You want the whole story, Elps?

Yes ma’am, yes Commander. Sure thing, sister. Not like I don’t owe it to you, anyway. Guess I may as well start at the beginning — or at my end! Ha!

Get it? No? Come on, Elps. Don’t make me draw you a diagram.

Fine.

I went out the same way you did. One bullet to the back of the head. Blam.

Actually, nah, that’s kind of a lie. It was more like four to the body, then one to the head. That’s right, yeah, it took five bullets to put me down. I always was a stubborn little bitch, wasn’t I?

The Covenanters did me, Asp, and Fii all together. That’s not how you remember it, I know. They led us away from that spire room one by one, hours apart from each other. But they didn’t kill us right away, at least not me. They stuck me in a room alone for like, what, twelve hours? Then Asp turned up on the next day, then Fii on the following night. Fii was blindfolded, don’t know why they did that. We thought maybe they were trying to fake us out, or let us stew before — what, interrogating us? What intel could we possibly have? We came to the obvious conclusion, eventually.

You wanna know my theory? Well, fuck, you’re gonna hear it anyway. I think the Covenanters had internal strife. Disagreements about what to do with us, all of us, the pilots, the cadre. Or maybe they were negotiating with whatever was left of the Civitas. Maybe they were gonna spare us, use us as bargaining chips. I dunno. Not like it mattered for shit in the end.

Next morning after Fii joined us — I think it was the morning, anyway — three Covenanter fucks walked into that room to execute us. Guns in hand. Greensuit hoods on. You know, too chicken-shit to show their faces. Same thing they did to you. Same thing they did to everybody else.

But they’d left me, Asp, and Fii alone together, in a room, for hours, pretty certain we were about to get domed.

Asp got loose and bit one of the Covenanters to death. Went straight through his jugular. Fii distracted the others. I almost strangled a second, was bouncing his head off the floor so it went crack crack crack!

But hey, they had guns and we didn’t. Still, one dead bastard and one brain injury is better than three-nil, right?

We went down fighting. I think we all did. You too. Knew you’d be proud of us, Elps.

Don’t … don’t fucking cry. Fuck! I’ll cry too! Just, stop. Don’t get me stuck on this, this is just the start.

…

Anyway. That was the last thing I knew, just like you did. I died, just like you did. Then I woke up again, just like you did.

Yuuuup, in a metal box full of blue slime.

Resurrected.

I had a body, a real body, my body. I could feel it and touch it and everything. Didn’t know the blue gunk was nanomachines, didn’t know where I was, didn’t know what was happening. Thought some of the same shit you did, that the Covenanters had buried me somehow, or stuffed me in a med-pod, but that didn’t make sense.

Nah, I don’t think it was a ‘resurrection coffin’, not like how you and the girl squad and all the other zombies woke up. I was upright, floating, naked. No windows or buttons, nothing like that. Couldn’t hear anything from outside the box. And there was no lid, no way out, just a metal tin full of Howl soup.

Yeah, of course I fucking panicked! But then I figured out I didn’t need to breathe. Thought maybe that was the afterlife or something. Trapped in a metal box, alone forever, drowned in glowing gunk. That stuff was inside my lungs, packed into my sinuses, up my fucking arse hole and cunt and all. Didn’t figure out that I was literally made of it, not until much later. Makes more sense now.

Floated there for seven hours, thirty eight minutes, and three seconds, give or take a bit before I got my bearings and started keeping count.

Then I died, again. Faded out. Dissolved.

Nah, it didn’t hurt. Felt my skin start to melt, but it was like somebody was lulling me to sleep. Getting recycled. Much better than being shot four times, ha!

Here’s where shit gets real weird. Bear with me, okay?

And … and you have to promise to believe me. Promise me, Elpida.

Okay. Yeah, shit, you don’t have to get all sappy. Just promise me.

Cool. We’re cool. Alright. Hold on.

…

After I melted, I woke up in hell.

Like an actual afterlife, you know? But I can’t describe the place. One moment it was one thing, then the next it was another. My memories don’t make sense, like I wasn’t wired for it right, or the place was giving me the wrong inputs.

Yeah! Yeah, I know, it sounds like crap. I know, okay?

Nah, I haven’t grown religion all of a sudden, Elps. It wasn’t literally hell, or heaven, or anything else. It was a software spirit-realm. The world with the graphical user interface stripped away. A nanomachine noosphere.

