|-@SILVERBOWANDARROW-|

This was your first mistake: you pissed off somebody rich. Everyone's got a price, kids, and that includes the people who can turn your computers into expensive bricks. People like me.

This was your second mistake: all your overpriced bullshit, security passcodes, gating keys, backups to the backup servers, multifactor ID, none of it matters if your gating systems use the same bland security as every two-bit mom-and-pop shop on the planet.

This was your third mistake: you thought you could outsmart me.

Art was halfway through his frybread taco and the edited Easter egg he planned to leave with Krios when his phone buzzed short-long, the code for an Ansible message. He fumbled with his phone, mumbling a curse through a mouthful of corn and pork. The first attempt at unlocking Ansible only left a smear of grease on the screen; Art wiped his fingers on his shirt and tried again, successfully punching in the 12 digit code to open the application.

Decryption failed: Error code 751.

Art frowned. All of his decryption software was homemade, as were their associated codes. 751 corresponded to an end-stage error, after the data had been rearranged and checked for coherence. Whatever the data packet was, his computer couldn't recognize it as information, either text or programming.

He started to type a command into Ansible when the general chat icon let out a ding. A bubble of text appeared at the top of his phone, tagged Mateo: Where the fuck are you.

The headache Art had sought found and caf to banish abruptly returned. His fingers stilled before closing and locking Ansible and opening the chat. Working, he typed back.

Bullshit you are. Your room is empty and you still owe me the rent. If you ditch with me holding the check I'm legally allowed to cane you.

You'll get your damn money, asshole, Art typed one-handed, taking another bite of taco. Harassing me isn't gonna make me work faster.

If you were working you'd be at your computer, and it's not like you have a social calendar. The only thing I can think of is you're spending money you owe me at some shitty takeout place.

I am NOT at some shitty takeout place, Art answered truthfully. There was a pause.

You motherfucker. You went to B3 didn't you.

"Did you need a refill on the caf? Or more beans?" Art glanced up at the round-face teenager standing beside his rickety table, a half-filled caf pot in hand. Their frame said they ate too much and their complexion that none of it was healthy food; the wideness of their grin and the hollowness of their eyes both spoke to overwork in food service. A smudged nametag marked them Food Service Technician Alex!

"More caf, but hold the beans," Art told them distractedly. He returned his attention to the phone: Bitsui's charges too much for my budget, which was true, and completely sidestepped the fact that he was there anyways.

Food Service Technician Alex! obligingly refilled his cup with lukewarm caf, the fluid too lackluster to muster even an acrid curl of steam. Art set his phone down and concentrated on finishing his frybread taco. The sauce leaked out of the back end and over his fingers, all tomato and pork juice mixed with bits of chopped squash. Art reached for a napkin as he finished with relish, found the tray empty, and turned to ask Food Service Technician Alex! for more only to find them gone. Muttering a curse upon waiters, napkins, and sauce in general, Art wiped his fingers on his shirt again and picked up the phone.

You fucking went to B3. With money that you owe me. You're a shitty liar even over chat, Art and you're always fucking there when you're not in your den.

I am NOT at B3, Art lied indignantly. Mateo's eye to his habits was unnervingly accurate. Bitsui's Bits and Bites was easily Art's favorite restaurant and the only one he was willing to go more than five blocks to reach. The menu was an encapsulation of Idyll itself: a fusion restaurant with Diné cuisine at its core and a plethora of entirely unrelated dishes haphazardly stapled on to appease the hordes of hungry, homesick workers flush with Chortek cash. Without time or authenticity to mellow and meld the combination, even B3's most ardent advocates had to admit the food was less "fusion" and more "begrudgingly handcuffed together." The owners, bless their capitalistic hearts, had long since realized that any approximation of their homes' food would draw in the laborers too exhausted to cook for themselves so long as it was cheap and slathered in grease. Any accommodation, regardless of accuracy, was close enough in a company town, and Art had to admit that by now he preferred their korma and falafel over the real thing downtown.

His phone buzzed short-long. Art frowned and reopened Ansible to see You have a Choir message from @Metatron.

That was worthy of his attention. In all his years as a Data Angel Art could count on his fingers the number of times Metatron had reached out to SilverBowAndArrow personally, and the number of times he used the Angel messenger service Choir on one hand. Direct messages between Angels were rare to the point of nonexistence, a lamentable side effect of dealing with paranoid hackers. Art himself only connected to Choir through his Ansible hardware, and only because the ichor-based tech was literally impossible to intercept when sending information between his phone and his computer.

Update on the job accepted earlier today: client has contacted me on multiple occasions asking for your references and identity.

Art's eyes widened. He typed back: What did you tell them?

The Data Angels are anonymous, even to each other. We neither seek nor publicize each other's identities. The client responded...poorly.

Art snorted. Metatron's famous neutrality wasn't without its challenges, then. What's the situation? Are they canceling the job?

A ding. Mateo. I should sell your mattress to the hobos on Doe Street as compensation.

Art closed Ansible and reopened the general chat. Do it at your own risk. I WILL sleep on the shared couch and I WILL sleep naked.

Short-long. They're considering taking it in-house if you don't send both the data packet and the decryption method tonight.

Bullshit. If they could decrypt it in-house they wouldn't have hired an Angel in the first place.

"Would you care for some water, sir?" Food Service Technician Alex!'s voice came out of nowhere. Their tone indicated they would neither notice nor care if Art shriveled up and died of thirst in the corner.

"No, I'm fine with caf," Art answered distractedly. He took a swig to demonstrate and immediately lost his train of thought as the bitter, over-brewed flavor overwhelmed his senses. It took him a minute to set the cheap cardboard delicately downward and muster a grimace of false approbation.

Ding. General chat. Your computer shit then. You don't need a headset to do your job.

Art was in the middle of typing If you so much as look at my computer funny I will firebomb your car when he was interrupted by a short-long. Your conclusions are your own, as is your business. I simply wished to convey the client's intentions as they were presented to me. Empty threat or not, it would be unprofessional not to appraise you of the situation.

"Fuck," Art muttered.

"Sir?"

"Not you, Alex."

Opening Ansible again, Art ground out it'll be finished tonight. Tell your clients that quality takes time, and they shouldn't make threats about data packets they want to keep secure.

Ding. Or your old video game shit. Seriously, this stuff is ancient. Who the hell still has games from 2031?

Teo I will fuck you up those games are vintage– Art growled as he realized he was still messaging Metatron and deleted the threat. Deciding Mateo was probably bluffing, he returned to the error code.

751 meant the decryption had gone through, but the program hadn't recognized the result as valid text or code. Art's fingers flew over the touchscreen, sending out retrieval and display commands. His phone, unused to the sustained strain of an app like Ansible, was starting to grow uncomfortably warm. Art keyed up the display, and the decrypted packet projected itself onto his phone screen: a long string of letters and numbers, its meaning entirely occluded. Decryption failed.

Art sat back in his chair, sucking on his teeth. His headache was worsening, and the data packet didn't make any sense. Art's decryption software wasn't anything special by Data Angel standards, but the Angels as a group were leaps and bounds ahead of typical software companies, let alone some Hawaiian observatory. There shouldn't be anything his setup couldn't crack given a few hours. And he had given it hours. That's why he had gone to Bitsui's in the first place, to kill time until the analytical software ran its course. He had to be missing something, or maybe the packet had smuggled in a virus.

A pattern about halfway through the endlessly scrolling text caught his eye. Art narrowed his eyes. What was–

Ding. I'll fucking do it. I didn't even know there were any hard copies left of the Call of Duty games, they'll have to go for something to a collector.

Short-long. The client has threatened to "hunt you anarchist weasels with a shotgun and annihilate everything you love" if you make good on your implication.

"Our dessert specials today are fried mochi ice cream with–"

"Shut up shut up can't you people let me fucking think?" Art dropped his phone and clutched his now throbbing head, There was a silence as he processed what he had just said, and slowly glanced up to see Food Service Technician Alex! staring straight over his head. Neither smile nor eyes had budged an iota.

"I'm finished with my meal, thank you," Art ventured.

"I hope you enjoyed it, sir. Would you like the check?"

"Cash. I have cash. Here, I gotta go–" Face burning, Art shoved a handful of bills on the table and stumbled away, trying to regain his train of thought.

Outside Bitsui's Bits and Bites, Art started on the eight-block journey home. Though the sun was an hour past the horizon, the heat of the day lingered in the city, oozing out of asphalt, brick, and duracrete, preserved long past the desert's natural insulation by a comforting blanket of vapor and smog. Though the lights were intermittently darkened, there was enough ambient illumination to paint the sky a deep omnipresent maroon through which the stars struggled to breathe. By now, Art knew the way by heart, and he returned his attention to the phone. What was it he had spotted in the text? What had he seen?

His eyes scanned the lines again, and again–there! A sequence of repeating letters and numbers. A key, offset from the data itself so the analytical software would pick up on it. Art grinned, rubbing his temples, and decided that the program modifications couldn't happen at home; he'd need something to appease Mateo when he got in. As he walked, he started to type, sketching out a modified decryption key and concatenating it with his old software. Three commands left before it would be operational. Two. One.

Decryption successful. Unicode sequence detected.

Unicode? Art stopped dead in his tracks. Unicode hadn't been used in decades. What the hell kind of data packet would use encryption techniques that would baffle Chortek and character references from the early days of programming?

Translate sequence?

Art stared at the blinking message, uncaring of the streets around him. On the one hand, he was desperately curious about what could possibly be guarded so bizarrely. The client's conditions had forbidden showing the decrypted sequence to anyone, even him. Compensation was forfeit if he broke the rule. Compensation that, posturing aside, he desperately needed.

A car raced by. It was gleaming silver and emblazoned with a glossy Chortek logo, powered by ichor and worth more than Art would ever make in his lifetime. It slowed with the characteristic grace of automation, turned the corner, and vanished, no doubt carrying some executive to his mistress's high-rise.

"Anarchist weasel, huh?" Art muttered aloud. "Fuck you, fat cat. I'm a Data Angel and I'm a better hunter than your entire company put together. Catch me if you can."

In a second and a half, he copied and saved the file as Fuck Chortek. In five seconds, he sent the original, along with the abridged decryption program, to the client's email. He waited five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.

Too quickly to be anything but automated, there was a telltale short-long. Contract complete. Payment deposited.

>translate Fuck_Chortek.txt.

His phone hummed as the lines of letters and numbers vanished and rearranged. The casing grew warm, then hot, so hot he almost dropped the phone. A sequence of characters, what the fuck was that alphabet–

He looked–

He saw–

He was laughing. The muscles of his back were carved from purest marble, his bronze bow straining. A mile away, the foolish monstrosity raised its ugly head from the brush, the golden horns swaying in the air, only now apprehending the danger. Stupid thing. Too little too l–

His lungs were burning. His side was burning, coagulated blood like currant jam leaking from an ugly puncture with black-tinted veins. Are you proud of yourself? Is this what you wanted–

The world screamed as he charged onward, not noticing the black, sticky fluid bubbling in his footprints–

A searing line crossing his navel. His wound drips and scatters with light. He is so alone, more alone than he knew a being could be. He is not safe. He blazes and is not consumed, freezes and is not snuffed, exiled but why does it still follow how can it find him he is dying and dying and dying but can he even die–

Art's ears were ringing. His limbs were twitching. There was something warm and rough pressed against his face, alleviated by thick, lukewarm wetness. For an interminable time, all he could do was lay there, eyes unfocused, and wonder at the cooling air, and the dancing lights that did not burn or blind him. Every so often, interminable shudders wracked his body from tip to toe, and he flopped like a beached whale.

