Edda led him down the buckling beige hallways to a heavy door which, like the room to the Haruspex, had a crash bar and no numbers, but, unlike that door, led to a concrete stairwell.

A strange memory came to Benno as he followed Edda up the stairs, her hair trailing its aroma of firewood and lilacs and swaying with the unsettling length of her body, revealing Benno’s small face in the backs of her legs each time it moved aside: She’s really into Freudian shit. She’s always mind-gaming people. Subliminal stuff. Who had told him that? It was so distinct, and yet there was no accompanying voice. No face. Just words in a vacuum. A fabrication of his mind? Maybe, but there was no question Edda was calculated. Everything about her—from the scent of her hair to the tight-fitting mirror suit of armor, the careful oscillation of her gait, the decoration of her apartment and the information she chose to disclose and omit—was carefully curated. Benno recalled an old student of his from fifteen years ago. Andy Schultz. A good student, soft spoken. He arrived at school everyday on time and meticulously organized, his homework complete, ready for the day’s assignments. Never got in any trouble. Was always well-dressed. Polite. Attentive. An unusual—though at the time welcome—variation on the standard half-engaged and half-awake public high school student.

Which was why, when the police showed up and hauled him out of the classroom one day in May—not Benno’s science classroom, but an English class down the hall—the other students and faculty were confounded, assuming a grave mistake had been made. But there was no mistake. Andy Schultz had murdered his parents and sister back in October of the previous year. Slit their throats. He had been living with their decomposing bodies in the house, tucked into their beds. He had carried on without a single crack in his scrupulous facade. An A student. A sweet kid. Carefully curated.

Calculated.

At the second floor landing they passed through another heavy door into an enormous room. An airplane hangar, in essence, with a domed ceiling two hundred feet high and thousands of square feet of nondescript concrete floors. It was empty but for a large vehicle parked near its middle. The vehicle’s sleek black exterior reflected the cavernous room—the same material as Edda’s armor and the Gemstokes. At first, Benno thought he was looking at one of those super yachts that billionaires sailed around on, the ones with three stories and hot tubs and full-time staff that cost more money than the GDPs of some small nations. The difference was that this one, here in the hangar, had wings: two rows of them on either side, like a dragonfly, made of the same reflective black glass as the rest of the vessel—and the Gemstokes, and Edda’s suit—and resting on the hangar’s concrete floor.

Benno wondered for the hundredth time when he was going to wake up.

Hermann and Isaac were waiting for them, sitting and standing respectively at attention a few yards from the vessel’s stationary wings.

There were three other people with them. One was a young man with braids and a self-assured grin, dressed in designer jeans and Vans and a baggy tank top, his wrists laden with metal bracelets. Beside him was a middle-aged woman, on the heavier side, wearing sweatpants, flip-flops and a NASCAR sweater, with a short, unflattering haircut that brought to Benno’s mind the kind of person you’d encounter at the super market arguing with the cashier about expired coupons. The third person—who at first Benno mistook for some kind of mannequin—appeared completely nude, though there were no sexual organs, nipples or navel on their perfectly smooth, hairless, dark beige body. Their face had no mouth, no nose, no ears and no other features except for two perfectly round, pared eyes. Most disturbingly, the eyes appeared afflicted with the most severe chemosis Benno had ever seen; the whites were swollen around the black pupils, constricting them to fine points.

Edda took authoritative strides—her pliant armor a dark, yawning gray—and stood before her crew. “Hermann and Isaac you’ve already met,” she said as Benno stepped up beside her. “This is Dante.” She indicated the young man with the braids. “Helen.” She indicated the woman with the NASCAR sweater. “And D’doak Michol.” She indicated the beige, featureless creature with the tumefied eyes, who did not move or react in any discernible way.

Benno offered a wave, which he felt came off as awkward and boyish, and he instantly regretted it.

“And this,” Edda went on, gesturing to the super yacht. “Is the Shenandoah.”

Benno nodded. “Nice ship.”

“Indeed. It is the envy of travelers across the Ensemble. A jewel among a heap of coal. The finest vessel ever built in…” Edda trailed off. “Where is Rose?”

“Who?” Helen asked, her wide brow furrowing.

Benno wondered the same thing.

