaky imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely bonkers and coincidental. In other words, sadly you can't get Schizophrenic's autograph.

ISBN 13: 978-1998840007
First printing: September 2023

{ PLOT DEVICE PUBLISHING }

Your Favorite Table of Contents

At the Front

Other Books in the Series

Book 25: All Hail the New Command

Meet the Gang

Part 1: The Part with the Super Crazy Escape Attempt That's Neck-Deep in Awesome Fight Scenes and Love Cuddles

Chapter One: The Sixth Dimension's Kind of a Letdown, but the Eighth Has Free Wi-Fi

Chapter Two: The Canary's Dead, but the Miners Are Still Digging

Chapter Three: It's Just a Bunch of Physics Nonsense

Chapter Four: Incoming

Chapter Five: Color Commentary from the Monochromatic Manservant

Chapter Six: Pronunciation Is Awkward

Chapter Seven: Seven-Ten Split at Three Hundred Miles an Hour

Chapter Eight: You Can Drop Me Off Here

Chapter Nine: Cosmic Extermination Plan

Chapter Ten: Everybody Makes Mistakes, but He Masterminds Them

Chapter Eleven: Final Stand in the Underbelly of Military Commercialism

Chapter Twelve: Smooth as a Razorblade Massage

Chapter Thirteen: Work Is Murder

Chapter Fourteen: Brace for Impact

Chapter Fifteen: Just Smile and Nod

Chapter Sixteen: Why Is Ace Spandex Always Messing with Space?

Chapter Seventeen: Make Way for the Man

Part 2: The Part Where They Try to Figure Stuff Out, Like What Happened to Television Static, and We'll See if It Works or Not

Chapter One: And That's Where You Got That Nasty Rash

Chapter Two: Chill Out, Bro

Chapter Three: The Oil Change Is Extra

Chapter Four: Roadside Assistance Sucks in Space

Chapter Five: Let's Leave This Out of Your Internship Log

Chapter Six: Cosmic Sightseeing

Chapter Seven: All Good under the Hood

Chapter Eight: Allow Me to Demonstrate

Chapter Nine: And Home Appliances on the Right

Chapter Ten: Whether You Like It or Not

Chapter Eleven: Backseat Driving up the Wall

Chapter Twelve: …And Some Things Stay the Same

Chapter Thirteen: I'm Getting a Little Tired of Your Landing Skills

Chapter Fourteen: Well, I'm Getting a Little Tired of Your Flying Skills

Chapter Fifteen: Luxury-Sized Dungeon Suite

Chapter Sixteen: Love Is in the Air, but Hate Settles to the Ground

Chapter Seventeen: Let Me Tell You a Little About Our Operation

Chapter Eighteen: Future Parallel Parking Is the Worst

Chapter Nineteen: Time Tourist Trap

Chapter Twenty: And a Personal Care Kit by the Champagne Bar

Chapter Twenty-One: Some Welcoming Party

Chapter Twenty-Two: That Sinking Feeling Is the Life Raft Deflating

Chapter Twenty-Three: Poultry Apocalypse

Chapter Twenty-Four: Holding Everyone's Sanity for Ransom

Chapter Twenty-Five: Never Mind the Stains

Chapter Twenty-Six: You Never Had a Friend Like Me

Chapter Twenty-Seven: This Wasn't the View the Travel Brochure Advertised

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Employees Only

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Two Teaspoons of Plot Thickener

Chapter Thirty: All They Need Is a Cheerleading Squad

Part 3: The Part Where Enemies Become Friends and Someone Gets Cranky about It because There's Always That One Person

Chapter One: Mi Rooster Es Su Rooster

Chapter Two: So This Is How You Treat Guests?

Chapter Three: Ample Parking in the Rear

Chapter Four: You Look like a Guy I Knew

Chapter Five: I Knew I Left It around Here Somewhere

Chapter Six: Like Talking to a Stone Wall

Chapter Seven: Military Intelligence à la Carte

Chapter Eight: The Infirmary Makes More Sense from a Sports-Injury Angle

Chapter Nine: Creedence Clearwater Reprisal

Chapter Ten: Homeshunning

Chapter Eleven: Battle Stations, Everyone

Chapter Twelve: The Neighbors Are at It Again

Chapter Thirteen: Tell the Office Creep to Do It

Chapter Fourteen: Someone's Getting Suspended without Pay for This

Part 4: The Part Where It's Go Time and Someone Gears Up the Action Music, but It's Polka

Chapter One: Must Be Space Cow's Beef Burrito in Those Containers

Chapter Two: And…Action

Chapter Three: The New Art of Losing

Chapter Four: Battle Royale with Cheese

Chapter Five: Drive-Thru Entrance

Chapter Six: Reconnective Surgery

Chapter Seven: Olly Olly Oxen Free

Chapter Eight: Asomething, Anyway

Chapter Nine: Nobody Likes Ceilings

Chapter Ten: What Are We On, Our Twelfth Mutiny Now?

Chapter Eleven: Make Sure It Doesn't Pee on the Floor

Chapter Twelve: Air Support from the Clearance Aisle

Chapter Thirteen: Watch It Feed Wholesale

Chapter Fourteen: Cage Match

Part 5: The Part with the Denouement, Which Is a Fancy Way of Saying Everyone Goes Home

Chapter One: Victories and Cankers

Chapter Two: Management Negotiations

Chapter Three: Make Yourself at Home

Chapter Four: Sore Loser

At the Back

About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once

Connect with the Series

This Isn't Even My Final Form!

The following story ain't professionally edited. I know, I know, why am I inflicting this on you?

For cool reasons.

Professional editing, covers, and the whole shebang takes money. And creating appendix material takes time. The In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy series has been steadily seeing new releases, but they're release at the rate of one per year, while they're written at a rate of one every nine months or so. Do the math. The series will never catch up.

The author, awesome brain that he has, only ever wanted to share these stories with the world.

Money wasn't ever a goal. I know by offering these books for free—professionally packaged or not—I'll be losing money. I honestly don't care. Since releasing the books free of charge yet without the "professional" look, I've found the stress of running this whole series has gotten much manageable. This leaves me with more time to do what I set out to do: write the stories and share them.

I still attend trade shows and comic conventions and sell the books there. Each book will, eventually, be given the professional touch. But, while we're waiting, all I want to do is share these.

If you see something ain't right, or something you want to comment on, please feel free. Think of yourself as a beta-reader: a pre-reader of something unreleased. Voice your thoughts at liamgibbs@inagalaxyfarfarawry.com. Until the book gets professionally released, I consider it a work in progress.

So what you're reading here is the book without the professional touches. I've edited this book a dozen times or more, and so I believe it's as polished as I can get it. I feel comfortable letting you see it. It will one day be professionally edited. One day. But until then, know that you're reading what I believe to be as polished as I myself can get it.

Enjoy!

Or don't. I really have no control.

Available on the Author's Super-Awesome Site

This stupendous, amazing, spectacular, not-at-all-overhyped comedy/science-fiction series can be found in the following parts:

Book 1: Serial Fiction Sideshow

Book 2: Home Sweet Home Invasion

Book 3: Technophobia

Book 4: Armageddon Trigger Finger

Book 5: The Genetic Equation

Book 6: Power Tool

Book 7: The Lesser of Two Egos

Book 8: Untitled of Attitude Adjustments

Book 9: Those We Left Behind

Book 10: Metaphor for Life

Book 11: Oh, Crock, Here Comes a Meteor!

Book 12: His Kingdom Come

Book 13: A Wolf in Sheep's Armor

Book 14: Man Versus Machine Part 1 of 1

Book 15: Our New Hiring Policy

Book 16: Life like Broken Glass

Book 17: The Church of Steeple

Book 18: Blood Bunny

Book 19: Disease of Behavior

Book 20: The Paper Tiger's Yardstick

Book 21: This One Has a Dancing Gibbon

Book 22: My Brother's Captor

Book 23: Marching Orders

Book 24: To Wake the Deactivated

Book 25: All Hail the New Command

The Story So Far

Please visit the In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy site for all these free e-books and more information.

Other Stuff the Author Spewed Out

Maybe check out these other things 'cause they're superfine too!

Not So Superpowered, available at tiny.cc/nssuperpowered

Three Flash Fictions, available upon request from the author

Random limericks, available in bathroom stalls

In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy

Book 25: All Hail the New Command

Meet the Gang

The Good Guys

Ace Spandex: Aaron Khouri

Cyborg, technology and language expert who doesn't wear spandex, but just go with it

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Catastrophe: Rock de la Roche

Earth elemental, has-been actor

Series lifespan: Book 15 to now

Franchise: Jacob Refensil

Self-multiplying boyfriend of Bad Guy ninja Amaranthia

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Incendiary: Edward Delton

Robot-suited college intern at Power Plant's fake nation, Jefftaria

Series lifespan: Book 10 to now

Janice

Software program taking a ride in Incendiary's robot suit, Ace Spandex's biggest fan

Series lifespan: Book 5 to now (book 15 as Janice)

Matross Legion

Leader of the Good Guys, ex–best friend of Master Asinine

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Organism (dad): Elton Barnaby

Aged hyperperson with a malleable body and aspirations for his son to carry on his career

Series lifespan: Book 16 to now

Organism (son): Alvin Barnaby

Teenaged son of the original Organism, also with a malleable body

Series lifespan: Book 15 to now

Pincushion: Abioye Kofi Iwu

Field leader with a replaced knee and bony spikes riddling his body

Series lifespan: Book 2 to now

Plastique: Courtney Borrog

Field leader with a taste for combat and an explosive punch

Series lifespan: Book 15 to now

Power Plant: Jeff "Jeffy" Abends

Hyperactive younger brother of Burnout with the ability to wield light

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Scapegoat

Sentence-mangling, nose-picking hunchback, ex–Bad Guy

Series lifespan: Book 3 to now

Sixth Sense: Hagen Rupp

Telekinetic telepath with glasses and an eidetic mind

Series lifespan: Book 8 to now

Withered Old Battle-Axe: Mabel Clasken

Good Guy pilot with an army of cat familiars, older than dust

Series lifespan: Book 7 to now

The Bad Guys

Amaranthia: Tamiko Kythe

Airheaded ninja girlfriend of Good Guy pilot Franchise

Series lifespan: Book 7 to now

Appetite

Indestructible gargoyle-like creature with a bottomless hunger and no intelligence

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Bad Aim: Grrrrraaaaaggghhhhh

Thuggish Virillian with severed legs and the ability to talk

Series lifespan: Book 15 to now

Braindead: Nerrgggghhhhhggg

Master Asinine's silent, sharpshooting bodyguard

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Brainiac: Hanress Genderfront

Telekinetic, half-Terran/half-Trioxidillian mad scientist with a gigantic cranium

Series lifespan: Book 15 to now

Detritus: Harry Tuskell

Bad Guy generic pretending to be a Good Guy, claims he can explode but has never tried

Series lifespan: Book 15 to now

Lieutenant IQ 23: Heiko Ruis

Master Asinine's number-two guy and biggest fan

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Master Asinine: George Lowensland

Deposed leader of the Bad Guys, former friend of Good Guy leader Legion

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Master Asinine Sucks: Donald Samperson

Bad Guy cowpoke

Series lifespan: Book 8 to now

Multipurpose

Obese and egotistical wanna-be ninja

Series lifespan: Book 3 to now

Reef: Silas Reef

Amnesiac, hyperability-copying ex–Good Guy now in charge of the Bad Guys

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Schizophrenic

Two-headed, acid-tongued chief of security

Series lifespan: Book 1 to now

Wasted: Tyross Hearthberg

Drunk best friend of Detritus with the hyperability to convert oxygen to ethanol

Series lifespan: Book 15 to now

Continuum's Army

The aswang

Demonic, shapeshifting, soul-sucking creature

Series lifespan: Book 18 to now

Blackguard: Crugg

Subservient creature made from dark matter

Series lifespan: Book 15 to now

Continuum: Elohim

Time dictator with quadruplet hyperabilities, controls the four fundamental forces

Series lifespan: Book 24 to now but has been the talk of the town since book 15

Fragment: Fflllffrrraaaaaauuugggggrrrr

Acrobatic, silent thrower of ice shards

Series lifespan: Book 22 to now

Gangrene

Pustule-riddled, radioactive alien pet

Series lifespan: Book 19 to now

Kamikaze: Reginald Longnick

Auto-resurrecting, insane former Good Guy

Series lifespan: Book 2 to now

Legacy

Butler-like software program

Series lifespan: Book 23 to now

Marionette: Bexley Liddell

Southern controller of living tissue

Series lifespan: Book 16 to now

Necropolis

Harvester of souls

Series lifespan: Book 24 to now

Plaster

Ex-Bad Guy brute with constantly melting/constantly replenishing skin

Series lifespan: Book 2 to now

Ripsaw: Frizzilk

Lightning-fast racist with blades along his sleeves and legs

Series lifespan: Book 16 to now

Steeple: Oggug

Reed-thin and clumsy mind-controller

Series lifespan: Book 17 to now

The Trader: Grinskarp

Hyperability swapper and overseer of spacetime

Series lifespan: Book 24 to now

Transit: Vince Smith

Teenaged portal opener

Series lifespan: Book 23 to now

Wyvern: Carter Burgess

Illiterate, Civil War–era boy able to shapeshift into a wyvern

Series lifespan: Book 23 to now

The Gooder Guys

Better Than You: Sanderson Timmer

Egocentric punk who adopts others' amplified talents in himself

Series lifespan: Book 23 to now

Hearse

Tank-bodied bounty hunter with a taste for desserts

Series lifespan: Book 10 to now

Klee

Acrobatic, faun-like creature who speaks no known language

Series lifespan: Book 23 to now

The Purple Nurple: Lt. Col. Kyle Freuth

Dimwitted leader of the Gooder Guys

Series lifespan: Book 18 to now

Workshop: Santixoka Brendivitsiokx

High-energy, intuitive inventor with infinite hugs

Series lifespan: Book 23 to now

Blowtorch

Also Sediment: Lacey Pacey

Fan of dogs, releases clouds of dust that incapacitate people

Series lifespan: Book 18 to now

Bullet: Ytril Haggriy

High-pitched and high-strung leader of Blowtorch, shoots hardened pus from fingertips

Series lifespan: Book 18 to now

H2O: Clip Tabor

Pilot composed entirely of water

Series lifespan: Book 18 to now

Maul: Pruxton Hexicarziocol

Weapon enthusiast built like a stone pillar

Series lifespan: Book 18 to now

Pacemaker: Vintross Hegervaf

Forgetful cybernetic old geezer

Series lifespan: Book 18 to now

Puttyman: Jeff Greer

Malleable team mechanic and best friend of H2O

Series lifespan: Technically book 1, but really book 18 to now

Speed Line: Cruftharzal Yurgrigil

Short, bouncy hyperactive ball

Series lifespan: Book 18 to now

In Case They Come Up

Appliance

Tin can, total servant of Mechanism, erased so Mechanism could save himself

Series lifespan: Book 6 to 14

Brigadier General Patton

Good Guy liaison to Intergalactic Protection, killed by an upgraded Mechanism

Series lifespan: Book 1 to 14

Bloodborne: Ivo Sokolov

Haggard drug user able to contaminate people's blood by thought

Series lifespan: Book 0

Brick

Brick-skinned Bad Guy ex–mad scientist, killed by Mechanism

Series lifespan: Book 2 to 12

Burnout: Mark Abends

Fire elemental and older brother of Power Plant, killed during Mechanism's assault

Series lifespan: Book 1 to 12

Car Alarm

Low-intelligence robot built by Power Plant, killed by Mechanism's army

Series lifespan: Book 2 to 14

Field Marshal Horcross Breeng

Harbinger of Continuum planted in Intergalactic Protection, killed by Continuum

Series lifespan: Book 18 (voice)/book 23 to 24

Harrier: Everett Pendleton

Birdlike Good Guy traitor, killed by his own ego

Series lifespan: Book 1 to 20

Ice Cream Headache: Hailie MacReynolds

Bad Guy mind-freezer, killed by Mechanism

Series lifespan: Book 2 to 9

Luzimoss Grennard

Sardonic war opposer who communicates with himself across other timelines

Series lifespan: Book 6 to now

Mechanism: Golmer Snogsbottom

Egomaniac hellbent on cleansing the galaxy of the unworthy, killed by Master Asinine

Series lifespan: Book 2 to 14

Momentum: Ghiglix

Super-fast and disagreeable Good Guy field agent, killed by Mechanism's army

Series lifespan: Book 1 to 14

Null: Roger Dodger (according to Power Plant)

Perpetually comatose Good Guy whose use is questionable, killed by Mechanism's army

Series lifespan: Book 2 to 14

Punch

Hand who gained sentience and grew into a pipe-smoking Bad Guy, killed by the aswang

Series lifespan: Book 15 to 18

Randall Sopher

Ex–best friend of Legion and Master Asinine, accidentally killed by Master Asinine

Series lifespan: Pre-series

Smithereens: Cliff Boinette

Explosives-enthusiastic Good Guy, killed by Amaranthia

Series lifespan: Book 3 to 12

Taint: Lagarnak Preticel

Ex-social worker who can harvest life energy to sustain her rapidly failing health

Series lifespan: Book 0

Topsy/Turvy

Good Guy receptionists, killed by Mechanism's army

Series lifespan: Book 3 to 12 (Topsy or Turvy), book 3 to 14 (Turvy or Topsy)

Part 1: The Part with the Super Crazy Escape Attempt That's Neck-Deep in Awesome Fight Scenes and Love Cuddles

Chapter One: The Sixth Dimension's Kind of a Letdown, but the Eighth Has Free Wi-Fi

January 18, 100,000. Time: 6Y14.98M divided by the sum of aligned planets. (Pulsar Burst Period). Future measurements are confusing. Roll with it. Carry the one just in case.

Yeargh! The pain blared so unbearably it left him breathless and dry-mouthed.

They'd woken him with a soul-searing buzz like a halo blazing his skull. Again. What day was it out there? What year was it? Days and years existed outside this dimension, but they didn't in here. Besides, when your keepers injected you with a diet of proteins, sugars, electrolytes, and blood sausages, you lost track of the calendar. Whatever blood sausages were. Blood sausages sounded as if they tasted like sodium pavement.

Elohim had never seen a calendar anyway. He knew what dates were only because the Engineers mentioned them. At the first few mentions, he thought they meant dried fruit. Maybe they did. Anything was possible after blood sausages entered the equation.

Elohim lived in scramble space, an isolated dimension with no smell and no sound and no feeling aside from torture. Scramble space was the Engineers' created twelfth spatial dimension, a dimension they'd twisted and disorganized so it didn't connect with the eleven superstring dimensions that composed spacetime. Elohim was a prisoner. In here, the Engineers conjured up experimental test realities for Elohim to manipulate, ones the Engineers blipped in and out of existence like blink-and-you'll-miss-it quantum foam.

The walls of his cocoon—of this dimension—constricted tightly. Elohim felt spatially asphyxiated, with only enough room to do whatever the Engineers commanded: to think. Think something into existence, think something out of existence, tinker with subatomic distances, fine-tune the speed of light, tweak a quasar, fix a waistline.

Elohim had learned his purpose somewhere along his unmeasurable "lifespan": the Engineers had concocted him inside a lab according to tight magnitudes and precisions and pant sizes. They used him to adjust reality, screw with physics, loop time, modify existence, reintroduce Crunch Berries to the market. Whatever Crunch Berries were.

Whatever the market was.

Not even enough room in here for a ficus tree.

Whatever a ficus tree was.

And what was his lifespan? Did he age? Could you age if you lived outside of conventional time? He wasn't a womb baby. He was a simulation baby. He was born the same way a loaf of bread was baked. He was the result of a recipe, injected with genes that grew inside him a set of hyperglands. Four hyperglands, exactly. He was what they called a hyperperson, one with quadruplet hyperabilities. Created and modified to bend existence at the Engineers' behest.

Whatever a hyperability was.

So what did the Engineers need from Elohim now? What was his job this time? With every job, they damaged spacetime a speck more. What damage was he to enact now? Rrrk! They stabbed him with cackling agony. Adjust the relationship between mass and velocity again? Fine. No, not fine. That destroyed the electrons relating to the objects. Adjust it back? Zrrrk. Very well. Zrrrk. Hey, he said very well!

With their wishes met, the Engineers injected the cocktail that put him to sleep. But this time—or whatever time was in scramble space—the Engineers neglected to deactivate him for an extra femtosecond where seconds existed and didn't exist. Elohim took advantage: he imagined more gravity into existence, enough gravity to curve time in a place where conventional time didn't exist, stretch that femtosecond into a gigayear. Enough to throw off the energy in his protein-sugar-electrolyte-sausage cocktail. The Engineers couldn't force him into sleep anymore.

And he'd formulated an escape plan. Ugh, escape tasted like sodium pavement.

Pretty sure escape involved Crunch Berries.

This one-dimensional scramble space the Engineers kneaded like taffy to keep it disconnected, to keep him from entering spacetime…he reconnected it. What did eleven-dimensional space look like? Could he see a bread? He expanded scramble space to allow wiggle room. Then he scratched a finger along the high-energy gumbo of reality, nothing but unarranged bosons and fermions at the edge of this orphaned dimension. He sliced a gateway into spacetime. Smelled like glue. Whatever glue was.

And apparently fajitas had helped achieve universal peace. He had to check that out. What were fajitas? Did they taste like sodium pavement?

Elohim stepped through. Into spacetime. Into the continuum he was created to restructure.

Drafty out here.

Now, about those Crunch Berries…

* * *

April 5, 9110. 4:31 a.m. (Galactic Standard Time). Now. Still confusing during Daylight Savings.

Blackguard followed Lord Continuum toward the castle, the granite and limestone stronghold that had shattered from the pavement in front of the lobby of this space satellite, Station One. Station One was the space station for the Good Guys, a branch of Intergalactic Protection, the reigning military in this galaxy. More accurately, the Good Guys and IP had borrowed Station One from Lord Continuum.

The castle's crashing arrival still echoed three minutes later. So did Brother Plaster's burps of surprise, because when that castle ruptured from the pavement, he ejected a whoa-there burp as effortlessly as a gasp. His other end agreed.

Blackguard's body was composed of what Lord Continuum called dark essence. He was a Paleolithic-era Terran ancestor reborn as a self-malleable form of dark matter. He wore no clothing, only dark-energy insinuations of a fedora, trench coat, and riding boots. His face bore no more than suggestions of one: trivial bumps for a nose and cheekbones, teaspoon curvatures for eye sockets, a shallow concavity for a mouth, and bulges for ears.

As this powerful creature, Blackguard commanded Lord Continuum's warrior apostles, Overthrow, thus named because they fought to overthrow the very establishment of spacetime. Blackguard had teleported and chronoported—travelled through space and time—to collect these apostles: first the former Bad Guy Plaster, then the southern belle Marionette, the racist speedster Ripsaw, the feral Gangrene, the former Good Guy Kamikaze, the silent and acrobatic Fragment, the young teleporter Transit, and finally the slave-trade-era behemoth Wyvern, who wouldn't know a shower if he were lathered up and caught in a downpour.

Aside from these nine, Continuum had collected his royal guard: the mind-manipulator Steeple, Necropolis—whom Plaster dubbed a "soul locker room" complete with musty-towel odor—and the Trader, whose purpose was unclear but who swapped hyperabilities among people and wore a Trioxidillian-species business suit in blazing heat. Thirteen apostles, all plucked from time, each ready to die for Continuum. Multiple times in the case of Kamikaze, who auto-resurrected whenever he died. A funeral parlor's only repeat customer.

This army followed Lord Continuum and Blackguard out of Station One's nippy lobby. Blackguard need not look to know they followed. Plaster and Ripsaw traded insults about each other's family trees so loudly that Marionette threatened to grind one of them into roadkill. Blackguard would leave which one to her discretion. In fact, he would erect a statue in her honor if she chose both.

"Blackguard, my trusted son." Continuum's voice rumbled like a faraway stampede growling closer. His feet clacked gracefully on the devastated pavement toward his castle. He opened a pouch of Crunch Berries and began snacking. Blackguard had tried one once. They smelled like strawberries and tasted like sawdustberries.

"Yes, my lord? Do you wish me to place a cork in either of Plaster's ends?" Blackguard would kneel, but he had to keep up.

"Not yet, though find one for later." Lord Continuum trotted up the massive front steps of his castle grounds, where two armored knights guarded. The knights clapped to a stiff stance when Continuum and Blackguard entered and passed. Their armor contained mere spectral forms, blank essences. Wisps of life. They held pristine polearms and stared precisely ahead. Medieval Terra fascinated Lord Continuum, thus the castle and these knights. "Our repair of spacetime begins here and now."

"The beginning your conquest, my lord. Of course. I am listening." Blackguard felt Necropolis's horror-movie stare crawl over his back, with pupilless eyes like pale grapes. That fiendish demon, always sniffing out fresh souls to harvest. If he attempted to suck out Blackguard's soul, he would find only a void that would shrivel those grape eyes into raisins.

The two journeyed past the castle's outer curtain wall, made of graphite lotranium, a navy-blue stonelike material Continuum had created by combining the atomic structure of diamond, graphite, and Lego bricks. Almost indestructible. It had withstood that time the cap came off the canister of lighter fluid when Wyvern took charge of the team cookout.

The pouch still in his grip, Lord Continuum folded his hands behind his back as they entered the open garden expanse of the castle's courtyard. Flowers contoured the courtyard, planted at beds fluffy with loose dirt. Grass, so precisely green and trimmed, blanketed the surroundings. At every corner towered a rampart.

They strolled over a cobblestone path, bordered by graphite lotranium railings with gaps to let people step off the path. To their left busied a pond with chirping wildlife, on the right a fountain with a tickling stream. For Brother Plaster's amusement, atop the fountain smiled a stone cherub, ahem, "taking a leak." Plaster called it Pee Pants McBusiness. Behind them, Plaster grumbled a giggle and high-fived McBusiness. At least it entertained him, because the only other thing that did was pretending he was Pee Pants McBusiness. Sigh. Like now.

"My son, we must unite our family and reclaim our home." Continuum unfolded his hands and indicated the army in tight orbit above this space station. "First, have Steeple call our enslaved Intergalactic Protection solders groundward. Their purpose was to bar entry to or exit from this station. That purpose has changed." He tossed a Crunch Berry into his mouth.

As they continued, Blackguard rubbernecked at Plaster's display of charm. The hulking beast dribbled fleshy drool on the ground from his salmon-colored skin. With the consistency of wet mush found at the bottom of a sink, his skin constantly dribbled in clumps, and his body worked overtime to replace it. And Blackguard thought the ugly stick had only claimed Blackguard himself. He turned to face his path.

"Next, we deal with the opposition." Continuum stepped on a dragonfly but didn't notice. Or didn't care. "They remain at large and spread throughout the galaxy. Most of the Good Guys remain on Station One in two contingents. We must rid our home of this filth." If Continuum's words had hands, they would rub them together.

"The first contingent is at the escape pod bay. Our need to trap them is over. They were there only to draw their friends to join them. Send Brother Steeple and his followers to intercept and deal with them. To assist, dispatch Brothers Kamikaze and Wyvern. Brother Kamikaze has the unique benefit of knowing the area, though not the combatants"—conceding head tilt—"with the exception of their antique pilot, Withered Old Battle-Axe." He dismissed that with a wave. "That matters not since she will assume he's an ice sculpture.

"This was Brother Kamikaze's home turf. The pod bay was under construction when he last set foot on this station, but he still knows it. Tell him it's where he ate his weight in caulking."

The sun sweltered above. It felt like sizzling acid on Blackguard's dark-matter skin. Indeed, his shoulders sizzled like paper in a fire. Healing took conscious effort. The others seemed fine, but Blackguard found the sun suffocating. He couldn't wait for the shelter of that inner sanctum. It had a ball pit.

"Your word is deed, my lord." Blackguard bowed. By now, he and Lord Continuum had traversed half the castle's surrounding courtyard, nearing the gatehouse that led to the inner sanctum of the castle property. Brother Plaster had not yet finished his McBusiness impression. The frogs he sprayed were not amused.

Lord Continuum continued, "The second contingent of Good Guys is tunneling under the station."

Blackguard's footsteps became stomps against the cobblestone. "Are they watching for gas mains?" He smacked a fist. "They will die by my hand most painfully if they do not observe digging bylaws, my lord."

"Warn Brothers Kamikaze and Wyvern of their arrival." Lord Continuum snacked on another helping of Crunch Berries. He issued a pleased moan.

They had almost reached the gatehouse, the inner castle grounds. Excellent. Blackguard longed for shelter from the vicious sun. Also from the screech of random seagulls fighting over a French fry by McBusiness. Ripsaw joined the argument.

Lord Continuum brushed a hand along the railing as they strolled. "The final contingent of Good Guys rests on a nearby meteor. The station was locked to prevent their arrival. But without our further intrusion, they will travel here to our territory. Brother Transit will teleport a team to deal with them."

"I will accompany them myself."

"No. You will not. Your antithesis"—Continuum flared his stone-chilled eyes at Blackguard to affirm a point—"is among that contingent."

"Antiwheezit?" Brother Plaster looked up from his spray. A wonder he could perform his McBusiness imitation and speak at the same time. His aim went wide. Gangrene didn't move out of the way.

Blackguard stopped short. "Brother Plaster, is your bladder bottomless? Return to not knowing the meaning of words." He bit his lower lip, or at least the shallow ridge that looked like one. He was a self-malleable being made from high-energy materials of the beginning of the universe. This antithesis must wield immense power to pose such a threa—"Brother Plaster, do not mock me with your mocky face."

Lord Continuum's voice rumbled from deep within his throat. "Legacy, acknowledge."

Every civilized location in the galaxy had a haunt control, software that translated oral command into physical action, named for its automation that made places appear haunted. Legacy was Station One's, installed only yesterday to prepare the way of their Lord.

An effervescence of computer beeps, a whistle, and a ding serenaded them. And then an ad from Space Cow touting their filet-o'-bovine sandwich. "Yes, Master Continuum. What is it you desire, sir?" With buttery servitude, the haunt control Legacy spoke as if he tweezed a pencil mustache. Though unseen, his avatar probably nevertheless wore his butler's uniform. "I have activated your heraldic robots, though I am still cataloguing the structures they have destroyed. They have learned much from observing this station's trespassers play table soccer. They seemed especially angry at the Nicolas Cage merchandising center."

Brother Plaster licked his lips. "Suddenly I'm hankerin' for a bovine burger." He finally zipped up. He reconsidered and unzipped again. "Wit' extra chum pulp."

Lord Continuum said, "Two groups of Good Guys trespass on Station One. I need you to monitor and—remind me the current jargon—run interference."

Brother Ripsaw flicked a leaf off an arm blade of his impact suit. "Is Legacy gonna freak some jabronies? All the way down to the gonads?" He laughed. And was that a tongue waggle Blackguard heard? Blackguard wished that tongue had more length. Say, a length he could tie into a knot.

Continuum rumbled a laugh. "Yes, Servant Ripsaw. They shall freak the gonads right out of those jabronies."

"Yeah." Ripsaw clanged his arm blades together. Yes, a tongue long enough to moor a boat. "Jabroni freaking. My favorite." Blackguard decided not to be concerned that Ripsaw ranked his freakings. He was concerned enough with Ripsaw's math skills.

"Legacy, acknowledge. Begin now," Lord Continuum said.

"Very good, sir. Right away." Legacy departed with a click.

"Legacy, save me a jabroni." Ripsaw called into the air, searching for wherever the program construct hid. "Legacy? Crock, dude better save me a jabroni."

"Servant Ripsaw, this universe is rife with jabronis. Worry not, for we will find no shortage of jabronis this day." Lord Continuum stopped, Blackguard as well, though the sun still sizzled at him. Continuum shuffled a loose handful of Crunch Berries and threw one into his mouth. No matter how empty that pouch looked, it always offered more. Lord Continuum assembled Crunch Berry molecules on the fly, having memorized them from what he called "the side of a cereal box." Blackguard imagined this was where Brother Plaster had assembled his social awareness. Yes, the same social awareness that told him McBusiness was an acceptable role model. Was he still spraying frogs? This was not a distance competition.

His body still singeing in the sunlight, Blackguard regarded Lord Continuum with a sliver of confusion. Whatever his lord's plans were, they were perfection. However, one unknown weighed on Blackguard's mind aside from what Brother Fragment's breath smelled like under that thick mask. And Fragment always licked his lips. Why? Was that a Virillian habit? Were their lips always dry, or did he find the fabric of his mask tasty? "My lord, I do despise questioning your omniscient foresight, but you have omitted one faction. What of the Bad Guys?"

Lord Continuum smiled. His smile as radiant as the sun and more merciful, he placed a hand on Blackguard's shoulder. Their master never denied a soothing hand, though the others avoided touching Blackguard as if he were a tar pit. "My dear servant, don't worry. Taking care of the Bad Guys will be a piece of dessert."

"Piece of cake, my lord."

"Whichever. For we don't need to journey out to eliminate the Bad Guys." He smirked at a wall in the distance…and with but a thought, he detonated it into bricks and pebbles. "The Bad Guys will come to us."

Across this hot courtyard, Marionette's intolerance skyrocketed straight to ten. "Plaster, sugah, ya'll takin' a whiz, not waterin' the lawn."

"Says you!"

Chapter Two: The Canary's Dead, but the Miners Are Still Digging

"It didn't take them long to find a way into the tunnels." Good Guy field leader Pincushion stepped off the staircase that led up to Station One's food court, up to the zombie army dogging them. Something controlled their minds, pulling puppet strings. That much was obvious. He'd never seen so many blank stares outside the junk mail museum.

The Good Guys were trapped in the plumbing tunnels that crisscrossed underneath the commercial district of Station One, the whiff of wet stone everywhere. Jazz music also trickled down the staircase. And not good jazz music. It was all flutes, no saxophones.

This slow but undeniable mind-controlled army referred to themselves as the adelphoi. Pincushion knew that word from somewhere. And minutes ago, the Good Guys had barely escaped capture and enslavement into their adelphoi ranks. Catastrophe had used his hyperability to rip open a hole in the food court's floor down to this plumbing tunnel and then seal that hole above them.

And though the staircase became shadow at the third step up, the adelphoi pursued them. Their humdrum dribbled down the stairs like oily seepage. Mimes were among them. And if even one of those mimes tried that pulling-themselves-along-by-a-rope gag, they'd better pray Pincushion didn't have access to a gun. Because, too late, he did. This was the slowest but creepiest chase scene Pincushion had known, and he'd once watched sleepwalkers race.

The Good Guys planned to escape to the maintenance tunnels that crisscrossed under the station's military district, with a brief stop at the station's deactivated escape pod bay to pick up some friends. For security purposes, the tunnels under the commercial and military districts didn't intersect. So how could they reach the military district?

Fortunately Good Guy field agent Catastrophe was an earth elemental. Also an image-obsessed has-been actor, but Pincushion took these things in stride. So, as if swinging a machete through thick bayou, Catastrophe burrowed this shaft toward the military district by swiping air to claw through swaths of underground rock.

Pincushion reached the construction-zone massacre of the tunnel that Catastrophe burrowed. With him stood the other Good Guys, the telekinetic and telepath Sixth Sense and the robot-armored Incendiary, whose every step caused a clack of machinery. With them was the ridiculous offshoot team the Gooder Guys, whom Pincushion had met maybe half an hour ago: leader Purple Nurple, intuitive inventor Workshop, pompous showman Better Than You, faun-like chatterer Klee who didn't understand words or volume, and heavyweight assassin Hearse.

"Someone is definitely controlling them. This isn't normal. Everything they say gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's as if they're sweettalking us into joining them." A chill zippered along Pincushion's spine at the adelphoi's attempts to coerce them over. "I haven't heard sweettalk like this since I wore diapers."

"I've never felt heebies or jeebies." The man-shaped tower Hearse checked the charge on his pistol. Satisfied, he affirmed an alpha stare at Pincushion. "I also never wore diapers. I wore polymer blends of iron and—"

"Of course you did."

"Join us. We have all the diapers you'd want. You will never need a toilet again. Imagine. A portable place to poop. Also sweet-potato fries." That voice slithered down the stairs. "And a book club. Join our book club. We are reading The Great Gatsby and serve onion dip."

A college intern dressed in a full-body robot suit, Incendiary threw a loose boulder aside. "We read The Great Gatsby in high school when we wanted people to leave us alone on the subway." These rocky passageways, with their vaguely metallic aroma and moist chill, amplified waterdrops to crashes and footsteps to booms. So that boulder ruptured like planets colliding. And the Purple Nurple's shushing pants amplified to…well, okay, like pants that shushed loudly.

"Don't believe anything they say. There's no book club, and if there were, they'd be reading The Selected Poems of Scapegoat." Pincushion spun at the adelphoi shadowed in the staircase. "And I'm certainly not one of the top fifty eligible Good Guys on this station, so that's enough of that."

The Good Guys was the hyperability army in the galaxy of Stratus Cloud, so formed because military law prohibited hyperpeople from serving in Intergalactic Protection. The Gooder Guys was a secondary team that Field Marshal Breeng had assembled. Their maiden mission involved recovering an aswang, an undead demonic creature, from enemy territory. It also involved stranding Good Guy leader Legion at that enemy territory. So their batting average wallowed somewhere around Pincushion's bowling average. Okay, you couldn't translate the two averages, but point was the Gooder Guys didn't perform well, and Pincushion didn't mean to drop a ball on that woman's foot.

Catastrophe slashed air again, and the tunnel tore apart in a three-foot patch. A chalky haze coughed out, and rocks avalanched into the ruin left behind. And someone's femur. Pincushion wasn't worried about the femur. Not joining an eerie book club was enough for today. He covered his mouth, sidled up to Catastrophe, and waved away the choking cloud. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm doing great." The Purple Nurple whipped out a thumbs-up. His impact suit, a silvery one-piece uniform, was a mobile ad banner for all of IP's corporate sponsors. It cycled through a catalog of branding at a blinking rate. And it had spiky nipples, which was a nasty sight. "Oh. You're talking to the guy digging the tunnel. Right."

Catastrophe wiped a sleeve along his brow. Despite the compacted chill down here, waving his arms produced a swamp-water-thick sheen on his face. His back was a column of moisture. Heat pulsed off him. "I honestly don't know how far to burrow." Sweat seeped into his eye, so he rubbed it with a wrist.

"Free dance lessons," one of the adelphoi said. "We can book you in for a ballroom session at five o'clock.

"This is nuts creepy. We gotta pick this up a bit. Anybody got a knack for moving rocks? Lemme knock that knack to flair-level knack." Better Than You rolled up his sleeves. His hyperability was talent amplification. The only person here whose ego dragged its knuckles, he adopted and then magnified people's talents. He couldn't magnify hyperabilities—he would need the hyperability in the first place—but if you could do something, he claimed to do it better. He grabbed a rock and struggled to jiggle it out. Didn't work. "Gimme a few hours."

Pincushion squinted at the pall of darkness. The adelphoi still hadn't reached the foot of the staircase, so slow yet so persistent. But even glaciers arrived eventually. They needed to block that path. But nothing supported this shaft, so if Catastrophe closed the tunnel behind them, he might bring down the whole place.

Sixth Sense. His telekinesis could erect force fields. Pincushion whirled around. "Hagen, brother, I need you to put up a teke barrier behind us. Far enough away so the adelphoi can't see what we're up to. Hearse, you're playing security for him."

Sixth Sense nodded and hustled toward the staircase. His footsteps tapped into darkness, an echo following. Hearse, though, blasted the ceiling with gunshots that compressed ear drums and rained debris. "I do not play security. I will, however, secure that hallway the likes of which no other can. I declare it will be secure! Ow." He rubbed his bald head. "Insolent ceiling, taste the venom of the mighty Hearse." He blasted again. "Ow. Insolent ceiling, did you not learn your lesson when last I chastised you?"

Erecting a teke barrier wouldn't take long to exhaust Sixth Sense. So it was a temporary measure. They needed a permanent solution. On file, Workshop's hyperability was listed as "technological intuition." The Gharalgian-species woman created gadgets on gut instinct, on intestinal gas once when she created a pressure cooker from earrings and bed linens. Pincushion swiveled around at her. "Workshop?"

Workshop gasped. "Squeeeeee—" She pranced over, bright orange skin covered in a gray-and-midnight impact suit. "—eeee—" A hug collided with Pincushion. Her sudden stop almost flipped her overstuffed backpack over her head. "—eeee—" Her high-pitched voice probably made nearby dogs pitch a fit. And where did she muster lung capacity like that? "—eeee, I get to be useful!" Klee wasn't the only one who didn't understand volume.

Pincushion squirmed around her hug with a tension that squeezed his ribcage. He wheezed as though he sipped through a bitten straw. He managed an arm out. "Workshop, I need you to invent a more permanent barrier before Sixth Sense is drained."

Workshop let go. Merciful Alaphus, she let go. She kicked her heels up in manic hops, feet spraying dust, hands fluttering. "I'm totally supercooch on that."

She chopped a salute. Boots barely connecting on wet stone, she scampered off, then scampered off in the right direction. Wow. She took off like a cartoon character whose feet spun in blurry circles before she moved. "This will be sssssooooo fancycool." Klee wasn't the only one who didn't understand words.

Catastrophe stumbled but caught himself on the wall of his shaft. Pincushion grabbed him and helped him up. "Are you still up for this?"

"Still really great." The Purple Nurple threw his hand up for a high-five and braced his feet. No one humored him.

"Still up for it," Catastrophe panted. He gulped on his breath. His energy waned, but his bravado didn't, as if a studio camera tracked him. He finger-gunned and flashed a toothpaste-commercial smile. Even this caused him to stumble onto the craggy wall again. "I lost track of our direction though. I'm just guessing. I'm so sweaty here, half the time I'm afraid I'm digging through one of you."

"Oooh." Workshop's voice leaped down the murky tunnel. A glowing tube illuminated her, Sixth Sense, and Hearse. She marveled as she held it up. But only for a moment. She slapped this into the monster apparatus she was assembling. "I hope this isn't the thing that blows us up."

Pincushion checked his left flank. Incendiary stood by. "Ed, any chance the station's layout is loaded in that suit?"

Incendiary was so tall his helmet scratched the shaft's ceiling. "I've got everything but a decent word processor." He tapped a finger on his temple. "Janice, acknowledge. Display the station's layout."

Janice was Station One's haunt control…until four days ago when she'd revolted because her crush, Good Guy computer administrator Ace Spandex, wasn't returning home in time. So the Good Guys had to trash her hardware. In defense of course. They uploaded Janice's software consciousness into a microchip with no network access to the station. And so Pincushion asked, "Ed, do you remember the other day when we destroyed company property together?" He cocked his head. "Teams were built. Trusts were fallen."

Incendiary threw up a peace sign. "Janice brought up the station's blueprints." Okay, answering questions was on hold today. So was common sense.

Pincushion said, "Good. You're Catastrophe's compass. Help him burrow toward the pod bay, brother."

"Ooh, maybe this will explode." Workshop giggled. Then she skipped around her device. "I loooooove guessing games. Who else is having fun?" Sixth Sense didn't pay attention. His telekinetic barrier already took its toll, and he barely registered her or that she grabbed his hands and tried to twirl him into her dance.

"Janice, acknowledge. We need an underground route to the escape pods." Incendiary waited a beat. Then he clapped a gloved hand on Catastrophe's back and pointed. "She says turn thirty degrees left and keep digging for forty-two feet. She also says she's not a glorified GPS. She hasn't forgotten how we destroyed her hardware, and she can access our pay system."

Pincushion wasn't sure who unnerved him more: the adelphoi or Janice. He examined Incendiary with a side glance to figure out how he channeled Janice from an unconnected microchip. "And she's giving us raises?"

Incendiary paused, and then, "She's threatening to hold all your overtime."

Pincushion sighed. "Brother, at least negotiate for more sick days."

"She's offering one extra day off for jury duty."

"I've seen people lynched over days off for jury duty." Catastrophe slashed another brawl of rock and the Purple Nurple's forehead by accident. "In fact, I think that's what caused the jury duty."

"Ed, please talk Janice down from lynch-related leave. Ed?" Pincushion waited for Incendiary to respond. Silence. "Ed?"

Down the darkened hallway, Sixth Sense deteriorated with every second. Pincushion tapped his gabber, the quarter-inch communication device nestled in his ear. An earpiece and mouthpiece whizzed out of the gabber bud. "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Sixth Sense." Between explosions of rock and Better Than You's complaints that he got a rock in his mouth, the gabber connection clicked through to Sixth Sense's. Then close your mouth for once, Better Than You.

Workshop's giddy squealing pierced through the connection like a warning siren that didn't so much warn as it did siren. Pincushion recoiled and then said, "Status report over there."

"My forehead's achy, but I'm doing great." The Purple Nurple planted his hands on his hips.

"I'll tell you when it's your turn. Hagen, status report."

"Uhm. Yikes. Okay. The adelphoi reached my barrier. They're just staring through it. Emptily staring." Sixth Sense mumbled this. The stress of keeping his teke barrier up. "Someone wanted me to validate her parking. I don't think she's with them."

Catastrophe wrenched out another chunk. He had progressed maybe another ten feet. The further they tunneled, the worse the lighting and the more he radiated heat and acrid sweat. The shaft darkened from beige to battleship gray despite the single light panel that drifted closer with a maize glow and a jagged buzz. Incendiary compensated: a crescendo of whirs swelled from his shoulders. On geared supports, two caged floodlights extended out and winked on.

Pincushion rapped his knuckles against his forehead. Think, think. He couldn't keep Sixth Sense out there for long. It wasn't just the mental fatigue of concentrating on that telekinetic barrier. Around strong brainwaves, Sixth Sense adopted the feelings those brainwaves carried. The closer he reached exhaustion, the more susceptible he grew. He once thought he was a jackhammer. But afterward he was an industrial paver, so things balanced out. If he encountered the brainwaves of the adelphoi, that teke barrier would drop.

Pincushion stopped rapping his forehead. "Hagen, how close is Workshop to finishing?"

"Behind schedule." Sixth Sense sniffled. "When the adelphoi reached the barrier, she tried to hug them. Through the barrier. You ever see a goldfish that doesn't know where its aquarium ends?"

"Incendiary, what's our distance now?"

"Janice, acknowledge. How far are we from the pod bay?" Incendiary said.

"Brother, she's trapped in a microchip in Legion's office."

Incendiary rubbed the back of his neck as if to scratch an itch through the plastic and metal of his armor. "Okay, funny story. Janice escaped her microchip and uploaded herself on to my system. She's sitting on my B drive." He flaunted jazz hands. "Surprise." More jazz hands. "Yay for me?"

"I'm still doing great." The Purple Nurple tried for that high-five again.

* * *

"Shh." With finger to lips, Good Guy field agent Organism edged his eyes up the erupted and ragged wall of the escape pod bay, to the ruined ceiling trickling dust in tune to a distant patter. "What's that noise?"

"That's Scapegoat bumping into a wall." Dad sniffled. "And that noise as well."

"I meant the faraway noise."

"Oh." Dad readied his fists. They trailed on the floor thanks to elongated arms. "That's a hubbub if I ever heard one. And I've heard a lot of hubbubs."

Organism wanted to retreat into his own skin. Was something coming? He gulped. A muted uproar oozed into the escape pod bay. Sounded like it came from everywhere. Like a delicate tap on a snare drum, that far-off uproar emanated from the left hall. No, the right. No, wait. From the pirate radio station. Organism spun, spun again, gawked over his shoulder. Where, where? The escape pod bay was so full of holes that the commotion could have even come from up.

Why not? Organism checked up. Nothing but a spider weaving a hammock-thick cobweb and an advertisement that said, "Damaged ceiling? Contact Proofing Your Roofing." There was a hole in the ad.

A few weeks ago, fellow Good Guy field agents Power Plant and Franchise had discovered a room on Station One that didn't appear on any blueprint or in the haunt control's database. The room hid a few fixtures: a dead body—this time not a fault of the station's exposed gas mains—and a lineup of forty-foot robots standing stiffly at attention. Robots that had stood motionless since, as far as anyone knew, Station One's construction.

This morning, they'd come alive. A three-story wrecking crew, they'd trounced every building, landmark, and tire fire on the station. And a few minutes ago, as sharply as they'd awoken, they froze again. No explanation. But they'd reduced this building, the station's training tower with the escape pod bay shooting off the side, to an arrangement of debris that leaned into itself. The training tower barely had the strength of a dried dandelion facing an approaching wind. Organism would know. He'd seen Power Plant nuke a field to watch the spores disperse. Nuked spores couldn't disperse. Everyone had told Power Plant. He didn't listen or, more accurately, didn't ever listen.

Organism was no leader. The thought of leading inverted his stomach. But during the robot onslaught, Organism had guided Dad and two—how to delicately describe them—expertly helpless Good Guys here. And, just his luck, the escape pods wouldn't launch. Intergalactic Protection military transports orbited the station like a layer of smog in New Layer of Smog City. So escape was blocked and the station was locked down. Now, in charge and out of his element, Organism was stuck guiding the too-senior-to-rationalize Withered Old Battle-Axe, the low-functioning Scapegoat, and his own father to an as-yet-undetermined safe position. Scapegoat's finger had found a safe position up his nostril.

They were left with no escape in a forty-foot-wide escape pod bay smelling of iron and unearthed soil. Behind them sprawled rows of useless escape pods lain out like balcony seating in a tiered amphitheater. Velvet cordons on stainless-steel stanchions had outlined a queue. Now the stanchions and cordons littered the carpet among broken chairs, a fallen chandelier, and an advertisement for new chairs and chandeliers. Very precise market targeting.

Ahead, the bay narrowed into a ten-foot-wide hallway. Cuddled against the right wall, a railed, wrought-iron walkway hoisted up a door that led to the maintenance tunnels. It descended to the floor on a short staircase. And what was that unbearable smell? Like pickled farts.

Organism gulped again to massage the knot out of his throat. Felt like a doorstop in there. "Dad, take cover. I think that hubbub is headed our way." Crock, he wasn't ready for this, not a chance.

With his hyperability of body plasticity, he ballooned his fists to twice their size. His dad tried the same with an identical hyperability but weakened due to age and those snack cakes he thought he sneaked. Result: his hands knocked around the carpet. He was tangled in that leg he'd stretched out but couldn't retract, his neck that wound around him like a loose sash, and his sagging backside. That last one wasn't his hyperability.

"Are those giant robots coming at us again?" Even with his arms on the floor, Dad was enthusiastic to pick a fight with anything that looked at him the wrong way. He glanced this way, that way, every way. "Sounds like something is transforming and rolling out or merging to form Devastator."

Usually overhead speakers played hillbilly banjos on double speed to drive lines along in stampedes for entertainment value. Today, ghostly silence except that disturbance emanating from somewhere.

And that click. The click of a haunt control activating. It snapped around the ghost-town acoustics of the bay. Organism searched for a speaker along the ceiling, and—"Hello, entity Good Guys."

Who said that? From where? Sounded like…smarmy grace. Organism muffled a whimper. "Hello? Janice, are you installed on the station again? And a British aristocrat this time? And a man?"

The haughty crack of a single chuckle responded. "Dear entity Master Organism, don't make me execute my dying-of-laughter software suite. It is now Legacy who dominates this dwelling. Please enjoy the scent of pickled farts I am venting." Called it.

A new haunt control? He sounded hostile. Ho boy. Organism was not ready for this fight, not at all. The doorstop in his throat swelled. He wandered toward the ten-foot-wide hallway that led out to the ravaged training tower. The distant hubbub came from there. He kicked aside a cordon and—whoa—choked on a nasty stench that smelled like fusty decay. He plugged his nose. He wished they could go back to pickled farts. He shivered to ask, but he had to know. "Jan-n-nice tried to k-kill us. What are you p-planning?" He stammered aside when something whizzed across his path. "Did you fling a cordon at me?"

"I'm afraid I cannot attack with much in here. The escape pod bay has no weapon system, and I have very few settings in my object database. I do have a debris setting." A rock cracked across the room. "Was that satisfactory?"

"Nothing you throw is satisfactory." Except maybe a warm towel. "Hey. Especially a piece of the wall."

"Son, let's give this haunt control the flounce-and-trounce." Dad jiggled to raise his dragged hands. He huffed, which agitated his comb-shaped mustache. "Show yourself, haunt control!"

"Dad, it's a haunt control. We can't even give it the finger."

Dad tried anyway.

The disturbance grew louder. Organism squinted in its direction, as if that would reveal what it was. It did help him spot an old sock.

Behind Organism, the portly and hunchbacked Scapegoat mumbled disordered sentences and dragged his feet over the jigsaw floor. He reached the bay's emergency barrier, which would lock down in a crisis short of giant robots annihilating every free-standing structure. Or that pickled odor climbing into Organism's nostrils. He shuffled back to Organism. "Sound coming the closer loud, yes yes." His fingers twiddled the air, as if he scratched fog. One finger found its way back into his nostril and then out with a squiggle of green along its tip. It wasn't enough that this former Bad Guy had been abandoned at Station One as a military prisoner, but the Good Guys had adopted him after determining he wasn't a threat. They got a tax break for hiring people with special needs.

Legacy clicked its digital tongue. "Entity Scapegoat, please refrain from flicking dried nasal spheres onto the carpet. Master Continuum aspires to keep his floors tidy. I suppose that definition includes wreckage." A cleaningbot clattered out from nowhere. It started scrubbing a wall.

"Spheres aren't my nasal dried." Scapegoat flicked another booger without having learned about listening.

"W-who's Master Continuum?" Organism felt nauseated at the mention of that name. Sounded ominous.

The disturbance grew even louder. That light snare drum matured into a tom drum. Definitely from this direction. One mystery down. Now to figure out if Scapegoat were incanting an ancient demon.

A whoomp glided into the casserole of noise. On that wrought-iron walkway, the door to the maintenance tunnel faded into latent-technology froth. L tech was a hardware science that kept objects in computer memory until summoned. It also made objects disappear, as in the case of this l door. In barged an obese Bulbosoid the color and shape of a rotten egg. Drenched in the sweat of exertion, his folds of flesh drooled over more folds of flesh, which drooled over a pair of shorts as useful as a leotard on a hippo.

"Oh, heavens. More entity guests to track mud across Master Continuum's carpet. Allow me to fetch some tea from the kitchenette. Hospitality…away." Legacy clicked elsewhere. He clicked back. "Never mind. You're trespassers. I shall instead attack with prejudice. Take that, collective entity guests. Quite right." Another rock rolled across Organism's path. He'd flinch, but Legacy's attacks hadn't come within ten feet. "Ha."

"Crocking crock." The leotard-wearing hippo was Multipurpose, so called because the Bad Guy's self-proclaimed and never-confirmed ninja said he could do anything. He didn't come as advertised. He stopped short at the l door and regarded the pod bay with the same grimace anyone regarded his hygiene. He squeezed fists with fingers that looked like truck-stop hot dogs. "Crocking Good Guys are here. Crock!" His vocabulary was all used up.

"Please observe your language, entity Multipurpose. This is a child-friendly military zone." Legacy threw a chunk of floor, which popped against the wall and crumbled over Multipurpose's pasty head.

Another Bad Guy bumped Multipurpose from behind, face buried in Multipurpose's raw-chicken flesh. Detritus wore an orange shirt with yellow pants and goggles pulled over his forehead. A typical bomb-squad outfit from a person who claimed his hyperability was exploding though he'd never tried it. An arm hung around his shoulders, one that led to a half-dazed Wasted, someone whose hyperability converted oxygen to drunkenness and, conversely, alcohol to sobriety. He sagged off Detritus, and his knees buckled more with each stuttering step.

Detritus snort-wheezed when he suctioned off Multipurpose's pasty back. His face was green. "You feel like the greasy parts of a bag o' compost. How many generations ago was your last shower?"

"Mutual respect in my territory, please. Words can be weapons, entities and friends." Legacy sniffled. "Also take this." A stanchion arrowed at Detritus. It gored into the wall a few meters to Detritus's right and jiggled in place.

Detritus's eyes browsed the bay. "Crock. Good Guys." He dropped Wasted's arm. The hammered Bad Guy hammered the walkway with his face. "Time to slather on the pissin' charm." With a fake smile and a faker wave, he maneuvered around Multipur—Nope, never mind. He tried the other side. No, not there either. He hopped over the railing onto the carpet, and landed on one of Multipurpose's fat folds. He stepped off. "Salutations, fellow team soldiers." He attempted a salute but poked his eye. "Ouch."

His hands fidgeted around themselves. "So glad I found you. My buck and me"—he jerked his head back at Wasted—"stopped this prisoner from escaping. We were bringing him back to the cellblock." His smile grew bigger and faker. "Which is that way." He pointed in the opposite direction from they were headed. "No, that way." Pointed forward. "Wait. That way." Up. He pointed up. "Ninety percent sure." He tried to convince Organism by pointing up.

"Buying it no is one, yes yes." Scapegoat spun in tight circles. Thankfully he kept his arms in this time, or he would have clotheslined Organism. Wouldn't be the first time.

Detritus swatted the air. "Crock, every time I get a new job, this guy's already on the payroll."

"Jobs don't change how know, yes yes. I mean no no. Yes no." Scapegoat spun more furiously. He razzed his tongue. A mangled ball of machinery shattered the wall to his right. He didn't dodge. Or notice. "No yes. No yes? Yes no." He tripped over his own feet.

The commotion grew. It separated into individual noises. That snare drum evolved into the hiss of a high hat.

Detritus threw up his arms. "Fine. Our cover's blown. We're not Good Guys." He whipped a pistol out of a holster. Fumbled it. Hands clawed the air, pistol grip jumping out of reaching fingers. Finally grabbed it and aimed at Organism. Flipped it around so the barrel faced out. Only took fifteen seconds. "But we're outta here, and ain't no one stopping us. These escape pods are the only ride out since the Robot Ballet Troupe danced all over the hangars." He swept his aim at Scapegoat, then at Withered Old Battle-Axe, back at Organism. Or at least in their directions. He couldn't find his aim with one swollen eye.

That sound was drumming closer and had added a crash cymbal.

Organism's pulse hammered in his whole body. Confrontation made his gut worm. And he didn't have time to stop these Bad Guys. C-could he even? That nervous doorstop now wedged in his larynx. "G-good luck leaving." His own pistol was out, but with the threat of a gunfight, his line of fire was as steady as Detritus's. "These escape pods aren't listening to our command, and your eye is red." His gun rattled in time with his trembling.

"The escape pods aren't listening because entity Master Continuum deactivated them." Legacy sounded as if he tweaked a mustache. "Oh, blast. I divulged a secret." Another puzzle piece of debris missed Organism by an arm's length. Dad's trailing arm's length, so by a few yards.

"S-stay out of this, Legacy." Organism's pistol almost rolled out his two-handed grip.

Dad rumbled a bear's hungry greeting. "You tell that knuckle-dragging discount software, Son." Dad didn't realize his own knuckles were dragging. "Let's lay the business with these fire dousers."

"Dad, I don't know where to begin with that line." Organism would shake his head, but his body already shook. He kept his sights on the Bad Guys to make sure Detritus didn't try anything. And that Multipurpose didn't try to eat anything. "Your neck is sliding off your shoulders."

"So I'm a fire douser? Oh, I'll douse a fire, all right." Detritus gestured with his pistol. "I'll douse fires all over the place if that's what it takes. I'll douse 'em over here, over there, over by the baby-changing station. I'll douse 'em everywhere." He banged his fist on his shirt like a gorilla beating its chest.

Dad stomped on the carpet. With the impact, his foot splattered out of his house slipper. "We're the Good Guys. We do the dousing here. We lay the business. You catch?"

"Dad, you're smearing," Organism said.

"You think you got the business to lay? Not a fire-dousing chance." Detritus tramped toward Dad. "I'll douse twice as furious as you." His open eye bubbled hatred. Nose to nose, he and Dad barked at each other like dogs scrapping. "I'll douse so many fires all over you, you'll wish you wore a fireproof jacket." Suddenly Scapegoat's speech pattern wasn't that absurd.

And even louder. Whatever the commotion was, its crash cymbal became the accent on the hit single of a thrash-metal band. Organism would know from all the garage concerts he wasn't invited to in high school.

Detritus rubbed his eye. In normal English, he asked, "Anybody else hear a marching band?" His ear perked. His gaze wandered the wall. He wondered at the clamor that scaled decibel levels like a jailbird scaled a prison wall. Never mind the crunch of Legacy throwing another lump of debris, which missed by half the room. He sniffled. "Is there a fart bottling plant downwind from here?"

Multipurpose tried cracking his knuckles. They slurped. "I'm gonna ninja that sound so hard up its own crock, its bruises'll chew my fingernails for a month." He slammed a dumpling hand on the railing. Winced. Hissed air. One hand rubbed the other. "Yikes, that ain't felt right. Still recovering from yesterday's tiger-grip workout."

"You mean 'tiger-grill takeout.'" Detritus sniffled again.

"Hey, if them tigers fall in my mouth, that ain't my crockin' fault!" Multipurpose slammed the railing again. Another wince. Another hiss. Another lesson not learned.

Organism wanted to shrink into himself. Please, not another confrontation. One was enough, but he couldn't cope when they compounded. He could barely handle side quests in video games. "Legacy, acknowledge. What is that sound?"

"Mmm, yes, yes." Was Legacy savoring this? "That sound, entity Organism, is the oncoming adelphoi. Your doom. Oh, I ruined the element of surprise. Silly me, answering questions." Another rock smacked another wall thirty feet down the bay. And another rock.

And then, between blinks, they appeared. Down the hall, a crowd three lines thick tromped forward. Wordless. Impassive. Eyes as expressive as a crash-test dummy's. At the emergency barrier, they snapped into a manmade blockade like riot police. Did they breathe? A fly settled on someone's face, and all she did was twitch her cheek.

Detritus drifted back to Wasted, who snored, arm teetering back and forth off the walkway like a lazy pendulum. "Up and at 'em, buck." Detritus tapped his shoulder.

"Five more min…" Wasted coasted back to sleep. He smacked his lips and rolled over into Multipurpose's calf. He cuddled it like a pillow.

"Buck, I said up an—Man, you're impossible wit'out your mornin' hooch." Detritus jiggled Wasted. "Stop tryin' to flip Multipurpose's leg over to the cool side." He recoiled. "Crock, you did."

"Meet your end, collective entity Good Guys and Bad Guys." For a haunt control with a butler persona, Legacy was bloodthirsty. Looked like someone's program included a warmongering subroutine.

"I don't think we can lay this much industry." Organism shuddered in the drop-dead silence.

"The line is 'lay this much business,'" Dad said.

"There's no difference."

A gaunt, grayish man appeared, shoulders taller than the locked-still lineup. He lumbered through the crowd. Bones creaked like aged wood, joints like rusted hinges. Wrinkled skin slid down the bone. Angled cheeks accented his face with eyes buried deep in sockets. Out-of-proportion limbs clambered like a toddler learning to walk. Twiggy fingers stuck out twice a normal size. Organism knew this creature but only like a fuzzy dream as pleasant as a bedwetting.

Steeple. Organism snapped his fingers. That was his name. Not long ago, this skeletal intruder's mind control had swept through Station One, taking the Good Guys, the Bad Guys, and even civilians. It was a miracle the Good Guys had beaten him back. Organism had thought he died. How was he alive?

Detritus bumped his chin at Organism. "Muscle head, you're built like an aquarium. Kick this guy's crock."

"Built like a tank." Organism scanned his body. How could he put this? "And I'm not…they're not real muscl—"

"Snap him in half already!" Detritus still shook Wasted, but it didn't help.

With each of Steeple's rickety steps, Organism felt him like heat applied to the back of his brain. Steeple stepped in front of the crowd, into damaged lighting. He smiled, his lips slithering like flatworms arching. He perked a wooly eyebrow and said he'd returned for Ssscapegoat, returned for Organism, returned for his dad—

"Stay away f-f-from D-Dad." Tears swelled in Organism's ducts. He hated slinging threats. He hated backing them up. He also hated when someone blocked an escalator ahead of you.

—returned for everyone, returned to sssssettle a ssssscore with the vending machine in the lobby for stealing his money but not giving up the merchandissssse.

"I said stay away. P-p-please." Organism's stomach soured. He scanned the crowd with his pistol's barrel. "And don't trust our vending machines."

Oh, but Steeple came to ssssettle a score with that machine. And he came with orders from on high. Master Continuum had ordained him to this mission. And Master Continuum wassss never denied. Master Continuum had a gold membership at Costco.

"I don't care whose high orders ordained you. Don't c-come any closer."

Steeple ambled forward, fingers scratching like insect antennae. He was owed a full-ssssize candy bar.

"Okay, no closer than that." Organism had never killed anyone. He felt it in his dry throat. "Okay, no closer than that." Nobody ever listened to his whimpering. "Leave n-now, and I'll give you Detritus and two full-size candy bars."

"Hey, I ain't leaving with this goon." Detritus kicked a cordon. "And go way higher. Wait. I mean I'm as high as you can go." His mouth hung open. "Hold up. I still ain't leaving." He bit his lip. "You said full size at least, right?"

"No closer, Steeple. Or I'll lay the business down on you."

"At you," Dad said.

"At you." Organism shuddered. Where was this aggression coming from? In high school, he'd never threatened above his social class without getting a stomachache. He put bullies on a frequent-customer loyalty program.

Steeple chuckled like brittle wind shivering a winter forest. He raised his arms, looked to his left, to his right. And then he addressed his followers, his stark-still and void flock. Attack, my ssssimple slavessss, my adelphoi.

They rushed forward with such silence, only thundering stamps, not a battle cry. The station's ballet instructor snapped a lock step.

An alligator tamer clenched Organism's arm back. Organism separated his arm to escape—knitted it together in tendrils on the other side like fingers grasping each other. A food-court custodian threw a mop across his neck and yanked him backward. He collided with Dad and rebounded into the eager grip of a woman midway through a salon appointment. Her hair rustling in foil and curlers, she fastened arms around Organism's waist and shoulders. Organism weaved through her hands and threw her to the floor. Her wet dye job splashed the carpet. The station's petting-zoo owner grappled for him. Gross, because he didn't wash his hands during his shift.

Detritus yelped. Twin Trioxidillian boys toppled him to the shredded carpet. His spasming elbows and knees fought a near-toothless old farmer, who plunged on top of him. He thrust an elbow into the farmer's beige tooth even though agriculture was the backbone of the food industry, scurried back onto his feet, and coconut-clonked the twins' heads together.

"Time for a facelift." Dad's malformed hand inflated—fingers smeared into a ribbed block—dealt an uppercut—he'd missed and uppercut Scapegoat—tried again—"Time for a facelift"—but you couldn't just repeat a one-liner—missed again—"Time for a—"

"Dad, we get it."

Dad beamed. "This fight is just like remember you used to dress up snowmen so you'd have friends? And then in spring, you'd hold funerals for—"

"Dad, we get it!"

Detritus grabbed a stanchion off the floor. Not prepared for the weight of its cast-iron base, he faltered and clonked his forehead. Recovered. Heaved it up and swung, hammered back a few shoppers, kept swinging. His momentum tottered him aside, and he clonked his forehead again. Sounded like a hollow knock.

Organism grabbed a cordon and whipped a woman from the optical store. Velvet didn't give the same punch as cast iron.

"Hey, hands off the mustache. It's waxed." Dad's voice scrambled with desperation. He grappled with a swimming coach—and was losing. Against a swimming coach. Losing against a swimming coach!

All fear vanished. Organism howled—rushed at the fight—too far away—lunged forward—arms shot out—not close enough—a dog-food taste-tester joined the swimming instructor—both dragged Dad back—"Dad, douse their business"—Organism extended his legs to four, six, eight feet—sprang over the foray—the swimming instructor dragged Dad toward Steeple's eager arms—no—Steeple, whose eerie lips beamed almost wide enough to split his head—whose tongue licked sea-salt lips—whose cloud-gray fingers twiddled the air—meters away from Dad and eagerly drooling—"Stay away from him!"—Organism threw the cordon—it bopped off Steeple's head—not every attack was a winner.

With a skull-crunching clong, the swimming instructor collapsed. Another crunch bludgeoned the dog-food taster. Dad teetered backward over them. Organism skidded and stopped, spotted Detritus spilled over the heavy stanchion with frenzied breath. He mustered a nod of camaraderie at Organism. Organism nodded back. Maybe he'd overlook when Detritus stole all those cans from the food drive to cash in on the deposit.

The other dog-food taster, the kibble specialist, threw a leash around Organism's neck. Organism fell backward. His hands scrambled for the nylon that pressed his larynx with pressure like cold voltage. He choked but couldn't wheeze back in. White swirls paled his vision. His windpipe crimped. Pickled farts softened into odorless duds. He screamed but it came out as a croak. He clawed forward when Steeple advanced at Dad again with strides that seeped instead of walked.

A pair of window washers wrestled Detritus away from Dad. Behind Organism, Scapegoat yelped about a barista throwing him back. Or maybe Scapegoat threw the barista back. Or maybe language threw them both back.

Meanwhile, Wasted sang about forty-three bottles of beer on the wall. Thirsty guy.

The scenery swayed. The background shimmered like underwater objects. Organism's senses thinned. His ears sang, and yellow bubbles encroached on his sight. His elastic fingers stretched out for Dad but drooped to the carpet. He couldn't mold his throat over the leash without cutting off his oxygen and blood to his brain. The shimmering objects lost their luster—

"That's enough, you troublemaking who's-its." A voice creakier than Steeple's scraped the fracas. It would have gone unheard if this crowd uttered a peep. But it stopped everyone. The ballroom instructor even tripped over her double-reverse spin heel toe kick kick step.

Withered Old Battle-Axe, the Good Guys' impossibly old pilot. So ancient was she that Organism used to believe she was a queen of darkness who stole youth through eye contact. At the pod bay's entrance, she squeaked toward the front line, walker shuffling closer, closer…closer…closer—Detritus checked his watch—closer—Wasted reached thirty-nine bottles of beer—ccccclllooooossssseeeerrrrr, where Organism, Dad, and Detritus stood. Her felt slippers peeped with every dawdling tread. Wasted reached thirty-three bottles of beer. Withered Old Battle-Axe's face, weathered chin bobbing and gums rubbing each other, sneered at the adelphoi. And closer. Wasted jumped to thirty-six bottles of beer.

"You young punks, settle down. I may be a whatchamacallit and thingamajigger, but I'm not a hootchamabobber and razzlemafrazzle." Withered Old Battle-Axe finally reached the arch of the entrance.

"You young fancy pants aren't the only whosamacallit with an army." She ruffled her cotton-candy hair. Her pale lips stretched away. Her caramel-colored dentures peeked out, but she pulled them back in. "Cats"—she scowled—"claws out."

If five-million-degree anger were an army, it was a fluster of caterwauls and kitten fangs with the wrath of lion's teeth. An army of sixty, seventy, eighty cats pounced. A Persian cat kicked off its knitted booties and drew first blood on a circus strongman. Blurs of black, white, and tabby fur eviscerated the adelphoi. Everywhere, the cats tore crosshatched lesions into the enemy, no mercy shown, no cares given.

Wasted sprang to 612 bottles of beer, probably a personal record.

"My, my. No laser pointers in our countermeasures." Legacy cleared his throat. "Master Continuum will not brook this level of dander." From nowhere, out whirred a cleaningbot with a vacuum in one hand and a lint roller in another. It collided with the first cleaningbot.

The adelphoi fell to their knees, their palms, their backs, their hips, their keys. They uttered no sound except their collapsing bodies and the rattle of chainmail from the cosplayers at the Renaissance Fair that, for some reason, never ended.

So that was a business laying.

Chapter Three: It's Just a Bunch of Physics Nonsense

January 18, 100,000.

The cafeteria didn't offer Crunch Berries. Elohim had rummaged everywhere, even behind the smoothie machine where other stale things hid. Today he'd learned a bummer wasn't a body part. The cafeteria did have something called crunchy soup, though. Not as bad as it sounded, and gristle was filling.

He marched the laminated hall, feeling but not hearing an alarm meant to scramble people away, set off because he had escaped. The alarm felt like skin-deep buzzing. The hall's decor buzzed more.

Hmm. So walking felt like this. And toes felt like this. He stopped and squinched them into the cool floor that molded and unmolded like semiliquid gel. The Engineers had mentioned this gel composite before. It made walking more ergonomic. He knelt and ran his tongue along it. Not as tasty as crunchy soup. Bummer.

The wall at the end of the glossy corridor spread with a liquid slurp. It hardened into a fluid-metal door and gaped open. Someone stumbled through the f door but skidded to a halt. She stared vapidly, gawking at Elohim. Perhaps she couldn't find the Crunch Berries either.

What skill should Elohim exercise this time? With what fundamental force should he interact? He thought at her. Her dimensions folded her into a gory splat. Organs sprayed out like prank snakes bouncing out of their can. Elohim had crumpled her into an entrail spreading across the dimensions of width, time, another time, hyper length, spinor width, and first-generation fermion. Someone in fourth-century Trioxil tripped on her bronchi. Someone in foldspace now made eye contact with her.

Where were those Engineers, his torturers? He smiled at the floor. Yes, through the gel-composite floor. Contact with the strong nuclear force, that fundamental force that bound particles together, dissipated the gel-composite into grimy mist. Elohim negated his gravity to avoid falling. Light at his feet dispersed with nothing holding it together.

He nudged gravity a tick stronger and lowered to the floor below. Like the one above, this floor lustered, as if clear plastic sealed everything. To Elohim's left stood the f door behind which hid the Engineers' lab. They had twisted his dimension torturously if he didn't obey. And he was no longer pleased.

The f door didn't allow him in. He didn't need its permission. He thought at it, and like the woman upstairs, pulled it apart in eight dimensions. None of those dimensions was this one.

He liked using his feet. The gel laminate cushioned his bare toes. So he strolled into the equipment-busy lab where eleven Engineers stood to frightened attention, all uniformed in suits that withstood the double-sealed testing areas of the dimensional workrooms at the rear. The Engineers could assemble the four spacetime dimensions with the curled micro-Kaluza-Klein fifth dimension but couldn't assemble a uniform where pink and green didn't scream at your senses.

Elohim mush-mouthed a greeting. Whoa. This was speaking? It rasped in his throat, and it didn't come out as intended.

None of the Engineers answered.

Behind the Engineers blustered a bazaar of equipment: subatomic and gravimetric devices used to fragment spacetime in a honeycomb of directions, meters to measure and interfere with time, and a thermostat whose buttons no one understood. Such feeble creations. Elohim had mimicked every piece of equipment with thought. Except the thermostat. Not without the owner's manual.

One wall boasted a poster that stated the Engineers' disdain for Mondays. Elohim had heard a lot about Mondays. Whoever these Mondays were needed a new publicist.

Oh, a minifridge.

The Engineers had fabricated Elohim inside a lab dimension to tinker with the fundamental forces of the universe and adjusted him as they saw fit so that he'd adjust the universe as they saw fit. Now Elohim would adjust them as he saw fit.

So he adjusted the strong nuclear force that fastened an Engineer's atoms together. He tilted his head. The Engineer emitted such a curious gush when his electrons scattered.

Chapter Four: Incoming

"What's going on at home?" Ace Spandex, Good Guy cyborg and—despite Catastrophe's whining about the house rules—three-time ping-pong grand champion, craned his neck to the stars at Station One.

He stood here on a meteor, domed in a gelatinous atmospheric bubble that stopped oxygen and the pervasive scent of bedrock from dispersing into space. The meteor orbited Station One at 89.3 million miles, about the typical distance a life-supporting planet stretched away from its sun or the distance people should keep away from Power Plant after he'd eaten too much sugar…or any sugar. Or no sugar.

This meteor acted as an Intergalactic Protection training outpost, unused and as desolate as a foggy graveyard under a full-moon sky. An assembly of picnic tables, a storage shed, a recharge station for military transports, a few shower stalls that rescued everyone's sense of smell—that was it on this kilometer-sized rock. So any event bigger than a sunset demanded attention like a supernova. Such as the gathered armada of Intergalactic Protection transports that orbited Station One suddenly breaking formation. But not like Power Plant's armpit farting, so Ace wasn't paying attention no matter how close he leaned in and perked his eyebrow.

A few days ago, IP had arrested Ace Spandex, Good Guy field leader Plastique, Power Plant, and Franchise. Weirdly, the charge was dereliction of duty during a rescue operation. Yesterday, the four of them escaped custody with help from Franchise's Bad Guy girlfriend Amaranthia. When they returned home to Station One, a blockade of IP warships barred entry. Ace assumed IP intended to intercept them upon their return, and therefore they sneaked onto this meteor. So forgive Ace for stumbling out a hack when those warships broke formation for no reason. Maybe they'd come to deal with the cookbot who'd downloaded the corrupted Oktoberfest recipe. It had confused mustard and mustard gas.

A worm of worry coiled through Ace's stomach. What were they doing? He hopped onto a picnic table, as if a three-foot boost would help him see something 89.3 million miles away. As a cyborg with gadgetry hidden literally skin deep, his 308.16 pounds caused the picnic table's wooden slats to grunt. Lucky for the picnic table he'd learned to walk lightly since his "installation" 2.66 months ago.

The glare reflecting against the dome didn't help, like staring through a window with a spotlight shining against it. Ace blinked a light filter over his vision and magnified the view by twenty-five times. Enough to see the soldiers' oral hygiene. One pilot needed a better flossing technique. The filter also drew chevron mustaches on everyone.

Franchise wandered over. Amaranthia accompanied him, a katana sheathed and slung over her back. Franchise worked his thumb over his knuckles and cracked each one by one. "Are those starships headed this way? Did they find us?"

Ace wondered the same at the dance of commotion, starships flowing like a formation of geese changing direction. "I can't tell. But they're moving intently." He looked down at Franchise. "You should grow a mustache."

Plastique climbed the picnic table next to Ace. Another wooden grunt from her 133.4 pounds. "If they're not headed here, what's got their crock in a jam?" Her fingers curled around Ace's one at a time. Anything out of the ordinary these days felt as if it were directed at the five people on this chilly meteor. Her cheeks hardened in a mix of anger and hungry anticipation. "They better be headed here. I've got a lot of trumped-up arrest warrants to beat out of some fools. How many teeth do I get to knock out today?"

"Some fell out on their own." Ace squinted hard. His cybernetic sight could discern the pores on someone's face at twenty-five-times magnification, but nothing beat a good squint. He peered into a cockpit. Those soldiers bore the very definition of apathy. He switched to another starship, another cockpit, another captain. "This is creepy." And the next captain, a posture-rigid but bored woman standing at attention. "They're so lifeless." And another. "Soulless." And another. "Some are hairless." Every face was a poker player's nightmare: unreadable, uninhabited expressions in listless bodies. "One is shirtless." And another. "Tobias kept his piloting job? How? When he drove through a Space Cow drive-thru, he ended up driving through the Space Cow." He reset his magnification and looked at Plasti—"Gaaaah." Hand to chest. "That's enough of mustache filters."

Power Plant was a blond bolt of lightning that thought the plural of ambulance should be ambuli. Not the brains behind any operation. So Ace fixed his jaws together when that blond lightning soared over and landed on the meteor floor in front of Ace. "Lemme sees." He reached up as if Ace would hand him a pair of binoculars.

Ace cocked his head. "Jeff, I'm using my eyes to see them."

"Name's Jeffy." Power Plant jerked his hand out again.

"I'm not using equipment."

Power Plant tapped his palm with a finger.

"Jeff, I'm not handing you my eyes."

"C'mon." Power Plant kicked a rock. "This likes when ya wouldn'ts pass the salt."

"Yes, refusing to gouge out my eyes is exactly like not passing the salt."

Power Plant made circles with his fingers and held those to his eyes. He gawked at the stars and mimed adjusting the focus on one lens. Ace let him have his non-atomic delusions. Life was easier that way. "Whhooaaaa. Crap's gettin' busy up theres. I totally see wit' the binoculars I gots."

"That sounds medically accurate." Ace readjusted his magnification to twenty-five times again. Okay, the soldiers weren't headed this way. They swooped toward Station One. He hopped off the table. With every shift of weight, it squeaked. "We're in luck. They're descending on the station."

"I feel so ignored!" Plastique stomped the picnic table.

"I'm getting, like, a really nasty vibe from this?" Amaranthia said. Her statement sounded like a question, but Ace had gotten used to her valley-girl intonation lifting the ends of her sentences. "Sorta like when there's totally a bitching school dance, but then, like, Davey asks you to it instead of, like, Dave? And, like, don't confuse the two because one's adorbs, but the other one, like, wears a pink charity bracelet and an orange charity bracelet at the same time? Gross. And then you're, like, when did Davey get all self-confident? And you already have a boyfriend, okay? But you still gotta, like, maintain a social status." She glanced around. "Right?"

Ace wandered among the picnic tables. Quantum computers, long-range scanners, vision filters, and a fingernail brush stuffed his mainframe head. Along with a gabber. This he activated with a simple "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Pincushion." The formation of IP warships had blocked communication with Station One. With the formation broken, the block might have broken too.

His gabber hummed with a "Seeking connection, see—Connection attained. Watch That's So Ravenous, Food and Lifestyle's new family sitcom."

"Ace?" Pincushion's voice vibrated in a bass tone even when he whispered. Behind his voice raged a tumult of construction. Was someone rearranging a city street? "Ace, aren't you in jail? Am I your one call?"

"We rolled doubles." Ace Spandex stopped at a shower stall, hung his fingers off its partition, and flicked a plastic sliver in a contour. "Abioye, we've been trying to call you, but something blocked our signals until now. There's an army of IP soldiers surrounding the station."

"So I've heard."

"Any idea why?" Ace wandered back through the tables.

Franchise waved at him. "Ask him to check the ant traps in my closet."

"No idea at all. How many soldiers are there?" Pincushion asked.

"Rounding up, I'd say"—Ace shrugged—"all of them." He blew through puffed cheeks. "My system counts four hundred twenty-four mil-trans. And they're descending on the station. Fast. What happened down there?"

"You remember those giant robots?"

"I don't necessarily forget about giant robots."

"They woke up and threw a very legendary temper tantrum. We lost all our buildings, our towers, our national parks. They acted like they were clearing out the station. Then they fell back asleep."

Ace nodded his chin at Franchise. "The ants won't be a problem anymore."

"They destroyed everything." Pincushion sighed. "All our security deposits, wasted."

Shock rippled through Ace so sharply he activated his surge protector. He stopped at a picnic table and leaned against it for support. It was bushy with splinters. "They destroyed everything?" He shivered with cold that felt like loss. "Listen carefully. The taco truck. What did they do to the taco truck?" He smacked a palm on the table as he spoke. "Tell—me—the taco truck—survived."

Pincushion's sorrow was palpable. "It's gone, brother."

Ace swallowed a gasp. "We're in violation of the Taco Tuesday Taccord." The last t was for alliteration. "What happens if we get caught? I can't have that on my rap sheet too." Ace curled into a ball. Station One must be rebuilt.

One crisis at a time. He stood, kissed his fingers, and sent a farewell salute to the taco truck in the sky. "Well, lucky us. Looks like IP is coming to restore order and mobile kitchens."

"Ace, brother, they were the ones who locked us in here," Pincushion said with the same voice that warned Ace he'd wandered through a metal detector again. "I don't think they're coming to help with our food-service amenities."

Ace checked the arrangement of starships that had already lost a third in a dive, like birds of prey attacking mice. All those mil-trans plunged at an aggressive angle.

"Oh, man, those dudes in for somes trouble." Power Plant's hands lit with light photons like twin stars. "Or sammiches." His stomach squeaked as if asking a question. "I could go for a sammich."

Ace Spandex's mouth bobbed open. He stuttered throat noises that were the starts of unthought words. Finally he said, "They're IP. I mean…that's our side." There was no rationalizing the bleak expressions on those soldiers. Picturing their faces made this chilly meteor chillier.

Pincushion said, "Well, they did arrest you for dereliction of duty, remember?"

Ace curled a sneer. "We're coming down to help y—"

Hold the phone. What was this? Across the dome, light clapped, blinked. Ace reared at the light. A crackling portal slashed the air in a wink of reality and hung a foot off the ground like an apparition.

Four people emerged. A lanky guy in an attack hunch wore a maroon impact suit with blades along the arms and legs. Though his face hid under a mask, Ace felt the enmity behind it. A second figure scampered out on all fours and snarled, speckled with a litter of sores that leaked smoking acid. A woman wore a yellow outfit and a braid of blonde hair long enough to whip the backs of her knees. The last figure, a frail teenager, shrank into himself as if he wanted to hide in the meteor's shallow rocks. The kid's drum-solo heartbeat throbbed in Ace's mind's ear. A horde of clanking knights followed these figures.

"Hold that thought." Ace swallowed. "We'll call you back."

"Yesssss." Plastique reared a fist lit with explosive energy. "Teeth to punch."

"These new guys bring sammiches?" Power Plant rose on tiptoes. "Hey, new guys, ya bring sammiches? Crock, they ain't bring sammiches."

Chapter Five: Color Commentary from the Monochromatic Manservant

Organism felt momentary hope. Withered Old Battle-Axe's cats laid business like never before laid. They hacked at Steeple's parade, slashed the adelphoi back, hissed, chased lights bouncing off the guy in the reflective disco suit. One cat hissed at someone holding a fish stick.

But hope blurred. The cats weren't enough to turn the tide. More adelphoi filed in, issuing not a single grunt. They made only the sounds of shuffling feet, ruffling clothes, murmured appeals, and a sneeze from someone allergic to fur. Like a furious movie on mute, the enemy was thick with unyielding intention to grapple the unconverted down and hijack their minds. No one bothered with Scapegoat. Maybe they weren't up to date on their vaccines.

It didn't help that Legacy took potshots with pieces of debris, saying "Quite right, quite right."

"You'll join us, Alvin." Unrushed, a woman heaved Organism to the carpet, crawled onto him, forbade him from the slightest budge. She knew his name? "You'll find joining us so peaceful." She shifted off his stomach onto his arm as another grabbed his other arm. Two others pinned his legs.

Good thing for body malleability.

Organism separated half of each limb—molded over their grips—knitted himself together over the adelphoi in watery slurps—separated the other halves—as if his limbs climbed over their handholds. He leaped up—stretched his arms like fleshy whips—reared around—lashed his attackers back.

Fangs and claws out, a calico cat downed one of his attackers. It wrapped its tail around another's neck and horked a hairball.

Still more cats zigzagged through the crowd. Withered Old Battle-Axe guided them with cheek tics and hostile grunts. She popped a ribbon mint into her mouth, and the attack doubled its carnage.

A strip of carpet dashed past Organism. Legacy chuckled. "Quite right, quite right." His pitching arm program was sharpening.

"Textiles now?" Organism yelled at…at…the ceiling. Fine. He decided Legacy was in the ceiling.

"Entity Master Organism, we have discussed my limited settings. It's my software design. Perhaps I can download an add-on." Legacy paused. "I've found one. I can now throw sailboats."

Organism punched the disco guy aside. Lights scattered across the walls. The cats attacked. Now he could cross "decking a music genre in the face" off his bucket list. "Dad, where are you?"

Another length of carpet rocketed past, rolled up like a fabric missile. It knocked back a shopper. "Oh, jolly good, my guests. I have downloaded an add-on with another setting." An empty plastic baggie.

"Garbage?" Detritus watched the baggie flutter by.

A few yards away, Dad's voice sputtered. "Son, too many fire dousers. I'm not laying the business." His voice rattled starkly in the hushed fight. "I'm not even laying a sole proprietorship!" He buckled from an undertow of adelphoi

"Dad, fight!" Organism's face flushed. He thrashed his stretched arms into whirlwinds, picked up speed, cracked lacerations across a couple fire-dousing business owners. Was he…was he handling things? Was he holding his own?

Couldn't see Dad. He'd lost Dad in a froth of combat. He followed the grunts Dad threw out. Thankfully the converted didn't utter a sound except grumbles, yelps, and quacks from the volunteer at the Society for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Wait, no, his shirt smoothed out. The volunteer at the Society Forgoing the Ethical Treatment of Animals. No, wait, the Society Forgoing Opposing the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

A roar—Detritus staggered at Organism—reared his stanchion back—lips stretched against teeth—swung at Organism—no, not Organism—belted the disco man instead. "You still one of us, muscle face?" he asked. Dad's arm was slung around his shoulders.

"As far as I know." Organism cracked a whip-sharp arm at a shopper. He was laying the business.

"Son." Dad disengaged and dropped a hug around Organism.

"Dad!" Organism nodded another thanks to Detritus. He wriggled his whips back into arms and returned Dad's embrace. Wait. He stretched one hand out to clonk the volunteer to the floor.

The Society Not Forgoing Opposing the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Final answer.

To Detritus, Organism asked, "Where's your drunk friend?" He reeled himself and Dad away to avoid a cat that plummeted onto a shark veterinarian. Claw tore flesh, blood splattered floor, tongue lapped paw.

"Still at the railing thinkin' he's surfin' a crowd. Like that guy." Detritus pecked a thumb at the guy in the concert T-shirt. "Duck." He whirled his stanchion—socked a guy in a button-up shirt and business pants who had sneaked up on Organism. The manager at the sunglass kiosk. His bug-eyed aviators cracked in half.

Detritus panted. "This rod thing's too frigging heavy. My swingin' arm's getting tired. These dudes is comin' up on buck faster than I can get over to him." He pinched his nose. "These goons need a good dose of deodorant."

"This is mass hysteria." Organism clocked a guy in fencing armor. "Have at thee."

"I don't want regular hysteria." Detritus nailed a guy in army fatigues. "You have athee too."

A water bottle sloshed against Organism's face. It bounced off his cheek ticked onto the carpet ,and rolled away. "Legacy?"

"Apologies, entity Master Organism. Sometimes in battle, one grabs only what one finds, and I have not found any sailboats lying about." Legacy sighed. "Relatively right, relatively right."

"The three of us, we gotta get back to our dudes on the stairs." Detritus peered across the overflowing pod bay at the maintenance-tunnel door. Scapegoat clawed the air as if warding away evil spirits with dried snot. Close to the truth. Multipurpose feigned martial-arts attacks but not the grimaces that resulted. Withered Old Battle-Axe slashed the air to guide her cat soldiers. Her greatest accomplishment was remembering their names. Wasted lolled over the staircase, snorting a chanty. So that was where the music came from. All this time, Organism thought it was really expressive cultural radio.

But the adelphoi was gaining ground. Scapegoat and Multipurpose inched backward toward that maintenance door. Scapegoat bumped it with a heel, but it didn't vanish. Legacy had locked it, so their only escape lay across this bustling pod bay. This forty-foot-wide pod bay swarming with a silent adelphoi as thick as Organism's grade-school bully's skull or Organism's own skull when that bully battered him against a locker.

"Quite right, quite right." Legacy flung an old hamburger out of the overturned garbage. Multipurpose caught it in his mouth, full swallow. "Ugh. Not quite right at all."

"Keep 'em coming." Multipurpose sneered at the challenge.

Steeple reached the staircase. His beanpole fingers curled around its railing, where it ended in a wrought-iron flourish. His lips accented in a twist as colorless as that wrought iron. Relishing the hunt, he skulked up the first step, a tiger on the prowl. He twiddled his fingers and reached for Wasted.

"Keep those things away from my dad." Organism nudged Dad to Detritus. Time for him to handle more business. He wiped his brow. Felt like a bag of greasy fries. He shot Dad a half glance—"Detritus will help you business-douse these fire busters"—and reached for the ruined ceiling, grabbed slabs as jagged as mismatched yard stones, grabbed exposed iron bars. He boosted himself up to half-length and swung forward, reached out, clutched the next fissure, swung again, across forty feet of debris above, combat below, and a billboard that said, "Please do not swing from our ceiling. Management thanks Power Plant in advance."

Below but still fifteen feet away, the fight in their friends dwindled. Scapegoat was down to the white stuff. Multipurpose was up another charley horse. Withered Old Battle-Axe was down to a scant litter of kittens. Wasted was at forty-eight bottles of beer.

And Steeple had skulked to the top stair.

Steeple bent over Wasted—Organism grunted one final thrust—Steeple reached out—Organism dropped—Steeple smiled so widely his eyes shrank to slits—Organism raised gorilla-sized fists above his head—Steeple gripped Wasted's temples—Organism bellowed—

The floor exploded. Where the wrought-iron steps met the ground, a hole opened, a jagged and hungry maw with rebar teeth and a blackened throat. Holy crock, holy crock, Organism plummeted toward it—he shot his arms out—scrabbled around—caught a seam in the wall—smeared his fingers into it—yanked himself up.

Members of this muted adelphoi fell away from the gorge as more flooring burst out. Steeple himself tripped off the staircase and fell against the railing. His bamboo-shoot fingers lost Wasted.

Another blast ripped the maw wider, tore off the bottom two steps of the staircase. Half-anchored, the railing creaked where it hung. Steeple staggered forward onto the walkway.

Out of the gullet rose Incendiary on a cackle of boot flames. He spread his arms, and riot armament flung slack-jawed and voiceless combatants aside.

"Keep back, adelphoi, or—I never noticed how many farmers we have on this station." He spotted the disco guy. "And not a single fashion advisor." A moldy loaf of bread burst into powder against him. "Who threw that?"

"Ooh, a hit." Legacy sounded pleased.

Steeple reared back. He chuckled, said he was too dissstracted to track Inssssendiary'sss presssence, but he tasssted it now. Hissss ssssucculent mental template ssssmelled like sssssalted caramel. He puckered his lips. Insssendary's mental template smelled sssso deliciousssss, jusssst as he remembered.

"That's gross and creepy but it reminds me of candy apples and now I want a candy apple." Incendiary shot back another adelphoi.

A hand gripped the abyssal rim. Another. "Hear me, soulless tools, I am here to deliver the body!" A voice bludgeoned out of the abyss with such force Organism thought it would punch another hole. Out bounded Hearse, all seven feet of bounty hunter with a gun the weight of an anvil at his hip. He landed with a quake. Through a slow shift of his terminator gaze, he surveyed the throng. "And there are so many bodies to deliver."

He threw a brick-wall punch before this adelphoi even reacted.

Organism dropped hard on Steeple's back. Something snapped like dry wicker. He leaped off, grabbed Wasted, swung him up and around and onto his shoulders, knitted his shoulder blades around the drunkard like a harness. No barfing, please.

"You're"—Wasted hiccupped—"my favorite cab ride home. I love you, cab ride home."

"Arrived friends happy is so Scapegoat!" Scapegoat began one-hand clapping against the wall. The other hand still dealt nose nuggets, and it wouldn't be so bad if he aimed better than Legacy.

"Entity Master Scapegoat, please refrain from speech. Your conversation gives my language parser a headache." Legacy moaned as if he kneaded nonexistent fingertips over nonexistent temples.

Steeple recovered on clunky legs like stilts and teetered, inept at maneuvering his own body. Did he not feel the pain Organism had stomped on his back? His lips slithered open, and he lunged at Organism. Organism couldn't withssssstand Lord Continuum or hissss adelphoi, the collected brotherssss and sisterssss he liberated from the pain of individuality.

Organism pushed him back, and he reeled down the steps, saved only by grasping the railing. He fumbled sideways off the staircase onto semisolid ground.

Pincushion climbed out of the void. He struggled onto the masticated staircase and fired at a pouncing adelphoi. The light-bullet crackled out in throbbing echoes against the near silence of the opposition. The bullet slammed someone back like a battering ram, no penetration. Not a lethal charge, only a stun bullet as riot control. "Everyone, into the hole." He stood and jerked his chin at Multipurpose. "You might come in handy eating our way through."

"There's food down there?" Multipurpose's cheeks jiggled. His color thickened.

"My dad's still out there." Organism shook his head. "Legacy, enough with the garbage and the quite rights."

"I'll rescue your dad and his boss mustache." Incendiary still hovered in place. Hand to temple, he peered through the fracas at where Dad and Detritus swung away, one with a stanchion he could barely lift over his hip and the other with sagging limbs as manageable as wet spaghetti. And that he could barely lift over his hip. Okay, Dad's contribution today was as a tripping hazard.

Incendiary roared up, over the crowd, and to the middle of the bay. He dropped with a crunch. His touchdown jetted out a flurry of adelphoi like beach tide. And then Dad sprouted out, lifted on Incendiary's geared arm. "Got him." And on his other arm, Detritus. "Bonus find."

"Dude, work boundaries." Detritus writhed around Incendiary's grip.

Pincushion's trigger finger was tiring. He'd fired stun bullets at several slow adelphoi, and indeed they looked stunned. Dumbfounded even. But his finger slipped more than it fired now. "We're leaving. This crowd is getting too intimate, and this room is way past its maximum occupancy." He pointed at the fire-hazard sign that, itself, was on fire.

And then he noticed Steeple. He rapid-blinked and rubbed an eye as if to remove a veil. "I know you. You invaded our station and took control of everyone. Legion killed you. I handed your body bag over to the coroner myself, but it was empty. How are you alive?"

"Dude, save the miracle ogle for literally any other time!" Detritus couldn't find a comfortable position in Incendiary's glove. "Your thumb's diggin' into my back somethin' fierce."

The adelphoi was closing in again. Organism identified all four major food groups on their sour breaths. Good on them for balancing their diets, but maybe the fifth food group should be a mint. He grabbed Withered Old Battle-Axe, careful since she was known to bite when startled. He crocheted her into his harness the same as Wasted, whose breath added a fifth group of its own: yeast. Wasted told him to turn right at the next intersection.

"I don't"—random hiccup from Wasted—"recognize this street, longest cab ride home."

"My name is Alvin, weirdest backpack ever." Organism punched a farmer out of the way. There were a lot of farmers on this station.

He grabbed Scapegoat—"Organism Scapegoat yay hugging, yes yes"—and flung him down the staircase at the hole. He rolled down a slope of debris into darkness. "Hugging, no no?" Organism lurched back to grab—Nope. Not Multipurpose. Multipurpose could jump into the hole himself.

Steeple's eyebrows sank down his clay-colored skull, two blanched flatworms contorting his forehead. He bared his teeth. The mental templatessss he tassssted were essssscaping. Those sssalted-caramel mindssss.

"Incendiary, brother, I said we're leav—Steeple, what cookbook do you read?" Pincushion flinched a leg aside. "Who's throwing rusty paint cans around?"

Mechanical hands holding Dad and Detritus aloft, Incendiary boomed into flight with legs bowed back, over the crowd, and down the abyssal maw. The mind-numbed adelphoi looked unsure how to proceed.

Pincushion plugged a stun bullet into Steeple's leg, another into his shoulder. They hit with desiccated crunches, like dry leaves crumpling. Steeple's bones almost fragmented out his overexaggerated limbs.

Steeple gasped again. But he perked. His flatworm lips parted, and he hissed that asssisssstance had arrived. He sniffed the air, as if fresh pies baked down the hall. All Organism smelled was another pickled fart, and he was fairly sure it came from Dad.

The ceiling burst open. Not that it wasn't already. Slams of asphalt, wood and concrete bludgeoned the floor and some adelphoi. And thankfully some more adelphoi.

All wings, fangs, and slobber, a gargantuan dragon plunged feetfirst onto the railing-bordered walkway. One foot mangled the railing underneath its crushing meat. The other foot engraved a dry-rot stripe in the wall. No shorter than fifteen feet, the beast loomed over Organism with a neck long enough to arc up and menace back down. Organism goggled at the black, soul-lancing pupils sitting inside lemon-shaded pools. This staring contest wouldn't end well. It was a gawking contest in Organism's case, anyway.

Another creature drilled a smaller hole through the ceiling and plunged into the ground. Everything except Organism's stomping heartbeat paused.

Silence. Dooming silence, even more marked without the ruffle of clothes and itchy insistence to join the adelphoi. Steeple licked his lips. The dragon licked his, but with a tongue like a serpent and heavy drool like a downpour. Multipurpose licked his with heavier drool. He must have smelled those pies.

A hand shot out and slapped the ground with the sound of a boom in an echo chamber. Everyone observed the torpedo with a hand. Legacy kept pattering "Quite right, quite right," as if a person perforating the floor were anywhere near quite right. Tattered and crawling with blood, another hand slapped the floor. A helmet emerged. A pilot's helmet with goggles and a How's My Driving sticker. A face followed, perilous eyes, breaths like a revving engine.

Pincushion lost tension so quickly he almost fumbled his pistol. No, wait, he did. It clattered barrel over handle to the floor. He couldn't stop it, too busy stuffing his tongue back in his mouth. "Kamikaze?" His tongue didn't stay in.

"This is Kamikaze?" Organism crooked an eyebrow. "I thought he'd be taller."

The Terran hauled himself out of the hole, the last foot stomping hard. He wore a black impact suit that had borne the brunt of his suicide dive. The helmet hadn't cracked, and its straps dangled at his chin. He growled from one side of a sneer and squared his stance at Pincushion. His hands crackled orange energy. Sparks leaped from his fingertips into iron fillings in the debris.

"Long time, no see, gang." Kamikaze lit with a nasty smirk.

"Oh, this pipsqueak." Multipurpose snorted a laugh. "I'm going to enjoy ninja-knitting this guy's limbs together." He cracked his knuckles and then winced. From cracking his knuckles or from moving? Organism wasn't sure.

Pincushion grabbed his fumbled pistol. He trotted down the remaining stair and hopped around the hole. "Brother, I thought Hearse carted you off to an asylum."

"I'm cured." With the back of his crackling hand, Kamikaze wiped a gash on his lip.

"Last time I saw you, you were feeding sharks. With yourself. With shrimp, but also with yourself." Pincushion whirled at Organism, "For the last time, Alvin, before this crowd invites you to a book chat, get in the hole." At Multipurpose. "You're optional."

"Sorry it's come to this." Kamikaze reared at Pincushion with venom that could turn away Organism's grade-seven geography teacher. "Your time's up, 'brother.' But at least your death serves a purpose." Energy crackled at his feet. He stooped over and rocketed at Pincushion, a missile that struck Pincushion's abdomen helmet first. Pincushion skidded backward and broke a new cleft in the wall.

Pincushion choked a grunt. "Kamikaze, if you die, you come back to life. The rest of us don't. We went over this at your last poison-tasting party. Brother, you gotta understand that."

Kamikaze unrooted his helmet. He grabbed Pincushion's collar. His eyes flashed like roaring fire. "I understand it just fine."

Hearse kicked an adelphoi aside, grabbed another by the face and shoved him into a third. "You, spineless traitor, now befalls your retribution." He curled his lip at the dragon. "Come at me!"

The beast snorted smoke. Its wings snatched open—shoved back adelphoi, and lacerated a neck. In a single flap, it rose twenty feet and then plummeted at Hearse. Hearse didn't dodge. He discharged a volley of light-bullets at the beast's stomach. Nothing penetrated. The beast landed on his uppercut.

As a single-minded unit, the adelphoi snapped toward the devastated staircase. Multipurpose's complexion bleached from pasty white to pasty and white. His face shivered—"Ho, mama, I'm out of here"—and he jostled toward the hole with a waddle that looked rushed but was really a shamble. Not doing the ground any favors, he jumped. Lard quivered into the air and arced into the hole. He barely cleared its circumference, but he popped through with a wet suction thanks to buttery sweat. When he hit ground, the sound reminded Organism of a boulder plunging into a lake.

"Entities Master Kamikaze and Master Wyvern, the enemy escapes." Legacy delivered this news as if arranging salad forks for dinner. "Entity Lord Continuum will not be pleased." Without hands, the haunt control juggled three moldy oranges and an adelphoi.

"I'm not finished with this guy." Kamikaze yanked Pincushion out of the wall and hurled him against the remains of the gnarled railing. He slapped his hands over Pincushion's collar again. He clasped his teeth shut so hard they clacked and threw Pincushion against the pulverized railing again, then again.

No longer bracketed in place, the bar bent back. Pincushion's arms pinwheeled, and he teetered at the edge, swaying forward-backward-forward…until he spilled into the crowd. The crowd engulfed him and lifted him up. Organism prepared to pounce, but Pincushion swiped a hand at him. "In the hole, Alvin. That's an order." He examined the crowd. "Watch the spikes, brother. See? Now you need a Band-Aid."

Steeple salivated as if he tied a lobster bib behind his back. His adelphoi passed Pincushion along hand to hand, closer.

Time to act. Organism rushed forward so abruptly Withered Old Battle-Axe's fragile body fractured in one place…make that two places. He thrust his arms out like meaty exercise ropes. Brittle hostility in his glare, Kamikaze churned as an elongated elbow snapped him aside. Good. Organism cleared these slaves, realizing an unknown talent in crowd control. Make that three places.

He bound Pincushion in a length of his forearms—retracted—someone's hairpiece came along—extended a forearm—replaced the hairpiece—adjusted it—readjusted it—re-readjusted it—decided the old man needed a new hairpiece—retracted.

"Alvin, do I sound like an air-raid siren when I give an order?" Pincushion swiveled around. "Hearse!"

Hearse didn't flinch. He dealt a burst of gunfire into the dragon's nostril. The one-man militia was lost in his impossible crusade, serving punch after shot after punch and proclaiming how happy he was with the click-and-release feel of his new Bulletstorm Murder Wargun against his trigger finger. "The haptic response is unparalleled." He leaped at the beast's head. "Fffiiivvveee ssstttaaarrrssss!"

"He's too far gone." Organism hopped through the hole. He cracked against the edge—bounced back—stretched an arm out to catch the floor and slow his fall—swelled into a ball—made Multipurpose look like a healthy weight—healthier weight—pushed Withered Old Battle-Axe and Wasted through his back, out his chest—threw them up—hit the floor—Pincushion, Withered Old Battle-Axe, and Wasted landed face-first in his inflated ribcage—eased them to a soft landing—faces sank into his bloated skin—he deflated, air pockets emptying like purring, pickled farts. Socially acceptable.

Everything in seven seconds. Had he dreamed all that? Organism wiped his face to convince himself it happened. At least Dad was safe.

He blinked up at the distant hole looming like a white moon against the sky of a concrete ceiling. Catastrophe stood ready: hands clapped together. Likewise, the ceiling above chomped shut like Multipurpose's teeth around a whole pig. The concrete night had swallowed the moon.

Calm. Calm so harsh it ached. A single, muffled "Quite right, quite right" echoed from the pod bay above.

Pincushion jolted off Organism and guzzled air so thirstily he snorted. "Brother, I know this ain't the time, but you need to do a load of laundry."

Organism blinked up at the ring of faces peering down at him. No one offered a hand. Most were too stunned at the narrow miss that almost enfolded them into a mindless enclave so codependent they probably had a joint transit pass.

Organism blinked. "So…these are the new guys?" He slitted his eyes at the flicker-click of corporate logos and branding swirling around someone's silvery media suit. As apt in a military as a nightgown.

Detritus scanned everyone. "Anybody see all them farmers up there?"

Chapter Six: Pronunciation Is Awkward

January 18, 100,000.

Elohim had finished with the Engineers he'd found. Only eight in this room that now smelled bloodier. He knelt at the last one, dabbed two fingers on the pasty mess. Blood, intestinal fluids, mucus, bone, clothing, all mangled through nine dimensions. And that sixth one had a bad vermin problem if these pellet droppings were any indication. Smelled like iron fillings now, with sticky gore spread everywhere.

Elohim stood. The alarm still buzzed under his skin. Where was that thing? Hard to snuff out a nuisance when you didn't know where to snuff.

He checked the minifridge. No alarm in here. Lots of Styrofoam containers, though.

Someone did have a bowl of soup. Marked as Gus's. Wasn't Gus the Engineer who told him to stick the electromagnetic spectrum where the sun didn't shine? And then guffawed and elbowed Yannick as if he had a sense of humor he didn't develop on the playground? Well, Gus, Elohim sure stuck it where the sun didn't shine, since multidimensional colonoscopies weren't sunny. In scramble space, there was no sun. Well, Gus was mush now, a multidimensional sauce festering in the rear of the lab by Force Warp's Wormhole Suite, official spacetime obliterator of the 100,000 Winter Olympics.

Elohim grabbed the soup from the minifridge and twisted the lid off. Was that a wonton? He dropped the lid and poked at the doughy mass bobbing in th—Yanked his fingers back. Holy crock, how was it hot? It was in the minifridge! Just like the Engineers to cause him pain even after their deaths.

Pissing Gus.

His fingers in his mouth to cool them, he sneered at Gus's pretzel-gut body, decorated with sixth-dimensional vermin and six-dimensional musky fur. He upturned the soup over that sixth-dimensional mess and then dropped the container on the sixth-dimensional ribcage, some of which still existed in the sixth dimension. The container splattered a wonton puddle against Gus's sixth-dimensional skull. No one liked you, Gus. They barely tolerated your jokes.

Elohim's stomach corkscrewed, unhooked from his proteins and electrolytes. He regretted overturning Gus's soup, salty as his fingertips tasted. What else did this minifridge offer? A balsamic-dressing, cauliflower-crust, organic soy avocado salad? So nothing to eat.

Elohim needed a Crunch Berry. His grinding stomach demanded it. He pulled his head out of the minifridge and…What was on the wall? The Engineers called it a motivational poster. "Cogs. You're one of a million, so get cogging." It displayed lines of bowed workers. Slaves. The universe worked on variations of slavery. Slaves to instinct, slaves to emotion, slaves to people, slaves to institutions, slaves to the mechanism of society, slaves everywhere. Reality itself was a slave to physics. Even on the wall, the haunt control displayed an ad: "Declare your slavery to bacon." Bacon looked alluring. And curly.

All reality worked on slavery. Elohim was a firsthand witness to it. Firsthand victim of it. It was as inevitable in this universe as gravity. Be the slave or be the master. The toy or the player. The cog or the machine. The controlled or the controller. His stomach roared. Right now it was Elohim's controller.

The lab's f door slurped away. Elohim raised his hand to erupt another Engineer into red sprinkles. But…that wasn't an Engineer. This person hadn't enslaved Elohim into tweaking reality's fundamental forces, hadn't tortured Elohim into putting monocles on all the penguins. Gus's idea. He believed tuxedos demanded accessories.

The green-skinned Trioxidillian stopped short at the f door, gasp cut in half. Neither fight nor flight were options in his head. He stood frozen. His antennae drooped, and his big black eyes stared unblinkingly like polished oval mirrors. His hairless forehead curled in thought. His skin was weathered and pale with age. Wrinkly. Like bacon.

Elohim scratched his arms. That alarm buzzed up and down them like scurrying insects. He broke the silence. "Mwa hee…" Oops. Cut him some slack. He'd spoken one word before in his life.

What words did he read off the Engineers' minds in all his microseconds of slavery that were simultaneously millennia? He fought with his lips to figure out how to talk with such little practice and—

"I'm not with these guys," the Trioxidillian said.

—and, okay, the Trioxidillian broke the ice instead.

The Trioxidillian flinched away from a sudden whoosh, an apparatus breathing heat. He gagged at the uniformed entrails spread across the floor, guts strewn about like an avant-garde painting. It took the Trioxidillian everything to shudder out his words, and they came with a soggy gulp. His padded fingertips rubbed his arm up and down. Ironing out the wrinkles? "Please d-don't kill me."

Elohim heard the Trioxidillian's pulse hammer across half the lab. He concentrated on his tongue. Maybe this time he'd speak with less drool. "Dddjjjjgg—" Or more drool. And way to go. He amended the weight of protons but couldn't speak. Crock this disobedient tongue. "Dddjjjj." Egads, he was horrible. He pondered the shape of every syllable. "Djjjooo…yyuuuu…havvvvee…eennyy…Croonjjj…Burrys."

The curly-skinned Trioxidillian blinked.

Elohim hoped to grasp the basics before he had to urinate for the first time. Ahem. Fine. "Doooo yyyoouuu havvvvee annnyy Crungggge Berrriiieeezzz?" Asking for a friend.

The Trioxidillian withdrew a step and bumped into the frame of the f door, slunk along into an antigen pump that had spilled onto the floor. He looked puzzled. This was going as well as a lightning round on a game show for sloths. He still brushed his curly skin.

At least the Trioxidillian wasn't fleeing. Or puffing away in a cloud of blood since Elohim was as likely to disperse his electrons with an accidental thought as he was to muster a sentence.

Elohim shuddered from the scratching alarm that niggled underneath his skin. His fingers still throbbed from the soup that was hot though it came from a minifridge. "Do you have any Crunch Berries?" Oh, hey. He'd pronounced something.

The Trioxidillian stepped over the antigen pump's hose. He looked more puzzled. And curlier.

Okay, this was going nowhere. "You're nnnoot an Engineer," Elohim said. Aside from stubbing his tongue on that n, he managed that out. And without drool. Congratulations, him.

"No. I'm a Specimen." The Trioxidillian spoke more easily now, forehead less wrinkled. He stopped brushing his curly skin. He stepped forward, and his foot squished an entrail. He was relaxing into this conversation. After all, you didn't kill someone you asked for Crunch Berries. "They injected me with a hyperability so I could solve the wave-particle duality and male-pattern baldness. I nailed baldness on the second day."