Eventually, the sensations resolved: the warm roughness pressed against his face was in fact pressed against his entire body. Sidewalk, not duracrete like the tenements but old concrete no one could be bothered to replace. Art considered this realization for a while before concluding that it would be best to stand.

As he did, other things came into dreamlike focus. His limbs felt off, both too short and too ungainly, a child's costume into which a man's arm was stuffed like a sausage. The wetness was no merciful cushion, but vomit, a green-brown slurry studded with pork, corn, and half-digested frybread. Art considered this and wondered at his lack of revulsion. Something was dripping from his nose and ears, catching in the breeze from passing cars. Art touched it absently and tasted it before he could stop himself. The coppery flavor was, at least, superior to the aftertaste of partly-digested taco.

As he came back to himself, he realized that the ringing in his ears was not entirely physiological–car alarms were going off throughout the street, and the nasally whine of tripped circuit breakers resounded from every building. He waited, and the sounds of complaining technology began to meld with panicked chatter as people began to emerge from door frames and overhangs, eyes wide and staring.

Staring at what? Not at him, surely, but Art suddenly knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that he was being watched.

An ungainly reach and his hand found the wall of the nearest building, still vibrating almost imperceptibly. Reason had long since fled, and Art only had his instinct to guide him as he fled for the safety of home like a deer from the hunter's eye.

|-DELILAH-|

The sun, which once wrecked its way throughout the city and town and outskirts, consuming all and leaving naught but a smear of reddish burn upon its wake, fatefully chose to find its way back down as Delilah decided to find themselves back at the forge upon the correct time. They waited, perhaps too long, outside for the girl to arrive. When she was not prompt upon an undisclosed time that Delilah merely expected her to know, they entered the structure. The front was almost destroyed both by people and the weather, leaving a large gap for anyone to watch as it was set up for the evening.

Earlier in the day, Delilah had helped four children meet their ends as their destruction was too much for their bodies. They were buried underneath an older spire, and petals were left as an offering of their passage. A woman came in between the children, not needing much beyond a weekly injection, though her mouth had been foaming almost as badly as one of the youngins. At that point, it was get a mask and continue living or wait for the disease to spread its course. After speaking courtly with her, Delilah replaced the old syringes with newer ones from a shipment box conveniently left for them.

It was easy enough to assume someone with access to money left the boxes, but Delilah knew better than that. The government knew that Delilah was there. It was getting risky to work in the daytime, but Delilah knew it would be worse at night. Instead of wallowing too much in the meaning behind the new syringes, Delilah went back to work.

It was time to finish their job for the living. One man, a woman, and a horse were on the bucket list.

First was Madeline's left horseshoe, carefully recreated in the same original mold as the first. The metal remained at a constant temp and was easy enough to pour. Next came the brace for the first man's leg.

Delilah pounded the metal into complex shapes until it resembled a brace. All humans were the same, all greedy and nasty, so creating something to assist one was the same as creating something to assist all. It was part of the job that some, who perhaps should live far less than those left to die, would be prioritized due to their ability to do more in a life they'd already made. That to say, the sour taste left in Delilah's mouth would not end. Though they hardly used their tongue, it was fit hard against the roof of their mouth as the evening began to pass.

Once this is done, I shall be done with my debt to him, and he shall pay me what is mine, and we shall be even. Delilah had to force their thoughts to settle. For as one was true, the other was realistic. Should that man ever suffer the rust again, he shall succumb to his own ruin. It wasn't until the last touches were placed with their blowtorch to tighten the screws upon the brace that light footsteps approached them.

She was quiet, which was good, at least. Personality was inscribed to most humans, but the girl seemed to have little of that. When Delilah held out the blowtorch and placed it down, she took it.

Delilah refused to face her and went into the back of the shop to find one of their older masks for a woman who'd been by the dump between the nearly endless parade of children. She'd need a smaller one. Where Delilah's mask was made of anodized steel, the second best one available in the forge would have to be a temporary mask that Delilah practiced on a few years ago. It wasn't much, but it worked well enough until Delilah had grown out of it. It was kept inside a walk-in cooler. The vibrant brass coloring stood out against the wall. Delilah grabbed that before returning to the main room, pretending as much as they could that they were not affected by the cold temperature.

"I need to test this," Delilah said.

Annabeth, if Delilah remembered the name correctly, was waiting.

"How do we test it?"

Ignoring the question, Delilah went to one of the cleaner workbenches and sat down the mask. It had an empty vial along the sides. Instead of looking up, Delilah immediately cleaned the tubes with a brush. It took a long, thin brush but it got the job done.

"I need you to go into the fridge for me and grab three vials from the desk inside. They should be light yellow and fluorescent."

Quietly, she went into the walk-in freezer. It was surprising how quiet footsteps could be. In the city, everyone had metal on the bottom of their shoes. Those in power were known for their loud, boisterous proclamations. Dawn boxes, as they were, stood on various podiums throughout the city. Those who were smart were those who spoke the clearest, loudest, and refused to be interrupted by anyone else.

Even those subjected to the outskirts, in what little town remained of Old Idyll, wore the loud boots and heels. They were rough and gruff, always loud, always ready for a fight.

Annabeth, for all she were, was quiet. Almost to the point that Delilah couldn't hear when she returned. But Delilah did hear her.

When she wordlessly handed them each vial, Delilah turned with slightly lowered brows, curved more up towards the centers. Nodding, Delilah began the work of filling the mask with the material. It would burn skin but worked better than any other material known to Earth for its filtering properties. The material had been found on an exploration trip to Uranus. The charcoal would soak up the Quix, as it'd been labeled, and would deactivate the burning substance and leave it neutralized enough that it would harden into a thick, high-porosity material that acted as a natural filter for dust, rust, and all associated Idyll particles.

Once the final vial had been poured in, Delilah shook the mask violently to ensure it would be thoroughly coated. Then, Delilah detached the nose tubes, cleaned off any remaining Quix liquid, and reattached them. As it settled in, they returned to the other task at hand. The child that had been taken under their care, for better or worse.

"You'll bring that to him tomorrow," Delilah said, pointing towards the brace they had finished earlier.

"To who?"

Delilah spared Annabeth a look. It wasn't often that Delilah had to explain the most simple of concepts. Suddenly, having her assistance in the forge felt more like a chore than helpful.

"The man you were with," Delilah said. "Tomorrow, you'll bring the man his brace to keep the leg intact while it heals. This horseshoe shall return to the old man. I will bring that. Then there comes this mouthpiece, which we'll have to fit to the young woman you met briefly before you returned that man to his home. I have something that should work in the meantime."

"You said, 'Then comes this mouthpiece.' When will we deliver that?"

"Tonight," Delilah said.

Somewhere between dirty blonde curls that shook slightly as Annabeth's head tilted, large brown eyes that widened too much, and a slight lip part, it became apparent that something still confused her. She spoke with confidence, "Everyone says 'the android' doesn't exist at night. Isn't it growing dark? You come to the forge until the night sets, which is when I shall be cleaning and have a meal ready. You leave and disappear into the night. And then you come jaunting back in the early morning, like a spider beginning to rebuild its nest after the last one was ruined. If you leave now, when the sun sets in less than thirty minutes, you must be outside at night. That would be a first, right?"

"You put merit to rumors," Delilah said. "That is a bad behavior."

"No," she said. Oh? "I pay attention. You told me, "You will learn the job, keep it tidy, and cook dinner daily." And that I'd be in your spare room. Every night, I pick Jordan up from the bar as you walk up the mountains with your ominous hood and your head held low. You are at the dump when I drop the children off at school every morning. I pass it daily since the school is behind Barnes Street, off the side of Courtney Ave."

Red eyes met brown. A stare might have been enough.

If she had been docile before, she was standing up now. Her full force of five feet five inches wasn't impressive; if anything, she looked more like a child than she had earlier, but something in her determinative stance made Delilah almost want to pay attention. Perhaps it was her voice. Delilah expected her voice to be childish and wavering, as it had earlier in the day. Instead, it was loud and boisterous, like she'd been speaking in crowds for years. A smile existed behind the mask.

"Is that so?"

"I am going to be an asset. I work hard, and I don't like to fuck up, so I have to know exactly what I'm doing and when and where. And if that's too hard, then you're a shitty boss. So be a good boss and help me help you. I was late today to make arrangements for the little ones," she said as an excuse, but still better than nothing. She continued, "You are assumptious. First, you assume that I cannot pay attention. I do pay attention. Then you assumed I knew who a man was based on no context and having told me nothing. You seemed abrasive when I got here, but you specifically told me to come tonight. You also stated I would learn the forge, but now you're stating it's time to move on and deliver items. You're either not a man of your word or a man at all, but either way, you need to learn that we humans need to be told things."

"Well then. It's too late in the day to continue working; people would ask questions, you are correct. If you had arrived earlier, we could have started your training," Delilah said. "I finished all my tasks today, and it is now time for me to meet the woman to give her this mask. Without it, she won't make it through the night. Otherwise, yes, I would be on my way home. You are also right that the sun will have set by the time we go home tonight. Grab your bag, take the temporary mask, and we'll leave."

Perhaps the spirits had left her, or the place had grown quiet. Either way, they soon made their way from the forge and back towards the dump. The silence was welcome for the trek, even if the distance wasn't that far. The main noise came from the plunk, plunk, plunk of her backpack smacking against her as she walked a few steps too slow.

The woman was still waiting. Delilah knew she was a mother, but knew little else beyond that she had paid well in the past. Dark brown trusting eyes and a kind smile were only mildly robbed by the rust that'd grown into the sides of her cheeks and chin. Even her hair, as curled and short as it were, had a welcoming glow. She was well-built, and aside from the fact that she could no longer breathe in the rust, she was strong enough to continue living for at least another decade.

The mask was built from an old repurposed spire, and the charcoal-infused inside was set with the same chemicals as Delilah's. It went through a series of tubes that connected directly down the nostrils, and the front part was similar to Delilah's. The woman could have it bolted on through her cheekbones or wrap it with a tie, though the tie would be inefficient. Delilah held it out to her and let her inspect it.

"What's inside?" she asked, her voice harsh. Somewhere, the dainty feminine voice had been distorted and had become something akin to ashes and bones mixed with a light hint of rusted sheet metal and blisters.

