Necroepilogos

This bitch is gonna lie through her teeth, Howl purred in the back of Elpida’s head. She’ll bark and whine like a good little doggy, anything you order her to say. And you already know why. ‘Cos she’s fucking terrified of you! Keep pushing and Ooni is gonna roll over on her back to show you her belly. Woof woof!

Elpida did not disagree.

Ooni was a mess. The woman was barely holding herself together; Elpida needed neither training nor experience to diagnose that. Crammed into the opposite corner of the tiny, bloodstained infirmary, perched awkwardly on that fold-out metal seat, wedged between the wall and Pira’s infirmary bed, Ooni made Elpida think of a cornered animal — lank and scrawny, like a starving fox. Or perhaps like a mollusc ripped from her shell, her armour gone, peeled down to her tomb-grey under-layers. Ooni’s olive skin had turned pale and waxen; long black hair was plastered to her forehead and scalp; her eyes were too wide, shining green irises ringed by raw red fear and sagging black bags. She kept one hand pressed tight against the gauze and dressing just below her left collarbone, beneath her t-shirt, where Elpida had sliced away the Death’s Head tattoo. She was trying to smile, but it looked artificial.

Pira lay on the infirmary bed just before Ooni, eyes closed, breathing softly, out cold. Ooni’s motivation. Her reason for turning on the Death’s Heads. Elpida knew she could not risk separating them, not yet.

Rainstorm static drummed on Pheiri’s exterior armour. Engine heartbeat throbbed through the metal floors. Ilyusha clenched her teeth hard enough to creak. Amina was silent, standing in the doorway.

Elpida waited for Ooni to respond to her order.

Don’t lie.

But Ooni just stared and smiled, frozen inside.

That was a bad sign; Elpida wanted the truth, no matter how ugly. She did not want Ooni to hide the putrefaction behind clean dressings. Like the grinning skull on her flesh, it all had to be extracted and incinerated.

Elpida replied to Howl: That’s the plan.

Howl snorted in disgust. Never knew you wanted a good little doggy, Elps. You gonna put a collar on her, have her bark for treats?

No. I don’t need unthinking submission. I would never have asked that from you, Howl, or any of the cadre.

Ha! Yeah. We would have eaten you alive.

Elpida nodded. I don’t need a beaten hound. I need a soldier, one who believes in what I’m offering. If that means breaking her first, to extract the poison, then so be it.

Eventually, when Ooni still did not answer, Ilyusha growled: “Better not fucking lie to us, reptile.”

Ooni flinched. Her smile vanished. She bobbed her head. “Y-yes. Yes, of course, Commander. Elpida. I mean. Elpida. I won’t lie.”

Elpida eyed Ilyusha’s shotgun, gripped in red-black bionic hands. Illy was up on her feet, clawed talons on the bloodstained metal floor. Elpida’s decision to conduct this interrogation with Ilyusha and Amina by her side — and with Ilyusha armed — was an unavoidable gamble. She could not break Ooni behind closed doors, or Ilyusha would never accept the outcome. She may not accept it anyway; Elpida knew her influence over Ilyusha was questionable at best. If Ooni did attempt to mislead — to minimise what she was — then Elpida could not guarantee that Ilyusha wouldn’t blow Ooni’s head off, right there in the infirmary. This was an all or nothing gamble.

Did Ooni understand that? Perhaps that was contributing to her nerves.

Look on the bright side, Howl chuckled. If it goes wrong, you’ll have some fresh meat for dinner.

Howl.

Joking! Joking.

I’m not so sure you are. If one of the cadre had died, would we have eaten the body? I think maybe we would.

Howl snorted. Elps, you’re delirious. You need to sleep.

I do. But not yet. My mind is clear.