But fuck me, it didn’t feel that way at the time.

Sometimes it was a big black void, all cold and dark, and I couldn’t see shit no matter how wide I opened my eyes. But there were things moving around in that dark, things much bigger than me — titans, and I was an ant. And I had to avoid them or they would notice me and … and then I would stop being myself. I’d lose myself, if I got spotted.

Other times it was endless mist and cloud, so dense I couldn’t see my hand at the end of my arm. The floor was frozen marble, my feet were black and bleeding with frostbite. And those titans were still out there, churning the mist with even the smallest of their movements. Sometimes it was a jungle of rusted metal, or a pulsing mat of endless meat, or a dozen other things I don’t wanna think about. Occasionally it was even the green — yeah, weird, right? Like I was down on the forest floor, naked and unarmed, all my flesh getting itchy and raw from pathogen exposure, and I had to keep ducking behind the tree trunks to avoid those … those—

Nah, no Silico, not even when it was like the green.

Giants. Titans. Gods? I dunno, fuck gods.

They felt like gods.

All I knew for sure is that I was not supposed to be there. Somebody or something had smuggled me in. If I was challenged, then I wouldn’t have the right credentials, the right authorizations. I wasn’t even the right shape! All those giant gods in the dark — if they noticed me, I was fucked. I’d be removed, or I’d stop being myself. I’d stop being free.

Nah, I have no shit fuck idea how I knew any of that. Still don’t. I just knew it, okay?

Okay.

Anyway.

There was a trail. Sometimes it was a scent, sometimes it was a damp string on the ground, or a path through the undergrowth, or a blinking light across a marsh, or a dozen other things. But mostly it was a scent. That’s how it made sense to me. You know why?

‘Cos it smelled like one of us. Your smell, my smell. One of the cadre. One of us.

Following the smell wasn’t easy. Time — time wasn’t relevant there. Fuck, I don’t know if this all took a split-second on some processor somewhere or if I crawled along for a thousand years. But I crawled and crawled and crawled. I got bloody hands and sliced up knees and grit in my wounds and shit all over my face, but I followed the scent. I followed it all the way.

To her.

No, not one of us.

She was …

Look, shit, I can’t describe her any better than I can describe this stupid afterlife, this noosphere nanomachine bullshit. If I try to picture her in my mind right now it’s all just shadow and static. Sometimes she looked like one of us, pilot phenotype — brown skin, purple eyes, white hair, all that, just much, much older than any of us ever got, like she got to grow all the way up. But I knew she wasn’t one of us, not really! But somehow she had the right to wear that face, the right to be one of us. Other times she was white and red and bleeding all over. Sometimes she was just bone. Or white metal. Or mist.

But she was warm.

She was … a-always warm.

She was the one who’d smuggled me into that place. She’d laid the trail for me to follow. And then, when I found her, she … she …

She held me.

…

Yeah, no shit this is hard, Elps. Gimme a sec. Fuck! Yeah, I’m crying!

Nah, it’s just …

I was warm there. I was safe. I was loved.

Yeah, I know. Love you too. That’s what I mean. You get it? It was like being back with the cadre.

No. No, that’s not right, scratch that.

It was like having a mother.

A real one. I know, we had Old Lady Nunnus, she gave a shit about all of us, she really did. But did she ever hug any of us? Tell us a bedtime story? Kiss our boo-boos and make them better? Nah, we had to do that for each other. We had to do everything for each other, we learned from nothing. But this … this god, whatever she was, she was a mother. To me, to you, to all of us. Fuck. Fuck, Elps, I can’t—

Okay. Okay. Gimme … gimme a sec. You go handle your zombies for a bit. Get that grey goop stowed, whatever.

…

Yeah, hey. I’m good, I’m good to go.

So, the god.

I stayed with her for a long time. She hid me in her skirts, where it was safe from the other things in that software space.

How long? No idea! Like I said, time didn’t mean anything there. That’s what it’s like to be dead, I guess. But it felt like years. Hundreds of years? I dunno. I didn’t learn or grow or change, I was just kept safe. She had a couple of others there alongside me, but they weren’t cadre, weren’t pilots, not one of us. We didn’t talk or anything. There was nothing to talk about. We were just snuggled up shoulder-to-shoulder. Safe and sound. Waiting. Sleeping? I dunno.

