Hinote gagged as he made it to the surface.

Gears turned on the ceiling far above.

Two Andalaf infantrymen walked down the main path in red suits, twenty feet of liquid Sachi between our platform and their taller one. I walked in a crouch over to a large, dark grey generator, gesturing for the others to follow.

Suzume pointed to our left, where our platform ended. “A few of us will have to climb up that ladder over there, then slide down the duct—”

“And take a fuckin’ Sachi bath? I don’t think so,” Hinote said.

“It’s our best bet,” Suzume said. “These two paths aren’t meant to connect, Hinote.”

“Then why the fuck you take us up this way?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Suzume said, “you wanted the front door? Let’s go back down, come up on the other side, and you can ask if they’ll let us in.”

Hinote’s yellow Sachi eye attachment swiveled this way and that as he studied Suzume.

Suzume, crouching, cocked her head at Hinote, but there was a severity to it that told me she wasn’t happy.

Hinote looked away first. “Just didn’t want to swim around in—”

“Good,” Suzume snapped, “‘cause no one is swimming. So shut the fuck up and let the engineer figure this out.”

The smell was giving me a headache, and so was the conversation.

“There are other ways in, but this is the most direct route to the drill,” Suzume said, rubbing her temples beneath the mask and looking up at the guards.

“We gon’ have to shake those guards.”

“I know the tunnels. I can go back down and come up closer to the front, cause a distraction while you four get to the drill,” Suzume said.

I said, “I can go with—”

“No, you three go to the drill. I’ll go with Suzume,” Kaito said.

“Aight, then. Shit,” Hinote said as he eyed the yellow liquid again.

“You can go with them, Hinote,” Shun said.

“Nah, I wanna keep my eyes on Chudo-girl there.”

“Naturally,” I said.

Suzume reached into a pouch and handed several silver Sachibombs to Hinote. They were bigger than the others she’d used on the trash and given to Daiki and looked like silver plateaus that glowed in the center with faint yellow light, slowly blinking to show their inactivity.

“You’ll have ten minutes to get out after you set the charges,” Suzume said.

Hinote looked down at them, then at me. “Here,” he said. “Put these in that crazy suit you got. I saw it swallow some shit up earlier.”

“Whatever you need,” I said, taking the bombs and putting them in the suit’s pockets.

“How you keep those from opening at the wrong time?”

“Trade secret,” I said.

“Chudo shit?”

“No, I’m a mercenary now.”

“Mercenary shit?”

“Sure,” I said, turning to Suzume. “So we wait while you two get the guards’ attention? What are you gonna do?”

Suzume turned around to look at me on her way to the open hatch of the ladder back into the tunnel. Her eyes smiled. “You’ll see.” She jumped down into the hole, followed closely behind by a brooding Kaito.

I looked to my left at Shun. “There’s a reason Hinote picked her up,” she said.

“Because she’s an engineer?” I said.

“Because she’s a fuckin’ genius,” Hinote said, chancing a look up above the generator and then crouching back down.

“They don’t usually let those types go,” I said, “so they fired her because she throws bombs and the occasional fit.”

“Might not be any of your fuckin’ business, Chudo-girl.”

“Ok,” I said, looking at Shun, who lifted her mask and mouthed: Tell you later.

We sat in silence for a time, Hinote peering over the generator every two minutes. I thought he was looking a little too often, but I let it be. I was there in the hopes that Morfran would catch wind of me sniffing around Sachi drills and the creatures inside. Sooner or later, he would come. He had to come.

I had a scratch between my shoulder blades that my suit itched for me. I noticed Shun was looking at me. When I met her eyes, she didn’t look away. I’ll keep you with me, they seemed to say, for as long as I can. But I won’t make you stay. It was the look that always kept me and led me back to her—a non-possessiveness, but there was a confidence there, something that said she knew I was hers, no matter how long I was away, even when I was away with someone else.