Elpida was exhausted, both physically and mentally. Her belly throbbed with the slow burning pain of her gut wound, encased behind bandages and gauze and stitches and glue; the raw blue she’d poured down her throat would work magic on her flesh — but the pain did not yet begin to ebb. Exhaustion dragged at her limbs and eyelids. Her nervous system cried out for rest. She needed to remain seated on the secondary infirmary bed. If she attempted this interrogation while standing — hunched beneath the low ceiling of the infirmary — she suspected she would quickly start to waver and drift. The implication of Pheiri’s survival, of Melyn and Hafina, of the place they’d originated from — Afon Ddu — swirled in her mind like a fistful of cracked marbles, edges digging into her thoughts. She had so many questions. And the pilot, the pilot in the combat frame; she had to speak with the pilot.

But she couldn’t. Not yet. Even if Pheiri could return to that crater without coming under heavy fire, and drive them right up to the flank of the combat frame, Elpida would still have to mount and climb the exterior armour to reach the hatch, and then wriggle through the access tunnels. That would tear every stitch in her belly. She needed to let the raw blue do its work; she needed to sleep, probably for hours, preferably in Pheiri’s bunk room; she needed to make a plan to approach the combat frame a second time — maybe involving Hafina’s stealth field and the cover of night. Kagami and Vicky were reasonably certain the pilot was stable, despite her unseen wounds. Elpida had time.

But Ooni did not.

Ooni was Elpida’s responsibility now. She could not allow Ooni to form scabs over the wounds that Elpida and Pira had opened. Whatever Ooni had been to the Death’s Heads had to be excised, purged, and burned. Elpida had to make Ooni believe in the alternative.

Or she had to shoot both Ooni and Pira. There was no other choice.

Elpida said: “Thank you, Ooni. Let’s start by getting us all on the same page, with things we can all agree on.”

Ooni nodded. Ilyusha snorted.

Elpida gestured at Pira, unconscious on the other infirmary bed. “How much has Pira told you about the events since we left the tomb? How well do you know us already?”

Ooni hesitated. Her eyes flicked between Elpida, Ilyusha, and Amina.

Elpida let out a small sigh; she couldn’t help it, the exhaustion was cracking her self-control. “Ooni, I’m not trying to test you.”

Ooni nodded. She straightened in her seat. “Leuca — um, ‘Pira’ — she told me you made it out of the tomb, together. She told me how you — you, personally, Commander — how you defeated a zombie there. She told me some of the other stuff you did, the journey through this part of the city, to reach the mech. She told me the name of the place you came from, but I don’t remember—”

“Telokopolis,” Elpida said.

Ooni bobbed her head. “Telokopolis, yes. Thank you, Commander. She told me a little of what you said, the kinds of things you talked about. Your, um, names. I don’t remember all of those perfectly, I’m sorry. And she told me that you … you, Elpida, you personally … Leuca told me you are … that you might be … ‘special’.” 

Elpida sighed. “Like Yola called me a superhuman? Their future leader?”

Ooni shook her head — too hard, so eager to please. “No! No, not like that. Just … uh … I-I can’t explain this, it’s so—”

Ilyusha snapped: “Stop avoiding the question!”

Ooni flinched. She chewed on her bottom lip. Her dead green eyes hovered on Pira’s sleeping face. Elpida waited — this interrogation was rapidly diverging from her plans, but she’d never been trained in this ugly art. She was riding on her accumulated experience of managing the cadre. She could not afford to get this wrong. If she did, she would have to break all her promises to Ooni and Pira. And that might break the whole group. Nobody could trust a Commander who broke her word.

From the doorway, Amina said: “Elpida is special. Pira was right, about that.”

Ooni began to speak a moment later, haltingly at first, then gathering confidence. She did not look up from Pira’s face.

“Leuca was always so ambitious. She believed in things, even here, even in the afterlife. She believed that this, all of this, this never-ending rebirth, this hell, this land of death, that enduring this isn’t the only option. She always told me that us revenants, that we might be able to build something. A place to live? Society? A home? She never settled on one term. Just something that doesn’t get destroyed, eaten by zombies, or invaded by worm-guard for getting too big.” Ooni sniffed and wiped at her mouth. “And she also believed in … well … it sounds silly, but she believed in ‘keys’, or secrets, or something like that. I never really understood. She believed that we could find the fulcrum on which the world turns. Challenge the gods who made this. And … and we did. We did. For a while.” Ooni’s voice grew thick with sorrow. “We did.”

