"Frod, where are the cameras?"

"This way!"

Constable Frod ran ahead of me into the stat sec room full of the camera views. Corridor after corridor showed up on the screens, the whole Atrium too, pieced out like a moving jigsaw on the walls around us. "We're looking for a very large Terran male, name of Teg Korr," Frod said to the officers working the room.

One of them pointed to a bank of screens. "I think I saw him just before. One of the escaped criminals, right? I was just about to send you the alert."

"Where? Show me." Frod leaned over the officer's shoulder as she cycled through the different views on one screen.

"Is that him?"

I peered closer, nearly knocking heads with Frod. A large brute of a man bashed his way down a set of stairs low on the Atrium. Ahead of him, a slim, tall feminine figure ran, tripping over other people in haste. Xen. I could barely suck in air to speak. "That's him, come on!" I shouted, and ran out of the room ahead of Korr.

We pursued each other, each taking the lead at different points, trying to get out through the huge panicking crowd at the bottom level of the Atrium so we could look up the various spiral staircases in the Atrium. But we needn't have tried: the two of them were coming down to our level as we spoke. Xen's eyes locked with mine. Synthetic though Xen might be, there was pure animal fear in those eyes.

"Get out of the way!" I roared at the crowd, but I was so much shorter than everyone else. I resorted to wading through the press of people behind Frod, who was more practised at, and more physically suited to, barreling through a crowd of people. When I caught glimpses of Xen trying to slip through the crowd, I could see Xen was trying to make it to us, or to Stat Sec behind us. If only Xen could. There was some modicum of safety in there, or with us.

But Korr caught up with Xen, grabbing Xen by the back of the neck. He dragged Xen back to the staircase, away from the people screaming around him, and headed down the spiral stairs to the level below. The last I saw of Xen was Xen's limbs waving wildly, trying to gaIn purchase on the stair railings to pull free.

"Clear the way!" Frod yelled, resorting to bringing his baton out and using it, just shy of violently, to hold people away from us so we could make it to the stairs.

It felt like forever when we finally did. I flew down the stairs two at a time, turning my speed and weapon mods on.

I didn't care if Frod saw anymore.

We arrived in the library to see Korr picking up Xen and throwing Xen like a ragdoll against a bookcase some five metres away.

"Hey!" shouted one of the librarians, standing nearby behind a desk. "I'll call Stat Sec!"

Korr threw up the nearest corner stand of books. The books and data chips flew off as he threw the stand like a damn spear, over his shoulder, at the desk. The librarian screamed and ducked behind the desk. I heard a shout of pain as the stand hit the desk and knocked it half on top of the poor librarian.

But they could handle themselves. Xen was only just picking Xen's self up, and Korr was bearing down on Xen.

"Stop," Frod shouted, but I didn't give him the chance to stop, I just aimed my arm at Korr's back and shot.

Turning to look at us saved him. My shot went sailing past his back, the heat of the bolt searing a line in his suit. He winced, feeling it, then grinned bloody murder at me. All around, screams sounded out, but my ears were dull to them, my world narrowing down to just Xen, Korr, and me.

"Damn it, recharge, recharge," I hissed, whacking the hand with the weapon mod in it. Stupid cheap mods, I don't know why I ever bothered.

Frod pushed past me. Korr turned away from us to pick up Xen again and slammed Xen against the bookshelf. Metal crunched, distinctly, and Xen's torso looked misshapen. I screamed, and ran to catch up with Frod.

The Constable, having caught up with Korr, laid into the back of his neck and head with his baton. He caught three good whacks on Korr's hard, stubby head, and the man dropped Xen, falling to his hands and knees.

Frod stood over him, puffing, then straightened up, recovering from the savagery of moments before by straightening his uniform belt. "Teg Korr, you are under ar-"

Korr kicked back, and Frod's legs gave way from under him. He landed hard on his hand, then curled up, an agonised cry erupting from his balled-up form.

The Terran slowly got to his feet, just in time for me to catch up to him. My fists were raised above my head to clobber him. It was all I had left.

"Leave Xen alon-"

My words cut short as he grabbed me by the throat. My vision went red, and the next thing I knew, I was sailing across the library. I crashed hard on my back into a cart full of books, which went careening with my momentum into a nearby shelf. When I was able to stand, every part of me crying out with ache, I had to negotiate the pile of books I was on top of, like a slippery sand dune as I clambered down.

Korr and Xen weren't visible anymore, deeper in the library, but I could hear the screams, and the sound of him throwing and hurting Xen. Xen's pain had no sound, other than the crunch of metal against the shelves. I ran toward the sound, past Frod.

"My wrist is broken," Frod cried out, reaching for me with his good hand. I couldn't stop. I grabbed his baton and kept going.

I turned the corner in time to see my librarian friend Yellegiad approaching Korr, four hands up defensively, trying to get between Korr and Xen. "Don't hurt -"

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Yellegiad suffered the same fate as me, sailing through the air to smack against another bookcase. They tried to sit up, then collapsed back, moaning in pain. I waded in again to stop Korr. My fist was starting to burn with the familiar feeling of the weapon mod on the verge of being ready again. I just needed a little more time...

Like a glimpse of midnight in the middle of the day, Nadir arrived. As Nadir wrapped himself around Korr, just like last time, Korr let go of Xen. Xen slumped to the floor, face still glowing through Xen's faceplate, but every limb twisted and dented, synthaskin ripped and torn, sloughing off like wet pastry.

