Once we’d returned from the tower block, we were all shaken up. I couldn’t be sure, but I felt like I’d at least a broken bone or two. While Sandra was busy attending to her own injuries, she threw me a healing contraption without saying a word. I could tell she was in a sour mood. I’d pretended what I’d done to the fat guy was nothing but an accident. A little misstep, you could say, but of course that didn’t fly. This woman was smarter than me, and we both knew it. As she explained our duties and what we were and weren’t supposed to do, I felt myself drifting off while my body was healing and restructuring its broken bones.

When I woke up the next morning, trouble was already brewing. Theodor was more than a little pissed about having been knocked out while Sandra was on a tirade about what he’d done. I half-listened as she reiterated the same speech she’d given me last night. This time, however, she was much colder about it.

“It’s our duty to take care of incidents and to keep the public safe. We aren’t vigilantes out for justice!”

Eventually, she broke off in frustration. She admitted those guys had been scum and she could write them off as collateral damage during the fight. Still, she reminded Theodor that should there be one more act like this, there would be more dire repercussions than just pain.

“And what might those be?” Theodor dared to ask.

“Well, I’m going to inform Headquarters that your assistance won’t be needed anymore. You can imagine what that means, can you? Ah, maybe you can’t, but you can, Dylan, right?” she asked, looking at me.

I gave her a sour look and nodded.

“Any new reports on those puppets? Any hits from the surveillance network?” I asked, changing the topic.

“Nothing.”

“Shit, you know what, Sandra? Something’s up, I’m damn sure of it. Or do you think we took down the creature controlling them?”

“I can’t be sure, of course, but I doubt it. Whatever’s been controlling them is much more powerful than anything we’ve handled so far.”

“So you’re telling me there’s worse stuff at play here? Worse than that thing below the mall? Worse than yesterday’s B-class?”

She nodded.

“Yes, and it might be the same organism that reached out to you during your coma.”

“Wasn’t that a manipulator? I thought it could only reach out to me because of that orb?”

“Yes, but that was a direct connection, so to speak, something delicate. A powerful enough manipulator, however, can freely influence other realities via the use of proxy organisms, at least to an extent.”

“Like that cat thing we fought?”

She nodded again.

“So you’re telling me all those puppets are remote controlled from... fuck, I don’t even know, somewhere else?”

“It’s possible, yes.”

“Then why aren’t they giving off any signature? If they are like that cat-thing, shouldn’t they have one of their own?”

“Not necessarily. That cat-thing was a true extension of the manipulator. It reached through, so to speak. Those puppets might just be that. Puppets created with a singular purpose and thus not giving off any actual signature of their own.”

“Isn’t that fucking great? So we’re pretty much blind?” I cursed.

“Yo, what’s up with those damned computers here? Why can’t I get on the freaking internet?” Theodor called out from the back of the room.

Sandra jerked around.

“Those computers are for handling the surveillance drones and analyzing signatures! Don’t tinker with them!”

Theodor lifted his hands to show he wasn’t doing a thing.

“Fuck, all right. I was just trying to find some freaking porn.”

Sandra sighed audibly.

“Why don’t you try to read some of that Nietzsche stuff you’ve been talking about?” she asked.

“Sure, I have, but sometimes I need a bit of a change. But you know,” he joked, measuring up Sandra with a little smirk, “I think I’m all good.”

When Sandra realized what he was implying, a new tirade of curses followed. Theodor, however, didn’t even listen to them and just went on his way back to his room. As I watched their interaction, I frowned. I felt like I was nineteen years old again and back at the dorms. Jesus, we had god knows what coming, and this place had turned into, well... this.

When I had enough of listening to their argument, I sat down in front of the computer and went through the data of our recent incidents. I checked out signature locations, lined them up and checked which areas hadn’t been affected so far.

“Dylan, what are you doing?” Sandra asked as she stepped up to me.

“I checked our recent data and the areas we found those puppets in. If we cross-check all of them with those, what did you call them, distortions, we get an area that hasn’t been hit so far. See? It’s a cluster like the others, but nothing has happened there so far.”

Sandra inched closer and scanned the map.

“Ah, yes, a commercial area. Nothing there but office buildings, a few stores and parking lots. It would be ideal. I’ve got some drones in the area already, but you’re right. Let me make some adjustments.”

With that, she pushed me aside and went to work. She rerouted drones and then did a few other things too sophisticated for me to understand.

“It might be risky to give a single location so much focus, but-“

She was cut off when her phone vibrated. She stared at it for a moment before she sighed and answered it.

“We’ve got a new signature. It’s small, but given yesterday’s incident, we should be careful. We better prepare ourselves, Dylan.”

I nodded and went on my way to the storage room. While I was busy stocking up, I heard Sandra opening Theodor’s door to tell him we had work to do. A moment later, she stormed back into the living room, cursing.