Elpida said: “We? You mentioned that you and her were together for twenty three years. Just you two, or are you talking about others?”

Ooni shook her head. She did not look up. “There were about a hundred of us. Biggest group I’ve ever known. This wasn’t the Dead-Heads, it was before the Dead-Heads, before either of us … joined them. We built a fortress — The Fortress.” Her lips curled upward with sudden fondness. “That was Leuca’s dream.”

“When was this? Where?”

Ooni shook her head. “I don’t know anymore. Decades and decades and decades ago. My memory gets so hazy. We cleared a tomb, we fortified it. We turned away a worm-guard — that was that finest moment I’ve ever known. She was glorious.” Ooni’s voice shook. Her eyes were wet with tears as she gazed at Pira’s face. She reached out and touched Pira’s hand, gripped it hard. “She showed me it was all possible. We lived there, or we tried to. We stayed when the graveworm moved on—”

Ilyusha growled: “Bullshit!”

Ooni looked very sad. “I don’t expect you to believe this. Nobody ever believes this. Nobody ever believes it’s possible. You wanted me to tell you the truth, so I’m telling you the truth, but nobody ever, ever believes this.”

Elpida said: “I believe you, Ooni.”

Ooni looked up, eyes wet with tears. “You do?”

Elpida nodded. “As long as one of us is up and breathing, the city still stands.”

Ooni blinked in confusion and wiped her eyes. She didn’t understand. But Elpida felt more respect for Pira, despite the betrayal, despite the gut wound, despite her and Ooni’s past with the Death’s Heads.

Pira too dreamed of Telokopolis, just by a different name.

Elpida put this ‘fortress’ to one side for now; she would have questions for Pira and Ooni about that later. For now she needed to focus on Ooni herself.

She said: “How does this relate to what Pira said about me?”

Ooni replied, “Leuca thinks you have the right idea. Maybe better ideas than she ever did. She said you’re … worth following.”

Elpida nodded. “And you don’t agree.”

Ooni flinched. “I-I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for putting my fist in your wound, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m—”

Elpida raised a hand and smiled. “Ooni, I understand why you did that. I’m not trying to trap you.”

Ooni took several shaking breaths, then nodded. Elpida could see that she didn’t believe.

Elpida said: “Ooni, before we carry on, why do you call Pira ‘Leuca’?”

Ooni shrugged. “That’s her name. She never used to call herself ‘Pira’. I don’t know where that name comes from.”

Elpida stared at Pira’s sleeping face, all bloody and bandaged. “When she wakes up again we can ask her what she wants to be called, but for now I’m going to stick with Pira. You stick with Leuca. Deal?”

Ooni blinked several times. “Yes, Commander.”

Elpida said, “That’s not an order.”

Ooni answered with another awkward smile.

Elpida asked, “How did you and Pira meet, originally?”

Ooni’s smile turned from lead to gold. “She saved me. From the tomb. After … after … ” The smile collapsed. Ooni screwed her eyes shut. She started to shiver uncontrollably. “I-I stopped counting after f-fifteen rebirths. I don’t k-know when Leuca interrupted the cycle, but she— we— she was there- she— pulled me out of that— f-first time I survived more than two hours—”

“Stop,” said Elpida. She put a whip crack of command into her voice.

Ooni’s eyes flew open. She stopped.

Elpida quickly said: “Stop thinking about that. I apologise. You don’t need to answer that question.”

Ooni swallowed and nodded. She was panting. Ilyusha sneered and turned away. Amina was gazing upon Ooni with curious horror — she could probably intuit what Ooni meant. How many times had Ooni been resurrected and died before even making it out of a tomb? And then Pira had appeared before her.

Elpida backtracked, returning to the shape of her original plan. “Okay, Ooni, let’s focus on something else. I have technical questions for you. These should be easy. First, the Death’s Heads. I need to know things about them.”

Ooni sat up straighter. She composed her face into an eager mask. “Yes, Commander.”

Ilyusha snorted. “Reptile fucks.”

