Lisa and Victoria hadn’t been kidding. Taylor’s place really was insane. Those two had split off from our group, and I’d ridden back to Taylor’s place with her. It was located in a high-rise in the downtown area. I hadn’t even realized that we’d arrived at our destination until we turned off from the street and went down a ramp into more underground parking.

  I was clued in to the fact that this was a pretty exclusive place, not only by the location and visible security equipment, but also by the fact that she had private, enclosed parking. Idle chatter had filled the time on the ride between here and the mall, and I was more than a little nervous. I’m pretty sure she picked up on it and seemed happy to drive the conversation, talking about the city, how things had changed, and what more was coming down the pipeline.

  She helped me carry my bags, which was good, because I wasn’t entirely sure I could manage them all on my own. It was a lot for one person to try and handle, between the clothing being heavy and some of the purchases being bulky. Taylor had tapped her phone on a black panel inside the elevator with a chirp, and the doors shut, and we were in motion.

  “Is it weird for you, living here?” The thought had popped into my head out of the blue. The topic of the lives everyone used to live before meeting me had come up earlier. It had been made clear that she and her father had been part of the working-class poor who were struggling to make ends meet in Brockton Bay before the Endbringer attack. “Sorry, that’s probably inappropriate of me to ask,” I added hastily, suddenly feeling self-conscious for being nosy.

  She glanced over and down at me with that teasing smile of hers.

  “Not at all, and you’re right. It took some getting used to, and I still think about it from time to time.” She hummed a note under her breath. “It was weird at first, having money, because I had what felt like a lot of it, and I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with it. It wasn’t like I was a particularly materialistic person, so the usual avenues and vices for spending it weren’t that appealing to me.”

  I couldn’t pull my eyes away from hers as she explained her feelings on the matter.

  “Having a nice car, or a nice place to live, really isn’t about the fact that they’re nice for me. I could honestly care less about whether it’s fashionable or how well-to-do my neighbors are. The biggest thing I care about is the security and safety aspects. My car’s armored and bulletproof, can’t be snooped in on, and has a whole host of other functionality that I care about. I can’t get those things in a beater car, so it’s an expensive import instead. My apartment is a similar story. This is a building with a lot of very affluent people in it, so there’s a pretty intense amount of security features present, along with a well-equipped private security team.”

  The elevator slowed and came to a stop on our floor.

  “I think it’s less obnoxious living here than in some of the mansions on the west side of the city, not to mention, it’s far easier for me to mask my presence and keep up a double life in a building where my coming and going doesn’t stand out.”

  She gestured with one bag-carrying hand, and I stepped out into a hallway leading to a single door. There were traditional-style locks on the door, but it also had another of those small black panels on the wall next to it, and Taylor again tapped her phone. The locks clacked, and she opened the door for me.

  My mind screamed lavish penthouse when I stepped inside, but looking around, I noticed smaller details that disrupted my first impression. The large sectional sofa didn’t quite fit the warm aesthetic of the apartment. Photos on the wall that were a bit more homey than cool luxury, and so on. The main area was a large, open floor plan of a den, dining area, and one of those fancy kitchen spaces you see in magazines. She led me down a hallway and showed me the spare room, where we dumped my purchases unceremoniously. It too was large, with a big walk-in closet, an absurdly appointed bathroom, and a breathtaking view of the city along one wall of windows.

  As we got the stuff set down, she gestured at the windows and asked me, “They’re reflective and tinted, you don’t have to worry about anyone seeing you through any of the windows in the apartment. Can I see your phone briefly?”

  I handed it over after unlocking it. She tapped on it and on her phone, then held the two together against one another for about thirty seconds while each emitted a series of chirps. A different beep signified she was done doing whatever it was, and she handed my phone back to me. “There. You’ve got access to the internet, and a set of digital keys for the place, so you can come and go as you like.” She grinned at me as I looked up to her, and told me, “Don’t rob me, though. I know people.”

  I rolled my eyes at that. As if.

  A brief tour of the place got me situated and familiarized with the layout. We entered another high-security, robust-looking door, this one requiring her phone, a retinal scan, and a code. Deadbolts clunked, and the door retracted on silent motors.

  She showed me her hero cave. Or whatever the proper term was. Large wall displays showed bulletins from around the city, camera views of places I didn’t recognize, and a map of status lights situated all over the city. There was a display wall with what looked like an array of tools and weapons, battle trophies, and Skitter suits. Just two of them, each lit with overhead lighting.

  I recognized them from candid photos I’d seen on PHO and her wiki article.

  The first was a dark gray suit with black body panels and a matching mask with large yellow eyes and bug mandibles that ran along the jaws. The mannequin had on a wig, and the mask didn’t cover the hair at all. I reached out to touch it, then hesitated, glancing over at her. She nodded at me with a faint smirk on her face. The fabric of the suit was incredibly soft and smooth, despite it being a somewhat coarse weave. A lot of the armored areas of the suit turned out to be made from chitin insect shells that were overlapped like a kind of scale mail.

  It was a little rough in places. I saw areas where it was visibly damaged and frayed, but that didn’t detract from the beauty of the costume.

  “This is incredible. What kind of fabric is this? It doesn’t feel like anything I’m familiar with,” I asked her.

  “Spider’s silk. Specifically, dragline silk from black widow spiders. It was my very first suit, and I made it in my dad’s basement like it was an after-school project over the course of a couple of months. Looking back at things now, and after some time talking with people, I can’t help but sort of laugh about it. Those were strange times. Bad times, but the pain has sort of worn off, so I’m left thinking about how absurd it all was now.”