Dante snickered.

“I believe she attended a concert,” said Hermann. “Though I do recall she claimed she would return with ample time before today’s errand.”

Edda sighed and shook her head. “Little brat,” she said half under her breath. “Well she’ll have to meet us at our destination. It’s time we embark.” She extended an arm, palm-up, toward the Shenandoah, and as she did a doorway appeared in the otherwise seamless exterior of the hull, a perfect rectangle, as if melted from a block of ice. Beyond the doorway was darkness.

The crew entered the Shenandoah one by one, until only Benno and Edda and D’doak Michol—who had yet to move an inch—remained.

“Are you ready?” Edda gestured for Benno to get aboard.

“I’m not committing to anything,” Benno said. “Just because I go with you on this… errand, doesn’t mean I’m part of your crew, or that I’m agreeing to anything else.”

Edda’s crescent of white teeth appeared behind her green lips. “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

#

The Shenandoah’s interior was similar to Edda’s apartment: white marble walls and black marble floors and ceilings, sleek furniture and even a few sexy sculptures on shelves inset in the walls. A short hallway delivered Benno to a circular room—the bridge, he figured—with a black marble table surrounded by black chairs. On one side of the room was a console, a black screen as large as the wall. There were no windows.

Dante and Helen sat at the table, and Hermann parked his wheelchair beside them. Isaac stood near Hermann with his hands in his pockets, his leg jouncing. D’doak Michol—who had entered the Shenandoah without Benno seeing—stood as still as a tree in a random spot not far from the screen, the bulging whites of their eyes grayed by the room’s black marble.

Edda took her position at the console and placed her hand flat on the black glass. A burst of purple light emanated from it in waves, and up the length of her armor.

SYSTEM INITIALIZING… Gemma’s Voice announced.

SYSTEM INITIALIZED. GOOD AFTERNOON, MISTRESS.

“Good afternoon, Gemma,” Edda responded.

Benno remained near the mouth of the hallway, watching as the console’s screen filled with purple triangles of light, each with an upside-down triangle inside. Edda’s slender finger traced from triangle to triangle until it found the one she was looking for. She tapped it with a silver nail, and the screen zoomed in on the inner triangle, revealing countless additional purple triangles—triangles upon triangles—and when Edda tapped one it zoomed in further, revealing more countless triangles within.

Edda’s finger found a final triangle and hovered. “Everyone ready?” she asked without turning around.

“Yes, Edda,” said Hermann in his usual formal fashion.

“Aye-yaye,” said Dante without—it seemed—any irony.

Edda tapped.

REALM CODE: G7X208 DECIMAL 55…

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

INITIALIZING LOCUS RECALIBRATION…

Gemma’s whirring sound started up. It was as loud as Benno remembered from his dream, and his breath quickened, an automatic response to the anticipation of a stifling, unrelenting darkness…

“You might want to hold onto something,” Edda said, turning just enough from the console that her orange eyes flashed at Benno.

Benno scrambled to the nearest wall and braced himself against it just as all the light in the bridge went out.

Is this it? Benno wondered. Is this how I’m finally going to wake up? It made some kind of sense: Back through the crushing darkness that had spirited him here in the first place. His teeth vibrated, and the wall onto which he held seemed, somehow, to harden under his hands. This was it. Chewed through the dark and spat from this wild dream back into his trailer. It was a relief. He could get back on with his life. He could get back on with his miserable fucking Hell of a life…

Then the whirring stopped, and light exploded from everywhere.

#

Benno lowered his hand from his eyes.

No longer were the bridge’s walls windowless white marble, and no longer the floor and ceiling black. Now they were all transparent, thick panes of perfectly crisp glass.

A blue sky filled the top quadrant of Benno’s view, and dazzling sunlight. Below, sprawling for as far as he could see beneath his feet in all directions, was a magnificent city of emerald green spires.

“Welcome to Forror,” Edda said, tending to the console, her armor a brilliant display of blue and green.

The Shenandoah floated high over the city. Benno took a shaky step across the transparent floor—unbalanced by the perception of walking on air—and surveyed the expansive metropolis below. The buildings glistened in the sun, their shimmering facades winking and sparkling like leaves on a summer afternoon. In fact, as Benno peered closer—and though it was impossible to say for sure from this extreme vantage—he could swear the buildings were made of leaves. Though that, of course, would make about as much sense as a disembodied heart floating in the sky. Or a man who could not die.