Elpida said, “I don’t need another primer on their ideology. I got enough of that from Yola and Cantrelle. From what you said before, they’re going to try to come after us, even if it doesn’t make any sense. Is that correct?”

Ooni nodded with great emphasis. “Yola is spiteful. I— I’m so sorry that I missed, with the plasma rifle bomb. Maybe if she was out of the way, maybe they might fall apart, fight each other first. But Yola, she’s … she’s good at making them all follow her, even when she’s not present. She’ll use every resource she has to get revenge. It’s what she does, especially if a … a ‘zombie’ kills a ‘person’. If one of the ‘weaklings’ gets one of us—”

Ilyusha spat on the floor and kicked a cabinet, bionic claws scraping down the metal. Ooni flinched.

Elpida said, “Please continue, Ooni.”

Ooni shrugged. “That’s all, really. She’ll go out of her way for revenge against anybody unworthy. If she captures any of us … it’ll be bad.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Elpida said. “Now, we’re currently beyond the graveworm line. Do you think she has the resources to push out this far, to attack us in force? She’s sent a few zombies already, apparently, but nothing more.”

Ooni’s eyes went wide. “We … we are? Beyond the graveworm line?”

Elpida nodded. “Pheiri can handle it, apparently. That’s the name of this crawler, this armoured vehicle. You heard it earlier, from Hafina and Atyle, but he’s a fully autonomous intelligence, not just a lump of metal. He chose to rescue us. Say thanks, he can hear.” Elpida modelled the behaviour; she glanced up at the ceiling, and said: “Thank you, Pheiri.”

She’d explained this to Illy and Amina already. They both copied her, Amina with an awkward murmur and Ilyusha with sudden grinning gusto.

Ooni hesitated for a moment, then copied the gesture: “ …t-thank you, Pheiri.”

“Well done,” Elpida said. “Now, can Yola attack us here?”

Ooni shook her head. “No. No, too many people all together would attract attention. She’s wary of that, going beyond the line, she always has been. Beyond the graveworm is full of … um … ‘degenerates’.” She glanced at Ilyusha as if expecting another outburst, but Illy just snorted. “But she’s afraid of them. Everyone is, but they don’t say it. If she’s sent people already, it’s just scouting. Maybe as punishment.”

Elpida decided this was probably the truth. Ooni was terrified of being retaken by her old boss. She would not knowingly give poor advice on how to avoid Yola.

“Good,” Elpida said. “Thank you. Now, Ooni, I’m curious about something. How does a group like that stay supplied? Mostly raiding the tombs? Or scavenging? Or some mechanism I don’t understand?”

Ooni bobbed her head. “Raiding tombs and scavenging, yes. We always have to make sure—”

Elpida allowed Ooni to speak without interruption — about tomb raiding, about conflict with other groups, about preying on the weaker, the smaller, the less well-organised. There was nothing new in Ooni’s information, nothing unexpected — no store of nanomachine calories tucked away in some ecological niche that only the Death’s Heads knew about. Ooni spoke about the harvesting of nano-mould — “Not good to eat, it fills you up but you don’t get anything from it.” That matched what Serin had said previously.

But then Ooni kept going without further prompting. She spoke about the vast patchwork of internal rules the Death’s Heads held to, the hierarchy of resource distribution, the internal competition over raw meat, cybernetics, and ammunition. The Death’s Heads had unspoken webs of dominance and ownership, over who got what, who got to eat first, who got the biggest share, and who had to fight over the scraps. Ooni knew all the details inside-out, both the explicit parts and the secret parts.

Elpida listened. The raindrops drummed on Pheiri’s hull. Distant thunder rumbled beyond the black sky.

Eventually Ooni trailed off. Her information was detailed, but of little use. The Death’s Heads ate each other in every way but the literal — and sometimes that too.

Elpida took a deep breath. Ooni was relaxed now, offering everything she knew. Time for the next step.

Elpida said: “I can’t help but notice you don’t have any bionics. I got the impression you were at the bottom of the … ”

Elpida was about to say ‘food chain’; but Ooni reacted by pulling up the hem of her t-shirt and pulling down the waistband of her grey leggings. She exposed her right hip. A fist-sized patch of flesh was oddly gnarled, like scar tissue but too neatly organized, with lines and corners. Ilyusha frowned at it. Amina peered closer.

