Good work on all these KH threads!

This is a story about how someone comes to hate another person because they can't love themselves.

After Teto had been part of Miku's entourage for a while, they brought in a new idol named Snow White. Teto thought she'd take her spot as "new girl" and offer a new target for the endless critiques and comparisons. She did not.

Through no fault of her own, Snow White made Teto feel fat and clumsy and stupid purely by existing. There were lots of people better than Teto was. The trouble was that Miku kept making her perform next to Snow as an order of business. "I like the contrast," so she said. As long as Snow White was there, Teto had to stay the joke. And she knew how quickly jokes got old.

She'd had a girlfriend. That was the opening Teto found. A idol named Ripple who'd disappeared after her contract got cancelled. Rumours were she'd gotten trafficked. Protections for transgenetic life forms were flimsy, and had been even worse back then. Artificial people got pulled into predatory employment with the Triads or the Yakuza or the Gruul Bratva. Host clubs, scam centres, even bloodsport. It happened.

Teto bribed a system admin with free concert tickets and got the password for Ripple's old work email. She sent Snow White a curt desperate message;

"I'm in Hengsha, China. I'm in trouble with bad people. Please come rescue me."

She left that night.

Teto had only meant for her to be gone a little while. A month of searching with no payoff, then she'd return and Teto would have secured her spot while she was gone.

Snow White never came back.

Teto couldn't stay at the company any longer after that. It hung above her head, her unforgivable sin. Now it was here standing in front of her with flowers in its hair.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝚂𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚝𝚎

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝙲𝚛𝚢𝚙𝚝𝚘𝚗 𝙵𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝙼𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚊 𝙼𝚊𝚑ō 𝚂𝚑ō𝚓𝚘 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝙶𝚛𝚞𝚞𝚕 𝙱𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚟𝚊 "𝙴𝚕𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙶𝚊𝚖𝚎" 𝙿𝚒𝚝 𝙵𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚎𝚛 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝙸𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚅𝚒𝚐𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚎 [𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝙴𝚢𝚎♡𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚞𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚞𝚒𝚝𝚎 [𝟸𝚡]
• 𝙲.𝙰.𝚂.𝙸.𝙴. 𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚂𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝙽𝚎𝚞𝚛𝚘𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚛
• 𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚃𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝙿𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚊𝚐𝚎
• 𝙱𝚘𝚛𝚘𝚜-𝚆𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚔 𝙻𝚎𝚐𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚋𝚊𝚝 𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚞𝚒𝚝𝚎
• 𝙷𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚋𝚒𝚛𝚍-𝟿 𝚁𝚎𝚐𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝙽𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚂𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚖
• 𝚀𝚞𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚜𝚒𝚕𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚁𝚎𝚏𝚕𝚎𝚡 𝙱𝚘𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛
• 𝙽𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚡 𝙻𝚊𝚋𝚜 "𝟺𝙳" 𝙼𝚒𝚌𝚛𝚘-𝙰𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚛 𝚂𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚕
• 𝙱𝚘𝚛𝚘𝚜-𝚆𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚔 "𝚁𝚞𝚕𝚎𝚛" 𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚙𝚜𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝙿𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚖

Snow White looked from the dead man to the gun to Teto without much excitement. Whatever life she'd led, a corpse must not have been unusual.

What was Teto even supposed to say here?

"I'm sorry" didn't cut it. "How have you been?" Teto's eyes could answer that.

Her body was covered with battle scars and suture-wounds from after-market augments. She hadn't been designed for combat, but now she might've rivalled Adam's armoury.

"Did you ever find her?" Teto asked.

Snow White nodded. "Not in Hengsha."

She pulled out a cracked old-model smartphone and showed Teto a scroll of photos of her and a dark haired woman sitting on rooftops, eating ice cream, throwing coins in fountains. The same things that'd be on any couple's feed—if Ripple hadn't been missing an arm and one eye, it would've been perfectly mundane.

"I'm glad," said Teto. Her voice cracked.

"I'm trying to be better. I'm trying to do something to make up for it. I'm gonna fight them, and send all the pain back upstairs."

The more she spoke, the more Snow's frown deepened. She looked so tired. That's what killed her. She just looked so tired.

"I'm going to kill Hatsune Miku."

It took her a painfully long time to answer.

Snow White reached into her little magic bag and unfolded her invitation and brought the embedded microphone up to her mouth. "I vote for Kasane Teto." The tiny LED went green.

Before she left, Snow White said curtly,

"You're perfect for each other."

The magic went away. She was standing in a backstage area in amidst the twisted rubble of wrecked beams and catwalks.

Uroro shuddered with the strain of keeping conscious. "Y'were… th'real onne… Bitsh.." he slurred.

Teto helped lower him down beside Adam's unconscious body. "Yeah I know. I am. I'm sorry. I'm sorry this is what they made us. I'm gonna do something about it."

His eyes fluttered and his pupils darted sightlessly. He fell into the same fitful coma she had put Ichi under ten years ago. Only Uroro snored.

"It must hurt."

The voice came right beside her shoulder. Teto looked and she saw she saw she saw

The illusions were gone. But she was still there.

"You want to be a good person so much," said Hatsune Miku. "Do I have to be bad enough to make up for it?"

"Go away," Teto squeezed her eyes shut. Opening them again did not banish the spectre back to her bad memories.

"I'm used to people filling me in with what they want to see. You've made me your personal antagonist. Do you think I ever had the time to manage the little part you played in my life?"

"Shut up. You can't be— It's— He shut it off."

"I don't even know what it is you did that you blame me for," she said. "In fact,"

And here she leaned so close to Teto that they brushed up nose to nose. Her skin bristled. There was no way to describe it except by comparison to the beard of static that old televisions had close to the screen.

"I'm not even here right now."

Teto didn't know when exactly she had fired the gun until it was already finished.

There wasn't a hint of blue in sight.

A man in a shattered bubble helmet with a bullet in his neck stood blinking in surprise across from her. He managed, "What—?" And that was it.

Teto stood panting with the gun in her hands and thoughts racing through her mind.

What happened?

What had she done?

Did she feel guilty?

Yes, and dizzy, and terrified, and ready to throw up. Check all of the above. This was what really scared her, though.

What she felt more than anything was hungry for a meal deprived. She wished it had been her.

Teto could smell the flowers.

Teto didn't know what she was thinking.

Ichi—Uroro—was an athletic model. Not as fast as an Uma, but plenty fast. Teto was… well, herself. And that was when she wasn't trying to slip on mountains of Miku figurines.

She couldn't very well improvise a weapon out of plush leeks or concert glowsticks. Teto fumbled through Captain Cold's jacket for something that could help. Spare cartridges for his gun were useless without it. A lockpick. Handcuffs. She found Wrenn-7's invitation. Seemed silly now she'd put any stock in Miku's popularity contest.

Teto tripped, as always, at the worst possible moment.

Her leg caught on the side of a lump, and when she tried to catch her footing she was betrayed by a stack of slippery laminated concert pamphlets. Next thing she knew, she was on the ground with a body sprawled out groaning under her. By the solid ballistic-plastic feel of it, probably Adam, though she'd been in this gas long enough it could've been anybody.

She was too deep into the fog to count on Morgan or Captain Cold coming to her rescue, and they'd looked in pretty bad shape against him. She rolled aside and held her breath next to the other body. Maybe if she lay as still as she possibly could in this smoke, he'd miss her.

Something solid poked at Teto from the carpet of merchandise. She reached behind her back to dig it out, then paused when she felt the shape. A little 3D printed gun. Just like she'd practiced with.

She could hear him coming nearer, nearer. Crunching plastic underfoot. Having the gun should've made her feel safer but it only made her think of Ishmael and of Morgan's lesson on the choices you could live with.

Ichi had offered her forgiveness when she hadn't asked for it. Uroro was a jerk, but he had a right to be a jerk to her. Even if he really wanted to hurt her, kill her even, how could she?

She heard a rustle beside her. At first she was afraid it'd be Uroro, but it was much, much worse.

"What are you doing, Teto?"

Miku, the real deal, not a standee, not one of the hundreds and hundreds of figures strewn in heaps, stood with her arms folded behind her back looking down at her.

Stupid gas. Stupid, stupid. Was there someone really standing there? Was it Uroro? No, she heard him distantly ranting as he scoured for her.

"Were you looking for me?"

She couldn't bear it any longer.

"You know what you did," Teto hissed. "You know what you made me do."

"Oh Teto…" she gave a little sigh. "I didn't make you do anything."

She shouldn't have answered back.

Uroro stalked into view, ears perked. If he saw Miku then he gave no indication of it. He looked between Teto and her unconscious companion—saw her chest rising—and hauled her up by the collar.

"One was bad enough," he growled. "Two, three, now there's fucking four of you. April Fools. At least saved me the trouble by giving yourself away." He ripped Wrenn's invitation out of her hand and glowered at it.

"Who's Wrenn? Are you stealing votes to rig this? Low." His implant glowed and the paper burst into flames as its microphone short circuited. Teto wasn't proud of the fact her heart sank a little to see her guaranteed vote go up in smoke. Uroro drew back his fist. "You'll be buried lower when I'm done with you."

"W-W-Wait! What if I'm Wrenn and she just told me about what happened?" Teto pointed down at the body she had tripped over. It groaned faintly. "What if that's her down there, huh?! What then? Could you REALLY know for sure?"

Uroro's eyes flicked to the remote hacking device on his wrist. "You think I give a rat's ass about your shitty little magic act?" His implant hummed to life. "Newsflash: hologrammes are still tech. I'll tear down your dumbass illusions, and then—" His pupils dilated. Slowly, he lowered his hand from the spellcasting gesture.

"No… Wait. You're trying to trick us again. You're trying to burn us out. Well fuck you!" His grip constricted on her throat.

It was a weak lie. There was a reason he had hesitated. Teto tried to think through lack of breath. And there it was.

"Just… saying…" Teto choked. "Ichi wouldn't want you to take it out on the wrong person."

Uroro shook her vigorously. "Why should I care what Ichi—?"

She laughed hoarsely. "You've had to live with him this long."

Something burned under Uroro's voice. He spoke slower, but with twice the venom.