"This is where the bolts would go," Delilah said, pointing towards the ends with two precut holes. "You could also tie it. This will keep the dust from entering your nose and mouth. There's an active chemical inside called Quix that's activated through air movement. Quix lasts five years. This mask will cost no less than a grand and must fit perfectly. You can still eat by moving the mouthpiece, but if you remove it from your nostrils, you won't be able to breathe again normally."

The woman nodded. She took a deep breath in before falling into a coughing fit. That was precisely why Delilah needed her to choose the mask.

"The other option?" she asked.

Delilah let their eyes meet hers, red against brown, staring down until it was sure she was paying attention.

"The other option is for me to replace your esophagus with a metal filter. That is beyond your ability to pay. That is what they'd do if you went by the hospital itself if they didn't deem you unworthy of entry."

The woman nodded. She held up the mask again and pointed it towards Annabeth.

"Try," she managed to spit out.

Annabeth froze in place, staring at the mask. "It's safe," she said. Then, she walked closer to the woman and closed the difference between them with a soft smile. "You put these two through your nose," she said, holding up each tube carefully. "The rest covers your mouth. Do you want me to show you where it goes?"

The woman nodded. Delilah, enamored by the display, stood like a silent guardian over both of them. While Annabeth fit the mask around the woman's face, the sun reached its point across the mountains. Darkness slowly crept across each tree, each spot of landfill and shrubbery, each little scorched flower, until finally the darkness left its print upon the ground before them. From underneath their dark green cloak, Delilah's right shoulder pad began to glow. Circular, rhythmic patterns could be seen if one stepped too close. Delilah shielded this more with their cloak.

The woman took a deep first few breaths, loudly exhaling through her mouth with each one. At first she seemed to struggle, like the mechanical filter hadn't been charged. Then a light hum filled the air, almost like that of an airplane passing far overhead. It rattled, shook, and then became smooth as her breathing evened out.

"See? You did amazing," Annabeth said. "It's so quiet too. Will you need help getting home?"

Before Delilah could interject that it was not going to happen, the woman shook her head.

"This," she said slowly, her voice slightly muffled, "will do. Delilah, is it?"

"That is my name."

"Introduce me to your daughter."

Annabeth cut up with laughter and Delilah couldn't resist a chuckle.

"This," Delilah said, gesturing to all of Annabeth, "is my new assistant. Now regarding your pay–"

"Darling. Annabeth Darling," she introduced herself. "Don't worry, where he's a mechanical freak of nature, I'm the new voice of reason."

The woman nodded. She pulled out a wallet and handed a few hundreds to Delilah.

"Next week," she promised, holding Delilah's hand for a moment too long.

Delilah took it and tried to pull their hand back without jerking too hard. "That works. I expect you next Friday."

"And her?"

"Trust me," Annabeth said, her eyes traveling from the woman's to the red of Delilah's irises, "you'll be hearing a lot from me."

|-MARIGOLD ESTES-|

It had been a week, and in that time Marigold had achieved absolutely nothing. As it turned out, skipping town for a hundred years was not an effective way to solve your problems. If anything, it had the opposite effect. Still, she was desperate - so desperate that she was willing to return to a town that wanted her dead.

She sat in a kid's plastic chair on a lawn that had never been watered, sipping lemonade from a plastic cup in a scene that was oddly reminiscent of her childhood. The heat of winter brushed against her bare arms, suffocating her in its sweltering grip. She took a sip of lemonade, bitter prickling the taste buds on her tongue, as the last ice cube dissolved in the heat. It felt like home to her; it almost felt good to be here.

"Sorry I don't have anything stronger." Archie reached across with the pitcher, adding more lukewarm lemonade to her cup. A single ice cube swirled. "That kind of thing is hard to come across these days."

Her shoulders shrugged. "I don't mind."

"It's good to see you," he said. "You look-" he considered his words carefully "-well."

It was clear this particular comment was aimed at her hair, formerly brown, now a shade of orange so bright it was borderline offensive to look at it. It wasn't that she liked or even tolerated the colour orange - but the ferocity of her hair pulled the attention from the rest of her face, so much so that Archie had barely recognised her. But beneath a mop of artificial orange, it was easy to make out her rounded cheekbones, the precisely curved chin, and the magnetic grey of her eyes known to melt even the steeliest gaze. She'd taken the kitchen scissors and sheared off her long hair like an overgrown garden bush but there were some parts she didn't have the tools to cut out.

Through politeness, she felt obliged to say "you too" even though she hadn't given it much thought. Archie looked the same as he always had, blond and blindingly pale despite the temperature staying consistently above a hundred.

Overhead, the sky was a spotless grey. Not a cloud could be seen, and as Archie explained, it had been a long time since anyone had seen rain. Heat didn't bother her, and evidently it didn't bother Archie either as he'd elected to wear a woollen sweater which didn't seem to irritate him in the slightest, something that irritated Marigold out of sheer jealousy that it didn't irritate him. They exchanged polite courtesies, their opinions on the weather (particularly warm today) and the taste of the lemonade (not bitter, just an acquired taste) as they manoeuvred like chess players waiting to make their next move.

The heel of the chair sagged into the ground. Marigold wished she could melt into the ground with it and disappear under the surface instead of being forced to submit to small talk. Even drinking an entire pitcher of acquired taste lemonade would be preferable to this.

"Look," she spoke eloquently, something she'd never been able to shake off despite the teasing. "You should be dead. I should be dead. Please stop pretending you want to talk about the weather."

Archie sipped his lemonade with ease. "Speak for yourself, I happen to be very interested in meteorology. The weather here is so interesting and varied."

"It's sunny every day." She fought the urge to roll her eyes at him and failed. "Though you wouldn't know that with that hideous sweater you're wearing."

"I got this sweater from my grandma, I'll have you know."

"Wow," accompanied by another eye roll. "All these years and I had no idea your grandma hated you so much."

He caught her eye, and for a moment she wanted to smile, but her face contorted as if her muscles didn't know how to. It could have been simple - two old friends catching up over a refreshing glass of extremely tasteless lemonade, but things in Idyll had never been simple and they were both too sensible to think otherwise.

The last drops of lemonade leaked from the cup onto the grass, killing any chance it had of turning green. The question rolled off his tongue, "Why did you come here?"

"I'm looking for something."

He winked. "I'm right here."

If she heard, she didn't respond. She was too busy digging around in the tattered tote she'd brought with her, sorting through various post-its and scraps of paper until she found the one she wanted to show him. It was some kind of diagram. As he squinted to get a closer look he felt dread crawl up his spine and seize him by the shoulders.

He thrust the paper back at her as if it had given him an electric shock. "Why do you have this?"

Marigold folded the paper up into neat quarters then tucked it into her pocket. She seemed completely unperturbed by the idea. "There is something I need there, and you can help me get it."

"No."

"Yes."

"No!"

Archie folded his arms and sulked like a child. A singular blond curl dangled from the front of his hair over sullen eyes, a look she knew so well but hadn't seen in as long. It was unsurprising that he'd resist like this, though secretly Marigold had hoped he still held enough of a torch for her to dive headfirst into danger just because she asked him to. From the way his lips contorted as he searched for a way to explain all the reasons this was a very bad idea, it was clear that this was not the case.

He rose from the chair and paced toward the fence that overlooked the street. Once a shade of inviting cream, no one had painted over it in years. He'd never seen the point. So few visitors stopped by, and the few that did weren't put off by an unpainted fence or an unmowed yard thus Archie found that the family home his father had once been so proud of had fallen into disarray over the years, yet he'd done nothing to restore it to its former glory. Why should he? There didn't seem to be any point.

He spun to face Marigold, who was still studying her piece of paper. "Why did you come back here?" he asked again.

Her head tilted to face him. From the side, her hair had fallen over her shoulder, exposing the familiarity of her face in the full extent of the daylight. Here he could see the discontent in her eyes; the same expression that coloured his own everytime he dared to look at a reflective surface. He'd smashed his bedroom mirror last week because he no longer wanted to know himself. But stood in his garden, her look of knowing burned through him, leaving him naked and exposed with only his ugly, scratchy sweater to cover himself with.

"I haven't been feeling well," she admitted, as though it were some terrible secret to have the sniffles. "I don't know why, but what I do know is that the answers lie in that place."

Archie nodded. "It's not just you. It's the whole city."

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his neighbours. They stayed inside, windows boarded up, peering out only occasionally just to see if he was still there. He'd see the slits of their eyes through the tiny gaps they allowed themselves, blurred with the same nothingness he felt inside. The whole place felt doomed to disintegrate into nothing, and the worst part was that he couldn't disintegrate with it. They'd just leave him here with nothing and no one, trapped in an eternal wasteland and unable to die. The way Marigold chewed at her lip suggested she knew it too.

He leaned against the fence. Part of it gave way under his leg and he stumbled. Maybe some maintenance wouldn't be the worst thing. "Alright, so what do we do?"

She pulled free another sheet from the endless stack of papers on her person. This one had a list of instructions written in her small, precise handwriting. "We've got to get back down there - I've been compiling a list of all possible openings, we're going to have to trek the whole way across town to get to some of them, but-"

"It won't work." She scowled at the interruption but he persisted. "It's not a mine anymore, they closed that off after the incident. They've invested millions in infrastructure and a million more in security. We're looking at a secure government facility who probably don't take lightly to their former prisoners breaking and entering."

Perhaps any sane person would have been deterred, but Marigold prided herself on being just insane enough to attempt the feat. "Okay...so how do we get in? Key card? We can forge that, I think I still have a copy of the computer software somewhere."

"That won't help us. It's all done with biometrics now."

"Biometrics?"

His hands formed two circles around his eyes to demonstrate. "Retina scanners, and I doubt either of us are on the invite list."

She had that smile on her face again, as if her facial muscles were starting to figure it out. "Well, then we're going to need a spare pair of eyes."

-

Exactly where she remembered it being, there was a bar with no name because no one cared enough to give it one. Instead, overhanging the entryway was an obnoxiously neon sign advertising tonight's special - buy two drinks and you can buy the third once you're too drunk to recall paying for it. It had drawn quite the crowd; a useful decoy as they slipped in unseen amongst a mass of sweat-slicked bodies in overalls.

Inside, Marigold noted that the decor was older than she was. Wooden tables and chairs that had fought termites and lost were occupied by patrons; the rest stood in a huddle by the bar like a flock of sheep that would follow where the others went. Using the force of her elbow, Marigold muscled through the bleating herd, ordered a drink she had no intention of drinking, then seated herself at the least termite-battered table in sight. Archie followed, hanging over her shoulder as if he were her anxious guardian.

He stole a sip of her drink. "Ugh, couldn't you have ordered anything better?"

"Order for yourself next time."

His complaints were loud, but went unregistered by anyone in earshot. Marigold stared directly past his left shoulder, surveying the room. Most of the people here were mere workers, still dressed in their overalls, navy or khaki green if they were unlucky. They drank in excessive quantities, their merriment echoed around the poorly insulated walls of the establishment as if their problems had evaporated from one sip. They were fine people (probably) but of no use to her.

