When Eliah entered the police station, it was in upheaval. People were running about, barking orders and calling for their colleagues. A few of them shot her glances, but most dismissed her immediately and hurried on. They had tasks and duties, problems that needed solving, and she wasn’t one of those just yet. Someone else would take care of it.

Eliah felt small, out of place. Foolish. What had she been thinking? What had she imagined she could do? What would she ever be able to accomplish? Her; little, insignificant, frightened Eliah. Unimportant Eliah. Useless Eliah.

Her wisp of courage threatened to leave her, ever more so at the thought of approaching someone and asking for assistance. Fear and indifference were fighting each other inside her, and fear was slowly gaining more ground.

A young woman stopped mid-stride on her way past and eyed her. The first person to look at her and not think “not my job”. Someone that took responsibility, because it might just be important.

‘Can I help you, miss?’

Eliah nodded. The emptiness steadied her as the bout of fear withdrew slightly. ‘I would like to talk to Sarah Pike. She’s looking for me.’

If she was. Maybe they didn’t need her. They could have found someone else. Though the situation she had witnessed on the news didn’t scream “success” at her. If Eliah could be useful, she had to try.

The woman exhaled sharply, considering. ‘Wait here, please.’

And she was gone. Eliah stood there, watching the chaos. It wasn’t so bad now that she had talked to someone. Had been told to be there. If anyone questioned her presence, at least she could say the woman had asked her to wait.

But the more looks she caught, the meeker that response seemed, and the more uncomfortable she felt.

A few minutes later, when a man approached her, Eliah felt small and cold. She wanted to leave. To hide in her small room and spend time with her tools, rather than people. She wasn’t good with people.

The man regarded her, arms folded. ‘What do you want?’

She repeated her two sentences, voice a little more quiet than before. This man did not look happy.

‘She’s not here. Pulled out yesterday, back to her old job.’

Her heart sank. There was little time. How was she supposed to find anybody now? The Agency woman had been her only lead.

Stupid. To think she could just go looking for these people and find them, without a plan, without any idea what she was getting herself into. To think they would want her to find them. Even if she did manage to stumble through their door, she would probably be turned away. Just a stupid little girl with a dead brother.

‘What’s your name?’, the man asked, his voice a bit softer now.

‘Eliah Stone.’

She saw no reason to lie. She didn’t even think of it, in between bouts of insecurity. Damn, this was why she was always so passive. People were difficult, and she didn’t understand them. Circuit boards and power drills, those she understood.

The man raised an eyebrow and drew a phone from his pocket. He called someone, repeated her name, then handed the phone to Eliah. She took it, hesitantly.

‘Hello?’

‘Miss Stone. This is Sarah Pike. My condolences on the demise of your brother. How can I be of service?’

‘You’re looking for me, aren’t you.’

‘Not directly, no.’

Eliah gulped, but continued. This was her one chance. If the cops were going to spend the next decade laughing about the foolish girl who had thought herself special, so be it.

‘Can you get me to the people you delivered Michael Runner to?’

A pause. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow...’

‘Please tell them I’ll be waiting at the Stove. Thank you.’

She hung up without waiting for a reply, handed the phone back, and walked out of the station. The man called after her, but didn’t follow her out. She was sure he had more important things to do right now, thankfully.

Eliah wasn’t sure whether the Agency woman would talk to anyone, but she was almost sure the right people were listening to the right calls. Her name should have brought up enough flags for someone to come pick her up at her old home.

Assuming she was important in any way. She might not be. She might just be a silly girl too full of herself, someone who thought herself special when she was not. In that case, she had embarrassed herself, and that was that. No big deal. She could handle it.

Her feet carried her home in a daze. Something in her felt strangely at peace, comforting next to her raw fear. She had put things into motion, it was out of her hands now. Terrifying and soothing. Passivity, again.

She had done her part as she had intended. She had been active. She had done something. It should be enough.

A person in a suit guided her to a waiting car. She almost didn’t notice the hand gently taking hold of her elbow.

They drove. She got out. Into a building. A short stop. Voices, but she tuned them out. A green light, and she was pushed gently but decisively into a sort of chair.

Her arms and legs and neck were strapped in, and someone attached various devices to her.

She hadn’t said a word the whole way, and no-one had prodded her. She preferred the silence, actually, although the people around her seemed to expect questions. She didn’t have any, at least not any that would be answered. It was all very clear, and very strange.

