I'd never been in Santa Fe really, and being from the LA area with the desert right there, hot winds and hundred-degree summers, ancient Spanish missions and names wherever you found civilization, I'd always assumed life in all of the four corners states to be pretty much the same.

I'd been here a couple times now in the last couple of days and I couldn't get over just how wrong I was in that assumption. Especially after living back east for a while, I discovered that LA was a city of roads and parking lots -- everything was hugely spaced out so that you could drive and park anywhere, and with all the extra space needed for that infrastructure, everything was so far apart you had to drive everywhere.

Turns out, in a lot of old American cities, you could actually walk places. Kind of a revelation.

But Santa Fe felt spread out just for the fun of it. Maybe because it was hot here and people living too close together just meant the heat had nowhere to go. I couldn't really tell because it was only thirty-five degrees out in the pre-noon February sun. Maybe it was because every building seemed to be made of adobe and if they weren't spread out, the mud would never dry. Or maybe people here just really liked their big empty patches of dirt.

I didn't know. I was just watching the city go by through the windows of an XPCA van and being annoyed. I was with Tem and Moon and some shadow ops guy who seemed to relish nothing in the world quite so much as staring at the molecular-honed edge of his long blade through the glowing, creepy, bug-eyed optics wrapped around his head.

Like, I got it buddy. Your knife is sharp. I have a sharp knife too, but I know how to keep it in its sheath. No need to go waving it around just because there's a couple of girls riding with us.

I looked over at Moon, who had her face in her book of course, and then at Tem, who returned my gaze with a bright smile. She seemed so stupidly, willfully, blissfully ignorant of all the shit going on around her. I wondered if anything bad ever happened to her in the fantasy world Tem lived in.

Before I could open my mouth to say something mean, I stopped myself. Of course she did. In the time I'd known her, I'd put her in the hospital twice and she'd attempted suicide. It was an asshole thing even to cross my mind. Even if she irked me by seeming able to smile so carefree.

"How are you doing, Tem?" I asked, trying to inject some levity into my voice.

"I am doing very well!" she replied. "I was very upset that I have not been around you the last few days, but now that is over."

"Oh. Well, you were with the others, right? They take good care of you, don't they?"

"I don't know. They don't treat me like you do."

"How do I treat you that's so special?"

She beamed at me. "You always know what to s-s-say and do, and you don't hate me just for following you all the time. You might hate me for many other reasons and I understand. I do too. But even if you do, you are s-still nice to me."

Jesus. It'd be nice to be able to go longer than two sentences without the conversation turning into a train wreck.

The shadow ops laughed at Tem's comment...and not in a particularly nice way. Slowly, like he was saying 'heh heh heh', distorted and smokey sounding through his mask, like he was trying to go for creepy as a deliberate choice.

"She say something funny?" I asked him. I saw no reason to be anything but completely direct with the guy.

"Oh she's a funny piece all right," he said, his voice equal parts southerner and robotic. "Just killin' me over here."

I made a face at him, not sure if he was altogether there and he just did a flourish with his long knife and then sheathed it across his back. I guess some things were more interesting to him than his blade.

"Something to say? Have I got blood on my cheek?" he asked, slowly running a gloved finger down the mask, black and blank except for the glowing eyes.

"So do you like, deliberately try to be creepy?" I asked.

"Is that how you see it?"

"Pretty much, yeah. What do you think, Tem?"

"Very creepy. I would wish his eyes would blink."

"I think that's a visor, Tem."

"Then I would wish his visor would blink."

Again he laughed. Heh. Heh. Heh. "Like I'd be putting on a show for some punk kids like you." When he was talking, I could hear the rebreather built into his mask working, adding an ominous mechanical noise to his every breath. I wondered if his comms sensitivity was poorly calibrated, or if the whole inside of that mask was just badly designed and the xmit line was put too close to the rebreather pumps. I bet AEGIS could look it up and tell me.

"Hey Moon," I asked her, prompting a glare over the edge of her book. "I need a second opinion here."

"Yes, it does make you look gay," she said through the book, already back in place.

"Oh come on, I know you were listening in. Think this guy is trying to be creepy on purpose?"

"The amount of thought I am willing to dedicate to this topic is less than zero."

"Less than zero thought, huh?"

"Correct. I am so very disinterested in this topic that it actively encourages me to think of literally any other topic. Such as, for example, this book."

"Then let's talk about your book. What are you reading?"

"Hmm. Interesting. Apparently it is not actually the topic which negates my interest, but rather you. What a breakthrough. I will have to publish my findings. The world must know."

"You're a real dick, Moon," I grinned at her.

"I am happy to be of service," she replied, with both just the slightest hint of finality, but also of amusement.

"You guys are all real hard badasses ain't ya?" the shadow ops asked.

"Meh, not really. Moon and I are like, nineteen-year-olds--"

"Twenty-two," Moon said.

"Thought you weren't listening?"

"I am not," she lied without so much as blinking.

