> The Maffiyir corporation usually backs off when overall losses are ahead of schedule. But this contest has been… atypical. I suspect they will step up the pressure.

> -- Radio transmission from Voices for Non-Citizens

My late-night discussion with Pointy had been eye-opening. I won’t say I felt sorry for the death machine whose gears were busy grinding my people into entertainment sausage, but… something close, maybe. It was hard to build up quite the same level of resentment after realizing my tormentor was likely hastening her own death as well as ours.

The aliens in charge of the Maffiyir were the architects of our situation, after all, with the system intelligence as a… henchman? Stooge? Unwitting patsy? I wasn’t sure, but for all its computational prowess, the system wasn’t the true mastermind of our suffering.

The next day-and-a-half passed fairly quietly. It was a relief to be back at Fort Autumn, with friends around us and a familiar space of our own to retreat to. Sure, it was a series of underground boxes instead of the house my kids had been born in, but at least it was ours, and we could sleep under familiar blankets instead of military-issue sheets.

Even our walls were starting to get less oppressively gray: Gavin and Samar had made friends with a kid from a family willing to share their extensive acrylic paint collection. Decorations began to appear on the bottom four feet of our walls: childish drawings of our family, dogs, monsters, sunshines, the occasional flower, and, yes, “poops.”

Six-year-old boys.

What can you do?

I was just glad he wasn’t a few years older. I could let the blobby poop renditions and potty humor go, especially since he clearly found them so hilarious, but I’d have had to put my foot down if the kids had gone for cock-and-balls drawings instead.

We made an expedition outside, continuing my quest to get my kids more comfortable and capable in combat.

With the boys, the biggest issue was honestly my comfort level. It was still difficult to hold myself back from intervening if there was a chance they’d be injured. It went against every motherly instinct I had to actually let monsters hurt my sons, and I felt a sickening level of guilt whenever I saw blood.

Gavin was quick to patch up any injuries, however, and letting the boys experience risk and failure in a controlled and monitored setting had definite advantages. I’d been after Micah for a long time to take a truly defensive ability, but he’d been very resistant, insisting he could keep his distance.

After the third time a monster got its claws into him in a single day, my oldest grimaced and glanced back at me, then muttered something I didn’t catch.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I said FINE. I’ll do it!”

“You’ll do what?”

“I’ll take stupid Force Shield. Okay?”

I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t even made the suggestion recently. “Awesome.”

The boys were helped hugely by mere practice and experience, but Cassie needed more active assistance.

Pointy and I had put a lot of effort into helping Cassie tweak her Overlay ability. It now distilled information from her sight, hearing, and Life Sense into a constant guide in combat, telling her where to move and when she was in danger. She had indicators letting her know when she could use her Summoned Seekers without tiring herself. We’d set up warnings to let her know when her spear-blade was getting too close to an ally and indicators if a strike she made was on-target.

Actually making those strikes and doing damage? Still a work in progress, in spite of her superhuman levels of strength.

Cassie didn’t want to get close to monsters. It was an instinct I generally approved of, but not one that I could allow her to keep. If she got pulled away from us - or we got pulled away from her - I wanted her to have a chance at surviving, even if there were more enemies than a flood of Seekers could take down. Even if Gavin or I pinned down a monster so it had no chance of reaching Cassie, my little girl hesitated to come close enough to attack it. When she finally got brave enough to get close and make a wild swing at a leafenrat, she seemed horrified by the blood that oozed from the monster’s injury.

I’d had a breakthrough, though, thinking about how her Overlay ability had more-or-less turned her vision into a videogame. Maybe we could take that a bit farther?

“Cassie… could you tell your Overlay ability to make any blood or fluid from monsters glitter or sparkle?”

Cassie’s eyes widened. “I can make it sparkle?!”

“I don’t know,” I said patiently. “Can you?”

Cassie just stared at me.

Rather than continue what I expected would be a very frustrating discussion, I marched over to the nearest badblanket and slashed my sword across the edge of its body. The monster sprang into action, trying to envelop me, but its grip strength was frankly pathetic these days. I held it off easily, glancing back over my shoulder toward my daughter.

I almost asked her if it had worked, but Cassie was clearly focused on the bottom of the monster, where blood dripped along its side toward the ground. She was standing with her arms slack and her eyebrows high, mouth pursed in a tiny “O” of unrestrained excitement.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“So pretty,” she breathed.

Well.

That wasn’t creepy.

That was just the start. My scheme to make Cassie more comfortable with fighting had worked. Maybe a little too well? Just fifteen minutes after she’d made the change, my three-year-old was willing to inch forward and stab a monster Gavin had restrained.

The fact that she then squealed and wiggled?

Definitely disturbing.

Definitely progress.

“Pointy?” I asked. “Please keep an eye out. Make sure Cassie’s new rule only applies to monster fluids, okay? If she starts having this reaction to human blood… People aren’t going to take that well.”

