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I’d never seen cats cooperate before, let alone operate a flame-throwing exoskeleton. Three for each leg, two for the torso, and one for each arm, holding their shape by tooth and claw. From a distance, it was a walking headless armor. Just ten meters away, a furry horror show. The arm operators screamed and yowled with glee as they unleashed their terrible fire, burning the bench bordering the garden. The flames devoured it in seconds before catching the tree behind it.
The compound was on fire.
Zander didn’t hesitate. He flung himself at the cat monstrosity, knocking the exoskeleton to the ground. But the cats didn’t scatter; they climbed on top of him, scratching and biting and howling bloody murder.
My breath hitched in my throat. They had Zander. Oh shit, they had Zander. The sight of him struggling beneath so many cats—shit, more were still flocking to him—sent my gut twisting.
This is your fault, you useless waste of space. You should have stayed under water until you drowned.
“Run, Sally, run!” Zander screamed.
I wasn’t going to let them eat my man or whatever mad cats do. Without thinking, I ran right at them, waving my arms wide and screaming like a deranged hen. They didn’t scatter. They were eating him alive.
So, I kicked a cat. It went flying like a football.
But there were more cats now, over a dozen and maybe more. I didn’t have enough legs.
A brown tabby at the right arm yowled as it slammed a red button. A flame burned off my arm in a single burst.
I screamed in shock at seeing my arm reduced to ash. I’d died before, but never lost a limb. The lack of it sent my mind screaming. I didn’t know how to deal with the loss or the lack of pain that should have come with it, and my mind decided to interpret the sudden lack of nerves as a craving for chalupas.
I kicked the cat, sending it flying. Just trying to swing my leg was hard; my balance was so off. The cat crash-landed a few meters away, rolled back to its feet, and rushed us again.
“What is happening?” I shouted. My arm was growing back, but too slowly. Right now, it was the size of a newborn’s. “What is this?”
“Cats—mff—Dread!”
“What?” The Dread? How? I thought it was just the voice.
Except...if the cats were connected to people light-years away, maybe it was stronger there?
Zander could barely speak; the cats kept going for his eyes and mouth. I had to get him out of there. My baby arm was about the size of a toddler’s now, but the other was enough to grab the scruff of his shirt and pull him away from the cats. With Zander freed, they flocked toward the exoskeleton again, and seconds later they were walking, horrofic flames wielded by tiny devils.
“It’s too late,” Zander panted, covered in small, rapidly closing red bite marks. “The whole compound is on fire.”
It wasn’t just our rooms. The flames were all around. Smoke wrapped its tendrils around us, turning the cat monstrosity into a beast of mythical proportions.
“The library,” said Zander. “Oh stars, the library.”
“Where’s Meedian? Where’s James?” I wanted to scream, but my only hand was busy covering my mouth. The other was too busy going through puberty.
The cats marched in unison, following their exoskeleton overlord down the fiery path. In the distance, a second exoskeleton loomed, piloted by other crazed felines.
“Wh-why would... they d-do this?” I sputtered through rasping breaths. “I-I thought they were... investors!”
“I don’t think they’re in control,” said Zander. “With the Dread, the psychic link between investor and cat must be decaying!”
We didn’t have any time. If the Dread was this strong this soon on Earth, then it was escalating much quicker than anyone could anticipate. We had days at the most, if we were lucky.
“We have to go,” I said, coughing up the smoke. “We have to find Blayde and James and Meedian and... We can’t save this place, but we can save them.”
We raced into the burning rooms. The furniture was pure fire, the kind of cozy living room you’d be lucky to find in hell. The only thing that made it bearable was the absence of victims.
And the heat—the heat. I had never thought I would know the smell of my own skin sizzling off me. I was quite literally frying alive. I squeezed my eyes shut and ran.
“Where are they?” I shouted through trembling lips as I crashed back into Zander in the upper courtyard. Here at least there were no flames. The only cats that ran by were ones stealing equipment, grabbing whatever they could. One had a Wii remote in its mouth, though I failed to see the value.
“Library?” he suggested.
We ran to the library, but it was already a smoking heap. There were no flames here, as it had already entirely burned. Nothing was left but a pile of ashes and twisted metal.