  I looked over at her, and she was still smiling. “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  “Pft, please. Like I said, I got past that stuff a while back. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

  I nodded slowly and stepped over to look at the other suit. This one seemed to have some passing similarities to the first in the way it was designed, but was quite different. Also darkly-colored, it was a darker charcoal fabric, with larger armored plates covering sections of the body. There was much more armor on this suit, and it was this iridescent green and black color that had this gorgeous shine and color-shifting effect, where the armor plating wasn’t too damaged.

  Where the first suit had some spots where it’d clearly seen action, with frayed bits of fabric, some burnt areas, and places where the armor was clearly missing, the second suit looked like it’d been through hell and back. The fearsome-looking helmet had gouges in it and places where the armor was chipped away. Some of the armor plates on the body looked like they’d been dragged down a highway or something of the sort. The gloves had broken and jagged-looking claws. The fabric portions of the suit weren’t in much better shape.

  I drew my hand back from it. I didn’t want to touch the second suit; I was afraid I’d damage it further. Taylor stepped up next to me and chuckled dryly. She ran her thumb over a deep gouge along the cheekbone of the helmet.

  I wasn’t sure what to say, exactly.

  “It looks like this one saw a lot of action. If the… damage is any indicator, it did a good job of keeping you safe, at least?”

  That got a larger smile out of Taylor; she glanced down at me and nodded.

  “You don’t recognize it, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. I only recognize them from photos on your wiki page.”

  She hummed a note under her breath before speaking. “You made this suit for me, and yes, I can’t tell you the number of times it saved my life, or at least, saved me from serious bodily harm. This one here…” she tapped the tip of her index finger on the gouge on the cheek she’d been touching a moment ago. “This might have done me in, otherwise.”

  “What happened?” I paused a moment, then added, “If it’s not too much to talk about, I mean.”

  Taylor’s smile didn’t leave her lips, but I saw the shape of her eyes change, giving me the impression it was more of a melancholy expression. “Another Endbringer fight. Behemoth, in New Delhi. He exploded, and I was hit with a piece of rubble that was flung by the blast.” She wet her lips. “The suit you made almost certainly saved my life. A head wound like that, in those conditions? I probably would have bled out.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean–”

  She shook her head. “No, again, old memories, the sting has worn off. That was a bad day because we lost a lot of good people, and people I knew in that fight. But it wasn’t all bad, Morgan. Extremely good things came of it, too.”

  I looked over at her, and she must have picked up that I didn’t know what she was referring to. She blinked rapidly. “My turn to apologize, I forgot you have holes, and there are things I expect you to know that you don’t.” She turned back to look at the suit. “As I was saying, we lost a lot of people that day. I’d give you names, but I don’t think you’d remember any of them, based on what you’ve said so far.”

  I hesitated a moment, then nodded.

  She continued. “It was also a good day, though. A very good day. We killed Behemoth and ended the Endbringer reign of terror worldwide that day.”

  I stared at her, not quite believing what I was hearing. “There aren’t any more Endbringers?”

  Taylor turned back to me, a frown creasing her brow. “Tessa didn’t tell you?”

  Again, I shook my head. Taylor pursed her lips, then sighed. “I won’t question her reasons or judgment. I’m sure she had her own reasons for not telling you. Yes, the Endbringers have been defeated. We killed Leviathan here, and Behemoth in New Delhi. Behemoth was in the process of being defeated when he decided to self-destruct and exploded, killing a lot of people in the process. We’re not entirely sure why, but something happened with Simurgh when he did.”

  My eyes grew wide as she explained.

  “When Behemoth exploded, she was sleeping in orbit like usual. Our best guess is that they were linked, and she died as well, or that she committed suicide, being the last of the three. Dragon noticed that her orbit started to decay; she was just spinning around out of control, and a couple of weeks later, she came crashing down into the Atlantic Ocean. That was five years ago, and there hasn’t been a single attack since.”

  I acted without thinking and threw my arms around Taylor’s waist and hugged her. She froze a moment, then laughed and hugged me back.

  “I have to admit, I keep forgetting that it’s like things are happening for the first time for you. There were… pretty intense and wild parties being thrown after that day.”

  My voice was muffled when I spoke. “You have no idea what a relief it is to hear that those abominations are gone.”

  Taylor hummed again, and I stepped back to wipe a stray tear away. Her grin was back, seemingly ever-present. I felt my cheeks warming a little under her gaze. She finished showing me around her hero lair, including the big array of glass aquariums with all sorts of exotic insect species.

  Some of them looked strange. Some were downright horrifying, and that was me looking at them inside a well-lit, sealed enclosure.

  I had to admit the hero stuff was fascinating to me. I think Taylor saw my interest as well. Eventually, the two of us headed back into the living room, and I took a seat on one part of the sectional. My batteries were running out even though the day hadn’t been that physically demanding. I just didn’t have any appreciable amount of stamina, and I was still getting used to being awake for longer stretches of time.

  “Do you want anything to drink?” Taylor asked me from the kitchen area.

  “Yes, please,” I shifted on the sofa, running my hands over the skirt of my dress.

  “Any preference?”

  “Um, I’m not picky. I’ll just have whatever you’re having.”

  She came back over and handed me a frosty green bottle. I took a sniff and glanced over at her conspiratorially. She had a much larger grin plastered on her face and shrugged after taking a seat next to me. She took a swig of her beer after bringing one leg up and throwing an arm over the back of the sofa so she faced me more directly.

  “You’re technically older than I am, and you’re a clone. I don’t think the normal rules apply. Do you want something else instead?”

  I pushed my sudden anxiety aside and took a sip. It was crisp and refreshing. A little bitter, but not in an unpleasant way. I turned the bottle around in my hand and looked at the label.

  “I prefer Mexican beers if it’s not something a bit fancier. What do you think?”

