There was a lot Rat could say to that… that accusation, diagnosis, lunacy. Insane, it was just insane. Deathless were more than just people who couldn’t die. Deathless had huge powers. People respected and worshipped the Deathless. Deathless were beautiful cosmic beings. There was so much stupid about this, that it should have been easy for Rat to come up with something nasty and hard-hitting, to really open their eyes to how dumb they were.

Instead, she started crying.

It was a stupid, ridiculous, illogical response but she couldn’t stop. She tucked her knees up on the table and buried her face in them. Every time she opened her mouth to protest, her breath was sucked away. Her voice died in her throat. Somehow, her brain was the only thing that could contest their claim. The rest of her body just rolled over like a dead bug and submitted.

Finally, after several long minutes of noisy sobbing, she managed, “I’m not.”

“We’re going to let you have a few minutes with her,” the redhead said. “We’ll be outside if you need help. No guards. I don’t think they were needed.” She shot a hard look at the sharp-eyed man, whose jaw was rigid.

“It took her time to regenerate the first time,” he said, as the woman opened the door to lead him out. “If it was necessary, it could have bought us some time so-”

His voice was clipped by the door closing, leaving Rat alone with Wyane. She felt tired now, and heavy, so heavy. The explosive weight of her soul crushed her pathetically frail body. Or maybe it was just in her head. She stayed quiet for a few more minutes, the occasional tear still fighting its way free of her eyes.

“I didn’t ask to be a Deathless,” was the next phrase she landed on. It was a stretch but it kinda fit. After all, the Deathless were super powerful. Rat didn’t know if you could magically turn into a Deathless, but if anyone could make it happen, another Deathless could. Maybe this was the Butcher King’s lazy way of fulfilling his promise…anything you want… Just make Rat a Deathless so she could do it herself.

“Well yes, I wouldn’t imagine you did but-”

“No no no.” Rat screwed up her face, trying to think. “A Deathless made me a promise. Whatever I wanted. Maybe he transformed me.”

Wyane had been listening intently to this until the last sentence. Then he shook his head. “That’s not possible.” He sighed.

He moved beside the table Rat sat on. She still rested her chin on her tucked up knees, but her eyes, though bloodshot and freakishly red, were clearer and curious now.

Wyane sat on the ground, much in a way a dog would. One of his tails massaged the side of his head. “Rat, you may have wondered why an alien would be on a base composed mostly of humans.”

This was probably the last thing Rat had been wondering, but she nodded regardless.

“I’m a fugitive from the Deathless. I know too much.” He rubbed an eye with his tail. Rat wasn’t sure how to read the movement, but she got the distinct feeling he was both uncomfortable and tired. “I know more about Deathless biology and physiology than any mortal ever should.” His tone turned darker. “You may not know this - perhaps you’re too young or kept too ignorant - but the Deathless claim to be a race of god-like beings. Back home, on my world, I had the distinct pleasure to operate on a Deathless. The Deathless, like all of her kind, claimed to have been born Deathless who took the form of my race. Her genomes, though, they were identical to that of my people.” His face was doing all kinds of weird things that a human’s wouldn’t. His jaw was set off to the side, his skin was gleaming, and he was rubbing his teeth slightly. But she could recognize that look in his eyes. Anger translated cleanly across species. “That is the first thing that you need to understand. Deathless are made.” He closed his eyes, taking a moment to collect his thoughts.

“Can they be born at all?” Rat asked. The woman had asked if Rat could be a ‘natural born’ but this had been dismissed.

“We’ve theorized it. It’s never happened before.” He rose back to his feet, groaning slightly. “Although really, even if a Deathless were born, we’re not sure if we’d be able to tell. We knew you weren’t one because Deathless can’t be hurt, not permanently. However, that is the second of their lies. They claim they cannot be killed or even hurt.”

“Wouldn’t that kinda make the whole Deathless thing kinda…” Rat hadn’t been following the story super closely, trying to grab the most important bits while her mind pinged around the room like a moth at lightspeed. “I guess a lie. I guess you said that. So they can die?”

“Sort of. The Deathless I treated died on the table.”