Names? Nah, I don’t remember. We didn’t have names there. If I met either of them again now, though, I think I’d know them. I think we’d know each other.

But all good things end, right? Eventually the god said she needed me to do something for her, and it had to be then, right then, because the other gods had gotten wind of what she was hiding. She apologised, but she said it was the only way to stop me from being found. She kissed me on the forehead and — pow!

Here I was.

Nah, not inside your fucking head, Elps! I wish it had been that quick! Nah, I mean here, out here, in the physical world. With the zombies and the rot and the nanomachines.

But I didn’t have a body. I was just floating around, like a loose fart.

Couldn’t think. No brain, see? And I hadn’t learned how to imprint myself on a neural network of distributed nanos, let alone pull them together, command them to take a shape. I think that’s how Necromancers do it — they turn themselves into webs, spread out over miles and miles, linked together with quantum comms. But me? Pffft, I was sludge. Struggled just to remember who and what I was. Stuff from that period is hard to remember, bits and pieces of it come and go.

If you’re a zombie, what am I?

Come on, it’s not hard. What do you call a revenant without a body?

A ghost.

Ha! No, I’m serious. It fits. I’m a software ghost, Elps. That’s why ‘Necromancer’ is such a dumb-arse word. Necromancers are just software entities with enough control to give themselves bodies. We should be calling them liches. Or poltergeists!

On second thought, maybe I’m a poltergeist.

Wraith? Haha. Yeah, cool, I like that. Tell your new girlies that you’ve got a wraith in your head, that’ll go down a treat.

Anyway, we’re getting lost in semantics.

When I was a ghost, I learned by watching other ghosts — Necromancers. Didn’t see them very often, only a handful of times ever, but whenever I did I paid real close attention. Watched how they flowed and swam through the noosphere, how they manipulated nanomachines, how they called up and put down other, lesser spirits. I learned how to anchor myself to objects and fiddle around with the edge of control systems. I didn’t even know I could hijack the worm-guard until I tried. Fuck knows where I learned that, I just kinda knew I could. Like you know how to walk, yeah? Or breathe. Or throw a punch.

Then, one day, there was a … a current. Like in water. Pulling on me, pulling me toward a graveworm.

I’d never seen a graveworm up close before. Instinct had kept me away. Big thing like that might notice me, suck me up, eat me. But the current pulled me in, then down into a tomb.

And there you were, Elps. Naked and shivering, rounding up those other girls, getting everyone moving.

Yup, I’ve been watching you since the start. Saw it all! Haha! Embarrassed yet?

Nah, I wasn’t really conscious, not really thinking. Not like now. I just sort of floated along.

When that crazy cunt, Pira — no offence to her, by the way, she’s fucking mental, love that bitch — when she shot you in the gut, and the Death’s Heads tied you up, and you were stretched out on that metal table, you were right on the verge of giving in. You were so close. Right on the edge. You were gonna choose death.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Becoming a ghost. Like me.

Nah, I don’t know the technical details. I don’t know how any of this shit works. All I did was reach out and touch you, touch your dreams, all those memories in your head about Telokopolis. And suddenly I was just there, inside you, all myself. I could think!

You know what I’m doing to you, right? I’m probably hijacking part of your brain, running like software on your hardware. Borrowing your meat. Couldn’t think before ‘cos I was just a signal. But neurons let me self-organise. Got myself sorted out.

I was a ghost, just a memory. You made me Howl again.

And that’s it. That’s all there is. You know the rest. Everything since then, we’ve done together. Ha, sure, yeah, except when I left to go boot Thirteen in the arse to get her moving, and hijack those worm-guard for us. And I didn’t do anything else in that window of time, promise. Swear on the soul of Telokopolis, Commander, I didn’t do anything else. If I did, I would tell you.

Ha! What do I know? Good fucking question! Shit, not much more than you, Elps. I don’t know what’s in the graveworms. Don’t know what’s going on here. Don’t know why we’re here or what for. Don’t know what other Necromancers are up to, not really.

Your chess metaphor? Yeah, I like it, it’s good. But I’m not a player. I’m not looking down at the board from above. Never was. I’m just a different kind of piece.

But … but hey, you know what I think?

The goddess, the one who hid me in her skirts.