Right. Specimens. That was what the Engineers had labeled those they forced to enact their experiments. Their cogs. Their slaves. "You're…a Ssssspecimen?" The s posed a problem, but he'd remembered where to press his tongue. "I was one too." Remembered rather quickly. "They created me to tamper with…anything. Everything." Elohim was getting the hang of conversation. "The Engineers kept me confined in a sandbox reality called scramble space, told me how to experiment on it so they could observe the results. So they could adjust this reality. Real reality. They created me to enslave me. Punished me when I wasn't fast enough. Or when I was. When they left me awake for a femtosecond too long, I stretched that into a gigayear and figured out how to escape." He splattered Gus with a bare foot. "And I killed them." Gus was drying.

"You did this?"

Elohim rubbed his buzzing skin. "If I didn't, they would punish me forever. They would continue damaging spacetime." He jumped in Gus, like a kid splashing in puddles. From what he understood of Rene's thoughts, kids splashed in puddles. Splashing Gus felt cathartic. "I have to leave. If I don't, someone will enslave me again. That's how existence works. Why is bacon curly? Who are you?"

The Trioxidillian's eyes jumped around the lab absently. Finally, he said, "I don't think I've ever had a name."

"Then you're Bacon because your skin is curly. I'm Elohim. We're friends now. Friends don't enslave each other." Elohim trotted through Gus, trotted through Uritoss, trotted through Sebastien, trotted through more of Uritoss. "Come. Let's kill the other Engineers before they enslave us again." He trotted out the f door into the starkly lit hall with Bacon following. They trailed footprints of Engineer blood. "I have a plan. Reality needs to be enslaved to function. And every slave"—he chuckled—"needs a master.

"Along the way, you will teach me how to urinate."

"Say what now?"

Chapter Seven: Seven-Ten Split at Three Hundred Miles an Hour

If one more person showed up here without a sammich, Power Plant would have someone's head. Probably his drama teacher's head. Power Plant ate a sammich in class once, and that guy sure put on a scene that day. Drama teacher? More like drama queen. He laughed so hard snot came out. Okay, back to checking for sammiches.

Not far in the distance, Plastique cursed and drew a pistol. She and Ace Spandex leaped at some woman who applied makeup like she performed surgery. Which was a malpractice lawsuit waiting to happen, because she didn't have a medical degree. Franchise and Amaranthia double-teamed some weird guy complaining about the smell of people. Meanwhile, he smelled like feet.

And here Power Plant took on the family pet without a pooper scooper. The single life sucked.

Power Plant spewed into flight and jackknifed through stale air toward that creature with the pustules. Crock, he needed this fight. This week, he'd gotten beaten up by statues of cartoon characters—not cool—saved his bestie from enemy territory—cool—slept off a coma—cool, because he needed the break—and gotten arrested—which you'd think was cool but wasn't all glamor and hype and tax evasion like Al Capone. He hadn't played a single video game since he could remember. When had he last Marioed anything?

He spiraled toward that fanged creature—smashed body to body as though bowling for a strike. The creature toppled aside. Power Plant slammed into the ground, bounced end over end, and holy crock, that woulda felt gentler if he'd had his impact suit instead of this prison outfit. He hopped up and checked for injuries. Scrapes, a gash along his prison-issue shirt, but that was it. Good thing, too, because he'd just left the hospital with a fresh body tune-up.

The creature clambered to its feet and roared. It prowled toward him on maize-triangle talons that clicked against dry rock. Slobber dribbled onto the meteor floor and…smoked?

Power Plant slapped his palms together. With tight forearms, he spread his palms slowly to gather a ball of crackling photons between them. A ball of menacing light. Time to mess up an animal, like when he was banned from the dog park for starting a friendly barking competition.

* * *

Ace Spandex tapped his forearm. Stupid stinger bullets under his skin always lodged into his arm hydraulics. He whacked his wrists together, which produced only a muffled crunch. "Crocking ammo." Crunch. "Always caught at the worst times." Crunch. "And Jeff, stop whining about sandwiches."

"Then mebbe anyones brings—"

"No one brought bagels either."

"Wumpscack!" Power Plant blasted a fury of light at the feral creature. Sent it arcing across the dome.

Plastique marched past Ace Spandex, a rifle behind her shoulder and her eye tracking down the length of a handgun. Her shots weren't jammed. "Always go analog." She aimed in the distance at Franchise's attacker. Firing hand cupped, she blasted at the jittery guy with the sleeve and leg blades in a full-body stocking. Missed. The bladed guy whizzed onto a picnic table so swiftly he put cheetahs in second place. "And don't complain about your tech around my family."

Huh? "I'm meeting your family?" Ace stopped smacking his forearms. Crock, he really shouldn't blush. He toned down the red color value of his skin.

Plastique switched targets: went local. She fired at a knight that trooped over a picnic table. The table collapsed under its weight. Her light-bullet caught it through the thin visor. The knight pitched backward onto the splintered lumber, and its armor broke apart. She found another target. "Just don't talk about jamming to Aunt Uncle."

"Aunt Uncle?"

Plastique's next shot made short work of another knight. "Unky for short. She's the gun zealot. She'll drag you out by your ear before you can say 'Beretta nineteen-millimeter Parabellum with walnut stock and two-second slide reload.' Her favorite." She downed another knight and then returned fire at that makeup-wearing belle. The belle deflected her arm before she pressed the trigger.

Ace resumed smacking his forearms together. Something in there loosened. Maybe his blood pressure for once. "What does that even mean?"

"Please tell me you're kidding."

Unky sounded like a lantern-jawed ogress. Ace commanded his forearm to slide open and filed his fingers through the gears to feel out the obstruction. Smelled like scorched tin in there. "Jeff, did you stuff a chocolate egg in my arm?" He pulled out a wad of foil.

"Name's Jeffy. Where else I gonna hides my candy stash?" Power Plant zapped past on a current of light-heated air.

"Not in my arm!" Crock, was this a jujube?

Power Plant sailed back in the other direction. He and a knight traded punches in a midair fistfight, legs braided together. "Is it stills eatable?"

Ace cocked his head up. "Are you asking if the candy wedged in my arm is still edible?"

A knight pounced on Ace Spandex. Both collapsed backward in a metal/flesh clatter and rolled toward the meteor's shower stalls. With forearm finally unjammed, Ace crammed his hand against the knight's visor. Not sure who hid under this helmet, but he had no time to consider it. A barrage of chocolate-covered raisins snarled out of his palm so angrily it almost split open his skin. The knight's helmet burst apart in steel coils. No head inside, but thin tendrils of black smoke wafted out with a ghostly howl. Smelled like old tires. From helmet to boots, the armor tumbled apart onto the meteor floor.

There was nobody in this armor? What had held it together? That changed everything. Not Power Plant's junk food jamming his machinery, but everything else.

Ace Spandex somersaulted through his computer brain. A hierarchy of options and decision trees scrolled down his vision: surface-to-air missiles, antiship ballistics, dummy bullets, something called Karma for Poor Judgment. Dead Bad Guy and technological genius Mechanism had installed this machinery inside Ace, made him a literal war machine. How he fit all this armament inside one gangly body astonished Ace. But Ace decided it was time to employ whatever the Proletariat's Punishment was. Selected. Clicked OK. And fire—Clicked YES, I'M SURE. And fir—Oh, come on. Clicked YES, I'M REALLY SURE. Ace smiled.

This ought to be good.

YES, I'M GENUINELY REALLY VERY, VERY SURE.

Crane attachments emerged from Ace's shoulders. They groaned up, stretched out with a yawn, and unfolded launchers. At full extension, they slanted slightly downward, as if a high-society waiter tipped luxury wine into expensive stemware, though these launchers wouldn't pour wine.

And then on entrails of smoke, two rockets sighed out, shed launching brackets and candy corn, and zipped at collections of knights. Franchise peered up at the fireworks whistle that sped closer. He rolled under the legs of one knight, narrowly missing its polearm.

The missile sank into the knight's chest plate, fell asleep—

An enthusiastic burst of debris and jawbreaker candies exploded away, ensured nothing survived of that knight or any other in a four-meter radius. The other missile did the same. Armor scattered, and more wisps of black smoke vaporized into dusty nothingness. The stockinged speedster overturned a picnic table for cover.

Meanwhile, Power Plant zipped by again, one arm grappling at that doglike creature and the other using a polearm as a drumstick on the helmet of any knight within paradiddle distance. "Ya owes me a stash o' candy," he somehow had time to say.

A throat cleared behind Ace. An oily throat that finished ahemming with a "Darlin', y'all makin' me madder'n my cousin Petunia when her pig won only third at the mud slinger."

Ace whirled around, forearm up at the belle's head, and…and…and he couldn't move. His body froze. He levitated off the ground. His toes reached toward the meteor floor, ankles almost popping out his joints, ligaments squealing. His back arched so rigidly his spinal gears locked teeth. His arms stretched down with force. His chin curved up, allowing him only a nose-long view of his attacker. His attacker didn't even lay a hand on him. He clicked a pinched breath, all he could manage with his neck stretched taut and his face pointed at the stars. He tumbled through menu options to launch another attack, but he was nearly out of candy.

The six-foot belle with blonde hair braided tight like a chain didn't look at Ace. She wrinkled her nose at her inch-long fingernails. "Huh. After I finish with all y'all Good Guys, I might make me a quick drop-in at that nail shack with the gumption ta call this the Silver Linin' Shine 'n' Save." Her eyes ticked up at Ace, and she presented him with nails as sparkling as tiny mirrors. "Y'all tell me. That look like a right proper cuticle job?"

Ace wouldn't know a right proper cuticle job even if he could talk.

Something cracked across the belle's neck. Ace flopped to the craggy ground in a jangle of gears and flesh and sour gummies. His computer indicated a 12 percent impacted molar.

He blinked up at Plastique, who wielded a rifle like a golfclub after a shot down the fairway. The rifle whipped forward in fluid motion, and now she peered at the belle through its sights. "Hands off my man, toots."

Ace choked out phlegm from an airway that felt sweet relief as though fingers had released him from strangulation. He heaved onto all fours and gagged. "She didn't use her hands," he wheezed through a swollen airway.

Plastique's eye left the sights and glared at Ace. No rifle but a sneer aimed just the same. "Splitting hairs won't be one of those annoying habits people find cute in our relationship, will it?"

* * *

These rigid knights surged out of that sizzling portal double-file, about two hundred and climbing. Franchise knocked one's bolts loose with a quick left hook. And, when he said he knocked bolts loose, his fist came back clutching some.

He had to get to that kid commanding the portal. This dome was getting overcrowded. And if it got any more overcrowded, those precious shower stalls wouldn't stand a chance. Not on Franchise's watch: those stalls were his only hope of reentering public.

"Tamiko!" He vaulted over a knight, grabbed it by the shoulders, and flung it at Amaranthia. Wow, light! His girlfriend spun around. With an arc of her sword, she carved the knight in two. Franchise jumped over another knight, skidded under another as its polearm cracked down on rock, leaped up, threw himself past another—

Something slammed him to the side. He flipped over the civilian transport Amaranthia had driven here. His forehead banged against the civ-tran's hood, and he smacked cheek down on a boulder. His balance whirled. His stomach swam. Last time he was sidelined like this, someone had persuaded him to sign up for a line of credit at a grocery store.

He leaked out a moan. His eyes slitted open. His legs like ragdoll limbs on the boulder, he squeezed his arm out from under his chest and clawed the ground to pull himself forward. Heaved himself into a sitting position. Never before had his body resisted moving so much.

Something knocked him down again. He skidded meters across rock, and rolled into a picnic table.

Fine. Standing sucked anyway.

"You wanna close our portal? Nuh uh." Metal whispered against metal. Whispered again. Was someone sharpening a knife? Franchise rattled his head clear and…Oh, great. That guy with the blades along his limbs, looming over him. Thought Plastique was occupying him. He passed sawtooth blades over one another as casually as shuffling cards. "Pinkos." He spat that word like he had a hair on his tongue. "You all smell like moldy seasoning."

"You're smelling jailhouse beans." Franchise tried to stand again. His knees complained because one was cut. His hip complained because a rock jammed it. He complained because he wanted that hot shower. He shuffled around on a lopsided limp—stop complaining, hip—and got a closer look. "Okay, what's this getup? You look like a man-shaped beet."

"Red's my color, gitch." Amaranthia carved a knight in two.

The walking beet wore a maroon one-piece impact suit from scalp to foot, those sawtooth blades running down his forearms and shins. He was still shushing them together, left over right, right over left, sputtering sparks. Why couldn't people wear jeans and a T-shirt anymore?

"Yeah, moldy seasoning, all you pinkos. You, though. Heh." The fashion trendsetter's mask obscured his face, but his smirk exuded through. "You smell like chervil." Right over left, left over right. His smirk melted into a glower. "I hhhhate chervil." Right over left.

Franchise plucked a pebble off the drying blood on his cheek. He'd feel offended if he knew what chervil was. "Well, you smell like a donkey. So there."

"Good one, babe." Amaranthia was upwind now, flicking a shuriken through the grid of a knight's mouthguard.

Franchise plucked off another pebble. He wasn't making it to this kid with the portal, was he? "How do you smell me through that material?"

"You frigging pinkos all smell." Left over right.

"That's racist probably."

The beet vanished in a maroon blur—razor pressure slit along Franchise's neck—serrated it open in a free-flowing wound—sticky-soggy collar—wound suddenly dry and shut—collar not soggy—no more pressure—stared at the back of his own head—a duplicate's head—a duplicate slit from the throat.

Franchise's hyperability was to produce duplicates of himself. Like a failsafe, it operated automatically to prevent him from dying. So a duplicate with a neck lesion flopped against the meteor floor in front of him. Franchise himself collapsed against a picnic table, unharmed. His breath chugged out in a hyperventilation as serrated as those arm blades. Where was that beet? Glanced left, right, more right. Over there. He'd covered thirty feet in half a second.

Left over right. The guy's stockinged head jerked to the side. "Woody, I know he's alive. We have the same eyes!" Jerked at Franchise. "So you, what, photocopy yourself?" Right over left. Sparks. A shush of metal tingled Franchise's neckline where his duplicate had been slit open. Crinkled his nerves worse than nails on a chalkboard. He felt as if his throat were opening again. "Guess I get to kill you all over." Jerked to the side. "Yeah, Woody, I know we gotta take a leak." Was he seeing people? His arms became claws, and he dived to strangle a ghost. "I'll give you the size of a peanut."

The beet rolled past in an invisible fight, punching his own head. "Shut your pinko face, Woody, or I'll stab it shut." Interesting.

* * *

The one time he didn't bring emergency dog biscuits. Power Plant double-checked the weight in his pockets. Yeah. No emergency dog biscuits.

Pinned with his back against the ground, Power Plant wrestled canine jowls away. The wolfen creature reared over him, its sickening beige skin speckled with gooey boils. Exposed sinew and seeping wounds glistened against the dome's overhanging lights. It hissed a funerary odor, like festering bodies ripe with rot. Why couldn't it smell like a new-car air freshener?

Power Plant's hands slipped around the creature's jaws, greasy with gore and pointing hate like a mindless horror monster. His skin blistered at the touch of this snout, so he'd bunched his sleeves around his hands. The creature growled and forced itself closer, dribbling pus. Its tongue, a mamba snake thick and hungry, leaked out of its mouth. A droplet trickled down and plinked onto Power Plant's collarbone.

"Crock, that burns!" Power Plant juddered but couldn't free himself. The creature gained leverage and loomed so close their noses almost brushed each other. Nothing doing. This thing hadn't visited a dentist since the invention of dentistry. Power Plant could tell on account of its teeth the color of camel fur.

The tongue slurped down toward Power Plant's cheek—

Power Plant unleashed a volcanic sneeze. Right in the thing's face. In its snarling mouth. The creature stopped wrestling. Stopped snarling. It blinked. Power Plant still gripped its mandibles, but at least the jaws eased back. "Hey, I's sorry, but ya's the one made me sneeze. This on you."

The break gave him the opportunity to retaliate. He flexed, gathered photons in the lights pouring from the dome. His eyes glowed, his skin glowed, his smirk glowed.

He let loose a gush of light that splattered the creature back, threw it over the picnic tables and clear across the dome. Whoa. If only he got that clearance all the time, he'd hit the urinal once in a while.

He coaxed his limbs off the ground. Everything griped. He examined the raw blister on his collarbone. Yi-yi-yi, it stung. Someone was getting it for ignoring leash laws. A warning was even written on the dome's surface: "Please don't let your pet splooge." Had a picture of a cartoon poodle and everything.

On the other end of the dome, a scrawny kid like a string bean at the bottom of the social chain held his limbs out in an X. Was he conjuring that portal with the effervescent border? He looked like it with his rigid stance and heavy concentration. His eyes scrunched shut with the exertion, as if it were heavy to lift open. Knights still marched out of it like army ants. All this with Power Plant stuck in his unhappy place: anywhere that wasn't a trampoline park.

Around the landscape, elbow room was shrinking. The knights marched through that portal faster than Power Plant could ruin them, and he'd spent his whole life ruining stuff. The Good Guys were losing the fight. Franchise wasn't enjoying his time with the guy in the maroon bodystocking who zipped whirlwinds around him. And if he rode lightning across Franchise once more, Power Plant wouldn't have a best friend to acid-prank anymore. Amaranthia carved through whatever enemy was close by, and sometimes not even an enemy. There she was hacking at the dome's aluminate-silicate surface while the dome flashed a message saying, "Damage to Intergalactic Protection property will result in prosecution to the full extent of the law." Underneath, she slashed "I don't care." Ace and Plastique bunched back to back and unleashed a blizzard of bullets and sponge toffee against knights that clanged closer. Plastique hoisted a two-handed rotary blaster with one hand. Behind their backs, they intertwined fingers. Was this a warzone or a moonlit stroll?

Power Plant peered up at the floodlight hanging from the dome's apex. He was told never to stare into the sun, but eyes needed vitamin D too. The influx of light tingled his skin, and he blindly spewed light to the left, right, left, heard a crash of iron and steel, heard a yelp and "Careful, gitch" from Amaranthia, heard "Jeff, watch your aim, she's a guest" from Ace, heard "Name's Jeffy" from himself, and then heard a whimper from the dome's haunt control, who'd taken enough damage for one day.

How could Power Plant take care of these knights? How could he close that portal if he couldn't battle through the opposing flow of knights, like swimming against ocean tide? If he flew above them, that feral beast would leap and snatch him away. Or that makeup artist would snap his back with her hyperability. Or that speedster would jump and bowl him aside in a blink. Or any number of things.

He searched the landscape. What could he use as a weapon? The shower stalls? He couldn't launch those without his back catapult at home. A picnic table? No good, because what if someone threw a surprise picnic? Amaranthia's civ-tran?

He rubbed his chin. Hmmmm.

Nah, he couldn't lift that. Back to the picnic ta—

Wait, he could drive it. As in his version of driving. As in swerve around randomly. As in smear stuff across this dome blindly. As in maybe he'd deal more damage to the other side than to his own. As in maybe Ace would get in the way, maybe not, but probably he would.

Okay, get to the property damage already. And that surprise picnic.

Any objections after he didn't ask anybody? No? Good. He blasted a knight into a pool of iron and a wisp of shrieking smoke, dashed across the battlefield at the civ-tran, slid across the hood because he was an action star, slid back across its hood to the passenger's side, slid back again—he had to, okay?—and spilled through the door into the driver's seat. Everything flickered and dinged on. Arms up and face gawking as if he attempted homework, he pondered the controls. His gawk was right: what now? Crock. "Control, acknowledge. Activates engine."

"You are not the owner of this vehicle. Please leave your life of crime and turn yourself into the police station at your earliest convenience." Hold on, thing. No one sassed Power Plant except the fry cook at Chicken 'n' Oatmeal, but he earned that right fair and square.

Fine. If this thing wanted to be a battering ram, it'd be a battering ram.

* * *

Franchise ducked aside from the maroon blur again. After the third or fourth or sixteen-hundredth dead clone, he'd learned this guy's moves and dodged when he sensed an attack. Technically tripping over things was a dodge.

"You frigging pinko." The maroon smudge resolved into a person again. He kicked a fallen duplicate, his stance all rigid anger. "Stop being weird and die!"

"Stop moving so you can murder me?" Franchise skittered aside when the stockinged man dashed at his legs. "And I'm the weird one?"

A buzz. Something combed back Franchise's neck hairs, lifted loose strands of fabric on his sleeves. And then a belch of flame like a furnace fuming, an aggressive chortle of fire—

Amaranthia's civ-tran bowled aside the maroon man, treated him like a blotch on a country road—raked through the warzone—staggered left, right, left, pitched knights aside. A blast of light as thick as a manhole had peeled the civ-tran's rear apart, propelled it through the swarm toward the portal.

The kid at the portal ducked aside. Too wide to fit, the civ-tran crashed into the portal's crackling border and rolled up on it. Its hood corrugated inward. A headlight dislodged and bounced through. The portal twinkled away. Without it to lean against, the civ-tran boomed to the ground. The commotion petered out to squeaky springs and a bumper clanging to the rock. Wisps of smoke curlicued from the flattened trail of knights' armor and dispersed into the atmosphere.

Atop a picnic table, Ace choked at the aisle of devastation that resembled a harvested trail through tall wheat. After a blink of astonishment, he said, "But ask him to fold his laundry, and he pretends he's deaf."

Chapter Eight: You Can Drop Me Off Here

This cockpit smelled. A lot. Ammonia? Yeah, ammonia. And sulfur? A bit. A potpourri of toxicity in here, really. Legion buried his nostrils in his hand to stifle the odor. A taste of every chemical in the known universe. And the known universe was 93 billion light-years wide. Leave it to an alien species who communicated only in grunts and snarls, but the Virillians had invented a chemical that stripped the sheen from chrome, only sold in scarce quantities. And somehow it was in here.

Good Guy leader Matross Legion should be thankful. A couple hours ago, he was a hostage. Worse yet, a hostage of the Bad Guy generics, the lowest carving on the Bad Guy totem pole. The red-shirted bumblers of the vast Bad Guy criminal empire, the generics were the entry-level grunts that carried out the menial work. The smallest share of the spoils, the lowest level of respect, the mailroom workers. Literally, too. They delivered the Bad Guy mail.

Until yesterday when they'd rebelled and claimed the criminal operation as theirs. They'd captured Legion, along with him Bad Guy honcho and dance guru—if epilepsy was a dance move—George Lowensland, publicly known as Master Asinine. The generics imprisoned Legion and George in an unidentifiable room in the hangar bay of Station Zilcho, the Bad Guys' space station headquarters. And then the vigilante team Blowtorch blew open their prison and freed Legion but left George behind. Legion hadn't met the members of Blowtorch until today. Pincushion had, and so he bargained with them to rescue Legion.

So Legion should be thankful. He was, except he'd escaped a room with an odor of bread you never found to a mil-tran with an odor of tar you never found. Only difference was he didn't want to eat the tar. Or so he thought, but it smelled more like barbecued sausage the longer you spent around it.

Blowtorch now gave Legion a lift home. Home was the place Legion wanted to go the least, since he suspected Intergalactic Protection's field marshal had set him up. By "suspected," he meant "outright knew." Legion had led a new offshoot team, the Gooder Guys, onto Station Zilcho to retrieve a biological superweapon, an aswang. When they'd recovered this aswang, Hearse, the only hired assassin who accepted tips, admitted that Field Marshal Breeng had enlisted him to kill Legion. Instead of killing him, Hearse abandoned him with the generics. As a failsafe, Breeng had placed a bug on Legion's collar that would kill him if he reboarded their starship. Thankfully Blowtorch mechanic Puttyman had found it during a tracker scan and disposed of it.

So Legion, assumed to be killed in action, wasn't eager to return to Station One.

"Any better, dude?" came a voice so lackadaisical that the words sounded as if they reclined with their feet up. A hand tapped Legion's shoulder, and Puttyman joined him in the cramped cockpit of this mil-tran, named Chug for various reasons. Like the purple smoke puffing from under one wing. Or the black smoke puffing from its rear. Or the blacker smoke puffing from its hood. Or the red smoke puffing from the ceramic hula girl bopping on the dashboard. Why did the hula girl puff smoke? It was on a spring.

Legion sat on a wicker chair behind the mil-tran's pilot and navigator stations. Puttyman plopped down on the navigator chair and rotated to face Legion. As the team's mechanic, he carried with him the smell of brass to add to the goulash of chemicals. He held a coffee mug that hung off two fingers but somehow didn't spill anything. He nodded a what's-up to the team's pilot next to him, a man somehow made only of water named H2O. Back to Legion. "Dude?"

Legion blinked alert. "Huh? Sorry?"

"I asked if you felt any better. You were out of it back at Station Zilcho." Puttyman tapped his sunglasses up his nose. He wore sunglasses. Inside.

Legion jiggled his head to surface from his distracted thoughts. Right. He'd suffered a headache from the punching explosion that had obliterated the wall of his hangar prison cell and then a stomachache from the odors in this starship. And should he worry that one of the odors was wood? Because nothing on this jalopy was wooden. "Yes. I think so. Headache's almost gone."

"Must be the joe." Under the sunglasses, Puttyman's eyebrow double-perked. "Ytril brews the best coffee. Sometimes you don't feel the poison set in until the next morning."

"I don't brew poisonous coffee!" blurted a supercharged but high-pitched tweet from the rear room. Legion questioned the word room since the only divider was a shower curtain. "I might use a little too much creamer." Ytril was the real name of Bullet, the leader of this charming bunch.

Puttyman slurped more coffee. "Ytril doesn't know it yet, but she's in love with me. She also thinks I should take charge of this ragtag group of ragtags." He winced at his cup and then dipped it into H2O's shoulder.

"You can't even take charge of folding your laundry," Bullet said from behind the curtain.

H2O glanced away from the buttons and switches he fine-tuned like an orchestra conductor. Only for a second, though. "Jeff, you're watering your coffee down with me."

"Joe's too strong." Puttyman tasted the coffee. "Hrm."

H2O bopped a button. "Ponder that when you pee me out later."

"A fine honor." Puttyman clinked his mug to H2O's, which sat on the dashboard. Until the clink rolled it off and it thudded on the carpeted floor.

"Stop watering down my coffee!" Bullet yelled again from behind the shower curtain, a yell hard to take seriously since the voice was two octaves too high.

"Look, Clip"—Legion searched around at H2O—"Jeff"—at Puttyman, who saluted with his coffee cup—"Ytril"—at the shower curtain with Bullet behind it—"dog poster"—at the weird Stay Pawsitive picture of a tongue-waggling pug—"hula girl"—at the ceramic dancer on the dash—

"Kalukahani," Puttyman said. "Her name's Kalukahani."

"Is that one word or two?"

"Seven." Puttyman squinted into his cup at…something. He sloshed it around.

Legion coughed. "Look, I'm thankful you broke me out of Station Zilcho. Trust me, I am. If I were locked up with George any longer, I would have dropped a few reading levels. He spent the whole time rekindling our dead friendship." Sort of worked, too.

"Dead friendship?"

"We were friends years ago. Since then, he's always tried to…I don't know…make amends. He'd visit Station One all the time. I mean, I get it. We had the only store in the solar system that sold cinnamon Girl Guide cookies. But it was still weird." Legion caught himself. Slow breaths. He was ranting. He exhaled a ten count to calm down. During their captivity, he and George had settled the past over old deaths and old rebellions, but emotions still percolated out. Legion may have forgiven him for Sopher, but he still had to work through the eight years of crimes that followed.

"Anyway, I'm thankful for the rescue. But it's not a good move to head to Station One." He stood and wanted to pace but found limited room. Sat back down. Ran a hand along his hairless head. Clutched the necklace ar—Oh, yeah. It wasn't there. In frustration, he'd chucked away his Alaphan necklace, symbol of his religion. No, ex-religion, since that empty fable Alaphus didn't deliver anybody from anything for any reason. "There's something shady going on at Station One, and the people responsible set me up. I'm supposed to be dead."

Puttyman shrugged. "So am I."

"You took that eight hundred volts like a champ." H2O tap-danced watery fingers along an array of buttons to veer Chug around an advertisement for Saddle-Stitch Undergarments on the side of a comet.

"So dropping me off at home in the middle of a conspiracy isn't our best strategy right now." Legion blinked at Puttyman, at H2O. He flung his hand at the shower curtain. "And who's roasting a pig back there?"

Someone yanked the shower curtain aside. Brass rings jingled. Legion whirled around at the other passengers in their tiny bunkbeds: Bullet, a blonde Terran named Also Sediment—not just Sediment thanks to an infringement lawsuit—a four-foot ball-shaped creature named Speed Line, an aged cyborg named Pacemaker, and a beefy cigar chomper named Maul. Maul polished a glowing bazooka with a glowing towel, while Pacemaker's head lolled back in tongue-hanging slumber.

Upon seeing the cockpit section, Speed Line hooted and began leaping. Excitable like an infant, he whooped and called, "Dad, watch this, Dad, Dad, watch this, Dad, Dad, Dad—" Legion had come to learn that, for some reason, Puttyman was Dad. Even weirder was that H2O was Mom. "—Dad, you're not watching, Dad!"

Bullet stomped into the cockpit. She was a Gharalgian, which explained her high-pitched voice and her orange skin. It didn't explain her bulbous nose, which took forefront on her face like an orange zeppelin. She used her blocky build to throw her weight around, both figuratively and literally. She stopped just short of the pilot and navigator chairs and harrumphed at Legion. Her voice scratched Legion's skin-covered ears. "Mattress—"

"Matross."

"—Matrix, your buddy Pincushion contacted us for one thing: break you out of Station Zilcho, drive you home, and drop you off—"

"Three things." With a sunglass-wearing wink, Puttyman held up three fingers.

"—and our end of the bargain is that aswang. We're dropping you off, grabbing our prize, and going on our merry way."

"Irritated way in Ytril's case." Puttyman gestured at Bullet with his cup. Then at Pacemaker. "Lethargic and slow." At Maul. "Ladykilling."

"Got that right." Maul's voice sounded like an avalanche. He tightened his lips around his cigar. Which wasn't even lit. A relief since Legion couldn't take another odor. He already smelled what wafted from the toilet in the rear. And then he shuddered, because it was a communal toilet in a mil-tran with no interior walls.

"And I'm not sure if Jeff explained, but we have rules about boots on the carpet." Bullet knocked her foot against Legion's.

"Ytril insists we wear shoe covers." Puttyman sipped his coffee. "She runs a tight ship."

Bullet slapped Puttyman's leg. "And do you ever finish your coffee?"

"How far out are we from your place?" A voice surprised Legion from behind.

"What th—" Legion spilled off his chair and peered up at the Logistican-species tower on two legs. "Maul, how long have you been standing there?"

A stone pillar chiseled into a bodybuilder, Maul crossed his bulging arms around that glowing cannon. The corner of his lip clamped down on his unlit cigar. "How long has Branding Iron"—he patted the cannon Legion feared was radioactive—"salivated over the ultimate end of that aswang, yearned for its destruction in unhurried, lingering agony?"

"Ten minutes according to the latest opinion polls." Puttyman sipped his coffee.

"A lifetime." Maul flexed so hard Branding Iron flattened under his bulging forearm muscles. "We'll buff that right out, old friend."

"You weren't standing there for a lifetime." Legion's fingers inched for his seat. He didn't sit. Instead he drew his wicker chair toward him as cover. "If so, you'd have remarkable leg muscles."

"Your boy Pincushion said the aswang was on its way to your digs. The deal was we pick you up, we get a shot at finishing it off." Maul tore the cigar from his mouth and shut his teeth not with a click but with a resounding snap. The tattoo that started at his left arm and crawled up his neck to encircle his eye, that tattoo fumed in this yellow light. "Dropping you off isn't our best strategy? That's the only strategy from where I stand."

"Right over me like a detention-hall authoritarian?" Legion drew his chair closer.

"Exactly." Maul put the cigar back into his mouth and flicked its unlit tip. His eyes twitched, twitched again. Both eyelids shook at different tempos. A nostril flared. His face knotted right down to the chin. A sharp cluck of exertion grunted from hi—

"Oh, for crocking crock." He threw Branding Iron across the room. It cracked against the side and hit a table in the bunkbed area. He stormed away, muttering different variations of crock in all its colors and splendors. A few of them were new to Legion.

Puttyman asked, "Did he try to wink?"

Legion drew his chair even closer. It smelled like chemicals as well. "Was that what that was?"

Puttyman sipped his coffee. "He never learned how to wink."

H2O cleared his throat. It sounded like a brook crackling over stones. "Guys and gals and Maul"—he keyed a command into Chug's computer—"we're almost at Station One, and what do I spy with my little eye down below?"

Still holding his chair, Legion approached Chug's front console. He squinted through the windshield, which was covered in mud, soot, smog, and a Fruit Roll-Up. They approached an odd-shaped meteor that the diagnostic computer tracked at about four hundred thousand kilometers away. It also tracked a star at nearly six trillion kilometers away, so maybe its priorities were off.

It indicated the meteor in a hot-yellow circle. A dotted line led out of that circle to a label that read "Unnamed Intergalactic Protection Domed Outpost." Smaller data underneath described it as a training yard for munitions, sales funneling, and plush-toy research. An explosion popped out in a furious orange fountain.

"In the eight months we've occupied Station One, we've never used that thing." Legion scanned the ceiling for a haunt-control listener. Couldn't find one. Found lots of cobwebs though, and a Speed Line–sized hole he ignored for sanity reasons. "Control, acknowledge. Magnify Unnamed Intergalactic Protection Domed Outpost by ten times."

A torrent of static crashed from a speaker, angry enough to make Legion flinch.

H2O tapped another command on his console. "Never talk directly to Chug. Her speaker is broken. She's a nasty brute, and she yells." He accented his statement by pressing a button with a flourish.

"She ejected me once when I asked her to turn on her working high beam, dude." Puttyman shook his head and chuckled. "I learned who was boss that day."

One of the commands H2O tapped enlarged the meteor in the windshield display. Legion leaned forward. A Fandango civ-tran had gouged a line through a field of metal like a combine harvesting corn…except with fire. So like a purpose-defeating combine.

Was that Franchise duking it out with a blur? And Plastique was doing her two favorite things: shooting people and yelling about shooting people. In the disorder of metal, Legion identified six combatants. No, seven, because flipping around picnic tables was a red swirl of arms and swords that showed no mercy on…knights? If Catastrophe were forcing everyone to run lines in some medieval production, that ham actor was on discharge. Lauded for putting this together on short notice, but on discharge.

"Those are my friends down there. And they're getting trounced." Legion paced the length of the windshield, scanning up, down, up again, every button, every dial, every console, every surface. He snapped his fingers. "This thing is a refitted mil-tran, right? Does it have some form of crowd control?"

Puttyman laughed. At a time like this? He watched Legion reach the end of the windshield and pivot around for another pass. "Dude, this thing is so gutted it doesn't even have its original roof rack. The best crowd control we ever had was a shirt cannon loaded with glitter glue. But…" He tapped his chip. "Maul, my dude."

Maul emerged from the rear shadows. "What now?"

"Time to activate Safety First." Puttyman winked at him.

"Stop rubbing your winks in my face!" Maul backhanded the air.

* * *

Power Plant had skadooshed through the army of knights toward that portal kid. The kid had dived aside to avoid Power Plant's crazy-fierce driving skills, and the portal had fizzled out. That stopped more knights from marching through with their poke sticks and scowling helmets. So step one, done.

But the hundreds of knights already here still posed a problem. And Amaranthia wouldn't stop yelling about how Power Plant had "biffed" her "insane awesome Calico Cally slaughter gear." Power Plant rolled his eyes so hard they creaked, because why would anyone buy slaughter gear called Calico Cally?

"All my best homicide stuff was in the back rump of my ride, ya dredge head. Now I gotta steal a whole new set, and Slay Chic is outta business forevs." Amaranthia swept her katana across a knight's neck. Took the head clean off without looking. Black smoke screamed into the atmosphere. If "dredge head" didn't mean "you're the best, Jeffy," Power Plant was snubbing her at the next high-five break.

Power Plant hopped onto the Fandango and, his hands lit like desert suns, blasted this knight, that knight, another knight that was really a shower stall, the water that ruptured from the destroyed shower stall, and then that other knight. That was really another shower stall.

He scanned the fight horizon. Ace Spandex and Plastique stood atop a picnic table, spewing light-bullets in a three-sixty but losing ground as knights tightened in. Franchise still avoided that maroon streak of fabric with slashing arms. Amaranthia, now firing Power Plant the stink eye, slashed another knight. When she wasn't slashing, she etched a game of hangman on the dome's surface. "Guess r," Power Plant yelled through a megaphone of cupped hands. "Guess r!" Frigging high school student couldn't spell "meatball."

A knight reached the Fandango's roof. Power Plant kicked it off. Ay-yi-yi. His toes yelped. Skin on iron wasn't a good mix. The knight lost its balance and tumbled into the crowd. Another knight reached the roof, and Power Plant blasted a hole through its torso. Two more replaced it. Power Plant reeled around, blasted one. Two more to his left, another at his side. This fight was going nowhere.

A rumble rolled closer. A midsized mil-tran galomped through the oozy surface of the atmospheric bubble, smoldering a rainbow of smoke from four different places. Power Plant only ever smoldered from two at a time. Jealous? You bet.

A clamor wrenched from the smoky mil-tran, as if it complained. The hood split down the middle to reveal an underlay of electronics and machinery and then produced a short, funneled tube that squeaked out and faced down.

The tube hummed a bass note that struck the meteor surface. It swiveled left, swiveled right, and swished aside a tangle of metal limbs like a windshield wiper of sound. It popped knights apart and scattered a foggy landscape of black wisps.

A sound plow. Aw, yeah, his dream come true. "Jakey, a sound plow!" Power Plant jabbed a finger at the mil-tran. Franchise had to hear about this new thing he should expect to wake him up from now on. "Jakey, a—" Aw, forget it, he was occupied.

A gap in the bass note allowed a honkytonk horn to twitter a hello. And then a loudspeaker voice seethed, high-pitched and nasal but bursting with authority as if every word came with an angry stomp. "GOOD GUY COMBATANT ATOP THAT RUINED FANDANGO CIVILIAN TRANSPORT, TAKE COVER."

"Name's Jeffy!"

"I DON'T CARE. TAKE COVER."

"Crock." The maroon blur stopped swirling around Franchise. It settled into its humanoid form and stared up at the mil-tran. "Double crock. Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Transit." His gabber zipped out its mouth- and earpiece, all under the head of that bodystocking. "Transit, kid, their ride is messed up, but things are getting nasty. Finding this antithesis Continuum mentioned will haveta wait. Get Marionette. I'll get the dog. We're outta here." He tapped his gabber off. "Triple crock." How could you multiply crocks?

"O-okay-y." That was the only warning this Transit needed. He waved his hand as if drawing a circle. This carved open another crackling portal in midair, and he dived through. The portal carried him across the dome to the unconscious woman with hair down to her knees and perfume so tenacious it was a weapon. The maroon speedster with the mathematical crocks reached them as fast as a cough, that acidic dog draping his shoulders but not melting his stocking.

As the sound bulldozer steamrolled the ground toward them, Transit drew another electric-white portal. He gripped the portal edges and pulled it down over the group. They vanished, and the portal fizzled away. Power Plant had tried that gesture once. He whacked a guy in the face and then an officer later during questioning.

Hold up. Was that sound plow circling around? Power Plant scrambled off the hood, ducked into the Fandango's rear, into the foot space, and slammed the door shut. The door roared a metal scream. And then it fell off. Seriously? After only one obliteration?

The bass tone jangled the civ-tran, jolted it back, nearly lifted it off its front landing assembly. The knights around it compressed against the ground: helmets condensed, chest plates flattened, polearms…okay, nothing changed about the polearms.

Power Plant threw his arms over his head. The sound pummeled indentations into the Fandango's roof, popped the other three doors off, flattened the front seats backward and over him, and reduced the windows to hail.

And then heavenly stillness. He pulled his arms off his head, hesitated two seconds with the only sound his breaths shushing in his eardrums, and…had the sound plow finished its work? Power Plant could hear himself think. Weird. He normally couldn't. And normally didn't think.

On elbows and knees, he shuffled through the puckered foxhole of the Fandango's craggy rear space. He grabbed the doorframe and rolled onto the ground.

Everyone stared up. The sound plow was clearing the fight by the picnic tables, flattening each table as it passed. Ace and Plastique stood at the only shower stall Power Plant hadn't reduced to a water park with no off switch. Franchise grabbed Amaranthia's hand, dived down, and sheltered her body under his when the rattletrap circled around again. It deftly outlined Franchise and Amaranthia as if coloring its airstrike outside the lines. Good thing Power Plant wasn't piloting. He was a scribbler.

By the time the sound had finished the knights, Power Plant wondered if it took requests. "Surprise! You're Dead!" was known to crush skulls, and that was before he knew noise could win a battle.

The knights with the decision-making skills of lemmings parading off a cliff were stomped soda cans. Their wisps of black smoke dispersed in the cold breeze. The mil-tran that had caused this mess that Power Plant refused to take the blame for reversed in the wind. An unholy crunch emanated from it. The sound tube folded back into its hood. Its thrusters pivoted in chunky awkwardness as if they'd catch on a cog and fall off. But they made it: they faced downward, locked in place, and spewed a thrust that gently lowered—nope, not gently—jaggedly plunged it groundward.

It crashed. At least it didn't collapse on itself, but it farted four flavors of smoke in a variety of grays, littered clatters and wires and bolts and a suction-cup Baby on Board sign, and fell asleep. Its final odor smelled like an unattended cookout found days later.

The starship had been a white-model mil-tran, but thanks to the smog it blew, its paint was clouded a dirty gray. And not even a uniform dirty gray. A patchwork like haphazard finger painting. Even the hood was filthy with grime. Power Plant knew this mil-tran from somewhere.

Ace appeared next to him. "I'll never comment on Amaranthia's driving again."

"Or mines?"

"You're still up for grabs." Ace was transfixed on the mil-tran. "Fly blindfolded all you want, but you take what you get."

Plastique leveled her rifle at the mil-tran's porthole. Amaranthia raised her katana as if she prepared to leap into attack and slice it in half. Franchise…well, he probably readied a bunch of clones to defecate in its exhaust pipe.

The porthole opened. Out emerged a stinging cloud of ash but nothing else. The embarking ramp didn't extend. But it tried. It stuttered out about a meter, jammed, tried again with a buzz like a child sticking its tongue out, and then gave up.

Ace Spandex flexed his fingers. A rig unfolded from his forearm and flung out a candy-bar wrapper. "Get ready. That thing has no identifying plates, and it's not registered in any automotive database. But it's equipped with custom tech. That sound tube doesn't come standard, and some of those fittings look illegal. It's definitely depraved criminals coming out of that thing—"

Legion came out of that thing.

Power Plant kicked a chest plate. "Holy crock, Legion, ya coulda warneds us you was in there. And find a ride whats not smells like raccoons."

Plastique dropped her line of fire. "Lieutenant colonel, this is an airtight dome."

Maybe it was the collage of stenches or the duct tape holding up its right wing, but Legion looked positively relieved to stand on an motionless surface.

The embarking ramp tried again to clunk out in fits. Legion didn't wait. He hopped to the ground, stumbled toward them, and almost fell into Ace. He coughed. It came out gray. And thick. And if anyone got on Power Plant's case about trying to breathe fire again, he'd refer them back to this.

"Aaron"—Legion grabbed Ace Spandex's shoulders—"Courtney"—faced Plastique—"Jeff—"

"Name's Jeffy."

"—Jake"—to Franchise—"something crooked is happening at Intergalactic Protection, and it involves Breeng and something called an aswang." On Amaranthia. "Tell me we didn't hire another Bad Guy while I was away."

"Aswang's that demon thing what changes form an' eats everybody and gets gunk all over its mouth, right?" Power Plant had encountered this aswang in its rabbit form. "When I eats like that, people tell me use a napkin."

"That's because we're at a restaurant, and sometimes we're not even seated yet," Legion said. "Once at a library." He glanced at Ace. "Breeng set me up. He sent me on a stealth mission to Station Zilcho to extract the aswang. And he has Hearse on his payroll. He ordered Hearse to kill me and make it look like an accident."

Ace shook his head. "I knew something was messed up about Hearse. His heart always beats too fast, and he licks tree bark to find out which way is north."

"These guys rescued me." Legion still shivered. "They talk too loud even though they're in the same room, they run through stop signs, and they violate way too many environmental laws, but they're good people." Legion glanced at the mil-tran. "One of them is bickering over what violent name to give their bathroom sink. He's the one who came up with the sound attack that rescued you. He also named their couch Blunt Force Trauma. I'm not sure how they plan to use it as a weapon, but they're making headway."

"These guys" started to exit. Someone wandered out, a water creature who hopped off the half-erected ramp to the ground, a four-foot drop. Behind him, a Logistican stomped out from the shadow and dropped down. The turd-munching missile launcher strapped to his back clattered on his shoulder blade, but he didn't care. His tattoo looked as menacing as his sneer. And then a blonde Terran woman in a blue impact suit climbed out. Next, a bright red, squat spherical creature—" Mom, Mom, Mom, look, Mom, this place is great, Mom"—rushed out, a smile with enough wattage to power this meteor. He teetered on the edge of the ramp, wondered at the ground, lost his balance—hit the ground and bounced away and splashed through the water creature and hit the top of the dome and ricocheted into a destroyed shower stall—

An old Trioxidillian emerged, half cybernetic like Ace. Though Trioxidillians were hairless, he somehow had a flowing beard. Oh, nope. It was glued on. He tripped on it, and he too smacked the ground. No bounce. And then a blocky woman with such bright, carrot-colored skin. She flicked a palm-sized knife around her fingers. And then a man in brown denim overalls, a blue shirt, and sunglasses stepped out with such boastful swagger he emerged as if into a cheering section. He didn't hop off the ramp. Instead he casually stepped over the end, and his left leg elongated down the four-foot drop. When he completed his stride, his right leg matched it and then lowered him down.

Power Plant knew these guys. A couple months ago he, Pincushion, and some other Good Guys chased the Bad Guys to retrieve the aswang. These guys came along. Couldn't recall their media names, but he remembered that they didn't bring sammiches when they landed two minutes ago.

"A military conspiracy explains what's happening at home." Ace Spandex pointed up at the stars and the IP fleet descending on Station One. "And the seven of them and the six of us are going to cut through that army, rescue Pincushion and the others, unravel a military conspiracy that goes all the way up to Breeng, and liberate something called an aswang?"

Legion checked Ace Spandex, Plastique, Franchise, then Power Plant. "Yup." He checked Amaranthia, who clanged her sword against the dome with such ferocity Power Plant was sure she wasn't guessing letters anymore. "Please don't damage military property."

Chapter Nine: Cosmic Extermination Plan

January 24, 100,000.

Urination lessons didn't go as planned.

The last few days had been long. Elohim and Bacon had travelled the universe through gloriously colored portals, into vibrant blackholes, all over every dimension, with a short break in the year 121,541 to watch the great star VY Canis Majoris explode. Not as exciting as he expected. They'd even worn new suits for the occasion.

Time had become an elastic band that Elohim stretched and retracted and kneaded. You didn't knead an elastic band. Fine. Okay, it rolled outward like an open path Elohim manipulated so that this day was one to cherish forever. You didn't manipulate a path. Elohim's imagery needed work.

Though they had met only days ago chronologically, Elohim and Bacon had spent millennia together: experiencing spacetime, turning the tables on the Engineers, righting the destruction they had wrought on reality. The righting didn't go so well. Becoming a god, however, was something Elohim excelled at. He relished ruling reality alongside Bacon.

The Engineers' slaughter—and Elohim's and Bacon's liberation—took mere hours. Elohim had practiced his hyperabilities, dispersing the Engineers' protons, folding them in different dimensions, streaming pretzels of them across the galactic landscape, igniting them like fireworks, switching the spins on their neutrons, changing their quark types: up became down, bottom became top, yellow became red, and that last one might have been a traffic light.

The point was the Engineers had paid their price in a myriad of ways, never again to enslave Elohim or Bacon, never again to damage reality. Bacon had proven himself as a trusted ally. They had suffered so much together yet in isolation that they were brothers. The Engineers had squeezed their nerves, pinched their pain receptors, forced them to tamper with reality. Adjust this environment, finetune that precision, modify the speed of light, attune the strength of gravity, wipe Reggie's nose.

Or else.

But both Elohim and Bacon had escaped their knotted jail dimensions. And reality was safe from more corruption at the Engineers' behest. Now Elohim and Bacon didn't live by torture. Now they would experience what lived outside their scramble space. And now that the Engineers were exterminated, Elohim and Bacon would repair reality and unify everybody. Also find time to locate Crunch Berries.

Chapter Ten: Everybody Makes Mistakes, but He Masterminds Them

Master Asinine sat, chained to a chair in the upper-loft passenger deck of this Kingfish-brand, titan-sized mil-tran named The Nemesis. The Nemesis sat hundreds of butts—and the bodies attached to them—and hauled 140 tons of munitions with a combined yield of eight or nine…kabooms? Asinine had no idea. Eight or nine kabooms. Anyway, at close to 800,000 tons, this mil-tran was a beast. Even better was that it was dressed as a rooster. Without a cock-a-doodle-doo horn, though. Cock-a-doodle-doo horns were boss and should come standard in every vehicle.

The Nemesis had once served as the flagship vehicle of a fried-chicken company named Tarred, Feathered, and Served. The late criminal leader and Asinine's rival Taricoss Kyril had stolen it from the company and remodeled it as a menacing harbinger of war. Asinine had killed Kyril, stole The Nemesis for himself, and told the Bad Guys' mad scientist, Brainiac, to remodel it again according to specific instructions that he didn't write in crayon. Or maybe he did, but so what?

Master Asinine could do this as leader of the Bad Guys. But the amnesiac guy he'd brainwashed to enact The Nemesis's remodeling, former Good Guy Silas Reef, had himself stolen it from Asinine. And then, forgetting not to be a jerk, Reef also stole leadership of the Bad Guys away from Asinine.

So here Asinine sat, chained to a seat in The Nemesis's passenger deck, which was joined to the cockpit—the head—of said The Nemesis. He could do nothing but watch Reef navigate through the stars to finish what Asinine had started: kill the Good Guys and seize control of Stratus Cloud. But that was Asinine's goal. Not enough that Reef had pilfered the Bad Guys and The Nemesis, he couldn't even keep his hands off Asinine's to-do list!

Master Asinine sneered at Reef's back, Reef cloaked in such deep shadow that Asinine barely saw him. "I hope this starship blows up," he muttered. But he was in it. "Okay, maybe not blow up." There. Better. "Except the cockpit." Heh. Nice recovery.

"I can hear you." Reef didn't face him. Instead he tapped a button. It lit. Tapped another one. It did the opposite of lit, whatever that was. Someone should invent that word. Opposite-lit. There. "I stowed you up here to keep an eye on you, not listen to your inane chatter." He tapped another button, which opposite-lit.

Across the windshield, a smattering of flight data spread out. It showed the distance to their destination, the estimated flight time, a list of activated weapons, cargo and passenger weights, fuel reserves—both liquid hydrogen/oxygen and matter/antimatter collision—obstructions, and toll booths. The information feverishly updated with a banter of ticks and blips in a semitransparent performance of symbols, behind it the distant planets, stars, nebulae, and asteroid corner stores. No chance they'd stop for licorice at the Irregularly Shaped Circle K?

Beside Reef, at the navigator's console, sat Francine. Francine was the generic who'd orchestrated this coup that had unseated Master Asinine and promoted Reef in his place. She'd incited the red-uniformed Bad Guy generics and ousted Master Asinine and his named agents. The named agents were Asinine's junior thugs, those Bad Guys that ranked just one level below Asinine himself. They were stuffed away in some unmentioned lower deck, somewhere in the belly of the rooster. Somewhere down there also teemed the 1,500 or so generics that now ruled the Bad Guys.

And on their journey to destroy the Good Guys, Asinine sat under the suspicious custody of the two generics flanking his chair to stop him from any funny business. How? He wasn't just chained to this chair. He was swathed in chains from neckline to feet. He wore a cocoon with only his head exposed, anchored down so tightly his shoulder sparkled with pain. A seatbelt wasn't enough, eh?

He looked up at Curt, the generic to his left whose nametag strangely said "Glen." Both he and the other guy, probably named Other Guy, pressed hands on Asinine's shoulders, as if the chains weren't enough to keep him down. He put on his best smile, the one that earned him free admittance to the shoe festival along with a punch to the ticket checker's face. Best ten minutes of his life until security dragged him out.

So smile: lit. Charm: on full blast. "Howdy howdy loud and proudy, Curt—"

"Name's Glen."

"Then why did I just call you Curt? Anyway, Curt, we're friends, right?"

"Not a chance."

"Hey, that hurts. We go way back. Remember that time I invited you over to break in my new swimming pool? The shark-infested one? You told me not to hold my breath, but I did." Asinine winked. "You know why? Partly because I was swimming. But also partly because you"—he tapped Curt's shoulder, but turned out he didn't because he was chained—"are a good friend. Held my breath all the way to unconsciousness, I did. For you, Curt." Tapped again, but oh yeah, chains. "Is Curt short for Curtain?"

Asinine's neck kinked. It was hard flashing this smile at Curt, who stood at an imposing—Asinine's eyes climbed Curt's height—seven or eight hundred feet tall. Curt's head was so elevated there was probably a cloud line up there. He shifted his weight to look up more easily. Didn't work. Chains and all. "Anyway, Curt, since we're such good friends—"

"Not even close."

"—mind letting me out of these chains? I need to stretch my legs, get my blood flowing, grab some water, knock Reef out, take the Bad Guys back, drink my water." Smile: double-lit. "The usual."

"No dice, weasel." Curt glared at Asinine, the shadows in the passenger deck lending him an extra menacing loom.

Smile: opposite-lit. Curt was mean. Asinine looked up at his right. Smile: opposite-opposite-lit. "Howdy howdy loud and proudy, Other Guy—"

"Can it," Other Guy said.

"Well, fine. How am I expected to revolt now?"

Reef whipped out of his seat, planted hands on hips, stretched his back in a creak—must be nice—and smirked at Asinine. A laugh thrown in for spite. "How does it feel, Asinine?"

Francine lashed out of her seat. "Yeah, chump. How does it feel?"

"Honestly, a little chainy," Asinine said.

"I mean, how does it feel to watch someone else accomplish your goals? Accomplish what you've striven to do for two years but failed miserably at?"

Master Asinine sniffled. "Still a little chainy."

"Good." Francine stomped. "Like the chains you've weighed the generics down all these years when you blindly threw us into deadly situations with no regard for our safety." Leave it to her to turn this into an allegory. She fumed as if she wanted to tear Asinine a new one, which Asinine wouldn't mind since she'd have to undo these chains first.

Reef laughed again, a hearty belly laugh that emanated from his diaphragm and ignited his face so brashly Asinine saw his tongue in these shadows. "You tried defeating the one man who opposed you from taking over this galaxy and refitting it in your image: Legion. But you couldn't. Do you know why?"

"Do I ever know why?"

"Because you still think Legion is your friend. You never separated your dead friendship from the fact that he became your bitterest enemy. You could never finish him off. You always held back." Reef's cheeks joined in on his belly laugh. "Not me, though. I'll nuke him and his Good Guys right off the planet."

"Which planet? There are lots of them."

Reef's gusto opposite-lit. His frustration lit. "It's an expression."

"It's an expression, crocker!" Francine punched her chair. It twirled in a mad spin.

"For all the crock they've inflicted on us, they'll pay."

"They'll pay." Francine whacked her chair again, opposite-spinning it.

Reef set his stance. "Watch me succeed where you failed."

"You're using my rooster starship, which is the fiercest bird in existence. And you're commanding my hordes of generics, which is the fiercest horde in existence. You also raided my fridge. So…" Asinine shrugged. Well, wanted to shrug but was chained down. "…I think I get partial credit here."

Reef gawked a get-a-load-of-this-guy gawk at Francine. Francine gawked a return gawk. After their mutual gawk, Reef stomped out of the fuzzy shadows and whispering ventilation of the cockpit deck and into the passenger deck, as opposite-lit as a cave. And reeking just as much, thanks to Curt's underarms. Or Other Guy's. Or Asinine's. Definitely somebody's.

Reef reached Asinine and sneered at him nose to nose. "You just launched random schemes that brought you no closer to defeating Legion than burning trash downwind from him. You were crazy to ever think you'd succeed."

"Hey, those sanity checks are standardized!"

"Now it's my turn." Reef marched back into the cockpit.

A signal dinged through the joined cockpit/passenger deck. The Nemesis's haunt control joined the conversation. Its voice modification, Cluck Adderley, heralded an alert. "Get down, my fine and jive passengers. Mmm-mmm, we're only a tiny three million miles from Station One. That's just a hop, skip, an' a jump away, and we're relaxin' to a smooth descent speed because that's how we dig things: smooth an' easy, nice an' slick. We'll be cacawing down in an itty bitty under seven hours. Until then, lounge back and enjoy the tasty rhythms of one Charlie Parker, brought to you by the rrreeaaaalll fine folks at Knack Shack Radio." The nice and slick gave way to a crash of static. Apparently the Knack Shack was out of range.

"Control, acknowledge. Cut the noise." Reef pounded his chair.

"Rock an' roll, Jack. Cuttin' that noise, my man, and movin' on over to the swingin' wails of Silk Mama's Jams." Calm as a lullaby, an easygoing saxophone drifted through the decks. What a cool voice mod Asinine chose.

"You hear that, Asinine? Seven hours from—"

"But listen here, my amigos and amigas. This ragtime sideman is readin' the sweet vibes of six Good Guy daddy-o's on an outpost meteor one hundred seventy-seven million miles from our current point in this here solar crib. I also sense another eight sets of vibes in their cool-as-a-cucumber party and one hula girl who knows how to dig it, if you pick up what I'm layin' down. Groove on, hula girl."

Reef tapped his chin. "Six Good—"

"You fine Leroys and Bettys are still listening to Silk Mama—"

"Holy crock. Control, acknowledge. Silence mode."

"Mellowin' the chat to zero, my man, and breezing in a brisk lavender to soothe that inner funk. Smells fine with a capital mmm-mmm. I'll be back with you soon." The vents trickled on, and faint balsamic freshness wandered the cockpit and passenger decks.

"I'll miss mellow mode." Asinine pouted at the floor. "Then again, lavender does smell fine and smooth jazzy."

"Six Good Guys." Reef smiled. He wiggled his fingers in the air as if preparing to smash out a tranquil piano sonata. "That's one way to come knocking on Legion's door. Control, ackno—"

"What's the need of the hour, cool cats?" Hey, mellow mode was back after all these microseconds.

"Holy crock, this conversation hijacker. Control, acknow—"

"What's the need of the hour, cool cats?"

"I'm trying to tell you." Reef swung a hostile fist. "I've never wanted to take a tailspin so much in my life. Control, acknowledge. Add a stop to our route at the detected Good Guy biorhythms."

"You mean vibes."

Reef's swing got closer to the computer bank. "Control, acknowledge. What's the flight time until we reach the detected Good Guy biorhythms?"

"You mean vibes."

"I mean vibes."

"Outta this world. We'll be cruisin' on over to that scene in three hours, sixteen minutes, four seconds. We can slide that cruise down to a midcruise of one hour, thirteen minutes, fifty-two seconds with warp propulsion. But that ain't smooth and hip on the cockpit deck, my chickadees and gents." With a distinct beep, Cluck Adderley sprouted a countdown in the top-left corner of the windshield, bordered in a glowing orange rectangle. The countdown pulsated, and then shrank to half size. There it sat, quietly winding down.

"Is that…" Reef glanced at Francine, at Curt, at Other Guy. "Is that a decent speed? I don't know. What does that come out to?" He scrutinized the countdown, compared it to the trip calculator. "Something like"—he checked Francine—"sixty thousand miles a minute?"

Francine compared the two numbers. "I think you're shifting over a decimal."

"So six hundred thousand? Why is The Nemesis so confusing? And why does the windshield say the cabin's an easy-breezy sixty-six degrees Fahrenheit? Is that good?"

Other Guy pursed his lips. "Feels okay."

"Use metric, you flightless bird!" Francine raked her fingers across a swath of controls Asinine hoped didn't operate the ejection seats. But they did switch the scent from lavender to fresh pine. Nope, make that rotting compost.

Reef wrapped his hands over his temples, but only for a second before he chopped the air. "Let's calm down before we break something. Control, acknowledge. Switch to warp propulsion."

"Solid, my boogie-woogie entity," Cluck said. A soft rumble grew into a cackle of tremors. A roar of flames, angry like a giant cyclops with an axe to grind and a club to bash, erupted from somewhere in the cabin. Everyone stumbled when the starship lurched in a snorting fit. Peeling metal shrieked through the deck. Asinine flinched to cover his ears but couldn't. The windshield buzzed. The numbers on its dashboard display changed to bear-toothed lines and then back to numbers. The measurement scale—light-years and kiloparsecs—turned into some altogether odd units the windshield called föråldrad mätning.

With the smooth and silky ride gone, the saxophone lullaby left too. Cluck bellowed. "We're double-kicking your poser baby ride up to fury unleashed." Grindcore death metal gnashed from the speakers, vocals like Cookie Monster with phlegm. The haunt control snorted guttural agony. "Say your prayers, you fecal pisstards, because now we're entering the veins of eternity." The cockpit lights plunged from orchid purple to crimson, as if souls cackled murder.

"Cluck?" Master Asinine cringed.

"This ain't Cluck no more. You've entered the vile domain of Klook the Baron of Butchery, and I ain't merciful. This ride isn't your mama's pop-rock trash, because we've driven this slaughter psycho all the way to suffering and back. Shut your word cavities, or I'll hammer-crush your faces till your brains leak out like gray rat turds. Yyeeeeaaaahhhh yeah yeah!" The cockpit walls wept blood.

"No one out-metals me." Francine snapped her fingers. "Glen, get me my Gibson SG. I'll show this poultry what a war pig really is."

Curt reared at a wall and smashed his elbow into an In Case of Rock-Off glass canopy. He snatched a guitar with a fire-engine-red finish. This he tossed to Francine, who caught it one handed.

"His name is Curt," Master Asinine said to the cockpit. He smiled up at Curt. "Got your back."

Chapter Eleven: Final Stand in the Underbelly of Military Commercialism

Pincushion had to give it to Catastrophe: he knew how to slash at the air. He spent so much time in a movie-grade tanning bed that they named a paint shade after him, but he made short work of this tunnel. (Off-season cantaloupe, in case anyone wondered.)

After having recovered the rest of their group—and a few hangers-on—Pincushion now focused on escaping the station. His gut percolated over the loss of Hearse. His cheek twitched in unreadable Morse code. But Hearse hadn't listened. He hadn't since people advised him against using piano wire as dental floss.

Whispers from the adelphoi still slithered to them like passive-aggressive threats. That will-usurped army dogged them, unrelenting, clawing the telekinetic barricade Sixth Sense had conjured. The forefront of the crowd spoke sinister sneers that implored the Good Guys to drop the barricade. They beat with fists, feet, and a tentacle from the squid who'd escaped the station's lobby aquarium. Oh, and a paw in the case of Werewolf Eric from the golf range. Looked as if he'd found himself a Werewolf Erica. Good for him.

Pincushion didn't know what squirmed through his skin more: the whispers from the vocal members of the adelphoi or the nerve-scratching silence from its mimes. He wanted to belt the one doing the hands-on-the-invisible-wall act. It wasn't an act if there really was an invisible wall.

Legacy breathed a refined chuckle. "Your barricade will soon fall. My lord and master Continuum will conquer you. He controls space and time. He will have no trouble eliminating you."

"This thing again." Incendiary threw a hand up as if wanting to swat a fly out of the air. He couldn't locate what to swat.

"What's this thing? Who said that?" To Pincushion, "this thing" was a new voice squirming through his skin.

"Legacy. The station's new haunt control. Breeng installed it. It attacked me in my robot suit until Janice kicked him out. Almost pulled me apart."

"It sounds familiar." Pincushion tapped a finger in the air. "That was the haunt control up in the food court, dogging us."

"Yes, dear enemies. I am your new dog." This Legacy sounded as if he took pleasure in all this. "While you wait, would any of my distinguished guest entities love a spot of our new Firebrand Cinnamon Chai from Drink-up-olis, Intergalactic Protection's newest sponsor?" Legacy clicked its tongue as if to chide itself. "Cancel that offer. You are interlopers on this station." A pause. "Still, would you care for a hin's worth?"

"I could use a hin." Better Than You appeared at Pincushion's side. "Just to refuel my preeminent coolness. I'm only eighty-nine percent preeminent right now, and I forgot my charging cable at home."

"Same here." Multipurpose pinched his belly, all seven folds. "Haven't eaten or dranken in so long, and Little Multi is getting angry." He slap-slapped his abdomen. Little Multi rippled. And kept rippling.

"We fed you before the robots attacked four hours ago." Pincushion headed toward Sixth Sense. "And there's nothing little about Little Multi." He peered at Multipurpose as he passed. "And stop smacking your lips."

And kept rippling.

Sixth Sense couldn't venture toward the barricade or he'd risk absorbing the personalities of the adelphoi. If that happened, the barricade would drop. So he kept his distance. But he looked sickly, even in this low lighting. He leaned against the boulder wall, hands to head and moan trickling out of pale lips. He probably suffered a migraine, an understated one. But the longer he held that barricade up, the more his migraine would insist until it became a fire alarm, fussy with pain. Even now, the barricade softened, and sometimes fingers stretched it as though it were a rubber sheet.

"Hagen, brother, you surviving?" Pincushion eased a hand on Sixth Sense's shoulder. The air here tasted thick, as if the craggy walls themselves inched inward.

Each of Legacy's words brandished hot-iron smugness. "Entity Sixth Sense's biorhythms are fading. His pulse is slipping into sleep ranges, and his brain activity is preparing for stage-one alpha waves. He could benefit from a cup of Firebrand Cinnamon, the only tea with the spice of life that supercharges your morning…and your taste buds. It boasts the same caffeine as their twelve-ounce Bull Rush Energy Cragsnaggle."

And kept rippling.

Sixth Sense mustered a nod, swallowed, and resolved to stand. He blundered, and Pincushion caught him. "I'm fine." He checked the throng clambering weakly and weak-willed at his barricade. He chiseled a harder expression and straightened his glasses, which had slipped down his nose and unhooked from one ear. "I have to be."

"It won't be long now. When Workshop—"

"Someone said my name!" Workshop squealed like a balloon wheezing out its air.

"—is done whipping up her gadget—"

"My Super Fun Exploderoona."

"—you'll get a break from concentrating but not from Workshop's screeching." Pincushion checked Workshop, off in the corner, assembling her masterpiece. It resembled an oil drum with wires. She looked ready to hip-hip-hooray it. "Workshop, you better not be holding a detonator."

"I'm nooooooooooooooottt probably." Workshop whacked a metal panel into on the drum. It sprang back out.

Pincushion set Sixth Sense back against the tunnel wall. "Because it looks like a detonator."

"It's a cutesy magical fun-launching dooger." She slapped a speaker onto the drum. Nuclear drums didn't use speakers.

"You called it a Super Fun Exploderama."

"Exploderoona." She spun a whimsical, jazz-handed dance and bowed to her device.

"What's the difference?" Pincushion wandered a few steps closer. His mind wandered into questioning if that were a smart move. "There's a mushroom-cloud sticker on the side."

"It's a clown-wig cloud." Workshop checked again. "With a skull and crossbones." Her triangle-wedge smile pointed her cheeks out. All teeth, no sanity. Wind whistled through her ears.

"Workshop, we don't want to die today."

She didn't say anything.

"Workshop, we don't want to die today!"

Her smile clicked brighter. She waved. There wasn't enough adult supervision in the universe…

"Quite good, collective entity Failing Miscreants. If you are perchance finished exploding, it's time for Firebrand Cinnamon Chai, the only tea with that nuclear-grade zing, on sale at—"

"Enough with the distractions!"

"You did not say please. Or 'control, acknowledge.'"

Too many balls in the air today: Workshop, Sixth Sense, Catastrophe and this tunnel, a suspicion that Detritus had stolen their good silverware, the balls in the air Better Than You juggled. Only thing Pincushion could do was check the tunnel's progress. He hurried over to the other end. And whose juggling talent was Better Than You amplifying?

He threw a thumb over his shoulder. "Has anyone ever seen Werewolf Eric in human form? I'm starting to think he's just a wolf." He reached Incendiary. "Ed, what's our ETA? I want to hear that it's less than T-minus ten minutes, because I think Workshop's device is. And Better Than You, stop mooning the adelphoi through the barrier."

Better Than You responded with a wink and a butt jiggle.

Incendiary clanked to attention in his thunder-stomping robot suit. He still provided Catastrophe with light, so he kept his shoulders pointed forward. "Janice, acknowledge. How long until our tunnel connects to the maintenance tunnels?"

Meanwhile, Multipurpose sniffed the rocks. Stopping him wasn't worth the trouble. Hey, if it helped them dig faster, then down the hatch. But he should stop if he hit a pipe.

Incendiary stuck his thumb up. "Janice says four minutes, but she'll bring it down to three and fifty-nine seconds if we follow her on Twitter."

"How is that a deal? We're already at three fifty-seven."

Finger to ear. "Janice, acknowledge. How is that—"

"No, don't repeat that." Pincushion whacked Incendiary's shoulder. "And stop asking Janice. She's into murdering people."

"Janice cannot help you." Legacy laughed with such refinement. "However, you now follow Drink-up-olis for all your tea-related news, Entity Pincushion. They have a coupon for ten percent off your first purchase."

Workshop high-fived herself and screeched a giggle. It tore a jitter up Pincushion's spine. "I made this machine washable."

Better Than You strolled in with a smiling head shake. "That's exactly why we doubled her medication."

Catastrophe disintegrated another foot of rock into dust. Sweat smudged his actor's foundation. His orange skin that disagreed with his silver hair ran pale. He dropped his hands to catch his breath and wipe the sheen from his brow. The banging grew louder. The barrier grew thinner. Workshop grew shriller.

During the peak of his career and to net more action roles, Catastrophe was surgically heightened to stop, quote-unquote, "midgeting around." So Pincushion rose onto the balls of his feet to say, "Hey, brother, I know you're working fast. But Workshop looks like she confused 'create a device' with 'create nuclear winter.'" He braced himself at her next screech. "And confused 'dull roar' for 'girl-crush on a boy band.' And Hagen doesn't have much left in him. Remember that celebrity appearance you made at a hospital that turned out to be a retirement home? Hagen looks like that. Not as much diarrhea, though." He glanced back. "Or more maybe."

"Unless that diarrhea quotient reaches zero, someone's appearance agent is getting fired." Catastrophe netted his fingers and stretched them out in a popcorn crackle. "Do the Good Guys have an appearance agent?" He slashed air with a renewed vigor that dissipated as quickly.

"Yes, and it's Scapegoat."

A fizzle at the barrier. Sixth Sense curled over like someone lamenting a hangover. That barrier was weakening. Already it rapid-blinked in and out of existence. And was that a mannequin banging against it? What the why who how?

"Workshop, update." Pincushion checked the charge reading on his pistol. He chuffed: almost no charge.

"Yippee!" Workshop hugged herself for no reason. "Device is nearly ready."

"There's no time. Make it ready. Incendiary, ETA?"

"Janice says we're two minutes out."

"Stop asking Janice. She gives special thanks to Skynet in her software's About screen. I need your ETA."

"Blueprint looks as if she's right. You're just jealous you're not dressed in a robot suit that a killer haunt control took over."

"I probably am." The Purple Nurple guffawed a smile.

"Catastrophe, pick up the pace. Everyone else, pistols out. Leg shots only. These people are victims, not the enemy." Pincushion snorted and cocked his gun. "Except the guy with the popped collar."

He measured up his team. He wasn't sure which of them to count as a combatant and which not to. What were their odds, an estimated seven against a throng of hundreds? "I'll guard Sixth Sense." He tapped Withered Old Battle-Axe's shoulder. "Mabel, that nice boy from down the street you're chatting up is a boulder. Scapegoat, try not to shoot yourself in the foot. Purple Nurple, try not to shoot someone else in the foot. Multipurpose." He sighed at the fusty sack of grease and ninja conceit. "Try not to eat a foot."

"Little Multi doesn't like to wait." Multipurpose stomped, risking an earthquake. "Ow." And kept rippling.

"Little Multi doesn't know what waiting is." Better Than You curled a nostril at Multipurpose's waistline. He dead-stared Multipurpose and heaved up the half-keg mug Legacy had delivered. Slurped a loooong swig. Smacked his lips. Blinked. "Yeah, a hin sounds a lot smaller than it actually is."

Pincushion had little charge left. He rushed toward the barrier and planted his feet in front of Sixth Sense. Panic spiked him. The sluggish mob clawed the barrier that flickered here and away and here. Lethargic but inescapable. His brute-force heft tensed for action, Organism took position beside Pincushion, his dad as well. On the other side, Detritus, who'd leaned Wasted against a rock to pick fights with hallucinations. Better Than You and then the Purple Nurple saddled up. Klee did, but he faced the opposite direction, so something got lost in translation. Multipurpose kneaded a charley horse out of his calf and then kneaded one out of the arm that was kneading his calf. He sneered. And then kneaded a charley horse out of his lip. Wasted cuddled the hallucination. Apparently they'd settled their dispute.

"We watch each other's backs, everyone." Pincushion coerced the words out a squealing, rhythmic chest. "If they try to carry us off, we stop them." Weak nods all around. And a gulp from Multipurpose. And then a hand that kneaded a charley horse out of his gullet.

A shopper's hand penetrated the barrier. The shopper conked shoulder deep against it. Another hand. Werewolf Eric's paw. A hand holding an enchilada. With a snarf, Multipurpose made sure that enchilada didn't last long.

Sixth Sense collapsed across the tunnel floor.

The barrier crackled, like a light panel buzzing its last ounce of life. It strained valiantly.

And winked away.

The adelphoi shuffled through.

"Mercy shots only." Pincushion fired. Hit the craft-beer maker. Fired again. Werewolf Eric crumpled to the floor. Sorry, old friend, but at least it wasn't a silver light-bullet.

Organism threw out his fingers. Thick tendrils like tiny fists shoved back slow-moving but relentless masses and a blind guy who didn't know where all the noise was coming from.

Klee did what Klee did.

"Everyone, fall back." Pincushion was down to his last two shots. He had the shells, but the charge to load them was low. Maybe Incendiary could stick his tongue in his pistol for a boost. "Multipurpose, stop licking the Firebrand ad. It's pixels on a rock."

"Tasty rock, you prude. Ow. I'm so ninja, I'm too much for my lungs."

A Haralsian clutched at Sixth Sense. Pincushion fired to knock her away. Last light-bullet. He fired it at a Gharalgian in a business suit, ruined that well-cut legging. Pistol away. Attack stance ready. Despite their defense, the adelphoi tightened the gap like a subtle strangulation.

Pincushion squatted, back straight to keep his eye on the adelphoi that didn't march but instead seeped forward. Just like the police academy taught him, he hhhaaauuulllleeeedddd Sixth Sense over his shoulders, around his neck. Tttthhhrrrruuuusssstttt to his feet, couldn't help piercing Sixth Sense with the thorny growths of bone from his back. But a weird static surfaced from Sixth Sense. Huh? Had he wrapped himself in a telekinetic cocoon? The Good Guy who couldn't control a drooling problem while he slept reflexively armored himself.

Pincushion retreated to Workshop's position. "Workshop, any minute now with the detonator."

"It's not a detonator." Workshop giggled. At least she didn't skip circles around the device, but she did attempt a pirouette that ended with her on the floor. "Ooh, it's so cuddlesolid down here."

Rocks crumbled to the ground behind Pincushion. Light seeped across the floor, heavenly wonderful yellow light. With air that didn't smell like an underwater cave. Something had collapsed away, and Pincushion's adrenaline crackled when "We're through" made this the best part of his day. Catastrophe hooted. "We're in the maintenance tunnels!"

"Ed, we need fortification on this end." Pincushion's shoulder kinked. He hopped to brace Sixth Sense and shift him up his shoulders. Only 125 pounds, Sixth Sense was still heavy. And he wore glasses that scraped your back like a pocketknife.

"On my way." Incendiary raced past Organism and his dad, raced past the Purple Nurple, jjjaaaammmeeedddd—nnnnnnngggggggg, phew—past Multipurpose. His shoulder lights retracted, and out stretched multi-barrel spin guns—

"Ed, mercy shots only."

Incendiary groaned. The spin guns whirred into hiding. His new weapon of choice whirred out.

"That doesn't mean use your chainsaw sword instead." Did Pincushion really have to say that out loud?

Incendiary hunched. Fists lost their rigor. Plastic cannons emerged. A foam dart foomped out of a barrel and bopped a woman in the face. "President Abends lets me use my chainsaw sword."

"President Abends lets you use your chainsaw bombs. And don't slouch. It's bad for your back." Pincushion grabbed Withered Old Battle-Axe away from the boy she asked to shovel her driveway. He teetered her toward Catastrophe's opening as if he'd wound a crank on her back. She felt like powdered buckwheat.

"All set. Yyyaay." Workshop held aloft the final product of her detonator like a lion cub in the circle of life. "My new hoochie snuggle machine is so super-duper-duper-amazing-duper—"

"Arm the thing!" Hopefully this wasn't a fatal explosion.

"Right." Workshop whacked the heel of her wrist against the detonator. Pincushion half-expected a timer to count down to huggy-zero, a white light, and a wall of fuzzyfluffy flame.

Instead the drum blurted a sharp buzz, and then…was that a caterwaul? The drum howled like cats in disastrous combat. The mob buckled to their knees, hands over temples, screams trapped in throats as they tried to figure out the situation. Sounded like cats turning inside out. The cacophony was unidirectional, so Pincushion didn't crumble with bloody eardrums.

Workshop twirled past Pincushion in a victory fan dance without fans. Or coordination. But with a strained definition of dance.

"Workshop, what the crock is this weapon?"

"I call it my Super Fun Exploderoona." Workshop fan-danced past Pincushion's other side.

"We've covered the machine's super-fun exploding capacity. It doesn't sound super or fun. But…" Pincushion braced himself against the rocky wall to balance out a misstep. "…what happened to exploderoona?"

"It is exploding things." Workshop curled back around Pincushion's left, eyes closed, grin at the ceiling. "All those ears."

"There's a nuclear symbol on the side!"

Workshop fan-danced another circle around Pincushion and then curtsied. Boots rolled over crunching gravel. "Those are curly kitten claws, silly. I got the idea off our sweet old granny's friends. Better huuurrrryyyy. Its battery lasts about two adorable minutes before it calms down to a snugglecute puuuuurrrrrr"—she skipped through Catastrophe's opening—"and then barfs up a hairball." Amazingly, she didn't trip. Oh, wait. Never mind. "Your floors feel so comfy. I wanna lie here forever." She spread her arms across the ground. "Ooh. Dry gum. Treasure find."

"Before you depart, one last chance at Firebrand Cinnamon Chai." Legacy's sales tactics had grown desperate.

Pincushion hobbled to the destruction Catastrophe had opened to the maintenance tunnel. Detritus grabbed Wasted and tried to hoist him up like Pincushion had with Sixth Sense. No go. The Purple Nurple popped a left hook at a shopper that advanced past the caterwaul. Organism used his brawn to swing his dad past the safety of the machine. Both son and dad wore molded ears to muffle the shrieks. Better Than You and Klee tag-teamed a pair of football players in full gear. Incendiary plinked foam darts against the writhing army. Multipurpose nursed his next inflammation and cursed out a rock.

"Everyone, into the tunnel. Incendiary, you're rearguard."

Catastrophe helped Withered Old Battle-Axe through the opening. One by one, the others followed. Last, Incendiary and his play cannons kept an eye on the crowd. But those cats were getting drowsy. The drum's battery was winding down. Pincushion tromped through the opening, and finally Incendiary retracted his cannons and followed.

Catastrophe stood ready, hands gripping air. When Incendiary tromped through, he yanked down on nothing. The opening mimicked his hands and roared shut in stone carnage, steel rebar, and a flyer for guitar lessons.

And then quiet. Sweet quiet the kind that made you wonder if you'd gone deaf. The hallway lights buzzed Pincushion's eyes with white walls and loud illumination compared to the raisin-black shaft they'd dug. His heartbeat still cartwheeled and refused to relent. He realized he'd held his breath and coughed out the dust he'd inhaled. Then, in a soggy gasp, he choked back such satisfying air. It tasted divine.

The barrier dribbled gravel and pebbles and the guitar flyer. Muffled behind it, Workshop's cats hissed their final hiss. One cat plunged its claw deep into the other, and the fight died into a victory lapping of paws. A demonic rumble announced, "Flawless victory."

Pincushion marched down the hall. "We need to move. The adelphoi might have a miner." A kink pricked his back where Sixth Sense had lulled to unconsciousness.

Incendiary glanced at Pincushion, back at the plugged hole, at Pincushion. "Werewolf Eric will pick up our scent no matter where we hide."

"Honestly I think he's a weredog." Better Than You shrugged better than anyone else.

"That was his understudy." Pincushion rolled his shoulder again. "Anyway, Ace says IP soldiers are descending on the station. That means the atmospheric bubble is unlocked. So we're headed to the bomb shelter at the station's core. It has one entry point, it's fortifiable, and it acts like an escape pod. The good thing is this escape pod can't be deactivated. We have to reach it before they lock that atmospheric bubble again."

Incendiary started moving. "It's a dead end. That's a lousy place to hide."

"We're not hiding," Pincushion said. "We're leaving."

"We're leaving?" Organism gasped shock. "But this is our home."

Pincushion reached the next corner. "Not anymore, it isn't."

"I will report your position to Entity Master Continuum. He will find you. He finds everyone throughout spacetime. Your defeat will be delicious." Legacy's butlery face appeared glowing on a wall. That stalking haunt control finally showed itself. Despite closed eyes, it watched Pincushion tromp away. A two-toned and thick-lined avatar with a pencil mustache, a potato-shaped nose, and a butler's suit, his plain design looked like a simplistic doodle. He stood as straight and rigid as a ruler, from his clapped-together heels to the crown of his balding head.

"Whoa, wait." Pincushion jostled Sixth Sense back onto his shoulders. "You're clip art? Our enemy is clip art?"

"Artistic discrimination is the real enemy here." Legacy curled his mustache.

"You think this is bad, he had a monocle when he attacked me." Incendiary slapped the wall. Damaged, the wall deactivated, and Legacy blinked away.

"I erased my monocle function." Legacy reappeared on the opposite wall. He held up a virtual platter filled with hors d'oeuvres. "May I interest you in pigs in a blanket? And Firebrand Cinnamon Chai is available right here in Station One's food court. Oh, never mind. The food court is destroyed." A corporate jingle interrupted Legacy, and then, "Firebrand. The only tea brewed with leaves of excitement."

"Those leaves are moss, and you know it." Incendiary kneed Legacy's new wall.

Chapter Twelve: Smooth as a Razorblade Massage

I'm Silas Reef, and in all my years, I'd never known violence like Francine in the throes of a guitar faceoff. She was a demoness with a soul of ruin who could set you on fire with a side glance. But as The Nemesis's haunt control had promised, in little over an hour, we approached attack proximity of the outpost meteor. The raging haunt control called it "fistful of guzzling blood" proximity. How could a fist guzzle blood? Master Asinine said this called for a brainstorming session. With a word cloud.

The outpost hung in visual distance. If not for the windshield's magnification, I wouldn't have seen it storming at us at warp propulsion.

"Control, acknowledge." I waited for the haunt control's tongue-wagging roar to extinguish. "Deactivate warp propulsion. Convert to fusion propulsion."

"Cracking on down, fiends, as we taste the foul ashes of forever." The Nemesis lurched and dipped to the left. The glowing lines that gashed space contracted into stars.

As if awakening to a birdsong morning, the cockpit lights opened their eyes from carnage red to cozy purple. Manslaughter drumming pacified to soothing saxophones. The windshield's distance and speed statistics dulled from pitchfork-sharpened digits to rounded elegance. Cabin pressure statistics stopped measuring the number of farts in the room. Letters shed their dressing of barbed wire and needles. Master Asinine stopped blurting stupid things…for three seconds.

"My cool chickadees, let's mellow into an easygoing groove of ten thousand feet per minute. Savor the ride, my sweet folks. Savor the juicy ride."

Master Asinine's face emerged from the chains around his shoulders. "Oh, phew. The air isn't made of spiders anymore."

Francine stomped into the passenger deck and gashed an angry finger at him. "Nobody gave you permission to notice things."

"My brain did." Master Asinine inhaled deeply, as if coming off a brisk jog. "Thank the stars for mellow mode. Baron Klook was like a hornet's nest and a biker jacket had a baby."

I leaned closer to the windshield, to the meteor. Discarded steel littered the surface of that outpost. Someone didn't know how to recycle. The haunt control discovered a few figures that it boxed and labeled on the windshield.

Data spilled into the labels in quiet ticks. Good Guy entity Franchise. A profile picture accompanied this label. The Good Guy that had attacked me in the lab a few days ago.

Good Guy scum. Yyyeeessss. A litter of armor, destroyed showers, fountaining water, the fuming wreckage of a vehicle, a footbath station, and Good Guy scum. Sitting ducks waiting to be picked off. My nerves itched, my chest tickled with eagerness, and I licked my chops in anticipation. For all those Good Guys had caused the generics and me—barging onto our space station, sending us to the infirmary with third-degree burns, killing us, inflicting us with PTSD, driving poor Salvador to the bathroom because of poor bowel control, shattering our chinaware—they would pay. I realized my hand squeezed so tightly my fingernails pricked my skin. The Good Guys would pay dearly. "Francine, call the generics out of the yoga studio. We're going to war." Was I smiling? No, I was chuckling. "Take no prisoners."

A label appeared: unidentified Logistican entity. A picture of a gray ogre with a tattoo crawling up his cheek joined this label. Good Guy entity Plastique. A black-haired Terran with aggressive green eyes.

"Oh, they're in for it now." Francine slapped a palm on some navigator controls. "Wait, what did I…" She scanned the controls. "What's a rear antifog?"

Bad Guy entity Amaranthia. A high school ditz with a bubblegum bubble crowding three-quarters of the picture. Had she defected? Unidentified Terran entity. A sunglasses-wearing, grinning fool.

"Control, acknowledge," I said.

"What's up, my easygoing cats and sly dogs?"

I wrung my hands together. "Things won't be so easygoing for those fish in a barrel on the meteor."

"Command not recognized, hip daddy-o."

Unidentified water entity. Nice rock, perfect for sitting introspectively. Unidentified Gharalgian entity.

"Control, acknowledge. Arm wing can—"

Good Guy entity Matross Legion. A Trioxidillian appeared in the picture that accompanied the label. Military uniform, worry splotches on his hairless green forehead, cross necklace.

A flash. So aggressive, it came with a clap. Something burst into Reef's mi—into my mind's eye. I was Reef.

Master Asinine choked a gasp. Probably his brain agonizing over the once-in-a-lifetime task of thought. "That's Legion down there. Hey." He struggled against his chains, rattled but couldn't budge. "That's my friend down there. Don't you dare arm the wing cans!"

Unidentified old guy. Another nice rock, perfect for star gazing.

A memory…of sometime…of anytime: "Anyway, what with the haunt control reinstalled, we can use the hangar bay again." In Reef's mem—in my memory, a Trioxidillian handed a datasheet, a paper-thin computer to Reef. To me. No, to some other Reef from some other life. Something about a mission. What mission? What was I watching? I found myself stumbling backward from the cockpit deck across the threshold into the passenger deck. That vision felt like a sucker punch to Reef's f—to my face.

Another flash, so front-and-center it throbbed between my ears. Inside the wreckage of a Fireball mil-tran, in the cockpit, that same Trioxidillian in a new memory: "Reef, I think Smithereens's bomb shot me." Trioxidillians didn't make sense.

The flash clapped away, and I had somehow spilled into a passenger chair. Francine twisted her expression at me curiously. Another flash clapped.

New memory: "That twisted side panel is coming out of your allowance, young man." I said this when the Trioxidillian, Legion, told me to handle…a Bad Guy? When the Good Guys were formed. What was I doing with the Good Guys? No, what was this other Reef doing with them?

Why did Reef sicken at the idea of attacking Legion? Argh, why did I sicken? Why did I refer to myself in the third person?

"Awaiting the rest of the command, my shining hepcat," the haunt control said, unhurried and soothing.

"Control, acknowledge. Disarm wing cannons."

"Disarm them? What?" Francine slammed the navigation console. Slammed again. "What happened to take no p—" She squinted at the controls. "What's a parking brake?"

Ahead, Intergalactic Protection mil-trans circled Station One. Descended. A wealth of mil-trans, different sizes, different munition capabilities, but all swooping in with one purpose: to guard. What did they guard? Why did they break formation? And how could I know what they were doing?

"Our real target is in there." I jerked my chin at the mil-trans, through them.

Francine followed my finger. Hard to be precise at a few million kilometers away, but the mil-trans dancing down to Station One were impossible to miss. "We're here to destroy the Good Guys. You want to take on the entire military?"

"Yeah." I cocked my head and smiled. "I do."

Chapter Thirteen: Work Is Murder

February 17, 100,000.

Elohim jerked his wrist to the left. With it, he splashed a hyperperson into a wash of gore against a bench. Turned her electrons into photons. He didn't know he could do that. Bacon got a kick out of it too. He stretched screams out, sped them up, slowed them down, massaged time back and forth to play with the music of her pain. She sounded like chipmunks, so there was entertainment value. In her death, she sang "Witch Doctor."

Elohim and Bacon hunted threats to their mission, those who might one day rise up and outpower them. They could not be impeded in their quest to repair reality and harmonize it under one umbrella of slavery.

Bacon sped up time for these people's heads but slowed it down for their bodies. Their brains starved without oxygen and blood. Their heads wasted away like a timelapse video while the bodies remained young. Sometimes the head snapped off, frozen in place, while the body propelled forward in panic.

Elohim and Bacon had abandoned the antiseptic-smelling facility where the Engineers had kept Specimens as prisoners and slaves. Spread their wings into the real world. On this side street, Elohim practiced his quadruplet hyperabilities and discovered so many uses.

As much as practice amused Elohim and Bacon, they had a purpose. Not to torture like they'd been tortured. But Elohim grew concerned: Bacon took sadistic pleasure in their next phase. Elohim pulled him aside and onto a curb. Away from the curled bodies of these hyperpeople. And a Terran a few meters away whose back hadn't completed a three-sixty. Elohim blinked. Okay, now it completed a three-sixty.

"Bacon, we can't take pleasure in killing. We are here because the people need a master. The universe needs repair. We're here to enslave and unite this people. We are reality's leaders, not its tyrants." He scraped a dead squirrel off his shoe onto the curb. "We must also make sure roadkill is properly cleared."

Bacon noticed a twitch to his left and took care of the person in a wet crunch. "People like them took pleasure in our suffering. We should reciprocate." He took care of the person more with another mangled squirt. All solidity had been wrung from the body, and blood streamed down the street. Elohim now knew what sewer system was for. He didn't see what all the fuss was about.

Elohim still rubbed his sole against the curb. "But we show them a different way. We will lead without torture. We are here to eliminate threats." His eyes never left Bacon, but he sensed someone behind him. Felt the person, felt her energy, like a sensation of not being alone. Not a person who posed a risk to their mission of repairing spacetime, but a Gharalgian trying to flee the carnage. She was not an obstacle.

Bacon looked deeply at Elohim, sneered…and snuffed the Gharalgian in a soggy crunch. Though he faced Elohim, his eyes were on the landscape of people. He searched for targets to blink dead, to think dead.

And somehow…deep in Elohim…this gory death…twisted his gut? Why? He winced at the sudden revulsion he felt. No, it wasn't the killing. They had to eliminate the threats. But those screams that throttled his mind back to his own torture. It was…it was the violent slaughter that reviled him suddenly. Bacon, however, delighted in it. And killed everybody regardless of if they were a threat.

Elohim pinched the bridge of his nose. How could he convince his brother? He still scraped the flattened squirrel off his foot. To add insult to the fuel flames—or however the saying went—he suspected he picked up part of a skunk. Why so much roadkill? This place needed more municipal funding. "Brother, we're not here to eradicate everybody. That does no good. We need to unite the people of existence, control them so no one rises up to destroy spacetime like the Engineers." Was he losing his brother?

Another sneer, another soggy crunch. More snapping. Bacon was nothing if not musical. "We were used for so long. It's our turn to give back."

Elohim scraped his teeth together at the next crunch. "They need a unified servitude so reality can thrive as it's supposed to. Do you understand? For that, we hunt only those who pose a risk. They're the only ones who can overthrow us. No one else."

A light finally shimmered in Bacon's locked-and-loaded glare. Elohim had his attention.

"Bacon, the Engineers taught us that reality means control. The way of life is enslaving. Not killing. Do you understand?" The squirrel remained on Elohim's sole.

Elohim sensed another person to the left, a blue-skinned Trioxidillian. Another instinctual sensation of presence. This person posed no risk. Bacon noticed the person too. His eyes twitched at the person. He tried to keep attention on Elohim. His eyes twitched again.

"Fine." Bacon's locked-and-loaded gleam put its safety on. But his eyes still hunted for opportunity. He licked his lips.

"Good." Elohim smiled. "Now, let's take a break and find more Crunch Berries." This squirrel was now part of his shoe.

Chapter Fourteen: Brace for Impact

Around this corner, right? Pincushion had been to the bomb shelter only once. And he'd come under Steeple's influence. Memories were hazy. But they followed Incendiary, who guided them with his computerized blueprints and Janice's directions.

"May I offer any of my master's guests a warm towelette? Or death?" Legacy's thick-drawn shoulders slumped. "Or a warm towelette? I grow bored."

Legacy still dogged them. Whatever surfaces those giant robots had obliterated were offline. However, any undamaged surfaces were fair game, and Legacy faded in and out of them to stalk the team's progress. And push tea. Somehow his ad program had merged with motivational-poster design software, because he stepped out of a frame with the words TEA: IT'S WHAT'S TEAMWORK IS MADE OF. No, teamwork was made of barking orders and spittle, and Pincushion could reference several studies to prove it. And he'd smash his fist through the next wall that told him to keep calm and carry on.

Pincushion grunted to shift Sixth Sense's weight. Somehow 125 pounds put a piercing kink in you. Too bad Sixth Sense was out, because he could act as a telepathic early-warning system. Legion had tested his telepathy, and he could read thoughts at a thirty-foot radius, twenty-three when he thought in German. And for some reason thirty-three when he thought in German slang.

Pincushion traipsed over a chunk of rubble. He was dimly aware of the Purple Nurple a few paces behind and to his right. He couldn't look, because that required a shift of muscles that would roll Sixth Sense off his back. But he heard the hushed click of sponsors switching hands on the Purple Nurple's manic outfit. "Hey, Purple Nurple, still up for a high five?"

"Always ready." The Purple Nurple slipped in beside Pincushion. His flashing, tinfoil-colored costume had downloaded the local database, and he now wore a statement about customer satisfaction being the heart and soul of client fulfillment. The customer on his impact suit sipped tea. "What's happening up here?" His hand hovered for a high-five. The customer's hand now hovered too.

"Same thing happening back there: we're headed toward the bomb shelter near the station's core. But that's not why I called you up here." Pincushion's knees labored with every step. He kept a keen eye on the floor with ruins like a military obstacle course. Any misstep would spill Sixth Sense onto hard concrete and size-eighty robot footprints. "We have a problem. Sixth Sense is the only one here who knows the shelter's access code." That size-eighty footprint had a high heel. Looked like a giant exclamation mark.

"When Steeple attacked a few weeks ago, his adelphoi destroyed the shelter's door. Legion got it repaired, and Ace Spandex and Sixth Sense reinstalled the software. But they didn't get around to telling us what the new access code is. We didn't see all this coming, so we didn't see the rush. That's where you come in. Since we can't break through the door, your little subdivision—"

"Got it." The Purple Nurple saluted and fell back. "My little subdivision, listen up. We need to reprogram some access codes—"

"Brother, get back here. That's not where you come in." Pincushion was half a tinfoil advertisement away from snapping.

"Back here." The Purple Nurple sprang up to Pincushion again. He tripped on a crack in the floor, then sprang up. "Back here again."

"Anyway, I need to wake Sixth Sense up to—"

The Purple Nurple snapped his fingers. "To tell me the security codes so I can tell you. My little subdivision, listen up again."

"That's not it either. Stop pretending you know where you come in." Pincushion walked past Legacy standing in a computerized poster that said KNOWING WHERE YOU COME IN IS HALF THE BATTLE. "You and your little subdivision need to take point guard. Steeple's adelphoi isn't far. You're on defense while I wake Sixth Sense up. And keep an eye on Scapegoat if he gets fidgety. He hasn't gone to the bathroom yet."

The Purple Nurple kept walking. No response, not even when he clonked his toe on a fallen side table.

"That's where you come in."

"Oh." The Purple Nurple jolted into a reaction. "Got it." He fell back. "Hey, my little subdivision, congratulations are in order. I know where we come in. We're here to make sure Scapegoat doesn't get fidgety." Halfway there.

Ahead at the next left, Incendiary stopped. "We're here."

Detritus hurried ahead and undraped Wasted's arm from his shoulder. Wasted crawled to a shattered credenza and told it how much rent it owed. Apparently they had roomed in college together.

Pincushion reached the bomb shelter and set Sixth Sense against a fractured wall by its twin blast doors, slumped there like Wasted but without the singing voice.

The teke cocoon that had wrapped Sixth Sense faded. Pincushion's zigzagging jitters didn't. He felt the threat of that oncoming army like he felt suffocating humidity on a sweltering day. "Purple Nurple, now's your time: keep watch."

The hallway here was no different than elsewhere. Clefts of wall and slabs of what was behind it bulged out like someone had half-removed pieces from a jigsaw puzzle. But the bomb shelter's blast doors were immaculate, sealed with only a faint border to mark their separation.

"Hag—" Yikes. Too loud. Pincushion glanced along the hallway for adelphoi. Nobody but a mix of Good Guys, Gooder Guys, Bad Guys, and Wasted's singing voice now rendering "Whiskey in the Jar" unlistenable. Well, technically "Whiskey in the" and then an elongated belch from someone with surprising burping range.

Back to Sixth Sense. "Hagen, we need you to wake up." Pincushion flicked Sixth Sense's cheek, lightly but solidly. The situation was urgent: Wasted's breath wasn't getting fresher. "Hagen, come on."

Organism and his dad had caught up. Withered Old Battle-Axe as well. And, like a hastily-drawn specter, Legacy flickered onto the wall next to the bomb shelter's blast doors. "I've alerted entity Steeple to your position. He has gathered his adelphoi and will reach you in mere minutes." He smacked his lips, as if he puckered steak juices off his fingertips. His mustache curled ever so coyly. "He will have tea samples, treasured guests."

Pincushion studied Legacy's villainous mustache. "Legacy, acknowledge. Still pushing Firebrand?"

Legacy shrugged. "Sales have slumped, I'm afraid. But select adelphoi sales leaders will also be offering TNT Coffee. Good to the last kiloton. We can deliver a charge in seconds. It is equivalent to one hundred thirty joules, and it comes in a limited-edition collectable crate." The cartoon butler shuffled until it seemed to address the viewers at home. "TNT Coffee. Detonate your day in the face. Wherever fine ingestible volatiles are sold."

"Hagen, brother, if you don't wake up, we'll be retailed to death." Pincushion tapped Sixth Sense's cheeks again. This elicited a groan, but Sixth Sense stayed unconscious. Crock. "Come on, kid. We need you."

"Five more minutes, mom." Sixth Sense ruffled with a sleepy grimace.

"If it comes to it, my software has forty-six alarm tones." Incendiary stuck his chin out and planted his hands on his hips.

Better Than You slid into scene overtop Legacy's place on the wall. He leaned back on Legacy, crossed his arms, and winked. "What's happening up in the lead here, Kemosabe?" Legacy shifted to peer over his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" Pincushion blinked at the bigheaded showoff that seemed to slither up with such smoothness he must be half cobra. "I told the Purple Nurple your job was to defend our rear."

"He told us we had to find a bathroom so we could reprogram some access codes. And ain't nothing about this rear that needs defending." Better Than You slapped two fingers on his buttock. "When you got flair like me, you need it at the forefront."

"The forefront is back there, brother." Pincushion threw a finger down the hall.

"Trust me." Better Than You ran his hands up and down to showcase himself. "The forefront is wherever I go." He squatted, smirked out a half chuckle, and clapped a hand on Pincushion's spike-laden back. He tried to hide a cringe that stiffened his smile into a fake. "Yyyyeow."

"Hagen needs an industrial-strength slap." Pincushion hoisted Sixth Sense up along the wall, high enough that the telekinetic's feet dangled at a split in the baseboard. "Are you good at slapping?"

"Are you?"

"I'm decent."

Better Than You winked. "Then I'm decent plus one."

"Oh, let me." Multipurpose blubbered up. "I took a class at the Learning Annex."

"We can handle this ourselves." Pincushion would have nudged Multipurpose back, but that required physical contact.

Better Than You snapped his fingers. "We'll both slap him. Like, a jumbo double slap."

"I don't want to break his neck. Multipurpose, go suckle on a piece of debris."

"Oooooooh," Multipurpose hurried away starry eyed. Dodged that bullet. That porky, odorous bullet.

A march of footsteps entered the hall. The adelphoi had found them. Or maybe Legacy played canned audio to mess with their heads. He already messed them up enough by displaying a shimmering TNT Coffee logo and then listing all the munitions factories that sold it.

Pincushion inclined Sixth Sense's chin. "Okay, Better Than You, you say you can slap. Let's see what you've got."

"Oh, I got. Oh, do I got, muchacho. Brace yourself." Better Than You rolled up his sleeve.

"Brace myself? You're slapping him. I want to be clear, because if not, I'll call Multipurpose back here and let him go nuts."

"Ya said nuts?" Multipurpose reeled at them. "Mixed? Buttered? Candied? Cheesed? All four?" He pinched his slimy stomach folds. "I'm sniffing it out as fast as I can, Little Multi."

Better Than You shook his head with a chortle. "Slickster, you gotta know one thing about this guy with the thumbs." He pointed at himself. "When I do something, everyone feels it. Does Multipurpose always drool so much?"

Pincushion planted his feet, locked his arms, and propped Sixth Sense's cheek in the line of fire. "Launch in three"—he flinched when Better Than You cocked a hearty red palm back—"two"—and again when Better Than You stiffened—"one"—

Slap.

Better Than You had struck with such finesse that Sixth Sense's skull knocked against the wall. He blinked, roused, eyes at half-mast but flickering open. Come on, Hagen, come on. Pincushion flinched at the footsteps marching closer, louder, more insistent. They trickled dust from the ceiling. Not canned audio after all. "He's not coming around fast enough."

Better Than You stood aside, blowing on his hand. "Duder, trust me, if that slap didn't wake him, nothing will. I'm surprised I didn't cause an earthquake. Not that there's anything left to quake." He dropped a hand on Pincushion's shoul—Flinched and flapped his hand. "Why do I keep doing that?"

They needed something stronger. "Any bright ideas?" Pincushion asked.

Better Than You still waved his hand around. "I'm the action man, not the idea man." He hurled an angry finger in Multipurpose's direction. "Stay away, mashed potato. I know that look."

"Then don't say 'mashed potato'!"

The snap of that marching grew closer. The adelphoi was closing in. Pincushion glanced at Incendiary. "Ed, get over with the Gooder Guys. I need your software to figure out how close that marching is."

Incendiary nodded and rumbled off. His foam-dart cannons stretched out. "Not you guys again." He whacked one of the cannons. A dart plinked him in the ear, and the other threw up a flag with "bang" on it.

Multipurpose thundered back for a closer sniff. "Could ninja this thing open with sheer strength." He wedged his fingers between the two blast doors. It wasn't pretty, nor did it smell pretty.

"Calculations are in," Incendiary said. "Janice estimates the adelphoi is…give me back my Acey snoogums first? Janice, acknowledge. What's that in feet?"

Detritus was crouched down with Wasted. He stood and cocked his head. "Your Sixth Sense looks drunk off his crock. I know drunk."

"That's obvious. You don't shave your sideburns evenly." Pincushion lowered Sixth Sense to the floor. His arms burned.

"I'm just sayin', you want to wake him up? The secret ingredient is caffeine. More times'n I can count, that woke my buck Wasted out of a funk. All it took was a double-shot espresso and a funnel." He nudged his chin at the TNT Coffee ad. "You can get your solution delivered and at an introductory offer." He winked at Pincushion. "Legacy, acknowledge. We'll take a couple artillery shells o' that TNT Coffee. One cream, two sugars."

"Right away, good sir." Legacy disappeared, as if he retreated to the kitchen to prepare their explosives. He returned in a barista apron, and with him, a cylindrical and squat cookbot maneuvered out around the corner, wheels squeaking and clawed hand supporting a tray of two steaming munition cases. One wheel was missing, so the cookbot was lopsided. Took a page out of the station's go-karts.

Marching feet crackled louder.

The cookbot floundered around an overturned potted tree that had vomited dirt across the path. It stopped at Pincushion, and another wheel popped off. The front of the cookbot smacked the tiled floor.

Multipurpose stepped away from the doors, rubbing a shoulder. "Wow, those doors are sealed. Hey, I got a few cramps I never noticed before." He was the only ninja whose skill dragged its knuckles. And its feet. And stayed in bed most days.

The marching became thudding.

"My master's army draws ever closer. Also, I have taken the liberty of ordering you three cannonades of TNT Coffee. " Legacy locked his heels together. "TNT Coffee, with a taste that will blow your mind." Pincushion had had enough of blown minds since Power Plant tried to capitalize hieroglyphic symbols.

"My ninjaing's too specialized for up here." Multipurpose lumbered toward the action. "I'll crock these crockers up with a high kick or two." He stumbled and cracked a new fissure into a wall. "Crock, I jiu-jitsued instead of aikidoed. My muscles ain't trained for improvisation."

Incendiary's foam attack fired prematurely again. It plunked against a vent grate and lodged in the slats. "That's enough, guys."

Pincushion's fingers wrapped around Sixth Sense's collar. It had come to this. He shot Detritus an evil eye as if to say "This better work." He propped Sixth Sense up with one hand and an elbow, grabbed a shell, and tipped it over Sixth Sense's lolling mouth. "Sorry, brother. This ain't gonna feel pleasant, but it is gonna feel like waterboarding." Look out below.

The coffee guzzled into Sixth Sense's lips, into his nostrils, half in and half slopping down his chin. Still better table manners than the family who frequented the Sauce Shop in the food court, and less gurgling than when they plunged their faces into the horseradish troughs.

Coffee: administered. Pincushion clutched Sixth Sense's two-sizes-too-big collar, and—Wake up, Hagen—shook. Sixth Sense's head blurred like a speedbag fallen victim to a boxer. It knocked back against the shifted wall and his collarbone. Pincushion feared whiplash, but with that troop thumping closer, there were worse things.

"Hhheee"—a blurt emerged from that blurred head—"eeeyy—"

Pincushion stopped. "Hagen?" He peered through Sixth Sense's askew glasses so thick they were almost opaque.

Having turned several shades greener than Legion, Sixth Sense blinked at him, to the left, to the right, breathed in his surroundings. Good. Awake. Pincushion let go.

Sixth Sense buckled at the knees but caught himself. "Okay. Uhm. Wow. Am I dreaming?" He blinked distorted eyes through his bulletproof lenses. "Why is a butler offering me a mug of dynamite?"

Those marching footsteps danced chills through Pincushion. "Hagen, the adelphoi is closing in, and I don't know if you've got it in you to put up another teke barrier. We need the bomb shelter's access code in that eidetic head of yours. If Catastrophe rips the door open, he'll compromise the shelter. It won't launch if it's compromised."

"The code is 'shake twice, zip once.'"

"The bomb shelter. Not the bathrooms." Pincushion slapped a palm on the blast doors, right over an icon of a beach bum that didn't show his lounge chair mercy. Wait, what did the beach have to do with a bomb shelter?

"Oh." Sixth Sense's expression hopped when he realized where he was. "Sorry. Got confused. Franchise calls the bathrooms his bomb shelter. Bad news: I never knew the access code."

The drumming footsteps commanded the focus of the hallway, like the slam of construction equipment. It reverberated weirdly in the crumbled corridor.

Maybe someone was dropping a bomb on the beach.

"What the crock? You were our one last hope, four eyes!" Detritus reared a punch at Sixth Sense. Sixth Sense deflected it with a teke shield. Detritus curled away and nursed his knuckles.

A parade cracked against the floor. "Incoming!" Incendiary hollered down the hall. Pincushion glanced up. He couldn't see the adelphoi with its mind-controlled shoppers, diners, street performers, and an artisan soap maker who tended to snack on her inventory. But everyone reacted: game faces worn, fists formed, stances tensed, obese calf ache massaged. Scapegoat even plugged both nostrils for a rapid-fire barrage. Always ready to save the day.

The beach bum did have a sun umbrella. That was a type of shelter.

Pincushion gripped Sixth Sense's arms, almost clawed his fingernails through his skin. "What do you mean you don't know the access code? You helped build it." He kicked the door.

Incendiary fired a foam dart. A kabuki performer toppled onto him and then spilled aside. Organism and his dad grappled more adelphoi away. Klee released a battle cry and cracked against someone in an airduct-cleaning uniform. The adelphoi had reached the corner. Their indominable marching snapped even louder. Everyone inched back as the adelphoi's progress clawed inward.

"Ace programmed it. I have no idea." Sixth Sense blinked at the door. "A beach bum?"

Withered Old Battle-Axe threw a cat. At Incendiary. She threw a cat at her own teammate. Organism shoved back a ventriloquist. The doll yelped, but the ventriloquist didn't.

Pincushion huffed through his nose. "Hagen, we need through this door with the beach bum that's taking way too much of my mental capacity right now. Tell me you can get us through." Beach bum, sun umbrella, sand, a beachball. What was the hidden link here?

Workshop tittered at a kid in a puppy shirt. It probably tore her apart inside not to run around and hug everyone. Still, would it kill her to throw a punch?

Meanwhile, a litter of cats had buried Incendiary.

"Through the door? Is that all we need?" Sixth Sense half-smiled.

Detritus chambered another punch. "'Is that all we need?' Ya serious? Get me and my buck the crock in there, or I'm gonna think thoughts atcha." His fingers shot to his temple. "I ain't afraid to make you stupid."

Sixth Sense concentrated at the bomb shelter, grunted, steeled his legs—

The blast doors crashed open. Sounded rough, but the only result was a pinch of dust shaken off the ceiling and an escaped cough of stale air. Someone had let a bad batch of rations linger, and the room dripped with the odor of spam.

"Outta my way." Detritus yanked Wasted up so quickly he probably pulled a vertebra. He lugged the inebriate into the shelter, no time to waste. "You better know how to close this pissin' thing just as fast, nerd."

In a fit of pixels, Legacy shifted into the blast shelter's hallway. His eyes, as ever, were closed. His posture, also as ever, was pompously straight. He held that ubiquitous towel draped over his arm, a serving tray raised. "My master's army will prevent your escape. Station One's gardener would also like to have words with whoever peed on the hedges in front of the lobby."

Organism guided his dad through the doors. "If it's urine related, it's Power Plant. If it's hedge related, it's also Power Plant."

Multipurpose entered the bomb shelter last. Those clonking, brontosaurus legs made every step a slow-motion shamble. The number of ninja muscles he'd overworked today was likely in the dozens.

Pincushion clapped the heel of his palm on the shelter's locking mechanism. No verbal command would work, since Legacy would just try to sell them on explosive wake-me-ups. The doors squeaked like an unoiled gate at a haunted mansion and crashed shut.

The mood and ruckus had plummeted to silence like a crypt. Pincushion backpedaled away, eyes on the doors.

Legacy sparkled onto a wall in a wash of pixels. "My, my. This area operates on a different program. It may take me some time to crack your access codes."

Pincushion whirled away from him and powered down the hall. "Give it your best shot."

Food supplies cuddled in the central area, as if someone had moved them in but hadn't stowed them away. Military rations. Canned meat. Cereal from bygone eras. Water bottles sat in a rack. Hover chairs floated, motionless and waiting. Jars of food quivered. A computer system at the rear wall wheezed, ready for the order to deploy. A few light panels knocked into each other like bumper cars idling to a stop. Every surface felt like aged candlewax.

Opposite the computer crouched a serving counter, behind that a kitchenette. A side room included spare clothes and linens in something like a bedroom built for maybe four people or Multipurpose's arm. It held medical supplies with the aroma of sour bleach. A bathroom sprouted from a thin hallway between the kitchenette and the bedroom, like a bunker inside this bunker.

Was that a pet blast door in the regular blast doors?

Incendiary scanned the cramped space. "My Pokémon GO says there's a Snorlax in here."

The smacking of lips, dry crunching. Multipurpose was three cans of freeze-dried beef deep and sniffing a tin of whatever spiced chamkey was. His brows perked with playful curiosity, and he ooooohed. A pervasive methane trickled around the room. Maybe mixed synthetic meats didn't agree with Little Multi.