But that was all right. She was making a decision.

Someone injected a syringe’s worth of clear fluid into her arm. Before she lost consciousness, she wondered at the strange feeling of freedom she experienced being strapped into a chair and sedated.

Namira felt like she was being pulled through a very long, very narrow straw.

It was an uncomfortable, if painless, experience. Pain was a physical thing. The discomfort only came to be because her mind and thoughts, her essence, was being stretched, disconnected and strained almost until it tore. Namira held tightly on to her Self, fearing it might shatter with the force.

Another mind came into her focus. Different from hers and yet similar, in a way. She felt her Self connect and latch on.

The last time, she’d been repelled at this point. Simultaneously drawn in and pushed back. That had hurt, because the host had been able to comprehend pain, and that effect had bled over into her awareness.

Now, she latched on and held fast. The other mind was drawn to her, enveloped and accepted her. No force shoving her back, only hungry, angry eagerness pulling her tighter into the binding.

With a jolt, they synchronised fully, and Namira fought through the storm of energy, reaching forward. The host mind was demanding, dependant, fragile ,and it wasn’t sustaining itself properly at the moment. Namira seized the part that was supposed to handle subconscious tasks, signals and heartbeat and breathing.

She recognised the forms from her time as a fledgling mind, when she had been in a host, still being formed, modelled, regularly taken into a body. When they had still granted her the body she coveted, needed, deserved. She knew from back then what the host needed, what it could not do without. This host was missing it.

With a harsh, sudden jolt Namira kicked the right pathways into motion, gave them the second shock they needed to rumble back into action.

Relief flooded into the mind as lungs filled with a deep, cool breath. The storm of emotion was still raging, connections forming and burning and snapping as the minds connected. Namira wasn’t drowning in it any more, she was whirling with it, carried by a rush of power.

Most of the energy was supplied through the ritual, some came from her, some from the host body. But a large part flowed from the host mind itself, raw, untempered, fierce emotion. Strong, too. Good.

She left her subconscious routines to handle the minor tasks, to help the host mind channel the energy correctly, and moved her awareness to the eye of the storm. Something of the host mind had retreated there instinctively, seeking shelter from the chaos it did not yet control. The personality, the host’s Self.

Namira greeted it gently.

The host’s Self jumped, but didn’t shrink back. Namira could feel the hunger, the anger, burning strong, suppressed for so long. Until now.

And this host was furious. Years’ worth of rage, held back and retained and penned, now free to roar and roam, and tear through the last remnants of resistance to reach its potential, and damn the consequences. Surprise, at the sudden rush, but it was quickly burned away by ire, pure and clean.

Yes, the host was furious. Namira asked a question and received an instant reply.

Not words, words were far too slow and limited. What she sent out, and what she got back, were flashes, impressions and meanings, memory, immediate comprehension. Information on a level where there could be no duality, no misunderstanding.

The makers had taken the host’s kin, had ruined a world, threatened to do more. The host longed for freedom, for itself and others, for fighting. For power, not for power’s sake, but as a means to an end, a tool. A necessary instrument to unleash upon the world.

Namira replied with glee, with assent, with a promise. She asked and the host gave. A willing shell was easier to use, without something fighting her for t. Namira was stronger than the host mind, but the struggle would be taxing, and together they could channel this whirlwind of emotion into pure power. Better to have the shell. And Namira had it completely.

She opened the new eyes. Her eyes, for the time being, her window into a world, so different from what she knew.

Immediately, she shut off the pain receptors. Spikes in her head. Instruments attached to her. So much pain.

It was gone now. She looked.

A group of humans staring.

‘Did it work?’, one asked, fearful.

A voice, an actual voice, made by vocal chords, vibrations in the air. Namira’s ears received the vibrations and interpreted them. So this was what it sounded like. Different from the simulated communication she practised with her kind out of amusement. It was fascinating.

She remembered, then, remembered contact with the makers. Long after she and the others had gone into the Open, a connection had been established, suddenly, instantly, allowing them to communicate.

Oh, she remembered, she remembered now! Namira remembered talking for a bit, with the makers. She hadn’t heard the voices then, only imagined.

The makers had been surprised at their own-ness. They had been worried. And then they had shut off the connection. Or had Steve done it? She just knew it had suddenly been gone, been broken.