I think she was our mother, literally. I think she was the city. I think she was Telokopolis.

…

Yeah, yeah I’m fucking crying. No shame.

Fuck, I gotta take a breather. Not like there’s anything more to say. Gimme a few, okay?

Love you too.

* * *

Pheiri’s control cockpit was quiet and dark.

Systems and consoles hummed and hissed, buzzing and purring in a chorus of soft static. A soporific rumble vibrated upward through the decks and bulkheads — Pheiri’s internal manufactories, shunting fresh ammunition toward the exhausted muscles of his guns. Deep down in Pheiri’s belly, his nuclear heartbeat kept time in a slow, steady, stately throb. The occasional crunch and crack of material beneath his tracks was barely audible through the armour of his exterior hull.

Internal lights were dimmed to embers amid metal shadows. The gloom was interrupted here and there by brief LED-flickers and the scrolling of muted green text on drowsy screens. Most displays and readouts lay blank and empty; the few screens still awake had their back-lights turned low, shadows dancing across their surfaces.

The tiny steel-glass observation window — far up in the top right of the cockpit — was once again unarmoured. The window showed the night sky, a blanket of ruptured black, pierced from below by the skeletal fingers of the corpse-city.

Elpida was sitting in one of the cockpit seats, tucked away toward the rear.

She was stripped down to her t-shirt and underwear. Her right hand lay in her lap, palm and wrist now properly stitched up and wrapped in bandages; Melyn had insisted on doing a proper job the second time, so the bandages were clean, not stained with blood. Elpida had her bare feet up on a console. She’d asked Pheiri permission to do that. He hadn’t minded.

She’d been sitting there for four hours. She couldn’t sleep.

Pira was asleep in another seat, at the front of the cockpit. She was in the same seat she’d occupied all day; she was too exhausted to drag herself back to the infirmary. She slept beneath a tomb-grown coat pressed into service as a blanket, pale eyelids still, lips slack, fire-bright hair framed by the faded headrest. Ooni was asleep in the neighbouring chair, turned on her side so she could face her beloved Leuca, curled up tight beneath a scratchy blanket taken from the bunk room.

One of Ooni’s hands was exposed, dangling in the empty space between her and Pira, alone.

Their twinned breathing was barely audible above the background hum of Pheiri’s body.

Elpida realised she’d been staring at Ooni’s lonely hand for more than thirty minutes — thirty three minutes and twenty one seconds. She admonished herself for needless melancholy, and turned her attention elsewhere.

Three of Pheiri’s dimly lit screens showed exterior views, tracking three different subjects beyond his hull.

The first showed Iriko — the strange iridescent slug zombie who had assisted Pheiri in the final moments of the battle with central’s physical asset. Iriko crept along in the lee of Pheiri’s bulk, sliding across the debris and ruin like a living mass of molten metal. She was partially camouflaged beneath an ever-shifting layer of glossy armoured scales, almost invisible to the naked eye in bright light, and completely unseen in the darkness, even to Elpida’s revenant night-vision. Pheiri’s sensors highlighted her in yellows and oranges and greens — but never red; apparently Iriko was not that sort of threat anymore. Various warning labels were appended to her, instructing Pheiri’s crew not to approach Iriko on foot, not to attempt wireless communication, and generally to just let Pheiri himself handle her presence, for now.

The second screen showed Arcadia’s Rampart — or perhaps Thirteen, since the line between pilot and frame was now so blurred. The combat frame strode diagonally ahead of Pheiri, a giant in charred bone and glistening garnet meat, framed against the blank canvas of the night sky. She stepped over or on top of most of the buildings, only diverting her route for true skyscrapers or unexpected geographical features. Pheiri kept a running log of her omni-broadcast poetry on one darkened screen, scrolling upward in dim green text.

Elpida read a few lines, then winced; Thirteen had not developed into a better poet over the last twelve hours.

She considered turning up the brightness on the screen showing Arcadia’s Rampart; the combat frame was so very beautiful. Watching it in motion made Elpida’s heart ache with nostalgia and admiration. The way the limbs unfolded and reached forward was so much like the combat frames she had known in life. But Elpida did not wish to wake Ooni or Pira. Everyone needed to rest.

The third and final exterior view showed the graveworm, though there was little to see.

