Sam’s eyes opened the next morning, his face buried in a clump of musty grass. Light filtered down through the green leaves and onto his eyelids, prying him to wakefulness. Sam sat upright, his body stiff and sore. Sam did his light exercises, pushups and sit-ups, working on the balance of his body minus a foot.

Sam looked at his stump that had been rubbed raw by the peg-leg, and nodded. Sam could hop leaning on the crook for a day or two while his stump healed. It was Sam’s conjecture that he needed to lose weight. About sixty pounds of muscle should to the trick. In the absence of food, it would happen whether he liked it or not, he supposed.

Sam set the crook and the peg aside and sat cross legged before tearing a tuft of grass loose from the soil. The morning sun filtered through the dry dirt that scattered through the air, highlighting dust motes as they floated with the rising heat.

Open Sierra folder, Practice. Sam reviewed the folder for a moment. It was composed of multitudes of glimpses of elves practicing as they were unguarded, usually before a S4M had killed them. Also included were any text a S4M unit had read on the subject of practicing with magic. In this slurry of information, Sam had narrowed down a handful of practice techniques that required the smallest amount of energy.

Sam made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, and set it in the center of the dust cloud. As a human, Sam would have to start small. Sam focused on the dust motes as he reached inward, towards his Isayatta. Sam felt his consciousness settle on the ring, a beacon for his mind, and a safeguard. Sam breathed in, imagining himself sucking power through the Isayatta, straight from the Yuenan.

The barest wisp of power rose from inside Sam, and floated across his skin, tingling with electricity. Sam sent the power outward, into the air around the dust. With half an hour of staring, and a focused will, Sam made the motes of dust in the air move between his circled fingers. Sam broke into a grin, and the tenuous hold he had on the stream of dust motes was severed, reverting to a collection of placidly floating specks in the air.

That was fine. Sam stood on his good leg and jumped in the air, whooping. That hadn’t been his imagination. The first outward manifestation of magic, and there had been no question about it, it had been his will moving that dust.

Sam collapsed back to the ground, off balance. His grin sobered as he looked up at the sky. It would take months to reach the place Faera had described. In order to beat the dragon, he needed more than minor tricks. Like was written in the art of war, if you were going to pretend to be weak, you had to be very strong.

The dragon was going to see a broken, limping S4M unit, coming back for a second try. He would laugh, he would mock Sam. He would be off guard. But if all Sam could do was move dust, what would be the point?

Sam had a more pressing concern. He would most likely starve to death in a couple weeks, give or take. Sam craned his neck, looking back at the forest. There were still guns in the Ungrin lair. Sam was sure if he grabbed a rifle and some ammo, he could feed himself on the journey to the factory.

Sam looked away from the forest and put his other hand into the dust cloud. In moments the dust motes began to swirl around his hand in ever more intricate patterns. Sam smiled, and this time it didn’t interrupt his concentration.

Sam learned fast.

Five days later, Sam clomped through the grass, leaning less and less on the crook, his stump having acclimatized to the peg leg somewhat. Sam had just added a second ring to his Isayatta the night before, and the power flowed easier and more focused. Sam floated a small rock in front of him, tumbling it through the grass about ten feet out to flush out snakes or rabbits.

Sam had lost at least ten pounds of muscle, not having eaten anything… but he didn’t feel particularly famished. He was hungry, sure, but he felt like he could keep going without eating for quite a while yet, buoyed by enthusiasm for mastering his Yuenan.

That wasn’t right. Sam should be Ravenous. He should be woozy, having only drank water three times since he set out. Mystery for another time, Sam thought as his rock tumbled through the grass in front of him.

The rock sailed into the air as a round patch of grass and dirt flew up. A black spider, about as tall as Sam’s knee and as wide as his outstretched arms, crawled out of its burrow with blinding speed. The thick, ungainly spider, with it’s glistening black exoskeleton pounced down on the empty air where Sam’s rock had been leading him.

The spider landed on nothing, and Sam found himself being inspected by a natural born predator that looked like it weighed as much as he did, if not more. Sam definitely fell into the right weight class for the spider’s meal. The two stared at each other for a breathless moment, sizing up the distance between each other and who would win.