“I-I have this,” Ooni said. “It’s not finished. I only … only managed to start making it. Bionics need a lot of meat. A lot of nanos.”

“And what is that?” Elpida asked.

“An internal ammunition manufactory. I’m turning a part of my organs into a bullet extruder.”

Ilyusha spat: “Fuck. Fucking! Fuck.”

Amina said, “Why?”

Ooni hesitated, then said: “To … to be useful.”

Elpida contained her disgust. “Is that important to supply and survival? Or is that something the Death’s Heads expected of you, because you were at the bottom of the hierarchy?”

Ooni swallowed. She couldn’t answer because she’d been ordered not to lie.

Ilyusha grimaced and rubbed her face. She looked like she wanted to vomit.

Elpida said: “Ooni, you have new orders. Cease production of that. You’re not a bullet farm.”

Ooni nodded awkwardly. She moved her clothes back into place to hide the ugly mass of altered flesh. Elpida couldn’t quite process this information. The Death’s Heads used the living bodies of their own members to produce resources. If done willingly, in the right context, perhaps such a role would be highly valued, supported, and protected. But Ooni had clearly been at the bottom of the pile — pressured, denied access to meat and nanomachines, forced into competition with her ‘comrades’. Those at the bottom of the hierarchy scrambled to make their bodies useful.

Ooni said: “Are you all like that?”

Elpida forced herself to concentrate. “Pardon, all like what?”

Ooni was staring down at Pira’s face. “Like Leuca. All not eating meat.”

Elpida sighed. “No. We can’t afford to be. We have to fuel our bodies, at the very least. But Pira made that choice, and I think I’m beginning to understand why. I respect her decision. She and I have a deal. I’ve offered her my blood, as a substitute, so at least she won’t starve.”

Elpida expected Ooni to flare with jealousy. But she just nodded, staring at Pira. Ooni said: “If she chose it, it must be right.”

Elpida said, “Why are you so sure?”

“Leuca was always right.”

Elpida tried to get this conversation back on track. “Ooni, when I witnessed you among the Death’s Heads, I got the impression that you were not respected. That the others were hurting you. What you’ve just told me about how they operate — they prey on others, and they prey on themselves.”

Ooni blinked up at Elpida. “Isn’t it like that everywhere?”

“Not with me it isn’t.”

Ooni said nothing. Elpida saw that she did not believe.

She had other questions to ask — about the crescent-and-line symbol, about Ooni’s knowledge regarding graveworms and tombs, about the growing of internal bionics. But Elpida could sense that this was the moment to press her attack. Other intel could wait. Ooni had opened up. It was time to charge.

“Ooni, let’s get personal,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Um … ”

Howl snorted: What kind of fucking question is that?

Ilyusha seemed to agree that this was a bit odd; she was squinting sideways at Elpida. Amina peered around the corner of the doorway too.

Elpida sighed and rubbed her eyes; was she so exhausted that she was misjudging this situation and talking nonsense?

She tried again: “Is ‘Ooni’ your full name? Do you have a family name? Anything else you go by? I want to know who you are.”

Ooni suddenly smiled. A tiny laugh escaped her lips. Elpida realised she’d taken the wrong track. Was Ooni not ready for this?

“Ooni—”

But Ooni said: “You mean before I died, the first time? Before all this?”

Ilyusha growled through her teeth. “What’s so funny, reptile?”

Elpida raised a hand. “Illy, let her speak. Ooni, yes, that is what I mean. Did you have a—”

Ooni laughed again, a weird little giggle. “I don’t even remember what ‘Ooni’ is short for. My first name — I remember that! I remember it because I taught it to Leuca. And she remembered it. It was Camula. That was her name — my name. Before we died. She died. The name died too. I’m just Ooni.”

Elpida nodded. Ooni was breaking and that was good, but she had not expected it to happen so quickly.

Break her fast, Howl purred. It’s a mercy.