She twisted to get a look over her own shoulder. Archie's complaining still rang in her ears, but it was far too easy to drown him out. Her vision was assaulted by the blinding white of lab coats, all belonging to people important enough to wear them, but in too pristine a condition to have been used in any actual lab work. Self-righteous do-gooders bragged to the morally superior, patting themselves on the back over their achievements. Getting asked to organise the test tubes in alphabetical order was the most menial of tasks, but for the young man who, in his own words, had revolutionised efficiency at ChorTek, it was as if he'd single handedly paved the path to world peace. He'd do, then.

Archie had tuned back into the conversation. "Who do you think he is?"

"No one important." She almost smiled. "But that's what we want."

Including the world class organiser, there were five of them, each less interesting to look at then the last. Each not worth memorising, with the type of features you couldn't pick out of a crowd even if you had their exact description. Low level to have access to the required areas, without being important enough that anyone would miss them.

Glasses, a loud, obnoxious lab coat, fancied himself leader of the group. "Well," his tone was condescending and his pitch shrill to the ears, "You see I was specifically chosen for the groundbreaking research I conducted on whoosits and whatsits. It's so rewarding that my talent has finally been recognised after all these years of my efforts being appreciated."

His neighbour scoffed. "The whoosit is nothing but a hoax! Without anything tangible to show, your research is as mindless as you are."

"It's about the idea," glasses twitched his nose like a rabid bunny. "It's got concepts you couldn't even begin to understand. With my work, Idyll will be at the forefront of human advancement!"

Another critic of the whoosit, a short, balding man scoffed at the insinuation. "Well, I've got tangible research - we're looking to completely redefine the way we do things around here, you wouldn't believe the levels of efficiency we can reach if we just-"

Glasses cut him off with a scowl. "You work in admin, Jim. It's not the same thing."

"It is too!"

Enraptured by the debate between the not-real and the slightly less not-real, they wouldn't even notice if one of their party went missing. It was as if the perfect candidate had fallen into her hands, something that Marigold might've been suspicious of if she wasn't so pleased by her good luck.

Archie pushed the rickety chair away from the table, announcing to the non-existent audience that he was off in search of further refreshments, then was over at the bar calling out for the bartender before anyone could blink. Marigold watched and waited.

It took two minutes before alphabetical test tube sorter hauled himself up from the bench and declared he must go in search of a bathroom. Upon receiving no rapturous applause, he stumbled off anyway, tripping over his own feet and crashing to the floor. In a nanosecond, a helping hand was there, pulling him upward by the sheer force of his ugly sweater and insisting on another drink to take the edge off. Test tube was all too happy to oblige. In ten minutes he'd forgotten his own name, proudly proclaiming himself as Cornelius the Third instead.

By the time they'd dragged him into the alleyway, Cornelius the Third had become Cornelius the Unconscious. His body slumped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Marigold rolled him onto his back and stared in contemplation.

Behind her, Archie paced. "Are we really going to do this?"

"Yes." She didn't sound certain. She kicked at his side just to check he wouldn't respond, "He won't feel it-" another kick '-I don't think, anyway."

Archie covered his face with his hands. "Oh, I feel sick. You've done this before, right?"

"No." She was far too calm, tracing an outline with her hands over Cornelius' face. "But I've seen someone else do it, if that counts."

"I don't think that counts."

She removed the knife from the inside of her jacket. The silver of the blade glimmered in the moonlight, catching her reflection on the other side. Grey, uncertain eyes stared at her, daring her not to fail. She flipped the blade so she couldn't see. "Just...stand guard. And whatever you do, don't scream."

He skulked to the corner. From the bar, he could still hear the merriment of the revellers; a group - he suspected the remaining lab coats - had gathered round the piano to sing a song nobody remembered the words to. It was quite nice, if he ignored the brutal mutilation of a potentially innocent man happening behind him. The song descended into drunken cheers, and he dared to look behind. Marigold sat with the knife in one hand, and the eyes of Cornelius dangling from the other.

"Don't hold them like that!" he cried. "Oh god, I'm gonna be sick. Stop it. Have a bit of respect!"

"Relax," Marigold's words were drawn out. She swung the eyeballs by the nerve just so she could watch him squirm. "We're just borrowing them. If he's still alive when we get back, I'll give them back to him."

On the floor, Cornelius' distinguishing feature was now the two gaping holes where his eye sockets had once been. Archie dared himself to look, then regretted it as his stomach somersaulted at the thought of plunging his fingers into the holes and finding out exactly how deep the wound ran.

Next to him, Marigold was examining her prize. "They're a nice shade of blue." She dangled them in front of him. The pupils bounced as if sizing him up. "Don't you think?"

"Lovely," Archie forced himself to swallow the cider that threatened to make a reappearance, "Though I have to say I prefer green, usually."

"Well, we can't be picky." She sidestepped the body and set off for the road at a pace Archie had to run to catch up with. "Come on, whilst they're still warm."

- - -

Archie's kitchen was decorated in a tasteful blue, a colour he'd once enjoyed before the realisation it matched the pair of eyes now sat on a chopping board on his countertop. A selection of utensils had been assembled as part of their makeshift laboratory; Marigold was currently using a fork to poke one of the eyeballs, a move that seemed its only purpose was to make the eye dance.

"I hope Cornelius was telling the truth about his job," she said. "If I've just carved the eyes out of some random guy, I'm going to be so mad."

"I still can't believe you carved the eyes out of any guy!" Archie cried.

Marigold prodded the eyeball with the rear end of the fork. "I told you-" she paused to watch it jump a centimetre across the counter, pleased with her work, "This guy works at ChorTek, therefore, his eyes will register on the scanner, and it's much easier to transport an eyeball than a full human, especially one who isn't gonna cooperate with two people breaking into his place of work."

"I dunno," Archie shrugged. "Cornelius seemed like a pretty understanding guy to me."

"Alright, fine, next time we'll ask the guy if he wants to help us break into a secure government facility before we steal his eyeballs. Happy?"

Archie held his hands up in surrender. "That's all I'm asking."

Marigold focused her attention back on the pair of eyes. They were a nice shade of blue, though she'd have taken even the dullest grey, akin to her own, if it was a pair of eyes that could get her where she needed to go. Though, dead eyes were of no use to her. It was only worth their time if they could get the pupils to move, that way the retina scanner could detect exactly who they belonged to. It was a trick her father had taught her a long time ago, if you had the technology and the skill, you could reanimate any body part of the recently deceased. She'd practised hands, feet, even a botched attempt at a head, but eyes were the one thing no one had ever mastered. They were simply too unpredictable.

"Hand me a spoon," she instructed. "I want to look at this one up close."

The eyes stared at one another - one attached to Marigold, the other balanced precariously on an antique teaspoon. She wiggled the spoon, the eye bounced but didn't move of its own accord. She wiggled it a second time, but achieved even less. Still, she wasn't a psychotic monster who went around separating people from their eyes without purpose. This was for science.

"Hey," she called to Archie, who was still avoiding eye contact with their new pet. "Can I use your microwave?"

"You are not putting that in my microwave."

"Well, how else am I supposed to generate electricity?"

Without waiting for approval, she opened the microwave door and shoved the eye inside, spoon and all. Thirty seconds was set on the timer, and her curious reflection stared back at her as the seconds counted down.

"Oh my god, I'm never going to be able to use my microwave again," he wailed. "That was a perfectly good microwave! I cook my best macaroni cheese in that! Do you know what I don't like to cook in my microwave? Eyes."

The timer beeped. Marigold flung the door open and removed the spoon. She set it down carefully on the counter, then stared at the eye in expectation. It sizzled from the heat; bubbling over the surface. Perhaps Cornelius wouldn't be getting his eye back after all.

"It didn't work." She folded her arms and glared at the eye.

It glared back.

"Wait-" Marigold leaned closer. "Did you see that? It totally glared at me!"

They were transfixed on one another; Marigold's grey eyes filled with curiosity and a sense of smug satisfaction, against the blue iris of Cornelius which seemed as though it wanted to object posthumously to being ripped out of its former face, stuffed into a microwave, and reanimated for her nefarious purposes. But it was nothing compared to the smile on Marigold's face; her features twisted in a way they never had before as she admired her handiwork. She thrust it toward Archie, who shrank under its stare.

"That's horrifying," he protested. "Do we have to use that? Can't we just, I don't know, get a drill and break in the old fashioned way?"

"Sure, if you want to get caught." She dangled the eye, which boggled in her grasp. "You should say hi, I think he's friendly."

Archie squeezed his eyes shut instead. "No way. That thing is going in your pocket."

"Alright, whatever you say."

She tucked the eyeball out of sight in the pocket of her shorts, replacing it with the scrap of paper from earlier that dictated the way into the mine. A labyrinthian layout of rooms and chambers and corridors that didn't go anywhere but a dead end that spelled out certain doom if you lived long enough to reach that point. Getting out was the hard part; getting in ought to have been a lot easier, but they weren't stupid enough to let themselves think it.

Archie took a pen and circled an entrance in the lower left corner. "This one," he said. "It's the most inconspicuous - it's a workers entry, but not the main one, so you won't raise any suspicion using that thing-" accompanied by a shudder "-to get inside."

Marigold stood in silent thought, the eyeball rolling round her pocket as a constant reminder that what she was doing was stupid and reckless. The mine she knew; the high walls of ChorTek was an unknown she didn't enjoy thinking about.

"Tomorrow," she said, to herself more than anyone. "Before the eye stops working."

|-JORDAN BAXTER-|

To Whom it may concern,

I must first ask you to forgive me, as my recordkeeping as of late has been sporadic at best. While it has been my recent aim to chronicle my travels in detail, an enterprise which requires me to write as frequently as possible, I will admit the task has proven quite difficult. The fault lies partly with myself, and partly with my circumstance.

I shall not bore you with unnecessary details; simply know that as of this morning I have sadly lost the use of my temporary shelter. The barn, as it turns out, was not so abandoned as I had believed, and I was forced to vacate the premises only two days into my stay. Although, forced is perhaps not the correct word in this instance, as it implies the act of being forced by a particular person. The truth remains that I "forced" myself to depart the moment I heard the telltale rumbling of an automobile approaching. In hindsight, it was quite ludicrous of me to hurriedly throw my briefcase through the broken window of the hayloft before following suit with my person. I was fortunate I did not damage my briefcase or the contents inside with my hasty retreat, but I could not allow myself to be discovered. I do not know the laws of this land and so I must operate with the utmost caution to avoid detection.

After my indelicate tumble through the window, I adjusted my clothes in the same manner as I had done the night before and made my way to town. The sky, while not exactly dark, could neither be described as light, either. It seems this place, wherever it may be, must exist in a perpetual state of dusk. This, while strange, is not in fact the most disturbing phenomena I have encountered in this place. For while I walked, I noticed my breathing became more and more labored the longer I continued, and a tickle had developed in the back of my throat. I eventually concluded the source of these annoyances was none other than a red material in the air I was not keen enough to spot last night. This red mist, or dust perhaps, seems to sweep through the hot air with no wind to accompany it. After making this realization, I opened my briefcase, retrieved my linen scarf from its depths, and wet the scarf with water from my canteen before tying it over my nose and mouth. This seemed to quell the cough for the time being, though I cannot disguise my unease over this new revelation. How long I have been inhaling this dust I do not know, and any effects it might have besides a cough are likewise unknown.