An explosion broke our silent communication.

“That’s it!” Hinote said, peeking over the generator again. “She did it! They runnin’ out!”

“There will be more inside near the drill. Let’s wait until they come out.”

“Yeah, I know,” Hinote said, brows furrowing. He scratched his goatee on his shoulder. “I was just sayin’ get ready.”

Six more guards rushed out of the drill chamber, guns ready, toward the explosion. I assumed they had left a few in the chamber itself.

“That should be most of them,” I said, “we could probably take whoever’s left if it comes down to it.”

Hinote grunted in response, and Shun started toward the ladder. I followed close behind. Shun scaled the ladder quickly. I thought she must have continued in her training these past five years, maybe even throwing herself more into it. She climbed as if her arms were doing most of the work, her legs playing only a supporting role. I climbed up behind.

“Don’t worry ‘bout me. I’ll bring up the rear,” Hinote said from behind me. I laughed. Scared of Sachi …, a big guy like that. Before I could think much about it, Shun was already sliding down the long duct that connected to the middle pathway. I waited for Hinote as he took his time up the ladder. I looked down into the giant pool of Sachi far below. Not many would survive a dip in it, not in its pure form. It takes a controlled environment and a fit body resistant to Sachi poisoning to become a Chudo, and the Sachi baths only last so long before the Chudo soldier is taken out.

“You go ahead, big boy,” I said. “I’ll come down after you.

“Don’t fucking call me big boy, Chudo—”

“Don’t fucking call me Chudo-girl, then.”

We locked eyes up there, at the top of the ladder, with death waiting in a yellow pool far below us.

Then Hinote laughed. “You got balls. I like that. Even if you is Chudo.”

“I’m not. I used to be. I’m not anymore,” I said. “Also, I don’t have balls but thank you. I’m not with you, but I’m not with them either. And right now, I’m on your credits. You can call me Nin—in case you forgot my name.”

He looked at me, then back down to the Sachi. “Motherfuck. Let’s go, Nin.”

I followed his gaze, then pulled my mask up and took another snort from my little bag of Sachi, relishing in the feel of it hitting the back of my throat and the clarity that permeated everything. This is what I was here to destroy, not for the money, but to draw Morfran to me, this—the end of Sachi. The end of the only thing that got my head working right before or after Asahi’s death. My mind turned to the needles in my suit, waiting only for my mental command to inject the drug into my system. No, I thought, pulling my mask back down and putting the bag away, reaching to my sword hilt above my right shoulder, grabbing onto it for some purchase in reality, though my other hand was the one truly keeping me from a fall at the moment.

“You first,” I said, swinging to the left out over the side of the ladder to let him through.

“Balls,” he reaffirmed as I hung over the far drop. He crawled out onto the duct. “What if I fuckin’ fall?”

“Then you fall. I’ll tell your girl how brave you were,” I said.

“Fuck that. I’ll tell her myself. Shit.” I could see sweat beads gathering around his right eye, but he didn’t wipe at them or take the mask off. He slid down, remaining silent. I couldn’t imagine what he was going through. It was probably disorienting to be so big on a thing so high in the air. The duct was barely wider than his body. He made it down slowly to Shun, who stood on the extended middle platform leading to the drill chamber. I slid down easily, using my Sachiblade as a weight on my left side to keep me on the duct.

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The platform was a light teal and white color. To my left was the doorway where the guards went to follow the explosion Suzume presumably instigated, and to my right was the long path of the platform ending at another large, arched entryway. Along the sides of the platform were guardrails.

I heard voices yelling from the entrance. “We’d better go if we’re going to make use of her distraction,” I said, heading toward the doorway on the opposite end of the platform.

“Chudo—I mean, Nin—you go in first usin’ that trick that makes your blade bigger to block any fire, and I’ll cover you. Shun, you go in after Nin, and I’ll cover you too.”

