Three weeks later (Saturday, March 12, 2022) Aqrabuamelu compound, Flushing, Queens, New York, United States

They had been patrolling for weeks, but Zaidu did not let up on training. Ella just patrolled, trained, ate, and tried to sleep when she could.

But sleep was tough to come by - she spent the time talking to her team and learning about growing up in an Aqrabuamelu crèche.

Despite the assassin, they were young, proud, and eager to prove themselves to their elders.

“We know the older ones think less of us since they stopped the Blooding.” Davcina confided to Ella although she had already gathered that.

Ella finally felt like she could just contemplate the group she had found her with.

Davcina was perhaps the sweetheart of the group. Always kind and considerate. She was tall and willowy with long straight black silk hair and the russet skin tones but perhaps slightly darker. Her eyes were beautiful and Ella would have been quite jealous of them if Davcina wasn’t so sweet. She came off as innocent, even when discussing gruesome violence in the most explicit terms. Which she was now doing, describing famous Bloodings of the past.

The whole idea of being raised in a crèche, forming bonds, and then slaughtering and cannibalizing one another was one that Ella had deliberately avoided thinking about.

“In our legends, when we ate of an enemy we took their strength. But it made us too strong and Utu-on-Earth took that away from us to keep us subservient.”

Even though all of the scorpions were fanatically religious, their ability to cope with the fundamental dissonance of believing in something and knowing you were programmed to believe in it and that it was not actually true — each manifested it in different ways.

Davcina seemed the least outwardly programmed of them. She rarely said spontaneous prayers and seemed to just do the minimum. But Ella knew, because she had been told over and over again, that all of them were as devoted, as fanatical when called on to be.

Tauthe was curvy where Davcina was tall. Still fit like someone who trained all day. Her hair she kept just barely long enough to tie back. Ella would call her cute. But she was acerbic and bitter when she talked, abrasive at times.

Etana was breathtakingly good looking. He had long braided hair that he tied back and his eyes were limpid and romantic looking. He looked like the kind of guy who would be on a trashy romance novel cover or modeling. But he was shy and often kept his braids in front of his face as if hiding.

Adra was the only one taller than Davcina. He looked like a young Arcsa. Long hair slicked back, high cheekbones, too young to be distinguished, he felt like what Hollywood would put in a tweed jacket and cast as an academic. Not helped by the fact that he was a bit of a philosopher at times. It was through his chatter that Ella learned about Aqrabuamelu theology the most.

This was her squad for now.

“What are you going to do this weekend, Ella?” Adra asked her diffidently.

“What do you mean? Train and study with Bahu like usual.”

“Isn’t it your first free weekend?”

And Ella realized that six weeks had gone by quickly. She was getting her first leave this weekend. But then she thought about Zaidu, “It will probably be cancelled as long as there is an assassin roaming here.”

“You are right, vermin” hissed Zaidu causing them all to jump.

Ella almost fell out of her chair. What had happened to her little magical tripwire? She started to scramble into line when Zaidu said “at ease.” That was almost more shocking, Zaidu never let them do anything without being at attention.

She took the opportunity to check on her magical thread and saw that it was dissipating. Maybe she needed to add more power to it - it didn’t last and Zaidu had let himself in.

“As long as the drow is here we are keeping things shut. We have closed off one area after another and are keeping it sealed in here. It has committed an offense against the Blessed Innana and slain her High Priestess. It will die and be burnt.”

Ella knew to not eat an enemy was considered a profound insult by the Aqrabuamelu but she wondered what the drow thought.

“Leave will resume once the threat is removed. Vermin, you are also not allowed to leave for your ‘classes’” Zaidu did not know anything about physics and didn’t want to. The derision in his voice took pride in that ignorance, something Ella would never understand.

The reminder about classes suddenly triggered guilt in Ella. She had been scraping by, doing the bare minimum, but she wasn’t ready to let go and once Zaidu left, with a stern warning to set a watch, she pulled out her books and started studying.

It felt like it had been far too long and it took her a while to get in the groove but she found herself engrossed.

The others leaned over her shoulder to see what she was reading or would look at her screen at the formulae she would model, but it was like ancient Akkadian was to her, a mystery.