Lilijoy couldn’t believe what she was seeing through Attaboy’s feed. Mo’s actions, and Attaboy’s perceptions of them had her head spinning with implications and to a certain extent, denial. If it was only an artifact or utility of his system in play, then Mo should be dead. If it wasn’t…

She shook her head. Something was going on, some strangeness that would have made at least some sense if it were on the Inside.

There are miracles in that cruel world still, she remembered Sarah writing in her letter. That phrase and another kept running through her thoughts, a little piece of Rule Two. Relatively deterministic probability fields.

Relative to what? she wondered. ‘Deterministic probability’ was an oxymoron until you threw in ‘relatively’. It left the door open, just a crack, for the miraculous.

She put her musing aside to focus. It wasn’t easy to juggle so much sensory data, though she was able to put her Inside activities on the back burner until she caught up to Anda. On the Outside she was moving now, crouch-running along the foundation of the building, staying below the window openings, afraid that if she stayed in place it wouldn’t take long for someone to flank her. The sniper she controlled was firing just enough to keep her opponents from leaning out a window and gunning her down, but that wouldn’t help her get in.

I guess it’s time to see just how good a shot he is, she decided.

With regret, she discarded the gas masks she had picked up earlier, then reversed course and headed back to the door at a full sprint, not even bothering to keep her head down. Doing her best to keep her footing over piles of debris, she pivoted and plunged through the doorway as the sniper sent bullets over her head with an impressive rate of fire. A single gunman was hit on the shoulder as he lunged into the entryway, already firing at her. Bullets flew over her from both directions as she rolled, and she felt thankful that Maria had spent inordinate amounts of time clearing the floors in this part of the building to occupy herself.

Without her insects she was at a severe disadvantage against even a wounded opponent, and the man, despite being hit, had done a roll of his own to get into cover from the sniper's fire. They leapt to their feet simultaneously, the barrel of his weapon came around on her and she pushed off from the floor, hurling herself into a front handspring.

The goal of the acrobatics was to keep him from applying the kind of accuracy she had seen used to take down Anda months before. She could take a hit or two if she had to, but there were plenty of vulnerable spots where a bullet could injure or incapacitate her. She doubted even she would be able to make multiple precision shots against a tumbling opponent, assuming she could ever find a gun she could handle with ease.

Then, Attaboy’s feed turned into a jumble of static. She pushed that to the side ruthlessly and twisted in the air to avoid the man’s front kick, still tracking the tip of his gun, which hadn’t quite made it around in time. His boot caught her anyway, but she spun off of the blow and grabbed the hot gun barrel with one hand, dragging it toward the floor.

He was fast, but his reaction was exactly what she had hoped, trying to rip the gun up and out of her grasp. That might have worked for him, if it was her other hand, but she had grabbed on with her prosthetic, and it wasn’t letting go until she said so. Instead, she was able to swing up, using his effort as an assist, and catch him under the chin with one foot. The blow wasn’t enough to do more than rock his head back slightly, but it accomplished her real objective, dislodging his gas mask. He began to bring the butt of the gun around to slam her away, her subjective sense of time providing her the luxury of planning in the midst of the movement. She hung in the air upside down across his body, her hand still latched on to his gun, and his move would change her momentum, whipping her back down.

It was a tough decision, since her grip on the gun gave her a certain security, but in the end, she had bigger goals than not getting shot. She released the barrel and, grabbing his body armor with her other hand, completed a rotation that allowed her to get her prosthetic arm where it was needed. Her hand was only by his face for a moment, but it was enough time for her to release a small puff of airborne Tao System from her palm, directly into the gap between his mask and face.

Now I just need to survive the next few seconds, she thought as she pushed herself away, aided by the butt of the gun colliding with her torso. The blow caught her in the ribs, and was hard enough to steal her breath and send her flying across the room. She had understood it was coming, had opened herself up to it to accomplish her goal, but it still stunned her, and would have hurt terrifically if she allowed herself to feel the pain. She hit the floor and slid, then rolled. She felt chips of cement bounce off her face from a missed shot before she made it behind a support pillar.

The first floor of the building must have originally been subdivided by less durable materials, its bones hidden behind wood and drywall, but now it consisted of five large spaces dotted with a few load-bearing columns. The brief entrance hall connected to the largest room might have once had several sets of doors, but they were gone now. Lilijoy was just as glad, for she had room to run. A pile of junk in the corner had at least one of Anda’s firearms hidden in it, a rather heavy pistol, if she remembered correctly. She wouldn’t be able to get it in time for the current situation, but she would need it soon, she feared.

