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Mike put a hand on his shoulder.
 
“Zach?
 
Put him down.”

“But he—”

“He’s an asshole,” said Mike.
 
“You got to think, though.
 
You want to be an asshole too?”

“Yeah,” said the machine.
 
A nervous laugh broke from it.
 
“Listen to the man, kid.
 
You don’t want to end up all messed up like me.
 
Put me down.
 
All a big misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding,” said Zacharies.
 
“You were going to hurt my…”
 
He gestured at Mike, the words not coming.

“Friend,” said Mike.
 
“You can just call me a friend, kid.
 
Here?
 
We’ve got families too, but friends are better.
 
They’re the family you choose.”

Friend
.
 
The word felt strange, the link shifting it around in his head.
 
Zacharies let his hand fall, and the machine crashed to the ground.
 
It started to clamber upright, sparks still spitting from the side of its shoulder.
 
“Friend?”

“Yeah, kid.”
 
Mike held out a hand.
 
“Friend.”

Zacharies reached out, his hand tentative.
 
They shook
 
“I don’t think—”

“C’mon,” said Mike.
 
“Let me buy you lunch.”

“You can eat after this?”
 
Zacharies felt the sweet sickness in his belly, his blood still rushing in his head.

“Yeah.
 
Gotta eat, you know?
 
Keep up your strength.”
 
Mike started to walk towards the door, walking wide around the first machine.

“Mike,” said Zacharies.

Mike paused, turning back.
 
“Yeah, kid?”

They’re the family you choose.
 
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a friend before.”
 
He looked down at the suit he wore, the crossed hammers etched against his chest.
 
“I think I’d like one.
 
I’d like that very much right now.”

“Sure, kid,” said Mike, as he turned and walked back towards the door.
 
“You can buy me lunch tomorrow.”

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

“Heaven is very complicated,” said Zacharies, his plate empty in front of him.
 
He’d eaten two lunches today, separate courses of something Mike had called
scrambled eggs and bacon
.
 
The bacon had been salty, crunchy against his teeth, and he’d never tasted anything quite so good.

Mike had said that
everything was better with bacon
, leaning backwards in a chair.
 
They were in the same —
cafeteria
— room that Zacharies had eaten the bagels in.
 
He’d wanted to come back here, the memory of the food making his mouth water.

“A little complicated, sure,” said Mike, tapping ash from his cigarette.
 
They’d paused on the way here beside a machine of metal and lights that spat out another box of cigarettes.

“You have no slaves, and no masters.”
 
Zacharies pushed his fork around the side of his plate, his hands moving without him thinking about it.
 
“Yet, you have masters, and slaves.”

Mike tipped his hand back and forth in the air, the cigarette trailing smoke.
 
“Sort of,” he said.
 
“You…
 
Maybe the best way to describe it is to say you get to choose your master.”

“What if you don’t want a master?”
 
The flash of anger was hot and quick, his voice too loud.
 
“I’m sorry, Mike.
 
I didn’t mean—”

“It’s ok, kid.”
 
Mike pulled on his cigarette.
 
“Not many people run solo these days.
 
A few on the edges.
 
Illegals, mostly.”

“Illegals?”

“No link,” said Mike, tapping the back of his neck.
 
“No trace.
 
Off the grid.
 
Illegal.”

“What makes them…”
 
Zacharies turned the word over in his mind.
 
“…Illegal?”

Mike frowned at him, then said, “Kid.
 
You want another coffee?”

“Yes please,” said Zacharies.
 
“May I…
 
May I have cream again?”

Mike laughed.
 
“Sure,” he said.
 
“Be here in a sec.
 
You can order coffee too, if you like.”

“I…
 
How?”

“The link,” said Mike.
 
“It’ll let you do things.
 
Order coffee.
 
Order a hooker.
 
Whatever.”
 
He waved a hand again.

“And…
 
Illegals can’t order coffee?”

“Sure they can,” said Mike, “but not from anywhere that doesn’t suck.
 
You need cash, a job that pays in kind, something close to the grid but not on it.
 
Borderline living.
 
Not my thing.
 
Not my thing at all.”

Illegal
.
 
The link chattered away at Zacharies, the meaning of the world falling into place.
 
“What crime did they commit?”

“Who?”

“The illegals.
 
What crime did they commit to be illegal?”

“They’re not linked, kid.”
 
Mike frowned at him.
 
“Maybe it’s not
technically
illegal.
 
Will be soon.
 
There’s a new law coming.”

Zacharies touched the back of his neck where a machine had whispered
 
against his skin.
 
He couldn’t feel a cut or mark there, but knew something was inside him, talking to him, helping him understand words in a language he didn’t speak.
 
“They…
 
What do you mean, it will be soon?”

“Ok,” said Mike.
 
“It’s like this.
 
It’s kind of… useful for syndicates to know where people are, what they buy.
 
Who they’re buying it from.
 
Relationships they have.
 
Who they argue with.
 
The porn they download.”

“Porn?”

“Later,” said Mike.
 
“So, we’ve applied a little pressure on the civilian government.”

“You are the masters of the masters?”

Mike frowned again.
 
“No, we’re—”

“You are making people do something they don’t want to do, are you not?”

The coffee arrived, the waitress putting the cups on the table.
 
Both of them ignored her, silence stretching across the table.
 
Mike spoke first.
 
“It’s better this way.
 
The possibilities—”

“I don’t know, Mike,” said Zacharies.
 
