“What?” Anya growled and nearly crushed her phone in her hand. Carl jumped in surprise across from her and a few people nearby paused to stare. She’d forgotten where she was and let her voice go up. She blushed and leaned in towards Carl.

“Are you hearing this?” she whispered and pointed at her phone. “About the enemy aliens?”

“Yeah,” Carl nodded. His handsome face was drawn tight, eyes wide, mouth tense. “Ivy says they’re here to kill us? Now, apparently. Right, Ivy?” Carl pressed his finger to his ear and looked up as his AI spoke to him. He went a shade paler as he listened and nodded again.

“Fucking hell,” Anya said. “What the fuck is happening Felix? Where are they? And what the fuck happened to them not arriving until a year from now?”

“The scan showed them just as they entered the atmosphere, scattered across the planet. Some of them are over the initial known locations of hosts, but many are not,” Felix replied. “One of them did appear over Manhattan. As for them arriving a year early…the menu doesn’t have anything explaining that. It might be part of the malfunction or missing data I mentioned earlier. Super sorry. Again.”

Anya bit her lip and tried to keep from shouting her frustration. “So it targeted this area? How did it know to do that? And how come you can sense them anyways? I thought you couldn’t access stuff?”

“I can’t access outside systems or send any information aside from our location, but I can receive information super good! I can’t say why, but their initial signal upon entering the atmosphere was very similar to the menu’s own, except a lot more powerful. Not exactly the same, but enough for the menu to automatically try and ‘connect,’ like it did with Carl. I have a record of the menus’ initial planetfall up until the microsecond they integrated with hosts, but there is no record of the enemy aliens after their initial appearance in the upper atmosphere.”

“My menu tried to connect with enemy aliens? Can you shut that shit off please?” Anya hissed.

“Sure thing! Great idea, by the way!”

“And you have no idea where they really landed?” Anya asked.

“Nope. Sorry,” Felix said and Anya could almost hear them wincing as they were unable to answer her question.

“Are they actual aliens or just other types of menu systems?” Anya asked. Carl was muttering his own hurried questions to his AI, but keeping his voice too low for Anya to hear.

“I don’t know that either!” Felix said.

“I need to go,” Carl said and stood up from the table fast enough to knock his chair over with a bang. He spun and hurried outside. Anya stared after him for a moment before she got up, righted his chair, muttered an apology to the other customers and the staff, and bolted after him.

It was fully night now, but the road was awash with the glaring brilliance from the headlights of passing cars and glowing signs. Carl stood on the edge of the sidewalk and craned his neck out to look up the street. His foot beat an impatient tattoo as he leaned out further to try and see around the traffic.

“Hey!” Anya snapped as she followed him. “What are you doing? We need to figure out what the fuck is going on. In case you didn’t hear, our year-long head-start kinda just went up in smoke.”

“I’m gonna get out of here,” Carl said. “Ivy said one of those things landed around here probably. So I’m going somewhere outside of New York.”

“There are hundreds of those things, and a lot of them were scattered all over America. Pretty sure I saw a few south, north, and west of New York. And kind of just all over the place.”

Something sleek and black gleamed up the street and Carl waved at it.

“Did you just have your poor driver circling the block while we talked?” Anya asked.

“They’re just an android,” Carl said as he stepped into the street. Mention of a personal android chauffeur would’ve given Anya pause a few days ago, but there were much bigger concerns now.

The Rolls pulled up to the curb and Carl stepped inside. Anya shoved him into the car and forced her way inside behind him.

“Hey!” Carl snapped. “What the hell?”

“It’d be stupid as hell to split up now when something is hunting us,” Anya said and slammed the door behind her.

“You could’ve asked,” Carl said, “but whatever. Fine. Shelly, take us back to Long Island. I need to get some things.”

“Of course, sir,” a pleasant but monotone voice said from the driver’s seat. Anya studied the driver and frowned.