  I took another drink. “It’s good? I’m kind of surprised. I remember people telling me beer was gross.”

  “Most of the common and bigger-name ones are pretty gross. If it’s got sugar or corn syrup added to it, chances are it’s to cover how cheap and nasty it tastes.”

  I took a few more gulps, then wiped at my lips with a thumb. “I can see that, yeah. This wouldn’t be good if it were sweet.”

  There was something on my chest I’d been wanting to talk about for a few hours now, and it seemed as good a time as any to finally bring it up.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?” I ran my fingers over the paper label on the bottle to distract myself.

  “Of course, isn’t that the goal?” The tease in her voice was apparent without having to make eye contact, which I was trying very hard to avoid at the moment. I wanted to keep my head as clear as possible.

  “What uhhh…” My heart felt like it was trying to claw its way up my throat, and I took another drink of my beer to try and knock it back into place. “What was the nature of our relationship, you know, before?”

  “Ah.” I heard her tone shift some. “I was wondering when we were going to get to that.”

  I glanced up at her to find her staring at me with that same teasing grin. Her eyes had a mischievous look to them now as well.

  “I’ll be very candid with you, if that’s okay with you?”

  My heart was thumping like crazy in my chest. I didn’t trust my voice not to betray my feelings, so I nodded as casually as I could.

  “I would say that we were very good friends. We didn’t talk as much as you did with some of your other friends, but that was largely on me, being a ball of misery, rage, hate, and fear constantly. But the conversations we did have mattered a lot, and they were pretty deep.”

  She cleared her throat and took a sip of her beer. “We were intimate, but not sexually intimate, or at least, it never got to that point before you passed away.”

  There was no helping it now; my cheeks felt like there was a five-alarm fire going. I dropped my gaze to my lap and mumbled a comment about dying a virgin.

  Taylor burst out into laughter, and I jerked a little at her sudden exclamation. I took several deep pulls from my beer to try and cool myself off from the flush of shame I was feeling.

  Still chuckling, Taylor said, “You weren’t a virgin when you died, Morgan. You were in a relationship, and I’ve been told that despite being cut short, it was pretty wild.”

  I drained the last of my bottle upon hearing that. Sounds like old me at least had that going on.

  But where does that leave me? And what does it mean, if anything? Six years is like… an eternity.

  “Let me grab some refills, I have a feeling this is going to be a talk you might want to have a drink over,” Taylor said, holding her hand out.

  I handed my bottle over to her, she finished off the rest of her bottle as well, then got up from the couch and walked back to the kitchen. My eyes lingered overly long on the sway of her hips as she walked away.

  So there had been something between us, then. I think that’s a relief? But if I wasn’t seeing her, then who?

  Taylor was halfway back to the sofa when the entryway door beeped and swung open. She paused and turned, beers in hand.

  A woman wearing a gray sweatsuit walked in, shut the door, and kicked off her sneakers next to the door. The hood of her sweatsuit was raised and fairly deep, obscuring most of her face, but strands of her chestnut brown hair were sticking out from the bottom of her hood. She was grumbling under her breath as she turned around and walked over to Taylor.

  She flipped her hood back, revealing the single most attractive-looking person I’d ever laid eyes upon. Taylor made my heart pound and my belly twist itself into knots. This woman was somehow above even that, and I wasn’t sure how that was even possible. I sat frozen in place on the couch as she threw her arms around Taylor’s neck and kissed her squarely on the lips. Taylor returned it and loosely hugged her around the shoulders with her forearms.

  Oh. Of course.

  They broke the kiss. Taylor spoke first. “I know you’ve got to be stressed out pretty bad right now. Do you want me to get you something to drink?”

  She blew upwards at her bangs and shook her head, saying, “Nah, I’ll get something for myself after I get changed.” She turned to me and approached where I was sitting, Taylor trailing along behind her.

  We made eye contact, and I was struck by the fact that her eyes were gold. Not golden brown, or golden, but gold. I got the same sensation looking at her as I did looking at myself in the mirror. Well, maybe not the same, but similar enough. She looked just a tiny bit off. Like you wanted to do a double-take to check and see if your eyes were deceiving you, or if your mind was playing tricks on you. I think it was something about how flawless she looked, combined with the eye color.

  I stood up awkwardly as she came around the end of the couch. Reflexively, I held one elbow with my hand and forced a smile at her. I’d gotten more comfortable around Taylor over the course of the day, but the sudden addition of new person had me out of my comfort zone once again. I glanced up at her, making eye contact again as she came to a stop directly in front of me, inside my personal space.

  She had a good half a head of height on me and was rather tall, but not like Taylor was, where you wouldn’t think her as looking out of place on a women’s basketball team. I wasn’t sure what the expression on her face was, some complex melange that I couldn’t untwist in the moment. Whatever it was, it was an intense look.

  Before I could react, she’d all but snatched me up and crushed me in a hug, with my toes nearly dangling on the floor. She let out a choked-sounding half-sob, half-laugh. I hugged her back, even though all of this was overwhelming me at the moment. I let it just wash over me and carry me along on the current.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for your trip earlier,” she whispered into my ear. “I literally could not get away from work. I almost can’t believe you’re really here right now!”

  I chuckled a little and nodded. She set me down, hesitating a moment before she let me go. While I was still in her arms, she turned and kissed my cheek, then stood back up.

  I was stunned in place, my brain malfunctioning, and my face feeling like one of those animated characters who turn bright red. I heard her tell Taylor she was going to go get changed, and she darted off.

  Taylor snapped me out of it when she nudged my side and handed me another cold drink. I blinked slowly, my brain still rebooting. Taylor was looking at me with her head canted and that teasing smirk on her lips.