“I think that…”
 
He trailed off.

“What, kid?”

“I don’t think Heaven is the place where people are made to do the things they don’t want to do,” he said.
 
“Heaven’s a place of possibility, of freedom.”
 
He stopped, the words having come out in a rush.
 
It was something Laia would have said.

“Freedom, huh?”

“Yes,” said Zacharies.
 
“It shouldn’t be illegal to make your own choices.”

“Even if it’s better this way?
 
Look at us.
 
We’re talking because of the link.”

“Even,” said Zacharies, “if it meant bacon everyday.”

Mike paused, then laughed out loud.
 
It was a clean sound, happy.
 
His eyes sparkled as he leaned forward, looking Zacharies square on.
 
“Zach?
 
I’m pretty sure we need you around here.
 
Will you stay?”

“Stay?”
 
Zacharies frowned.
 
“I need to find Laia.”

“Yes,” said Mike.
 
“I promise.
 
We’ll find your sister.”

“Because you want me to stay?”

“No,” said Mike.
 
“Well, yes, that too.
 
But mostly because that’s what friends are for.”

Her breath came hard as she steadied the rifle against her shoulder.
 
There was a crack, the weapon bucked, and one of the —

Misshapen, hunched, hungry.

— things out in the rain spun away.
 
The weapon cycled, a soft whine rising quick outside of her hearing.

Sadie rubbed at her mouth, then spat something gritty and sour onto the ground.
 
Haraway was to her left, holding one of the subs up with a hand that shook from fatigue.
 
Laia huddled behind them, eyes wide with fear.

Fucking company man.
 
Left us here to die
.

Haraway threw her a glance, hefting her sub.
 
“This one’s almost empty too.”
 
They both looked at the second sub on the ground, the weapon having run dry what seemed an age ago.
 
“How’s the rifle?”

“Hell if I know,” said Sadie.
 
“It’s not like we’ve been dating long.
 
I guess he’s fine?
 
You know.
 
First time out.
 
Exciting evening.
 
Didn’t go how either of us expected.”

Haraway blinked, then gave a tight little laugh.
 
“You know, Freeman—”

Sadie pulled the trigger on the rifle again, the crack flinging something tumbling in a whirl of arms and legs —
too many, too many damn limbs
— out in the rain.
 
The whine cycled again for the tenth time.
 
Or was it the twentieth?
 
Fiftieth?

Her head had started to pound again.
 
She wanted a drink, something warm and amber, a rock of ice the size of an asteroid dropped in the bottom of the glass.
 
But no, it couldn’t be a simple night with a decent drink and good music — it had to be monsters
.
 
She pulled the trigger again.
 
The shot missed, something cackling and screeching in the rain.

“You’re a good shot,” said Haraway.

“I missed,” said Sadie.

“That time,” said Haraway.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I thought you said you were a singer.”

“I sing,” said Sadie, and pulled the trigger again.
 
A crack, the whine.
 
“I do other shit too.”
 
She thought of her father, her lips settling into a flat line, and she shot something else in the rain.

Something crashed into the wall beside Haraway, and the woman jumped, turning around, the sub firing into the wall.
 
Ancient brick and plaster shattered, and an answering scream came from the other side.
 
Laia whimpered at the noise.

“Be the end, soon,” said Haraway.
 
“I didn’t figure it’d be like this.”

“What?” said Sadie.
 
“Torn limb from limb in a town that’s not on a map, tossed under the bus by the company you work for?”

“Yeah,” said Haraway, a smile tugging at her mouth.
 
“That, and I also figured it’d all work out.”

“What would work out?”
 
Sadie frowned.

“Marlene,” said Haraway, looking like she wanted to say something else.

“Who’s Marlene?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” said Haraway.
 
“Think they’ll rush us again?”

“I would,” said Sadie.
 
“They gotta be running out of dudes, though.
 
One thing that’s bothering me.”

“Just the one?” said Haraway

“For now,” said Sadie.
 
“This place was deserted when we walked in.
 
Where’d they all come from?”

“The rain,” said Laia, behind them.

“Sure,” said Sadie.
 
“They fell from the sky.”

“No,” said Laia.
 
“The demon brought them.”

“Sure,” said Sadie again.
 
“But I say no.
 
I say that someone’s pissed ‘em off.”

“Who, then?” said Laia.
 
“So many of them.”

“Well,” said Sadie.
 
“There’s someone that springs to mind.”

Mason looked up the shaft, the darkness stretching above the light from the suit.
 
He steadied himself against the wall, something in his leg not working right.
 
The overlay ticked and chatted in his vision, the diagnosis routines indicating FRACTURE: FEMUR.
 
The lattice shifted under his skin.

It could wait.

The bodies around him were… lumpy, no other word for it.
 
He could see that from the lights.
 
The stark bright from the chest lamps made a haunted house scene in the shaft, the shadows stretching tall and sharp against the walls.
 
He looked to the side, the tunnel going back into the darkness.

The overlay said that the reactor room lay that way.
 
Down in the dark, something had made its home next to a cracked casing leaking rads.
 
His vision frosted with static for a second, and he debated about whether he should go down that tunnel.
 
Find what was waiting down there.

Fuck that noise
.
 
It was time to get the hell out of here.
 
He looked at the ladder against the wall of the shaft, set his hand against it and started to climb.
 
Mason’s link turned off the pain in his leg, but it still wouldn’t hold his weight.
 
His whole side was going to bruise, the fall —