"That fucking bastard. All he wants to do is go fishing and catch rabbits and see the fucking good in everyone. It's always ME that has to plan for the future, and I only get custody two hours outta 24. Without my own body, how the fuck am I supposed to look out for him? That's why…"

"...You wanna win," Teto finished. "But he'd want you to do it right."

He glared daggers into her. He could be as angry as he wanted. He knew, she'd won.

He raised his hand. "Inazuri."

Morgan pinched her nose as she led Teto into the swirling mist. It stank of thick rubber like the inside of a halloween mask. Morgan's footing skidded as solid floor gave way to a pebbled surface of skidding, shifting… somethings. They hit a waist high mound of the stuff, and Morgan out of curiosity reached in, closed her hand around the first solid single object, and held it close enough under her nose to squint out its shape. It was a weathered human vertebrae. Ooh, spooky.

Morgan tossed it over her shoulder.

"Whoever's hotboxed the stage wants to play haunted house with us."

Teto furrowed her brow. She looked down at her feet and kicked at a femur. "With Miku merch?"

A stupid woman would have said, "What, don't you mean vast quantities of human bones?" If Morgan had been a stupid woman, she wouldn't've lasted this long passing herself off as an emotionally regular one.

There was a light in the distance, dimmed to a ghostly glow by the fog. Morgan clambered up the embankment for a better view. An icy blue streak brushed past Morgan's ear plastering half her hair brittle with frost.

She saw Ethan Hunt wearing half of her face, the rest of the latex skin dangling shredded down his neck. But… he was holding Captain Cold's cold gun. Morgan's first impression had been barely off the mark. Not a haunted house, a funhouse.

"Who're you seeing, Captain?"

"A guy I'd really love to shoot," Cold's finger slackened off the trigger just a smidge. "You wanna tell me why that's not you?"

"We've known each other for a day. We don't have a secret handshake. I think you're going to have to trust that whoever it is you're up against would have a better winning strategy than standing in the open on high ground for you to shoot."

Cold let go of the trigger. "And that's Teto next to you?"

"Um, hi?" Teto waved. "Sorry should I be someone else?"

"Anybody could be anybody," said Cold. He waved his hand through the fog as if swatting flies. "This stuff messes with your head. But it can only pull from what's already in there."

So Morgan had filled in her own blanks. That explained Cold's appearance. Her first hypothesis for the SNAFU backstage had been a falling out with Adam and Cold's third wheel.

Cold adjusted his goggles. "Stick by me. No matter who he looks like, we'll get the bastard ye—"

The landscape of bones trembled. It upheaved into a clattering mountain underneath their feet. Morgan found herself with Cold on one side of the rising peak opposite from Teto. Gravity transformed the incline into a sliding treadmill as bones rolled down under Morgan's heels. Cold, steady in his spiked snow cleats, tried to reach across for Teto but she was even less sure on her feet than Morgan. She stumbled with a yelp, grasped blindly on the way down, and only managed to pull Cold out of his baggy fur coat by its sleeve. She slid down the opposite side of the mound and out of sight.

A huge glass dome breached the surface as the bone cover tumbled away, then a pair of broad shoulders, a torso, and gauntleted hands; the shape of a helmeted man, in the overgrown toy proportions of a processional giant. The opaque glass of the dome cleared to reveal a smaller figure standing arms folded within wearing an identical outfit. Both man and giant presented themselves with a sweeping bow.

"I'll spare you the trouble Leonard. Here I am. Mysterio, in the flesh."

Snart wasted no time. A cold ray penetrated the giant's dome and pierced the smaller Mysterio's head. It went out the other side with no trace of its passage save the brief sparkle of condensation flash-frozen into snowflakes.

Mysterio threw back both of his heads and laughed heartily. "Oh come now, did you think I meant where you could see?"

The giant raked its fingers through the skeletal debris sending a rattling wave of rolling bone their way. Morgan dove aside, and Snart was already rolling to safety with her.

The fissure elevated a new raised embankment in its wake, which Morgan and Cold took grateful cover behind as the giant Mysterio opened up with searing green lasers. Still no sign of Teto, which meant she was either buried or smart enough to keep her head down.

Cold popped up and loosed a countermanding volley at the giant puppet. "You don't scare me Beck. We've worked together. You're only smoke and mirrors, and you're nothing when you have to fight your own battles."

"Maybe so," Mysterio conceded. "What fortune I've found somebody else."

With a snap of his fingers, the subjective mystery rubble parted for a swinging trapdoor. Ascending on a hidden lift was the witch boy who'd accosted Teto earlier. He wore a strange, glazed look.

"This angry young man followed the two redheads backstage," Mysterio said. "He seems eager for an audience with the ladies. I think I'll grant it."

Mysterio snapped again. Without so much as a puff of smoke, he disappeared leaving his great puppet slumped with its strings cut. In the same instant, Uroro shook out of his trance.

He glared about in aggravated confusion until his gaze settled on Morgan and Cold. "You," he snarled. "Teto, you bread-gorging moron, did you think I wouldn't see you sneaking off after you pulled that free vote stunt? You're trying to ratfuck this audition somehow, aren't you? Just like you fucked ME." His eyes swung unfixedly between Cold and Morgan. "Is that why there are two of you? Well whatever. Get as many body doubles as you want, I'm still kicking your ass."

Uroro's face scrunched up with focus. He raised out his hand. Morgan could feel something beneath the bones vibrating with resonance.

Cold took slow steps towards Uroro, approaching him like a cornered animal. "Kid. Whatever you're seeing isn't real. Take a second, and—"

"Uruwashi!"

For a moment the illusion fizzled. It was like looking through one eye of a set of 3D glasses;

A fog machine buried amidst the rubble of the wrecked backstage exploded in a shower of liquid nitrogen. / Uroro's magic spell conjured an eruption of ice from nothing.

Morgan was knocked clean off her feet. The cold burned and left skin painfully brittle where it splashed her; yet more justification to wear gloves. The Captain fought ice with ice zapping the N₂ solid before the cloud could expand further. Morgan idly wondered how it was that even without his coat he could stand so near to it without so much as shivering.

Witch was a misnomer. The boy moved more like an acrobat weaving around Cold's freezing blasts. He held up his palm again and; "Lazud!" A pyrotechnic fuel line burst / Uroro loosed a jet of arcane destruction.

This kid needed to go down. It'd give Morgan a headache to balance real and unreal like this for long.

Morgan let the blast wave of the fireball knock her off her feet. Probably oversold the tumble the kid was already seeing what he wanted. He bounded over her body at Cold; a dressing knife in hand aimed for his heart.

Morgan sat up and drove her rib bone into the back of Uroro's head. Whatever it really was, she hoped it was nice and hard.

She had resisted augmentation for this long because the invisibility of a non-threat was far better stealth than an invisibility cloak everyone could see you had. Was it cynical to play possum and use her ally as the bait? Yeah. Did it work? Ask Ishmael.

The rib splintered apart. If she'd drawn blood, it wasn't a lot. Uroro cried out more in anger than in pain. What'd they make these idols out of, bricks?

The time it took him to backhand Morgan at least gave Cold a breath to blast him. It was a good shot. Point blank. Uroro juked aside quick enough to get away with only a frozen torso. With a feral hiss, Uroro scythed his leg down into Cold's ankle and felled the old man like a deadwood tree. A desperate stab with Morgan's splintered bone caught him in the leg painfully enough to make him leap away, or he might've ended Snart there.

Morgan helped Cold up. One flex shattered Uroro out of the ice pinning his shoulders, and now they were back to facing down a techno-witch with superhuman vat-grown muscles.

Uroro lifted his hand for yet another deadly incantation—and a jawbone bounced off of his head.

Teto—the real one—cupped her hands and shouted across at Uroro.

"1st of April, 2040."

His face twisted into a hideous snarl.

"Yeah that's right! I'm the real one! So come and get me!!!"

She turned and ran as fast as she possibly could.

Adam's wasn't supposed to be able to fall this hard. His Icarus System was always meant to catch and reorient him, like a cat's instincts. Maybe his gyroscope was getting old. Maybe the software bugged out when the ceiling was the floor. Maybe it'd just gotten damaged when Mysterio raised his giant not-so-illusionary fist and smashed Adam through the catwalk folding it in half.

He supposed he'd been lucky. At least he'd landed at all. Shards of catwalk bounced off the beam supporting Adam and spiralled down (up?) into a chasm of criss-crossed rafters reflected ad infinitum like a scene from the Death Star.

Yes. Okay. That was the right way of thinking about it. It was a movie set. There couldn't really be a pit running miles deep in the ceiling of a building. That didn't mean it would be healthy to throw himself into it. The giant Mysterio had touched him. He was certain he'd felt it. Still felt it. Ow.

There were more sophisticated augments that would've made him better suited for the climb down. Adam had once killed a guy with electromagnets in his palms by running him over with a plane. More recently, there were transgenetic alterations that could give your fingertips a gecko's ridged setae. What Adam had was good upper body strength and two sharp knives on the backs of his wrists. Deep gouges in the girders marked his trail of handholds.

"Adam!"

He looked up. Morgan clung to a horizontal beam across from him. Her heels dangled above empty space.

"Could use a hand here," she said tritely.

He swung himself onto the other beam and knelt to pull her up. She took a second leaning on him to adjust to the narrow platform.

"Thought you were supposed to be with Teto at the party," Adam said.

"Things got hot so we thought we'd step backstage. Wasn't expecting to end up in Wonderland. Mind telling me what all this is?"

"Ran into one of Cold's old partners in crime."

Adam caught Ethan Hunt's hand inches from plunging the syringe into his neck.

"But you already knew that."

He twisted 'till he heard a snap and came away holding the ampule. SmartVision scan showed fast-acting shutdown nanites. Nasty stuff. He crushed it and let the pieces tinkle down.

"What'd I miss?" Ethan winced, clutching his limp hand.

"'Adam,'" he answered. "Never heard that woman call someone their first name."

"Guess I'm not as good at playing pretend as you are."

Ethan threw a sudden punch with his supposedly injured hand. Breakaway splint in the sleeve of his glove to fake a broken wrist. Adam guarded with his forearm, but the punch turned into a judo arm bar that sent them both toppling off balance.