We both nodded. I pulled out my Sachiblade and clicked the mechanism to widen the blade, turning it upside down in front of me and proceeding slowly. I turned the corner to the left, keeping an eye just over the hilt of the blade.

The drill chamber was a giant circle with a spiraling path along the sides, and the walls were made of smooth black metal. I stood on a walkway about the width of four men, and its edges were closed off by a solid metal railing that came up to my belly. It was dimly lit; the Sachilights were little yellow globes in glass-encased holes in the ground and on the walls. I peered out over the railing to the levels above and below, listening.

I heard Shun’s nimble feet behind me. I lowered my blade. “I think we’re alone in here, Hinote. At least these first few levels.”

Hinote came through the doorway slowly, looking around to make sure. “Aight. Pass out the bombs. We’ll split ‘em three ways,” he said.

I requested the small Sachibombs from my suit, and it opened up, pushing the small, silver, plateau-shaped things into my hands. There were eight in total, so I handed two to Hinote and three to Shun and kept three for myself.

“Don’t think I’m fast enough?” Hinote said.

“I think you’re in charge of the mission, and you have other burdens on your mind, like command.”

Hinote blinked at me.

“It’s cause she thinks you’re slow,” Shun said.

“You motherfucker,” Hinote said, laughing. “Aight, Nin, you go up three levels—Shun, you go down three, and I’ll go to this one here.” He nodded to a flat outstretch of the walkway that went toward the center where the enormous brown-furred body of the beast stood, both cream-colored tusks bordering the body.

“Wait until I say,” Hinote said.

The Sachi covering the tusks was dried and crusted, hardened like the gems in my blade. I looked up, the giant higher than I could see. Looking down showed me the same unfathomable span.

I headed up the sloping walkway, three levels, encountering no guards, something I found very odd. I walked out into the middle, toward a tusk, and peered over the railing. Hinote looked up at me, a small white dot the size of my pinky fingernail. He yelled a three-two-one countdown, and then I stuck my three Sachibombs to the side of the tusk and pushed in on them. The slow, yellow blinking became frantic and fast. I ran back down the slope to Shun and Hinote.

“Ten minutes!” Hinote called to me as I rounded the last stretch before seeing him. Shun had already made it to him, beating me. I heard voices up above. We ran out onto the long platform above the stored pool of pure Sachi. No one stopped us as we ran out of the Sachi pool room and into another with several ladders leading down to machines that processed the Sachi and moved it along. I saw there were workers down there, but nothing to worry about; they were Under-City people, people from the Twelve Meeks, and they were busy at work, just trying to get through their night and into a bed or a bottle.

“Poor motherfuckers,” Hinote said, breathing heavily as we ran. “They the true victims. Trained to be slaves, man, it’s fucked up. Trained to think they have a choice, Andalaf puttin’ all the blame on they shoulders while they down there carrying the weight of the entire company, down there in the pits, thinkin’ ‘why didn’t I rise up and do somethin’ with my life?’ That’s what Andalaf want ‘em to think. But they are still a part of the problem. A price.” He looked at me, and I could see he wasn’t entirely convinced that this was the right choice, killing these people for … the greater good, I suppose? I still hadn’t puzzled out his motivations completely, though I suspected there wasn’t much of a puzzle going on in there; he was likely confused, acting on his grief. And I was doing the same goddamn thing.

At the end of this chamber was a ladder on a very tall wall, but thankfully, the door that the ladder led to was only about twenty or thirty feet up. Still no guards, and the voices I heard in the drill chamber didn’t manifest as the pursuit I was expecting. It wasn’t like Andalaf; there should have been more security. Something was very wrong. I itched underneath my mask.

The next chamber held tanks. I remembered them well; though my Sachi baths were held in Andalaf Tower on the Upper-Plateau, they looked exactly the same.

Every tank opened with a puff of yellow smoke.