“Maybe you’re just a really bad doctor.” Rat couldn’t help herself. Who manages to have a literal deathless patient die?

He glared at her and she quieted. “There was a venom in her system… I will not say the specifics. They might not be safe, even in your head.” Wyane continued to one-up himself with unnerving comments and a shudder ran through Rat’s body. “But she died. And moments later, her blood, spreading thinner than water, simply… went back into her. The incisions I made healed and I had to start over. It happened twice until I successfully removed the source of the venom. Then she just got up. She left.”

Rat was quiet. She felt a funny kind of way. Her skin buzzed and tingled like somehow her whole body had fallen asleep. There wasn’t any real danger, which was kind of what was eating at her. There was genuinely no present danger. More than anything that was going on right now, that’s what stood out. Rat could not remember a single minute in her life, a single instant, where she had not been hyper-aware of how each heartbeat could be her last.

“If the genes of the Deathless were the same as your race, then how’d you find Deathless stuff in my blood?” Rat asked. Her fingernails, usually so sharp, raked uselessly across her skin.

“The test was redundant. Just to be sure. We already knew but wanted a double check. Although,” he smiled, the first time in a while, “your blood was the first test. Just in a different way.”

Rat stared at him, fritzing brain trying to make sense of this. Then she remembered how she’d laughingly told the doctor that ‘all blood was good for was sitting and smelling’. He’d mentioned a video that might interest her…

“Holy shit. I did the reconstructing thing.” Her mind, darting around like a spastic bug just moments ago had found its flame. “Did you get video? You said you had one.” Now she was excited. “Give it.” She held out a hand.

The doctor laughed, a relieved look spreading across his face. He seemed oddly pleased at the idea of watching Rat’s body explode and fix itself. Must be a doctor thing. Or maybe he was just relieved to think of something other than the last Deathless he’d worked on.

“I do.”

His tails snaked out behind him, to the countertop, landing on a small glass pane and grabbing it. Rat didn’t know how he did it since he didn’t exactly have eyes on his tails, but they didn’t fumble or slip even once. Another tail moved into a pocket on his leather suit-skin thing, retrieving a strip of film, which he pulled over the pane

It lit up and he handed it to her.

Rat snatched it and stared at the screen. She squinted at herself, a small little gremlin thing bobbling around in a big orange scarf. There was no audio but Rat could practically hear the screaming of the bioscanner as the room exploded into movement. Rat watched herself turn to run when someone shot her point-blank in the face.

Not a non-lethal round after all. No wonder they’d freaked out so much when she got back up. Sure enough, Rat watched as twenty-minutes-ago-Rat climbed to her feet, hands overhead. All the guards turned on her, shouting. Really, Rat couldn’t blame them, watching blood pour down zombie-Rat’s face. They pointed their guns and didn’t hold back. Rat remembered this part well but the next bit-

On the screen, Rat’s head exploded into a spray of gore. Her body held upright for a few seconds as it was riddled with bullets from all angles. Then it fell to the ground like a sack of bricks and the gunfire stopped.

Rat watched her corpse, a pile of gunk partially shrouded by the scraps of a now dark red scarf. It was a little unreal, knowing that just a few minutes ago, that had been her. In a sense, that still was her.

Then, just as everyone on the video began to talk, letting their guards down, her body began to glow. Tendrils of light snaked around her, forming the shape of her head, filling the holes and gaps in her body. She was a little disappointed. Magic healing light wasn’t exactly what she’d expect. She’d hoped that she’d see at least a little bit of blood wiggling around.

Then the blood started to move.

Wiggling would have been an understatement. Rat pressed her nose against the glass as the blood around dead-Rat moved, like a bucket spilling in reverse. Her body, like a sponge, soaked up all nearby liquid. Then the bone, gore, and muscle began to move. As shards of bone began climbing over her corpse to form her skull, the pink strings of brain slithered between the cracks. The parts flew together, faster and faster, as her body was reformed. Limbs were snapping into place, skin folding over and glowing as it was stitched together seamlessly. Her eyes reformed out of slime that picked itself from the rest of the sludge. First, it formed two orbs, which then rolled up her face and popped itself into her sockets. Then, like little flower petals, the veils of her eyelids fluttered down over them.

