The delivery arrived the next day, after it had begun to rain.

Koen stood in his kitchen, sharpening his knives.

It felt good to slide the blade down the wet stone, angled just so. Sound and texture matched so perfectly, he could almost see the microscopic particles of steel realigning themselves.

His translator clicked. "Oh, Radicchinho," came Severo's voice.

Koen put down his knife and looked up at the device. He had learned to not attempt multitasking when the Defense Attaché talked to him.

"Yes?"

"What is this?" she cooed. "An unscheduled omnivator is climbing our building?"

"Oh, right. That must be the food I ordered."

"Yes, I know. The creature inside says you summoned it. Radicchinho, you mustn't break the rules like this."

"Rules? I cleared the purchase with Yoshida—"

"Pft! Money. Am I the chief of money? No, I'm chief of security. I need to know these things. Next time, tell me, or tell Laura Zhang, and she can tell me, if you're too scared."

"All right," said Koen, trying not to let his annoyance show in his voice.

Severo heard it anyway. She held cowards in contempt, and was frustrated by Koen's continual failure to show some backbone and defend himself. She made the quick decision to mess with him.

"The delivery can't come into the embassy without clearance," she said. "You tell it to meet you at ground level. And put on a jacket, because it's raining. Good bye."

Thinking of all the things he would like to say to Severo, Koen shoved on his jacket and stomped toward the front door.

"Translator, take me to ground level, and call the Furry Foods truck. I'm going to have to meet him outside in the rain because our security won't let him use our omnivator door like any normal delivery."

The translator correctly parsed these commands. The delivery beings had a harder time.

"I'm sorry," said Koen from the inside of the omnivator, "but I have to meet you on the ground level."

"Meet him on ground level?" came the answer, which was more precisely a question. "Meet him on ground level, he says." The voice suddenly boomed. "Look, buddy, we're already at your exterior port. All you have to do is open the rotten door. You think you can manage that?"

"I can't." said Koen. "You don't have security clearance. I have to meet you on the ground. Please clear the port so I can get out."

"Oh, he wants to start something? Is that it? Yeah, he wants to see who's stronger. Hey! You come back here!"

Koen's omnivator slid past the delivery's and scurried down the side of the embassy. "I'll meet you on the ground," he said. "I'm sorry. Security rules."

"Sorry, he says. He will be! You started a fight with the wrong suit, let us tell you. Just you wait until we catch up with you."

The omnivators chased each other down the building like a pair angry raccoons. The delivery-beings emerged into the rain much more precisely like a pair of angry raccoons, but Koen didn't know that.

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"I'm very sorry," he said for the third time, peering up under the hood of his jacket. "I didn't get the proper security—oh!"

A knight hove out of the rain, holding a crate of groceries.

"You think we care about security regulations? This guy thinks we care about security regulations. You'll take your groceries. You'll take them right from us!"

"Yes?" said Koen. "Thank you?" Rain spattered his glasses as he tilted back his head.

The figure was easily three meters tall, a colossus of lacquered wood. The mighty legs swung out from the hips, clicked into position, and splashed down. The massive barrel-shaped chest heaved toward Koen's nose.

"Oh ho!" Its voice sounded like wolverines fighting in a whiskey barrel. "Not so tough now, are you?"

When the noise stopped and Koen opened his eyes again, he noticed that the chest had been painted with images of long-legged, hook-beaked birds, beaded now with rain.

"Phorusrhacids?" he said.

"We're gonna…what did he call us?" A hatch opened in the chest. A pair of large, dark eyes looked out at Koen, and hollow chittering emerged. "What? What did you say, Tiny?"

"Are those phobusracids?" asked Koen.

A furry face, round with whiskers. On either side, ears swiveled like radio dishes. "Yes," it said, "they're phobusracids."

"A mammal!" said Koen. "I'm a mammal too!" And the articulated gauntlets clutching the crate had four fingers and a thumb just like his hands. "Are you some kind of primate?"

Koen tilted his head, trying to get a look through the hatch. "But no, the smell was wrong for primates, and that pointed little snout. Some kind of carnivoran? And are there two of you inside that armor?"

The ears flattened. Fur bristled and teeth flashed.

"You don't talk about what's inside a suit!"

"Oh, uh, sorry."

On one earth, monkeys never made it to South America. It was always going to be a chancy endeavor, rafting on uprooted trees all the way from Africa. Objectively, it was much more likely for tree-dwellers to island-hop down from North America.

These furry creatures, procyonid carnivorans related to raccoons, coaties, and kinkajous, diversified quickly in the Amazon. Fruit-eaters evolved as dexterous and intelligent as any simian. Perhaps more intelligent, because they didn't wait for natural selection to adapt them to life outside the rainforest. Rather than evolve long legs to walk on the ground, they invented stilts.

The most basic stilt is a long branch grasped in the opposable digits of a hand and a foot. Gripping a pair of stilts, a furry tree-dweller can stand tall and run fast, but it cannot hold anything. War required an archer standing on the shoulders of the stilt-walker. Civilization required further armor. It was from this base that the concept of the Greaves of Progress emerged.

The hatch slammed closed in Koen's face and a double-snarl erupted from the armor.

"You think you can get the better of us, huh?" One of the gauntlets holding the crate of groceries sprang open. The torso twisted as the arm rose. "Look him, sitting out there smug as you like. Yeah! Look at his size and number showing under that skimpy little outfit."

Koen clutched at his raincoat. "Huh? Clarify?"

"We'll show you!" A mahogany fist swung out of the rain.

Koen flinched away. He stumbled on the slick pavement and splashed rain water up his leg. This turned out to be the extent of his injuries.

The fist hung in the air, dripping, a centimeter from where his ear had just been.

"Ha! Yeah! We could have cracked his melon but good."

"What?" gasped Koen. This was everything he couldn't stand about the Zogreion. He was sick of it. He was sick of everything being weird and frightening and impossible. Laura was right.

"Now!" boomed the Greaves. "You take what we give you!"

Koen grabbed the crate, which by now had a pool of water dancing on its lid.

Scratching sounds came from inside the armored figured, and the remaining gauntlet disengaged with a sproing!

More scratching and chittering, then another double-voice. "You owe us nothing!" One of the legs clicked and bent backward. Up there between the massive, wooden shoulders, a helmet the size of a pumpkin rotated.

"Our delivery is complete," chorused the voices from inside the armor. "And we beat you but good. Ha ha, yeah! Thanks for taking our groceries, Tiny."

Koen watched the mobile suit lurch off into the rain. He clutched his crate tight and dashed back into his omnivator.