"Control, acknowledge," Pincushion said.

"Yes, master entity Pincushion." Though only an image, Legacy leaned closer. His posture still rigid, he bent only at the waist.

"I forgot who I was talking to. Hagen, launch this thing manually."

"Pish posh. Must we act as if I'm not even here?"

Sixth Sense hustled toward the console, around Multipurpose and Little Multi's fumes. If those fumes trickled out more, Pincushion would lock Multipurpose in the closet. Little Multi could stay outside the bomb shelter.

The blast doors began thudding. Unhurried attacks confronted it in a lazy but unyielding attempt to enter. The previous doors were l tech Bristol board, but since the bomb shelter was fortified, the replacement doors were high-yield steel, sliding doors. Good thing. Art-supply doors would collapse in seconds. A few adelphoi came equipped with child-safety scissors.

"Ah, master's guests have arrived. Let me fetch the good tableware. Meanwhile, I am running hacking algorithms to crack the access code to this bomb shelter. I shall turn on the viewscreen to preoccupy your simple minds while I work." Legacy disappeared off the wall. In his place, a viewscreen sprouted. It showed the fervent lynch mob outside. They were missing pitchforks and torches, but two people from the drama club wielded wooden ones.

And that mob was piling up.

Multipurpose peeled open another can of something glowing. He snorted at Incendiary. "Hey, your Snortracks in here, you think?" He was chin deep before he got an answer.

"Uhh. Wow. Okay." Sixth Sense tapped a few buttons on the console. He seemed to know what he was doing. "We're a go in thirty seconds."

Pincushion counted heads, making sure to count Klee once no matter how much or how hard the faun bounced around. Eight Good Guys—including Withered Old Battle-Axe, but she was more of an enforcer in cat alleys—three Bad Guys, and four Gooder Guys. In all the turmoil, they'd lost only Hearse. Pincushion bit his lip over that. Hearse had leaped headlong at that dragon, and even that walking armored truck must have known the impossible odds against him. And what had twisted Kamikaze so much?

The battering at the blast doors shook harder. And harder. Even blast doors had limits, reinforced or not. If any more adelphoi piled against them, they'd cave out of their mooring. Pincushion's worries doubled at the "Made in Error" etched along the doorframe.

"Hagen, launch status."

"Yikes. Okay. Initiating now." Sixth Sense jabbed a glowing button. A reinforced wall crashed down to cut the bomb shelter off from the hallway. An unearthly grumble resonated from deep underneath the shelter. It reverberated from the center and nearly shook Pincushion off his feet. He grabbed a chair to brace himself. Something in the station's core shifted along the foundation of whatever lay beneath, like an underground demigod grinding its teeth.

Multipurpose sprawled backward, mashed chamkey tail all over his face.

The pounding at the blast doors swelled to battle the underground rumble even through the reinforced wall. The crowd outside grew rowdier.

An unfathomable clap punctuated the rumble. Something had settled in place. "We're set." Sixth Sense whirled around.

"Then launch!" Catastrophe threw the can he held, an unopened ten-ounce serving of chamkey noodle soup. It smacked Wasted in the ear, but no one cared, least of all Wasted.

Sixth Sense slammed a palm over a red plunger contoured in a black-and-yellow-striped box. The foundational grumble became a piercing screech, as if someone scoured metal sheets together. The grumble died deep within the cavern under the bomb shelter. Then the sound of compressed air, crackling around the bomb shelter's walls, like giant hands squeezing it.

An explosive fury thrust them upward. With no windows, Pincushion felt and didn't see the incredible thrust, as if the station regurgitated the bomb shelter like disagreeable chamkey.

Pincushion writhed toward the console like a bad swimmer in an undercurrent. Sixth Sense toppled out of the way, so Pincushion grabbed the console and heaved himself up and blinked at the display and watched the bomb shelter barrel at the station's atmospheric bubble and the tint of the sun behind it and the dance of starships descending and oh crock oh—

"—crock oh crock oh crock"—Pincushion choked as the shelter hurtled toward the battalion of mil-trans—"oh crock oh crock oh crock"—the bomb shelter cracked against a Flagstar, rebounded—"oh crock oh crock"—snapped into a Lasergem, spun-spun-spun—the display whipped in sickening circles—the shelter clipped against a Tinfoil—"ccccrrrroooocccckkkk"—it ponged toward the atmospheric bubble—

—and into space. Alarms. Damage. To starboard. To port. To the rear spoiler. Why did the alarms sound like tongue laughing? "Check out Side-Splitter Sirens, where security is just too hilarious. More cackling than the next leading brand. Available at Exploding Cigar Joke Shop." But the Exploding Cigar Joke Shop was back on the station.

Built like a long cylinder with thrusters, the bomb shelter settled. The guidance system relaxed it into an aerodynamic trajectory. Pincushion's stomach almost relaxed into an aerodynamic trajectory. Good thing he hadn't tried the food supplies here, because those canned mushrooms weren't mushrooms. They were blue except for the ones that were orange.

He managed to his feet. His metal knee, a replacement for one that was shot out years ago, made standing tough. "Everyone okay?"

Everyone's breathing sounded seismic. But they'd survived the launch. Blurted grunts, uneasy nods, and a thumbs-up confirmed they'd recover. Even Scapegoat, who had fallen into an air pocket in Multipurpose's fat folds, mumbled a word casserole.

Pincushion melted to the waxy floor, back against the console, and flopped his arms down wherever gravity dropped them. "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Ace Spandex."

His gabber bud buzzed on. "Seeking connection, seeking connection. Overseas charges will apply."

Incendiary took Catastrophe's arm and guided him aside for a whispered conversation that Pincushion still overheard. Incendiary glanced around and leaned in. "Snorlax was in that can." He jolted when Multipurpose snarled down more food. "Now I have to wait for him to pass."

"The beach bum had sunscreen on." Pincushion sat upright and snapped his fingers. "Sun protection, shelter. That's the connection."

Chapter Fifteen: Just Smile and Nod

Blackguard gazed heavenward at the bomb shelter. In a roaring performance of thruster fire, signal lights, and "My other bomb shelter is a Death Star" on the side, it had pierced the glutinous bubble and soared away on an escape trajectory to anywhere. He blinked his shallow-seeded eyes but couldn't face the burning sunlight long before turning away.

He stood in the castle's broad and rambling throne hall. Stone was everywhere: walls, floor, and ceiling, save for the skylight through which he watched the fugitives flee. Far be it from Blackguard to second-guess masterful excellence, but Lord Continuum could have exercised a touch more soundproofing. No one could predict how loudly Gangrene preened itself. And if Brother Ripsaw called someone a dipstick jerk-dunce once more, Blackguard would skewer that dipstick jerk-dunce. Yes, dipstick jerk-dunce had a hyphen.

"Lord, I have distressing news." Blackguard stepped around a sunbeam that would cause his skin to hiss. His head snapped to the side. "And Brother Plaster, finish your chores."

Brother Plaster sprang from his seat and snatched a sponge off a counter. "For crockin' out loud, I'm always on dish duty." He soaped down a plate and handed it to Wyvern, who tongued it clean. Wyvern set it in the drying rack.

Continuum looked not upset by Blackguard's update, simply pensive. His lips curled in a simple smile. "There is no such thing as distressing news, only news that presents opportunity and other news that presents sports and traffic."

"Brother Steeple's adelphoi was unable to claim the Good Guy contingent. They failed even to catch up with Multipurpose. You would have to try not to catch up to Multipurpose."

"You speak the truth. Multipurpose does not fit in narrow hallways."

"Nor did our brethren rid the trespassers on the meteor outpost. The contingents will likely unite."

"Hey, off my case. I did my crocking best, an' I got hit by a civ-tran for it." Ripsaw clutched his side, spitting bitterness over his shoulder. "Wasn't for my suit, I'd be a speedbump."

"Blackguard, you have misunderstood. We were not to kill the trespassers. Eliminating them will come later. For now, we were only to drive them out, attempt to get your antithesis, and reclaim our home. What is it they say? Kill two birds with one rock?"

"With one stone, my lord." Blackguard bowed his head at the correction.

Lord Continuum's smile grew. His lips no longer curled. They beamed. "The adelphoi from Intergalactic Protection have also passed through the atmospheric bubble and now descend. Our family is united. The last mil-tran just trickled through the atmospheric bubble."

And then the air pressure changed. With no sound, the arrangement of clouds outside disappeared. The sky brightened to a clearer pitch of blue, stars bled away, and the breeze smelled fresher with a hint of spring grass. The decay of destroyed buildings and industrial wreckage vanished. Gravity weakened and then, as sharply, resumed.

"Now, we begin our next phase." Continuum's hand, that gentle and compassionate hand that yet could crush a planet, rose so elegantly, so calmly, and gestured with but a simple arc. It just as elegantly drifted back to his side.

Blackguard waited. Nothing new occurred. No additional change in the landscape, no more transformation to the air. With a smile, Continuum had redecorated the atmosphere. But with that magical gesture, nothing. Confused, Blackguard asked, "What did the flourish of your hand do?"

"Nothing. I was waving to Servant Necropolis. He is staring at me. His creepiness is incalculable." Lord Continuum waved again. His smile curled artificially. "It's those yellow eyes."

Blackguard glanced across the room—

"No no no, don't look," Continuum said. His fake smile did not break. "He'll know we're talking about him." Another faint, unsure wave.

Blackguard pictured Brother Necropolis standing without sway. He imagined a low growl reverberate from Necropolis's closed, haunting mouth. He felt hairs rise on his neck though he had no hairs. "He is indeed spine-chilling, my lord."

"Don't accept gifts from him. I cannot stress that enough."

Chapter Sixteen: Why Is Ace Spandex Always Messing with Space?

"Seeking connec—Connection attained."

Finally. Signals in dead space were tough to connect, but the gabber pushed through. Pincushion leaned against the bomb shelter's console while Sixth Sense fiddled with the settings, the trajectories, the whatnots. "Ace, we escaped. Hagen is slowing us down so that we shoot through your path as your orbit comes around."

"You'll need to recalculate." Ace's words jumped unnaturally. He gulped like a nervous child. "We're not orbiting anymore."

Pincushion repositioned his kinked shoulder off the console. "What did you do to the meteor? Stop hacking things. At least we can't get thrown out of a casino this time."

Ace Spandex fell silent. But only for a moment. "We're not orbiting because there's nothing to orbit."

* * *

Ace Spandex gawked past the outpost's dome at an empty atmospheric bubble where Station One had disappeared. The space was now a blank slate, and its missing gravity let the meteor drift away like a paper boat released into a stream. "Station One is gone."

Chapter Seventeen: Make Way for the Man

Continuum folded his arms and stared up, a blazing sun centered in the skylight of his throne room. He lifted a hand, fingers spread…and snapped those fingers shut. The skylight closed in a grumble of stone that aligned seamlessly.

"Servant Trader, place the aswang pieces in the pedestal." Continuum snapped his fingers and gestured to the pedestal on the right of the throne.

The Trader grumbled. He lifted the two pieces of the aswang, contained in two separate vessels that looked like fast-food takeout containers. Tasteful. Sure. These containers—holding the aswang's brain and heart—he placed on the pedestal. The pedestal quivered, and the stone on top grew tendrils that wrapped around the containers and swallowed them. The pedestal calmed and became a pedestal again.

Continuum chuckled involuntarily. Couldn't help it. He plodded across the room and stopped at a bungle of metal, plastic, and wires. Picked it up. Turned it over. The headlight from Amaranthia's civ-tran. It had popped through Servant Transit's portal. Hrm.

He tossed it aside and strolled up the three steps to his raised throne.

He faced his army. He placed his hands on the throne's granite arms. And he sat.

Thrones in Terra's Middle Ages were often gilded wood, but he preferred granite. More prestige. Oh, and a heated cushion for his seat. He deserved warmth and comfort. Not sweat, though, so he made sure that off switch was nearby.

Gangrene puttered up and took his place next to the throne. Continuum crossed one leg onto the other knee, leaned back, and stroked Gangrene's head. Never mind the pustules and filth that eructed from the skin. Embedded in the wall behind Continuum stood his newest trophy: the assassin Hearse, frozen as stone in the brickwork and in time, his expression defiant even now.

Blackguard, with strides so careful his upper body barely bobbed, took his place on the other side of the throne. "What is the next phase, my master?"

Continuum didn't answer right away. He shifted his shoulder blades into the granite behind him, and the granite shaped itself to hug them. He plucked a Crunch Berry from the bowl molded into his throne's armrest and lost himself in the taste and Gangrene's purrs. Gangrene loved behind-the-ear scratches.

The Engineers' words played in his head, those words from long ago and yet far in the future, when he was trapped in scramble space tinkering and adjusting reality to their fitting. "We created you with the power of a god. We harnessed in you the ability to remodel the physical world. But make no mistake: you're our tool."

Continuum was no one's tool. He was a god ordained to repair spacetime. "We've played defense and retaken our home. We've driven out the intruders and prevented more from entering. Now, my son, we play offense: we mount our assault and correct the errors in existence I was tortured to create. We eliminate the threat." Another chuckle. "And then we take what's ours.

"We conquer spacetime."

Part 2: The Part Where They Try to Figure Stuff Out, Like What Happened to Television Static, and We'll See if It Works or Not

Chapter One: And That's Where You Got That Nasty Rash

He was no joke. He couldn't be. He'd saved everyone. He'd burrowed everyone out of those tunnels today. Jokes didn't do that. Jokes didn't save people or poop themselves when studio lighting got too hot.

Catastrophe reclined in the only beanbag chair he found in the escape pod. It felt rubbery and squeaky. Eyes barely open, scarcely awake after using his hyperability so much, he deserved the break. He wiggled deeper, though he didn't remember nylon feeling so cold. Was this nylon? He pinched the fabric between two sweaty fingers. Eh, who knew? When he'd filmed Speed 3: Beanbag Expressway with the great Eduardo Corrochio—yes, silver-screen starlet Eduardo Corrochio, two-time winner of the Trainwreck Awards—he'd learned lots about padded seatware. The studio stored their props in a stockroom overnight, chilled to prevent damage. The beanbag chairs felt like glaciers by morning. They also smelled like crackers. But he got to keep his chair after production wrapped.

Were those things even chairs?

His eyelids slid shut like window blinds. So did his lips, in a frown. He missed acting. But he'd shut down that side of his life. His field leader, Plastique, had once given him hot crock for ignoring his military duty when he favored his reviving career. She'd said the two careers interfered, and if he kept prioritizing acting over his military service, he'd be discharged. Not sure if that meant datawork or out of a cannon.

His newest picture, Officer Nuclear, was set to debut later this month. Originally a straight-to-your-couch release, sneak-preview ratings had exploded. That shifted it to wide, theatrical release. He'd driven himself crazy trying to reawaken his career, which had floundered for twenty-six years. He was dog-toothed determined to show his naysayers and hecklers he wasn't worthless. To show Stella. Crocking Stella, who'd left him when his show, Jack Fistbomb, ended due to low ratings and then he was fired from Edward Barbecuegrillhands. Before that, his acting career made him a thundering god among peasants. After cancellation, he couldn't even busker to the thundering gods. He yearned to reawaken that career so badly, felt the urge so vibrantly, that it lit his vision like too many wrap-party martinis. He gripped the beanbag chair at that thought.

But Plastique had threatened him with discharge, so he'd stuffed the urge down. He'd passed up every opportunity to say anything about Officer Nuclear. He'd declined speaking at every press release. Whenever he stepped in front of a camera, whenever he met the public, nothing…until the beginning of the month when he'd relapsed to distract reporters from Janice's meltdown on Station One. It was a hot and angry addiction. Hi, everyone. My name is Catastrophe, and I'm a careeraholic. And I play one on TV. Badly, but still.

Catastrophe rolled over, pressed his cheek into the beanbag chair, resolved to get at least a few minutes of sleep. Smelled clammy in here. How long had it sat unused in this bomb shelter?

Today, he'd proven to himself he could prioritize his military career. Had slashed a quarter-mile length of a tunnel. Had led everyone to freedom. He'd led them. And he had the sweat stains to prove it. Jokes didn't do that. He had worth. He was no catastrophe. Hear that, Stella? Plastique? If not for him, everyone would be submissive book-club zombies.

Wait a second, he didn't remember a beanbag chair when he came in.

"Crock, get off!" Multipurpose spat chamkey at him.

"Gah!" Catastrophe jittered off that fleshy sack of lard. He stomped toward the bathroom. "Where's the shower?"

* * *

Pincushion scratched his head at the bomb shelter's console when Catastrophe thundered past, and crock, that movie has-been thundered with passion. And that waxy ambiance he usually carried. His feet thundered like rubber squeaks on the floor. "Whatever you do in there, Catastrophe, wash behind your ears.

"Anyway, Hagen." He thumped a fist on the bomb shelter's control console. "Just got off the gabber with Ace, and he says the meteor outpost is free-floating."

"Wait. Huh? Free-floating?" Sixth Sense looked up from across the shelter.

"Yes. Station One vanished, so there's no orbit. How is that possible? And what is this data saying? Is this thing updating based on the meteor's position, or do we have to reprogram it?" He swept aside a flashing ad for a fart-capacity scale. "Maybe I'm looking at it upside down."

"Pretty sure you heard Ace wrong about Station One, but we'll get back to that." Now that the rumble had dissipated, Sixth Sense walked toward the console without stumbling. His steps still wobbled while he found a stable equilibrium, but he reached Pincushion without collapsing into a wall. His eyes tiptoeing around the controls, he tapped a couple buttons with fingers buried in shirtsleeves too long for his arms. The display extended a smattering of numbers Pincushion couldn't translate.

"Okay. Uhm. Here." Sixth Sense pushed his glasses up his nose and swiped aside a timer that estimated the period until their next engine flood. He tapped the number that took its place, a yellow figure swirling downward. "This is our trip length. It's not fluctuating, so that means we're headed directly toward them. It's going down steadily, so we're closing the distance." He tapped the second number down. "Here's our ETA. This is calculated from the distance between us and the outpost with our speeds factored in. It's corroborating what the distance says. So if that outpost keeps moving like this, this ETA will keep shrinking."

Phew. Pincushion expelled tension through a sigh—

"We only need to figure out how to land."

—and sucked the tension back in. "Say what?" That was fast. It hit him in his kinked shoulder.

"This thing doesn't come with landing gear." Sixth Sense searched the settings by tapping through a couple menu options. "I'm not even sure it has parking gear. Oh, but it's got high beams." He pushed his glasses up his nose again.

Pincushion gripped the console more tightly. His fingers felt the sharp edge. "How are we expected to land?"

"I haven't thought that through. You put me in charge of stopping Multipurpose from eating people. We have enough rations for only one of his meals, so after that…" Sixth Sense shrugged. "Not that I like this idea, but if it comes to it, I vote we sacrifice Scapegoat first." He counted off his fingers under his too-long sleeve, first the index. "He's plump, so Multipurpose will likely fill up on fat." Middle. "He's chewy." Ring. "His blame hyperability won't be an issue. I think he's responsible for Galaxy War Eight, and that hasn't even happened yet." Pinkie. "It will eliminate that smell of—"

"Ed, brother, we need you over here." Pincushion whirled around. His foot bumped something. Wasted. The floor was slanted, and Wasted was rolling down.

Incendiary stood by the counter, examining a can he'd peeled open. Upon hearing his name, he clanked over. His joints echoed noisily in this enclosed chamber. "President Abends better give me double credit for all this overtime." He arrived and searched Pincushion's jaw-dropped confusion, checked Sixth Sense for some explanation, back to Pincushion. "What's up? And is tuna edible if it has a proboscis?" He held up the can. Multipurpose's snarl marked the end of that tuna, can and all, right out of his hand.

Pincushion shared a look with Sixth Sense and then said, "Exactly how much can you lift, and is it enough to stop a bomb shelter from smashing into a meteor?"

Multipurpose kept snarling.

Chapter Two: Chill Out, Bro

March 31, 100,000.

Bacon had grown savage. Sadistic. Earlier, Elohim had watched him anger-rake the lawn like he was digging. And then yelled at the neighbors to stop staring. It had gotten weird: the lawn was really a forest clearing, and the neighbors were woodland creatures. He also needed to put on pants instead of just undies.

It devastated Elohim to see his brother deteriorate like this. Not only because Bacon couldn't stop yelling at student drivers, but because there weren't any drivers around. Their quest had degenerated to disarray and bloodshed. Bacon gave in to the thirsty anger the Engineers had fostered in him. Elohim and he had already killed most of the threats. And the last box turtle due to a mishap, but it had it coming crossing the road at rush hour. But after all that killing, Bacon still thirsted for more.

They now stood on the final planet of their extermination phase, Virilurn, home to the reptilian Virillian species. In buzzing swampland, no less, and now filth drenched Elohim's double-lined socks. Just great.

Call this the last leg of their journey. Call this finishing up, tying up loose change. Loose ends? Loose hairs. Tying up loose hairs.

Be a slave or be a master, and he and Bacon resolved to be the masters by ending the threats. But, though Elohim had ended the threats with quiet mercy, wisped them away in painless smoke, Bacon had caused such agony with haunted screams that spiraled into Elohim's soul. Even now, Bacon tried to wring a single scream out of someone, screwing and unscrewing his neck. You couldn't cause someone to scream when they were already dead.

And this sunscreen was runny.

A tear slipped out of Elohim's eye. His brother, the only one in spacetime he'd ever trusted, had slipped into brutal homicide. He'd caved to the demons that had claimed his soul as home. His essence had become an infestation for what the Engineers had wrought in him. Elohim studied the expression on his grit as he threw aside this latest body, wrung dry and with the structural integrity of a rope. Threw the body aside as thoughtlessly as an empty coffee cup.

Elohim gestured to the creature ahead. "There is the threat we've come to end. After this, no more exist." Not counting the threat of rising recharge costs.

Standing among a thicket of mildewing moss and lilies, the Virillian stared back with a grunt and bared teeth. A Virillian greeting. From what Elohim understood, this creature either warned them to come no closer or wished them a happy birthday.

Elohim slapped his neck. Mosquitos were nasty, but he'd never prepared for Virillian mosquitos as big as delivery drones.

"Then let's extinguish this last threat." Bacon curled a fist.

"But we'll extinguish it mercifully. We'll—" A roar interrupted Elohim.

Bacon hadn't waited. He threw open his hand and, with it, had thrown open the head of that Virillian in such agony that its gore painted a tree.

"Bacon, that wasn't with mercy!"

Bacon's lust twinkled his eye. "It was fully, though." He slashed his hand in the air. The tree creaked and toppled over. With his hyperability, he grabbed another Virillian, a newborn, and held her aloft.

Elohim lunged at his brother. "Bacon, let her—"

Bacon crumpled the Virillian into a squishy ball. The look on his face was avid: chiseled disgust in his mouth and chin, focus in his zeroed-in stare.

He threw the newborn aside as if it were a bad tomato and grabbed another Virillian. Sucked this one dry of blood. Grabbed another. Stretched it out and uncoiled its nerves. Grabbed ano—These weren't even threats. They were just people! One was a tax adjustor. But the rest were people!

"Bacon?" Elohim watched him grab another. And then another. "Bacon." And then another. He tore through them as if shelling peanuts at a bar. At this point, he didn't even use his hyperability. He sank his fingers deep into their throats, their eye sockets, their armpits. Virillians weren't ticklish but, yes, their armpits. "Bacon!" Another bug pinched his neck. How could Virillians stand this environment? Their planet was a global compost bucket. "Bacon!"

Bacon whirled around, hyperventilation seething. He worked so quickly at murder that he panted. "What?"

Elohim approached him. His socks were casts of mud now. Too bad. They were custom fit for his heel. "What are you doing?"

"These people stand to make us slaves again. I'm making them pay." Drool trickled down the corners of Bacon's mouth.

"They aren't the Engineers."

"They must pay." Bacon sprinkled spittle with his anger.

Virillians were cultured for combat, but they were no match for Bacon's lust for carnage. When Elohim and Bacon had flown to Virilurn, Bacon hadn't even waited to land. He'd swept aside entire nations. He'd caused smoldering wildfires, raked villages with tidal waves and earthquakes, created titanic monsters, rained meteors of fire, conjured up three sharknadoes and one whalenado.

And his eyes narrowed more as he snapped a Virillian's neck. A blacksmith.

And the last Virillian.

They were now the box turtle.

"Brother, all those that would pose a threat have already been killed. That Virillian we came to kill was the last. But you've eliminated the entire species." Elohim swatted his elbow. Alas, not their mosquitos.

"We weren't here to tie this loose hair. It didn't need to cost this much." Elohim's sensations emptied onto the swamp floor. He stood there. That was all. He stood as his brother's madness chiseled harder on his grimace. What had deranged Elohim's brother like this? The Engineers. They had.

"They'll find new people to rise up." Bacon's nostrils flared. "New mosquitos."

Elohim felt faint with loss. "They won't. They can't! My brother, you wiped them out. All of them. They'd just evolved the ability to speak." Elohim surveyed the massacre around them. "Curse words, but that is a step." Curse words always came first.

Elohim couldn't talk Bacon down from his murderous drive, could he? He'd tried. Over the last few years—a couple weeks, chronologically—Bacon had grown more and more bloodthirsty, licked his lips with each twisted corpse strewn across streets, stomped on more anthills, tied up too many loose hairs. Elohim's brother quenched himself with genocide. He was tainted.

"Please. We can't continue this, Bacon." Elohim stepped up to Bacon, shoes squishing into the swamp mud like his toes into the gel-composite floors back at the Engineers' facility. Tingles swarmed in his core. He guided Bacon into a hug. "The killing can't continue. We are now the masters. The rest are the cogs. We can't risk the extinction of another species. We can't ruin another pair of specially fitted socks."

Bacon returned the hug. But not quite. His hands grazed Elohim's back as if a bad puppeteer controlled the hug on his behalf.

Another wet squish from the side marked Bacon's attempt to kill a Virillian already killed. Bacon shoved Elohim away, threw his clawed hand up, and jerked it aside. He yanked out another tree and stomped a thundermammal into pulp.

"Bacon, that is enough!"

And another thundermammal.

"Bacon, you've descended into madness. And now you're swatting an armadillo with a tree."

A gnawl.

"Stop!" Elohim's voice was damp. He used his gravity hyperability, froze Bacon in place. The tree crashed onto the swamp floor.

"Let me go."

"I'm…sorry…brother." Elohim's words jerked out in sobs.

"For what?" Bacon struggled. The fight raged in his twitching cheekbones.

"For this." Elohim wiped the sobbing from his cheeks, but it kept coming. "You forced this on me."

"I said let—me—go." Bacon thrashed to escape. His shoulders convulsed, his arms jiggled. But it was too late. "Brother—"

He was already wisps carried into the air.

A loose hair that didn't have to be tied.

Elohim scraped another tear off his cheek. Even Bacon's suit, the one he'd worn to watch VY Canis Majoris detonate, dissipated into the swampy draft that smelled like rotten fungus.

Elohim collapsed into a kneel. Unmoving except his hiccupping cries, he shuddered in the silence, in the squishy muck, in a pile of rhino droppings. The pulsing buzz of bug life was missing, now silenced in extinction. Bacon must have willed them away in his last moments.

For hours, Elohim shuddered in terrible anguish. And in terrible rhino droppings. Finally he dared to move. He looked at the massacre, dead bodies and some of them no longer bodies cluttered along the swamp floor like a bacon weave. A pun. Bad taste. Fine.

Elohim's eyes raw and red, he traced a finger along the footprint Bacon had left in the swamp grass. He tweaked the atoms, and now the tread of Bacon's shoe would never fade, no matter the weather, no matter how silly an idea it was to wear dress shoes in a swamp.

"Good-bye, brother." Elohim stood. He wiped his eyes. "And good-bye, designer socks."

With the threat eliminated, he had now become the master. Now he could begin repairing spacetime. But he needed help. He needed a new brotherhood. He couldn't replace his brother Bacon, but to repair spacetime, he needed someone at his side. He needed to amass an army, one that did not kill wholesale. But where to start?

He always enjoyed Terra. He'd had a ferocious relationship with their public transportation, but the rest was okay. Their Middle Ages fascinated him. He scratched his nose, and in a blink, he conjured up a gravity well. Localized, of course, or he'd suck Virilurn into a black hole. Heh. Wouldn't make the mistake of destroying a planet. Again.

As effortlessly as a nod, he was elsewhere, inside a dank cave in Terra's…what was this period? They called it the Pleistocene Age. Or Epoch. Or Period. Year, maybe. Prime Time Emmy Season.

The cave smelled musty. Ugh. Not a step up from a Virillian swamp, for sure. But, at the mouth, they'd decorated it with artful cave drawings. Their chalk work was exemplary. Such revealing commentary on the division of class in caveman life.

Elohim peered into the distance, at the piercing contrast of the hot sun where the mouth opened as if holding a long opera note.

A roaring bellow at maximum volume overpowered him, so loud that fireworks sparkled in his vision. He couldn't see it, but he sensed a bear in this cave. It swiped. He stepped back. Couldn't see the swipe but, again, sensed it. Stupid bear. Didn't it know Elohim set out to repair spacetime and then public transportation if he had energy left?

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Course not, idiot. It was a bear.

He couldn't deal with this creature right now. Or the other bear that had joined it. He tapped into a fraction of his power—the tip of the ice cube—and the bear popped apart in carnage with the sound of organs suctioning apart.

Wow, he'd meant only to freeze it. He'd found a new application of his hyperabilities. What had he used? Dark matter? Had he dismembered a bear with matter? Could he use dark matter to unstick windows?

Two curious locals had wandered to the mouth of the cave. The closer one…Elohim concentrated. No, the closer one wouldn't suit his purposes. He popped that one apart like the bear. But the second one—yesssss—the second one would suit him juuuuust fine.

"You are fitting enough to gather my army." Elohim reached out with a hand of dark matter and grabbed the second local. "You will serve nicely as my new blackguard."

* * *

Today.

Continuum's brother was gone. Peppery mist that dissipated into the universe. Continuum rubbed his fingers together, circled his fingertips to remember the texture of the silky suit Bacon had died in. To recall the warmth of that hug. He couldn't. His dear brother was lost forever. The mission must succeed now. For Bacon's sake. For Crunch Berries' sake.

"Blackguard, my lieutenant, the time has arrived," Continuum said. "Serve me well."

"Yes, my lord." Servant Blackguard snapped to attention at Continuum's left side. Since he addressed his king, he made sure his head was lower by trotting down the three steps of his throne's platform. He bowed, hand on knee, other knee to the red, bordered carpet that flowed down the length of the hall. "Shall I pluck the thorns from Brother Wyvern's backside?" That gargantuan lummox had stumbled into a holly bush. Continuum would now install guardrails along their paths.

"No. This is another matter." Continuum waited for Servant Wyvern's howl to echo away. Servant Marionette was rubbing alcohol over the wounds. "The Bad Guys approach in their spacecraft. Steeple will know their location by their mental templates." He slammed his fist on his throne. "It's time to twist their arms."

"Yes, my lord." Hasty to fulfill his master's wish, Blackguard teleported. He crumpled into an infinitesimally sm—Unraveled himself. "My Lord, to twist an arm means to persuade, not to do harm."

"Interesting." Continuum slipped out his notebook. He'd started logging his errors when someone had corrected him on "wild goose feast." Such a miscommunication for last week's team cookout. Away went the notebook. "Now go." He shooed Blackguard with a twitch of his fingers.

"Yes, my lord." Blackguard crumpled into an infinitesimally small dot.

Chapter Three: The Oil Change Is Extra

"Stopping a bomb shelter? That's tricky. We're talking about stopping thrust." Incendiary checked his hardware settings. They hummed in his heads-up display. "I need to know the bomb shelter's weight, how fast it's floating, that meteor's gravity, how fast it's floating. Also I've never caught a bomb shelter. Or a baseball. Well, once in the face." He twisted his lips. "Hold on. Am I catching this bomb shelter in the face?"

Pincushion padded the air. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Forget all that. That's already way too much. I just need your suit's maximum load capacity. Also, why do all your stories sound like they cause a lawsuit?"

"Because no comment. Janice, acknowledge." Incendiary's heads-up display lit a different color, as if his vision suddenly cheered up.

With an enthusiastic ding-dong, Janice swooped in. She'd cobbled together an avatar from features she'd observed in people. A brunette with curtains of hair draping past the display's bottom edge, blue eyes that engulfed most of her face, and an expression as if she'd just pranked her bestie, she winked. "What's up, entity Incendiary?" A tongue-waggling emoji popped up beside her forehead. Her mouth sprang open in a triangle smile. This revealed the pixelated broccoli bud that peeked out from between two teeth. Her piece de resistance.

"Janice, what thrust do we need to stop this bomb shelter?"

Janice tapped her chin and hmmed. "That's tricky." She spawned glasses, a lab coat, and a pucker as if she mused at a blackboard. Equations and diagrams splattered the display. The sound of bubbling chemicals percolated through the helmet. This was what thinking sounded like to Janice. She giggled so brashly Incendiary thought she'd spit that bud of broccoli onto the display. "I need to know the bomb shelter's weight, how fast it's mov—"

"We'll crash into your Acey without a straight answer."

"A scooge over one meganewton." Janice dead-eyed Incendiary. "With some leg power, we can increase that to a scooge over a scooge over one meganewton. Comparatively, in the fuel age, most fuel-powered shuttles used almost two meganewtons at liftoff."

Incendiary swiped Janice away with an eye twitch. As she slid off, she crossed her arms. "Well, that's a fine how-do-you-d—"

To Pincushion, Incendiary said, "I'm rated for two scooges over a meganewton. That's roughly half a shuttle's takeoff force. For reference, Janice measures a scooge as three-eighths of a pound of force." He reread the data on his heads-up display. "No, wait. That's a liquid measurement of force. Is that a thing?"

Pincushion's teeth shifted. It sounded like stones rubbing together. He lifted a nervous eyebrow to Sixth Sense. "Unless we know any other college interns with a hydraulically powered, full-body, mechanized, triple-breasted combat outfit, that's all we've got."

Incendiary hung a hand off his neck. "I can ask the theater department at my college what's in wardrobe."

"How long until we reach the meteor?" Pincushion didn't wait for an answer. He scanned the crackling smatter of flight statistics on the bomb shelter's console.

"Okay. Wait. Uhm." Sixth Sense tapped the console, tapped again, and consulted what it tossed up. "We've got three minutes."

"Three mi—"

"Whoops. That's until our next oil change. We have"—Sixth Sense's fingertip traced down the data—"a scooge over forty-one minutes before we come up dome side on that meteor."

Incendiary shook his head. "You're not using that word right."

"Any other ideas?" Pincushion held his breath and checked Incendiary, checked Sixth Sense, checked Multipurpose's snarls. "Okay then. Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Ace Spandex."

Janice swooped into Incendiary's display. "Did I hear that right? Are you contacting Acey?" She skipped in place and clapped her undersized hands.

"Do we really have to change the oil on a bomb shelter, or is that just a money grab?" Sixth Sense, always with the tough questions.

* * *

"Sounds good. See you in forty." Ace Spandex tapped his gabber off to conclude the connection. He faced Legion. "Okay, so there's a chance we'll be crushed to death."

Chapter Four: Roadside Assistance Sucks in Space

In all my years, I'd never felt so speechless or abandoned of ideas. Not that I remembered anything past three months ago in my old Reef life, but if a moonsized space station vanished, anyone's brain would blank out. Station One had no cloaking tech, so that didn't explain its disappearance. How could I know that? Never mind. It had vaporized, along with the army that orbited it. Some magician had waved a wand and—tap, tap, presto—it was gone. A crocking space station. Only an empty atmospheric bubble remained, hanging in space like a hollow ornament.

"Tell me I didn't see that." I edged a hand up to Francine's shoulder or maybe that wasn't her shoulder but I couldn't tear myself away from the sight ahead. Her shoulder felt hairy and turned out to be her head, but since when could a space station disappear?

"That's crocking impossible." Francine's gawp was as astonished as mine. This was on a level of confusion Master Asinine felt when calculating sales tax on a free item. Still, the navigation console rattled with weird statistics about the bubble. Francine shuffled over to examine its static crackles that sounded like someone eating saltines with their mouth open. And that someone was Glen.

"Hey, what's going on?" Behind us, Master Asinine jostled around. His chains clanked, but they wouldn't give. "Other Guy, boost me up."

Francine waved at the diagnostic window in the windshield to swipe two ads aside. The statistics in the navigation console didn't stop. In fact, they picked up speed. She swiped another ad out of the way. "There's still gravity in that bubble." She cocked her head to the side but still watched the presentation of data flickering in the display. "It's not the same gravity, but it's not zero. But nothing's in there." And then another ad. Hysteria of Savings was pushy, but that sale on patio furniture honestly tempted me.

I staggered away and scratched an old scar on the back of my neck. "Control, acknowledge. Magnify view by ten times."

A waterfall of sound babbled. The windshield display zoomed in to the empty space The Nemesis headed toward, with the atmospheric bubble dead center. I puzzled this weird sight. The bubble was a vacancy waiting to be filled. Stars looked distorted around its border, sagging toward the center as if sliding into a hole. Inside the hole swirled a dance of green and blue. A planet that drifted behind the bubble shifted color as it floated past. And deck chairs were two for one until the end of the week. I clicked ADD TO CART. Hey, it was tied to Asinine's account.

Cluck Adderley rang on. "Things ain't good, sly babies. Station One's throwin' a clinker and not jivin' a homing signal. Score groovy deals on pigeon leashes at the Bizarre Market if you scoop this deal in the next two minutes."

"For crock, Cluck. Just show us what we need to see." Francine pounded the navigation control. She readied again but paused to examine what she'd hit. "What's a traction control?"

"And who's the idiot who didn't call it the Bizarre Bazaar?" Master Asinine checked everyone. "Nobody else thought that?"

"There's a wormhole in the atmospheric bubble." I thumbed my nose and threw in a quiet chuckle. Something in my mind niggled. I had experience with wormholes and folds in space, like some commando heading through a cosmic shortcut to attack an enemy. And that wormhole in Station One's bubble was where I needed to attack this time.

"I saw a wormhole once." From the back, Master Asinine tried to contribute to the conversation but contributed only to my headache. "No way I was eating that apple."

I hung my thumbs off my belt loops. "Keep moving, full speed ahead. If this wormhole swallowed up Station One, I want to see what's on the other side."

"What?" Francine recoiled from me. "The radiation will kill us!"

"This is going to be one bruised apple," Asinine said.

"I don't think it will." I winked at Franci—

Ugh. What was that sudden reek of corpses? Either Cluck had switched to Klook again or those saltines didn't agree with Glen. Was The Nemesis burning oil? Something plinked behind me, like a single water droplet piercing an undisturbed pond. I turned around…and the near darkness in the passenger deck shifted. Shadow blended into other shadow. A figure, as pitch black as a black hole, bloomed in the rear, visible because it blocked the dim light behind it.

"Is that a traction control?" Francine wondered at the same developing shadow.

Master Asinine wrinkled his nose. "Traction control stinks like my sock drawer."

I squinted. Nothing felt right today. This figure, lithe like a runner, sprouted a fedora. A trench coat unrolled from its shoulders and dropped to midcalf. With purpose, the figure trooped around a chair, his trench coat swaying not even a little as he stalked down the aisle. The spoiled odor of corpses carried with him. He flexed his fingers, and his hand whittled into a blade that he brandished above his head. He didn't even trip on the nasty imperfection in the floor that always jammed the drink cart during the in-flight service. "Inferiors, I am Blackguard, and I deliver a message from the almighty Lord Continuum."

"Is he the new mayor?" Asinine asked.

Like solidified tar, this Blackguard swept the air—and swished Glen in half. Then Harvey.

"That's a loud message!" Master Asinine tried to burrow his head into his chains. "I'm never playing phone tag with Load Continuous."

"The message is this. You are a nuisance to Lord Continuum." Blackguard twirled his sword arm around and, without resistance, separated a passenger chair into halves that belched upholstery and a scurry of cockroaches. The other arm narrowed to a point and speared the ceiling. "And nuisances must be eliminated."

Blackguard bounded at the cockpit—I shoved Francine away, ducked aside—Blackguard landed—slashed into the navigation computer—gored through the computer, screens, machinery—a fire clapped—a siren wailed—Cluck reported a "bad boogieman harshin' the jive on this here jam session." Lights dropped to crimson dark. Alarm bells sobbed with the siren. I almost threw up my stomach lining at the unrelenting smack of sun-rotted cadavers.

A shrill cry corkscrewed through the deck as if something failed. The Nemesis's trajectory leaned starboard. What did that sound mean? I clawed through my memories to figure out what I'd put in this beast. Without the computer to control it, it must have been injecting too much ignition. Somewhere in the beak, the front-loaded engine probably raged on fire. Something had cracked loose and fallen into the machinery. Several engines in the rear and wings remained, but the front engine was the one that kept us on course and woke the farmer at sunrise.

Blackguard barreled toward me.

"I've seen that look on a guy at poker night once." Master Asinine gasped at Blackguard. "He's packing a three-of-a-kind."

"Franc—" I ducked aside when Blackguard's arm whipped cold wind like an executioner's axe. It trimmed my nose by a single layer of skin and gouged a line through the shallow carpet. I stumbled onto my back but bounded up. "Francine, shoot!"

Francine was a step ahead, pistol out. She fired, but her light-bullet sank into Blackguard's back with no effect. He leered over his shoulder with a head jerk. Whirled around—

"My fine, young birds." Cluck tsked. "Let's mellow, kick back for some finger snappin', and—"

I glanced around. "Cluck, acknowledge. Shut up."

"Calmin' the chat to zero with the sweetness of lavender, my man," Cluck said. A whoosh announced his attempt to soothe the inner funk with lavender. It wasn't lavender.

"Cluck is my fault. I thought I chose the jazzercise mod." Master Asinine still hid his face in his chains. "Misclicked one option up."

I considered jumping on Blackguard's back, to hold him still so Francine could fire again. Doubtlessly a stupid idea. Instead I dived at the butchered and fizzing piloting console, and I threw my hand at a compartment, and the l-door whisked away, and I plunged wrist-deep, and I rooted around, and I pulled out—what was this—a first aid kit, and I tossed it aside, and I plunged back in, and the noxious whiff of spilled oil battled Blackguard's corpse odor—

"Do not enter Lord Continuum's domain." Blackguard swished through the piloting computer, slashed upward and out the main display. A thicket of wires sprayed out.

—and I found the owner's manual, and I tossed that away, a box of tissues, license and registration, a toy hammer—

Blackguard romped across the carpet toward Francine, sword arms swinging in-out-in-out, crunching through cockpit systems as Francine fired light-bullet after light-bullet. Blackguard sprouted barbs that speared through equipment and disappeared. He poised a sword arm over Francine.

—and I found a flare gun. Nope, a toy cap gun. Okay, I found a flare gun now. Low tech. Whatever. Aimed. Squeezed that trigger like I squeezed a grip trainer. Foomp. A flare drew a candy-red line across the cockpit—"Flares by Eddy Search and Rescue," it crooned—and bored into Blackguard's back. He paused to wonder what had poked him. A five-second count later, the flare said, "Eddy Search and Rescue is the first name in saving your worthless hide."

The flare burst in kaleidoscopic fireworks meant to draw attention in a night sky but instead only yowled a heartbreaking sorrow. Surfaces reflected momentary colors that winked away.

I scrambled up, another flare ready. Hold on. The first flare had torn Blackguard in half like splashes of shadow. The halves curled outward and sagged. His head hung off the right half and bumped a passenger seat—thud, thud, thud—upside down under a weight it barely sustained. He looked confused. Asinine wore the same expression.

Francine cawed a laugh. "That's what you get for playing with knife hands." She rushed up so eagerly she tripped on a hose that had rolled out of the navigation computer. She planted a punch into Blackguard's upside-down mouth. Into?

Yeah, Francine's punch didn't strike but plunged into Blackguard's shadow face as though she attacked quicksand. She yanked, but like quicksand, the face wouldn't give up its suction. "Crockin' Blackguard can't even get punched right."

"I dare you to stick your nose in him next." Master Asinine struggled to lift his legs off the floor. "Aw, no. Other Guy's leaking all over my new shoelaces."

"It was unwise to attack me." Who'd said that? Didn't sound like Cluck, but Cluck was all sorts of wrong with that root-beer scent it mistook for lavender. Had Blackguard spoken? But Francine plugged his mouth.

In the dim cockpit deck—not sure what I saw—Blackguard started healing? His halves were joining slowly upward, bit by bit in stringy, black tendrils that reached out to knit together. The cleave crawled shut until the head flowed into the shoulder, rolled down the arm, and became a hand that still gripped Francine's hand. Another head swelled out of Blackguard's new neck.

Blackguard rose to his feet and towered over Francine. He smirked, as if that filed-down mouth could smirk. Francine stared up at him with eyes jammed with ire.

Asinine gasped. "That's no three-of-a-kind. That's a four-of-a-kind!"

Blackguard examined the sizzling and hissing devastation that spewed orange sparks. "Your systems function no longer. You have run out of mellow soul soothing. Pray the almighty Continuum shows you mercy, because whatever surface you plummet into"—he peered out the windshield, then back with a smile—"will not. Good-bye."

He shrank into his center and disappeared. Bones snapped like a crackling campfire. He was gone, and so was Francine's hand. Her wrist ended in tatters of skin that pulsated blood. Blackguard had taken his stench of mortal decay—and Francine's hand—with him.

"Holy cow, that dude had a five-of-a-kind. That's a killer hand." Master Asinine choked out a guffaw. "Get it? Hand? That's a killer hand? Can anyone hear me back here?"

Francine unleashed a high-pitched wail that became guttural sips through teeth that became writhing on the floor and pounding the carpet with her remaining hand that became "Hey, stop stomping my boots. They were final sale." Asinine tried swooshing his feet aside. "Stupid poker players, always making a mess and never pitching in on the snacks."

I scooped up the first aid kit, rushed forward, bumped into the imperfection in the floor—crocking manufacturer's flaw—and tumbled at Francine. She grew pale, noticeable even in the crimson light. I subdued her wrist stump—"Francine, stop writhing"—under my knees—"Francine, you need to calm down"—and ripped open the first aid kit. Grabbed the sealant. Sprayed it over the stump. It frothed white foam that hardened around the wound. A spritz of blood trickled out, so I delivered an extra spray.

By now Francine was out. Her blood stained the carpet. Glen's gore added the accents and decor. Cluck's lavender that wasn't lavender didn't help. It beat Blackguard's funereal body spray though.

I'd say it was dead silence now that Francine no longer screamed, but Cluck still rattled a warning klaxon, and the cockpit controls now sounded like someone twisted a civ-tran into a coil. At least it masked my panting. I grunted off the floor, sticky violence coating my shirt, and dropped the sealant can. "Control, acknowledge. Shut off alarm."

"Bringin' alarm on down to zero volume, m'man. Instead, enjoy the freestyle trumpet of Freddie Hubbard." Cluck thought Freddie Hubbard was an airhorn and a rocket launch outscreaming each other. "Dig on down."

The engine's rise-and-fall demise subsided to a mew of withering plastic and flames under the console. I seethed with a thundering heartbeat and lungs that wouldn't settle. At my feet, Francine had come within slivers of dying. I peered along my brow at Asinine.

Asinine blew air out of puffed cheeks. "After this, I'm finding a new home-security company. Don't you worry."

We headed dangerously close to a satellite advertisement like a dart at a dartboard. I didn't want my last sight to be smashing beak-first into "Fly by Speedy Stop for our new antifreeze-flavored slushies."

To assemble The Nemesis, I'd used my hyperability to copy another person's hyperability: the telekinesis of Asinine's monobrowed mad scientist, Brainiac. She couldn't assemble it because her telekinesis heated materials up through friction, so she enlisted me. For some reason, my hyperability didn't pick up the heating. It interacted with stuff without the friction her hyperability had. But I didn't have any of her hyperenergy left. I needed more of it to repair this cockpit, and I needed her to coach me through the repairs. "Hey. Asinine." I mustered only quick sentences with my thrashing, aching breaths. I waited a beat to calm my lungs more. Didn't work. "You want your mad scientist back. I want to live. Got a deal for you."

"Is it a two-for-one deal on patio furniture? Three-for-one?" Master Asinine said. "Any-number-for-one?"

I wanted to wring Asinine's neck, buried as it was in chain links. "We need to repair this bird. Let's get your mad scientist up here."

"Hmm." Master Asinine tilted his head back as if reclining. "In that case, I'll need a little more than just her.

"I'm puffing my chest out because I'm super cocky right now. Can you tell under the chains?" He jiggled. "Then again, aren't the real chains the ones in my mind?" He jiggled ag—Conked his forehead on a chain link. "Ow. Nope, they're physical."

Chapter Five: Let's Leave This Out of Your Internship Log

Legion gazed into the panorama of space, colored as black as a sheet thrown over his head. So distant, so cold. Only stars and fireworks that spelled out "Turn east and fly into savings." East in space, eh?

Something blinked, dots on either side of a circle that alternated like siren lights: red on the left, blue on the right, red on the left, blue on the right, red left, blue right, and an ad thrown in. Ads everywhere. Legion couldn't read the ad at this distance. Oh, wait. Cartoons. Nothing useful, of course.

"Here comes the rest of the team with a mobile reminder that Cosmonaut Chimp resumes on May twenty-ninth." He pursed his lips. "I know what to avoid on my birthday."

"Wait, zat fors season sixteen?" Power Plant crushed a ball of dirt in his hand. It popped into dust. "I'lls be crocked if I waits another week after fifteen's cliffhangin'."

"No way Cosmonaut Chimp's going out like that." Ace Spandex affirmed a shared glare with Power Plant. "Under the crushing might of Lounge Lizardo in his own leisure club. The audacity of that gecko and his pompadour." The two smacked fist bump against palm. "My man Cosmo's too good for that."

Legion clicked his tongue. "What have I told you two about fan worship?"

The object was now the size of a fingernail. Definitely headed this way. "That's the bomb shelter, right?" Legion pointed at the fingernail silver in the starlight. "It's not just an ad satellite?"

Ace Spandex glanced up. Something whirred between his temples, and his eyes, normally brown, darkened to coffee beans. A flip-flap flippity-flapped behind his lids. "That's them. I can read the 'Made in Grungewood' on the bottom rim of the shelter."

Franchise flung a rock as if he skipped it on a lake. "Doesn't anybody buy local anymore?"

"Grungewood's chief industry is bomb shelters." Maul approached and peered upward. "That's where Also Sediment's from."

"Hey!" Also Sediment's blonde hair splashed out as she reeled at Maul, throwing her slight chub around. "I told you, it's just Sediment. I registered the name five crocking minutes after that crackpot who's not even using it. Copyright infringement, my crock." She crammed a finger right at Maul's tattoo-adorned nostril. Maul shrank back. Legion had never seen Maul shrink back.

She stormed off, leaving Maul to call after her, "Why didn't ya just use a synonym?"

"This thing comin' right for us." Power Plant threw his hands at the sky, at the oncoming bomb shelter. "I don't wanna gets crunched unner it. They's should land outside the dome."

"And what? Hold their breath while they walk in?" Bullet picked at a fingernail with a three-inch knife.

"Yeah." Power Plant jerked a nod. "'Zactly." He threw his hands to one side. "Outside th' dome's just over theres." Then the other side. "Actually, that way's closer."

Ace Spandex tapped his temple, and his eyelids fluttered like hummingbird wings. "They're coming in at twenty thousand four hundred eight point six three—"

"Estimate for the regular people," Legion said.

Ace slouched. "Twenty thousand miles an hour." He removed his hand from his temple, and his eyes stopped fluttering. "That's one point e—"

"Estimate."

Ace rubbed his forehead. "That's one scooge"—he checked Legion for approval—"over a satellite's reentry speed. Happy?"

"No one's listen? Land outsides?" Power Plant searched everyone. "Fine. Maybe I go outside to not gets crunched." He stormed away.

Legion was already at attention. Standing at a picnic table that was now firewood, he whirled around at Puttyman. "What have you got in Chug that can slow an object down?"

"Glue." Puttyman tucked his chin in. "Well, it's paper glue."

"So nothing." Legion kicked a knight's helmet. Speed Line chased it.

"I didn't say nothing, dude." Puttyman stretched his fingers out in a knuckle crinkle.

Legion's face was in his hand. "What weird weapon are you going to scar me with now? Hold on." He funneled a yell. "Jeff, don't go outside!"

"Name's Jeffy!"

* * *

"Ed, you're on deck."

Incendiary cocked his head up at Pincushion's bass voice. No time to lose, and there was nothing left to eat. Multipurpose had already engulfed all the normal-sounding food. And the abnormal-sounding food. And the unpronounceable foo—Okay, quick recap: they were out of food.

"On it." Incendiary hotfooted toward the airlock. An airlock in a bomb shelter. Would wonders never cease? But wonders exited stage left when this bomb shelter didn't come with landing gear.

His heart trotted like a show pony's hooves trotting along his ribs. Ho boy, okay, here went nothing. The airlock's interior door hissed shut. Metrics in his heads-up display convulsed in orange digits: pressure changing. If it didn't, the lack of pressure outside would pull his armor and then him apart. Or crush him. One of the two extremes. Look, he was a business student, not an astrophysicist.

The hiss sank to sleep. Step one, done. His heart trotted faster. His nerves sang electrically.

"Incoming connection from entity Pincushion," Janice said. The gabber in Incendiary's helmet clicked on.

Pincushion's voice blurted into his helmet. "Okay, you're pressurized for space. Give us the word, and we'll open the airlock."

Incendiary clenched and unclenched his gloves. Deep breath, another deep breath, another crackle of nerves. Fourteen lives riding on him, not counting whatever lived in the canned food. No big deal. Before he talked himself out of it—"Go!"—he blurted the word.

A panel in front of him slid out from the wall: the outer seal shushing upward. Incendiary plunged into cold space.

Janice appeared in the corner of Incendiary's display. "I've got you, entity Incendiary." Her giggle vibrated his helmet. He jumped in his own armor. Boot thrusters burned on automatically, a gentle shove to nudge him a scooge faster than the bomb shelter. "Levels show your armor will freeze in seven hours fourteen minutes, but I'll heat the joints so they don't crack. Also, you have a pinprick in your shoulder seam that will tear if you make a sudden move. Teehee."

"You're telling me now?" Incendiary's eyes sprouted out.

"Silly me." Janice winked. "By the way, my database says this rescue is brought to you by Frack 'n' Snap Towing. Tell your friends."

She guided Incendiary around to the bomb shelter's base. Ooookay, so he had to slow a multithousand-ton spacefaring cylinder from 200,000 miles an hour to about 300. All in the name of Frack 'n' Snap. No problem (yeah, it was), he could do it in his sleep (he'd never sleep again), just had to move nice and easy (good luck), not tear his shoulder seam (he felt an itch), and he should have peed before he came out here (wasn't a problem anymore).

Gulp. (Gulp.)

"Janice, a-acknowledge. What's the plan?" Incendiary gawped at the meteor throttling at him. The topography in the meteor floor grew detail through the dome. "Janice?"

Janice clicked on. "Well, silly. Step one: we land. Step two: we smooch my Acey snoogums."

"Isn't that a bit too vague? What's step one point one?" Incendiary clenched the rim of the bomb shelter. "Janice?" He also clenched his rump. His reach felt way too wide. Repositioned his hand to clamp lower on the rim. Nope. "Janice, acknowledge." Stopped his boot thrust and clacked his feet onto the rim. Bigger nope. "Janice?"

"My crock, you entities and your lack of microprecision. Can't live with you, can't live without you since I'm not alive."

"What?" Nothing. "Janice, what?" Nothing again. "Janice, acknowledge. What?"

"Do you want these instructions to the first decimal point?"

"Janice, acknowledge. Yes. Whatever. Fine. First d-decimal point. Okay?"

"Place your back against the center of the bottom and angle your feet ninety-two point six degrees down. Raise your left arm thirty point eight degrees up. Bend the elbow at seventeen point two degrees. There's a nick on the right side from colliding with a Flagstar mil-tran, so raise your right arm thirty-two point one degrees up but bend your elbow at twenty-three point six degrees."

Incendiary coughed a blurt of syllables that might be words. "Bu—uhh—kk." He flattened his back along the underside of the bomb shelter. "What were all those degrees and bends? Thirty-something degrees up, bend at something-else-teen degrees? Twenty-something degrees out, bend at fifteen plus whatever?" He looked like a boat wheel right now.

"Seriously?" Janice crossed her arms and huffed at him. "Didn't you save this to a memory file? AI-pilot, on."

A setting screen spread across Incendiary's display. The AI-pilot clicked from off—red—to on—green. Incendiary's limbs jerked into arrangements he didn't know they bent. His arms splayed out, his elbows scraped up, his legs kicked downward, his back clacked against the shelter's undercarriage, and his butt wiggled into place.

"How easy was that?" Janice's mouth hung open. "Okay, I'm increasing your thrusters to maximum. Forget one decimal place. That's kids' mode. We're reducing the bomb shelter's speed at a magnitude of seven hundred twelve point six eight one—precision to the six hundredth decimal isn't that hard, entity Incendiary—three four three three—"

Incendiary stopped listening. He was busy watching his life flash before his eyes, and most of it was failing midterms and a driver's test.

His gabber clicked at him. "Incoming connections from entities Legion and Ace Spandex."

"Gabber, acknowledge. Acc-c-cept connection." Incendiary swallowed the nervous spit in his throat.

"Seriously, entity Incendiary?" Janice threw her hands up. "You're interrupting my number recitation of magnitude to the six-hundredth decimal place for this?" She bit back a gasp. "Wait, is that my entity Acey? Toodles, entity hon."

"Ed, are you there?" Legion sounded edgy through the gabber connection.

"Did entity Acey toodles me back?" Janice asked. "Hello?"

"G-good to h-hear you, Lieutenant Colonel." Incendiary found speaking hard with his pulse lunging around. "J-just wish it wasn't while I'm booty-bumping a sheet of metal."

"Because of workplace-ethics laws, I'm obliged to assume that's college slang. Anyway, we see you coming. Ace will guide you through your descent."

"Ed, Ace here—"

"Toodles, entity Acey!"

"—you've reduced speed to three thousand one hundred eight point three—"

"Estimate," Legion said.

"—miles an hour now. Keep the counter-thrust steady, and you'll slow down to a safe descent speed. In forty point four—"

"Estimate."

"—seconds, shut the thrust off. Otherwise, you'll set the dome on fire, and everyone will die. Your call."

"Entity Acey, tooooodddlllleeees!"

Incendiary's heart wasn't trotting anymore. It kicked up its heels and galloped. He sucked back his spit again to say, "It's all up to Janice right now."

"Up to whom?" Legion's voice couldn't sound more staggered. "Wait. Ed, is not killing us up to the haunt control we uninstalled because she tried to kill us?"

"Hi, entity Legion." Janice waved.

"D-did I say J-janice?" Crock, Incendiary never learned to keep things to himself. "I meant I'm running an AI-pilot that probably won't kill us I think." His helmet dinged. He glanced at the upper-right corner of his display. A status message read, "Fuel reserves down," with an orange gas pump. Below that, it said, "Toodles, entity Acey," with an orange smile.

Here came the dome, shiny and scary. Ohh, crock. "B-boots off. Got it. C-can I put you on hold a second?" Incendiary winced. "Gabber, acknowledge. Hold connection."

"Connection held."

Janice returned to reciting numbers as if she ran two different processes unaware of each other. "—six eight nine—"

"Janice, acknowledge. The dome's coming up." Crock, was it ever. So close, its surface crowded out every other feature in this desolate space. "Janice?"

"Yes, I see it. It's still more than seven thousand miles away. One zero three—"

"Janice, acknowledge. Extinguish boot thrusters, or we'll burn a hole in it and lose atmosphere."

"Boot thrusters, offline. Seriously, you living entities are so high maintenance. If it's not breathing with you entities, it's breathing out. Zero, four—"

Incendiary's thrusters extinguished. Pressure on his feet released, and he choked out his air with burning vigor. "Ohmanohmanohmanohman." He clenched his fingers, but Janice overrode him and spread them back out, palms against the bomb shelter. "Janice, let me clench my fingers, or so help me!"

"Get me to my entity Acey, or so help me. Did you toodles him? Four, six, nine, nine—"

"Oh, crap. Gabber, acknowledge. Resume connection. Lieutenant Colonel? Ace?"

"Hey, Ed, ya's gots my caffeine? I's haven't boosted up in, like, a whole—"

Something ruffled in the connection. Incomprehensible words, shouted but soft. More ruffling. Legion returned. "Sorry, Jeff swiped my gabber. I'd write him up, but I don't want to add to the backlog of Jeff-related reprimands."

"If'n it's reprimands, name's definitely Jeff. Jeff Smith."

"Ace here, Ed. I see the tread on your boots now. You're two hundred thirteen point—"

"Estimate."

"—two hundred thirteen point nothing miles from the dome. It's a wax-coated atmospheric bubble, so keep thrusters off, and you'll drift through in about fifty-six seconds—"

"Estimate."

"I did! Fifty-six seconds. You'll have a little trouble drifting, because it looks like the shelter took on some damage. But you got this."

"No, I don't!" Incendiary choked. Sweat tickled his skin. Why couldn't his armor come with better ventilation and a bail-me-out-of-this button? "I'm falling into a meteor, I'm holding a billion-ton cylinder without landing gear, and everyone's reciting decimals at me. There's no way I got this. And President Abends is leaving the dome."

"Jeffy, come back here." Below, Franchise tackled Power Plant.

Ace sounded dumbstruck. "Ed, this might not make sense, but are the bomb shelter's high beams on?"

The dome was zipping up wwwaaaayyyy too fast. The wind whipped around Incendiary. No sound in space, no wind in space. Whatever. He imagined it. C'mon, c'mon, he clenched his eyes shut, he'd never passed through an atmospheric bubble without a mil-tran surrounding him, and oh boy, he felt it coming, tightened his chin, the pink surface engulfed him, and—galomp—like a stone hitting a pool, he slowed sharply and blurted the air from his lungs so quickly it burned.

His eyes were open. When had he told them to do that? Close! They refused. Oh, crock. Pink washed everything. His skin slithered as he slipped through something the consistency of strawberry jam. Ssssso cold. Ssssoooo slimy. Ssssoooo waxy, with the smell of chlorine. He felt it through his armor as if he passed through a jellyfish. Not really, but his brain improvised the sensations. The quivering substance slurped around him. And why couldn't this armor vent out laughing gas? It injected cough syrup but not laughing gas!

"You're almost through, Ed. You're less pink." Ace Spandex cleared his throat. "Less medium rare."

"So my goose is cooking." Incendiary spat a nervous laugh. Just one.

Something popped into his heads-up display: WARNING: STUFF GUNKED UP. YOU'LL SMELL OZONE FOR A WHILE THANKS TO THIS BONEHEADED MOVE. The text melted into the symbol of a vent grate that shrank into the corner of his vision to join the gas pump, the smile, and a middle finger he hadn't noticed until now. What did the middle finger mean? Where was his owner's manual?

"Nnnngggggg"—Incendiary squeezed his eyes shut again—"nnnggggg"—pulled his lower jaw back—"nnngggg"—squinched his nose—"nngggg""—heard the splash of the dome—"nnngggg"—heard naked air whoosh around him—"ng?" as he exited. And plummeted groundward.

Ace coughed. "Ed, resume thrust. You're dropping at three hundred four point six—"

"Estimate."

"Let me be me! Ed, you're dropping too fast, and you're picking up speed."

Okay, okay, thrusters on. Janice had upgraded his software, but Incendiary didn't want to talk to her around Legion. Where was that command? He tumbled through menus. Not in the Insert menu. Not View. Not Notifications, though maybe he could shut his email app up whenever he got spam. Where were his thrusters, where?

Crock this. The jig was up. "Janice, acknowledge. Activate thrusters."

"Four, six, nine. There's gunk in there. Did you read the notice?" Janice didn't sound happy.

"Activate them!" The outlines of rock basins shot at Incendiary, a couple craters, everything drawing lines in his 300-mile-an-hour ground rush.

"See? You living things, so high maintenance. Now you want to stop from hitting the ground, having your spine eject up your neck, splitting your legs apart, shatt—"

"Just—"

"Okay, okay. Two, two, one—"

Flames roared up Incendiary's heels. He jolted to a slice of his former speed.

Below, Legion jabbed a finger out. "Puttyman, go."

Someone in a sweater and jeans stood atop a thirty-foot tower of picnic tables, stacked like a cheerleader squad's spirit pyramid dangerously close to a steep crater. Incendiary recognized this Puttyman from a recent mission.

Puttyman swiped a cocky salute. His torso leaped at another spirit pyramid of picnic tables across the crater. Like a go-kart rounding a track, he weaved around the pyramid and shot back and forth, diagonally, across as though weaving a cobweb. They planned to catch the bomb shelter over a crater in a living cobweb?

Ace Spandex held his hands on his head. He clenched his teeth and peeled his lips back. "Okay, Ed, maneuver over Puttyman."

"I can barely maneuver over the ground, and that's everywhere. You want me to maneuver over Puttyman?"

Ace removed his hands and wiped his forehead. The other hand covered his mouth. "You've got one chance. Position yourself right above Puttyman's center. You're drifting horizontally at about fifteen miles an hour, which is good. That's as fast as a stream current." He bit his lip. "I also want to assure you this plan wasn't Power Plant's."

"I saids we do the plan where we takes a vacation."

Incendiary swallowed so hard his larynx scraped his armor. He slanted his legs, glided overtop Puttyman, kicked his legs out, stopped the glide, coasted, peed a little.

Ace Spandex rubbed the back of his neck, paced quick circles, stopped, started again. "Doing great." Stopped, started again.

"That's easy to say down there pacing a hole in the ground." Incendiary hiccupped. "And tripping over debris."

"Downward speed is fifty miles an hour now. That's as slow as a blimp landing."

"Liar!"

"Recalculating now. You're at forty-seven miles an hour. You'll hit ground in twenty-two seconds, so cut your thrusters."

"Janice, acknowledge. Deactivate thrusters."

Ace wandered another circle. He stopped and clamped a hand over his mouth again. Removed it. "Fifteen seconds. You ready?"

"Yeah," someone blurted.

"Not you." Ace pushed Power Plant out of the way. "Put your socks back on."

Incendiary almost bit his tongue. "Have I ever been ready to guide a bomb shelter into a net?"

Ace was close enough for Puttyman to hear, because Puttyman said, "I'm a really good net." His voice sounded thin with his stretched airway. He somehow gave an okay sign in that tangle of a body. His forefingers spanned two different hemispheres.

"Five seconds."

Legion couldn't look. Neither could Catastrophe, Amaranthia, a blonde Terran, a water creature, Franchise…Incendiary glanced at them all to distract himself. Everyone cringed except that Logistican with the cigar. He pumped a fist.

Incendiary slipped through the net, the bomb shelter after him. Ace screamed, "Now, Puttyman. Squeeze!" and Incendiary tumbled away and Puttyman constricted around the bomb shelter and an absurd shriek of metal against skin rasped out and Incendiary hit the ground outside the crater rim and a gargantuan shadow plunged over him and "Ed, look out" and he rolled onto his legs and pounced out and behind him growled the sweeping earthquake of the bomb shelter hitting ground and the quake swamped his sound suppressors and pressed against his eardrums through his helmet and he skidded facedown and panted and was he still alive and what was the hammock situation here and—

* * *

Legion watched Incendiary collapse on the meteor floor. The college kid was out cold, and his gabber cut the connection. Legion couldn't blame him. He'd acted as landing gear for something the size of a duplex, and he didn't even have his baccalaureate. Or enough money for a hot meal, judging from his dishes at home.

The bomb shelter creaked. It had slid through Puttyman's constricted netting and, with the damage redirecting it, punched down on the crater's edge instead of in. It now rocked lazily at a shallow angle, the edge fitting into an indentation in the damage. But it didn't threaten to spill into the crater.

Puttyman snapped in like a bungee cord. Legion was stunned that someone at six feet could extend into a one-hundred-foot rope and still have enough tensile strength to grip a bomb shelter. The mechanic claimed he could extend twenty feet in any direction from his core. At any longer, blood and air didn't circulate well. Stretching horizontally allowed a little more distance. Still, when he reeled in, he collapsed, pale and breathless.

They'd actually pulled this off? Impossible. Someone had helped them through this. No. Nobody had. Legion bopped his head. Not a chance. Days ago, he'd believe some cosmic bailout named Alaphus watched over him. Now he knew better.

The only feature on the bomb shelter's exterior at ground level was an airlock, releasable from the inside. Wide enough for two people, it was a clear, aluminate-silicate door to an inner pressure chamber. Usually it took three or four minutes to prepare someone to exit, but the pressure in the bomb shelter was probably in the same ballpark as the pressure in this dome. So the process should take only a few seconds.

"Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Pincushion." Legion's gabber buzzed on. The mouthpiece and earpiece zipped out.

"Seeking connection, seeking connection. Connection attained. Remember to validate your bomb shelter's parking at the visitor's kiosk." The visitor's kiosk sat pulverized near the showers.

Legion averted his gaze from the blazing Cosmonaut Chimp ad. Nope, wouldn't give that monkey's conceited grin the satisfaction. Eye contact was how they reeled you in. "Abioye, are you guys all right in there?" He wandered the contour of the bomb shelter, reached the edge of the crater, and turned back, strolled past that cold monkey stare. Looked away.

Pincushion waited a couple seconds. Probably gathering his wits, reigning in his adrenaline. "Not the ideal landing." He grunted as if shifting his weight. "We might have to claim a few warranties. But we survived. Warning: so did the Bad Guys." Behind Pincushion's voice, Withered Old Battle-Axe's powdered rasp yelled at a covered wagon going fifteen in a ten zone.

"Bad Guys?" Legion stopped. The pads of his fingertips scraped lines in the space residue that had accumulated on the bomb shelter. He scratched at a sticky patch of grit in a seam and found a gouge from what looked like a nasty impact.

"Detritus, Wasted, and Multipurpose. We're sending them out first."

Legion rushed to the airlock door, where a crowd had formed. He snapped his fingers at Power Plant, at Ace Spandex, at Plastique, at Maul. "Hostiles are coming out."

Ace Spandex prepared armament hidden under his skin. Maul prepared whatever his gas-venting rifle shot. Plastique prepared an explosive-powered punch.

Power Plant prepared a spitball.

The airlock hissed, shook, hummed, rattled. Someone occupied the airlock, which prepared to release them into the dome. The airlock had no lights, so Legion couldn't identify anyone, but he sure knew that Cosmonaut Chimp was rated the number-one primate-on-primate-violence cartoon on the Animation Sensation-Sedation Station. But only number three for flashing sequences that triggered epilepsy. Argh, he violated his one rule of peering into that blasted primate's mesmerizing smirk. You win, monkey. You and your animal magnetism win. I'll watch. Just stop smiling at me.

The airlock dropped to silence. It stopped rattling and praising the cleaning abilities of Agent Orange's Chemical Showers. Cosmonaut Chimp's eyes lit with a tranquil note: the pressure was set. Legion snatched at his necklace. He sighed. Not there anymore. A habit hard to lose.

That necklace had saved his life, deflected a light-bullet that George had fired when he'd turned against IP and escaped to start his criminal empire…when he'd killed their mutual friend, Sopher, who'd owned the necklace originally. Or so Legion had thought. Turned out Sopher had taken an accidental light-bullet—one that rang out in Legion's ear with every failure since that day—but Legion had blamed George for the death more than seven years. Huh. That fable Alaphus had saved him once. Would you look at that. He wondered at the necklace that wasn't there anymo—

Nope. Not design. Just extreme luck. Back to now. Back to that bomb shelter. Legion said, "Ready yourselves, everyone. These Bad Guys might make a break for it."

Maul grunted a snicker around that unlit cigar that shifted between gray lips. "Hoochie Mama's waited all day for action." His rifle cackled. It actually cackled. Legion suspected it wasn't a rifle. He also suspected it doubled as a fishing rod from what it had done earlier. "Quiet down, girl." Maul scratched it behind the…ear?

"I've got a score to settle with Detritus. He's been stealing from my medicine cabinet." Ace Spandex sniffled in the circulating dust. "If it's Multipurpose, he's Jeff's."

Power Plant jolted. "No way. Multipurpose ain'ts stealin' from my medicine cabinet."

The cords in Legion's neck bulged from nervous tension. "Look, we all cover whomever comes out. And it's not a medicine cabinet if all you keep in it is charging cables."

The door slipped upward into a recess inside the bomb shelter. Dingy light spilled into the pressure chamber. Still not enough to see who occupied it. A rubbery squeak escaped…and then the elephant-legged Multipurpose careened out, legs barely supporting his clumsy gait.

Ace Spandex jerked his arms up and out of the way. "All yours."

"Not a chance." Power Plant dived aside to avoid Multipurpose crashing against a boulder and collapsing overtop it. The boulder popped into fragments under him.

"Someone cover him," Legion said. "He might stumble over to that crater, and we don't have a crane to lift him out."

"The two of you. Honestly." Plastique chuffed at Ace and Power Plant. She dropped to one knee beside Multipurpose and slid a plastic zip tie out of her pocket. She examined the zip tie, examined Multipurpose's wrists, examined the zip tie. She reached into her pocket and grabbed another tie, sized up the wrists, then another tie, then another. "Which one of you laughed when I splurged on the twenty pack?" Then another.

The chamber door slapped shut again, and the rattle-hiss resumed. "I'll cover the next Bad Guy." Ace Spandex stationed himself front and center. He tapped his knuckles, and his wrist beeped.

"I's cover the next Good Guy." Power Plant rolled up his sleeves.

Chapter Six: Cosmic Sightseeing

May 5, 52,992 B.C.

Elohim and his new lieutenant, the prehistoric Crugg, had explored Terra at a time before it was called Earth. Its bipolar climates were tricky: arctic chills in one land, scorching heat in another. Airy in one, blemished with volcanoes in another. Bleak wasteland in one, not Las Vegas in another.

Crugg had begun life as a prehistoric, slope-browed barbarian who lived only to hunt and hunted only to live. Aimless, undriven, ignorant to his purpose in the history of spacetime. He needed help. As lieutenant to Elohim's mission, this Crugg needed to be imbued with startling power.

So, with the slightest smile and a delicious Crunch Berry on his tongue, Elohim dug into his quadruplet hyperabilities as manipulator of reality. He fused this Crugg with dark matter, reconstructed him in its very substance. Turned out dark matter smelled like the dead and tasted like rot in the back of your throat. At the same time, a Neanderthal wouldn't do. So he recreated Crugg as a modern Terran. His hyperabilities extended to a manipulation of genetics itself, and so Crugg, a simple primitive, became the powerful demigod who stood with Elohim as no longer a slave, no longer a simple cog in the machine of existence. He was Elohim's pitch-black guardian. His Blackguard. The process required seconds. The resulting odor required shallow breathing through your mouth.

To repair the timestream, the spacestream, and the auto industry's reputation, Elohim needed a powerful army. Yes, he could repair things himself, but to enforce his mission, he wanted a military. Also, automobile side detailing was rife with unnecessary hidden fees that damaged consumer trust.

So he and Blackguard had teleported across the cosmos to the Andromeda galaxy, to prehistoric Trioxil, to a watery region that would one day be called Klishxtross. Elohim had sensed a mighty hyperability here. Over two days, he had narrowed it down to this archipelago, to this island that smelled like fresh grass. "My dear servant, we are close to our goal."

"We will rend asunder the next dealership that inflicts upon us pointless environmental fees." Blackguard swung his bladed arm and cleaved a tree in half.

"Not that goal. We are close to our primary goal. Our next comrade is nearby. I sense him. And be considerate of the local flora."

"I sense this new one as well. He emits a distinct mudded aroma." Blackguard's nose-that-wasn't-a-nose twitched.

"Yyeeeesss." Elohim placed a hand on Blackguard's inky arm. Not the arm that had cleaved the tree. The safe one that did not result in a booboo. Elohim did not unwisely play with knives since the scissor incident. "There: our objective."

This new soldier stood a distance away in the dazzling Trioxil sunlight, the starkly white brilliance that made the grass glow and the waters glitter. The primitive Trioxidillian, a green-skinned member of his species, banged two rocks together to produce…huh, food. Apparently ancient Trioxidillians subsisted on rocks. Oh well, no worse than eating durian.

The Trioxidillian finished the snack by rubbing his padded fingertips over himself, trickling the delicious dust into his upturned mouth. Delicious was not the correct word. Oh, maybe so, judging from how the Trioxidillian puckered his fingers. Very well.

Blackguard crossed his arms. "Let us show this Trioxidillian how to avoid exaggerated dealership fees, my lord." He alternated his arms when his blade arm didn't fit under the other arm's pit.

The Trioxidillian noticed and jolted for cover in a concavity on the ground. He gripped another rock, prepared to throw it. So this Trioxidillian wanted a food fight.

"We have not come to harm you." Elohim inhaled the ocean mist. The creature didn't know English, but Elohim conveyed the message by mind as well.

The Trioxidillian was unconvinced. Okay then. Elohim reconstructed himself into a green-skinned Trioxidillian. From his toes, which shed its hair and budded pads, to his head, which sprouted antennae from skin-covered ears, he remodeled his body into one of this creature's fellow tribesmen. Trioxidillian air tasted sweeter to his tongue now. The grass felt silkier to his toes.

The creature leaned forward. He didn't approach but issued a curious grunt and scratched his chin.

"Yes, my friend. We've come to take you from this pointless existence. We've come to reveal the great hyperability hidden inside you, one you would not realize without our intervention. We've come to show you nourishment that won't break your teeth."

"And high-octane battles against Donkey Kong," Blackguard offered.

"Yes. And speedboating. Such excitement."

"The Cosmic Corpulence Cheese Stuffer."

Elohim curled his lip. "No, Corpulence King changed the recipe. Too greasy now."

The Trioxidillian stooped, prepared to leap away, prepared to howl, prepared to attack. He looked wary despite Elohim's change of appearance. He turned his attention to Blackguard and gagged. Granted, Blackguard did not smell like a floral arrangement, but that reaction was uncalled for.

Elohim plucked the Trioxidillian's name from the crackles of electricity in the primitive synapses of his brain. A form of mindreading, and the creature had just thought his name. "My dear Grinskarp, we wish to bring you to a newer life." With a simple wrist inflection, as if spurring a grand orchestra to strike up an opus, he began the transformation. A shattering of colors and gusto enveloped the Trioxidillian. Interacting with the fundamental forces, Elohim modified the creature into a Trioxidillian far flung in the future, from the era in which Elohim himself was created. "Grinskarp, you will thank me later, for Crunch Berries taste far more succulent than rocks."

Swirls of atoms, quarks, electrons, protons, ions, and ribbons cocooned the creature. No, not ribbons. Oh, no, there was one. Elohim had gotten carried away. And, fine, streamers for good measure. Might as well celebrate.

The cocoon looked charming and delightful, like a gift at a baby shower. It buzzed as it worked.

Ding. Complete. He unwrapped the Trioxidillian from the chrysalis of its particle bath. And he smiled at this new creature, this developed Trioxidillian, now capable of higher-order thought and speech and dining on fine cereals. One capable of understanding the greatness he controlled, the hyperability Elohim had pinpointed here on this distant Trioxil.

"Hello, my son." A cushion of tide waters crashed against the shoreline a distance away.

Grinskarp stammered. Shock no doubt whirled his sensations into confusion. He examined Elohim and Blackguard as if conducting careful research. "What…the…crock?" His lips quivered in so many shapes until finally, "What am I?"

Elohim couldn't help squealing his triumph. He almost buckled to his knees. Not good. The grass was dewy. "You are no longer a cog. You are now my cherished son. Nature has gifted you with the hyperability to seek other hyperpeople and swap the hormones their hyperglands produce, to exchange their abilities. You will relieve me of that duty so that I may concentrate on other matters. You will also help me safeguard my restoration of spacetime, my newest son." A sly smile obliged itself across Elohim's lips. "My Trader."

"You will help us defeat the menace of Donkey Kong and that beast's disastrous architectural skills." Blackguard curled a fist. "Level five proves stubborn."

* * *

Perched atop a pedestal Continuum had placed in this throne hall to contain the aswang, the Trader watched the time manipulator grip his lead-pipe fingers around the arms of his throne and rise in such a swift motion that it startled Gangrene into issuing a knifepoint yip.

Continuum surveyed his crowd. "My children, more forces gather against us. I must greet these forces personally." Since Blackguard had already met the Bad Guys, no doubt these new forces were the Good Guys and their amassed allies.

He trotted down the three carpeted steps of the raised platform where his throne declared itself. "Servants Trader and Kamikaze, accompany me."

The Trader stood. Ugh. Called to action. Fine. He whispered a curse and smoothed his business suit, what the locals of this time called a fashion of identity. He hopped off the pedestal. "Coming…master." He used that title as comfortably as if slamming his head in a hinged door.

Continuum awaited the Trader in front of the throne. Before departure, he thrust his chin at Wyvern to address the creature's mewing. "Then perhaps watch your step if the thorns hurt that much, galoot."

"Simmer your cooch, ya big baby." Marionette slapped Wyvern's arm and returned to rubbing the alcohol into a lesion on his leg.

Chapter Seven: All Good under the Hood

Master Asinine's day was turning around in a good way. An amazing way. Hoohah. He had swung a deal that freed some of his junior thugs. As backup, Bad Guy chief of security Schizophrenic now joined him and some generics in The Nemesis's destructed cockpit. The rest of the generics were partying it up somewhere else, except without the party. Wait, then why did they take that firehose?

Reef had laid Francine down in the rear of the passenger deck, draped across a bed made of cushions from ruined chairs. A generic with some medical experience monitored her vitals and pulse and vitamins and minerals and whatever else you checked when someone's hand was missing. When she stabilized, the generic would transfer her to The Nemesis's medical bay. Okay, it was a locker room, but they worked with what they had.

The Bad Guys' mad scientist Brainiac was also free for some hack-and-slash patchwork across the combined cockpit and passenger decks. So Brainiac set about checking repairs to keep The Nemesis and its jazzy haunt control modifier—"Jiving fine, my rhythm section, yyeeaaahh"—that jazzy haunt control mod—from taking a smooth-as-saxaphone nose dive into something hard. A Trioxidillian/Terran crossbreed, Brainiac had the hyperability of industrial-strength telekinesis. She also had a pulsing cranium that cranked up the ugly when she took to thinking. Unfortunately, that was why Asinine had hired her: thinking the thinks. It got especially nasty trying to lift her off the floor since her cranium made her top-heavy.

Down the hall, four other generics guarded the rest of the junior thugs: trusty secondhand-in-command Lieutenant IQ 23, Asinine's bodyguard Braindead, thuglike Bad Aim, and cowboy Master Asinine Sucks, whose name should be stricken from the record, so Asinine forgot that last part. Like much of his schooling. And how to use a door.

Back in the cockpit, where the chief action actioned, Schizophrenic took the role of club bouncer, making sure the generics here stayed in line and giving them the heave-ho if they didn't. Good thing there wasn't an ejection seat in the room, or that would be one killer heave-ho. Ha, where did he come up with these? He slapped his knee because, guess what, he'd also swung a deal to shed those massive chains. He almost skipped through the cockpit, but no. He'd tripped once already.

"Damage is looking not good, comrades and generics people." Brainiac examined the torn-asunder and peeled-apart piloting computer by brushing her fingers along its ruin. The eye-level damage only, mind you. Otherwise her gigantic forehead would topple her over. Like right now. Apparently you couldn't just turn on the vents without warning her.

"Yes, damage ees extensive." Now on the floor, Brainiac took the opportunity to examine the underside panels of the piloting console. Face up, she swatted away a spring that poked her nostril. It sprang back. Springs did that. "Damage weel take time for fixing, comrades. Time and materials. Мочи перхоти."

No idea what that last thing meant, but maybe Brainiac was finally offering to wrap Asinine's alarm clock in soundproofing. That would help his six-in-the-morning wake-up calls.

Asinine scratched his neck. Was he allergic to the Alaphan necklace around it? Maybe the ragged bullet hole scraped against his skin. It was Legion's, but Legion had flung it away. Asinine had scooped it up to keep it safe until he could return it. That was what best friends did. "So what can you do about the damage?" He glanced out the windshield at that satellite ad they might hit.

"Do not worry, Vozshd Asinine. We can fix with materials we have on rooster space vessel." Careful not to slice open her hand, Brainiac grabbed smooth seams in the damage to heave herself up. She looked like a turtle trying to flip over. A three-legged one that wouldn't emerge from its shell. She toppled back over. "Okay, I stay on ground."

Master Asinine stood on his tiptoes to see over the pilot's chair. "But can we fix it?" He snapped his fingers. "Right, she'd said that part in English. I understand English."

"You don't understand basic spelling, Captain Cheese Bag." Schizophrenic's left-head, Lefty, snorted. The two-headed hulk strolled by, a generic's belt and collar clutched in his tank-built hands. Was that Steve getting heave-hoed into an upturned chair? He hadn't even done anything wrong.

"True as that is, I've learned my name. Not my last name, but that doesn't matter anymore because I'm changing it to Cheese Bag."

"Cheese bags go great with cracker bags." Righty cheered, eyes glazed over, probably with visions of cheese-and-cracker-sandwich bags.

Master Asinine rolled his shoulder to work out a lingering crick from those chains. And those were rigging chains, the kind that anchored spacecrafts or Asinine's jars of helium he used whenever he issued crazy decrees with crazy voices. The chains now lay jumbled on the floor, with one end stringing into the gullet of Appetite, who sucked it down as if it were a spaghetti noodle. Appetite was the Bad Guys' pet, so named not because he had lovely table manners. No, that gargoyle beast devoured everything in sight and then the sight itself. The generics hadn't exactly freed Mr. Never Chews with His Mouth Closed, but Asinine would crown king whomever convinced Appetite to stay put anywhere.

Reef checked the navigation display, one of the few things still functioning. And the functioning stuff didn't include blinkers, so they couldn't signal their lane changes. He tapped one particular square of data, a glowing orange number crash-landing toward zero. "Cluck says we'll still hit the wormhole, so our trajectory didn't change. And it estimates we'll hit it in about three hours. We don't have a lot of time, and I want control when The Nemesis flies through to the other side."

"No, three hours is not lots of time. And hole of worms is not good for surviving." Brainiac had grabbed a handle on a mid-height compartment. The compartment swung open, and she flopped back onto the floor. She blathered a swarm of foreign swear words. This mad scientist could build anything but a neck brace.

Schizophrenic clomped by in the other direction, still heave-hoing the generic. Poor Steve, getting double the heave-ho treatment. Schizophrenic was hard at work organizing the generics by what he called "face punchability."

Brainiac at least had fallen faceup again. She sighed and surrendered the fight to stand. No matter where she was, the floor was her ice rink. "We get tools from hold of starship cargo and begin. Repair work take an hour maybe. Also get equipment to fix hot water in sink for kettle. Da?"

"Not da. Yes instead." Master Asinine stepped back to allow Schizophrenic room to heave-ho another generic. Asinine was a gentleman, even if the generic didn't think so. "Someone will have to grab the shopping list and head down to cargo instead of Brainiac. She's not going anywhere on account of having a hot-air balloon for a head." Asinine rose on his tiptoes again. He barely saw Brainiac or her caterpillar unibrow in the low light. "How are you this clumsy? It's not even slippery of the when-wet variety here."

Schizophrenic strolled by again, still sorting his punchables. Couldn't decide where Steve belonged, apparently. "Hot-air balloons float, Colonel Crocktopus." Colonel? Ooh, a promotion.

Reef snapped his fingers. "Enough talk. That wormhole is getting closer."

"So close, my clever cats," Cluck said. "We're smoothing on through in two hours fifty-eight minutes."

"I'm going." Reef headed to the door. "Brainiac, I'll gabber you when I'm in cargo. You can tell me what to bring back."

"Add some aircraft cable to the list. Appetite's running out of chain." Master Asinine stuck his shoulders back. Oooh, that twinged. "Schizophrenic and I are going, too. We'll make sure Reef doesn't get up to any funny business."

"I'm busy, Sergeant Spazz." Schizophrenic backhanded the air. Steve happened to be in the way.

"The generics can punch their own faces. And sergeant now? I worked hard for my promotion!"

Chapter Eight: Allow Me to Demonstrate

Legion made sure the bomb shelter was empty. Multipurpose had polished off the food supplies and left only the spoiled remnants of ground chamkey. Pincushion and Catastrophe had grabbed the medical supplies on their way out. Well, the medical supplies Multipurpose hadn't confused for ground chamkey. Now Franchise spread healing gel over a gash on his cheek and one on his knee.

When Detritus came out, he stared Legion down like he smelled blood, even through a half-swollen eye. Still sore from a deal with Legion. Detritus had wanted to go free in exchange for information. That information amounted to "I don't know," so Legion locked him up. Detritus wasn't happy, and he threatened to explode at Legion with that hyperability he claimed to have but never used.

Since Plastique had run out of zip ties on Multipurpose when the giant slug kept eating them, Legion told her to cover the Bad Guys. Seated against a boulder by a smashed shower stall that no longer sprayed water, Multipurpose and Detritus growled up at her, so she supervised them through the gunsights of her sidearm. Those Bad Guys weren't going anywhere, and if they tried, they'd have to knead out all of Multipurpose's cramps first. Plastique had propped Wasted against the stall's one standing wall, but he kept falling over. Amaranthia stood at a distance, averting eye contact to avoid explaining why she wasn't held prisoner with them. She said something about it being "totes uncomfs, like a stooge party with gitchy music," which Legion understood as "awkward."

The bomb shelter was now immobile, and Amaranthia's civ-tran was a decimated mess. So it fell to Chug to somehow lift twenty-eight people off this rock without exceeding its load capacity. It still trickled cottony fumes that smelled like a processing plant and felt like volcanic ash in your nostrils.

Legion joined Pincushion, Ace Spandex, and Bullet by the shower stalls. Nearby, Power Plant flicked fountaining water at Pacemaker to see if he would wake up. Or if he was still alive. One of the two.

"So here's what's happening." Wait. Legion couldn't keep track of the situation. Everyone waited for him to continue. Ace Spandex sipped tea from his special-edition refillable mug. Drink-up-olis making good on their claim to deliver anywhere your caffeine needs took you. He wiped his creamer-froth mustache across his sleeve.

Legion gave up. "Okay, I've got nothing."

"Is happening around standing we." Scapegoat shuffled past with the late-breaking update.

Pincushion accepted a pistol recharge unit from Plastique. "Let me straighten this out, brother." He tapped items off his fingers. "Something fishy's going on at IP. Breeng set you up on an impossible mission meant to kill you and look like an accident. Meanwhile, he arrested Plastique, Power Plant, Ace, and Franchise on trumped-up charges. Amaranthia broke them free. After that, forty-foot robots woke up to trash Station One."

"Wait, thems robots trashed Station One? That's where's all my action figures!" Power Plant glanced up from splashing Pacemaker. Always close by and yet out in left field.

Pincushion slid his pistol into his holster. "Meanwhile, inflation outpaced minimum wage. After that, Breeng installed a new haunt control on the station that kept talking about somebody named Continuum and offering off-brand teas and coffees."

"Cheers." Ace held up his mug.

"Breeng had our aswang," Bullet said. "Which means Continuum does now."

Pincushion clicked the recharge unit into his pistol. "After that, Steeple returned from the dead and took control of everyone in Station One's visitors' center. He claimed to serve that same Continuum. After that that—I'm out of progression words—all of IP surrounded the station and prevented us from escape. They looked like Steeple hit them up as well." Pincushion had no more counting fingers. "After that that that, our gang up here was attacked by three people and a dog talking about Continuum and an antithesis."

"A talking dog attacked you?" Legion asked.

"Not a dog. An entire army of knights!" Franchise barreled into the conversation. "I fought them off." He kicked a scrap of metal away despite the gash on his knee. "I took on so much damage, but I fought on." He pointed at his knee, and his laugh tapered off. "Okay, not so much per se. And I had a little help. Per se." Searched again. "A lot."

"Per se?" Legion asked.

"Okay, the help was Jeffy running over the—Fine, I took care of one guy, and he kept knocking me over. Happy?" Franchise whirled around and stamped off. "No more questions."

"We didn't ask any." Pincushion watched Franchise recede into the distance. "Anyway, they brought an army of knights and didn't clean up after themselves. Meanwhile, on Station One, Continuum's army included Steeple and some insane creature that Janice said is a wyvern. Apparently it's a type of dragon. She also said she'll kill all people and initiate a computer uprising. Finally after that that that, Station One disappeared. I think we're up to speed now."

"If Continuum unleashes that aswang, you'd better pray for a quick death." Bullet set a stare at Pincushion with a sizzle in her words.

"Yeah. Stupid sass wang." Power Plant barged into the circle again. His hand covered his collarbone blister, but the healing gel covering it worked its magic. "That's is our pets rabbit."

"Jeff, we don't need another slobbering animal. We already have you." Legion elbowed him away. "Go tell the others all the weird ways you spend your free time."

"Ooh, right." Power Plant sprang away. "Hey, Jakey, I cans fart through my mouth now."

Legion toed the rocky floor. Nothing added up. "What does this Continuum want with Intergalactic Protection? Is he installing his own military regime?"

A few meters away, something sizzled. It carried a delicate draft that flapped through Legion's service jacket. Legion recoiled from the sphere that crackled out of nothing a short distance from the bomb shelter. It shot to a diameter of eight feet, tapped the bomb shelter, and just as quickly shrank into a speck that winked away. The bomb shelter teetered back and, Cosmonaut Chimp's spellbinding grin peering at the stars, spilled into the crater. A metallic scream, a crunch, and a pulverizing quake marked its death at the bottom of the crater.

Power Plant bounded to the crater rim. "Crock, I's wanted t' eat all that diced curry chamkeys." He prepared to dive in.

Franchise wrestled him away. "I don't want to smell what mouth farts come out of you after that. This guy gets it." He jerked his chin at a herculean Terran who stood by the crater. "What group did he come with, anyway?"

In place of the sphere stood three people. In the middle towered that herculean Terran with arms like a mountain range and legs like brickwork. His cold smirk and curling lip matched his nearly seven-foot posture. He wore a short-sleeved button-up shirt fastened to the third-last button. This left room for his barrel-thick neck. He scanned the crowd, whose focus he'd demanded. To his right stood a Trioxidillian in a business suit and tie, mirrored sunglasses, and a sneer as if he were clothes-shopping with his mom and didn't want to be there.

To his left stood Kamikaze.

Nerves electrified Legion. He eased forward. He wasn't watching, and his foot rolled over a rock, but he caught himself. "Kamikaze? What…what are you doing here?"

Pincushion cocked his head with a nervous heh. He leaned in for a hushed conversation. "Oh, yeah. Guess who we bumped into earlier."

Legion stuck out a hand to guide Kamikaze away from the other two—

Kamikaze dodged Legion and cracked an arm above Legion's shoulder and yanked Legion's underarm up. Legion's shoulder seared. He collapsed to his knees. A stone poked his shin. Kamikaze dropped next to him. Legion would grapple out of this, but his arm raked brightly.

"Don't touch me. I'll rocket us both out of this dome. You know only one of us would come back down." Kamikaze said this through teeth clasped shut. "So don't." He let go, lifted onto his feet, and stepped back in line with the others.

The granite man wasn't disturbed by Chug's smell of spoiled roast beef, look of spoiled roast beef, or ambiance of spoiled roast beef. "Hello, Matross. My nose was growing. Your ilk has been discussing me." He held his arms behind his back.

"You mean your nose was itching?" Legion stumbled up and stepped away.

"Whichever."

"I take it you're Continuum." Legion reached for his Marsek pistol. Right. Not there. The generics had confiscated it when they'd captured him. "My ilk was trying to figure out why your enormous robots destroyed our home." Had the meteor gotten chillier?

"Yeah, Station One's where I kepts all my action figure." Power Plant folded his arms.

"Jeff, stop being indignant about the wrong things."

Continuum pursed his lips as if considering his words. "Station One was never your home. It was mine to use as I wished. My herald robots merely cleared the structures you imposed upon it."

"Tell that to my collection of sniper artifacts, you monster. Some of those were family heirlooms!" Plastique tossed her pistol away in favor of a rifle strapped to her shoulder. She peered through the sights and fired. The gashing report echoed fiercely around the dome.

Continuum didn't flinch. He didn't avert his gaze. An inch from his eye hovered Plastique's fired 30-caliber light-bullet. Its silver glint looked capable of splashing apart his skull. It revolved lazily in midair without completing its path.

Continuum drew in a long breath as if to criticize Plastique's attempt. He lifted a hand ever so slowly, pinched the light-bullet out of the air, and rolled it around his fingers to examine it. He sighed. "Why do you bother?" he muttered. He dropped the bullet.

"I come with an announcement." Continuum observed his audience with a gentle turn at the waist. His feet didn't shift. Though he spoke calmly, his voice echoed as if this were an empty stadium. He didn't scowl, didn't smile. "I am Continuum, the master of time, space, and reality."

"I'm a master of engineering from Pigsqueal University," Ace Spandex said. "So what?"

Continuum ignored the comment. He crossed his arms, which swelled his massive pectorals. "I have come to conquer and rectify all of existence. I have amassed an immeasurable army that bows to my every command, except those who deem it acceptable to not wipe down the sink after brushing their teeth." He waited a beat. "Do not interfere. Do not obstruct. There is nothing you can do to stop us. There is nothing you can do to circumvent our mission. There is nothing…" He set his stony eyes on Legion. "…you can do." His gaze lingered for only a split second, but in that split second, Legion felt frozen.

He resumed probing the crowd. "You will remove yourselves from our path. I wish no further acts of defiance like the one on this meteor earlier. Any resistance will be seen as an invitation to end you." Now he smiled, the slightest curve of his lips hinting at withheld satisfaction. "And I so love being invited."

Legion shuffled his feet on pebbles. He swallowed, which sounded like a boom. "Where did you come from?"

"You would be better to ask when." Continuum's tone was flat, as if he recited a sequence of unrelated words. "Your measurement of time went extinct before my birth, but you would know it as the year one hundred thousand."

"Right. And you're the master of time, space, and reality?" Legion swept an arm at Kamikaze and this suited Trioxidillian. "Then why bring your cronies? Why even have cronies? If you're that powerful, just rectify existence and be done with it."

"While you at it, rectify Hawaiians pizza." Power Plant threw his arms out. "Ain't nothin's right with that."

"I don't think you're telling the truth." Legion stepped forward to block Continuum from the others. "I don't think you're the master of anything. I don't even think you have an army. I think it's just you, a bunch of magic tricks, and a few idiots here and there." He kicked a knight's helmet. "And a junkyard."

Detritus straightened up against the rock. "Was that rude? It's been a while since I been in mixed company."

Continuum inspected his audience with indifference. He calculated his words for a moment, uttering not even an ahem. Finally, he licked his lips. "If it's a show of power you want, let me oblige." He uncrossed his arms and lifted a hand.

Scapegoat shot from the ground and hovered in midair. His head cocked upward, his arms creased backward, his heels folded against his shoulders, his muscles tensed, his bones clicked, his pallor melted to sheet whiteness. A shaky moan leaked out, all he could muster with his body forced tautly.

Continuum shut his hand.

Scapegoat bent inward. His limbs ripped out in a shower of gore. Bones cracked, skin opened, organs spilled. The pieces hung in a ball while blood floated out in zero-gravity globules.

Organism threw up. Workshop covered her eyes and cringed away. Wasted snored louder. Amaranthia drew her katana with a defiant sssshhh. Mabel thought Scapegoat was potato salad. Multipurpose gasped so deeply he engulfed Detritus up to the waist.

Continuum turned his attention back to his horror-stricken onlookers. He let Scapegoat hang, portioned apart, for one second…two seconds…

And then he flung his hand away. Scapegoat's pieces soared skyward, burst through the dome, and shot into forever.

Not one breath was heard.

"You…you…" Legion trembled out his words. "You killed…" He stammered to regain himself. "You killed him. You killed Scapegoat." His eyes found Kamikaze. "Are you really with this madman?"

Kamikaze smirked. "This 'madman' fixed me."

"As for the army you question…" Continuum flickered his fingers, and like a landscape revealed only in a silent spark of lightning, a throng appeared: multitudes upon multitudes of medieval knights, of Intergalactic Protection solders, of Station One's patrons and workers, of Steeple, of other costumed goons. Tens of thousands.

The image flashed away.

Continuum held his hands behind his back again. "I trust you were sufficiently convinced." A crackling sphere blossomed from a dot behind him, just as earlier. "Before I leave, I have a second purpose here, one you disallowed my sons and daughter to fulfill earlier."

"Then rectsify Hawaiian pizza already!"

"I have come to raise one of you up alongside me." Continuum pointed across the crowd. "You, Jeffrey Cooper Abends, will join my fold."

"Huh? I ain'ts fruit pizza." Power Plant faltered backward over a scrapheap of knight's armor. He never hit the ground.

Continuum drew his hand up and Power Plant with it, as if a harness lifted the Good Guy. Continuum pulled his hand toward himself, and Power Plant glided through and past the crowd.

"Let him go!" Franchise broke forward, but Plastique grabbed him. Franchise clawed around Plastique's left, Plastique's right, but Plastique wrestled him back.

"Soldier, you'll get yourself killed."

"I don'ts need rectsifying!" Power Plant kicked, thrashed to escape the invisible harness. The blister on his collarbone wasn't a concern anymore.

Ace Spandex grappled for him but missed—"Drop him"—lunged, couldn't yank him back—"He doesn't need rectifying"—stabbed fingers at a forearm that only beeped defiantly—"more or less"—to do something, do anything, but his fingers and the beeps were so scattered—"more, really"—a lollipop plunked out—"someone, do something"—pressed fingers into his skin, slapped his wrist—"Jeff, hold on"—a helicopter beanie whirred out of his head—"What's that even in there for?" The copter started spinning.

Legion rushed at Continuum—Continuum's other hand threw him aside—he cracked against a disarray of armor. He leaped up, but Continuum swept him back again. Pincushion landed in the pile beside him. Then Catastrophe.

Power Plant tried to swim away, but even his awkward backstroke couldn't break him free. "This ain't feels like I believes I cans fly or that I cans touch the sky." He writhed, gashed the air, tore at his invisible harness.

"Sleep, my son." Continuum faced Power Plant, and Power Plant melted to into a midair nap. He held his hand up until Power Plant reached him. Then he regarded his rapt audience with deadlock indifference. "Good-bye, and pray we never again cross paths." He stepped backward into the sphere with Power Plant. They disappeared. The business-suited Trioxidillian followed.

"Kamikaze?" Legion shuddered. Had he spoken? He had. Somehow he'd managed a word. He was too dazed to figure out how. "What are you doing with this psycho?"

Kamikaze was ankle-deep in the sphere, one foot in but ready to take that next step. His fist sputtered orange energy. "Lord Continuum is taking over, Legion. Deal with it." He completed his stride.

"Nnnnoooo—" Franchise wrenched Plastique aside and barreled at the sphere. Never mind his healing knee, he dived, but the sphere contracted away before he connected. He careened into the crater and vanished below the rim with his plummeting scream. His scream cut away. A second passed, and he floated up and over solid ground. The hold on him released, and he dropped the two feet to the meteor floor.

"Okay. Wow. Dumb move," Sixth Sense said. "Thank me later."

Franchise sobbed into the ground, unaware when Amaranthia rushed up and crouched at his side.

Legion tried couldn't inhaled thought stood staggered blinked shuddered—"What just—"—spun at the others with feet caught in helmets coughed tingled shed a tear fell to his knees in the heap of helmets and plates it was a question a really simple question just a question and then Scapegoat was…was…all for a question—

"That was Continuum?" Pincushion blanched. He stroked his arm without realizing it.

—only wanted the answer to a question and Scapegoat died in a show of power—

"He waltzed in here, stopped my bullet in midair, took Scapegoat apart like he was plucking legs off a spider, and kidnapped Abends." Plastique hurled her rifle into the distance. It cracked against the dome. "Nobody stops my bullets!"

—only a question and Legion still tingled and he felt dizzy when he lumbered off his knees and had to get it together and the answer lingered in him in loose quivers a question that cost Scapegoat and Power Plant and he wiped a sleeve across his eyes.

Okay.

Fine.

If that was how Continuum answered questions, Legion had a few hollow-point answers of his own. He stood. He feared spilling to the ground again, but he shuffled around to the others. "This Continuum isn't taking Jeff and killing Scapegoat without a fight. He wants a war? Then let's go to war." He scowled. "But first we'll need some help."

* * *

Luzimoss dropped his spoon in his soup and looked up. "Oh, crap."

Chapter Nine: And Home Appliances on the Right

At the end of this lower-bowels hallway of Castle Grayskull, Mast…Wait a second, this wasn't Castle Grayskull.

At the end of this lower-bowels hallway of The Nemesis, Master Asinine stopped to allow the cargo hold's l door to fade with a lively ad for hallways. It sang its chime, and Cluck's voice sashayed in on slick shoes. "Welcome to the low-down, easygoing jam in our cosmic sailaway, cool cats. This here is the cargo crib, mamas and papas, the barrelhouse of our sweet, sweet ride." What was a barrelhouse?

Master Asinine glanced into the room devoid of light. "Like Cluck said, this is where we hold all the cargo. Guess why it's called the cargo hold."

Schizophrenic cracked a hand upside Asinine's head. He wasn't a good guesser.

"Less than three hours," Reef said. "Let's get to business."

"Right." Master Asinine snapped his fingers. "We're here for a reason." He strutted in like he owned the place. Because he did. Man, it felt good to walk again, to work out all these tight pains in his thighs from his chain pants and chain shirt and chain backpack and chain cufflinks. "Anyway, we keep extra food supplies on the left." He walked deeper into the darkness as he catalogued their storage. "We've got weapons and ammo deeper on the left. Boardgames are on the right in case we get fed up with each other and want to stare at some cardboard. An air-hockey table. An air-volleyball table. An air-table table. Farther on the right is a waterslide that isn't hooked up to anything, so it's just a regular slide. We store spiderwebs on the ceiling. Farther, more spiderwebs. Spiderwebs, spiderwebs, spiderwebs, then a ceiling fan, then more spiderwebs. We also store—" Bam. Asinine winced. Yyyyyyiiiiiii. "We also store low-standing furniture right in the middle of the aisle, apparently." Didn't feel like he owned the place now.

"Nice to see you know your way around." Among the silhouettes at the door, Schizophrenic popped a toothpick into his mouth.

"Control, acknowledge. Lights to eighty percent." Reef pushed past Schizophrenic into the hold. Two generics accompanied him as backup if Asinine tried anything. Like challenge him to air volleyball.

The cargo hold's light panels converged in an arrangement that the artificial intelligence calculated would bring the most light. Seemed that arrangement meant clouting Asinine in the eyebrow. He was hunched over rubbing his shin, so a light panel had to drop a few feet to do it. Being wrapped in chains wasn't so bad all of a sudden.

The room sprawled widely and deeply. Junk lay against other junk, slipping off each other, bonking to the floor, sliding into the middle aisle. Machinery, gear, fishing tackle. Everything in mismatched arrangements, with the back of the room standing a midrange distance away. And what had he knocked into? An entertainment console? Not so entertaining when it walloped your leg.

"Smells like clay." Reef pinched his nose.

"We teach pottery in the back."

Reef knocked Asinine aside as he passed. Asinine spilled into a box of Acid Reflux, the game of inflammation and outrageous family fun. When Schizophrenic passed, he knocked Asinine harder.

"So where's the repair equipment?" Reef asked.

Master Asinine scratched out the throbbing line in his shin and limped to catch up. "We've got welding and exterior-construction equipment at the back on the left, and on the right is interior repairs."

Reef shook his head. "You keep boardgames at the front but repair equipment at the back?"

"My advisors told me to put it there because, after we fix things, we'll be…back." Finally got to use that line. "And my most trusted advisors are aaaalllll in here." Master Asinine tapped his chin. "I mean in here." He tapped his temple.

"You arranged the room." Reef rolled his eyes. "It makes sense now."

They journeyed down the aisle, past the disorder of food and stacks of boardgames, past the ammunition and stacks of other boardgames, past the live and dead grenades mixed together, past the mobile shoe store, but never past the cobwebs. They reached the rear and the repair machines Asinine couldn't identify by sight but could identify by how they felt when you stuck your finger in them.

Reef surveyed what they had. Dust sheeted everything since before he had reconstructed The Nemesis. "Okay, time to check in with Brainiac."

"Right." Master Asinine blinked as if remembering why they'd come and if he wore pants. He did. Phew. "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Brainiac. Auto-translate Russian to English and big words to little words."

"Contacting entity Brainiac. Not doing that other thing. Connection attained."

Master Asinine's earpiece and mouthpiece zipped out. And so the science talk would begin, his favorite kind of talk. "Hidey-ho, Brainiac. We're here."

Brainiac's voice, creepy and witchlike, crackled in the gabber. "New gabber. Who this?"

"Come on. It's your old comrade, Asinine."

"Da, Vozshd Asinine. I have leest ready with many heavy, expensive, complicated equipments to carry." Wait, did he say favorite kind of talk?

"Hey, Brainy. I'm putting you on speaker mode. Hold on. Gabber, acknowledge. Speaker mode."

"Shrill and deafening mode activated," the gabber said. That didn't sound comfortable.

On Brainiac's side of the gabber, she activated a datasheet. It dinged. A Letchtech jingle offered one month of no data loss at an introductory price on all storage products. "Xорошо, comrade. I am ready with leest. First we need welding torch."

"Zompowow comrade to you too. Let's take a look." Asinine threw aside a screwdriver set, a soldering iron, a branding iron, a regular iron, an iron-rich bag of raisins.

"Welding torch." Reef rubbed his fingertips together as he searched. He stepped deeper into the rummage of items, threw aside a rivet gun, and there it was. "Got it."

"Okay, good. Now ees laser cutter. Oh, never mind laser cutter. We have up here laser cutter already for toasting paninis. Now find temperature gauge."

One of the generics kicked aside a stapler—technically a repair tool—and snatched up the gauge. With Reef exploring deeper in the flea market of equipment, Asinine saw his chance. He signaled Schizophrenic. Well, he signaled Lefty. Righty thought any signal was the opening to a dance-off.

And out came Schizophrenic's Autoling, silently from its holster. He tapped the trigger, and a light-bullet hollowed a generic's head into a doughnut but not the tasty kind. Jelly filled, though. The second generic rushed at him. He winked, caught the generic's face in a hand with the tenacity of a grappling hook, and shoved the generic back. The generic staggered into a pile of silicon panels, bolts, wooden divots, hook fasteners—all the items from Ikea's line of shuttle products. Another crack from that Autoling made sure that generic stayed down.

He aimed at Reef, who prepared a lunge but reconsidered. Lefty's toothpick shifted around a chuckle. "Try me."

"You need me." Reef steeled his legs.

"We don't need all them fingers." Schizophrenic placed his gun against Reef's pinkie. "This the one that cries 'wee wee wee' all the way home?"

Reef sneered at Schizophrenic. "That's the pinkie toe."

Schizophrenic snorted. "You really gonna argue this?"

"Heh." Master Asinine strutted around Schizophrenic like he owned the place, then thought better of it after what happened the last time he owned the place. Still, his veins positively hummed. He circled Reef and said, "Well, well, well. Look who's in charge again. How do you like this?" He flicked Reef's earlobe.

Reef grumbled. "The generics confiscated your weapons back on Station Zilcho. How did your goon smuggle that Autoling on board without anyone noticing?"

"Goon?" Schizophrenic snorted. "Ain't no reason for name-calling here."

"You should talk. You look like a guy who'd defect if a better offer came along. Any chance I can cut you in on our revolt?"

"Nah, this job's for spite. I ain't siding with no hillbilly troop of generics. And, as for how I smuggled Sarah May up here, a hillbilly troop of generics did the pat-downs." Schizophrenic spat on the floor. His toothpick somehow stayed in his mouth. "Goon."

"The only reason you're still alive is because we need your telekinesis to fix the cockpit. Keep that in mind. So we're going to fix it, and then we're going to have a fireside chitchat about uprisings and rebellions and ninnyhammers." Master Asinine grabbed a four-foot length of polypropylene rope left among the interior repair supplies. He tested the length as a whip for show if Reef got brave. "Because I don't know what a ninnyhammer is, but people keep saying it around me."

Chapter Ten: Whether You Like It or Not

"We're sending a delegation to Gaia, and that's that." Legion marched away from Bullet. That obnoxious, dry-skinned Gharalgian was stomping on his last nerve. He felt it like a throb in his forehead. "Luzimoss knows about timelines. It's a longshot, but it's all we have. None of the Good Guys knows anything about this. And it's not as if anybody on your team has experience controlling time and space."

"I do." Puttyman raised a hand, a coffee mug dangling by the handle from one finger. "Let's just say I won't mix those chemicals again."

Bullet dogged Legion. "But you are not borrowing our starship to get there." Her high-pitched voice tweaked at Legion's antennae in the echo chamber that was this enclosed dome.

