I started and came to, not myself. I knew this at once, snapping to a fully upright posture and finding my spine in poor shape to do so. It felt as though my spine had been fused, so painful was sitting upright, and I presumed I must have somehow dozed away and pulled a muscle in my sleep.

Except I hadn't dozed. I had been conferring with the defense about the state of defensive cells arranged on the walls for the impending attack. And no tranquilizer in the world would have knocked me out so fast that there would be no trace of it. Unless it included memory loss as a symptom but then…

I looked around, finding myself in a chamber in Oasis, apparent from the white stone benches and tables. A tablet before me in my hands. If I had been drugged and recovered, this is not how I would have been handled. Oasis may have been backwards in many regards, but their medicine was not so sorely lacking as this.

I stood and tripped at once, finding myself gangly and weak, my arms and legs too long and too thin, and reminding me at once of the growth spurts I had endured in puberty before I had filled out. More worrying yet was my apparent lack of equipment. What had happened to me? How long had I been debilitated to feel so uneasy in my own body?

I advanced on the nearest individual and stood before him. "Hail. I appear--"

I stopped. My voice was not my own. I cleared my throat and then, looking at my hands, saw them unfamiliar. Instead of short-trimmed nails, they were bitten and ragged. My arms did not simply feel thin, they were thin. And--

I turned and felt an unfamiliar weight. I turned again, and once more, until I could locate it. Thick brown hair adorned my head, so bushy that it hardly entered my view as my head snapped from side to side.

It was brown. With a painful tug, I determined it was not a wig.

"What is the meaning of this?" I barked at the man, who looked at me with confusion. "What has transpired to my body, and...and this voice! It is not my own. Is there an Exhuman in Oasis who changes others' bodies without their consent?"

"Uhh," he said, the paragon of assistance.

"Tell me, imbecile!" I grabbed him by the neck and pulled him from his stool. The others in the room seemed completely unprepared for how to react, as did the one in my hands.

Impossibly unprepared, in fact. He did not move to defend himself or otherwise. He seemed predisposed only to return to his work, and my fury raged that he would still ignore me and my plight in this position.

I punched him, not gently, but not hard either, to ensure my seriousness in this matter to him. I felt the blow, saw him take it, his eyes watering and gut clenching.

"Speak," I commanded.

But he did no such thing, even as I let him go, he simply returned to his work.

Which was simply impossible. The others in the room, they did not so much as look up at the blow. Were they all simply mad? Did they fear nothing?

It was a theory worth testing. I put my hands on him, one under his chin and another above the nape and applied gentle pressure.

"Speak, one of you, or I shall break this man's neck," I said.

Only the man in my hands seemed to even hear me, and he didn't answer. So I thrust my weight through my arms, snapping his head back while applying pressure of the neck, jamming his head straight up with a crack.

"Ow," he whined, holding his neck where I'd merely broken half of his axis vertebrae. I frowned at the weak execution, snapping his head up again harder, with little resistance offered.

This time, I felt his neck break properly, and after that, gave him a violent twist to damage and introduce the fresh bone fragments into the spinal cord. He went slack at once, crumpling without breath.

"I hope the rest of you understand that I am serious," I proclaimed, my voice still not my own. "Now tell me, who you are, and what has transpired, or I shall be forced to induct another of you into hell."

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They didn't move. And they continued not moving as I systematically disassembled them. Half because they did not resist, and half to satisfy the fury which was pouring out of the ignited panic welling up within me.

It was as though they were mere set dressing and they knew it. They would speak, to complain, they saw me and felt me keenly enough. And yet they did not think, did not act, did not exist. Which galled me, and burned away any guilt or shame I might feel in dispatching them.

One, I even vivisected, to ensure it was not merely a drone or the like, but there was an abundance of flesh and blood within. The only outcome left I could conceive which explained all was the meddling of a code-X. Braindead men, myself not myself...it was the only sense to be made.