Elpida said: “Ooni, where are you from? Or perhaps ‘when’ are you from?”

Ooni giggled again, grinning like a skull. Ilyusha bared her teeth and glanced at Elpida, but Elpida raised a hand to stall any interruption.

“You— you expect me to remember?” Ooni pointed at Pira. “Within a century of Leuca. That’s all we figured out.”

Elpida frowned. “You don’t remember your—”

“My village?” Ooni panted with that weird little laugh. When she spoke again, her voice cracked. “No, no I don’t remember what it was called, or what it looked like. Commander, I’ve forgotten the names of my parents. I remember that I had a sister. Well, maybe. Or maybe I dreamed that up. I don’t recall her name. It’s been— it’s been too long. You really are fresh. Fresh meat, Commander—”

“Hey!” Ilyusha snapped.

But Ooni didn’t flinch. Tears gathered in her eyes. “—and you haven’t been dead long enough to start forgetting. Let me ask you a question, Commander. Do you remember sunlight?”

Elpida said, “Yes. I do. Do you not?”

Ooni’s lips quivered, halfway between a laugh and a sob. “When I close my eyes really tight? No, not anymore.”

Elpida decided that Ooni wasn’t lying.

In the doorway, Amina looked pale and shaken. Ilyusha was baring her teeth — disgusted, or disbelieving? Elpida wasn’t quite sure. Ooni was shaking with the effort of controlling her tears.

Elpida said: “Okay, okay Ooni. You don’t remember, and that’s okay. If—”

Ooni started to laugh — panting, jerking, almost crying. “It’s not okay! Nothing here is okay. Just tell me what to do, Commander. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it, I’ll do—”

“Ooni, slow down. Slow down.” Elpida took a deep breath, hoping Ooni would mirror her. “How long have you been—”

“Dead? Undead? I don’t know! Decades, a hundred years? I stopped counting! You can’t keep counting, you’ll go mad!”

Ilyusha barked: “Shut up! Stop interrupting Elpi!”

Ooni whirled on Ilyusha, wild-eyed. “And how long have you been here? Look at you! Look at your bionics! You’re a success! How many corpses did you eat for that?”

Ilyusha’s tail jabbed at the air. Her claws went shick-shick in and out of her fingertips. She made her shotgun go click-click. “Fuck you, reptile! You don’t know shit!”

“I know more than you!” Ooni howled. “How many times have you died?! Three? Five? Ten? Tell me! Tell me how many times!”

Ilyusha pointed her shotgun at Ooni’s head. “Shut up!”

Elpida raised her voice, hard and sharp: “Both of you stop, right now. Illy, lower that weapon. Ooni, face the front.”

Ilyusha snarled and lowered her gun.

But the command did not work on Ooni. She whirled back to Elpida, tears running down her cheeks, eyes wide with manic desperation.

“This is a trap!” she wailed. “Just— just do it! Just spring the trap! Stop this! I’ve told you everything I know. Stop torturing me, I can’t take it! I can’t- I can’t- I can’t-”

Ooni dissolved into dry sobs. Silence filled the tiny infirmary, the silence of raindrops and thunder. Deep inside Pheiri a machine was going ca-clunk ca-clunk ca-clunk; perhaps that was his attempt to break the terrible tension. Ilyusha had an ugly grimace on her face, uncertain and disgusted. Amina was wide-eyed with shock, staring at Ooni.

Elpida had fumbled this. She’d misunderstood Ooni completely.

She wet her lips and said: “Ooni, what do you think I’m going to do with you?”

Ooni answered in a tiny voice. “I don’t know.”

Amina spoke up: “We were only going to kill you.”

Ilyusha hissed through her teeth, face turned away. Was she ashamed?

Elpida had misunderstood the situation. This woman, this revenant, this truly ancient zombie, she was already broken. There was nothing left for Elpida to break. Was this how all revenants ended up, after too many years, too many resurrections, too many cycles of death and cannibalism? No wonder Ooni had made easy prey for the Death’s Head ideology. She was scoured inside, raw and aching, ready to be filled with pain.

