Kyte’s first thought is: that’s not an asteroid. Her second thought: that looks freaking alive. Indeed, the substance kept in the massive mercury containment cylinder in the middle of the lab was undulating in a way that could only be described as ‘trying to break free.’ It is dark as spilled ink with a metallic sheen, and it radiates faint waves that send rhythmic tingles across Kyte’s skin, characteristic of Mercury. Yes, this is the catalyst Kyte has been looking for, that she needs. She drags her gaze away from the ‘asteroid’ and tries to examine the complex control board circling the cylinder. It is covered with dozens of buttons and levers. Unfortunately, nothing jumps out a Kyte as one to open or at least un-attach the container from the base. Should she approach and find such a button, there is no guarantee that the whole structure isn’t double-locked to an emergency system. Damn it all. Kyte grits her teeth and desperately wants to throttle her past self for not explicitly planning for such a scenario. Seconds tick down with no other solution surfacing than to go to the container and investigate further. Kyte curses again but begins to shuffle closer. The cylinder draws nearer and nearer. She is almost there, just one last coverless stretch and she’s there.

“Hey, you!” A voice shouts the moment Kyte steps into the central atrium. She keeps going. Perhaps it was to another scientist.

“Long-haired person, you’re not one of us. Everyone! Intruder!” There goes the last drop of Kyte’s wishful thinking. She sprints for the cylinder and crashes into it. All around her people are awoken from their singular focus and turn on her. The one who had spotted her is now holding a blaster gun of some kind. A pale blue flare builds up in its mouth. Kyte leaps to move. The world slows. From the corner of her eye, she sees the beam of blue streak towards her. It misses her by a hair but hits the glass of the cylinder. Someone screams, and then everyone is screaming as the perfectly tempered glass shatters. Shards cut into Kyte’s arm, face, and side. The ‘asteroid’ surges out. In a blanket of black, it collides with Kyte. Then…then she isn’t sure.

Nico flips a coin over and over his fingers in a room painted with red light. Should either Yinzhu or Kyte emerge victorious, he is prepped to hop into the SeaSong at a moment’s notice. Honestly, Kyte’s ludicrous power grab was a kinder plan to him than it had any right to be. But now that both alarms have been going off for over eight minutes with no communication from either of them, Nico is seriously contemplating a death in the deep blue. Would he get shot? Or will they just push him out of the airlock and have him drown? Maybe both; hopefully not both. He sighs and leans back against the wall, only to find that it isn’t there anymore. So his body, strung along by impossible physics, falls down, down down.

There is nothing, then a line. Singular and straight, it sits like a horizon or a scar. Then a second line, identical to the first appears. They are joined by a third. Slowly they fold into a triangle. Kyte blinks. Or, she thinks she blinks because for a second she just sees nothing all again, and then the next triangle has become two triangles, then three, then four. More and more, again and again, these triangles replicate. They form other shapes, then figures, then contortions of themselves, in on itself, again and again. A fractal, Kyte understands. It has now grown to colossal size and looms over Kyte. She tries to look but every part of it is blurry and ever-shifting. Branches of it break off from the main body and stretch far above her. They are going behind her, no, they are surrounding her. Kyte isn’t sure what she can even do in this void. So she stays with what little self she has and watches the fractal lattice stitch itself over her. She must have been looking back, because when she moves(?) her head back, she sees the original triangle again. There is no indication that it was the first, squashed there among its trillions of siblings, but Kyte is sure. It approaches her. As it draws nearer, Kyte can see that it is surrounded by an ovelong mass that is almost eye-like. It looks at her, Kyte swears it does. She looks back, of that she is certain. Then the entire colossal complex curdles and lurches into her through the triangle-like colored light through a prism.

Her shoes come into view, covered in glass shards. It’s the lab, Kyte thinks with hazy recognition. Except, there is a dark, metallic matter slithering like veins through everything. It covers the floor, the walls, and even the scientists who stare at her with furrowed brows. They are wrapped in it, especially around their wrist. Kyte follows the path cut and traces it back to her shoes again. They have completely covered them. Up her pant legs, over which they crawl and send pulses of energy that tingle through the fabric. Then they reach her hands. They twist themselves over her fingers. The thinnest veins first, then larger and larger ones. Until Kyte realizes all of it, the ‘asteroid, the entirety of the fractal scattered over the room, is winding itself around and around her fingers. The pressure is agonizing and her bones creak from it. She is screaming her lungs hoarse, but her teeth are clenched tight. All of a sudden it is done. Ten perfect black rings encircle each of her fingers. They pulse in unison to her heart.

