“I take it you work for that General?” Renn asked the woman in the gray cloak. He reached up and removed her mask and visor to reveal a plain-faced Chinese woman with short black hair and a grim expression.

“You’re not going to hurt her, are you?” Samaira asked and stepped forward. Renn shook his head.

“No. That would get us nowhere. As would sending more robots to harass us when we’re minding our own business,” Renn said and waved his hand. The Chinese woman was lowered to her feet gently, and Renn offered her the mask and visor back. She glared at him, then her items, and snatched them back.

“I dunno. Not a big fan of people trying to murder me,” Jairo said.

“Hey, it happen sometimes,” Zoya said with a casual shrug and a smirk. She had blown her shoes off at some point in the fight. Wisps of black smoke drited up from her ratty hair and singed clothing.

“Well it shouldn’t, and even if it does, doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Bernard added. Amahle nodded, and so did Brody and Cooper. Jiro lumbered forward and cracked his enormous knuckles. They sounded like boulders cracking together.

“I won’t let any killing go on while I’m here,” Immonen said and stepped forward. “Robots and aliens are one thing, but this is a person.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I’m gonna do, meat,” Brody said and bared his triangular teeth at the doctor.

“You’re not the big fish anymore, so maybe step back a bit,” Mona said and her skeletons brandished their swords, spears, wands, and axes. Jiro didn’t say anything, but he flexed his hands and leaned over Mona’s skeletons, his shadow eclipsing all of them in a silent threat.

“Oh boy,” Samaira sighed.

“More noise coming?” Pan whispered and started to sink into the earth.

“No, no,” Renn said and stood in the middle of the crowd. “We cannot afford to fight each other. Not now. We’ve already got enough things after our heads.”

“You’re nobody’s boss,” Amahle snapped. “We appreciate the message to gather but I didn’t sign up to be ordered around. This woman——”

“Is being used as a tool,” Kan interrupted, “by much more powerful and corrupt people.”

“Please, if we could calm down,” Immonen said.

“Not seeing the big deal,” Zoya said and rolled her eyes. “Sometimes people shoot at you. Is thing.”

“One of her bots almost took my head off!” Cooper said. He was shouted over by Mona, who was interrupted by Bernard, who drew the ire of Kan, and on and on until the whole crowd of hosts was pointing fingers at each other and the woman at their center.

The woman herself was frozen in place, her expression still firm and set, but sweat shone on her brow and Anya could feel the heat of her blood rushing through her veins faster and faster.

“Hey!” Anya snapped and her red hair was briefly engulfed in a halo of fire as her frustration at the scene before her bubbled over. She took a calming breath and the fire died away with the last of the accusations from the other hosts. All of them looked or glared at her.

“You,” Anya said and pointed at Renn, “ You said there was a reason you chose this place besides it just being easy for our AIs to find. Why?”

“Oh, well, because I was hoping for someone like this,” Renn said and gestured at the woman in the gray cloak. “Not all the fighting. That was definitely not desirable. But I had my suspicions and had heard some things that lead me to believe China had a host working directly with the government. I had tried to contact them through a few means, to locate them, but no dice. I figured if we could make contact with such a person, they could act as our first go-between to a national government and work on some kind of global-scale response to the invasion. I wanted to talk not…blow up a mountain.”

Renn glanced at the destruction around him and sighed. Mona rolled her eyes and hit Renn on the shoulder.

“And you honestly thought China would be on board with this? That’s one step better than North Korea,” Mona said.

“I thought it was worth a try,” Renn said and shrugged.

“So, what?” the woman at the center of the hosts asked. “Kill me, or don’t?”

“Well——”Brody said and grinned at her.

“Easy on there, mate,” Cooper said.

“I’m not going to kill you, no. And I hope nobody else here is seriously planning to either. Unless you want China and aliens after you, to say nothing of any other hosts that might object to such a violent action?” Renn asked and looked at everyone.

“Just so long as she and that General know we take our own health very seriously,” Amahle said. “And we do not appreciate it being threatened.”

“I think that’s plenty fair,” Immonen agreed and let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank god,” Samaira added.

“Fine,” Anya said. “So, Renn, you got your little contact here. What now? You just gonna send her on her way?”

“Not quite,” Renn said. He extended his hand to the woman. She looked at it with obvious surprise.

“Are you kidding me?” Mona asked.

“Not at all. Miss, tell your General that we are all very serious about what is happening right now. It’s not a national problem but a global one. If he would like to help, we would appreciate it, and be willing to chalk this up to…misunderstanding. Or nerves. But any future attacks on hosts will not be tolerated. I think we can all agree on that?”

The small crowd nodded and muttered their assent. Anya nodded too. She still felt like she was flailing in a storm at sea, barely able to keep her head up. Agreeing not to take any shit from a government was still something that didn’t require her to think twice, however. She’d already told Riley she wasn’t going to take it from her own country, no way was she going to tolerate it from another.