“No. No!” Zander screamed a primal scream and fell to his knees. “We were so close. We were...”
He had a complicated relationship with libraries and fire. I put a hand on his back. There was nothing I could say to make this better.
It’s all your fault. You should have been here, should have protected this place—
Shut up!
“We have to go,” I said. If we didn’t leave now, my weak knees were going to cave in. “We have to find the others.”
We ran back to the apothecary, clutching hands. The cats were congregating at the exit door, both flame-throwing exoskeletons and all hundred little kitty-bodies flocking and yowling around the simple metal. Incredibly—impossibly—the structure hadn’t caught fire yet, but the cats were desperate to get it to ignite. They piled their treasures at the door. Kindling?
“Frash,” said Zander, shaking his head. “Why are they waiting?”
A few flung themselves at the metal, even managing to catch the knob, but slid right off.
“They can’t open the door,” I said. “They can operate flamethrowers, but they can’t get the doorknob?”
“We need to get past them. I can’t see my way through. Can’t jump.”
The cats were so focused on the door they didn’t seem to notice us at all. Maybe we could use that to our advantage. I wrapped my arms around myself, taking a deep breath, trying to calm my tremors.
“I have an idea. It’s terrible, but it might just work.”
I dropped to my knees, indicating for him to do the same. My freshly minted nerve endings in my hand had never felt gravel before, so every rock felt as sharp as a knife. I kept my chin high, despite the small tremble.
“Meow,” I warbled. “Meow!”
Zander followed suit, his cat imitation miles ahead of mine, to the point where he might have been fluent. They ignored us as we made our way through their midst, blending in about as well as aliens at Comicon.
The second we reached it, the door flew open on its own, and two women in spandex bodysuits sprayed the entire cat army with glitter cannons.
Zander grabbed my wrist and tugged me through the door before it slammed shut.
“Thank God you’re okay,” James said as she lifted me to my feet. The shimmery spandex clung to her skin, making her look like she was dipped in molten gold. “Saved by a romantic escapade. Looks like you got lucky in more than one way tonight.”
“What did we miss?” asked Zander, helping Blayde barricade the door, as I was too busy blushing. “What’s with the spandex?”
“Lost my clothes,” she replied. “We found these in the museum. Not sure which was mine or yours.”
Other than James’s hair singed at the tips, there was almost nothing to show she’d been in a fire at all. The outfits made her and Blayde look like the next big pop sensations. Blayde’s red leather coat was remarkably unscathed and looked killer with the gold.
We were in the small atrium behind Meedian’s shop, between the sibling museum and storage. It was tight, dark, and smelled of cabbage. A relief after the smell of roasted Sally.
Meedian burst through the storage room door, having ditched his human suit who knows where, and was now whizzing by, his baby lizard body stuffed in a hovering ring that barely kept his oversized head afloat. His tiny hands were clenched into adorable chubby, pink fists. I threw a hand up to hide my gasp. The once vibrant color was now dull, a light peach rather than neon pink.
“Well thank the flying spittoon you all made it.” His voice boomed through the cramped atrium. James’s jaw hit the floor—must have been the first time she’d seen Meedian’s true body. No scream. Impressive that she was keeping her own after only day one.
“You knew this would happen,” he spat. “And you never told me? No warning, nothing?”
“Wait, if our future selves—” Zander started, but Meedian spun in his hover-ring, flying up into his face.
“They might have had their reasons to stay silent,” said Meedian. “But you’re here now, witnessing the loss of my home firsthand, and still, one day you’re going to waltz in here as if you didn’t know what was going to happen. That’s not a choice your future selves made, Zander. That’s one you’re making right now. That my loss, my pain, matters less to you because you can just go back to a time when it hasn’t happened yet. I doubt I or my business will ever recover. And you don’t give a shit.”
An explosion set the entire building quaking, and I stumbled into James. What was happening out there? The cats let out a monstrous yowl.
“That’s not true,” said Zander, but Blayde put a hand on his arm.
“What can we do, Meedian?” she said. “You’re right. This very minute, we are making a choice, and I’m sure that the only reason we wouldn’t tell you is because we’ve lived this moment and all the ones that come after. Whatever we’re doing in the next minutes or days will define us.”