“Run!” I screamed, but Shun and Hinote just stared at me. I pulled out my bag of lightning-invested powder and shoved my nose in it, taking a long snort straight from it. Vigor and strength filled me, my vision sharpening. I saw the two Chudos coming out of the baths, a man and a woman. “Go! I’ll keep them back!” I shouted, ripping my mask off and throwing it, fingers hovering over the fire Sachi gem slotted in my blade.

Shun ignored me, running up to the woman on my right, and I almost jumped for her when a familiar voice shouted, “Ow!”

The female form fell back into the Sachi bath.

“Suzume?” Shun said.

“Yes! What the fuck, Shun?”

“I’m sorry, Nin was making a big deal, and I—”

“Listen, y’all. We gotta go. Come on. Good hiding spot,” said as a laughing Kaito joined him.

I didn’t find it funny. They could’ve both been dead before the night was over.

I reminded myself why I was there and that all but Shun were merely my coworkers, a pathway to Morfran. I walked on, keeping my mouth shut. Suzume tried to catch my eye, but I kept my gaze on the door at the end of the Sachi bath hallway.

“Guards are in a different part of the building,” Suzume said, “but heading back to the drill chamber from another entrance. At a certain point they all just disappeared. Did you have any trouble with them?”

“No,” I said. “And I don’t fucking trust it one bit.”

Suzume didn’t speak, which was like a cold hand reaching into my guts.

“Suz?” Hinote said.

“I checked everything. We should have been fine. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

She reached up to her mask and ripped it off, blue hair flying, her fingers flailing around in its tangles.

Hinote grabbed her by the shoulders. “Hey,” he said, “what you worried about?”

“About fucking up! You should have had … shit, at least some guards on you in the drill chamber,” Suzume said, shaking her head, eyes unseeing. “And now that I think about it, the staff is pretty low here for a normal shift.”

“Hey,” Hinote said again, and his voice was low, calm, like a comforting father. It reminded me of Morfran, and I had to look away. “Listen. We here ‘cause fuck Andalaf. And if shit goes down, we deal with it knowing we was right. That we were trying to make a better world. To take our fuckin’ land back, Suz. You with me?”

I heard a whimpering ascent.

“There you go. That’s right. Now. What’s the next step?”

I heard a zipper and release of air and turned back around. Suzume pulled red Andalaf infantry suits from an airtight storage bag at her hip, an archaic version of the pockets in my armor. “These should fit. Nin, I didn’t think you were coming, so I didn’t grab you one. I figured you’d be fine in the suit anyway.”

I didn’t say what I was thinking: anyone from Andalaf that I’d worked with would recognize me in my suit, but as she told the others to take off their masks, I realized an infantryman in a leather mask would look even more out of place.

“I don’t know what waits for us,” Suzume said. “But I’m sorry I couldn’t do better.”

Her energy had shifted completely. Hinote offered some soothing words as he stepped into the red suit and zipped it up.

“I think you did well, Suzume,” I said, realizing Hinote had mostly relied on her for the planning of this. It wasn’t the best, but it was pretty good for a small crew of randoms from the Meeks. And either way, as far as I was concerned, this night would draw Morfran out. The thought gave me new vigor as we followed Suzume left into a bulkhead-enclosed antechamber. I paused at the sight of six people sitting naked on red-upholstered lounging chairs set into the wall, two women and four men, all drooling and catatonic, endorphin receptors hooked into ears like Hinote’s. Behind them was a large tank, and I didn’t want to guess what was in it or what part of the tower it, along with these six husks, powered.

Next room was a vacant laboratory, another large maintenance storage tunnel, and Suzume opened the door at the end of a darkly lit corridor with a keycard, and we were out, or at least partially out—the pathway outside of the door was white and ended in a T. Carved out between the tower and the T-shaped path was a glass-encased view of the Under-City two-hundred feet below.

“Fuckin shit, man. As if they need to be reminded of where they stand as they clockin’ out,” Hinote said, swaying a bit.