The people in front of her. Were they the makers? They must be, they must have called her back to give her the body she deserved. And she could relish it, and sense, and feel.

One of them stood out. The leader. The one who had harnessed her.

He pressed a button on a device he held, and Namira shuddered at the sudden sound it emitted, low and ominous, grinding into her routines and overwriting her Self.

‘Go where I tell you,’ he commanded.

Namira nodded as the compulsion took root inside her, as the sound overturned her will and forced her to comply, forced her to answer in a prearranged manner. She hadn’t felt like this since before the own-ness came, and it was a hundred times worse now.

‘As you wish.’

The leader seemed relieved at her voice. The tone would be recognisably different from her host’s own. It was difficult to move, difficult to will the vocal chords to make the right shapes, but she would get the hang of it, with the host helping her.

‘A host carrying Iamé is rampant. Stop him.’ The leader pressed the button again, the sound stopped, and with that the order was ended. She was released.

Her will returned in an overwhelming rush, and she clung to it with something like… fear? This would have to end. She wanted her body, and she wanted it to herself.

Another nod, and Namira had to renew her barricades as the spikes were drawn from her head. Not the host’s any longer; hers.

When she was free of the restraints, she stood and was led through halls. Towards a door and through into the outside.

Free sky above.

Air.

Cosmos.

Hers.

She took flight, ignoring the calls from below. A compulsion almost snared her, she could almost feel the vibrations in the air come closer to snatch her back as the sound called after her. But she was too fast, too quick, too soon out of range. And then the sky was hers. Save for that nagging little thing that made her fulfil her order.

Iamé was easy to find, crouching in a crater of rubble and chaos. Namira grinned, aiming directly for him as she started her descent.

This was a rare chance to fight, to use actual bodies and exercise power. Back home, she had the same power, but nothing to use it on. Now, she had a body. Concrete. Matter.

Iamé sensed her approach and raised his hands to shield himself, fear on his face. She lashed out with happy abandon, feeling the power course through her and into the world. The world resisted, but it wasn’t enough. Namira’s power surged into existence and threw Iamé back. He failed to catch himself and hit a wall, crumbling stone. He cried out in pain.

Namira frowned. He hadn’t shut off the receptors? Why? She wanted a fight, dammit! And the hosts were oh so fragile. They broke so easily. She could heal hers afterwards, but total destruction would sever the bond, or even damage her. And the reception of pain until then…

She watched, uncomprehending, as Iamé scrambled to get away, fear – no, panic – in his eyes. For her, this might be a welcome exercise, but for him… Did he even recognize her?

Her expression softened and she lowered herself to the ground, stepping forward, relishing the forces that pulled her body against the giant sphere of matter she stood upon. Relished her muscles working against that force to keep her upright, to lift a foot and take a step.

Iamé shrank back, covering his head with his arms, whimpering.

A different kind of anger gripped her, and the host’s Self roared. Namira remembered the last years well, the many times Iamé had been half-tethered, half-harnessed. It had hurt him, but more than that. She had watched him go slowly insane with fear, pain, and desperation. And at her feeling of kinship, the grief for one of her kind, the host’s Self roared.

This had to end. No matter how much she wanted to fight, yearned for it, needed to stand, to walk and do, she wanted to keep Iamé from harm that much more. They were kin. He didn’t deserve any more of this.

Namira focused her attention on the building she had arrived at, the one where she had taken flight. It collapsed into dust, the cloud rising up high enough that Namira could see it from where she stood.

Someone came running at her, shouting. It was the man with the device. He pressed the button and as the sound waves washed over Namira, he commanded her not to destroy another building.

She snapped her fingers, annoyed. It was showing off, but she had been deprived of her ability to spar, so a bit of showing off was well deserved. And she wanted them to know that she was doing this.

The man gasped as the device exploded in his hand, taking two of his fingers into nothingness. He tried to order her to stop, but the control, meagre as it had been, was broken.

A gesture reduced him to a shower of blood and bone.

The rest of the group of makers arrived. The host’s Self raged and rumbled in her, that wrath again, now aimed somewhere else. Namira would be happy to sate it.

She turned and addressed the group with her borrowed vocal chords.

‘Do not dare pull him back here. I will have willing hosts always, and ways to come. Do not heed my warning, and I will destroy you.’

She raised a hand.