Elpida wanted to end this here.

Allow me, purred Howl.

“Alright, let’s cut to the chase,” she said — as Howl spoke through her. Ilyusha frowned and Amina flinched; could they detect the change in Elpida’s voice? “We were gonna do this whole build-up thing, get info out of you as we went, but fuck that, let’s hit the button. Ooni, why’d you join up with the Death’s Heads? In your own words, just say it. No filter. You liked killing bitches? ‘Cos you got food there and didn’t have to fight too much for it? Or ‘cos Yola fucked your brains out every night?”

Ooni stared, shocked. She stopped crying.

Elpida-Howl went on: “You’re not arguing for your life. You already tried to kill Yola for me. You’ve got nothing to prove. Just tell me why. Explain to me. Teach me.”

Ooni glanced at Ilyusha — for help. Inside Elpida’s head, Howl snorted. Ilyusha just shrugged: sure, go ahead, the Commander’s off her rocker but she’s still the Commander.

Ooni swallowed, looked at Howl — at Elpida — and said: “I-I know it was wrong. I know they were wrong, I—”

Howl grabbed Elpida’s tongue and lips and throat: “Don’t lie to me!”

Amina flinched. Ilyusha barked a laugh.

But Ooni stood up and shouted back.

“What do you want me to say?! That they eat each other? They eat the weak? Of course they fucking do!” Ooni panted between her words. “Everyone does! It doesn’t matter how noble you try to be, everyone does it in the end! You— you don’t know what it’s like! Not all of us are superhumans! With a giant tank at our beck and call! This was your first time out of a tomb?! You don’t know what you’ve not had to endure! Do you know how many times I died before I made it out of a tomb just once? I stopped counting. Death, resurrection, death, resurrection, death, resurrection, over and over and—” She took a great panting breath, keening through her teeth. “I don’t give a fuck what you think of the Dead-Heads — if you shout that you’re one of them, they fucking come for you! Nobody else does! Nobody else ever does!”

The outburst made Amina back away and drew a snarl of anger from Ilyusha, but Elpida retained her composure.

Howl spoke through her lips again: “And why did you join them?”

“Because they’re organised! Because if you join them and you’re useful you get to eat! You get to be safe! There are rules about who can eat who, and when, and all sorts of other stuff! It’s safe!”

Howl spoke again: “Eating each other, but with rules. Real nice.”

Ooni jabbed a shaking finger at the half-empty cannister of raw blue nanomachines on the infirmary bed, right in front of Elpida.

“You’ll run out of that ambrosia eventually. And then what? You’ll eat other people, you’ll eat each other. Just like everyone else! You can’t resist hunger forever. It gnaws and gnaws and gnaws in your gut. We’re all just slaves to it! Slaves to the gods!”

Elpida said: “Except for Pira.”

Ooni’s anger vanished like a spark beneath the storm. All the fight went out of her. She looked down at Pira, out cold. Her tears cut tracks through the dirt on her cheeks.

She slumped back into her seat and buried her face in her hands. She began to weep — hard, wet, wracking sobs.

“I’m so filthy,” she wailed.

There, Howl said. She didn’t sound amused. Done. Have fun with the mess, Elps.

Elpida jumped right in; the wound was open, the putrefaction was exposed.

“Ooni, raise your head. Look at me.” Elpida put a touch of command in her voice. She kept her orders clear and simple. That was what this broken woman needed — orders from her Commander.

Ooni obeyed, still crying.

Elpida said: “You are no longer a Death’s Head. You ceased to be a Death’s Head the moment you took my deal. You are mine now. Do you understand?”

“No.”

Elpida tried not to wince. That was the truth, no doubt about it.

She tried again: “I trust your motivations, Ooni. Because you love Pira. That turned out to be stronger than whatever you believed, or whatever the Death’s Heads believe. They offered you protection, in return for subservience. You abandoned that for Pira. That’s why I believe you. I am offering you a place in Telokopolis.”

Ooni shook her head. “Telokopolis? I don’t … ”

“For now all you need to know is that Telokopolis rejects nobody. Telokopolis is eternal.”