She was relieved to hear the sounds of struggle from a room away. Attaboy’s feed was gone, so she had feared the worst. From this distance, she was barely able to sense her system elements in Mo and Maria, enough to know they were alive but little more, since neither had a built in transmission system. She thought there were still at least three men in there with them.

Get the gun, or go straight in?

She would be an easy target for the soldier she had just tangled with if she tried to get the gun, so she decided to dodge to another pillar, and then make a break for the next room. The soldier ran after her, firing several times, hitting her once in the back before stopping, probably to reload she figured. Getting shot, again, was a very unpleasant sensation; she could feel the shock wave expand through her body, though thankfully her internal organs held up well this time. Another broken rib was a small price to pay, since she didn’t need to feel the pain. She just hoped she didn’t run out of ribs.

Well, I know where my bone bugs are going next, she decided.

She made it to the next room without any more gunfire from behind. Unfortunately, despite being clever enough to roll as she came through the doorway, she was met with bullets from the front. The impacts on thigh and shoulder would leave one hell of a bruise, and she gave thanks that the weapons being employed against her were clearly underpowered, whether from Inside quirkiness or some desire for noise suppression she couldn’t guess. Even so, she could feel a trickle of blood running down her leg, where the augmented skin had broken from the impact.

Beyond the room she could see glimpses of Mo and another soldier fighting, but no sign of Attaboy. Blood streamed down Mo's body from a dozen cuts, but he was still on his feet somehow, no longer laughing but with a blissful smile on his swollen features. He held a club he must have picked up somewhere loosely in one hand. She couldn’t imagine why they hadn’t already shot him.

Never stopping her movement, she darted across the room, trying to come up with any kind of strategy. Gunfire followed her, surprisingly inaccurate, until she noticed that the soldier with the gun was wounded, his right arm a bloody mess dangling by his side. That made the situation more understandable; if he was firing with his off hand only, he might have been more reluctant to risk hitting his fellow soldiers by accident.

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Spurred on by the insight, she continued her sprint and made it through the doorway. The soldier attacking Mo tried to kick her as she dashed past, but she ignored him. Beyond, she could see yet another soldier with Attaboy’s still form draped over his shoulder in the process of pushing open the slab covering their back entrance. The man looked back at her, his face invisible behind the gas mask, and then forced his way out, already beginning to run. Attaboy’s dangling legs were nearly caught as the slab closed, and the whole image reminded her painfully of the time, long ago, when Mooster carried him away.

Sorry I can’t stay and help, Mo, she thought. I hope you make it.

Even as she pushed through the door in pursuit, she found the first signs of Anda’s presence on the Inside. She felt fortunate, perhaps even a little smug, that she had been clever enough to pinpoint his location, for it lay in a direction she would have been unlikely to pursue otherwise. That feeling lasted just until she reached the place he had been, a line of disturbed landscape that stretched in either direction as far as contour would permit her to see. It was a residue of manifestation, externalized thoughts left in the wake of his passing already slumping and dissolving back into the intangible.

It was also a problem, for it indicated that Anda was on the move. That itself didn’t bother her; she was confident that she could catch him quickly. No, the problem was in the direction, which, as best she could tell from the state of the rough shapes forming the trail, pointed directly to the massive, ongoing battle between the Regional Lord, the Hongse Clan, and probably the Maasai Clan as well.

She was sure it was no coincidence, though what combination of delusion and influence from the revenants was steering Anda toward such an unfortunate conflict was not clear to her. Sighing, she changed course to run along the piles of ashy dirt, noting the few details still discernible, mounds that might have been faces, rippling lines like flattened grass.

Most of her attention was still on the Outside, where she was rapidly losing ground to the man carrying Attaboy, his burden a smaller impediment than her short legs. She had a solution to that though. She was close enough to the assault craft to set it into motion. Additionally, her connection to her insects reestablished itself.

Immediately, she became aware of a new problem. A transport vehicle, a large blocky thing of gray facets was making its way from the south. While she was relieved it was on the opposite side from her and the man carrying Attaboy, she now had to worry about Nykka.

This is just too much, she thought. All I want is my forest, or a nice garden somewhere. She felt something roll down her cheek, realized it was a tear, and was struck with an almost overwhelming urge to plop down in the middle of the former street and just… something. Cry maybe? Curl up into a little ball and make it all go away. Signals and senses were besieging her from everywhere, her insects, the Inside, and her system could only do so much, she could only do so much to handle the overwhelming flood.

She turned her snipers loose on the transport and crossed her fingers.

She sent the assault craft tearing after the soldier with Attaboy.

She pushed her feet through the degraded soil of the Rotted Lands.