“If your General wants to talk, or wants to find me, I offer my contact information to you willingly. We are not the enemy here. No human is,” Renn said. The cloaked woman regarded Renn’s hand. She slowly raised her finger to her ear and the tiny earpiece within, then said something in Chinese. She nodded her head as she listened to a voice on the other side, then gripped Renn’s hand.

“We will be in touch,” the woman said. “May I go?”

“I have no problem with you leaving, no,” Renn said and then pulled up his purple menu’s contact list. The name “LI QIU” glowed at the top of the list. “But I advise you to be careful. A very powerful alien is still in your country, somewhere.”

“We know,” Li Qiu said as she put her mask and visor back on. She glanced around at the other hosts to see if anybody else would try and stop her. Brody and Jiro both still looked like they wanted a piece, but neither moved to take her.

Then she vanished, as though she’d never been there. Her heat signature, her shadow, everything, gone in a blink. There was only a quiet clatter as somewhere in the distance, she picked up her long rifle, and then a tree shook as she jumped away.

“Well, after I’m nearly killed by one of the most powerful nations on the planet, I usually pour myself a beer and have a smoke,” Cooper said and rubbed his hands together. “Brody?”

“I’m hungry and need a swim,” the shark replied. “Something to get the taste of those metal guys out of my mouth.”

“We should be getting back too. There was an alien we lost track of just outside of Cape Town,” Amahle said, then turned and left without so much as a wave. Bernard smiled at everybody, gave a mock bow, then followed after her with his menagerie of elemental creatures.

“I’m off too! Tchau!” Jairo said and then jumped back into his giant mech. It shook the mountain and threw up a great cloud of dust and debris as it flew off into the night sky. The other assembled hosts all said their farewells until it was just Anya and her group, Renn and his people, and Dr. Immonen.

“Do you think all those robots were hers?” Immonen asked. “The young Chinese lady, I mean.”

“I had my AI do a search for them during the fight. Purchasable from the RAC store,” Renn said. “But at prohibitive cost. She couldn’t have bought them all on her own.”

“So there’s at least one more host working for the Chinese government directly?” Mona asked.

“Or being coerced into it,” Gary said from his broken TV screen on the ground. “I looked up the robots too. They all had significant upgrades done to them. The cheapest one was almost 15,000 RAC, no upgrades.”

“But they had hundreds,” Samaira said. “That number of bots would require either some really old hosts with a significant amount of RAC built up, or some insane alien hunting or…”

“Or they just bought the manufacturing components from the RAC store and got themselves a robot factory somewhere,” Gary said. “You can get everything you’d need to start your own killer robot factory for a few million RAC. A handful of hosts over the age of thirty could probably do it without too much alien hunting necessary, especially if they all ticked off their side-objectives.”

“There are some…truly questionable side-objectives that award significant amounts of RAC,” Kan spoke up. “Cannibalism. Murder. Some even less savory.”

“Savory? Is that a cannibal joke?” Anya asked and tried a smile. Nobody laughed and she sighed. Tori was always better at jokes.

“Point being, they have a leg up on most other governments already,” Renn said.

“Those things were a joke. Even the big ones were no stronger than tissue,” Mona said. “Shoot, after all the stress of the last several days, it was almost cathartic.”

“It was kinda fun,” Samaira said, though she looked a bit guilty admitting it.

“Kinda fun nothing, it was a blast!” Mona said. “I’m glad to hear they can make more. Free bloody therapy is what that was. Better than a day at the spa.”

“They were easy to fight because there was a crowd of us to fight them and thin their numbers. Next time we may not all be together like this. I wrecked a lot of them but I saw a lot of other people getting worn down. How many people did you have to heal, Doc?” Anya asked.

“Fourteen. Most of the hosts who stayed behind. And of those, five were suffering from fatal injuries and would have bled out if I hadn’t been here,” Immonen replied.

“And we don’t know how many bots they have total. Maybe that was all of them, but that means they’ve been able to produce hundreds of robots just since Friday night. That’s less than a week,” Anya continued. “I agree, individually they were wimpy, but we can’t just brush this sort of thing off.”

“They could be reverse engineering the factory components too, getting multiple factories up as we speak, or altering the robots in some way, issuing RAC-store weapons to human troops on top of everything. It’s a real can of worms,” Gary said from his screen.

“Just more things to consider moving forward,” Renn said and rubbed his head. Mona dropped her smile and put her hand on his shoulder, and Renn pushed it aside with a soft but hurried movement. “Anyway, we should be off. There are many, many things to attend to. I’m just glad this all turned out relatively well. I need to check in on Harrison. I hope he wasn’t disturbed by all the noise. If you see any other hosts out there, please try and connect with them and keep safe. I hope to see you all again soon.”

“Don’t be strangers! Call anytime!” Mona said and winked as she waved. Kan nodded at them, then faced Immonen.

“You’re a good man, doing good work. Thank you,” Kan said. Immonen smiled and inclined his head at Kan as he followed after Renn and Mona.

“We need to get back to New York,” Anya said. “I do at least. I told Riley I’d meet back up with him.”

“Don’t mind an old man tagging along with you for a bit longer, I hope?” Gary asked. Anya smiled at him and shook her head.