Shelly the android chauffeur wore an old-fashioned driver’s uniform, complete with cap and white gloves. She was short, but buxom, blond, and very pretty. Her pale skin looked a little too smooth, and her movements were a little too precise and mechanical. Her eyes met Anya’s in the rear view mirror and Anya thought they looked glassy, like what you might see on a stuffed animal.

“So the fact that your android looks like a super model with huge tits is just part of her basic design?”” Anya asked and then leaned back in the plush leather seat. Carl blushed but ignored her as he took out a crystal decanter of some sort of amber booze from a panel nearby.

“I need a drink. You?” he asked and offered her a crystal glass. Anya shook her head and Carl poured himself a double. His hand shook. Not ten minutes ago he’d been laid back. Now he looked like he was ready to jump out of his skin. Anya couldn’t blame him…too much.

“All right, so we stick together for now. What next?” Carl asked as he sipped his drink.

Anya frowned as she thought. She had just lost a year of planning time. The aliens were here, somewhere, according to Felix and the menu. She would have been more reluctant to believe this if it weren’t for Carl. The menu’s systems had been spot on detecting him.

“Why were you out today, near the federal building?” Anya asked.

“There’s a restaurant I like nearby. It’s expensive, so I wasn’t able to go there before the menu. But since then I’ve been going there all the time,” he said. Anya grunted. If the menu system had a range of several city blocks, it wasn’t that much of a coincidence that they ran into each other. The only menu systems in the area had both landed right outside of Manhattan.

“Do you think we should go get the Feds now?” Carl asked.

Anya thought about that. The feds had been her top choice when she’d had a year to set things up. But she didn’t know if the Manhattan field office could respond to an emergency situation like this., or even if the FBI responded to active crimes or emergencies like this.

She looked up at the night sky above for any UFOs or alien fleets or anything, but it was a typical night in the city. No invaders.

“Felix, did the enemy aliens arrive in some kind of ship or something?” Anya asked.

“If they did, they were very small. No bigger than this car, probably,” Felix said. “The signals the aliens were broadcasting when they hit the atmosphere didn’t send out a lot of info besides location, but like I said, it was similar to the menu system signal. It could be just the aliens themselves that came through the atmosphere. No ships or anything.”

“Well, no huge dramatic starships blowing up New York, sounds like,” Anya said. “Just an alien…hiding somewhere.”

“Hell,” Carl said. “So since nothing big and obvious is happening, what then? You wanna get out of here together?”

Anya chewed on her lip as she continued to think. The feds were a no-go for now. But she could do what any normal citizen would do if they thought they saw something strange: she could call the cops. She looked at Carl and told him as much.

“You seriously think the cops would respond to a call about aliens?” Carl asked and poured himself another drink. "And that they could just what, arrest it?"

“No,” Anya said. She knew as much when she’d been planning over the weekend. Phone calls wouldn’t convince anybody. “But calling the cops on a strange person doing something suspicious and letting them see the alien in-person would get something done. It’s actually perfect. This whole weekend I’ve been going crazy figuring out the best way to convince the authorities this is all real without getting myself thrown in Area-51 and now, boom, here it is. We call the cops with something believable like a weird guy placing packages or something. The cops show up, see the alien, and take it from there. They call SWAT, the National Guard, the fucking Marines, whatever. The government knows about it, and we are removed from the situation.”

Carl paused with his drink halfway to his mouth. “That’s…not stupid.”

“Gee, thanks,” Anya said and glowered at him.

“But a problem: where do we tell the cops to go?” he asked. “Ivy, show me the map again.”

An AI that looked very similar to Felix appeared on Carl’s knee. Its head was shaped like a broad leaf, and it glowed a deep, forest green. Its face was minimalistic, like Felix’s but stoic. Felix was animated in their expressions, while Ivy had all the expression of a rock.

“Here,” she said in a drab tone. Carl’s menu appeared and showed Manhattan. The red dot of the enemy alien was above the Lower East Side.

“This is when it was still up in the atmosphere,” Carl said. “Right Ivy?”

“I guess,” she said and shrugged.