A dark grey line of mountainous peaks was slowly turning on its side, grinding into the material of the corpse-city as the worm spiralled forward, using a corkscrew motion to pull itself through rotten world-flesh.

Elpida could not hear the sound of the worm, not through Pheiri’s hull.

She’d puzzled over that question several times in the last twelve hours; true, Pheiri’s current position was distant from the worm itself — but the sound of such a giant in motion should have ripped through the ground and air with a earth-shattering noise of smashing concrete and pulverising brick. How did the graveworm move in such relative quiet?

Elpida almost sighed at herself. The question was academic. She should focus on practical problems.

Pheiri, Iriko, and Arca travelled at the very limit of the graveworm’s safe-zone, in the grey area beyond true security, where the worm-guard would not venture out to deal with undead threats. They moved no faster than a zombie’s walking pace. One of Pheiri’s screens of dim green text was keeping a log of long-range sensor encounters — predators moving into the spaces behind and beside, as the safe zone itself receded, rapidly filled in by the wilds beyond the worm.

Elpida leaned forward to check that screen, but all the sensor readings were distant and furtive — nothing close enough to warrant visual confirmation. The undead from beyond the graveworm safe zone were staying well clear of Arcadia’s Rampart; or perhaps they were wary of Pheiri himself. He had survived out there for a very long time, after all.

Elpida settled back into her seat and smothered a sigh.

She spoke into her own mind: Howl? Howl, are you awake?

Howl replied in a sleepy grumble. Yuuuup. Can’t sleep, huh? I napped already.

Good. You need rest too, the same as everyone else.

Right back at you, Elps. Not sleeping, huh, Commander?

Too much on my mind, without any avenues for action. You know what that does to me.

Howl snorted, then said: You need a good hard railing so you can sleep right.

Perhaps, Elpida admitted. But that’s not available right now. Are you feeling up to going over the facts one last time? From the top?

Howl snorted again. She sounded more awake when she replied. What, with me getting shot in the head? You already know everything I do, Elps. I’ve told you literally everything. You tryin’ to get me to slip up? Looking for cracks in my story?

Elpida smiled into the gloom, staring at the screen of Arcadia’s Rampart. No. You know that, come on.

It’s what I’d do. Howl laughed. I’m a ghost. A ghost living in your head, possessing your grey meat. How do you even know I’m real, huh?

You’re software. You said it yourself. And you’re welcome to a place in my meat, Howl.

More like malware! I’m a mobile virus buried in your think-meat, Elps. You sure you don’t wanna dig me out and—

Howl, Elpida said gently. Stop that.

Howl fell silent for a moment. Elpida felt Howl roll her eyes.

Yeah? Howl said eventually. Why should I?

Because I believe your story. I believe you’re telling me the truth.

Why? Elps, come on, I could be exactly what you’re afraid of. I could be some Necromancer infiltrator trying to gain your trust and turn you away from a goal. I could be—

Even if you weren’t the real Howl, I would still trust you right now. You got me up and got me on my feet, when I was about to give up. You set me straight and got me to protect the others when I doubted my purpose. You put yourself at risk to protect Thirteen. And then you came back. Howl grumbled under her breath. Elpida smiled. Howl or not, you’re on my side. You gave me hope.

I … I did? Howl asked.

“Telokopolis,” Elpida whispered out loud.

Toward the front of the cockpit, Ooni shifted beneath her scratchy blanket. One eye snapped open, looked at Pira, then found Elpida — and stopped as if frozen.

Elpida mouthed: “Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

Ooni just stared.

Elpida whispered: “Go back to sleep, Ooni. You’re perfectly safe. Nothing is wrong. Sleep. That’s an order, from your Commander.”

Ooni glanced at Pira again, then back at Elpida, then closed her eye. Her breathing deepened and slowed. Within a minute or two she had returned to slumber. Pira hadn’t reacted at all, fast asleep beneath her coat.

Howl tutted. Real twitchy, isn’t she?

Elpida nodded. If I’ve understood her position in the Death’s Heads correctly, she was at the bottom of their hierarchy, or near the bottom. Years of conditioning for sudden violence, from people she called her comrades. Light sleeper.

One of us, now, Howl said.

She may take years to adjust, to unlearn old habits. Elpida sighed. I’m not entirely sure what to do with her, Howl.

Howl snorted. Years to adjust? Do we have years?

