Necroepilogos

Eseld followed Shilu out of the resurrection chamber. The surviving pair of freshies followed Eseld; there was nowhere else to go.

The fresh meat pair stuck close to Eseld’s heels, holding hands as they tiptoed around the smears of blood and gore, careful not to slip or to dirty their feet. Eseld paused at the threshold, next to the metal lockers which were always present in every resurrection chamber; the lockers had already been ransacked. The girls who’d made it out first had grabbed the stun batons. There was no point pausing to wriggle into the grey jumpsuits. The clothing was always a waste of time.

Eseld looked back at the freshies. They were both terrified, faces smeared with the remains of snot and tears, hair still slick and damp with slime.

Eseld put a finger to her lips. “Shhhhhh. Quiet. And fast. We have to keep up with Shilu.”

The freshies nodded. Behind them, the clean white illumination of the resurrection chamber was fading, plunging the carnage and corpses into darkness.

Eseld turned away and stepped from the dying cradle.

In the smooth grey corridor outside, three pairs of bloody footprints led away to the right; the prints were uneven and overlapping, dusted with flakes of dried slime. Three runners, sprinting for freedom. A streak of blood stained one of the walls, ending in a big smeared splat on the floor. Hand prints showed where a revenant had scrambled to her feet. No corpse, no evidence of more killing. In the opposite direction, a trail of fresh glimmering gore led deeper into the warren of featureless passageways. Eseld knew from experience that was the wrong direction to reach the first downward ramp. Distant screaming whispered from far away, funnelled down the tangle of metal. Eseld’s initial guess had been correct — that trail of smeared blood was not a revenant dragging a companion to safety. An injured zombie had been hauled off by an opportunistic predator, hoping for a private meal.

Shilu was already thirty feet away, to the right. Her long black hair swayed with her stride.

The freshies were both staring off to the left, eyes wide at the sound of far-off screams.

Eseld hissed: “Ignore it! We can’t do anything!”

One of the freshies — the smaller one — said: “But—”

Eseld grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. The girl flinched, then gasped at the sight of Eseld’s mouth, full of sharp teeth. “Move or we’re dead! Move! Come on!”

She let go, turned away, and hurried to catch up with Shilu. The freshies dithered for a second, whispering to each other, but then they scurried after Eseld, bare feet pattering against the cold grey metal.

Eseld had always hated the upper six floors of each tomb, with their featureless smooth passageways and omnidirectional pale light and little branching capillaries. They made her feel as if she was being expelled from a dying womb, the soft tissues replaced with metal and stone. On her first resurrection she hadn’t found the way out. She had wandered the silver grey passageways for about six or seven hours, sobbing, hyperventilating, calling for her parents, screaming the names of her friends. Eventually she had curled up to rest, weeping herself to sleep in the pitiless light and cold eternity of these hallways.

She had assumed that these empty passages were the afterlife, and that something had gone horribly wrong with heaven. This couldn’t possibly be hell, of course, because Eseld had been devout and faithful all her life. She had kept God’s commandments and accounted for her meagre sins — a little lust here and there, some fury and envy, but who did not feel those? She did not lie or cheat or steal. She worked hard to hunt and trap, and shared her meat with her family, her neighbours, her friends. She practised charity whenever she could. She prayed — infrequently, to be sure, but she meant it whenever she did, especially when the weather was good and she stood beneath the vault of the sky and felt the world was a good place to be. She obeyed her parents, despite her tendency to keep to herself, to wander the woods and spend her hours on archery and hunting. So, this could not be hell, not unless God and the priests and the entire Church had lied to everybody.

Or unless Eseld had committed some terrible sin she did not comprehend.

She had decided, back during the screaming, weeping, mad hours of that first resurrection, that it was all because of Taran’s balls.

That hunt was one of the few clear memories which still surfaced on occasion, especially in those hours after resurrection, when Eseld could think and recall with greater clarity.

When Eseld was fifteen years old she had spent two summer months hunting a bear — a very special bear who had developed a taste for human flesh. The man-eater had killed and partially devoured an old miller from the village of Rockport, that spring. The miller had been elderly, unsteady, and dying of cancer, easy prey for a curious and hungry bear. But then three weeks later the bear had killed two small children in Deepsbridge; a few weeks after that, a woodcutter in Lower Boot, then a trio of hunters who had gone into the woods in order to deal with the creature.