“So it could be in Central Park or Queens or right around the corner?” Carl continued.

“Uhhhhhhhh,” Ivy droned. “Sure.”

Anya took out her phone and checked Twitter, Reddit, and the news sites for any signs of disturbance in the area, but didn’t find anything. She would have thought a murderous enemy alien would have been on a rampage, but as far as the city was concerned, nothing was going on.

“It must have landed by now. But nobody’s noticed anything?”

“Not yet,” Carl said. “I think a killer alien in Manhattan would be on the news within a few seconds of it happening. Maybe it’s trying to hide? That’s good, right?”

“For now. I’d also rather not wait for the alien to start running amok in the city,” Anya said. They drove in silence for several blocks as Anya thought. Outside, the city continued on as always. None of the pedestrians or other drivers or the masses in the subway below had any idea their city had just gained a new, murderous visitor from above. Just like she’d had no idea about Carl until he all but ran into her.

“Felix?” Anya said as an idea came to her. “If you turn on that thing that tries to connect again, will we be able to find the alien?”

“Possibly,” Felix said, “but that means they would be able to find us too.”

"I dunno about that," Carl said. "I'm still voting we just bail on the city."

Anya glared at him. "Look, I'm not thrilled about hunting a killer alien at night. I wasn't exactly looking forward to throwing myself at the feds either. I was still going to do it because I couldn't live with myself if I just sat on my ass while a whole invasion force got closer to Earth. But now they're here, so we have to do something. We don't know if this thing is only after us or if it's happy to kill anybody it comes across. Things are quiet now, but that's no guarantee they'll stay that way, so we need to find this thing and point it out to people who might actually know what they're doing and can call in some big guns if need be."

"Okay, okay, geez," Carl said. "I don't want people to get hurt. That just, includes me, y'know?"

Anya nodded. "I get it, and I can't make you fight. God knows I'm not itching to go toe-to-toe with whatever landed, but we can at least get professionals involved."

"Okay, fine," Carl nodded and took a deep breath. Anya started to ask him if he was going to be all right when her ear beeped.

“Shit, what now?” she asked.

“You have your first primary objective!” Felix said and the menu changed to show her.

“DEFEAT THE ENEMY ALIEN,” glowed in bold letters on her screen. Unlike her side objectives, this had additional information in smaller type below it: “Locate and destroy the enemy alien. 2 Levels, 75,000 RAC.”

“Wait, is that my reward? I get that much?” Anya asked and pointed at the screen. “Damn.”

“We get rewards for killing the alien?” Carl said beside her and brought his own menu up. His eyes widened when he saw the notification. “Ivy, for real?”

“Uh, yeah,” Ivy, said in a sleepy voice. It waved at Carl’s menu. “You get…that.”

“Hell yes!” Carl said and grinned.

Anya raised an eyebrow at Carl. “Now you’re all gung-ho to kill the alien?”

“Look, I’m almost entirely out of RAC and I could always use more skill points. Especially since I know we’re being hunted now and the aliens showed up a teensy bit earlier than expected. We can still call the cops but maybe we just use them as back-up, or we let them distract the alien while we take it out.”

“Still gotta find it first,” Anya said. “Felix, can you just sporadically ping the area while we move around until we get a signal, and then stop?”

“I can absolutely do that!” Felix said. “Want me to go ahead and start now?”

“Carl?” Anya asked.

“Yeah! Shelly can just drive us around until we find it, call the cops, then boom, we get the kill,” he said. Anya hoped it would be that easy. “I’m gonna go ahead and drop the last of my points in something useful I was looking at earlier. You might want to spend all those points you’ve been saving too. Shelly, forget going to Long Island. Circle along the outer edge of Manhattan, starting with the Lower East Side.”

“Of course sir!” Shelly said. Anya rolled her eyes and then turned her attention to her menu. She’d spent the last few days agonizing over all the choices when she wasn’t figuring out who to call. She didn’t have to spend all her points now, but she needed to do something so she and Carl weren’t entirely defenseless.

