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— pistol whip it.
 
She saw the other one closing on Mason, the man swatting it aside, and then she was on the ground, rain in her eyes, something screaming and clawing at her.
 
Sadie swung the weapon again, but the angle was wrong and she couldn’t connect.

Jaws gnashed, snapping in front of her face, and she tried to get an elbow up between her.
 
She could see the hunger in its eyes as it snapped jaws at her face —

The weight left her, light bright white blue above her.
 
Mason lifted the thing from her, and scrambled back as it thrashed in his grip.
 
He held it in one arm, bringing the other around to hit it.

Something leapt on him from behind, the other creature latching on to his back.
 
Sadie was still trying to get clear as Mason dropped to one knee in the muck, struggling against the creatures on him.
 
He threw one away, then grabbed the one on his back, flipping it over his shoulder.

The one he’d thrown scampered back up, feeling through the mud for something — Sadie saw it had come up with the remains of the signpost the larger creature had held.
 
She saw the nails at the end of it, watched in horror as it ran at Mason, swinging —

“Mason!” she screamed.

He turned, but not fast enough, the nails slamming into the skin of his neck.
 
He coughed, blood coming form his mouth, then ripped the wood free, nails coming out of his neck.
 
He hefted the post, then smashed it against the creature, knocking it back.
 
The wood splintered in his hand, falling apart onto the muddy road.

She started to take a step towards him, a hand held out in front of her.
 
He looked at her, then smiled, teeth bloody.
 
“I’m sorry, Sadie.”
 
He took a step towards her.

The creature jumped back on him, knocking him to the ground.
 
She had pulled the little gun up before she was thinking clearly, holding the trigger down, and her vision filled with flames, the heat burning against her arms.
 
The creature on Mason ignited, parts flying off to hiss and sputter in the rain.

I’m alive.
 
There wasn’t any lightning
.

She looked at the weapon in her hand, then back at Mason.
 
The man was trying to get back up, then coughed, bloody fluid coming from his mouth.
 
He fell back forward, one hand in front of him, crouched on the ground.

The last creature leapt at him from the rain, screaming.
 
It grabbed at him, claws scrabbling at the armor he wore, then it sank it’s teeth into his neck.
 
He cried out, an arm trying to push it off, but —

Sadie heard Laia scream, and the girl ran at the creature.
 
It was an animal sound, anger and fear twisting her face.
 
When she hit the creature the thing jerked away from Mason, teeth bloody, and then…

Red mist exploded out the back of it, and it fell to the ground like a dropped toy, arms and legs bouncing as it it.
 
All the blood that had been inside it floated free to be lost in the rain.

Sadie looked at the fallen creatures, then at Mason’s body, then at Laia.
 
Holy shit.
 
Holy shit.
 
She shuffled forward to put an arm around Laia.
 
The girl was sobbing, and Sadie hugged her close.
 
“It’s ok.
 
It’s—”

“No,” said Laia.
 
“They’ve killed him.
 
They’ve killed the angel.”

Holy fucking shit.

Sadie stepped away from Laia, walking over to Mason’s body.
 
She nudged him with a foot.
 
The armor he was wearing pulsed with light, then red dropped in over the white, a cross etching itself on the chest plate.
 
A woman’s voice spoke from it.
 
“A medical emergency has been noted.
 
Please stand clear.”

“Who’s that?” said Laia.

“Someone we should listen to,” said Sadie.
 
She pulled Laia by the shoulders.

“Please stand back,” said the woman’s voice again.
 
“Subject is coding.
 
Conductive environment noted.
 
Please stand clear or risk immediate death by electrocution.”

The girl twisted away, turning to face her.
 
“We can’t just leave him.”

“We’re not.”

“We’re not?”

“No.”
 
Sadie wiped rain out of her face.
 
“You think this is Heaven?”

“Not anymore,” said Laia.

“Have a little faith, kid, and step the fuck back.”

Laia frowned, but backed away from Mason.
 
The armor flashed twice, the woman’s voice — soft, calm, probably recorded in a nice dry studio — said, “Thank you.
 
Administering epinephrine.
 
Encouraging implant systems to produce plasma.
 
Defibrillation in 3, 2, 1…”

There was a sudden hum, and Mason’s body stiffened.

“Cycling,” said the woman’s voice.
 
The hum sounded again, and Sadie could taste something metal in the air.
 
Mason’s body thrashed.

“What is it doing?” said Laia, her voice grating, harsh, fear and hope mixed together in a heady mix.

“Cycling,” said the woman’s voice from the armor.
 
Again, the hum.
 
This time, smoke curled out from the joints in the armor, beaten back and down by the rain.

Mason woke to a flickering light and the smell of woodsmoke.
 
He hurt everywhere, the lattice shaking and grumbling under his skin.

“You look pretty good for a dead guy,” said Sadie.

He tried to say something but the words wouldn’t come.
 
She handed him a tin cup, and he gulped down the water.
 
It tasted of metal and dirt and
being alive
.

Laia came over to him, raising a tentative hand to touch his face, and he pulled his head away.

“You were dead,” she said.

“No,” said Mason.
 
“Not quite.”

“Yes,” said Haraway, from the fire.
 
“All the way dead.”

“You really are an angel,” said the girl, “to rise from the dead.”

Mason looked over at Haraway.
 
“Really?”

Haraway shrugged.
 
“You seem to have come back online ok.”

“I feel like shit.”

“Ever been dead before?”