“No way I’m going it alone anymore,” Samaira said.

“Stay with friends,” Pan added.

“What about you, Doc?” Gary asked. “Back to Europe?”

“No, actually. I was thinking I would like to come along with you,” Immonen said. Anya raised her eyebrows.

“Uh, not that I mind, but why?” she asked.

“A great number of the hosts tonight were from Europe, around Asia, Africa, and South America. Not so many from Australia or North America. One of those big aliens is in America somewhere, maybe California by now. Also, Yai is going to continue her healing work in Asia, and I’ve given enough medicine and instructions to multiple companies and charity groups across Europe to help them on their way. And Renn was saying North America was one of the places hit the hardest and lacking in hosts,” Immonen said.

Gary grunted and the TV screen flickered. “Not gonna complain if you wanna come. You got a ride?”

“I do,” Immonen nodded.

“Fast?” Anya asked. “At least Mach 3?”

“I believe so.”

“It’d be great to have you,” Anya said and extended her hand. Immonen grinned at her and shook.

“More friends!” Pan said as he clicked his claws.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and the suits Anya’s about to meet will wanna be friends too,” Gary said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

“Gary do you want us to pick up this TV or any of your other parts?” Anya asked.

“Just the screen is fine. I can fix it up and remake my little ‘representative,’ easy enough,” Gary replied. “You really think the feds will wanna just shake hands and be buddies?”

Anya picked up the cracked TV screen and tucked it under her arm as she walked back to her ride with the others. She blew out a long breath as she considered Gary’s question.

General Huang had sent a spy and an army of robots on them without a second thought. How would her own government react to her and the rest? Would they trap them somehow, or hold their families hostage and demand they build them their own robot factory, or something worse? Riley had been great so far, but it was beyond naive to think that the rest of the federal government would act the same way.

“I don’t know. Only one way to find out,” Anya said to the TV screen. Gary grunted but nodded all the same, and then the screen went dark.

“I’ll see you in New York in a few hours!” Immonen called out. He approached the hovering chrome egg-shaped vehicle they had passed on the way to the temple. Its smooth side rippled like water and flowed upward. A plush command chair sat in the center of the egg, surrounded by smooth black consoles. The walls of the egg were transparent from the inside and offered a clear view of the ruined forest. The side of the egg flowed back down behind Immonen, and then the strange craft shot into the sky and sped away towards America.

Gary waved at Anya, Samaira, and Pan as they approached the truck and the V-187.

“Can’t say I thought much of my first trip to China,” Gary said. Pan approached him and the truck and Gary opened the passenger door for him. Pan made himself a ramp out of the Earth at his feet and waddled up it and into the truck.

“To be fair, we didn’t see much of it,” Anya said.

“Maybe next time we’ll stay longer and not get attacked by robots,” Samaira said. “You mind if me and Chandrali ride with you again?”

“Not at all,” Anya said and opened the V-187 for her. Samaira climbed in and Anya started to follow, but paused at the door with her hand on the roof of the V-187.

She could be setting herself and the others up to get kidnapped or manipulated by the government.

Fake it ‘til you make it, Tori’s advice echoed in her head.

Except this wasn’t just a day job. This was aliens and world governments and super powers.

And speaking of super powers, what the hell had that been during the fight? She’d felt like she was ready to explode in a good way, like the only thing she ever needed was to just keep burning.

Fake it ‘til you make it, the mantra repeated.

Except she didn’t know what “making it,” it was in a situation as bizarre and out of control as this. Not dying? Not being turned into a government weapon? Saving everybody? She’d already failed Carl and the cops in Prospect Park. How was she supposed to——

“Hey, kid,” Gary said in a gentle whisper, and put his rough hand on her broad shoulder.

Anya bit her lip so hard it bled. Her eyes stung and the roof of the V-187 bent inward as she dug her fingers into it.

“You don’t gotta say anything. But if you want to, you let me know, okay? Old men aren’t good for much, but my ears still work fine.”

Anya took a long shuddery breath and released her death grip on the V-187. The mental had sunk in beneath her fingers, but thankfully, the damage was only cosmetic. She looked at Gary over her shoulder and smiled at him.

“Thank you,” she said. Gary nodded and his thick mustache bowed up over his smile. He gave her a perfunctory pat on the arm, then hopped into his truck and leaned out the window.

“You ladies go ahead. I’m gonna pick up some of the scraps from the fight and follow right after,” Gary said and then drove his truck through the woods to the ruined temple.

Anya waved then got into the V-187 and began her pre-flight check. The leather seats squeaked behind her as Samaira leaned forward.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“Uh, yeah, I know. You’re already strapped in, right?” Anya asked.

“No, not just in your car. To the meeting. With the FBI guy and whoever else.”

“Are you sure? I mean, if just now is any indication, people who run the government probably aren’t gonna be happy with us,” Anya said and gestured at the destruction outside the windshield.

“I’m sure,” Samaira nodded and stroked Chandrali. Anya smiled at her in the rearview mirror, then rose up above the ruined woods and remains of the temple, and flew back towards home.