We were back in position across the street before half the minds inside the gun shop began to move toward the front doors. The masters surrendering, their captives remaining in places.

The Sweepers trudged out of the gun shop in a ragged line. There were over a dozen of them. Skeet led the way, though I hadn’t been told his name at this point, and behind him came young boys and girls of a mixture of ages. None could have been older than twelve. Clouds of fear flowed from them, twisting together until they appeared to be one terrified organism.

Beside me, Mari tensed, rage and pain flaring.

{Easy,} I sent to her.

{Don’t worry,} she sent back, but I did.

The children stuck close together, the youngest flocking behind the oldest, clasping each other’s tiny hands, wide eyes peering out from the over-sized eyepieces of their masks. The older children had some of the Sweeper’s usual bullet-jewelry, but I was surprised by how indistinct the rest of them looked. They could have been the children of any Tribe, or at least, any well supplied tribe. Their clothes were clean, simple cloth, new and well fitting, a far cry from the hand-me-down rags the children of Loners were forced to put up with.

If their parent’s taste in noise and violence had rubbed off on them, it didn’t show right now.

Their parents... I had been avoiding thinking about that connection. How many orphans had we made? How many more would we make? The plan was to make a lot more, but perhaps the plan needed to change?

I was shaken out of my introspection by a jolt of alarm from Mari. I snapped my head toward her, and then followed the direction of her visor. There were two women at the back of the procession. One was old, long silver hair flowing out from behind her mask, but her arms still had strength in them, and within them was a small bundle. It looked like a small sack, but the bulky filter protruding from the side made it clear what the woman really carried: an infant.

And she wasn’t the only one carrying new life. The second woman was younger, perhaps even a few years younger than me, and her belly was swollen with the late stages of pregnancy.

Mari turned away from the sight, guilt pouring off her so thickly that it almost choked me and ran towards the stables.

“Mari,” Bobby started, but I put up a hand to stay them.

There was nothing either of us could say that wouldn’t make things worse. Mari had been insisting we gas these people less than an hour prior, before she knew what that really meant, before she’d seen them face-to-face. How could she not imagine what might have happened if we’d agreed? How could she not be horrified by that thought now?

Kross chose that moment to swagger over to us. Her blue gaze followed Mari, and something inside her mind twinged, but she made no comment. She just turned to me and said, “told you I’d get them out.”

“These are all Sweepers, right?” I asked. “You made sure to separate them out?”

“Come now, have a little faith in me.”

“Well done,” I said, more flatly than I had intended. “What are we doing with them?”

“Brig,” Kross said. “Keeps them out of the way for now. Not much else we can do with them, really.”

I just gave a silent nod.

“Hmm,” Bobby said. “I suppose setting them loose would be crueler than keeping them prisoner.”

“Plus, hostages always come in handy,” Kross said.

Bobby and I shared a disapproving look.

“Oh, come on,” Kross snapped. “Not like I’m suggesting we chain them to the ramparts or anything. Just saying, it’ll help to have that fear in the Sweepers when the time comes.”

“Or it’ll make them fight even harder,” I said.

“Maybe.” She gave the standard Kross shrug. “Anyway, you two are meant to be ruthless killers, remember? Let’s stop blabbing and start herding the leverage to their new home.”

We took no joy in it, but Bobby and I did make an effort to be firm with the prisoners, even as young and defenseless as they were. I had to shout at girl of about six to get back with the others when she strayed, and she sprinted back to one of the older boys as if being chased by hounds.

That boy glared at me, his transparent young mind all spiky with hatred. Later I would learn that he was the one who’d come close to unloading his weapon into Kross.

I think after a while Skeet realized he’d been tricked, because he stopped swiveling his head to search the rooftops and the windows for lurking sharpshooters, but it was too late by then. He was unarmed and in the open, and raging about it would have earned him nothing.

The ‘brig’ turned out to be an old dog pound, though it had clearly been used for holding humans for a long time. We herded our charges inside the largest pen, made sure they had food and water and somewhere to relieve themselves, and then left them with a promise to return before nightfall and check on them.

We passed the stables on the way back to the gun shop. Mari was waiting for us, sat on the curb with her head down. Guilt still radiated from her, so hot that it was painful to approach.

{I don’t know what to say,} she sent to me.

{You don’t have to say anything,} I replied. {I understand why you feel the way you do. I don’t know how I can help, but if you need anything—}

I don’t know if Kross realized we were having a conversation, but nevertheless she interrupted. Physically walking between us.

