Kano was wandering around with a confused Nove in tow, looking for someone in charge to explain to her what was happening, when she encountered Miusvon on her way out with a squad of ghouls at her back.

“Where’re you going? And what happened to the lights?”

Miusvon stopped in her tracks, and her escort did likewise. “There’s a power outage, and I’m going to fix it. You wanna come?”

“Why would I want to do that?” Whatever they were going to do out there, it was bound to be tedious.

“I’m pretty sure someone is messing with the power on purpose. The timing seems too convenient.”

“And?”

“So things are likely to get violent, and you may as well make yourself useful.” Miusvon gestured toward the ghouls she had with her, whose glassy eyes were staring straight ahead. “This lot won’t be much help, and we’re short on bodies. Besides, do you have anything better to do?”

She had a point there. The citadel was an awfully boring place to wait around in. But it would mean she wouldn’t be able to watch An while she was out.

“Nove, you stay here and see what An gets up to.” Kano didn’t trust her to handle it in the long term, but it should be fine for a little while. There couldn’t be that many people to kill wherever they were going, and it shouldn’t take long. The abomination didn’t argue; she just walked off toward the lab.

“Where are we headed, anyway?” Kano asked as she accompanied Miusvon through the citadel. It was so much easier to find her way through the confusing place with a guide.

“We’re going to the power plant. The citadel has a direct connection, so if there’s something wrong, it must be there.”

“And what do you think this something is?”

“Hard to say, but I suspect someone’s either stealing our power or trying to sabotage us. Maybe both. Don’t you live around here? Any idea who might be responsible?”

“Nope.” Even with Kano’s faulty memory, she could think of a long list of potential suspects, but that was exactly the problem—it could be any one of them. Power wasn’t exactly plentiful. Anyone would be happy to get their hands on more if they had the opportunity.

Miusvon grinned. “Then we can find out whoever’s responsible together and give them our regards.” She tapped the assault rifle strapped to her back. “Though I imagine it’ll be a short meeting.”

“I don’t know about that. I seem to remember our first meeting lasting a while. Before you ran away.”

“Yeah, well, force fields are bullshit, okay?”

Despite her complaints, there was laughter in her voice, so it didn’t seem like she harbored any hard feelings about their previous encounter, which was fortunate for Kano. Despite her bluster, she wasn’t sure she could handle the other natural if it came down to that. Maybe if she could catch her by surprise… But hopefully there wouldn’t be any need for that. They were technically allied, at least for the moment.

The power plant was close to the center of town, and after a short walk, its stout concrete walls loomed before them. Kano had never been inside, but she’d passed by plenty of times. It was hard not to, given that it took up a considerable portion of the town. Though not very high, the wall around it was far wider than any other structure in town.

Kano stepped forward and pounded her fist against the heavy steel door. After a short wait and no reply, she tried the door and found it unlocked. Releasing the mechanism, she pushed it open, the aging metal producing something like a groan.

“Are we just going in, then?” Kano asked.

Miusvon glanced at the ghouls following her and shrugged. “Unless you’ve got a better idea. You’re not scared, are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” It was far too late for Kano to start worrying about entering unknown, possibly abandoned places. Seeing little of interest in the small room beyond, Kano opened the door beyond, which led to the power plant itself. As she passed through, she was greeted by a wave of blistering heat, hot enough that her eyes were already dry and aching.

Set in the concrete floor was the top of an enormous core of some glowing material surrounded by water. The whole enclosure was swarming with tiny orange-and-white creatures of some kind, little more than specks swimming around the core.

“Are you sure we should be in here?” Miusvon asked as she entered, shielding her face against the heat.

“No, but we came here to check the power plant, right? Can’t really do it any other way. So long as we stay away from the core or whatever, we should be fine.” Kano wasn’t all that sure what she was saying was true, but it seemed a necessary assumption if they were going to get anything done. Looking over the ball of superheated material and its surroundings, Kano couldn’t see any abnormalities.

The specks around it glided through the water in formations of dizzying complexity, but that seemed to be as intended. As far as she could tell, they mostly appeared to be moving toward the core or moving out into the conduits attached to the central chamber and hidden beneath the floor. And no matter how they moved, there was always a continuous line of them leading from one to the other.

She was looking around for some clue as to where the conduits went when she spotted a gun barrel jutting from behind a series of large pipes. Kano sprinted forward, trying to keep cover between her and whoever was lying in wait as she ran at an oblique angle to where they were aiming. Ignoring the thunderous report of guns going off around her, Kano was a blur as she crossed the room.

Whoever was over there tried to swing their gun around to track her, but she closed the distance before they could fire. She caught a glimpse of a ghoul dressed in rags before she grabbed them by the head and dashed their brains against the pipes they’d been sheltering behind. Pausing for a fraction of a second to confirm they were dead, Kano took their weapon and dashed off.

With no idea where her foes were firing from, she thought it best to keep moving. A head peeked up above a descending staircase as its owner trained their weapon on someone else. Kano fired a few shots from the hip, and her target ducked out of sight. Clicking her tongue at the inaccuracy of her weapon—how else could she have missed?—Kano vaulted over the railing and fired one-handed at the ghoul below her as she fell. This time they dropped with several new holes in their body.

Leaning around the corner, Kano saw that the battle was already over. Other than the two she’d killed, there only seemed to be a couple of others who were already down. One of Miusvon’s ghouls had died with them, but that was of no concern to Kano. There was no shortage of the wretched things.

“Anyone you recognize?” Miusvon asked, prodding the lifeless body at her feet with her boot.

“Nope, but they don’t look like soldiers.”

“Yeah, I figured that much out on my own. I’m kind of surprised they bothered with this little ambush if this was all they had to throw at us. They must have known we were coming. Are the people of this town that stupid?”

Kano would never accuse them of being intelligent, but this seemed a bit much, even for them. “Not quite.” Was there some larger goal in mind, then? She glanced at the core, but there was no hint of damage or tampering. “Maybe they were just here to delay us, and the rest of them are doing something below?” It would explain why one of the ghouls had been on the stairs.

“I guess. Either way, we should probably go down there and take a look.” Miusvon instructed the remainder of her escort to wait here and cover the entrances. “They’d probably just get in the way anyway.” As they hurried down the long metal staircase, she added, “Especially if things are as tight as this. You know, I thought this was going to be boring, but it looks like I was wrong.” She glanced back at Kano. “You certainly seem to attract excitement.”

Kano grunted. The other natural was making it sound like that was a good thing. It was less the boredom of the citadel that bothered her and more that she was being forced to do a boring job there. She’d still much rather be relaxing at Aru-Aru’s with one of his vile concoctions, and that was far from exciting. Though the effects of some of his more exotic creations were… interesting at times.

“You must run into stuff like this all the time, working with a necromancer.”

Miusvon shrugged. “From time to time, but less than you may think. There’s not a lot of fighting when you spend most of your time sitting around guarding an isolated lab.”

“And when you go out into the world?”

“Admittedly things tend to get a bit more dynamic then, but believe it or not, I do try to avoid trouble where I can.”

“Then why are we going down here?”

“Well, unless your miraculous abilities extend to being a power generator as well, we don’t have a lot of options. Angakkuq has important work to do, and she needs power to do it.”

Work, work, work. Was that all anyone thought about? Kano vowed that once this was over, she was going to avoid anything resembling work for as long as she could. The rest of her life, if she could help it. It occurred to her that it wouldn’t be hard given her rather limited lifespan, and she snickered. And she wouldn’t have to work ever again after that either. She truly was blessed.