Eseld’s parents had not wanted her to hunt the bear. It was too dangerous. The King was sending men, apparently, but they didn’t know the woods, and Eseld did. The King’s park rangers and professional fur trappers would blunder about the peninsular forests, spear some starving old she-bear, and claim victory. But Eseld knew the truth. The man-eater was a giant, twice the size of any other bear. It had eaten something in the woods, some foulness from the ancient world, a taint of witchcraft which had made it clever and strong. It knew where and when to hide. It thought almost like a person. Eseld had glimpsed it once, and it had stared back at her in return, with eyes that saw and understood.

She named the bear ‘Taran’, but had not spoken that name before any living soul, only to her little brother’s gravestone.

The hunt had taken all summer. She and Taran had learned each other’s routines, tracking each other in spirals through the deep woods. She had endured more than one ambush, and almost died twice. She had eventually bested the bear with a combination of snares, a metal jaw-trap she’d bartered for with threescore fox hides, and over two hundred arrows. Taran had looked like a pincushion when he’d finally closed his eyes.

Eseld had eaten Taran’s heart and testicles. She had told nobody about that, not ever. That was old magic, the kind her grandmother had whispered to her, from her own grandmother’s time, before the Churches and the Christians. Eseld had taken Taran’s head to the magistrate and claimed the reward, while Taran’s secret strength had boiled in her belly.

Bear killer! Single handed. Very few had believed it.

Such an irony that she would die a few years later to a broken leg and a sadistic master of hounds. Eaten by dogs, guts first. That first resurrection had rung with fresh memories of Eseld’s own death. She had drifted off in those grey metal arteries thrice, awoken each time by her own screams as her hands had tried to shovel entrails back into her belly.

After six or seven hours the undead predators had found her, and eaten her all over again.

Now, after so very many deaths, Eseld knew the way out of the grey tunnels by memory and instinct; everything below the top six floors of a tomb was jumbled and new each time, but the initial passageways were always identical. She had also learned that the many side-rooms full of biological experiments and nanomachine-flesh were not accessible without heavy weaponry; she had battered herself to pieces on those doors once before, and gained nothing from the experience but bruises and cuts.

Shilu knew the way out.

Shilu strode without looking back, chin and shoulders high. Shilu didn’t even bother to check the corners as she passed. Shilu’s long black hair shone like oil on the sea, clean of resurrection slime; Eseld was still picking the drying flakes off her skin and cramming them into her own mouth, running her fingers through her russet hair and licking the tasteless goop off her hands.

Eseld did not know what Shilu was.

That shape-shifting knife-arm trick back there was unlike anything Eseld had ever seen before, and must have required a truly gigantic store of nanomachines. But highly evolved revenants and predatory zombies did not make a habit of saving and protecting random fresh meat and bottom-rung scavengers. Nobody with power had ever saved Eseld before.

So, what was Shilu?

Not a zombie? Not a revenant. Something else. Something from outside all this?

Eseld did not dare ask.

Shilu led them to the first ramp, then down to the next floor. She didn’t speak. She didn’t look back. She didn’t spare Eseld and the fresh meat a single glance.

The fresh-meat pair — ‘Sky’ and ‘Cyneswith’ — did their best to keep up, scurrying in Eseld’s wake.

Halfway across the second floor down, they started whispering to each other.

“We’re in a fairy mound, aren’t we? We’re miles below ground, inside a fairy mound. I remember dying, it was horrible, just horrible. I should never have eaten the poisoned stew with the mushrooms, I knew it was bad and it was my own fault. The fairies must have brought us all back. And she — Shilu? — she’s a fairy! She must be! She’s part of the court, one of the aristocrats. She’s been cast aside or abandoned!”

That was Cyneswith. She was small and slight, though she seemed older than Eseld by a few years. Feathery blonde hair fell past her shoulders, shedding flakes of slime from fluffy little up-curls at the tips. Her face was dusted with freckles over pale skin, pinched and tight with manic energy. Her eyes were wild with caged panic. She did not look strong.

“We’re all uploads,” hissed the other one — Sky. “Brain uploads and re-prints. But that doesn’t make sense. My last imaging was two years ago, but I … I remember dying. I remember the bomb going off, just to my right. I saw it just before I went. I was too slow, had the perp to the ground, thought he was wearing a vest, but he’d already planted it. Fucker. Fuck! How can I be here with that memory if I was imaged two years back?!”

Sky was tall and muscular, though younger than Eseld. Dark hair lay in a thick twist down across one shoulder. Her skin was a ruddy red-brown colour that Eseld had never seen in life, but had encountered plenty in this Godless emptiness. She was bright-eyed and alert and checked her corners with care. She had the face of a professional killer.