“Oh, get over yourself,” she said to Mari. Her words lacked the usual venom. They were softer and less sharp than usual, almost affectionate. She gave Mari a very gentle kick in the shin. “You’re a kid. Kids are dumb and full of hormones. They think dumb shit and do dumb shit. Don’t beat yourself up about almost, maybe, perhaps, almost, doing something horrible. Be glad you made that mistake at… whatever age you are, when nothing came of it, instead of when you’re old and powerful and don’t have a cooler head to keep you in check. Trust me on that.”

Mari stared up at her, impassive black visor absorbing the monologue.

“Yeah, okay,” Kross continued, “feel guilty about it. Sure. But don’t forget to be relieved too. You’re not condemned to be awful forever. Trust me, that isn’t how it works. And besides, wanting to do a bunch of murders, pushing for it to happen even, and actually pulling the trigger, are completely different things. I know you know that because you’ve actually pulled the trigger more than once, but sometimes people need a reminder of what should be obvious to them.”

She drew in a long breath and huffed it out as if she’d just climbed a tall flight of stairs, and there was the first signs of embarrassed red about her eyes.

We all stared at her in silence for a moment.

I sometimes think being able to read emotions directly has left me a little under practiced at doing things the old-fashioned way. Had Kross guess Mari’s feelings from body language and context alone, or had it just been a lucky guess?

{How much of that did you understand?} I asked Mari.

{Enough.}

{I think she might have a very good point. Not the part about you being dumb. The part about thinking of this more as a mistake you didn’t have to make.}

“Hey,” Kross said, snapping her fingers at us. “What have we said about doing the mind stuff in mixed company. Words please.”

Mari pushed herself to her feet. With the benefit of the curb, she was actually a little taller than the sniper.

“Thank you, Kross,” she said. “You do help.”

* * *

The doors of the gun shop were still wide open when we got back there. It felt too easy, like there should be some final challenge before being allowed entry to the villain’s inner sanctum. But no, we walked in as if we owned the place. Which I suppose we did, for now.

There were several minds still inside, but one in particular stood out. Nervous, trying not to be, and waiting for us all on its own.

A dark-skinned man stood up from the chair behind the reinforced desk. He was old, older than Kross at least, a dusting of white in his hair. He wore a heat-scorched filter mask and a green boiler suit covered in black stains.

The stranger raised his hand. “Greetings.”

“Erm, hello?” I said, awkwardly returning the wave.

“Where’s the rest of you?” Kross asked.

The dark eyes behind the mask crinkled into a smile. “They fled. They’re hiding… somewhere.” He gestured with a sweeping hand. “But I don’t know where exactly. I’m sure they’ll turn up if you prove yourselves benevolent masters.”

“We’ll see about that,” Kross said, which prompted Bobby to step forward.

“Sorry,” they said, “we don’t mean you any harm, and we’re no one’s master. Who are you? Why are you not hiding too?”

“I wanted to shake the hand of whomever it was that taught my degenerate persecutors a well-earned lesson.” Even distorted through his mask, there was something familiar about his accent, which was soft and deliberate, as it were from a different world than Kross and the Sweepers.

He stepped forward, and outstretched his right hand which, now that I paid attention, was entirely metal. I do not mean he was wearing a glove of some sort. Bright steel bones glinted in the light, and black coils of cable bulged and relaxed like muscles.

He followed my gaze, then laughed and switched hands. “Sorry! Even after all these years… muscle memory is a hell of a thing.”

I shared a bemused glance with at first Bobby, then Kross, then Mari, and then finally stepped forward to take the man’s human hand. “Um, nice to meet you. People call me Red.”

His grip was firm and warm. “Red! Ha! On account of the mask? I love the straightforwardness of these urbanite names.”

‘Urbanite.’ That was a word I hadn’t heard in a long time. I’d forgotten it.

He released me and offered his hand to Bobby.

They took it. “You can call me Weir for now. We still don’t know your name?”

“Ah! How rude of me. You may call me Hephaestus.”

“That’s an interesting name,” Bobby said.

And suddenly it all clicked into place.

“Library,” I blurted. Everyone stopped to look at me. “You’re from the library!”

The man’s mind, which had been losing its nervous edge, sprawled in confusion.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I am a Librarian. How did you know that?”

“Hephaestus. Greek god of the forge. The one who makes weapons. No one knows that sort of thing anymore.” And the Librarians had loved those sorts of completely unsubtle references to ancient times, especially when they knew other people wouldn’t understand them.

{Oh.} A twinge of pain from Mari. I understood. This was a reminder of what she hadn’t found here.

His mind began to calm, but there was an edge of caution there too. “You’re… also a child of the Library?”

“I am,” I said, around a lump in my throat. My eyes began to water.

“I thought I was the only survivor.”

I shook my head. “I thought the same.”

He threw his arms wide. “Then come, embrace me learned brother!”