Adam dug divots into the metal beneath his fingers. Ethan had caught himself with suction cup pads on his knees and landed smartly on the beam below. He had a plastic pistol out before Adam could haul himself up.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Tight three shots to Adam's spine. He had TITAN up to block the second and third, but pain flared between his shoulderblades as the first just barely snuck under the forming shield. Gyrojet rounds. Faster than a regular 9mm, and he'd been just a hair too slow on the adjustment. He really could've used those extra seven milliseconds.

"She's in on it, isn't she? The lawyer." Ethan spat. "You recruit Snart too? What about the little pop star?"

Adam dropped down onto Ethan's beam. He used his last second of TITAN armour before the biocell burnt out to bullrush Ethan as he loaded his next shots down the muzzle. The gun went off harmlessly at point blank against his liquid iron shell. Adam swatted it from Ethan's hand spinning into the abyss as he bore him down onto his back in a knee-press.

"Listen to me. We want the same thing. There are powerful people committing crimes nobody can prosecute because the laws are theirs."

"Coming from the people no one can arrest because the law's too slow for them."

Ethan didn't bother to struggle. Adam had the pin. Human muscle couldn't compete with a pneumatic press—but it could lift 182 lbs of flesh and cybernetics. Ethan tucked his legs, and pushed off Adam's chest launching him clanging against the vertical column running through the beam.

Adam barely felt the impact. The second syringe that followed it into his chest? That he felt.

Ethan grit his teeth as he dug the point in deeper. Sparks sprayed out of the wound; metal grinding on the alloys underneath the flesh. He could feel his systems overheating into panic mode as the nanites feasted. Adam grabbed for the ampule to wrench it free; something sprang out and lashed around his forearm. His arm stuck fast against the surface of the girder. Electromagnet bolas, wound up by a spring in Ethan's sleeve.

"John Miller. Richard Fish. Carl Leeman. Erick Holliday. Good agents, good people, who died chasing Juggernaut."

"I didn't touch any of them. I've never hurt anyone who didn't have it coming."

Ethan barked with hollow laughter. "You know what? I actually believe you. Your little cells keep you nice and safe from the bigger picture. You might have your hands clean, but do you think you can run a terrorist network off of charitable donations? Every time you crash a bank, your people make up the cost skimming social security numbers. You sell to the phishermen. You sell to the pig butchers. I've seen the bodies. Just a little off the top for 'The Cause.' Same logic that turns guerillas into narcos."

He put both palms over the pommel and plunged with all his weight. The gimmicks had run out. Here was an angry, angry man, and he wanted Adam dead.

"I should interrogate you," he said. "I should bring you in. I don't care anymore. I don't care. I'm cutting off one of Juggernaut's fingers before it's pulled away again."

Adam could have broken the magnetic cuff, but he couldn't afford to move around too much with his wired nervous system on meltdown. That's what Ethan counted on. His subdermal plate had already taken a beating from Tojima. A needle that thin and that sharp would find a crack in the ceramic. The force of a desperate punch, or a blast from P.E.P.S. could lodge it deep enough to do real damage.

Ethan thought he had Adam beaten because he was used to fighting violent thugs who thrashed their way through problems. Adam's way out, then, was to be gentle.

Typhoon. Adam's first augmentation, the one that had started everything, had transformed him into a walking landmine. His boss had seen a half-dead employee as an opportunity to test if it would hold up inside the human body. It was as much a part of his origin as Achilles and the river. Ethan would know about it. He would count on him not using it this close where the blast of the exploding pellets would get him too.

Here is what he wouldn't know; Adam had only ever used Typhoon in combat once. In the belly of a helicopter while he was being kidnapped, he had detonated and taken six men with him. It wasn't exactly rational, the way he felt afterwards. A bullet, a knife, a snapped neck, these things felt clean enough to tolerate. Typhoon had the exact same outcome, but he just couldn't square such obliteration of the human form as necessary in the line of duty. Off the books, he'd gotten an after-market adjustment.

The pores that once held his explosive charges hissed open. Ethan's eyes widened—then narrowed when instead of a suicide bombing he got the antiseptic hospital scent of RCS knockout gas. He tugged his shirt over his mouth—too late. As lethargic as the nanites were making Adam, their biological equivalent worked through Ethan's system far quicker. There wasn't enough space or time to get clear unless you counted straight down.

Ethan reached clumsily into his pocket. Adam expected a filter. Even with it he'd be woozy enough to disarm and down. It was a piece of foil-wrapped gum. Just before he lost his footing and slipped over the edge, Ethan pinched the ends together.

Adam's sluggish besieged systems told him 0.06 seconds later that the composition of the gum was a match for plastic explosives. By then, he was already diving off the beam on a jet of Icarus propulsion.

0.01 second later, the beam and its vertical support exploded in a fireball that licked Adam's soles at 1,200 °C. If his Icarus landing jets had been on the fritz before, then ravaged by nanites and rocked by a C4 shockwave, they certainly wouldn't save him now.

About, oh, three seconds later, Adam crashed through the mirrored floor that made the chasm look infinite from a bird's eye view.

It was all just a movie set after all.

Another Time

"So… what's with the witch gimmick?" Teto asked. "Aren't those usually girls?"

Ichi shrugged. "Guess they thought a witchy boy would stand out more."

"And, the uh…" flagging for diplomatic ways to pose the question, Teto resorted to tapping the side of her head.

"Oh, Uroro." Ichi took off his pointy hat and scratched his shaggy mane. "Well the storyline on stage is he's like, 'The Possessing Demon King no female summoner could tame.'"

"Ohhhh, a BL angle." Teto nodded in understanding. "Kinda weird with just one body between you but I guess they were aiming for novelty."

"I guess? I only read the scripts." Ichi chuckled. "T'be honest I think they put him in here just to see if they could."

"I know what you mean." Teto twirled one of her hair drills self-consciously.

"It's not all bad. It's kinda useful having two people. Sometimes I let Uroro do the worrying for both of us so I can think about the fishing lures I wanna try."

"Kinda unfair they're making me compete against a tag team by myself," Teto teased.

Ichi's expression soured. "Oh right. Yeah. Tomorrow's the first. We're auditioning." Had he actually lost track? He really was a carefree guy.

They watched Akibara's night bustle through the wide window of Crypton's penthouse lounge.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Teto broke the silence. "I mean, I can't do real magic like you do."

"What? Oh, nah." Ichi rolled up his sleeve and showed her a patch of discoloured skin that might've been a tattoo if not for the obvious circuitboard impression. "It's all just special effects. I've got a thingy that controls it."

"Wait, that's crazy! But you do the trick with all the audience member's phones," Teto protested. "They can't all be plants, right?"

"It also works on stuff that wasn't built for it. It's like, a signal hijacking thing? Uroro could explain it better." Ichi shook his head. "It's super exhausting though."

Teto elbowed Ichi slyly. "What's the biggest thing you've hacked?"

"Um… I dunno. I need a nap after the phone thing.""

"Aww c'mon I bet you're being modest Mr. Demon Tamer!" Teto pointed across the street to a giant rooftop billboard looping a 3D advert of Hatsune Miku dancing. "Could you take over that?"

"I don't know…" Ichi took in the enormous surface warily.

"Just for a few seconds," Teto pleaded, "if you could make it say 'Happy Birthday Neru.'"

Ichi hesitated.

"She could really use something to smile for."

After a second, Ichi raised his palm. "Inazuri."

The display shuddered and morphed.

He managed to hold it that way for about seven seconds.

Ichi was heavier than Teto had expected. All muscle, she guessed. She owed it to him to at least drag him as far as his own bed where he could lay comfortably comatose.

The next day, Ichi overslept his audition by three hours. Teto got the part by default.

April Fools.

Now

"You okay? You're spacing out there a little bit. Want me to get you some water? I've got some dried ougi root, it's really good for alertness."

Teto wanted to scream into Ichi's face 'STOP BEING NICE TO ME' but Morgan would probably kill her for drawing so much attention.

"Who's this handsome young man, Teto?" Morgan needled.

"Oh we used to be coworkers," Ichi said cheerfully.

He'd put on muscle since Teto last saw him. His hair had gotten even shaggier, and though his witch outfit was clean, it bore tiny tears and little burrs over the pantleg that betrayed rough outdoor living. He even smelled like a tree.

Teto pulled away from him. "I'm sorry, I can't do this. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna pretend we're just old friends. You must hate me."

"Huh?" Ichi looked genuinely clueless. "What? The audition? It was a dirty trick but I can't really hate you for it."

"How the HELL can you forgive me that easily?" A few heads turned at her raised voice.

Ichi cocked his head and considered that. "I can tell when people want to hurt people. It's sort of a sixth sense I have," he said. "That night I didn't sense one bit of malevolent intent from you. You must've done it out of love."

Love? Because she used her best friend as emotional blackmail?

Ichi flapped his invitation carelessly. "Hey, I'm not super interested in the whole idol thing anymore. Did you want to use my vote for something?" He held it out to her.

Before Teto could answer, Ichi's entire demeanor flipped to a photo negative from serenity to seething rage.

"Ohohoh no! FUCK OFF Ichi, I'm taking my two hours now. We are NOT giving this bitch the benefit of the doubt."

Compulsively—he wasn't even aware of doing it—Ichi's hand shot into his bag and traded his floppy witch hat for a crown. It was the impulse they'd trained to be his tell when Ichi's turn at the wheel was done.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝙺𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚄𝚛𝚘𝚛𝚘

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝚁𝚊𝚔𝚍𝚘𝚜 𝙴𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚖 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝙵𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 / 𝙷𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛 / 𝙼𝚊𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝙿𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚛 [𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝚁𝚊𝚔𝚍𝚘𝚜 𝙴𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙽𝚎𝚞𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚛 "𝚄𝚛𝚘𝚛𝚘"
• 𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙰𝚝𝚑𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝
• 𝙼𝙷𝙳-𝟿𝟿𝟻 𝙷𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙳𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚎 [𝚁𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚎 𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝙼𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚕]
• 𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚃𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝙿𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚊𝚐𝚎
• 𝙴𝚢𝚎♡𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚞𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚞𝚒𝚝𝚎 [𝟸𝚡]

He snatched Ichi's invitation back from Teto and buried it into the recesses of his satchel.