Sam clutched his crook tighter, slowly readying the staff. He had one good foot, and the spider had eight. This thing may not realize it, but it had Sam dead to rights. Sam quickly reviewed everything any other Sam had learned about spiders, and he was not pleased. Spiders and centipedes were the top dogs of the insect world, and that was before they became the size of people.

Another interesting fact caught Sam’s attention. Spiders sensed motion with hairs all over their body. Sam wordlessly caught a bit of air and strummed it across the motionless spider’s butt. The spider all but leapt out of its skin, scuttling low and backward, disappearing into its burrow so quickly that Sam almost believed he’d imagined the thing. The flap of grassy sod scooted across the land, pulled by a silver string, as four wrist sized legs with finger-length talons grabbed the door and settled it seamlessly over the hole. Nope, hadn’t imagined it.

Sam’s first thought was to walk around the burrow, giving it a healthy berth. Sam’s second thought was to wonder who would stumble into the spider’s trap after him. Besides, the only way he would know there was no spider waiting to eat him would be to take care of this one and sleep here.

Sam held up his hand and his little rock flew back to his palm, careful not to disturb the death trap in front of him. Sam began carefully cutting a swath dry grass around the burrow, sharpening the Nuetta siphoned from his yuenan into blades. It wasn’t impressive by military standards, but Sam The Human Lawnmower was born.

It was the fourth easiest practice technique, above simple telekinesis, creating light, and starting fires. Once Sam had clomped his way around the burrow in a full circle, he swept the cut grass into the center of the circle, packed tightly around the spider’s burrow. Sam never came within fifteen feet of the burrow himself, not wanting to tangle with that monster in a fair fight.

About halfway through, Sam’s Yuenan went dry, and he had to stand and wait for it to fill again. Sam’s stump ached, but he wasn’t sitting or laying down within a thousand yards of that spider. As Sam waited, he wondered whether he had camped within a few feet of another spider’s lair in the five days preceding this. Sam’s skin crawled.

Sam’s Yuenan refilled in about eight hours, as the sun was beginning to turn red on the horizon. He finished stacking the grass, then set it on fire. Sam focused the power into a pinprick of light and heat, and the spark caught on a single, dry blade of grass before spreading to another, and another. In moments, the ring of grass around the Spider’s den was roaring with flame.

Sam reached out to the smoke and blistering hot air that floated above its burrow and with an effort of will, he shoved that air down through the gaps around its trap door, and into the spider’s home.

Sam felt a tremor through the ground in his left foot as the spider thrashed underground, before it jumped out. The spider reared up in alarm, finding itself surrounded on all sides by a wall of flame. It turned this direction and that, rearing up, unable to surmount its fear of fire and leap through. Sam took the current of air that rose above and swirled it around the spider, drawing all the heat of the fire around it like a tightening noose.

The spider died in moments, falling onto its back and curling up as the wind cooked it. After Sam was sure it was dead, he carefully watched as the fire died down, stomping out the last of the smoldering bits of grass powdered into ash. The grass fire hadn’t lasted long, maybe ten minutes, but it had burned hot, and it had done what Sam needed it to do.

Sam stood at the center of the blackened circle of grass and poked the spider with his crook a couple times. Never hurt to be sure. It looked a lot smaller after it died, its limbs twisted inward. Sam began to wonder if spiders tasted like crab

Sam reached out a cracked a single limb from the spider’s abdomen. The exoskeleton was hot to the touch, almost too hot to handle, and a white meat nearly burst out of the shell, sending a plume of steam into the sky.

Sam made the steam spin in a circle while he waited, doing loop-de-loops with the hot air. after a few minutes the steam died down, and Sam was able to take a bite of the meat. Not bad, a little springy, and it could definitely use some salted butter, but not bad.

Sam leaned forward to take another bite when a distant voice interrupted him.

“Hey!” A man’s voice echoed across the plains. Sam grabbed the crook and levered himself to his feet. In the distance, dyed red by the setting sun, Sam could make out three wagons, with five people walking beside it of various size, and one in the driver’s seat, standing up to wave at him.

