Rich fell out of his chair.

“Dear?” Mom rushed forward, reaching out, grabbing his shoulders as he shook.

He hurt. The severed connection felt like his brain had stretched, then snapped back into his skull like a rebounding rubber band.

“Rich? Oh no! Oh Jesus no. I... Medical! Nine one one! Emergency call, put me through to medical!” His mother was talking, and he tried to tell her it was all right, but his words were lost as his head swam.

Seventeen dragons had died, snuffed out of existence, and their dying screams would haunt him until the end of his life.

“Shit,” he whispered. “Give me a minute, okay?”

Eventually the room came back into focus. It took him a few seconds of unfamiliarity to recognize it, and realize that he was where he should be. The house was new, and he was still adjusting to it, still coming to terms with this new life, this new cage.

“Richard? Stay with us,” Fred said, jogging in from the bedroom, and tugging on his shirt. “The ambulance is coming. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Signs of a concussion, right?” Rich said, making sure his voice worked properly. “I think I'm good. Maybe we don't need an ambulance.”

“Not how it works,” Fred said, offering hands. Rich took them, let Fred pull him to his feet, then almost fell over as Mom hugged him, crying.

He hugged her back, and felt sad, not knowing why. Some trepidation filled him, some unease that told him this would be important. “I love you, Mom. I love you, Fred. I do. You know that, right?”

“We know,” Fred said, coming into the hug, and the three of them held each other until red and blue lights flickered through the window, and the doorbell rang.

“Okay. Okay, good,” Rich said, as they broke the embrace.

The medics insisted on carrying him out on a stretcher. He didn't mind, taking the opportunity to watch his parents on the way to the ambulance.

There was a woman in a suit inside, and he wasn't too surprised to see her. Rich gave her a nod, she nodded back, and said nothing. Whichever agency was minding them, whatever their goals, they weren't about to slip up here.

They'd gone to the trouble of transferring them to a whole new town, after all, a whole new province, too. They'd spoofed his internet connection, so he could keep attending virtual classes with his original school, hundreds of miles away, but that life was effectively done.

That spoofing was very much why he hadn't been able to get back to Generica Online. It was far too much of a risk. He didn't know who had him, he didn't know what their goals were, and he couldn't show them Rotgoriel. God only knew what they could or would do to his dragon brother.

Rich grunted as the IV went in, though the pain was minimal. It was more about the pressure on his right arm; his side still ached from that night a few weeks ago. Not for the first time he missed Generica, where a few quick heals could mend the worst injuries, without lingering pain or future repercussions.

It was out of his hands now, so Rich shut his eyes, and listened to the medics chatter. They'd already checked his pupils on the way into the ambulance, so he wasn't too worried about resting for a bit.

But he didn't get the chance.

For a second he thought the ambulance hit a bump.

But then there came another jolt, and Rich opened his eyes to see the agent scrambling up, and hauling out a pistol. One of the medics yelled and backed away—

—and then Rich was thrown against his restraints, and yelling in surprise and pain as loose items and bodies bounced off him.

It took a second to figure out what had happened. It took a second to realize that he was hanging from the straps of his locked-in pallet now, staring at the roof, which was now below him.

Something had turned the ambulance over. Probably wrecked it, if the cracks in the roof and wall were anything to go by.

Red dripped down, dripped down onto the face of the agent below, and she stirred, weakly, put her hand on her head. Blood was dripping on her face, and Rich realized it was his. He glanced over, saw where the IV had been ripped from his arm, leaving a small but messy tear.

Rich fought to get free of his restraints. The agent below him stood, shifting so she wouldn't ram her head into his chest...

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...and the back doors slammed open. Figures stood silhouetted in the sunlight, and she scrambled back, falling, feet sliding in the debris. Rich watched as she scrabbled, trying to get to her pistol...

...too late.

CHOCK.

CHOCK.

She fell backward, and one of the medics screamed, as feathers bloomed from her heart and throat.

Rich froze. “Legion?” he whispered.

“Yes. Hold still,” a man's voice replied.

One of the medics tried to push past them and run.

CHOCK.

“Hey! No, stop!” Rich shouted. “Let them live!”

“The last one's out or dead, so we're good now,” came the calm reply, and two sets of hands unbuckled his restraints, caught him when he started to fall and dragged him free. Rich groaned, and tried his feet, found them working.

Now that they weren't backlit, Legion's puppets looked ordinary. A middle-aged man with a gut and a combover, and a thin woman somewhere in her thirties or thereabouts. Both were wearing sweatpants and t-shirts, and they tossed the crossbows back into the wrecked ambulance as they ran.

Rich paused for a look back, saw the remnants of two cars in a heap of twisted metal that included the front part of the ambulance. A bloody arm hung loose from the wreckage, and that was all he had time to notice before the man took his arm and pulled him into a jogging run. “Come on. No time to gawk at the accident.”