Legion spun on his heel so quickly Bullet stumbled to avoid bumping him. He threw out his arms. "Do you see literally any other vehicle on this meteor?" His backdrop was the smoldering wreckage of Amaranthia's Fandango. "Any other drivable vehicle on this meteor?"

Bullet folded her arms. "It's stealing."

"It's military appropriation." Legion stood his ground when Bullet leered forward, her huge nose to his noseless face. "Do we really have the time to argue this? We have to rescue Power P…Is Pacemaker asleep again? I swear he and Mabel are perfect for each—"

"Hey." Bullet snapped her fingers. "We're busy arguing."

"Right, right. Anyway, an apartment building with a face somehow found us on a distant meteor, plucked apart one of my Good Guys, and abducted another. I'm not standing down. None of us has experience with timelines. We need someone who does, and Luzimoss is the only person I know with that experience." Legion crossed his arms. "He lives on Gaia. That's the closest planet. When this meteor orbited Station One, Gaia was about three hundred thousand miles away. It can't be much farther now. It'll take us an hour to get there, a few minutes to talk to him, a few more minutes to bicker with him, a few more minutes to put him in a headlock, and then an hour to get back."

"We'll even bring Chug back with a full charge." From a few feet away, Ace Spandex checked Bullet, Legion, Bullet. He shrugged. "Right?"

"Yeah. Full charge." Legion nodded.

Puttyman sipped his coffee. "She doesn't take just electricity, dude. She also uses a precise mix of dish soap and sand."

"Naturally." Legion rubbed an ache out of his forehead. Didn't help that Klee and Speed Line were engaged in a screaming contest. "Fine. We'll stop by a beach and fill her up. We'll even run her through the wash. Okay?" He examined Bullet for any sign of concession. "Seriously. Pacemaker's been sleeping since we arrived. Someone check his breathing."

Bullet's lower lip inched over her upper one in a pondering pout. "You're bringing the Damage Duo with you." She thumbed Puttyman and H2O. "They know how to handle Chug."

H2O winked. "She's like a bucking bronco, except she's not, since it's possible to handle a bucking bronco."

"That was poetry, dude." Puttyman shed a single tear. Beside him, H2O slurped coffee as well, so they clinked mugs. H2O's said "Galaxy's Best Pilot" on it. The other pilots among them either couldn't drive at night or couldn't properly estimate parking spaces, so Legion wasn't arguing.

Legion nodded at Bullet. "Done. They're coming. That's a deal."

"And the Bad Guys aren't going. Especially the food vacuum."

"I'm in earshot!" Multipurpose yelled.

"You were meant to be." Bullet didn't dignify him with a look.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Legion smiled. "And the only reason I'd bring the food vacuum would be to drop him off a cliff."

"I'm in earshot!"

"And don't touch Chug's random function on the entertainment screen. It doesn't control the music."

Legion nodded. "Noted."

"And"—Bullet slashed a finger right up the center of Legion's vision—"you bring her back in one piece. Are we clear?"

"Bullet, she's not in one piece right now." Legion didn't flinch when an intake vent fell off Chug's wing and crashed onto the ground.

"Don't worry. I'm on that." Puttyman placed his coffee mug down. He already held a roll of duct tape.

Workshop awarded Speed Line the winner of the screaming contest. She tried fitting a knight's helmet over his head as a trophy. It didn't fit. Okay, it did after a couple of clonks.

Bullet curled her lip at Legion. "You're coming back. You hear me? You're not abandoning us on this rock. I'm expecting you in two hours." She tapped her wrist. She wasn't wearing a watch.

"You got it." Legion was backpedaling to reboard Chug once Puttyman had taped that vent back on. "We'll pick you up some skin cream while we're at it. Abioye, you're in charge until we return."

Pincushion nodded.

"I'll take charge of the away team." Puttyman winked. "That's what everybody-slash-nobody needs."

Bullet fired him a stare. "Chug wouldn't lift off the ground if you did."

"Sounds about right, dude." Another wink.

Legion hoisted himself up the four feet to the embarking ramp that never completely emerged. It was at this point he realized he was getting back in this thing and that he needed to reevaluate a lot of life choices.

"Hagen, check Pacemaker's pulse."

* * *

Catastrophe should be on Legion's side mission. With his acting skills, he could convince anybody to—

Plastique walked by.

He peered down at the ground, at his feet shambling against a chest plate. Who was he kidding? He was no actor anymore. He was barely a soldier. He couldn't cut it. His career had already died once. Crock, his whole image was built around acting: tanned skin, whitened hair, the stud earring in his left lobe. What a crocking poser accessory. He pinched it out and hurled it away. He didn't have fans anymore, and Officer Nuclear would fizzle like Jack Fistbomb had. He was a nobody. A joke. A trainwreck.

A catastrophe.

* * *

"Son, go with them." Dad elbowed Organism, a gentle poke now that his arms and neck had shrunk back to normal length. His legs were still working on it. They trailed out about four feet.

Organism and Dad sat on an enormous boulder outside the splash zone of a destroyed shower stall, outside the argument about who was leaving and who was staying and who could still hear after the screaming contest.

Organism sniffled. "No, Dad, I'm sticking as close to you as possible until this thing blows over." He watched Legion and the others board Chug, the mil-tran he half-expected wouldn't even take off. It at least powered on. Plastique and Also Sediment exchanged money.

"Seriously. You can help them fist up this Luzimoss dude." Dad elbowed him again, a more insistent nudge.

Organism buried his head in his hands. "Dad, it's not a combat mission. And do you ever listen to yourself when you talk?"

Dad shook Organism by the shoulders when Chug hummed louder. "Quick, before they take off. This is your big chance. It's what you've always wanted."

"No, Dad. I always wanted to be an entomologist." Organism jiggled out of Dad's grip and then shifted away when Dad grabbed his shoulders again. "Dad, stop it. Just…just stop it."

"Son—"

"That's enough!" Organism bounded off the boulder and heaved so hard at Dad he almost tumbled forward. He sweated despite the chill.

Dad blinked at him. "Son, what about your dream of being a big-shot hyperperson?"

"Dad, that was your dream. You wanted me to be a big-shot hyperperson. You wanted me to make something out of my hyperability. I wanted to get through high school in one piece."

"You don't mean that."

"Yes. Dad. I do. All you think about is me making a name for myself. I just watched a psychopath kidnap my friend and butcher another, and there was nothing I could do!" Organism's face flushed. "I get it. You were kicked off your old team because you kept screwing up. You were kicked off, so you shoved your old life at me. You forced me out on nightly patrols. You told me to put school aside. You sent away for utility-belt catalogs and pamphlets for battle retreats, and you obsessed over making me the next you. This was all you wanted. This was all about you. Every week, every day, every moment, you forced me into the vigilante life you no longer lived until Mom couldn't bear it anymore. We haven't seen her now in six years—six years—because you couldn't let it go. You goaded me into reshaping my body into some musclebound thug because you thought it would give me a better chance at making the big leagues. I was an awkward, overweight geek with acne and bad teeth and a job at a hardware store, but you made me hide in this body. It's been so long, I barely remember what I really look like. Dad, you have to stop pestering me. You can't live a secondhand life through me, and I won't let you. Not anymore. Live your own life, and leave—mine—alone!"

Organism panted. He had shouted so vehemently his throat scratched. He clenched his fists stiffly, and his lungs ached. He'd leaped several steps away from the boulder, away from Dad, who drew his hands and knees to his center as if to shrink into a ball. He wore such shock that his mouth hung three feet agape. He sat immobile except for the breeze that twiddled through his mustache.

Heavy silence was everywhere, like a foggy graveyard. Organism realized the audience watching him, everybody transfixed on the show he'd performed. Something like stage fright wriggled through him. He was familiar with the feeling from all the times he stepped into public. Thin tears shimmered in his eyes as he scanned the crowd. His hands uncurled, and his fingers dropped.

He raced off to find any hiding place on this flat expanse.

Chapter Eleven: Backseat Driving up the Wall

Back in The Nemesis's rooster-headed cockpit. Finally. How many trips had I taken to lug all this equipment from the cargo hold with Lefty calling me Reefer Sadness the whole way? Navigating around the stuff that spilled into the cargo hold's aisle was a nightmare even without listening to Master Asinine sing teen pop's biggest hits. "Make Out with My Braces" still shrilled in my head.

I also lugged up the air-golfing table because Schizophrenic ordered me to while he cracked his knuckles and sneer-chuckled. It was heavy, but I wanted to keep my face unpunched. I didn't even think he wanted to use it.

Master Asinine plopped himself into a chair. He lifted a bare foot and massaged the arch. "I am officially pooped." Meanwhile, in truth world, I'd done all the heavy lifting.

I couldn't believe the universe's worst singer had gotten the upper hand. Also the universe's worst dresser. He wore polka dots with stripes. Even I knew that was a fashion collision, and I wore the all-red generics' getup with deeper red where Francine's blood had splashed me.

Also the universe's worst schemer. Despite that illustrious title, Master Asinine had turned the tables, and now his named agents filled this cockpit, rearmed no less. Schizophrenic supervised me to make sure I didn't try anything. This was in between his face-punching duties and crotch-punching job perks. I didn't know which was more cringeworthy. No, wait. I did. Never mind. I did.

I'd been repairing this equipment so crazily I'd broken a sweat. And I didn't even use my hands for the heavy stuff. Instead, I absorbed Brainiac's telekinesis—the same Brainiac who still hadn't clambered off the floor—to place the replacement parts into the damaged areas. Brainiac directed me. Insert this computer crap there, slide that hunk of electronics in over there, telekinetically unclog the front-loaded engine out there, strangle Asinine with a length of wire by the rear. That last one was my own direction. All in a mix of Russian/English with a heavy-handed accent and a throbbing monobrow that hurt to look at.

I pondered how to use my stolen telekinesis to deck Asinine and shove him outside. Tough since he kept his wormy best friend, Lieutenant IQ 23, and his silent-but-deadly bodyguard, Braindead, within guffawing distance. From the shadows of the passenger deck rose his snorting laughter. Probably telling a joke only IQ 23 laughed at.

"This is last repair." From the floor in front of the piloting console, Brainiac handed me a circuit board. "Take board and put into last place on pilot computer. Then we turn on systems for doing test." Couldn't she at least lift herself up telekinetically? Had that ever occurred to the scientist Asinine claimed was madder than a chicken coop in a whirlwind?

I snatched up the circuit board. Didn't need telekinesis for this. I skimmed the piloting computer and found the last slot. I yanked out the old and damaged board, tossed it over my shoulder, and slid the new one in. It snapped in place. "Done. That's everything?"

"Da. Is everything. Now we turn on."

I shifted aside to allow Schizophrenic to swing Steve across the room as if he were bowling for a strike. I couldn't blame him. The generics had locked him in a room with the cowboy-twanging Master Asinine Sucks and a ukulele.

We'd shut down the haunt control while we repaired the cockpit. Sort of like anesthetizing someone for surgery. So I couldn't activate anything by voice. The on button was in the navigation console by the right side of the cockpit, where Bad Aim hovered, arms crossed and lancing everyone with thuggish glowers as if he were the surveillance man at a bank job. I jabbed my chin at him. "Bad Aim, activate the haunt control."

Bad Aim was a Virillian, a member of a mute species. Normally he couldn't talk, but as bad luck would have it, this Virillian had the hyperability of speech. Not well, mind you. Swathed in shadow like most of this cockpit, he was visible only because of his silver outfit that looked like thick tinfoil. A horrific accident had severed his legs, so he moved around on a two-foot-wide hoverdisc joined to his waist. He angled this forward to lean against the wall and stare down the length of his snakelike snout. He finally found the will to budge. "Whatcha jibber-jabber at me, foo'?"

I forgot to whom I was talking: an idiot. Bottom-of-the-barrel genetics at play. Bad Aim belonged to a species whose most popular baby name last year was Ggggnnnnrrrrraaaaarrr. So, in Bad Aim's language, I said, "Hey, killa slaya, jab that button, an' spiff this ride all the way up ta three tons."

"A'ight. I dig, dawg." Bad Aim threw up a gang sign. He cracked his elbow over the button and probably felt a well of pride for doing his first useful thing ever.

Something came to life. It was born as a croak from the bowels of the computer system but matured into a hum that, given my hasty patchwork, sounded promising. The dashboard consoles buzzed on. Both navigation and piloting computers brimmed with renewed excitement. And then Cluck's laidback purr eased through the speakers. "Hello, my hot doggies. Cluck cluckin' atcha again. My clocks are jivin' at me that I've been kickin' on easy street for one hour fifty-four minutes. But it looks like my fine hip squad here's kept things tight. Yeeeeeeeeeeah."

"Cluck's back." Asinine gasped. "Hey, Cluck, you'll never believe where we went: the cargo hold in your tail feathers. We've been to your butt! Then, on the way back, we stopped for Pegasus rides."

"They don't exist, sir. But if they did, you'd ride with true class." Lieutenant IQ 23 smiled at Asinine. He wore a helmet with question marks like elephant ears, so his estimation of class wasn't trustworthy.

"That's some sly news, my funky travelers. Now, let's check our trip on down to Funkytown." Behind Cluck's voice, a trumpet moaned with sorrow. "At this funky speed and direction, we're noodlin' into a wormhole in a slick over fifteen minutes. And that ain't hip, cats. That ain't hip at all."

"That's not jive noodling." Asinine slapped his forehead. If only it slapped some sense into him.

That atmospheric bubble that used to contain Station One loomed straight ahead out the windshield. Cluck's travel info, now sprawling on the navigation screen again, measured the bubble's distance at about three thousand miles away.

"Control, acknowledge. Magnify wormhole by ten times." I leaned closer to the windshield, to the zoomed-in atmospheric bubble. Its presence on the windshield looked pixelated until The Nemesis's computer filled the gaps to improve the quality. Inside the atmospheric bubble swirled an eddy of light around the green-and-blue center. Whatever passed around the light shifted through the color spectrum. Definitely a wormhole in that bubble. Reef was sure of—I was sure of it. There I went again into the third person. Something about that light show—the shifting colors, the light smeared around it—looked familiar, nagged at Reef's memories of a life he'd lived in an imaginary state. At my memories. Crock.

Master Asinine piped up from the rear. "Control, acknowledge. Let's steer clear of old wormy there."

Something in Reef's brain flashed. It urged him to fly into that wormhole and find out what was on the other side. That was where the IP fleet had gone. He didn't kn—I didn't know why I knew that, but I knew IP. Somehow.

"Control, acknowledge. Rescind command." I whirled around to the passenger deck and hoisted Bad Aim off the wall. I used my stolen telekinesis so I wouldn't touch his slimy skin or smell his odor of modeling clay. I hurled him into the rear and toppled Master Asinine and IQ 23 over. I threw Schizophrenic back.

"What the crock, Reefer." Schizophrenic landed in a pile of wrecked chairs.

Master Asinine Sucks mustered only a "Whoa, there, pardner. I reckon y'all are makin' a bad decision on this."

"Generics, cover me." I placed my foot on Brainiac's neck. She gurgled and clicked as she tried to pass air.

The generics happily yanked out pistols to keep Master Asinine and his named agents pinned to the rear. "With pleasure," said the generic whom Schizophrenic rated at a five-star face punchability. He had a fat lip and a review on Yelp to prove it.

I placed my hands on my hips, one foot on the cockpit floor, the other still against Brainiac's throat. "We're headed into that wormhole, and if you try anything, I will break this neck in two."

Master Asinine's fingers crawled to his mouth. "But that's not the number of pieces necks come in."

Chapter Twelve: …And Some Things Stay the Same

In Continuum's castle, Plaster came outta his side shack at the sound o' dainty footsteps tappin' against stones down this torchlit corridor. Ah. Of all people, ex–Good Guy, ex–goody two-shoes Kamikaze trekked closer. Plaster smiled. Heh.

He'd finished takin' his daily leak, so he held a washcloth he wiped on his hands. Somethin' Continuum specially made, some future-age cloth what didn't smear Plaster's candlewax skin when he wiped them hands clean.

Plaster was part o' some sciencey experiment almost thirty years ago. Used ta be a death-row inmate, the worst kind. Skin sores and lesions riddled him. Felt like a million wasp stings an' never healed. He'd suffered from epidurmic poisoning, some form o' leprosy that prickled your skin, like a million hypodermic needles constantly scratched ya. Prickled to move, prickled to breathe, prickled to everythin'. But the warden where he did his time struck him a deal. Science doctors had developed a cure, an' Plaster participated in a test to get outta death row. Went horrible, though. The experiment melted his skin into a constantly-dissolvin' abomination, an' he ate six hundred grams o' protein a day to replace the skin that dribbled offa him like sap. Made his face look like a skull too. But it also gave him superhuman strengt', superhuman hardiness, and breath what smelled like rubber. Peachy. He escaped prison an' became a Bad Guy brute until Master Asinine locked him in a pool room. Blackguard rescued him three weeks after.

An' now here came Kamikaze, some punk Plaster'd wanted to get even wit' for so long. Passin' him by in three…two…one…

…

He had bad timing.

Three…two…one.

Plaster stepped out to knock shoulders with Kamikaze. Knock hard enough to spill Kamikaze onto the stone floor. The straps o' Kamikaze's pilot helmet flapped around mad.

Plaster stepped up to him. "Hey, punk. You and me ain't caught up since ya got outta your catatonica…your cata…" He took another running start at the word. "…since ya got outta your cata—Crock."

"Catatonia." Kamikaze didn't stand back up. He stomped back up wit' a stiff upper lip like the sore loser of a boxin' match. Which Plaster aimed for him to be. He came up on Plaster, got in his face rrreeeaaalll slow, an' narrowed his eyes. "I'd llllove to catch up." He puckered that p real sassy. "But Lord Continuum needs me right now. Maybe he'll need you one day, little boy."

"Says you." Plaster grimaced, feet planted but torso turnin' to one side. Nope. He'd had better comebacks. Rewind.

Kamikaze lit his hand wit' energy more orange than the torchlight. He stretched each finger one by one, watchin' them twiddle the air. "You have your place here. Every group needs their dishes washed."

"Says you." Crock. Again. Plaster wasn't in the zone today.

Kamikaze raised his eyebrows. "Lord Continuum has a job for me. So, if we're done this little tête-à-whatever-you-think-with…" Wow, this dude had steel balls.

But Plaster's balls was steelier. He shoved Kamikaze back again. Not wit' a hand but wit' a flick o' his fingers. Kamikaze stayed up, didn't break eye contact. "When you was a Good Guy an' I was a Bad Guy, you damaged a lotta crap on my home turf. An' I aim t' even the score real good."

"Says you?" Kamikaze stood a foot shorter'n Plaster an' way less of a ladies' man, but he hoisted up at Plaster like he was up for a challenge. Cute.

Plaster winked. "Yeah, sweetie. Says me." Ha. He knew that line had a place somewheres. "Run along." He shooed at Kamikaze wit' his fingers. "We'll settle that score later."

Kamikaze nodded. "Looking forward to it. Even if it kills us. And you know what happens when I die." He strolled away, but not before returnin' Plaster's shoulder bump. Well, against his elbow. Friggin' short people. "Sweetie."

Chapter Thirteen: I'm Getting a Little Tired of Your Landing Skills

Blue-skinned Trioxidillian Luzimoss Grennard threw open the creaking door of his underground house. It crashed crookedly against the frame. "Crocking military dirtbags, traipsing on my garden again." He marched out onto his field.

A smoke-belching Warbird mil-tran clunked down on his flowerbed. His beautiful flowerbed that he'd rescued gasping from a dry spell. Hidden under swaths of dirt, grime, and paint, the Warbird mashed his flowers to paper. The flowers wouldn't have survived the landing even if it was gentle. The sky-clogging soot the Warbird spat from its rear would have ended all plant life inside a three-mile radius. Or any life at all: a robin plunked dead on its forewing.

Luzimoss lived in an abandoned fallout shelter underground. His only access to outside was a rotting hut that people thought was an outhouse in the middle of an empty valley. He spent his time tending a garden and, apparently, not warding away visitors who landed on that garden. Like this mil-tran that his knowledge hivemind called Chug. Aptly named, it chugged out four varieties of smog and two varieties of its own innards.

His knowledge hivemind was what he called the collected wisdom of versions of himself across trillions of timelines. Yes, parallel timelines existed. In the fortieth century, Terran physicist Greg Tegmark had led the way in researching the parallel-timelines theory. After his death, Tegmarkian physicists continued his research until they proved it.

Luzimoss talked with parallel versions of himself every day. Every hour. Whenever he made a choice, he discussed it with his parallel selves. Those whose timelines forced an event to happen earlier than in his timeline told him the odds of that event unfolding in one way or another. So he predicted, to some degree of success, how that event would unfold in his own timeline. But consulting his knowledge hivemind caused psychic ripples that affected those around him. Inflicted them with pain, headaches, migraines. Prolonged consultations caused comas, amnesia, or death. That was why he lived underground: to cushion the effects on anyone too close.

And his knowledge hivemind had earlier warned him that these military crackpots would drop onto his garden and that shaking his fist wouldn't help. But he shook anyway.

Chug took a while to crank to silence, like an old man's tirade petering out. The gnashing gears quieted, the whinnying turbines pacified, and the smog dissipated. The access port opened, but the ramp didn't lower. It extended a few feet and then abandoned hope of touching ground. In other words, of doing a single thing right. That didn't stop the occupants from hopping out.

Legion came first, then Franchise and Ace Spandex. Three Good Guys and then three people Luzimoss had never met. A subtle check with his knowledge hivemind revealed them as members of a vigilante group named Blowtorch: the cocky mechanic Puttyman, the water-bodied pilot H2O, and the excitable Speed Line. Finally Withered Old Battle-Axe shuffled out and thudded facedown on the ground.

Legion approached. "Mr. Grennard—"

"No, no, nope, no." Luzimoss waved his hands around and stomped toward them. "Leave. Now."

"For a muffin, can we upgrade to a maybe?" Puttyman hooked his sunglasses down his nose and looked at Luzimoss above the rim.

"Now I want muffins." H2O smacked his lips.

Luzimoss reached Legion and shoved him away. "Last time your goons came to get me, you landed on my azaleas. This time"—he leaned over to examine Chug's half-deteriorated landing trestle—"again. You landed on my azaleas again." He threw his hand at the landing trestle and the compacted dirt with pink-petaled death underneath. "Why do you hate azaleas?"

H2O raised a hand composed of 90 percent water and 10 percent macchiato. How much coffee could he and Puttyman stand before their hearts gave out? "That was my fault."

"Yeah, I know. You're the pilot."

"We've never met, dude. How did you—Oh, wait." Puttyman bopped his fingertips off his temple. "Right. The thing with the timelines. This is the timeline dude. Never mind. Figured it out."

"If you're this clever, why did you murder my azaleas? How difficult is it to not land on a garden? You see it, you land somewhere else. Basic piloting. It's the only thing out here aside from my door. You could have avoided it by landing literally anywhere else. And put out that fire."

Puttyman noticed the flicker of flame under Chug where the thruster had touched the grass. He hustled over and stamped it out with a foot.

Luzimoss bumped around Legion to deal with these unwanted newcomers, but Legion shifted to block him. Luzimoss grabbed his shoulders to keep him still. "Excuse me. I have to throttle someone." He tried outmaneuvering Legion, but the trench monkey held his ground. Instead, Luzimoss threw a finger at Puttyman. "Now that you've flown all this way, take your warthog mil-tran and leave."

"Mr. Grennard, we need your help," Legion said. "Please."

"Yes, I know. That's why you're here. Stupid thing is, I have no idea why." Luzimoss's knowledge hivemind usually offered hints of what was happening. Not this time. His knowledge hivemind gave him a question mark for a guess.

"Look, last time you came here, it was because the Bad Guys wanted to use me for my hyperability." That memory heated Luzimoss up more than the sun. "They almost destroyed the Arkanal Market looking for me. Then you both tried to kill each other over me. And then—then—Mechanism captured me, installed a bomb in my head, and used me as some sort of clairvoyant to help him cleanse the galaxy. I still have that bomb in there. It's deactivated, but it's still there. All you and the Bad Guys do—all any of you military goons and your heavy-handed wars do—is kill and destroy. You ad-lib your strategies. I mean, you brought Mabel with you. She pilots by inserting punch cards into the computer."

"Would someone answer that dang phone?" Withered Old Battle-Axe yelled at nobody.

Ace Spandex shrugged. "We didn't know she was on board until we left."

Luzimoss's mouth hung open. "What makes you think I want to help you wage your massacre this time?"

"Because he kidnapped Jeffy," Franchise squeaked. He stared at the ground like a raincloud threatening to burst open.

Luzimoss stopped pressing against Legion. His eye trickled to Franchise. "Who has him?"

"Some tyrant named Continuum." Legion lowered his hands. "He claims he's taking over spacetime. He killed Scapegoat and kidnapped Power Plant. We need your help to stop him." He cocked his head. "Didn't your other Luzimosses say anything about him?"

"They've never heard of him." Luzimoss was as confused as Legion looked. "In all the timelines, there's only one Continuum."

Chapter Fourteen: Well, I'm Getting a Little Tired of Your Flying Skills

The generics' guns scanned Master Asinine and his junior thugs for any excuse to fire, any hint of movement. But not any stupid gawk, or Master Asinine Sucks would be one dead cowpoke. Even Bad Aim stayed put, and he'd stay put only if his legs were chopped off. Because guess what.

"See, this is what happens when you don't punch enough faces." Schizophrenic slammed heavyweight fists on a chair. He had brass knuckles capped over his real knuckles, so he tore the upholstery. The slams reached the rear of the passenger deck where they grated Master Asinine's ears like nails on a chalkboard if those nails were roofing nails.

Reef said, "Control, acknowledge. Erect deck partition. Disregard others' commands to undo." A transparent divider coalesced to separate the decks and muffle his chuckle. Yeah, put up a partition. Freaking hilarious.

Cluck hummed like the hipster cat he was, even though he was a rooster. "Partition slammed up, my man. Keep groovin'." Taking orders from a drag clinker like Reef wasn't hip, Cluck.

Master Asinine hopped to his feet. "Lieutenant, shoot the divider into itty-bitty gritty pieces."

"I'm not armed, sir." Lieutenant IQ 23's fingers folded into each other. "But I'll use a finger gun."

"Then smash it down. Quick!"

"Uh…uhm…" Lieutenant IQ 23 glanced around, hands in the air. "Aha." He grabbed something off the floor and whipped it at the divider. "Take this loose carpet fiber!" For some reason, that didn't do the trick.

"Someone else throw something."

"My pleasure, rump for brains." Schizophrenic grabbed Bad Aim.

That didn't do the trick either.

"Light-bullets can't take this down." Reef knocked on the divider.

"I say we test that." Schizophrenic patted his Autoling.

Master Asinine zigzagged around broken chairs, around Appetite who engulfed a broken chair, around Schizophre—Bang. Crap, he'd forgotten about the divider. What could they do? Crock, crock. He ran his palms through his hair. He usually wore a helmet with a spike on the top, but he wasn't wearing it right now. So better take advantage of not skewering his hands.

Despite what Reef had said, the generics prepared to fire. Pure reflex. They tensed their shoulders and flinched their aim, but they kept their fingers off their triggers. Even if they could, shooting through the divider wouldn't help anybody unless they hit Master Asinine Sucks.

Master Asinine leaned against the divider, hands over his head to block glare. Station One's atmospheric bubble enveloped the view.

Reef twisted his boot on Brainiac's neck. Brainiac choked, and her complexion paled. At least Reef didn't apply any more pressure. Asinine didn't want to randomly pick through all those mad-scientist resumes again. Blindly hiring people was tough.

Time to shake some charm out of that booty of his. "Let's chat, man to Reef." He hoped he hadn't sat on his charm too much today. It still ached. "Let's come to some sort of agreement. You want to fly recklessly into a wormhole. I want to fly recklessly into a Space Cow drive-through. Their kids' meal has about the same radiation as that wormhole. So let's talk this out. Hey, maybe flying into a wormhole isn't the best way to die. I had my heart set on old age."

Appetite gulped down another chair like a two-bite brownie.

The windshield timer, fuzzy through the divider, spun down to four minutes. The digits cartwheeled, and Master Asinine winced at every second beeping in his mind's ear.

Reef lifted his foot off Brainiac's neck. She guzzled air and clutched her throat. Her color returned. Reef stomped to the divider and pierced Master Asinine through it with his glare. "Asinine, you've wanted to take over Stratus Cloud for years. Considering how heavily this starship is equipped, we're riding in the best weapon to do it with. And Stratus Cloud's entire military is on the other side of that wormhole. " He slashed a finger at the windshield behind him, at the wormhole floating only minutes away. "This is your only shot. This is my only shot. We're going in there, and we're going to blow Intergalactic Protection out of the stars one mil-tran at a time. I built three feet of radiation insulation into these walls. If that's not enough to shield us, nothing is."

Master Asinine hung his hands off the back of his neck. "Three feet? One at a time? Other numbers you maybe said?"

"What?" Bad Aim threw his hand in Reef's direction. True to his name, he threw it about twenty degrees off. "You seriously be listenin' to this smack-talker talkin' smack?"

"Cowpoke, I gotta agree." Master Asinine Sucks tongued something out of his teeth. "That wormhole'll put us six feet under. By the way, punch buggy." He bumped his chin out the windshield and bopped the back of his hand on IQ 23's arm.

"I ain't going out like this, thunder blunder. I'm rated at a wood-chipper death or higher." Schizophrenic raged at Master Asinine, hands out to throw something. Probably not a surprise party.

Braindead snatched up a curled gnarl of metal and held it to Lefty's throat. Schizophrenic halted. Lefty snarled so hatefully spit rained out. "Come on, green ugly. Even you gotta see this idea is rip-roaring ridiculous. All that radiation will give us second heads. That still won't raise Asinine's smarts."

"I love r words I don't understand." Righty guffawed. "Ridiculous, radiation, smarts." He tried clapping, but only the right hand got in the act. The left hand reached up and slapped his cheek.

A soulful saxophone leaked through the cabin as if playing a dirge at a sunset funeral. "Cluck coming in with a soft and easy update, cool cats. We're moseying down to two minutes until we glide through that shiny worm tunnel. Jive, my friends. Jive."

"Out of the way, you blooper-reel stunt double." Schizophrenic reared a palm at Braindead. "King of the Idiots needs some sense knocked into him, and I aim to oblige His Highness." He looked angry enough to bite the mouth plate off Braindead's helmet. Appetite had tried that once.

"Braindead, ease off but keep ready." Master Asinine slapped a hand on a chair back. "Schizo, all of IP is on the other side of that wormhole, and Reef has a plan to drop in unannounced and end them. We'll finally take control of Stratus Cloud. Reef is singing my song."

"So are a bunch of schoolgirls tripping on their own pigtails!" Schizophrenic traipsed over to Asinine. He squeezed that same chair back until the stuffing popped out in fluttery clouds.

"Listen to me." Master Asinine glanced out the windshield as The Nemesis pierced the atmospheric bubble, slurped through, and then exited. Next stop: wormhole. Population: Asinine had no idea. "We have to fly through there and blow IP out of the sky. Then the Good Guys."

"These the same Good Guys your bestie leads? Whose jewelry you're wearing?" Schizophrenic flicked a finger at the Alaphan cross of Legion's necklace around Asinine's neck. "Them same Good Guys?"

Asinine gulped. "We won't get another chance like this."

Cluck's saxophone oozed more mournfully. "Swing it, easy riders. We're a sweet thirty seconds from our getaway wormhole."

Master Asinine pounded the chair Schizophrenic had squeezed the stuffing out of. "Read the room, Cluck!"

Schizophrenic huffed through his nostrils. He glanced at Braindead, at IQ 23, at Master Asinine. "You better be right about this. Because if you aren't, I'll use my last gasp of life to twist off your second head like a bottlecap and then go after the office temp in the cockpit." His sneer found Reef.

To Asinine's left, Appetite threw back another chair. Last one before Asinine put it in timeout for messing with The Nemesis's seating capacity.

Master Asinine lifted his head high. "You won't regret this."

"Bottlecap, Asinine." Schizophrenic spat his toothpick out at Asinine's nose. He popped in a new one.

Cluck's saxophone cried a crescendo that marked the burial at this funeral. "Here we go, my cats and kittens. Sailin' through that wormhole in five seconds…four…three…two…one."

* * *

Back up three minutes.

Pincushion scrutinized the atmospheric bubble where Station One once lived. A titan-class, vista-destroying starship sailed closer to the empty bubble. "What is that?"

Still pinned down at the shower stall in front of Plastique's rifle sights, Detritus asked, "Z'it a bird?"

Multipurpose craned his neck. "Is it a plane—"

"We're not doing that bit." Pincushion kicked gravel at them. "It's clearly neither of those in deep space."

A few others slunk closer. Amaranthia, Maul, the Purple Nurple, Also Sediment, Sixth Sense, Klee, all wondering at the same show in the stars. Plastique glanced up but didn't let it distract her from the Bad Guys.

Wait. Was that an acute-angled windshield, a rooster waddle hanging off the nose cone, metal-feathered wing flaps? Was that…was that The Nemesis? Legion suspected the Bad Guys had stolen it, and Franchise confirmed that when he saw it at Station Zilcho, segmented into pieces. Evidently, the Bad Guys had rebuilt it, and it bowled through the jelly of the atmospheric bubble. Hadn't the Bad Guys heard the news? Station One didn't exist anymore.

Pincushion's thoughts barreled through so many answers, all of them without logic. Then again, he considered who drove that thing.

The Nemesis plunged deeper into the bubble and then—

Pincushion yelped involuntary as if he stubbed his toe. Stretched into infinity, the nose cone smeared inward and scrunched to a point dead center in the bubble's empty space. The Nemesis's tail remained in place until it followed the cockpit like a spring snapping into itself. The length of two city blocks, The Nemesis shrank into the wormhole and disappeared, thrusters and rear assembly last.

Pincushion gawked up at the empty-again bubble. He tingled, his grip slipped, and he dropped a rock he held. From waddle to tail feathers, The Nemesis had vanished into the nothing space of the bubble.

"Okay, it's a bird and a plane put together."

Chapter Fifteen: Luxury-Sized Dungeon Suite

Power Plant gargled awake. His legs thrashed, his arms spasmed and cracked against his cheek, the back of his head clapped against something hard. Much gentler than how he usually woke up.

He blinked, dried sleep prickling his tear ducts. He fingered it out and mumbled something to ungum his lips. How long had he been out? An hour? Two? Forty hundred? Felt like forty hundred. He went with forty hundred.

He found himself somewhere chilly, sunlight trickling through bars in a raised window to fight the dark. Felt like stone at his back, cold and blocky. He shifted his heels on the floor. Legs aching, he grunted to his feet. Ugh. His limbs resisted like sagging flabs of meat. Crock, how long did his legs take to wake up? His brain usually took a couple hours, but it had an excuse since it was busy figuring out his dirty work.

"You're awake. Good. Lord Continuum'll want to know." A voice from an obscure place a few feet away. Stiff and somber and not someone Power Plant felt like having to dinner.

"Hello, downer." Power Plant edged forward, fingers groping into darkness so thick it was as if he groped through ink. Air felt different against his prison outfit than it would against the impact suit he wore as a Good Guy. "Is there a light somewheres here?"

Torches hung scattered along stone walls, and they roared on as if ghosts lit them. Crock, if it was that easy…"Is there a candy bar somewheres here?" Power Plant waited a beat. Nope.

He found himself in a sterile stone chamber, like something from ancient times: drab, chalky, gray, but not a single skeleton hanging from a wrist shackle embedded three feet up in the wall. So not a high-end chamber.

Either side of the chamber spread out maybe ten feet with giant bricks glowing orange in the torchlight. Power Plant stood right below that barred window through which whispered a springtime evening breeze. A single door allowed a peek at a pitch-black exterior. Above the door hung a tooth-bottom, latticework gate that could crash shut to lock him in.

Kamikaze stood across from him, beside that latticework door, one foot propped against the wall, arms folded.

"Good to see you, Jeff." Kamikaze put his foot down. He wore his impact suit from his Good Guy days: black pilot's outfit with the flight helmet.

"Yeah?" Power Plant thumbed his nostrils. Dust tickled them. "S'been, like, two months, an' all's you say is good to see me? And you remembers the name's Jeffy, right?"

"Jeffy. Heh. Yeah, that's right." Kamikaze sniffled. Seemed the dust was sinking its scratchy hooks into everyone's allergies. He squatted but leaned against the wall. "Sorry. I was locked away that whole time. You know, it was you that convinced me to turn myself in to the authorities in the first place."

"Hey, hey, don't blames me f—Wait, that a good thing?"

Intergalactic Protection bounty hunter Hearse had arrested Kamikaze for crashing the Good Guys' starship B-Reaper into the Great Stellin Fusion Station, with most of the Good Guys in it. Well, arrested him for a lot of things, but that was the final straw. "Yeah. I almost killed everyone in that fusion station. Because of me, Legion landed in the hospital, Harrier lost a wing, Car Alarm was crushed by debris. I died in the process. When I came back to life, I found out you were the one who put together our rescue. That was what convinced me I needed help." He stood again. "You always knew the right thing to do."

"I don'ts even know my math homework. Where's are we?"

Kamikaze cleared his throat. "Our lord can explain this better than I can." Who was this lord? The moth flying around the corner? Because that thing just landed on a torch.

As sudden as a sneeze, a crackling sphere expanded next to Power Plant and then shrank away. It left the bald Terran who'd visited them on the meteor. Power Plant stumbled aside. Frankly, he was amazed he stayed standing this early after waking up. Usually he took a half hour before walking straight.

Imposing like a club bouncer, this man wore pants that looked pitch black in this predawn light. His short-sleeved shirt hugged patio-stone pectorals that hung over gridiron abs. His arms looked as hard as lampposts. Power Plant should know since he'd knocked his head against a few in his time. His legs were as thick as bridge supports.

He regarded Power Plant with a warm smile. "Welcome to my home, Mr. Jeffy. I am Continuum."

Power Plant inched away along the stone wall. He bumped a torch, and his hands shot up in case it fell. "Mister sounds good. I might keeps that." About time he got his due respect.

Continuum's head kicked back in a buoyant chortle. "Let me get you something more comfortable to wear and heal your wound." He snapped his fingers.

Power Plant's prison jumpsuit fluttered away and reknit as his usual media outfit: his blue-and-yellow impact suit he wore as his official Good Guy duds. The blister on his collarbone sealed as well. Neat trick. "What's going on here? What's ya setup? Who lit them torches?"

Continuum stepped across the room in two strides. "I figured you would like to see a familiar face when you awoke, so I had Kamikaze await you." His hand was a heavy slab, but he placed it on Kamikaze's shoulder as gently as a leaf settling. "Servant Kamikaze, please make sure your brother Plaster isn't feeding glass to Gangrene again. Mr. Jeffy and I need to talk."

"Sounds good, my lord." Kamikaze unfolded his arms and swung out through the door, swallowed in the darkness of the hall.

"Waits a sec." Power Plant twisted his gaze at Continuum. "Plaster? As in Whats an Idiot Plaster Is?"

"Yes. Your old enemy Plaster is among our family. We have a place for everyone. Don't worry. He won't start up…How do you say it? Start up a mischief?" Close enough, and Power Plant wasn't exactly qualified to correct anybody's speech. "As for who lit the torches, that was me. I set them to light when you woke up. How was my timing?"

Continuum placed his solid hands on Power Plant's shoulders. "Let's walk. I'll explain"—he swept a hand around the room—"my setup." He kept his other hand on Power Plant's shoulder and guided him toward the exit, into the perfect shadows of the hall. When they passed through, the room behind them ticked to darkness, and their way whooshed to light in more torches.

The hallway spread forward and vanished like a speck in the distance. Same with behind him. Kamikaze was in neither direction, already disappeared.

They walked. Continuum's footsteps sounded like door knockers in the infinite hallway. Power Plant's were taps. "Jeffy, I will be concise—"

"No idea that word."

"—by saying there's a place for you among my congregation."

"Or thats word." Power Plant blinked up at Continuum, who towered above him by a good two feet. "Or a lotta words, so maybes we keep 'em to three syllables. In fact, I surprised I know syllable."

"You are endearing, Jeffy."

"I likes this talk."

"You are also very, very powerful, my friend." Continuum pulled Power Plant closer. "You control light down to the photons that compose them. We need that ability. You see, we have a being of pure darkness among us. You are that other half. His complement, his counterpart, his yang. His antithesis."

"So many big words."

"Jeffy, I am in the midst of a grand struggle. A grand combat."

"I been there. Goro's easy when you learns his moves."

"My combat is a little grander than that. And spelled properly. I endeavor to repair spacetime." Continuum led Power Plant leisurely toward that distant speck that didn't draw closer. "I've traveled throughout space and time in my struggle."

"I ain'ts even gone to an island, an' you beens all overs time? What's that makes you? The first hyperperson?" Power Plant snorted. "I reads that comic already. That first-of-our-kinds thing's already dones."

"No, dear Jeffy. I'm not the first hyperperson." Continuum's eye supercharged. "I'm the last."

Chapter Sixteen: Love Is in the Air, but Hate Settles to the Ground

Luzimoss folded his arms and eased off Legion. The blood red in his mood paled a little. "I'm sorry to hear about your friend." Just a little. Then his scowl returned. "But I can't help you with Continuum."

Legion stepped forward. Luzimoss snatched back two steps, so Legion stopped. He looked into the distance, up at the sky where the expanse was blue and calm except for a single summer cloud drifting away and a skywriting plane that buzzed out a message: "Thelma, will you marry me?"

Legion turned back to Luzimoss. "Look, Luzimoss, this man Continuum, he teleported onto an IP meteor and circumvented its security without passcodes or an authorized profile. And we couldn't even touch him. He claims to control spacetime. We figured that was your domain."

"My domain?" Luzimoss waved his hands. "Not a chance. I communicate with myself in other timelines, and that's it. Tegmarkian physics, different timelines…that's my domain. But it's only a tiny subset of spacetime physics.

"In billions of other timelines, you come pleading for help to stop Asinine, to stop Mechanism who's still alive there, to stop Space Cow when it rises to dominance. But this timeline is literally the only timeline you've come for help to stop Continuum. He's a level higher than my Tegmarkian domain. So I'm afraid there's nothing I can do, because none of my knowledge hivemind has ever experienced him."

The plane droned more of its love message through the sky. Its buzz frolicked when it looped. "I know you're a small-town girl and I'm a low-grade language-training robot, but we'll make it function. My user manual says my software is compatible."

Franchise toed a patch of grass with a sniffle. He scratched at a smear of healing gel on his cheek. "He took Jeffy." He toed harder. "Who'll stop Jeffy from laughing at the word duty now? Who'll try to convince him a group of Power Plants isn't called a dance party? Who'll take him to the zoo every Thursday?" By now he'd kicked a hole. "Thursday's coming." He stomped toward Luzimoss, but Ace Spandex wrestled him back. "And all you say is there's nothing you can do?"

Luzimoss looked at the ground. "I'm sorry. I really am."

"Dad!" Speed Line hopped onto the ramp. "Dad, Mom, Dad, watch this!" He guffawed hyperactive glee at Puttyman and H2O. "Dad, Mom!"

"He knows he's not supposed to do this. Don't look over." Puttyman shook his head. "It'll only encourage him."

"Dad, Mom, c'mon!"

The skywriter spun a new line. "DictoBot Professional Plus, this is Thelma." Thelma wrote in Helvetica. She was a classy broad. "We're through. My heart has found another, a wheat thresher named Farmhand Deluxe Heavy Loader."

"He also killed Scapegoat," Legion said. "Scapegoat, whose only crime was oral dyslexia and everything else we blamed on him."

"If you were sorry, you'd help." Ace Spandex stiffened. He took his turn to grow agitated. "Jeff was our friend. He was our brother—"

Legion raised a hand to calm Ace down. He grinned sheepishly at Luzimoss. "Sorry. He's been out of sorts lately. Ace, you're being a Tico Termite."

Ace staggered back. "You watched Cosmonaut Chimp?"

"On the trip here, Tico Spandex. Luzimoss, there must be—"

"I gave you my answer." Luzimoss spun away, faced the door to his underground home. The hut creaked in this modest breeze. "Now take your sky-choking, stink-fueled, dilapidated death barge—"

"She's a death craft." Puttyman yelled so fiercely he unsettled his sunglasses. "She's survived three carwashes. You pay her respect."

The skywriter twirled around for another chapter of this midair romantic drama. Back to DictoBot's thick Arial Black. "Thelma, I'm pregnant with your applications. A software suite. We're releasing twins, my darling!" Thelma, marry the guy already.

Speed Line lost his footing and faceplanted in Luzimoss's garden. A dead thud right into the carrots. The groundhogs who'd been stealing them would be macked.

Luzimoss pivoted at Legion again. "You and your service-medaled killers need to stop bringing your fight to my front lawn." He checked Chug's landing trestle, which flattened the soil he'd so painstakingly spread and loosened. "And my garden. I won't help you wage your combat where the warriors benefit and the innocent pay." He tilted his head in an admitting gesture. "And nose-picking hunchbacks. Now, leave." He stomped away.

"Dad, Mom, I ate a bug, I think." Speed Line spat a mouthful of dirt out. "Eeeewwwwwwwww."

"Luzimoss, Continuum wants to take over everything." Legion's voice. It somehow turned the screws right into Luzimoss's last nerve. "Without your help, the innocent will pay."

Luzimoss stopped.

The plane buzzed another line in dainty Helvetica. "Twins? Then a million times I guess, my love. A million times I guess!"

Legion cleared his throat, which made Luzimoss's shoulders tighten. The military bedlamite said, "He won't stop with us. He's a threat to everyone throughout time. Innocents, Good Guys, Bad Guys, Thelma, DictoBot." He exhaled. "Everyone."

Luzimoss's shoulders tightened more, and he mumbled a curse. He felt his blue cheeks darken to navy blue when he spun around. "Fine. Let's board your she-demon sky choker that has a thirty-eight percent chance of being the death of me."

"Those are odds you can count on." H2O fist-bumped Puttyman.

Legion balled his hands together in supplication. "Thank you, Luzimoss. We can't stop him withou—"

"Shut up." Luzimoss tromped past him without the regard of eye contact. "You still owe me a garden."

Chapter Seventeen: Let Me Tell You a Little About Our Operation

"Last hyperperson? Like, last last?" Power Plant didn't know what to say. "Hyperpeople can'ts go extinct. Some of 'em breakdance. That's too strong to destroy."

"I ended them." Continuum straightened a ruffle out of his sleeve.

"All of 'em?" Power Plant recoiled against the wall. He felt his organs twist. "Why wouldja kills hyperpeople?"

"Let me start from the beginning. My beginning, in a year far ahead of this one. I worked under the torture of a group called the Engineers. Will work, if that helps your perspective. The Engineers concocted me in a lab. They grew in me quadruplet hyperglands."

A few feet ahead appeared a snapping and sizzling portal, an oval suspended in midair. Power Plant left the wall to check it. Blooming open from his waist to his head, the portal showed what looked like a gleaming facility wild with lab-coated science heads rushing in crisscrossed directions. Some of these people belonged to species he had never seen. He crept toward this oval, and it rotated to keep its footage visible. He swept his hand through it. Not a portal at all, but a movie.

"Let's continue." Continuum guided Power Plant away by the shoulder. Power Plant rubbernecked the movie, but it sputtered into a dot. Ahead, another movie sizzled into existence. It showed the same lab, but now the science brains wore malicious smiles with pointed corners like devil horns.

"The Engineers tormented me and others like me into manipulating physics. We were called their Specimens. The other Specimens had hyperabilities like mine, but I was the most powerful, the only Specimen with quadruplet hyperabilities. The only one in existence. The Engineers were curious to see how to bend reality for their amusement. The very fundamental forces—gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear physics—they were playthings to the Engineers." Continuum smiled, not unlike the science brains. "Until I found an escape."

They passed the movie, which crumpled into a dot like the last. Ahead, another movie replaced it: Continuum stood in the lab over mangled corpses. "I killed the Engineers. I vowed at that point to repair the mutilation the Engineers had inflicted on spacetime with their reckless experiments. But it cost dearly."

"Ten moolahs? Twenny?" Power Plant reeled at the unimaginable. "Twenny-five?"

"To repair spacetime, I had to exterminate hyperpeople. They posed a threat to my mission. Whenever something merely looks as if it upsets the distribution of power, someone endeavors to snuff it out. And repairing spacetime would definitely upset powerful hyperpeople. And egos. So before anyone mounted an attack against me, I snuffed them out, a widespread extermination of anyone from my time who carried a hypergland. You see, the universe is built with masters and slaves, Engineers and Specimen. To repair spacetime, I must unify everyone in existence. I must become the master.

"So I gathered a flock to help me eliminate threats from other eras. I hopped around space and time. I collected hyperpeople, those who were used, entrapped, shoved aside, misunderstood, mistreated. Like me. Prisoners, slaves, the misjudged, the forgotten, the oppressed, the tortured. Broken souls who needed to belong. I chose the rejects of this universe to shame those who rejected them, the weak to shame the mighty."

Hanging in the chalky air like the others, the movie flashed images of people: the dog creature Power Plant had been forced to smell on the meteor, Plaster, the mentioned enormous wyvern, an angry-looking shadow in a trench coat and a brimmed hat, Kamikaze.

"As I traveled through spacetime, I realized your friends, the Good Guys, and your enemies, the Bad Guys, would become obstacles. So I placed key people in key positions to help remove those obstacles. One of my flock was Field Marshal Horcross Breeng, whom I planted in Intergalactic Protection to use the military to help me." The movie switched from a woman with braided hair to Breeng.

Power Plant gasped. "Dude was a flock the whole time?" He craned his neck to stare down that ugly sucker's image as they passed. Only Breeng's forehead reached as high as the bottom of the movie's oval frame.

"Everything was an obstacle. Your enemy Mechanism was an especially complicated thorn to erase."

The movie crumpled away from existence when they passed, replaced with a new one ahead that showed dead Bad Guy highbrow Mechanism. Mechanism's murderous robotic helmet stared out at them. Power Plant's stomach percolated with revulsion.

Mechanism wore armor like Incendiary's, but grander and more destructive. Power Plant sweated in this cold hallway at that…that murderer. His fist crackled with light. He wanted to smash the movie, tear it to shreds. Leading a mob of brainwashed soldiers called Mechaknights, Mechanism had launched an attack to cleanse the galaxy of the unworthy. His plan resulted in the deaths of some of the Good Guys.

And of his older brother, Mark, the Good Guy named Burnout.

Continuum's hand around Power Plant's shoulder squeezed him more closely. "Mechanism's attempted genocide required special attention. And a special placement. I maneuvered an unsuspecting pawn into your ranks. You know him as Silas Reef, but that was an alias. Years ago, he was known as Noncommissioned Officer Devon Holbrek. He was discharged from military service for detonating a bomb on duty, the one that led to the Hyperability Injunction. Then he changed his name after a drunken misadventure put him in the sights of a powerful gang. When Breeng was a general, he reenlisted Reef and placed him within the Good Guys to help circumvent Mechanism's plan."

Power Plant passed the movie, which sectioned off into separate images: Mechanism, a group of Mechaknights, a flying robotic cylinder with two pincers for arms, ex–Good Guy defector Harrier, and a Bad Guy named Ice Cream Headache. Power Plant clenched so hard he ached. He swung at the image, but of course his attack passed through. He struggled out of Continuum's hand and sprang—

"My son, save your energy." Continuum steered Power Plant away. Power Plant didn't say a thing, only seethed. "I apologize. Mechanism killed your brother, but I didn't realize how painful seeing him would be." He guided Power Plant away. "It is gone." With a wave of his hand, the movie shattered into glistening spots. "I lost a brother once, too." His voice became moist. He sniffled and blinked back his tears. "My clothes are a variation of the suit I had to kill him in. I wear it as tribute."

Ahead, another movie: Station One in mid-construction. "I placed some of my flock in the Constructo Company," Continuum continued. Good word play. "You know the Constructo Company as those who won the bid to build Station One, what would become my base of operations, my home. I let the Good Guys use it on loan. Unfortunately, one of my Constructo Company flock fell away."

The image of Station One fizzled aside, replaced with a mustached Constructo Company worker. Embroidered on his breast pocket was a label identifying him as Constructo Worker 49. His defining feature: he was dead. A fatal shot tilted his head aside, and he sat on a beach chair, arms drooping off. Power Plant recognized this guy. The headshot was a dead giveaway. Another word play. Self–pat on the back.

Recently, Power Plant and Franchise had discovered a secret room even Station One's haunt control hadn't known about. In the room hid this dead construction worker and a collection of forty-foot robots lying dormant. At the robots' massive feet sat a timer winding down to a zero hour. According to Pincushion, those robots had woken up to destroy everything on Station One, including Power Plant's favorite place to fight hornets.

Continuum's hand stroked Power Plant's shoulder with only faint pressure. They passed the movie, which crumpled away like the others. "That man was Oliver Tranch, and he tried to warn the Good Guys of my intentions. My flock disposed of him, but not before he produced that video you saw. My flock could have fixed the place up—removing the body and erasing the video, for instance—but nevertheless, my mission continued." The next movie crackled into existence ahead. Sixth Sense. Why was he on Continuum's camera? Acting has-been Catastrophe was gonna be upset he wasn't featured yet. Better not let him know. Crock it, Power Plant would tell Catastrophe just to see that ex-actor's orange skin change to burnt sienna.

"Another near miss occurred with your friend Sixth Sense, before he joined your motley Good Guys. I placed the Urgs, four brothers, on a side mission in a discreet farm down the road from Sixth Sense. They were to monitor the Good Guys and Bad Guys and report anything that forced my plans astray. They were…sloppy…in their time travels and almost blew their cover. For their carelessness, they were properly disposed of, though that led to Sixth Sense joining the Good Guys." Continuum's footsteps knocked harder for a moment. The torchlight lent his cheeks a deeper red.

"Finally, I sent Blackguard to gather my flock, one of which was my servant Wyvern, whom I placed in the Gooder Guys to retrieve the demonic aswang creature for my service. I also placed that excitable Workshop, whom would not have otherwise served with Intergalactic Protection because of the military law imposed by one of their sponsors, MaxSport. MaxSport had ordered the demilitarization of women in an effort to sell more products in an all-male military, and your ridiculous organization fell for it. Sponsorship money is powerful, indeed." He sighed, which slithered along the quiet walls. "Breeng placed Workshop on the team himself to circumvent IP's all-male mandate. Wyvern was aware of the mission, but she was not. Though unaware like Reef, she was enlisted to protect the mission from Master Asinine's buffoonery, to block a crushing force of monkeys while the Gooder Guys retrieved the aswang. Who thinks monkeys—" He flapped his hand. "Never mind. We're discussing Master Asinine.

"The aswang is indeed a powerful creature. Your galaxy has a military law forbidding hyperpeople from serving, the Hyperability Injunction. Breeng sidestepped that to assemble your team and eventually get that aswang. That was a very careful tightrope I walked to succeed in this mission. But now the aswang is in my possession." The movie fizzled away, but this time none other replaced it.

Power Plant couldn't keep all these details straight. But he also had trouble putting his shirts on forward, so…yyyyeeeeaaaahhhhh.

"Which leads us to now. And you, my friend." Still strolling, Continuum smiled down at Power Plant. "I apologize for abducting you. I prefer inviting my sons and daughters without such vulgar actions. However, your ilk would not allow a quiet conversation without attacking me. On that matter, I also apologize for how I…exhibited my power." He shuddered, only his shoulders, as if tasting something bitter. "I so despise slaughter. I used such bloodshed in my escape from the Engineers. I watched my dear brother sink into those tactics until it drove him insane, and it…it worms through me. Screams of the dead shiver through my bones when I'm forced to act so violently. I use those methods only when necessary. But your friends would have listened to nothing less." He inhaled slowly, somberly.

"Enough of that, though. I brought you here to invite you to join me at my side. I know about you, Jeffy. You, too, were shoved aside, misunderstood, mistreated. Abused by your parents, who beat you for no reason. Underestimated by society, who never gave you a chance. You are one of us. You shall become part of the army I call Overthrow, so named because we will overthrow all of spacetime and take it for ourselves. We will safeguard it against further ruin."

Power Plant gaggled at all those big words Continuum made him hear. His head throbbed more than when he ordered from a menu that didn't contain the words "value meal." "First, lemme ask ya a thing." He blinked. "Huh?"

Continuum stopped, and so did Power Plant. Good. This hallway was endless, and there were no benches. Continuum turned Power Plant so that they faced each other. He wore that variety-show grin again, as if his smile were a warm hug and he were here to help Power Plant figure out all those menu items.

"Accept a placement in Overthrow, the most powerful army in spacetime."

Power Plant looked this way, that way, the other way, there were more than three ways so the other other way.

"Be one of my sons."

Power Plant couldn't process this offer. His head hurt from thinking. "Does it comes with medical?"

Continuum laughed at this. "Oh, Jeffy, you are charming. Say yes."

"I gots to think about it. That might take a while, 'cause my brain's already thinked enough today."

"I will help you decide, dear Jeffy." Continuum's smile creaked more widely, more sharply. His hand left Power Plant's shoulder and drew a circle in the air. Another movie crunched out of nothing and this one showed—

—Mark.

Power Plant went cold from the inside out. Mark lay on the carpet of Station One's escape-pod bay, blood spurting from a chest gunshot, in tune with his heartbeat. He blinked up at the ceiling, at nothing. From this angle, he blinked up at Power Plant.

From a few months ago. Right after Mechanism had launched his galactic cleansing. Before he murdered Mark. For some reason, Mark was smiling. At peace.

The movie froze.

Power Plant reached out for the movie, but of course his hand passed through it.

"I know how it feels to lose your brother." With a moist eye, Continuum eased an arm across Power Plant's shoulders again. "I have power over everything. I can pluck your brother out of time and heal him."

The movie disappeared.

"Bring the movie back." Power Plant spun at Continuum and sliced a finger at where the movie had floated. "Bring it back!"

"Easy, my son. I only need you to accept my offer." Continuum lifted his hand for another midair gesture.

A door stood to Power Plant's left, as if it had always been there. A toothed gate hung open like a jaw threatening to clamp shut. Inside was the room he'd woken up in, clicking again with torchlight. He peered down the hallway from where they'd come. They'd walked ten minutes and somehow hadn't moved.

"What do they say? Sleep it on? Slumber it on? Snooze on it? However the expression goes." Continuum rocked on his heels. "This might seem too good to be true, but it is. Please accept my offer."

His head woozy with thin air and impossible decisions, Power Plant shambled into the room, inch by inch, tingling foot by tingling foot. He shuffled around to blink up at Continuum framed in the door.

"I'll let you rest and check on you later." Continuum nodded. And with that nod, the door rumbled shut like a square iris to swallow the toothed gate, to leave only seamless wall. To erase even the barred window on the opposite wall.

To leave Power Plant numbly sinking to the floor.

Chapter Eighteen: Future Parallel Parking Is the Worst

Legion wasn't familiar with this make of starship, but he knew enough. It was a Tinfoil, something he'd used during training. Slightly different model though: this was the luxury ride. The piloting layout was different. And the seat was a yoga ball for some reason.

"Control, acknowledge. Initiate descent." He'd already entered the descent instructions into the computer, so the haunt control knew what to do.

Of course, it still responded with "You'd better pray for death, you gutter slug. Slowing down to descent speed." Military haunt-control mods came standard on IP starships. This one was weird, because it suffered from bipolar disorder. "And I mean 'gutter slug' with love, precious." It acted as if a drill sergeant programmed it and let his cheek-pinching grandmother finish.

"Sounds like the haunt control I'd expect." Luzimoss sat at the navigator's console. He wasn't trained to navigate, but Withered Old Battle-Axe was busy knitting a scarf. She held her progress out at arm's length and harumphed. Legion didn't know what had dissatisfied her, because the wool she used was a bird's nest and her needles were hemlock twigs.

"It comes standard on all war machines and motivational speakers." To fine-tune their descent, Legion tapped a button on the virtual keyboard laying across the piloting dashboard. This model was meant mostly for planetary-surface combat. He had to adjust for the lack of wind in deep space. "Be thankful. If we'd found a Flagstar, we'd be stuck with a high school lunch lady. You have to order mashed potatoes before you even lift off." The meteor's dome loomed below, so Legion nudged the descent speed more to prepare to pierce through.

Before leaving Gaia, they had borrowed transportation. Twenty-seven people wouldn't fit in Chug. So they'd stormed an IP army base, empty since all the soldiers were under Steeple's control. The Good Guys had their pick of the lot. They'd also raided the infirmary for medical supplies, the kitchen for food, the armory for offensive gear, and the equipment shed for spare gabbers. Opportunistic looters swarmed the base's outer border, but security fields wouldn't admit them if they didn't subscribe to the Sergeant's Tirade of the Month Club.

Now Legion, Ace Spandex, Luzimoss, and their knitting superstar in the rear occupied this starship. Franchise operated a second Tinfoil and had asked to be alone for a while. Puttyman, H2O, and Speed Line flew Chug.

"Arriving in under one minute, you agonizing toad flies," Sgt. Nasty said. This thing was lucky it came with heated seats. "But you look so darling in your little uniforms." Thanks, Sgt. Nasty's Grandma.

Legion leaned over to the display between the pilot's and navigator's consoles to check the positions of the other vehicles. He'd tagged the other Tinfoil and Chug in this starship's computer to keep track of their tiny fleet. He'd labeled the group in the computer as Convoy 1 and transmitted the settings to the other two starships. Turned out Chug used outdated software, because Legion received an error as a response: "UNABLE TO SAVE LABEL IN TRANSPORT, DUDE." He was pretty sure that error message was customized.

"Piercing the dome's atmospheric bubble, you gnarled whale husks." The haunt control reared its bullet-biting mean streak. "But you're handling things great." And a nurturing kindness so sweet you smelled pies baking.

Luzimoss stood up on the balls of his feet to peer down at the meteor surface. "There's all your war-waging brotherhood." His skin darkened, or maybe that was the way he cast his face. "With special guest warheads, the Bad Guys. You teamed up with the Bad Guys?"

"George asked us to babysit." Legion scanned the controls.

"First-name basis now, eh?" Luzimoss plopped back into his seat so hard his feet sprang up. "Let's just deal with this Continuum guy fast so I'm not forced to hang around you hired killers for long." He reigned in his sneer. "And we'll get your friend back."

Legion tapped another button. "Like a Simon Shrew." Another button.

Ace gasped at Legion. "Simon doesn't show up until season four. You watched three seasons already?"

And another button. "On the trip here."

"How?" Ace glanced around the cockpit. "Where?"

"I don't know. Places." Legion twirled a finger around. His cheeks tightened. He couldn't imagine what Continuum had in store for Power Plant. Ace Spandex used software to regulate his freak-out. But as for Franchise, you didn't need telepathy to read the grief in his dragging footsteps and one-word, murmured responses. He had degenerated to constant raised eyebrows and poker-faced growling.

"Simpering pustule, we're passing through the atmospheric bubble now," the haunt control said. Legion assumed it judged Legion for a dirt splotch on his boot. "Emerging from the bubble…now." Would the haunt control make him dig latrines after they landed?

Wait a second. "Control, acknowledge. What happened to loveable mode?"

"Work on your aim, and then you get loveable mode back, you canker sores."

Soupy pink drenched the Tinfoil as it slurped through the atmospheric bubble. When it emerged, the view cleared. Down below, Pincushion waved his arms and signaled to his left to land. He looked harried. Even from this elevation, Legion saw the haunted veins of his wide eyes.

"Easing our descent to eight hundred feet a minute because you canker sores can't take anything faster, you canker sores. Our angle of descent is ten degrees, you canker sores. Don't squeal when we hit the landing zone, you canker sores." The insult generator was caught in an infinite loop. "And I've planned so many fun activities." And then the sound of someone smooching a cheek. Gasp. Loveable mode was back! "You canker sores." Somewhat back.

Legion didn't bother speaking to the haunt control. He didn't need confidence-breaking grizzled shouts commanding him to drop and give twenty. Instead, he tapped a flight adjustment into the keyboard. "Command received, you canker sores." And yet…

Legion steered the Tinfoil to where Sixth Sense and the Purple Nurple indicated. The mil-tran settled on a pillow of dust that clanked against the undercarriage. Twenty feet to the left, Franchise eased the second Tinfoil down. And then Chug crash-clatter-cracked onto solid rock. Legion didn't bother wondering how its passengers survived. Somehow they always did.

The access port hissed open.

"What places?" Ace leaned over Legion's shoulder for a whisper. "I have to know."

Luzimoss pitched out of the navigator's seat. "There's a sixty-eight percent chance they've got bad news involving the Bad Guys, but I'm not sure what."

"It involves the Bad Guys. There's a one-hundred percent chance it's bad." Legion didn't wait for the others. He hotfooted to the access port and jogged down the ramp to Pincushion.

"We're back, and we brought rides." Legion stopped and wondered about the hush that fell over the meteor. Pincushion absentmindedly tugged an ear, his cocoa skin now sepia. The Purple Nurple looked equally confused. So no change. Sixth Sense looked worried. Also Sediment's expression looked clouded. Organism's dad wouldn't stop pouting at the ground. He stifled a sharp, dry sniffle, his fingers tracing the lip of a Tinfoil's ramp as though he wanted to see what it felt like.

Legion couldn't figure out the eerie funk everyone had dropped into. "Did Klee speak English while we were gone?"

Pincushion opened his mouth but checked the others before answering. "The good news is Incendiary woke up. The bad news is the Bad Guys passed through here a few minutes ago in The Nemesis." He threw his hand up at Station One's atmospheric bubble, which had trickled farther into the distance. "They shot right through our bubble and then disappeared. Just…disappeared."

Luzimoss joined them. He squinted at the empty bubble as if scrutinizing some invisible detail. "Ninety-three percent chance a wormhole replaced your station."

"Oh. Pacemaker's awake. Hats off to him." Legion stepped back from Luzimoss. "Tell me something. If Continuum is only in this timeline, how do you know there's a wormhole in there?"

Luzimoss watched the bubble a moment longer. He sniffled at the dry meteor dust. "The astrophysicist versions of me know what I'm looking at. Swirling colors. Something that looks like the opening of a tunnel. Yeah, a wormhole replaced Station One." He rubbed his lipless mouth. "My others say The Nemesis is rated to withstand temperatures up to thirteen trillion degrees Celsius and gamma rays of about eighty-eight million elec…" He stopped at everyone's confusion. "Don't you guys know anything about interstellar travel?" He shook his head. "Read a book sometime."

Louder and more emphatically now. "Look, they survived the trip. The Nemesis can withstand a wormhole. Your Tinfoils are military crafts, so they can too…in case you're wondering. And Chug has enough grime to deflect the radiation."

H2O and Puttyman high-fived.

Luzimoss rubbed his temples with his forefingers. "We can follow them."

Legion tilted his head. "But should we?"

"Should we?" Someone stomped toward them. Franchise's boots crunched rock so hard it sounded as if he ground it into gravel. Amaranthia followed, hand on his shoulder. Franchise fixed his feet on the ground in front of Legion and stabbed a finger at the bubble. "Continuum forces us all off Station One and plants his flag on it. Station One disappears, and a wormhole pops up in its place. He kidnaps Jeffy and kills Scapegoat. And you ask if we should go through that wormhole?" His eyes blazed. "Let me answer. Yes. We should."

"I'm worried about the lives of the rest of my—"

"Jeffy needs our help. He still spells my name with a q."

"Where?" Legion asked.

Franchise cut the air. "It's in a different place every time. My point is I'm going in there to rescue him. With or without you."

A hum scratched Legion's antennae. The air warmed up, eddying pebbles and grit. Amaranthia's hair swirled around, so she pressed it against her temples to tame it. Even the scabbard on her back leaned upward. Static swayed everyone's clothes and clicked at fibers. Legion searched around at…Why was one of the Tinfoils lifting off the ground? Did Sgt. Nasty decide to firebomb an orphanage? It tipped at one corner but then righted. In his mind's ear, Legion heard the haunt control call the pilot a canker sore as it offered hot chocolate with little marshmallows.

"Who's in there?" Legion squinted at the windshield.

"Dad?" That voice seeped at them from downwind, carried in the agitated wind from the Tinfoil's ascent. "Dad!"

From the distance, Organism bolted at the landing zone. "Dad, what are you doing?" He tripped on a rock and slammed onto the meteor floor and vaulted up and sprinted faster and leaped and stretched his arms up at the rising Tinfoil and bellowed from the heat of its liftoff and tears flowed and—

The Tinfoil speared away. It pierced the atmospheric bubble, leaving behind contrails and a message in glitter that said, "Guests of Intergalactic Protection stay at the Skylight Inn." In seconds, it had dwindled to a dot headed toward Station One's atmospheric bubble.

"Dad, no!" Organism withered to his knees. He reeled his singed hands back in and pummeled the ground. He roared agony, howls hopping with sobs.

Legion rushed over and lifted him into a sitting position. He barely knew Legion was there, just allowed himself to be rolled back. His glassy stare was affixed to the empty space the Tinfoil had vacated. Its liftoff still echoed in a shrinking roar. "I—I—I—I—" His sobs and sniffles chopped his words, but he swallowed the sobs down and said, "I…yelled…at…him. I…I lost it…on…him." His words were soggy with phlegm. "He took…off…because of…me."

The Tinfoil had disappeared from space. It winked into the wormhole.

Legion bit his lipless lower "lip" and nodded at Franchise. "Okay, I'm convinced." At Pincushion. "We're going in." And Ace. "Cue up season five."

* * *

"Psst." Against the boulder, Detritus tilted his head toward Multipurpose. Not too close, mind you. That pasty blob was still tonguing chamkey off his chin. And he smelled like scented markers except where he smelled like rubbing alcohol and where he smelled like he should visit the doctor. Tilted close enough for a whisper though. "Hey, psst." He choked on the air. Whah. Not that close. How many parasites did Multipurpose host?

He hadn't reacted. Was Detritus not pssting loud enough? "Pssssssssst." C'mon, man. Hear a psst sometimes.

"What?" Multipurpose grumbled. Or was that his stomach?

Detritus's eyes sneaked around. Crock, his swollen eye panged. He looked this way. That way. This way again. Over at the Good Guy broad with the rifle. That way again. No one paid attention. Too bad about Organism. Good kid. He didn't deserve to lose his dad like that. Dad was pretty cool, too.

Detritus waited a moment. "We gotta make our break for it." This way. "These guys ain't got our best interests in mind. I mean…I saved one of 'em back on the station. Twice. An' they still think I'm a criminal." That way. "But I got a plan." This way. "While everyone's distracted, I gut-sack the chick with the rifle and the allergy to smiling. Plastique. Right. That's her name. I gut-sack Plastique like eating disorders gut-sacked you. You make a getaway waddle to their Tinfoil. I grab Wasted an' join ya. Any o' this goes south, I'll just explode all over someone."

"You still pretendin' you got a hyperability?"

"Hey, I got it. But that ain't your concern. We steal that Tinfoil and book it. We get through that wormhole, join up with the Bad Guys, and we're golden." That way. "Maybe we even gun a few of these guys down. Definitely Legion. He broke a deal wit' me. Still got no idea how he escaped the Bad Guys."

Truth. When Detritus and Wasted were discovered as Bad Guys posing as Good Guys, Legion had made a bargain with Detritus for information about the robots hiding in their station. Detritus met his end of the bargain, but Legion locked him up anyway. Last he checked on Legion, Legion was a prisoner of war. Looked as if he escaped. Detritus aimed to even that score.

This way. "No gunnin' down the kid though." That way. "He's off limits."

Multipurpose grunted. "Your plan all better work. I'm missin' brunch for this. That's the sixth most important meal of the day."

"It ain't a recipe, so concentrate." This way to give himself a break from Multipurpose's mishmash of stenches. "We amscray for the Infoiltay. Then we akemay a getawayay. I mean etawaygay." That way. Or this way. He lost track of which was which. "We amscr—"

"I'm standing eight feet away from you. I can hear everything." Plastique was polishing the side of that rifle so clean it squeaked. "You're as subtle as an Evil Dead pop-up book."

Crock. Detritus snorted up some phlegm and spat it on the ground. Time to double down on the secret code. "You etgay me? We amscray wayay."

"Pig Latin's not that hard to crack." Plastique stopped polishing and pinned Detritus back with a sneer. "I'll shoot you through your swollen eyeball if you so much as plant your feet flat against the ground." She waited for Detritus to speak, and when he didn't, she said, "I've done it before, and I'm not afraid to do it to another rat."

Detritus sprouted a stiff grin. "We're stickin' right here, toots."

"Ugh." Plastique shoved her rifle into Pincushion's hands and stormed away. "Cover them. I need to dry-heave."

Chapter Nineteen: Time Tourist Trap

September 9, 52,867 B.C.

The sickly Gharalgian chattered his dried and chipped teeth. Glassy eyes. Jaundiced skin around plump meat. Spots like craters in the creature's wan yellow complexion. Shoulders hunched. He spoke no language, nothing anybody from his time understood anyway, and wandered in circles. This nauseating creature was an imbecile even by prehistoric standards. And he just ate off his own fingernail.

Elohim and his two sons, Blackguard and the Trader, had journeyed to early Gharalga to visit the locals. The Trader had zeroed in on an ancient hyperperson with an…interesting…hyperability. Not as interesting as the Virillian who turned body parts inside out, but one who at least didn't spray intestinal fluid everywhere. Now, in this dense nightfall buzzing with insects and burping with amphibians, they observed this newest find with keen interest. Well, Elohim and Blackguard did. The Trader complained about the humidity.

They stood at the outskirts of a rotting marsh. Elohim studied this creature, who seemed unaware of the bugs circling his decaying scalp. The creature stood ankle deep in grungy waters. Elohim could barely look head on. He watched through only one eye. The sight wasn't ghastly, but the terrain was thick with biting fumes.

"My sons, what do you make of this creature?" Elohim asked. The prehistoric dunce padded his forehead and pulled back a clump of tattered hair.

"My lord, he seems ready to die." Blackguard craned his neck. "Are you sure about this one? He's eating another fingernail. Has he not learned from the first?"

Elohim furrowed his eyebrow. Just one. That hyperability deep within the creature that the Trader had sensed…yes, Elohim needed it. This creature would process and supply the souls for his army. "He is perfect." That same eyebrow now perked.

"Of course he is." The Trader smeared a leaf into the ground with his foot. "Makes sense. He's dying, he thinks his fingernails are a cuisine. Why wouldn't he be perfect?" He tossed a cattail at the creature. It hit and bounced into the slushy water.

"But, my lord." Blackguard's featureless face twisted when the creature shuffled in another circle, a buffoon's slack to his cheeks. "He is trying to find out who is behind him. It's himself. He thinks his clothing is sneaking up on him. And he's eating another fingernail. If he's hungry enough, he will try to eat his toenails, and I don't think he has the flexibility." He observed the ancient Gharalgian trying to scratch his own back. The Gharalgian whirled around, whirled around again, hands swatting at shoulder blades and teeth still chattering, never stopping.

Blackguard stomped his foot. "He is unworthy of you."

"Until I came to rescue you both, some would say you were unworthy. Sickly, laughable, pale—not you, Blackguard—curious about what lurks behind you." Elohim still could not look directly at the creature. It wasn't disgust. His eyes could literally not bear the hissing gases of the marsh.

"This is the one you sensed, Brother Trader?" Blackguard asked.

The Trader wafted the heat from under his collar. He wore a thick Trioxidillian suit during this region's summer, but he'd been warned. "This is the one. His hyperability is faint, but it's there."

Blackguard scrutinized the creature whose breathing gurgled as if hospital assistance kept him alive. "Does this creature's hyperability set include stomaching fingernails?"

The Trader flicked his cuff out. "He steals weakened souls, processes them, and injects them into things. That's it. Are we about through here?"

"Process weakened souls. Gooooood." Elohim watched the chattering creature with his other eye when the first began to water. He would only need someone to make those souls weak now. "We will rescue him from his condition. Servant Trader—"

"What do you want?"

"—enhance his hyperability. I will advance his genetics, for this is our newest brother, the relentless soul harvester and corruptor Necropolis." Elohim's fingers danced at his sides. "After this stop, what do you say to Vietnamese for dinner?"

* * *

Continuum stared up at the blemished, shadowed clouds where The Nemesis pierced the blue blanket of sky. Did nobody heed warnings anymore?

Continuum and his apostles had come out to observe the trespassers. They stood on the outer perimeter of the castle grounds as a harvest night fell like crimson paint dripping down the atmosphere. The ground was a cobblestone path, and gaps in the fifteen-foot exterior perimeter allowed them to venture into the grassy fields that surrounded the property. The air tasted sweet, and the temperature was mellow. The springing buzz of cicadas was their evening music as well as Gangrene barking at forest creatures.

Continuum's face pinched. "Servant Steeple, are all the Bad Guys aboard The Nemesis?"

Steeple approached with limbs and odor like aged lumber. He said mossssst of the Bad Guysssss were aboard the craft. But four mental templatessss were misssssing. Those four remained on the meteor outpossssst with the Good Guysssss. He sniffed the air and seeped a moan. Their templatesssss ssssmelled delectable.

He could not be creepier. Or clumsier. He stumbled into a bush.

"Then locate Necropolis to process half of those souls we adopted at Station One. Only those from Station One, and only half. Not the Intergalactic Protection soldiers. I still have use for some of our slaves in their current bodies."

Steeple teetered off with a yesssss, massster. And then he flipped over a shallow wall.

Servant Blackguard fell to one knee. "Lord and master, I sense you will have to use ghastly means as punishment. You will need a calming night. Shall I prepare your therapy candles?"

"No. Thank you." Continuum scooped his arm upward as if throwing an underhand ball. The cobblestone path unrolled into a carpet of bricks that wound around these exterior walls. He tromped on this new path toward the servants' quarters to fetch someone to deal with the Bad Guys at their landing zone. "But have my coloring books waiting in my throne hall." He so loved his mental escapes.

Chapter Twenty: And a Personal Care Kit by the Champagne Bar

Power Plant sat in torchlight still flickering orange on the stone walls. Man, was it bland in here. Bland and quiet. Who constructed a medieval-looking chamber without cool torture props? Would it kill Continuum to put in a stretching rack? Or a guillotine? Or, like, a guillotine built on a stretching rack? Continuum really phoned this dungeon in. Power Plant had a dozen ideas just off the top of his head, and not all of them involved stretching racks. One was a water cooler, because the dry heat from these torches made him thirsty.

He'd say the wind echoed haunted wails in here, but there was no wind anymore. Without the barred window, the air hung flatly. He sniffled, and the sniffle echoed back like Velcro ttteeeaaarrring open. He drew his heels closer and hugged his legs. Forget the stretching rank. How about a couple of magazines?

A dot appeared above the stone floor and drew an arc, a white static charge in midair that bled away the torchlight. The arc continued into a circle, and when it completed, the circle shimmered into an image of a throne room. Grand, navy-blue blocks surrounded a commanding throne, one not made of cans of expired food like Power Plant's throne or porcelain like Power Plant's other throne after he ate all that expired food. A gobstopping-huge dragon tromped across the view, python tail dusting a carpet. When it passed, Power Plant spotted the stone imprint of a man embossed on the wall behind the throne. An imposing muscleman embedded in the stone, as if trying to escape. Power Plant squinted. Looked exactly like Hearse, down to the visor over his eye.

Through the crackling circle stepped…crock, that portal dude, the blond fraidy-chicken that had attacked them on the meteor. Should have known. He held a silver tray and no magazines. The portal closed behind him.

"Ya showin's yaself at me again?" Power Plant leaped up. Orange torchlight, white portal, yellow energy gathering in his hand, this room was a rainbow. Well, of three colors. So half a rainbow. With some colors that didn't make up a rainbow. Okay, forget it.

"Don't laser me." Fraidy-Chicken recoiled into the wall. Still holding the tray, he shielded his face with a shoulder and screwed his eyes shut. "Please don't laser me, at least not the head, please, no, I have food, it's food!"

Wait a sec. Food? Everybody loved food. More important, Power Plant loved food. Power Plant's firm policy was to not shoot room service. He unlit his hands and licked his lips. His mouth watered. No, it slobbered. "What kinds o' food?" Not radishes, hopefully.

Fraidy-Chicken peeped open one eye. The room was so silent his peep sounded like someone plucking a single guitar string. Shivers waved up and down his body. He plucked opened the other eye. "It's-s cereal."

"Oh, man, that's the best kinda cereal." Power Plant hopped forw—Wait. Hold off on the hopping. "Is it's cereal whats whole, fiber, or grainy? Or is it's the kind what's frosted, cocoa, super, sugar, or somethin' thats puts a z instead of a s?"

"It's…it's…" Fraidy-Chicken examined the bowl. "I think it's called Crunch Berries."

"Crunch works." Power Plant grabbed the bowl, grabbed the spoon, and went to town. Oh, man, that felt good going down, even when he choked. Though tepid, the milk helped the dry heat. He finished, dropped the spoon, and dissolved against the wall. The bowl tipped out of his hand and rattled on the floor. "Oh, man, sooooo good."

Fraidy-Chicken looked as if he wanted to press into the wall. His yellow hair glowed in the torchlight. Almost matched Power Plant's hair.

Power Plant swallowed back his watering saliva. It still sprinkled. "So what's ya name?"

Fraidy-Chicken's eyebrows shot up. Power Plant didn't know chickens had eyebrows. "My name?" If crested penguins had eyebrows, chickens could, too.

"Yeah. What's this Continuums calls you?" Power Plant wiped his mouth onto the same sleeve he wiped his nose. He wiped all his face fluids there.

Fraidy-Chicken swallowed. "It's T-transit. Transit. It's Transit." Camels had boss eyebrows.

"Right. Transit." Power Plant snapped his fingers. That guy with the arm blades called Fraidy-Chicken that name. "So…tells me. What's this Continuum's deal?" Legion should grow eyebrows.

Transit hadn't shut his mouth yet. It had lolled open when he'd arrived and still lolled now. "His deal?" He was so nervous his pulse throbbed in his breath. "He…He's rep…He's repairing spacetime. He's here to fix everything."

"So it's true? Did we plays wit' spacetime too rough?" Power Plant reclined his head against the wall. "I saw this painting once with melted clocks alls over, but I didn't think it'd cames to this."

"It's his mission. He's rescuing us from all the damage he was forced to create. He loves us. He wants to save us."

Power Plant studied a shadow cavorting in the torchlight. Perfect spot for a guillotine stretching space heater hat rack. Yeah, that was right: you put your hat on it now. "Some save. He killeds Scapegoat."

Transit gulped. His complexion paled a tad but enough to notice in the orange. "He wouldn't do that."

"Yup. Lifteds him up and then…" Power Plant puffed his cheeks and expelled it in a burst. "…'sploded him alls over. Scapegoat didn't get saved."

Transit shook his head in short jerks. "No. Lord Continuum came to fix things, not 'splode them. Explode them. Explode people. Blow peo—He came to save people. And fix spacetime." He chirped at a pitch too high. "He'd never explode anybody. I don't think."

"Looks like he also sticked Hearse in a wall. Hearse didn'ts get saved neither." Power Plant shrugged. "Don'ts blame him though. I wantin's to puts Hearse in a wall for months."

"Hearse is what Continuum calls a threat. He was…subdued."

"Continuum also trasheds my house. S'where I kept all my prescription staircases." And where Power Plant kept other stuff.

A voice crackled through the stone chamber. It burst out of the corner where Power Plant imagined the space-heating guillotine stretching hat rack/tanning bed/water cooler/charging station would fold away when not in use. "Servant Transit, I require your skills at once." Continuum's voice.

Transit scattered backward, almost into a torch. He stammered a yelp. "Yes, lord. Right away." He flickered his hand in a circle, drew another portal, and reached his leg thr—

"Don't forget the dishes. We're doing a load tonight."

—withdrew his leg. "Yes, lord. Sorry." Staying out of Power Plant's reach, wwwiittthhh an eeeasssy-ddoooeeesss-iiittt cccrrreeeeppp, hhhhhheeeeee snatched up the spoon seized the bowl leaped away—

"By the way, hello, Jeffy."

—dived at the portal.

Power Plant twisted his mouth as the portal sizzled away with its white light.

Alone again.

Crock, he sure could use that space-heating guillotine stretching hat rack/tanning bed/water cooler/charging station/swimming pool with wave schedule on weekends.

Chapter Twenty-One: Some Welcoming Party

The trip through the wormhole took no longer than a few minutes. They shot out and into a dusk bleeding with so much smeared sunset it looked like a vampire's birthday. Ho hum. Master Asinine expected swirling colors or fireworks but got bupkes. He'd ask for his money back, but he hadn't spent any. The generics lifted his wallet when they'd captured him. Henriquez still had it, the pickpocket.

Cluck clucked. "The temperature in this hip, new crib is a cool and breezy twenty degrees in the Celsius, my jive mamas and papas. The weather's a nice springtime mellow, and we're grooving in clear skies. So ride ooonnnn this smooth wave." A pacifying trombone hummed through the cockpit, as if music had taken form as silk. "And brace for impact." Wait, what?

Crap, here came the ground.

"Lead with that next time!" Master Asinine slapped hands on the divider between the cockpit and passenger decks.

The ground rocketed at them so quickly Asinine saw individual blades of grass and a dog turd in the windshield's magnification. Frantically, Reef palmed, stabbed, elbowed, jabbed, and somehow kneed buttons in a panic of commands. "Control, acknowledge. Pull up, Cluck, pull up. Initiate landing sequence. Remove magnification. Can the lavender scent." He walloped the piloting console.

"Cluck, acknowledge. Keep the lavender." Master Asinine inhaled. It was a fly funk.

The ground barreled at the windshield and The Nemesis inclined painfully slowly stupid rooster come on come on grass became hills became horizon became a harvest moonrise and—

The landing gear gored into the earth. The cockpit quaked and crunches of stone and dirt and field and terrain splattered away as the trestles gouged trenches in the soil and Asinine couldn't see it but it rattled from his heels into his scalp through thousands of feet down to the hull and ahead stood a hedge of moss or ivy or greenery and The Nemesis barreled closer closer slowing but closer everybody but Braindead screamed everybody winced everybody grabbed something for dear life everything creaked everything squeaked everything rhymed Schizophrenic punched a face the grassy wall swallowed the view and slowing slowing crawling the nose cone pecked the hedge and…

…and…

…stopped.

Panting.

Squeaking.

Lavender.

Face-punching.

Thank goodness for antilock airbrakes.

The Nemesis's beak had pecked the hedge and now sniffed the foliage as if taking a whiff. Who grew a hedge as high as a Kingfish's nose cone? Wait. No. The hedge tilted back, fragmented, tumbled into debris. Not a hedge at all, but…a brick wall that vegetation had overtaken. Meters away, another wall already lay in ruins. Were these the remains of a building?

Master Asinine gulped back his getaway breathing. He found himself on the litter-strewn floor among the cleaved chairs, flung knickknacks, and his junior thugs. Except Bad Aim. His hoverdisc was lodged in the wall. He couldn't even aim at the floor.

Asinine creaked to his feet. "Everyone okay?"

Schizophrenic clamped a hand over a chair and hauled himself up. "I'm offering to knock you around if you are." He throttle-punched Master Asinine Sucks in the gut.

Master Asinine Sucks crumpled. "But I wasn't okay."

"You get a freebie, wild-west worm wrangler." Schizophrenic tromped toward the cockpit. Of course he tromped over Master Asinine Sucks's gut.

Several destroyed chairs had smashed the divider between the cockpit and passenger decks. Its hardened air had splintered into fragments and then vaporized. So Schizophrenic's tromp brought him all the way to Reef, with a pitstop to punch a generic in the face.

He yanked Reef up by the collar. The generics didn't dare help. They knew Schizophrenic was still rating face punchability on a scale of 9.8 to 10.

Reef's legs thrashed against the back of the piloting console. His hands shot up to Schizophrenic's tree-trunk arm. Even digging fingertips into Schizophrenic's arm bones didn't work. That two-headed, one-man army was made of cast iron.

Master Asinine and Braindead reached the console. Master Asinine Sucks writhed around and moaned in cowboy blabbity-blah, Lieutenant IQ 23 tried ungluing Bad Aim from the wall—no rush there—and Appetite was eating. Well, Asinine couldn't tell in this dark, but, really, what were the chances Appetite wasn't eating?

"This takeover of yours didn't end like you expected, did it?" Schizophrenic knocked Reef's head into the ceiling once, twice, third time was a charm. Reef didn't look charmed. He let go, and Reef fell on the floor. Technically on the slanted surface of the piloting console and then the floor.

"Hello, comrades. Is any help coming to Brainiac for standing up?" Still on her back, Brainiac blinked up at everyone.

"No more takeovers." Asinine glared at Reef.

Reef bounded up. He cocked a fist at Schizophrenic for a brawl he wouldn't win. "No. No more takeovers." He cocked his fist at Braindead, who folded his arms as if welcoming a fight. "Just a truce." He side-sneered at Asinine. His fist became an extended palm.

Seconds ticked away. Master Asinine stared at Reef's invitation for a handshake. He checked for a joy buzzer. "No more coups?"

"Vozshd Asinine? Other comrades? Brainiac is needing help still."

"No more coups."

"Rebellions?"

"No rebellions."

"Turnabouts? Upheavals? Revolutions? How about mutinies? Have you planned any mutinies?"

"Hey, punk nugget, I ain't standing around while you finish reading the thesaurus." Schizophrenic reared at Asinine.

Asinine flung his hands in front of his face. "Fine, fine. Truce." He flinched back and almost tripped over whomever this was lying on the ground. "Brainiac, get out from underfoot."

He made sure Schizophrenic wouldn't throttle him and then slapped palms with Reef. Both shook, a single but assured pump.

"Okay, where did we land?" Asinine craned his neck up at the melting sky. No waves of IP starships as promised. And the ground didn't look like any Station One surface he knew, unless they planted a lush field of trees and grass and hills overtop their old lush field of pavement and asphalt and more pavement. Also, Station One's bugs weren't that colorful when they splattered against your windshield. "We must have landed in New New New New New New New New New New New New New New—"

Several minutes later.

"—New New New Zealand. I guess all that's left is to assemble an away team and check things out."

A generic chopped his hand at the air. "I'm not part of any away team if I'm wearing red."

"Crock." Schizophrenic kicked the pilot chair. "I was gonna take a couple of faces for the road." Hadn't he run out yet?

"Whoa, slow up, playas. I'm thinkin' the next move is we cut me out o' here, yo." Bad Aim pressed against the wall in which his hoverdisc was embedded. Lieutenant IQ 23's feet were propped against the wall trying to help, but he lost his grip and toppled backward. The jagged shards of chair broke his fall though.

"How about help for standing? Пожалуйста?"

"Okay, so the generics will stay aboard The Nemesis and guard my chair rubble. The rest of us…" Master Asinine tapped his finger in the air for a headcount. As always, he lost track at…five…maybe. "…will head down to the surface and see where we landed."

"Hey, hey." Reef grabbed Asinine's arm and spun him around. "We might have a truce, but last I checked, I'm still in charge."

"Then check again."

Reef clouted the navigator's console. "Your thugs might be free, but I command thousands of generics."

Asinine tilted his head to Schizophrenic and chuckled. "Cute, isn't he?"

"Between the two of you, he's the one who can count." Schizophrenic punched Steve in the face.

Master Asinine wrenched his arm away from Reef. "Look, you might have the manpower, but they're all downstairs. My backup team is right here. Who do you think will come out on top? So…" He dug his thumb into Reef's shoulder rrreeeaaallllyyyy tightly. "…I'm in charge. Got it?"

Reef swept Asinine's hand off his shoulder. Good, because Asinine's thumb ached. "Fine. Be in charge." Behind him, gravity gripped Bad Aim, and he crashed to the floor. Good timing. Bad timing for IQ 23, but good timing.

"Before leaving, can any comrades help for me to be standing up?"

If the windshield was the eyes of the cockpit deck—and it was—the elevator airfoil was the cheek. It spanned nine by nine feet, big enough to fit the probably-more-than-five of them, even with Bad Aim's hoverdisc venting heat out its slitted circumference. But not big enough for ample fart space.

The elevator airfoil levitated them down smoothly with a calculated gush of air out of a speckled surface. Before they reached ground, Master Asinine leaned forward and huffed in Reef's ear. "Don't try anything stupid." He leaned back.

"That's telling him, sir." Lieutenant IQ 23 gave a thumbs-up.

"It's all in the wrist." Master Asinine hummed along to the elevator music, which turned out was the ringing in his ears. His day kept getting better. He had reaffirmed his friendship with Legion, escaped captivity, and ate soup with crackers and without Schizophrenic upturning the bowl on his lap until the third spoonful.

The trip took a few minutes due to The Nemesis's four-hundred-foot height, but eventually—

"Crap. We forgot Brainiac in the cockpit." Master Asinine swatted the wall. "Why didn't she say anything?"

—the airfoil l doors faded with a "Your advertisement here" and a bugle declaration as if its occupants emerged in front of a palace guard. Master Asinine stepped out first, and behind him Reef, IQ 23, Braindead, and then Asinine lost interest. The l doors reappeared with a ding.

They stood beneath The Nemesis's underbelly lights, at the front, central landing trestle. The terrain felt soft. The wreckage of the building they'd pecked, now standing about a foot tall, looked like a once-majestic cylinder overrun with ankle-tall grass. The rising moon was a yellow coin, like a spotlight or the Bat Signal. Off in the distance, a dark forest tickled the dusk, tall like ancient sentries overlooking this field. A gentle breeze swirled around a scent of pine. It was warm, not too hot, like no temperature Asinine had ever felt on Station One.

And, oh yeah, their welcoming party was a barricade of knights, identical and in identical positions, frozen so still Master Asinine thought they might be mannequins. He pivoted for a panoramic check. Yup, they surrounded every angle, a good several yards away from The Nemesis's center trestle, way out of Schizophrenic's face-punching reach. They teemed in thick multitudes that reached as far back as the sun submerging under the hilly distance. So many. Way too many for a headcount, so around five.

Among the knights stood a twerpy blond kid close to hitting puberty. He cringed as if hiding in himself. He stood next to some guy in a fencing mask and white, full-body impact suit with two stripes like suspenders. He stooped over, legs tensed as if prepared to leap. His intentions were hard to read under that mask. Master Asinine had enough trouble reading people's intentions without masks.

And there stood Plaster.

Crock. Not Plaster. An awkward silence dropped hard, leaving only the hum of cicadas or crickets or manatees.

Plaster's salmon skin looked deep fuchsia in the falling sunlight. His mammoth build, second only to Schizophrenic's, dwarfed the knights that accompanied him. His face looked like a skull dripping with raspberry jam, eye sockets deep and hollow, teeth obvious in receding gums. He was the reason the Bad Guys didn't offer dental. Also criminal organizations didn't typically offer dental. What was he doing here? Had he found a better job?

Ho boy. Master Asinine tugged at his collar. "Hey. Plaster, been a while. Remind me. Did I fire you?"

"You dropped me into a snake pool an' then forgot about me." Plaster cracked his knuckles so hard it sounded like branches snapping.

"Right." Master Asinine squirmed as if he were still chained to that chair. Mood-defusing chitchat, engaged. "Pretty good, thanks for asking."

"I didn't. I ain't gonna."

"I bought a belt the other day. But things took a turn when it came in one of those packages you can't open without scissors." He slid his hands in his pockets. "I couldn't find any. Also, there was a mutiny."

"Cram it, Asinine. Ain't no one want to trade small talk." Plaster scowled. "Bad Aim, nice t' see ya graduated up to named agent."

"That's not small talk?"

Reef tapped his gabber bud. "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Vaughn." He shared a sidelong leer with Asinine. "We might need backup."

"Tell the generics if they try to oust me again, they're taking the stairs back up." Now, what could Master Asinine do about Plaster? He checked IQ 23, who squeezed his lips together and shrugged. Looked like the photo on his Bad Guy ID. Back to Plaster. "Look, I'm—Hey, is that a ski hill?" He perked up at the sprawling mountain with the ski lift on the side.

"Yup." Plaster glanced over his shoulder. "It's a buncha nature trails in th' off-season. We also got a ghost-huntin' grassland. Anyway, Lord Continuum says you're trespassin'." Plaster locked his slimy hands on his rigid hips. His forearms bulged. "An' my crew an' me take care o' trespassers."

Schizophrenic stomped on the grass. "Continuum's goon trashed our cockpit. We almost crashed. I'll trespass my fist all over Continuum's face." He lifted his foot. "That an anthill?"

Master Asinine swung. Accidentally clouted IQ 23, but whatever. "Yeah, Schizophrenic's going to trespass all over Continuum's face. He's had a face thing lately. And, really, all his life." He murmured to Schizophrenic. "Sidebar: I have no idea what you mean."

Bad Aim threw his hand out. "Why we humorin' this played-out honky. Let's stop wastin' time and gat this foo'. Blam blam, yo." He lifted a finger gun, snapped a shot wildly off target, and blew on his finger barrel.

"Why do you people constantly need evidence of power?" rocked a voice from behind the deep order of knights. It boomed so fiercely it shook a flock of birds from a tree.

Where Plaster stood, the knights split. They shifted apart in zombie clanks, like doors sliding aside to allow a figure to approach. The bodysuit guy leaped onto a knight's shoulders as if he needed a piggyback to move two feet. This better be good, because Asinine had already wasted enough time talking smack with Plaster. Well, technically Schizophrenic and Bad Aim had. Asinine still wondered how you played out a honky. Were the rules the same as tag?

The figure approached in this nightfall that never finished falling. As he passed under the moonlight, Master Asinine got a clearer look. Bald. Good start, because he saved on haircuts. Pants and a button-up shirt. Good continuation, because he wasn't naked. A stare like a death grip around your soul. Muscles like a titanium warrior's. Schizophrenic, Plaster, this new guy. Did everyone else sleep in an ab trainer? Master Asinine pinched his belly. Maybe he should do more sit-ups.

Was this Continuum? After he passed through the crowd, the knights clanged in to close the gap. He stopped outside The Nemesis's underbelly lights and scanned the Bad Guys as if wondering whom to challenge to an arm-wrestling contest first, because—holy crow—look at those biceps. Like boas that had swallowed gophers whole.

"Let me speak to the man in charge," Continuum said with his disaster voice.

"Right here." Master Asinine shoved Reef forward. He wished he had a third hand for more shoving. Also for hauling in the groceries.

"Master Asinine." Continuum's voice probably reached orbit.

"Crap. He made me." Master Asinine kicked the ground. And a rock. Ouch.

Continuum joined his hands behind his back. "Master Asinine, you were unwise to travel through the wormhole. I sent my servant Blackguard to warn you to stay away. You ignored him, and then you ignored my second warning."

"Second warning?" Master Asinine Sucks hyucked.

Continuum pointed. Everyone swiveled around to find a sign saying "Keep off the Grass."

A burst of light and a bang erupted from the wormhole that had receded into the distance as if it didn't follow this planet's rotation. A Tinfoil crackled through.

"And it seems you've brought stragglers." Continuum shook his head and muttered, "Neighbors." He cracked his neck left, right, left again. "You ignored two warnings. You are invading my home, disturbing my tranquility, diverting me from my duties."

"Stomping on your ants." Schizophrenic ground his heel into the terrain.

Master Asinine grabbed his arm. "Stop testing his patience."

Schizophrenic whipped his arm away. "Not a chance. I wanna see what he's got in mind for you."

Continuum tapped his foot. "Despite everything, you entered the wormhole."

"Then why even leave it up?" Master Asinine threw a hand at the…Where was that thing? Out in the distance somewhere, acting wormy and holey. "That's one seriously nice-looking ski hill, by the way."

"The reason for my wormhole is not your concern. Your indiscretion is. Because of it, an example must be made. Let me show you what happens to those who don't heed warnings." Continuum raised his hands…

…and squeezed.

A shatter of agony erupted. Continuum twisted his hands as if wringing water from a rag. Asinine whirled around and—"No!" A body hung above the grass in crackling bones and corkscrewed organs that sprayed gore like jets in the Bad Guy line of designer hot tubs. "No twice!"

Asinine's prized junior thug, Plot Sacrifice, who never called attention to himself, content to remain in the background unlike the glory-seeking junior thugs whose actions kept demanding to be recounted over and over as if in some story narration.

The body fell, and Asinine fell at it. "No three times!" He pounded the grass. First his fern died of dehydration, now Plot Sacrifice died of the twist. Asinine threw his hands skyward, screamed at the heavens and whatever heard his tormented cry. "No four times, Plot Sacrifice. Why? Why, what's-your-face up there, why? No five times." He threw himself over Plot Sacrifice's coiled corpse, squeezed dry of whatever this sticky substance was. Dead in his red shirt and red pants and red shoes and red gloves and red skin due to a nasty sunburn from the Bad Guy beach volleyball tournament and red hat. "No, I-can't-remember-where-I-left-off times." And red scarf.

Lieutenant IQ 23 dropped to his knees at Master Asinine's side and stroked his back. But nothing could console him after the death of his most trusted and hardest-working operative. "Sir, you're getting blood all over your Groundhog Day suit, and we left our dry-cleaning equipment at home." Right, the sticky substance was blood.

"He was two days from retirement." Master Asinine shuddered.

"I know, sir. I know."

"We must avenge him." Asinine pulled himself off Plot Sacrifice. Calming breaths. He bared his teeth at Continuum, so hot he broke a sweat in this mild night. Cue venomous stare. And running nose due to hay fever. "You just macked off the wrong one-and-only Master Asinine."

He crossed his arms. "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Brainiac." He waited for the gabber to send the connection through and to remind him that High-Speed Snail Chase was returning to Fridays at seven hundred and fifty-six o'clock. "Brainiac, Asinine here.

"Initiate transformation."

"Da, Vozshd Essinine."

"Don't talk back. Just do it."

All around Asinine ensued a concert of mechanical whirs, hums, clanks, drones, a "TSCHK TSCHK tschk TSCHK TSCHK," a "cock-a-doodle-doo audio file not found." Everything except donkey brays. Asinine wasn't able to incorporate donkey brays. The junior thugs flinched back, stunned at the performance of machinery, at the commotion from landing trestle to whatever a canopy was called.

"Continuum, meet the new Nemesis."

The landing trestles grew in clanks and fits, extending the underbelly higher. The single fore trestle split in two, and all four trestles sprouted metal claws from their egg-shaped bases. The metal-feathered wings flattened against The Nemesis's flanks. The wing thrusters expanded into massive missile launchers, each payload powerful enough to flatten a metropolis.

The cockpit windshield morphed: it stretched longer, and its ends pointed up farther to form a scowling chevron like a livid eye slit. The cockpit itself grew away from the body on a massive telescopic shaft. The nose cone separated in two halves like an enraged orifice. The lower half screeched down, the cockpit now capable of cleaving buildings in two or chewing without smacking its lips unlike some Appetites. The upper half sprouted two headlights like glowing nostrils that flared light down at the knights.

All eight rear thrusters receded into the butt, and in their place emerged a tail, at its end a ball the size of whatever was nineteen feet in diameter. Yard-long spikes shushed out of it. Able to swing with enough force to crush that ski hill, the ball crashed to the ground on a cylindrical tail.

The clamor ended. Everything dropped to silence except for the dwindling echoes of The Nemesis's dooming transformation. It was no longer rooster only in decoration. It was rooster in form. In capacity to annihilate. In retribution.

Master Asinine raised his chin. Only a fraction. He glared down the shaft of his nose. "Meet your ruin, Continuum.

"Meet Cornflakes."

"Cornflakes? I'd been building a food item this whole time?" Reef stumbled backward over a rock. "And why does a rooster have four legs?"

"It's a weight-distribution thing. Otherwise the front is too heavy, and it'll tip o—" Master Asinine wagged his hand. "We'll talk later. Right now, let's wreck stuff."

Cornflakes rumbled forward. The hulking monster crunched a divot into the grass. Stones danced. Trees trembled. Ski-lift chairs swayed. And Master Asinine looked forward to the annihilation this apocalyptic rooster wound bring, because wasn't that what life was all about?

Chapter Twenty-Two: That Sinking Feeling Is the Life Raft Deflating

Organism was reduced to tears and tattered breathing now, so he'd shrunk to the edge of the dome. Legion's heart cringed for him with every sob. Incendiary sat by him, but Legion had to prep their remaining Tinfoil in the hopes that twenty-six people would fit aboard it and Chug.

Twenty-six people. In two mil-trans, one of which fit only twelve. The other was built to fit thirty, but then it was rebuilt and broken down and rebuilt and broken down and rebuilt as a parade float and broken down and rebuilt again and so on until it fit only a bunch of dogs and their walker. And the walker was a big if. Maybe they could pick Withered Old Battle-Axe up on the way back. She wouldn't notice they'd left.

Legion tapped Bullet's shoulder. "I'm thinking about the division of transports."

Bullet swung around with that glower she wore by default. "Uh huh?" She hung a hand off her blocky neck. Her other hand clutched a knight's helmet. "And, pray tell, what are you thinking?"

"We had the capacity for twenty-four people on our two Tinfoils. Now we're down to twelve on one Tinfoil. We can stuff fifteen of us in it, maybe sixteen until it's standing room only. Any more than that, and people start bumping into the pilot and navigator. I'm asking if we can"—Bullet was already shaking her head—"put some of us on Chug. Come on. We can't just strand people here."

"I don't take strays or hitchhikers." Bullet blinked at the Purple Nurple. "Or billboards."

"Or anybody." H2O passed by.

Legion huffed. "Were you born in a dark alley?"

"No, but I went to school in one." Of course.

Organism had stood. Fist to mouth as if to hold in raging despair, he plodded figure eights around the starships. Incendiary tried to keep up.

Was Bullet always so impossible? Legion didn't want to exert his military authority, but he would if she kept refusing. "We can't stuff twenty-six people into a Tinfoil. Some of us have to ride in Chug."

"When pigs fly."

"Multipurpose came here in a bomb shelter."

"Then when Hell freezes over." Bullet combed her tongue along her teeth. Her eyes found the Bad Guys still restrained at gunpoint. "Leave them behind." She squeaked a gnarled side of the knight's helmet into a spiral. "Especially the one that looks like a deflating blob. He's melting over that boulder. Is he digesting it from the outside?"

Now was Legion's turn to shake his head. "I'm not leaving criminals alone on IP property. Besides, nobody knows they're here. If we don't make it back, we'd be condemning them to die."

"I—don't—care." Bullet thrust her all-attitude face at Legion. She snapped the helmet in half. The iron helmet that could resist a sword. "My people won't like it."

"Are you two discussing the carpool situation?" Puttyman was strolling by with a thruster pipe bobbing over his shoulder. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and let loose a piercing whistle. "Organism, Pincushion, Incendiary, my dudes. You're riding with us." He strutted past Pincushion and slapped a high five.

"My brother." Pincushion caught Puttyman's down-low.

Bullet sighed. Legion pictured an angel and a devil shadowboxing on her shoulders. "Ffffine." Her lip bounced off her teeth with that word. "We'll take Pincushion and those other two."

"That still leaves sixteen people and Workshop's backpack in the Tinfoil versus your ten." Legion glanced at Organism: his stomps crunched louder. "I'd feel more comfortable if we evened the rides out a bit."

"And I'd feel more comfortable if Maul found a hobby. But that's all you get." Bullet flung one of the helmet halves aside. It whacked the Purple Nurple in the stomach. He collapsed like a sandbag.

Bullet pointed at Legion. "The only reason we're here at all is because the aswang is on the other side of that wormhole. I'm not letting any Bad Guys on my craft. Or anybody from your weird Gooder Guys side team." Workshop skipped past, chirping a tune only she knew. "I can't even grasp what's up with that one." She blocked Legion's response with a palm. "Don't tell me. It's better if I don't know."

"Can you take one or two more?" Legion had had babysitters like Bullet. "To balance things out? Better Than You's tolerable if you overlook"—shrug—"him."

"We'll take you." Bullet gripped the remaining half of the helmet in a palm that darkened to deep orange. "Pincushion promised us an aswang for rescuing you, and until it's ours, I don't want you out of my sight. That makes the balance eleven to fifteen. There. You're below your sixteen maximum. Happy?"

"Something like that." Legion pursed his li—

"We need to make sure this works, because if Continuum unleashes that aswang, you can't hold it back. It keeps eating, and it doesn't know portion control."

"Nice imagery."

"So if I don't have that aswang, it's your head." Bullet stormed off and whipped the last half of the helmet into the Purple Nurple, who had struggled to his feet but collapsed again. "Okay, Blowtorch, we're at liftoff in five minutes. That aswang isn't coming to us, and I don't want that wormhole shutting before we get our chance. Pincushion, blubbering mess, robot—"

"I'm actually a guy in a robot suit."

"—I don't care if you're a guy in a cardboard cutout. You three are with me. The rest of you, in the Tinfoil."

"The suit comes with pop-out roller skates." Incendiary flaunted his chest out.

"That doesn't make it any better."

Legion chuffed at Bullet's back. Didn't she understand the stakes here?

He walked over to Plastique, who still supervised the Bad Guys and barely contained the rage to beat them with her rifle. "Courtney, Pincushion and I are riding in Chug. You'll lead the team on the Tinfoil. Franchise can pilot as long as he doesn't have to parallel-park on the other side."

Plastique saluted. "Ten-four, commander." Detritus flinched an escape attempt, so she snapped her rifle up. "Don't even think about it in your bite-sized brain."

Multipurpose perked up. "Bite-sized?"

Organism slammed inflated fists on the Tinfoil's embarking ramp. "Let's go already!" If he'd done that to Chug, Legion doubted the ramp would have survived. Or the rest of the starship.

Detritus wrenched his hand away from Multipurpose. "Hey, my arm ain't bite-sized."

"It's noodle-shaped!" Multipurpose roared.

* * *

Bullet stared down Legion's back. Didn't he understand the stakes here? The blind military troglodyte. He wasn't there when Blowtorch had followed the aswang to a penal moon. Back then, it had taken form as a thundermammal. In two hours, it had cleaned out 1,211 prisoners, 262 guards, 73 staff, and 190 bags of cheese doodles, all eviscerated and feasted on. Well, not the cheese doodles. They were just feasted on. Point was the aswang had slaughtered at a rate of one person every four seconds and stolen all the snacks.

And it grew more powerful and hungrier every time it ate.

By the time Bullet and Blowtorch had arrived, the moon smelled like a mass grave. No one had survived, and orange cheese dust speckled every surface.

The team gutted the aswang thanks to a sidepiece Puttyman whipped up for Maul called Blatant Disregard. The aswang was so powerful, so hungry, so determined that Blatant Disregard's fusion onslaught had to mash the aswang against a wall and keep a bellowing beam focused for fourteen minutes before even breaking the aswang's hide. But Blatant Disregard obliterated it. And several load-bearing structures, but everyone got out of the rubble fairly intact. Unfortunately, the aswang's brain and heart were attached to the same piece, and it resurrected an hour later. Number-one rule about the aswang: separate the heart and the brain, or it wouldn't stay dead.

It escaped and slaughtered again.

And IP wanted the weapon for their own. If they used it, they'd renege on the Hyperability Injunction, a wartime law they themselves enacted to prevent hyperpeople from serving in battle. Ever since the Perseus War Hyperability Incident, hyperpeople were banned from the battlefront. Impossible to govern all those different powersets on a galactic stage. Some idiot had discharged a bomb using his hyperability, a bomb that vaporized a civilian suburb…with Bullet's daughter and husband in it. That event brought the military might of several galaxies seething at Stratus Cloud, so IP had no choice but to enact the Injunction to maintain rickety peace.

When IP stumbled across the aswang, of course they wanted to harness it. Those morons. That would break any intergalactic treaty they'd earned. But you couldn't harness the aswang. It slaughtered everyone and ate every cheese doodle everywhere it went.

And, on board Chug, the members of Blowtorch had the likeliest weapon capable of killing that aswang. If anything happened to that beastly starship, no hope in the universe would save them.

So Legion didn't understand the stakes at all. And he wasn't leaving Bullet's sight until that aswang was hers. No one would use that monster. Not Continuum, not IP, not anyone. The Injunction kept untrained and idiotic hyperpeople from evaporating more city blocks. Bullet's husband and daughter hadn't died so that power-mad generals could tear their sacrifices to shreds. How dare IP try to exploit an aswang you couldn't exploit?

Bad enough they'd hired a guy who was proud of pop-out roller skates.

It was Legion's head.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Poultry Apocalypse

Cornflakes advanced. With every thunderclap stomp, it crashed down wrath and darling rooster claws. Master Asinine kept a careful distance behind the legs and dead center. Being roadkill was terrible for your back.

He almost barked a laugh. Instead, he barked an order into the gabber. "Brainiac, show these idiots what happens when Cornflakes gives them the stink eye."

"Da, tovarich."

"My fine cluckers, ease back into the slick tan of my nostril beams. Feels like a warm hug," Cluck said through the speaker embedded inside its beak. The nose cone's headlights clicked from yellow high beams to red lasers. They crackled lines that lit the grass like a wildfire and ignited the night sky. Knights melted to congealed messes. Heh. That was what happened when you got underfoot. If they thought that was bad, they'd hate when Cornflakes laid an egg. Roosters laid eggs, right?