Sam waved his hand, and the wagon train turned toward him. Sam watched them approached, taking bites of trapdoor spider idly as he watched them come closer. The meat has a lot of moisture in it, which was good. Sam wasn’t sure when he was going to run into the next stream.

The wagon pulled up next to Sam, who still stood in the center of the blackened circle of grass. The people around the wagon included three young men, and two women. The men wore a long tunics, hardy looking boots and warm coats. The women appeared to be wearing nothing but scars and an iron collar.

The driver pulled on the reigns, signaling the horses to stop.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” he shouted before jumping off the wagon in a fluster. Once he landed on the ground, he realized he was a good two heads shorter than Sam, and he stumbled over his speech for a moment.

“Don’t, don’t you know what would have happened if that fire had gotten away from you? you better have a damn good-“ The man’s words died in his throat as he took in Sam’s apparent lack of clothing, aside from the bandages peeking out above his peg-leg, brown from old blood.

How was Sam supposed to know what would happen? In all his lifetimes, he’d never been a firefighter. He’d fought fires, to be sure, but he’d never been trained to do so. His knowledge on fire was somewhat sparse, coming from the twenty-second century.

“What would happen?”

“You’d, You’d have burned us all to death, that’s what! You’d have caused a wildfire! On a day like this, who knows where the wind would have carried the flames!”

“Ah,” Sam said, looking at the sky. So the wind would have spread the fire in its path. That made sense.

“Don’t Ah me, you oaf.” The man said, bristling. “We’re going to camp here, and you’re going to move on, having nearly killed us by sheer stupidity.”

Sam considered the man, taking in his well-put together clothes and the well-polished wood of his wagons. He had guards, he owned a slave, an elf.

“No.”

“What? You listen to me, you obnoxious-”

“No. I am not moving from this spot until tomorrow morning. You’re free to camp here as well, but no amount of whining from you will convince me to move before I am ready.”

The man gaped at Sam, his mouth open in astonishment.

“Now you listen-“

“You listen to me!” Sam shouted over him. “I’ve taken orders for more years than man has been drawing pictures with their own shit, and I’m sick of it!” One point two million S4M units with an average lifespan of five years, to be more specific, for an aggregate of six million years, give or take.

The man’s guards bristled, stepping closer with their hands on their weapons.

Sam pulled in a deep breath, calming himself. “Now, you can stay here if you like, but I want you to know, if you try to attack me or move me without my permission, you will lose three employees, a lot of money, and most likely die. Do you understand?”

He nodded, cowed.

“Now, I assume you want some of the spider,” Sam said eying the two elf slaves. “How much is a free meal worth to you?”

“What do you mean?” The merchant asked, his eyes narrowing.

“An exchange of hospitality. I’d like some company tonight. You have my word that no harm will come to your slaves.”

“…Deal. But just so you know, if they suffer any damage I’ll take it out of your skin, big man or no. Even with that foot, you’d sell well.” The merchant reached out and clasped Sam’s hand.

“Well then, I think I’ll engage with my side of the bargain,” Sam said, with a grin, clomping toward the two women. He turned back and looked at the merchant sizing up the spider. “It needs salt and butter.”

The man grunted, and Sam watched as the four men crouched around the spider, tearing a leg off to serve as a meal for each of them. after they had become involved with eating, he turned back and began clomping toward the Elven women again.

They shied away from him, their ribs standing out sharply underneath their breasts. Sam turned back to the four men around the spider. “Toss me a leg, I think I can coax them with a bit of meat. Not my meat. Food, I’m going to feed them. Toss me a leg, damnit.”

One of the guards broke a leg off and tossed it to Sam. He caught it and approached the women, who watched him with vacant eyes.

“Food?” he said, holding out the leg. The elves stared at him, as if they couldn’t understand a word he was saying. After a moment of silence, Sam sighed.

“Look, is there somewhere more private we could go?”