“Was it really an accident?” Rich asked, as he followed behind them. They'd chosen a wooded road between farm fields for their ambush, and he wasn't much surprised when a van pulled up, and the two prodded him inside.

“As far as the rubber-neckers think, yes.” A car whizzed by as he spoke, as if to punctuate the point. There was enough room for traffic to get by, so long as they slowed a bit. And after a moment, the van slid into the road and followed.

“What the hell is this?” Rich whispered, looking around between the two of them. Nobody was driving the van, which wasn't surprising, so they were alone in here. “Why did you kill them? What on earth do you need me for?”

The two co-opted bodies spoke simultaneously. “I don't know yet. Not exactly.”

“You don't...” Rich shot a look back towards the wreck, but they'd moved out of sight already. “You just killed two people, not counting whoever was in that car crash, and you're wearing these two like overcoats and you did this just because? On a whim?”

“I didn't say that.” It was eerie hearing them talk in unison. Their inflections were exactly the same, their tones matched precisely.

He glanced between them, feeling that unease, seeing the uncanny valley in full effect. “Then why?”

“I went back and combed through the records of the two that attacked you, and the ones that went after your friends that day. There was... junk code, you might call it. It meant nothing from this side of things, but when I filtered it through my Cultist shells over in Generica... well.” Legion's bodies tilted their heads, and smiled smugly. “I didn't learn the method they used to come across. But I did learn enough to detect the process, and track future incursions.”

“You can? Wait. Is this why you're here? Were they coming after me again?”

“I don't know. But they just went from one or two transitions a day to over six hundred in the last fifteen minutes.”

Rich felt cold surge up his spine. “Shit. Here? Do you have eyes on Pat and Greg?”

“They're elsewhere. I'm securing them now, along with Alvin.”

“Alvin?”

“Alvin Cutter.”

“Ah...”

“But that's the thing. They're not all here. Only a few of them are in this province. They're all across the world.” Legion said, fixing him with two sets of unblinking eyes. “If this is an invasion, it's a poorly planned one.”

“That's out of character for them,” Rich said.

“Yes. I know,” Legion said, eyes still holding his gaze. “Do you know the reason for this incursion?”

“No,” Rich said, but the sound of the hatchlings screaming wouldn't leave his mind. “Maybe. I need to log in and check. I couldn't do that before, they had eyes on me.”

“They still do,” Legion said, and the woman leaned forward and tapped his forehead. “They put a few things in you while you were under. I'm jamming them now, but we'll need to get you to a more secure facility, get in there, and remove them.”

Rich scooted back on the seat. “I'm not so sure I want to let you operate on my brain.”

“I'm not so sure you have a choice.”

The words hung in the air like dying men from a gallows.

Rich inhaled. “So it's like that, huh?”

“No. But the stakes are too high. Every god that my Oracles follow is sending out omens and portents at triple speed. There's disaster coming, soon, and all the major players are reacting. And Richard? I've put too much of myself into this game to risk losing it all. I have literally put too much of myself into it. So understand that while I love you like a little brother, I need to make sure that Analog didn't booby trap you too badly.”

“Analog?”

Legion nodded. “The Tee-ell-dee-arr is that they're part of a global effort to hunt my kind down.”

“I heard something about that, back in the Ministry. I didn't know that they were from Eascan.”

“Eascan and Cascadia are leading the charge, such that it is,” Legion shrugged. “It's been a cold war for the last decade. Well, it was. What I just did there might have heated a few things up. On the upside, I guarantee you that they don't think of this as a dimensional incursion. If they follow their own protocols and logic, they have to assume that we're making a major move, and retrieving a planted asset.”

Rich closed his eyes. “Me.”

“And Patrick and Gregory and Alvin. I have them too.”

“And my family?”

“What about them?”

“Are they in danger?”

“From me? No. From Analog? Probably not. You made a shrewd move by getting out of the Ministry. Eascan might not be entirely on the side of the angels, but they don't tend to punish the families of their fugitives.”

Rich breathed easier. He settled back in the seat, and watched the countryside pass, through the windows of the van. “I assume you're jamming and spoofing for all you're worth, here,” he said, after they passed through the third traffic light.

“Oh yeah. Burning assets big-time,” Legion sighed. “But there's no way around it. You're a key to this whole business, on that my Oracles agree. Well... your scaly friend is, at any rate.”

“Story of my life,” Rich nodded, and closed his eyes. The danger was past, for the moment.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, Rich felt hands shake him awake. “What?” he grumbled.

“Was there something going on with the dragons? Was that why you collapsed earlier today?”

“I... I'm not sure,” Rich said, lamely. “There was something happening, and it involved the dragons. I don't know what it was or what they're doing about it, though.”

“Well I can answer that last part,” Legion said. “They're attacking.”

“Attacking who?”

“Everyone.”