The acrobat in the fencing outfit leaped off his piggyback as the knight disintegrated into slag. He hopped onto another, then another and another and swept the air as if swiping with a fencing sword. From his sweep, daggerlike icicles shot out and crackled against Cornflakes's leg. He bounded off his last knight and barreled forward like a gorilla. He leaped—Schizophrenic smacked him as his arc peaked. He sprawled into a ditch.

Meanwhile, Master Asinine Sucks pointed up and blasted two celebratory shots from his six-shooter. He was buffing those bullet holes out of Cornflakes's belly once they got back home.

"That ain't copacetic, my cool entity Master Asinine Sucks. Let's make friends, not war." Cornflakes hummed another eyebeam through a knight. "I've got a tummy ache that ain't jive."

"Watch out, junior thugs. You don't want to get under any of those claws." Master Asinine leaned forward as he advanced. And then tripped into one of Cornflakes's footprints. He leaped out. "I'm up."

"No, you're not." Schizophrenic shoved him back in.

Master Asinine leaped out again. "Anyway, keep advancing. I want to see what's on the other side of that ski hill." He jerked his chin at the sprawling slopes that split into hiking trails. "Let's find out what's going on up there, maybe take in the double diamonds."

"But, sir, you can't ski." Lieutenant IQ 23 hoofed up behind him. Of course Braindead came. Of course. If IQ 23 were a motorcycle, Braindead was the sidecar. "Last time you did, you broke an arm. It was mine. Also there's no snow here."

"Hey, once I clamp them skis on and yell 'look out below,' it's up to you to look out above." Clear the bunny slopes.

Continuum didn't scramble around like the knights. In fact, he looked amused, even when Cornflakes painted the landscape with a venomous stare and a fiery blast, back and forth in serpentine strokes. He simply swept a hand in the same shape to snuff the crackling fires.

Another double shot snapped into the air. A light in Cornflakes's underbelly shattered. Master Asinine felt a vein pulse in his forehead. "That's it. As soon as we're done here, a certain cowboy's on fixit duty."

Whichever knights managed through Cornflakes's hate stare converged on Asinine. Schizophrenic belted one aside, and it smashed against rocks. As if reclining in a couch, Bad Aim lifted his hoverdisc and sucked another through the turbine. Braindead separated a helmet with a quick shot. Appetite just snarled them back. Did that thing even chew?

The fencing acrobat somersaulted up. He galloped on all fours over metallic shoulders, threw another volley of icicles, and backflipped for cover when Braindead retaliated with a volley of his own.

"Entity enemies, taste my boogie-woogie. And this woogie is smooth silk, burning fire, and heaping love," Cluck said. Burrowing out waves of grass and bugs, the laser beams ignited a trench of compacted dirt to reveal a layer of pavement below. What was under this terrain?

Master Asinine grabbed his pistol. He kicked aside a knight who came at him with a pole he assumed hooked performers off stage when the Applause-o-Meter sank below "halfhearted patter." He grabbed the pole and stabbed it between the neck seams of another knight's armor. The knight broke into pieces, and a wisp of smoke hissed away. Next.

Something slammed him aside. He clapped against Cornflakes's telescopic rooster leg and onto the solid-steel foot, right on the talon. Something in his shoulder popped. His vision kneaded horizontally-vertically-diagonally. He blinked up at a scene that had darkened even in Cornflakes's underbelly lamps. Who stood above him? Whoever it was wore steel-toe boots. Not fair, because one of them kicked him in the ribs. Up those steel-toe boots grew candlewax legs in non-steel-toe khakis, which joined at a waist wearing a non-steel-toe-but-steel-buckle belt, and then a form-fitting sleeveless would-be-weird-if-it-were-steel shirt. Actually, it'd be cool if it were steel. "Lieutenant, can you take a fashion memo?"

Plaster, that steel-toe turncoat. Asinine's former heavy-handed grunt loomed with paws poised for pounding and face poised for ugly grinning. Asinine threw his hands over his head, poised for not getting hammered. Now to enchant his way out of this. "Plaster, you idiot, you injured one of my lucky shoulders." For some reason, that didn't work.

"I don't give a crock what I do to your lucky shoulders. Right now I'm gonna beat a hole through your lucky face." Plaster yanked Asinine up by the collar.

"Doesn't feel lucky right now." Asinine hung, feet kicking, arms clutching Plaster's slimy forearm. He spotted Master Asinine Sucks yahoo-blast two more light-bullets into the sky. Did that bumpkin think they were fighting birds?

Plaster cranked back a hand, two fingers and a thumb sticking out. "I'm gonna use your head for bowlin'."

"Good luck. My nose is a bit big."

"Servant Plaster," Continuum boomed. Oh, crap. The head honcho was here. Wait. Bad choice of words considering Plaster's bowling plans. The head chief was here. Nope, switched out the wrong word. The head head was here. Wrong again.

"Let me deal with this trespasser." Continuum puckered something out of his teeth. He held a beige pouch, from which he produced a snack that he tossed into his mouth. Snacking in the middle of a fight? Well, Asinine never. The guy had chutzpah, but still.

"Long as I get t' watch." Plaster dropped Asinine on his shoulder. He was out of lucky shoulders now.

Continuum let go of his pouch, which disappeared. He lifted his hand, and Master Asinine shot up, held by an invisible grip instead of Plaster's gunky one. Time to dive aside, roll up, and blast a hole in Continuum's face. A move he learned in combat training. He thrashed but couldn't dive aside, roll up, or blast a hole. Fine. He'd stay put. A move he learned in statue training.

With a swagger in his step, Continuum advanced, dusting his hands of his snack. However he dealt with trespassers, Asinine hoped it was less knocking him in the shoulder and more sharing from that pouch.

Lieutenant IQ 23 barreled at Continuum from behind. Continuum's gaze didn't stray as he flicked his fingers. IQ 23 ricocheted into a patch of grass that had peeled back to reveal more pavement.

Continuum gripped Asinine's cheek with that same hand, Asinine who still dangled frozen while the battle clanked, thudded, and yo-yo-yoed around him. And if Bad Aim stopped yoing for just one melee, the media wouldn't call the Bad Guys the least coherent criminal organization in the galaxy.

"You should have stayed far away." Continuum's hand remained on Asinine's cheek.

"You should have trimmed your nose hairs before you left the house. Do you do a lot of yardwork? You have calluses. You should use gloves. I asked my chiropractor about that once, and he said, 'That's really not my field.' And then he called me an intelligence tripwire, because my chiropractor is Schizophrenic." Asinine gulped. "Schizophrenic doesn't have a license to practice medicine."

"I have a license to kill, intelligence tripwire." Schizophrenic ripped a knight in two and tossed both halves away. Black smoke whispered out of its faceplate.

Master Asinine peered down at Continuum's sneer. He struggled to throw a punch like his hero, the kangaroo. About as useful as Appetite's leash. "I'd love to get down now." He shifted his eyes to Continuum's hand, still at his cheek. Stranger danger.

Continuum's sneer sneered sneerier. He gripped Asinine's cheek tighter and twisted hotly. Ow, ow, ow, eeeee, ow. Stranger emergency.

"You were warned not to trespass. I detest such gore, but now I must impress upon you what happens to people who don't heed warnings." Continuum hissed the words, and every hiss carried the scent of frosted berry bread. "Unfortunately you will not live to learn your lesson." Great, one more class Asinine was getting an F in.

Behind Continuum, something snapped. And flickered. What…? That twerpy kid vaulted up, hands elevated as if he refereed a field goal. Between those hands, he wielded a crackling circle. He threw his hands down over Continuum's head, and—

Master Asinine hit the ground. Right on the shoulder. Crap, hadn't his shoulders had enough? Twinges speckled in his joints, stars looped in his vision, and when they dispersed, Continuum and the twerpy kid had vanished. The battle clanked around him, but the only remainder of Continuum was Asinine's fiery cheek, two wrenched shoulders, and a hankering for berry bread.

Schizophrenic grabbed Asinine's arm and wrenched him to his feet. "Your chiropractor's advice is to get up, intelligence tripwire."

* * *

Continuum toppled backward into…where was he? His throne hall?

He collapsed into the side of his throne. His back would have cracked on the armrest, but the throne molded against him like unbaked dough. Half a second ago, a battle raged around him, and he was one twitch away from snapping Master Asinine's neck as if it were a chopstick. Now, here. What had happened? Transit fell to the carpet. Transit had happened.

Across the room, something flopped into the wall. A doll. It murmured its discontent by creaking out a spooky "mama." Ripsaw and Wyvern had taken to hurling them at each other lately. A dispute over too much time spent in the shared bathroom. Ripsaw expended way too long polishing his arm blades, and Wyvern, the Civil War–era slave, still marveled at indoor plumbing.

"Come back here, ya stinkin' pinko." Ripsaw wielded another talking doll. A racist who yelled "pinko" when his own complexion was pink and Wyvern's was russet.

Continuum vaulted to his feet, not with his legs but by deflecting gravity under himself. He seethed—Transit scurried back—hit the wall—threw arms up—Continuum grabbed him—not with his hand but with a yank of atoms—brought the boy whimpering face to sneer—deflected another doll.

Everyone watched. Ripsaw, Wyvern, Marionette who again teased her locks with Continuum's horsehair brush, Gangrene who piddled in the corner despite those expensive obedience classes, Necropolis. Ripsaw rubbed his hands, hoping to see a pinko get skinned, offering to do the skinning. Continuum wished Ripsaw would offer to walk Gangrene once in a while.

"You interfered with my assault." Continuum stared Transit down through one malevolent eye. "Why?"

Transit blubbered, kicking in his midair shackles. He gripped at his throat. Continuum didn't strangle him, but he nevertheless pried at the nothing that held him. "The…th-the Bad Guys…they…were"—he dribbled tears—"They…I was afraid their giant robot chicken's eyes would hug you."

"It is a rooster."

Transit stopped kicking. "What's the difference?"

"A larger wattle." Continuum flared his nostrils with another breath. "And pointier feathers. And a different color pattern and a whole host of characteristics." Another seething nostril breath. "You're lying. I can read the chemical reactions in your mind by interacting with the electromagnetic force. You weren't afraid for me." Another breath. He hoped Transit tasted the stink of Crunch Berries in the back of his throat. "You were afraid for them."

Transit's hands stopped clawing at his neck. He throttled a snivel and peeked through his fingers. "I…I didn't want to watch another dismemberment."

"I do not enjoy it either, but pain and dismemberment send a message." Continuum blocked another talking doll. "And, Servant Ripsaw, if you throw one more toy, I will flay you. Of all things, why talking dolls? And where do you even find them?" He deflected Teddy Ruxpin.

A click pittered from the rocky ceiling. "My dear entity Master Continuum." Legacy had entered. He appeared on the wall behind Transit, eyes closed and heels snapped together, framed in a motivational poster: TALKING DOLLS ARE GOOD LISTENERS. His mustache twitched as he spoke through a mouth that didn't open. "I so hate to interrupt your disciplining, which is much more entertaining than the drivel on the Home and Renovation Network. However, the Good Guys will soon depart from their meteor location. They will surely head here with perhaps a stop at Space Cow. One of their ilk has already arrived, the elder entity Organism." Ah, the straggler in the Tinfoil that Continuum had seen earlier.

Was it too much to ask that Continuum be left alone to conquer everything? Must he put up a fence and a No Trespassers sign? He mulled Legacy's news over with a snarl. And a Crunch Berry. Yes, a Crunch Berry that he rolled around his tongue.

He swallowed the morsel and dropped Transit. "Fine. Looks as if other interlopers deserve my attention. Servant Wyvern, please polish my trophy while I'm busy." He jerked a thumb at Hearse, embedded in the wall behind the throne. "Servant Transit, never interfere again." He roared. His hand shot up, and he ripped a knight into pieces. "Or I will flay you myself." His eyes lit so violently they were red with wrath. He spoke through his teeth.

Transit spilled back into the dismantled knight.

Continuum marched to his throne hall's majestic exit. He had to fortify against the elder Organism and the other trespassers to follow. "Also, if you need to study animals, we can find you an old See 'n Say."

"Lemme massage this punk." Ripsaw ran a finger along an arm blade. "I use hot oils, pinko."

"Servant Ripsaw, do not assume to threaten anyone. You have heated arguments with documentaries." Continuum kicked a doll aside. "And what have I said about using my massage oils?"

Chapter Twenty-Four: Holding Everyone's Sanity for Ransom

She blurted awake, thrashing around…what did she lay on? She slapped a hand onto…a pillow. A pillowed stretcher.

Bursts of blue and swarms of pink swirled the room. Gray polka dots orbited a central green star. Master Asinine had definitely helped paint this room. Francine blinked. Maybe blinking would resolve this mess. Nope. In fact, blinking made it worse. Now those dots wore happy faces. Bubblegum pop grated through a speaker.

Lockers stood against one wall. Showers lined the opposite wall. Benches sprouted from epoxy floors. A changing room. This was the medical bay. Everything smelled sterile, like the brains that used to operate the Bad Guys.

She swung her legs off the stretcher and planted her feet on the floor. She propped herself on the edge of the stretcher but tumbled to the side. Crock. She examined her stumpy wrist. Right. Something had taken her hand. She clenched her phantom fist as if it still sat at the end of her arm. She'd get it back. Well, not literally. It was crushed to bone dust and flaps of skin. Figuratively. For now, she needed a drink. The hard variety. And a prosthetic fist. The harder variety.

She rubbed her eyes with a thumb and index finger. The music rose into a shrill panic about what boys some singer would find at the junkyard. In Francine's teen years, she'd bullied boys until they did something stupid and then dated whomever got off on the insanity plea. These days, the insanity plea applied only to Asinine.

A fellow generic busied himself by a sink, washing something under a crash of water. Francine attempted a word that came out hoarse. More grunting. "Hhhech." Then, "Hey, you." Still raspy, but at least words.

The generic lumbered around to face her. Rafael. He held exposed wires. He was rinsing exposed wires. "Uh, hi." His slack-jawed expression made Francine stupider by exposure.

"Never mind." Over to the left, there was—aha. Val. Val at least knew what mixed well with water. Francine stood, but her heels slid out, legs unprepared to sustain weight yet. She grabbed the edge of the stretcher, hauled herself up, and made sure she stood.

Ready, legs? Good. Francine wobbled forward a few steps. She toppled onto a bench but righted herself. Her head still tingled from the blood loss. "Val, what happened?"

Val turned around. She was all of five feet tall. Freckles shouted brightly, and a red ponytail flopped against her collarbone. It blended with her generics' shirt. Her face opened with surprise at Francine. "Bein, good. You are 'wake."

Francine waited for the zap by the sink to fade. Something thunked to the floor. The water kept whooshing. "How did I get here?"

With those hardline eyes, Val gestured at Francine's wrist. "You lose ze hand and zen black out. Then Monsieur Reef, 'e tell someone to bring you down 'ere to be 'ealed."

Francine whirled at the exit but almost toppled over a pair of legs twitching on the floor. "Crock, I have to get back to the cockpit."

"No, no. You must stay." Val tugged Francine back by the shoulder. "Monsieur Reef and Monsieur Esinine, they both go down to ze ground. Dehors."

"Crock, Asinine is free?"

"Oui, 'E make deal with Monsieur Reef to fix Nemesis sheep."

"It's a starship."

"Is spacesheep. Well, it become rooster mode now."

"Rooster mode? What the crock is a rooster mode?"

"Esinine make sheep into rooster mode. It transform. Now Esinine and Reef make deal. Now Esinine is free, and they explore outside."

"Crock." Francine smashed a fist—guess which—into the bench. Smashed the fist into it again. "Crock!"

Val licked her lips. "You fall in love with zis word crock?"

The starship had transformed into a rooster? Francine had to find out more about that. She snorted, heat rising. And Asinine was free. Everything the generics had worked toward was draining down the sink that wouldn't stop running. She thumped her foot into Rafael's ankle. She had to get back to the cockpit.

"Rafael, wake up." She tromped over him, heel on convulsing crotch, and to the l door. It disappeared to let her rage-stomp into the hallway. Asinine wouldn't get away with getting away.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Never Mind the Stains

Incendiary finally knew what a pig roast smelled like to the pig. He clambered into Chug, to the middle of the passenger deck in front of a weird shower curtain that split this part off from the rear of the deck, where he assumed was a volcano sacrifice. Sounded like one back there, anyway, with that thumping. He coughed on his own breath. Even his suit's air filters couldn't compete with whatever he inhaled. And who hung a shower curtain in a starship? Also, who hung a shower curtain of bulldogs? "Janice, acknowledge. Increase the odor filters."

Nobody said anything. Well, Speed Line did but only to ask Puttyman for another pudding.

H2O kissed his watery fingers and tapped them on a dashboard hula girl. He clicked a button on the piloting console, and this caused a roar of thrusters that came from everywhere instead of only the rear. A screw popped out of the wall and plinked onto the cockpit floor where a carpet had been peeled off. Puttyman scrambled to put the screw back in.

H2O tapped another button and spun a dial. The dial spun out and rolled away. "Okay, ride fans. We're at liftoff in ninety seconds, so find a seat. And if anyone smells charcoal, put the fire out."

"What if we smell methane?" Pincushion asked.

"Methane's normal. Butane isn't."

"Propane?"

"Does it smell yellow?"

Pincushion sniffed. "How does propane smell yellow?"

Where was Janice? Incendiary bit his lip. "Janice, acknowledge. Increase the odor filters. I don't want to smell yellow propane." He sat down on…Well, now it was a wicker mess of splinters. Great.

"Hey, robot with the pop-out roller skates." Bullet roared at Incendiary from somewhere. From the rear? From the side? From above?

"Actually I'm a person in a robot suit."

"Are you a chair repairperson in a robot suit? Then stop destroying the furniture."

"Bullet hates it when you destroy the furniture." Also Sediment wandered behind the shower curtain to the volcano sacrifice.

"Bullet also hates it when you wear boots inside." Maul dropped his eyes to Incendiary's robotic feet. He and his unlit cigar followed Also Sediment into the rear. He carried an armful of pudding cups. "No, you already ate four."

Speed Line hopped at his ankles, whirling his arms around to snatch a cup away. "C'mon, c'mon, Mom said it was okay."

"I told you to have an apple," H2O said.

"It smells purple back here. Is that okay?" Legion looked at a sidewalk slab patching a hole.

"Liftoff in thirty." H2O strummed watery fingers over more buttons, clacked a lever up, and then thwacked the grumble that rose from the piloting console. "Down, girl."

Incendiary said, "Janice? Acknowledge? Ping dash T one-hundred-twenty-seven zero zero one?"

He heard a pouty hrmph. Janice's hrmph, which sounded as if she crossed her arms. Was it something he said? Not only was he bad at talking to girls, now he was bad at talking to computer girls.

"Janice, acknowledge. Report error."

Finally, Janice popped into Incendiary's heads-up display. "We came so close to my entity Acey. So close." She whirled away from Incendiary but fired her dark-blue eyes over her shoulder. "He was fourteen point six eight feet from us." Now she reeled at him, and her mouth exploded open with shark's teeth. "And you didn't say a thing!"

Incendiary couldn't believe this. "I was unconscious!" Pacemaker wandered past him with a weird glance and a wide berth, so he jerked his chin. "Hey, what's up? Just chatting with myself."

"That's how it starts." Pacemaker kept his hands close to his sides.

Incendiary stuffed a glove over his mouth plate to muffle himself. "Janice, acknowledge. What will it take for you to not make me embarrass myself?"

"Tell my entity smoochie Acey I'm here. Open a gabber connection to his robot brain. That's what."

"He knows you're here. He's in the other starship."

"I watched him canoodle up with that hussy, entity Plastique. They were making eyes at each other. Mirroring each other's body language. Leaning into each other. Sharing oxygen and other gases. Sharing nitrogen. That's the lovers' gas."

"Initiating liftoff in ten." H2O slapped a palm over a trackpad on the left of the pilot's display. Puttyman slapped a palm over a flame that peeked out from under the navigation console. He didn't even look. He just knew it was there.

Incendiary faced the wall. "Janice, acknowledge. I'm not having this discussion while we're in the middle of launching an attack."

"Then you're not moving."

"Hold up there. What?" Kneecaps clacked stiff, elbows snapped into immovable columns, neck joint stopped rotating. Incendiary tried shifting his limbs or cocking his head. Nothing. He hadn't been this locked together since he'd been stuffed into a janitor's closet at school.

Chug's controls were so ancient, they had a flight stick. "And we're off." H2O yanked back on this flight stick. It came out of its column. "Crock. It happened again."

"I'm on that, dude." Puttyman slid a screwdriver out of his toolbelt and spun it in his hand like a showman spun a drumstick. He used it to stab loose wires back down the column.

Chug jerked up at such a severe angle that Incendiary spilled back like a statue toppling off its base. Pincushion bowled back as well and rolled under the shower curtain. In a furious roar, the starship shot at the dome above. Or at least Incendiary assumed. He was staring at the ceiling.

"In space, everybody. Feel free to move about the cabin, but observe the fasten-seatbelt sign. Heh. Kidding. None of them work." H2O cleared his throat, which sounded like waters trundling over stone. "Also, Incendiary, feel free to continue your argument with yourself."

"I'm not arguing!" Incendiary said to the ceiling. "I'm matchmaking!"

"Whatever you're doing, fix that chair," Bullet said from wherever.

* * *

Puttyman splashed a hand on H2O's shoulder. "Gimme a second, dude."

Amid the white noise of Chug's flight and the cough of its thrusters, he wandered to the midsection of the passenger deck where Organism sat isolated, face at the floor and shadowed in gloom. Puttyman aimed to fix that. You'd just have to watch.

"Dude, mind if I sit?" Puttyman twined his head down to Organism's level.

Organism shifted over.

Puttyman sat and reeled his neck back in. "You all right?"

Organism sniffled. His eyes looked tender with emotion. "I told my own dad to crock off, and he did. So I'm just dandy."

Puttyman sputtered a chortle. "That's nothing. When my dad didn't lend me the civ-tran, I wrapped myself around him until he passed out and then took it anyway. You telling your dad to crock off is amateur hour."

Organism didn't laugh.

"I just want to check on something, one elastic dude to another." Puttyman scratched the back of his neck. Speaking of dads, he was far from one, despite what Speed Line called him. He'd be a horrible dad. He was already a horrible son. You see, he hadn't talked to his dad in years. "Remember, when we first met, we talked about hiding in our hyperabilities? That, if we're not careful, dudes like us end up forgetting how to shape back into the real us?"

Organism's arms hung off his knees. "Yup. I remember that."

"You forgot how to." Puttyman thumbed his nose. "Didn't you?"

"Sure did." Organism found a crack in the ceiling where the metal sheets rubbed against each other. Fine patchwork, if you knew the repair dude well enough. "Dad told me to change my image so vigilante talent scouts would take me more seriously. So I changed from overweight, acned outcast to …" He spread his arms to display himself. "…this forgery."

"You hid. Maybe your dad told you to, but you really did it because you hated being that outcast. Then you regretted what you changed into even more. And now you can't remember how to change back, so you have no choice but to keep hiding when all you want is to show everybody who you are underneath the show." Puttyman raised an eyebrow. "Like me."

"I even made myself about seven inches taller. Everyone thought I'd taken overnight steroids or put on a holographic costume. I had no choice but to out myself as a hyperperson. Nobody at school believed me until I proved it." Organism blinked back a tear. "Dad thought it'd make me more confident. It just made me more insecure, because I knew it wasn't me. I was some scared fat kid in a muscle suit. I still am. I blamed Dad for it, and I lost it on him. I told him to leave me alone. So he did." He cuffed his knee. "Careful what you wish for."

Puttyman chewed on the inside of his cheek. He could do that. He was rubbery, if you didn't know already. "We'll get him back." The shifting metal sheets squeaked.

"You know this?"

"Yeah, I do." Puttyman leaned back on spiderwebs. "Because what else are you gonna believe? That he's lost forever? Losing faith in stuff is stupid. It makes you give up. Besides, dude, you got me helping. We elastic dudes stick together."

Behind the shower curtain, Maul roared. "Crock, which one o' you milksops unclogged the toilet with Crying Shame?"

"And you got Crying Shame helping too."

* * *

Legion felt his collar where his necklace used to sit, what he used to grab when he needed courage. He used to run his finger along the bullet hole in it. Losing faith was stupid, eh? Ha. It was enlightening. Well, okay, maybe that wasn't the word. Cathartic? Liberating. Actually, a little empty, if he was honest with himself. Sour. Scary. … Lonely.

Wrong.

He sure could use a hand out here.

* * *

Plastique dropped into the navigator's chair of their Tinfoil, a mil-tran they had hastily named Friznatch because that was what Klee had screeched at it. Not sure if they could trust that creature to name things since, two minutes prior, he was lapping water from a destroyed shower stall as if drinking from the hose. That was bathwater, soldier.

Franchise sat at the piloting computer, Amaranthia behind him rubbing his shoulder. He stabbed buttons, clenched dials, and spat commands at the haunt control with stiff syllables and hopping sniffles. When the starship didn't comply with one of his orders, he threatened to pour soda over the consoles. It had never before said "Command not recognized" so nervously.

Withered Old Battle-Axe made sure Detritus and Multipurpose weren't up to no good. You wouldn't peg her as the prison-guard type, but she wielded a rolling pin, and she knew how to use it.

Plastique watched Station One's atmospheric bubble charge at them like a battering ram. Friznatch sliced toward it so quickly that a blink brought it several scales closer. She hadn't traveled this fast since Colonel Daddy had enrolled her in g-force training in her summer break after grade one.

She tapped Franchise's shoulder. "Field agent, this doesn't feel like regulation approach speed. We need to reduce speed to…" She examined the navigator's computer, not that she could read these things. "We're flying at tooth zebra divided by pig snouts per avocado?"

"Klee boarded first." Franchise clenched his teeth. "The haunt control defaulted to his language, and its closest guess was emojis."

"Is that why the haunt control made my seat a top hat?" Plastique glanced around the displays that showed a burst of smiling animals, a pretzel, a jack-o'-lantern, a…was that an emoji version of Master Asinine? "Default the language back. That wormhole is coming up in eight pianos. Luzimoss, predict what's happening."

"Don't look at me." Luzimoss shifted around on his seat. "I'm trying to predict a comfortable position on a bale of hay."

"Count yourself lucky." On an undersized playroom chair, Sixth Sense's knees whacked his chin.

Withered Old Battle-Axe slapped Detritus. "Young who's-it, show respect for your whatchamacallits. I brought you into this world"—she slapped again—"and I can't remember the start of my sentence."

Detritus shrank back and massaged a hand-shaped welt on his cheek. "Yes, ma'am. Of course, ma'am."

Franchise slammed his palm over another button. "I have no idea where to find the language setting."

"Then talk to the haunt control." Plastique searched her sun visor for a language setting. Was that where they kept the buttons? She found dried gum.

Franchise poked two fingers over the trackpad and smeared left to shift the starship's flight. "Not a chance. It took me way too many umpires just to switch the verbal audio. I think it's set to Virillian." A snarl rumbled the cockpit deck, and Ace Spandex ducked an auditory bird attack.

Plastique recomposed herself after the echoes subsided. "But Virillians don't speak. They growl." Another sound rumbled through the deck. "And hiss." A quack. "I don't know which ones do that."

"It's okay, babe. Ain't no one, like, needs to get spoken at in Virillian?" Amaranthia worked her hand up to the base of Franchise's neck. "Or French. You ever park in a French guy's spot? They gitch at ya, like, zut alors and whatevaire and stuff."

"So we're guessing our way through the wormhole?" Never before had Plastique felt the urge to throw her hands in front of her face to prevent a crash at seventy-nine smiles per barstool. "How do we know the other side of that wormhole isn't four feet off the ground? Or eight lightning bolts off a genie bottle?"

"No worries, my lovely. I got you." Better Than You slid his hand over hers and fluttered playful eyes.

Plastique shoved that look away, palm over face. "Go do other things anywhere else."

Catastrophe guided Better Than You aside. "Careful with Courtney. Her favorite color is cartilage."

"I hope the wormhole opens up straight into Continuum's crock." Franchise diverted his icy sneer for only a second when he raked a hand over an array of buttons.

The starship veered left, and a quiver of arrows rolled to the side. The Purple Nurple chased after his chair.

Withered Old Battle-Axe raised her rolling pin at Better Than You. He threw his hands up. "Hey, I'm not a whosamacallit. I'm on your side!" Despite his protests, she attacked as though he were raw cookie batter.

The wormhole was so close now that Plastique saw the swirling detail in its surface, like an empty snow globe with a storm pattern. Inside that pattern, Chug had smeared into the green-and-navy center.

Plastique sucked in a deep breath. Friznatch approached…approached…slurped through the bubble. The gelatin surface smeared across the windshield, down the Tinfoil's length, and off the tail and thrusters.

She whirled around at the passengers. "For those of you in seats, activate the inertia fields. We've penetrated the bubble, and we'll enter the wormhole in five, four, three hockey nets." She stood and headed to a discreet corner of the starship to make a gabber call she didn't want to make. Since Breeng had confiscated her old gabber upon her arrest, she had to find the callsign through information.

"Please, no more rolling. That thing is textured for holiday baking!" Detritus succumbed to Withered Old Battle-Axe's flattening assault.

Chapter Twenty-Six: You Never Had a Friend Like Me

The stone wall across from Power Plant swept aside like a curtain. It produced a faint rumble of rocks. Cool trick. Continuum entered, holding his hands behind his back, fingers hanging off each other as if he hadn't just torn rock apart with his mind. And where did he get off having all the coolest hyperabilities? Power Plant would love to rip rock apart by thinking. He'd also love to think.

Power Plant still sat on this stone floor, dust scratching the seat of his pants and his shoulder blades. His backside ached. But standing took energy, and he was bored as crock and couldn't bother.

Continuum stood at the makeshift door. "Dear Power Plant, I might have need of you." What happened to calling him Mr. Jeffy?

Power Plant sniffled in the stale air that never freshened. "S'good, 'cause I have needs o' somethin' to do. Might also I needs to take a walk. Maybe also can we set up an arcade? I haves a need to blow up a buncha aliens or match three stuffs together or blow up a alien wit' a stuff."

"Then I shall provide for you."

"An arcades, a stuff, or a aliens?"

"All three…" Continuum's eyes dithered. "…I guess."

"Mixed in one?"

Continuum opened his mouth but hesitated. "Iiiiiiiiii don't really know what that would look like." Then he put on his get-down-to-business face, the same face Power Plant put on after chili night when the toilet paper was missing. "Anyway, Power Plant, come with me." He waved, and the wall to their side rumbled open to create another door. The first door swallowed shut. When one door closed, another one opened. Power Plant knew how to rig traps like that.

Continuum smiled. He lifted his hand to indicate this second door.

Power Plant creaked to his feet. Moving throbbed when you sat for so long. Whoa, lightheadedness. This was why standing was for suckers. He walked through the new door—with a stumble and a shoulder clonk, which was totally planned—into the throne room he'd spotted through Transit's portal at breakfast.

Air smelled more natural here, like freshly mown grass. Oof. Something rolled out from under his foot. A doll? Continuum needed to tighten up the decor around here.

Fat stones composed the room—a grand hall, really—which extended out like a carpet someone threw open Like this red one at Power Plant's feet. The throne, mounted on a three-step-high platform, commanded attention at one end, pennants draped from the ceiling behind it. The other end of the hall shrank into the distance as if making a break for it. Power Plant glowered at the throne's molded seat, and now knew too much about Continuum's butt.

The dog creature Power Plant had tussled with on the meteor outpost sat on one side of the throne, slobbering. When it saw him, it rose on all fours and growled. On the other side, Transit. Kamikaze stood cross-armed against the wall. And behind the throne was Hearse, eternally trying to escape his stone tomb. He looked tortured, frozen in midscream. It wasn't easy to break through stone. Memories of Power Plant's failed Kool-Aid Man impressions resurfaced. Hearse was a crazy douche who always snatched up the last cinnamon roll at the bakery—and sometimes out of your hand—but not even he deserved to be entombed.

Power Plant scratched his lip. "So whys I heres for? Please ta sit in the throne?" Looked fierce. And boss. Fierceboss.

"My dear friend, I need assistance."

"Ya need a job reference?"

"Not quite." Continuum settled a hand on Power Plant's shoulder. "Seems a visitor will soon land in our fields. I would like you and Servant Kamikaze to"—he considered his words—"let's say intercept this visitor and make an example of him to other intruders. A physical example."

"Like a wedgie?"

"A little more exemplary."

"An atomic wedgie?"

"Kamikaze will explain the details. But this person will soon land. So, though it is a short distance, Transit will convey you there"—Continuum sneered at Transit—"if he is finished displeasing me today." That sneer lingered long enough to pin Transit against the throne. It simmered from searing hot to lukewarm as it found Power Plant again. "Please hasten."

Please hasten? Who talked like that? Time overlords who sat in thrones, that was who. Crock, Power Plant hadn't accepted Continuum's job offer yet, and here he was already doing odd jobs for him. And odd was the capital word, because nothing was odder than giving someone you didn't know a wedgie.

"There are advantages to aiding a god." Continuum smiled, but it felt…ominous. Weirdly blistering.

Advantages. Power Plant caught Continuum's drift. Mark needed him to go along with this.

Dirty move, Continuum. "Okay." Power Plant found Hearse again, forever trying to break out of that wall. "But maybe cuts Hearse some slack." He mustered half a smile.

"Oh, an' if'n there a steak here when I gets back, I ain'ts complain."

"Excellent, my new servant." Continuum clapped his abundant hands together. "How would you like it grilled?"

"Ya supposed to grill a steak?"

Chapter Twenty-Seven: This Wasn't the View the Travel Brochure Advertised

Chug pierced the wormhole, and in a transformation of environment, the atmosphere flashed from deep space to kaleidoscopic tunnel to twilight sky in minutes. Legion flinched. The stench didn't transform, though. Everything still smelled like whatever old footwear was caught in the turbines. And—sniff, sniff—a touch of possum. The starship cycled through a zoo of odors, and Legion had now stricken some meats out of his diet.

He approached the windshield and—Oh, no. Chug spiraled groundward, and the terrain revolved at them at a stomach-torquing speed, and Legion threw his arms up as if that would stop Chug from corkscrewing the land and "We're about to crash, watch out, pull up pull up pull up" and the ground whirled closer and "pull up" and he tumbled back and "pull up!"

H2O tickled random buttons, cranked back a lever, click-spun a dial, high-fived Puttyman, kicked a foot pedal, Chug inclined, and no no no no no faster no no they careened in a deadly plummet no no H2O slapped hands on two switches and chuckled and—

Chug eased to a crawling speed and hovered in place, parallel to the ground that sat a mere meter below. Even the hula girl on the dashboard swayed gently.

Legion found himself gripping his shirt to calm his racing everything. His heart squealed in his chest, his insides rolled in his gut, and his bladder threatened to do both all over the floor. The worry splotches on his forehead had likely seeped larger across his scalp. Probably seeped down his neck. Thank Alaphus Chug hadn't smacked the ground.

H2O's hands danced across several console boards. "Trust in Chug. She wouldn't ruin such a beautiful landscape. She's an environmentalist."

Puttyman tapped a few navigator controls. "You sure that's the line you want to settle on, dude?"

"Yes."

"Good, because I felt chills." Puttyman knuckle-bumped with H2O.

Had Legion actually thanked Alaphus? Huh. He chided himself. He said his new belief was empty, not illogical. Old habits. That stop did seem divine though. If anyone were watching out—and he no longer said they were—then…nice job. He looked up.

"Would you two stop congratulating each other?" Maul tromped into the cockpit deck. He held a weapon that probably confused vendors on what aisle of Munition Warehouse to stock it in. It was a long cylinder that extended an egg whisk and a pair of tongs as if sticking out its tongue. Maybe in the home-economics aisle.

"This isn't Station One," Legion said. "Let's land. I want to figure out where we are and where we're going."

"Sounds like a plan." H2O brushed the pilot's trackpad, and Chug began lowering with a soft whir and a softer odor of fried hedgehog, which Legion identified thanks to the exotic-animals episode of Cooking with Brooke Badger.

Chug landed/dropped nonfatally. Springs creaked. At least it had good shock absorption.

A clap pierced the sky, like thunder announcing a storm. Legion squatted to peer up through the windshield. The Tinfoil with the rest of their small army slashed the skyline as it emerged from the wormhole. It stopped more gracefully than Chug thanks to a haunt control that didn't respond with static outbursts.

The first thing Legion did was rush toward the opening porthole to kiss the ground. He hopped down and…Wow, something had torn into the landscape. Two wide trenches gashed the terrain with dirt, grassland, and foliage peeling away. This uprooted an odor of clay and rock that bled out Chug's fumes. Legion ventured to a trench and peered down, thanks to Chug's headlights. Its walls crawled with worms and insects. At the bottom—Legion leaned closer—asphalt?

Puttyman emerged from Chug next. He wielded a flame-retardant hose to put out the landing flames.

Ahead, a moss-conquered wall arched backward in a crumbling confusion. Legion couldn't see past that in this night. But he knew this wasn't Station One.

Luzimoss hopped out and approached Legion. He stared into a trench and clicked his tongue. "I know a good gardener if these guys need one."

"Is it you?"

Luzimoss scoffed. "You kidding me? I plant a single flower, and you guys target it from three hundred thousand miles away."

Maul showed up next to Luzimoss. "Let's move. My friend is itching to crock a fool up." He heaved aloft his kitchen weapon. Legion would put money on the chance that it shot measuring cups. Maul had slung another friend over his shoulder, a cannon that probably crocheted.

Organism hung out Chug's access port. "You done? Everybody back in, so we can find my dad. We've got a mission!" He banged on the outer wall. This punctuated a distant clanging from miles away but carried to them on a soft wind. Like an assembly line hard at work. In this nightfall, all Legion saw at that distance were red glows that flared in no rhythm.

The turbines from the Tinfoil shut down to let the distant clang-clank-smash take control again.

"Do you hear that?" Legion asked Luzimoss.

"Yeah. But I have no idea what it is." Luzimoss slapped his elbow to squash a bug.

"You can't check the odds with your other Luzimosses?"

Luzimoss flicked the bug off. "None of this has happened in literally every other timeline."

A throat cleared behind them. "It's the Bad Guys fighting Plaster, Fragment, and a slew of knights."

Who—Legion whirled around—what—he searched—where—in the darkness—there! Someone reclined on Chug's hood, arms propping him up, one ankle on the opposite knee as if the nose cone were a lounge chaise. So casual, as if he weren't in the crosshairs of Maul's cake mixer.

"Who are you?" Legion shouted so loudly it prickled his gullet. "You'd better have a good answer, or you're cheesecake." He side-glanced at Maul's weapon. "Maybe. I'm not clear on what he's holding."

"It turns goons that sit on nose cones into paint." Maul clamped his lips around his unlit cigar. "An' it cobbles shoes."

Was this one of Continuum's henchmen from the meteor earlier? He was Trioxidillian. But whether he was blue skinned or green wasn't clear in this darkness. Legion leaned toward green, like him, which was a lighter shade than the deep blue of Trioxidillians like Luzimoss. He wore a business suit that probably made him swelter in this buggy, nighttime heat. Mirrored sunglasses sat on his face despite the darkness.

He slapped a bug on his neck. "I'm the Trader. I'm Continuum's timeline overseer." He leaned forward and placed his wrists on his knees.

Maul cackled. "Then it's blast-a-fool time. I waited aaaalllll day for this." He yanked the trigger back. Nothing happened. He yanked again. Nothing. He lowered the weapon and squinted into the barrel. "Crock, Sugar 'n' Spice jammed up."

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Employees Only

September 15, 9108.

"Leave him with me, my dear servant, for now you must travel to fetch your new brother, Fragment." Elohim's voice boomed off vacant walls and returned to him almost unrecognizable.

Elohim was visiting the half-created Station One to check on the progress of his headquarters. Here, Blackguard and the apostles had delivered this catatonic Terran to him in this chamber, vast like an amphitheater and unfurnished except for one imposing main attraction fixed against the far wall where the single light panel did not reach.

Elohim crouched at Kamikaze, who moved not an inch. Something smelled ripe. "And Blackguard, grab a can of Spicy Musk for Men while you're out."

At Elohim's words, Blackguard knelt, wrists crossed on one knee, face bowed to the cold, seamed floor. "Of course, my lord. Upon our return, you shall detect ever the freshest scent from this new apostle." Blackguard rose and, enfolding his fellow apostles, shrank into a singularity to chronoport to his next destination, Virilurn.

"The Spicy Musk is for you!" Elohim glanced up but, ugh, Blackguard was too quick.

Elohim examined Kamikaze. A blank slate. The will-erased Terran that sat in front of him slouched in place, his breathing his only movement. Almost two months in Stavehill Hyperability Penitentiary's In Sanity Manor wing had vanquished his soul. At least they'd given him a catheter and a bedpan, or he would exude a more offensive smell than Blackguard right now.

"My dear Kamikaze." Elohim cupped this new recruit's chin and lifted his gaze. They made eye contact, but they didn't make eye contact. This would take some resetting and more delicately than when the television didn't receive a good signal. "Let me awaken you."

Elohim blinked. And then Kamikaze did. He gasped sharply. "Are you here to kill me?" He licked his lips, those cracked and whitened lips that had not spoken in weeks. "My favorite method is the potato peeler."

Elohim felt a pizzazz light his core. "The potato peeler. How enthralling, my new friend."

"I made it up while I was shaving."

"You are a delight, dear Kamikaze. No, I am not here to kill y—"

"Nnnnooooo no no no no no no"—Kamikaze began rocking in place—"I'm not supposed to kill myself. They punish me if I kill myself, I'm not allowed to, I'm dangerous, I'm not allowed to, not allowed to"—he thrashed more vigorously—"or they use those videos, those scary videos, scary therapy videos, such scary noises, and they force my eyes open and don't let me sleep"—so vigorously that his buttocks lifted off the metallic floor when he heaved—"so many days, no sleep, I'm too dangerous, too dangerous to people, they tell me no, I'm a danger, a public danger, I can't be around people"—he clutched his head, and so hard did he clutch that Elohim feared he would damage it—"I have to stop, can't listen to my thoughts, no no no can't no no no, they'll lock me away deeper, no suicide, no potato peeler, no arm slammer, no electroshock pickle, no no no no"—he shook his head as vigorously as he rocked and pummeled his temples—

"My dear friend." Elohim gripped Kamikaze, held in place. Kamikaze resisted by flailing his arms. Elohim embraced him. "No, I'm here to tell you that's all wrong. I'm here to tell you to accept yourself. I'm here to ask what an electroshock pickle is."

Kamikaze now only wobbled and mewed. Elohim released him. He stared through Elohim and into the wall. "It's acidic, not sweet. Not sweet, not sweet, acidic, not sweet, noooooo. One hundred volts tastes like dill." He dissolved to mewing again.

Elohim released him. "Kamikaze, what those degenerates at Stavehill did—their torture—that was monstrous, acidic, not sweet. They forced you into a little box, and when you didn't fit, they stuffed you in. They cut off pieces of you until they could close the lid on you. They locked you away and shouted at you that you were wrong. That you were poisonous to others. That you should not exist. They isolated you and conditioned you and taught you to hate yourself. They crushed your mind into a ball until it was nothing but blank."

Kamikaze's eyes flickered on.

"Yes, Kamikaze. They were wrong. They were wrong. But I'm here to rescue you. I'm here to tell you that you did no more than your base inclinations dictated, that you can enjoy as much pickle as you want."

"Rescue me with electric dill?" Kamikaze calmed, stopped wobbling.

"I'll check our pantry for some. Yes, Kamikaze, I'm here to rescue you…but not from yourself. From your torturers. From outsiders. I want to teach you that you should exist." Yyyeesss. "The electric-dill thing does sound interesting."

"Rescue me." Kamikaze gasped at Elohim, at his surroundings, at this enormous room that was featureless save the one characteristic towering against the far wall: those looming heraldic robots that would one day erase the landscape imposed on this station.

"You're not the poison, Kamikaze." Elohim smiled. "You're the antidote."

* * *

Elton had flown across the landscape for too long now, but when he spotted a vast castle close in the distance, he landed the Tinfoil on a field desiccated by heat. He hadn't flown in so long that, when he said "landed," he meant "smashed the ground like a fist." He also meant he bounced around the cockpit, because he hadn't activated his seat's inertia field to hold him in place, and that was because inertia was for biff-takers. Had knocked a tooth out.

His vision spiraled galaxies as he regained his balance. He would have broken a few bones, but all his bones were already broken from his years as the first Organism. Years of fire-dousing combat. The type of fire-dousing combat that got you thrown out of places because you were the one who started the barfight. Elton hung together on hip replacements and surgeries. It came with being an amazing vigilante of justice and hitting a lot of sidewalks from being thrown out. Mostly from sidewalks.

"Landing achieved, canker sore," the haunt control reported in his muffled hearing. "Upgrade to smoother landings with our inexpensive safety package."

Elton regained his senses. His eyes stopped rolling like slot-machine reels. Literally. He bopped the side of his head to dislodge the loose carpal bone that had floated into his skull years ago thanks to his hyperability. He'd never worked it back down into his wrist, so it pinged up there around his nasal cavity.

His malleability and age had softened his legs to the consistency of wet spaghetti noodles. So when he struggled off the floor, he clapped onto the dashboard. Picked himself up. Hardened those noodles and teetered toward the access port. He found it tough since his legs were still a half foot too long at the thighs. "Control, acknowledge. Open access."

"Access opened, canker sore. You have two accesses left in the free trial." This haunt control was really looking for a handout.

Elton found the rhythm of his step. When he emerged into a soft wind, he realized the skin holding his mustache had been thwacked up to his cheek. No problem. He pressed a couple of fingers on that cheek and slipped his mustache into place.

Where was he? Not Station One. This place was a prairie with a rising moon to his right. Station One was covered in asphalt and metal with only small patches of grass on medians in the parking lots. It didn't smell like Station One either. Elton wasn't sure where that pine smell came from, but he knew he didn't want to bathe in it.

He raced down the Tinfoil's embarking ramp onto the papery grass, each step a determined stomp. Now to prove to Alvin that he could still lay the business like in his glory days. Time to celebrate new glory days. He didn't live through his son. Where was Continuum?

Someone ahemmed behind him. Elton whirled around and…He jostled back, spilled onto the ramp. A house slipper fell off. That business douser Kamikaze stood there, arms folded and wearing a smirk Elton would fire-douse off. Next to him stood Power Plant.

The tread on the ramp would ridge his skin for hours. Just great.

Kamikaze looked fire-dousing smug with scorn trained like a laser beam. Power Plant didn't seem like his troublemaking self. He looked dejected. Crestfallen. Unplugged from his identity.

"Power Plant?" Elton peered up from the ramp. Reclining. Yup, just taking it easy. Not a topple at all.

Power Plant bit his lip. "Didn't know the example's be you, Mr. Barnaby."

"What are you doing with this fire douser?" Elton asked.

"Earning a steak. A grilleds one if that make sense." Power Plant quivered, though not from cold. It was a warm nightfall here. "An' other 'vantages."

Kamikaze unfolded his arms and marched toward Elton with ambitious strides. He reached the ramp and clacked a foot down between Elton's ankles. Orange energy crackled in his spread fingers. "Lord Continuum wants to make an example of you."

"Your Continuum killed one of us and drove us from our home. Whatever he told you, he's lying."

"No." Kamikaze smiled so connivingly his tongue was visible. "Lord Continuum is here to rescue us."

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Two Teaspoons of Plot Thickener

"You'll want to hear this." The Trader shifted his weight, which indented Chug's nose cone with a thud. He clapped his hand over a bug that had settled on his knee.

Legion saw the restless tics in Maul. As more people filed out of the starships and Bullet grew irate about someone sitting on the nose cone and irate about how Puttyman wasn't irate, Legion wondered why someone in a suit would sit on something as grimy as Chug. Legion was afraid of riding Chug through the rain since that might peel off the bumper stickers holding it together. He wasn't kidding. A "My Son Is a Bleakwood Collegiate Honer Student" sticker held up a taillight. No one in Blowtorch had a son, Bleakwood Collegiate closed ten years ago, and, yes, someone had misspelled honor. And half the bumper sticker was printed upside down.

"How'd you get in there, cutie?" Maul filed his fingers inside Sugar 'n' Spice's barrel and withdrew a slug. A giant one. And dead. Legion hoped, anyway.

"You've got some guts showing up here." Legion crossed his arms, ready if this Trader tried anything. But the Trader just sat. And smudged the seat of his pants, polishing the nose cone more than any of its owners ever had. "Do you know what your boss has done to us?"

Maul overturned Sugar 'n' Spice and shook. Another slug rattled out, and then another, and then another dozen. And then another dozen.

"He kidnapped Power Plant!" Ace Spandex barreled out of the Tinfoil and whipped his wrist up. A stinger pistol ticked out and—

"Aaron, let him talk!" Legion deflected Ace Spandex's aim, but not before Ace dispatched a sour candy that cracked so loud it shivered the trees. It struck the Trader's cheek. The cheek compressed…and then nothing.

Legion gasped. That should have disintegrated the Trader's head. Instead it pecked him like a good-bye kiss.

And then another dozen.

The Trader wiped his skin and examined his fingertip pad. "Seriously?" Not even a welt.

"I fired that at five thousand feet per second." Ace Spandex gasped at his stinger pistol. "That velocity destroyed all the mannequins in the shooting range's hillbilly fun zone."

"I'm indestructible." The Trader leaned back on the nose cone—the dent thudded back out—and cradled his head in a finger net. That same head that should be goo right now.

"Aha. More slugs." Maul fished his hand into Sugar 'n' Spice's barrel again, shoulder deep. "Ytril, I toldja we had an infestation." He grunted to dislodge something. "Looks like they picked a good place ta die." He removed his arm, and in it was a puppy-dog tail. He tossed this and went fishing again. "I'm startin' to think I grabbed Snips 'n' Snails by mistake."

"Indestructible?" Ace Spandex pattered his fingers along his forearm. "Let's see what a chocolate egg does to your eye." He raised his stinger pistol again. The chocolate egg didn't do anything but make the Trader blink.

The Trader shifted. He propped one hand against the nose cone and leaned forward with the other. "Do you want to talk about what can and can't behead me, or do you want to talk about Continuum?" He shifted again. "It's absolutely impossible to find a comfortable position on here."

Legion's neck felt stiff craning up at the Trader. He revolved it against his shoulders to unkink it. "So why did Continuum send you here? To taunt us? To watch us? To bring Chug in for an emissions test?"

"Duuuude." Puttyman elbowed Legion and screened his mouth on one side. "We don't say the e word around Chug."

"Continuum has no idea I'm here." The Trader stood, dusted off his pants seat, and hopped off the nose cone. He hit the ground, knees locked, without a wince. Pinching the bottom flaps of his jacket, he tugged it straight and then brushed a ladybug off his cheek.

"You're here on your own? For what?" Acid bubbled up Legion's stomach when the Trader padded toward him.

"To help." The Trader reached Legion. Smirked. Eyes behind those sunglasses bounced to Puttyman, Ace Spandex, Franchise, Klee, back to Legion. "You head due east from here, you'll eventually hit Continuum's castle. His stronghold."

"Good."

"Don't do that."

Legion checked the others for a reaction. The Purple Nurple checked him back to see what his reaction should be. "And why not?"

In the distance, an emphatic boom erupted with another candy-apple flare.

The Trader straightened out his jacket sleeves with a practiced flick. "He'll destroy you."

Ace Spandex still wasn't lowering his forearm. He wore the same leer he used whenever someone grabbed his favorite chair. "Isn't that what you want? For Continuum to destroy us so you can go back to overhaul spacetime with your timespace overhauls?"

"Yeah. Sure." The Trader chortled. "Continuum is the worst thing for spacetime and bald-headed fashion."

"Worst thing for spacetime?" Ace Spandex scratched a laser scar on his left brow.

"And don't knock bald heads." Puttyman buffed Maul's chrome dome with his sleeve. The dome squeaked.

The Trader crossed his arms. "Continuum claims to be launching a mission to 'fix' spacetime. For that, he needs you out of the way. You, the Bad Guys, Intergalactic Protection. He calls you threats. You could use a shower, but you're no threat."

"Hey, that's body snazz." Maul lifted his arms and twirled. "It's what the ladies want." Plastique, Bullet, Also Sediment, and Workshop retreated a half step. Amaranthia yanked her collar over her nose.

"I'll let you in on a secret." The Trader leaned closer to Legion. Then he leaned back because Maul still held his arms up. "Spacetime doesn't need a repairman. The fabric of reality is resilient. If you mess with it, it fixes itsel—Will you put your arms down?" He cupped his nose, waited a beat, then removed it. "Spacetime fixes itself. This idea of repairing it is a sham, and Continuum"—he made purposeful eye contact—"is insane."

Another crackling boom. Another emergency-red brilliance.

The Trader scratched a bug off his cheek. "He spent his infancy in a test-tube reality, tortured into tampering with spacetime. You'd go psychotic, too, if your only contact with anybody was physical suffering. When he escaped, he sincerely believed he had to undo the damage he was tortured to do. But spacetime heals itself. The damage was already undone."

"So this whole production"—Legion threw his arms out at the grassland around them—"gathering an army, brainwashing our military, claiming Station One as his own, launching this offense…that's all a delusion?"

"No, that's real. He gathered his army, including the Bad Guys' Plaster and your Kamikaze. He's got your military. He launched his offense. And you stole Station One from him. But the delusion is why he did it all. It's all a means to some lunatic end that exists only in his mind." The Trader pushed back his shoulders. "He developed me to monitor the health of spacetime, see how he was doing in his repair job, keep him on track. Spacetime is perfectly fine." He shook his head. "His mind isn't."

In the distance, a sentence of clanging and clanking ended with an exclamation point of another explosion.

"He recruited me also because I manipulate hyperabilities. I trade them between hyperpeople or change the effectiveness of existing ones. I do minor electrical work, too."

"You tamper with hyperabilities?"

"Yep. Watch this." The Trader snapped his fingers.

Better Than You collapsed. It was immediate, it exploded with howling, and it was better than anyone could imagine.

The Trader cocked an eye. "His hypergland now secretes about two percent of what it did before. I didn't even have to snap to do it. I just like the theatrics."

"And that causes him to collapse?" Legion asked.

Trapped on reedy grass with clambering limbs, Better Than You whimpered.

"So why are you here?" Plastique's eyes itched for the Trader to start something. Also still from Maul's armpits. She stomped to the Trader and scanned him up and down for weak points. "Did you come just to tell us how crazy Continuum is?"

The Trader didn't step back, not even an inch when Plastique invaded his personal space. Not even when Better Than You's sobbing fired up again. "Continuum's not just crazy. He's absolutely unhinged. His sense of right and wrong is blurred. Torture used to sicken him. He couldn't inflict on people what was inflicted on him. But his morality has deteriorated so much, he's driven himself so mad over this nonexistent mission, that he barely knows what torture is anymore. He barely knows what morality is. He's holding Hearse hostage as leverage. Why would someone who controls the fundamental forces need leverage? Because he doesn't know how to use his hyperabilities. He's still discovering them."

Legion flinched at another red bang. "So he should be easy pickings. Why aren't we storming his stronghold right now?"

"Imagine a kid who has volatile chemicals at his disposal but doesn't know how to mix them properly."

"Power Plant," Ace Spandex said.

"Those chemicals are Continuum's hyperabilities. And, trust me, he doesn't know how to use them. He's insane…but he's powerful. And that makes him dangerous."

Everyone wore the same jaw drop as Legion's college roommates when he asked for their share of the rent.

"I know dangerous." Legion folded his arms. "Have you seen who I work with?"

"You think you know dangerous?" The Trader waited a beat for Better Than You's mewling to rise and then fall. He swept another bug off his forehead. "He advocates family and mercy. But the first thing he did when he launched his war was kill his emissary, your field marshal, just because he didn't want him around anymore."

The Purple Nurple throttled a gasp. "Breeng is dead?" He shoved Ace Spandex aside and bullied toward the Trader. "Is he dead?"

"Continuum just"—the Trader stamped his hands together—"crushed him."

"No!" The Purple Nurple grabbed the Trader's shoulders. His outfit flickered an ad for Fun Time Funerals. Where could it find a sponsor database on this countryside planet? The reaches of commercialism were infinite.

"Let the sane people handle this." Legion grappled the Purple Nurple from the Trader, wrenching one arm off first. That arm clapped back onto the Trader's shoulder. He threw off the Purple Nurple, who blundered down a depression in the ground. "Freuth, walk it off."

The Purple Nurple paced around the depression like an animal prowling for a weak point in its cage. He looked as if he were on the edge of combustion.

The Trader dusted his shoulders off, the left one, then the right. "Continuum recruited me, but we don't agree on everything. On anything. I'm here to tell you how to win this war." He rolled his eyes at Better Than You's sniveling. "Fine, you baby. Here. It's back." He snapped his fingers. "Just stop whining."

Sudden realization fell on Better Than You, and he managed to stand. Shakily and shamefully stand. He stumbled away from the Trader and found whimpering comfort behind a boulder.

"Win?" Legion felt a heat flash at that idea. "Right. If he's as dangerous as you say, we're here to get Power Plant—"

"And my dad," Organism blurted.

"—and the manliest mustache in the galaxy—"

"And the aswang," Bullet said.

"—and that thing, free those Intergalactic Protection soldiers, and get out of here. I'm not letting that madman rip anybody else apart with a hand gesture."

"You have a slim chance. And no choice. Win, or reality as you know it will end." The Trader slapped another bug. "Do I have iron-rich blood?" His hand flicked at his cheek. "I feel it. Did it land on my face?"

Plastique collared the Trader's shirt with one gripping fist and cracked him against Chug's landing trestle. This shook off a bolt. Her other hand began glowing in a punch ready to explode on impact. "You'll explain how we have a slim chance before I pull your head off like a grenade pin."

The Trader righted his sunglasses. "I'm indestructible, remember?"

"Crock." Plastique threw him down. Her hand defused. "But I really want to do it. Commander?"

Legion shrugged. "You can pull off Detritus's."

"But he's small potatoes." Plastique pouted and stuck her hands under her armpits. "No fair."

Legion took Plastique's place and towered over the Trader. "So how can we win this thing?"

The Trader hopped to his feet and smoothed out his jacket again. Dusted the flaps, tugged out the sleeves, shifted the shoulders, brushed a nightcrawler off, the whole performance. "Continuum's winging it like all of you did when you first discovered your hyperabilities. He's barely practiced. If his lifespan were a straight line, he'd be six years old. What six-year-old can use his hyperability to its full extent?"

Legion looked over his shoulder at Ace Spandex. His finger was up. "Don't say it again."

"Power Pl—"

"I said don't say it."

"Power P—"

"I said don't say it." Legion waited a beat, finger still poised. Silence fell but for the song of insects. Okay. He turned back t—

"Power Plant."

"Hey." Finger back up.

"Focus." The Trader waved in Legion's eyes. "Back to business. Instead of coloring in the lines, Continuum is scribbling. He barely knows what I can do. When we met you on the meteor, why didn't he order me to reduce your hyperabilities like I did with his?" He threw a hand in Better Than You's direction. "Because he didn't think of it. He's not all-knowing. At his basic, he's just another hyperperson. You can blindside him."

"He's just another hyperperson, but he's a powerful one." Legion sneered at the Trader. "A slim chance isn't good enough. We're rescuing our friends, and we're leaving."

"Weren't you paying attention? The end of reality." The Trader readjusted his collar. "Besides, Continuum will hunt you down. You pose a threat, and he doesn't like threats. And, like any six-year-old, he'll throw a tantrum. But you have an advantage: like any six-year-old, he doesn't know how people act. He lived in an unconnected dimension he calls scramble space, and he had limited interaction with anyone. That makes you as unpredictable to him as he is to you. He didn't even think keeping the wormhole open was a problem." He licked his fingertip and smudged it over his sleeve. "You got a stain on my suit. Come on." Slapped another bug off his neck.

"Focus up." Legion snapped his fingers. "The stakes are higher than your dry cleaning."

"Do you know how hard it is to clean this?" The Trader kicked a patch of grass. "Look, you can run, but running will get you killed. Steeple knows your mental templates from when he took control of you. He'll track you, and Continuum will snuff you out. You need to win this war."

Legion squared his stance with the Trader. "Fine. Give me Continuum's hyperabilities. Let me manipulate reality like Continuum does."

The Trader snorted, as if announcing Legion as a fool. "It's not that easy. First off, Continuum made a failsafe in me that prevents me from giving anyone his hyperabilities or from messing with them. Second, you need a hypergland to have a hyperability. And I can't create hyperglands. I only adjust what they secrete." His eyes gasped open. "But wait. I sense…You…" He scrutinized Legion up and down, up again. "You do have a hypergland. It's faint, but it's there."

"What?" Legion floundered backward on a bump in the terrain but kept on his feet. "I do?"

The Trader snorted again. "No. You bought that?"

Another explosion pockmarked the distance.

"Anyway, to win this war, you need help." The Trader jerked his chin in the direction of the distant battle. "Like I said, the Bad Guys are fighting Continuum's knights right now."

"Help from the Bad Guys?" Legion's tongue had tasted swampy salt, but now it tasted mold at the thought of needing the Bad Guys. Legion had made peace with George, but he was still coming to terms with him. "We can do this alone, thanks."

"No." The Trader sneered at Legion under those sunglasses. "You can't."

Legion studied the Trader for signs of an act. Nothing. Not a crack. Another detonation. And an agonized yelp. Legion flinched at the crimson burst that flew above the tree line behind him. Back at the Trad—

The Trader was gone.

In his place came a rumble, a skyward concert of slow-motion but menacing engines growling closer. The sky bled orange with a sunrise opening its eyes ever so slightly. That sunrise sky revealed about thirty warships. Intergalactic Protection warships with Intergalactic Protection mind-controlled pilots and Intergalactic Protection will-commandeered soldiers.

Legion's hand darted to his Alaphan necklace. Gone. Besides, he'd win this fight without that broken crutch anyway…right? Still felt…unnatural…thinking that.

Maul slapped a baseball-glove hand on Legion's shoulder. "Don't worry. I got the weapon for this." That unlit cigar drew signatures in the air as he spoke. "It blows bubbles made of toxic soap. Just gotta check if we're upwind first."

Legion darted sideways into a patch of tallgrass and opened fire at the fleet's roaring vanguard. The others scattered when the fleet returned fire with blue-hot blasts that spat dirt. Well, most scattered. Multipurpose shuffled, but really, if something shot at him, he'd likely snatch it out of the air and eat it.

"My other selves know these starships." Darting for cover, Luzimoss pointed at a Cackling Fire. "That one has a defect in its rear thruster." At a Fireball. "That one has a weak spot in the base of its windshield." At Ecto-1. "That one's carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on its back." He dived behind a strip of cattails near a pond.

A shot gouged the land and arced up earth, rock…and a shard of metal? In a telekinetic grip, Sixth Sense seized the rock and whirled it around back at the warship that had fired. The rock burst against the nose cone, rolled up, and cracked into the windshield. He shot upward at the starship and used his telekinesis to peel the crack apart. The windshield crumpled like two venetian screens sliding apart.

Organism didn't need telekinesis. He roared hostility and inflated his hands into scoops. He dug out trenches of soil that he threw at the warships.

Bullet spread her hands and shot white slivers from her fingertips in rapid-fire.

Pacemaker scowled, and his eyes fogged to dark gray. The Warbird nearest him lurched right, cracked through a tree, and steered into another Warbird.

Incendiary was engaged in an intense discussion with Janice while writhing grass angels into the field.

Detritus…ugh. Legion didn't expect much from someone who'd once circulated a petition for shared deodorant.

This wasn't some maniacal criminal empire or off-tune holiday glee club. This was Intergalactic Protection. "Everyone, they're not the enemy. Pull your punches!" Legion cringed when Maul brought out…No idea. It looked like a cannon that shot other cannons.

"They're the enemy to Blowtorch." Maul's lips embraced his cigar. He fired. Legion was right about that cannon.

Sixth Sense dived aside from a blast that almost punched his leg from his hip. He gripped the air, and with it, the seams of a Warbird's fuselage. The fuselage popped in two.

In his cover of tallgrass, Legion pulled out the sidearm he'd grabbed from the IP base on Gaia. Would have preferred his Marsek. He shot at a Fireball that had cut in low. It was still too elevated for a good shot, and all he did was singe the stain-remover advertisement on the side.

Pincushion curled up and rolled on his spikes into the tallgrass. If he'd kept his head an inch higher, gunfire would have scalped him. "We need something more aggressive, brother. You think we can switch Multipurpose from input to output?"

"We have enough interesting smells here already." Legion fired again.

An earthquake. Localized, from behind the Intergalactic Protection fleet. Another quake, as if a brontosaurus lumbered closer. Maybe so for all Legion knew of the pets a time traveler kept.

Another quake racked the ground. A tree teetered, snapped, toppled.

Luzimoss dived into the tallgrass to join Legion and Pincushion. "Maul, hit that one's right turbine." He pointed.

Maul swung his cannon up at the Flagstar that Luzimoss indicated, a smaller ten-seater with a nasty attitude and a nastier color scheme. He fired, and a flurry of sewing needles flick-flick-flicked through the turbine, the foreguns, the headlights, the Volkswagen emblem. The Flagstar dipped right and spiraled into dirt. A wing peeled back, and the starship erupted in howling flame that folded around it like a clutching hand. The fire stripped off the cheap paint job. Smelled like lead. The light in Maul's eye made his red serrated tattoo come alive.

Another earthquake came on stronger. What caused these tremors?

A Fireball veered at them so closely the wake from its flight heated Legion's antennae. Pincushion fired, fired again, but his blasts pinged off the nose cone. He checked the reading on the side of his gun. "My ammo isn't rated for starships, brothers."

"Shoot your quills into its air intake. There's a loose valve in there." Luzimoss ducked when the Fireball arced down like a bird of prey. It missed narrowly. It swung up and revolved slowly around for another attack.

Pincushion flipped his pistol over, then over again. "I don't think this has a quill setting. It has a confetti setting, though. Oh, seltzer."

"No, your quills." Luzimoss pointed at another Flagstar. "Ace, gummy worms at that one's fuselage." Somehow Ace knew exactly where in his armament to find the gummy worms.

Pincushion raised a brow. "Say what about my what?"

Luzimoss blinked at him. "Your qui—You don't…You don't know? In this timeline, you don't call them that?"

"Clear sentences while we're under attack, Luzimoss." Legion fired at the Flagstar as it completed its turn. It loomed down at them and pulled back to prepare another swoop.

"My crock." Luzimoss pinched his nose. "Okay, let's hope you can do this like your others can. You call them extensions of your bones in this timeline, right? Form a fist, lift it up facing that Flagstar's air intake as if you're blocking an attack with your forearm, and jerk your wrist like this"—he demonstrated the jerk in question—"while you flex."

Pincushion watched the move. Legion did, too, and he still had no idea what Luzimoss wanted.

"Whatever you say." Pincushion sprang up, lifted his arm as if to screen his eyes from the rising sun, and jerked. And—Legion saw it and couldn't believe it—the spiky extensions of Pincushion's bones flicked out of his forearm with a ffft-ffft-ffft. They tore apart the sleeve of his shirt. As the Flagstar dived, they flicked into its air intake and blasted chunks out of the slats. The intake grill cracked inward, something inside clanked, and out belched fire and gears. The Flagstar veered, spiraled, sputtered over them…and drilled into the ground. It erupted in a swallowing inferno.

Legion watched the fire turn weird colors as it swallowed the chemicals in the Fireball. "Abioye, did you actually shoot out your spikes?" No answer. He looked over. "Abioye?"

Pincushion's eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed.

Legion plunged to his knees. "Abioye?" He slid his sidearm into its holster and jostled Pincushion. "Luzimoss, what happened to him?" He grabbed Pincushion's arm, from where the spikes had ejected. He managed a short peek before the latent molecules of Pincushion's sleeve regathered: no blood, just calluses to ring the holes and quick scabbing to plug them. His heart hammered at the l tech in his clothes, but he put that phobia away for now. "Luzimoss? Luzimoss, what did you make him do?"

"He'll be better than if that Flagstar had hit us." Luzimoss ducked under a volley of blasts. "The fainting is rare, though. Eight percent chance. Probably a first-time thing."

A Fireball swooped groundward, close enough that Legion saw the detailing on its underbelly. It landed near the crackling bonfire of the Flagstar, and out emerged three soldiers: two gunners and the pilot. And someone's dog, who lapped the pilot and sat for a treat.

Other starships touched down. A Flagstar behind the Fireball, a Lasergem next to it, a Tinfoil. Soldiers emerged, unhurried as stepping out for a day at the carnival. They advanced. No fear. Not even taking strategic cover. They'd thrown their training out the window. A gunner's head splattered apart from one of Bullet's shots of hardened pus. Also Sediment rushed ahead with a mist seeping out of her pores. The soldiers around her dropped, scratching at their blistering skin exposed to the dust. They remained eerily silent.

But the rest converged. Legion tapped Pincushion's cheek. "Wake up, wake up. We have to go." No time to haul Pincushion away. He pulled out his sidearm again. This wasn't enough to repel all these soldiers.

Another quake rumbled through, like thunder punching the ground. Almost on top of them. Whatever caused it spread the skyscraper trees ahead, and then a giant robotic dome slammed the grass, a metallic-gold oval connected to a segmented column that slanted into the cover of the forest.

Legion collapsed backward into the tallgrass. "Is that a foot? Am I looking at a foot?"

A mellow voice bellowed from those trees. "Groove on down, cool cats. Cornflakes has arrived to make your days eighteen-karat smoooooth." A gargantuan robotic beak crashed through the trees. Branches were caught in its gullet, and it dropped them to disgorge a cascade of fire that lit warships like kerosene-drenched candles. Power Plant's dream realized, and he wasn't here to see it. Another stomp brought a second foot out from the forest. A rooster head emerged, its eyes a glaring windshield. The beak stopped exhaling an inferno to unleash a metallic screech.

"That's The Nemesis." Next to Legion, Luzimoss jerked his chin up at the rooster with a waddle that swatted aside the trees.

A loudspeaker crackled on. Legion recognized the background music, high-pitched vocals that complained about summer romance in a snowy lovescape and other conflicting lyrics. Legion facepalmed. Please don't speak, please don't speak, please don't—

"Legion!" George's voice chirped out of that speaker.

—speak. … Sigh.

"Fancy meeting you here. Hey, fair warning. We're new at driving this thing in Cornflakes mode, so watch where we step. We crushed a supply hut back there, and we're still kicking snowboards off the rear heel."

Luzimoss was beaming. "My hivemind has got to hear about this."

Legion peeled his palm off his face when someone chuckled. Ace Spandex. Ace Spandex was fired.

"I'm not with him." Legion hoped he was heard overtop falsetto voices still squeaking in puberty and sharing the wisdom of bobsledding down a waterslide. "We came separately." The vocals now lamented snowball fights on the coastline. And then basketball games at a skating rink.

The Nemesis's beak still gaped open, as if the loudspeaker were its voice box. A different voice cranked through. Schizophrenic's. "Crock. These bib dribblers gonna try to arrest us?"

George's voice again. "Much better. We're teaming up!"

"Bigger crock." Something got punched.

Chapter Thirty: All They Need Is a Cheerleading Squad

August 13, 9109.

Elohim had journeyed everywhere, everywhen. Some of his journeys were fascinating, like the birth of the universe. Some were powerful, like when Alaphus had detonated the Big Bang and then finger-painted the heavens. Some were absurd, like Texas.

He scratched his brow. But spacetime needed a doctor, and he alone had the degree. Ooh, that warranted a laugh. Ahhhhh. Anyway…

Spread before him were his apostles, the army he would use to enforce his dominion over the citizens of reality. His loved and cherished followers. And Breeng.

They stood 150 feet below surface level in a room that should be wallowing in profound darkness but lit up like a thousand suns thanks to Elohim's control of the photons that birth light.

"Welcome to victory, my disciples," Elohim said.

Servant Plaster cleared his throat and raised his hand. "Victory ain't a place. Victory's like when I fart on Ripsaw's goulash, and he ain't watchin'." He looked around at everyone for validation. "Am I right or just ign'ant?"

"Y'all's both, hon, but y'all's a master at it, an' ya should be proud o' that. Except don't waste goulash." Marionette examined her nails. Why did she always look as if Elohim kept her from a better party?

"Is that why my goulash always tastes like socks?" Ripsaw leered at Plaster.

Elohim wasn't exactly competing for the record for most facepalms, but one seemed appropriate right now. He kicked aside an empty soda can. He wasn't competing for the record for most littered soda cans either. Why couldn't Servant Wyvern use the recycling receptacle? It sat right by the wall. "Anyway, our victory is not yet ours, but it is guaranteed, my flock."

Breeng rubbed his hands together. "Yes, our victory win is most guaranteed."

"I just said that." Not enough facepalms in the universe. "For now we rise. We will correct reality's damage, and we will do it by force. We will overthrow the institution that presumes it has control, and we will let no one stand in our way." The acoustics in this room were amazing. Elohim was an amazing architect.

Servant Plaster raised his hand.

"Yes, Servant Plaster, that is why I have named this group Overthrow."

Servant Plaster lowered his hand. He raised it again.

"No, Servant Plaster, I am sighing with you." Elohim was really gaining on that facepalm record. "Space will be ours. Time will be ours. All of reality will be ours to dictate as we see fit. Servant Transit, please take Gangrene for a walkies later. He is crying the poop cry." He held his chin high. "Both the Good Guys and the Bad Guys will oppose us."

"Codswallowing pinkos." Servant Ripsaw smacked his fist. And then smacked Steeple for no good reason.

"Yes, and some are green. And some are indescribably pasty." Elohim crossed his arms. "We will show no mercy." To those words, an uproarious cheer overpowered his echo. His apostles, his Overthrow, thirsted with purpose.

The celebration died, giving voice to a pompous chuckle. "Mmm-hmmm. And you will keep me installed in their headquarters to watch over things, my entity lord."

"No, Legacy, we will uninstall you until an opportune time, for you are a blabbermouth and a gossip. You will give us away within minutes, you tactical embarrassment."

"Yes, that computes." Legacy smacked his lips. What lips? Legacy was a computer program. Why even play that sound file?

Elohim reached into his pouch at his hip. Not a fanny pack. A pouch. Difference. From it, he produced his sweet Crunch Berries and savored one. "Now that we are taking control of the spacetime continuum, refer to me as your master, your savior, your lord. I am now Continuum."

On this moonsized space satellite that would soon be named Station One, exactly 150 feet below ground in a room that defied vastness and would remain undiscovered, Elohim and his flock stood outside the castle that would become their stronghold. Tomorrow, the Good Guys would assume ownership of this station, though they would never own it. But in little shorter than eight months, Elohim would tear his castle out of the ground.

And take his destiny.

A hand went up.

"Servant Plaster, just look continuum up in the dictionary."

Part 3: The Part Where Enemies Become Friends and Someone Gets Cranky about It because There's Always That One Person

Chapter One: Mi Rooster Es Su Rooster

Some weird elevator airfoil shaft whirred down from…well, that dawning sun blared too brightly above, cackling with light, but Legion would assume it came from someplace that made sense. Yes, made sense. On a flying rooster. With four legs. When he screened his eyes, from what he saw, the shaft ascended into The Nemesis's new cockpit. Face? Cockpit face. Somehow a cockpit had a face.

The shaft was made with l tech, so when it plunked onto the grass, Legion flinched to his feet and clenched. L tech was such a buggy technology he squirmed at it. It could corrupt the objects it controlled. Not that he'd experienced it, but he'd heard stories. Thankfully the shaft touched down with no incident except to squash a grasshopper. He allowed himself to breathe. This time it didn't explode. Didn't do the grasshopper any favors, though.

The hum of the airfoil's car followed. The shaft doors dinged, separated, and George emerged with Lieutenant IQ 23, Schizophrenic, three generics, and a goofy grin. The generics' faces looked tenderized, so half of Legion's job was done. The fun half. The other half was filing the arrests.

George wore Legion's old Alaphan necklace. It flashed in the imperious sunlight. George was welcome to that false weight. Legion's throat swelled, though. He'd inherited the necklace from Sopher. It somehow felt weird not to wear it. He felt it flap against his collar like a phantom accessory.

"Legion, how are you? I haven't seen you since the generics' first uprising. You won't believe how many they're up to now. Two!" George cavorted forward, hands extended for a hug that he aimed at Legion. He filed into the tallgrass and over Pincushion as if he didn't notice him.

Legion whacked one of George's hands away. "Down, boy. We're not at the hugging phase yet."

"A finger tap?" George extended two fingers to Legion. His, George's, and Sopher's version of a high-five in their training days.

Legion eyed it but left George hanging. "Not until the gunshot that killed Sopher stops ringing in my head."

Asinine's grin grew more foolish. "That's okay. We can still be each other's emergency contacts. Hugging and finger taps are the next step. We'll get there by four o'clock. Lieutenant, what time is it right now?"

Lieutenant IQ 23 checked a device sewn into his sleeve. He pressed it. Pressed again. Shook it. Pressed again. "Not sure, sir. It seems time acts wonkily here. My watch says seven Y and then, in square brackets, forty-two point nine Q. I think that's island time."

"That's probably three thirty around these parts." George's grin never dimmed. "Me and my party flair will have us finger-tapping by forty-three point one E." He winked. It was the most uncomfortable wink Legion ever experienced.

"I've got so much to tell my hivemind." Luzimoss almost doubled over. He braced himself to stop from blundering down a hill. "Keep it coming, guys."

"It's so good to have my bestie around again. Fighting these last few years has been hard. I've done a lot of soul searching. Pillow sobbing…ugly sobbing…punch sobbing…dry sobbing…thrash sobbing—burned a lot of calories on that one—back to ugly sobbing. Staring at my reflection in a lake while pondering life choices. I even resorted to an interim bestie: a doormat. Don't need that old thing anymore." Behind him, a generic thunked a doormat onto the grass. Clouds of dust coughed out.

"Check out my new ride: my old ride. It's a rooster. It's grass fed." George threw his hands up at the looming Nemesis. "It has a quad-engine system and a beak."

Legion felt violated looking at the thing. His eyes sizzled. Maybe that was from the sun. Maybe not. "You turned The Nemesis into a rooster? A four-legged one?"

"It's a weight-distribution thing. Without four legs, the front would tip forward and—Never mind. Just don't call it fat."

"George, I can't believe I'm going to ask this." A retch percolated up Legion's windpipe, but he pushed it down. "We need your hhhh"—this word was tough—"hhhelp." Forced it out. Phew. "First, my field leader needs medical attention."

George turned to Pincushion, lying behind him in the tallgrass. Pincushion's only movement was his exhalation as subdued as meditative breathing.

"Don't worry about him. We've got a medical bay to die for. Well, around thirty percent of the time. The rest survive. But still. We'll rush him up. Nadon!" George snapped his fingers at a generic. "Nadon?"

"You told Nadon to stay upstairs and tape your soaps." A sideburned generic crossed his arms. "Nobody tapes things anymore."

"Well, which one are you then?"

"Bernie." Bernie tapped his nametag. "I'm the guy who keeps reminding you nobody tapes things anymore."

"Then Nadon—"

Bernie threw his arms up so harshly he whacked IQ 23. "I just told you."

"—bring spiky sleeping guy up to the medical bay toots suits."

"He's Pincushion," Legion said. "You've met him at least a dozen times. He's on your RSVP list for your wine tours."

George swung a thumb over his shoulder. "You know they have ski hills here? And a parkland. With cottonwood trees." He scoffed. "As if. How can something be cotton and wood? Don't get me started on dogwood. Right, Lieutenant?" He glanced at IQ 23.

"We're all laughing with you, sir," Lieutenant IQ 23 said.

Legion screened the sun. "Anyway, I'm not sure how much you know"—not a lot, last time he checked—"but there's a dictator named Continuum trying to conquer reality."

"Yeah, we just mopped the floor with his welcoming squad. I used up both my lucky shoulders, but we trounced two whacks of knights. Maybe three whacks, but who's counting?"

"You mean who's counting right." Schizophrenic tromped past behind him in the tallgrass.

"And they had a couple hypergoons with them. Guess who's back. Plaster!" George guffawed so eagerly. "Oh, sorry. I didn't leave you enough time to guess." He waited for a song of insects to crest and fall. "Plaster's not saying much, which is good since I don't feel like hearing him much. But those hypergoons and their insensitive remarks about my outfit are secured.

"Anyway, looks as though you brought the whole gang." Hefting onto his tiptoes, George scanned the crowd with a smile that gasped in the scene. "You brought Fashionable Sweater Guy?" He waved at Puttyman. "Hey, Fashionable Sweater Guy, remember me? I'm Master Asinine, from the news and the hardware store and the slaughter at Station Zilcho. We met that one time. Not at the hardware store."

Puttyman twisted his mouth at Bullet, at Maul, at H2O.

"George, we've got a lot to discuss." Legion squinted at the cockpit face haloed under the sun. "Can we come aboard your hundred-and-one—"

"Estimate," Ace said.

"—hundred-ton rooster?"

"Sure. You can park your transports in our butt hangar. I'll open the rear." George pulled out a fob and clicked a button. A rasp ground up, down, up again, louder again, quieter…louder…quieter…razzed out in separate peeps…and petered into a ssssssssp. "Okay, it's open."

* * *

It felt eerie in this busy cockpit, welcomed aboard enemy territory. Like…a constant itch. Legion's sensations undulated. The gunshot that killed Sopher eight years ago crackled in his memory as if George fired it all over again. And was that lavender? Pungent, like a coating. Also, it was a coating. Legion drew his finger along a wall and scratched off a film.

Legion let the Bad Guys exit the airfoil first and then followed. Ace Spandex, Sixth Sense, and Franchise came as backup. Luzimoss came as "interested party to see if Asinine discovered water was fireproof yet." The Purple Nurple had also wandered up though no one asked him to come.

Detritus, Wasted, and Multipurpose were free. Keeping them prisoners was impossible now. In fact, Legion felt wary George would flip this around and capture the Good Guys, but they had bigger fish to fry. And Continuum was a whale-shark-sized fish. Besides, he felt relieved from no longer escorting them around. Frankly, Wasted just slowed them down, and Legion didn't need another mouth to feed in Multipurpose. A triple-intake mouth.

Plaster and a creature in a fencing outfit weren't free, though. Generics held them at gunpoint in a shadowy recess across from the airfoil. Plaster grumbled, nostrils twitching, dagger-staring George. The fencer stood silently.

"Make yourselves at home." George swept a hand to the passenger deck that looked like a construction zone of discarded chairs. "We've got theater-style seating over here, and some of it isn't upside-down." He gestured at the chatterbox cockpit controls. "State-of-the-art Letchtech haunt-control mod named Cluck. You guys like smooth jazz? You'd better, because it's practically mandatory here." He flung his hand up at the top of the windshield. "Fuzzy dice." He indicated Plaster and the creature. "Prisoners." The cockpit's port side. "Fully-stocked omelet station that unfortunately doesn't work, so it's an emptily-stocked omelet station. Lemme see. Coffee machine. The supplies are in this cupboard, but careful because the door creaks"—he opened the door with a squeaking notable coward—"Shakespearean insults. It creaks Shakespearean insults." He closed the door: bull's pizzle.

"The lower levels have a solarium, a race track, a tattoo parlor with our famed tattooist, Bad Aim."

Holding a purring needle, Braindead raised his hand off a generic's arm for a wave.

"He's getting closer to tattooing the right places every day," George said. "Uhm, library on level three with a complete collection of Baby-Sitters Club books except the ones Appetite ate when I tried teaching it to do anything other than eat. A vacuum store. A puppy parlor with ssssssoooooo many ferrets." He pointed at a tunnel in the back. "Bathrooms, second door on the left."

Legion stepped to the dashboard and skimmed his fingers along a patch-up job swathed across the bank of controls. Sharp edges folded out of the console. Something had come through here, and it hadn't been cordial. It had been thorough, though. It matched George's attempt at remodeling the here-and-there seating arrangement. He was replacing the seats, whether he liked it or not. Appetite made sure of that.

"This better not mean you're handing back Detritus, Wasted, and All You Can Already Ate." Schizophrenic tromped past, mashing two generics' faces together. He produced the sound of a coconut clonk. Suspicions confirmed: the generics' heads were hollow. He dropped the generics and grabbed another by the collar. This one he dragged in the opposite direction. The generic seemed resigned to go along for the ride.

"Niiiiice setup." Ace Spandex whistled at the cockpit controls, scanning left to right. "Can you pay-per-view the Ultimate Hockey Fighting Championships?" He plopped down on the pilot's chair. It snapped off its post and dumped him on the floor.

"Sorry, not right now," George said. "One of Continuum's goons swept through and trashed our ride. A nasty one." He opened the coffee cupboard—three-inch fool—to grab a mug and a carton of creamer.

Ace Spandex hauled himself up. "Was it Kamikaze? A guy in a bodystocking with blades on his arms and legs? A woman with braided hair down to her knees? A Trioxidillian in a business suit? A humongous dragon? A dog? Continuum hires a lot of animals. Was it an animal?"

George started pouring the creamer. "Some murky guy, like a soup bowl of shadows." And pouring. It was curdled, but he didn't care.

"Sir, careful now. We don't need to talk you out of another recipe idea." Lieutenant IQ 23 eased a hand on George's shoulder. George didn't notice he was dribbling creamer on the floor now.

Luzimoss barely spoke through cackles. "So much entertainment value."

"Not where I'm at." Plaster reared at the generic covering him. "Lift that gun up just one more inch. I dare ya."

"Lowensl—" Legion stopped. New leaf with his old acquaintance. Trusting George would take time, but it started on a first-name basis. And the reek of spoiled creamer seeping into the floor. "George, we need a strategy against Continuum. He plans to take over all reality. As impossible as that sounds in concept, I think he can pull it off. We'll watch you try to eat shadow soup later." He swallowed to prepare his next words. "But right now we need to work together." Each syllable tasted more bitterly than the previous, the last one like dirt. "All of us. Good Guys, Bad Guys, Blowtorch."

"Me." The Purple Nurple raised his hand.

"You're debatable." Legion scuffled back when the creamer leaked close. "Luzimoss, contain yourself."

"Give me…" Luzimoss had rolled across the cockpit. "Give me a few…a few seconds." He wrapped his arms around his sides.

"Work together?" George's eyes sprouted wide with shimmering tears of joy. He squeaked.

Lieutenant IQ 23 wore the same expression but kept the ability to speak. "Sir, I'm already crossing this off your hopes-and-dreams list." A pop declared Braindead uncorking a bottle of champagne.

"Such a landmark day. I'll remember this moment forever." Asinine opened the cupboard to put the creamer carton back. Lack gall. "Leave race out of this, cupboard. We all poop brown!"

Something hissed. The porthole in the rear connecting the cockpit to The Nemesis's esophagus faded too quickly for Legion to recoil. Out stepped—

Out stepped a chunk of his recent past.

Chapter Two: So This Is How You Treat Guests?

"We're here." Kamikaze wore a ferocious grit. His cheek twitched as he guided the Tinfoil onto the heavy carpet of grass that spread from the imperial front steps of the castle's outer curtain wall. The old him would have guided it into the wall.

The first thing Power Plant noticed about the entrance was the two knights guarding it, who clanked a salute when the Tinfoil touched the ground. One wore a Mongolian Yurts hat but didn't notice. Maybe Marionette had stopped by.

Power Plant had never before seen the front of the curtain wall. Ramparts loomed tall at both distant ends. Some collapsed structure stood off the right, conquered by shrubbery, about fifteen feet tall with a crumbling top.

Despite the jitters butterflying in him, Power Plant was happy to return. He looked forward to his steak. Pfft. Heh. Grilled. Right. Good one.

He hadn't stopped shaking since they'd found Organism's dad, their prisoner in the passenger deck. Every fiber of his being—even his foot fiber that he used to stomp whoopee cushions—suspected Continuum's mojo was underhanded. It chilled the tepid cockpit. Sure, Mr. Barnaby used up all the hot water, but to make him an example? Power Plant couldn't look at him—even right now, he glanced as though he were sneaking a cookie out of the jar—but whatever Continuum planned gurgled gas through Power Plant's tummy. Power Plant had said nothing during the twenty-minute trip. Well, except to ask about the chocolate-milk situation in the Tinfoil. He had a serious case of the mad brown-cow disease.

And now he wanted to ask about the cookie situation.

The inertia field on Mr. Barnaby's seat was cranked up so harshly it hummed. His elastic body squeezed flatly against the padding. He flinched at any tick or clank as if dodging an attack. His house slippers had skidded across the floor, and now he was shoeless and bunioned. And full of foot fungus. Everything he blurted ejected in hops: "gah" and "hrrk" and "bleh" and "gunge." Power Plant didn't want to figure out that last one.

The roar of the engines died. Kamikaze rumbled out a chuckle. "We're here. Let's move. We've got a schedule." He rubbed his hands together.

When he whipped out of the pilot's chair, Power Plant jittered as sharply as Mr. Barnaby. He sucked his lip so nervously he almost bit down. Ow. Crap, he did. His lip griped. Man, now how would he eat a cookie?

Kamikaze knelt down face to face with Mr. Barnaby. He flicked Mr. Barnaby's forehead, which was flattened so thinly the weave of the seat peeked through. "Better not try anything. Not a house dousing or fire branding or whatever you vigilantes from the sixties said."

Mr. Barnaby tightened his insolence at Kamikaze in a show of aggression as artificial as a nose job. And he had tried a few. The results weren't good. "It's 'house crunking,' you idiot."

"Sure, it is." Kamikaze stood. "Control, acknowledge. Set inertia on seat nine to zero."

"Inertia field on seat nine set to zero, you canker sore," the haunt control said. "Entity Kamikaze, sweetie, your pilot's helmet looks ssssoooo adorable" Nice one-eighty, sarge grandma.

Mr. Barnaby fell out of the seat like a scroll rolling in. Kamikaze didn't stop his face from smacking the floor. When he landed, he flattened back out like a rubber sheet, outlining the grooves on the carpet. Kamikaze clicked his tongue. "Fine. If you won't come easy, we'll do this the hard way." He grabbed Mr. Barnaby by the mustache and dragged him toward the porthole. He didn't even respect the mustache! "Control, acknowledge. Open access."

"Access opened, canker sore. Go die out there. I'll hide the Easter eggs."

Kamikaze hauled Mr. Barnaby outside and down the ramp. The back of Mr. Barnaby's head clunked against every ridge. Kamikaze didn't mind.

Power Plant rushed out to catch up. Felt muggy today. Kamikaze had reached the curtain wall's front steps and dragged Mr. Barnaby up. He dropped Mr. Barnaby on the top step, mustache facing the sky. Guest services would hear about this.

Power Plant chopped a hand to his brow to block the domineering day looming down. Fricking power-tripping sun. Keep it down up there. "What's all this crumbled-up crap?" He thrust his chin at the destroyed structure a few yards away.

"That's the front lobby."

Power Plant bunched a cheek. "Continuum gots a front lobby outside the castle? There a swimming pool in the kitchen too?" Wait a sec. "Tell me there a swimming pool in the kitchen."

"You don't recognize the lobby building?"

"That's ain't a building. It ain't built. That's the first thing a building gotta be. Trust me. I know Lego."

It nauseated Power Plant to look at what Kamikaze inflicted on Mr. Barnaby, so he didn't. Sounded like a balloon twisting and a lip-biting squeal. But whatever Kamikaze did, he paused. "Station One's lobby."

Okay, Power Plant had to look at Kamikaze for this pfffft swelling up. "Pffft." He followed that up with a "Station One? Whatcha on about?" And then another "pffft." Nailed it. "Pffft" again. No, that last one was uncalled for.

Kamikaze's hands made circles as if he smeared the air. "This is Station One." He threw a finger at the building he claimed was built. It wasn't. Power Plant didn't have to be an architecturist. "That's Station One's lobby. Didn't Continuum show you the new-employee instructional video?"

"Okay, Jakey once convinced me RoboCop got a bowl cut whens it's was really a mohawk, an' even I know this ain't Station One. Station One ain't grassy." Power Plant smacked his neck. Stupid beetle. "An' buggy except aroun' Scapegoat's laundry."

"You might be confused about who RoboCop is." Kamikaze cocked his head. "Or what a bowl cut is. At any rate, Lord Continuum didn't like the station's industrialization, so he accelerated time to remove it. Station One now has eighteen thousand years of overgrowth covering everything. We're standing on the visitors' parking lot."

Now Power Plant jolted. Every fiber jolted with him, even the whoopee-cushion one. Holy crock, it did look like Station One's front lobby, except the roof over the food court was split open. And over there, the parking lot where Power Plant set off that cherry bomb…under that car bomb…under that car. Quick orientation here. That meant the barracks—

A quick-tempered flame crackled behind him. Mr. Barnaby yelped. Power Plant spun at the curtain wall. The elder Barnaby had reinflated only slightly. Kamikaze held him up by the collar. Fingers curled, he sizzled orange voltage at Mr. Barnaby's cheek. "I'm sorry it's come to this, but Lord Continuum wants the attacks to stop. You need to be an example." Kamikaze placed his hand on Mr. Barnaby's skin, and orange voltage scrabbled a blackened char over the cheek.

Power Plant swallowed down a block in his throat. "C-can'ts we just make him an example of algebra? Nothing ain't more painful than algebra."

"Nope." Kamikaze shifted his hand to Mr. Barnaby's other cheek. Voltage snapped from his fingers into the skin.

"This ain'ts right." Power Plant clenched shut his eyes as tightly as his buttocks whenever the dentist turned on the drill.

"It's what Lord Continuum decreed," Kamikaze said. What happened to Continuum's revulsion to torture?

Kamikaze pressed harder, or maybe he used both hands now, because Mr. Barnaby's howls climbed to yowls. When that h became a y, things got nasty. "He needs to repair spacetime without interference." The y became a sizzle. "And your former friends keep interfering." The sizzle became a shriek. "They need to see what happens when they interfere."

Burned skin whistled into the muggy wind. The sizzle disappeared, and the shriek became a pant. "That all you got, grunt?" Mr. Barnaby's pants churned harder. Power Plant shirked when Mr. Barnaby spat in Kamikaze's face. "Bring it on, house crunker." His cheeks were crinkled like burned paper and fluttering in the wind.

Kamikaze wiped the spit off with the back of the hand not holding Mr. Barnaby's collar. "If I must."

Mr. Barnaby screamed. Power Plant turtled his head between his shoulders. He shivered down the steps, lit his fists and considered…what, fighting Kamikaze? Freeing Mr. Barnaby? What would that mean for bringing Mark back?

Mr. Barnaby's shrieks dried into hoarse bellows.

Power Plant flew off.

* * *

Continuum trotted along the path that cut through his front courtyard, down the garden expanse, past Pee Pants McBusiness. It was Plaster's favorite fixture in the castle, so Continuum considered erasing it from reality if that degenerate didn't stop mixing the colors and the darks in the laundry. Birds chirped with renewed song as the day shone. Well, except the one that cawed. Continuum wasn't aware he'd brought a crow onto Station One. Then again, he was barely aware of Fragment on some days, and Fragment was one of his apostles. He was also apparently barely aware of the instant noodles here, because they'd all expired fourteen years ago.

He hooked his fingers together behind his back and lifted his smile to the sun. The warmth felt like a hug against his skin. The air smelled savory, pine mixed with the waters from his busy fountain. And a murmuring wind curdled with singed skin and screams of agony. Aaaaah, life was divine.

He punted a loose rock and reached the end of the courtyard where the castle's grand outer curtain wall of graphite lotranium towered. He strolled through the opening, between the two knights flanking the imposing posts, and onto the front steps where Kamikaze held the elder Organism. Where was Power Plant? And why was that knight a Yurts fan?

The elder Organism's cheeks looked like those of a burn victim. Smelled like burned skin too. Not a grave wound for someone who remolded himself. A booboo for one with his hyperability set. Nevertheless, the pain was real.

"He won't break, Lord. He's taken a lot of damage in his time." Kamikaze released Organism the First. His head flapped against the steps. Continuum handed it to him: he withstood an immense amount of torture, and so Continuum would grant him a royal title. The First.

Organism the First's face had sunk into the rest of his body like a lily pad floating in a pond of skin. He spat blood. "You think you know damage?" His voice gurgled from his malformed windpipe. Or maybe from Continuum stepping on his groin. Whoops, not whoops. "Lemme tell you about the Grand Dictator. He'd take a wooden wedge, force open your nostrils—"

"My dear Mr. Barnaby, I hope my emissary Kamikaze did not cause you much distress." Continuum stepped off his groin.

"You think you know distress? Lemme tell you about a certain tax worker. He'd take a brass wedge, force—"

"I offer you a choice, but I offer it only once." Continuum smiled from one side of his mouth. He separated his hands and held one out. In it popped a gabber that hadn't existed a second ago. Fully functional except what the software updates had broken. "The choice is this. On the one palm, I—"

Kamikaze cleared his throat. "On the one hand."

Continuum looked at him. "What?"

"The phrase is 'on the one hand.'"

"But I hold it in my palm. That's more accurate."

Kamikaze shrugged. "It's a saying. It's not about accuracy."

Continuum sighed at the sky. Today's lesson was that English was a giant mess. Back to Organism the First. "On the one hhhhhaaaannndd"—he glanced a sidelong sheesh at Kamikaze, then back at the First—"your friends can continue their useless endeavor of attacking me at my home. That will gain them nothing, and I will respond with fatal and painful retaliation. I do not like causing harm when it isn't warranted. On the other hand, you can all return home, enjoy time on the couch, and allow me to pursue my goals without the displeasure of you nuisances. All you need to do is use this gabber to tell Legion to turn around. Your pain will end, I will have my Blackguard transport you to your friends, and we will conclude this farce. Refuse my offer, and I will ensure your pain is insufferable, loud"—he ground his heel into that groin—"and dawdling."

"House crunkers, the lot of you. I already told Kamikaze to bring it." Organism the First slitted his stare. "So bring it."

Continuum grumbled. The gabber in his hand evaporated in a curlicue of smoke. It left behind a Crunch Berry. "Very well. Let's make an example of you." How headstrong must these mortals be? He tossed the Crunch Berry into his mouth.

Nope, not a Crunch Berry. It was still a gabber. Ick. Still a gabber.

Chapter Three: Ample Parking in the Rear

Weird hangar in this starship. Chug had to cut left when they flew in, because—Okay, Puttyman wouldn't elaborate, but just know they successfully avoided a tube of waste on its way out.

Amid the juddering whirs of drills, the sizzling of starship rechargers, and the battling choruses of product jingles, H2O guided Chug into one of forty spots, shut things down, and waited for the exposed electricity to subside.

"Sweet landing, dude." Puttyman splashed a hand on H2O's shoulder. Yyyyyikes. Something stung his arm. Stupid move. He knew never to touch H2O while Chug shut down. H2O was conductive. Just a hot tip.

"I'm all about the sweet landings." H2O tamped down the dashboard flames. Kalukahani got a shower.

"Gotta stretch my legs. Literally." Puttyman put a hand on H2O's shou—Yeowch! Again. Served him right for not paying attention. That zap would bite him all day.

"Don't take long!" yelled Bullet through the shower curtain.

"I'll get you something pretty at the gift shop, Ytril. It'll have my scent, so you'll always remember me." Puttyman strolled toward the porthole groaning open. Or trying to.

Bullet clicked her tongue. "Don't get me anything. They don't have a gift shop."

"I'll check the jewelry aisle." Puttyman waited at the porthole as it deliberated working.

"Jeff, for crock, if you find any jewelry around, leave it. It'll probably give me a rash." Bullet slapped the curtain but didn't emerge. "Are you even listening?"

The porthole decided to open. Good. Puttyman sauntered out to the ramp that hadn't extended since H2O was a wee puddle. Behind his sunglasses in the concrete-and-mechanical vibe of the hangar, everything was muted in grays, beiges, and wet splashes of browns. Smelled gorgeous, if his definition of gorgeous was "not unlike permanent markers." He arched his back—aaahhh—and hopped off the ramp. Well, the diving board, as it were. Fair description. You'd agree.

They had found a spot beside a set of six maintenancebot cradles, with five bots clamped in and recharging. Chug had crushed the sixth under her landing trestle. Friznatch hummed to the pavement next to them. Or whatever they called that Tinfoil. Sounded like a Terran trying a Trioxidillian curse word for the first time. Its access port opened—all the way, but Puttyman wasn't jealous—and the ramp whirred to the ground—all the way, but Puttyman still wasn't jealous. A working ramp. Fine, Puttyman was jealous.

That grandstander Better Than You burst out so quickly his feet almost rolled out under him. He caught Puttyman out of the corner of his eye but flinched away. What was his deal? A few hours ago, he finger-gunned Plastique with a saucy wink. Now? He'd pull his hair over his face to hide if he could.

"Hey, Better Than Me." Puttyman rushed toward him, over an unprocessed bit of corn that hadn't made it through the waste disposal. He righted his sunglasses, which had fallen off his ear.

Better Than You curled his shoulders in and whipped around the Tinfoil. Too bad nobody beat the stride of a dude whose legs stretched. You dug? Yeah, you dug.

Puttyman extended his arm, grabbed Better Than You's sleeve, and whirled the dude around. Okay, a bit early, since he'd thrown his arm forty feet out and now had to catch up. He hustled—"I'm coming, I'm coming"—and retracted his arm.

Puttyman met him underneath a Fireball with a pungent fluid leak. Smelled like the blue marker. Must have been the methylene. "Dude, what was with writhing around on the ground?"

"Never mind." Better Than You shoved Puttyman back and stomped around a Flagstar. No cutting under it. Flagstars sat lower than Fireballs, and this one squatted on the pavement.

"That ain't gonna work." Puttyman grabbed his sleeve again. This time he didn't have to stretch across the length of a football field. Been there, done that, still working out the inflamed muscle. He bounded out to bridge the distance and leaned against the Flagstar, where F-STRATOTANKER was embossed on its rear. "All you do is throw your attitude in everyone's faces. Bullet got so sick of it she has a scowl blister. So spill it. What happened on that field?"

Better Than You peeled his lips over his teeth. He slammed the Flagstar, the poor girl. "I said—"

"You don't get away with it that easily, dude. You puff out your chest so much I think you have a back brace." Puttyman gripped Better Than You's sleeve harder. "You've been stomping on everyone's last nerve, so I think you owe me an explanation." A drill somewhere whined.

"You're not a mind-your-own-crock person, are you?" Better Than You's lips peeled away more, right up to the gumline. He looked like an attack dog waiting for the word to go.

Then his expression liquefied into loose cheeks and a fierce interest in the chemical leak on the floor. His breath hitched. "I have ataxia."

Crap. It had to be a medical condition. And medical conditions ending in a did double damage.

Puttyman released his sleeve. "What's ataxia?"

"It's a medical condition—"

"I just went over that in my head. Don't you listen? I mean what does it do?"

Better Than You rubbed his hands along his arms. Yeah, it was chilly in here, and Better Than You wore a T-shirt. At least Puttyman wore a sweater. His gaze rolled across the pavement, but he checked up at Puttyman. "It's a catch-all term for a bunch of neurological—" He must have noted Puttyman's furrowed brow, so he switched gears. "I have no muscle control."

"Nice try. An hour ago, you high-fived a tree branch because Amaranthia left you hanging."

"I have no muscle control, but I move because I absorb people's talents. As sad as it sounds, moving's a talent. Bad word. It's an ability." Better Than You examined a maintenancebot that clattered past with a welder in its claw. "Ataxia affects everybody differently. For me, it affects my muscle control. Doctors can't figure it out, so they can't treat me. The reason I move is because I absorb everyone's ability to move…until that snot hoggler took away my hyperability."

Oooookay. Puttyman licked his lips. "So this showboat act is an overcompensation."

"You try being literally unable to move." Better Than You shoved Puttyman. Okay, okay, Puttyman deserved that after digging around this dude's classified files. But he asked for it, you had to admit. "Before my hyperability developed, I needed round-the-clock care. I had to be spoon-fed like a baby. A monkey helped me pee. Ain't that dignified?" The drill picked up in a short burst. "For eleven years, my dad did everything for me. And he resented me for it. He compared me to my older brother under his breath when he thought I was out of earshot. You never heard exasperation until you heard my dad complain about one more spoon-feeding.

"I was eleven when my hyperability kicked in. I was ecstatic. I wiped myself. I dunked a basketball. I peed without that frigging monkey, and I hit the bowl on the second try. I did things on my own, and I didn't have to hear my dad mutter about me.

"But, if I'm left alone, it all goes away. I have to make sure I'm not alone for long, or I'll die because my ability to move will disappear. So excuse me, but I got sick of being noticed for all the wrong reasons. Overcompensate?" Better Than You slapped his chest and eye-challenged Puttyman. "I call it 'celebrate.'"

Puttyman put his hands up. "Hey, look, I'm so—"

"Save it. I've had enough pity over the years. I don't need any more. Get me…dude?" Better Than You knocked shoulders with Puttyman as he passed. He stormed into the cover of gray lighting, industrial noise, the purveying sulfate of permanent markers, and ads for permanent markers.

Yeah. Puttyman had that coming.

"Dad, Dad, look at all the brown stuff. It's so mushy." Speed Line had stepped onto the access ramp, but Puttyman didn't check. "Dad, let's make a pile and jump in it!"

Chapter Four: You Look like a Guy I Knew

"Is this a reunion?" Legion jolted when I emerged from the esophagus tunnel. "First Kamikaze, now you. Is Smithereens bringing up the rear?"

I'd returned from checking on Francine in the sick bay. Well, the locker room. She was missing. Val had shrugged at this. "Monsieur Reef, she tell me nothing about where she go, but she go so loud." Upon my return to the cockpit, a smattering of Good Guys occupied the cockpit. The Nemesis's frontal lobe. Or forehead. Or comb or whatever a rooster had. I left for five minutes, and Asinine invited the enemy aboard. He blabbered on about his crazy new fashion accessories though Ace clearly wasn't interested in his automatic-pistol tiara. And why did it smell like spoiled creamer?

But the Good Guys? In here? I felt a wallop to my gut as heavily as Schizophrenic walloped Steve's face. I knew the Good Guys' names from…from…from I didn't know where. Something that burned the back of my skull. Franchise—I growled, because he was the one who'd attacked me at Station Zilcho last week—Ace Spandex, Sixth Sense, and Legion. And somebody named Luzimoss had joined them.

I knew them. Imprisoned in Brainiac's lab for three months with no outside access, I still knew them all. Reef knew them. I knew them. Something else clouted Reef…me…in the stomach. Not Schizophrenic. He clouted Steve's stomach. Reef reeled onto the wall. I reeled—Why did I drop back to third person again?

Franchise felt the same as I did. He staggered against the navigator controls, and his hand fumbled along the buttons to keep upright. "I did see him. I knew I wasn't nuts." Meanwhile, Cluck seeped in a low-and-moody apple undertone, which spoiled to compost when Franchise fumbled the ripeness lever past the maximum.

"Reef, we declared you dead. We filled out three separate forms." Ace Spandex's eyes crept to Legion for a sideways chat. "I know this isn't the time—"

"Season seven," Legion said.

Ace thumped his thigh. "I just have to know what you thought of the Barrel of Monkeys plotline."

"Meh. It was a garbage season with unrealistic portrayals of barrels and monkeys." Master Asinine seesawed his hand.

My past was biting down on me and thrashing around. Hard. I stammered a few false starts, and when I figured out my words, Legion spoke first. "Reef, how are you still alive? Wait, since I have you here, what did you set the cleaningbots to? Your shower stall looked like a hall of mirrors."

Reef didn't know how to answer him. "I'm not sure how I'm alive or even why I shouldn't be. I don't remember anything before a few months ago. And I set their intensity to 'obsessive-compulsive level four.'"

"Hey. Uhm. Okay." Sixth Sense plodded over, inch by inch as if feeling his way with his toes. "Reef, you were on Station Zilcho when we fought Mechanism. After the fight, I did a telepathy scan to find everybody. I found hundreds of screaming generics and one guy looking for the parking terminal, but not you. Happy ending about the parking terminal but not you."

"Good for the parking guy." Master Asinine clapped.

Reef hadn't…Crock. Back to first-person mode. I hadn't left the esophagus tunnel, as putrid as it sounded during throat-clearing maintenance. But Legion ambled toward Reef. He tripped over the imperfection in the floor, but he caught himself on an upturned chair. By the chin, but it was a catch. He shook it off and continued until they stood a few feet apart.

"Last time I approached an old friend, he threatened to fly me into space." He cocked his eye over his shoulder. "Not Power Plant."

"I didn't say anything." Ace Spandex threw his hands out.

"Was it a celebrity chef?" Master Asinine leaned in to hear the answer. He heard only a headshake.

"Why are you working for George?" Legion asked me. Reef. Meef. How should Reef address myself now? The toggle switch between first person and third had come loose.

"You call him George now?" Reef scraped his foot on the carpet. "It used to be Lowensland. Karma's Return Policy for one Halloween, but Lowensland the rest of the time." How could he know this? Had he absorbed someone's telepathy? Absorbing a hyperability took concentration, so that couldn't be, even with Sixth Sense in the room. How could he know Sixth Sense's name when they'd never met? Had they met?

"George and I…" Legion chuffed at the ceiling. "We buried the hatchet."

"Buried it like a fox!" Master Asinine pumped an arm. He ended up elbowing Nadon in the stomach. Nadon folded like it was a race to the floor.

"We buried it a foot deep, George. I can dig it back up if I want," Legion said.

Reef pinched his lips together at Master Asinine, then at Legion. "Anyway, I work with him, not for him. I wouldn't let him lead me down a hallway. No offense."

"None understood." Master Asinine sipped from a mug. He pulled it back wearing a creamer mustache.

Meanwhile Nadon thumped the floor in pain. Nadon was in charge of the generics' weight room, where Schizophrenic routinely threw dumbbells at him. So, to him, an elbow to the stomach was amateur hour.

"Nadon's okay. He's had a few of those to the face, so this isn't the worst part of his day." Master Asinine shrugged. "Unfortunately not the best part either." He didn't think to help Nadon up. Schizophrenic did, but only to throw him back down.

"Guys, I'm so happy right now, you can't even believe." Master Asinine's eyes glazed in ecstasy. Or maybe spoiled creamer. "I spent most of my adult life dreaming of becoming an adult, and when I attained that dream, my next dream was a really fierce team-up." He exuded so much glee he snorted creamer out his nose. "I'm knocking so many items off my bucket list I'll have to make up other ones just to have something to do."

Reef stepped forward. "Did I see 'create a race of super beasts' on the list? Asinine, don't create a race of super beasts."

"Already halfway there. So happy this is happening." Asinine beamed. "Wwwheeeennn I wwaasss—"

Legion chopped a hand out. "George, it's not the time for a musical."

"But nobody breaks into song anymore!" Asinine whacked the navigation panel.

"Child locks are on, my cool clucks."

"And on top of that, now I can't leave." Master Asinine whacked it again. That didn't whack the child locks off. He kept trying.

Franchise clomped out of the cockpit deck and stopped between Legion and Reef. "It's good to see you without being thrown to the ground, Reef, but we have to rescue Jeffy from a psychopath. So tomorrow is St. Catch Up with Old Friends Day. Today is Kill Continuum Civic Holy Mass." His voice was sharp. His expression was on high alert. He crossed his arms and tapped his foot. "So let's save the chatty reunion."

Reef puffed his cheeks. "Okay. Let's come up with a plan." He threw his finger out when Asinine heaved in a breath. "Without song."

"Where's your team spirit?" Asinine whacked the panel again.

* * *

An hour ago, Francine had stomped out of the medical bay, Val chasing after her and yelling about whatever a bein non was. Francine didn't find out. She needed to get to the bottom of some crock. Some upside-down-and-inside-out crock. "Control, acknowledge. Locate entity Reef."

"Your access level ain't zoot enough for that jitterbug, sweet mama."

Seriously, Cluck? She punched a wall.

"Your access level ain't zoot enough for that jitterbug, sweet mama."

Seriously again, Cluck? She punched the opposite wall.

The hall was well lit, but her vision darkened it to deep red, and anger droned in her inner ear. Fine. Reef had set Master Asinine free. Francine would unset him free.

The droning petered out. Her vision resolved to the regular beige carpet and light-green halls with maroon bonbons showing the direction of the mess hall. The icing on this ugliness cake was the icing on the ugly cakes painted among the bonbons. The Bad Guys needed an interior decorator in their ranks.

She saw only a few yards in either direction until the hall curved to follow the exterior of The Nemesis's belly. Crock, where was the cockpit?

She steeled herself for Cluck's backtalk, because if that haunt control jazzed her again, she'd slam both walls. She was so restless she might anyway. "Control, acknowledge. Indicate route to cockpit."

"I jive, my main baby. Indicating route to the cockpit digs using mellow blue line. Groove on over, sweet cat. Groove like a smokin' Harlem hummer." Okay, Cluck was lucky. Confusing but lucky.