“And … and Leuca has a place too?”

“Yes.”

Ooni sniffed. Her tears had not stopped, but at least she wasn’t sobbing. “I think you might be lying to me.”

Elpida said: “That’s fair enough. People like you murdered my sisters — my cadre, my world. I have every reason to reject you, cast you out, send you and Pira off somewhere, or just kill you both out of hand. And if you still wore the skull, I would. If you had fought against its removal, I would.” Elpida pointed down at the chest plate of Ooni’s armour, still lying on the infirmary bed before her; she could see the outline of the grinning skull which she had burned away with the cauterization wand, a shadow on the grey. But now the crescent-and-double-line of Telokopolis was drawn over the top. “If you were like Cantrelle or Yola, I would. But you’re not, you’re something else — you are capable of doing the right thing.”

“But … how do I … ”

“You do as your Commander says. You follow your orders. You hold to your comrades.”

Ooni panted slowly. Then she nodded. “O-okay. Yes, Commander.”

Elpida smiled. “Alright then. I still have a lot of questions for you, Ooni, but I hope our positions make a bit more sense now. You’re one of us. You—”

Ilyusha turned on her heel and stomped out of the room.

Her claws scraped on the metal floor and her bionic tail whacked against the wall; she shouldered her way past Amina, out into the crew compartment.

Elpida rose to her feet before the other two could react, despite the tug of stitches against the flesh of her belly; she’d been ready for this, but she wasn’t sure when or how it would happen. At least Ilyusha hadn’t just shot Ooni on the spot, that was a promising sign.

Elpida crossed to the doorway, bent beneath the low ceiling of the infirmary. She caught a glimpse of Ilyusha’s bionic tail vanishing around the corner of the opposite door — into the bunk room.

She put a hand on Amina’s shoulder before Amina could hurry after Ilyusha.

“Amina,” she said. “I need you to wait here with Ooni. You don’t have to say anything. Just wait here, please. Raise your voice and shout for me if anything happens.”

“But— Illy! Illy’s—”

“I’m going to help her. I need you to stay here with Ooni. Then you can comfort Illy as well, when I’m done. And you’re perfectly safe with Ooni. She’s one of us and she understands that. You don’t have to like her, though.”

Amina bit her lower lip and shot a very worried look at Ooni. Ooni looked equally shocked, but she tried to smile at Amina.

Elpida said to Ooni: “Stay there, soldier. You have permission to get up and stretch and get water. Don’t leave the infirmary yet. Watch Pira. Understood?”

Ooni nodded. “Understood.”

Amina nodded too. She took out her knife and stared at Ooni. That would have to be another acceptable risk.

Elpida stepped out into the crew compartment. The jumbled corridor which led to the control cockpit was quiet and empty; Ooni’s weeping and shouting had not drawn Melyn and Hafina away from their conversation with Atyle. Elpida breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t certain that the pair of ARTs would understand all this, not yet, not without considerable additional explanation. Pheiri probably did though.

She quickly crossed the crew compartment and stepped into the bunk room. The narrow space between the bunks was barely wide enough for Elpida’s shoulders. The rain was louder here, perhaps because this compartment was closer to the hull. The tight-packed lower bunks were mostly crammed with equipment, weapons, the coilgun, and the other pieces of Ooni’s armour, as well as the one bunk stacked entirely with Melyn’s books.

Ilyusha was sitting cross-legged on one of the two empty lowest bunks. Her bionic legs were crossed, claws digging into the thin mattress. Her red-black arms lay limp on her knees. Her shotgun was discarded next to her, beyond arm’s reach. Her storm-grey eyes stared at nothing.

Elpida said: “Illy?”

Ilyusha looked up and met Elpida’s eyes. Empty, placid, melancholy.

Elpida had seen this once before, when they’d fought Serin together. A different side of Ilyusha had briefly emerged, fragile as a cobweb in the wind.

Elpida gambled. “Not Ilyusha?”

“Illy can’t deal with this,” said Not-Ilyusha.

“Deal with what?” Elpida asked.

“You, refusing to kill the reptile.”