Seeing the fire appear at the tip of her finger had been amazing, and she decided that since she already had one point in the skill, a few more couldn’t hurt. She put nine points into Flame Dominion, bringing it up to 10. She felt a surge of heat in her chest. That warm center ignited for a moment and she gasped as its heat shot through her before subsiding again.

Her right ear beeped again.

“Skill update!” Felix said. Congratulations on hitting skill level 10 with Flame Dominion!”

“What’s that mean?” Anya asked as she pulled the skill up on her menu. Her list of skills now showed her progress at regular intervals:

LEVEL 1: INHERENT FLAME ATTUNEMENT AND SUN’S HEART. FEEBLE FIRE CONJURATION. FEEBLE HEAT SENSE.

LEVEL 5: BASIC FIRE CONJURATION AND MANIPULATION. BASIC HEAT SENSE. BASIC HEAT ABSORPTION.

LEVEL 10: NOVICE FIRE CONJURATION AND MANIPULATION. NOVICE HEAT SENSE. NOVICE HEAT ABSORPTION.

FLAME-ATTUNED WEAPONRY UNLOCKED IN RAC STORE- 1 FREE WEAPON AVAILABLE

SUN’S HEART UPGRADE

“Ow, Anya said and rubbed the right side of her chest, next to her sternum. The burning sensation lingered just below the surface of her skin. It didn’t hurt, but she could feel the warm, secondary heart inside her——the Sun’s Heart, as the menu called it——had changed. It wasn’t bigger, but it was hotter and more active. It had kept time with her normal heart before she had increased flame dominion, but now it was beating away at least twice as fast.

It really is like a sun, making its own fire, sustaining itself, she thought, and me, I guess.

Just like last time, she was also aware of the heat sources around her, but much further away now and with much more clarity. She could sense them only in her building before, and only as vague impressions. Now, she could sense the people outside and a few in buildings across the street, car engines on the road, and birds in a small nest outside.

There was something else entirely new that drew her attention away from her improved skill.

HEAT ABSORPTION.

Before she could just sense the sources of heat around her. Now she felt that she could tug on them a little, coax them to her. She blinked and looked at the moving heat signatures within and outside of the car. There was Carl, the heat of the engine, other drivers, pedestrians, small animals in the trees, dogs out for walks, all of them bright glowing points of light and heat.

She knew she could pull all of that heat to her if she wanted. She knew it as if she’d studied heat absorption techniques for years. The fewer barriers between her and her target, the better. The closer the proximity, even better than that, with touch being the best way. She wouldn’t get one hundred percent of a target’s heat, but she’d get a fair amount. And if she kept tugging, kept absorbing, and her target was a living thing…

“Holy shit,” Anya shuddered. Being gifted with such a flood of information at once was overwhelming enough. To have that knowledge also tell her she could act like some kind of thermal vampire was more than a little unsettling. Would it work on an alien though? What if it was cold-blooded? Or made of metal or some other material that didn’t require heat to function?

“What’s up?” Carl asked her. Anya took a single dollar bill out of her pocket and held it away from her. She looked at it, and her eyes glowed a dull orange. The bill caught fire and Carl shrugged. “Kinda cool.”

“Watch,” Anya said. She felt the heat of the flame consuming the bill, and the minuscule amount of energy lighting it up had cost her. She drew the heat back into her, and the flame went out with a hiss. She felt most of the energy return to her as her sun’s heart absorbed it.

“You can light fires and put them out? Neat?” Carl shrugged again. Anya explained the heat absorption to him and he nodded, then his eyes widened. “Wait, does that apply to people?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Pretty sure it does.”

“Uhhh,” Carl frowned and scooted away from her.

“Relax, I’m not gonna do it,” Anya said and went back to studying her menu. Calling the cops on the alien once they found it was a decent plan, but it wasn’t enough. She needed to make sure she could survive, defend herself, and get away safely if the worst-case scenario came up.