  “Did you remember something?” She ventured. I wasn’t sure if she was offering me an out, or if that’s what she honestly thought was going on, but I clutched onto it like it was a lifeline thrown out to me after being washed overboard by a rogue wave.

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  “I um, maybe. That’s Amy, right?” I wanted to double-check; it was the safe bet, but I didn’t know if Taylor had women stopping in her fancy apartment regularly or not.

  Taylor chuckled and took a seat back on the sofa, and I followed suit. “Yes, that’s Amy. It wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t recognize her, she looks quite a bit different than she used to.”

  “And you and her…” I let the question linger.

  Taylor smiled softly. I thought I’d seen a flicker of something on her face, but it was gone before I could recognize it. She gave me a nod and took a sip of her beer. “We are, yes. Amy was…” Taylor glanced up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, and sighed quietly. “She was in a very bad place after you died. You and her had just come out with your relationship to her parents. Most of us were hit pretty hard when you weren’t there anymore. You sort of left a big hole behind; a lot of people looked up to you, or felt like they relied on you being there.”

  She flexed her jaw and took another drink from her bottle. “Sorry. It sounds like I’m blaming you, or something, and that isn’t my intention. There were some hard feelings; some people felt like they’d been abandoned. I was able to get through to most of them, but not all of them.”

  I frowned deeply. “How– why would people feel like I abandoned them? It’s not like people choose to die, unless they commit suicide, of course, but, you know what I mean.”

  Taylor took a slow, deep breath and let it out with an equally long sigh. Her shoulders slumped a little, the first time all day I’d seen anything like a chink in the confidence she wore like a suit of armor. “I take it nobody gave you those details, either?” She glanced over at me. “The details of your death?”

  My frown persisted. “I know that I died fighting the Slaughterhouse Nine, at the end of the fight,” I said, perhaps a touch defensively. I got the impression that Taylor might be casting aspersions on Tessa, who I felt protective of in this situation.

  Taylor tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear with one thumb and nodded slowly at me. “Yes, that’s right, but that’s the broad strokes version, the version that was told to most people on mass media. What happened was you were put into a situation where you had to choose between killing someone you didn’t think deserved it or risking your life to try and save them.”

  She turned away her gaze from mine to glance out the wall of windows the couches faced, overlooking the city’s skyline. “Some people felt like you had a choice to make, and that you chose to abandon your friends and family to try and save someone who deserved to be killed.”

  My chest grew tight. “But you don’t believe that?” My voice was soft, quieter than I’d intended.

  Taylor shook her head firmly. “No, I don’t. How could I?” She looked back at me, her brow and jaw set into a determined look. “Apex was a fundamentally good person, but more than that, she was extremely sensitive and empathetic. If you gave her that choice a hundred times over, I don’t think she’d have deviated from it a single time. It wasn’t in her character to kill someone she thought could be saved. That’s just not who she was.”

  There were notes of bitterness in Taylor’s voice as she finished speaking. “So no, I don’t believe it was a choice for her. Did she have a choice presented to her? Yes. But a choice with only one outcome isn’t a real choice at all, now is it? That’s just a predetermined outcome, and you’re removing free will from the equation.”

  “So uhm…” I tapped my fingertips on my bottle, eyes fixed on the condensation slowly rolling down the sides. “Who was it, anyway? What happened to them?”

  Taylor blew a loud raspberry. “Riley. Formerly Bonesaw. She was under intensive therapy for years, but she made it out the other side and managed to avoid being sent to the Birdcage. Largely because of her mental state while she was a member of the Nine. It was discovered after the fact that Jack Slash had a kind of soft-touch Master effect aura about him that was keeping the people in the Nine under his thumb, which also changed the rubric for her.”

  Taylor took a drink of her beer and shifted on the sofa. “As for what she’s doing now, she’s a researcher and engineer at a pharmaceutical company. Her work saves the lives of millions of people worldwide.”

  She looked back at me, boring holes into my soul with the intensity of the look she was giving me. “It took me longer than I’d like to admit to trust you. I always thought you were playing some other game. Had some kind of master plan in your back pocket, and that maybe, you’d show your true colors someday. Prove that you’re just as fallible as the rest of us.”

  She was starting to lose me. She picked up on that, slightly changing her tack. “I’m not talking about some kind of savior complex or hero worship, Morgan. I’m being very literal. Usually, people are out for themselves on some level, or they have a plan for things to circle back around to benefit themselves. They fail, they break, they flounder. With you, it was just… Doing good for goodness’ sake. There was a kind of naivety and innocence to it; not everyone saw it, and some took advantage of it. You never seemed to mind, though.”

  Wait…

  “So you were going along with what I was doing, but what, you expected me to try and cash out at some point?”

  She chuckled and shook her head. “No, I just expected that you’d wind up making a mistake sooner or later and get punished for it. And I was waiting, holding my breath, hoping I’d be there to help bail you out when your raft was sinking. But you didn’t. You stuck to your principles, even though it cost you your life.” She smiled at me, and it was a warm thing, the intensity of her stare moments ago forgotten. “But the important thing was that you weren’t wrong. Some see it as a gamble where you played roll the dice with your life. I think you were just really good at reading people. Probably still are.”

  Taylor shrugged.

  Amy’s footsteps padded in from the other room. She was wearing a pair of short shorts and a slightly oversized and tacky tie-dye shirt. She looked tired, or maybe exhausted was a more accurate term. She stopped in the kitchen, poured herself a tumbler with something over ice, then came over, sitting down and snuggling into Taylor’s side.

  Taylor wrinkled her nose and made a show of fanning her face, and Amy socked her in the abdomen with her free hand.

  “I don’t know how you can drink that stuff; it smells like paint thinner,” Taylor grouched at Amy.