“Maybe the Dread destroys everything, and there’s no future for anyone,” said James, darkly.
I could punch her right in her sparkly golden leotard. “Shut up! We need to get out of this mess, and thinking like that isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“It’s so much worse than we thought,” said Zander, his ear against the door. “Your investors were using a psychic link to pilot the cats through subspace. The Dread must be interfering with the connection. For it to be this powerful...”
Screw the Dread. Whatever this thing was, it was getting in our heads, making all of us act out of a constant state of dull panic. If we weren’t careful, it was going to get us all killed.
“Give me your ab,” Meedian spat. “Let’s see if your future selves actually do care.”
Blayde and Zander traded glances. “My ab?” asked Blayde.
“No, you, frash hole!” He whammed into Zander’s gut, making him grunt in surprise. “That’s all you told me. If things went to shit, you’d give me your ab to save me.”
Zander inched up his shirt. There were his washboard abs in all their splendor—all nine of them.
“You can’t possibly mean this?” He poked little number nine.
“Stop wasting time and dig it out already!” said Blayde, jamming her laser into his gut.
I looked away as she sliced into his skin. James’s body went stiff by my side. I would never get used to the casualness with which he tore apart his own body, like it was nothing but paper to him. It kinda ruined his mystique.
“Well, this isn’t...” Zander’s brows furrowed as he dug his fingers into the wound, the thick blood dripping to the floor. He retrieved a small metal slab, frowning as he wiped his sticky fingers against his pants.
A tin. A tiny metal tin. This whole time, it had never been an ab at all. He flicked it open without saying a word.
Inside were mints. Four of them, exactly.
“Well, that settles it,” said Meedian. “I will thank you to get off my property and never set foot here again.”
“Wait!” Zander pulled a tiny strip of paper from the tin. “Let’s not be hasty until we see what they’re for, hmm?”
“Hasty? There is a mountain of cats on my doorstep, and they’re about to burn my last remaining stronghold to a crisp. I think hasty is the least I can be.”
Blayde jammed her hands on her hips. “Our future selves told you to give us this in the event of everything crashing down, right? Why do you think that is?”
“Just stop talking!”
Zander shoved a mint into his mouth. His eyes rolled back until nothing was showing but whiteness, but it only lasted a second. They snapped back into place, his expression turning from determination to disgust.
“W-what w-was that?” I sputtered.
“I don’t—I can’t...” Zander grabbed his head with both hands. “No witty retorts or dramatic responses here. Just take the thing. It’s a book. It’s the book we were looking for.”
“A book?” James and I traded looks. For a second, I thought either of us might call jinx, but before we could, Blayde was already shoving the tin in front of us.
“Eat the frashing book!” she screamed, tossing a mint into her mouth.
I knew better than to hesitate. I took a mint and placed it on my tongue, expecting to taste the cool blue mountain chill or whatever they’re advertising these days, but instead, I tasted with my eyes and I saw.
The furs under my hands were real. The sun pouring in through the flap of my tent was real. The world around me was real, both familiar and strange, like my mind was in two places, like it was two people’s at once.
I was sitting on a stool in front of a long mirror, placed upon a pedestal of flowers, the few cracks that remained reflecting the dust motes that swirled in the sunbeam behind me. My skin was heavily tanned. Furry and scaly animal hides covered me from my chest to my hips. The only weapon on me was the long knife at my hip.
Oh, and I was Blayde. I probably should have led with that.
I was looking through Blayde’s eyes, but a different Blayde, one with long black hair down to her navel and soft eyes that knew how to smile. She stood in front of the mirror, showing none of the shock I was feeling, her hands resting on her swollen belly. I watched all this through her eyes, seeing her reflection in place of my own. I was Blayde, but I had no control here. I was only an observer, sitting in the place of honor. Seeing events with her perspective.
I wasn’t meant to be here. It felt like a massive intrusion of her privacy, too intimate for the friendship we had. Had Zander just experienced the same thing? Where was he, anyway? Where were any of them?
“Slash,” a voice called from the tent flap. My brain tickled slightly. Blayde recognized the voice as I failed to. I could feel the familiarity, but it wasn’t mine. “There is someone here to see you.”