“You ok?” Kaito said, reaching a hand to Hinote’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m just—”

The glass to my right shattered. I jumped in front of Shun instinctively, pushing her further away from the tower. An endorphincopter’s propellers spun violently upward through the cracked opening in the glass, followed by the cabin, its doors wide open. A smiling man inside pulled a large microphone up and started filming us with his hand terminal. Then, a Chudo soldier jumped from the cabin toward us. I pushed Shun toward Hinote. “GO!” I yelled, pulling my Sachiblade from my back. Thankfully, I snorted the Sachi powder back there when I thought Suzume was a Chudo soldier, so the drug was still in full effect.

The Chudo smiled as he barreled down on me with his own Sachiblade.

“Andalaf Chudo on the scene here, folks, to apprehend the terrorists who have already destroyed one of our energy-providing drill towers tonight,” said the man with the microphone. “Soon, they will be in our custody. One can only hope those still hard at work inside the tower can get out before the bombs go off. We are sending in an evacuation force now.”

I flipped back toward the tower on one hand, kicking the Chudo’s descending blade away from me. He looked … familiar.

A ringing in my ears deafened me. I dropped to the ground, the pale teal and white of the platform turning black as my vision went and was replaced by the memory of …

“You ever tried going in one of these before?”

“Nah, didn’t wanna risk it.”

“I did. Nothin’ happened. I think you’re just a sissy.”

“Whatever.”

My vision returned, and the memory faded, leaving the taste of a name on the tip of my tongue.

“Niko,” I said.

“Hey, sissy. I wondered where you’d gone. I see your woman’s here too,” Niko said, pointing his blade at Shun, who Hinote and Kaito were struggling to drag away from the tower. “You think this is a better look for you? Murdering innocent people?”

“You heard it from the Chudo, folks. Murdering innocents. These terrorists will stop at nothing to destroy our way of life,” said the man on the endorphincopter. I wanted to hurt him more than I wanted to fight Niko, but I didn’t believe Niko would just let Shun get away. Niko was the type that liked to play with his food. At this thought, I jumped up and pressed the mechanism to widen my blade.

Niko laughed. “Such a silly thing. I know it’s a big sword. No need to make a show of it getting bigger, Ningyo.”

“And I always thought you had a small cock, and that was the reason you liked to hurt people,” I said. “Because someone hurt you. Maybe your first?”

Niko ran at me. I used my ice Sachi subtly to get a patch of slick under his feet, and he faltered for just a moment too long. I jumped up, kneeing him in the chin, but he caught me under the chin as well but with his pommel. I landed on my back, blood gushing out of my mouth as I lost my wind. I spit a tooth into the Under-City before rolling over and narrowly missing Niko's stab, which landed in the platform rather than my sternum. He stabbed down at me again, but I blocked, his blade sliding down the width of mine, giving me enough time to swing it around and cut through the back of his boots and into his heels.

He shrieked. I got up behind him as he fell over, stepped on his foot, then pushed his legs forward to stretch out the wound. He made inhuman sounds. I lifted Niko with both hands and took a snort from the Sachi pouch I saw he was holding in one hand; then, with the added strength of the fresh hit, I tapped my ice Sachi gem, and a jagged chunk of ice came out of my blade and threw him into the man with the camera inside the cabin of the endorphincopter. The cameraman fell back into the pilot, and as the copter spun and crashed into the black surface of the tower, the bombs went off.

I heard Shun scream, and I locked eyes with her one more time before the platform around me faltered and then wiggled like a wet noodle. Hinote, Suzume, and Kaito dragged Shun away from the collapsing entrance.

The sky fell—a metal, yellow-lit, and unforgiving sky—and I fell with it.

And the beast inside the drill tower screamed louder than any Chudo soldier or explosion, an undulating wail like a mother mourning the loss of her young. A call of insanity, a call to Morfran.