“It’s your fault for just barging in like that. I was just getting to the good part,” I heard him joking after her.

Once more, I sighed and had to fight the urge to throw a grenade into his room. By now, his antics were annoying even to me.

We arrived at the signature’s location about half an hour later. It was a sparsely populated, exclusive neighborhood at the edge of town, the area rich folks moved to once they’d retired. As I walked past all those well-kept houses, I couldn’t help but reevaluate my life choices.

“So, what have you got, Sandra?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Seems to be D-class, maybe lower C-class. Still, let’s be careful. We didn’t expect to encounter a B-class yesterday.”

“Don’t worry, as long as there are no distractions, I’m going to handle things just fine.”

Sandra looked at him for a moment before she focused on her radar again. I saw her frown a little before she pointed at a house nearby.

“It should be over there,” she said as she rang the bell next to the gate.

A well-dressed older woman opened the door. Her eyes focused on Sandra for a moment before they wandered to me and finally Theodor. When she saw the latter, a frown appeared on her face.

“Excuse me, miss, we’re here by order of the local police. There’s been a burglary in the area. We’d like to have a word with you and have a look around your property. It’s nothing but a precaution, of course.”

With that, she showed the woman a fake badge we’d been provided with by Headquarters. It seemed to do the trick, and the lady nodded and invited us inside.

“To think stuff like this is happening out here. My god, what’s the world come to?” she started as she re-locked the gate and led us to her house.

“All right, we’re going to have a look around the vicinity to see if there’s evidence of anyone trying to enter your property.”

With that, Sandra led me aside. She focused on her radar once more, but she was frowning again.

“What is it, Sandra?”

“I can’t say. This signature is strange. It looks almost like it’s spreading out.”

“Maybe it’s a swarm type down in the basement?” I asked, but Sandra shook her head.

“No, it’s not just this place, it’s almost like it’s stretching out over the entire area.”

“Shit, are you telling me we’ve got multiple signatures?”

“No, that’s not-“

Our conversation was cut short when the old lady screamed and threw herself at an unsuspecting Theodor.

“What the fuck?” he cursed when the old lady tried to claw at his face with her fingers.

Her mouth was open wide and she let out another loud, reverberating scream. In a moment, he tore her off himself and threw her to the ground, where she lay unconscious. He was about to finish her when Sandra called out to him to stop.

“What now? The freaking thing almost clawed my eyes out!” he yelled in anger.

“It’s not her. Something’s weird about this signature. The origin’s nearby, but there are smaller ones all over the area. This woman flared up before, but the signal’s gone now.”

“The fuck are you talking about, dammit?”

“Residue,” she said to herself, but I didn’t get to ask what she meant.

My eyes turned towards the gate where a bunch of people had gathered. They were all screaming indistinguishable and soon threw themselves against the gate.

“All right, Sandra, what the hell’s going on? For all I know, we’ve been cornered by a bunch of humanoid types and-“

“No, if they were humanoid types, they’d have transformed and torn down the gate already.”

“Then what the fuck’s going on?” Theodor spat at her.

“Can you two be quiet for just one moment?” she screamed at us before she tinkered with her radar again.

“Well, guess we’re going to have some fun,” Theodor joked with a grin on his face, waiting for whatever was out there to tear down the gate.

“Calm down, all right, we don’t know what’s going on. Let Sandra figure it out first.”

“What? It’s clear those fuckers are coming for us! What if they-?”

“Inside,” I called out and pushed him forward. “If we barricade the door, it will give us some time. You got anything, Sandra?”

She shook her head, but was quick to follow us.

Once we were inside, I pushed a cupboard in front of the door before I added other items of furniture to the makeshift barrier. After a few minutes, I could hear the gate breaking down and a moment later, people streamed into the front yard. It wasn’t long before we could hear them outside beating against the door. Then glass shattered and someone threw themselves through a window. An older man stormed toward us. His eyes were wide and his face was bloody and cut multiple times by the window’s glass. He was about to jump me when Theodor rushed forward and hit him square in the face. The man was thrown backward. His head crunched against the edge of a table and his body started convulsing as a layer of blood gathered below him.

“What the fuck’s going on here? Why have none of them transformed yet?”

“No. That’s not what’s going on here,” Sandra explained. “I analyzed the signature of the people here and they only carry the residue of something else. Whatever we’re up against is a controller type. It’s likely able to assert control over any organism that’s been exposed to it for some time. These people here, they are being controlled by it.”

Theodor looked up and his eyes wandered back to the body of the man.

“Are you telling me...? Fuck! Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

All the color had drained from his face and it showed a look of true misery.

I rushed up to him.

“Come on, we’ve got to,” I started, but my words were cut off when more people came crashing into the building.

For a second, my hand closed around my gun before I cursed and let go again.

“Sandra, do you have the location of the controller yet?”