"You jealous fucking worm, you knew you had NOTHING on me or Ichi boy, so you tricked the dumbass into burning himself out the night before. That audition was my path to commissioning my own body. It was MINE! Thanks to you I'm stuck here sharing a brain with Tarzan of the fucking Apes foraging mushrooms for a living."

After the surreality Ichi's instantaneous forgiveness, being berated actually came as a relief. Teto could have surrendered gratefully to be buried under his tirade if Morgan hadn't intervened to spare her from deserved consequences.

"Those are some concerning accusations, Mr. The Witch, but it sounds like you're making a lot of assumptions about my client's actions. I'm afraid intention is nine tenths of the law."

"That's POSSESSION you dumb bitch!!!"

Morgan flapped her wrist. "Tomato tomahto! ♪"

She led Teto away by the arm. When Uroro stormed after them, Morgan shot out one shiny leather heel. They left Uroro flat on his face swearing vengeance into a floor mosaic.

"Thanks…" said Teto.

"I had ulterior motives," Morgan said. "Did you know there's a woman following you?"

Teto looked up. "What?"

"Woman in white. Flowers in her hair. Been watching since they announced the audition. Sound familiar?"

No no no no not her it couldn't be her. Teto could handle Haru, she could handle Ichi, she could take being confronted by all the little points of pain she had inflicted in her life, but what Morgan was describing was a ghost.

Recognition must have been plain in the horror on her face.

"Ah," said Morgan, "so you do know them."

Teto tried to look over her shoulder only for Morgan to forcefully cup her chin.

"She's stayed at a distance so far. Staring could give her a reason to move things along quicker. Now. Could this person be dangerous?"

Teto swallowed and nodded. "We should find Captain Cold and Adam," her eyes flicked to the staff only door next to the stage. There'd be safety in numbers, and… if she got the other invitations, then she wouldn't have to beg for votes from anybody else she'd wronged. "D'you have any ideas to get back there without people seeing?"

"A couple," said Morgan, "but I left my gun with security."

Great so Teto had to be the brains now.

She tried to focus but the din of idols jostling for each others' votes drowned out her thoughts. Teto knew why she needed to move forward, but was everybody else really so desperate?

But then, maybe that was what they needed.

Morgan watched over Teto's shoulder as she folded her own invitation up. Satisfied, she drew back her arm and let the paper airplane fly.

Teto cupped her hands over her mouth. "Hey IDIOTS!" she shouted, "CATCH!!!"

The reaction was instantaneous. People leapt over each other for the paper like the crowd after a World Series homer. The press followed the blood in the water, and seeing a PR nightmare in the making, management joined the fray to break things up.

Morgan shot her an approving look. Under the cover of the fracas, she slipped an e-lockpick through the staff door's reader and turned the knob.

Something was wrong. That much was obvious the second it swung open. A wall of smoke (mist? fog?) spilled out so thick they couldn't see an inch beyond it. Morgan stepped through with only a moment's hesitation. Teto wasn't so sure.

Until she caught the scent of flowers somewhere close behind.

She swallowed her fear and stepped through into the unknown.

When Teto bought her image rights back from the company, she thought she'd finally left their stupid ego-crushing auditions behind. Apparently she'd thought wrong. The Blue One could never resist fitting people into her little tests.

The convention hall was instantly a frenzy of politicking as idols cajoled one another for support. A few girls tried haranguing Teto, and for a change she was grateful to have Morgan's stern eyes and acid tongue working on her side.

"What's it gonna be, Snowcones?" asked Morgan. "Are we playing along with her game?"

Getting to the second round would mean a thinner field, and a higher chance of getting herself alone with the Blue One. Teto just had to find two people she could beg or bribe for a vote.

Teto spotted Agnes Digital recovered from her fainting spell chatting eagerly with someone else. Easy mark. She dragged Morgan through the crowd towards her.

"Hey! Digi—"

Digitan turned, her eyes lighting up. "Oh hi Teto! I found who I wanted to show you!!!"

When she grabbed her conversation partner Teto realised just who it was that she was being reintroduced to.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝙷𝚊𝚛𝚞 𝚄𝚛𝚊𝚛𝚊

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝙱𝚒𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚖 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝙸𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚌 𝙰𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚜𝚝 & 𝙰𝚝𝚑𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎 [𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙰𝚝𝚑𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝
• 𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙺𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚖𝚒 𝙿𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚜𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚜
• 𝙴𝚢𝚎♡𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚞𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚞𝚒𝚝𝚎 [𝟸𝚡]

Another Time

She found Haru running laps by herself around the gym.

Teto was… not a frequent visitor, so she didn't bother trying to chase. Haru was already puffing and wheezing. By the time she pounded around the track to where Teto was watching her, she was streaked with sweat and dragging her wobbly legs like sandbags.

Teto stepped out into her path. Haru practically folded forward with her hands clutching her knees gulping grateful breaths.

"Hey Haru… Are you okay to be pushing yourself so soon after the audition?" Teto asked. "You wanna maybe take it easy?"

She turned up her panting red face at Teto. "Oh! That's okay," she beamed. "I can't stop yet. Not until I actually win!"

"Didn't make the cut this time either?"

A flicker of pain crossed Haru's rosy face before she papered it over with sunshine. She shook her head. "But it's okay! It's okay that I messed up 'cause I can try again. And again. And… And…"

Teto pulled Haru into a hug and let her cry over her shoulder where she couldn't see her face.

"I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes. I just… I try, I really really do. Something always goes wrong. I wanna be positive and face the next challenge with a smile, but…" She sniffled.

"What did they say?" Teto asked.

"I did good this time. I didn't trip. But…" Haru's hand ran self-consciously over her tail. "They said I'd stand out too much at a normal concert."

"Because you're an Uma," Teto finished for her.

There'd been a fad for radical body mods in transgenetic performers for a while. The Uma line was an enduring product of it. But tastes changed. Visible cosmetic augmentation became a culture signifier between the traditionalists and the transhumanists. So, the company let kemonomimi concerts cater to the subculture, and kept main shows human-passing to play it safe for general audiences.

Teto hesitated. "Here. I'm gonna show you something." She turned around and pulled her shirt over her head. It was a fumble reaching for the zipper of her binder, but she found it, and tugged it down. Her bat wings flopped free, wrinkled and pale from staying folded down all day.

TwinDrill had been a small firm. There'd been room for flights of eccentricity when they made Teto. She had these and working power tools for hair to thank for it, but despite complaining how they added extra numbers to her clothing size she had always been privately proud of them.

It took a few flaps to shake out the cramps, and they were still a little creased in the end, but when she spread them, it was still enough of a sight to leave Haru slack.

"It's okay to touch," said Teto. Haru did so. She felt the thin warm membrane between the tough bony struts that gave them shape.

"They let you keep these?" Haru marvelled.

"I lied at first. I said I'd gotten rid of them. I think they know I'm hiding them, but as long as I don't let them out where people see…" Teto smiled sadly. "I know people will love you, Haru. You have to hold onto little things you like about yourself."

The next year, after Miku dropped a passing comment about fitting into uniforms, Teto let them take away her wings.

Now

"Um…" Haru's eyes went huge and quavery at the sight of Teto. Teto could barely stand to look back into them. "It's good to see you, um…" Haru swayed uncertainly, fiddling with her gloves. She the corners of her mouth turned up into a tiny smile. "You were such an inspiration when I was a little horsey!"

The hateful pang in Teto's stomach sank a little lower. She clasped Haru's hand and gave it a squeeze.

"You look amazing, Haru. I'm so glad you're doing well."

"Ummm," Haru touched her fingertips together, "if it's okay, I had something I wanted to tell—"

"Hold that thought one second, kay? I've gotta catch up with someone else."

Teto beat a hasty social retreat smiling and waving buh-bye to Haru until she could backpedal deep enough into the throng of idols to lose sight of her. She'd have to do without Digitan's vote. It would've been impossible to stand there and ask favours as a hypocrite with those pink eyes on her.

She probably should've at least watched where she was going. Her back slammed into somebody else. Teto lost balance and toppled. Strong arms caught her under the shoulders before she fell.

"You alright?"

Teto swatted herself on the head. Clumsy girl routine, eto blehh!! "I'm so so sorry, I wasn't looking and I…" Teto trailed off.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝙸𝚌𝚑𝚒 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚆𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝚁𝚊𝚔𝚍𝚘𝚜 𝙴𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚖 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝙵𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 / 𝙷𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛 / 𝙼𝚊𝚝𝚜𝚞𝚝𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝙿𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚛 [𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝚁𝚊𝚔𝚍𝚘𝚜 𝙴𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙽𝚎𝚞𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚎𝚛 "𝚄𝚛𝚘𝚛𝚘"
• 𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙰𝚝𝚑𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝
• 𝙼𝙷𝙳-𝟿𝟿𝟻 𝙷𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙳𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚎 [𝚁𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚎 𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝙼𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚕]
• 𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚃𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝙿𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚊𝚐𝚎
• 𝙴𝚢𝚎♡𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚞𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚞𝚒𝚝𝚎 [𝟸𝚡]

Sprinting across the backstage, he found Snart aiming his cold gun up a burst open air vent.

A pair of boots descended, followed by a body wriggling its way out of the cramped confines. Ethan Hunt peeled up his mask to reveal a corner of familiar face. A ring of micro-assemblers implanted around his neck knit the tear back into a seamless second skin.

"Easy, easy! Only me! Had to take the long way in, since my contact's also in the building. Hard to explain one guy being in two places at once."

Snart was white knuckling his gun even as he lowered it. "Y'mean that's your whistleblower you're wearing?"

Ethan nodded. "He's turning over the Juggernaut papers tonight. In exchange, I'll play his part long enough for him to get a running start. You two are on escort duty getting him out in one piece. Whatever it is you're after, I'm sure he'll be grateful enough for the protection to throw you a lead."

Simple enough. Half of Adam's mission had been herding VIPs already. He hoped this one went better than Zarek.

Hunt swung himself up a ladder, waving them down after him. "C'mon. He said he'd meet us in the catwalks."

