FOR A MOMENT, I thought I saw my mom and dad.

As for what else I saw in there, I’m not telling yet. Suffice it to say that forty-five minutes later, the pod opened.

DING

Time just flies when your brain is in superconductor mode. I pushed the lid open with hands nearly turned blue. Ice crystals cracked on numb legs as I jumped out of the pod.

Damn, it’s freezing in here.

I stumbled out of the coffin room into a nearby medical antechamber, shivering myself back to mobility. I found a sink that spouted luxurious hot water and soaked my hands in gluttony as the warmth spread throughout my body.

Until it hit the Stygian scar on my arm. The wound inflamed into a furious red that spread all the way to my fingers. I rubbed the scar furiously until the pain subsided. Eventually I got the use of my hand back. A little stiffness remained, but it was time to get back upstairs. My nap had been worth it, telling me what I needed to know. Now I had two very important questions for Prehler. I moved to the door—

That’s when the gun clicked against my head.

I sighed with exasperation as a female voice spoke in my ear.

“Prehler may have beaten Dukane into pulp, but the freezers have independent motion sensors that ping directly to me. I mean, the whole point of stasis pods is that no one is supposed to move.”

I slowly turned my head around to see the face of the female Stygian, Cassandra. I’d last seen her when the Tentacle Terror redecorated the lobby of the Blue Tower. She was still wearing her catsuit, but a few bandages on her face made it clear she had escaped the carnage somewhat worse for wear.

With her weapon only a few inches from my nose, I thought it best to keep to myself who, exactly, had beaten Dukane into hamburger.

“So, where’s the Seer?” she asked, pressing the muzzle against my face.

“She’ll be along,” I muttered while slowly straightening up.

“Dukane didn’t think you’d bring her all the way back here,” she leered, keeping the weapon on me. “She’s a nuke on a leash.”

“She can take care of herself.” I turned around to face her, mentally calculating if Marie ought to be awake by now. This would be a real convenient time for Marie to show up and throw some weight around. If she made the jump that is, but she’d never find me down here. So, I stared Cassandra down all by myself.

“She has a name, you know.”

Cassandra grimaced and backed up a few feet, adjusting the weapon to cover my body.

“I’d disable you right now,” she said. “Except I just have to know what in the flying hell were you doing? I let you get this far because I thought you were going to pull out a special someone that we might be interested in. A wasted effort as they’ve all been in there too long. They’re not getting out, except in a body bag.”

I gritted my teeth but kept my eyes on the gun. “So I keep hearing.”

The Stygian let out a tiny laugh. “Imagine my surprise when you actually climbed inside to take a nap! After all we’ve been through in the last couple weeks, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

I shuffled my feet in tiny steps, looking for my move while replying with a tiny smirk. “I thought a good snooze would be invigorating. You’d be amazed how hard it is to sleep when you’re being chased by rampaging tentacle monsters.”

Now Cassandra gritted her teeth. “I suppose you’re not going to tell me why you did it.”

“Nope.”

She sighed. “I knew Prehler would sneak back in here, and I knew he’d run rings around Dukane doing it.”

I shrugged. “So then, you’re going to be the one to stop us? Dukane’s pet alien in the final throw down of good vs. evil? Gold vs. Purple in the climactic duel for the human race?” I lowered my hands and took a moment to wink. “One tiny problem with that, I’m not all that good.”

She growled at the “pet alien” remark. “You don’t know anything about us, do you?”

“I know you’re stealing the lives of people whose only crime is being born. You’re the obligatory collaborator, the mercenary with no conscience who’s just in it for the money.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And you’re the cliched cynic, mad at everything and making a mess because you think the world owes you,” she retorted. “You’re not nearly as clever as you imagine yourself. Of course I saw you sneaking into the Tower! I wanted you to! I just didn’t expect you’d be dumb enough to enter the containment level.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” I replied. Wait a minute— “You let us into the tower? Why?”