“No,” he said.

“Exactly,” she said.

Mason sat up, then flexed his shoulder.
 
His neck felt sore, and he used his fingers to probe the injury.
 
It had already healed over, the overlay spooling up reports of where he’d been hit, when he’d… died.

He looked at Laia.
 
“I’m ok.
 
Really.
 
And I’m not an angel.
 
Just another company asset.”

Sadie snorted.
 
“He finally speaks the truth.”

“There are gaps,” said Mason.
 
“What happened?”

Sadie was shifting her weight a little from foot to foot.
 
Nervous — about what?
 
She pulled out the Tenko-Senshin, handing it to him, and as she did he saw the red peeking out from under a sleeve.
 
“I…
 
I borrowed this.”

“Ok,” said Mason, reaching a hand up.
 
He didn’t take the weapon, pushing her sleeve back, the burns livid and angry.
 
“Did you fire it?”

Her eyes flicked out through the hole in the wall, into the rain and the dark outside.
 
“Yes.”

Mason lowered his hand.
 
“You’ve got questions.”

“Yes,” she said.
 
“Before I…
 
Before I picked it up, one of the… things, those monsters—”

“People,” said Mason.
 
His voice was quiet.
 
“They used to be people.”

He watched as she took the thought, trying it on for size.
 
“One of those people tried to use it.”

“Yes,” said Mason.
 
“I remember.”

“It died.”

“Yes.”
 
He watched her eyes, not moving.

She bit her lip, then said, “Why?”

“Because it was an enemy.”
 
Mason shrugged.
 
“Tenko-Senshin make things that aren’t really weapons.
 
They’re sort of…”
 
He paused, then shrugged.
 
“I don’t know.
 
They’re works of art, really.”

“Art?”

“Sort of,” said Mason.
 
“He only made twelve of them that I know of.
 
And that’s a guess, because of the number on this one.
 
There are records of another nine.
 
Tenko was crazy.”

“I couldn’t
not
do something,” said Sadie, swallowing.
 
“I could have died.”

“Yes,” said Mason.
 
“That’s probably why you didn’t.”

“Probably?”

“I don’t really know how it works,” he said.
 
“It didn’t come with a book.
 
I think it found me, if we’re trading truth.”
 
He reached for the weapon, taking it from her.
 
It beeped, the hard link coming through his glove, and he turned it over in his hand.
 
He looked down at Laia.
 
“You ok?”

“They were people?” she said.

He crouched down.
 
“Yeah,” he said.
 
“They were.”

“They didn’t…
 
I didn’t mean to…”
 
He could see the tears in her eyes.

“Laia,” said Mason.

“I reached out,” she said, a sob catching in her throat.
 
“I felt inside it, and pushed.
 
It…
 
I didn’t know my gift could do that.
 
I’ve never—”

“Laia,” said Mason.
 
“Stop.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide.
 
“I felt it die.
 
I did that.”

He sighed, the breath coming out of him.
 
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

“What?” said Sadie.
 
“That’s all you’ve got?”

“No,” said Mason.
 
“Look.
 
Wait here a second.”
 
He looked at the three of them, huddled in a dirty room around a fire that tried to push the night away then, still favoring his leg —
damn bone growth was still catching up
— stepped out into the night.

The rain had stopped, the air quiet and still.
 
He walked up the road a block or so until he found the store he’d seen earlier.
 
He put a shoulder against the front door until the lock slipped with a grinding noise.
 
Mason walked inside, grabbing what he needed, then headed back down the street.

As he walked back, his feet slowed.
 
He looked around at the night, breathing it in.
 
It was quiet, the calm sitting in the air, and he drank it up.

You’re alive.

And then —
 

A young girl saved your life today.

He sighed.
 
Voices were coming from the room, the firelight flickering out through the cracks and gaps in the wall.
 
He let the sound walk around him, not really listening to the words, leaning back against an ancient post in the ground.

A young girl.
 
Isn’t it your mission to look after her?

He looked at the drink he held, turning it over in his hand.
 
It’d been what worked in the past.
 
When he had doubts, questions he couldn’t answer.
 
When the voices of the dead wouldn’t be still.

She saved your life.

The mission was to recover the asset, protect it at all costs.
 
He thought back to the room in the nuclear facility, dead men’s bodies dried and preserved by the radiation threading through them.
 
He thought about the Apsel logo, and the cavern full of radiation where a sphere from somewhere else had punched the rock walls aside like soft clay.

He wondered where the reactor had gone, and why Apsel Federate had sent a team in at all.
 
Why there was a dirty bomb in a nuclear facility, why a whole town had been left to die.
 
How the survivors had twisted, bodies turned into something less than human.

Radiation didn’t do that.
 
That was a deliberate act from a different arm of science.
 
Something viral, shifting people into animals.
 
For what?
 
To stand guard over a dead city?

A girl saved your life today, and you owe her, Mason Floyd
.

He started walking again, stepping in through the crack in the wall.
 
Three pairs of eyes looked at him, and he smiled.
 
“I’ve got just the thing.
 
It answers all questions.”
 
He held up the bottle, the whisky warm and dark against the light from the fire.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Sadie.

“You got a better idea?” he said.

“No,” she said.
 
“I meant, you didn’t get any glasses.”

“I’m not proud,” said Mason, twisting the top off.
 
He took a pull from the bottle, the liquid burning down his throat, then handed it to Laia.
 
“Here.
 
Drink this.”