I just stood there, stunned, and let myself be pulled into a hug. It was too tight and too hot, but my mind had gone too blank to object. I carefully raised my arms, which had been hanging at my sides, and gave him an awkward pat on the back.

“What the fuck is going on?” Kross snapped. “Library? Learning? The fuck are you two gibbering about?”

“I wasn’t always a Loner,” I said. “My Tribe was destroyed when I was just a child. The Librarians, that’s what they called themselves.”

“So you’ve been raised by people like this… Herpafestuvus or whatever?” Kross asked. “Explains a lot.”

Despite her mocking tone, there was an ember of something warm in her mind, and Bobby was positively glowing. I think behind her own pain, even Mari was happy for me.

Tears pricked my eyes. My world had died all those years ago, and now I’d found a remnant of it, someone else who finally understood there could be more than scavenging and raiding and pillaging and murdering. Someone who’d lived in a better world.

“Well,” Kross interjected again after a few seconds. “This is all very touching, but we do have a shit load of angry Sweepers turning up in the next... I’d guess twelve to forty-eight hours. And that means we need to get our business done quick. Hepastefallieses, you want to help us out?”

Hephaestus patted my back and released me from the embrace. He looked over at Kross, something like fire in his eyes. “Oh, it’d be my pleasure. Let me give you the tour.”

He led us through long corridors that would have all been identical were it not for the Sweeper’s decorations. The walls had been covered in decades of graffiti, new images haphazardly painted over the old, and the occasional smattering of bullet holes stoop out as landmarks in the labyrinth.

Our guide listed off locations as we passed particular doors. “Staff quarters, scrap storage, bomb vault.” I barely took in his words. My mind was still racing with questions. All of our minds were buzzing with curiosity and excitement, actually, except Mari’s.

“How did you escape?” I asked as we walked. “The night of the attack, how did you get away?” I caught the twitch of his eyelids, and quickly added. “Sorry if you don’t want to share.”

“No, no, it’s all right. I didn’t need to escape. I was away on a research expedition when those savages came for the library. When my party returned, the ash of our home was already stone cold.”

“There were more of you?” I asked.

“Three of us. We wandered for a while, searching for survivors, and then when we gave up on that, just surviving. But it’s a dangerous world, it wasn’t long before we ran afoul of one of the less pleasant Tribes. I managed to talk them out of eating us, convinced them we were useful, but since then it’s been a life desperately lacking in freedom.”

“Wait,” Bobby said from behind us. “People actually eat each other?”

“Sometimes,” Kross said. “I know you don’t get off your island much, but you must have heard stories.”

“Stories, yes.” Bobby’s voice had a sickly quaver. “Stories. Why would anyone need to eat a person? There’s enough animals to go around.”

“I’m sorry to confirm that yes, indeed,”—Hephaestus held up his metal arm—“people do commit cannibalism out there. It’s not so much out of hunger. Magic has addled some minds in very odd ways. The man that ate my arm thought it would grant him my knowledge.”

“Did it work?” Kross asked.

“He died of food poisoning,” Hephaestus said.

Kross let out a nasty little laugh at that.

I was afraid to ask, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Those other two Librarians, are they here?”

He let out a long sigh. “I’m afraid not. I’ve changed captors several times since last I saw them. I have no idea where they are or if they’re even alive.” His mood brightened as we reached a particular door, and he stopped in front of it. “Anyway, enough of the past for now, let’s look toward the future, shall we?”

I nodded, and he threw open the door with a grand theatric sweep.

“Welcome, mortals, to my forge!” Hephaestus swept his metal arm over a workspace that did not at all look like a forge. The cold, clean, room had a series of workbenches, and guns in various stages of assemblage rested atop them.

There was a black contraption in the corner, the size of two trucks parked next to each other. It was cuboid, but hollow and skeletal, as if you could walk inside. A forest of metal limbs burst from the frame’s edges, reaching towards the center like tree branches twisting themselves toward the sun.

“What is that?” I asked.

“No,” Bobby gasped. “It can’t be. Can it?”

Hephaestus beamed. “That, my friend, is my universal constructor.”

My eyes went wide. I didn’t know much about universal constructors, but even my limited knowledge was enough to grasp that this was an incredibly important revelation.

Kross snorted. “Your universal constructor? That thing has always been here.”

“Oh.” Hephaestus’ scholarly energy dimmed. “You’ve… been here before?”

“Hephasma—” She rolled her eyes. “Heff—that’s your name now—I used to own this place. Metalhead ousted me. So don’t bullshit us about being the only person that can use the bullet printer. Before you there was some scrawny couple.” She clicked her fingers, scrunching her brows as the names eluded her.