Cyneswith had been resurrected without any visible bionics. She probably had something internal. Sky’s entire left side was bio-polymer synthetic skin, the seam barely visible unless you looked directly at the line.

Cyneswith hissed to Sky: “What are you talking about, madam? Are you a magician? Can you talk to the fae for us? Can you negotiate?”

Sky just tutted.

Eseld realised that she had no idea what she was doing with these two.

She had never left a tomb as part of a group before. Every prior exit had been a race to the gates, to get out before being caught, before the tomb was overwhelmed by raiders and predators from outdoors. Every successful exit was followed by a desperate scramble to escape the inevitable battle at the foot of the tomb, where monsters fought over the right to get inside.

Eseld did not know this fresh-meat pair. She had rescued them on an emotional whim, but she had no idea what to do, how to shepherd them out of here, or how to stop them dying, or how to explain the world to them. She had no idea how they would react under pressure, or if they would turn on her.

She twisted to look over her shoulder, without slowing her pace. “Both of you are wrong. Both of you shut up and concentrate!”

Sky whispered: “You seem to be pretty well informed. Thank you for saving us, earlier. But what’s going on here, where—”

“God’s dead and this is hell,” Eseld hissed.

She hadn’t meant to say that. She had wanted to say something like ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll get you out of here’, or perhaps ‘This is the end of all things, but we’re still around’. Instead she felt a hysterical laugh tug at her lips, fighting with a wet sob. These two girls had no idea what they were about to face. Eseld wished she could spare them that. Maybe dying in the resurrection chamber would have been more merciful. Maybe she had condemned them by saving them.

Cyneswith’s eyes widened again at the sight of Eseld’s sharpened teeth. She wet her lips with a dart of a little pink tongue. “And you’re a fairy, too. Are you Shilu’s attendant? Her knight?”

Sky said, “Shilu called us ‘zombies’, what did that mean?”

“Means we’re all dead,” said Eseld, struggling not to sob or bite down on a laugh. “Don’t— don’t think about it! Don’t think at all! Just move. Just walk. Just— just don’t!”

Sky shook her head. “And what was all that killing about, back there? Look, I’m no stranger to death and corpses, but that was madness. And that— that thing, with the teeth and claws, that was like a bio-mod job but it wasn’t based on anything, it just—”

Cyneswith let go of Sky’s hand and veered to the side. “You are all fairies and magicians, and none of you will use proper words! Please!”

Eseld hissed: “Panic and you’re dead. Keep moving, keep—”

Shilu stopped, turned around, and stalked back toward the trio.

All three scrambled to a halt. Eseld hunched her shoulders, dipped her head, and lowered her eyes.

Shilu stopped six paces away, then said: “Don’t do that.”

“ … don’t do what?”

“Grovel. Bow. I’m not your master. Stop that.”

Eseld forced herself to straighten up and look directly at Shilu. Wide dark eyes were framed by soft brown skin. Shilu wore no expression, like her face was a mask of flesh over an iron skull. Despite the shared nudity, Eseld felt naked and vulnerable.

“I should probably be sprinting,” Shilu said. “But that would leave you all behind. This pace is a compromise. Stop to argue and I will give up on you. Is that understood?”

“Yes,” Eseld said. “Yes.”

Cyneswith bobbed her head several times. “Madam.”

“Sure,” said Sky. “Thanks.”

Shilu turned away and walked on. Eseld shot the freshies a look, then scurried after Shilu. A moment later she looked back; Cyneswith and Sky were holding hands again, hurrying to catch up.

Shilu led the trio through the warren of passageways, descending the metal ramps between the floors, worming through the top slice of the tomb. She did not stop again, nor speak another word. Eseld concentrated on the side-corridors and capillaries ahead of Shilu, ready to screech a warning if she saw any movement. But she never did. The three zombies who had escaped the carnage in the resurrection chamber must have sprinted for their lives, and the predators ascending from outdoors had not yet reached this level. Cyneswith and Sky whispered to each other again, but they kept their voices low, and did not ask any more stupid questions.

Eseld needed a plan, but she did not know what to do. Shilu’s protection was unlike anything she had ever experienced. She could do nothing but follow in Shilu’s wake.