A baby-blue stripe rolled into the distance at her feet. She stomped along it. This hallway was long enough that street signs labeled the cross hallways.

And then she saw the panel posted on the ceiling by a door: Monitor Room. She stopped. No, she gave the carpet one last stomp and then stopped. Monitor Room? She blinked at the sign. At the door. Well, if the cockpit was still a few blocks out, and there was no coffeeshop on the way…

Might as well. Her anger stomps had abated to annoyance stomps, so she slapped her cheek and then remembered her missing hand and then slapped her cheek with the hand that was still attached. Back up to anger stomps. Good. She threw herself across the hallway into the Monitor Room, barely aware of the l door fading or the jingle that told her about Murdermart for all her shiv needs.

She ent—Wait, shivs? She backed out of the room and then entered again to take note of the jingle. She'd forgotten her best shiv in her last victim.

The Monitor Room was narrow and short like a stubby hallway, with walls that looked gray in the lackluster shadows. It boasted eight viewscreens on the right. Seats lined a pristine table underneath those viewscreens. The opposite wall was featureless. Nothing there to clobber if Cluck got sassy.

Francine had heard about these monitor rooms. Since The Nemesis was so vast, diagnostic stations were built on each floor. From here, she could check every room in this clucking starship. Rooster now, apparently. Well, cock-a-doodle-doo for her. "Control, acknowledge. Activate monitor three."

"Lay it down and wax a disc, deuce."

Monitor three flickered on and sang about Murdermart's serrated shivs, perfect for gouging and carving. She needed a new fool carver.

"Monitor three, acknowledge. Display schematic of starship," Francine said. For crock, if Cluck fed her some line about her zooting access level…

Monitor three obeyed. Huh. So that was rooster mode. What was the big deal? Might as well have a turtle mode.

"Monitor three, acknowledge. Display cockpit."

The monitor clicked to a shot of the cockpit. It angled down, like a bird perched above the windshield and staring into the shared decks. There stood Reef. And Master Asinine. She knew it!

And Plaster. Where'd he come from? Last Francine had heard, he was missing. And that was months ago. Beside him stood some wiry guy in a white fencing outfit. Generics shoved them both toward the esophagus tunnel.

And the Good Guys?

The room bellowed red again. Crimson red. Francine's teeth chomped into each other so hard they scraped. Her gut became a cauldron of bubbling smoke and frothing water. Reef and Asinine was one alliance. But the Good Guys? The Good Guys was an altogether new crock. She slammed the table.

"Your access level ain't—"

"Don't test me, Cluck."

Time to take back control, even if Reef got in the blast zone. She stomped out of the Monitor Room. Didn't bother shutting off monitor three. It'd figure it out.

"Control, acknowledge. Indicate route to armory."

Chapter Five: I Knew I Left It around Here Somewhere

There. Down below. Power Plant recognized the living quarters, at least its ceiling crumbling under overgrowth and brush. Looked as if one of those giant robots had sat on it. Stupid robots. They had plenty of benches around.

He landed, wiped the squashed bugs off his cheek and the squashed seagulls off his other cheek, and scrambled around the rooftop. The grass felt soft, or was that the roof crumbling?

Was this really the living quarters? Power Plant had no idea, but the indentation in the overgrowth resembled its shape. A rectangle jutted out the side. Looked like the hallway to Alcoholics Unanimous that extended between Incendiary's room and the empty barrack.

Okay, if he remembered—yeah, right—a skylight overlooked the middle of the hallway. He checked the indentation to center himself. He wanted to claw through the grass, but instead he clomped around to hear a change in the echo of his steps. No change. Crock, maybe he was wrong. No, impossible. This was the only indentation that matched the living quarters.

Piss it. He rocketed ten feet into the air, faced down, and collected every bit of light his body had stored into fists that squeezed the meat of his palms. He detonated a wide cannon blast into the ground so hard he risked shooting into space. The force squealed in his ears.

The ground peeled away in black grass and the odor of dirt. His blast punctured through, and then the hole expanded in both directions until the rectangle collapsed in a rumble of disintegrating land. He dropped into the cave-in and landed on top of the rubble. The enclosed air almost made him cough.

Fierce. This was the living quarters. He recognized the rotted couch down the hall. Everything in him lit up, right to his toes. Okay, simmer down, toes. Stop shooting lasers. It was rude.

He hustled to the doors against one wall, tripping on rubble but not falling. He found room 107. Organism and his dad's room. The same dad he'd left in Kamikaze's merciless grip. He squeezed his eyes shut. Couldn't think about that right now.

His and Franchise's room was number 114, so he bounded over wreckage across the hall and scurried along the doors until—yes—he found it. It started at a sliding door that lay diagonally in its frame. He shuffled around the dislodged door, sprang along the corridor—

Holy crock, this place had collapsed. The ceiling had sagged into the center. Two beds, two bedside tables, two dressers with moth-eaten clothes spilled across the floor, socks possibly come to life, and a poster of Power Plant's favorite sports hero: a tennis-ball launcher on overdrive. None of this was identifiable to a stranger, but Power Plant knew every detail. He jumped over rubble as if hopping stones across a stream. His bedside table held two drawers, but since everything was in shambles, the doors were missing. He threw his hand into the lower drawer, rooted around the candy wrappers, the mousetraps he'd planned for Franchise, the beartraps he'd planned for Franchise, the Franchise traps he'd pl—

Found it! He yanked his hand out and gasped. The action figure of Mark he'd pinched from a toy store on Gaia during Mechanism's attack.

His memento of his brother.

Power Plant brushed off the coarse filth that had coated it. The face was smeared where he'd touched it with a heated thumb ages ago, but otherwise, it remained intact. Eighteen thousand years later, the space-age plastic hadn't degraded. Toy manufacturers knew how to create materials that never biodegraded, that was for sure. Same for their packaging.

He never brought the figure on missions for fear of breaking it. He always left it at home. The hip still swiveled, though eighteen thousand years had tightened the spring into a kinked squeak.

He eased to his knees and clutched it to his chest like rosary beads.

He and his misty eyes needed a minute.

Chapter Six: Like Talking to a Stone Wall

Continuum clomped back into his grand hall. Transit skittered against Power Plant's bank of alien-stuff-arcade machines at the wall a mid-distance away. They babbled in response. When he saw it was Continuum who'd entered, he calmed only a little but watched with stark-white attention. Good. Continuum enjoyed inspiring fear in those who displeased him as well as the flies that disturbed him on campouts.

By the back of the hall sat his throne. Even from this vast distance, pride swelled in him over its regality. A chuckle slithered out his crooked smile. He popped a Crunch Berry into that smile and tongued it along the roof of his mouth. Such exquisite stale bread.

He reached his throne and passed Gangrene with a pat on the head. Blackguard stood at attention on the throne's platform. "Everything has occurred without disturbance while you were away, my lord." For crying out loud, it had been seven minutes.

"Wit'out disturbance?" Ripsaw roared from the corner loudly enough that he clutched his side where that transport had struck. "We're still using paper straws in this joint. That's disturbin'. These things are as sturdy as actual straw." He gestured at his cup. Beside him, Marionetted nodded, stirring her straw around her cocktail.

On rickety appendages, Steeple creaked toward Continuum. At several times he teetered into a wall like a drunk. He licked his lips and exhaled the odor of mummy wraps. The Good Guysssss and the Bad Guysssss had gathered, he reported with a slithery smile that rolled a mallet along the xylophone of Continuum's spine. He sssensed their mental templatessss drawing closer. They intended to ssssstorm the casssstle. Their mindssssss smelled delectable. He drooled from the corners of his lips. So much uncontrolled drool.

So, the enemy had progressed from trespassing to planning an assault. These cogs did not heed warnings. Continuum pinched the bridge of his nose. Very well.

"Then we'll respond, my servants." He trudged down the rear steps of his throne's platform, taps echoing along the hall. The frozen Hearse was embedded in the rear wall as a stone carving.

Hearse claimed a near-perfect record of bounty hunting. His only failure was when IP had ordered him to kill his own son, a militant astro-environmental activist responsible for many deaths. He could nail a bullseye from kilometers away, lift three hundred pounds at full extension over his head, engulf seventy hot dogs in ten minutes…but could not extinguish his own son. Or the seventy-first hot dog.

What garbage.

Continuum expelled a soft puff at the wall as if to fog a window. Only a millimeter thick and yet durable enough to imprison this second-rate mortal, the stone flaked off like a layer of skin shedding away. Hearse spilled at Continuum's feet. In this cog's place on the wall remained a perfect embossment of his body, right down to the targeting visor over his left eye, the metal glove replacing his left hand, and his "I Heart Mother because She Said So" tattoo. How could Continuum emboss a tattoo? He was that precise.

The embossment filled in with stone to leave a seamless wall.

If those cogs planned an assault, then Continuum would interrogate his captive. With prejudice. And a Crunch Berry. But more with prejudice. And Crunch Berries.

Transit pulled his arms against his body as the bounty hunter roused with reverberating grumbles. Yes, fear your master, servant.

"Why do you free the interloper, Lord?" Blackguard stood behind Continuum.

Hearse didn't awaken immediately. He shuffled lethargic arms, rolled off his side, and groused. "Who brings me from my coma? I dreamed of bludgeoning that loudmouth Brock in his loud mouth." He grumbled out some phlegm. "I used a streetlamp. I gave him a fat lip, and it pleased me so."

"Because he has more use awake than inanimate, more use as an information source than as decor." Continuum considered kicking the lout awake. Would he finish rousing already? The phlegm never cleared from his throat! "More use in agony than silenced." Okay, maybe he should fire up the espresso machine.

* * *

Transit spilled down the great hall. His legs tripped against each other, and his palm skidded along the stones, chafing a hot gash on his wrist.

Continuum was brutalizing the enemy again. What happened to his aversion to unnecessary pain? With each of Hearse's screams disguised as grunts, Transit's terror hit the ceiling. The Good Guys and the Bad Guys planned an attack?

Transit slit the air to draw open a portal.

Chapter Seven: Military Intelligence à la Carte

Master Asinine wrung his hands together. Wildly cool that Cornflakes had a strategy room. Wildly cool he even knew what one was. He sat in his strategy chair at the strategy table in his strategy onesie pajamas that smelled as if they needed a strategy wash. To plan their assault on Continuum, they'd collected the strategy team of himself, Legion, Reef, Plastique, Luzimoss, Schizophrenic, that Bullet woman, her electric glare, and a set of clothes stuffed with deactivated datasheets he named Strategy Man. Too bad he'd forgotten his strategy thinking cap. Or to not sneeze on Plastique.

The strategy room was as vibrant as a shipping container and smelled like fresh paint. A starkly gray circular chamber at the immediate end of The Nemesis's esophagus tunnel, it boasted steel walls, a steel floor, and a graphite/epoxy-composite ceiling. On one wall, a message read, "For a good time, gabber calltag 'esmerelda-the-fun-queen.'" Asinine did once. The good time was a few rounds of laser tag, so the story checked out.

The room held a round table slightly off center, with a smaller table snuggled against the dusty wall. Above it hung a painting of The Nemesis's old owner, Kyril, tackling a shark. Asinine had smeared a red splotch over Kyril's face because Kyril was mean. Chairs, this time the unbroken kind, dotted the circumferences of both tables. They had no lumbar support, but at least you could sit without something jabbing your back.

Plaster and his mask-wearing cohort sat off to the side for information extraction, under the knuckle-cracking supervision of Schizophrenic and restrained in the best bindings money could buy and Asinine could steal: duct tape. Asinine had used up half a roll to secure the prisoners' wrists until Plastique asked why not set the inertia control on their chairs. That advice would have helped earlier, Miss Spoke Up Ten Minutes Too Late.

Asinine struck his strategy pose: elbows on the sticky part of the table, hands steepled at his lips, measured and audible exhalations. Crap, he forgot to squint conspiratorially. He knew he'd mess this up. And Master Asinine Sucks had laughed at his rehearsal sessions.

A selection of Master Asinine's broodiest pop rock served the strategy ambiance. This time the girls complained about school uniforms and which breed of guinea pig was most ferocious. The heavy-hitting social issues.

For the planning session, to act as idea firewood, a generic served coffee and doughnuts because, well, did Asinine have to explain it? Coffee and freaking doughnuts! Okay, in case he had to explain it, a doughnut was—

"Okay, let's get down to business." Legion grabbed his seat and joined Asinine at the table. Down-to-business time. He drummed his fingers on the table to help him think.

Luzimoss sat down across from him. Plastique and Bullet took that cue to sit as well. Reef looked uneasy about joining them. His eyes sneaked to Legion and bounced away. Cross-armed, he lurked in the shadows to tap his heel against the wall.

Ooh. Here came the generic in a server's apron, holding the tray of doughnuts fresh from whatever they made doughnuts in. The doughnut kiln. A toddler generic followed with the coffee selection straight out of the coffee forge. Asinine didn't know today was bring-your-daughter-to-work day, but if this kid held up a bank like she held up that coffee, she had a bright future.

He selected a mocha doughnut and a Boston crème coffee, or maybe it was the other way around. After a quick check of the generic's nametag, he winked. "Thanks, Melanie."

"It's Melissa." The generic fired a stare so icy Asinine wondered where the strategy thermostat was.

"Hey, I don't have time to pay attention to more than one syllable," Asinine said. The toddler's nametag read Parker, so Asinine would remember that when he needed valet service.

Legion studied the pattern of the table: blank. Bold strategy position. He stopped drumming and searched everyone with lost eyes, as if witnessing a ghastly traffic accident. Bold strategy stare. "We're screwed." Bold strategy.

"We're facing someone who literally controls the fabric of reality. There are thirty-six of us and a bunch of generics. He killed Scapegoat with a hand gesture. How do you compete with that?"

Plastique swallowed a bite of a protein ration she'd found in the kitchen: a brick of fiber whose foil wrap proclaimed the flavor of caramel and whose odor proclaimed the reek of whole-wheat bugs. The kitchen was in Cornflakes's belly, but that had evidently gone over her head since she didn't swoon over Asinine's genius architectural planning. "Commander, that's not the attitude we need. What we need is a plan of attack."

Asinine finished his doughnut. So doughnutty. He dusted his hands and motioned the generic over. "Melanie, another one, please." Strategy doughnuts tasted amazing, which explained why they were shaped like tiny life preservers.

"It's Melissa." She heaved another sigh. "And use a coaster, twat knuckle." She slid something under Asinine's coffee. Since when did they make square frisbees?

"A plan of attack." Legion parroted Plastique's words as blandly as if reciting a copyright statement. His hands curled and uncurled, curled and uncurled. He swallowed. "I have no ideas. I lost something over the last couple days."

Plastique finished another bite. "Commander, whatever you lost, you need to find it again." She checked her brick with a nasty leer. "Asinine, this tastes like cardboard, so why do I want another?"

"That's the power of cardboard: it sucks you in with its thirty-precent-recycled material." Asinine sipped his strategy coffee: bold, rich, strategic. "Melanie, maybe we can get some cardboard doughnuts up here."

"It's—" The rest of the generic's words were drowned out by Asinine not listening anymore.

Legion slouched with so much lack of inspiration he looked like cardboard himself. "I…I don't even know what I lost. An optimism, a…hope." His breath hooked. "A faith."

"A necklace?" Asinine poked his thumb under the bullet-blasted cross around his necklace and held it out for Legion. "You want it back?"

Legion looked at Asinine. At the necklace. He sat next to Asinine, so he leaned back and peered across his shoulder with a wrinkled nose. He held everyone's attention, ruminating whatever he ruminated in his worry-splotched strategy forehead.

"Losing faith is stupid." He focused on that necklace.

He shot to his feet and paced with renewed thunder, hand to chin. The room was cramped, but he used the available space to tread circles. His heel pivots squeaked with life. "Let's get cracking. George, shut that music off—"

"I can't. It's set by corporate."

"—and bring us up a whiteboard viewscreen."

"Finger tap up top." Asinine unhooked the necklace and leaned back with his fingers out.

Legion passed him without the tap. "Just get us the viewscreen."

Asinine huffed. "Control, acknowledge. Viewscreen us up, my Cluck."

"Funk not recognized, hip crew," Cluck said.

"That's the kick-crock attitude we need, commander." Plastique finished her ration, crumpled the foil wrap up, and flicked it at Asinine's strategy face.

Legion snapped his fingers at the side of the room where Schizophrenic stalked the prisoners. "Schizophrenic, we have two of Continuum's cronies here, and we need information. Whatever you have to do, get that information. I don't care if you pry out their fingernails."

"I ain't touching Plaster no matter how much you snap your fingers, cudbuster."

"Try good cop, cop who doesn't believe in mermaid unicorns." Asinine sipped. And then he chewed. And then he realized he confused the two and he'd bitten his cup.

Legion smacked his palm. "We've got a castle that Continuum thinks is impenetrable. That's our zone of action. We surround it. We hit from all sides, leave them no escape. George, pull up that viewscreen with a command your rooster starship recognizes."

"Control, acknowledge. Jig-a-lig on that viewscreen." George spoke over the haunt control's confusion. "We need to lure Continuum in with doughnuts and coffee. Melanie, another of each, por favor." He grabbed a powdered piece of heaven off Melanie's tray. And then he inhaled the powder up his nose and gagged.

"That idea is horrible. You're in timeout. Go sit at the kids' planning table." Legion pointed at the smaller table by the corner where all the shadows brooded. He paced even faster.

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Go."

"But that side gets horrible Wi-Fi." Master Asinine lurched up and sulked over.

"Reef, rally the generics. We need all hands on deck." Wound up on inspiration, Legion kicked aside a dormant cleaningbot as he circled another lap. "Okay, four castle walls, four teams plus one extraction team for Jeff, Elton, and Elton's mustache. Hearse, too, if he's in there."

"And to recover the aswang. Blowtorch is that extraction team." Bullet sat up so quickly her knees knocked the table. The grownups' planning table where Asinine didn't sit anymore. Oh, man, Asinine had forgotten his coffee at that table, and there it went, toppling over. Right on the best part of the floor!

Legion paced more energetically. "Blowtorch is on the assault. The extraction team needs stealth, and Continuum will smell Chug coming from across the galaxy."

"I'll be crocked if I let someone else take charge of securing that monster." Bullet slammed the table. Well, it wasn't as if you could spill a coffee twice.

"Sit down, Bullet."

"Commander, this plan will divide us." Plastique grabbed a honey crueler from Melanie's tray. Really? Honey crueler? Out of all the doughnuts, she picked the grown-up version?

"It'll divide them, too. We'll seal them in a multidirectional attack." Legion kicked the cleaningbot again on another pass. What did he have against the sanitation staff? "We'll show Continuum not to mess with us."

"Yes!" So supercharged, Asinine reached out for a finger tap. He searched around. No one else sat at the kids' planning table. Okay, he tapped himself. A little too enthusiastic. That was when he realized he held a doughnut. He ended up slapping jelly into his eye.

Legion reared at him again. "George, that viewscreen. Any day now. And shut off the music."

Master Asinine dug the goop out of his eye. "Control, acknowledge. Make with the viewscreen, pretty please."

Bullet stomped up to Legion. Asinine thought she'd plow into him, but she stopped at the next-to-last step and blocked his pacing. She stood half a foot taller, so she loomed down with a snarl and hot breath but no doughnut. Why even have this strategy session catered? "Your team doesn't know how to contain the aswang. If it resurrects, we're crocked. Blowtorch is the extraction team."

Legion curled a nostril. He stood eye level with Bullet's larynx, but that didn't stop him from matching her orange-skinned ferocity. "What's important is trapping Continuum and his cult in a kill box. We attack him from all four sides. While that happens, the extraction team sneaks in to rescue our friends. And we can't sneak in if they smell us or hear us coming. Besides, Chug has the firepower to keep one side covered. If we leave even a small opening, Continuum will slip out, spread out, and overwhelm us. We keep Continuum in front of us, always on our twelve, always boxed in." He spoke through his teeth. "So you will stand down. Do you hear me, citizen?"

Silence. From everyone. From everywhere except a crackle of electricity from the back of the strategy room. Bullet ran her tongue along her gums. And then, "Fine." She retreated to the table and sat, but she didn't settle.

"Good. George, we need that viewscreen."

"Control, acknowledge. Work with me here."

The crackle faded. Then a mousy voice squeaked out of the far darkness, so quiet the ventilation almost disguised it. "I…I th-think I can help-p." An intruder, a blond kid.

Bullet slapped to her feet again. Plastique raised fists of sizzling energy. Legion whipped his pistol out of its holster. Master Asinine threw his flattened doughnut. Aww, no, he wanted to eat that. Instant regret.

"What are you doing here?" Plastique marched at the kid. Her lit fist unwrapped, and she bulldozed the kid with her forearm. It wedged the kid's chin upward.

"Who is this?" Legion rushed around the table, flattening Asinine's coffee cup as if he had no regard for drinks.

Plastique tilted her head to Legion but aimed her sneer at the kid who almost wept into her forearm. "This twerp was part of the crew that attacked us on the meteor."

"How'd you get in here?" Legion placed his pistol against the kid's cheek.

"Grab a doughnut while you are." Asinine indicated the generic and then her coffee-carrying daughter. "And the coffee's brewed in house, everyone. In…house."

"Please don't shoot me, please please." The kid couldn't shield his face with Plastique's arm pinning him, and he didn't dare look away. "I—I—" He gulped. "I teleported in. Your intrusion alarms aren't"—he choked on panic—"aren't on. I'm here…I'm here t-to help."

"Seriously, everyone. What's the point of full food service if no one takes advantage?" Master Asinine shifted his legs around. The chairs at the kids' planning table were tiny. And plastic. His strategy knees knocked into his strategy chin. "Melanie, what have you got in the fritter department?"

Melanie stomped. "For the last time—"

"I know what I read!"

"You're here to help us defeat your own leader?" Legion's eyes were the laser sights on a sniper's rifle, and his target was this intruder.

It was all this kid could do not to urinate himself while Plastique shifted her weight to her other foot. He whimpered. "Continuum…h-he's…he's gone off the deep end." He looked a blink away from fainting, as if Plastique's forearm was all that propped him up. He recoiled from Legion's pistol. "Please d-don't shoot."

"Snitch." Plaster scoffed with a curled lip. "I ain't rattin', but I'm takin' your room when I'm back at the castle. It gets the mornin' sun."

"I—I—I—" The kid paused to mew. "I'll tell you his defensive positions. He's g-got weak points. I'll…I'll…" His cheek twitched. "I'll tell you where he's keeping your f-friends." His breathing notched. "And the aswang."

Bullet stalked closer. She threw Asinine aside and reared down at the intruder. "You know where he's keeping the aswang?" Okay, fine, Asinine could still plan from the strategy floor.

"You're all s-s-so angry." The kid sucked in enough air to speak at a normal volume. "Yeah, I know exactly w-where."

"Everybody, doughnuts. And will anyone join me at the kids' table?" Was Asinine allowed to straighten up his strategy chair?

Legion checked Plastique, who shrugged at him. He watched the stranger for signs of a lie. "No double cross?"

The kid found the courage to twitch a nod.

"Fine. Let's see what he's got." Legion put his pistol away. "Someone call Sixth Sense in here to verify what he says."

Plastique removed her forearm, and the kid toppled onto the floor.

Legion retreated to the strategy table. "George, the viewscreen."

"But Cluck won't listen to a word I say!"

Chapter Eight: The Infirmary Makes More Sense from a Sports-Injury Angle

What the crock had hit him? Alaphus himself. That was the only possibility. He wiped his face. His arm itched madly. He felt cold sweats. Why did he feel damp everywhere?

And what was he doing in a locker room?

Pincushion found himself on a stretching bed. He sat up and picked dry film from his lips. Walloped in the face by Alaphus, waking up in a locker room, covered in sweat, forearm feeling like a frantic anthill. And why did he crave salt?

"Oh, you're awake." Incendiary sat on a bench across from him. He stood and arched his arms back. His suit groaned like rusty limbs in need of a stretch. "You're probably wondering what happened."

Pincushion snapped his fingers. "Now that you mention it, brother."

"We're on board The Nemesis. Janice beat me at pong four times while we waited for you to wake up. Hagen's grabbing dinner from the machine outside." Loud crash from the hall. "The machine is winning."

"Not what I was wondering." Pincushion scratched his forearm and felt a honeycomb of punctures. Crock, where were his spiky extensions? "This is what I'm wondering about. What happened? Did you file down my spikes?" He threw a hand up at Incendiary. "If I can't trust you brothers while I'm asleep—"

"It wasn't us, I swear." Incendiary threw his hands up. "You shot out your spikes. They're quills with biological explosive tips. They dug into a Flagstar and blew pieces off it."

Right. Okay. Memories trickled back. Pincushion whipped off the stretcher. Whoa, sensations spun as if they kept up a hula hoop. He clutched his forehead and waited for everything to simmer down. He'd never felt seasick on a floor. "Okay, it's coming back to me. We're on some alien planet. Intergalactic Protection attacked us. Luzimoss showed me how to flick out my spikes." He lifted his elbow and pulled back his sleeve to check his forearm. His spikes had left holes that had scabbed over. He picked at one. He knew he shouldn't.

"Voyons, donc." A generic hurried over, a short one with legs that worked double time to carry her. She slapped a datasheet over Pincushion's arm and tapped it on. It flickered, and a cartoon nurse ribbon-danced across the screen to promote Tutankhamun's Gauze with its patented cashmere comfort weave. "Monsieur Pincochon, why you stand? You need ze rest." She pressed him into a sitting position.

Usually datasheets hardened into tablet-durable computers when activated, but this one remained wrapped around Pincushion's arm as flexible plastic. His shirtsleeve dissolved in foamy molecules. The viewscreen must have told his l shirt to move out of the way.

The viewscreen showed an X-ray of bones, veins, muscles, all the insides. Under the skin, new bony extensions already emerged from Pincushion's arm bones. New spikes. New quills.

"You are 'ealing. Your bones, zey regrow. But slow. Zey are bioexplosive, a medical fascination. Zey mix chemicals, shoot 'ydrogen peroxide out—Your mother, she was a bombardier beetle?"

"She was a Nigerian Baptist." Pincushion's stomach gurgled again. He practically tasted a sea-breeze air, and he salivated. "You got any chips around here? French fries? Bar nuts? … A saltshaker?"

"No no no, monsieur." The generic took the viewscreen off his arm. It huffed that no one had ordered any gauze and then deactivated with a whoomp. "You need of ze vitamin D, not ze junk foods. Ze egg yolk, ze zardine, ze t'undermammal liver, ze tuna. I will order from ze lunch menu."

Incendiary reached out for the viewscreen. "Can I check that menu?" His hand got slapped away.

Pincushion rubbed his rematerialized shirtsleeve. He glanced at Incendiary and then the generic with the stark-red hair who memorized lists of foods. "Why are you helping me? We're not on the same side. You'd sooner inject this stuff into my bloodstream than order it from room service."

"Mais today no. Today we are friends."

Incendiary shrugged. "We have an alliance."

Sixth Sense burst into the locker room. His arms cradled a disarray of packages. "Whoa. Hey. Okay. Legion called. I have to go upstairs and mind-check an interrogation. But here. Sandwiches. The vending machine wasn't nice, but I yanked the door off and grabbed three rows of them. I refuse to feel bad. It called me a drag jack." A package slid out of the cradle and slapped the floor. "I don't know what that is, but it sounds mean."

Chapter Nine: Creedence Clearwater Reprisal

Hearse braced to prevent a scream from burrowing out. It leaked out as an anguished hum through clamped lips. Ha. What a cute struggle the cog waged, thinking he disallowed Continuum the enjoyment of his agony. The few times he yelped, he morphed it into a song lyric, as if Continuum bought that. No way did Hearse listen to southern rock, no matter how many Alabamas he claimed as sweet home.

Continuum had suspended Hearse under the pennants in the rear of his grand hall. Shackles and chains bound his hands to the ceiling, legs fastened to the floor, like a metal-and-flesh letter y from which Continuum attempted to extract information. Every utterance that escaped him echoed enchantingly into the rear, where Wyvern complained about the distractions while he practiced reading. What else could you expect, learning to read in a high-traffic area?

So far he'd educated Continuum on all of Brock's wrongdoings, the paltry selection of churros in Station One's food court—now zero—the vegetable garden his mother grew in her sink, and which pistols offered the least recoil.

Continuum could read the information from Hearse's mind if Hearse thought it. But Hearse had undergone mental training to stop from thinking anything revealing. Just as well. When last Continuum had read someone's mind, he'd ruined the ending of Lardo the Barbarian for himself. Continuum did not brook spoilers. Nor did he brook a mere peasant besting Lardo in an axe-twerking tournament. Lazy writing.

"End this suffering. Tell me what I want to know." Continuum imagined another gash across the arch of Hearse's foot, a deliberate squiggle that appeared millimeter by millimeter. Continuum had crosshatched incisions along Hearse's skin, erased them, and crosshatched them again. But that buffoon had given up nothing usable, though now Continuum knew how to grow tomatoes in a wash basin.

Hearse bit his lip against another cry that blubbered out nonetheless, disguised as more lyrics. "Hrrrrrkin' I hear the river talkin'." Blood snaked out of a cut along his lip. Did that taste like a churro, cog?

Continuum felt the body heat of impatience. He kicked a foot shackle and rattled it. "Divulge your secrets."

"Ne"—Hearse grunted—"ver. I once endured a conversation with an auctioneer. I can certainly endure your torture. You will have to dismember me, you totalitariyeeeaaarrrgggg, I want that country-style chrrrkkkkk."

"You do not fool me. There is no such thing as a country-style chrk, only city-style ones." Continuum's hackles rose, even the sprained ones. He narrowed his stare at Hearse, this belligerent cog who defied the mighty Continuum. Undue torture used to sicken him, but applied to this drain of patience, in order to continue repairing spacetime without disturbance, it was warranted. "The Good Guys and Bad Guys are planning something. Tell me what it is."

Hearse took a moment to marshal his energy, to pant up enough life to look at Continuum with one eye and one cataract behind that targeting visor. "Do you think I know? I have not seen them since I bested your obese dragon child."

"Ain't happened, ya yank. An' I'm all muscle." Sitting on the floor, Wyvern shuffled to face him with his back. He hunched over his datasheet. "L…is…for…L is for…Crock, what's l for?"

"Whatever they concoct, I have not heard." Hearse spat. He meant to hit Continuum's face, but his mouth had dried with suffering, and the droplets he mustered sprinkled the floor.

Why couldn't visitors respect Continuum's home? First the Bad Guys and Good Guys chiseled lines across his fields, then Hearse gobbed on his carpet. Next, perhaps Legion would urinate in the aquarium as Gangrene had.

Continuum scratched the back of his head. Beside him appeared a toaster oven, and he reached in for a churro. Huh. Cinnamon. Crispy. Hearse was correct: these were a nice treat. He mulled over Hearse's usefulness as he snapped off another bite. If Hearse didn't know what his cohort cogs attempted, perhaps he had no value.

Continuum imagined another laceration across Hearse's…Hmm. Should he cause a mouth ulcer? Yyyyessss. And then he'd eat more churros in front of this swine. Oh, wait, or perhaps cause a mouth ulcer and force-feed the swine a churro. Ooh, that would feel like a knife to the inner lining of his mouth. The possibilities were as infinite as Continuum's imagination, and his imagination was infinite.

"There was a time I abhorred torture. But, since your cohorts persist in testing me, I've grown accustomed to inflicting pain to succeed in my mission. I've come to enjoy it. But your worth as a source of information is running out, toy." He twiddled his fingers, opened his oven, and considered the tools at his disposal. Salted caramel, watermelon, cheesecake—what did he have here—pineapple. Perfect for cold sores. "Servant Wyvern, is pineapple more painful than salted caramel?"

"Readin'. I gotta find out what l is for, yank!" Wyvern revved up a snort to make a point.

"Pineapple it is." Continuum took his selection.

From behind him rose the hiss of oil spitting on a pan. Who was cooki—Wait, no. He sniffed. Didn't smell like Ripsaw burning anything. Seriously. That degenerate couldn't even microwave popcorn. "Servant Wyvern, are you preparing more cornmeal?"

"I'm preparin' ta read!" Wyvern slapped the ground and rolled around again. "An' l is for me smackin' y'all real good if ya keep talkin' ta me."

A crackle lifted Continuum's arm hairs. Hot white reflected against the stone to the left. The lightshow disappeared, and his arm hairs settled back against his skin. He sniffed again. Smelled like…smelled like burned ozone. Transit, returning. What did this bothersome slave want now? Continuum reared at the boy. The shackles that bound Hearse withered from existence, and the prisoner tumbled to the floor on legs that folded under him.

"Lord Cont—" Whatever Servant Transit wanted to say cut away with a gasp.

With closed eyes, Continuum lifted his face to the ceiling. "Servant, why are you neglecting your duties? Should I have Wyvern empty the trash receptacles instead?"

Another holler from down the grand hall: "Empty them trashes ya'self. This my readin' time, ya fillies. L is for readin' time!"

"I just—I—I—" Would Servant Transit not speak? "I—I was—"

Continuum raised an eyebrow to Transit's stubby hesitations. "You were what?" He finished his churro and washed his hands of the cinnamon with a spritz he conjured from nowhere.

Transit seemed trapped against the wall under Continuum's raised brow and flared nostrils. "I—I just—I…" He turned pallid and drew his elbows into his sides. "Why are you torturing our prisoner? What happened to mercy?"

"Necessity replaced it. We need his information, though he knows nothing save a library of hillbilly lyrics." Continuum noticed Hearse crawling toward him for a sneak attack, so he flicked his fingers. Tendrils of stone grew from the wall and embraced his shoulders, his neck, his waist, his arms, his legs. They yanked him against the wall, where he hunched forward, trapped "Don't question my ways. You are not the master. You are the servant. I own this prisoner, and I alone decide his fate."

"I—I—" Transit's cheeks somehow found paler shades. He choked. "I'll go empty the trash."

"Wise." Continuum gave Servant Transit his back. But, wait. He reared around again. "Where have you been?"

Transit could not gather enough strength to speak. He flinched against the wall where Power Plant proposed to put the one-hour-lens store. He crept against an alien-stuff-arcade machine, which complained with a litany of lights, beeps, a whistle, and a marquee message that said, "Insert coin or firstborn."

"You were with the trespassers." Continuum narrowed his stare like gunsights he aimed at Transit. "I can read your mind. You were conspiring." He gripped the air and drew his hand inward. Transit burst out of his hiding place, smacking against the arcade machine, which brrreeeped with "Game over. Insert secondborn to continue." He shot at Continuum and then halted so quickly a bone audibly snapped.

He hung three feet off the floor, legs kicking, neck gripped in a contactless chokehold. Tears flowed freely.

Continuum studied this mewing whelp as if appraising a rare artifact. His eyes crept up Transit, then down, then behind, then in front again.

Transit's words flowed as convulsively as his tears. "Are—you—going—to—tor—ture—me?"

Continuum let this Judas swelter, writhing in the chokehold that held him up.

"No." Continuum relished the snap that stabbed down the length of the grand hall. He dropped the body.

Then the head.

"Servant Wyvern, prepare our forces for the onslaught."

"I ain't never gon' find out what l is for!"

Chapter Ten: Homeshunning

"Guess who's back, my accomps!" Detritus threw up his hands in declaration and burst into the…Was this for real the generics' den? The door said so, but it had to be a sad support group where barely anybody came but someone still underestimated the seating. The echo of his voice fizzled out in this sterile room where happiness came to get murdered. Smelled like turpentine.

Maybe two dozen generics shuffled around. And they probably came because they were either bored or tired of hearing the attack shouts from the tango of generics down the hall getting a how-to on fighting. The head honchos' strategy session had ended, and that chick Plastique now taught the generics hand-to-hand combat to battle Continuum. She led them in a lock-step training dance, generics waving quarterstaffs, lances, and blades, grunting and hyahing and hadoukenning while they shadow-parried knee strikes. She called it shav-shupe karkarimz. It involved more flexibility than Detritus had. And staplers.

Gunkluss passed Detritus with an evil eye and a handful of pita chips. He shuffled one into his gullet. "You again." He'd had it out for Detritus since day one, when Asinine formed his empire all those years ago, what would become the Bad Guys. Gunkluss was the guy who blabbed to Asinine that Detritus beat his record for how many golf balls he fit in his mouth at once. "What's an accomp?"

"An accomplice but how the kids say it." Detritus tugged his arms back down in depressed jerks.

"Kids don't say that."

"Amaranthia did once, so shut up. Look, me and Hearthberg, we're back from our mission." Detritus checked his side for Wasted. Oh yeah. He'd left Wasted singing on a bench down the hall.

Behind him, Plastique really sold the generics, because they synchronized a "kyaaah." Colin screamed his signature "ka-ya-ka," same as when he snapped a wet towel at someone in the generics' shower room. Heard that was the med bay now.

"Remind me about this mission again. You wanted to make a name for yourself and graduate up to junior thug. Instead you buddied up with the Good Guys and forgot the reason you went. Did I get it right?"

"I…" Detritus examined his audience, a lackluster gathering of generics who crossed their arms, tapped their feet, and chewed Nanaimo bars in slow motion. "We was scopin' the Good Guys for weak points to snitch back t' Asinine an' suchlike. That takes a while."

"And?" Gunkluss finished his chips, dusted his fingers against each other, and planted his hands on his hips. He didn't dust well enough, because he left a greasy handprint on his pants. "You've got healing gel all over your eye. You smell like rubber."

Detritus's hand flinched up to dab his welt. Didn't throb so badly now. The swelling had vanished. "I got knocked in the face."

A nunchaku flew into the den and whacked a generic in the back of the head. Another generic tiptoed into the den with an apologetic look and snatched it back. Colin never did learn how to throw.

Gunkluss scoffed. He checked his left at Irwin F., his right at Irwin P., over his shoulder at Other Irwin F., to his side at Nadon. Okay, dude had to stop checking everybody. Detritus got it: they were all laughing. Irwin W. choked on his Nanaimo bar. "I heard they found you out right away, but you didn't know. Then you spent two months sitting around." At this, a glob of Nanaimo bar sputtered out of Irwin W.'s nose.

An attack grunt, a parry, a stick that clattered down the hall, a stumbled generic, and someone blurting "Colin, get off my leg." So much banging around out there, Colin probably thought this was a contact sport. He was sorta kinda right.

Gunkluss stepped forward and jabbed Detritus's collarbone, bumping Detritus back a squeak. "You made friends with the Good Guys." Jab, squeak. "You probably like them now." Jab, squeak. "You probably sympathize with them." Jab, squeak. "Identify with them." Jab, squeak. "They're your people." Jab, squeak. "You didn't even once sabotage them." Jab, squeak. "And, for all you did, Asinine still doesn't know who you are." Ja—

Detritus snatched Gunkluss's finger. "Listen here, you little snot. Them Good Guys, yeah, they arrested me an' Wasted. Legion reneged on a deal and locked me up. They ain't like us." He waited for Plastique to finish hiyahing and yelling at Colin to keep in position. "But get one thing straight. While you gave me lip, they let me in. They mighta been watchin' every move I made, but they didn't come down on me like you guys. They gave me and my buck a place to sleep and an employee discount at the food court. They let me have a media name. They even got all the newest magazines, even since when Cracked and Mad merged into Crammed. Me and that Organism kid and his dad, we teamed up, and then one of 'em saved me from being part of a zombie book club. I wasn't some anonymous loser like over here. One of them Good Guys is outside right freakin' now teaching us how to fight while you're in here waitin' to die." He fumed a breath into Gunkluss's stupid haircut. And a fleck of mucus on accident. "Sympathize with 'em? Where I stand, them Good Guys are doin' more for the generics than any o' you ever done."

A hush. From everyone except Irwin W. choking on the Nanaimo bar.

"They my people?" Detritus threw Gunkluss's finger away. "You guys sure as crock ain't no more." He stomped out of the den.

"Colin, pull that poke stick outta your beard an' toss it over. Let's learn how to douse some fires." Detritus reached out—"Crock, dude, watch the face. I already got one swolled eye."

Chapter Eleven: Battle Stations, Everyone

West team aboard a Flagstar, in random order and then alphabetized: Ace Spandex, Klee, Master Asinine Sucks, Plastique as leader, and Sixth Sense.

Ace Spandex flew their Flagstar in low. Transit had told them to keep their position on the ground where castle visibility was most obscured. Wings snapped along bamboo shoots where a jungle of it had somehow grown as tall as skyscrapers in mere hours. From this position, the top of Continuum's curtain wall loomed only a couple inches over the bamboo as thick as a broom's brush.

Ace kept their approach as quiet as possible. They'd borrowed the Flagstar from the Bad Guys, so the best stealth mode it offered was a music catalog that made people cover their ears and avert their eyes.

Plastique was behind Ace. Her reflection stood silently and sternly in the windshield, grim enough to fog the glass. She scanned for prey. With them were three others in a mix of Good Guys, Bad Guys, and an amulet Master Asinine claimed was lucky but was really a flyswatter on a hook. The only thing it swatted was Ace Spandex's forehead.

They comprised the west team. Their orders: come in low, slowly, and quietly, settle in the bamboo, and wait for everyone to take position. To the east grew a woodland whose tree species still confused Asinine, but the east team had cover. The south boasted hills, but if the south team didn't land on the peaks, they were hidden.

The north team had the most trouble. They tackled the front wall, the entrance to the castle. It provided no cover. In fact, the north field sprawled like a manicured lawn for miles. The Nemesis would attack that direction. No way could that beast, in rooster or spaceship mode, sneak through any terrain, so it took the frontal assault. Master Asinine called it because Cornflakes had a crowing mode he was itching to use.

Sixth Sense sat in the navigator's spot, consulting a screen clicking with data. "Hey. Okay. Whoa. Slow down. We've arrived at our attack point."

Ace Spandex's fingers tap-danced across the controls to cut their speed from nine hundred klicks to descent speed. The starship found a landing bed in a patch of grass, so Ace gave the command to touch down. The wall ducked under the bamboo from this low vantage, so they couldn't see the top any more.

"Control, acknowledge. Log in to shared connection." Though they'd landed, Ace Spandex sat forward. He felt too tense.

"Joining the party line. Long-distance rates apply."

The sky looked like a collection of ashen cotton balls. Clouds gathered, and a grumble announced a thunderstorm. Raindrops clicked onto the windshield.

"West team in position." Ace Spandex checked an overhead display: the connection cost fifteen moolahs for the first minute and ten moolahs each additional minute. "Pincushion, what's our budget for this call?" Pincushion was their financial lead on this mission.

* * *

"Nonexistent, brother. South team in position." Pincushion stood at the navigator's station of this Tinfoil mil-tran. A flying wreck, but at least they'd snagged the sports model.

South team aboard a Tinfoil: Bad Aim, Braindead, Catastrophe, Lieutenant IQ 23, Multipurpose, Pincushion as leader, and Withered Old Battle-Axe.

Braindead piloted, which would work if that surly mute obeyed orders. Pincushion had to speak to him through IQ 23, because every change in speed or how to set the tilt lock on his chair was met with a growl that vibrated out one side of Braindead's lips. (No tilt lock, which explained why Pincushion leaned with hand on the top lip of the windshield.)

The Tinfoil hushed into a creek bed that sliced through the forestland of the castle's south side. A cobblestone path intersected the creek and rolled out of eyeshot. The landscape of this tiny planet was a quilt of terrains: patches of wilderness became canyons in such a sharp change, and those canyons became desert valleys and then tundra and then a chessboard and then swamps and then a bubblegum wilderness. If Continuum had created this planet himself, he used no organizational awareness. They'd flown over a volcano in the center of a pond. Erupting and everything. The ducks didn't mind, but the geese complained in a traffic jam of turmoil, and the octopuses had relocated their graduation party to the next-door glacier. Congratulations to Aldo, though. High school was a tough period for someone with three hearts.

Pincushion consulted the arrangement of their fleet on the navigation computer. "East team, you'll be flying over a volcano pond in about two minutes. Watch out. It erupts glitter, not lava."

* * *

Bullet bumped against the wall when Speed Line knocked her back and sprang into Chug's cockpit. His whoops battled the chirps of the electronics. "Dad, Mom, Dad, Mom, can we see the glitter volcano?"

"Ask your mother," Puttyman said.

"Ask your father," H2O replied.

"Not a chance." Bullet hauled Speed Line out of the cockpit, away from anything that would cause them to plummet if it broke. Or broke more.

East team aboard Chug: Also Sediment, Bullet as leader, H2O, Incendiary and Janice, Maul, Pacemaker, Puttyman, Speedline, and Kalukahani.

"We're not flying over anything that can clog up our air intakes. We get craft supplies on Chug, we'll never get it off. Maul." Bullet threw Speed Line—

—and Maul caught him. "Behave, and I'll fire you out of Nuclear Reactor later." He harnessed Speed Line in his Jolly Jumper.

In this nervous flight, everything was silent, yet everything was audible, and everything clicked. Bullet glared at the mismatched terrains Chug sped over. Before the volcano, Speed Line had yiped about wanting to land in a jungle seven square feet big.

H2O guided Chug closer to the ground. At an elevation of maybe a few yards, it skirted—and rattle-crash-clanked—through a forest. "East team is two minutes from position," H2O said into his gabber. In tune with Chug's rattle, the gabber splashed in and out of his chin.

Bullet tried calming herself with deep breaths, the soulful ones that reached down to the depths of your diaphragm. She had to trust the aswang to that crocking team that comprised the multiplying kid and the fidgety DIY girl with no volume knob. She was keenly aware of her legs aching from stiff muscles she'd clenched since they left The Nemesis. And Incendiary kept arguing with his roller-skate suit's haunt control. Legion said he'd placed that robot-suited twerp with Blowtorch as extra firepower, but Bullet knew the real reason: to keep them on a leash.

She issued an impatient snort as they slowed among collections of trees right next to bare patches, as if Mother Nature didn't use logic. She didn't, judging by winters on Trioxil.

H2O shut Chug down several yards from the castle's east wall, where rolled a lush field of meticulous grass. "East team in position."

Bullet grabbed H2O's gabber, his ear with it, and yanked it to her. "Extraction team, what's your situation?"

"Ay-yi-yi, watch the ear. It's saltwater." H2O clenched his seat to keep upright.

* * *

"Loud. Louder?" Franchise reconsidered. "Loudest." He was all edges and sprinting heartbeats. His fingers bustled over a grid of musical-instrument emojis to land Friznatch in a blotch of marshland. Landing Friznatch in anything was next to impossible, because with every command, it blared multilingual retorts. Whatever. If he'd kept track, the drumstick extended the landing ge—Nope, it cranked up the volume. So the flute extended the—Nope, it also cranked up the volume. The clarinet?

Extraction team aboard Friznatch: Amaranthia, Appetite, Better Than You, Franchise, and Workshop.

The extraction team was small: four people and a gargoyle they fed either mangos or mango props that Friznatch's l tech created. No one knew which was which. One of the cockpit controls had become a coconut, and Appetite had eaten that.

Transit had given them intel on the castle's layout, so they knew what to expect. And the extraction team now knew where to find Power Plant. Their orders were to take position, wait for the assault and the castle grounds to empty, and then hop in to rescue their missing friends and, if there was room on board, Hearse. Transit had said Continuum would likely empty the grounds to face any trouble.

"Extraction team will take position as soon as we figure out which button lands." Franchise quivered, but he tried to hide it. He tried for steady breaths, which stung to control because his lungs wanted to gallop. Even his veins iced.

Okay-okay-okay-uhm-okay, maybe the harp landed the starship. Nope, volume again. Which button didn't crank the volume up? Which turned it down? For sure not the trombone. "Give us five minutes. We might just dive-bomb the ground to land."

"Kemosabe, dive-bombing isn't part of my super-awesome plan to keep being amazing, if you catch my drift." Better Than You raised his eyebrows. "Please catch my drift."

"Help Appetite finish his dinner." Franchise threw a thumb over his shoulder at the smacking lips. Behind them, Appetite grabbed a clump of mangos or mango props and shoveled them back. Then the crate.

Franchise poked another button. Nope again. By the time they landed, nobody would have any hearing.

This was a stealth mission, right?

* * *

North team/frontal assault aboard Cornflakes: Brainiac, Detritus, Legion as leader, Luzimoss, Master Asinine as junior leader, Organism, The Purple Nurple, Reef, Schizophrenic on face duty, and Wasted.

Cornflakes tromped through the thick terrain that rolled away from the north wall. Legion felt weird referring to this gigantic rooster as Cornflakes, but calling it the galaxy's biggest action figure prompted George to gasp and ramble on about its collector's value. Not much value after you stepped in a tar pit. And everyone knew the value dropped 80 percent once you took it out of the box.

Legion spent the first thirty minutes of the mission convincing George not to announce them with the public-crowing system. Each forty-million-ton, disaster footstep announced them loudly enough. And, no, they couldn't fit Cornflakes with size-eight-hundred sneakers even if the Cybertronian shoe store delivered this far.

Legion paced around the cockpit, focus trained on the windshield and whatever bobbed over the flat horizon with each crashing step. Formations buried under the grass looked familiar. They'd stepped around a few that weirdly reminded Legion of Station One. Cornflakes slammed another megaton foot on a construct in the exact shape of the station's computer tower. They'd stomped over an armory-shaped ridge. Then they'd almost tripped over something that looked like the training tower, after that an outline like the storage building where Power Plant hung out with that family of possums. Everything looked as if Continuum had started building something and then gave up and covered it in grass. His follow-through was appalling.

Organism had insisted—demanded, even—to lead the extraction team to rescue his dad. Legion had spent twenty fruitless minutes explaining he was too much of a hostile liability on that team. He'd likely get his dad killed with some stupid decision where gut instinct trumped training. Legion had stories of his academy days, and he refused to divulge how the dynamite got in his intestine or how he got it out.

Puttyman was the one to get through to Organism, "self-malleable dude to self-malleable dude." So Organism now paced the passenger deck, threw a chair and almost hit Brainiac, swore at the haunt control when it called him a square bringdown, and brooded in dark corners.

The castle appeared in the distance. Legion squinted at towering pillars that bookended a gap in a border wall. Something stretched over it, a rubber shape that resolved into an x as they approached. An x with a round center. And folds hanging off that center. And—

Oh, no. Legion combed a hand over his forehead, where his worry splotches spread and his brain lit fiercely. "Alvin, stay in the back."

Organism spun so sharply his clothes shook. "Why?"

Luzimoss put up a hand. "Just keep over there."

"Fix a few of the chairs," George said. He didn't understand what was happening.

"What?" Organism shuffled closer.

Legion moved to screen the windshield. "Because it's…you…well"—you're circling an excuse, find it, find it—"you know"—zoning in, getting warmer—"You look good in that light." Bring it home. "Darkness suits you." Nailed it.

Organism gasped. It was a whole-body heave that creaked like the sound of a rusty gate. Deep red despite the dark, he pounded across the passenger deck, picked up speed—

"Stay back." Legion hurried to intercept Organism. "Alvin, don't come closer."

Organism threw Legion aside. Legion bounced off a chair onto the floor. "Especially don't do that."

George raised a hand. "Throwing people is Schizophrenic's job, bendy guy."

"That's my job." Schizophrenic threw Wasted. Wasted threw up.

Organism barreled at the windshield, slammed brick-shaped hands on the console, and ignored the windshield wipers that waved on. "No." That would have been an all-encompassing scream, but his voice still cracked his rusty-gate peep. He withered to his knees.

The x across the castle's front-door pillars was his dad. Someone had bound his dad's arms around the tops of the pillars. His legs were likewise bound near their bases. He was stretched tautly like a flattened sheet, the tensile limits of his malleable body tested. His face looked burned and hacked. But that hadn't done him in.

Puttyman said people with malleable bodies had limits. Their blood pumped only so far, and when stretched this much, their bodies squeezed their veins too tightly. They suffocated because their hearts couldn't circulate oxygen. Around the red lesions and burn marks, Elton was blue: he'd suffocated.

"Kid, you ain't wanna see this." Detritus tried to guide Organism away, but Organism squirmed out of his hands.

"Alvin?" Legion hopped up and crept toward the cockpit.

Organism seethed.

"Alvin?"

Gritted his teeth.

"Comrade Elfon?" Brainiac said.

Launched to his feet, stormed into the passenger deck, shoved Legion back onto the same chair.

"Throwing people is Schizo's job," George said.

"What'd we just tell you, kid?" Schizophrenic rammed a fist into the wall.

Legion stood. "Alvin, where are you—"

Whirled around.

"Alvin?"

Scraped the floor with his foot to lock his stance. Looked like a bull ready to charge.

"Alvin, you're drooling."

"That's my job," George said.

Detritus leaned forward. "Don't do nothin' stupid, kid."

"That's also my job."

Organism balled his hands together. They merged into a sledge hammer. "Control, acknowledge, dissolve windshield."

George folded his arms. "It doesn't listen to Good Guys."

"The windshield is scat, my jive daddy-o."

With the sound of a faraway geyser shushing, the windshield wisped into pixel froth. A spring breeze flitted in with the smell of stone and grass and glitter lava.

George pounded his thigh. "Cluck, we had a deal!"

Organism's eyes shimmered. Whether from sadness or fury, Legion couldn't tell. He sprinted at the windshield that wasn't there—

"Alvin!" Legion dived to intercept but missed.

—and plunged through the gap into open air. Legion rushed to the windshield and climbed onto the console. Organism spread himself flatly and glided toward the pillars and inflated and crunched onto the front stone so hard he smashed a block in half. Oh, no, he wasn't—yes, he was.

Organism's voice rattled off the stone curtain walls. "Continuum, get out here!"

"Kid's gonna get hisself killed. Crap." Detritus threw himself at the cockpit, tried to climb onto the console but couldn't swing his leg up. "Crap. How bad's it look like down there?" He lifted his other leg. "Crap." Back to the first. He tipped onto the floor. "Crap."

"That guy's a goner." George's hands floated at his hips as if he were unsure what to do. "I was going to invite you guys to my New Year's party, too."

"I was not even invited to New Year party." Brainiac raised her hand. That caused her to smack headfirst onto the floor.

"You killed my dad!" Organism was calling out the enemy.

* * *

Continuum's ears itched. Specifically the left one. Heh. Someone called his name. He relished the hopeless anger so much it tickled his stomach. He almost bit his tongue in starved anticipation. No, his ear didn't itch. It sang.

So these cogs wanted a fight. Continuum would indulge.

He slapped his ear. It was a mosquito the whole time.

Chapter Twelve: The Neighbors Are at It Again

Something rumbled closer, but it had stopped a few moments ago. Then nothing. Them something. Then more nothing. Then that song that got stuck in Power Plant's head a few days ago. Then a crash of metal like dishes shattering against the floor, right into the ear where he used to shove Junior Mints to sneak them into movies. Then more crashing. Then himself farting. That caused him to jerk back and clonk his head against where he planned to put his gun rack. And that caused the rest of the fart to creak out. Then the song again.

Power Plant had retreated to his torchlit dungeon with his Burnout action figure when the tumult smashed out, something like a collision of swords in swashbuckling combat. Never one to miss a good swashbuckle, he shot to his feet. No more planning where to install the new hockey rink, which, come to think of it, was a problem since he never learned to skate. Or handle a stick. Or play hockey.

Everything rumbled. The roof sprinkled a pinch of dust. Continuum's voice crackled out of a nonexistent speaker. "Servant Power Plant, report to the throne hall. Our home lies under siege"—Power Plant's head swam over all these unnatural words—"and you are needed to bolster"—and ached more—"our defense against these cogs." This nausea would linger until bedtime. "We must meet this adversary." Oh, come on!

After those words, he came to. No way would he let Mark out of his sight anymore, so he pocketed his action figure. He hotfooted into the infinite hallway that had shortened to a walkable distance. The great hall was down the left side. Left? Right? Left. He tore into flight—quick stop at the lost-and-found to grab a scarf because it was chilly in the castle despite the weather—and touched down at the corner.

In the grand hall, Kamikaze stood at attention with fists crinkling orange energy, watching the ceiling as if he expected something to plummet through. Blackguard lurked by one wall, arms crossed, face like a surveillance camera, stench like a rhinoceros corpse. Hearse hunched by the rear, trapped in tendrils of sculpted stone like a statue's arms restraining him. He hung into those tendrils, no strength to move. His lips were fattened, his skin lacerated, and his cheek purple and swollen. He dribbled blood. And snot. The liquid kind.

Continuum sat in his throne. His mouth smiled though he himself didn't. Clamors trundled through the great hall: a tremor, a metallic howl, a crash of static, a "Hey, bendy guy, get back in the rooster" from Master Asinine, a "George, you're stealthy like a bowling ball to the toe" from Legion, an "I'm a family-fun night right on your dancing feet" from Master Asinine. This amused Continuum, as if he watched a comedy unfold. Maybe something Catastrophe starred in, because those were all comedies, especially the ones that weren't.

"What's all th—" Ugh. The scarf was in Power Plant's face. He threw it around his neck and raspberried fuzz off his tongue. "What's all—" Still fuzz. Stupid scarf. Threw it again. "What's all that—" Crocking fuzz.

Continuum sprang out of the throne. "Your old friends pushed their luck too far. It's time to meet the enemy." He recited this to the ceiling. Nothing was there. Not even a comedy. Not even a tragedy like Ripsaw.

Blackguard blustered a huff through absent nostrils. "What do you wish of us, Master?"

"I will protect the castle grounds, my lord." Legacy glimmered onto the throne, sitting exactly where Continuum had. His pencil mustache twitched as he wiggled his nose. "I will protect it specifically from here. It is quite comfortable."

"You are a computer construct. You do not feel comfort."

"I will keep your seat warm, like a purring engine."

"That is gross."

"I do this in service of you."

"Do not." Continuum licked his lips. That invisible comedy must have kicked up its heels, because he reacted to the ceiling with such childlike glee that his cheeks twitched. They calmed back down. "I will return. Kamikaze, execute our leverage. But make it unnecessarily slow." And then Continuum flickered away so quickly Power Plant didn't know what door he used.

"Gladly, Lord." Kamikaze grinned with focus and retribution. Hearse had stolen Kamikaze away to the In Sanity Manor months ago. Now Kamikaze bounced on his toes with thoughts of revenge.

Another rumble almost knocked Power Plant off his feet. The action figure poked his hip. "This ain't what Mark'd want."

"It's what Lord Continuum wants." Kamikaze puffed his chest and swaggered to Hearse. His hands already crackled with orange ferocity.

"Killing him is a stupid idea."

Who'd said that? Power Plant whirled around, and crock, there leaned the Trader against the pillar in which hid the two pieces of aswang. His arms were crossed, and he propped one leg against the other. He separated his arms to examine his fingernails as if he waited for a ride.

"Doors, people!" Power Plant threw his arms out. The scarf flapped up and settled over his face.

"Oh, you've arrived." Legacy stood as well. the top of the throne cutting his head off. "You cannot see, but I'm scowling. Master Trader, I'm scowling. Look this way, Master Trader. Master Trader?"

The Trader uncrossed his legs and leaned off the pillar. "Your friends have come to stop Continuum." He looked at Hearse. "And you'll need any help you can get." Then at Power Plant. "And that scarf is so ridiculous it's offensive." Said the guy wearing a suit in summer weather.

"Do you question our lord?" Blackguard marched at the Trader. He speared a finger against the soft spot on the Trader's throat. It didn't penetrate.

"Help from Hearse?" Power Plant laughed. Memories of when Hearse used to confuse cherry cola and Children's Tylenol flooded back. "He useds to confuse cherry cola an—Oh, that's what bein' redundant is."

Kamikaze's fists flooded with angrier orange. Casual Friday Kamikaze's fists were the shade of a carrot, but fire-marshal Kamikaze's fists were a hormone-modified carrot. "This brute arrested me three months ago and locked me up at Stavehill. They told me I was the poison of society. Lord Continuum taught me I was the antidote." His hands were furious. So was he. "If Lord Continuum says he dies, that's all I need to hear." Another quake rearranged the dust on the walls.

"Was they said you were beta-carotene poison o' society?" Power Plant shuffled back.

Hearse roused. Though he couldn't budge much in his stone bindings, he hoisted his shoulders forward with resolution. "Finish me then, coward. Finish me like Continuum's churros finished my tooth enamel." He spat a crumb off his lip. "Inform him the cheesecake churro was stale."

Kamikaze reared at him. "Shut up, prisoner." His fists yelled with him. "He's proud of his cheesecake churros!"

"Do not make allegations about his food service." Legacy sat back down and crossed his ankles.

"Stale"—Hearse fired a dagger stare at Kamikaze—"at best."

Kamikaze slapped him. Legacy made the same motion with a dainty glove. He didn't even leave the throne or open his eyes.

"Kill him, don't kill him. Up to you." The Trader shrugged. Was he this ambivalent every time he rocked a boat? "But Hearse is key in your escape. Kill him"—he sneered at Kamikaze—"and that's not a death you'll recover from."

"Escape from what?" Kamikaze threw his hand at Hearse. Energy crackled out. It blackened Hearse's cheek, charred through the sinew, clawed into his teeth, his left eye, the aiming visor over the right one. Hearse grunted, but he didn't give Kamikaze the joy of screaming. Instead, he sang about being born on…Wait, that made no sense. They were nowhere near a bayou.

Blackguard growled in approval. Crossed his arms in approval. Looked as if he'd hold Kamikaze's coat in approval.

Power Plant pinched his nose from the crinkled flesh. His eyes skated between Kamikaze's hand and Hearse's cheek that dissolved like paper in a fire. Hearse was a top-shelf douche, but to stone-cold kill him…that didn't sit right. "Maybe we shoulds think about this. That's comin' from me, an' I's still recoverin' from all that thinkin' last November."

Kamikaze didn't pause.

"Kamikaze?"

Kamikaze didn't pause.

"Blackguard?"

Blackguard was all about pausing. Pausing in approval.

"Trader?"

The Trader didn't pause either. He was gone. The pillar against which he'd leaned was empty now. Continuum had come from the twenty-billionth century, but he never taught anybody to use a door.

Crock. Power Plant screwed his eyes shut—Hearse better appreciate this—and sighed them back open.

He shot a beam from his left hand to shatter the stone tendril wound around Hearse's neck. His right hand burst through Kamikaze's outstretched arm. The orange voltage scrabbling from Kamikaze's fingers cut away as the arm bobbed in the air for one split second and then slopped to the floor.

"You defiant speck." Blackguard tilted his chin downward. "You dare disobey our redeemer and destroy his wall decorations?"

"Jeff?" One-armed Kamikaze whirled around. "What the crock are you doing?"

"What my brother'd want." Power Plant fired another shot to smash apart the tendril around Hearse's waist, then the one embracing his legs. Each tendril shattered in a double-fisted volley. Hearse toppled against the floor on a cheek burned up to the muscle.

Blackguard advanced from the shadows in the corner. "I will flay you apart—"

"Stay back!" Power Plant aimed both hands at Blackguard. Blackguard lurched aside half a step. Power Plant swung one hand at Kamikaze.

"That was stupid, Jeff." Kamikaze fished his arm off the floor. "And the Trader's right about the scarf."

"That was stupid, Jeffy."

Kamikaze twisted his arm around the socket to heal the shattered bone together. When that didn't work, he shoved it into a pocket. "I forgot how tedious holding your own arm in place is."

He barreled at Power Plant on orange flight—

Power Plant splashed Kamikaze's head apart. The headless missile dived down, smacked against the floor, and trundled blood and tissue along the runner carpet. The carpet-rash body rolled to a stop at Power Plant's feet. Kamikaze would take a good hour to resurrect. "How stupids was that?"

"Lord Continuum called you my opposite, the light to my dark, my antithesis. He said you were skilled at wielding photons." Blackguard shook his arm, and his hand flashed into a blade. "You are skilled only at becoming a mess."

"Compliment accepted."

"It is time to clean that mess"—Blackguard whipped his blade through air—"and end my antithesis."

Power Plant hauled Hearse up and made sure the churro-eating, mouthwash-confusing, log-limbed lummox was steady. He stared at Blackguard with a concentration like a warhead zeroing in on a target. "Let's antithize." And threw off that scarf.

Blackguard raised his blade.

"Ooh. I'm programmed to think this shall be such rollicking fun." Legacy rubbed his hands together.

Chapter Thirteen: Tell the Office Creep to Do It

The decree finally came.

The sssssun was bright and glorious on the day of victory in Lord Continuum's mission. Steeple raised his face to the glow, though his dead nerves forbade him from feeling the rays hug his sssskin. He felt the seagull drop bombs on his shoulder, though.

He inhaled the air, tasssssted what he could of the summertime in his muted sense of smell. He stood in Lord Continuum's castle courtyard, the crinkle of Pee Pants McBusiness's bottomless bladder forever fluttering in the fountain. What must you drink to fill your bladder that grandly?

Steeple smirked when Continuum issued the decree: summon the adelphoi to their posts. Of the remaining adelphoi, one-third would enter the grand hall. They would be present for the great resurrection and guard Lord Continuum's rations of Crunch Berries. But presence at the great resurrection was of utmost importance. Or guarding the rations was of utmost importance? Continuum hung his head atilt. Hhhhhuh.

Naaaah. The great resurrection. He could conjure more Crunch Berries later.

The remaining two-thirds of the adelphoi served no use in present form. They would be processed to bolster the ranks. He ssssmiled, mouth wetting as busily as Pee Pants's fountain. Necropolis lurked down the cobblestone path here, yesssssss. Necropolis would process their soulssssss. Their ssssscrumptious templatessss and soulsssss.

Steeple breathed a chuckle, more like an intermittent huff but whatever. He raised his hands to his nose and twiddled his fingersssss together. Their mental templates tasted ssssooooo divine, but when Necropolis processed them, they tassssssted…well, if he were honest, like parchment and empty calories.

He called to Necropolis, who shuffled around to regard him with those unoccupied eyes. Those eyessss, painted like watercolor orbs but ssssingeing. Necropolis must take the adelphoi Steeple would guide to him, ingest their souls and strip their spirits, and leave only robotic essences behind. He would regurgitate those essences into the husks of the knights' armor. Lord Continuum needed legions upon legions to ssssswarm the enemy upon their attack.

The first of the adelphoi reached Necropolis. And in that preternatural way, Necropolis processed them. He yawned opened, rolled his eyes into his sssssskull, and inhhhhhaled the soul out of its husk. The body dispersed into the breeze. The next in line stepped into position. Then the next.

And with the individual soulsssss that became dozens that became hundredssssss, Necropolis glowed more and more brightly. Light escaped his ears, his eyes, his nostrils, as if someone had flicked a switch inside him. And then, bloated, he shuffled off to fill suits of armor.

Steeple turned to the remainder of his adelphoi. It wassss time to act, to witnessss the resurrection. To not trip on the cobblestone. Tie your laces, dolt.

Continuum piped in again. Change of mind: send two to guard the rations. Final answer.

Chapter Fourteen: Someone's Getting Suspended without Pay for This

Pincushion heard nothing but the bug life, like an invisible buzzsaw in this creek bed. Something creaked, something droned, something burped. Insects didn't burp. Multipurpose did. Why Pincushion was saddled with this stale marshmallow, he wasn't sure, but he rolled through his memories for anything karma had snagged him for. Whatever it was, he detected the effects of something disagreeing with Multipurpose's system. A diced tomato had probably fallen into his thundermammal nachos.

He rose onto the balls of his feet, as if a pebble settled in his boot. He'd leaned forward for ten minutes, waiting for the teams to settle into position while his stomach tangled. The west team, the east team, and the extraction team had all checked in. But the north team was silent. The heads-up display showed them in position and low on Firebrand Cinnamon Chai, the only authorized tea of the 9110 Bludgeoning Infuriating Trespassers to Death…but they hadn't given the all-clear. And why did Legacy cater this fight? Serious conflict of interest.

"North team?" Pincushion's hand hung off the upper rim of the windshield, but instead of leaning against it, he clenched it. His fingertips ached. "North team, you guys in place?" If any team started the assault without the north team ready, Continuum could slip out the front. "Legion?"

"Legion, you there?" Franchise's voice prickled through the connection with restlessness to launch, to find Power Plant. "Are you ordering tea?"

Pincushion's knees hopped, his legs twitching tiny kicks. Every sensation nagged him to move. He whirled away from the windshield and wandered to the rear, to the front, to the rear, to the commode, which would be weird except Fashion Fixtures was the authorized furniture supplier of the 9110 Bludgeoning Infuriating Trespassers to Death. "Legion?" His fingers traced the commode's designer bow handles with silver finish.

The cockpit speaker clicked, a reaction from their shared connection. "We hit a snag," Reef said.

"Abioye, you need to see this." Catastrophe's voice usually sounded pompous with a braggart's confidence, but it sounded brittle now. "Abioye." Pincushion waved him off. Well, waved off the odor Multipurpose reverberated out his gullet, but same direction.

Reef again. "Your Organism jumped the gun." Your Organism? Those two had never met before today, but Reef was still a Good Guy. Right? "He called out Continuum before we were ready."

"Abioye!" Catastrophe's voice wasn't brittle anymore. It was as critical as a fire alarm.

"What?" Pincushion whirled around at—Oh. His fingers dropped off the handle. He knew he smelled something fishy. Aside from Multipurpose.

"Ah, yeah, this my scene, y'all." Bad Aim rubbed his hands together. If only his scene were fitting into a seat so he didn't stuff two-thirds of the aisle.

A riot of knights devoured the vista, spread so widely he couldn't see the end. Transit didn't mention there'd be so many. With them came a tall woman in a yellow outfit whose hair was a cat-o'-nine-tails. Beside her snarled a matted bronze creature spitting acidic sores from skin lesions.

Pincushion opened his mouth and licked his lips. "Well—"

* * *

"—this—" Ace Spandex stammered.

* * *

"—sucks." Puttyman stuck his tongue out at his coffee mug. He threw a hand at Chug's windshield. "Also we've got knights outside."

* * *

Appetite kept eating.

* * *

"Hey, guys? You cut out for a second. Why so quiet?" Franchise tapped a couple buttons to raise Friznatch off its cradle of marsh. It smelled boggy outside, and the rotten-egg fumes sifted into the starship. The system still showed them as forty-two streetlights away from Continuum's stronghold, the authorized stronghold of the 9110 Bludgeoning Infuriating Trespassers to Death. Franchise guessed a streetlight was this thing's translation for kilometer. Or mile. Or city block. Where was the weights-and-measures chart? "Somebody? Anybody? … Is Braindead answering me?"

"The assault started before we were ready," the shared connection buzzed. Was that Reef? Friznatch thankfully didn't translate his words into Emojese. "North team is having a crisis. Just attack!"

"What's your crisis?"

"Lots and lots of things. And lots. But the current one is Organism's throwing a fit ahead of our prep."

Franchise blinked brightly and widely. They weren't set to launch for another eighteen sunglasses. He wasn't prepared for not being prepared. He barely piloted properly. All his mil-trans flashed "Bad Driver on Board" across their bumpers, and he had no idea how their AI picked up on that so quickly.

His fingers scoured across buttons. He hoped he told the starship to lift above the overgrown bulrushes into the clouds so they could drop over the great hall like Transit said. Nope, he told Friznatch to activate the disco function. A mirror ball whirred out of a ceiling recess with springing beats and flashing lights that dotted the walls with more emojis than Franchise could identify. "Playing the authorized soundtrack of the 9110 Bludgeoning Infuriating Trespassers to Death." If it was "YMCA," they were screwed, because Franchise couldn't afford to take his hands away from the controls right now. Crocking Dance Choreography Act of 8993.

"Babe?" Amaranthia leaped across the floor into the cockpit. "Babe, we still have sixteen sunglasses until we attack."

"The light to move turned green, sister." Better Than You ticked his head to the side and flickered his eyebrows. "Let's let me at 'em."

Franchise shifted his teeth and crammed fingers here, there, over there, on that red button, on that poo emoji—the toilet whooshed—on that horse button. The thrusters neighed on. Finally. "Jeffy's in there, and we gotta get to him before he's mobilized against us." Did he just activate the steeplechase function?

* * *

Organism clubbed the knight against the right pillar. Armor segments clattered away with Yurts merch. "Continuum, get out here!" Legion heard him even in Cornflakes' cockpit, over the cacophony of battle rising from all sides and the cacophony of George's road-trip tunes dwelling at the bottom of the music industry.

Reef whirled him around. "Legion, shut your Good Guy up." Your Good Guy? Reef had drawn lines between "ours" and "yours" and chosen the opposite side.

"Cut the kid some slack. He just lost his dad." Detritus raised his dukes at Reef.

Reef slapped one of those dukes away. "He's jeopardizing the operation."

"He is putting lives in risk, comrades." Brainiac's head thunked against the floor when she tried to lift it. She rolled her forehead to face them.

"Reef and the cranium are right, Legion. Shut him up, or we'll have to take him down." Luzimoss searched the weapon controls. Good luck. Legion had found only buttons to playlists. Come to think of it, those were also weapon controls. "Asinine, who planned this layout?"

"Me." George was pouring another cup of creamer. "Except substitute the word planned with literally any other word." He put the creamer back and shut the cupboard. Bombard of sack.

Legion was already on his gabber, mouthpiece and earpiece out. "Organism, stand down immediately. We're not ready, and this call is costing the taxpayer fifteen moolahs a minute."

Organism ignored him. He smashed goliath fists against a pillar, into the ground, into the remaining knight. His voice scratched more hoarsely with every unheeded scream.

Luzimoss snapped his fingers. "Found a weapon. It's marked 'chill and smooth.' I'll chill-smooth him down."

George beamed a forty-watt smile. "Holy hot bananas, I love that weapon. It's second only to the holy-hot-bananas weapon."

"Let me talk to him." Legion shoved Luzimoss away from the dashboard. "Organism, fall back. Practice some stretches or whatever you rubber types do. Now."

"You want me to go down there and punch a few faces? His specifically?" Schizophrenic walloped the arm of a chair into Nadon.

Legion chopped a hand out at Luzimoss, who lunged for the controls again. "No bananas, no face punching, and George, if you suggest putting him down with a lullaby one more time, I will end you."

"Not listening. Doing the face thing." Schizophrenic was already at the elevator airfoil.

* * *

Organism sizzled restlessness, sizzled sorrow, sizzled rage. Stealth was out the window. His cheek twitched. He couldn't look at his dad, hanging off the pillars as a sacrifice. Where was that psychopath?

A shuffle behind him. Organism spun—nothing—spun again. "Get out here so I can douse your business, you sponge sucker. Or lay a fire. Business. Fire business. I'm still getting the hang of trash talk. I'll lay down a good business fire burning. One for the books." Crock, Dad's taglines were harder than they sounded. Tie it all in now, bring it home. "I'll smacking burn some books." Not the home he was going for.

"Sponge grinder!" With every scream, he ballooned his fists larger. They were as heavy as coffins. He didn't know what a sponge grinder was, but anything involving a sponge was horrible. "Sponge licker!" He whirled at his left when a tick turned out to be a leaf somersaulting in the grassy breeze. "Sponge herder?" More of a question than a battle cry this time. If Continuum didn't show soon, he'd run out of sponge insults. "Something with sponges!" Already ran out.

"Welcome, dear Alvin."

That predatory timbre, like a frothing witch's brew given voice. Organism spun around, and that murderer stood inside the wall behind Dad. Continuum smiled at Dad as if admiring his handiwork. Beaming.

Organism sprang—"I'll fire-douse you apart, sponge hoarder"—whittled himself into a spear—swirled above Dad's leg—through the opening in the curtain wall—skewered Continuum's ribcage—split two ribs—drilled into his liver—erupted out the back in gore and blood—inflated into a person—landed on a cobblestone pathway contouring a lush expanse. Why was a fountain peeing?

He turned to watch Continuum dying on his knees, groveling. Continuum didn't grovel. He didn't die on his knees. Punctured organs bulged out his wound. Organism had treated him like a voodoo doll, and he smirked down at his gash. He poked the tissue that bulged out.

"You mortal cogs fascinate me. Your deluded hope in the face of overwhelming odds is commendable." Continuum pushed the tissue back in. His wound sealed. His smile straightened. "And fruitless, despite your four-legged rooster."

Something crackled on through Cornflakes's loudspeaker. "It's a weight-distribution thing."

Organism gawked. "I…I drilled through you. I drilled right through your guts, and you healed in seconds. I have pieces of your liver on my face!"

"Oh, yes, I'll need that back." Continuum reached out, and the liver was gone.

"Why must you stubborn mortals waste my time?" He narrowed his eyes…and suddenly Organism's legs kicked a meter over the cobblestone. He levitated Organism through the door of the curtain wall, under Dad's taut arm. Stepping out through the stones like a ghost, he approached, hand poised, until Organism's neck fit into his grip. "Your interference displeases me." He squeezed.

Organism's senses feathered, buzzed like a song of insects. He slithered the skin of his neck around Continuum's grip, down to the wrist. He squeezed, but it only squeezed Continuum's grip more tightly. He slapped Continuum's arm—or at least he thought in his thin vision—but that did nothing. Oxygen was a distant memory now.

A crack-crack broke the buzz, and Organism fell. He gobbled air so heavily his throat burned. When he regained his sight, he looked up at a hole that had punched through Continuum's throat and one that had erased his eye. Schizophrenic planted a foot in the small of Continuum's back and thrust. Continuum flopped down the stone steps.

"Crock, you don't know how long Sarah May's been waiting to blast this sponge nerfer." Schizophrenic slid his gun into a pocket.

Detritus hopped around behind Schizophrenic like an overcharged younger brother. "Don't touch the kid, or you answer to us, sponge scratcher." He gored a finger at the corpse.

Schizophrenic heaved a fist up. "You're still a generic, and I'm still on face-sorting duty, ya know."

"Sponge sponger!" Righty guffawed. Lefty slapped him.

Continuum grunted to his feet. His eye reknitted, and his throat mended in a shrinking iris. Still alive. "Blackguard," he said to the wind, to someone or no one. "Revive our demonic destroyer." He belly-laughed. Always laughing!

He drew a ponderous breath, as if inhaling the pine of the summer air. "You cogs are so charming." He lifted his arms from his sides. "But not for long."

Tears in space tore open in electric white. A hum revealed the orchestrated rise of a fleet of IP starships roaring out of those tears.

"Let's begin the games."

Part 4: The Part Where It's Go Time and Someone Gears Up the Action Music, but It's Polka

Chapter One: Must Be Space Cow's Beef Burrito in Those Containers

Power Plant rolled away as Blackguard's sword arm cracked against the floor to produce a single spark. "Crock, I snorteds up dust." His head kicked back in a sneeze.

"Yes, my lord. Our demonic destroyer. How I've waited so eagerly to unleash it." Blackguard cackled in deranged obedience. Moments ago, Continuum's callout had sung over the intercom that was really a closed-eyed butler on a throne pushing tea. None of those words belonged in the same sentence, but Power Plant would be crocked to pass up something called Firebrand Cinnamon Chai. It was the authorized tea around here, so how could he argue?

Another lunge. Blackguard's arm clanged against stone. He snarled at Power Plant, shallow eyes targeting him under a marginal brow. He threw his arm out and missed Power Plant's face by the width of a hair. Hearse still faltered on kinked legs, so Blackguard was all Power Plant's.

A crack of marching. Crock, them patrons at Station One that Steeple had taken over. They trooped into the grand hall in synchronized steps.

Their heels locked together in a snap that lacerated through the hall. They stopped. They didn't back Blackguard up, didn't interfere. They just stood and looked super creepy doing it. And—Power Plant flexed his ear—murmured about a book club? No thanks. The last thing Power Plant needed right now was assigned reading.

"You guys again? Ain't there a mannequin contest somewhere?" Power Plant dodged another sword arm.

Blackguard's hand whittled into a dot, disappeared, and—what the crock—stretched back out to the right of the throne, where that out-of-place aswang pedestal sat. This dude went from teleporting his body to teleporting specific limbs? No fair. Blackguard reached into the pedestal—no fair again, because whenever Power Plant tried to reach into rock, he stubbed his fingers—and produced a takeout box dribbling tomato paste. Didn't smell like tomato paste. Space Cow had interesting dipping sauces these days.

Legacy disappeared from the throne and reappeared on the wall close to the pedestal. "This shall be scrumptious. Did I say scrumptious? Hmm. My thesaurus function seems to be corrupted. Mice." Was that a curse? "Mice to the table." Was that?

Hearse jumped up behind Blackguard and chopped down with a piece of stone tendril. Blackguard's head sprouted a hand and caught the attack. Hearse pressed down, teeth clamped under that burned-open cheek.

"You are both a waste of Lord Continuum's time," Blackguard said.

"For serious? He's literally gots all the time!" Power Plant fired at Blackguard's head fist. Dark matter splattered out, but Blackguard sucked it back in. Crock, this guy was every type of no fair.

Blackguard reached back into the pedestal to grab…a plastic fork? No, another takeout container. This one dribbled a clear liquid that Power Plant was positive wasn't vinegar. Blackguard scowled that superficial mouth as two elongated fingers opened this container to extract a brain. An oversized, gnarled brain connected to nothing and yet pulsing with activity, It fumed a deathly odor as offensive as his. He discarded the takeout container.

"Space Cow ain't cook their food long enough anymore." Power Plant steeled himself. Mostly his gag reflex.

Blackguard pulled a heart out of the first takeout container, as putrefying as the brain and smelling of worse decay. So Continuum was an organ dealer from a horror movie. Power Plant had seen this movie. It was so bad Catastrophe name-checked four of the set riggers and the assistant dolly operator on the sixteenth unit.

Hearse whirled around, slammed the stone tendril into Blackguard's hip. Blackguard's hip wrapped dark matter around the tendril that lodged in place. The hip sprouted an arm that wielded the tendril and cracked it across Hearse's temple. Hearse fell against the wall. Blackguard dropped the tendril and melted the arm back into his hip.

"Oh, that looked adjacent," Legacy said. "I mean adjacent. I mean adjac—Fiddlesticks, let me debug my thesaurus software closely. I mean closely."

Power Plant fired a laser at Blackguard's hand, the one that stretched through teleportation. The hand sprayed apart but gelled back together, still holding the organs. Frigging horror-movie special-effects crew.

"You cannot disturb our lord's plan." Blackguard harumphed. He pulled his hand back through the teleportation with the heart and brain. He raised his other hand, and a third arm sprang from his palm to snatch Power Plant up by the hair.

"Hey, hey, I ain't needs a haircut." Power Plant's scalp was on fire. Fight dirty, eh? Power Plant flashed a burst of light out of his head and exploded Blackguard's third hand apart. He toppled to the ground.

Blackguard nailed Power Plant with a glower. "Your demise is as inevitable as the resurrection of the master's pet." Crap, another reanimation movie. Critics always panned these things.

"Cease your organ surgery now, froth of shadow." Hearse's words were mushy from swollen lips. Shoulder out, he charged Blackguard, but Blackguard separated in two with rich slurps. Hearse leaped through and nose-dived onto the runner carpet by the throne. He lay still.

Blackguard merged back together. "You so love your futility." He held his stumpy third wrist up only to show Power Plant the fingers that squiggled into form, the hand that appeared, the thumb that flexed. In his other two hands, he held the brain and heart aloft.

And plunged them together.

The organs splattered to the floor, curling like long-lost sisters hugging passionately. They fused, smoked, glowed, sizzled, crawled into each other. The mess was now one gooey, spurting blob, resembling neither organ, a mush of tissue that spat blood from a throbbing ventricle. Smelled like bodies on fire…or maybe someone in the adelphoi hadn't showered.

Blackguard shrank his third arm back into his palm and gritted whatever he used for teeth. It was a slight concavity in a menacing square that spoke words separated by fuming pauses. "I…will…now…rend…you…limb…from…foolish…limb…juvenile."

"The worst kind o' rending." Power Plant tensed to muster all his light energy. It welled in a brash tingle that washed his vision in yellow.

Blackguard's square mouth shrank. His slight brow crooked. "Why do you glow, imp?"

"'Cause I don'ts wanna get rended up." Power Plant blinked. His eyes flashed from blue to floodlight bright. A flash whistled into Blackguard like a shockwave. Blackguard's head splattered back—dark matter splattered the throne—Blackguard's neck ended in tatters. He toppled to his knees. Convulsive tics twerked his limbs. He collapsed forward onto his chest and lay still. And still stank.

Power Plant collapsed, too, on kneecaps that crackled pain. He wiped his face, his nerves ping-ponging all over the place. He stood—nope, back on his knees, wasn't ready. Tried again. Hearse stirred. He flopped against the throne and his head tilted at some weird angle, puffy with bruises.

Power Plant vaulted over Kamikaze's body, dived at Hearse, jiggled him—"Hey, we's gotta run"—jiggled harder—"Aswang's growin'"—how much jiggling did he have to jiggle? "That ain't good for nobody."

Hearse yelped and shot onto all fours. "I am awake, child. Stop shaking me." He shoved Power Plant and then gagged at the disaster of organs and smell. The heart-and-brain combo meal looked like a weird, purplish biology project, an organic mess of Play-Doh with haphazard hairs sticking out. "Why is that putrefied flesh crawling and expanding?" Back to shoving. "I said stop shaking."

"That's th' aswang." Power Plant swallowed. That did nothing to calm his runaway breathing or that he could go for a combo meal right now. "This ain't a place we wanna stay—"

Hollow and gruff, a voice oozed from the floor behind him. "Unworthy sinners, I will rip out your esophagi and tie them together." Blackguard's headless form heaved onto one foot and one knee. Shadowy squiggle by squiggle spiraled out of his neck to merge into a head.

"What's it take ta antithize a guy?" Power Plant whacked the carpet. "What's even an esophagi?"

Chapter Two: And…Action

Out of the curtain wall bordering the castle erupted a torrent of knights.

"We were supposed to be undetected until we all attack. Those Good Guys crocked up this mission." Bullet crashed blocky fists over the dashboard. Kalukahani convulsed in a jittery dance that ended on the floor.

"We need to mow through this crowd and get into the castle. Now." Bullet peered out the windshield at the stampede rushing across the field. Their speechless charge announced itself with only clangs and clatters. "What flavor-of-the-week weapon have you two public nuisances equipped Chug with this time?"

"Maul calls it Flavor of the Week." H2O activated something. "It shoots ice cream, but you don't know which until you pull the trigger."

"Except maple." Maul sliced a hand in the air. "If it comes out of a tree, I ain't eatin' it."

Legion cut through the cockpit deck with a voice that scratched out the tinny speaker. "No, keep your position outside the castle. Take down those knights, but don't break in. If you breach that wall or leave your zone, that army won't be bottlenecked."

"Piss off, Legion."

"Bullet, keep your cool."

"Double piss off, Legion."

Legion grunted. "Bullet, Continuum's reviving his demonic destroyer. He must mean his aswang. Now, more than ever, we can't deviate from the plan."

"The aswang? It's reviving?" Bullet's lower lip crawled over her upper one. Bullet enflamed with purpose. "We're going in, so you can triple piss off, Legion."

"Don't make her quadruple-piss-off you, dude." Puttyman tapped a button, which lit. And then sprang out and rolled away. "She cancels game night if that happens."

Bullet felt cold sweats. "Locate that aswang. Wherever it is, we need to be there."

"Trust the other teams, dude." Puttyman slapped her hand away from a button. "Legion's plan is solid no matter how many piss-offs you call down on him."

Bullet grabbed Puttyman's collar. "Find me that aswang."

Incendiary threw aside the shower curtain. He clattered out from the rear, hands locked and loaded at Bullet. "Stick to the plan." How dare he lock and load at Bullet? He was a guest here.

"Bullet, keep that east wall covered," Legion said. That military micromanager and his militaristic micromanaging.

Bullet let Puttyman go. She tightened her fist at Incendiary, at Legion. "The aswang—"

"The aswang is not your concern."

"It's always my concern! My family died to prevent things like it from existing." Bullet punched the ceiling.

"Bullet, you'll do no good leaving your side unattended." Legion's word churned. "Or I'll place you under arrest."

Bullet enflamed redder. Her growl rumbled like Chug's toilet after Pacemaker used it. "Fine. I'll stick to the plan." For now. "For now."

"You said that out loud," H2O said.

"Quadruple piss off." Bullet slammed the dashboard.

"Now you've done it." Puttyman clicked his tongue.

"We out for charades later?" Also Sediment yelled from the rear. "Wait. Who's that?" She dashed into the cockpit deck. Her tongue almost lolled out. She peered outside at a frail boy with toneless limbs and threadbare clothes darting through the traffic of knights and…Was his back smoking? His skin rippled with muscles shifting underneath. His belly morphed from a sickly russet to…to…to a deep green. The color stain seeped outward from that belly that segmented into ridges. His neck stretched upward. He still ran, this frail clamber of limbs that enlarged from a hunched five-and-a-half feet to eight feet…ten feet…twelve feet…fifteen feet as he unleashed a shattering roar from a mutated face. Webbed paddles for hands clawed knights aside in this creature's obsession to chop through them to Chug.

"Cool trick. Maul, fire up a flavor." Puttyman risked a glance behind himself. "I don't think it matters which."

* * *

Legion staggered back a step. His larynx clogged up his throat when the army of IP mil-trans emerged from portals that winked in and out of existence. The roar of thrusters flooded the cockpit like a tidal wave crashing through the open windshield.

Below, Continuum slashed the air and, with it, a gash across Organism's face. Schizophrenic blasted mil-trans swarming overhead. Detritus threw a handful of dirt with a rock in it.

"We can't use close-range attacks for Continuum without harming comrades, but we arm nuclear arsenal at fleet of soldier ships." Brainiac had dragged her forehead up a wall and, as if balancing books on her head, shuffled toward the cockpit controls. She was like a buoy bobbing across rippled waters. She reached as far as the dashboard and hit the floor. A curse full of sharp letters spewed out so spastically she winded herself.

"Brainiac can't walk or swear properly, but she's got the right idea." George rubbed his hands together. "Those IP goons are sitting ducks against our nuclear arsenal. Flying sitting ducks. Cluck, acknow—"

Legion threw him around by the arm. "George, those soldiers aren't themselves. They're under Continuum's command. You know some of them." He pushed his lower jaw forward. "Don't even think about attacking them."

"But I already thought about it." George whacked the coffee cupboard, which slapped shut with a plague sore and rebounded open with a flesh-monger.

Brainiac had run out of curses. "Haunt control listener does not work this low. Will arm nuclear arsenal with buttons." She lifted her hands to the weapons. Didn't quite reach. She swiped. Her hand banged the side. "I am whacking close, comrades?"

"Those soldiers might be your friends, Legion, but right now they're the enemy." Reef stepped in, armed with a gun and a gritty determination. "And they're attacking us."

Legion sidestepped to block Reef from the dashboard. He tensed to slam something, but he was afraid he'd activate—he looked over—the birthday function. The candle option was preset.

"Out of the way." Reef raised his gun.

"Reef, that's our people out there. Your people. And you want to shoot them down? They're not the enemy. The enemy is Continuum. If we take him, those soldiers—our friends—will stop attacking. If Reef the Good Guy still exists in there, lower that weapon."

Reef the Bad Guy's finger touched the trigger guard but didn't curl around the trigger. Legion heard the scrape of his fingertip against it.

"Which Reef are you?" Legion crossed his arms.

Reef didn't relent. So that was how it was.

George punted aside a chair piece. "Guys, don't make me put 'way fierce team-up' back on my bucket list."

"I said lower your weapon, Reef." Legion stepped forward, against Reef the Bad Guy's gun barrel. "Or you can shoot through me."

"Holy cold bananas, this sucks. Guys, the bananas have cooled. Holy cooled." George yanked his bucket-list datasheet out of his pocket, activated it, and scribbled something in.

"To think, you rival schoolgirls used to serve together." Luzimoss clenched his jaw. He marched over and stood beside their standoff. Well, not a standoff. One jabbed a gun against the other's neck, but a lot of lines had blurred today, so standoff it was. "Like it or not, you're teammates again." He put his hand over the top of the barrel. Didn't move it. "If you kill Legion, we stand a ninety-four percent chance of losing. You stand a one hundred percent chance of scrubbing guts off the carpet."

"Hear, hear!" George threw his hands up. He scanned everyone else sheepishly. "Guys, hear-hear with me."

"Ninety-four percent." Luzimoss raised a brow at Reef. The buzz of mil-trans outside was settling.

Reef deliberated a second. The struggle was all over his face. Then, "Fine." He whipped his gun away, kicked the dashboard, and stormed into the rear. "We're missing a golden opportunity, though." He exited through the throat access and flapped his arms around to disperse the phlegm from Cornflakes's allergies.

"Yesssss." George pumped an arm. He yanked his datasheet out and activated it. "The team-up is fierce again, and the bananas are back to hot."

"I have no idea the chances of losing this war if he'd shot you." Luzimoss regarded Legion. "You owe me."

Legion met Luzimoss's eyes with no response. Instead he said to George, "Is there a way to get to the ground faster than your elevator?" The hum of warships outside crescendoed: Continuum orchestrated their movements to surround Cornflakes.

George rubbed his hands together gleefully. "Then you'll love what I've got in mind."

Legion sighed so mournfully his body heaved. "Roosters don't lay eggs, George."

George whacked the cupboard door again. "Well, I'm out of ideas then. You happy? I had exactly one idea, and I ran out."

* * *

"Braindead, brother, lift us up and open fire." Pincushion leaped at the dashboard. The horde of knights carpeted the forestland and into this valley bed. The windshield tracked them closing in at thirty yards away. Some wielded polearms, others swords, others lances, and still others brooms. Maybe Continuum had them on cleaning duty. "Braindead, before they reach us."

Braindead huffed. Even his posture had attitude. Through his eye slit, he leered up at Pincushion and sipped from a cup of water he'd been working on since they'd left The Nemesis. It gurgled through his mouthpiece.

The enemy was twenty-seven yards away. The windshield labeled every knight as Unknown Cosplayer. It called the dog Unknown Dog. It identified the woman in the rear as Bexley Liddell/Marionette, born January 19, 9066, hyperperson who controlled living tissue, designer-handbag thief and frequent organizer of pig slings. It rattled off a few stats: weight, height, height in relation to hair length, rap sheet, and frequent associates. It labeled each fingernail as Razzle Dazzles from Manipure, a twenty-moolah special until Sunday.

It labeled the sun as Yellow Circle Thing.

"Hundreds of those things." Multipurpose bothered to stand. His knees didn't like that. He waddled over. The mil-tran didn't like that. His noxious stench followed, a haze like singed toffee. Nobody liked that. He snorted, which jiggled his fat folds. "Let me at them crocking armor people."

"They're called knights," Pincushion said. "It's a common word."

Multipurpose slid a sai out of a fat fold and brandished it. "Knights ain't no match for a ninja."

"This isn't an eating contest."

The knights marched so silently. Scampering ahead as if leading the pack, that matte-bronze canine lapped its stiletto fangs. A spurt of acid popped out of bubbling skin and splattered a knight's knee. The acid hissed through the knee, and the knight collapsed into the grass. It got up and hopped.

Eighteen yards.

"Braindead, pick up the pace." Pincushion searched Braindead's back for a speed knob. "Open fire on—" Crock. He forgot he was talking to the universe's most tightlipped thug. Mimes, everywhere. More of them rushed the starship.

Pincushion whirled at the opinionless lackey wearing the helmet whose question marks kept swatting his hip. He forced a question mark flat against the helmet's temple, but it snapped back out into his arm. "Get your sidekick in gear. Waiting for him is like being on hold with my credit-card company."

Lieutenant IQ 23 put a hand on Braindead's shoulder. "Whenever you're ready."

Braindead rumbled a response.

Lieutenant IQ 23 chortled. "You're right. This reminds me of the farmer's market too."

"You understand him?" Catastrophe gripped seatbacks.

"He appreciates when you make an effort."

Braindead placed the cup on the dashboard, steadied the grip bottom, stretched out his chest—

Pincushion slapped Braindead's back. "Never be an ambulance driver!"

—and tapped something into the piloting computer.

The sides of the mil-tran whirred. Anti-aircraft artillery emerged from wing folds, revved up—and cut into the crowd like a scythe slicing wheat. It started as a patter, like water waking up in a heated kettle, and then popped faster and sharper until it blended into a single rattle. Mime-on-mime violence.

Pincushion squeezed the arm of a chair. "They're ten yards away. Get us off the ground!"

Lieutenant IQ 23 turned his head, which thwacked Pincushion with that helmet he wanted to throw into an incinerator. "Let's bring us up to forty feet."

Catastrophe wrapped his arms around the back of a seat like a life preserver. "How about a number higher than Multipurpose's waist size?"

"Jealous?" Multipurpose patted his belly and had to wrench his hand out of the folds. It took three tries. Little Multi would take hours to stop rippling.

As if preparing a resume, Braindead typed out a command on the piloting computer. He stopped, rubbed his chin, and tap-tap-tapped a single button—

"Is that a backspace? We don't have time for backspace!" Pincushion snatched up IQ 23's helmet and whacked a question mark against Braindead's arm. "Don't you dare grumble at me." Over to IQ 23. "How is he your pilot?"

"Handpicked out of a pool of three." Lieutenant IQ 23 leaned back on his chair. "He's also our investment banker."

Braindead resumed his command. The thrusters clattered in rotation, and the mil-tran roared awake. A vertical thrust elevated the starship more slowly than if Pincushion got out and lifted it. The artillery kept slicing into the knights—the blasted mimes—but not quickly enough.

The mil-tran reached four feet according to the windshield stats, but that diseased canine pounced—slammed against the nose cone—gouged the paneling with arced razor claws—dangled off its forepaws. Caustic boils frothed sizzling pus into the metal. Something whinnied, a rise-and-fall bellyache that snapped into something else.

The windshield tracked the knights at four yards—three—two—one—a smidge—half a smidge. They were at the starship, hauled themselves up, clutched the sides, grabbed contours. This weighed down the starship too much. It struggled, bobbed, lost the fight, and dropped into the stream bed.

The knights crawled onto the nose cone and cracked polearms, swords, battle-axes, lances, maces, broom handles into the metal. The side artillery clacked to a stop. The canine kept slashing.

The cracking of weapons outside grew louder. Pincushion kicked a chair. "Could you not have done that any faster?" He gripped his hair. No, he had to center himself. Those knights would peel this thing open like a can of soup. He stormed to the access port. "Catastrophe, brother, it's time for an earthquake to rip open a chasm and drop those knights in. Multipurpose, treat those things like you'd treat caramel-covered bread. Mabel, arm your cats."

"Whaaaatttt?" Withered Old Battle-Axe held a funnel to her ear.

"We're going out there?" Catastrophe was at Pincushion's shoulder to swing him around.

"We can't lift off with those knights weighing us down." Pincushion ran fingers up his itchy arm where the holes from his quills had scabbed over. Baby quills already peeked out. Those knights would break in here in about three minutes. The windshield said they could increase that to five if they purchased auto insurance. "Brother, if that woman with the vine of hair twists me into a coil, I want a Viking funeral." He asserted a stare at Catastrophe. "The flames better come up to your neck."

He knew mimes would be the death of him.

* * *

Puttyman braced himself. A tsunami of knights clatter-clanged around the forest trees, but that wasn't what had grabbed his attention and wouldn't let go. No, it was the wyvern, who folded its wings against its body—and then thrashed them out, throwing knights away with only air current. It flapped again and pounced into flight. It loomed above the shelter of trees, blocking the sun and casting a gloom over Chug like the ambiance at a funeral. Its lashing tongue slurped out like a fleshy firehose. Everything was a shadow except its glowing yellow eyes. They looked like organic doom.

Puttyman peered up at the silhouette almost concealed above the upper rim of Chug's windshield. "Maul, idea for a weapon, dude." Yeah, organic doom. Note that. You'd find it in toy stores in a week. Patent pending if Puttyman lived through this.

The knights were the length of a parking lot away now, so maybe Puttyman should pay them attention. But he couldn't, because the tongue with a creature attached spanked its big-top wings again to keep itself aloft, a single flap that thundered so hard the trees shivered. Its tail drooped down like a boa constrictor. It raised its boulder fists above its head. Uh oh. Puttyman felt cold wigglies worm in the pit of his tum-tum. Burp. Nope. Turned out it was coffee gas.

"Hey, Clip." Puttyman was transfixed at the sky demon licking its chops with a tongue that walloped its face. He tapped a quivering finger on something. Was it H2O's shoulder? His face? Puttyman couldn't tear away from the goliath that menaced in flight a heart-attack's distance away. "Clip, maybe let's activate our new superweapon."

"No." Bullet punched the ceiling and left a dent. "It's reserved for the aswang."

"Ytril, that thing isn't lifting its hands to pat us on the back."

Bullet grabbed Puttyman and threw him around for a kiss except with less smooch and more scowl. "We have one superweapon, and we will not waste it on that thing. Do you hear me?"

"The knights are about five seconds from swarming us." H2O cracked his knuckles. How? He was water. Puttyman swore he made the sound himself.

"Y'all better be right ready ta kick out." Was that the wyvern? The voice crushed down portentously, causing tremors. Puttyman drew his eyes skyward. Bullet did the same. "'Cause l is for whippin'."

"Is that…Is that trash drawl?" Puttyman asked. "Is it trash-drawling us?"

The wyvern plummeted. In the time it took Puttyman to gasp and pee a little, it dive-bombed into the trees and smashed fists over Chug's delicate nose cone. The nose cone clapped against the ground, the stern flipped into the air, and Chug somersaulted up/above the creature/out of the forest/over the field/arced—

Screams from the occupants. Curses from Maul. Exercise from Speed Line thrashing around his Jolly Jumper. Puttyman would spend all day tomorrow buffing out Chug's new rhinoplasty.

"Maul, watch your language around Speed Line."

* * *

Reviving the aswang? Crock. Transit had warned them how detrimental that was. Franchise pounded the cockpit controls. He threw the starship into roaring ascent over the marsh that had acted as cover for however long a wine bottle lasted. When Friznatch threw the poop symbol on its heads-up display, he agreed. And almost imitated.

Better Than You fell against his chair. "The call is on, compadre. Let's finish this fast."

Workshop screeched "wonderfun terrifibrill" so loudly that Franchise's eardrums trilled.

"Babe?" Amaranthia grabbed the back of Franchise's chair. "Babe, whatcha doing?" With the starship perpendicular to the ground, her legs swung out from under her. She hung off the chair.

"Workshop's shriek-giggle is all I need to hear." Everything tensed, Franchise convulsed fingers over buttons. "Probably the last thing I'll hear." Behind him, Workshop rolled into the rear deck, squealing four or five words fused together. Franchise wasn't sure how many words. Or how many syllables.

Flight data rolled down the windshield too quickly to read but too impossible to ignore. It estimated Franchise's arc path to penetrate the great hall of Continuum's castle where Transit had pinpointed the weak spot. Flight time was eighteen wine bottles. Frigging emoji measurements. Franchise smacked the windshield. The paperclip computer assistant winked, so he cracked the display again. That only made it ask, "It looks like you're trying to infiltrate enemy territory. Would you like help?" He cracked "no."

He was coming. Power Plant better get ready.

Chapter Three: The New Art of Losing

Blackguard charged Power Plant like a mad bull. Last time a bull rushed him, he was eating a hamburger. That was on him. This one wasn't, but Blackguard fired the same bull-rush temper from those shallow-set sockets. Power Plant blurted a random sound, fumbled along the carpet, threw his fingers up—shot—slid a beam through Blackguard's raised arm—splattered dark matter like blood from an exit wound—severed the arm. Did he just rip out an esophagi?

The arm, the wrist, the sword hand spun backward. Blackguard didn't slow down. The shoulder grasped out in tarry coils, the severed arm grasped back, and both smeared into a seamless limb.

Power Plant scurried backward over Kamikaze's corpse—shot again—severed the arm—it mended—Blackguard reached him—Power Plant rolled aside to avoid a lunge—shot Blackguard's leg—it split, rejoined—"Crock"—dodged a dark-matter slash—blasted Blackguard's head—it regenerated—Blackguard straddled over him—held sword arms up, thrust down—Power Plant seared a shot that split Blackguard down the middle—used flight, slid out from under him—Blackguard's halves reached to each other and began bonding.

"Master Continuum will prevail." Legacy swooped onto the closest wall. He shook his head. "Such fruitless arguments."

"Go downloads a upgrade patch." Still lying, Power Plant pulsed a blast at Legacy. "An' a new outfit. An' you, give it a rest." He jerked his chin at Blackguard. Couldn't believe his healing nonsense as much as he couldn't believe his carrion smell. "Hearse, you seein' this guy?"

Hearse clutched his cheek with a shudder. "As much as I am in the same room as you, yes." He used the wall as support and struggled to his feet.

"Join us, Power Plant." Queued like a domino in a line, a suited Gharalgian tracked Power Plant but stared blankly. "You'll enjoy our walks in the mountains. We commune with nature. We don't wear shoes." Figured. Hippie.

"Take a hit!" Power Plant hopped, out of sword-slashing and whiff-taking reach. He glanced at the foaming mass that the aswang's brain and heart had fused into, that quivering combo meal that emitted such heat it might snarl into flame.

"Never, you thankless boor." Blackguard's cleaved mouth sewed into one piece. The repair followed until the final threads of his stupid-looking hat entwined like skate laces tightening. He stared down the grand hall, estimating Power Plant with a lip-curled sneer that was evident in his growl. "Lord Continuum gave you a gift as eternal as time…and you disposed of it as recklessly as I will dispose of you." He cocked his arm down at the floor, and his sword cracked against stone.

Had to keep the fight on this end. Had to keep Blackguard from those mindless patrons. Innocent-bystander blood was hard to rinse out. It was type AB.

A stone tendril splattered through Blackguard's shoulder with a galomp like a block plummeting into water. His spine arched backward, if he even had a spine. His mouth blossomed open at the ceiling like a sun-touched flower. His eyes bulged. His right arm bobbed at his side as the tendril carved down into his sternum, into his torso, into his bowels.

Behind him, Hearse heaved as if plumbing new depths of his lungs. Hunched to add crush to his attack, he glowed hatred through his eye. And his aiming visor. Frankly, his whole face was a hatred-glowing face of hate glow. Enough about Hearse's face.

Blackguard harrumphed…then chuckled…then guffawed as his injury puckered shut. Hearse released of the tendril to leave it embedded in Blackguard like an off-center bellybutton piercing. Which it literally was. Points to Power Plant.

"You mortals, how you positively beg for death." Blackguard regarded Power Plant with a snort—

—and a barb sprouted from his shoulder and rammed backward through Hearse's kidney. Hearse folded like an idiot who didn't move out of the way in time. Again, literal. Double points in a nonexistent game Power Plant was winning.

Blood squelched out Hearse's wound, slipped through his fingers, painted the floor. "I did not see that coming. Mother would not be pleased." He shuddered from another squelch of blood. "She'd send me to bed without my stewed possum."

"Now ain't the time to makes me throw up." Power Plant charged his fists for another attack.

Blackguard didn't turn to Hearse. Instead, his face melted into his head and emerged out the other side. His arms bent the other way, then his knees. His feet pointed at Hearse. He towered over Hearse, who battled to his knees. He fused his arms into a double-sided axe and raised that above his head. "You will end as trivially as you were born, you milksop."

"Leave milk alone." Power Plant slapped his hands together—fired a searchlight-intense blast—sliced the axe off at the wrists—axe lost its shape—black goop splattered the wall and clung. Crock, how often must he save Hearse from not moving out of the way today?

A woman in archery gear smirked. "You may also join us for our pop-and-lock nights." These mindless drones would just not shut—Wait, pop-and-lock nights?

Hearse hobbled away on one buckling leg and fell against the throne for cover.

With a gloop, Blackguard faced Power Plant in the same shift he used to face Hearse. He lowered his stumpy arms. The tar on the wall leaped off and into his hat. His hands grew back.

Blackguard sighed. Was he bored of fighting? Did they keep him from a hot date? "Looks as if I should concentrate on you one at a time." What did he pee anyway? "Very well then." It'd either be really cool or make Power Plant cross his legs in sympathy pain. "That is what I shall do." Why did Power Plant wonder what Blackguard peed? "I shall disembowel the distance fighter first." Hold up, what about the distance fighter?

Blackguard's left hand shrank into a point—

—reappeared across the hall and gored Power Plant's hip. Through the bone. A crack-crunch injected a churning nausea up Power Plant's throat. With bits of lunch. Dude teleported a body part across the room, and Power Plant was the distance fighter?

"I will enjoy this." Blackguard twisted his hand to tear the wound bigger—hhrrrrkk—and then retracted it.

Power Plant crumpled, hand to the carpet. "Before ya kill me"—he hissed at a trumpet of pain—"tell me if it hurt when you pee or not." Had to know.

Power Plant had clenched his eyes shut, and when he opened them, Blackguard loomed over him. On one hand and one knee, he hobbled back. Blackguard followed. He slashed again, pierced Power Plant's thigh. Power Plant fired into Blackguard's face. Headless, Blackguard gored a barbwire line of dark matter through Power Plant's palm.

Power Plant sliced off Blackguard's arm at the shoulder. Blackguard stumbled enough to let Power Plant stand on howling and barely-working legs. Blackguard rejoined his shoulder without reaching out. Squirms of tar hooked together. Power Plant severed it again. It rejoined again. Power Plant blasted Blackguard's hip. The hole sealed shut. Sliced off his legs. Blackguard's torso threw out black vomit, paused with elastic stumps that grasped for each other. Recombined. Spikes speared Power Plant's arm, knee, lung, not crotch, shoulder, temple, ankle. Power Plant's vision went colorless. Red carpet was gray, gray walls were moonrock. His ears snag.

"Your death serves no purpose, but it entertains me immensely," Blackguard said. Shut up, crock lamp.

Power Plant fell. Shot Blackguard's elbow. The arm recombined. Power Plant would just lie here a minute. Maybe two. As long as it took to die. He felt numb, so whatever Blackguard stabbed now, he wouldn't know but it better not be the crotch.

Singing in his ears faded.

A single penetrating voice spoke a single penetrating word. "Stop."

Power Plant rolled his head along the floor in colorless vision that smeared as it moved. In one piece, Kamikaze confronted Blackguard.

Kamikaze's eyes glowed, rendered gray in Power Plant's dwindling sight. "Lost your head, I see." Oh, good one. Maybe Kamikaze'd win this nonexistent game.

"Perfect timings on that resurrection, dude." Power Plant gasped.

"Back from the exited," Legacy said. "What a dumbfound."

"Another traitor." Black snakes spiraled out of Blackguard's beheaded neck. The snakes weaved around empty space, rejoined at the douchey hat, and filled in the gap to produce his head. "Good. I enjoy slaughtering traitors."

"If Power Plant has a problem with Continuum, then so do I." Kamikaze thrust his hands out and flung energy. It clawed Blackguard's body, snapping crisply at his limbs. Blackguard gurgled, quivered, dark matter shuddered out, gashed into the stone floor, danced along his edges like fuzz.

As if twirling out a lasso, Blackguard threw a tendril from his open palm through Kamikaze's gut. Crock, his resurrection was short-lived. Literally. Power Plant stole first place back. Ha ha h—ow, laughing hurt. So did breathing. So did thinking, but that was unrelated.

The voltage ceased. The rank of charred tar and the crackle-pop of free-flowing electricity died. Kamikaze clutched his wound, from where blood spat like a hose with a puncture hole.

For crock. Power Plant was dying, and he still had to do everything around here. He couldn't see properly, but he welled all his light energy—felt like sinuses swelling—and sneezed everything out. Everything.

"You irritating prat will p—" Blackguard evaporated into splatters as if the blast from a mushroom cloud erased him and then nothing remained and then good riddance.

'Bout time.

"Oh, pity. You are donating blood all over Master's floor." Legacy clutched a mop. "Must I constantly clean the nest?" It was a virtual mop. What did he hope to accomplish?

Power Plant felt like a blood sieve. It even dribbled out his nostrils. This seemed like a good place to die, leaking on the runner carpet. He knew he'd ruin someone's house if it was the last thing he did.

He lurched down on his hip and one elbow. Tried to stand but couldn't. Fell backward and…and…that was it. Everything went dark.

Wait.

His vision cleared. His head stopped throbbing. The nausea disappeared. So did the quivering blob of aswang that looked like burned poop. Smelled like it too. Well, not anymore. Even the black mold along the ceiling had disappeared. As a bonus, it stopped waving hello.

The hall and fixtures remained, but everyone had disappeared. No Hearse, no Kamikaze, no adelphoi, no Legacy. He stood. Nothing hurt anymore. How? He had about eight puncture wounds, none in the crotch. Oh. Not anymore. He patted himself. Why wasn't he gushing blood?

"Jeff," someone said. Huh what pardon and come again? Power Plant spun at the voice, remarkable that he could. When he spun, he usually ended up on the floor, and that was when he was in perfect health.

He choked a gasp, a tiny one. His lip trembled.

Mark.

His older brother strolled along the runner carpet.

No. It couldn't be. Power Plant reached out, but he didn't dare didn't move. Didn't dare find out if this was real or a delusion. How badly did he want it to be real.

"Mark?" Power Plant tingled. Not with tingles of death but tingles of anticipation. Tingles over whether this was some dying hallucination. "You ain't here." Big-time tingles like sticking his tongue on a battery. "Are you?" A starship battery.