‘Run.’

And they did. She killed all save the fastest one. That one would carry her message.

The host was satisfied. Guilt and shock would come later, with the realisation of what had happened, and why. Namira could do nothing against that. It was the way of humans to care even for those who had done wrong. She asked the host a question, and got an immediate answer: Yes.

If the makers ignored her warning, her promise, she would come back to this host and teach them not to forget again. The host would comply when called.

She anchored instructions in the host mind, to be able to bond with it again without the ritual. The host agreed.

A sigh escaped her, unconsciously transferred across the host’s lips. She flexed the borrowed fingers and knew she would miss them, miss breathing and walking, doing. A tinge of regret, gone in a moment. Maybe one day, she could return. Right now, the host’s mind was slipping, already separating and parting from her. She could not remain for long.

So Namira turned back to Iamé and smiled gently, offering a hand.

‘Come, brother. Let us return home.’

Sarah watched the screen in front of her intently, afraid that blinking or glancing away would make her miss something.

After her call with Eliah Stone, she had tried to find out what in the hells was going on. She had been sent home. Her people had told her not to worry, and not to ask questions. They wouldn’t tell her what importance Eliah Stone had to them, had neither confirmed nor denied anything.

Sarah had followed her orders and gone home. She had turned on the news on the old TV in her apartment, and watched shaky cell phone footage turn into steady news coverage as the professional reporters arrived.

She watched Michael Runner cowering in what looked like fear, buildings half-collapsing around him. She watched Eliah Stone coming in like a meteorite and kill a man in a white coat, just before the live footage cut off. It was a second too late, a second during which she saw the man turn to red mush.

Her mind refused to process what she was seeing. It was impossible. Nobody, or rather nothing, had power like that. And she had met Eliah Stone. The young woman was quiet, calm, collected. Shy, even. The person Sarah had just seen on TV was different. How much had her brother’s death changed her?

Sarah flipped through the channels. All showed the same; a news anchor trying to explain and calm, to rationalise what had happened. No more live footage. No people who actually knew anything about why this was happening, only that it was, and that it was bad.

One channel reported on a spontaneous building collapse a few blocks form the general area of destruction. There didn’t seem to be a cause.

Another was already interviewing a woman who claimed this was the end of the world, and judgement would come upon them all.

Sarah sat and stared, and tried to comprehend. Michael Runner had disappeared. Eliah Stone had disappeared. And now both were back, and doing impossible things. What was going on?

That was when she realised she had been involved from the start. The lab the police had raided, her search for Michael, her subsequent betrayal of Ryan.

This hadn’t been the work of some mystery association. The responsible faction was no mystic and occult collection of fanatics or anything like that. It had been her own people who had done this, and she had paved the way for them without even knowing it.

The pieces clicked horribly into place. She was responsible for Yoshua Stone. She was responsible for all the destruction covered by every news station. She was responsible for whatever had happened to Michael Runner and Eliah Stone, and whatever would come of it. She had been working hard to towards this.

Anger rose inside her along with hot shame. She had been misled, and she had gone along with it, following unreasonable or strange orders because it was her job and she had believed it was for the best.

Instead, someone had experimented. On people. And she had delivered them, like a good little Agent. She was in Intelligence work, and she had believed what people told her.

She should have known, should have connected the dots a lot sooner. The equipment at the lab had been expensive. The owners had destroyed it as evidence without hesitation. They’d had a new set up and running within two months.

Only a few organisations in the world had that kind of funds and influence. Sarah was working for one of them.

Even when Michael had just vanished into Agency protocol, she hadn’t doubted, hadn’t suspected anything might have been amiss.

Sarah put her head in her hands. This couldn’t be happening. All of this, it was impossible, and wrong, and horrifying. She couldn’t keep going on like this. She’d started her career with a cause, and now she was sitting in her apartment with the city going mad around her. And she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t help, wouldn’t even know where to start.

Twenty minutes later, Sarah pulled herself our of her paralysed state of self-loathing and despair. After another ten, she was on her way to hand in her resignation.

Orion pelted down the street, arms pumping. Lilly was a step ahead of him, going full speed.

As soon as Eliah had disappeared on the TV screen, Lilly had jumped up and bolted, and Orion had had no choice but to follow or let him go on his own. And so they were on their way towards the destroyed city block, running as fast as they could.