She watched me for a moment, then lowered her weapon.

“Because being born a Purple wasn’t my idea.”

Her face fell into exhaustion. Neither of us spoke.

“In the Tower, you should have let that monster kill me,” she finally said. “Tactically speaking.”

So she HAD noticed when I distracted T.T.…

“Seemed like a good idea at the time. I don’t even know why I did it,” I said.

“I should have died there. I’m…happy I didn’t.”

“Stygians don’t like to die?”

She shook her head. “I hate that name.”

She holstered her weapon.

More silence…until she reached over to touch my arm, I flinched, but I saw no malice in her eyes. Her fingers traced the burn etched into my flesh.

“You’ve…seen them, haven’t you?”

I nodded.

“You know what they are.”

“They’re not pretty.” I said softly.

“Nor forgiving,” she said as she pulled up the sleeve of her own left arm, revealing a hideous scar twice as long as mine. I winced at the gouges in her skin. “This is to mark us as inferior. They’re our parents, but they send us here to prove our worthiness. If we do good enough, we get to go home. If we fail…we’re punished.”

I swallowed. This wasn’t what I expected.

“So, you’re involved in kidnapping other Incarns.”

“It didn’t start that way. First, we were just containing the Dimensionals.”

“The Fourth Monsters.”

“Whatever you call them. They were hurting people and needed to be caught. Then the ultimatum came to contain the Incarns. All of them, everywhere. Some of us objected…and were the first ones thrown into the freezers. So now we do as we’re told because we’re trapped between our own species on one side and Dukane on the other.”

I fidgeted. She continued.

“The other…Stygians do this work to earn their way back home. Except I don’t want to go back. Ever. No one catches that I deliberately screw up so I can keep being born here. I like being human. My God, what this body sees, what it feels. You think I’d trade this to be a filthy worm?”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. This woman certainly wasn’t the die-hard super assassin who had been chasing Prehler and myself around for the last few weeks. Her stern resolve now evaporated into a quivering, frightened…human.

I shifted my weight, then spoke softly.

“Then be a human,” I said. “Let me finish my job here, and I’ll remove one of your constraints.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to stop this. I highly recommend you find an exit and bug out. Run very far away. I’ll be getting everyone’s attention, I guarantee.”

“I can’t hide from them forever. Eventually they’ll force me back home.”

“Not today, they won’t. Given time maybe you can figure something out. Blame everything on me. I’ll be challenging them before you do.”

She swallowed. “It might be sooner than you think. I’ve known Prehler a long time. He’s broken. Do you know what he’s planning?”

“I have a good idea.”

“Do you know?”

Her tone made me pause. Actually, I didn’t know…but I assumed it wasn’t pretty.

“Not yet.” I shrugged. “I’m betting the big reveal will happen as soon as I get back upstairs.”

“Prehler wants out. Today. Do you understand?”

Yes, I think I did.

“And you want to stay in.” I sighed. “Hell of a grass-is-greener existence isn’t it? Not one of us is happy with our lot. If you’re not disappointed, then you’re not looking hard enough.”

She felt the scar on her arm, then put her hand back on the grip of her weapon.

“I’m not going back.”

I raised my hands again. “Easy, Miss. I have a gripe or two with the powers upstairs myself,” I glanced down the hall to the freezers, remembering what I now had to do. “Maybe we can help each other.”

“My name isn’t ‘Miss.’”

“Sure, Cassie.”

Cassandra frowned, and I slowly moved away to get to the closest elevator. She followed me and pressed the elevator call button herself. The door opened with a ping that echoed in the awkward silence. I stepped into the booth, centered myself, and patted a familiar object in a cavernous pocket of my commando pants, making sure it was still there after all the recent excitement. Cassandra stayed outside.

“I’ve already moved most of the patrols to avoid your area, but that’s all I dare do. The rest is yours. Prehler’s been using you. Don’t trust him.”

I smiled, sincerely.

“What makes you think I ever did?”

The door closed.