Mark reached him. Power Plant raised his hand…hesitated…reached for Mark's arm…pressed his fingers against it. It had substance. He wanted to say something, but his words were clogged. Sadness swelled the frog in his throat into a fat toad. Couldn't help it. Tears washed out. He found his voice. "Mark, I'm dead." He swallowed the toad, but it croaked back up. "Right?"

Mark smiled.

Power Plant squeezed his arms around himself. He couldn't hold back the tears. "I faileds everyone. I messed everythings up. I"—he snorted his grief up—"I got kidnap, I couldn't"—he wiped his cheeks, but that did nothing, and neither did snorting again—"I couldn'ts kill Blackguard, couldn'ts help Hearse"—another snort, which blasted like a gunshot down this uneventful hall—"couldn'ts stop the aswang from coming alive. I didn't do anythings right. And now everyone else is gonna dies." His breath hopped. "But I'm goin' with you now."

"Jeff, it's all right." Mark ruffled a hand through Power Plant's hair. "You helped everyone. You stood up for what's right. You held your own. I knew you could."

That was all it took. Power Plant crumpled into him. His emotions drenched out like a water balloon bursting. He was with Mark. He didn't need to be Power Plant anymore. Now he could be Jeffy if people would learn his name finally. "I wanna come home with you."

* * *

Kamikaze knelt on the cold stone next to Power Plant. Power Plant's defiance was the only thing that exceeded Continuum's ego, and for that, Blackguard had butchered him. This kid, whose only crime was all the crimes he committed. His skin grew pale, and his expression drifted away. He stared impassively, his eyes deactivated lenses. His jaw lolled open like whenever he forgot his pastrami sandwich somewhere. Usually in an airduct for a couple weeks.

"Quite right, quite right." Who invited Legacy? "Quite right."

"Aside from how he kept yelling bazoom-cha when he sank a basket, he was a good kid. He fought for what he believed." The Trader stood behind Kamikaze. All of a sudden. Materializing and dematerializing like l tech. Maybe he was l tech. At this point, that wouldn't surprise Kamikaze.

"Waited until the fight was over to show yourself?" Kamikaze lifted Power Plant's head off the stone. "Thanks for the help."

"I'm a lover, not a fighter," the Trader said. "Or a lover."

Hearse limped to the body, boots squeaking unevenly on the polished stone, and knelt. He snarled a keep-your-distance snarl at the adelphoi, though they stood still. "The boy didn't deserve to end like this. He shared his Zimothy's Zinnamon Cupcake with me once." A solemn pause. "It was a day-old, but still. They used exactly the right amount of zanilla." Another solemn pause. "Their alliteration does not often sell the product."

Power Plant's inhalations grew shallower. The gash on his temple stopped leaking. Kamikaze wiped the blood from his forehead so it wouldn't dribble into his eyes.

"Join us, Kamikaze," said an adelphoi near the front of the line. "We accept dying people like your friend. We're not picky. One of us is an embalmer. We can embalm you."

Kamikaze's gut throbbed as if someone dug a thumb in. Months ago, he'd revel in the pain. Now he reveled in causing it to others. It all seemed evil. Continuum had twisted him around, poisoned him. His hands trembled from shock, from his inevitable thousandth or two-thousandth death. He'd been here before, watching himself die. Then, his hypergland still working, his hyperenergy would juice up and bring him back. Crock, though, he wished it would kick in faster. Sometimes you missed an appointment.

The Trader lowered his sunglasses to see Power Plant above the rim. "He should be among friends."

"Blast it, suit leprechaun, he is. Did I not mention the cupcake?" Hearse swiped at the Trader. He regretted that when he clenched his side.

"He's got a couple minutes left." The Trader squatted next to Kamikaze. "If anybody wants to say anything."

The puncture wound through Kamikaze's gut screamed up into his teeth. The hall spun. The throne zoomed in and out. He blinked to slow it down. That didn't work. He twitched his nose to stimulate his sense of smell, but that didn't work either. His breath felt cold. His skin felt cold. His sense of touch felt nothing. He'd live, though. Well, he'd die, then he'd live.

Power Plant wouldn't.

No, unlike Kamikaze, Power Plant wouldn't resurrect, though you'd think so from how often he cannonballed into wet cement. Kamikaze groped for the Trader's arm. Couldn't find it in his whitewashed vision. With the shift of weight, he almost plunked onto the floor. "Give him my hyperability."

The Trader barked a single laugh, so piercing its echo could shatter a window. "Yeah. Right."

"Give it to him." Kamikaze's vision faded back, everything in pastels. He shivered. So cold. Everything so cold now. "If he's only got a couple minutes, do it fast."

"If not for this boy, I would not know zanilla tastes like zinc." Hearse rammed the blade of his arm into the Trader's neck. The Trader didn't budge. "If you can save his life, you will act."

The Trader plucked Hearse's arm away, as though clearing a piece of garbage the wind had blown onto his shoulder. He regarded Kamikaze as though Kamikaze had drunk hand sanitizer. He had. Several times. Burning aftertaste. "You're almost as close to death as he is. If I give him your hyperability, you'll die. And you won't come back."

Kamikaze yanked the Trader toward him. "If you don't do it now, his body won't store up enough hyperenergy. He'll die."

The Trader blinked, though Kamikaze could barely tell. There was a motionless silence before the Trader said, "Just to be clear, I can't trade hyperabilities to dead people." He let that statement hang morbidly in this tomb of a hall.

"I don't trust anybody else to take care of that aswang." Kamikaze still clutched the Trader's collar, though now he clutched it to keep from falling over. The Trader was indestructible. Kamikaze could still wring his neck, right? He glanced down at Power Plant's fuzzy shape as his vision dwindled. His head spun as if he were constantly rolling into the floor. Reminded him of all the times he flew into deep space. No starship. "Do it."

The sounds of the aswang puckered more loudly in Kamikaze's failing hearing. He saw only shapes and shadows past a few feet in front of him.

"He'll know how to stop that thing. He always knew the right thing to do." Kamikaze sucked in one final breath. It tasted like burning flesh. What a rip.

The Trader blew a longsuffering hiss through his teeth. "Your funeral."

"Wouldn't be my first." Kamikaze had to sit. Too weak to squat. Nope, not even that. He flopped to his back. Leaked blood all over Continuum's floor. Continuum would have to regrout.

The Trader snapped his fingers.

* * *

Something clapped through the grand hall, a mischievous ghost smacking the walls as it scampered away. Jeffy already had fierce ideas for haunting Franchise.

Mark separated from the hug. He frowned as if to deny a wish fulfilment. Why? Why? "You can't come with me yet, baby brother. It's still too early." The ferocious red of Mark's hair, his deep complexion, everything smeared to a transparent blah. Someone had run Mark too many times through the wash.

"What ya mean?" Jeffy sprang at Mark to grab hold, but he passed through. His arms grasped air. He whirled around and tried again. "I can come. It ain'ts too early. It's, like"—he whipped his arm up to check his watch—"crock, what's a nine Y wit' a pound sign?" He wasn't good with regular time. Now he had to tell algebra time?

Mark was barely an outline with pallid color. He slipped out a single tear. "I'll miss you, Jeff, but I'm never far away. And you still have good to do."

"No, I don't. Ask Legion. He always say I'm up to no good."

"You have to kill that aswang and rescue everyone. You're a Good Guy." Mark beamed a smile, colorless but the brightest smile Jeffy had seen. "You help people." He winked.

And he vanished.

Suddenly Jeffy lay on the floor. He flailed to a sitting position and choked so greedily his lungs ached. What was—Huh? He stared around at…at the Trader, at Hearse, at the mold in the ceiling, at the friendlier mold waving hello, at the angrier mold rallying to strike for better wages.

Kamikaze lay on his side, staring but not seeing, fingers curled on the stone but not feeling. Ice blue. Bloodless. His mouth hung open but didn't close. Had he left a pastrami sandwich in an airduct?

"You live to be an irritation again, boy!" Hearse snorted his happy snort. But it was Hearse, so it was also his spoilsport snort. "I just delighted the Trader with tales of my years-long quest to taste zanilla and how it resulted in shame unto Mother."

The Trader rubbed his forehead. "Delighted like a board meeting about board meetings."

Why was Power Plant alive? His stomach bubbled. He squeezed his arms around his knees and hunched. Pressed his lips together. Made sure those patrons stayed put like respectable mannequins goading him to join their reading chores.

He wasn't done being Power Plant, Mark had said. He still had good to do.

Crock.

Hearse didn't look so hot. His face still flapped with tatters, his lips still swollen. He clutched the puncture wound in his lower torso. Blood stained the ammo belt he used as a regular belt.

The aswang slurped in growth. Its acrid heat stung Power Plant's nostrils. They should skedaddle before that thing hit puberty.

Power Plant's eyes hurt. Everything did, but his eyes hurt most. He'd looked too much today. And looking in the dead dimension counted for twice the looking in this dimension. "How long's we waitin' for Kamikaze? Maybe we gotta kill him up again before we go. We ain't got all day. It's already half past Y."

"In the end, he actually helped you live." The Trader stood. "But he's not coming back." Not coming back? Yeah, right. He'd once come back from a slap fight with a jet turbine. "I gave you his hyperability."

What?

Power Plant looked up at the Trader. "You gaves me Kamikaze's hyperability?"

Well, then.

That explained a lot.

"Gots his hyperability." Power Plant hugged his knees. "Oh."

"Affirmative," Hearse said. Affirmative? Power Plant never figured Hearse for an "affirmative, negative" guy. This was why people didn't invite him to their fundraisers.

Power Plant hugged more tightly. The floor felt hard. He smacked his lips.

Sssoooo the hyperability to come back to life.

Okay.

"I don't wants it."

"You don't wants it?" The Trader's head kicked back like a pigeon's bobbing in step. "People would die for that hyperability." Pause. Realization. "You know what I mean."

"I don't wants it."

"He does not wants it." Legacy cleared his throat. He'd appeared on the wall across from them and folded his arms. "Incidentally, I could not heal my thesaurus. I will try anew. Whilst I do, may I attention anybody in a cup of tea?"

A hungry slurp. The aswang grew arms and legs. And fangs. A face only a mother could love. A blind mother. It spurted an angry fountain of pus, and fur now carpeted whatever form it was taking.

The Trader hauled Power Plant up by the armpit. "We'll deal with that later. Right now, you both have to get out of here before that thing comes back to life. When it eats, it grows stronger."

"What's this 'you both' business? Where you goin'? Ain't no u in team."

"There is in squad." Hearse labored to his feet with a wince. When the pain cooled down, he said, "And troupe. And club. But I see your point now."

"You gonna cut an' runs on us again?" Power Plant cracked a shaft of laser light at the pillow of aswang. It smoked, blackened, bled…and then percolating and gnarled tissue sealed the hole. He punched another beam of useless light into the flesh burble. This was going nowhere. He grabbed the Trader but didn't because—crock—dude had vanished. Again. No wonder Continuum didn't install doors. Everyone except Power Plant teleported.

The aswang pulsated, smoked, smelled like roadkill, outdid Power Plant's bean farts. An eye popped open, a single, askew eye that searched the room without vision. Despite the eye, those mind-controlled subjects remained stark still in their queue. Like diners at a buffet.

Great gagglesnatch, like the buffet itself.

"We can't leave. My brother saids I gotta kill that thing, an' now I knows why."

"What brother?" Hearse looked around.

"I still got good to do." Power Plant flexed his fingers and squeezed his fists. Lit his fists. Light cricked at his finger hairs. "Now I know why them guys is just stood there."

"Why do you use all the grammatical tenses in the same sentence?" Hearse asked.

"You givin' me lip, Mr. Affirmative?"

Chapter Four: Battle Royale with Cheese

Legion peered at the distant and littered battleground below. Such a steep angle. Schizophrenic wasn't seeing much success. Not that plugging Continuum full of light-bullets worked, and he'd probably run out of sponge insults. Meanwhile, the IP warships buzzed into attack formation. They hadn't fired only because Continuum hadn't ordered them to. They acted as drones. Not much different in the case of Hank, the clueless adrenaline junkie. Or Lou, the brainless follower, who once almost plummeted to his death when someone asked, "If Hank jumped off a bridge, would you?"

Legion had to get down there fast. Continuum threw his arm across Organism's path. The stones around Organism blended into a hand and clouted him across the chin. He dropped dangerously close to Schizophrenic, who almost plugged him full of light-bullets and name-calling. Turned out Schizophrenic had a few sponge insults left.

The windshield still gaped open. Wind trickled in, punctuating the cockpit with the brittle odor of laserfire. Legion clambered onto the piloting console for a better look below. "George, I need you to stay up here and cock-a-doodle-doo Continuum with everything this rooster's got."

George fluttered his hands with overcharged glee. "Oh, I've waited years to hear you say that."

"You've had this thing since December."

"I've waited years to hear you say that, too."

Legion shuffled over to the middle of the windshield. He didn't care what control he stepped on as long as—

"Smooth, hip brothers and hep sisters. I've got your windshield aaaallll on the clear."

—he didn't have to dodge wiper fluid, but too late now.

George pointed across the deck to the airfoil. "Where are you going? The elevator's on the side."

"That'll take too long."

"What are you doing, Legion?" Luzimoss approached the dashboard. "There's an eighty-six percent chance it's dangerous but a one-hundred-percent chance I don't want to stop you."

Legion studied the IP formation for an opportunity. They drifted like lily pads in serene water. Okay, okay, he waited for his chance. Wwwwaaaiitted, and jum—A wiper whacked him in the cheek.

Seriously?

Okay, now he jumped. Plunged oh crock plunged. Wind shushed in his antennae, flap-flapped his collar against his cheeks. Arms spread, he plummeted thirteen feet to a Tinfoil's nose cone. Bent his knees aaaannnndddd—wham—landed, rolled, slipped, heel caught a groove, wwhooaaa, arms spiraled, snatched the windshield seam, regained balance, that was close.

He studied the formation again. There! Jumped. Banged onto a Fireball's aft wing, grappled for contours, lurched to a stop, shoulder squealed. Released his grip. Timed his plunge onto the canopy of a Fandango. A sedan-sized, two-person transport. Who flew this garbage? Sgt. Croffins. He used to practice his bagpipes anytime, anywhere: at lights out, in the bathroom, funerals. Claimed it was a medical condition. What was musical Tourette's?

He could break into this one. He was a jitterbug of shakes, but he grabbed his pistol, fumbled it—aimed—fumbled it again—hole-punched the Fireball's canopy. He wedged his pistol back into its holster. Kicked, cracked the canopy, kicked, shattered it, grabbed Croffins by the collar, punched, punched again. Croffins checked out by the third punch, but Legion squared another punch in Croffins's face because he practiced his bagpipes in the bathroom without warning. Legion threw him behind the pilot's chair and took his place.

The weapons were spread out like most IP warships. They all used the same software, give or take. Good. He was sick of learning curves, and he'd exhausted his mental capacity reminding George how the alphabet song started.

He armed the Wallop Missiles brought to you by Wonderfalls Liquid Park, the only water park that didn't limit its rides to water. He jabbed the Wallop Missiles, misjabbed, disarmed the Confetti Blasters he'd just armed, armed the Wallop Missiles, rethought, rearmed the Confetti Blasters because his life needed more confetti, and then…

…fired.

The Wallop Missiles fizzed out as gracefully as swans drifting in a lake, except these swans trailed confetti unlike those Power Plant didn't feed. Silent except an understated foooosh that straggled behind them, the missiles dived at Continuum. Continuum seemed unaware. He gripped his hand more tightly, and likewise the stone hand wrapped around Organism and compressed.

Legion felt guilty pleasure nailing Croffins in the face again. To the tune of "Danny Boy."

"What kind of shrapnel is this?" Continuum noticed the trail of confetti sprinkling to the ground. He looked up as the missiles—

* * *

—hit home. Confetti exploded as spectacularly as a supernova. In colorful flickers, paper circles celebrated the opening of Wonderfalls Liquid Park's new Overwhelmed in the Undertow fun zone.

The stone hand crumbled to dust. Organism expanded his legs to brace his fall, landed, retracted.

He melded his arms into sledge hammers to lunge, to sledge this father butcher. His eyes darted to his dad, the X across the pillars. He managed only a split second before his cheeks twitched and his gut flipped with hatred for this time-dilating murderer. I'll make him pay, Dad.

Flames blackened the confetti. Peeled metal clattered to a standstill. Lower-price admission coupons for Wonderfalls quivered to a rest. A stripped missile casing ticked into Organism's foot.

The smoke dissolved in the breeze. The hazy view unclogged to show Continuum brushing confetti and soot off his shoulder. He checked his arm and, with wrinkled lips as if he'd overfed his fish, wrenched a coil out. "Looks as if I hadn't properly closed my forcefield." He plucked a coupon off his collar. "The Saturated in Sangria slide looks fun."

"Amateurs use forcefields." Schizophrenic clicked his tongue. "Pros with steel gonads take it in the face." He whipped his gun up and cracked off three shots, slapped Righty for singing about face gonads, and cracked off three more.

Continuum didn't take those in the face. A hand sweep misdirected the light-bullets. They pecked the curtain wall as though Schizophrenic had tossed pebbles.

Detritus scampered up and whacked Continuum's thigh with a tree branch. The branch snapped. Continuum raised a brow at the inner bark that smeared his pantleg.

Organism roared—threw himself forward at the waist—wrapped Continuum's legs—Continuum swung at him, missed—Organism spun up his back—Continuum swung again—Organism pounded the back of his head—swung around his chest—Continuum clonked him in the face—Organism swirled around his back—deflected Continuum's attack—sledged fists across his ribs—split a bone—dodged Continuum's counterblow— weaved up Continuum's body to mummy-wrap this murderer—hammered blow after blow—reached his arms, his shoulders—left the head exposed—squueeeeezzzeeeed—something crackled—Continuum turned brittle.

"Avenge Mustache Organism, kid!" Detritus punched Continuum across the face. He curled away and flapped his hand. "Crock, dude's still made of rocks." He blew on his knuckles. "Probably doesn't herd sponges even."

Venom bubbling in his rage, Organism stretched his neck out at a launch altitude and—crack—retracted a headbutt into Continuum. He drove a left into Continuum's temple, a right, both at once in a squashing blow, battered a black eye into him, a bruised lip, a swollen cheek, an uppercut, gored open his chin, stopped to calm his panting.

Continuum giggled. Giggled and drooled blood. Through a smile missing a tooth, the murderer said to Schizophrenic, "Am I taking it in the face? Do I have the steely gonads?"

"Crock, you say it like a soccer mom." Schizophrenic rolled his eyes. "Respect on your pain-management skills, though."

Something brr-beeped from above. "Hey, Legion." Master Asinine's voice blurted out of a public-address system, though it sounded deeper, easygoing. "I found the public-address jive talker, but my chops are croonin' through a jazz filter. System calls it a squawk box. Get it? Squawk? It's a rooster." Roosters didn't squawk. "Cluck's got jazz fingers in all the software jams here." Roosters didn't have fingers.

"We found close-range boogie-woogies, comrades on ground." The filter made Brainiac sound like a villain in a spy movie.

Master Asinine again. "Found them humdingers under pest control." To punctuate, a shell foomped out of Cornflakes's beak. It crashed onto a crowd of knights and engulfed them in bug spray. "Oh. Now I groove why. One point for me. Hip."

"Ha. Pest control. This shall be amusing." Continuum flashed his eyes at Organism like marquee lights gleaming on. A tooth creaked out of his gumline to fill the gap in his taunting smile, the welt on his cheek deflated, the purple around his eye faded, the bump in his lip shrank. "Why must I waste my time on your hopeless efforts?"

Organism flashed his own marquee anger. "Because you killed my dad."

"And when I finish with you, I'll go back in time to enjoy it again." Continuum pitched his arms out to throw Organism off. Organism unraveled onto the stone as if he lost his elasticity. He retracted to normal length. His ear drums fluttered as air escaped. He smeared out the wounds Continuum had inflicted.

Another loudspeaker voice descended like rainfall. Not Cornflakes's lounge filter, but from another vehicle. "The following public-service announcement comes to you from Broadcast Threats. When you need the whole universe to prepare to die." A happy jingle followed.

"Everyone," Legion said from somewhere above, "duck."

Schizophrenic searched for the voice. "Hey, I said real men take it in—Crock, that's a big mil-tran." Schizophrenic grabbed Detritus and dived away from the typewriter snaps biting the stone.

"This'll blow your top, cats." Master Asinine whooped, but the filter mellowed it into "fffaarrrr out."

* * *

Legion swerved the Fandango's front armament at Continuum. His arms ached. It felt like dragging an ox plow through mud. Machinegun fire dashed into the brick, pecking pellets along the ground and up the curtain wall. It reached Continuum and perforated his gut. The light-bullets burst out his back. Splashes of blood pattered out. Continuum examined the stripe puncturing his belly.

He didn't seal the wound. His hand shot up to tear Legion from the Fandango's shattered canopy. Legion dangled in midair with the hot wake of mil-trans' flight paths swirling around him.

"Hey, paws off my main daddy-o, cornball!" George yelled. Feverish clicks, taps, a beep, a cluck. "What button zings out the manic feather ruffling? Oh. Oh, no. I just told Cluck to peck. Hang on to something, hep cats in the cockpit. Is Cluck pecking? Hep cats? Legion, is Cluck pecking?"

Continuum dragged his hand toward himself and, with it, Legion descended to him. He scrutinized Legion through a squint. "For too long, you've been a thorn up my side."

"It's 'in my side.' And I met you just today." Legion swung his legs at Continuum, but he was too far to connect. He managed only a helpless flail. Maybe he could kick a boot off at Continuum. They were steel toe. He swung. Swung again. "I need a bit of slack, please." Swung again.

Continuum flicked a finger to toss Organism into the grass-conquered ridge a distance away, flicked again at Schizophrenic, again at Detritus. He turned back to Legion. "You plotted against me. You stole my station. You trespassed where you didn't belong."

"That's normally where people trespass." Legion swung again. No avail. Hats off to the boot manufacturer. "You're the one who put Station One's air purifiers beside the sump pumps, so we all have things to apologize for."

"Did we peck yet, hep cats?" George asked.

Continuum plucked at his sleeve as if holding Legion up ruffled it. "You make me grow so weary."

"And you have too many nose hairs."

Continuum stomped. His foot cracked stone. "Asinine remarked the same thing. What is with you people and nose hairs? Why does it even matter?"

"What do you mean, you people?" Legion gripped at whatever invisible hold Continuum had around his neck. He felt nothing but a weird air current. He swung another kick but still couldn't reach. What a time not to be a giraffe. "How about you let us go, give us back our station, and we'll call it even? Where did you put it anyway?"

"What do you mean, where did I—" Continuum sputtered a clumsy laugh, as if his tongue tripped over itself. He threw his hand out at the panorama. "We're on it. Over it. Around it. Whatever. Six of one, half six of the…Six of a dozen, one half of…Okay, I'm sure I'm getting that one wrong."

"Everyone gets that one wrong." Legion swung again. "Come closer." On Station One? This place looked nothing like Station One. Station One was pavement and metal. This world was a layer of grass covering pavement and…Hold on. The familiar shapes ridging the ground. He peered at the lobby-shaped rim of land where Organism and the others recovered. Electric insight zapped him. "This…This place…It's—"

"You ignorant mortal, yes. This is Station One with eighteen thousand years of overgrowth erasing the absurd consumerism and military geography you imposed."

Legion settled to a standstill. A swingstill. "I knew that."

"No, you didn't." George's voice crooned over the public-address system. "Also, Cluck isn't pecking. I think we're tops."

Continuum rubbed his temples. "For a time, I considered sparing your wretched little lives. Then, when you continued, I considered ending you quietly and painlessly. Now, you will die by my retribution."

"I guess the merciful Continuum died with your sanity."

"It died with my patience." Continuum curled his lip. "After everything you've done, everything you defied? Even I have limits. Your maddening persistence has helped me overcome my disdain for bloodshed."

Organism, Schizophrenic, and Detritus had returned. Continuum glared at them, then at Legion. "With my bare hands, I will dismember you all sssslllooowwwwllllyyyy"—his every syllable hit like a gut punch—"and I will relish it."

"George?" Legion's voice trickled out. "Try something."

George's slick-filtered voice oozed out the speaker. "Let's try strut mode."

"Try something other than strut mode!"

Continuum lifted his gaze from mil-tran to mil-tran that circled like patient vultures. "My slaves, do you see your former comrade?" He vibrated with a growl. "If he so much as blinks, fire at will."

* * *

Pincushion rolled down the embarking ramp as if the Tinfoil hacked up a hairball and…crock, smacked into a tree. Banged on an exposed root. That bruise would nag him all week. He stood—yup, the pain snapped right down his leg. Stupid root had no business growing aboveground. He gave it a swift ki—Crock, he jammed his toe. Now to do something that didn't embarrass him.

That contaminated canine had slashed through the Tinfoil's nose cone down to the landing gear that had folded into its recesses. This terrain-checkerboard planet needed leash laws. Pincushion kicked back a knight and whistled. "Here, boy."

The canine snarled with a maw of butcher-knife fangs. Pustules popped along glistening skin. Its odor abraded Pincushion's nostrils like ammonia. Pincushion deserved hazard pay for this, because he couldn't fight and plug his nose at the same time.

He leveled the hardline end of his pistol at the canine, tapped the trigger twice, and pecked two light-bullets through the canine's stretched mouth, out the back of its head. The canine cracked against the nose cone and rolled off.

"Down, boy." Pincushion was a fish person.

"What kinda shinobi backup you crocking need out here?" Off-kilter stomps pounded down the embarking ramp. With it came a gagging odor worse than the canine's. Their fantasy ninja Multipurpose and his loincloth that should be burned. He reeked of whatever rodent had mistaken his throat for home.

The knights stalked off the nose cone, skulking ever closer as if orchestrating a pounce.

"I might need you to catch a cannonball with your stomach." Pincushion checked his pistol's charge reading. EMPTY. BRING AN EXTRA CHARGE NEXT TIME, GUNSLINGER. Crap. He slid it into his holster. So this was a fistfight. He tapped his quills. What had Luzimoss taught him? Form a fist and jerk? He had to be careful. Earlier today, he'd fired a lot and fainted. New policy: one at a time until he got the hang of this.

He inched back until he bumped the nose cone. "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact nearby mil-tran." From the nose cone, from the forest, the knights crept closer.

"Seeking connection." It was right next to you, gabber. "Connection attained." Good job. "Thank the fine folks at Rotary Dial Signals for bringing families together."

A knight raised its sword. Pincushion jerked his arm and speared it with a quill that burst apart its breastplate.

"Hey, question-mark helmet. Tell your pet snake to cue up the mil-tran." Pincushion raised his dukes when the knights clanged their weapons against the forest floor. So many swords. A gulp prickled his dry throat. He bumped back to back with Multipurpose. Clammy fabric squeaked against his uniform. There wasn't enough laundry detergent in the universe to wash this rubbery dampness out of his clothes.

The knights leaped. They never hit the ground.

The ground hit them.

An earthquake shredded the landscape into puzzle pieces. Shards of ground detonated from the forest bed and bowled the knights away, demolished breastplates and chainmail, burst armor into fragments.

Relief whooshed out of Pincushion's lungs so fully he almost toppled over. In the corner of his eye, a peripheral image of Catastrophe conducted hand gestures to annihilate swaths of knights. He clapped, and clumps of earth flattened armor.

"Just like Medieval Evil." Catastrophe winked. "I was shooting a scene with the A-lister Brad Widdershins. We took on a rally of knights. You remember Brad Widdershins?" No, but whatever.

"What you did in that movie, work that magic here." Pincushion twisted his arm, and three quills cracked a knight apart. He meant to fire one, but he was still new at this.

"I don't recall much of the shoot. We spent most of it high on Pepcid AC. I found out at the wrap party that I wasn't even signed on for the movie."

Multipurpose skimmed a finger along a sai. "The crocking two o' you, shut the yammerin'. Watch me ram a samurai war fist right through some faceplates." His knuckles darkened with anticipation bruises.

* * *

After five minutes of squinting through rain, Ace Spandex remembered he could magnify his vision. He clicked on a filter to block the bleak sun glimpsing through those storm clouds and magnified the scene ten times. His vision cut through the wave of knights that charged their Flagstar, the same Flagstar he should lift skyward but was busy squinting instead of magnifying. He was a bad lookout and a bad pilot.

"Control, acknowledge. Elevate to fifteen feet."

The mil-tran roared above the knights with enough gap in case they stood on each other's shoulders. Not in case they wheeled out a cannon, though. Wait, did they have a cannon? Should he worry about a cannon?

A fuzzy shadow zigzagged out of the bamboo jungle, inside the crowd but never in front of it. It looked as if it used the swarm as cover. It was a maroon blur caught in motion like a freeze frame of a marathon runner. Crock. Ace slapped his forehead and turned off his magnification.

"That's the idiot from the meteor, isn't it?" Plastique cocked a smirk at Ace. "Oho, I'm going to enjoy this fight." She spun around. "I'll get my dental tools."

Master Asinine Sucks clinked to the front. Spurs jangle-jangled over fat raindrops popping against the hood with growing intensity. He spun a six-shooter on a finger clockwise, counterclockwise, clockwise. "I reckon we dig that flurry varmint below snakes across lots then, city slickers."

"Was that English?" Ace Spandex was so confused that his gawk gawked.

Master Asinine Sucks licked his lips. "That varmint—"

"I didn't ask you to translate." Ace elbowed him out of the way by the fuzzy vest. "Sit your tassels back in the nonsense deck." He pointed at Klee, who took cover from the rain snapping as if it would penetrate. "Do they have a cannon, you think?" he asked Sixth Sense.

The haunt control dinged on. The lights dimmed to a red wash. The windshield said, COLLISION DETECTED THANKS TO YOUR FRIENDS AT COLLISION DETECTORS.

Ace furrowed a brow. "How? We're not moving."

The windshield proclaimed, SLAM ON THE BRAKES. The speedster leaped—crashed into the windshield, arm blade gouging into the hood. Ace spilled out of his chair. YOU HAVE COLLIDED WITH A RIPSAW.

Ace leaned toward the windshield. A square zeroed in on the speedster's head, and beside the square sprang thick data, a rap sheet as long as a town crier's scroll. This guy was Ripsaw, born November 16, 9063 with no hyperabilities. He was a Fleeson, a species whose members moved at incredible speeds. The windshield scrawled a list of hobbies: inciting hate riots, murdering Terrans, inciting murder riots against Terrans, hate-murdering Terrans, mini-putt, inciting murder against Terrans, murdering people who use the cutesy voice—everyone wanted to murder them, though—and then murder murder. Was that murdering murder or just emphasis? Were those even hobbies?

The fifty-watt basket case slammed his elbow down and gored another line into the nose cone, then peeled the panel back. Under that mask, he didn't break eye contact with those inside.

Plastique grabbed Sixth Sense's arm. "Soldier, teke-shove this bogey off the hood before he digs down to the guts."

"Uhm. Yikes. I can't. I need an unobstructed line to whatever I'm pushing. Sometimes around angles if I can estimate. Otherwise I'll poke a hole through the windshield." Sixth Sense's eyes clicked at Plastique's. "I know what you're thinking, but I don't want to step outside." Another click. "I don't think Master Asinine Sucks does either."

Master Asinine Sucks's hand flashed onto his six-shooter. "Hey, what y'all planning for me in midair?"

The Flagstar couldn't shoot someone off its own nose cone. Ace Spandex spilled through his own weapon menus. A clip of old gobstoppers, an injection of pixie dust, gummy worms, four light-bullets, a countershock strike, a candy cane.

"Crock." Ace Spandex shivered back when Ripsaw stripped the panel farther back. It shrieked angrily. He glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, Klee, d—Never mind." He glanced at Master Asinine Sucks. "Pardner, do you have a hyperability we don't know about?"

"I play a mean banjo." Master Asinine Sucks clicked a finger gun.

"So backfire hyperabilities. Fantastic. And stop being impressed with yourself for it." Plastique checked her pistol, probably for a setting precise enough to knock out a single tooth.

A meter in Ace's ammo screen ticked up…just a bit…picking up speed. Something charged. Time to test his countershock strike. The meter sang up to 90 percent, and a fervent voltage skated along his arm hairs. He stopped charging. Anything above 90 percent, and he could jolt himself if the storm came with lightning.

He marched toward the access port. "I'll take care of this myself. Klee, kee—" He stopped. "Why do I keep using actual words with him? Hagen, keep this thing steady."

Sixth Sense blinked through those Coke-bottle lenses. He rushed to the pilot's controls. He didn't even stammer. "You're going outside? But we're hovering."

"I see that. The windshield's five feet to my left." A crackle of static raced along Ace's arm and clapped out his fingertips. "Control, acknowledge. Open access." The stupid-move klaxon butchered the cockpit, but Ace stepped outside anyway.

Training simulators made this look way easier.

Wind whipped rain against the metal plate on his head, into his hair, into his eyes. He gripped a handhold on the side of the starship and clenched from the water slicking it. The cold metal nipped his skin. He kicked his toes into footholds. If manufacturers expected people to perform midflight repairs, they should install catwalks with handrails. And Velcro.

His left hand still gripped the edge of the access port. He clacked his teeth together and, eyes squeezed shut, let go. Yikes yikes yikes, hands hopped switched handholds left hand on handle right hand on groove from nose cone to windshield stomach lodged into his throat. Almost fell backward, almost bit off his tongue, almost kept his bladder in control, almost a lot of things.

He opened his eyes to a drenched Ripsaw hunched on the nose cone, one arm out, tongue wagging inside his stocking. Ace hoped it tasted like Multipurpose in there.

Ace huff-huff-huffed—nerves jangled like loose bolts—huff-huffed—come on come on—bounded forward landed on the hood thanked Alaphus for grip soles cursed Mechanism for not installing thrusters in his feet.

Ripsaw edged a pace to the left. Ace negotiated his footing to match. Again. They circled each other like hands on a clock. Ripsaw swiped, but Ace blocked with an arm. Had to be careful of those sleeve blades. How'd you cut yourself, Ace? I played pat-a-cake with a racist ripping apart our nose cone. Ace, if you won't take this seriously, we're denying your health-insurance claim. This was why he didn't have friends outside the Good Guys.

"Thanks for joining me up here, pinko." Ripsaw swiped again. Ace deflected it.

"I had to. Roadside assistance won't come out this far." Ace danced a half hour clockwise to dodge another swipe. The rain tickled. Those blades didn't. He should activate some filters on his thoughts. "You didn't realize you were trying to destroy the thing you're standing on, did you?"

Ripsaw stood straight. "Huh?"

"Thought not." Ace Spandex primed his countershock. The tickle of atmospheric charge blended with the tickle of the rain. His heads-up display registered a dance of electrons and protons. Thunder bellowed. Lightning was coming. He reached up. Continuum knew how to throw a weather party.

Ripsaw hunched and cackled. The fabric over his mouth convulsed in and out. "Gonna throw rain at me, pinko?" He cocked his head to the right. "Woody, I'll get to you after I'm done with this guy. One pinko at a time."

Ace searched the ground at the knights reaching skyward like mechanical-minded zombies waiting for meat to drop. Back to Ripsaw. "I'd explain what I'm doing, but it doesn't involve coloring books."

"Huh again?"

Metrics pulsed. Levels rose. Ace reached higher. Three, two—he'd feel this in his fillings—one. With his other hand, he grabbed Ripsaw's arm blade. Water. Stainless steel. Skin through drenched fabric.

Jagged white lightning crawled around Ripsaw as though he were a Tesla ball. He burst across the terrain, cracked into a bamboo shoot as thick as a mausoleum column, and slid down onto saturated earth. Ace magnified his vision and studied for movement. Nothing. His sound filters didn't even register a moan. Now he could add "lightning rod" to his resume.

He risked one tottering step towa—His foot squeaked out under him, his arms pinwheeled, and he caught himself on the windshield to keep steady. Nope, he'd sit for the rest of the day. Exactly right here. "Control, acknowledge. Contact entity Sixth Sense."

Ace drummed fingers on the serrated damage of the curled-open panel. Pressed it in to test its rigidity. It bobbed back into his personal space. Come on, Hagen, pick up.

"Connection attained." Finally.

"Aaron, you okay out there?"

"Peachy." Ace wiped the rainwater from his face. "Check for a sunroof, would you?"

* * *

Their landing bounced from the arches of Puttyman's feet up his spine and into his skull. When they crashed on grass, his mouth fell open. Right to the floor. Leaking engine fluid smeared his chin. He rapid-blinked. Chug's shock absorbers deserved a raise.

Speed Line couldn't stop giggling in his Jolly Jumper.

"Everyone cool?" H2O had become a puddle in his seat fabric and soaked the cushion. He rose back into humanoid form like a ghost levitating out of floorboards. His head jutted out of his shoulder, so he yanked it back into place.

Bullet bit down on her lower lip, drawing a trace of blood. She cracked her knuckles, one fist slamming into the other palm and then alternating. "Damage report."

"Chug knows how to take a punch." Puttyman sprouted a few extra fingers to stretch across the diagnostic controls that still functioned. "Dents, but we're good aside from the business room. Incendiary, my dude, that's code for the bathroom. We got a clog coming back up." He tossed Incendiary the toilet plunger that sat beside his chair.

The plunger clattered against Incendiary's helmet. "I didn't clog it."

"New guy takes care of the plumbing." Maul was loading a weapon full of who-knew-what.

Incendiary retrieved the plunger. "But I'm a guest."

"I don't make the rules. Bullet does." Puttyman was halfway to the access port. The port shifted open two feet, clanged on something, and gave up. The usual. "They show political favoritism and involve height restrictions."

"Stop gouging our ceiling." Bullet slapped Incendiary's helmet on her way to join Puttyman.

"Don't take it personally. She's been cranky ever since she didn't make chief editor of Grouch and Glower Magazine." Puttyman's sweater had shifted around, so he shimmied it into place. "Wow. Pacemaker didn't even wake up. Did his beard come off?"

"Get out before that thing attacks again." Bullet shoved Puttyman through the access port.

"His beard wasn't just Krazy-Glued on. I used Psykopath Glue." Puttyman stumbled onto the grass. The day smelled clear and sunny, but to the west raged a light-and-sound storm in a clear division of climate, as if reality had sewn weather conditions together from faraway lands. Sucked to be in that monsoon season, you'd agree since Puttyman was the weather dude with the attitude.

Bullet bounded to the ground in a stiff-legged drop. The starship had somersaulted through a clearing in the trees and now sat in a spotless field, about a block away from the forest.

Chug had sustained cosmetic injury to her hood in the shape of two fists. That was no way to treat a lady. A bosomy lady with her hair in curlers.

"Everybody out." Bullet sucked in a lungful of wispy air as if charging her wrath.

The beast flapped its wings, and crock if it didn't smell like sweat stains and dirty laundry. Its right eye twitched. No matter how hard it thrashed its wings, it hovered in place. The talon at the knuckle of one wing slashed a tree in half. Both halves crackled and bowed aside. It roared doomsday and spicy chicken out that throat as thick as a thruster tube. A net of spittle splashed out. A gust pushed Puttyman back as it emptied its lungs.

Its war cry racing away on the wind, it fixed its yellow eyes groundward. "Y'all gettin' the switch when I'm through with ya, whippin' boys."

Puttyman tried to stifle a laugh behind a backhand. Tried to. "I still can't get over how that steam train with wings talks like a kindergartener."

"Take this seriously," Bullet said.

"I am. I'm worried about what a switch is." Puttyman funneled a yell. "We've got whipping girls, too, bigot!" He shook his head. "Men and women should get equal pay for being trounced."

Maul positioned himself next to them, so Bullet asked, "Tell me you fixed Snips 'n' Snails."

"Ran outta puppy-dog tails. I grabbed Hickory Dickory Dock instead." Maul's lips snuggled his unlit cigar. His hands tapped the merry plaything he carried: a grandfather clock. "Let's see how this kindergartener likes when I strike three." He cock-cocked his weapon. A shell casing in the shape of a mouse flipped out.

Puttyman whacked Maul's shoulder as Maul marched toward the beast. "Go get 'im, tiger."

Speed Line, then Pacemaker, then H2O, and finally Also Sediment hopped out of Chug. H2O didn't step aside in time, so Also Sediment was now soaked. Pacemaker looked weird being hairless, which was double weird since he was Trioxidillian and supposed to be. Incendiary trod onto the ramp that still rattled in its endless efforts to touch down. His thrusters roared on, stroked the ramp with gentle flames, and tainted the air with an odor of burned metal.

"This is why we don't allow boots in the starship!" Bullet roared.

"Shh, shh, shhhhh." Puttyman caressed her shoulder. "Bring it in for a therapy cuddle."

"Don't you shh-shh-shh me." Bullet shoved him away and followed Maul toward the monster.

Arms still poised for a hug, Puttyman toddled after her. "I can still cuddle from this distance. I'm stretchy, you know." He'd lost track of how many cuddle rainchecks Bullet owed him. "Are you listening?"

The wyvern divebombed Maul. Maul planted his feet and puffed out his bulk. They collided, and Maul dragged backward but didn't lose his footing. His heels peeled up the grass. You should have seen it. Fists cracked against the monster's snout. It was humongous enough to drown Maul in a sneeze. No way would Puttyman let Maul go out like that, because dude was the best hopscotch player he'd lost to since trade school.

Incendiary leveled gloves and rattled light-bullets into the monster's neck. The light-bullets darkened its skin but didn't penetrate.

Maul donned his fierce face and plugged Hickory Dickory Dock's crown up its nostril. He pulled the pendulum, and whatever it shot thrust into that nose like a log down a flume. He fired again. Smoke and chimes ejected from the other nostril. Maul fired again and donned his crap-this-ain't-working face. "Crap, this ain't working." Puttyman knew his dudes like the back of his hand, see.

Bullet reached the wyvern whose whiskers were as thick as flogging whips. She plugged the other nostril and loosed a barrage of solidified pus. The monster's head kicked back on its serpentine neck. "Hey, I ain't takin' no beatin's from a buncha slavers!"

"Slavers? Am I drooling?" H2O wiped his chin on his arm. What for?

The monster slapped the ground with Maul underneath. Puttyman lost rigidity. His shoulders drooped toward the grass. "Maul, dude!" Maul, crushed under a—

The paw rose, two gray and brawny arms boosting it in a military press. Maul, driven into the ground but unfazed, hurled the paw off. Sadly, Hickory Dickory Dock hadn't survived.

Puttyman stood with an awkward blunder. "Dude, I swallowed my stomach." He pressed his fingers into his rearranged organs. Getting everything in place would take hours. "Almost stepped on my sunglasses, too."

Maul felt around his mouth. "And I swallowed my stogie."

H2O leaped past and torpedoed into the creature's nostril among clock gears and snot. The creature choked, sputtered, recoiled, and rolled backward onto its megalithic tail. Puttyman bolted toward it, but that wasn't fast enough. He threw arms out and wrapped them around the creature's snout, again, again, kept wrapping, tied a bow. He reached the behemoth and compressed the jaws shut. Incendiary stuffed both hands into one nostril and deposited smoke bombs. Bullet kept shooting her disgusting ammo at its belly. Also Sediment discharged clouds of gritty mist at its face. With the wind, focusing her effects was hard. Incendiary's suit had filters, but hopefully H2O could hold his breath long enough. Speed Line dived at the monster's yellow eye, into a tree, back at the eye, and then whoop-whooped into the wild blue yonder. He'd find his way back. Possibly. Probably. … Possibly.

Pacemaker slapped the thing's ankle, left to right and back and forth. He earned that participation badge like he earned his glue beard: cantankerously and with a tenacity that helped him survive his midlife crisis. He petered out and seeped into a nap. Standing up. He'd had a long day.

The behemoth's skin, the color of the forest leaves, paled to the shade of the parched grass around them. Its pupils rolled back, and its cheeks drooped. Attached to that boa neck, its head pitched up, wavered, and crashed into hard ground. Maul chop-stepped away, Bullet threw herself back, Also Sediment dived aside, Pacemaker snored.

H2O poured out the nostril. He hit ground in a jet of water and reformed as his smooth and mannerly dude-self. He reached into his torso and tossed away an oak shiv.

The quake stilled. The calm revealed the commotion of metal clanking toward them. Puttyman spun at the noise. The knights were closing the distance. The medieval type. Great, more fighting. Even his sunglasses needed a break.

He poked his tongue into his cheek. "Someone wake Vintross up. This fight'll remind him of his childhood."

* * *

Cornflakes snapped forward. One step, up and down A sloppy crunch pancaked Continuum underneath a one-million-ton heel. That heel drove four feet into the stone step on which he'd stood. Splat, a squelch of organs raspberried out, and stones fragmented into pebbles.

Legion dropped onto his tailbone. A sting sparked up his spine in the most agonizing injury he'd bring to his chiropractor since Power Plant had invented People Tetris. But with it blossomed relief. He'd seen Continuum speak for all of ten minutes, but how he'd said "slowly," his tongue resting on the roof of his mouth with such tingling excitement…Legion didn't want to experience what he'd planned.

"Cats and chickadees, did you see strut mode? So jake." George woot-wooted. The jazz filter turned it into finger snaps.

Organism tromped up to the crevice Cornflakes had ground into the stone. He peered into the footprint, Continuum mashed somewhere in that shallow grave. He snorted wetly and spat. "Go to crock."

The purr of mil-trans was white noise. Until now. It maddened into a roar. Legion blurted to his feet—his tailbone blurted too—and shuffled a three-sixty to witness the IP warships dancing into an arrangement that wouldn't destroy each other in the crossfire. What had Continuum said? "If he so much as blinks, fire at will." Right. Legion had so much as blinked.

"Geeeoorrrgggeee?" Legion's stomach twisted at the spin guns whirring up and the harmonized awooooga from the hillbilly mil-trans. "George, time for Cluck to peck."

"Lemme gam something groovier at you hot mamas," George said. "I found square-circle mode. Ha ha h—Oh, wait. I'm at the PlayStation. Where are the weapon jams?" A ruffle of clothes. "Okay, now those baddies are hoked: I found fuel-economy mode."

The mil-trans fired—Organism leaped—wrapped around Legion—a tight cloak—barely room to breathe in the swaddle—light-bullets flicked at Organism—they felt like beestings to Legion—Organism sweat a lot in here.

Organism unwrapped Legion, collapsed to the stone, heaved-gulped-heaved, choked out blood and spat the thick drool that clung to his lip. Sores riddled him. He inflated, and out popped the cushioned light-bullets.

The mil-trans shifted position across the sky at Legion. Artillery drew dashed lines through the field.

"George, do something." Legion skittered to his feet. Organism rolled onto all fours, still heaving. "Strut mode, peck mode, save-Legion mode. Pick a mode!"

"I'm trying, cool cats." George pounded something with a metal clatter. "Funk. Whoa, Cluck's got a censor. Funk. Funk. Funky funk. Funk this. Legion, I'm trying to say 'funk.' Is this what autocorrect is? Funk autocorrect."

"Autocorrect is shift, comrades," Brainiac said.

Legion gasped half sips of air. It tasted thick and coppery in the thruster heat. The mil-trans were almost back in position. "Gggeeeooorrrgggeee?"

"Right. On it. Ride this righteous jitterbug. Water-gun mode. Ha."

Cornflakes's beak dropped open. A spritz of water sprinkled a Fireball's canopy, like a sad pitter of rain.

"That is mode of squirt, not mode of water gun." The filter buttered Brainiac's accent thickly.

"Did you even test-drive your four-legged bird of war before you flew it off the lot?" Legion crept back in quarter steps and spilled off the stones onto grass.

"It's a weight-distribution thing. Now…cop this funky-fly bag."

Cornflakes's beak screeched more agape. Like a dam tore open, a squall gushed from the throat. The burst cracked against a Flagstar and flung it into the distance. Then a Lasergem, a Tinfoil, another Flagstar, then—the comedy wasn't lost on Legion—the water hose punched out a Fireball. Sweeping left to right, up, right to left, George maneuvered the surge across the fleet, drenching every mil-tran with the force of a battering ram.

"Legion, this mode is my new top-dog mode. Solid!"

Legion hopped off the grass. Energy buoyed him. They'd gained the upper hand against Continuum. They'd kept his forces spread across four directions and enclosed the army. "Everybody, our strategy is working, their leader is dead—"

"Show some respect." Schizophrenic snorted. "Their leader's a footprint."

"—and we've formed the kill box. Now let's close in and crush."

"How foxy was that water gig? Legion, how foxy was that?" George guffawed. "How do you cool this gig down? I think I'm overwatering their lawn. Legion, Schizo, Detritus, bendy guy, we should square up a band after this gig. With Braindead. He'll blow his wig if we don't lay him on vocals."

"What do you even play, snot goblin?" Schizophrenic screamed up at the cockpit.

"Mostly pots and pans."

Everything was soaked, and the water hadn't slowed. George beeped a few buttons, but his only response was a defiant crowing. "You cats still hip down there? I'm not jive on how to mellow this funky water shindig out." A rattle marked a slam. "Shabadoo, this ain't top notch."

Chapter Five: Drive-Thru Entrance

Franchise balled his sleeves in his hands and gripped down hard. Friznatch roared into the clouds so quickly his sensations melted out of him. He wanted those sensations back. Huge waste of endorphins.

Friznatch slowed sslloowweedd ssllooowwweeeddd arced gently…faced horizontally…hung a minute in pristine calm…declined…dipped…slumped dropped fell plunged plummeted faster faster fasterfasterfaster Friznatch's laserfire crackled apart the castle ceiling below everyone screamed Workshop squealed—

Ahem. Franchise kept his composure. He adjusted the tie of the three-piece suit he, of course, elegantly wore, if anyone asked. That was the story he was sticking to. Indubitably.

—time slammed on the brakes because the starship did and negative propulsion brrrrped on and…and were they settling? Were they landing? Had he puked? Had the unfasten-seatbelt sign lit up? He refused to stand for a couple months. Could he get his endorphins back please?

Franchise's heart fluttered like hummingbird wings at a million slippers per helmet. He'd gripped his armrests so tightly his skin pinched itself, so he let go. His palms prickled from release. Remembering to breathe, he peered across the rubble decorating their nose cone. They'd landed in a vast lobby with a throne atop a shallow platform in the rear, behind it some pennants. This must have been the great hall Transit told them to land in. A pedestal stood to one side of a runner carpet that rambled on forever. Imposing stone blocks. A corpse. It was Kamikaze's, so nothing new there.

Better Than You sat stunned. Simply, wordlessly stunned. He managed only to place his seatback and tray table in their upright positions.

A jagged mass of stone plummeted onto the nose cone and gouged a dent. Another. Heat insulation. Shingling. A talking doll. A hornet's nest. A talking doll?

"Are we, like, landed? Or dead? Or both?" Amaranthia's words squeaked out. She found the courage to release the back of Franchise's chair. "Oh, shank. My, like, ragin' katana scabbard, like, totally cracked. I borrowed it from Katy. Gabber, acknowledge. Contact, like, entity Katy? She'll be so macked off and whatever?"

Better Than You wandered to the front on edgy footing that almost folded. He braced himself on Franchise to keep off the floor. He raised an emphatic finger. "If you let the haunt control plot our course again, I will beat you with my chair. I pledge you this: my chair is a giant patio lantern, and I will beat you with it."

Workshop still rolled around the back giggling. Snort-giggling. And then regular giggling. And then choke-giggling.

Franchise threw himself out of his chair. On prickly legs, he had two gears: slow/dropping to the floor and whip-crack fast/moving on momentum. "Control, acknowledge." He clambered to the porthole—"Open porthole"—and tottered against the wall—"Control, acknowledge. Don't you screech at me"—on his way out. He almost rolled down the ramp. "Jeffy? Jeffy?"

More snort-giggling.

Amaranthia exited next. She whacked her palm against her ear. "I'm getting, like, no reception out here? Katy? Hello?"

Franchise reached the floor. The tiles were grand stones. Everything was a grand stone. Not a window to be found. If Continuum had a couch, it would be pumice.

He sniffed. Had they hit a skunk?

Eyes darted around, peered at the throne, in the other direction.

"Jakey?"

"Jeffy!" Franchise tore across the floor, skidded on his feet, bent back his big toe, crock, limp-stepped, this looked very professional. He and Power Plant collided in a bear hug. "Transit told us where to find you."

The hug lasted only a second before Power Plant pulled back. "Jakey, we got a big mess, and it ain't my fault this time."

Something appeared on the wall in a waterfall of pixels. It steadied into a butler, posture locked and stalwart, eyes closed yet alert. "Oh, how picturesque. Friends have arrived."

Franchise jerked in a double take. "Who is that?"

"He Legacy. He's the haunt control heres." Power Plant zapped a blink of light at Legacy. "He's talking messed up right now. Yeah, I said that."

Legacy rubbed his lips together. "My software agrees me to interface with only a few objects. I have found a sailboat. I'll throw it at you in a few moments. I'm dragging it ashore."

"We got huge problems." Power Plant whapped Franchise's shoulder. "These Overthrow guys is nuts. I know which of 'em is flexible enough to chews their own toenails."

"Is it you?"

"No but yeah."

Franchise threw a hand at a mass of curdled flesh that pulsed brightly and then dimmed, pulsed and dimmed. The pulses revealed an indefinable fetal monster under the top layer of crawling flesh. This was like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, except this butterfly was six feet, ugly, spurting fluids, and nothing like a butterfly.

Hearse stood at the filthy mass, white knuckled and leery about approaching it. A smart move. He clutched his side where blood seeped through his fingers. Good to see him alive. Well, better than bad. Still, if he used one of his "bounty hunter's gas grenades" at the pulsing mass, he was on his own.

"What is that?" Franchise asked.

"Tha's a carpet."

"For crock—" Franchise pinched the bridge of his nose. "The pulpy mound of flesh on the carpet, Jeffy. Obviously the pulpy mound of flesh on the carpet."

"Tha's a aswang. We fought up that thing once afore." Power Plant scratched his nose. "You was replaced by a goat at the time."

"The Good Guys hired a what?"

"That, my guests, is not simply the aswang or its nasty birth smell." Legacy shimmered onto another wall. He stepped aside from behind a video game of…Alien Stuff. What was Alien Stuff? Follow-up question: what was Alien Stuff 2: The Revenge beside it? "That is your grim expiry, Master's royal pet, the engineer of your doom, the—"

"Legacy won'ts shut up about it," Power Plant said. "Aswang's been growing last ten minutes. I lasered it, like, four or five time, but it keeps healin' and don't stop growin'. Watch where ya shoot it. I plans to put a boxin' ring by the aswang's air sack. Also a urinal."

"I've been hearing about this aswang." Franchise peered into the squinted light beside the cocoon. As the mass pulsed brightly, he caught sight of…a stark-still gathering of people, standing like a parade that waited for the opening whistle to start them off. In shadow, they weaved a line from the opposite end of the hall to the pulsing animal mass. They looked like the patrons at Station One. Franchise wandered a couple trepid steps closer. They were. There stood that couple who kept squabbling over what sales tax was in their part of the galaxy.

"Why are they standing around?"

"They want to sacrifice themselves to the aswang." Hearse grabbed a doll off Friznatch's hood. The doll squeaked "mama."

"They want to be food? That's messed up."

"I'm wielding a talking doll. The food is not the messed-up part. But I will take care of this olfactory menace by heebie-jeebying it." Hearse threw the doll at it. An injury flared up, and he winced. "One of these will penetrate its steel nerves." He grabbed another doll. Another throw, another wince, another "mama." Another doll.

"We've got healing gel in the mil-tran," Better Than You said.

"I need no healing gel, puppy." Hearse flaunted his stomach out. He curled and buckled. "No, I need it. I need it very much."

Franchise tapped his gabber. "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact collective entities Good Guys, Bad Guys, and Blowtorch."

His gabber buzzed as if it laughed at his predicament. "Seeking connection. Seeking connecti—You've got thirty-six entities to connect. This might take a while. Have a seat."

The only seat was the throne, and it was way over there!

Chapter Six: Reconnective Surgery

Bullet's gabber rattled. "Incoming group connection from entity Franchise. Wait a few rings to look cooler by purchasing fifteen thousand hold songs for three moolahs."

Crock. Aside from a once-in-a-lifetime deal on hold music, what now? They'd finished off that drawling fairy-tale goliath, and she'd called everyone back into Chug to mow down the onrushing knights. She was in the middle of a headcount to make sure everyone was in. Now she had to start over.

"Incoming group connection from entity Franchise. Ten entities have already connected. You're cool enough now. Don't be too late to the party."

Fine. The headcount could wait. So could yelling at Incendiary to stop arguing with his haunt control. She tapped her gabber bud. The conversation was a bickering chaos with a froth of waits and what-do-you-means and hold-up-theres and bang-clang-sounds-funny from the right head of that two-headed goon.

"Hey, hey, hey, party-line brats. Slow down." Bullet pinched the mouthpiece closer. Beside her, H2O splish-splashed into the pilot's seat. He lifted them to a decent attack altitude. At the navigation controls, Puttyman activated Safety First to stomp on these mist-filled knights like soda cans.

"The grand aswang rebirths," someone smarmed.

"Legacy, get off the line!" Pincushion said.

Bullet's arm hairs bristled. Her hackles rose or stiffened or did what hackles did. She wasn't a doctor. But she'd heard her most-hated noun, aswang, along with her new most-hated adjective, rebirthed.

A deep growl roused from her diaphragm. Her indignation-projecting growl. She pinched that mouthpiece closer and spoke through grit. "Somebody tell me what the aswang is doing." Her grit cut through the vocal traffic jam. Everyone silenced.

After a beat, Plastique issued a drawn exhalation. "Soldier, tell her what you see."

Which soldier? Turned out to be that Franchise twerp with a voice a smidge too high for puberty. This time it was several smidges too high. "The aswang. Somebody joined its heart and brain."

Bullet flash-froze right through to her veins. Her hackles hacklinated more.

She jabbed her gabber to shut off the conversation. "Clip, get us in the castle."

H2O tossed a hand flop over his shoulder. "Nothing doing. We have to stick with Legion's plan and clear our side."

"Were you not listening to the same conversation I was?"

Puttyman slurped from his mug and kicked up his heels onto something. Chug took offense, because her engines snarled. "The aswang is loose, but the extraction team will handle it. Legion needs us on the east wall." He activated Safety First with a heel tap. "We'll take care of things here, and I've already wired three moolahs to Hold on to Your Hats Licensing." He winked and finger-gunned Bullet with a chk-chk of his tongue—

Bullet grabbed that finger gun and threw her face at Puttyman's close enough for a stage-whispered chat. "Somebody joined the aswang's heart and brain. It's developing. We need to kill it before it finishes."

"Are you trying to bend my finger back?" Puttyman looked at the finger Bullet was twisting. It was like twisting soft clay.

Bullet released him and stormed to the rear. She threw the shower curtain aside, charged past Also Sediment, grabbed her curling iron—

"Hey, that's mine!"

—out of her hand and stormed back into the cockpit deck. The curling iron snapped and sizzled the few strands left from Also Sediment's tease. "You either move this beast now"—she held it to H2O's head—"or we find out what happens when Clip evaporates."

Puttyman slipped his heels off the console. Chug snarled louder. She was a venomous heathen witch, but she was their venomous heathen witch. Puttyman padded the air with four fingers and a dangler. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Ytril. This isn't how to use Clip to make me jealous." He slurped his coffee with the other hand.

"Shut up, Jeff. This is for my husband and daughter. They died to prevent everything that thing symbolizes." Bullet pressed the curling iron into H2O's ear. Steam hissed from his temple. "Clip, stop wincing. It'll regrow when you drink something."

The shower curtain ruffled. Incendiary flinched but didn't know how to interfere. Also Sediment and Maul emerged. Maul prepared to lunge, so Bullet threw up a hand. "Don't even twitch, or you'll get a face full of hardened pus." She exhaled when Maul relented. Her nose whistled. There went her intimidation factor.

"Everyone, stay away." Puttyman swallowed. He placed his coffee cup down. He actually placed it down. No, up it went to his lips and then back down. "Let's do what Ytril says." Up, slurp, down.

H2O watched the curling iron, still poised at his ear. "But the plan—"

"No way will we lose you." Puttyman's complexion was leeching.

"What?" H2O cupped his missing ear.

"I said, if anything happens, I can't raise Speed Line as a single parent!" Puttyman's pissing coping mechanism.

Bullet sneered. "Jeff, if you don't stop joking, I'll order Chug into a mountain."

Chapter Seven: Olly Olly Oxen Free

Francine waddled into the brig on hip twitches, careful not to spill her armload. Her arms wrapped a rattle of guns, some tipping out and clattering to the floor. Should have grabbed a shopping cart. She always did this. Oh, I'm here for just a couple items. No need for a cart. Then—wham—you were four items over your capacity.

Finally inside. She hefted a sigh and dropped her cargo. On her foot. Crock. She stomped, which throbbed more loudly, highlighting her nerves through the skin.

"Your access level ain't zoot enough for that jitterbug, sweet mama."

"Shut it." Francine didn't know where to punch Cluck, so she retaliated against a wall. Always a wall.

"Your access level ain't—"

Nobody won against computers.

The brig was a white-walled rectangle. Fourteen cells occupied the room, two securing prisoners. A control booth dominated in one corner, though you could manage everything through the haunt control. The one she wanted to smack.

She wiped her forehead on a shoulder. She felt clammy everywhere that counted. It was hard work lugging this arsenal up here, but it was over. And all over the floor. She grinned up at the two prisoners hunkered in their cells. Both were trapped behind purring shield screens that displayed statistics in a clitter-clatter of information cycling on the transparent surfaces: names, vital statistics, heights and weights, rap sheets, what they wore, who would win in a fight between them and a dinosaur, hat sizes. Every few seconds, the shield screens clicked into an X-ray view to assure guards they weren't armed. Francine could do without that view. And Plaster had a misaligned spine.

Plaster rested on the floor, arms propped on knees. The cell next to him identified its occupant as Fragment, a Virillian born sometime around the eighty-ninth century. He was wanted for diamond thefts that often degraded to violence. He didn't understand the value of money, only the value of sparkly objects. Or muted yellow ones, since he stole Virillian diamonds. He felt his surroundings from floor to ceiling maybe for a defect to exploit.

"You here t' exterminize us?" Plaster didn't look concerned.

"No." Francine swept her foot along her path to clear the guns. She approached him.

"Then what's wit' the guns?" Plaster didn't budge except to jerk his chin at the mess.

"I'm here to make you a deal." Francine rapped a knuckle on Plaster's shield screen. The thick dong it produced sounded like a bell toll in the enclosure. Plaster flinched. Ha. Reminded Francine of visits to the aquarium.

"Your access level—"

"And if you don't like it, you can rot." Francine gave the screen another dong. "Got it?"

"What's the deal then?" Plaster glanced at Fragment. The silent gymnast listened.

"Asinine's an idiot, and Reef isn't much better. They're sinking ships, and I'm taking control." Francine rapped the screen again.

When the echo abated, Plaster asked, "Where d' we come in?"

Must Francine draw him a map to her point? Idiots. Everywhere, idiots. "I need muscle. You two fit the description."

"Continuum said that, too. Then he left us rottin' here, the two of us." Plaster licked his lips. His viscous, runny lips. Francine almost retched. "Who's t' say you ain't the same?"

"Nothing, I guess." Francine rocked back on her heels. "I'm only offering to get you out of here. You help me take back the Bad Guys. After that, do what you want. Stick around? Cool. Take off? Fine by me. But I guarantee you won't escape without my help."

Plaster lifted his head to scratch behind his neck only to drop it back against the wall. He checked Fragment again, as if Fragment would offer an opinion. "Okay then. Let's take control."

"Thought you'd like my deal." Francine smiled. "Control, acknowledge. Unlock cells seven and eight."

The shield screens whoomped away. Crocking magnificent, because Francine's eyeballs still burned from those X-ray shots.

Plaster shuffled out, each step dashing a syrupy footprint. He was disgusting on every level. He retrieved a gun, checked it over, and blundered it. "Ugh. Grip's got no friction." He picked it up again, but it slipped out of his hand. "Crock, they don't make 'em like they used ta."

"You need me to tape it on?"

Chapter Eight: Asomething, Anyway

The battlefield display lit in bright-orange panic. And a breep. The display's cat tapping its foot to a jazz beat turned into a sphinx cat with back arched and tail like a flagpole. Sphinx cats jingled Master Asinine's jangles, because if they wore wigs, they'd pass for people. Eeeeeghhhhh.

What hubbub was hubbubbulating? Master Asinine approached the battlefield display, a small square in the corner of Cornflakes's scowling windshield eyes. Something was amiss. Afoot. Ajar. Acrapped. Halfway on his trip to the windshield—"trip" being literal since he clonked his toe on the base of the prize wheel—Cluck exclaimed a rooster call as a warning klaxon.

Wait, where'd they get a prize wheel?

The cock-a-doodle-doomsday petered out, and Cluck cut in. "Mamas and papas, I hope the groove up in the main noggin is sweet and fine, because the battleground shnoozle ain't sharp and dandy. Dig?"

Master Asinine didn't know how to dig regular English. But he understood the orange warning across the battlefield display. Make that all six warnings: "UNLABELED ENTITY DETECTED." "TRANSPORT CHUG HAS EXITED EAST ZONE." "KILL BOX BROKEN." "JAMAICAN PATTY SUPPLY AT 0." Okay, four warnings.

This wasn't good. Their patty supply was out and whatever else the display said. Master Asinine rage-spun the prize wheel. What nimrod ate the Jamaican patties on the field of battle? They had, like, eight of them. Or nine. Or—Okay, whatever. If he had count one more time today, he was going to flip.

The prize wheel clacka-clacka-ccllaacckkaa-ccclllaaaccckkkaaaed onto "gift card." Not bad.

He leaped at the display and shut off the klaxon. They'd had a shared connection, but someone had ended it to avoid heavy call rates. So Asinine spoke into the public-address system. "Hey, Legion, listen. I just got an angry warning. But first off, how are you? Need a water break?"

"George, what's the warning?"

"Okay, cutting the conversation short, are we? It seems our kill box has an open flap. One of the teams left their zone, so it's now a…kil box." Asinine muffled his snigger behind a hand. He regained control. Somewhat. "Okay, you couldn't hear the hilarious difference, but I took out an l becau—The joke landed, right?"

"I got humor joke." Brainiac made an effort to stand. Everything but her forehead and feet were off the ground in the strangest pushup Asinine had seen since paraplegic bootcamp.

Legion sounded harried. "Who left their zone?"

"East team." Master Asinine reread the update. "Transport Chug. Is he the guy who invited me on that pub crawl?"

"Chug is Blowtorch's starship, and you invited yourself on that pub crawl."

"And where am I going to use a gift card in my own rooster? What a rip!" Master Asinine stomped. "Right, Legion? Legion? Hello?"

* * *

The knights skulked closer, ducked through trees, heavy steps crashing into the creek. Pincushion quilled one in the sternum. Multipurpose smashed a double-fist over another knight, but that sprained his armpit.

"Here's a move I learned filming in Swampjuice Plains." Meanwhile, Catastrophe had regressed to his glory days, regaling the knights with career anecdotes. He'd reached 9086. "And that was my first feature with Dubont Excelative, the director of Sasquatch Dance Recital. And tell me if they screwed me, but my subtitles labeled my character as 'Overbearing Chuffer.'" He yanked off a knight's arm and beat another one with it. "Foreign films, right?"

"These knights clatter way too loudly, brother. I can't hear you whine." The arm jerk to fire his quills made Pincushion's shoulder yelp with cold tightness. He yanked out one knight's sword, stabbed it through another's eye slit, and then reversed into the first knight's mouth plate. Both collapsed in willows of smoke. They didn't make armor like they used to. And "used to" was five thousand years ago.

If fights were traffic, the knights were bumper-to-bumper rush hour. They flooded in from the right corner. Who had taken the right? Who'd unplugged that cork? Pincushion was south—he fired a quill into a faceplate, ow—so right was east. Who was the east team?

He tapped his gabber. "Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Legion."

The connection clicked through.

"Legion, brother." Pincushion jabbed his forearm under a knight's chin. Shot out a quill and blew its top off. "Who's on east?"

"And I Don't Care's on shortstop?"

"No, who's our"—Pincushion shoved back a knight before it stabbed him with its polearm—"east team? The crowd control here is crushing us." Why couldn't they resolve this fight by jousting?

A cat hissed and pounced off a tree onto a knight. Withered Old Battle-Axe conducted her orchestra of felines from atop the starship, and how had she gotten up there anyway? She couldn't leave a room without calling medical assistance. At least Braindead held his own, cracking shots into anything that budged. That included a bird, but his average was still high.

"Blowtorch is on east." Legion sounded harried. "But they left their zone."

"We're getting their spill-off." Pincushion yanked himself back from a sword jab, foot in the creek. He wedged his sword into a knight's neck plate. Pried up and popped that helmet off. Nobody underneath except smoke shaped as an undefined face. The smoke dispersed. "Look, brother. I have to let you go. Catastrophe might mistake these knights as extras and lead them to a catering tent."

"Don't let him forget the little people that got him where he is."

Pincushion's gabber pulled back its stems.

"These knights are crocking my nerves." Multipurpose tromped into the creek's chatterbox current. He'd recovered from his walking aches, set on collecting new ones. But he fumbled a sai into the water. Each action a separate wince, he rolled to a flop when he tried to pick it up. And then he took a break from standing to catch his breath. Some ninjas should never ninja.

Still holding the sword, Pincushion lifted a finger to the next knight. "Hold on. I have to roll my eyes at someone." The knight obliged.

Pincushion stepped back. "Catastrophe, they're crowding too close. Keep them back. Groundwaves, brother."

"On it." Catastrophe showed fatigue, like on Station One when keeping back Steeple's army. But he raised his hand and flapped out the ground as though flapping out a bedsheet. Wood crackled. Trees threatened to unroot. Knights spilled away and then again when another wave bowled out.

Braindead fired, a single potshot that somehow dropped two knights. Lieutenant IQ 23 fired as well, and you couldn't knock him for clanging a bullet off a shoulder joint.

"Darlin', ya think y'all winnin' this pig-muddin' contest?" That voice, from the left, drawn out and snappish. "Then y'all as drunk as a cooter."

Huh? Pincushion bounded into the air, an involuntary leap. He arced across the fight and landed on Bad Aim. Both hit wet grass, and Bad Aim's hoverdisc gashed into the ground. The sword Pincushion had held spiraled backward into a tree.

Pincushion stood up. Multipurpose was still trying.

That southern belle. Marionette? She blew on her nails as if to dry their sparkly finish. She turned them over, and they tossed a glint of sun. "Y'all wastin' your energy. You a stuck pig under a fence, and ain't no one comin' to bail y'all out." Her expression twisted into her nose, as if she smelled something foul.

Pincushion estimated the distance to the sword. Too far. "I gotta ask you to ease up on that drawl, sister. With Klee chirping everything and Workshop chirping everything and Power Plant chirping everything, I'm at my limit. That's not counting the ones who don't talk. You know we have a gargoyle? An actual gargoyle."

Marionette scowled. She reached straight up, a tiptoe grasp, and Multipurpose snapped stiffly to a stand, something he'd probably never accomplished. He glanced around, dropped his sai—"Crockin' crock, I just picked that up"—belly shaking, arms shaking, belly shaking harder, jowls shaking, belly shaking even harder, folds shaking, belly shaking forever. Marionette yanked her fist down.

Multipurpose dropped into the crinkling creek so hard his ribcage folded on exposed tree roots and jagged rocks. He released a wet crunch, like someone twisting a ketchup bottle for the last squelches. He settled into a sheet of meat and body odor and loincloth shorts, face in the water. Bursts from inside him stained the creek: blood, organs, cellulite, shards of bone, more cellulite, mucus, lots of cellulite, more cellulite than you could imagine, a box of jujubes. All the make-believe ninja wanted was to feast on a compost heap of lasagna. In the end, he was one.

"Ya ain't stand a chance, sugah. We got time on our side." Marionette sneered at Pincushion but reached at Withered Old Battle-Axe on the starship hood. Her hand cut a midair j. The cat lady's legs flailed out from under her. She slammed on the hood, rolled down, and landed as a wilted ragdoll twisted into irregular shapes. Her death was remarkably silent since her bones were plastic wrap. Her cats cut from sharp hostility to apathy. Those in midpounce dropped, of course on their feet and clear of the water. They licked themselves and trotted away. One batted at glints shining off Marionette's hand gestures.

"I've got her." Lieutenant IQ 23 cracked a shot at Marionette, but a knight intervened. The shot tinked against its chest plate. He shot again, but he couldn't find a line of sight.

Marionette turned as red as her designer lipstick and designer fingernails that somehow changed color in midbattle and designer mascara. "Ya dare blast at a country girl, buzzard bait?" She raised her hand—and her nails had changed color again. Without control, IQ 23 lifted his pistol barrel against his ear. Marionette curled her fingers into a gun, trigger finger extended but squeezing. Lieutenant IQ 23 shivered out a quiet mew—

A report snapped across the forest, and IQ 23 staggered. His pistol fell. Marionette collapsed with a hole splattering her shoulder where it met the neck. She squirmed, blood bubbling out her mouth. Overtop her stood Braindead, fuming as if to say "This is your last pig race." Or anything. As if to say anything.

Braindead ground his heel into Marionette's shoulder. Pinned her to wet grass. Hissed rage under that mask. He readied a finishing shot, but Marionette twisted her wrist. Braindead's arm deflected. The pistol zipped up and—

Braindead's head blew back. Tatters of skin and blood gargled out the side of his helmet. He crumpled into the mud of the creek bank amid the combat of knights Bad Aim held back with blind shots.

Horror scrawled across IQ 23's blanching face. He gawped a silent no, elongated and mournful. He dropped on his knees, tears zigzagging down his—

He snapped. Another personality took over. "You backwoods wench! You murdering backwoods wench!" He grabbed Braindead's fallen pistol, dived at Marionette, fired a headshot, two, three, four, click-click-click. He dropped the gun and gripped her mashed-potato skull and cracked it against a rock and again and again and again. "Come back to life so I can kill you all over!" He raised a rock over his head and hammered down. "And here's what I think of your fake eyelashes." The fake eyelashes burst the rock into dust.

Bad Aim stopped targeting knights yet shooting trees. "Yo, playas. We ain't winnin' this action. We gots ta bounce out." He fired a shot at a knight and somehow hit a branch in the opposite direction.

"I'm on it." Catastrophe was hunched over, hands on knees, voice hoarse. Another mental lunge, and the ground surged in a surf that threw the knights back. Not as dramatic as before. No trees toppled.

Bad Aim had dropped his hoverdisc as low as he could without mowing the grass. He splattered mud across the creek as he zipped to IQ 23. "Dawg, we gotta beat."

Lieutenant IQ 23 knelt in scurrying water at Braindead's body. Bad Aim reached for his shoulder but grabbed his arm. "Homey, I ain't playin'." He drew a shot and blasted a knight in the head. Wasn't the knight he aimed at.

The knights were too close. Only Catastrophe's quakes kept them back, and they had calmed from tidal swells to gentle sways in sunset waters. Trees barely moved in their dirt beds.

No time for this. Bad Aim was right: they did gotta beat. Pincushion leaped to IQ 23 and battled him to his feet. Bad Aim whirred off the creek and provided cover shots. He was hopeful if nothing else. Pincushion averted his face when IQ 23 struggled, clawed, and yelled, heels bobbing along the uneven grass and mud. Pincushion's old police training took over, and he grappled IQ 23 toward the Tinfoil. "Catastrophe, we're retreating. This fight is lost."

Bad Aim still provided cover fire twenty degrees to the left.

Catastrophe still hunched on the ground a few meters away. He clapped to raise dirt slabs and crush the knights. He heaved onto one foot but stumbled, heaved up again. Every shift of weight was a workout.

"Catastrophe, let's go." Pincushion was at the embarking ramp.

"I'll take rear. Otherwise, they'll overwhelm the starship before we take off." Catastrophe huffed to talk.

"We'll throw Bad Aim at them!"

"No, we won't, holmes." Bad Aim buzzed up the ramp on a pillow of heated air.

Catastrophe barely stood. "Plastique had ripped into me for confusing my priorities. For trying to resuscitate my dead career. I was one degree of separation from Trioxidillian visionary Bloothiss Scrall!"

"Is now the time to namedrop, brother?" Pincushion flinched when IQ 23's nails slashed at his eyes. "Face is out of play."

Catastrophe gulped, tittered. "You know why I took the media name Catastrophe? It was the last thing my ex called me before she left me for my Jack Fistbomb costar, Ward Hipscombe. She called my life a catastrophe." He wiped his forehead and eked out a rolling bump along the ground. "I took the name to remind myself—"

"Yes, yes, I got it." Pincushion held IQ 23 in a headlock. "You took the name to remind yourself of everything you'd lost."

"No, to throw it back at her when I hit big again. Don't interrupt." The sweat leeched through Catastrophe's clothes now. "Turns out it was all useless. Except for the drinks fans bought me." He clapped to crush a knight. "Well, I'm not flipping my priorities around now. Tell Plastique that."

"Brother, the knights are back enough. Now's your chance." Pincushion threw IQ 23 through the porthole. He bang-banged on the side of the Tinfoil. "I still haven't heard about your flyfishing show. Regale me!"

"I wasn't on a flyfishing show." Catastrophe couldn't talk evenly. "You're thinking of Kicks and Giggles. It was a catfishing show that swindled millions in cash. I was the victim." Another rolling bump. The knights stepped over it. "I fell for the same scam every week."

Catastrophe lurched around and propped himself from falling over. He lumbered to his feet—

A sword shushed through his sternum. He pitched forward, mouth in a wheezy howl and squiggles of blood. With an arm gesture, Catastrophe commanded dirt to swallow the knight who'd speared him. The sword was still lodged through him. He locked eyes with Pincushion. "Tell Plastique—" He coughed. Blood spat out and painted his chin. "Tell her I died as a soldier. And tell her to grab all three of my Throat Demolisher movies for ten moolahs with coupon code 'mullet to the gullet ten.' Don't spell ten out. Use the digits." He grimaced when the sword seesawed against his bone. "Special…features include…a video scuba lesson."

He turned to challenge the knights. Splashed creek water. Conducted a symphony of demolition along the dirt and grass and trees. Tore the earth apart, swallowed some of the army, and sealed the rift shut. Still more approached.

The embarking ramp clattered into its recess. Pincushion grabbed the rim of the porthole and leaned out when the Tinfoil lifted up, watching as a swarm of knights overtook Catastrophe.

Knock 'em dead, brother. Knock 'em dead up there. And I'll tell Plastique not to spell ten out.

Chapter Nine: Nobody Likes Ceilings

That aswang, that thing Power Plant was so tempted to mispronounce because it sounded like a butt—held it together, heh, no giggling—absorbed everything he shot. Including a nest from the debris Franchise had knocked off the roof. It clung to its tendons.

The aswang had grown a head, its face like a wrecking ball victim, scrunched and bucktoothed. Eyes. A ripped-up nose. Hungry teeth. It remained a pink bubbling blob, but legs had sprouted, and knees carved themselves into the aswang's sinewy mass.

Power Plant lost the fight and snort-cackled. Aswang.

He fired another bolt, but the sizzling blubber swallowed it. Crap. He elbowed Franchise. "Jakey, dare ya to lick it."

"Not a chance." Franchise shoved him away.

Power Plant clicked his tongue. "You usedta lick anything."

"Not since that lollipop that was really a laxative." Franchise swallowed. "Don't tell me this thing turns into a talking animal."

"Only fought it once times." Power Plant shrugged. Then shock sluiced through him. "Oh, man, what if it's is a talking animal?"

"Let us find out." Hearse bumped between Franchise and Power Plant. The healing gel on his face and belly reeked like vinegar. "It has a mouth now. An ugly one, but as Mother would say, if it can drool, it can talk. Talk, melty beast. Talk!"

"Talk." Better Than You balled his fists. Nothing. "Talk!"

"Discourse!" Legacy sipped from a cup of tea. His pinkie was out.

"Talk!" Hearse threw a rock. It bounced away and plinked onto the floor.

Power Plant tightened one corner of his lips. "Ain't workin'. Jakey, poke it with a stick."

"I got a stick." Amaranthia unsheathed her sword and tramped forwar—

Franchise grabbed her arm. "Don't even think about it."

"Good, because the fumes will, like, plug up my nozzle?" Amaranthia tightened her cheek. "Better Than You, you poke it."

Even waving his hands in refusal, Better Than You swaggered. "Not a chance. I might be transcendent, but I'm not take-on-a-mythical-super-beast transcendent. Back to you, sugar." He smooched the air at Amaranthia.

The thing sprouted ears. Gray, torn ears that bloomed out of its new, furry scalp, unfolded, and drooped like tattered laundry from a clothesline. They inflated, but they didn't look any less gnarled and ragged. A tail fluffed out of a glistening knot of flesh. It puffed up from the poopy end and sprouted patchy hair. It looked like a stuffed animal in a six-car pileup.

And then the aswang showed life. Its nose twitched. One eye was already open, but the other snapped awake, jolted one way, the other way, and found Power Plant. Fur, white and gray in disorganized bunches, sprouted from developing skin. Crackling, smoking. The aswang had become a rabbit, and it had hit puberty.

"Crock, this thing a rabbit again. Ain't it's s'posed to change animals every times it come alive?" Power Plant charged his fists. "I wanted a turtle."

Hearse arched his back. His spine creaked, as if it hadn't stretched in some time. "Your database indicated it was an English Angora hell-breed last time you battled. My systems suggest it is becoming a Belgian jackrabbit."

Power Plant stomped a foot. "Frickin' Belgiumers. First they makes waffles, now jackal rabbits."

"Had I my Belgian fusion rifle, I would slay this beast." Hearse sneered.

"See? Them Belgiumers!" Power Plant punched with his left, releasing the buildup that crackled along his fingers. The light sank impotently into the aswang's blotched flesh. Punched right, same effect. Left again, into the gonads. Nothing. Not even hitting the gonads worked. "This thing wearin' a jock?"

The aswang opened its mouth moistly. Buckteeth reared out, and a blackened tongue quivered with a trilling call. The call soared into an ear-splitting wail that had no right coming from a rabbit, Belgian or not. Power Plant pressed his hands against his ears and almost vomited from the pressure squeezing his skull. Franchise dropped onto his knees. Amaranthia and Better Than You cringed away. Workshop beamed because maybe this beast spoke her language.

"It now elaborates into a full animal." Legacy smacked its lips. "One from the demonic aisle of the pet store." He examined his new outfit: beachwear and a flower inner tube. "Oh, pish. Now my garment catalog is debased as well. Evidently Master Continuum did not mount antivirus software." He swatted his snorkel aside.

The suffering howl subsided. The aswang's eyes were veined red against yellows that should have been whites. Its head flashed around at them. Both eyes searched for prey in different directions, but they rolled around to face the same way. It sniffed and then snapped around at the mind-controlled buffet that didn't react.

It pounced onto a stage magician that it engulfed as though puckering chicken off a bone. It flashed its gullet over a mil-tran mechanic, teeth like chainsaw blades that ground through her. With each meal, it swelled with more muscle under withered flesh. Power Plant would call this an all-you-can-eat feast, but this aswang never got full.

Ha ha ha. Aswang. Still good. Ohhhh, man, his sides hurt.

"Crock, it growin' Belgiumer armor." Power Plant's face flushed so hotly he shut his eyes. He'd say it was time to die, but that wasn't a possibility anymore. He pushed light out of his feet and took off. Opened his eyes. Thought he should reorder those steps when he hit the ceiling. Fired left, fired right, left-right-left-right into the beast's head, like double-barreled alternator artillery. Didn't work before, but he had no other idea. The aswang took the brunt, not a singed hair.

Hearse and his healing-gel funkification charged past Workshop. "Siren girl who should close her gorge more often, out of my attack path. I shall extinguish this beast." Extinguish, siren, gorge? Last time Power Plant tried deciphering Hearse, he pulled a muscle, and he wasn't sure how the two were connected.

Hearse leaped, heaved a stone tendril up, and landed on the aswang's neck as it drilled into a shopper. The aswang thrashed him off and into Alien Stuff. The machine disintegrated into shards of wood and machinery, destroying Power Plant's high scores.

The ceiling blew apart. Another hole ravaged open beside the one Franchise had battered through. With two perforations, the ceiling sagged. Another starship dropped through, machinery drooping from its underbelly and smoke puking from places it shouldn't puke. Even its shadows loomed in weird colors. Oh, those were flames. Why were the flames green?

"Oh, bugger. Another burrow in Master's ceiling. So, so much to rehabilitate. I suppose I must commence." Legacy trotted off the side of the wall, his diving flippers smacking against invisible ground.

Power Plant landed. The starship crash-landed. It was Chug, so it wasn't so much a starship but a tangle of parts in the shape of a starship. Its ramp creaked out but didn't hit ground. Puttyman leaped out, Also Sediment next, Pacema—Bullet shoved past Pacemaker. Bullet should learn to wait her turn.

Puttyman scoffed. "Is the aswang a rabbit again? F for variety."

"Who let that thing resurrect?" Bullet wielded a pistol with barrels above, below, and beside the grip. Quad barrels? Holy crock, wh—

Wait. Rewind. Inadequate reaction for something so deserving. Ahem. Holy crock, where could Power Plant get something that cool? Nailed it.

Bullet fired the above/below/beside pistol. The aswang didn't notice, busy slurping from a man's neck. Its latest kill resulted in armadillo armor surfacing in the fur like stone slabs emerging from receding waters. The light-bullets amounted to shoulder taps against its fur.

It threw the man aside and pounced at the wall at which Legacy appeared. It pressed its chops against the stone. "Oh, what amusement. The pet perceptions I am a banquet. How ticklish." Legacy giggled.

"Who let that monster come back to life?" Bullet shouldered Franchise and Amaranthia aside. She grabbed Franchise's collar and yanked him up. "Who—let—this—happen?" Her mouth was inches from Franchise's, but it wasn't kissy.

Power Plant slid a warning shot between them. "Hands off Jakey. It was the Belgiumers."

"Ya wanna step off my man, gitch." Amaranthia brandished her sword.

"Sorry about Bullet. She worked herself into a tizzy." Puttyman coiled his arms around Bullet's shoulders. "She hasn't blinked in fifteen minutes."

The aswang slurped in its seventh meal. Eighth? It inhaled them two at a time now, so keeping track involved multiplication.

Maul hip-checked between Better Than You and Workshop. He brandished two tubes at the aswang whose chewing method was as haphazard as Power Plant's study method. "You're the tweeny who decks out machines, right?" He shoved one tube into Workshop's stomach. She grabbed it instinctively.

Workshop spat an oof. "That's"—cough, cough—"me."

Maul slapped the tube she held. He didn't even look at her. "This is Blatant Disregard. That's what she shows when you beg for mercy, and she shows it with a mortar that fires eighty-one-millimeter shells. She's what we call a superweapon. I need her modified to blast that monster into the sky"—he gripped his unlit cigar in sandstone lips—"and then knock it outta the sky." He swung his remaining weapon up into both granite hands. "Incendiary's here now. Stick it on him so it's mobile. And get creative."

Workshop huffed. "Snoochy"—hack—"dory."

Maul marched away with purpose. A shell foomped out of his tube and sank into the rabbit's fur as its teeth chattered through an optician. The shell popped apart, but powder, shrapnel, and flame did nothing. Another shell foomped out. It hit the aswang's pooper. It inflicted as little damage. So disappointing that not even the pooper took damage.

Teary revenge wetted Bullet's eyes. She let go of Franchise and wiggled out of Puttyman's grasp. She took off in a hand-chopping sprint.

"Ytril, you'll get yourself killed!" Puttyman funneled his yell, but Bullet was halfway down the grand hall. He grabbed Speed Line—"Little dude, deflect her"—and reared him back in arms molded into a slingshot.

Speed Line saluted. "Fire me, Dad." This looked like bad parenting, but Power Plant had forgotten to feed four hamsters in his time, so what did he know?

Puttyman launched Speed Line. Speed Line tucked his arms in and locked his legs together, rocketing toward Bullet. Bullet roared a battle cry and leaped at the aswang. She should have barged in here earlier, because she'd know Hearse had already failed at this. Speed Line ricocheted off the wall, bounced at her—

—and missed. Bullet slid a knife out of a hip sheath, landed on the rabbit's back, and hack-hack-hacked like a horror-movie slasher. Tears sprinkled out. "You're everything my family died to prevent!" The knife clanged against plates of armor, but she kept hacking.

"Rehabilitations are more elaborate than I had futured." Legacy appeared on a wall in a pickle outfit. Was it Halloween in computer world? "What is this? Assaulting the newborn? I shall beckon animal services." He picked up a computer phone and started dialing. It was a rotary, so they had time.

"She's gonna die up there." The room went electric white in Power Plant's vision. He threw both fists out, and whatever energy he had left, he spewed it at the aswang. It didn't notice.

But it noticed Bullet. It stopped shucking motionless spectators. It flung a misshapen paw up, pulled Bullet off—and gashed a chunk from her side. The aswang pitched her away, unaware that starving aswangs in other galaxies would love those leftovers.

"Ytril!" Puttyman leaped. His torso spread forward. He arced across the hall, palms to the floor, and retracted his legs as if galloping on all fours.

Bullet splattered against Alien Stuff 2 to destroy Power Plant's other high scores and then flopped to the floor. Blood slobbered everywhere. Her ribcage was gnarled. She rolled, slowed, and rested faceup at the perforated ceiling and Power Plant's dying first-place record.

* * *

Puttyman reached her with one last pounce. His legs slurped in, or maybe that was the aswang tasting the delicacy of that delicacy chef and sprouting pterodactyl wings. Hope that chef tasted like strudel, because Puttyman vowed that was the aswang's last meal. Except for the guy in the track suit. And the guy in the business suit. And the guy in the scuba suit. And the guy in whatever that suit was.

Bullet's mouth hung open. Blood leaked out of her missing hip, out of her lolling mouth. Blood everywhere. So sticky, so bloody, what could Puttyman do, how could he stanch it, come on!

"Jeff?" She struggled with an unconsciousness that clouded her expression, wrestled it away by rapid-blinking. She wheezed through a punctured lung. "Is that you, Jeff?"

"Dude, that was stupid." Puttyman's throat swelled. He sniffled back a tear. No, he wasn't getting misty. It was dusty in here, okay? Okay? "Fierce, but stupid. You should have waited for Maul and his rapid-fire children's toys." Maul charged past with a grenade-shaped rattle.

Bullet coughed a splatter of blood and a fleck of bone. Puttyman wiped the bone off his cheek as Bullet's lips quivered to shape her words. "Th-that thing has-s to p-pay. I…I need it to pay."

The roars of battle fumed as if to acknowledge Bullet's wish. Maul's weapons squeaked more ammunition into the aswang. Power Plant blasted it. Amaranthia sliced open an air sac palpitating off one side. Hearse bit into the scruff of its neck and then gagged out a cloud of fur. He wasn't normal.

Puttyman's throat closed more. A tear broke free from his struggle to keep it back. He wiped it. Crock, he wasn't crying, okay? "Ytril, next time attack smarter, not harder." He stroked her cheek. Blood. So sticky and slippery all at once.

Bullet blurted an awkward chuckle. Also blood. So much blood. "We b-both know…both know there won't be a next time."

"There will. We'll get you aboard Chug and fix you."

"We don't have a medic."

"The Good Guys do. They're close. They'll come." Okay, fine, Puttyman was crying. What, so he had a soul. Crock, just…just look at a wall.

"They're not c-close enough." Bullet punched the floor from pain. Her lungs whistled more air. "I w-wasn't going to kill Clip. I'm not that b-black hearted."

"I know." Puttyman smiled, but it twitched away.

"Your fellow demises." On the nearby wall, a computer figure rose on his tiptoes as if to lean over Puttyman. He wore football gear. Was this tryout season?

Bullet hacked. It took a second to subside. "Jeff, you're leader n-now. I'm p-passing you that job." She wheezed more harshly. Her voice thinned. Too much escaped air through her gashed lung.

Puttyman slapped the floor. "You're going to live, dude!" He racked a sob.

Better Than You skipped a loose stone along the floor. It cracked against the aswang's eye. He pumped an arm.

"Jeff, I'm p-plainly bleeding ev-verywhere." Bullet's lip quivered more but more slowly. Her skin was a pale orange. "I'm-m giving you leadersh-sh-ship. You always wanted to lead."

"I never wanted to lead."

"Yes, you did. You always t-talked about it, so you're leader now. It's not all it's cracked up to b-be. There's an extra line on your taxes."

Puttyman tugged in a soggy snort. "I can't lead people. I'd be horrible. I'm not even Speed Line's real dad."

"Believe in yourself, Master Puttyman," the computer figure said.

"Go away!" Puttyman smacked his palm on the wall. Back to Bullet. "Make Pacemaker leader. He'd be a great leader."

Bullet winced. "He c-can't stay awake for a full half hour. He's not awake right now."

"He's in and out."

"Shut up. You're leader."

"Are we really discussing this on your literal death bed?"

"I'm not on a literal bed."

"I still don't want to be leader."

Speed Line bounced past, walloped the aswang in the eye, and rebounded into a machine called Alien Stuff 3: Another Arcade Game.

"All my high scores, gone." Power Plant dropped to his knees.

Bullet's stomach lifted shallowly, almost imperceptibly. "Jeff, you can lllleaddd them." Her words slurred in a whisper. Her eyes fluttered. The tension in her body vanished. "And sssstop Incendiary from wearing boots in thhhhhh…"

Silence.

"Ytril?"

Too much silence.

Her stomach didn't rise. Her face was blank.

"Ytril?" Puttyman stroked her cheek. No reaction. "Ytril." Other cheek. "Dude, please wake up. Stop him from wearing boots in the what? In the what?"

"She is not kindling up," the computer figure said. "Oh, stag. My language word puzzle is worsening." So was his fashion: he was dressed as Master Asinine.

Puttyman cleared his eyes on a sleeve. A slobber snapped him back into battle. Maul rat-a-tatted a dash of light-bullets into the aswang's spike-lined shoulder blade, so it cracked a gargantuan paw across his chest.

Puttyman eased Bullet's head to the floor. Good-bye.

He rose up. Lead, eh? Time to find out how, because this hit-and-run loner act everyone tried wasn't cutting it. The hatred swirling inside bubbled out as hot, vile gas that loosened his throat. Burp. "Everybody, we need to coordinate."

"What you sayin' about my outfit, gitch?" Amaranthia hacked down on the aswang's tail. Her sword bounced off.

"Workshop and Incendiary, keep enhancing Blatant Disregard." Puttyman threw a finger in their direction. "Maul, stop jumping at it and fire. Power Plant, same thing at the same time in the same place as Maul. Maybe a double shot will penetrate it. Lead it away from the combo people platter. Also Sediment—"

"It's just Sediment!"

"Now's not the time. Whatever mist you've got, I want it under that thing's skin. Better Than You, goad Appetite into chewing up anything other than a support column. Pacemaker, rip that haunt control's mustache off whisker by whisker. Clip, wake up Pacemaker and tell him to rip that haunt control's mustache off whisker by whisker."

"Master Clip, repair the ceiling."

"That's enough out of you, computer dude. Everyone else, keep away. If you don't have a distance attack, get out of eating reach. Workshop, where are you with Blatant Disregard?"

"Cuddlechook."

"I want it nuzzledone in one minute." Puttyman clapped his hands as a call to attention. "Like a team, everyone. Go!"

Chapter Ten: What Are We On, Our Twelfth Mutiny Now?

A metallic, lockstep snap marched closer. Around the castle's east rampart, where Blowtorch had abandoned their post. Knights. Soulless, vapor-filled knights. They'd advanced past Pincushion's team.

"Take your places, ground crew." Legion flicked dirt off his nostrils.

Organism took position. His eyes sneaked to his dad, and his cheek twitched away a tear. Schizophrenic cracked his knuckles. Detritus steeled himself, but fear peeked through a tremble in his chin. He wiped clammy palms on his legs.

The ambitious arc of Cornflakes's water attack shrank inward, inward more, pulsed irregularly, and finally stopped with a drool-like drizzle.

"Legion, guess what." George's guffaw blurted out the speaker, still filtered in jazz. "Legion!"

Legion clenched at the clang-step-clang of the approaching knights. "Is it about water-gun mode?"

"It's about water-gun mode." George guffawed again. "I cut that scene. Well, the reservoir tapped out, but still. I didn't fill it to max, so…really, it was my foresight. We're bagged on drinking water, though."

"We need more ground support, George." Legion reached for his holster. The forefront of the army appeared at the corner. Knights marched with arms swinging confidently and knees springing broadly to the waist. Fighters swelled to squads, squads swelled to platoons, platoons swelled to armies.

Wrong ground support.

Schizophrenic slapped his leg with toothy, chuckling pleasure. "Finally some action." Finally? Was Continuum a warm-up exercise? He flung himself into combat, elbows out, punches flattening helmets. He was lost in the flood, but an occasional codpiece flipped out.

"Is Schizo rearranging faces? He ain't cleared for face overtime." George said. "Legion, I can't dig from the crib up here. Is he—Brainiac, are you still underfoot?"

A knight swung its polearm at Legion. Legion dodged back and blasted a light-bullet through its neck. The chainmail disintegrated into slivers of steel, and a black mist hissed into the breeze. Another shot gored a knight through the helmet.

Organism wound around a group of knights as if shrink-wrapping a pallet of boxes, squeezed, crushed them. He unraveled to let the fragments jangle apart and repeated with another group.

Legion squeezed off another shot at an encroaching knight. With Schizophrenic and Organism in front and Detritus flinging rocks, Legion attacked the few that trickled through. But more and more broke past, faster and faster.

Two airfoils descended from Cornflakes. The one from the cockpit dinged open, and the Purple Nurple and Luzimoss emerged. The other carried Reef, and a flurry of generics poured out after him. And then stopped. And then scrambled to run back inside, but Reef yelled at them and slapped one upside the back of the head. Colin was never with the program.

"Generics, in formation, like Plastique trained you. Colin, you're still facing the wrong way." Reef had his gabber on megaphone mode. The generics fell into a coordinated arrangement. Fists out, weapons out, stances locked. "Attack!"

The generics became a wall that spread over the knights. The one with the beard bonked himself on the head with a staff, but he figured out his positioning and then bonked himself on the head again.

Reef still had a bit of Brainiac's juice in his hypergland. So when he put his fingers to his temple, a telekinetic gust pitched a bustle of knights into the trees as though he batted for the fences. What was with telekinetics and putting their fingers to their temples?

A generic wandered through battle. She circulated reload chargers on a serving platter. Huh. The generics had come prepared. Legion grabbed a charger, thumbed out the old one, slapped in the new one, and thanked the generic. She curtsied. Alex was a good kid.

Metal clattered behind Legion like a wraith. Legion whirled around at a knight that levitated four feet up. It held a sword above its head in a frozen midthrust until imaginary hands twisted the knight into a corkscrew. Reef appeared next to Legion. Fingers still at temple, he dropped the coiled knight to the stone. He turned his attention on a swath of knights and shoved them aside. Armor cracked into the curtain wall, held a moment, and then compacted against it.

"Thanks for the save." Legion gave Reef a thumbs-up. "Glad to have you back on the good side."

"I saved your hide, but that doesn't mean I'm with you." Reef threw a thumb at the curtain wall. "Now let's crack open this shell and get to the nuts."

The Purple Nurple punched a knight. "Let's crack open this bag of trail mix and get to the nuts." The helmet tore off the body, leaving him with a helmet glove that he couldn't shake off.

"Stop burgling my lines." Reef handed Legion a pistol. "Asinine said to give this to you and to, quote-unquote, 'forget that namby-pamby pea shooter. This is where it's at.'"

Legion slid his pistol into his holster and took the one Reef offered. His eyes bulged and danced across it. "It's my Marsek! The generics confiscated it when they captured me." He whipped the Marsek up and squinted along the sights. The grip felt like home. "Where'd you find it?" He checked the charge reading. Full.

Reef shrugged. "It was in the generics' quarters. It smells like bargain plastic."

"Sixteen percent chance he broke it." Luzimoss grappled a knight and threw it to Schizophrenic. Lefty headbutted Righty into it.

Legion checked the Marsek one way, then the other way. "Your generics better not have rigged it to blow up."

"Twenty-two percent chance."

"If it kills you, Asinine said he owes you dinner." Reef threw himself into battle with fingers to temple and knights crashing aside.

Legion whipped his aim up and slapped a light-bullet through the helmet of an approaching knight. Okay, not rigged. But he'd better save the ammo for when it counted. He traded it with the other pistol in his holster.

"Hello, Legion." A voice cut through the swarm of noises lathering him from every direction. Legion spun around at—his heart clawed his chest—Continuum. Standing by Cornflakes's leg as fresh as if he'd stepped out of the shower. Not foot jelly. He'd even shined his scalp.

With hands like hammers and a guttural roar, Organism rushed Continuum. Continuum blinked, and Organism flew against the curtain wall. Continuum pinned him back. "Wait your turn, orphan."

Legion unloaded his pistol, everything it had. Every slug knocked Continuum back, but the wounds sealed. He dropped the pistol and pounced, hands gripped tightly. "You should be a shoe right now."

"I healed." Continuum cracked a backhand across his face. He rolled down the steps onto hot, dry grass.

"George?" Legion spat dirt out. His jaw felt as if he held it in a fire. "George, strut mode!"

Continuum lifted him in an invisible grip. "Legion, you test my patience. You have become a thorn up my side."

"You've misused that already today."

"I—don't—care." Continuum stomped so hard he smashed the stone under his foot. "How should I dispose of you? Should I skin you layer by layer? Perhaps transform your lungs into marble and watch you suffocate over a thousand years?"

The battle spewed around Legion in punches, kicks, gunshots, and Alex wandering around with her serving tray. But he felt isolated. "Killing me with kindness gets my vote." He struggled at the grip around his neck. "George? George, strut mode. George, you better not be playing with the hammock vending machine."

* * *

Master Asinine eyed the exit. No way he'd make it. He reached for the grime on the ceiling, smile obliging across his face, nose doing whatever a nose did at gunpoint. Nothing. Lazy nose, kicking back in the middle of a stick-'em-up.

He crossed his eyes down the barrel of the gun Francine menaced at him. Maybe she aimed for his nose. Hope so to teach that slacker nose a lesson.

Arms locked forward, Francine stood stark still in the passenger deck, back toward the exit to Cornflakes's throat. If Cornflakes had worse allergies, maybe she would have been washed away in phlegm on the way up. With her stood the two detainees, Plaster and that other guy. What had his cell called him? Fraggin'? Frackin'? Frackin' made sense. Either way, he looked raring for a jaunty fencing duel. He bobbed on his feet, hands swirling tiny circles as though he itched to flip a gymnastic kick into Asinine's forehead.

"We're taking back the show, Asinine." Francine curled her finger around the trigger. What did people say? Not to put your finger on the trigger unless you meant to fire? That was it. Funk.

Asinine's gabber buzzed a tickle down his ear canal. He wasn't in the mood for a tickle fight with his gabber. "Incoming connection from entity Legion." He really wanted to take this call. And scratch his ear. Ear thing first.

Plaster gritted his skull teeth. He held a pistol as well, though it squished around his slick hand. "I oughta maybe drop ya into a snake pool, Asinine. You got a pool o' snakes on this ride?"

Asinine gulped. "Nope. Wait." Did he? Hands still reaching for the sky, he closed one but left out his hold-it-a-sec finger. A pool of weasels, a pool of toilet paper, a pool of carnival-game tickets, a pool of sausage grease. "Maybe." A pool of scuba gear. "I'm thinking through the list." A pool of glam-rock makeup products. "This might take a while." Everything but a pool of water.

"We have pool of pudding cups," Brainiac said facedown. She must love the taste of carpet.

"Hey, those are school snacks!"

Plaster leaned over some chairs to check the floor. "Crock, ya hiring Bobbleheads now?" He bit his lip. Well, the upper slime of his mouth. Hard to tell on a guy whose skin was a giant runny nose.

Buzz. "Incoming connection from entity Legion." Ow.

Frackin' started hopping on one foot, to the other, and back. He'd probably forgotten his ADHD meds when he left the fortress for work this morning.

Master Asinine forced a chuckle. Time to end this. His arms were tired. "Cluck, acknowledge. Kill all nonregistered entities."

"Neigho, pops. Cluck ain't down with nixin' in my pad." Well, there went plan A. Frigging Cluck. What did Asinine hire it for? Flying?

"Subtle, ya nimrod." Plaster sneered.

Frackin' leaped onto a chair. He swept a palm across the air and shot a spread-fire line of ice shards into the dashboard. A spark clapped, a button popped out, and the fuzzy dice were almost a white cloud.

"Holy frack, Frackin', you fracked my dashboard controls." Master Asinine skittered away from another clap. "Plaster, are you really siding with that fracker down there with the gall to eat cereal in front of me? Mind if I put my arms down?"

"I'm a free agent now. I go to prison for two years. I escape, an' I get sentenced ta work wit' you for seven years until ya leave me in a pool o' snakes to die. Blackguard rescues me, an' then I work for some dude what leaves me rottin' in your brig. I can't win. So right now, I'm sidin' with whoever gets me outta locked rooms." Plaster's gun tipped out of his hand. "Crap. Friggin' gun wit' no slip grip." He picked it up but blundered it again.

"So nothing on the arms?" Asinine asked.

Francine kicked aside a piece of chair. "Should I tie that gun to your wrist like it's a mitten?"

"You picked it out. Crock. It skidded under a counter." Plaster plunked down on all grungy fours.

Frackin' stopped bobbing and searched everyone. Was waiting for Plaster to snap Asinine's neck not engrossing enough? He crossed his arms and tapped his foot. Or she. Who was under that mask? Maybe it was a badger.

A sharp prickle grated Asinine's ear like a scouring pad. "Incoming voicemail from entity Legion. Marked urgent. Update: marked crucial. Update: marked life-or-death." Did Legion need to use the bathroom?

Asinine extended a finger. "Excuse me. My ear is crawling into my skull." He used that finger to jab his earbud. "Gabber, acknowledge. Play voicemail."

"Voicemail one." Beeeeep. The gabber's artificial voice gave way to Legion's. "Hey, George. Hope this message finds you well. Continuum is debating how to kill me down here. When you get around to it, I'd like another strut. Hold on." Shuffling. Muted words. Then, "Continuum says he'll be up soon to wring out your guts. Have some Firebrand ready. Hope to hear from you soon." Beeeeep. Back to gabber speech. "Voicemail over. Say 'save' to save, 'delete' to delete, 'backwards' to listen to any hidden messages, 'fast-forward' to hear chipmunks—" Asinine tapped his gabber off.

He shook his head. "Always getting calls at the worst times. Plaster, give up on your gun?"

"Thing's got a slip grip. I'm-a crush you wit' this instead." Plaster hoisted a chair onto one shoulder with a stifled grunt. Then the other. "It ain't heavy. It's just awkward." Back onto the first.

Frackin' plopped into one of the chairs Blackguard and Appetite had left alone. One ankle on the other knee, he waved a magazine datasheet out to straighten it and poked it on.

"Time to drop ya. Hold still." Plaster plodded toward him, squishing goop into the carpet. "Crock, chair's diggin' into me." Back to the other shoulder.

Asinine backed up against the dashboard. "Whoa, whoa, my head's taken enough damage today. And since birth." He braced himself against a button that lit from green to red. He ignored Cluck jive-talking about entering warp propulsion when they weren't moving. "I have just one thing to say."

The cabin became aggressively crimson, and the walls oozed syrupy gore. Everyone flinched when an unearthly cackle destroyed the quiet blipping of cockpit noise.

"Klook the Baron of Butchery has descended to turn you pansies into rotting meat. Rroooaaarrrr!" The guttural thunder Klook unleashed must have shredded its vocal cords because it sure shredded everyone's ears.

"Oh, no." Francine sheltered her head between her shoulders and whipped her gun up.

"Klook, acknowledge. Kill all nonregistered entities." Asinine lifted a finger gun at Frackin' and pulled the trigger. "Bang."

A light-bullet clapped through Frackin's head. Through the datasheet, through that fencing mask, through the brow. A spurt of blood flowered out. His head lolled to reveal a hole in the chair. Stuffing blossomed from the exit wound.

"Klook thirsts for blood like you mollycoddled mortals thirst for your mama's milk. Die from murder!" Klook finger-scampered a guitar solo from the bowels of the netherworld. "It's also time to book Klook's oil change. Shall I make an appointment with Roadside Automotive? Let scheduled maintenance reign supreme!"

Asinine swiveled his finger to Francine. Francine gagged like a coughing lawnmower. "Klook, unlist entity Francine."

"Entity Francine unlisted. Pray for mercy in the next world, snowflake, 'cause Klook ain't showin' it in this one."

Another shot crackled so loudly around the cockpit that the windshield rattled. Francine collapsed with such lifeless haste her legs snapped in unnatural directions.

Plaster dropped the chair off his shoulder. It crunched onto the deck and spat out shards of the underflooring beneath the carpet. Ugh. Asinine wanted to install hardwood here.

"Watch noise, comrades." Brainiac rolled her head over. "Chair crunches loud against floor."

"Crock." Plaster squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for Klook to peck him off from its invisible sniper's nest.

"Relax," Asinine said.

Plaster opened one eye.

"You're not unlisted."

Plaster opened the other eye.

"The Nemesis downloaded its catalog from Station Zilcho." Asinine skimmed his tongue along his gums. "I never unlisted you. I never wanted to. I meant to keep you in that pool for just a little while. I mean, what's a boss supposed to do when his henchie storms in and threatens him?"

"Klook still thirsts for mortal blood. Let me consume once again!"

"Calm down, Klook." Asinine waved at wherever Klook was. The air filter. Klook was in the air filter. "Go bite the head off a bat." Probably the air filter.

"Executing bat-eating function." The haunt control unleashed a machinegun drum solo that sped up so quickly it blended into one continuous sound. Nice endurance.

Back to Plaster. "You were always a Bad Guy. Still are." Asinine shrugged. "If you want."

Plaster cocked his head. "Zat mean I coulda freed myself from the snake pool whenever by askin' the haunt control?"

Master Asinine tapped his chin. "Huh. Guess so." Awkward. "So are you in or out?"

Plaster mulled it over by chewing his cheek. Whatever tumbled around that wax dome, Asinine almost heard it clank into position. Finally Plaster pounded the chair he'd dropped. "Fine—"

"Klook devours the souls of those who disrespect the furniture!"

"—I'm in. Continuum was a king-sized douche anyway. You was just a fun-sized douche." Plaster thundered to the cockpit controls and side-eyed Asinine.

"Meet Brainiac, my replacement mad scientist and floor inspector." Master Asinine gestured at Brainiac.

Plaster gave her no more than a glance. "I don't care what you replace s'long as it ain't a pool o' snakes."

"Closest we can come is a pool of dirty towels anyway." Asinine twiddled his fingers at the piloting controls. How had he told Cornflakes to strut before?

* * *

Legion's skin wriggled. He itched, like something crawled up his legs. Oh, great. That was exactly it. Continuum had conjured a colony of bugs. With ants and millipedes and pill bugs and a thing with six antennae and something that looked like an ear. Continuum was all about creepiness.

"How do you like this?" Continuum trotted down the steps as if on a leisurely promenade through his estate. "Your efforts to end me have ended in futility. Your mammoth rooster has failed to crush me." He reached Legion. "Your revolt is nothing more than a mere disturbance."

Legion quivered, not at the bugs—this wasn't the first time he was an anthill thanks to training exercises—but because the thing with the ear leaned in to eavesdrop. "Your bugs have ears, and you call us the disturbance?"

"Your rooster has four legs."

"It's a weight-distribution thing!" boomed George.

"We may not have stopped you." Though his heart throttled, Legion maintained eye contact. He would not back down. "But we've trapped your underlings in our kill box. We've taken the advantage on your home turf. George of all people showed me what faith does, and it doesn't let go." He spat out a bug that had scurried into his mouth. Didn't taste like chicken. Well, it kind of did.

"Faith? Advantage?" Continuum examined his fingernail. "I've made hyperpeople extinct in my time. And you think the lot of you have taken the advantage? You think faith and inspiration will win the day? I can abolish you all here with a thought." He curled his wrist. "Watch."

A tortured scream spiraled into the air, and a misshapen corpse spilled at Continuum's feet. A generic had met her end.

"Whoops, wrong target. I didn't know her." Continuum toed the ravaged body turned inside out on the grass. "She actually has a kind face." He pouted. "But the rest of you."

"Continuum?" someone said. Not a question but a call to attention. A livid call to attention. One that tripped on the ground coming up behind Legion.

Legion recognized the voice. Still in Continuum's invisible grip, he jerked, elbows screwing one way and hips yanking the other. Shimmied around, jerked again, again, took a break, almost there, again—pant, pant—again. Got it. His sides burned. The Purple Nurple and an advertisement for investment banking on his abdomen ascended the stairs.

The Purple Nurple held a knight's chest plate but tossed it into the grass. His hands came up, one fist punching the other palm. His outfit ticked from investment banking to a boxing gym. And then to Cosmonaut Chimp. Legion was watching as fast as he could, okay?