“I’m busy,” she replied, voice soft and delicate in a way I’d never heard Blayde before. And, stranger still, being inside her head, it felt sincere.
“It’s a man, Slash. A man from beyond the wilderness. He says he knows you.”
She paused in her brushing, letting out a low, heavy breath. Then the brush was right back at her hair, the tug as familiar as if it were my own scalp. “Well, whoever it is, tell him to go away.”
“He says to tell you that the jerk is here to apologize.”
At this, Blayde scowled. She hoisted herself to her feet, hand resting on the hilt of her small dagger. I could feel the cold of the metal against her palm.
“I will meet him outside of camp,” she snarled, her lip curling only at the end. Ah, so that’s how she did it. “He is not to tread upon our sand. One misstep, and I’ll refuse to see him entirely.”
The energy drained from her at once, and she collapsed back on the stool, heavy. Tension sparked up her spine. Deep breaths to temper the anger. After an eternity, Blayde finally rose to her feet, striding out of the tent as if she owned the place. Maybe she did.
The settlement outside was quiet; tents scattered the desert landscape, none as large as hers. Blayde was barefoot, but the hot sand was nothing to me as she walked down a path she had probably walked hundreds of times before. Somewhere in the distance, we could hear the sea rise and fall, the long ebb and flow of waves breaking the barren silence of the wasteland before us.
When she reached the point where the tents stopped, she paused, glancing across the flat landscape in search of the so-called jerk who had called her here.
“Miss me?” he asked with a smirk, appearing in front of her.
Zander. The Sally part of my brain flashed to the desert wraps he had worn when we’d first met, when I’d run him over in the street. But while they were right, his face wasn’t. His carefree smile was nowhere to be seen, and there was a tightness to his eyes that made him look older, not young like this version of Blayde.
“Only barely,” she replied, keeping her distance.
“How long’s it been for you?” he asked.
“About four years, give or take,” she responded, cold.
“One thousand days for me,” said Zander. “A thousand days exactly, as we agreed. Are you ready to come back?”
She shook her head slowly, Zander’s face falling as she did so.
“I can’t. I’ve got a life here.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” He snorted, gesturing at her.
The Sally in me wanted to shy away, but I was only the viewer.
“So what, you’re going to be some chieftainess on a backward planet for the rest of your life?”
“They need me here.”
“Everyone always needs you. What makes them special? Or maybe, do you need them?”
Blayde said nothing.
“So, what are they going to do when they realize you’re immortal?” he asked. “When you’ve ruled for hundreds of years, when everyone you’ve ever known is dead and dust? What then?”
“That’s not the most important thing here.” She took his elbow, walking him away from the small encampment. It really was in the middle of nowhere, the tents the only thing as far as the eye could see. “I’ve got a life here now. They love me, not because of what I am, but who I am. I’ve given them no reason to think I’m anything but human.”
“You said this was going to be temporary!” Zander snarled. “You said no more than a thousand days apart. No more.”
“And I’ve found myself!” She laughed, a joyful laugh that spread across the sandy eternity without end. “I was hoping you would find the time to meet yourself, love him the way I do. I take it you haven’t?”
“Oh, I met him. But I didn’t like the guy I found. Blayde, you have to come back. I’m begging you. I’m not myself without you. Half my heart is missing. I need you by my side, and I’m certain that you need me too.”
“No, you don’t,” she snapped. “Our codependence was stifling. I should be allowed to meet someone and pursue a relationship outside of our own.”
“Apparently you needed a whole hive mind to make up for me,” he snorted. “So there was a gap? When I left?”
“Yes, but for all the wrong reasons.” Blayde walked on ahead, turning to face her brother. “I can’t stay with you; it brings back memories, and they’re too painful for me to handle.”
“And we’ve learned to deal with it! Together! You talk of heartbreak? Well, think of what have you done to me. You left me alone and broken. Alone, Blayde. Your brother. Your other half.”
“So find something else to complete you. Better yet, complete yourself.”
“You still haven’t forgiven me? I didn’t do anything, Blayde. Everything you think you’ve ever lost, you lost because you threw it away. I’m still here. Don’t lose me.”
“Zander, won’t you ever let me live?” She wrapped her arms around herself, tight. “I’m moving on. Something we both should have done a long time ago.”
