I remain keenly aware of Typh-Ea passive aggresively hovering near the branch office as I am quickly ushered past the lobby.

There’s a crowd gathering underneath her already apparently, not a lot yet, dozens if not low hundreds, news has spread about her but things take a little time even in this city and Typh-Ea makes me look at a slightly doughy man taking a picture of her with mouth agape at the same time I try to turn a corner, and my foot plows straight into a wall hard enough to make me yell, and I can feel a sense of contempt and embarassment fill my mind from her’s, but then someone shoots a gun underneath her and we don’t even get the chance to look at whoever did it before some random woman wrestles them to the ground and I have to stop in place for a little bit because I guess that’s what I’m looking at now and someone around me asks if I’m okay and I open and then close my mouth again because the fuck do I tell her? And the woman in my feed is struggling to get a grip on the man’s gun, and I don’t even get to see much of what happens next because someone ran in to kick the shooter in the face and all of a sudden I’m back in the room again because she finds what happens next to be a ‘trite melee’. 

I wave the woman trying to help me off and I just know that she’s going to vaguepost about ‘not wasting her time with trying to help random druggies anymore’ later by the look in her eye when I walk past her.

By the time I get to the velvet room and start smiling vaguely at the guard to get myself ready to say anything I already know that a couple dozen of people like her but better armed are outside and waiting for the police to get here and break the gathering crowd apart with gas and rubber bullets and loud sounds and enough vans for people to disappear into.

I hand over my phone because the guard asked, and the suspiciously heavy looking metal door opens up by itself and reveals an oppressively red and expensive looking room with Salome sitting at the end of a short table. I take a step inside and the door seals itself shut behind me with a noticeable hiss and shift in air pressure.

Before I could say anything or do more than panic and think about immediately checking the door for handles I am cut off by Ms Tzeitman simply asking, “Did that work?”

I give her an odd look and she continues on with, “This entire room is one large deadzone, anything not plugged in should be cut off so, am I just talking to you Holly Bashur? Or is it still in the room with us, your…” she clicks her fingers a couple times, “What’s the word… mecha?”

I am very suddenly aware of where I am in exact grid coordinates within this building and the approximate tensile strength and hardness of the materials involved in its construction and how the building was likely designed to withstand many things short of an orbital bombardment but of course not you know, the thing where we burst through the walls and smear everything into paste for even daring to cross her like this.

I frown vaguely at Ms Tzeitman and say, “No, she’s still with us.”

Ms Tzeitman sighs, “Great, well I trust that the both of you can keep a secret?”

As I reach out to take a seat I think back to earlier this month, when my mom said she was praying that I’d meet a nice man on this trip and I quote, ‘learn to settle’, “Yeah, yeah.”

Ms Tzeitman motions at eight identically masked figures dressed in tight leotards with suit jackets and bowties on that I initially assumed was just an elaborate if eerily human prop, only for them to shift from what I now recognize was a resting position to take up their instruments once more as she speaks, “Hey can you play the uhhh, I think there was this song with a beat that goes ba bum ba dum tum tish I heard on the radio earlier that’s still stuck in my head, you know the one right? It’s a new one by that singer with the dogshit hairdresser, I need that but a bit more easy listening? Something to serenade us with, thank you.”

The song kicks in, a bit awkwardly as a cellist is forced to somewhat substitute a bass, “So…. the world is finally ending.”

The drummer hamfists a beat, and Ms Tzeitman shoots them a dirty look as she continues with, “The Duke destroyed R.O.M.E. vaunted fleet in moments Ms Holly, I need you to understand that decades of work, thousands of irreplaceable lives, and so fucking many euros are gone! Everything! Everything ended in one fell swoop because the man can just kick a capital ship Holly, he had swarms upon swarms of drones collapsing in on themselves to pump lasers clean enough to cut through just about anything and in the end he looked at our fleet’s pride and joy, the ship those USC morons told us would be enough to make the earth bastards think twice about invading us and he just flew over and kicked it! Everything is fucked Holl-.”