“John and Mary?” the newly renamed Heff asked. I am also not going to use his full name from now on. He knew the risks when he picked one that was such a mouthful.

“That’s them. They still around?”

Heff grimaced. “I’m afraid not. They were getting old when the Sweepers bought me to replace them. Such a shame. I learned a lot from them.”

“Wait,” Bobby and I said at the same time, and cut each other off short. I nodded for them to go first, having a pretty good idea what they were about to say, and they rewarded me with a warm grin.

“Kross,” Bobby said, “let me get something straight. The Sweepers, of all people, have had a universal constructor for decades?”

Kross shrugged. “Yep.”

“And all they’ve used it for is it to ‘print bullets?’”

“Well, it makes the guns too. And diesel. And car parts.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “You know what one of these things can do, right?”

“Make anything?” She scoffed. “Yeah so, the brainboxes kept saying. But when you let them try and make something more complicated than, say, a bomb, they give you brown sludge. Isn’t that right, Heff?”

Heff shrank a little, the wind thoroughly ripped from his sails. “Well, we—my predecessors and I—haven’t been given much chance to experiment. And it isn’t like our forebears left an instruction manual around on how to operate it.”

Perhaps I should explain? Universal Constructors turned up just as the Good Times turned Bad. Too rare and too late to make a difference. They could make anything apparently—materials, machinery, even flesh and organs—atom by atom as long as they had the proper source materials to work with.

“I’d very much like to help you,” Bobby said. “I don’t know much about machines, but I’m versed in biology and chemistry. Perhaps I can be of some use.”

“That would be wonderful,” Heff said. “Your suit, it’s an old HECO model is it not? I’ve never seen one before, but I know UNR3 had bases around here. Is that how you came by it?”

Bobby frowned, and opened their mouth to speak, but Kross sharply cut them off. “All right, all right, can we do this stuff later? We got one, maybe two days before Metalhead and his goons come charging over that bridge. Let’s get all starry eyed about old machines after our enemies are rat food, maybe?”

Bobby frowned down at her. “Kross, this is important.”

“She’s right though,” I said. “I know this is important, but we need to focus on surviving right now so we can live to figure out how to…” I gestured at the machine. The words stuck in my throat, there was no way to get them out that didn’t sound ridiculous. “Rebuild the world? That’s what you’re hoping this thing could, isn’t it?”

Bobby’s face flushed a little. “When you put it like that, it sounds naive.”

“No, no. I don’t think so. Not naive.” I hadn’t meant to puncture their hope. “This changes things. There’s so much more at stake now than just ridding the city of one Bad Tribe. Perhaps this is why fate led us here?”

They let out a brief huff of air, a laugh, and smiled at me. “Yes. Perhaps its fate.”

“Anyway,” Kross said. “We got some power armor to breach. You know how to make anything that can do that?”

Heff blinked, and his disappointment disappeared, energized by a practical question. Electronics whirred as he reached up with his metal hand to stroke his mask. “Believe it or not, I’ve been working on exactly that problem for a while, in secret of course. I do believe I’m quite close to cracking a high explosive shaped charge warhead. The sort they used to blow up tanks in the Bad Times.”

“How close?” Kross said. “One day. Remember.”

“Well to do it safely it’d have to be piecemeal. I could try to construct it all at once to meet your deadline, but there’s a risk of, ehm…”

“It exploding and destroying the constructor?” I finished for him.

“Yes, that.”

“I vote we don’t try that,” Bobby said.

“In that case,” Heff said, “how about an anti-material rifle? I’m not sure it’ll fully penetrate Metalhead’s armor, but he’ll certainly feel it. You might damage a component or stun him with a shot to the right place.”

“A really big gun, eh?” Kross’s mind hummed with excitement. “Sounds good. Get to work on that.”

He nodded. “All right. I should be able have something ready before they get here.”

“In the meantime,” I asked, eying the partially assembled guns strewn across the nearest workbench, “do you have anything we can use now? I have an idea.”

“Of course, follow me.”

Heff led us out of the room, through a corridor, and to a shuttered door secured with a heavy padlock. He produced a key from his sleeve, then paused to turn and smile at us with his eyes. “I’m not supposed to have a key. Keep this our little secret.”

With a click, the padlock gave way, and Heff rolled the shutter door up. Collectively we gasped at the sight on the other side.

Guns. Lots of guns.

The walls were covered in rack upon rack of long rifles similar to Kross’s, assault rifles, machine guns, submachine guns, pistols, and other things I couldn’t name. In the center of the room were wooden crates, a few of them lidless already, seas of bullets peeking from within. There was even a palette full of hand grenades.

“Will this do?” Heff asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I think it will.”