When does it end? she wondered. It was an emotion, more than a literal thought. She knew when it ended, for most useful definitions of the word. It ended when things stopped moving. A heart, her feet, this fight, this journey. In a dark way, to wish for any end was to wish for all of them. That was corruption talking though, brought to the fore by her fatigue, by a brain and system working to the edge of capacity.

So in two worlds, her feet moved, and her heart beat.

The transport proved to be remarkable permeable, despite its looks.

The soldier carrying Attaboy was too focused to dodge and too slow to avoid being struck from behind. Attaboy’s limp form rolled and flopped onto the ground.

And on the Inside, she saw… Anda?

It had to be Anda, this form at the end of the trail. Who else could it be? With each step she could see better and understand less. Land and figure were indistinct in a constant process of manifestation and shedding. Body parts grew and fell to ash as the figure moved, its progress derived not from steps as much as growth, a pulsing crawl, a bodily peristalsis of limbs and heads and torsos swelling forward to occupy new space, only to whither and fall away moments later as new growth surpassed them.

As she grew closer, she could see Anda’s features, as well as those of others she did not recognize, could see faces with mouths and eyes carrying expressions of pain, joy and horror emerge into fullness only to slough away in moments.

Well, that explains why he isn’t replying. I wonder how aware he is. I wonder who’s steering?

She couldn’t help feeling that she was seeing a metaphor made flesh, that from some perspective this was human society in amalgamation, seeking comfort or conflict, growing blindly together toward a perilous horizon. Whatever its goals, she had to stop it.

Fear and revulsion set aside, she ran ahead, into its path and stood, hands in front to warn and ward.

“Anda!” she cried, a voice alone in the wilderness.

***

Anda, he thought, or perhaps heard. There was a weight to those syllables, a certain attachment.

Oh yes, he remembered. That’s me. So many connections to that handle. I wonder if it can bear the weight.

He pulled on it, his scattered thoughts assembling, an awakening of sorts. Anda Kukata.

A wave of confusion swept across him, where everything felt foreign. Perhaps that wasn’t him after all?

Then who am I? he wondered. I’m missing something. Missing.

Etalaki.

His thoughts, such as they were, were disrupted, stopped in their tracks with abrupt force. For a moment, he lost cohesion but the handle, the name, remained. He pulled on it once again and self-assembled.

What was that? he asked. Something had stopped him, had stopped his thoughts from cycling. He had a moment of stillness, just enough to wonder where he was. It was a new question, and he felt he should know the answer. That he didn’t was cause for concern, and he cast about for a resolution.

It was, perhaps, his growing panic that saved him, for as his desperation increased, so did a certain signal, almost a knocking, that attracted his attention. He focused on it with all his will, blocking out a growing chorus of clamoring and competing thoughts. The thread of information, when he finally grasped it, had tangibility, familiarity, and he followed it, pulling himself along. It lead to other threads, and then a dense net of information, data woven together, a web of meaning that triggered concepts and then memories.

He had found his body. Its signals were muted, almost entirely blocked, but a moment’s recollection told him why, reminded him where he truly was.

I’m Inside.

It came in a rush then, the past few hours as he awoke fully. He had lured the Etalaki in, only to find he had taken on more than he could handle. Even now, they screamed and laughed and cried, a deafening choir within his thoughts. He could feel the danger of losing himself rising, and he realized that he had been here before, had recovered himself several times before, only to be overwhelmed and go back under.

Not this time, he vowed. He began singing, a children’s song meant to bring the rain, and the voices quieted, some joining him. While he sang, he took in his surroundings, or lack of them. He was cut off from his senses, Inside and Outside, with only the faint signals from his body to anchor him against the presence of the Etalaki. Wishing he could split his mind like Lilijoy, he tried over and over to connect to something, anything, outside of himself, to no avail. The Etalaki had stolen his senses somehow.

Give me back my eyes, he sang, that I may guide you to green grasses. Give back my nose, so I may follow the scent of the strangler fig, and my ears to find the calls of en-daritiki. Let me lead you forth. Let me bring you home.

The voices stilled, and he repeated his impromptu verse again. On the third time, a voice joined him, and then another. Other voices complained and shrieked in the background, but he ignored them and focused on his song, on the emotions of homecoming and return. He found himself weeping as he sang, as his own repressed longing welled up, emotions he thought he had left behind with his people. The voices singing with him began to cry out as well, and the emotion swept through him, swept through them. He felt his chest hitch, felt a tear run down his face, and with a burst of effort, he pushed his way back to his body, where the first sound he heard was his own voice, and the first sight was a smooth black wall directly in front of him.

“Hello?” he called out.

The wall slumped down, returning to the soil and revealing Lilijoy on the other side.

“Thank goodness,” she said. “Welcome back.”

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