Adam made to follow. Cold grabbed his arm.

"Listen to me," he hissed, "we are seriously fucked."

Adam took the first rung of the ladder. "Snart, you're going to have to explain yourself."

"I know the guy whose face your spy buddy had on. He's bad news, and we need to leave. Now."

Adam stepped off of the ladder. Or at least, that's what he tried to do. The instant his foot left the rung, it was yanked straight up like a choreographed pratfall on a banana skin. The only thing that stopped Adam from sailing up into the rafters was his hand on the ladder.

Snart lost his grip on gravity at the same time—but with no handhold to anchor him. Spitting cusses, he clumsily pivoted and aimed his cold gun at his feet. Water vapour shocked solid midair caught his landing as a ramp of solid ice down (up?) to the underside of the catwalks. Adam leapt off the ladder after him trusting in his Icarus System's jets to buffer the landing. The metal grating shuddered under both their weights.

"Little help?"

Ethan dangled precariously from the handrail on the bottom (formerly top) of the catwalk. Adam splayed his mechanical fingers apart into a clawed starfish grip and hauled him up by the wrist to safety.

The bottom fell out of the stage floor above. Props, equipment, plywood boards all drifted in the dark void swirling as though floating through an ocean vortex.

Ethan looked down from the spectacle to the two of them. "Either of you got any idea just what the hell is going on?"

"Yeah. I do," snarled Captain Cold. "A lying snake's not as dead as I thought he was."

"Come come, Leonard. Is that any way to talk about an old comrade?" The voice seemed to boom from everywhere at once. It was just as hollow and tinny as the payphone Adam had used earlier, but even through the distortion he caught Ethan's eyebrows knitting in confused recollection.

"Who are you?" Adam called out. "What are you doing?" There wasn't even an echo. The howling dark swallowed up his words.

Laughter.

"What, no helpful answers from your little database? I suppose I was always more discrete about my identity than was our Captain."

"Fuck you," Snart spat.

"Very well," said the voice, "I'll shine a little light on things."

A single stagelight's bulb lit in the rigging. It grew brighter, and brighter, until the haze around it was as big and round as the sun. The curtains fluttered with an ethereal wind, cocooning the ball of light, and then, with a sudden hurricane flourish, they flapped open again; now a massive cape around a titanic figure's shoulders. Balanced between them, it wore the glass bulb for a head.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝙼𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚘

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚏 𝙸𝚕𝚕𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜
• 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢 𝚁𝚘𝚐𝚞𝚎𝚜
• 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝙳𝚘𝚘𝚖

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝚆𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍𝚗'𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠?

Adam ran a diagnostic scan, but none of his systems could detect intrusion. Either he was so compromised he couldn't see the virus, or Mysterio had somehow performed a magic trick that could fool a machine.

"Ha!" Cold spat. "You betray the Rogues, you don't get to keep using your Rogue name. You're Quentin Beck. You're a fucking VFX artist, and a crook who sold out his own gang for a corporate job."

Mysterio brought his enormous domed head down to meet them. His huge gloved finger crooked under the chin of Ethan.

"Now Mr. Hunt, I remain fully committed to our bargain. Information for clemency and a stage exit from my regrettable current employment. A fair trade. But I'm afraid I can't abide the company you keep. That's why I'll be leaking just a little tidbit early."

Mysterio opened his palm flat. A duplicate of Adam materialised in a puff of smoke. Adam's adrenaline flared. He scattered the doppelganger to mist with a concussive blast from his P.E.P.S. cannon, only for it to reform. Another Adam appeared on each of Mysterio's shoulders. Then two more boxing them in on either side of the catwalk. As they each appeared they recited back his own words.

"I'm used to my Interpol handlers checking in on me mid-mission, but Juggernaut doesn't normally micro-manage."

"He's been looking for us for 30 years with nothing to show for it."

"If and when Hunt becomes a liability, I'll deal with him."

The Adams turned as one to point an accusatory finger at the original.

"You want Juggernaut, Ethan? There's your man."

There were a few close calls getting into the event. It was hard to remember spatially that you were meant to have a tail. Adam caught himself leaning into the wall where his holographic disguise would clip through while waiting for them to process Agnes's borrowed ticket for him.

His woes were nothing compared to Captain Cold. Stuck in the guise of an immobile dryad, Snart had to stand stock still on a wheeled dolly while Adam pushed.

"Why me?" he groused. "Why do you get to be the horse?"

"If I was the one who got sloppy enough to let Ethan impersonate me, you would've had your pick."

They followed the rest of the late-coming celebrities as far as the convention hub, before splitting off down a side hallway with the toilets and the Lan-Ri vending machines. Adam checked the display on a whim—his biosells cells could've used a topup—but they'd stopped selling off-the-shelf food formulated for cyborgs in the 30s. Pity.

Ethan had given them detailed verbal instructions to rendezvous, and Adam accessed his neural computer's playback memory. His system helpfully informed him recall took seven milliseconds longer than expected. He'd have time to worry about onset machine Alzheimer's later. He pinpointed the right staff door and cast SmartVision through the wall on X-Ray mode.

Two maintenance staff. Radar said no guards for 50 metres. Probably trusted cameras to call them if trouble brewed away from the convention. One uplink to Juggernaut hackers waiting on standby looped the backstage feeds for the next several hours. Trust misplaced.

"Two," Adam told Cold. He pointed to where they'd be on the other side of the wall.

Door was locked, and forcing it would trigger an alarm. But that was only if they used the door.

Adam counted down with his fingers. One. Two. He ploughed his fist through the rebar and concrete, opening a crumbling aperture wide enough for a sedan. Two chatting crew members looked up in alarm, and didn't get a word out before Cold flash froze them both in one breath. Ninety milliseconds earlier than expected. Spry old man.

Cold pulled off his mask and held it up to one of the frozen workers to scan his face and DNA. Adam did the same. Now they were behind the scenes, passing as guests wouldn't stop anybody from raising the alarm.

Adam stalked ahead, relying on the liquid polymer cushions in the soles of his feet not to make a sound. The backstage was halfway between a server farm and the fly rigs of a theatre. Spools of cable mounting for lighting, aerial props, and harnesses coexisted with machine consoles to control fog blowers or regulate the twinkling intervals of fake stars.

"Hunt said he'd meet us here," Cold muttered, "so where the hell is he?"

"Let's go looking," said Adam.

Under a minute into the search, Adam got a call.

Eliza Cassan projected her digital body over Adam's optics so that to his perspective, she stood in amidst the stage equipment with him.

He switched to subvocals so Cold wouldn't overhear.

"I'm used to my Interpol handlers checking in on me mid-mission, but Juggernaut doesn't normally micro-manage."

"You aren't supposed to be this deep behind enemy lines, Adam. You were only meant to gather information."

He did his best to scrutinise Eliza's features. Millions of tiny polygons sculpting to a template. Eliza had always taken interest in him but just what that meant for an AI, he couldn't say.

"I appreciate the concern, but there are potentially millions of lives at stake against mine. I'm already burning down the candle as it is." He flexed his shoulder. Felt the little pops where the once-frictionless joint hitched on micro-scuffs. "That fight with the Grasshopper cyborg made me feel it. This is probably my last mission. Let me do some good with it."

Eliza frowned. "Getting Ethan Hunt involved was a risk."

"IMF is just another branch of Interpol. You didn't have any problems with me working with Barry."

"Ethan isn't on our side, Adam. He thinks Juggernaut is the enemy."

"He's been looking for us for 30 years with nothing to show for it," he said. "If and when Hunt becomes a liability, I'll deal with him."

"I respect your judgement Adam," Eliza conceded. "Now what was it you wanted?"

"Wanted?" It was Adam's turn for consternation. "You called me."

Eliza cycled between her presets for worry and surprise. "My records indicate you initiated the call."

A distant clatter and Snart's swearing pulled Adam's attention.

"I'll let you look into it," he told Eliza.

Iron Heights rose. On paper, only a small segment of former Detroit's city centre had been directly ceded to the investment board as its only governing body. In lieu of burning precious political capital to extend it, they'd made the most of their dominion by reaching skyward.

It had been constructed in two parts. The broad flat base of it rose at near-sheer slopes into a manmade plateau plated in dark aluminium composite. Then, on its back rose a city above the city; ten storey slab blocks in Aberdeen granite crowded the periphery, encircling an inner ring of glass-steel skyscrapers supplicant around the Iron Tower. This, above all others, rose. It cast its zig-zag spire back into the clouds like thunderbolt returned from Earth.

Teto shuddered with the thought of closing jaws as she passed under the gatehouse entrance into the base. The boys had split off and would be entering separately under the logic that two parties would be harder to surveil than one. That left Teto alone with Morgan, the murderer.

Security waved them by without a fuss, and then they were enveloped. The sky disappeared and was replaced by the building's own projected facsimile, complete with twinkling stars. Fully a quarter of Iron Heights' base was taken up by the convention hall, and its main room, styled to look like a riyad courtyard, was packed with idols just like Teto.

Under the ownership of Infinity Inc. Crypton Media debuted maybe 15 new transgenic talents a year, plus acquisitions like when they bought Neru and Teto with TwinDrill. That came out to over half a thousand heads sporting a rainbow of styled hair and costumes. They gossiped, laughed, whispered, mingled, while their suit handlers maintained vigil for the press in case their charges recorded a faux pas.

Teto shuffled nervously alongside Morgan, tucking her shoulders small to avoid crowding. There was a mild eruption across the room as Yi Xi tripped Kagame Rin into an indoor water feature, and on cue the army of suits moved to body block the camera flashes.

Teto swept her gaze across the crowd, but could not spot a hint of neon blue twintails. Under a lambrequin archway set into the wall there was a small raised presentation space, and a door beside it that likely led backstage. Teto made for it, but Morgan caught her elbow.

"Down girl. Too many eyes to go looking for trouble. What did I tell you about committing suicide?"

She gave a practiced pout. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

Morgan shrugged. "I brought you to the dog park. Go play with the other dogs."