Someone screams, and it is not Kyte. She snaps her gaze up to see a lab tech aiming another blaster at her. Kyte reaches forward, trying to duck into and under the beam. The pale blue beam never comes. Instead, there is the crunch of metal and the drip drip of mercury out of the power chamber. All eyes in the room stare at the blaster gun which by all accounts simply imploded starting from the power chamber. Kyte moves her fingers a twitch, and the mercury dripping over the lab tech’s hand writhes.

Hypothesis: the rings of the Mercury, dark Mercury, are able to control other Mercury. Experiment: Kyte reaches out both hands up towards the ceiling lights and yanks down. The Mercury-powered bulbs burst through the glass encasements and plunge the lab into complete darkness. Hypothesis: the rings may allow her to control the movement and state of Mercury in other objects. Experiment: Instead of running out the door with Yinzhu and a hall of corpses, Kyte runs towards the north wall. She pushes her hand forward and feels the surge of energy coalescing from the wiring running through the wall. It builds and builds as she runs closer and closer until it implodes and a mouth gapes open from the wall with teeth of frazzled wires and gums of melted metal. Hypothesis: Mercury may be directly transported and manipulated through various substances by the rings. Experiment: leaping through the hole, she tugs at the Mercury oozing out like saliva from the wall. It gathers around her in scattered droplets and trails her as she runs.

Kyte looks at her map and is relieved to see Nico is exactly where he needs to be. She dares a look back and hears shouts to give chase. Making holes in walls is fast, but it would give her pursuers way too easy of a path to her. Instead, Kyte turns a corner and once again bores another human-sized hole in the wall to her left, but she doesn’t run through. Instead, she turns right and picks her way through the graciously empty halls following her map. She is almost to the door of where Nico is when shouts sound from just around the bend. Quickly, Kyte condenses the Mercury in the wall separating her and Nico and adds the droplets floating around her to speed up the combustion. The wall gives way like butter and a clueless Nico falls backwards until Kyte catches him by the back of his jacket.

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“Wha-Kyte?” Nico says in shock.

“Intruders!” shouts the group of guards who have now rounded the corner.

“Run!” shouts Kyte as she drags Nico forward with her. He doesn’t need to be told twice. Together they bolt down the hall. With a flick of her wrist, Kyte makes the floor behind them bubble up and trips a few guards.

“That wall, was that you!?” Nico asks.

Kyte gives a curt nod. “I’ll explain later but you need to get to the SeaSong now.”

“What about you?”

“I need to grab Yinzhu.”

“No you don’t!” shouts Nico as he ducks his head to avoid bullets.

“She shouldn’t be far from here,” Kyte shouts back. “And you don’t have to get her. Just wait in the ship!” They come to a t-intersection. Nico looks at Kyte, who gives him a smile. He sighs and turns to dash right.

“I’ll get it ready—” he shouts back as he disappears down the right hallway. Kyte waits for the guards to catch sight of her before running down the left hallway. Every so often, Kyte turns around and disables a gun or another piece of gear before they start shooting with old-school shotguns. That’s inconvenient, thinks Kyte as she turns back into the main hall. Right as she runs, something glowing whizzes past her cheek. Thinking it was a functioning blaster gun, Kyte stomps down and pivots, only to see a blazing polearm stabbed right through a guard’s chest before quickly finishing off the others behind him.

“What under heaven is going on?” commands Yinzhu. Kyte spins around and is pleasantly met with the sight of a worn-out Yinzhu. Her gold and cream sleeves are torn with blood staining the edges. She is gripping her right shoulder and her breath comes out in shallow breaths.

Kyte slowly approaches. “I’ll explain everything, but we have to get out of here first. Come, Nico is waiting at the northern hatch like promised.” Kyte expects an argument, even an outright attack, but Yinzhu just gives a weary nod. Kyte gingerly reaches for her wrist and tugs her along.