I’m staring straight ahead at Ms Tzeitman, but I am actually looking at her powerless useless fucking stupid self as just one more lifeless body buried underneath the rubble and I let out a sound somewhere in between a wailing cry and a scream and unlike all of the other times it doesn’t stop until I slam my fist down again and again upon my thigh, “Oh God we’re fucked! You said you were going to handle it and didn’t need me there and I believed you why did I-I could have stayed at the hotel! I could have ran up and fought him but now you’re all going to die I ca-”

She cuts me off by snapping her fingers at me again and again until she finally settles by speaking on top of my blubbering, “NOT IF WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Christ, let a woman speak can’t you? The Duke said that one didn’t count.”

“What?” is all both Typh-Ea and I can say.

“We confirmed it with R.O.M.E.’s support staff, but it was the Duke who sent us the footage. He wanted us to know that he and his men are only interested in challenging the ‘Indigo Warrior’, and that he is ugh, graciously willing to forgive such a young and unaccustomed species’s folly without making them pay the price for their barbarousness, said it was typical for those of the periphery,” she takes a swig from her glass, draining it almost dry.

That’s good? About as good as all of those people dying could be but doesn’t that mean? Oh God it’s all up to me isn’t it? Just me (us) against his army when I (we) barely fumbled our way through beating him in the first place? (Because you were too busy panicking to tear him apart) No! I don-I’ve never been up to space! (I have) I barely knew what I was doing down here (true) how am I supposed t-My train of thought is very suddenly interrupted by Typh-Ea’s memory playing in my mind, her standing alone against a giant totem mech with tentacles for self defense limbs and a mouth that could render sound even in space, strong enough to warp even my thrown staff/spear metal into slag, the man inside me laughed at that though and barreled on through, striking at the waves with his own lightning to tear a hole big enough for an outstretched fist to twist through and grab on to the beast’s throat and quieting it enough for him to yank it back and break the whole thing apart on my body as we laugh and laugh and-

Ms Tzeitman has been staring at me this entire time, well I mean, it’s a meeting so of course she’d be looking at me but she’s really staring you know? I’m staring right back at her when she says, “Shocking I know, but I think we can turn this into a real opportunity for you and I.”

“How do you mean?” I end up blurting out.

“Well, you’re not planning on just heading out to save the world and what? Do nothing with it aren’t you?”

“Save the world? I don’t even know if I can survive Ms Tzeitman, all of this is a little…”

“Of course you can, with my help and a bit of ingenuity and hard work on your part I’m sure you can slog through them just fine, I mean you have beaten the Duke before haven’t you?”

Typh-Ea is warning me again, telling me in bloodyminded terms what’s at stake here and that I’m wasting my breath just speaking with this woman to begin with, “Your help? You just told me that everyone in that fleet died without so much as scratching him!”

“Well maybe not now, but we’ve got our finest minds working on scavenging and studying every piece of scrap and weaponry the Duke left behind, if anything is usable there you’ll be the first to know, and that’s not the only thing I have to offer as well,” she’s got a little gleam in her eye as she speaks, drawing me into her.

She’s smiling at me and I don’t think it’s entirely fake, “If you work with me you’ll have a salary to start, the finest meals money can buy, somewhat direct access to the one line of contact we have with the Duke and his forces, an open area I’ve been eyeing that we could try to lure them over, you know, keep people safe from shrapnel and unexploded ordnance and other dangers, and on top of all that well, I know you’re not the most politically aware woman Holly, but a warhero like you? You might not be able to conquer this world, but once you’ve saved it? There’s a lot of programmes, a lot of reforms we could push through together if you had the right PR, the right connections, the right coaching.”

I am very markedly aware of Typh-Ea slowly and purposefully moving to loom over the building as we speak, I try not to think about it by looking at the plunge of Ms Tzeitman’s v cut dress instead, “Oh I’ve never really been, I’m really not some sort of agitator,” I say, looking up at her face as if trying to pass some sort of hidden test.

Weirdly enough this makes her sigh, “Holly, your older sister Fatima, you know she works for my company right? In Fiume.”

I twitch a little in place, fuck, what did I just do to her? “Uh, please, she doesn’t know about this, I’ll-if you do anything to her.”

Ms Tzeitman laughs at that, “No no, she’s not in trouble, but you know I heard that she’s been requesting a parenting license lately, did you know that? Fifth year in a row, she loves her job, got promoted recently and really wants to stay there, but she and her wife has been talking, and yes, she has a wife now, remember the last time you saw her over at Chrismas dinner? Been a while right? I know that she’s been staying in town, she loves her wife you see, almost as much as her job.”