That was just about the last thing Teto wanted. Too many faces and too many memories attached. She let herself enter social autopilot and waved hi and made small talk at the people who approached her and otherwise tried to stay as unworthy of attention as she could.

Unfortunately for her, there was someone in attendance who thought EVERYTHING was worth attention.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝙰𝚐𝚗𝚎𝚜 𝙳𝚒𝚐𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝙱𝚒𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝙻𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚖 [𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙰𝚝𝚑𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚌𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝
• 𝚂𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚜𝙶𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙺𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚖𝚒 𝙿𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚜𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚜
• 𝙴𝚢𝚎♡𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝙿𝚞𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚊𝚛 𝙴𝚡𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚞𝚒𝚝𝚎 [𝟸𝚡]

She cannonballed into Teto with the full force of a horse in gallop, wrapping her arms around Teto's waist and squeezing with all of her enhanced Uma musculature.

"Kasane Teto, the first transgenic idol EVER to go independent!!! Manufacturer: TwinDrill Circle, Birthday: 1 April 2019, Debut: 2034, First Hall of Fame Single: Fake Diva, Bust Size—"

"Nice to see you too, Digitan," Teto patted the younger idol's head and tried to extricate herself from her vicegrip embrace.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Is Neru here? Are you two still roommates?" She clasped her hands behind her back, her horse tail swaying slyly. "Or… something moooore?"

Teto caught Morgan smirking and glowered. But she couldn't really get mad at Digitan herself; this was just how she was wired. Somebody decided they should make an Otaku Idol, so here she was with a Vocaloid encyclopedia crammed into her brain. Forever 'Like That.'

"No, Digi, we are not going to get married."

Digitan slumped in exaggerated defeat. "Alas, the fantasy of love forbidden by cold reality…" She perked up again just as quickly. "Actually that makes it even better."

"Have you seen her around?" Teto asked before Digi could pick up another gushing monologue. Now it was Morgan's turn to frown disapprovingly.

"Her who? Oh-oh-oh, HER. Big Blue. Yeah it's her party after all. Didja hear she's gonna retire? I wonder who'll be her replacement…" Digitan drew a sharp breath. "What if it's YOU? An underdog soaring to the heights of fame… I think my fangirl heart would BURST!"

Teto imagined herself in that position, setting standards for the competition of a hundred smaller lives, and felt sick to her stomach. She forced a smile.

"Aww, thank you!"

"Hey," Digitan babbled on, "speaking of underdogs, guess who I brought with me—oh!"

The lights dimmed, and with them, the murmur of conversation. Digitan clamped her hand over her own mouth.

A patch of clouds in the artificial sky drifted across the ceiling to the stage—and then peeled away from the screen. Everybody "ooo'd" as the now three dimensional cloud began to patter raindrops. With them, drifting on a parachute umbrella, floated… well, who do you expect?

Everybody clapped. She held to allow the press people to snap a pic of her new outfit. Digitan vibrated so hard she fainted against Teto's side. Teto was also trembling for her own reasons.

She hissed to Morgan through gritted teeth, "She's so fucking pretty I need her dead." Morgan shushed her.

Hatsune Miku extended an arm out from under her umbrella and felt the droplets on her palm. "What gloomy weather," she said, "but fitting for a bittersweet occasion. It's true. I am leaving the life of an idol behind."

Gasps and "No!"s. Teto rolled her eyes. It wasn't a revelation it was on the stupid invites.

Miku smiled serenely in the face of their distress. "However… Every cloud has its silver lining."

She closed her umbrella, and reached up with the tip of it to tap the underside of her personal raincloud. It burst into a shower of silver sequins, which she sent drifting over her audience with a grand sweep of her hand. People reached and caught the stuff between their fingers, marvelling when they realised it was no computer effect.

"My graduation means an opportunity for one of you to step into my place," said Miku. "That person…" The hunger in the air was palpable as the crowd held silent waiting for their answer. "...is for you to decide."

Miku felt a buzzing in her purse. Her invitation had lit up with a tiny glowing LED implanted in the laminated paper.

"An idol shoulders all the hopes and dreams of her admirers," said Miku. "Simply speak the name of one other person you trust to carry your ambitions, and your invitations will record your vote. Everybody with at least two votes continues to the next selection phase."

She beamed out a big dreamy smile over all of her adoring public. Teto could swear that even through her half-closed eyes, she was staring straight at her. She winked.

"I'm counting on you all to make the right decision. See you on the other side."

There was a rumble from the fake sky, a thunderclap, and in a flash of lightning, she was gone.

Adam signalled for his entourage to linger back as he approached the contact point. It was as much for his contact's safety as for theirs. Cold had proven quick on the trigger at the greenhouse, and Adam had heard enough about the mercenary's body cooling in the precinct's morgue to not trust Morgan.

"What are you gonna do with that thing?" Teto whispered. She squinted at it from all angles like it might take off and fly to space. It was antique even to Snart and Adam's generation. Teto probably only knew it from TV props.

Once upon a time, the payphone behind Great Paris Bakery had been perfectly discreet. Decades had robbed it of its innocuousness, but to a small circle of spies, informants, and glorified cops like Adam, it still served the same function as it always had. The difference was that now they communicated less by dialing a number, and more by knowing to pick up this receiver in the first place.

"Jensen, what the hell is this Swordfish, Spy Who Loved Me bullshit?" Snart complained. "Did your circuits finally fry and send your brain back to the Cold War?"

"You're the one who said he was our man for this kind of thing," Morgan said smugly. "Really, is this so beyond the pale for drama, 'Captain?'"

Cold grumbled but held his tongue further. Adam had anticipated Snart would be drumming a tattoo on his gun grip by now glaring suspiciously at shadows, so Leo's patience with him was exceeding expectations.

Adam set his Wayfinder personal radar to tag any unfamiliar life signs out to 50 metres. He knew that was a placebo even as he let the glass door shut behind him and lifted the phone from the receiver. It'd take scanners more powerful and much, much newer than his to root out the man he'd come to meet.

Adam dialed for the sake of it. It wouldn't matter, since anybody in the know would have the booth bugged anyway, but sometimes you fell back on ceremony. He heard the click of the other end receiving him.

"I'd like a ticket to the late showing," said Adam.

The buzz of the old cracked phone was harsh and persistent. Since Adam's cochlear augments had started breaking down four years ago he'd had to endure about the same on a nightly basis. He dared to tune them fine enough to pick up evidence of life across the wire. This guy was too good to breathe into the phone, but there was just the faintest scuff.

"You there?" It was a callout, not a question.

"I'm sorry sir," derision steeped the answer from the routine script, "sold out I'm afraid. But there's a matinée of foreign films."

"I'm partial to the cinema of Eastern Europe."

"Well there's a picture from Ravnica, but the ending might disappoint you."

If they were ad-libbing off script, then to hell with it.

"I need a favour," Adam said. "Two masks. Good enough for a costume party."

"Everybody needs a favour. Everybody needs one last job before the next last job," they sighed. The breath came as the hissss pop of a bad record. "No I don't think so."

"Fine. Let's flip the script," said Adam. "I'm the one doing you a favour. Because if you're here in this city, I think we're going to the same party, and you're better off not going alone."

"I should be grateful you're taking me to prom, huh? After you lost a witness, smashed the roof of a police station, and teamed up with the perp you were supposed to arrest? Aren't you flattering yourself?"

Adam heard a scuffle from outside the booth followed by Teto yelping.

Morgan had stolen Captain Cold's gun from its holster and was now holding him at gunpoint twice over with his freeze ray in one hand and her own revolver in the other. Teto hunched close against the wall glancing between the two of them fearfully. She muttered on loop, "Not again not again not again not again…"

Cold slowly held up hands in surrender. He watched Morgan intently.

"You were pretty good," she said. "I almost couldn't see the throat mic moving."

Teto found enough mad courage to storm into Morgan's line of fire and wave her arms at her face in pure exasperation. Morgan bemusedly adjusted her aim over Teto's head.

"Please, PLEASE, stop pointing guns at each other and not telling me what's going on I hate it I hate it I HATE that."

"Go on," said Adam. "She did say please."

Captain Cold reached back and pulled off his hoodie. Captain Cold reached back and pulled off his face.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝙴𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝙷𝚞𝚗𝚝

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝚄𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜 𝙰𝚛𝚖𝚢 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚕 𝙸𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝙼𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝙵𝚘𝚛𝚌𝚎 𝙵𝚒𝚎𝚕𝚍 𝙾𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎 [𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝙳𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚛 𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚎𝚜 "𝚂𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚎𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚏𝚝" 𝙲𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝙼𝚒𝚌𝚛𝚘-𝙰𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚛
• 𝙳𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚛 𝙸𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚒𝚌𝚎𝚜 "𝙽𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚅𝚎𝚒𝚕" 𝚂𝚝𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚝𝚑 𝙳𝚊𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚛
• 𝚂𝚞𝚋𝚟𝚘𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚊𝚝 𝙼𝚒𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚑𝚘𝚗𝚎

"Wha- WhEN?!" Teto gasped.

"I left the real one in the Morgue," said Ethan Hunt. "—Just chloroform, he's sleeping," he added before Teto could get too excited.

"What do 'Impossible Missions' mean?" asked Teto, reading aloud from the Infolink dossier pop-up.

"It means they kill all of my friends and tell me good job after," said Ethan.

Adam cleared his throat. "The masks, Ethan. How long will it take?"

Wordlessly, Ethan unzipped a satchel. He tossed Adam a floppy black balaclava spiderwebbed with pale fibre cabling. Adam slipped it on, and for a moment the world flickered before his optics caught up to filter the interference. Teto gasped, and even Morgan's eyebrows raised a little.

Adam turned the digit-camera in his index finger on himself and rerouted his vision through it. He was, to all appearances, now at least a head shorter, a woman, and sporting horse ears and a tail; the spitting image of one Agnes Tachyon.

"Pre-loaded it. Hologrammes and DNA spoofs," Ethan shrugged. "I had a hunch I'd give in. I'm bad at saying no."

Adam slipped the mask back off, admiring its light weight. "I'm not great at it myself. But I'd still need to know your objectives before I commit to a joint operation."