I rushed for Xen, trusting Nadir to look after himself. Xen stared up at me, face surprised, a bit of a flicker at the corner of one eye glitching the left side of Xen's face in and out of view. "Xen, are you still with us?"

"I am, but I can't do anything, Marys. All my limbs are unresponsive. I'm not important right now -"

"Yes, you are!"

"I'll be fine. You need to worry about the organics!" Xen's eyes looked beyond me, wide with horror.

I turned to see what Xen saw. Korr had learned from his last encounter with Nadir. There was no getting the serpentine manservant off once he was entwined around one's limbs. So instead, Korr backed up to the shelves, and threw himself backwards, over and over, trying to crush Nadir into submission. A thin wheeze was all I could hear from Nadir.

And for the first time, I saw something of him other than his black carapace. His blood, dripping from his faceplate in the vicinity of his mouth.

Korr reared up again, and this time after the impact, Nadir's head shook limply on his skinny neck.

"You're killing him!" I screamed. Korr didn't care, but reared up again to slam Nadir another time.

I stood evenly on both feet, aimed, and fired straight for Korr's chest.

My beam caught him dead in the centre of his torso. However, it did mean that he crashed back on Nadir one last time.

Nadir's limbs went limp, and he fell to the ground, while Korr gripped his chest and knelt, his shoulders heaving.

I ran over to look at Nadir, pushing past Korr's boulder of a shoulder. The armoured man was breathing jaggedly, coughing up more blood. "Maryth," he spluttered, his hand reaching for me, then collapsing back down on the floor.

My vision was red. Korr had gone too far in his personal vendetta. Did I see my own reflection in him? Perhaps. Did that make me pull back on the violence I wished to deal him?

Not at all.

I turned to Korr's hunched form, and smacked him across the neck with Frod's baton.

"That's for Yellegiad!"

I hit him again.

"That's for Frod!"

His body jerked with my next hit.

"That's for Nadir!"

His hand reached for the baton, and I cracked down on it. His bones crunched.

"That's for Xen!"

I kept laying into him, no longer able to find the words to tell him why I was doing what I was doing. Each beat, each justification, was only for myself now.

For Xen, for what he had just done to Xen.

For Xen, for what I had been doing to Xen, pushing Xen away.

For me, because I'd just learned who my mother was.

For me, because my mother was my world's greatest monster.

For my mother, who'd suffered at the hands of this man's friends.

For my grandmother, who'd suffered in silence to protect my innocence.

For Gerondia, and everyone who'd suffered under my mother's rule.

For me, because now that I knew who I was, I could never, ever go home again.

A hand closed around mine, stopping me from whacking him anymore. It was Frod, cradling his broken wrist to him, his one good hand warm and thick around mine. "That's enough, Marys. We're all safe now."

Would we ever truly be safe again?

I let my hand fall, let Frod remove the baton from it. Korr was a wreck beneath me. I turned away, revolted. Had it always been leading to this? Was there a way for Xen and I to get away from him without one or more of us being dead? I couldn't know. He had left so much damage in his wake, and not just the physical.

I rushed over to Xen's side, but when I knelt to speak to Xen, Xen whispered, "Marys... I'll be all right. You need to go be with Nadir."

"Nadir? Why?"

"You'll understand soon. I'll explain how... just go to him."

I shuffled over to Nadir, who still lay in a growing pool of blood. His hand sought mine before I even realised he was still alive.

"Zenith..."

"What? Nadir, it's me, Marys."

"I am the Nadir. You are the Zenith." He fought to get breath into his crushed lungs.

"Hold on, Nadir. Help is coming. You can hold on a little longer, can't you? You don't have to speak..."

"Must tell you, in case..." He coughed more, then lifted a hand to his faceplate.

When he lifted it, beneath was the face of a sepal, the male of my species, his bamboo-golden skin marred with flecks of his blood. "She birthed you at the height of her existence. Me, she birthed at the lowest point in her life."

Tears were already starting to roll down my cheeks, without my having noticed their beginning. "Who are you?" I whispered. I knew one answer already, but I wanted him to tell me it all.

He took both my hands. I didn't expect him to stand in the formal posture. Even if he could, it was hardly required between siblings.

"Agathis, the seed,

Araucaria, the bed,

Astrantia, the root,

Lisianthe, the stem,

Tagetes, the sole sepal."

He breathed out, his eyes losing focus. I almost screamed, fearing him dead, but he coughed, and groaned in pain. Behind us, medics from the free hospital came rushing in, Nadir their first target. I clamped his hands in mine and told him, before they could separate us:

"Agathis, the seed,

Araucaria, the bed,

Astrantia, the root,

Lisianthe, the stem,

Amaryllis, the sole petal."

The medics pushed between us, and Frod hauled me up with his good hand. He was laughing.

"Why are you laughing?" I all but shrieked. How was this an appropriate time to laugh?

"Oh, nothing. It just all makes sense to me now. Why you... why you are you..."

"Why I am what?"

"It's not my place to say. Come on, Marys, we're not getting out of doctoring so easily this time."

Before I could ask him any further questions, he was set upon by a couple of medics, and another came to escort me away too. To my left, Yellegiad was helped up by a medic, and to my right, stat sec were already taking care of the corpse formerly known as Teg Korr. Ahead, Xen smiled with half a face at me from a stretcher as they carried Xen away for repair.

I had so many questions. But seeing as all the people I needed to ask were going to the hospital now, so was I.