“But you know, Fiume was one of my great greatgrandfather’s art cities, and back in his day immigration was a real problem right? It was just after the big one, earth was destroyed, the USC didn’t care to keep them, and they just sprang up everywhere here right? Touched down anywhere that seemed breathable with fertile land to till.”

“He fucking hated that, wrote a lot of essays about how dirt eaters would rape this planet just like they did their’s and ruin the societal harmony of our homeland by bringing over their ethnic conflicts. He wasn’t a good man, but he was one of the first corporate council members to propose a piece of legislation, this was way before the Junta was a thing, and it was a big deal! It actually got signed into law! One that every city still follows you know? Quotas, he set population quotas on every habitable region on the planet and made it whoever else’s problem to enforce it because that bald prick died of an infection the year it passed.”

“The problem is, my uncle loved that law, my father loved that law, their father loved that law, and so did every other CEO’s fathers, and I mean sure most places kept bumping their quotas up, but not Fiume, never Fiume, not fast enough anyway, and I’m sure your sister could move, or they can both quit their job or get a transfer but their house is in a real good neighborhood already, and really, how is that their problem you know?“

“She’s 35, her wife’s pushing 40, they’re more than old enough to make their own decisions and yet my dead great great grandfather is still telling them no because fuck the migrants right? We need to keep our city beautiful, orderly, pure. I want to kill that law Holly, not just in my cities, but in every city, and I need you to understand that there’s so fucking many like them, but I can’t do it on my own, not quickly enough to keep your sister from feeling vaguely guilty about the eggs she’s frozen. I know that’s a weird thing to say but I’m serious.”

I’m left speechless, no really, my sister’s eggs? That’s a bit, I know where she’s coming from but what am I even supposed to say to that? I haven’t even talked to her really i-Typh-Ea cuts me off and tells me that whatever reforms I felt like doing would grow out of the tip of her mace anyway so none of this matters, but I can’t help but think of how many people I personally would have to kill to get there. 

“Okay but I could get that through without your help right? If I beat the Duke again and save the world they’ll have to listen to me.”

Ms Tzeitman just laughs and laughs at this, “Fuck no, are you kidding me Holly? I know how the other three work, you think you can just go up into space on your own and come back a beloved hero and ride all that into success? You being in this room is why the people you know aren’t taking groufies in front of cement and black bags. The fact that any of them think you’re one of mine to begin with, it scares the shit out of them but they’re fucking around with trying to find schematics Holly, or some way of contacting and bribing you into flipping on their side. They think you’re some deep cover test pilot instead of what you really are, a nice middle class woman who’s in over her head.”

“But the moment you walk out of here? The moment they realize you’re nobody’s and no one and that your cover is just your actual ass shitposting on my furry babies dot ac? That’s when they’ll give you the call Holly, ring fucking ring, it’s your mother asking why the police are asking these weird questions about you and the weird sites they say you’re running? It’s your sister who just got a weird letter with your name on it after her wife had a tragic accident, and sure you could start killing them all, god knows I would but would anyone you love understand? And could you be there, everywhere, all at once to protect them when the whole world is crashing down on you for trying Holly?”

There’s a part of my brain that’s agreeing with Typh-Ea as she outlines her deranged sounding plan to crush every single major office owned by the gang of four and the central government within ‘only a few hours’, but I somehow doubt that this would stop my family from dying. “I… I don’t know.”

She’s smiling, breathless, passionate still, her hands a manic blur of movement as she speaks, “So let’s just pretend we’ve never discussed any of that, and that you Holly are exactly what they think you are, Dilmun’s secret weapon turned last, best hope, and a shining star to guide us into a new era where we will finally cast off the weight of that dead dead dead godforsaken world named earth and all of its weird hangups and stupid contradictions one reform, convention, or whatever the fuck we’ll call it then at a time.”

I open and close my mouth again, still barely clinging on as she figuratively sweeps me up to and fro, struggling only to say, “But what if I don’t want any of that? What if I fuck up along the way? What if all I want to do, all I can do after this is stop? Go and live a normal life, find a wife or something to settle down with? Get my medical license and forget that any of this ever needed to happen or that I was anyone’s anything other than what I am?”