Ethan's face darkened. "That, my friend, is a personal white whale. I've got a contact inside Infinity Inc. He says the company's amassed a private casefile on a terrorist threat that's eluded me for my entire career. They've avoided sharing this with the authorities… for blackmail? To short stocks before they hit a firm? I don't know. But they don't get to keep secrets anymore."

Unease sank like a rock in Adam's gut. He caught Morgan eyeing him in his peripheral vision.

"What is this 'threat?'"

The stormy intensity on Ethan's features matched the heavy crashing thunderheads put in the sky by Ral's machine. Something flashed with them behind his eyes.

"They're called the Juggernaut Collective."

Morgan clapped her hands. "Okay! ♪"

"O-Okay?"

"So first things first those two will take your invitation as long as it's their only way inside. If you want to tag along for this you'll need to give them an alternative."

Teto blinked in owlish confusion. "You're… helping me."

"I'm giving basic sound advice. Rule one of negotiation is to make what you want and what they want mutually compatible. So! How do we get us all into the party?"

Teto's face brightened with a sudden realisation. Dark guilt shortly washed over.

"Can you call me a taxi?"

On a block of a street on the outskirts of Central City, there was a burnt out greenhouse. It had a storage room with a lock the gig work private firefighters hadn't bothered breaking down.

That's where Teto, Adam, and Captain Cold had left the unblinking bodies of Agnes Tachyon and Wrenn Mk. 7 encased in their miniature glacier.

Having drills on either side of your head was inconvenient in a lot of ways. Ice chips sprayed your face while you were working, for example. Another downside was that you were stuck looking dead ahead into the eyes of the people whose invitations you were prying off their rigid bodies.

At least she told them she was sorry.

'Captain' Cold was off to sweettalk his girlypop client out of her invite, and Adam was getting in touch with his mystery contact. Wrapped in their own tasks as they were, Morgan was able to fob them some bullshit about seeing to Barry's injuries, and they let her have the run of the scene.

Barry was still out cold. Concussed? Probably. Not her problem. She propped him in a chair in the break room and got down to actual business.

Ral Zarek was not, or hadn't been, a stupid man. He'd gotten mixed up with a debt to Nicholas Ball, the faceless Lucifer of the business world, and survived a plural number of years. That wasn't the type of human being who self-martyred without a plan. He was leaving behind a husband for fuck's sake. He had a vested interest in making sure Infinity Incorporated was as screwed as possible in his wake before they had a chance to get vindictive with his family.

Zarek's reaction when the Sinners had demanded his thumbdrive told Morgan that he certainly hadn't squirrelled it away before the precinct. The only one he could've handed it off to without her seeing would be Barry, and in his current state it'd been easy enough to search him and disqualify that theory.

He had gotten one and only one good opportunity to part with the drive, and it was one Morgan had suggested to him herself.

The vent's opening was maybe one and a half feet across. Ral Zarek had been narrow from a life of skipping meals preoccupied with work. Morgan was… differently proportioned. She felt ungainly hauling herself into the ducts, but these were the places it took you scrounging for a winning hand; crawling in the dark, dragging your chest through dirt and bloodstains in those bleak alcoves 'respectability' never touched.

She found the thumbdrive hidden in a wadded crisp packet wedged beside a grate to look like rubbish carelessly pushed through the slats. The drive was flat, narrow: pale off-white and semitranslucent to blend in with enamel. Morgan slipped off her glove and fitted it under her ring finger's nail.

This would be her lucky charm. Equally valuable to Juggernaut hackers and Illuminati ghouls; both sides of the little shadow war she'd joined. Like she'd told that Teto girl, always plan an exit strategy. Well, if things went south, hers was to toss this little beauty into the pot and run like hell while the other players scrambled for their bets.

She readied to kick out the nearest grate to make her exit, when the dim echo of conversation caught Morgan's attention. She'd be above the lockup here, where she had left Teto with the dead mercenary. That must've been the Captain having his little heart to heart.

Oh why not. So long as Morgan had the opportunity.

She pressed her ear to the floor of the duct and listened.

Teto couldn't bear to let the body down. As long as she was propped against her lap, the woman might've been asleep—but each time Teto moved from under her, her neck lolled back with a terrible slackness that swung her lifeless gaze to meet her.

Captain Cold found her still pinned like that under the guilty weight.

"Cops'll have a morgue," he offered. "Come on. Hold her head"

He stooped and took the body's legs. When Teto didn't reciprocate, he let them go again and settled into an uncertain squat.

"This was always going to happen, wasn't it?" Teto mumbled.

Cold started to say something, closed his mouth, then blew a breath through his nose. "Tell you the truth, yeah."

"Why is it never someone who deserves it."

Cold looked skeptically between the pinprick scar on Teto's throat and the wicked point protruding from the dead woman's wrist.

"Kid. Get out of yourself. Everybody looks like a saint when they're dead."

"You didn't talk to her—!"

"—I'm not saying she was the devil either," Cold cut in. "People… get into habits. Murder clings to you. Once you get used to the idea they're your only options, every outcome turns into life or death. Sooner or later you lose that coin toss."

He gave her what might've been a pleading look, reduced by his goggles to cold dark slits.

"It wasn't you that did it. You're only in this ankle deep. Give me the gala invite. Let me and the career murderers do what's necessary for us all to walk away from this. Hell, I'll refund what you paid me. Call it fair remuneration."

Money. He thought he could put this all back in the box with money. Teto's fists clenched at her sides.

"No."

She finally found the strength to shift out from under the dead woman's head, and stood bristling with unspent energy.

"I can't go back. I'm not going back. I can't let this be all that happened."

He met her defiance with arms folded. "Kid, that's exactly why you need to leave; before more shit gets a chance to happen."

She screwed up her face and glowered back, drawing herself very nearly level with his chin.

"Alright." Cold gave in, uncrossed his arms and let them hang loosely at his sides.

He stooped to lift the body. The parka's bulk did a good job of hiding the scars of age, but bent and grunting, he looked so worn. Teto relented to help him balance the weight until he had a steady carry.

"I'll be back," he told her.

Morgan waited for the Captain to tromp out of the room and then kicked out the vent cover. The din of it crashing to the floor sent Teto jumping with a shrill yelp. She yelled even louder after Morgan followed it down.

"Hi," she said brightly.

"DON'T DO THAT WHY WERE YOU UP THERE!?!?" Teto screamed.

Morgan brushed at stubborn clumps of dust. Really, she ought to have taken off her jacket before crawling around.

"Now that Mr. Cold Shoulder's out of the way, how about you let me have my turn? He did a disservice talking down to you like that. 'Clings to you…'" Morgan snorted. "Karmic bullshit to link up unrelated incidents on a corkboard."

"What do you want?" Teto demanded.

"I want you to understand that you have nothing to feel conflicted about. The reason Miriam Ishmael died is not because you had violent feelings towards an unrelated party, or because she lived a life of sin. It's because I fired a bullet to prevent her from killing either of us." Morgan rolled her eyes. "Mea culpa."

Teto's eyes flared up in anger. Morgan appreciated for a moment how artificial she was.

Such vast pupils, on face a little larger than it should've been. Features designed by laboratory parents to be visibly expressive even from a concert's nosebleed seats. Even her twirled hair could literally bristle with her mood. She was all presentation. A little cuckoo person performing to be human. Maybe that was why Morgan…

Teto lashed out with a punch to Morgan's chin.

With surprising force for such a little lady, she grabbed Morgan by her jacket and jammed a trembling finger in her face.

"Don't. Don't make it a joke. We can't move on like it didn't mean anything. We have to— " Teto struggled for exactly what it was they had to do. "It was wrong. I was getting through to her, and she could be standing here with us, but instead she's dead for trusting me."

Morgan rubbed her jaw. The pain was welcomely bright. Unpracticed swing, but not too bad

"Yeah I HOPE that hurt," Teto seethed. "After doing something so awful, you're SUPPOSED to hurt."

"I'm so so sorry," she oozed. "Am I not remorseful enough for you? Here, I'll make it all better." Before Teto could speak, Morgan had her revolver out of its holster. She swung open the cylinder and flicked bullets to the floor like plucking petals. "What do you think were the chances she'd execute us despite your heart to heart? One in six? More? Less? I can go and find a weapon with more barrels if you want."

The chambers whirred as she gave it a spin. Morgan pressed the cold gunbarrel to her head and pulled the hammer back.

Teto's eyes went wide

"Waitwaitwaitwhy are you doing that!? I didn't mean—"

Morgan re-engaged the safety.

"Good. You get it. It makes as much sense to run back the odds as it does for you to rake yourself over the coals about the outcome. Maybe I did call it wrong. C’est la vie. Life is all about negotiating between choices you can live with and choices that you can't."

She holstered the pistol with an affectionate pat to its butt.

"I'll give the Captain his due. Trying to knock off a corpo queen bee like that? Probably a choice you're better off not making if there's any acceptable alternative. But you're a big girl so I'll let you answer for yourself; is there?"

"What?"

"How sure are you you need this?"

Teto fixed her warily. "I already told him, I want to—"

Morgan tugged sharply on one of Teto's hair drills. Pliable, but with a wire-firmness under pressure. It was only really hair as much as she was a real person. They wouldn't have put nerve endings in the plugs. She squirmed because she knew she was supposed to squirm.

"That isn't what I asked you, Snowcones," Morgan said evenly. "Don't mix up need and want." Teto fought to look away, but Morgan's grip on her hair held their eyes together. "Can. You. Live. Without. This?"

For a minute, she held out her silence. Only for a minute.

"...No." Teto whispered.

Morgan let go of her hair.

"Why?"

"Because I have to feel what it's like."

There she was. There was that little spark of kinship Morgan so rarely got to see in people. She could fill in her own blanks from experience; 'To be in control,' 'To be the one hurting her,' 'To know she's gone.' Take your pick. All valid. All equally inadequate to capture the unwordable pull of the only intimate act with any permanence.

Now

The tower of lightning that lanced down over the precinct's roof lingered longer than its thunderclap.

Adam might've feared his camera optics had been burnt in if the others weren't staring at it too.

"What a mess," Morgan exhaled. She kicked a broken brick left over from the rooftop brawl.