One of the women wordlessly grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward a wagon covered in silk cushions. When they arrived, the two women, still mute, reached for Sam’s groin.

“No, no,” Sam said, batting their hands away. “I just needed to get you alone. I recognize the symbols on those collars, I saw more high-tech versions, once upon a time. how would you like to get away from these guys?”

They stared at him.

“Really, the forest is just five days away. Call Linquala, and ask her for passage to First word, and you’ll be safe before you know it.”

They would need food and supplies, but if Sam let them take the wagons, they would probably make it in two days, and have plenty of food. Sam didn’t really care what happened to the men. Karma’s a bitch, they used to say.

They stared at him. The girl on the left, the one with less scars, began to leak tears from her eyes without a single change in expression.

“Okay, look.” Sam said, losing patience. “I can remove those collars, then when they try to follow you, I can beat them to within an inch of their lives, giving you plenty of time to get away. Do you want me to remove your collar?”

As one, they nodded.

“Got it,” Sam said, putting his hand on the collar. Sam focused a little ball of heat on the engraving, and the magical power thrumming through it short circuited, causing the collar to fall off. Sam repeated the process with the second collar.

“Okay, done.” Sam said, coming to a stand. It was a shame to get off the cushions, but he needed to get back to the fire.

“I’ll go back to outside, and whenever you’re ready, just take the wagons and run, then I’ll start whaling on them. okay?”

They nodded.

Sam ducked out of the wagon and went back to the group of men huddled around the spider. They’d pulled out a small amount of wood and a pot of water, and were currently making a spider-soup over the burning logs.

“Smells good.” Sam said, settling down beside the fire.

“That was quick.” one of the guards quipped.

“What, did you expect me to bring them flowers?” Sam asked, glancing at the rough-clothed man sneering at him. He had a short sword at his side, hanging on a belt that was on its last legs. To Sam’s left were two more men in their mid twenties bearing heavy scarring around their hands that spoke of swordplay.

Across from the pot were the last two, another guard with a mouthful of blackened teeth gingerly sipping the soup, and the merchant, who refused to make eye contact with Sam. Sam glanced at the crook resting beside him. He could reach all six of them from here, even the one in his blind spot, past the jackass who insulted Sam’s masculinity.

The men returned to their meals, chortling. Sam noticed that there wasn’t a bowl for him, so he coated his hand in a thin layer of air and reached into the boiling pot, leisurely fishing out a piece of spider meat.

“MMM!” Sam exclaimed, rolling his eyes in pleasure. The meat tasted so much better with seasoning. A clattering sound and a hiss of pain caught Sam’s attention, and he looked down to find all but one of them staring at him, their skin pale in the dim light of the fire. The last one had dropped his bowl of soup.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, dipping his hand into the boiling water again, shaking liquid off the chunk of spider meat before popping it into his mouth. Sam exhaled past the piping hot tidbit, trying to cool it down. “Ow, hot!”

“What are you?” The merchant asked as his men shrank away form Sam.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re too big to be a human, you’re too dark. You gleam the faintest purple in the sun. You’re not an elf, they don’t look like you either. Are you a Djinn, or what?”

Sam glanced back at the wagons. Apparently the ladies hadn’t gotten their things together to make a break for it, so Sam would have to keep them distracted.

“It’s a long story,” Sam said, catching their eyes. “But you folks look like you have all night.”

“I’m what’s called a military grade bioengineered lifeform. It all started five hundred and eighty two years ago, when the Chinese-American war broke out. Both sides agreed not to use nuclear weapons, but the Chinese were the first to produce bioengineered soldiers, who were able to put America on the defensive…”

One of the guards had his hand up.

“What?”

“What kingdom is America?”

Sam stared at him for a moment. This time it was his turn to be speechless.

“America was the country that covered this continent. All land in every direction was its domain. China was across the ocean to the west, or the east if you went around Africa.”

“Where is Africa?”

“Just shut up and listen.” Sam said, glaring at them. “like I was saying, America wanted to get back on the offensive, so they….”