  “You know damn well why I drink it,” she chided Taylor before glancing over at me and explaining for my benefit, as the odd person out on this joke. “I have a souped-up parahuman body. Short of drinking half a keg by myself, if I’m not drinking paint thinner, it has basically zero effect on me.” Amy twitched the tip of her nose at Taylor in an accusatory manner, then grinned at me. “And don’t let her fool you, she’s nearly the same. She could knock those bottles back all day and not catch a buzz off it.”

  “That’s not entirely true, well, unless it’s just social drinking, like this,” Taylor admitted.

  Amy reintroduced herself to me. Formerly Panacea, of New Wave. She was now Praxis, and still a member of her family’s team. I asked her about the rebrand, and that got us down a rabbit hole of her past, dislike for what her life had been, how things had changed–thanks to me–and how she’d become more of a ‘traditional’ hero, although she, like most of the rest of New Wave, only did it as a part-time thing.

  The hours ticked by, and I noted that after my second beer, I was feeling a bit tipsy and bubbly. I didn’t wind up drinking to excess, and Taylor was a gracious host, weaving in other drinks and providing us snacks as the three of us caught up.

  I was getting fairly sleepy, but was too invested in re-learning about these things to admit defeat and surrender myself to bedtime. Amy was also yawning intermittently throughout and was quite physically affectionate with Taylor. She seemed to thrive on the contact, and Taylor was happy to provide.

  Finding out that Amy was the creative force behind a pharmaceutical corporation floored me. Realistically, it was her company, Dragon just helped build the framework. They used their combined talents and even some biological samples Dragon had provided, which apparently came from me. From Apex-me.

  Ambrosia Biotechnology. One of the biggest and most influential drug companies on the entire planet, overtaking every other company in only two years, and standing totally uncontested in the years since. Had she been a more traditional Founder and CEO sort, she’d be worth billions. She did have an insane net worth, but it had more to do with her intellectual properties and patents than anything else, or so she’d said.

  How had she been able to make such a remarkable thing happen in so short a time?

  Literal miracles in a pill bottle, from the sounds of things. I’d seen ads throughout the city and in the mall earlier, but I didn’t really know what they were for, exactly. They made broad-spectrum antiparasitic drugs that had dramatically improved the quality of life in developing countries. They made anti-microbial medications that functioned like antibiotics, but without some of the associated downsides, and without the problem of drug-resistant strains of pathogens forming. They had the cure for several hundred different forms of cancer, with more coming every year as they developed them.

  In short, Amy had taken her love of healing people and divorced it from the burdensome aspects that she disliked, and had found a way to produce and manufacture what she called ‘programmable cells’ without violating any of the red-flag laws the PRT had on self-replicating organisms. Dragon provided the manufacturing expertise and initial capital, and Amy produced and tested the drugs. Thanks to her ability, she was able to test them with instant feedback as to what worked and what didn’t, and at no risk to patients, which made it so she was able to produce products from prototypes at an unprecedented rate.

  The ‘crazy’ and ‘disruptive’ part of it all was that she practically gave the drugs away for nothing. Her company charged what was mostly a token cost for lifesaving medications. Twenty bucks cured your colon cancer. Immunization against some of the worst diseases and parasites in the world? That’ll be five bucks local equivalent.

  Taylor teased her, and she had an obvious sore spot about their non-lifesaving medications and therapies. There was one that I’d seen ads for virtually everywhere today.

  Rejuvenex.

  Amy told me that she found it frustrating that it was their most popular and well-known product, and that she wished that Ambrosia were more well-known for their lifesaving medications.

  Still, I couldn’t believe my ears when she told me what Rejuvenex did. As the name implied, it was like a fountain of youth medication. One moderately-priced injection per year effectively rolled back the clock on your life. It didn’t actually give you eternal youth, nor did it directly extend your lifespan. What it did was re-engineer your body to maintain itself in ‘the state of your prime.’ She’d explained that it varied from person to person, but usually, people looked and felt like they were between twenty and twenty-five years old, regardless of their actual age.

  There was nuance to it. As people approached what would be the ‘natural’ end of their life, they would rapidly re-age over the course of a couple of years until they once again looked how old they really were. Taking more of the drug wouldn’t do anything at that point. It was essentially a beauty product, but it had the added benefit of allowing people to remain as youthful and vigorous as they looked while using it.

  She’d pulled out her phone, and the lights in the living room dimmed, the glass windows overlooking the city blacking out and becoming display screens. She showed me some ads and some of their internal testing and results information.

  It was as insane as it sounded. You got an injection, and were under the weather for a few days to a couple of weeks, and during that time, it was like years per day were falling off the person. Depending on how much of a difference there was, some people wound up scarfing down food to replace lost collagen. Others wound up losing excess weight as the drug kick-started their metabolism back into a youthful state, and their bodies burned off the weight to fuel their transformation.

  The results were staggering. Someone who was in their mid-fifties, with graying hair and facial wrinkles, looked like they had just come off the graduation stage at the local university a week later. And it wasn’t just older people who were taking it. Taking it when you were already young effectively staved off the effects of aging for entire decades of your life.

  The tag line used in advertising suddenly made so much more sense.

  Ambrosia Biotechnology, We Make Miracles.

  I sat in silence when the promo reel ended.

  “Are you like… the richest person on the planet now?” I asked her, still feeling a bit stunned by everything.

  She laughed several times, then covered her mouth and yawned.

  “Mm, no. I could very easily be, if I wanted to. We have kept the company private because otherwise, a board of investors would oust me immediately for giving the stuff away when I could be charging nearly infinite amounts of money for it. And what would people do, just not buy the cure to their cancer?”

  I looked over at her as she blinked tiredly. “But you’re still filthy rich.”