I passed the food district I had previously frequented, not wanting my borrowed coat to give away any involvement with the corpse that was now rotting on the ground, though it pained my stomach to avoid the comfort of Jodie's. Possible legal dangers aside, my next task would take much time and research. I have found the easiest way to avoid social faux pas and possible discovery is as simple as reading, provided the time I am visiting allows women to read. My next safe haven was the nearest library.

While cultures of varying times and places operate quite differently, almost all societies alive or dead have some way of securing their knowledge for general recordkeeping and information for future generations. Given the futuristic nature of this society, I assumed a government or privately funded library would be quick and easy to locate. This I can assure you, was not the case. While the city, which I have since learned is called Idyll, is incredibly technologically advanced in certain areas, it is extremely derelict in others. Futuristic vehicles with black tinted windows share the metal paved streets with automobiles circa 1994. Large screens hang from the sides of every building, but all are playing the same three channels, news, government broadcast, and an asinine reality television show involving contestants being locked in a permanently dark house together and being forced to participate in childish games to win the ultimate prize of a lifetime of "rust free coffee", whatever that may mean.

It was quite difficult, but I eventually managed to track down a free information kiosk. The tablet screen was cracked and red dust poured from every orifice, but after almost thirty minutes of searching, I managed to locate the nearest library. I drew a quick map as a reference guide on the inside of this journal that I then used to navigate through the throngs of people that had suddenly flooded the streets. I was thankful as the multitude of people made it much easier to assimilate into the crowd and avoid being seen by any security cameras that may have been lurking about.

After what felt like half the day, but was in reality likely only a few hours, I landed on the front step of a massive skyscraper made entirely out of metal and glass. Signs outside the automatic doors suggested that this building was a combination library, shopping center, and shooting range. I had seen doors like these before, I cannot remember where, and I swiftly stepped in front of them. However, the doors would not open for me as they would for the few stragglers going in and out of the building.

I attempted to open the doors many times, and I will admit becoming increasingly frustrated as they would not open. Had I been in a better state of mind, I might have remembered to practice my meditative breathing and calmed myself enough to think of a proper solution. I do not attempt to make excuses for my loss of control, however, I was acting on very little food and sleep. I am ashamed to admit that in a last effort, I attempted to follow behind a man going in, causing the door to slam shut rapidly, narrowly avoiding his fingers. My momentum carried me forward and I collided with his back, bouncing off and sending me sprawling to the ground in a very improper fashion.

As the man turned, likely to berate me for nearly getting his fingers cut off, I attempted to apologize. But something occurred which has never happened to me before. His eyes. The moment he turned to me, I recognized those rich green eyes of his. I did not at first know how I knew him, but he certainly recognized me as well. His face blanched, and his mouth fell open in shock. The cause of his shock, as well as what happened next, will take some time and important context to recount. I must begin to explain as best I can the events of one of my previous travels, though the memories still elude me. When I was somewhat younger-

The noise of a throat clearing startles her into dropping her pen, leaving a splotchy ink mark in the middle of her sentence. Jordan looks up at the man sitting across the table from her, quirking an eyebrow at his annoyed expression.

"Can I help you?" she asks, impatience thinly veiled by her syrupy sweet tone. He scoffs and kicks a steel toed boot at her from under the table.

"Yeah," he drawls, "can you not wait to write your fucking memoir until we've figured out whatever the fuck this is?"

Jordan restrains herself from kicking him back, reminding herself not to make a scene in this very public cafe. "I thought we had discussed exactly 'whatever the fuck this is'," she says, bringing her fingers up in air quotes. "And I must write while it is still fresh in my mind." She returns to her page, pen poised to continue where she left off.

"We haven't discussed shit!" He grumbles.

"I've told you everything you need to know, Little Arthur."

"My name," he grits out, hands clenched on the table, "is Artz. No more of that 'little' bullshit."

"You'll always be little to me," Jordan mutters, going back to her page. Maybe she shouldn't be so entertained by how easy it is to get a rise out of him, but then again, he did nearly break her wrist when he hauled her away from the library and into that alleyway.

Before she can begin, a black inked hand slaps on top of the half-finished page and yanks it across the table. Jordan, completely taken aback, hesitates a second too long before lunging across the table. It's too late, Little Arthur holds the journal tauntingly above her head. He actually snickers when she tries to discreetly jump out of her seat, only for him to yank it higher.

"Not so little now, huh?" His face twists into a sly grin and his eyes dart around the room. Jordan is suddenly very aware of how insane she must look, halfway on top of the table with her feet on the plush pleather seats.

Jordan takes a deep breath and sits down properly, ashamed at how easily this overgrown man-child made her lose her temper. She's met men like him before, hell, she's met him before. She knows logically that the more she shows she wants her journal back, the longer he'll keep it from her.

"Alright," she concedes, smoothing her loose strands of hair into place behind her ears, "it seems we are at an impasse, Artz." This boy, it will be hard for her to ever think of him as grown, even if he's around her age, is hopeless if he thinks he can manipulate her into getting what he wants. The use of his preferred name softens his eyes up just a bit, enough for her to steady her breathing and trust that he won't destroy her current life's work.

Jordan steeples her hands on the red and white checkerboard table and looks Arthur in the eyes. "So, what is it you wish to know?" He's taken aback, she can tell. His bright green eyes widen while his dark brows knit in confusion about how apparently easy it is to get information out of her. He lowers his hand, still holding her leatherbound journal, and his shoulders relax a bit.

"Listen," he says, "all I want are some solid answers, is that so hard?"

Jordan shrugs, "That depends on the questions. I am not Cassandra, I have not been cursed with the all knowing gift of prophecy."

He looks confused, poor thing. After waiting a beat Jordan asks, "Did your mother never teach you the ancient myths?"

Little Arthur scratches the back of his neck. "She may have. I may have just..."

"Forgotten?" Jordan finishes. He nods. He looks uncomfortable now. Jordan doesn't blame him. It can't be nice, knowing that she remembers more of his mother than he does. Which, considering how fucked up her memories are, is really saying something.

"So..." he starts, but cuts himself off as the middle aged waitress wearing purple eyeliner and a glow in the dark nose ring brings their food.

"That's pancakes for you," she glances at him disparagingly for a good thirty seconds before dragging her attention to Jordan, "and a sunny side sandwich, three pancakes with bacon and hashbrowns, and a sausage plate for you." She eyes Jordan not as disparagingly, gaze settling on her hair before turning away and moving on to another table.

Little Arthur eyes the pile of food in front of Jordan. "You sure you can eat all that?" he asks. Jordan fixes him with a pointed look. "Hey," he backtracks, "no offense, I just mean, that's a lot of food. And you know, I'm kind of paying for it. Just don't want it to go to waste is all."

"The most substantial meal I have had in the last two days is a biscuit and coffee." Jordan maintains eye contact while he shifts in his seat until finally, his eyes shift downwards.

Thoroughly cowed, Little Arthur picks at his food before starting again. "So, I just want to know how this," he gestures to her as she tries not to inhale her pancakes, "is at all possible. I mean, I remember you. Barely." His eyes flick to the right as he recalls the memories.

"It's all fuzzy, you know? But I remember you. At the old house, before we came... here."

Little Arthur shifts in his seat minutely, and Jordan knows he longs to sit on his hands and rock back and forth like he used to. The diner buzzes with the sound of chatter, neon buzzing, bells ringing, cooks shouting. An overstimulated child might be permitted to rock in public to fight the oncoming meltdown. But Little Arthur is not a child, and neither is Jordan. What else can Jordan do but look at him with all knowing eyes and pretend not to notice the squirming. Maybe that's why he's been acting so bratty. She can't help that she knows an uncomfortable amount about him. Or at least, that she used to.

Arthur is still rambling, but the memories stir the longer he talks. They're a disjointed mess, but Jordan can feel the cool breeze on her face, she can taste the humidity in the air. Teddy's hair, beautiful knotless braids whip across Jordan's face as they run together. The sound of Teddy's laugh. Little Arthur, squealing with delight as Jordan throws him in the air.

Jordan shakes her head and opens her eyes. When did she close them? Little Arthur, no, adult Arthur is staring at her as if waiting for her to speak. Jordan opens her mouth and shovels in another fork full of eggs. His eye twitches again, but it's only a surface level annoyance. Jordan can see the hurt hiding beneath.

"Alright." she says, finishing her bite and taking a sip of her coffee. "I understand you want answers, but now is not the place to give them." She holds up a hand when he sighs in annoyance. "Do you have a residence?"

"I have an apartment, yeah. Why are you talking so old fashioned?"

"My cadence is perfectly appropriate for the time I have just come from. It takes some time to adjust, you understand."

"No, I don't understand anything!" It's strange how quickly he gets annoyed by her. She can't remember how she knows this, only that it's not natural.

"This is a conversation meant for the privacy of your home. If you want answers, you will take me there."

"Jesus, fine. But I'm keeping your stupid diary until you answer my fucking questions."

Would Teddy forgive her if Jordan wrung her son's neck? Probably not. Jordan sighs and sets down her fork. She checks her pocket watch.

"We've been here almost an hour," she says, "time to leave." As if on cue, the waitress appears next to their table with the check. Or, what Jordan thinks might be the check. To her, it looks like a thin, plastic card, but Arthur just sighs and drags his wrist across the plastic. A blip noise comes from the plastic card and Arthur smirks at her confused expression.

He holds up his wrist to show off a small square of skin that glows fluorescent green, just underneath the wrist joint. "We all get one," he says, as the waitress silently clears their table. "Makes things much more convenient. That's why you couldn't get into the library, by the way." He taps the chip in his wrist. "Only people with a registered ID can get in government buildings." He snickers, and Jordan has to remind herself that poor Little Arthur is in a very mentally disturbing place at the moment. His dead mothers ex... ex is sitting in front of him having hardly aged a day in the last twenty years or so. He still has her journal, and it's unclear yet whether his childhood grudge is strong enough to destroy all her hard work. She'll let him poke fun, as long as she gets that journal back.

|-THE PRIEST-|

Under Arizona's sunset the priest carries the old man from the massacred porch to the plot of dirt behind the church, lying him face-up on the ground. From the old man's cabin he retrieves a shovel and a carton of cigarettes and some copper coins, which he takes to the grocer down the public road and exchanges for a package of hardtack and a mini-bottle of cactus wine.

By the time he returns the sky is a mottled bruise, light pollution staining the night unnatural colors. The priest buries the old man under the watchful eyes of the red rig-lights perched atop their spires. He places a blank slab of earth at the head, rips open the hardtack, pours the wine into a cup, and places both at the foot of the makeshift plaque. There is no incense but the priest lights one of the old man's cigarettes. He stares at the fresh grave and smokes, vapor floating from his mouth into the great reservoir of rust-fog creeping in as the rain up north migrates east. Then he takes the cigarette and wedges it into a crevice in the gravestone where it glows like a crucible in the darkness.