His eyes widened. He scanned Blayde slowly, his eyes resting on her round belly.
“I’ve got a reason to stay. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But I need you.”
“No, you don’t. You made all that very clear last time. You can do well on your own.”
Zander screamed, ripping his hair right from the scalp. Blayde stepped back, unashamed, watching him as he cried to high heavens.
“I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t plan on changing my mind. So please...”
I gasped as I came aware of Meedian’s back room once again, the vision collapsing as if it never was. Around me were the Blayde and Zander I knew and a wide-eyed James, who promptly vomited.
Which was a little reassuring. I was beginning to think she might have been a robot.
The building shook again, bringing me entirely to the present. Something shattered in the storefront. Shit. Whatever the cats were doing out there, they were bringing this place down.
“Did we...did everyone just see that?” I asked. James nodded.
“I don’t remember that,” said Blayde, shaking. I’d never seen her so pale before. She patted her breast pocket—her journal—but didn’t take it out. “I mean, it must have been my memory, but it’s not a memory I’m familiar with. Zander?”
He shook his head. “I think... I think that’s where we’re meant to go.”
I had so much I wanted to ask her. Had she really been pregnant? What was going on?
“Uh—aren’t we getting sidetracked?” James stood up, her frame blocking her little vomit puddle, hiding it from the rest of us as if it had never happened. “We’re looking for the source of the Dread, and I’m pretty sure I felt none of that soul-crushing anxiety when I was in your memory or whatever that was.”
There was a crashing sound like an entire window store getting crushed by a defective Acme device. The cats might actually destroy the apothecary. They were getting close to it.
Meedian howled in pain. “Stop talking and get out of here!”
“We need to go,” said Blayde, “and we’re going to the desert world.”
James reached for her. “But we—”
“James, you stay with Meedian.” Blayde shook her off, grabbing her brother instead. “You’ll be safer here. I don’t want to risk losing you to whatever we find there.”
I was glad she was the one to say it. James wasn’t immortal and had no idea how to act off-world. Traveling with her would most likely lead to a repeat of Nim. I gritted my teeth at the memory.
“I’m not keeping her,” huffed Meedian. “Besides, what part of ‘get out’ don’t you understand? Hell, what am I still doing here?”
He flew toward the staircase, pressed a button, and the whole room instantly gave up all appearance of being for storage and turned into the cockpit of a ship. Consoles burst from every wall, a chair dropping from the ceiling so fast it almost caved in James’s head. We jumped out of the way as an office printer fell from above, shattering on the ground.
“You were supposed to catch that,” muttered Meedian.
I stared up at the new interior in awe. No wonder the cats were having such a hard time burning this place down. It had been his ship this whole time. James’s hands covered her mouth, her eyes wide and sparkling.
“This is for you, I think,” said Blayde, handing Meedian the tiny strip of paper that had been in the tin.
“What’s this?” He ripped it from her hands and spread it out, brows furrowed. “Coordinates?”
“I’m assuming it’ll be nice,” Blayde said. “Considering how it says Sunan is waiting for you. I suppose we have our future selves to thank for it. See you soon?”
“Depends on what I find there,” said Meedian. He rushed to the console near the back exit and hit a few switches that made the ship look like a disco, complete with multicolored lights flashing across the wall and engines dropping a sick beat.
“Right,” said Blayde, making her way toward me. “You can get us there?”
I knew what she was asking. There was no time for excuses, and no point to them—they’d come later, if we got out of here. I tried not to think about my family, about what would happen if another three years went by. I wouldn’t let that happen. I nodded and took her hand.
“You can’t just leave me here,” said James. “I don’t even know this guy.”
“You’ll make fast friends,” Blayde snapped. “Sally, hit it.”
“Hit it?” I asked.
“You know, do the thing. Jump, go, whatever.”
Zander took my other hand, closing the circle. “You can do this, my star. I was there, you can find me.”
Little did he know.
I gave one last look to Meedian, who was doing a fine job of ignoring us, and to James before closing my eyes, concentrating to find the world I had just tasted. It was far—both in time and space—but I knew my way.
Just as I let my cells split apart, I felt the building shake with the force of liftoff—and a weight clamp down on my shoulder.
Nothing’s ever that easy.