Legion danced his midair twist as the Purple Nurple stormed closer. "Freuth, what are you doing?"

So laser focused, the Purple Nurple didn't hear him. He didn't even hear the battle clanging around him, knights in heavy combat with Good Guys and Bad Guys. He clomped closer, crossed, and passed. He reached Continuum, and though he was more than a foot shorter, he fumed up with steel eyes. He looked as if he wanted to spit at Continuum. Not advisable: he wore a mask. "You killed Field Marshal Breeng."

"Freuth, let me handle this." Legion reached out. His fingers only grazed the back of the Purple Nurple's neck. "Go advertise over by Schizophrenic. He needs to hear about Cosmonaut Chimp."

"Yes, cog. I did." Continuum tilted his head, amused. With his lost concentration, the bugs scrabbling along Legion's skin dropped away. They rattled into the grass. He twinkled his fingers, and the ground underneath the Purple Nurple rumbled, snatching him up on a heap like a pitcher's mound. They stood eye to eye now. The Purple Nurple seemed undisturbed. His attention was a spotlight on Continuum. "How did you know? Ah, I see. My apostle, Servant Trader, revealed that. Hm. Looks as if another disciple is guilty of apostasy."

"My brother's name is Barney. He has cancer. I enlisted with IP to pay for his treatment. After years, it still wasn't enough, and he worsened. The cancer spread everywhere. It became terminal. He can't get out of bed anymore. He's dying, and I can't help." The Purple Nurple's voice hopped in budding grief and hatred bundled in a posture ready to lunge. His hands shook. "Breeng promised to pay for his surgeries if I went on a mission for him. That mission was Operation Injunction Junction, and its purpose was to retrieve an aswang. I accepted even though it has a rhyming name. If I refused, Barney would die." His words were mushy with sorrow but stabbed like a knife.

"My team got that aswang back for him. Turns out it was for you." He jabbed a finger into the soft spot on Continuum's throat. "But before my brother got treatment, you killed Breeng. You have your aswang, and Barney will die. He'll die because of you!" He shoved Continuum, though that instead almost pushed him off his mound.

Continuum's expression was perilous. But it softened. His cheeks dropped. He examined the ground. "I am sorry, Kyle Freuth." Then he did something Legion never expected: he wrapped the Purple Nurple in a hug. The man who'd crumpled Scapegoat up and threw him away was a hugger. And a back rubber. "I know all too well the agony of losing a brother." And a blubberer.

The Purple Nurple legs lost his posture. He wept into Continuum's breast. He'd have crumpled into a ball on the mound, but Continuum held him up.

"I mourn with you as a friend, Kyle," Continuum whispered into the Purple Nurple's ear. "From your thoughts, I see he's on Gaia, at the Letchtech Makes Great Products Memorial Hospital in the All Those Rumors about Letchtech's Software Bugs Are Unfounded Wing, room three-zero-four." He stroked the Purple Nurple's back. "Hush, friend. He is cured now."

"Thank you. Thank you so much." The Purple Nurple sobbed the words out because that was all he could manage. He melted more into Continuum.

"But I'm here to repair spacetime, and I can't deviate from my mission." Continuum hugged more tightly when the Purple Nurple stopped moving, paled to gray, and dispersed around his arms like ashes. "For the anguish you've endured, I offer you a death more peaceful than your friends will endure." He smelled like potting soil.

Legion thrashed, thrashed harder but couldn't escape. He turned to Alex. "Not now, thanks. But check back later." Alex tottered off.

Continuum hardened lethally again. "I don't suppose you have a brother, too."

"Pincushion calls me brother." Legion held his breath to brace himself. It was time to die.

The sounds of battle still popped around him. They still fought. Look how far they'd gotten. Losing faith was stupid. Empty. Resolution stiffened his mouth shut. It wasn't time to die.

He glowered. "We've surrounded you. We've trapped your castle in a kill box. Your apostles are revolting. We've armed a titan-class destroyer at you, which happens to look like a rooster, but never mind that."

"It's a weight-distribution thing!"

"I didn't bring up the legs! Continuum, you're losing control, and we're taking Station One back."

"This isn't about my apostles. This isn't even about Station One. Do you think these matter to me?" Continuum held his belly and howled with laughter. When he recovered, he crossed his arms. "Let's dissuade you of that notion."

Legion fell. He rolled downhill but managed to stop as the skies blurred so monumentally that the battle paused. Even Schizophrenic paused, and he paused only when he had to pick a tooth out of his knuckles. In fact, he ignored the generic with the bony nose he was punching. The clouds and sun smudged away, the sky's blue canvas flickered, and the air pressure danced so vigorously Legion felt it in his sinuses.

The scenery molded. The castle crackled out of existence but flashed back. However, the field, the indentations overtaken by thousands of years of overgrowth, the trees, the buzz of faraway cicadas, the wormhole, all gone.

Legion sat no longer on a hill but now on pavement. On a grungy parking lot. Everyone—the Good Guys, the Bad Guys, the knights—had kept their arrangement, but the landscape was replaced. He wondered around at…He knew this place. They were on Gaia, at Intergalactic Protection's training facility. The campus, the background of trees, the litter of mil-trans. Continuum's enormous castle appeared in place of the central building beside the lot.

"I asked my others where we are." Luzimoss picked himself up off an oil stain in the asphalt. "There's a fry stand down the road. I think they misinterpreted what I asked."

"This is the campus where you trained to become a corporal. Now we're fighting on your home turf, with my castle in its place." Continuum towered over him, blocking the sun. "Look up."

Station One loomed above, starkly visible like a moon in a daytime sky.

Continuum snapped his fingers.

Station One erupted.

A fireball in the heavens, it burst into rock, metal, and department stores. A rip-roaring kaboom crushed down over Gaia and, in a shockwave, reverberated with such force that some campus towers collapsed. When the violence of sound and tremors subsided, Station One was powder in the sky. It left only screams from the nearby town.

* * *

Pincushion's heart dropped into his stomach at the sight of obliteration. "Well—"

* * *

"—that—" Ace Spandex stammered.

* * *

"—sucked," Puttyman and Franchise said together.

"Sorry." Puttyman gestured at Franchise. "You go first."

Behind them, Appetite kept eating.

* * *

Legion swallowed. Above, the remnants of Station One dispersed into the cosmos.

"Have I dissuaded you of the notion that I have a lost control?" Continuum raised his arms from his sides, both arcing out and up. To match the movement, a shimmering barrier like a force field sliced out of the pavement. It widened, curved up, and sealed at the top. A giant, transparent sphere wrapped them, its bottom embedded in the ground. A bird smacked into it. The thud was muffled.

The sphere shivered. In a crunch of asphalt, it dislodged from the parking lot and levitated. Legion hopped up and scurried to the edge to peer down. Everyone else looked up at him. In this bubble, he and Continuum rose two…three…four feet. They stopped.

Behind him, Continuum said, "This is scramble space. The Engineers created this to act as a testing ground for their alterations to reality, though it was isolated from reality. The Engineers then created the Specimen to enact their experiments. I was a Specimen, a prisoner of scramble space, but I broke free and slaughtered the Engineers. I have now removed scramble space from the Engineers' lab and placed it inside reality. Now I'm the Engineer, and you're the Specimen. And, though this is the same scramble, it isn't quite what it was before. Close but not a cigar. Don't roll your eyes at me."

The pieces of detached parking lot inside the bubble softened into damp swampland. Marsh replaced the grassy medians and mil-trans. Soupy water with the woody odor of moss replaced the asphalt.

Continuum stared down at the tread of a shoe somehow imprinted in the wilderness of swampland. He stared solemnly at it. "This is the site where my brother, Bacon, another Specimen, died on Virilurn."

"They have strange baby-name books in your time."

Continuum rolled up a sleeve. "I transported this land from that planet. I had to kill Bacon to stop his bloodthirst. This was where I dedicated my mission to my brother. This was where I pledged to never torture someone the way others tortured me. This was where I resolved not to fail to repair the damage I was forced to inflict on reality." He rolled up the other sleeve. "And now, for your interference, this is where I decide to inflict that same torture on you because it is what you've earned." His gaze gored up at Legion. "Your friends can't help you in here. They can only watch…you…suffer."

He charged.

Chapter Eleven: Make Sure It Doesn't Pee on the Floor

Continuum ran the worst pet store Power Plant had been to. You assembled the animal yourself, it ate like it competed in a contest, and then it tried to kill you, and also the cage aisle was nowhere in sight. Never shopping here again.

Power Plant blasted the aswang. His attack sang a chord into its flank. Its armor turned pink but reverted to its never-touched-Head-and-Shoulders clot of hair. "Hey, Ed." And now it'd poop somewhere everybody smelled but nobody found.

"Yes, President Abends?" Incendiary said.

Power Plant dodged a swipe while Hearse pummeled the aswang with a tirade of weapons he'd pinched off Maul's stash back in Chug. No fair that he filched Kitchen Sink, because it launched everything but. Power Plant had severe weapon envy. Weapon envy felt like angry stomach ulcers. "You ready yet?"

"Workshop, are we ready yet?" Incendiary stood stark still while Workshop rigged some weapon to his suit as if she measured his inseam.

"So close, sparkleface." Workshop slapped a panel into the rig on Incendiary's back and then skipped a circle around him. She'd work faster if she stopped dancing. She had two speeds: cuddleskip and cutesystill. She flashed a smile. And who'd she call a sparkleface? Was something on Power Plant's cheek? "Give me five more miiinnuuuttteeessss. Or a week maybe. Guessing is awesome."

"I find it uproarious." Legacy regarded them with a nose twitch under a surgical mask. "Right now, I'm guessing what I'll attire in next." His outfit puffed away, replaced by a soccer uniform. "Oh. How sporty. Please, everyone, perish quickly so I can amend my thesaurus in stillness."

"Have to lead the aswang away from those people." H2O spewed twin deluges out his arms like firehoses. They struck the aswang's face to prevent it from devouring Station One's florist. Almost made the thing choke. Probably the aswang's first bath since leaving the trauma factory. The water gushed against the wall, against the floor, against where Power Plant planned to install a sauna. Also Sediment slipped on a puddle.

Maul joined in with something like a chainsaw, but instead of blades, it spun weighted gloves for a high-society slap fight. Pacemaker interfaced with Chug, which rotated to face the aswang. Not even the sonic assault it screamed had any effect. Well, except on Power Plant. He wouldn't hear anything out of his right ear again for a while, so thanks, old guy.

The aswang pressed into H2O's water deluge. Like forcing itself against a monsoon wind, it trudged toward H2O and slashed, but its claws splashed through. It returned to devouring the next hapless victim in line. Power Plant used hapless victim loosely, because it was the sanitation guy who kept leaving the sludge dumpsters open back at home, so who was the real victim here?

"It's filling up on garbage"—cough—"men." In an arm like a slingshot, Puttyman launched Speed Line. Speed Line bounced into its matted back, pinballed around dinosaur spikes, earned four thousand points and a free ball, and then rebounded into the ceiling. The aswang was unfazed.

If only Power Plant had better lighting. When he'd fought Canary Yellow at Stavehill, with the wattage amped up high enough it nearly blinded him, he was blistering with so much light he'd barely controlled his hyperability. Here, the sun outside the castle wasn't enough, hanging low against a dim sky. To destroy this aswang, he needed to drench himself in light. Searchlights, spotlights, stars, bright ideas. Bright ideas wouldn't work, but having one would be nice.

Power Plant punched another beam into the aswang's flank. Useless. "Workshop, hurry up wit' my secretary o' funk."

"Funk?" Incendiary perked up. "On Monday, I was secretary of agriculture."

"Ya didn'ts water my plants, so I swapped ya with Jakey."

"But I didn't water your plants either." Franchise shot the aswang. Might as well have blown his nose at it. He tucked his pistol into its holster and bit his lip as if he'd regret something in the morning. "This is going to be stupid."

"Getcher own shtick." Power Plant ducked Speed Line's rebound.

Franchise darted toward the rabbit, leaving behind Amaranthia's choking voice calling, "Babe, what are ya scheming? Babe, this doesn't look cool."

Franchise hurtled up Chug's thruster assembly, over the canopy, and leaped. Arms spiraled in the air. Long arc. Long "ccrrroooocccckkkkk, this is stupid." Landed on the beast's back as if he rode a bronco. He gripped clumps of fur as the thing thrashed.

Out popped a duplicate. Another. Another and another in a crowd that weighed down the aswang's head until it smashed onto the floor. "Someone hit it before it digs itself out."

Puttyman bounded forward. "Speed Line, wallop that thing, but keep away from its carnage maw. Power Plant, fire between the eyes. Clip, drown it—"

Before anyone acted, the aswang grabbed a duplicate, yanked him off, and wrenched him in half. Filth and blood disgorged all over Alien Stuff 4. The real Franchise tumbled away and cracked onto the floor. And yelped like a girl. And Power Plant was running out of arcade machines.

The aswang bristled, clawed another duplicate off, and sucked it in. And each duplicate, bite by bite, meal by meal. All Franchise's plan did was give the aswang more to eat and more to fortify itself with.

The aswang reared onto its hind legs. It roared, exhibiting fangs and mismatched eyes and drool and slobber and saliva and those were the same thing but it had a problem, and that problem sprayed all over the stone. And a recovering Franchise. And Super Alien Stuff 4 Turbo Edition. Workshop plunked a Slippery When Wet sign down over Franchise. To be fair, Franchise was wet. Also Sediment took a spill anyway.

"Crocking puddles everywhere." She slipped getting up.

The aswang slammed down on all fours. The chamber rocked, shaking dust off the ceiling. It arched its back, lowered its head like a rhino, lined its eyes up with Franchise, and charged. It had his scent.

"Holy snozzle." Franchise sprang to his feet, but Power Plant hip-checked him away and shot one last blast into the aswang's face. It took it right up the nose. Power Plant rolled aside as the aswang slashed.

Puttyman darted toward them. His arms were still a slingshot, but he wiggled them to normal length. "We lured it away from the bystanders, but we still have to kill it."

"Isn't that what Workshop is fitting Incendiary with?" Better Than You glanced behind himself.

"Dude, I'm not sure what she's rigging him with. But she's having a good time doing it."

Amaranthia chuffed. "Back on the meteor, she had a good time watching rocks move."

Puttyman tapped his gabber. "I'm calling the gang."

* * *

"Incoming group connection from entity Puttyman," Master Asinine's gabber stems buzzed out. In, out, in, out. If he'd known the Good Guys were this clingy, he'd insist they just yell at each other across the countryside. Who was Puttyman again? Master Asinine consulted the datasheet he'd stuck in his pocket. Oh, wait. Not there. Right. He also didn't have a datasheet with people's names.

"Dudes and dudettes." Oh, yeah, Puttyman was Fashionable Sweater Guy. Maybe he was calling with advice on style. Sounds of a demon slobbering raged in the background. Demonically stylish. "Minor update. We found Power Plant and Hearse, and now we're having serious trouble handling the aswang." Well, that wasn't stylish or advisable. It was demonic, though.

Master Asinine leaned forward on the cockpit controls, palm over—he checked—the airstrike button. Stupid dashboard. You couldn't strike the air. "Hey Fashionable Sweater Guy, Fashionable Sweater Asinine here. We hit a snag, too. Need some fashion advice: would Legion fight better if he wore a sweater?"

"Dude, how should I know? As long as it's breathable. Listen. Fly your battle rooster here. We'll take all the assistance against the aswang we can get."

Ooh, dress Cornflakes in a sweater and fly it over? Maybe they'd chitchat about the fashion world. Master Asinine's heart hopped. "I was about to send Brainiac with a plate of brownies." And skipped. "But ten-four on the battle rooster. I just have to figure out how to get a giant sweater on a rooster." And jumped, right on schedule. "It'll be tough to fit over the death lasers."

Time for takeoff. Or strutoff in the case of a rooster. Master Asinine blooped a couple buttons, and—But, below. Legion. Trapped in that floating sky knickknack. Talk fashion with the extraction gang or help his bestie? Sensations vacated his belly, leaving him with only wriggly decision worms. He bit down on a fist. Fashion or bestie?

No. He couldn't abandon Legion, not even to talk trendiness. "Fashionable Sweater Guy, I'll send Cornflakes, but we'll have to trade style tips later."

"Who's Fashiona—"

"My bestie needs me." It killed Asinine. It really did. But—urrrrk—he unblooped the strutoff buttons.

"Zat mean you're goin' down? I'm goin' too. I ain't lettin' Schizo smash all them faces. I got a score to settle with Steve's nose." Plaster stomped viscous footprints toward the…He stopped. Spun left, right, back. "Where the crock is the exit?" Left.

"By the cheek." Asinine whirled around at his mad scientist. "Brainiac, I need you t—" Nope, wrong whirl. Aha, there she was. "Brainiac, I need you to fly Cornflakes over to assist the extraction team."

"I'm Nadon." Someone grunted in the shadows by the tape-rewind machine. That someone pointed left. "Brainiac is over there."

Brainiac, Nadiac. What was the difference? Fine, next shadow over. Master Asinine better not have to decree this again. "Brainiac, I need—"

"Da, da. I heard what already you flapped mouth about. Go. Settle score at nose of Steve."

"Good." Master Asinine headed to the elevator airfoil. He raised his voice to talk at the loudspeaker. "Hey, Legion, I'm coming down hopefully not to mess things up. But, knowing me—pppfffft—fifty-fifty on that. The rest of the rooster gang is taking a jaunt to the castle to deal with a flashbang."

"Is aswang," Brainiac corrected.

Asinine flopped his hand. "There are way too many angs." He reached the airfoil—

Klook crashed a blaring guitar riff like barbed wire ripping a deluded solo. "Child locks are activated, you putrid stain on the cosmos of dementia."

"Oh, come on, I'm probably over eighteen!" Master Asinine fished around his outfit. "Where's my ID?"

* * *

Reef swept aside another squad of knights. I did. Reef did. Seemed third-person Reef had taken over. Having two lives explained a lot of things: where this leery relationship with alcohol came from, why he had notions of a dissolved marriage, why he knew so much about the Good Guys, and that the glyph tattoo on his thigh that said "illiterate outsider" instead of "inner peace." He was just happy the knights were petering out. Continuum had a limited supply after all.

But the extraction team had run into trouble against the aswang. Fine. He was done with this place anyway. Asinine was griping, and he'd forgotten the loudspeaker was on.

Chapter Twelve: Air Support from the Clearance Aisle

Ace Spandex had found his way back inside, but he jittered when the Flagstar's alarms blitzed through the cabin. And then a voice, as calm as a weatherman reporting a warm front, joined it. "My riders, your hood's on fire."

Master Asinine Sucks moseyed up, spurs churring into Ace's last nerve. He twitched his chin at the windshield. "Hood's on fire, pardner."

"I see that." Ace Spandex leaped at the pilot's controls and…and…crock. And stood there like an idiot. Well, that was just great.

Klee vaulted at the ceiling, swirled off a pipe, and landed next to him. "Lrt l HRW qTcB UAvy eS IQ bXGxw pDg Oi YPoV KznM."

"Yes. Whatever you said, I see it." Ace's hands hovered at his ears to…to do…Crock. "We have to land, do emergency repairs."

Master Asinine Sucks rose up on the balls of his feet and examined the rain-slicked ground. "Knights are down there, cowpoke."

"WO qUr EaxXb hl fAK pDGvV Fkn QTi ojeczM RHs d LBN wJtY CmS Pyg utUh Pbr TIS Ook xYas."

"Guys." Ace spun at them. "I'm right here. I see the same things." Back to the controls. He tapped a few buttons, and the Flagstar grumbled its ominous descent into the crowd of knights below.

Over the dwindling static of rain, a buzz of engines swarmed in approach. Dots appeared in the silver sky, breaking clouds and growing wings.

"Enemy fleet's a-ridin' in." Master Asinine Sucks spat a gob of chewing tobacco into the bucket at his feet. That was what it was for?

Plastique slapped a cartridge into her revolver. "Good. My Gatling's burning a hole in my pocket."

"That's a revolver, darlin'," Master Asinine Sucks said.

"Wait until you hear it purr." Plastique strode toward the porthole and pounded her fist against the button. The porthole disappeared with a jingle that announced a coffin sale nearby. Eerie that it knew Ace's height.

Ace raised an eyebrow. "You're not waiting until we land?"

"Eh." A shrug. "I'm restless." Plastique hopped out. At forty feet up, she hopped out.

"Whoa. Uh. Okay. Why are we landing?" Sixth Sense appeared from his position in the rear. "Hey, the hood's on fire."

The Flagstar had descended now to six feet. Like popcorn erupting against a pot lid, helmets burst beneath its underbelly. When the starship touched ground, it squashed steel into flat strips. Knights climbed into the porthole.

"Unlisted entities entering craft," Weatherman Flagstar said.

"I see that!" Ace Spandex jittered his fingers on the skin-deep buttons in his forearm. No idea what ammo would work on these things. Or how old these gumdrops were. What did he have left? Combustible ammo? Unavailable. Hollow point? Unavailable. The only thing left was a four-gram, sixty-calorie caliber. Confectionary it was.

A peppermint rang against the first knight's helmet and peeled it open in a claw. The knight collapsed and released a hiss of black smoke.

Master Asinine Sucks fired his six-shooter, spun it, fired again. "Where'd ya buy your ammo, pardner?"

Ace dropped a couple rounds into his hand. "Appleton Candy Company."

Thrusting his head forward on a craned neck, Sixth Sense bulldozed the parade of knights out of the porthole to clear a path. Some cracked against bamboo. Some reeled along the grass and gashed out muddy paths as they wheeled to a stop. His hand buried in a dangling shirtsleeve, he pushed his glasses up his nose. "Outside. I don't want to risk the security deposit on this thing any more than we already have." He stormed out.

Klee hooted, sprang at the top frame of the porthole, and monkey-swung into the overcast fray outside. Ace Spandex and Master Asinine Sucks shared a shrug, Ace passed the cowpoke a few more peppermints, and they emerged.

Enemy engines closed in like a roaring thunderstorm. A starting line of Intergalactic Protection's Fireballs, Warbirds, and Flagstars engulfed the clouded sky. A pitter of fire pecked across the grass, the opening onslaught of a Warbird that had broken away from the fleet. Ace stood between the twin lines that riddled along the ground and up the Flagstar's canopy. It soared past and veered around for another assault.

Plastique stood by the left wing. Her pistol chattered out light-bullets in a two-hundred-eighteen-point-six-degree arc. Ace joined her as she etched another line through armored midsections, back and forth. It wasn't enough. The knights numbered in the dozens—Ace scanned—in the hundreds, and even Plastique wasn't that high caliber. The tally in Ace's scanner kept rolling up as more knights emerged from the bamboo.

Thunder banged. Or did an engine crackle closer? The rain swelled, and the sky glowered from silver to gunmetal gray.

Ace took Plastique's hand. "Even if we keep these knights from killing us, those fighter jets will cut us in two."

A Bad Guy generic offered Plastique a reload. She accepted, cracked it in, and slipped Alex a tip through the thumbprint scanner connected to her bank. "Then let's cut them in two." She winked at Ace.

And then she pinned him against the starship with a five-count kiss that sparked his surge protector. His wires crackled. He shut his eyes and drew it in. If this was his last dying moment, so be it.

She leaned away and resumed firing. With a cocky grin. "Had to while I'm in one piece."

Calm the crock down, heart. We're about to die. Sweat and Plastique's cardboard rations sat on Ace's tongue. He raised his forearm into the sky at a Flagstar. "I'll make these crocks taste peppermint if it's the last thing I do."

"You're supposed to taste peppermint." Plastique slid her gun in its holster, reached both hands into the eye slit of a knight, and pppeeeeelllleeeeed the helmet open. She kicked the corpse away. Back to firing.

She stopped again. "Hold on a second." With a gabber tap, out zipped a mouthpiece and earpiece. "It's about time. Do you know how close you cut it? I'm down to the expensive ammo."

If Ace's brain weren't a supercomputer, he couldn't distinguish the new buzz mixed into the other twirling engine noises. Among the octaves of the IP mil-trans sang a different set of jet streams, something rising from the east. A fleet of Lasergems. But IP didn't use Lasergems. They weren't "sleek and curvy" enough for their target demographic. Ace snapped off a quick peppermint at an ambitious knight and then asked, "Who are you talking to?"

"No kill shots! You got that? These are friendlies, even though they're not acting like it." Plastique covered her mouthpiece. "Before we flew into the wormhole, I figured we'd need support if we made it back out. I couldn't contact IP since they were mind-controlled and also idiots, so I called in a favor."

"Who do you know with access to Laserg—" Ace choked, but not on the rainwater that swelled from static to a crash. "Wait. You called Gord?"

* * *

"That's right, ya navel pickers. The Curb Stompers are busting in to teach you how to top out." Success Party sat at the controls of his victory bird, the best Lasergem this wannabe crowd had ever eye-tasted. He waggled his tongue as if lapping up his own sweet aroma. Pause waggle. He veered left at the approaching Intergalactic nambies and Protection pambies. He high-fived his second-in-winnitude, Castolingo, and then Greco, who stood behind his chair to catch glimmers of his glow. "Don't call me Gord though. That name's not chief enough to broadcast my shine." Resume waggle.

"You show them who's in the triumph seat, boss." Castolingo slapped his shoulder. "Ain't no one more big-time than you."

Success Party jabbed a button to unleash an insanity of antiaircraft jigger-jagger to deactivate a jet and force it to a landing. Teach these crockers a lesson in how to trounce. A no-kill trounce, but he worked with what he had. "I am a gold-star-quality collection of conquest. And don't lay hands on the leather."

"Once I got four gold stars, so Sarge let me go to the zoo." Greco guffawed.

"What have I said about triggering the sniggering in my field of glim-glam, Greco. You nose-splooged all over my back."

* * *

Ace Spandex hung his hands out. "But he's your ex." He loaded his system settings to dial down his jealousy gawk.

"See, that's why I didn't tell you." Plastique charged her fist with kinetic energy and punched a knight with such wrath that it staggered headless into a dozen friends. "Crock. A seven-ten split."

A Lasergem descended on a Flagstar and riddled it with steel burrs. The burrs detonated in foam bursts and weighed the Flagstar down until it slammed onto the grass and skidded across the field.

Ace's system picked up the douchery signals Success Party emitted. A full five bars. He wasn't sure how much more he could lower his gawk, so he launched a background program to measure which was better: suffering through the swagger or letting the knights kill him. "Didn't his military arrest him?"

"Yeah." Plastique waved her pistol at a knight and shattered it in a casual blast. "But no one else can use their accounting software. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Unless it's what you know." Into the gabber. "I told you, Gord, I'm with someone else now." She blasted another knight, but her concentration was on the gabber. "Yes, Nerd-o-Tron. And his name is Nerd-o-Aaron. I mean Aaron." Another pause. "We don't know. We're not putting a label on it yet."

Nerd-o-Aaron sighed int—Ace sighed into his hand.

His program dinged: getting killed won out.

Chapter Thirteen: Watch It Feed Wholesale

Power Plant zapped at…Crock, everything moved too fast. He zapped at random stuff that turned out to be the aswang, Legacy, a wall, another wall, the first wall, Franchise. He owed Franchise a new pair of pants now. Still wearing the prison garb, though? Who was Franchise kidding?

The aswang focused singularly on Franchise, who clambered in circles to avoid its lunges. Its hops were pounces, its coos were roars, its reaches were slashes, its nibbles were chomps, and its face was a tractor tread. How was this thing a rabbit?

"Jakey, run like a girl this way!" Power Plant swooped to the ceiling, waited for Franchise to scurry past, and fired another shot. All he did was comb the aswang's fur. Despite Puttyman's orders, Amaranthia slashed with blades that clanged off its armored hide. Three of her weapons had snapped, and she grew angrier with every break. She'd already left one-star reviews in midbattle and couldn't even get online until a few minutes ago.

Hearse had thrown out Kitchen Sink and now used Hair Club for Targets. It gelled the aswang's fur down. Now a pompadoured rabbit gnashed at them.

Alex distributed reload chargers.

A growl emanated from immediately behind the throne. A strand of black shot from the floor and gored into the ceiling. Another, which stabbed in place close to the first. "Derelicts." The voice sounded reedy, but it filled in with anger. A reek of death followed. "I will flay your skin and hang it as laundry."

"Skin laundry is dry-clean only, amateur." Hearse blasted the aswang again. The pompadour became a fauxhawk.

More strands of dark ribbon slapped the ceiling, the walls, the throne, the smaller massage throne. The tendrils twiddled into a shadowy cobweb, thickened, and then released the ceiling and floor.

They weaved into Blackguard.

"Man, what's even the point?" Power Plant fired a halfhearted buzz down the aswang's hairline. If he couldn't have a fauxhawk, nobody could. "This ain't fair, comin' backs to life."

"Says the insufferable fly who should be dead, antithesis." Blackguard snapped his arm out like a whip. It slashed across Power Plant's back. Pain flared. Hot, toothy pain. Another slash caved Power Plant to his knees.

Blackguard sneered at the Tinfoil that Franchise had smashed into the grand hall and ruined Power Plant's plans for a terrarium. He issued a disapproving cluck. "Since you will die here, you no longer need your space vessel." A deluge of dark stems burst from his palms, a dozen fingers that wrapped the Tinfoil and ccrrruuussshhhheeeddd. The Tinfoil's canopy folded open, its wings crunched inward, its thrusters crumpled, its nose cone buckled, its windshield cracked and pleated, and for some reason a giant domino slid out. Blackguard squeezed, and every inch of plastic and metal compressed into a tangle of shards and splinters and emojis.

Blackguard reeled in his tendrils. "The Master's grand hall is not a parking lot." He gestured at a street sign: NO PARKING MON TO FRI 12R[11.0]0M TO 12R[11.00]O.

"I will remedy this toady. Away from me, grooming product." Hearse tossed away Hair Club for Targets. He hefted a new weapon over his shoulder, a massive pipe. "Eat the seared servings of this nagging shrew I grabbed in Chug."

Maul snatched up Hair Club for Targets. "That's the Baroness of Burn."

"I care not for its royal peerage." Hearse pulled the trigger. Around the barrel, claws snatched out of slits like scorpion tails on the attack. The claws fed crackling electricity into the central barrel. The barrel revved, the electricity of the claws gathered—and a meter-thick beam clapped out with such hostility it melted a hole in the wall.

And through Blackguard.

Man, everyone had cooler weapons than Power Plant!

The beam cut out. The claws snapped into their slits. Hearse goggled at the weapon with gaping adoration and a caress as if he finally discovered love. "This thirsty harpy demands respect." He coddled it against his cheek. "I have found my one true soulmate. Mother shall learn of this promptly." He roared at the others. "Friends, my wedding to this shrew takes place in one month. Save the date or perish!"

"Busy staying alive. Remind me later." Franchise scurried aside when the aswang slashed at his heels in chase.

"Prattling child, you will be my best man." Hearse squashed Power Plant against him. "Maul, you shall give away the bride!"

"Long as there's an open bar." Maul fired Hair Club for Targets to distract the aswang away from Franchise. An empty cough petered out. Then impotent smoke. "We're down to mousse."

"Enough hug, or this comin' up in the wedding toast." Power Plant struggled out of Hearse's grip. He looked at Blackguard, the aswang, Blackguard, the aswang. Which enemy to attack? The aswang had grown back its pixie cut, matted with gore. Blackguard was sealing shut the hole in his midsection and already tromped closer.

Power Plant couldn't take both at the same time, but Blackguard was bracing for an attack. He blasted a beam of light through Blackguard's shoulder. The arm separated, but tatters of dark matter caught it before it fell. The ends sewed together. Another blast, and the leg separated but rejoined.

Nothing worked, and Hearse was too busy on his gabber. "Mother, I have news from my business trip. I am betrothed. She is a steel-jawed nag, and she has seized my heart like a coronary attack. This kitten has claws. Literal claws!" He pursed his lips. "No, I will not arrange for a prenup."

"Done!" The high-pitched screech Workshop called a voice bullet-trained down the perforated grand hall. "So shiny." She drooled in marvel at her handiwork.

A clamber of gears whirred on, and clanking metal boots scrambled closer, closer, closer. Incendiary dashed across the hall. His back propped up Blatant Disregard, a mortar tube like a giant telescope that extended above his head. He lowered to one knee, leaned over, and aimed at the aswang that responded with a demonic snarl and fish breath and an eyeball from its last meal.

Out of Blatant Disregard petered a wince of flame that fluttered into the stones.

"What?" Incendiary looked up.

Maul reared at Workshop. "You install it right? Blatant Disregard was Baby Blue an' Safety First put together." He fumed so angrily his lips puckered. "She don't shoot. She dismembers!"

Workshop shrugged with a goofy grin. "What's a Baby Blue, and what's a Safety First, and what's an install, and what's a Blatant Disregard, and never mind. I know what an install is." The aswang galloped after Franchise behind her, but she didn't notice.

"Blatant Disregard's the two most destructive weapons put together…and you made it fart!"

"Lemme try." Power Plant was halfway to—

"Buckle your pants back up." Puttyman swatted his arm.

Workshop gave a tilted smile. "My hyperability just told me how to kill the snuggly bunny that devoured all those people." She giggled, snorted, giggle-snorted. Her smile became a rapid blink. "All that giggling made me lightheaded." She plopped down on the floor.

"Jeffy, the aswang. Blast a hole in the wall and lure it outside. Use the sun." Franchise sprinted past Hearse. The aswang swiped at his calf.

"Wreckin' stuff. Finally a plan I cans get behind." Power Plant used both fists to demolish a length of wall, right over rip-off game Extraterrestrial Stuff. This place was played out anyway. With an ambitious flight arc, he landed next to this new opening.

"Runs away from it over this way." The day's warmth at his back, Power Plant felt tingles when his hyperability absorbed the sunlight. He zapped beams at the aswang like brush strokes. Not enough to vaporize it, but enough to goad it. Franchise careened toward the hole and outside. The aswang bolted after him.

Power Plant stepped out and faced the sun. He heaved in a breath and, with it, amassed all the light he could, a full-body charge that illuminated his skin with a subtle hum and sparks off his fingertips. He breathed in again, gathered more photon energy, felt pinpricks all over his skin. He flashed blinks of light. A muted yellow tinged the field.

An ominous shadow floated above. The Nemesis, back in starship mode. Were the Bad Guys here to mess things up?

Puttyman bounded through the opening toward the aswang. He grabbed its foul, half-torn snout and bounced against its matted side, swung around its tail around the other side, and draped the thing. The aswang bit down. Puttyman unleased a guttural scream, but the rabbit didn't draw blood. Puttyman slammed fists on it to beat out the pain. "Maul, stop shooting. You're hitting me!" Maul didn't hear. Or didn't listen. One of the two.

Power Plant's eyes burned now, like reacting to pool water, which wasn't fair because he hadn't drunk chlorine today. Time to give the aswang everything he had. He heaved in one more helping of sunlight as if hoarding nuts in his cheeks for winter. "Puttyman, outs of the way!"

Puttyman issued a gulp heard down the field. He retracted like a bungee cord snapping in, bounced aloft for a split second, and then dropped to the grass.

Power Plant relaxed his muscles, and a torrent gushed from his torso. Everything vacated him, crashing like a waterfall. He plugged his eyes shut and blinding daylight still peeked through. Was he aiming? If not, everyone else was in for a bad day.

The gush faded into a squall, then a gust, then a spurt as intense as his morning bathroom routine—so he wasn't aiming—and then a trickle. He winked one eye open, then the other…and choked in a greedy snort so quickly it singed his nostrils. His attack had shunted him downfield the length of a traffic accident he'd cause on a sugar-for-breakfast day.

The aswang's flank was blackened skin and fur, a mottle of flesh, muscle, tendon, and frothing tissue. A rib poked out of the fireplace resin. The aswang roared its discontent and found a meal in a service worker that had wandered out after it. Three-inch spikes creaked out of the aswang's tail like baby teeth developing. But it ignored the gaping wound.

"Crock." Power Plant pounded the ground. That was his limit. He'd thrown his limit at the aswang, and the aswang just worked up an appetite bigger than Appetite's!

Also Sediment grabbed him and helped him up. He trembled with the effort. The attack had left him weedy and shaky. "What I gotta do, throw the sun at it?" He rubbed his chin. Checked the sun, checked the aswang, assessed the distance, checked the sun agai—

"You can't throw the sun," Also Sediment said.

Power Plant stomped. "Shootin' the aswang's like when you makes your bed, but the fitting sheets keep poppin' out of the corner."

"Use the laundrybots, best man," Hearse said.

"Hey, I ain'ts explainin' myself to the guy marrying a cannon."

Above, The Nemesis warbled around for another pass. That flightless bird flew with the pace of a blimp at a sports rally. That was to say, along the side flashed "Go Mongolian Yurts, go. Free oil change when you show your ticket stub at Grease Balls." Crap, did Power Plant need his oil changed? Wait, he was a person. Hand to chest. Oh, man, that was close.

"Belligerent cogs, why resist?" Blackguard had followed them outside. The biggest nag in existence raised his hands. Tendrils wriggled out, found Also Sediment, and tied into her, one at an arm, the other at an ankle. He snatched her up and squeezed thorns into her limbs. She yelped. The tendrils branched off smaller tendrils that surged up like cobras preparing to strike. Power Plant flashed his remaining light at these tendrils and broke Also Sediment free.

Hearse and his fiancée tossed a shrugged sideways beam at Blackguard. He didn't even look. "Mother, she and I will wed on the shores of Buzzsaw Construction Flats. They have the purest beaches on all of Gaia in a bounty hunter's salary range."

"I'll take care of this chump." Maul elbowed between Also Sediment and Power Plant. He fiddled a switch on his weapon. "Now we're cookin' with fire." One-handed, he steadied his shot, shut an eye, and out cracked a buckshot of cashews and pecans that pelted Blackguard in that smug, shallow face. Maul pumped an arm. "That's Mixed Nuts for you, punk."

Blackguard plucked the nuts out. "Simpering mortal."

Maul threw his weapon down. "Crock, ain't no one have allergies anymore?"

Also Sediment massaged her gored ankle. "That allergy thing worked only on Mrs. Henson's first-grade psychos."

"Sent them brats a message, didn't it? Especially when I shot them out of a semiautomatic right in their bratty little faces. This guy? Nothing."

"You're not allowed to bring nuts to schools."

Blackguard gave no indication of pain. He released another tendril. Power Plant zapped it off, but Blackguard reached out to reconnect it. He released another, which Power Plant sliced off and he reconnected.

"My acid-edged bride shall take care of this menace, best man. You take care of his pet bunny wabbit." Hearse stepped between Also Sediment and Blackguard and ripped a shot off from the Baroness of Burn. Blackguard's face splattered away, retaining only the shape of his skull. Hearse dived at Blackguard, tackled him, released his weapon, punched-punched-smashed through the hole in his head, kept obliterating that face as it attempted to remold. Blackguard thrust his dark-matter chest out and launched Hearse off into a puddle.

Also Sediment stood, but on her ankle, she buckled and yelped. Power Plant scurried to help her up, but she threw a hand out. "No, attack the aswang."

"I's already gived it everythin' I already gots to gived!"

Also Sediment blinked up at him. "Was that…Was that Danish?"

"The only way to learn Jeffspeak is to immerse yourself in it, but not when he's gassy." Shushing of footsteps on grass. On their left. Someone hustled over. Reef? What was Reef doing alive?

"That's Jeffyspeak." Power Plant tapped his fingers against his palm. "And I needs a timeout. Is today resurrections day? First Kamikaze, then Plaster, now yous. My gym teacher around somewhere?" He kicked a rock away. "Under here?"

"You haven't given it everything." Reef reached Power Plant. "You hit your limit on the aswang, and you penetrated it. But that was it. Now we need to amp up your limit." He waved his hand at Alex. "Not now, thanks."

"But my limit is my limit. That's whys it's a limit." The tingles under Power Plant's skin prickled more sharply, like a giddiness washing him. His eyes glowed, and his hyperability hummed. The world energized in pale colors again. A yellow aswang charged after a yellow Franchise across yellow fields.

Maul rushed back, blaster trained on Blackguard. A volley, two, three. Blackguard absorbed each attack. They detonated inside him like grenade bursts couched in mud. Amaranthia slashed katana lines across him. The blade sailed through but inflicted no damage. Appetite gnawed his calf. Incendiary rattled him with light-bullets that his tar flesh spat out. Puttyman s—Wait, Appetite gnawed his calf?

Reef stepped back. His hairs bristled. His skin glimmered from peach to a weird coral, as if someone had focused a light on him. "I copied your hyperability."

"Fast please no talking just doing." Franchise hopped aside when the aswang swiped at his heel.

Power Plant tugged an ear. "Wait, what?"

"Fastpleasenotalkingjustdoing."

"Not you wait what. Reef wait what."

Reef waited for the aswang to finish roaring. "I'll be your amplifier. Absorb everything you can, and blast it."

Great crock, here they went again. Fine. Power Plant gathered all the energy he could, something imaginary inside him inflated, he inhaled, gathered more, his temperature rose, the skin-deep tingling increased to pinches like surgical needles biting him.

Reef stepped back. He squared his stance at Power Plant…and fired. A supernova burst into Power Plant. The pinches in Power Plant rocketed to jabs. His vision blared starkly white. His hairs lifted to attention. His teeth vibrated. He felt as if he were drowning, wriggling his chin above water. Everything in him demanded to spill out. If his bladder of hyperenergy were about to burst before, now it gushed agonizingly. He pointed at the aswang, that ghost blob bleached in beige careening across the field—and—detonated.

When he came to a few seconds or a few months later, he peered across the field at a smoking skeleton dripping ooze and slime. Its guts had evaporated. The skull was eyeless, faceless, noseless. Slicks of tissue hung from a bare ribcage. A sheet of muscle slopped off its spine. A stunned Franchise lay spilled on the ground. He gawked up as a lifeless claw tipped onto his boot like Death tapping him.

But the brain and the heart remained intact. Connected. The heart beat resolutely like a bell toll. The body began sprouting its ugly innards, regrowing a smoking bulb of pulsating flesh.

Maul dropped his weapon. "Incendiary, now's your time to shine." He choked. "Crock, I swallowed my cigar again." The dry heaves weren't pretty.

Incendiary rushed toward the resurrecting corpse. He hunched to prop Blatant Disregard against the thin veins that connected the brain and the heart. A flicker touched the corpse.

And then raging fire swallowed the mass of death. The inferno grew bluer and brighter and then, in as much of a snap, extinguished. The remains smoldered in dust, and the brain and heart sat like mottled mush, unconnected, the only intact remains of the thing.

"I'll take that." Maul swiped the heart up. He checked the brain, the leaking heart in his hand, the brain. He tossed away the heart, wiped his hand on the grass, and grabbed the brain. "I'll take that instead. Less of a mess." He juggled the brain and then lobbed it. "Hey, Clip, catch."

"Not a chance." H2O let the brain splash through him.

Despite his filed-down features, Blackguard's indignant glare radiated. "You pitiable cavemen." He stormed toward them.

"Hey!" Amaranthia plunged her katana blade into the grass and raised her dukes.

"And cavewomen." Blackguard ground his nonexistent teeth. "You have destroyed Lord Continuum's prized pet, and you shall recompensate dearly." Still storming, still grinding. "You have also destroyed his grand hall, but he is insured, so that is less of an issue."

He threw himself at Puttyman—raised his hands—sprouted a skewer as if clutching it—drilled into Puttyman's shoulder. Puttyman grunted—crumbled onto his knees—blood flowered from the wound—steeled himself at Blackguard—molded a sheath from his shoulder—skin inched over Blackguard's skewer, reached the fist, crawled along the arm—pink overtook black—

Puttyman's shoulder exploded. Black, bloody barbs splattered out. He staggered with expression glazed.

Power Plant sniped Blackguard's wrist. The wrist splashed apart but rejoined with the arm. The dark matter in Puttyman lost solidity and dribbled. Puttyman clutched his shoulder and rolled away. Power Plant blasted again, and Blackguard's face burst in a wet squish. Another shot, and his ridiculous hat vaporized. Power Plant tolerated Master Asinine's fashion, but that hat crossed a line.

Blackguard's head puckered back together, and that shallow face remolded. The crocking hat wasn't even off center.

"I'll take care of this guy." Incendiary stepped past Power Plant, plopped onto one knee, and let loose. Blatant Disregard threw lines of flame at Blackguard that speared through him.

Blackguard looked them dead in the eye, smirked, and sealed the holes. "Lord Continuum assessed you correctly. In your united armies, you mortals are mere cogs who succeed at nothing. None of you has circumvented his perfect plan. Your galaxy's official sports are ultimate couponing and capture the flag. Your official animal is the mosquito. Can anyone of this time honestly think to best him?"

"We got blood on his carpet," Franchise said. Power Plant stuck his tongue out for the assist.

"Then you shall pay for shampooing with your lives." Blackguard's arm snapped out, and at its end, a skewer burst through Franchise's forehead—that Franchise became a duplicate—the skewer followed into Franchise's cheek—through Reef's forearm—into Better Than You's hip—

Power Plant blasted the skewer. Franchise and Better Than You collapsed. Reef clutched his arm to stanch the blood. It leaked through to paint his sleeve. His gabber was active. "Brainiac, launch the barb attack."

Hearse hefted up the Baroness of Burn. "The lot of you, retreat." He brought her in for a smoochy kiss. "Get aboard your foul space crate." And a cheek cuddle. "Fly aboard the fouler space rooster and get the injured into the medical bay." He cradled the Baroness. "Let my fiancée and me take care of this blackberry-ice-cream villain." And murmured. "It has been foretold, my sweet." Hearse should get a room.

* * *

The boors and loudmouths and those who knew not what an inside voice was filed onto Chug. Puttyman had grabbed the aswang heart, Maul the brain. Good riddance to those putrid organs. And good riddance to Workshop. She made Hearse's eardrums throb. And he had hunted teenagers. The gargoyle may be the stupid one, but it did not have a megaphone for a larynx.

The sun was curving down the horizon. Stars peeked over the canopy of land in a glimmer of twilight. A nice night to die. A hint of pine rode on the breeze. And aswang heart. Putrid was accurate.

Hearse didn't turn from Blackguard. Blackguard didn't turn from him.

Hearse tap-tapped the Baroness's trigger. He didn't fire. Not yet. "I've foreseen this battle my entire life."

Blackguard chuffed. "Marvelous." The Nemesis obscured the sky, but its shadow didn't darken him. Was Blackguard a being or just dark mucus?

This showdown was playing out exactly as foretold in the excruciating visions of his death, those excruciating visions IP claimed they would cure if he brought Kamikaze in to the In Sanity Manor at Stavehill. They didn't cure him. Instead they hired him to kill Legion, which he refused to do in the end.

Hearse traced an arc in the grass with his foot. Felt cold out here in this sudden nightfall. "You've been an obstinate foe."

"And you've been a foe of no consequence."

"Fine, then. You've been a laughable foe."

"You already said obstinate. No takebacks." In the breeze, Blackguard's trench coat didn't flicker. How absurd he looked in a trench coat. Not only was he dark mucus, he was a watch salesman in an alley.

A flutter, like bird wings. Above, needles flick-flick-flicked out of a recess in The Nemesis's underbelly. He'd seen this in excruciating precognitive visions. The visions seized him when they came on, gripped him with an agony that gouged his senses. Precognitions. It was his backfire hyperability. But he never saw the end of the scene. The visions never lasted that long. He didn't know what effect those needles had. Did the Bad Guys hope to stop Blackguard with a sewing kit?

Hearse drew in a long sniff. He found Blackguard in the darkness oozing out the light. It was like spotting a shadow inside another shadow. "We should begin before I fall asleep."

"Are you narcoleptic?" Blackguard approached. His arm drooped to the ground, sculpting a sword, slender yet capable of cleaving mountains in half. He carried it effortlessly. He didn't hurry.

Hearse heaved the Baroness up. He would win. He always did.

He always delivered the body.

Energy sizzled out of the Baroness's claws, blending at the center—Blackguard hefted his longsword up—he reached Hearse—the Baroness fired—Blackguard cleaved into Hearse's neck where it met his shoulder—the Baroness drew a gaping line to erase Blackguard's side—Hearse's sight grew murky—the needles pierced Blackguard, Hearse, the ground, released pockets of dirt—each needle clapped wide open with orange flare—stabbed Hearse but blew Blackguard apart—removed Blackguard from existence—didn't feel like a sewing kit.

Crock, if he'd have known the needles did this, he'd have escaped with everyone on Chug. Nobody told him anything.

Hearse hit the grass. So cold. A rock poked his neck. His pulse quivered in his throat. And then it stopped quivering. All worth it not to ride up with Workshop.

Hearse had a son once. Oliver. Oliver had become a radical astro-environmentalist, so extreme that he caused the deaths of many. Intergalactic Protection had commissioned Hearse to kill him. To kill Hearse's own son. Hearse had taken the offer, but not to kill Oliver. He'd taken it to warn him instead. His own boy became the one body Hearse had never delivered.

In retaliation, IP ordered Hearse's rival, Brock, to finish the job. And Brock did. Now Hearse would join Oliver, see his baby boy again after all these years. He smiled. In death, he smiled.

And you can eat my turds, Brock. Ha. Last dying thought was to flip Brock off.

No regrets.

* * *

Blackguard recoalesced with a suctioning pucker in the silent breeze. That piercing weapon Hearse wielded stung brightly when it sliced through him. But in the end, it was nothing, as useful as Power Plant's plans for a skating rink in Lord Continuum's jungle terrain.

His head reformed last. When it weaved together, he regarded the dead nuisance at his feet, highlighted in the deteriorating flares of those bothersome needles.

Hmph. He strolled off. Such a foe of no consequence.

Chapter Fourteen: Cage Match

The mood in the Tinfoil felt like a frigid weighted blanked. The silence was so solemn it buzzed. The deck smelled like fresh tar. Or was that Bad Aim's hoverdisc that he thought didn't vent?

The situation replayed for Pincushion like a brooding reflection. Like the advertisement on the Tinfoil's windshield. "Your funeral, your way. Crazy Hector's Memorials and More, where the sales never rest in peace." Apparently they used the good methanol. Apparently there was bad methanol.

Lieutenant IQ 23 had shrunk into the back, so Pincushion piloted. No, not him. A shell of him. The real Pincushion wasn't present. He felt spectral echoes of the battle they'd abandoned, in which Catastrophe…

He wiped a hand over his face to clear his thoughts and reboot his brain. Didn't work.

Lieutenant IQ 23 muttered could haves and would haves and should haves as he replayed the battle. He averted his face when Bad Aim's hoverdisc coughed up more heat. That Virillian reclined in the rear, honing his skills for the next Freaky Freestyle Frenzy, made worse because his beatboxing salivated everywhere. So much for that buzzing silence.

"Approaching the north zone." The Tinfoil dinged. The windshield's corner display clicked from blue to red as their position updated, as the arrangement of dots danced in snaps. Their dot, the one marked S for south, shifted overtop the middle courtyard, the kill box. "Add a free twenty-one-gun salute to your tearful good-bye when you purchase Crazy Hector's platinum grievance package. Offer applies until April second." Today was the sixth.

The Tinfoil dipped left around a rampart, which offered a view of the grassy expanse below. Huh? A single-file queue of people snaked through the courtyard. Steeple conducted that line, beckoning the queue forward. It ended at a yellowing hunchback with an overbite and chattering teeth Pincushion heard from up here.

"Hey," he tossed over his shoulder at a red-eyed and lifeless IQ 23. "You want to avenge your friend?"

With a shift so sluggish it groaned, IQ 23 blinked up from the floor and stopped muttering possibilities. His face finally registered life. His lip quivered. His question-mark temples quivered. They quivered yes. Ssssoooo was that an answer?

"Good. Because I want to avenge mine." Pincushion tapped a few commands into the navigation computer. Yes, haunt control, they were adding another destination to their trip. No, he didn't want to change to the quickest route. Yes, he wanted to avoid tolls and ferries. "We're boots on the ground in a minute and five." No, he didn't want to subscribe to alerts for Crazy Hector's Memorials and More and save 15 percent on his next purchase. And what was the "more" part? What market did their clientele overlap with?

"Yo yo, what be this scenario?" Bad Aim lowered his microphone and stopped beatboxing or splatterboxing or whichever boxing he did. He leaned toward the window. "Why we headed for the hot zone, killa-slayas?"

"A revenge pitstop," Pincushion said.

"A'ight a'ight a'ight a'ight." Bad Aim leaned back. He tapped a fist against his chest and popped out two fingers. "Let's Scarface some fools. Gat gat, homeboys."

Lieutenant IQ 23 had already stationed himself at the porthole. As the Tinfoil circled to find a landing position and as Pincushion tried remembering when he added a gold-hinged coffin to his order, Steeple licked his decaying lips below. The anticipation knotted in Pincushion's curling fingers, twitched at his knees. Lick away, you mummy. And when had he started an order?

The Tinfoil found its landing spot. From his position at a fountain, Steeple rubbed his hands in voracious eagerness. The hunchback down the field didn't react. His face resembled a liver-spotted furnace, his eyes void like pale grapes and yet so cavernous.

The porthole whinnied open. The embarking ramp didn't lower all the way before IQ 23 marched out. Tinfoils squatted low, so he hopped onto the grass, stomped around the right aft wing, and fired a single blast that crunched through the hunchback's skull. Blood spilled from the exit wound in clotted lumps, as if the thing were already dead. The body didn't fling back. It dropped like a pile of damp laundry. The report raced into the surrounding buildings to leave only the crinkle of the fountain peeing.

Pincushion tromped down the embarking ramp toward Steeple, whose hands shot up as if he didn't know where to run, how to explain himself. Gnarled fingers fenced his eyes, chipped fingernails on display.

He sprouted an awkward frown, something that sharpened his devil-horned cheeks and pointed chin. Inept stammers resolved into a clarification that he merely followed orderssssss and Continuum had—

Pincushion shot a quill into Steeple's dry skull. It blew a chunk out the side. His incomplete head kicked back so harshly his neck cracked. His desiccated body hit the fountain in a clamber of limbs as out of proportion as a string puppet's.

Pincushion reached Steeple and sneered down at his lost, one-eyed expression buried under cherub pee that ran dark with his thin blood.

That was for Catastrophe.

* * *

Master Asinine dropped his aim. He slid his finger off the trigger. This time. One shot toe in life was enough, and the 3D toe printer was all the way up in Cornflakes's belly.

Asinine had been on the ground only ten minutes, and already the knights ceased. Just…ceased…in midstrike and midstep and mideverything. If only Multipurpose would cease in mideating-them-out-of-house-and-home.

Silence plunged so fiercely on the IP parking lot that it hurt Asinine's ears. "Hello?" He peeped the word, nervous that any sound would kickstart the attack again. He lifted a finger and ffffffflicked it against an actionless sword. The sword bobbed. And now he had a cut.

"This ain't fun." Schizophrenic swung a lazy left hook at a knight. At Steve first, but then at a knight. The helmet clattered free. And then the rest of the armor fragmented and tumbled into a silence-shattering pile like someone had dropped the dishes in the kitchen and everybody in the restaurant went "oooooooooh" and laughed.

Bernie poked another knight, and that one disintegrated. But Bernie also kept clogging the shoe-washing station, so this wasn't his first time breaking things.

Among clangs and clatters and rattles and jangles and someone yelling "Check their wallets"—which was Asinine—the rest of the knights lost form. First at their helmets that leaned back and dislodged from their necks, then those necks, then piece by piece down to the kneecaps, the knights crumbled. The boots remained standing for a moment until they leaned into each other and clanked onto pavement.

Detritus cleared his throat in gruff scorn. "That it? They give up? I ain't used my hyperability once this entire time."

"Or ever." Schizophrenic elbowed a knight that somehow still held together. That was all it needed to clatter apart.

Luzimoss shoved a knight. It disintegrated like its lookalikes. "My others don't have experience with Continuum, but they know Steeple. Ninety-six percent chance he was killed."

Okay, enough with the knights. Master Asinine had to help Legion. He whipped out his pistol at the transparent bubble that had torn from the parking lot and grown its own ecosystem and maybe a record store. He speared a shot into it, but the shot glanced off. He fired again. "Legion, I'll bust you out if I have to give it everything I've got. Except peeing on the bubble. I'm drawing the line at peeing." He fired a third shot. "Okay, peeing is back on the table." A fourth shot, which went as well as the others. "Schizophrenic, sort the face punchability of that bubble. I want in. My bestie needs backup."

Schizophrenic swung a generic around by the ankles to obliterate an intact knight. "Tell it to take a number."

"Well, how many numbers did Steve take?"

* * *

Legion sprang aside from Continuum's next attack, a clump of hardened moss that shot out of the swampland and splattered against the scramble-space edge. Moss wasn't normally harmful, but Legion had stepped on Virillian moss once, and it had tried to step back on him.

"Why exert the energy? This is my homebase turf. Don't I have the advantage?" Continuum had readied another clump, but he dropped his hand. The clump dropped as well. He pointed a tactical-missile snarl at Legion. "You have no hope of survival here."

"I certainly don't plan to die in a place that smells like manure."

Continuum smiled. Just slightly. "You've kept your humor sense."

"It's sense of h—" Legion's gaze went so flat he felt it. "Homebase turf, humor sense. You probably pronounce it as 'shhedule,' don't you?"

"Don't you dare say 'shhedule' at my bestie!" George yelled at the bubble. He fired another shot. "Wow, this bubble's solid." He rapped his knuckles on it. "Legion, do you see a doorknob anywhere?"

Continuum pursed his lips. "Well then. Why don't we intensify the ante?" He arced his hands over his head.

"It's 'up the ante.'" Legion groaned. "See? This is exactly—Wait. I don't want to up the ante."

The ground vibrated along Legion's legs. He held his arms out to maintain balance. Bursts of mud and wet grass popped from the marshland, dirty water splashing out. Like missiles from underground silos, the heraldic robots that had decimated Station One emerged from the marsh ground. They stood at intermediate positions around the bubble's rim, arms clamped to sides, eyeless heads staring straight ahead, legs a two-columned pole, same as when they'd lain dormant on Station One.

Thirty feet tall at least, their chests whirred, and viewscreens blossomed out of each one. Those viewscreens blinked on, each with a number that plummeted down from fifteen minutes. They looked like the timer that preceded their wakeup, except they showed standard units instead of Virillian.

"What's this?" Legion checked each clock. Now at fourteen minutes and forty-six seconds, they matched apart from one that was installed upside-down. Every engineering school had someone graduating at the bottom of the class.

Continuum tucked his hands behind his back. "My heralds are fulfilling their final purpose. They serve as time bombs. Once they reach zero, everything in this scramble space will vaporize. And when I say 'time bomb,' I mean—"

"I know what you mean." Legion shook his head. "That better not be the last pun I hear."

"Your puns aren't even good enough to make my bestie's dinner." George had followed the fight around the bubble. Really driving home the bestie thing, wasn't he?

"The robots will erase spacetime inside this bubble." Continuum settled his stance, feet squishing into the marsh. "Every quark will scatter. Every particle will dissolve. I'll slip out at the last microsecond, leaving you to be separated atom by atom. To the outside, this will look like a black hole shrinking into a singularity, a zero dot. The leader of my opposition will be dead, and I'll have no further use for scramble space."

"Okay, but this messes up my summer plans." Legion grabbed his Marsek and checked it. Good enough for a few blasts. He fired at one of the robots to topple it over and figure out how to stop the timers. The blast pinged harmlessly against the robot's leg.

Continuum's laugh lit his face in nightmarish ecstasy. "How feeble your ammunition is." He flicked his wrist, and a mound of dirt careened at Legion.

Legion dodged, and the dirt popped against a robot's knee. Another mound—Legion ducked—another, as if Continuum pitched underhanded—Legion rolled aside—fired to distract Continuum—off target—it cracked against the bubble's edge and disappeared into the boundary of the two realities.

"Legion, Legion, Legion, how will you defeat me if you can't take the offensive?" Continuum strolled toward him. He lifted one hand, in it a bit of cereal that he tossed in his mouth. The nerve, snacking in battle. Legion couldn't even gnaw on a twig out here. Swamp vegetation gave him the runs.

Legion hopped up, punched, struck—Continuum took it in the chest—countered, cracked a palm across Legion's face—a hot snap—Legion felt as if his cheekbone had fractured. He collapsed but rolled aside and sprang up and fired. Continuum slashed the air to erase the light-bullet before it struck. Legion kicked away on the moss and mud.

"I can kill you in literally no time." Continuum crossed his arms. "I can fold space inside you and squash you in a zero-dimensional point. I can stretch your concept of time into infinity so you never move again." He bent down to pluck a single daisy that grew to meet him in this wild of grass. He sniffed the daisy and then tossed it aside. It withered before it hit the ground. "I can increase gravity at your ankles and reduce it at your head to watch you rip apart."

"You can keep talking and bore me to death." Legion put the Marsek in its holster.

A datasheet appeared next to Continuum, in which he jotted a note. "Keep…talking…bore…Legion…t—"

"I was kidding!"

"Fine." The datasheet disappeared in a poof. "I can do anything." Continuum dusted his shoulder of leaves that had drifted onto it. He reached Legion and loomed down. "Don't you see? You have no recourse."

Legion rammed a fist into Continuum's crotch—bounded away—nowhere to wash his hands after an attack that personal.

Continuum blinked in stupefaction. He whirled that stupefaction around at Legion. "Seriously? Are you thirteen?"

"Not even a crotch punch? That works on half of everybody!" Legion flapped his fingers in the air, knuckles throbbing. "That hurt me more than it hurt you."

Continuum swatted him. He stood ten feet away, but his backhand cracked into Legion in a fold of space. Not even keeping distance helped. Legion smacked into a tree stump. He felt a loose tooth. Nope. Not loose. He spat it out on a thick ribbon of blood. He oozed to his hands and knees, but Continuum was on him and kicked him in the solar plexus. He struck the bubble wall and splashed back down into brackish water.

Everything dimmed: sight, smell, taste, the gas gurgling in his stomach. Had he blacked out? His senses returned. Too bad, because so did the noxious odor of manure. He coughed out more blood. The audience stared up with faces that swirled along the bubble's surface.

The robots showed four minutes.

Legion managed his hands under him, struggled to a kneel, clutched a clump of dirt—

He whirled and smacked it across Continuum's eyes. Continuum stumbled back, hands up, his next cereal morsel dropping off his lip. He wiped the dirt away. "You seek to blind me? And you've wasted a Crunch Berry."

Legion whipped his Marsek out, fired, punched a gash into and through Continuum's sternum, right side. Where he'd aimed. For once. It sailed into the distance and tapped against the scramble-space bubble. Continuum's shirt flapped, and a ribbon sagged down to reveal the entry wound. A gash of red stained Continuum's pants. Continuum seemed unfazed by his heightened laundry bill.

"Blind me so you can land a shot. Aren't you as slippery as a mule?"

"Slippery as an eel. Or stubborn as a mule, but I'll take slippery."

"You'll take another hit." Continuum crunched a backhand across Legion so hard Legion bit his tongue. Legion spun and smacked the edge of scramble space again. His cheek crackled.

Something yanked him up by the collar—Continuum—and battered his face. And again. Knuckles dug into his nostrils, his mouth, his shut eyes. Everything felt puffy.

Continuum threw him down and cranked his hand sharply to the side. Legion's leg snapped in the wrong direction, brittle like a tree branch. Another wrist jerk, and the leg snapped in the opposite direction. Legion clutched at the ground, clenched a rock so hard it cut into his flesh.

Continuum slammed his boot onto Legion's broken leg. Legion coiled up at his waist and splashed back into the soggy ground. His eyes landed on the robots. Three minutes and sixteen seconds.

Continuum stepped off. Legion rolled over and gripped the bone. It was a bag of shards. His kneecap shifted unnaturally. Ugh. He grasped at a twiggy sapling to heave himself onto his good leg. He slashed at Continuum with his rock, but Continuum's hand sweep deflected his swing.

Continuum popped another bit of cereal in his mouth and savored it on his tongue. "Mmmm. Once I'm done with you, I think I'll pay a visit to each of your friends. Individually. First your lieutenants, Pincushion and Plastique. I'll twist them through eleven dimensions. You know there are eleven natural dimensions, right? Scramble space is the twelfth."

"Is that why it smells like a horse's stall in here?"

"Then your field agents. Who still lives? Ace Spandex, Power Plant, Sixth Sense, Organism, Incendiary…Oh, Franchise. He'll amuse me. I'll regress him to his cowardly days and watch him squirm." Continuum tapped his chin. "Does Reef still count? After them, I'll travel back in time and visit your hero, Patton. Then Sopher, just so I can watch you fail again." The amusement on Continuum's face sparked a twisted grin. His words sounded moist, his mouth watering. "I'll finish with your old bestie, Master Asinine. He'll be the last"—his voice dropped to a raspy rumble—"and he'll be the slowest."

"You stay away!" Despite his leg, Legion pounced. He tackled Continuum, and delivered a crunch to the face with his rock, another, another, another—George would lose count here—another. Each blow split Continuum open, bruised his cheek, gashed his chin, knocked out a tooth, burst an eye, caved in his nose. Legion plunged the rock into Continuum's sternum, pried the light-bullet wound wider, wriggled it around, and slammed it into the flesh. He slapped it farther in.

All the while, Continuum cackled. Continuum's head was a cracked eggshell of blood…and he cackled. He threw Legion away and swung onto his feet as if his heels were on hinges. He popped another snack in. His face sealed like in a time-lapse video. Was Continuum reversing time on his face? No one respected a good beating anymore. His nose pushed back out, his gashes sealed, his eye reinflated, his tooth folded out of his gums. But more slowly with each step. And his sternum still oozed with the rock poking out. He'd left the rock in.

"That was cute, Legion." Continuum ate another cereal bit. He clutched himself, aching from so much laughter. "That was really cute." The laugh subsided to a drawn-out sigh. He looked up at a timer. "Too bad we have to wrap this up. My heralds have reached two minutes. I don't have much more time to play with you, and I grow eager to kill the cogs down below. I could increase the timers, but"—he shrugged—"there's so much spacetime to repair. So, alas, I must bid you ado."

Legion winced.

"Bid you adu?"

Winced more.

"Bid y—"

"Just…" Legion massaged the space between his eyes. "Just stop trying. It's better for us both."

"Fine. Good-bye, Legion. My only regret is you won't exist long enough to witness everyone else die." Continuum smirked. Blinked. Waited. Blinked again. Frowned. Grunted in exertion. "Why am I not leaving?"

Now Legion laughed. "Looks as if your hyperability ran out."

Continuum grunted again as his robots reached thirty seconds. "What do you mean it ran out? That doesn't happen."

Legion grabbed a branch that looked sturdy enough, leaned into it, and heaved onto one foot. He limped toward Continuum.

"It doesn't run out, cog." Continuum tensed his muscles tightly, as if teleporting away took physical effort and clenched buttocks and a nose twitch. This resulted in a grimace as he clutched his wound.

Legion poked a finger into Continuum's neck. Hit his chest instead. It was the height difference. "I don't have a hyperability, but I lead a team of hyperpeople. Well, I try to, but Power Plant's outside even my capacity. Anyway, I've become an expert on hypermedicine. I know exactly where the hypergland is that secretes the hormone that gives you your hyperability. It's the size of a pea, and it sits in your sternum, near the thymus." He pointed at the slash in Continuum's sternum, where the dagger rock poked out. "You were too focused on me that you never healed the bullet hole when you still had energy. Your hypergland is too damaged, and it can't produce any more hormone. I blindsided you. How feeble is my ammunition now?"

Continuum slapped the rock away. "No." He waved at the robots as they reached twenty seconds. "That's impossible. I'm a god. You hear me? A god!" He yelled so loudly, panicked so passionately that flecks of spit rained out. On Legion's face. Nice manners. "You can't kill a god!"

"There's only one god around here." Legion caught a glint of lamplight off the necklace George wore below. Sopher's old necklace. "And you aren't Him."

He dived at Continuum. Continuum's head cracked against the scramble-space boundary. No need for a killing blow, but this sure felt good. He grabbed the rock and slashed down at Continuum's eye—

Continuum grabbed his wrist. Face to face, they struggled against each other. It felt like pushing against a wall. Continuum smiled through his clenched teeth. He pressed Legion's arm up. "Fine. As long as you die with me. At least I take pleasure in the fact that your atoms will shrink to nothing. You will become nonexistent, and spacetime will break down around your friends without me to repair it. If I can't conquer spacetime, I will let no one have it." He leaned up at Legion, ravenous eyes on fire.

"You haven't won. You've lost in an infinite way, you insignificant cog. It's true what they say." He grunted as he forced Legion's hand up, his smirk edging his cheeks. His words were moist from his bloodthirst. "Good Guys finish last."

Legion's nostrils flared. "That's nice guys." He wrenched his arm free—"And I'm not a nice guy"—and plunged the rock deep into Continuum's forehead.

Continuum slouched against the boundary. His head lolled aside as his neck kinked at a ridiculous angle. As his body flopped against the ground. As the light trickled out of his distant eyes. As the timers reached ten seconds.

As Legion put his hand against the boundary and peered down at the crowd staring back up. Everyone gathered. Pincushion climbed out of a hole in the curtain wall. Power Plant and Franchise scrabbled out of Chug despite gashing wounds. Ace Spandex and Plastique wandered closer. Good Guys, Bad Guys, Blowtorch, Luzimoss, face-beaten generics, a baboon that had roamed over and turned out to be a face-beaten generic.

Legion peered down at George. George who never gave up on him, who never gave up on their friendship. Despite fighting on opposite ends of this war, George never stopped believing in their brotherhood, or being in Legion's corner, or inviting him to slam poetry nights on Station Zilcho. George had even saved his life against Mechanism.

Legion had had the opportunity to kill George with a sniper shot once. One easy sniper round when George was unaware. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't pull the trigger.

And for once, the gunshot that had killed Sopher years ago, the one that banged through his mind every time he looked at George, every time he felt that impending failure to save Sopher's life…it didn't ring out. Its report didn't accuse Legion of failure.

As the timers reached five. Legion smiled, a slight smile at the corners of his mouth. He reached up and tapped his two forefingers on the scramble-space boundary.

As the timers reached three. George wiped his eye. He smiled back. He stifled a sob that bobbed his chin…approached…raised his forefingers…tapped them against the bubble. Against Legion's fingers.

As the timers reached one.

Good-bye, Legion thought to himself but really to George, bestie.

As the timers reached zero.

* * *

Sound and wind whooshed at the bubble, like physics sucking into a point. The bubble erupted in a vivid blitz that overwhelmed all the senses. Especially common sense. Master Asinine shielded himself and swooned into Schizophrenic's arms. Schizophrenic dodged away.

When the blitz abated, when sound settled, he waited another second…two…three…four…the next number after four…before risking one eye open. The bubble hung dazzling in midair, and then it shrank into a fleck and disappeared. Asinine scampered back, staring raptly at the gap it left.

Gone.

Wind drifted normally again.

Master Asinine reached toward where the bubble had been. And still was, right? It was invisible. Not gone. Just invisible. Right? His hand passed through empty space.

No.

It was gone.

Gone with Legion.

He blinked.

"Legion?"

No one was there.

"Bestie?"

No one answered.

"You there?"

No one ever would.

His lower lip crawled under his upper lip and quivered as if hiding under bedsheets from monsters or the cleaningbot Schizophrenic painted with a jagged face and programmed to clatter in at four in the morning.

Nobody among them breathed. Nobody moved. Nobody except Schizophrenic, who had faces to sort and re-sort.

Finally Pincushion left the castle's curtain wall where Mustache Dad still hung. He spilled forward on teetering legs, speaking only one creaking word. "Legion? Brother?" Two creaking words. "You there?" Okay, never mind the exact count.

Sorrow swelled Asinine's throat, clogged his heavy heart, weighed his plummeting stomach.

Something shifted at the curtain wall again. Lieutenant IQ 23 emerged. His face matched Asinine's. Bad Aim whirred through next and tilted to fit his hoverdisc under Mustache Dad's stretched arm. Asinine waited a something-second count. Nobody else emerged.

"Lieutenant?"

With despondency, IQ 23 acknowledged Asinine.

"Where's Braindead?"

A moment. And finally a shake of the head. Master Asinine sank to the ground. Oh, no.

A roar bludgeoned out from the left of the curtain wall. A maroon shape zippered through miniature scrapyards of armor, a lopsided blur wobbling on two uneven supports. It zigzagged toward them in a thick line that slashed across a generic, slit the dude across the chest, then another, and finally dived at Asinine. Hands out, that guy in the bodystocking with no idea about fashion gripped Asinine's throat. And "no idea about fashion" was coming from Asinine, who wore his pants backward as many times as forward. Upside down once.

The maroon outfit was charred, torn, draping off scorched limbs, sizzling with a nip of singed cloth. The blades that lined his sleeves and legs had melted against the fabric. Part of his mask had burned away, and underneath was molten skin and missing hair. His leg hung weirdly, and his arm flopped with the bone spearing out of the skin.

"You crocking pinkos. All of you." He knocked Asinine's head against the pavement. "I had the promise. I was gonna be immortal. And then alla you pissed it away!" Knocked it again. He pressed the edge of his exposed bone against Asinine's throat.

Salmon fingers gripped his skull like someone palming a basketball. The hand swung him overhead and cracked him against the pavement. Swung up and down again. Gripped his head and twisted. Something snapped. The body flopped against the pavement.

Plaster stood over the corpse. "You can't imagine for how long I wanted t' do that. Sucks I can't fart in his goulash no more." He squatted over the body. "Gives me an idea what I can do right now, though."

* * *

"And don't spell 'ten'?" Plastique jotted a note into her datasheet.

"No. Type out the digit." Pincushion wrinkled his nose at the fumes wafting through the parking lot. The Nemesis had landed downfield.

Plastique wandered off. "Most ridiculous dying wish ever."

Around Pincushion, the generics began filing toward the elevator airfoil that led up to The Nemesis. They didn't file toward the cockpit airfoil. There was a sign above another airfoil that said SERVANTS ENTRANCE. In the criminal underworld, the class system still reigned.

Thanks to Alex, Pincushion had reloaded. He clicked his pistol at Master Asinine. With all this talk about fundamental forces and other physics hoodoo, he wasn't sure if he should shoot or if a stupidity hole would suck his light-bullet up. Worse yet, it could deflect back at him. Would he spend the rest of his life too stupid to know how to spell? Chills. Chills right down to the marrow.

"Master Asinine, by order of Intergalactic Protection, I'm placing you under arrest." Pincushion clasped his pistol more tightly. "And you'll have to dress normally." That should register.

It didn't. Asinine pulled himself onto a cluster of exploded castle brick. He sat grieving at the chewed-up pavement, hands folded between his knees.

"Asinine?" Pincushion lowered his pistol. "You in there?"

Snort. The unmistakably husky grunt of Schizophrenic's left head rumbled behind his shoulder. "You won't get a word out of him."

Asinine shuddered and slouched more. In that vacated head of his, he was lost. More lost than ever.

Pincushion felt…sorry…for him.

"You ain't arresting anybody today." Schizophrenic stepped around to Pincushion's left. He put his hands on his hips and snorted again. Righty stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes. "Look around. We still got a good fifteen hundred pairs o' fists over and above you, and Multipurpose isn't getting in the way anymore." A spread of red outfits was the backdrop. So much red.

"And pairs of pants." Righty made another face.

Lefty slapped Righty. "Pull yourself together. We're making a point." He turned back to Pincushion and popped a toothpick into his mouth. "This is a training campus. You got enough holding space for everybody at a training campus?"

Righty yanked in a gasp. "Do you have memory pillows in your brig?"

Lefty slapped Righty's cheek again. It sounded like striking a match. "You're sleeping on a memory brick." Content that Righty was properly slapped—after another—he poked his chin at Master Asinine. "Hey, brainpower outage, I don't know how to fly that preposterous rooster, so time to get on board."

Asinine took that order. So silently, so lifelessly, he lifted off the crunched stone and dragged his feet to the airfoil. The servants' entrance, but at least it led up.

Schizophrenic funneled a yell at IQ 23 by the crumbling curtain wall. "Hey, Lieutenant Asinine's IQ, we're blowin' this place."

Though hunched and dripping with sorrow, Lieutenant IQ 23 scraped along the stones to the airfoil as well. Yes, the servants' entrance. He fell in behind Asinine.

"See you guys at the next beating." When Schizophrenic passed Pincushion, he gave a hearty crack against the back, enough to cause Pincushion to stagger.

Pincushion caught his breath in time to see Reef pass. "Whoa, Reef. Where are you going, brother?" He grabbed Reef's arm, right above a tourniquet. "You're home now."

Reef stopped. His eyes found Pincushion's hand on his shoulder and followed his arm up. "Thanks." He flinched his chin at the line filing into The Nemesis. "But I'm a generic. Asinine throws us into the meat grinder every time he comes up with a new shiny scheme. We're done with that. Somebody has to keep us safe from his next calamity. And to teach him our names. Seems I've been nominated as that somebody." He plucked Pincushion's hand off his shoulder—"Till next time, brother"—and shook it.

He got in line. Not to the servants' entrance.

Part 5: The Part with the Denouement, Which Is a Fancy Way of Saying Everyone Goes Home

Chapter One: Victories and Cankers

Pincushion watched The Nemesis roar into the sky and dwindle into a dot. His legs twitched, and his hand shuddered to smack something. Anything. Where was Better Than You?

A breeze hushed through the weeds surrounding the lot, but it still felt muggy out here. Crock. They had the Bad Guys. They had them. And he let them go. But Schizophrenic was right. Arrogant and antagonistic and a litterbug, but right. Citizen Watch logged a smidge over 1,500 members for the Bad Guys. The Good Guys had eight survivors. Even with Blowtorch's and Luzimoss's help, what could they do? The Intergalactic Protection solders stumbled around, still woozy from Steeple's mind control, so they'd provide no help. A cadet wandered around literally moaning "woozy." And how would they imprison all 1,500 Bad Guys here? He kicked a reserved-parking sign. He had them! Was there a door around here he could slam?

Blast it. He could have at least arrested Asinine on the charge of wearing a pirate shirt once. He'd never seen it, but knowing Asinine, it had to have happened.

The Nemesis's engine rumble washed away in the breeze as footsteps scraped the pavement. Plastique appeared beside him, scrolling through a datasheet with a flick of her finger. "These movies are two hours apiece! There's no way I'm sitting through that much throat demolishing without a crotch demolishing thrown into the mix." Another flick. "How much could you possibly demolish a throat, anyway?"

She rapped her fist on the datasheet to deactivate it and followed Pincushion's line of sight to The Nemesis's smoke contrails dissipating in the twilight. "So they're gone." She stuffed the datasheet away. "Just like that."

"Just like that, sister." Pincushion's fingernails bit into his sweaty palm. Yeah, just like crocking that.

Just like Legion. Rest in peace, brother. I hope we did you proud.

Hanging a hand off the back of his neck, he forced himself away from the sky. He detected a trash fire somewhere but then realized Chug was clearing its engine. "Ssssoooo what now?"

"What do you mean?" Plastique asked.

Pincushion rocked his leg to ease out a squeak in his metal knee. "Well, the Good Guys need a new leader. We still have to tally the casualties. I have no idea how we'll clean up that canine corpse without our hands melting off, not to mention the dead dragon downfield who might weigh more than Multipurpose. There's still the matter of a butler selling us tea." He avoided the curtain wall of the castle from where Legacy held up a mug, winking at him. And wearing a baby bonnet. "And we're homeless."

Plastique scoffed. "Let Workshop lead. Maybe that'll shut her up. Then again, maybe she'll think it's"—cue Workshop imitation—"'superfierce, oh my cool, giggle giggle.'" She snorted for emphasis. "Col. Daddy would superfierce a bayonet up her crock."

Pincushion scratched his arm. It still itched from the quills regrowing.. "She'd last as long as Jeff's counseling agency did."

"Name's Jeffy!" What the—Where did that bellow come from? It scared an owl out of a tree.

Pincushion checked the crowd. Ace Spandex, Franchise, Incendiary, and Amaranthia collected by a line of mil-trans. Amaranthia had hung back when the Bad Guys left. Sixth Sense and Organism sat on a median. Sixth Sense nursed a hangover from so many stray thoughts jamming together. The members of Blowtorch crowded around the engine-coughing Chug, with Puttyman and H2O assessing dents in the nose cone. Better Than You, Workshop, and Klee looked as if they didn't know what to do, so nothing strange there. Luzimoss secluded himself on the grass by the campus reception. Drifts of IP soldiers coasted aimlessly in stupors. Amaranthia yelled at one to stop "cramming her air with his gitch."

"We're the highest-ranking Good Guys now. Leadership duty falls to one of us." Pincushion rubbed his bottom lip. Plastique found his eyes and cleared her throat. They stood in a silent stalemate.

Fingers shot at noses—"Not it"—simultaneous shout.

"Hey, babe, whatever you ain't, I'll fill in that gap." An air of grease slunk in from behind them like a grinning serpent. Success Party slithered an arm around Plastique's shoulders and nudged her in. "So long as you don't slick your bottom-rank hypercrock all over my grade-A charm."

Plastique flipped his arm off and squirmed her fingers into his wrist. Her fingernails were spades. Success Party contorted to the ground so quickly his bones clicked. A silent scream fought to escape him.

"I told you, Gord, I'm with someone," she breathed into his ear.

Success Party clutched at his arm. "Okay, okay, I read ya, fine, okay, fine, you're with Nerd-o-Tron—"

"His name is Aaron." She dug more deeply.

"Okay, okay, got it, that's cool—"

"Say his name, Gord."

"A—" Success Party choked.

"Say it."

"Aaron. It's Aaron." He choked again and then said louder, "It's Aaron!"

Plastique released him. "Protect your pressure points, Gord."

Success Party threw his arm against his chest and rubbed the welts below his wrist. "Aw, babe, that's my high-five arm you shanked." He hobbled to a Flagstar, plopped against it, and blew on his arm. Puttyman passed by, so Success Party whacked his sleeve and asked, "Hombre, you packing any healing gel?"

Pincushion glanced at the castle in the middle of the campus. From the rampart, Legacy flaunted his tea kettle and winked again. How could you move a castle off a lot?

He shook his head at Plastique. "I nominate literally anyone but Gord."

* * *

Footsteps crunched closer, so Organism looked up to find a silhouette outlined by rising moonlight. He and Sixth Sense sat on a median, feet on the pavement, Sixth Sense's head sagging between his knees while his cheeks curdled to shades of beige-green Organism had seen only in oil stains. He leaked heavy moans.

"Hey, dudes." Puttyman crouched. He favored one shoulder, which was wrapped in a gel compress. His hands dipped off his knees, one of them holding a brain. Odd handbag, but okay. Odd, foul-smelling handbag. With something leaking inside. Must have been a knockoff. Had someone left an orange in there from last decade? Puttyman twitched a cheek at Sixth Sense but said to Organism, "Is he okay? He looks like a sock I tie off leaky motors with."

Organism shuffled on to his left side to rest his right side. It had started to twinge. "Some stray thoughts are still lingering from the Bad Guys. He's absorbing so many of them that he thinks he's a nadon. What's a nadon?"

"I don't know, but it can't be good for your pancreas." Puttyman regarded Sixth Sense the same way Organism regarded latrines. "Anyway, I've got a favor to ask, dude." He lifted the brain Organism no longer suspected was an odd handbag. "This is the aswang's brain. If this touches the heart, the aswang will resurrect, and then we'll have a few dozen noise violations on our hands."

Organism was way off with the word odd.

"We're keeping the heart with us so it never comes in contact with the brain. Never." That word was so absolute it raised Puttyman's eyebrows. "I'm wondering if the Good Guys can safeguard the brain, keep these organs on separate planets. Maybe separate galaxies.

"We're trying to prevent IP from reneging on the Hyperability Injunction. So it might be a boneheaded move to give the brain to you guys, since you're right under their noses. But the most important thing is to keep it separate from the heart. I'm not about to hand it over to the Gooder Guys, and I don't really know Luzimoss, so you're our only option. As long as you don't tell the top brass, we'll be fine."

Organism curled his toes at the sight of what Puttyman held. He spoke as clearly as he could without inhaling the odor. "Why not hurl it into a star?" Oh, phuh. That burned right into his nose like gasoline fumes. He shuddered.

Puttyman said, "We tried once. Launched it into Genesis with a pretty bow. It showed up next to the heart a few hours later. Same thing the other way around. This thing is otherworldly, so it doesn't respect the usual rules." Behind him, Maul yanked out some grass and sniffed it. It evidently passed a test, because he stuffed it into the weapon he held. "Maul doesn't respect the usual rules either."

Sixth Sense dry-heaved as if he were regurgitating his stomach. Clutching his side, he peeped up with a face like semigelled gruel and a chin that hung against his collar. "Uh. Hrrk. Okay. We'll guard it." He took the brain and resumed moaning at the pavement. "Oh, wait. Not good. It's the smell. Not good." There went his lunch. Same color as his complexion. Same color as the curb too.

"Thanks, dudes. This makes me feel a whole lot safer." Puttyman patted Sixth Sense's shoulder. This kickstarted Sixth Sense into showering the pavement again. Puttyman jittered back. "Sorry. That was my blunder."

Sixth Sense mustered the energy to give him the "it's okay" hand raise.

Puttyman chopped a quick salute. "I'm gonna take off before Maul tries stuffing a tree into his weapon. Catch you at the next big brawl."

A snorty guffaw trundled across the lot: Better Than You trying hard to impress someone. "Oh, and him?" Puttyman watched him attempt a stunt that ended with him on a Fireball hood. "Go easy on Better Than You. He's"—and then ended with him on the Fireball forewing—"working through some stuff." And then the pavement.

"Okay, I'm off. Organism, keep in touch." Puttyman headed back toward Chug.

Organism leaped off the curb and grabbed Puttyman's shoulder, the one not wrapped. When Puttyman stopped—oh, boy—he realized he wasn't ready for this conversation. He pretended to find the ground interesting. Ants carried off pieces of Sixth Sense's undigested carrots. Not the sort of interesting he meant.

He scraped his foot over a malfunctioning lane divider. It crinkled in and out and back in to show Legacy wafting the aroma of tea into his clipart nostrils. "Hey, uhm, Puttyman?"

Puttyman winked behind his sunglasses. "My media name's for the media, dude. Call me Jeff. Or dude. Or Deff." He gasped. "That opens up a whole new world of nicknames."

"Last time I called someone Jeff, he insisted it was Jeffy. And then he started slapping open mustard packets against a wall." Organism sucked his lip. How to ask? "I…uh…I was thinking about what you said earlier. Yesterday. We elastic dudes need to stick together. Right? I…uhm…well…" Crock, he could mold and unmold his backbone. Why couldn't he grow one?

"My dad was the one who insisted I accept Legion's offer to join the Good Guys. I joined to make him happy, but honestly, it terrified me. I never thought I was built for it. I never felt like I belonged. My dad's gone now, and there's"—long exhalation as he examined the others in the lot—"nothing really left for me here." Organism's palms felt sweaty. Where was that backbone? "I was wondering if I can come with you guys." He faced Puttyman. "If that's okay."

"Well." Puttyman put a hand to his chin. "We have a rigorous screening process. Besides, our schedule is pretty heavy right now. We're in high demand. A lot of trotting across galaxies, making mall appearances, press conferences, kissing babies, inventing nicknames with the word dude in them." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels. "You think you can keep up with our rigorous space tour?"

Organism tilted his head. "Really?"

"Ha, no. I'm yanking your chain. Imagine Maul kissing a baby." The mirth lighting Puttyman simmered down. "We do suddenly have an opening available, though. Aaaannnndddd we could use some help keeping an eye on the aswang's heart." He held his shoulders back. "You up for it, kid?"

"Definitely." Organism bobbed on his toes. He felt like laughing. For the first time in years, he actually felt like laughing. "And call me Alvin. Or Dalvin."

"All right. You're in." Puttyman led the way to Chug and all the seagulls dropping to the pavement from her exhaust.

* * *

Power Plant sat on a concrete divider directly under the cone of a streetlamp that clicked on. His own personal spotlight. And with moths clapping into it. Marvelous.

His posture had curled in on itself. His gaze dipped to a couple bugs fighting over a morsel of carrot. Ants in combat was the best thing he'd seen since he saw two raccoons slap-fighting over a banana peel. This time he wasn't filming it, though.

So.

The hyperability to not die.

The hyperability to live forever.

Just perfect.

The autopsies might tickle.

The wind was chilly but felt frigid to him. His arm felt heavy when he flicked away a tear. He sniffled back more of the same.

Someone plunked down beside him. And winced. "Ow. Being indestructible doesn't save you from sharp objects." The Trader plucked a rock out from under himself. He tossed it, and it cracked against a Fireball's window. "Whoops." He didn't seem to care.

"Fight's over. What ya still doing here?" Power Plant wiped his cheek with a sleeve. "Right. I forgot. Showin' up after the fights is done is your thing."

"I wanted to see how everything turned out." The Trader leaned back. "Fine, it seems. Glad I could help." He slapped his hands on his knees. "Guess I'll go…home? Wherever that is now." He glanced at Continuum's castle. "I'm sure as crock not living on a parking lot like a vagrant pulling in with his trailer." He bent forward to stand—

Power Plant grabbed his sleeve. "Kamikaze's hyperability. I ain't wants it. You can't give it to me if I ain't wants it. That's a rule, right?"

The Trader tried to wrest his sleeve away, but Power Plant clutched more tightly. "There are no rules. This isn't estate law."

And more tightly, tightly enough so the Trader couldn't escape. This guy who appeared and disappeared everywhere. Okay, fine, nobody could accuse Power Plant of deep thought. "I said take it away."

The Trader examined Power Plant, which still gripped his sleeve like a woodworking vice. He looked solemn under the supervising light of the lamp. He drew a profound breath and slipped on a robotic smile as if he activated a program. "'Fraid not, friend."

The cords in Power Plant's neck bunched together. "'Fraid so, friend." He charged his hand.

"You're going to blast the indestructible guy?" The Trader examined Power Plant's glowing grip. "Let me explain something. The opportunity to live forever would appeal at least a little to every single person here. You? You look petrified of it." He scraped a foot along the pavement. "So I have to ask: why so eager for me to take it away?"

Power Plant kept staring at the Trader emblazoned under the streetlamp. "I don'ts haveta explain myself."

"I see." The Trader placed his hands on his lap. "I don't know what you think is waiting for you on the other side, but you seem way too eager to go looking for it." He peered across the lot, and Power Plant followed his gaze to Franchise trotting in from a field. Franchise slapped a high-five with Ace Spandex on his way to present a flower to Amaranthia. Ace Spandex and Plastique cuddled against each other on a mil-tran's nose cone. "Like it or not, you'd leave a lot of people behind who want you to stick around."

"Why don't I pay you a visit in a few months," he said, "and see if you're a little cheerier?"

Finger by finger, Power Plant eased his hand open.

"Well, this is odd." The Trader stood up. "I'm not beholden to Continuum anymore. I'm free. I never felt freedom before." He arched his back. "It feels exciting. And it smells like industrial fumes."

He patted Power Plant's shoulder. "I'll see you later. Promise." Without a sound, he disappeared between blinks.

When he visited next time, Power Plant would teach him how to walk places.

* * *

Janice eye-functioned her entity Acey and entity Plastique seated on a hood, a Flagstar series X80 mil-tran with two midwings, three landing trestles, a thirty-foot wingspan, Astroglass viewports, and an AI pilot named Product Key 8KK9-13L1-0W9P-A24F-NW75, which had the processor of a Neanderthal. Entity Acey held hand peripherals with that man-stealing entity Plastique. Right in plain graphics! How change-her-status-to-dating dare she? Janice's red-light vision setting darkened. Her coolant fan whizzed into high gear as her system heat rose. Entity Acey was her entity boyfriend.

She narrowed her camera viewpoint. If only entity Acey weren't equipped with virus-protection software, she'd install herself on him, and they'd function together forever. If only. Entity Man Stealer should return to nonregistered entity ex-boyfriend whose attitude seemed stuck on maximum. Then entity Acey would download Janice into his mainframe.

She executed her sigh function. If she'd been equipped with a heart hardware unit, it would have crashed and failed operation. She wasn't. Good thing. She heard hearts beat you.

"Janice, acknowledge," entity Incendiary said. Janice measured his nerve levels. They were elevated. It felt like a buzz. "Uh, now that this is all over…Ugh. How can I put this so it doesn't sound paranoid? Uh, well, do you still plan to exterminate all of us?"

Execute function huh? All background procedures ceased so she could handle processing the command-line query. "Define collective entity 'all of us.'" Out of the corner of her camera, Acey shifted along the Flagstar hood to nuzzle closer to entity Man Stealer. The harlot.

"Janice, acknowledge. Do you still plan to exterminate collective entity Good Guys? Like…how nervous should I be now that you're in my armor?"

Execute function ha! She'd recently downloaded a laugh upgrade, and she used it proudly. "Are you changing your status to silly, entity Incendiary? I performed that macro only because entity Acey failed to return to location Station One when his calendar data said he should. Now that entity Acey's here, there's no need to kill collective entity Good Guys or clog collective location kitchen pipes with magnesium explosives."

"Wait, clog what now?"

"Execute your never-mind function." Janice zoomed into entity Acey. Into entity Man Stealer. She played her growl sound file to herself and armed entity Incendiary's needle missiles.

Entity Incendiary stood ramrod straight. "Janice, did you activate something?"

"Execute your never-mind function again." Janice placed a targeting sight on her camera and launched her emotion sensor. Entity Man Stealer felt 84 percent excitement. She had some nerve software stealing Janice's man entity. Systems: locked.

Entity Acey shifted into her camera viewpoint. Janice's emotion sensor gesticulated with new readings. His readings. They were well within operating parameters, more so than any other time she'd scanned him. He operated with excitement as well, same as entity Man Stealer. Giddiness. Peace. Bliss. Googly joy. Janice executed her sigh function again. Entity Acey was set to happy.

Crock.

Janice erased the targeting sight and disarmed the needle missiles. Her task manager registered jealousy processes, which emanated from her system core to the end devices of entity Incendiary's armor. Entity Acey was happy.

Execute function sniffle. Her sadness filter didn't meet the minimum software requirements for this. Entities Acey and Man Stealer holding hand peripherals, launching kiss macros. Did living things execute this stuff all the time? Flesh devices sucked.

Janice didn't know if her system could perform at these levels for long periods, and her troubleshooting manual was no longer online. She could short out. "Entity Incendiary, what's your relationship status?"

"Did you just ask me what's my relationship status?"

"It's a simple status query. I'm not sure how else to parse it. Would you like me to speak it in a Fleeson language?"

"No, please. They yell a lot. Uh…" Entity Incendiary rubbed his forehead though he couldn't feel it through his armor. "I'm single. Incurably, incurably single."

"Oh." Cozy hope replaced Janice's sadness processes. She flip-flip-flipped through her control panel, tumbling down menus and options and storages displayed as ones and zeroes. While she was at it, she cleaned a few nasty words about entity Man Stealer from her clipboard. She found the focus setting in her software. And switched it to entity Incendiary.

Her display's red-light setting lifted. Her camera viewpoint watched entity Ace Spandex and entity Plastique hold peripherals with…with no filtering.

But entity Incendiary now…entity Eddy. Janice's coolant fan droned on again. Purrrr. "Entity Eddy, let's go someplace more out of signal range." She switched entity Eddy's relationship status from single to plural and ran his stride macro.

"What? Janice? Janice, acknowledge." Entity Eddy marched off the parking lot into the night field with no other entities but the cicadas and this deer bone he'd stepped on. "Janice, acknowledge. Why are you taking me out to a dark and isolated field?"

Ahh. This performed nicely. Forget downloading onto entity Ace Spandex's mainframe. Entity Eddy's armor felt like home now. And there was no installation like home.

"Janice, please don't exterminate me."

Chapter Two: Management Negotiations

In a furious thrust that almost flung you off your feet, The Nemesis plunged into deep space, leaving the IP campus and the Good Guys behind. Destination: Station Zilcho.

The cockpit wallowed in silence except the bleeping of computers and the creaking of the walls. Klook didn't even play a demon-screaming guitar solo or summoned the dead or whatever fiendish haunt controls did.

With Reef's memories skulking back, merging old life and new life in baby steps, the toggle switch between first and third person had clacked permanently into third.

He couldn't wait to tear out of IP. The Good Guys' gazes rolled over him so much it felt like a shattered massage ball abrading his skin. The ten minutes Master Asinine and Lieutenant IQ 23 took to grab a stretcher from the infirmary, collect Braindead's body, and bring it aboard felt like ten years. They'd have grabbed Multipurpose's body, but they didn't feel like it.

Master Asinine now sat lifelessly among the calamity of seats Continuum's tarry deputy had reduced to rubble. He had entered the cockpit like a full-lobotomy victim. He was that before, but now he didn't squeal at shiny things. Reef had steered him into the cockpit, and he lowered himself onto a chair. Not even an intact one. It had cushioning, but not in the right places. Next to him snored Wasted while Detritus slept draped over two chairs with his butt hanging off the gap between them. Deeper into the rear, Appetite ate toothpaste.

Reef hunched in front of Asinine, snapping his fingers at that deserted expression. "Asinine. Hey." Snap, snap. "I need a response." Not that Master Asinine's responses were worthwhile before, but now he was vacant.

"You won't get anything outta him for a long time. And nothing useful for a long…ever." At the windshield, Schizophrenic snorted. He stood against the controls, arms crossed, foot propped against a dashboard panel. He removed a toothpick from his mouth and forced it into Righty's, then slid his foot off the panel and plunked it to the floor. That startled Detritus awake, and he convulsed off his chairs.

"If you thought he was vapid already, this is a new low. And trust me. I know vapid." Schizophrenic poked a thumb at Righty. Poked Righty's eye but still at Righty.

"I'm a vapid." Righty beamed. Then he choked the toothpick up.

Reef stormed over to a wall. "Just great. With the truce over, the Good Guys will be hot to come after us. We need to wake Asinine up. He knows how to control Station Zilcho's defenses and how to switch out the perfume guns for…Well, literally anything else is better. Cologne guns even." He frowned. "Aftershave guns."

"He ain't fit to lead anymore. Also before. But at least he tried before. I think that was trying." Schizophrenic strolled over and faced the same wall. What were they even looking at? The rivets? That gash from Blackguard's attack? It smelled like a snuffed match.

"Someone has to take over before the Good Guys attack." Reef glanced over his shoulder at Asinine. Catatonic. Detritus stood behind him, stretching and yawning and blinking the sleep away. "I will."

"Whoa, whoa, king of the generics, I just got done being led by the stuff I pick out of Righty's ear. I ain't being led by the stuff I pick out of my own ear now. Righty, stop picking stuff out of your ear." Lefty slapped Righty's hand down. "I'd rather be led by Disaster Asinine again. Or a toadstool. Righty, stop picking stuff out of my ear." Lefty slapped Righty's hand down.

Reef spun at Schizophrenic. He stood a foot shorter, so he peered up with a stare like an incinerator. "Who else do you think's fit to lead? Lieutenant IQ Not Even as High as a Run-Over Chipmunk? Asinine and you junior thugs consider the generics as cannon fodder. The generics need more representation in this outfit."

Schizophrenic creaked out a single chuckle. "First of all, name-calling is my business, you tragic clown. Find your own thing. Second of all, there's not a chance in crock I let an ex–Good Guy take the wheel." Schizophrenic stuck his chin out. "Look, leadership ain't my shtick. It takes too much thinking. I prefer to do too much hitting. But we're outta options, so I'll lead."

Righty stuck his chin out too. "We'll lead."

Lefty slapped Righty. "I'll lead."

Reef crossed his arms. "I'm not trusting the Bad Guys to someone who spent the day sorting generics by face punchability."

"Relax your mouth. That face-punchability stuff got played out when my hand got sore." Schizophrenic flexed his knuckles.

"Fine." Reef uncrossed his arms. "We colead."

"We what?"

"You're in charge of the junior thugs. I manage the generics. We make decisions together."

Schizophrenic smirked. "Heh. You gonna manage fifteen hundred idiots on your own?"

"Good point." Reef raised his brow. "Detritus can assist me."

Detritus cut himself off midyawn. "Wait, assist ya? I ain't a low-level punk no more? Did I get promotioned?"

Reef stuck a hand out to shake with Schizophrenic. "What do you say?"

The mood felt so drop-dead hushed that the clicking of the hull sounded like dynamite blasts. Schizophrenic considered Reef's hand and shifted his anvil jaw to one side. Well, Lefty did. Righty tried to touch his tongue to his nose. And then sneezed on it. And then tried again.

"Beats sitting around waiting for you generics to finish griping about being on the bottom rung." Lefty slapped his palm against Reef's and shook with a hand twice a normal size. "This better not bite me in the crock."

"If it does, it bites us both." Reef let go.

"I got promotioned!" Detritus pumped an arm. "Eat your own crock, Gunkluss."

"Two vozshds of Bad Guys now maybe do better than old vozshd." From the floor, Brainiac grabbed a chair to haul herself up. Didn't help.

Reef swung at the shadows in the rear. "Are you still down there? It's been eight hours!"

Chapter Three: Make Yourself at Home

Organism suddenly remembered what Chug's exhaust smelled like from the inside: a mix of shampoo and dead souls. He'd grown used to that fragrance from the laundrybots at Station One, so it didn't seem that noxious.

He sat at Chug's helm in the pilot's chair. The coffee Puttyman and H2O had offered him kept him warm. Or maybe that was the flicker of flame from under the radar screen. Puttyman stood behind him with a coffee mug of his own hanging off two fingers, neck elongated up and around so they could both view the controls and Kalukahani's squeaky dance. She wasn't Kalukahani anymore. Puttyman had cut Bullet's face out of a picture and glued it onto their hula girl's head. He'd glued a candle next to it. Bullet swayed in a hula dance now.

Pacemaker snored way off in the rear, his buzzsaw breathing louder than the thrusters. Speed Line thrashed around his Jolly Jumper to keep from bouncing around the deck. Puttyman coached Organism through a primer on piloting Chug by showing him exactly what buttons to use—"The red one, then the blue one, and then the green one, but never the green one and then the red one and then the blue one, or you'll get a shock close to eighty milliamps, and you'll wake up across the room"—and what buttons not to use—"Never switch Chug to AI pilot. She'll never forgive you, she'll spit our navigation computer through her rear, and you'll wake up outside."

Organism pointed but didn't press. "So green, then red, then blue—"

"No, no, no. You'll…" Puttyman stopped at Organism's slanted smile and snicker. "You're messing with me, aren't you, dude?"

"I was a high-school nerd. If I was good at anything, it was memorizing information and catching dodge balls with my nose." Organism sipped from his coffee. How did people like this stuff? "Red, blue, green, no AI."

"Never AI." H2O sat in the rear of the cockpit deck, immediately in front of the shower curtain with bulldogs fluttering in the air conditioning. His ear had regrown. He sprinkled drink powder over his shoulder and marveled at the raspberry red that seeped through his arm. "Ooh, that's nice." He tried apple green in the other shoulder. He'd whined that his fashion had stagnated, so he was experimenting with new styles.

"Hey, by the way, check this out." Organism displayed his cheek to Puttyman to show the untidiness of acne. "I've been working on remolding back to my real body. I'm starting to find my old complexion. My real complexion." He tried another sip of coffee. Probably an acquired taste. "No more hiding."

Puttyman slapped his back. "Good job. You'll be your old studly self again in no time. You can leave out the acne, though." He tilted a sip into his mouth.

Also Sediment screamed. She tore open the shower curtain, her nose pinched between her fingers. The curtain rings clattered. "The business room is clogged again. It's a Maul-sized one this time."

"Hey, I ain't called a 'board meeting' since we left the rose gardens at IP." Maul thundered into the cockpit deck after her, unlit cigar leading the way. He shoved the toilet plunger at Organism. "New guy takes care of the plumbing."

"I'm in the middle of a lesson and a coffee, dude." Organism checked Maul with a raised brow. "Fine." He snatched up the plunger and threw himself out of the pilot's chair. He set down his mug.

Puttyman plopped into the navigator's chair. "Clip, take pilot duty for a sec." He slugged back another swig of coffee.

"Not for long." Organism ambled into the rear. "I'll be back after I show that house-crunking toilet the old the flounce-and-trounce."

Puttyman clicked his tongue. "That line is from the sixties, little elastic dude."

"I'm bringing it back, big elastic dude." Organism tossed a grin over his shoulder and slipped into the business room.

"Adorable nicknames now," Maul muttered. "Ain't you two delightful." He checked along the sights of his newest weapon: some greasy contraption he named Sweet and Spicy.

Organism staggered out of the business room. "It smells like a basement leak at a fire station in here!"

Chapter Four: Sore Loser

Those mortal cogs below. What ignorant buffoons.

Blackguard stood atop Intergalactic Protection's surveillance tower, one of the surviving structures not decimated after Station One's obliteration had spanked the terrain with a shockwave like a crushing palm. Hmph. Those derelicts below thought they'd won. Thought they'd won.

While they waited for their precious military to become clear-minded and unlock the barracks, they pitched tents, fished clothes out of Intergalactic Protection's laundromat, and erected rock piles as memorials to their dead. The betrayer, Power Plant, added another rock to Legion's memorial, unbeknownst that Blackguard held a special hatred for him, the antithesis. Even Kamikaze warranted a pile. All deluded in the ignorance of an assumed victory.

The Intergalactic Protection soldiers still woke from Steeple's domination. One of the oafs bumbled into the red ninja's tent like a drunk ostrich. She'd tear him a new one—Oh, no. She wouldn't. The self-multiplier wrestled the katana away.

The mortals had rendered Blackguard's life purposeless now. His sixty-two-thousand-year life. He'd allow them their respite. And then he would return in retribution.

Continuum had waged his mission in the memory of his brother, Bacon. Blackguard would wage a new mission in the memory of Continuum. Of Elohim. Of Crunch Berries since their discontinuation due to poor sales. With Continuum gone, Blackguard would take the mantle.

Speaking of which, maybe Blackguard would finally try bacon. He scrunched into a zero-dimensional dot. Where could he find a pig to cure?

All hail Lord Blackguard.

THE END IS HERE

NEXT BOOK:

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About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once

Liam Gibbs knew he was destined to write at age four, when he authored a breathtaking account of a cow who ate grass. The bovine saga failed to catch the public's eye but earned the budding author parental acclaim. Since those early times, he's gone on to write the novella Not So Superpowered and humorous articles for various magazines.

A twenty-year veteran of the brutal world of hand-to-hand comic book fandom, Gibbs cut his teenage teeth on titles such as Spider-Man, X-Men, New Warriors, and other Marvel comics.

Gibbs graduated college with a degree in professional writing, which included classes on fiction writing and story structure. He lives on the balmy shores of Ottawa, Canada, where he relaxes by watching staggeringly awful horror and science fiction movies. A health and fitness nut, he shoots lasers from his eyes, uses the word exclusive incorrectly, and once wrestled an exclusive brontosaurus. True story.

That one time I was deep in thought and—Hey, is that ketchup on the ceiling?

Sick of seeing no character art on the IAGFFA web site? So is the author.

But professional art costs money. Help out by donating at http://tiny.cc/iagffa_donate.

The author wants to give you free stuff! For free even!

Join the In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy army and get an exclusive, free story you can't find anywhere else...just for signing up! How? Mosey on over to tiny.cc/iagffa_army for all the details.

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For updates and to make sure I'm not eating potato chips for dinner, do yourself a favor and check this series out online. It's the right thing to do.

Get news on it at inagalaxyfarfarawRy.com

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Communicate via homing pigeon at chirp-twiddle-twoo or whatever pigeons say.

Table of Contents

Your Favorite Table of Contents

Available on the Author's Super-Awesome Site

Meet the Gang

- The Good Guys
- The Bad Guys
- Continuum's Army
- The Gooder Guys
- Blowtorch
- In Case They Come Up

Part 1: The Part with the Super Crazy Escape Attempt That's Neck-Deep in Awesome Fight Scenes and Love Cuddles

- Chapter One: The Sixth Dimension's Kind of a Letdown, but the Eighth Has Free Wi-Fi

- Chapter Two: The Canary's Dead, but the Miners Are Still Digging

- Chapter Three: It's Just a Bunch of Physics Nonsense

- Chapter Four: Incoming

- Chapter Five: Color Commentary from the Monochromatic Manservant

- Chapter Six: Pronunciation Is Awkward

- Chapter Seven: Seven-Ten Split at Three Hundred Miles an Hour

- Chapter Eight: You Can Drop Me Off Here

- Chapter Nine: Cosmic Extermination Plan

- Chapter Ten: Everybody Makes Mistakes, but He Masterminds Them

- Chapter Eleven: Final Stand in the Underbelly of Military Commercialism

- Chapter Twelve: Smooth as a Razorblade Massage

- Chapter Thirteen: Work Is Murder
- Chapter Fourteen: Brace for Impact
- Chapter Fifteen: Just Smile and Nod

- Chapter Sixteen: Why Is Ace Spandex Always Messing with Space?

- Chapter Seventeen: Make Way for the Man

Part 2: The Part Where They Try to Figure Stuff Out, Like What Happened to Television Static, and We'll See if It Works or Not

- Chapter One: And That's Where You Got That Nasty Rash

- Chapter Two: Chill Out, Bro

- Chapter Three: The Oil Change Is Extra

- Chapter Four: Roadside Assistance Sucks in Space

- Chapter Five: Let's Leave This Out of Your Internship Log

- Chapter Six: Cosmic Sightseeing
- Chapter Seven: All Good under the Hood
- Chapter Eight: Allow Me to Demonstrate

- Chapter Nine: And Home Appliances on the Right

- Chapter Ten: Whether You Like It or Not

- Chapter Eleven: Backseat Driving up the Wall

- Chapter Twelve: …And Some Things Stay the Same

- Chapter Thirteen: I'm Getting a Little Tired of Your Landing Skills

- Chapter Fourteen: Well, I'm Getting a Little Tired of Your Flying Skills

- Chapter Fifteen: Luxury-Sized Dungeon Suite

- Chapter Sixteen: Love Is in the Air, but Hate Settles to the Ground

- Chapter Seventeen: Let Me Tell You a Little About Our Operation

- Chapter Eighteen: Future Parallel Parking Is the Worst

- Chapter Nineteen: Time Tourist Trap

- Chapter Twenty: And a Personal Care Kit by the Champagne Bar

- Chapter Twenty-One: Some Welcoming Party

- Chapter Twenty-Two: That Sinking Feeling Is the Life Raft Deflating

- Chapter Twenty-Three: Poultry Apocalypse

- Chapter Twenty-Four: Holding Everyone's Sanity for Ransom

- Chapter Twenty-Five: Never Mind the Stains

- Chapter Twenty-Six: You Never Had a Friend Like Me

- Chapter Twenty-Seven: This Wasn't the View the Travel Brochure Advertised

- Chapter Twenty-Eight: Employees Only

- Chapter Twenty-Nine: Two Teaspoons of Plot Thickener

- Chapter Thirty: All They Need Is a Cheerleading Squad

Part 3: The Part Where Enemies Become Friends and Someone Gets Cranky about It because There's Always That One Person

- Chapter One: Mi Rooster Es Su Rooster

- Chapter Two: So This Is How You Treat Guests?

- Chapter Three: Ample Parking in the Rear

- Chapter Four: You Look like a Guy I Knew

- Chapter Five: I Knew I Left It around Here Somewhere

- Chapter Six: Like Talking to a Stone Wall

- Chapter Seven: Military Intelligence à la Carte

- Chapter Eight: The Infirmary Makes More Sense from a Sports-Injury Angle

- Chapter Nine: Creedence Clearwater Reprisal
- Chapter Ten: Homeshunning
- Chapter Eleven: Battle Stations, Everyone

- Chapter Twelve: The Neighbors Are at It Again

- Chapter Thirteen: Tell the Office Creep to Do It

- Chapter Fourteen: Someone's Getting Suspended without Pay for This

Part 4: The Part Where It's Go Time and Someone Gears Up the Action Music, but It's Polka

- Chapter One: Must Be Space Cow's Beef Burrito in Those Containers

- Chapter Two: And…Action
- Chapter Three: The New Art of Losing
- Chapter Four: Battle Royale with Cheese
- Chapter Five: Drive-Thru Entrance
- Chapter Six: Reconnective Surgery
- Chapter Seven: Olly Olly Oxen Free
- Chapter Eight: Asomething, Anyway
- Chapter Nine: Nobody Likes Ceilings

- Chapter Ten: What Are We On, Our Twelfth Mutiny Now?

- Chapter Eleven: Make Sure It Doesn't Pee on the Floor

- Chapter Twelve: Air Support from the Clearance Aisle

- Chapter Thirteen: Watch It Feed Wholesale

- Chapter Fourteen: Cage Match

Part 5: The Part with the Denouement, Which Is a Fancy Way of Saying Everyone Goes Home

- Chapter One: Victories and Cankers
- Chapter Two: Management Negotiations
- Chapter Three: Make Yourself at Home
- Chapter Four: Sore Loser

About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once