The priest goes to his knees and presses his forehead to the ground thrice. Then he drinks half the wine, splatters the rest on the dirt, and squats back on his heels to wait.

He waits for so long that ants rise from the cracked earth, scrambling angrily over the hardtack. The cigarette burns down to the filter, great clumps of ash plummeting and smashing against the headstone in dark lines, and still nothing happens.

"He's in the city."

The priest stands and turns. The old man's horse has trotted up to him. Its white muzzle warps as it speaks in a thin murmur, naked hooves scraping grooves into the dust.

"I thought—"

"I know what you thought," the horse says. "And I know what you thought after. You're right. He wouldn't. He's in the city."

The priest stares for a moment before cursing in a mild tone and lighting another cigarette. "If he isn't leaving, why the hell is he in the city?"

"I don't know."

"What happened to him, anyhow—did it to himself, did he? What could he possibly be driving at?"

"I don't know."

The priest takes the cigarette from his mouth and exhales angrily, smoke streaming from his nostrils. He flicks the stub over the old man's grave, stepping forward to crush it underheel. "So what are you?"

"He left me behind to tell you," it says, "and to carry you there."

The priest laughs.

He has not had reason to laugh in a while. It is unpleasant, the outraged bark of a desert dog. He laughs for so long he sinks to his knees and presses the noise into the earth, clay so dry it rejects even rain. Somewhere in the great cavern of the desert a coterie of wolves take up the sound in disjointed chorus, howling it to the high heavens where it rattles against Idyll's electric vibrato like a caged animal.

"Alright," says the priest, straightening and wiping a tear from his eye. It rolls, shining and bulbous, atop the dirt. "You win, old friend," he addresses the grave, and spits on the headstone. To the horse, he says: "take me to him."

---

The road to Idyll plunges into a boundless and violent darkness, a night beaten black and blue. The rust-fog drowns the sky in a bloody tide; the rig-lights disperse their red glare through that churning particulate sea like a blaring siren and the mesas rise flat and monstrous to meet it like altars offered up to those gory gods. The far mountains are dark stakes driven into the sweltering corpse of the cracked earth. Formations of slag from the mines and metal refineries coat the desert with lakes of stone. Seams of bats tangle wildly through the rust-fog, thrashing and shouting. Over this blasted wasteland looms the silhouette of Idyll, backlit by its own radiant artifice, some dark colossus over its domain of void.

Across this land the priest and horse travel, robed in black like an omen. As they approach the city its electric gates echo until that shattering sound seems to originate from some tortured, howling pit inside them. Idyll swells over them, engulfs them—and as the priest passes the threshold of those towering purple columns where they raise their lightning-cracked fingers into the night, when their call projected wrecked and weeping over the desert is snapped to a sudden, strangled silence on the other side, the priest is overcome by a sudden and inexplicable feeling of great loss. That strange, empty place inside him, no longer deafened by Idyll's rebuke, knows what he does not: that this night marks the last time he will turn his eyes with resolution toward the promise of the west, in this lifetime if not the next.

---

The lights of Idyll are a cascade of holograph and neon that pour in moving advertisements down the sides of its immense buildings. The rust-fog and its promise of destruction hang low over the city in a permanent roiling ocean; it laps hungrily at every tower, the crawling bulbs of lit skyscrapers disappearing into dazzling fireworks of muted color within its bloody depths. Even sewage and smoke cannot drown its wet copper scent. From within, Idyll's song is no longer the electric gates. Instead the polyphonic layers of its cramped people fold eternally over each other like sheets of metal to a thin blade of caterwauling sound that strikes like a migraine between the eyes.

The horse carries the priest past the parched streets where purring vehicles lie end-to-end like corpses, into a district where the fluorescents are dulled by greasy humidity and the stenches of vomit and alcohol twine. The horse stops at a property with a winking neon monkey over the door and 酒吧 slopped in blue plaster down the front window and refuses to move further, so the priest dismounts, briefcase in hand, and enters.

The bar is lit a hazy amber that transforms the patrons huddled around their tables into undefined shadows. The bartender eyes the priest as he approaches. "You a man or a cryptid?"

"Neither," says the priest.

"Sure." The bartender does not believe him. "Well, whatever you are, no fighting the other." He jerks his head toward the back wall where on a full-length window that same cracking plaster says cryptids welcome in three languages. "What can I get you?"

The priest considers the establishment. Two figures by the back window and one at a booth have turned to watch him with starving eyes, but none move. "You have maotai?"

"Yeah."

"Year of the dragon?"

"What kinda place d'you think this is?" He turns to scan his shelves. "You're lucky—my dad's particular. You care about the brand name? I've got off-brand or the current year."

It's 2098. Year of the horse. "Close enough," the priest murmurs. "And I'm looking for someone. Anyone, so long as they crawled out of a grave after sunset."

"Uh-huh." The bartender pours generously into a small pot. Fresh from the bottle the liquor shines, clear as conviction. "Friend of yours, this anyone?"

"Not particularly."

"Well, it doesn't matter. We ain't that kinda bar." The bartender puts down a serving glass. Rust rims the circumference ominously. "If you're looking to drink, that'll be two-fifty. If you're looking for anything else, look elsewhere."

The priest doesn't have any money. Before he can say so a stranger shuffles up from the end of the bar and thumbs a sticky handful of bills across the counter.

"I got 'im, Cal." His voice is garbled as if through a mouthful of tallow. The bartender takes the money to the register as the stranger scrutinizes the priest. "If I heard yer voice once I heard it a thousand times—in ol' Idle, where I grew up. My gramps was a true believer, see—never more'n a fortnight before my brother and I'd find ourselves waitin' in your pews. Yer Father Earnshaw, ain't ye?"

The priest inclines his head and pours a cup of baijiu. He drains it; it flows pungent and heavy like an overripe fruit. "My thanks."

"Naw, 's nothing." Beneath his stained face and sunken eyes the stranger is no older than the priest appears. "Never saw him enter any church but yours. But you're the real deal, huh? You gave him what he needed, alright. Fucker lived longer'n he had any right to and went away smilin'." He leers at the priest and in his raw mouth his teeth are stained dark. "Say, I got a confession, Father—"

"I am not interested in hearing your confession tonight." The priest shakes his head. "Not unless 'you' are someone who has risen from a grave."

"You lookin' for a zombie, then?" The figure at the booth is clawing the table. Her eyes, wild with confused hunger, are not unlike the greedy eyes of the stranger as he gropes along the bar for the priest's hand. "C'mon, Father, after ye've had yer drink 'n everything—I got more confessions, no shortage of monsters in the city—"

"Are you someone who has risen from a grave in the last four hours?"

"Father," the stranger croaks. His hand stills. "Father, I could really use some faith right now."

"Unless you've risen from a grave since sundown." The back window faces out towards an enclosed courtyard lined with overflowing dumpsters. A woman sits on the stoop of the building, smoking something that lights the crumpled planes of her face. Her eyes yawn at the priest through the glass. The priest drinks more baijiu, rust and rank coating his throat. "If not, I'm afraid we have nothing to offer each other."

The stranger's eyes swim like oil. "Nothing," he says, as if in a trance. "Unless I've risen..."

"Yes," the priest says, folding his empty cup between his hands. "If you can find him, I will give you faith."

"If I can find him..." The stranger repeats dreamily—then with conviction, slamming the bar in his rush to stand. "I can find him, Father—don't move a muscle—"

The stranger exits. The priest watches through the front window as he paces like a restless dog, fumbling with his phone. The horse observes his soundless frenzy with its vacant gaze. Minutes later four men arrive to confer with the stranger, gesticulating and staring openly through the window before pouring through the doorway.

"—know 'im, sir, if what 'e says is true—"

"—better be good, kid, draggin' us to this monster-crawling dump—"

"No." The bartender turns a hard glare to the stranger. "I told you, they're not welcome in my bar."

The ringleader of the group eyes the bartender and the priest with a lazy, predatory eye. Drapes of rough hide pile high on his shoulders. Wound around him is a billowing seam of steel wire threaded with miscellaneous teeth that chatter and tremble in their fixed orbits. Like a marionette he lifts a covered hand, pointing out a door at the back. "That a back alley?"

The bartender allows that it is.

"Ain't trying to conduct business in some cryp-fucker's bar anyhow." The ringleader spits toward the creature in the booth. "The alley'll do. Steady on now, Father. Yer lookin' fer someone, ain't ye?"

The group exits into the courtyard, squinting at the priest over the painted words of the back window. The smoking woman rises from her stoop, throws down her cigarette, and disappears into the building.

"I wouldn't go with them if I were you," the bartender says to the priest, frowning at the stranger as he follows. The back door shuts softly behind him. "Monster hunters. There's still bastards in this city who'll put a bounty on a cryptid, if you believe it."

The priest thanks the bartender, picks up his briefcase, and follows the stranger. The eyes of the two cryptids by the back window track him as he passes.

In the courtyard the ringleader sits on the dumpster, his gaze lifted to the square of red sky overhead. His three comrades squabble in city-crafted pidgin. In the corner the stranger cowers among the sewer-scorpions and subway-serpents as they vivisect desert mice. For minutes the priest, the stranger, and the ringleader bear witness as the lackeys howl and fight like dogs in some violent and impromptu ritual.

Finally one of them turns to the priest. He probes rusty fingers into his split lip. "You really Father Earnshaw?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, you are. That's yer voice, alright—guess my brother spoke true." The man jerks a crooked thumb at the stranger. He turns to the ringleader, who lowers his head with an irritated frown when interrupted from his heavenward contemplation. "Remember the one I told you 'bout, boss? Monster hunter back home, took out the filth, made me wanna try it myself? The Father here, he's the one ye should be thankin' for my good nature."

"Ain't nothing good about ye, and be thankful fer that." The ringleader's face is weathered stone. From the great folds of his curtained hides he draws a bowie knife and saws it idly along the dumpster, throwing up chains of sparks and a screech like a devil's violin. "Well, a friend of my crew's a friend o' mine. A monster hunter's the only decent kinda folk left in this city anyway." He turns to the window of the bar and spits onto the glass, right over the face of one of the cryptids blinking out at the priest with starving eyes. The cryptid does not flinch. The ringleader snorts. "Unnatural fuckers. What's yer business?"

"I am looking for an individual who rose from a grave tonight," says the priest, eyeing the sparks contemptuously as they leap across the pavement.

"Tall order," says the ringleader. "And it'd cost ye a pretty penny."

"I have no money."

"Ain't a dealbreaker." The ringleader pulls a cigar from his layers, lights it with the sparks from his knife, and puts it between his grinning teeth. "Jus' two things I'll need from ye, and we'll find yer man alright."

"Without payment?" The priest frowns dubiously.