Ms Tzeitman lets out a deep and genuinely painful sounding sigh, “I don’t know why the fuck you would do that, and unless we really luck out or you pass Typh-Ea on to someone (I feel a sudden spike of rage in my mind that centers me) it would be deeply irresponsible t-”

My voice is firm and unwavering as I cut her off, “I’m not asking if I should, I’m asking if I can, if that is what I wanted in the end.”

She tries to wave me off with another of her flippant hand gestures but I stand up and give her a look and she groans and says, “Who knows? Look I’m not joking Holly, if we pull this off at all your face, your voice, the way you move, people are going to idolize and memorize every single inch of that, I can give you the best surgeons money can buy, get them to fuck around with how you look and teach you how to sound like someone completely new, give you new papers here and there, but none of that means jack shit if enough people are around to put two and two together, but it’s a start, and it’s better than anything you could do yourself.”

I could walk away from all this huh? Without killing myself, the jagged pain in my head and the hand constantly thinking about being moved but never quite crushing us tells me that Typh-Ea really, really hates me even thinking about it, and you know? I think that’s enough to make me stop, “Okay then, I’m… how do we start?”

The next few hours are a blur of paperwork, outfit coordination and photoshoots and memorizing very boring looking maps of a barren desert and renders of the container home they were already moving there based on the assumption I would agree to all this and the preprepared script for exactly what I would say to the Duke in my broadcast to him and most of the world to challenge him and his forces for a duel on planet so that ‘my people can better witness and believe in their rightful protector’ and it all only comes to a halt because after spending her time doing nothing but psychically projecting scenes of pain and misery into my mind while vaguely admiring Salome’s logistical capabilities and wiliness, Typh-Ea makes an offhanded mention of how she should just reach out and squish ‘my woman’ now that she’s here and it takes barely a moment for me to open my mouth and make all of the right excuses to run right out of the door.
______________________________________________________________________

It takes me a little bit to actually find her, that nagging voice in my head awfully quiet the moment her help would genuinely be appreciated please, but I spot her there just staring up in awe and terror inbetween the crowd, phone in hand just as I stop walking for long enough to notice the buzz coming from my flight jacket’s pocket. 

I don’t stop to pick it up nor to keep my heart from leaping into my throat because all I can think about is that she’s just, she’s really there, she dropped everything and came here to see me and I rush over and spot that little glimmer of understanding in her brown eyes that makes her ask, “Holly?” before she pulls me into a warm hug as soon as I drift into reach.

“I thought you were dead! Your phone, your parents, I looked everywhere and I… we never should have-I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m,” I’m leaning against her, grabbing onto her shoulders, her back, just letting her know I’m here, I’m real, we both made it.

“I know, I know, when I woke up they told me they couldn’t get in touch with you and I didn’t have any of my numbers but I remembered the hotel and I didn’t know if you’d be there but you,” I let out a loud sigh, “Aliyah there’s so much going on and its all just too much! Too much but I’m really, really glad you’re here.”

“Yeah I’m,” she takes in a deep breath and catches the rough scent of smokey perfume wafting from my shirt and she gives me another look from top to bottom, “Wait did you trick them into thinking that you lost your nose in the quarry? Because that’s… man that looks, god what am I saying, you’re here! You’re walking around normally! I should just be grateful that we’re even together now…”

I… God where do I even start? Getting abducted at the quarry? The voice that’s now in my head? Explaining how my feelings for her haven’t changed I’ve just realized it’s what I really want after all this time? How I need to deal with the alien invader threatening to kill us all if I don’t personally duel him and his forces to death on a random patch of desert? Working personally for the CEO of the oldest of the Four to get my sister pregnant? She’s looking at me, watching my mouth open and close as I try to think through it all until it clicks into place just enough for me t-

Twitch and shove her onto the floor a few feet away from me before the liquid splatters onto my face and body where ours had met earlier and it doesn’t so much as burn as it ends, blinding me, robbing me of anything but the searing pain driving me face down gurgling onto the floor as I vaguely hear a man’s voice shout, “The Terran Reunification league will never submit to Corporate tyranny! Down with th-” before a few rounds ricochet off the giant fist that turns him into undifferentiated slurry pooling into the new hole in the pavement and people starts screaming all around me and I don’t get to stand up, I don’t get to do anything before I pass out as soon as my skull starts sculpting itself back into shape.