“Nothing clear. There is too much interference, but it’s not in this building.”

“Shit, all right, we’ve got to move!”

With that, I got a hold of Theodor and threw a flash grenade behind us. Blazing white light exploded. The people who’d broken into the building all stopped and covered their eyes.

“Outside! Now!”

With that, we hurried through the building and towards the back door. In a moment, we’d made it outside and to a fence at the edge of the property.

“Talk to me, Sandra.”

She was still staring at her radar before she gave me a nod.

“Two buildings from here, to our right!”

More people were coming for us already. For a sparsely populated area like this, there sure were a lot of them. As I hurried on, I knocked out a middle-aged man and barely avoided a knife-wielding woman’s attack.

“Sandra, we’ve got trouble, can’t we just-“

“Just keep moving! It’s past this hedge right in front of the next building!”

The moment we’d made it through the hedge, I threw another flash grenade, hoping it would give us enough time. We hurried through a lavish garden before we reached a small sandbox. A little girl with a shovel in hand sat there, busy building a sand castle. The moment she saw us, her eyes grew wide, and she stared at us in a mixture of fear and confusion.

“That’s it, she’s the controller!” Sandra called out.

I ripped out my gun and pointed it at the little girl. When she saw it, she cringed back and crashed over her little castle.

“Shit, Sandra, are you sure? If she’s not-“

“There’s no doubt! The signature originates from her!”

“Fucking hell,” I cursed.

More people were closing in on our location. My hand moved to the trigger. Before I could press it, though, Theodor pushed me aside and turned to Sandra.

“Didn’t you say something was controlling people? What if that little girl’s the same? You can’t just murder a little girl!”

“Theodor, just let me get this over with!” I screamed back at him.

While Sandra used her powers to hold the people closing in at bay, Theodor got a hold of my wrist. He twisted it and the gun clattered to the floor. Right at that moment, the little girl behind us screeched. Her jaw unhinged, and a mass of thick tendons pushed outward. If not for Sandra and her powers, they might very well have gotten me and Theodor. Sandra batted them aside effortlessly before she pushed the little girl to the ground. She held the radar to her squirming body.

“Just as I thought, a parasite type,” she said in an icy voice. “There’s no hope.”

“No! You can’t just... fuck! I didn’t come here to kill a freaking kid!”

“Theodor, fucking stop!” I yelled as I got a hold of him. “Once a parasite takes over, the host is already dead. She’s not a kid anymore. She’s nothing but a husk!”

He pushed me off him and I crashed to the ground, hard.

“And what if she’s like me? Maybe there’s-“

“No, there isn’t,” Sandra cut him off.

With a wave of her hand, the girl’s body was crushed and evaporated into nothing but a bloody mist.

The people who’d made their way toward us all fell to the ground, unconscious.

“Fucking hell,” Theodor cursed up.

I walked over to calm him down, but he pushed me back.

“Don’t fucking touch me, all right, asshole!?”

“Hey, how about you calm down, okay?”

“How the fuck can I calm down after seeing something like this?”

Then he stopped and looked at me. A sick grin appeared on his face.

“Oh, I get it now. This isn’t the first time you’ve done something like this, isn’t it?”

“What are you trying to say?” I asked, getting angry myself.

The grin on his face made me tempted to have a go at him, even if I didn’t have a flying chance.

“What are you waiting for, Dylan?” Theodor taunted me.

“Will you two be quiet!?” Sandra screamed at us and her powers erupted from her body.

When both of us turned around, we could hear a high-pitched alarm from her phone and I could see all the color had drained from her face.

“I’ve got a hit from the surveillance network, but this, this is too huge, this is...”

I stepped up to her. She was analyzing the data of various drones before she found what she’d been looking for. An underground area, and the entire place was swarming with puppets. It wasn’t just a few or a dozen. This had to be hundreds. A second later, the stream cut off.

“What the hell? Where’s-“

“That commercial area. I rerouted the drones there, but most of them have been destroyed. The data they’ve gathered so far, however,” she broke up, lips quivering.

“Then let’s get going. We’re done here, right?”

When I said this, Theodor gave me another angry look before he spat on the ground. Sandra next to me didn’t say a thing. Instead, she kept staring at the emerging signature she’d found. It wasn’t cold outside, but when I saw it spreading further and further, I started shivering. Then her eyes turned toward me. They were wide and scared. I’d never seen her like that.

“You were right, Dylan, you were right. Something was coming, but I never thought-“

“Well, what’s going on? Why the fuck are you acting so scared suddenly?”

Sandra turned from me to Theodor. Her mouth opened, but it still took her a long moment to find her voice again.

“This signature, there’s no doubt. It’s A-class, and we’re too far away to do anything about it. There’s nothing we can do to stop it from crossing over! We’re in trouble, we’re in serious trouble!”

Fuck monsters and fuck being right.