"Well, I wanna watch when ye kill it. Any hunter that makes the monsters look at 'im like that, I gotta see." The ringleader gestures to the bar window and its twin stares. His coal-bright eyes rake over the priest like a physical touch, greed palpable enough to be lecherous. "Hells, I can feel it myself. Ye got a gravity, Father—maybe it's the pulpit."

The priest's trigger finger twitches. "What else?"

"Whatever yer hunting, I want a tooth." The ringleader rubs lovingly at the dirt-caked enamel on its twitching wire. "That one's a matter of policy, you understand."

The priest considers this. "I'm afraid I cannot abide by your conditions."

The ringleader chews at his cigar. "Then it's yer loss, Father."

"Father." The stranger rises with a shallow cry, his thick voice warbling. "I told ye, these men—my brother's gang, they can find—"

"But they cannot help me," the priest says. The men, orders rescinded, have taken up their ritual of mutual blood once more. The ringleader alternately oversees their bloodsport and turns his face to the tile of rust-fog caged above the courtyard walls. "Unless you are someone who has risen from a grave this night—"

"There's something else," the stranger croaks.

The men pause in their fight and tilt their heads like dogs hearing orders. The ringleader's cigar flares.

"I—" The stranger stops, his strange and shadowed shape expanding into the darkness. His thick voice rolls forth like slag come to snuff out the desert. "I'm a priest who does apostasy in the desert, Father."

Four pairs of eyes go to the priest and stay there.

"I never seen ye about town," says the stranger, shuffling slowly over the courtyard. "Never seen yer face up close before. Ye heard confessions since before my time but come to think of it, ye don't look much older than myself."

Inexplicably, the priest smiles.

"Ye kill monsters, but more come crawlin' out every year." The stranger sways, transfixed like some messianic prophet. "An' I—I went out to the dig site one night for a smoke—we were buildin' the rig back home, brother, ye remember—and I heard a—a rumor. From the contractors."

His eyes are pinpricks at the tail end of the cavernous sockets hollowing his skull. The men have started to creep forth, their tongues lolling in their wolfish smiles.

"Ye killed 'em the next day, Father, but I heard 'em say—that they were gonna eat ye." In the window behind them the cryptids are still staring hungrily at the priest. "That they were gonna eat ye, and they were gonna live forever. That any cryp that eats ye would."

"Is that right," the priest says softly.

"Is it?" The stranger steps forth to join the circling men, sorrowful and trembling. "Because if it's true, Father—and I'm sorry if it is, but if ye can't give me faith—well, maybe there's still something else ye can give."

The priest does not answer. His briefcase sits preternaturally still in his hand.

With a decisive clatter the ringleader leaps down from the dumpster. All eyes in the cramped courtyard swing to him as he stalks forth on padded boots, slinging his knife into its sheath. From his silhouette he extracts a bottle and uncorks it into his hand. Out spills a strange and shining tar, a metal oobleck that shudders ecstatically in his palm before cresting over his fingers as a chittering swarm. It expands through the alley, bashing walls and vocalizing to itself, seizing and singing, before it coalesces with a satisfied croon into a hovering cloud around the priest.

"Well," says the ringleader. His teeth are a swirl of white debris. His eyes have the hunger of a beast. In the window the cryptids watch like huddled bats waiting for carrion. "Would ye look at that, brothers? Guess we've found ourselves a monster after all."

"What should we do with 'im, boss?" The stranger's brother spits at the priest's feet. "Bet there's plenty who'd pay for a cryp like him."

"Are ye kidding? We keep him, we'll never have to hunt again!—"

"—Hell, he'd bring 'em straight to us—"

"All of ye, shut up." The ringleader advances, his face solemn as a young god. His cigar burns a hot halo against the priest's cheek. "Here's what we're gonna do with 'im—we're gonna read him his rights, same as every other cryp." His lips pucker as he spits smoke into the priest's face. "Y'see, Father, here's the thing: if ye were human, my contraption here, she wouldn't take such an interest in ye. If ye were human she couldn't do shit to ye if she tried. Unfortunate thing is, you're a monster."

"Am I," the priest intones flatly.

"'Course ye are. Y'see, she's hungry for whatever it is inside ye devils that makes ye what ye are. My girl's gotta eat, same as anyone else." The ringleader shakes a fat lump of cigar ash onto the priest's shoe. His summoned mechanical nebula gleams like dark blood under the rust-fog. "Same as those monsters came to eat you—and ye killed them, right? So ye understand how it is. When yer hungry, ye eat however you can."

"I understand," says the priest, and opens his briefcase.

The ringleader whistles and that robotic cloud clamps down like a jaw—nanobots encase the priest's hands in a hard metal sphere, its weight toppling him to the pavement. His briefcase skitters across the ground. The ringleader bends low over the priest, musty breath penetrating his nose, and plants one boot onto the splayed strands of his dark hair.

"But ye ain't gonna kill me," the ringleader pants, his spittle painting the priest's face. "Ye can't. My good girl's eating ye even now, isn't she? Gotta hand it to ye—most monsters can't even see straight once she's chomped down." The ringleader pries the priest's mouth open with his thumbs, thrusting padded gloves against enamel as he traces the priest's gums and tongue. The priest drools helplessly around the leather. "Here's what I'm gonna do with ye, Father: I'm gonna take a tooth, as a matter of policy. Then I'm gonna kill you." He drags the priest into a bizarre embrace, breath fogging over his neck. His orbiting teeth scrape at his body with their own long-dead hunger. "And then I'm gonna eat ye, and I'm gonna live forever."

The mechanical swarm is forged from the same mines that snuffed out the desert with slag. In principle its hunger is the same as baigujing and every demon that came before her, every monster that gazes upon the priest with greed, cryptid or human. It is looking to eat power.

But the monsters who would eat the priest are addicts craving purity. The humans who would eat him are driven by primal greed. This strange network of metal, chewing at his wrists, is a weak imitation seeking weak imitation. For once, someone is hungry for something the priest cannot give.

"As I told the bartender before you arrived," the priest says, lips to the ringleader's ear. "I am not a human or a cryptid. I am neither."

With both hands he swings the fist of metal towards the ringleader's skull. The ringleader crumples and the weight hurtles through the window of the bar, shattering both into blue-flecked glass and robotic gravel. The cryptids by the window howl, leaping forth; the men draw knives in response, faces speckled with blood, and the bar erupts into panic. In the fray the priest collects his briefcase and sprints into the room before a switchblade presses suddenly to his throat.

"You shoulda just given me faith, Father," the stranger sobs. He clings to the priest like a child. "It didn't hafta be this way. Ye coulda jus' given me faith and we'd be on our way, but ye didn't and now—I got no choice." Snot and saliva stain the priest's cassock. "I need to eat ye, Father—there's no other way, I see that now. Faith won't save me, not from this."

Patrons flee. The men come scrambling through the blasted window. The stranger squeezes the priest's skull so hard his eyes bulge. The switchblade wobbles uncertainly until the priest takes pity on the stranger, extricating himself gently from his arms and turning to face him with ruinously blank eyes. The stranger looks up at the priest like he's seeing God.

"What in the nine hells are ye waitin' for?!" The stranger's brother roars, staggering forward.

The priest takes the switchblade from the stranger's fingers and plunges it swiftly into his own shoulder.

The blood that springs forth is no liquid. It streams over his forearm like holy light, its radiant form a golden web of shifting sigils seeking shape, truth so pure the city burns with shame. Within the eyes of the stranger and the bartender and all men its pure light is captured and magnified into a warped and golden greed, and the hungry eyes of the humans who see it are the same as the hungry eyes of the cryptids by the window who look upon the priest and see the promise of eternity.

The priest pulls the knife from himself in a wide arc, splattering motes of gold onto the carpeted floor.

The stranger roars. The ringleader drags himself through the window, blood foaming from his scalp in great bubbles. The men dive for the gold as it soaks to a pale stain, their pretended violence brought into stark relief; one laps at the ground; another bites the floor and his teeth shatter. In the chaos the priest pockets the blade and exits the room.

The horse bends to greet him, eyes wide. The priest reaches a hand to its muzzle, smearing restless gold on its white hide. Together, they depart soundlessly into the night.

|-FIDDLE-|

DROPPED

|-WISH BONE LEAN-|

The Burnside post office had long been subject to budget cuts over the past few administrations. Sending mail had become blunderingly archaic rather than romantically vintage or analog. Few people sent letters and even fewer received them. The building, tucked in a random neighborhood, was still operated by a lone staffer who maintained the space, spending many empty hours thinking, waiting, and hoping for the years to pass and the eventual hope that some developer would come into Burnside, purchase the building, and develop it. But the worker also knew Burnside would never be an attractive place to gentrify. So it was a bitter week, stewing in that latter thought about the reality of the neighborhood. It was also an empty week, no letters came through the office.

So the dust mites of Burnside, the only things that could know of such unrelated information, found it odd when a letter made its way into the mailbox of Wish Bone Lean. To be fair, his was one of the most active mailboxes in Idyll. While everyone else had turned to a virtual system with dubiously safe privacy and confidentiality (Congress had ruled that only physical postage was protected by law) the kind of jobs that Wish Bone provided warranted letters sent by hand. He needed letters that showed proof of a soul—that had fingerprints and coffee stains and the creasing of dried teardrops.

It was late morning and Wish Bone had finished tending to the lizards growing in his backyard. The two-tailed variety was coming along nicely and enduring the hot afternoon sun. They were not dying, unlike last year's variety. Walking to the front yard, Wish Bone wiped the sweat off his forehead with the base of his t-shirt scrunched in his fist. Hobbling along, he did as he always did and struggled to open up his plastic mailbox that had been warped several times over by the Arizona heat. This was yet another sign that this was no longer a real place to live, at least not for people.

Inside was a single letter. Wish Bone removed it from the mailbox and read the front side. Sure enough, it was addressed to him. He looked up and around to see if anyone else was out on the street. While he could hear some kids playing in a nearby lot and some dogs barking with joy, there was no one who saw this retrieval. That was good, so he tucked the envelope into his waistband and walked inside.

Wishbone moved through the flat and into the kitchen. Before taking a seat at the table, he removed the mail from the elastic band of his shorts and held it in his hand. The first thing he noticed about the letter was the handwriting. Angular and sharp, Wish Bone knew that this was not from a person of the most recent generation or two. This was a handwriting untouched by the newer waves of teaching pedagogy, it was a handwriting that showed age of some kind. It was information like this that was important to glean before even meeting a person, at least to him. Using generalizations, you could know how receptive a person might be to certain rituals.

Using a steak knife from the drawer, he cut open the seal and unfolded the paper inside. The second thing he noticed was the organization of the letter. The sprawling wall of text, despite being disorganized in its contents (a usual trait for people asking for Wish Bone's hunting practice), the actual format of the letter was neat. It included some good vocabulary words, too. So the portrait of this person came further into focus. It was someone who lives somewhat comfortably.

He continued scanning down the letter, and amidst explanations of an irrelevant life and series of events, the note concluded with a plea: My wife is gone. I think I am being spiritually stalked. I don't know who else to ask for help.