Sam gave the six of them the whole story about S4M units and how they came about, everything he knew about himself, from every S4M that had been able to glean a bit of their history. the memories came to him in a torrent. Things he didn’t know that he knew. Sam was telling himself as much as he was telling them, as this was the first time he was processing all that raw information into knowledge.

It was all classified information, but Sam cared about classified information about as much as the leaves he used to wipe his ass. It was all pointless by now.

“…A compound which enables a form of photosynthesis, which I guess explains why I shine just a bit purple in the sun.” Sam said with a sigh. “That should cover just about everything.” That also explained why he hadn’t felt the need to eat so strongly, but he didn’t owe them an explanation. Sam’s designer had simply been batshit crazy. Maybe Sam was a desert model?

Sam glanced back at the wagon. What the hell was taking them so long? If they lost their nerve and didn’t run away, they would still be punished for being complicit in him removing their collars.

Sam yawned. The Story of Sam had taken quite a bit out of him. if he had to, He’d simply beat the six of them senseless tomorrow. Sam stretched, and noticed a queasy feeling in his stomach. When Sam focused on it, he got a chill, and he raised his gaze to the others. Did they poison him? Everyone had been eating from the same pot…

Sam’s gaze took in the whole party, and he didn’t like what he saw. One of them was holding his head in his hands, rocking back in forth. Another slept beside the fire, his arms clutched around his stomach, while another watched Sam with dialated eyes, sweat beading on his brow as he wobbled back and forth.

The merchant himself had a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he hid under a blanket, spooning out another helping of soup.

“Umm,” Sam said, getting the merchant’s attention. “Do you know if the spider is poisonous when cooked?”

“Not that I know of,” The merchant said, ladling another spoonful of soup before glancing around at the men surrounding him.

“Shit.” The merchant said, his skin losing color as his face registered horrified realization. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, his eyes bulging. “Shit!”

He stood and ran to the wagon where the elf girls were, and Sam pushed himself to his feet. When he found the girls without their collars, it was on, and Sam wanted to be ready. Sam wobbled a bit on his feet as a shriek echoed through the plains, emanating from the wagon. A man’s shriek.

The merchant jumped out of the wagon, his eyes bulging with fear. He seized Sam’ shoulders with a grip completely unlike his doughy build.

“Those collars were the only thing keeping us safe! You’ve killed us all!” he shouted, spittle nearly reaching Sam’s face.

Sam dismissed him with a backhand. The merchant collapsed to the ground, and Sam readied his crook in case the man charged him again, but despite his expectations, the man simply got up and ran out into the plains, running full tilt away from all his worldly possessions.

Sam frowned, and glanced at the guards, three of whom stumbled away from the wagons in every direction, while the other two slept by the fire.

Sam clomped his way to the back of the wagon and pulled open the covers. Inside, the two women lay in a pool of congealed blood, sticking the fine silks together in a bloody brown clump. A small knife was buried in the heart of one while the other’s wrists were cut. Sam grimaced at the gruesome sight and let the covers close. They’d killed themselves to poison the men of the caravan with their death energy. Must have been some real bad blood there.

That explained the panic then, but running now was like trying to run away after you’ve been bitten by the snake. Too little too late, sucker. Sam clomped back out to the fire and knelt beside the two men asleep by the fire and checked their pulse. They were weak and sporadic. Sam had wanted everyone to make it out alive, but once again, everyone was going to die. Maybe not if they were lucky.

The human survival rate of a Molt in twenty one twenty three was three percent. Sam was fairly confident those numbers would have gone up after five hundred years of natural selection, but how much? Worrying about slavers was a little more than Sam could afford right now. Right now he had to focus on surviving the night. S4M survival rates from a Molt were much better than normal humans, but not guaranteed. He needed food, water, and plenty of rest. Best not to strain his body running screaming into the plains like a madman.

Sam grabbed one of the dropped bowls, rinsed dirt out of it and helped himself to some soup. Gotta stay hydrated. He wrapped himself in the Merchant’s blanket as the chills descended on him. Soon enough, Sam was overcome by a wave of exhaustion, and he found his eyes slipping closed. Even if he did die, it wasn’t a bad way to go…