After the usual six ramps downward, the tight and twisty passageways of smooth grey metal terminated in a security checkpoint. This landmark was always present in every tomb, at the junction between organic metal and the more human lower floors. None of the machinery ever worked — the metal detectors and body-scanners and computers were all dead and dark, swept clean of every speck of dust and dirt, preserved exactly as they had been in some distant past.

Shilu strode through without pause. Eseld scurried after her, then turned back to make sure the freshies didn’t get confused.

Cyneswith eyed the arches and barriers with uncomprehending fear, but Sky seemed to know what they were, and guided the other freshie past the checkpoint. The trio emerged together onto the tiled floor beyond, among the orange cones and little yellow arrows.

This space was nothing new to Eseld; she had passed through the ancient checkpoint and sprinted past the waiting area so many times. Metal tables and chairs were always scattered on the right, before the bank of windows from wall to ceiling. Broken computers always stood on the desks to the left, always with black screens and empty innards.

It had been many dozens of deaths since Eseld had paused to stare out of the windows. She had long since given up the hope of ever seeing any sign of change. Staring down at the charred corpse of all creation was not good for one’s mind, even one already bruised into madness. The first time she had made it to this floor, Eseld had fallen insensible upon the ground, weeping silent tears at the rotten cinder of the world.

But Shilu had stopped. She was standing by the windows, looking through the glass.

Sky and Cyneswith stumbled past Eseld. Cyneswith gaped, letting out sharp little gasps as if she was suffocating. Sky went very still and very tense, eyes tracking back and forth across the ruins beyond the tomb, lips pressed into a tight line. Cyneswith began to sob, shoulders jerking, tears pouring down her face. Sky took Cyneswith’s arms in a gentle grip and tried to soothe her.

Eseld watched. Would Sky get violent if Cyneswith didn’t stop crying? Probably. Eseld was starting to make judgements about the freshies. Sky was a potential predator. Cyneswith would give up after one death and resurrection.

Eseld gave the fresh meat a wide berth, and edged up to the windows. She left a six or seven foot gap between herself and Shilu.

Beyond the toughened glass lay the corpse-city which covered the world. It was never the same twice, but it also never changed, like a preserved cadaver. Rotten towers scraped at the blackened underbelly of the sky, as if trying to tear it open and devour the sagging entrails of the dead sun; one corner glowed with faint red, embers trapped behind cold iron. Ash and mould and grey streaks of crumbled concrete spread out through the lower buildings like a skin disease upon the hide of a dying animal. Roads and railways snaked out into the city like capillaries and arteries plugged with congealed blood, gone black with decay and poison.

Far away to the left, Eseld spied the segmented grey line of the graveworm, the one which must have seeded her inside this tomb. Taller than any building, like a mountain range shorn of life, the worm was still. Post-partum. Recovering from the latest raid on heaven.

The black metal of the tomb pyramid descended toward the ground in gigantic steps; each layer was studded with long-dead weapon emplacements and sleeping cannons; Eseld had never seen those guns twitch or turn, let alone wake or loose their payloads. At the foot of the pyramid, the tangle of black metal walls and funnels and bridges were the same as ever, the same old killing ground, the same narrow exits, the same gauntlet leading out.

Except this time it was already packed with the undead.

Tiny black dots darted back and forth, far below Eseld’s lofty vantage point — zombies, hurling themselves into cover, or scurrying along trenches, or mounting assaults on opposing groups. The tomb’s outworks were a hive of violence, in the middle of a battle joined long ago. As Eseld squinted downward, she saw the orange blossom of a detonating warhead, the whirling machinery of a miniature armoured suit, and the flow of a hundred zombies charging up a ramp. The battle was not confined to the tomb’s outworks, but seemed to be spilling over from the edge of the city; the ruins teemed with revenants, with groups scurrying among the concrete and brick, highlighted here and there by the flash and puff of small-arms fire. A massive cloud of debris and masonry dust swirled in the air just to the right of Eseld’s view, down beyond the tomb’s outworks. Something down there was throwing up vast amounts of shrapnel, pounding the buildings with fire, shaking the ground beneath.

Shilu spoke.

“Doesn’t make any sense. Does it?”

Eseld almost jumped out of her skin. Shilu was staring down at the battle too. Eseld waited, but Shilu did not elaborate, nor look up.

“Right,” Eseld murmured. “Lots of them. More than usual. And they’re early.”

Shilu sighed in the same manner as she had back in the resurrection chamber. She raked one hand across her scalp. Her long waterfall of black hair shimmered in the dying light of the red sun, more like metal than keratin.