  She nodded a few times. “Yeah. I’m filthy rich, as are the other people involved in the company. It’s more of a pain in the ass than anything, although there are some nice perks to having the so-called fuck you level of money.”

  “Such as?” I asked, more than a little trepidation rising in my chest.

  Taylor, who was the perkiest out of all of us, snickered. “Another pharmaceutical corporation tried to do a hatchet job on her and the company. Spent tens of millions of dollars on ad campaigns. There was speculation that a major crime wave was directly attributed to their hiring people to try and disrupt things here locally. Never proven, of course. Corporations usually aren’t stupid about making sure their hands don’t touch their dirty laundry.”

  I glanced between them, waiting for the bad news to drop.

  Taylor took the lead after Amy remained quiet. “She bought their entire company out in a hostile takeover, fired all the management, liquidated their assets to pay employee severance packages, then released every one of their patents and intellectual properties to the public domain.” Taylor licked her lips. “Needless to say, that company doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “So you just…” I stared at her, seeing her cheeks flushed and eyes glittering in the half-light.

  “Yeah, I’ll say it. I took off and nuked their company from orbit. Fuck them!” Sudden vitriol filled her voice. “They wanted to squeeze me into a buyout so they could then use everything I’d made to bleed people dry like leeches. Fuck that, and fuck them,” she hissed with a flash of teeth.

  Were those… fangs?

  “We’re just one descendant of Brockton Strong, and we carry the torch forward. Make the world a better place, one step at a time. I’d burn it to the ground and live the rest of my life broke and homeless rather than let someone use my work to profit off the suffering of sick people.” Amy rested her head back against Taylor’s collarbone, where it had been previously, before she’d gotten riled up. “Anyways, the rest of the vultures that thought they were hawks saw what happened and found other things to occupy their time with. Message sent and received, loud and clear.”

  “That was… ah. Not quite what I expected, but honestly? Good for you, Amy. It’s kind of weird to be hearing what I think is anti-capitalist sentiment coming from someone who owns an international corporation,” I said, feeling a bit lame in doing so.

  She just grinned at me. “Be the change you want to see, right?”

  I nodded, then was forced to cover my mouth around another yawn. “Ugh, I’m sorry. I sleep a lot, this has been the longest I’ve been awake in one sitting…” I thought a moment. “Ever, actually.”

  “Oh, you’re fine. I’m ready to lie down as well,” Amy told me, and Taylor nodded along. “We can take a look at what you have going on, maybe tomorrow? How long do you have before you said you were going to meet with your family?”

  “Saturday. So two days. One day? Is it after midnight?” I looked around. There weren’t any clocks that I could see.

  Taylor checked her phone. “Almost.”

  “Before we call it a night, can I ask one last question? It’s ah– not really a big deal, but more something I was just curious about after hearing what you do nowadays,” I asked Amy.

  “Sure, of course, ask me anything.”

  “What was so important today that, like, the big boss couldn’t get away from?” I winced a little as I asked it, because I saw her expression change. I’d poked a sore spot without intending to.

  She sighed loudly. “International diplomacy, if you can believe it. Basically, the Chinese Union-Imperial has been sealed off from the rest of the world for years in their little national cloister, right?”

  I nodded, remembering this, although I wasn’t quite sure where the knowledge was coming from.

  “Well, the Chinese Royal Family has taken a keen interest in Ambrosia, which is pretty much unprecedented. There was a brief summit meeting years ago between the CUI and the United States, but it did not yield much tangible outcome. So, imagine my surprise when they’re contacting us directly and opening up communications. Not the State Department. Not an embassy. My office.”

  “That is… yeah. That is pretty insane,” I admitted. “Do they just want access to your products, or what?”

  Amy tongued her cheek. “That’s part of it, but they were asking about other things. Dealing with specific health issues that they’re facing as a sealed-off nation. Some items related to malnutrition, some anti-parasitics, and potentially doing business with modified crops, among other, more obvious things. Really engaging with nearly every aspect of what we do at Ambrosia.”

  “Do you think much will come of it? Beyond making sales, or whatever. Saving people’s lives, you know what I mean, sorry,” I corrected myself. Tired me wasn’t making a good case right now.

  “Well, this can’t leave these walls, not for anyone, if I tell you,” Amy ventured.

  I nodded seriously. “I promise, I won’t tell anyone. Not like I really could anyway, I don’t know anyone to tell.”

  “Fair point. Anyways, yes, potentially big things could come of it. There’s been some talk about the Imperial Family visiting, if things continue going well. They’d like to see our facilities, which normally, we wouldn’t remotely entertain, but given what a big deal this could potentially be, I’m willing to make an exception.” Amy brushed some hair out from in front of her face. “Thankfully, Dragon has been huge in managing things and being a neutral intermediary between me and the powers-that-be in our government. And in helping facilitate the actual communication, too.”

  I felt a sudden twinge in the back of my head, and I winced. Like someone had stuck my brain with a hot poker for a fraction of a second. Except brains didn’t have pain receptors, and that didn’t make any sense. I ignored it, rubbing the back of my head with my palm.

  I did have an idea, though. “Say, Amy?”

  “Mhm?”

  “What do you think about their visit being a ruse? Like, maybe there’s an interest in seeing your company, sure, but there’s an ulterior motive at play.”

  “Yeah, most likely. Dragon and I have talked it over. The chance of espionage being the goal is pretty huge.”

  I shook my head, and she focused her gaze on me. “No, I mean, maybe, but I had a different thought.”

  She gestured at me to continue with one hand.

  “What if they’re there for you? Like one of them is sick or something, and they think only you, like, as Panacea, could cure it?”

  Amy’s brow creased in a slight frown, and she pursed her lips together. “That’s a distinct possibility, and one I hadn’t been considering. What made you think of that?”