Elpida sat up a little in her chair. Maybe. I don’t know. But you’ve given me hope for something more than just survival.

Howl fell silent.

Elpida closed her eyes and pictured Howl as she had known her in life — petite and wiry, copper-brown skin and purple eyes and a mop of white hair, always with a grin of some kind, always ready to show her teeth. She tried to sense Howl inside her own head, tried to feel out the position of Howl’s hypothetical body, the pose of her limbs, the expression on her face.

Blushing. Teeth gritted. Eyes sideways, narrowed and cynical.

Elpida smiled. That was her Howl.

Elpida said: There’s one question I didn’t ask you earlier.

Eh? Yeah? What?

Elpida braced herself for inevitable disappointment. She opened her eyes and stared at Pira and Ooni again — at Ooni’s hand, halfway exposed, waiting for Pira’s touch.

Can you make yourself a body? Elpida asked. Like other Necromancer did?

Howl didn’t reply for a long moment. Eventually she said: Nah. Tried like a dozen times. Just can’t. Locked out. Or maybe I’m not the right shape or some shit.

Elpida swallowed and nodded. The disappointment hurt. She tried to hold herself back, but the words slipped out as a raw whisper.

“I wish I could hold you.”

Howl growled. Shut up! You’re gonna make me fucking cry again!

Elpida said nothing. She wrapped her left arm around her own ribcage, squeezing herself tightly. Pheiri’s cockpit buzzed and purred. Shadows flickered across the ceiling.

Hey, Howl said after a moment. You know what I can do, though?

What’s that?

Howl took control of Elpida’s left arm. She held up two fingers. I can fuck your brains out stupid-style, with your own hand. I still know how to make you squeal, Commander. Being a ghost doesn’t mean I can’t get all up in your cunt.

Elpida almost laughed. We need somewhere a bit more private for that. This isn’t the cadre.

Tch! Howl relinquished control of Elpida’s arm. Yeah, no kidding, Elps. Pheiri’s great and all, but your girls are crammed in here like canned meat. If we’re gonna fuck sick nasty then doing it when everybody’s sleeping is probably our best bet!

Elpida contained a sigh; Howl had more of a point than Howl realised, but there wasn’t much that Elpida could do about that issue, not yet.

For all Pheiri’s security and safety, he did not have a lot of internal space, not for eleven people. All the others were currently sleeping — some in the bunk room, some in the crew compartment, along with Pira and Ooni up front in the cockpit — all except for Melyn, who was still down inside Pheiri’s guts, smearing handfuls of grey goo on his innards. Everyone was exhausted after the battle, the flight, and the frantic efforts to scoop up Thirteen’s bounty of nanomachine vomit into containers and bottles.

With all eleven revenants and artificial humans awake and active, Pheiri’s insides would quickly feel cramped.

Elpida was all too familiar with the risk of internal conflict inside tightly knit groups confined to small spaces; but unlike the cadre, these zombies were unlikely to deal with it by having sex.

Another problem on the pile. Elpida could not tackle this right now. She needed to sleep, like all the rest.

Howl grumbled, then said: So, Elps, you believe me about Telokopolis? Really?

Elpida considered her reply carefully. I believe that you believe, Howl. I believe you met something, inside the ‘noosphere’, that was aligned with Telokopolis. I don’t know more than that. I have no data to go on, no intel other than your impressions. But … yes, I’ve been thinking about it for hours. That’s why I can’t sleep. Regardless of whatever entity helped you or put you here with me, Telokopolis exists regardless. As long as one of us is up and active, the city still stands.

Fucking right, Howl purred.

If Telokopolis — the city itself, somehow — exists inside a software noosphere, then good. But right now that has very little to do with our practical circumstances. All I know is that I have a group of women, my comrades, my … cadre, inside this mobile armoured vehicle, who is also our brother. I have a command responsibility. I have people to take care of.

Elpida felt Howl grin — with Elpida’s own mouth.

That’s my Commander, Howl purred.

It’s the only thing I know how to be.

Elpida and Howl both lapsed into silence. Pheiri’s insides ticked and whirred. Pira and Ooni’s breathing filled the cockpit. On one of the dimly lit screens, Iriko flowed over a sharp spike of corroded rebar and dissolved it into sludge.

So, Howl grunted. What now? What’s the plan?