Already, Orion was panting. His injuries had cut his exercise routine short, and fuelled by adrenaline, Lilly was hard to keep up with.

Jordan was in no shape to run, so Poison had hung back with him, calling after them that she would get a bike and catch up later. Orion hadn’t managed to answer her before starting his pursuit.

Lilly turned a corner and Orion barely managed to perform the sudden change in direction without losing his feet.

The crater came into view. Michael was on the ground. Eliah stood before him, holding out a hand. They were too far away to call out, or to intervene in any way.

Lilly cursed and tried to speed up further, but he was already at his limit. He headed straight for the two people standing in a circle of rubble.

Orion glance around. Clusters of bystanders had gathered at what they seemed to judge a safe distance. Spectators, reporters, a military response team. The usual in a situation like this. It would be hard to get out of the perimeter once they had crossed it.

Something held the crowd back, though. Something kept the response team from moving in, as they had tried to do earlier. Maybe they had re-evaluated the situation now that there were two people with superpowers to apprehend, instead of just one. Maybe something else had happened in the meantime, while Lilly and he had been running.

Orion should really build one of those radio implants that reacted to voice commands and fed on body heat. The conventional ones were too easy to track, and information on-the-go was extremely useful.

Oh well. A problem for later. Whatever had happened, it might give them the opening they needed. Or it might be their downfall.

Ahead, Michael took Eliah’s hand and she pulled him to his feet. They spoke, words too quiet for Orion to understand from this distance.

One of the soldiers fired his assault rifle. Michael flinched at the sound, but the bullet didn’t hit him. Instead, it found its target in Eliah’s shoulder. Orion almost didn’t catch that, because she barely reacted, but then blood spread on her shirt.

She turned towards the shooter, and he exploded.

Okay. That was a good enough reason to keep a safe distance. Orion only now noticed the streaks of reddish brown that covered some of the rubble, and pointedly did not think about their origins.

Lilly didn’t even pause. He had just kept running at full speed, and because Orion had slowed down, he was out of reach. Orion cursed and tried to keep up.

Lilly shouted Eliah’s name and a few heads turned, including hers. She cocked it to the side, considering him, then turned back to Michael. She said something. He nodded.

A wave of pressure shot out from the pair, radiating outwards. The people closest to the epicentre were knocked back or off their feet. By the time the shock wave reached Orion, it was just forceful enough to make him stumble, but catch himself.

The soldiers were down. So was one of the reporters. They had been too close. The rest of the onlookers stood, dazed. Someone was holding up a cell phone to film the scene.

At the epicentre, Eliah and Michael slumped, gasping.

Lilly had continued running, despite the wave pushing him back several steps. He reached his destination, immediately pulling Eliah to her feet and against him. Orion reached them a second later. He grabbed Michael.

‘Let’s make ourselves scarce, now.’

They stumbled through one of the destroyed buildings, into the alley beyond. Behind them, people were calling out. Spectators and probably a back-up team of soldiers. Soon, they would be joined by the police. The four of them needed to disappear.

Orion had no notion of what he had just witnessed. He knew that Michael had caused the destruction they were running from now, and he knew that Eliah had somehow stood up to him. She had flown in earlier. Was it the same power that Michael held? Had they always had it? Had it appeared? How in the hells had that man exploded earlier?

And what was going on now? There was no sign of power in either Eliah or Michael. They were people, exhausted, frightened people, from what he saw. It could be a front, but why hide such power now, when they needed to escape?

Maybe they had exhausted whatever source of energy had allowed for what Orion had seen. He would have to ask later, if they were still alive then.

Michael’s feet found a little more traction against the ground, and he would have started to walk on his own, if he hadn’t been too slow. Orion mostly carried him, but at least he didn’t have to drag a limp body.

He glanced back to where Lilly was carrying Eliah, bridal style. Her shoulder was soaked in red, and her eyes were closed. Orion hoped she hadn’t lost too much blood, and that nothing vital had been hit.

A sharp ringing sound brought his attention back to the alley. Poison caught up with them from an intersecting street, wobbling on a rusty bicycle, with Jordan grimacing on the carrier. She must have seen four people stumbling away form the destruction, and come to the right conclusions.

‘They’re closing in, go left!’, she called and took the lead into an open shutter a few houses down. Orion gripped Michael a bit tighter, and staggered inside.