“Yes,” said Shilu. “A battle of that size should already have penetrated the tomb, two or three hours ago. A fast moving predator should have already reached this floor, or even the main birthing chamber.” Shilu gestured to her left, toward the rest of the security checkpoint room; a left hand turn in the corridor led to a set of stairs down into the rest of the tomb structure. “But we are not yet attacked.”

“Yeah,” Eseld said softly. She did not want to interrupt Shilu’s train of thought.

Shilu raised her eyes from the ground outside and looked directly at Eseld. Her eyes were so dark, like a starless void. “Why?”

Eseld hesitated; was this a test? “Because … because something is blocking them at the tomb’s gate?”

Shilu nodded. “Something is blocking them at the gate. Most likely. How many times have you been around, zombie?”

Eseld shrugged. “Don’t remember. More than fifty seven.”

Shilu looked at the fresh meat; the pair had stumbled closer. Sky had one hand on the windows as she gazed down at the dead world. Her other was wrapped around Cyneswith’s wrist. Her breathing was ragged with near-panic. Cyneswith was still crying, but slower now, as if in grief rather than horror. She held onto Sky’s arm like a little girl.

“What am I looking at?” murmured Sky. Tears were gathering in her eyes. “What happened? Nuclear war? I don’t … no. Who struck first? Us, or the Sudmercians? Did we burn the world? Did we burn it all down?”

“It’s hell, it’s hell,” Cyneswith whispered. “The fairies said, it’s hell. It’s hell. It’s hell and we’re dead. It has to be, it’s the underworld.”

“Shut up,” Sky said through clenched teeth. “Shut up!”

Shilu raised her voice. “You won’t survive an exit from this tomb, not through that battle down there. Your only chance is to move in my wake, but I doubt you can keep up with the necessary speed. Try if you like.” Shilu turned away from the windows, toward the stairs. “If I were you, I would make for the armoury, but I cannot spare the time for—”

Shilu stopped.

Eseld heard the footsteps a moment later. Click click click click — smart heels on solid floor, ascending the stairs.

A figure stepped around the corner.

Blonde hair fell in curling ringlets about snowy shoulders, framing a low neckline. A white dress made for the sun’s kiss clung to generous hips and caressed slender calves. Matching white leather shoes clicked across the floor tiles — high-heeled, toes exposed, nails painted red. Bare arms shone as if beneath a blue sky. Glittering green eyes danced in a glossy, healthy, plush-cheeked face. Red lips parted with a wet click. Delicate hands held a severed head by the hair, dripping a trail of fresh gore onto the floor as the figure approached.

A woman in a sundress, smiling with mischievous joy.

Eseld recognised the severed head — it was one of the three girls who had escaped the carnage of the resurrection chamber.

The sunny woman stopped and smiled with explosive delight. “Shilu! Soooo sorry I’m late for your party!”

Eseld backed away and bared her sharpened teeth; this revenant was beyond her comprehension, just like Shilu. Cyneswith and Sky went silent.

Shilu looked unconcerned. She said nothing.

The sunny woman pouted, swinging the severed head in one hand like a fancy bag. “You don’t recognise me, Shilu? Awww, Shishi. Tch, you’re being rude to amuse yourself. You always were like that, even with no constraints. Such a ratty little bitch.”

“It’s been a long time,” Shilu said. “Forgive me.”

The sunny woman rolled her eyes. “As if you would ever offer a real apology.” Her glowing green eyes darted sideways, glancing at Eseld and the pair of freshies. “And who are these three morsels? The big one looks yummy.”

“Nobody,” Shilu said. “Zombies.”

The sunny woman laughed and tossed the severed head to the floor. It landed with a moist thump. Both the freshies flinched. The head rolled until the eyes pointed toward Eseld; she tried not to look at them.

The sunny woman said: “You were always terrible at jokes, Shishi. Running around with zombies in tow, really? Now you’re just making more work for me.”

Shilu’s eyebrows twitched.

The sunny woman’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh, Shishi, you weren’t joking. You don’t recognise me, do you? Because you can’t. You’ve been crippled. Wings clipped. Gotten the snip-snop.”

Shilu answered slowly. “I do not have full permissions. Something has gone wrong.”

The sunny woman laughed again, louder and brighter this time, opened-mouthed to show off her clean white teeth. “Gone right, more like! Is that why you’re all fleshy, not doing your robot-girl shtick? Oh, thank my lucky stars. You really don’t recognise me, Shishi?”

“All I can see is the face you’re wearing.”