Getting Yinzhu was a boon for the rest of the way through the complex. Every person, guard or not, was struck down by the polearm. But there was no time to relax, for gone was the easy elegance of swings, only brutal hacks and vicious sweeps. Kyte does not hesitate to rip open any wall inconveniently in their way. There is no time to think through the maze. Finally, after one last turn, they reach the northern hatch. Kyte slams the jammer into the hatch key and kicks open the door once it clicks open. With no pause, she pushes open the airlock to reveal the inviting bowel of SeaSong, which Nico had indeed prepped beautifully. She shoves an almost collapsed and now barely conscious Yinzhu inside.

“Get in!” Shouts Nico from the cockpit. Kyte does not. What she does is kneel down and press her hands into the ground. The entire complex groans beneath her. She reaches down with her rings until she finds a large Mercury wire. Ignoring Nico’s shouts, Kyte takes all the mercury she has collected, all that is circulating around her, and forces it into one area, as small as she can, in the wire until it is almost about to burst. Then, she springs up and into the SeaSong. Nico immediately launches the SeaSong forward and away.

Hypothesis: the ring’s control of Mercury has a range of effectiveness. Experiment: A few seconds after Nico starts, Kyte reaches out and with what faint control she has, bursts the wire. A mere couple of seconds later, she can see the complex quake. It sends out waves of energy that rock the vessel.

“What did you do!?” says Nico in a panicked voice.

“Just a little demolition,” Kyte responds as she takes a seat next to him. “We would probably want to double our speed if we want to live.” She adds as calmly as possible. That does not soothe Nico as he curses and increases the speed to maximum. All around them, the sea starts to shake with the fury of an angered god. Kyte checks the rear monitor and sees the complex horribly tilted with scraps of its outer walls zipping out all around it.

“Hey watch out for the–” CLANK! The SeaSong is knocked into a spiral by a stray piece of wall.

“--debrie.” Kyte finishes having just barely stayed in her seat.

“I’m trying but I’m not exactly meant to be driving this thing!” screams Nico in response as he yanks on the manual steering to pull them back on course. But before he really can, the complex fully implodes. Together, Kyte and Nico watch the wave of force blast through every scrap of metal in its dying orbit until it reaches them. The impact is seismic. Nico and Kyte are flung into and out of the glass, which at that point had already shattered. Water floods their senses. Kyte is vaguely away from a hand gripping her from below, then another hand finding her free one from above. She kicks in the direction she hopes is up and prays to fortune for no debris to come and knock her out for real. Her lungs burn and her feet tire, but the hand pulling her up never relents despite the dead weight on her other. Not a moment too soon her head crests over the water and Kyte chokes on her gasp. Nico is right beside her.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“I’m alright but,” Kyte sputters out more water and drags up a limp Yinzhu.

Nico takes one look at her and begins pulling Kyte and the tailing Yinzhu toward shore, which is blessedly close. That blast had sent them really far and in the right direction.

He is the first to crawl onto shore with Kyte behind him, coughing up seawater and tugging Yinzhu along.

Out of the water, they all collapse onto the beach and lay panting in the trash-covered sand, simply grateful to be alive.

Yinzhu coughs and both of them are up on their feet. Kyte rushes over to help her push the remainder of the sea out of her lungs. Nico does not move a step.

“Nico, the vial,” Kyte asks while holding Yinzhu’s shoulders. Nico throws back his head and lets out a barking laugh.

“You just risked our lives to save this woman, and now you still plan on poisoning her?” Nico exclaims incredulously, but not without ample amusement.

Kyte shrugs, “what can I say, I like insurance.” Nico laughs harder but fishes out a small vial from his zipped coat pocket and tosses it to Kyte. She catches it, opens it, and pours its contents into Yinzhu’s mouth, who is too dazed to protest. The effect is immediate as Yinzhu’s lids droop closed and her breathing evens out. Together, she and Nico move Yinzhu to a more discreet place where she won’t be discovered until she wakes up again.

Kyte then turns her attention to the final step: disabling their wristbands and cuffs.

With all the precision she can muster, Kyte snaps a Mercury wire and then drains out the entire power bank of Mercury through it. Blue-gray liquid seeps out around her wrists and the cuffs break with a snap. She motions for Nico to come closer, which he does, but all while eyeing those tn rings with extreme suspicion. Once his cuffs and wristbands fell off, he gave his wrists a good shake and turned to walk back to the city. Kyte tosses the cuffs into the ocean, and follows, but not before one last glance at the crashing waves, wondering if they were just the result of the strong sea wind or of the destruction they had caused.