"--nineteen-year-olds who had issues with the way the world worked," I finished. "And Tem is just kinda along for the ride."

"I am following Chariot," she said with a broad smile.

"So yeah. Not really hard badasses at all," I concluded.

The shadow just sat there for a minute and then crossed his arms. "It's fine, you don't have to pretend on my account. If I'm freaking you out, you can just say so."

I almost laughed. "So you are trying to freak us out?"

"No."

"Sorry, I'm not trying to emasculate you or anything, but don't you think the bit with the knife is a bit overkill? And wearing your mask and optics before we're even at the OA? Sitting in the corner all by yourself...I mean...I really hope you're trying to impress us, because otherwise...you might have some issues. Wouldn't kill you to say hi or introduce yourself instead of just laughing all creepy-like as an introduction."

I waited for him to respond but he never did, just sorta stared at the floor for the rest of the ride.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

I guess today I accidentally crushed the ego of an XPCA badass.

It wasn't until we were almost out of town and the relentless sprawl of short adobe buildings became a more familiar sight of cheap stucco buildings that the shadow spoke up again. The van had stopped and we disembarked, stretching and getting blood flowing again.

"Should be a nice easy icing," he drawled. "My favorite."

"Yeah, no," I told him. "We're talking first. No reason to go in guns blazing."

"Talkin' ain't my job, son. Making bleeders scream is."

He stretched his spine in a way which seemed impossible to me, twisting and arching it almost double backwards, before whipping out his favorite blade and snapping it onto a swivelling mount on his wrist and dropping to all fours like the creepy insect he was.

"Yeah, no," I repeated. "I'm in charge of this squad, so you do what I say. We're talking."

"You little hot shit," he growled at me, his rebreather hissing at me. "I came here to kill Exhumans, not take orders from them."

I grabbed the corner of my collar and thrust it forward.

"You see that pin there, asshole? That's a strike lead insignia. If you don't have one, and you're on a strike team and someone else does, you do what they tell you. I should not need to explain military hierarchy to an infant on my ops."

"Infant?" he breathed, more than said. "Tell me then Daddy, do you see what's on my collar?"

He stalked a step closer to me before shimmering and disappearing with a digital crackle. When Tem vanished, she just sort of faded into nothingness piece by piece, but the active camo on the shadow instead covered him in a pattern which made him impossible to pick out from what was behind him, and so he sort of disappeared in layers as he first became blotchy and then higher-resolution passes made him blend more and more into the dirt and asphalt around him until he was completely gone.

"What's wrong, Daddy? Can't see the baby?" The synth on his voice had gone up a notch and made it sound like he was speaking from right in front of me. A trick of confusing a listener by delaying certain wavelengths of sound by infinitesimal amounts to create a simulated source of the noise.

But it didn't work on me. I couldn't see him, and even if I had optics like Karu, I still probably would never be able to. But he had electricity running through his neurons and for once, wasn't being blinded by my shield exploding or my own swords or the general chaos of a fight. I took one step straight towards him, and when he shrunk away, closed the distance with another step he clearly didn't expect and then pulled his face off.

He stumbled backwards, staying up for being a quadruped, but was now a face floating in the street with his bug-eyed black mask in my hands. From behind me Tem gave an enthusiastic whoop.

"What the fuck," he said, and I couldn't help but to smirk at the complete loss on his face.

"Daddy says sit in the car," I said, throwing the mask back at him. "We're doing this without you."

"Cocky little shit," he said, now just another regular angry guy without the mask to hide behind. "When y'all die in there, I'm gonna piss on your damn headstone. Fucking Exhumans."

"Come on Moon, Tem. Let's go," I said, and brought them in with me.

As per protocol, we'd been dropped off a few blocks away from the AO and had a few minutes to walk before we reached the target. Mostly I had just found a new outlet for my current annoyance in the form of the jackass waiting for us in the van.

"Can you believe that guy?" I asked the two girls.

"No! I do not believe him at all," Tem said. "He probably lies all the time."

"Right. Not...exactly what I meant...but sure. What do you think Moon?"

"I think you are stupid."

"I meant...specifically on the topic of the argument I just had with that shadow ops jerkass."

"I maintain my prior claim. You are stupid."

"What? How? He was a huge dick. He's one of those who just hates Exhumans. Did you hear him back there? Just here to kill Exhumans, not take orders from them. Fuck him."

"Be that as it may, he represented a fair amount of our combat potential. Dismissing him out of hand was stupid, and you demonstrated your immaturity as a leader."

"Immature?" I stopped walking and turned to face her. She was a little shorter than me so I had the pleasure of looking down on her physically at least. "He's the one deciding we're killing people before we even arrive. This could be an Exhuman preschool for all we know. I am not just going to let him go nuts with his little knife."

"He, as you established, was a bigoted moron. But he is not in charge, he does not have to allocate forces or ensure others' safety. That is your role. And for you to go tit-for-tat with a subordinate shows you are not his superior, but his equal. In stupidity."