I thought to continue outside for a spell, perhaps purge this entire area of the fiend's puppets. But before that, I wished to check...just for my own sanity, that...somehow...I had not...disappeared for a few months, withered away, and had my hair dyed, or some such. Impossible as that might be, it seemed wise to double-check before a rampage.

Stepping around the corpses I had produced, I considered...perhaps it would have been wise to check before now. But I had been making threats at the time, and I was not one to ever see a threat go undelivered. I gave them an ultimatum should they wish to live, and none had.

I sat down where I had first found myself and picked up the tablet. A few taps in, and I read the date.

There were no vanishings of months. It was mere minutes after I last knew myself. I was confirmed, that this was the work of a deviant, and they would be destroyed, whether I had my gear, body, or nothing.

I turned off the tablet to put it down and caught myself in the gloss of the black panel that the holo typically covered. My fingers went involuntarily to my hair again.

I was Lia?

It seemed impossible, but the reflection of her followed my every move. Breathing hard, I patted myself down, exploring my body under the concealing layers of the airy fabric I'd been under.

There was little mistake to be made. Something was amiss.

And then I felt a sickness, as though I moved a great distance in an instant, and my hands, still on myself, found nothing amiss. Except the blood and pain of a forehead injury.

"Return to your task," said one of the military aides, his voice flat.

"Nobody is permitted to leave the city," said another.

I glared at them. "What know you of a code-X within the city?"

"Return to your task, please."

"Nobody is permitted...do not leave the city."

I tapped my foot, the heel clicking with a comforting familiarity. I crossed my arms and felt a familiar weight there as well. God, had it been a respite to be rid of those for a time.

I gave a bit of thought before delivering my next few words. "If you tell me to return to my task, or remain in the city, I will kill you. You may remain silent, if you wish."

I stared at them, and they said nothing. Good. The code-X hadn't gotten this far, then. But that still left my own situation. I leaned against the gate--

"Nobody is permitted to leave the city. Step away from the gate, please."

A knife jumped into my hands. Much easier than breaking the spinal cord by hand.

"May heaven be a reprieve from the sinful world of man," I prayed for him.

"Stop!" said the other, and I did, looking at him.

"Return to your task," he said.

I rolled my eyes and decided to do him first.

It wasn't long before I saw that these were also just puppets. Noone came from the wall despite the murder in the streets. It was as though they did not see or hear me at all. Brain-dead, all of them.

And then I saw figures approach. The code-X or their minions, I hoped. I flicked blood off my blade, relishing the opportunity for a fair fight.

But the three who came weren't like the others. Their words were confused, to be sure, but their mannerisms, now that I was scrutinizing every person I met with care...they were eerily familiar.

"Am I delusional?" I asked of them. "Or are you...are you not the Ashtons, and you...are unmistakably Saga. And yet none of you are?"

They shook their heads in disagreement and told me I was crazy, even as Athan gave me the visual signals for agreement, that there were enemies all around, and to fall in.

I shook my head as I came to them, and then, just as I'd been Lia, I found myself in their bodies for a few moments each. Lia's, very nearly familiar now that I had broken it in with a few kills. Saga's spindly form, staring at the stranger who stood where I did. And finally Ashton.

I understood clearly the message, though he had it written up in a tablet which existed only to his own eyes nonetheless. We each were living a delusion, a literal one, not the typical blatherings of the shepherds of 'sheeples'. And somewhere in this city was its source, an entity of the mind, and an enemy of mankind.

I drew Ashton's attention and then made the gestures for requesting ammunition and supplies, and he affirmed, even as my image of him bleated in confusion and complained at being dragged out here.

Code-X offended me. I would suit up, arm myself, and then tear down this city until its rotten heart lay withering in the glasslands sun. I would tear the responsible party in half, neck-to-ass if I had the chance. No code-X molested my mind and went unpunished. I found myself looking forward to it.