He put the letter down on the table and leaned back. In thought, he placed his hands on the back of his head and stared at the ceiling. The letter had described a lot of things—feelings of shadowy presences, chilling sounds during the night, odd encounters with passersby wearing garbs. And while this made sense for a variety of spirits and beasts, there was something that felt inconclusive and absent. While Wish Bone had noticed an odd feeling while fetching the mail, it was not like any of the others he had experienced. There was not the sneering, sharp hunger of a wendigo nor the manipulative winds of a trickster spirit. This felt like something new.

And for that reason, Wish Bone reread the last paragraph of the letter: Please meet me tonight at the Mirage's Diner. I'll have a booth.

It didn't take much deliberation for Wish Bone to come to a decision. Something felt unsafe, and unsafety was never good, especially not the Burnside. They kept each other safe, especially because Idyll was often unprepared for what they might face. And, on the bright side, this certainly would result in some more payment when the next batch of lizards reached maturity.

But he had hoped to go to bed early, and for that, he let out a sigh.

***

Mirage's was located on the outskirts of Burnside and away from downtown. Really, it was one of the last holdouts before the city limits turned to bluffs and federal land the city hadn't brokered a purchase of yet. It caught a lot of travelers as a result and was a good spot to avoid anyone established in the city. These were people who left as they arrived—forgotten.

It was for this reason Wish Bone suspected the letter's author picked the location. He had been there several times before and even helped Mirage when she thought some melon heads had been disrupting her son when he worked the weekend closing shifts. He had parked in the back right as the sun dipped behind some of the plateaus on the horizon and passed the time by smoking a cigarette out the window with his boots propped up on his dashboard.

From behind the back corner of the diner he had seen several groups of hitchhikers, businessmen and their mistresses, travel nurses, you name it. These were members of the usual clientele. During a lull, Mirage had slipped out the back door to deliver Wish Bone a red ceramic mug with coffee in it. Mirage always made a great pot.

"You see 'em yet?" She asked.

"Nope. Anyone sticking out inside?"

"Nada. Think one of the big lawyers is breaking up with his girl, though. The fry cook's been eyeing up that fight." Mirage laughed to herself and sighed. She fished out a pack of cigarettes from her apron and offered one to Wish Bone.

"Creighton?" He asked. She shook her head.

"I don't smoke those, too dark." She mumbled this answer with a cigarette between her lips, her right hand too busy picking at the four remaining fake nails on her left.

"They're good."

"And they're killers, too. I may not know how to stop smoking but I know not to smoke those."

Wish Bone laughed at this comment and took a sip of the coffee. It was strong but good. He really wasn't going to bed early tonight.

Mirage took notice of the chuckle. "No really, Wish. I gotta grandkid on the way."

"Congratulations."

"Yeah, hate the baby mama though. She's not one of us." Mirage dipped her face and shot him a glance from above the frames of her glasses. "You know, not from Burnside."

"Maybe that'll be good for him." Wish Bone did not remember Mirage's son's name. She had two. Mirage was never specific about these sorts of stories.

"Maybe, but she wants to move my boy out of the neighborhood—go somewhere nicer or maybe even somewhere up north."

"Out of Idyll?"

"Out of Idyll. And I said 'Absolutely not' but she didn't like that very much."

Wish Bone took another sip. Mirage sighed again and rubbed the cigarette against the side of Wish Bone's truck. She tsked and looked down at her wrist, which lacked a watch.

"You got the time?" She asked.

"It's been five minutes."

"Shit, the eggs." She brushed any ash off her hands by rubbing them against her apron and walked back inside. Wish Bone took another sip of coffee and sighed.

***

It was another hour or so before someone of interest pulled into the parking lot. The car stood out because it was small. This was not the car of someone who needed to move things around. It pulled into a spot and, once still, a man stepped out and walked into the diner. There was a dazed look to him, and his walking speed showed a subtle speed of urgency.

Wish Bone took another sip of his coffee, emptied the mug, and uncurled his body from his truck. These were going to be the last few moments of calm before learning about someone else's storm. He decided to enjoy them, to take time fixing his hat, tightening his belt, and taking a slow strut from the back spot in his parking lot to the front entrance of Mirage's diner. He opened the door and a woodsy chime greeted him. He looked to his left and spotted the back of the man's head, gray in color. Before making his way over, he stopped at the bar to refill his cup and made his way to the booth at the very end of the restaurant. Black and white linoleum tiles passed beneath his stride.

As he stood at the end of the table the man looked up at him.

"Are you the hunter?" He asked.

"I am." Wish Bone replied. The man offered the seat across from him as if he owned it. Wish Bone nodded.

Mirage's daughter strolled over with some menus and placed them down. The man looked uncomfortable.

"Can I get you boys anything?"

"Oh no, I'm goo—" he said.

Wish Bone cut him off, "Sausage and eggs for me, miss." He nodded with a smirk. He wrote that on her notepad.

"And anything for you, sir?"

"No, no." The man shook his head.

"Y'sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure." He leaned forward in his seat and placed his forearms on the table, seemingly stressed by the unplanned act of a diner doing what a diner does: serve food. Wish Bone leaned back and looked at the waitress, shutting his eyes and nodding with a smile as if to signify that she was free to go. She smiled back and went back behind the diner bar.

The table was silent as Wish Bone stared at the distressed man. He had a bag with him, tucked between him and the wall. Wish Bone looked to the side at the rest of the restaurant. While he scanned, the man finally spoke.

"So should I start, or you?"

"You can start." Wish Bone replied. The man let out a heavy breath.

"I don't know where to" and he crumpled his head into the booth's table.

Wish Bone's lips formed an annoyed snarl for a second, but he was used to dealing with people like this.

"Alright. What's your name?"

"Earl."

"And what d'ya do?"

Earl looked up with a kind of alarmed look in his eyes as if this information was too revealing to say. Wish Bone gave him a look of equal intensity back.

"I don't think that's important."

Wish Bone nodded and put a pin in that for later. It was always important.

Before he could ask the next question, Mirage's daughter came over with Wish Bone's order.

"Enjoy," she said.

Wish Bone grabbed the fork and knife and began to chip away at his dinner. Earl looked at him with a kind of annoyed look. He certainly was a kind of entitled guy, but at least Wish Bone chewed with his mouth closed.

He swallowed the bite and wiped his mouth with the napkin.

"Can we cut to the chase?" Wish Bone asked. Earl crumpled his head again as if he had slowly been working up some bravery to talk about it and that had suddenly been knocked over.

"Fine. Okay." He said, mentally steadying himself. Wish Bone took another bite from his plate. Earl looked down at his hands, picking at a lack of dirt beneath his thumbnail. He continued. "A few days ago my wife just went and disappeared. But that's not the start of it, just the most important thing right now."

"So when did things start?"

"Well, I'm getting to that. See Martha, my wife, and I became empty nesters recently and we've been enjoying that. I work a pretty light load running my business and she does part-time at the Idyll public library and now we finally got time for all our interests and all."

He took a breath. Wish Bone had gathered that this beginning part was a regurgitation of some kind and that the next bit was going to be something like that too.

"But then things started getting a little bit strange. Like stranger than usual. Seemed like the whole air became sour with our presence and unease and people acting tense to us. Nothing really out of the ordinary I guess, but just feeling bad. Martha and I went to the doctor but all of that was in check, and none of the neighbors had noticed anything either. We even got the AC and gas replaced in case there was some gas that the detectors weren't picking up.

"But then one night we got back and things just really felt off. And..." He trailed off but quickly realized he had forgotten something. He turned to his bag and pulled out a book and a pad of paper.

"Alright, so I forgot to mention that my wife practices a kind of spirituality. The stuff with water and nails and honey or something, I don't get it but happy wife, happy life, right?"

Wish Bone didn't know.

"Anyway, she had gotten into this after finding this book during a shift at her library branch. Took it home and read it and got invested in everything. It had been checked out right before her, but before that, it hadn't been checked out in years. Thing smelled awful when you opened it up, like the book had been sitting in a closet collecting age." He placed the book on the table. It was some standard intro to witchcraft, some hippy-dippy guide that seemed to date at least to the twentieth century. Wish Bone wasn't familiar with that one in particular, but he had seen many like it before.

Earl continued. "Like I said, that kind of stuff wasn't my thing, but then she started doing some of the things in the book right when some of the weird feelings were starting. Now I'm not sure if maybe I'm just holding on to being raised in the church and all and was feeling subconsciously weird but that night I had talked about before? Well, things felt really odd and I had gone to grab a glass of water in the downstairs kitchen, and BAM! There were some people looking inside our front door windows. So I turned on the lights but they continued looking inside. I didn't really know what to do so I ran to the closet and grabbed a broom and called out for Martha to stay up there. I started yelling at the people to get away from the front door and was holding that broom like a bat or something, there in the kitchen in only my underwear. I think I finally scared them off because I saw them running away, but then when I went back upstairs to my bedroom Martha was gone. Missing. Like she was never even there. So of course I reported this to the police but there was nothing showing the people on the security cameras and all so they told me there was nothing they could do. But my Matha wouldn't just run off. She wouldn't."

The words seemed to fall out like vomit. But at that, he had finally reached a stopping point and was panting. Wish Bone, the entire time, had been working on clearing his plate of eggs and sausages. He was almost done. There was another round of silence as Earl regained himself, but Wish Bone picked up that he thought he had said all he needed to say.

"So why're you calling me?" Wish Bone asked.

"Oh, right. Well—" he flipped the pad of paper around. On it were a bunch of rambling scribbles about seemingly nothing ordinary, in particular. There were a bunch of symbols and scratching out and, very simply, pieces that seemed like just testing a pen's ability. Wish Bone picked up another page and a similar style was on the next and next and next.

"So Martha had been making these a few nights prior to her leaving, but only a page or so. I know that because I had used the same pad for some accounting." Earl flipped two more pages to show his handwriting and the page filled with math. "But then the next few pages just get dark."

From across the table, he continued moving through the remainder of the legal pad. It started off the same as the first few pages but continued as they moved through the pad the pages seemed to get more force-pressed in by a pen. The symbols seemed hastily drawn but with more pressure than a ballpoint could survive. And then the pages just became black. Endless scribbles of ink. Wasted.

"Ain't that freaky? And after I went through the police and all these private investigators, I walked back downstairs, and on the floor was the book open on this page. And that's when things really started feeling bad for me. I even went to mass for the first time but then I decided to go out searching for something else." Earl opened a dog ear page and passed it to Wish Bone. "It's some odd thing called a—"

Wish Bone quickly shot his hand up in alarm. "Don't say it. Don't say its name." Wish Bone cracked the spine of the book and laid it out on the table. The air around them seemed to break and thaw. Then Wish Bone closed the book with a decisive thud and looked directly at Earl, who now seemed more desperate and helpless than ever. Wish Bone scanned the faces of the diner, confirming all of them to still be human but one couldn't be so sure. So he dropped his voice to a low whisper.

"Tomorrow, we prepare. Then, we hunt."

|-ALEKI YOUNG-|

DROPPED