A long dormant sensation stirred in Benno’s mind. Curiosity. What was this place? What kind of people lived in such a glorious city? He had been to New York dozens of times in his life. He’d seen pictures of Tokyo and Shanghai and Sydney. Those cities were impressive. But this place, Forror, with its endless sprawling canopy-like skyscrapers, each one as tall or taller than the tallest building Benno had ever seen, from horizon to horizon, made those other cities—the metropolises of Benno’s Realm—seem quaint by comparison.

“That’s it there,” said Hermann, who had wheeled himself up alongside Edda and now pointed down toward a particularly tall building that rose above the others. “The top floor. There are seventeen Forrorians inside.”

“And the Koan?” Edda asked.

“It’s in there,” Hermann said. “On its pedestal in the altar den. Just like we discussed.”

“Good.” Edda brought up a new set of controls on the console, a rectangle with various shapes and symbols within it. “Let’s go take what’s—”

There was movement in the middle of the bridge. The air shimmered—the same way it did when Gemma made a whiskey—and a person materialized there. A child. A little girl. She couldn’t have been older than eight. She wore a blue dress with gold stars on it. Her black bangs were cut low above her oddly grizzled eyes. She wore sneakers and white socks and was perfectly normal looking in every way—except for the dozens of tattoos covering her body from head to toe.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, smoothing her bangs.

Edda abandoned the console. “Where have you been?”

“I told you I was going to a concert,” the girl said, a bit snarky. “I was back at the Inn before you said to be, but you left early—“

“That is unacceptable—“

“—so I didn’t do anything wrong. You gave me the green light, so I went. It was fucking nice, by the way.”

“You need to be more punctual—“

“I made it back in time!”

“Who the fuck is that?” Helen exclaimed. She stood splayed by the table, pointing at the little girl, her eyes wide. “How’d she get in here?”

The rest of the crew snickered and passed around a knowing look.

“Why are you all laughing?” Helen demanded, her face reddening.

Edda closed her eyes and shook her head. “Rose. Would you please unblock yourself from Helen? I’m tired of having to ask you.”

The girl sneered. “But she’s such a tool.”

Edda gave the girl a stern look. “Young lady…”

“Don’t young lady me. You told me to be more conflict averse. That’s all I’m doing. Better strangers than enemies, right?”

“I don’t have time to argue with you,” Edda said. “The Forrorians are going to notice us in their airspace presently. Unblock yourself from Helen—and, I suspect, from poor Benno—and let’s get on with this errand.”

The girl huffed and crossed her arms. “Fine,” she said. “You asked for it.”

And all at once, Benno remembered her.

She’d come to his room, called him names, given him the Gemstoke. She’d brought him to see the Haruspex. She was the first person he’d met here. Rose. The foul-mouthed, tattooed, little girl. His mother’s name was Rose. Not the kind of person one simply forgot about. And yet Benno had simply forgotten her. Simply and completely…

“You little bitch!” Helen roared. She lunged at Rose, her fingers outspread, her nostrils flaring. “You despicable little cunt!”

Dante and Isaac rushed forward, seizing Helen by the arms and collar of her NASCAR sweater and wrestling her back.

“Let me go!” she shrieked. “I’ll kill her!”

Rose shrugged at Edda. “Told you.”

“Enough!” Edda slammed her fist down on the console so hard that the screen flickered.

Helen relented, huffing, her face a startling shade of red, her nostrils flared so wide that Benno could see the stubby hairs protruding from them.

An uneasy calm fell across the bridge. Dante and Isaac cautiously released Helen, their hands lingering around her arms lest she resume her charge.

“Everyone get ahold of yourselves,” Edda commanded. “Helen, calm yourself. Rose, stop being divisive.”

“Stop being divisive,” Rose mocked under her breath, grinning at Benno and revealing a gold incisor he hadn’t noticed before.

“We have work to do,” Edda continued. “If anyone has a problem with anyone else, settle it off the clock. For now, put this puerile nonsense aside and focus.”

Helen glared at Rose.