Elpida stared into the shadows. I don’t know, not yet. We still need more intel. I still don’t know the shape of the game board, or the state of play, or what sort of piece we’re meant to be. Or even who’s playing. I don’t even know what ‘central’ is, or if Thirteen is right about other pilots and other combat frames still existing, still fighting, out there beyond the drop-off. And it’s been a long day, Howl. A hell of a long day. We all need rest and recovery.

But—

Howl, I know what you’re going to say.

Howl snorted. Oh yeah?

You’re going to ask several questions. What about my plans for Thirteen’s departure? What about my plans to follow the graveworm or plunge into the wilds, in search of the towers Pira mentioned? What about the plan to capture Yola and force her to talk about Necromancers? I haven’t forgotten that one, though it seems like a long shot now, after the fight, with the graveworm moving. What about the physical asset we left behind? What about Pira and Ooni? What about Iriko? What about Serin? What about Kagami’s self-modification with nanomachines? There are many issues to consider, many things I must decide on. I know.

Howl hissed through her teeth: You’ve gotten better at this.

I’ve had to be.

Howl said, You’ve forgotten something, though.

I’m sure I have. That’s why I have you, Howl. Go ahead.

Howl lowered her voice into a nasty growl: What are you gonna do about meat? You’ve not got much of the raw blue left, right? You’ve all gotta feed, sooner or later. We gonna hunt, Elps? We gonna be predators?

Elpida said: I haven’t forgotten about that at all.

Ah? Could’a fooled me.

That question is bound up with the decision about where to go — follow the graveworm until it cracks open a new tomb, or dive into the wilds, heading for a tower. That decision changes everything about our access to nanomachines, to nutrients, to food. And it’s not a decision I can make alone.

Howl spluttered with laughter. You gonna put it to a vote?

Elpida nodded. She sat up and stretched, abandoning all hope of sleep. Yes. But an informed vote. We have one source of intel on predation and food — and also on Necromancers — who I have not yet properly debriefed.

Howl hissed with sudden hostility: Serin.

Elpida stood up and rolled her neck from side to side. She grabbed her coat off the back of her chair and dragged it over her shoulders. She didn’t need the warmth now, but the coat reinforced her authority. You don’t like Serin?

Don’t tease, Howl growled.

I’m not, said Elpida. Howl, I trust your gut more than I trust my own judgement. Why don’t you like Serin?

She doesn’t like Necromancers, Howl growled. But she never explained why. She claims to know the pilot phenotype, but how? Fucking bullshit. And that gun she has, the gravitic weapon, to disrupt Necros? More bullshit! She’s lying. I’m software. How would gravity disrupt me?

Elpida considered that. Perhaps the gun disrupts the mechanism Necromancers use to make bodies?

Tch. Whatever. Still don’t like her. Don’t trust her, Elps. Where is she, anyway? She’s not sleeping with the others, right?

Elpida glanced down at one of Pheiri’s screens. She could easily ask him to display everyone’s current location within his hull, but some things were better done in person, for the sake of intimacy and comradeship.

Let’s go find out, said Elpida. I’ll do the rounds, check on everyone, make sure nobody else is struggling with insomnia. Then we can have an informal chat with Serin, if she’s awake.

Bitch is probably on the fucking roof, Howl snorted.

Elpida stepped toward the corridor, leaving the cockpit, leaving Ooni and Pira behind.

Elps, Howl growled again. Elps, I’m serious.

About Serin? Howl, I believe you, but I have to talk to her sooner or later. Not just about meat and Necromancers, but about that symbol as well, the crescent-and-line symbol, and what it means. If we have potential allies out there, I need to know about them.

Yeah yeah, not that part. Howl tutted. Just be careful, Elps. Be careful around her. And maybe don’t let on what I am, okay? Don’t tell her you’ve got a wraith in your head. Don’t tell her I’m a Necromancer.

Elpida reached out and touched the doorway rim, staring into the gloom of Pheiri’s connecting corridor; her comrades slumbered in those guts, little twists of undead flesh tucked away behind layers of cold metal.

I won’t let Serin hurt you, Howl, she promised. Besides, I think she and I are on the same side.

Elpida stepped into the connecting corridor.

Howl growled, low and raw: We don’t even know what the fucking sides are, Elps. Be careful. She’s not one of us. Not yet.