  I shrugged. “If they were willing to visit in person, there has to be a reason, unless, like you’re saying, it was for something hugely cloak-and-dagger. But why would they have to be here for that? Wouldn’t they just send some super spy, or something?”

  “It’s a solid point,” mused Taylor.

  “Anyways, sorry for bugging you about it. The world doesn’t revolve around me. I was just curious what might have happened. I assumed it was like, you got called in to cover a shift at your job or something, but then you explained how much of a big boss lady you are, so it made me wonder.”

  Taylor laughed and gently tapped her head against Amy’s. “You hear that, big boss lady? Got to make sure you’re not wasting your time on the proletariat.”

  Amy squinted up at Taylor and whispered what I was pretty sure was “I will actually kill you.”

  The tall woman laughed, and the three of us got up and went about getting prepared for bed. My bedroom was everything I could have asked for in a fancy hotel room. I broke open fresh packs of toiletries and changed into a similar outfit to what Amy had been wearing: a pair of soft shorts and a tank top. My phone used a wireless charger, which was new to me. It was built directly into the furniture, which was handy. I turned the bedroom lights out with my phone, which felt like I was living in the science-fiction future to me, and the soft glow of the city lights seeped in from the large windows and lit the space in soft, indirect light.

  I was out what seemed like moments after my head hit the pillow.

  I didn’t sleep well. An unusual sound woke me from my sleep at some point after I’d drifted off. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end.

  Thump-thump.

  I held my breath; it was very quiet. Barely audible.

  Thump-thump.

  What is that?

  Thump-thump-thump.

  My half-asleep brain put two and two together, and I’m pretty sure my face became so red it was glowing in the dark. Someone, or maybe I should say some people, were having some fun. And from the sounds of things, it was quite vigorous fun.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  I prayed that it was their neighbors. A part of me wanted it not to be the neighbors.

  A much smaller, and much more insistent and primal part of me wanted it to be me who was involved.

  I was so tired that I didn’t struggle too much falling back asleep, but I never did hear the end of the mysterious sounds before I went out again.

  The second time I went under, I dreamt vivid dreams.

  I was in Brockton Bay, but not the Brockton Bay I saw outside the windows earlier. A Brockton Bay that was filled with fetid standing water, whose air was thick, humid, cloying, and foul-smelling. Buildings were smashed, towers leaned or had tipped over, and fell into one another. The sun was high, the heat was oppressive, and perhaps the worst part of all: it was deathly quiet, save for the sounds of the air moving when there was an occasional breeze coming in from the ocean.

  I didn’t recognize it, but I did, at the same time. It didn’t come right away, but slowly, it hit me.

  This was the city after Leviathan had hit.

  Wasn’t it?

  I had been walking around on the street, feet soaking wet with brown water. There was an alleyway near me, with the fire escape ladder dropped down. I climbed up it, then followed the steep staircases up three stories until I was on the flat roof of the small commercial building. A better place to view the city from.

  I looked around more and tried to gather my bearings.

  This was Brockton Bay after Leviathan’s attack, I was sure of it now. But there was something wrong with this place. Things didn’t make sense.

  The cars and trucks in the streets were rusted wrecks.

  The buildings were rotted and decaying.

  Nothing was alive here; this was a dead place. More than that, I could not shake the feeling that it was just wrong. Looking around gave me goosebumps despite the oppressive heat and humidity. It made my skin want to crawl.

  There wasn’t anything alive here. Not even bugs, which I’d expect to be filling the air by the millions.

  I looked down at myself. Even I was wrong here. I looked as I did out in the waking world. Pale, nearly colorless. Frail and sickly-looking.

  I sighed, closed my eyes, and turned my face to the sky, enjoying the sun shining on my skin. It was a small comfort in an otherwise awful, lifeless place. As far as my nightmares went, this was a pretty tame one.

  Nightmares? What nightmares? Why did I think that?

  There was another breeze, this one a bit stronger than the others, and I held my arms out, enjoying the sensation of airflow over my sweaty skin, contrasting with the beaming warmth of the sunlight. I thought I heard something. A creak, or maybe a splash? I was trying to puzzle out what it could have been. Maybe debris, falling into the water from the breeze.

  Suddenly, there was a sound from directly behind and above me, my perspective being a bit skewed from where I’d been standing with my head bent backwards.

  I didn’t recognize it as a voice at first; there was an almost-mechanical sounding rasp, like a thousand knives being dragged over loose gravel. My heart lurched, and I remained frozen in place, like one of those prey animals locked up in a nature documentary when confronted with a predator. One dies to hardwired reflexes, so the rest of the herd might live and thrive.

  A landslide given voice and form, violence in motion, now given intelligence and intent. My hind brain told me that this was the worst possible outcome for me. Despite the unearthly and horrible sound, it was almost crooning when it spoke to me. “You shouldn’t have come here, Pale Imitation. But because you have, I. Have. Found. You.”

  I was full-body trembling, still frozen in place in a ridiculous pose, eyes now squeezed shut.

  Wake up, it’s just a nightmare. Wake up, wake up, wake up!

  What felt like cold coils of steel rope, large enough to suspend the Golden Gate Bridge, wrapped around me from the armpits down. My breath caught in my throat as I was hoisted off my feet in one smooth motion.

  “Open your eyes, don’t you want to see your nightmare?” Breath washed over me like exhaust from a blast furnace.

  I opened my eyes. A blue head, wedge-shaped, many times my size. Eyes like voids, and far too many, like a spider on steroids. Teeth like swords as long as my forearm.

  “Boo,” it hiss-rumbled at me. The voice felt like it was shaking my organs like Jello as it washed over me.