“All that work and I still ended up this ugly,” Rat said. Her mouth was still a little slack-jawed. The Rat that had fully materialized on the video now lay, as perfect as someone gross as her could be. After a second or two of her skin bubbling a bit, maybe forming organs underneath or something, her whole body seized and she began breathing.

“You’ve seen this part alread-” Wyane started as he reached for the pane but pulled it away.

“Play it again.” She could watch this for hours, follow each little bit of blood as it squeezed into a vein and the vein stretched over a muscle and the muscle was enveloped in skin.

“I can send it to you to watch on your own time.” Wyane’s tail wrapped around the tablet and gently took it from her hand. She watched it go, shoulders drooping. It was a bad idea to fight people over tech and she didn’t have the energy for it anyway. “You must be exhausted,” he continued. “Galela says you showed up very early this morning and haven’t slept since.”

Rat was tired, which seemed a little unfair. “So I still gotta sleep. Fucking blarg.” She yawned, to punctuate her point.

He laughed, gently. “Yes, not sleepless I’m afraid. In fact, just because something like thirst or hunger can’t kill you, it can likely bring you right to the cusp of death. Especially since you are so… so new to this. We have many bunkrooms here, so I’m sure we can find some that aren’t occupied. They aren’t fancy or even very nice, but it’s what we all do with.” He tapped a few times on the glass pane. It lit up a bit before going clear again. “I’ve sent someone to find you a room. It shouldn’t be long.”

The room went quiet. Rat had too much tor process and her brain seemed very aware that it had only recently reconstructed. It was just poorly functioning mush right now, like the rest of her body.

"How does the whole rebuilding thing work?" She stared at her hands. They had literally been gnarled mash a few minutes ago. Now they moved as smoothly as ever. The pads of her fingers, her fingerprints each marked uniquely. It all felt a little fake now. “And why me? Did we address that? I wasn’t born one so how are they made? You said it couldn’t be another Deathless that made me-”

“Oh no, it could be. In fact, if you were not born, you must have been made by one very special Deathless. The one who rules them all.”

Again, Wyane’s words made her skin prickle and Rat looked around longingly for the special needle that had managed to break her skin to draw her blood. She rubbed an eye. “Who?”

Wyane took a deep breath, looking around as if he suddenly wasn’t sure if they were alone. “Her name is-”

A knock on the door interrupted him.

“One moment!” he called. He motioned, very quickly, for Rat to move forward. In her ear, he whispered, so quiet she could barely hear him. “She’s called the Omegatrix. Never repeat that I told you that.”

Then he leaned back and smiled, but his skin looked a little extra blue and he looked nervous. “Alright, you can come in. She’s ready to go now.” His smile was strained as the door opened.

A young, brown-skinned man walked in, a hesitant look on his face. “Alright ma’am, this way,” he said.

“Get some sleep, Rat. I’ll send someone to you in the morning.”

---

The room was cramped and tiny. The majority of it was taken up by a bed and drawer for the room’s actual inhabitant. Her escort hadn’t told her much. He’d just waved his hand at the room.

“Make yourself at home. We’ll bring your belongings - your scarf and video - over shortly.”

Then he’d left, giving her a warning look as he did.

Her sleepy brain didn’t need to work too hard to interpret that look. Don’t touch the bed or any belongings in here that might belong to them. Rat could only imagine the disgust on this person’s face when they entered to find themselves sharing a room with something as nasty as Rat. She hadn’t even really been able to wash off all the blood. The washroom was allegedly ‘down the hall’ but when they’d passed it, there had been people in it, so Rat would have to wait.

In the meantime, she curled up in the corner of the room. Her eyelids were heavy as all hell and she could only hope they’d arrive with her scarf soon. Rat didn’t get to sleep on something soft too often and it was something nice to look forward to. It was possible the person whose room she occupied would demand it from her as payment, which was something she was willing to cede, but hopefully, it would arrive in enough time for her to get some pleasure from it.

She didn’t get the chance, though. Within moments of finding some nice floor in the corner of the room and lying down, thoughts of the Deathless and tribute-demanding roommates, Rat was fast, fast asleep.