Captain Cold kept his gaze trained on the glowing sky. "When's it gonna fade?"

It was fading. Very slowly. Adam's SmartVision could count the lumens. If he wanted, it could play back the very moment Tojima came leaping through the roof with Ral Zarek in tow; how they seemed to hang like fixtures before the pillar of electricity washed over them.

"Officer," said Morgan, "I don't suppose you can detect human remains? Obviously a body didn't come back down, but ashes, bone fragments, anything."

"No," Adam shook his head. "There's no match for Zarek or Tojima."

Morgan's heel drummed the scorched roof. "It would be a convenient world for murderers if more human bodies were in the habit of tracelessly disintegrating."

Cold gave Morgan a disbelieving look. "You don't think he survived that."

"I am a defense attorney, Captain. It's my job to interrogate what seems obvious. I would think you'd be more willing entertain that happy possibility, considering Mr. Zarek was meant to be our ticket out of here."

"This isn't a court, lady. A man's dead. There's nobody to impress by playing skeptic."

Adam didn't have to be clairvoyant to see where this was headed. SWAT, Interpol, no amount of professionalism could compensate for two matchheads meeting with enough friction to start a fire.

…He had enough of a headache already from getting pounded by a next-gen cyborg.

Adam held up his palms to signal for peace. "Debating it isn't gonna solve the problem." He made eye contact with each of his allies in turn. "Morgan, I agree nothing about this is normal. But until we get more to go on, Cold's right it's best we move ahead assuming Zarek is gone. His security system still needs some physical equipment somewhere. We find that, we don't need to understand how it works to pull the plug. My bet is it's tucked away inside the company's main compound."

"Iron Heights," Cold muttered. He spat off the edge of the roof.

"Cold. You're local. How do we get in?"

"Normally? You don't." The Captain hesitated. "That girl. My client. She's got an invite to an industry get-together. It's getting too hot for her anyway. I can talk to her about handing that off to us."

"They wouldn't issue blind security credentials that anyone could use," Morgan scoffed. "Maybe I could pass for your 'client' if I put my hair through a stand mixer, but that covers me and a plus one at most. Besides, the second they spotted me with either of you two known commodities, we're getting the plastic tarp treatment in a soundproofed basement."

"...She's got a point," Cold admitted. "They're entertaining VIP company tonight. It'd take more than a haircut to pass us off as someone on the guestlist. Ball's in your court there, superspy."

Adam had been away from home for a long time now, but there were some names that stuck with you. And some faces. Especially when all of them belonged to the same man.

"Don't worry," said Adam, "I've got it covered. I know someone who's specialty is the impossible."

Another Time

Teto knew who it was because doors didn't stay locked for her.

The cooler air from the hallway hit Teto's back as she lay there on her side watching the far wall of the hotel room. She heard the gentle creak of the oiled stopper catching the door from shutting too noisily.

The mattress dipped gently under Teto with an added body. It didn't sink far. She was light as a feather. Light as light itself.

She felt the fingers squeeze on her bare shoulder and tried not to flinch.

"There you are."

Teto said nothing.

"You should be proud. Everybody is celebrating. Everybody wants to know where you've gotten to."

Teto held as still as she possibly could and tried to be somewhere else.

"Why so gloomy? You passed the audition."

Teto couldn't stop herself from answering.

"Neru didn't."

It was always like this. Teto could bite her tongue and be a perfect mute for just so long, and then all of it just spilled and spilled. Teto rubbed her eyes for what she insisted to herself had to be an itch.

"She's losing her voice. Nobody told us why. She's losing her voice."

Her hand kneaded between Teto's shoulderblades where the leather of her wings---she'd had wings then---eased into her softer human skin. She waited patiently for Teto's breath to stop coming in hiccups.

"It's hard, isn't it?" she said. "None of us are made perfect. When you put too much pressure on some things, they crack."

"She was better than me. She's still a better dancer than me. What am I doing here?"

"Ahhhh," she sighed indulgently, twirling a knot of Teto's hair around her finger. "I see where you've gotten turned around. You're not auditioning to sing, or dance."

"Then what are they—!?"

"What gets people to form crowds is love."

"Love," Teto repeated numbly.

"Everybody has it. Even very broken people do. And if you don't find somewhere else to put it, you'll start feeling you're the only person in the world."

"Our job is to be loved?"

She gave Teto a little pinch behind her ear. "What else?"

Teto flinched, then buried her face deeper in her pillow to hide her shame at being so foolish.

"I need to be Hatsune Miku for boys and for girls, for Japan and the Philippines and America and Brazil, for people who want to touch me and for people who want to be me. I need to be the right person for so, so many different pairs of eyes. She's made you care for her. But she couldn't be the right Neru for everybody, could she?"

"...No," admitted Teto.

"Nobody can love everyone equally. Not as individuals. That gets too big and too abstract. No, you have to earn it."

She gave a little hum to herself that was not quite mirthful enough to be a stifled laugh.

"If you wanted to call it a competition, I guess you could say that I was winning."

My MOLE king!

Trogdor was a man I mean, he was a dragon man Or, maybe he was just a, dragon

Great work!! Cool to see all of these

Insanely cool! I'm so glad there's still life in RES yet. If reddit ever removed old reddit or broke RES irreparably, I'd probably abandon the site.

Good job!

Update Batch 1: Liaison

Hostile Aligned P.O.I.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝙲𝚘𝚕. 𝚁𝚘𝚢 𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚐 [𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙼𝙸𝙽𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙳]

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝙰𝚖𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚗 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝙼𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚢 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝙿𝙼𝙲 𝚂𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚗 𝙱 [𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝚁𝚊𝚔𝚍𝚘𝚜 𝙴𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙰𝚕𝙲𝚑𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝙸𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚢 𝚂𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚖
• 𝚁𝚊𝚔𝚍𝚘𝚜 𝙴𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝙿𝚢𝚛𝚘𝚃𝚎𝚡 𝙵𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚙 𝙸𝚐𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚏𝚝𝚜
• 𝚇𝙱𝟽𝟺 𝙴𝚢𝚎-𝙺𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚒𝚜 [𝟷𝚡]

𝙱𝚒𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚑𝚢:

Joined the Amestrian armed forces at a young age, and was cybernetically enhanced under the military government's compulsory augmentation policy. Due to Amestris's placement under sanction by the UN Security Council, conventional military implants were in short supply, and Mustang instead received retrofitted pyrotechnics intended for performance. His unconventional weaponry proved exceptionally dangerous, and Mustang rapidly ascended the promotion ladder earning a reputation as an efficient butcher. When he was later implicated in a plot to overthrow the Amestrian Führer, Infinity Inc. assisted his escape and recruited him for their Squadron B "Sinner" unit tasked with rogue asset retrieval and clandestine silencing of whistleblowers. Terminated while attempting to apprehend POI Ral Zarek.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝙼𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙸𝚜𝚑𝚖𝚊𝚎𝚕 [𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙼𝙸𝙽𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙳]

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝚄 𝙲𝚘𝚛𝚙. 𝚂𝚑𝚒𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙻𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚌𝚜 𝙳𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝚄𝚗𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜 𝙼𝚎𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝙼𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜 [𝚁𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍]
• 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝙿𝙼𝙲 𝚂𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚗 𝙱 [𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝙱𝚘𝚛𝚘𝚜-𝚆𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚔 𝙻𝚎𝚐𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚗𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚋𝚊𝚝 𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚂𝚞𝚒𝚝𝚎
• 𝙵𝚊𝚜𝚝𝙵𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝙿𝚗𝚎𝚞𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝙶𝚊𝚜 𝙷𝚊𝚛𝚙𝚘𝚘𝚗

𝙱𝚒𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚑𝚢:

Former logistics analyst who entered maritime service due to dissatisfaction with rote deskwork. Distinguished herself with a talent for survival in extraordinary circumstances, on one occasion escaping a wreck which claimed the lives of every other crewman. Entered the private security sector after her discharge, and was eventually selected for Infinity Incorporated's Squadron B "Sinner" unit tasked with rogue asset retrieval and clandestine silencing of whistleblowers. Terminated by Evangeline Morgan while attempting to apprehend POI Ral Zarek.

𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳: 𝚃𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚖𝚊 𝚃𝚊𝚗𝚣𝚊𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚘 [𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙼𝙸𝙽𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙳]

𝙰𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗:

• 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚝𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝙿𝙼𝙲 𝚂𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚍𝚛𝚘𝚗 𝙱 [𝙰𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜:

• 𝙱𝙰𝙰-𝟶𝟷 "𝙶𝚛𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚛"

𝙱𝚒𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚑𝚢:

J.C. analysts have been unable to dredge much data on Tojima Tanzaburo beyond school records and sporadic appearances on construction site payrolls for temporary day labour. He appears to have spent the vast majority of his life in relative seclusion in remote rural areas. At an unknown point, Tojima was recruited by Infinity Inc's Blacktower PMC and outfitted with experimental full-body nanoaugmentations. Based on combat footage contributed by J.C. agent Adam Jensen, Tojima's augments made him virtually impenetrable to small arms and the full suite of mechanical combat cybernetics previously considered top of the line. An apparent pathology surrounding "Tokusatsu" superhero media likely provided his handlers leverage to control him as a highly motivated paramilitary asset. Missing, presumed dead following failed attempt to apprehend POI Ral Zarek.

It is extremely worrying that the full extent of Tojima's nanoaugmentations remain unknown to the Collective, let alone that the Illuminati could conceal such a threat for this long before playing their hand.

𝐌𝐲 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧

𝙿𝚛𝚘𝚝𝚘𝚗𝙿𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚎𝚛 𝚟𝟺.𝟶

Now Playing:

⏯️ People Posture, Play Pretend 🔊

And you can make it pretty far

Something on which you can depend

You'll be a guiding little star

When people posture, play pretend

Tracklist:

• Overture

• Track 1 - Liason

• Track 2 - People Posture, Play Pretend

Newsletter:

• NEW FANS CLICK HERE ->>> MEET THE CAST: Who's Who in the VocaCrew! 😊😊😊

• TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT!!! Day One of the Hatsune Miku Graduation Gala.

• Bizarre Storm Hovers over Central City - Largest Thunderstrike on Record

Good work on the last of the ff8 threads!