She decided she would stick to the basics: she had a magic-type skill that could be used at range, so she wanted something for up close. She also had that free weapon from hitting level 10 in flame dominion. She settled on the physical skill “POLE ARMS,” since it would give her a back-up, but still let her keep her distance from anything nasty. After she put ten points into the skill, she received several notifications that the skill had given her bonuses similar to Flame Dominion, in addition to “1 FREE POLE ARM AVAILABLE,” at level 10.

Next, she put ten points into the “BATTLEFIELD TACTICS” mental skill, so she would have a better idea of how to react in a fight. She’d never been even close to a real life-or-death struggle before, and while she figured the cops would be handling things once she called them, it was a relief to have a back-up. Her head tingled when she confirmed the skill, and her first thought was that she should have picked this one first as it would have allowed her to better plan her other skills. She frowned.

Is that me being a wise-ass or the skill? Or is there a difference? Anya thought. She shook her head and refocused. No distractions.

Heaven forbid I got hurt, but just in case, she thought. She asked Felix to find any sort of healing or protection skills. Lots of armor and shield and defensive maneuvering skills in the physical category, but Anya didn’t relish running around in full plate armor, and the more technologically advanced armor was way too expensive.

It’d also just make me a bigger target, she thought.

The other skill section had magic healing spells, but they required incantations, expensive wands, or excessive time to activate. She wanted something that would nullify or negate any harm that came to her on its own.

“How about these?” Felix asked and brought up a short list of twenty-five options. Two of them immediately jumped out at Anya: dermal manipulation and regeneration. The first would allow her to harden her skin at will, essentially turning it into organic armor. The second would automatically repair any damage done at varying rates of speed.

Anya considered the two skills. The dermal skill would prevent damage, supposedly, but since she had no idea what kind of damage the alien could do to her, it was a gamble. The regeneration skill would still see her getting hurt, but whatever the damage was, it would repair, according to the basic description.

She decided on regeneration, but prayed she wouldn’t need it. She raised it to level 10 which she decided was enough to let her escape in a worst-case scenario, and confirmed the changes.

Another wave of pain washed over her as her body changed, and her head felt like it was stuck in an ever-tightening clamp. She groaned and clenched her fists and did her best to bear the agony for the few seconds it took for the menu to alter her mind and body, then fell over with a gasp when it was done.

“God, I hate that shit,” Anya breathed.

“May I make a suggestion?” Felix said as he floated over her.

“Shoot.”

“I have no guns, sorry.”

“Felix…”

“What? Oh! Still getting used to those idioms, sorry. Now that you have some new skills, it would be a good idea to adjust your stats to match, and maybe take advantage of the free weapon tokens you have in the RAC store.”

“Yeah,” Anya nodded and studied her stats. Her flame, pole arms, and regeneration skills all needed fortitude, so she bumped that up to ten. Her pole arms skill needed brawn as well, so she put in one more point so it matched her fortitude. Tactics relied primarily on awareness, so she raised that to 10 too and was left with 4 points. She took another deep breath and confirmed the changes once more.

When the pain had passed, she felt more different than ever. She noticed more of the tiny details of the Rolls and the city outside. She heard how the different car engines sounded around her, and saw how Carl’s eyes dilated and told her he was nervous but focused. She was more aware of Shelly’s robotic movements, and how her eyes dilated like a camera lens and less like a human.

Most of all, she felt the burning heart inside of her swell. It didn’t really grow in physical size, but she could tell there was more in there, more of that white-hot energy that coursed its way through her. She was tempted to just dump all of the rest of her points in flame dominion and fortitude and max it out as much as she could, to see how much larger that pool would grow.

That feeling made her nervous.

She wondered if it was even hers, or if it was something related to the skill itself, or maybe the menu.

Anya shook her head and closed her menu. It was enough for now. She had points in reserve, and she didn’t even plan on fighting anyway. She just needed to defend herself long enough to escape any danger.

“Ready as I’m gonna get,” Anya said.

“Good,” Felix said, “because I found the alien!”