"Whatever," I said, turning back towards our goal. "Where do you want your body left, Moon?"

"In the van, ideally."

"With the knife-happy Exhuman hater?"

"If he wanted to penetrate me with his implement, he had no need to wait for me to be unconscious first. I could have done nothing to stop him if he forced himself upon me during the trip."

"Okay, putting aside how you always phrase things as poorly as possible, you do realize that to most people there's a difference between being awake or not, right?"

"As far as murder goes, I doubt it. I presume it much more likely that he either is planning to kill me or isn't, than the small chance that he would only do so if I were unconscious in his care."

"Great logic."

"Besides, I would not be alone with him, there is still the driver."

"He's just a human too. You think he'd stand up to a shadow ops for you?"

"My, and now you also sound quite the bigot. I shall have to continue to lower my assessment of you."

We were at our destination and I just grabbed Moon by the arm and gave her hand a squeeze.

"Brute. Molester. Stranger danger," she said, before collapsing.

"Moon, seriously, I'm kind of having a shit time right now with a lot of things in life," I said, hoping that being in my head might get me any kind of sympathy out of her. "So can you tone down the usual bullshit of yours some, because I really don't need it right now."

"I suppose, in the interest of teamwork," she said. "Not to contradict myself, but is your intention seriously to leave my body on the sidewalk like that?"

"No," I said, pulling it along with me and propping it up beside the door. "There. Now you just look like you're taking an early siesta."

"Oh good. Cultural appropriation. My favorite."

I stopped in front of the door for a minute before kneeling down and putting Moon back in her body. She eyed me suspiciously on waking up.

"Remorse?" she asked simply.

"No. You were being a real dick though, and using your powers is a great way to shut you up."

"I speak only as I see things. If you wish me to be less of a 'real dick', I suggest addressing your own faults." I was about to argue but she raised a hand like a student in class and continued when I stopped. "But I have been given a reasonable request to not antagonize you for the time being, so I will drop it for now. So why am I back in me?"

"Because we're talking. To them," I said. "I realized it might be weird if we barge in with powers aglow."

"I do not think you appreciate just how quickly I will die in an Exhuman event if I am physically present."

"You'll be fine. We're just talking."

"Then why am I even present?"

"Because you're smart. It'll be fine. Come on."

I pulled her to her feet, making sure not to touch any bare skin and then knocked on the door. It was a minute before the door opened a crack and I got a glimpse of one wide eye peering at me through a crack.

"Hi, we're--" I got out, before the door exploded into splinters, tendrils of light tearing through it like multi-headed snakes, its fragments detonating on my shield.

I got half a step back, stumbling at the sudden, unexpected assault, before more twisting tentacles exploded out of the doorway like a dam of light had just burst within. I found myself down on my side, with Moon on top of me, thousands of streams of light reaching through the door and writhing.

One flailed downwards and struck her on the back, and I felt her tense against me as she inhaled sharply. She said nothing but rolled off me and reached pitifully for the red line of burns across one shoulder blade.

More seemed to have picked up on the scent and wriggled and flailed as though caught in the confines of the doorway, trying their damndest to reach us on the ground mere feet away. I summoned my swords and cut at them, and where my lights met theirs, both exploded into blinding radiance of smoke and sparks, but they were gaining on us too fast, I could only crawl backwards away and Moon was just lying there holding herself.

And then with a roar, our lights utterly erased theirs, as Temperance unleashed hell through the doorway, the surging wave of growing lights blown back in an instant by a new tide.

The whole world seemed to vanish where the two met, where light battled light, and the doorway was just the first victim as the entire front of the building disintegrated in a blast of pure white and noise.

It was just pure energy eradicating everything, a growing sphere so white and so empty it was like a hole in the world. I grabbed Moon and ran, feeling slow as the vacuum of disintegrating air behind me threatened to pull us both in, but I still managed to put stride after stride between us and the growing white ball of death. I didn't see Tem anywhere, I hoped she was safe somewhere.

But I had hardly a moment to think before the roar of the wind grew so strong in my ears and the wave of heat reached a crescendo, and for an instant, the sphere froze exactly as it was.

And then it imploded violently, crunching down to half its size with such force that I saw the light all around me bend, the brown hues around me distorting into reds and pinks. It crunched down again, and again, shrinking and somehow growing even more impossibly bright until it was just a pinprick gateway to the sun, and I knew whatever it was, it couldn't hold. And I was only maybe thirty feet away.

I threw Moon on the ground behind a corner as I felt the light around me dent one final time, her eyes as startled and wide as I had ever seen, and then threw myself on top of her, covering her from whatever came next and hoping the stupid impossible hope that the corner of this building would somehow save us from this solar apocalypse.

As the world turned to white all around us, I saw her looking up at me with those dark almond-shaped eyes of hers, sand streaking the pool of black hair behind her head, her narrow lips open in shock and panting every breath.

And then a wave of nothingness washed over us with a roar as the wind itself burned into nonexistence.