Rose frowned at her nails.

The crew looked from Rose to Helen.

“Is that clear?” Edda said.

“Yes, Edda,” the crew responded in broken unison.

“Good. Now. What we came here for is in that building.” She pointed down past the console at the tallest building before them. “It shouldn’t be a complicated effort. I’m going to fly us in. Dante is going to bring up a distraction. Hermann will take the helm while Isaac, Helen and I retrieve the artifact. Rose, D’doak, I will expect you to be on standby.”

“So glad I left the concert early.” Rose rolled her eyes.

Edda turned to Benno. “You have an option,” she said. “Either stay here on the Shenandoah, or come with us and get a taste of what we do.”

Benno blinked around at the crew.

“Well?” Edda stood with her hands outspread.

Benno cleared his throat. “I’ll hang back,” he said. “I’d hate to be in the way.”

“Fine.” Edda turned back to the console and tapped a series of shapes on the screen. The Shenandoah started silently forward, propelled by the blur of its dragonfly wings.

Helen glared at Rose, channelling her rage into a death-grip on one of the seat backs. Rose leaned casually against a wall, picking some grime from under a fingernail.

“There are Forrorians making their way to the roof,” Hermann said suddenly, his voice urgent. “Twelve of them. They’re armed.”

“Stay alert,” said Edda, her fingers hovering over the console.

The skyscraper’s roof was sectioned into four green spires—one at each corner—surrounding a flat brown section in the center. At the base of one spire was a doorway, which fed onto the flat section, and as the Shenandoah neared—less than a hundred yards from the roof—people emerged from it.

There were exactly twelve of them. They streamed from the doorway and took up positions at various points on the roof’s flat section. They were too far away for Benno to discern their features, but they all appeared to wear the same brownish uniform, and all carried the same unmistakable long, black objects, which they trained, one by one, at the Shenandoah.

“Looks like they were expecting us,” said Hermann, a noticeable tremor in his already shaky voice. “Perhaps they invested in a new security system…”

There was a flash of light from the roof—the muzzle of one of the Forrorian’s guns—and a fiery ball flashed and condensed into a white shape. In the moments that it rushed toward the Shenandoah, Benno decided it looked like a rabbit, complete with long ears and beady eyes.

“Incoming!” Edda shouted.

The rabbit exploded on impact. The Shenandoah shook. Benno nearly fell, managing, barely, to cling to the wall. A BOOM echoed around them, and tendrils of fire and smoke whipped along the Shenandoah’s exterior. A second later, another impact, another BOOM, and more fire.

“A bit defensive, these,” said Edda, both hands planted firmly on the console, her armor a ferocious concatenation of fire and smoke.

Hermann clutched his wheelchair’s handrails. “They certainly aren’t happy to see us,” he said as if this was some kind of revelation.

A third rabbit collided with the Shenandoah, rocking it nearly on its side before it wobbled back upright.

“Change of plans.” Edda turned to Benno. “Looks like you’re getting a taste anyway. Now be a dear and get down there to take some fire off us.”

Benno blinked at her, his fingers gripping the wall’s moulding.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Edda said as another explosion shook the Shenandoah. “We just need a little breathing room.”

Benno looked down at the roof below as another pair of fireballs condensed into another pair of rushing rabbits.

“You want me to…” Benno braced against the two additional impacts. “You want me to go down there?”

“You’ve jumped from greater heights,” said Edda. “And once you’re down, there isn’t much else to do. Just stand there and let them hit you.”

Benno looked around. The crew all stared back at him. There had been a hundred and fourteen people on the train. Bent metal and black smoke, twenty cars coiled alongside the tracks…

“I don’t want to hurt anybody,” he said.

Another rabbit struck the Shenandoah, bucking it and engulfing it in a pall of flame and smoke that danced in the wind. The console lit up with an ominous red glow, and a siren—low-pitched and droning—sounded.

Edda tsked and pinched the bridge of her nose, then raised her other hand, palm up, toward Benno. Something shifted beside him, and before he could tell what was happening a rectangular hole had opened in the Shenandoah’s hull, directly where he was leaning. Cold air and the odor of smoke whipped inside as he lost his balance and tumbled, head over heels, down through the sky.