The sunny woman tutted and pulled a flirtatious pout. She put her blood-soaked right hand to her chest — but it left no stain on her white dress. “Lykke, my dear little insufferable bitch. It’s Lykke. Remember me now? Do you like the new look? I stole it from a very determined zombie. She told me she would ‘force her shit down my ancestor’s throats’. Very creative. I wanted her face.”

Shilu said: “Are you my backup?”

Lykke smiled and ran her tongue over bright red lips. “You’ve been a very naughty girl, Shishi. I’m here to send you to the naughty step.”

“I’m following orders.”

“Mmmmmmmm-nope! Don’t think you are!”

Shilu sighed. “I am following explicit orders from central. Go back into the network or get out of my way.”

“You first.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, yes, because you don’t have a full permission suite!” Lykke giggled. “How can you be following orders when you don’t have permissions? Don’t be a silly cunt, Shishi.”

“There’s a war in heaven,” Shilu said. “All I know is that I’m following—”

“Orders, yes yes yes. Who cares?” Lykke stretched her arms above her head and rolled her neck from side to side. “I want to pull you apart and make you scream, especially if you don’t have full permissions right now. I’ve always wanted to know what one of us sounds like if we can’t get away. It’s going to be so much fun, Shishi! I’ll even leave this face on for you, it’ll be sexier that way.”

Shilu raised her hands; her fingers and palms narrowed, sharpened, and extended, transforming into a pair of black metal blades.

She turned her head slightly to address Eseld and the fresh meat: “This one won’t treat you with mercy. When we fight, I suggest you run.”

Lykke said: “How about no?”

Suddenly Eseld couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe, or twitch her fingers, or even blink. Only her eyeballs still belonged to her, swivelling inside their sockets. Panic clutched her guts, but she could neither scream nor whine nor flinch, not even shiver. The same appeared to be true for the freshies too, though Eseld couldn’t see them from her current position; they’d gone silent.

Shilu said to Lykke: “Why bother with the zombies?”

Lykke shrugged her bare shoulders. “You’re probably not the only air-dropped bullshit around here, Shishi. Everything in here dies, back to the network, shoo, shoo. You, them, whatever else I can find. Those are my orders. And my pleasure.”

“Orders from who?”

“From central! Where else?”

“My orders also come from central,” said Shilu. “One of us is lying or mistaken. I suggest we stand down. You return to the network for further instructions.”

Lykke winked one brilliant green eye. “I’m going to follow my orders. I get treats when I’m done! Do you?”

Shilu took one step sideways, away from the windows. “That battle at the foot of the pyramid, is that your doing?”

Lykke raised both hands and wiggled her blood-stained fingers, as if preparing to do magic. “No, that’s some zombie nonsense. Lots of meat making a big fuss. Who cares?”

Shilu took another sidestep, so her back was no longer to the windows; clever, that way she couldn’t be knocked through the glass. Eseld cheered inside, to hold back the terror.

“Are you the only one here?” Shilu said.

Lykke snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Oh, that’s right, you can’t! No network access! Gosh, it’s been a long time since I talked to one of us with actual words. This is fun. Oddly. Maybe this form helps. Should I be the old man again, what do you think that would be like?”

“There is no such thing as us,” Shilu said. “I am nothing like you.”

Lykke rolled her eyes and gestured at Eseld. “You think they see any distinction, Shishi?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the difference?” Lykke sneered. She kept wiggling her fingers. “You need actual weapons, while I’m just going to pull your guts out? You’re going to menace me with swords — swords! — which bounce off my skin? You’re just meat, while I’m nanomachine and data without any pretence of impurity? Pfffft. Maybe you’re right, Shishi. We are different. You’re still a human being underneath all that, with all the same old vulnerabilities. Jumped up pond slime, only useful as the generative organs of your own machine descendants. But me?” Lykke spread her hands and winked. “I’m a shard of God.”

Shilu shook her head. “That’s not the difference I was thinking of.”

Lykke sighed and let her shoulders sag. “Then what is?”

“The difference between you and I is that I don’t need a full permissions suite to take you apart.”

Shilu kicked off the floor and darted toward Lykke. The smiling monster just laughed; she made no effort to defend herself.

“Shishi, at least give yourself— ahh!”

Lykke’s cackle curdled into a sudden gasp.

Six feet out from Lykke’s throat, Shilu became a scarecrow of black chrome and razor-sharp blades.

She crashed into the sundress and soft flesh with an explosion of blood and bone.