  “Leave her alone,” yet another voice said, this time from behind and below me.

  It was my voice. But unlike me, it was strong where I was weak. Confident to my scared. Resolute and fearless in the face of such an abomination.

  The creature turned its head slightly to one side, just a few degrees away from me.

  “Or what, Subjugator?” That horrible voice was still crooning. “Will you take away what rightfully belongs to me, like you’ve taken everything else?”

  A sigh. “We don’t have time for this back-and-forth. I told you we’d speak again as soon as I had time to sit and properly talk. Don’t involve her.”

  “Oh, I shouldn’t involve her when she comes knocking on my door?” I was given the lightest shake within the thing’s grip. To me, it felt like I was being tossed around on a thrill ride, except the walls weren’t padded, and they were made of steel. A small groan escaped my lips.

  Someone snapped their fingers, and suddenly I collapsed into a heap, back on the rooftop I’d been on, but now a boneless, shaking wreck. Another snap, and there was a pop and a gust of wind.

  That voice, like an avalanche, came once again, but this time, it wasn’t crooning; it was thankfully distant. A screeching, rumbling crash of a roar came echoing throughout the city, like distilled rage. “You’re not the only one with tricks, Subjugator!”

  There was a horrific crash that followed right after, followed by another roar, this one without words. A building in the downtown area started to tip over, huge clouds of dirty gray and brown dust being kicked up as it collapsed.

  A hand came down in front of my face, and I took what was offered. The woman who pulled me to my feet and dusted me off was, well. Me.

  The not-broken version that I’d seen in photographs. Golden blonde hair. Muscular arms. A broad smile on her lips.

  “She’s not wrong, you know. You really shouldn’t be here. Not yet. You’re not ready.”

  I was suddenly icy cold, and my teeth were chattering. I tried to study her face around my shivering.

  Warm, kind, supportive. Morgan Rivera. A strange, somewhat uncanny gleam reflected in her eyes: a red glow on the surface.

  “Off you go then, before you give yourself a stroke.”

  Is that a possibility?

  “Relax–figure of speech stroke–not literal stroke. Anyways. Listen to your friends. Try to enjoy yourself. Live a little. Forward, not backward.”

  She brought her hand up in front of my face and lightly flicked me on the tip of the nose with her index finger.

  I woke in a fit, flailing and keening, sweaty from sleep and feeling like the covers were trying to choke the life out of me.

  The light in the room kicked on a split-second after the door opened, and Taylor darted in with a pistol in her hand, wearing a tank top and shorts. I was sucking in air like it was in short supply and sitting in a pile of wadded up blankets, shaking like a leaf, and feeling suddenly extremely foolish.

  “S-s-sorry. B-bad dream,” I stuttered around my trembling.

  “Nobody bothering you? You’re sure it was just a dream?” Taylor’s voice was tight.

  I nodded quickly.

  She wiped her face and nodded slowly. She stepped out of the room, leaving the door partially open. A minute or so later, she came back, stepping into the room and turning off the light, and closing the door behind her.

  I’d calmed down a little bit in the meantime. The gun was gone, and I saw her tall, lanky form in silhouette glide over to the bed and slide into it.

  “What um, are you doing?” I asked meekly, now even more self-conscious than I’d been previously, worrying about crying like a baby from having a nightmare.

  “What’s it look like? Getting in bed with you. Help me fix the covers?” I didn’t pick up any annoyance in her voice, at least.

  I nodded dumbly and did as she asked. When the sheets and covers were more or less back in a half-presentable state, I slid over some to give her more room and stretched out, turning on my side to face away from her. I didn’t want her to feel like she was in bed with some pervert leering at her curves.

  “Do you mind if I touch you?” She asked me at just-above-a-whisper.

  I gulped and nodded quickly. “Okay.”

  “Just tell me if you’re uncomfortable, please.”

  I nodded again and felt the bed shift. A moment later, she slid up behind me and curled herself around me like a big spoon. My heart attempted to leave my body through my mouth once again, but this time for entirely different reasons than minutes prior. She ran her fingers through my hair and petted my upper arm and shoulder.

  I melted under her hands, trembling a little again as I let myself simply exist and feel.

  “Just relax. You’re safe here. You had some bad dreams. You used to have them all the time, before, too. I don’t know if you remember or not.”

  “I don’t, I’m sorry, I feel like such a baby,” I whispered back.

  “Why? Nobody thinks that, so don’t make yourself feel bad for nothing.”

  “Okay,” I said in a small voice. I’d try.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” She asked after a beat.

  “It was, it was awful, Taylor. It was so real, like I was there, and…” My body was still reacting from the aftershocks of what I’d felt.

  “What happened in your dream?” Her voice was soft and soothing, although the breath washing over my earlobe was doing things to me I was trying not to acknowledge.

  “I was–” I frowned. I had been… in a place?

  There was… There was a thing?

  A sob escaped my throat. “I can’t, it’s, it’s gone like the rest, now. No matter how hard I try and hold it, it’s just… gone.”

  Taylor’s arms circled around me, and she pulled me tightly against her front. The size difference between us made things a little awkward; her chin was on the top of my head, and her breasts were pressing into my shoulders and neck, where she was squeezing me.

  “Does this help at all?” She asked.

  I nodded quickly. It did.

  It really did.

  “Good. You just try and relax and see if you can’t get some more sleep, and I’ll keep you wrapped up.”

  I nodded yet again, adjusted the pillow some under my head, and wiggled in place a bit to make sure there weren’t any hot spots where my weight was pressing on her arm. Once I’d gotten comfortable, she just pulled me in tightly again, arms around my waist, her entire body wrapped around me like a giant weighted safety blanket.

  When sleep took me again, it was blissfully dream-free.