“Agreed. I will monitor the situation.”

We had a successful hunt, scraping together enough points for Micah to grab his eighth ability and take Force Shield. The synergy with his other abilities was middling, and we’d looked for a better alternative, but electricity, sound, and temperature just weren’t that effective at blocking physical projectiles. The kinetic energy shield wasn’t a perfect solution, but it worked better with his skillset than a biological augment or something like Parry.

Gavin and Cassie were still short of another ability, but not by too much. They’d earn them tomorrow, most likely.

My next ability - my ninth - was farther away, but it was hard to care. In only a few days, I’d be able to make my last three ability choices and even receive my specialty! Cassie being stronger than her brothers was a little concerning, but she’d be getting much stronger and more capable relative to the monsters, which could only be a good thing.

I wondered what Specialties we’d get. It would be cool if Cassie got a mecha or something, a combat-capable combo of Summoned Shell and Summoned Seeker. If Pointy could pilot it, Cassie could just sit inside, giggling her ass off and earning points. She had four more abilities available, and our current plan was to split them: two that would help Pointy’s processing power and two that would give more oomph to Cassie’s combat capability, and, hopefully, Pointy’s durability. For the latter, we were planning on Combat Companion and Summon Transport.

That should all combine to make a mecha ability, right?

I hoped so, but there was a degree of whimsy to the Specialties people had been granted. There was always some connection to the abilities they already had, but there didn’t seem to be any guarantees. The Arsenal had gotten Specialties for over a dozen people already, three of whom - all focused on flight - had identical ability sets. All three had received different Specialties.

I’d thought that might mean Specialties were each unique to the person who held them, but apparently that wasn’t the case either: one of the three had gotten the same Boost Specialty that Flip had.

As for myself, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I just hoped it wasn’t something weak and terrible after having my Novelty set to negative twice. They were supposed to be based on our abilities and accomplishments, right? Hm. That wasn’t great for me. The vast majority of the time, I was proud that the aliens viewed me as a troublemaker, but it might work out poorly for me here.

Oh well. Whatever it was, I’d make it work. Worst-case scenario, I could just ignore it and keep improving my Telekinesis. I was really enjoying the ability. It was one that really benefited from advance planning, which suited me down to a T. I had all sorts of things strapped to my outside of my backpack these days or tucked into extra pockets I’d sewn on my pants: cross-shaped crowbars for holding monsters’ mouths open, blindfolds, containers of mud and powder, pouches full of caltrops, chains, handcuffs, jars of chemicals, nets to foul flying monsters, plastic pouches of water to hamper hellbees, knives and needles and sawblades galore, flares and smoke bombs and matches and more.

The following morning, while waiting for the week’s second monster to appear, Micah presented me with one more gift to add to my arsenal: a mega caltrop he’d forged, a twisted amalgamation of metal nearly two feet across.

“Now you don’t have to keep the angle right, Mom! Just put it in a monster’s mouth and they’ll be sad.”

“Nice, buddy!”

Privately, I wasn’t sure how long his creation would remain useful. It would be excellent against the D-Rexes, but what about the next Titan? The one after? There were several smiths at Fort Autumn these days, and they were starting to turn out quite credible helmets and breastplates. That armor was strong enough to help - for now - but I had trouble believing it would hold up as monsters kept getting more powerful.

Maybe I’m being too negative, though, I thought. Maybe things like Repair and Reinforce will keep our creations relevant. If not, I suppose we’ll have to try to modify things we purchase from the Shops?

My kids were down playing in the playground while I waited on the walls, ready to bring my Analyze to bear the moment I spotted our new opponent.

“One minute to Deadline!” Pointy announced. “New monster in fifty-five seconds!”

“Thirty seconds!”

“Ten seconds!”

“Deadline!”

I scoured the street and grass near the fort, Analyze on at full blast, looking for anything out of place.

It should have been trivial. My house wasn’t the only one that had been taken down; Fort Autumn now stood in an open field in the middle of what had previously been our subdivision. A few trees had been left in place for shade, but none were near the walls and all the bushes had been burned or uprooted. Familiar monsters were allowed to spawn, but each was gunned down - literally - as soon as it was positively identified.

“Probable stealth monster!” I called. “Not detecting anything, even with Analyze.”

Others echoed my assessment.

“Right. Alpha Team, roll out! Ranged, be ready to cover them,” Colonel Zwerinski barked.

The portcullis was pulled up and a small team of elite volunteers paced cautiously outside. We all watched, tense, as they surveyed the area, identifying and killing badblankets and apeps, fending off assaults by larger monsters until our sharpshooters could take them out. They patrolled the entire circumference of the fort.

“Where’s the monster?” someone yelled. “It’s gotta be here.”

Colonel Zwerinski shook his head. “I don’t know. Arsenal can’t find it either.”